The Last Jedi, not the last spoiler thread

[Ran]

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 equal at worst to the ones in the OT

More dumping on the original series to defend TLJ. Without actually defending the claim, mind, just people saying "There were problems in the old ones too!"

Really starting to think I was over-generous of my own assessment of TLJ.

[mormont]

4 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

You can't be serious about this.

I can be, because it's the truth. 

Your argument relies on emotional language and uncritical acceptance of reverse reasoning: for example, that the lightsaber is a hint because it calls out to Rey, which only works as a sign about her parentage being important if you first accept that her parentage is the source of her Force sensitivity. If you work forwards, from first principles, few of those hints you list even allude to her parentage. They're the sort of breadcrumbs on which people in the General forum base theories like 'Ned is Daenerys' father'. 

Just because the internet gets all excited about a theory, doesn't mean it was meant to. 

[polishgenius]

21 minutes ago, Ran said:

More dumping on the original series to defend TLJ.

Err, no.

[Corvinus85]

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Huh, it occurred to me that the reason Rey is so good with a saber is because she practices with her staff every morning. Compete missed that when I saw it. Derp.

@Darth Richard II Both films pretty much establish that Rey doesn't require combat training, what she needs is to understand the Force, and Luke provides that lesson for her.

Based on what we've seen of her skills with the staff, especially when she fights Luke, I hope she makes herself a double-sided, Maul-style, saber in the next one.

[Rockroi]

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As @Rockroi said above, Luke has now beaten two enemies by not actually killing them - something that Jedi have never done. 

@kalbear

I want to revisit this issue because of how important I think it is to the movies.  Just to be fair, I want to say that what I actually said was that Luke has defeated Kylo without ever even harming him, though it is also true that Luke has now beaten two enemies (Kyloe and Vader) without killing them. 

But the point is that Luke's philosophy is unbelievably important in the context of the movie.  He believes that people can come back to the good regardless of how bad they were (I don't like introducing items said in the EU in the discussions in the movies, but in The Last Command, Luke even tries to turn Jorus C'aboth [who, rumor has it, Zahn originally wanted to be a clone of Ben Kanobi]). Luke's philosophical center is that there is conflict and good in all of us and that his role in this is to see people out of that darkness.  His father first and foremost.

And its why TLJ is a good movie and the prequels (sans Rogue 1) suck.  

In RotJ, Luke says- over and over again - that he feels the conflict in Vader; that there is still good in him.  Pose this against that defeated, hag Obi-wan who says that Vader is "more machine now than man; twisted and evil."  There is no room for growth with that mindset; Luke disagrees and then spends the rest of the movie figuring out a way to bring his father back and is, ultimately correct.  

When the prequels began I stated that in order for the prequels to work, Luke has to be right about Vader.  And based on the prequels, Luke was not.  Vader kills children training at the Temple, force chokes his own wife while pregnant, and slaughters sand people even women and children.  The guy is horrible by any standard.  The idea that there is good in Vader- based on the prequels -is preposterous.  

TLJ gets it right again.  Luke believes in the good in people, even Kylo.  Killing Kylo - as Obi-wan, Yoda and probably ever psycho Jedi from the prequels - god the fucking Jedi are horrible people - would have advised - is not how Luke deals with the problem.  Killing Kylo stops his growth and ruins his journey back into the light.  Like Vader before him, Kylo is conflicted and Luke knows it as Rey knows it.  So he lets Kylo continue onward.  LUke "defeats" Kylo because Kylo not only cannot destroy the Resistance, but he cannot eliminate Luke; he is denied his final revenge and to savor the moment as the true conqueror of the Jedi.  And Luke NEVER had to lay a hand on Kylo.  

Supposedly, one of the most brilliant rounds in boxing history was by won Willie Pep against Jackie Graves without pep ever having thrown a punch.  Well, that same thing happened at the end of Jedi when Luke Skywalker defeated Kylo Ren without throwing a punch or swinging his saber.  It was brilliant.  But more importantly, it fit in perfectly with Luke's ethos that you can defeat an enemy without killing them in the hopes that, one day, you may win them back.  

That was the ultimate triumph of the Last Jedi - it stayed true to the last jedi.  

[denstorebog]

48 minutes ago, mormont said:

I can be, because it's the truth. 

Your argument relies on emotional language and uncritical acceptance of reverse reasoning: for example, that the lightsaber is a hint because it calls out to Rey, which only works as a sign about her parentage being important if you first accept that her parentage is the source of her Force sensitivity. If you work forwards, from first principles, few of those hints you list even allude to her parentage. They're the sort of breadcrumbs on which people in the General forum base theories like 'Ned is Daenerys' father'. 

Just because the internet gets all excited about a theory, doesn't mean it was meant to. 

If you can't see that TFA smacks us in the face with Rey's parentage through her backstory (left behind by unknown parents, mysterious flashback to said parent whom for some reason we only see neck down, isn't that weird), then reinforces it with an unexplained skill with the Force and everyone showing an uncanny interest in her - in a universe where heritage is a big fucking deal - then I don't think we interpret movies the same way at all. Suffice to say though, you will find very few people who didn't think Rey's parentage was an issue after TFA. If you're in doubt, watch the hundreds of interviews where JJ or the actors are asked about her parents, and they immediately go coy about it. This was a big deal to pretty much everyone who watched the movie.

Actually, just to settle this matter once and for all, let me give you a couple of quotes from JJ that certainly helped keep the mystery alive:

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"Rey's parents are not in Episode 7. So I can't possibly tell you who they are at this moment. But all I will say is that this is something that Rey thinks about, too."

 

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"After the Q&A, EW caught up with J.J. Abrams and he clarified his comments. The director says he was only trying to point out that The Force Awakens builds up the mystery of Rey’s parents without resolving it. “What I meant was that she doesn’t discover them in Episode VII. Not that they may not already be in her world,” Abrams said."

If this was not intended to be a central mystery, why not just come out and say "hey, it's not that important"?

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

More dumping on the original series to defend TLJ. Without actually defending the claim, mind, just people saying "There were problems in the old ones too!"

Really starting to think I was over-generous of my own assessment of TLJ.

Thats because people are using issues with TLJ to claim its worse than the OT (and the PT in sone cases) when the OT had those same issues.

Take ESB: The falcon travels from Hoth system to Bespin without a hyperdrive, which should take years even if its the next system.  Handwaved away while people complain about the lightspeed ram.

The rebels escaping Hoth - why didnt the multiple star destroyers (including a SSD) deploy squadrons of TIE's to blockade the planet and destroy the fleeing rebels?

Hell, in ANH why didnt Vader's star destroyer escort the Death Star to intercept any fleeing rebels while the Death Star took 20 mins to grt in position?

Why did Leia - who withstood torture and even deceived Tarkin while Alderaan was in the Death Star's sights to protect the Yavib base location lead the Empire right there?  She said herself the ship was beibg tracked, why not find and remove the tracker, or switch to another ship?  The Imps had no idea where the base was, there was no rush to destroy the Death Star.  Certainly not st the expense of leading them right to Yavin.

Yet these issues are waved away while TLJ's somehow make it the worst SW film ever.  If people dont like it, thats fine. Taste is different. But to dislike a SW film for having the same kind of issues as every other SW film is strange.  It's Star Wars.  The science has always been iffy.  

[Corvinus85]

3 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Thats because people are using issues with TLJ to claim its worse than the OT (and the PT in sone cases) when the OT had those same issues.

Take ESB: The falcon travels from Hoth system to Bespin without a hyperdrive, which should take years even if its the next system.  Handwaved away while people complain about the lightspeed ram.

The rebels escaping Hoth - why didnt the multiple star destroyers (including a SSD) deploy squadrons of TIE's to blockade the planet and destroy the fleeing rebels?

Hell, in ANH why didnt Vader's star destroyer escort the Death Star to intercept any fleeing rebels while the Death Star took 20 mins to grt in position?

Why did Leia - who withstood torture and even deceived Tarkin while Alderaan was in the Death Star's sights to protect the Yavib base location lead the Empire right there?  She said herself the ship was beibg tracked, why not find and remove the tracker, or switch to another ship?  The Imps had no idea where the base was, there was no rush to destroy the Death Star.  Certainly not st the expense of leading them right to Yavin.

Yet these issues are waved away while TLJ's somehow make it the worst SW film ever.  If people dont like it, thats fine. Taste is different. But to dislike a SW film for having the same kind of issues as every other SW film is strange.  It's Star Wars.  The science has always been iffy.  

Bolded part is incorrect. Han activated the hyperdrive after they were in the clear, and Boba Fett followed. The question is, how did Fett know where they were going, if hyperspace tracking wasn't a thing then? Did he just deduce the destination, transmitted it to Vader, who immediately changed course, and BEAT THE FALCON there.

[Darth Richard II]

8 hours ago, mormont said:

Carry on.

Regarding the hyperspace ram, I'm willing to suspend judgement on that and assume that there was some refinement or twist to the entry to lightspeed that doesn't normally occur, like maybe Dern's character aborted the jump at the last second or something, rematerialising in time to cut through the flagship. Maybe it's never been done before because it would inevitably be fatal and/or requires some technical ability. And maybe you have to have a ship of a certain power level, or with certain technology, to do it. Maybe it's relatively easy to develop countermeasures, so the element of surprise is key. You can handwave it away, is what I'm saying. 

On the topic of the film's reception, disappointed fans tend to be louder than happy audiences. If the film's takings hold up on word of mouth, I think we have to conclude that audiences liked what they got. 

Have not gone through the thread yet but the bolded should like, show up every time someone starts a web browser. And I'n not throwing shade at people who  hated it at this point, just that the internet tends to magnify negativity on things by a lot.

[The BlackBear]

Saw it this morning and I'm very conflicted about it. There were bits I absolutely loved, Adam Driver was terrific, I liked the connection with Rey, and his eventual non-turn. Domnhall Gleeson is a fun baddie, (but with Snoke now gone, I just can't see these two kids running the FO.) Luke saving the day without violence was good stuff, and then joining the force was the right end for him. I really thought I was going to love it (and had every intention to,) it started a lot like Rogue One, I marked out when that Dreadnought showed up, but then it just became a bit muddled.

But elements I really didn't like. I think I may have sprained my eyes, rolling them at Leia flying through space. Finn and Rose were almost irrelevant to the plot. Phasma once again didn't do anything (the only thing I liked about it was the Rebel Scum line from Finn.) The whole Laura Dern thing seemed created to give Poe something to do. Snoke seemed absurdly powerful. The destruction of the Jedi School revelations never really landed.

That may seem like a unrelenting tide of bad, but I'm finding the good harder to explain. I am disappointing, but I didn't hate it. Unlike some here, the hyperdrive thing didn't bother me, nor did Rey's parent being nobodies, I actually quite like that last one.

Rian Johnson has said in an interview he was pretty much free to write it all himself, with no end point he had to get the characters to. And it shows. Some characters had nothing to do, and the time frame forced Rey's time with Luke to be what, a day and a half? And I just don't see where the films go from here.

[YoungGriff89]

1 hour ago, denstorebog said:

If you can't see that TFA smacks us in the face with Rey's parentage through her backstory (left behind by unknown parents, mysterious flashback to said parent whom for some reason we only see neck down, isn't that weird), then reinforces it with an unexplained skill with the Force and everyone showing an uncanny interest in her - in a universe where heritage is a big fucking deal - then I don't think we interpret movies the same way at all. Suffice to say though, you will find very few people who didn't think Rey's parentage was an issue after TFA. If you're in doubt, watch the hundreds of interviews where JJ or the actors are asked about her parents, and they immediately go coy about it. This was a big deal to pretty much everyone who watched the movie.

Actually, just to settle this matter once and for all, let me give you a couple of quotes from JJ that certainly helped keep the mystery alive:

 

If this was not intended to be a central mystery, why not just come out and say "hey, it's not that important"?

I would have to disagree with the idea that the identity of Rey’s parents is not important.  I’m sure it’s important in the bigger picture that they’re nobody special.  I think we are also overstating the value of Luke saving Darth Vader, because Vader only lived twenty minutes after saving his son from being killed by the emperor...after trying to kill his son for not turning to the dark side.  Luke probably couldn’t have killed Vader even if he didn’t know he was his father and wanted to, as evidenced by the time he tried and failed in Empire Strikes Back.

With Ben Solo it’s different because Luke has been teaching him how to be a Jedi and the potential for darkness still runs so deep.  Luke igniting his lightsaber was a response to the dark side, not some desire he had to waste his nephew.  As soon as he saw what he was doing he turned the lightsaber off.  The movie was so blatant about that.  Luke’s arc revolves around him needing to learn that the Jedi order was deeply flawed and doesn’t need to be restored to what it was, if it needs to come back at all.  

Love it or hate it, I think the movie handled that well and I for one am glad to see the story being propelled forward and not just rehashing old ideas.  

[Week]

15 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Bolded part is incorrect. Han activated the hyperdrive after they were in the clear, and Boba Fett followed. The question is, how did Fett know where they were going, if hyperspace tracking wasn't a thing then? Did he just deduce the destination, transmitted it to Vader, who immediately changed course, and BEAT THE FALCON there.

The whole point of going to Bespin was to get the hyperdrive fixed. Fett deduded the destination, presumably, and then the Imperials could make a jump to Bespin to beat the Falcon there.

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The Falcon's hyperdrive needs repairs, so Han decides to make their way to Cloud City, a gas-mining colony run by his "old friend" Lando Calrissian. Unfortunately, the bounty hunter Boba Fett had deduced the Falcon's escape method and had his ship jettisoned with the waste to stealthily follow the fugitives.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars%3A_Episode_V_The_Empire_Strikes_Back

[Darth Richard II]

Question, when do we see one of Rey's patents from the neck down? I don't remember that at all.

[Derfel Cadarn]

11 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Question, when do we see one of Rey's patents from the neck down? I don't remember that at all.

Neither do I.  I don't know why everyone assumes Rey is correct when she says her parents left Jakku. Maybe they just used a shuttle or speeder to get to the nearest bar?  Then they died poor.

[aceluby]

10 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Question, when do we see one of Rey's patents from the neck down? I don't remember that at all.

You don't, you see the fat guy who trades her junk for food portions from the neck down.

[Rockroi]

9 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Bolded part is incorrect. Han activated the hyperdrive after they were in the clear, and Boba Fett followed. The question is, how did Fett know where they were going, if hyperspace tracking wasn't a thing then? Did he just deduce the destination, transmitted it to Vader, who immediately changed course, and BEAT THE FALCON there.

No.  I'm sorry to pollute this thread in a discussion about TLJ, but we should be confident in the facts.

The Falcon only jumps ONCE in ESB - when Lando gets Luke after he is defeated by Vader and they all escape on the Falcon when R2 overrides the work the Imperials did on the Falcon.  Prior to that its screwed up.  Han first tries to jump after Hoth ("We can still out-maneuver them") which causes them to hide in an asteroid field.  Once they escape the asteroid field Han tries to jump again, it doesn't work so Han has to turn the Falcon around (Captain Needa comments "They're moving to attack range") and Han flies up past the bridge and then attaches the Falcon to the "neck" of the Star Destroyer Avenger.  At first Needa thinks they may have a cloaking device and then they think hyperspace, but no- they are just attached to the Avenger.  They escape the Avenger by "Floating away 'with the rest of the garbage'," and that's when Fett follows them- but in sub-light speed.  

In fact, Admiral Piette comments that HAD the Falcon gone into hyper-speed "they would be on the other-side of the galaxy by now, " and if that were true there was no reason for Han to go to near-by Bespin when he could have gone, literally, anywhere.  Instead, without hyperdrive, Han has to settle on Bespin. 

I also have no problem with how Fett got to Solo. 

Fett follows Han and, being a bright guy, postulates where Han can go.  As stated earlier they are in the "Noad" system and that there was "not much there."  The next system mentioned is Bespin and its probable that Fett knew that and may even know that Lando is 1) former friends with Han and 2) is running Cloud City.  Fett is in a race with the other bounty hunters so he knows that he needs to take some risks.  One MAJOR risk would be altering Vader that he has Solo and believes Solo is going to Bespin.  Vader believes Fett and Fett knows if he's wrong he could be dead; but if he's right he wins and the other bounty hunters are shit out of luck.  

So Fett Gambles.  Both he and Vader have light speed so they get to Bespin far ahead of Solo.  The rest is history.  

[aceluby]

41 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Yet these issues are waved away while TLJ's somehow make it the worst SW film ever.  If people dont like it, thats fine. Taste is different. But to dislike a SW film for having the same kind of issues as every other SW film is strange.  It's Star Wars.  The science has always been iffy.  

I think I saw one post that said it was the worst SW film ever.  I think the majority put it pretty solidly in the middle.  Which is absolutely fine and can still be rightfully disappointing.

[Darth Richard II]

OK, question, how are they able to track the Falcon in ANH? Isn't that hyperdrive tracking?

Also, as I think about it more, that hyperdrive ram is kind of some bullshit. It just looked so cool I think people are willing to forgive it.(Well, some)

[Darth Richard II]

2 minutes ago, aceluby said:

I think I saw one post that said it was the worst SW film ever.  I think the majority put it pretty solidly in the middle.  Which is absolutely fine and can still be rightfully disappointing.

Oh that's because this site is sane. Other places on the internet, just, holy crap.

[divica]

19 minutes ago, aceluby said:

I think I saw one post that said it was the worst SW film ever.  I think the majority put it pretty solidly in the middle.  Which is absolutely fine and can still be rightfully disappointing.

putting the movie on the level of phantom menace or attack of the clones isn t exactly good...