Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (Spoilers for Episode 7)

[whateveritis1224]

Regarding JM McNab's tweet: I cannot believe I didn't realize this until just now...#MindBlown

Also, in the novel of The Last Jedi the explanation given for Rey's strength in the Force is given.  During The Force Awakens, when Kylo Ren takes Rey to Star Killer Base and interrogates her, he uses the Force to probe her mind.  But in doing so, she learns all about his training, his anger, everything.  Pretty interesting so far.

Except if Jedi could learn force skills this way, why do they take more than 10 years for training in the Old Republic?  It's an explanation just like Midi-Chlorians is an explanation for who's strong in the force.  If it works for you, great.  But just like Midi-Chlorians it doesn't work for everyone.  This is why I think this movie would have been better served with a 6 month to year time jump and not worrying about picking up right when TFA ended.  

 

[Making Chimichangas]

Except if Jedi could learn force skills this way, why do they take more than 10 years for training in the Old Republic?  It's an explanation just like Midi-Chlorians is an explanation for who's strong in the force.  If it works for you, great.  But just like Midi-Chlorians it doesn't work for everyone.  This is why I think this movie would have been better served with a 6 month to year time jump and not worrying about picking up right when TFA ended.  

Fair enough.  But it is also true that "The Force" manifests itself in different ways.  Not every being who has the Force has the same power level.  So the explanation in The Last Jedi novel is, to me anyway, just another different way the Force moves through living beings.

 

[Redux]

Beacause until 1999 we only got to see roughly 5 force users on the big screen total, so most peoples perception of the force and its laws are stubbornly based off that.  Nevermind that Luke learend to be a master in like 2 years and smoked the most powerful Sith/Jedi ever.

 

[whateveritis1224]

Beacause until 1999 we only got to see roughly 5 force users on the big screen total, so most peoples perception of the force and its laws are stubbornly based off that.  Nevermind that Luke learend to be a master in like 2 years and smoked the most powerful Sith/Jedi ever.

And Luke went through 3 years of self training after the short start up with Obi-Wan, followed by however long he was with Yoda (could be a few days, could be a few months, however long it took the Falcon to fly sublight from Hoth to Cloud City), followed by another 6 months while they attempted to free Han first from Boba and then from Jabba.

I'm 100% fine with Rey having the power to match Kylo, I'm 100% fine with Rey being able to fight how she does (hard living on Jakku), but she's also known that she has the force for 2 days.  I have a problem with that the same way that people have issues with Midi-Chlorians.  It just feels like a poor explanation to tell us that she got a download to make her and Kylo equal instead of just giving a time jump to show us how she'd improved (Luke struggling with the lightsaber in the wampa cave to having no issues with stacking rocks with Yoda).

A time jump also would have made the other storylines make sense.  The first order would have time to expand its influence throughout the galaxy like the crawl states and it would have made the Resistance more desperate.

 

[Making Chimichangas]

@whateveritis1224, I have mentioned that The Force manifests itself in different ways.

As to your question of why do some Jedi train for years?  Well, I take it to be a situation similar to here in our reality: Some people are just better at things than others.  For example, some people can take up a musical instrument and play it beautifully almost from the get-go while others need years of practice.  Likewise, some people (again citing our real world) need 2-3 years of strength and conditioning while some players are ready to go as true freshman.

The corrallary: Rey is a phenom who requires little to no training.

 

[whateveritis1224]

@whateveritis1224, I have mentioned that The Force manifests itself in different ways.

As to your question of why do some Jedi train for years?  Well, I take it to be a situation similar to here in our reality: Some people are just better at things than others.  For example, some people can take up a musical instrument and play it beautifully almost from the get-go while others need years of practice.  Likewise, some people (again citing our real world) need 2-3 years of strength and conditioning while some players are ready to go as true freshman.

The corrallary: Rey is a phenom who requires little to no training.

Again the explanation is take or leave.  I leave it because it's not good storytelling to be told that her force prowess is exactly like The Matrix. 

I'm not 100% sure I've made my opinion clear about Rey, but I like her.  I like her character, I like the concept of her character (even if JJ decides not to retcon the parentage reveal in TLJ), and I like how Daisy Ridley plays the character.  I did not like how Rian wrote her character along with most of the other characters in TLJ.  

 

[Making Chimichangas]

Again the explanation is take or leave.  I leave it because it's not good storytelling to be told that her force prowess is exactly like The Matrix. 

I'm not 100% sure I've made my opinion clear about Rey, but I like her.  I like her character, I like the concept of her character (even if JJ decides not to retcon the parentage reveal in TLJ), and I like how Daisy Ridley plays the character.  I did not like how Rian wrote her character along with most of the other characters in TLJ.  

I pretty much agree that Rey should have been shown to take the "traditional" Jedi training route.  And I agree not because I think that's the only way learning how to use The Force should be done; but because if Rey had undergone traditional Jedi training the backlash against her character overall probably would have been less. 

All through Star Wars and associated canon materials, Jedi (and Sith) have always been shown to train for years so that was what most SW fans were conditioned to.  Along comes Rey and all training requirements suddenly just gets tossed out the proverbial window. 

But, the real question is: Do you know Kung-Fu?  

I 100% concur that I like Rey also.  Daisey Ridley is doing a damn fine job.

Side Note: The Last Jedi novel is an interesting read.  In places it goes into more depth and explains certain things--gives more context.

 

[whateveritis1224]

I pretty much agree that Rey should have been shown to take the "traditional" Jedi training route.  And I agree not because I think that's the only way learning how to use The Force should be done; but because if Rey had undergone traditional Jedi training the backlash against her character overall probably would have been less. 

All through Star Wars and associated canon materials, Jedi (and Sith) have always been shown to train for years so that was what most SW fans were conditioned to.  Along comes Rey and all training requirements suddenly just gets tossed out the proverbial window. 

But, the real question is: Do you know Kung-Fu?  

I 100% concur that I like Rey also.  Daisey Ridley is doing a damn fine job.

Side Note: The Last Jedi novel is an interesting read.  In places it goes into more depth and explains certain things--gives more context.

I'm not against what Johnson was doing with his themes.  I just think he went about it the wrong way.  I think I've stated this before but if The Last Jedi wasn't a Saga movie it would not have received the backlash it did.  If you take the same themes, but apply them to new completely original characters, then most people would be fine with the movie.  Again I think it's a well made movie in the technical aspects (cinematography, acting, and such), but the story and the script needed improvement. 

There is little to no character consistency between TFA and TLJ.  For example, Poe is an unapologetic good guy in all of the TFA material (Before the Awakening, Comic Books, and the actual movie).  Why does he go to being an a-hole?  TLJ the actual movie is one thing, but the deleted scene where Poe hands over the repaired coat to Finn comes across as passive aggressive.  Then in the most recent comic, he mentions that he never liked the coat anyways (though this is 2nd hand information and I don't know the context of how he said it).  If he said that and meant it, then what does it mean to the scene in TFA where Poe and Finn meet again and he says that Finn looks good in it?  Why can't Poe be an unapologetic good guy?  There are many other ways for Poe to have conflict in the context of TLJ (like having Poe win at everything with his only big loss being the bombers).  Have him have to deal with that and the depression that comes after the initial rush of accomplishing the objective but it being Pyrrhic and then the loss of the rest of his fighter pals, instead of having the confrontational relationship with Holdo that actually doesn't lead to anything because Holdo admits to liking him and Poe was 100% behind the plan once he learned of it.  (Again a take it or leave it with when Holdo should have informed Poe.)

 

[Making Chimichangas]

@whateveritis1224, Well I can tell you that top military commanders do not go around telling everyone what the "plan" is, so in that regard, Holdo's reaction of, "Stick to your post and do your job..." is pretty consistent with how a real military operates.

And I understand your attitude of "Take it or leave it..."  The Last Jedi is not a perfect film by any stretch.  But I think the excellent and very good far out-weighs the bad.  I'm not overly concerned with a "bad" Star Wars script because most of them are bad--or at the least not great.  Remember the prequels?  Uugh.  The Empire Strikes Back is probably the only SW film I would say actually had a great script.  The rest are mostly on par with the others.  

As far as why can't Poe be an "unapologetic good guy" I don't really have too strong of an opinion on that.  He's a fighter pilot, he's been in battles, and he's killed people.  Hard to be an unpologetic good guy if you've killed people--compartmentalizing it as being necessary when in war notwithstanding.  But since we are talking about Poe, I was much more pleased by his growth and emerging as a good leader in TLJ's 3rd act.  It was awesome to see.  To me, that's more important than being that good guy because emerging as a leader affects the story more and for the better.

I will say this: I concur that if TFA and TLJ had been a different trilogy and not connected to the Skywalkers it might have not received as much backlash as it did.  Then again, a lot of the backlash was based almost exclusively on idiotic misogyny and racism.  

Rose

Rey

Finn

 

[whateveritis1224]

@whateveritis1224, Well I can tell you that top military commanders do not go around telling everyone what the "plan" is, so in that regard, Holdo's reaction of, "Stick to your post and do your job..." is pretty consistent with how a real military operates.

And I understand your attitude of "Take it or leave it..."  The Last Jedi is not a perfect film by any stretch.  But I think the excellent and very good far out-weighs the bad.  I'm not overly concerned with a "bad" Star Wars script because most of them are bad--or at the least not great.  Remember the prequels?  Uugh.  The Empire Strikes Back is probably the only SW film I would say actually had a great script.  The rest are mostly on par with the others.  

As far as why can't Poe be an "unapologetic good guy" I don't really have too strong of an opinion on that.  He's a fighter pilot, he's been in battles, and he's killed people.  Hard to be an unpologetic good guy if you've killed people--compartmentalizing it as being necessary when in war notwithstanding.  But since we are talking about Poe, I was much more pleased by his growth and emerging as a good leader in TLJ's 3rd act.  It was awesome to see.  To me, that's more important than being that good guy because emerging as a leader affects the story more and for the better.

I will say this: I concur that if TFA and TLJ had been a different trilogy and not connected to the Skywalkers it might have not received as much backlash as it did.  Then again, a lot of the backlash was based almost exclusively on idiotic misogyny and racism.  

Rose

Rey

Finn

I understand operational security, but at some point Holdo had to of told enough people what the plan was, otherwise they would not have been able to pull it off.

The prequels had a good story that was told poorly.  The script for TLJ wasn't bad perse, in that it did not have anything as appalling as the Padme/Anakin romance in AOTC,  But it tried to grab laughs out of place, most notably Luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder.  

With Poe being an unapologetic good guy, I'm talking more in Star Wars terms.  There is a clear good side and a clear bad side.  Luke killed over a million people the first time he flew an X-Wing, but he's unapologetically good in ANH because the target was something that destroyed a planet that looked like Earth.  I'm also asking why he couldn't be a good person to everyone and not a hotheaded a-hole because he got demoted.  It came down to stereo typing the type of character Poe normally is in these types of movies.  The cocky a-hole who thinks he is the best at everything when he hadn't been shown to be that in any of the supplemental material (books and comic books) until TLJ.  Again these issues are magnified by the fact that its been at most a week since TFA.

Crappy people are crappy people and I absolutely hate that Kelly, Daisy, and John got crap for just being cast in Star Wars, be the main lead, and having an unpopular character because the main storyline you're in is seen as pointless.

 

[Making Chimichangas]

@whateveritis1224, I don't think the humor in TLJ is out of place at all.  Remember in ANH when Luke is in the gun turret of the Falcon shooting TIE fighters, finally gets one, and says with joy, "I got him, I got him" and Han replies, "Great kid, don't get cocky!"  Or when on the Death Star Han starts yelling and chasing a couple Stormtroopers, rounds a corner, and finds a bunch more?  His eyes get wide and he's realized that wasn't a great idea?  What about the exchange between Han and Leia in the corridors of the Rebel base on Hoth?  Leia: I'd just as soon kiss a Wookie, Han: I can arrange that.  Or what about how Yoda trolled Luke at their first meeting?  When R2 used a little mechanical grabber to try and get Luke's little flashlight back?  Yoda grabs his little cane and starts banging on R2 shrieking, "Mine, mine!"  My points are: There has always been humor and laughs in Star Wars.  I have never understood the notion that Star Wars movies had to be these serious, solemn, events where laughing is forbidden.  So yeah, I think the humor in TLJ is not only appropriate, but fits wonderfully within the film.

Regarding Luke Skywalker's tossing his lightsaber, watch this short video, and click the link in the description box to read the Twitter thread referenced.  Both make a fantastic case for why Luke tossing his laser sword is funny and why it fits within the movie.





And I dunno...I think TLJ (and RO before it) did great at giving us human characters who are actually human.  To me, they're more nuanced and relatable.  I like that these new films gives us characters that aren't maybe always good or always bad.

I was 7 years old when I saw ANH in theaters for the first time.  I have said this previously but it is worth repeating: When I go see a new Star Wars film, I view the film not through the jaded, cynical eyes of who I am, but through the eyes of the wide-eyed 7 year old kid I used to be.  I realize that Star Wars is a fictional space fantasy and it is not meant to be taken so seriously.  I think many of the detractors (not you specifically or necessarily, just in general) would enjoy these SW films a lot more if they could just put themselves back into that little kid mentality and just enjoy the escapist entertainment it is meant to be.  And, that includes the misogynistic and racist idiotic morons.

 

[whateveritis1224]

On 4/22/2018 at 11:55 AM, Making Chimichangas said:

@whateveritis1224, I don't think the humor in TLJ is out of place at all.  Remember in ANH when Luke is in the gun turret of the Falcon shooting TIE fighters, finally gets one, and says with joy, "I got him, I got him" and Han replies, "Great kid, don't get cocky!"  Or when on the Death Star Han starts yelling and chasing a couple Stormtroopers, rounds a corner, and finds a bunch more?  His eyes get wide and he's realized that wasn't a great idea?  What about the exchange between Han and Leia in the corridors of the Rebel base on Hoth?  Leia: I'd just as soon kiss a Wookie, Han: I can arrange that.  Or what about how Yoda trolled Luke at their first meeting?  When R2 used a little mechanical grabber to try and get Luke's little flashlight back?  Yoda grabs his little cane and starts banging on R2 shrieking, "Mine, mine!"  My points are: There has always been humor and laughs in Star Wars.  I have never understood the notion that Star Wars movies had to be these serious, solemn, events where laughing is forbidden.  So yeah, I think the humor in TLJ is not only appropriate, but fits wonderfully within the film.

Regarding Luke Skywalker's tossing his lightsaber, watch this short video, and click the link in the description box to read the Twitter thread referenced.  Both make a fantastic case for why Luke tossing his laser sword is funny and why it fits within the movie.

I think a lot of my disappointment with the movie is the missed opportunities to tell a better story IMO.  I didn't go into TLJ expecting it to be bad or for it to be disappointing.  I saw it 4 times in theaters, and I felt diminishing returns each time (though the binary suns at the end got me each time). 

Luke and Rey's storylines are supplanted to be extensions of Kylo's.  We are made to feel sympathetic to Kylo because of Luke and Rey's actions throughout the film, to the point it tells us to overlook the terrible things he has done up to this point.  We get three versions of what happened the night that Kylo turned, but all three of them portray Luke in a negative light.  He goes in, pulls the saber, Ben wakes up and collapses the hut and then it cuts to afterwards.  We see part of something with the saber vision, presumably Kylo killing someone at the temple, but it's a quick scene that's not brought up again.  So we're made to be more sympathetic to Kylo in the moment when his reaction to Luke pulling his saber is to massacre the students who don't join him.  Johnson also cut the scene where Luke and Leia mourns for Han for pacing purposes.  You have time for the milking scene or Kylo shirtless, but not for allowing Luke and Leia to show emotion?  But this goes against the message that Kylo can be good by showing the consequences of his actions.  Sure he's shown at the end to be fully a villian, but fandom has latched onto the poor white kid who made bad decisions that put him in a place to be completely alone and Rey will be the person to save him because the Skywalker line needs to go on.  Which brings me to another reason I'm not behind this movie like the other Star Wars movies, the fandom that ships Rey and Kylo together despite the fact that while there was a connection it is very clearly severed by the end of the movie.  Rian described the hand touching scene as the closest thing to a sex scene in Star Wars.  As a counterpoint, you have Anakin waking shirtless next to a pregnant Padme in a nightgown and you have the 2 kisses between Leia and Han in ESB.  Is it petty of me?  Probably.  But when you have official Lucasfilm employees promoting a problematic ship, I feel I can be a little petty.

I'm OK with how Luke was portrayed, but it also felt like a step too far with nothing to move the needle back.  Heck the 3rd lesson that was cut involved Luke tricking Rey into thinking there was a pirate raid on their island with informing her that there was no point in helping because if she helped there would be no one to protect them the next time.  There is absolutely no satisfaction with Luke's storyline until the end of the movie.  There is only one scene where he directly teaches her about the force, and for all his pontificating about how the Jedi Order needs to end, the Sith/Darksiders will always try to rise up and cause suffering whether or not the Jedi are still an order.  Heck Snoke isn't even a Sith.    

If you want to keep going back and forth, I'm cool with it.  But we're not going to change each others minds about TLJ.  I'm all hyped up for Solo, but I'm expecting backlash because Alden is not as good an actor as Harrison and everyone will be focusing on that to the detriment of the hopefully good parts of the movie.

 

[Making Chimichangas]

@whateveritis1224, you make some fair points regarding: a) the opportunity TLJ had to tell a better story, and b) Luke/Rey's arc being an extension of Ren's story.  However, I don't think Rey/Ren/Luke is an issue because of how they structured the story.  The Force is about balance and given the events which happened, it is quite natural those three would be connected.

Regarding Luke's 3rd lesson, yeah I've seen the deleted scene on the Blu-Ray and read it in the novel.  I actually agree with the decision to cut that scene, not because of "for time", but because with the way the scene went, it didn't feel like it fit within the movie.  Luke's 3rd lesson would have been more poignant and relevant had the set up for the scene been carried out.  I would have made it an actual raid and put Rey into a situation where she has to make a choice.  If she chooses to intervene, then she has to deal with the ramifications the indigenous population has to suffer through when she's not there.  Or, if she chooses to not intervene, live with the guilt of knowing she let innocent beings be slaughtered.  If Rian would have done that, it would have driven home with a sledge hammer Luke's message.  But to play that scene as a serious choice, then turn it into a joke, yeah I'm glad it was cut.

I guess I am the opposite.  I saw TLJ five times in the theater and I've seen it three times on Blu-Ray and it gets better each time.  On one of those viewings, I was listening to Rian's commentary.  Nothing really "wow" or insightful from Rian, but it was interesting as he explained some of his thought processes as he was directing the film.

Finally, about the Rey/Ren ship...the first time I saw the film, I was actually expecting Rey to turn to the darkside.  I don't know why, but I thought that was a direction she would go.

The Han Solo movie...I'm obviously going to see it, but my expectations are the lowest they could be.  I think this film will truly put to the test my mantra of: seeing these films through my former 7 year old eyes.  I'm just hoping it is not as awful as the rumors have said.  Although in fairness, the "rumors" were Wonder Woman and Justice League were awful and they weren't.  WW was amazing and JL was way better than I anticipated but talking about those two movies would be a separate thread entirely.

 

[RedDenver]

Wisecrack has a really good episode on what Rian Johnson was trying to do with TLJ and why it fails on Johnson's own premises:

 

[Mavric]

Wisecrack has a really good episode on what Rian Johnson was trying to do with TLJ and why it fails on Johnson's own premises:

Nice find.  That was interesting.

Much deeper investigation than I would have ever thought possible.  But the same basic premise that has been my complaint since I saw it:  It's incoherent.  Entertaining.  Interesting.  But it's much more a collection of scenes than a coherent story.