[Movie] Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi

[Zeta333]

Let's examine this situation and see who got the bad end of the stick

Me: I didn't have trouble understanding what was going on, I have a vivid imagination and in the end I enjoyed the movie and quite happy about it.
You: Refused to understand what's going on (probably went to the movie expecting it will suck and thus was looking for anything to shit on), didn't even use your imagination (if you have one), ended up not enjoying the movie and feeling quite sour about it so you came here and began shitting and pickin' on people who enjoyed the movie. You bitter miserable poor thang.

I knew exactly what was going on, i didnt understand why they let obvious plot holes happen. Do tell your explanation as to why they were not watching the mon cal cruiser for the escape ships? I would think if your following ONE ship with many you will be watching that ship pretty closely. Even if they were stealthed to sensors they would have a clear visual of it.

[Elim Garak]

I knew exactly what was going on

Just a few post earlier you were saying otherwise.

, i didnt understand why they let obvious plot holes happen.

They didn't

Do tell your explanation as to why they were not watching the mon cal cruiser for the escape ships?

Too far away to watch. Too cocky. Too sure of themselves. I can go on.
Characters making poor decisions - not a plot hole.

It's actually quite funny how characters making all the right decisions are Mary Sues and characters that make poor decisions are plot holes. There's no pleasing the unpleasant ones.

I would think if your following ONE ship with many you will be watching that ship pretty closely. Even if they were stealthed to sensors they would have a clear visual of it.

No visual. Too far away. No tracking too far away and small and a big ship in the way too far away. Away too far.

enemy ships ---------------------------------------------------------- REBEL CRUISERtransports

[Leih]

Yes, because she wasn't in the movie at all prior to her death scene. Nope, not one fucking bit. And her flying through space was the BEST PART OF THE MOVIE, HOLY SHIT, FOR REALZ Y'ALL! Because just STOPPING prior to that scene would, somehow, have been an insulting catastrophe. Even though people like you can't explain why other than flailing your arms about and vomiting up "why not just cut everything, HURR HURR HURR HURRRRR! I win argumant now rite?!?!?!"

I mean you literally said remove her from EVERY screen after the bridge part, which was right at the very beginning of the movie. So, you did say to cut up nearly all of her scenes?

Why do you post like this by the way? Does being hyper aggressive with a weird mix of caps and punctuation help?

[PACOX]

Actually rotten tomatoes is the outlier here; user reviews on other review aggregate sites have been mostly positive.

...Unless Disney paid all of those people off, too.

How do I become a Disney shill writing good reviews for them? How much will they pay me? You must know how it's done; you seem to know a lot about it. Can you hook me up?

I'm just cashed my check yesterday.

[Macaquerie]

The EU is majority trash-level. I could write better stories than the vast majority of the EU. So then you have to come to a decision, as Disney - keep the EU, trash and all, and have an incoherent universe where Luke is an unstoppable badass with a girlfriend, but also ridiculous nonsense. Or, you can trash the entire EU, and do it with the movies being the only canon, and some newer cartoons. And then you get to write your own stories. And maybe you bring in a few of the better, higher quality stories into your new canon, which they seem to be doing (at least in the cartoons).

P.S. I grew up in the 80s, with the OT, and all my friends and I are huge Star Wars fans - but we've never once picked up the EU. You know why? Because we read a novel here or there, once, in the 90s, and recognized them for largely what they were: fan-fictiony romance-novel-level trash. Maybe you want to argue millennials grew up with the EU because that's all they had in the wasteland between the OT and the prequels and since the trash prequels, and that should be respected, but millennials and everyone with any taste also has disregarded those movies as anything worthwhile a long time ago.

I'm not trying to argue that the EU was in any way good or that the creators have any obligation to respect it, though some of the side stories did have a certain charm to them. I'm just saying that due to its sheer scope it did leave some kind of an imprint on fans that isn't so easily erased, even if most people are happy to forget it and embrace the new material.

I do think the EU should be respected from a commercial standpoint, since it kept Star Wars in the pop cultural consciousness for all of these years rather than just fading from view like most movies do. Maybe this is some sort of commentary on the nature of mass media too, since the success of franchises depends on being able to churn out low quality junk simply to keep the brand in the spotlight, whereas artfully crafted films and books are quickly forgotten because the creators can't push out the necessary quantity of material to retain an audience while maintaining quality.

[Kaleredar]

I'm just cashed my check yesterday.

Can you levy those checks towards free trips to Disneyland? I have so many questions...

[Babadoo]

Easily the worst movie in the franchise, which is a pretty good achievement considering how bad tfa was.

It is clear that Disney are moving the franchise away from its traditional audience and towards a new, younger target group. It's easy for me and people of my era to be bitter and disappointed, as we grew up with Star Wars and it was a big part of our lives and so it hurts when a company takes it in a direction we cannot follow.

I understand Disney's reasoning, that want the franchise to last another generation of movie goers, but I'm sceptical that with the rubbish they are spitting out the rivers of gold will soon dry up.

It's like Disney made a competition for the worst script. Seriously I have never seen such boring concepts in Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies.

[Arrowstormen]

It's like Disney made a competition for the worst script. Seriously I have never seen such boring concepts in Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies.

I can't even tell what you are referring to.

[Elim Garak]

It's like Disney made a competition for the worst script. Seriously I have never seen such boring concepts in Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies.

Was it your first SW movie?

[baskev]

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

????? training is still needed. But doing small stuff without thinking is still possible. Look at Annie flying in a podrace. Look at luke mastering the force well enough in a few years to fight his father And resist the dark side pull from palpatine. with training from 2 jedi master that was not more then like a week....so yeah...no presidence for it...sigh.

[tyrlaan]

I knew exactly what was going on, i didnt understand why they let obvious plot holes happen. Do tell your explanation as to why they were not watching the mon cal cruiser for the escape ships? I would think if your following ONE ship with many you will be watching that ship pretty closely. Even if they were stealthed to sensors they would have a clear visual of it.

What are the plot holes? After you saying there are plot holes about 4ish times now, I'm genuinely curious.

I'm not trying to argue that the EU was in any way good or that the creators have any obligation to respect it, though some of the side stories did have a certain charm to them. I'm just saying that due to its sheer scope it did leave some kind of an imprint on fans that isn't so easily erased, even if most people are happy to forget it and embrace the new material.

I do think the EU should be respected from a commercial standpoint, since it kept Star Wars in the pop cultural consciousness for all of these years rather than just fading from view like most movies do. Maybe this is some sort of commentary on the nature of mass media too, since the success of franchises depends on being able to churn out low quality junk simply to keep the brand in the spotlight, whereas artfully crafted films and books are quickly forgotten because the creators can't push out the necessary quantity of material to retain an audience while maintaining quality.

I'm not sure what you are asking/hoping/expecting here. Should the new movies have taken the EU into account while also saying they're not canon? These are incredibly mutually exclusive things here.

[Vaelorian]

When I first came out of the cinema, I came out like I had been in a rollercoaster. It was awesome in general the movie.
But... reflecting on the movie (even when I was in the theater) the movie has some flaws/annoyances. I still feel I enjoyed myself immensely. I also enjoyed myself a lot more then when I did on part I, II and III. So do I feel this movie sucked? No to me it did not. Do I feel they ruined a lot? Yes, very much so.

1. weaponized lightspeed
If the alliance knew this would work, they should have used this tons of times in older movies. And honestly if you have lightspeed available, you probably tested this as a weapon first before it makes it (the tech) into spaceships for propulsion. Also this tactic should have been used by the ships that get destroyed earlier in the movie.
2. the whole "I know the tactics but I won't tell you"
This should have been scratched as we would have avoided some mutiny aswell as the backstory of Rose and Finn. They could have included the casino thing, but not with the reason why they did. Imo Finn and Rose could have had that adventure in a different way. They could have been at that time on the hospitalship that was blown up... meeting in the exact way they did by an escape pod - needing to make use of that escape pod and ending up on that casino planet/city thing. Meanwhile they could have tried to "go back home" to wherever that would be, but before they do - they set the creatures there free. It would have been a valid sub plot that just happened because it happened. Still feels meaningless but atleast there is some logic to it. The thing is ofcourse.... this whole casino thing is only there to introduce that little kid from the stables as being a force user. But honestly.... Honestly... if they just shown us the end as they did now with the little kid using the force to grab the broom, it would have said the same as it did now. So the whole casino storyline was just pointless as a whole. With the above I just pointed out a more logical inclusion of the casino and Rose and Finn doing something. But they should have actually just come up with something else entirely.
3. Luke is desillusioned.
Fine this is acceptable. But the reasoning behind Ben turning to the dark side because "Luke sensed" dark in him and him almost murdering his own nephew.... Yeah well that one does not fly for me. If they want to blame Luke for Ben's turning to the dark side... why do it like this? Why not just say: Luke desperately wanted to turn him to the light side and became blind to how far he already was towards the dark - while training him. It is an easy enough explanation.
4. Luke disconnected from the Force
Really? So he fishes with this 20ft pole and jumps insanely long distances (jumping to the pole).
> first: How can he lift the pole? Because it is so long, it is also very heavy.
> second: How can he get the fish off the pole? Again, he needs to lift the pole really high or turn it around to get the fish.
So if he is disconnected from the force, how is this possible?
5. Luke's ending
Why on earth did they kill him off? Luke was not yet done. He did not even need to "die". He could just step out of the story at the end of the next movie. If he came to the island to die (as he says), why leave a trail to find him? And if he can just "die" as he did in the movie, he could have done it a long time ago. Hell he did not even need to go to the island. The whole point of the island is moot by him dying there for no reason.
6. Captain Phasma
So they somehow kept her from being dead in TFA.... to toss her to Finn for 25 seconds of combat in TLJ. Really? Either write something nice for this character or they should have let her be dead.
7.a Superwomen Leia
With hindsight in mind.... They should have let Leia be dead by those missiles. She seemed at peace when floating in outer space. If you have seen the rest of the movie, you know her role could have been left out entirely. This should have been done in the editing room.
7.b Superwoman Leia
So apart from the fact this was entirely pointless, she now seems to have unseen Jedi powers. I get that she might have received training. I do not even care if she had or not. This feat of force strenght was so over the top...
7.c Superwoman Leia
So she can use the force to return to the ship. Knocks on the door and they do open the door. Now no one gets blown into space by the vacuum. Obviously I have seen Star Trek and other space movies/series. I know that a forcefield might have been made. But really? Is this is the case in Star Wars where an entire section (the bridge no less) was destroyed? Never have I seen in the SW movies that a forcefield would immediately be activated if this happened.
8. Why did Admiral Akhbar die?
If anything, they should have left Holdo out of the movie entirely if they were going to kill the admiral. They would place him instead of her to "suicide" by lightspeed. I am obviously ignoring the fact that a droid or autopilot would have been enough aswell. Atleast he would have had a role. The mistake here I make is that no one would "suspect" the admiral to maybe betray the alliance. While Holdo is a new face and we would question her motives. But this falls so flat anyway... why not give a beloved character a grand goodbye - and as the ship would go into lightspeed, he would yell: HAHAHAHA, IT IS A TRAP!!!!!
9. Where are the knights of Ren?
I have nothing but questions here.
10. Who is Snoke?
Seriously who is he? Why did he die like he did? And you know what... the fact that they showed that the lightsaber was turning on his chair.... could have been edited out. It would have been a much bigger surprise if they showed the effect when Ben would have used his Red Lightsaber on Rey. We are not stupid, we the audience would have pieced it together. The lightsaber was used and shown earlier. Everyone knew where it was.... then Snoke just tells us what is actually happening (as he did now). Still apart from that, I had no feelings but "surprise" when they killed him off. They did not need to do it so soon.
11. Who are the parents of Rey?
Honestly they did built up this story. They showed us (the audience) parts of what happened in her past. Then when the big reveal is coming, they just throw that away. It did not need to be that she was related to anyone from the previous episodes. But they could atleast have a nice appealing backstory for her. Maybe the information was false in TLJ. But seeing as the rest of the movie pisses in our faces with a lot of other things, I highly doubt it.
12. Bombs seem to have gravity in space
Not only do they sent out waaaay to many bombers they also sent them out too close together. So it is either: you know the ships are easily destroyed and need more of them to compensate but you know not to keep em close together - or - you sent out a few of those ships and more heavily protected.

[Archon14]

11. Who are the parents of Rey?
Honestly they did built up this story. They showed us (the audience) parts of what happened in her past. Then when the big reveal is coming, they just throw that away. It did not need to be that she was related to anyone from the previous episodes.

They didn't throw it away, exactly. She fears loneliness and being a nobody, being irrelevant. To me, this seemed like an obvious direction her character was going towards, especially when she didn't see anything in the cave but herself and her own echo.
Regardless of what Kylo said is true or not, it was an excellent stab at her mental strength. Kylo definitely knew that (he did explore her mind somewhat in Force Awakens, didn't he?), and those words being true just brings more power to his words, and keeps her weakness open.

I'd rather she conquers that weakness by accepting it or even not fully closing that wound ever, because it's much better than "oh look my parents are actually cool, now I can roflstomp everybody without worrying" scenario. We'll see next episode.

8. Why did Admiral Akhbar die?
If anything, they should have left Holdo out of the movie entirely if they were going to kill the admiral. They would place him instead of her to "suicide" by lightspeed.

Completely agree, although Poe and Ackbar wouldn't have that back and forth dialogue that seemed important to Poe as a character. However, Ackbar could've definitely pushed both Leia and Holdo onto the transport while they were arguing about who stays and just do the thing himself. It would definitely raise his cool factor by a thousand.

Definitely missed opportunity, as I've said before on this thread.

It would have been a much bigger surprise if they showed the effect when Ben would have used his Red Lightsaber on Rey. We are not stupid, we the audience would have pieced it together.

Agreed, that little bit of extra suspense would make an already amazing scene even better. However, that's only a tiny nitpick, compared to the real problem, that we didn't get absolutely anything from Snoke. Just a line or two of extra dialogue could've made it much better. Like he chose Kylo over other students because he hated Han Solo, or wanted revenge on Luke because Luke defeated him before. They wouldn't even have to show it, just a line or two extra during his moments where he basically trashes Kylo would work.

Lol as I was writing, I just realized I've probably written it before (possibly in exact words). Oh well... it's the only real problem I've had in a movie I consider to be one of the best SW movies.

[Babadoo]

I can't even tell what you are referring to.

Like the whole chasing the republic ship concept untill it runs out of fuel. Like seriously who came up with that bullshit. Those force connections between Ray and Kylo - ultimate borefest. This movie was just boring. As bad as the prequels were, they were atleast fun to watch.

[tyrlaan]

9. Where are the knights of Ren?
I have nothing but questions here.
10. Who is Snoke?
Seriously who is he? Why did he die like he did? And you know what... the fact that they showed that the lightsaber was turning on his chair.... could have been edited out. It would have been a much bigger surprise if they showed the effect when Ben would have used his Red Lightsaber on Rey. We are not stupid, we the audience would have pieced it together. The lightsaber was used and shown earlier. Everyone knew where it was.... then Snoke just tells us what is actually happening (as he did now). Still apart from that, I had no feelings but "surprise" when they killed him off. They did not need to do it so soon.

I don't disagree with most of your points, I just don't worry about these kinds of things in Star Wars movies since they've all had these kind of inconsistencies or "drama over logic" moments, so I don't get too tripped up over them.

Knights of Ren, yes would be nice to know where they are or if they were defeated, etc.

Snoke - don't care about who he is/was. We got no backstory for Darth Maul, for example. And honestly, Snoke had about as much depth as Maul did.

Overall I'm in the same camp as you - definitely enjoyed it, but certainly not the best the SW franchise has to offer. But for me, the biggest problem I had with the movie was probably how it had 4 perfectly valid end points and I feel it chose the worst one to use as the actual end, which made the movie drag at a certain point to me, almost like it decided to bleed into the next movie instead of end. (though since it ended where it did, I now feel like we'll see a time jump between VIII and IX)

[Archon14]

Snoke - don't care about who he is/was. We got no backstory for Darth Maul, for example. And honestly, Snoke had about as much depth as Maul did.

At least Snoke had some meaningful lines. It's definitely not an excuse though, there were underdeveloped characters in all star wars movies. Which is funny, since there was a lot of developed characters as well.
Star Wars has a habit of leaving characters underdeveloped if there's not enough time for an actual story. All it takes is a couple of well-written lines to sell most people on a character.

Imagine a scene where Phasma takes off her helmet, looks in the mirror completely pissed about Finn or something like that. Followed by mentions about how she's the best stormtrooper trainer or something like that, so she sees Finn's deserting as her own failure, similar to how Luke sees Kylo as his own. They would need 5 minutes for that, we still wouldn't know a god damn thing about who Phasma is and see her past, but that little amount of knowledge related to possible only character connected to her in some way (Finn) would make a big difference.
And it would make Phasma something more than "evil captain in a shiny armor", which is the key to having a developed character without needing to have a complete story or a separate movie.

[Arrowstormen]

On Weaponized Lightspeed: The movie suggested that it was only possible for Holdo to get in position to do what she did because the First Order ignored her ship and focused on the transports instead. Back in Episode IV, Han told Luke and the audience that it was possible to fly through a star and die if you were not careful when using lightspeed travel, so it is a bit strange that it is only NOW we see lightspeed going "wrong" in a movie.

On Not Telling Your Subordinates What's Up: I don't see why Holdo should feel the need to tell a captain the plan, especially when rebels are trying to sneak off in escape pods, and if any of them managed to escape knowing the plan, they would get screwed (as they did). I suspect Poe would have tried his plan anyway. On the mutiny being pointless: it wasn't. The whole thing was an important arc and character development for Poe and Finn, and served the themes of the movie. Their failure also led to big consequences.

On Luke: Clearly a lot of people are upset that Luke after 30 years wasn't the bees knees, but I personally loved what they did with him, and his story and arc is the most obvious example of the themes that are everywhere in this movie. The reason for having Luke draw his lightsaber and push Ben the whole way to the dark side was to have Luke fail. One of the themes of this movie is about being able to rebuild after failure. On the fishing pole, I don't see why this requires force powers. Luke died because his story was over and he was at peace, haven given the last bits of the Resistance and Rey get away and rebuild.

On Phasma: They could have done more with Phasma, but she served Finn's arc (and the themes), which was kind of her main reason of existing in the first place anyway, so I don't mind too much.

On Leia: I know some couldn't take it seriously, but I liked it, it was nice to see her finally use force powers. I think some people are vastly overestimating how much power she needed to do what she did, perhaps you can wonder about her being able to survive as long as she did, but being able to pull herself towards a door in space doesn't really make me scratch my head.

On Ackbar: He shouldn't have been Holdo, the "twist" wouldn't have worked if it was a senior character people knew and liked. You can argue whether his death deserved more spotlight, but I don't really think it would served much more than the somewhat meme-ish fanbase he has made for himself.

On Knights of Ren: I actually thought it was the red guard, but apparently not. I suspect we will see them in IX.

On Snoke: I loved what they did with him, it was ballsy, but made perfect sense for the overall story and themes, and heck, it is totally in line with how Sith usually do things. I don't really need to know what they are going to write on his Wookiepedia page, I bet that info will come if you want it, but this story didn't need it, in the same way we didn't need to know who the Emperor really was in the original trilogy.

On Rey's Parentage: Watching the movies purely by themselves, I don't feel like we were baited into thinking they were important at all, that's just fan speculation being disappointed when the answer turned out to be what it was. But I really liked it, and it made perfect sense for Rey's story and character. Super relatable, too. Force power isn't necessarily based on having super force-stronk parents.

On Bombs: I don't really care, I'm sure somebody can throw technobabble at it (I believe it was mentioned that they were magnetic + something else).

- - - Updated - - -

Like the whole chasing the republic ship concept untill it runs out of fuel. Like seriously who came up with that bullshit. Those force connections between Ray and Kylo - ultimate borefest. This movie was just boring. As bad as the prequels were, they were atleast fun to watch.

Sorry you feel that way, but I totally disagree. Ships chasing ships was enough to "fuel" Battlestar Galactica for most of its run time as far as I know. To each their own.

[Archon14]

On Leia: I know some couldn't take it seriously, but I liked it, it was nice to see her finally use force powers. I think some people are vastly overestimating how much power she needed to do what she did, perhaps you can wonder about her being able to survive as long as she did, but being able to pull herself towards a door in space doesn't really make me scratch my head.

We always knew she was force-sensitive. And her actually developing some sort of power after many, many years isn't that surprising. Especially when Luke is your brother.

Is there any information about using force in space? I imagine pulling yourself in a vacuum using the force to be extremely easy. I'm sure someone here can mention an example from a book or something. A duel in space perhaps, somewhere deep in the expanded universe?

Only thing I could find on google search is that Luke was taught teleporting objects in some novel, and there's apparently a dark side power called "force travel" that lets you travel by creating a rift in space. I assume that's not canon, no idea.

[Jin]

Why did the writter of the TFA story lines not continue on them in TLJ ? When you write something as big as star wars, I dont understand why 80% of it wasnt touched on. Even if it wasnt written as a arc, you can still write as if...

[segara82]

Actually, the bombs do make sense. Hear me out.
The SW-ships have artificial gravity, they have an up and a down. Like that bombadier lying on the gangway and kicking the ladder for the control to fall down.
So, all those bombs simply follow the rules of gravity once they get released. after leaving the ships artificial gravity they do follow Newtons 1st law and keep heading in the same direction.
Hell, if only the stupid hyper-speed-suicide would keep to existing in-univserse-lore.

PS: the bombers design seems to me to be made for both ZG conditions and planetary duty. Not the best but the Rebells don't have the funds for specialized equipment.