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

[crows]

[video]https://streamable.com/lvgif[/video]

 

[bmarz1000]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

That's exactly what I thought was gonna happen. It would be raised again, and he would swoop, self eject from the cockpit land on an at-at, decapitate it, ride the decapitated head down to the door buster canon jump off, they both explode, forward somersault flip (remember your training *yoda voice*) landing in front of Kylo, they battle head to head, luke takes his hand, kyle fighting one handed still, but at last luke is too old and knows he's defeated, so he takes the obi wan stance, tells Kylo to strike him down, and he will be more powerful than he can possibly imagine, then disappears into a cloak on the floor.

*drops mic walks away*

Now Disney, was that so hard?

 

[Asta]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

So, now that it's sunk in, how does it feel to know this is now canon?

40 years of lore... pretty much flushed down the toilet

 

[Cap'n Cook]

Amazing gif.

 

[Niltusk]

Derp Derp Derp!!!

Who the hell was that hideous woman with the beak like nose? Was she CGI or is she a real person that fell outta the ugly tree? What did that schnozz look like in 3D Imax??

Derp Derp Derp.

Did anyone else think of Twin Peaks during that Rey reflections scene?

I thought you were talking about Dern's nose, then you reference Twin Peaks...

Enjoy your toy Luke, and yeah, you should stop going to Star Wars flicks.

 

[bmarz1000]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

I'm going to buy a TFA Luke robe from Toy Anxiety and a rock: Instant TLJ Luke Skywalker!

 

[Niltusk]

[video]https://streamable.com/lvgif[/video]

I thought that was an imaginary sequence until everyone on ship started reacting

 

[Otomofan]

I thought you were talking about Dern's nose, then you reference Twin Peaks...

Enjoy your toy Luke, and yeah, you should stop going to Star Wars flicks.

No, not Laura Dern....the old lady with the enormous buzzard like nose. Was she supposed to be an alien? I tried to find her on imdb and can't find her.

 

[Niltusk]

No, not Laura Dern....the old lady with the enormous buzzard like nose. Was she supposed to be an alien? I tried to find her on imdb and can't find her.

Was she a Rebel, I'm not sure who you're referencing? Unless its the junior officer chick of Leia's that no one really addressed much, she was more like just there.

 

[Rainpaulo]

Absolutely hated that Leia floating in space rubbish.
Imagine if DC released something like this....as I always say Disney definitely pays to critics off.
I'm actually sorry they made another trilogy..didineed Han and Luke and Leia all killed off.... especially in the name of rubbish films. Awakens was a masterpiece compared to this.

 

[Otomofan]

Was she a Rebel, I'm not sure who you're referencing? Unless its the junior officer chick of Leia's that no one really addressed much, she was more like just there.

Yeah, she was a Resistance bridge crew member. Not "old" but middle aged. I'm scanning the file of the movie I have that I can assure you I acquired legally but it's hard to find her exact scenes.

Wait...found her:

 

[Craig Walker]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

My brother sent a 2 word review @ 10:30 last night. The first word was "Mother"....

 

[Darkseed]

She is the one that announce Leia was injured and announced Dern as the new leader. How the hell could anyone miss her ...

 

[jimminy]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

Speaking for myself, I'm not concerned with Luke being portrayed as weak nor do I expect the new films to resonate with me the way that the OT did. My reason for hating The Last Jedi is that it was simply not a very good movie. I realize that Game of Thrones is popular, but having several scattershot subplots interwoven throughout a 2.5 hour long movie doesn't make for compelling fiction, even when riding the coat tails of a popular intellectual property. The dialogue was horrendous, and filled with exposition. The plot was unimaginative and anti-climactic. The character design and CGI was underwhelming; Yoda actually looked like a deflated chew toy. The movie was boring, and it failed to achieve pathos.

Worst of all, many of the ideas driving the plot were, frankly, dumb. The worst example: At the end of the movie, why would Luke refrain from telling the rebels to run for their lives, while his Force Ghost PRETENDED to fight against Kylo Ren and the First Order? Luke assumed they'd figure it out for themselves? Seems irrational. You'd think giving them a head start would be constructive.

Edit: I changed my mind. The worst idea was having Yoda's Force Ghost capable of affecting the tangible world. This undermines the logic of the ENTIRE Star Wars franchise. If Jedi can effect the galaxy after death, why was Luke so important in fighting Vader? Why did Obi Wan tell Luke he couldn't intervene? Why didn't Yoda come back from the dead, to help Luke fight the Emperor?! What was Yoda waiting for, all these years?

Yeah, this. It's not attachment to the original three driving every single one of the opinions here. Attachment to the original three is what got us to the cinema People have articulated pretty clearly throughout this thread why they thought it didn't gel as a movie. Subplots and characters didn't add anything or went nowhere. The humour came from a screenwriter making jokes about Star Wars in the real world, and lampshading things ('blue milk! Laser sword! Changed your hair!'), and did not come organically from the characters. 'Boring conversation anyway' was Han covering up his incompetence and fear. It was funny and true to the character in that situation. Certain TLJ events broke mechanics from the rest of the series (force ghosts, hyperspeed, worries about fuel). It contradicted some things set up in TFA, which many of us enjoyed. Sure, there has been some hyperbole here, as there always is (and the English language is geared towards hyperbole when expressing feelings), but people saying 'I thought it was not a very good movie' have, for the most part, explained pretty clearly why. You can still disagree! We might be envious of your enjoyment. It's good to debate. But yeah.

I mean I like the idea of Luke as a fallen hero. I like the tragedy in that. I just don't think they pulled it off and I don't think they stayed true to the character. For him to be so different we need to see the steps that get him there. For him to be so terrified we need to see what is terrifying him. I like the idea of undermining the good guy vs bad guy stuff, and undoing the Jedi ... I just think that's a tough angle to take for your rip-roaring adventure movie, and they didn't pull it off here. Too many cooks. Too much corporate interference. Half of it wanted to be a Star Wars movie about the phenomenon and cultural impact of Star Wars in our world. Interesting idea! Didn't work.

And I don't understand quite a few of the narrative choices. Make two characters get stuck on an island for most of the movie, and tell the most important details of a character in flashback? Both of those are stones in a basket, narratively speaking, dragging the pace down. Why not have Luke leave the island, and have us share in his huge moment of failure? Maybe he failed a bit before, wants to redeem himself, then REALLY fails hard, with Kylo, in an adventure, with narrative steps we can see so we can understand exactly how ROTJ Luke becomes failure Luke ... and then give him some last minute final redemption? Why not tell his story as an adventure in an adventure movie? You can argue meta-commentary and narrative experimentation through undermining, but if that's what they were doing, it didn't really work. You might say, 'Oh now you are just rewriting the movie in your head and you are angry it is not the movie in your head.' No. I am just giving an example of a basic story choice that would have solved an obvious problem. The problem probably could have been solved in all sorts of other ways, and I would rather see one that I couldn't think of myself.

I keep wanting to go to the example of Twin Peaks: The Return, which came back to a world after years, with characters in different places, making us face age and death and failure, and using bold narrative choices to undermine and defy genre, because Twin Peaks did it incredibly well, but it is hard to compare Twin Peaks and Star Wars. And Twin Peaks had the original creators still at their A-game, and no interference, etc etc. Twin Peaks did all sorts of metanarrative things too, but there they worked. But again, hard to compare ...

So anyway, Star Wars: two people are stuck on an island, and major things are told in flashback. Narrative stones. And that is paired with ... a hot air balloon chase in space, that lacks all tension? Another narrative bag of stones, slowing everything down. So many characters don't tell each other things they really should tell each other, and then they know things they wouldn't because the plot needs them to ... and this is all tied with the pointless casino thing. 'We guess that there is this new technology, it probably works like this, this ship probably controls it, and the controls are probably here, so you go get this one codebreaker because we happen to know exactly where he is, and when you go there you can't get him but luckily there is another codebreaker with the exact same rare skills there, and then when you get back it doesn't work anyway, while we're having a chase that defies physics because ships that run out of fuel in space don't ever stop moving, which is an error that shouldn't matter in Star Wars but also when was space logistics ever a huge worry in Star Wars, and this chase is eventually solved by a woman ramming ships in hyperspeed, which would have been really useful against all those death stars but for some reason we didn't use that ability then.'

I mean ... it's just badly put together. And you can say the movie is all about failure. That's interesting! But there are more efficient and compelling ways of telling stories about failure that don't require so many examples of MacGuffins, characters needlessly withholding information, coincidence, guessed knowledge, and mechanics that undermine previous films. I like what the movie was trying to do. It just didn't do it well. I like that it was trying to be smart. But it failed at being smart, and then it failed as a fun action movie space adventure as well. In my opinion. It had cool bits! I loved Kylo. It just didn't gel together. It was a mess as a movie.

I know some might hate me for bringing up the original trilogy, but those movies were lean. A to B. Character and emotion in the forefront. Those are the elements of a quality adventure movie in general, and that's why we keep bringing the original trilogy up: those films are examples of good movie making in all the ways this is an example of bad movie making. TLJ is gorgeous! It's stylish. It's expensive. It has cool stuff. But it's a mess as a movie. I could compare TLJ to any decent action movie and TLJ comes up worse by the contrast. I could compare it to Die Hard. Think of why Die Hard works, and you have your answers as to why this movie doesn't work. What's something with a cool self commentary metanarrative, that undermines its own tropes for fun and teachable moments? Maybe Scream, or Cabin in the Woods? Compare TLJ to those and it comes up lacking. It doesn't work either way.

And yes the original trilogy has coincidence (Luke happens to land right by Yoda on Dagobah) and MacGuffins (turn off the Death Star shields!), and even withheld information ('Vader is your father!'), but the goals are straightforward and the character stuff is clear cut. We know why people don't tell Luke Vader is his father. Narrative elegance and crisp characterisations keep things moving. The coincidences and weaknesses in TFA, for example, didn't bother me half as much because the character stuff was stronger and the pacing was good.

Also, Vader's origins were a surprise, not a mystery. We weren't frustrated because we felt like information had been withheld. Here we have mysteries for the sake of mystery, and the mysteries themselves add nothing. Okay, so Rey's parents being nobodies undermines the chosen one narrative. That's great. But did the buildup add to that undermining? I guess we expected some parental reveal because of Star Wars tropes, and it could be clever to set up and then undermine that ... I would rather Jedi be nobodies ... But then it is a movie about Star Wars, and not a movie about characters. Do we want a Star Wars movie about Star Wars? Maybe? Maybe not? And Snoke was set up as a mystery. Luke's fall was set up as a mystery. There was all this mystery box crap that led to more letdowns than excitement and muddied what could have been a clear and energetic narrative. Elements that could have been fun on their own came across like screenwriters trying to type their way out of a cul-de-sac someone had trapped them in with the last script.

Also, a good character goal? 'Shoot the exhaust port to save the day.'

If Luke's goal in ANH had been the same as Finn's in TLJ, his task would have been: 'Find a pot of gold so you can bet it on a game of cards and win a map to a secret market where you can buy a missile that can be put in a ship so you can shoot the exhaust port to save the day.'

Oh god that was an epic and pointless rant. Look was this movie is doing to me.

 

[Rainpaulo]

Benicio del Toro was absolutely wasted in this movie...the middle part of the movie with Rose and Finn was brutal.

 

[Rainpaulo]

Oh man, this was another jarring thing that bothered the living **** out of me.

There are atleast three establishing shots with this random ugly bird woman with the huge schnoz. Each time, they purposely focus on her nose and frame it for her profile. I don't know if it was meant to be subtle humor or what but it was obnoxious. All the First Order and Resistance side characters were odd.


Weird ****.

Yeah...the ladies nose is the real problem with this movie ffs.

 

[Metalsaber]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

#FireKathleenKennedy is a thing now

I’m ok with that. Especially if a new trilogy is in the works. Get her far away from that as possible.

 

[crows]

 

[Kay-ess-cee]

Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD

Rouge One needed massive reshoots by Tony Gilroy. Edwards towed the line to keep his director credit which Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were unwilling to do with Solo hence they got replaced. In other words Edawrds might not be the right person after all. If it's not a big name like Spielberg or Nolan or Cameron I would go for Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. They are HUGE Star Wars fans and said it was their dream to do one.

That’s fine, too. We can just chock that up to inexperience. Edwards loves SW, though, and it shows in his interviews. Regardless, no one can save these ST characters, imo. R1 made me care about everyone involved.

As far as the misplaced humor, again, K2-SO is how you do it, not “holding for Hux”.

 

[Autumn Thunder]

This is probably close to the worse SW movie ever made. (AOTC bad) TPM was better than this. I hope Disney gets hell/backlash for this.

EMBARRASSING!