Star Wars, Episode 8: The Last Jedi

[Iambaytor]

The humor's fair, though dumb jarring humor is a hallmark of the Star Wars series at large, even Empire so getting pissy at this one for doing it is a weird hill to die on.

 

But this:

thematically clumsy - ultimately all disposable and pointless

 

And this:

The entire plot / theme / premise of 'everyone running around like a chicken w/out a head - picking up things to just put them right back down.  All.  Pointless.

 

Tell me you checked out pretty early on.  Nothing in this movie is pointless.  (Well, nothing but BB-8)

 

Johnson is playing a shell game with the audience.  On the face of the movie is your standard science fantasy epic.  Rey is supposed to go to Luke and gain more power in the force (not a whole lot more because the first movie demonstrated she's more than capable) and we'll learn who her parents are, Luke will realize that the galaxy needs him and he'll take up his lightsaber and join the resistance, Finn and Rose will manage to find the master code-breaker and stop the first order from tracing the rebel fleet, Poe Dameron will stop the traitor/coward/both Amilyn Holdo and everyone will join together in a triumphant battle where Rey and Luke will take on Snoke (whose story we'll find out) and Kylo in a battle that will end in a draw to be resumed in part 9.  That's the "A" plot, but it's actually the B-plot because what the movie is actually about is each of these characters.

 

Rey is revealed to be a naive girl seeking some heroic destiny when the reality is that destiny is what you make it, it doesn't matter who your parents were or where you're from.  Rey's struggle in this movie isn't succumbing to the dark side, we've seen that shit twice now and it's not that appealing.  Rey's struggle is in finding worth in what she's doing, she has no connection to the rebellion, she could easily just go back to Jakku and trade ship parts for inflatable bread or go with Kylo or become a wanderer traveling the galaxy and making her own way.  That's why it's important that the movie offs Snoke (who cares who the fuck he was, there was never any indication that who he was meant to have any significance.  It didn't matter who Palpatine used to be and learning his back story did him no favors) because Snoke was the only thing left keeping Rey involved with this matter.

 

 Finn's character up to this point is someone who just wants to get away from this war and go live his life away from it all, his motivations at the beginning aren't to save the rebels but to make sure Rey doesn't get wrapped up in this no-win scenario.  Throughout his story he learns the cost of ignoring the problem, in looking at the way the lower class of Canto Byte are treated by the profiteers of this war.  That moment where Phasma calls him scum and he says "Rebel scum" is a huge moment for him.


Rose starts out the movie grieving but honoring her sister's heroic sacrifice.  She's a dyed-in-the-wool rebel who will do anything for her people and her journey to Canto Bight with Finn is a great moment.  Yet when it comes time for Finn to die gloriously in combat she stops him and saves him because she's realized that not all heroic sacrifices are created equal.  If everyone martyrs themselves trying to defeat the first order then the whole reason they're fighting ceases to exist.

 

Poe tries to be the hero and he fucks everything up.  He's the catalyst for all the various plot points in the movies, he's a hot shot who values victory over survival and his actions end up getting nearly everyone killed.  This is the "everyone running around like a chicken w/out a head - picking up things to just put them right back down" you referred to and to quote Luke "Amazing, every word of what you just said was wrong."  It's important that all their plans fail and and everything falls apart, that's the genius of the movie, they don't pull out a victory in the last minute and multiple people sacrifice themselves not for victory but to save others.

 

The two big thematic prongs of the movie are identity and sacrifice and the connection between the two is Luke Skywalker.  Who did anyone actually expect Luke to turn out to be?  He was never a good Jedi, sure he fucked Jabba and his cronies up pretty good but he's never won a lightsaber battle, he's never been able to suppress his temper or impatience.  Luke Skywalker didn't defeat the emperor and restore balance to the force, Anakin did, but after the battle of Ender the story of the heroic Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker spread throughout the galaxy and Luke's greatest mistake was allowing himself to believe it was true.  He never really mastered the force or suppressed his dark side and that's why he failed Kylo and for one instant allowed that same dark side that lost him his hand and nearly lost himself on the second death star and that's all it took for the seed of fear and anger that Snoke had planted in Kylo to bloom.  After all, the traits of the Skywalker family are impulsiveness, impatience, anger, and jumping to conclusions.  That scene with Yoda is the pivot of the movie, Luke realizes that he's been trying to be The Hero Luke Skywalker rather than being himself and that's why he failed to be the Jedi Master everyone expected him to be.  Which is why his scene on Crait is the perfect moment for his character, Luke has realized the cycle of violence that has kept this series going and rather than show up and lightsaber the fuck out of everything he plays the path of passive resistance.  His final scene where he joins the force is the best ending for his character you could imagine (if he's even actually gone), it's one of the three most powerful moments in the movie. (The other two are the bomber scene and Holdo's sacrifice.)

 

Sure if your value of the movie is how much the rebels win, nothing happens.  But this isn't a children's cartoon, "winning" isn't what this movie is about.  None of the characters finish this movie who they were at the beginning, everybody changes dramatically and the events leading up to that change are why they work.  Like I said, it's a shell game and you lost sight of the pearl.

[Keth]

To be fair, BB-8 is the ultimate Deus Ex Machina. I was surprised with how much I didn't end up hating him. Same goes with the porgs. (Now THOSE were pointless.)

[Little Nemo McFly]

8 hours ago, Iambaytor said:

Tell me you checked out pretty early on.

 

Yeah - the beginning w/ that 'I have you on hold' gag w/ Poe and Hux(?) was just sooo deflating.  I felt really outta place when people were in hysterics - that early on.

 

I was like, noooo.  Is that what we're doing?  The bad guys were goofy cartoon characters, one moment - the next, I'm supposed to be feel...danger?  I mean, beyond silly...they were cartoonish...and it never stopped - the forced comedy was just - out of place, to the point of off-putting.  I very literally face-palmed seee-ver-al times as the audience laughed at eye-rolling jokes...which was EVERY. JOKE.

 

I love to laugh...I'm a huge giggle-slut...young-as-hell at heart, but all these "Disney action films" are turning into like, comedies for 12 year-olds more n' more.  (I've noticed the trend starting after the first GotG - a great movie, btw)

 

I can't get invested / remain engaged.  I get the 'it's just fun!' - but these Disney-brand 'action' films are feeling more n' more targeted @ next gen...than aimed @ my own "super-awesome" older-school sensibilities.

 

(shrugs)  I understand and accept I'm not the target demo, anymore - more power to those of my age and older who 'got it' and enjoyed it for what it was.  The audience I saw it w/ totally did.  I just saw...flawed product.  Really long flawed product.

 

I'm continuously seeing IPs I love - being re-packaged to be sold to audiences that never cared in the first place.  The casual demo is waaay bigger than the hardcore demo.  I get the math and the business sense.

 

Star Wars, tho...high hopes for something great.  TFA, looking back - the signs were there: 'we have no idea what to do w/ this.'  They figured it out, tho -



 

I can write an essay on how Luke's character was sullied by this...movie - but that's pointless.  It's done.

 

"Kill it - if you have to."  (sigh)  Indeed.

 

(How you like that butthurt?  BAM!  LOL!!!  That's an exclusive.)

[Little Nemo McFly]

[Little Nemo McFly]

Landing on dvd / blu in exclusive editions on March 27 , 2018

 

 

[Little Nemo McFly]

[Donatella]

So NZA and I FINALLY gave in and watched this tonight (mostly because with gift cards and reward points, it was free!)

 

Spoiler

I just went back and read (ok, skimmmed) this thread and I finally understand why this was so divisive. I don't care enough about the franchise as a whole to be offended by what it does to beloved story/characters. My beef with it was that I was bored. I didn't care about any story line, and they all seemed completely pointless, as so many of you have pointed out. 

 

I agree that it was also insanely long. It did that LotR thing where you think it's gonna end a bunch of times but never does. Once I even grabbed my purse and collected my garbage and then had to sit there with it all for like ten more minutes.

 

It also felt to me like it was pandering to Star Wars fans (like, let's throw in a classic bar scene with jaunty music and a bunch of aliens, and here's Yoda because why the fuck not, etc.). Eh. I dunno. 

 

The only Star Wars movie I've ever REALLY enjoyed was Force Awakens so my opinion probably means squat but I did not enjoy this very much at all. I think NZA had a better time with it, though!

 

Edited January 28, 2018 by Donutella

[The NZA]

okay so...what was the controversy about canon/character stuff again?  god help me if its any shit from the books, cause nothing luke did here seemed so far gone

 

i get jon's knock on deconstruction of hail mary moves/being good etc (the latter is a good point made in KOTOR, aka the best star was stuff out there), but didn't it kinda halfway pull an Unforgiven & deconstruct some of those troupes while embracing them again in the end?  

 

i like Rey being a "nobody" cause to again quote space cowboy, shared universes can be awesome, and then can also be incestuous & lazy.  if she was only that powerful because of her blood, it'd be a dynasty, and worse yet, i'd have to believe this whole cosmos can't possibly foster a more powerful force user without that connection.  i don't know how much better that is for me than bullshit metaclorins or whatever 

 

i really didn't care where Snookie came from, i'm sure rebels or some other thing can expand on him like they did with Greivous (or i assume Maul, who i knew just as much about).

 

donny was spot-on with the length of the film & the LotR pump-fakes towards the end, i thought it was gonna end like 3 or 4 times before it did, but i still had a good time - though the subtitle here could've been "EVERYONE'S PLANS SUCK", because while i wasn't necessarily expecting this to be the Empire of this trilogy, a chunk of it was a gaiden/sidequest thing that thankfully had some humor but i wish it did more at times to further develop the characters it was using.  Rey and Poe did at times

 

i liked Luke's exit & took it to be that thing i'd read/heard (?) that master jedis can offer up themselves & join the force or something.  i also admittedly like that we're shedding more of the classic cast at this point to let the new ones grow. 

 

the transition from emo Kylo to KILL THE PAST nihilist kylo was interesting for me too, he became a more layered villain as we ditched the vader ties & shook up his motives a bit 

 

the chicken minion things were fun too, also homegirl from twin peaks' kamikaze move was cool

 

TFA was the better movie for me (making me care about SW again was huge) but this was fun too, and kept me interested in what happens next

[Da Cap'n 2099]

Chicken minions.

[Keth]

Aw, the porgs weren't that bad. 

 

Then again, I think Ewoks are awesome.

[The NZA]

interesting deleted scene

 

Spoiler

 

Luke Skywalker’s Last Lesson To Rey

One of the biggest deleted scenes involves another lesson Luke Skywalker gives to Rey, taking place chronologically after they talk inside the cave where Luke mentions Darth Sidious. Rey notices boats arriving at the island and there appears to be a big fire from where they’re landing. Luke tells her that it is a group of bandits who regularly come back to the island to plunder and kill the caretakers. Rey is very concerned and wants to help them, but Luke tells her that if you help them now, the raiders will come back stronger and it will make things worse in the future. He asks Rey if she is always going to be here to protect them, saying that a true Jedi Knight would do nothing and would only act to maintain balance, even when people get hurt.

Rey, furious at his reasoning, ignites her lightsaber and runs really fast, a Force-powered run that we glimpsed in one of the featurettes about the making of the film (see the screenshot at the top of this article). She runs over rocks on shallow water and bursts through a door with her saber into the village square ready for battle. Luke yells for her to wait, but she doesn’t stop.

 

She is surprised to learn that it’s not a raiding party, but an actual party, with caretakers celebrating and swinging glow sticks. This piece of concept art from The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi shows what the scene looks like. The caretakers all stop and look at Rey, confused. One of the caretaker motions her her glow stick and Rey swings her lightsaber, imitating her movements, and sighs. The caretakers resume partying. Rey spots Chewbacca sitting at the party with a bunch of Porgs and R2-D2 (wearing a festive necklace). “Seriously?” Rey says to Chewie before storming out to find Luke.

 

Rey is mad that Luke lied to her and she confronts him. He admits that he’s sorry, but that she ran so fast and he couldn’t stop her. Rey says that she thought they were in danger and tried to do something. Luke responds, seriously this time, that that’s exactly what the resistance needs – not some old husk of a failed religion. He was again trying to teach her a lesson. Rey cries, explaining that her real friends are really dying and “that old legend of Luke Skywalker that you hate so much, I believed in it.” Luke is in shock. He realizes that he pushed her too far. Rey tells him she was wrong about believing in him and storms away.

The scene gave a further motive for Rey to want to leave the island. The caretaker party joke apparently wasn’t very funny, but the real reason the scene apparently didn’t make the final cut is that Luke ended up coming off like an even bigger asshole. Even though the basic details were approved by the Lucasfilm Story Group, it somehow didn’t feel authentic to the Jedi “code”.

 

 

[Jumbie]

A Star Wars thread and Jumbie hasn't posted yet...this will not do.

I actually have a thesis on this movie that I've been formulating the last month. Gonna try and put it together soon.

[Mr. Hakujin]

I'll buy the BR eventually when it gets around $10 (or if by some miracle SOLO is awesome and reinvigorates my SW juices) if only to revisit the few good scenes and to watch the deleted scenes.

 

On 3/28/2018 at 9:24 PM, Jumbie said:

A Star Wars thread and Jumbie hasn't posted yet...this will not do.

I actually have a thesis on this movie that I've been formulating the last month. Gonna try and put it together soon.

*sigh* Post opening weekend me would've been psyched to read this, but I'm just burnt out on TLJ debate & analysis. I'm in the acceptance phase of mourning what Star Wars has become as of TLJ.

[The NZA]

...enjoyable? 

[Jumbie]

23 hours ago, Mr. Hakujin said:

I'm just burnt out on TLJ debate & analysis. 

 

 

I don't think I'm approaching it from a place anyone else has. When I say thesis, I don't mean a comprehensive listing of existing critiques or the irrefutable explanation of a particular critique.

I'm pulling back to look at the meta-process which created the controversies and the stumbling blocks of disconnection from the audience that are an inherent risk in any relaunch/reboot. And how these manifested in talk of character disrespect, SJW agendas, poor plotting, being too cerebral or too subtle, disrespect to fans, fanboys being sore about pet theories getting disproven etc, even though those things (whether real and not) are not causes of alienation, but merely scapegoats.

One reason I'm delaying so much in writing my piece is that I think I may need to do a generalized look at rebooting without structurally alienating your audience before I can properly address the specifics of TLJ.

As for accepting that 'this is not my Star Wars', I reached that place in 1999, so I'm way into the 'I have so little emotion left for this that I can pick it apart without sentimentality' stage.

Edited March 31, 2018 by Jumbie

[Newtype]

On 3/30/2018 at 3:12 PM, Mr. Hakujin said:

 

/\ Star Wars Fandom all the time.

[Jumbie]

No I absolutely disagree. SW fans are no more complainy than Dolphin's fans or Star Trek fans or Spiderman fans.

I looked back at other SW disappointments and there really is a different source to the TLJ emotional wreckage.

 

To me, the prequels had even more of the same faults that people complain about with TLJ, like boring sections, useless characters, giant plotholes, characters acting senselessly etc.And these have been pointed out by fans since the beginning.

But they weren't a dealbreaker for a lot people the way TLJ seems to be.

 

I think people who laugh at the TLJ nerds for being butthurt over small details are also missing the same point the nerds themselves aren't self-aware enough to see. There is a real emotional disconnection that has taken place and I think it's nothing to do with hyperdrive rules or minority inclusion or tonal changes and everything to do with story/structure choices that are part of relaunching and rebooting big properties.

I've gone and compared things that were relaunched successfully like Superman in 1986 or Avatar Korra and compared them to failed/controversial relaunches like Kyle Rayner's Green Lantern or Star trek or Ghostbusters and there are certain choices that are in common with what gets rejected by older fans.

Number one is, "Don't negate or destroy the successes or legacy of the original characters." Viewed that way, oddly enough, most of the bad choices of TLJ happened in TFA by hitting the reset button on so many things and negating the victories'/legacy of the Rebellion and the three main heroes leaving only fan-antagonistic choices possible for the TLJ script.

[Drifter]

[The NZA]

On 3/31/2018 at 10:33 PM, Jumbie said:

Number one is, "Don't negate or destroy the successes or legacy of the original characters." Viewed that way, oddly enough, most of the bad choices of TLJ happened in TFA by hitting the reset button on so many things and negating the victories'/legacy of the Rebellion and the three main heroes leaving only fan-antagonistic choices possible for the TLJ script.

 

okay, but give examples, cause i really didn't even see how TFA or TLJ rebooted much at all.  what was done with the OG characters' legacies that was so wildly offensive?  Han & Leia didn't work out forever, which makes sense - so he went back to being Han, and she stepped up as a leader.  Luke kinda followed the kurosawa narrative the series originally bit from & went off into the mountains to contemplate his actions.  i don't even see a tonal change there, other than, again, characters were actually enjoyable here, which they haven't been since some of the original stuff.  

 

and i do think the SW fanbase whine is particularly exhausting, because: 

a) literally no one cares about your fanfics or "pet theories", literally every franchise ever has people who think something should'be been done another way.  there's entire YT channels about that kinda thing

b) the visceral reaction to stronger female characters & minorities is forever embarrassing, in any fandom - but it's crazy prevalent here 

c) i can't walk down the street without stepping on some fucking star wars merch, literally no other fanbase gets pandered to like this...but the sense of "betrayal" & "this isn't my star wars!" from a dusty old fanbase is supposed to be something unique somehow?  nahhh

 

*edit just read this vox article, and...yeah, i really don't get it 

[Drifter]

As my wife put it before: "They've gone through too much shit for THAT to be their happily ever after." I've posted before on the problems of how the new films were crapping all over the old ones, betrayal might be too strong a word, but this modern nihilist cyclical bullshit in sci-fi is getting out of hand. Nobody's efforts pay off, not even the bad guys, it's fucking right there in a character's goddamn name, "DJ stands for 'Don't Join' you dumb shits," it's depressing when the director makes a point about the pointlessness of ethical struggles and the gray areas of morality in a fucking fantasy setting with the most obviously diametric representations of good and evil in the modern history of film.

 

The only character I want an explanation for is Snoke. Who was this fucker and how did he come out of nowhere to rule over the imperial remnant as a dark-side godling? Seriously, he makes no sense what so ever, you can't even make a reasonable assumption there. Everybody else has, if not simple purpose, then a one worded explanation for their existence, soldier, pilot, pirate, slicer... Dark Side Demigod? Where the fuck was he hiding, the emperor's summer empire? Were they ruling parts of the galaxy in some kind of time-share? I don't even mind that Rey was a nobody, democratizing the Force is fine if not a good thing. It was getting a little annoying with everybody being blood relatives; with the Jedi lineages were getting as convoluted as the European Monarchy.  But who the fuck was Snoke? I'm still shipping for him being Ezra from SWR.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Drifter

[The NZA]

yeah, we really didn't get his backstory, and i was curious too - but i mean, we didn't know squat about darth maul or greivous and such.  granted, they had smalle rroles, but at this point, i'm okay with snoke was the red herring to take your eyes off kylo's descent. he was another placeholder for the old formula that was being undone. 

 

and personally, i guess it's cynical but i like that as "happily ever after" - han & leia were entirely different people with different roles/priorities etc, so them not working out in the long run made it more interesting.  luke was always impetuous, so him kinda bombing the jedi academy over a poor decision, again, didn't really feel out of line for me. 

[Keth]

Why can't Snoke just be a bad guy? I appreciate villains with depth and a story, but we don't need to have an elaborote, tragic backstory for every single one. Snoke had power, he used it and liked it. I think it was as simple as that.

[Drifter]

"It's all there in the supplementary material." Still, Grievous and Darth Maul could have been assumed to have been picked up by the big baddies as followers, they fit into the one word description of Disciple, Expert, Consultant, Bodyguard, Assassin... archetypes that don't require much of an explanation because they could have always been in the background and you'd have never noticed before if they were... Supreme Leader and Dark-Side Powerhouse kinda need more of a backstory to justify his presence, especially when the last series of films were about the rise and fall of his predecessor. Had he been some knowledgeable but weakly-powered imperial bureaucrat under the last emperor it would make more sense, but he's a fucking force flinging demigod... what the hell?

 

... And so far, we've got nothing, and it's annoying, and the people who write this crap know it's annoying the fans and are milking it as some self-righteous commentary of modern fandom when it's really just them being pissy at being called out for bad storytelling and wanting to remind the audience who wears the lightsaber in the relationship of author to audience. Still makes them disingenuous pricks and bad storytellers dangling an annoying plot hole in front of people.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Drifter

[Keth]

What did we know about the Emperor when he was introduced?

 

We're just running in circles with these discussions.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Axels

[Drifter]

He was the emperor of an evil empire... and was more powerful than Vader (because Vader was his bitch)... nothing more was needed because we knew nothing. It was also a logical assumption: there was an evil empire, so there had to be an evil emperor, and that was all that was needed. Then his wrinkly pale face got screen-time and we get more, but because of what we learned in the previous films we knew more about him and what he did and what he was, and that was all we needed. But because of what was established in the first three films the prequels HAD to show his rise, didn't have to focus as much on him as they did, probably shouldn't have, but eh, fuck it. But now for a Demigod Snoke to show up AFTER all the crap that went into deposing the emperor. Where the fuck was his withered and gnarly ass hiding all this time? 

 

As for screwing over the previous films, all the new films have really succeeded in doing is negating the struggle of the previous films. Not even because of what's transpired on screen in the new films even, but before the camera even rolled the galaxy had gone to shit, with the first order one dead system, one death ray or accidental supernova away from conquering the galaxy all over again, implying that nothing was made better by the heroes of the last series. The happy ending was a lie. And what's worse is that these aren't even new fucking struggles. Nothing changes. Why fight at all? Fucking grim-dark sci-fi bullshit.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Drifter