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 Lance845 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
And yet, hyperspace ramming has been explored in various ways within various forms of Star Wars media going back basically to the beginning. Hell, Han has a line of dialog in A New Hope that alludes to the very concept.

It isn't a new concept within the lore, that you and most audiences seem unfamiliar with it is more of a you problem than a him problem.

The vast majority of the audience for the SW movies has never engaged with anything other than the movies, and maybe some video games. It's hardly the audience's problem that hyperspace ramming invalidates the threat of the Death Stars according to the information they are given in those movies. That one scene in Ep8 makes the entirety of the climax to ANH feel completely pointless if you take even one second to think about it, while also making the Empire out to be a bunch of complete idiots for even thinking about developing the Death Star in the first place. Thankfully their idiocy is matched by the Rebellion not just firing a capital ship at the thing as soon as they get the chance. If most audiences are unfamiliar with it, as you claim, it's the job of the filmmakers to explain it sufficiently so that it makes sense rather than leaving loads of people pointing out it's ridiculous. Yes, Han has a throwaway line about jumping straight into a planet or a star but the assumption I think most people made about that line was that it would lead to the destruction of the ship, not the object they were jumping into. I think it's a huge stretch to say that line is specifically about hyperspace ramming.

It's not just the death star that makes no sense. In SW if you think about anything for long enough none of it makes sense.

Droids exist. C3P0 is fluent in over 6 MILLION forms of communication. Why the feth does R2D2 beep? Why does someone need to manually input hyperspace coordinates? Why don't ships have AIs? How come the targeting computers are a 2 color screen like a hand held game and watch? Why isn't the computer handling targeting? Why do individuals have to sit in gun turrets and pull triggers on a ship so big it has living quarters and cargo holds? Or so big it can hold that ship inside of one of it's MANY docks while housing hundreds of single man fighters? Or a space station so big it looks like a moon? In episode 9 a "Droid Smith" retrieves data from C3-P0s head by using a blow torch on his circuitry, looking into the hole he made, and then telling everyone about the data he is looking at... as opposed to like... plugging him into a monitor with a USB. How come every single door in SW, including secure military installations, have no key pads or manual locks, but do have a weird little spinny lock at the exact height of every astromech droid in the galaxy. that can be opened by any astromech droid in the galaxy because that is a big part of what they have been purpose built to do?

Nothing in SW makes any sense if you " take even one second to think about it". If hyperspace ramming is the one time you stopped to take a second I am sorry that you never spent any time thinking about this thing you apparently like.

While true, you state the exact point while simultaneously missing it.

Star Wars up to 7 were entertaining to various degrees. 8 was not. Since I was not entertained by the movie I THOUGHT about it. And thus the flaws are revealed.

I don't watch Star Wars to think; I watch it to be entertained. If you can't do that, then I'm going to think about it... and you'd better be prepared when I do if you want me to pay for the NEXT movie in line.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Both films are awful and kinda meld into one another, so it's difficult to say which one 'wins' here.

But, on the other hand, TLJ killed Luke, my fav SW character, so feth that movie.

That was always going to happen though, each of the three films was intended to be a send-off to one of the original trilogy characters - Hans was TFA, Lukes was TLJ, and Leias was RotS.

While true, you state the exact point while simultaneously missing it.
Star Wars up to 7 were entertaining to various degrees. 8 was not. Since I was not entertained by the movie I THOUGHT about it. And thus the flaws are revealed.
I don't watch Star Wars to think; I watch it to be entertained. If you can't do that, then I'm going to think about it... and you'd better be prepared when I do if you want me to pay for the NEXT movie in line.

I was not entertained in the slightest by 7. I derived a lot of entertainment from 8, though mostly via Schadenfreude as I knew the decisions made would be divisive and stoke new levels of nerd angst. 9... 9 could have been entertaining, but I think at that point everyone was phoning it in - the cast, the director, the audience. Nobody wanted to be there anymore, we were all just going through the motions out of obligation. In a different time, with a different Episode 7 and a different Episode 8, it might have been a decent film.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Both films are awful and kinda meld into one another, so it's difficult to say which one 'wins' here.

But, on the other hand, TLJ killed Luke, my fav SW character, so feth that movie.

The Last Jedi - or, more accurately, The Character Assassination of Luke Skywalker, by the Coward Rian Johnson...

 Dysartes wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Both films are awful and kinda meld into one another, so it's difficult to say which one 'wins' here.

But, on the other hand, TLJ killed Luke, my fav SW character, so feth that movie.

The Last Jedi - or, more accurately, The Character Assassination of Luke Skywalker, by the Coward Rian Johnson...

Well, in star wars there most definitely is an afterlife, so in a universe where there absolutely is an afterlife and some people in it can still interact with the living is anyone really 'killed' or just sent on to another life?

And apparently the aftertlife in the star wars universe is a lot better than the ones most people on earth believe in if even that mass murderer torturer and all around monster annikin skywalker got into a good one. His happy redeption scene was hard to buy in RotJ, after the "Let's murder children!" scene in RotS it became impossible to swallow.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Both films are awful and kinda meld into one another, so it's difficult to say which one 'wins' here.

But, on the other hand, TLJ killed Luke, my fav SW character, so feth that movie.

The Last Jedi - or, more accurately, The Character Assassination of Luke Skywalker, by the Coward Rian Johnson...

Well, in star wars there most definitely is an afterlife, so in a universe where there absolutely is an afterlife and some people in it can still interact with the living is anyone really 'killed' or just sent on to another life?

And apparently the aftertlife in the star wars universe is a lot better than the ones most people on earth believe in if even that mass murderer torturer and all around monster annikin skywalker got into a good one. His happy redeption scene was hard to buy in RotJ, after the "Let's murder children!" scene in RotS it became impossible to swallow.

Ah... he wasn't referring to the actual death of Luke Skywalker. He was talking about how Luke's nature was altered beyond recognition by someone who clearly had no idea who Luke was. Thus, a character assassination, not the assassination of a character.

Well, at the end of RotJ luke was young and optimistic, having seen palpatine defeated, his father redeemed, the empire going down, etc.

The luke in the last two movies was a lot older, he'd seen the new republic fail pathetically, be usurped by the new order and he'd royally, in his view, screwed the pooch with ben solo, not knowing good ol' palpy was likely pulling strings on him and ben to arrange that.

Luke from the last two movies was a completely different person than the optimistic kid ion RotJ and in that case i will kinda defend those movies for making him a different person.

chaos0xomega wrote:
That was always going to happen though, each of the three films was intended to be a send-off to one of the original trilogy characters - Hans was TFA, Lukes was TLJ, and Leias was RotS.

It's not that he died, it's how he died.

If luke projected himself across light years and manifested a lightsaber, the effort may have killed him.

it was obviously a strain on yoda to lift Luke's xwing out of the swamp. Maybe excessive force use can cause weakness and even death to a user.

One early explanation for why palpy looks so horrible was that excessive force use was burning out his body and he kept using the force to put his mind into new cloned bodies.

 Vulcan wrote:

Ah... he wasn't referring to the actual death of Luke Skywalker. He was talking about how Luke's nature was altered beyond recognition by someone who clearly had no idea who Luke was. Thus, a character assassination, not the assassination of a character.

Though, that was again a pass which TLJ picked from TFA. JJ did not have problems with RJ's interpretation, he even changed the ending scene to better fit to 'reluctant hermit' plan.

Personally I was fine with Luke as he was in TLJ. I have always seen him as somewhat a selfish character, and to me it made perfect sense that he would throw down his toys and walk away if his endeavour was to fail such a manner.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Well, at the end of RotJ luke was young and optimistic, having seen palpatine defeated, his father redeemed, the empire going down, etc.

The luke in the last two movies was a lot older, he'd seen the new republic fail pathetically, be usurped by the new order

He actually hadn't seen that. As it happened after he went into hiding and given up. It could easily be argued that it happened because he did nothing to try and stop it.

Very little suggests the New Republic 'failed' before the absurd decapitation strike by physics-breaking lightspeed visibility lasers.
We're told (never shown) that the not-Rebellion 'Resisty' group exists because the New Republic doesn't believe in the First Order, but not why (nor why every passing character in the film knows what the First Order is and what they're doing, which makes that an absurd stance).

TFA basically cowers from repeating the 'too much politics' problem of the prequels, never realizing that it wasn't the 'too much' aspect but more the approach and poor quality of Lucas' dumb vision of politics. The sequels happen in a basically dead galaxy where nothing happens if the heroes (or Ben) aren't there to witness it. The OT has some sins, but the galaxy marches on without the unlikely band of heroes (disbanding the Senate, new death star, various attacks and searches, spying missions, etc).

and he'd royally, in his view, screwed the pooch with ben solo, not knowing good ol' palpy was likely pulling strings on him and ben to arrange that.

Yep, trying to murder your nephew is bad.
What indicates Palpy was involved? It seemed more a generic Jedi future-flash with too little information and he decided Ben was too much like a Vader and made a horrid decision.

Voss wrote:

He actually hadn't seen that. As it happened after he went into hiding and given up. It could easily be argued that it happened because he did nothing to try and stop it.

Very little suggests the New Republic 'failed' before the absurd decapitation strike by physics-breaking lightspeed visibility lasers.
We're told (never shown) that the not-Rebellion 'Resisty' group exists because the New Republic doesn't believe in the First Order, but not why (nor why every passing character in the film knows what the First Order is and what they're doing, which makes that an absurd stance).

TFA basically cowers from repeating the 'too much politics' problem of the prequels, never realizing that it wasn't the 'too much' aspect but more the approach and poor quality of Lucas' dumb vision of politics. The sequels happen in a basically dead galaxy where nothing happens if the heroes (or Ben) aren't there to witness it. The OT has some sins, but the galaxy marches on without the unlikely band of heroes (disbanding the Senate, new death star, various attacks and searches, spying missions, etc).

Agree billion zillion times...nearly every episode of Game of Thrones is full of political dialogue and intrigue. People seemed to be ok with it.
Set-up for Sequel Trilogy is actually perfectly fine IMO. First Order rises outside of Republic's 'jurisdiction' which forces Leia to build a new organization to fight it. But you're not privy that information unless you read it elsewhere. It's only fleetingly touched upon in Episodes 7 & 8 because film-makers were so afraid of 'ruining the story with politics'.

E9 is probably the worst film I have ever seen. I’m not even sure if calling it a “movie“ is technically correct.

But E8 is hands down the definition of cringe.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
That was always going to happen though, each of the three films was intended to be a send-off to one of the original trilogy characters - Hans was TFA, Lukes was TLJ, and Leias was RotS.

It's not that he died, it's how he died.

By cranking the force up to 12 to the point that it burned him out? Pretty epic way to go.

Or are you still mad that JJ Abrams decided that Luke was a burned-out has-been and stuck him on an island in the middle of nowhere?

Though, that was again a pass which TLJ picked from TFA. JJ did not have problems with RJ's interpretation, he even changed the ending scene to better fit to 'reluctant hermit' plan.

The reluctant hermit interpretation originated with JJ Abrams, potentially even earlier than him - some of the earliest concept art for The Force Awakens, which went unused in the film itself, was of varying interpretations of hermit Luke/burnout Luke. We know that JJ decided to cut Luke out of the film completely because he felt that his presence was distracting, but that doesn't mean that the concept of Luke wasn't one of the few narrative threads that Lucasfilm was attemp instead when the wealth of evidence indicates otherwise.

As for the changes to the end of TFA, that was not about accommodating RJs "plan" to make Luke a hermit - the ending of TFA was going to involve Rey going to Ahch-To to find Luke. The change to the scene was to have the dramatic staredown between Rey and Luke on the island instead of leaving it a total mystery until TLJ launched - arguably one of the most impactful and emotional scenes in the entire film, btw. ngwasn't one of the few narrative threads that Lucasfilm was attempting to hold to hold

The way I read it, originally TFA ending had Luke sitting with some boulders floating around him when Rey arrives. Johnson and Hamill thought that showing Luke brimming with Force didn't fit well with the Luke storyline Johnson already had begun to write, and asked JJ to change it.

 Lance845 wrote:

It didn't BREAK those connections. It built on them to be the only movie in all 9 to have anything interesting to say about the nature of the force and force users and the cycles of conflict that permeate the galaxy. 8 is the only movie to question the doctrines of the jedi and sith. It's the only one to say that maybe the force isn't a light and dark side, maybe it just is.

This was a good thing for the series of movies to explore. The Force is, it is the people who use it who shape it, and people are inherently flawed agents.

 Lance845 wrote:

Maybe things are not so black and white. Maybe the rebellion or resistance and the empire or first order are not so clearly cut into good guys and bad guys. When the hacker dude on the ship talks about companies selling ships to both sides, about children and casualties on all sides, that is a thematic thing to bring to the table that SW was sorely lacking and makes the universe significantly more interesting.

This was bad, as it was a nihilistic approach where nothing mattered. So why even bother watching anymore Star Wars. It went against the key themes of the original trilogy, that your actions matter; and can lead to redemption and good triumphing over evil.

 Lance845 wrote:
When the Dark side place that Rey goes to shows her visions and it's not evil and corrupting despite Luke's fear of it it has a lot to say about how the dark side ALSO has things to teach people. When Rey was nobody and her parents were no one, when that slave kid force pulled a broom into his hands and held it like a light saber silhouetted against the star field of the night sky saying that ANYONE could be the hero and magic blood lines don't matter it opened up the galaxy of SW into a bigger and broader more interesting place.

This was also good, and returned Star Wars to its roots. Luke was no one special, he learned the Force like his Father before him from Obi-wan. Theoretically, everyone could have the "Force be with them". Only a few learned how to channel it through effort and willpower. It was spiritual in nature and available to everyone willing to learn it.

The Prequels literally killed Star Wars in The Phantom Menace with a ham handed line about Midichloridians. It made the mystical mundane and biological. Star Wars was now nothing but genetics and no longer a spiritual meritocracy. It was luck of the genetic birth.

I literally have not bothered with anything Star Wars since I watched Episode 8. I almost gave up after Phantom Menace, but sheer stbborn tenacity got me to 8, and then I realized my rapidly shrinking love for Star Wars was gone completely.......

This was also good, and returned Star Wars to its roots. Luke was no one special, he learned the Force like his Father before him from Obi-wan. Theoretically, everyone could have the "Force be with them". Only a few learned how to channel it through effort and willpower. It was spiritual in nature and available to everyone willing to learn it.
The Prequels literally killed Star Wars in The Phantom Menace with a ham handed line about Midichloridians. It made the mystical mundane and biological. Star Wars was now nothing but genetics and no longer a spiritual meritocracy. It was luck of the genetic birth.

To be fair thats more the result of fan interpretation than anything else. Lucas own take on midichlorians is pretty wildly different and out there compared to what fans took it to mean, and IMO actually even more mystical and weird than most people understood the Force to be prior to TPM. In terms of how the Jedi Order utilized midichlorians as a "blood quanta" measure of ability/membership, it seems that Lucas initial intent was to use the concept of midichlorians through the prequel trilogy to illustrate that the Jedi Order had become a soulless and sterile bureaucracy rather than a mystical order of spiritual peacekeepers, though he seems to have abandoned that due to fan backlash and only later explored it through The Clone Wars series.

Ultimately, the gamification of the Force is just a problem. Even before the time of TPM, the idea of Light/Dark Side Points was so embedded in the fanbase that you would see arguments over whether Luke could earn enough to unlock Force Choke by RotJ. Midichlorians feed into that problem of forcing structure on something that really shouldn't have it.

Their use in TPM is pretty emblematic of the prequel's overall abundance of good ideas and inability to get them across. In the film, they're used to justify Qui Gon's faith in Anakin rather than letting Anakin do things that make him worth having faith in. Honestly, if that was Lucas's intent, the Midichlorian test should have been what disqualified Anakin from being found and trained by the Jedi, with Anakin's abilities giving Qui Gon reason to push to train him regardless.

Good analysis there, LunarSol. As used, midichlorians are iconic of the lazy — or perhaps just genuinely incompetent — writing in E1.

Nonetheless, it is hard to say that E1 is cringey in that regard; cringey isn’t just bad. The main cringe factor for E1 is making Anakin an eight year old slave.

And even that is as nothing compared to the relentless cringefest of E8 (which even returned to child slavery, even more lazily/casually).

 Manchu wrote:
E9 is probably the worst film I have ever seen. I’m not even sure if calling it a “movie“ is technically correct.

But E8 is hands down the definition of cringe.

I really like this short and simple encapsulation. I can't really bring myself to care which movie was worse, but 9 was bad, 8 was bad, 8 was probably a lot more cringey for what it was. This works for me. Anything else feels like quibbling over something that isn't worth quibbling over in the first place these days.

 Manchu wrote:
And even that is as nothing compared to the relentless cringefest of E8 (which even returned to child slavery, even more lazily/casually).

Personally, its one of the two missed opportunities in 9 that really break my heart. The first and foremost is missing out on Ghost Luke trolling Kylo. That just... that should have been. The other though was the idea that relying on those in power to come save the day isn't going to change anything. The Resistance dies at the end of 8 realizing that those with power will abandon freedom the instant doing so serves their own interests. The only thing left at the end of 8 is the people taking a stand for themselves and fighting back. It's the single best idea in 8 and the fact that 9 just completely failed to do anything with it is just infuriating.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Both films are awful and kinda meld into one another, so it's difficult to say which one 'wins' here.

But, on the other hand, TLJ killed Luke, my fav SW character, so feth that movie.

The Last Jedi - or, more accurately, The Character Assassination of Luke Skywalker, by the Coward Rian Johnson...

Well, in star wars there most definitely is an afterlife, so in a universe where there absolutely is an afterlife and some people in it can still interact with the living is anyone really 'killed' or just sent on to another life?

And apparently the aftertlife in the star wars universe is a lot better than the ones most people on earth believe in if even that mass murderer torturer and all around monster annikin skywalker got into a good one. His happy redeption scene was hard to buy in RotJ, after the "Let's murder children!" scene in RotS it became impossible to swallow.

Ah... he wasn't referring to the actual death of Luke Skywalker. He was talking about how Luke's nature was altered beyond recognition by someone who clearly had no idea who Luke was. Thus, a character assassination, not the assassination of a character.

Which means he had no idea who the character Luke Skywalker was according to the movies. Yoda called him on his bs in 8 just like everyone does in all the other movies. Luke is always looking somewhere else. Always thinking of something else. And it trips him up. Except all his friends and mentors were gone either because HE left them or they died and there was nobody there to pull him out of the funks he gets himself into. Luke would ABSOLUTELY be terrified of raising a new Vader. Luke would 100% make the mistake of dwelling on the possibility as though it was an inevitability. Luke strength, his biggest and best strength, is that he can start to falter and pull himself back from the brink. He ALMOST goes darkside and kills Vader, and then tells the emperor to feth off. Then he ALMOST decides to put down Ben, and then pulled himself back.

Hes not a fantastic warrior. Hes not super intelligent. He is full of doubt and fear (Yoda always said as much). But he never tips over the edge. And he didn't.

Anyone who thinks 8 was a character assassination of Luke has been reading way to many Luke spank fest, might as well be fan fiction, expanded universe novels where he is the greatest being in the universe that is capable of only the correct choices and the greatest goods and they completely forgot what Luke was like in 4-6.

As I said, I have never seen Luke as some sort of paragon of virtue. I think he is in many ways just as, if not more, selfish than Han. I've been thinking about writing a small article about it, because it makes him much more interesting.

Personally, only issue which I had with his characterization in Ep8 was that I find it hard to believe and very much off-character he would contemplate killing his student, however briefly. They could have achieved same effect with something more sophisticated.

Backfire wrote:
As I said, I have never seen Luke as some sort of paragon of virtue. I think he is in many ways just as, if not more, selfish than Han. I've been thinking about writing a small article about it, because it makes him much more interesting.

Personally, only issue which I had with his characterization in Ep8 was that I find it hard to believe and very much off-character he would contemplate killing his student, however briefly. They could have achieved same effect with something more sophisticated.

You have to remember the sheer volume of death and destruction caused by Palpatine and Vader over the entirety of Luke's life. For him to have a vision from the force that Ben would be that again and cause all that destruction, seemingly undoing all the works of his lifes greatest achievements... Yeah... Luke would ABSOLUTELY contemplate the lives of the many over the one. Remember, Luke is full of fear and doubt.

Totally agree Lance. Old man Luke isn't the master we expected, he isn't the master we imagined, but if you go back and look at what Luke really did.... it's exactly the sort of master Luke would become.

This is the guy who dreamed of getting off his farm, until he actually could.
The one who abandoned his friends to train as a Jedi, up until he felt them in trouble in an obvious trap- and then puts his friends over the fate of the universe.

The same guy who's plan to free one friend, ended up with a sister captured, a friend captured, and selling 2 other friends into slavery, when really- couldn't they have just pulled some strings and got a Rebel strike group to go after Jabba? We're talking about not 1, but 2 Rebel Generals by the end of the film involved in this unnecessarily complex heist scheme. Or..., you know, he talks his way in, and lightsaber fights in the throne room, rather than getting captured for the lulz.

Luke has always meant well, and has always had terrible, longshot plans when much better alternatives are readily apparent. That dude totally bought into his own legend.

I had a single vision- if I train this guy wrong I might destroy the galaxy- that makes sense, these sorts of things always happen to me. I'll have to kill him now, it's the only way. I certainly couldn't have a talk to him, and refuse to train him, or attempt to correct whatever errors I've made in training him. Or consult the sacred texts, or Yoda, or Obiwan.

No more training do you require.
Then I am a Jedi.
NO!

More than anything else, a successful teacher needs patience. Lack of patience is Luke's fatal flaw. He rushes into every challenge, and never adequately prepares for it.

 Manchu wrote:
Good analysis there, LunarSol. As used, midichlorians are iconic of the lazy — or perhaps just genuinely incompetent — writing in E1.

Nonetheless, it is hard to say that E1 is cringey in that regard; cringey isn’t just bad. The main cringe factor for E1 is making Anakin an eight year old slave.

And even that is as nothing compared to the relentless cringefest of E8 (which even returned to child slavery, even more lazily/casually).

I mean, aside from the discomfort that portrayals and discussions of slavery elicit in large swathes of the population, whats cringey about it? Its not portrayed in a positive manner by any means, although it is portrayed so casually as to be wholly unimpactful by way of its failure to actually show slavery in a negative light (i.e. depict it as the horrifying and disgusting institution that it is/was).

Cringey because it's lazy, I think.

The movie, and Ep 8, both invoked 'slavery' to tell the audience how bad they should feel for someone's situation. It always struck me as amusing that Watto can be accused of being racist Jewish stereotype, cause Watto doesn't really have any negative character traits.

What? He's bad because he has slaves and wants money? Well it's a good thing he's super nice to his slaves and runs a business! Why, I dare say he even keeps his word and doesn't try to renege on his agreements at all! He's a honest businessman and in context, hardly the worst person in the galaxy. Sure is a good thing the show made him big nosed and greedy and told us he has slaves, otherwise we might think he was remarkably unremarkable!

I'd go beyond calling Ep1 writing lazy. The entire film is lazy. It used numerous visual and rhetorical short cuts to try an tell the audience how they should feel and the end result is a big nothing burger of a movie with some so-so set pieces and nothing to say or do with them.

And thinking of it that way I guess Ep8 is pretty similar.

The set pieces are a bit better in Ep 8, though.

Yeah, but set pieces just aren't good enough anymore imo.

Set pieces are easy. Stringing set pieces together into something more than a cavalcade of 'look at this cool thing' is actually hard.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Well, at the end of RotJ luke was young and optimistic, having seen palpatine defeated, his father redeemed, the empire going down, etc.

The luke in the last two movies was a lot older, he'd seen the new republic fail pathetically, be usurped by the new order and he'd royally, in his view, screwed the pooch with ben solo, not knowing good ol' palpy was likely pulling strings on him and ben to arrange that.

Luke from the last two movies was a completely different person than the optimistic kid ion RotJ and in that case i will kinda defend those movies for making him a different person.

Here's the real problem.

Young Luke refuses to kill his mass-murdering, child killing, Dark Lord of the Sith and right-hand man to Emperor Palpatine father.

How does that person become willing to himself even CONSIDER murdering his nephew, who he is apprenticing, in the kid's sleep, before he'd even done anything wrong?

Yeah, the Luke we see could be a bitter old man. But the explanation of HOW he became that bitter old man was pretty darn limp. It needed to be set up way better than it was, if they wanted us to buy in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lance845 wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Both films are awful and kinda meld into one another, so it's difficult to say which one 'wins' here.

But, on the other hand, TLJ killed Luke, my fav SW character, so feth that movie.

The Last Jedi - or, more accurately, The Character Assassination of Luke Skywalker, by the Coward Rian Johnson...

Well, in star wars there most definitely is an afterlife, so in a universe where there absolutely is an afterlife and some people in it can still interact with the living is anyone really 'killed' or just sent on to another life?

And apparently the aftertlife in the star wars universe is a lot better than the ones most people on earth believe in if even that mass murderer torturer and all around monster annikin skywalker got into a good one. His happy redeption scene was hard to buy in RotJ, after the "Let's murder children!" scene in RotS it became impossible to swallow.

Ah... he wasn't referring to the actual death of Luke Skywalker. He was talking about how Luke's nature was altered beyond recognition by someone who clearly had no idea who Luke was. Thus, a character assassination, not the assassination of a character.

Which means he had no idea who the character Luke Skywalker was according to the movies. Yoda called him on his bs in 8 just like everyone does in all the other movies. Luke is always looking somewhere else. Always thinking of something else. And it trips him up. Except all his friends and mentors were gone either because HE left them or they died and there was nobody there to pull him out of the funks he gets himself into. Luke would ABSOLUTELY be terrified of raising a new Vader. Luke would 100% make the mistake of dwelling on the possibility as though it was an inevitability. Luke strength, his biggest and best strength, is that he can start to falter and pull himself back from the brink. He ALMOST goes darkside and kills Vader, and then tells the emperor to feth off. Then he ALMOST decides to put down Ben, and then pulled himself back.

Hes not a fantastic warrior. Hes not super intelligent. He is full of doubt and fear (Yoda always said as much). But he never tips over the edge. And he didn't.

Anyone who thinks 8 was a character assassination of Luke has been reading way to many Luke spank fest, might as well be fan fiction, expanded universe novels where he is the greatest being in the universe that is capable of only the correct choices and the greatest goods and they completely forgot what Luke was like in 4-6.

This might be true, but if this is the story you want to tell, SHOW IT. Show us that in the events of the movie, not in a couple five-second flashbacks.

Show, don't tell. Especially when you're radically changing the basic nature of an existing character.

As LoH already explained, the use of slavery in E1 and especially E8 is really lazy, as shorthand for the enslaved character “having it rough.” But, to me, it is cringey, beyond just being lazy, because of the lack of proportion between depicting the character in this extreme situation, being enslaved, and the casual non-impact this has on the enslaved characters, which thoughtlessly implies that slavery, while not good, isn’t necessarily all that bad. That’s squarely cringe, in my book.

Thinking about it, E7 and E8 really rise or fall on whether someone has a taste for their particular cringe factors. Take away the stuff that makes them cringey, there really is not much left. Big example: the main antagonist, Kylo Ren, is the personification of cringe as a pathetic fanboy. For some, this is actually interesting. For others, it’s unbearable. But it’s cringe, either way.