Spoilers Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Grading & Discussion

[Campe]

I respect that there are different types of Star Wars fans out there - from OT only to EU fanatics to accepting it all. I probably land somewhere near the “accepting it all.”

I was raised with and love the OT. I respect the work that was done with the PT even if I may not love it. I respect the work gone into the EU even if it made me lose my faith with Star Wars literature. I enjoy the ST and the new “canon” even if I may find some of it flawed.

I can respect others viewpoints as long as they can respect mine. Unfortunately, I’ve seen those on both sides (and I too could probably be guilty of on occasion) where other opinions are so easily dismissed.

I don’t find TLJ to be perfect. I enjoy it enough though. I think, for me personally, as I can’t speak for anyone else, it was the right Star Wars for me as a recently married 38 year old male as a Midwesterner turned Texan who wanted a return to form of the OT but needed something new and different.

TLJ was not at all what I expected. There were missteps in the execution along the way. But the themes for me were perfect; it made me realize that our heroes aren’t always what they seem to be, that sometimes we have to put our faith in people we don’t trust, that failure is oftentimes, the best teacher, that sometimes love really does trump hate.

It took a jaded me and made me realize that even in our darkest times, one can find hope. I don’t expect everyone to find the same messages that I did. But I do suspect that there were some, perhaps even many who did.

 

[fireproof78]

I respect that there are different types of Star Wars fans out there - from OT only to EU fanatics to accepting it all. I probably land somewhere near the “accepting it all.”

I was raised with and love the OT. I respect the work that was done with the PT even if I may not love it. I respect the work gone into the EU even if it made me lose my faith with Star Wars literature. I enjoy the ST and the new “canon” even if I may find some of it flawed.

I can respect others viewpoints as long as they can respect mine. Unfortunately, I’ve seen those on both sides (and I too could probably be guilty of on occasion) where other opinions are so easily dismissed.

Not to derail, but this fits me perfectly as well, so I wanted to thank you for putting it so well. I am often concerned that I'll come across as being harsh and dismissive of concerns when trying to express myself. I feel that Star Wars is changing, and no matter the change, I want to be willing to try it out as a 33 year old fan. I don't want nostalgia to blind me to the flaws of the SW franchise, and that in itself comes across as disrespectful, I'm sure.

Regardless, I appreciate your comments

 

[mos6507]

The big deal about The Matrix, for instance, is not the series of car chases, gunfights, and karate battles, as much as its gnostic ideas. There are places in The Matrix where the plot grinds to a halt and characters just speechify in a way that could be My Dinner with Andre'. As far as storycraft goes, it sucks, but as far as making you remember the movie, it's great, because it plants a seed and makes you think.

The same thing about Star Trek: The Motion Picture. As a movie, it's not that great. As a catalyst to think about "is this all that there is, is there nothing more?" it's quite special.

Star Wars has never been seen as a cerebral franchise and its metaphysics have been shrugged off as underdeveloped new-agey nonsense, and yet I think that's really what the core of it is. The action scenes are fun, but that's the fat, if you will. The core is the metaphysics. This was one thing I think was missing from Rogue One, for instance. There are no true force-sensitives in it (oustide of the Darth Vader scene at the end) and so it came across as mostly Saving Private Ryan in Star Wars drag. And that feels...incomplete.

The metaphysics of Star Wars seemed to have been explored well enough in the OT, and then debased and demystified in the PT (midichlorians).

The reason people cried with the Force Awakens trailer is that fandom by that point had all but checked out. So when Han is saying "All of it, the force, it's REAL!"

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He's re-energizing that quasi-religiosity through suspension-of-disbelief that characterized the OT.

In the end people love Star Wars more because they want that pit in the chest feeling of believing the Force exists than they do just because it's the template for genre action blockbusters. It's that pit in the chest you feel with Luke on the Trench Run, Luke grabbing his Saber on Hoth, Yoda raising the X-Wing, etc... And yes, Leia's goofy spacewalk and Luke's Astral Projection, in how these upped the ante for what The Force can do. The best Force scenes are about performing miraclulous feats.

So in The Last Jedi, the action set pieces, they are fine in order to satisfy the popcorn quotient, but all of that stuff is ultimately fluff. Luke in a way is speaking both to Rey AND to the audience by saying that the details are fluff and to focus on the essentials.

I think the value of The Last Jedi is therefore more about the challenge that it poses against Star Wars orthodoxy, both in-universe and a fandom that may have grown petty and nitpicky (something that could be equally voiced about Trek fans).

The fact that it knocks everyone out of their comfort zone feels like the point, or really the counterpoint to JJ Abrams traditionalist point.

I know this is well into TL;DR territory but my feeling is that the final trilogy will function as a THESIS, ANTITHESIS, SYNTHESIS structure. The reason The Last Jedi seems so apocryphal is that it represents the complete antithesis to JJ's overly reverent retread of A New Hope. We should (hopefully) find an Episode IX that somehow reconciles the two.

 

[kirk55555]

I liked this movie a good deal. A few annoyances, but nothing too big. I only had two really noticeable things:

Finn/Rose's side quest, while not bad, was pointless.

General Holdo was terrible. She is the reason all those people died, not Poe. People can try to say "need to know" all they want, but there was no reason not to tell Poe the plan. they knew there wasn't a traitor, and everyone would have to know as they were being loaded into the ships anyway. So Holdo's dislike of Poe, possibly combined with being a huge anal retentive asshole when it comes to military procedur, lead to, what, half the survivors dying? If she had just told him, he would have stopped Finn/Rose's side quest, and things would have worked out better. Leia would have told him, despite his "demotion" (he may not be a commander, but he was still in charge of the fighters and with only, what, a dozen people left a rank doesn't really matter). So, I'm glad she died, since at least the really cool thing she does at the end means she added one good thing for the movie.

Besides that, I liked the movie a lot. Luke was great, Rey was good (if a little bit annoying with how much she wanted to turn Kylo), and outside of the pointless side quest the story was solid. i didn't mind how some questions got really anticlimatic answers (like Rey's parents) or none at all (like basically anything about Snoke). I don't quite know where I'll rank it among other SW movies, but for now I voted B+.

 

[fireproof78]

I think the value of The Last Jedi is therefore more about the challenge that it poses against Star Wars orthodoxy, both in-universe and a fandom that may have grown petty and nitpicky (something that could be equally voiced about Trek fans).

Trust me, this more common in Star Wars that often recognized.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

There is another.

Now I do want Lt. Connix could be revealed to be Leia's secret daughter. I know that's unlikely (either J.J., or Billie Lourd wouldn't be up for it), I know it's a silly one-trick rehash ROTJ and ROTS, and I know it's against what TLJ said in regards to the unimportance of bloodlines, and that Star Wars has focused on Skywalkers way too much already. But screw all of that.

I didn't know who Billie Lourd was back when I was watching TFA, and I had barely noticed Lt. Connix then (it's weird that I do remember her lines, yet didn't realise she was there), so when she appeared on screen in TLJ I was... absolutely shocked, and every time they interacted I was as moved as when Leia nearly died. And I also couldn't shake the feeling that the Lt. and Leia were somehow related in every scene where they faced each other, like when the General put an end to that silly mutiny of theirs, or when I was trying to figure out what was Connix' role in it and where she stood.

So call it ridiculous, but I left the theatre convinced Connix was a Skywalker. Or someone Leia had cared for. Or someone who would in some capacity succeed her. And I seem unable to convince myself otherwise.

I know it's not happening, but it just feels right, now when Carrie Fisher is not here. I miss her so much. She's just so awesome, as a person, and General Organa was so unexpectedly good in TLJ...

 

[Sybok Was Wrong]

Voted F because it did fail. It fails as a bridging film of a trilogy, and it fails as a piece of filmmaking, and it fails as a marketing tool to maintain high interest in the Brand.

The point of having a "Trilogy" is to tell an overall sweeping story over the course of 3 films. It's to hopefully take your main protagonists and antagonists over a big epic tale that requires more than a single film can do.

THE LAST JEDI almost brings everything to an end in Act 2. Protagonists Finn & Poe floundered and have no story to grow from; Luke dies. Antagonists Captain Phasma and Snoke are dead- their story is over; Hux was made to be a fool.

Where's the buildup for an epic EPISODE 9? JJ Abrhams is going to have to scramble to come up with some amazing character turns, to salvage a "point" of this Sequel Trilogy. Almost every character was done such a disservice in THE LAST JEDI.

Rian Johnston went out of his way to not put any "fan theories" on the screen ( to the point of being a troll and giving fans the finger, one could argue. His ego wins over what's good for Star Wars). But what he left for Episode 9 to do can only be the clichés of Rebels defeating Empire in epic battle, Rey defeating Kylo. So, why look forward to EPISODE 9 when it's going to be just more of the same? There's nowhere to go! How tired. There's nothing compelling about the new characters that was developed in THE LAST JEDI.

The Prequels were about the Rise of the Empire and the fall of Anakin Skywalker. The OT was about the fall of the Empire and the redemption of Anakin Skywalker...

The "Sequel Trilogy" is all about-what? Disney is making this up as it goes and it shows and it's going to fail. Because the overriding motive is $$$ and merchandise with no heart and overall vision. Certainly no lasting mythos that will inspire generations to come. These films are for making $$$- NOW.

I think STAR WARS is in trouble.
Rian really damaged this trilogy. And the Brand. Now they have "SOLO" on the way. That has every sign of being a disaster. Then you have EPISODE 9 which is stuck in the box TLJ created.

Disney doesn't look to smart now.

 

[Kirk Prime]

The above post actually brings up an interesting point. What is it about Episode IX that has something that I would look forward to?

The classic characters--the ones I grew up with--the ones that started it all, are dead. Abrams killed Han and Johnson killed Luke.

Talk about taking the air out of the sails. The message of the first two movies is that when you get older, you are useless, and have to be killed so new people can take over.

If anything, the theme of Star Wars' latest trilogy is ageism.

Han had to die so that a whiny hipster could be established as evil? Really? Did it work? I don't dislike Kylo because he's scary like say, Darth Vader or the Emperor. I see someone I would rather just slap in the face than see killed by the hero.

And again, this de-evolution of Luke Skywalker--turning him into this horrible, jaded, grumpy old man--the character that was the shining light of hope--he WAS the "New Hope," was just terrible.

The first two movies of this trilogy basically were meant to undo the original story.

Basically, the actions of the rebels in the first movie did nothing to help the galaxy, since the First Order essentially took over and 30 years later, they are still rebels, and the death of the Emperor accomplished absolutely nothing. All the celebration at the end of ROTJ was for nothing.

The message of the first 2 movies of the trilogy is, "why bother, evil will always win."

Or to take a phrase from Star Trek, "resistance is futile."

I realize that the trilogy isn't over. But what could possibly happen in the third movie that will change the above?

Kylo turns good? Who really cares? The guy murdered his own father, a legend. Do we really care about him deciding, "ok, I'll be good now?" What could possibly redeem him? And even so, again, all he is, is a whiny hipster.

The First Order falls. Ok, but didn't we see that in ROTJ? And clearly if they want to set another trilogy after this, wouldn't the Second Order just rise, with a badass Sith?

Snoke isn't really dead? So what? Luke IS dead. We were cheated out of seeing a really good Luke fight. You know, one where he is actually there and doesn't get killed essentially making a Skype call?

Is there anything that can happen in Episode IX that we haven't seen in ROTJ?

They killed Luke, they killed Han, so with Carrie Fisher gone in real life, how can they not kill Leia?

In Leia's case, it isn't ageism, but enough is enough.

What is the payoff of Episode IX? What can happen that we haven't seen before? What can we look forward to?

 

[EnsignRicky]

Briefly, in other news: Alfie Curtis passed away yesterday. Best known to us as Dr Evezan, he was 87 years old. Not a bad run for someone with a death sentence in twelve star systems.

...And today marks the one year anniversary of the passing of our beloved Princess.

 

[{ Emilia }]

General Holdo was terrible. She is the reason all those people died, not Poe. People can try to say "need to know" all they want, but there was no reason not to tell Poe the plan. they knew there wasn't a traitor, and everyone would have to know as they were being loaded into the ships anyway. So Holdo's dislike of Poe, possibly combined with being a huge anal retentive asshole when it comes to military procedur, lead to, what, half the survivors dying? If she had just told him, he would have stopped Finn/Rose's side quest, and things would have worked out better. Leia would have told him, despite his "demotion" (he may not be a commander, but he was still in charge of the fighters and with only, what, a dozen people left a rank doesn't really matter). So, I'm glad she died, since at least the really cool thing she does at the end means she added one good thing for the movie.

What would telling him have achieved?
When he did find out about her plan, he staged a mutiny. Telling him earlier wouldn't have lead to a much bette reaction.

Everybody, including Luke, died because of Poe.

 

[kirk55555]

What would telling him have achieved?
When he did find out about her plan, he staged a mutiny. Telling him earlier wouldn't have lead to a much bette reaction.

Everybody, including Luke, died because of Poe.

He didn't know she was loading people into ships to take them to a secret base. He mutinied because he thought she was shoving them out into ships to try to flee into space, not a specific, fortified planet right next door. He wouldn't have staged a mutiny if he knew there was more to the plan then "Get in ships and fly away". He was right to mutiny based off what he knew, which was that getting into those ships and just flying off was suicide. She had no reason to hide the planet's existence from him, she was just being the old "military person hates the hero and is overly obsessed with procedure" cliche.

The only people that died in this movie because of Poe were the bombers, and if he hadn't blown up the dreadnought it would have killed everyone after their first jump anyway. But,, to be fair, he didn't know the First Order could track them after jumping so the dreadnought attack was a bad decision that just luckily turned out to be the right thing to do because of something Poe didn't know about. So Poe was wrong about attacking the dreadnoughts based off of what he knew but he got lucky in that it ended up being the right decison. He's not some always right character, he makes mistakes and is too hot headed.

But, the other deaths were all on Holdo keeping info from him for literally no reason. Leia would have told him. There is a place for "need to know" but it made no damn sense in this case. She just didn't like Poe, so she kept him in the dark mostly to just be an ass and she got a bunch of people killed because Poe did what he should have been doing, trying to save people while the leader, as far as he or anyone else knew, was being an incompetent coward. He did what he should have done based off of the information he had. She could have freely given info he needed to make a better decision, and she had no legitimate reason not to reveal the plan.

 

[{ Emilia }]

I will agree that the whole thing was handled rather poorly by the script writers. But then again this whole chase as a major plot point was rather flawed.

I really enjoyed the movie when I watched it the second time but there's definitely stuff I would've handled differently.

 

[David cgc]

Talk about taking the air out of the sails. The message of the first two movies is that when you get older, you are useless, and have to be killed so new people can take over.

Not a fan of Babylon 5, I take it?

If anything, the theme of Star Wars' latest trilogy is ageism.

Ben Kenobi literally tells Luke has to take up the fight against evil because he's "too old for this sort of thing." Vader taunts him, "Your powers are weak, old man." And Yoda? "Look I so old to young eyes? I do! Yes, I do. Sick have I become. Old and weak.... Twilight is upon me and soon night must fall. That is the way of things; the way of the Force."

Truth be told, Luke becoming one with the Force sitting on a mountain somewhere watching the sunset and thinking about Jedi things is the happiest ending he could've hoped for. And we've all got one coming.

Basically, the actions of the rebels in the first movie did nothing to help the galaxy, since the First Order essentially took over and 30 years later, they are still rebels, and the death of the Emperor accomplished absolutely nothing. All the celebration at the end of ROTJ was for nothing.

An entire generation was born and grew into maturity breathing free air in those thirty years. Billions of people weren't subjected to slavery, forced conscription, pro-human discrimination, or mass murder. I don't think all the people on, say, Corellia who would've been blown up if the Empire had had a working Death Star for more than a week would agree that the Rebellion was worth nothing.

The message of the first 2 movies of the trilogy is, "why bother, evil will always win."

Slow your roll, St. Paul. If one generation can't defeat the dark side for all time, all our hope is useless and we are to be pitied above all people? I think I've got some bad news for you about the circle of life.

Kylo turns good? Who really cares? The guy murdered his own father, a legend. Do we really care about him deciding, "ok, I'll be good now?" What could possibly redeem him? And even so, again, all he is, is a whiny hipster.

Anakin Skywalker massacred a village, betrayed his colleagues, butchered children, choked his pregnant wife half to death, cut one of his father-figures in half, choked several subordinates entirely to death, and threw his other father-figure down a big hole.

Luke IS dead. We were cheated out of seeing a really good Luke fight. You know, one where he is actually there and doesn't get killed essentially making a Skype call?

A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.

What is the payoff of Episode IX? What can happen that we haven't seen before? What can we look forward to?

I have no idea. I think that's pretty great, but if that troubles you, there are plenty of movies you know the ending to you can watch.

 

[Kirk Prime]

Not a fan of Babylon 5, I take it?

Never watched that one.

Ben Kenobi literally tells Luke has to take up the fight against evil because he's "too old for this sort of thing." Vader taunts him, "Your powers are weak, old man." And Yoda? "Look I so old to young eyes? I do! Yes, I do. Sick have I become. Old and weak.... Twilight is upon me and soon night must fall. That is the way of things; the way of the Force."

Truth be told, Luke becoming one with the Force sitting on a mountain somewhere watching the sunset and thinking about Jedi things is the happiest ending he could've hoped for. And we've all got one coming.

Tell that to the Emperor, who beat 3 Jedi in like 3 seconds in Episode III, or Dooku, who was able to take on a young Anakin and Kenobi in his prime. Vader may have been taunting Obi Wan, but let's not forget--he took a dive.

Luke spent the last 3 decades of his life in isolation, running from his problems, and becoming an angry, miserable old man. He did not do what Obi Wan did. His life had no purpose. He was to restart the Jedi, and failed miserably because he ran away. Luke wasn't even that old.

Luke should have been at or near Yoda level power at this point. We saw garbage. Maybe some day Luke should have become one with the Force, but not in this trilogy. Luke literally died on a Skype call.

An entire generation was born and grew into maturity breathing free air in those thirty years. Billions of people weren't subjected to slavery, forced conscription, pro-human discrimination, or mass murder. I don't think all the people on, say, Corellia who would've been blown up if the Empire had had a working Death Star for more than a week would agree that the Rebellion was worth nothing.

For all we know, they were blown up a week later by more conventional weaponry. There's not even a rebellion anymore. They just have a few people that are annoying the new Empire. And their big plan was to hide behind a big door. This generation you speak of during these 30 years just made the empire more powerful. The entire first trilogy was for nothing thanks to this trilogy.

Slow your roll, St. Paul. If one generation can't defeat the dark side for all time, all our hope is useless and we are to be pitied above all people? I think I've got some bad news for you about the circle of life.

What we found was that the first trilogy meant absolutely nothing. Everything that was done, has been undone in these movies. For what? So they can kill off the main characters of the first trilogy, poorly, and then a whiny hipster can rule the galaxy? Because of these two movies, the entire first trilogy had no point. It was a minor blip on the Empire's existence.

Anakin Skywalker massacred a village, betrayed his colleagues, butchered children, choked his pregnant wife half to death, cut one of his father-figures in half, choked several subordinates entirely to death, and threw his other father-figure down a big hole.

A fair point, but none of that was known during the original trilogy. These are events in the prequels that also harmed the ending of Return of the Jedi. Anakin was not redeemable.

But that's another topic.

A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.

Tell that to Mace Windu. Tell that to Yoda, when he tried to take down the Emperor. In the case of Kylo or Snoke, Luke would have been using the Force to defend the galaxy and stop a threat.

I have no idea. I think that's pretty great, but if that troubles you, there are plenty of movies you know the ending to you can watch.

I tend to consider, "don't watch" to be a cop out answer and an apologist answer for a bad movie. Braga used to do that too when he wrote terrible Star Trek. People took his advice and the ratings and box office totals tanked. Is that what you want for Star Wars?

My response is that they should write better. This movie went in a terrible direction, and judging by the general reaction, I'm not alone in my thinking. Not everyone is wowed just because the words Star Wars are in the title. Rogue One was terrific, which shows they can do it. But overall, they really failed in the first two movies.

 

[doylem1]

I saw the film Christmas Eve and enjoyed it for the most part. The casino side story with Finn and Rose could have been left out the film altogether. Poe's mutiny deserved a blaster to the head, complete dumbass who wasn't in the chain of command, so didn't need to know the plans until the final moment when the rest of the crew would be briefed.
But the main part of the story I would have changed is Luke's final battle, Have him actually there but use the force projection initially with the ATAT's and then have him battle Kylo Ren, allowing the resistance to escape and sacrificing himself after winning the fight only to realize him just can't bring himself to kill his nephew so we have a Obi Wan moment from A New Hope. Him just dying on that island afterwards cheapened his final moment.

 

[Claudia]

What would telling him have achieved?
When he did find out about her plan, he staged a mutiny. Telling him earlier wouldn't have lead to a much bette reaction.

Everybody, including Luke, died because of Poe.

I don't agree. The bombers/accompanying forces died because Leia didn't recall them more insistently. And Luke? Still don't quite know why he died at that moment. Would have liked some physical consequences for that force projection, like draining him etc. But the way I see it, he just decided he was at peace and passed. That's not really on Poe.

 

[Saul]

What would telling him have achieved?
When he did find out about her plan, he staged a mutiny. Telling him earlier wouldn't have lead to a much bette reaction.

Everybody, including Luke, died because of Poe.

Good point. In fact sending Rose and Finn off was what led the first order to discover the cloaked ships.

I will agree that the whole thing was handled rather poorly by the script writers. But then again this whole chase as a major plot point was rather flawed.

Written by Rian Johnson.

 

[DigificWriter]

Holdo - and Leia, whose orders she was following - overestimated Poe's maturity level in relation to his impulsiveness, but instead of altering the plan after Poe decided to once again let his impulsiveness outweigh his common sense by explaining things, she kept to what had originally been discussed between her and Leia, which is why things escalated to the point that they did.

 

[crookeddy]

http://mashable.com/2017/12/27/star-wars-last-jedi-mark-hamill-regrets/#W8dv.CqTVaq6
Hamill says Last Jedi is an all time great movie.

 

[DigificWriter]

I knew people were reading things into Hamill's comments that weren't truly there, at last as far as the quality of The Last Jedi is concerned.