The Last Jedi "Actual" Rotten Tomatoes Popcorn Score

[Goldielocks]

Mara Jade, Tenel Ka, Bria Tharen (a rarity, a non Force User) are at the very least as much as ''Mary Sues'' than Rey. The stromtrooper armor might be incapable of stopping an hard look, but every single character (except in Rogue One)have much more robust plot armor

(Again, example : at Yavin 4, the Imperial fighters are able to one shot with ease Y-Wing, X-Wings (the former being supposedly much more robust than the later). Except, of course, Luke.)

I've never read a single EU book, so the defense that I'm attacking Disney and not the EU won't work. I can't tell you from personal experience whether the writing of those stories is good or bad.

Secondly, Mary Sue and Overpowered are not synonyms. One is a narrative term and the other is an adjective. A Mary Sue in layman's terms, is when the narrative can't handle the overwhelming characteristics of the protagonist or some other character. An overpowered protagonist isn't boring to watch when they can't overpower everything. The biggest example here is Anakin. He's force Jesus and yet was wrecked in AOTC a considerable amount of times. As powerful as he was, the narrative handled that power and still gave him a run for his money. I'm not saying that AOTC was a good movie but George handled Anakin's power decently at least.

This is why I find Rey boring. If you don't, then good for you, but she's most definitely a Mary Sue.

My comment about Mara Jade isn't one I have personally. I've heard good things about her character, and to be fair, EU Luke was also very overpowered. In order for someone to be worthy of him, she would have had to be powerful too.

[Skulltaker]

No, they specifically said they were cloaked.

Yeah, and they told you wrong. Even though they insist on it in the movie, the U-55, nor any other resistance ship, ever had anything close to an actual cloak. The only thing it has was the so called baffler, a device invented by Rose, btw, and dubbed a 'poor beings cloak' by Holdo, to make the emissions of the ship look signifficantly smaller. It makes them harder to detect, but not invisible. It can give you an edge, but that's about it's limit. You can read up on the baffler and the U-55 shuttle here.

That isn't a window. That's a display. There is no indication whatsoever that this is a raw feed.

Plus, I think you're forgetting exactly how big space is. We can't track all potential asteroids that might hit the Earth, even though they're often bigger than these transports, clearly being lit by the Sun, and so forth. We often miss incoming asteroids because they're not where we happen to be looking. Now, once someone tells you there's an asteroid in a certain area, you can typically spot it yourself, but that isn't the same thing as finding it in the first place.

Please show me where in the movie it says that that isn't a window. All Imperial leaders so far have made a habit of sitting in front of a great panoramic view. The Emperor even had his own little command tower build on the death star. While we cannot know for sure, the balance of probability tells us it's a window. I haven't looked at the specs for Snokes Throne Room, so far, but seeing how he's an extremly powerful Force user (or sucessfully pretended to be) I finde it safe to assume that he doesn't need a viewscreen. It also begs the question how someone who infuluenced two extremly giftet Forceusers halfa galaxy away didn't feel the deception going on right under his nose, but thats the smallest Problem that scene has.

And as for the Asteroid: Stupid point is Stupid. First of all, as previously established, we are talking not about a solar system, but a range of a few hundred kilometers. Pretty certain we know about all significant objects that fly around in these ranges, as most of them are, under the right circumstances, cisible to the naked eye. Second, an asteroid has neither lit windows, which the U-55 had, nor emissions, nor a brightly illuminated backside these ships had, which they were flashing to the Supremacy like a Baboon, because they were running directly from it. And, in case you didn't notice, we also don't have Starships, Plasma weapons, FTL capability, and so on, so making a comparison to real life into a fictional movie is a rather weak way to argue, otherwise I'd ask the question why the fuel reserve was a problem to begin with, since they could simply have shut the engine off, momentum would keep carrying the ships forward, and there is no reason why the ships out of fuel would slow down, or start to tumble as they did, but I am not opening that can of worms.

[Antiganon]

FWIW, in Star Wars, the Navy seems to deal with ship command exclusively, where the Army is general tactics and starfighters and landing groups and all that. I linked Dameron's rank badge; he's Army, not Navy (which is blue). So Wedge, being in starfighter chain of command, would ascend to General, not Admiral.

1. IIRC, in EU canon, Starfighter Command and Fleet Command were coequal branches, along with army and spec ops. Wedge was the highest ranking officer in Starfighter Command from the Battle of Endor onwards.

That appears to be different now, with fighters being army rather than navy. I clearly need to brush up on my new canon.

2. Wedge was the ranking officer aboard the Lusankya for a fairly long period, so he was highly ranked in both fleet command and starfighter command at various times.

[Skulltaker]

Seems so far to me that the only people defending this movie are SJW's and the Star Wars super fanpersons.

I went into it with high expectations and was severely let down. Was it fun to watch? Sure, but the story and dialogue was terrible. Full of plot holes and characters not acting like themselves. But hey...it had strong women and a diverse cast! So it must be good right?

I'm a super fanboy and I don't defend it. It had it's very good moments, but the starship chase, anything Rose and Fin relateted and DJ were definatly not among the good things, rather the opposite. It reminded me a lot of Battle of the Five Armies, which was at it's best when the main characters were talking and had time for emotions and at it's worse whenever there was action.

[I Push Buttons]

It's more that I recognize that Star Wars has literally always been silly popcorn "SPLOSIONS AND LAZER SWORDS" sci-fi. The original trilogy was built, from the ground up, on the expectation and desire to sell toys, fer crissakes (which they were wildly successful at, I'll admit). This is why there's tons of wacky characters, it drove ship design concepts, it's why Ewoks exist, and so forth. The spiritualism of the Force has always been watered-down and misunderstood Bhuddism. It was groundbreaking in terms of special effects, but that's really about it. That spectacle in theaters captured people's minds like no other films had, which is why it's had such lasting popularity.

In terms of narrative quality and complexity, it's always been a bit crap. Hell, look at all the faffing about to retroactively make "made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs" a not-stupid comment, since it's pretty damn obvious that Lucas thought "parsec" was a unit of time, not distance, when he wrote it. Or Luke and Leia french kissing and Luke being part of her budding love triangle, despite being her brother. People have wondered why the escape pod with 3P0 and R2 was allowed to crash on Tattooine; they were after the Death Star plans, and figured "hey, there's no life signs, so they couldn't possibly have stuck the plans in there or given them to droids, right?"

It's always been flashy and silly and about as deep as a puddle.

*wall of text*

---

It might not have been deep, but at least it was coherent and the narrative made sense. It wasn't hamfisted nonsense filled with coincidences and contrivances to move the plot forward like the new trilogy is. And when I say filled that is putting it lightly, basically every plot point in the new trilogy is a contrivance or coincidence.

Going back, look at A New Hope for example. Leia's ship is above Tatooine? Why? She's there to find Obi-Wan and seek his aid in the rebellion, he was a famous general who helped her father in the last big war. They are being pursued by Vader? Why? Because the rebels have obtained the plans for the Death Star and he seeks their recovery. They don't shoot the 3PO and R2 escape pod, for, yes, a pretty weak reason, but they could have just not put that scene in at all and nothing would have changed. We are introduced to Luke and they established Obi-Wan is keenly aware of him, which is no coincidence since shortly thereafter we learn Luke's father was his friend and comrade and wanted him (according to Obi-Wan) to watch over Luke and give him his light saber when he was older.

They meet Han, which is arguably a coincidence, but not really, since Mos Eisley is spaceport and a "hive of scum and villainy" and he's a smuggler with a space ship... They leave and run into the Deathstar, but once again, its not a coincidence since they were going to Alderan seeking Leia and the Deathstar, having just captured Leia, wanted to pressure her to reveal rebel secrets by threatening her home planet.

They rescue her after what seems like a hard fought battle with heavy sacrifice and take her to the rebel base, surprise the Deathstar put a tracker on them and let them escape... Then arguably the biggest coincidence of original trilogy, which is nothing compared to the new trilogy, happens. Luke's friend just happens to be a rebel pilot and vouches for his skills as a pilot. Which, considering Lucas' terrible sense of scale, is hardly even a coincidence since all 12 people in the Star Wars galaxy (there was no expanded universe and basically no sense of the wider galaxy at that point) are either rebels or imperials. And they already established Luke was an expert pilot his entire youth, even calling back to this fact "bullseyeing womp rats with his t-16", and all of his friends were pilots who already left for "the academy" that he also wanted to attend. Moving on, Luke participates in the final battle where the rebels get cut down and it seems their mission is doomed to fail and he is about to be shot down himself when deus ex machina Han Solo arrives and saves him, though its not really a deus ex machina since Luke guilt tripped him into wanting to help the rebellion just before that scene. He fires his torpedoes using the force, with the help of Obi-Wan (both previously on the Falcon and now through his force ghost), he was completely unable to do it on his own, only with Han and Obi-Wan could he do it, and the Deathstar is destroyed.

The end. Pretty straightforward right? Like I said, not deep, but everything happens for a reason, its coherent, it makes sense.

---

Fast Forward to The Force Awakens now... Poe and the First Order just happen (coincidence, you will notice a lot of things just happening) to converge on Jakku at the same time for the same reason, to get a map to Luke (you know, after he has been absent for years). Why is there a map? Why is the map there? No reason, just cuz. Finn, a child soldier brainwashed since he was a toddler with First Order propaganda and war, is, for some reason, just a normal dude. He decides to run away from the First Order at this point because it wasn't obvious they were bad guys until then or something. He releases Poe and they escape down to Jakku.

Finn runs into Mary Sue, the new chosen one who also just happens to be on Jakku at the same time for no apparent reason (later confirmed to be there for actually literally no reason with her parentage revelation). She just happens to be an expert combatant with her staff (no problem, she should be since the scenes leading up to their meeting show us she lives a hard life with hard people), but also an expert mechanic, an expert pilot, can speak every language in the universe, etc. And they easily escape because she's just that good.

Han just happens to be at Jakku ready to scoop them up when they get in orbit. They mingle when all of the various criminal organizations chasing after Han just happen to converge on them all at the exact same time, which also happens to be the exact same time the new heroes are there. Fortunately Han just happened to be transporting some random suck monsters that suck them to death. They go to Maz's bar where Maz just happens to have Luke's light saber and it just happens to call Mary Sue. They also just happen to seemingly be right next to the New Republic capital since they get to watch it be destroyed from there since the First Order just happened to finish building their super weapon and wanted to test/commit mass murder with it at that exact moment.

Resistance and First Order show up since spies from both of them informed them of seeing BB-8 (pretty much the only non-coincidence in the whole movie; there is actual cause and effect). Poe just happens to still be alive. The resistance wins, but Crybabylo kidnaps Mary Sue. Crybably interrogates Mary Sue, but, surprise, Mary Sue just happens to also an expert with the force and her literal first use of the force is to both block a trained force user attempting to read her mind and to read his mind in turn AND then moments later to force persuade a stormtrooper, who just happened to be the only guard around, to release her.

Back at the rebel base they are scrambling to prepare for the super weapon since the First Order just happened to track one of their ships there at some point (who knows, this is literally one line of dialogue in the film, "we tracked a reconnaissance ship and know where their base is"). In a very ridiculous and contrived strategy session they jest about how previous super weapons were easy to blow up so this one must as well. Finn, who just happened to have been a Janitor at the base, also just happens to be an expert at its design and structural integrity, suggesting a design flaw where they should hit it after he slips in and disabled their shields. They base their entire plan on this Janitor's insights and set off for battle.

Lo and behold the Janitor's plan was a ruse, he just wanted to rescue Mary Sue. Han and Finn land and just happen to run into Phasma who just happens to have the codes to disable the entire planet's shields and just happens to give them up with literally no fuss whatsoever and a random nearby computer terminal just happens to be able to disable said entire planet's shields AND no one in the First Order happens to notice their entire shield grid has been disabled; all of which just happens to allow Finn's plan to actually work.

The resistance aren't making much progress destroying the design flaw... So Poe, caring deeply for his comrades, tells them to run away and save themselves while he makes his own suicidal trench run in a last ditch effort to destroy the design flaw... Only for this characterization to be completely erased at the beginning of the next movie, by his throwing the lives of his entire wing away for no reason whatsoever so admiral gender studies can put him in his place, but I digress. His trench run works and the destruction of the design flaw sets in motion the destruction of the entire planet. Crybabylo is shot, so you would think he is weak right? Well that doesn't stop him from easily dispatching Finn, a trained soldier who has already successfully used a light saber in combat in like two moves. Thinking he won, he goes to grab the lightsaber when Mary Sue further exhibits her already mastered force powers by grabbing the light saber from dozens of feet away with ease. Then, having never used a light saber and fighting a trained light saber user who mere moments before easily dispatched a trained soldier, Mary Sue easily wins the light saber duel.

They get back to their base and the entire resistance just happens to be ok with giving the responsibility of going after Luke, something dozens of them just died for and has been their entire goal for presumably a good while, to Mary Sue who they just met literally just then; but Leia, also having just met her, gave her a hug so I guess that means she is like super important to the resistance now or something.

The end.

Almost nothing is natural in any of that. Almost everything that happens just happens to happen purely by coincidence for no apparent reason other than they wrote it to happen. There is no natural flow, progression, reason for almost any of it. If you aren't aware, coincidence is the bane of fiction. It is one of the most taboo things there is and a sure sign that what you are writing is garbage. And this movie was literally nothing but coincidence after coincidence.

And then The Last Jedi takes this hot steaming pile of shit, makes most of it irrelevant, and then somehow miraculously makes an even hotter steaming pile of shit.

#WallOfText

[Jastall]

It's more that I recognize that Star Wars has literally always been silly popcorn "SPLOSIONS AND LAZER SWORDS" sci-fi. The original trilogy was built, from the ground up, on the expectation and desire to sell toys, fer crissakes (which they were wildly successful at, I'll admit). This is why there's tons of wacky characters, it drove ship design concepts, it's why Ewoks exist, and so forth. The spiritualism of the Force has always been watered-down and misunderstood Bhuddism. It was groundbreaking in terms of special effects, but that's really about it. That spectacle in theaters captured people's minds like no other films had, which is why it's had such lasting popularity.

In terms of narrative quality and complexity, it's always been a bit crap. Hell, look at all the faffing about to retroactively make "made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs" a not-stupid comment, since it's pretty damn obvious that Lucas thought "parsec" was a unit of time, not distance, when he wrote it. Or Luke and Leia french kissing and Luke being part of her budding love triangle, despite being her brother. People have wondered why the escape pod with 3P0 and R2 was allowed to crash on Tattooine; they were after the Death Star plans, and figured "hey, there's no life signs, so they couldn't possibly have stuck the plans in there or given them to droids, right?"

It's always been flashy and silly and about as deep as a puddle.

Same for me. Star Wars is pure popcorn fest. Sure, it has a hugely iconic look and sound effects, but as far as writing goes it's never been anything above mediocre, and often been quite bad, to say nothing of the shitty prequels.

Maybe that's why I don't mind the recent Disney fare too much. I just don't have much investment in Star Wars to begin with. But as I see it people are really putting previous Star Wars movie on a pedestal where they don't belong unless you have really thick nostalgia goggles. I remember watching an OT marathon with a friend 3-ish years back and I rolled my eyes several times, about as frequently as I did during the new movies.

[sarahtasher]

For what it's worth, Rogue One at least explains one glaring plot hole in ANH. ''Why they don't fire on the escape pods''.

Darth Vader does not want to destroy the plans (that would have been done by blowing the Tantine IV). He want to recover the plans. Why ? Tarkin just blown up the originals of the plans and the lead designer !

[tyrlaan]

I've never read a single EU book, so the defense that I'm attacking Disney and not the EU won't work. I can't tell you from personal experience whether the writing of those stories is good or bad.

Secondly, Mary Sue and Overpowered are not synonyms. One is a narrative term and the other is an adjective. A Mary Sue in layman's terms, is when the narrative can't handle the overwhelming characteristics of the protagonist or some other character. An overpowered protagonist isn't boring to watch when they can't overpower everything. The biggest example here is Anakin. He's force Jesus and yet was wrecked in AOTC a considerable amount of times. As powerful as he was, the narrative handled that power and still gave him a run for his money. I'm not saying that AOTC was a good movie but George handled Anakin's power decently at least.

This is why I find Rey boring. If you don't, then good for you, but she's most definitely a Mary Sue.

My comment about Mara Jade isn't one I have personally. I've heard good things about her character, and to be fair, EU Luke was also very overpowered. In order for someone to be worthy of him, she would have had to be powerful too.

Well your definition of Mary Sue is wrong, so, um, no.

I'm not going to argue that Rey is an amazing character, but she's not a Mary Sue.

[Goldielocks]

Well your definition of Mary Sue is wrong, so, um, no.

I'm not going to argue that Rey is an amazing character, but she's not a Mary Sue.

Just the fact that you ignored my "in layman's terms" only proves that a potential argument is going to lead nowhere.

[Goldielocks]

Poe should have trusted his superior officer. Them keeping plans on a strict need to know is pretty standard when they suspect a mole could be on board.

They do? Where?

See, if this was solidified to the audience, Holdo's actions would have been much better in context. It's one of the reasons why I think Rian Johnson can't write.

[Brubear]

For what it's worth, Rogue One at least explains one glaring plot hole in ANH. ''Why they don't fire on the escape pods''.

Darth Vader does not want to destroy the plans (that would have been done by blowing the Tantine IV). He want to recover the plans. Why ? Tarkin just blown up the originals of the plans and the lead designer !

So they had to retroactively explain that 30 years after the fact for it to make sense?

[Razehope]

Poe should have trusted his superior officer. Them keeping plans on a strict need to know is pretty standard when they suspect a mole could be on board.

If they did suspect a mole how was the plan supposed to work? The plan was for Holdo to stay on the cruiser and the rebels to leave. The "mole" would've been on the transports anyway. Not to mention that the fueling and loading of the transports would of been hidden form the crew.

[Adam Jensen]

I don't really care what other people think.

I liked the movie.

I don't need to be told by some other website or critic if I like something or not.

[Iliena]

I didn’t like it as much as Force Awakens the story felt a bit sloppy and unfocused, the milking scene was plain weird and drew a few groans in the place I watched it.
I didn't find it as awful as some people are making it out to be and better than the prequels.

[tyrlaan]

Just the fact that you ignored my "in layman's terms" only proves that a potential argument is going to lead nowhere.

That's the weirdest deflection I've seen in a while, and I frequent the politics forum.

Or maybe you don't know what "layman's terms" means either...?

[Goldielocks]

That's the weirdest deflection I've seen in a while, and I frequent the politics forum.

Or maybe you don't know what "layman's terms" means either...?

You really have no right to say I deflected when you called me out and didn't back up your call out. Again with this second response, you're calling me out with no basis. If you know what they are, then say what they are.

[Razehope]

Poe should have trusted his superior officer. Them keeping plans on a strict need to know is pretty standard when they suspect a mole could be on board.

So the plan was to send the mole with the rebels to a secret base?

[Kapadons]

Well your definition of Mary Sue is wrong, so, um, no.

I'm not going to argue that Rey is an amazing character, but she's not a Mary Sue.

The definition of Mary Sue

A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment.[1] They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience

How does that not fit Ray to literal perfection. You can argue if it’s bad or not , but to argue she isn’t one is just plain silly.

[Endus]

The definition of Mary Sue

How does that not fit Ray to literal perfection. You can argue if it’s bad or not , but to argue she isn’t one is just plain silly.

Because Rey isn't remotely perfect. She makes quite a few mistakes throughout the series.

[sarahtasher]

The definition of Mary Sue



How does that not fit Ray to literal perfection. You can argue if it’s bad or not , but to argue she isn’t one is just plain silly.

Because...the...Force...turns...people...into...superhuman...by...the...rules...of...the.. .universe.