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The Last Jedi: Official Review and Opinions Thread ** SPOILERS ** — Page 11

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LexX said:

DrDre said:

It burns the old Jedi texts for crying out loud, as a statement that the ancient history of the Jedi is boring.

That really pissed me off as a message the film gives at that point. “History is boring, let’s burn it for a few laughs.” And coming from Yoda it didn’t suit at all. I get the idea what it was trying to make which is let’s begin with a clean slate, but you should never turn your back on history. It always teaches something. That’s like burning constitutional laws or something.

The message being that the Jedi Order was wrong: the Force shouldn’t be a dogma. It shouldn’t be teached from ancient books by secluded monks to a few selected novices, but made accessible to everyone.

Han: Hey Lando! You kept your promise, right? Not a scratch?
Lando: Well, what’s left of her isn’t scratched. All the scratched parts got knocked off along the way.
Han (exasperated): Knocked off?!

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NeverarGreat said:

I’ve read tons of reactions to this movie and the one thing that people who hate it all seem to agree is terrible is the ‘Space Leia’ moment. People who like the movie largely don’t mention it.

I don’t know what that means.

For the record, I thought that did look a little weird, but I ended up quite enjoying it.

Not everyone… it looked weird but I didn’t hate it in theory. Leia’s learnt The Force since ROTJ and can now survive in space (for a short time and requiring recovery in the medical bay)… I can go with that just about.

There were worse things about this movie than Space Leia.

War does not make one great.

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LuckyGungan2001 said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

They’ve also completely rebooted the Empire vs rebels scenario, with the Resistance now even being called rebels. Snoke was the only character with some history beyond the FO, and might have provided motivations that separates the FO from the Empire, but that’s all gone by the wayside. There are now only new faces part of an organisation without much of a history or an identity. It’s this sense of history and hidden layers that made Star Wars appealing to me, but now all the history and layers have been peeled away.

Thing is, it’s not Snoke’s First Order anymore, it’s Kylo’s. And yeah, the history’s been stripped away, but, again, that’s the point. It’s not about Vader or the Empire anymore. This is his and I’m excited to see where else he takes it.

It’s not about Vader or the Emperor. It’s about a sense of history, and motivations. With the OT there was the history of the old Republic, Vader, the Jedi. With the PT there was the history of the Sith, the rule if two. The FO has no history or identity. It’s just a bunch of faceless goons emulating the Empire, led by Kylo and Hux, neither of whom have any motivations aside from wanting to be evil.

There was no more motivation behind the Empire than that. There was a sense of history, sure - they were once the Old Republic. Well the First Order rose from the ashes of the Empire. I don’t know if you can really count the Sith in the PT because that was never even vaguely explained (which, to me, is fine). Kylo’s motivations in TFA and TLJ are obvious and make perfect sense for the character. I do hope he thinks bigger in IX though.

Yeah, but it’s more than that. The Empire consisted of many worlds, including the later named central system of Coruscant, home of the mysterious Emperor. The Alliance consisted of many worlds, with senators secretly conspiring to help them. It was a vast galaxy of peoples and allegiences. As I said there were many hidden layers in both space and time.

The FO is just a bunch of space ships, and a number of faceless enemies led by two youngsters. They don’t even have a home world, which as far as we know was SKB.

Yeah, Coruscant isn’t a part of the OT. If you want a more in depth and nuanced look at the makeup of the FO, it’s out there. Same goes for the Resistance.

I don’t care about some sort of EU.

Don’t worry, I read and enjoy EU. I just don’t care about using it as a way to fill plot holes in movies, which in my view should stand on their own.

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 (Edited)

Z6PO said:

LexX said:

DrDre said:

It burns the old Jedi texts for crying out loud, as a statement that the ancient history of the Jedi is boring.

That really pissed me off as a message the film gives at that point. “History is boring, let’s burn it for a few laughs.” And coming from Yoda it didn’t suit at all. I get the idea what it was trying to make which is let’s begin with a clean slate, but you should never turn your back on history. It always teaches something. That’s like burning constitutional laws or something.

The message being that the Jedi Order was wrong: the Force shouldn’t be a dogma. It shouldn’t be teached from ancient books by secluded monks to a few selected novices, but made accessible to everyone.

And what are books for? Making knowledge accessible to anyone who wants to read them. Anyone who claims burning books, makes you wiser is a fool. Reading them and forming your own ideas and opinions based on multiple sources of information seems far more wise to me.

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 (Edited)

If they make a book about Justin Theroux’s codebreaker high roller character, I would so buy that.

Really enjoyed the movie by the way! Lot of fun, it juggled the various adventures and whatnot well, and of course compelling to see what happens with Luke. I hope he’s still in the next movie a good bit by the way, circumstances be damned, guy is a master.

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MalàStrana said:

But the books are in the drawler of the Falcon at the end… (what does it mean ? I have no idea… but the entire movie is like that: constantly changing its mind about everything)

Looks like Rey stole them then hence Yoda’s quip “there is nothing in there which Rey does not possess” or something!

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DrDre said:

NeverarGreat said:

The final chapter is supposed to be a pay-off, but a pay-off to what?

I feel the same.

I agree that different is good, risks are good, and nobody wants to be spoon-fed obvious, predictable stories. But TLJ left me with no plotlines or stakes to really care (or even wonder) about going into the next film. By the third act of any story I should be aware of what we are working towards and what I’m supposed to be hoping each character will or won’t achieve.

Also… I’ve heard a lot of people either praising or criticising Rian Johnson for the decisions this film took. Do you really think RJ was in charge here? I’m pretty sure this film was made by a committee. There’s no way they’d let some director come along with a bunch of weird ideas and just let him run with them at the risk of torpedoing the master plan. Gareth Edwards had to reshoot half his movie and Colin Trevorrow was fired because he wouldn’t play ball. RJ is a hired gun like the rest of them, no?

War does not make one great.

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Yoda Is Your Father said:

DrDre said:

NeverarGreat said:

The final chapter is supposed to be a pay-off, but a pay-off to what?

I feel the same.

I agree that different is good, risks are good, and nobody wants to be spoon-fed obvious, predictable stories. But TLJ left me with no plotlines or stakes to really care (or even wonder) about going into the next film. By the third act of any story I should be aware of what we are working towards and what I’m supposed to be hoping each character will or won’t achieve.

Also… I’ve heard a lot of people either praising or criticising Rian Johnson for the decisions this film took. Do you really think RJ was in charge here? I’m pretty sure this film was made by a committee. There’s no way they’d let some director come along with a bunch of weird ideas and just let him run with them at the risk of torpedoing the master plan. Gareth Edwards had to reshoot half his movie and Colin Trevorrow was fired because he wouldn’t play ball. RJ is a hired gun like the rest of them, no?

JJ pitched his Episode IX story to Kathy Kennedy yesterday.

It’s RJ’s ideas, but she has to approve, and it has to align with the Story Group during.

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GlastoEls said:

Yoda Is Your Father said:

DrDre said:

NeverarGreat said:

The final chapter is supposed to be a pay-off, but a pay-off to what?

I feel the same.

I agree that different is good, risks are good, and nobody wants to be spoon-fed obvious, predictable stories. But TLJ left me with no plotlines or stakes to really care (or even wonder) about going into the next film. By the third act of any story I should be aware of what we are working towards and what I’m supposed to be hoping each character will or won’t achieve.

Also… I’ve heard a lot of people either praising or criticising Rian Johnson for the decisions this film took. Do you really think RJ was in charge here? I’m pretty sure this film was made by a committee. There’s no way they’d let some director come along with a bunch of weird ideas and just let him run with them at the risk of torpedoing the master plan. Gareth Edwards had to reshoot half his movie and Colin Trevorrow was fired because he wouldn’t play ball. RJ is a hired gun like the rest of them, no?

JJ pitched his Episode IX story to Kathy Kennedy yesterday.

It’s RJ’s ideas, but she has to approve, and it has to align with the Story Group during.

So while they were making TLJ nobody actually knew (even loosely) what the overall arc of the new trilogy would be?

That sounds like a really dumb way to make a trilogy.

Maybe JJ can tie everything up. Let’s see in 2 years.

War does not make one great.

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 (Edited)

Yoda Is Your Father said:

GlastoEls said:

Yoda Is Your Father said:

DrDre said:

NeverarGreat said:

The final chapter is supposed to be a pay-off, but a pay-off to what?

I feel the same.

I agree that different is good, risks are good, and nobody wants to be spoon-fed obvious, predictable stories. But TLJ left me with no plotlines or stakes to really care (or even wonder) about going into the next film. By the third act of any story I should be aware of what we are working towards and what I’m supposed to be hoping each character will or won’t achieve.

Also… I’ve heard a lot of people either praising or criticising Rian Johnson for the decisions this film took. Do you really think RJ was in charge here? I’m pretty sure this film was made by a committee. There’s no way they’d let some director come along with a bunch of weird ideas and just let him run with them at the risk of torpedoing the master plan. Gareth Edwards had to reshoot half his movie and Colin Trevorrow was fired because he wouldn’t play ball. RJ is a hired gun like the rest of them, no?

JJ pitched his Episode IX story to Kathy Kennedy yesterday.

It’s RJ’s ideas, but she has to approve, and it has to align with the Story Group during.

So while they were making TLJ nobody actually knew (even loosely) what the overall arc of the new trilogy would be?

That sounds like a really dumb way to make a trilogy.

How is that any different from the OT?

Lucas never had much of a plan for any of the OT sequels before he actually started to work on them.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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Yoda Is Your Father said:

GlastoEls said:

Yoda Is Your Father said:

DrDre said:

NeverarGreat said:

The final chapter is supposed to be a pay-off, but a pay-off to what?

I feel the same.

I agree that different is good, risks are good, and nobody wants to be spoon-fed obvious, predictable stories. But TLJ left me with no plotlines or stakes to really care (or even wonder) about going into the next film. By the third act of any story I should be aware of what we are working towards and what I’m supposed to be hoping each character will or won’t achieve.

Also… I’ve heard a lot of people either praising or criticising Rian Johnson for the decisions this film took. Do you really think RJ was in charge here? I’m pretty sure this film was made by a committee. There’s no way they’d let some director come along with a bunch of weird ideas and just let him run with them at the risk of torpedoing the master plan. Gareth Edwards had to reshoot half his movie and Colin Trevorrow was fired because he wouldn’t play ball. RJ is a hired gun like the rest of them, no?

JJ pitched his Episode IX story to Kathy Kennedy yesterday.

It’s RJ’s ideas, but she has to approve, and it has to align with the Story Group during.

So while they were making TLJ nobody actually knew (even loosely) what the overall arc of the new trilogy would be?

Yep. There was no pre-planned arcs. It’s down the filmmakers piece by piece.

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 (Edited)

ZkinandBonez said:

Yoda Is Your Father said:

GlastoEls said:

Yoda Is Your Father said:

DrDre said:

NeverarGreat said:

The final chapter is supposed to be a pay-off, but a pay-off to what?

I feel the same.

I agree that different is good, risks are good, and nobody wants to be spoon-fed obvious, predictable stories. But TLJ left me with no plotlines or stakes to really care (or even wonder) about going into the next film. By the third act of any story I should be aware of what we are working towards and what I’m supposed to be hoping each character will or won’t achieve.

Also… I’ve heard a lot of people either praising or criticising Rian Johnson for the decisions this film took. Do you really think RJ was in charge here? I’m pretty sure this film was made by a committee. There’s no way they’d let some director come along with a bunch of weird ideas and just let him run with them at the risk of torpedoing the master plan. Gareth Edwards had to reshoot half his movie and Colin Trevorrow was fired because he wouldn’t play ball. RJ is a hired gun like the rest of them, no?

JJ pitched his Episode IX story to Kathy Kennedy yesterday.

It’s RJ’s ideas, but she has to approve, and it has to align with the Story Group during.

So while they were making TLJ nobody actually knew (even loosely) what the overall arc of the new trilogy would be?

That sounds like a really dumb way to make a trilogy.

How is that any different from the OT?

Lucas never had much of a plan for any of the OT sequels before he actually started to work on them.

He may not have known specifics but he probably had some overall thoughts on how things might end up (which inevitably changed and evolved as things went on).

Admittedly Lucas didn’t know everything right from the start, and it’s obvious that stuff like Vader being Luke’s Father was thought up later, but the fact that Lucas was one guy forming the story means that he was at least thinking in ‘big picture’ terms when he made (most of) his decisions.

Also, and this is a key difference, Star Wars ‘77 was released as a stand-alone movie. It wasn’t announced as the first part of a trilogy right off the bat like these new films have been. If you announce a trilogy you should probably have given some thought to what that trilogy looks like, story-wise, rather than announce 3 movie then make it up as you go along.

As such, this trilogy is like that game where you fold a piece of paper and each person takes it in turns to draw a head/torso/legs then unfold the paper and see what weird monster drawing you end up with.

War does not make one great.

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Yoda Is Your Father said:

As such, this trilogy is like that game where you fold a piece of paper and each person takes it in turns to draw a head/torso/legs then unfold the paper and see what weird monster drawing you end up with.

That’s exactly what it is, for better or for worse!

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GlastoEls said:

Yoda Is Your Father said:

As such, this trilogy is like that game where you fold a piece of paper and each person takes it in turns to draw a head/torso/legs then unfold the paper and see what weird monster drawing you end up with.

That’s exactly what it is, for better or for worse!

For the record, I’m not against giving writers and directors free reign at all. Creativity by committee rarely works and I think a director or writer should absolutely be allowed to have their own vision. But I also think that free reign should be given in the spin off and standalone films (eg Rogue One), while the main Star Wars ‘Saga’ should maybe be treated with a certain reverence and a degree of planning to make sure the characters and world get the coherent story they deserve (as opposed to a ‘let’s take this 40 years old and much loved property and just see what happens’).

(By the way, I haven’t seen episode 9 yet -obviously- so I’m not actually saying this new trilogy doesn’t work because how could I know that? I’m just expressing some opinions on the approach the creators of the trilogy have taken based on what I’ve seen so far).

War does not make one great.

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 (Edited)

As such, this trilogy is like that game where you fold a piece of paper and each person takes it in turns to draw a head/torso/legs then unfold the paper and see what weird monster drawing you end up with.

That’s such an accurate description in my view. RJ mostly disregarded every setup of TFA. Take the simple example of Han telling Rey and Finn, that Luke went to look for the first Jedi Temple. Given that setup, and Luke’s emotional response at the end of TFA, you would expect he had gone there in hopes of finding some ancient wisdom to deal with the threat of Snoke and Kylo. The TFA script states:

“Older now, white hair, bearded. He looks at Rey. A kindness in his eyes, but there’s something tortured, too. He doesn’t need to ask her who she is, or what she is doing here. His look says it all.”

So, why did Luke go there? To die. If he wanted to die, and see the Jedi end, why go a place associated with the Jedi in the first place. Seems to me the FO would have found him eventually. Why not go to some random unknown Island? Why not kill yourself, if you’re so convinced it should all end? Why did he wear these elaborate white Jedi robes at the end of TFA? He sure seemed an almost mythical Jedi Master with the wisdom of the ages, waiting for the right person to arrive. That moment and the character of Luke have been completely deflated. It’s twists and shocks for the sake of it, all the while sacrificing the integrity of a classic character to prop up some new ones. Next we’ll learn Han and Leia beat Kylo as a kid. Shocking isn’t it. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

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GlastoEls said:

Yoda Is Your Father said:

As such, this trilogy is like that game where you fold a piece of paper and each person takes it in turns to draw a head/torso/legs then unfold the paper and see what weird monster drawing you end up with.

That’s exactly what it is, for better or for worse!

Mmm, not really, since in this case the paper isn’t folded and whoever draws the next piece can see exactly what came before and can consult whoever drew the last piece on what they should draw next.

Not enough people read the EU.

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DrDre said:
So, why did Luke go there? To die. If he wanted to die, and see the Jedi end, why go a place associated with the Jedi in the first place. Seems to me the FO would have found him eventually. Why not go to some random unknown Island? Why not kill yourself, if you’re so convinced it should all end? Why did he wear these elaborate white Jedi robes at the end of TFA? He sure seemed an almost mythical Jedi Master with the wisdom of the ages, waiting for the right person to arrive.

To be fair, maybe he ‘went to die’, but was actually sub-consciously hoping for ‘the right person to arrive’ to shake him out the doledrums - and the combination of Rey and Yoda did actually that.

That’s what I liked most about the Yoda scene - Luke is all melodramatic, but Yoda - with greater perspective - almost no sells him, comforting him that ‘failure is the best teacher’…

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LuckyGungan2001 said:

GlastoEls said:

Yoda Is Your Father said:

As such, this trilogy is like that game where you fold a piece of paper and each person takes it in turns to draw a head/torso/legs then unfold the paper and see what weird monster drawing you end up with.

That’s exactly what it is, for better or for worse!

Mmm, not really, since in this case the paper isn’t folded and whoever draws the next piece can see exactly what came before and can consult whoever drew the last piece on what they should draw next.

Except RJ ignored most of the setups in TFA to do his own thing. So, in this case he did the folding, before drawing the next piece.

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GlastoEls said:

DrDre said:
So, why did Luke go there? To die. If he wanted to die, and see the Jedi end, why go a place associated with the Jedi in the first place. Seems to me the FO would have found him eventually. Why not go to some random unknown Island? Why not kill yourself, if you’re so convinced it should all end? Why did he wear these elaborate white Jedi robes at the end of TFA? He sure seemed an almost mythical Jedi Master with the wisdom of the ages, waiting for the right person to arrive.

To be fair, maybe he ‘went to die’, but was actually sub-consciously hoping for ‘the right person to arrive’ to shake him out the doledrums - and the combination of Rey and Yoda did actually that.

That’s what I liked most about the Yoda scene - Luke is all melodramatic, but Yoda - with greater perspective - almost no sells him, comforting him that ‘failure is the best teacher’…

That’s a nice way to justify what happened, but I didn’t see any indication that Luke wanted to be shaken out of anything.

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 (Edited)

Except RJ ignored most of the setups in TFA to do his own thing. So, in this case he did the folding, before drawing the next piece.

But he didn’t ignore them, he expanded on them and brought some of them to a conclusion. It’s not as if he didn’t acknowledge them or anything.

Not enough people read the EU.

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LuckyGungan2001 said:

Except RJ ignored most of the setups in TFA to do his own thing. So, in this case he did the folding, before drawing the next piece.

But he didn’t ignore them, he expanded on them and brought some of them to a conclusion. It’s not as if he didn’t acknowledge them or anything.

Luke: went looking for the first Jedi Temple, because he wanted to die.

First Jedi Temple: doesn’t really serve a purpose. Most of what happens there could have happened on any island.

Snoke: becomes a plot device.

Kylo: after being exposed as sort of a poser in TFA, get’s handed control of the FO by his dim witted master, and without completing his training is now the big bad of the ST.

Rey: mysteriously having all these powers that normally takes years to learn and control, who has visions of her past, and lightsaber calling to her, turns out be a nobody, but without proper training is on the fast track for Jedi Knighthood. She did her first Jedi mind trick on SKB, and by the end of TLJ, which can be at most a few days in real time, can move tons of rocks with her mind.

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Does anybody have anything good to say about the finale in which the star destroyer gets totalled by Laura Dern light-speeding through it and Finn/Rose/Phasma being the only survivors then BB8 piloting an AT-ST?

Come at me with positivity about that whole scene, I could do with a laugh.

War does not make one great.

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Collipso said:

ilyasdesign40 said:

Collipso said:

One thing is for sure, we all love Empire

shame their won’t be something like that again!

I hope you’re wrong!!

I hope I’m wrong but that era of actors etc were unique, because it was raw talent!

the new generation of actors are too wooden and lame doesn’t work

carrie fisher and mark hamill made the last jedi work briefly!

battle scenes were great! but story too weak no depth etc…

Disney ain’t got a clue!

so many great Star Wars comes out there, don’t know why they didn’t use some of the stories

the next film will be even worse…

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Yoda Is Your Father said:

Does anybody have anything good to say about the finale in which the star destroyer gets totalled by Laura Dern light-speeding through it and Finn/Rose/Phasma being the only survivors then BB8 piloting an AT-ST?

Come at me with positivity about that whole scene, I could do with a laugh.

I was absolutely left stunned with that sacrifice scene; I could feel the whole theater in such awe of that visual! That’s the first time a movie visually surprised me in that way. Usually, eye candy to me makes my eye roll because it’s just there for a cool factor with little purpose. Here, there was more emotion behind it, so I really loved that moment.

Oh and BB-8 with the Walker caught me by surprise too; I really thought it was going to be the codebreaker.

The Rise of Failures

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Yoda Is Your Father said:

Does anybody have anything good to say about the finale in which the star destroyer gets totalled by Laura Dern light-speeding through it and Finn/Rose/Phasma being the only survivors then BB8 piloting an AT-ST?

Come at me with positivity about that whole scene, I could do with a laugh.

It looked cool.
I like Laura Dern as an actress and she played her part well enough.
Snoke’s stretched out Star Destroyer getting wrecked made me feel good because holy fuck that thing was hilarious looking.
Holdo dying was good because she was an annoying character who could have easily removed an hour of runtime from that movie if she just told people her plan.
I have nothing good to say about anything involving Finn, Rose, Phasma, or BB-8.