(SPOILERS) The Last Jedi discussion

[TheMarine0341 4,973]

WARNING

THIS DISCUSSION WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

THE OP ONLY WILL BE CLEAR OF ANY SPOILERS.

I will not include further post with any spoiler tags. You have been warned, and its now completely your call to continue reading. And now, my fellow Sith and Jedi: Discuss!

 

[TheMarine0341 4,973]

Pls No Merge...

(Spoiler-ish)

The wizened old master is supposed to be a master, not a whisper of his former self rotting away on a damp backwater planet doing everything he can to keep anyone from finding him. Old magic trees and dead masters coming back as ghosts? We have officially jumped the shark.

To say nothing of the entire main plot of the movie. The heroes' fleet just... flees? What is this, a car chase?

Meanwhile, the heroes fly off to a city full of rich people to find the one guy in the galaxy who can save them, only to later be double crossed? And the bad guys don't win by outsmarting the good guys, but by paying someone off?!

Giant robot dog tanks? Huge white planets? Reveals about characters' parents during epic throneroom showdowns that aren't what the audience expected??

Cute aliens??!?!

The Empire Strikes Back needs to be removed from the Star Wars canon. I hope they can finally get this right in Episode VI.

[Canadian_Reaper 90]

And bombers that drop gravity bombs! Vs Spaceships!

And the First Order that needed a secret weapon to blow up the Republics Capital , now seems to have a fleet large enough that they just took over the Republic without any issues at all

And a Fleet of Ships chasing the rebels can't actually catch them, or send out their fighters to attack the rebels..."because"

And the Super Powerful Leader of the First Order who managed to rebuild the First Order out of the Empire's remnants just dies...because

And a fleet that has 6 hours of fuel..which is apparently more than enough time to fly to another planet, look around, get thrown in jail, break out of jail,and fly back to the fleet .

And Captain Phasma, who we were told was such a badass in Episode VII, then were promised to see her redeemed as a REAL badass in Episode VIII..gets dropped into another pit/

And a visit to a salt planet , which is Hoth pt2 ,except much less cool. 

 

I didn't love VII that much, I did love Rogue One, this one...this one was crap.

Really liked Mark Hamill..had no idea he could be so good, and I really liked the "fuck it all I'm going to live on a planet where I have no real responsibilities" , but that was about it.

 

[OOPMan 1,266]

Overall, I was disappointed.

There were some good bits and they were really good.

But unfortunately, there were many more bad or mediocre bits that drowned the good bits.

54 minutes ago, Canadian_Reaper said:

Really liked Mark Hamill..had no idea he could be so good, and I really liked the "fuck it all I'm going to live on a planet where I have no real responsibilities" , but that was about it.

Hehehe, obviously someone hasn't been keeping tabs on his epic role as The Joker in the Batman animated show...

2 hours ago, TheMarine0341 said:

Meanwhile, the heroes fly off to a city full of rich people to find the one guy in the galaxy who can save them, only to later be double crossed? And the bad guys don't win by outsmarting the good guys, but by paying someone off?!

Yeah, that code-cracker dude...that was bad. It's one thing to have a MacGuffin device, but having a whole MacGuffin character...very poor writing.

[Spartan96 1,026]

I get they want to start a new and fill a new cast but jesus christ they killed pretty much every character from original trilogy cept Chewie, r2/c3p0 and leia. (of which Carrie Fisher unfortunately is not with us anymore so she'll not be returning after Episode 9) 

Plus the whole *Can track them through hyper space now* insert is annoying that its even canon. 

[Balthazars 210]

2 hours ago, Canadian_Reaper said:

And bombers that drop gravity bombs! Vs Spaceships!

And the First Order that needed a secret weapon to blow up the Republics Capital , now seems to have a fleet large enough that they just took over the Republic without any issues at all

And a Fleet of Ships chasing the rebels can't actually catch them, or send out their fighters to attack the rebels..."because"

And the Super Powerful Leader of the First Order who managed to rebuild the First Order out of the Empire's remnants just dies...because

And a fleet that has 6 hours of fuel..which is apparently more than enough time to fly to another planet, look around, get thrown in jail, break out of jail,and fly back to the fleet .

And Captain Phasma, who we were told was such a badass in Episode VII, then were promised to see her redeemed as a REAL badass in Episode VIII..gets dropped into another pit/

And a visit to a salt planet , which is Hoth pt2 ,except much less cool. 

 

I didn't love VII that much, I did love Rogue One, this one...this one was crap.

Really liked Mark Hamill..had no idea he could be so good, and I really liked the "fuck it all I'm going to live on a planet where I have no real responsibilities" , but that was about it.

 

Yep, as per comments in the other thread, a lot of this stuff bugged me too.

Gravity bombs v spaceships. Why? Why not just fire all those explosive as missiles with propulsion? I'm not even upset about the 'science' behind it (gravity in the ship to give momentum, gravitational effect of the target given it's clearly quite a massive object etc.) but logically it makes no sense because it would be the least efficient way of attacking an enemy capital ship, given we know they have the technology for missiles.

Yep, the New Republic was apparently a pacifist organisation with no apparent military. Unwilling to confront another organisation (the First Order) that clearly has no intention of living peacefully alongside you, unable to stop them getting their hands on a whole lot of old Empire military tech, and then rolling over and dying despite said enemy losing their super-weapon after one shot (which must have taken a ridiculous amount of resources to build. If the First Order's standard military was so powerful it could take over all of known space so easily, why bother with the super-weapon in the first place? Just build more of these 'fleet and base killing' dreadnoughts and go roll the enemy.

The villains are ridiculous. We know nothing about Snoke. Who is he? Where did he come from? How did he get so powerful with the Force and yet escape everyone's notice for so long? How did he get inside Kyolo's head? How did Luke and Leia know that he was the one responsible for turning him (unless they're just assuming that after the fact)? Why is he intent to raising a new Darth Vader when he isn't a Sith? What is his motivation for trying to Take Over The Galaxy(tm) now all of a sudden? Apparently, all of it not relevant because he gets sawed his half. Okay.

Once that happened, it was obvious Kyolo wouldn't turn, because there are otherwise no antagonists. I actually don't mind his story, it's one of the better bits of the movies. He's a young guy that feels betrayed by his master and struggling to live up to an expectation set on him. He wants to cast all of that off by killing everyone. It's more interesting as villain backstories go. But he's such an attention-grabbing emo teen it's impossible to like him. I give kudos to the performance by Driver though, it's pretty convincing (as in enough to make me dislike him as an actor now).

As noted, Phasma is a joke. Falls for the lamest of all sucker-punches and falls into the fire. May or may not be dead, but right now, who cares!

It's entertaining in places, but the writing is so bad that it feels hollow as a movie, like it just sits there on its own and doesn't contribute anything towards an overall narrative. Average.

 

[tajj7 560]

Yep.

Apparently the cute aliens, the one Chewbacca was eating, then didn't (that bit was actually funny) were because the island they filmed that on was full of puffins so they had to CGI them into something else. I didn't really mind them, thought that bit was alright.

But the whole casino section was awful and so felt like prequels, here lets CGI a load of weird aliens and do some funny skits with them.

Rey's parents being nobodies was massively disappointing (hopefully it's a lie) and was completely disconnected from the first film where they built this up, and whilst I get that they are trying to say with Rey and Finn that it doesn't matter where you come from you can still be something (confirmed with the little Jedi boy at the end in the stables), I still thought it was better for her to have a proper lineage so we know where the character comes from.

The whole chase thing? What was happening there.

As people have said, bombers in space that drop gravity bombs. what?

And in the first film not only did the first order somehow by blowing up what 4-5 planets destroy the entire New Republic fleet across the whole galaxy, they also despite losing their main base and thousands of soldiers, they are suddenly in control of the galaxy and have enough resources to have bought or built huge super ships as big as the old super star destroyers that the Empire had (which in the extended universe even the Empire did not have many of these) how have they afforded all that? 

And how is the resistance so small, it's like 400 people and about 5 ships, the Rebel Alliance was bigger than that, their Main fleet had like 20-30 ships at least, some of those must have survived and how have they not built more, IIRC the Mon Calamari homeworld is where they build all those big cruisers yet they haven't managed to build more than one in like 20-30 years?

 

Skywalker was massively disappointing, why the hell did he leave this map to find him, when he is not interested in being found, this is Luke Skywalker FFS, the guy that was so optimistic he saw the good in Vader, yet apparently he senses a bit of dark side in Ren and decides to kill his own nephew. And then doesn't want to come help save the galaxy and his own freakin sister.

Then, when they had the chance to save that bit, instead of him being there and being this cool jedi master challenging a whole army on his own, he is just a force projection of himself and he just dies from exhaustion.  Very lame end. 

Also why bother showing us his X-Wing in the water if he is not going to use it, he is re-ignited with R2, he could have swooped in and started blowing up AT-ATs in his X-Wing and then faced down Kylo-Ren. 

 

The whole film was terribly written and staged, full of plot holes, too much forced humour, bad endings to epic characters, showhorned in merchandising opportunities and the worst bit is the massive disconnect from the first film which was promising and built up all these story lines most of which were not followed up on or were massive damp squibs (like Phasma, Rey;s parent's etc.) 

[Deusmortis 4,618]

Everything the movie did in space bothered me.  Some of it has already been covered.

Why does the Supremacy (Snoke's ship) have guns that fire in arcs?  That's about as dumb as having bombs that depend on gravity in space.  

First Order grew out of the Empire.  Empire got beat by fighters on multiple occasions.  Why the hell hasn't the FO built better anti-starfighter capabilities into their fleets?  A single X-Wing can take out enough of the defenses on a dreadnought to render it vulnerable to bomber attack?  How terrible are their point defense systems?  And why couldn't the fleet swarm Poe with massed fighters?  Doesn't matter how good of a pilot you are if you're in a 100 vs 1 situation.  

And the space chase?  The FO can't jump a ship or two ahead of the rebel fleet?  The FO doesn't have ANY ships fast enough to catch the rebs?  They can't launch a fighter strike and take down/damage the engines?  

I saw the thing days ago and the whole space bit still pisses me off.  I could write a few pages about it.

 

Finn/Rose arc was useless.  A complete waste of time.  Boring throughout, poorly thought out, preachy at times, and good for nothing but wasting time.

 

The Luke/Rey/Kylo arc, on the other hand, kind of saves the movie for me.  I enjoyed almost everything there.  Except for Snoke's chump death.

 

I think this is the 3rd worst SW film to date, only beating out episodes I and II.

[Reppic27 78]

The issue with VIII is the fact that so much more information is needed to really make the movie make sense... In VII much more information was needed about Fin, unfortunately the movies didn't provide it all, books and comics did but like VIII if you didn't know of the comics/books/games you're missing some KEY things.

For example, the Dreadnought, gravity bombs, why? Well apparently Battlefront II DLC campaigns answers that "somewhat". In the game you steal plans on the Dreadnought and how to kill it. Not explained in the movie.

Rey's parents... disappointment yet it doesn't make sense. I re-watched VII before and after VIII and there are so many cues that Rey and Ben are related. But if that's the case did Han and Lea know? Doubt it, their love for Ben was so apparent that there is no way they would ignore the fact they have a daughter, unless they didn't know? Mystery... hopefully Ben lied to her and she isn't the child of useless people. Lastly, the movie is slightly different than the books in the regard. 

Luke's X-Wing in the water. Relevant, absolutely, given enough information? Nope.... I had to research this one, found an exert from either an article or a book about why the X-Wing is in the water, apparently it is destroyed, Luke destroyed it and used parts to facilitate his living. Very unnoticeable but most of his equipment and the hut doors are from the X-Wing. The movie portrayed this as a symbol of "he can't leave look his X-Wing is under water!" But us SW die-hard fans know Luke can easily pull it out of the water (Hello Empire Strikes Back!).

Snoke... ah this one was interesting. We know nothing.... I tried to research ANYTHING and found an interview with a writer, who said if you look at the Emperor specifically, in IV, V, VI we knew nothing of him until I, II, III so they are following this sort of plot. His death though was.... very disappointing however theorists believe he is Darth Plagueis with his special ability to reincarnate. Who knows. The writers just confirmed that it was necessary for him to die to Ben/Kylo can ascend into full power.

Phasma's death was also a "WTH" moment, unfortunately I don't know much other than the comics/book portray her as a big deal in the SW cannon, for her to die so quickly feels wrong. But we don't actually see her die,maybe she'll be back?

Luke's death... Probably the most controversial scene. We were given a hint that projecting himself across worlds is very intense and can kill a man (beginning of VIII), but he died so abruptly afterwards... and apparently... what he say caused him to die (or be at peace). But what did he see? Well we see two suns, homage to Tatoonie's "sunsets". But I had a friend say he saw a spec in the larger sun, and after we re watched the movie, I can confirm. Something is there in the distance...what is it ? And why did it cause Luke to be at peace (die). 

[Balthazars 210]

4 hours ago, Deusmortis said:

I think this is the 3rd worst SW film to date, only beating out episodes I and II.

For me, I'd rank this above (slightly) TFA and below Episode I. Episode II is the worst for my tastes by a long margin, it is just full of stupid. The only great moment (as in laugh out loud hilarious) was seeing Yoda jump around like a hyperactive rabbit.

Episode I is saved in all kinds of ways for me by the Duel of the Fates. That is the first time I really though "whoa, damn" when watching a lightsaber battle. While it's probably because I love a good racist stereotype, but I found the Japanese-accented trade federation and Jar Jar actually kind of hilarious.

I found TFA so utterly boring and average. I actually predicted the entire main plot just from watching trailers. I'm terrible that predicting movies, that should not be happening! I only enjoyed the action scenes in TFA, at least TLJ had some good acting and character stuff (Luke and Kyolo mostly). And how the laser on the starkiller base worked irked me no end.

[Folterknecht 2,257]

 

[TheMarine0341 4,973]

Ive watched it twice now

The Last Jedi (TLJ) did several things which I did not see as possible, given the mess we were granted with The Force Awakens (TFA).

1) Luke is physically no longer in existence. And, tastefully done. It makes sense to me given the story they were handed by JJ (I also believe if they had known Carrie was going to die, it would have worked out differently)

2) THEY GAVE US A FUCKING YODA CAMEO!!! And, it made sense!

3) I have issues with the way Leia's powers were displayed. But, what it does show is her natural affinity for the Force in the first place. (but, korny as fuck)

4) Sacrifice meant something. Sure, the Death-Star-Planet killed billions. Oh well. The opening scene had sooo much more impact just from 1 person's sacrifice

5) The silence after ramming the last Order with the starship in light speed... perfect.

6) Yes, the movie had its flaws. But, I can appreciate how the genre of the Force was pushed

7) The entire theme of the movie makes sense: Failure is the best teacher. There cannot be a perfect hero, nor can there be a perfect villain. I don't think anyone was really supposed to succeed this movie, and was an attempt to add layer to its characters beyond "Light=Good. Dark=Bad. Kill each other"

8 - The complexity of Kylo Ren is something missing from Antagonist. His character arc makes SENSE for a change

[Rodrigopine 184]

The Last Jedi is a very uneven film with a lot of the sins originating in the writing, most of which have been touched upon earlier in this thread. There are a couple additional points I'd like to make.

I think the Poe mutiny sub plot was also pretty terrible and kind of goes against how he was set up in TFA. He was the guy entrusted to find Luke's map. I doubt they would have sent their 'loosest cannon' on such a critical mission. I understand the need to have character faults but why not go the 'loyal to a fault' route instead of 'guy who does his own thing no matter what' especially when it goes against the logic of the preceding movie.

As an aside I think Kylo getting the better of Snoke is fine because one of the most powerful darkside abilities is clouding force precognition. That was one of the great things about Darth Sidious in the prequels. None of the Jedi suspected him until it was far too late. Unfortunately there isn't even the barest of nods as to how Kylo tricked him, not even a throw away line ex post facto. Something that would at least tie it to something in canon. So in that regard I think it was also mishandled as was Snoke's origins/back story.

Overall it's a fascinating film in the sense that you have an exquisitely crafted film with some great practical and CGI effects, excellent fight choreography, set design but some bafflingly dumb writing that hasn't been seen since Episode 2.

[Errants 425]

2 hours ago, Rodrigopine said:

As an aside I think Kylo getting the better of Snoke is fine because one of the most powerful darkside abilities is clouding force precognition. That was one of the great things about Darth Sidious in the prequels. None of the Jedi suspected him until it was far too late. Unfortunately there isn't even the barest of nods as to how Kylo tricked him, not even a throw away lineex post facto. Something that would at least tie it to something in canon. So in that regard I think it was also mishandled as was Snoke's origins/back story.

 

See, I felt that was actually TOO heavy handed, with the cuts back and forth between the two lightsabers. If the narration by Snoak had been the same, with just shots of Snoak, Kylo's saber, and Rei's face - Then a jump cut to Rei's face at the end when Luke's saber ignites instead of Kylo's... THAT would have been great. Instead, the moment I saw Luke's saber in a shot, I knew what was going to happen, and that Kylo had shielded his own/clouded Snoak's enough for a coup.

[Rodrigopine 184]

1 hour ago, Errants said:

See, I felt that was actually TOO heavy handed, with the cuts back and forth between the two lightsabers. If the narration by Snoak had been the same, with just shots of Snoak, Kylo's saber, and Rei's face - Then a jump cut to Rei's face at the end when Luke's saber ignites instead of Kylo's... THAT would have been great. Instead, the moment I saw Luke's saber in a shot, I knew what was going to happen, and that Kylo had shielded his own/clouded Snoak's enough for a coup.

Yeah, I guess I wasn't clear with my earlier comment but I do agree with your point that how the scene was assembled was heavy handed. Too much lead up.

 I liked the concept of Kylo getting the better of Snoke because that was something Vader never managed with Sidious. So in essence although Kylo feels inferior to his grandfather he actually isn't so it's a nice contrast; Anakin was arrogant and that led to Obi Wan maiming him where as Kylo feels inferior and aspires to be a worthy successor but has nagging doubts about his abilities. But even with that limitation he manages to assassinate Snoke which potentially means he might be stronger than Vader was even if he doesn't believe it himself.

[conjay810 14]

The whole film is retarded. I thought the film was over as per usual after the Villain dies (Snoke)/good guys run away, but they somehow dragged another hour of battles into it. In fact, there were several arcs in the film that made it very long and poorly paced.

The "allahu akbar" with the cruiser pissed me off, since it totally invalidates all space combat in the universe, since apparently any ship with a warp drive can now kill a giant fucking ship by just pointing its nose at it and...WHAM! Speaking of giant fucking ships, as a previous poster noted, what the fuck is the First Order? We see absolutely no explanation for it at all still. Somehow, only 400 resistance fighters, and only a few supporters that wont even come help scattered around the galaxy, after the last "evil empire" was destroyed <50 years ago... perhaps these "evil empires" are more effective than the eternal resistance, and thus more popular? Perhaps the tyrannical governments that keep managing to pull enough funds to build gigantic battlefleets and superweapons are also pulling enough funds to at least keep large segments of the population well-fed and happy, while the "good guys" can't run a government to save their lives?

The film also constantly recycles old-ass tropes and abuses plot armor to a ridiculous degree. Every single time a group of good-guys is under fire, ships around them explode one after another, yet they always escape. Finn and Rose are about to be executed, but instead of shooting them, they slowly pull out their tazers.... "on my mark" and then the jihadi cruiser hits. Rey continues to be overpowered, as she somehow swordfights opponent after opponent to death while being female and having no training; consider that the Red Guards could often kill Jedi in close combat, while Kylo Ren had been training for years and years. 

Others: Apparently only the big bad super SD has guns at all, since the other destroyers never fire a shot during the whole film; meanwhile, the super star destroyer apparently lacks the firepower to destroy a single cruiser or even hurt its shields. The Empire(s) seem to have not learned the lesson that small ships>>>>>>>>Big ships in Star Wars, so they forgot to put anti-fighter guns on/armor them at all, or bring enough fighter protection with effective central control despite every ship having gigantic, massively exposed and largely unarmored bridges for no reason at all.

[Errants 425]

Your points are invalidated by your misogyny. Go fuck yourself.

[conjay810 14]

1 hour ago, Errants said:

Your points are invalidated by your misogyny. Go fuck yourself.

are you memeing?

[Errants 425]

3 minutes ago, conjay810 said:

are you memeing?

Communicating solely by memes? I doubt it.

Quote

Rey continues to be overpowered, as she somehow swordfights opponent after opponent to death while being female and having no training

 

Bolded for emphasis. Again, go fuck yourself.

[conjay810 14]

Perhaps I worded it poorly... at peak levels (I.e where Red Guards, Kylo Ren, Luke are) of physical activities (physical combat such as lightsaber combat) it is biological reality that even the peak female, let alone a untrained one such as Rey, cannot match a peak male. No need to be so salty.

[Archaic_One 1,853]

Casino scene = hunger games

Cute birds all over Mellenium Falcon = trouble with tribbles

Rey in training = Sakka from the Avatar (which Hamil was a part of)

Cute giant anthropomorphic faced horse = never ending story (I'm reaching a bit, google Falkor)

What they did poorly: space, light speed, Leia using the force in space, girl power, Laura Dern wearing a purple ball gown, cheaply killing Akbar, IS EVERY FUCKING PERSON NOW A GREAT PILOT OF ANY CRAFT EVEN ANTIQUE MONO-SPEEDERS?,  BB-8 fighting and killing (that one really bothered me), Phasma getting pwned, muppet Yoda visual effects, more timeline discontinuity than an 80's soap opera, the existence of 'general' Hux 

What they did well: The budding love story between Ben and Rey, everything about Lukes swan song at the end, the greatest pole vault in the history of cinema, Benecio Del Toro's stutter, muppet Yoda dialogue, Rose, the little kid at the end, Kylo not turning, Rey not turning, Chebacca cooking a beautifully basted bird on a stick over a campfire

Forgive me for what I am about to say.  I think even Phantom Menace was better than this installment, I rate it as the worst of the 8.  It never has that moment where you sit back in your seat and say 'Damn!' that all of the others had.  It tries to be too many things for too many characters.  Even in the prequels, Lucas never deviated from the story of the core characters.  Luke, Leia, Han, Vader - Ben, Anakin, Padme, Palpatine.  They dominated the dialogue and everyone else was a supporting character who's back story was widely unimportant.  Both VII and VIII go way too far in trying to be vehicles for everybody when the story should really be about just Rey, Finn, and Kylo.  This is where the story jumps the thread and sadly also the shark.   

[conjay810 14]

tfw people downvote you even more for explaining your position using facts than for posting a opinionated review

[HS5 139]

Not surprising, your comment was stupid on so many ways. First, it's wrong. As long as winner of physical activity is not decided just by raw power, women can match and win men in many sports. Second, hello, it's a fantasy world! Last time I checked in SW world physical aspects don't really define the power of individual. I don't see many people complaining how Yoda can fight and win much bigger men even he is so small.  

[kaneaaa 18]

I think the second film in each series is supposed to be the "depressing" one. I kind of like the fact that the good side is so very fragile and small.... it's a good lesson for life, where good things which turn out to be great things have a period of being all but destroyed (or seemingly so), with only hope to cling on to. 

 

This film could never approach any feeling of real satisfaction, as it is not the point of the film to achieve that...rather it anticipates the next one entirely, and hopefully you will see this film a lot more better in the context of what comes after... it's supposed to be largely depressing and frustrating, in terms of narrative 

 

Like I said, its a good reflection of different seasons of life: this is meant to be winter...

[conjay810 14]

18 hours ago, HS5 said:

Not surprising, your comment was stupid on so many ways. First, it's wrong. As long as winner of physical activity is not decided just by raw power, women can match and win men in many sports. Second, hello, it's a fantasy world! Last time I checked in SW world physical aspects don't really define the power of individual. I don't see many people complaining how Yoda can fight and win much bigger men even he is so small.  

Oh certainly, its possible for women to beat men at certain physical activities that heavily emphasize female strengths over male ones. Star-wars-esque lightsaber fighting is, however, obviously in the male court. That being said, I could see Rey beating Kylo Ren in a swordfight... later in the series, after going through training, as someone like Yoda obviously did. To have a person with a physical disadvantage, who had no idea that the Force and Jedi even existed, utterly gank Kylo Ren in the first film was total narrative asspulling, and makes the story have no progression when one of the lead characters (that is supposed to develop into the new Jedi's founder or whatever) is blatantly overpowered right off of the bat, to the point of breaking canon (how the hell did she take on multiple Red Guards?!?). Fantasy world doesn't excuse bad storytelling, though the rest of the film is so bad it blends right in I guess.