H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
Oh, and Andy Serkis was really good as Snoke in this.
I kinda want to see a movie with him and Doug Jones (the actor, not the politician) playing special-effects characters together; either as deuteragonists, or as rivals.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Also:
Did anyone else watch the fight scene in Snoke's throne room and think
"well, someone played a lot of Soul Caliber"
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
'They tracked us through hyperspace? How? They can't track us through hyperspace, that's impossible'
...'Oh, it's just some new tech? And we can't just blow it up because another vessel in their fleet will just turn theirs on, which mean they ALL have it, so it's not even exceedingly rare? Well that doesn't sound nearly as impossible as you were making it sound a moment ago!'
Last thought for tonight, something kind of beautiful.
Luke is a person who's been orphaned over and over. He never knew his mother or father and grew up idolizing them. His aunt and uncle were murdered. He lost Obi-Wan, Yoda, and believed he could save even Darth Vader. The one time we really see him lose control is when Vader threatens Leia, he goes absolutely berserk. Then he brings back Anakin Skywalker and he dies.
So how fitting is it, despite his mistakes and burden of destiny. It's R2 reminding him of Leia, that brings him back to the fight and restores his hope. And more than that, even though Carrie Fisher died, Leia is the one who has to carry on for both Han and Luke's sake, after being saved by her brother one last time.
I dunno, I just thought that was really great.
"I can't believe he's gone..."
"No one's ever really gone."
Holy... you just reminded me of something.
"I can't believe he's gone" is one of the first things Luke says to Leia, right after they get off the Death Star.
And here, it's her saying it, and him providing the words of comfort in reply, thanks to his firsthand experience of the Force since then.
Haven't seen it mentioned yet, but I'd really like some more information regarding
The tall shadowy dudes with glowing eyes that were standing around watching Mr. Radar in Snoke's throne room.
I mean, that one just turns and stares at the camera for a considerable amount of time.
What's their deal?
I feel really divided on this movie and its really hard to quantify because everything that I like I like SO MUCH but everything I didn't like felt terrible and like it was actively ruining the movie in a way that small problems normally wouldn't. I don't like to do good stuff/bad stuff list but I can think of no other way to quantify my feelings so I'm gonna do that.
GOOD
-Everything to do with Luke except the very end. His interactions with Kylo. They struck exactly the right balance with him choosing for a moment to end Kylo before he begins and immediately feeling ashamed. I just LOVE that our heroes are messy and kind of bad at living outside of wartime. That he still needs guidance at the end and that his choice to exile himself away from the people he loved isn't treated as wisdom. Its selfishness and bitterness. His hologram self is so well set up and well hidden that you kind of believe with Kylo that he's JUST THAT GOOD. I wish they would expand the Jedi power set but I love to death that he beats Kylo not with a Lightsaber but with wisdom.
-Everything to do with Rey and Kylo. A lot of it save Luke's attempted murder is pretty predictable but sometimes you do the thing everybody knows because its good. Killing Snoke with the First Order Youths taking over felt fresh enough.
-Every emotional and thematic hit. Its not noble to burn it down. Both sides are NOT the same and the people who claim different are usually the bad guys. Mistakes don't define you, how you respond does. Your heroes will let you down but we need them all the same. We aren't going to win by killing what we hate, but by saving what we love. LOVED THEM ALL.
-A lot of the action scenes are just stunning. They've all been mentioned but Kylo and Rey together and the the hyperspace ramming both looked amazing.
-The last hour or so of Finn was just phenomenal and his character arc is very good and "Scum" "Rebel Scum" was really good.
-Rey being nobody like I always thought was grand
BAD
-What is even going on with this setting? It didn't bother me in The Force Awakens but the weird small feeling the setting and the way the Republic is just wiped away and the Resistance is basically nothing and the First Order is this gigantic threat... like, it technically makes sense but the Republic planets all just give up when the seat of the senate was destroyed? I thought the exact reason they moved the senate planet every year was so that the Republic would last if another Deathstar showed up? That was also the Republic's only fleet that got blown up in TFA I guess? I thought they and the First Order had more or less a stalemate? Does the First Order also have only one fleet? It feels like nobody has a good understanding about what the status quo of the setting is and it drives me a little crazy because it all only mostly hands together and feels really off and its all to justify a plot that isn't that great anyhow.
-Despite all the good people losing over and over again the FO still feels like complete putz's. I know nobody really agreed with me about this when I said it before but it really distracted me. Yes they justify Poe being able to ripe the Dreadnaught apart at the beginning with the captain saying they "Should have already released Tie Fighters 10 minutes ago" and yes you should have Captain so why didn't you? Movie, your characters don't get to be stupid just because you point out that they are being stupid. Think about it more if he had not fucked around with the stupid "Holding for Hux" joke for so long I think I may have bought it but its JUST SO DRAWN OUT. Is this what it felt like to hate the end of GotG? In the main set piece characters seem to leave and move around without any trouble. Yes they got a master codebreaker to get them in one time but Finn and Rose leave the ship and then a series of transports leave the ship because of some technobabble cloaking and it just contributes to my next problem but before I talk about that while I liked Snoke dying and the general idea of the scene where it happens the specifics just don't work for me. He was able to read Kylo Ren's mind perfectly accept the proper nouns?
-The big central set piece just doesn't work at all, I feel. The last of the rebel ships being chased by the Imperial fleet. I think it could have worked but there is just this weird lack of tension and weird story turns. Nothing really happens. I've been thinking about why it doesn't work constantly. Someone compared it to mad max fury road. It feels like fury road if it was a straight shot with no obstacles and people leave in the middle and come back like its no big deal and I know I keep saying that but Finn and Rose really deflated the tension for me and I don't totally know why.
-They just don't seem to know what to do with Finn in the middle of the movie. I agree that that planet and its war profiteer bastards was important to the themes but the entirety of it feels extraordinarily unimportant to the plot. From Maz showing up to this perfect dude with all his defining features and is he just in that casino 24/7 or what? I think all this could have worked if the ship chase weren't the big central threat but as it is this pacing gives me the bends.
In the end I just think all three Star Wars movies suffer from the same flaw that most blockbusters do these days. They do to much plot stuff leaving us with less time for story and character. I think some set pieces could have been removed and simplified. Imagine if Poe, Finn and Rose were all on the ship the whole movie butting heads with the captain as she actually had to do stuff to keep the empire off their tail for just a little longer. Dodge through a gas giants core or to close to a black hole and such. You could still get most everything done I think with their arcs but with out ruining the tension and all these other set pieces. I don't know.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Am I the only one who
Thought that they had re-written Leia to be killed off at the start of the movie because of the RL stuff with Carrie Fisher and freaked the fuck out when she got spaced?!
And then basically let out an audible whoop when she used the force to pull her ass back into the spaceship?
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Thought that they had re-written Leia to be killed off at the start of the movie because of the RL stuff with Carrie Fisher and freaked the fuck out when she got spaced?!
And then basically let out an audible whoop when she used the force to pull her ass back into the spaceship?
Last thought for tonight, something kind of beautiful.
Luke is a person who's been orphaned over and over. He never knew his mother or father and grew up idolizing them. His aunt and uncle were murdered. He lost Obi-Wan, Yoda, and believed he could save even Darth Vader. The one time we really see him lose control is when Vader threatens Leia, he goes absolutely berserk. Then he brings back Anakin Skywalker and he dies.
So how fitting is it, despite his mistakes and burden of destiny. It's R2 reminding him of Leia, that brings him back to the fight and restores his hope. And more than that, even though Carrie Fisher died, Leia is the one who has to carry on for both Han and Luke's sake, after being saved by her brother one last time.
I dunno, I just thought that was really great.
"I can't believe he's gone..."
"No one's ever really gone."
Holy... you just reminded me of something.
"I can't believe he's gone" is one of the first things Luke says to Leia, right after they get off the Death Star.
And here, it's her saying it, and him providing the words of comfort in reply, thanks to his firsthand experience of the Force since then.
Yep!
I was quoting Luke from ANH, and then TLJ.
manwiththemachinegun on
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Kevin CristI make the devil hit his kneesand say the 'our father'Registered Userregular
Last thought for tonight, something kind of beautiful.
Luke is a person who's been orphaned over and over. He never knew his mother or father and grew up idolizing them. His aunt and uncle were murdered. He lost Obi-Wan, Yoda, and believed he could save even Darth Vader. The one time we really see him lose control is when Vader threatens Leia, he goes absolutely berserk. Then he brings back Anakin Skywalker and he dies.
So how fitting is it, despite his mistakes and burden of destiny. It's R2 reminding him of Leia, that brings him back to the fight and restores his hope. And more than that, even though Carrie Fisher died, Leia is the one who has to carry on for both Han and Luke's sake, after being saved by her brother one last time.
I dunno, I just thought that was really great.
"I can't believe he's gone..."
"No one's ever really gone."
Holy... you just reminded me of something.
"I can't believe he's gone" is one of the first things Luke says to Leia, right after they get off the Death Star.
And here, it's her saying it, and him providing the words of comfort in reply, thanks to his firsthand experience of the Force since then.
Yep!
I was quoting Luke from ANH, and then TLJ.
Another thought I had, on the way home from the theater:
"So end the Adventures of Luke Skywalker."
And yet, not really. Because one, see his words above, and the near-certainty that he'll be back in some form in Episode IX.
Two, as we see at the very end, his story - his legend - continues to be told.
and three... as another boy once said, "To die would be an awfully big adventure."
The only thing that I didn't buy in the movie was that Rose was so in love with Finn over the course of their whopping 18 hours knowing each other that she was willing to die/almost die wrecking her speeder into him to save him from the laser with no guarantee that the wreck wouldn't ALSO kill him, while also jeopardizing everybody in the base. I liked the thematic message of saving those you love instead of killing your enemies. I liked how it sets them up for the next movie. I really liked her character and thought she did a fantastic job. I just think they should've had her helping Finn with his recovery or something to imply that there was more to build that relationship.
The more I think about it the more I think I liked everything else. Luke accepting his failure via conversation with actual physical puppet yoda, and then his amazing final stretch from his confrontation on the salt planet to his death. That failure being Kylo's motivation to turn to the dark that was already inside him. Rey figuring out who she really is and why it doesn't matter where she came from. The fact that Rey, Kylo, and Snoke's future visions all came true but for the reasons they least expected. Poe learning how to lead without taking reckless heroic action. The hyperspeed spaceship samurai slice. The whole "fuck the rich fueling this war" moment. Porgs.
I know I'm forgetting a bunch of things but man I loved it.
Edit oh you know the one thing I forgot! Puppet yoda. It seriously looked like busted out the original puppet for like half of yoda's stuff and it ruled. Bring back puppets.
I am seeing this in...five hours. Can't wait to read all these spoilers!
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Theodore Flooseveltproud parent of eight beautiful girls and shalmelodorne (which is currently being ruled by a woman (awesome role model for my daughters)) #dornedadRegistered Userregular
This movie was very good
seeing Carrie Fisher essentially come back to life through the force and then fly through fuckin space made me instantly start crying
I had a few big-ish peeves right when I got out of this flick but its highs are so high, they're all I'm thinking about
This movie was incredible. It had one scene that kind of lost me,
basically the horse alien chase was a whole bunch of business that I felt didn't really work. I liked the casino though.
but other than that I thought it was perfect.
That scene is necessary because it sets up Rose saving Finn at the end of the film. She demonstrates once for him her values and he fails to get it, so she has to save him, just like setting the horse free. That kiss doesn’t work at ALL without the horse sequence
There are arguments to be made about a lot of things in this movie, but thematically, this movie is completely self aware and well constructed.
His plot for the most part didn't really work for me except for the very final scenes
I liked the Poe parts of it a lot but Finn feels like kind of an afterthought in this movie, a "Han in Return of the Jedi" level of "wow I guess there's just nothing left to do with this guy, huh"
even his whole Phasma fight just felt perfunctory
and the whole casino planet felt like the closest these two movies have come to being the prequels
I could not disagree more
Finn and Rose was the heart if this film for me.
Much like Looper is unconcerned will the mechanics of time travel and psychics
And is actually about how being short-sighted,
selfish, and violent will just in turn breed more of the same
The Last Jedi is about how
Life, and the force, is not about CHOOSEN Ones, or legends, or bloodlines, or machismo, or desperate sacrifices, or old men with older books setting the course for the universe, or the machinations of powerful players or any of that shit.
It's about taking care of each other. And maybe you free some enslaved cat-rabbit-horses
+25
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
Kinda not sure how I feel about Snoke being offed so suddenly and the complete lack of origin or development for him? He feels like a reverse OT Palpatine. You see him maybe 3 times in 4/5 and then finally see him in person for the climax of 6, but until then he's this intimidating and shadowy figure guiding the total badass that is Vader. Here Snoke just kinda seems like... Well, he didn't seem anywhere near as intimidating (because he had way less build up) and the focus of his death scene was on Kylo Ren, not him. I guess in the end he was more of a plot device than a character but it just leaves me with unanswered questions in a way that Palpatine did not and that feels a bit weird.
Honest question:
What origin or development did we get with the Emperor in the OT? Or answered questions?
I think we're all suffering hindsight bias here...
I have said this exact same thing at least twice since that post :P
either way my point is that I don't think they handled Snoke very well in TFA, which means his death in this film was always going to be a bit weird to me. The way the Emperor in the OT was introduced and present over the trilogy was way better than how Snoke was handled in TFA and now TLJ imho
the absolute best thing they did with him was kill him off in such an unexpected manner. that was brilliant. but his entire introduction and subsequent development (as we see plenty of him compared to the OT Emp) wasn't great
@Anzekay I really don't get what you are talking about regarding the Emperor in the original trilogy. He never appears in ANH, and his only scene in ESB is the hologram call with Vader where Darth suggests turning Luke (and that was originally portrayed by different actors* than the one they got for ROTJ onwards). Like, practically everything we know about the Emperor is from the prequel trilogy, or the expanded universe.
*just peeked at wikipedia to see who it was, apparently original/97 special edition ESB emperor was voiced by Clive Revill but portrayed by an actress named Marjorie Eaton.
Space cockroaches? Like now that shitty hunk of junk han flew also has an infestation of of weird bird things from some backwards ass planet from bumfuck nowhere
11 minutes! @Moriveth and I are in the movie theater in our reclining seats, waiting for previews to begin.
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Theodore Flooseveltproud parent of eight beautiful girls and shalmelodorne (which is currently being ruled by a woman (awesome role model for my daughters)) #dornedadRegistered Userregular
This movie was incredible. It had one scene that kind of lost me,
basically the horse alien chase was a whole bunch of business that I felt didn't really work. I liked the casino though.
but other than that I thought it was perfect.
That scene is necessary because it sets up Rose saving Finn at the end of the film. She demonstrates once for him her values and he fails to get it, so she has to save him, just like setting the horse free. That kiss doesn’t work at ALL without the horse sequence
There are arguments to be made about a lot of things in this movie, but thematically, this movie is completely self aware and well constructed.
His plot for the most part didn't really work for me except for the very final scenes
I liked the Poe parts of it a lot but Finn feels like kind of an afterthought in this movie, a "Han in Return of the Jedi" level of "wow I guess there's just nothing left to do with this guy, huh"
even his whole Phasma fight just felt perfunctory
and the whole casino planet felt like the closest these two movies have come to being the prequels
I could not disagree more
Finn and Rose was the heart if this film for me.
Much like Looper is unconcerned will the mechanics of time travel and psychics
And is actually about how being short-sighted,
selfish, and violent will just in turn breed more of the same
The Last Jedi is about how
Life, and the force, is not about CHOOSEN Ones, or legends, or bloodlines, or machismo, or desperate sacrifices, or old men with older books setting the course for the universe, or the machinations of powerful players or any of that shit.
It's about taking care of each other. And maybe you free some enslaved cat-rabbit-horses
I really liked the themes of it, but
a lot of those scenes were the least engaged I'd been in a Star Wars movie in a while--he and rose just... fell flat for me. started strong and finished pretty strong, though. I had high hopes for the casino planet (and not just because I foolishly thought for a brief second there were going to be podracers on that track) but it felt like a distraction
I liked how it contrasted itself against even other Star Wars movies though, with rose's (blunt) last lines in the movie. Destroying the superweapon is just a means to an end, caring for those around you is the actual end, the whole point
fhe actions of the best soldiers of the rebellion are ultimately ones not of duty but of empathy
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DimosarI am the Brain GeniusRegistered Userregular
I want a movie set between ROTJ and TFA about a black ops republic team hunting down retired imperials who are in hiding for their war crimes
and maybe someone can be like "oh is this wrong?" and then we see these fuckers jumpstarting the First Order
I knew like, nothing going in, other than who some of the new characters were on a very basic level. I'd even forgotten one actor was going to show up at all! Not sure how I managed it
I liked this, mostly, a lot, but I feel like some things are holding me back
I thought it was too long and the middle dragged and I didn't care about Canto Bight at all
But my main problem continues to be Kylo Ren
I don't know, I just don't know what his deal
is
That night at the temple with Luke I get. I buy that as the thing that pushed him over the edge
But Luke is saying there was already a darkness in him, Snoke had already gotten to him and he was too far gone, and I'm like, fucking why
Why is Ben Solo apparently already an evil little shit even before Luke almost tries to kill him? Why was he someone Snoke could seize onto and influence so thoroughly?
For as much as this movie was about his arc, and answered a lot of other questions, when Rey asks him what his fucking problem is with his family, he dodges it, and that's really frustrating to me
I like that Finn and Rose's space adventure ended up going nowhere. Way too often, and especially in this movie, do we have "impossible odds" type scenarios where the heroes somehow manage to pull it off (and even then shit usually goes wrong at some point, making it MORE impossible). Yeah, you SHOULDN'T expect to just magically meet the dude critical to your mission in a jail cell and have great success. If this movie has any themes, one of them would be to keep going even in the face of failure.
Although I found it out DJ just puttered out with no conclusion. No goodbye, no Phasma shooting him because First Order are assholes, no second betrayal to save Finn and Rose. He just kinda...goes away. I assume we'll bump into him again come Episode 9, but it just felt weird to give him no send-off for this movie at all.
the throne room fight was amazing, no doubt about it. Really cool and inventive. However, for the fact that Kylo and Rey have basically been built up as these amazingly powerful force-weilders, i'm a bit sad that their solution to fighting a bunch of incredibly well trained fighters wasn't to use the force a bit creatively.
Not much of a problem, but would have been cool. Kylo was real inventive in TFA with the force that it would have been neat to followthrough.
I liked this, mostly, a lot, but I feel like some things are holding me back
I thought it was too long and the middle dragged and I didn't care about Canto Bight at all
But my main problem continues to be Kylo Ren
I don't know, I just don't know what his deal
is
That night at the temple with Luke I get. I buy that as the thing that pushed him over the edge
But Luke is saying there was already a darkness in him, Snoke had already gotten to him and he was too far gone, and I'm like, fucking why
Why is Ben Solo apparently already an evil little shit even before Luke almost tries to kill him? Why was he someone Snoke could seize onto and influence so thoroughly?
For as much as this movie was about his arc, and answered a lot of other questions, when Rey asks him what his fucking problem is with his family, he dodges it, and that's really frustrating to me
I actually think part of that was Luke. I'm unsure whether Kylo was actually as awful as Luke was accusing him of being, and if anything, finding out your uncle and ultimate legendary hero Luke Skywalker wanted to kill you likely didn't help matters.
Based on his conversation with Yoda, Luke was hypersensitive of his students showing any 'dark side' tendencies, that were likely outlined in those ancient jedi texts. He relied on them, instead of teaching through his own experiences. Luke tried to teach what he imagined the Jedi to be, not realizing that's what created Darth Vader in the first place.
Luke almost fell himself, and instead of using that experience to teach Ben, he considered murdering his nephew in cold blood
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
edited December 2017
On big explosions in TLJ, with Battlefront 2 campaign DLC spoilers:
There were a couple of posts about a single bomber taking out that dreadnought at the beginning. The 3 new campaign missions for Battlefront 2 take place just before TLJ begins and involve characters from the game finding schematics for the First Order dreadnought, which had only been rumored until that point, and resolving to get the info to Leia and Poe. The last new mission ends with the schematics being transmitted as the Resistance base is evacuating, anywhere from moments to hours at the most before TLJ begins. So Poe knows exactly what to target on the dreadnought.
On Laura Dern
In addition to what's been stated about chain of command, there's another reasonable explanation for not telling everyone her plan. Hyperspace tracking was thought to have been impossible, but given the rapid appearance of the First Order everyone assumes they have developed it somehow. She would also have to consider the possibility that a traitor had contacted the First Order though, and simply told them where they were going. It would be a much easier explanation than the development of seemingly impossible technology. And as long as that possibility remained likely, or at least plausible, then she would have to keep her plan a secret from anyone she couldn't absolutely trust. And being from a different ship and disconnected from the rest enough that Poe has never even seen her before, it would make sense for her to play everything as close to the vest as possible for as long as possible.
Here are my thoughts on the movie, now that I've actually gotten some sleep (it's not a great idea to see a two and a half hour movie at 10pm when you have to be at work at 5am the next day, folks)
I liked it a whole lot, and I'm excited to see it again with my mom, who saw the original movie like, nine times in theaters. Those are the extent of my non-spoilery thoughts
Here are some spoilery thoughts on the Last Jedi
There's some cool shit that happens in this movie. Laura Dern's lightspeed rampage is the coolest thing in any Star Wars movie, full stop. Just...I've never really experienced a packed movie theater being stunned into silence before. You could almost feel everyone thinking, "holy fucking shit." It's different from the catharsis that comes from Leia yanking herself out of space with the Force, or Luke taunting the shit out of Kylo Ren before revealing he's been on his shitty little planet this whole time. It's different than the brief hope that Kylo is turning, when he saves Rey and they team up to destroy Snoke's guards.
I wasn't sure about Finn and Rose's side quest, until they revealed that when she said, "the worst kind of people," she was referring to rich, classy war profiteers, and then unleashed a herd of never-ending story horses through their shit. And that side plot is also important because...that's where we get to see the seeds of the new rebellion planted. And Rose was very good.
Kylo Ren is a perfect villain for this new trilogy, and for this moment in history. He's an entitled, shitty white boy who whines and mopes and rages when he doesn't get exactly what he wants, or when he doesn't get the recognition he thinks he deserves. They don't outright say why he was going dark before Luke fucked up and sent him over the edge, but we see enough of who he is now to piece together that he probably thinks his parents didn't pay enough attention to him, that Luke didn't believe he was special enough.
Contrast that with Rey, who grew up in fucking garbage, hoping for a thing she knew would never happen. Rey doesn't want to be special, she wants a place to belong. For all of that dramatic pausing she did after Kylo asks her to lead the First Order with him, there was no way she was ever going to abandon her friends. Ultimately that throne room fight revealed the core difference between Rey and Ben Solo: she fights for others; he fights only for himself.
And then Rose hammers that home when she knocks Finn out of the way of the cannon: the difference between the light side and the dark side is why they fight in the first place.
There's a lot more to say about this, I think, but this already feels pretty long?
I don't have any major complaints about it at all. I honestly don't have many nitpicks. It was good
I liked this, mostly, a lot, but I feel like some things are holding me back
I thought it was too long and the middle dragged and I didn't care about Canto Bight at all
But my main problem continues to be Kylo Ren
I don't know, I just don't know what his deal
is
That night at the temple with Luke I get. I buy that as the thing that pushed him over the edge
But Luke is saying there was already a darkness in him, Snoke had already gotten to him and he was too far gone, and I'm like, fucking why
Why is Ben Solo apparently already an evil little shit even before Luke almost tries to kill him? Why was he someone Snoke could seize onto and influence so thoroughly?
For as much as this movie was about his arc, and answered a lot of other questions, when Rey asks him what his fucking problem is with his family, he dodges it, and that's really frustrating to me
I actually think part of that was Luke. I'm unsure whether Kylo was actually as awful as Luke was accusing him of being, and if anything, finding out your uncle and ultimate legendary hero Luke Skywalker wanted to kill you likely didn't help matters.
Based on his conversation with Yoda, Luke was hypersensitive of his students showing any 'dark side' tendencies, that were likely outlined in those ancient jedi texts. He relied on them, instead of teaching through his own experiences. Luke tried to teach what he imagined the Jedi to be, not realizing that's what created Darth Vader in the first place.
Luke almost fell himself, and instead of using that experience to teach Ben, he considered murdering his nephew in cold blood
When all you have is a Lazer Hammer,
Everything looks like a youngling
I liked this, mostly, a lot, but I feel like some things are holding me back
I thought it was too long and the middle dragged and I didn't care about Canto Bight at all
But my main problem continues to be Kylo Ren
I don't know, I just don't know what his deal
is
That night at the temple with Luke I get. I buy that as the thing that pushed him over the edge
But Luke is saying there was already a darkness in him, Snoke had already gotten to him and he was too far gone, and I'm like, fucking why
Why is Ben Solo apparently already an evil little shit even before Luke almost tries to kill him? Why was he someone Snoke could seize onto and influence so thoroughly?
For as much as this movie was about his arc, and answered a lot of other questions, when Rey asks him what his fucking problem is with his family, he dodges it, and that's really frustrating to me
I actually think part of that was Luke. I'm unsure whether Kylo was actually as awful as Luke was accusing him of being, and if anything, finding out your uncle and ultimate legendary hero Luke Skywalker wanted to kill you likely didn't help matters.
Based on his conversation with Yoda, Luke was hypersensitive of his students showing any 'dark side' tendencies, that were likely outlined in those ancient jedi texts. He relied on them, instead of teaching through his own experiences. Luke tried to teach what he imagined the Jedi to be, not realizing that's what created Darth Vader in the first place.
Luke almost fell himself, and instead of using that experience to teach Ben, he considered murdering his nephew in cold blood
Its never explained but
I feel like the movie implies what must have happened after Kylo Ren buried Luke. The other students must have seen the aftermath, Kylo explained and they all had to choose sides and most of the students picked "avenger our master".
On big explosions in TLJ, with Battlefront 2 campaign spoilers:
There were a couple of posts about a single bomber taking out that dreadnought at the beginning. The 3 new campaign missions for Battlefront 2 take place just before TLJ begins and involve characters from the game finding schematics for the First Order dreadnought, which had only been rumored until that point, and resolving to get the info to Leia and Poe. The last new mission ends with the schematics being transmitted as the Resistance base is evacuating, anywhere from moments to hours at the most before TLJ begins. So Poe knows exactly what to target on the dreadnought.
On Laura Dern
In addition to what's been stated about chain of command, there's another reasonable explanation for not telling everyone her plan. Hyperspace tracking was thought to have been impossible, but given the rapid appearance of the First Order everyone assumes they have developed it somehow. She would also have to consider the possibility that a traitor had contacted the First Order though, and simply told them where they were going. It would be a much easier explanation than the development of seemingly impossible technology. And as long as that possibility remained likely, or at least plausible, then she would have to keep her plan a secret from anyone she couldn't absolutely trust. And being from a different ship and disconnected from the rest enough that Poe has never even seen her before, it would make sense for her to play everything as close to the vest as possible for as long as possible.
I've been thinking about it and I'm still coming to the conclusion that the weakest part of Episode 8 was Episode 7 and the First Order plotline they set up and that Battlefront 2 thing is largely why.
TFA had so much going on trying to set up the FO and the Resistance. Starkiller base felt super rushed and their undoubtedly expensive weapon getting blow'd up doesn't seem to bother Snoke all that much. That confused the hell out of me. Finding out in the end of Battlefront 2 that the FO had amassed a ridiculously large fleet of dreadnaught capital ship things, enough to completely retake the now Republicless galaxy and one of which was headed towards the Resistance base to snuff them out, made a lot more sense out of the set up in TFA. Starkiller base had served it's purpose and was never meant to be the end all weapon that the Death Star was. (There must've been an easier way to destroy the Republic than building a hyperspace planet weapon but... whatever) I'm ultimately disappointed, though, that I had to get that information from a video game and not the film istelf. Kinda drives home how TFA can't stand on it's own merits and is relying on expanded material to fill in pretty important details and iron out story kinks.
Man, I think they did Gwendoline Christie dirty. I'm trying to decide whether they bring her back again. If they don't I'd be a little frustrated because of the potential of the character and how they didn't use any of it because they wanted a cool Boba Fett type. That seems most likely considering the circumstances. Her fight with Finn was cool and her brief moment of bad assery was bad ass indeed, but I don't know if it was enough to redeem her, and having Finn deliver a cool one liner as she falls into crazy space fire stuff felt pretty conclusive.
Then again
They made it a point to show her shiny armor straight up deflecting blaster bolts at nearly point blank range so she's got some heavy duty protection which I could see shielding her through that drop. If they bring her back to life again I may also be frustrated because how many times can you get away with it?
Man, I think they did Gwendoline Christie dirty. I'm trying to decide whether they bring her back again. If they don't I'd be a little frustrated because of the potential of the character and how they didn't use any of it because they wanted a cool Boba Fett type. That seems most likely considering the circumstances. Her fight with Finn was cool and her brief moment of bad assery was bad ass indeed, but I don't know if it was enough to redeem her, and having Finn deliver a cool one liner as she falls into crazy space fire stuff felt pretty conclusive.
Then again
They made it a point to show her shiny armor straight up deflecting blaster bolts at nearly point blank range so she's got some heavy duty protection which I could see shielding her through that drop. If they bring her back to life again I may also be frustrated because how many times can you get away with it?
Twice? That's all they need.
Third time ought to finally stick.
+2
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Also not really a spoiler but whatever
Fuck yeah for Asian representation in Star Wars! And fuck yeah for Finn and Rose!
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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I kinda want to see a movie with him and Doug Jones (the actor, not the politician) playing special-effects characters together; either as deuteragonists, or as rivals.
2. Things like major character deaths and Rey's parentage are definitely studio-controlled.
Satans..... hints.....
Did anyone else watch the fight scene in Snoke's throne room and think
"well, someone played a lot of Soul Caliber"
...'Oh, it's just some new tech? And we can't just blow it up because another vessel in their fleet will just turn theirs on, which mean they ALL have it, so it's not even exceedingly rare? Well that doesn't sound nearly as impossible as you were making it sound a moment ago!'
Holy... you just reminded me of something.
And here, it's her saying it, and him providing the words of comfort in reply, thanks to his firsthand experience of the Force since then.
I mean, that one just turns and stares at the camera for a considerable amount of time.
What's their deal?
-Everything to do with Luke except the very end. His interactions with Kylo. They struck exactly the right balance with him choosing for a moment to end Kylo before he begins and immediately feeling ashamed. I just LOVE that our heroes are messy and kind of bad at living outside of wartime. That he still needs guidance at the end and that his choice to exile himself away from the people he loved isn't treated as wisdom. Its selfishness and bitterness. His hologram self is so well set up and well hidden that you kind of believe with Kylo that he's JUST THAT GOOD. I wish they would expand the Jedi power set but I love to death that he beats Kylo not with a Lightsaber but with wisdom.
-Everything to do with Rey and Kylo. A lot of it save Luke's attempted murder is pretty predictable but sometimes you do the thing everybody knows because its good. Killing Snoke with the First Order Youths taking over felt fresh enough.
-Every emotional and thematic hit. Its not noble to burn it down. Both sides are NOT the same and the people who claim different are usually the bad guys. Mistakes don't define you, how you respond does. Your heroes will let you down but we need them all the same. We aren't going to win by killing what we hate, but by saving what we love. LOVED THEM ALL.
-A lot of the action scenes are just stunning. They've all been mentioned but Kylo and Rey together and the the hyperspace ramming both looked amazing.
-The last hour or so of Finn was just phenomenal and his character arc is very good and "Scum" "Rebel Scum" was really good.
-Rey being nobody like I always thought was grand
BAD
-What is even going on with this setting? It didn't bother me in The Force Awakens but the weird small feeling the setting and the way the Republic is just wiped away and the Resistance is basically nothing and the First Order is this gigantic threat... like, it technically makes sense but the Republic planets all just give up when the seat of the senate was destroyed? I thought the exact reason they moved the senate planet every year was so that the Republic would last if another Deathstar showed up? That was also the Republic's only fleet that got blown up in TFA I guess? I thought they and the First Order had more or less a stalemate? Does the First Order also have only one fleet? It feels like nobody has a good understanding about what the status quo of the setting is and it drives me a little crazy because it all only mostly hands together and feels really off and its all to justify a plot that isn't that great anyhow.
-Despite all the good people losing over and over again the FO still feels like complete putz's. I know nobody really agreed with me about this when I said it before but it really distracted me. Yes they justify Poe being able to ripe the Dreadnaught apart at the beginning with the captain saying they "Should have already released Tie Fighters 10 minutes ago" and yes you should have Captain so why didn't you? Movie, your characters don't get to be stupid just because you point out that they are being stupid. Think about it more if he had not fucked around with the stupid "Holding for Hux" joke for so long I think I may have bought it but its JUST SO DRAWN OUT. Is this what it felt like to hate the end of GotG? In the main set piece characters seem to leave and move around without any trouble. Yes they got a master codebreaker to get them in one time but Finn and Rose leave the ship and then a series of transports leave the ship because of some technobabble cloaking and it just contributes to my next problem but before I talk about that while I liked Snoke dying and the general idea of the scene where it happens the specifics just don't work for me. He was able to read Kylo Ren's mind perfectly accept the proper nouns?
-The big central set piece just doesn't work at all, I feel. The last of the rebel ships being chased by the Imperial fleet. I think it could have worked but there is just this weird lack of tension and weird story turns. Nothing really happens. I've been thinking about why it doesn't work constantly. Someone compared it to mad max fury road. It feels like fury road if it was a straight shot with no obstacles and people leave in the middle and come back like its no big deal and I know I keep saying that but Finn and Rose really deflated the tension for me and I don't totally know why.
-They just don't seem to know what to do with Finn in the middle of the movie. I agree that that planet and its war profiteer bastards was important to the themes but the entirety of it feels extraordinarily unimportant to the plot. From Maz showing up to this perfect dude with all his defining features and is he just in that casino 24/7 or what? I think all this could have worked if the ship chase weren't the big central threat but as it is this pacing gives me the bends.
In the end I just think all three Star Wars movies suffer from the same flaw that most blockbusters do these days. They do to much plot stuff leaving us with less time for story and character. I think some set pieces could have been removed and simplified. Imagine if Poe, Finn and Rose were all on the ship the whole movie butting heads with the captain as she actually had to do stuff to keep the empire off their tail for just a little longer. Dodge through a gas giants core or to close to a black hole and such. You could still get most everything done I think with their arcs but with out ruining the tension and all these other set pieces. I don't know.
And then basically let out an audible whoop when she used the force to pull her ass back into the spaceship?
Yep!
Steam: YOU FACE JARAXXUS| Twitch.tv: CainLoveless
You couldn't give that one to Laura Dern or hell, I'd even take Andy Serkis?
Another thought I had, on the way home from the theater:
And yet, not really. Because one, see his words above, and the near-certainty that he'll be back in some form in Episode IX.
Two, as we see at the very end, his story - his legend - continues to be told.
and three... as another boy once said, "To die would be an awfully big adventure."
The more I think about it the more I think I liked everything else. Luke accepting his failure via conversation with actual physical puppet yoda, and then his amazing final stretch from his confrontation on the salt planet to his death. That failure being Kylo's motivation to turn to the dark that was already inside him. Rey figuring out who she really is and why it doesn't matter where she came from. The fact that Rey, Kylo, and Snoke's future visions all came true but for the reasons they least expected. Poe learning how to lead without taking reckless heroic action. The hyperspeed spaceship samurai slice. The whole "fuck the rich fueling this war" moment. Porgs.
I know I'm forgetting a bunch of things but man I loved it.
Edit oh you know the one thing I forgot! Puppet yoda. It seriously looked like busted out the original puppet for like half of yoda's stuff and it ruled. Bring back puppets.
I had a few big-ish peeves right when I got out of this flick but its highs are so high, they're all I'm thinking about
I could not disagree more
Finn and Rose was the heart if this film for me.
And is actually about how being short-sighted,
selfish, and violent will just in turn breed more of the same
The Last Jedi is about how
Life, and the force, is not about CHOOSEN Ones, or legends, or bloodlines, or machismo, or desperate sacrifices, or old men with older books setting the course for the universe, or the machinations of powerful players or any of that shit.
It's about taking care of each other. And maybe you free some enslaved cat-rabbit-horses
@Anzekay I really don't get what you are talking about regarding the Emperor in the original trilogy. He never appears in ANH, and his only scene in ESB is the hologram call with Vader where Darth suggests turning Luke (and that was originally portrayed by different actors* than the one they got for ROTJ onwards). Like, practically everything we know about the Emperor is from the prequel trilogy, or the expanded universe.
*just peeked at wikipedia to see who it was, apparently original/97 special edition ESB emperor was voiced by Clive Revill but portrayed by an actress named Marjorie Eaton.
I really liked the themes of it, but
I liked how it contrasted itself against even other Star Wars movies though, with rose's (blunt) last lines in the movie. Destroying the superweapon is just a means to an end, caring for those around you is the actual end, the whole point
fhe actions of the best soldiers of the rebellion are ultimately ones not of duty but of empathy
and maybe someone can be like "oh is this wrong?" and then we see these fuckers jumpstarting the First Order
I thought it was too long and the middle dragged and I didn't care about Canto Bight at all
But my main problem continues to be Kylo Ren
is
That night at the temple with Luke I get. I buy that as the thing that pushed him over the edge
But Luke is saying there was already a darkness in him, Snoke had already gotten to him and he was too far gone, and I'm like, fucking why
Why is Ben Solo apparently already an evil little shit even before Luke almost tries to kill him? Why was he someone Snoke could seize onto and influence so thoroughly?
For as much as this movie was about his arc, and answered a lot of other questions, when Rey asks him what his fucking problem is with his family, he dodges it, and that's really frustrating to me
Although I found it out DJ just puttered out with no conclusion. No goodbye, no Phasma shooting him because First Order are assholes, no second betrayal to save Finn and Rose. He just kinda...goes away. I assume we'll bump into him again come Episode 9, but it just felt weird to give him no send-off for this movie at all.
Not much of a problem, but would have been cool. Kylo was real inventive in TFA with the force that it would have been neat to followthrough.
Steam // Secret Satan
Based on his conversation with Yoda, Luke was hypersensitive of his students showing any 'dark side' tendencies, that were likely outlined in those ancient jedi texts. He relied on them, instead of teaching through his own experiences. Luke tried to teach what he imagined the Jedi to be, not realizing that's what created Darth Vader in the first place.
Luke almost fell himself, and instead of using that experience to teach Ben, he considered murdering his nephew in cold blood
On Laura Dern
I liked it a whole lot, and I'm excited to see it again with my mom, who saw the original movie like, nine times in theaters. Those are the extent of my non-spoilery thoughts
Here are some spoilery thoughts on the Last Jedi
I wasn't sure about Finn and Rose's side quest, until they revealed that when she said, "the worst kind of people," she was referring to rich, classy war profiteers, and then unleashed a herd of never-ending story horses through their shit. And that side plot is also important because...that's where we get to see the seeds of the new rebellion planted. And Rose was very good.
Kylo Ren is a perfect villain for this new trilogy, and for this moment in history. He's an entitled, shitty white boy who whines and mopes and rages when he doesn't get exactly what he wants, or when he doesn't get the recognition he thinks he deserves. They don't outright say why he was going dark before Luke fucked up and sent him over the edge, but we see enough of who he is now to piece together that he probably thinks his parents didn't pay enough attention to him, that Luke didn't believe he was special enough.
Contrast that with Rey, who grew up in fucking garbage, hoping for a thing she knew would never happen. Rey doesn't want to be special, she wants a place to belong. For all of that dramatic pausing she did after Kylo asks her to lead the First Order with him, there was no way she was ever going to abandon her friends. Ultimately that throne room fight revealed the core difference between Rey and Ben Solo: she fights for others; he fights only for himself.
And then Rose hammers that home when she knocks Finn out of the way of the cannon: the difference between the light side and the dark side is why they fight in the first place.
There's a lot more to say about this, I think, but this already feels pretty long?
I don't have any major complaints about it at all. I honestly don't have many nitpicks. It was good
Everything looks like a youngling
Its never explained but
I've been thinking about it and I'm still coming to the conclusion that the weakest part of Episode 8 was Episode 7 and the First Order plotline they set up and that Battlefront 2 thing is largely why.
Then again
They made it a point to show her shiny armor straight up deflecting blaster bolts at nearly point blank range so she's got some heavy duty protection which I could see shielding her through that drop. If they bring her back to life again I may also be frustrated because how many times can you get away with it?
Third time ought to finally stick.
He properly got the short end of the stick