A new Star Wars happened, and opinions are released upon us like nibbling hounds demanding biscuits

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
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Keeping thing's kosher. :^)
cathou said:
Issue number 1: I'm not quite dead!
Leia gets spaced when the bridge to the cruiser she's on gets blasted. Now, I'm sure the Force can do powerful and amazing things. It's not such a huge leap to believe that a Jedi master could use the Force to prevent the effects of catastrophic decompression and exposure to the cold of space...then Superman their way back to an airlock. Now I haven't read the books that are now official canon, but I'm pretty sure that Leia has not received any formal training in the use of the Force, let alone would should have the power and precision necessary to execute such an insane feat.

Issue number 2: No Country for Old Snokes.
Yep, Snoke's already dead, killed by Kylo. Now this didn't bother me as much as it did a number of other people as that is the way of the Dark Side: if an apprentice sees a moment of opportunity to kill his master, he'll take it and assume his master's position. This is what Kylo did, so fair enough. What I have an issue with is that - because there's still so many unanswered questions revolving around Snoke (Who/what was he? Where did he come from? How did he assume control over the remainder of the Empire's military forces considering he apparently came from absolutely nowhere?) - he's literally more of a plot device than an actual character. I would have been fine with him getting killed in this movie if we learned something about him first (such as, but not limited to, the previously mentioned questions), but instead this new Master of the Dark Side was just a throw-away plot device used to prop up Kylo as being the main villain.

Issue number 3: "I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roomate!" "So what does that make us?" "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"
To be fair, this one could still be expanded on in the next movie and could be a deception in this one. But there's a scene in which Kylo is talking to Rey and he basically says that she already knows who her parents were but she just doesn't want to admit it. While she's in tears and unable to speak, he spells out "what you (she) know in your (her) hear to be true". Apparently Rey's parents are a couple scumbag nobodies who sold her off for some cash to go buy some drugs then just abandoned her. Nothing special about her bloodline or heritage, she's apparently completely unremarkable.

Issue number 4: "All power to forward shields!" "But Cap'n, we 'aven't got any!"
Towards the start of the movie, this massive fuck-off dreadnought ship is attacking the rebel fleet and has all of the anti-fighter guns on the top of it taken out by a single X-Wing. Then one bomber manages to dump its payload on a weak spot and blow up the entire ship. My question is why doesn't this dreadnought - described as a "fleet killer" - have any shields? Shields play a massive role in this move, as we're constantly reminded of the shields the rebel cruiser has. And before anyone says "Well small crafts like fighters can get past shields!" (something that I usually accept and is displayed when Kylo is attacking the rebel cruiser from his fighter), the movie provides an inconsistency with this notion. Finn and a new (likely disposable) character Rose have to go on a side-quest to pick up some kind of Master Code Breaker, someone who can lower the shields of Snoke's capital ship so that they can get a craft through and board it. Apparently they needed to lower the shields for Snoke's ship to get a craft in close, but not the dreadnought's.

Issue number 5: Now you see why evil will always triumph...because good is dumb.
There's one major contrivance in the movie that allows the second half to even happen. After Leia does her Superman space walk, she's unconscious and left in the infirmary. Chain of command falls to a vice admiral in the resistance and she decides that the fleet - which is running low on fuel - is just going to cruise away at normal speed for as long as they can while the First Order fleet is chasing after them. This is because the First Order have some kind of new technology that can track a fleet even if it jumps with hyperspace. If the Resistance tries to make a jump, they'll burn up all their fuel and immediately be destroyed when the First Order pops up behind them. This is why Finn and Rose need to go to the casino planet to find a code break so they can hack the shields of Snoke's ship, get on board it, and disable the tracking technology. This is Poe's plan, and he even stages a mutiny in order to make sure that the cruiser is ready to jump once Finn and Rose have accomplished their objective.

But this movie is a story of failure, as everything the Resistance - in particular Poe - tries ends up blowing up in their face. The REAL plan that the vice admiral was enacting was to cruise past a planet that had an old rebel base on it. They'd then launch a bunch of transports fitted with scanner-cloaking technology and abandon the cruiser as a decoy, allowing them to land undetected at the rebel base. This plan goes tits-up because Benicio's character double-crosses the Resistance after being paid-off by the First Order. He provides them with something that allows them to detect the transports, so the First Order begins blasting them to space dust. However the only reason Benicio's character was even there was because Finn and Rose pick him up from the casino planet. The only reason Finn and Rose went to the casino planet was because they needed someone who could get them on board Snoke's ship to disable the hyperspace tracking device. The only reason they need someone to disable the hyperspace tracking device is because Poe believes the vice admiral has no actual plan to get them out of this situation and is just going to keep going until the cruiser runs out of fuel. And the only reason Poe believes the vice admiral has no actual plan is because for some completely unknown reason she decided she didn't want to share the over-all plan of making it to the rebel base with cloaked transports - which genuinely would have worked had Benicio's character not been involved - to anyone at all. Had she simply told Poe what was going on, there would have been no need for Finn and Rose to go to the casino planet and Benicio's character would have been chilling out in his jail cell, completely uninvolved in the movie at all.

So yeah, the only reason the second half of the movie even happens is because the vice admiral doesn't tell the rest of the Resistance what the plan is.

Those are my big issues with the movie, what follows are more nit-picky things.

Issue number 6: Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the REAL money from the movie is made!
The only reason the porgs are in the movie is to sell porg toys/dolls. That is all. They serve absolutely no purpose to the story other than being cute little creatures that Disney could make into stuffed animals and sell.

Issue number 7: Space Wizards don't have magic powers.
There's a scene where Kylo is fighting alongside Rey against all those red guard fuckers that you always see just standing around and doing fuck-all. It's a pretty nice little action sequence...except for the fact that it's two Force users that don't use the Force. I'm not asking for much, but there's not so much as a Force Push used. Kylo's a guy who could stop a blaster shot in mid-air, you'd think he could choke out a fool or two during this fight. But no. They just use their light sabers.

Issue number 8: Fear and Loathing on Casino Planet.
As others have pointed out, this part of the movie does drag on a bit. As I mentioned before: Finn and Rose are sent on a sidequest to some luxury planet with a casino on it where the movie spends a bit too much time and ultimately the conflict that arises on this planet seems a bit forced just to get Benicio Del Toro's character shoe-horned into the movie. Not to mention they just happened to get put in the same cell as his is rather convenient.

All that said, I still enjoyed the movie. The action sequences were pretty nice and it's still an entertaining ride, but it's got a number of pretty glaring flaws when you think about it.

In the end, I think that most of these issues came from them taking the criticism of The Force Awakens being way too similar to A New Hope and overcompensating for it. It seems like this movie goes out of its way to completely separate itself from any other SW movie, and in doing so a lot of things come across as being forced and/or rushed.

ok, i'll go into spoiler territory too for that

issue 2 : i dont know, i mean, if you are going to kill snoke anyway, why bother give him time to explain his background. it will be irrelevant when is cut in half anyway.

issue 3 : i think everybody went nut around the whole linage thing, but why she should have a lineage ? i mean, Jedi are not supposed to have kids anyway, so the skywalkers are suppose to be litterally the only jedi legacy in the galaxy. every other very powerfull jedi must have pop from nowhere... and why the force sensitivity should be heriditary anyway ? that would imply that the force is genetic, which is worst that the medichlorian explanation... You dont have to be somebody to be good with the force. that the whole point of the finale scene with the stable boy getting his broom with the force...

issue 4 : i have the impression that the shields in star wars in most case does not stop kinetic attack, but only energetic attacks. so any objects goes through, but an energy blast from distance will be stopped. and i have the impresson that the code break is more to get inside snoke ship without being detected.

i kind of agree on the others points.

the casino scene is... i actually dont see anywone saying on the internet that they liked this scene. seems to be univerally disliked.

Other than that, the rebel capital ship zipping through snoke's ship at light speed was crazy, and one of the most impressive scene i've seen. it was very cool.

i wonder why Yoda burn the tree and act like the books are gone when Rey have them. did Yoda knew they were gone when i burn the tree ?

i really think there will be a 10 years gap in the story between 8 and 9. you cannot go anywhere in the story when all the rebels left in the galaxy fit in the millenium falcon. so i really think that leia death will be mentonned only in the next movie opening crawl...

But, i really enjoyed the movie. probably in my top 4 out of 9 star wars.
Regarding Snoke: again, there's nothing wrong with having him be a stepping stool, but revealing some of his backstory is the difference between him being a talking plot device and being a character that serves as a plot device. Indeed, he's dead now...so who cares who he was, where he came from, how he came to power, etc. But in denying the audience that, they pulled the rug out of any kind of build-up that Snoke has as a character. I mean, he was the new Dark Lord, surely they could have had someone say something about how some apparently random guy came to be in full control of the remnants of the Imperial Fleet. But now, instead of making him a character that seres as a plot device, they decided to just straight-up make him a plot device.

Regarding bloodlines: this is one of my lesser issues (I misplaced it in my original list :p ) as indeed, it's not really a big deal if Rey's parents were just booze-hounds that sold her off for more money to buy booze. The larger issue at play here is the same as the one regarding Snoke's death without a background, though. The Force Awaken setup Snoke as being the new Dark Lord, so there were expectations for him. Similarly, Rey had those flashbacks during TFA that heavily implied that she was indeed the daughter of someone important. If what Kylo says is true, though (and to be fair there's actually not much reason to believe that he's speaking the truth) then all the setup from TFA was completely pointless.

The wasting of things setup during TFA is actually a common occurrence in the movie. Another example of this is how the Knights of Ren are nowhere to be found, despite that flashback where Rey sees Ren and (apparently) his posse of other dark siders in that torrential rain storm.

Regarding shields: the movie is a bit inconsistent with the way the shields are treated in this movie. As I mentioned: the reason they need a code breaker for the "disable the tracking device" plan is because they need a way past the shields on Snoke's ship. If small craft can get past shields (as seen with Poe's X-Wing and Kylo's TIE Fighter), why would they need codes to get past the shields? Another issue with the dreadnought is why bother having the top of the ship completely covered in guns if literally one fighter can take them all out once it gets close enough? Seems like a rather critical design flaw considering that in a big space battle there's bound to be numerous fight-size ships coming at you. But apparently once a single one gets too close then all of the turrets become simultaneously useless.

As I said, my biggest issue with the movie was the fact that the vice admiral doesn't tell anyone what the plan going forward is. She just gives a half-hearted speech about keeping hope alive and that's it. All she would have to do is say "Alright Poe, here's what we're going to do: we're going to keep on cruising out of range of the enemy fleet. We're getting close to a planet that has an old rebel base on it. When we're in range, we'll abandon ship on transports fitted with technology that prevents them from showing up on scanners. The cruiser will keep going as a decoy and we'll all safely land on the planet and from there we can plan our next move." If she says that - or something along those lines, just explaining the plan to Poe - then there's no need for Poe to go behind her back and send Finn and Rose off to the casino planet. If they never go there, then DJ never gets involved and the Stealth Transport plan goes off without a hitch because DJ isn't there to sell out the Resistance. So yeah, the biggest plothole in the movie is that the entire 2nd half of it doesn't need to happen if the vice admiral simply told everyone what the plan was. But she doesn't, and the only reason she doesn't is because the plot demanded that she didn't.

Onto the positive: again, I do agree that the spectacle of the movie was fantastic, particularly the hyperspace kamikaze. That part was indeed a very awesome sight. I've got no issue with any of the action sequences as I thought they were top-notch, and they're why I still say this movie was fun and entertaining to watch. I just really don't think that they handled the story well at all.

Regarding Yoda: this is one of the things I actually give props to the movie for. There seems to be some confusion around whether or not he was CGI or a puppet. To me it looked like they had a puppet that they put a CGI glow around since he was a Force Ghost, and if that's the case then I really appreciate them going with a practical effect rather than making him entirely out of CGI like the prequels.

As for why he burns down the tree himself when Luke hesitates, my guess is because he knows that being a Jedi is an ideal. The ancient Jedi texts are a nice symbol, but they're completely unnecessary. He even goes so far as to mock them: "Page turners, they are not." He's apparently read them and found them to be just a bunch of philosophical mumbo-jumbo. When you boil everything down, being a Jedi is simply being a vessel for the light side of the Force. Be a good and decent person, help those who are in need, protect the innocent, etc etc. You don't need ancient tomes to tell you that. So long as you're trying to spread the light to the galaxy then you're doing fine. Whether or not he knew that the books weren't in the tree anymore is hard to say. In the end, I think he was simply trying to motivate Luke into actually doing something to help the Resistance.

.........which does bring up another plothole/dropped thread from TFA. Luke left that trail of map pieces so that the resistance could find him should the dire need arise. It was a promise that he would come back and help when they needed him the most. Yet when Rey shows up, he staunchly refuses to help, and even says that he specifically went to that island so that he could die in peace. If that was the case...why the fuck would he leave behind a map that leads right to him? :p
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

New member
Aug 22, 2010
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Neverhoodian said:
Right, I'm just going to copy-paste my post from the WW because I can't be arsed to rewrite it all over again:
Neverhoodian said:
Sheesh, what a bunch of jaded cynics we have in here. I just got back from the theater, and I think The Last Jedi is great. It doesn't reach Rogue One levels of excellence and it certainly won't dethrone Empire as my favorite Star Wars film, but it has enough going for it to give it a respectable position in the pantheon for me.

I think part of the backlash in some circles can be chalked up to preconceived notions that turned out to be wrong...gloriously wrong in some cases. I'm not going to mention particulars here, but let's just say there's lots of butthurt fans right now that their precious character theories have been brutually eviscerated...and their tears are delicious.

Anyway, here's my initial impressions (spoilers follow, ye have been warned):
-Opening with a pitched space battle was very nice for a diehard starfighter jock like me...and with actual new ship designs to boot! I particularly liked the Resistance bombers, how they're clearly inspired by World War II aircraft like the B-24 yet still retain a distinctive Star Wars flavor. Too bad they were all blown to smithereens :(

-Luke tossing his saber over his shoulder was great. Lots of people are bitching about it, but I think it's perfectly in character. He was just offered an object that in his eyes represents his greatest failure and everything he hates about himself. Makes sense to me that he'd want no part of it.

-Luke's sullen, uncooperative demeanor in the first act. Again, people seem to dislike it because it's not "in character," but I'd disagree. Isolation changes people. You try living on a remote island for years with just distant caretakers and local wildlife for company and see if you can keep a chipper demeanor.

-Kylo Ren's Tie Silencer is rad. It's like a canon version of the Tie Avenger, one of my favorite Imperial ships from "Legends."

-Speaking of Kylo/Ben, his character is fleshed out a whole lot more here, particularly in his interactions with Rey. These are easily some of the best moments in the film as they try to get into each others' heads and understand one another.

-The showdown with Snoke. I loved how Kylo managed to trick Snoke into letting his guard down by masking his intentions towards him under the guise of supposedly killing Rey. It's just different enough to distinguish itself from Vader/Anakin defeating Palpatine in RotJ, and it indicates that the so-called "Supreme Leader" wasn't as powerful as he wanted others to believe. Besides, Kylo's a far more compelling villain than Snoke ever was. I for one am glad to see him gone.

-The lightsaber brawl with Snoke's guards. It was fun seeing all the different weapon types and fighting styles at play, from standard pikes and swords to whips and daggers. It felt like the best elements of duels from previous trilogies, with the flashy choreography of the prequels mixed in with the weighty, purposeful swings, blows and dramatic clashes from the classics.

-The reveal that Rey's parents were not in fact Skywalkers, Solos, Kenobis or any other famous family line. Nope, they were just a couple of nobodies who sold her for drinking money. It was as if I could hear millions of Rey theorists crying out in terror before being suddenly silenced. It. Was. Glorious.

-Luke's grand send-off at the end. I'm normally of the opinion that the series should stop trying to milk nostalgia and forge new paths, but that callback to the twin suns scene...goddamn.
-Was the gross-out scene of Luke chugging unpasteurized sea-cow milk necessary? First it was the rathtars in TFA, then Bor Gullet in RO, now this. What is it with modern Star Wars films and their obsession with adding stupid shit that involves unconvincing CGI beasties?

-The Porgs. They were tolerable in small doses, but by the time they had boarded the Millennium Falcon I found myself wishing Chewie had cooked up the lot of them...and this is coming from someone who didn't mind the Ewoks and Gungans.

-Leia's now-infamous Superman scene. On the one hand it was nice to see her finally using the Force in a proactive way (I still think not making her a Jedi was a huge missed opportunity). On the other hand, did it have to be such an extreme example? I don't care how Force-sensitive you are, surviving explosive decompression in the vacuum of space stretches credibility even by Star Wars standards. I half-expected her eyes to blow out of their sockets or instantly freeze over when she opened them. It also just felt awkward overall in the light of Carrie's passing.

-They killed Admiral Ackbar off way too early and in too subdued a manner. He should have been the one who covered the transports and went out with a bang spearing Snoke's star destroyer, not some broad we hardly know.

-The Finn/Rose subplot fell rather flat compared to the rest of the film. Also, Rose's apparent affections for Finn at the end came out of left field. I hope this doesn't turn into an awkward love triangle for Episode IX.

-The Canto Bight casino setting had potential, but it oddly felt too ordinary, like they just took a real world casino and threw some weird aliens in, hoping that would be enough. Hell, Dex's totally-not-50's-diner in Episode II was a more convincing Star Wars locale than whatever the hell that was supposed to be. Also, why do the (presumably orphaned) kids working the animal stalls look like they came straight out of a Charles Dickens' story? I mean, one of them was sweeping with a goddamn straw broom. Couldn't they have at least made it a futuristic repulsor-broom or something else that doesn't scream "19th century?!"

-Yoda appearing as a ghost, specifically the part where he destroys the tree and Jedi texts when Luke hesitates. It robbed Luke of his agency, forcing the decision out of his hand. This clashes with the way Force ghosts have been portrayed in the past, as passive spirits merely providing guidance and/or warnings. Even when Luke would disobey their wishes they never tried to take matters into their own ethereal hands like that. It just felt...wrong, to the point where I initially thought it was the work of someone like Snoke using Yoda's likeness to disguise his actions.
I've been thinking a lot on THAT scene with Leia, and were I given the chance to redo it, I would

instead have her use the Force to shield the rest of the bridge crew long enough for them to be rescued before dying due to decompression. All the grandeur of using the Force, but with none of the baggage that scene creates
 

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
8,687
0
0
Gordon_4 said:
Neverhoodian said:
Right, I'm just going to copy-paste my post from the WW because I can't be arsed to rewrite it all over again:
Neverhoodian said:
Sheesh, what a bunch of jaded cynics we have in here. I just got back from the theater, and I think The Last Jedi is great. It doesn't reach Rogue One levels of excellence and it certainly won't dethrone Empire as my favorite Star Wars film, but it has enough going for it to give it a respectable position in the pantheon for me.

I think part of the backlash in some circles can be chalked up to preconceived notions that turned out to be wrong...gloriously wrong in some cases. I'm not going to mention particulars here, but let's just say there's lots of butthurt fans right now that their precious character theories have been brutually eviscerated...and their tears are delicious.

Anyway, here's my initial impressions (spoilers follow, ye have been warned):
-Opening with a pitched space battle was very nice for a diehard starfighter jock like me...and with actual new ship designs to boot! I particularly liked the Resistance bombers, how they're clearly inspired by World War II aircraft like the B-24 yet still retain a distinctive Star Wars flavor. Too bad they were all blown to smithereens :(

-Luke tossing his saber over his shoulder was great. Lots of people are bitching about it, but I think it's perfectly in character. He was just offered an object that in his eyes represents his greatest failure and everything he hates about himself. Makes sense to me that he'd want no part of it.

-Luke's sullen, uncooperative demeanor in the first act. Again, people seem to dislike it because it's not "in character," but I'd disagree. Isolation changes people. You try living on a remote island for years with just distant caretakers and local wildlife for company and see if you can keep a chipper demeanor.

-Kylo Ren's Tie Silencer is rad. It's like a canon version of the Tie Avenger, one of my favorite Imperial ships from "Legends."

-Speaking of Kylo/Ben, his character is fleshed out a whole lot more here, particularly in his interactions with Rey. These are easily some of the best moments in the film as they try to get into each others' heads and understand one another.

-The showdown with Snoke. I loved how Kylo managed to trick Snoke into letting his guard down by masking his intentions towards him under the guise of supposedly killing Rey. It's just different enough to distinguish itself from Vader/Anakin defeating Palpatine in RotJ, and it indicates that the so-called "Supreme Leader" wasn't as powerful as he wanted others to believe. Besides, Kylo's a far more compelling villain than Snoke ever was. I for one am glad to see him gone.

-The lightsaber brawl with Snoke's guards. It was fun seeing all the different weapon types and fighting styles at play, from standard pikes and swords to whips and daggers. It felt like the best elements of duels from previous trilogies, with the flashy choreography of the prequels mixed in with the weighty, purposeful swings, blows and dramatic clashes from the classics.

-The reveal that Rey's parents were not in fact Skywalkers, Solos, Kenobis or any other famous family line. Nope, they were just a couple of nobodies who sold her for drinking money. It was as if I could hear millions of Rey theorists crying out in terror before being suddenly silenced. It. Was. Glorious.

-Luke's grand send-off at the end. I'm normally of the opinion that the series should stop trying to milk nostalgia and forge new paths, but that callback to the twin suns scene...goddamn.
-Was the gross-out scene of Luke chugging unpasteurized sea-cow milk necessary? First it was the rathtars in TFA, then Bor Gullet in RO, now this. What is it with modern Star Wars films and their obsession with adding stupid shit that involves unconvincing CGI beasties?

-The Porgs. They were tolerable in small doses, but by the time they had boarded the Millennium Falcon I found myself wishing Chewie had cooked up the lot of them...and this is coming from someone who didn't mind the Ewoks and Gungans.

-Leia's now-infamous Superman scene. On the one hand it was nice to see her finally using the Force in a proactive way (I still think not making her a Jedi was a huge missed opportunity). On the other hand, did it have to be such an extreme example? I don't care how Force-sensitive you are, surviving explosive decompression in the vacuum of space stretches credibility even by Star Wars standards. I half-expected her eyes to blow out of their sockets or instantly freeze over when she opened them. It also just felt awkward overall in the light of Carrie's passing.

-They killed Admiral Ackbar off way too early and in too subdued a manner. He should have been the one who covered the transports and went out with a bang spearing Snoke's star destroyer, not some broad we hardly know.

-The Finn/Rose subplot fell rather flat compared to the rest of the film. Also, Rose's apparent affections for Finn at the end came out of left field. I hope this doesn't turn into an awkward love triangle for Episode IX.

-The Canto Bight casino setting had potential, but it oddly felt too ordinary, like they just took a real world casino and threw some weird aliens in, hoping that would be enough. Hell, Dex's totally-not-50's-diner in Episode II was a more convincing Star Wars locale than whatever the hell that was supposed to be. Also, why do the (presumably orphaned) kids working the animal stalls look like they came straight out of a Charles Dickens' story? I mean, one of them was sweeping with a goddamn straw broom. Couldn't they have at least made it a futuristic repulsor-broom or something else that doesn't scream "19th century?!"

-Yoda appearing as a ghost, specifically the part where he destroys the tree and Jedi texts when Luke hesitates. It robbed Luke of his agency, forcing the decision out of his hand. This clashes with the way Force ghosts have been portrayed in the past, as passive spirits merely providing guidance and/or warnings. Even when Luke would disobey their wishes they never tried to take matters into their own ethereal hands like that. It just felt...wrong, to the point where I initially thought it was the work of someone like Snoke using Yoda's likeness to disguise his actions.
I've been thinking a lot on THAT scene with Leia, and were I given the chance to redo it, I would

instead have her use the Force to shield the rest of the bridge crew long enough for them to be rescued before dying due to decompression. All the grandeur of using the Force, but with none of the baggage that scene creates
That still begs a question, though...

To my knowledge Leia has never undergone actual training in the Force. I could accept her doing some of the minor tricks, even mustering up a big Force Push or Pull. But creating a big Force Shield to prevent everyone on the bridge from getting spaced is still a bit much. Sure, it's more plausible than an untrained person being able to use the Force to simultaneously prevent herself from flash-freezing in the cold of space and protecting herself from the effects of catastrophic decompression before flying herself back to a door (btw: when they opened the door that she was behind...wouldn't that have decompressed/sucked out everyone in that hallway? It's not like the door to the bridge was an airlock...), but even creating a bridge-sized safe zone seems like a pretty tall order for anyone that isn't a Master of the Force.
 

Wrex Brogan

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Jan 28, 2016
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Well, I saw it this morning, and I quite enjoyed it. Probably one of my favourite Star Wars movies too, though that isn't exactly a hard thing to do. I enjoyed quite a lot of it (despite the presence of the Porgs), mostly the space battles (which felt nice and meaty) and the combat (FINALLY MOOKS THAT CAN ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING), but also a lot of the force stuff within it,

Leia's Superman Scene. Yeah, yeah, I know everyone's having a complain about it, but I actually quite liked it, since throughout the series Leia's always been portrayed as force sensitive (and in one game I recall she's even a Jedi master you fight, for some reason), and even though she's never been trained in it, given that sensitivity I can kinda imagine what she did basically being a 'last gasp' reaction before death. A good hint at the power she could have had if she'd gone down the Jedi path, and something I felt tied into how the Force is not some weird Light/Dark thing, but simply an energy that people can wield).

Additionally, I quite liked a lot of the story components due to the... well, subversive nature of them. Poe Dameron is a bad-ass Rebel Maverick who gets the job done; the ladies love him, the guys want to be him and... turns out his reckless tactics often get people killed, his 'shoot-first-ask-questions-later' ideas make for incredibly poor long-term plans and all in all he really should've followed the chain of command and listened to the ADMIRAL telling him, a CAPTAIN, what to do.
Supreme Leader Snoke, Dark Lord of the New Order, a mysterious figure who corrupted Ben Kenobi and commands dark and terrible powers for some unknown goal... is murdered by the very apprentice he corrupted, whom he's constantly abusing or demeaning right in front of him, whatever grand plans he had ruined by his arrogance, especially in how he set up this connection between Kylo and Rey and then expected Kylo to immediately betray her when she was one of the few people who'd shown him any form of understanding.

Plus, all the Luke scenes were gold, and I quite enjoyed them bringing back the Yoda puppet instead of the CGI abomination from the Prequel trilogy.

That said, I do have a criticism about the movie:
The fuck is the point of bringing Phasma back if you're just going to have her get her ass kicked in 30 seconds and dropped into a fire pit? OH RIGHT, MERCHANDISING! At least her armour turned out to be the only suit of Storm Trooper gear that's actually laser resistant.
Also POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Neverhoodian said:
-They killed Admiral Ackbar off way too early and in too subdued a manner. He should have been the one who covered the transports and went out with a bang spearing Snoke's star destroyer, not some broad we hardly know.
To be fair, that was largely because his original VA died early last year, presumably before they filmed any of his parts proper - the VA in the film itself was the guy from the games, and I'm gonna hazard a guess that there was scheduling conflicts or something with Battlefront II or something so he couldn't do any major work on the film.
Or the Ackbar puppet broke and they didn't want anyone nitpicking a CGI replacement. Either or, really.
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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RJ 17 said:
Gordon_4 said:
Neverhoodian said:
Right, I'm just going to copy-paste my post from the WW because I can't be arsed to rewrite it all over again:
Neverhoodian said:
Sheesh, what a bunch of jaded cynics we have in here. I just got back from the theater, and I think The Last Jedi is great. It doesn't reach Rogue One levels of excellence and it certainly won't dethrone Empire as my favorite Star Wars film, but it has enough going for it to give it a respectable position in the pantheon for me.

I think part of the backlash in some circles can be chalked up to preconceived notions that turned out to be wrong...gloriously wrong in some cases. I'm not going to mention particulars here, but let's just say there's lots of butthurt fans right now that their precious character theories have been brutually eviscerated...and their tears are delicious.

Anyway, here's my initial impressions (spoilers follow, ye have been warned):
-Opening with a pitched space battle was very nice for a diehard starfighter jock like me...and with actual new ship designs to boot! I particularly liked the Resistance bombers, how they're clearly inspired by World War II aircraft like the B-24 yet still retain a distinctive Star Wars flavor. Too bad they were all blown to smithereens :(

-Luke tossing his saber over his shoulder was great. Lots of people are bitching about it, but I think it's perfectly in character. He was just offered an object that in his eyes represents his greatest failure and everything he hates about himself. Makes sense to me that he'd want no part of it.

-Luke's sullen, uncooperative demeanor in the first act. Again, people seem to dislike it because it's not "in character," but I'd disagree. Isolation changes people. You try living on a remote island for years with just distant caretakers and local wildlife for company and see if you can keep a chipper demeanor.

-Kylo Ren's Tie Silencer is rad. It's like a canon version of the Tie Avenger, one of my favorite Imperial ships from "Legends."

-Speaking of Kylo/Ben, his character is fleshed out a whole lot more here, particularly in his interactions with Rey. These are easily some of the best moments in the film as they try to get into each others' heads and understand one another.

-The showdown with Snoke. I loved how Kylo managed to trick Snoke into letting his guard down by masking his intentions towards him under the guise of supposedly killing Rey. It's just different enough to distinguish itself from Vader/Anakin defeating Palpatine in RotJ, and it indicates that the so-called "Supreme Leader" wasn't as powerful as he wanted others to believe. Besides, Kylo's a far more compelling villain than Snoke ever was. I for one am glad to see him gone.

-The lightsaber brawl with Snoke's guards. It was fun seeing all the different weapon types and fighting styles at play, from standard pikes and swords to whips and daggers. It felt like the best elements of duels from previous trilogies, with the flashy choreography of the prequels mixed in with the weighty, purposeful swings, blows and dramatic clashes from the classics.

-The reveal that Rey's parents were not in fact Skywalkers, Solos, Kenobis or any other famous family line. Nope, they were just a couple of nobodies who sold her for drinking money. It was as if I could hear millions of Rey theorists crying out in terror before being suddenly silenced. It. Was. Glorious.

-Luke's grand send-off at the end. I'm normally of the opinion that the series should stop trying to milk nostalgia and forge new paths, but that callback to the twin suns scene...goddamn.
-Was the gross-out scene of Luke chugging unpasteurized sea-cow milk necessary? First it was the rathtars in TFA, then Bor Gullet in RO, now this. What is it with modern Star Wars films and their obsession with adding stupid shit that involves unconvincing CGI beasties?

-The Porgs. They were tolerable in small doses, but by the time they had boarded the Millennium Falcon I found myself wishing Chewie had cooked up the lot of them...and this is coming from someone who didn't mind the Ewoks and Gungans.

-Leia's now-infamous Superman scene. On the one hand it was nice to see her finally using the Force in a proactive way (I still think not making her a Jedi was a huge missed opportunity). On the other hand, did it have to be such an extreme example? I don't care how Force-sensitive you are, surviving explosive decompression in the vacuum of space stretches credibility even by Star Wars standards. I half-expected her eyes to blow out of their sockets or instantly freeze over when she opened them. It also just felt awkward overall in the light of Carrie's passing.

-They killed Admiral Ackbar off way too early and in too subdued a manner. He should have been the one who covered the transports and went out with a bang spearing Snoke's star destroyer, not some broad we hardly know.

-The Finn/Rose subplot fell rather flat compared to the rest of the film. Also, Rose's apparent affections for Finn at the end came out of left field. I hope this doesn't turn into an awkward love triangle for Episode IX.

-The Canto Bight casino setting had potential, but it oddly felt too ordinary, like they just took a real world casino and threw some weird aliens in, hoping that would be enough. Hell, Dex's totally-not-50's-diner in Episode II was a more convincing Star Wars locale than whatever the hell that was supposed to be. Also, why do the (presumably orphaned) kids working the animal stalls look like they came straight out of a Charles Dickens' story? I mean, one of them was sweeping with a goddamn straw broom. Couldn't they have at least made it a futuristic repulsor-broom or something else that doesn't scream "19th century?!"

-Yoda appearing as a ghost, specifically the part where he destroys the tree and Jedi texts when Luke hesitates. It robbed Luke of his agency, forcing the decision out of his hand. This clashes with the way Force ghosts have been portrayed in the past, as passive spirits merely providing guidance and/or warnings. Even when Luke would disobey their wishes they never tried to take matters into their own ethereal hands like that. It just felt...wrong, to the point where I initially thought it was the work of someone like Snoke using Yoda's likeness to disguise his actions.
I've been thinking a lot on THAT scene with Leia, and were I given the chance to redo it, I would

instead have her use the Force to shield the rest of the bridge crew long enough for them to be rescued before dying due to decompression. All the grandeur of using the Force, but with none of the baggage that scene creates
That still begs a question, though...

To my knowledge Leia has never undergone actual training in the Force. I could accept her doing some of the minor tricks, even mustering up a big Force Push or Pull. But creating a big Force Shield to prevent everyone on the bridge from getting spaced is still a bit much. Sure, it's more plausible than an untrained person being able to use the Force to simultaneously prevent herself from flash-freezing in the cold of space and protecting herself from the effects of catastrophic decompression before flying herself back to a door (btw: when they opened the door that she was behind...wouldn't that have decompressed/sucked out everyone in that hallway? It's not like the door to the bridge was an airlock...), but even creating a bridge-sized safe zone seems like a pretty tall order for anyone that isn't a Master of the Force.
I admit it isn?t a perfect get out of nit-pick free card but I feel that being able to do it at the cost of her life would sit better with an audience for such a spur of the moment thing. Like maybe she?s felt the Force her whole life (which some lines in ROTJ do bear out) but never used it because it never felt like the right moment. Then there?s a split second where it all comes home to roost: the choice is everyone, or her. So she just digs deep and draws on everything she knows: every snippet of rumour, every half understood conversation with Luke, with her son and every instinct she?s ever ignored and channels the power of her father and the will of her mother in one glorious moment.

.......fuck me I went a little overboard there didn?t I?
 

404notfound

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I would say its a pretty solid film. I believe its the best so far out of the newer 3 (Force Awakens, Rogue One and this). Don't think it reached any lofty heights; it was still pretty derivative in places, had a few inconsistencies and there was a bit too much in terms of forced humour/tonal shifts. I'd say a 7/10.
 

spartandude

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Ok let me get a summary of my thoughts out the way and non spoilerery stuff. I thought it was really good. But it definately had it's issues and so far it's the weakest out the 3 new films. The acting is mostly great with the exception of one person in particular. The journey's (literal and emotional) the characters go through are also mostly great. I cried once... and also every time Leia was on screen. Some characters are wasted with one being my all time most hated Star Wars character. Sorry Jar Jar Binks, you've somehow been topped. And something I can't believe I'm about to say but the music was merely functional. While the music in TFA and RO wasn't the best it was still awesome but here it's not. Apart from reused or reworked tracks I can't think of a single piece that stood out.

Spoilers below.

The story as whole was interesting and thankfully not a copy of Empire. I love Empire, it's my all time favourite film. But after TFA was a copy of A New Hope I was worried we wouldn't be getting originality.

Luke really does steal the show here. His journey was brilliant. And before anyone says that it's out of character to try to kill children he didn't, he controlled himself in the end. He wanted stop another Vader from rising and was going to kill Ben but then realised that he shouldn't. And if anything this movie confirms that Infanticide is a Skywalker gene.

Poe gets screen time and goes from being an impatient blasty boom kind of soldier to realising that things might take more thought.

The older yet super sexy admiral chick with great hair was cool. And the scene where she sacrifices herself was beautiful.

Leia using the force! Say what you want but I loved it. And in general she's really good. I was interested to see what they would do with her in this after Carrie Fisher's death and I'm grateful that they didnt just kill her off but gave us what she gave.

And I do not care what anyone else says, Rose was awesome.

Kylo Ren has become a fantastic Villain. In TFA I didn't care for him but he has grown.

I couldn't stand General Hux. Remember when I said there was a character worse than Jar Jar? Well here it is. Sure the actor is talented but what he had to work with was painful. He spends the entire film being beaten up by his superiors, whining or being made to look a fool in that opening scene. And he's meant to be taken seriously? No!

Leading on from that we have what could've been an awesome character. Captain Phasma. Unlike Hux she's intimidating, has an awesome design and even a connection to one of our heroes. But once again has almost no screen time and seems to be actually killed off. She should be the military commander of the First Order but instead we get Hux.

And Snoke is also wasted. When he's on screen he's pretty damn good. But he's killed off before we get to know anything about him. Who is he? How did he become leader of the first order? How did he get to Ben and the other Jedi to corrupt them? Where did he come from? I still think he's a Palpatine clone. But we might not know. Unless they make his death pointless by bringing him back next film or release a novel.

The CGI was a bit...ehhh. Look when doing things like ships, droids, backgrounds or lasers it's absolutely fine. But the creatures suck. Especially those horse things. And bringing Rey so close to Snoke didn't add tension, it made him look even more fake.

And lastly Daisy Ridley flips a coin on whether she's going to act in a scene or not. When she does she is pretty damn good. But half the time, particularly the first bunch of her scenes she's a plank of wood.
 

jedisensei

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Neverhoodian said:
-Yoda appearing as a ghost, specifically the part where he destroys the tree and Jedi texts when Luke hesitates. It robbed Luke of his agency, forcing the decision out of his hand.
The texts are not in the Tree. They are on-board the Falcon, as seen in one of the closing shots of the film.

Yoda is letting on more than it initially seems when he tells Luke that "the library contains nothing that the young Rey does not already possess."
 

Scarim Coral

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So this is the place to talked well typed our opinion of the film eh?

For me it was good.

For the whole supposely copying Empire Strike Back arguement, it is a very different film when compared to ANY of the past films like for one thing, it start right after TFA! Past films usually take months or some timeskipped like ROTS! I would say it was like The Empire Strike Back at baseline only like Rey training is kinda like Luke training with Yoda and the Resistance took heavy loses like the Rebel did!

The downside I would says is that all of the battles you seen in the trailer is literally all you got! Also the new ships like the bomber and Snoke personal ships are all a letdown too! I gues Kylo starfighter was cool I guess?

Another example of it being different is the big bag Snoke well being smoked out prematurely but can be seen as prematurely as again, we still know little of him (I guess this is where the comic and other media will flesh it out).

I admit with all of the difference, it does make me wonder how the final part will be played out now? Obviously it will all tied down to Rey and Kylo (I kinda see the ending being like the Matrix Revolution in that they both died/ killed each other therefore it will be balance cos of no more Jedi and Sith altogether) but how will the Resistance will recover? There was like what? 30 of them left or what is the max capasisty the Falcon can fit in since none of their allies shows up? Speaking of the allies, I still find it baffling how there is no other faction or planet side forces that should of supported the Resistance? Surely wiping out the Republic planet did not destoryed all of their fleet or what remain of it? I mean watching the clone war shows, each planet should have some kind of an army?

Not nitpick

Chewbacca killing and trying to each one of the Prog was hillarious especially the sad one which I guess the one that Chewbacca was trying to each was its mother/ father?

That codebreaker they hire was random? So he coop up in the jailcell waiting for a client to show up?

The new asain characte was great althought I am bais (I'm asian) but hey she was more than an token character!

Sure Leia get to lived in the film but RIP Akbar! Speaking of Leia, how will she be killed off in the final film now? Get a heartattack or just faith or something?

Luke departure was great and an excellent farewell!

Speaking of the desease, will Chewbacca, R2 and C3PO will bite the dust too?

The new guards were cool but sadly were kinda useless but hey at least we saw them in action!
 

BloatedGuppy

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Overall it was pretty bad.

Superior to the soggy biscuit that was Rogue One, and vastly superior to the Ed Wood level shenanigans in the prequels, but a seriously problematic movie that half derails the entire tentpole trilogy.

Get the good out of the way...

1. Kylo Ren. Anyone bitching about this character or Driver's performance at this point...I have no idea what the fuck you want. The guy is doing a fantastic job, and the character is the only one with any semblance of depth or intrigue at this juncture.
2. The Porgs. They were fabulously annoying and used for good comic effect. It would have been so easy to turn them into mascots, but they remained an aggravation throughout.
3. The visuals on the salt planet were very striking.
4. Benicio Del Toro turned a very minor character into a marginally interesting one, delivering a thematic note we actually haven't heard before.
5. Laura Dern's character and the Battlestar Galactica-y mutiny. It was alright.
6. The force conversations/connection between Rey and Kylo. That felt VERY interesting, and I'm disappointed it appears to have fizzled out so pre-emptorily. Maybe they'll do something with it going forward. Probably the best part of the film as a whole.
7. Some of the other critters, like the village fish people, were amusing.

Now, the bad. Hoo boy.

1. No one advances an arc or moves the story forward in any meaningful way. By under-writing or backtracking most of Abrams mystery box silliness, the movie actually pulls off the remarkable feat of leaving us with LESS of a story than we started with. Poe remains static, Finn remains static (and repeats his character beats), Rey remains static, Kylo remains static. What was the point of the FILM, even? Watch them do some stuff? This isn't episode 7 of a 12 episode television series. This is episode 2 of a 3 episode film trilogy. You CANNOT spin your tires like this.
2. "Your parents were junk traders! Nobodies!" Okay then. Fascinating. A film full of bait, red herrings, prophetic visions, and this is your pay off. That's called a shaggy dog story, writers.
3. The Casino Planet sub plot and subsequent CGI monster spectacle, replete with doe eyed orphans, was pure prequel level tripe. Much like the tentacle monster sequence from Force Awakens, this feels like awful, pace-killing padding.
4. The entire "flight from the First Order" plot line that runs through the entire film feels overlong, never a quarter as tense as it should, and is constantly shot through with deus ex machina moments. Since when can light speed do THAT?
5. Leia using her "fly" power to re-enter the ship was hilariously cheesy. Either kill her or don't have her blown into space.
6. Luke turning into a Force Ghost out of...exhaustion? Apathy? That was a curious decision, and also felt cheesy (and more than a bit unearned).
7. Snoke abruptly dying after a few scenes of full-out camp villainy was terribly pointless. Again, don't build something up in one movie only to say "Ha ha! It all came to nothing!" in the second. Whether you like or hate the idea of him (and I always kind of hated him, especially his goofy name) is irrelevant. It's not good storytelling.
8. Rey is presented a critical obstacle in the form of a landslide blocking the escape of her friends. Has Rey struggled previously to lift heavy items? Is this some kind of crucial character building moment for her? No. She just lifts the rocks and they escape. No tension. Bad storytelling.
9. Finn looks like he's about to die to save the base, which would be a startling demise for his character, bring genuine pathos to the film, and give his character a reason for even existing in the film at all (which he didn't really have up to that point). Nope, derailed. Something about not killing what you hate, but saving what you love. That's what he was trying to do before you stopped him, spunky mechanic girl. Good work.
10. The entire rusty speeder vs walkers sequence came to nothing. They flew out, had a "suicide mission" that went nowhere, and ran back and escaped. Why? To what purpose? It looked neat, but again did nothing to advance the story.
11. When the super mega lightspeed jump of death eviscerates half the fleet and throws the hangar of the big capital ship into disarray, we rejoin Finn and Mechanic Girl and...where are all the troops surrounding them? Oh, they're way off in the distance, marching through some haze? How did that happen? CONTINUITY MATTERS.
12. Finn's big showdown with Phasma fell flat and felt unearned. "I identify as a rebel now, and I'm willing to fight for the cause!". Cool. That was his arc from the first film.
13. Luke's Jedi related ramblings to Rey are interesting and all, but nothing we didn't already know. They do not advance or enrich our understanding of the Force or the Star Wars mythos.

Everyone whined about Force Awakens because it hit many of the same story beats as New Hope, and was an aggressively safe...at times even cowardly...exercise in franchise rebooting. But it did things. It introduced a new world state. It introduced new primary characters and reacquainted us with former ones. It set a stage. The fuck did this movie do on that stage? It did NOTHING. We are left in the EXACT SAME POSITION as we left TFA in. Rey and Kylo are budding Force Users Supreme, and antagonistic. Leia is leading a plucky band of resistance fighters, small but resolute. Finn is a former First Order trooper who has developed a new sense of camaraderie with his fellows and is willing to fight for what he believes in. Poe is a hothead and really good pilot. BB8 is a round droid. Luke and Snoke exit stage right after some scenery mugging, while saying or doing nothing that informs the audience. Only, instead of a grab bag of intriguing (or annoying, depending on your perspective) mysteries and questions about what's to come, we've got...nothing.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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Just got back from seeing. What an absolute garbage fire of a shit movie. I mean fuck me, I knew it was going to be bad, but worse than Clone Wars bad?! Worse than Force Awakens bad?!

I'm looking back at the Prequel trilogy going 'Holy shit, a plot! A story broken up into a classic 3 act structure, and not just a bunch of randomly interchangeable scenes hacked together into a corpse in the editing room!'

When it wasn't lazily ripping off Empire, it was lazily ripping off Jedi.
Way to absolutely ruin Luke Skywalker. Way to turn one of the noblest heroes in modern culture into a whiny, unlikable old man who does nothing.

Also Rose McSpaceLady's 'Fight for those we love!' kiss scene is officially, legally, and morally the worst romantic line in a Star Wars movie. Congratz what's your face actress, you'll forever be remembered as out cheesing Sand is sandy and sand.

and at 2 and a half hours, I was really expecting you to tell a story or do something, Star Wars. You should feel ashamed Star Wars. Ashamed.

Excuse me, I have to go watch the Holiday special to try to get this terrible anti-Star Wars taste out of my mouth.
 

Callate

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I enjoyed it at the time. I think, overall, that I still enjoyed it.

But I'm beginning to feel that the people who have a problem with Rey may have a point.

Rey doesn't need help from anybody. Rey doesn't need to train to win lightsaber battles against people who have. Rey can use all the Force-based abilities despite having no training and apparently little concentration or understanding of the Force. Rey is a master-pilot from the get-go.

(And for those who insist on saying Luke wasn't any different, there's at least some suggestion that Luke has been piloting vehicles for most of his life- and he did go to Dagobah to train under a master, and still got his ass handed to him the first time he fought a skilled adversary. He also got beaten up by Sand People and thrown across a bar, whereas the first fracas Rey got into the filmmakers were so determined to show how awesome she was that she fought off two assailants single-handed.)

And for all that, I don't hate Rey. I wish they would tone the heroine-worship down, but she doesn't inherently irritate me.

But the one thing I do find hard to overlook- the film goes out of its way to go "No! Trying to do brave, desperate, long-shot, loose-cannon things is BAD! Going off half-cocked is BAD!"

...At least, when Finn and Poe do such things.

Rey allowing herself to be captured was every bit as stupid, under-planned, no-consultation, and longshot as anything Finn or Poe did.

But for her, it paid off.

Luke warned her not to. Snoke said the whole thing was a trick to lure her in. But, no... She's right, and Snoke's wrong, at least in this very limited way that allows her to fight her way out of trapping herself in a dead end at a disadvantage. And then she gets lucky when the ship gets rammed and she doesn't get herself killed either by chance or by Kylo Ren, to who she is now the sole significant obstacle between him and conquest of the galaxy.

Star Wars movies are all about bravely and defiantly carrying out desperate and sometimes foolhardy plans, whether it's disguising yourselves as stormtroopers and freeing a princess before jumping down a garbage chute, or guerrilla warfare on a forest moon to take out a shield generator on a deadline against a larger and better-armed force, or going to Cloud City against orders to try to save your friends from imprisonment and torture.

You want to make a point about flamboyant heroism getting people killed? That leadership takes planning and hard choices and sacrifice? Fine. But you don't then get to make exceptions to that for Rey. She gets to play by the same "You try to play hero, you get smacked down" rules as everyone else. Otherwise it's not really a theme, it's just hypocrisy.

Especially if you're going to have everyone get saved in the end by a deus ex machina anyway, which foolhardy plans succeed and which fail begins to seem awfully arbitrary.

(And perhaps your awesome leaders might think to have your bombers not fly in such tight formation that one getting hit blows up nearly every other bomber in the fleet, while you're at it...)
 

Dalisclock

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Callate said:
I enjoyed it at the time. I think, overall, that I still enjoyed it.

But I'm beginning to feel that the people who have a problem with Rey may have a point.

Especially if you're going to have everyone get saved in the end by a deus ex machina anyway, which foolhardy plans succeed and which fail begins to seem awfully arbitrary.

(And perhaps your awesome leaders might think to have your bombers not fly in such tight formation that one getting hit blows up nearly every other bomber in the fleet, while you're at it...)
In fairness, Star Wars is full of people who have no idea how military stuff works at all(or more accurately, the writers don't).

There's an episode of Clone Wars where a 10 year old with a blaster takes down a Republic Cruiser by shooting the reactor core a bunch of time, after knocking out the one guy standing watch down there. During a Red Alert of all things.

Nobody knew what Air Support was until around that time either(Force Awakens was the first film where someone thought of calling for an airstrike to help turn a battle).

And let's not forget the battle of Endor, where the Empires finest troops and the cream of their fleet was wiped out because they got too distracted by chasing ewoks around the forest that they forgot their main job was to GUARD A SINGLE DOOR for a few hours.
 

Kyrian007

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It was fine. Not as good as VII for several reasons but still enjoyable. Rian Johnson doesn't film an action scene very well (its all Greengrass shaky-cam and crappy looking because of it) but it at least had classic Star Wars stagefighting instead of the wire-fu flipouts of the prequels where idiots spend more time spinning and waving around lightsabers to look cool than they did actually fighting with them. Johnson doesn't have a good sense of appropriate comedic timing. Many of his jokes ruined a serious moment, or just fell flat to begin with... but he at least landed a couple (unlike the prequels.)

Honestly the biggest problem... reactionary. They (like idiots) listened to the fans. That will never result in a great movie. Nearly every "correction" to a perceived "problem" with episode 7 resulted in an episode 8 that could have been a lot better. The faction claiming "mary sue" about Rey led to an interesting development about her parents... but "giving in to the idiot fans on the mary sue issue" took far more of her screen time that would have just been better spent just developing her character. And for the rest of Ep. 8 "twists..." clearly chosen to go a different way than the popular theories out there on the internet... most of which really killed potentially cool storypoints. Who really was Snoke? Welp, fuck that... doesn't matter a tiny bit now. What's Luke gonna do? Apparently not much, or anything important that accomplishes anything. What are the ancient jedi teachings and how can they help? Well they can't, fuck the Jedi anyway... who needs them? Anything they built up in the superior episode 7 they threw out the door in 8 (with only Rey's parents being interesting) and just left the story a big blank "well, anything can happen now... try and make a theory out of THIS" slate. Well, theories and guesses keep interest going... and 8 didn't leave me particularly interested in seeing episode 9. Unlike 7, which made me want to see episode 8 the second the credits were rolling.

I was left with only 2 questions. Why didn't anything they set up in episode 7 matter, and why didn't Chewie just kill the unhappy porg and then feast on its delicious looking brother? Does cooked porg smell like skunk or something?
 

Jamcie Kerbizz

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BloatedGuppy said:
Overall it was pretty bad.

Superior to the soggy biscuit that was Rogue One, and vastly superior to the Ed Wood level shenanigans in the prequels, but a seriously problematic movie that half derails the entire tentpole trilogy.

Get the good out of the way...

1. Kylo Ren. Anyone bitching about this character or Driver's performance at this point...I have no idea what the fuck you want. The guy is doing a fantastic job, and the character is the only one with any semblance of depth or intrigue at this juncture.
2. The Porgs. They were fabulously annoying and used for good comic effect. It would have been so easy to turn them into mascots, but they remained an aggravation throughout.
3. The visuals on the salt planet were very striking.
4. Benicio Del Toro turned a very minor character into a marginally interesting one, delivering a thematic note we actually haven't heard before.
5. Laura Dern's character and the Battlestar Galactica-y mutiny. It was alright.
6. The force conversations/connection between Rey and Kylo. That felt VERY interesting, and I'm disappointed it appears to have fizzled out so pre-emptorily. Maybe they'll do something with it going forward. Probably the best part of the film as a whole.
7. Some of the other critters, like the village fish people, were amusing.

Now, the bad. Hoo boy.

1. No one advances an arc or moves the story forward in any meaningful way. By under-writing or backtracking most of Abrams mystery box silliness, the movie actually pulls off the remarkable feat of leaving us with LESS of a story than we started with. Poe remains static, Finn remains static (and repeats his character beats), Rey remains static, Kylo remains static. What was the point of the FILM, even? Watch them do some stuff? This isn't episode 7 of a 12 episode television series. This is episode 2 of a 3 episode film trilogy. You CANNOT spin your tires like this.
2. "Your parents were junk traders! Nobodies!" Okay then. Fascinating. A film full of bait, red herrings, prophetic visions, and this is your pay off. That's called a shaggy dog story, writers.
3. The Casino Planet sub plot and subsequent CGI monster spectacle, replete with doe eyed orphans, was pure prequel level tripe. Much like the tentacle monster sequence from Force Awakens, this feels like awful, pace-killing padding.
4. The entire "flight from the First Order" plot line that runs through the entire film feels overlong, never a quarter as tense as it should, and is constantly shot through with deus ex machina moments. Since when can light speed do THAT?
5. Leia using her "fly" power to re-enter the ship was hilariously cheesy. Either kill her or don't have her blown into space.
6. Luke turning into a Force Ghost out of...exhaustion? Apathy? That was a curious decision, and also felt cheesy (and more than a bit unearned).
7. Snoke abruptly dying after a few scenes of full-out camp villainy was terribly pointless. Again, don't build something up in one movie only to say "Ha ha! It all came to nothing!" in the second. Whether you like or hate the idea of him (and I always kind of hated him, especially his goofy name) is irrelevant. It's not good storytelling.
8. Rey is presented a critical obstacle in the form of a landslide blocking the escape of her friends. Has Rey struggled previously to lift heavy items? Is this some kind of crucial character building moment for her? No. She just lifts the rocks and they escape. No tension. Bad storytelling.
9. Finn looks like he's about to die to save the base, which would be a startling demise for his character, bring genuine pathos to the film, and give his character a reason for even existing in the film at all (which he didn't really have up to that point). Nope, derailed. Something about not killing what you hate, but saving what you love. That's what he was trying to do before you stopped him, spunky mechanic girl. Good work.
10. The entire rusty speeder vs walkers sequence came to nothing. They flew out, had a "suicide mission" that went nowhere, and ran back and escaped. Why? To what purpose? It looked neat, but again did nothing to advance the story.
11. When the super mega lightspeed jump of death eviscerates half the fleet and throws the hangar of the big capital ship into disarray, we rejoin Finn and Mechanic Girl and...where are all the troops surrounding them? Oh, they're way off in the distance, marching through some haze? How did that happen? CONTINUITY MATTERS.
12. Finn's big showdown with Phasma fell flat and felt unearned. "I identify as a rebel now, and I'm willing to fight for the cause!". Cool. That was his arc from the first film.
13. Luke's Jedi related ramblings to Rey are interesting and all, but nothing we didn't already know. They do not advance or enrich our understanding of the Force or the Star Wars mythos.

Everyone whined about Force Awakens because it hit many of the same story beats as New Hope, and was an aggressively safe...at times even cowardly...exercise in franchise rebooting. But it did things. It introduced a new world state. It introduced new primary characters and reacquainted us with former ones. It set a stage. The fuck did this movie do on that stage? It did NOTHING. We are left in the EXACT SAME POSITION as we left TFA in. Rey and Kylo are budding Force Users Supreme, and antagonistic. Leia is leading a plucky band of resistance fighters, small but resolute. Finn is a former First Order trooper who has developed a new sense of camaraderie with his fellows and is willing to fight for what he believes in. Poe is a hothead and really good pilot. BB8 is a round droid. Luke and Snoke exit stage right after some scenery mugging, while saying or doing nothing that informs the audience. Only, instead of a grab bag of intriguing (or annoying, depending on your perspective) mysteries and questions about what's to come, we've got...nothing.
It does feels like TFA set up a stage for 'something'. And then TLJ director took a piss on it, went 'taa-daa' some people laughed and cried 'great joke mate!'. Then Rian Johnson flipped J.J. Abrams, set the stage on fire and left with snark 'try to recover from that b#&ch' remark.
 

Kyrian007

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Oh, and since the mary sue thing derailed this thread for a while anyway...

Yes, Rey is super competent to a ridiculous degree and/or able to do things she shouldn't be able to... she's the HERO in a Campbell HERO'S JOURNEY. THEY ARE ALL that competent with plot armor.

The very reason its called "MARY SUE" isn't because people have a problem with the type of character, they have a problem with a WOMAN being that type of character. YES "chosen hero" storylines are camp and cliche... they are because THEY WERE SO POPULAR IT BECAME CLICHE. Almost nobody cared when it was Luke traveling kilometers per second bullseying a 2 meter port without a computer in favor of using a skill he had practiced for a couple of hours off and on. Nobody cared when it was a bunch of scientists with no prior "energy weapon" training never even accidentally crossing streams while shooting at the SAME GHOST. But apparently put a woman in the role... suddenly they're a 'mary sue.' And all the "well what about X guy, it was dumb and he was super competent" arguments... yeah, that's right. Easy to find the examples... after you need to defend yourself. Ultimately a hero's journey isn't good or bad because its protagonists are 'mary sues' or 'marty stus' or whatever. It actually all comes down to what they do with the character, genitals notwithstanding.
 

Hawki

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Kyrian007 said:
The very reason its called "MARY SUE" isn't because people have a problem with the type of character, they have a problem with a WOMAN being that type of character.
No. Just no. Rey could be a male and the same problems would apply.

Kyrian007 said:
Almost nobody cared when it was Luke traveling kilometers per second bullseying a 2 meter port without a computer in favor of using a skill he had practiced for a couple of hours off and on.
Differences:

-Luke had time to train in the X-Wing, and was established to be a competent pilot and a good shot already, not to mention that he needs help getting to the exhaust port. Rey, on the other hand, flies the Millennium Falcon with no apparent experience (the novelization stated that she'd trained in a flight simulator, but the movie doesn't specify this).

-Luke didn't defeat Vader until his third film. Rey defeats Kylo Ren in their very first duel, despite the lack of any Force training.

Last Jedi doesn't help in this regard. Three years pass between New Hope and Empire, so Luke had time to train then, and then spent at least a few days with Yoda. Rey, on the other hand, goes straight to Ach-To, and is able to connect to the Force instantly. That said, the film does make me more sympathetic to Rey. I mean, despite all this, I like Rey as a character, in terms of her personality. Last Jedi does at least put her through some hurdles that she doesn't overcome, in that:

She doesn't defeat Snoke, Kylo does. Also, this time, she doesn't defeat Kylo. Also, she doesn't get any closure for her parents per se. She's emotionally distraught by the revelations, and in the scope of the film, her legacy (and that of the Resistance) is effectively of failure, at least in the short term. She fails to turn Kylo to the Light side, she fails to save the Resistance as an actual fighting force, and if she has the hots for Finn, she's arguably failed in that too, since he now has a bond with Rose. Kylo tells her that she's a nobody, that she has no place in this story, and in the context of Last Jedi by itself, Rey doesn't do anything to disprove that assertion. She may be a powerful Force user, but right now, that can't save the galaxy or the Resistance.

While I have mixed thoughts on the film, The Last Jedi is ultimately a film about failure, and that applies to the protagonists, Rey included.