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

[canofhumdingers]

Dai, that's brilliant. I hadn't thought of it that way, but I think you've decoded the real core message of the film.

And, while I still think the movie is flawed and uneven, your thoughts make me like the film more.

[Dai]

The more time I spend thinking about this movie, the more cohesive it all starts to seem. It's just that Rian Johnson doesn't always spell out his intentions for the viewer, and seems to prioritise his themes over the traditional good vs evil plot.



I need to see The Last Jedi again to be sure that this all played out the way I remember.

[Benjamin Haines]

[eabaker]

[Benjamin Haines]

[canofhumdingers]

Originally put this in the wrong thread.

The more I think about this movie, the more split I am. The highs were so intensely high. But the lows were so very meh. I definately need to see it again, and will hopefully do that while I’m off for Christmas in a few days.

But it’s funny, I’ve been wading through pages and pages of peoples’ reviews and opinions on OT.com and I’ll read somebody who loves the film and does a decent job expressing why they like it and I’m all, “yeah, you’re so right! This movie is great!” Then I’ll read someone who competently articulates why they hate the movie and are done with the new series and I’m all “ugh, you’re so right! This movie is awful, I hate it!” Like, I’ve never experienced this insanely strong of an internal conflict about whether I like a movie or not.

Even something that, while watching and immediately after I really loved, such as how Luke was handled. Then I read someone who really hated what they did with Luke but had very valid reasons for hating it and did a good job explaining why he hated it. And I completely understood and even started agreeing with his opinion. I now simultaneously love and hate how they handled Luke! It’s preposterous!

I’m back to my original opening statement. I feel like what Rey described as she experienced the intense tension between the light and the dark.

[jellydonut25]

^ I’m right there with that, and it’s then only even FURTHER complicated by the incoherent shrieking of both the “love it all at all times “ and “raped my childhood” fanboys. I’ll be agreeing with someone who didn’t like it who then will be like “And what was the deal with Kylo Ren even saying to forget about the Sith and the Jedi? That’s why we’re all here!” And start thinking I’m on the wrong side, and then start reading the opinions of people who like it only to find a “If you didn’t like it you just hate POC and the fact that they have important roles in movies now” Guy...and start thinking that the people who like it are willfully ignoring problems in order to convince themselves they like it

It’s maddening, and yet, at 180 minutes, you won’t be getting me back into a theater for a re-evaluation. Guess I’ll just have to wait the 13 weeks until it hits home video.

[lhb412]

[O.Supreme]

ok, so I just have to express some thoughts which ARE nitpicks, but I want to preface all of this with the statement, I really did like the film for the most part. Also most of this line of thinking probably stems form the fact that there are probably Disney SW novels that explain these things, but I wont be reading them because I prefer the EU, and most of my additional SW knowledge comes from it... but anyway, forgive me as I go full Star wars geek for a moment...

The Starkiller Base (basically a weaponized planet), was just destroyed, which you think would set the First Order back quite a bit...but nope the first words of the crawl are "The First Order Reigns" wait...what?? ok...I get that the *capital of the republic" was destroyed in the last film as well, or was it? I thought Coruscant was the capital? (OK I just read on Wookiepedia that apparently after the fall of The Empire, that the seat of government in the republic would rotate between several worlds on occasion....)...so the Hosnian system gets destroyed by Starkiller base...so Coruscant still exists right? Why is there chaos in the Galaxy? If the capital had been on Coruscant (which was well established in the EU novels well before even the Prequel trilogy came out), and Starkiller base destroyed IT, then I'd say you have a valid case.

I mean in the *real world* if the US decided to rotate the capital out of Washington DC and move it around annually to larger cities like NY, LA, Chicago, Dallas etc... and one of those gets nuked, DC still exists right? Also the First Order was made of former Imperial loyalists, bureaucrats, and military officers etc... sympathetic to the Empire. I would wholly expect there to be a new evil threat in these films, but even after 30 years, how much resources could the First Order have? I mean, I know (back to the real world for a second), there are still Nazi sympathizers somewhere in this world, but even after 70 years, you don't see them making any real threat, the world has all new evils to deal with...

Also I don't compare this with the original Trilogy. I mean the Death Star was just a small military weaponized base. The Empire at that time was the legitimate ruling government and they had near endless resources, unlike, I'd imagine, the First Order would.

Sorry, it's just, I know form the previews, that the First order would have some resources left (after all Snoke was somewhere else in TFA), I figured maybe a fleet, a few Star Destroyers etc... But when I saw that Dreadnaught, and then Snokes Big Ass ship I almost laughed out of sheer confusion...

That's it for now. I have maybe one or 2 more nitpicks about completely different subjects, but I'll save those for another time, or perhaps refrain entirely, as time goes on I may feel less the need to express them.

[Henry88]

and i do wonder if snoke might return as a force ghost.

[Dr Kain]

Frankly, I don't even understand how the First Order exists in the first place. Or rather, how their tyranny exists. As we see at the end of Jedi, the universe is free from the Empire with the destruction of the second Death Star. How did they let the First Order even happen?

[O.Supreme]

[Dr Kain]

Maybe that will be what Disney's successor to Rebels covers. How Snoke because Snoke.

[canofhumdingers]

My problem with Snoke is not what they did with him onscreen. It’s what they didn’t do. I actually like his fate. What bothers me is that they create this new big baddie with a mysterious appearance and insanely powerful force abilities and they give us NOTHING about who he is or where he came from. Nothing. I don’t need a long, in-depth exploration of his background. But they needed to give us something to go on.

I mean, to look at a familiar example, take Godzilla. He’s a semi-aquatic dinosaur who was awoken (possibly mutated) by atomic bomb testing. Great! Enough said. Can you go deeper? Sure. (The 90’s certainly did) But you don’t need any more than that. But it’s nice to have a least some awareness of what the heck he is and where he came from so you can move on and enjoy his role in the story.

With Snoke it feels like they intentionally withheld that kind of information just to be contrarian. “Oh you really want to know who this guy is and where he came from, don’t you? TOO BAD!” It’s one of several times where it feels like the movie is intentionally trolling its audience. And for what? To prove they’re more clever than the people watching? I dunno. It just struck me as the filmmakers intentionally being d!cks because they thought it was funny. Which seems very juvenile. And I could probably live with it if they did it once, but this movie is rife with that kind of stuff. Not every flipping scene in the movie needs to be a twist to shock the audience and “subvert our expectations.”*


*omg I swear one person must’ve used the word “subvert” in a review and everyone thought they sounded so clever and smart and now everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon. You can’t find an article or opinion now that doesn’t use that word. And frankly, many of them are using it incorrectly.

[Henry88]

[O.Supreme]

Well I may be far off, but as far as I am aware, users of the dark side aren't usually able to manifest after death, unless they are close to the seat of their power (Darth Bane in Star Wars the Clone Wars being on the home planet of the Sith appeared to Yoda), is the only now-in-canon reference I can think of. In fact communing with those who died basically didn't exist for anyone, or had been long forgotten until somehow Qui-Gon reached out to Yoda as established in the prequels.

[Henry88]

mind you jj could rewrite the rules on force ghosts so they could get snoke in there.

[Dai]

[Dr Kain]

[canofhumdingers]

Only in the special editions... when I watch ROTJ the only celebrations are on Endor. I always disliked the extended galaxy-wide celebration. It seemed highly unlikely that somewhere like Coruscant would be celebrating the empire's defeat.

[Dr Kain]

[O.Supreme]

While RotJ was the death of the Emperor & Vader, it was basically the beginning of the fall of the Empire. In both the EU, and even in Disney's new continuity, there are about 5 years of continued battles (I understand the battle of Jakku to be a major one, thus all the downed Star Destroyers, Im just reading up a bit on Wookepedia). But eventually in the EU, the Empire is relegated to a very small sector of space, and are no longer considered a threat, and co-exist with the New Republic. In the Disneyverse, the Imperial Remnant retreated to the "Unknown Regions", where I presume is *possibly*, maybe where all their resources are coming from. Perhaps a new threat that has yet to manifest itself in the Star Wars Galaxy.

I've also now been informed that possibly this *Unknown Region* is where Snoke may have come from. I'd really like to see a comparison of a map of the SW Galaxy form the EU (which I was familiar with), next to the Disney Version. They now state that Grand Admiral Thrawn also comes from this "Unkown Region", whereas in the EU, he was from Chiss Space, while being near the "Unknown Region", it was still a clearly separate part of the galaxy.

Fun Fact -in the EU, The Yuuzhan Vong, a major alien threat, and the first one to come from outside the Galaxy that SW resides in, entered the galaxy through the unknown regions.... I wonder if Rian Johnsons new *proposed* trilgy is moving forward in time, if it may deal with something akin to this...?? hmmmmm

[eabaker]

[Dai]

[Henry88]

That’s why the latest Star Wars trilogy is so dark: It’s looking more and more like real life
https://www.theringer.com/movies/2017/1 ... -hard-sell

so how dark could they go?