Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi 12/15/17

[Henry88]

[mr.negativity]

[Henry88]

[DannyBeane]

[lhb412]

I think if they do Kylo Ren right he may end up as the single more interesting character in all of Star Wars, like all of George's young Anakin ideas that actually were interesting refurbished into something better.

Oh, and of course it's gonna be great seeing Mark Hamill again.

[jellydonut25]

The cynic in me wants to just complain that it’s just a bunch of slapped together Star Wars iconography. And it is. But it looks pretty cool and fun, so, yay.

[canofhumdingers]

I am excited. Also, I’ve stayed spoiler free regarding the plot so I’ve no idea if I’m right, but I can’t help but think the trailer is edited in a way to be intentionally misleading about certain possible character actions.

[eabaker]

[daikaijusaurus]

The trailer looks good and exciting, but I also remember feeling excited with the Force Awakens trailer and it turned out to be the worst Star Wars movie I've even seen. I'm sure I will end up seeing it, but I'll wait for it to arrive on Redbox or some other rental service. At this point I've given up on Star Wars since I also didn't care for Rogue One.

[jellydonut25]

Force Awakens is the worst Star Wars movie?

Are you unaware of the existence of episodes 1-3?

[daikaijusaurus]

LOL Well at least with the prequel trilogy I can laugh at the cheesy dialog and horrendous acting by Hayden Christensen. That for me made it watchable, and also it had some nice saber duels including Obiwan Vs Darth Maul, Sidious Vs Mace and Yoda Vs Sidious.

For me, all Force Awakens had was boring wooden characters that I cared nothing for, extremely annoying and uninteresting villain, total waste of Han Solo, Chewie and Leia, and let's not forget totally derivative plot and story. And the light saber duel with Rey and Ren was just plain awful.

I realize I'm in the minority here since most people I know enjoy this movie, but I loathe Force Awakens. The Last Jedi has a different director so I'm hoping he will correct the mistakes that Abrams made. But since Abrams is returning for Episode 9, I have no hopes for Star Wars.

And Rogue One was okay. Better than Force Awakens but that's not saying much. I enjoyed the Darth Vader cameos, but there should've been more. And the only character I found interesting was the robot. Rogue One actually had an interesting story. What killed it for me were the uninteresting characters.

Anyway, just my opinion

[eabaker]

[canofhumdingers]

I’m at a loss for words. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone claim the prequel “duels” (read: glow stick baton twirling contests) are better than the duel between Kylo Ren and Rey in TFA. I mean, it’s incredibly rare that any film sword fight is genuinely realistic, but TFA fight choreography moves back in the direction of the original trilogy films where they at least based it on real sword fighting history and technique. There is some credibility that there is an actual threat of harm to the combatants. And while the fight choreography is leagues better on a technical level, where TFA really gets it right is (again, like the OT) that the fight far more about what is happening between the characters dramatically than any fancy fight moves.

As for the prequel fight choreography, it’s a bunch of flashy nonsense that rarely presents any real threat to any of the combatants. For anyone with even modest experience in actual sword martial arts (Asian or European), the prequel fights quickly become so ludicrously fake that it becomes nearly impossible to maintain such a ridiculously high level of suspension of disbelief to remain interested.

Also, TFA was boring, wooden characters? Compared to Attack of the Clones? Really?!

[lhb412]

[daikaijusaurus]

In my opinion, the below 20 minute Star Wars fan film is light years better than the prequel trilogy, Force Awakens and Rogue One combined. It amazes me how a bunch of fans can make a better film than major Hollywood studios. I love the characters and the lightsaber duels. I've probably seen this a dozen times already and never get tired of it.

[Henry88]

Box Office: ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Tracking for Stellar $200 Million Opening Weekend
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/star- ... 202621273/

time to bring the green.

[jellydonut25]

94% on Rotten Tomatoes!
"The Best since Empire!"
"Better than Empire!"
"The best Star Wars movie EVER!"

We've officially crossed into a world where everyone is as up Star Wars' butt as apologists were during the prequel years. As I'm sitting here, a great comparison for this movie literally JUST came to me:
You know how King Kong 2005 is too long, and ultimately feels kinda mediocre despite there being very little in the movie that's actually mediocre, but more just a mishmash of GREAAT stuff rubbing up against bad stuff that could easily have been cut and left us instead with an actual GREAT movie?

Yeah, Star Wars has a movie like that now.

This movie has fundamental errors and failures on a basic storytelling level. Things are kept from certain characters for no reason other than the build drama for the viewing audience, characters wind up feeling ways about one another for no reason, people act out of character for the sake of plot, the plot armor is HEAVY on some characters...almost unimaginably so, and a lot of The Force Awakens' questions are basically just ignored...oh and if you're one of those people who had a problem with Rey being a middling Force user in The Force Awakens with no training...just wait. JUST. YOU. WAIT. Wait and see. I think your brains might leak out your ears.

One of the new characters is awful, there's a side mission that's wholly worthless to the movie other than adding an honest to God good 30 minutes to the film, and the way the movie is structured quite frankly makes certain parts BORING. My crowd went in AMPED. Glowing light sabers. Costumes. Gleeful cheers for the logos and crawl. Cheers for a couple other things early on. Then, when it was over...everyone just walked out and looked tired.

That said, there's also some GREAT stuff. Pretty much everything with Rey is awesome. Kylo Ren remains a villain I really enjoy and Hux as well. Mostly everything aboard Snoke's ship is really cool. There's enough to get through.

but it's REALLY uneven...maybe moreso than Rogue One. MAYBE moreso than episode 3, and that's the pack it's in. 5, 4, 6, 7....RO-8-3. I don't even know how to rank those last three. Each has some good stuff and some BAD.

Kind of a bummer movie. Might like it more on a rewatch, when it doesn't have the burden of being likely the last thing I see in theaters for a year, but this is probably gonna TOP OUT at like a 3.5/5 for me...right now it feels like a 3/5...and that might be generous.

I'm sure some (maybe even many) will come in here and call me a hater and a crab and whatever else, but...yeah, it's a LONG movie whose WORST elements could have been EASILY cut, leaving me to wonder why they weren't and knock it down several pegs for that.

[O.Supreme]

^Ya know I really cant disagree with most of that. I don't know where I would fall in the range of "Star Wars" fandom...I saw all the movies in the theater starting at the age of 4 with ESB in 1980, read most of the EU, watch the animated series. played some vid games as a teenager/adult. never played any board games or collected any toys...I have all released media on DVD. I Prefer the original unaltered trilogy, but I don't hate all the others...On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the most fanatic)...I'd say I'm probably a 7?

Anyway...I see a lot of my friends, co-workers, acquaintances ...whatever going insane for this film. So many making plans to see a midnight showing last night. I may be partly jealous, but partly disillusioned as well. One of my closest friends who IS way more hardcore about SW than any of these other people has given up altogether, has no plans to see the film at all....Kind of sad really. I plan to see it as soon as I can, but real life obligations make that impossible for at least a week, maybe longer. I figure Ill get to it when I can.

Sometimes I think maybe I have the wrong attitude. "SW" had this beloved geek culture, and now that Disney has seemingly made everyone fall in love with it, some long time fans don't want to be a part of it anymore. I'm not sure where I will ultimately end up. If I see a young kid dressed as Luke Skywalker saying he's the biggest star wars fan ever, some may equate this to a young sports fan wearing the jersey of a star player that retired long before he was born. Some fans say he has no right to wear that jersey. Some say you are a fan no matter what. I can see both sides. Young people have as much right to be excited about things as the older fans...but man can they be annoying about it sometimes. . Of course living in a world with internet and instant access to everything, and everyone feeling free to post their opinions on social networking sites and video channels brings a new element. One I think I'm better off to avoid.

Of course curling up on the couch later and watching the original film may renew my excitement, if only when I do eventually see this film, I can take all the buzz, and fandom surrounding all of it and block it all out, and just watch the film for what it is.

[Gargantuan Gargantua]

George Lucas not giving me the option to watch the classic trilogy without all his doodoo butter changes to it killed my enthusiasm for Star Wars a long time ago.

[Dai]

Spoiler-free impressions. The first time I watched The Force Awakens, I loved the first half, then slowly descended into apathy when I realised how heavily it borrowed from A New Hope. My reaction to The Last Jedi went in the opposite direction. Parts of the opening scenes feel like they've gone full Marvel, with humour teetering over the edge of self-parody, and villains munching the scenery like it's made of pizza. But then the movie settles down and finds its voice. And then it gets better. And faster. And more intense. And faster. And more intense.

If Force Awakens was about using a box of original trilogy toys to tickle your nostalgia glands, The Last Jedi brings out enough of those toys to work with, but isn't afraid to snap a few of them over its knee. And it's glorious.

Oh, and the end credits made me cry. You'll understand why.

[Dr Kain]

On the other hand,

[Dai]

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

[Dr Kain]

So my g/f and I started to really discuss the movie over dinner tonight and I started to think about some glorifying issues I didn't consider this morning. I think I may be lowering my score to an 8/10, maybe even a 7. I still loved it, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, maybe not as much as I thought I did. I'll definitely have to go see it again to know for sure.