Star Wars the Last Jedi (Spoilers maybe)

[Crazy Lee]

My thoughts on the Last Jedi:


The Force Awakens was better.

Fite me.

[WileyWarWeasel]

9 hours ago, Crazy Lee said:

My thoughts on the Last Jedi:


The Force Awakens was better.

Fite me.

Both movies ripped parts of the stories and most of their overall structures from the originals.

It's the same light vs dark force, rebel alliance vs empire (how are they even functioning at this point), black-and-white morality story that we've seen in the originals.

The bare minimum has been done to change the stories and characters just enough so they're not just outright remakes of the originals.

 

Episodes 1-3 were poor, but at least to Lucas' credit he tried something different. He just did it poorly.

I watched the newest SW movies including Rogue One at a friend's behest and while they were entertaining it's painfully obvious that Disney is doing the bare minimum (creatively speaking) to milk the franchise for all its worth. The standard excuse is they did pay $4 billion for Lucasfilm but remember they bought not just the rights to the movies but all the merchandise, games, books etc which is a big cash cow.

[Crazy Lee]

Well for a more thorough explanation of my point was that, while I somewhat liked Last Jedi, I found Force Awakens more... fun. Yes, stripped to its bare bones it's just a copy of A New Hope, with a giant planet killer the scrappy band of good guys have to destroy, a hero/jedi from a desert planet, a father figure that dies (Han), a cantina scene, a macguffin carried by a droid, although the characters and details were changed around. But it was still a stupidly lighthearted movie most of the time compared to the darker slog of Last Jedi.

14 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

It's the same light vs dark force, rebel alliance vs empire (how are they even functioning at this point), black-and-white morality story that we've seen in the originals.

It did seem like they were trying to subvert this to some extent with Kylo seeming to be conflicted about going to the dark side. And trying to present even the good guys as bad sometimes, with Luke trying to kill Kylo (which I felt was outside of his character), and the conflict between Poe and Holden. They just didn't do a very good job of it, and it does feel like it's the same "Giant evil tyrannical empire, scrappy band of rebels."

There was also that whole part with Del Toro's character and the casino planet. I had no problem with the codebreaker's turncoat moment because it was expected, really. But the whole casino planet part felt like forced "left wing" politics. Look at these bad rich people making money off weapons and shit. Had it just stuck to the kids in the racecourse and commented on child labor I would have been fine, or "Look at these people enjoying themselves while other planets are being decimated by the First Order." But even though I get the idea of weapons sellers profiting from war, who's to say everyone on that planet was an arms seller. There aren't rich ship builders, building builders, energy suppliers, food suppliers, utilities providers, hovercraft builders, ect?

14 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

Episodes 1-3 were poor, but at least to Lucas' credit he tried something different. He just did it poorly.

True, but I have had some people say the prequels are better than the current set of movies. This is probably because many of them were young enough to have seen the prequels first and maybe that impressed the movies on their young minds, where I was old enough to see the flaws in the prequels. The current movies may not be that great but the prequels just are really poor.

 

14 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

I watched the newest SW movies including Rogue One at a friend's behest and while they were entertaining it's painfully obvious that Disney is doing the bare minimum (creatively speaking) to milk the franchise for all its worth. The standard excuse is they did pay $4 billion for Lucasfilm but remember they bought not just the rights to the movies but all the merchandise, games, books etc which is a big cash cow.

Rogue One I feel was the exception out of all of these. It had a story that was at least original enough but still connected to the original trilogy (the story of the death star plans). And was quite entertaining with interesting characters and a pretty good battle sequence at the end.

[WileyWarWeasel]

5 hours ago, Crazy Lee said:

Well for a more thorough explanation of my point was that, while I somewhat liked Last Jedi, I found Force Awakens more... fun. Yes, stripped to its bare bones it's just a copy of A New Hope, with a giant planet killer the scrappy band of good guys have to destroy, a hero/jedi from a desert planet, a father figure that dies (Han), a cantina scene, a macguffin carried by a droid, although the characters and details were changed around. But it was still a stupidly lighthearted movie most of the time compared to the darker slog of Last Jedi.

Last Jedi had more than a passing resemblance to The Empire Strikes Back. Especially the attack on the rebel base and Kylo's offer to Rey (who seems have a near-permanent look of constipation on her face).

5 hours ago, Crazy Lee said:

It did seem like they were trying to subvert this to some extent with Kylo seeming to be conflicted about going to the dark side. And trying to present even the good guys as bad sometimes, with Luke trying to kill Kylo (which I felt was outside of his character), and the conflict between Poe and Holden. They just didn't do a very good job of it, and it does feel like it's the same "Giant evil tyrannical empire, scrappy band of rebels."

There was also that whole part with Del Toro's character and the casino planet. I had no problem with the codebreaker's turncoat moment because it was expected, really. But the whole casino planet part felt like forced "left wing" politics. Look at these bad rich people making money off weapons and shit. Had it just stuck to the kids in the racecourse and commented on child labor I would have been fine, or "Look at these people enjoying themselves while other planets are being decimated by the First Order." But even though I get the idea of weapons sellers profiting from war, who's to say everyone on that planet was an arms seller. There aren't rich ship builders, building builders, energy suppliers, food suppliers, utilities providers, hovercraft builders, ect?

It's unlikely that even in a galactic empire there would be a planet with nothing but arms dealers on it.  It's ironic that the hamfisted message is coming from Disney of all places, a company situated in one of the world's biggest arms suppliers.

5 hours ago, Crazy Lee said:

True, but I have had some people say the prequels are better than the current set of movies. This is probably because many of them were young enough to have seen the prequels first and maybe that impressed the movies on their young minds, where I was old enough to see the flaws in the prequels. The current movies may not be that great but the prequels just are really poor.

Perhaps Lucas should've hired a decent writer then? Given all the movies with poor story lines that get released all the time in general (even big-budget movies) one has to wonder if the stories are bad on purpose. Am I expected to believe that a movie with a multi-million dollar budget can't afford a decent writer? Seriously, I have watched many foreign shows and movies with a tiny/medium budget blow the big western movies and shows out of the water when it comes to story.

5 hours ago, Crazy Lee said:

Rogue One I feel was the exception out of all of these. It had a story that was at least original enough but still connected to the original trilogy (the story of the death star plans). And was quite entertaining with interesting characters and a pretty good battle sequence at the end.

Rogue One was basically a prologue (not enough meat on the story to call it a prequel IMO) of the first original that introduced only one major plot point (or at least the only memorable one): the flaw in the death star was intentional. That's it. They could've just included a few scenes of the rogue scientist and others in the first original SW and it would've contributed just as much to the story line.

I felt nothing for the characters, even when they died. If you want a good example of characters with depth beyond "scrappy rebels" check out the 1979 movie Stalker on youtube for free.

 

That being said the movies were entertaining, but jesus christ it wouldn't kill them to HIRE GOOD WRITERS (unless these were exactly the quality of story lines they wanted to use).

[Fossa]

The bird looked tasty.

 

[DrDingo]

I'm surprised that, for the longest Star Wars film to date, the least stuff actually happened.

It was slow. It felt slow in the theatre.
Throne room scene was cool though

[QT Melon]

Lucas was never really good at writing, while the original Star Wars were fun keep in mind quite a few actors hated the dialog,  I mean Harrison Ford changed lines. You  had lines that were okay for their time...but it wasn't exactly the greatest thing...it was however a lot of fun it was "meme" worthy before memes were really a thing. We just used "quotable".

 

Rey is an okay character, I don't hate her but I don't exactly like her because she doesn't follow the Monomyth (Hero's Journey) as much as Luke did which is why I have a problem with the ultimate portrayal of Luke in the Last Jedi (I find his greatest strength -[ not giving up] is also a weakness. They kinda spit on that to make way for this new story) Not feeling her Monomyth like I did with Luke. It's problematic on many levels because

 

1. You can't have her suffer as much or more than Luke, like say her losing or being injured like Luke (I mean Luke lost his hand to his dad).  So okay, classic orphan story is what we get...which is almost like every Disney origin. meh. While I'm glad they didn't take a CW "Incestuous" ancestry route (tired of people having to be related to every established character prior in the franchise) they didn't make this angle interesting. So why can't she suffer?

• It would be seen as a mere repeat of what Luke went through in some people's minds
• It would have SJWs clamoring about the "Women in the fridge" analysis where women have to suffer more than men
• Hollywood would never go for it. We still value women's beauty above all else, (and to a degree men as well, which is why Luke's injury wasn't to his face).  It would also go back to my point about "Women in the fridge"

2. This leaves a character that many have dismissed as a Mary Sue, she's naturally better at stuff, but there's no compelling connection with her. There's no underdog element.

3. Doesn't feel like there's a growth to her character, we had a guy like Luke who felt a bit goofy, grow into something. This is a girl with a natural talent that ran from place to place that her lack of growth makes the adventure feel like an observer role that we look and see what happened to more compelling characters like Luke and Kylo. While I get what they're doing - she needs to choose her own Destiny, it just lacks impact.

This leaves me with Kylo who IS compelling. I mean there's more going  with him than Rey, and I find that unfortunate. Yes, he's the villain, but it feels more like he's going through the journey more than Rey. I mean it's all possible that there's no saving him in the end, and he just becomes a villain through and through, but you feel more for him. You kinda understand what he's going through too. I'm sure many can relate to parents living vicariously through you. You feeling (whether real or perceived) that your parents have a certain destiny for you and want to rebel. Obviously he's making the worst decisions about it. To a certain point you can't blame him because I mean his Uncle (Luke) made it feel like you can't be believed in.

That being said, I don't overly hate these new films (Force Awakens was fun, Last Jedi has its moments) I think people argue too much about their real expected headcanons for theories and expected backstories (c'mon guys not the first time we didn't get backstories in these villainous characters).

But I will admit, I have problems with how Rey is in these films...and just feel like they did Luke injustice as well. I have no problems with him passing the torch to her or unable to conquer everything, but him just giving up just seems to be against his character trait.

 

 

 

 

[WileyWarWeasel]

@QT Melon Kylo was probably the only character that went through any significant development throughout the new movies, which isn't saying much (apart from Luke's character being almost completely changed from the originals). Honestly that Snoke guy was a total moron to let someone like Kylo get that close to him. Yes he did mention something about using other's weaknesses to his advantage but that means that he should keep Kylo at an arm's distance like that officer that screwed up.

It's obvious that some committee in Disney wanted something that was retreading the same ground as the originals and reusing as much of the story as pawsible to play it safe and rake in the money. At the same time they also didn't want to make the new ones too similar to the old ones or they'd look like a remake or reboot. That would explain why we have jarring oddities like Rey who is obviously the "Luke" of the new movies but turned into more of a Mary Sue so that she's not just a carbon copy but not an interesting character either.

There's also the fact that most people (myself as well to a lesser extent) see the old SW films through a nostalgic lens and give them more credit than they're due when it comes to story, dialogue and characters (not the mention the ridiculously descriptive character names back then like "Han Solo").

 

Personally I would've preferred that the story actually moved forward rather than get stuck in "scrappy rebels vs empire" gear. Hell even Colony Wars (a Playstation 1 game) which had a story in a similar vein progressed to something rather different by the time of Colony Wars Vengeance (which became more about a story of vengeance, idealism and facing demons from the past as the "empire" was defeated by this point).

If the current SW writers are so creatively bankrupt they could even get inspiration from what happened after previous revolutions (such as the Yugoslavian communist revolution during WW2, French revolution and Russian revolution).

[Troj]

The movie was not without its flaws, but I thoroughly enjoyed it overall, and appreciated its fresh take on an old franchise.

I'm also savoring all of the pissy nerd tears that are flowing over it.