Star Wars Episode VIII (8) the Last Jedi Discussion

[Kerbal01]

Just saw the movie today and I have a few things to say. 

That battle at the beginning was dope. 
Rey's parents being commoners 
R2D2 playing back the "help me obi wan kenobi" 
Leia dieing, but not quite
Luke dying, but not quite but then for real
Didn't really like the new character of Rose. 
Snoke's ship looking like a city sized B2
Snoke being cut in half 
That whole sequence i was like "what's gonna happen next!" 
Good that Kylo didn't get a redemption arc. 
Snoke felt like a useless character. This all powerful being who can force choke someone on another ship is killed without a flight.
I wanted to see more of Captain Phasma. She looked like a powerful character but shows up for like 10 minutes across two movies and then killed.

More after I read r/starwars and remember what i've forgotten 

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by Kerbal01

[Johnny Wishbone]

I thought it sucked. Too campy, and too cheesy, among other issues.

I’m in my early 40’s and grew up with Star Wars. This movie made me finally realize that i’ve probably outgrown Star Wars if crap like this is what we’re going to get from now on. Thats fine if you liked it, but I was very disappointed, and glad I saw it for free and didnt pay for it.

1 star out of 4. Do not want.

[cubinator]

I thought it was great! At least 30% as cool as the solar eclipse! Some thoughts:

The leitmotif for Finn and Rose was a little weak, I think.

X-Wing drifting is cool

An excellent scattering of some of the oldest Star Wars jokes. I love how "Watch your language, R2" is now a real thing. It felt like Super Star Wars Odyssey.

Yoda's appearance was great

Snoke has very healthy-looking eyes

Finally, some red dudes with useful getup

There's a new syncopation in the beginning of the opening theme

The use of old leitmotifs was stellar (Battle of Endor, Han and Leia, Yoda's theme, Binary Sunset, among others)

Force-Skype is an interesting concept

I don't really understand the part with the mirror, although it sure looks like Portal.

Some good old Jizz playing in the casino

I think the eye of the First Order ball droid looks like the original Death Star crater

Overall, I really liked it!

[insert_name]

Overall it was an excellent movie. the only main problem I had was them not using the other cruisers as projectiles, they could have done a lot of damage with those at lightspeed

[KSK]

I liked it on the whole. The Rey-Kylo storyline was well done, I liked Snarky Luke, enjoyed Yoda's appearance and was pleasantly surprised by the restrained use of cute/comedy sidekicks.

Edit: I especially liked seeing the Luke vs Kylo confrontation from different angles. Very 'what I told you was the truth - from a certain point of view.'

Pity that some of the obviously foreshadowed characters from Episode 7 didn't get much screen time though. I got the sense that TFA had bitten off more than TLJ could chew in terms of interesting potential character arcs and the pruning felt kind of abrupt.

Wasn't a big fan of the opening space battle - both sides were remarkably incompetent and there was way too much fatalistic 'oh they've taken out our defenses - oh well' from the First Order. The literal bombers were a bit hard to swallow too, even with due allowance for Star Wars Physics.

And yeah - lightspeed ramming. Very dramatic but opens up rather too many cans of worms for my liking.

But I did enjoy it - honestly! The good parts definitely carried the lesser ones.

Edited December 16, 2017 by KSK

[kerbiloid]

Nasty fighters spoiled your Death Star?
A lone psycho with a robo-pet took out your expensive dreadnaught?
Bored of all that jedi voodoo?

Spoiler

Now you can forget about those worthless gnats.

Welcome the remedy!
Just $40, and we give discount for fleets of more than 5 starships!

You can set it up in any manner you wish!

This way...

Spoiler

...or this...

Spoiler

...or even this!

Spoiler

Combine several layers to protect your battleships against heavy fighters and even Light Calamari class corvettes _{(caution: no warranty, do it on your own risk)}.

Spoiler

Make your dreadnaught charming!

Spoiler

 

 

[_Augustus_]

I hated it. At least Phantom Menace felt like Star Wars. This felt like some cheap ripoff written by people who never watched the originals.

The casino planet was horrible. The fact that they said "godspeed" made 0 sense - this is Star Wars. Since when was fuel a problem, and how come the Star Destroyers can't catch up to the Resistance ship (they did it at the beginning of A New Hope with no problems)? What was with that weird hall of mirrors thing with Rey? Killing off Snoke, especially in the pathetic way they did, was ridiculous, especially considering that the entire Internet spent 2 years speculating who he was and what he would do only for him to get killed off halfway through the movie. Holdo and Rose were TERRIBLE characters, and Benicio Del Toro's character wasn't very interesting. Also, Luke Skywalker would NEVER contemplate killing his pupil, nor burning the Jedi books. It's just not in his character! And neither would Yoda (who by the way looked faker than he did in the prequels)! And how is Episode IX supposed to happen now that the entire Resistance fits on the Falcon, Luke is dead, and the First Order can track ships through hyperspace?

It was SO bad that I found myself wanting to get up and leave the movie! This is truly the death of Star Wars as we know it.

Edited December 17, 2017 by _Augustus_

[GoSlash27]

Just so I'm clear on this... Rey is just a nobody from nowhere? If that's the case, why is she so force- sensitive and what's up with the memories of her being left on Yavin for safe keeping?

And Luke literally force- projected himself to death??

 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, _Augustus_ said:

Luke Skywalker would NEVER contemplate killing his pupil, nor burning the Jedi books. It's just not in his character!

1. Even jedi can become senile.
2. Too many headkicks while training Rey.
3. He doesn't need books anymore to see the Truth (see p.1, p.2)
4. Just a jedi friendly trolling.
5. These aren't the droids books you're looking for.
6. Spending several years alone with speaking amphibia people can do strange things.

Spoiler

Btw, were those amphibia really speaking and sapient, or they just produce hallucinogenic slime, which makes the humans who inhale it to see these amphibia speaking and wearing white clothes.
(Clothes. White. On amphibia.)

Spoiler

Rey's contactless training between the rocks, when she stops her wand in two inches from the rock.
But where's her punching bag? How does it look? Did they tell all the truth about the relations between Rey and amphibia?

 

20 hours ago, KSK said:

Wasn't a big fan of the opening space battle - both sides were remarkably incompetent

Decades of the dreadful war took out the best of them.
"Able to put a spoon into the mouth instead of ear? Welcome, commander, we'll give you a starship!"

Except the real pilots, the war has killed all stylists and hairdressers.
Pompoms on the sides of a head, Rey's triple pathetic ponytail...

[SaturnianBlue]

First off—was it fun? I would say yes! An absolutely epic lightsaber fight and some pretty great space battles. 

The jokes—ok, a bit forced, but at least a bit funny.

Not a lot of world building, but Crait is pretty interesting with the salt flats and the crystal formations.

One problem I do have is where the story is going to go next. A lot happened—and a lot didn't. How is the resistance gong to hold out? Are the many questions for the audience going to remain completely unanswered?

2 hours ago, _Augustus_ said:

I hated it. At least Phantom Menace felt like Star Wars. This felt like some cheap ripoff written by people who never watched the originals.

The casino planet was horrible. The fact that they said "godspeed" made 0 sense - this is Star Wars. Since when was fuel a problem, and how come the Star Destroyers can't catch up to the Resistance ship (they did it at the beginning of A New Hope with no problems)? What was with that weird hall of mirrors thing with Rey? Killing off Snoke, especially in the pathetic way they did, was ridiculous, especially considering that the entire Internet spent 2 years speculating who he was and what he would do only for him to get killed off halfway through the movie. Holdo and Rose were TERRIBLE characters, and Benicio Del Toro's character wasn't very interesting. Also, Luke Skywalker would NEVER contemplate killing his pupil, nor burning the Jedi books. It's just not in his character! And neither would Yoda (who by the way looked faker than he did in the prequels)! And how is Episode IX supposed to happen now that the entire Resistance fits on the Falcon, Luke is dead, and the First Order can track ships through hyperspace?

It was SO bad that I found myself wanting to get up and leave the movie! This is truly the death of Star Wars as we know it.

Seems like a bit of an overreaction on your part. I assume the Resistance ship has higher acceleration—the Raddus is different from the Tantive IV.

Does it matter what was speculated about Snoke? Just because the theories were so much more expansive and grandiose doesn't necessarily mean what the movie did is bad. He kind of had it coming—he's no Darth Sidious, and he couldn't control Kylo because of that.

I suppose I agree with your thoughts on Holdo. Maybe they could have had Admiral Ackbar or someone we already know command the ship—if they were willing to let Holdo, a high ranking officer for some reason go on the ship, why not Ackbar?

A while back J.J Abrams said he wished he had directed Episode VIII. I think its a safe bet to say he has something in mind for the next movie.

If this movie is the death of Star Wars as we know it, then why was a sequel trilogy made in the first place after the poorly received prequel trilogy?

Edited December 17, 2017 by SaturnianBlue

[TheSaint]

Went to see it today. I was pretty disappointed too, although not as much as many people are.

I actually failed open last night at 2:00AM. And in my rolling around trying to get back to sleep I was thinking about Star Wars a bit, and why Force Awakens bugged me. I came up with a hypothesis, and going to see Last Jedi today confirmed it for me. Here was the conclusion I came to:

George Lucas was an auteur. Despite his famously bad filmmaking skills, what was undeniably there was a man who had a story that he wanted to tell. And we all wanted to hear it, so he told it. The fit and finish were pretty poor a lot of the time, but his story got told. And he was done.

But then Disney backed a dump truck semi-trailer bulk freighter full of money up to his house and bought the franchise off of him. Not because they had more story to tell burning in their minds, but because they believed they could make more money off of it. And they brought on J.J. Abrams, not because he had this awesome Star Wars story taking up space on his computer, but because he has a history of turning out well-performing science fiction movies. They didn't bring on Rian Johnson because he shopped them a fantastic Star Wars story, they brought him on because they thought Looper was really creative and they wanted to see what he could come up with. None of these people are living out the dream of seeing the story they dreamed up in their film school dorm room brought to life on the screen. They're churning out quality product. And it shows. The production values are light-years ahead of the original movies. The dialog is polished. The pacing is tight. The action keeps you on the edge of your seat. And the story is going in circles. Because nobody actually has a story to tell.

So I just sort of decided that, for me anyway, Star Wars ended with George's story, with Episode VI. It's a complete story, Luke's hero journey. The new movies, I'm not really thinking of them as part of the same story anymore, because they aren't. They're modern, mass-market, blockbuster films. I'll go see them, but I'm going to walk in with the same attitudes and expectations that I would have walking into Infinity War, or Spider-Man, or Justice League. (Strike that. Wild horses couldn't get me into Justice League.)

[UnionPacific1983WP]

To be honest, I really enjoyed it. It just struck me as odd that... C-3PO somehow has his golden arm back, after he had the red one in TFA. Then again, maybe they just built another golden arm.

Edited December 17, 2017 by UnionPacific1983WP

[GoSlash27]

22 minutes ago, TheSaint said:

None of these people are living out the dream of seeing the story they dreamed up in their film school dorm room brought to life on the screen. They're churning out quality product. And it shows. The production values are light-years ahead of the original movies. The dialog is polished. The pacing is tight. The action keeps you on the edge of your seat. And the story is going in circles. Because nobody actually has a story to tell.

^ This pretty much sums it up for me. Overall good production value, but the storytelling was dismal.

 I'm not a stickler for "canon" and I don't demand that the "art" be placed ahead of profit. I don't mind if a franchise is pulled in a new direction... in fact, I kind of *enjoy* it when it angers the purists. But I do require that the end result be enjoyable, and this movie just failed to deliver that for me. It all just seemed very superficial and tedious.

 Not a movie I feel the need to see again.

Best,
-Slashy

Edited December 17, 2017 by GoSlash27

[maceemiller]

Went to see it last night and came home with no real memories of it. Rouge One is much better imo.

[HighFructose]

I really liked it but there was one part that was really confusing and weird: the whole mirror thing that Rey touched after dropping through the dark hole. I didn’t see it connect to the plot at all.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

Gravity bombs. In space. Um, yeah...

Great spectacle, story is..... I dunno, it's ok. I would have preferred that the third trilogy featured Grand Admiral Thrawn. At least Ben/Ren didn't come off as such a pouty little spoiled brat as in Ep7.

And Disney is going to pump out one SW movie a year for as long as they make money. Hopefully someone has a good origin story planned for Solo

[_Augustus_]

19 hours ago, TheSaint said:

or Justice League. (Strike that. Wild horses couldn't get me into Justice League.)

Justice League was actually not bad and at least 10x better than TLJ.

[cubinator]

Anyone else think Snoke looked like he was going to a disco party later with that shiny robe?

[TheSaint]

5 hours ago, _Augustus_ said:

Justice League was actually not bad and at least 10x better than TLJ.

My wife and I just watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on Netflix. That was 10x better than TLJ.

[KSK]

On ‎17‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 3:18 AM, _Augustus_ said:

And how is Episode IX supposed to happen now that the entire Resistance fits on the Falcon, Luke is dead, and the First Order can track ships through hyperspace?

It was SO bad that I found myself wanting to get up and leave the movie! This is truly the death of Star Wars as we know it.

My personal prediction: Episode IX is not going to be a grand 'defeat the First Order' film - I don't really see how it can be for the reasons you mention. Instead, Rey and Kylo both die, balance is restored because the last of the old-style trained Force users are both dead and the Force is truly awakened as something that anyone can use. It's no longer the exclusive domain of Space Monks or psychopaths.

The battle against the First Order will happen in Episodes X, XI and XII, with Force users aplenty on both sides. In other words we're right back to the Old Republic days. Bonus Cynicism Points if Episode XII ends with an exceptionally powerful Dark side Force user facing a lot of factional infighting and deciding to do away with all that nonsense in favour of a nice simple apprenticeship model...

As for tracking ships through hyperspace? I was thinking about that this morning and... why the big deal? Wasn't tracking the Falcon through hyperspace to Yavin IV, a rather important plot point in Episode IV? You would think that Leia might remember that if nothing else.

On ‎17‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 5:25 AM, TheSaint said:

So I just sort of decided that, for me anyway, Star Wars ended with George's story, with Episode VI. It's a complete story, Luke's hero journey. The new movies, I'm not really thinking of them as part of the same story anymore, because they aren't.

*snip*

And the story is going in circles. Because nobody actually has a story to tell.

This. But that's going to be a problem with any sequel to a finished war story, especially when the war was epic in scope but sketchy in detail, so there's not really much worldbuilding, or motivation to fall back on. The Emperor wanted to rule the Galaxy because he was Evil (RTM) and ruling Galaxies is what Evil(RTM) characters want to do. OK, we see Evil(RTM) conveniently labeled as the Dark Side(RTM) of the Force(RTM) but a label is all it really is.

The good guys won at the end of ROTJ.  Yay, good guys! Now where do you go from there? Well, a couple of places, but ultimately it's going to boil down to much the same thing - one side fighting another for control of the Galaxy. Because that's just what they do.

Well I guess we could do a story about the administrative problems of rebuilding the Republic. You know - trade disputes, the glacial pace of bureaucracy across a galactic civilization. Pretty sure you could make an excellent tale out of that.

 

[ProtoJeb21]

Last night I went to go see it. I tried to keep a death count throughout the movie, which I first attempted when seeing Rogue One. I thought this time it would be easier to do than R1...

Lol nope. 

Seriously, we lost Ackbar, most of Resistance Command, 99% of the Resistance, two Porgs, 1/3rd of the Supremacy, at least 5 star destroyers, at least 100,000 First Order crew, several hundred Resistance crew, Snoke, one Dreadnaught, several First Order admirals, Phasma, all 8 Pratorean Guards, Rose’s sister, and 90% of the Internet’s faith in Disney. I’m not counting Luke because it looks like he became a Force Ghost and technically, Force Ghosts are immortal. Now he gets to listen to Yoda annoy him for the rest of eternity. In the mean time, Reddit is going absolutely crazy, and it looks like yet another Meme War is about to break out. 

But otherwise I found it to be pretty good. @_Augustus_ please let me live. 

[_Augustus_]

7 hours ago, TheSaint said:

My wife and I just watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on Netflix. That was 10x better than TLJ.

Yeah, that movie was decent and definitely better than TLJ.

[ProtoJeb21]

48 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

Yeah, that movie was decent and definitely better than TLJ.

I am groot

Spoiler

Translation: I’m pretty sure most peoples’ opinions on TLJ will change after a few months. Or we’ll be plunged into a new Meme War. Either one works.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, KSK said:

As for tracking ships through hyperspace? I was thinking about that this morning and... why the big deal? Wasn't tracking the Falcon through hyperspace to Yavin IV, a rather important plot point in Episode IV?

 Tracking a ship through hyperspace is easy if you have a beacon aboard the ship you want to track. In A New Hope, the Empire put one inside the Millennium Falcon while it was aboard the death Star. 

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

Seriously, we lost Ackbar, most of Resistance Command, 99% of the Resistance, two Porgs, 1/3rd of the Supremacy, at least 5 star destroyers, at least 100,000 First Order crew, several hundred Resistance crew, Snoke, one Dreadnaught, several First Order admirals, Phasma, all 8 Pratorean Guards, Rose’s sister, and 90% of the Internet’s faith in Disney.

Pulling out excesiive and unnecessary storylines...

14 hours ago, TheSaint said:

My wife and I just watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on Netflix. That was 10x better than TLJ.

Because raccoon. 

Edited December 18, 2017 by kerbiloid