SW The Last Jedi Spoiler/Discussion Thread

[TheVoidDragon]

52 minutes ago, RACETRACK said:

ok, last night I braved the blu ray. To my wife's disbelief I hit the double whammy of stop and eject just after her question of "why is she doing a Superman?". Yep, it wasn't a dream. The film really was that awful. Blu now rests along with the others in the SW collection and is destined to gather some serious dust.

 

I watched a 4 hour long youtube review going through pretty much every significant point of the movie yesterday, while i already really, really disliked them movie to the point i consider it worse than the prequels for quite a lot of reasons, it made me realize that the film isn't just subjectivly bad, it's objectively broken.  Here's the first part of it for anyone interested:

 

 

It's obviously fine to like the movie for those that do, but there are a huge amount of quite significant problems with the movies internal consistency, continuity, direction and especially writing to the point it's closer to fanfiction from someone who doesn't quite understand Star Wars.

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2018 by TheVoidDragon

[Kallisti]

One of the major problems I had with the movie was using a hyperspace transition to destroy a ship. 

So if this was possible there is absolutely no way anyone would build large ships - you'd just have small remote control hyperspace drones attacking everything - its a ridiculous re-write of the background physics for SW. 

 

Why go to all the trouble in the earlier movies of attacking the Deaths Stars/Death Planet when all they needed to do was launch into hyperspace through it?

[TheVoidDragon]

50 minutes ago, Kallisti said:

One of the major problems I had with the movie was using a hyperspace transition to destroy a ship. 

So if this was possible there is absolutely no way anyone would build large ships - you'd just have small remote control hyperspace drones attacking everything - its a ridiculous re-write of the background physics for SW. 

 

Why go to all the trouble in the earlier movies of attacking the Deaths Stars/Death Planet when all they needed to do was launch into hyperspace through it?

It's something a lot of people have an issue with as well. It's one of several things in the movie where it simply chooses visual spectacle over any semblance of in-universe logic or consistency; the scene looked amazing, but it causes so, so many problems with the logic of the Star Wars universe now. The movie in a lot of places goes for "This sound/looks cool, that's all that matters!" , a single cruiser that was around the same size of a typical Star Destroyer, managed to severely cripple a ship many, many times its size and take out 10 Star Destroyers with something every ship like that would be capable of doing...it's just utterly absurd how we've got fanfiction made canon now. 

 

It's a cool looking scene, but it's an absolutely terrible and stupid one beyond that, and that's something that emphasizes a large amount of the movie - the idea of "It looks cool so that's all that matters, don't actually put any thought into this, we didn't!". Beyond visual spectacle i really don't think the movie has many redeeming qualities.

 

What i find most annoying is the whole "It's subverting expectations!" defense that gets used a lot with the movie in general, to try to cover over all the problems. Subverting expectations can be a great thing to do in a movie...but for it to turn out that if your expectations were anything at all then they're going to be subverted is absolutely terrible writing.

Edited June 25, 2018 by TheVoidDragon

[RACETRACK]

When I go to see a Star wars movie I get a small flash of excitement that takes me back to Barking Odeon summer 1977.

My expectations are sky high with these episodes and when the people who make them fail me it really does rob the jam from my doughnut.

There's a reason myself, and other like minded individuals around  this planet genuinely love these films. They're hard wired into our minds and

memories. Anything other, than greatness after the opening intro roll is unacceptable. Any one approaching these characters should do so at their  peril, use the new guys to polish the established. Don't discard the originals they are the heart and soul. Don't be the pigeon flying over our polished car.

 

Edited June 25, 2018 by RACETRACK
discard sentance

[TheVoidDragon]

32 minutes ago, RACETRACK said:

When I go to see a Star wars movie I get a small flash of excitement that takes me back to Barking Odeon summer 1977.

My expectations are sky high with these episodes and when the people who make them fail me it really does rob the jam from my doughnut.

There's a reason myself, and other like minded individuals around  this planet genuinely love these films. They're hard wired into our minds and

memories. Anything other, than greatness after the opening intro roll is unacceptable. Any one approaching these characters should do so at their  peril, use the new guys to polish the established. Don't discard the originals they are the heart and soul. Don't be the pigeon flying over our polished car.

 

I think something that shows just how poorly all the characters were handled, even those that aren't from the original trilogy is General Hux. In TFA, he was shown to be a pretty competant leader of an equal Status to Kylo, to the point he even stood up to Kylo and belittled him. In the OT Vader was overshadowed by Tarkin in ANH, but in TFA there's a much closer Dynamic between Kylo and Hux with the two of them basically being sides of the same coin. TLJ however, decides to reduce Hux to an incompetent, pathetic, fool for comedic purposes.

 

Just compare these, there's absolutely no way you can say they're the same character:

 

 

 

If the movie can't even portray a character from the very previous movie in a way that lines up with how that character was and instead made them the opposite of their character traits just for a few quick laughs, then it had no chance at understanding the others.

 

Just Imagine how they'd portray Tarkin if it was him instead...

Edited June 25, 2018 by TheVoidDragon

[The Chief Smeg]

I have to agree with all of the above, I was bitterly disappointed with the movie; I know you can’t please everyone all of the time, but more care was needed with this. 

[Misrule]

The bombers still annoy me 😛

Not so much the concept of them, and they did do their job, but why did the have to get so close? Why did they have to fly over at thirty feet to drop their payload? Why not just stand on their tails as there is no up and down in space and spam all those bombs from a hundred miles away?  The Dreadnought is too big to dodge and even if it tries it only takes one bomber to kill it and you have a dozen spamming bombs. Even if 90% miss you still kill the target with zero risk. Just throw them out of the bay and let Isaac Newton do the rest

 

It's a minor niggle in the big scheme, but having enjoyed shows like Babylon 5 where they get the physics of space pretty good and still make the show exciting, it bothered me.

 

I thought Solo was decent, Rogue One was good and got very good toward the end, the prequels were rather enjoyable, but these sequels just strike me as a lost opportunity. They had great potential but no ideas on how to do anything. It does strike me a lot like Disney bought these things to make tons of cash but had no ideas other than just churn it out and get rich(er). Lucas at least had a unified story idea and a desire to recreate the old pulp sci fi shows of his youth, I can't really see any similar story goals here. 

[Rumblestripe]

On 6/25/2018 at 3:13 PM, TheVoidDragon said:

I watched a 4 hour long youtube review going through pretty much every significant point of the movie yesterday, while i already really, really disliked them movie to the point i consider it worse than the prequels for quite a lot of reasons, it made me realize that the film isn't just subjectivly bad, it's objectively broken.  Here's the first part of it for anyone interested: 

OK, I've read a few of these threads on message boards that I follow. And they mostly come down to people simply not liking the story that is being told. Han gets killed. Leia doesn't. Luke is "thrown away", Rey is ridiculously powerful, Snoke, etc. Or they bemoan the lack of characters to identify with (for reasons that they never really want to share they exclude Rey and Finn despite both being great characters IMO)

 

I agree there are faults with TLJ (Leia Poppins and the weaponising of hyperspace for two) but I enjoyed it as a spectacle. Probably I left my brain in the foyer. I humbly suggest that if you have to watch a four hour dissection of the film to justify why you were right to dislike it you should heed the teachings of Master Yoda "A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing"

Edited June 30, 2018 by Rumblestripe

[TheVoidDragon]

6 hours ago, Rumblestripe said:

OK, I've read a few of these threads on message boards that I follow. And they mostly come down to people simply not liking the story that is being told. Han gets killed. Leia doesn't. Luke is "thrown away", Rey is ridiculously powerful, Snoke, etc. Or they bemoan the lack of characters to identify with (for reasons that they never really want to share they exclude Rey and Finn despite both being great characters IMO)

 

I agree there are faults with TLJ (Leia Poppins and the weaponising of hyperspace for two) but I enjoyed it as a spectacle. Probably I left my brain in the foyer. I humbly suggest that if you have to watch a four hour dissection of the film to justify why you were right to dislike it you should heed the teachings of Master Yoda "A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing"

I didn't need to watch a 4 hour review to justify why i disliked it, it was just entertaining to see many of the problems i had with it discussed and shown in a concise way. It really does show just how even within the relatively simple scenes of the movie they were pretty significant problems with logic and consistency, such as within the first part of the movie involving the Dreadnought.

 

I think the start of your 2nd paragraph sort of emphasizes part of why it's bad - if you basically have to go "just don't think about any of it" in order to justify the movie, then it has failed in many significant ways. If it was some silly generic summer blockbuster then that sort of thing isn't really a problem, but for that to be the case with movie set within one of the biggest and most respected sci-fi settings of all time, with very high expectations, an established setting and being a continuation of a story, then that idea becomes a problem.

 

As i said in my previous post, i think it was worse than the prequels. That isn't just hyperbole, it's my least favourite movie for quite a few reasons: but it basically comes down to TLJ just didn't care. It didn't care about worldbuilding and setting up the state of the galaxy properly, about addressing the questions and plot points raised by the previous movie, about properly developing the characters included, about maintaining consistency etc. The prequels, for all their faults, added a massive amount to the Star Wars universe and made a big effort to expand it. TLJ in comparison feels closer to a filler episode. The prequels were something that should have been a good idea but ended up being done in a terrible way with poor acting, overuse of CGI etc, whereas TLJ is the opposite - a bad idea, but it has high production values/quality. Did i enjoy the movie at the time? Of course, it was enjoyable to watch as a movie, it all looked great, it was well acted etc... but immediately after it was over that enjoyment disappeared and i realized that overall it was not good. Being more watchable than the prequels doesn't mean it was well written, portrayed and made good use of characters and plot points already defined previously, was a satisfying follow on from the previous movie or was overall a worthwhile addition to the franchise.

 

Edited July 1, 2018 by TheVoidDragon

[Neil Lambess]

Remember people it's only a movie and I quite liked it . (Way better than  the farce awakens IMHO....) way back in 77 Star Wars itself was full of crap physics and plot holes too... (the Death Star conveniently can't navigate with enough precision to NOT give the Rebels just  enough time to attack it ....there was a tracking beacon on the Falcon so it should have appeared right above the rebel base  ....only shooting escape pods if life forms are aboard...having fighters get close and flying down trenches is no different that using bombers ....the sins of the original are just as bad and as entertaining as TLJ ....

[Neil Lambess]

...Also the argument that the Rebels could have blown up the Death Star with a hyperspace jump somewhat ignores the fact that in the first film in 1977 the Rebels didn't have any capital ships (just small fighters ) and the somewhat obvious fact that the Snoakes ship is wayyyyy smaller than either  Death Star... I don't have a problem with " Leia Poppin's " as I paid some attention during both Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi that she was strong with the force  and confirmed as "the Other " by Obi Wan . (At least her force powers were not ignored totally as JJ Abrams did in TFA  )  FWIW what I liked most about TLJ was it got rid of all the " oh no not again " man-vegetables JJ  introduced in his almost shot for shot remake of episode 4 for me The Force Awakes  is below even the notorious Star Wars Holiday Special

 

 

[Neil Lambess]

Did anybody else notice that in ANH Luke sees leia for the first  as a hologram.....and in TLJ Leia see's him for the last time as a projection ? Some nice symmetry there !

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

6 hours ago, Neil Lambess said:

Also the argument that the Rebels could have blown up the Death Star with a hyperspace jump somewhat ignores the fact that in the first film in 1977 the Rebels didn't have any capital ships (just small fighters ) 

I usually dont say to much with threads like this however ? The Rebels actually did have capital ships, Rogue one proves this out ? The capital ships were moved after the battle in rogue one as they were being repaired & saved for future use. The storyline of rogue one is about the 7-10 days preceding the events in ANH. 

[GMK]

Perhaps it’s time to reclassify Star Wars as a “space opera/drama” rather than science fiction?

[Rob G]

10 minutes ago, GMK said:

Perhaps it’s time to reclassify Star Wars as a “space opera/drama” rather than science fiction?

 

I always have. Asimov and Clarke, Zelazny and Aldiss, Bradbury and Heinlein - that's SF. Lucas isn't. As far as SW goes, I only count the 'first 3' as canon, the rest have always seemed tacked on to keep the franchise bringing in the mugs to enrich the coffers.

 

But I was a cynical child and not much has changed.

[Kallisti]

Agreed, its always been space opera/science fantasy rather than science fiction, that said there is nothing wrong with that classification, a good space opera can be hugely entertaining, I still love EE 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series even though it is far from good literature, but its immensely entertaining. You could easily class Peter F Hamilton as space opera and his books are superb.

[Mick4350]

Watch some Star Trek instead.

[Rob G]

1 hour ago, Kallisti said:

Agreed, its always been space opera/science fantasy rather than science fiction, that said there is nothing wrong with that classification, a good space opera can be hugely entertaining, I still love EE 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series even though it is far from good literature, but its immensely entertaining. You could easily class Peter F Hamilton as space opera and his books are superb.

 

Space opera can indeed be entertaining, and Smith is timeless (if a little indigestible at times). Hamilton is SO to the max, but I must disagree with you about 'superb' - they mostly leave me cold.

 

1 hour ago, Mick4350 said:

Watch some Star Trek instead.

 

🤮

[Mike]

1 hour ago, Kallisti said:

Agreed, its always been space opera/science fantasy rather than science fiction, that said there is nothing wrong with that classification, a good space opera can be hugely entertaining, I still love EE 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series even though it is far from good literature, but its immensely entertaining. You could easily class Peter F Hamilton as space opera and his books are superb.

I agree with that, and I absolutely love Doc Smith's black & his white take on good and evil (a product of a more optimistic era), but after reading Peter F's Night's Dawn Trilogy, his finishing of that saga left a lot to be desired for me.  All wrapped up nice & neatly in a couple of pages after ploughing through 3000+ of the series

[Kallisti]

True, the Night Dawn trilogy did end in a very unsatisfying manner after all that had gone before, however the Commonwealth series is (IMHO) mind blowing! 

[Mick4350]

On ‎7‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 4:30 AM, Rumblestripe said:

OK, I've read a few of these threads on message boards that I follow. And they mostly come down to  liking the story that is being told. Han gets killed. Leia doesn't. Luke is "thrown away", Rey is ridiculously powerful, Snoke, etc. Or they bemoan the lack of characters to identify with (for reasons that they never really want to share they exclude Rey and Finn despite both being great characters IMO)

 

I agree there are faults with TLJ

And I hope Bandai keeps on churning out Star Wars for a few years to come.

[RACETRACK]

its not just a film, its part of me.

Now robbed of this I'm going to attain some solace with some Next Gen.