Star Wars The Last Jedi discussion (spoilers inside, you've been warned)

[NightWatcher]

I finally got to the theater this afternoon and while there were no big "a ha's" I'm very glad I had avoided all talk about it.








Seriously, if you MIGHT see this movie, get out of this thread now.
















I do have one observation to kick this thread off. It seemed like there were several acts of sacrifice that might be likened by some to show value in suicide missions. The biggest of those is when Laura Dern's character points the transporter at Snoke's ship. Also Fin tried to take out the battering laser but was prevented from doing so. So to did Rose's sister's act of sacrifice take out the ship early in the movie.

Resistance has to fight non traditionally and this movie seemed to depend on suicide attacks. Has the Reich wing, our own modern day First Order decried the use of such tactics yet? I'm sure they'll shit on this movie.

Feel free to add anything.

[lapucelle]

1. It's very much a woman-centric movie and I think

that this is the reason for some of the negative reviews from certain populations of fans.

I wish they had given Admiral Akbar a better send-off.

Seeing old Luke facing the binary sunset broke my heart. That was the scene in A New Hope that took my breath away back in 1977.

[lindysalsagal]

2. I realize fRump thinks he's dictator, but he can't even run a campaign or a white house. I'm

Not worried about him becoming a first order. But I did like how this film blamed the trouble on the 1%ers who turned out to be heartless, moronic gambling arms dealers.

It also drove home how many people follow evil forces like sheep, while others resist.

As far as 45's followers go, transferring galactic politics to our own is way to hard for their non-critically thinking brains.

[Gothmog]

3. I really enjoyed the Last Jedi

[d_r]

4. OK Spoilers

The biggest thing to me is that I can't imagine Luke Skywalker flipping out and going in to kill his nephew. On the other hand, this is sort of a cool thought thing though, because you can see it like this: Luke has a premonition of the awful things that Ben/Kylo Rin will do (destroy the jedi training, kill padawans up to star killer base destroying the republic planets and killing billions of people) and he is so hit by that that he goes to kill Ben/Kylo, but then catches his sense just as Kylo wakes up; Kylo had already been tilting towards the dark side, and seeing his uncle/ jedi teacher about to kill him with a light saber is what pushes him to the dark side. So there is a sort of greek tragedy to that. The whole theme of he movie is about failure. And this failure explains why Luke is hiding himself away and wants to be alone is all gloomy, and I get that and don't have a problem with him being written that way.

That said, I didn't enjoy the movie very much. And it isn't because I was disappointed that snoke was killed off so fast, I kind of liked that actually and I don't mind that he didn't have a back story. I also was not disappointed by Rey's back story, whether it is true or not.

I just found the movie too disjointed. I thought that the humor scene in the beginning with Poe was over done. It is tough to buy Hux as a frigtening leader when he is that cartoonishly stupid. Hux is such a terribly weak villain. He is a terrible naval commander, his own officers are rolling eyes at him.

I didn't like the slow speed bombing run against the dread naught. I didn't like how the bombs fell towards the dread naught in the absence of gravity in space. The one button remote control and the heroic girl just seemed too contrived. And it bothered me that Poe, in an attempt to portray him as cocky, didn't really have any concern for all the people that were lost in that attack.

I didn't like the whole slow speed chase. Look, I watched a new hope again. In the first minute, right after the ending of Rogue one, an imperial star destroyer chases down a rebel blockade runner and boards it. When Obi Wan and Luke meet Han Solo, Han is trying to impress them about the speed of the millennium falcon as a bargaining strategy. The example he uses is that he could even out run an imperial star destroyer.

Star Destroyers just aren't slow. But now we have this slow speed chase. For that matter, why didn't they just take a couple of ships and hyper space to the other side of them.

And some how, in the middle of this, Fin and Rose have time to get on an escape pod and fly to a casino planet, and jack around there for a while in a horse race thing and then come back and magically get on the star destroyer and all of that was for no point what so ever, except to give some screen time to Finn I guess And then they used this sub plot to waste captain phasma's appearance, which was just paltry. That whole thing was a stupid waste of time, and "oh, but the whole point is failure" doesn't really do it for me - none of that was necessary for the story.

And Rey kind of bugged me. She really is a Mary Sue. Grumpy Luke gives her three lessons, during the time of this slow speed chase, and she is like super jedi. Luke had to slug through degabah carrying yoda and standing on his head before he could lift a rock, she is like a levitating excavator. I know that ghost Yoda tried to pass that off as the light side powering up to match the power of the dark side or something like that, but I didn't find that very satisfying or fitting with the established story.

When Leah was ejected in to space I was so sad and thought "well, this is how they are going to handle it" and then she shows signs of life and I thought that she was becoming a force ghost. But then she floats her way back in to the ship, needing medical attention of course, but alive after a stint in space. What the heck. Now I am sitting there like "What?" We've seen a lot of very powerful jedi and sith and we've never seen someone try to pull that. Oh, by the way, Admiral Akbar just died, not a lot of concern about that though.

I find Kylo Ren to be the most pitiful villain. Darth Maul would have eaten his whiny butt. His grand father would have have smacked him silly. He is just annoying and sniveling.

I don't find his weird relationship with Rey to be interesting unless she is really his little sister and he spared her when the knights of ren, whoever they are, killed the students at the jedi temple and put her in to hiding after a little mind erasing. But if they end of doing that they are going to have to explain Han and Leah not recognizing her. Otherwise it isn't really any more interesting that the clone wars cartoon Alter of Mortis episode.

And what the heck with the hyper space in to the star destroyer. Ok, visually it was amazing. At the time I thought "well, why don't they just make hyper space missiles, or use ships piloted by droids, all the time?" But I get that mass times acceleration is important here. But why didn't the commander of the medic ship that was destroyed earlier do that after the evacuation of that ship rather than just be destroyed?

And ghost yoda acting like Thor to burn down the jedi force tree thing, when Luke had taken to the branches to plant more than one tree so they would be spread around, one of them was growing in Poe's yard when he was growing up.

I knew something was wonky with Luke at the end when they had made such a point to show us the sand turning red when anyone walked on it but then it didn't when he walked on it. I don't really mind that he used that force trick or that he ghosted after it. I get that if he had fought and died the first order would be using it as propaganda that they defeated him, but this way he goes out as inspiration to force kids with brooms every where. I get that and I am ok with it.

Finally, why in the world did they bring in the new Holdo? If Leah had done the hyper space trick we would have had a real emotional connection to it. But here is this new person that we aren't really sure we even like anyway making this noble sacrifice that doesn't really resonate. Who cares? If she had just told Poe her plan in the first place he would have never came up with the hair brain fin and rose scheme. She made herself as hard to like as Poe made himself.

So, to me, I ended up with four villains that were/are weak, and heroes that aren't that likable, and a hodepodge movie that is more like a bunch of strung together sub plots that were basically for no point.

[JCinNYC]

5. Great post

you summarized all of the issues i had with the movie.
It was like they were deliberately trying to undo the criticism of the previous movie being a reboot of New Hope.
So they came up with a ton of sub-plots to copy the style of Rogue without the character development necessary. And the sub-plots seemed pointless at best.

However - one good thing - we didnt get to see a new super-duper, extra large, death star/planet/sun/ whatever.

[Piasladic]

7. nice post

I really enjoyed your thoughts. While I do like sexist/racist idiots to cry impotently, there were too many holes/problems for me to really get into the movie...although seeing Ben/Kylo Rin without his shirt sort of made it for me.

[PJMcK]

8. Excellent details

You articulated my disappointments with the film. I've been a Star Wars junky since 1977 and have always felt the series was unbalanced in its story-telling and unevenness. The special effects are always great but you point out many logical fails that have bothered me.

By the way, how fast can one go in hyper-space? Han Solo claims that the Millennium Falcon can make 1.5 times light speed. That isn't very fast if you're trying to cross a galaxy that is at least 100,000 light years across.

Good post, d_r!

[NewJeffCT]

10. good post

I liked the movie overall, but did not love it.

I actually liked Kylo Ren more in this movie. In the first, he seemed to be more of spoiled whiny brat. This time, I thought he was more of a genuine threat.

Agreed on Laura Dern's character - would have been a great way for Leia to go out.

Agree on Rey being too much of a Mary Sue, though Luke was a bit of the male version (Gary Stu?) in the original movie.

Didn't like that Luke - the boy who never gave up on Vader - decided to try to kill Ben Solo. Seems out of character and certainly not something a Jedi would do.

I don't think it was a slow speed chase - it was high speed, but it just took way too long with nobody gaining ground - like two equally matched world class marathon runners going until one side runs out of energy.

[lindysalsagal]

11. Agreed. Add to all that, the pathetic kiss: yuck! Also, the lactating dinosaur thingy. Nasty.

Lots of weak, messy plotlines. I almost felt like they were making it up as they were shooting.

The screenplay needed a few more drafts and serious streamlining. Altogether NOT a JJ Abrahms film.

[Sancho]

16. I didn't like the movie, for much the same reasons...

and I've been a Star Wars fan since day one.

This movie was very disjointed, too many subplots that went nowhere.

The effects were good, but this won't be one of the better Star Wars.

[BlueTsunami2018]

6. It was just ok.

The good parts were great but the bad parts were “Phantom Menace” bad. It was too long, too jokey and too cutesy with the stupid animals and leprechauns and other nonsense. They could have cut forty-five minutes out and had a movie as good as “Force Awakens”.

The battle scenes were killer and I liked the new direction the story took. I just wish it didn’t have so much filler.

[PJMcK]

9. "...the stupid animals and leprechauns..."

Ha ha ha ha!!!

I agree with you, Blue.

The Porgs are ridiculous and the whole bit with the Caretakers was stupid.

The Vulpix were pretty cool, though. (wink)

[Alpeduez21]

15. The Porgs are an afterthought

The location where Rey's 'training' was filmed was teeming with puffins in real life. There was no way to digitally erase all of them so these creatures were added to the movie to explain why puffinlike creatures were on the island

[lindysalsagal]

12. Going back with another friend, today. Wonder if I'll like it more or less....

At least I adore Rey. She alone is worth it.

[lindysalsagal]

13. It's even more fun the second time! 4 things I didn't catch 1st time:

1. The film has one color:red. Everything is white, black, or gray. But the surface of the last planet was red. Electric buttons, the sith, the brooch on the guy in the casino, the trim on phasma's cloak.

2. When she goes into light speed to smash the ship, the sound stops, and you discover how riveted the audience is: they stop all eating, moving, anything. The audience almost becomes part of the film, because they,re totally silent. Cool.

3. Luke ends the way we met him: gazing alone at a burning sun. Cool.

4. I'm still not convinced of Rey's parentage....but maybe that's just me.

I sat in the second row in a rounded imax theater and it felt like I was in the battles.

[Willie Pep]

14. I thought the movie was fun but all over the place storywise.

I will try to see it again because I thought the film was all over the place and didn't really know what it wanted to be. Also, it was too long. The script really needed to be worked on more and tightened up.

Maybe I will like it more on a second viewing when I take my father to see it. He is a big Star Wars fan and I want to see what he thought about it.