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The Last Jedi: Official Review and Opinions Thread ** SPOILERS ** — Page 67

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Matt.F said:
So there you have it… proof that butthurt Star Wars nerds have been around long before this current generation of whiners and nitpickers nursing their rings following The Last Jedi!

O man, you really don’t get it, do you?

This forum is not the place to attack other users with a different opinion than you!

Please read this:

http://originaltrilogy.com/announcement/Updated-OTcom-Forum-Rules-and-Guidelines-Applies-to-all-forums-including-Off-Topic/id/52717

Pay particular attention to rule number 2.

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Matt.F said:
… proof that butthurt Star Wars nerds have been around long before this current generation of whiners and nitpickers nursing their rings following The Last Jedi!

There are less offensive ways to get your point across.

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Ryan said:

Haven’t had time to listen to his review yet. But where is Kevin on the TFA and TLJ?

He loves it! But I think Kevin Smith will always like Star Wars. He has some personal thoghts of things that he would do differently (like pitting Luke actually on Crait) or that did not work for him (Superman Leia), yet he cries at various times and says he has enjoyed the film very much in every sense. I trust him, but I know he will always have the “vision of the heart” when it comes to Star Wars, which is not entirely a bad thing.

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Matt.F said:

So there you have it… proof that butthurt Star Wars nerds have been around long before this current generation of whiners and nitpickers nursing their rings following The Last Jedi!

Post reported.

Congratulations, you found something on the internet which supports your opinion.

Personally, I find that having discussions about topics I have an interest in is always more rewarding when different thoughts and opinions are offered; I don’t always agree, but it helps me see things from someone else’s perspective and that is truly valuable.

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Ocrop27 said:

Ryan said:

Haven’t had time to listen to his review yet. But where is Kevin on the TFA and TLJ?

He loves it! But I think Kevin Smith will always like Star Wars. He has some personal thoghts of things that he would do differently (like pitting Luke actually on Crait) or that did not work for him (Superman Leia), yet he cries at various times and says he has enjoyed the film very much in every sense. I trust him, but I know he will always have the “vision of the heart” when it comes to Star Wars, which is not entirely a bad thing.

I could be wrong. But I seem to recall from years and years of watching Kevin Smith videos that he used to be a prequel defender? And then years later realized they were crap movies?

I think it’ll be interesting to see where Kevin Smith is 5-10 years down the road on these Sequels.

For me these Sequels I don’t like and think they take away from the OT. i.e. won’t be able to get them out of my head when I watch the OT. But I’m hoping at least a few years after Episode 9 is done that I’ll be able to put 7-9 in a “box” and be able to ignore them when watching the OT. As that’s what I have to do with the prequels when watching the OT.

I’ve yet to download the Harmy despecialized OT movies. But I know it’ll take a while for me say to get Vader’s “Nooooo” out of my head when watching ROTJ. It’s kind of burned in there now. Though I actually didn’t mind Lucas removing Vader/Anakin’s bushy eyebrows though in ROTJ. It actually makes sense because he’s a burn victim with scars and things that made him bald.

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A series of (positive!) articles on tor.com

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:

There’s something special about Rey. Since it’s highly unlikely that it’s a case of famous parents, the other obvious explanation is that the Force was awakened in her for some purpose, and I think it’s logical to conclude that it’s for the purpose of finding Luke due to her proximity to the Falcon and so forth.

I don’t think that just anyone can be a Jedi, you have to have a special talent for it. But to some extent, everyone in this universe can be attuned to the Force. The Force controls a person’s actions, but very few manage to get the Force to obey their commands.

Yeah but I’d argue that this isn’t believable, because nothing like this ever happened before and we have a huge pre existing and established lore for Star Wars. So it gets a bit unbelievable.

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Ocrop27 said:

Just wanted to share Kevin Smith thoughts on TLJ:

https://youtu.be/GRwmtpr79qE

Enjoyed that - thought it was going to be a bit long - and it is a commentary of sorts… yet he has some neat insights and opinions of events in the film and it’s place in the series.

Nice one, ta 😃

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.

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For me these Sequels I don’t like and think they take away from the OT. i.e. won’t be able to get them out of my head when I watch the OT. But I’m hoping at least a few years after Episode 9 is done that I’ll be able to put 7-9 in a “box” and be able to ignore them when watching the OT. As that’s what I have to do with the prequels when watching the OT.

The only good thing about Lucas’ complete rejection of the unaltered trilogy is that, as a fan, I see that trilogy as being in a completely separate canon. I think this hit me when Sebastian Shaw got edited out of the Force Ghost scene. I realised that the prequels simply weren’t telling the story of the elderly Anakin that I grew up with (who Lucas himself had described as ‘being in his 60s’ back in ‘83) but a ‘revised’ version of the OT where Anakin was much younger. The more Lucas tweaked the originals to fit his prequels, the more I realised that this was a separate story - a kind of alternate SW universe. Lucas’ (and Kathleen Kennedy’s) complete refusal to acknowledge the original movies as canon only solidifies this.

With TFA my ‘head canon’ was on the fence a) because I wasn’t sure about this new series yet and b) because Abrams famously said that ‘Han shot first’ (which means that, irrespective of the party line at Disney, he was seeing his film as exisiting in that original universe). So at that point I had to acknowledge that we can all take our SW canon a la carte. Even though TFA referenced ‘balance to the Force’ and ‘Clone troopers’, I felt that those references were vague enough to not necessarily be direct PT references as such.

I have to admit Luke’s referring to ‘Sidious’ in TLJ changed this for me. We’re in PT canon now as far as I’m concerned, which is okay because I don’t really like TLJ anyway. So as furious as I am that George Lucas has loudly declared the original movies to invalid, this only serves to preserve those movies in their own little canon bubble. Which is fine by me because when I watch them, I don’t feel remotely inclined to imagine a universe full of midichlorians, Jar Jar Binks, an idiotic Jedi council, or Mary Poppins Leia.

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So, what did RJ do? Did he go back to the 1977 concept of anyone who works hard at it, can be a Jedi? No, he didn’t. Rey just magically has these powers, and apparently so does the kid at the end of the film. No work required. It just awakes inside you. So, what if the Force doesn’t awake in Poe, or Finn, or some other random person?
Tough luck, I guess? Or can we expect the Force to be delivered to them as well? It got lost in the mail, or something. I think not. In short, he’s turned the Force into a lottery. Anyone can be a Jedi, if you’re one of the lucky few. I fail to see how that improves on Lucas’ original ideas, even the version of the PT, where despite the Jedi’s elitist views, anyone could theoretically become a Jedi.

Firstly let me just state that I hate the idea of Force ability being genetic. Even though this was annoyingly introduced in ROTJ as a way of validating the sudden choice of Leia as the ‘other’ (as opposed to the original idea of a sister who was being trained even as Luke was), it was at least a pretty vague notion ie the Force runs strong in my family.

Of course midichlorins changed all this!

I was actually a defender of Rey’s Mary Sue-ness in TFA. I figured she had essentially ‘self-trained’ under the harshness of her conditions without really knowing it - the same way little Anakin had honed his piloting skills without any knowledge of what he was unconsciously tapping into. I didn’t mind that she extrapolated ‘mind tricks’ from her encounter with Kylo, and again figured her environment had caused her to advance along these channels in an innocent way. For the duel with Kylo I again felt that she was just a naturally good fighter, he was significantly injured, and it ended up being more of a street fight than a Jedi showdown. That was my take anyway.

TLJ screwed this all up for me. She didn’t get any training from Luke, but apparently she’s a full-blown Samurai now. I could have lived with that, but the scene with the rocks was stupid. Yoda’s lifting Luke’s X-wing in TESB was a demonstration of mastery. Rey’s tossing CGI boulders around like styrofoam was purely 'cos she can. Hell, she was as surprised as I was!

I was really on the fence with this film. As always my ‘head canon’, which does its own thing in the same way my body rejects viruses, seems to have purged this movie and TFA along with it.

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Kevin Smith lost any credibility with me when he did a segment for Leno running around a Comic Con essentially mocking the very culture he used to be part of before he hit it big.

Also, he trashed The Addams Family on his show just to suck up to Eddie Munster. 😉

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Where were you in '77?

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Matt.F said:

I saw this and couldn’t resist one last post… this is a wonderful example of how little has changed. Way back on June 13th 1983 the proto-internet Usenet allowed for a regular fan, not a professional movie reviewer or journo, to post his thoughts about George Lucas’s new movie Return Of The Jedi.

[trimmed for brevity]

So there you have it… proof that butthurt Star Wars nerds have been around long before this current generation of whiners and nitpickers nursing their rings following The Last Jedi!

Actually, it’s proof that some people had enough insight to realize ROTJ was crap from Day 1 instead of wallowing in nostalgic delusion for four decades.

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Shopping Maul said:

For me these Sequels I don’t like and think they take away from the OT. i.e. won’t be able to get them out of my head when I watch the OT. But I’m hoping at least a few years after Episode 9 is done that I’ll be able to put 7-9 in a “box” and be able to ignore them when watching the OT. As that’s what I have to do with the prequels when watching the OT.

The only good thing about Lucas’ complete rejection of the unaltered trilogy is that, as a fan, I see that trilogy as being in a completely separate canon. I think this hit me when Sebastian Shaw got edited out of the Force Ghost scene. I realised that the prequels simply weren’t telling the story of the elderly Anakin that I grew up with (who Lucas himself had described as ‘being in his 60s’ back in ‘83) but a ‘revised’ version of the OT where Anakin was much younger. The more Lucas tweaked the originals to fit his prequels, the more I realised that this was a separate story - a kind of alternate SW universe. Lucas’ (and Kathleen Kennedy’s) complete refusal to acknowledge the original movies as canon only solidifies this.

With TFA my ‘head canon’ was on the fence a) because I wasn’t sure about this new series yet and b) because Abrams famously said that ‘Han shot first’ (which means that, irrespective of the party line at Disney, he was seeing his film as exisiting in that original universe). So at that point I had to acknowledge that we can all take our SW canon a la carte. Even though TFA referenced ‘balance to the Force’ and ‘Clone troopers’, I felt that those references were vague enough to not necessarily be direct PT references as such.

I have to admit Luke’s referring to ‘Sidious’ in TLJ changed this for me. We’re in PT canon now as far as I’m concerned, which is okay because I don’t really like TLJ anyway. So as furious as I am that George Lucas has loudly declared the original movies to invalid, this only serves to preserve those movies in their own little canon bubble. Which is fine by me because when I watch them, I don’t feel remotely inclined to imagine a universe full of midichlorians, Jar Jar Binks, an idiotic Jedi council, or Mary Poppins Leia.

I agree with this. I consider the OOT separate from everything else. The prequels are not Star Wars. The Disney movies are not Star Wars.

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Well, I loved TLJ. I have no complaints with it. I thought the stories were woven together nicely. I thought they went in the right direction and I can see where the next episode can wrap things up for the entire saga.

A lot of people complain that Rey just seems to magically pick up things. She doesn’t. She copies someone else every time. Every power she uses was first used on her. Mostly by Kylo. Who cares who her parents were. As far as I know, the Skywalkers are the only family where the force runs strong (in 3 generations). Otherwise the Jedi were monks and didn’t have children to pass on their genes. Johnson gave us the answer in what Snoke said. He knew that when he found Kylo and he was so easy to turn that the force would bring his opposite. That is Rey - someone who won’t turn. They are being setup as the yin and yang of the force. I think for the force to be in balance, the dark and light sides need to be in balance. Lucas already went this way in the prequels by laying out the total destruction of the Jedi and Sith.

And yes, TLJ is very much part of the PT canon. I expected that. I’m glad of that. I recognize that Lucas didn’t do his best work in those films, but I love the story he was trying to tell. It changes the nature of the good vs. evil in the OT to one of dark and light, but no necessarily good and evil. And even in ROTJ you get a hint of that when Luke draws on his anger to defeat Vader. But Luke did not turn as Vader and Palpatine hoped. Now you have Rey and Kylo, neither one of them seeming to be turnable to the other side. Each tapping in to half the force. I think the ST is going to be about merging the two to create something that keeps the balance and teaches students of the new way to avoid tipping one way or the other. It is a very Buddhist message of the middle way. I love it. I hope that is where Abrams goes with it. I think it could be a very powerful ending. I just don’t trust what he is going to do.

With the news that Luke’s self-imposed exile was Lucas’s idea (concept art from before the sale to Disney) I have hope that the story they are telling is Lucas’s core story for the ST. He has good ideas. The PT, when you dump all his silliness, is a good story. I’m hoping they kept Lucas’s core idea (the force side of things and the balance) and just changed the characters and their journeys.

And I find the complaints about what Leia did with the force to be very silly. What is the first force ability we saw both Luke and Rey use? Pulling a lightsaber to them. What did Leia do? she reached out and pulled the ship to her (and in terms of physics, it was she who moved instead of the ship). She reached out for the door and went toward it. Yeah, it looks like she is flying, but if you look at the pose and gesture, she is just doing exactly what Luke and Rey did.

I am as pleased with TLJ and I was disappointed in TFA. I need to watch it a lot more to properly rate it, but I consider it the best Star Wars movie since the OT. On par with Rogue One, but better. It gave me the Star Wars I was after. I loved where the characters went, what they did, how the story flowed. If they can follow it will a good Ep IX, I’ll forgive Abrams for his flawed first outing. Oh, and remember what Abrams said about Rey’s parents, they weren’t in TFA. She was never going to be a Skywalker of any sort. We saw all the living Skywalkers in that film.

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DuracellEnergizer said:

Matt.F said:

I saw this and couldn’t resist one last post… this is a wonderful example of how little has changed. Way back on June 13th 1983 the proto-internet Usenet allowed for a regular fan, not a professional movie reviewer or journo, to post his thoughts about George Lucas’s new movie Return Of The Jedi.

[trimmed for brevity]

So there you have it… proof that butthurt Star Wars nerds have been around long before this current generation of whiners and nitpickers nursing their rings following The Last Jedi!

Actually, it’s proof that some people had enough insight to realize ROTJ was crap from Day 1 instead of wallowing in nostalgic delusion for four decades.

I reject this claptrap about people loving or hating a SW movie mostly because of nostalgia. There are many thoughtful detailed posts explaining reasons for different preferences beyond a vague desire for nostalgia.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Shopping Maul said:
TLJ screwed this all up for me. She didn’t get any training from Luke, but apparently she’s a full-blown Samurai now. I could have lived with that, but the scene with the rocks was stupid. Yoda’s lifting Luke’s X-wing in TESB was a demonstration of mastery. Rey’s tossing CGI boulders around like styrofoam was purely 'cos she can. Hell, she was as surprised as I was!

I think there’s a key difference between ESB Luke and Rey here, and I believe you can transfer what you liked about TFA’s Rey to this film. Back in the days I also defended Rey’s progression in TFA, I pointed out that Rey developed a skill more valuable than combat prowess. What was that skill? Patience. All those years spent in isolation on Jakku, that meant many days and nights of being alone. She was also willing to wait hard long years for her supposed parents to return. So with this skill, this served as a trait that allows Rey to really soak in her surroundings, to open herself up to the light, the darkness, the life, and decay, as seen in that mediation sequence. Even in TFA, she paused for that brief moment with Kylo Ren in that duel in order to form a close bond with the Force.

So as it stands, I still don’t exactly have issues with Rey’s fast Jedi progression. Luke was pretty impatient for two movies. You could tell he wanted the Jedi Knight status NOW. Yes, Luke grew up a on a nearly desolate desert planet, but his life was much ‘easier’ in comparison to nearly every day being survival for food and shelter, alone, that Rey faced.

What I DO have an issue with is that Rey has very little conflict character wise. Her fast Jedi leveling-up would be fine if she had stronger inner conflict.

The Rise of Failures

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Mrebo said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Matt.F said:

I saw this and couldn’t resist one last post… this is a wonderful example of how little has changed. Way back on June 13th 1983 the proto-internet Usenet allowed for a regular fan, not a professional movie reviewer or journo, to post his thoughts about George Lucas’s new movie Return Of The Jedi.

[trimmed for brevity]

So there you have it… proof that butthurt Star Wars nerds have been around long before this current generation of whiners and nitpickers nursing their rings following The Last Jedi!

Actually, it’s proof that some people had enough insight to realize ROTJ was crap from Day 1 instead of wallowing in nostalgic delusion for four decades.

I reject this claptrap about people loving or hating a SW movie mostly because of nostalgia. There are many thoughtful detailed posts explaining reasons for different preferences beyond a vague desire for nostalgia.

FWIW, my remark wasn’t 100% serious. Matt chose to blow one person’s none-too-critical review out of proportion and cast everyone with an opinion contrary to his in as bad a light as possible; I was only giving him a taste of his own medicine.

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I think there’s a key difference between ESB Luke and Rey here, and I believe you can transfer what you liked about TFA’s Rey to this film. Back in the days I also defended Rey’s progression in TFA, I pointed out that Rey developed a skill more valuable than combat prowess. What was that skill? Patience. All those years spent in isolation on Jakku, that meant many days and nights of being alone. She was also willing to wait hard long years for her supposed parents to return. So with this skill, this served as a trait that allows Rey to really soak in her surroundings, to open herself up to the light, the darkness, the life, and decay, as seen in that mediation sequence. Even in TFA, she paused for that brief moment with Kylo Ren in that duel in order to form a close bond with the Force.

So as it stands, I still don’t exactly have issues with Rey’s fast Jedi progression. Luke was pretty impatient for two movies. You could tell he wanted the Jedi Knight status NOW. Yes, Luke grew up a on a nearly desolate desert planet, but his life was much ‘easier’ in comparison to nearly every day being survival for food and shelter, alone, that Rey faced.

I agree, Luke’s life was easier, and his journey was very linear - he went from being a basically normal guy (with a gift for piloting) to learning about this Force thing to levitating small objects (with difficulty) and so on. However compressed it all was in TESB, it still followed a kind of logic. Yoda’s X-wing trick was a clear demonstration of where Luke’s abilities could lead down the track.

I had no problems with Rey learning fighting skills on Jakku, as well as developing enhanced cognitive skills via her need to survive and read people’s intentions (hence her leap to ‘mind tricks’). In fact when I first saw TFA I thought Rey was ‘sensing’ BB8 rather than hearing him. And you’re right in saying that she had a sense of patience that whiny Luke and his Dad never had!

I think TLJ may have just pushed it too far for me, but I could use another viewing at this point. Did she struggle with the rocks at all? All I recall is her holding a zillion rocks in the air and looking rather surprised.

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Now that I’ve had a week to reflect on it, I’ll go see it a second time. I’m looking forward to seeing the Luke and Rose stories again. I’m becoming more and more interested in Rose as a character and hope they give her a bigger and more serious role next time. I’m not a fan of the comedic tone of the Finn\Rose story line, but she’s by far the most interesting part of it for me. It’s her first and last scenes that pulled me in. As I mentioned in my review about 40 pages back, particularly the scene where we meet her. She’s capable of so much more with a better script and director.

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Explanation accepted, DuracellEnergizer.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Shopping Maul said:
I think TLJ may have just pushed it too far for me, but I could use another viewing at this point. Did she struggle with the rocks at all? All I recall is her holding a zillion rocks in the air and looking rather surprised.

I think it’s a hard pill to swallow since Rey’s natural talent isn’t contrasted with inner conflict, or really anything obstacle wise, in the second movie of a trilogy!

I saw it twice, and as far as I can remember, I don’t think she really struggled to lift those rocks. But her surprised expression, I don’t think it’s an issue. I mean, you’ve got Luke in A New Hope, who’s a brag about sniping womp rats, shouts, “I GOT EM! I GOT EM!” when sniping those Tie Fighters from the Falcon gun. I believe it’s just a display of emotion where even though the characters are confident in their abilities, it’s a whole ’nother expectation to do it under high stake conditions, hence the surprise expression.

Still, however, the scene doesn’t really serve Rey well given again, you have people that hate Rey’s ease and use of the Force, and you have people similar to us that don’t mind Rey’s fast progression but can admit that Rey thus far doesn’t have much struggle to overcome to back up the heroic acts she’s able to pull.

The Rise of Failures