Star Wars Episode VIII - The Last Jedi *spoilers from Post 2857*

endacl

Will wait for Act III before judgement. Empire needed Jedi to place it in a context.

Hector Savage

Osmosis Jones wrote: »

Luke actually fighting with Kylo would've looked bad to me, I don't like the idea of old Luke in a lightsaber duel as much as I hated watching Yoda fight with one. He's ascended beyond needing to fight with a lightsaber, much like Yoda had, and I think the way he confronted Ben was perfect for that.

Ah Yoda was awesome flying around as a green blur with a lightsaber come on!

Tony EH

murpho999 wrote: »

Why is it? If it took all his energy.

I got the impression that he gave himself to the force anyway.

Just didn't sit well with me. Felt completely unnecessary too.

Penn

Tony EH wrote: »

Sure. But dying because he used "too much force" is a bit laughable.

Remember Obi-Wan being killed by Vader. His body just disappeared when Vader struck him, whereas the lightsaber should have just cut his body in two. Likewise, Yoda's body just disappeared as he died.

I don't think it's laughable to say that what happened to Luke is essentially a combination of the two; he used up a lot of energy to be able to do what he did, but at the same time, he chose to go. He knew his time was over, he accomplished what he needed to and he became one with the Force, hence disappearing rather than just dying.

david75

Calling it now.

Sweeping brush kid is Reys little brother.

Flip on luke and Leia both being seperated but in this case both slaves and very powerful in the force.

pixelburp

Feels kinda redundant to add thoughts to a thread already deep into the autopsy and minutiae (no doubt by the time I hit submit there'll be 20 more posts), but I'm literally just put from the cinema and my very first reaction?

It's a bit of a mess, but a pretty magificent mess.

The humour jarred and undercut the drama but this felt like a story with more purpose and vision than Force Awakens. The details are sketchy in places, but that was worth the journey.

Will probably put some longer thoughts together, but for now my gut instinct liked what it saw, with some reservations.

Saruhashi

silverharp wrote: »

I was just trying to get a feel for whether the average fan's reaction to the movie. I happened to be reading a section of the comments on this thread and it wasn't all glowing, someone said they preferred the prequels, maybe I just read an unrepresentative group of comments?

I'd say it's better than the prequels overall but probably just as bad in some parts. It's quite different from them too so I'm not sure a comparison is really possible.

I'd rate it 6/10 as a stand alone sci-fi action adventure movie. Mildly entertaining movie with big effects and a lot of nonsense. Humor that is sometimes OK and sometimes bad.

As an episode in an ongoing series it's actually quite bad as it kind of ignores large parts coming from previous episodes and actually comes across as the end of a trilogy (the shot at the end with broom kid especially) rather than a middle part. I'm imagining something like if Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers just scrapped Sauron as a threat and ran with Saruman instead or if they changed the nature of the ring or if they just said actually Frodo can give it to anyone to use and take it back as needed.

As a Star Wars movie it's quite bad too as it inelegantly tries to introduce new concepts into the lore and it treats existing characters quite roughly. It comes across as a sort of imitation of Star Wars and, for me personally, that didn't sit right for almost the entire movie. To be fair, I suppose TFA and RO and the prequels all kind of suffer from feeling like "fake Star Wars".

So I'd go for 5 or 6 out of 10.

Almost everywhere I've looked online there is a lot of negative reaction. Some of the negative commentary is even attached to 8 or 9 out of 10 scores which is kind of funny.

The old "I didn't like A, B, C, D and E about this... 9.5 out of 10" stuff that you frequently see in video game reviews. Which is actually interesting as I've seen this movie reviewed on a lot of sites that generally only review video games.

With Americans often acting like The Internet is just part of the USA it's amusing at first to see them injecting their politics into the social conversation around the movie but now it's like a user review from France or Italy or Ireland is lumped in with "Trump supporters" or "The Russians" because they think the movie sucked. Not fair.

Hector Savage

https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/942429090480578560

OK Dave Rubin liked it better 2nd time .... good stuff ..

david75

Penn wrote: »

Remember Obi-Wan being killed by Vader. His body just disappeared when Vader struck him, whereas the lightsaber should have just cut his body in two. Likewise, Yoda's body just disappeared as he died.

I don't think it's laughable to say that what happened to Luke is essentially a combination of the two; he used up a lot of energy to be able to do what he did, but at the same time, he chose to go. He knew his time was over, he accomplished what he needed to and he became one with the Force, hence disappearing rather than just dying.

Vader didn’t kill oni wan though. He was robbed of that by obi wan passing away into the force before he could hit him. That’s robbed him of his victory and revenge. Even see Vader kicking the robe completely confused as to what just happened. Which is so deadly.

david75

This thread alone is probably a good microcosm of the whole thing. The people that don’t like it definitely have way more to say about it than those that do. Still not an indicator of its credits or failings though. We liked it or we didn’t wanting to be part of the majority in consensus is understandable but doesn’t really achieve anything worthwhile does it? If it does it’s totally separate to the film

Penn

david75 wrote: »

Calling it now.

Sweeping brush kid is Reys little brother.

Flip on luke and Leia both being seperated but in this case both slaves and very powerful in the force.

I disagree. I think the whole point of the kid at the end is showing how Luke has restored belief in the Force throughout the galaxy again, and helped reignite the faith in the Resistance. The kids were re-enacting the story they'd heard about Luke facing down the First Order. Now they believe in Jedis and the Force again. Whereas we saw in TFA that there were stories about Luke and the Force, but they were never really believed by all.

murpho999

david75 wrote: »

This thread alone is probably a good microcosm of the whole thing. The people that don’t like it definitely have way more to say about it than those that do. Still not an indicator of its credits or failings though. We liked it or we didn’t wanting to be part of the majority in consensus is understandable but doesn’t really achieve anything worthwhile does it? If it does it’s totally separate to the film

I saw it on Saturday and really liked it. Solid 8/9 for me.

Yes, it has the flaws such as the Finn/Rose/Casino etc but overall it's a great Star Wars films.

I'm not really going to bother engaging with the negative posters here as their mind is made up and there is not point in arguing with them.

I do however feel that they look at the original trilogy with rose coloured glasses and forget how old they where when they first saw it and what audience it is being made for now.

Also, why all the calls for the backstory of Snoke when we knew nothing about the Emperor who died in the 3rd film without complaints from anyone?

Mitch Connor

the del toro character - was he the person they were actually ment to find, or was teh plot device of their being only ONE person that could do this job proven false by there being two people - and the two people being in the same place at the same time, one of them conveniently in prison, in the same prison cell?

johnny_ultimate

Penn wrote: »

I think the whole point of the kid at the end is showing how Luke has restored belief in the Force throughout the galaxy again, and helped reignite the faith in the Resistance.

Have to expand on that reading somewhat. The epilogue is as much about how those kids were inspired by their very own brief run in with The Resistance in the form of Finn and Rose. The film is shining a light on the less divinely-annointed folk as it is the force-fluent superheroes. The Galaxy needs the everyday heroes as much as it needs the legends

SteM

Mitch Connor wrote: »

the del toro character - was he the person they were actually ment to find, or was teh plot device of their being only ONE person that could do this job proven false by there being two people - and the two people being in the same place at the same time, one of them conveniently in prison, in the same prison cell?

My understanding was there were 2 people that could do the job (maybe more) and the DJ character was the one they ended up with because he's the only one they could get access to.

Maybe the codebreaker that Maz recommended wouldn't have turned Rose and Finn in?

The Nal

Mitch Connor wrote: »

the del toro character - was he the person they were actually ment to find, or was teh plot device of their being only ONE person that could do this job proven false by there being two people - and the two people being in the same place at the same time, one of them conveniently in prison, in the same prison cell?

Finn and Rose story was completely irrelevant. They didn't find the right code guy, they didn't turn off the tracker, they didn't destroy the beam thing. All they did was kill Phasma which was useless. Oh, they let a few weird animals loose in a hammy anti slavery, pro animals subplot.

Zubeneschamali

endacl wrote: »

Will wait for Act III before judgement. Empire needed Jedi to place it in a context.

No, it really didn't. RotJ was a big disappointment, but took nothing from Empire, which remains the best Star Wars movie.

Penn

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Have to expand on that reading somewhat. The epilogue is as much about how those kids were inspired by their very own brief run in with The Resistance in the form of Finn and Rose. The film is shining a light on the less divinely-annointed folk as it is the force-fluent superheroes. The Galaxy needs the everyday heroes as much as it needs the legends

Completely agree. Hence the combination of him using the Force for the brush but also showing how he has Rose's ring with the Resistance symbol. It's also a big reason why I loved the reveal of Rey's parents being just that they were essentially nobodies. You don't have to be of a legendary lineage like the Skywalkers or Kenobis.

silverharp

Saruhashi wrote: »

I'd say it's better than the prequels overall but probably just as bad in some parts. It's quite different from them too so I'm not sure a comparison is really possible.

I'd rate it 6/10 as a stand alone sci-fi action adventure movie. Mildly entertaining movie with big effects and a lot of nonsense. Humor that is sometimes OK and sometimes bad.

As an episode in an ongoing series it's actually quite bad as it kind of ignores large parts coming from previous episodes and actually comes across as the end of a trilogy (the shot at the end with broom kid especially) rather than a middle part. I'm imagining something like if Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers just scrapped Sauron as a threat and ran with Saruman instead or if they changed the nature of the ring or if they just said actually Frodo can give it to anyone to use and take it back as needed.

As a Star Wars movie it's quite bad too as it inelegantly tries to introduce new concepts into the lore and it treats existing characters quite roughly. It comes across as a sort of imitation of Star Wars and, for me personally, that didn't sit right for almost the entire movie. To be fair, I suppose TFA and RO and the prequels all kind of suffer from feeling like "fake Star Wars".

So I'd go for 5 or 6 out of 10.

Almost everywhere I've looked online there is a lot of negative reaction. Some of the negative commentary is even attached to 8 or 9 out of 10 scores which is kind of funny.

The old "I didn't like A, B, C, D and E about this... 9.5 out of 10" stuff that you frequently see in video game reviews. Which is actually interesting as I've seen this movie reviewed on a lot of sites that generally only review video games.

With Americans often acting like The Internet is just part of the USA it's amusing at first to see them injecting their politics into the social conversation around the movie but now it's like a user review from France or Italy or Ireland is lumped in with "Trump supporters" or "The Russians" because they think the movie sucked. Not fair.

I saw that headline on twitter about the Russians being responsible for the bad reviews . A movie like this should be getting solid 8's and 9's with a bit of obligatory nitpicking. getting a "6" means the film while it will still be a raging success will be forgotten about in the not too distant future and they might lose some audience on the next movie.

murpho999

The Nal wrote: »

Finn and Rose story was completely irrelevant. They didn't find the right code guy, they didn't turn off the tracker, they didn't destroy the beam thing. All they did was kill Phasma which was useless. Oh, they let a few weird animals loose in a hammy anti slavery, pro animals subplot.

So things go wrong for them and that makes it irrelevant?

I agree it was not a great sub-plot and the casino scene didn't feel right at all but their encounter with the kids led to the final scene showing their impact on the kids and I think that is important.

Zubeneschamali

Saruhashi wrote: »

I'd say it's better than the prequels overall but probably just as bad in some parts. It's quite different from them too so I'm not sure a comparison is really possible.

The prequels were terrible, but at least they aimed to tell a different story from the first trilogy. This was scenes from Empire and RotJ glued together with jokes and nonsense.

Some of the jokes were funny, and that light speed ramming scene was cool, and Hamill as old Luke was good, but overall, this was behind RotJ and Rogue One.

I'd even put it below The Force Awakens. Even a recycled version of the fist movie was better than this.

The Nal

murpho999 wrote: »

So things go wrong for them and that makes it irrelevant?

I agree it was not a great sub-plot and the casino scene didn't feel right at all but their encounter with the kids led to the final scene showing their impact on the kids and I think that is important.

Yes I agree, just think too much of the movie centered on them to no end really.

Zubeneschamali

murpho999 wrote: »

their encounter with the kids led to the final scene showing their impact on the kids and I think that is important.

I think we can count on JJ to ignore that puke-inducing crap.

radonicus

murpho999 wrote: »

So things go wrong for them and that makes it irrelevant?

I agree it was not a great sub-plot and the casino scene didn't feel right at all but their encounter with the kids led to the final scene showing their impact on the kids and I think that is important.

Interesting. That might end up being the true significance of that whole escapade, I just doubt it was truly planned that way.

everlast75

silverharp wrote: »

I saw that headline on twitter about the Russians being responsible for the bad reviews . A movie like this should be getting solid 8's and 9's with a bit of obligatory nitpicking. getting a "6" means the film while it will still be a raging success will be forgotten about in the not too distant future and they might lose some audience on the next movie.

reviews at that level from whom?

This movie was aimed at teenagers and certainly not at those old enough to be around for the IV, V and Vi when first released. I am fairly certain teenagers and younger loved it, and it is the older generation who are getting online and giving the negative reviews.

Zubeneschamali

everlast75 wrote: »

I am fairly certain teenagers and younger loved it, and it is the older generation who are getting online and giving the negative reviews.

I brought my two teenagers, and they hated it. They weren't around for the prequels, so hating a SW movie in the cinema was a new experience for them.

They liked last years Rogue One a lot.

pixelburp

everlast75 wrote: »

reviews at that level from whom?

This movie was aimed at teenagers and certainly not at those old enough to be around for the IV, V and Vi when first released. I am fairly certain teenagers and younger loved it, and it is the older generation who are getting online and giving the negative reviews.

I'm 37 and I enjoyed it *shrug* we can generalise til the cows come home but you ain't gonna find some logical magic bullet that'll nearly package the lovers and haters into two neat demographics.

DrWu

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2017/12/18/grown-man-doesnt-like-laser-sword-movie/?utm_source=WWN_Facebook_Page&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=Social_Link&utm_content=Article

silverharp

everlast75 wrote: »

reviews at that level from whom?

This movie was aimed at teenagers and certainly not at those old enough to be around for the IV, V and Vi when first released. I am fairly certain teenagers and younger loved it, and it is the older generation who are getting online and giving the negative reviews.

well good point but the movie company is depending on parents who grew up with the originals taking their kids too, my son saw it yday with some other kids (he is 13) , he thought it was good but had issues, he didn't come out gushing. Also I'd say this set of movies don't mean as much today for today's kids as the originals did however once they are buying tickets that's all that will matter.

everlast75

pixelburp wrote: »

I'm 37 and I enjoyed it *shrug* we can generalise til the cows come home but you ain't gonna find some logical magic bullet that'll nearly package the lovers and haters into two neat demographics.

I'm older than you and I liked it too.

My point was the mass negative reviews, in my view, will tend to be those of an older generation ie. those who the film was not made for. I cannot imagine 12 year olds getting online to trash the movie. All comments tend to mention watching the original movies at the time of release which disclose the age of the commentators.

As I said, just my opinion. All teenagers and younger that I know of through friends and family liked it. All negative comments that I am hearing are from people my own age. That's where I'm coming from with my comment.