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

Wibbs

pumpkin4life wrote: »

What interests me the most is I'm reading the same "it's so original because Luke isn't Luke anymore" comments; suggesting to me there is a market for "subversive button reset" films. Which is kind of depressing, come to think of it. Movies for people to feel good about for that reason.

Oh there is most certainly a subsection of the geekier section of the modern viewing audience that really gets the horn for the "unexpected" retcon of a previous story universe. They see it as edgy and innovative, with a side order of loving a certain shared smug contrariness. Now it can be innovative, if but only if the result is an improvement on the story. In the fantasy/comic book world Batman an obvious one that worked. The "dark knight' is a whole heap of improvement over the Michael Keaton era(or go forbid the Arnie interlude). It's a deeper better backstory and better stories can be told from it. On Telly the reboot of Doctor Who in the noughties another example of improvement and now he being turned into a she gets the same above subsection all a quiver, so covers both bases.

This retcon is far more dubious, if marketing led. The lore of the force is changed, the lore of Luke is changed, there is zero explanation for all sorts of things. As I say it might as well be a different universe with the sights and sounds of the original to keep the cinema seats warm. I wouldn't mind that again if and only if it was an improvement. But it's really not and pretty demonstrably so. The Falcon could with ease fly through the plot holes that come along with puzzling regularity. What does impress me is how well crafted the look and feel is so that the average audience doesn't really care or notice. Much(on the second showing I saw, the audience groaned at the opening holding for... "joke". Superleia also got laughs. In both showings the kids loved the Porgs so they're a sure fire hit(BB8 also got the kids going, as did Chewie).

kerplun k wrote: »

Did she have a death scene? I’ve only seen it once. I just remembered her staying behind?

Well kinda KK. She gets blown out of the ship by a missile to the bridge, that kills everybody else. She avoids the explosion and flying shrapnel of course, then is shown apparently frozen and lifeless in the vacuum of space, until.... her hand twitches and her eyes open, music starts and she does a force Mary Poppins/Supergirl and flies back into the ship alive, passes out immediately and is on life support for a few scenes while Laura Dern takes over and goes full daft. When she does wake up she goes to the Poe dude who has mutinied because Dern is going full daft and rather than think Hmmmm maybe Poe is right(and he was) just blasts him with a stun gun. Yeah, I didn't get it either. Then again it's yet another example of how bloody badly written at times this film is. The star ship chase notion was behind stupid.

Wibbs

PhiloCypher wrote: »

With the sequel trilogy if they are to wrap everything up it will necessitate a significant time jump for the resistance to have accrued the resources necessary to defeat the First Order. Will be interesting to see how they handle it, do they age the actors up ?

I'd say going by this film they'll do neither. The rebels will "magically" grow in number, probably by getting some help hinted at from more remote systems. After all, following the very cool hyperspace suicide run, the rebels are down to what 3 or 4 ships plodding towards an nearby ex rebel base planet, chased by the baddies. They land and within what an hour, maybe two? Their numbers have swelled to the point where they can man the guns and trenches and speeders. The baddies take their sweet time showing up so let them prepare. Handy that. Stupid pacing. It's like watching an old Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon cliffhanger where he's on an never ending conveyor belt to his doom...

Anyway the baddies finally show up with walkers and a big space doom gun to blow down the rebel's door(though the big space doom gun seems to have little to no affect on a speeder flying up the beam? Da Fuq?). Force Luke shows up, blah blah, baddies are distracted, Mary Rey Sue arrives and moves a mountain with the farce and the entirety of the rebel force magically goes back down to an even tinier number that can all happily fit on the Falcon and fly away. And people are saying this is a well made story. Jesus.

Tony EH

david75 wrote: »

TLJ was farewell to Leia. Her passing will be mentioned in the crawl of 9 as a motivator for the rebellion to grow or it’ll be mentioned in passing on screen I think. It’s the only road open to them.

That would be a poor alternative to what should have happened in VIII.

silverharp

Sargon takes a pop at it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPsRp7uUXUk

Grayditch

Imagine still using the term "snowflake".

pixelburp

I generally find those who use the term 'snowflake' are often the quickest to pull down the defences and cry fowl for being called out.

In any case, I find there's something depressing and a little bit sad that people this side of the Atlantic are earnestly using or taking distinctly American terms and positions; much of this whole 'culture war' is a Stateside thing, stoked by Flyover state conservatives or naive Coastal city progressives, yet here we are with people using 'liberal' etc. as a pejorative over here.

Is it too much to ask that people like myself are derided as champagne socialists instead of a libt&rd?

Tony EH

pumpkin4life wrote: »

It's making fantastic money no doubt, but revenue wise The Last Jedi is nearly 40% down on The Force Awakens on a day by day comparison. Any business who are nearly 40% down on their big product would be massively concerned with something like that, especially with the Solo movie out next year.

The simple answer here is that a lot of people had the scales fall from their eyes after 'The Force Awakens'.

That film was destined to make a bucket load. After Star Wars was in the wilderness for a decade, thanks to the prequels, a new Star Wars film had a guaranteed BO take.

However, upon reflection, a good proportion of that audience felt that 'The Force Awakens' just wasn't that good a film and have opted to pass on the next ones.

I don't think there's any great mystery here.

johnny_ultimate

With people like Sargon of Akkad, it's best to just laugh at them rather than get worked up about their perpetual outrage about the existence of women. They really don't deserve any more of our respect or time than that.

Tony EH

brianregan09 wrote: »

274 pages of discussion and arguement from grown men and women about a film made to create kids toys , makes you think doesn't it

but seriously I've just been watching the new netflix show The Toys that made us and the star wars episode is fantastic

While this is somewhat correct, it's not 100% correct.

Thing is, if you're a fan of cinema in general, then it's hard to dismiss Star Wars. It's going to create discussion amongst people who like movies.

kerplun k

Wibbs wrote: »

Well kinda KK. She gets blown out of the ship by a missile to the bridge,

Ahhh. Apologies. I misunderstood that. I thought Pumpkin was referring to an actual death scene as opposed to the mentioned close call.

Yes, I do agree that this was a silly scene, but it’s only about 10 seconds and doesn’t have too much of a detrimental effect on the film. So much so that I actually forgot it excised.

Thanks for clearing that up

ebbsy

I enjoyed the last 2 films a lot.

This film had :

No tension at all.
Stupid humour.
Terrible storylines whacked together.
Crap ending.
Awful acting.
And it was too long.

It was another Phantom Menace.

Wibbs

Tony EH wrote: »

That would be a poor alternative to what should have happened in VIII.

To be fair they had no idea that Carrie would die. She alone among the old guard was seen as "safe", a mother figure for the new guard, so it made sense she would go on. If Ford hadn't thought take the money and run, he might have remained too, as the old non force guy, but I doubt it. Luke had to go and had to be demoted, lessened, which is what we saw. If as obvious logic would have had it, the son of the most powerful force dude in history and a full on Jedi with decades of inner development, would have wiped the floor with both Rey and Kylo. Just like Da Vader did with him when he was starting out. Luke in Snoke's throne room would have gone like this with his bodyguards.



And Snoke V Luke would have kicked off like this, followed by a titanic struggle where it could go either way.



Rey and Ren would have been sitting in the corner observing with Rey getting increasingly bored with Ren's epic manchild whinging. Y'know Benny boy, I've barely survived on a barren craphole planet for all my life and got out of there intact and all you do is whine you woe is me middle class sap. I thought I dug your brooding vibe, but you're about as stable as one legged stool. Now Finn, that's a man who I could dig. Poe? Egotistical wanker, might jump his bones for a weekend mind you. But I'm conflicted Rey. And broody. Oh sod off you Bantha turd muppet.

pixelburp wrote: »

I generally find those who use the term 'snowflake' are often the quickest to pull down the defences and cry fowl for being called out.

In any case, I find there's something depressing and a little bit sad that people this side of the Atlantic are earnestly using or taking distinctly American terms and positions; much of this whole 'culture war' is a Stateside thing, stoked by Flyover state conservatives or naive Coastal city progressives, yet here we are with people using 'liberal' etc. as a pejorative over here.

Is it too much to ask that people like myself are derided as champagne socialists instead of a libt&rd?

OH god yes PB. So much with the yes.

johnny_ultimate wrote:

With people like Sargon of Akkad, it's best to just laugh at them rather than get worked up

We may disagree about Fury Road and TLJ, but by god we agree here. And like PB notes, just more of this imported American gender war bullsh1t.

kerplun k wrote: »

Yes, I do agree that this was a silly scene, but it’s only about 10 seconds and doesn’t have too much of a detrimental effect on the film. So much so that I actually forgot it excised.

TBH I kinda deleted it from my head too. I thought Leia was brilliant as a kid. No nonsense, take charge, clued in woman(in Star Wars, in Empire I thought she was very badly served and was written too love struck damsel in distress crap. The only sore point for me in that otherwise brilliant flic). I bloody love Carrie Fisher. She had her demons, but she was an incredibly talented and funny and intelligent and sound human being. Bloody great writer too. Her books are well worth the read. Basically she could do no wrong for me.

Tony EH

Wibbs wrote: »

To be fair they had no idea that Carrie would die.

True. But once she was brown bread, it made no sense to have her remain for the whole film. Plus, with obvious junctures in the story allowing (crying out for) a great send off, the solution to what to do with Leia is staring the producers in the face.

Optimus Prime

Does no one else think they cut half of Carrie Fisher scenes out of this film ? The whole bit with her in a coma or whatever seems to me they did that to save the scenes she filmed for the next film. Stuck in Finn and rose going to the casino planet to film the gap.

nix

Optimus Prime wrote: »

Does no one else think they cut half of Carrie Fisher scenes out of this film ? The whole bit with her in a coma or whatever seems to me they did that to save the scenes she filmed for the next film. Stuck in Finn and rose going to the casino planet to film the gap.

Thanks to modern editing techniques, they can use the existing footage to complete the trilogy without Fisher.. :pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U58IdBjMeS4

Venom

Optimus Prime wrote: »

Does no one else think they cut half of Carrie Fisher scenes out of this film ? The whole bit with her in a coma or whatever seems to me they did that to save the scenes she filmed for the next film. Stuck in Finn and rose going to the casino planet to film the gap.

Nope. All Carrie's scenes for the movie were finished prior to her passing.

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/carrie-fisher-dead-death-star-wars-viii-8-1201948826/

Some of the first leaked set photos from TLJ were from the casino planets so the side trip there was long planned out script wise.

irishman86

Rey was horribly cast, the girl is the most wooden actress ive ever watched. The movie was meh 5/10.
Its funny Disney have released 3 movies and the two about Rey have been tripe where the other movie with a proper female lead was very good
The movies really are boring, they are watchable purely because its Star Wars

johnny_ultimate

Tony EH wrote: »

But once she was brown bread, it made no sense to have her remain for the whole film.

It makes perfect sense. The film was shot and nearing completion - removing Fisher through, say, reshoots would have cost tens of millions. Removing her without reshoots suddenly makes editing a nightmare task in which you have to lose a central character in a way the footage wasn't shot for (whatever one's thoughts about Leia's Force scene, it's abundantly clear she was never intended to actually die at that point in the story). Changing her story through CG or something... well that'd have been the worst option of all.

But mostly changing the film to 'remove' Fisher earlier than the script intended means you lose a chunk of her final performance. Say what you will about the film, but losing, say, her 'reunion' with Luke would mean you lose one of the sweetest, most anticipated scenes from the entire series. It's not just her role that would need radical changes either: she is a central presence in several major sequences, and her removal would require significant changes to Luke's story as well.

No doubt Carrie Fisher's death has left the filmmakers of IX in an awkward spot. But tragedies happen, and I for one am glad Johnson and Disney allowed this film to exist as planned and leave Fisher's last performance intact. And I say that as someone who thinks her performances even tends to be a tad uneven in these films! .

silverharp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

With people like Sargon of Akkad, it's best to just laugh at them rather than get worked up about their perpetual outrage about the existence of women. They really don't deserve any more of our respect or time than that.

the people making movies are making it political, you just seem a little tweaked that other people point it out

Wibbs

silverharp wrote: »

the people making movies are making it political

TBH S I don't know if they are. I would say what they are doing and what Hollywood has always done, especially in its mainstream flics, is to reflect the current sociopolitical slant of Hollywood writers and directors(producers rarely give a toss, so long as it makes money) and to some extent a large chunk of their audience.

So the alien invasion stuff of the 50's was the Russians and atom bombs are coming paranoia, the 70's had politics is out to get you, the 80's the Russians and other foreigners are really out to get you and so forth.

So what kind of film would middle class white college educated American "liberal", mostly male writers and directors produce in today's world? And there you have it. No political conspiracy required. The first Star Wars written by another from the same demographic who grew up in the 50's and 60's gave us his worldview in the 1970's(100% European American, with only one woman character). Though one could argue it's more a 50's film than a 70's one.

silverharp

Wibbs wrote: »

TBH S I don't know if they are. I would say what they are doing and what Hollywood has always done, especially in its mainstream flics, is to reflect the current sociopolitical slant of Hollywood writers and directors(producers rarely give a toss, so long as it makes money) and to some extent a large chunk of their audience.

So the alien invasion stuff of the 50's was the Russians and atom bombs are coming paranoia, the 70's had politics is out to get you, the 80's the Russians and other foreigners are really out to get you and so forth.

So what kind of film would middle class white college educated American "liberal", mostly male writers and directors produce in today's world? And there you have it. No political conspiracy required. The first Star Wars written by another from the same demographic who grew up in the 50's and 60's gave us his worldview in the 1970's(100% European American, with only one woman character). Though one could argue it's more a 50's film than a 70's one.

even the original force is 1960's new age stuff and i believe even annoyed US christians during the 80's moral panic,but i think the difference is incorporating stuff that drives the story versus stuff that slows it down and creates baggage. Ultimately having a Mary Sue for example makes the story worse then it should have been because its just not good story telling

overall though i'd say the bigger problem is Disney rushing out these movies to get their money back, they are making sloppy mistakes.

Turtyturd

Are those prequel memes supposed to be funny?

david75

Turtyturd wrote: »

Are those prequel memes supposed to be funny?

Nothing about the prequels was funny. But then as we’ve forgotten in this thread, humour is subjective.

ps3lover

Looks like the WOM is having an effect, early second weeeknd numbers are not good, going to have a major drop.

Tony EH

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

It makes perfect sense. The film was shot and nearing completion - removing Fisher through, say, reshoots would have cost tens of millions. Removing her without reshoots suddenly makes editing a nightmare task in which you have to lose a central character in a way the footage wasn't shot for (whatever one's thoughts about Leia's Force scene, it's abundantly clear she was never intended to actually die at that point in the story). Changing her story through CG or something... well that'd have been the worst option of all.

But mostly changing the film to 'remove' Fisher earlier than the script intended means you lose a chunk of her final performance. Say what you will about the film, but losing, say, her 'reunion' with Luke would mean you lose one of the sweetest, most anticipated scenes from the entire series. It's not just her role that would need radical changes either: she is a central presence in several major sequences, and her removal would require significant changes to Luke's story as well.

No doubt Carrie Fisher's death has left the filmmakers of IX in an awkward spot. But tragedies happen, and I for one am glad Johnson and Disney allowed this film to exist as planned and leave Fisher's last performance intact. And I say that as someone who thinks her performances even tends to be a tad uneven in these films! .

That's fair enough I spose.

I reckon it's just the awfulness of flying Leia that scuppers the thing for me, coupled with a lack of a good sendoff for a much loved OT character.

And yes, I agree about her performance. It's largely awful, if we're all honest about it.

david75

Really interesting review/read on the film but also the gender and racial politics being included in the film and the dialogue around it.
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-last-jedi-saving-the-star-wars-we-love/

Greyfox

irishman86 wrote: »

Rey was horribly cast, the girl is the most wooden actress ive ever watched

Nonsense, her and Finn are perfectly cast, she was superb in TFA

I really really enjoyed the film, it's a film that has to be watched on a big screen and was a lot of fun. True it had a few minor flaws, Kylo Ren is only an ok baddie and the story was average but there was never a point in the film where I felt bored.

Saruhashi

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

With people like Sargon of Akkad, it's best to just laugh at them rather than get worked up about their perpetual outrage about the existence of women. They really don't deserve any more of our respect or time than that.

I watched the video there. Seems to me that:

1. He really enjoyed the movie.
2. The first half of the video is supposed to be a joke ("snowflake" in the title is supposed to be a joke).
3. The second half of the video is criticism of the response to the movie, not the movie itself.

I assume from your comment that you didn't take the time to watch the video but then I don't understand how you can comment at all if you admit you don't know what you are talking about.

I can't imagine that a poster coming to any of the movie threads on this site saying "I haven't actually watched the movie but trust me guys it's a load of rubbish and not worth your time" would not be met with a reply telling them they can't reasonably comment on something they haven't even seen, probably by your good self.

Saruhashi

Turtyturd wrote: »

Are those prequel memes supposed to be funny?

Yes. I think that is the intention. Unless you think this is supposed to be serious, somehow.

https://twitter.com/PrequelMemesBot/status/943888680795758592

pumpkin4life

Wibbs wrote: »

TBH S I don't know if they are. I would say what they are doing and what Hollywood has always done, especially in its mainstream flics, is to reflect the current sociopolitical slant of Hollywood writers and directors(producers rarely give a toss, so long as it makes money) and to some extent a large chunk of their audience.

So the alien invasion stuff of the 50's was the Russians and atom bombs are coming paranoia, the 70's had politics is out to get you, the 80's the Russians and other foreigners are really out to get you and so forth.

So what kind of film would middle class white college educated American "liberal", mostly male writers and directors produce in today's world? And there you have it. No political conspiracy required. The first Star Wars written by another from the same demographic who grew up in the 50's and 60's gave us his worldview in the 1970's(100% European American, with only one woman character). Though one could argue it's more a 50's film than a 70's one.

Spot on and what I think is happening is the growing gap between those who write and perform the arts and those who consume it.

When I was in university, the guys who were budding writers, filmmakers and painters were all these very left wing, liberal, SJWie (I know, but its a good word in this context) people whose main commonality was creating great works of art. Great in this context means filling your art with commentary on Trump, environmentalism, gay lads and gay wans, feminism and all of that craic, because art needs to make commentary on the world and this need to be done at the cost of story. They then sell it to other lads under the header of "subversion" or being edgy. That article there by david75 has a passage on how the casino scene is social commentary on inequality in capitalism. A bloody Star Wars movie. Mark Kermode likes it and other lads like it and all is well I suppose and its much cleverer than those Justice League fans who like Transformers as well, bunch of eejits like.

Then most people who consume these movies want the big flashy special effects and the hero's story, good verses evil, that's it.

This disparity is beginning to alienate people in my opinion. Between the excessive budgets in Hollywood movies as well as falling cinema attendances (the Coen Brothers took the piss out of this in last years very good Hail Caeser!) and the competition from Netflix and whathaveyou and between the Weinstein crap right now, I wonder is Hollywood setting itself up for a nasty fall in the next few years. People are coming out of this movie with the feeling of "lads, something wasn't right there" and that's one of the reasons why.

That's another reason why this movie is so interesting to me as well.