Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

Phazael · Dec 21, 2017

Chris said:
. She'd be ruling the galaxy if she said the words "yes Kylo let's join forces but let the rebels go".

This is actually the twist I was hoping they would do, but Disney has no balls.

Aaron · Dec 21, 2017

Just saw this tonight.

What I expected: Star Wars.

What I got: Battlestar Gallactica meets Spaceballs meets Goldeneye meets The Matrix.

I don't think I've laughed as much in any Star Wars film. Shit was hilarious at times. Half way through I had a sort of crisis of conscience though, when I started to wonder if the Prequels perhaps weren't actually bad, but more misunderstood. As the film came to an end, though, I realised something important for me: That was that, for me, "Star Wars" consists only of Episodes IV to VI, and nothing more. The rest, including the Prequels, the newer films, the EU, computer games and all, are merely set in the same universe as Star Wars, and often have the same characters, if that makes any sense. Some are good, some are bad, some are meh, and none of it detracts from my love of "The Star Wars".

Maybe this is just a coping mechanism since deep down I know I will never be able to re-live the wonder of the original movies, and so I no longer hope for anything to try to come close.

But that said, one thing does puzzle me, if only from an academic point of view: What the fuck is the "official" reason for the Rebel Alliance to now be weaker than it was even at the lowest point of Empire? What the fuck happened after Endor? Shit makes no sense. At least the old EU stories tried to follow some logic, with the Admiral Thrawn stuff and more. Or meh... who cares...

Heylel · Dec 21, 2017

I probably don't have every detail, but basically the First Order is a rump state of the Empire that the Republic didn't bother to crush. So it sat around doing evil shit in the unknown regions. Leia wanted to finish it off, but some New Republic senators who were nostalgic for the Empire refused to allow it and branded her a warmonger. They disgraced her by exposing her Skywalker heritage, which is why she ends up leading a splinter faction of the New Republic against the First Order. Also, somewhere in there the authoritarian senators defect to the First Order giving it a huge boost.

The Rebellion is long gone, and the Resistance was never more than Leia's own little personal army. The Republic barely supported her, and then the First Order blew up all the leadership that didn't already defect. So it's basically a bunch of Empire wannabes who went and joined the ones they let go and continue to run shit.

Daezuel · Dec 21, 2017

What's next is they'll probably do the 30 years in between via animated episodes or something to fill in all the gaps. Which I'm actually ok with, but that doesn't excuse this franchise mocking its fans with this garbage.

Sucks, Luke looked like a believable bad ass at the end of the movie. I'd pay to see him wreck shit like Vader did in Rogue One (only good part of that movie). They wanted a dumb light hearted scene in this? Let Luke be a bad ass like when he's breaking Han out from Jabba, except vastly more powerful with the force. (and now eventually we'll get this but with a cgi Luke)

I'm also on board with JJ bringing Luke back and being like haha just kidding then he does all that bad ass stuff. Still nothing will ever feel right that these idiots didn't take their one fucking chance to get all 3 of these main actors together again in one scene like a family again. I don't see how that'll ever be forgivable.

If the only problem with this movie was Rian giving the finger to the force awakens I'd be ok with that, but he didn't have to give the finger to the rest of us at the same time.

Melvin · Dec 21, 2017

Daezuel said:
Still nothing will ever feel right that these idiots didn't take their one fucking chance to get all 3 of these main actors together again in one scene like a family again. I don't see how that'll ever be forgivable.

Excellent point. If Disney wanted to kill off the old cast so the new movies could focus on the new cast members, they should have put Han, Chewbacca, Leia, R2-D2, C-3PO, and whoever else they wanted to kill off on the Falcon, and sent them straight to Luke's place at the end of TFA. Then when they're all together and seeing Luke again for the first time in decades, they all suddenly get serious and in unision say "I have a bad f" and then the planet they're on explodes because the Starkiller Base was waiting for them to land and pulled the trigger asafp. Then Snoke and Kylo would actually be antagonists that the audience actually gave a shit about.

spronk · Dec 21, 2017

Aaron said:
But that said, one thing does puzzle me, if only from an academic point of view: What the fuck is the "official" reason for the Rebel Alliance to now be weaker than it was even at the lowest point of Empire? What the fuck happened after Endor? Shit makes no sense. At least the old EU stories tried to follow some logic, with the Admiral Thrawn stuff and more. Or meh... who cares...

yeah as Heylel says there was more background in The Force Awakens as to why Leia is leading a tiny little army and how the First Order was in the background so long, there were deleted scenes (some of which are on the 3D bluray of TFA) and I guess there are some books like Bloodline that go into more detail on whats going on in the wider universe. The black chick in the 17 second scene below is shown briefly on the senate planet as its blown up and there are more deleted scenes with her too. Apparently there are more books that also backstory Snoke, which i may wanna pirate and read some day, dunno
Deleted 'Force Awakens' Scene Explains Leia's Senate Trouble in 'Star Wars' | Inverse

goishen · Dec 21, 2017

Xadion said:
Knowing how stupid starwars is for symbolism and shit... callbacks to silly things that starwars takes seriously but no one else does...like the hand thing.

So...here is a dumb theory...from me

Darth maul is canon sliced in half and falling down a huuugggeee pit only to live and get robot spider legs, then normal legs.

Hands getting lopped off is a big symbol also.

Leah exploded and tossed into space - been exposed to open space and - a okay!

So if they where just going to kill Snoke off ezpz, yet they made a point for him not to just be sliced in half...but they also had him get a hand sliced off also...

So, we also know that they love to re-use EU ideas in different forms- so Palpatine jumping bodies...

Snoke ain't gone folks.

From my understanding, Maul doesn't die. I used to have a friend who was really into SW and he said that in one of the books of the EU (can't even begin to tell you the name of it), it explains about Maul's life after getting chopped in half. Read all of the books, all the comics, etc.

Of course, this is still back when Lucas was head of LA, and he decided what was canon. So, I dunno, they could very well bring Snoke back from the dead.

It's either that or I'm talking out of my asshole right now.

EDIT : And despite all this, I think that George Lucas had a brain on his shoulders. After seeing someone getting chopped in half, regardless of how cauterizing the laser is, they're not coming back from that. That would be jumping the shark. But fuck it, they already did that with SuperLeia.

Why the fuck can't they do it with Snoke?

EDIT x 2 : Yah, Darth Maul

Daezuel · Dec 21, 2017

Yeah, like I said, all this stuff will be interesting in the prequels to the sequels. Just like the OT, write the endings before you go back and fill in all the details! No cheap tricks here!

Yousa thinkin Ima jokin?

Royal · Dec 21, 2017

Khane said:
Do you honestly think JJ Abrams can write a coherent, full story? The guy is an idea man. He is not a storyteller. His stories fucking suck. They start off interesting and then nothing ever happens until they just hamfist some shitty ending onto it (if he even sticks around to actually write the ending himself).

This was my concern with 9 as soon as they announced Abrams was replacing Trevorrow (though replacing him was itself a good move). Abrams isn't a closer. He could have directed all three movies and many of those same questions that people feel like Johnson ignored would have gone unanswered when it was all said and done. And he'd have introduced all sorts of new ones along the way that would have been equally unresolved.

That said he's not writing it alone. Chris Terrio is the writer they've brought in to work on it with him. The guy won an Oscar for Argo, but that was an adapted screenplay. This will be a creation from whole cloth. And he did work on BvS as well as JL so it's hard to look at him as an inspirational choice. Though both of those had so many hands involved in trying to steer the ship it's hard to tell how much of the stink is squarely on him. I'd rather they have picked someone that didn't require trying to do the math in the first place.

Gamma Rays · Dec 22, 2017

Okay, I saw the movie a few days ago. I haven't put my thoughts up in this thread, as I didn't really know what to say. I just didn't like the movie, it was a mess.

A sure sign was walking out of the cinema that I was actively avoiding any eye contact with other people as I didn't want to catch a similar look.

I'm not going to go into a long post ( this ain't no place for that ) so to sum up, I watched the RedletterMedia HITB review and yes! to everything they said.

I've been in a self enforced info bubble leading up to this, so I didn't know that the studio had virtually given the entire project over to 'some guy' to write and direct. Just a bad move for one of the central Star Wars stories. For one of the side stories, solo films, I'd be for it. But no, not for the main SW films. There's just too much weight and expectation on them to allow it to be done wrong.

All I can think now is that Rouge One ain't looking so bad anymore.

Royal · Dec 22, 2017

Siddar said:
So 35% were under 25 on opening weekend. How much does that demographic spread represent the early movie goers instead of the star wars demographic? It also shows 65% were over age 25 so it shows actually the exact opposite of what your claiming.

Yeah I wondered how he drew that conclusion myself. The full spread of the comScore numbers that he's citing shows the opening day audience to be largely males over the age of 25 (42% of the audience). And most of those seemed to like it (89% gave it a positive rating). But yes part of the limitation of those numbers is that the surveys are only done the first day of full release so they tend to be skewed towards the more core fans. They're not intended to break down what the full audience demos are.

Brikker · Dec 22, 2017

Just saw it. Pretty meh overall, I think I liked Ep. 7 more. All together too long. I read the criticism about the comedy but I didn't think there was that much.

Glad I don't hold Star Wars very high like many people do though

Royal · Dec 22, 2017

DickTrickle said:
There have been slightly higher Mon/Tues/Wed drops compared to TFA and even RO but I don't know that's significant or even matters if it is. 750M vs 800M is still a gigantic hit.

I'm pretty casual when it comes to following box office numbers. Some people really get down into the weeds with it though and not even as part of their job. There's an entire forum called Box Office Theory where people discuss that shit on the granular level. I think they even run competitions where people make week-to-week predictions of box office results and they keep score. I don't know how bored you have to be for that to seem like a good use of your time but whatever, all kinds to make a world and all that. Anyway, I've seen others reference the predictions on that site weeks ago saying TLJ would have a steep drop off compared to TFA in it's second week because of it opening earlier in the month while school is still in session in many parts of the country and Christmas Eve falling on that Sunday. The drops would supposedly correct themselves in the third week. We'll see ...

pharmakos · Dec 22, 2017

Royal said:
I don't know how bored you have to be for that to seem like a good use of your time

FoH is a much better use of one's time

Royal · Dec 22, 2017

pharmakos said:
FoH is a much better use of one's time

Of course it is.

We have porn.

Heylel · Dec 22, 2017

So the one thing I expected to really hate that didn't actually bother me was the porgs. They were pretty harmless and kinda cute.

Otherwise, the more I think about it the more I think Hitler's got it mostly right:

Gaige · Dec 22, 2017

'The Empire Strikes Back' Strikes a Bland Note

Not that I'm implying the NYT is the king of movie reviewing or anything, just interesting to read now, with all this TLJ discussion going on.

joz123 · Dec 22, 2017

He makes some good points.

Aaron · Dec 22, 2017

Thanks to those who explained to me what happened to the Rebellion following Endor, even if it does seem like a plot line that was hastily scratched down on a paper napkin after one too many whiskeys at Club 33.

Another thing I forgot to mention is, I still don't know who the fuck Snokes is. And what is probably more surprising (to me) is, I don't really care. He's the first Star Wars villain that isn't menacing. Sure, they try to make him menacing, but fail. He almost takes on a comical or farcical villainous roll, a bit like you might see in some ... I don't know ... Disney children's film.

Lanx · Dec 22, 2017

Aaron said:
Another thing I forgot to mention is, I still don't know who the fuck Snokes is. And what is probably more surprising (to me) is, I don't really care. He's the first Star Wars villain that isn't menacing. Sure, they try to make him menacing, but fail. He almost takes on a comical or farcical villainous roll, a bit like you might see in some ... I don't know ... Disney children's film.

just some old guy who is so powerful with the dark side, he can mind fuck young kylo ren a galaxy far far away.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

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