[Movie] Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi

[PACOX]

I can find something to like about the prequels...(Darth Maul, Jango Fett, and his fight with Kenobi, for a couple of examples)
Which is more than I can say about "The Last Jedi."

Two characters who werent in the prequels long enough for the prequels to ruin them.

Maul, Grievous, Dooku, Fett (well Boba at least) all have amazing character arcs that spared by them barely being in the prequels. Anakin is also a lot better outside of the films but its hard to reconcile offscreen Anakin with the one you see in ep II.

[Jastall]

holy shit you people really do have some imagination when defending this trash. Its beyond amusing. do keep pulling magical explanations and what ifs out of your hat.

It's freaking Star Wars. Pulling magical explanations out of the writer's hats is literally how this series was built since day 1. Only now it's a problem for whatever reason. Maybe because the same people who grumble against scientific sins in their 30s or 40s now are those who made ooh and aahs at the exact same kind of stupidity happening in the OT when they were kids and teenagers.

[Endus]

...but Rey hasn't had any training.
At this point, the "Resistance" might as well just toss her at the Empire since she can obviously do everything to beat them without needing anyone's help at all.

Maybe I'm misremembering, but we really don't know how long Rey was hanging out with Luke.

Plus, people seem to be operating under the assumption that Luke was terrifically powerful. He wasn't. Not on the scale of Anakin. He was a barely-trained guy for the entire original trilogy, and got his ass handed to him by both Palpatine and Vader. His role wasn't to beat them, his role was to stir up emotions of regret and loss in Anakin, and bring about Anakin's redemption. Which happened because he was Anakin's son, not because of his strength in the Force. Luke, in the original trilogy, is not presented as particularly gifted. He struggles constantly to learn basic things. But he's all they've got, and he's Vader's son.

Rey, on the other hand (and Kylo, for that matter) are presented as being terrifyingly powerful in the Force. Potentially even stronger than Anakin; Luke says he's only felt that kind of strength once before, and it's clear he meant Kylo. Not Vader. Who he definitely got a chance to see the strength of.

We saw this with Kylo grabbing that blaster bolt in mid-air in TFA. We see this with Rey picking stuff up really fast and seeming to do so more easily than Luke. It isn't implausible, it means she's way stronger than Luke ever was. People don't want to admit that, because it ruins their baseless headcanon that Luke is the bestest forever, or because Rey's a girl and eww cooties, or something. But the films lay this out clearly;

1> Rey is, along with Kylo Ren, one of the strongest Force users Luke has ever met.
2> Luke isn't on their level. He wasn't up to Palpatine or Vader, and these two are stronger.
3> There's something to be said for skill, which both Rey and Kylo lack, relying on brute strength in the Force, which is why Luke can still pull shit over on them. But that's something Luke's developed over decades, and has nothing to do with what we saw in the original trilogy.

People might not want to ADMIT that Rey is that strong in the Force, for some reason, but the films have stated it clearly. Raw, uncontrolled strength and potential.

Star Wars also has certain character dynamics and tone, which is why the prequels are so panned. The Last Jedi is almost a step back to the prequels.

The fact that they treated Yoda the way they did makes me doubt they even watched Empire.

Was he not complaining about his back enough? Or was it that he was too direct and helpful to Luke, rather than obtusely vague and weirdly abusive?

[caervek]

...but Rey hasn't had any training.
At this point, the "Resistance" might as well just toss her at the Empire since she can obviously do everything to beat them without needing anyone's help at all.

I think they tried to explain that by Snope saying how as Kylo's power increased so did that of his opposite in the force.

[Deleted]

They literally changed his character for no reason and you think that's not butchering Yoda?

Come on now.

How? He has almost the exact same personality as when luke meets him on dagobah.

[jtstormrage]

Anyone that has seen Event Horizon will know that her eyes should have been sucked out...

[Zeta333]

It's freaking Star Wars. Pulling magical explanations out of the writer's hats is literally how this series was built since day 1. Only now it's a problem for whatever reason. Maybe because the same people who grumble against scientific sins in their 30s or 40s now are those who made ooh and aahs at the exact same kind of stupidity happening in the OT when they were kids and teenagers.

Not when said technology has had its workings explained for about 20 years. But disney comes along and OH ITS FUCKING MAGIC.

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Anyone that has seen Event Horizon will know that her eyes should have been sucked out...

explosive decompression is a bitch. A space marine from 40k would be hard pressed to survive that and they were fucking built for it. Some old bitch that was only a jedi knight wouldnt.

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Except they can't. You're not wrong, I am 250% sure that at some point in the Star Wars in-universe history it was a common suicide tactic. It HAD to have been, or they wouldn't have developed technology to guard against it.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Inter...estroyer/Canon

The technology exists to create mass shadows which prevent hyperspace jumps, nominally to stop ships from escaping Imperial forces but most likely originally developed for this exact reason. The only reason Holdo even managed to do it in this movie is that Hux is a moron who had literally no idea what she was doing with the Raddus until it was far too late to stop her.



I mean, you're not wrong that certain technologies being there or not there is a bit odd. But the Raddus is about 3km long, which is still 3x the size of the largest Rebellion ships in ROTJ.

still would have been swiss cheese if that gaggle of failure destroyers had any fucking tie bombers. Tie Defenders, or fucking ion cannons.

[Kaleredar]

Maybe if the Force user actually had training...

Like how Luke had five minutes of training with obi-wan against a floating beach ball and then blew up the deathstar on his first try?

[Snuffleupagus]

How? He has almost the exact same personality as when luke meets him on dagobah.

That's exactly the problem. He was a trolly little gremlin when he met Luke on Dagobah. Not so much after he revealed his identity.

That persona was an act, designed to test Luke. How does it test Luke to act like that again?

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Was he not complaining about his back enough? Or was it that he was too direct and helpful to Luke, rather than obtusely vague and weirdly abusive?

See above. He was pretty serious from the moment he revealed his identity to Luke onward. It serves no purpose to have him revert to that persona.

[Deleted]

So I heard The Last Jedi is no longer number 1 at the Box Office and got toppled by Jumanji.

Disney may feel that sting after TLJ being out for only a short while. Disney should never have owned the Star Wars franchise, it is wrecked.

[Snuffleupagus]

Certain character dynamics such as....
Certain tone such as....

You can't really say "They did this wrong!" if you're not even going to specify how it's wrong.

And what, Yoda being a little green troll while still managing to impart widsom to Luke? That's like, 100% what he did in Empire. Shit he made Luke run around with him as a backpack!

See above for Yoda.

I only posted this a page back, but:

The BAD:
- Ignoring the fact that an old man (Lor San Tekka) who has a map to Luke, knows Kylo Ren, and happens to live on the same planet as Rey (Jakku) means that The Force Awakens starts on a massive coincidence. This movie has retroactively made tFA bad.
- The endless slapstick was out of place. Luke throwing the lightsaber aside was bad, the cooked Porg was bad, the Porg against the windscreen was bad, the bad phone line gag with Hux and Poe was bad, Fnn running around in his leaking suit was bad, Luke and the blue milk... it was all just bad.
- I understand why the Porgs where there (puffins), but extrapolating them further into the story was a poor choice.
- The entire casino adventure lends nothing to the story.
- Rose was obviously shoehorned into the movie and didn't need to be there. In fact, she should have been replaced with Poe and the "love" story discarded. OR alternatively, she should have been introduced in tFA, even at the end.
- The movie was 30 minutes too long.
- Kylo Ren is not suited to be the archvillain.
- All that build up for Snoke and then killing him off.
- Yoda acting like a child. Why? Did they not watch Empire?
- Holdo didn't need to be in the movie. Instead of killing Admiral Ackbar offscreen so casually, they could have had him fill in that role. Also, the hyperspace ram was actually pretty bad despite looking cool. Why not just send unmanned drone into large targets at light speed in future? The Death Star could have been destroyed by sending a handful of craft (which they lost more than in trying to attack it) at lightspeed.
- Phasma was useless. Moreso than Boba Fett, which is insane considering they were obviously trying to position her to be in a Boba Fett type role.
- DJ (Benicio Del Toro) was another useless character. Would have been more interesting to have him be the person they were looking for all along (in the same vein that Luke was searching for a great Jedi Master when he found Yoda - subversion of expectation) and maybe even have had him gamble away the token they were looking for (the one Theroux had) and get arrested over debt before they find him.

The GOOD:
- Luke being a flawed character was an interesting choice and made for a good arc (apart from just killing him off like that).
- Driver portrays an excellent villain overall and is pretty much what I'd expected from Anakin in the prequels.
- Despite my above comment about killing Snoke off (still a mistake), I did like that he didn't see it coming. The way he described his vision showing Ren striking down his "true enemy" was quite well done, although showing the lightsaber slowly rotating in several shots was unnecessary.
- The Luke/Kylo fight at the end (except Luke brushing off his shoulder after the initial assault - that belongs in trash-tier anime, not Star Wars), although again - far too on the nose with shoving it in our faces that Luke wasn't really there. He shouldn't have looked younger or had his old lightsaber (which we saw destroyed not long before that scene), allowing us to actually be as shocked as Kylo when we realise he's not there. Him not disturbing the sand was a nice touch, but the acrobatics and excessively choreographed fight was another mistake.

Star Wars, for all its faults, was (at least in the original trilogy, up until Lucas got his hands on RotJ) a very lean story that focused more on intimate personal stories (character relationships) with a wider overarching almost secondary story (Empire vs. Rebels) in the background.

[Deleted]

That's exactly the problem. He was a trolly little gremlin when he met Luke on Dagobah. Not so much after he revealed his identity.

That persona was an act, designed to test Luke. How does it test Luke to act like that again?

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See above. He was pretty serious from the moment he revealed his identity to Luke onward. It serves no purpose to have him revert to that persona.

And after he burned down the tree and laughed he became serious as well, so how is that butchering him?

[Snuffleupagus]

And after he burned down the tree and laughed he became serious as well, so how is that butchering him?

Because there was literally no point or reason for him to have the persona in this movie at all when he only interacts with Luke. Luke knows who he is, and the persona only existed to test Luke for a specific purpose.

[Deleted]

Because there was literally no point or reason for him to have the persona in this movie at all when he only interacts with Luke. Luke knows who he is, and the persona only existed to test Luke for a specific purpose.

So he's not allowed to laugh ever again, because it doesn't fit his persona?

[Snuffleupagus]

So he's not allowed to laugh ever again, because it doesn't fit his persona?

Not when it's out of context and doesn't follow how he acted in ESB and RotJ.

[Elim Garak]

Not when it's out of context and doesn't follow how he acted in ESB and RotJ.

Death is a very serious business, it changes people. Especially if they get to live as ghosts afterwards.

Having said that. Everything Yoda did and the way he acted were IN the context and followed exactly how he acted before, to the letter and punctuation.

[Aurrora]

Maybe I'm misremembering, but we really don't know how long Rey was hanging out with Luke.

Plus, people seem to be operating under the assumption that Luke was terrifically powerful. He wasn't. Not on the scale of Anakin. He was a barely-trained guy for the entire original trilogy, and got his ass handed to him by both Palpatine and Vader.

She can't have been with Luke for more than a few days, I think we see at least 3 night cycles.

There's no reason to suspect Luke wasn't as powerful as Anakin. He does beat Vader, he didn't even attempt to fight Palpatine beyond the first swipe at him, and Kylo Ren's power is presented as a result of his heritage so Luke and Leia should likewise have a power level that at least puts them in the ballpark of Anakin/Kylo/Rey.

[Snuffleupagus]

Death is a very serious business, it changes people. Especially if they get to live as ghosts afterwards.

Having said that. Everything Yoda did and the way he acted were IN the context and followed exactly how he acted before, to the letter and punctuation.

It didn't change Obi Wan, and I'm curious as to how you know that death changes people.

[Elim Garak]

It didn't change Obi Wan.

It did change him.

[Snuffleupagus]

It did change him.

Good talk. 10/10.