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Spoiler tags duder!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Spoiler tags duder!

The spoiler tag is in the title. If you open a thread titled "spoilers here" you have only yourself to blame if you see something you didn't want to see.

Just sayin'.

Fandoms are terrible. They are never concerned with good storytelling. A large portion of Star Wars fans just wanted Jacen/Jaina 2.0 and there was never a chance Disney would do that.

Nearly all the negative reaction I've seen has been the following:

They didn't explain Snoke! Well, they didn't ever explain Palpatine either. It was literally the same story. They both corrupted a Skywalker/Solo. Now both got offed by one.

The way Snoke was killed was lame. This is pure opinion. I thought it was brilliant. Maybe not as far as plot goes, but the actual execution of the scene. Also followed by what might be my favorite Star Wars fight.

Luke wasn't powerful enough, good enough, didn't fight, etc. Luke is probably extremely powerful when emotionally balanced. The scene with Kylo as a kid was him out of balance and his body is only human. I know people don't like his arc, but it makes sense. He just contemplated murdering his apprentice in his sleep and created a second Vader essentially...He's going to be broken inside to some degree. And if he really is a wrecking ball then he is TOO powerful for the plot and a trump card. You can't have him involved because in person he would just swoop in and clean house. What did people want? Luke shows up, kills/turns Kylo, and Force Pushes a few walkers around? Where's the third film if he ends it all now?

Yoda burned the books! Yoda didn't. Rey took him. Yoda trolled Luke. You see the books on the Falcon after the rescue.

There's too many female characters! This movie panders to SJW Laura Dern's awful purple hair aside, why is it a problem if there are new female/minority characters in films? The issue should be the writing and acting, not their existence.

Rose crashing into Finn was dumb/illogical WTF. Do people really act logically 100% of the time? Especially in a life or death situation? Especially when you're infatuated with the other person?

Cruiser crashing into the Supremacy I can't defend this, but it was a gorgeous shot. This is the only irredeemable/unfixable element of the film to me.


But as a whole it's not a great movie. Star Wars has never been a particularly great story. Absolutely brilliant world setting and imagery from ANH onwards, but rarely a good story.

It'll be interesting to see if Disney continues to support RJ after this mess.

 trexmeyer wrote:
They didn't explain Snoke! Well, they didn't ever explain Palpatine either. It was literally the same story. They both corrupted a Skywalker/Solo. Now both got offed by one.

The difference is the story leading up to them. Palpatine, even in the OT, had a plausible reason to exist. He's the emperor, and had a long time (the OT implies it's been decades, if not longer, since the empire took over) to build up his power. Snoke, on the other hand, appears out of nowhere. He doesn't exist in the OT, nobody knows he exists as he's building up his new empire, and suddenly he's this powerful dark jedi that can crush people with a thought? It just feels like he appears because the plot needs him, and disappears once it is done.

Rose crashing into Finn was dumb/illogical WTF. Do people really act logically 100% of the time? Especially in a life or death situation? Especially when you're infatuated with the other person?

The issue IMO is that it conflicts with her story up to that point. She stops Finn from fleeing, lectures him on being selfish, and then approves when he gets it and stays to fight. Then, when she has a choice between selfishness and duty, she throws away the only chance of saving the rebel base to protect a love interest she's barely just met. And the movie portrays this as a virtuous act! It would have made a lot more sense if Finn's response had been "you ing idiot, don't you remember what you told me? Now they're going to die!". TBH I was really expecting it to be her making the suicide run, the way they set her up, and IMO that's the way it should have been.

But as a whole it's not a great movie. Star Wars has never been a particularly great story. Absolutely brilliant world setting and imagery from ANH onwards, but rarely a good story.

I disagree with this very strongly. The OT is a good story, in part because it's a simple story. It might not be a great work of literature, but it executes the standard "hero's journey" concept effectively, and there's never a point where you're thinking WTF is this nonsense. It wasn't until the prequels that things started to go downhill.

I stand by ANH not being a good story. It's a very black and white, overly simple film with nice window dressing. ESB improves the trilogy dramatically and RoTJ wraps up at least the Luke-Vader thread, but takes a step back as far as Leia and Han's respective stories go.

TFA starts what, 20 years after ANH? That's sufficient time for Snoke to emerge and take over a portion of the Imperial remnant.

As far as Rose goes, it doesn't have to make sense. A character being stupid isn't necessarily bad story telling. It's not even inconsistent. She's infatuated with him. That explains the entire scene.

And her Sister had recently sacrificed herself for The Resistance - new love and new grief do odd things, yes?

 trexmeyer wrote:
I stand by ANH not being a good story. It's a very black and white, overly simple film with nice window dressing.

Black and white is fine, in the right genre. And ANH draws directly from source material that audiences and critics love.

TFA starts what, 20 years after ANH? That's sufficient time for Snoke to emerge and take over a portion of the Imperial remnant.

That's assuming he started immediately after ROTJ and the last (canon) view we had of the Star Wars universe. That's a bad assumption. He's obviously very old, so how and why exactly did he hide for so long? Why was nobody aware that this powerful dark jedi existed? It's well established that power is inherent and with you from an early age, you don't suddenly become a powerful force user and ruler of the empire at 90 years old.

As far as Rose goes, it doesn't have to make sense. A character being stupid isn't necessarily bad story telling. It's not even inconsistent. She's infatuated with him. That explains the entire scene.

The point is that the movie portrays it as her doing the right thing. If, instead, the other characters were critical of her actions and it was presented as emotions overcoming reason with terrible results then it would have been better. Still not great, as it throws away her "Finn's conscience" role that was previously established, but at least more appropriate. But that's not the scene we got.

Yeah, it's particularly bad when you compare it to Poe Damerons arc in the film

It's in the books. Remember, we knew precious little of Palpatine (including his name!) from the original trilogy. We knew little about his climb to power (other than he dissolved a Senate).

Snoke? Hints as to his origin lie in the Aftermath trilogy, particularly the third one.

There's also the 'certain point of view' narrative sewn throughout which I greatly enjoy. The story of Luke and Kylo from three perspectives (how Rey was told it, how Kylo tells it, and how Luke tells it). Snoke's overconfidence when he's having his vision of Kylo (turning the lightsaber to his true enemy), Poe and Vice-Admiral Thingy being at loggerheads. I appreciate that level of stuff myself.

And speaking of origins, I was dead chuffed that Rey is in fact a no-one. I feel that was a brave move, and I think it paid off. Rather than tying powerful Force users to a bloodline, it shows the Force can manifest in pretty much anyone.

I wonder if Luke's horror at Rey not even trying to resist The Dark Side will make her a better Jedi Master/Trainer? Luke couldn't help Kylo in that sense. Whereas Rey kind of embraced it, only for it to show her nothing. I mean, that's a useful perspective when training someone, no?

Totally going to see this again on payday. This time in 3D, and possibly IMax, which I've never been to before.

I didn't see it as the movie portraying it as being good or bad. She clearly thought it was the right thing and Finn disagreed. I think you're reading way too much into that scene.

Snoke could have been a myriad things. Someone in the Unknown Regions/Wild Space, an acolyte of Palpatine, a stranger from beyond the galaxy, an ancient being, it doesn't appear to matter unless he can come back from being really, clearly dead. The obsession over him was ludicrous.

Forgot to mention people being upset over Rey Nobody. Kylo could be manipulating her, but one of the long standing criticisms of Star Wars is that there has been too much elitism in the films. Having "nobodies" come up and make a stand changes that. I know people don't like her "power" but Snoke's explanation that the force balances itself does make sense...and doesn't bode well for the galaxy. If there is always a Palpatine/Vader/Kylo to oppose a Yoda/Luke/Rey then that's truly a galaxy of suck.

I rather like how this film tossed aside all of the speculation. Part of it is that Star Wars has become so big that people are always speculating. Part of it was Abrams being involved.

Snoke has a weird name. He's the leader of the Empire, and if we look at a picture of Vaders helmet and angle it a certain way Snokes scars line up! He's a reincarnation/clone/resurrected Vader! But he kinda looks like Plaguies from that novel cover, he's definitely Plagueis which means he created Rey!

Dead. Shut up.

Reys parents left her on Jakku, and Rey has a memory of them! Her parents must have been important. Maybe she is a Kenobi/Palpatine/Skywalker/Windu/immaculate forception/etc?

Nope, stop that. She's nobody. Her parents were donkey-caves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 trexmeyer wrote:
It'll be interesting to see if Disney continues to support RJ after this mess.

They seem to like his work, since he's heading up the next trilogy. Unless this film makes no money (hahaha it will make a billion) they will let him do his trilogy.

Indeed.

They're still playing about with tone.

TFA had people knocking it for not being anything new.

TLJ gets a knocking for being something new.

Whilst Rogue One remains my hands down favourite so far, I think it's now Rogue One, Empire, The Last Jedi as my top three. I don't think it's a great coincidence that each has, in it's own way, pushed what a Star Wars film can be.

New? What's been new in TLJ? I saw this movie at least 2 decades ago. It's nothing but reskinned empire strikes back&return of the jedi.

Did you actually, really watch the film? I'm not joking. From your comments, you really come across as just having read a bunch of spoilers.

Yes I did on the premiere of Finland.

Seriously you can't see how basically every plot point in last jedi was taken from either empire strikes back or last jedi?

ONLY exception might be the gambling planet thing and even that only in that it was 100% useless that didn't add up to anything but screen time for Finn and the girl.

Others...Just renamed and recast characters and then major scene from original films checklist gone through. You do NOT get new story by just changing names and actors.

No new story to be seen in either TFA or TLJ. Just original trilogy reskinned.

That or I'm world's best guesser in movie stories seeing there was nothing surprising or new for me and I hadn't even paid one second before movie thinking what the story line might be. Hadn't even watched the trailer.

[spoiler]
I just saw the movie. I loved everything about Star wars, including prequels, for 40 years. I can not believe I am saying this, I did not like it. I hope others can find the magic and fulfillment in it as I have found in the others. Lukes resistance to help, bad fight choreography in Snokes chamber, how fast it seemed to move at one point, then drag on at another. (How did R2 get on the falcon, when Chewie shows up at the end for help in the salt flats)... For the record Kylo Ren, the maniac is the only one filling Reys head on who her parents are. So ultimately it could just be a lie, so I take some hope that some mystery is still there, though I never thought she was a Walker or Solo or Kenobi.

And when I say I didnt like it, I try to go through the things I didnt like and justify it or explain it. I am not going to list them all, but for example Like the kylo/rey and red guards fight. I get that it must have to seem lethargic, because no one was suppose to be able to fight like Anakin, and his scenes were insane during the AOTC and ROTS. But I am just actually sad, that I could not find the magic in it. Again, I hope I am in the minority on my opinion and the magic of Star Wars carries on for most. But it seems the message I got from being a fan for the last 40 years was. "Let the Old Past die", and the little boy sweeping at the end, as if I am passing Star Wars to another Generation, and the Veteran fans were not considered during the writing/filming. I am genially sad.

I could not do any better, I have always defended star wars and loved it. This movie left me with out.

Rogue One was so well done IMO, the scenes, the backgrounds, the editing. Maybe JJ will step aside for the next one and Let the writers/directors of Rogue one step in.

Ultimately, I hope others can find the magic in this movie. [spoiler]

Saw it last night, and call be shallow but I really enjoyed it. The space battles, the banter the whole thing. Ok, maybe there was a scene or two when I felt they could have done better somehow, but ultimately, well worth seeing again!

Faves


OK - the disappointing bits

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It's in the books.

If you have to read the books to understand the movie and find it plausible then the movie is not done well.

Remember, we knew precious little of Palpatine (including his name!) from the original trilogy. We knew little about his climb to power (other than he dissolved a Senate).

The difference is that Palpatine doesn't immediately follow a movie saying "yay, the good guys won, the dark side is defeated". It's ok if you don't know how he got into power because you can assume it happened somewhere in the thousands of years of history before Star Wars begins. You have no starting assumption that there shouldn't be any dark jedi left (or at least any with any real power). If you're going to overturn that assumption and bring Snoke into power in a very short time then there's a lot more of an expectation that you explain just where everything came from and why nobody knew about him until you needed a villain for the new milking of the cash cow trilogy.

It's the same problem that TFA has with the First Order in general. The Empire is defeated, the Republic is restored, and suddenly the Empire is back for no apparent reason? And you have to go read the EU books to get the information that the Republic is still around, the First Order is some backwater bunch of kids pretending to be a new Empire (and magically getting a whole navy and a new death star), and the Resistance is really an unofficial covert ops division of the Republic military.

Did anyone else clock Ade Edmondson?

I know he's in it, but I don't recall seeing him?

 Peregrine wrote:

It's the same problem that TFA has with the First Order in general. The Empire is defeated, the Republic is restored, and suddenly the Empire is back for no apparent reason? And you have to go read the EU books to get the information that the Republic is still around, the First Order is some backwater bunch of kids pretending to be a new Empire (and magically getting a whole navy and a new death star), and the Resistance is really an unofficial covert ops division of the Republic military.

The new Battlefront story content, "Operation Resurrection" actually details the First Order's rise to power way better(and is canonically taking place right during the events of TFA). They're far from a "backwater bunch of kids pretending to be a new Empire".

This movie is the natural evolution of something started by J.J. Abrams.
The nonsense started in TFA.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

It's the same problem that TFA has with the First Order in general. The Empire is defeated, the Republic is restored, and suddenly the Empire is back for no apparent reason? And you have to go read the EU books to get the information that the Republic is still around, the First Order is some backwater bunch of kids pretending to be a new Empire (and magically getting a whole navy and a new death star), and the Resistance is really an unofficial covert ops division of the Republic military.

The new Battlefront story content, "Operation Resurrection" actually details the First Order's rise to power way better(and is canonically taking place right during the events of TFA). They're far from a "backwater bunch of kids pretending to be a new Empire".

Why we have to read books and play games to enjoy a movie?

Because its been designed as a multimedia experience, perhaps?

You don't have to like that, but you do have to accept that.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Because its been designed as a multimedia experience, perhaps?

You don't have to like that, but you do have to accept that.

Wouldn't it be better though if all of the information is self contained? Referring to information from an external source that not everyone might have had access to is not good story telling.
If you have to read a book and play a game in order to understand a movie's plot, then wouldn't that mean that the movie has failed to properly tell its story?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Because its been designed as a multimedia experience, perhaps?

You don't have to like that, but you do have to accept that.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh my gods, the four of them.

Han Solo started off as a smuggler who didn't care about anybody, but by his actions in a New Hope, when he saves Luke, we see how he changes from scoundrel to good guy over three films.

Luke starts off a as naïve farmboy who's in a sulk because he can't hang around with his friends, then learns a few hard lessons about life and becomes a better person for it.

TFA and Last Jedi just throw all that out the window, and sends them straight back to square one.

The Han of old wouldn't still be running around in The Falcon, and the Luke of old wouldn't be hiding out on that island like some tax exile.

That is the most unforgivable part of these new films.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Because its been designed as a multimedia experience, perhaps?

You don't have to like that, but you do have to accept that.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh my gods, the four of them.

No. Really. It has. Welcome to the 21st Century, where pretty anything that can have a DLC analogue, has a DLC analogue.

As I said, you don't have to like it, but you do have to accept it.

Or you can just stamp your feet and throw teddy from the pram. Won't change owt, but I guess you can do it all the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Because its been designed as a multimedia experience, perhaps?

You don't have to like that, but you do have to accept that.

Wouldn't it be better though if all of the information is self contained? Referring to information from an external source that not everyone might have had access to is not good story telling.
If you have to read a book and play a game in order to understand a movie's plot, then wouldn't that mean that the movie has failed to properly tell its story?

And if you only watch the second film of a trilogy, do you expect to walk away knowing all?

No. Of course you don't. And if you do, might want to have a wee think.

As I've said before. Sit yourself down, and write down everything you know about Star Wars. Then strip out all the stuff that is not in the actual films.... You'll be surprised at how little that actually is.

Voss wrote:
Why is it a 'dumpster fire?' Because people have differing opinions?

It's a dumpster fire because Star Wars fans cannot have rational discussions with acting like donkey-caves, which was pretty obvious in this thread and every other thread about Star Wars on this forum. I've been guilty of this in the past as well so I'm not implying my hands are clean.

It was mainly meant to be hyperbolic, but when I wrote it is was a bunch of people telling each other they were wrong for having opinions that disagreed with their own.

Though it seems worth noting that the negative opinions have reasons attached, and the positive ones are just 'Yay, Star Wars!' so...
Now granted, some of the positivity comes from the people counting down with spam posts, so they probably couldn't change their public opinions now, but still. Anyone could spend some time talking about what actually impressed them.

Well, I don't owe you or anyone else an explanation of why I like what I like, but since this is a thread about the movie and I was pleased after leaving the theater last night, I felt it was a good place to offer my positive opinion.

But since I'm feeling generous...

1. The acting was fantastic. Domhnall Gleeson was great, Adam Driver was even better, and I continue to enjoy Daisy Ridley as Rey. And of course, Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker filled me with joy.
2. The special effects were gorgeous and the practical effects were great. As primarily a scale model builder, I love practical effects in movies.
3. Yoda.
4. There were twists I didn't see coming and I enjoyed that immensely.
5. Porgs were great. Fight me.
6. Serious gut-punches. Luke Skywalker has always been my favorite character and seeing him become one with the Force and fade away got me. It got me good.
7. The Kylo and Rey fight scene was fething sweet. My theater cheered.
8. Holdo punching the Raddus through the First Order fleet at lightspeed was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a Star Wars movie.
9. Yoda.

There were things I didn't think quite worked, mainly the Canto Bight parts, but with the kid using the Force at the end kinda made up for it, because I thought it was great. I would have liked more Finn because I love his character and they didn't use him nearly enough, what when they did use him for was the weakest part of the movie. Benicio del Toro's stutter annoyed me, a lot. Of course the various plot holes and conveniences were there, but I don't let that gak ruin my movie-going experience. The one that really bothered me was the, "Oh yeah, there's a planet we can use right over there!"

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Han Solo started off as a smuggler who didn't care about anybody, but by his actions in a New Hope, when he saves Luke, we see how he changes from scoundrel to good guy over three films.

Luke starts off a as naïve farmboy who's in a sulk because he can't hang around with his friends, then learns a few hard lessons about life and becomes a better person for it.

TFA and Last Jedi just throw all that out the window, and sends them straight back to square one.

The Han of old wouldn't still be running around in The Falcon, and the Luke of old wouldn't be hiding out on that island like some tax exile.

That is the most unforgivable part of these new films.

These movies don't look like something written by people. Is as if they used a software to put them together, unable to grasp how humans work.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Han Solo started off as a smuggler who didn't care about anybody, but by his actions in a New Hope, when he saves Luke, we see how he changes from scoundrel to good guy over three films.

Luke starts off a as naïve farmboy who's in a sulk because he can't hang around with his friends, then learns a few hard lessons about life and becomes a better person for it.

TFA and Last Jedi just throw all that out the window, and sends them straight back to square one.

The Han of old wouldn't still be running around in The Falcon, and the Luke of old wouldn't be hiding out on that island like some tax exile.

That is the most unforgivable part of these new films.

These movies don't look like something written by people. Is as if they used a software to put them together, unable to grasp how humans work.

I blame George Lucas for a lot of things, but his heart was always in the right place, but compare his dictatorship with running your film past a 30 man Disney committee meeting, and it's clear that dictatorship can sometimes be useful in the creative arts.