Spoilers Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Grading & Discussion

Yeah, Yoda ghost was a good part!
I´m with you about the cons.
Put in the list: the camera closes in Ren feet when duelling with Luke and the Matrix movements. There´s a lot of delay in the scene too, and cuts with wrong timing. Surelly not the best Jedi duel to date.

About how they deal with the characters and even with the whole universe of Star Wars, is explicit in the words that Kylo says to Rey, "...forget the Jedis and the Siths, forgot all that happened before..." etc.

I think that Rogue One was a much better movie at all. Very well done!

 

Saw the midnight screening last night. I liked it okay upon leaving the theater but after sleeping on it I'm lukewarm. I didn't hate it though, which is something. Congratulations Rian Johnson for clearing the astonishingly low bar set by TFA.

I liked the production design a lot, the characters were fun and relatable, and I actually enjoyed the humor this time which was a major sticking point with TFA. And the weird shit people are unhappy with, like Superman Leia and Luke milking the....whatever that thing is...I loved. Weird is good. Bring me more. There are great moments throughout and Johnson is clearly one hell of a talented filmmaker but for me the story never really escaped the weight of how unconvinced I am by this whole First Order/Republic/Resistance/recreate the OT...thing. If you went into these movies cold, you could be forgiven for having no idea that the Rebellion won in an earlier movie. And unfortunately TLJ does nothing to make the TFA reset more plausible.

It retroactively makes the situation more unbelievable, now that I think about it. It seems Starkiller Base was so effective that it wiped out the Republic in its entirety in one shot. Which makes me wonder why was the First Order charging up for a second shot at all? Why the frantic effort to blow it up? Going by this movie, there was nothing left to destroy. They got it all except for a handful of bombers, some fighters, and one capital ship! The First Order conquered the galaxy in a weekend. I can't even get my apartment cleaned in that amount of time.

I liked Luke and Rey's story but I wanted more of it. We spent so much time with the Resistance and all that crap I don't care about that it shortchanged them. If the movie had taken place entirely on Ach-To, I'd have been perfectly fine with that.

B-

 

B+

As far as what I liked... Mark Hamill was excellent. Carrie was great too and it was really depressing knowing this is the least we'll see of her. I'm happy she had a scene with Luke and I was about ready to start balling during it. Good humor. The second half of the movie was very good. At the end of VII, Kylo was irredeemable and I'm glad they not trying to redeem him. Yoda!

As far as negatives... The first half seemed to drag a bit. The Snoke ending was dumb. I don't know how he didn't see that coming.

I think it was better overall than VII. I'll see it again.

 

Other things bother me as well, no mention of Lando, they could’ve dedicated one line in either TFA or TLJ to say he’d either died or is on s planet somewhere but the guy who blew up the Death Star gets no mention whatsoever.

The Knights of Ren? Where are they? Or were they Snokes guards? They seemed like standard Emporer’s guards to me, gifted in the force but not to the extent of a Jedi or Sith. Are we just supposed to forget these characters have been introduced?

 

But what about Leia ?

Spoiler

As they were boarding The Falcon Leia hung back - at that point I expected her to turn back and confront Kylo, effectively ending her story.

With Carrie gone and Leia still alive with the remaining rebels, they've painted themselves into a corner. They've said they won't use CGI or a double, so they'll kill her off screen ?

 

This movie seems to be getting more than its fair share of user-level vitriol on IMDB and RottenTomatoes. For once, I'm leaning more toward the professional critics' consensus rather than the opinions of the masses.

Edit: Also, just in case we were starting to think that the new tie-in materials were "cannnon," Poe and Rey meet in this movie for the first time... again, even though they already did in the TFA novelization.

Kor

 

Its possible that Ep9 will take place several years down the line allowing room to take care of that particular issue.

 

Yeah I can see Leia’s funeral being a big part of Episode 9’s opening sequence...

 

Luke's return and sacrifice and the legend that will begin to emerge around Rey due to her power will no doubt inspire that spark of Rebellion across the Galaxy. The First Order much like the Empire is a house of cards built on sand...

Remove Kylo and a few people like Hux and it will collapse under it's own weight & corruption.

 

I think ep9 needs to jump forward a few years given the state of the rebellion at the end of TLJ

 

Oh, I agree. Not only that, I think it could put the characters in very interesting situations.

 

Everyone can survive in space for a short while. It's hardly pushing it to consider a Jedi slowing their heartrate to conserve oxygen, reinforcing skin and clothing against vacuum and increasing body heat generation. Maybe even forming a very thin forcebubble tight to the body.

I'd have been happier with a raggedy barely conscious Leia pulling herself back than the Statue Of Liberty gliding serenely back...

 

I've got really mixed feelings about this film.

The things I liked:
Some amazing visuals. The set pieces in this film blow TFA out of the water.

Hamill was excellent throughout, a great performance by him and shows a totally different side to the character.

The cinematography and direction was also great throughout. I thought the score was better than TFA on first viewing.

Despite complaints, I liked some of the humour. Was the 'on hold' gag any worse than the 'boring conversation anyway' one? I don't think so. Some of the other stuff landed well too, the scene where Luke tickles rey with the leaf was almost Luke emulating yoda. Some of the other Easter eggs were done ok too.

That's where the good stuff ends for me though.

The plot and writing were weak to say the least.

The leia flying scene was beyond ridiculous and felt like something out of a marvel film. Can you imagine a scene like this happening in the original trilogy? No way. It's like the scene existed soley so they could go 'hey we've killed off leia in the first act' then 'haha fooled you!'

I could get mad about people hearing star destroyers coming out of light speed from the surface of a planet but, I'll let that go given you shouldn't hear anything in space in any sci fi movie.

The entire premise of the chase was just sloppily done. It felt like speed 2 in space it dragged on that long. Why didn't the first order just go to light speed and surround them? Why oh why didn't the writers make the goal of the rebellion the aforementioned base in the first place instead of having the planet conveniently appear at the window?

Why go to the trouble of introducing snoke as this big mysterious big bad only to kill him off like a punk within no time at all?

What was the point of finn's side quest when it had no bearing on what happens? It's like they had no idea what to do with finn so just gave him a pointless mission and practically ignored what was driving his character. I would have forgived this if they'd have let him sacrifice himself.

The middle part of the film dragged, the story didn't justify the running time at all, it was just an overblown CGI fest and should have had 15 minutes trimmed in my view.

Don't get me wrong I still enjoyed myself and had a good time, but there was a lot of frustrating, dumb stuff that happened in this that I wasn't expecting. It's probably better than TFA overall, but not by much. I don't normally notice stuff like all this on first viewing at the cinema so alarm bells are ringing for me with this film. I need more viewings.

I vastly preferred Rogue One, which was tighter and felt more like a proper star wars film to me.

I give TLJ a 'C'

 

http://comicbook.com/starwars/2017/12/15/justice-league-higher-score-star-wars-the-last-jedi/

food for thought, as this will influence the non fans

 

No, it won't.

Divided fandom opinion - which, BTW, appears to have been anticipated and intended - will mean diddly squat in the long run simply because, in the grand scheme of things, the SW fandom is but a very tiny fraction of rhe overall audience for the franchise's installments.

 

Finn plunging towards the mouth of the cannon, seemingly to his death, then suddenly being rescued/sabotaged by an ally coming from the side reminded me of Jamie Lannister trying to kill the dragon before Bronn stopped him.

 

It's audience score is now lower than TPM.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_the_last_jedi/
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_i_the_phantom_menace/

 

I kind if thought the thing with Leia was kind of silly too. I can accept her "surviving" in space for a short time since it's actually possible but her "force pulling" herself like that... Ehhh.... I dunno, I mean it seems like a lot to accept since Leia never showed (in the movies) this level of Force ability. I also wasn't really expecting her to come back and Governess Laura Den was the replacement following Fisher's death. I figured Leia would be left in "stasis" with no further update to her condition other than just saying she's at peace and will be in stasis indefinitely until her injuries can be healed. I though this was the way they'd write her out of the franchise without having to kill Leia.

And did I miss an "In memory of..." for Carrie Fisher?

The shot effect of the ship going to lightspeed through the First Order dreadnought was really damn cool, though it kind of raises some questions....

In "The Force Awakens" Han and Chewie engage the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive while inside the landing bay of Han's ship and with one of the alien creature things clinging to the cockpit window, when the ship enters hyperspace it doesn't seem to "impact" anything as it would have to get out of Han's ship.

Here it seems like the ship was "physically" there enough to cut through the dreadnought and it seemed implied this was a fatal decision on the part of Governess Laura Dern and her ship was destroyed in the collision. Why would her ship be destroyed in this circumstance but the Falcon not destroyed when exiting Han's ship? It always seemed to me that the risks with hyperspace were collisions coming out of it in an unknown not entering it with obstacles ahead of you.