The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait

[Hopeless]

The ability to become a Force Ghost is a trained ability requiring plenty of preparation assuming you quite rightly ignore that crap image of Anakin becoming one as that clearly should have been an illusion designed to help Luke get over the loss of his Father and not the complete mess that altered scene in the special edition highlighted!

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If Luke expended all of his force with that stunt then he wouldn't be able to become a force ghost now if they revealed he had died prior to this effort they could at least demonstrate he has already become a force ghost but as described that doesn't seem to be the case!

Been talking to some people who have watched it and their advise is that I go watch it so I can get a more accurate view on this.

If I get the chance I'll certainly try I just wish they tried to make a better movie than TFA rather than what sounds more and more like someone trying to make their place by literally messing up what came before because they didn't have any idea how to improve on the previous movie which is very odd considering they sacked the Han Solo Directors and I'm not seeing how their attempt to make a funny Han Solo movie which sounded like a Star Wars Leverage stand along movie is worse than what's been spoken about here?

Anyway wish me luck maybe I'll see it before the new year!

[Jayngfet]

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If Luke expended all of his force with that stunt then he wouldn't be able to become a force ghost now if they revealed he had died prior to this effort they could at least demonstrate he has already become a force ghost but as described that doesn't seem to be the case!

I'm not going to spoiler this since it's actually been official stance for years but the force is not a superpower. It's not a random meter you fill that gives you specific powers. This isn't new to the film, it's just a thing it reiterated. You don't run out of force.

Given the reviews and the dropoff I expect by sunday or next week, I guarantee J.J. will reverse what happened to Luke. The most consistent thing the storm of bad reviews from viewers have been saying is that they HATE what Luke did, became, and acted like. There are other big flaws in the movie but that's the most consistent element.

It's also something Mark himself indicated months ago. He confronted Rian about this and said they had fundamental disagreements, but that he let it slide on faith because Rian is good to work with and has some experience. But the audience's gut reaction is closer to Mark's than Rian's.

This wasn't just mild discomfort either. Half my audience on opening night had loud, audible disgust at Luke(up to someone literally shouting "that's disgusting!" somewhere behind me amid the vocal reactions). My dad was with me, and he's a simple guy who likes space battles and cheesy romances, and even he just sighed and was able to break down everything wrong with the movie in terms of story, pacing, and acting with exacting precision the moment the credits rolled, and he's a guy that likes Michael Bay's transformers so he's not hard to please.

I was personally willing to overlook a lot of that, but I think that's because contrary to Stereotypes, a lot of Star Wars fans will justify anything and desperately want to like something they otherwise wouldn't.

[Frozen_Feet]

Me, I liked what they did with Luke, though it made me joke how all old Jedi Masters go through "Yodafication" if they live long enough.

At the very least, Mark's acting was superb, even if we argue about Luke's character arc.

Spoiler: Re: Force Ghosts

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In the movies, it's just a thing you become when you die while sufficiently one with the Force. The amount of training it takes is not really relevant to my point. We've known and been shown from the original Star Wars that Jedi Masters can communicate from beyond the grave, with relatively untrained people. That's all it takes to explain Rey's abilities. Her abilities and skills come from the Force, from the consciousness of all the Jedi who ever were part of the Force.

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

I went this morning to see it, but I don't know what to make of it... I'm not cool with spoilers because I agree it may ruin this story...

my fav reviewer gave it high marks even though he saw a lot (but not all) of the flaws I did...

I don't understand why some movies get a 'free pass' from critics and others don't?? I'm going to go to work, then sleep on it and come back tomorrow to say my thoughts.

https://youtu.be/JSxb29_7Ioo

[Anonymouswizard]

I also like what they did with Luke.

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I got the impression that he's too stuck in the past, and Kylo is too focused on the future, while Rey has to let go of some aspects of the past (her parents) while still retaining others (her friends, the Jedi teachings). Luke has such problems with the near past that he becomes convinced that the distant past is just as bad, if not worse.

To me that's why Yoda destroyed the original Jedi temple (although I suspect he only did so as he knew the books were safe), to try and get Luke to realise that it's not as important as he's being assuming. Yes, keep the past and learn from your mistakes, but don't let the past consume you or you'll never have successes.

It's when Luke learns not to let the mistakes of the past be the only thing that defines him that he learns to surpass the Jedi of the Old Republic. Yes, he made a mistake and created Kylo Ren, but that doesn't mean he can't help the remnants of the Resistance escape from Ben. That he can give the Jedi Order what it needs to start anew, that he doesn't have to live in shame. Despite being unable to leave the planet Luke does exactly what Rey wanted him to do, go to the Resistance and give them hope.

Sure, it's not Luke as we might have liked him to be, but I thought it was an interesting version. This isn't the Luke who rebuilt the Jedi Order, this is the Luke that tried to, failed, and then responded by cutting himself off from the Force and blaming somebody else (not entirely unfairly, but he does seem to not want to remember his part).

I can see why people might dislike it, but my response to them is 'alright, fair enough, agree to disagree'.

I'll say that if the film had focused on the Luke arc more, I'd have enjoyed it more. It seemed to skip over a lot of what it could have gone into.

EDIT: as for why some films get a free pass, in this case I think it's a mixture of not wanting to piss off the media megacorp that is Disney, and the fact that many people desperately want this trilogy to be better than the Prequels (which both my partner and I actually rather like, she rates them all above the ST, I rate Attack of the Clones as the worst of all but TPM is my #3 and RotS my favourite). Note that the Prequels actually seem to be getting a bit more respect these days, with a kind of 'at least they went for a different feel' acknowledgement.

[Scowling Dragon]

Oh man are you getting it backwards.

Nope:

Spoiler: On the Past AND Rey

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No the movie pretty much revels in forgetting the past. You can't say how positive and not about forgetting the movie is when they literally ask you to forget the past.

The ST are all about the present.

Who the **** is snoke?
**** you unimportant.

Why is Ray so powerful?
**** you unimportant

Why did even ANY of this happen?
**** you unimportant

All that stuff IS important. Its all very important. But its DISMISSIVE of it. And it finds apeal in other people who don't care about why things happen and just like seeing things happen.

This movie can't have its cake and eat it. It can't try to blur out the past and never explain it, swat it away as unimportant. And then totally say you are not dismissive of it.

Edit: Simply put, whilst the puppets piss me off im primarily pissed off at the puppeteer. The Puppeteer preaches one thing and does another. With his puppets.

[Sapphire Guard]

Difficult film to rate.

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Adam Driver did good work. In general, the stuff with the Rey/Kylo was good, even the parts I didn't personally like, but the Resistance in space part was less interesting.

Is it just me, or could they totally have avoided most of their problems by splitting the fleet? Only one ship can track them at a time, so splitting the fleet would force the FO to pick one target to follow. Even if all ships can do the tracking when they're separated, it seemed like the Resistance fleet had more small ships than the FO had SDs, so a lot of them could've been saved by splitting up the gang.

Did the Admiral's trick just invalidate every other space battle in the franchise? Every 'big, dangerous ship' can just be dealt with by ramming it with a heavy cruiser at lightspeed.

The arms dealing thing is an interesting point, but not remotely equivalent. The New Republic actively demilitarised itself and the Resistance is not that well armed.

So... there are Force sensitive kids in the galaxy now? Wasn't that always the case anyway?

I'm kind of bugged by the lack of importance of training in all this, that was always how the Force worked before. Leia's not weaker in the Force, she's just untrained. Rey got no training here, but she's Kylo's equivalent anyway. In every other film, training was always super important, trying to take on someone better trained usually resulted in a hard beating no matter how powerful you were in terms of pure strength. That doesn't seem to apply anymore?

I'm confused, mostly...

[Reddish Mage]

I find it curious you blame JJ Abrams for Rian Johnson destroying all his mystery boxes. But then I remember Lost and it sort of makes sense.

Spoiler: Episode IX

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So where do they go from now? All dozen or so members of the rebellion escaped so all is good.

Really we are left with that Rey is awesome and Hux and Kylo are pathetic. Now that Poe and Finn have learnt restraint a Return of the Jedi style all-in attack makes a poor follow up. There’s no obvious way to bring the trilogy to a satisfying end, or even link back to the themes of the prior two movies.

Obviously, the prediction is for Rey to defeat Kylo (I suppose she can convince him to turn but that seems like a horse**** ending), and the rest of the team to be instrumental in destroying the First Order. Without something more to it though, this trilogy is set for A Matrix level decline.

[Scowling Dragon]

I find it curious you blame JJ Abrams for Rian Johnson destroying all his mystery boxes. But then I remember Lost and it sort of makes sense.

Watch the Mans Ted Talks.
As much as the man Glorifies Mystery Boxes, he admits to them being hollow.

Mystery feels GREAT. But you know what else does as well?
Empty promises. Thats what a mystery is. Its a promise. In a nutshell. A literary mystery is a literary promise.

And JJ is a master of two things:

Polish, and Promise. But ANYTHING ELSE? No hes a fraud.

[Peelee]

Spoiler: On the Past AND Rey

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] ST are all about the present.

Who the **** is snoke?
**** you unimportant.


All that stuff IS important. Its all very important.

Spoiler: Why?

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in RotJ, who the Emperor was wasn't important. All that was important was that he was the Emperor, head of the Empire, and very powerful. Nobody cared how he was so powerful. Nobody cared where he had come from our who he was. Why does it matter with Snoke? He's the Supreme Leader, head of the First Order, and very powerful. What more needed to be known? Not what more people wanted to know, what did people need to know?

[Scowling Dragon]

What did people need to know?

ROTJ was also a setup movie. We did not know what happened before because we COULDN'T. Nothing before it EXISTED.

You gotta pick and choose what you set up with a film. But that's not what a sequel is. A sequel BUILDS on the past. Like how in Lord of the Rings they establish Sauron but not his boss or how he came to be on the planet.
Imagine if ESB we saw Luke back in a Cantina with an adopted family moping about wanting to join the Imperial Academy. And then the whole story just repeats near point for point ROTJ.
You would be confused. You would also get bored because the repition and the lack of continuity means that there is no point. Whatever Luke does its reset in the next movie. The Empire just busts out more deathstars, Jedi is pushed back, Luke gets trained again and then suddenly its all back to 0.

This movie wants to have its cake, and eat it too. Wants the freedom to BANK on older characters and imagery, on the audiences collective investment and hard work done by the past, but also just reset them forever and use them however it sees fit without paying the bill.

Disney Wants Star Wars to be like Marvel. Just a series of self contained enemies defeated movie to movie with the same sort of impressive climax with the illusion of continuity or at least just the bare bones impression of it.

But Star wars whilst taking inspiration from pulp ELEVATED it by not becoming that and making every instance important by not implying that it will just loop around forever.

[Frozen_Feet]

@Scowling Dragon:

Of the three questions you claim are portrayed as unimportant, you only have a leg to stand on for the first. The last two are explored in depth and are big plot points in the movie.

Spoiler: Like, come on

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Both Snoke and Kylo Ren are motivated by the reason of why Rey is so powerfull: she is Kylo Ren's counterpart in the Force. Her parents turn out to not be an explanation for that, but her refusal to admit that to herself is one of the two prime reasons why she parts with Luke. So, moving on from the Past is definitely a theme here... once you know and accept it, that is, and Rey refusing to do that almost drives her into the villains' lap.

As for "why is any of this happening?", gee, what about Luke's betrayal of Kylo Ren? You know, one of the major revelations of the movie and the other prime reason why Rey splits with Luke. I'd say knowledge of the Past is pretty damn important theme there.

Now, Snoke... I agree with you that they underutilize him. After TFA credits rolled, I was like, "who is this Snoke guy?" After Last Jedi credits rolled, I was like, "who was this Snoke guy?" But while we don't get to know lot of his personal past, we do get to know his key motivations and relationship to Kylo Ren. Snoke sought him out because of his lineage. Because he wanted another Darth Vader. This explains both Kylo Ren's Vader worship in TFA and why he is so keen to "let the past die" and why he comes to consider Snoke his greatest enemy.

And that is who Snoke is: a malicious, abusive, overbearing parent figure who forces Kylo Ren to live in the shadow of his grandfather's achievements. It's not a complete answer, but it is sufficient for what the movie is actually about.

[Scowling Dragon]

@Scowling Dragon:

Of the three questions you claim are portrayed as unimportant, you only have a leg to stand on for the first.

No I could go more in depth but just the nature of internet argumentation over the years means Im unlikely to make any headway so over the years I learned to relax about that sort of thing. Its just a pure Psychological thing. This applies to everything. I try not to write massive posts anymore and argue for hours because that never goes anywhere on the internet so Il make basic summations:

Spoiler: Summations of my Legs

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Kylo is Rens Counterpart!
Raises much more issues and makes the world of star wars even more unintentionally fatalistic.
Things happen because FORCE makes Darth Traya absolutely and utterly correct.

Taking individual effort and will out of the equation and making the whole thing into "The force provides" makes the whole battle pointless.

And if that is Disneys point thats very convenient that that is the one that allows for allot lasier writing and continous movies.

Why is any of this happening?

No I meant how the hell did the empire bounce back stronger then ever in less time and with less effort. With no explanation it again makes the whole universe deeply black.
Is the idea that all it takes is one scorned child to create an evil that will destroy Planets?

Snoke will just have to do
This ties into the above. He can just make do but this makes me deeply not give a **** about the conflict.

[Frozen_Feet]

"How and why is First Order a thing?" is indeed a good question, but giving adequate answer to that was TFA's place and TFA's place to fail. In this movie, I already who they are and why they have the upper hand.

As much as TFA could've done a better job on this, using the Last Jedi to patch over its flaws would've not lead to a better movie and I don't fault them for not trying.

Spoiler: As for the rest

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I have zero idea of who Darth Traya is and why proving them right or wrong would affect a movie's quality in any shape or form.

As for fatalism, the movie, with Rey's mouth, no less, tells what's wrong with that. How was it again? "[Luke] made a mistake because [Luke] thought [Kylo Ren's] moment of choice had already passed, when it hadn't!" All of Luke, Snoke, Kylo Ren and Rey commit errors in the movie because they believe that their knowledge of fate is most correct. Yoda, a ghost who is one with the Force, tells Luke they can't afford to lose Rey, very much implying that individual actions, thoughts and feelings do matter.

If you disagree with that, okay. Nothing in this movie gives me more to say about the issue.

[Tvtyrant]

Horrible movie, as bad as the Hobbit movies.

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My biggest gripes with it come from it subverting or rejecting canon to be more appealing.

Yoda in the original tells Luke that being emotionally immature and impulsive will destroy him.

Yoda tells Luke here that Rey being emotionally immature and impulsive in the exact same ways is wise beyond the need for training.

In the originals destroying planetary bases and space stations is all but impossible due to stationaty shielding.

In the new movies they could have destroyed the Death Star by simply ramming it at light speed with a carrier in between shield refreshes.

Also the Death Star is worthless as you can accomplish the same basic effect by ramming a planet at light speed.


Also all ship battles are worthless, as you can more cheaply have droids pilot suicide ships into each other at light speed.

Finally the movie was so afraid of the audience getting bored that no scene is allowed to last more then a few seconds, and something new and exciting has to be inserted constantly. Contrast with Empire where long, developed pauses and silences allowed a sci fi movie to feel adult without mindless grimdark.

Honestly this was the worst of the main line star wars movies.

[Scowling Dragon]

As for the rest

Spoiler: For the rest

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Actions speak louder then Words. Darth Treya was a Sith in the Old Republic that seeked to destroy the force because she believed it drove fatalism in all their actions.

Not sure what your point is really. The movie creates a messiah out of nothing and expects me to think its important that this messiah does not die....also because the force says so.

Once you use "The force wills it" as a universal plot solver its like turtles. Its turtles all the way down.

You can't fix a quicksand problem with more quicksand.

Horrible movie, as bad as the Hobbit movies.

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My biggest gripes with it come from it subverting or rejecting canon to be more appealing.

Yoda in the original tells Luke that being emotionally immature and impulsive will destroy him.

Yoda tells Luke here that Rey being emotionally immature and impulsive in the exact same ways is wise beyond the need for training.

In the originals destroying planetary bases and space stations is all but impossible due to stationaty shielding.

In the new movies they could have destroyed the Death Star by simply ramming it at light speed with a carrier in between shield refreshes.

Also the Death Star is worthless as you can accomplish the same basic effect by ramming a planet at light speed.


Also all ship battles are worthless, as you can more cheaply have droids pilot suicide ships into each other at light speed.

Finally the movie was so afraid of the audience getting bored that no scene is allowed to last more then a few seconds, and something new and exciting has to be inserted constantly. Contrast with Empire where long, developed pauses and silences allowed a sci fi movie to feel adult without mindless grimdark.

Honestly this was the worst of the main line star wars movies.

Another really good point. Subverting the past for easy cred in the present.

[Anonymouswizard]

But Star wars whilst taking inspiration from pulp ELEVATED it by not becoming that and making every instance important by not implying that it will just loop around forever.

I have to heavily disagree with this.

Lensman was pulp, and the idea that there's no end to the continuous wars against yet another shell of the evil empire is brought up, but it makes it clear to the reader that there is an end goal for the good guys and that the entire series has been about reaching it (also the revised version of Triplanetary makes it clear who the masters of the evil empire are and the protagonists do end up fighting them directly).

Foundation was pulp. You know, that series that was essentially 'the idea that heroes matter more than statistics is misguided'. The Seldon plan, the thing set up in the first book that essentially drives the plot, fails more due to freak chance than the actions of anybody, and then the assumptions it's based on basically have to be forced back into place. Each story feeds into the next by changing the position of the galaxy and the leanings of the Foundation itself.

The first Star Wars trilogy is essentially a pulp story. This is fine, there's nothing wrong with pulp. Sure, I might have a preference for modern/New Space Opera but I still enjoy a good pulp story. It's probably not as deep as some of the books I've read, but then again neither was the Commonwealth Saga.

Saying Star Wars took inspiration from pulp but elevated it is like saying Star Wars took inspiration from space opera but elevated it. It's based on the implicit assumption that pulp and space opera is inherently bad, or at least shallow, which isn't true. Heck I see modern Star Wars as disappointing on the Space Opera scale, it's sharing the same genre as Revelation Space but comes off as incredibly shallow in comparison.

EDIT:

Spoiler: Commonwealth Saga spoilers

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I just remembered what the 'light speed missile ship' scene reminded me of! The ending of Pandora's Star, where Douvoir and his crew modify their ship so they can leave FTL at 20% of the speed of light, which is devastating to the enemy forces and is literally the basis for a missile developed at the beginning of the next book in a sort of 'well the flung ship was the most effective weapon' sort of way.

[Scowling Dragon]

I have to heavily disagree with this.

I didn't mean to say that Pulp is bad. I like pulp. Star wars is still Pulp. I meant more something like Flash Gordon (Which I personally really love).

Maybe Pulp serial? But I also Like serials...
Maybe its just that Star Wars was not made as a serial but as a sendoff to them. So it has this sense of conclusiveness that those stories tended not to have.

Yeah good catch on your end. Best I not insult a genre I really like. Thank you.

[Darth Ultron]

I saw the movie and thought it was good. Not the greatest Star Wars movie ever, but lots better then the Force Awakens.

I see a lot of complaints that the movie as ''too much humor'' and is ''like a Marvel movie", but that seems like an odd complaint. Star Wars has all ways had comedy and humor. C-3PO and R2-D2 are literally the Laurel and Hardy of the galaxy. And the rest of the galaxy is also full of comedy and humor.

Spoiler: Episode IX

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*The movie opens with a battle! This is good, it is called Star Wars for a reason.

*On the other hand, the battle is not all that great. They could have done much better to show the desperate fight vs the first order.

*Bombers? In Space? To bomb a space ship? How did this ever sound like a good idea? Did someone watch a WW2 movie and say ''wow, we should do that, In Space!"

*The sudden Light Speed Tracker is a bit odd. It can track a ship from across the galaxy? That seems like a bit much.

*Admiral Akbar gets a ''blink and he is gone death'', and it's kind of sad. I would have written a death more like: Akbar pilots a cruiser and fakes engine damage so the First Order Thugs catch up to it and board the ship, find it's undamaged and Commander Kill is like ''why did you let yourself get captured?".......and Akbar says ''It's a Trap!" and pushes the Red Button and blows up both ships!

*I liked Leia using the Force. She has used it before, of course. And it does make sense that the near death experience triggers it.

*The whole Chase in Slow Motion just makes no sense. No reason is given as to why the First Order could not call in another ship, or just Jump closer to the Resistance ships.

*It is also odd for the first time in a Star Wars movie to see the shields, as that is more of a Star Trek thing.

*It is also odd to hear Star Wars folks talking about ''fuel''.

*Amilyn Holdo is a horrible character. I guess they wanted a super strong and powerful woman character that did not act like a man, or something like that. And they have ''not like a man'', being ''a big dumb jerk''.

*The Poe and Rose sub pot is a bit of a waste of time as it does not mean anything to the main plot.

*The Alien Casino is Star Wars enough...but there is no reason for them to go there, so that takes away a lot of it. And why does the casino have the 1920's Earth look and feel?

*DJ is another bad character....I guess he is a villain? But it is a bit pointless for him to be there. He breaks the shield code and betrays the heroes....ok?

*Phasma is another waste of a bad character, and is pointless. Hope she is dead forever.

*I'm glad Snoke is gone, I never liked him. Like, sigh, another ugly evil dude.

*And the not escape in shuttles is even worse then the not escape in the cruisers. And is there some reason all the shuttles are super useless. Like if they had even one TY-300 freighter (aka like the Falcon), they could have just gotten away.

*The Light Speed Ram was really nice....but does leave the question of why the bad guys just did not do that to catch up to the good guys.

*The whole speeder bit was pointless.

*The Millennium Falcon shows up in time to distract all the tie fighters....too bad they did not blast the big grand cannon tank too.

*When they call for help....I think it would have been better for some more help to show up. Even just a couple folks that get blown away....

*Luke doing Force Projection was really nice. I thought he was going to show up in his ancient x-wing myself...

*Luke brushing off the At-At blasts was the best part of the movie. And it was just a projection they were blasting...but in what way did Kylo think Luke avoided all the blasts?

*Broom Boy has the force....horray!

*We get to see Fin, Poe and Rose all grow as characters...so that is nice.

*The message of ''we can all use the Force'' or ''all be heroes'' is nice....but it is not new.

*The movie is full of new merchandise. Yes. But like it or not, this IS Star Wars. Even as far back as the movie Star Wars there was merchandise. As a kid of the '80's I can tell you I had a Ton of Star Wars stuff: Death Star, Cantata, X-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE fighter, light saber, remote controlled R2-D2, and on and on.

*Forgetting History......I think this is forgetting ''bad'' history or at least making something new not tied to the past.

Both the Sith and the Jedi have tried their hands at ruling the Galaxy....and both have failed. The galaxy needs something new.

[Ramza00]

The new star wars movies, as well as the prequels reminds me that as much as I hate Legend of Korra, at least Legend of Korra is good (even if its not great.)

The same [it being good] can't be said for Star Wars. And I used to be such a big Star Wars Fanboy during my childhood and teen years.

[Scowling Dragon]

I see a lot of complaints that the movie as ''too much humor'' and is ''like a Marvel movie", but that seems like an odd complaint. Star Wars has all ways had comedy and humor.

And Star Wars also had Jar Jar. What they meant is the humor is inorganic and mainly comes from very modern types of beats akin to those found in a star wars film.

[Anonymouswizard]

Spoiler

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*Bombers? In Space? To bomb a space ship? How did this ever sound like a good idea? Did someone watch a WW2 movie and say ''wow, we should do that, In Space!"

Spoiler

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I believe you have literally described the Trench Run from the first Star Wars film, which if memory serves was inspired by The Dam Busters. However that was a very well done example, as the bombs were exchanged for weapons that could propel themselves down the target and the stage was set for exactly the sort of sequence Lucas wanted.

I should mention that the idea of space bombers isn't completely stupid, especially if you have artifical gravity that allows you to angle 'back' to be towards the engines as Star Wars does, but they'd be more anti-planet weapons you use when you have orbital superiority rather than anti-capital ship weapons. Even then they're not worth it unless you're trying for a lot of big booms spread across the planet, ship-mounted beam weapons are generally better for precision targets (such as cities and particularly large mountains).

[Jayngfet]

So the amount of bad reviews on Metacritic has now eclipsed the number of good reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes score is somewhere around a 57 percent, but based on it's star system it's ranking somewhere just under three stars out of five. Reddit is basically in civil war as people argue and harangue each other over who is and isn't a real fan for liking or not liking this movie. All of the big SW specific youtubers are giving mixed reviews with some of them saying they considered quitting what they do because of this film. Angry Joe, with nearly three million subscribers, has utterly trashed the movie and made entire extra videos to point out everything wrong with this film. Pablo Hidalgo, who's one of the Lucasfilm's most public figures, has essentially pitched a fit and tried to "agree to disagree" and then drop the issue.

The actual contents of the film aside I would absolutley not like to be a Lucasfilm executive right now. Battlefront 2's DLC didn't save the game since it ends on another cliffhanger trying to tie into a movie that's getting trashed left right and center and the next film on the slate is the one that the consensus even among fans has defaulted to "doesn't need to exist", and that's on the fan pages I follow and social media groups I'm on, not me BSing anyone. I'm just kind of assuming Abrams and company are furiously rewriting IX now.

[Future Sword]

Here's another hard-hitting question. Who the hell made Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic the CEOs of public opinion?

[Scowling Dragon]

Here's another hard-hitting question. Who the hell made Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic the CEOs of public opinion?

No they are just a forum for it. In a pure economic sense this lowers longterm cash inflow.

[Future Sword]

No they are just a forum for it. In a pure economic sense this lowers longterm cash inflow.

Oh, are they forums? I always thought they were like GameInformer or IGN.

[Jayngfet]

Oh, are they forums? I always thought they were like GameInformer or IGN.

Nope, they're consumer aggregates. Those mediocre reviews are an average from across tens of thousands of moviegoers(Over a hundred thousand between the two and counting).

Which is the thing. They're consistent enough to be used in marketing and trustworthy enough to be used by reputable sites, production offices, and firms across the world. They aren't random forums, they're one of the most accurate ways to gauge consumer reaction.

Which is where things are worrying for Lucasfilms producers and executives. For the situation to get this bad on opening night means that their record breaking opening may be followed by a record breaking dropoff and give them far less profit than they expected. Because a film can tank a bad critic score, but a bad score directly from the people who spend the money can be far worse. It's not a guaranteed death knell, four of the five live action transformer movies scored in this range, but it's never been a good sign and it's certainly not a headache Lucasfilm wants to deal with while still handling EA's shenanigans.

For a film this divisive with stats like this that means that before the opening weekend is over, a hundred thousand people are saying this movie was terrible. Since I believe in being thorough I've been asking around myself. Of the people who've seen it that I know, not a single person has actually liked it out of anyone I spoke to one on one. Not in real life, not in chat rooms, not on social media. At best it's a "mixed" reaction and not an outright endorsement.

[Blackhawk748]

I just came back from family Christmas and 4 of my relatives have seen it. All of them said it was straight up worse than TFA and that the movie has no actual payoff. One described it as a more or less flat movie.

Im gonna see it tomorrow with my sister and a kid she helps take care of so i'll have my own opinions up then, but it doesnt look great.

[Darth Ultron]

And Star Wars also had Jar Jar. What they meant is the humor is inorganic and mainly comes from very modern types of beats akin to those found in a star wars film.

There is a big difference between a Super Stupid Utter Waste of a Character that is there to do Dumb Things to make Kidz laugh, and humor in a movie.

Spoiler: Space Bombers

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Was that meant to be a call back to the trench run or even Dam Busters? I was thinking any WW2 movie that had bombers attacking an aircraft carrier.

Still though....to fly over another space ship, and then drop bombs on it...is a bit of silly space science. How do you 'drop' bombs in space? And why must they be dropped from only above the ship. It makes me think of that Star Blazers episode where the bad guys had a Space Submarine and the Yamato could not shoot it as it stayed ''under'' the ship and all the guns were on ''top'' of the ship.

I think guided missile cruiser would have made a bit more sense. Something more like ''space tomahawks'' then just dropping bombs. Like some good Macross Missie Spam.

After the three latest Star Wars films, it is clear the fan base is mixed.

I hated the Force Awakens: Poe was annoying, Rae a Mary Sue, Fin was just there and the whole copy of Star Wars. But plenty of people loved the movie.

Rogue One was good enough for a 'dark' Star Wars story. I think it came too close to the Force Awakens with the ''women rule the Star Wars galaxy now''. And I wish Jin had been a better character...closer to the teaser trailer Jin. But again, many hated the movie.

Now we get the Last Jedi, that I liked....and many hated.

[S_A_M I AM]

It is genuinely strange to be reading the response here and elsewhere and to have so many people taking issue with the things I find most artistically relevant and fun about the movie. :|

Curious though, for other people who have seen it:

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How do people feel about the explicit condemnation of The Jedi as both a philosophical school and an organisation? I know they pull that punch really hard but that's something a lot of people seem to love and I'm not sure how people feel about it.

Also: Is anybody else as glad as I am to see the "Rey is a Mary Sue" people be textually called out?

That's fair.

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Captain Phasma is still a named character for no real plot purpose I can see. If she were replaced by literally any other stormtrooper, I dunno what would be different.

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She's a face to put on the feelings of generic Stormtroopers and a representation of The Empire that Finn is able to hit with a stick. The fact that she is replaceable within the text of the movie is actually a thematic strength, as far as I'm concerned, because despite being all shiny and important looking, she still has all sense of identity stripped away. Something that Finn has been overcoming and is core to how Stormtroopers are used as objectified people.

If anyone's interested , the Rotten Tomatoes reviews are incoming. Strangely, there is a great discrepancy between the professional reviewers and the audience. The professional reviewers give it a 93% rating -- the audience, only 62%.

From what I've heard: There is a bunch of people throwing tantrums about all the usual stuff and they're all independently doing what they think is an effective counterattack: Putting up one star reviews wherever they feel they have a voice.

At least there doesn't seem to be a dedicated harassment campaign yet. (Yes: There is some other different criticism going on that is also shouty and loud but coming from a place that is a lot more reasonable. They started a hashtag for it over on twitter and I actually did miss some of the issues they're bringing up. Mostly how the arcs for the POC mains more directly involve a explicit form of dis-empowerment and coded violence. Fair criticism as far as I'm concerned.)

I no longer find that strange. Im more and more convinced that "Professional" reviewers are just paid off by the large Studios to give them good ratings. Then the fans go and say "Wow, that was nowhere near as good as i was led to believe". This makes it all the worse when a legitimately good movie comes out, it can easily get brushed aside as "Corporate Hype"

They don't get paid off but Marketting revenue comes from them.
You say bad things about Disney so don't expect to get a new screening or preferential treatment no more.

This is conspiratorial nonsense and both of you must be smarter than this.

Screeners are almost always handled by the local cinema. You might be getting that impression from video game things where "product" is sent directly to review and journalism outlets. There CAN be blacklists or exceptions made for certain critics but, AFAIK, that isn't an issue in American cinema space because it only happens at the outlet level: There are ant-monopoly laws in place (From back in the golden age, IIRC?) preventing film production firms from having that kind of administrative control over cinemas.

And yes: Studios commission work from outlets all the time and it's often part of a very controlled marketing narrative. But that only has percentage when the outlet is getting some kind of first shot or exclusivity deal from it and basically NONE of that applies to post release review stuff. (For example: Basically any costume/ mid-shoot stuff that is released is done via an exclusivity deal. That is STILL pounced on and reproduced by every other outlet within their normal production cycle. Its often a difference of hours at best.)

Is there any outlet that covers films, anywhere, who didn't have an opening weekend review of any given blockbuster for the last thirty years?

This is where the distinction between "outlet" and "critic" is important.

I mean: Think about it. Even if a studio was approaching a small number of key critics for something as small as say, $10,000 a pop in order to help produce positive buzz for the opening weekend? Is there any individual who would be approached for that where their expected return on investment would be higher than just buying another thirty seconds of prime time ad space?

Critics just don't have the kind of reach that makes that sort of special exception worthwhile.

I will say one thing that really bothered me.

Spoiler: Forgetting the past

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I will NEVER see that as a positive. Outside the fact that the Movie wants it both ways (Forget the past but buy our action figures, forget the past but preserve the scrolls)

Forgetting the past is a fantastic way to repeat it. The movie extolling IGNORANCE as a virtue was dowrnight DISGUSTING.

Yoda was just a petty **** the way he acted to luke. The guy is ****ing miserable and too old for being ****ed with, and Yoda blowing up the Jedi scrolls instead of saying "Rey has them, help them out!" made him needlessly cruel in my mind.

The OT was literally all about how these people are obsessed with the now and only caring about whats directly in front of them.. Forget the past, focus on the now and just getting buy. The empire sees the Force as a Joke, and that nothing can challenge their supramacy with the Deathstar, so don't even bother.

People live their lives not realising that the government really IS ruled by an evil cult of mages that manipulate the very fates themselves, because they FORGET THE PAST.

But Disney is all about buy our toys, and forget the past because if you don't you will realise what kind of disservice we did to the franchise and how lazy, recycled, and stale our ideas are. Don't tell me to forget the past Disney when your movies are all about Nostalgia pandering and hollow without it.

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I suspect that I enjoyed the movie a lot more than you but I feel that there's a more coherent interpretation of what Yoda did: He's doing the exact same thing that Luke's teachers have always done with him. Tell convenient lies to get him to get off his ass and do what is to Yoda, the right thing.

Yoda's choice of words "Rey has all she needs from that place" while she has the books stored away on the Falcon. Mirrors Kenobi's choice of words that "Vader did kill your father, from a certain point of view." when he's actually talking about a change in personal perception and identity.

Because Luke doesn't actually say that he's changed his mind or anything like that: It would be a reasonable expectation of his behaviour that, if he's no longer risking propagating an ideology that he believes is toxic and dangerous, so he can then go buy the Rebellion time.

I also think there's an important distinction between "Lets forget these things exist" and "Lets stop treating the source of some of these problems as an inherent part of reality and see if we can restructure the world in a better way." You also don't need an extra judicial religious order of space police ("Renewing the Jedi") in order to have people who are still aware as to the risks inherent with certain forms of structural power.

Fair cop though: movie is still Pro-Force in general and I'm mostly talking theme here. I could be very, very off with the actual moment to moment text of the movie.
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If you want a kind of outrageous, thematic cul de sac to be angry about; How about that the balancing of the force apparently requires equivalent strength between light and dark side users now?

Rey's power rising in tandem with Ben getting deeper into the dark side and throwing away chances for redemption. Where self improvement and the commitment towards "good" for the heroes directly empowers the people who are evil, petty and cruel.

Because that's some ugly stuff.

No they are just a forum for it. In a pure economic sense this lowers longterm cash inflow.

I would love to see a source on that or a justification as to why you would care if Disney (Edit: Or any other given large company) drops a couple of hundred bucks off a billion dollar payday.