Star Wars:The Last Jedi (SPOILERS!!!!)

I agree that the casino scene is odd and feels like it misses the mark but Finn's whole story arc is about missing the mark. This puts the whole casino botching beyond the added mini rebels and war profiteering side plot part feel a bit odd.

karmajay wrote:

Typically, a ship would get blown up before getting the opportunity but Hux gave the order to ignore the frigate until it was too late.

Hondo staying on was a movie moment thing. I mean, I have no idea why they can't slap auto pilot on the thing and control it remotely by droid but the other frigates had people driving at the end as well.

It’s canonical that the Star Wars universe has less auto-pilot that we do. We already have targeting systems that work better than humans but in Star Wars every gun is named by a human.

I loved the movie, and will probably see it several more times.

With that said, the decision by Vice Admiral Holdo to not provide her crew with some degree of information about the plan is sloppy writing, and indefensible from both a storytelling and a tactical point of view. I get the hesitation to share sensitive information with a brash hypermasculine pilot with a history of impulsive behavior. But it's exactly because Poe is a brash, hypermasculine pilot with a history of impulsive behavior that it's critical that Holdo tells him SOMETHING. She's an unknown factor to him, and quite literally the only information he's provided is that the current plan is to slowly run from the Order's ships until their fuel is exhausted and they're pounded to pieces. He's told nothing else, and her behavior seems to back up this assumption.

The reality is that Holdo didn't tell him because the story needed her not to tell him. That's sloppy storytelling, in which a character's choice is not informed by logic or demonstrated character traits, but by the inability of the narrative to reach a desired point organically. Had Holdo said to Poe, "Look, there's shelter up ahead, we can make it if we load everyone on transports and push as hard as we can with the ships," the plot unfolds differently. Remember, Poe acknowledged that to be a solid plan when he was finally told. So Holdo tells Poe the plan, he has no reason to send Finn and Rose off to get a hacker, the Order doesn't know about the escaping cloaked transports, they arrive at the surface, done.

The Conformist wrote:

- The ancient texts of the Jedi were destroyed, and Yoda claims they contained nothing that Rey didn't already know. But she clearly can't do things to the level of Snoke or Luke. She also received little to no training from Luke and it just seemed to end up right back where she started.

Her growth wasn't quite DBZ power levels of change. She's not "more powerful" than in Force Awakens, but because of her first lesson Luke helped her understand the force, which means she can now "control" it. Though it might be more accurate to say commune with it. In Force Awakens, she picks up on the tricks of others and just tries it out without understanding how it works. If it works it's mostly because her force sensitivity is jargon jargon "J.J. Abrams didn't actually think hard about this so now we're giving an explanation".

The significance of her lifting the rocks at the end is that it was a conscious decision that indicates she has the understanding that all the Jedi masters before her had: the force is in all of us, and by communing with it you can make more impressive things happen than drawing a lighstaber into your hand.

Basically, those rocks were her X-Wing moment. What Yoda helped Luke understand is that practical matters don't always matter in regards to The Force. Even a tiny green man can lift a giant ship, because when it comes to the force, physical traits such as weight and density have no meaning.

Because it's all meta-physical mumbo-jumbo that never had a clearly defined set of rules its all wishy-washy, but regardless, Rey's character arc here was that the Force is not a tool you use for selfish ends. I imagine her urge to discover who her parents were is why they kept emphasizing "Dark Side, Dark Side, Dark Side" in that way. It's harder to sell as a Dark Side urge, but her motivations had nothing to do with the First Order or the good of the galaxy or any of that. She was there for selfish gain. "Why are you here?" is a question that not only indicates Luke can read her motivations well, but that he's suspicious of anyone after the disaster with Kylo Ren. Despite heeding his warning, she uses the Force in order to seek answers to her one burning question, which has a chance of leading her to the dark side. Imagine the anger and fury to discover that there was no reason for her abandonment than her parents were selfish and didn't want her. That's the sort of background a bad guy could easily have.

I just wish the films were planned more cohesively and with the same team so that her character could have been established with a darker bent than that, so we could ever feel threatened by her potential turn to the dark side. We see she has a temper here, getting angry at Luke and scaring the daylights out of him when she pulls out a lightsaber, but I never felt like she might actually do something.

Regardless, my ultimate point is she certainly did have a character arc. She now understands the Force, has let go of her past, and has a greater reason to fight than curiosity of her heritage.

IUMogg wrote:

...You could say I’m “Luke” warm on it...

Unacceptable. You should be banned from this site immediately.

;P

By far one of the best explanations of the movie I've read, and it makes me even more excited to go see it.

Thanks athros nice link!

karmajay wrote:

Thanks athros nice link!

I found a few more on Reddit - there is at least one good, solid discussion (around that article I linked above) and some of the criticism's are being handled better.

Film Critic Hulk (not all caps) - The Force Belongs To Us: THE LAST JEDI’s Beautiful Refocusing of Star Wars - pretty interesting of a read overall. I liked his insight.

The Ringer - Title and Snippet:

‘The Last Jedi’ Has Something That No Other Franchise Can Claim
In Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, the new ‘Star Wars’ movie foregrounds something Marvel, DC, and the rest of the major movie series have not been able find: a complex villain

I'm still working through the Ringer article. Overall though? I'm pretty stoked to go see it.

I really liked it!

There were so many things in the movie designed to mislead the viewer on their first viewing -- yet the clues were there to figure out what was really going on.

Like, Luke has arrived on the planet! How'd he get there? Oh, right, there was an earlier shot of his old X-Wing underwater near the island -- he must have pulled it out of the water like back in Episode 5, off-camera, and flown it there.

I also liked that somehow things didn't work. In several earlier episodes, the good guys are in a tight spot, they make a long-odds plan to get out of trouble, they manage to execute the plan, and the day is saved! This time, same thing -- except the plan fails.

The one instance of bad guy stupidity that I caught live which bugged me was how the First Order didn't even consider the possibility of a ram when they noticed the mostly-evacuated rebel ship firing up its FTL.

WolverineJon wrote:

The one instance of bad guy stupidity that I caught live which bugged me was how the First Order didn't even consider the possibility of a ram when they noticed the mostly-evacuated rebel ship firing up its FTL.

My rationalization for that is that is that tactic has probably never been used before against the first order or the Empire, and certainly not by the rebels. They are poor, ships are precious to them, and destroying a cruiser is something they just wouldn't do. Also it's the kind of tactic that only works once, because it will make the enemy more cautious in the future.

Maq wrote:

Last point: Anyone who thinks that Ben was lying about Rey's parents was watching an entirely different movie to me. It matters that they were nobody. It matters that Rey is powerful because she's Rey, not because she's a Kenobi. And it really, really matters that she's alone – the most powerful force user since Vader –with no-one but Ren and a bunch of books to guide her.

It matters to Ben that they are nobody. Ben wanted to control her and have her join him and her quest to find her parents were getting in the way. If her parents are nobody then there are a lot of other points that don't make sense. Such as Luke's/Anakin's light saber calling out to her. Her vision in TFA where she goes from the cloud city to Luke with R2D2.

kazar wrote:
Maq wrote:

Last point: Anyone who thinks that Ben was lying about Rey's parents was watching an entirely different movie to me. It matters that they were nobody. It matters that Rey is powerful because she's Rey, not because she's a Kenobi. And it really, really matters that she's alone – the most powerful force user since Vader –with no-one but Ren and a bunch of books to guide her.

It matters to Ben that they are nobody. Ben wanted to control her and have her join him and her quest to find her parents were getting in the way. If her parents are nobody then there are a lot of other points that don't make sense. Such as Luke's/Anakin's light saber calling out to her. Her vision in TFA where she goes from the cloud city to Luke with R2D2.

Nah, she can still be the chosen one with those visions to help her along the path. Doesn't matter who donated sperm or squeezed her out for that to be the case.

bnpederson wrote:

Nah, she can still be the chosen one with those visions to help her along the path. Doesn't matter who donated sperm or squeezed her out for that to be the case.

But that would again be a Red Herring. So either those visions and the light saber calling out to her is significant or the fact that her parents are nobody is significant, but not both.

kazar wrote:
bnpederson wrote:

Nah, she can still be the chosen one with those visions to help her along the path. Doesn't matter who donated sperm or squeezed her out for that to be the case.

But that would again be a Red Herring. So either those visions and the light saber calling out to her is significant or the fact that her parents are nobody is significant, but not both.

Why? A lightsaber with that much importance in the Force calling out to someone who’s Force Sensitive, but yet a nobody, makes no sense?

karmajay wrote:
the Resistance bombers (even though… there’s no gravity in space!)

According to the VD, the bombs don't drop they are impelled from their racks by sequenced electromagnetic plates in the clip. They are then drawn magnetically to their target :)

Arrrg! That's just...stupid. That entire scene pissed me off.

The Star Wars universe has missiles and ion torpedoes that would make much better anti-ship weapons than a bunch of Magic 8 balls that need to be dropped (sorry, impelled) from a bomber that can apparently only travel slightly faster than a Rascal scooter with a low battery (and in formations that are guaranteed to cause multiple bombers to be destroyed when one of them is hit). The Rebels should definitely demand a refund from whichever weapons dealer they bought those POS from.

I'm also getting tired of the new-super-crazy-large-and-powerful-ship/superweapon-that's-just-going-to-get-blown-the-f*ck-up-by-the-rebels shtick. It doesn't even make sense anymore. The Rebellion is basically broken. An old Star Destroyer can mop up any fleet or base it encounters, so why bankrupt several star systems building a massive new weapon or starship that history tells us will just be destroyed?

Are there no budgets and accountants in the Star Wars universe? Is there no military strategist saying "hey, guys, maybe bigger isn't always better when fighting the rebel scum"?

Well, the Dreadnaughts are called "fleet killers" for a reason. In the movies we see a lot of Rebel victories but I bet they lose a lot also.

I thought on it some more and I distilled down why this film left me feeling so empty. I realized that I’m having the same feelings about The Last Jedi that I did after The Phantom Menace. The reason? The same way the prequels felt disjointed from the original trilogy, this movie just did not feel like a sequel to The Force Awakens.

Call it red-herring, call it mis-direction, call it poor writing or story-telling - I don’t know. But almost everything set up in TFA just felt wrong to me in TLJ. There was a good amount of world building in TFA that I was very intrigued to see develop, but this movie had little to no payoff. I don’t even see how/why we need to do an Episode IX with these characters.

The ONE bit I did love was Rey's parents. We're back to the original idea that anyone can be a Jedi. It doesn’t t matter if your name isn’t Skywalker or you don’t have enough midichlorians in your blood. Even a poor stable boy can grow up to be a Jedi.

I don’t even see how/why we need to do an Episode IX with these characters.

Er. Republic is still dead, FO is still taking over systems, Kylo Ren has gone full evil and resistance has been decimated. Enough reason for a resolution?

PaladinTom wrote:

this movie just did not feel like a sequel to The Force Awakens.

That is intentional. Check out the slashfilm article athros linked upthread. There’s a lot to think about in that piece.

I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I like the fact that the primary story is moving on from the original characters. My nit-picks:

-Holdo seemed to serve no purpose. That would have been a much better role for Admiral Ackbar. I would have love to see him go out in a blaze of glory instead of getting blown away on the bridge.
-The Finn/Rose story line served almost no purpose. They possibly killed Captain Phasma, but not much else. If they had rescued Rey, then there would have been some redeemable reason for their mission.
-I'm not sure how Leia is supposed to be handled in the next film unless by CGI. I was expecting more finality with her character, but instead got it with Luke.

Did they move back to puppetry for Yoda in this film?

Saw it. Gathering thoughts. Reading this thread.

Overall enjoyed it. Wife thought it was too jokey and silly and it ruined most of it for her. I tried to point out how silly the originals are and that this wasn't nearly as bad as jar jar or prequel 3PO (what a drag). I mean damn.

Boring conversation anyway

Just saw it, was sort of disappointed. The first half just felt boring and the whole concept of them running just out of range of the First Order fleet was very wtf. I really like Rey’s character but Kylo is just not a convincing bad guy.

Rogue One is still my fave of the newer films.

OG_slinger wrote:
karmajay wrote:
the Resistance bombers (even though… there’s no gravity in space!)

According to the VD, the bombs don't drop they are impelled from their racks by sequenced electromagnetic plates in the clip. They are then drawn magnetically to their target :)

Are there no budgets and accountants in the Star Wars universe? Is there no military strategist saying "hey, guys, maybe bigger isn't always better when fighting the rebel scum"?

The New Order went from a sector of the galaxy to the whole galaxy with their only opposition beIng about 30 people at this point. They are doing pretty good.

sheared wrote:

Did they move back to puppetry for Yoda in this film?

Yes and it was awesome.

Pretty much the highlight of the movie for me.

And the foreshadow of Luke not really being there, with the feet. As someone else mentioned, I thought he died in the laser barrage and his ghost was fighting at that point. But the projection thing was cool too. Great stuff.

Doc Joe wrote:

Kylo is just not a convincing bad guy.

Yeah. The mask made him a menace. Without he is a tantrum full of power and that is all. EP 9 needs to make me fear the FO not think they are an incapable band of morons run by a literal tantrum.

Eleima wrote:

So I found this tweet thread which perfectly encapsulates what I found so mesmerizing about this movie. It's been hinted at since the film was announced, it's hinted at with the cast, with the diversity, with the plot, with who the baddies are... it's just all there.
Some may think this is too P&C, but it's really the essence of the film. I'm retranscribing the tweet thread here so it's easier.

Branwen Z. wrote:

‏ 1/ Fair warning, I’m in a mood and I’m about to go on an extended spoiler-filled rant about The Last Jedi and some of the criticism I’ve seen leveled against it.
2/ If you’re a woman, trans woman, trans femme, enby, or person of color, I’m happy to listen to the reasons you find yourself disappointed or let down by the movie. What I’m about to rail against is a number of criticisms I’e heard from cishet white men.
3/ I’m not even going to address those criticisms directly, I’m just going to expose what I contend are the actual biases behind the criticisms.
4/ TLJ has more prominent speaking roles for women that practically all the SW films put together, and certainly more than any 1 SW film has yet. In a wold where women are considered pushy if their input is 40% of a meeting, I think that’s significant.
5/ Furthermore, this is the first SW movie where the women WERE ALWAYS RIGHT and always won the day. All the familiar tropes of male heroism were tossed out on their ear - as well they should be.
6/ The roguish hero with a heart of gold was revealed to have only succeeded because General Organa has a soft spot for such reckless men. Faced with a less-forgiving woman in power he petulantly concocts a plan that results in the death of a LOT of good people.
7/ And even the tolerant mother-figure who has put up with him out of complicated feelings for her lost son and the roguish husband whom she has split with finally just shoots him rather than tolerate his hubris any longer.
8/ The defector who quit the Empire and finds inspiration in a strong female friend, tuns out to be incapable of making it on his own and tries to defect again, only to latch on to another strong female friend.
9/ The legendary hero turns out to be incapable of saving Rey, much less the whole resistance & his final sacrifice is that of a decoy. None of the men are able to fulfill their destiny in this movie until they they finally honor the women in their lives.
10/ Time and time again it is the women who express the ultimate theme of the Star Wars saga through their actions. Finally, its Rose - dear, sweet, strong Rose, who does not conform to Hollywood’s traditional beauty standards - who finally gets to remind us...
11/ ...that the theme has been nurture all along. “We will not win this by destroying those we hate. We will win this by saving those we love.” The ultimate and most powerful message of the entire sage, summed up in one of many selfless acts.
12/ And the boys’ heroes - the scamp who turns out to be entirely self-interested, the washed-up Jedi who admitted his adherence to a rule of law was doomed to failure, the fly-boy who turned out to be short-sighted and reckless, the turncoat who turned out to have no identity...
13/ Outside of the closest strong personality? Those are the men who surround me in the geek community. Those are the men who desperately try and convince themselves they are special. And you know what? They aren’t special. The special ones are...
14/ The General who carries on and stays engaged despite immeasurable heart ache and personal loss.
15/ The Admiral who doesn’t bother to explain herself to the man she knows won’t believe her, but is capable of sacrificing herself for the greater good when his plans threaten to destroy everything she’s worked for.
16/ And the grief-sticken, duty-bound, woman who is not the smartest, not the strongest, not the fastest, but is true to herself and sees the good in a man who can’t see the good inside himself, even though he takes her ideas and tries to eclipse her with them.
17/ The men who complain DJ was self-motivated, Finn was redundant, Poe was sloppy, Luke was ineffectual - they see themselves as they TRULY are in these characters, as opposed to who they WANT to be. And they see the women around them reflected in Rey, Organa, Holdo, & Rose.
/18 & that terrifies them because it shows the lie in every other Hollywood ego-prop that abusive, terrible men have woven to disguise themselves as “master storytellers” while they masturbate the same 6 points of the Hero’s Journey into the cauldron that spits out endless...
19/ ...stale clones of the original Star Wars that Lucas directed by further-watering down & white-cishet-male-sizing an already racist and misogynist theory of storytelling proffered by Jospeh Campbell.
20/ Make no mistake, this movie in a post-Weinstein, Jones-winning world is a rallying cry. Enough with these men who only make movies that glorify themselves and their sexual predilections. Enough with movies that hide male fragility behind male ego.
21/ This is why I love TLJ more than all of the other SW movies. IT. FOCUSED. ON. THE. WOMEN. Did it have flaws? Sure. Was it a courageous effort to wrestle some great narrative sensibility out of the clutches of men who can only see themselves & their conquests in movies? Yes.
22/ Ultimately, TLJ asserts that the male-centric approach to resolving conflict only results in the continuance of conflict. And that the universe is full of people who benefit from the blind continuance of male-dominated war-like politics.
23/ And, ultimately, this is the crime that cisher white male fandom cannot forgive - that the world is not comprised of great evil men and great good men who determine the fate of all those around them - but of selfish, scared, tiny men who allow...
24/ ...themselves to be manipulated into self-destructive patterns that ultimately ruin all of their relationships and their hope for greatness.
25/ Also. Puppet Yoda always has been and always will be superior to CGI Yoda.
26/ Thank you and good night.

All bolded parts are my own emphasis.

It's all there. Why didn't Holdo explain the plan to Poe? Because men rarely listen to women in charge (this statement may also be partially motivated by setbacks I've been enduring at work these past couple of years). And when they do, they rarely comply. That's exactly what happened. She didn't explain, because Poe wouldn't listen. And when he did find out about the plan to make a run for the abandoned base, he mutinied. Because he's so used to having his way. And keep in mind that I really like Poe, he's one my favorite characters in the film, and I absolutely have a soft spot for flyboys, but he's headstrong, reckless, heedless.

On a "somewhat" lighter note, I so totally teared up with their short words of tribute to Carrie Fischer in the credits. :(

I won't comment on the article since it would stray the conversation and seems to be written by someone who has a huge chip on their shoulder; and also seems to be a huge sweeping generalization. But in regards to Holdo not explaining to Poe because she's a woman and men rarely listen. That seems to be stretching it a bit, and looking for something that's not even there. Especially when he's spent his entire career working for and respecting Leia.

Not only that but the mutany included other women. So it wasn't just men having an issue with her orders, she was undermined by both Rose and the female captain (I think that was her rank} on the bridge. Holdos response of "Steady on" would seem like suicide to anyone not in on the secret. It was a silly thing to do despite what sex you are. Man, woman, I'd go rogue as well.

This rings especially silly to me when no one seemed to know who Holdo was except from reputation. You don't walk on a bridge/ship full of people who have no clue who you are and just expect them to trust you with the lives of thousands of people in a time of what seems to be inevitable death. And when Poets finally was included in on the plan later in the movie he had no issues with it at all.

I only see the whole situation as bad writing to extend the plot, and to continue to show how out of character Poes disregard of Leia'a orders earlier in the film was.

athros wrote:
kazar wrote:
bnpederson wrote:

Nah, she can still be the chosen one with those visions to help her along the path. Doesn't matter who donated sperm or squeezed her out for that to be the case.

But that would again be a Red Herring. So either those visions and the light saber calling out to her is significant or the fact that her parents are nobody is significant, but not both.

Why? A lightsaber with that much importance in the Force calling out to someone who’s Force Sensitive, but yet a nobody, makes no sense?

The red herring then would be that it was Luke's lightsaber that was lost on Bespin, a gas giant. Somehow recovered and ended up right where Rey was when she needed it and it called to her. If the importance of where she came from doesn't matter, then it could have been any lightsaber. So either the writers used Luke's to misguide us, or there is significance to it. I think the latter is the more interesting outcome and the former just feels cheap.

BadKen wrote:
PaladinTom wrote:

this movie just did not feel like a sequel to The Force Awakens.

That is intentional. Check out the slashfilm article athros linked upthread. There’s a lot to think about in that piece.

If it was by design then they should’ve done this right out of the gate with episode 7. I’m sorry but part 2 of a story should feel like a part 2. This tells me there probably was no planned arc for the new trilogy. It also doesn’t get me very excited for Johnson's next “trilogy” - which I read he was given without even pitching a story idea.

Disney should just pull the trigger and go stand-alone like the Marvel films. Let each new director do their own thing with different characters and stories. There is a rumor that there will be no episodes 10,11,12. That’s fine with me. They've been downplaying the episode numbers since TFA anyway.

Maybe it’s dangerous to worship our heroes to the point of idolatry, to convince ourselves that they can never do wrong, never make mistakes, and never let their hubris create monsters that threaten a new generation.

Jeebus fudging christmas - this is Star Wars! This is exactly why so many people hated Man of Steel.

The Conformist wrote:

I only see the whole situation as bad writing to extend the plot, and to continue to show how out of character Poes disregard of Leia'a orders earlier in the film was.

I think they are trying to make him look like a hot shot pilot. We didn't really get to know him much in TFA. If you read any of the Xwing series. He is the kind of pilot that Wedge would look for in a Rogue.