I figured it was finally time to fire up this thread. The Last Jedi has been a tad . . . um . . . controversial. I'd like to have a discussion about the likes, dislikes, pros and cons of this movie, and its impact on the Star Wars canon. Let me start by saying that I know Star Wars is a series loved by many of people, and as such, people have a lot of emotion tied into this movie, both positive and negative, and that's fine. However, let's remember to keep this civil, and not let our emotions cloud our judgment, as a bearded Jedi was fond of reminding his padawan. Anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering (not the exact quote, but abbreviated to fit the situation).
I'll leave my personal opinion separate from the OP. Here goes: I LOVED Star Wars: The Last Jedi. That's not to say there weren't some deep and debilitating flaws in the movie, because there were. However, I went in expecting nothing and just enjoying the ride, same as I did for the prequels (which I also loved). Now, of course, my personal enjoyment of the movie is separate from my critical appraisal of it, which is: Star Wars: The Last Jedi was OK. On the technical level, the movie is a masterpiece, stunning visuals, incredible fight choreography, a mind-blowing score (what else do you expect from John Williams?), excellent cinematography, and superb acting. Where the story really suffers is the storytelling, specifically, the FAT. This movie has an unneeded subplot in the form of the casino on Canto Bight, and a few characters that could've been combined or simply thrown out. I don't believe that Admiral Holdo was really necessary, and her role could've been filled pretty well by General Leia, and that Rose could've either been replaced with a Poe who knew about and disagreed with Admiral Holdo's plan, or she could've been the codebreaker that was needed to get on the ship. That would remove the bloated Canto Bight scene and allow them to proceed directly the part of the plan that was the most interesting: boarding the First Order's flagship. The next part is where I think people will REALLY start disagreeing with me As for Luke? I LOVED Luke in The Last Jedi. I enjoyed the broken, bitter old man that actually failed, and ended up learning from his failure as opposed to a generic "wise old mentor". I don't think he was out of character. Every decision he made was explained, many stemming form his well-designed character flaws, such as we saw through the original trilogy that he struggled with controlling his temper and his emotions. Let's talk specifically about him and his connection with Ben Solo. First off, I enjoyed the excellent use of the "unreliable narrator" between Ben and Luke's telling of the story. Naturally, they both want it to go the way they initially told it to justify their actions, so this part made a lot of sense and made for a great twist. Now, many criticize him for "going to kill his nephew in the night", but they seem to forget that Luke went there to CHECK on his nephew because he was concerned for him. Once he saw his darkness, he was briefly tempted to kill Ben to avoid this future. People say even this brief lapse of control was out of character for him, but I remind those people that he not only considered, but clearly WANTED and ACTED ON the desire to kill Vader after he threatened Leia. As I said, Luke has always struggled with controlling his emotions. Him being a great Jedi doesn't mean he lacks them entirely, as was the flaw with the original Jedi Order, but that he was able to control them, as he did when he resisted the urge to kill the person who he saw destroying all that he loved. Last thought for now, I wish they'd killed off Finn. I love his character so much and don't want him dead, but that's exactly why it would've been a great emotional moment. Finn's entire story so far had been running from the First Order, from his old life. It would be poetic that in his final moment, he realized that running away isn't the answer. Giving himself up and facing the First Order head-on to save his friends and keep the Resistance going would've made him one of the all-time greatest Star Wars characters in my book.
Well, I tought it was an awesome movie . I don't really get why so many people don't like it, but I have only seen the original 6 movies once so I am not really one of those old star wars movies fan. I really liked the force awakens, and I really liked the last jedi too! For me it doesn't really matter that much how the story fits in the original movies, but more like how the story on itself is interesting and how well the movie is executed. If every movie would have to be like the original star wars, I think at some point it would get a bit boring, so for me it is actually a good thing that they changed things up a bit. As for how the movie was executed, I thought that was great . I loved the scene on the salt-planet with the bright white and red contrast, and I loved the light-saber fight in Snokes room :O. The only thing I wasn't too fond off, is that snokes ship was just way to huge. I mean, the original star destroyers were ment to be these huge, dangerous ships, and now they almost looked like scouts. Besides, the fact that flying through a ship at light-speed totally destroyes it, is kinda stupid in my opinion. I mean, if it is that easy, why did they only discover it now and what stops everyone from using that later with small robot-controlled ships? Besides that, great movie
Well, it was definitely the last Star Wars movie I'll be watching in the cinema. I thought it was a nice enjoyable action movie, but also pretty bad for a Star Wars movie. My main problem with the whole thing is that it didn't add up for me story wise. Worse yet (but this is a common problem when you try to continue with an existing story arc): some of the new plots totally invalidate earlier movies. It's details, sure, but that's what has always made Star Wars great in the first place (the originals anyway). Taking a ship and then ramming it into another at light speed is enough to destroy the other ship, that's what the movie establishes. So, like, wouldn't that have already led to small "lightspeed drones" specifically build to attack other ships long before these events? I definitely agree that it's a good thing if you let characters make mistakes in movies, that can define them. But surely you'd expect a captain to get the message when most of her crew starts a sheer mutiny that it might be a better idea not to leave them in the dark about your plans? No one can be that stupid, can they? Especially if you consider that unity is one of the pillars on which the rebellion was build in the first place. And well, let's not start about Luke. That was almost unbearable to watch for me. It was so out of character, I seriously disliked that. Like I said: it was a good action movie. But if you pay attention to the details then the movie falls flat on its face for me. And that's also part of the problem I think. Pull up Return of the Jedi, the Sarlacc scene where Luke stands on the plank. Now pause the movie and look closely at the vehicle he's on. You'll see dents, you'll see scratches, you'll see blunts. Basically you see a vehicle which makes it very much believable that it's constantly in use. It has wear and tear so to speak. Fast forward to the more modern movies and you'll have none of those details anymore. Just look at the scene on Geonosis (Anakin / Padme). Pause and study the vehicle. It's all CGI, it's pretty clean and stainless. That doesn't make it a bad movie, but it does show less care for detail. And then we have the last movie which I think hardly has any attention for detail at all. It doesn't even bother to stay consistent with the other movies. Which, for me at least, makes this a very poor experience. A good enjoyable action flick, but a very poor Star Wars movie at the same time.
-1 Luke Skywalker was my hero as a young boy and Star Wars played a formative part of my childhood. In Luke you had a person who risked his life repeatedly to save his companions and resisted temptation from the ultimate evil in the form of Emperor Palpatine. And now you're going to try and tell me that this same person comes within a hair's breadth of murdering a pupil of his while he slept, someone who also happens to be the child of his sister and one of his closest friends? Sorry, I don't buy it. Character ruined forever. The casino scene was chaotic and a needless side mission, Rey's acumen for mastering Jedi abilities without training wasn't believable, Leia surviving her "Mary Poppins" flight through space was laughable, Snoke got taken out before we even learned who he really was, and minus Chewbacca Rian Johnson seems to want to kill off every character from the original movies as quickly as possible. Big thumbs down from me and easily the worst Star Wars movie I have watched. Yes, worse than The Phanton Menace with its Jar Jar Binks silliness and worse than Hayden Christensen's sketchy acting job in Attack of the Clones. And I had such high hopes coming off what I thought was an excellent movie in Rogue One. Huge disappointment.
I also thought that some things pointed out here didn't really make sence, mostly taking into consideration the earlier star wars movies, but I still think that isnt too much of a problem (although it would have indeed better to not have those inconsistencies, it doesn't make the movie bad in my opinion). But then again, I haven't really seen the old star wars movies alot or at least have not been a real star wars fan. So for me wheter the movie is enjoyable or not depends on things like music and sounds, acting, how clean the after-effects look, fighting choreography, how the tension is build up etc. Like with marvel's movies, wheter I enjoy them doesn't really depend on how well it fits with the other marvel movies (and while we're at it I dont think that all marvel movies fit well to each other). I tend to rate movies on a stand-alone basis. However, I have to be honest here, I do like it alot when a movie fits its prequels and sequels, for example the harry potter movies are very well thought out starting from the first movie (although that probably is more because of how J.K. wrote the books, it still is a fact that the Harry Potter movies fit very well on to each other). But usually scripts for sequels are written later than the original movies, and it is really hard to incorporate a good storyline within already existing plots. That is why most series fail this aspect anyways, and why I don't really mind if it happens .
I mean, this is the same guy who came pretty dang close to murdering his papa cuz said papa made a mean comment about his sister. And you can't say that Luke was more justified in that because of what Vader had done before, because he was shown multiple times being willing to forgive all that and accept his father coming back to the light side of the Force. That's why I personally love Luke. Not because of his great triumph, which was cool, not because of his powers, which are also cool, but because he's a realistic guy who realistically battles his emotions. He snapped, he just full on SNAPPED when Vader threatened his family. He shows even more restraint in The Last Jedi than he did in Return of the Jedi. He saw actual, clear visions of Ben destroying the Order and everyone else Luke cared for. Pretty traumatic stuff to see from the kid that you love very nearly as your own son, it would definitely take a toll on his ability to think rationally. I honestly can not remember a single Jedi ability she learned in The Last Jedi. She did some fancy footwork with a lightsaber, but you don't exactly NEED the Force for that. Sure, it helps, but she was shown to be a decently talented fighter. She pulled a lightsaber real hard and lifted some rocks, but that's kind of "Force 101". Agreed, but only because it looked dumb. Scientifically accurate movies about magic space wizards with light sword isn't exactly what people should go in there expecting. Every sci-fi movie requires a suspension of disbelief, and a Force-enhanced person surviving space for a bit falls within a reasonable degree of that. Although this isn't strictly Last Jedi related, it kind of ties in with one of the things I like about it, so I'm gonna bring it up. I am not crazy about Rogue One. There was no dramatic tension, I already knew the Rebels were gonna get the plans and probably gonna die while doing it. The only thing that made the movie truly enjoyable for me was K-2SO (largely because of Alan Tudyk) and the Vader scene at the end. Granted, I'd definitely rewatch it and enjoy it again, because I just love everything Star Wars, but it only just beats out episode 2 in terms of my enjoyment. But I knew for a fact that the Rebels were gonna "win" in Rogue One. One of the things I love about Last Jedi is the theme of failure, how sometimes people, despite their best efforts, just fail, and how you need to know how to learn from these failures. Yoda literally tells Luke this, almost word-for-word (because it's Disney, and they hate being subtle on the major themes of a movie). Luke failed Ben, Finn and Rose failed the Resistance, Poe failed the Resistance AND the faith that Leia had put in him, Ben failed Snoke, Rey failed to bring Ben back. It's not about the failures, it's about how the characters come back from these failures. But just to balance this out, and to show I'm not going COMPLETE fanboy. I agree with this. I think the decision to kill of Snoke in the middle episode was a good one, as it allows Ben to grow more as a villain in episode 9, but I really wish we'd learned more about him. It would've only made it that much more shocking when he was killed off. I agree with this, but for different reasons. The new Star Wars series suffers heavily from a lack of a creative producer to oversee the entire trilogy, instead of just 1 of the movies. This role was filled in the OT and the prequels by George Lucas, with two varying degrees of success. I'm not sure how many people know this, but JJ Abrams had no answers whatsoever to the questions he posed in Force Awakens. This was before he signed on to direct episode 9 as well, so he figured he was just pushing this off on the next two directors. This leads to a horrible separation between the two movies. It feels as if the sequels are the knot in the middle of a game of "tug of war". JJ teases some big stuff, and Rian just yanks it the other way saying "nope, doesn't matter". They just don't feel like they're on the same page.
Luke saw the good still inside Darth Vader and fought to save him, someone who had committed innumerable despicable crimes against lifeforms throughout the galaxy and by all rights deserved a horrendous death. But then he loses all hope for his child prodigy from a single vision and nearly kills him in the process? All this after Yoda having warned him years before about placing faith in visions of the future? It just doesn't compute. It was all Luke could do to deal with a single robotic security orb onboard the Millennium Falcon during the early stages of his interaction with the force in the original Star Wars movie. And that's while being trained by someone who is interested in his progress as a Jedi in Ben Kenobi. Jedis went through years and years of rigorous skill development before they were allowed to be full members of the order. Rey on the other hand goes straight away on a cross-galaxy vision quest with Kylo and helps take out Snoke's elite personal guard after only spurious interaction with a disaffected Luke. On top of that, Yoda appears and pronounces that there's, "Nothing in the Jedi library that she doesn't already possess." Unless that's some sort of cryptic reference to her stealing the books it's just preposterous.
Personal opinion: The last jedi was probably the longest movie but that didn't make it worse. Yes, they could have cutten off quite a bit from the movie but I felt like all the necessary parts added on to the unnecessary parts really made it better. The last part with Luke and Kylo really gave me goosebumps just to watch and it made me think about it for the rest of the week. The part with Leia floating in space (in my opinion) was beautiful and just reminds us that we lost such a brilliant and kind actress to our galaxy, even though that scene was not planned after her after her death. Overall: 10/10 (I wish I had time to see it again ) I love this thread, thank you to burgerknight! <3
I thought that Star Wars: The Last Jedi was an amazing movie compared to TFA. I really didn't like TFA, it felt too much like the original trilogy, but TLJ had enough of it's own story line that it didn't feel like it was completely copying off of the original trilogy. But, one thing I didn't like is the fact that Rey seems like a 'Mary Sue' type of character. She is just too overpowered, she seems to know force abilities that only Jedi Masters know, at the end, she lifted lots of boulders, which was a challenge for Jedi at the Jedi temple, they would lift boulders to test their ability in the force. She defeated Kylo Ren, who had tons of training, from a Jedi Master, and a Sith Lord, and she did it easily. She doesn't show any progression like Luke did in the original trilogy, Luke progressed through the entire three movies, while Rey seemed overpowered from the start. Don't get me wrong, I love Rey, I think she is a great character, and I'm not dissing her because she is a girl, I think it's great, she just shows no progression.
I'm not sure going to check on his nephew because he was worried about him means that it was "carefully planned". Remember, he didn't just read his mind and realize he was dark, he SAW the visions of the future. He saw this boy striking down his Order and family as if it were happening right in front of him. That's a pretty intense experience to just completely shrug off without any reaction. The difference is that he felt directly responsible for Ben's fall to the dark side. Whether that's true or not doesn't matter, what does is how he felt about it. All the path of the Jedi had brought to his life was pain and suffering. It killed his aunt and uncle, it allowed the rise of the Sith that brought on the Empire. Why would he want to stick to a path that had shown him time and again that it only resulted in death and despair? He was eventually shown that his thinking was wrong, but I sure can't blame him for wanting to end the cycle of violence. He keeps that throughout the entire movie, though, as during the final battle, he never attacked once. He stuck to his principles of non-violence and broke the cycle on his own terms. I agree with this part. Rey's training was way too rushed. I think her success in the Force Awakens can be explained pretty well, with things like Ben being horribly injured, and her growing up on a very rough planet, as well as her obviously having prior knowledge of what the Jedi and the Force is. But this movie was stretching that pretty far, taking down the highly trained royal guard like she did. It was clear that Ben was carrying that fight, but even being able to take on more than one was pretty tough to buy. Although I would like to remind anyone actually reading this that it was Snoke who created those visions, not her, so that part was perfectly fine. As for the books, they're on the Falcon. They were in the drawer during one of the final shots of the movie. Yoda was being very literal when he said there was nothing in there that she didn't already have. The tree was empty, Rey had the books, there was literally nothing in there that she didn't have. I loved that payoff, because it was such a Yoda thing to do, messing with Luke a little bit like that. It was like the opposite of being tongue-in-cheek, where he was saying exactly what he meant, knowing Luke and the audience would take it the more philosophical way.
Aunt & Uncle who raised him killed by Stormtroopers Captured and brought on Death Star with pretty much zero chance of escape First mentor in the ways of the force gets cut down in front of him Joins rebel band with only small ships to stand against a seemingly insurmountable foe Nearly eaten and frozen to death on Hoth while his secret base gets overrun Warned by Yoda & Obi Wan his training is incomplete and they cannot help him if he leaves Dagobah Loses his hand and discovers that the scourge of the galaxy is his father Get tossed in a pit with a Rancor in Jabba's lair Forced to walk the plank on Tatooine possibly to his death by jumping into Sarlacc's maw Brought before Emperor Palpatine only to discover the rebel attack plan is known and Vader wants to convert Leia to the dark side Result: Luke keeps on fighting. Has a disturbing vision about the future involving the nephew he is training in the ways of the force Result: Luke freaks out, contemplates homicide, and gives up on life to become a cynical recluse. PS- I'm aware that Snoke was the impetus behind Rey's vision. But there's no reason at all for him to think that she's strong enough in the force at this point to warrant that kind of attention.
I'm not really interested in pursuing the whole discussion (I'd rather discuss MC 1.13 than a movie) but last week I discovered something which I think should be brought into this discussion. Before I do I want to add a reminder: please keep in mind that we all have our opinions on stuff and just because someone else shares a different opinion than yours is by no means reason to suddenly think different about something (or maybe even disliking it). Make up your own opinion, do the things you like best and if you enjoy something then who are those others to tell you otherwise? Some people cry out about equality but what a dull world would we be living in if we were all the same. Fortunately we're not. So, back to my post. Did you know that Mark Hamil disagrees with the way Luke Skywalker got portrayed and plain out dislikes the whole thing? He even spoke up against the director's decisions in public meetings (which immediately got cut off pretty quick for some reason). I'll let you be the judge: Once again I want to stress out the opinion aspect of all this. But I also think it's fair to say that if anyone would have a good idea about the character of Luke Skywalker then that would definitely be Mark Hamil. Yah...
A lot of people bring that up, but also fail to acknowledge this. So what if Mark Hamill disagreed with the interpretation of Luke? Alec Guinness famously believed the entire Star Wars trilogy was garbage, but people take that with a grain of salt. Honestly, I agree with Mark, I would've loved to see a different version of Luke, but that doesn't make this one any less valid. And THAT'S why I truly love Mark Hamill. He can acknowledge that he wanted a different Luke, but still recognizes that doesn't make any other interpretation wrong or out of character. I think I've pretty much said my piece in this thread. There isn't much else that I desperately want to talk about, so I'll leave it to other's too discuss further. Shel and Hoops, I'd like to thank you for the conversation we were able to have about this movie, thank you for taking the time to engage with me.
100% agreed and I would hope this is understood without anyone saying. We're only talking about a science fiction movie after all and everyone is certainly entitled to their own artistic interpretation. The likes are currently outpolling the critics by 12-2 and I strongly suspect there are some generational differences playing a roll here. If you didn't experience the phenomenon of the original movie series (Hundreds of people waiting for hours in lines wrapped around the theater, seeing the films multiple times after their release in person, being completely inculcated for years with Star Wars merchandise, music, and clothing) then one would quite logically have much less invested in something like character or plot continuity.
I'm not sure that's true, many people in my generation, including myself, viewed Star Wars as it was meant to be seen, OT first, then prequels, then sequels. My father is the biggest Star Wars fan I've ever met, and he loved the movie. I think the younger crowd are just generally more willing to accept the flaws and enjoy it for what it is: a fun space opera about magic wizards with laser swords. I mean, the original trilogy weren't masterpieces of modern cinema. They were prone to simplistic plotlines, sometimes bratty characters, unexplained new powers, and at times, acting so bad that it makes you want to shave your eyeballs. But that's fine. It doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be something that we can enjoy.
Not theatrical masterpieces but a cultural phenomenon. Keep in mind, those were the days before the internet , CGI, the home computer, or even cable television. The Star Wars films were unlike anything that had come before them and brought people together in a way that wasn't so readily available in the 1970s. It's as much an emotional continuity I'm talking about as artistic.
