Star Wars: Episode VIII ***Speculation & Spoilers***

[Enhance]

After all my bitchin', I'm still glad I went to it.

This is sort of where I'm at with all Star Wars movies, so, it's refreshing to see a somewhat similar mindset.

I think TLJ had some pretty significant flaws and (as I've said previously) I don't think it was an objectively "good movie." But, I had a blast watching it and had a lot of fun, which is what I've always wanted out of a Star Wars movie. Hell, The Phantom Menace is some pretty hot garbage in my opinion, but I still enjoy watching it from time to time.

 

[zoogs]

I tried to avoid consuming media in the run-up to this movie, but the porg headlines were too numerous for me to miss. I'm surprised people managed to not find out what their names were!

However, for what it's worth, zero of the women I know, or whose opinions I've read about online, have reduced the movie to "omg there were porgs". 

I think there's been a lot more focus, generally, on Leia. RIP, Carrie. I'm sad that this was her last film. She was at her most extraordinary -- and I think Carrie herself had a lot to do with how Leia was portrayed.

@Enhance -- I like watching clips of the prequels. The lightsaber fights are so good. The prequels themselves were pretty decent for what they were: fanservice, filling in backstory, putting a sequence of disjointed 'historical' events on the screen, etc. I feel similarly about all the cartoons, comics, and video games.

 

[Enhance]

@Enhance -- I like watching clips of the prequels. The lightsaber fights are so good. The prequels themselves were pretty decent for what they were: fanservice, filling in backstory, putting a sequence of disjointed 'historical' events on the screen, etc. I feel similarly about all the cartoons, comics, and video games.

Oh, for sure.

In fact, I watch the prequels for those really awesome moments that are placed throughout, especially in TPM. It's like a roller coaster of OMGJEDIS(slowboringstuff)JEDISKILLALLTHEDROIDS(amIdeadyet)OHS***DARTHMAUL(andI'mdead)HOLYDAMNPODRACING, etc.

Or, something like that.  :lol:

 

[suh_fan93]

That's really it. They have unlimited resources available to them. The best writers, the best editors, the best actors. Everything at their disposal, a million different story lines they could have come up with, and this is what they chose to put on screen.  It could have, should have, been so much better. 

Definitely agree with all of this and I was thinking the very same thing just the other day.  At the same time I also agree with what CN said above as well.  It's a Star Wars movie at Christmas time.  I'm going to go and have a good time despite it's flaws.  In the end I'm still glad I actually have a SW movie to go see.

 

[Mavric]

Finally got to watch it last night.  Here to offer my comments, after securing my flak jacket.

Lots of arguing over semantics ITT.  My initial reaction was to agree with @knapplc that it was kind of a “bad movie” but that obviously doesn’t play well with the masses.  I my be inclined to use “disappointing” insead but that would just be met with arguments along the lines of “you just had unreasonable expectations” but that’s not the case.  

To be more specific, I think what is “bad” about this movie - and TFA, more on that later - is they are doing a terrible job of telling a story.  It’s not that everything about it is bad - there are plenty of good things - but they aren’t fitting those things together well.  I think the disconnect between those who think it’s a “good” movie and those who think it’s a “bad” movie is what they are focusing on.  It is very entertaining.  There are a lot of really interesting scenes.  But movies that are entertaining and have a lot of flashy CGI are a dime a dozen now-a-days.  But what made Star Wars different was not just that it had cutting-edge - in fact invented in many ways - special effects.  But that those effects were only HELPING tell the story.  They weren’t the whole point of the movie.  That’s where I think TFA and TLJ have lost their way.  They’ve fallen victim to the modern trap of coming up with a bunch of cool shots and then working in a story around them instead of the other way around.

It’s somewhat like trying to compare Shakespear’s Sonnets to Hamlet.  It’s not that the Sonnets are “bad”.  They’re historic in their own right.  But they are just short scenes meant to stand alone.  Hamlet tells a story, and that’s what makes it stand as one of the greatest works of literature in history.  It’s when everything is tied together, and you can follow the development of the story all the way through that it really becomes impressive.  

They don’t seem to have a very good feel for how to tie the story together and - to me - that’s what is completely lacking in the latest films.

• I said after TFA that I didn’t think Luke disappearing fit with the Luke we’d come to know from previous films.  I’m definitely convinced of this now.  I didn’t think it made any sense that Luke would disappear and leave the Dark Side to take over everything he’d been working to destroy since he was a boy.  I thought through most of TLJ that it was going to be his own redemption story.  Then, just as it appeared that he was going to be back in the fight, he’s gone.  It’s like they came up with the whole “Luke will be a Force Ghost” to start off with because that would be super cool and had to come up with some way to get there.  Doesn’t matter if it really fits into the rest of the “story” or not.
  
• The whole plot of TFA was the need to find Luke.  Everything hinged on that.  Luke was finally found and was expected to save the day.  Then half the story of TLJ was trying to convince Luke to come back to help.  But then he’s just gone.  So basically the premise of 1.5 of the new movies was all for naught.  Yes, others will argue that he helped “train” Rey.  To some extent.  But she did most of it on her own.  There really wasn’t any need to waste 1.5 movies on that.  It was all just because it would look cool and be a great send-off.  I can see why Hamill was pretty disappointed.  Word was he almost didn’t do TFA after seeing such a small part in the script.  But he was talked into it with the promise of what was to come.  Then he was disappointed with that.  One has to wonder if he would ever have done it in the first place if he had seen the script for TLJ before he signed on.
  
• They waste a lot of time on scenes that are only there for the cool special effects and don’t do anything for the plot.  The monsters on Han’s ship in TFA, the Starkiller build-up in TFA, the Luke getting milk scene in TLJ, the entire casino/getaway rampage in TLJ, Chewy’s BBQ, etc.  More about the effects than the story.
  
• Captain Phasma was somewhat hyped for TFA, had a small-ish part, shouldn’t have been able to get off Starkiller but somehow did, only to have a bit part in TLJ.  Over-hype and underdeliver.
  
• Lots of intrigue about Snoke from TFA.  Then he’s gone rather quickly.  How it happened was really cool.  But they could have spent more time developing the character than showy effects mentioned earlier.
  
• Must time was spent by Rey wondering about her parents.  An entire scene of her teetering on the edge of the Dark Side was spent in her quest to find out.  Now that’s (apparently) just a throw-away.  Yes, they might circle back to that later.  But given their track record so far, I doubt it.
  
• Much of the Rey/Ren development - which was excellent - was around Rey thinking he could be turned.  And it looked like it happened.  He even offed the Supreme Leader to protect her. But then we quickly move on and he’s right back where he was before.  Didn’t really know what to do from there I guess.  Had to fall back to the status quo to be able to move their “story” forward.
  
• Home run by bringing in Yoda’s Force Ghost.  Convinces Luke that there isn’t any need for the books or the tree.   “Destroys” them himself.  Except that they aren’t actually destroyed.  They’re safely hidden on the Falcon.  Somehow neither Yoda nor Luke knew this.  So that was just a flashy scene that didn’t do anything.
  
• Apparenlty the best plot device they could come up with was ... stalling.  Had to stall to buy time to charge some weapon at the beginning.  No way Hux falls for that.  Blow him out of the sky and move on.  Then an extra-long stall on the chace to make room for a long scene that doesn’t really do anything.  Bad storytelling.
  
• What’s the point of having a cloaking device if all they have to do is flip a switch and see through the cloak?  And why wouldn’t you always be trying to see through the cloak if you have such technology?
  
• If Luke is only a Force projection in the last battle scene, how can he “touch” Leia?  How can he Force project an object?  That would be useful in a lot of other areas if possible.
  

So I guess basically these two movies are summed up as “disjointed.”  There are some really good elements there.  Lots of good scenes.  But they don’t really make a coherent story.  So I guess not necessarily a “bad movie” (depending on your point of view) but a bad job of telling a story.  Which is kind of a low bar expectation to get over.

 

[Landlord]

I do actually agree with most of your points Mav.

I think TFA and TLJ have told good small stories. My biggest criticism is what the larger story is supposed to be. The OT story, apparent from early in the first movie, was Luke becoming a Jedi to help overthrow the Empire. The prequel trilogy is Anakin's/The Jedi Order's fall and the Emperor's rise. The new trilogy, in it's attempts to introduce shades of grey and nuance into it's characters, which I really do appreciate, is kind of lacking a grand narrative. I guess it could just be Rey becoming a Jedi to overthrow the First Order, but it doesn't really seem like that's the point of all this, does it? It doesn't seem like there is much of an obvious point to me, tbh. Or maybe there are too many competing points.

I do entirely disagree about Rey's parents (assuming that's the truth of the matter) being "throw away". Her lack of an 'important' lineage is quite important in itself.

 

[teachercd]

Would Siskel and Ebert give it thumbs up?

 

[knapplc]

@Mavric Those are all very salient points, and (unfortunately) there's more.  So many things that didn't need to be this way but were. It seemed very much like they thought because they were Disney and this is Star Wars, they could just put anything on screen and it would be well-received, no matter much sense it did or didn't make. 

So I guess basically these two movies are summed up as “disjointed.”  There are some really good elements there.  Lots of good scenes.  But they don’t really make a coherent story.

I wonder if we'll find out that a lot of these scenes/plots were developed not in a writer's room, but in a board room where competing ideas had to be melded together for the story. It could kind of explain why it seems to be a collection of parts rather than a coherent story.

 

[Enhance]

Home run by bringing in Yoda’s Force Ghost.  Convinces Luke that there isn’t any need for the books or the tree.   “Destroys” them himself.  Except that they aren’t actually destroyed.  They’re safely hidden on the Falcon.  Somehow neither Yoda nor Luke knew this.  So that was just a flashy scene that didn’t do anything.

Disclaimer: you bring up some interesting points (some I agree with and some I disagree with).

But, I just wanted to quickly point out one line that Yoda says that makes me think this criticism is unwarranted. Luke freaks out about 'destroying the ancient texts' and Yoda says something along the lines of 'the library contains nothing the girl does not already possess.' So, either he knew Rey had taken the texts (which is where I'd bet my money) or he felt the texts really didn't add that much to what makes a Jedi a Jedi. It was symbolic in a couple ways, in my opinion.

 

[Mavric]

I do entirely disagree about Rey's parents (assuming that's the truth of the matter) being "throw away". Her lack of an 'important' lineage is quite important in itself.

That part of it is fine - that she (supposedly) doesn't have an important lineage.  Although I think the "important lineage" may be overblown because of the one family that the series has focused on up to now.  There have been hundreds of Jedi through the movies.  Do all of the others have an important lineage?  I kind of doubt it.

But my issues isn't with that part of the story.  It's that Rey spent most of two movies and especially the better part of TLJ trying to find out about her parents.  And then that story is thrown away in one line.  If that's all they were going to do, start in the very first scene of TFA and have her say her parents were simple people and are now dead.  Then go from there.  No need for all that build up and then nothing.

 

[Red Five]

He should have eaten the Porg. Chewie's gone soft.

Nah.  Chewie's always been a teddy bear at heart imo

 

[Red Five]

That part of it is fine - that she (supposedly) doesn't have an important lineage.  Although I think the "important lineage" may be overblown because of the one family that the series has focused on up to now.  There have been hundreds of Jedi through the movies.  Do all of the others have an important lineage?  I kind of doubt it.

But my issues isn't with that part of the story.  It's that Rey spent most of two movies and especially the better part of TLJ trying to find out about her parents.  And then that story is thrown away in one line.  If that's all they were going to do, start in the very first scene of TFA and have her say her parents were simple people and are now dead.  Then go from there.  No need for all that build up and then nothing.

But that's the story!  We are supposed to wonder where she came from.  It's not "nothing" or a "throwaway line".  It helps to define her character.  And I'll be dollars to donuts that it is still a main theme when IX comes out.

 

[Mavric]

Disclaimer: you bring up some interesting points (some I agree with and some I disagree with).

But, I just wanted to quickly point out one line that Yoda says that makes me think this criticism is unwarranted. Luke freaks out about 'destroying the ancient texts' and Yoda says something along the lines of 'the library contains nothing the girl does not already possess.' So, either he knew Rey had taken the texts (which is where I'd bet my money) or he felt the texts really didn't add that much to what makes a Jedi a Jedi. It was symbolic in a couple ways, in my opinion.

OK.  That's a possibility.  So then what was the point of bringing back Yoda then?  To tell Luke something misleading at best and Luke was going to be (basically) out of the story in a few minutes anyway?  Seems more like  "Oh!  We could bring back Yoda as a Force Ghost.  How should we do that?" than really having it contribute to the story.

 

[Mavric]

But that's the story!  We are supposed to wonder where she came from.  It's not "nothing" or a "throwaway line".  It helps to define her character.  And I'll be dollars to donuts that it is still a main theme when IX comes out.

It's a throw-away line because she's (supposedly) always known it but just wasn't admitting it.  It can define the character without spending so much time building up to nothing.

 

[Red Five]

It's a throw-away line because she's (supposedly) always known it but just wasn't admitting it.  It can define the character without spending so much time building up to nothing.

But is not "nothing".  I think most assumed that she was an offspring of Leia/Luke that was "hidden" after Ben turned.

We're going to have to agree to disagree here.