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The Last Jedi: Here There Be Spoilers


AndrewJ

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While I was entertained enough to sit through this movie, they made some terrible, terrible choices with it that'll likely capsize the trilogy as a whole.

Ask yourselves: What is the one thing that will make you most excited to see Episode IX now?

Whatever your thoughts about TFA (I loved it), there were a lot of reasons to go see TLJ next. Off the top of my head:

  • To find out how Kylo Ren and Rey would end up on the two sides of the Force.
  • To see Luke's part in the new saga play out
  • To find out who Snoke was, where he came from and what he was up to
  • To find out what Rey's secret backstory was

Well, all of these have been completely resolved now. Yes, they can twist things as much as they like in the last minute, but TLJ told us very clearly to expect that all these four issues have been dealt with. As in:

  • Kylo is the established bad guy of the series, Rey is the hero. They've had their moment of crisis, and they've made their choice. I was so sure we were going to see something original happening here, with the hero and the villain trading places, but TLJ places them very solidly in the hero/villain role at the end.
  • Luke's part is now played out except maybe some Force ghost appearance
  • Snoke was no one in particular
  • Rey had no secret backstory

Any one or two of these resolutions by themselves would have been welcome in this movie. Finding out that Rey is really a nobody is fine by me, given that every possible theory has already been floated anyway. I was also okay with Snoke's surprise demise.

But right now, there's nothing that really excites me about a third chapter. The only card left to play is a final conflict between the Resistance and the First Order, and I'm really not invested enough in that conflict at this point. We know that the Resistance will win out in the end, and the characters simply aren't interesting enough that a simple who-lives-who-dies war movie will be enough.

So yeah. They overplayed their hand here.

3 of 6 stars. Liked the lightsaber fights, liked Luke, generally I like Rey, but she was better when she kept me guessing about her past and future.

PS. Bonus nitpick. What the FUCK was up with Yoda? There was audible laughing in the theather when he appeared, and for good reason. Not only did he look insanely weird, but the tone of his appearance was also impossible to read. He called lighting down and set fire to the library and giggled like some insane clown puppet, and I was sure that it was supposed to be some weird horror scene where it turned out that Snoke was actually fucking with Luke's mind. I was so weirded out that I had a hard time settling into the nostalgia scene that it turned out to be in the end.

PPS. Wtf was up with the scene in Snoke's throne room being a play-by-play of Luke in the Emperor's throne room? I get the idea of creating the parallel, but I swear that half the lines Snoke said were exact repeats of the Emperor's lines in ROTJ. I was absolutely sure this pointed to a reveal of Snoke having a relation to Palpatine because it seemed so over the top.

 

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I still haven’t given up on Rey’s roots having some importance though... kylo could have easily been lying.

This is not how it works. If there was still a mystery there, the movie would have hinted at it. Revisiting a settled mystery one year later doesn't work because it seems tacked on, but keeping a mystery alive is great for selling tickets. So no. This mystery is settled.

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6 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

We didn’t know anything about the original emperor either.

True, but there was some back story about the dude in the ANH and ROTJ novels. Wookieepedia has no information on the Snoke chap, indicating that this guy wasn't flashed out between TFU and the new movie. 

But the thing is - they are essentially different. We are thrown into the world of Star Wars in the OT, but this new trilogy takes place after ROTJ. The world as such is established, and people want to know what happened between the movies. Especially - not not only - in regards to the Snoke chap this kind of thing is important.

Trying to sell us the idea that it isn't important or irrelevant where the big bad came from is ridiculous in that context. There is a back story, and it is explored to a point. If they talk about Luke's Jedi Academy, etc. they could also have talked about the evil guy.

The entire talk about the First Order is just vapid nonsense. We don't even understand what these people want, or why they want it. ANH gave us a ton more back story on the Empire - it is more or less and evil dictatorship grown out of democratic republic. That's understandable. We can connect with that. Politically, it is sort of Ancient Rome in space, basically.

Why anyone wants to follow the First Order - and what they want - or how an entire New Republic (and its fleet) can be wiped out by destroying a handful of planets in TFA is completely mysterious. Would the US go away if somebody destroyed Washington and New York? Nope, they would still be there - and presumably rather angry. And this is a galaxy-wide Republic with a galaxy-wide infrastructure.

And as I indicated in the other thread - I really resent the Herrenmenschen look they continue to give Star Wars. There are no recognizable planets or species in any of those movies, nor are there any new aliens that count as characters.

ANH had problems with that, too, but that was the start. The OT gave us Chewie, Yoda, Jabba, Ackbar, and the Ewoks. And the PT added a ton of new aliens, and individuals that at least created controversies.

In those new movies there are pretty much no aliens, and those that show up are getting the vibe of animals rather than characters.

6 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

If they follow the books then I believe the answer is yes. I never read them, but my step-brother had nearly every Star Wars book there was, and he said the third trilogy was about the Leia’s twins and their struggles with the force IIRC.

The way baby-face delivered his lines on the heroine's origins makes it possible he was lying there. He was desperately wanting to get her to join him there, and he may have thought she would do that only if he made her angry or sad.

If he told her he was her brother the grief/anger over the murder of Han would be much stronger, not to mention the fact that she might not be inclined to enter into the romantic relationship he clearly wants, too. The man has the hots for her, that much is clear.

And that is actually one of the few potential plots for the last movie. The love conundrums of the various characters.

There is also the possibility that he lied about knowing the truth about her parents. Claiming he does allows him to manipulate her. We never saw the visions he claimed he had.

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Just got back from a screening. Took a bit longer than expected as there was a sound issue with the dialogue and it took ten minutes to fix it. Luckily they started again from the beginning.

I'm still a bit overwhelmed/exhausted by the film to have a firm opinion. It was good but with some thought/time to process it may be excellent. What I enjoyed the most was how it unfolded completely differently to how i expected which is surprisingly refreshing for a Disney franchise film. I had the rug pulled out from under me on several occasions and I think that's part of why I'm hesitant to call it excellent just yet. In many ways it felt like Rian was almost deliberately undermining all of JJ Abrams mystery bait and it makes a lot of Force Awakens seem like a sleight of hand retroactively.

The other slight issue I had was that it was a long film and there were at least two points in the film where I thought it was about to cut to the end score and then went on for significantly longer. It was pretty relentless (a large part of the plot was a bit like a space version of mad max fury road (or smokey and the bandit)'s chase element and it just got a bit exhausting with what felt like several third acts. Better than it being boring though.

Loved the Samurai movie cinematography and I have to hand it to Johnson for making a film that was unmistakably his film visually yet still recognisably star wars. None of the other directors have really managed that IMO (JJ ABrams was clearly mimicking in Force Awakens).

The cast were all great. Hamill does an excellent job of having moments where the young luke breaks through "grumpy" older luke's shell (when meeting R2 for instance). Laura Dern had a lot of presence on screen and while Benicio del Toro's character felt more like a spin-off character or character from another franchise guest starring - he himself did a good job.

A lot of the humour was good - although there were a couple of them that felt a bit too "2010s earth" humour and not "a galaxy far away" humour. Actually there were several moments, usually connected with the humour, that tore me out of the film because it didn't feel star wars and it tended to involve Poe and Finn's characters.

Overall I'm impressed and I've a feeling that those who accused episode VII of being a re-run will have trouble saying the same here as while there are clear homages to empire strike back, that's it.

 

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Just got back from watching it. 

I enjoyed it, but it did feel a lot like a really long episode of Star Wars: Rebels with special guest appearances from Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. 

*  Getting rid of Snoke in the second film. He was a dull and useless bad guy, so removing him from the picture was a great move. Though it did feel a bit as if Rian Johnson was having a bit of a laugh at the next director's expense. "Just killed off the main villain - try to imitate Return of the Jedi now!"

* Contrary to what someone earlier in this thread said, I don't think that Ren and Rey's tango along the dark-light border is finished.When Ren looked up at Rey as she closed the door, his eyes were desperate - almost pleading. My current bet is that Ren will turn, but Hux - underestimated - will stab him in the back. It's not how I want Ren to be resolved - I'd really find it more interesting if he had to live and come to terms with what he's done - but I think Episode IX may go in that direction. 

* Nice use of humour. Wish it could have been kept up a bit  more in the second half. The start - with Poe taunting Hux, and Luke chucking the light-saber over his shoulder - was fantastic. 

* Found Leia's Force-powered spacewalk incredibly cheesy. And odd, since she's been shown to be Force sensitive, but not a Force user. If they'd let the character die in the initial explosion, I would have been okay with that, except that we'd have lost the tender moment with Luke near the end. 

* I raised my eyebrows at the bit where Poe embraced BB8. It was as if someone at Disney was saying: "See? It's not just Finn. He's always like this. With men. Droids. Porgs. In a totally platonic and manly way." 

* The Finn & Rose jaunt in the middle. On the one hand, I was glad the film decided to do something a bit different, and actually show why the First Order is bad, and take us somewhere we haven't been before. I don't mind the overtones of serious political stuff, that's fine. On the other hand, I wish it had been better integrated into the main plot. Such as it was.

* Also, using children for cuteness value is one of my pet hates. I know, I love imaginary fluffy birds invented to sell merchandise, but don't like children. I suppose it's because the Porgs are obviously fictional, and thus forgivable. Poor yet prepossessing undeveloped urchins are the garden gnomes of cinema. 

* Yes, it was spectacular, but it was a bit too spectacular. Hardly anyone got to have a conversation for any length of time. And at least one of the longer conversations - Luke and Yoda - should imho have been cut, because it didn't tell us anything new about Luke, and that time could have been spent doing a bit more character development with the next generation. 

* I liked Rey's trip into the hole. Visually and aurally it was effective. I found the endless line of mirror Rey's quite evocative. Perhaps the most memorable scene. 

* When Ren told her that her parents were nobodies, I instinctively believed he was taunting her, and that we'd learn more in the next film. Admittedly, I often struggled to hear the dialogue above the music and sound effects. But I was surprised when I visited the spoiler thread here and LJ, and found out that most people took him at his word. If it were true, it would be pleasing in a Taran Wanderer sort of way - the fourth novel in the Chronicles of Prydain sees Taran search for his identity, hoping to find that he's the son of a nobleman or royalty, but in the end only discovers that he is, as Ren says, a nobody. And that that's okay. 

* However, I do believe that there's more to come about Rey's ancestry/who Rey is. She said that there's something inside her that's awoken. Now that could just refer to the Force, but I think it's going to be more significant than that. Her transformation has been so sudden - from desert scrap metal hunter to Jedi in not very much time at all - that I think there's more behind it. I think it sounds more as if a buried memory of some sort has woken up. Also, the vision in the hole with the line of mirror Reys - that seems as if it will lead into something. 

* I am wondering how the next film is going to deal with the loss of Carrie Fisher. I had kind of predicted that the original three leads would exit the films in reverse order of appearance - thus Han first, then Luke, then Leia. I suppose what might happen is for them to start Episode IX with the crawl: "Princess Leia has died..." And use that as a starting block for the rest of the film. 

In summary, fun, well-acted, but rather by-the-numbers, and, as many others have pointed out, rather dumb in terms of plotting, even by Star Wars standards. Though damn, I did tear up a bit when R2D2 projected the whole hologram of Leia from ANH. 

 

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I thought it was curious how when Rey asked to see her parents she ultimately saw herself. I guess it could be a metaphor for her being a self-made woman but maybe there's dome wiggle room for force related shenanigans - even if her parents were lousy bobodies.

Those were the sacred jedi texts under the blanket Finn got out from a drawer in the Millenium Falcon to cover Rose at the end, right?

I liked how bad communication ruined the plan of the rebels. In essence Finn and Rose going off on their side mission, failing and being caught, ultimately led to the First Order knowing the rebels were escaping onto the planet. If only the admiral had just told Poe what her plan was...

Also slightly confused how Finn and Rose could go off on a side-mission while the rebels were on the run and then presumably just find them when the mission was completed.

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Saw it obviously.

There are a *lot* of logic problems in the movie.  Like.. a tremendous amount.  There are scenes that don't matter like the Casino Trip, Finn vs Phasma (wtf),  Chewie flying through a planet for some reason, Yoda telling Luke what Rey basically already had while also being a ghost shooting force lighting as a bad puppet with dodgy glowy blue cgi, etc.

I also loathed the wannabe ROTJ Throne room scene with Snoke basically repeating the Emperor but then there being silly flourishes of "This isn't the ROTJ scene you remember" such as the lightsaber whipping around to hit Rey in the head. I can't fathom that people actually liked this scene.  The point of it could have been done in one shot instead like 10 minutes of callbacks and nothing. Gah.

But the movie also had some glorious bits like Luke's real death, the nonsensical hyperdrive into ship, Rey's bit in the dark side cave, Luke brushing the shoulder off, Leia and Luke.

I don't know.  By turns I think it was awful, and good.

EDIT:  Also.... Justin Theroux is fine adn whatever and was a cameo.  Since they weren't using that character for nothing but a cameo, why not make that be Lando?  Clearly Mas was setting up the codebreaker to be Lando.  Why not just have it actually be Lando?

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The hyper-space jump into the flagship raises so many questions.

 

Where are Kylo Ren's fellow evil apprentices - the Knights of Ren?  Were they the throne-room mooks?

I don't agree with having Luke 'die'.  Though, as a Jedi, I guess he'll be around regardless  - and apparently Force Ghosts can actually do things?  So it doesn't really matter.

I'm wondering whether the repeated focus on both Ren's and Snoke's eyes was intentional.  They both have their natural eye colors.  Neither are as powerful in the dark side as an actual Sith.

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After 12 hours of considering the movie, it really only becomes worse. Not only did I only just realize that Finn's portion of the movie was for nothing, but also:

How is firing a pilotless ship off at lightspeed not going to be the answer to all space battles from now on? Fair enough if Holdo was the first one to think of it, but in the inevitable final space battle, what's going to prevent all the big ships from getting insta-ganked at the expense of smaller ships? Because that's the logic that's been established now.

Where are Kylo Ren's fellow evil apprentices - the Knights of Ren?  Were they the throne-room mooks?

Well, the only time we've seen them was in Rey's flashback sequence of the rainy night (another element that doesn't make any sense now). In that glimpse, they didn't look at all like in the throne room, so ...

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On 12/13/2017 at 11:34 PM, Lord Varys said:

What I really don't understand is why the fight with those stupid pseudo-royal guards took so long, and why the hell they did not immediately hail baby-face as the new Supreme Leader? After all, isn't that how it is done? The master being replaced by the apprentice, etc.?

Snoke isn't a Sith.  The repeated close-ups on Snoke's big blue eyes and Kylo's brown ones were probably so the audience could see that neither were Sith.  They're both play-acting.  Snoke play-acting as Palpatine and Kylo as Vader.  But neither are... apparently evil enough to manifest evil eyes.  Unless that part of the universe has been retconned.

 

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3 hours ago, Ajûrbkli said:

The hyper-space jump into the flagship raises so many questions.

 

Where are Kylo Ren's fellow evil apprentices - the Knights of Ren?  Were they the throne-room mooks?

I don't agree with having Luke 'die'.  Though, as a Jedi, I guess he'll be around regardless  - and apparently Force Ghosts can actually do things?  So it doesn't really matter.

I'm wondering whether the repeated focus on both Ren's and Snoke's eyes was intentional.  They both have their natural eye colors.  Neither are as powerful in the dark side as an actual Sith.

True - Luke himself didn't unless we count touching Leia's hand (I can't remember whether his light sabre clashed with Kylo's) but they could wave that off as with force sensitives only. As for Yoda they could say it takes 30 years of ghostliness to achieve.

It would have helped if they'd established Luke wanted to become a force ghost eg never show us the x-wing in the sea to establish he was stuck on that planet and had no other option than to ghost it.

53 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

My favorite star wars movie. Ever. 

I'm still going for most unique and best visuals. Although a lot of my favourite music albums are ones I'm not initially in love with and I think this film is in that region.

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This new stuff is certainly not without its flaws (the entire segment on the Casino planet could have been left out) but at least it felt like they were trying something newish and not just a direct shot for shot reboot of Episode 4.  Its was also really interesting how the First Order could be fairly competent for Star Wars Villains you know until the plot dictated they be otherwise.

My biggest concern is (and yes this is idiotic) what the heck happened to lando calrissian? Nien Nunb is still around It would be great if he could show up in some form for the next one it worked for Frank Oz.  

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Luke avoided Kylo's blows. The Leia thing -- and more importantly, the lucky dice which persisted for awhile even after Luke's joining the Force -- felt a tiny bit of a cheat in retrospect, but I didn't mind given the idea that this would be the last time he'd be able to have physical contact with his sister.

@Crazydog7

If they had had a glimpse of him in Canto Bight appearing to be living it up with the war profiteers... and then the chase sequence got ended not because the police lost them, but because they're called back urgently after someone's just destroyed the casino's enormous vaults of ill-gotten money, you could put two-and-two together (though they could do the obvious and give Lando a last shot seeming entirely unsurprised as everyone's panicking).

 

It'd be nice if they give him an appearance in the final film, if he wants it.

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15 hours ago, Ran said:

 

Gorgeous image. Didn't make a lick of sense, but yeah, beautiful. And the silence of it.

 

Yeah - agreed that it didn't make much (any) sense. But also agreed that the silence was... palpable. In the screening I was at, the silence of the audience pretty much matched the silence on screen. There was just a couple of murmured "Wows" and "fuck!"s, Everyone was simply in awe of that shot (including me). It was fucking amazing.

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Just going to give my visceral, and drunk, reaction.  Not impressed.  I thought the whole Luke thing was entirely overwrought with very limited payoff.  I wasn't sure what was going on with Finn and Poe throughout.  Let alone Rey and Ben.  It was very long, which means it was supposed to be very important, but I never quite understood why it was supposed to be important.  Maybe I could chalk it up to the expectations game - because if I saw it again I'd probably say yeah, it's better than TFA - but overall it was a huge ass disappointment.

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2 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Just going to give my visceral, and drunk, reaction.  Not impressed.  I thought the whole Luke thing was entirely overwrought with very limited payoff.  I wasn't sure what was going on with Finn and Poe throughout.  Let alone Rey and Ben.  It was very long, which means it was supposed to be very important, but I never quite understood why it was supposed to be important.  Maybe I could chalk it up to the expectations game - because if I saw it again I'd probably say yeah, it's better than TFA - but overall it was a huge ass disappointment.

My thought as well.  The movie was beautiful to watch and there were some quality scenes but totally underwhelming and did absolutely nothing to advance the story except clarify who the real bad guy is.  Big whoop.

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On 12/14/2017 at 4:54 AM, Relic said:

Essentially they could have cut Finn out of this movie completely and it would have been better for it. Just about everything that happens with him is nonsensical. 

Yup, was thinking the same thing towards the end of it.

Overall I liked it a lot. It wasn't perfect and dragged some in the middle but it had some of the best scenes in the franchise. With so much covered already, the loss of the big 3 and the lack of any real mystery like this one had going in, it's gonna be interesting to see where they go with the last one.

 

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8 minutes ago, Ramsay B. said:

Yup, was thinking the same thing towards the end of it.

Overall I liked it a lot. It wasn't perfect and dragged some in the middle but it had some of the best scenes in the franchise. With so much covered already, the loss of the big 3 and the lack of any real mystery like this one had going in, it's gonna be interesting to see where they go with the last one.

 

Huge space battle (with a suspicious lack of lightspeed ramming), everyone goes home to their families.

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I'm going to need some more time to process this thing.  (Maybe because I got home and in bed at 3:30 and then had to be up again at 6:30 and now I'm here at work at 8:00. :lol: )

I think overall, I tend to agree with @denstorebog there was a lot to love in there... but it really seems like it came at the expense of Episode IX.  Honestly, no matter what they do now it will almost feel like needless filler and bloat.  Had Rey or Luke handled Ren at the end, you honestly could have wrapped up this sequence of films neatly right there.

I also agree that the movie was far and away the most visually stunning of all the films.  Everything on Crait at the end (spelling?) was absolutely gorgeous.  Amazing how a barren plain can be made to look so unique.  The dark side cave was also visually and aurally special.

Its obvious now that whatever story they were going to tell has been greatly altered by Carrie Fischer's untimely death.  Just after she passed, I had read that she was planned to have a major role in the last film and that is readily apparent now.  It was clearly set up for her to be the last connection to Ben's goodness/a major source of his conflict.  Its disappointing that she will get her send off off screen.  When the bridge blew up and she was spaced, I thought "Damn... that's pretty early in the movie for them to decide to change her role."  Then the silly force pull through a vacuum happened.  I think they should have had her change places with Holdo.  Lets say the original script played out the way we all saw, instead make Leia be the one to make the suicide run. I'm sure a little recycled footage in conjunction with a reshoot or two for Luke and some CGI could have made it very powerful and even be the impetus for Luke to show up for the final conflict.

I thought for certain they were setting Rey up as Ben's twin sister.  Early in the movie when establishing Ben/Rey's force connection they always seemed to juxtapose that with scenes of Luke/Leia.  In the end, I do like that she came from nothing.  One of my pet peeves with Disney moving forward is that all the ideas they seem to be proposing for the Star Wars Stories seem to be prequels.  Rogue One told a little known story of a group we didn't know anything about, so I loved that concept.  But a Han Solo origin?  Obi Wan Kenobi?  They may be fine movies, but by sticking with only characters we have met so far it makes the galaxy feel smaller.  

Speaking of new characters, I did really like Rose and Benicio Del Toro's characters.  "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"  I was afraid that he would show up at the end to save the day in the battle as a rehash of Han's "Smuggler With A Heart Of Gold" archtype.  The fact that he didn't was fantastic to me.

The movie did feel dragged out.  As the space battle began to conclude and the movie seemed to be coming to a clear ending point; I was left thinking... "But wait, the trailers have those scenes with the walkers and the speeders... how the hell are they going to cram that in?"

I think I really liked the movie, but I was underwhelmed.  I came out of TFA excited and feeling like I'd seen the best movie in the franchise.  That feeling faded with time.  I still really like it, but also understand other people's complaints.  This one feels more like a slow burn.  I didn't come out feeling excited, but in time I may wind up liking it more than TFA.

 

 

 

 

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