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

Tony EH

Foxtrol wrote: »

Seems like a regular argument at this stage to attempt to link the humour to Marvel influence but it ignores that this kind of humour can be seen throughout the original trilogy. Star Wars is littered with attempted (some good, some bad) humour including at tense moments. This is just more of the same.

No. It's not the same.

Apart from a tiny few questionable moments, like Chewie Tarzan, the humour in the OT feels organic. There's a spontaneity to the laughs, which is largely due to Han Solo's sarcasm and his punchline only double-act with Chewbacca.

The humour in both the prequels and the sequels feels scripted (by people who can't write comedy) and off.

It's "we need a funny line here".

Chris_Heilong

Foxtrol wrote: »

Seems like a regular argument at this stage to attempt to link the humour to Marvel influence but it ignores that this kind of humour can be seen throughout the original trilogy. Star Wars is littered with attempted (some good, some bad) humour including at tense moments. This is just more of the same.

No, it is a very different kind of humour and is much more subtle, I have not watched George Lucas's interfered with trilogy which I hear has some slapstick Alien scenes but the Poa "holding for Hux" scene felt straight out of Spaceballs and many scenes involving a heavy scene or tension were ruined by mistimed slapstick. The portrial of men in the film was also questionable.

Osmosis Jones

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

The portrial of men in the film was also questionable.

How so?

NIMAN

Saw it yesterday.

Lifelong SW fan, had done plenty of reading about it without seeing any spoilers.

Verdict, probably a 5/10 at best.

Very disappointed with it. I waited with great expectations of it, but nearly all of the film disappointed.

Far too long, too disjointed, some meaningless new characters. An entire section I thought was totally surplus to requirements.

I know it's all subjective, but amazed anyone can claim it to be the best SW film ever. I thought R1 was far superior in every way. I wasn't a big fan of TFA when it came out but it grew on me with a few more viewings, this I don't think will. In fact my son wants to go see it over the Xmas holidays with me, and I'm not looking forward to sitting through it again.


Never thought I'd ever say that about a SW film.

johnpatrick81

It is a bit of a mess. I think the only thing that saves me disliking it are the standard Star Wars safety nets. All in all the script and editing were all over the shop. Too many jumps and holes and just a failure to invest the viewer(me anyway) in the big scenes. I think I'd go for a 6, maybe a 7 at a stretch. But on another day, a 5 also seems fair.

Chris_Heilong

Osmosis Jones wrote: »

How so?

There was not one competent male character in the whole film, they are all idiots. I have not seen it this bad since Ghostbusters 2016.

Goodshape

Tony EH wrote: »

No. It's not the same.

Apart from a tiny few questionable moments, like Chewie Tarzan, the humour in the OT feels organic. There's a spontaneity to the laughs, which is largely due to Han Solo's sarcasm and his punchline only double-act with Chewbacca.

The humour in both the prequels and the sequels feels scripted (by people who can't write comedy) and off.

It's "we need a funny line here".

Yeah. Han Solo was a breath of fresh air in the original Star Wars. That's what made him so endearing. Charming and disarming were a part of his character and he was an outlier in the series because of it. He was also integral to the story. In TLJ we have at least two Han Solo wannabes in Finn and Po, neither of which have earned it or have anything even worth while to do in this film.

Aside from Solo and the droids (the obvious light/comic relief – who I actually missed a lot in TLJ), was it not all pretty straight-faced in the original couple of films? Am I misremembering?

One thing I love about good sci-fi is having these fantastical outrageous settings and stories, but treated as a world that's _real_ for the people in it. Not with a knowing wink and a nod to the audience.

TLJ felt far too self aware from the outset.

Foxtrol

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

All Star Wars films have comic relief, but it's far more subtle than the slapstick in TLJ.

There is nothing in the OT, prequels, or even TFA that matches the level of spoof featured in this movie.

So Chewie doing a Tarzan impression isn't the same level of spoof?

Tony EH wrote: »

No. It's not the same.

Apart from a tiny few questionable moments, like Chewie Tarzan, the humour in the OT feels organic. There's a spontaneity to the laughs, which is largely due to Han Solo's sarcasm and his punchline only double-act with Chewbacca.

The humour in both the prequels and the sequels feels scripted (by people who can't write comedy) and off.

It's "we need a funny line here".

There is plenty of poor jokes in the OT, to say there is only a tiny few is putting blinkers on when you watch them. Just for an example I'd say well over half of C3PO's lines are poor attempts at humour along with a large portion of what the Ewoks do.

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

No, it is a very different kind of humour and is much more subtle, I have not watched George Lucas's interfered with trilogy which I hear has some slapstick Alien scenes but the Poa "holding for Hux" scene felt straight out of Spaceballs and many scenes involving a heavy scene or tension were ruined by mistimed slapstick. The portrial of men in the film was also questionable.

I agree they drew out that scene with Hux too long but Han had a very similar witty interaction when trying to stall in the OT. The post I responded to claimed that attempts at humour is because of them trying to be like Marvel. Ford may have had better comic timing but Star Wars always had attempts at humour.

TerrorFirmer

To be honest, you're confusing comic relief with spoof.

Hans scene in ANH was funny, but it wasn't spoof humour. Chewie doing Tarzen was admittedly closer - and there are loads of moments like that in the OT and prequels - but Hux and Finn's first interation in TLJ is an extended spoof piece that revolves around the primary characters and extends to the wider film.

No one is putting blinkers on. To suggest that the humour seen in TLJ mirrors that of any prior outing in the franchise is a cop out.

Goodshape

Foxtrol wrote: »

]Just for an example I'd say well over half of C3PO's lines are poor attempts at humour along with a large portion of what the Ewoks do.

C3PO and R2D2 were the comic relief though. Necessary because everyone else (aside from maybe Solo when it suited) was playing things straight faced.

Nobody is doing anything with a straight face in TLJ. Everyone seems to get there wee joke or "WOOHOO!" moment.

And boy are those Ewoks popular! Not a derided edition to the poorly received third film at all at all!

johnpatrick81

The Hux-Poe thing, at the very start of the film, was unforgivable. I've seen 1 person on here say they enjoyed that bit. It was ridiculous. Everyone I've spoken to agreed that it was ridiculous, and not in a good way.

The fact Hux didn't have Poe's ship vapourized at first glance was bad enough, making him out to be incompetent and genuinely slow in the head was just bizarre. Ugh. Hate is not a strong enough feeling for the negativity I have towards that interaction.

Tony EH

Goodshape wrote: »

Aside from Solo and the droids (the obvious light/comic relief – who I actually missed a lot in TLJ), was it not all pretty straight-faced in the original couple of films? Am I misremembering?

No, your not. It was straight drama, with serious stakes for the protagonists, that they took seriously, that had some unobtrusive and mildly funny bits. 'Return of the Jedi' is mostly straight faced too.

Now, these are the original originals, I'm talking about. Not Lucas's messed about ones.

There's too much of "not giving a shit" going on with characters in most big budget blockbuster films these days, including modern Star Wars. The characters don't really care what's happening to them. Neither does the audience for the most part. They're just ready to say the next "funny" line, written for them by the writer and cue the audience to laugh, because somehow everyone thinks that "comic relief" is actually needed?

As far as I recall, a lot of Solo's sarcasm, was ad-libbed by Ford, so it felt like someone might say it. Gallows humour at tense times. But, it doesn't blow the tension.

Tony EH

Foxtrol wrote: »

There is plenty of poor jokes in the OT, to say there is only a tiny few is putting blinkers on when you watch them. Just for an example I'd say well over half of C3PO's lines are poor attempts at humour along with a large portion of what the Ewoks do.

I have no "blinkers" with any film.

But, I can recognise when things are injected into a film awkwardly.

Zubeneschamali

johnpatrick81 wrote: »

The fact Hux didn't have Poe's ship vapourized at first glance was bad enough, making him out to be incompetent and genuinely slow in the head was just bizarre.

Yep - fleet arrives, rebels caught dead to rights, Hux lets Poe waste a bunch of time and get up close even though his intention is always to blast the entire rebellion to atoms.

Instead, have Hux shoot the cruiser immediately with (already charged!) Dreadnought cannon, then mop up the base. The destruction of the rebel fleet is complete in the first 2 minutes instead of dragging out for 2 hours.

Then we could have had a movie about Rey, Luke, Ren and Snoke.

Nettle Soup

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

Osmosis Jones wrote: »

How so?

There was not one competent male character in the whole film, they are all idiots. I have not seen it this bad since Ghostbusters 2016.

I cant see how Gleeson would be proud of the Hux character. Ridiculous stuff from him.

Zubeneschamali

Nettle Soup wrote: »

I cant see how Gleeson would be proud of the Hux character. Ridiculous stuff from him.

Don't blame Gleeson, he's an actor, not the writer/director.

Nettle Soup

NIMAN wrote: »

Saw it yesterday.

Lifelong SW fan, had done plenty of reading about it without seeing any spoilers.

Verdict, probably a 5/10 at best.

Very disappointed with it. I waited with great expectations of it, but nearly all of the film disappointed.

Far too long, too disjointed, some meaningless new characters. An entire section I thought was totally surplus to requirements.

I know it's all subjective, but amazed anyone can claim it to be the best SW film ever. I thought R1 was far superior in every way. I wasn't a big fan of TFA when it came out but it grew on me with a few more viewings, this I don't think will. In fact my son wants to go see it over the Xmas holidays with me, and I'm not looking forward to sitting through it again.


Never thought I'd ever say that about a SW film.

I agree with all above. I might give it a 5.5/10. I thought TFA was a far superior film.

Foxtrol

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

To be honest, you're confusing comic relief with spoof.

Hans scene in ANH was funny, but it wasn't spoof humour. Chewie doing Tarzen was admittedly closer - and there are loads of moments like that in the OT and prequels - but Hux and Finn's first interation in TLJ is an extended spoof piece that revolves around the primary characters and extends to the wider film.

No one is putting blinkers on. To suggest that the humour seen in TLJ mirrors that of any prior outing in the franchise is a cop out.

You're shifting the goal posts now. The post I quoted claimed they wanted to 'jump on the Marvel bandwagon and fill the movie with tension breaking 'humour' when my argument is that there was humour throughout all the movies.

There was no claim of a specific type of humour and Marvel movies are not littered with scenes like the one you are criticising above. Over the 40 plus hours of Marvel movies I can think of maybe 2 or 3.

Nettle Soup

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Nettle Soup wrote: »

I cant see how Gleeson would be proud of the Hux character. Ridiculous stuff from him.

Don't blame Gleeson, he's an actor, not the writer/director.

I did not blame Gleeson. Resiculous stuff from the Hux character.

TerrorFirmer

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Don't blame Gleeson, he's an actor, not the writer/director.

Absolutely. I hate Hux as a character, but I don't hold Gleeson to account for creative decisions. He's a fine actor.

Look at the prequels - Ewan McGregor managed to come out of it somewhat OK, but Hayden Christianson, Natalie Portman, and Samuel L Jackson - all fine actors - stunk the entire trilogy up.

I often feel it's somewhat cruel that people like Christianson have to bear the shackles of the prequels when George Lucas was solely to blame.

Theboinkmaster

Saw this on Friday with big expectations after TFA and Rian being the director. To give some context up to this I'd rate the films so far:

1 Empire 10/10
2 star wars 9/10
3 jedi 9/10
4 Force awakens 7/10
5 rogue one 7/10
6 Phantom Menace 3/10
7 Revenge of the sith 2/10
8 attack of the clones 2/10

I was utterly disappointed, what a complete mess and would rate it 5/10:

- opening scene was crap
- Luke throwing the lightsabre over his shoulder was basically Rian ****ting all over JJ's previous script and humour was off
- humour injected was silly and spoof like, completely pulled me out of film and tone of film was all over the place. The Hux stuff at the start, the "put some clothes on" line from Rey etc.
- Music was terrible, used same old music from end of TFA repeatedly
- whole middle act was waste of time
- destroyed all the open mysteries from TFA like Rey'd parents, Snoke etc. which really pissed me off - so much scope for good drama
- no real character development
- dodgy CGI in some places
- re-using parts of ESB and ROTJ, even the throne room scene dialogue was the same as ROTJ
- actual story was terrible

what an absolute waste of such possibilities opened up by TFA, really annoyed that they put that ****e up there on the screen.

I don't think time will be kind to this movie and find it baffling that the critics love it

Arne_Saknussem

Foxtrol wrote: »

So Chewie doing a Tarzan impression isn't the same level of spoof?







I agree they drew out that scene with Hux too long but Han had a very similar witty interaction when trying to stall in the OT. The post I responded to claimed that attempts at humour is because of them trying to be like Marvel. Ford may have had better comic timing but Star Wars always had attempts at humour.

The Tarzan thing i remember hating as a kid, cringing before i knew what the word cringe meant. From what i remember all my Star Wars mad friends felt the same way. It stuck out like a sore thumb, but the humour in TLJ doubles down on the cringe factor.

The Han thing i see as him getting caught on the hop, if he'd received a response asking him about the wife & kids you could compare them imo.

Foxtrol

Goodshape wrote: »

C3PO and R2D2 were the comic relief though. Necessary because everyone else (aside from maybe Solo when it suited) was playing things straight faced.

Nobody is doing anything with a straight face in TLJ. Everyone seems to get there wee joke or "WOOHOO!" moment.

And boy are those Ewoks popular! Not a derided edition to the poorly received third film at all at all!

So ignore the droids and Ewoks and I suppose any other instance that doesn't suit your argument for the OT? I think that is the definition of putting of putting on blinkers.

TerrorFirmer

Foxtrol wrote: »

You're shifting the goal posts now. The post I quoted claimed they wanted to 'jump on the Marvel bandwagon and fill the movie with tension breaking 'humour' when my argument is that there was humour throughout all the movies.

There was no claim of a specific type of humour and Marvel movies are not littered with scenes like the one you are criticising above. Over the 40 plus hours of Marvel movies I can think of maybe 2 or 3.

I'm not shifting any goalposts.

The Marvel humour is, or was, unique to that universe and worked relatively well because it's what audiences expect.

Injecting it into Star Wars is new. For better, or worse, I'm not going to tell people what to like or not like.

But it is new, and it is entirely inspired by the radical success of the Marvel universe and the need to be a major catch all for film audiences.

If you can only think of 2 or 3 scenes in the entire Marvel universe that mirror the comic relief of TLJ you really need to watch them again.

I like the Marvel films. And in the very last one I saw, Thor Ragnorok, I can think of about two dozens instances that you're suggesting are limited to "2 or 3" in the entire franchise, which is...frankly bizarre.

I'm not taking a swipe at Marvel - nor TLJ because I liked it overall - but you're way off there.

Foxtrol

Nettle Soup wrote: »

I did not blame Gleeson. Resiculous stuff from the Hux character.

I like Gleeson but I don't think he can carry off the more serious/powerful parts which makes the weaker moments even worse.

Zubeneschamali

Theboinkmaster wrote: »

I don't think time will be kind to this movie and find it baffling that the critics love it

The critics are probably thinking it makes no sense, but hey, scifi for kids and fans, right?

And there are some cool scenes. The Skelligs looked great. The ramming shot was stunning. Even that throne room fight (which made no sense) looked good.

Alan Smithee

Saw it last night and like a lot of others here I was underwhelmed by it all which is nearly worse than hating it outright. I think I definitely need to see it again.

Things I disliked:
The casino chase was like something out of the prequels it looked awful and served little to no purpose (just like the prequels)
Finn (who I loved in the previous film) regressed as a character. It was like the writers didn't know what to do with him.
Del Toro also criminally wasted.
BB8. He has long trumped R2D2 as the most resourceful/lucky annoying droid in the galaxy it felt like he could take on the empire alone at times such is his range of abilities.
Captain Phasma what a useless character, missed opportunity and highly incompetent two movies in a row. I guess she was promoted internally from rank and file, and if I was a Stromtrooper I would be getting on to my union to lobby for her laser proof armour instead of the standard issue one.
The space chase and mutiny lacked tension for me.
Hux (who signs off on these promotions).
The galaxy far far away seems very very small. No sense of how the First Order is ruling the galaxy or are they just flying around looking for rebels.


What I liked

Mark Hamils portrayal of Luke. I felt he brought his A game and added gravitas to the film not unlike Cushing and Guinness in the original.
Kylo Ren good character development and a palpable sense of tension and internal conflict to his character.
The silence of the hyperspace jump into the star destroyer wow.
The throne room fight was pretty cool with guards who knew how to take care of themselves.
Snoke (but like others would have liked to find out how he filled the void left by the Emperor and Vader) .
Yoda
The changing of the guard. We need new stories with new characters to take the mantle of Han. Obi Want, Leia, Luke, Vader et al.

Foxtrol

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I'm not shifting any goalposts.

The Marvel humour is, or was, unique to that universe and worked relatively well because it's what audiences expect.

Injecting it into Star Wars is new. For better, or worse, I'm not going to tell people what to like or not like.

But it is new, and it is entirely inspired by the radical success of the Marvel universe and the need to be a major catch all for film audiences.

If you can only think of 2 or 3 scenes in the entire Marvel universe that mirror the comic relief of TLJ you really need to watch them again.

I like the Marvel films. And in the very last one I saw, Thor Ragnorok, I can think of about two dozens instances that you're suggesting are limited to "2 or 3" in the entire franchise, which is...frankly bizarre.

I'm not taking a swipe at Marvel - nor TLJ because I liked it overall - but you're way off there.

You can think of two dozen scenes like the Hux v Pope scene in Ragnorok? If so we have a different opinion on comedy.

To try to move a discussion from general humour to limit it to 'spoof humour' to now seemingly back to general humour again is goal post shifting.

I agree one liners are spread around more in this movie but they were there in the OT as well. Just because they were limited to a handful of characters previously doesn't mean they weren't there.

Giruilla

Foxtrol wrote: »

You're shifting the goal posts now. The post I quoted claimed they wanted to 'jump on the Marvel bandwagon and fill the movie with tension breaking 'humour' when my argument is that there was humour throughout all the movies.

There was no claim of a specific type of humour and Marvel movies are not littered with scenes like the one you are criticising above. Over the 40 plus hours of Marvel movies I can think of maybe 2 or 3.

You didn't even understand my post you quoted. My point is that they use 'humour' (which if you can't see how its Marvel influenced you're blind), because they had no faith in being able to create dramatic tension with the material they had.
The OT has serious uninterrupted dramatic tension throughout each film, with sparing use of comic relief.
Hans rogue-ish humour when he says "I know", is funny yet perfectly enhances the drama of that scene.
Yoda saying "page turner, it is not", is f*cking jarring and I could barely look at the screen. All I could think throughout TLJ is.. "what am I supposed to be feeling here?".. because the constant shift in tone is confusing and ultimately leaves you disengaged and bored.

TerrorFirmer

Foxtrol wrote: »

You can think of two dozen scenes like the Hux v Pope scene in Ragnorok? If so we have a different opinion on comedy.

To try to move a discussion from general humour to limit it to 'spoof humour' to now seemingly back to general humour again is goal post shifting.

I agree one liners are spread around more in this movie but they were there in the OT as well. Just because they were limited to a handful of characters previously doesn't mean they weren't there.

I'm not here to tell someone they're wrong so we'll have to agree to disagree on this to be fair. We've both made our points.