General Star Wars Thread

[Some Android]

So I've been thinking about making this thread recently as I just saw The Last Jedi like a week ago. I was thinking about making my own thread to discuss episode VIII, then thought maybe it could go in the Solo thread. Then just thought to make this own thread to talk about any film or piece of media.

So episode VIII...

After watching the film I watched the Red Letter Media review of it and I kind of agree with almost everything they said in it:

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"This film is the cinematic equivalent of Homer Simpson's makeup shotgun."*

"It was pretty awesome seeing an actually puppet."**

*I only have comprehend that analogy, but I 100% agree with it.
**...of master Yoda.

To expand on that further...

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I have no idea what's happening in episode IX, but I also have no interest in it. I made a gif to represent my thoughts on episode VIII and the franchise as a whole:

Spoiler: animated gif

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Too mean? Coincidentally ghost Yoda calling down lightning to burn Luke's tree is my favorite part of the film and for all the wrong reasons. I never thought I'd have to type that.

Anyway I just heard Billy Dee Williams is set to be in episode IX as Lando. Thoughts? I imagine...

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Lando is gonna die. Han and Luke did so is it to wrong assume a formula?

Don't know what else is gonna happen. Just seems like more fanservice which the latest films have enough of. I mean I like Lando and Billy Dee, but what's he gonna do?

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Be old and fail and possibly die? We've seen that twice before in these new films.

One thing I am curious about is with the Solo film it is now possible to make a top ten list of Star Wars films. I'd make mine, but I've yet to see the Solo film so I don't want to make any bold assumptions. Though I think it'd be somewhere below my placing of the Force Awakens but above the prequels.

Your thoughts?

[AMFV]

I don't know, I think they should demote General Star Wars to Colonel Star Wars and get him away from his desk so that he can discover himself.

[Mechalich]

Anyway I just heard Billy Dee Williams is set to be in episode IX as Lando. Thoughts? I imagine...

Billy Dee Williams is 81 years old and has mostly done limited voice work in recent years (often as Lando). His physical capabilities will no doubt be extremely limited, which is perfectly fair. I wouldn't expect him to do any work outside of a studio set or soundstage, not on location, and not an action scene. Most likely his role will be to serve as a high-level recognizable leader in the Republic military - probably overall command of whatever force appears. I'd expect him to have a handful of scenes from a chair on the bridge of a starship in the third act and little more.

Beyond that Episode IX is really an open book, and since JJ Abrams doesn't do endings and Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are apparently planned to be in future films, don't expect much of a conclusion. Honestly, that might be a good thing. TLJ did not leave the franchise in a place for a conclusion in one film. If we end up looking at the story really ending in 'episode' X: project to be named later that might make more sense.

[Chromascope3D]

Beyond that Episode IX is really an open book, and since JJ Abrams doesn't do endings and Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are apparently planned to be in future films, don't expect much of a conclusion. Honestly, that might be a good thing. TLJ did not leave the franchise in a place for a conclusion in one film. If we end up looking at the story really ending in 'episode' X: project to be named later that might make more sense.

I could get behind that. I don't see any reason that all following Star Wars Sagas necessarily have to be trilogies, simply because the previous two were. It'd be a good way to change things up a bit.

[Dargaron]

Unpopular opinion incoming:

I think a lot of the thematic issues w/ The Last Jedi have their origins in The Force Awakens. However, there are some definite improvements.

1: Rey seems much better handled in The Last Jedi than in The Force Awakens. Part of what ground my gears was the fact that she filled so many roles at once (guide to the semi-clueless Finn, mechanic better than Han, force-mystic, Chosen One, etc). Maybe it's my experience getting a party of teenagers to play well together, but it really irks me when Player 1 tries to have his/her character upstage Player 2's character at the thing Player 2's character is supposed to be good at. That's what happened with Rey and Han/Chewie. Having Rey as the resident Force Mystic gives her a role that's almost always useful, but doesn't overlap with the other "party members."

2: I have a serious soft spot for using illusions to their full potential. I had a feeling that Luke was just a hologram, but still, kudos for that.

3: Kylo Ren is...less pointless than he was in The Force Awakens. Admittedly, that's not saying much, and I'm not sure how I feel about sacrificing a potentially interesting villain (Snoke, albeit largely because he was a blank slate) to increase the menace of a villain whose performance so far has been...meh. Plus, the ladies get some eye-candy in a Star Wars movie, and I think the last time that happened was Mark Hamil in a Bacta Tank.

That said, here's my complaints:

1: Poe should be dead. There, I said it. I want the lovable X-Wing pilot dead. He's cannibalizing what really should be Finn's role: rising to a position of leadership in the Rebellion. The whole "hunt down a codebreaker before the clock strikes midnight" plot felt very shoehorned in, and doesn't really help Finn develop as a character. We should be watching Finn, a stormtrooper trained from birth to serve, learning how to lead. Poe fulfilled his role in The Force Awakens the moment he caused Finn, Rey and BB to meet and decide to seek out the Rebellion. After that point, he's about as useful as the guy Vader strangled on the Tantive IV.

2: I know it's a Disney movie, but we really don't need love-at-first-sight played straight, especially after they'd given the concept such a thorough thrashing in Frozen. Use Rose as a way to take the pulse of the ordinary Rebels "in the trenches" as it were, while Finn and Holdo (if she's even still in the movie) clash over leadership priorities. Plus, if they aren't going to use Chewie properly, then Rose can take over the "techie" role.

3: Speaking of which, the resolution of the world's slowest chase scene wasn't particularly exciting. Guest star sacrifices herself to save the main cast? A single hyperdrive can be used in a kamikazi attack that should make Capital Ships a dead concept from the word "go"? *yawn.* To build on the previous point about Finn clashing w/ Holdo, how about he hears rumors (from Rose, obviously) that Holdo had been involved in some "unsavory" business in Leia's service. Have someone mention that Holdo sent out a coded message just before the First Order caught up with the Rebellion, which he eventually learns included the words "repayment," "vulnerable" and "catch them." They do the usual "I don't trust you" maneuvering: Finn considering Holdo part of the unsavory element of the Rebellion for whom the ends justify the means, Holdo suspicious that Finn still has First Order sympathies. Then reveal, at the climactic moment, that the coded message was received: a Hutt warfleet arrives out of hyperspace. Turns out, the "minor" powers don't much like the idea of yet another planet-destroying weapon, and since Starkiller Base was destroyed immediately after being used in a surprise attack, the Hutts were more than willing to lend a hand to their old contact, Holdo. Then we can have a frank discussion of how warfare and diplomacy go hand in hand, strategic vs. tactical concerns, etc, immediately after an exciting space combat scene in which the First Order gives up the chase and back off.

Show the audience that the galaxy is big, even though we're only looking at this little part of it. Demonstrate that actions have consequences, and exactly why the First Order was so eager to hunt down these last few Rebels: because if left unchecked, they can rally support from unexpected quarters. Show just how fragile the First Order's grip is, compared to say, the Empire, and why they have to be dynamic and aggressive in order to compensate.

TLDR: Basically, it felt like they really have no idea where they're taking Finn, besides "angry dude needs to learn to chill." They already played him for laughs in The Force Awakens ("I was in the sanitation staff," getting dragged off by tentacle-monster #3), and now he's just kinda...in the movie, doing zany things that don't actually impinge on the plot. That's sad: there's so much potential to the character, and they're instead spending his screentime making sure that we get a casino scene and the obligatory animal-riding segment.

(Tangent: Isn't it odd that in the second movie of ALL THREE TRILOGIES, the main characters ride some kind of animal? There's the Tauntauns in Empire Strikes Back, there's that Reek in Attack of the Clones, and now there's those Not!Horses in The Last Jedi)

[Mechalich]

1: Poe should be dead. There, I said it. I want the lovable X-Wing pilot dead. He's cannibalizing what really should be Finn's role: rising to a position of leadership in the Rebellion. The whole "hunt down a codebreaker before the clock strikes midnight" plot felt very shoehorned in, and doesn't really help Finn develop as a character. We should be watching Finn, a stormtrooper trained from birth to serve, learning how to lead. Poe fulfilled his role in The Force Awakens the moment he caused Finn, Rey and BB to meet and decide to seek out the Rebellion. After that point, he's about as useful as the guy Vader strangled on the Tantive IV.

Supposedly Poe was initially slated to die fairly early in TFA, but Oscar Isaac with an assist from Kathleen Kennedy talked JJ into keeping the character alive. Which just goes to show that Kathleen Kennedy cannot ever make a good decision regarding this franchise. I don't blame Oscar Isaac - keeping Poe alive surely meant a fat paycheck for TLJ and subsequently Episode IX and actors should advocate on their own behalf, but it was clearly the wrong play. Not only was it a bad move narratively, it also throws of the cast balance. Oscar Isaac is by far the most famous of the new generation characters. This leads to overshadowing, especially with regard to Finn since the characters play similar roles.

And if they were committed to letting Poe take the lead, then Finn needed to be pushed out of the way. A nice heroic sacrifice would have worked just fine, but no, we can't have nice things.

[Darth Ultron]

It does seem clear that:

1)The people in charge just don't know where to 'go' with the franchise.
2)The people in charge are NOT Star Wars fans
3)The people in charge just want play it safe, and make money

Really, I can't picture ANY ''real'' Star Wars fan giving a green light to The Last Jedi. So many things just stand out as ''wrong''.

Right from the start the bombing run is horrible. Sure it's ''World War Two in Space'', but did no one even ever watch a single World War Two war movie?

And the whole, dumb, ''well we just gotta follow them and shoot for the whole movie'' plot is beyond dumb. Your average 10 year old would say..um, why don't the bad guys just ''hyper jump'' closer?

Chances are Lando, and Chewy, with both die in the next movie....maybe even C3PO and R2, to ''get rid of all the old characters".

[An Enemy Spy]

I love every Star Wars, even the objectively bad ones and I think all four of the new ones are good movies and I don't think I should have to defend my opinion, though I'm sure I'll be lambasted for it here.

[druid91]

SO. The ways in which Disney has ruined Starwars Forever.

But let's add a new way.

Starwars The Last Jedi Ruined Starwars Forever, Because it added Paper in the form of the Jedi Holy Texts.

[Mechalich]

It does seem clear that:

1)The people in charge just don't know where to 'go' with the franchise.
2)The people in charge are NOT Star Wars fans
3)The people in charge just want play it safe, and make money

I'll grant the first two, but I'm not so sure about the third one. TLJ was most assuredly not playing it safe. Lucasfilm gave a carte blanche to an unproven director to do whatever he wanted and it blew up in their face. Subsequently they refused to throw the director under the bus when they had the opportunity, which would have been the ultimate safe move.

Admittedly, that may be a one-off. Hiring JJ Abrams for TFA certainly qualifies as the safe play. Intervening in the production of Solo to put Ron Howard - a super-safe Hollywood veteran - in charge is the safe move. Dumping Colin Trevorrow after The Book of Henry freaked everyone in the industry out - safe. Hiring Jon Favreau and the Game of Thrones guys to helm future components is safe. So maybe it's just Rian Johnson? If so, did they ever take the risk at the wrong time with the stakes way too high.

[Zalabim]

The Last Jedi is a good movie and a good entry in the Star Wars universe. Most of the plot holes that people complain about are just revealing that those people don't know enough about science and/or fiction to analyze the plot of a science fiction movie. It is a damn shame that Finn (and alien characters like Chewey) didn't have more important roles (or actually important instead of seemingly important) in the film and just provided comic relief, though I wouldn't complain about the relief their comic, and other, moments provided. Luke's dip in the Bacta tank was more dignified than what Finn was treated to.

And the whole, dumb, ''well we just gotta follow them and shoot for the whole movie'' plot is beyond dumb. Your average 10 year old would say..um, why don't the bad guys just ''hyper jump'' closer?

That's because your average 10 year old hasn't seen Spaceballs. Fortunately, 'real' fans know better.

[Kyberwulf]

Sooo,.. I tried watching this movie on Netflix, a couple days ago. I got as far as Hair Dye scolding Not-Han on being whatever. I forgot how stupid that part was. If she was a dude, in any other movie, she would be seen as incompetent leader. She is even as bad a leader as the Weasly guy. Yet, because she is a girl, she is given a pass.

[Mightymosy]

Sooo,.. I tried watching this movie on Netflix, a couple days ago. I got as far as Hair Dye scolding Not-Han on being whatever. I forgot how stupid that part was. If she was a dude, in any other movie, she would be seen as incompetent leader. She is even as bad a leader as the Weasly guy. Yet, because she is a girl, she is given a pass.

If Holdo had been a dude, we would all be calling this scene a "d+ck-measuring contest", I have little doubt.

We have seen this in so many shows, especially police shows or military shows: the young hot shot is taken down by their superior "just because" - and usually, the young hot shot proves themselves in the end, and in some way shape or form overthrows the old crusty hierarchy, or at least manages to establish himself in that hierarchy.

Read the vanityfair articles about TLJ. They praise TLJ for being so subversive, and new, and good for women.
But even they recognise the scene with Holdo and Poe exactly for what it is: sexual tension.

It doesn't make sense in the context of the (military, strategic) framework which the movie provides us. It only makes sense as an instinct driven test of strength between two people. It's not about logic, it is about emotions.

[Fyraltari]

I don't know, I think they should demote General Star Wars to Colonel Star Wars and get him away from his desk so that he can discover himself.

Unpopular opinion incoming:

I think a lot of the thematic issues w/ The Last Jedi have their origins in The Force Awakens. However, there are some definite improvements.

1: Rey seems much better handled in The Last Jedi than in The Force Awakens. Part of what ground my gears was the fact that she filled so many roles at once (guide to the semi-clueless Finn, mechanic better than Han, force-mystic, Chosen One, etc). Maybe it's my experience getting a party of teenagers to play well together, but it really irks me when Player 1 tries to have his/her character upstage Player 2's character at the thing Player 2's character is supposed to be good at. That's what happened with Rey and Han/Chewie. Having Rey as the resident Force Mystic gives her a role that's almost always useful, but doesn't overlap with the other "party members."

2: I have a serious soft spot for using illusions to their full potential. I had a feeling that Luke was just a hologram, but still, kudos for that.

3: Kylo Ren is...less pointless than he was in The Force Awakens. Admittedly, that's not saying much, and I'm not sure how I feel about sacrificing a potentially interesting villain (Snoke, albeit largely because he was a blank slate) to increase the menace of a villain whose performance so far has been...meh. Plus, the ladies get some eye-candy in a Star Wars movie, and I think the last time that happened was Mark Hamil in a Bacta Tank.

I agree with all that. Though the ladies have had some eye-candy in star wars in-between.



That said, here's my complaints:

1: Poe should be dead. There, I said it. I want the lovable X-Wing pilot dead. He's cannibalizing what really should be Finn's role: rising to a position of leadership in the Rebellion. The whole "hunt down a codebreaker before the clock strikes midnight" plot felt very shoehorned in, and doesn't really help Finn develop as a character. We should be watching Finn, a stormtrooper trained from birth to serve, learning how to lead. Poe fulfilled his role in The Force Awakens the moment he caused Finn, Rey and BB to meet and decide to seek out the Rebellion. After that point, he's about as useful as the guy Vader strangled on the Tantive IV.

I agree that Poe's and Finn's arcs were pretty redundant. I think maybe they should have had Poe interact with Rey or something.

2: I know it's a Disney movie, but we really don't need love-at-first-sight played straight, especially after they'd given the concept such a thorough thrashing in Frozen. Use Rose as a way to take the pulse of the ordinary Rebels "in the trenches" as it were, while Finn and Holdo (if she's even still in the movie) clash over leadership priorities. Plus, if they aren't going to use Chewie properly, then Rose can take over the "techie" role.

Yup.

3: Speaking of which, the resolution of the world's slowest chase scene wasn't particularly exciting. Guest star sacrifices herself to save the main cast? A single hyperdrive can be used in a kamikazi attack that should make Capital Ships a dead concept from the word "go"? *yawn.* To build on the previous point about Finn clashing w/ Holdo, how about he hears rumors (from Rose, obviously) that Holdo had been involved in some "unsavory" business in Leia's service. Have someone mention that Holdo sent out a coded message just before the First Order caught up with the Rebellion, which he eventually learns included the words "repayment," "vulnerable" and "catch them." They do the usual "I don't trust you" maneuvering: Finn considering Holdo part of the unsavory element of the Rebellion for whom the ends justify the means, Holdo suspicious that Finn still has First Order sympathies. Then reveal, at the climactic moment, that the coded message was received: a Hutt warfleet arrives out of hyperspace. Turns out, the "minor" powers don't much like the idea of yet another planet-destroying weapon, and since Starkiller Base was destroyed immediately after being used in a surprise attack, the Hutts were more than willing to lend a hand to their old contact, Holdo. Then we can have a frank discussion of how warfare and diplomacy go hand in hand, strategic vs. tactical concerns, etc, immediately after an exciting space combat scene in which the First Order gives up the chase and back off.

Show the audience that the galaxy is big, even though we're only looking at this little part of it. Demonstrate that actions have consequences, and exactly why the First Order was so eager to hunt down these last few Rebels: because if left unchecked, they can rally support from unexpected quarters. Show just how fragile the First Order's grip is, compared to say, the Empire, and why they have to be dynamic and aggressive in order to compensate.

Should they have had someone save them at the last minute it should have been someone introduced before. And not the Hutt. Whoever's left of the Republic, the Mandalorians, the Corellians, I dunno but just mention them early on and do not have the heroes saved by the bad guys of RotJ part 1.

TLDR: Basically, it felt like they really have no idea where they're taking Finn, besides "angry dude needs to learn to chill." They already played him for laughs in The Force Awakens ("I was in the sanitation staff," getting dragged off by tentacle-monster #3), and now he's just kinda...in the movie, doing zany things that don't actually impinge on the plot. That's sad: there's so much potential to the character, and they're instead spending his screentime making sure that we get a casino scene and the obligatory animal-riding segment.

I think they wanted him to go from "I only care about my friends" to "I care about the Galaxy in general". It's there but it's not really well done.

(Tangent: Isn't it odd that in the second movie of ALL THREE TRILOGIES, the main characters ride some kind of animal? There's the Tauntauns in Empire Strikes Back, there's that Reek in Attack of the Clones, and now there's those Not!Horses in The Last Jedi)

No what's odd is that they didn't have a random monster completely unconnected to the plot to fight this time. What is this, Revenge of the Sith?

I love every Star Wars, even the objectively bad ones and I think all four of the new ones are good movies and I don't think I should have to defend my opinion, though I'm sure I'll be lambasted for it here.

Hear, hear.

Starwars The Last Jedi Ruined Starwars Forever, Because it added Paper in the form of the Jedi Holy Texts.

Nah, it's to make them look old and ****. What's really ruined Star Wars forever was the Prequels intoducing the wheel.

If Holdo had been a dude, we would all be calling this scene a "d+ck-measuring contest", I have little doubt.

We have seen this in so many shows, especially police shows or military shows: the young hot shot is taken down by their superior "just because" - and usually, the young hot shot proves themselves in the end, and in some way shape or form overthrows the old crusty hierarchy, or at least manages to establish himself in that hierarchy.

I feel like I was one of the only persons not to be surprised that Poe was in the wrong. In retrospect I think it's because I am so tired of seeing that exact same scenario you described over and over again that I hoped that Holdo would be in the right for a change.

Read the vanityfair articles about TLJ. They praise TLJ for being so subversive, and new, and good for women.
But even they recognise the scene with Holdo and Poe exactly for what it is: sexual tension.

Oh, thank heavens, I was starting to think I xas the only one who read that into that scene, and wether I was (even more of) a weirdo (that I am).

It doesn't make sense in the context of the (military, strategic) framework which the movie provides us. It only makes sense as an instinct driven test of strength between two people. It's not about logic, it is about emotions.

Star Wars, in a nutshell.

[Darth Ultron]

I'll grant the first two, but I'm not so sure about the third one. TLJ was most assuredly not playing it safe.

It is very much a Safe Place movie, and it's made that way: For Kidz and parents. It's a bit of mindless moonbat CGI ''action'' and not much story. Like the 'great' mutiny among the Rebels, it was a very dull couple of minutes....and nothing happened.

And just look at the silly purple general lady, ''a strong female'' to someone.....it takes her forever to do her hyper maneuver. Lots of CGI stuff dies while she just sits around. The pacing is just horrible.

Why not have Vice Admiral Barney immediately turn the ship as soon as the last shuttle leaves and say something like: Who am I? I am Vice Admiral Barney . Daughter of Denver, the last dinosaur and Miss Piggy. I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to the Rim, sweetheart! I am death incarnate, and the last living thing that you will ever see. The Force sent me, to kill you"

[Yora]

I've already signed out of Disney Star Wars. I don't feel like any of the movies show even a desire to attempt a similar style as the originals. It feels like a new original thing that gives nods to the original movies here and there to get the brand recognition that gets audiences' attention, but with no wish to actually be anything like the already existing works.

[druid91]

My issue with the whole Holdo/Poe conflict.....

Ok. So Holdo's plan is to take the Hyperdrive-less shuttles down to a random planet nearby. Hoping that the First Order doesn't run a scan and detect the little ships. Then, the big ship, as piloted by her, can make a jump to hyperspace and lead the first order off... YAY Day is saved.

Except not thirty minutes before hand, Poe points out every issue WITH that plan. And then everything he says comes true. The shuttles DO in fact get picked off like sitting ducks. The movie tries to play this off as only happening because of the Codebreaker, but in the end, Holdo and Poe had an argument, Poe said this would happen, it did in fact happen. The only part he missed was the planet. And the addition of a lifeless ball of salt to land your hyperdrive lacking shuttles on doesn't actually do much to FIX your plans workability. Especially when your first act when LANDING on that lifeless ball of salt would be to call for help. Which, the first order could you know, detect. Turn around and come back. and then bomb the planet into oblivion.

That's the issue. Poe pointed out logical flaws in her plan. And her response was to brow-beat/flirt with him in some absurd dominance contest because leia demoted him.

The entire thing is a cut and dry, fairly blatant feminine power fantasy. "I'm in charge and brilliant and right, and this hot guy is wrong in such a manner that I can flirtatiously tease him about it, and the old lady authority figure trusts me. Even when I fail I can save the day in a heroic sacrifice."

Which mind you, isn't necessarily a wrong thing to put into the story. This particular example is just very, very, poorly done.

[Malimar]

I went in to The Last Jedi expecting a bad movie, because it's built on the foundation laid by The Force Awakens, which was one of the worst movies I've seen all decade (because JJ Abrams sucks infinitely). And a bad movie is exactly what I got.

First, some actually nice touches:

• Luke's X-wing underwater in the loch. Obviously Luke could just pull it back out and get it running again (which is what we're supposed to presume he did in the last act, before we notice that he's using the wrong lightsaber and not leaving footprints and the whole thing is an illusion), but it's still a nice gesture.
• Grumpy old Luke who has given up on life is Good, Actually.
• "No one's from nowhere. ...Alright, that is pretty much nowhere." got a snort out of me.
• Luke's training of Rey is honestly maybe actually better than any previous training sequences.
• Andy Serkis's performance is pretty good.
• Rose is pretty unobjectionable, I don't get all the hate directed at her.
• Salt World was good, nice to have a little variety. (I'd like to see more worlds that aren't the standard desert, ice, city, ocean, or forest. Like Felucia, the weird giant plant world where Aayla Secura was killed by Order 66.)

On the other hand, inexpressibly stupid and terrible (other than all the garbage that's leftover from the inexpressibly stupid and terrible TFA):

• BB8... what, trying to keep sparks from coming out of the weapons systems as if they're water? As if "sparks coming out" is the problem and not a symptom?
• A single fighter taking out all the turbolasers and a single bomber completely asploding an entire capital ship? A single fighter blowing out the Rebel capital ship's bridge? A single fighter getting into the rebel ship and blowing up the hangar? Did none of them have... y'know, shields?
• The only time "surviving in space without a suit" has ever been done non-terribly was in Hitchhiker's Guide, where the whole point was that it was (infinitely?) improbable.
• Poe Dameron is a garbage person who sucks. (I'm on Holdo's side here. I do like Laura Dern, though her role should have been performed by Leia or Admiral Ackbar -- Ackbar in particular was extremely poorly-served by this stupid plot, or the kamikaze self-sacrifice could have been an almost half-decent send-off for Leia, but I suppose they didn't expect Fisher to die when she did so they thought they had a whole extra movie to complete the degradation and death of the original main cast.)
• Hyperspace ramming. Accelerating an object to relativistic speeds and then hitting a target with it is a time-honored technique in hard sci-fi, but Star Wars is not hard sci-fi, and also if this were possible why isn't every missile equipped with a hyperdrive?
• BB-8 -- the comic relief -- being pretty much omnipotent and saving the day repeatedly got very old.
• Yoda's characterization seemed way off, like the writer only watched the scenes where he was being tricksy in ep5 and ignored his behavior in his other 4 movies.

All in all, it wasn't half as terrible as the utterly irredeemable The Force Awakens, but it's still the second-worst Star Wars movie I've seen (the only one released to date that I haven't seen is Solo, which could be worse than these two, but I doubt it).

[Kyberwulf]

Vanity fair can say anything they want. It doesn't make them right.

I don't get why people always try to site other people's saying to try prove how they are right. Popularity doesn't equal quality. This isn't new or subversive. It isn't Good for women. It was just outright disrespectful. She comes off as someone who got burned by "flyboys" in the past, and now that she has the "power" she is just misusing it. I didn't get any sense of sexual tension...maybe from the fact that she is jealous of him? Since Leia seems to prefer him over her? Yeah, that's what it comes off as ... Jealousy.

[Velaryon]

I haven't watched TLJ again since I saw it in theaters, and I still have mixed feelings about it.

The things I liked:
-Rey's parents being random nobodies. For my money, making her a Skywalker or a Solo was the absolute worst thing they could have done, and having that turn out not to be the case was the single thing I wanted most from this movie.
-Snoke's surprise bisection. It caught me completely by surprise, and made me feel like Kylo Ren had just leveled up as a villain.
-Rey's Sue-ish tendencies were scaled back quite a bit, to something approaching normal protagonist levels. She was a lot better handled in TLJ.
-Finding out that porgs were created to incorporate all the puffins they couldn't get out of their shooting location.
-Surprise Yoda, especially the slightly crazy, more fun Yoda from ESB.
-That moment when the dust clears after the bombardment, and Luke is standing there completely unharmed.
-The reveal that Luke was never there at all.

The things I didn't like:
-Lando not being in the film.
-How stupidly contrived everything about the bomber scene with Rose's sister felt.
-Leia's Mary Poppins spacewalk.
-Finn's and Rose's entire subplot being filler that didn't matter at all.
-How clumsily handled the whole Poe/Holdo thing was. She had no good reason for withholding the plan from the crew. I'd have mutinied too.
-Hyperspace ramming and all the implications that brings up.
-Luke dying anyway after ending his astral projection.

All in all, it managed to retread the general structure of ESB while not feeling like it was a blatant remake the way TFA did. Some things were good, some were bad. I don't hate it but I also think it wasn't as good of a film as it should have been. Most importantly, I have absolutely no idea what to expect from Episode IX.

[LadyEowyn]

On the whole, I liked the parts of the plot involving Luke and Rey, and strongly disliked most of the rest.

I've heard a lot of people say that the movie was character derailment for Luke, but to me it was pretty much the only thing that could make The Force Awakens make sense. For Luke to run away and disappear for years despite a major threat, the reason would have to be something huge. Guilt over losing the Jedi Academy wasn't enough of a reason. Having screwed up horrible, monumentally, in a way that drove his nephew to the Dark Side? Yes, that would be enough. In addition to that, Yoda was fantastic.

I also really liked the bait-and-switch with Kylo Ren defeating Snoke so he could replace him, not in order to turn back to the light side. They sold the possibility of Rey convincing him just enough that I could buy it and be surprised by the turnaround. There's also the bonus irony of him thinking that he's defying/destroying Sith traditions when he just followed Sith tradition to the letter (apprentice kills and replaces master).

Also, I was fine with Leia using telekinesis in a crisis situation. She's known for the past 20+ years that she had a connection to the Force; it doesn't stretch belief to think she'd have learned something.

What I hated was the utter incompetence of the Resistance and the fact that, in the end, they lost. They went from having a fleet to being a dozen or so people in one small spaceship. That's devastating. It's not a setback like the ending of Empire Strikes Back (where the Rebels still have their fleet and considerable remaining resources); they literally have no remaining capacity to fight the First Order. And it was entirely avoidable, in a wide variety of different ways! Some ways they could have come out of this more intact:

1) Try having one or a few midsize capital ships make jumps away from the fleet, in different directions, to see if they're followed. If they're not, try transferring people from the Raddus onto other ships (rather than leaving them behind to be destroyed in a slow-mo chace), and then do the hyperspace slash - you lose your flagship, but keep most of the rest of the fleet.

2) If you want to send out a distress call to your allies, use the Falcon to do so - it had enough time to leave the fleet, fly somewhere else, spend at least 24 hours somewhere else, and then come back, so it had enough time to go somewhere else untracked and send out a distress call.

In short, the concept of having a drawn-out "chase scene" that allows enough time for a ship to depart from the chace, go somewhere else, have a lengthy adventure, and then come back renders the very existence of the chase nonsensical! On top of that, a slow-motion chase scene that just consists of the protagonists slowly losing really does make them look like they're idiots and/or not even making an effort. The fact that the Resistance are losing to enemies (Hux and Ren) who continuously behave like immature morons only makes the Resistance look more pathetic.

And in a different but related issue, the apparently infinite resources of the First Order - not only did they have a planetary superweapon, but they also have a flagship many times the size of a Star Destroyer! - conflicts with the idea of them as a smallish insurgent organization that the Republic was largely disregarding. It was jarring enough in The Force Awakens, but for them to still have those kind of resources after suffering a major defeat is just preposterous.

[Zevox]

Anyway I just heard Billy Dee Williams is set to be in episode IX as Lando. Thoughts? I imagine...

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Lando is gonna die. Han and Luke did so is it to wrong assume a formula?

Don't know what else is gonna happen. Just seems like more fanservice which the latest films have enough of. I mean I like Lando and Billy Dee, but what's he gonna do?

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Be old and fail and possibly die? We've seen that twice before in these new films.

Eh, I don't think Lando has to worry about that. He's not a major enough character for them to have the misguided assumption that he needs to be killed off to keep him from hogging the spotlight, and can be easily left in the background if Williams decides he doesn't want to keep playing him (they already managed to never bring him up for two films straight, after all).

Though honestly, I don't much care at this point. Barring Wonder Woman levels of surprisingly positive word-of-mouth around the movie, I'm not bothering with Episode 9. I'll probably read spoilers for it just out of curiosity, but my only real hope for those is that they kill off Kylo Ren so future movies can have a better villain.

One thing I am curious about is with the Solo film it is now possible to make a top ten list of Star Wars films. I'd make mine, but I've yet to see the Solo film so I don't want to make any bold assumptions. Though I think it'd be somewhere below my placing of the Force Awakens but above the prequels.

For me, they can almost be broken down into the four groups that they comprise. Original Trilogy > Anthologies (Rogue One being better than Solo) > Sequel Films (so far) > Prequel Trilogy. With the caveat that maybe Revenge of the Sith is better than The Last Jedi. I don't know, and I don't really want to watch either one of those ever again to decide.

[Dargaron]

I agree with all that. Though the ladies have had some eye-candy in star wars in-between.
*Hayden Christenson's Chest*

Good catch. I'd forgotten that. Probably for the best.

Should they have had someone save them at the last minute it should have been someone introduced before. And not the Hutt. Whoever's left of the Republic, the Mandalorians, the Corellians, I dunno but just mention them early on and do not have the heroes saved by the bad guys of RotJ part 1.

Aww, I like the Hutts. They're one of the few actually alien species that've shown up in the Star Wars films (meaning: not a guy in make-up). Think about it: they're Hermaphroditic, they're non-humanoids, they're long-lived and they've managed to weld and/or bully a surprisingly large collection of species into their service. With Ackbar dead and Chewie being reduced to camping out in the Falcon, the non-human part of the cast keeps getting smaller.

Oh, thank heavens, I was starting to think I xas the only one who read that into that scene, and wether I was (even more of) a weirdo (that I am).

I may have been polluted by OOTS, but I think I had a flashback to Lauren talking to Julio Scoundrel ("I had terrible taste when I was young"). Sort of like when you watch a cartoon from your childhood and wonder "how on earth did I find this amusing back then?"

Eh, I don't think Lando has to worry about that. He's not a major enough character for them to have the misguided assumption that he needs to be killed off to keep him from hogging the spotlight, and can be easily left in the background if Williams decides he doesn't want to keep playing him (they already managed to never bring him up for two films straight, after all).

Tell that to Admiral Ackbar! *sobs into napkin*

[Some Android]

Tell that to Admiral Ackbar! *sobs into napkin*

He died? When was that? During the second climax of Last Jedi sometime around when the mini-Death-Star was charging up? I think by that point I was just so bored of that movie mostly everything is a blur. I remember hologram Luke surviving a million laser blasts and Rey moving rocks to save everyone, but that's about it for the last thirty minutes.

[Dargaron]

Nah, Ackbar was on the bridge of...whatever the main Rebel ship was called when Ren blew it up.

[Mechalich]

Admiral Ackbar should have replaced Holdo entirely. All Holdo-related elements of the plot work better with Ackbar in her place, utilizing Ackbar in a significant role would provide the opportunity to have an alien character do something significant in the ST (which has been, to date, more human centric than even the OT, embarrassing really), and if Ackbar had mumbled something or other involving the word 'trap' at any point prior to sacrificing his life while ramming it would likely have led to a standing ovation in many theaters.

And this is the sort of incident that reveals the complete lack of studio oversight. Of course Rian Johnson (who was writer as well as director) would want to use a character he created - that's what writers do - but Lucasfilm should have looked at the script and said. 'Hey, interesting idea for this Holdo character, but we saw you just killed Admiral Ackbar off-screen one seen prior. We really need you to not do that and Ackbar should be taking on the secondary resistance leader spot.' Not only would this have worked better, but it probably would have saved money too. Tim Rose - the actor who puts on the suit to play Ackbar - surely costs less than Laura Dern.

[Some Android]

Nah, Ackbar was on the bridge of...whatever the main Rebel ship was called when Ren blew it up.

I remember Kylo Ren about to blow up part of that ship, but then he sensed his mother on board and hesitated. Then a moment later like two TIE fighters blew up that part of the ship.

Were those the same part, or did Kylo Ren kill Ackbar moments earlier or later? "How much of that film do I remember?" now that I think about it. It was late when I watched it, but I still think I remember most of it. I remember Poe's prank call at the beginning. I remember the casino place. I remember purple hair lady and her sacrifice to destroy part of the main bad guy ship. I remember Snoke's role being "cut in half."

I don't know, I think they should demote General Star Wars to Colonel Star Wars and get him away from his desk so that he can discover himself.

Hey if Han Solo can be a general I think the rebel alliance pretty much just hands out that position.

[Devonix]

I remember Kylo Ren about to blow up part of that ship, but then he sensed his mother on board and hesitated. Then a moment later like two TIE fighters blew up that part of the ship.

Were those the same part, or did Kylo Ren kill Ackbar moments earlier or later? "How much of that film do I remember?" now that I think about it. It was late when I watched it, but I still think I remember most of it. I remember Poe's prank call at the beginning. I remember the casino place. I remember purple hair lady and her sacrifice to destroy part of the main bad guy ship. I remember Snoke's role being "cut in half."



Hey if Han Solo can be a general I think the rebel alliance pretty much just hands out that position.

you are correct. The other Ties shot the bridge, not Ben. Also for people saying that Akbar should have done the Holdo Manuver. Akbar is important to us. But he's not a character, he's a meme. Akbar in the books is a character, hell his death in the novels surrounded by loved ones, after planning one last amazing battle actually made me cry.

But film Akbar isn't anything special.

[Mightymosy]

[...]

In short, the concept of having a drawn-out "chase scene" that allows enough time for a ship to depart from the chace, go somewhere else, have a lengthy adventure, and then come back renders the very existence of the chase nonsensical! [...]

This is one of the biggest problems with the film, and I haven't yet seen any somewhat reasonable attempt to explain it away.

All these interviews with Rian Johnson and other Lucasfilm people, and no one asks that question.

I want the guy to try to explain how he thinks this is good storytelling

Even if you miracously invent enough "techno-babble" and bend the Sci-Fi-Space-Wizard-Setting enough that the threads of fantasy squeak - even then this will mean that the emotional impact on the viewer is immediately lost!

The emotional basis of a chase scene is that you put yourself in the shoes of the people who run away and pray that they somehow make it to safety.
And then, they find a shortcut way out.
Boom.
Tension blown to the wind.

[Some Android]

Here's a riddle for you:

Since Disney owns both Star Wars and Marvel would doing some kind of official theatrical crossover with both universes...

(a) help Star Wars
(b) hurt the MCU