Star Wars: The Last Jedi; Spoiler Edition [Enter at your peril]

[Valiens Nantaris]

Kylo was telling lies, Rey really is the chosen one daughter of Obi-Wan and the Force...or something.

I'm seeing this again on the 29th. I don't suspect my view will change.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

I liked it. No real complaints, except for the slightly silly Leia scene.

 

[Akaess Torwalker]

I honestly enjoyed most parts of the movie but i didn't like how they just killed of Snoke and Luke Skywalker. But other than that i mostly enjoyed the movie

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Seeing it today again this time with my parents who are very occasional Star Wars viewers. Will be interesting to see what they think.

 

[Atsushi Ono]

Why does everyone keep saying Kantobite was useless? It had its purpose, it just didn't pan out the way the heroes wanted it to. They were inches from their goal, only proving how needed the mission was considering Holdo's plan hinged entirely on whether or not the officers at the sensors looked down, the shuttles weren't cloaked and they obviously weren't shielded so really Poe's plan was the better one. And I find it strange that people at Disney and Star Wars keep calling this the Skywalker Saga if Rey is truly a nobody and Kylo wasn't just pulling poodoo out of his bung hole, especially considering their working on a trilogy outside of the Skywalker Saga.

 

[Isamu Baelor]

And I find it strange that people at Disney and Star Wars keep calling this the Skywalker Saga if Rey is truly a nobody and Kylo wasn't just pulling poodoo out of his bung hole, especially considering their working on a trilogy outside of the Skywalker Saga.

Kylo Ren is a Skywalker by blood.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Saw it again. It did not change my mind, it solidified what I liked and what I didn't further.

I remain convinced that whilst the movie has some good, even excellent scenes, the flow and the way they are connected is where hit problems.

I found the Luke scenes much better this time, I don't have a problem with his character, per se. Whilst Rey was unfortunately one-note in her personality I thought her scenes with Kylo were better too.
The first battle was really, really good. In fact I had no problems at all with the first 15-20 minutes at all.
The end was a lot of fun, and Luke's projection was great to see.

Unfortunately, the lag time at Casino World, the galaxy's slowest chase, Snoke's wasted potential and general character stupidity on all sides made this still unfortunately less than perfect.

 

[Atsushi Ono]

[member="Isamu Baelor"]
Aye, but the movie isn't about his journey, its about Rey's :/ It just seems weird to call it the skywalker saga when the main focus isn't a skywalker just a war caused by one lol

 

[Isamu Baelor]

[member="Dorn Skirata"]

I'd argue that the trilogy is about both their journeys, as they both undertake significant growth, and are both a focus.

 

[Elpsis Kerrigan]

Unfortunately, the lag time at Casino World, the galaxy's slowest chase, Snoke's wasted potential and general character stupidity on all sides made this still unfortunately less than perfect.

Regarding the Snoke scene, in all fairness Palpatine does not get much more characterisation in the original trilogy. His scenes in ROTJ amount to little more than him cackling, gloating and urging Luke to give in to his anger. He doesn't come across as a great manipulator, just a smug snake.


Then when he fries Luke, Vader turns on him and he dies a rather humiliating, comical death. The prequels gave him more depth, history and characterisation, but if we were to judge him by the original trilogy alone, he would be rather one-note.


But Snoke suffers because he is essentially just a Palpatine copy. Just another cackling, megalomaniacal overlord who brags about how everything is going according to plan, and then gets betrayed and dies an embarrassing death. Except that his apprentice is extremely lame. Like Palpatine, he also has a superweapon that gets blown up in the first act.


Hopefully the novels that will inevitably be written don't try to turn him into some sort of all-powerful darksider who's 'way more powerful' than Palpatine. He just strikes me as an ex-lackey of Palpatine who got treated in a dismissive way by his boss and is now trying to compensate.


[member="Valiens Nantaris"]

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

[member="Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori"]
This is true, we knew very little about the Emperor, and he indeed was a cackling villain.

I guess I just responded to his lame death here and the fact we have Kylo as the big bad now which is more unsatisfying.

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Not as unsatisfying as the fact that I still do not understand why Rey does any of what she does (or, for that matter, can do any of what she can do).

 

[Vaucris Macroe]

[member="Valiens Nantaris"]
I liked Snokes death. It would be nice to see him developed in the extended fiction, and I agree that he shouldn't be made to seem actually really powerful, but all and all I found the idea of his future vision not going to plan a good one.

 

[Jor Kvall]

Return of the Jedi could get away with not giving Palpatine a backstory. Star Wars was a much more tightly confined story back then, and the aire of mystery around Palpatine was part of what made him interesting. Palpatine was a villain that filled the needs of the Star Wars saga as it existed at the time. Star Wars is different now. We're 8 movies in now, and the new movies are working within an extremely large library of established canon. Thus, handwaving Snoke away as just a "mysterious villain" who doesn't need to be developed or explained because he's filling Palpatine's role in the original trilogy is a cop-out. It's also an admission that Snoke's character is nothing more than a copy of Palpatine. How exciting!

Where did he come from? What is his relation to Palpatine and the old Empire? How did someone seemingly so powerful in the Force remain unknown to the galaxy for so long? These are all legitimate questions. Questions that were never answered because The Last Jedi refused to do any kind of world-building whatsoever, which was another annoying problem with this movie.

 

[Beskadala]

Scene 1, ahch-to:
LUKE takes the lightsaber from REY. Slowly smiles.
LUKE: let's do this, btw you're my daughter and your mom was Obi Wan's niece okay?
REY: Hell yeah dad! Also my staff is made of lightsabers now.

Scene 2, the SUPREMACY. Luke's xwing crashes into the shuttle bay. Luke and Rey jump out and just totally Kill Baddies for an hour it is AWESOEM.

Scene 3, SNOKE's boudoir.
SNOKE: aww no way it's my old apprentice palpatine's old foe Luke! Kylo Ren you suck go kill him!
KYLO: actually I have been in deep cover queen, I'm gonna kill you!
SNOKE: NO WAY I'M HELLA POWERFUL!
They fight epically for ten minutes but snoke is hella powerful. Kylo is gonna die!

Edit: by popular request:
Scene 3b: the millenium falcon. LEIA's flying it with CHEWIE for some reason. There's a big crash.

LEIA: it's Phasma, she just boarded!
Leia pulls out a lightsaber and starts frickin flying with force awesomeness.
LEIA: luckily I actually did train as a jedi. Back me up, Chewie!
CHEWIE: grrarrg.

HAN shows up briefly as a force ghost somehow and shoots first. ACKBAR shows up and warns LEIA it's a trap but like her daddy Anakin she just intentionally springs it. Then LEIA flies around the ship fighting stormtroopers and Phasma like a boss while chewie backs her up.

End edit.

Scene 4: SNOKE's boudoir again but now it's all broken and stuff. LUKE and REY bust down the wall like the Jedi koolaid man. Anakin's force ghost is here too and so is Obi Wan and Yoda.
LUKE: time's up plagueis!
GHOSTS: we can all fight now too!
SNOKE: aha but here are the Knights of Ren and they'll totally back me up!

There's a badass fight for like another hour and they crash land on dagobah or something while fighting but they're all so awesome they survive.

Luke kills plagueis, but at what cost?

Edit: also Finn and Poe kiss maybe. But you can turn that part off if it bothers you.

The end, roll credits.

 

[Kami Meran]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC8vSlSsbwI&t=3s
my take

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

An addendum to that Palpatine/Snoke comparison: regardless of his lack of background in the original trilogy, Palpatine was established as a bona fide awesome space wizard (who also, despite his ugly face, had a definite sense of style). That guy had something to back up his words, even if he ended up dying kind of comically because he was just slightly worse at manipulating people than he thought. Snoke pretty much never did anything but be disfigured (but without the sense of style) and talk big.

 

[Stephanie Swail]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFfMN6lPnlA

 

[Aster Jen'allé]

I absolutely adored this movie. I don't want to get into an hour-long rant about how much I loved the movie or why, so let it suffice to say that I LOVE that this movie actually developed the characters and made them feel more human. I suspect they are setting Poe up to be the leader of the resistance, and his trials herein really molded him into the kind of person who is fit to lead the galaxies last hope. Rey is set up nicely to become a Jedi master and I love how Rian Johnson covered up one of TFA's biggest apparent plotholes (Rey beating Kylo) by showing us that she had to practice with her staff and those skills were applicable to lightsaber combat (in addition to snokes little aside to explain why Kylo lost.) I actually believe that the casino bit was good but lacking on screentime thanks to cuts (cant have a 3-hour movie, heh). It was very important to me that the brash good guys had to learn the hard way that coming up with some one in a million scheme isn't always going to work out. Again, I do think this plot had issues with low screentime but it added to the movie and showed the fallibility of our heroes. I think Luke as a jaded master not only makes sense but was actually really necessary to the continuation of the saga. Hero worship was never going to be healthy for Star Wars and bringing that character back down to earth from his mythical god status was the best decision Rian Johnson made however divisive it might be.

 

[Name Haver]

Rey is set up nicely to become a Jedi master and I love how Rian Johnson covered up one of TFA's biggest apparent plotholes (Rey beating Kylo) by showing us that she had to practice with her staff and those skills were applicable to lightsaber combat (in addition to snokes little aside to explain why Kylo lost.)

Rey is never said to have been trained by anyone, and Luke never actually trains her in any Force skills. If melee combat is so easily translated to lightsabers then why doesn't the entire galaxy just use lightsabers? If anything, Rey's abilities make even less sense than before because not only does she wield a lightsaber, fly ships, defeat trained warriors, and move huge objects without any training, you now can't even use the cop-out explanation that she has Skywalker blood because her parents were nobodies.

I think Luke as a jaded master not only makes sense but was actually really necessary to the continuation of the saga. Hero worship was never going to be healthy for Star Wars and bringing that character back down to earth from his mythical god status was the best decision Rian Johnson made however divisive it might be.

Star Wars was always a mythological story. Now that Rian Johnson successfully deconstructed that, it's nothing. This is only a positive if you enjoy subverting things.