by "Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
Published 12/19/2017 at 13:27
by "Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
Published 12/19/2017 at 13:27
No Tags
STARS: 2
I went to see The Last Jedi over the weekend and I found myself, as I was watching it, thinking it was not a very good movie. Fan reaction has been
mixed,
and honestly what bugged me about it is not the typical complaints people have against it. Spoilers abound!
The Last Jedi is not as bad as any of the prequels. There are plenty of good things about it. The movie starts off with a bang with shit getting blown up all over the place and my reaction at the beginning was “this is Star Wars giving the fans some super Star Wars-y shit!” But then after the slam bang opening the movie slllllllllooooooooooowwwwwwwws way down to a bunch of emo talking, and that’s the part where I started to think maybe it wasn’t great.
Apparently a lot of the negative reaction to The Last Jedi centers around disliking Luke Skywalker’s plot line, how he’s a reclusive angry hermit and they wanted him to be more heroic. And in general it takes a lot of the Star Wars tropes and turns them on their head . Honestly, this doesn’t bother me. While I’m definitely a nerd in general, I’m not emotionally invested in Star Wars fandom and this didn’t irritate me. Most of my critique of The Last Jedi comes down to it not always being a good movie.
Let’s talk about Snoke for a minute. Throughout The Force Awakens, he’s teased as this mysterious big bad guy who talks through giant holograms and has some kind of unknown back story about how he turned Kylo Ren to the dark side. Why does he use such big holograms? Who knows. But there was a lot of work done to set him up.
What happens with him in The Last Jedi? Well, he’s a disfigured pontificating generic bad guy who sits around in a goofy throne room with a pointless red backdrop, wears gold Hugh Hefner pajamas, and walks around in herky jerky unrealistic CGI animation. I can’t find a good full-body picture of Snoke in the stupid pajamas, but seriously, all I could think about when I saw him was “evil mutant Hugh Hefner.”
No back story is revealed at all. He’s just the main bad guy who does bad guy things until he gets killed. All of the setup from The Force Awakens is waved away with no payoff. Taken on his own it’s no big deal that he’s yet another one-note bad guy character, but in the context of continuing on from The Force Awakens, it feels like a wasted opportunity.
Also, his goofy looking guards in his goofy looking throne room look like the terrible second season episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where Commander Riker and his dad work out their issues by bopping each other with giant Q-tips while dressed in hockey gear and spandex with vaguely Asian writing on it.
The Porgs got a lot of hype in the lead-up to the movie. Oh look, another cutesy Star Wars character! I’m ok with cutesy Star Wars characters if they aren’t too stupid, like Jar Jar Binks, and the Porgs didn’t bug me. They got some laughs out of me. But here’s what I want to know: why the hell did a Porg come along for the ride on the Millennium Falcon with Chewy, after he had killed one of them and roasted it over a campfire, right in front of the other Porgs?
That scene where the Porgs are all bugging Chewy while he’s eating one of their dead friends is played for laughs, but that’s some dark shit right there! I’m pretty sure the Porg who comes along with Chewy so he can get flung into the inside of the Millennium Falcon’s windshield for laughs is that same Porg! Why’d you get on a space ship with the giant hairy creature who killed your friend, little buddy?
Did anyone else feel like a lot of the acting in this movie was cheesy as fuck? Because seriously, some of these actors are just hamming shit up, even above the usual Star Wars hamminess, to the point where there’s no way to take their performances seriously. Yes I’m looking at you, General Wimpy British Version of Dennis Leary.
Also you, Laura Dern with purple hair. A lot of people liked this character and performance, maybe because of her heroic last stand against the bigass First Order ship, but her delivery of lines was just damn goofy to me.
Oh, and why is Laura Dern in charge? Because of that nonsense where the bridge of the ship where Leia was got blown up, and Leia got blown out into space, but she somehow magically survived long enough in the vacuum of space to wake up, be like, “OH HELL NO I’M NOT DYING OUT HERE FLOATING IN SPACE WITH NO SPACESUIT, IMMA USE THE FORCE UP OUT THIS BITCH” and floats her way back into an airlock!
(Watch this video quick before Disney has it taken down.)
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My initial reaction to Leia floating in space was, “damn, they sure are being a little gratuitous with showing dead Leia just freezing out in space, that’s cold, why’d you have to do Leia like that?” Then when she went all Superman I just laughed. Because even in a franchise about mystical space knights and other improbabilities, that shit is just ridiculous.
But that’s not as ridiculous as the movie’s odd fixation on alien boobs. There’s that scene where Luke decides to milk a giant alien then drink its milk on the spot. There’s also the random big fat alien lady as the camera swoops through the casino and the camera zooms right in on her chest covered in orbs that I can only assume are also supposed to be the boobs of that particular alien. Seriously?
On another note of things involving nipples, there’s the random shirtless Kylo Ren sequence. Rey and Kylo are talking to each other through the Force, and all of a sudden, it’s like, “oh hey Kylo Ren, you’re in the bathroom or whatever this lair of yours is.”
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The movie doesn’t take this sequence seriously, and even has Rey say something like, “uhhh maybe put on a shirt, dude?” but why the hell is this in the movie? I can only think it’s there because Adam Driver is lanky and tall and the Kylo costumes don’t really make him seem all that strong, and it’s like, “see look he has muscles you guys!” But he’s not intimidating at all.
Either that or they’re totally taking that Kylo Ren Undercover Boss SNL skit and running with it.
If that’s the case, then ok The Last Jedi, I’ll allow this.
The whole plot of The Last Jedi is basically the Resistance getting its ass kicked, repeatedly. I get that, but I feel like all of their tactical moves were written in a way that was basically, “let’s come up with really elaborate ways for the Resistance to both fuck itself and get its ass handed to it.” It’s a mix of the Resistance being foolish and disorganized, and just, I dunno, having to do something to get to the ending where the Resistance is down to nothing more than a ragtag bunch of survivors on the Millennium Falcon.
At the beginning with the overly difficult plan to take out the bigass First Order ship with slow “bombers” that require dropping a bunch of bombs on that one perfect spot on the giant Dreadnought ship, yeah it’s a callback to all the other times in Star Wars movies where the good guys had to do the same thing to the bad guys, but the difference here is while the Resistance does technically accomplish its goal of blowing up the bigass ship, they also fail spectacularly at following their plan and a whole bunch of them get killed.
This makes sense for a setup at the beginning of a movie, a setback that our heroes need to bounce back from. But it keeps happening! Every single time the Resistance goes up against the First Order, they get fucked. The First Order is like, “oh, you thought that was a bigass ship you blew up, huh? Well here’s a bigger-asser ship!”
The movie spends so much time on all the ways the Resistance is going to somehow turn the tide and come back, but they fail. Repeatedly. And the ways they manage to fail feel like really bad plans that have no chance of working out. The technical details of these plans don’t make a ton of sense. The Resistance ships are smaller and lighter than the bigger-asser First Order ship, so they can stay just out of its weapons range, but they can’t go to light speed because they don’t have enough fuel, and the First Order figured out a way to track them at light speed, and they need to go to the casino to get Benicio Del Toro to disable the light speed tracker, while letting ship after ship run out of fuel and get blown up by the bigger-asser First Order ship, and they go to evacuate their final ship in totally defenseless slow-ass transport ships, to the the old Rebel base planet that happens to have one Really Big Door to hide behind, and oh then Benicio Del Toro totally sells them out, and of course the First Order has a bigass cannon to shoot a hole in the bigass door.
HUH?
On the one hand, I get it, the broad outline of the movie calls for the Resistance to get screwed. But it sure takes a long roundabout convoluted nonsensical path to how exactly they get screwed.
Mixed in with this is the plot with Poe Dameron learning after the first big battle where the Resistance gets its ass handed to it that maybe he should pay attention to people telling him to not go off on his dumbass plans, but then he totally goes along with Finn’s plan to go to the casino planet to get Benicio Del Toro, and then that plan goes totally south too. So much for learning your lesson! Then Finn continues on the dumbass plan action by trying to fly his little speedster into the giant First Order cannon which is going to do absolutely nothing to stop the cannon and luckily for him his mechanic buddy girl stops him from committing suicide by giant First Order cannon by crashing her speedster into him.
Overall, I can’t help but shake the feeling that all the big action setpieces and the nonsensical logic used to string them together was the result of the writers first deciding they wanted the Resistance to be decimated from an entire fleet down to a small group of survivors on the Millennium Falcon, and they worked back from that premise to achieve the desired result.
Can I also point out that there were times when this very expensive movie managed to look very, very cheap? All the sets of the ship interiors were totally devoid of texture or detail. It’s not like the sets in the original Star Wars movies were super detailed either, but being shot on film, before current “let’s make everything look perfect” cinematography, gave the look texture all on its own. With current camera technology it makes everything feel extra fake.
Some of the CGI interior backgrounds are nice and detailed...
But then you have extremely simplistic sets like Snoke’s throne room, and this:
There’s what, like 7 little flat lights on the control panel in that elevator? And when Kylo Ren smashes his helmet into that wall, it’s very obviously some thin plastic. All the ship interiors that weren’t large CGI hangar scenes felt like they were made out of plywood and plastic and all the time they were at light speed with the lights swirling outside a window, it seemed even cheaper. Oh, and these ancient Jedi books sure looked realistic.
One last little nitpick about production design. Did anyone else notice when Luke showed up (but not really) on the Rebel Base With A Bigass Door planet, that all of a sudden he had cut and dyed his hair and beard? Instead of the long hair and beard, all of a sudden he looks the same as in the flashback scene where he was going to kill Kylo Ren in his sleep, with shorter hair and no more gray!
Yeah, later it’s revealed that Luke wasn’t actually there and he was projecting himself to the Big Door planet with The Force, but it’s just like, “oh hey, I’m here to help you, yes I used some Just For Men before I came.”
And about that whole Force projection thing. That’s fine, I’ll live with it as a story beat. If anything it makes The Last Jedi that much more hopeless. Even with Luke doing his Force projection thing and buying time for the last like, 12 Resistance people left alive to escape the Big Door planet on the Millennium Falcon, that’s all he’s able to accomplish. He sacrificed himself for an extremely small victory.
That concept, on its own, is a downer, but it works. The problem is all the convoluted nonsense it took to arrive at this final downer note. It leaves the franchise in a weird place, man.
Even with all this nitpicking, I don’t think I can bring myself to feel like I dislike the movie, and I might try to re-watch it at some point to clarify how I feel about it.
"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
12/19/2017 at 13:41, STARS: 3
Honestly the thing I couldn’t get over as I watched it was:
“Really? The story driver is not running out of gas? And since when does star wars care about fuel at all?”
"Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow" (chriskf)
12/19/2017 at 13:42, STARS: 3
Too much to reply to while at work, so I’ll just approach one of your issues. Snoke’s lack of backstory. This was a part that really bugged me as well, until someone made the point that, in the IV-VI we never got any backstory on Palpatine or Vader really either. We had to wait for the prequels, or EU books if you’re into those like I am, to get any of that. So it’s a somewhat unfair standard to hold the film to.
I’m not without my criticisms of the movie, but I liked it. We also have to realize these movies aren’t being made for us, the original fanboys and girls of THE real trilogy, but for the next generation of Star Wars fans. And as far as I can tell, they’re doing a damn good job of it. I particularly like seeing them employ more strong female and POC roles, as us little white boys have always gotten the heroes in movies to look up to. Seeing my little cousins and friends’ kids get excited about Star Wars, especially the little girls, is awesome. I can forgive, or at least learn to live with, the transgressions of TLJ in light of that.
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 13:47, STARS: 2
I mean, wouldn’t you Force project yourself as a younger, stronger dude?
Despite any problems the movie had, my wife, my son, his friends and I all really enjoyed it. I honestly loved all the goofy, funny bits they injected. And, wow, the “silent” scene at the end just blew me away. The battle on Crait was beautiful. I like the way they made us feel for Kylo and question the inherent goodness of Luke. The overall pacing could’ve been a lot better, and they probably just tried to cram too many story lines into one movie, but, on the whole, I got what I wanted from it (minus a better explanation of who Rey’s parents were) and am looking forward to the next one.
"Arrivederci" (arrividerci)
12/19/2017 at 13:50, STARS: 0
The part about Rey’s parents pissed me off. So much build-up and anticipation from TFA and then Kylo Ren is all like, “Yeah, your parents sold you for booze, them’s the breaks, kiddo.”
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 13:51, STARS: 1
My daughter dressed as Rey for Halloween, complete with homemade staff. =)
"random001" (random001)
12/19/2017 at 13:51, STARS: 2
That last part there? I think that you missed the very last part after that...
So Luke was running away from the “Skywalker legend” and the projection of himself battling Kylo was him embracing the Skywalker legend to jump start the spark of the resistance, hence why the kids at the end were telling the story of that battle. It will show itself to not be a small victory, I wager.
"Arrivederci" (arrividerci)
12/19/2017 at 13:52, STARS: 3
One thing about the space battles is bothering me. In the opening scene, the bombers have to be over the Dreadnought to drop their bombs. Um, it’s space, bombs wouldn’t drop by gravity there. They’d need to be launched like an ICBM.
Same goes for when the Rebel cruiser was fleeing Snoke’s ship. They’re all like, “let’s keep firing so they know we’re here!” Okay. Why were the shots all arced, like they have to account for gravity and wind resistance? They should’ve been straight shots.
"Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap" (ddadragon)
12/19/2017 at 13:53, STARS: 0
I still liked the movie but honestly I’d put it in the same category as the prequels. I liked them and watched them a bunch of times becsuse they were good but weren’t favorites.
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 13:58, STARS: 0
Haha! Slow-speed chases are the most exciting things ever!
"Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow" (chriskf)
12/19/2017 at 13:58, STARS: 1
My little cousin went as Cpt. Phasma. #proud
"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
12/19/2017 at 14:01, STARS: 2
And don’t forget that they opened the bomb bay doors to space without a space suit. I still have no idea how the necklace of the dead bombardier made it back to her sister, Rose.
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 14:01, STARS: 2
He may have been lying to her, and maybe/hopefully we’ll eventually learn more, but I’m not holding out hope.
The scene with the mirrors was awesome, but her seeing herself in the end was definitely a let down...
"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
12/19/2017 at 14:02, STARS: 0
We are on the same page. I was thinking many of the same things as I watched it.
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 14:02, STARS: 0
She’s evil! Haha...
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 14:03, STARS: 0
Oh man, I didn’t think about that!
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 14:04, STARS: 1
My interpretation was that they both had one.
"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
12/19/2017 at 14:05, STARS: 3
Was it two halves of the same amulet like those “Best Friends” necklaces?
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 14:06, STARS: 0
I definitely didn’t like any of the prequels as much as this one.
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 14:07, STARS: 0
Something like that - at least that’s what it was supposed to evoke in the minds of the audience.
"415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°)" (415s30)
12/19/2017 at 14:09, STARS: 1
Yeah I listed some of my issues and people got mad that I was complaining about nothing. I grew up when the originals came out, it’s all we played, the the shit prequels came... I feel like I have a right to be annoyed. I’m starting to wish the original three were it, no more. Write the books if they want. Stuff that bugged me:
-Yeah the running out of gas thing
-Planet, battle/setting was really similar to Hoth. Oh man people jumped all over me, “it’s salt you idiot...” “there is red under it”...”totally different stakes etc...” YEAH BUT it just reminded me of the Hoth battle the whole time, shield doors, trench of guys with binoculars..... Am I so wrong to think it was really similar and they could have done ANYTHING they wanted to do, but they chose that??
-The bomber ship “dropping” bombs ala WWII, having to get over the target.... in space.... a society with hyperspace travel.... killing all their people trying to line up over a target.... in space....
-I didn’t think Laura Dern fit in at all, she was dressed for the Casino, had no charisma, speech was flat....
Anyway there are a lot of little issues, people being amazaballz pilots when they aren’t trained. I’m not sure I agree with all the Luke stuff either. The Jedi projection thing was cool, I admit, but it killed him? He tried to kill Ben Solo when he thought he was going bad? I don’t know, I keep reminding myself they could write anything they want, anything, and I don’t really like what they did. I never read all the hundreds of books but if they threw all that out it seems like a dick move.
"Azrek" (azrek)
12/19/2017 at 14:09, STARS: 1
Ok, I had alot of problems with the movie. I watched it twice. I hated it.
Let’s start..
They are evacuating and their first target is the base? May I suggest the Ships instead?
How do bombers “drop” a payload...in space? Pretty sure they’d just float?
Ok, your cruisers that totally caught a blockade runner in Episode 4 can’t catch this cruiser? So....why not send 2 Star Destroyers ahead in lightspeed and turn around?
BLAZING SWORD problem: Sooo...your ship can totally cut the entire enemy fleet in fucking half? Why not lead with this? “Oh, Snoke’s ship? ENGAGE LIGHTSPEED MANEUVER #2. EVERYONE TO THE ESCAPE PODS!!!”
BB-8 can do almost anything? Why do we need anyone else? We aren’t short on men we are short on Beachball droids
R2-D2 had 4 seconds of screen time?! And he left Luke behind after an emotional return!?
Rey’s speech to Luke to return as Kylo Ren is strong in the dark side of the force felt like a 6th grade play
Snoke was there...then he wasn’t...then the guards attack in a battle that would make Xena proud.
Poe’s ship is too small and is hitting all the turrets? Fire the Ventral Cannons? I believe that killed him last time?
Why did you land the Battering ram so far away? Pull it close.
Phasma remains totally pointless.
Some of the guns in the hanger fight looked like something Nerf made.
Kylo’s fighter was wasting the fleet and took out all the fighters...why did he pull back?
Luke caused Kylo Ren, but didn’t do anything about it? “He can’t save him”, so he just put on a light show and died. Who are they gonna kill in the next movie? Oh...wait....sigh...
Leia is more powerful than you can possibly imagine
Where the F was Obi-Wan?! He started Luke on this adventure and it was Yoda to say the final words?
The force wasn’t strong with this one....
"Arrivederci" (arrividerci)
12/19/2017 at 14:10, STARS: 0
Zackly - or like a ying/yang.
"Chuckles" (chucklesw37)
12/19/2017 at 14:11, STARS: 2
The part about Rey’s parents was my single favorite thing about this movie. I was so relieved to find out that she wasn’t related to anybody. I really didn’t want her to be another Skywalker.
"Arrivederci" (arrividerci)
12/19/2017 at 14:14, STARS: 0
Like with the hangars on the Imperial Cruisers, I’d imagine there was a forcefield there keeping space separate from the pressurized bay. That said, it certainly wasn’t shown with that typical blue hue, which lends me to the same conclusion you have.
"Arrivederci" (arrividerci)
12/19/2017 at 14:16, STARS: 2
I can see that too - it also goes with the whole theme of what Luke was saying about how the Jedi needed to go. Her being someone’s lineage would’ve only pandered more to how special and austere the Jedi should be.
"Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap" (ddadragon)
12/19/2017 at 14:20, STARS: 0
I’m a bit different. I have very low movie standards
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 14:20, STARS: 1
We were hypothesizing she was Obi-Wan’s granddaughter.
You’re probably right, though - it is better that she’s just a “nobody” and anyone, anywhere can be strong with the Force (like the kid at the end).
"Jayhawk Jake" (jayhawkjake)
12/19/2017 at 14:22, STARS: 0
I agree with a lot of your thoughts, I don’t think some of them actually make it a bad movie, and some of it is on you and not the movie’s fault. I’m just gonna list it out for funsies:
Luke as a hermit: heavy handed Yoda reference, I’ll give you that. But it does make sense for him to be a bit weird, he’s spent 40 years on an island alone with a bunch of weird birds and lizard creatures. I think we agree, it’s a bit odd but it doesn’t itself make the movie bad, though it doesn’t really improve the movie either
Snoke: This is a bit weird, and I think I agree and disagree with you on him. Yeah, he looked bad. I don’t understand why he was fully CGI. Just make it a practical costume and I’m 100% more interested in it. His background, though...it’s not really important. Think about Siddius in the OT: we really don’t ever know anything about him other than he’s a bad dude with influence over Vader. Even the force lightning is completely unknown until VI. Problem is, the prequels exist and we all know his whole story so we want to know the same about Snoke. I disagree that we need Snoke’s story....UNTIL, that is, he’s revealed as having influenced Ben at Luke’s academy. That just raises so many questions: how did he contact Ben? How did he know about him? How did Luke know Snoke was influencing Ben? Why was Luke’s solution to kill Ben, not to cut off Snoke? Snoke dying is fine, he’s genuinely not that important to the story. If you cut out the bit about Luke saying “Snoke had already gotten to Ben” he becomes entirely useless to the story other than to be some leader that Kylo Ren answers to in TFA, before Ren is like “fuck you I’m stronger” and kills him in TLJ.
The Praetorian Guard looks awesome, get outta town. That whole fight was epic. The red room is to be intimidating, that’s what Snoke does. It works, IMO.
I loved the Porgs. Porgs 4 Lyfe. They’re adorable, the scene with Chewie eating them was hilarious. They showed Porgs nesting in the Falcon, I don’t think it’s implied that Chewie befriended them, there just was a Porg there and Chewie didn’t care until it was being annoying. If anything I wanted more Chewie bonding with Porgs.
The acting was cheesy. It’s Star Wars. Hux is hilarious, I love it. His whole character is basically mocking the First Order, it’s a bunch of people that think they’re badass when really they’re just assholes, and they have to all be like Hux: for someone like Snoke to be SUPREME LEADER the whole organization has to just be brown nosers. I think Hux being seriously serious would have just been cheesier than Hux wearing a baddie facade
The Ren shirtless bit was kinda funny, but in the wrong place. I’ll agree that it was a bit much
The resistance getting it’s ass kicked is just a theme. And it makes sense, the resistance is massively out gunned. Everything that went wrong with bombers was Poe’s fault, wasn’t it? I’ll admit I’ve forgotten exactly the timing, but I thought that the bombing and everything was after Poe was told to stop fighting. There’s some commentary about a small resistance fighting a massive power, and when that huge ship shows up it really puts the resistance in its place.
Finn’s plan is stupid. But Finn never really cared about the plan, it’s just his character now to find Rey and everything else is just an accessory to that. I really don’t understand the decision to insert Benecio Del Toro’s character as they did. Why not just say “there’s this sleazy guy that might help”? It’s far more believable than just finding this random dude that can break a code only this one other dude can supposedly break. Of course it was all a play by Del Toro’s character, which is just a lazy “lets have Finn fight Phasma” bit. I will concede that basically everything about the Finn plotline up to them getting captured is useless and makes the movie worse by being a distraction. Finn fighting Phasma was cool, though.
The resistance getting picked off, I think it works. This is actually the part I need a re-watch the most for: what was the reasoning for the ships being able to escape in the first place, and why did that change? I feel like it was handled better than I or others are remembering.
Set design: I will disagree with you here, mostly. Star Wars just looks like that. Yeah, the elevator looks cheap, but if you broke apart lots of “modern” or “futuristic” materials they look cheap too. I’m perfectly fine with it.
I’m disappointed Luke died. I think it’s unfair to say he “only” died for the 12 survivors. He died for the resistance on the whole. The point is that his return brings hope to the hopeless and hope is what will save the day in IX. The outfit and hair change was a giveaway to the force projection, silly but works. I’m curious what kind of rewrites happened: was the plan originally to do the whole Episode II “show Yoda going nuts fighting Dookoo” thing but with Luke singlehandedly fighting off a huge First Order batallion? That’s what I expected to see, Luke deflecting AT-AT shots like that silly little drone thing in Episode IV before having a crazy intense lightsaber battle with Kylo Ren, eventually pulling an Obi Wan and sacrificing himself. The way he died felt empty and unfulfilling, and I imagine it will be redeemed with lots of force ghostery in the next one.
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 14:23, STARS: 0
Haha! Clearly I do, too, with all the hate for this latest one.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
12/19/2017 at 14:32, STARS: 1
Yes, this, exactly! I totally meant to include the “gravity” bombs in space. That makes no sense! I dunno if maybe they were in orbit of a planet and that had some gravity but I don’t think they were.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
12/19/2017 at 14:38, STARS: 3
I had the same thought about Snoke vs. Palpatine. I get that his back story isn’t really important. I’d even go so far as to say that Palpatine’s back story in the prequels doesn’t really matter.
The issue with Snoke is more a problem of continuity from the previous movie. TFA was all “look at this mysterious evil dude who you know nothing about, isn’t he so mysterious and don’t you want to know more about how he turned Ben Solo evil?”
But then when TLJ comes around, there’s nothing mysterious at all, he’s just there, and even though there’s a flashback involving Kylo Ren turning to the dark side, it has absolutely nothing to do with Snoke. With all the other shit they managed to pack into the movie they could’ve easily trimmed that other stuff down a little and then at least tried to tie up the Snoke loose ends.
But nah, let’s just have him get cut in half and with no blood and slightly out of focus so we can keep our PG-13 rating.
"Jayhawk Jake" (jayhawkjake)
12/19/2017 at 14:45, STARS: 2
To be fair re: blood, I don’t think a lightsaber would would allow for much bleeding.
"Jayhawk Jake" (jayhawkjake)
12/19/2017 at 14:47, STARS: 0
It didn’t. The necklace was two halves. As I recall they’re pretty distinctly two different sides of something.
Bomb bay opened to space - force field or whatever. All ship bays are “open” to space too, it’s not a plot hole.
Also, gravity kinda almost makes sense...the ship is generating gravity, no? The big ship would naturally have gravitational pull down towards it. Gravity + Star Wars is just a topic best left ignored, after all.
"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
12/19/2017 at 14:58, STARS: 1
I was wondering why hyperspace weapons hasn’t been developed after seeing this. Also why wouldn’t the first order just use interdictors to prevent ships from going to hyperspace? They exist. It’s a bit like interplanetary beaming or Kahn’s magic blood. Sorta takes away from the rest of the universe.
Cool as shit visually though. Probably the most impressive part of the movie for me.
"Jayhawk Jake" (jayhawkjake)
12/19/2017 at 14:58, STARS: 1
I want to comment on your comments:
They are evacuating and their first target is the base? May I suggest the Ships instead?
Yeah, probably
How do bombers “drop” a payload...in space? Pretty sure they’d just float?
The ship they are over is generating gravity, that’s why they’re walking around inside it. So it must be pulling on whatever’s above it too
Ok, your cruisers that totally caught a blockade runner in Episode 4 can’t catch this cruiser? So....why not send 2 Star Destroyers ahead in lightspeed and turn around?
That’s...a great point. Why wouldn’t they do that?
BLAZING SWORD problem: Sooo...your ship can totally cut the entire enemy fleet in fucking half? Why not lead with this? “Oh, Snoke’s ship? ENGAGE LIGHTSPEED MANEUVER #2. EVERYONE TO THE ESCAPE PODS!!!”
That big ass ship is really expensive and valuable. Had to be a desperate plan, so maybe they had hope something else would work out? The movie kinda played this card of “something always works out” but maybe it won’t this time. Poe sees that it probably won’t, that’s why he’s mad. But Laura Dern’s character just wanted to waste as much time as possible to give the little ships the best chance of escaping. Blowing up the big ship is good, but it’s not like the Star Destroyers couldn’t catch and destroy the smaller ships when the big ship isn’t there. Or something
BB-8 can do almost anything? Why do we need anyone else? We aren’t short on men we are short on Beachball droids.
Economics and resources
R2-D2 had 4 seconds of screen time?! And he left Luke behind after an emotional return!?
Yeah, that’s kinda effed.
Rey’s speech to Luke to return as Kylo Ren is strong in the dark side of the force felt like a 6th grade play. I’ve started to realize that we generally hold really stupid high standards for characters in movies/books. Rey has to be incredibly uneducated, of course she won’t orate some epic plea. She’s working with nothing here.
Snoke was there...then he wasn’t...then the guards attack in a battle that would make Xena proud. I liked that fight, it was cool.
Poe’s ship is too small and is hitting all the turrets? Fire the Ventral Cannons? I believe that killed him last time?
Why they don’t always have fighters ready to deploy is beyond me. They sorta joked about their unpreparedness, I give it a pass
Why did you land the Battering ram so far away? Pull it close.
Because there was at least some amount of defense near the wall? I want to know why they need to land it at all. Surely something like that can be fired from space? Or at least warmed up before it can be spotted and stopped. Not that it was stopped
Phasma remains totally pointless.
She looks sweet, and got to fight. I would bet some money she isn’t dead.
Some of the guns in the hanger fight looked like something Nerf made.
The top weapon in the movie is a laser sword.
Kylo’s fighter was wasting the fleet and took out all the fighters...why did he pull back?
Mommy issues
Luke caused Kylo Ren, but didn’t do anything about it? “He can’t save him”, so he just put on a light show and died. Who are they gonna kill in the next movie? Oh...wait....sigh...
Look knows he can’t do anything to stop Kylo short of killing him, and he doesn’t want to kill him. Daddy issues
Leia is more powerful than you can possibly imagine
Duh. She’s the daughter of one of the most powerful Jedi/Sith in history.
Where the F was Obi-Wan?! He started Luke on this adventure and it was Yoda to say the final words?
I DIDN’T THINK ABOUT THIS BUT YES! WHAT A MISSED OPPORTUNITY! George Lucas will fix it in the post-release edits...wait
"Chris_K_F drives an FR-Slow" (chriskf)
12/19/2017 at 15:00, STARS: 0
Agreed. Apart from the de-arming in the cantina scene of ANH lightsaber wounds have never had much blood or gore involved.
"Azrek" (azrek)
12/19/2017 at 15:11, STARS: 1
How do bombers “drop” a payload...in space? Pretty sure they’d just float?
The
ship they are over is generating gravity, that’s why they’re walking
around inside it. So it must be pulling on whatever’s above it too
- Gonna go with no here...or you’d pull in your own fighters, more space dust than any wonderbroom could sweep off or other ships around you.
Kylo’s fighter was wasting the fleet and took out all the fighters...why did he pull back?
Mommy issues
-Hux said they couldn’t cover him at that range. So he pulled back, but he just took out his only threats.
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
"Chuckles" (chucklesw37)
12/19/2017 at 16:03, STARS: 1
I was fine accepting Kylo Ren as Ben Solo. But there was no need for additional people to be related. After episode 7, I told my friend that I half expected Rey to be a Skywalker, Poe to be related to Wedge Antilles, and Finn to be the nephew of Lando. Anakin was a nobody from the desert, so it was nice to see Rey as a similar nobody.
"Arrivederci" (arrividerci)
12/19/2017 at 16:11, STARS: 0
I considered her being a Kenobi as well, but also confused Tattoine for Jakku. Additionally, if my understanding of the timeline is accurate, Obi-Wan was dead before she was born.
"Arrivederci" (arrividerci)
12/19/2017 at 16:13, STARS: 1
Agreed - the disappointment sprang from TFA where they seemed to allude to her parents maybe being a big deal. But, the theme of this movie is that anybody can be a hero, and that really fits right into it.
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 16:16, STARS: 1
Granddaughter, not daughter. Would’ve been fun to learn more about Obi-Wan’s life.
"Arrivederci" (arrividerci)
12/19/2017 at 16:19, STARS: 1
Ah, I’m blind. But I did think it would be fun to have her be a Kenobi as well. Maybe he’ll get his own movie for the time between RotS and ANH, where Ewan McGregor could reprise his role (say what you will about the prequels, I thought he did a great job as a young Kenobi).
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/19/2017 at 16:35, STARS: 0
He was pretty much the only saving grace of those movies.
Ugh, this terrible scene...
"Arrivederci" (arrividerci)
12/19/2017 at 16:41, STARS: 0
LOL - true. That scene was pretty bad until he fought Grievous.
"HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles" (hondasfordsvolvo)
12/19/2017 at 18:08, STARS: 0
Her sister had the other half of the pendant. Like a split ying yang sign
"HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles" (hondasfordsvolvo)
12/19/2017 at 18:10, STARS: 0
Obviously the Drednaught was such a big big ass shop that it had it’s own gravitational force. Duh
"HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles" (hondasfordsvolvo)
12/19/2017 at 18:20, STARS: 0
The best part of the movie was he steam iron poking fun of the way ships land in Star Wars. I seriously thought “wow that ship looks smooth and shiny, am I watching the prequels?, wait no it looks like an iron. Am I watching Spaceballs?” Then it camera zooms out and I laughed my ass off.
Also I’m disappointed about Snoke, or the lack of Snoke. But the way he died was bad ass. And I really did think in the moment that Kylo had come back to the light. However now we have a Bad ass Kylo Vs Rey lightsaber duel to look forward to in the next film.
Overall I think the problem with the movie was too there are many damn characters. The original trilogy had what 8 main characters including the droids. But this movie introduced so many characters, and had so many separate stories all going on.
Also what ever those things that Luke got the green milk from. Worse than Jar Jar.
The movie felt like filler. So hopefully it is was just something to get us from. “Where is Luke” to “Rey is a badass force using non Jedi, who is going To “bring balance to the force”
"wafflesnfalafel" (wafflesnfalafel1)
12/19/2017 at 21:32, STARS: 0
I’m waiting for the director’s cut...
"Craig Stampfli" (cjstampfli)
12/19/2017 at 21:42, STARS: 1
All I want to know is, which is longer, the distance between the little speedsters and the cannon on Big Door Planet, or the runway in Fast & Furious 6?
"Nauraushaun" (nauraushaun12)
12/21/2017 at 03:09, STARS: 0
I dunno man. I’m willing to discuss plot holes and coninuity and all that. But things like
I didn’t like Ren’s outfit
or
that wall doesn’t have enough buttons on it
or
this disorganized band of ragtag fighters is too disorganized and too ragtag.
Doesn’t fly. Let the movie be what it is. It’d be boring if the resistance just won and Luke was just heroic and all the things happened that people say
should
happen. And if it went that way? Everyone would say it was too formulaic and predictable. I mean the
reluctant hero
is a trope as it is, but Luke is so bloody precious to fans,
he’s not allowed to have even that much depth.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
12/21/2017 at 10:13, STARS: 0
At the beginning of the movie the Resistance isn’t a disorganized ragtag bunch of fighters. Yes they’re over-matched and retreating but they have a whole fleet! Cutting them down to a dozen people on the Millennium Falcon could be fine, but the plot jumps through ridiculous hoops to reach that ending. The characters repeatedly make stupid choices and suffer great losses all because they just didn’t share their plans with each other.
The buttons on the wall in the elevator were just one little example of how the sets look cheap. It was consistent throughout the movie. I understand it’s well established since TFA (and even parts of Ep 3) that Star Wars movies are going to replicate the look of sets from the original trilogy. But they can do it in a way that doesn’t look so cheap. Both TFA and Rogue One did this fine. But TLJ’s sets often looked obviously several grades cheaper. The cheap looking scenes in TFA stand out both in comparison to those recent Star Wars movies, and when compared to its own scenes that often can look really good.
"bob and john" (bobandjohn)
12/25/2017 at 19:08, STARS: 0
I dont agree with the Poe point.
sure, maybe he should have gone on on his plan. but holy shit ppl, he is the BEST pilot you have and you are keeping him totally in the dark. let him know the plan and maybe he can help you.
all in all, i think admiral gender studies was a really shitty character and her self sacrafice at the end got a: good, we dont have to deal with her anymore out of me.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
12/25/2017 at 23:10, STARS: 1
Basically everyone in the resistance is guilty of fucking something up by not telling their friends. Even Luke, when he was doing his Force projection thing, he could’ve told them, “hey I’m not really here, I’m going to buy you some time, get going!” and then more of them might’ve escaped the Big Door planet.
"dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter" (dsigned001)
12/27/2017 at 21:00, STARS: 0
Kylo’s turn to the dark side is precipitated by Snoke’s interference. Luke hasn’t realized just how bad it’s gotten until he probes Kylo’s mind. It’s at that point he’s tempted to kill his student
"storymark" (storymark)
01/17/2018 at 19:19, STARS: 0
“Did anyone else notice when Luke showed up (but not really) on the Rebel Base With A Bigass Door planet, that all of a sudden he had cut and dyed his hair and beard?”
Golly, its almost like Luke, when going to confront his nephew, made a deliberate choice to further push the emotional imbalance that keeps undoing Ben, by deliberately invoking a painful memory...