Spoilers Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Commander Richard
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We've finally learned the true identity of Supreme Leader Snoke though.
I’ve seen it twice and loved it both times. Whereas I was mildly disappointed by TFA on first viewing, though enjoyed it more with repeated viewings.
I seem to be somewhat out of sync with a lot of tastes this year insofar as I found Wonder Woman to be a very average superhero film at best.
I tend toward the opposite; if everybody else likes it, then it's probably rubbish.
Kor
Me too! What is it that makes the movie "great"? Is it just the feminism angle?
Very average is exactly how I would describe that movie.
I was also one of the few on here giving shit to Rogue One's missteps a year ago though. People holding that movie up as some pinnacle of Star Wars that TLJ failed to live up to is borderline terrifying.
I genuinely don’t know. I just remember being bored during the last 3rd & when it ended my friend turned to me and said ‘please tell me there isn’t a post-credits scene, because I can’t sit through another second of this.’ But all of this is for another thread, I guess.
My experience with the new trilogy was almost the opposite. I loved TFA the first time and went back three additional times to the theater. With TLJ, I walked out of the theater having enjoyed the movie but no real desire to see it a second time (or third or fourth). That being said, I'll definitely be buying it on blu-ray when it's released.
In regard to WW, for me it was the best superhero movie of the year (with Thor: Ragnarok a very close second). Yes it was, beat-for-beat, a carbon copy of Captain America: The First Avenger except with a worse villain, but Gadot and Pine really shined in that movie, more than Chris Evans did in his first CA movie. It will be interesting to see if the WW sequels will be superior or inferior to the first. In the case of the CA films, The Winter Soldier and Civil War were far superior to the first and Evans' CA has become my favorite character in the entire MCU.
When they're in hyperspace about to board the Supremacy, someone says they've managed to cloak the stolen ship. It's a bit of a leap to say Rose (in all likelihood) used a Resistance technique to hide the ship which DJ observed, but there's just barely enough to infer it.
That's the true magic of editing. Let's all take a moment to watch the scene as scripted.
1) Rey was born 10 years after Ben/Kylo; she's 19 in TFA and TLJ and he's 29.
2) Ben's fall to the Dark Side happens sometime between 28 ABY* (the year in which the events of the novel Bloodline occur) and 34 ABY (the year in which the events of TFA and TLJ occur).
3) You've never heard of dye? (re: Luke's hair and beard coloring)
* ABY = After the Battle of Yavin
I might have to watch for it on the next viewing. My initial impression was that was separate from the rebel plan for the transports, but you may be right.
I missed some stuff on the first viewing, so that's a possibility.That's exactly it. TFA reignited that SW-feeling for me in way that TLJ didn't. I'm not even sure I exactly care about what'll happen next. As a few people wrote: What's left for movie 9? Not much.
Urgh... reminds me of Padme and Anakin in TPM who are supposed to be 14 and 9 resp but look more like 20 and 6. In this case I'd have put them at the same age roughly with Ben a bit older which would also support Snoke's theory of Rey's light force abilities being there to balance out Ben's...
Apparently never heard of what physical/emotional stress can do to a persons hair, more like.
Even without it, it also doesn’t necessarily take a decade to go completely grey. It’s luck of the draw.
Best movie since 'Empire'.
So, my current movie score is:
5
8
4
3
6
7 (solely because of character introductions)
1
2
Need to see "Rogue One". Sounds like it's largely more than the sum of its parts...
Another forum had me suggesting Luke might cower away somewhere. And, TBH, if anyone knows of Daedalus and Icarus, that's the perfect reason why Luke got the best treatment of the bunch. (Luke saves daddy, decides to do even bigger things, makes his temple at Skyrim or whatever that place was, stumbles - though Rey is right in pointing out that Luke failed nobody, Ren failed Luke...)
If anything, there's a moment when Rey is back on the Falcon for no reason and it's not due to force magic, though force magic is really far stronger with Ren and Rey than anyone in the previous movies.
That and Leia's spacewalk was really pushing it as well.
And the pointless "Look at me, I'm on steroids and for ep IX I will be a soprano, wheeeeeeee!" shirtless scene - okay, so his scar is longer than what people thought. And? A sliced face is sufficiently bad, he just looks like someone who had gastric bypass surgery six months ago... I doubt that's what the narrative was wanting to convey... though Kylo had some really nice hair...
And the Snoke/Rey/Ren confrontation was cut'n'pasted from "Return of the Jedi". Adam and Daisy sell the hell out of it, though, and it's the only scene that feels like a rip. (The "Rey sees herself when looking for her parents as the handicap to her not succeeding" is almost as old as time itself regarding this form of philosophy. And Rey's self-realization-in-the-dark-chamber bit was immensely original, the recursive repeating pattern and how they handled it. Absolutely LOVED it.
Why is "Chrome Dome" (LOL, I didn't say that in the film) Phasma back? Why is she easily dispatched, again? Will she return and tell Poe that she's indestructible and the universe knows it?! That would be better than no explanation and by some distance (12 parsecs?
)
Yeah, it did feel at times as if the script was tailored the opposite the way fans were predicting. Maybe once too often but that's okay. It was a nonstop action/suspense thrill ride and I really loved "plan b" for the codebreaker. Benecio Del Toro - anything he's in, watch it because he steals the show. Ditto for Christopher Plummer and F Murray Abraham...
Porgs! A zillion times better than Ewoks and a lot more endearing! Chewie eats them in the most unexpected scene of all time and it's AWESOME, not just because we've never seen him eat before. And he makes friends with some later on, nice touch. There had better be a playset involving Chewie, 3 porgs, and a BBQ spit toy with a cornish hen figure lifted from a "Hello Kitty kitchen set" or else Disney is losing a huge opportunity here. Heck, I'd buy one and I almost never do collectibles anymore...
We also got the answer to a question I don't remember anybody asking: Blue milk. It's very easy to understand why Luke would become a hermit to die, keeping old comforts of home. It might be a tad graphic for anyone between the ages of "999 years" down to "9 months", but it makes full narrative sense. They really did something original with Luke and not do a "greatest hits compilation", which really would drive away audiences.
Ren himself - I love the raw emotion and unpredictability. They still go too long with the "tantrum" scenes where he's bashing in everything... one or two hits and then cut the scene would have been stronger, yet it still works.
And, yeah, addressing and having Kylo getting rid of the Gonzo Muppet helmet due to Snoke mocking it all was brilliant and original.
A minor rewrite could have added more suspense over Ren's trying to win over Rey. IMHO, having them team up and adding a new protagonist would have really set things up for the next movie, not that the plot's direction wasn't good enough (it was, trying to find new allies, being in dire straits, Poe needing to obey the rules because - yeah - Leia and co already had a plan and he ruined it, and it's nice to see how that can happen as well.)
Loved Luke's death. Great wind-up and using force projection as opposed to "I have the force and all the zappy things go through me" was BRILLIANT. Then we see him fade after it all. Took me a moment but, damn, it was excellent.
Mark Hamill has said he doesn't care for how Luke was written. I can understand why and I am ambivalent... But his performance is award winning, especially under the circumstances. Remember when Roger Moore complained about having to kill the assassin that murdered his lover in "For Your Eyes Only"? Moore did it the same way, with pure class professionalism and both Bond and Luke come off so much more as characters of depth. Roger deserved an award, Mark absolutely does.
I hope ep IX doesn't do too many fake-outs or, worse, does yet-another-death-star. I could be here for an hour over what worked beautifully and nitpick the treacle... but, yeah, while it did lift one scene from ROTJ and it's the one scene that didn't grab me the way the 1983 original had, that's one scene. The rest of the movie did far more than anything ROTJ ever could have.
If anything, there's a moment when Rey is back on the Falcon for no reason and it's not due to force magic, though force magic is really far stronger with Ren and Rey than anyone in the previous movies.
That and Leia's spacewalk was really pushing it as well.
And the pointless "Look at me, I'm on steroids and for ep IX I will be a soprano, wheeeeeeee!" shirtless scene - okay, so his scar is longer than what people thought. And? A sliced face is sufficiently bad, he just looks like someone who had gastric bypass surgery six months ago... I doubt that's what the narrative was wanting to convey... though Kylo had some really nice hair...
And the Snoke/Rey/Ren confrontation was cut'n'pasted from "Return of the Jedi". Adam and Daisy sell the hell out of it, though, and it's the only scene that feels like a rip. (The "Rey sees herself when looking for her parents as the handicap to her not succeeding" is almost as old as time itself regarding this form of philosophy. And Rey's self-realization-in-the-dark-chamber bit was immensely original, the recursive repeating pattern and how they handled it. Absolutely LOVED it.
Why is "Chrome Dome" (LOL, I didn't say that in the film) Phasma back? Why is she easily dispatched, again? Will she return and tell Poe that she's indestructible and the universe knows it?! That would be better than no explanation and by some distance (12 parsecs?
)Yeah, it did feel at times as if the script was tailored the opposite the way fans were predicting. Maybe once too often but that's okay. It was a nonstop action/suspense thrill ride and I really loved "plan b" for the codebreaker. Benecio Del Toro - anything he's in, watch it because he steals the show. Ditto for Christopher Plummer and F Murray Abraham...
Porgs! A zillion times better than Ewoks and a lot more endearing! Chewie eats them in the most unexpected scene of all time and it's AWESOME, not just because we've never seen him eat before. And he makes friends with some later on, nice touch. There had better be a playset involving Chewie, 3 porgs, and a BBQ spit toy with a cornish hen figure lifted from a "Hello Kitty kitchen set" or else Disney is losing a huge opportunity here. Heck, I'd buy one and I almost never do collectibles anymore...
We also got the answer to a question I don't remember anybody asking: Blue milk. It's very easy to understand why Luke would become a hermit to die, keeping old comforts of home. It might be a tad graphic for anyone between the ages of "999 years" down to "9 months", but it makes full narrative sense. They really did something original with Luke and not do a "greatest hits compilation", which really would drive away audiences.
Ren himself - I love the raw emotion and unpredictability. They still go too long with the "tantrum" scenes where he's bashing in everything... one or two hits and then cut the scene would have been stronger, yet it still works.
And, yeah, addressing and having Kylo getting rid of the Gonzo Muppet helmet due to Snoke mocking it all was brilliant and original.
A minor rewrite could have added more suspense over Ren's trying to win over Rey. IMHO, having them team up and adding a new protagonist would have really set things up for the next movie, not that the plot's direction wasn't good enough (it was, trying to find new allies, being in dire straits, Poe needing to obey the rules because - yeah - Leia and co already had a plan and he ruined it, and it's nice to see how that can happen as well.)
Loved Luke's death. Great wind-up and using force projection as opposed to "I have the force and all the zappy things go through me" was BRILLIANT. Then we see him fade after it all. Took me a moment but, damn, it was excellent.
Mark Hamill has said he doesn't care for how Luke was written. I can understand why and I am ambivalent... But his performance is award winning, especially under the circumstances. Remember when Roger Moore complained about having to kill the assassin that murdered his lover in "For Your Eyes Only"? Moore did it the same way, with pure class professionalism and both Bond and Luke come off so much more as characters of depth. Roger deserved an award, Mark absolutely does.
I hope ep IX doesn't do too many fake-outs or, worse, does yet-another-death-star. I could be here for an hour over what worked beautifully and nitpick the treacle... but, yeah, while it did lift one scene from ROTJ and it's the one scene that didn't grab me the way the 1983 original had, that's one scene. The rest of the movie did far more than anything ROTJ ever could have.
So, my current movie score is:
5
8
4
3
6
7 (solely because of character introductions)
1
2
Need to see "Rogue One". Sounds like it's largely more than the sum of its parts...
Love the picture! *g*
I meant that the presumed age gap once again isn't really obvious - in TPM it's too large actor-wise, in TFA/TLJ too small - Rey and Kylo don't look like there's an age gap of 10 years between them.
Mine is: 5, R1, 7, 4, 6, 1, 8, 3, 2
I don't think you know how old Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley actually are currently, nor do I think you know how old Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, and Hayden Christensen were during the filming of the Prequels.
Adam, as of this moment, is 34, and Daisy, as of this moment, is 25; that's a 9-year age difference for characters that are 10 years apart (when TFA was being filmed, Daisy was 22 and Adam was 31).
With Padme and Anakin, she was 14 in TPM, 24 in AotC, and 27 in RotS, while he was 9 in TPM, 19 in AotC, and 22 in RotS, which is an age gap of 5 years, whereas Natalie was 16 during filming of TPM and Jake was 8. During filming of AotC, Natalie was 18 and Hayden was 19, and the two actors were both 22 during filming on RotS.
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