The Last Jedi: Here There Be Spoilers

[Eggegg]

16 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I saw it yesterday and I've got to say that the critics built it up into something it isn't. When they say it is one of the best Star Wars movies I think they mean it's one of the 10 best if you include the animated Clone Wars and Rogue One.

I agree. I'm amazed at the critical reaction really. I'm not a huge fan of Rogue One but I felt it was head and shoulders above this. In my list I would put it below the OT, above the prequels and just behind Force Awakens. 

I think it might be something to do with the elements that people remember the most and how they affected you. Me personally I outright hated a few elements like the Casino detour, and felt pretty much nonplussed at the bits I considered the best, such as the Snoke throne room scene. The whole movie felt totally empty to me.

[baxus]

10 minutes ago, Eggegg said:

I'm not a huge fan of Rogue One but I felt it was head and shoulders above this. In my list I would put it below the OT, above the prequels and just behind Force Awakens. 

This is how I'd rank the movies, too. The only exception might be that I'm not sure whether The Force Awakens is slightly better than The Last Jedi or the other way around.

[mormont]

I will write more later but just briefly I want to say:

if you didn't appreciate the scene where

Leia uses the Force to save herself from space

, you have a cold, dead soul. 

[Rippounet]

13 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Last Jedi was successful for me partially because it absolutely messed with the audience in their expectations. TFA was a Star Wars movie down to individual plot points, and as such was extremely predictable. That was good; we wanted to see a Star Wars movie that felt right. Once they earned that trust, they spent it, and spent it hard. This was a movie that took almost every single expectation you had and turned it around, and even told you this right up front. "Did you think I was going to take a laser sword and singlehandedly defeat the entire First Order?" and "This isn't going to go the way you think".

That's what I really liked about this movie. I wasn't expecting a Star Wars movie to be surprising, and the moment I realized that they were taking liberties with the usual tropes I found it gripping.

There were some things I really didn't like (like Leia's space walk, or the weird running creatures) but that's nothing much compared to what I liked.

All in all it's a very strong Star Wars movie with a sprinkling of everything that makes Star Wars great, while moving in new directions at the same time.

I found it very entertaining, but also found it very dense: there was just so much to pay attention to. The characters' evolution(s), the action, the great quotes, the scenery*... When the movie ended I felt that it had lasted more than three hours.

*did anyone else spot the sea dragon?

12 hours ago, SerHaHa said:

Regarding Yoda and the ever changing and confusing Jedi "rules".  In one film, Yoda goes on about not having attachments, and when a Jedi loses someone close "miss them do not".  Yet the second line he says to look is that "miss you I have, young Skywalker".  Ok, so do you miss people, or don't you?  This is just one example where the writing and the "rules" are extremely contradictory, even hypocritical.

That's a (if not the) fundamental contradiction of the Jedi order, the reason why Anakin turned to the dark side and his padawan turned grey.

I also believe that it's part of the hypocrisy of the Jedi that made them unpopular to many under the Old Republic (for many people the Jedi were these holier-than-thou people who were more concerned about politics and meditation than actually helping the average person), and also what makes the division between Jedi and Sith so artificial, and, ultimately, self-defeating. The path of the Jedi is almost impossible to follow for a normal human being. In fact, most of the Jedi we know and love were unconventional in some way or the other and most understood that the rules could only hold if they were regularly bent.

I'm hoping that this is understood by the new team of writers. I think the Jedi can only be reborn if they do away with a lot of old rules (like celibacy) and are able to control the dark side rather than completely reject it. With the title of this latest movie, I fully expected Rey to be taught by Luke that the way of the Jedi is a thing of the past and for her to embrace... greyness.
I still think we might see some of that.
 

[Ran]

1 minute ago, mormont said:

I will write more later but just briefly I want to say:

if you didn't appreciate the scene where

  Hide contents

Leia uses the Force to save herself from space

, you have a cold, dead soul. 

I was very happy, but Johnson's directorial choice to have the whole sequence take almost 2 minutes (in what looked very much like real time for the film) was silly.

Should have stuck with Leia as she was blown into space, tumbling wildly, and then realize the moment that she was using the Force by first having the tumbling slow to stop as she pulled herself back to the ship. A judicious bit of slow motion and it could have been a minute-long sequence representing a much shorter span of time.

[mormont]

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

I was very happy, but Johnson's directorial choice to have the whole sequence take almost 2 minutes (in what looked very much like real time for the film) was silly.

Perhaps. But

they may have gone with a longer edit for that scene precisely because it will now always be the one and only on-screen example of Leia using the Force.

[Eggegg]

18 minutes ago, baxus said:

This is how I'd rank the movies, too. The only exception might be that I'm not sure whether The Force Awakens is slightly better than The Last Jedi or the other way around.

Yeah I'm not sure on this either. Having just rewatched Force Awakens it really doesn't hold up very well on reviewing. But it seemed to be a slightly tighter story and more cohesive with less awful bits, so I put it just ahead.

[Rippounet]

24 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

  Hide contents

Should have stuck with Leia as she was blown into space, tumbling wildly, and then realize the moment that she was using the Force by first having the tumbling slow to stop as she pulled herself back to the ship. A judicious bit of slow motion and it could have been a minute-long sequence representing a much shorter span of time.

 

Agree 150%.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

53 minutes ago, Eggegg said:

I agree. I'm amazed at the critical reaction really. I'm not a huge fan of Rogue One but I felt it was head and shoulders above this. In my list I would put it below the OT, above the prequels and just behind Force Awakens. 

I think it might be something to do with the elements that people remember the most and how they affected you. Me personally I outright hated a few elements like the Casino detour, and felt pretty much nonplussed at the bits I considered the best, such as the Snoke throne room scene. The whole movie felt totally empty to me.

I place them below the prequels to be honest, especially TFA. For all the faults the prequels had Lucas tried to tell an original story. TLJ fell into the same trap of recreating elements of Empire. I kind of enjoyed Rogue One though.

[Eggegg]

1 minute ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I place them below the prequels to be honest, especially TFA. For all the faults the prequels had Lucas tried to tell an original story. TLJ fell into the same trap of recreating elements of Empire. I kind of enjoyed Rogue One though.

Hmm, well the prequels are absolute garbage on almost every level.. but I'll give you that they are at least not lazy rehashes of the OT. I can't however imagine putting the prequels above any other movie. 

[Derfel Cadarn]

Watched it again last night and enjoyed it more.  Some of what I thought were plotholes werent.

DJ overhears Rose etc talking to Poe which is how he knew about the sensor-cloaked shuttles.  

The casino scene felt shorter this time which was good.

speaking of DJ, I hope he sent a comm to the rebels asking for his money; he kept up his end and got them into the tracker circuit room after all

[denstorebog]

Ok, so this is hilarious. Remember when I said that the revelation of Rey's parentage was definitely supposed to be taken at face value?

Rian Johnson's take:

Quote

"I don’t think he’s lying in that moment — I think he is like telling what he saw and I think that Rey seems like she believes it in that moment. So for me, I wrote it as an honest revelation and as an honest kind of reaction to it, as opposed to a move in a game of chess.

"Now as we know in these movies, you know the whole idea of a certain point of view comes into play and as you know I’m not involved in writing the next movie. JJ [Abrams] and Chris [Terrio] are writing it so, I want to make it clear I’m not sure how it’s going to get resolved. For me the important part was saying it was an emotionally honest revelation, I feel like it, I don’t know, I believed it."

IMMA WRITE IT THIS WAY AND YOU GONNA WRITE IT THAT WAY AND WE'LL CALL IT A TRILOGY.

This fucking sucks.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

23 minutes ago, Eggegg said:

Hmm, well the prequels are absolute garbage on almost every level.. but I'll give you that they are at least not lazy rehashes of the OT. I can't however imagine putting the prequels above any other movie. 

I most certainly put the prequels above these in spite their flaws just because they're original.  

[Ran]

@denstorebog

It'll be interesting to see what Abrams says when asked.

[Corvinus85]

One theory I had regarding Rey's parentage, early on, even before TFA actually came out, was that she was the daughter of the main characters from the novels Lost Stars by Claudia Gray. The "revelation" in this movie did nothing to dissuade me from that theory. Another theory that is still plausible is that she is the daughter of Luke's clone produced from his severed hand - the story of how Anakin's saber got to Maz Kanata still needs to be told; (Maz will definitely be in IX)

Personally, I think that Kylo told Rey the truth of what he saw, but that may be not be the truth of Rey's parentage.

[Myrddin]

Roast porg. It's what's for dinner.

A quick google reveals that there are already tshirts with "Porg: The Other White Meat" up for sale.

[Darth Richard II]

23 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

Ok, so this is hilarious. Remember when I said that the revelation of Rey's parentage was definitely supposed to be taken at face value?

Rian Johnson's take:

IMMA WRITE IT THIS WAY AND YOU GONNA WRITE IT THAT WAY AND WE'LL CALL IT A TRILOGY.

This fucking sucks.

That's how the OG trilogy was written. Hence the whole sister bit.

1 hour ago, mormont said:

I will write more later but just briefly I want to say:

if you didn't appreciate the scene where

  Reveal hidden contents

Leia uses the Force to save herself from space

, you have a cold, dead soul. 

Me and my friend loved that scene but it seems to be one of the most hated on scenes of all(just look at this thread, for example) apparently on of the new books mentions that Leia was training to be a Jedi before politics and getting knocked up put a wrench in that.

[Darth Richard II]

13 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

One theory I had regarding Rey's parentage, early on, even before TFA actually came out, was that she was the daughter of the main characters from the novels Lost Stars by Claudia Gray. The "revelation" in this movie did nothing to dissuade me from that theory. Another theory that is still plausible is that she is the daughter of Luke's clone produced from his severed hand - the story of how Anakin's saber got to Maz Kanata still needs to be told; (Maz will definitely be in IX)

Personally, I think that Kylo told Rey the truth of what he saw, but that may be not be the truth of Rey's parentage.

She still might have a famous grandfather, or uncle or something. I hope they keep her as a nobody though.

[Nictarion]

Kinda funny people are so concerned with originality in Star Wars when the original film was anything but...

[Corvinus85]

8 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

That's how the OG trilogy was written. Hence the whole sister bit.

Me and my friend loved that scene but it seems to be one of the most hated on scenes of all(just look at this thread, for example) apparently on of the new books mentions that Leia was training to be a Jedi before politics and getting knocked up put a wrench in that.

I love that scene, too. She didn't do that much in terms of the force, she just pulled at the ship. Remember, her dad got roasted and dismembered, and survived. Darth Maul got chopped in half, and survived on his own. 

According to NASA, a person could survive in space for a short while, and with the force, I don't find it at all ridiculous that she pulled it off.