Spoilers Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Grading & Discussion

[DigificWriter]

Having now seen the film yesterday afternoon, I have to completely agree with something Full of Sith Podcast co-host Bryan Young said in a "first blush reactions" show that got released earlier this week: this movie is quintessentially Star Wars and simultaneously nothing like any other film in the franchise.

I'm still trying to decide where I rank it overall (largely because I can't decide if I like it more than Revenge of the Sith, which has been my favorite film for 12 years), but it's an exceptionally good movie that doesn't suffer, as The Force Awakens does, from "director baggage" (i.e. the director wanting it to achieve a specific objective personally) and hearkens back to everything that's come before while not repeating it.

I'm also now 150% convinced that the fandom backlash the film has received is being driven solely by pride. If parts of the fandom had not persistently ignored the numerous signs that were put out there by people like Daisy, Pablo, J.J., and even Rian beginning shortly after the release of The Force Awakens, neither of the things that are raising the most 'stink' - Smoke having no backstory and Rey not being a "legacy character" - would've been surprising.

In fact, although I've been critical of J.J. Abrams for not leaning into the archetypal underpinnings of the franchise with The Force Awakens, Rey truly being "Rey from Nowhere" actually lines up directly with comments he has made in the past about the things that drew him to the first film way back in 1977, leaving me completely convinced that, although it was never directly communicated to Rian, Rey being unimportant in terms of her lineage is exactly what Abrams would've done himself if he had directed the film and is entirely in line with her character as portrayed in TFA... and I would feel that way even if I weren't aware of the numerous ways the filmmakers tried to "prime" the fandom and mitigate blowback without coming straight out and spoiling the movie and alienating people.

 

[Satron]

This is hilarious and so on point:

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[plynch]

I was fully expecting the heroes to pull off an expected (thus boring) last-minute victory and a big celebration. Roll credits. They fail. Because Holdo failed. She was promoted out of her depth, maybe. Bringing back the "wrong" codebreaker made things worse. (Coming from the Trek side, Our Heroes usually say, "We might [insert technobabble here]" and IT WORKS. "Wow." This failure to pull off the underdog victory and blow up the BIG WEAPON is maybe a bigger storytelling innovation for Star Wars than having Luke be bitter because the Republic is gone and his attempt to revive the Jedi failed horribly due to his family's recessive love of the dark side which resurfaced in him.

All the reason the haters are hating this is why I like it. If it weren't so danged long, I'd go back.

 

[Tosk]

I wasn't super surprised to get a downer-ish ending. This is the ESB slot, after all.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Arguably this movie ends on a much more hopeful note than ESB (the beginning of a new rebellion). It was still impressive to see how often and how spectacularly our heroes fail.

 

[Satron]

Having now seen the film yesterday afternoon, I have to completely agree with something Full of Sith Podcast co-host Bryan Young said in a "first blush reactions" show that got released earlier this week: this movie is quintessentially Star Wars and simultaneously nothing like any other film in the franchise.

I'm still trying to decide where I rank it overall (largely because I can't decide if I like it more than Revenge of the Sith, which has been my favorite film for 12 years), but it's an exceptionally good movie that doesn't suffer, as The Force Awakens does, from "director baggage" (i.e. the director wanting it to achieve a specific objective personally) and hearkens back to everything that's come before while not repeating it.

I'm also now 150% convinced that the fandom backlash the film has received is being driven solely by pride. If parts of the fandom had not persistently ignored the numerous signs that were put out there by people like Daisy, Pablo, J.J., and even Rian beginning shortly after the release of The Force Awakens, neither of the things that are raising the most 'stink' - Smoke having no backstory and Rey not being a "legacy character" - would've been surprising.

In fact, although I've been critical of J.J. Abrams for not leaning into the archetypal underpinnings of the franchise with The Force Awakens, Rey truly being "Rey from Nowhere" actually lines up directly with comments he has made in the past about the things that drew him to the first film way back in 1977, leaving me completely convinced that, although it was never directly communicated to Rian, Rey being unimportant in terms of her lineage is exactly what Abrams would've done himself if he had directed the film and is entirely in line with her character as portrayed in TFA... and I would feel that way even if I weren't aware of the numerous ways the filmmakers tried to "prime" the fandom and mitigate blowback without coming straight out and spoiling the movie and alienating people.

I think it is great idea to go against expectations and have Rey being a "nobody". What's not great is how the Skywalkers are unceremoniously dumped from this story. (I'm sorry to say, but my first thought when we were shown Luke hovering on the island, projecting his force ghost to planet Not-Hoth was that he looks like he's trying very hard to take a shit.) Captain Cromedome is even more pointless in this movie than the last, but she could have been a great antagonist. Not-Palpatine was a waste of time. It is clear that they tried to get rid of nearly everything that was introduced in Episode VII. And they did it with such a lack of finesse and respect for the characters that are part of modern move history. Han Solo's death in TFA had some emotional punch to it, even if you saw it coming from 12 parsecs away. Luke's death is handled so poorly. "Oh, look two suns. Dead."
An exceptionally good movie would also not give us huge chunks of story that are only there because the good guys aren't talking to each other. Star Wars isn't a farce-comedy. There was so much pointless padding in this movie that could have been cut out in the script writing stage without impact on the overall story. And it would have made some of the characters look a lot less stupid. And we would have been spared this Rose character which added nothing.

 

[DigificWriter]

Luke does what Obi-Wan did: he chooses to become "one with the Force", but his exact motivations are intentionally left unclear.

I have a very strong suspicion that the blowback regarding Luke's death is being driven in large part by the pride-derived hypocrisy of fans turning on Rey as a character simply because she's not connected to any important bloodline and by the knowledge that Carrie Fisher's death now leaves us without any of the "OT 3".

 

[INACTIVESamusAranX]

Luke does what Obi-Wan did: he chooses to become "one with the Force", but his exact motivations are intentionally left unclear.

I have a very strong suspicion that the blowback regarding Luke's death is being driven in large part by the pride-derived hypocrisy of fans turning on Rey as a character simply because she's not connected to any important bloodline and by the knowledge that Carrie Fisher's death now leaves us without any of the "OT 3".

I didn’t hate Luke’s death itself. I figured it was coming and he made a sacrifice; and he he had his “come to Jesus” moment and regained faith in the Jedi and defiantly told Kylo he was not the last Jedi. Having his “faith” restored was a positive. To me the Jedi are Star Wars. I’m not saying maybe changing their teachings somewhat or tweaking them is wrong; I just would have been very perturbed had the Jedi been completely done away with. It literally would have nullified the prior six movies.

It a lot of his other characterization that I took umbrage with. But we’ve already discussed that

 

[Satron]

I was fully expecting the heroes to pull off an expected (thus boring) last-minute victory and a big celebration. Roll credits. They fail. Because Holdo failed. She was promoted out of her depth, maybe. Bringing back the "wrong" codebreaker made things worse. (Coming from the Trek side, Our Heroes usually say, "We might [insert technobabble here]" and IT WORKS. "Wow." This failure to pull off the underdog victory and blow up the BIG WEAPON is maybe a bigger storytelling innovation for Star Wars than having Luke be bitter because the Republic is gone and his attempt to revive the Jedi failed horribly due to his family's recessive love of the dark side which resurfaced in him.

All the reason the haters are hating this is why I like it. If it weren't so danged long, I'd go back.

The heroes didn't fail. They actively, through stupidity, sabotaged themselves.

 

[DigificWriter]

I didn’t hate Luke’s death itself. I figured it was coming and he made a sacrifice; and he he had his “come to Jesus” moment and regained faith in the Jedi and defiantly told Kylo he was not the last Jedi. Having his “faith” restored was a positive. To me the Jedi are Star Wars. I’m not saying maybe changing their teachings somewhat or tweaking them is wrong; I just would have been very perturbed had the Jedi been completely done away with. It literally would have nullified the prior six movies.

The Jedi are a religious sect; saying that "the Jedi are Star Wars" is like saying that "the Catholic Church is America"; to paraphrase Luke, "every word in that sentence is wrong", and there's been a concerted effort to move the franchise - and fandom perception - beyond the narrow-minded view that only the Jedi and the Sith represent and can access the Force.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Luke does what Obi-Wan did: he chooses to become "one with the Force", but his exact motivations are intentionally left unclear.

He dies from the exertion of projecting himself onto Crait and the battle with Kylo, which was set up earlier in the film; Kylo tells Rey that she can't be responsible for her own projections because the effort alone would kill her.

 

[Smellmet]

He dies from the exertion of projecting himself onto Crait and the battle with Kylo, which was set up earlier in the film; Kylo tells Rey that she can't be responsible for her own projections because the effort alone would kill her.

I was under the impression that the force projections from earlier in the film showed a physical connection, ie when kylos hands got wet, so luke dies from kylos lightsabre to the chest. Or am I reading this wrong?

 

[Astraboy]

I wasn't super surprised to get a downer-ish ending. This is the ESB slot, after all.

I actually didn’t feel like it was that downer-ish of an ending.

- Luke “died”, but his faith in what he was and tried to do seemed restored and we know he can reappear as a Force ghost.

- I was a bit concerned that the Jedi would be done for, but Rey seems to be positioned now to take up the mantle and the ancient Jedi texts were saved as well. The very last scene with the Force-sensitive stable boy points to possibilities with the Jedi storyline and the Rebellion/Resistance, and I’m excited to see where they take this.

The one downer I felt, after leaving the cinema, was that Carrie Fischer’s gone. I’ve felt that Leia’s always been the strongest, but understatedly so, of the main OT characters, and it would have been truly something, and fitting, for her to be the one that carries that heritage through Episode IX.

Have to say I was a bit disappointed the way they offed Snoke - it was all too easy and rather anti-climactic!

 

[Ithekro]

The heroes failed because none of them are experienced really. They think they have a good idea and ran with it against orders. It might have been a good plan, if they had the people to pull it off. but they didn't anymore. Finn knows nothing of the outside galaxy. Rose is there to give us a perspective of someone who actually has been in the galaxy her whole life rather than isolated from it like Finn and Rey. Poe is shown to be a hotheaded pilot like one would expect. The admiral doesn't tell him her plans because he will not understand them, and he doesn't when he finds out about them. If told about the sensor cloak, I imagine Poe would have suggested sending a team over to the Mega-class Star Destroyer to blow it up, even though the First Order can see the transports visually. Also I imagine they has thought there was a leak on the ship, a spy or audio tracker, since the First Order did something that was suppose to be impossible, track them through hyperspace (though Darth Vader did that with Leia between Rogue One and A New Hope). The difference was that they basically did it immediately, meaning there was nowhere for the Resistance to run and if they did, their allied at the other end would be killed by the First Order's fleet.

The plan actually failed because of BB-8, that was what tipped off the First Order. Everything else was sort of working out. The codebreaker sold them out for survival and money, which fits his character type. Later Finn's noble sacrifice would have resulted in exactly one death more...his. The weapon fired before he would have hit, plus it looks like his speeder was melting before it would impact the target. The point of Rose was to point out to Finn and the audience, that they had to point of the war wrong. You do not fight the things you hate, you fight for those you love. If you do the former, the war never ends, because it just becomes a cycle of hate, just like some multi-generational conflicts in the real world. But if you are fighting for those you love, once they are safe, you have no reason to fight anymore, and the war can end. In some respects, this is why World War II ended, while some religious or racial wars continue for centuries.

 

[Iamnotspock]

I was under the impression that the force projections from earlier in the film showed a physical connection, ie when kylos hands got wet, so luke dies from kylos lightsabre to the chest. Or am I reading this wrong?

Oh yes, that's possible too. I noticed the wet hands and Luke kissing Leia's forehead but I assumed that Jedi can chose whether their Force-projections are corporeal or not. Luke does have that Obi-Wan-esque line, "Strike me down in anger and I'll always be with you."

 

[TRON JA307020]

The heroes didn't fail. They actively, through stupidity, sabotaged themselves.

Agreed. Every hero in this movie was a low grade moron. I was hoping Luke was going to somehow change the jedi and merge the dark and light sides to create a new jedi or at the very least was learning new jedi ways in hopes to stop the new order and Kylo. Instead we get a bitter old luke feeling sorry for himself. He doesn't even leave to help Rey after all her pleading. He finally comes to his senses when Yoda arrives. This is the same guy that left his training early to go save his friends and face Darth Vader. Not the heroic Luke from the OT that's for sure. Disappointing on every level.

 

[DigificWriter]

Bryan Young of the Full of Sith Podcast pointed this out, but there's been an Easter Egg for The Last Jedi - specifically the Resistance vs First Order plotline - just "sitting out there in the ether" for a year.

In Rogue One, when Jynn, Cassian, and K2SO are on Scarif hunting for the Death Star schematic data, Jynn skims over a data screen and reads off the words "hyperspace tracking" (emphasis mine). In TLJ, what does the First Order have tech capable of doing? Hyperspace tracking.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Is it just me, or was "I have a bad feeling about this" absent for the first time?

 

[DigificWriter]

Is it just me, or was "I have a bad feeling about this" absent for the first time?

It's not absent.

When the Resistance is escaping D'Qar in the beginning of the film, BB-8 rattles off the phrase in droid language, Poe reacts to him saying it, and Leia agrees with him saying it.

 

[{ Emilia }]

He doesn't even leave to help Rey after all her pleading.

And I was so convinced seeing Luke's old X-Wing underwater was foreshadowing him lifting that up and flying away. What a letdown.