Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[Galvatron]

I always imagined that Snoke bestowed that title upon them, perhaps as a member of some ancient "Order of Ren" himself. I doubt the students just made it up themselves.

[The Romulan Republic]

TFA wasn't too bad, yes it was ANH v2, and it would better if they did something different, but they took the "if it's not broken, don't change it philosophy". I can live with that.

Have you even seen TLJ, clearly you have not as you have said. Why not watch it and see how much you can stomach it? It's a story written by a fucking idiot.

All you fucking losers, show me some arguments that justify/defend the ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE STORY in TLJ. All you have is a bunch on red-herring/non-sequitur about entitement, and you know what that's besides the point that TLK WAS A TOTAL SHITSHOW. And yes, I am an entitled fan, so what?

Seriously, we've had more critical/hardcore people on this forum a decade ago. If you thought TPM/AOTC/ROTS was bad, TLJ is FUCKING FUCKING worse. Maybe not worse than TPM, but it's getting there.

Like I said, I haven't seen it yet, for reasons I won't go into. For all I know, I'll hate it. So I'm not really trying to defend the film.

I just find this over the top ranting about a movie you didn't like silly. And I'm skeptical of the criticisms because...

We went through this shit with the Prequels. People acting like they were literally the worst things in human history because they didn't live up to those specific fans' unrealistic, nostalgia-coloured expectations. And I watched the Prequels, and I thought that they were... mediocre. High-end mediocre, even, except perhaps for TPM. Flawed, sure, but hardly the atrocities that some of their detractors made them out to be (I call this the Obama effect, after the reaction of some liberals and progressives to Obama- disproportionate expectations trigger a disproportionate backlash when those expectations are, inevitably, not met).

And its not just Star Wars. Every fucking fandom has its faction, or factions, of whiney ranters. And I'm sick of it.

I reiterate- I don't want the films to pander to whichever segment of the fandom is whiniest, because the result will almost invariably be shitty movies. Indeed, I would argue that one of the ST's main problems is that it tried too hard to appease fans who complained about the Prequels.

Again, pandering to what the fandom wants is just going to lead to "written by committee" dialed up to a thousand. I've seen more than enough examples of a franchise getting fucked six ways from Sunday when it tries to pander, or when a die-hard fan boy ends up running the show, to know that its generally not a good idea.

As far as I'm concerned, beyond their legal/contractual obligations, the people working on a film owe me just one thing: to try to make the film that they feel is best. That's what I hope I would do in their place. Maybe I'll like it. Maybe I'll hate it. Maybe I'll be indifferent to it. But they don't owe me their allegiance.

[Crazedwraith]

^He's still trolling. Or I assume he is. Poe's Law and all.

----

Seen it. Since I was forewarned about a lot of the bad stuff from reading this thread it didn't bother me as much as it might if I went in cold. Mostly I found most of it superficially entertaining, the editing and flow seemed a bit odd juggling the... what? four or five plotlines.

Luke's final scene and the ending as whole, pulled it all together a lot more than I expected and actually ended on a high note. The rebellion had 'died' but the Legend of Luke Skywalker will reinvigorate it, as Rey suggested it might and those allies throughout the Rim will now come out and aid them, so the resistance fitting on the Falcon probably isn't the set back it seems.

But the final scene with the kid...it feels like IX should have been another generation on or something.

As to Holdo, she seemed to be trying to be an inspirational leader like Leia and just didn't have the charisma or reputation to pull it off. (in-universe that is) On paper she had a fine plan. (Though since it was system Leia ordered them to, it might not be hers ) and as a Vice Admiral she has no need to tell a Commander anything but well when people would rather mutiny than blindly obey you've failed as a leader and as a resistance well no Chain of command isn't going to cut it.

Yoda was just weird. He didn't seem (or look) like the PT or OT version of the character, except perhaps the mad hermit he initially pretended to be in ESB.

[Civil War Man]

How can it fuck up a trilogy when the third film doesn't exist yet?

Well, the fact that TLJ deliberately rejected as much of TFA as it could does put Episode IX in a bit of a no-win situation.

1. It can double down on TLJ's decision to burn everything to the ground, thereby making TFA even more irrelevant to the overarching story and further alienating people who prefer TFA.
2. It can try to walk back some of TLJ's subversions, which means it would do to TLJ what TLJ did to TFA, with the side effect that it'll piss off people who prefer TLJ.
3. Since Abrams is apparently coming back for Episode IX, he might try to add some new mystery boxes to compensate for Johnson smashing all of his previous ones, but they will fall (even) flat(ter) since TLJ established that foreshadowing means precisely jack and shit if the following movie gets a director that doesn't like it.

It reminds me of some advice I heard for people who wanted to get into improv performances. It said to never outright reject the suggestion of a fellow performer or audience member, even if you think it's a bad suggestion. Doing that brings the whole show to a screeching halt, which usually sours the mood. It suggested that if you think it's a bad suggestion, you use it as a jumping off point to push things in a different direction, instead of just going, "No, I'm not doing that."

[The Romulan Republic]

In a franchise like this, you need the people working on each film to be on the same page, more or less. You can have changes to the status quo, if they develop in a logical and believable way, but outright shitting on the previous guy's work is, in my opinion, highly unprofessional.

Part of TFA's problem is that it tried too hard to overcompensate for people who didn't like the Prequels. Now it sounds as though TLJ was made as a repudiation of everything TFA set up. In which case, with Abrams returning, the next film will indeed likely do the same to TLJ. Even if each film is good in its own right, that sort of thing will make it hard for the films to work as a series, as a cohesive whole.

If each film in the franchise is now going to be made as a repudiation of the preceding film, the franchise is going to become increasingly incoherent.

[Galvatron]

Yoda was just weird. He didn't seem (or look) like the PT or OT version of the character, except perhaps the mad hermit he initially pretended to be in ESB.

I know what you mean. I'd have preferred the CG version from the prequels to the odd-looking puppet they used in TLJ, but oh well.

[Elheru Aran]

It would be encouraging if we heard that Abrams and Rian Johnson were working together. But we haven't heard anything like that (so far), so...

Both TFA and TLJ fell into the trap of trying to be too much like the original Star Wars trilogy. The prequels worked (as far as they worked) in being *different*. TFA/TLJ just feel like more or less deliberate retreads. The First Order is a *slightly* more advanced Empire, the Rebels are still pretty much the Rebels, everybody else is still pretty much the same. Doesn't feel that different.

Think about it, there's about 20ish years from the prequels to the OT, then 30ish years from the OT to the ST?

1930s to 1950s is a pretty decent jump in tech and look, but it's not a HUGE change. 1950s to 80s is pretty massive, on the other hand. We never quite see changes this big or abrupt in the ST.

[Crazedwraith]

Think about it, there's about 20ish years from the prequels to the OT, then 30ish years from the OT to the ST?

Depends if anyone buys into/knows about the tech stasis thing Saxton wrote in the AotC ICS.

I mean a millenia old starfaring civilisation there may not be much more for them to discovered or advance to.

[Elheru Aran]

Think about it, there's about 20ish years from the prequels to the OT, then 30ish years from the OT to the ST?

Depends if anyone buys into/knows about the tech stasis thing Saxton wrote in the AotC ICS.

I mean a millenia old starfaring civilisation there may not be much more for them to discovered or advance to.

It's not so much about discovering new tech, as it is aesthetics. Those can and do change.

I mean. Cars for example, internal combustion gasoline engines worked pretty much the same from the 1910s? till the 1980s or so when they started introducing more electronics and whatnot. While the technology was refined-- I doubt spark plugs were the same in the 1920s as they were in the 1950s for example-- the basic operational principles were the same and any good mechanic would have been able to work on an 1920s car pretty much the same as a 1960s vehicle. The bodywork and interior styling though would have been very different.

We saw this in the PT; vehicles and devices were a noticeably different aesthetic than they were in the OT. This is perfectly normal, reflects real world changes. The ST on the other hand apes the OT aesthetic heavily, to the point of pretty much outright copying if not completely reusing the OT designs. Only a few things are noticeably different, such as the fancy rich-people starship they use to escape Canto Bight, the increase in holographic screens, things like that.

[Galvatron]

Think about it, there's about 20ish years from the prequels to the OT, then 30ish years from the OT to the ST?

Depends if anyone buys into/knows about the tech stasis thing Saxton wrote in the AotC ICS.

I mean a millenia old starfaring civilisation there may not be much more for them to discovered or advance to.

I bought it even before Saxton popularized it. A 25,000-year old galaxy-spanning civilization kinda has to be extremely advanced just to exist in the first place.

I remember having this argument with other fans back in the 90s who refused to be dissuaded from the idea that the Jedi of the early Republic used medieval armor and swords.

[Elheru Aran]

I can accept tech stasis, that's not the issue. Aesthetic stasis on the other hand? Not so sure about that.

[The Romulan Republic]

Even tech. stasis doesn't really work.

Even if a society reached the limits of what was possible under the laws of physics, certain technologies would fall in and out of favour based on cost, culture, and necessity. I wouldn't expect military technology under the pre-Phantom Menace Old Republic to match that of the Galactic Empire at its height, because the pre-Phantom Menace Old Republic is the product of 1,000 years of peace and growing complacency culminating under a (seemingly) stable semi-democratic government, while the Galactic Empire at its height is the product of three decades of galactic instability and warfare culminating in a theocratic autocracy facing a constant threat of rebellion.

[Gandalf]

Well, the fact that TLJ deliberately rejected as much of TFA as it could does put Episode IX in a bit of a no-win situation.

1. It can double down on TLJ's decision to burn everything to the ground, thereby making TFA even more irrelevant to the overarching story and further alienating people who prefer TFA.
2. It can try to walk back some of TLJ's subversions, which means it would do to TLJ what TLJ did to TFA, with the side effect that it'll piss off people who prefer TLJ.
3. Since Abrams is apparently coming back for Episode IX, he might try to add some new mystery boxes to compensate for Johnson smashing all of his previous ones, but they will fall (even) flat(ter) since TLJ established that foreshadowing means precisely jack and shit if the following movie gets a director that doesn't like it.

It reminds me of some advice I heard for people who wanted to get into improv performances. It said to never outright reject the suggestion of a fellow performer or audience member, even if you think it's a bad suggestion. Doing that brings the whole show to a screeching halt, which usually sours the mood. It suggested that if you think it's a bad suggestion, you use it as a jumping off point to push things in a different direction, instead of just going, "No, I'm not doing that."

Wait, what did it really reject from TFA?

[Galvatron]

I wouldn't expect military technology under the pre-Phantom Menace Old Republic to match that of the Galactic Empire at its height, because the pre-Phantom Menace Old Republic is the product of 1,000 years of peace and growing complacency culminating under a (seemingly) stable semi-democratic government, while the Galactic Empire at its height is the product of three decades of galactic instability and warfare culminating in a theocratic autocracy facing a constant threat of rebellion.

As I suggested in an older thread:

As a compromise, I'd have been satisfied with the Republic hauling mothballed Acclamators, LAATs, Torrents, Aethersprites, etc. out of retirement where they've been sitting since the end of the last full scale war. Over the course of the Clone Wars, technology would improve rapidly as it tends to do during wartime, and we'd end up with the newer designs by the end of Episode III.

I think Shroom loved that idea.

[Vympel]

- Kylo and the knights of Ren destroy the Jedi academy on a rainy day...but it's Ben Solo a a few students on a dry day that do that.

Why are you assuming that Rey's vision is Kylo and the Knights of Ren destroying the Jedi Academy?

- The books of the jedi must burn with the tree holding them...but you can find them in the Millenium Falcon.

No one actually said they should burn. Yoda quite explicitly says that Rey has everything she needs from the library. Because she literally does.

- The Jedi must end...but she is the succesor of the Jedi.

Shockingly, Luke was wrong and then he came around.

- Luke gets to Crait to save them and return a memento of Han to Leia...but he is a force projection and nothing was real.

Luke returned to Crait to save them, yes. Which he did.

- Luke dies...but the projected dice he gave Leia (and she left behind) remain in place so that he can troll his nephew.

For some reason I doubt that was his intent.

Can anyone tell what was the theme of this movie?

Learning from failure is probably the primary one.

Oh my God, it doesn't have to be about those things, but it needs to respect that it's the ninth film in a long-running series and pay some goddamn attention to how things work in that series. How the hyperspace tracker works shouldn't be central to the story, but it should work in a manner that makes some amount of sense.

Who cares how the hyperspace tracker works? No one explains how it works in the movie - there's nothing to pay attention to. If the explanation in the expanded material is dumb that's sad, but totally irrelevant to the film's plot.

[Thanas]

This movie was pretty bad IMO.

First of all, it would have been better if it had been cut by about 30 minutes. The casino scenes really do not serve any purpose. Even the ending scene with the children did not require the casino. Likewise, Finn is useless for most of the plot. Right now his whole character seems like a waste of screentime which is really bad because the actor is good. Phasma was superfluous. I don't understand how you can make a movie that feels epic and is thrilling like Rogue One and then come up with this clunker.

Second - and this is a gripe I still have from TFA - the whole setup and backstory makes little sense. It devalues RotJ immensely to have every single character from it being an utter failure (Leia fails to stop the new order, Luke fails as a teacher, Han just fucks off and abandons his family, Ackbar does nothing and is not a tactician but a ship pilot in this movie, R2 becomes a closet decoration etc.) I could believe one or two failing, but all of them? And the idea of the New Republic being taken out by unprofessional wankers just points out that the writers have no grasp of history and do not know how states fall (hint: It is not by having incompetent enemies).

Third - Incompetent enemies just wreck this movie. Kylo Ren is still utterly unconvincing as a villain. It is a bad thing when I - who likes conflicted characters with angst - go "Yeah I could take that whiny bitch" and regularly shook my head at the villains. Who in the world ever felt terror at the approach of the Greater Imperial Clown Brigade of Hux and Ren? FFS, even the butchered version of Thrawn the Rebels show is presenting is ten times more threatening. I can handle plotholes (like how the fuck did Finn go from "I need a pilot" to "I can fly" within a few hours?") or bad pacing or bad villains but not all three at the same time. Yeah I get it this is supposed to be all about "subversion" etc. But ffs. At some point make them actually competent.

Fourth - this movie technobabbles way too much and has way too many acts of plot dictated by cool visuals.

Five - this is also ironic because their ship design sucks visually. Not a single one of the ships felt menacing. When the ISD in ANH appears on the screen you can feel it radiating power by just the way it is shot. When the Executor appears in ESB you go "holy shit it is huge". The dreadnought in this movie was just.....meh and the less said about the giant misshapen boomerang the better.

Six - Snoke. Did not care about his character or design and did not care about his death either. Also another thing that the movie could have done without. At least his guards seemed somewhat competent and gave a good fight.

Seven - This whole movie and in fact the whole trilogy would have been way better if it were set just 100 or 200 years after RotJ. It would have immediately eliminated the entire new movies being weighed down by the need to reuse the old trilogy characters and to reuse Imperial looks etc. The entire story of the first and second movie would be better if Han, Leia, Luke or Chewie would not be in them.

Eight: STOP REHASHING FUCKING BATTLES OF THE OT. Jesus christ. Third one better not have a battle on some moon.

EDIT: forgot about this:

Nine - Luke's death was very anticlimactic and served no purpose other than to kill him off. Maybe it will pay off in SW: IX but this was a pretty bad exit from the franchise. A hero, especially one with such a huge pop culture status like Luke deserves a better send off.


So overall I am very disappointed about this movie. It could have been so much better. Is it as bad as TFA? Well, it is at least more competently shot and directed. But overall? A waste of money.

[CaoCao]

- Kylo and the knights of Ren destroy the Jedi academy on a rainy day...but it's Ben Solo a a few students on a dry day that do that.

Why are you assuming that Rey's vision is Kylo and the Knights of Ren destroying the Jedi Academy?

There was only one Jedi Academy. You may need to rewatch TFA scene.

- The books of the jedi must burn with the tree holding them...but you can find them in the Millenium Falcon.

No one actually said they should burn. Yoda quite explicitly says that Rey has everything she needs from the library. Because she literally does.

Yoda aknowledges what Luke said about the Jedi Order and went forward to do the deed. It wasn't supposed to be literal, or the burning tree has 0 meaning.

- The Jedi must end...but she is the succesor of the Jedi.

Shockingly, Luke was wrong and then he came around.

Nothing points to that on the Jedi issue.

- Luke gets to Crait to save them and return a memento of Han to Leia...but he is a force projection and nothing was real.

Luke returned to Crait to save them, yes. Which he did.

He didn't return, he was never there. Which means he never returned anything to Leia.

- Luke dies...but the projected dice he gave Leia (and she left behind) remain in place so that he can troll his nephew.

For some reason I doubt that was his intent.

The point is not the trolling.

Can anyone tell what was the theme of this movie?

Learning from failure is probably the primary one.

You realize everything went back to the Rebellion vs Empire scaled down, right?

Ah, almost forgot about...

Broad transmissions across the galaxy sent to anyone listening might not work the same as point to point personal comms between linked transmitters and receivers? It's not just speed dialing Maz, Poe also was in constant communications with FInn...

Poe did have a transmitter to contact Finn, not to Maz. And you don't need to call the entire galaxy, just someone with a tanker (a full one).

The tracker was focused on the main ship...snip

Nothing says the ship was stealth. And they lost several ships that could have scaped.

The symbolic place where the ancient Jedi teachings were sequestered out...snip

Your Dash Rendar's shoulderpads posts make more sense.

Snip...Resulting in a rather unsubtle metaphor that might nonetheless fail to communicate the point to thickies.

For what matters, the Jedi order ended with order 66, Luke's order ended with Ben/Kylo, and the fire amounted to nothing. A double back rather than a metaphor.

It's not as if the previous movies had Jedi masters create images after they passed on...

Supposedly, they appear to communicate with the living, they didn't project images of someone else's belongings post-mortem.

As a Scifi movie, it's entertaining and I like the characters. What I don't get is why do most of the old EU haters actually defend a movie that makes the Crystal Star and Planet of Twilight look like good reads.

[Vympel]

There was only one Jedi Academy. You may need to rewatch TFA scene.

I'm not sure what this means. We see Kylo and what are presumably the Knights of Ren standing in the middle of a rainy, muddy field. Why are you assuming this has anything to do with Luke's Jedi academy?

We see Luke presumably looking at his Jedi academy burning immediately prior, but the rain starts to fall on R2's dome - and the vision changes - at the end of this particular vision. There is no reason to assume they are connected in place and time, anymore than it connected to Rey standing in the Starkiller Base forest she hadn't even arrived in yet.

Yoda aknowledges what Luke said about the Jedi Order and went forward to do the deed. It wasn't supposed to be literal, or the burning tree has 0 meaning.

What wasn't meant to be literal?

Nothing points to that on the Jedi issue.

Yes it does. Luke wanted to the Jedi to end and wanted to be the last Jedi. Then he changed his mind.

He didn't return, he was never there. Which means he never returned anything to Leia.

The point of Luke's return is not to give a souvenir to Leia.

The point is not the trolling.

That much is obvious.

You realize everything went back to the Rebellion vs Empire scaled down, right?

So what? That's got nothing and less to do with theme.

As to "but it went back to Rebellion vs Empire" as if this is somehow a problem, I couldn't give less of a toss. It's not like Rian Johnson had been given a choice on this aspect, nor is "exactly like the Rebellion but larger and its called the New Republic" some sort of gold mine of dramatic unique material.

[Rogue 9]

Oh my God, it doesn't have to be about those things, but it needs to respect that it's the ninth film in a long-running series and pay some goddamn attention to how things work in that series. How the hyperspace tracker works shouldn't be central to the story, but it should work in a manner that makes some amount of sense.

Who cares how the hyperspace tracker works? No one explains how it works in the movie - there's nothing to pay attention to. If the explanation in the expanded material is dumb that's sad, but totally irrelevant to the film's plot.

Well, it has to work somehow. What do we know of hyperspace? That jumps have to be carefully calculated (though they've gotten more fast and loose with that as time goes on), but once you've done that, you've plotted a safe course - that you can drop out of at any time or (as demonstrated in Rebels) even change. There are trillions of possible destinations, most of them in deep space. So what possible mechanism could they use to pinpoint exactly which point in deep space along that trajectory they would choose to drop out of hyperspace at without a homing device on one of the ships? According to every established rule of how FTL travel the setting works, it's impossible. Hence, not respecting that it's the ninth film in a long-running series and needs to pay some goddamn attention to how things have been established to work.

For the record, yes, the official explanation is dumb. But it was dumb without the official explanation. It was dumb sitting in the theater watching it unfold. The previous paragraph was my train of thought sitting there watching it happen, not after coming home and eventually getting curious enough to check Wookieepedia (that just made it worse).

[Vympel]

Well, it has to work somehow. What do we know of hyperspace? That jumps have to be carefully calculated (though they've gotten more fast and loose with that as time goes on), but once you've done that, you've plotted a safe course - that you can drop out of at any time or (as demonstrated in Rebels) even change. There are trillions of possible destinations, most of them in deep space. So what possible mechanism could they use to pinpoint exactly which point in deep space along that trajectory they would choose to drop out of hyperspace at without a homing device on one of the ships? According to every established rule of how FTL travel the setting works, it's impossible. Hence, not respecting that it's the ninth film in a long-running series and needs to pay some goddamn attention to how things have been established to work.

For the record, yes, the official explanation is dumb. But it was dumb without the official explanation. It was dumb sitting in the theater watching it unfold. The previous paragraph was my train of thought sitting there watching it happen, not after coming home and eventually getting curious enough to check Wookieepedia (that just made it worse).

For my part I couldn't care less what the explanation is, but its trivial to come up with an explanation for how hyperspace tracking works. Rose calls it an 'active tracker' (which for the record sounds like the exact opposite of just some number cruncher - well done expanded material!) so it implies it is actively tracking the ships in hyperspace. Maybe it tags them with some sort of signal or sensor emission which can be traced. It's not at all 'impossible' nor antithetical to how the setting is supposed to work, its just new technology.

[Rogue 9]

Well, that would be a many-fold increase in sensor capabilities. We've never had any indication that Star Wars sensors are capable of following something not actively transmitting over hundreds or thousands of light years before.

[Vympel]

Well, that would be a many-fold increase in sensor capabilities. We've never had any indication that Star Wars sensors are capable of following something not actively transmitting over hundreds or thousands of light years before.

Yeah, another alternative is that hyperdrive use leads a trail that can be followed that they've suddenly discovered (well, that they've been working on for decades going from Rogue One's 'hyperspace tracking' project on Scarif).

In any event, its important not to overstate the technical consistency of hyperdrive travel and tracking in Star Wars as it is. Remember Han telling Luke and Obi-Wan that he had 'outrun' those Imperial slugs? Makes very little sense if he's free and clear the moment he hits the lever. Sigh

[Gandalf]

Maybe it's just that after a few decades of chasing mobile rebel fleets someone invested in better tracking tech, which only works on those bizarrely huge starships?

[Elfdart]

I guess I'm the only one who liked the part where Finn and Rose saved the horse-elk creatures. I thought it was sweet in a 50s live action Disney sort of way.

[GuppyShark]

Thankyou based Thanas.

On the subject of keeping it within the lifespans of the OT actors: I don't think that's the problem. From a financial perspective: you would be a fool to have Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford not appear in your new Star Wars trilogy. That is most of the reason people went to see TFA: To see what happened to the characters they were already invested in, and you can't just fast forward for the sequel without losing that advantage.

I like the cast, but flying by the seat of their pants for narrative is a baffling strategy for Disney to undertake given the successful franchises they already own and could learn from.

I said it after I saw TFA: It was a bad movie carried by nostalgia.
I said it after I saw TLJ: It was a bad movie that spat on nostalgia.

They are both bad movies: I am done. I'm going to want to see positive audience scores on any further Star Wars movies before I go into a theatre to see one, because seeing them on faith alone is idiotic.