Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi (Spoilers)

[durian]

I'll keep this spoiler free: I saw it at the weekend. I enjoyed it more than I'd expected to. I thought TFA was pretty poor on most fronts, but as a continuation of that (already weak) story, I thought TLJ did a passable job. Of course, it had numerous flaws, some of which could easily have been avoided, but given the precedent set by TFA, these were all very much expected, and it also surprised me by markedly improving on various aspects of TFA. I'd still happily watch it again. It would be nice, though, for a new Star Wars movie to have a coherent story; Disney's efforts so far have all failed to hit this basic filmaking mark, and I'm baffled as to why. Maybe they'll get there with Solo, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

[Red]

 

[VGamingJunkie]

22 hours ago, Lizardcommando said:

I wanna know who Captain Phasma is and why they toted her as a real badass but she barely does anything in both films.

Probably the Boba Fett effect. Doesn't actually do much at all in the movies, is seen as a total badass.

[Ichor]

I wonder if Phasma really is dead. We only saw the fall into the fire, but she still had a lot of armor on at the time.

[VGamingJunkie]

Even if she died then and there, it would make her more interesting than Boba Fett but I don't think they're just going to waste her. I suspect she'll be back for the final movie. She needs a proper sendoff, not just throwing her off-screen like they did with TFA.

[Johnatone]

You know, the more I went over this film in my mind the few weeks after the less and less I like it. I've mostly avoided other opinions on the internet save for watching this thread, but between picking it apart and taking note of a few things said here it just doesn't hold up enough for me to watch it a second time and has actually killed off my interest in anything new related to Star Wars. 

Spoiler

The cinematography was excellent, most notably the Snoke Chamber scene and the Holdo scene. However, now that my initial awe has worn off, that lightspeed jump pretty much said "fuck you" to my entire childhood. This comes after the excellent scene in Rogue One where we see several similar ships fail a lightspeed jump when a Star Destroyer appears immediately before them, with others having successfully made the jump into the exact same path as said SD. (I absolutely loved Rogue One. My friend at work talked me into seeing it and it is IMO the best of the films next to A New Hope and Empire. I also can admit I wasn't expecting it to go the way it did, and it tickled everything I loved about the OT and EU in all the right places. Flaws and inconsistencies be damned.)

Of the outside of DW opinions I did read, Ben Carson summed it up perfectly. This movie was an artistic depiction of franchise, with Luke and Yoda (great scene BTW. Despite screwing up Luke's character for the most part I felt this exchange between old friends fit right in to the universe) destroying the Jedi scriptures, Kylo killing his dad, then failing to kill his mom, then killing Snoke, then trying to kill his mom again and also everybody else, killing off a lot of the Resistance main command, and Luke passing over, all symbolic that Disney is taking Star Wars somewhere new and getting rid of our old Star Wars, and that's fine. I for one am not interested in what's to come, and to be honest most things outside of the OT, Rogue One, the X-Wing & Tie Fighter Series, and the parts of the EU that took place within the first two decades after RotJ (especially Michael A. Stackpole's Rogue Squadron 1-4 and Timonthy Zahn's Heir to the Empire series) didn't do it for me quite as much - I don't think I've even seen Revenge of the Sith all the way through in one sitting.

I like Rey's character being a nobody. Somehow freeing her from all fan speculation and giving her nothing to live for while strengthening her resolve felt like a good choice and returns Star Wars to a more mystical force like the OT. I'll be interested in hearing how they handle her character. I hated the projections between her and Kylo because I'm not a 14 year old fan girl.

 

Phasma is a stupid character. The Empire is accepted as both mysogynistic (you never see female Imperials in the OT) and xenophobic (enslavement and forced labor of alien species), so if there is a badass female stormtrooper shoehorned in to give a new generation of girls their own Boba Fett, then she's going to need to be utilized in a much more efficient manner. Boba Fett worked with no backstory because he was a mysterious and dangerous bounty hunter. Grand Admiral Thrawn (in the HtoE trilogy) was not human (I looked it up: Chiss) but he was a military genius and favored by the Emperor. Or Prince Xizor from Shadows of the Empire who had enough power as a criminal overlord that he worked with but not for the Empire. Phasma is just there and gets shoved down a garbage chute. Then she's back, gets her ass kicked by a character that was pretty much written to be completely inept and useless by this point, and is gone. A lot of wasted potential, especially with a darker angle on this film.

 

Poe like Finn was also written down to be completely stupid, and the character is an insult to the likes of Rogue Squadron. I know this one was supposed to feel hopeless, burn the past down and give renewed spirit but it just could have been handled better on the characters, dialog and plot points. If they had cloaking devices on smaller ships, just start sending people out up or down, let the enemy pass and follow the empty bigger transports until they run out of fuel, and hyperspace out after all was clear, then reunite with Luke and rebuild for an epic 3rd sequel? I have yet to see anything in Star Wars that tells me those little ships wouldn't have hyperdrive. But I dunno. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

 

But Holdo was written to be an unlikable bitch from the start too, only to reveal that oh no, you stupid rash men should have trusted the wisdom of the commanding officer making snide remarks and giving you the silent treatment. Another slap in the face to the OT, whose highest commanding officers were Mon Mothma, a wise and revered diplomat by all, and Leia, both a statesmen, a spy, a soldier, and legacy force wielder, and all incredibly competent at their jobs. The writing was subtle and the characters interacted most naturally.

And of course the political pandering pretty much ruined most of the characters and made already full-of-holes plotline more ridiculous. (I do not mind opposing political viewpoints in film. Mad Max Fury Road was an excellent addition to the franchise. Should have been the true third film.) But that's neither here nor there. The writing just didn't hold up for me by movie or Star Wars standards. 

But again, I'm probably just overthinking it. I'll stick with what I love. 5/10

EDIT: Also, if you grew up with the OT, EU, and X-Wing & Tie Fighter series on PC then you might agree with me that if you're going to put Star Wars fan fiction on the big screen, scenes like this is how you do it:

 

 

Edited January 9, 2018 by Johnatone

[Kristian Nebula]

I found it a very good movie. Would have liked to know some more about who Snoke is. My own interpretation is that he was Darth Plagueis the Wise that Palpatine/Darth Sidious talked about in the Revenge of the Sith.

 

I also really liked the force projection of Luke. I believe he is going to return as a force ghost in IX.

[Poncho]

I watched The Last Jedi when I went to England for Christmas, and here are my thoughts:

Spoiler

BAD THINGS:

• Poe's cocky nature at the start. Good action scene, but goddamn did he make himself unlike for the first half of the film.
• Luke essentially becomes an attempted murderer.
• Lightspeeding through the ship. It's cool, but like what WH-Wilou said, pretty much negates the need to find a ship's weakpoint.
• Waste of some characters like Brienne of Tarth.
• Snoke, once again, is underused and we still know nothing about the bastard.
• And now for the worst thing: Leia force-flying to the door while in space!!! This is so arse-backwards and insulting. I seriously couldn't believe my eyes.

GOOD THINGS:

• The acting's really bloody good.
• Some neat twists (I didn't expect Snoke to die midway through, so I guess in hindsight it wasn't so bad knowing nothing about him).
• The action itself is very well put together.
• Daisy Ridley is excellent as Rey, who is a good character in my opinion.
• The fact that Finn and Rose started a bit of a love story was something I didn't quite see, so interesting to say the least.
• I suppose Luke's death could be considered underwhelming, but he becomes "one with the Force" as the saying goes, so he'll be back.
• Kylo Ren is more fleshed out this time, and the fact that he just assumes command after killing his master was kinda cool.

So, since I personally rate films (and games) out of 4 (that's Roger Ebert's rating system, by the way), I'd give this an average 2. It's competently made and has several good aspects, but also some rather insulting ones that pretty much insult fans of the original films. Worse than Episode VII and Rogue One in my opinion. Feel free to give your opinions down below.

 

[[McD] James]

Slightly better than Rogue One, but vastly inferior to The Force Awakens. Colour me disappointed. Blah!

 

On 12/13/2017 at 9:36 PM, Red said:

Remember to spoiler your spoilers, don't be an asshole

 

 

The thread's title has "(spoilers)" written, so anyone wanting to avoid spoilers isn't going to open it. 

Edited January 31, 2018 by Ajora

[Skeletonpatch]

I immensely enjoyed this movie, I thought it was better than the Force Awakens to be completely honest (I really enjoyed Episode VII as well). I originally wrote a stupidly long and pointless rant explaining why I liked this movie, but you know what? I don't think there's any point in me arguing because nothing I say is going to convince anyone who believes contrarily of me and nothing anyone says is going to change my mind on the subject.

 

I'm just hoping that the haters don't scare Disney out of giving directors creative freedom in their Star Wars films. What would you prefer, a movie made by a directer who cares about the quality of the project, or a movie written by a focus group who only cares about profits* and doesn't let the director have any input? I'm going to assume that most people chose the former option. Episode VIII was both written and directed by Rian Johnson, he was given an unbelievable amount of freedom and it shows. I don't want this to be the last Star Wars movie that does this.

 

^{*à la Shitlumination Entertainment}

[Jaws In Space]

7 hours ago, Skeletonpatch said:

I'm just hoping that the haters don't scare Disney out of giving directors creative freedom in their Star Wars films. What would you prefer, a movie made by a directer who cares about the quality of the project, or a movie written by a focus group who only cares about profits* and doesn't let the director have any input?

Oh please this is Disney we're talking about here, they are the most controlling focus group based studio in Hollywood. Were talking about the studio that took control away from Gareth Edwards on Rogue One, fired Phil Lord & Chris Miller halfway through Solo, & let Colin Trevorrow go halfway through the production of Episode 9. Disney is a company more than any other that only cares about the profits, that's why they don't take any risks with their properties. The films that they are releasing are Star Wars, Marvel, & their live action remakes, all of which are films that they can put very little creative effort into & they will still be guaranteed money makers.

 

I will say that these Disney Star Wars films are some of the very best looking, it's clear that they put tons of money into the production & visual design of these films, Episode 8 easily has the best cinematography of the whole series. It's just that the story & characters are completely lifeless. I feel absolutely nothing while watching these films, sure this or that fight may have looked cool, but I feel absolutely nothing for whats happening on screen. Another thing that irks me about these films though is that they bring up so many unresolved plot threads, & the only way to find out about them is to go out & buy some tie in novels. That's some EA level micro transaction like BS right there, tell the whole damned story in the movie, I shouldn't have to go out & buy a book or read something online to figure out what's going on.

 

The fans of Star Wars were so happy to see someone other than George Lucas have some creative control over these films, he had betrayed our trust time & again with the special editions & the prequel trilogy. The fans were ready to give Disney the chance to prove themselves, there was no way that Episode 7 wasn't going to make hundreds of millions of dollars for them, is was guaranteed. All they had to do to prove to fans that they cared about Star Wars was to just put effort into the story & characters that we loved. But instead they gave us a run of 3 movies not one of which I've liked more than the Phantom Menace.

[Johnatone]

8 hours ago, Skeletonpatch said:

I originally wrote a stupidly long and pointless rant explaining why I liked this movie, but you know what? I don't think there's any point in me arguing because nothing I say is going to convince anyone who believes contrarily of me and nothing anyone says is going to change my mind on the subject.

While you are right in that I'm pretty firm in my opinion I still do have interest in hearing the points of what did make it work for you or other people. Sometimes there's angles I don't see or appreciate at the time and there were quite a few things I did enjoy about the movie. I think the one that stands out to me more than anything was...

Spoiler

...when Luke went to burn the sacred Jedi texts and Yoda appeared. I said it above but despite everything done with Luke's character in TLJ this one scene felt natural and heartfelt. Mark Hamill managed to portray both the naive farm boy from A New Hope and the determined but slightly discouraged Jedi apprentice from Empire in this scene, and Yoda was a return to the silly and cryptic character I remember and loved from Empire. Yoda looked amazing and more natural in this version too. If this had been the pivotal "the past needs to die" scene (and all the others had been forgone in favor of an actual good story or character development) then I would honestly feel more confident about the series going in new directions. Rian Johnson nailed this scene, hands down.

And if the politics of the movie were one of its strong points for you, I wouldn't mind hearing why as well. Too often we get carried away in taking a side and sticking to it, and polite discourse gets lost (even I am guilty of simply dismissing things as "SJW garbage" or "that jerk the alt-right a bad name") so maybe there is something I missed or did not consider as well.

At any rate feel free to write up that review and DM it to me if you have time; I had initially refused to see Rogue One due to it's constant public insistence on diversity friendly casting choices and I would have missed out on one of my favorite movies had my friend from work not insisted I go to the theater. There is one more of these flicks before the trilogy is done, so it'll take some gentle persuasion for me to follow through and finish the story this time but I'm not the kind to just completely give up. RoboCop is my favorite movie of all time and I still went to see the remake after all. Never again though.
 

[[McD] James]

Ulgh, the most I think about what I just witnessed, the more I hate it. And this is coming from someone who enjoys the prequel trilogy. Mostly, anyways.

 

 

[notjimmyboigreez]

star wars has been turned into a watered down shadow of its former self,

there are so many other movies actually worth your time,

 

the bottom line in all of this? disney has to get its money back.