Sign in

filmic stress device

@fevered.earth
334 followers 263 following 2.2K posts

the internet's biggest fan of suicide squad (2016) by minutes of video essay produced | film writer, comic reader, occasional video game developer | he/him linktr.ee/fevered_earth

PostsRepliesMedia
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 29/09/2026
fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
There’s an odd set of symmetries here that don’t quite resolve into anything meaningful: Rey arrives in Kylo Ren’s TIE and leaves in Luke’s X-Wing. Rey throws Luke’s lightsaber into the fire and finds Leia’s lightsaber in a wall. Kylo Ren crushed Rey’s wayfinder on the Death Star ruins but she pulls his from the wreckage of the TIE. Luke tried to kill Kylo and fled to the island and Rey healed Kylo and fled to the island. Han’s ghost inspires Kylo to turn good and Luke’s ghost inspires Rey to continue the plot. Someone was trying to make a film that was about something here, but all we have is torn up patterns in the sand. And two lightsabers.
164
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 29/09/2026
SCENE #25: THE POWER OF TWO 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
155
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 29/09/2026
i get a lot of emails intended for other people but it's rare they have this much dramatic unity
001
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 28/09/2026
fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
I’m sure this has been long since hammered into the dust of discourse, but it’s striking how unbounded the scope of the problem the Resistance face here is. Even the Death Star, the point of which is to grant the Empire seemingly unbeatable power, is circumscribed within that big, simple circle. If you can X that out, the rebels win. Here it seems like even if the Exegol fleet just flopped out of the sky it’d be a mammoth job to mop up the pieces – there’d be a trove of only slightly scuffed materiel just lying around that maybe wouldn’t be as impressive as a completed fleet for the First Order but surely would be a concern. There’s just way too many of them, and what are they doing? Hovering? Something went very wrong in the conception of this climax but it’s hard to imagine what because the rolling infinite fleet is the very concept, there’s no obvious way to handicap it that would make the Resistance fight against it seem even plausible. It’s meant to be the arrival of the also-infinite Lando fleet, I guess, but those two things don’t just cancel each other out.
143
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 28/09/2026
SCENE #24: LOG.EXE 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
134
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 27/09/2026
fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
Luke turning to dust on the wind in The Last Jedi is logical enough in context, I guess – his teachers were Obi-wan and Yoda, so he kinda has to follow suit. But Luke is a character who ultimately follows a spiritual path (even if there’s plenty of adventuring along the way). It’s easy enough to read his passing from the mortal plane as a metaphor of transcendence, as with Obi-wan. He escapes Kylo and the First Order like Ben escaped Vader. Leia’s death, however, is much harder to explain. Unable (by virtue of the method used to keep her in the film) to explain what she’s attempting or why, she dies and subsequently vanishes like Leonard Nimoy in the Simpsons, a flat statement that the time for Leia to be occurring is over now.
162
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 27/09/2026
SCENE #23: THE END 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
142
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 26/09/2026
fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
Even the downtime part, with Finn and Poe accusing Chewie of cheating at space Warhammer, is charming and efficient. The pedant in me wants to mark down the naked appeals to nostalgia, the flickery stop-motion figurines from A New Hope being hauled out again (and not for the last time) despite being a wholly inconsequential part of that movie; it’s weird that it’s the same, that we never see a different space board game. Where’s space Settlers of Catan, maybe Chewie sucks at that. Maybe he gets all the bad dice rolls. Still, it’s all charming and it makes something of Chewbacca’s mostly unremarked-on status as the elder statesman of the group – this guy knew Yoda, was involved in the destruction of two Death Stars, and introduced his mother to Han Solo for Christmas. They should give him a medal.
161
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 26/09/2026
SCENE #22: HELLO, BOOLIO 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
142
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 25/09/2026
i'm finally getting the good reddit comments
150
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 25/09/2026
fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
So it’s nice that despite everything else about the script for Rise of Skywalker, here it allows C3P0 the genuinely heroic act of choosing oblivion for himself in service of the Rebellion (as-was) and in service of his friends. Eternal robo-butler, first to Anakin and Padme and later Luke and Leia and Han, here C3P0 is his own droid and makes his own call. It’s a moment of sincerity that the movie around it doesn’t seem quite able to believe is taking place.
182
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 25/09/2026
SCENE #21: THREEPIO'S MOMENT OF HEROISM 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
132
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 24/09/2026
fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
Back at the Death Star ruins it’s time for the start of the big tear-jerker scene between Kylo Ren and Han Solo, who very thankfully does not appear in the form of a luminous ghost. I strongly suspect they did some testing of various effects for making Solo slightly ghost-y here and rightly thought better of it – you can just about get Alec Guinness to rattle off some dramatic lines with panache despite glowing blue and wobbling at the edges, even if he will need to rest his ghostly legs, but as we see later in this film you absolutely cannot do the same with Mark Hamill. Ford’s strength of emotion here comes from his vision of stoic acceptance, a grounded presence that cuts through the campy melodrama inherent to the character of Kylo Ren.
152
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 24/09/2026
SCENE #20: DEAD LEIA, WET BEN 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
144
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 23/09/2026
fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars #RiseOfSkywalker
Rey, Finn and Poe are the protagonists of these films, in a way that just a few years later might not have been the case, not just because the ability for aging stars to be composited into action films was increasing – Ford was rolled out for Dial of Destiny after all – but also because appearing as second strings to legacy stars became a much less appealing prospect to up-and-coming actors. Everything worthwhile here comes from Ridley, Boyega and Isaac giving it their all against a production process that just wants to insert as many fawning appearances for Leia Lando as possible. Returns will always diminish. This is why the only aspect of Disney Star Wars to show genuine promise in the last few years was The Hunt for Ben Solo; unfortunately Disney is totally incapable of making it.
153
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 23/09/2026
SCENE #19: BB-8 CRUSHED BY A TREE 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
144
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 22/09/2026
fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
Thats what makes this such a weird, uncanny scene. It would be one thing for it to be a boring bit of functional work connecting the Boolio sequence to the trip to the sand planet, the movie is full of those and they’re all much of a muchness. It’s that nothing in the film suggests that Palpatine’s return is an unknown quantity – everyone knows about it! Kylo knows, Richard E. Grant knows, Luke knows, the Knights of Ren know. And everyone in the Resistance kind of seems to know too. Oscar Isaacs’ resigned sigh of the title line is well known, but just as odd is Merry Brandybuck’s rattled-off follow up: “Dark science, cloning, secrets only the Sith knew.” Aside from sounding like it’s the notes for writing the dialogue rather than the intended dialogue itself, it makes Palpatines’s return sound so inevitable that it cannot have been a surprise. And it wasn’t.
174
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 22/09/2026
SCENE #18: SOMEHOW, PALPATINE RETURNED 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
154
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 21/09/2026
Aside from absolutely anything else, this feels like a chronically insubstantial way to see off a villain who not only started the film by having escaped his certain fate from Return of the Jedi but also just described how doing this will mean he wins. Palpatine’s second return isn’t so much an option as a necessity. Hunting down the Emperor’s clones must be the entire purpose of the New Republic once they find out what happened here. Begun, the clone wars have!
151
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 21/09/2026
SCENE #17: EXEUNT SHEEV 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
143
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 20/09/2026
In the first two films we all found out
Luke failed to found a school
Disavowed by all, a lonely man
Because he lost his cool.
121
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 20/09/2026
SCENE #16: A CLOSE-UP OF COMPUTER-GENERATED MONKEY TEETH 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
145
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 19/09/2026
We’re thrown halfway into a scene between returning champion Han Solo and his wayward son. All we get are the words “Dad?” and “I know.” Kylo Ren looks down at his laser sword, suddenly rendered a cheap toy with a battery line running down the side of it. He throws it into the sea. Solo is gone. Kylo looks downward. Wipe cut. This is so good that I cannot imagine it’ll be improved by whatever the first half of this scene is.
132
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 19/09/2026
SCENE #15: "DAD?" "I KNOW." 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
143
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 18/09/2026
If nothing else came of it, the randomiser would be fully justified for giving me this totally contextless set of clips of the Millenium Falcon in flight, wherein Poe repeatedly slams the hyperdrive between a series of curiously vertical but extremely crisp panoramas. They’re visually complex, hard to parse, at one point there are two Falcons for some reason. Only at the climax of this chaos do we see that there is a large semi-humanoid slug man standing in the cockpit as part of the crew. Words fail me.
142
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 18/09/2026
SCENE #14: LARGE SEMI-HUMANOID SLUG MAN 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
134
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 17/09/2026
It looks awful. The high-definition glossy sets are lit with garish colours, giving the ship the feel of a laser tag arena. The camera is in full long-shot swoop mode, which might help the action feel smooth if the blocking weren’t so awkward and stilted: ‘Cameras!’ shouts Rey, letting loose a shot. We wait; the camera moves just long enough for you to reflect that at least one camera is getting a good long look at Poe; he too shoots. If you watch a classic TV sci-fi like Red Dwarf, one of the tricks they pull is cutting shots of the same sets together from different angles to create the illusion of a larger, coherent spaceship than the five square meters of painted chipboard they had access to. Here we have the opposite problem: the set they’re running around on is huge, looks like a million dollars, and yet somehow feels tiny and incoherent because we see all of it in these long tracking shots and it doesn’t suggest anything. It literally is a bunch of corridors that don’t go anywhere.
152
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 17/09/2026
SCENE #13: PRINCESS CHEWIE'S ON THIS STATION! 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
143
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 16/09/2026
There’s nothing in the rulebook that says a Star Destroyer has to remain upright to enable fighting on the upper surface with relation to the ground. In fact, free three-dimensional movement is a defining feature of a spacecraft.
142
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 16/09/2026
SCENE #12: HORSIN' AROUND 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
132
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 15/09/2026
Is this a good time to talk about how diverse the First Order is? It’s really diverse. In fact that diversity is one of the defining characteristics of the First Order versus Palpatine’s Galactic Empire, which was all white British guys doing received pronunciation. First and foremost we can assume that Disney really wanted both Resistance and First Order to be viable play-styles at their defunct LARP hotel, and not in a way that involved slurs. That much is apparent in the overall construction of the First Order: that it’s really designed around supporting viable theme park attractions. We already know Jedi are trained as younglings, but now we have a corresponding path for plucky kids to be ‘selected’ by the First Order, get to try out a plastic helmet and a space laser while interacting with a mean space-Sergeant, then participate in a spontaneous escape back to their parents and the next ride.
143
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 15/09/2026
SCENE #11: THE YEAR IS 35ABY. OCEANS ARE NOW BATTLEFIELDS. 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
143
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 14/09/2026
Anyway Lando’s here! Hurrah. He’s brought an aged Wedge with him, a cameo that is utterly befuddling unless you recognise Denis Lawson off-hand forty years after he was last in a Star Wars film. He’s also brought a vast flotilla of private craft and they are going to engage the unbelievably phallic Final Order ships en masse and win a victory against metaphor all round. Poe is understandably very relieved.

Pour a drink out for the member of the Final Order who gets their only speaking line here and has to spend it saying “It’s not a navy sir, it’s just people” which is a strong contender for the single worst line in all of Star Wars. The movies at least, it’s not as bad as some of those stinkers from Shadows of the Empire.
131
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 14/09/2026
SCENE #10: GENERAL, WHAT'S OUR NEXT MOVE? 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
132
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 13/09/2026
One thing that does jump out to me about the set here though is the prominent use of staircases. Star Wars is not a setting that makes copious use of staircases, outside of Anakin chivalrously carrying Padmé’s suitcase that one time, and some of Andor‘s brutalist excesses. It’s a world of elevators, first and foremost, with rarely more than a handful of steps in sight and always a focus on aesthetics over practicality – the Star Destroyer bridge pits lacking any steps, while the Chancellor’s office contains entirely frivolous steps that must be a huge pain when a protocol droid comes to clean his desk. With all that in mind it’s extra adorable that the staircases here have little droid accessibility ramps to allow BB-8 and the other guy to plod along after the more leggy characters, even if you struggle to imagine that it would make mobility any more convenient for R2-D2 or C3P0.
142
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 13/09/2026
SCENE #9: KERI RUSSELL IN A MASK 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20... #StarWars
133
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 12/09/2026
In some ways Rise of Skywalker feels like the last round in a fight between two ways of making a new Star Wars film: one approach being what you might term a soft reboot, with a new cast of characters taking up the mantle and having a new story that connects to the old one but doesn’t necessarily continue it – consider Blade Runner 2049 or Ghostbusters (2016). The other is the model that became dominant in pop cinema over the period in which the sequel trilogy were released, that of the ‘legacy sequel’ where the old characters (and actors) are dragged out for one last go round – such as Jurassic World: Dominion or Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. In Rise of Skywalker the story of Rey, Kylo, Poe and Finn is competing for screen time with what you’d have to generously term a send-off for Luke, Leia and Han (two of whom make appearances despite being fictitiously dead and the other despite being actually dead).
152
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 12/09/2026
SCENE #8: REN REMAINS UPRIGHT 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20...
144
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 09/09/2026
Otherwise this is a dumping ground for otherwise useless footage: Rey performs a training montage which seems built around the idea that she’s going to find wielding a lightsaber hard work, given her affinity for a good solid staff, but the idea is never returned to. I do feel like ‘crossing a rope bridge’ would be an occasion where I personally would not want a lightsaber involved, connection to the universal force or no. Her red-eyed training droid seems particularly aggressive as if it may be going rogue, but once she smashes it the question never comes up. Hope they aren’t expensive.
142
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 09/09/2026
SCENE #7: AIR FRYER VADER 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20...
154
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 09/09/2026
It does seem like the creators of this film had a very literal interpretation of the throne room scene in Return of the Jedi; I don’t think the Emperor really wanted to actually be struck down. He was manipulating Luke and Vader to bring them into conflict. I think it would actually have been quite bad for the Emperor if Luke chopped him up like a potato. In this however, Sheev walks us through his exacting plan while his adoring audience of hooded Sith extras looks on: Rey’s gonna do it, strike him down, and in doing so she will become a Sith, and because being a Sith is manifested in the Sith traditions and makes you somewhat the culmination of those traditions, being a parent is its own form of immortality. I may not be being literal enough here. He really wants her to kill him, either way, which is good for him because she’s going to.
111
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 08/09/2026
It does seem like the creators of this film had a very literal interpretation of the throne room scene in Return of the Jedi; I don’t think the Emperor really wanted to actually be struck down. He was manipulating Luke and Vader to bring them into conflict. I think it would actually have been quite bad for the Emperor if Luke chopped him up like a potato. In this however, Sheev walks us through his exacting plan while his adoring audience of hooded Sith extras looks on: Rey’s gonna do it, strike him down, and in doing so she will become a Sith, and because being a Sith is manifested in the Sith traditions and makes you somewhat the culmination of those traditions, being a parent is its own form of immortality. I may not be being literal enough here. He really wants her to kill him, either way, which is good for him because she’s going to.
175
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 08/09/2026
SCENE #6: 'ALL YOU WANT IS FOR ME TO HATE' 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20...
223
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 07/09/2026
Not to be outright provocative here, but when Rian Johnson said “Let the past die” I think he should have had Rey set fire to the homestead set. Actually set fire to the real thing in a deliberate act of arson. For this and this alone I am a practical effects enthusiast, because then it couldn’t have been used in the horrible Obi-wan show and it couldn’t have been used here. Star Wars, like any other legacy media setting, is prone to nostalgia – to reusing the trappings of the previous films just for the warm fuzzy feeling of seeing them again. Part of the genius of the prequels is the way they continually recontextualise or subvert the elements of the original films that they return to: Jabba the Hutt is a respected dignitary, the Jedi’s humble robes are an affectation of poverty, the Stormtrooper armour was first used by the Republic and so on.
196
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 07/09/2026
SCENE #5: REY FLY-TIPS A LIGHTSABER 43 INDIVIDUAL SCENES FROM 'RISE OF SKYWALKER' is a project reviewing each scene from the final star wars film, one by one, in a random order fevered.earth/index.php/20...
166
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 06/09/2026


    “Good people will fight if we lead them” – Poe Dameron

It’s not exactly ‘Once more unto the breach‘, is it? This is a scene that is very much of a type that will be reoccurring through this film, that I think is fairly described as ‘a pot of plot glue’. The bigger, more well-defined sequences in the film which we can identify by their locations (Pasanna, Kojimi, Exegol, Death Star ruins, Star Destroyer, Boolio’s Crystal Palace) are held together by a run of scenes like this, almost all of which take place at the aforementioned rebel forest jungle base. In these scenes a short monologue or back-and-forth will seamlessly sweep into a montage of people running around a bit, that explains how what we just saw is going to be replaced with what we’re about to see.
153
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 06/09/2026
SCENE #4: THE ROUSING WORDS OF POE DAMERON fevered.earth/index.php/20...
154
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 05/09/2026
Continuing with the theme of anthology vs single narrative, the gang have landed on Tatooine Jakku Jedha Pasaana, where they bump into – who else – that old rogue Lando Calrissian! He’s talking a bunch of nonsense about Sith do-hicks. He’s mentioning Exegol. He’s been hanging out with Luke.
152
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 05/09/2026
SCENE #3: KYLO CALLS REY ON THE FORCE TELEPHONE fevered.earth/index.php/20...
143
filmic stress device @fevered.earth · 04/09/2026
Something the film never quite manages to convey properly as an image is that they’re working in and around the good old Tantive-IV of A New Hope fame. Because the Tantive-IV is not particularly notable in its details, owing to how it was created by ILM as a kitbash model, there’s no real moment of recognition from seeing odd corners of it. Rather than a recognisable (if slightly aged) point of reference, it ends up working more like the generic sets TV shows used to use in studios; like they’re moving around four or five large white boxes to give the impression of a larger space. Plot-wise, it contributes to the sense that this is a Resistance that is working out of a suitcase, but really it’s the entire film production – some of the toughest material in the film will be set here, in among these anonymous fronds where all the actors listed above will be rattling off lines at an unruly pace as they attempt to keep the plot coherent scene-to-scene.
153