“Hope is like the sun. If you only believe it when you see it, you’ll never make it through the night.”
BARF!🤮
This is one of the lamest, tree hugging, hippy, karen things to say in the most hopeless situation. Imagine your comrades are dying all around you. Your superior officer doesn’t tell you the next course of action, and instead tells you this lame fortune cookie trash. Poe was very restrained because I probably would have executed purple hair lady.
Honestly most of the dialogue in TLJ is pretty bad. Whenever I wanna rewatch that movie, I always watch the score-only version instead.
It’s a shame too cause I actually think the story itself is good/ underrated. Just goes to show how dialogue can really make or break a movie…
I don’t remember a lot of the exact dialogue, but Luke’s line of how “Do you think I came to the most unfindable place in the galaxy…” was kind of clunky. Plus Rey’s line that went like “Master Skywalker, we need you to bring back the Jedi because Kylo Ren is strong in the Dark Side of the Force,” or something like that.
My least favorite line, though, is Rose calling Finn “a selfish traitor,” just because of who she’s talking to. Finn was a child soldier who’d been raised his whole life in a soulless military machine. He had never had a chance to live a normal civilian life. Then he goes and breaks out of his conditioning, runs away, and despite his fear of the First Order helps destroy Starkiller Base and save the Resistance, and then he even stands up to Kylo Ren himself.
After all that, Finn didn’t owe the Resistance anything, and he wasn’t officially a member, anyway. It was entirely within his rights for him to leave so that he could start his life over as a civilian. Rose’s admonishment seems like Rian Johnson wrote it with a different character in mind, one who hadn’t experienced what Finn had.
I don’t remember a lot of the exact dialogue, but Luke’s line of how “Do you think I came to the most unfindable place in the galaxy…” was kind of clunky. Plus Rey’s line that went like “Master Skywalker, we need you to bring back the Jedi because Kylo Ren is strong in the Dark Side of the Force,” or something like that.
My least favorite line, though, is Rose calling Finn “a selfish traitor,” just because of who she’s talking to. Finn was a child soldier who’d been raised his whole life in a soulless military machine. He had never had a chance to live a normal civilian life. Then he goes and breaks out of his conditioning, runs away, and despite his fear of the First Order helps destroy Starkiller Base and save the Resistance, and then he even stands up to Kylo Ren himself.
After all that, Finn didn’t owe the Resistance anything, and he wasn’t officially a member, anyway. It was entirely within his rights for him to leave so that he could start his life over as a civilian. Rose’s admonishment seems like Rian Johnson wrote it with a different character in mind, one who hadn’t experienced what Finn had.
Excellent points. I felt Finn was such a wasted potential.
I also don’t like the line, “Every word in that sentence was wrong.” By Luke. This one sounds like it was written by George Lucas himself. How can every word in a sentence be wrong? Ridiculous nonsense
I think it’s hardly an insult to say Star Wars dialog sounds like it was written by George Lucas, even if his dialog wasn’t great.
If it counts, it bugs me that when BB8 is beeping right before Poe says “Happy beeps”, it’s supposed to be “I have a bad feeling about this”.
Reading R + L ≠ J theories
I kind of like the mocking tone of Luke talking about laser swords, and it’s time for the Jedi to end.
The only real dumb line to me is kill the past. But Kylo is Sith wannabe, so it does make sense.
As for Rose line about winning through love and not hate, it comes from an idealist. A woman who lost her sister. A woman who lost her family fighting the first order. I don’t hate it as much as people reacted to it.
I kind of like the mocking tone of Luke talking about laser swords, and it’s time for the Jedi to end.
The only real dumb line to me is kill the past. But Kylo is Sith wannabe, so it does make sense.
As for Rose line about winning through love and not hate, it comes from an idealist. A woman who lost her sister. A woman who lost her family fighting the first order. I don’t hate it as much as people reacted to it.
Luke’s whole character and attitude including the laser swords line is just directly insulting the audience. Same with tossing the lightsaber. “Oh, you thought you were going to get something cool? Screw you. You’re stupid and immature for wanting that.” I know what someone is going to say. Luke realized he was wrong and so he did go against the First Order with a laser sword in the end. That doesn’t change anything and it’s still deeply unsatisfying. He didn’t help, he faked helping so hard that he died.
For two whole movies, the Resistance wasted countless lives and resources trying to look for this guy, which is why they’re in that situation in the first place. Yes, I know what the message is. Something like “the image of a hero is more important than the hero themselves because they can inspire change.” Who is left to inspire? The people in the Resistance that are still alive can comfortably fit on the Millennium Falcon. It’s so beyond lame. How about the image of a hero is REAL because they’re actually heroic and not pretending, and people are inspired by their real actions?
The Rose line is really dumb especially in context. Finn just tried to heroically sacrifice himself to save everyone (you know, like we just watched Holdo do.) He was trying to save the people he loved. It wasn’t about hatred. She stopped him for selfish reasons and as a result, Luke had to do his own fake sacrifice routine so that a handful of them could barely survive. Luke, Holdo, and Rose together are directly responsible for the Resistance dying and losing.
I kind of like the mocking tone of Luke talking about laser swords, and it’s time for the Jedi to end.
The only real dumb line to me is kill the past. But Kylo is Sith wannabe, so it does make sense.
As for Rose line about winning through love and not hate, it comes from an idealist. A woman who lost her sister. A woman who lost her family fighting the first order. I don’t hate it as much as people reacted to it.
Yes, Rose is an idealist. However, I feel she never learns from the error of her ways. In particular when she generalizes everyone at Canto Bite as being the worse people in the galaxy, saying EVERYONE there got rich selling weapons to the first order. She never discovers that this was an irrational and unrealistic outlook and generalization (only Finn does when DJ shows him the owner of the ship they stole also sold weapons to the Resistance). I would have loved to see Rose react to that fact, not Finn!
The same could be said about Holdo in regards to not learning from her error. Poe gets “taught a lesson” by Leia saying, “She [Holdo] was more concerned about protecting the light then appearing as a hero,” (another awful line of dialogue) but Holdo doesn’t learn anything. The movies tries to make her out to be a hero. But her terrible leadership and lack of communication caused the death of hundreds and I’m suppose to look at her like a “hero.” Nope, sorry. Critics like to tear down Rose Tico. But I’ll take Rose any day over Holdo. Any day. Holdo and Jar Jar are my least favorite SW characters.
That being said, Rose’s line about “This is how we’re going to win this war; Not by fighting those we hate but by saving those we love,” sounds like something from Attack of the Clones. Simply awful. Especially considering that’s what Finn was doing; trying to save the resistance. It just reeks of some foolish hippy idealistic fool nonsense. And her inferring that she “loves” Finn when she just met him is Attack of the Clones levels of cringe. It’s hilarious how Finn dissed her ROS.
There’s nothing that bothers me except the Rose “fighting what we hate, saving what we love” bit. The line itself is clunky, but also the moment itself just doesn’t land. Finn’s attempted sacrifice doesn’t come across as doomed enough, Rose’s move to save him looks certain to kill them both, and a giant cannon shooting the Resistance base is a really weird choice of backdrop to a corny moral and a kiss.
Fine with the dialogue for the most part though.
The “Your Mama” joke from Poe to Hux was also insufferable. I couldn’t tell if I was watching Star Wars or Spaceballs
Nope actually that line is awesome. So is the kill the past one from Kylo Ren.
I’m not a fan of anything Holdo says in this scene
Blazing hot take I know
Reading R + L ≠ J theories
Nope actually that line is awesome. So is the kill the past one from Kylo Ren.
I’m not a fan of anything Holdo says in this scene
Blazing hot take I know
For me, it’s not so much what she says, but the way she says it. The way she’s leaning in close to him, half-whispering the words, smiling with what I would best describe as saccharine condescension. I wondered at the time why this moment bugged me, and it’s because Holdo was giving off Dolores Umbridge vibes. I recall Rian Johnson saying once that he intended for Holdo to be a little flirtatious towards Poe, and I think her behavior in this scene is a holdover from that.
Also, once again, the movie doesn’t acknowledge Starkiller Base, or the fact that Poe just destroyed it the day before. It’s the same problem with how Finn’s role in the climax of TFA isn’t appreciated.
Nope actually that line is awesome. So is the kill the past one from Kylo Ren.
I’m not a fan of anything Holdo says in this scene
Blazing hot take I know
For me, it’s not so much what she says, but the way she says it. The way she’s leaning in close to him, half-whispering the words, smiling with what I would best describe as saccharine condescension. I wondered at the time why this moment bugged me, and it’s because Holdo was giving off Dolores Umbridge vibes. I recall Rian Johnson saying once that he intended for Holdo to be a little flirtatious towards Poe, and I think her behavior in this scene is a holdover from that.
Also, once again, the movie doesn’t acknowledge Starkiller Base, or the fact that Poe just destroyed it the day before. It’s the same problem with how Finn’s role in the climax of TFA isn’t appreciated.
I’d like to know more about OG Holdo’s role, because she must have been quite a botch. It was buried in much louder discussion about TLJ, but Johnson said he reworked her and you can see from the footage that dialogue is altered. The changes could well be why Holdo makes some weird choices in the final film. She was more “hippy dippy” originally.
The entire Holdo subplot was truly bizarre. Almost every aspect of it is difficult to make any sense of. Holdo withholds information mysteriously, and dialogue and directorial cues suggest to the audience that Holdo is hiding something, or that she might be a spy or perhaps be suspicious of a spy onboard. But then it turns out she was just hiding information for no reason. My take on this weirdness is that Rian Johnson thought this would be another “surprise reveal” or something, playing with audience expectations by subverting conventional story-telling tropes. But it just doesn’t land. It comes off less as some interesting reveal and more like an incoherent script. Nobody really knows what Holdo was thinking or why she decided to withhold information from Poe.
Unfortunately, since this whole issue is also wrapped in typical culture war nonsense, it’s often difficult to discuss online without emotions flaring up. I’ve seen some people argue that Holdo’s actions make sense, because she didn’t know if Poe could be trusted. Except Poe just destroyed Starkiller Base yesterday, so he’s probably the LEAST likely person onboard to be a spy. This fact gets lost on the audience, because The Last Jedi doesn’t really feel like it takes place one day after The Force Awakens. We go from triumphantly celebrating the destruction of Starkiller Base at the end of TFA, and presumably a devastating blow to the First Order in general, to suddenly being thrown into a situation at the beginning of TLJ where the First Order is rapidly conquering the entire Galaxy somehow and the Resistance is on the run.
TFA (along with out-of-Universe promotional material) suggested that the First Order was sort of analogous to “Nazis who had escaped to Argentina and started a little movement”. Thus, our impression is that they are nowhere near the same scale as the Galactic Empire, and they were relying entirely on Starkiller Base to gain any military advantage over the Republic. But then in TLJ, it seems the First Order actually is a much larger organization with military resources at least comparable to the Galactic Empire, and that destroying Starkiller Base was only a minor setback for them. TLJ also seems to confirm that the entire Republic was destroyed in that one attack from Starkiller Base in TFA. But none of this is explained to the audience, so TLJ just comes off as weird and disorienting, making it feel as if a lot of time has elapsed between movies.
I suspect that Rian Johnson just assumed the First Order was supposed to be dominant in TLJ, brushing off the destruction of Starkiller Base like it was nothing, because that’s what happened with the Galactic Empire in Empire Strikes Back, despite the destruction of the Death Star in A New Hope. Except, A New Hope established the Galactic Empire was already the dominant government controlling the Galaxy, whereas The Force Awakens at least suggests (although doesn’t really confirm explicitly) that the First Order is more like some rogue state that doesn’t have anywhere near the manpower of the Galactic Empire.
The entire Holdo subplot was truly bizarre. Almost every aspect of it is difficult to make any sense of. Holdo withholds information mysteriously, and dialogue and directorial cues suggest to the audience that Holdo is hiding something, or that she might be a spy or perhaps be suspicious of a spy onboard. But then it turns out she was just hiding information for no reason. My take on this weirdness is that Rian Johnson thought this would be another “surprise reveal” or something, playing with audience expectations by subverting conventional story-telling tropes. But it just doesn’t land. It comes off less as some interesting reveal and more like an incoherent script. Nobody really knows what Holdo was thinking or why she decided to withhold information from Poe.
Unfortunately, since this whole issue is also wrapped in typical culture war nonsense, it’s often difficult to discuss online without emotions flaring up. I’ve seen some people argue that Holdo’s actions make sense, because she didn’t know if Poe could be trusted. Except Poe just destroyed Starkiller Base yesterday, so he’s probably the LEAST likely person onboard to be a spy. This fact gets lost on the audience, because The Last Jedi doesn’t really feel like it takes place one day after The Force Awakens. We go from triumphantly celebrating the destruction of Starkiller Base at the end of TFA, and presumably a devastating blow to the First Order in general, to suddenly being thrown into a situation at the beginning of TLJ where the First Order is rapidly conquering the entire Galaxy somehow and the Resistance is on the run.
TFA (along with out-of-Universe promotional material) suggested that the First Order was sort of analogous to “Nazis who had escaped to Argentina and started a little movement”. Thus, our impression is that they are nowhere near the same scale as the Galactic Empire, and they were relying entirely on Starkiller Base to gain any military advantage over the Republic. But then in TLJ, it seems the First Order actually is a much larger organization with military resources at least comparable to the Galactic Empire, and that destroying Starkiller Base was only a minor setback for them. TLJ also seems to confirm that the entire Republic was destroyed in that one attack from Starkiller Base in TFA. But none of this is explained to the audience, so TLJ just comes off as weird and disorienting, making it feel as if a lot of time has elapsed between movies.
I suspect that Rian Johnson just assumed the First Order was supposed to be dominant in TLJ, brushing off the destruction of Starkiller Base like it was nothing, because that’s what happened with the Galactic Empire in Empire Strikes Back, despite the destruction of the Death Star in A New Hope. Except, A New Hope established the Galactic Empire was already the dominant government controlling the Galaxy, whereas The Force Awakens at least suggests (although doesn’t really confirm explicitly) that the First Order is more like some rogue state that doesn’t have anywhere near the manpower of the Galactic Empire.
Yes, the intention is subversion. Everything in the movie is trying to be subversive and question the premise of Star Wars. So the Jedi aren’t good or necessary, Luke hates the Jedi and wants them to end, the good guys are morally questionable because they buy weapons to fight the bad guys (lol), the traitor Lando equivalent doesn’t redeem himself in the end, Finn’s sacrifice attempt is stopped, Rey’s parents are nobodies, etc.
Poe’s entire character is a rebuttal of Han Solo. He’s a masculine, cocky expert pilot who likes to buck the system and do things his own way. The Very Special Lesson he learns is that sometimes you need to listen to authority figures and follow orders and trust the system. You can’t always do things your own way even if it would be cool. In-universe this could have some logic to it because the rebellion is supposed to be a military organization with a chain of command, and in the original trilogy, it was. Hypothetically it would look a lot like the episodes of Star Trek TNG with Admiral Jellico, a by-the-book rules stickler coming into contact with our heroes who tend to play everything fast and loose, and after some conflict they both come away with more respect for each other.
In TLJ it’s an absolute failure because Holdo doesn’t dress, talk, or behave at all like a competent, professional military officer. She’s conniving, snippy, and annoying for no reason, but the script rewards her for it. She’s Leia’s secret best friend, she gets the cool anime fleet destruction scene, and all her actions were vindicated by the plot warping around the stupid casino sidequest. There is no pushback or “yeah maybe she could have been more transparent,” Leia extols what she did as a selfless avoidance of glory-seeking.
Culture war gets brought into it because it’s directly relevant to that decision.
You make it sound so good!
not a Jedi apologist or a Jedi hater but a secret third thing
You make it sound so good!
Never change, man. Never change.
Poe was more like Wedge. He never was like Han until his backstory was changed in Rise of Skywalker.
I’d say Finn was more like Han, and Rey was the Luke analogue.
Disney Lucasfilm used familiar archetypes and motifs, if you hoped for subversion, you would be pretty disappointed.
I get the sense Finn was meant to be the Han analogue, or at least TLJ treats him like he is, but it doesn’t really work because he’s such a fundamentally different character, at least on paper. He’s not the scoundrel archetype, but Rose interacts with him like he is.
I don’t literally mean that he’s a criminal smuggler and he flies a freighter and not an X Wing, I mean that of the three leads he is the most similar in personality. TLJ deliberately places him in the same cocky “never tell me the odds” scenario, with Leia still being the character pushing back against him. Except this time the situation is reversed because it was written that way as a deliberate insult to the kind of people who like Han Solo. (Also this time physically hitting him, shooting him, and having her subordinate humiliate him, then gaslighting him about it.)
Finn has nothing to do at all and is presented as a bumbling buffoon, which is a separate issue.
You make it sound so good!
Yes, I suspect you were squarely in the target audience
I think if TLJ actually did what you laid out (maybe not the specific bad faith interpretation but) actually being subversive and not falling back into reinforcing the same stuff, it would be great, and not just half interesting.
not a Jedi apologist or a Jedi hater but a secret third thing
Everything in the movie is trying to be subversive and question the premise of Star Wars. So the Jedi aren’t good or necessary, Luke hates the Jedi and wants them to end.
The movie ends with Luke saying the Jedi will continue and the Jedi returning directly inspires the galaxy to rebel against the first order in specific and oppression in general. I think the movie is absolutely fine but I Cannot believe that we’re seven years out from the release of it and people can’t grasp the very Obvious and Inoffensive themes that characters constantly directly state and restate throughout the last 45 minutes. I mean the second to last scene of the movie is Rey asking how they’ll build a rebellion with so few people and Leia touches Anakin’s lightsaber and says that they have everything they need. The Symbol of hope (specifically in the Jedi) is strong enough to save the day.
The movie at most makes you Think about the implications of Star Wars’s most basic themes (war is bad!!) but at the end states that “getting hope and learning from the past is good and fine actually.” The closest it actually gets to criticizing star wars itself is the note about bloodlines not being the most important thing in the universe.
uhh anyways i dont remember any bad lines from the movie because i haven’t seen it in years. I’ll rewatch it soon and get back to everyone on that. Probably not.
And then Rise of Skywalker says the opposite by making Rey a Palpatine who chooses to name herself after the Jedi who defied Palpatine in Return of the Jedi Luke Skywalker. Palpatine by blood Skywalker by intent. Not Rey nobody. Rey somebody.
Poe’s entire character is a rebuttal of Han Solo. He’s a masculine, cocky expert pilot who likes to buck the system and do things his own way. The Very Special Lesson he learns is that sometimes you need to listen to authority figures and follow orders and trust the system. You can’t always do things your own way even if it would be cool. In-universe this could have some logic to it because the rebellion is supposed to be a military organization with a chain of command, and in the original trilogy, it was. Hypothetically it would look a lot like the episodes of Star Trek TNG with Admiral Jellico, a by-the-book rules stickler coming into contact with our heroes who tend to play everything fast and loose, and after some conflict they both come away with more respect for each other.
The Admiral Jellico comparison is interesting. Star Trek is full of these “no-nonsense” by the book authority figures who meet our awesome, more laid-back crew, so that personality-conflict antics ensue. Although sometimes it happens in reverse, where the TNG crew (usually Riker) is the by-the-book stickler, as in the case with Ensign Ro or Command Shelby. Generally, neither side is proven 100% “correct”, and they both learn from each other in some way.
With Admiral Holdo, the script vindicates her actions through circumstance… I guess. Although, her plan barely makes sense, as it involved escaping to a random nearby planet which presumably would be easily detectable by the First Order. Holdo’s plan doesn’t actually work, because the First Order finds them anyway. But the script vindicates Holdo regardless, at least within the scope of her conflict with Poe, suggesting it wasn’t her fault that the First Order managed to follow the (obvious) escape pods to the surface. (Vader’s crew in A New Hope had no trouble detecting that one escape pod had landed on the surface of Tatooine.)