The Last Jedi Thread (with Spoilers)

I haven't seen Rogue One, but I know the basic premise and honestly i'm not sure what the opinion if it is around here but most people I know really liked it...even to the point of saying it's one of the best star wars movies. Its because it focuses on character no one knew anything about and used a new hope as a backdrop..put in a few familiar characters in bit areas to provide some context and that's it. As a whole though your not sitting there the entire time comparing it to other movies in the series because its a bit out of their realm. You get to just enjoy the movie for what it is.

 

You should watch it. It's pretty far from perfect, but it introduces one of Star Wars' best recent characters (the droid K-2SO, portrayed by the talented Alan Tudyk who played Wash in Firefly!), and it has the best cinematography of all Star Wars movies to date. It's an absolutely gorgeous-looking film, with grit and dirt and scope. (Whoever thought that up the looks of RO should make a movie based on KOTOR2, which tells one of the best Star Wars stories.)

 

Its not a movies Ive avoided for any reason I just haven't gotten around to watching it. 2 kids and work doesn't leave a ton of time for movie watching

 

I thought this movie was an abomination. A meandering, pointless, soulless mess with no narrative structure, no interesting characters and a complete disregard for everything that came before it. It completely ruined the character of Luke Skywalker. When I saw that green liquid that Luke milked from the teat of that sea cow dripping from his moustache I knew all hope was lost. I never thought anything would make me yearn for the days of Jar Jar Binks. On the other hand I LOVED both Rogue One and Solo.

 

Was it great? No. But nothing they've done in the newer films comes close to Jar Jar Binks bad.

 

In my defense I said "the days of Jar Jar Binks" and not Jar Jar himself per se That said I was never a huge fan of the prequels. I appreciate what they were trying to do but I thought they went about it in a bit of a ham-fisted way. I didn't particularly like The Force Awakens either, but mostly because it was so derivative of the original 3 without really trying to tell a new story. With no disrespect to those who love The Last Jedi I thought it was a failure on every possible level-- it lacked focus, it was bloated, entire subplots were created that went on for far too long and ultimately went nowhere. Nothing anyone did made any sense. And one of the driving points of the plot was that they didn't want to run out of gas. Since when is this a thing in a Star Wars movie? My biggest problem with it by far though was it's handling of Skywalker. In the original trilogy his character was definied by optimism, by hope, by struggle in the face of impossible odds-- the cynical, cranky, cowardly space-cow milk drinking dude we got in The Last Jedi was not the same man. I would take any of the prequels any day over The Last Jedi. Just my opinion.

 

That is called character development. He went through some shit after Return, and it changed him. By the end of Last Jedi he was mostly back to his old self, plus a little cynicism from those experiences.

 

That's how I felt about it as well. I think the movies would be horribly boring if all the main characters stayed exactly the same no matter what happened to them or around them. There needs to be an arc, an evolution if you will, of Luke's prior self and I actually appreciated the old grumpy version of him. And I'll appreciate his comeback as well.

 

So what if Luke decided he wanted to have a few drinks, live in isolation, and be somehwat of a grumpy smart ass like his mentor, Yoda. After all, he did try to kill his nephew when he thought he was fast asleep...

 

If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you, etc. You don’t need to redeem or explain villains in this kind of movie.

Where the new films have fallen down for me was with the reintroduction of the classic characters. There was plenty of story to build a narrative around without them and they were ultimately disappointing because they couldn’t live up to expectations based on nostalgia.

 

People either agree with the way Luke was handled or not. I'm one of those who think character regression is generally a bad thing, worse when you are dealing with a supposed Jedi "master". Almost everything Luke does in this movie invalidates his arc in the old trilogy. The problem was Johnson was backed into a corner because he was forced to explain why Luke was hiding on an island and didn't want to be found. Yoda in Empire wasn't actually hiding. He didn't care about being killed. He was playing out a long-game. Waiting for the right time in order to overthrow the Emperor using bait (Luke). Obi-Wan carried out phase one of that plan in A New Hope. It was all planned out, albeit with a few hiccups. But it all made sense based on who those characters were. And when Luke shuts off his lightsaber after de-handing his father, the plan comes to fruition. It redeems Anakin and ultimately leads to the Emperor's death and makes Luke a Jedi. Luke is forever a changed man.

The Luke in Last Jedi isn't the same character as far as I'm concerned. He's a "what if" non-canon creation for the Disney films. Which is why Hamill publically disowned the character. He understands that moment in ROTJ and what Last Jedi does to destroy it. Luke is supposed to be the greatest Jedi that ever lived (literal canon). But Yoda and Obi-Wan completely outclass him. They were wise, patient and had a vision and the will to carry it out in a long-game fashion. Jedi masters of Luke's status do not do what he does in that movie. There were times he was no different than the petulant teenage idiot living on Tatooine with his aunt and uncle (trying to kill his nephew). IMO the way he was handled was an abomination and completely ruined the new trilogy for me. I have zero interest in seeing episode 9 because of this and also because of how Rey and Kylo were handled (which is a whole other shit show).

Not everyone agrees with this, and that's fine by me. I don't really care and I'm done debating it on the internet.

 

Well said man-- you articulated it way better than I could have.

 

I think the prequels could have been decent with 2 corrections:

1. No Jar-Jar (obviously)
2. Someone who can actually act, instead of Hayden Anti-Christiansen

And totally agree with the fact that the sequels are about Disney brand, marketing and merchandizing strategy.

I’m pretty much completely aligned @ColtMrFire on these as well, other than the fact that I can still watch them. But I view them as something pretty much brand new, and not really a continuation of the original films (and not even in the same league obviously).

 

I'm the opposite! I don't mind rewatching the prequel trilogy (good fight choreography there, along with a solid score), but find the sequels too offensive to revisit. To me, the prequels' lowest point wasn't Jar Jar, but the nauseating writing of the romance subplot of Ep2 — easy enough to fast-forward.

The sequel trilogy started off poorly, with an outrageous recycling of the entire plot of Ep4. Not just little nods here and there, with maybe a visit to Tatooine, as seems required for so many Star Wars stories, but wholesale reuse. What. The. Actual. f**k. Then it took the shittiness down to a new low with Ep8 — unbelievably long, boring, and with shit character work throughout. People enjoy hating on the mishandling of Luke, but every character was remarkably poorly written. The Porgs were actually one of the better things in that asinine excuse for a movie. To make things worse, the galaxy of the sequel trilogy feels lifeless and empty.

It's not like Disney can't put out good Star Wars material. Rogue One was easily the best SW movie since the OT. Story wasn't my favorite, but the characters and cinematography were terrific. I found Solo enjoyable, also. Rebels was solid, and a worthy successor to Clone Wars. CW, by the way, made Anakin a tolerable, if not likable character, unlike his representation in the prequel trilogy. It also introduced Ahsoka Tano, easily the best new character in SW canon. Her story continued really well in Rebels. Rebels also re-introduced Thrawn — one of the best SW characters of all time — and did so tastefully. I still prefer the original Expanded Universe take on his character, but the reboot version works quite well, too.

How someone could have looked at TV scripts using Thrawn, and then thought that using Snoke in a feature film was even remotely acceptable, is beyond me. Someone must have thought that SW really needed a refreshing new villain with a Dark Side face who enjoys corrupting Skywalkers, bitches about young fools, and gets murdered in a throne room confrontation by his apprentice.

I don't buy the argument that the ST had to suck to appease cross-marketing and merchandising. That could have been done with a good story and a strong movie just as easily as with a disgusting one. You can make SW rides out of anything, FFS; at least one "new" Disneyland SW ride just a new paint job on Space Mountain, which has been around since the 70s and didn't have a SW theme for decades.

 

For the record, Hayden Christensen has turned in good performances elsewhere, namely Shattered Glass, Life as a House, and The Virgin suicides(nothing revolutionary, but solid). The blame for the wooden acting lies solely on George Lucas, who has always been more interested in the rhythm of story over directing actors well. Even Ewan McGregor and Samuel Jackson are pretty wooden compared to anything else they've done.
And just to pile on, after watching The last Jedi a second time, the story is trash, and the character development is trash. I wanted to like it, but it's just utterly ill-conceived in almost every way.

 

Agreed on Lucas being trash. Couldn’t disagree more with all of you on TLJ. Out of spite, all future SBAF shirts will feature big ass portraits of Rey and Kylo in a passionate embrace.

 

Just rub it in and add a lame-ass cowardly holographic Luke!