We saw a Star War! Last Jedi spoiler thread

hawkeyefan

Legend
My 10 year old if asked would say Thor 3 is better. I would argue that many of the marvel movies, Jurassic world, latest remake of king kong etc have
-more believable plots
-better backstorys
-better side quest storylines
-better villians
-better minor creatures from the wampas to the asteroid worm and rancor
-Other than nostalgia if your 10 year old sees the last 2 star wars movies do they care and knew nothing about the history would they care if so and so old character died. My wife cried when Yoda died in ROTJ and she saw it as an adult when they re-released it.

Would a ten year old feel such a strong need to compare this film to other films? Wouldn’t a ten year old just say that both movies were awesome? Maybe they’d say they liked one or the other more, but I don’t think they’d start to examine it to the extent that you’ve indicated.

My 3 year old has seen all the original movies and the Force Awakens. She’s seen some of the prequel trilogy, but for some reason they don’t engage her as much. Each of them has at least one stretch that is really boring for a kid that age. So she checks out of those.

But she knows the other films, and understands all the relationships and importance of who’s who and all that. She gets sad everytine Yoda fades away and when Kylo Ren kills Han Solo. She really hates him because of that, but she still thought that maybe Rey could make Kylo good again (as she says it). She picked up on the subtext that was in The Force Awakens. I know The Last Jedi is going to make her sad for multiple reasons...because Kylo almost switches sides, and because Luke fades away.

So yeah, I think that plenty of new fans care about the older characters and movies. They just don’t have them on a pedestal the way many of us older fans do. To a kid, The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi is every bit a Star Wars movie as Empire Strikes Back or Phantom Menace or any of them. And why wouldn’t they be?

And that’s pretty much my point. Our own reverance for the original films can be a detriment to simply enjoying a fantasy story. Kids don’t bring that with them into these movies.
 

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Ovinomancer

No flips for you!
As much as I hate Jar Jar we got a story for him. Lucas lost his way with a bad actor for vader with a crappy backstory, reliance on blue screen etc but it had good stuff in it. Emperors rise to power was good, Kenobi and some of the jedi backstorys was good. It felt like with some minor storyline changes, better Anakin etc it could have been much better trilogy
Last jedi-awakens and even rogue 1 have -0 character development
jedi-Plot/dialogue is just awful if you look at from say modern television such as expanse/galactics/game of thrones etc or even current scifi movies such as passengers/guardians of galaxy . As an audience we are given zilch. We know less of whats going on than the heroes. the big chase/tracking/casino/mutiny storyline is absurd. What could have happened is the ship temporaily blocks the signal/hides and they go looking but instead we probably get one of the worst plot lines. the whole superwoman in space thing was just gross.

Defenders say we are to blame and yet critics set us up with better or as good as empire. no offense if I a critic says it as good as empire then my expectation is the critic watched both which either means they did homework and watched empire or are old enough to remember it fondly. I would like to know how its as good as empire based on what u defenders know of both. Based on basic literature/writing classes jedi fails on how to write a basic story

My 10 year old if asked would say Thor 3 is better. I would argue that many of the marvel movies, Jurassic world, latest remake of king kong etc have
-more believable plots
-better backstorys
-better side quest storylines
-better villians
-better minor creatures from the wampas to the asteroid worm and rancor
-Other than nostalgia if your 10 year old sees the last 2 star wars movies do they care and knew nothing about the history would they care if so and so old character died. My wife cried when Yoda died in ROTJ and she saw it as an adult when they re-released it.

The Last Jedi is pretty much ALL character development.

Finn from selfish running away to selfless sacrifice.

Poe from hotshot 'kill the bastards no matter the cost' to an actual proto-leader who understands the value of his people vs the objective.

Rey from someone desperate to be told where she fits in the universe to someone who's charting her own path, using her own judgement. From someone mired in the past to someone that uses her past as a lesson on how to do better.

Kylo from a conflicted and torn person, tormented by his past decisions to someone who's decided to burn the past away and seize power any way necessary.

And Luke, man, Luke, from a broken, defeated former Jedi Master through learning his failures aren't the end, but just another lesson, and back to a kick ass Jedi Master who, at the end, is finally worthy of being a teacher.

Nothing but character development.


And Rogue 1? Seriously? Jyn goes from running away and hiding and hating her father to reclaiming his love and sacrificing herself for a greater purpose. Cassian defies orders because of his development, and becomes the hero instead of the villain working for the Rebellion.

If you honestly think these movies lack character development, you must be using some definition of that term that is very, very far away from what everyone else uses.
 

epithet

Explorer
My concern with this is if you're already determined what everyone's "destiny" is, they you'll never be satisfied except with movies that follow the same line of reasoning you are projecting.

If you follow this logic, you must have hated Empire Strikes Back because Luke puts aside his "destiny" of becoming the best with the force to go save his friends on Cloud City. And really dissatisfied in RotJ because A New Hope never set up Luke's "destiny" to redeem Vader. Was Leia "destined" to marry the scruffy nerf-herder that rescued her from the Death Star - would you have judged the original movies harshly if that didn't happen?

The characters in the original three movies grew and changed over the course of the movies as well as having new things revealed (like Leia being a Skywalker), and where they ended up isn't a straight line from what they wanted in the first movie. Sure, there's a foundation there, but there's also a lot more.

Not at all.

Luke's destiny was to answer Leia's call, to help in the struggle against the empire. You know this because the message she sent to Obi-wan found its way to Luke first. Leia's destiny was to restore the "rightful" democratic galactic government, the Republic. Falling in love with a scruffy looking nerf herder was something that happened along the way. Han's destiny was to find a hero within himself, to become a leader in service to others instead of pursuing his self interest above all else. Both Han and Luke were tested in ESB, and neither came through unscathed, but they both ultimately pursued their destinies.

Luke fulfilled his destiny by learning about the Force and facing Vader. The twist was that instead of defeating Vader and the Emperor, Luke used the connection he had with his father to inspire Anakin defeat the Emperor. At no point was Luke's destiny to "become the best with the force." He was never as strong as the Emperor, and without the father/son dynamic might not have been stronger than Vader. His ultimate mastery of the force was achieved by fulfilling his destiny, not as a means to that end.

Luke's path of destiny was not derailed by his choice to face Vader before his training was complete. Yoda and Obi-wan were concerned that he was not ready for the revelation about his father, and that could derail him, but he faced that challenge and emerged with wisdom and strength because of it, but there was a cost. That was part of his hero's journey, on his "quest" to defeat the Empire. Luke never put aside his destiny--he had a branching path, action on one side and further training on the other. He made his choice, but neither path led away from confronting Vader and defeating the Empire.

As an aside, consider the treatment of Luke in comparison to the treatment of Obi-wan. Both, in broad terms, provided the hero of the story with their first training in the ways of the Force, and both perished at the end of a confrontation with the evil henchman. The difference is that Obi-wan, despite having failed as Anakin's teacher, was not a failure. He had never given up, had never abandoned hope, and when the call finally came to action he responded because he had been waiting for it. Luke, on the other hand, had become a failure by giving up after he failed once. The man who had cast aside his lightsaber and left himself vulnerable in order to reach his father and redeem the man who had become the face of evil responded to the corruption in his young nephew by preparing to strike him down, because he was ready to just give up on the young man. Then, Luke Skywalker gave up on himself, his friends and family, the Jedi, and the galaxy. When the call to action came, he sullenly refused it before begrudgingly agreeing to give Rey "lessons" that he claimed would show her the futility of becoming a Jedi and trying to help the fight against the Empire 2.0.

A lot of people defend the treatment of Luke in this movie by insisting this movie, and this trilogy, was not about him. The assertion is that dismantling his character was a necessary part of telling Rey's story. I offer the example of Obi-wan to show that his role in Rey's story (which, like most of the movie, directly parallelled a prior movie) did not require him to be a wretched failure who had given up on himself. He could have fulfilled that role while remaining Luke Skywalker, is what I'm saying. The character we saw in The Last Jedi had luke's face and Luke's name, but was otherwise unrecognizable as the character we last saw in Return of the Jedi.

As a second aside, I see some people saying that it doesn't matter who Snoke is/was. Yes... yes, it bloody well does matter. The Emperor was killed, the Empire defeated. Now Emperor 2.0 is tearing up the galaxy at the head of Empire 2.0, and we're just supposed to say "ok, show me some spaceships?" No, you can't just invalidate everything that has happened previously in the Star Wars saga without explanation. You can't take Leia's kid, being trained by Luke, and just hand-wave his fall to the dark side, because "lol of course he did." And you can't justify an uninspired retread of the original trilogy's story elements with "o hai it subverted expectations lol."
 



epithet

Explorer
Why? All evidence would suggest that wasn't likely to occur. Or at best had 50/50 odds.
I can see hoping for a good movie. (I'm always in that category) But expecting it??

Because I wanted it to be true to the point of convincing myself that it would be. I was underwhelmed with The Force Awakens despite quite liking the new generation of characters, and I had let myself buy into the hype for this movie in the hope that it would elevate the trilogy.

Not gonna make the same mistake in 2 years. I still have a little hope, but no optimism and definitely not high expectations.
 

Joker

First Post
And that’s pretty much my point. Our own reverance for the original films can be a detriment to simply enjoying a fantasy story. Kids don’t bring that with them into these movies.

I agree that if you go into a movie expecting it to be something you're setting yourself up for disappointment. But for someone like me who has no reverence for the old movies and just goes into it expecting nothing more than to be entertained, it wasn't enjoyable.
There were so many cool concepts and stories and characters the movie touched upon but were never really developed.
How the Force works. That there's a military-industrial complex keeping the war going. How Snoke got to Ben. Where Snoke came from.
It's the missed opportunity with Kylo that bothers me the most. He got the most time to develop but it's missing the journey as the more I think about it, the more I think this is his trilogy and not Rey's or the rebel side. It bothers me that we don't see his developed any further. Him and his relationship with Luke and Snoke is missed.

I think the movie tries too much and the characters and story suffer for it. Finn is still an absolutely pointless character. Even if he is the cheerleader/girlfriend archetype and not a main hero, he's not around the main characters enough to fulfill his role.

If you honestly think these movies lack character development, you must be using some definition of that term that is very, very far away from what everyone else uses.

The appeal to the authority of the masses is a weak argument to dismiss any kind of criticism for this movie. There is genuine criticism of the film that doesn't come from hardcore fans or people with an agenda.
 

Not sure why we shouldn't expect a good movie. For the most part I love Disney . Problem is people are accepting bunk and calling it good

maybe my argument should be clarified-character backstory should have been used instead of advancement
I know almost zero about all the new heroes and yet in a new hope I knew a ton about almost every major character


we get nothing on any character except they fit a stereotype
as an example I got more character background on John wick then most supporting character in rogue 1 and almost every character in awakens/last jedi

Disney has put a reliance on me to read the comics on why threepio has a red hand or how phasma escape the compactor and yet for a movie like Thor etc the give me a backstory or a flashback on lots of stuff (thor 3 and the Valkerie as an example).

CCs-why were the odds 50/50 at best. We have a beloved franchise owned by Disney where expectations are high. they have known since at least awakens that

a)-we as fans ( I would include young fans) want answers on who snoke is, how rey is doing whats shes doing etc. There was a lot of heres a lot of middle finger at fans during this (flet like new director didn't like the old director )
b) events to make sense. I expect the mythology of the universe to be stable. I don't expect Batman to shoot lazer beams out of his eyes , harry potter to have super human strength or professor X to swing from webs. Jedi in my opinion breaks these rules
c) I expect lighthearted laughs I just don't expect them in what should be tense circumstances
d) I expect romance/tension/love to build even in my Disney cartoons not out of the blue

I would argue that return of the jedi is far superior even with the ewoks to last jedi

from memory -all better
Plot-
space battles
places visited
secondary characters-
tension-better
fight scenes
ending
acting
bad guys
creatures-if you hate ewoks fine but the Sarlaac and rancor are better then the foxes/birds

Would love arguments to contradict me
romance-better
big reveals-better
 

Overall I enjoyed the move better than TFA. TFA felt to me mostly like a rehash of ANH. The Last Jedi still rehashes the conceptual role of ESB (the heroes basically lose, but survive), but seems much more different in the actions and situations that happen. It helps there is no Planet-Destroying superweapon involved in either movie.

Some random thoughts:
1) A reason the casino world wasn't under obvious First Order control or the First Order wasn't the threat there might be to explain that a planet like this is as much responsible for the sorry state of the galaxy as the First Order - because people profiteer from it, and they do it because they can, not because someone is holding a gun to their head.

2) Ramming always works in Science Fiction, but for some reason it is always considered a surprising tactic. Hyperspace ramming seems to be a logical way to build weapons in the first place - build FTL capable torpedoes of whatever size is necessary to bring down your enemy ships, starbases, or planets.

3) The fundamental problem of the new movies is really that it's undoing the accomplishments of the heroes of the original trilogy, and it barely makes an effort to explain why or how.
The best thing from the EU was probably that the heroes were in a role where they fought to keep what they achieved, and build upon it, even if there was a lot of stuff I didn't like or disagreed with. Unfortunately, the new movies picked a different path.
 


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