OT: The Last Jedi (SPOILER Edition)
Spoiler WARNING. For anyone who wants to discuss TLJ feel free to include any spolier info you want. Here are my thoughts.
Best Parts:
- throne room fight
- Poe tooling with Hux
- Luke with Leia toward the end
- R2 convincing Luke to come back
- Yoda
- Holdo with the Hyperspace kamikazi move - beaurty of a sceen
- Rey vs Luke in the rain
- the flashbacks
- DJ the slicer
Parts that I thought weren't so good:
- Super Leia (could have killed her 2-3 ways that would have been fine)
- Maz from star tours (can't have her on the ship with the resistance? Have her point Finn et al to Lando maybe?)
- BB-8 piloting an AT-ST
- Luke milking that thing - I guess it really sets up his character status but that was just weird
- some of the canto bight stuff went long so it didn't bother me really
I thought it was some amazing screenplay and story telling- every main character had a legit moment of "are they doing the right thing"? Even the secondary characters like Adml Holdo- you didn't know where she was going. Lots of questions answered. Lots of ways to go in the next one. Overall, this was the movie to move the SW story forward and not keep looking backward. Who knows what EpIX will be.
December 17th, 2017 at 9:22 AM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 9:28 AM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 12:54 PM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 10:44 AM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 12:45 PM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 10:26 PM ^
December 18th, 2017 at 11:28 AM ^
He was a boring, one dimmensional character. I find Kylo Ren much more intrigueing to lead the First Order in 9. Also I htought Mark Hamill did a great job as Luke. Other thant that I agree.
December 18th, 2017 at 1:35 PM ^
Ren leading the First Order would turn it into something like Cobra from GI Joe (in a way already there). For such a large war machine he's far to tempramental and combustable to be trusted to lead it. He's not as menacing or calculating as Darth Vader. Kinda hard to take him seriously at this point.
December 18th, 2017 at 4:09 PM ^
He's not intimidating, Rey already beat him twice, there is literally no reason to think he's a threat. Going onto the third film there is no doubt whatsoever that the resistance will win. (meaning no douubt if you place yourself in that world)
December 17th, 2017 at 9:25 AM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 9:36 AM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 10:35 AM ^
December 18th, 2017 at 1:39 PM ^
Best of the prequel trilogy sure, but that isn't saying much. Lucas structured it wrong. Vader was supposed to be someone who hunted the Jedis down. All he did was kill kids. Such a letdown.
December 17th, 2017 at 10:48 AM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 11:34 AM ^
December 18th, 2017 at 9:22 AM ^
...Lucas had great vision creating Star Wars but is not a details guy. He should have stopped after the original film. Once he saw what Kershner/Kasdan did with Episode V (ESB). He should have realized he's never going to touch that. He subbornly writes and directs every other movie, gets mediocre reviews and yet just keeps going.
December 18th, 2017 at 1:48 PM ^
He didn't direct RotJ, he gave that to some n00b who put himself in the film.
December 17th, 2017 at 2:53 PM ^
I might be just different on this but I will take 1,2, or 3 over this anyday. Those were bad takes on a story that was already written, but I still went away with hope for the future. This movie killed star wars for me and I don't mean that as hyperbole. I have zero interest in the story going foward, my interest died with Luke. I think all these shitty directors are hopping on the Game of Thrones bandwagon and killing off important characters like its going to be cool and edgy. The problem is the damage done here is permanent, there is no going back on it.
December 17th, 2017 at 4:27 PM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 5:05 PM ^
fan service did we want? You know epsode vii TFA happened right? They set up this climactic moment of Rey finding Luke and presenting him his old light saber that he lost when Vader cut off his hand. Maz got it somehow( a story for another time that turned in to fuck you just go with it) and Luke just tosses it off the cliff. They build up Snoke in to some important villain in episode vii, what was he TLJ? What you blow off as fan service are serious inconsistencies with the plot.
Luke was supposed to be at the first jedi temple ever created for some reason and he constructed a map for people to find him that was a big deal in TFA. IN TLJ instead he is there to die and doesn't care about anything anymore, they just completely ignored so many things from TFA it was absurd.
"The comet that was sparking the rebellion" How many times can you watch an underpowered rebellion exploit some stupid weakness in an overpowerd empire force and still call it genius storytelling? Honestly, I don't even think most people that like the movie would dare call it genius storytelling, you are pretty out there on that one.
December 17th, 2017 at 5:21 PM ^
December 18th, 2017 at 1:53 PM ^
There are some interesting parallels to Luke and Yoda, but Yoda's objections were based on both Jedi protocol and a concern for Luke's ability to see it through.
In the new movie, Luke was simply being a disillusioned old crank, didn't really matter who showed up asking to be trained. That was the biggest disappointment for me. Some of us grew up on Star Wars and Luke, Han Solo and Leia were a big deal. I understand this trilogy is about a passing of the baton to a new generation, but the way they've treated the old generatoin is pretty shitty, Luke most of all.
December 17th, 2017 at 6:45 PM ^
I don't think they set up what you think they set up. They even said so, right? Luke: "This is not going to go the way you think."
The fan service that many people wanted is stated here in this thread and in your own post. People wanted Rey giving the light saber to Luke to be a meaningful climax of some sort. They wanted Luke to be a badass (Harlick below said he's been waiting 30 years for it; I suppose he missed Luke in RotJ destroying Vader). They wanted a light saber duel. They wanted Maz's story, Snoke's story, Rey's parents' story, the Knights of Ren's story.
That's fine. But it turns out the story wasn't about Maz, or Snoke, or Rey, or the Knights of Ren. It also wasn't about old Luke. It was about Luke and who he became after Vader's grandson failed Luke just like Vader failed Kenobi, slaughtering children in Luke's care and destroying everything Luke worked for. And it was about Rey, who might actually be the Last Jedi.
Ignoring Snoke et al. isn't a plot inconsistency. It's just a storytelling choice.
December 17th, 2017 at 4:56 PM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 6:53 PM ^
Yeah, I was wrong about the hipsterism. I didn't get what was going on right away. I mean, I think there's some of that, but my initial take Thursday night was that that was all it was. I had no idea that people would actually value the expanded universe over the movie quality.
But to call it lazy storytelling means you missed a lot. Maybe you didn't like it, but there's no way it was lazy. It is difficult to craft literature so intricately. The symbolism, dualism and parallels, foreshadowing, themes, motifs, diction, all show obvious hard work and thought.
December 17th, 2017 at 6:55 PM ^
December 18th, 2017 at 3:04 PM ^
I think Reader71 has it right above: Its fine. Its entertaining (and has sequences that are too long or pointless or stretch belief). It's got some funny moments (and some cringe-inducing ones). Its got a few good performances (and quite a few mediocre to bad performances).
But its just not a great film. Its a summer time blockbuster. A money grab. Its Jurassic World (there's no coincidence the first preview that I was was for another Jurassic Park movie). So the question is why do critics feel the need to beat everyone over the head with the idea that its some sort of masterpiece?
December 18th, 2017 at 11:30 AM ^
If Luke was alive for 9 Rey would essentially be a pointless character. The WAY Luke died it up for debate though...
December 18th, 2017 at 2:00 PM ^
I personally didn't expect Luke, Han and Leia to survive the trilogy, and obviously they won't. Han and Luke especially were so diminished, they didn't progress as characters in the interim, and even regressed. Leia progressed somewhat, but she might be the beneficiary of a feministic attitude of the story author.
December 17th, 2017 at 10:53 AM ^
I am not really a Star Wars person, but I will say that Revenge Of The Sith's largest and most glaring defect, in my opinion, was the rush at the end to tie it into A New Hope. It was almost as if the writers got to the final ten pages of the script and shouted "SHIT!" because was an entire section of the story outline that still hadn't been addressed.
Attack Of The Clones, on the other hand, is a defect basically from start to finish.
December 17th, 2017 at 11:13 AM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 2:10 PM ^
December 18th, 2017 at 9:54 AM ^
had some good moments like the Zam Wessell chase, the Kenobi/Fett battle or the Yoda/Dooku fight.
RotS had an awesome begnining battle sequence, the Grievous/Kenobi fight and the Yoda/Sidious fight.
PM had the Kenobi/Jinn/Maul fight scene. Pretty much it's only redeeming aspect.
December 18th, 2017 at 2:03 PM ^
There are certainly some parallels in there for modern times which most people don't seem to think much about. But it was just too complicated and obtuse to follow. Star Wars isn't built on the complex, but simply (and powerful) archetypes and themes. Lucas over-thought that one.
December 17th, 2017 at 5:42 PM ^
Revenge of the Sith had two of the key moments in the entire saga that it had to present:
The turning of Anakin to the Dark Side
Vader in his suit for the first time.
Through poor acting, poor writing, poor direction, etc. it fucked both of them up so they were almost a joke. It may be the worst movie of them all because of that.
December 18th, 2017 at 10:42 AM ^
Hard to argue with your first point. Anakin goes from loyal Jedi Knight to Dark Lord because he's upset at being denied the title of Jedi Master and because Mace Windu wanted to kill Palpatine/Sidious, which Anakin admitted to wanting to do himself just a few scenes earlier.
December 17th, 2017 at 11:18 AM ^
Phantom Menace was the worst, by far. (I still wonder, "WTH was George Lucas thinking???")
December 18th, 2017 at 2:04 PM ^
Roger roger.
December 17th, 2017 at 10:29 AM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 10:50 AM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 3:40 PM ^
when he said, "Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That's the only way to become what you are meant to be."
I think that is the take home message; you can't look back to the past, let it go and look forward. Let this movie, and the ones that follow, stand on their own. I like it more if I see it as a new beginning versus a continuation.
I did think it was pretty stupid for the Admiral to stand there and watch half the transports get blown up before she decided to sacrifice the ship; seems like that should have been the plan from the get go.
December 18th, 2017 at 12:33 AM ^
December 19th, 2017 at 2:19 PM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 9:25 AM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 10:00 AM ^
I'm sure it will be an off screen death and the Resistance will be putting the pieces together. Probably why Poe is being groomed into a leader
December 17th, 2017 at 4:31 PM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 9:43 AM ^
December 17th, 2017 at 9:43 AM ^
My guess is that Disney may still leave a lot of questions in the next film too and just keep circling back with Rogue One type films to answer some of the questions, create more questions and continue to clean out our wallets.
December 17th, 2017 at 10:49 AM ^
If they make movies that are as entertaining and tightly focused as Rogue One I am all for it. Star Wars suffers when it tries to go mythical as everyone compares it to the first two brilliant films and the third pretty good one.
December 17th, 2017 at 10:21 AM ^