Star Wars: The Last Jedi *SPOILERS* Thread

[bmags]

You watched it, you wanna discuss it, discuss it here.

 

Eventually it will merge back into the star wars thread.

[Brian]

I hear the boat sinks at the end.

[bmags]

It's not a boat it's a ship.

[Boopa1219]

Just got back from seeing TLJ and for something so tumultuous, I feel very optimistic right now.

 

My instant reaction is that despite its flaws and there are many, it's great and really entertaining. My biggest problems is that some of the characters and storylines are absolutely unnecessary because they really killed the film's momentum. I'm shocked that Rian Johnson couldn't think of something better for these characters to do or come up with a better sequence at a particular planet. This movie could've really used one more rewrite.

 

I loved how tight TFA was. Every sequence and character had a purpose/served a role in the story and there was no fluff so it didn't drag. Can't say that about TLJ

 

Another problem I had with the movie was the humor. Star Wars films have always had funny characters and:or moments but they've never came at the expense of emotional moments till now.

 

Mark Hamill was fantastic. Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley are great. Carrie Fisher, wow.

 

The imagery in this movie is incredible, felt very much like watching an old Samurai movie.

 

There are a few sequences in this movie that will be talked about forever.

 

That's all I can say without spoiling it, so I'm going to post in the spoiler.

 

BEWARE

Edited December 13, 2017 by Joshua Strong

[Jose Abreu]

-Will we ever know who Snoke is/his backstory? I was disappointed to not find out

-When new Leia crashes the cruiser into the first order ship, I love (sarcasm) how every single person except for Finn and Rose are tossed aback. Very realistic (also sarcasm)

-That Leia space floating scene was so cringe

-After killing Snoke, it bothers me that KR turns back to the dark side so quickly and easily

-If Snoke is powerful enough to essentially fuse the minds of Kylo and Rey through the force, wouldn't he be able to survive a slight lightsaber tap?

 

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by Jose Abreu

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

-Will we ever know who Snoke is/his backstory? I was disappointed to not find out

-When new Leia crashes the cruiser into the first order ship, I love (sarcasm) how every single person except for Finn and Rose are tossed aback. Very realistic (also sarcasm)

-That Leia space floating scene was so cringe

-After killing Snoke, it bothers me that KR turns back to the dark side so quickly and easily

-If Snoke is powerful enough to essentially fuse the minds of Kylo and Rey through the force, wouldn't he be able to survive a slight lightsaber tap?

 

Yeah, Snoke was a pretty cool bad guy, but his lack of story or answers were really lame.

 

Leia's space walk was sooooo cringe worthy. Ugh, hated it.

 

I understand Kylo still being bad because the idea of sith wanting to kill their masters. So I was cool with that.

 

And him dying via lightsaber was ok with me too because I wouldn't really expect him to be invincible to a light saber anyway. I wouldn't consider it a tap, the blade went through his body.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

Oh, and I think I liked TFA better. This one had SOO many unanswered questions. I hope the 3rd one ties it all in, but just a lot of stuff that didn't seem to matter or left me unfulfilled. I didn't love it.

[Quin]

I have this above Phantom and Clones.

 

Far below the rest.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

For me.

 

Ep 5

Ep 7

Ep 6

Ep 4

Ep 8

Rogue One

Ep 2

Ep 3

Ep 1

Edited December 15, 2017 by ChiliIrishHammock24

[ptatc]

Oh, and I think I liked TFA better. This one had SOO many unanswered questions. I hope the 3rd one ties it all in, but just a lot of stuff that didn't seem to matter or left me unfulfilled. I didn't love it.

I agree with everything you say here. Very good not great.

[whitesoxfan99]

Just got back from seeing TLJ and for something so tumultuous, I feel very optimistic right now.

 

My instant reaction is that despite its flaws and there are many, it's great and really entertaining. My biggest problems is that some of the characters and storylines are absolutely unnecessary because they really killed the film's momentum. I'm shocked that Rian Johnson couldn't think of something better for these characters to do or come up with a better sequence at a particular planet. This movie could've really used one more rewrite.

 

I loved how tight TFA was. Every sequence and character had a purpose/served a role in the story and there was no fluff so it didn't drag. Can't say that about TLJ

 

Another problem I had with the movie was the humor. Star Wars films have always had funny characters and:or moments but they've never came at the expense of emotional moments till now.

 

Mark Hamill was fantastic. Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley are great. Carrie Fisher, wow.

 

The imagery in this movie is incredible, felt very much like watching an old Samurai movie.

 

There are a few sequences in this movie that will be talked about forever.

 

That's all I can say without spoiling it, so I'm going to post in the spoiler.

 

BEWARE

 

So my first impression is wow, that was a lot to take in and while in so many ways I love that movie, I'm also just so torn on what they decided to do with Luke based mainly on the head canon I had built up for him after growing up with the movies which has left me a little unfulfilled with a movie I otherwise loved.

 

I agree with a lot of this. The movie is really good and incredibly entertaining. The stuff with Finn should have been trimmed down dramatically but other than that nearly every scene is fantastic. I really enjoyed the Battlestar Galactica type feel of the desperation the rebel fleet had in fleeing the First Order. I love the performances by Driver, Fisher, Hamill and Ridley. The Kylo/Rey stuff was tremendous and Hamill absolutely killed it in this movie. And that force projection scene, holy s*** that was amazing.

 

It is really really clear that Leia was intended to play a huge role in Episode IX so it will be interesting to see how Fisher's death impacts that. I wonder if they considered having Luke not become one with the force at the end of the movie after her death.

[GoSox05]

This movie was so damn good.

 

It did miss not having Han Solo in it though.

[whitesoxfan99]

So this is apparently a way more divisive movie than I would have anticipated (at least among fan boys) almost entirely because of what they definitely did with Luke. I definitely expected some people to be upset about the characterization of Luke (and while I thought it was extremely well done I wish they hadn't gone in that direction). Although interestingly the Comscore for this was extremely high so it seems like a lot of the backlash really is just people upset about Luke.

 

There are some other flaws in the movie for people to nitpick at for sure (casino definitely went on too long) but those are drastically outweighed by the great moments and acting in this one.

Edited December 15, 2017 by whitesoxfan99

[Boopa1219]

So I lied in my original post, while it is entertaining and a super fun watch... while there are things I like, I don't like the movie. I will admit that I saw it last night in a real movie theater with a packed crowd instead of an empty screening room by myself and enjoyed it more.

 

I think that if it wasn't for Mark Hamil people would be looking at this movie a lot differently.

 

It just feels like a really bloated first draft of a screenplay.

 

The stuff with Finn should have been trimmed down dramatically but other than that nearly every scene is fantastic.

 

Finn and Poe were both really underused in my opinion

Edited December 15, 2017 by Joshua Strong

[Jose Abreu]

I'm seeing it again tonight so hopefully I'll like it more. I did really like the Luke/Ren part at the end.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

I should also add that all the acting was awesome, and the graphics and visual effects, and I actually liked all the new characters/creatures. It was literally just the story that fell flat for me. And obviously not all of it. In fact, I liked Luke's role and demise in this, and my favorite part of all might actually be the stable boy story. That part at the end was filled with so much wonderment and possibilities.

 

Also, did anyone else feel like maybe they amped up Billie Lourd's (Carrie Fisher's daughter) character more after Carrie Fisher died? She was a cameo in TFA, but is now a main and (I think) remaining part of the rebel leadership.

[Steve9347]

Not sure why people are spoiler tagging a spoiler thread. I shall not.

 

It was enjoyable. It did not tug on my heart strings as much as TFA, but that was to be expected. The movie advances the storyline and elevates the characters who need elevating.

 

Here's the deal. This movie had me thinking "what the f***" far too often.

 

As stated in previous posts, there was a lot of cringe in this movie, Leia floating through space, the fifteen different sequences where just a little more time was needed, the entire casino part... so many pointless things that did nothing to improve the story. Luke turning KR was an accident? Please. Snoke is so powerful and can get in Kylo Ren and Rey's minds yet... can't sense the light saber turning at his side? Snoke's guard crew was definitely too hard to take down for KR and Rey as well. They just wanted a light saber scene in a film lacking. One would have thought 8,000,000 blaster rays without Luke even moving would have been enough to tip KR off to the fact that he likely wouldn't be killing Luke that day.

 

We have no backstory on Snoke? He's just dead now? This all-powerful being was clearly around during the original trilogy timeline and rose to rule the First Order... and is felled with little effort.

 

Ok, now that I'm done complaining and rambling...

 

I enjoyed the movie, but I am shocked at how quickly hype can get out of hand and people can so quickly say things like "This is the best Star Wars other than Empire". Get out.

 

5

4

6

7

8

3

1

 

 

 

 

2

[whitesoxfan99]

Luke turning KR was an accident? Please.

 

They were pretty clear that he had already turned.

[Steve9347]

They were pretty clear that he had already turned.

Were they?

 

Seems to me it went back-and-forth the entire movie. I'm fairly certain it was all a big misunderstanding...

[whitesoxfan99]

Were they?

 

Seems to me it went back-and-forth the entire movie. I'm fairly certain it was all a big misunderstanding...

 

I'm fairly certain Luke told Rey that Snoke had already gotten to him and that when he looked on Ben he saw nothing but darkness and that is why for a split second he considered killing him.

[soulfly]

For me.

 

Ep 5

Ep 7

Ep 6

Ep 4

Ep 8

Rogue One

Ep 2

Ep 3

Ep 1

 

How on earth is 5 your favorite one, yet Rogue One is 6th on the list? Rogue One was so much better than 7 it isn't even funny.

 

[Steve9347]

So many precious nuggets during my Reddit deep-dive.

 

Is it possible to overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time for this? The stuff with Rey, Kylo and Luke was great: the back to back lightsaber fight, the telepathic connection between to the two, the final stand off between Luke and Kylo, are some of the best Star Wars moments in any film.

 

But the rest of the movie... oof. Complete waste of Finn as a character, and I found the new character Rose to be pretty lame and annoying. Their entire subplot on the casino thing felt like the movie actively wasting my time being away from Rey's story, made worse by them not actually accomplishing anything. And then Rose knocking Finn out of the cannon at the end to save his life over the many lives in the bunker? And then she kisses him? Ok?? The entire Rebel storyline was just a complete drag, Oscar Isaac plays it well but again in comparison to the A-plot it's a major bore. After all the great world building and character introductions TFA brung, they all seemed to be sidelined for no apparent reason. Lots of little stuff that bothered me, but overall feels like a solid 6/10 movie with a lot of studio mandated awkwardness (humour, forced romances, etc.) It's a little disappointing to say it, but TFA is still the standard for new Star Wars films.

 

So you’re telling me if purple hair just tells everyone what her plan is then no one has to die and they make it to the planet safely without Kylo knowing??

 

• Star Wars has always to me at least been grand in scale. The lack of a time jump between movies and Basically seeing Battlestar Galactica's 1st episode '33' on screen with two ships flying through space took away any sense of epic scale or galactic impact the First Order was having on the Galaxy.

 

• Superman Leia....I mean c’mon really?

 

• Snoke...too much build-up, and lack of any payoff. The way he died was cool, i mean how many times do we watch movies and say "why doesn't the hero just (insert logical kill move here)". But I mean cmon a saber fight with Luke at the minimum!

 

• Following on…Lack of a proper saber fight. Star Wars should be adventure, spacebattles and lightsabers. The best rush of the film I got was Chewie in the Falcon ploughing through TIE Fighters and the First Order ship getting blown up, and of course Luke lighting up his saber when he was going to confront Kylo, only to be massively let down right after.

 

• Rey following Luke for an hour watching him fish and milk space cows. Rey literally didn’t need Luke at all for everything she could achieve by the end of the movie. I mean Luke did have longer training with Yoda and was barely able to lift an X-Wing. Rey had 5 mins and can do whatever she wants with the force, take on imperial guards, etc. She is too overpowered and makes Kylo seem like a non-threat.

 

• Everything felt rushed, to the point of stretching too much credibility.(See above re: Rey’s powers)

 

• Rose and Finn subplot. What did they accomplish? Take that out of the movie and it changes nothing. Yes it subverts tropes that they failed and didn’t succeed like the usual heroes do, but compare this subplot and its impact/relevance to the subplot in ESB, which was infinitely better due to the history of the characters, stakes, etc.

 

• Luke mentions he came to the island to die…why leave a map to his location then? The whole beginning of this new trilogy was about finding Luke to save the rebellion and he did nothing (yes stalling for time is fine, but he deserved a better send-off).

 

I could go on but for now that's enough. I can’t comprehend how this movie has such high ratings and people calling it best Star Wars ever. To me for the first time im not even pumped to see the next episode. Thanks Rian.

 

The First Order have got to be some of the worst military strategists I’ve ever seen.

 

Oh, there’s a transport ship trying to escape? Let’s shoot the near-empty base where they came from before we shoot the ship.

 

Oh, the empty cruiser is powering up to jump to hyperspace? Let’s have literally every single person on this enormous ship ignore it and focus on taking out the helpless transports that have nowhere to run.

 

Oh, the Millennium Falcon is attacking? Let’s send LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE TIE FIGHTER after it and ignore this ground assault.

 

Also, let’s not press forward with our own ground assault until we take out these 13 fighters that aren’t even going to fire a shot off at us.

 

How the hell did these people conquer the galaxy?

[Steve9347]

More

 

This film is like watching a 3 hour long sci-fi themed music video with no music. Staggeringly beautiful scenes, VFX and production design lift up what are basically bits of terrible Star Wars fan fiction. There is no tension, nothing makes sense - on a character and plot level.

 

The second Poe begins throwing grade-school pranks at Hux I knew this was gonna go south. Comedy at points of drama is a really powerful way to completely destroy any dramatic tension (which is basically rule one of what not to do in any writing handbook). Hux, who has risen through a galactic organisation of incredible sophistication - who has grown to lead thousands of men and women - is unable to understand that he's being made fun of - or even more than that - basic operation of a war machine. All of a sudden, he isn't scary, or smart, or clever, he's just there - the admiral of a fleet with one of the most sophisticated death machines ever made but can't work out if he should aim 600 of his 600 cannons at the big ship, or maybe aim 300 of the 600 at the other ships too. And why wouldn't you be scanning for escape ships, given that's literally the only way the Rebels would leave the wallowing cruiser?

 

The fact that the plot of this movie only exists because the same people who can use lightspeed haven't invented a speed between "really slow" and "lightspeed" is so laughable that I felt embarrassed when evil lackey #56 had the shameful task of explaining why they couldn't shoot the ship right in front of them. "Because, uh, the shields are on, and they're out of range of our cannons (300m range with a firing arc resembling a catapult) and they have to run out of fuel so that they are really close and then we can shoot them, but until then we just sort of follow along next to them instead of sending out more fighters to board them, uh, like when Kylo Ren basically flew through the ship completely f***ing it up, uh".

 

Nevermind the issues actual Star Wars fans have with lore and other backstory - as a film fan this film had nothing beyond production design. Why did the characters land their ship on the beach at the Casino? Why not park it so not to draw attention to themselves? Why did the irritating old-lady alien need to be fighting someone while she spoke to them? Why was Po not executed for mutiny against the entire fleet? Why did every single character - whether in the Order or with the Rebels - never show a single ounce of actual military training? Gee, it's a good thing that Kylo somehow managed to salvage an inexplicably niche siege cannon from his entirely shattered and destroyed fleet in order to transport it down to the mining colony which has a single giant door.

 

Even worse is that no single part of the film - set in a stunning series of environments and worlds - ever explain any of them. Nothing gets a name or explanation. Hoth was Hoth, Tatoine was Tatoine. Now we have salt planet and monte carlo planet. It's like any sort of political gamesmanship has been replaced by single sentence explanations for things AFTER THEY HAPPEN.

 

"We are evacuating but there is a mining planet where we have an empty base that's very well armored and we will go there because they can't see our small escape craft!" What???? Why not use the escape craft and just leave? Why did you bomb them? Why did the bombs have to fall down? Could you just shoot them at it?

 

Benicio Del Toro is a lovable rogue obsessed with money, who then relents and shows a trace of warmth when he returns Rose's necklace (one of the few touching moments in the film). Then he completely annihilates his character development by betraying them. Why give the necklace back at all? Wait, why were they even on the ship at all, when their actions had zero consequence? Why not just insert some boundaries for the plot, and then use them to buy tension? Why tell us the mine had no other escapes, and then immediately escape out of the back?

 

What happened to Snoke? Why would you reveal him immediately and then kill him 20 minutes later? He's engineered this genius plan of hacking into peoples minds to convince them to do anything he wants them to and then instantly kill him? You build this terrifying figure of ultimate darkness and then pop him on screen in a 1980's dance studio before killing him off as fast as he arrives?

 

It felt like the entire movie was trimmed down to one line per scene: "We have to go full speed!"/"You have good in you!"/"Take this to save this."/"Take that chrome dome!" Nobody refers to anything within the rich universe of Star Wars itself, beyond generalisations and incredibly irritating anachronisms ("Godspeed!" in a world with no god, "chrome dome", "if anyone moves, stun em"). You have the incredible richness of the entire Star Wars universe and you can't at least fit your basic-ass exposition into some form of Star Wars theme?

 

The endless "comedy" in this stripped all drama out of it at all.

 

Stormtroopers - the original space gestapo - are now brainless props to be bumped into by droids. They're incapable of doing anything beyond standing on parade.

 

Entire loading bay of prize and talented Rebel pilots are entirely incinerated but lol look at the droid cartwheeling through the air with trill of beeps and boops. Luke sees Leia for the first time in decades and manages to make a comment about her hair.

 

Can someone give the Rebels a basic lesson in military tactics? If every single one of your plans is a suicide mission, you probably shouldn't be commanding forces comprised of human beings. When you're besieged, don't fly out and try and blow the enemy up with inferior numbers in totally open ground. How about also having some strict chain of command instead of tutting every time a psycho "flyboy" mutinies and tries to take over your ragtag band of morons? Every single action taken by both "militaries" was a punch-and-judy show of dumb and dumber, where cutting edge military tactics is lining up your stuff and then making them go forward.

 

So many dumb story decisions. It's amazing. Finn needs to try and crash into the center of the cannon (not sure why given not a single vehicle the Order brought with them could have fit in the mine), Leia needed to be resurrected 3 times over (presumably to die of old age off screen) including her survival in deep space, beloved Admiral Akbar dies off-screen and instead Holdo gets a dramatic death (because apparently autopilot and turning a ship around are too complex to do without someone loitering in the bridge of the ship).

 

The Millennium Falcon has to have a scene where it's piloted like a minecart through some narrow underground area while tiny and nimble enemy fighters smash into everything.

 

Even worse is that the reviewers are making it out like this is anything approaching 50%+ on Rotten Tomatoes, when placed alone this would be something around 30% on a good day. Be aware that this film makes John Carter From Mars look like an actual film (with plot, characters, scenes with more than one line of dialogue). It even makes Jupiter Ascending look inventive.

 

I think the reason my rant is so long is that this film also manages to spend far too much time (which is basically any time at all away from the plot) trying to hamfist some incredibly lame message about the evils of corporate enterprise. I do not care either way politically, but to have DISNEY of all companies try and preach about how evil the corporate 1% are in this franchise (the same company that issues legal threats if anyone didn't toe the line on their release schedule) given their history for basically press-ganging and blocking reviewers for even a whiff of a negative review is so grossly cynical it's actually more evil than anything Hux and his bumbling fools manage to do the entire film. It's also incredibly long because I feel like the reviewers watched a totally different film. The absolute fact that not a single reviewer has torn this apart (and there is about 15 things per scene that'll raise your eyebrows or make you shake your head) is really worrying, and gives you a pretty good idea that either a) every single otherwise good reviewer suddenly loves terrible films or b) the Disney juggernaut monopoly is able to scare everyone into compliance.

 

In 2-3 months time (once Disney's release schedule has made them billions), everyone will suddenly talk about this like the monumental film-making dumpster fire it was.

 

The most genuine moment and performance for me was when the nun toads had their wheelbarrow smashed and their look of shocked disappointment mirrored my face the entire film.

 

The only thing that'd get me back in the cinema for another Star Wars outing would be Alfonso Cuarón directing a Knights of the Old Republic trilogy - but that'd actually be a film with a plot, script, sensible scale and human drama, and much less good at selling "crystal critters" to 5 year olds.

[Steve9347]

57% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is a bit harsh, but damn.

[whitesoxfan99]

57% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is a bit harsh, but damn.

 

There are some legit complaints but a huge number of those are people upset about Luke dying and not being a true hero. Seriously, I wouldn't do it and I read a few but if you read the reviews from those on RT that didn't like it it mostly about Rian Johnson killing their childhood because Luke wasn't what they expected him to be.