The Last Jedi Thread (with Spoilers)

Discussion in 'Random Thoughts' started by ultrabike, Jan 8, 2018.

  1. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    Saw SW Last Jedi.

    *SPOILERS allowed*

    Will join thread if one already exists. Lemme know, did not find one. Just general discussion.

    Who the hell is "vice-admiral" Hodor!? Leia at least had a relatively clear and simple plan to bring down death stars with "stolen" plans. What's with the no-plan talk? Also, was it that freaking easy to bring down a fleet of star destroyers by just jumping your ship to light speed into them? Hell, why not just jump those X-wings or A-wings, and do the Kamikase thing? Maybe save some capital ships. Hell, why the need of huge capital ships in that case? They are sitting ducks just like those death stars.

    Maybe create some device to shield capital ships against Kamikase feeling ships. Remember that dude that crashed his A-wing against the super start destroyer command bridge in ROTJ? Learned something yet?!

    Where the hell did Supreme Mega Commander-in-Chief Snooki came from? You would think Palpy would have felt some sort of "disturbance" in the force and send Vader to bitch slap him.

    Why is the whole Republic in ashes so fast? Is this the result of record high Yar-Yar-Binks levels of military and security incompetence. Going from the Rebellion, to Republic, to Resistance, and into Rebuilding for the next installment cuz we are down to about 5 or 6 dudes and dudettes in the whole galaxy? A government is supposed to protect it's constituents. The New Republic failed miserably here, and there is no sight of success in the near future. This is just sad. Folks should just follow Yoda and go the force ghost way. Possible there is more stability in that realm.

    On the upside, no midichlorians. No more death stars. No more "the chosen ones".

    Also, why is Chewey f'ing with chickens now?
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2018
  2. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    No more death stars??? Actually it's worse because they just built a big f'ing gun into a planet instead and fired it from there and took out the entire republic in one shot apparently. The Republic are a bunch of dumbasses that deserved to lose if they can be taken out in single shot.

    Long live the new Empire, er, First Order sorry.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2018
  3. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    I mean, come on. The whole Republic is centralized in a single system?!
     
  4. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Yep, although I like the idea of a massive Jar-Jar-Binks clone army (*shudder*) being wiped out, so I'm cool with that - they should have showed it though.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2018
  5. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    Nah, the deal is that Jar-Jar-Binks became a senator at one point. If I remember correctly, it was through this idiot and others that Palpy got supreme powers.

    Now I'm reading that the whole New Republic had all sorts of political problems, likely due to Jar-Jar-Bink-like politicians. It's a shame. In some ways Palpy and Vader were right. Some level of force is needed to keep things from crumbling apart. They (the Empire) also had their own level of Jar-Jar-Bink-ness though.
     
  6. BillOhio

    BillOhio Friend

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    Part of my take on the movie...

    Making TLJedi as a musical would have been bold and original. It also would have been asinine as were the implausible plot points within nonsensical story lines of this movie. Aside from some really nice cinematography I don't know how anything in this movie qualifies as 'masterful'. Snoke was made out to be to powerful to not notice a lightsaber being pointed at him from a few inches away by a pupil who's mind he had just bridged across the galaxy to someone else's. You want to ignore the mystery of who is Snoke, you want to kill him unexpectedly? At least do it in a plausible way. Don't tell us 'He's Terrifyingly powerfull, soooo powerfulll... he's amazingly powe... he's dead.' The f**k?

    Good comedy may be welcome, but really stupid dialogue is something else. Guardians otG establishes itself as tongue in cheek from the intro credits, the first 'comedy' of TLJedi was more in line with Spaceballs than Starwars. In Rogue One a blind Chirrut Imwe pointed out the dumbness of putting a bag over his head and there was nothing silly about that humour. The guy with the bag Would have put it over Chirrut's head even when the bag served no purpose. A guy in command of a war fleet getting caught up in a 'can you hear me now' bit doesn't make any sense. One example of trying to pass off cheap nonsensical character portrayal as humour.

    That same fleet that Can jump in to light speed can't overtake Leia's cruiser? Why not? What an absolutely cheap premise to build a Starwars movie on top of. Even if this were reasonable, (and it isn't) is this the best that they could come up with?

    While I'm at it, it is cheap contrivance to tell us that First Order ships won't notice dozens of transports bailing from Leia's cruiser. Hell, Hux's dreadnought was close enough to practically see those transports out the front damn window of the bridge. And why wasn't this supposedly plausible plan shared with Poe? No reason I can see other than to set Poe up to be patronized by Admiral Purple Hair.

    I don't have a problem with strong female characters but I do have a problem with implausible plot point after implausible plot point. If the transport escape plan made any sense then there's no reason not to let Poe in on it except for the sake of showing us how wise Laura Dern is as she condescends the hell out of our New Han Solo.

    Also, the fate of the Rebellion rests on Finn going and getting Justin Theroux but instead Finn ends up in jail over a parking violation (again, just... f**k) and instead of getting the guy who is supposedly the One guy who can save the day, Finn brings back Benicio Del Toro because Benicio had a scan card on him... What The f**k! The location looked like prequels, the barn kid literally is a youngling, and the CGI horsecat race looked like Harry Potter.

    And how it makes ANY sense to spend our last 2 1/2 hours with Luke, a childhood icon, listening to him tell us that the Jedis were fools and hypocrites before milking a space walrus and killing himself (or did he die of exertion? whatever) as opposed to putting a lightsabre in his hand and letting him go kick the the darkside's ass one last time while mentoring the face of the next generation is beyond me. Yes, I did see the showdown with Kylo and it was off, Luke wouldn't have survived all of that blaster fire unless something was going on. Oh, I see, he's a mirage using hard to believe force powers that Rian Johnson just decided Luke has now with absolutely no setup. So the one Jedi looking thing we get to see in over 30 years from Luke Skywalker is actually a mirage. Fantastic.

    Leia in space...

    The Jedi master mentoring the next generation, Luke Skywalker with sabre and force to the blareing John Williams score. Have we seen it before? Yes... 34 years ago. There was no good reason that I can see to not let us relive a bit of childhood (ala Vader in Rogue One) while treating Luke with some dignity. If you can't figure out how to work that in to a plot that also included original aspects, passed on the baton with dignity and transitioned the franchise to new characters and story lines then handing you a multi billion dollar franchise makes as much sense to me as handing Hux a dreadnought and fleet.
     
  7. Cellist88

    Cellist88 Friend

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    Chewie is with the chickens because they want to sell merchandise lol Disney
     
  8. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Good one. You pretty much nailed it for me as well. How they could build so many glaringly obvious stupid plot points, when there was such a potential gold mine of possibilities, is beyond me. I honestly think they believe their audience is utterly stupid. I'm usually not this negative a person, but these last two films (Ep. 7 and 8) just pissed me off. Rogue One however I rather liked.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2018
  9. Boops

    Boops Friend

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    I loved watching this movie.

    Yes, there are some dumb things: Leia flying; most of the Canto Byte sequence; Laura Dern’s hair.

    But, watching these actors work — especially Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver — was a privilege. They are incredible. Love everything they are doing.

    The throne room fight scene was beautiful and thrilling. The best piece of action choreography in any of the trilogies.

    The visuals were f'ing great: the red soil of the salt field, the destruction of the First Order ships after the light speed jump, the seaweed hole underneath Luke’s island, Kylo Ren’s costuming.

    Loved Luke’s force projection too. I totally fell for it, and it was bad ass.

    Porgs are also great.
     
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    That was the best part about the movie. Reminded me of the Shaw Brothers Kung Fu films. So glad Ray Park / Darth Maul was not involved in this. I have no idea why that Ray Park guy was ever hired to choreography any fight scenes in Hollywood films.

    Or lack of. That was awkward.
     
  11. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    I also loved it. Luke’s character arc is expertly written and Hammill goes full force (pun intended) with it. Seeing him fade away at the end brought tears to my eyes. Driver is such a talented actor and elevated every scene he was in. I loved watching him entreat Rey to join him, he played that scene so brilliantly.
     
  12. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    What I liked was that there was no "The Chosen One" crap anymore. The Force was once again what Obi-Wan originally described. A force that binds everything together, as opposed to the number of midichlorians your gonads can hold.

    It depends on your perspective, but I found the latest Lucas influenced plots too religious. Mockingly so in some ways. Lord Vader has too much of a Jesus beginnings. And that in my opinion ruined a lot for me. I would have preferred the legendary Sith Lord to have a nobody's origin. Just like Rey did. Just like many in the world did.

    I also liked the fact that Snoke was not a Sith Lord. When I first saw SW VI and VII, I thought Vader was a Lord in a nobility title granting sense. Like Princess Leia. Then the weird Sith story filled in, and I felt disoriented by it. I always felt Vader was more of a Dark Jedi. But Lucas seemed to have changed his mind.

    The force projection was not bad. But I preferred the Obi-Wan way to go when he faced Vader.

    I liked Kylo in general, but I still do not like his tantrums. Vader had them, but IMO he seemed to deal with his anger better. He was far more calculating and a much better strategist. A lot of the back story behind Vader would have been better fulfilled if there was more on how he was molded into the powerful leader shown in Episode VII. Vader meant business. Kylo is on his own. And the force is not going to be enough if he can't keep his mind clear.

    Way better movie than the last Lucas installments though. I did enjoy it.

    I did enjoy Rey's and Luke's performance quite a bit. I also liked Yoda's appearance, though I didn't know Jedi ghosts could wield the force the way he did. I would have loved to see old Anakin in there as well.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2018
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    The rebel bombers didn't make sense. There's no gravity in space. It would seem that the bombers would have been able to poop out the bombs from any angle without directly flying overhead the mega cannon star destroyer.

    Kudos for the heroic self-sacrifice of the Chinese bomber girl. Chinese people are so good. Let's pander more to China, now a big market for Hollywood films.

    Was that a homage to Mickey Mouse / Fantasia at the end with the broomstick?
     
  14. gepardcv

    gepardcv Almost "Made"

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    Remarkably poor cinematography compared to the gorgeous Rogue One. TLJ just looks bland. Incredibly boring — maybe more shots of Luke fishing and milking that cow would have helped. Wasted characters, starting with Snoke and ending with that Rebel Admiral with the hair. I wanted to know more about her. The Dark Side: turns out it was a pit of rotting leaves and a hall of mirrors. Silly me, I thought it might actually have been something scary. Nothing is shown to be at stake: even the maligned prequels gave a sense of scale to the galaxy and what the protagonists fought for.

    The New Republic must have really screwed the pooch to have ended up reduced to a clone of the old Rebel Alliance. Might have been nice to give just a tiny bit of exposition to show how that happened. Guess the intrepid screenwriting crew couldn’t cope with that task, so left it to comic book writers to fill those holes eventually.

    I saw a video this morning showing how Mark Hamill handles his publicity duties. He barely tries to conceal his scorn for the text as his contract no doubt requires:
     
  15. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    In many ways this was a money grab by J. J. Abrams for Disney. Not all is bad, but Abrams was probably not the right man for the job.
     
  16. BillOhio

    BillOhio Friend

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    Last edited: Jan 9, 2018
  17. Boops

    Boops Friend

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    Lol. Star Wars is so sexless typically. I appreciated them including this bit of beef. And I liked how the awkwardness affected the conversation w Rey.

    Loved the visual but I agree these made no sense. Also, if their plan had succeeded and they were able to bomb the dreadnaught without losing all the bombers, how were those slow ass bombers supposed to get clear of the blast radius of the exploding giant ship?

    Rogue One did look expertly photographed. TLJ was unremarkable photography of striking visual ideas. I wouldn’t say it looked bland at all.

    I don’t get this complaint. The stakes are the destruction/dissolution of the entire resistance. That’s enough stakes for me. Star Wars goes wrong when it goes too big (galactic senate?). This story was tightly focused on the relationships and the core characters and I’m fine with that.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2018
  18. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    This is exactly what's needed to try to get them to change course. The writing was absolute crap. Acting was pretty good overall however, considering what they had to work with.

    I did not like the fight scene near the end at all - it looked way, way too choreographed and I did not feel any sense of drama in it at all. Basically a dance number with red robes and light sabres flying around.

    So much of the plot is just recycled from the other movies it's just boring at points because virtually the same outcomes happen in the scene as another scene in a prior film. When they weren't recycling something, most of the "original" aspects fell flat for me.

    While it would have been way cooler if Luke had have actually been on the planet taking that barage of fire and came out unscathed, at least the force projection aspect was originally applied here - I did not see it coming.
     
  19. Skyline

    Skyline Double-blindly done with this hobby

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    The movie was just as good as anything from the original trilogy. People who love the originals make them out to be much more than they actually are, and hold the new films to unreasonable standards.

    No, it's not perfect. But it is a lot of fun, and firmly establishes new heroes for a new era.

    I'm sorry the whiners have had their childhoods ruined. Time to move on.

    I posted a far more extensive defense of the movie in the Movie Discussion Thread where this has already been discussed ad nauseam.
     
  20. BillOhio

    BillOhio Friend

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    ... I posted far more extensive rebuttal :D
     
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