Star Wars the Last Jedi, spoilerish discussion

Well… I saw the movie with our pastor (none of her friends wanted to accompany her to the theater) when it came out and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

The Bad:

- Just as in that VII movie there was no faction or person I could focus on. It's not necessary that I like a character to, well, like a movie, but having a focus (someone to focus on - someone whose scenes I actually anticipate with joy) helps. In this regard, VIII fell just as flat as VII. There was no character I felt attached to - most just got on my nerves - , though Kylo Ren and Holdo did rather well compared to the rest. Luke and Leia and Chewie and the old droids? I stopped caring about all but Luke after IV, and stopped caring about Luke after VI. Finn and Poe and Rose and DJ? Too hysterical for my taste, all four of them. Rey? …who? Hux? God, don't get me started on how terrible that buffoon was. And why was my son's dream girl Phasma even in that movie? *shrugs*

- The story. I mean, come on, what was the story again? They took a few bits from episodes IV to VI and merrily threw them in the mixer. There were several occasions to create something great, memorable, to do something NEW, something unexpected … but at the last moment they decided to play safe and took the predictable, the boring, the unclimactic way out. I felt cheated over and over again.

- The settings. Yawn. Oh look, Bespin, just not in the clouds. Oh look, Hoth, just with some red splotches. Oh look, there's a hole with the Dark Side in it, just not in a tree on Dagobah. Well. Did I say 'yawn'?

The Ugly:

- Nothing, at least that. The movie wasn't bad, I found it entertaining enough - it was just not great. Or good. Or trashy enough to please me.

The Slightly Pleasant:

- The chain vibro swords of two of those red guys reminded me of Lady Lumiya's light chain sword in the comic books all those years ago.

- Palpatine was mentioned (or rather, Darth Sidious).

- That one guy near Hux seemed … normal.

Finally …
The good:

- The scene with Luke and Kylo, seen from both angles. I found that brilliant, actually. A brilliant idea, and brilliantly played.

- The guinea pig birds on that Dagobah island. I want one of those.

- The race sheep on that Bespin world. I want one of those.

- The disco foxes on that Hoth world. I want one of those.

The story is pretty straightforward.

Primary thread:

They needed Luke to help the Alliance - and he ended up saving it by sacrificing himself. To me, that's not only pretty cool, but it also resolves and redeems all his past choices.

I absolutely can't figure out why people have a problem with his character in this movie. It's like they forgot that Luke isn't the one he was in ANH - but the one he was at the end of RotJ, where he had matured and had seen what the dark side is capable of.

Everything he did in this film made perfect sense for his character.

Secondary threads:

Rey needs to become a jedi and not turn to the dark side. She was trained and didn't turn to the dark side.

Kylo needs to finally figure out if he's a goodie or baddie. He did - and in a surprisingly powerful way.

He's the perfect Sith. He's driven almost exclusively by passion and hatred. He also plays the role to the same perfection - as you can read hatred and passion in his face from start to finish.

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I can understand people getting a bit lost in all the spectacle - but ALL Star Wars movies have been full of spectacle and a mixture of humor and over-the-top action full of stupidly impossible feats.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I actually laughed out loud at one point, which I never do - but I found many jokes cringe-worthy.

It's clearly the Disney Marvel formula at play here. I don't care for it, but I expected nothing different.

Humor has its place and it's much, much more powerful when used sparingly. Apparently, the mainstream doesn't agree - and Iron Man and all subsequent Marvel movies have demonstrated that excessive and ultra implausible jokes are what the crowd wants.

It's not that I hadn't understood the story, or lack of it. It's just that they had the chance to do something memorable with it, and failed. Had Rey and Kylo joined forces (no matter to which end), for example, the next film's story might have been something different, but the way everything played out, this movie made itself redundant. It ended on pretty much the same note as its predecessor, so episode IX might just as well have come straight after episode VII.

EDIT: I liked most of the humor in this one, with the exception of everything that was BB8 related.

And I have absolutely no problem with the way Luke was shown in this movie, I found everything quite fitting. But I'm just not interested in Luke anymore.

Jaz said:

It's not that I hadn't understood the story, or lack of it. It's just that they had the chance to do something memorable with it, and failed. Had Rey and Kylo joined forces (no matter to which end), for example, the next film's story might have been something different, but the way everything played out, this movie made itself redundant. It ended on pretty much the same note as its predecessor, so episode IX might just as well have come straight after episode VII.

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If you seriously expected the dark side to win in a Star Wars movie, then I can certainly understand.

Had Kylo joined Rey for the light side, then there would be no antagonist left. Really, no matter who ended up as the primary antagonist, it would have to end the same way eventually.

SW is a mythology in a way. It's all about prophecy and what will inevitably happen. It's 100% cyclical - and I would have been very disappointed if they broke that cycle.

They're all about the struggle between dark and light - and no matter who joins who, there's just no way it can end in a surprising way. At least, I don't see how they could do that without breaking everything Lucas created.

Personally, I was pleasantly surprised by a few bigger things:

First of all, I didn't expect Kylo to kill Snoke so soon, and not so quickly.

I also did NOT expect Dern's character to be in the right in the conflict between her and Poe. Another surprise.

Also, Luke's final battle was special - I found. I just didn't see it coming and I thought it made perfect sense - also in that he died from the effort. Loved that he didn't actually fight.

But I guess it's about expectations. Turning SW entirely on its head was not an expectation of mine. In fact, I was surprised by some relatively bold choices in this script.

As I understand it, a lot of "loyal" SW fans felt betrayed by Last Jedi.

NewDArt said:

As I understand it, a lot of "loyal" SW fans felt betrayed by Last Jedi.

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I know several fans who feel betrayed, and in most cases it is because of Luke. They either didn't like how Luke wanted to kill Kylo in his sleep or that he died/sacrificed himself, but I thought both scenes were true to his character. I mean, he force-choked that Gamorrean guard in VI ... if that wasn't worth a Dark Side point ...

And frankly, I don't like episode VII, so I didn't expect anything from VIII. I don't feel betrayed, either ... why should I? I think VIII is way better than VII. But I still felt disappointed when things started to get interesting just to come to an anticlimactic end.

Jaz said:

I know several fans who feel betrayed, and in most cases it is because of Luke. They either didn't like how Luke wanted to kill Kylo in his sleep or that he died/sacrificed himself, but I thought both scenes were true to his character. I mean, he force-choked that Gamorrean guard in VI … if that wasn't worth a Dark Side point …

And frankly, I don't like episode VII, so I didn't expect anything from VIII. I don't feel betrayed, either … why should I? I think VIII is way better than VII. But I still felt disappointed when things started to get interesting just to come to an anticlimactic end.

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That's fair enough, we all like different things.

Obviously, not caring about the main SW protagonist in a movie more or less centered around him WOULD be a tough obstacle to overcome for any version of such a movie

I agree about that other thing, though, and I thought the movie explained rather well that it was a fleeting moment of desperation and weakness - and that he had no real intention of killing Kylo.

I also thought it was a good way to explain Kylo's actual turn towards the dark side. I mean, his mentor and "the perfect" light side character seemingly wanted to betray and kill him.

Sets up his character in a plausible way and explains his constant inner conflict and self-loathing.

The movie reminded me of why I was so fond of Star Wars as a kid. It's so close to being a brilliant story if only they could stop the shitty forced humor and over-the-top action sequences.

But it was always like that - and it will never live up to the potential of the Jedi/Sith mythology.

I knew that going in, so I had a hard time being really disappointed in much.

So I watched the last jedi too. I was not planning to, but it is hard to avoid all the spoilers on the internet until it comes out on bluray (or netflix?).

For me star wars were always plain scifi action movies, so I enjoyed it a lot. I don't get the people over-analyzing this. Then again I have this for many movies/games, maybe I'm just easy to please (or as I like to call it, no expectations).

I do agree that the casino scenes could be completely ripped out (but I wasn't too bothered about it). I also see people having useless discussions about dropping the bombs with no gravity in space, and seemingly no force field shielding the girl from space.

What did catch my attention was that the movie switched a lot between different settings and characters which sometimes was a bit too chaotic to my liking. I guess they had a lot to tell and had to compress it in 2.30 hours.

NewDArt said:

If you seriously expected the dark side to win in a Star Wars movie, then I can certainly understand.

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In my mind the dark side already won (multiple times). They brought the galactic senate to its knees, destroyed the order of the jedi, and now the rebels are reduced to a handful of men. Yup, evil won, for now.

In my mind the dark side already won (multiple times). They brought the galactic senate to its knees, destroyed the order of the jedi, and now the rebels are reduced to a handful of men. Yup, evil won, for now.

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For now being key

There's no winning. As I said, it's cyclical. Dark versus Light for all eternity.

Especially now, with Disney at the helm. We can expect to see a Star Wars movie each and every year from now and until capitalism ends.

Jaz said:

It's not that I hadn't understood the story, or lack of it. It's just that they had the chance to do something memorable with it, and failed. Had Rey and Kylo joined forces (no matter to which end), for example, the next film's story might have been something different, but the way everything played out, this movie made itself redundant. It ended on pretty much the same note as its predecessor, so episode IX might just as well have come straight after episode VII.

EDIT: I liked most of the humor in this one, with the exception of everything that was BB8 related.

And I have absolutely no problem with the way Luke was shown in this movie, I found everything quite fitting. But I'm just not interested in Luke anymore.

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How do you know Rey and Kylo won't join forces?

Kylo was incapable of killing his mother and Rey embraced the dark side a few times for the strength.

There is a connection there that is much stronger than even the one Luke and Leia had.

They've already both embraced the idea of the end of the Jedi and Sith for something different.

We've learned that Hux has more pull with the First Order soldiers than Kylo Ren had who must picture him as a dangerous, unstable, and incapable - having lost the opportunity to wipe out the last of the resistance because of his bungling.

There's also something strange that happened with their vision, where Rey envisioned Kylo embracing the Light and Kylo seeing Rey doing the opposite. Which one is true? Possibly both? Is this the "one" who will bring balance to the force?

For me, it's a great movie, but a poor Star Wars movie. Or rather, poor in its given context. Most of my issues with it were actually started by TFA, but the questions were left open to a certain extent. Now it's clear we just won't get any answers via the "main franchise" (we might get them in cartoons or novels or something).

A few examples:

• RotJ ends with the good guys winning. TFA starts with the good guys losing. What happened? I was hoping they'd explain the rise of Snoke and the First Order, but his entire arc seems to have been.. cut (get it?).
• Rey's rise to power is problematic. There were theories after TFA that she'd been trained as a child, and that the Force had been used to make her forget so she wouldn't get linked to Luke, and that her powers were dormant. Various theories along those lines. I was never a big fan of those theories, but at least they tried to explain her exceptional strength and skill. Now she's just stuck as a Mary Sue. At least Luke spent most of the 2nd movie (Empire) failing: Would have died on Hoth without Han, was too impatient during his training with Yoda, failed in the dark side cave, ran off too fast before completing his training and got his ass kicked by Darth Vader at the end. He basically did everything wrong in that movie, but learned valuable lessons, never stopped trying and came back stronger in the 3rd one. Rey seemingly has no flaws and never fails, which is something I hope they explain at some point.
• Speaking of Luke, I really don't like what they've done with his character. As mentioned, he's shown loads of flaws in the previous movies, but giving up on his friends and family would not be one of them. I feel it's very out of character for him to let Leia and Han handle Snoke and Ben (Kylo) on their own.
• A car chase in space? Really? We saw numerous examples of ships "jumping" in and out of the scene (Millenium Falcon dropping off and picking up Rey, plus Finn/Rose coming and going), so why not just jump a ship ahead of the rebels?
• Also, an effective range on energy based weapons in space (vacuum) well within visible range? What's the point of those Star Destroyers? Dog fighting, despite their giant size? Their lack of usefulness is nothing to new to the Star Wars franchise, but it became more obvious than ever before. They appear to be giant transports.
• Finally, I feel like Kylo is the only interesting character still around. Rey and Finn both felt flat here, unlike TFA, and I'm not a fan of where this is going. Early on in TFA it looked like the final showdown of the trilogy would be "Rey vs Kylo", but I was honestly hoping (and assuming) that was something of a false trail. If they actually end up with Rey vs Kylo as the grand finale, I will be very disappointed, but I don't see how that's avoidable anymore, as Snoke and Luke are both out of the picture. I guess the Knights of Ren (where'd they go? They keep being mentioned) could show up and make it interesting, but other than that it looks blatantly obvious at this point. I hope I'm wrong though..

Like I said, it's mostly a problem of context. We know the "rules" of the universe in Star Wars, as they've been established in previous movies. We know roughly how the Force works, what the older characters are like and what the political situation is like (or used to be). A lot is simply changed without any exposition or known reasons. If that's truly the route Disney wanted to go, they should have just set it 200 years after RotJ with a clean slate.

I had zero expectations of the movie based on how horrible bad VII was. This movie was a lot better than VII, as it was at least a bit entertaining. But with the gigantic plot-holes, super hero feats and cheap jokes this is more of a parody of Star Wars than a real Star Wars movie, I guess. It is a Disney/Marvel super heroes movie, just like somebody said.

GothicGothicness said:

I had zero expectations of the movie based on how horrible bad VII was. This movie was a lot better than VII, as it was at least a bit entertaining. But with the gigantic plot-holes, super hero feats and cheap jokes this is more of a parody of Star Wars than a real Star Wars movie, I guess. It is a Disney/Marvel super heroes movie, just like somebody said.

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A parody because Star Wars never had super hero feats, silly jokes or plot holes, right?

NewDArt said:

A parody because Star Wars never had super hero feats, jokes or plot holes, right?

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No, because they took what was there and multiplied by 10

GothicGothicness said:

No, because they took what was there and multiplied by 10

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Well, when it comes to cheap jokes - I have to concede your point

But when it comes to plot holes and having super heroes - I think they're on par, even if the visual spectacle is on another level. I mean, Luke and Han did some pretty amazing stuff in the old trilogy as well

But, yeah, the jokes were way overdone. I guess they didn't bother me as much because I know that's how modern Disney movies work no matter what.

I found the plot holes and inconsistencies a lot worse in TLJ.

I especially love how space suddenly doesn't have a vacuum. Nevermind the utterly ridiculous Leia in space scene. What blew me away was when she reentered the ship and Finn, Poe, etc were standing right in front of that door as she came in with nothing but open space behind her.

The scene when the lead Star Destroyer was going down was even worse. There we had Finn and the Asian chick running around while huge gaping holes in the hull apparently had no effect on them whatsover.

JDR13 said:

I found the plot holes and inconsistencies a lot worse in TLJ.

I especially love how space suddenly doesn't have a vacuum. Nevermind the utterly ridiculous Leia in space scene. What blew me away was when she reentered the ship and Finn, Poe, etc were standing right in front of that door as she came in with nothing but open space behind her.

The scene when the lead Star Destroyer was going down was even worse. There we had Finn and the Asian chick running around while huge gaping holes in the hull apparently had no effect on them whatsover.

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To me, having lasers making sound in space (not having a vacuum here either), planet destroying moon fortresses having extremely exploitable weaknesses, super fast maneuvering through ridiculously tight spaces, teddy bears defeating elite imperial armies with rocks and arrows, storm troopers being “so precise” that they never actually hit anything and so on isn’t really that much worse, but to each his own.

In any case, to really appreciate Star Wars, modern versions or not, you just have to throw science and logic out the window.

Maybe TLJ was worse, but it didn’t register with me as being not Star Wars. Then again, I don’t really think the originals were meant as anything but spectacular entertainment.

Got to agree with DArt, here. Since when has Star Wars ever been hard sci-fi?

Some things are simply a staple in soft sci-fi like hearing explosions in space; slow-moving laser shots that can be dodged, etc. Others can easily be explained away with technical mumbo jumbo or in the case of Star Wars, the Force. Automatic force fields in case of explosions keep most of the ship's structure intact and the vacuum out, obviously. According to the director, by the way, Leia's space flight was instinctual use of the Force in a near death situation. Worked for me. Over-analyzing won't help.

Also:

It's more about consistency than anything, but it's not a huge deal. I fully expected the apologist responses here.

If they had always treated it that way then I wouldn't even have noticed it, but there are scenes in some of the past SW movies that specifically made use of the fact that space is a vacuum.

Arhu said:

Automatic force fields in case of explosions keep most of the ship's structure intact and the vacuum out, obviously.]

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Except that there were obviously no force fields.

JDR13 said:

It's more about consistency than anything, but it's not a huge deal. I fully expected the apologist responses here.

If they had always treated it that way then I wouldn't even have noticed it, but there are scenes in some of the past SW movies that specifically made use of the fact that space is a vacuum.

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Oh, don't worry about it. I knew we'd be facing nostalgia-driven fans overrating the old movies by appreciating how they're not that different

Yes yes, SW was much more consistent by having a highly selective approach to science - sure!

I'm going to have to guess you simply didn't notice all the nonsense when you were a kid.

All these movies are full of crap - whether you see it or not. You should see some of the old interviews from the 80s by the actors themselves, having a really hard time taking anything in the movies seriously.

Except that there were obviously no force fields.

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Because force fields are usually visible, right?

NewDArt said:

Oh, don't worry about it. I knew we'd be facing nostalgia-driven fans overrating the old movies by appreciating how they're not that different

Yes yes, SW was much more consistent by having a highly selective approach to science - sure!

I'm going to have to guess you simply didn't notice all the nonsense when you were a kid.

All these movies are full of crap - whether you see it or not. You should see some of the old interviews from the 80s by the actors themselves, having a really hard time taking anything in the movies seriously.

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Oh look, fanboy DArt is really showing today. It's cute.

I just gave you a very specific example of something that wasn't in the past movies, and you respond with the same line about nostalgia.

I should have known better though. Saying anything about SW is like poking a sleeping bear.

NewDArt said:

Because force fields are usually visible, right?

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They don't need to be when some things are falling right through the hull. Let me guess though.. now you're going to explain that they're selective force fields that only block certain things?