[Movie] Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi

[Super Kami Dende]

What an absolute pile of Trash movie.

It truly makes sense why it has worse ratings than the Prequels.

[draykorinee]

Great movie, you can see why this has better ratings than the prequels.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Yeah like seriously? Because they killed off Snoke and especially Luke doesn't make this movie bad. Neither does having Leia saving herself using the force to hold on to her life and fly [Which exists in the lore] through space isn't bad cinematography or writing.

Something something opinion something something..

[Necomis]

End of movie. Did any one notice the little kid on casino world grab the broom using the force ?

[Deleted]

End of movie. Did any one notice the little kid on casino world grab the broom using the force ?

Yeah training is not needed anymore in these new episodes.
You can be a Jedi master when being born.

[Deleted]

Yeah training is not needed anymore in these new episodes.
You can be a Jedi master when being born.

The Force is about balance, it starts dripping off like that.

And there are several examples of untrained Force users in canon (Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons).

[Alduin]

(I'd argue the prequels REINFORCED a lot of that nonsense by making the Force something over-militarized and borderline creepy, not the least of which was indoctrinating children into an order due to their "talent" under a theology they aren't even old enough to make a decision for for themselves. There was a ton of bloodline related wankery in the prequels, not the least of which was a virginal CHOSEN ONE birth.)

I would highly differentiate between the "bloodline" mythics that Jedis used to track down force affine people (part 1 to 3) and the current perception of how the Force affinity is descending from parent to child (part 7+). Snoke is putting his money on Kylo because he is Vader's grandson. The concept of a powerful bloodline highly differs between the prequels and the sequels. Where part 1 to 3 the concept of bloodlines was used to find Force affine people and finding the promised Chosen One (in somewhat copy paste of the story of Jesus) the sequels are more about heritage of a great person within your family tree. This concept is somewhat questionable as anyone who saw the prequels knows that balance within the force exists (aka it is self-regulating) and that the Force is not exclusive to the Skywalker bloodline.

I would have loved to explore more about this concept as it describes the everlasting societal issue of group affiliation both in immigration as our search for a place in a specific group. They had the chance to make references to the concerns of heritage versus gaining or learning skills through dedication (aka rich exclusivity versus upcomers) and the arrogance of children versus parents (first generation of upcomers being hard workers, second generation are somewhat snobby). It is the key driver of any immigration versus protectionism debatte (aka "pure bloods" versus immigrants, exclusivity of royal bloodlines versus marrying common folks etc.). It is the basic debatte of what leads a group: old values or pure dedication.
If they wanted to clarify why the Jedi have to end (as major part of Luke's revelation) they could have easily built references to the "historical" view of the Force as military instrument (within the prequels) or the perception of the Sith vs. Jedi roles in SW:TOR. They could even have made a reference to the Jedi as reseamblence of the State of the Catholic church.

BUT: the point about this is not how they have handled the basic elements aka if Rey has powerful force affine parents or not but how badly they handled family business. If Rey would have been a Kenobi, okay, if she would be Kylo's twin, so be it. I would have been okay even if she was a Nobody. But the way they told her parents are is.. it's just bad. And the following line from Kylo "You are nothing special, but you are special to me." was one of the creepiest cheesiest lines in all the movie. Try that in any bar and you will get five fingers to your face.

Sometimes when you beg the question and get a non-indicative answer it's for the purposes of illustrating EXACTLY that point.

People were obsessive about who Rey's parents were. It was the driving question along with who Snoke was (already touched on why that was unimportant). Saying "they're literally nobody" pulls the rug out as if to say "why were you even taking so much damn consideration into that?" It's a device.

Aside from that, though, it comes up because it's important to her. A large part of Rey's character and the potential of her falling into the Dark Side is a result of her abandonment issues.

This would have been acceptable if it wasn't handled so badly in all the movie and built-up to it. Luke literally asks her who she is twice. Rey's and Snoke's background leave more questions open than the movie answered. Some scenes of the movie are a caricature of themselves. It is not like the dramatic downfall from ESB where Vader reveals his connection to Luke but rather a WTF moment. Again like said it is not what they did but how poorly they delivered the messages.

Also, "viewer relatability" to a character isn't exclusively contingent on whether someone has shared those experiences. It's as if to say you can't empathize with a character or feel anything from them just because you haven't had the same experiences as them. Lots of people haven't had parents die, for example, but dead parents are the foundation for honestly too many stories, especially Disney, yet people still resonate strongly with characters that contain them.

The Elsa comparison is a little weird. Both are prodigies, but one was abandoned for drinking money, the other was orphaned. The only thing they really have in common is they're both female in Disney properties...?

Viewer relatability is the core concept of story telling. You don't necessarily have to share the experience (yet) but you design a certain character/product/service for a specific group of users and "sell" it via emotions. It's the 1x1 of story telling (and successful sales management). If you design a character that is a child prodigy with superpowers that has no counterpart and just is so over the top powerful that they don't need training or hard work, the character becomes fake and people won't believe in it. Rey feels so displaced that she could have started building rock castles on Anch-To by lifting rocks with the Force.
(commons: both have something inside them that frigthens them, both grew up with no parents, both are the same age and clearly designed for the sub-21 viewership, white female child prodigies, both look for their role in all of this, both have a superpower more extraordinary than anything around. There are some differences but Rey is clearly adressing the same audience.) And yes it was intentedly overdrawn as Rey's character is just so out of bounds.

Also, I'd argue that while the survivalist direction you're proposing is valid and a cool idea, what they went with still overlaps with Kylo Ren as a foil - Rey is nobody, Kylo Ren has a legacy that he feels burdened by. One actively lashed against his family, the other is desperate to reconnect with hers. Both are extremely polarized by their emotions for vastly contrasting reasons. Which is another reason I am OK with "Rey Random."

The issue is that Rey is tough. She survived 19years on a dessert planet with no friends. She clearly has the traits of a hard working dedicated person (mostly due to her character being a copy from Luke in ANH). In TLJ she is just purely overpowering. She is looking for a teacher and still leaves Anch-to without any progress achieve. Luke totally loses her even with remarks from Yoda that they should not.

I mean, you're ignoring the entire point of the post, but if you insist:

The basis, background, and motivation is there. The basis is empathy. The background is rejected indoctrination. The motivation is resistance.

Not everything is a damn plot hole. That's allowing something in service to a story because some fingerquotes-explanation like "Finn comes from the planet [silly name] which means that he was inhabited by a micro-organism that made him immune to the conditioning of the First Order!" is totally pointless.

Finn doesn't want to kill people. Finn is a decent human being. Finn detests the uniformity and lack of humanity within the Order. Finn doesn't identify with an actively malicious regime. This is what we see. And that's all we need to know, because it's relatable and human.

You are right that not everything is a plot hole. I honestly do not need a reason for some of the decissions atleast if they are connected by decent story telling. TLJ has just way to many scenes that do not add up, are plainly useless and with no benefit to the character or story development. And what I understand as plot hole are the moments where question marks pop-up while watching the scene. And there were way to many. And I do not mean questions like "who are Rey's parents?" but rather "that's it?".

Finn is one of the most humane characters on screen and one of my favourites because he tries hard and fails and tries again. But his role in TLJ is useless and none of his actions matter at all. He wakes up, gets dressed, wants to run again but then has a change of heart and charges into a suicice mission disabling the tracing device. And Finns-Rose scenes feeled like a filler episode in a bad anime. It was a decent story arc but in the end it just doesn't matter.

The basis is empathy. The background is rejected indoctrination. The motivation is resistance.

And yet the movie doesn't allow proper development of any of these.

Empathy
- Kylo not shooting his mother is directly followed by destruction of the bridge.
- Kylo and Rey exploring the force is "stage" by Snoke.
- Kylo's empathy towards Rey is displayed the same second he literally tells her that she is a nobody.
- Kylo's tantrums are something for a 15year old and not a 32year old.
- Rose's empathy towards Finn done within 5mins from her death to Finn hugging Rey a close to inappropriate time.
- Luke and Leia's empathy moment was followed by a reference to TFA (Leia got her hair done) followed by Luke dying in a somewhat useless moment.
- Rey's empathy when speaking with Leia about Luke's demise followed by some funny chatting of the survivors.
- Luke's fear of Kylo and Rey turning dark followed by somewhat pointless stuff.
- and especially the moment Chewie had a barbeque.

Rejected Indoctrination
- Luke tells Rey the Jedi have to end just to reverse his opinion in the argument on exactly this matter stating that Rey will become a Jedi (without being trained by him as he gives up on life shortly after).
- Rey wants to become a Jedi and self-indoctrinates her. She is not searching for Luke to end the First Order but for a master to teach her the place in all of this. Literally.
- Kylo wants to fill his grandfather's shoes, self-indoctrinating him to Snoke without any further reason(?). Maybe he wants to proof someone that he is the best (that would be severe issues).
- Poe self-indoctrinates himself when after Leia's space excurision he hopes for commanding the fleet. He is so predicatable that Leai's plan fully works out.


Finn is the only somewhat relatable person. Which is kinda weak for the decent characters that Lucasfilm sold to Disney.

What makes it so disappointing is that they could have told a great story to deconstruct all the previous 7 movies, our understanding of the Force, of good and evil of everything just to prepare SW9 as revelation (most likely something like Nathan's ring parabel, that we are all one and that the Force is with us even if we can use it or not). Instead they chose to rather put together some quite enjoyable but meaningless scenes as they decided to not deliver any punchline.

[Deleted]

The Force is about balance, it starts dripping off like that.

And there are several examples of untrained Force users in canon (Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons).

Yul balance the little kid is now either Snoke or Luke in power for balance.

[Nyel]

Great movie. I did not like VII but I really enjoyed VIII. Sure there were plot holes, useless characters and some questionable decisions but overall it was a great and very enjoyable movie.

And damn, Poe Dameron is smokin' hot.

[Deleted]

Yul balance the little kid is now either Snoke or Luke in power for balance.

Or many other kids around the galaxy started to show Force abilities. Right now the top users are Rey and Kylo.

- - - Updated - - -

By the way, anyone else had felt a Joker-vibe through the entire movie?

[Deleted]

Yeah training is not needed anymore in these new episodes.
You can be a Jedi master when being born.

I think people have always been able to do simple things with the force like lift and move small objects without any training. Im sure in the clone wars there is an episode with a small untrained child levitating their toys or something.

[thewallofsleep]

Empathy
- Rose's empathy towards Finn done within 5mins from her death to Finn hugging Rey a close to inappropriate time.

I didn't see Rose die. I thought she fell unconscious due to her injuries. Maybe I missed something.

[Deleted]

I didn't see Rose die. I thought she fell unconscious due to her injuries. Maybe I missed something.

Then got dragged through a mile of salt, if her wounds didn't kill her, rubbing that much salt into them may have

I actually think she survived though.

[Grapemask]

Why not? SW was essentially that until the internet. How much was know about the Emperor when the original trilogy came out? He was just some shadowy dude who outranked Vader to the average viewer. It wasn't until MUCH later, even more if you only watch the films, that people came to know Sidious. Hell, Anakin's entire arch didn't come full circle until the Clone Wars cartoons.

I think my complaint there is more that crucial info shouldn't be left to expanded universe stuff. Everything needed to understand the original trilogy was in those movies; did you need to know how the emperor became the emperor? Not really; he was an evil guy and he had to go down. The rest was nice to know, but not essential.

But Snoke. And Snoke is heads and shoulders above any other complaint for me. The original films firmly told us a couple things: Palpatine had to plot his overthrow for nearly a century. Sith are jealous and singular, with only a master and apprentice. We left that galaxy in episode 6 having destroyed the Sith threat.

SO WHO THE EVERLIVING FUCK IS SNOKE?

This isn't weird irrelevant background info. This is explaining how exactly our happy ending and all the things we thought we knew got turned completely upside down, and how a guy who seems to be even more powerful than the Emperor just slid in under the radar.

SO WHO THE FUCK IS SNOKE? And now it seems unlikely we'll ever know..

[Deleted]

I think my complaint there is more that crucial info shouldn't be left to expanded universe stuff. Everything needed to understand the original trilogy was in those movies; did you need to know how the emperor became the emperor? Not really; he was an evil guy and he had to go down. The rest was nice to know, but not essential.

But Snoke. And Snoke is heads and shoulders above any other complaint for me. The original films firmly told us a couple things: Palpatine had to plot his overthrow for nearly a century. Sith are jealous and singular, with only a master and apprentice. We left that galaxy in episode 6 having destroyed the Sith threat.

SO WHO THE EVERLIVING FUCK IS SNOKE?

This isn't weird irrelevant background info. This is explaining how exactly our happy ending and all the things we thought we knew got turned completely upside down, and how a guy who seems to be even more powerful than the Emperor just slid in under the radar.

SO WHO THE FUCK IS SNOKE? And now it seems unlikely we'll ever know..

Also my problem with it is that at the time of the OT we didn't know what came before, so speculation could be made about Palpatine etc, it was a mystery as to what happened before ANH. But with Snoke we know a fair bit about the time line leading up to TFA and a little after RotJ, and Snoke just comes out of nowhere, so of course people are going to wonder where the fuck Snoke came from and who he is. And i really, really hope that information is not left solely to books and comics :/

[Independent voter]

SO WHO THE FUCK IS SNOKE? And now it seems unlikely we'll ever know..

Since Snoke is a force wielder, he may very well return and try to sway Kylo or Rey to become more dark. We might get more of Snoke's background story then.

JJ Abrams is going to do the next film and his film will likely be more coherent.

[draykorinee]

I didn't see Rose die. I thought she fell unconscious due to her injuries. Maybe I missed something.

She's definitely alive. There's no reason to drag a body back and say medic! Then have no on screen death.

- - - Updated - - -

I think my complaint there is more that crucial info shouldn't be left to expanded universe stuff. Everything needed to understand the original trilogy was in those movies; did you need to know how the emperor became the emperor? Not really; he was an evil guy and he had to go down. The rest was nice to know, but not essential.

But Snoke. And Snoke is heads and shoulders above any other complaint for me. The original films firmly told us a couple things: Palpatine had to plot his overthrow for nearly a century. Sith are jealous and singular, with only a master and apprentice. We left that galaxy in episode 6 having destroyed the Sith threat.

SO WHO THE EVERLIVING FUCK IS SNOKE?

This isn't weird irrelevant background info. This is explaining how exactly our happy ending and all the things we thought we knew got turned completely upside down, and how a guy who seems to be even more powerful than the Emperor just slid in under the radar.

SO WHO THE FUCK IS SNOKE? And now it seems unlikely we'll ever know..

Yeah, this was a fail. We knew little about Palpatine, he was just the bad guy, but this feels different because we have a back story to fill between films, we needed to know who Snoke was and how he was so powerful. Palpatine, not so much, we just back filled it ourselves untill the prequels.

[Zeek Daniels]

yeah, those are reeeeeealy hard to fake too... hard to see who looks excited after the movie and ask them to vote while ignoring the disgruntled ones... Or you know, just giving it whatever mark you were paid to give it regardless of the actual poll results... I mean who verifies those polls exactly?

Or you know u just give it to who ever exits.

[Nyel]

Since Snoke is a force wielder, he may very well return and try to sway Kylo or Rey to become more dark. We might get more of Snoke's background story then.

JJ Abrams is going to do the next film and his film will likely be more coherent.

This is what I hope but I really doubt it. They would need a lot of flashbacks to introduce more of him. I think he's been a wasted opportunity.

[Deleted]

This is what I hope but I really doubt it. They would need a lot of flashbacks to introduce more of him. I think he's been a wasted opportunity.

He'll probably get some backstory from comics and maybe a book. I think he'll show up in next film, but we won't get much more information, maybe just him taunting Kylo or Rey.