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I think you are ignoring the elephant in the room - the time between TFA and TLJ is couple of day maximum, and the grip on the Galaxy is way tighter on the second movie.

This First Order is amazing! It really deserves the galaxy.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
This First Order is amazing! It really deserves the galaxy.

All they needed was a huge military setback to give themselves the self-belief to go out there and get things done.

Guys.... no one responded to Leia's signal for aid. it is clear the galaxy has spoken and they PREFER the First Order to the Resistance.

I bet it was because General Leia used an unsecured Force Skype for communications. On the Holo-Net you can see a meme with General Leia on the bridge of the cruiser that says..... but her Force Skype!. That is why the Galaxy must prefer the First Order.

Voss wrote:
Not...really. Even if you go with the odd theory that he magically becomes a Jedi for initiating the confrontation rather than seeing it through successfully,

You're working on the weird assumption that Jedi is a qualification, like you reach a certain point and then you get a certificate and a ceremony where you throw your hate in the air at the end.

I can't swallow the idea that the whole point of the series is 'the challenges of life as a space wizard.' That speaks to zero people in the audience. Just maybe it's something about ideals, redemption and there are lines you don't cross? Something perhaps the audience can identify with?

You can't get it because you're being silly on purpose. The idea of walking a fine line, always wary of giving in to base emotions, is a very common and effective theme in stories. Making that story about a space wizard changes nothing about the universality of the theme. Just as a father redeeming his son doesn't lose its universality because its a space wizard son redeeming a space wizard father.

Which ones? The dead people at the beginning when he hadn't learned his lesson and accomplished something, or the dead people at the end when he had 'learned his lesson' and stopped them from accomplishing anything?

Where he disobeyed command, accidentally revealed their plan, and that led to dozens of transports getting blown up, killing lots of people. Don't make me explain the simple stuff.

 sebster wrote:

Voss wrote:
Not...really. Even if you go with the odd theory that he magically becomes a Jedi for initiating the confrontation rather than seeing it through successfully,

You're working on the weird assumption that Jedi is a qualification, like you reach a certain point and then you get a certificate and a ceremony where you throw your hate in the air at the end.

That's what the trials are for, to earn the title of jedi by showing your qualified to be one. If they pass they throw their hate in the air and wave it like they just don't care

 Mr Morden wrote:
Reasons I disliked this film are really very simple and hopefully understandable:

You gave conclusions, not reasons. We've talked about this already.

Its so much easier to say "No the film was good, the audience is too stupid to appreciate it" rather than accept the flaws - monumental ones in my opinion.

I've said probably five or six times now that people's reaction to the film, not liking it, is legitimate. The question has been why, and the answers I've seen have been very terrible, with a couple of exceptions. I'm looking for an understanding of what's really driven some people's strong negative reaction.

I never said we have too many secondary character

I never said you said there were. I was only noting that there were complaints there was too much focus on secondary characters, and also complaints that secondary characters weren't developed sufficiently. That doesn't make either complaint wrong, and technically they could both be true, but it is interesting to note both complaints being made to highlight the generally incoherent overall negative reaction.

We have very little insight into the emotional state of the Admiral when she suddenly decides to ram the heck out of the super giant ship

She's a long term servant of the cause, that cause is on its last legs, if can't understand why she'd volunteer to run a suicidal distraction mission so the last remnants of the Resistance can escape I can't help you. If you can't understand why she'd change that plan to a kamikaze mission when the transports were uncovered then, once again, I can't help you.

but I Doubt the only thing she was thinking about was "love"

She was doing the one thing she could to protect the remaining transports. Protecting what she loved. I mean come on man, this stuff isn't great because it's so obvious, but here you are pretending you can't figure it out.

The whole hope of the downtrodden thing is specifically subverted by the fact that a) the newly formed resistance is so very incompetent b) the "good guys" are highlighted as financing the same people as the bad guys - I am not sure if you missed that but it was clearly part of the narrative that nothing would change no matter who won because nothing had changed when the Empire fell

That's an extraordinarily weird conclusion. The revelation of a large middle ground between the good of the Resistance and the evil of the First Order doesn't mean nothing had changed and nothing would ever change.

I'll say it again. I respect people not liking the film, that's their response and its legitimate. And I believe there are legitimate reasons that people disliked the movie. I just would like to get an understanding of what those reasons actually are, and so far what I've read has been unconvincing and generally incoherent.

On the terms of the films themselves, becoming "Jedi" is a milestone. In fact, Luke becoming a Jedi is the backbone of the Original Trilogy.

Luke's declaration of intent in ANH is that he wants to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like his father.

Vader's appraisal of Luke in ESB is that he's impressive but he is not a Jedi yet.

When Luke refuses to give i to to darkness, he declares that he is a Jedi like his father before him.

 sebster wrote:

Voss wrote:
Not...really. Even if you go with the odd theory that he magically becomes a Jedi for initiating the confrontation rather than seeing it through successfully,

You're working on the weird assumption that Jedi is a qualification, like you reach a certain point and then you get a certificate and a ceremony where you throw your hate in the air at the end.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Nope. Luke becomes a true Jedi in the very moment he refuses to kill Vader.

You seem to have an idea that becoming a Jedi means no longer having any internal battles. So all thse Jedi and Jedi Masters walking around in the prequels were all perfect beings who always acted perfectly at all times. They were never concerned about acting out of pride, or rage, because they were Jedi now and couldn't ever make mistakes any more.

This whole thing is very silly.

I made my points. Is you that are trapped in a circular argument. "Her arc is that she is already prepared".

That's a deliberate mistatement of the arc I explained to. Debate honestly or stop posting.

To explain again, Rey started the film looking to discover her place in the universe and her purpose. She was looking for this both with her search for her parents, and in a mentor relationship with Luke. Over the course of the film she learned that neither her parents nor Luke would give her that place or purpose, instead everything she needed she already had, and her purpose was on she had to find for herself.


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sirlynchmob wrote:
For the one going through the divorce, it is about the ironing, You don't get to be the judge on what is a worthy reason or not. You shouldn't be so dismissive of peoples reasons and feelings.

Most people don't actually do a very good job of knowing their own minds that well. The whole field of psychiatry exists because human thought processes are very complex and often take years of analysis to get to real, underlying causes for why people do stuff. To return to the marriage example, marriage counselling exists in large part to help couples understand the real relationship dynamics, which aren't necessarily obvious to either partner. The complaint about ironing could actually be symbolic of pent up frustration that their partner doesn't appreciate the importance of routine to their ability to relax, while to the other partner it could be symbolic of their own frustration of feeling controlled, being told when they have to do certain chores.

Now, here we're talking about just a movie, and not a very complex one at that. So I'm not talking about going in to any kind of deep analysis. I'm just saying it is possible, and even quite easy to see someone's stated reason, and know that reason is unconvincing, and probably not what's really driving their opinion.

Nor are their reasons for you to assign, just because people don't like the movie doesn't mean it has anything to do with the patriarchy.

Holy fething gak feth. feth. I said in my first fething post that I thought those patriarchy reasons weren't right. I've corrected people each time they mistakenly assumed that I thought they were. Still people post stuff like that. fething stop it. fething read what I'm actually fething writing.


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 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Also, the basic inconsistency of the Resistance being the underdogs even if the FO is the remnants can be picked up watching TFA for the first time as the first SW movie by anyone with half a brain.

Yeah! I mean only 30 years passed. Believing the First Order could build a new military capable of exceeding the Republic would mean believing something as crazy as Germany going from defeat in 1919 to having an army in 1939 that could conquer France in six weeks. What nonsense.

 sebster wrote:
[Automatically Appended Next Post:

sirlynchmob wrote:
For the one going through the divorce, it is about the ironing, You don't get to be the judge on what is a worthy reason or not. You shouldn't be so dismissive of peoples reasons and feelings.

Most people don't actually do a very good job of knowing their own minds that well. The whole field of psychiatry exists because human thought processes are very complex and often take years of analysis to get to real, underlying causes for why people do stuff. To return to the marriage example, marriage counselling exists in large part to help couples understand the real relationship dynamics, which aren't necessarily obvious to either partner. The complaint about ironing could actually be symbolic of pent up frustration that their partner doesn't appreciate the importance of routine to their ability to relax, while to the other partner it could be symbolic of their own frustration of feeling controlled, being told when they have to do certain chores.

Now, here we're talking about just a movie, and not a very complex one at that. So I'm not talking about going in to any kind of deep analysis. I'm just saying it is possible, and even quite easy to see someone's stated reason, and know that reason is unconvincing, and probably not what's really driving their opinion.

Why do you assume such things? You even stated yet another valid reason to not like the movie. It's not a very complex one.

If none of the reasons listed have convinced you that people just don't like the movie, what do you think their "real" reasons are?

and I'd still like to see the valid reasons you accept for people not liking the first star trek movie.

 Mr Morden wrote:
I would agree its another narrative cockup but the weird thing about that is that the Republic fleet by this point - at most a day or two after the end of TFA is one cruiser, some escorts and some unarmed transports without hyperspace.

You have tied all your confusion to an assumption that the events of the various plots are being told in chronological order. Following the same thought process, we would have to conclude that all of Luke's in ESB takes place during the time in which Han, Leia etc are hiding in a space monster's stomach and kicking it on Cloud City.

Or you know, you can realise that its common place for films with seperate plot threads to synch those plots for pacing, not chronological accuracy.


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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Man, remember how boring it was in The Usual Suspects when we learned about Keyser Soze's background and how he formed his reputation. Totally ruined that film it did.

That's a really weird example to pick to try and say that you can reveal parts of a villain's character and still keep him cool and scary. Because the whole point of The Usual Suspects was that everything was unknown and we had no way of knowing if any part of the story Soze told was true, including that origin story. Soze is as unknown at the beginning of the film as he is at the end.

Top 10 films of 2017

1. Star Wars: The Last Jedi - £73.1m
2. Beauty And The Beast - £72.4m
3. Dunkirk - £56.6m
4. Despicable Me 3 - £47.8m
5. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 - £41m
6. Paddington 2 - £39.3m
7. It - £32.3m
8. Thor: Ragnarok - £31m
9. Spider-Man: Homecoming - £30.4m
10. La La Land - £30.4m


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 Manchu wrote:
On the terms of the films themselves, becoming "Jedi" is a milestone. In fact, Luke becoming a Jedi is the backbone of the Original Trilogy.

Luke's declaration of intent in ANH is that he wants to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like his father.

Vader's appraisal of Luke in ESB is that he's impressive but he is not a Jedi yet.

When Luke refuses to give i to to darkness, he declares that he is a Jedi like his father before him.

This film is The Last Jedi, presaging the death (or transcendence) of Luke and the fact that Rey isn't a Jedi.

It remains to be seen if Rey will try to use the Jedi Texts stolen from the Tree Temple to become a new Jedi.

 sebster wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Reasons I disliked this film are really very simple and hopefully understandable:

You gave conclusions, not reasons. We've talked about this already.

Its so much easier to say "No the film was good, the audience is too stupid to appreciate it" rather than accept the flaws - monumental ones in my opinion.

I've said probably five or six times now that people's reaction to the film, not liking it, is legitimate. The question has been why, and the answers I've seen have been very terrible, with a couple of exceptions. I'm looking for an understanding of what's really driven some people's strong negative reaction.

I never said we have too many secondary character

I never said you said there were. I was only noting that there were complaints there was too much focus on secondary characters, and also complaints that secondary characters weren't developed sufficiently. That doesn't make either complaint wrong, and technically they could both be true, but it is interesting to note both complaints being made to highlight the generally incoherent overall negative reaction.

We have very little insight into the emotional state of the Admiral when she suddenly decides to ram the heck out of the super giant ship

She's a long term servant of the cause, that cause is on its last legs, if can't understand why she'd volunteer to run a suicidal distraction mission so the last remnants of the Resistance can escape I can't help you. If you can't understand why she'd change that plan to a kamikaze mission when the transports were uncovered then, once again, I can't help you.

but I Doubt the only thing she was thinking about was "love"

She was doing the one thing she could to protect the remaining transports. Protecting what she loved. I mean come on man, this stuff isn't great because it's so obvious, but here you are pretending you can't figure it out.

The whole hope of the downtrodden thing is specifically subverted by the fact that a) the newly formed resistance is so very incompetent b) the "good guys" are highlighted as financing the same people as the bad guys - I am not sure if you missed that but it was clearly part of the narrative that nothing would change no matter who won because nothing had changed when the Empire fell

That's an extraordinarily weird conclusion. The revelation of a large middle ground between the good of the Resistance and the evil of the First Order doesn't mean nothing had changed and nothing would ever change.

I'll say it again. I respect people not liking the film, that's their response and its legitimate. And I believe there are legitimate reasons that people disliked the movie. I just would like to get an understanding of what those reasons actually are, and so far what I've read has been unconvincing and generally incoherent.

Ok I don't think that anything I say will fulfil what you seem to want.

I have told you that myself and many friends did not like, I have told you why both in general (long, boring, badly written) and specific terms (some but not all of the specific plot points that I and other find damages the narrative) - you need to accept that these are my reasons - I honestly do not have some hidden reason that say I hate the director's work (now if it had been Christopher Nolan you would have had a point but I only vaguely even know the name of this guy) or I love the original series sooo much or whatever.

Overview: I did not like this film because to me (and my friends) it was too long, often boring, filled with narrative inconsistencies and flaws that I could not ignore due to the poor pacing. How does this not make sense???????? These are my reasons.

More and more I think you have decided that I (and others) have some "real" reason and I would prefer that you articulate this if you feel this strongly that consciously or unconsciously we are concealing these "real" reasons. That's the reason people are challenging you - you keep making this assertion that we are wrong because we actually have hidden reasons - its actually very passive aggressive and what makes it worse is you can't see it and are getting emotional about it when challenged.

See:

Holy fething gak feth. feth. I said in my first fething post that I thought those patriarchy reasons weren't right. I've corrected people each time they mistakenly assumed that I thought they were. Still people post stuff like that. fething stop it. fething read what I'm actually fething writing.

You are not getting what I am saying about various of these issues - please read them more carefully.

I did not say that love of her comrades was not present when the Admiral rammed the Super ship - I said it was not the only thing - surely it would have been a gamut of emotions including potentially anger and sorrow. But somehow when Finn does it - it all must be hate? Sorry but that does not fly and made no sense to me in that he was sacrificing himself so that others could survive - not because he wanted to kill bad guys. Its a poorly written and foolish element in the film - there is no difference n the two acts but somehow one is good, the other is not.

Again you are missing the point in that scene about the arms dealers and as has been stated - its a very odd thing to try and crowbar into the Space Opera theme of the film. Watch it again - the statement is nothing will change = the rich get rich whatever side wins.

You have tied all your confusion to an assumption that the events of the various plots are being told in chronological order. Following the same thought process, we would have to conclude that all of Luke's in ESB takes place during the time in which Han, Leia etc are hiding in a space monster's stomach and kicking it on Cloud City.

Or you know, you can realise that its common place for films with separate plot threads to synch those plots for pacing, not chronological accuracy.

Ok now that's just getting silly, plenty of films have odd narrative time or hop back and forwards and that's acceptable.

That the First Order seems to have conquered the entire galaxy without any resistance from anyone except the Ship of Fools is just bizarre and speaks to the filmmakers requirements not to "subvert" but merely reset the film universe - a continuation of the theme in the first film. For their limited vision to work we have to have plucky hero's fighting giant monolithic Empires and Corporations - its easy, lazy writing but that's all they seem to be willing to undertake.

Now if that's all they wanted to do - that's fine - but lets not have any pretence about it being a intellectual or meaningful film - its Space Opera and in this specific case - bad Space Opera. Shame really.

Has there ever been any notion that Star Wars is an intellectual kind of film?

I've always viewed it as Space Opera, or space fantasy, or a fairy tale in space, and I believe it is a highly successful example of this genre.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Has there ever been any notion that Star Wars is an intellectual kind of film?

I've always viewed it as Space Opera, or space fantasy, or a fairy tale in space, and I believe it is a highly successful example of this genre.

Read the paid critics reviews - half of them say or have been told to say how intellectual, meaningful, subversive it is - I don't see it myself.

Yeah IMO its Space Opera, of variable quality however but some people seem to think its more.

Well, the film presents a lot of strong female characters. This is subversive within the context of it being a space/opera/fantasy/tale in which female characters traditionally are relatively passive -- victims, sex objects, cheerleaders, or rewards for the active hero.

This can be interpreted as a deliberate intellectual choice in the context of modern moral thinking around gender roles, feminism and equality.

In terms of intellectual complaints, I take it to mean that the film doesn't present a strongly founded factual basis for the timeline, logistics, and so on that are displayed. Which of course is because it is a space/opera/fantasy and doesn't need such an intellectual underpinning.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 sebster wrote:
[Automatically Appended Next Post:

sirlynchmob wrote:
For the one going through the divorce, it is about the ironing, You don't get to be the judge on what is a worthy reason or not. You shouldn't be so dismissive of peoples reasons and feelings.

Most people don't actually do a very good job of knowing their own minds that well. The whole field of psychiatry exists because human thought processes are very complex and often take years of analysis to get to real, underlying causes for why people do stuff. To return to the marriage example, marriage counselling exists in large part to help couples understand the real relationship dynamics, which aren't necessarily obvious to either partner. The complaint about ironing could actually be symbolic of pent up frustration that their partner doesn't appreciate the importance of routine to their ability to relax, while to the other partner it could be symbolic of their own frustration of feeling controlled, being told when they have to do certain chores.

Now, here we're talking about just a movie, and not a very complex one at that. So I'm not talking about going in to any kind of deep analysis. I'm just saying it is possible, and even quite easy to see someone's stated reason, and know that reason is unconvincing, and probably not what's really driving their opinion.

Why do you assume such things? You even stated yet another valid reason to not like the movie. It's not a very complex one.

If none of the reasons listed have convinced you that people just don't like the movie, what do you think their "real" reasons are?

and I'd still like to see the valid reasons you accept for people not liking the first star trek movie.

I actually like the first Trek movie...

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Well, the film presents a lot of strong female characters. This is subversive within the context of it being a space/opera/fantasy/tale in which female characters traditionally are relatively passive -- victims, sex objects, cheerleaders, or rewards for the active hero.

This can be interpreted as a deliberate intellectual choice in the context of modern moral thinking around gender roles, feminism and equality.

In terms of intellectual complaints, I take it to mean that the film doesn't present a strongly founded factual basis for the timeline, logistics, and so on that are displayed. Which of course is because it is a space/opera/fantasy and doesn't need such an intellectual underpinning.

I think in terms of comparison between the OS and the new films that's a good fair comparison - Leia as slave to Jabba being the most infamous example.

On the other hand the majority of action / adventure movies that I enjoy at present have strong capable female characters that are seldom passive (*) - which is great, trying to think of a film I saw this year which didn't have strong female characters?

Looking back at the action adventures I watched this year:

Spider Man - intelligent, capable active girls opposite the main boy
Wonder Woman - Capable Intelligent active lead,
Thor Ragnarok: Capable intelligent, active woman as support and villain
Resident Evil: Capable Intelligent active lead, and support
Underworld: Capable intelligent, active woman lead and support as well as villain who even had a male minon /quasi-sex object - although that did not work too well for her.....
Monster trucks: capable intelligent active female support
Lego batman - capable intelligent active female support
Logan capable intelligent active young girl
Atomic Blonde Capable Intelligent active lead,

Even Geostorm which was not good had a very capable intelligent active female support

Not sure if its just the action films I enjoy but seldom do any of them have weak or passive female characters (*)

(*) (unless that's the character - no problem with specific male or female characters being passive or even weak if that's their character within the film and it helps the narrative, not everyone is strong all the time)

It is an idea whose time has come. SW also picked up this zeitgeist a couple of years ago with the appearance of Rey in the previous one.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It is an idea whose time has come. SW also picked up this zeitgeist a couple of years ago with the appearance of Rey in the previous one.

Agreed - and its great - however for that reason I don't see anything subversive regarding gender in TLJ - just normal. Its why I was surprised by the whole "those who hate the film just hate women" from some reviewers.

Although I was also surprised by the occasional person still asserting that a fantasy military in a space opera should still be male dominated, so I guess its not completely without foundation.

Most action tv shows have strong female leads /support- its not a new thing.

I thought some characters in TLJ were poor but gender was irrelevant to that assessment, in the same way as no one cares if Jar Jar binks is male or female - it is just a crap part of the film - Phasma in TLJ is not as bad but still very poor.

There is clear evidence that some of the H8 is generated on the basis of misogyny. (Hardly a revelation.)

However, I believe that most people who are disappointed were expecting a different kind of film. On the basis of this thread, they wanted more exposition and detail about things like the origin of the First Order and Snoke, military logistics and tactics, and so on.

My view is that these things are not needed in the film to make it a successful film of its type. The film is complete in itself, and doesn't need a lot of additional explanation. The background will be expanded in sourcebooks and novels for people who are interested in such information.

Then there are people who disagree with the way the narrative arcs and tensions are created and resolved within the film.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is clear evidence that some of the H8 is generated on the basis of misogyny. (Hardly a revelation.)

However, I believe that most people who are disappointed were expecting a different kind of film. On the basis of this thread, they wanted more exposition and detail about things like the origin of the First Order and Snoke, military logistics and tactics, and so on.

My view is that these things are not needed in the film to make it a successful film of its type. The film is complete in itself, and doesn't need a lot of additional explanation. The background will be expanded in sourcebooks and novels for people who are interested in such information.

Then there are people who disagree with the way the narrative arcs and tensions are created and resolved within the film.

I think that's fair enough and we can just agree to disagree on that aspect as we have both been back and forth quite a bit.

It is sad that people have a problem with the female element - but I guess it will be something that is lost eventually. Amusingly Rey was the character I had least issue with in both films!

I think you have to be careful labeling dislike of certain female roles as misogyny.

In some cases the dislike comes from a criticism that the female character was unnecessarily inserted (which is usually the complaint about Holdo and Rose - not their gender but their very existence) or the female character's need to come across as strong interfering with a character arc (e.g. a hero being unable to show weakness or folly to build their arc because they have to constantly kick arse lest they show weak or foolish female lead).

I don't think its misogynistic to be critical of such things.

By its nature, misogyny produces criticism of female roles.

That doesn't mean all criticism of female roles is based on misogyny. It would be a syllogism.

 sebster wrote:

You seem to have an idea that becoming a Jedi means no longer having any internal battles. So all thse Jedi and Jedi Masters walking around in the prequels were all perfect beings who always acted perfectly at all times. They were never concerned about acting out of pride, or rage, because they were Jedi now and couldn't ever make mistakes any more.

This whole thing is very silly.

You are confusing the nuance of the character with his arc. You ignore the narrative problem for the same reason you like the movie - you don't care if the genre is deconstructed.

That's a deliberate mistatement of the arc I explained to. Debate honestly or stop posting.

To explain again, Rey started the film looking to discover her place in the universe and her purpose. She was looking for this both with her search for her parents, and in a mentor relationship with Luke. Over the course of the film she learned that neither her parents nor Luke would give her that place or purpose, instead everything she needed she already had, and her purpose was on she had to find for herself.

This is a very bold statement from someone that wrote: "What Rey learns is that she has nothing to learn". Or that undermines pages of discussion with a simple "that makes no sense". Or that thinks that "stuff happens to character outside his control" is an arc by itself.
The one that should stop posting here is you, in case.
And again you are ignoring or running in circles around what is the big issue of Rey: she progresses like a robot. Her lack of mistakes and true obstacles make the character fall flat and not being compelling. Now if for you such crappy character is ok, good. But if you dismiss a criticism about such a basic element of narration, you are making a fool of yourself.



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 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is clear evidence that some of the H8 is generated on the basis of misogyny. (Hardly a revelation.)

However, I believe that most people who are disappointed were expecting a different kind of film. On the basis of this thread, they wanted more exposition and detail about things like the origin of the First Order and Snoke, military logistics and tactics, and so on.

My view is that these things are not needed in the film to make it a successful film of its type. The film is complete in itself, and doesn't need a lot of additional explanation. The background will be expanded in sourcebooks and novels for people who are interested in such information.

Then there are people who disagree with the way the narrative arcs and tensions are created and resolved within the film.

To me, there is a clear evidence that there is a whole online circus focused into the politicization of SW (!!!) for a number of purposes, some with good intention but misguided, some other just for the sake of the Empire (I mean Disney).
In the current climate, instead of writing a compelling character, you can just write down a critic as misogynist and shut down everything. Because in most circles and for sure publicly, that is a social death sentence. I find this misuse of a rational accusation when is the case, maddening.

I would argue that write a too perfect female is putting a woman on a pedestal instead of considering her a true human being capable of learning and failing (and learning because she fails) but I am afraid that this will fall on deaf ears.
Is pandering to a female or ally public treating them like a bunch of children (albeit I would argue that for some blogger and journalist this is appropriate, seeing some of the reactions).
It teaches IMHO the wrong lesson to any girl that watches the series. As I boy, I would watch Luke or another hero and unconsciously know "if you want X you have to learn/train/deserve it". What Rey teaches is "you are already perfect". I don't like it. At all.
Is treating women like "special kids". See also some page ago, what I posted on the Madonna-Whore complex and how one can track a parallelism with how many modern female heroes are written.

Also I fell with a sentence above for the current narrative that I must be a female to identify with a female character, or the other way around. That's another level of bull that I hate.
(this does not mean that we should not have females as protagonists in sci-fi movies. My first favourite is from 1979).

 Kilkrazy wrote:
There is clear evidence that some of the H8 is generated on the basis of misogyny. (Hardly a revelation.)

However, I believe that most people who are disappointed were expecting a different kind of film. On the basis of this thread, they wanted more exposition and detail about things like the origin of the First Order and Snoke, military logistics and tactics, and so on.

My view is that these things are not needed in the film to make it a successful film of its type. The film is complete in itself, and doesn't need a lot of additional explanation. The background will be expanded in sourcebooks and novels for people who are interested in such information.

Then there are people who disagree with the way the narrative arcs and tensions are created and resolved within the film.

You're missing the point, again.

I do want more details on the origin of the First Order (I think snoke is actually less important; only reason I wanted his backstory is because I felt like it'd explain the First Order), and military logistics and tactics, and so on... but not just for the sake of "detail."

I want those things because I want to believe the narrative it's telling me. I want the movie to wow me with its clever thinking and awesome visuals. I want the movie to take me out of the reality in which I live, and to momentarily permit me to exist (at least as an objective observer) in the reality it has constructed. But that means I have to trust the movie.

I'll say it again because you missed it the first time. Believability. Credibility and trust of the film are important for that for me. I cannot exist in the world the movie tries to set up for me if that world doesn't compute in my head (this is why fantasy settings are generally Earth++; the more comprehensible it is, the easier it is to see yourself in that world). The world of the Disney Star Wars movies doesn't really compute for me. When I watch TFA, and look at Starkiller Base, instead of going "oh wow cool I wonder what it would be like to have worked there / seen it built / whatever" I think "how the feth did that happen? I thought the Rebellion beat the empire?" and when it really clicked in TLJ that we were watching the "Resistance" fight the "First Order" I lost the thread. I couldn't believe the film anymore. It just asserted things to be true but never showed me any believable reason. The film, as far as I felt, lied to me, because it told me things inconsistent with the way the setting had been portrayed in the past and also inconsistent with reality. I had no frame of reference or understanding of what happened, and that meant I didn't really understand what was happening.

You seem to believe I should just take it on faith that the movie isn't lying to me, and I can see that perspective. But, if I just accept that this movie's events "just happened", then the Original and Prequel trilogies are ruined for me, because (as I mentioned) things that could never have happened within the universe's established laws are now happening, meaning either the universe is different (yay J.J. Abrams rebooting Star Wars in a "different timeline" because that's never been done before), or the universe is the same but everyone in the Original Trilogies was dumber than a bag of rocks for the reasons I've listed above.

Without an established in-universe believable reason for the events of TLJ to happen as they did, then there is a constant tension between the universe Rian Johnson (and J.J. Adams) have set up, and the universe of the other 6 movies. This tension is painful for me, because I want to like all of Star Wars, but cannot, because there are massive inconsistencies in the canon now. And I mean massive. Like, if I try to accept TFA&TLJ alongside the other 6, I have a bigger problem doing that than I do with accepting the canonicity of things in fething warhammer 40k.

As I reflect mor eon the Nihilism of this film, perhaps it is driven mostly by being the second act of a three part story. This act is supposed to be the darkest and most troubling, and perhaps Episode IX will lift us out of it.

However, I do not recall feeling the same level of Nihillism after Empire, Attack of the Clones or Two Towers. There was a general sense of hope as Leia and Han have acknowledged their love, Leia and Crew escaped, and Luke was alive after facing Vadar.

However, I still fall back as a Space fairy Tale, it is suppose to teach us something about how to live, and the lessons this movie taught me were depressing as all hell. If I wanted that I would just watch the news.

 sebster wrote:

Yeah! I mean only 30 years passed. Believing the First Order could build a new military capable of exceeding the Republic would mean believing something as crazy as Germany going from defeat in 1919 to having an army in 1939 that could conquer France in six weeks. What nonsense.

I don't think you have the means to be so dismissing. Do you really feel smart throwing away false equivalences?
You start from an assumption that you label as true and then build all sort of.. things from it. At the end of the empire in RotJ there is no first order. We have no idea of the extension of the imperial remnants.
Nonetheless we know that a part not irrelevant of the Galaxy is now republic. FO < Old Empire. Probably way smaller. Which is not the case of the post WWI Germany - the territorial losses in that case were not substantial like after WWI. For sure, Germany did not lose Munich or Berlin. Really what you wrote does not hold water.

So we have an organization that is smaller, is introduced by being made more by cosplayer than by serious (albeit evil) people like Tarkin, Veers, Vader, less territory and resources, and yet is able to produce a super weapon that eclipses the second Death Star. This is schizophrenic. And I not only have to take seriously what you write, but I have to bow to your superior logic and half-assed historical references.

I did not like the writing of this movie.

At least twice they referenced a "god" (I think more than twice, really)

Saying "God help us" or "Godspeed" in star Wars is just wrong. They don't have God. They have the Force. "May the Force be with us" and "Force be with you".

The whole script felt like the Superman Returns movie, t where the director later confessed that he wanted to make a different movie than a super hero one so he tried to twist the movie he had been given into what he wanted to make.

So we kill off Admiral Ackbar but introduce Admiral Feminist (purple hair and all) to shut down the "flyboy" (ignoring that the series is based on reckless flyboys saving the day with Han Solo in the Falcon, or Luke disengaging the targeting computer, etc).

And force powers that have never been seen even in the days of the Jedi at their height. Having the force suddenly able to converse across distances ( would have been helpful in the Clone wars, right?) is like Resurrection Magic suddenly showing up in the Harry Potter universe. It retroactively creates plot holes in the past. Why didn't Harry just resurrect his parents? Why didn't Yoda continue training Luke via Force communication? Why do Jedi use sabers to block blasters if they can just hold them with the force? Its stupid and bad writing.

 Just Tony wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 sebster wrote:
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sirlynchmob wrote:
For the one going through the divorce, it is about the ironing, You don't get to be the judge on what is a worthy reason or not. You shouldn't be so dismissive of peoples reasons and feelings.

Most people don't actually do a very good job of knowing their own minds that well. The whole field of psychiatry exists because human thought processes are very complex and often take years of analysis to get to real, underlying causes for why people do stuff. To return to the marriage example, marriage counselling exists in large part to help couples understand the real relationship dynamics, which aren't necessarily obvious to either partner. The complaint about ironing could actually be symbolic of pent up frustration that their partner doesn't appreciate the importance of routine to their ability to relax, while to the other partner it could be symbolic of their own frustration of feeling controlled, being told when they have to do certain chores.

Now, here we're talking about just a movie, and not a very complex one at that. So I'm not talking about going in to any kind of deep analysis. I'm just saying it is possible, and even quite easy to see someone's stated reason, and know that reason is unconvincing, and probably not what's really driving their opinion.

Why do you assume such things? You even stated yet another valid reason to not like the movie. It's not a very complex one.

If none of the reasons listed have convinced you that people just don't like the movie, what do you think their "real" reasons are?

and I'd still like to see the valid reasons you accept for people not liking the first star trek movie.

I actually like the first Trek movie...

1 and 3 are both very good if you ask me. 2 was just okay.