The Last Jedi is a shitpile. [not all comments are spoiler free]
5Yeah, you heard me. It’s almost a filler of a movie. It serves no purpose other than to set up Episode IX. Barely anything important happens.
Some minor spoilers below.
All that really happens in the movie is a bunch of underwhelming death. It worsens the trend set in Force Awakens of making it feel as though the original trilogy just didn’t even happen, with the Rebellion getting only weakened and starting to feel pathetic.
Kylo Ren’s motivations don’t make sense at all. Luke is just randomly an idiot. Ugh! I hate so much about this movie.
- 19 comments, 37 replies
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@Dizavid I’m fed up with Star Wars, so I’m skipping this one. If I never see C3PO’s bony face again it’ll be too soon.
@UncleVinny
What’s wrong with C3PO?
@UncleVinny Good for you! Now I loved The Force Awakens. But this movie is just sooooo bad.
@UncleVinny c3po has zero bones. He’s all metal, plastic and wires
@gnostromo whatever you say, boss! They’re all dead to meeeeeeee…
For such a “powerful” character, they sure killed off Snoke rather quickly
/giphy jar jar binks
@wmbarr Yeah, there are no good fights between heroes and villains and every death is complete BULLSHIT!! I don’t see how any film critic can give this a good rating. If you watch this with any critical thinking whatsoever, it falls apart so fast.
*spoiler alert
@therealjrn yeah too hard to control in a thread. Edited title.
Perspective from someone who’s been pretty bored by Star Wars since Empire Strikes Back and only watches these things once, I loved the movie. It is my second favorite of the series. I don’t analyze scenes so no spoilers here but the pace and characters and plot were all enjoyed during the single and only experience I’ll ever have watching the movie. Well worth the money and increases my appetite for the next.
I will admit, the launch day John Williams pre-movie clip was laser targeted to my music=emotion human flaw. Nostalgia and symphonic music are so good together. So that’s not officially the movies doing.
@snapster
The Force is strong in this review
I found Anakin hard to watch from his first appearance and basically gave up on the franchise when Jar-jar raised his ugly head. But based on this review I guess I may give “Last” a glance - when it comes out for the small screen (I figure if I skip ten trips to the multiplex, I’ve covered the cost of a big screen at home!)
@snapster as someone who has personally said I like the idea of starwars better than starwars. I didn’t see the originals in theater, and it wasn’t the end all sci-fi in our family (that was fifth Element). Then episodes 1-3 were underwhelming in hind site 3 being better than others said tho. 7 was good but mostly a retelling of 4 with different characters.
I loved watching 8 and feel me watching it, with special affects at the top of their game, and plot changes that haddent been spoiled 10+ years before you watched it. It was my absolute favorite. Characters were conflicted, things weren’t black and white. The main force light and dark are still growing into their roles, the fights were the coolest. Porgs were cute, and through the movie, but not so much that they ruined it. This movie got to show us a lot more about the war than any movie this far. And it was stinking cool
@snapster
Human Flaw?
I would not say so.
Rather, a glorious and sometime (rarely, one hopes) dangerous capacity, that can lead toward indulgence, or toward poor judgment, or toward the Dark Side, if left always unchecked or unquestioned …
Or toward the desire of and enjoyment of, sometimes, certain films …
/giphy "it’s a trap!"
Perfect music can redeem or make forgiveable much we co-exist with. I hope this is more to the good than otherwise.
(An example: Perfect music (IMO), over a set of credits, with much else going on …:
(Less than 3 min)
Curiously, in this context, this clearly “Church of England” religious music is “about” some of the darker portions of the Cold War, and the cost, to some, of being a soul adrift in post-war Europe, and attempting to do good, or not…
@f00l I’ll take the bait and try to push my claim further. However glorious, even as the sort of quirk that helps define us as human, it is an external trigger that releases endorphins the listener is not in full control of. Music is an enjoyable hack on an enjoyable human flaw.
@snapster
Flaw? Or capacity?
Do emotions drive us toward idiotic, or primitive, and possibly “programmed and triggered” responses?
Or give us usable information we would otherwise not have? In response to which we can attempt to creatively and dynamically “program” or “hack” ourselves
Or both?
Can the strictly logical information to gained (potentially) by cool regard of emotional response be gained from other info sources? I would argue, not necessarily so.
In which case, if I am correct, emotions are not only a primitive endocrinal and brain response to events, necessary to drive life forms with less complex brains;
they are also invaluable sources of info to lifeforms with sophisticated brains, particularly when taken as info sources, and not entirely succumbed to.
Emotions both “as lived-within and lived-through”, and “as observed and understood with such objectivity as one can obtain” (not much perhaps, but the attempt is worth something) …
What are those worth?
What is the experience worth?
What is the information worth?
What are the human personal attirudes, beliefs, commitments, choices, thus reinforced or questioned, worth?
Persons who think (theoretically) of the potential of info only in terms of facts and data points and ones and zeros are making, (again, in the theory), a conceptual and logical error. A rather large one. Uncountably large, or well beyond that, one might say; to vastly oversimplify
Perhaps Data envied Lore and wanted that Emotion Chip because those extra info sources made Lore that much more potentially intelligent and wise? Or potentially more effectively sociopathic? Or more “whatever Lore chose to pursue”?
And Data, a logical creature, knew that?
So trick the trick? Trap the trap? our brains are still, however manipulable, “something else indeed”.
If we gain reasonable awareness of, and attempt to “own” our hackable qualities…
It only costs a good portion of a life…
Allegedly.
There is a question as to whether we, as individuals, can get close to keeping up with and dealing with the stimuli delivered by our corporate and media overlords.
We may, in capacity for intelligent and creative plasticity, be well ahead of whatever they do. Or we may already be lost.
This isn’t easy to measure from inside the dilemma. : )
8 min of manipulation from Mozart
Well that was an excellent movie. I had a fantastic time and I cannot imagine anyone not having a fantastic time. It is surprising in many places but wow that was a fantastic time
@CaptAmehrican We plan to watch it in IMAX next week or so. It’s at the local theater. I don’t expect much from the movie, but I’m hoping it’s OK. Mostly, I just want to check out the new IMAX screen they just installed. I think it’s in 3D (not overly thrilled about that…)
@daveinwarsh
@therealjrn
It was a fine film. Characters grew. If you didn’t see that, you weren’t paying attention.
If anything, Kylo Ren is even MORE of an asshole now, because he killed the one man keeping him in check.
I need to see it again, but my first impression was positive. Anybody else cry like a baby for “Nobody is ever truly gone.”? The B story was too overcrowded, needed to be another 20 minutes longer or cut out the entirety of Casino Royale. I think that RJ is a more creative story teller than JJ, the twists added to the fanservice scenes were excellent. I don’t know what people were expecting from Luke. I thought that the self-flagellating was pretty in line given how badly and who he fucked up. He lost all faith in himself, and somewhat rightly so. So, as is the case with all these movies, Luke’s redemption came at a great cost. Watch it again if you didn’t see it the first time. The end scene as much as told you this was Luke’s movie. The next one will end with all the Skywalkers/Solos dead, I’m pretty sure. The Trilogies are the Skywalker saga, and they need to end for the story to end.
@mtb002 I liked it also but the casino part did bother me. Am I wrong that the mission ended up being pointless? I need to watch it again. Did something come of it other than them accidentally recruiting the new Jedi boy for future sw movies?
@gnostromo
I dont’ know if pointless is quite right. It was this episodes Cloud City, so i understand why they wanted it there. They meet BDT (Lando) who seems like he’s saving them, but ultimately betrays them. Plus if BDT’s character hadn’t been on the lead destroyer to sell his info, the Resistence’s plan would have worked and we wouldn’t have had the showdown on salt Hoth. I’m wondering if the FO actually let BDT go with all that money. Seems like someone who can hack your most sophisticated security systems should either be forced into service or killed. I’m hoping that gets tied up next movie. Maybe they’ll give BDT the full Lando arc and make him one of the big heros of next movie. I’ve got a pin with lots of questions in that story line.
I’m surprised at the divide for this movie at Rotten Tomatoes. Critic’s average score is 93% while the Audience average score is 56%.
I’m with the Critics. This is a very good movie.
@JT954 me too
Quick impressions:
Kylo Ren’s motivations (as revealed to far) did make sense to me.
I thought they could have come up with a better back story for Luke (or does The Light Side Of The Force not assist anyone toward wisdom?), but it was interesting and ok.
The casino scenes needed some editing and re-rewriting. I think some of those were cut for length, but then pieces were just left in for the visuals.
I liked these new character who appeared in prison on the casino planet. Did that one die? I wanna see more.
I liked the kids be casino planet. Hope to see more.
Some of these space fight scenes seemed to need either more exposition, or else to be cut down.
Snoke in person on screen is a magnificent and repulsively gorgeous piece of cgi. Props to Serkis, as always. And props tho the CGI people.
The film looks fantastic. (Saw it at Omni Imax).
The sound and score are fantastic, of course.
The main actors can all “carry it” and give more to the characters than Is strictly “on the page”. Good for that.
The camera angles and lense choices, now so common in action/adventire films, and deliberately chosen, not only to intensive the action, but also so that the viewer can’t really tell what’s going on in full, but only in the central part of the action up closer, can get really annoying.
Sometimes I wish they would just stop with the various intensifying distortions already.
What’s up with the extreme over-close “look at the pores” camera views esp of Luke and Leia? The cinematographer and editor and makeup/effects people could have let them look a bit better without overdoing the whole “Hollywood pretty” thing.
They don’t even look normal sometimes. More like what a dermatologist would see with an extreme magnifying glass.
They could have done more with Leia. It’s ok.
Is that really all Luke and Leia have to say to each other? Ok, comic book. I should back off.
Laura Dern’s character does not have dialogue like that of a general or a commander.
The role is written as pure cliche to the point of being annoying.
What’s going on with Rey and with Kylo is a bit confusing, but that is to be expected.
Let is be, Palawan. This is a trilogy.
Chewie needs way more time center stage. So do the robots. Except for BB-8, who gets lots of screen time.
Overall pacing was superb. The thing keeps going without the action starting to feel gratuitous.
The throne room fight is cool.
The final personal duel in particular is superb. Just great. I would totally watching that lots of times.
I suspect Captain Phasma is gone for good, but hope I’m wrong.
I expect also to see KR turn out to be a semi-redeemable bad guy in the third film, and do at least a partial save-the-galaxy self-sacrifice. And Rey will finD out all sorts of self-discovery stuff, of course.
This is a slightly-above-comic-book-level tale, drawn out.
These always pose plot problems over time. You get too serious or too adult or too graphic, you lose some of the “wonder” and it’s starts getting serious and heavy, with those potential flaws.
It is easy to get too fantastic. Ick. Or easy to go too kiddie with too many Ewoks.
These stories well never be perfect, and the fanatic fans will always find much to moan about.
#2 if a trilogy will airways have potential “middle-child” story issues.
Ok there are TTT and TESB, as contradictions.
But doing that again and again with a middle film is difficult to do. And TESB contains the Great Reveal, during the most gorgeous lightsaber battle ever, which helps.
Most middle movies in a trilogy are going to cause much annoyance for really serious fans.
I found this overall very enjoyable and well worth my while, and will worth my likely only trip to a theater this year.
Do I have quibbles? Yeah, sure.
Tribbles? Yeah, those two.
Perhaps over time I will work out my superior version of “what they should have done”.
I’m sure the entire galaxy awaits breathlessly for that.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ minimum.
Where the fuck is Lando? I would like to see him show up.
/giphy Kylo Ren
@f00l
Oops. Special mention:
Domhnall Gleeson rocks.
The guy can sneer with the best of them.
/giphy Domhnall Gleeson
@f00l
F00l = chinface?
@dam091 lol. Not everydamnthing is an emoticon
@therealjrn I’m referring to his broken English
@dam091
You are referring to my broken and disastrous “swipe keyboard skills”, if I can call them that.
And, I presume, you are referring to the obvious point that the “Gboard guesses” as to what I might intend to mean are frequently hilarious.
The time-limited correction option runs out before I catch and fix stuff. Always.
Esp since I am attempting to edit for alleged and idiotic “content” as well.
I have kinda resigned myself to being pompously, moronically, arrogantly unintelligible. I hope there is amusement in it all, somewhere, sometimes.
I must try to know my limits.
“What a @f00l (sic) this mortal be!”.
I was hoping Ray would take Kylo’s hand the second time. Then we would’ve had an interesting plot, and a variation on theme worth watching.
Completely wasted Luke. He was a cardboard cutout of a character. Hamill was great. Should’ve given him more to work with.
And man, Hamill’s make-up was incredible. He really looked 40 years older than he did in IV.
My complaint with TFA (and so many other people’s) was that it lacked imagination and novelty. Now we get the most novel film in this series in decades and people are ANGRY. I don’t get it. I thought it was amazing.
Not only was it visually stunning and tried new things, it was interesting and it had an actual POINT OF VIEW. The people who say “nothing important happened” apparently don’t understand that a story doesn’t just have to be about the mechanics of getting from point A to B on a plot graph but can be bout characters learning things and the author exploring ideas. A whole lot “happened,” which people will realize when they get over the hurt they’re feeling that they basically were told that things they built up in their heads don’t matter as much as personal growth.
I saw this on Thursday and am STILL processing it. That has never happened to me with a Star Wars movie in 35 years.
My wife and I were thoroughly entertained by The Last Jedi. The company I work for brought everyone to see it Thursday night and there was 100% agreement that it was a good Star Wars movie.
A few random thoughts:
I want to see it again.
@SSteve
Snoke clearly seems to have influenced the content of the “visions of the future” seem by both Rey and Kylo, since both of these videos were manipulative, and both were false.
Smoke used Rey’s vision to draw her to Kylo. He used Kylo’s vision you make Kylo want to reach out to Rey.
Snoke may or may not have created the connection between them. Whether he did, or whether the connection existed apart from Snoke, it obviously persists and will be a huge factor in the future.
@SSteve
I think it would be kinda cool if here parents were nobodies. I would hate to see strength in the force belong only or mostly to those who come from “force royalty” families.
That said, I agree with your about her background. I think she’s has (for story reasons) a better backstory than that.
In TFA, when we see her getting left on Jakku as a child, don’t we see a glimpse of her watching The Millennium Falcon leave?
That implies a connection to Luke, Leia, and Han somehow.
I presume Snoke implanted the vision seen by Kylo that said Rey’s parents were nobodies. Partially to make Kyli more sympathetic to her (since he did not have a good relationship to his own parents, who were “somebodies”), and partly, if Kylo toss Key if this, to make Rey feel more alone, and more manipulatible or more impulsive.
I would like to see quite a bit more about Kenobi’s background in some “trilogy off-year” film.
@f00l
@SSteve
The connection in the Force being there after Snoke’s death has nothing to do with him facilitating the connection. If I open the spigot to a hose, and then die, the spigot doesn’t close itself.
@f00l
In the Extended Universe (now Legends) Vergere stated that one of the big reasons Jedi do not marry is to avoid creating “dynasties of those strong in the Force.” That said, Force power does not only come from Force Sensitives having kids, but from the Force itself. Anakin was born from the Force in response to actions of the Sith. It is not unheard of for a nobody to rise from nowhere to become someone.
I find complaints about this grating, as people have been complaining for years that “Star Wars is the story of one family screwing up the galaxy.” There is more in the galaxy that the story of the Skywalkers. I think it’s high time we get a glimpse of that.
@f00l
Nope.
@Cythwulf
Re the spigot (connection between Rey and Ben/Kylo): that’s close to what I intended to say. Thx for clarity.
Re Rey’s history.
Ok. I was remembering badly re the Millennium Falcon on Jakku when Rey was left there. After getting only a quick glimpse in theater. Never checked.
Much thx.
Luke spending all those years in personal exile after the Ben Solo debacle is kinda weak, since he seems to have learned and accomplished little (even spiritually and emotionally) until Rey shows up.
Tho I loved the brief appearance of one key character (not gonna say who, in case someone who has not seen the film is reading this topic in spite of the spoilers):
This whole business of Dark Side and Light Side and Balance in the Force is very poorly worked out, as it was during the 1970’s.
The under-developed concepts around the Force are the big reason this saga stays near elevated comic level as a story.
If they can’t, or won’t, give the the Force, (which is the central analogy and amplifier to moral power and spiritual development [as well as apparently being a naturally occurring capacity undeveloped in most beings]), then the stories tend to stay correspondingly weak.
Lucas’s biggest failure (imho) as a story creator is failing to do a better job in figuring out what the Force is or ought to be.
I don’t mind the “level” of these stories. As archetypal stories, beautifully done, they are fine and can be wonderful ands mind blowing. But every time I hear about “Balance”, I cringe.
Not that cheaply executed concept, badly used, again!
I have nothing against the idea of “Balance in the Force” or whatever. Just a prob with this idea if it is done badly.
They have just made a poor job figuring that out. It takes me out if the story for a minute every time.
In all those years since Disney bought it, they should have tried to give all that (the Force, Balance, Darkness, Lightness) more depth and heft.
Really, even if the Jedi order became an encrusted and corruptible organization over time, couldn’t sooner in the some in the Jedi Order kinda seriously try to figure out what they were, and what they were dealing with in using the Firce ands possessing a strong connection to it
I still hope they will.
I also hope/expect other characters to be shown to be Force sensitives, even if not strongly so.
Totally not surprised that OP has this opinion. It’s in line with the rest of his ignorance and misunderstanding of everything in our world. (Cough… Trump… Cough…)
I saw TLJ last night and came away incredibly impressed with all the imagery and the underlying themes that were almost Biblical. The main characters grew exponentially, especially Kylo. The story has almost become full circle, with the rebellion beginning anew. The fight scene with Rey and Kylo working together was one of the greatest moments in the series, not because of the action, but because of where it led to each character truly finding themselves. There was heartbreak every time Leia appeared, knowing this is the last we see of Carrie, and there was a glimpse of hope for the Force and the rebellion in the final scene.
This is the kind of movie you need to see more than once to pick up on the tiny nuances.
@cinoclav Ad hominem is a bad look for you.
@therealjrn My actual movie comments have nothing to do with him.
@cinoclav Maybe, I didn’t read past the attack.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@cinoclav
@Dizavid is @Dizavid. He has a characteristic approach; he’s going to do his thing.
He is right about one thing certainly (more a story flaw of TWA than of TLJ)
What the fuck happened to the Big Win and the Empire going down at the end of Ep 6?
Are we gonna repeat the story cycle every 3 or 6 films, with a new tiny and nearly powerless group of rebels of some sort starting over against a huge “imperial-like” military and techno power? And a new Light-Side Force operative as protagonist? And a new Vader clone?
Do wins never sustain? Does the winning side never develop is own stories and flaws and problems down the road?
Does every triumph of the light fall apart and necessitate a years-further-down-the-road remake of Ep 4 every time?
In that case, what exactly is a Big Win worth, if the good side can never build on it?
How about telling us how and why the galaxy order created after ep 6 grew, developed, and then fell apart from within or without?
Who or what is Snoke and how did he get so far so fast in his ambition?
I tend to forgive the aspects of the “genius pilot” and “quick-Force-learner”, Rey.
They needed a character like that to get the entire saga moving again, after all those years of SW lying fallow. So they took some cheap shortcuts in how fast she learned.
They prob needed to do that. And having a character be a Force prodigy is not an impossibility.
And as for the piloting:. Well, sometimes stories take shortcuts. In terms of this saga and the many shortcuts it has taken, that’s not such a biggie.
So cool.
/giphy millennium falcon
@f00l The whole empire wasn’t destroyed in the second death star
@spitfire6006006
Some sort of “intervening years” story would still be kinda useful.
I suppose they will get to that. Possibly in an animated series
(Btw I hated hated hated the years-later ROTJ-Lucas-edits that added all those other-world quickie big “freedom-celebrations” to the end of the “too many Ewoks already” film.)
I have a bad feeling about those.
What happens where you give an insanely talented veteran filmmaker so much control and so much success that the person stops listening?
Sometimes the commercial and artistic results are Eps. I, II, III; and some horrible additions and changes to the original masterpieces.
/giphy "han shot first"
I think Rey and Kylo are connected, Force-wise, Snoke said something to the effect of as he grew more powerful so would she.
Heh, so you’re saying my expectations are correctly calibrated
Not reading most of the comments, since I’m planning on seeing this as some kind of family Christmas thingy, but I’m (almost) entirely done with Star Wars as a franchise since 7. Wouldn’t even bother watching this one if it wasn’t for other people. Man, 7 really was a piece of crap. That’s why you don’t let mice have wizard hats?
… there could be some movies set in the broader universe, without particular relevance to the Jedi or Empire. Something like that could still be good. Wish I still had that Extended Universe “encyclopedia” from when I was a kid… wonder what happened to that thing.
I thought it was awesome. In my top 3 Star Wars films of all time. Don’t understand the hate. (and after reading the justifications of the hate, understand it even less)
I avoided all the trailers so I could have a fresh experience free from spoilers.
I like porgs. I don’t like Finn or Rose or casinos or chihuahua horses.
When the porg is plastered to the window of the Falcon, Things 1&2 and I yelled Porg-cake! Now I see they have made a window porg for your car. Fucking Disney, just shut up and take my money. @Moose
@mtb002
Things 1&2 sound like they might be:
Things Of Considerable Smartass Value.
Hope you can keep up the them.
@f00l
I will continue to train them in the ways of sarcasm and hope against hope that they choose to use their powers for (mostly)good instead of evil.
/giphy I liked it
@ConAndLibrarian I will say though, I did enjoy one or four cocktails while watching it.