Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Post-release)

The one thing this movie has done for all it seems is awoken each persons ( key in Obi Wan's voice ) certain point of view.

All of them are right ( to the person who holds onto what they believe ) and wrong ( to those who disagree and have a different point of view )

Star Wars never needed to be a thinkers movie. It was to most, the greatest blockbuster, fun and exciting movie ever. With a very fun and exciting skywalker family driven story.

To sit here and read every ones opinions on what this means and what it meant is certainly entertaining. None of it being fact. All of it being valid to each individuals way of thinking.

To me it is not the real ending as it is not Lucas story. Only he knows how the characters he created go off into the sunset. Hopefully someday he will let us know what happened to them. Until then all we have is what Disney, JJ and Rain think should have happened and how. Everything means nothing in the end according to rian.and that is fine ( for him and from his point of view ) That is how I am taking his and jj's stories in 7 & 8. Again I did like some of the things in the movie a lot and fun to see what they think should have happened.

It is what they think is cool or hip or edgy. Not what its creator meant it to be. But what they think will be cool and edgy. I do not care for people whining over and over that people do not feel like they do and so one is right and the other is wrong. That is unfoundedly pompous and foolishly rude. To read 10 page synopsis of what people think you should know as fact because they feel that way is getting tiring I must admit. Share your opinion, just do not force it as fact.

Love it or hate it. Your personal point of view is valid ( most importantly to you )

Take your time...read this thread,, all of it..get answers to some questions.... then go see it again..

I think, you would enjoy it......as many complaints as I had.. I must confess, I enjoyed it.

blakeh1 said:

maybe not "great", but ....

"The Last Jedi" Doesn’t Care What You Think About "Star Wars" – And That’s Why It’s Great

http://www.slashfilm.com/the-last-jedi-defense

Click to expand...

Because coherent, logical plots, good character development and proper handling of iconic characters aren't a "thing"

It's nothing with being "new." They simply crapped on Luke and Ackbar for the sole reason of shoe-horning new characters that literally did nothing to the overall plot except for getting people killed unnecessarily.

"Na Chris, you're just a salty fan-boi her her her 'let da pass dyee' "

The ENTIRE Holdo-Poe friction was one extremely convoluted story arc SOLELY to have Finn fight Phasma again- that's it- And it had NO impact or did any actual favors to the uber-hyped Phasma character, who was apparently SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO badass in her Novel and comic line, yet, get's beat by Finn just to die in a fire? Wtf? This entire plot line was completely unnecessary and had NO impact on the main plot whatsoever except for getting more resistance fighters killed long before reaching Crait. We call this being COMPLACENT and INCOMPETENT.

No, Holdo should have stayed in the books never to screen. Ackbar should have replaced Holdo's position in the film, and have it played out very differently in a way that actually made logical sense, cause it certainly doesn't. Hell, I was actually HOPING Holdo was an FO infiltrator intentionally trying to sabotage them, but that didn't play out.

/rant

Zuiun said:

But do we *need* burning questions going into the next one?

A New Hope ended as...well, as THE END.Until they announced the sequel, not one single person was wondering "gee, what happens next?" because the movie literally had a complete beginning, middle, and end. That didn't quell excitement for Empire one single bit. (In fact, Lucas had to introduce a whole slew of history rewrites and inconsistencies just to create a trilogy out of his initial one-film story.)

Click to expand...

Ehhh... Not really. Lucas had a whole bunch of notes and references for what he originally projected to be a dozen episodes' worth of content. When he went to actually make this story into a movie, he figured he was going to get one shot at it, looked at everything, and decided Luke's coming into his own was the most self-contained chunk of the story. He grabbed the Death Star and Chewbacca from toward the end of the story to add flavor and give the good guys a solid focus to oppose. So yeah, it was all wrapped up with a nice bow at the end...

...But rather than "not one single person was wondering what happened next", Lucas immediately started being asked when he was going to get started on Star Wars 2, and those members of the production who went to conventions were bombarded with that very question: What happens next?

The inconsistencies come in because Lucas is, for good or ill, Lucas. They were trying to come up with what Vader could say that would so thoroughly rattle Luke when he had him trapped on the Cloud City gantry. It was many minutes into spitballing ideas that Vader being Anakin, rather than having killed him, popped up. It creates minor problems, but nothing significant. Then the "other" Yoda referred to was, yes, going to be Luke's sister... who we hadn't met yet. She was going to have been being trained off somewhere else in secret at the same time, and Luke was going to look for her after Empire. But then George decided he didn't want to do that many more and squished all the content for the last four episodes into one, and Luke's sister became Leia during story sessions for Jedi.

Then, once Rick McCallum prevailed on George to go ahead and do the Obi-Wan episodes, George's decision that there wasn't enough content there for six episodes meant the timeline got egregiously foreshortened. In his original notes, the Clone Wars were a series of related conflicts that rippled and flared over more than a decade, the declaration of Empire was a recent-ish thing, and the discrediting and purge of the Jedi happened somewhere in between. Obi-Wan was older, Anakin was older, etc. But now, with so little room to maneuver, and having to get the Padmé pregnant before Anakin turned, we now have the Clone Wars being a single conflict about three years long, Anakin and Obi-Wan much younger, the Clone Wars more recent, and the end of the Clone Wars, the end of the Jedi, the declaration of Empire, Anakin turning, and the birth of the twins... all on the same frikkin' day.

None of that's there because George had to make it all up after Star Wars was a hit. That's all from George messing with what he'd already written, on the fly as the newer episodes came out, with no regard for how it messed with the already-existing ones.

dascoyne said:

Was anyone else irritated that Luke referred to a lightsaber as a "laser sword"?
Was this just Rian trying to provoke and unbalance the fandom?

Click to expand...

Nah. That's how the general public in the GFFA knows them. That's what Anakin called Qui-Gon's lightsaber. And what Luke said was mocking that citizenry that idolized him: "They want to see Luke Skywalker charge in with his laser-sword..." That's a bitter reference to his public image.

harrisonp said:

Aren't "turbo lasers" a canon thing, I can't remember.

Click to expand...

Just so. "We count thirty Rebel ships, Lord Vader. But they're so small they're evading our turbo lasers."

Some of us hardcore nerds have long since sorted its use in Star Wars. It's probably accurate to the blasters and laser cannons and turbo lasers, as it's likely laser-induced plasma in magentically-contailed packets. Lisghtsabers, on the other hadn, aren't laser anything. But that's neither here nor there...

CessnaDriver said:

Maybe Disney want rights to that term such that knockoffs will get sued.
Very bad to refer to LASERs really.
That is a very earthly science acronym.

Click to expand...

dascoyne said:

Well, if you want to go that route we can also point out that the interrogation droid in ANH had a syringe with roman numerals on it.

Click to expand...

Oh. Oh. Are we really going to get into that? The list doesn't stop there. There's a Latin style "X" and Latin style "Y" in their lexicon, as well, or those fighters would have different names. They have "C", "D", "O", "P", and "R", as well. That little droid is called "Artoo" for short, not "Reshtoo". The Clone Wars-vintage fighter is the "Zee" ninety-five Headhunter, not the "Zerek" ninety-five. And so on and so on... There are multiple languages and multiple alphabets (aurebesh, Latin, Huttese, and Mandalorian, to start). One of the things we as fans just have to roll with is that one of them is modern English with Latin letters. *shrug* The SE "fixes" to ANH don't erase the matter.

--Jonah

karmajay said:

Right, initially he thought it was not great but after talking it through with Rian and undersatnding the impact of it he changed his mind and liked it. That's exactly what was posted in the earlier quotes in this thread.

Click to expand...

Precisely!

I agree that i didn't like the best quote to support my claim. I knew that i had read that he had completely changed his mind and supported Rian's vision... but I couldn't seem to find the exact quote again.

I really enjoyed the movie. It was NOT a typical SW film by any stretch of the imagination. It was very different, very bold and very dark. And I very much enjoyed it. The MF / TIE chase through the salt mines with the OT music made my hair stand up! I had a BIG grin on my face. So much fun all the way around.

squirk said:

...I would have preferred that the latter portion of his life weren't so depressing.

Click to expand...

Agreed. I was really hoping the series would have ended with Luke finally finding peace in the real world... not the after life as Rey put it. His entire life had been one long tragedy. I was hoping for a happier close to his chapter. But it is what it is. I have no doubt Luke will return as a Force ghost in the next movie. That will be awesome!

edge10 said:

You forgot the second half of your claim: None of the prequels are above Empire or Jedi, adjusted for inflation.

Click to expand...

That is certainly true but I stand by the main point that you can't judge quality strictly by box office:

TPM- sixth all-time box office (adjusted for inflation) of the genre
AOTC- third best box office film of that year
ROTS- biggest box office movie of that year and broke several opening weekend records

All three prequels are in the top 100 movies (regardless of genre) of all-time box office (adjusted for inflation)

Only TFA outranks any of the OT in all-time box office (adjusted for inflation)

squirk said:

But the fact that "our" Luke had spent the last 15 years in self-loathing and exile was a little unsettling for me.

Click to expand...

Hm... There's a timeline issue here... Bloodline covers about 6-5 years prior to TFA, and Luke and Ben are out "looking for something" and unreachable. Then Leia's true sire's identity goes public, and her big regret is that she'd spent Ben's whole life trying to figure out when and how to tell him, and hates that she missed her window and this was how he was going to find out. Is it specifically said how old Ben was when Luke was tempted to kill him in his sleep? 'Cause, by the timeline, he was born about a year after Endor (5 ABY), and so should have been about twenty-four when Leia's parentage went public. Snoke had already gotten to him (and maybe the students he took with him?) while he was still training under Luke.

Leia knows about Snoke, knows he's the reason Ben turned. So Luke had to have told her something about what happened before he went into self-imposed exile. And she, in turn, told Han. I am pretty sure, from the references, that however long Luke had the academy going, he was also tracking down Palpatine's Observatories to try to locate the first Jedi temple. He and Ben had to have been off on one of those missions when the stuff in Bloodline happened. And when they got back, Ben found out and that's what triggered that last surge of Darkness Luke felt.

But anyway. Assuming I'm somewhere near correct in sorting all that out, Luke disappeared maybe four or five years before TFA. Not a decade and a half. Even the opening crawl of TFA makes it feel like a fairly recent thing.

--Jonah

Inquisitor Peregrinus said:

Hm... There's a timeline issue here... Bloodline covers about 6-5 years prior to TFA, and Luke and Ben are out "looking for something" and unreachable. Then Leia's true sire's identity goes public, and her big regret is that she'd spent Ben's whole life trying to figure out when and how to tell him, and hates that she missed her window and this was how he was going to find out. Is it specifically said how old Ben was when Luke was tempted to kill him in his sleep? 'Cause, by the timeline, he was born about five years after Endor, and so should have been about twenty when Leia's parentage went public. Snoke had already gotten to him (and maybe the students he took with him?) while he was still training under Luke.

Leia knows about Snoke, knows he's the reason Ben turned. So Luke had to have told her something about what happened before he went into self-imposed exile. And she, in turn, told Han. I am pretty sure, from the references, that however long Luke had the academy going, he was also tracking down Palpatine's Observatories to try to locate the first Jedi temple. He and Ben had to have been off on one of those missions when the stuff in Bloodline happened. And when they got back, Ben found out and that's what triggered that last surge of Darkness Luke felt.

But anyway. Assuming I'm somewhere near correct in sorting all that out, Luke disappeared maybe four or five years before TFA. Not a decade and a half. Even the opening crawl of TFA makes it feel like a fairly recent thing.

--Jonah

Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads-up. I have not read any of the comics/novels - not out of lack of interest; I just have no time.

I guess since Luke Skywalker had passed from historical figure to "myth", where people doubted he ever really existed in the first place, then he must have been gone a good long while.

According to Wookieepedia, Kylo is 29 during TLJ. Luke describes Ben as a "boy" when the latter destroys the temple and finally joins up with Snoke. I am not sure what age would qualify as a "boy" in Luke's meaning. 15? 18? 24?

My time-estimate errors not withstanding, I think my point remains - it was hard to see Luke in that particular headspace.

Love or hate the movie....They are doing what they want to do.

Luke Skywalker was my hero in ANH and ESB. By the time ROTJ came around I was in High School and loved the film and characters but had moved on from the hero worship. Seeing Luke back at the end of TFA was exciting and the prospect of what was to come intriguing. Instead of feeding my inner 9 year old, the Luke of Last Jedi fed my current 49 year old me. I could relate to his world weariness, his disappointments, his regrets. The character was so much more compelling this way. And then just when all is left to burn it all down, he comes back one more time to give hope, to the galaxy and to my inner 9 year old. Bravo Mark and Rian, bravo.

It just isn't my job to put together a tight, cohesive story. You do that in the writers room and I pay my money to see it. I shouldn't have to leave a theater picking out the parts that worked from the parts that didn't just to have a pleasant viewing experience. It is either well-crafted or it isn't. Again, and I can't reiterate this enough... it is not about individual plot points or having my expectations subverted. Everyone loves a good twist (read: expectations subverted), but it has to be done well in order to enjoy it. This movie had ABSOLUTELY AMAZING elements in it. Like someone else said, someone will make a crazy-good fan edit of this film. But the way it stands right now it is just a sloppy film with a lot of forced humor and bad writing.

Luke dying didn't subtract from the film. Leia using the force did not subtract from the film. Humor does not subtract from the film. Having Snoke killed abruptly does not subtract from the film. Surprise twists don't subtract from the film. Having the good guys appear to be ineffective does not subtract from the film. BUT if you want to do all of those things you have to make it work. You can't just toss it in there and think that makes for an interesting story. Things should tie together. It should feel like one solid movie from front to back. People should have motivations and consequences. I am a firm believer that in films EVERYTHING that happens should have an impact. EVERYTHING should play into other parts of the story. This movie simply didn't have that.

It isn't bad thinking just because someone needs to THINK about on these topics. This forum constantly;y complains when movies spell out too many things in other threads!

harrisonp said:

I hate these pretentious reviews that imply if you aren't well and truly buying what RJ is putting down then YOU are the problem and lack the vision to grasp his profound artistry. There are parts of this movie that are pretty great, some that seem good on paper where the execution is lacking, and some that are downright awful. That doesn't stem from the fact that Johnson is "deconstructing" Star Wars as I keep seeing it worded, or that people are wrong for having their gripes with it.

Click to expand...

Bingo! I've seen Star Wars films that attempt to challenge the audience to think about Star Wars and it's characters in a new way. They were called THE PREQUELS. And a whole lot of fans saw that challenge and rejected them even though they came from the guy who invented the flippin' universe in the first place! So I find it hilarious that some of the same people who ran Lucas out of Dodge City with tar and feathers because they hated his vision are now getting the vapors over anyone cooking asphalt and plucking chickens over this new movie. Welcome to Hell, Star Wars fans, you helped make it. :facepalm

harrisonp said:

Also I think Karl Urban is the voice of the alien who sells Finn and Rose out for parking on the beach on Canto Bight

Click to expand...

Actually, it was Joseph Gordon Levitt.

M

I get the feeling that -- while the extant films spend a lot of time centered on them -- the general public doesn't seen Jedi all that often, if ever. A million inhabited systems in the GFFA, and many of them probably never call for a Jedi to show up there. Many probably never even leave the main temple on Coruscant. They're probably on par with Delta teams combined with Benedictine monks. We've heard of them, if we even think they aren't a myth, we might be surprised to find they're actually still around... *shrug* Not sure how much the Jedi were played up in the Clone Wars news stories. May have come as a surprise to a lot of the population that they were still around/actually existed. So most would likely not have much investment in them when the Emperor said they turned traitor. A general "Oh... Really? That's awful. Kill the bastards."

Easy then to see that, a couple of decades later, Motti could sneer at Vader like that. There's the Church of the Force, and a few hot spots like Jeddha, or worlds like Alderaan or Chandrila where the people know that the Jedi and the Force are real and what they're about. But I'd say Motti and Han convey the general attitude toward Jedi in that era. There's stuff here and there in the old EU and new canon ancillary material of the Empire trying to dismiss Luke as propaganda. There were some in the new government who were wary of letting him set up a new Jedi Order, as look what happened last time. Odds are very few people even knew he was training a new generation of Jedi, and even fewer knew where. Given Rey was born around 15 ABY, and was on her own on Jakku from age eight, if her parents, before they dumped her, or folks around Niima Outpost ever mentioned Jedi, she probably took it as fairy tales or spacer stories.

And yeah, it is hard to see Luke hurting that bad. When one stumbles that hard, it can take a few years on walkabout to get your head straight. With nothing to jar him out of it, he might have spent the rest of his life there. He also might have found enough mental peace in another year or three or ten to open up again and realized things were worse with him hiding than not. We'll never know.

(Also, I fixed my math goof in my prior post.)

--Jonah

Bryancd said:

Luke Skywalker was my hero in ANH and ESB. By the time ROTJ came around I was in High School and loved the film and characters but had moved on from the hero worship. Seeing Luke back at the end of TFA was exciting and the prospect of what was to come intriguing. Instead of feeding my inner 9 year old, the Luke of Last Jedi fed my current 49 year old me. I could relate to his world weariness, his disappointments, his regrets. The character was so much more compelling this way. And then just when he is left to burn it all down, he comes back one more time to give hope, to the galaxy and to my inner 9 year old. Bravo Mark and Rian, bravo.

Click to expand...

Very interesting way to put it, and I mean that with respect and you have changed some of my thinking. As the dust settles more I am beginning to come more to grips with the bigger picture of things and I am looking forward to seeing it a second time to come more at peace with things.

I'm not sure if Leia Poppins will ever settle well with me, but many of the other things at least can.

joshvanrad said:

It just isn't my job to put together a tight, cohesive story. You do that in the writers room and I pay my money to see it. I shouldn't have to leave a theater picking out the parts that worked from the parts that didn't just to have a pleasant viewing experience. It is either well-crafted or it isn't. Again, and I can't reiterate this enough... it is not about individual plot points or having my expectations subverted. Everyone loves a good twist (read: expectations subverted), but it has to be done well in order to enjoy it. This movie had ABSOLUTELY AMAZING elements in it. Like someone else said, someone will make a crazy-good fan edit of this film. But the way it stands right now it is just a sloppy film with a lot of forced humor and bad writing.

Luke dying didn't subtract from the film. Leia using the force did not subtract from the film. Humor does not subtract from the film. Having Snoke killed abruptly does not subtract from the film. Surprise twists don't subtract from the film. Having the good guys appear to be ineffective does not subtract from the film. BUT if you want to do all of those things you have to make it work. You can't just toss it in there and think that makes for an interesting story. Things should tie together. It should feel like one solid movie from front to back. People should have motivations and consequences. I am a firm believer that in films EVERYTHING that happens should have an impact. EVERYTHING should play into other parts of the story. This movie simply didn't have that.

Click to expand...

perfectly put - thank you!

mkstewartesq said:

Actually, it was Joseph Gordon Levitt.

M

Click to expand...

Aha! He sounded so much like an exaggerated version of Urban's Bones

joshvanrad said:

It just isn't my job to put together a tight, cohesive story.

Click to expand...

Then whose job is it?,..,. the movie /story is for us!

I pay my money to see it.

Click to expand...

And thats why its our job

Again, and I can't reiterate this enough... it is not about individual plot points or having my expectations subverted. Everyone loves a good twist (read: expectations subverted), but it has to be done well in order to enjoy it. This movie had ABSOLUTELY AMAZING elements in it. Like someone else said, someone will make a crazy-good fan edit of this film. But the way it stands right now it is just a sloppy film with a lot of forced humor and bad writing.

Click to expand...

Not all bad...

Luke dying didn't subtract from the film.

Click to expand...

This soon and the way it was done... yes it did..

Leia using the force did not subtract from the film.

Click to expand...

Really?.. frozen in space.. now she uses the Force??.. Carrie is gone.. this would have provided a perfect ending...

Humor does not subtract from the film

Click to expand...

Too much at wrong times... yes...

Having Snoke killed abruptly does not subtract from the film

Click to expand...

Ok.. but same could be said with Sidious

Surprise twists don't subtract from the film.

Click to expand...

How many twist are we to have before some twist get untangled ..

Having the good guys appear to be ineffective does not subtract from the film.

Click to expand...

Tell that to the writer of the Avengers...Good guys are good guys... this is not Shawshank Redemption.. this is Star Wars

BUT if you want to do all of those things you have to make it work. You can't just toss it in there and think that makes for an interesting story. Things should tie together. It should feel like one solid movie from front to back. People should have motivations and consequences. I am a firm believer that in films EVERYTHING that happens should have an impact. EVERYTHING should play into other parts of the story. This movie simply didn't have that.

Click to expand...

I agree 1gb %

I agree with your whole post... and I wanted to point out what and where alot of frustration came in..Thank you...