Totally agree. These aren’t supposed to be a series of serious, dramatic movies, but the fun, lighthearted nature and good jokes should be rooted in enough tension to hold the film together and entertain both kids and adults.
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God…the Old Republic pre-rendered cinematics are still better Star Wars material than anything Disney has put out to date.
Yes, that’s been their plan all along. They don’t care about the older fans. They are expendable to them. It’s a cold and calculated business move.
He says it before Luke leaves Dagobah.
I didn’t realize it until you mentioned it, but yeah, the OT doesn’t insert humor into any conflict between the Jedi and Sith, but between the rebels and Empire, there is a little. The movies are full of humor, because you need comic relief when the stakes are so high. You can’t have the audience high strung on drama the whole time. That’s why it’s called “comic relief,” and it’s just art imitating life. But during a climax, you’re right, it is kind of inappropriate, unless this sort of behavior has been established for the character.
Yeah, but Poe’s scene feels so forced. Han’s scene feels naturally off the cuff. (It in fact was improvised by Harrison Ford.)
What? No line anymore?
I’ve got plenty to say on Last Jedi, but it will have to wait…and there will be no TL;DR version. I also never made my post on Rogue One.
Oh thanks, that’s exactly what i was looking for.
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This is a good point. Luke doesn’t have a history of humor during tense moments/sith encounters, does he? This behavior certainly shouldn’t be established for every character.
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No, the closest is a retort he makes to Vader’s taunting during their duel in Cloud City.
There is another exchange in RotJ, but this is the closest to a quip there ever is between the two of them.
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There was a little humor he had when Leia kissed him is TESB a little smug as well.
Then there was a little quip when he and the gang were tied up about to become Ewok food. Where he told C-3P0 that if they didn’t release them that he would scare them with magic.
Yeah, but we were talking about the dead serious moments: the epic battles between light and dark.
OK, so it’s better than Force Awakens…that’s pretty much the only good thing I can say about it. It’s still very derivative of Empire Strikes Back (and a little of Return of the Jedi) but not as badly or blatantly as TFA was of A New Hope…or maybe my expectations were just so low I wasn’t insulted this time as a fan. Someone had to use a free ticket they got to get me to go though. I was content waiting three months for it to come out on DVD. Although, I wasn’t looking forward to avoiding spoilers for that long. I had Rogue One spoiled for me in this thread…twice. The second time, I did not forget what I read though. >_<
If you haven’t seen the movie, what are you doing in this thread? I strongly suggest you stay out of here until you’ve seen it. (Please don’t pay for at ticket. Wait for it to come out on DVD. It’s not worth it.)
Many things were predictable, just stupid, ripoffs, or badly done:
1. The crawl is the worst written one yet. It feels so blunt.
2. Opening sequence is obviously homage to something that happened offscreen in OT (the evacuation of the Massassi Base) but the Rebels had a much longer head start than this idiot "Resistance."
3. Kylo’s custom TIE is an obvious TIE Avenger knockoff.
4. The “phone call” seen was just overdone, felt forced, and just didn’t feel Star Wars, even though it was supposed to be homage to the "slight weapons malfunction."
5. OK, I’m fine with the female leads, but I felt like Leia’s successor to command should’ve been male or better yet, non-human. At that point it just felt like they were trying too hard with Vice Admiral Holdo. (Go ahead and crucify me for this.)
6. Deus ex Force Leia after sucking vacuum
7. Oh noes! The Rebels, er, Resistance is being pursued by the Empire, umm, I mean First Order after fleeing their base. Hmm…where have I seen this before…and done better!
8. Seriously, you can track ships through hyperspace? What the fuck is this, Battlestar Galactica? Even they had an actual explanation for that shit instead of pulling it from their asses! Being able to track ships through hyperspace like they did seriously diminishes the significance of hyperspace.
9. Rose fangirling over Finn made it obvious they would get together after spending time on a “sidequest” on Canto Bight.
10. Seriously, that diversion on Canto Bight is almost entirely irrelevant to the plot!
11. Other than the fangirling I didn’t really see any foreshadowing to Finn and Rose getting together, but that fangirling was way too fucking obvious that they would hook up. It should’ve been more subtle. I mean Leia slowly warms up to Han, and the fact they are in a life-or-death situation brings those emotions to a boil in a much more believable way than how Rose and Finn get together. Did not see her saving him coming though.
12. Bars in a jail? They have all this fucking money on this planet and they don’t use force fields?! C’mon, this is Star Wars! At least just use a locked room.
13. Some of the bad homage to the OT are just there for the hell of it. Those that are really in to Star Wars will recognize that Luke going to Cloud City to save his friends had no effect on their fate whatsoever. Similarly, Poe’s plan to temporarily sabotage the tracker on the Star Destroyer didn’t seem like it had any effect on the plot either, but it actually did. It put the evacuating transports in jeopardy, because of DJ, the Fair Weather Mercenary Code Breaker. I completely agree with what Poe did, based on what he knew (better to go out on a Hail Mary than doing nothing). If Holdo would’ve let him in on the plan so he’d shut up, maybe he would’ve backed down (probably not) but from a narrative point, he makes their situation worse.
The only way to rationalize Holdo’s decision is that she was hoping an opportunity would present itself while the clock was ticking. How did they not detect Crait before? Was it that they traveled that far in a matter of hours? Possibly. The Falcon flew to the Anoat System from Hoth on engines. I don’t know, it just seems implausible. There was really no indication that Holdo had some plan she wasn’t letting anyone in on. That makes her seem rather impulsive than cool, calm, collected, and deliberate. This move is a fucking ass pull on the writers, because we don’t know what’s going on in her head, and there’s no indication in dailogue they flew into another system while on the run.
OK, I realized this isn’t true now, because if Luke never went to Cloud City, R2 never would’ve been reunited with the party and found out from the city’s computer that the Falcon’s hyperdrive had been deactivated, and the party would’ve been captured by the Executor, so technically, Luke did save his friends…by bringing R2.
14. No ship(s) that small has (have) a cloaking device, and the materials to manufacture them no longer exist! (Yes, EU I’m citing, I don’t care).
15. Vice Admiral Holdo utters “godspeed” twice. What the fuck is this! This is Star Wars! God has no place in the Galaxy Far Far Away! The most immersion-breaking moments in the movie. There is no “God,” there is the Force. She should’ve said, “may the Force be with you, Rebels,” or “may the Force be with us.” What the fuck was that?
16. This probably only bothers me because I was totally expecting, “do you know who your parents are, Rey,” big reveal, although, the direction they’re going in seems like Rey is Luke’s daughter, but they could be using foreshadowing to mislead the audience, in which case, they better have a really good explanation in the next sequel or a lot of people are going to be mad. I thought they could be brother and sister, but it seems unlikely Han and Leia would have been convinced to abandon her in response to Ben turning to the dark side This doesn’t seem like it lines up with Rey being Luke’s daughter either though…but I guess that could be slightly more plausible…unless Han and Leia hid her cause they didn’t want her to become a Jedi. I’m pretty sure they will turn out to be related, as I don’t see anything else that would connect them with a Force bond.
17. I really thought Holdo was going to use the cruiser to physically shield the transports from the Star Destroyer’s gunfire, but using it in a hyperspace kamikaze attack goes against the physics of hyperspace in the Galaxy. They took Han’s ass pull escape with the Falcon from his freighter’s hangar in TFA to a whole new level. They must’ve had to dig so deep for that one, they had to perform a colonoscopy to find that!
18. OK Phasma, next time you knock someone into a supply lift shaft, make sure they actually fell to their death. That fight had so much potential and it was so anticlimactic. I don’t see how she’s going to get out of that one. (I’m almost certain she will though.)
19. Blatant reference - Salt planet, ice planet, it’s fucking snowing, and the Rebels, I mean Resistance line up in trenches (almost same exact shot from Empire) to fight the Imperial ground assault (only there doesn’t seem to be any escape this time).
20. Snoke’s chambers set was so plain and boring.
21. Your skimmer is falling apart/melting from the heat of the ramming gun, and yet somehow you haven’t, Finn? Damn, that’s some strong plot armor you got equipped…or is a it a shield, cause this is Star Wars?
22. Fanservice - Millennium Falcon TIE Fighter chase was already done in the last sequel movie. ¬_¬ John Williams even uses the same leitmotif from the OT (first heard in TIE Fighter Attack in ANH). I don’t think it was used in the TFA chase though.
23. Is Chewie flying the Falcon by himself? How are the Porgs helping him?
24. How the fuck does Rey lift all those boulders with the training she’s had?! There’s no way you’re Satele Shan or Yoda or Orgus Din! Even Luke couldn’t lift his X-wing from the swamps of Dagobah. (When you get as old as me, you learn a few tricks.) No…just, no.
25. Rey is still a Mary Sue. Where the hell are her faults? Yes, she’s lonely, but if they didn’t outright state it in TFA, you wouldn’t know that. I would think she has abandonment issues because she was literally abandoned as a kid, but they haven’t delved into that. Also, attachment is discouraged by the Jedi, but Luke was probably more lenient on this with the New Jedi Order. Rey doesn’t seem to have any character development. Kylo and Poe have way more character development! This story is supposed to be about Rey and Kylo, and only the latter has had any development!
26. Movie feels kind of long. At least twice I was like, “wait there’s more? Is this ever going to end?” The only time I’ve been like, “there’s more?” with anticipation was when I saw Skyfall.
Things I Actually Liked (Upon First Viewing)
1. Kylo being chewed out by Snoke. This is an obvious reference to the people that found Rey besting Kylo in a lighsaber duel inconceivable.
2. Rose is not a “hot Asian chick” (her sister might’ve been though)
3. Luke on the Falcon
4. Luke and R2 reunion
5. Yoda’s appearance
6. Yoda still teaching Luke (Whoa, seriously, he trolled him? I thought those were the books in the drawer, but it’s so brief I wasn’t sure.)
7. DJ offering a different point-of-view of war
8. Kylo and Rey cutting down the Red Guard
9. I like the realist theme that war requires sacrifice, but I dislike how it was executed. Now that I think of it, the OT had this theme too, but it was never with a character you had enough time to really connect with. Although originally, Lando was meant to go down with the Falcon while escaping the Death Star, but this was changed after the response from test screenings.
10. The setup for the Phasma Finn duel (probably one of the reasons it was such a letdown). The ship’s heavily damaged and burning down, yes let’s fight to the death, fucking epic.
11. Leia stunning Poe, she would totally do that. Notice, she even has her original blaster.
12. Finn is not a sacrifical black man (narrowly, really made me think he would be for a minute). Thankfully, Rose is thinking beyond the fourth wall and stops him.
13. That kiss Rose lays on Finn as the blast door ramming gun fires was perfectly timed
14. Luke and Leia "reunion"
15. I really wanted to see Luke give Kylo an ass kicking, but with the direction they took this in, they really would’ve needed to do that in TFA. Instead, Luke takes the high road I think one would do with a member of their family. I still would’ve liked for him to actually had been there and absorbing all that blaster fire and Kylo’s saber, because if anyone could do that, it would be Luke Skywalker, grandmaster of the Jedi Order! OK, the blaster fire would be ridiculous, but the saber absorb would’ve been OK. Then he gives him the talk and just becomes one with the Force without being struck down (cause that’s too much like Obi-Wan). One last troll on Kylo before he leaves. Well OK, he did troll him with a projection.
16. From what I noticed of the score, it seemed much better than TFA. It more or less felt Star Wars.
Other Observations
1. Newtonian physics in Star Wars?
2. Reference (but probably unintentional) - the remains of the Resistance being tracked through hyperspace by the First Order, obvious BSG reference
3. Homage - Old Luke is obviously modeled after how George had originally written Obi-Wan Kenobi: a recluse that is a few cards short of a sabaac deck. Luke is a cynical, jaded recluse. I don’t know how I feel about this. I just don’t see him being like that. It looks like some of Han rubbed off on him at the end. (See you, kid.)
4. Homage - Luke becomes one with the Force similarly to how Obi-Wan did.
5. Rey in the gunwell during the Falcon pursuit sequence could be foreshadowing that her parents are actualy Han and Leia. It’s not that far of a stretch, since they’ve been stealing from and bastardizing the EU.
6. I feel like Rian Johnson did the best with what he inherited from Jar Jar Abrams, so that’s pretty impressive, since I expected the cringefest that Force Awakens was. But watch out, for Jar Jar may strike back, since Colin Trevorrow stepped down from the last sequel and JJ is now directing it. Now I’m going to wonder what this sequel trilogy would be like if Rian Johnson set the stage with the first movie instead of JJ Abrams. This doesn’t mean I liked the movie. It was just better than the last one…and not by much
I didn’t realize there was a thread on this here. So here is a question?
Who thinks Snoke expected Kylo Ren to kill him, his dialogue with Kylo in the throne rooms leaves it a bit open the that, a sort of ‘More powerful than you can imagine’ moment…
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I’ve seen TLJ a few weeks ago and wanted to chime in. While I enjoyed the movie I think it’s the worst Star Wars film thus far, yeah I prefer the prequels (I’ve seen them a few weeks ago as well).
Now, I was never bothered by Jar-Jar Binks (although he can be quite annoying), nor do I mind the Porgs or the other CGI creatures many seem to complain about. But there are other things I don’t like about it:
I know they had to get rid of Luke - after all, this story is about Rey, Kylo and Finn - but I still don’t believe Luke’s arc works from his character’s point of view. Luke would have never tried to kill his nephew. (He didn’t want to kill his father who was a war criminal)
Also, I think the chase was rather boring and strange. (Why didn’t the First Order jump ahead via Hyperspeed and flank the Resistance or something like that). Why didn’t Admiral Holdo tell everybody else what her plan was? It sure sucks for morale if your leaders don’t have a plan at all and wait for certain death. How did Benicio del Toro know the Resistance’s plan when Finn and Rose didn’t know the plan?
I might be unfair to TLJ, because dissecting any SW movie will lead to swiss-cheese style plotholes, but I usually notice this plotholes afterwards and not during the movie.
Rey is too strong on many levels, she doesn’t really seem to struggle, nor seems the temptation of the dark side real. While Luke and Anakin where really good too, both were “just” good pilots at first. Anakin had about 20 years of training and Luke had a few years of training. Furthermore, I don’t think Vader wanted to win both duels against Luke. In Ep5 as well as Ep6 he would have preferred him joining him, which is why he probably held back.
That being said, it has also come to my attention that in the fight against the guards, Kylo kills almost all of them. But still, with her there doesn’t appear to be a real struggle.
One thing I’m not sure about is if it’s a good or a bad thing that the film disposes TFA mysteries. Snoke: dead. Rey’s parents: a bunch of drunks. To be honest, I enjoyed it because Kylo is a much more compelling character and we’ve seen an emperor in the previous SW. Furthermore, Rey being a Skywalker/Kenobi/Sidious would be weird as well. That being said, it seems TFA had another plan for both.
Leia’s space walk was weird - even though humans apparently suffocate in space when not wearing a space suit.
And, as my last (negative) note: It apparently had politics forced upon it.
Overall, and as mentioned earlier I considered it entertaining, but to quote my wife, who likes SW as well “it was boring”.
I know I’ve only listed the negative things about, but I’m also wondering how this movie got extremely good reviews, while it is only decent.
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Maybe Star Wars fans are so excited to have movies come out again they are willing to overlook the negatives.
Well that has never happened before xD But then again, I like “The Phantom Menace”, so who am I to judge? xD
I just watched the review @noenken posted and one thing the reviewer got wrong - at least in my opinion - that given enough time people might change into anybody. I think there are certain limits to character development each and every person has. I also didn’t mind the fact that Luke was broken. I was just bothered by the almost-killing-the-nephew-in-his-sleep part.
I think the problem of the movie to some degree is that it is a movie. Sometimes, movie directors simplify certain elements in order to tell a story: “Luke is not so fond of the Jedi? Make him throw the lightsabre away.” While this behaviour seems childish and stupid, it clearly shows that Luke is done with the Jedi order. People who are into movies probably don’t mind these tropes, but average SW fans do.
I strongly agree with the reviewers opinion that someone like Rian Johnson was needed for SW in order to bring it to the next level though.
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What was so political? The only things I caught was the blatant remark about where all the money came from for Canto Bight: war. Star Wars has had it’s fair share of unsubtle dialogue, but I agree, this line was unnecessary. The other thing that stood out was that Admiral Holdo is a woman, and the only reason she bugs me is cause it felt like they were trying too hard at that point.
A diverse cast is political?
Do you think everything the article talks about is political?
This, but it can’t last like this forever. Eventually people will tire of the Star Wars overkill.
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What, with one movie a year? Yeah, that seems excessive, right?
Ever heard of Marvel? 
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You’re comparing apples to oranges. Marvel is an entirely different beast. Star Wars has a lot more uniformity than the Marvel Universe…especially since they trashed the EU. They will kill the goose that laid the golden egg (and as fair as I’m concerned, they already did that when they announced the sequel trilogy and standalones). Mark my words.
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To be honest, I never noticed political concepts in SW movies before, but maybe I was too young to notice it. I think Tolkien’s quote gets the new SW pretty good:
“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.” [1]
Ep8 is more of an allegory:
Capitalism is bad! (Canto Blight)
The First Order strongly resembles Spacenazis imho, way more than the old Empire, even though it was a fascist regime as well.
Also, while the First Order sonsists mostly of white males, the Resistance’s members are led by women and consist of people with a more diverse ethnic bachground.
To be fair, this point above is more underlined by actions of Kathleen Kennedy than anything else. For example, a while ago she mentioned that BB-8 is in fact a female robot, even though in the movies she is referred to as “buddy” or “he”. Another example is her waling around with a “the force is female” t-shirt and stuff like that.
Two other statements that sort of bugged me were when Daisy Ridely mentioned that everyone who considers Rey a Mary Sue is a sexist. (While it is possible that the term “Mary Sue” is sexist, due to the absence of a male counterpart, the discussion itself is not). Or John Boyega complaining about the lack of coloured people in leading roles in movies like Lord of the Rings, or Game of Thrones.
All these statements may end up in the movie trying to choose non-white males for morally good people.
@noenken && @HK-47: I also believe that the SW train will continue to run for quite a while. Trashing the EU probably was a good thing, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to do/try something new. Furthermore, I have been told that the EU is far from consistent and aside from a so-called “Thrawn Trilogy” rather dull.
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I watched an interview of George talking about the battle on Geonosis, and he said it was inspired by the war in Afghanistan.
Just from watching the movie by itself I never came to that conclusion. So maybe some of the politics are subtle in nature, but once you see them you cant un-see them.
Although it was pretty obvious the original trilogy was about the Nazis, and Episodes I-III were about Hitlers rise to power.
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Well inspired by is different than an allegory. The Dead Marshes were inspired by the Somme’s battlefields Tolkien witnessed, but LotR is no WWI allegory.
Was it really? He corrupted the Senate from within staged a war in order to come to power. The war was the means to an end. In Hitler’s case he already had the power, before starting the war.
Furthermore, Darth Sidious used his cunning and force powers to come to power, Hitler used his voice. In this regard Saruman would be much more fitting, because his greatest instrument is his voice, which is mentioned sveral times throughout the books.
Watched it yesterday, it should be called Star Wars: SJW.
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I really don’t care if the bad guys are mostly comprised of white people and the good guys are mostly comprised of a diverse set of people. They need to be brought down more than a few pegs.
BB-8 has feminine programming? Then why is she addressed as “he?”
There most certainly is a male Mary Sue…and it’s been around far longer than Mary. The term is however a derivative of Mary Sue. So yes, the term itself is sexist, however, the concept is a sign of bad writing. We can always change the name of the trope, but culture is very difficult to change and won’t change overnight.
I never connected Palpatine’s rise to power with Hitler’s specifically. He seemed like he could stand in for any number of dictators and tyrants. I see your point, but one cannot deny how these things apply today, tomorrow, and yesterday.
For instance, many of today’s dictators, tyrants, and “strongmen” have risen to power today not by coup, but by legitimate political means mixed with a little charisma and cunning. They also use crises to further consolidate their power, and they use fear, uncertainty, and doubt to maintain control over the people. Palpatine did these same things.
Other than the harsh environment of Geonosis, I’m not sure how it was inspired by the US War in Afghanistan. I’ll have to watch it again.
Lucas also said when the media was drawing parallels from George W Bush’s “…with us or you are with the terrorists” statement to Star Wars that the prequels were open to interpretation, and that the stories just represent how easily a tyrant can rise to power and just how fragile democracy is…so applicability.
I agree, applicability is better than allegory. However, an allegory can still have applicability. This happens every time anyone learns the author’s intent and says to themselves, “well, I still think it means/represents/symbolizes _____.”
Art is interpretive by nature. This is why it’s art and not science or math. That’s what makes art interesting. It would be boring if there was only one explanation/interpretation.
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