Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Dec 15th, 2017)

[TonTon]

I was thinking after the movie, and I’m sure it’s been mentioned somewhere in this thread already, but it’s almost like the force that awoke in her was due to Luke shutting himself off, since that seems to be what they’ve implied in TLJ. So in a sense her abilities are born from him. Not offspring, but connected by that. But the two of them didn’t overtly explore any of that in the film.

 

[Khev]

I was thinking after the movie, and I’m sure it’s been mentioned somewhere in this thread already, but it’s almost like the force that awoke in her was due to Luke shutting himself off, since that seems to be what they’ve implied in TLJ. So in a sense her abilities are born from him. Not offspring, but connected by that. But the two of them didn’t overtly explore any of that in the film.

Yeah the movie had Snoke saying that he seduced and lured Ben Solo away from Luke in order to draw Luke into a final confrontation but that Snoke instead received the curveball of Luke going off the grid and the Force rising in Rey in his absence.

 

[Darth Madden]

I can see that. With every good there is an equal bad so Luke "shutting down" could mean somebody else has to "power up."

And another thing I just thought of. Is Phasma the biggest waste of a potentially cool character ever? Why was she even created in the first place if that's all she ever does?


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[klwn]

I can see that. With every good there is an equal bad so Luke "shutting down" could mean somebody else has to "power up."

And another thing I just thought of. Is Phasma the biggest waste of a potentially cool character ever? Why was she even created in the first place if that's all she ever does?

I'm sure JJ had a bit more planned for her in his head canon. But Rian Johnson had full control and clearly wasn't very inspired by the concept.
Inexplicably, considering that she was indeed the very definition of a badass female character (which they put even more of an emphasis on in the Phasma novel).

If you were to think of it in Jedi terms, Finn is to her what a teenage padawan is to Yoda or Mace. Making him win in TLJ was a huge insult to her previous canon status.

 

[Prime Clone]

Or in a twist they could say that Kylo is "out" because he forsook his family name. There's nothing stopping Rey from taking the name Skywalker as a symbolic surname since she doesn't have one of her own. Then they'd do away with the "special by blood" theme once and for all.

They could even go so far as to suggest that Rey is the "other" Skywalker that Yoda spoke of in the OT since Leia never used her power to fight evil. Say that he saw the "other" in a vision of the future and that if Luke failed in the OT that they would have had to have waited decades more for the other to show up.

Nice theories! I wouldn't even mind her being another immaculate conception (vergence, if you will).

Though as at least one reviewer has pointed out, anyone who's Force-sensitive is "special by blood" whether they're a nobody or not!

 

[Khev]

Nice theories! I wouldn't even mind her being another immaculate conception (vergence, if you will).

Thanks! Though I can't take credit for Rey being the "other" Yoda spoke of as I read that idea on another forum.

 

[Asta]

Ah, right on. I saw SW and ESB when they came out and Jedi never had the quite same impact on me save for a huge crush I had on Carrie at the time and the awesome battle at the end. I went through a phase when I was pretty disgusted with it after I heard about how much bigger the story was supposed to be but randomly enough the grim finale of RO helped me to just embrace ROTJ once and for all. Now I love the ease of which the characters achieved their goals and find the cheesy celebration to be a much appreciated payoff after RO/SW/ESB.

I first discovered Star Wars going into the newsagent on the way home from infant school, as I always did to pick up the local paper for my parents.

There were a lot of kids inside and there was excitement over a new comic book...

I had no idea what Star Wars was but I got caught up with the excitement and did a rash thing and spent the newspaper money on the comic.

When I got home I was told off for not buying the paper. It was a tough time economically for my parents, so I was filled with so much guilt. I felt ashamed to read the comic, but I was fascinated by it. And completely hooked.

I eventually found a copy of the novel in a jumble sale, so I had colour photos to pore over.

With ESB I bought the novel through the school's book club, but didn't get to see the film in the cinema. Around that time I bought my first Kenner figure, Hammerhead, from the local toy shop that also did video rentals - back when videos cost their weight in gold.

The next day at school I swapped Hammerhead with a kid for a Vader and a Tusken Raider, because two figures seemed a better deal than one.

By 1983 things had turned round economically. The Early 1980s recession forced my parents to make a changes, and they went self-employed.

So the money was coming in and I got to see ROTJ at the cinema. This was my golden age for Star Wars. All the toys and the elaborate displays in the department stores like Debenhams, with TVs playing footage from the film, and a guy dressed as Darth Vader signing autographs. Unfortunately it wasn't Dave Prowse as he signed them 'Darth Vader'.

It had been reported in the Eagle comic in the early '80s that Lucas was going to make a total of nine Star Wars films. So I waited. And I waited. Reading and re-reading the EU novels, studying West End Games' SW RPG. And I waited some more.

Until 1999.

And...what did you do George? All those years for that?


We entered the period that Obi-Wan might've called the "dark times".

Well, until the end of ROTS and the emergence of Vader again.

Compared to the Prequels TFA and TLJ feel like a return to form. Along with RO they have in them elements that bring me back to the films and the early EU.

But storywise the ST has gone off in a tangent with Han/Leia/Kylo that's at odds with where I wanted George's 7, 8 and 9 to go.

 

[DarthBakura]

Ok, here it is. Just got back form my FIRST VIEWING of The Last Jedi.

I am a long time Star Wars fan. I saw Star Wars (Not A New Hope) when I was 7 in 1977 so its been with me most of my life and after reading all the complaints I was going in expecting the biggest piece of garbage ever put to film.... and.... well.... it..... wasn't.

First off some of the bad.... but none of them are deal breakers

Space Leia - kind of hokey
Yoda - kind of hokey
Could have been about 20 minutes shorter.
Yes, they could have cut down on the jokes.

Now some of the complaints I read....

Rey being a nobody - THANK GOD. I was praying she wasn't a Skywalker (or any relation to anyone we knew) that would have been a cop out.
Snoke - I am just fine with him dying, in fact I thought it was pretty cool the way it happened.
Luke milk - it was a 5 second scene... no big deal.
Broom boy - If he shows up in IX and has powers it just shows the force is everywhere and can be in anyone. No problem with it.
Casino scene. I'm not sure what the exact complaints were about it but it was just fine by me.
Luke hologram - At first I thouht he was really there but when his footprints didn't leave red marks in the sand it was obvious he wasn't and I am ok with him "force projecting" himself there. Jedi have to learn something new in 20 years

I'm not going to dissect every little thing or every scene nor do I worry about those things. I liked it overall. I'd put it in 4th place just behind the 3rd place tie of ROTS & ROTJ.

Go ahead and rip me all you want because I don't hate it like I am supposed to.. I'm a big boy I can take it but I'm looking forward to the next one and I'll be happy to watch this one again.

Some good points! Glad you liked it.

Funny how some of that works though, isn’t it?

If it was discovered Rey was somehow Luke’s offspring, the internet would *****. People already made their case after TFA that they didn’t want everyone to be tied down and directly connected to the Skywalkers. The dark side claimed the one character that was. It is more interesting this way. It’s not hokey “epic.” There’s more to the Star Wars Universe than just Anakin Skywalker’s bloodline.

Also, Snoke needed to die. Yeah, a lot of fans had these grand theories and delusions about his character, and for a time I had hoped he might provide something more to the saga, but nope. He was a fraction of the villain that Palpatine was and after treating his pupil the way he did, it was fitting his life was ended so humiliatingly. And because of this, we finally get to see the rise of a Dark Lord who is his own master. The rule of two is a sith institution. Kylo and Snoke are not technically sith.

I don’t get the sea-cow ***** milk uproar either. It was funny and it wasn’t like it was completely out of character, at the present time. He was disgruntled and Rey was irritating him. This is the same Luke that grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere and briefly lived inside a tauntaun.

Concerning broom boy, I think they were simply trying to convey the ideal that the force will always be present in the universe and that its gifts aren’t going to be lost forever, after the characters we know are dead and gone. And honestly, I would not be surprised if people actually thought that.

The casino/hyperspace tracking plot is the one aspect I wasn’t fond of. A traitor would have worked better, in that regard.

Lastly, I thought the Force Projection was a neat addition to the lore. It makes me wonder what kind of new techniques the future great Jedi will discover. And the way his passing moment mirrored his gazing look from A New Hope was a nice touch. Well, except he didn’t collapse into a pile of robes obviously.

And hey... seeing that old Yoda again after all these years nearly brought a tear to my eyes. For a brief moment, it felt like I was a kid back in the 80s.

 

[klwn]

Some good points! Glad you liked it.
If it was discovered Rey was somehow Luke’s offspring, the internet would *****. People already made their case after TFA that they didn’t want everyone to be tied down and directly connected to the Skywalkers. The dark side claimed the one character that was. It is more interesting this way. It’s not hokey “epic.” There’s more to the Star Wars Universe than just Anakin Skywalker’s bloodline.

Also, Snoke needed to die. Yeah, a lot of fans had these grand theories and delusions about his character, and for a time I had hoped he might provide something more to the saga, but nope. He was a fraction of the villain that Palpatine was and after treating his pupil the way he did, it was fitting his life was ended so humiliatingly. And because of this, we finally get to see the rise of a Dark Lord who is his own master. The rule of two is a sith institution. Kylo and Snoke are not technically sith.

That's an oversimplification of the issue.
For most people it's not about her not being a Skywalker. It's about her being where she is without any kind of training, AND special blood.
If she had either of those, it would be fine. But she has none. That's the problem, but people who defend this movie like to focus on just the Skywalker theory part.
And btw, special blood doesn't have to be a Skywalker's. Could be Palpatine, Kenobi, etc... Even an entirely fictional new family created for this new trilogy, but who also was incredibly gifted in the Force.
That being said, my favorite way to do it (and many other people's) would have been: no special blood, but got mind wiped and actually had training as a child, to explain a bit of her abilities. Instead of light rising to meet darkness. That's lazy as ****.

Regarding Snoke, his death was necessary in the context of Rian Johnson's writing maybe. But that's bad writing for those of us who didn't like TLJ. So it could have been avoided with a better script and proper intentions to flesh out the Snoke/Kylo duo.
It's all about tastes and expectations. Those who didn't care about Snoke from the start are fine with his death. Those who love powerful dark siders and wanted to see more, obviously it doesn't sit well with them that he was killed so prematurely.
He was made a fraction of the villain that Palpatine was by Rian Johnson's writing, that's it. The potential was there, he decided not to exploit it. He still showed the audience that Snoke was ridiculously knowledgeable and powerful, so he could have been much more.

 

[Darth Madden]

I never saw Snoke as a powerful dark sider even in TFA... he seemed like just as much a sith wannabe as Kylo just a few lessons ahead. I guess that's why I didn't care that he died. And I laugh my *** off at everyone who wanted him to be Plagueis.

And Bakura as far as Yoda goes it was neat to see him but he just seemed to act too un-yoda like. It just didn't work for me. but oh well.

 

[klwn]

I never saw Snoke as a powerful dark sider even in TFA... he seemed like just as much a sith wannabe as Kylo just a few lessons ahead. I guess that's why I didn't care that he died.

Did you fall asleep during his scenes?

It's been implied in canon that he was felt through the Force by Palpatine, from the unknown regions of the galaxy. Which makes him the opposite of a weak dark sider.
Also the very fact that he was able to connect Kylo and Rey across such distances is an immense show of power.

And you put the finger on the main issue related to his death: now we are actually stuck with Kylo the emo wannabe.
That's the real problem here. Kylo isn't convincing at all as a dangerous villain, especially considering that Rey seems far more gifted and a really quick learner in comparison.

 

[Asta]

And you put the finger on the main issue related to his death: now we are actually stuck with Kylo the emo wannabe.
That's the real problem here. Kylo isn't convincing at all as a dangerous villain, especially considering that Rey seems far more gifted and a really quick learner in comparison.

This is it.

Kylo's supposed to be 29 in the films, but he acts like he's teenager with arrested development. It's the most disconcerting aspect of the ST.

 

[DarthBakura]

That's an oversimplification of the issue.
For most people it's not about her not being a Skywalker. It's about her being where she is without any kind of training, AND special blood.
If she had either of those, it would be fine. But she has none. That's the problem, but people who defend this movie like to focus on just the Skywalker theory part.
And btw, special blood doesn't have to be a Skywalker's. Could be Palpatine, Kenobi, etc... Even an entirely fictional new family created for this new trilogy, but who also was incredibly gifted in the Force.
That being said, my favorite way to do it (and many other people's) would have been: no special blood, but got mind wiped and actually had training as a child, to explain a bit of her abilities. Instead of light rising to meet darkness. That's lazy as ****.

Regarding Snoke, his death was necessary in the context of Rian Johnson's writing maybe. But that's bad writing for those of us who didn't like TLJ. So it could have been avoided with a better script and proper intentions to flesh out the Snoke/Kylo duo.
It's all about tastes and expectations. Those who didn't care about Snoke from the start are fine with his death. Those who love powerful dark siders and wanted to see more, obviously it doesn't sit well with them that he was killed so prematurely.
He was made a fraction of the villain that Palpatine was by Rian Johnson's writing, that's it. The potential was there, he decided not to exploit it. He still showed the audience that Snoke was ridiculously knowledgeable and powerful, so he could have been much more.

Having the blood of a powerful force sensitive being might instill and transfer some measure of that power, but it isn’t necessary. The Force is a living thing. It is not bound by the restrictions of bloodlines. That’s more the point, I guess?

It’s not lazy either. It’s the lore of the universe. The Force reaches out and touches many lives and alters countless outcomes. And it even gives the tools and knowledge required to make great change. How else did a squad of the most elite soldiers in the entire Galactic Empire fail to hit a blind man who was praying for the Force to guide him to his destiny? Sure, he wasn’t a Jedi or a Sith and he got shot to hell afterward, but that’s not the issue.

I’ve noticed a trend lately that some people seem to keep repeating that same notion. That weaving a story like that is a cop out. That it’s lazy writing. It’s not though. That’s the Force. Call it cheesy if you will, but it’s the very breath of the Star Wars universe.

 

[klwn]

This is it.

Kylo's supposed to be 29 in the films, but he acts like he's teenager with arrested development. It's the most disconcerting aspect of the ST.

Yes, and let's not forget that not only does she save his life in the throne room scene, but when they pull on Anakin's lightsaber, she is the one that doesn't get knocked out by the explosion (and therefore escapes).

How can he compete with that without his master to develop his abilities and darkness?
Snoke was clearly the deeply dark influence over Kylo. First by manipulating him from afar, then by pushing him to kill his father in order to truly embrace the dark (didn't really work though). Where is he going to find all that darkness now? His rage and hatred for Luke have no reason to be now, although I'm sure Luke will be back as a Force ghost.

When you get to the bottom of it, the actual issue isn't Snoke dying in this movie, it's the way the story was written around that event.
With more character development for Kylo, aka a longer time span covered in TLJ, with training and the likes, that would have been totally fine.

 

[Darth Madden]

Did you fall asleep during his scenes?

It's been implied in canon that he was felt through the Force by Palpatine, from the unknown regions of the galaxy. Which makes him the opposite of a weak dark sider.
Also the very fact that he was able to connect Kylo and Rey across such distances is an immense show of power.

And you put the finger on the main issue related to his death: now we are actually stuck with Kylo the emo wannabe.
That's the real problem here. Kylo isn't convincing at all as a dangerous villain, especially considering that Rey seems far more gifted and a really quick learner in comparison.

I call it like I see it.... Snoke just didn't seem all that great to me. Connecting them was cool but I don't see him even near the same level as Sidious.

 

[DarthBakura]

I didn’t like him in TFA either. Sure, he was a giant holoprojection that appeared only briefly, but compared to Palpatine in even that regard, he was ***. Very poorly handled character all around, honestly.

 

[klwn]

I call it like I see it.... he just didn't seem all that great to me.

He ragdolled arguably the most powerful light side character we have seen in a while, as well as interrupted her Force pull on the lightsaber and made the hilt hit her in the head.

He extracted information from her mind instantly (Luke's location), something Kylo couldn't achieve at all in TFA and even backfired on him with Rey entering his mind.

He bounced Force lightning off the floor into Kylo's face, resulting in a terrified look on said face instead of Kylo even trying to retaliate.

These things alone are here to tell you a lot about him. But the Force connection is the most important part, as well as manipulating Kylo from afar when he was younger. That's at the very least Darth Sidious level stuff.

I'm sure he'll be more fleshed out in a book and these things won't need to be explained anymore. But for now I'm calling it as I see it as well.

I didn’t like him in TFA either. Sure, he was a giant holoprojection that appeared only briefly, but compared to Palpatine in even that regard, he was ***. Very poorly handled character all around, honestly.

But that's not the character, that's the writing/the way he is used.
TFA is irrelevant in the sense that TLJ showed what he was capable of. He just was discarded due to Rian Johnson's approach to the story.

 

[Darth Madden]

None of that seems that powerful to me but I'm not going to argue with you about it. We both said our peace. Lets agree to disagree about Snoke. I did like him getting sliced with the saber thought... didn't see that one coming did you big guy?

 

[klwn]

None of that seems that powerful to me but I'm not going to argue with you about it. We both said our peace. Lets agree to disagree about Snoke. I did like him getting sliced with the saber thought... didn't see that one coming did you big guy?

Sure, but it's a strange point of view from a 'Darth', when they are among the most obvious displays of massive power not only in the two movies of this trilogy, but in the history of the franchise.

Indeed I didn't think he was going to die in TLJ, however the scene itself was really telegraphed so in a sense, you definitely see it coming

 

[Darth Madden]

Well, we see it but all powerful Snoke didn't. Too worried about Rey I guess.