Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Post-release)

What did you think of Star Wars: The Last Jedi?

  • It was great. Loved it. Don't miss it at the theaters.

    Votes: 154 26.6%
  • It was good. Liked it very much. Worth the theater visit.

    Votes: 135 23.4%
  • It was okay. Not too pleased with it. Could watch it at the cinema once or wait for home video.

    Votes: 117 20.2%
  • It was disappointing. Watch it on home video instead.

    Votes: 70 12.1%
  • It was bad. Don't waste your time with it.

    Votes: 102 17.6%

  • Total voters
    578
@nickytea Your posts are a real chore to get through man. They are really a slog. Can you maybe try and take off your film analysis hat and speak like a normie? Cause if I was trying to converse with you in person I would probably have to get up and walk away. Cause damn.

Ohhh, the folly of egomania and pseudo-intellectualism. :lol

I tried to tell him the other day. But he ain't listenin'.

Just a bunch big words thrown together to sound impressive, which in reality, don' t amount to a hill of beans.
 
Just a bunch big words thrown together to sound impressive, which in reality, don' t amount to a hill of beans.

Happy to expand on any specific statements that didn't add up for you. Or you can keep focusing on *how* I'm saying it rather than what I'm saying. Entirely up to you. Not trying to sound like anything other than precise. (I'll admit I tried to tone it down a little for conversation's sake, but clearly that didn't help.)
 
It's difficult to be rabid about something one doesn't really understand.

My sense of SWIQ is that it's based on your gut feeling about a sense of fidelity to the first two films, but I've never seen it clearly articulated in one place what that actually means.

Using a term like "IQ" implies that it's something numerically quantifiable, but I've never seen anything other than "high" or "low" used (I gather there's no "medium" SWIQ?). Not to mention that the quantification is objective and set against some kind of clear standard. But you've not really articulated what that objective standard is, other than -- as best as I can guess -- "It's like ANH/ESB."

Enjoy what you enjoy. But if you're gonna keep bringing up SWIQ, it would help if you could express clearly what the objective criteria are by which one determines a "high" or "low" SWIQ.

Quoting myself on the subject from the "Kathleen Kennedy" rumor thread,

It's amused me from the get-go, because IQ is not a measurement of how much one knows. It's a measure of how well one learns and assimilates new information, coupled with problem-solving ability. The mere fact that "SWIQ" is based in how much derivative work hews to the first two films in the series is prety much anti-IQ. And griping repeatedly about the directions taken away from those films is a good example of non-problem-solving.

It's why I turn my energy to my re-writes. Even if it's just a fun mental exercise that will never get turned into movies, I'm at least tackling the question of "okay, smart guy -- what would you do different?" I'm addressing the things I noticed, the things others have called out that I agree with, etc. I run into new quandries, wrestle with them, eventually resolve them, peer-review generalities and specifics... *shrug* It's enough for now that this form of the Star Wars saga exists in the universe.
nickytea, I won't ask you to slog through my post history, but in as condensed a form as I can manage whilst still being somewhat clear... My problems probably have their roots in 1) George ignoring his self-knowledge, that he liked brainstorming, but didn't like writing or directing -- I wish he'd done more work to find collaborators who worked well with and got him, who could do the stuff well he found onerous; and 2) I wish he'd had faith in his Flash Gordon homage, despite others' lack of interest at the time, and started at the beginning, rather than in the middle.

Applying everything I've learned along the way about the real-world evolution of the Star Wars IP, about George as a person and the way he thinks, about storytelling in general and screenwriting in particular... And incorporating flashes of insight and inspiration from tangentially-related or unrelated sources...

I can get very granular if asked -- and hide it in a spoiler tag or take it to PMs so as to not bore the people who didn't ask -- but in the broadest strokes, I feel the focus has been revised and misremembered too many times along the way, the story has gotten ever more compressed, due to George's technical weakness as a writer, as well as his desire back in 1982 to "not spend the rest of my life doing Star Wars", and that if the story had been allowed to grow and evolve organically from a setting-establishing Episode I on, we'd be talking about what was going to be happening in the forthcoming Episode XIX. The first cycle, nine films, three trilogies, focused on Obi-Wan and ending with A New Hope where he faces his Final Trial and Apotheosis, at the same time establishing the Hero of the second cycle, Luke Skywalker, whose arc begins with Episode X -- The Empire Strikes Back, and concludes with his Final Trial and Apotheosis in Episode XVIII -- The Last Jedi. Rey, having now been established as the new Hero for the third cycle, would come into her own going forward.

There is a lot going on at LFL that complicates things. Even not being the sole actor involved, the buck still stopped with George. Now we have more than one person all doing what they think best honors his vision -- as if that were ever a single, unchanging thing. Maintaining the trilogy model, when that only exists because George himself kept shrinking the number of episodes and having to cram ever more content into each. Dropping the audience in in media res in The Force Awakens, despite needing at least a little more info to bridge the gap between this episode and the last than what we got...

Most of my specific issues with The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi stem from getting two episodes where there should have been four or so. Character growth, time-passage, breakneck pacing, glossed-over story points... I think if JJ and Rian had collaborated on the story, Rian had written the script, and JJ had directed, those would have been some good episodes. Rian would have fought against JJ's mystery box style, JJ would have picked different lighting and lenses... *shrug* Something like that. I have a long list of things I thought worked in the films we got, and a long list of things I felt were weak or should have been handled differently. It's not about not getting what I wanted. It's about what I got not being what it could have so easily been. Glad to get into particulars in your preferred venue. :)
 
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@nickytea, I won't ask you to slog through my post history, but in as condensed a form as I can manage whilst still being somewhat clear...

Appreciate you taking the time. I'm also fascinated by the developmental history of the series, though I do keep it in a different brain compartment than my appreciation of the works themselves. It's just too delicious to ignore entirely.

1) George ignoring his self-knowledge, that he liked brainstorming, but didn't like writing or directing -- I wish he'd done more work to find collaborators who worked well with and got him, who could do the stuff well he found onerous;

This is inarguable, and to his credit, it sounds like he asked all of his circle to direct the movies repeatedly over the years. While it may have resulted in a slightly more well-rounded sheen, I think he was still fairly successful at getting his ideas across, despite his reluctance. It's also a unique slice of film history to see a truly independent series of high budget films from the perspective of one person. The polish absolutely could have been brighter, but I still applaud the ambition and many of the ideas on display.

2) I wish he'd had faith in his Flash Gordon homage, despite others' lack of interest at the time, and started at the beginning, rather than in the middle.

Interesting. My deep, unabiding love for STAR WARS '77 makes me bristle at the thought, but it certainly would have been a radical experiment. I suspect he would have encountered even more resistance than he already did putting together his miracle movie. Like all the entries, however, we can only react to the version that was released. (I also suspect that the multi-part "vision" was a lot less formulated than even his earliest interviews imply, but who really knows -- we don't have the equivalent of he Raiders story session transcript.)

There is a lot going on at LFL that complicates things. Even not being the sole actor involved, the buck still stopped with George. Now we have more than one person all doing what they think best honors his vision -- as if that were ever a single, unchanging thing.

Undoubtedly, their house is not in order. They scrambled to put together a package after the sale, to recoup Iger his money. There ideal situation for any trilogy is to hand overarching control to a single (team) of filmakers. They didn't have that luxury up front, which makes my love for THE LAST JEDI all the more miraculous. I didn't love THE FORCE AWAKENS. Still reconciling my problems with that one. (Also didn't love ROGUE or SOLO, but that's for another thread.) I really can't believe the heights Rian was able to soar to given the setup he was handed. I think this speaks to his abilities as both a craftsman as an artist. Making the compelling precise from noncommittal vagueness. Adding depth to merely aesthetic prompt. (This is also what excites me about him being given an entire trilogy to shepherd, total blank slate, but again, that's for another thread.)

Interestingly, and perhaps appropriately, I think JJ inhabits eerily similar predilections to George's -- and seems to be moved by very similar energies. Needless to say, I believe the series -- for the sake of its continuing mythological relevance -- needs to move past both. I really love most of JJs non-Star-Wars flicks, so I remain cautiously concerned about the next one.

Most of my specific issues with The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi stem from getting two episodes where there should have been four or so. Character growth, time-passage, breakneck pacing, glossed-over story points... I think if JJ and Rian had collaborated on the story, Rian had written the script, and JJ had directed, those would have been some good episodes. Rian would have fought against JJ's mystery box style, JJ would have picked different lighting and lenses... *shrug* Something like that.

Hey, you'll hear no argument from me for Rian writing *more* movies. ;) But at this point, we can only look forward, and scratch our collective head at the past.
 
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I do keep it in a different brain compartment than my appreciation of the works themselves. It's just too delicious to ignore entirely.

Well, yes. :) That's about the only way to manage it when you know the craft. At the same time, while a first pass or three to just enjoy it is nice, I like to be able to switch it over to my analytical brain at somepoint. Movies that require you to not think ever in order to enjoy them kinda **** me off. I'm looking at you, Michael Bay.

It sounds like [George] asked all of his circle to direct the movies repeatedly over the years. While it may have resulted in a slightly more well-rounded sheen, I think he was still fairly successful at getting his ideas across, despite his reluctance. It's also a unique slice of film history to see a truly independent series of high budget films from the perspective of one person. The polish absolutely could have been brighter, but I still applaud the ambition and many of the ideas on display.

Quite. If I step back and look at all the filmic catalogue of Lucas-era Star Wars -- including animated, and yes, that means including the Holiday Special and the Ewok movies -- I think there's more good than bad, and even the bad is usually not bad-bad, just... Well, it tends to be something that might have been better had the actors felt free to alter the dialogue the way Harrison did (to George's great frustration), or had the actors had a director who was better at directing people... In a few cases, it's a matter of great scenes that shouldn't have been in for narrative reasons, like showing the audience Anakin becoming Vader, or Yoda during the Republic, thus ruining the deliberate surprises in Empire, if viewed in the order George says they should be viewed...

I've always acknowledged and respected George as a wonderful idea guy and visionary. He just has always needed someone with the technical skills to wrangle everything that emerges from George's brain into a consistent, coherent, and dramatically-sound plot. What Mark Twain called "good stories, well told."

My deep, unabiding love for STAR WARS '77 makes me bristle at the thought, but it certainly would have been a radical experiment. I suspect he would have encountered even more resistance than he already did putting together his miracle movie. Like all the entries, however, we can only react to the version that was released. (I also suspect that the multi-part "vision" was a lot less formulated than even his earliest interviews imply, but who really knows -- we don't have the equivalent of he Raiders story session transcript.)

Thing is, it wouldn't be The Phantom Menace as we got it in '99. It would have been something closer to his first-draft notes of the time, not colored by the OT or the books and such. And, while I haven't seen all of those notes, I've seen enough bits and pieces and first-hand accounts from people who'd flipped through them (since George kept them) to know there were some things that were the same as what we ended up getting, and many things that were changed for the worse over the course of the '80s and '90s. Even keeping things at his original six-episode arcs (instead of the nine I'd prefer), that would have still allowed a lot of breathing room for the story. Anakin wasn't the central character until Rick McCallum came onboard in the '90s and tweaked George around to that viewpoint. One of my gripes about the Prequels is that Obi-Wan was supposed to be the Hero. Anakin is a strong supporting character, but only a supporting character -- he didn't have enough depth, or complexity to his arc, to be the Hero, especially because he ends up failing for a long time.

As I said elsewhere, a lot was obviously inspired by sitting through boring Ancient History lectures in high school and/or college. The Clone Wars were a bit like the Punic Wars -- a series of related conflicts lumped together in hindsight and lasting over a decade. Palpatine's rise to and consolidation of power was a mashup of Julius and Augustus. Anakin was about five years older than Obi-Wan, there was no "forbidden love" BS to give him inner conflict, Leia was Bail's biological daughter, and was born a few years after the twins. Bail's wife and Luke's mom were sisters, making Luke and Leia cousins. Which, that relationship would still squick people born under a Catholic-and-derivative culture, but the Consanguinity Taboo was only ever enacted for political reasons anyway. As Yoda said, "You must unlearn what you have learned..."

One thing I like about Solo is the glimpse into Imperial consolidation, a bit like Rome pushing into Barbarian lands.

It's a whole era I was tremendously looking forward to seeing, even as George decided there was only enough material in his Obi-Wan-era notes for three films, not six, and suddenly his saga went from twelve films to nine in interviews without anyone noticing. And then Empire was such an ordeal, he cut off Luke's arc, foreshortened everything, and tied it up in a neat little bow called Return of the Jedi and went off to make Howard the Duck and Willow.

I didn't love THE FORCE AWAKENS. Still reconciling my problems with that one. (Also didn't love ROGUE or SOLO, but that's for another thread.)

I've stopped trying, It's all too interwoven. The Force Awakens really needed to start about where Bloodline (the novel) does -- five years or so earlier, so we can see that the New Normal established at the end of Return of the Jedi has lasted, more or less, a good quarter century. Luke has his training center, Han and Leia are still together, the First Order hasn't shown up yet. Then have things go to hell. I would have liked Rogue One better if they had recognized Cassian was the one on the Hero's Journey, but I go into that elsewhere. The total-party-kill felt forced, and the ending on Scarif felt like a bad video-game level. Never mind continuity problems.

I really can't believe the heights Rian was able to soar to given the setup he was handed. I think this speaks to his abilities as both a craftsman as an artist. Making the compelling precise from noncommittal vagueness. Adding depth to merely aesthetic prompt.

Which makes it all the more frustrating to me that it wasn't two episodes. The only thing that utterly didn't work for me was the chase. I agree with those arguing it doesn't make sense. When you have to make excuses for why the First Order doesn't just jump into their path, surround them, swarm them with fighters... Who cares about them saving fuel. The Republic Navy has been wiped out, the capitol is rubble, and the Resistance would be gone, too. They'd have all the time they needed to acquire more resources. Having the Resistance realize they're being tracked through hyperspace and do a strategic dispersal would have worked much better, for a variety of reasons. Each ship jumps out on a different vector, only to drop out, reorient, jump again, repeat, until they re-congregate at a pre-appointed place at a pre-appointed time, and carry out the next step of the plan. Maybe the Supremacy could only track one ship at a time, and have to choose. Maybe there would be disagreement about dividing the First Order's task force or keeping it together.

In any event, having an episode split would let us not have to keep jumping back and forth between story threads. The most jarring one was where the emotial gravitas of Luke registering that they arrived on the Falcon, seeing Chewie, and the way he says "Where's Han?" then gets the moment cut short and we ump to a completely different mood with Finn and Rose and DJ and it feels like a needle-scratch across a record each time.

Interestingly, and perhaps appropriately, I think JJ inhabits eerily similar predilections to George's -- and seems to be moved by very similar energies. Needless to say, I believe the series -- for the sake of its continuing mythological relevance -- needs to move past both. I really love most of JJs non-Star-Wars flicks, so I remain cautiously concerned about the next one.

Adore Super 8, even though JJ managed to get lensflare off dirt.

But at this point, we can only look forward, and scratch our collective head at the past.

I prefer to be a bit more proactive. For me, it's the only way I can accept everything we have as it is, is to treat it as a grab bin to put together a solid story out of. One of my scriptwriting professors told us, about learning the craft, to watch all the movies and TV we could to see what others had done, but, as he put it, "There's a lot of [crap] out there, too. So if you find yourself watching something and get kicked out of the experience, don't just sit there bitching about it -- get a copy of the script and see if you can do better." This was right between Episodes I and II, so that advice was well-timed for me. :p I've rolled back a lot of Lucas' revisions -- like shoehorning Leia into the role of Luke's sister, making the Wookiees into Ewoks, making Anakin a whiny teenager rather than a disaffected twenty-something, and definitely not having Palpatine become Emperor, Anakin become Vader, the Jedi get wiped out, the twins get born, and Padmé die all within the same day.
 
Are you wearing a fedora and vaping as you type?
How weird is it that I was when I read this? LOL
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I bought my first fedora in 1988, the young hipsters are just trying to cash in on what I've known was cool since I saw Bogart. :cool:thumbsup
I know that feel. When Columbine happened,I had a few people ask me if I was part of the Trench Coat Mafia and i just... OOOHHHH!! :angry At that point, I'd been gaming since they were in diapers, and got my trench coat around the time they were in kindergarten. Damned if gonna let some punk wannabes ruin it for me. As for selfies, how dis? :D
 

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Cool pic Jonah , thanks for sharing . That one of your self made costumes , and if you don’t mind me asking ‘ how tall are you ‘ , cause Mr McDiarmid is looking rather ‘ small in comparison !?


:cheersGed
 
Cool pic Jonah , thanks for sharing . That one of your self made costumes , and if you don’t mind me asking ‘ how tall are you ‘ , cause Mr McDiarmid is looking rather ‘ small in comparison !?


:cheersGed
6'1"/1.85m The helmet is a minimally-modded Rubies Supreme Edition, the boots are from Bio, the rope belt is from C.M. Almy (ecclesiastical suppliers), the robe pattern was taken from an original in the Archives, the tippy-tip of the force pike was machined for me by a friend, but everything else is me. Just my rough draft, though.
 
I applaud anyone with the stones to go fedora after the fedoras of OkCupid fiasco.

I have three of my own. One brown Akubra Federation III, one black Akubra Federation IV, and a grey custom-made one from Rand's in Billings, MT that I won in a card game. I wear them regularly in the cooler months. They're great for keeping the rain and snow off your head, and when it's really cold out and I'm wearing a suit or a jacket and tie, I don't feel like an idiot putting on a knit cap.

Plus, they muss your hair a lot less.

But in my opinion, men's fashion peaked in the 1940s.
 
You might say he went out like the epitome of a Jedi and a hero.
Hell, it's like he took Yoda's teaching from ESB about using the force for defense and not attack to heart. A person might claim that was an indicator of high SWIQ if they were inclined...
;)

Funny you mention Yoda's teaching. I don't remember him teaching Luke that using too much Force will kill you. Instead he taught Luke that a Jedi's strength flows from The Force, not too it. He also taught Luke that The Force is not about effort, but belief. It should have taken no more effort to Force Project 10 feet or a galaxy away.

And, no...I don't really care that they directly say that Force Projecting that far would kill you. That ignores Yoda/ESB also.

Take another look. It's only one of the finest scenes in all of cinema that RJ apparently couldn't remember.

 
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It's in the 320 hour deleted scene where Yoda instructs Luke on every manifestation of the Force and its effects on biological creatures. Apparently it was deemed too boring to be left in the theatrical cut of ESB.
Edit: typo. Damn phone.
 
Nothing wrong with a nice hat. Always remember, just because some d bags wear them, doesn't mean that wearing them makes you a d bag. I think those hats look nice on some people.

Sadly I am not one of those people. Fedora looks dumb on me. I can make a gamblers style cowboy hat work though, so it all evens out.
 
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