We saw a Star War! Last Jedi spoiler thread

[MarkB]

That was a whole lot of words to scream "NOOOO MY CHILDHOOD!"

With a fair helping of "NOOO MY HEADCANON!" mixed in.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm basing my assumption of guerrilla success rates in the Star Wars universe by what we see in the Star Wars universe. We see the same guy make the same assumption, with the same predictable results. That's incompetence.

Which same guy and which same assumption is that?

 

[epithet]

Basically, all your childhood heroes became people with failures, setbacks, and foibles. Welcome to adulthood.

That's just asinine.

First, they didn't become "people with failures blah blah blah," they become failures. Their new characterizations are defined by their failures, and their past successes have been rendered inconsequential, and dismissed. Leia is a leader, and failed. Luke is a Jedi, and failed. Han is the pilot of the Millennium Falcon, who was elevated by his love for Leia. He failed. They all failed utterly at the very thing for which they became iconic. There's a huge difference between humanizing a character and destroying it.

Secondly, no one looks to Star Wars for nuanced depictions of people with complex personalities. Star Wars is an epic fight of good versus evil, just like The Lord of the Rings. I don't open a Tolkien book to explore the misery of pipeweed addiction, and I don't go to a Star Wars movie to watch a fallen hero wallow in self pity. The Star Wars story is unabashedly and unapologetically an interpretation of "the hero's journey" as an epic space fantasy. You can change that to be a dramatic exploration of human foibles, but that takes the story out of the realm of science fiction/fantasy and recommends it for a much lower budget. Besides, no one seems to feel like Rey needs to "become [a person] with failures, setbacks, and foibles," that kind of crap is reserved for the heroes introduced by George Lucas.

I've been neck-deep in adulthood long enough to appreciate my escapist treats.

 

[epithet]

That was a whole lot of words to scream "NOOOO MY CHILDHOOD!"

Yeah, that probably does seem like a lot of words to you.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I totally disagree that Luke and Leia are failures, or that the aim of this film was to somehow tarnish their legacy.

I think that they are people whose lives have been incredibly difficult, and fraught with danger. And that has continued after the original trilogy ended.

I do think that this movie did make more of an attempt to close out those old stories, and to let the new ones emerge. And to do that, I believe that they put Luke and Leia in difficult positions. I was fine with Luke's status and actions in this movie. He's never, ever been infallible.

But despite that moment of weakness that led to the fall of the Jedi Order, Luke rises up again, and with his final act, achieves greatness again. He saves the resistance and serves as a symbol of inspiration for a new generation. Saying that he "is a failure" fails to acknowledge the entire point of the movie. He failed once. He then had a choice....let that failure define him, and hide for the rest of his days. Or put it aside and see if he can contribute meaningfully. He chose that second option.

It's harder to say with Leia because she should have had another movie to grow and succeed or fail. the fact that her story is seemingly going to end prematurely due to Carrie Fisher's death is really unfortunate, and I think plays a part in why some are disappointed with her story.

But ultimately, I think a lot of it boils down to the fact that the franchise absolutely must move on from these characters. No matter what they do, some folks will be dissatisfied. So instead of worrying about appeasing fans, they had to focus on making a compelling story.

It's more important for young viewers to like the movie than it is for the adult viewers. And I think that fact also rankles some folks a bit.

 

[pukunui]

We do know, however, that he sacrificed literally every bomber they had available, while acting against orders.

To be fair to Poe, a lot of it was just bad luck. If that one TIE fighter hadn't crashed into the open bomb bay of that one bomber, it wouldn't have set off a chain reaction that destroyed most of the others.

Re:Astrogation in Star Wars

Good points. I'd just like to add that, according to one article I found online, the Last Jedi Visual Dictionary states that Luke found his way to the first Jedi temple by following seedlings of the tree that houses the Jedi texts. Apparently it was an important tree to the Jedi religion, and there was at least one of them growing in the gardens of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. I'm not sure how following seedlings would lead you to the original tree but undoubtedly the Force was involved.

Re: suspension of disbelief, I’m just saying, the entire scene is realistic if you ignore the non existence of Force Powers. She wasnt out there any longer than a normal person could hold their breath, the physics checks out, etc. maybe her opening her eyes would have been a problem, but even then we know Jedi can do that from Clone Wars, first season, with PLo Koon and Ashoka.

I would disagree about the physics checking out. She appears to just be floating peacefully in space, when she ought to be continuing to zoom away from the ship since there's no friction in space.

As for Plo Koon, his ability to survive in the vacuum of space was later retconned as a special racial ability. I can't recall Ahsoka ever being exposed to the vacuum, though. I'm pretty sure she had a space suit on.

The more time I have to reflect on the movie, the more it bothers me. Luke Skywalker was an iconic hero, a character that had faced temptation and rejected the dark side to remain strong with the light. Rian Johnson retconned all of that by making Luke a complete failure as a jedi and a teacher, who had an episode of utter weakness that led to the destruction of the jedi he was responsible for training. He then gave up, went into hiding, and severed his connection to the force. Rian Johnson rewrote Luke Skywalker into the worst Jedi he possibly could. He didn't introduce new threats or challenges, he just used his episode to tear down the heroes of the previous generation and crap all over their legacy.

In fairness to Rian, much of Luke's story was established prior to this movie. In fact, it's right there in the opening crawl for TFA. So I wouldn't place the blame on Rian in this case. Place it on Kathleen Kennedy and/or JJ Abrams.

He did the same thing to Leia. JJ had already exiled her from the Senate and casually destroyed the Republic she had fought so hard to restore, but Rian had to go one further and show us how Leia was an ineffective commander, whose subordinates disregarded her orders and followed their own plans. We saw how Leia's resistance was utterly decimated by her failure to evacuate the base in a timely manner as well as the culture of insubordination she fostered. Then, as a last insult, we saw that the allies Leia counted on had abandoned her and left her and her resistance to be finally snuffed out by the New Order.

This one you can blame on Rian (and Kathleen).

I'll admit that when Disney bought Lucasfilm and wiped the slate clean of all the Expanded Universe fiction, I was enthused. I thought the entire Vong story line was horrible, and even though I would have liked to keep or canonize the Knights of the Old Republic lore I agreed that it was best to just start over, picking elements of the "Legends" material to use as the new story lines called for it. Now, however, I'm looking at the Legends as being a better overall treatment of the GFFA, simply because those stories didn't undermine the iconic heroes of the original trilogy.

I dunno. I feel like a huge chunk of the post-film EU invalidated a lot of what our OT heroes did. Palpatine didn't stay dead. An even bigger Death Star was created (the inspiration for Starkiller Base?). And a mere hundred years or so later, the Jedi are back to being nearly wiped out and the galaxy is crawling with Darths. All LFL has really done with this new trilogy is to bring the Legacy era forward 70-odd years. No, the galaxy isn't crawling with Sith but the Jedi are wiped out again and bad guys are in charge. There's just no Cade Skywalker to sort of but not really save the day ... unless Ben Solo ends up redeeming himself in IX.

In my opinion, this new trilogy is no worse than anything from the post-film EU. In some cases, it is better. In others, it's about the same.

Maybe JJ Abrams, who is only a few years older than I am, has an amazing plan that will restore my enthusiasm for the franchise.

Who knows. They apparently didn't have the whole trilogy plotted out when they made TFA, so JJ might just make it all up as he goes along with IX.

I can't help but wonder how these films would've turned out if Disney hadn't told George to get lost when he approached them with his ideas ... (Oh, George, why did you have to go and sell up to Disney?!)

Secondly, no one looks to Star Wars for nuanced depictions of people with complex personalities. Star Wars is an epic fight of good versus evil, just like The Lord of the Rings.

According to George, it's not. It's just meant to be a soap opera in space. Hence the term "space opera". And in that sense, I'd say all the movies, prequels included, succeed admirably.

Yeah, that probably does seem like a lot of words to you.

FWIW I read all the words.

 

[trappedslider]

I'll admit that when Disney bought Lucasfilm and wiped the slate clean of all the Expanded Universe fiction, I was enthused. I thought the entire Vong story line was horrible, and even though I would have liked to keep or canonize the Knights of the Old Republic lore I agreed that it was best to just start over, picking elements of the "Legends" material to use as the new story lines called for it. Now, however, I'm looking at the Legends as being a better overall treatment of the GFFA, simply because those stories didn't undermine the iconic heroes of the original trilogy.

I don't like it.

I'm guessing you missed the last few story lines after the vong war...let's see Legacy of the Force dealt with the fall of Jacen Solo to the dark side of the Force, mentored by the returning villain Lumiya. The backdrop to this story arc is the conflict between Corellia and the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, which later erupts into a full-scale war.

Then after that we had FotJ dealing with the fallout from the above,which had Luke leave the Jedi Order due in part for his failure regarding Jacen to go on a soul searching journey of the different ways of the force. While a hidden group of sith was taking advantage of the confusion to make their move in destroying the jedi.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sith–Imperial_War

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Second_Imperial_Civil_War

And Originally The droids were supposed to be the only common characters in a story spanning a much longer time frame, until Lucas changed his mind and claimed it was always supposed to be six movies about the rise and fall of Anakin.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So the loss of literally every one of the Rebel bombers gained them absolutely nothing in the long run.

How many times does someone have to say, "It's only a [ insert innocuous object here ]. Ignore it" only to have things go badly sideways, before it becomes incompetence? you're fighting Guerrillas. Their business is making innocuous things dangerous.

Are they guerrillas? They don't fight like it. They fight like an organized military. Pretty sure guerrillas don't tend to engage in frontal assaults with not so much as a flanking maneuver.
There's also only one instance in the film of ignoring an innocuous thing that ends up doing massive damage. The other big hit they take is a bomber that they are very much trying to blow up before it can deliver it's payload.

Characters. I was talking about characters when I said they were in the same position as they were at the start of the movie. I don't know how you're reading into what I'm saying as to mean the specifics of the rebel fleet and their materials.
I understand you disagree with me and feel that the characters have developed. I don't.
I see that Poe is being groomed to be a leader and his is the only real change that has been expressed. Albeit in a terribly hamfisted way.
Rey is still the same Mary Sue. Kylo is still the same troubled moody teen. Even after his apparent new resolve we see him almost cry in anger when first the Millennium Falcon shows and then when Luke moves out to confront him.
Finn's moment of change was undercut by him being saved.

Like Luke said, everything you just said is wrong.
Nothing about being saved undercuts a change in personal perspective. That's just nonsensical.
Rey being a "mary sue" (she isn't) has nothing to do with character development. She comes to a greater understanding of the Force, herself, her place in the Galaxy, realizes that she needs to plot her own course, I mean I don't know what bar you're using here, but I'm pretty sure it's "I don't like her because she's too cool so I refuse to see anything positive here", from all that you've said.

I would disagree about the physics checking out. She appears to just be floating peacefully in space, when she ought to be continuing to zoom away from the ship since there's no friction in space.

As for Plo Koon, his ability to survive in the vacuum of space was later retconned as a special racial ability. I can't recall Ahsoka ever being exposed to the vacuum, though. I'm pretty sure she had a space suit on.

I wasn't aware of that unnecessary retcon. That's too bad.

Regardless, again, it isn't unrealistic for her to be out in open space for that long without serious injury. Her opening her eyes without deliterious effect is probably a stretch, but hardly outside the scope of things we've seen Force users do in canon material.

The fact that she isn't hurling through space at the same speed she was thrown from the ship is just normal movie stuff, I'm not gonna nitpick that.

 

[pukunui]

Should they have flushed their fighters as soon as they hit system? Probably, but we're armchair quarterbacking from the safety of our own far, far away galaxy.

The captain of the dreadnought certainly agreed with you. Doesn't he say something about how they should have launched their fighters "five minutes ago" when he realizes what Poe is up to?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Rey's dream sequence where she tries to see her parents but instead finds only a mirror with her own face looking back.....that's like Bruce Leroy opening a fortune cookie to find no fortune!