The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION

[Sithspecter 909]

I watched The Last Jedi yesterday, and would like to share my thoughts here.

 

As a preface, I would like to add that I had mixed feelings when I saw The Force Awakens, but hoped that it could lead to better things. Additionally, I had mixed feelings about Rogue One. Leading up to TLJ, I did not follow social media and carefully guarded myself against spoilers. I was quite excited for this installment. I was really hoping they wouldn't try to ride too much nostalgia trip from ESB.

 

Opening crawl immediately pointed to an ESB type story initially, and then there was the evacuation and everything. Pretty standard ESB copy. So then we get up into space and have Poe trying to hail the Imperial ship. The connection joke fell absolutely flat. Tried to set up a light tone at a time that should have been tense and grim, felt very forced. So then Poe activates his super-engine or whatever and destroys all the anti-aircraft guns. THEN the Imperials decide to scramble fighters. Seemed like a stupid move, I would expect they should already have fighters providing top-cover for the entire operation. 

 

Next, we cue the bomber attack. I liked the ship design of the bombers, seemed like a beefier B-Wing. I did not like the melodramatic sequence where the pilot is trying to release the bombs with the absolutely ludicrous bomb-release-remote. Spent way too long on that sequence. Bombardier is dead, just crash the ship into the dreadnought. Same emotional impact (or lack thereof), same sacrifice. Spare the drama please. Also it was stupid that the bombs are apparently still under gravity's pull. Stick with the physics, thank you.

 

Then, the expected hyperspace jump. Slightly unexpected was that the Imperials are able to follow. The next sequence of events is a mess of plot holes that is to stagger the imagination. The Resistance ships are apparently able to "outrun" the Imperial ones with their sublight engines. Well, what's to stop the Star Destroyers and Dreadnoughts from doing a micro hyperspace jump to just in front of the Resistance ships and subsequently blow them out of the sky? Additionally, with the bridge (or one of the bridges), and the cruiser's fighters destroyed, what's keeping the Imperial fighters from attacking the Rebel ships at will? The Imperials show many other places in the movie that they are not afraid to use excessive force to wipe out the Resistance. It seems to me they had several options to destroy what remained of the Resistance well before waiting for them to run out of fuel. I found myself disappointed at the complete idiocy of what was going on.

 

Then, Kylo's TiE buddies take out the bridge (or one of the bridges, apparently there is another). At that moment, I'm thinking, "Leia is gone. I've made my peace with it, that's how she would want to go." But no! Instead we get to go Guardians of the Galaxy and Leia brings up this previously unknown Force skill and is able to bring herself back to the ship. I can't take this movie seriously at this point. They should have let her die at this point in the movie. She added next to nothing to the remainder of the film.

 

Cue Vice-Admiral Holdo, who apparently just stumbled on set from the Hunger Games. As pointed out above, one would hope she could conjure up a uniform or something. But no, instead we have elegant dresses and pink tresses. Her dismissal of Poe is stupid at best, and borderline criminal negligence at worst. Instead of briefing the crew on the plan and preparing to execute it, the command leaves the entire crew in the dark with nothing to go on. This is without a doubt the biggest plot hole in the entire Star Wars saga. As a viewer, it seemed to me (without knowing at the time that there was in fact a plan), that she was going to blindly burn the rest of their fuel in a vain hope that an option would turn up in the next 6 hours.

 

So naturally the events that follow Rose (C'mon, let's think of some original names please?) and Finn are completely unnecessary, and add little to the film. Their entire excision to Canto Bright seemed little more than a PETA commercial. I will have to admit that I did not have as much an issue with the Canto Bright casino as most did. In fact, outside of the unoriginal attire, my initial thought was that it was the most Star Wars-y thing I had seen in the movie so far. Which is to say how little the movie felt like Star Wars. The most ludicrous thing that happened during that whole arc was Rose's, "Now it's worth it!" after setting the animals free. As if their failure to aid the Rebellion and avenge her sister's death was now fine and dandy that a few animals got released back into the wild. The whole time I'm also thinking, Benecio del Toro was cast as a villain, right? I'm hoping this movie can conjure up some really amazing stuff to make it worth it, because right now I'm 80% sure it's the stupidest movie I have ever seen, and I watched Iron Sky.

 

Back on Ach-To, Luke tosses his Father's lightsaber over his shoulder in a flat attempt at humor. So much for, "This weapon is your life". Unfortunately, after that little gesture, I knew I was going to be disappointed with whatever happened with Luke. Then we have Luke the milkman and Luke the fisherman, in an apparent gambit to explain how Luke survives on this island. And there are maids that take care of everything? What? Also Luke has turned into a whiny, pathetic loser. The Luke we see is nowhere close to the character of the Original Trilogy. Mark Hamill was right to object about what his character is doing. Luke doesn't run away and hide. Luke comes to the aid of his friends, no matter what.
 

That's all I have the energy for right now. I will continue my review of the movie later.

[zbyl2 811]

 

Much more than the 18h chase in a single system that pretty much the entire TLJ. Heck, in that 18h Rey did her whole "training" and caught up with them all. Literally.

 

You just compared the best part of of R1 to the one of the worst parts of TLJ.
Might as well say prequels were better because that opening battle was awesome and Ewoks were dumb.

 

 

Heck, in that 18h Rey did her whole "training" and caught up with them all.

 

Chase must have been longer. Rey was training for at least days. 18 hours was given after a while, who knows how much time they spent in hyperspace and how much time Rey spent with Luke before the evacuation.

 

 

Sounds like TLJ and the Guards fight. Except in much lower quantities IMO

 

Stormtroopers beaten by a girl with a stick is worse than two Force user taking on imperial guards after shockingly killing what we assumed was the main bad guy?

 

Not a single throw-away like Snoke or Phasma, or Rose, or Pink-Hair Woman. Or Mas either.

 

What. Literally every one in Rogue One was a throw away. And before you say "that's the point of their suicide mission" - it doesn't matter. At least I remember anything about characters you mentioned. That alone makes for a better experience.

 

 

The First Order *somehow* managed to conquer the entire galaxy between the 0 minutes inbetween VII and VIII, yet also turned from genioune threat to hilarious over-the-top villain that couldn't kill a fly. And killed off their ONLY leader that wasn't a teen with rage issues. Good luck selling any threat in IX like that.

 

I already complained about all that with TFA which was supposed to set it up. Don't care any more.

 

 

Literally nobody dying in TLJ made any impact since all of them where throwaways.

 

Literally nobody dying in R1 made any impact since all of them were throwaways.

 

While Rey isn't uncharasmatic, her ability to literally gain lvl 50 from just typing IneedForce in a dropbox is just... terrible and making her feel like a cardboard cutout char.

 

She got her ass kicked for half the movie.

 

 

I take it over TLJ's forced humour.

 

Or compare it to TLJ's fan service which was also terrible and I also criticized.
Oh right R1 didn't have dumb humor. If you ignore half the robot's lines.

 

Rogue One did something new, loved it. TLJ didn't do "new" as much as it just crapped all over Star Wars as we know it, and *literally* added in Earth at one point.

 

Literally no.

 

Did you think KOTOR2 would be better if it went, oh well, KOTOR1 was all about Revan, now we're 5 years later... Bastila stabbed him, the end. Well, here's our new story, 18 hours of Malachor V slogfest would you also go "This is great!" Cause that's how it feels like.

 

Revan is interesting because of KOTOR 2, so yeah, probably. Well, not with this terrible backstory, but with focusing on other stuff. It would be worse than TSL but we wouldn't know that because our TSL would never exist.

 

 

Why did they even prophecise the Skywalkers if within 2 generations their power was peanuts. They should have made a prophecy about the power of Rey.

 

I want Rey to do something nearly as badass as Luke did in the end. Or Leia. Rey did NOTHING that was even close to their power level.
And I really don't want to talk about the prophecy, or the prequels in general, but "we may have misunderstood it" or whatever it was Yoda said in ROTS, if you want an in-universe explanation.

[Hassat Hunter 571]

@1Leonard:

I know the Prophecy is about Anakin. When did I state otherwise? You can clearly see so by me saying "2 generation" Luke being the first new generation, and Rey the second. See?

And yeah, it was stated Anakin was the most powerful Jedi ever. Midichlorian scene remember? Born from the Force.

 

We know more about Snoke than the Prophecy, really? Tell me ANYTHING we know of snoke, besides his visuals since we can see them. That's pretty much it.

 

My point exactly, "Rey Nobody" is an actual insult to the sudden surge of Power shown. And the Prequels didn't really show an increase in Force Power, just more flashy lightsaber combat.

And Anakin went through about as many years as Kylo Ren to make progress (there's no actual real use of Force by him in Phantom Menace, as should be), not the days of Rey. Untrained.

 

ESB had failures. Luke failed against his father and learned his lineage, making the stakes higher. Han got frozen. TLJ has NONE of these setups. None. While the Rey/Kylo scenes are the best of TLJ they really have no emotional connection to care for us moving to IX. Unlike Luke/Father were we wonder if he can overcome his lack of power here we got Rey, who's Rey and Rey is awesome and can't fail so we really don't care about the confrontation, she'll win like she always does. For a movie of failure it seems awfully unaware for a main character to be interesting they need that failure to be believable and have something to actually overcome that interests the viewer. Rey got none of that.

 

Even if there was such leadup (VII had it) the way VIII shat all over it would anyone really trust a proper resolution now?

 

"The Dragons are coming" -Game of Thrones

"Hah, they got killed off-screen to here. We juuuust hyped them up a loooong time, but it's all your fault for actually going in with our hype. Suckers!"

Would you really go with 'Best plottwist ever' or 'Terrible terrible writers'?

 

1. Probably. Can't care either way.

2. Snoke being alive would be a copout ruining yet another movie, so hopefully not.

3. And we know Rey will win since Rey is Rey and Rey can't loose. Exciting! (not)

4. The Jedi (and Sith) are a philosophy, not a set of rules. You should really know this. They don't need books to "survive". Infact the books would mostly just introduce the failures of the Jedi Kreia and Luke hate so much (and Luke thus didn't follow in the old EU anyway).

5. I... literally cannot care?

6. I agree, but this movie completely and utterly ruined this.

 

I would really like any incentive to watch IX, but VIII left absolutely zero reasons to go for it in.

[Hassat Hunter 571]

That wasn't even close to the worst part of TLJ.
And yes, Prequels beat the Newquels at this date.

Nothing was given in the movie. TFA ended with "training and going to the Rebel Base" and TLJ picks up right where it got off. So the 18h was all we were given (and remember in that time Finn and Rose got to do their entire PETA-part on Earth too).
Either days are really short on Luke's planet or it's just really crap writing at work. (Answer: It's B )

Worst battle vs. only worthwhile battle in the movie. Who compares worst to best now?

The rememberence being "Who was he?", "Why did they even promote a non-character", "Why ain't she dead?", "Why didn't this woman just tell Poe the plan, the Resistence sucks as much as The First Order" or "Plot-advancement device" (fair enough the Darth-Vader machined guy in Rogue One follows somewhat similar to Mas... but it's got nowhere near the throwable character-roster the new Trilogy has.

That seems to be a common charasteristic about people liking TLJ, telling people who care "don't care"/"doesn't matter" or "just deal with it" for ANYTHING based around plot. Sorry, I don't watch movies with my brains off, that's just not my thing.

R1 didn't have a follow-up movie that relies on tension, TLJ does. There isn't. It's Darth Emo vs. The Undefeatable Mary Sue. Ohh... what could POSSIBLY happen?

I must have missed that entire half then since she beat the 15-year trained Sith guy within 5 days of learning about the Force. He got his face cut up, she had 0 injuries as of yet in 2 entire movies.

Humour is part of all Star Wars movies, mostly coming from the droids (forgetting Jar Jar for a moment). TLJ seriously went overboard with everyone being a joke, primarily the bad guys.

They can't even use Star Wars terms at that point and went to earth-terms. Nobody writing this knows Star Wars obviously or they would have never added "cops" or "hacker"... come on.

It's almost like TSL is a good middle of a trilogy. Building on it's predecessor (rather than throwing all away) and leaving much room for a third part and an interest in exploring it. Both not TLJ's area.

You say badass, I say lame. Especially Leia's Force use was absolutely attrocious. It looked ridicilious.
Not to mention nothing in TFA even remotely hinted at Leia getting training so it's another mysterious power usage.
And Luke dying to that. Being peaceful? How the hell did the kids even learn Luke doing that, did the First Order publically broadcast their assault or something (they are so borderline stupid at this point I wouldn't even question *that*). Oh, I brought Hope by doing absolutely nothing, better pass on now.
Come the f*ck on...
Yeah, they did misinterpretate it, in that "balance" wiped out the Jedi entirely to do so rather than the Sith. Doesn't make it fairly likely Jesus is outclassed tenfold 2 generations after birth.

[sELFiNDUCEDcOMA 98]

Though I don't think it is the worst Star Wars movie ever -- if you do, you haven't seen The Star Wars Holiday Special or either of the Star Wars Ewok Adventure films. Though considering that Disney now holds the licence, you may yet see worse as they milk it for as much as they can.

 

I am honestly baffled by people who claim that TLJ is actually a good film if not the best Star Wars film to date. They clearly do not understand what makes a good film, and I am speaking of structure. TLJ was a bloated hole-filled mess that failed to stick to what was set by way of vision, story, character and narrative style in TFA. It is meant to be a trilogy of films, not a collection of anthology. If you do not understand the importance of this, then why TLJ has so far gotten a user score of 4.9 on Metacritic and an audience score of 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, must be a complete mystery to you. And to be clear, neither one of those is a "good" score. My 6/10 is me saying it is watchable, but only if you paid next to nothing to see it.

 

When a film gets such a difference between "professional" critic and average person scores, I take notice and usually go with the average person score. If I watch IX at all at the cinemas, it will be based upon how well the film has done after a week -- my mistake was not waiting longer. And I mean in the eyes of the average person not a critic who may have been paid or at least schmoozed at exclusive viewings to see the film in a better light.

 

Regardless, I now have a big issue with Star Wars, and would struggle to see this new trilogy -- or any that Rian Johnson helms -- as being canon. And would approach any Star Wars film or TV series created by Disney much in the way I have treated Star Wars games made over the years. It is unlikely that all will be good or even great, but once in a while, there will be a standout worth playing (or watching). And I'll end up doing so like a year or two after everyone else has as the hype has no effect on me.

 

And I hope this is the last I have to say about this rubbish film, as I can't believe I am still thinking about it 4 days after seeing it.

[Haveayap 127]

@1Leonard:

I know the Prophecy is about Anakin. When did I state otherwise? You can clearly see so by me saying "2 generation" Luke being the first new generation, and Rey the second. See?

And yeah, it was stated Anakin was the most powerful Jedi ever. Midichlorian scene remember? Born from the Force.

 

We know more about Snoke than the Prophecy, really? Tell me ANYTHING we know of snoke, besides his visuals since we can see them. That's pretty much it.

 

My point exactly, "Rey Nobody" is an actual insult to the sudden surge of Power shown. And the Prequels didn't really show an increase in Force Power, just more flashy lightsaber combat.

And Anakin went through about as many years as Kylo Ren to make progress (there's no actual real use of Force by him in Phantom Menace, as should be), not the days of Rey. Untrained.

 

ESB had failures. Luke failed against his father and learned his lineage, making the stakes higher. Han got frozen. TLJ has NONE of these setups. None. While the Rey/Kylo scenes are the best of TLJ they really have no emotional connection to care for us moving to IX. Unlike Luke/Father were we wonder if he can overcome his lack of power here we got Rey, who's Rey and Rey is awesome and can't fail so we really don't care about the confrontation, she'll win like she always does. For a movie of failure it seems awfully unaware for a main character to be interesting they need that failure to be believable and have something to actually overcome that interests the viewer. Rey got none of that.

 

Even if there was such leadup (VII had it) the way VIII shat all over it would anyone really trust a proper resolution now?

 

"The Dragons are coming" -Game of Thrones

"Hah, they got killed off-screen to here. We juuuust hyped them up a loooong time, but it's all your fault for actually going in with our hype. Suckers!"

Would you really go with 'Best plottwist ever' or 'Terrible terrible writers'?

 

1. Probably. Can't care either way.

2. Snoke being alive would be a copout ruining yet another movie, so hopefully not.

3. And we know Rey will win since Rey is Rey and Rey can't loose. Exciting! (not)

4. The Jedi (and Sith) are a philosophy, not a set of rules. You should really know this. They don't need books to "survive". Infact the books would mostly just introduce the failures of the Jedi Kreia and Luke hate so much (and Luke thus didn't follow in the old EU anyway).

5. I... literally cannot care?

6. I agree, but this movie completely and utterly ruined this.

 

I would really like any incentive to watch IX, but VIII left absolutely zero reasons to go for it in.

anakin was actually confirmed to be the chosen one in tcw with the father, daughter and son episode. So anyone who argues maybe he wasnt should just watch that episode.

[Sithspecter 909]

Now that I've had some time to think about The Last Jedi, I honestly believe TFA and TLJ could have been combined into one movie. There were many unnecessary build-ups, story arcs, and other plot devices that could have been eliminated from the two movies, and a more concise single movie in its place.

 

My thought is that TFA could have been shifted to focus on destroying Snoke himself instead of the ludicrous Starkiller Base. Since Snoke dies in TLJ, there's little point to his character now. Instead, TFA could have used him as the target instead of Death Star III. This gives the characters the belief that they could be ending this thing once and for all, and could be a large motivator for Luke to return.

 

Instead of Rey arriving on Ahch-To at the end of TFA, this becomes part of the second act. Rey and Han instead seek out Luke's help, and Luke returns with them, reuniting the entire OT cast. Luke, Han, and Leia confront Kylo while the new cast (Poe, Finn, and company) are focused on a space-based method of destroying Snoke's flagship. Luke and Leia witness Han's death, and make their escape as the rest of the crew brings down the flagship. Snoke is unable to save himself with the Force, and the Resistance wins a costly victory, with most of their fleet decimated in the all out assault. This leaves the core crew in a few X-Wings and the Millennium Falcon to set up for the next movie.

 

Essentially you could easily end up in the same place from one movie. Instead, we got a setup, then a drastic shift away from everything that had been set up.

[Kreia 57]

Give me a pass on the hyperbole, but this movie was a devastating experience I'm not kidding, I hate this movie so much that I don't plan on sticking around for anything else.

Luke, who brought one of the most corrupted and evil force user back to the light, considers, even for a brief second, to kill the son of his sister and his best friend because he senses darkness in him

Mark Hamill was right to object about what his character is doing. Luke doesn't run away and hide. Luke comes to the aid of his friends, no matter what.

There, THANK YOU.

While Rey isn't uncharasmatic, her ability to literally gain lvl 50 from just typing IneedForce in a dropbox is just... terrible

Yes. You know, I was so excited to have more female characters is Star Wars, but this is an insult to what little we got of female characters in the OT. We only had Leia and Mon Mothma as far as I can remember, but they got your attention and interest on merit, their characters stood the test of time on merit, not by contrast to how sh*tty the male characters were. Writing all the male characters as miserable failures and troublemakers doesn't make the female characters good by comparison, and I don't like the implication that female characters need to rely on that, because they never did.

[DarthYcey 12]

So, I'm a little late to the party, but I did see the first showing out in LA with the rest of our KOTOR movie team (we all loved it, btw).  In case for some unknown reason you still haven't seen the film, I'm not going to get into spoiler territory about all the plot points I liked or didn't like, especially since they've been covered already, so I'll just add some observations I've made from other comments in this thread..

 

First off, some of you are complaining that TFA was too much like ANH and didn't like the fact that it wasn't more original.  Then, the same people complain that TLJ was TOO original and subverted expectations in too many ways.  I've seen the same arguments on other media platforms too.  You can't have it both ways, guys.

 

I've read comments about R1 being a better movie, which is debatable.  R1 and TLJ are two very different movies, with R1 having the advantage of you already knowing what's going to happen.  At least with TLJ you have some characters with personality... the R1 cast was forgettable (even the lead), which makes it nearly impossible to connect with them or even care about their deaths.  Still, R1 was a fine movie because of the action and getting to see how an important event you know from SW canon actually played out.  There were some cool moments, even the unneeded Vader fan service at the end, but overall the movie definitely was not 'awesome'.  I'd rank it only in front of the prequels.  Speaking of prequels....

 

...there's this crazy talk about the prequels being better than TLJ.  Sure, you're entitled to your own opinions, but come on guys....prequels better than TLJ?!  That's almost 'Turn in your SW Fan Card' territory right there.  Those of you that liked the prequels better must have only liked the Canto Bight scenes in the movie then, which were some of the worst in the film.

 

I've seen a lot of negativity about the humor in the film too.  The opening Poe dialogue pretty much sets the tone for humor in this movie, so if you didn't like that, it's no surprise you didn't like the rest.  Sure, not all the jokes landed, but overall I thought the humor was justified because it either matched what the character would do (e.g. Poe as he was in TFA) or the situation (e.g. Luke and the saber).  Don't tell me the humor is too slapstick or inappropriate in TLJ, but that you also enjoyed the prequels, which were beyond silly at times.

 

And yes, there seemed to be some universally despised moments in the film, but no way was there enough of these moments to pull down the overall movie.  I feel like there's so many nitpickers on here wanting to make their own 'Everything Wrong With...' videos instead of just enjoying the film.  The other problem is that it seems too many of you are making your minds up about the trilogy after seeing only two movies.  Maybe some of the choices you didn't like in TLJ will make more sense once you see Ep 9.  It's too early IMO to judge this movie without having the full trilogy available for context.  Don't forget there were plenty of disappointed fans after ESB too who weren't happy about the departure from ANH, and things turned out pretty well after ROTJ, which ppl to seemed to like more initially than ESB, but is considered the weakest of the OT now by most fans.  I predict TLJ will bring the doubting fans around after Ep 9, much like ROTJ did after ESB.  Doubters definitely need to see this whole trilogy play out before they classify TLJ as a bad movie.

 

I'm also not convinced that some of the big reveals/shocking moments will hold up.  It's clear RJ and Disney wanted to subvert expectations so much that I wouldn't be surprised if there were more misdirects made than we realized, which would lead to more unexpected moments in Ep 9.  I, for one, am excited about Ep 9 because I have no idea what's going to happen or what the movie is even going to be about.  Sort of like ESB, you weren't sure where the story was going to go after the Vader as Luke's father reveal, but at least you had that conflict out there, a frozen Han, and an evil emperor....with Ep 9, you know very little so anything could happen.

 

TLJ isn't perfect by any means.  Some jokes fell flat, the story felt bloated at times with silly plot points, and there was at least one really stupid thing that happened, but overall I had fun at both viewings...I actually enjoyed it more the second time around.  I'll be anxiously awaiting 2019, and as a true SW fan, I'll be seeing Ep 9 opening night in theaters.  Feel free to wait until it comes out on Netflix....less grumbling and sighing around me then as I'm trying to enjoy the movie. 

[Guest]

This film was an uneven mess.

[valas991 5]

I firmly believe more thought went into Kreia alone than to this entire movie.

Not much to add, people already told a lot about the general problems.

[Spectrometer 16]

...

 

First off, some of you are complaining that TFA was too much like ANH and didn't like the fact that it wasn't more original.  Then, the same people complain that TLJ was TOO original and subverted expectations in too many ways.  I've seen the same arguments on other media platforms too.  You can't have it both ways, guys.

...

 

...there's this crazy talk about the prequels being better than TLJ.  Sure, you're entitled to your own opinions, but come on guys....prequels better than TLJ?!  That's almost 'Turn in your SW Fan Card' territory right there.  Those of you that liked the prequels better must have only liked the Canto Bight scenes in the movie then, which were some of the worst in the film.

 

 

 

About this 2 paragraphs, first, who says you can't have it both ways? Medium terms DO exist; and second, to me it doesn't seem fair that you turn down other opinions implying that "The prequels are objectively worse than what I consider better".

[Kreia 57]

The expanded universe comes to mind, how have they been doing it all these years? If your movie is set in the Star Wars universe, it has to be the Star Wars universe, and that still leaves you all the room you could possibly need to come up with a story that does not rip off what's already been done and doesn't besmirch the very things that carried the love of this franchise through the decades, passing from one generation to the next. I suppose the prequels did damage some stuff from the OT, but at least they didn't turn the effing protagonist into something so far opposite of what he stood for. I can ignore the prequels if I want to and still enjoy the OT, I can't do that now after I've seen Mark Hamill himself portray that abominable version of Luke in TLJ. Not that Luke is the only one, what about Leia? "Oh don't worry dear, I know my son is gone, you go ahead and kill him." What!? ???? And speaking of Leia, you wanna talk about humor? What happened to hers? We loved her in the OT because she was witty and feisty and badass with a blaster in her hand, all while being a space princess. See if you can see any of that in any of the female characters now.

[Mutilator57 140]

I firmly believe more thought went into Kreia alone than to this entire movie.

Not much to add, people already told a lot about the general problems.

I'm at the point where I can't tell if it's all creative excellence gone above the heads of us ordinary folk OR a piece of throwaway trash that had all of 5 minutes spent on it. That's a worrying confusion!

 

I can understand some people thinking the film is better than others, but those (like on some FB groups I've seen) claiming it's as good as, if not better than ESB, just boggles the bloody mind!

 

I almost forgot; my final verdict is a 4.5/10...and that's being generous.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Mutilator57

[Hassat Hunter 571]

First off, some of you are complaining that TFA was too much like ANH and didn't like the fact that it wasn't more original.  Then, the same people complain that TLJ was TOO original and subverted expectations in too many ways.  I've seen the same arguments on other media platforms too.  You can't have it both ways, guys.

Did you HONESTLY said this on forums dedicated to KOTOR?

 

KOTOR1 is a rehash of the Star Wars story. KOTOR2 is a total deviation from it. Basically they mirror TFA and TLJ entirely.

 

Difference is; Both KOTORs were good. Both movies were bad.

Apparently IT is possible though to do either and not suck. Funny that.

 

EDIT: Being in the KOTOR2 > KOTOR1 team I, by your terms, should unconditionally love TLJ. I don't cause it's a horrid mess.

[DarthYcey 12]

[VarsityPuppet 1,085]

EDIT: I had a well-reasoned discussion that I had planned out, but then I realized meme-ing would be more fun and less time-consuming.

[Kreia 57]

@DarthYcey Excuses for lazy writing. Writers of other cinematic universes also have to concern themselves with consistency, there's nothing uniquely difficult about writing SW.

KOTOR1 is a rehash of the Star Wars story.

Easy, there are parallels you can draw, but I would argue that in most cases things are different enough to make the comparison far-fetched. Tomayto tomahto you might say, but string instruments also all look the same to some people, they're not the same to a musician though. The Star Forge is not a Death Star in that sense, they're space stations but that's all they have in common. Malak is not Vader, they have prosthetics that alter their voices, but that's all they have in common.

KOTOR2 is a total deviation from it. Basically they mirror TFA and TLJ entirely.

Reaching.

[darthbdaman 71]

Reaching.

 

I think it's a pretty spot in analogy. KotOR is a big collection of Star Wars tropes assembled into video game format. The Revan twist is a great example of this. It is so good because it wouldn't be nearly as effective in a movie. It really benefits from the way video games, specifically RPGs, are setup, and actually ends up saying something about how hollow your normal Bioware RPG protagonist is. The Vader reveal wouldn't work in the same way in a game as it does on film. KotOR is the video game version of Star Wars.

 

KotOR 2 does exactly what TLJ does, and totally overwrites everything that happened in the first one. Your choices? Really didn't matter. Revan just came back and overwrote your players memory, and is their own character now. Their might be a couple of differences, but the end result is the same. The major difference is that KotOR 2 actually reinvents what happened in the previous installment in a more interesting way. I actually care about what KotOR 2 has to say. It isn't trying to be edgy and deceptive for shock value and cheap political points. It actually has something new and unique to say, that isn't a super disneyfied moral. It casts KotOR in a new light, but that just makes it more interesting. TLJ on the other hand makes TFA way less interesting, and doesn't add anything new to it. It honestly just makes it worse, when you know that the questions that are brought up don't have interesting answers.

[Kreia 57]

KotOR is a big collection of Star Wars tropes

You say that that's what you see in it and I believe you, but to me this feels like you're looking at things way out of focus, you're blurring different things together to the point two guys look the same because they both have a head and two legs.

KotOR 2 does exactly what TLJ does, and totally overwrites everything that happened in the first one. Your choices? Really didn't matter. Revan just came back and overwrote your players memory

Oh please don't I can't bare to hear Kotor2 and TLJ in the same sentence. Let me just point out that you never meet Revan in Kotor2, so whatever you're told about him are other people's accounts and opinions, not Revan's. And TLJ doesn't do that at all, you got Luke, he's there, he's just written badly.

[Hassat Hunter 571]

Got time for a proper reading and response this time;
 

I've read comments about R1 being a better movie, which is debatable. R1 and TLJ are two very different movies, with R1 having the advantage of you already knowing what's going to happen.

Your point being? The end being known matters little, it's the content in the movie, the writing, that matters. You wont know that coming in the movie either way. It's as Kreia says "It's not the destination that matters, it's the journey."
And both are expected to be interesting for the around 2 hours the movie lasts. R1 succeeds (I'm going to buy that movie), TLJ fails (and with that my plans to buy the trilogy box. What's the point? TFA was mediocre, TLJ is awful. You seriously think IX will redeem both?

At least with TLJ you have some characters with personality...

You mean... Finn? Resetting his TFA progress and redoing it while being 100% reduandant?
Shell Rey? Character-murder Luke? Poe maaaaybe. Kylo isn't that bad but he's still whiny and non-threatening. They ruined Hux. Couldn't care less for Rose, Phasma, Leia, Purple-hair woman.
Did I miss anyone?

the R1 cast was forgettable (even the lead)

*cough* Rey *cough*

impossible to connect with them or even care about their deaths.

You know which movie had that? TLJ. People died, ICONIC people even. And I couldn't have cared less at that point.
The ONLY death that could have meant something was Finn, but nooooooooooo, they HAD to ruin that.

...there's this crazy talk about the prequels being better than TLJ. Sure, you're entitled to your own opinions, but come on guys....prequels better than TLJ?!

Definitely. Saw II and III in the cinema and walked out just fine, not soul-crushed "what the f*ck did I just watch"
That by itself is already a clear signal they're better, even as popcorn entertainment where you only think about issues later.

Those of you that liked the prequels better must have only liked the Canto Bight scenes in the movie then, which were some of the worst in the film.

Oh yes, I looooooooved those. You can clearly see that from the earlier posts. Gotta love all the pre-conceptions one gets thrown about if you hate this movie. "You're a bot", "It's because of your fan theories", "You just can't see the good points Rian makes" (*pukes*).

Don't tell me the humor is too slapstick or inappropriate in TLJ, but that you also enjoyed the prequels, which were beyond silly at times.

Remind me again, where in the prequels are the "your momma" jokes again? Also if people hated Jar Jar, what suddenly turned Disney "hey, LET'S DO THAT AGAIN". Apparently better palatable for some people if given by every single character in the movie rather than just the comedic sidekick.

[Hassat Hunter 571]

And yes, there seemed to be some universally despised moments in the film, but no way was there enough of these moments to pull down the overall movie.

"Midi-chlorians"

Oh wait, TLJ... I would disagree. "Super-Leia" and "Rose Kiss" where 2 ultra-cringy moments that alone turn you off of this movie. Not forgetting the half-hour of Las Vegas.

instead of just enjoying the film.

I tried that. The movie made it impossible. You don't think we didn't enjoy it on our own accord, did you? Or are we going into "You just watched it with a pre-determination to bash it" conspiracy in here?

 

I went to the VERY FIRST showing in this country in the nearest cinema. Obviously I would go in at the very first moment if I didn't hope to see a good movie, right?

The other problem is that it seems too many of you are making your minds up about the trilogy after seeing only two movies.

One mediocre and one outright bad movie, the bad movie leaving ZERO plots left for IX. Yeah, I think I can put in my 2 dollars already, there's no way IX is able to salvage this trainwreck. Not when the only thing "left" is Darth Emo the whiny vs. Mary Sue Rey the Undefeatable. What could POSSIBLY happen? Oh, the suspense is killing me.

Maybe some of the choices you didn't like in TLJ will make more sense once you see Ep 9.

As much as I would like IX retconning VIII entirely, it would just turn that into another bad movie. There's lose/lose all around. No, seriously. "Snoke is back" or "Hey, Rey isn't Mary Sue after all" at this point would just be even worse than just moving on.

It's too early IMO to judge this movie without having the full trilogy available for context.

I gave VII a pass for "they can lift this up in VIII". Do I need to give the same leeway twice? While the first time around it already got so much worse? No, I don't think so.

I predict TLJ will bring the doubting fans around after Ep 9, much like ROTJ did after ESB.

Wasn't alive for the release times, but ESB had plenty of setup for ROTJ. TLJ pretty much feels like a concluded movie. ZERO leadup to the next movie. No adversery (Vader and Emperor where bad, Kylo is a total loser).

Doubters definitely need to see this whole trilogy play out before they classify TLJ as a bad movie.

No, no, we don't. A good third movie wont retro-actively make this watchable. A good director's cut cutting out all jokes, killing Leia on the ship and removing Finn and Rose entirely would be the only way to go for that.

It's clear RJ and Disney wanted to subvert expectations so much that I wouldn't be surprised if there were more misdirects made than we realized, which would lead to more unexpected moments in Ep 9.

So basically, it was all a big lie. As I said before though, backpedalling now just makes it worse. So I hope you're wrong. The ONLY salvagable thing is "TLJ was all a dream" and IX just follows VII and does it right.

I, for one, am excited about Ep 9 because I have no idea what's going to happen or what the movie is even going to be about. [...] with Ep 9, you know very little so anything could happen.

That's not a good thing. That is not a good thing AT ALL.

and as a true SW fan, I'll be seeing Ep 9 opening night in theaters. Feel free to wait until it comes out on Netflix....less grumbling and sighing around me then as I'm trying to enjoy the movie.

And as a true SW fan, I'll give it a wide berth. And if people not wanting to see your movie and not seeing your movie and then artifically inflating it's score makes a "good film" then I don't know what to say to you expect have fun with your very narrow-minded view.

[Hassat Hunter 571]

Reaching.

If you think so.

 

KOTOR1 is the total "safe" Star Wars game leaning extremely close to the formula to not alienate fans, even if it was set 4000 years prior.

KOTOR2 however, is far from that.

 

How exactly does that not mirror TFA and TLJ?

 

(And I *still* want KOTOR3. No interest at all in IX. That's the power of leadup vs. "anything can happen since there's absolutely no setup")

 

Oh please don't I can't bare to hear Kotor2 and TLJ in the same sentence.

Have your vomit bag ready;

http://steamcommunity.com/app/208580/discussions/0/2906376154326818122/#c1621724915777161337

[Hassat Hunter 571]

Oh, watching YouTube vids here's a GREAT point;

Why did Finn and Rose save the animals, but leave the slave-kids behind?
Some heroes.

EDIT:
Also another great decomposition;

Edited December 25, 2017 by Sith Holocron

[Eauxps I. Fourgott 81]

Just got back from seeing it. My initial response: I'm not sure what to think.

 

A couple minutes later: What's the point?

 

A few more minutes later: Bah there is no point this whole thing is just a cash grab. I reject Disney's canon and substitute my own.

 

About an hour later, sitting and typing about it:

 

The movie itself was fine. I enjoyed it while I was watching it. 100% worth seeing once.

 

But now that it's done, I have no need for any more new Star Wars stuff. Not the sequels again, not anything else that might come out.

 

My biggest pet peeve with this whole series is that they called it a sequel. In my view, a good sequel doesn't take the crossover characters and kill them all off, while leaving the impression that the events of the original didn't matter. I would probably be much more satisfied with this if they had left out all the stuff from the OT and called it a totally new thing. Then again I probably wouldn't have come to watch it either. IDK, basically I still agree with my earlier assessment that the whole trilogy is pointless.

 

My interest in continuing on with this trilogy died with Luke. I don't think I'll be watching the third installment; the end of this film left me feeling like there was little point to another one. All the old characters are either dead or distilled to the point where they no longer draw my interest. The whole Resistance thing is a thing I've seen a bunch before and doesn't really offer anything new to me. I've seen plenty of Star Wars space battles and don't need any more. Clearly this trilogy is not going to deliver any good lightsaber fights. The only sort-of draw that's left is what happens with Rey and Kylo - and with the way this has been going, Kylo's conficted nature with Rey's resolute one, and general cinema logic tell me how it will end, and frankly if it ended a different way I'd probably be dissatisfied. Plus I still don't give a darn about Kylo even if he isn't as wimpy this time.

 

So yeah, kind of an interesting perspective. I enjoyed the movie, but simultaneously lost all interest in any new Star Wars stuff. The OT, KOTOR, and maybe the prequels sometimes will be all for me.