Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Dec 15th, 2017)

[Cap'n Cook]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

I'm going to buy a TFA Luke robe from Toy Anxiety and a rock: Instant TLJ Luke Skywalker!

..

 

[Kay-ess-cee]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

Under normal circumstances, I would have been in a theater right now waiting to see it my 3rd or 4th time at this point. As it stands, once was more than enough.

 

[Niltusk]

I think Johnson hit on some really good stuff,
was nice seeing Chewie clear that door, although sadly its the only part he played,
great seeing Hamill's emotions at being reunited with R2, I was really prepared for this movie due to Hamill saying beforehand, that his thoughts didn't matter on 7 and 8, because they'll make alot of money and thats how they determine success, also Hamill added that he and Leia should have been present for Han's death which I agree with 100%, I think Hamill's small corrections would have been great and it honestly would have been nice to see the three go down together saving the galaxy once more, rather than them peppering each film with the death of a beloved OT character for "dramatic effect".
Also, Hamill overall was much better in this than I expected and I was glad to see him so front and center.
Loved the ships, even the old crop dusters were pretty cool, for all the talk of the Falcon being junk, it was great to see some "real space junk" falling apart at the seams.
The practical effects were very welcome, even though I thought some of the Casino guests looked badly done, it was very OT feeling seeing these assorted creations together on screen.
Poe playing with Hux on the communicator could have been an unused Han line from ESB, maybe Poe should have been a Solo.

The bad...

Snoke's death... lol and his guard were as stupid as ****.
Dern's coffee mug.. seriously, they couldn't have spared a minute to superglue some knobs on top it and make it a "space" Tervis? Nope, straight out of the WalMart clearance section.
Then theres the beyond obvious disturbing stuff like Leia returning to ship, Rey being a SuperSaiyan rather than a Jedi, the stupid as **** executioners, etc...

Over all I felt about as conflicted about this as TFA, hope part 9 puts all this to rest, start some flicks not related to the core story that don't make people feel its directly attacking our beloved collection of Kenner figures collecting dust up ion the attic.

I don't think Johnson is a bad custodian for Star Wars, you can tell his heart was in it, but much like Lucas himself, he needs to be tempered.

 

[Niltusk]

Benicio del Toro was absolutely wasted in this movie...the middle part of the movie with Rose and Finn was brutal.

Yeah, and early fan theories were that he may be Ezra. Nope, just a really odd character inserted for ****s and giggles.

 

[Mr.Tanker]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

Yes it is! I'm a victim. Don't question the validity of my experiences! #METOO

Please. Stop talking.

 

[ShadowX81]

Wait what did I miss that made Rose a SJW was it because she wanted to save animals?

Curious about this as well. What about her character made her SJW, Jaws?

She was a Mary Sue awkwardly tacked onto a script that really had no room for her; created just to appease the people that thought Star Wars was "racist" for having no Asian actors.

 

[Rainpaulo]

Amazes me that everyone saw JL and said it was **** then others boycott... however with SW people say brutal movie BUT will have to go and watch again just to be sure.
Come on people movie won't be different the next time.

 

[noface]

What rebels killed themselves in the beginning? Also, Rose's sister didn't sacrifice herself. She was in a SOL situation and happened to come through with the release of the bombs. She was never once like "this is for you, sis" or whatever. She did her job and died doing it. Also, judging from the look on Luke's face when he looked at the sunset after his projection stunt, he seemed rather surprised that this was his moment and then accepted it. So saying he willingly sacrificed himself seems like an assumption. So who does that leave? Finn and Laura Dern. Yeah, two makes half the cast I guess.

I thought the movie was okay. I might have to see it one more time to be sure. What I hated the most was when Snoke was killed off. Kylo carrying on the leadership of the first order into the next episode really does not interest me. Kylo can't even defeat Rey, so what do you expect from him in episode 9. Why couldn't Snoke sense what the newbie apprentice Kylo was about to do if Snoke was said to be more powerful than Sidious? I guess everything else was good or just okay. IDk

After Luke died there was no anticipation to see episode 9. I guess I'm trying to say the story and the characters are just not interesting enough after Luke's death.

 

[Niltusk]

No, not Laura Dern....the old lady with the enormous buzzard like nose. Was she supposed to be an alien? I tried to find her on imdb and can't find her.

The nose is real!

 

[CROSAL24]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

I didn’t like it. It’s bad when the only thing you can think of after a Star Wars movie is if a live action Pokémon movie will be in the works soon (Ice crystal dogs).

 

[Craig Walker]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

This morning's text from my bro, some funny lines: My thoughts in ( )

I did like some of the story and the direction they are headed in is ok, New beginning to the conflict. Numerous problems with casting & dialogue for sure. But at least I learned a lot of new things:

1) Leia can fly through space. Neat

2) the force now offers a Skype service

3) spaceships have poor gas mileage (great point, what a stupid convenient plot point, for a stupid plot)

4) Snoke corrupted people. Not sure how, he just did

5) Luke is living like Bear Gryllis, no idea why. Milk scene??

6) Rey is descended from hookers and thieves. Hope you’re not disappointed

7) you can be a fierce Jedi without any training at all. Like absolutely none

8) who cares about living. Hurry up and die, Yoda wields force lightning from the afterlife. Top that

9) in addition to force Skype there is also a new app: astral projection that is so realistic that nobody can tell the difference and you can even project Hans rear view mirror dice at the battle scene. (love the "app" references Lol)

10) there are rebels who wear a half moon amulet

11) the resistance has secret rings, don’t decode things though. #drinkmoreovaltine

12) Phasma is a character in the Star Wars universe

13) BB8 is a battle droid. He may be a serial killer

14) force Skype actually transmits water and physical touching. Forgot to add that

15) learned lots about Kyle Rens corruption & rise. Wait...I learned virtually 0

16) maz kanata gets in firefights to sell Battlefront games


Force "apps"

 

[noface]

Amazes me that everyone saw JL and said it was **** then others boycott... however with SW people say brutal movie BUT will have to go and watch again just to be sure.
Come on people movie won't be different the next time.

I honestly did not have much sleep because I have this sleeping problem, maybe slept 3 or 4 hours, but I had to go and watch it because I just couldn't wait. Most of the time during the movie i felt tired. I'm looking forward to watching it when it comes out on blu-ray or something. I also couldn't watch Rogue One because of my sleeping problem so I waited until it was available for blu-ray. That's the truth.

 

[Otomofan]

AAAH!! That's frightening. Like I said, must have been impressive as hell in Imax 3D.

I guess she has what Central Casting would consider "character."

 

[Cap'n Cook]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

No. 12.

 

[Darkseed]

We need a poll.... What fan base is upset the most: DC for JL or SW for TLJ

 

[Racetrack]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

Listening to the score. At least John Williams is on point

 

[Drake]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

Yeah, this. It's not attachment to the original three driving every single one of the opinions here. Attachment to the original three is what got us to the cinema People have articulated pretty clearly throughout this thread why they thought it didn't gel as a movie. Subplots and characters didn't add anything or went nowhere. The humour came from a screenwriter making jokes about Star Wars in the real world, and lampshading things ('blue milk! Laser sword! Changed your hair!'), and did not come organically from the characters. 'Boring conversation anyway' was Han covering up his incompetence and fear. It was funny and true to the character in that situation. Certain TLJ events broke mechanics from the rest of the series (force ghosts, hyperspeed, worries about fuel). It contradicted some things set up in TFA, which many of us enjoyed. Sure, there has been some hyperbole here, as there always is (and the English language is geared towards hyperbole when expressing feelings), but people saying 'I thought it was not a very good movie' have, for the most part, explained pretty clearly why. You can still disagree! We might be envious of your enjoyment. It's good to debate. But yeah.

I mean I like the idea of Luke as a fallen hero. I like the tragedy in that. I just don't think they pulled it off and I don't think they stayed true to the character. For him to be so different we need to see the steps that get him there. For him to be so terrified we need to see what is terrifying him. I like the idea of undermining the good guy vs bad guy stuff, and undoing the Jedi ... I just think that's a tough angle to take for your rip-roaring adventure movie, and they didn't pull it off here. Too many cooks. Too much corporate interference. Half of it wanted to be a Star Wars movie about the phenomenon and cultural impact of Star Wars in our world. Interesting idea! Didn't work.

And I don't understand quite a few of the narrative choices. Make two characters get stuck on an island for most of the movie, and tell the most important details of a character in flashback? Both of those are stones in a basket, narratively speaking, dragging the pace down. Why not have Luke leave the island, and have us share in his huge moment of failure? Maybe he failed a bit before, wants to redeem himself, then REALLY fails hard, with Kylo, in an adventure, with narrative steps we can see so we can understand exactly how ROTJ Luke becomes failure Luke ... and then give him some last minute final redemption? Why not tell his story as an adventure in an adventure movie? You can argue meta-commentary and narrative experimentation through undermining, but if that's what they were doing, it didn't really work. You might say, 'Oh now you are just rewriting the movie in your head and you are angry it is not the movie in your head.' No. I am just giving an example of a basic story choice that would have solved an obvious problem. The problem probably could have been solved in all sorts of other ways, and I would rather see one that I couldn't think of myself.

I keep wanting to go to the example of Twin Peaks: The Return, which came back to a world after years, with characters in different places, making us face age and death and failure, and using bold narrative choices to undermine and defy genre, because Twin Peaks did it incredibly well, but it is hard to compare Twin Peaks and Star Wars. And Twin Peaks had the original creators still at their A-game, and no interference, etc etc. Twin Peaks did all sorts of metanarrative things too, but there they worked. But again, hard to compare ...

So anyway, Star Wars: two people are stuck on an island, and major things are told in flashback. Narrative stones. And that is paired with ... a hot air balloon chase in space, that lacks all tension? Another narrative bag of stones, slowing everything down. So many characters don't tell each other things they really should tell each other, and then they know things they wouldn't because the plot needs them to ... and this is all tied with the pointless casino thing. 'We guess that there is this new technology, it probably works like this, this ship probably controls it, and the controls are probably here, so you go get this one codebreaker because we happen to know exactly where he is, and when you go there you can't get him but luckily there is another codebreaker with the exact same rare skills there, and then when you get back it doesn't work anyway, while we're having a chase that defies physics because ships that run out of fuel in space don't ever stop moving, which is an error that shouldn't matter in Star Wars but also when was space logistics ever a huge worry in Star Wars, and this chase is eventually solved by a woman ramming ships in hyperspeed, which would have been really useful against all those death stars but for some reason we didn't use that ability then.'

I mean ... it's just badly put together. And you can say the movie is all about failure. That's interesting! But there are more efficient and compelling ways of telling stories about failure that don't require so many examples of MacGuffins, characters needlessly withholding information, coincidence, guessed knowledge, and mechanics that undermine previous films. I like what the movie was trying to do. It just didn't do it well. I like that it was trying to be smart. But it failed at being smart, and then it failed as a fun action movie space adventure as well. In my opinion. It had cool bits! I loved Kylo. It just didn't gel together. It was a mess as a movie.

I know some might hate me for bringing up the original trilogy, but those movies were lean. A to B. Character and emotion in the forefront. Those are the elements of a quality adventure movie in general, and that's why we keep bringing the original trilogy up: those films are examples of good movie making in all the ways this is an example of bad movie making. TLJ is gorgeous! It's stylish. It's expensive. It has cool stuff. But it's a mess as a movie. I could compare TLJ to any decent action movie and TLJ comes up worse by the contrast. I could compare it to Die Hard. Think of why Die Hard works, and you have your answers as to why this movie doesn't work. What's something with a cool self commentary metanarrative, that undermines its own tropes for fun and teachable moments? Maybe Scream, or Cabin in the Woods? Compare TLJ to those and it comes up lacking. It doesn't work either way.

And yes the original trilogy has coincidence (Luke happens to land right by Yoda on Dagobah) and MacGuffins (turn off the Death Star shields!), and even withheld information ('Vader is your father!'), but the goals are straightforward and the character stuff is clear cut. We know why people don't tell Luke Vader is his father. Narrative elegance and crisp characterisations keep things moving. The coincidences and weaknesses in TFA, for example, didn't bother me half as much because the character stuff was stronger and the pacing was good.

Also, Vader's origins were a surprise, not a mystery. We weren't frustrated because we felt like information had been withheld. Here we have mysteries for the sake of mystery, and the mysteries themselves add nothing. Okay, so Rey's parents being nobodies undermines the chosen one narrative. That's great. But did the buildup add to that undermining? I guess we expected some parental reveal because of Star Wars tropes, and it could be clever to set up and then undermine that ... I would rather Jedi be nobodies ... But then it is a movie about Star Wars, and not a movie about characters. Do we want a Star Wars movie about Star Wars? Maybe? Maybe not? And Snoke was set up as a mystery. Luke's fall was set up as a mystery. There was all this mystery box crap that led to more letdowns than excitement and muddied what could have been a clear and energetic narrative. Elements that could have been fun on their own came across like screenwriters trying to type their way out of a cul-de-sac someone had trapped them in with the last script.

Also, a good character goal? 'Shoot the exhaust port to save the day.'

If Luke's goal in ANH had been the same as Finn's in TLJ, his task would have been: 'Find a pot of gold so you can bet it on a game of cards and win a map to a secret market where you can buy a missile that can be put in a ship so you can shoot the exhaust port to save the day.'

Oh god that was an epic and pointless rant. Look was this movie is doing to me.

Actually I thought that was a great post. If I could rep you for it, I would. As it stands, it perfectly sums up why so many of us had so many issues with the film. Not because we're never satisfied, not because we're haters, not because it wasn't exactly what we expected or wanted it to be, but quite simply, because it was a disjointed, unfocused, scattershot, mess of a movie, where the whole was unfortunately far less than the sum of its parts.

 

[Darkseed]

Only if we can add the mustache edited smile to Fishers mug

 

[RIDDICK]

The nose is real!

Hey, spoilers!!! I didn't need to know how young Snoke looks like.

 

[Droid747]

Absolutely hated that Leia floating in space rubbish.
Imagine if DC released something like this....as I always say Disney definitely pays to critics off.
I'm actually sorry they made another trilogy..didineed Han and Luke and Leia all killed off.... especially in the name of rubbish films. Awakens was a masterpiece compared to this.

Of course movie critics are paid off. There is no way in hell this movie would have ever got remotely close to a 97% score anywhere except maybe inside Kathleen Kennedy's head.