The Last Jedi

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There's enough discussion being generated about this movie to warrant its own thread so I've moved all the relevant posts from the general movie thread. shade said it was ok!

Obviously opinions are split on this thing, personally I hated it but I can see why many others liked it, and I want to encourage discussion between people of both sides.

As for what I thought, I guess I'll list everything because I have no other idea of how to make it coherent lol. Basically my issues are with the story / plot, for the most part it was a decent movie and would have been pretty sick if it wasn't labelled "Star Wars'
  • right off the bat it goes for a laugh with the cringey back and fourth between Hux and Poe. Obviously this is reminiscent of Poe and Kylo's meeting on Jakku at the start of TFA, but that didn't feel anywhere near as forced as this one. Maybe it could have been better if it was just the initial gag but it dragged on and just made Hux look like a fuckin idiot after having been built up as a pretty decent bad guy in the previous film.
  • the resistance bombers. I just don't get how they go from using Y wings that drop laser bombs to these huge, slow, clunky pieces of shit that drop metallic bombs. not only that, but they rely on gravity to fall on something to hit it, in outer space... and why did they send them out in the first place if Leia didn't want them to risk being destroyed. Maybe I missed something but that had me scratching my head.
  • Luke throwing the lightsaber off the cliff. Again they've gone for a gag at the very beginning of a scene and it's the first of many plot threads from TFA that have been thrown away by Rian Johnson (perhaps this is meant to symbolize where the movie is going lol). This thing was built up so much in the previous film, it's his freaking original saber that he lost on Bespin, it gave Rey the force vision, and Maz Kanata even hints at how she got it is its own story. If they want Luke to throw it away at some point then fine, but why couldn't there have at least been some dramatic "where did you get this?" etc. beforehand?
  • Kylo decides to not kill Leia despite having just killed Han. Him killing Han was meant to be the turning point for him (or part of an elaborate plan between him and Han if you bought into the fan theories) but he's still conflicting with himself. This inner turmoil thing is the only theme from TFA that they kept in, but it's one that doesn't make sense to me.
  • Leia. Of course we all know Carrie Fisher passed away so they needed to solve what happens to Leia in the film, but it seems they just kep it as is and she just won't be in IX? The frustating part is that they had AMPLE opportunity to kill Leia off in the movie in a way fitting her character. When Kylo's squadron shoots their ship, as I was watching it I thought it was too soon in the movie to do it but I figured it was the best they could do without any reshoots, but OH NO they have her FLY THROUGH SPACE USING THE FORCE....?? Literally everyone in the cinema (and this was a 200+ sold out session) groaned in bemusement. Not only was it a poor display of the force, but SHE SURVIVED THE VACUUM OF SPACE on top of a huge explosion.
  • Admiral Holdo. She has got to be the most unnecessary character in the whole thing (apart from Rose). Literally everything she did could have been done by Leia or Ackbar, but instead they unceremoniously kill off Ackbar and keep Leia around... How much better would the (already cool as fuck) hyperdrive kamikaze scene be if Ackbar or Leia was the pilot? I thought they were hinting at Leia doing it when they were saying "someone needs to pilot the ship" but whatever. Not only that, but she was already committing to going down with the ship, why did she wait until a heap of escape ships were destroyed before flying into The Supremacy? Better yet, why not have a droid pilot it?? Not to mention the whole "don't tell Poe the plan so he can tell Finn to go off and do something and learn a lesson at the end" was a terrible story arc.
  • A lot of things wrong with Luke. The biggest is that I don't buy him trying to kill Ben in his sleep because he saw his bad thoughts. He refused to kill Vader because he could still see light in him despite all the terrible things he did, but wanted to kill Ben for not doing anything? Come on man. That goes against Luke's whole character. Then they just kill him off at the end. The force projection trick was cool, but surely it would have just been better to have him actually duel with Kylo? Not to mention he basically implied to Leia he was going out there to fight him and possibly kill him. I guess becoming one with the force is cool but it just seemed such a strange way to do it.
  • Rey is a nobody. I get the symbolism behind it (special people can come from anywhere) but trying to make a statement like that in a STAR WARS movie instead of just making her important is just super lame. Why kill off the Skywalker dynasty? That is literally what the movies are about. I guess we get to see 'evil Skywalker' in Kylo Ren but we got to see that with Vader anyway... Why did Anakin's / Luke's lightsaber call out to her in TFA and show her being dropped off on Jakku? Why does the lightsaber want to show her junkie parents leaving her? That doesn't seem relevant now lol. I don't buy it's because she's just strong with the force. She was built up way too much and the "reveal" was disappointing. Other than that, (and the scene with her and the mirrors / echoes but I'm probably just too stupid to understand that) Rey and Kylo were the highlights of the film.
  • Kylo Ren and Snoke. Firstly, Kylo killing Snoke in the way he did was sick, but why wasn't that saved for the climax of episode IX? It doesn't make any sense to quickly kill off this dude without anything being revealed about him. I'm honestly just baffled that they skipped over this part, I think Abrams clearly intended for him to be important and have a reveal for him, but that's just been completely thrown away now. We don't know his backstory and Luke never faced him, a huge missed opportunity. As for Kylo, we're simply shown that Luke was the one to drive him away with his attempted murder with iirc some hints about Snoke getting in his head, but did Kylo meet Snoke at some stage? What were the images in his head that scared the shit out of Luke? Who are the Knights of Ren? They say that he escaped with a few of Luke's other pupils, meaning there's Jedi(?) out there. Again it seems a plot thread set up by Abrams has been completely thrown away for Johnson's vision, which seems to totally contradict what was originally set up. Apart from this and him not firing on Leia, Kylo was probably the best part of the film though.
  • The whole casino side quest with Finn and Rose (and the hacker dude) was just super dumb. Firstly, if they were able to escape undetected, why didn't they all just do that?? I know that was part of Holdo's plan and it was foiled by hackerman, but if Finn's ship was able to esacpe and was undetected through hyperspace, why did Holdo have to wait until they were closer to Crait? Couldn't they all have scattered in different ships to different planets and then meet up somewhere later? As for the casino itself, it felt so out of place in the Star Wars universe it isn't funny. I guess they needed an alternative setting in the movie otherwise it would be 2 hours of them floating in space trying to outrun the First Order, but I dunno man why couldn't they just spend more time on Ahch-To with Rey and Luke?


I guess that's all I can think of off the top of my head. I will admit that I probably got too invested in the fan theories which always leads to disappointment in any franchise, but with the amount of fanservice that was in TFA I feel like this strayed too far from that in trying to make a completely new film. Star Wars has never been overly complicated and that was part of its charm, I guess that's the biggest reason for this not sitting so well with me. I also spent the weekend beforehand watching all 7 movies (didn't have time for Rogue One) which is probably another reason I feel salty because we didn't get rewarded for it with a "Rey is related to [X]" or "Snoke is [Y]" reveal.

I'll end my overly critical post with this; I've been to premier screenings for all the prequel trilogy and TFA, and at the end there was applause for them all at the end from the crowd, but it was dead silent when this one finished until I was outside and could hear the murmuring of others trying to figure out what they just saw.
 
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Texas Cloverleaf

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Solid 7/10 for TLJ

A fair number of dumb cliches and some subplots that fell flat but more than made up for by some truly stunning cinematography, some very smart plot direction that opens up many doors, and at least three different moments that were completely mindblowing.

Felt rather more self-contained than TFA and I think this worked very well for the film, it retained a clear focus the whole way through and will ultimately stand as the better film of the current trilogy I think. Not a masterpiece by any means, but a very solid showing.
 
The Last Jedi has quite a few issues.
1) It was wayy to long. This amplified my second issue with the movie.
2) It was confusing as hell. There were sections of the movie that were hard to follow. In addition, some arcs didn't make sense.
3) Luke himself acted completely out of character for the first 2/3 of the movie. I know he's seen some ****, but it was especially bizarre.
I think I enjoyed only 25 minutes at most. I am disappointed with this out-of-whack entry, especially since I enjoyed TFA. At least Kylo Ren was handled well.
5.5/10
 

TheValkyries

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I'm shocked that the new Star Wars is stirring any reaction like this I sweatergawd I walked outta that theater beyond blown away 11/10 movie it blows my mind people are down on it. I'd say it had one unearned moment throughout but it was a justifiable one that just didn't pull of perfectly (the kiss), but outside of that everything that happened was just sublime.
 

Karxrida

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I liked TLJ a lot. Not enough to say it was a 10/10 movie, but it was better than I hoped considering I had last second "oh crap this might suck" reservations due to some rumors. I'd give it an 9/10 right now, but that might change after I go watch it again.

My only real issue with the film is that it feels like it has two 3rd Acts, which leads to considerable ending fatigue.
 

tcr

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I too am flabbergasted that there was so much as even a hint of mediocrity about the Last Jedi from anyone other than ck. I was hooked watching it and didn't tear my eyes from the screen once, despite it being long I never thought it dragged on until 20-30 minutes before the end of the movie (about when Kylo Ren kills Snoke is when I thought the movie should have ended but the battle on not-Hoth was a little cool, Luke's Force Ghost trick was interesting to see play out). My parents were both hooked (to be expected, they love any movie thats kinda flashy tbh) but even my girlfriend who did NOT like watching the original movies with me (she thought they were boring as fuck) thought this movie was amazing. Several moments in the movie had me in awe, in specifics: The fight sequence with Kylo Ren + Rey post Snoke death, the part where the commander brings down Snoke's ship with her ship by going lightspeed into it, and the scene where Yoda shows up again I really liked. Some criticisms, I disliked some of the modern "witticisms" they forced into the movie, like the moment when Kylo Ren blasts all his troops into Luke's force ghost and the ghost walks out of the mist and just brushes his shoulder (like cmon....), I thought the forced love scene with Finn was a little much, Snoke being so powerful he just overpowers Rey with relative ease and claims to be the big huge bad guy then is immediately killed is dumb (I always thought the emperor not realizing vader is turncoating was a little much first time i saw ep 6 but thats a little understandable given hes actively trying to kill luke but its just not as convincing the second time around).

Most of all though the biggest criticism I can think of is the lack of so much potential. How cool of a twist would have been to have Finn actually die saving the rebel base? How cool would it have been to have Rey and Kylo Ren joining forces in a Grey Jedi type of ordeal, why does it always have to be "Sith bad guy Jedi good guy" why can't it ever be a mixture with the theme of morality not being so black and white? It would have made so much sense given the context behind Rey's training, her going into the cave (what the fuck was that scene even about literally nothing came of it) etc. Why did Leia survive using the Force the way she did (still don't understand that one....) and what context does that mean for Carrie Fisher as a person? She's dead irl, that was a perfect way to kill off her character in a sort of blatant hatred by Kylo Ren / First Order, what are they going to do for episode 9 with Carrie Fisher being dead? It just seemed to me like, yet again, this movie falls slightly flat from the magnitude and social impact of the original trilogy by simply mimicking everything the first trilogy did (Luke / Yoda living near a cave strong with the Dark Side, both training a young padawan, both leaving training early to go help the Resistance, Kylo Ren / Darth Vader invading a snowy planet / rebel base, Kylo Ren / Darth Vader being the real hero to kill their master to save protagonist). I'm intrigued to see hwo they take on episode 9 yet I feel its all just going to be a culmination of Kylo Ren vs Rey rather than something far more interesting. I was hoping that the reason Luke didn't want to train anymore Jedi had to do with the Sith / Jedi being two sides of the same coin rather than the Jedi simply always turncoating to the Sith as it would have seemed less like Luke was simply a coward and more like he had wisened up and grown not naive towards the Jedi being inherently good. I hope that Grey Jedi mindstates and themes comes forward for the 9th movie as that is far more interesting than a continual neverending struggle between Sith and Jedi.

I thought it was apt that after Finn broke the other stormtroopers helmet the face that stared back was a blue eyed pale white girl telling a black rebel that he's "nothing more than scum." That is it

Slight pacing issues fixed with action that never ends but a more generic and predictable plot lead me to give it about a 8.5/10, not the absolute best movie I've ever seen but certainly no slouch, very well done if a little trope-y, however I do not believe it sets up Episode 9 all that well as there are very few actual questions left compared to Episode's 7 cliffhanger (Why is luke there?? Who is Rey's father? What is Kylo Ren's story? Who is Snoke? etc)
 
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Hulavuta

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As far as its handling of characters goes, fuck me if this isn't the best Star Wars yet. Still too early to tell, but it might be my favorite of the entire series so far. It's definitely different though so I can totally get why some people don't like it. I've never actually seen a Rian Johnson film but I can tell he had a strong creative voice on this, just on how different the style is from every other Star Wars film. I'm surprised they took such a risk with it and I am really sad he won't come back to do 9. I want him to, so badly.

I'm just such a sucker for ensemble casts and this balanced every character out so perfectly. Which is great; break away from the original trilogy and don't do a traditional hero's journey just focusing on one guy. I personally never had a problem with Rey to begin with, but they definitely fixed all the Mary Sue/flat character issues. She really becomes a mature character here; she's proactive and has understanding, but still is a little lost where it's appropriate to be so. The fact she doesn't get the entire spotlight helps a lot too, as we spend a lot of time with the rest of the Resistance and the First Order. All scenes with Luke, Rey, and Kylo Ren were enough for me to say this one was great. Seeing Luke's daily routine was also awesome.

I think the humor in this one was very distracting though. For all the praise I give for it being different, the humor is very much like a Marvel movie. I thought The Force Awakens perfectly handled humor in a way that never slowed down the story at all. Here, it really clashes with the tone. They put jokes in moments that should be just played serious, or there is something they really should be saying first but they make a joke first. To me, that says they're just not confident enough to let the moment just be. Like when Artoo shows Luke the recording of Leia from Episode 4 and he says "That was a cheap shot." I feel like that should've been a quieter moment of actual reflection. especially as it's the main turning point of his character arc in this film. Or when Rey asked Kylo Ren if he should cover up. Don't think they needed to add that awkwardness there.

What the fuck was up with Snoke too? I did expect him to die in this episode, just so that it would be different from the OT. But I did not expect him to die before we found out a single thing about him. What race is he? How did he take over the First Order? Why does he have those scars? Do we know ANYTHING about him besides the fact he's a dude who can use the force and he is evil? There was shock value for sure but I don't feel like that moment was earned at all. I know they kept stressing that it was Luke's fault for Kylo Ren turning evil, but Snoke must have had some part. I just felt like his role in-universe was so important in a way that his role in-film was not. Super weird. I actually expected him to be a species like Frieza or something, where he could survive as just a torso. It still worked as a moment for Kylo Ren, in that he was finally able to be more powerful than Snoke (in that he was able to hide his true thoughts/feelings) so I'm not totally against it. But it's just super jarring for me for a character who should be so important to be just killed like that before we knew the first thing about him.

We didn't know anything about Emperor Palpatine before the prequels either, but I feel like that worked because the original trilogy was just so simplistic. The Emperor just represented pure evil. Darth Vader was just seduced by evil, no one thing in particular, until the prequels. This new trilogy wants to handle complexity, in a way that I feel works for every single character except Snoke. I actually feel like this could work in a really interesting way if we learn everything about him in episode 9, after he's no longer around, while Kylo Ren is working through all his baggage. That would be a really unique way to do it, but I doubt that is the plan since Rian Johnson knew he wasn't doing episode 9. But hey, maybe it will happen since J. J. came up with the character in the first place and would wanna keep him in the picture.

I also feel like the film was so character-driven that we actually didn't get to see enough of the universe. Felt like there were only these two ships in the entire galaxy lol. The rest of the movies, original or prequel, always handled the balance building up the world while still focusing on the characters well.

Kinda strange that this post is mostly complaining, considering again that this is probably my favorite Star Wars. Everything that was good about this movie was amazing and it just happened to be the things that I like most in a story. All of Luke's fanservice moments were earned (glad we got to see the Green Lightsaber again too, even if it was just in a flashback) and it didn't cop out with any Grey Jedi nonsense. I actually feel like the movie earned a lot things that were never capitalized on, like a one big serious lightsaber fight or so. And all that feels earned mainly because the relationships were done so well; every character has great chemistry with all the other actors and so on. This is probably my favorite set of core characters from any of the trilogies as well. Great movie really, it's just the things wrong with it stuck out so hard for me because everything else around it was so good.
 
I'm shocked that the new Star Wars is stirring any reaction like this I sweatergawd I walked outta that theater beyond blown away 11/10 movie it blows my mind people are down on it.
Soundtrack was straight dookie too, which was the only redeeming factor for the other really bad ones like clones and the phantom menace.
 

tcr

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care to elaborate on your review lol? i thought the movie was remarkabley good, im seeing it a second time with my gf and her family on saturday
 
care to elaborate on your review lol? i thought the movie was remarkabley good, im seeing it a second time with my gf and her family on saturday
The plot felt extremely contrived. There was no memorable dialogue, battles or plot twists and seemingly every issue the characters faced was solved via asspull. The entire concept of the resistance cruiser keeping itself just far enough out of range to not be able to be destroyed by the star destroyer (FOR BASICALLY THE ENTIRE MOVIE) was just........

It felt closer to Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock on a bus than a space opera

Also if you want people to care about your characters maybe make them grow a little instead of having them spit out exposition for half of their lines.

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PRETZELS LIE. THEY MANIPULATE.
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GatoDelFuego

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TLJ is probably my favorite star wars movie at the moment, I'm unsure how that will change on rewatching. However...it also had the absolute worst moments in Star Wars, like ever. Leia's entire flying scene, Poe pretending not to hear General Hux, the rock Rey sliced landing on those alien carts, the awful CGI clip show of running through the casino...I wanted to scream every time somebody restated "I am this character, this is my goal! I have to do this, or the Bad Guys are going to win!".

But that is offset by the amazing fight with the red dudes, involving actually new fight techniques, benicio del toro's really compelling character, luke's growth and kylo ren's backstory, and the FUCKING hyperspace piercing shot. All the little stupid nitpicks that grow and grow over the course of the entire movie just make me hate them more due to all this stuff that I loved. Even typing this I'm remembering more stuff that just did not need to be in the movie but I don't want to go on because that will just be stupid. Rey and Kylo were so well handled in this movie, it really wasn't anything else like Star Wars has shown us before.
 

tcr

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The plot felt extremely contrived. There was no memorable dialogue, battles or plot twists and seemingly every issue the characters faced was solved via asspull. The entire concept of the resistance cruiser keeping itself just far enough out of range to not be able to be destroyed by the star destroyer (FOR BASICALLY THE ENTIRE MOVIE) was just........

It felt closer to Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock on a bus than a space opera

Also if you want people to care about your characters maybe make them grow a little instead of having them spit out exposition for half of their lines.



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No memorable dialogue? "You're nothing more than scum // Rebel Scum"; "Maybe that's how we win, not by fighting what we hate, but by saving what we love," "I've only seen this much raw power once before. It didn't scare me enough then. It does now." All of this is memorable to me. Sure there aren't any "I am your father" moments but quite honestly nothing can really top such a culturally defining moment. No memorable battles? Were we watching the same movie because almost every battle is memorable: the fight between the praetorian guards vs Kylo Ren + Rey, the latter fight between Luke + Kylo Ren, even the opening sequence, despite being filled with some contrived dialogue (the whole Hux / Po exchange) had a ton of cool shots / moments that were reminiscient of Luke's Death Star run. Plot Twists? Not every movie has to have a "I am your father" moment and yet I still feel one of the biggest plot twists of the movie was not living up the expectations set up by the previous movie wrt fans. Lol another memorable dialogue moment: "This is not going to go the way you think." People thought that Rey would almost certainly end up being related to a Skywalker in some way be it Leia or Luke yet I personally thought it was a plottwist they were "junkers who traded her off for booze money." Snoke dying was a plottwist that certainly wasn't expected in the middle of the next trilogy, and the plottwist of Luke being a force ghost certainly wasn't at the immediate front of everyone's mind watching (which Imo is a cool af scene as if you pay attention you can see that the ghost makes no footprints, a clear giveaway that its not a real person).

I think there are certainly criticisms of the movie. Who is Snoke, for example? Why is he such a powerful Force user that he can connect two people to each other by the Force throw around Rey with ease and even more impressive throw around General Hux while not even being remotely near to the Dreadnought / Destroyer / whatever ship that was (seriously I'm certain there was a distance attribute attached to Force feats). Why was this super powerful dude who is so unique and mysterious given zero background and why is he brought to an abrupt end without ever sensing Kylo Ren's treachery despite literally reading him at the time? There are many plot criticisms as well, the casino scene while politically apt is just a waste of 30 minutes and really sets nothing up and the whole Po vs Vice Admiral Holdo thing went down really dumb (why didn't she just say "we're waiting until we're super close to the planet then abandoning ship" instead of trying to muscle her way over a dumb crew).

I think its a little funny to say the plot and characters were driven by asspull after asspull when the original trilogy's entire plot can basically be summed up by "it was destiny / the Force willing everything ot happen." Its not like the original trilogy was so carefully thought out with every single action meticulously scrutinized to make sure it made logistical sense it simply happened that way because "the Force."

After watching this a second time I can easily say it is my favorite Star Wars movie thus far, and many of my previous criticisms were simply the result of wishing the story had taken a different direction. I still wish they had gone some sort of Grey jedi route (I suspect thats where they'll take the next movie with the eventual romeo / juliet love story between rey and kylo ren forming a grey jedi order) or I had wished that Kylo Ren / Rey had both turned to the other side, with Kylo Ren turning back to the light with redemption from Rey while Rey turned to the dark (as seemed to be foreshadowed by her training with Luke where she immediately went to the cave rife with the dark side of the force + both their precognitions prior to meeting Snoke). I feel that Rey will also turn out to be a child created by the Force itself, similar to Anakin Skywalker, and that is the meaning of her vision in the cave. Either that or I guess she's just a slate for any girl to slot herself into as an idol seeing as shes not really "special" but still saves the world or some tripe like that (will be disappointed if that actually turns out to be the case). I'm still upset with the casino scene, I think its dumb and could have been negated, and I dislike the Leia scene even more now for some reason. On a second watch the little "quips" and "marvelisms" that the characters went through are stomachable but lets be honest the original trilogy didn't really have a good dialogue script to begin with (seriously the dialogue and acting is extremely outdated and especially noticeable in a New Hope / most of Han's lines where he says everything super duper aggressively "Laugh it up fuzzball").
 
i think it was a really good movie, and probably even better if i could just pretend that the original trilogy never happened/didn't exist/isn't relevant.

i mean so many of the "issues" (if you deem that as such) are only there because they don't make sense in the context of the original trilogy. by context i mean, how do we go from "yay rebels destroy second death star" to "oh yea the first order controls the galaxy again." i know this was an issue in TFA but i largely gave it a pass because i thought the following movies would do a better job at filling in the gap. but then we have this whole setup with snoke who is just incredibly strong because ??? the first order is about to take over the galaxy and the rebels have no support or anything? it's just not super believable for me

the reason why i'm ok with TLJ and why I think it's an incredible star wars film as long as you disregard the original trilogy is that that's the same thing that happened with the original trilogy - we don't know why palpatine is so strong, the empire ruling is just a given. there's no need for a buildup or any explanation as to how all these things were put into place. if i pretend this is just in some different era and luke skywalker is just a failed jedi teacher then the movie is really really strong. but since we know the rebels ultimately win in RoTJ, it feels like we're just going back to that same original trilogy story, repeating that same underdog situation even though we feel like this whole thing should have been avoidable. idk, i don't have a better idea of how it should've been done, especially considering that you still have Luke/Leia around.

Rey being a no one is cool imo. I was hoping that Rey would go dark side or at least somewhat join up with Kylo prior to seeing the movie (p. much something along the lines of what tcr describes would've been awesome), but at the very least they didn't go the route of "actually Rey is ____ character's daughter/first cousin/whatever." Especially wrt to establishing who/what the Force is, the Jedi/sith are, stuff became much more fleshed out + things are setup where they can take it in a direction that hasn't been explored before. i like that a lot.

I actually liked most of the humor. Some aspects of it were awkward, but I thought they did a good job of helping to build the world of Ahch-to at least. Ultimately star wars is about the characters but it's always nice when we get to learn about the worlds, since thats what imo makes it truly great. I still am confused by what the whole deal was with the "dark" cave on the island - the dark side was there, and rey gave into it, but nothing really happened? i guess there's something there re: identity issues but that was one thing that kinda stuck out at me as being confusing/unexplained.

man i just wish they could do a single player star wars rpg ahhhhhhh
 
I'll come back to see it. In my opinion the soul of Star Wars has been reaffirmed, better than previous episode; and despite some inconsistencies (as floaty Leia) this is a great film as Rogue One.

Even sense of humor is the same. What's different e.g. from "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?" (Leia) or "What kept you?" - "We, uh, ran into some old friends." (Leia and Solo). We have to pay attention on Kylo Ren character. He's furious and severe against all, and above all against himself. He's really strong (he hides his true thoughts when he kills Snoke) too. I'm curious to see his last stop of a long internal journey.

N.B.: I saw Star Wars - A New Hope when it was only Star Wars with a brand-new headlamp. ;)
 
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Mizuhime

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I'll start by saying this was my introduction to the Star Wars series so take my post as that, someone who has no bias views to the series and is giving you something from a movie viewers perspective, not a die hard fans. My post will also contain spoilers for those haven't seen it just continue on.

First and foremost, it was a 100 minute movie that last 155 minutes and it was drawn out my the unnecessary casino scenes which focused on inconsistencies in the series (I asked people to clarify), unneeded side stories, and characters becoming more important than they should be. I'll start with the inconsistencies, all throughout the series they weren't able to track through light speed but all of a sudden it goes against all rules and suddenly they can be tracked. odd. The other major consistency issue that was pointed out to me was Luke not being Luke. I can't really speak on this as I haven't seen the series in general but apparently he would have never attacked Kylo due to who's son he was but as we saw in the movie he did.

The Casino debacle. What the fuck? That's all I got. It certainly looked cool and acted entirely as a way to show us the Jedi at the end of the film in the "A jedi can come from anywhere scene", but it was entirely too long and made the movie last far longer than it should have. Finn and Rose made for an interesting character match, but in Rose's case they just picked a random character on the ship that suddenly knew how to stop them from being tracked through light speed, wtf? They go on their mission to search for some hacker with the flower, don't get him, instead get the most random dude they could possible find, trust him, get betrayed by him, and he's gone. This entire sequence made little to no sense to me other than a way to draw it out and was meh at best.

Leia force scene - excuse me. Maybe she controlled air from the ship? Maybe Kylo Forced her back to the ship? Maybe they broke all the rules? One thing is for certain she SHOULD HAVE FUCKING DIED. There's no way around it other than that. Let's not tip toe around the fact that Carrie Fisher herself, is dead, and they had a perfect chance to write her off in the series, but missed the opportunity because they probably didn't want to kill Layla and Luke in the same movie. What this means though, is that sometime between now and the next movie within the universe she's going to die OR she'll be written off at the start of the next movie because the creators have already gone on record to say they won't CGI her into the movies like what the Fast series did with Paul Walker. SO basically one of the most important characters in the series is going to get a cheap death because the writers fucked up in this movie.

During one of the major fight scenes where Rose and Finn manage to live against all odds, Captain Phasma makes a super brief appearance, and meets just an abrupt of an ending. The movies makes you think Phasma dies, but I doubt that, but again I would have liked to see more of Phasma, seems like a cool character.

My final issue with the movie, albeit minor, was the choreography during the fight scene between Kylo and Luke, no one moves like that and it was very obvious that it was choreography, it just didn't seem natural to me.

My post only really illustrates the points I dislikes and there was plenty of points I also found amazingly well done, if people actually read my post and want to hear what I enjoyed as well i'll be happy to share. Overall I enjoy the movie, and may even decide to watch the rest of the series and ill be going to see the next one, but I did have some issues with it listed above, i'd give the movie a solid 6/10 wasn't great, wasn't bad, little on the long side. Also I think fans of the series will be furious once they see that Kylo and Rey develop a love story as opposed to a rivalry.

I've also been thinking of the movie since I saw it a week ago, so take that as a good sign as well.
 
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Coming from someone who has consumed almost every Star Wars media possible (literally over 100 EU novels), I loved TLJ. I will admit the first viewing left me shook, but rewatching it revealed a lot of wonderful, unique themes that are moving the franchise in a great direction.

Before this film (or now before this trilogy), Star Wars was about the Skywalker family. That's why Rey's reveal to be nobody shocked the hell out of me. I was 100% certain she was Luke's daughter. If Rian Johnson followed typical Star Wars protocol, she would have been. This trilogy turned the focus of Star Wars from the Skywalker family to the Force itself. This opens up the rest of the Star Wars saga to opportunities far beyond what's happening to Luke/Leia's kids, and I'm totally okay with that.

After the first viewing, I admit I hated Luke's direction. He was supposed to be this flawless hero (basically Obi-Wan 2.0) that returns to singlehandedly take out the First Order. TLJ shatters our expectations to reveal Luke is a human character who failed as a Jedi mentor (I won't complain about his moment of weakness with Ben until they show Luke's vision looking into Ben). In this film, Luke was able to overcome his failure and save the Resistance ("The greatest teacher, failure is"), creating a theme of redemption that not only reaches the far corners of the galaxy (the kid in the stable telling the story of Luke Skywalker), but directly resonates with our new cast.

The entire purpose of this film was character development. The plot surrounded Poe, Finn, and Rey's fuckups. If Poe wasn't in this movie, the Resistance would have easily escaped the First Order in much larger numbers. If Rey didn't enter the island's dark side butthole and open up to Kylo Ren, she never would have reached the decision to accept the light and serve as the symbol of the new Rebellion. If Finn didn't get caught trying to abandon the Resistance, he never would have went on his little Odyssey and realized there was more to war than fighting the enemy (Rose's whole "saving friends" line). If Poe didn't literally fuck up the entire movie, he wouldn't have grown past his hot-headed persona into a true leader. The Resistance may be ~25 people, but due to TLJ, the Resistance now has three leaders that can rebuild the group to its former glory (or even bigger!).

There is now so much potential for Episode IX I'm overwhelmed. I personally believe that there will be a significant timeskip so IX will be this epic showdown between the First Order and a fully built Resistance. I'm glad everything wrapped up with Snoke, because Kylo Ren is such an amazing villain that deserves all of the attention in Episode IX.

That being said, there were definitely some issues with the film:
- I'm confused with the timeline between TFA and TLJ, I assume 8 was immediately after 9 (as seen with Rey handing Luke the lightsaber), but I fail to understand how the First Order blowing up 7 planets with Starkiller Base (even if they were the core government) is enough for them to take control of a galaxy with 1000s of sentient planets.
- Yea the Rose and Finn arc wasn't well done (I'd bet there were a couple deleted scenes/rewrites) but that doesn't dismiss the character development that Finn needed to have. Sadly I do think a lot of hatred towards Rose's character stems from rooted racism/sexism (I've seen a lot of awful, ignorant comments) because her contributions to Finn's character were obvious. DJ's bad characterization didn't help the arc, either. I could tell what they wanted him to be but he wasn't really that? It's hard to explain.
- Yea Phasma was wasted :<
- I don't understand why no one responded to General Leia's distress call on Crait. The chance that she has no allies left is impossible. This is a pretty big plot point that I assume will be answered in the EU.

I've been thinking a lot about Admiral Holdo's character. I thought she was an outstanding character, and the hate surrounding her surprised me. Her dialogue was great, Laura Dern did an amazing job shaping her, and her sacrifice was one of the most epic scenes in the film. A lot of her criticism stems from the fact that she chose not to tell Poe about her plans. However, her scenes immediately follow Poe's decision to break orders and sacrifice their entire bombing squadron, and clearly she didn't trust him (and was right to do so). I liked the comment earlier about "why not use Ackbar" instead of creating this new character. After thinking, I believe Poe needed to conflict with someone relatively unknown in the Resistance. If Holdo was Ackbar, Poe wouldn't have defied his orders and learned such a valuable lesson in the film.

Also Jedi have survived in deep space several times in other media and Leia is a Skywalker so shut your butt. I thought it was a great way to highlight Leia's strength in the Force despite not being trained in it.

I feel like once people understand Rian Johnson's intentions, they won't hate on the film as much as they do. All of the "problems" with the film nowhere near overshadow the great things this film offers as both a film and a gateway to the future of the franchise.
 
All right, Lolk I agree with you. Totally. I want to add something that you say but not explicity. TLJ is not a foregone conclusion. That making it a great "Star Wars style" film.
 

theangryscientist

angry, not mad
is a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
in response to the people wondering why the first order was able to take over so easily after the activation of starkiller base: remember that they're directly descended from the remnants of palpatine's army from the end of ep6; these aren't some assholes who sprung up between 6 and 7, they're a rebranding of palpatine's military

the rebels only blew up the death stars, they didn't wipe out the entire imperial fleet
 

Yeti

dark saturday
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
movie isn't that good

Holdo is the biggest walking cliche possible.
The New Leader We Dislike is old af, it's used EVERY SINGLE TIME the old leader of a show/movie is either incapacitated for the plot or the actor peaces off the series. The newcomer wants to CHANGE THINGS and is AT ODDS with our heroes from the previous movie/episodes and there is DRAMA and DISTRUST but by the end we will learn this newcomer is ACTUALLY COOL jesus christ this is the kind of plot that CBS crime shows for old people use ad nauseam.
I'm Not Going To Share My Thoughts With You is also just plain bad writing. Whenever a conflict straight up would not exist if characters simply USED THEIR WORDS it's bad writing, it's a bad idea, it means you should go rework your script and fix it to remove your Drama for the Sake of Drama. Seeing adults just refuse to use their words over and over in media is so boring.
This didn't bug me as much on the first watch but the second it was 0/10 would skip those scenes on DVD.

Same with Cloud I mean Casino City. Skip it get back to Rey and Kylo. I don't dislike Rose's character but her C story is butthole. The audience resigning themselves to Finn sacrificing himself to the cannon and then she stops him is like... she needed to stop him ~7 seconds earlier before we had accepted this was the way he'd go out. Cause the scene goes on long enough that we Get "oh man Finn is willing to die for this cause now, he really believes it, that's our boy" and progress to "sad we won't see him in 9 but what a way to go" and then get robbed of Finn giving his life for something he believed in.

SW has decided to steal the Star Trek plot armor of "if your name is in the main credits you can survive the vacuum of space just fine and dandy" that Leia scene was complete BS. If Ackbar didn't die there and was in charge and Holdo didn't exist and Ackbar actually told people what do and agreed with Poe that sending Finn/Rose could help (oh wait Poe needs to learn a lesson or something??) after a really bad scene with Maz then like, it'd be improved. It's just so eyerolling to me that Holdo is an ANTAGONIST to Poe et al yet we're supposed to appreciate her sacrifice (why tf doesn't she do it earlier she stayed on that ship to die so what takes her so long to an hero??) and be sad because Poe needed someone to... not tell him things?

Rey/Kylo stuff is good.

The Dreadnaught was poorly utilized. It should have destroyed something Big and not just an empty base we don't really see so the audience really felt like it was WORTH losing all their bombers for. We're just taking everyone's word and being told, not shown, the Dreadnaught is WORTH IT, guys. It does nothing but hit the base too late. There should have been a second cruiser that it obliterated or something, and then even if they lost all their bombers and had severe casualties, it was better than letting the Dreadnaught survive to obliterate the main cruiser. Or Something, anything really to show this was a weapon that was worth all those sacrifices. They don't even reference whoever tf they lost taking out Starkiller Base and arguing about if those sacrifices were "worth it" in comparison because it was a bigger target/if they can keep bleeding pilots.

The treatment of Luke is why I think the movie has such low audience rating (aside from Holdo being written so terribly and the C story being anus). Generations grew up watching Luke, the optimist, go from whiny moisture farmer to believing his father can be redeemed and being willing to sacrifice himself both so his friends can complete their mission and he can save his father. And then Luke is back to mopey and defeated because Snoke touched Kylo's butthole and whiny again. And maybe the defeated hero/master is like, an Interesting and Real storyline, but I don't think it's what generations wanted to see in a new SW about Luke. It just doesn't resonate with how people have grown up seeing him. Is it time to move the franchise beyond people in their 60s/70s who can't do cool stunts anymore, sure, but the way it was done just isn't what most SW fans WANT in that inner, emotional way. They want Luke to be the optimistic hero, not the guy who after turning DARTH FREAKIN VADER back to the Light side, decides Kylo Ren is just one speck of darkness too many to be turned.

Another problem is for some inexplicable reason LucasFilms didn't plan out the storyline for the new trilogy... so JJ wrote his rehash absolutely-no-comprehension-of-the-size-of-space movie and this dude comes in and... does whatever he wants with it... and JJ will come back and be like "whoa why is Snoke dead also Phasma has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ALL TRILOGY also hope nobody remembers the Knights of Ren were supposed to be a thing lolz" and put in a bunch of lens flares.

Humor is Marvel tier which is not at all the humor of the OT. It's straight out of a Marvel movie and a lot of the time it comes across as forced. Like oh hey don't forget to see THE AVENGERS: WHO IS THE LEAD WHEN WE HAVE 50 LEADS IN ONE MOVIE if you loved the zany jokes and bits in this one!

If you FF through the B and C stories then TLJ is a good enough movie but the choices made are just... not good. I can see why the white guilters love how diverse the Resistance is though lel. Honestly not sure how anyone else can be giving it an 8/10+ when the whole anti-indulgence of the Casino place was so on the nose and a waste of time and the entire thing happened because of crappy nonsensical "adults not using their words because I need drama to happen" writing.

Also evil BB-8 is in 2 scenes but has a thousand pieces of merchandise lmao keep producing that merch Disney it'll make you more than the Han Solo movie nobody wanted. Hope that thing bombs to teach Disney to stop cash cowing SW and actually think about their movies' quality beyond the SIKK SFX.

(I don't think we will see a SW movie as good as the OT though because they have their flaws and discontinuities but they also hold that iconic place in our minds and hearts where they were the original magic, that combo of music and chemistry and storyline and innovation that took hold in our culture. TFA and TLJ can use rehashes of the OT's plots and musical scores but as long as they're trying to be as Something as the OT they will never be it. They aren't organic. They look stunning yes but the shoddy plotlines are a lot easier to see through than those in the OT, which has fewer anyway, and the B/C story characters are not Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford. I just don't think you can recreate that magic when you're trying too hard to rehash it to make your billion per movie)
 
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