Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
I saw it today too! Woohoo! It was fun. I feel like I need to think about it a bit before I post too many thoughts, but I did enjoy it, and I would like to see it again. It was a bit different than I was expecting, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I saw The Last Jedi on Saturday, and it was absolutely fantastic. Like Catspaw, I did not anticipate how events would unfold at all, but that honestly might be my favorite part about it. Our expectations weren't just toyed with, they were completely destroyed, and it was refreshing. The Force Awakens brought out all the nostalgia, but the plot was fairly predictable, not deviating much from the original trilogy.
There were a few weak moments, some of which I'm still processing, and I'm not sure yet how I feel about Finn and Rose's plotline, but overall I loved it.
"And the fire with all the strength it hath."
Called it 100% I saw right through you trailer. 'I need you to train me.' 'No way, after what happened before it's time for the Jedi to end.' 'But I'll be different.' 'Okay I'll train you.' It was so obvious that was where Luke started, not where he went.
I liked it a lot, though I have to say not quite as much as I expected to after seeing all the incredibly favorable early reactions. I don't have anything negative to say about it, but I thought I would come out thinking it was the greatest thing ever and I don't. It was very good though, a solid next installment in this new trilogy. I'm very interested to see how it's going to conclude.
And it didn't feel its length to me at all, which surprised but pleased me.
And it didn't feel its length to me at all, which surprised but pleased me.
- The Top Crusader
- Hammer Bro
- Posts: 22646
- Joined: April 2005
- Location: A drawbridge over a lava pit with an axe conveniently off to the side
Can you elaborate on this, or provide a link? I feel like I'm missing out on something, unless I'm just overlooking something obvious.Tea Ess wrote:
I saw the movie with my dad and my brother, which was fun, but I want to talk to a female friend who has seen the movie to see if I was the only one who laughed out loud (and I think I may have been the only one in the theatre to do so...) when
- Scientific Guy
- Tallying up
- Posts: 140
- Joined: August 2017
- Contact:
Here's my two cents:
EDIT: I never even saw the first trailer! HOW'S THAT!!
Last edited by Scientific Guy on Fri Dec 22, 2017 8:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Knight Fisher
- I fish in the darkness
- Posts: 5322
- Joined: May 2011
I utterly adored it. Being able to avoid everything after the first trailer set the tone and it's exactly what I wanted in a Star Wars movie. At the end of the day everything else is fluff next to that feeling of when you first picked up a lightsaber as a kid. And they captured that perfectly.
To LGBT ToOers: The world is so much wider than your family and church. There are accepting people out there.
Catspaw wrote:
Just about every review I've seen says this, but I didn't find that to be the case at all.Tea Ess wrote:Our expectations weren't just toyed with, they were completely destroyed
Tea Ess wrote:
Scientific Guy wrote:
It's been lightly referenced a few times (To Luke: "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster." To Vader: "Your sad devotion to that ancient religion.") but not really explored before unless you go outside the movies.Scientific Guy wrote:And the Force / Jedi was a religion? I didn't pick up on that.
The Force is an energy that some people can sense is definitely there, some believe in it even though they can't sense it, and some don't believe it exists. Jedi and Sith are two religions that teach how a believer should understand and think about the Force. There are others, but those are the two most well known. Jedi believe it has its own will that you should bring yours in balance with, Sith believe it is a tool to be used for enacting your will.
Great movie, in my opinion. I liked it better each time I saw it, my gut reaction was not that it was amazing, but that it was a good movie. Then my opinion went to that it was a great movie.
That's my cent. Not two cents just a cent.
That's my cent. Not two cents just a cent.
Yo
- Scientific Guy
- Tallying up
- Posts: 140
- Joined: August 2017
- Contact:
Isn't that your gut reaction about pretty much everything (except maybe "Friend or Foe")?Mariogeek wrote:...my gut reaction was not that it was amazing....
I know it seems this movie divided a lot of fans, which puzzles me.
Is it just me or is there more and more either you hate it or love it when it comes to different forms of media on social media platforms? It's like fans can no longer just view something with grey areas...it seems social media, especially the people I see commenting on Facebook...take things to such extremes one way or another. And people are either saying this is the BEST MOVIE or the WORST MOVIE. Really??? No middle ground? At all?
I enjoyed the movie. A lot. I bought it on Blu-Ray this week and still enjoyed a lot about it.
But...it wasn't the best movie. But I will say I went in blind. I didn't read any articles about it, no speculation, I didn't watch any trailer...I avoided every thing about this movie going in and walked out entertained. And it was far from the worst movie. Personally, I would still put this above Return of the Jedi but still below Empire Strikes Back and Rogue One.
I didn't even have an issue with how they handled Luke. Isn't that kind of the way Jedi went in the past? To be alone and kind of hermits? And Luke, realizing the cycle would just keep on repeating, said it's time for the Jedi to end. He realized it was a flawed system. It was a horrible system. They failed. Maybe Rey can build it up to be something else, but I hope the old Jedi are truly gone. It's time for the franchise to move on.
The flaws I have with it are nitpicky things, though, but then again, I can find things to nitpick in any of them. The gravity bombs? How did those work in zero g. Why was Kylo content with just pursuing the Resistance as they ran out fuel instead of amping up the attack in their moment of weakness? And the the casino sequence was a bit too prequel George Lucasy.
I think what the new movies really needs is a designer on the level of Ralph McQuarrie who can reimagine the universe and breathe new life into characters and designs and such, too. That feeling comes in part from the casino scene...why did it have to feel like 1920s Earth? There needs to be a designer who can take us to truly new worlds.
The future of the Star Wars needs work, a lot of work. I know some have said Kathleen Kennedy may need to be replaced, and they may not be wrong. I will wait to see how the Solo movie and Episode 9 turn out before I decide how I feel about that.
Is it just me or is there more and more either you hate it or love it when it comes to different forms of media on social media platforms? It's like fans can no longer just view something with grey areas...it seems social media, especially the people I see commenting on Facebook...take things to such extremes one way or another. And people are either saying this is the BEST MOVIE or the WORST MOVIE. Really??? No middle ground? At all?
I enjoyed the movie. A lot. I bought it on Blu-Ray this week and still enjoyed a lot about it.
But...it wasn't the best movie. But I will say I went in blind. I didn't read any articles about it, no speculation, I didn't watch any trailer...I avoided every thing about this movie going in and walked out entertained. And it was far from the worst movie. Personally, I would still put this above Return of the Jedi but still below Empire Strikes Back and Rogue One.
I didn't even have an issue with how they handled Luke. Isn't that kind of the way Jedi went in the past? To be alone and kind of hermits? And Luke, realizing the cycle would just keep on repeating, said it's time for the Jedi to end. He realized it was a flawed system. It was a horrible system. They failed. Maybe Rey can build it up to be something else, but I hope the old Jedi are truly gone. It's time for the franchise to move on.
The flaws I have with it are nitpicky things, though, but then again, I can find things to nitpick in any of them. The gravity bombs? How did those work in zero g. Why was Kylo content with just pursuing the Resistance as they ran out fuel instead of amping up the attack in their moment of weakness? And the the casino sequence was a bit too prequel George Lucasy.
I think what the new movies really needs is a designer on the level of Ralph McQuarrie who can reimagine the universe and breathe new life into characters and designs and such, too. That feeling comes in part from the casino scene...why did it have to feel like 1920s Earth? There needs to be a designer who can take us to truly new worlds.
The future of the Star Wars needs work, a lot of work. I know some have said Kathleen Kennedy may need to be replaced, and they may not be wrong. I will wait to see how the Solo movie and Episode 9 turn out before I decide how I feel about that.
No, there really isn't middle ground on movies for most people anymore and it's very unfortunate.
The issues that I've seen most people who are interested in actually discussing the movie rather than the black and white childishness raise are primarily about how it pretty much took everything The Force Awakens seemed to be setting up as significant or building to some conclusion or pay off and just threw them out. Not just in a let's not worry about that right now way, but in a way that seemed to be an intentional affront to the fans who were waiting for those pay offs.
Every single thing people thought was a set up for something turned out to be not important at all.They felt like it was an intentional action by Rian Johnson to purposefully upend everything in a take that to fan expectations. That's why their reactions were so strong, it truly got personal for them.
And they're not all wrong in thinking that. I don't know if Johnson's choices really had that conscious take it to the fans attitude behind them, but we do know they were intended to shake things up because he wasn't interested in continuing the story he was handed. JJ had set all these things up and I'm certain originally intended the story to go a different way, but Johnson wanted to do his own thing and they let him. Disney apparently approved of what he did because they gave him his own trilogy before Last Jedi was even out, but once it was obviously audience reaction was not as aligned with theirs as they likely anticipated. And now JJ is coming back to finish things off.
I think it would have been a much better move for Disney to have let JJ do this whole trilogy because now everyone is in a bad situation. He had everything pointing where he wanted after the first movie, Johnson wasn't interested in those paths and completely tore down everything and put us in a new place, and now JJ comes back to something he now isn't interested in because it's not at all what was originally intended. It's like they were in a contest to see who could back the other into a more inescapable corner. JJ has to either undo as much as possible from this movie to get back on the original track which isn't going to be easy, things like Snoke are what they are now but he could say Kylo was just lying about Rey's parents to mess with her, or go ahead with what Johnson left him but no one knows where that leads.
We're really seeing the outcome some had feared when learning that this trilogy really didn't have a story mapped out and they were just developing things as it went along. There was concern it may lead to something like this and unfortunately I don't know if there's a way they can get out of this situation now without issues on one side or the other.
The issues that I've seen most people who are interested in actually discussing the movie rather than the black and white childishness raise are primarily about how it pretty much took everything The Force Awakens seemed to be setting up as significant or building to some conclusion or pay off and just threw them out. Not just in a let's not worry about that right now way, but in a way that seemed to be an intentional affront to the fans who were waiting for those pay offs.
Every single thing people thought was a set up for something turned out to be not important at all.
And they're not all wrong in thinking that. I don't know if Johnson's choices really had that conscious take it to the fans attitude behind them, but we do know they were intended to shake things up because he wasn't interested in continuing the story he was handed. JJ had set all these things up and I'm certain originally intended the story to go a different way, but Johnson wanted to do his own thing and they let him. Disney apparently approved of what he did because they gave him his own trilogy before Last Jedi was even out, but once it was obviously audience reaction was not as aligned with theirs as they likely anticipated. And now JJ is coming back to finish things off.
I think it would have been a much better move for Disney to have let JJ do this whole trilogy because now everyone is in a bad situation. He had everything pointing where he wanted after the first movie, Johnson wasn't interested in those paths and completely tore down everything and put us in a new place, and now JJ comes back to something he now isn't interested in because it's not at all what was originally intended. It's like they were in a contest to see who could back the other into a more inescapable corner. JJ has to either undo as much as possible from this movie to get back on the original track which isn't going to be easy, things like Snoke are what they are now but he could say Kylo was just lying about Rey's parents to mess with her, or go ahead with what Johnson left him but no one knows where that leads.
We're really seeing the outcome some had feared when learning that this trilogy really didn't have a story mapped out and they were just developing things as it went along. There was concern it may lead to something like this and unfortunately I don't know if there's a way they can get out of this situation now without issues on one side or the other.
- Scientific Guy
- Tallying up
- Posts: 140
- Joined: August 2017
- Contact:
Quick question: what's the protocol for spoilers? Shouldn't the two above posts have them?
Personally I think we're past the spoiler tag timeframe for this movie, but I still would have used them if posting something incredibly significant. I didn't think either of these posts did though.
Edit:
I added a tag to the part of my post that could possibly still be considered spoilers. I think Calhoun's is fine.
Edit:
I added a tag to the part of my post that could possibly still be considered spoilers. I think Calhoun's is fine.
If somebody is reading a Last Jedi thread at this point (the movie has already been on home video for a couple weeks now) I think it's safe to leave spoiler tags out. If somebody is going this deep into a thread on a movie they haven't seen...well...that's kind of on them, sorry.
"The first movie ends with that striking visual and story moment of handing over the lightsaber, it's going to pick up from there with a moving sequence propelling the franchise into a new phase, oh no actually he's going to just toss that revered relic over his shoulder and pout. Who are Rey's parents, oh absolutely no one and shame on you for trying to speculate like it mattered. Well why was Luke's lightsaber calling to her then there has to be some reason she's special whether it's because of her family or something else, no there's no reason, she's just the main character that's all there is too it. What's the story of Snoke he's clearly a significant figure who has a long history of how he became in charge, no he's completely irrelevant and we're not only not explaining one second of his backstory we're killing him off already so we won't have him in the picture at all any more."
I realize these are the talking points that bothered a lot of people, and they are the exact same talking points that didn't bother me in the slightest.
In fact, some of it made me awfully excited.
And I can explain, of course:
The saber was calling out to Rey because she's force sensitive. Period. Nothing more. She sensed the kyber crystal because she is force sensitive. Thousands of Jedi, maybe more, came and went before the Skwywalkers lived. To think that from Luke onward the only people with the force would be Skywalkers is a little ridiculous. It's a trope from the expanded universe books that needed to die.
The Force is a religion, sorry midichlorans. And that doesn't need a family line to inherit it.
She was drawn to Luke to learn how to use the Force. Maybe Luke wasn't in tune with her calling and fought it at first. And rightfully so. After having the history of Jedi and Sith and master and padawan that seemed to fail time and time again, when he saw that his padawan was about to turn to the dark side, he knew the cycle would never be broken unless he broke it. Like he said, it was time for the Jedi to end.
And I think they should. Can Rey use the force and train other force sensitive people in the galaxy without using the pattern of the Jedi Knights? Sure. She could. And should. And I hope she does. Because the trope of good Jedi turns bad and is redeemed by another good Jedi fighting turning bad will get old if it just keeps repeating trilogy after trilogy.
And Disney is laying down ground work for several more movies, not just producing one trilogy. Like with the Marvel Universe, they are trying to change things and make things fresh and different going forward.
And for that reason I am delighted Rey is not a Skywalker. In fact, that was one of the most satisfying moments in the movie for me. Tying everything in with them is tired and old. Shoot, there's even an anthology book out that ties every alien in the Catina scene into the back history of Han or Luke. Really? That one moment in time EVERY alien in the bar had some connection with the two main characters? The expanded universe became THAT convoluted. It has to change.
And who cares about the story of Snoke? I don't recall anybody complaining they didn't know the full story of the Emperor and he got very little screen time or back story at all in the OT. And what back story we got in the prequels was completely unnecessary. We really don't need a back story for him, at least not wasted on film.
And after all this time the most significant character in Star Wars who had the least amount of screen time has never had a back story or explanation and I never see anybody complaining about that: Grand Moff Tarkin.
Think about it: Only Tarkin could tell Vader to jump and Vader jumped. How did that happen? What kind of history did he have with Vader and the Emperor where he can just command Vader to do anything and Vader MUST listen? No explanation. No back story. Nothing on how that he rose to such a high power that he was at least equal, if not higher, than the Emperor. Vader was completely his lap dog and nobody batted an eye or demanded a back story. Shoot, he didn't even come into play in the prequels until the very end. And that explained nothing.
But do we REALLY need a Tarkin back story? I honestly don't think we do. And we really don't need one for Snoke. And killing Tarkin off in Episode 4 with no back story and killing the Emperor off in Episode 6 with no back story (at the time) did not make their characters insignificant. Not by any means. Snoke dying in Last Jedi only makes him insignificant if you allow it.
"The first movie ends with that striking visual and story moment of handing over the lightsaber, it's going to pick up from there with a moving sequence propelling the franchise into a new phase, oh no actually he's going to just toss that revered relic over his shoulder and pout. Who are Rey's parents, oh absolutely no one and shame on you for trying to speculate like it mattered. Well why was Luke's lightsaber calling to her then there has to be some reason she's special whether it's because of her family or something else, no there's no reason, she's just the main character that's all there is too it. What's the story of Snoke he's clearly a significant figure who has a long history of how he became in charge, no he's completely irrelevant and we're not only not explaining one second of his backstory we're killing him off already so we won't have him in the picture at all any more."
I realize these are the talking points that bothered a lot of people, and they are the exact same talking points that didn't bother me in the slightest.
In fact, some of it made me awfully excited.
And I can explain, of course:
The saber was calling out to Rey because she's force sensitive. Period. Nothing more. She sensed the kyber crystal because she is force sensitive. Thousands of Jedi, maybe more, came and went before the Skwywalkers lived. To think that from Luke onward the only people with the force would be Skywalkers is a little ridiculous. It's a trope from the expanded universe books that needed to die.
The Force is a religion, sorry midichlorans. And that doesn't need a family line to inherit it.
She was drawn to Luke to learn how to use the Force. Maybe Luke wasn't in tune with her calling and fought it at first. And rightfully so. After having the history of Jedi and Sith and master and padawan that seemed to fail time and time again, when he saw that his padawan was about to turn to the dark side, he knew the cycle would never be broken unless he broke it. Like he said, it was time for the Jedi to end.
And I think they should. Can Rey use the force and train other force sensitive people in the galaxy without using the pattern of the Jedi Knights? Sure. She could. And should. And I hope she does. Because the trope of good Jedi turns bad and is redeemed by another good Jedi fighting turning bad will get old if it just keeps repeating trilogy after trilogy.
And Disney is laying down ground work for several more movies, not just producing one trilogy. Like with the Marvel Universe, they are trying to change things and make things fresh and different going forward.
And for that reason I am delighted Rey is not a Skywalker. In fact, that was one of the most satisfying moments in the movie for me. Tying everything in with them is tired and old. Shoot, there's even an anthology book out that ties every alien in the Catina scene into the back history of Han or Luke. Really? That one moment in time EVERY alien in the bar had some connection with the two main characters? The expanded universe became THAT convoluted. It has to change.
And who cares about the story of Snoke? I don't recall anybody complaining they didn't know the full story of the Emperor and he got very little screen time or back story at all in the OT. And what back story we got in the prequels was completely unnecessary. We really don't need a back story for him, at least not wasted on film.
And after all this time the most significant character in Star Wars who had the least amount of screen time has never had a back story or explanation and I never see anybody complaining about that: Grand Moff Tarkin.
Think about it: Only Tarkin could tell Vader to jump and Vader jumped. How did that happen? What kind of history did he have with Vader and the Emperor where he can just command Vader to do anything and Vader MUST listen? No explanation. No back story. Nothing on how that he rose to such a high power that he was at least equal, if not higher, than the Emperor. Vader was completely his lap dog and nobody batted an eye or demanded a back story. Shoot, he didn't even come into play in the prequels until the very end. And that explained nothing.
But do we REALLY need a Tarkin back story? I honestly don't think we do. And we really don't need one for Snoke. And killing Tarkin off in Episode 4 with no back story and killing the Emperor off in Episode 6 with no back story (at the time) did not make their characters insignificant. Not by any means. Snoke dying in Last Jedi only makes him insignificant if you allow it.
- The Top Crusader
- Hammer Bro
- Posts: 22646
- Joined: April 2005
- Location: A drawbridge over a lava pit with an axe conveniently off to the side
I cancelled my pre-order for the Last Jedi bluray a long time ago, but Best Buy sent it anyway without charging me.