Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi (2017)

[Sparhawk]

I agree about Phasma. And yeah, I bet we see something with those trainees in episode IX and I would guess they are the Knights of Ren.

And where the heck is Wedge Antilles, survivor of first Death Star battle, Hoth battle, and partial blower-upper of the second Death Star???

 

[Mike A. S.]

And where the heck is Wedge Antilles, survivor of first Death Star battle, Hoth battle, and partial blower-upper of the second Death Star???

Good point. Have they even mentioned him in the past two movies?

 

[Sparhawk]

Good point. Have they even mentioned him in the past two movies?

Nope. I mean, somebody had to train Poe....

 

[chf]

But he didn't. "Strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." If you view it as simple and literally just buying time so the others can escape, then yes, he did the same thing as Obi-Wan Kenobi. But it was more than that. It wsss ultimately the foreshadowing of how the good guys could win. Instead they had Luke play a trick. And he lived. But then died?

The reality was they wanted Luke out of the way so Rey could be the hero. And that's fine. But he has earned at least a meaningful death. What they gave him was just a throw away scene.

He kept the last remaining vestiges of the resistance alive. <shrug>

Not sure how that remotely makes his 'trick,' a throwaway scene. Suspect you were just bound and determined to be negative.

And OF COURSE 'they wanted him out of the way.' That's how master/pupil stories ALWAYS play out. The master doesn't live forever gamboling with the pupil in a meadow with puppies. He/she dies, and the pupil ascends into their own power.

Thus Obi-wan doing the same fucking thing in the originals.

 

[chf]

Are they afraid to be critical of a movie starring a woman and a diverse cast?

Yeah, that MUST be it.

 

[DarthVedder]

Yeah, that MUST be it.

Fact is, this movie is very divisive with some very weak/dumb plot points (and some other GREAT parts). One would expect to find this divisiveness among critics just as much as among fans.

It's not a conspiracy... Critics are humans with beliefs and ulterior motives, and they tend to give better reviews to movies that align with their political positions. I like having a woman as the hero (would have liked to see her learning how to fight or how to fly the Falcon, but whatever, it was also lame when kid Anakin did the same), and I have nothing against the diverse cast (Rogue one is my favorite modern Star Wars movie and it boasts even more diversity, the badass Chirrut and Baze, plus another great female protagonist).

Another example of this: Wonder Woman. Is it a great movie? Yes, I loved it. Is it the best superhero movie ever? No, it's not even the best superhero movie coming out this year (Logan), but it has the highest RT score ever for a superhero movie.

 

[chf]

Fact is, this movie is very divisive with some very weak/dumb plot points (and some other GREAT parts). One would expect to find this divisiveness among critics just as much as among fans.

It's not a conspiracy... Critics are humans with beliefs and ulterior motives, and they tend to give better reviews to movies that align with their political positions. I like having a woman as the hero (would have liked to see her learning how to fight or how to fly the Falcon, but whatever, it was also lame when kid Anakin did the same), and I have nothing against the diverse cast (Rogue one is my favorite modern Star Wars movie and it boasts even more diversity, the badass Chirrut and Baze, plus another great female protagonist).

Another example of this: Wonder Woman. Is it a great movie? Yes, I loved it. Is it the best superhero movie ever? No, it's not even the best superhero movie coming out this year (Logan), but it has the highest RT score ever for a superhero movie.

So your gripe is that other people liked it more than you did.

Fair enough, so then why try to read some bullshit ulterior motive into WHY people had different opinions, like YOURS must be the only right opinion?

I like both WW and Logan. But it's not like there weren't vociferous critics of Logan too (tone was too dark, characters had changed too much,yadda, yadda, yadda)

Why is YOUR opinion right, and theirs wrong?

If you want to argue that the latest SW offering didn't deserve the incredibly lofty scores it got from some sites, I'd agree with you.

WTF does 'divisive' even mean btw?

At any rate, some of the big criticisms of SW concerning Luke's character making the decision (even momentarily) to kill Kylo remind me an awful lot of the criticisms of Logan I referenced above.

The characters (beloved) are MUCH later in life, and life hasn't been kind to them. They haven't aged well, and their experience has changed their outlook on life.

Why wasn't Logan 'divisive?' (well in some fans opinions it was).

 

[Clayton]

Why wasn't Logan 'divisive?' (well in some fans opinions it was).

Whats interesting about that comparison is that Logan is MUCH worse on its lore than The Last Jedi. Much worse.

Its just that the X Men universe has been botched to the point where not many people care about it. Logan is a movie I have in the same category as the Last Jedi. Logan is just a lot more minimal and focused.

An old man dies so a young kid lives. Yeah, its been done. A lot. Its effective for what it is but its almost as cliche as the 'coming of age' narrative.

 

[blstoker]

I didn't hate the movie - I didn't like the movie. For a Star Wars film it was "meh" and because it's Star Wars "meh" means poor. The movie was more style than substance. One guy I read was complaining about how they closed out the Skywalker Saga - but this movie isn't about the Skywalker Saga, Luke and Leia are really only in this for the nostalgic nerd fans (just like Han and Chewy). Otherwise, this story line has nothing to do with the original trilogy (except following its plot points). I'm sure I'd have liked the movie more had it not been Star Wars.

 

[Clayton]

Fact is, this movie is very divisive with some very weak/dumb plot points (and some other GREAT parts). One would expect to find this divisiveness among critics just as much as among fans.

Have you actually read the critics reviews? There are a lot of 4/5s and some 3/4s and things of that nature. You see some perfect scores but its not as black and white as you think.

It has an 86 on metacritic which is really high but also about where I think it should be, imo. You have movie of the year candidates like Dunkirk, Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name at 94 so its not like they are saying its the best movie of the year.

 

[DarthVedder]

So your gripe is that other people liked it more than you did.

I'm just quoting this part to keep my post short and readable, but my response is to your complete post.

I don't want to make this into a dumb political discussion (and getting into a corner I don't want to defend), when I'm just wondering about why the critical acclaim the film is receiving doesn't reflect the fans' reaction. The movie is divisive in the sense that similar numbers of people loved it and hated it, there's no consensus among fans/movie-goers. You can see that here, in IMDB reviews, RT Audience score and other fan forums (all flawed metrics, I know, but it also reflect my experience with friends and the audience I was with). This is not a universally loved movie among fans, so why is it universally acclaimed by critics? Why do all the critics overlook the glaring flaws?

 

[DarthVedder]

Have you actually read the critics reviews? There are a lot of 4/5s and some 3/4s and things of that nature. You see some perfect scores but its not as black and white as you think.

It has an 86 on metacritic which is really high but also about where I think it should be, imo. You have movie of the year candidates like Dunkirk, Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name at 94 so its not like they are saying its the best movie of the year.

I haven't read every review, but the few I have don't even mention some of the problems many people have with this movie. I'm not saying that it deserves the 55% audience score it currently has on RT, but the 94% tomatometer and 86 metacritic are also a bit too high...

 

[juliansteed]

And where the heck is Wedge Antilles, survivor of first Death Star battle, Hoth battle, and partial blower-upper of the second Death Star???

I forget the actor's name but I saw somewhere that they asked him to come back for the sequel trilogy but for some reason he refused.

 

[juliansteed]

I agree about Phasma. And yeah, I bet we see something with those trainees in episode IX and I would guess they are the Knights of Ren.

Yeah I'd be shocked if we don't see the Knights of Ren in the next movie. We briefly see them in a flashback in 7. Luke briefly mentions them in 8. The plan definitely appears to feature them in 9, especially now with Snoke and Phasma gone. The only First Order characters we have left now are Kylo and Hux. My guess is that we'll learn that for some reason Kylo couldn't have them around while Snoke was still in charge. Even though he wasn't a Sith, I think Snoke might have believed in the "Rule of 2" but Kylo does not.

 

[Melman]

I forget the actor's name but I saw somewhere that they asked him to come back for the sequel trilogy but for some reason he refused.

Yep. I read the same thing. Apparently Wedge is off in another part of that galaxy far, far away with Lando Calrissian.

 

[OutlawImmortal]

A big defense for this movie is "you just don't like it because you didn't like the changes". I think there's a differences between hating change and hating change when it makes no sense.

 

[juliansteed]

A big defense for this movie is "you just don't like it because you didn't like the changes". I think there's a differences between hating change and hating change when it makes no sense.

I actually went into this movie with high expectations because I heard so much about these big changes that were being made. If anything, I was hoping for bigger and better changes and was disappointed when they didn't happen, or in a few cases when they did happen but were foolish.

I did like some of the apparent "changes" though. I really liked Luke and Kylo's flashback of the same incident shown from different points of view. Not sure if that was an intentional nod to Obiwan's "true from a certain point of view" spiel but either way it worked for me. The Force skying was cool. Having Rey and Kylo temporarily team up but with completely different agendas was great. Luke trick at the end probably would have been a much cooler twist if they didn't completely give it away by having him survive (without so much as a scratch) all that firepower a few minutes earlier. Not sure if these are the types of "changes" that everyone is referring to or not. I just think of them as new things we haven't seen before but nothing groundbreaking.

Edit - I suppose nobody saying "I have a bad feeling about this!" and no Wilhelm scream were pretty big changes.

 

[juliansteed]

Oh and R2 playing that hologram from 40 years ago that started this whole journey? Fucking brilliant! That's an example of "fan service" done right! Not only was it great for nostalgic purposes but it absolutely served the story and was very much in character for R2.

 

[Taddy Mason]

Yeah, I agree. There were some great moments for sure. The Kylo Ren/Snoke & Rey/Luke scenes were really good, but pretty much everything else was dull and there was a lot of the "everything else". I would've liked to have known more about Snoke before they killed him off as well and would've liked to have scene a head-to-head light saber duel. The only light saber action we see is against opponents without a light saber.

The snoke death was such a disappointment to me. They built it up that he was the person that put in motion everything Kylo and Rey were experiencing i.e. their entire connection, yet as powerful as he was, he didn't see Kylo about to do him wrong? That being said, we never saw it with palpatine, but does the dark side come back to guide the dark a la Yoda, Ben, etc... does for the light?

 

[Taddy Mason]

Oh and R2 playing that hologram from 40 years ago that started this whole journey? Fucking brilliant! That's an example of "fan service" done right! Not only was it great for nostalgic purposes but it absolutely served the story and was very much in character for R2.

and if you didn't like it at first, Luke's response, "that's cheap" would put you over the top.