Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[Iroscato]

Seen it twice now, and whilst it certainly has issues and things I’d drop entirely from the movie *glares at Canto Bight* I thoroughly enjoyed it both times. Most importantly it genuinely took me by surprise several times with how things went, which I appreciated.
When I think about it, it’s the first SW movie I’ve ever seen that went unexpectedly - every fucker knows the rough story outline of the OT, the PT and Rogue One had to go a certain way to set up the later movies, and TFA hardly broke new ground in terms of plot twists. It’s a nice, novel feeling.

[Knife]

I'd like a citation on where you guys are coming up with the entire Republic fleet is destroyed. I've already pointed out that when Hux said it, it was before they fired Starkiller at the Republic and was hyperbole. The novel doesn't say that either.

Disorganized and not able to respond in force a few hours after their capital gets nuked? Sure. All gone? No. And as always, if that is indeed the case by writers fiat, then it's lazy sloppy writing that needs to be shat on.

[APlayerHater]

If the fleet wasn't destroyed, where is it? Why does Leia need to reach out to allies in the outer rim? Couldn't she just contact the rebel fleet. And if she did contact them why didn't they respond?

Starkiller base was there to just conveniently reboot the new republic out of existence so they could justify making a remake of ANH. Somehow blowing up 5 planets in 1 solar system completely deleted the New Republic from existence.

[Tychu]

I'd like a citation on where you guys are coming up with the entire Republic fleet is destroyed. I've already pointed out that when Hux said it, it was before they fired Starkiller at the Republic and was hyperbole. The novel doesn't say that either.

Disorganized and not able to respond in force a few hours after their capital gets nuked? Sure. All gone? No. And as always, if that is indeed the case by writers fiat, then it's lazy sloppy writing that needs to be shat on.

That’s my thoughts too.
I say that the Canto Bight bit is silly because we don’t see Finn do anything WRONG. Then when I bring up a Republic fleet, I get attacked by people saying, we don’t see anything about it surviving! LoL. I jest with “being attacked” but you can’t have it both ways. This movie TO ME did not have a cohesive story, and “things” happened for plot convenience. Death Star Rammer just happens to be available? The First Order didn’t know they were going to have to go to Crait

[Crazedwraith]

We do see Finn do something wrong. You just dont agree about the severity of their parking laws.

And is there any reaaon the seige cannon might not be a standard bit of FO kit?

[CaoCao]

The KoR killing a possibility? Sure. A random killing being a past event important enough to ensue a vision?

Was Rey being at Cloud City "important" to her?

Tha past of the Force, the past of Rey

- Past of the Force: Bespin was there for the Vader vs Luke ESB duel, then the KoR and the killings, then Luke seeing his academy in flames.
- Past of Rey: Her parents leaving her behind, flying a spaceship out of Jakku to, supposedly, have a few drinks.

Nope, smartass, no future predicting is necesary. They are a runaway fleet being targeted by a "fleet killer". It should be at the top of their priority targets list to remove.

Not when you have dramatically limited resources and destroying the enemy ship will not improve your position at any relevant time. The attack had dramatically low odds of success. The Resistance lost a huge portion of its limited assets in exchange for a dreadnought which we have no reason for assuming is unique.

My bad, you're right. Even if it was lumbering right at the reach of their fighters and bombers, even if a single fighter managed to destroy it's point defenses, and even if its allies twirled their thumbs instead of launching starfighter coverage, they should have left it for another time. There's absolutely no reason to think that a dreadnough, that has the ability to penetrate shields, would pose an inmediate future threat to a fleet that, at the very beggining of the movie, is on the run because their base was found.

Yeap, Maz had a magical number they could dial from anywhere.

Or, she's not in the Outer Rim.

And? There's no need for the recipient of a message to be nearby. Finn and Rose crossed the Galaxy to Canto Bight. If, by some technobabble magic, they couldn't make the call from the Raddus, then they (meaning Finn and Rose or someone with a hyperspace capable shuttle) could have gone to another star system and do it. Hell, they could send a shuttle forward to Crait and do the call, there's no need for the remaining of the Resistance to be huddled around the transmitter for it to work. The more you think the problem, the stupider it gets.

Disney canon has a lot of places that provide an advantage (hard to travel territory).

Given that the First Order fleet will pounce on them within some 30 seconds of their coming out of hyerspace, your basis for assuming they'll be able to take advantage of this hard to travel territory is what? Given that the Vigil was immediately destroyed the first time it happened? And why should anyone assume this 'hard to travel' territory is easy for the Resistance to travel, but hard for the First Order?

They had enough speed to outrun the FO. The point is not for anyone to have it easy, but to level the playfield.

Scatering the ships only leave one of the three vulnerable (and Holdo lost all three of them plus most of the crews).

And why should we assume they can be scattered, again? In the version of the movie you watched, did they say that the First Order could only track one ship at a time? And if that was actually the case, who would give a shit since your plan would obviously result in the eventual destruction of the Raddus? Yay, big victory, the Resistance might have saved a corvette and a frigate a tiny fraction of the size and capability of their flagship.

They were unable to track Finn and Rose, or the MF. The Radus was doomed based on Holdo's plan. They end up losing all ships but the MF (that is smaller than the Frigate).

I was being sarcastic and ironic, though even without sarcirony it seemed like you were oblivious to it.

Nah, neither was oblivious to a not so subtle attempt at flamming. I'll do my best next time to remain so.

Until he grew old and encountered the very same dilemma and had an impasse, as shown in TLJ. Even as a kid he was uncertain and struggled. We saw that he still wasn't able to go past the Jedi's failings (I mean, if he DID then there would be no more continued Skywalker Family Drama and IDK if the fans would be upset if the SW sequels didn't include the Skywalkers in the struggle as they'd Live Happily Ever After ). So... another person gets to try!

The problem is not with Luke failing, or getting depressed or passing the torch. The problem is Luke, one day, without anything wrong happening, deciding to chop his nephew's head (who is almost like a son)...there and then, under the very weak explanation of having noticed some darkness in him (when Vader had gone full dark side route, leaving several dead bodies in his wake, but still deserved a chance to return to the light).

If Ben had killed his students, burned the academy, and THEN Luke gone bonkers, it would have been believable (or better written, at least).

[K. A. Pital]

Luke did not just notice a bit of darkness though, I think he had a powerful force vision and went crazy for a second (soundtrack is also supportive of that).

It seems the authors of ST see the Force a bit differently compared to the OT or PT. Its usage seems to open new possibilities like the visual Force Skype between Kylo The Alt Right Warrior and Rey The Hopeful Jedi Girl. Maybe Luke saw something way more definite than the old Anakin prophecy.

Maybe he even saw himself and Ben and the showdown, as it happened.

[Nephtys]

I'd like a citation on where you guys are coming up with the entire Republic fleet is destroyed. I've already pointed out that when Hux said it, it was before they fired Starkiller at the Republic and was hyperbole. The novel doesn't say that either.

Disorganized and not able to respond in force a few hours after their capital gets nuked? Sure. All gone? No. And as always, if that is indeed the case by writers fiat, then it's lazy sloppy writing that needs to be shat on.

It's not said anywhere, but you can clearly see hundreds of cruisers blow up in TFA at the one planet. Given then that TLJ starts with the First Order militarily overrunning the Republic, it seems to be straightforward enough: Perhaps it destroyed a huge chunk of the fleet, or decapitated leadership --- in any case, it's enough for the First Order to be able to launch a sweepingly successful conventional offensive.

[Nephtys]

I guess this is the closest thing. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/New_Republic_Starfleet

Emboldened by the perceived weakness and "decadence" of the New Republic, the First Order began crossing the Borderland and made several incursions into Republic space, including the Suraz engagement. Despite the First Order's frequent violations of the Galactic Concordance by embarking on a rearmament program and violating Republic sovereignty, Republic Command refused to allow the Fleet to take action against the First Order and limited starfighter units like Rapier Squadron to sector patrol work. In spite of evidence to the contrary, some Republic officers like Major Lonno Deso dismissed the First Order as a small but troublesome Imperial remnant that used propaganda and fear to exaggerate its strength and importance. Some Republic senators like Erudo Ro-Kiintor even secretly colluded with the First Order by derailing or blocking motions increasing funding for the Republic Navy.[13]

Destruction of the Hosnian system
The Fleet above Hosnian Prime being destroyed by Starkiller Base's superweapon.

Frustrated by the Senate and Starfleet's unwillingness to take action against the First Order, General Organa and other like-minded supporters like Admiral Ackbar formed the Resistance, a splinter group from the Republic's military that was independent of the Republic chain of command. While the Republic tolerated the Resistance's activities, it was wary of risking war with the First Order.[15] The Resistance was joined by Republic Navy personnel such as the starfighter pilot Poe Dameron and his colleagues from Rapier Squadron, who shared General Leia's sentiments about the First Order. However, other Republic officers like Major Deso regarded the Resistance as an irritant for exaggerating the threat posed by the First Order.[13]

When the First Order launched a preemptive strike against the Hosnian system in an effort to destroy the New Republic, a substantial portion of the Republic Starfleet was destroyed when Starkiller Base unleashed several blasts of phantom energy and destroyed Hosnian Prime and the other astronomical bodies in the system. The attack also destroyed the Galactic Senate and killed numerous people including Chancellor Lanever Villecham and Korr Sella, an envoy from the Resistance sent by General Leia to plead for the Republic to take action against the First Order.[17]

[NecronLord]

Ah, Chancellor Villecham really I'm not sure why people aren't getting what the hamfistedly obvious allegory is for the whole TFA incident.

[Crazedwraith]

Was his/her name even mentioned in the film?

[jollyreaper]

Saw it, was pretty disappointed. I can get what people are saying on all sides of the issue.

Yes, the EU wasn't very good and the major sins were trying to make the galaxy too small by connecting everyone and everything, trying to tell hidden parts of a story that, if they were really interesting, would have been in the original films, overexplaining things to death and giving us retreads of the main plot. New dark lord, does nasty stuff, good guys oppose dark lord, overblown superweapons, yawn. So I heartily agree with trying to do something new with this Star Wars. Doing a retread -- easy fan service -- would be lazy and unrewarding.

What's so funny is that the dual themes of TLJ are failure and letting go of the past while both it and TFA were nothing but nostalgia bombs, recreating scenes and story beats from the original trilogy.

That video about A New Hope, saved by the edit, is really illuminating. Everyone talks about show don't tell and this video shows how you can bury the bones of a good story under too much flab. Redundant exposition, scenes that don't add up to the momentum of the story, unnecessary characters. TFA and TLJ went the opposite way with not showing enough. Does that sound contradictory? I think there's good mystery and bad mystery.

Good mystery is a character like Boba Fett. You can tell there's history with this guy. Every scratch and dent on his armor has a story. You could say it's a bit of a mystery. And those are the mystery boxes better left unopened because our speculation in our own heads is going to be more fantastic than whatever some other writer decides. It's impossible to not be disappointed. But we aren't confused about his motivation and what he's trying to accomplish in the story. That's perfectly clear. If it isn't, someone made a mistake. That's bad mystery.

I thought TFA was lazy. It basically was retread fan service. But I gave it a pass. The prequels did not feel like Star Wars. TFA felt like Star Wars, it had the pacing, the action, even if it didn't really make any sense if you thought about it. (The origin of the first order, starkiller base, taking out the entire republic leadership and the entire fleet in one strike, Rey's insta-jedi powers, etc.) TLJ's primary failing, as pointed out earlier in the thread, was bad improv. You "yes, and" from what you're given instead of tearing down the premise and starting anew. We know from conversations that JJ had no answer in mind for any of the mystery boxes he setup so Rian just decided to junk them instead. With JJ coming back for the next one, it's going to be more mystery boxes ahoy.

TLJ itself had a lot of structural failings. I won't argue the why of the plot (I didn't like anything in there) but I will point out a few failures of execution. The whole Stern Chase was nonsensical even within the canon of the existing Star Wars films. Star Destroyers are very fast. A blockade runner in the very first film was chased down by one of them and blockade runners are, by nature, supposed to be very fast, able to evade blockades. The basic idea of a big warship like the ISD is that it can defeat any target it can catch and has starfighters to chase down anything it can't. I didn't see any reason why they couldn't have just sent every starfighter they had to engage three little ships. Concern for the lives of their pilots shouldn't have been an issue. And the longer the chase stretched out, the greater the chance there was for the rebels to try something, have a rescue force show up, etc. There was a great idea suggested above -- bigger initial fleet, more jumps, have them constantly trying to escape and unsure how the Imperials are doing it since this is basically impossible. Have the fleet whittled down with every fight, keep tension high. Exciting!

The tracking device was also unnecessary. As someone else pointed out in the thread, they had Kylo Ren and Leia so you could just say he was tracking her, done. No need to invent tech that doesn't make sense, have no one else but a lowly technician guess at what's going on, we're reusing the idea of force connections between family and it thematically strengthens the conflict for Kylo. Hold on, someone will say. If you remove the tracking device then you nix the whole planet casino side story. Yup! Worst part of the film. But then what will Finn and Rose do? They're on a ship getting run to ground by an imperial death fleet led by a boomerang the size of a planetoid. Surely there's drama to be had onboard the fleet. Need examples? Fine.

The fleet make its escape from the base that the dreadnought blew up. They arrive at a rendezvous point in interstellar space to meet supply freighters. Literally middle of nowhere, no other traffic for lightyears. Right in the middle of replenishment the imperials show up. Impossible, right? So there's the mad scramble to pack up as much as possible and escape. Rose and Finn could have had their meet cute at this time. He's helping load supplies on a shuttle and grumping about how he left the imperials and he's still humping supplies around, all militaries are the the same. The attack happens and the freighter is trashed but the TIE's are driven back by Poe and his squadron. Rose is one of the freighter crew and Finn helps her get aboard the shuttle. The original pilot is wounded and he asks Rose if she knows how to fly. She says no but she's always wanted to learn. Finn can quip about how he really needs to get flight training. She has seen enough not completely bungle it, along with advice from the injured pilot. They make it off the freighter and over to Raddus before it jumps out. From here it's a running battle as the Raddus is damaged and Finn and Rose work on damage control. We could even see the imperials try to get boarding pods towards the end so that there's close quarters fighting onboard and Finn gets to work with a blaster again.

So, where was the fleet trying to go? Forget the salt desert planet. Made no sense. The fleet is trying to make it to the Rim where the imperials would be overextended, vulnerable. A hink in the plan could be that nobody knew about the Supremacy and that ship could throw a spanner in the works since proper planetary defenses (shields, ion cannons, etc) can tank a Star Destroyer but the Supremacy is a whole 'nother ballgame. And this could be around the point that Leia figures out she's the problem, Kylo is tracking her. And so she decides to make a sacrifice play, She and Holdo could hatch the plan to use the Raddus as a decoy and create the optimal condition of using it as a kamikaze. And this tactic only works because they know the bearing and timing of the imperials coming out of hyperspace, thus explaining why this tactic wouldn't have worked in any other situation. So the crew is fired off in escape pods picked up by the remaining fleet and the Raddus turns and jumps to lightspeed right as the Supremacy is dropping to realspace. Kablooey.

But, horribly enough, the imperials are wounded but not out of the fight and the fleet is low on fuel from all the excessive hyperspacing. And Kylo, ham that he is, has a live broadcast going out to the entire galaxy to show how he's going to kill the last of them, ha-ha evil laugh. And that's when Luke inexplicably shows up on his very ship. Hux is freaking out but Kylo says no, this is great because now I can defeat him in person. And they can have a big, dramatic fight streaming out to the galaxy and Kylo strikes the killing blow that doesn't work. Wait, is this a force projection? Yeah, I was just buying time. Outer Rim allies warp in and are able to save the fleet remnants. The imperials are too beat up at this point to press a fight. Rebels withdraw and, incidentally, the whole Skywalker thing rekindles hope throughout the galaxy.

So, are those ideas the most perfect thing ever? No. If I had my druthers I'd trash pretty much everything from the TLJ script and toss TFA for that matter. This rewrite accepts what they were trying to do and do it more neatly.

if I had my druthers I'd keep the idea of the sequels starting 30-something years after Jedi and rejecting the bad bits of EU canon. I'd say the Galactic Civil War went on a few years post-Jedi as the imperials were collapsing and they finally got their act together for a last stand like Jakku and an armistice is signed. The Republic is 60% of the former empire's size, the Imperial Rump is 30%, and 10% is unaffiliated systems, either run by warlords or independently wealthy and going it alone. The imperials realize the tarkin doctrine is a total bust. Their current leader is a pragmatist and says look, we're strong enough to head off a republic invasion but they don't even want to do that. They're busy making money and growing decadent again. The war was good for them, stripped away the weak and stupid and their leadership is full of veterans. But they never fixed the historic contradictions that caused the old republic to fall. They'll grow weak and fall in time. Trying to mount an attack on them now is stupid because all we'll accomplish is ruining both civilizations. So they're locked in a kind of cold war. The pragmatist sees his best course of action as a) avoiding a stupid war b) making sure the historic contradictions of the empire don't sink it first and c) making a viable carrot vs. stick argument for why the empire is a good idea. Would your life be better under the empire or the republic? There are good arguments to be made if the imperials are played less as mustache-twirlers.

The imperials have been busy rewriting history. The Death Star wasn't a planet-destroying super weapon but a peace station designed to reach out and help rehabilitate backwards planets. Alderaan was accidentally destroyed by rebels who had stashed antimatter bombs there for use against the Death Star. So on and so forth. Palpatine wasn't a sith lord. (Even most imperials officers didn't know.) Vader is rehabilitated as a loyal imperial servant who turned on the Jedi when he realized their treachery and there's no talk of his methods of persuasion. The Imperials are no longer culling force sensitive individuals because that's awful optics for the public. They decide to invent their own Jedi tradition because they still have a romantic tradition among the public and it helps defeat republic propaganda. More practically, the Republic has Jedi and the Imperials had better develop some of their own so they don't have a weakness.

Both of these sides generally want to avoid kicking off another galactic war but there are factions who would clearly stand to benefit. And, of course, someone is trying to start a war but nobody is quite sure who. Imperials blame the Republic, the Republic blames the Imperials. A chunk of the imperial fleet fled to the Outer Rim after the armistice and there's fear these hardliners might be behind it. But they're going to struggle to keep their existing forces in good repair. They're not building new Star Destroyers, let alone planet killers. And I think that it would be appropriate to raise the risk of a neo-Sith movement. These guys have some old sith texts but are reconstructing the religion. New interpretation, new rules. And so this would be a challenge that could be perfect for the imperial jedi and republic jedi to run into. They're seeing each other as the enemy at first. Imperials don't even believe in dark side/light side duality and so remain incredibly susceptible to sith machinations. The republic Jedi are aware but are trying to make changes to their approach to avoid the downfall of the old republic jedi. And both sides end up coming together to confront the threat of the neo-sith. And the neo-sith philosophy should appear a lot more attractive. the prequels bore resemblance to the EU where turning to the dark side looked about as attractive as taking up a meth habit. I never liked how quickly Anakin went from "in my opinion the Jedi are evil!" to "well, time to start killing kids!"

To shake things up, the initial POV should be from the imperial side. We can see some of the deconstruction of star wars mythology from the side of the imperial propagandists. Good propaganda is based on selective truths. Be truthful about the enemy's failings and neglect to accurately portray their strengths. Don't mention your own flaws. And the Republic has a lot of flaws. Acceptance of a hereditary aristocracy, nepotism and cronyism, open corruption and looting of the public coffers for private benefit, etc.

In this premise, Kylo Ren wouldn't be Han and Leia's son but a young imperial jedi true believer who thinks vader is the best thing ever. (I do like the idea of a try-hard vader obsessive, I just don't think that character works as a credible lead villain.) He doesn't really know what happened. I think it would be perfect to meet Luke and not know him for who he is. Luke has allowed his legend to grow and so everyone knows Skywalker is a great Jedi sitting in the new temple dispensing wisdom to his students and doesn't look like this humble old man in simple robes going about his business. It'd be a total mind job when Luke finally says you've got it wrong. I'm his son. I was there when Vader and the Emperor died. Here's how it went down.

In this version, we can still have cameos by the old cast. Leia is leader of the Republic, Han is by her side. Luke has his new Jedi Order. He could have had some mistakes at the start of it, had some of his students risk the dark side, but all was not lost. Lando I think probably made a tidy fortune running disaster recovery NGO's off on the worlds ravaged by the last war. While the EU didn't do a great job with the Skywalker and Organa-Solo kids, I do like the idea of having them as part of the next generation of heroes. It's continuity without letting the older characters overshadow the new.

So, those are just some ideas. Greatest in the world? Naw, I'm sure they could be improved on. But I would emphasize that I'm not criticizing the new movies for not doing exactly what I would have done. I think there's numerous valid approaches that could have been taken and what they did doesn't really fit within that solution set. I think this new trilogy, like the prequels, will prove to be incredibly divisive. I'm not really sure what the love/hate split is at this point, the internet can amplify the noise made by both camps.

[jollyreaper]

The alternative, of course, is superweapons and epic stakes forever. Neither really works in and of itself, and is much more about how they're written.

But I'm still disappointed in the Resistance that is the size of the People's Front of Judea. I'd much rather there actually be a republic rather than the re-tread of the Empire-vs-Rebels dynamic, with more hopelessly outclassed rebels and even stronger empire we got.

EDIT: The simple answer is to never suggest the Second Republic took the whole galaxy, and that there are many post-imperial strongholds out there, still doing their evil, and that the First Order is either a force that revitalizes them, or the most capable/notorious of these.

That's my problem with the old EU Legends. Star Wars shouldn't be like a Marvel movie where you can have new bad guys constantly taking over the Galaxy and the heroes having to save the galaxy again and again. What will Disney do for Ep 10, 11 and 12? Are they going to drag the conflict with the FO? Are we going to have a brand new Imperials mk 3.0?

That's what they're going to do, pretty sure.

I know they wanted to do more main sequence films (roman numeral, important star wars) while the original cast was still around but I think the better route would be to save those for important moments that advance the galaxy. I actually like the idea of the smaller stakes stories set in the same universe. I think Rogue One would have been perfect as a Rogue Squadron movie with the larger story happening off-screen. Nix the idea of origin films for existing characters. We don't need young Han, young Obi-Wan. I'd be leery of even trying to build something like the MCU with everything happening in the same timeline with crossovers between the independent films. It would feel too Marvel.

If we step back and just look at Star Wars as a setting like the Wild West or WWII, American Civil War, the path forward is easy. Nobody can say there's no more Wild West stories to tell. They just need new characters, smaller stakes, stories that are more intimate. The Star Wars setting is flavor. The same way you can take the same story and tell it in samurai movie trappings or put it in the old west.

I don't think Disney is likely to change their approach. They're interested in pushing out content to make money and the only metric that matters is revenue. If Star Wars movies are routinely clearing a billion a piece, they're doing nothing wrong. While Michael Bay Transformers movies are reviled, they make money. No reason to stop making them until they're no longer profitable. It kills me because I'd like to think those resources could be better purposed towards making good movies but that's not even a priority. A ticket sold to someone who didn't like it counts just as much as one sold to someone who did. From a straight numbers perspective, pandering to fan boys who see each installment in the theater multiple times, buy the blue-rays and all the merch is more important than catering to the disgruntled fans. I haven't seen the numbers but I would imagine it's becoming like free-to-play games -- depending on the game something like 90% of the revenue is coming from less than 10% of the players who will buy stuff so there's no market incentive to care what 90% of the player base thinks.

[NecronLord]

Was his/her name even mentioned in the film?

No, not at all. But on the other hand, it shouldn't really need to be. The whole situation is very obviously a catastrophic blunder for the Republic. I don't like it, but that's the intention.

[ray245]

I'd like a citation on where you guys are coming up with the entire Republic fleet is destroyed. I've already pointed out that when Hux said it, it was before they fired Starkiller at the Republic and was hyperbole. The novel doesn't say that either.

Disorganized and not able to respond in force a few hours after their capital gets nuked? Sure. All gone? No. And as always, if that is indeed the case by writers fiat, then it's lazy sloppy writing that needs to be shat on.

That would require Star Wars to be in the hands of people who understand scale. The current creative heads like Pablo are minimalist or JJ Abrams who simply cannot comprehend how big the Galaxy is.

[ray245]

That's what they're going to do, pretty sure.

I know they wanted to do more main sequence films (roman numeral, important star wars) while the original cast was still around but I think the better route would be to save those for important moments that advance the galaxy. I actually like the idea of the smaller stakes stories set in the same universe. I think Rogue One would have been perfect as a Rogue Squadron movie with the larger story happening off-screen. Nix the idea of origin films for existing characters. We don't need young Han, young Obi-Wan. I'd be leery of even trying to build something like the MCU with everything happening in the same timeline with crossovers between the independent films. It would feel too Marvel.

If we step back and just look at Star Wars as a setting like the Wild West or WWII, American Civil War, the path forward is easy. Nobody can say there's no more Wild West stories to tell. They just need new characters, smaller stakes, stories that are more intimate. The Star Wars setting is flavor. The same way you can take the same story and tell it in samurai movie trappings or put it in the old west.

I don't think Disney is likely to change their approach. They're interested in pushing out content to make money and the only metric that matters is revenue. If Star Wars movies are routinely clearing a billion a piece, they're doing nothing wrong. While Michael Bay Transformers movies are reviled, they make money. No reason to stop making them until they're no longer profitable. It kills me because I'd like to think those resources could be better purposed towards making good movies but that's not even a priority. A ticket sold to someone who didn't like it counts just as much as one sold to someone who did. From a straight numbers perspective, pandering to fan boys who see each installment in the theater multiple times, buy the blue-rays and all the merch is more important than catering to the disgruntled fans. I haven't seen the numbers but I would imagine it's becoming like free-to-play games -- depending on the game something like 90% of the revenue is coming from less than 10% of the players who will buy stuff so there's no market incentive to care what 90% of the player base thinks.

I think they need a team of creative that understand how big of a universe they have. A single planet can have multiple cities and cultures. A single planet can have billions of lives with diverse species and cultures.

I think most Hollywood creative writers have issues with world-building. World-building is very much done on a need-of-plot basis. Cities don't have any function beyond being pretty sets for the heroes to run around in and for the bad guys to blow up. The appeal of Star Wars under George is there is always a hint of a world beyond the pages of the book or the scenes depicted on screen. You can a tiny glimpse into a world that feels alive beyond the plot. Every character came from somewhere, every piece of hardware have their own little history from somewhere else.

George Lucas has created an utterly vast universe on par in scale with Middle-earth. There is a whole galaxy to play around with, with conflict of every scale imaginable. You can have a crime drama set on a single planet in a single city within a Star Wars universe. Characters don't have to fly to multiple planets in every movie. A single planet is full of stuff worth exploring.

It's sad to see Disney making such limited use of the IP they have on their hands.

[jollyreaper]

I think they need a team of creative that understand how big of a universe they have. A single planet can have multiple cities and cultures. A single planet can have billions of lives with diverse species and cultures.

What you suggest is not impossible. Putting together RPG sourcebooks is a collaborative effort and, with a strong editorial hand, we can have a complex, self-consistent unvierse where good stories can be told. It's been done.

In theory, this is what the story group was supposed to work out, making sure that everything remains canon and sensible. It's just not working in practice. A major goal should be that primary material should be sufficient to enjoy on its own. That's the movies. Secondary material (novelizations, games, comics) can be enjoyed on its own and provide additional background but should never be required for basic understanding of the primary canon. A good historic movie should contain all the information to understand the story within itself and anyone wanting more could then consult the history books.

I think most Hollywood creative writers have issues with world-building. World-building is very much done on a need-of-plot basis. Cities don't have any function beyond being pretty sets for the heroes to run around in and for the bad guys to blow up. The appeal of Star Wars under George is there is always a hint of a world beyond the pages of the book or the scenes depicted on screen. You can a tiny glimpse into a world that feels alive beyond the plot. Every character came from somewhere, every piece of hardware have their own little history from somewhere else.

Exactly. That was part of the genius of the used future look. Earlier scifi sets would tend to look pristine, as if they were constructed just before filming, which in fact they were. Star Wars felt lived in which helped create the illusion of life off the corner of the screen. I think good worldbuilding is like the underlay sketching for a drawing. The pencil work isn't directly visible in the finished, inked version but you can tell whether it was done well or not.

George Lucas has created an utterly vast universe on par in scale with Middle-earth. There is a whole galaxy to play around with, with conflict of every scale imaginable. You can have a crime drama set on a single planet in a single city within a Star Wars universe. Characters don't have to fly to multiple planets in every movie. A single planet is full of stuff worth exploring.

Fundamental failures of storytelling like this abound in most movies these days. There's a casual disregard for bothering to ensure things make sense. And of course there will be vociferous defenders of that sort of thing. Hey, wait, that princess is human, right? No inherent magic? How is she breathing under water? Herp-derp this is a fantasy story with magic and dragons and yet a princess not drowning while being under water for hours is suddenly where you start asking questions?

"There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them." And how many sentients are in the Star Wars galaxy? A googling puts it at 100 quadrillion which is a hundred thousand trillion. Yeah. Whole lotta stories to tell.

As for the paucity of imagination, I think part of the problem is that people get their work via connections rather than raw talent so we end up with a small stable of writers working on everything. They turn in scripts reliably and hit points the producer notes ask for and the films are still making money so why shake things up? I'd suspected it but read some articles that confirmed the reason why we see a lot of seriously junior directors put on these huge tent poles (Fantastic Four, Jurassic World, the most recent American Godzilla film, Rogue One, Last Jedi) is that they are eager and hungry and unlikely to push back against studio demands. There's little chance of a Coppola going rogue in the jungle.

It's sad to see Disney making such limited use of the IP they have on their hands.

All I can hope for is that the films continue to make scads of money and they make enough spin-offs that they'll eventually let someone take full control of a side story movie out of sheer oversight and he'll be able to put together something that makes sense. Since profitability is the only measure that matters, so long as the movies are making money, there would be no reason to change up their approach.

[Shroom Man 777]

The problem is not with Luke failing, or getting depressed or passing the torch. The problem is Luke, one day, without anything wrong happening, deciding to chop his nephew's head (who is almost like a son)...there and then, under the very weak explanation of having noticed some darkness in him (when Vader had gone full dark side route, leaving several dead bodies in his wake, but still deserved a chance to return to the light).

I imagined that by the time it reached to that, there was the implied seduction of Ben by Snoke, but I think before that point Luke was wracked not only with prescience of what Ben could be, but also with a lot of the other issues that was angsting him on that island. I could glean that he was already facing those same worries, and the pressures of being a legend and Vader's son at the same time, before he even fled.

Come on, it wasn't just "Luke's A-OK and everything's sunny, and then the clouds form and it rains and LUKE'S CRAZY ASS AXE SABER CRAZY!"

Then again, a The Shining remake set in a Jedi temple would be great.

*Kylo looks at a holo-writer*

All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.
All midichlorians and no blue milk makes Luke a dull boy.


OH SHIT

HERE COMES LUKEY

If Ben had killed his students, burned the academy, and THEN Luke gone bonkers, it would have been believable (or better written, at least).

True but that doesn't make the epic galaxy-shattering failure on Luke's end. They could've done that, in fact they initially implied that, but that's why they swapped it with Luke being the cause of that.

MAYBE it's just for "LOL TRICKED YOU!" shits and giggles. Then again, on the other hand, maybe that's also part of the prescience is a trap Dune-esque self-fulfilling thing.

Maybe Ben DID kill his students, burn the academy, and cause Luke to go bonkers... but then Luke can see the future and he saw exactly that... AND WENT BONKERS!

[The Romulan Republic]

Fundamental failures of storytelling like this abound in most movies these days. There's a casual disregard for bothering to ensure things make sense. And of course there will be vociferous defenders of that sort of thing. Hey, wait, that princess is human, right? No inherent magic? How is she breathing under water? Herp-derp this is a fantasy story with magic and dragons and yet a princess not drowning while being under water for hours is suddenly where you start asking questions?

"There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them." And how many sentients are in the Star Wars galaxy? A googling puts it at 100 quadrillion which is a hundred thousand trillion. Yeah. Whole lotta stories to tell.

As for the paucity of imagination, I think part of the problem is that people get their work via connections rather than raw talent so we end up with a small stable of writers working on everything. They turn in scripts reliably and hit points the producer notes ask for and the films are still making money so why shake things up? I'd suspected it but read some articles that confirmed the reason why we see a lot of seriously junior directors put on these huge tent poles (Fantastic Four, Jurassic World, the most recent American Godzilla film, Rogue One, Last Jedi) is that they are eager and hungry and unlikely to push back against studio demands. There's little chance of a Coppola going rogue in the jungle.

I just want to comment on this in particular.

Its my impression that in most Holywood films today (certainly in the SF and Action genres), the weakest link is almost always plot construction/plausibility and/or pacing. Simply put, I don't think most of the industry places great value on telling a coherent story, or even knows how to do so. Plots are often thinly-constructed and often contradictory pretexts to set up cool moments or set pieces, or showcase the actors' talents.

And there's nothing wrong with good visuals and good acting and cool moments, of course. But its frustrating for someone like myself, who values coherent story-telling as integral to the suspension of disbelief and to narrative film-making in general.

Unfortunately, because such films (and TV shows-Doctor Who under Moffat is a horrible offender) continue to draw in large audiences and even critical acclaim at times, they are likely to keep being made, to the detriment of story-telling.

[Rhadamantus]

That's what they're going to do, pretty sure.

I know they wanted to do more main sequence films (roman numeral, important star wars) while the original cast was still around but I think the better route would be to save those for important moments that advance the galaxy. I actually like the idea of the smaller stakes stories set in the same universe. I think Rogue One would have been perfect as a Rogue Squadron movie with the larger story happening off-screen. Nix the idea of origin films for existing characters. We don't need young Han, young Obi-Wan. I'd be leery of even trying to build something like the MCU with everything happening in the same timeline with crossovers between the independent films. It would feel too Marvel.

If we step back and just look at Star Wars as a setting like the Wild West or WWII, American Civil War, the path forward is easy. Nobody can say there's no more Wild West stories to tell. They just need new characters, smaller stakes, stories that are more intimate. The Star Wars setting is flavor. The same way you can take the same story and tell it in samurai movie trappings or put it in the old west.

I don't think Disney is likely to change their approach. They're interested in pushing out content to make money and the only metric that matters is revenue. If Star Wars movies are routinely clearing a billion a piece, they're doing nothing wrong. While Michael Bay Transformers movies are reviled, they make money. No reason to stop making them until they're no longer profitable. It kills me because I'd like to think those resources could be better purposed towards making good movies but that's not even a priority. A ticket sold to someone who didn't like it counts just as much as one sold to someone who did. From a straight numbers perspective, pandering to fan boys who see each installment in the theater multiple times, buy the blue-rays and all the merch is more important than catering to the disgruntled fans. I haven't seen the numbers but I would imagine it's becoming like free-to-play games -- depending on the game something like 90% of the revenue is coming from less than 10% of the players who will buy stuff so there's no market incentive to care what 90% of the player base thinks.

I think they need a team of creative that understand how big of a universe they have. A single planet can have multiple cities and cultures. A single planet can have billions of lives with diverse species and cultures.

I think most Hollywood creative writers have issues with world-building. World-building is very much done on a need-of-plot basis. Cities don't have any function beyond being pretty sets for the heroes to run around in and for the bad guys to blow up. The appeal of Star Wars under George is there is always a hint of a world beyond the pages of the book or the scenes depicted on screen. You can a tiny glimpse into a world that feels alive beyond the plot. Every character came from somewhere, every piece of hardware have their own little history from somewhere else.

George Lucas has created an utterly vast universe on par in scale with Middle-earth. There is a whole galaxy to play around with, with conflict of every scale imaginable. You can have a crime drama set on a single planet in a single city within a Star Wars universe. Characters don't have to fly to multiple planets in every movie. A single planet is full of stuff worth exploring.

It's sad to see Disney making such limited use of the IP they have on their hands.

Even though Rogue One had flaws, this is why it's my favorite movie since ESB. It actually has new characters, and new stories, instead of Skywalker Family Drama, Part 2: Electric Bugaloo. This is a galaxy of a million worlds and quadrillions of people, there are stories that don't all revolve around one family. The Force users are by far the least interesting part of the franchise to me.

[The Romulan Republic]

The Force users are integral to Star Wars's cosmology and politics, nor do I understand how "Force users are boring" follows from "It doesn't all have to be about the Skywalkers."

Personally, I'm fine with Main Trilogy films=Skywalkers, Standalones=New Characters. Its a nice balance.

[jollyreaper]

I just want to comment on this in particular.

Its my impression that in most Holywood films today (certainly in the SF and Action genres), the weakest link is almost always plot construction/plausibility and/or pacing. Simply put, I don't think most of the industry places great value on telling a coherent story, or even knows how to do so. Plots are often thinly-constructed and often contradictory pretexts to set up cool moments or set pieces, or showcase the actors' talents.

The plot has about as much priority and importance in a modern tentpole film as in a porno. It's just there as a pretext for the action and I've not heard of any porno not selling due to bad writing.

And there's nothing wrong with good visuals and good acting and cool moments, of course. But its frustrating for someone like myself, who values coherent story-telling as integral to the suspension of disbelief and to narrative film-making in general.

You and me both.

Unfortunately, because such films (and TV shows-Doctor Who under Moffat is a horrible offender) continue to draw in large audiences and even critical acclaim at times, they are likely to keep being made, to the detriment of story-telling.

Oh, god, Who. This Christmas special was surprisingly coherent. There's been so much bad Who over the years. And yes, I haven't seen the ratings hurt much on account of this. It seems like as long as there is motion with shapes and bright colors the audience is content. Capaldi's potential to be one of the great Doctors was severely undercut by some miserable writing.

[ray245]

What you suggest is not impossible. Putting together RPG sourcebooks is a collaborative effort and, with a strong editorial hand, we can have a complex, self-consistent unvierse where good stories can be told. It's been done.

In theory, this is what the story group was supposed to work out, making sure that everything remains canon and sensible. It's just not working in practice. A major goal should be that primary material should be sufficient to enjoy on its own. That's the movies. Secondary material (novelizations, games, comics) can be enjoyed on its own and provide additional background but should never be required for basic understanding of the primary canon. A good historic movie should contain all the information to understand the story within itself and anyone wanting more could then consult the history books.

The problem is the story group has no real editorial power. There's there to fix any plotholes some big-name directors might have made, to clear up any inconsistency within the universe of Star Wars. They are not editors setting out what they want out of directors.

On the other hand, the MCU has a person with some sort of editorial role. Kevin Feige is clearly the one controlling what directors can or cannot do with regards to the plot. He might not be the one carefully plotting out all the stories, but he has have a plan from point A to point C, even if point A to B is up to the individual directors.

I think it is quite clear by now that there is no clear storytelling plan for Ep 7, 8 and 9. The story group does not have an idea, and I highly doubt they will be in any position to refuse any idea pitched by a big name director like JJ Abrams.

Exactly. That was part of the genius of the used future look. Earlier scifi sets would tend to look pristine as if they were constructed just before filming, which in fact they were. Star Wars felt lived in which helped create the illusion of life off the corner of the screen. I think good worldbuilding is like the underlay sketching for a drawing. The pencil work isn't directly visible in the finished, inked version but you can tell whether it was done well or not.

I think at the same time, Lucas knew what's the point of having a used-future look. The Imperials never had a used-future look because they are the well-funded military of the Galactic government. The prequels showed us civilisation that could afford to make everything look new and shiny because the planet is rich.

Set-design is used to communicate ideas, and not to be used to define the whole setting of the universe. Set design tells a story of their own.

Fundamental failures of storytelling like this abound in most movies these days. There's a casual disregard for bothering to ensure things make sense. And of course there will be vociferous defenders of that sort of thing. Hey, wait, that princess is human, right? No inherent magic? How is she breathing under water? Herp-derp this is a fantasy story with magic and dragons and yet a princess not drowning while being under water for hours is suddenly where you start asking questions?

I think more recent writers aren't probably studying sci-fi and fantasy as a genre as well as they should. I think writing sci-fi and fantasy requires some sort of awareness of what you are trying to do with them. Tolkien writes about the importance of a "secondary world" having an internal consistency and let it come alive. Once you've defined the boundaries of the setting, you are free to craft stories set within this secondary world.

The only recent director I can think of is probably Nolan that adheres to the storytelling method as discussed by Tolkien. This is important because it avoids using technology or magic as a convenient plot device to solve writing problems. Heroes cannot rely on tools that suddenly became available for them to use out of nowhere. More importantly, it allows writers to write with more creative freedom because they are able to approach a world as if it is the real world.

Movies set in the "real world" are often able to concentrate on the drama surrounding the world because the real world acts as a consistent reference. Writers have to challenge themselves in thinking about solutions to the problems they placed their characters in. The more limits the real world have, the more creative writers have to be.

"There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them." And how many sentients are in the Star Wars galaxy? A googling puts it at 100 quadrillion which is a hundred thousand trillion. Yeah. Whole lotta stories to tell.

As for the paucity of imagination, I think part of the problem is that people get their work via connections rather than raw talent so we end up with a small stable of writers working on everything. They turn in scripts reliably and hit points the producer notes ask for and the films are still making money so why shake things up? I'd suspected it but read some articles that confirmed the reason why we see a lot of seriously junior directors put on these huge tent poles (Fantastic Four, Jurassic World, the most recent American Godzilla film, Rogue One, Last Jedi) is that they are eager and hungry and unlikely to push back against studio demands. There's little chance of a Coppola going rogue in the jungle.

I understand why younger directors are preferred, and often it's because they can inject fresh ideas onto the table. Rian Johnson as a "younger" talent than JJ Abrams injected more creativity into the franchise than Abrams himself. The problem is it seems like a long-lasting trend in Hollywood to be unable to tell a grand narrative within the confines of cinema.The sense of scale is often misused in Hollywood. Some directors often give us big and tall skyscrapers collapsing as if this conveys scale in any way.

For example:



In The Dark Knight Rises, what we saw on the screen is nothing more than a bunch of police car chasing Batman. Yet the scene itself conveys a sense of scale, that this is something out of the ordinary. This is because we instinctively know so many police car together is not a "normal" situation in a more "grounded" Gotham city. We understood the scale of Gotham in Nolan's Batman, and what is ordinary and extraordinary. So what appears to be a "small conflict" feels absolutely massive.

This is far more effective than simply blow up cities or planets the audience have no idea about. Before you want to blow up your fictional world, you need to build it up in the first place, to convey a sense of identity to the place. ANH works because we saw the galaxy as a functional world full of different planets. If even desolate planets like Tatooine can be so full of life, a beautiful planet like Alderaan must have been even more full of wonders and life. We don't need to see the whole Alderaan know what the Empire did. A simple image of the planet is sufficient to convey the sense of scale because of what we saw in the first half of the movie.

It very much feels like conveying a sense of epicness to the world we are watching on screen has been lost with writers having such an easy access to cgi.

All I can hope for is that the films continue to make scads of money and they make enough spin-offs that they'll eventually let someone take full control of a side story movie out of sheer oversight and he'll be able to put together something that makes sense. Since profitability is the only measure that matters, so long as the movies are making money, there would be no reason to change up their approach.

It would still take a writer that realise what they actually have on their hands. I think Rian Johnson might have seen it, which was why he basically took a left turn with Ep 8 and drove the plot resolution straight into a wall. I think he wanted to do something different and unrelated to the sequel trilogy. The feeling I am getting from Ep 8 is that Rian Johnson really isn't that interested in the storyline offered to him, but what he can do with the Star Wars universe.

I just want to comment on this in particular.

Its my impression that in most Holywood films today (certainly in the SF and Action genres), the weakest link is almost always plot construction/plausibility and/or pacing. Simply put, I don't think most of the industry places great value on telling a coherent story, or even knows how to do so. Plots are often thinly-constructed and often contradictory pretexts to set up cool moments or set pieces, or showcase the actors' talents.

And there's nothing wrong with good visuals and good acting and cool moments, of course. But its frustrating for someone like myself, who values coherent story-telling as integral to the suspension of disbelief and to narrative film-making in general.

Unfortunately, because such films (and TV shows-Doctor Who under Moffat is a horrible offender) continue to draw in large audiences and even critical acclaim at times, they are likely to keep being made, to the detriment of story-telling.

I think film and TV as a whole have become more and more character-centric. Which might be a good approach for making individual movies or shows, but it does weaken the overall potential of the IP. The only reason Rogue One could even be a success in drawing people to see the movie in opening week is that the Star Wars universe as a whole has been something constructed by Lucas as an appealing universe. People want more stories set in the universe because there is some sense of consistency, a sort of "secondary world" as mentioned by Tolkien.

Even though Rogue One had flaws, this is why it's my favorite movie since ESB. It actually has new characters, and new stories, instead of Skywalker Family Drama, Part 2: Electric Bugaloo. This is a galaxy of a million worlds and quadrillions of people, there are stories that don't all revolve around one family. The Force users are by far the least interesting part of the franchise to me.

The issue is Rogue One is basically playing in the sandbox of the OT. The real challenge is whether the Episodic films themselves can move away from the Skywalkers, or at the least avoid turning the new conflict into the new Galactic civil war mk 3.0 or mk 4.0.

[Vympel]

Tha past of the Force, the past of Rey

- Past of the Force: Bespin was there for the Vader vs Luke ESB duel, then the KoR and the killings, then Luke seeing his academy in flames.
- Past of Rey: Her parents leaving her behind, flying a spaceship out of Jakku to, supposedly, have a few drinks.

And the Knights of Ren headed by Kylo slaughtering people was there to see what Luke's failure had wrought. Easy.

My bad, you're right. Even if it was lumbering right at the reach of their fighters and bombers, even if a single fighter managed to destroy it's point defenses, and even if its allies twirled their thumbs instead of launching starfighter coverage, they should have left it for another time. There's absolutely no reason to think that a dreadnough, that has the ability to penetrate shields, would pose an inmediate future threat to a fleet that, at the very beggining of the movie, is on the run because their base was found.

No, there isn't, because they thought they would be free and clear once they were in hyperspace. There's no universe where destroying a Dreadnought when you're trying to get away with all of your assets is preferable to attacking one at the time and place of your choosing - preferably a time when your entire force isn't at risk of being blown to pieces if one hotshot pilot fucks up. That's an insane level of risk.

And? There's no need for the recipient of a message to be nearby. Finn and Rose crossed the Galaxy to Canto Bight. If, by some technobabble magic, they couldn't make the call from the Raddus, then they (meaning Finn and Rose or someone with a hyperspace capable shuttle) could have gone to another star system and do it. Hell, they could send a shuttle forward to Crait and do the call, there's no need for the remaining of the Resistance to be huddled around the transmitter for it to work. The more you think the problem, the stupider it gets.

Your assumption that powerful broadband communicators requiring large power sources can be had on any planet just by landing on it and walking up to a futuristic phone booth is what?

But sure, send a ship ahead to Krait, that's a great idea. That way, the Resistance gets to stay on its fleet which is in no way under any threat. Because the point of hiding on Krait wasn't at all to wait there until the First Order passed (wait, it was).

They had enough speed to outrun the FO. The point is not for anyone to have it easy, but to level the playfield.

They had enough speed to outrun the FO after one of their ships was immediately destroyed when the First Order appeared. No 'playing field' would be leveled. Your plan would expose the Resistance fleet to fire within the effective range of the First Order fleet with each jump they took.

They were unable to track Finn and Rose, or the MF. The Radus was doomed based on Holdo's plan. They end up losing all ships but the MF (that is smaller than the Frigate).

Finn and Rose were flying in an intergalactic smart car. There's no reason for the First Order to peel off a Star Destroyer to chase the Falcon when it dropped off Rey.

[Avrjoe]

I have been thinking about how to frame my thoughts on the Last Jedi. I don't consider it a bad movie, but there are fundamental issues that hurt it. Most of these issues stem from problems in the Force Awakens. These issues diminish what could have been a great movie to simply a mildly positive cinematic experience. I feel there are two matters that have to be addressed which hold this movie back.

The first is very fundamental to any storytelling: a story, especially a Star Wars Story, hangs on its villain. If your main villains are presented as weak, then the entire idea of a hero’s struggle is pointless. The villains of this movie are lackluster at best. General Hux does not command the fleet with skill. Captain Phasma did come across as a credible threat, but she's dead. We know almost nothing about Snoke and he dies due to his overconfidence. Snoke’s mocking of Kylo Ren seems to echo the fan base which was split over his credibility as a villain. This credibility problem is best underscored by the Kylo-Rey fight in the Force Awakens. Either Rey is Mary Sue or Kylo was so weak he was able to be defeated by an untrained girl. This, combined with disunity among the new heroes in the Last Jedi, makes it harder for the viewers to get invested in them. Yes, there was character growth among the new heros and the (I guess now) central villain, but I felt we needed more growth in the First Order faction itself.

The second issue I have is something I see too frequently across modern media. Placing the ‘artistry’ of a particular medium over X. X is usually some flaw of logic in a plot that the director, producer or what have you defends as 'the masses just don't understand my genius.' This is a cop out. If I drew something with an improper scale and perspective (unless that was intentionally done and obviously a subversion, like Picasso) it would be criticized as a bad and lazy work. If I wrote a mystery that had an easily to see through end that made any reader wonder why it even was a mystery to those in the narrative, I'd be a poor mystery writer. There are standards to storytelling just as in engineering. If you make a poor product, say a lamp that easily shorts and catches fire, and then covering it over with gold and fancy scroll work does not make your product good.

Does everything need to be explained? No, but world building is not ‘wrong.’ A lack of world building isn't wrong either but if your already in a large, well established world. However, running contrary to the established rules of your world is bad storytelling. Claiming after the fact you didn't want the in world lore to get in the way of your storytelling is not good work. I offer this as a reference to help illustrate what I mean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_AmdvxbPT8

These problems were both present in the Force Awakens as well. The added sin of being too derivative drove TFA down into ‘bad’ territory for me. Not awful, but definitely not good.