Just now, JorArns said:

This is my biggest beef with the old expanded universe (I'm looking at you Kyp). I'd like to see Kylo pay for his crimes, maybe even tried in a court.

It's one of the few things I liked about the Solo kids finale in the EU.

Sis put the evil little cur down instead of giving him the usual big hug and forgiveness. It's one of the very few moments when someone's bad choices had actual consequences.

45 minutes ago, Maelora said:

I agree Desslok, but Star Wars often seems to be about the opposite. The message that SW has for Broom Kid isn't a kind one:

'Hey kid, wanna be a Hero and a Chosen One? Well you can't, because you have the wrong name, which is why you have a broom instead of Space Magic!'

I'm hoping that this is that shift away from bloodlines and religious orders and the established classism that we see in the old movies. That ending with Broom Kid looking up and see a ship jump to hyperspace (or shooting star - the metaphor works either way) screams to me that "your heros journey now lies before you, son of a stable mucker", the exact same thing that Luke got, but without the brand recognition. Honestly of all the endings we've seen thusfar, that one - right there - is the most powerful for me.

And to be fair, before all the bloodline, destiny of the chosen one thing came up in later movies, in New Hope when Luke really was just a stable mucker, the theme was the same. It was just in Empire and beyond where things changed.

Brief aside - it's weird that I've had a Star Wars movie stick in my brain like this for three days. Not the "Pew-pew-pew! Look at the cool laser sword choreography!" - but me reflecting on what the movie is saying, what the meta text, not just the movie itself, is. It's kind of a weird place to be, especially from something fluffy like a Star Wars flick.

Another interesting article. http://www.slashfilm.com/the-last-jedi-defense/

14 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Brief aside - it's weird that I've had a Star Wars movie stick in my brain like this for three days. Not the "Pew-pew-pew! Look at the cool laser sword choreography!" - but me reflecting on what the movie is saying, what the meta text, not just the movie itself, is. It's kind of a weird place to be, especially from something fluffy like a Star Wars flick.

Would you mind to make a few blank posts, I need to give a few more likes. ?

This whole movie felt like Rian Johnson brought us to the same conclusion we were left with at the end of TFA. The route may be different, but the location is the same. Worse than that, it made the actual interesting questions that TFA left behind irrelevant. Rey's parents aren't really important. Snoke isn't really important. If they aren't important, why ask them in the first place?

Again, it ends in essentially the same place we were already at, and takes TFA, a movie that already struggles with identity issues, and voids portions of it altogether.

53 minutes ago, Desslok said:

I'm hoping that this is that shift away from bloodlines and religious orders and the established classism that we see in the old movies. That ending with Broom Kid looking up and see a ship jump to hyperspace (or shooting star - the metaphor works either way) screams to me that "your heros journey now lies before you, son of a stable mucker", the exact same thing that Luke got, but without the brand recognition. Honestly of all the endings we've seen thusfar, that one - right there - is the most powerful for me.

And to be fair, before all the bloodline, destiny of the chosen one thing came up in later movies, in New Hope when Luke really was just a stable mucker, the theme was the same. It was just in Empire and beyond where things changed.

Absolutely. It's no coincidence that the two most potentially powerful, 'chosen one' Force characters in the MarcyVerse - Lucas Lars and Kemna - are the offspring of simple working homesteaders who don't have any special bloodline.

That was the message we wanted to send; that the power is in you, that it's all your choice. (And oddly, neither of them are really destined for glory in battle; one's there to bring peace to a galaxy gone mad with war, and the other to repair the damage to universal spirituality that was destroyed in that same war...)

(And we actually do have a Kardashian family expy, but they just have lots of money and fame, they don't have any special snowflake powers beyond what 'old money' and influence get you )

5 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

This whole movie felt like Rian Johnson brought us to the same conclusion we were left with at the end of TFA. The route may be different, but the location is the same. Worse than that, it made the actual interesting questions that TFA left behind irrelevant. Rey's parents aren't really important. Snoke isn't really important. If they aren't important, why ask them in the first place?

Again, it ends in essentially the same place we were already at, and takes TFA, a movie that already struggles with identity issues, and voids portions of it altogether.

Well, we did hyperspace jump to the middle of no where when we were fleeing our base, so having an actual direction doesn't seem to be a strong suit of the Resistance either......

Another thing I found surprising... On 'Rotten Tomatoes' it currently has a score of 93% from critics, and only 53% from viewers. That's almost 'Ghostbusters Remake' or 'Mass Effect Andromeda' levels of disagreement.

(I'm NOT saying it's a bad movie... it may be as Desslok and Mouthymerc suggest, that fan expectations were very different or that many fans just don't 'get' the film...)

Frankly, you'd need Phee's super-brain, magic powers and skill with numbers to really make sense of the figures, but it's unexpected, at least for me.

It's actually below the prequels. So clearly whether people like or dislike it, this movie missed the mark with a F ton of fans. The only question really is what does that translate into for ticket sales. We will need a week or two to know that answer and whether Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy should be polishing up their resumes....

16 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

Well, we did hyperspace jump to the middle of no where when we were fleeing our base, so having an actual direction doesn't seem to be a strong suit of the Resistance either......

As you say, there seems a lot of frantic running around, which is fun while we're watching, but as the alcohol wears off, it gets you scratching your head at what they were actually trying to accomplish... There seemed to be a lot of 'we have to go here or this bad thing will happen!'. Over and over again. Some reviewer made the point that this is the most 'skippable' Star Wars film to miss out in terms of purely understanding the plot.

I think there were a bunch of missed opportunities. As much as I love Leia, it would have suited her better to be the one who sacrificed herself rather than Admiral Dangerhair. It felt like Tumblr Woman only really showed up to get redshirted instead of actually important people. Or how about Ackbar? Better he go out like a boss than defrosting in space like some unwanted frozen fishfinger

I like Finn too, but it would have had much more impact if he'd been allowed to make that bold sacrifice. That poor guy never gets any agency, huh?

How about Phasma? I'm betting she comes back next movie, held together by sticky-tape and cyberware... just to go out in an even more useless fashion. (Note to fans: online petitions insisting they make a rubbish character female doesn't actually mean that the character will no longer be rubbish. You just get a rubbish character played by a female.)

And I still don't understand what they were trying to tell us with Space-Superman Leia. I actually asked one of my friends if I'd really seen that bit or if it was just a whisky-induced hallucination...

9 minutes ago, Maelora said:

As you say, there seems a lot of frantic running around, which is fun while we're watching, but as the alcohol wears off, it gets you scratching your head at what they were actually trying to accomplish... There seemed be a lot of 'we have to go here or this bad thing will happen!'. Over and over again. Some reviewer made the point that this is the most 'skippable' Star Wars film to miss out in terms of purely understanding the plot.

I think there were a bunch of missed opportunities. As much as I love Leia, it would have suited her better to be the one who sacrificed herself rather than Admiral Dangerhair. It felt like Tumblr Woman only really showed up to get redshirted instead of actually important people. Or how about Ackbar? Better he go out like a boss than defrosting in space like some unwanted frozen fishfinger

I like Finn too, but it would have had much more impact if he'd been allowed to make that bold sacrifice. That poor guy never gets any agency, huh?

And I still don't understand what they were trying to tell us with Space-Superman Leia. I actually asked one of my friends if I'd really seen that bit or if it was just a whisky-induced hallucination...

I would crumple up a lot of the details and reset the whole thing personally. No super hyperspace tracker BS. I would've had Interdictors and Poe and company blow one of those up. Then it would be like,

"We've got a partial hole in the Interdictor field but we can't go far and they'll be able to calculate our jump point pretty quick!""WE can't even be sure of our destination coordinates!!" "F it!, we've got no choice! Punch it!"

Then 'zoooooommmm' we jump and we are like "We've got maybe an hour! Where did we end up?!" "It's empty space!" Admiral Ackbar "We're less than 1/2 a Parsec from the ancient Whatchamacallit space battlefield!, We can hide there and set a Trap!"

"OK, we are gonna make our last stand in the ancient battlefield, it'll be very space Alamo and way more awesome than us driving in a straight line in empty space for an hour and a half!"

"We need our allies if we have any hope." "Finn, we need you to go get Rey and Luke, we need that Master Skywalker magic to rally our allies." "Poe, you're just an action figure that flies X-wings so you'll stay be here and be in several awesome cut scenes back to the Resistance fleet showing us fighting off the 1st Order in fighter scenes, sneaky uses of space mines, and infantry firing cannons from floating space hulks in the ancient ship debris, which again will look much cooler than driving in the straight line for 90 minutes in nothing."

Luke and Rey stuff more or less as was but with way less Force cell phone/telepathy boyfriend/girlfriend arguments between Rey and Kylo. Luke is just as burned out and grumpy then Finn shows up and says "Rey, Luke, the Resistance needs you! Only you can convince our allies!" Luke is like "No way I'm too old and grumpy" Then Finn plays a holo message from Leia and she's all "Help me Master Skywalker, you're my only hope." and he's like "Aww that's bull, but I'm in." Zooooommmmmmm, Then Finn, Rey, Chewie, droids fly off and get help from 'allies' and Benicio can be there and is like 2nd fiddle to whoever is calling the shots and he still turns on them and still delivers the best line of Last Jedi about 'Be free, don't join' or whatever.

Zoommmmmm, allies swoop into the middle of the big fight, the Resistance is holding but is clealry losing and then "Poe, we're here!" Queue the awesome Star Wars music we should have and it's all ships blasting and flying around, zapzapzapzap, kaboom!, space hulk crashing into star destroyer, zoommm, zapzap, it's like 3x better than the beginning of Revenge and end of Return together!

Luke is like "Chewie, get us onto that ship. Rey and I need to confront Snoke and Kylo!" Poe is like "I'll clear a path!" Zoooommmm zapzapzap.

Huge awesome Sith Lord/Jedi Master battle. Awesome Padawan/Apprentice lightsaber battle. Luke has to sacrifice himself to save Rey and Snoke gets him. Snoke gloats "Muhahhahaaha, now you're mine!" Except Kylo snuck behind him Zark! Lightsaber back stab! "No, she's mine!" All badaas Sith glowing eyes evil, Muhahahaha! Rey is frowny sad face and broken. Cut to Admiral Evening gown, "We're losing! Everyone to the pods! I need to sacrifice myself awesomely!" Zooommmmm Kaboom!!!! Lightspeed kamikaze crash!

Back to the bad guy huge ship. It's exploding, Chewie and Finn are crying they have to lift off soon and Rey isn't answering! Rey lies on the floor crying and heartbroken! Queue the disembodied Luke Voice! "Run Rey!" Rey looks up shocked and gets to her feet, sprints to the bay, and Force jumps onto the Falcon landing ramp at the last second! Zoooooommmmm!!!! They escape barely.

The 1st order ships are blasted. The Resistance ships are blasted. Leia says we're down but never out. Everyone fist bumps and high fives, we are the spark! Put it on a T-shirt! Zoommmmm!

roll credits.

41 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

It's actually below the prequels. So clearly whether people like or dislike it, this movie missed the mark with a F ton of fans. The only question really is what does that translate into for ticket sales. We will need a week or two to know that answer and whether Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy should be polishing up their resumes....

I can easily see why - I've spent the morning debating back and forth on facebook, trying to counter all the "Nothing happened in this movie!" negativity - a futile attempt, I know.

I just hope the movie doesn't tank (well, as much as a Star Wars film can tank) because of this. It's no skin off my nose when something like Batmanslaughter vs Space Jesus fails - yes it was ambitious but Zack Snyder has no skills in story telling, so it (and Justice League) were a doomed project from the outset. Seeing a very ambitious, very introspective, very paradigm shifting Star Wars movie fail despite succeeding at it's equally lofty ambitions - that's going to hurt if Disney goes back to "safe" and "the Star Wars you remember" because of it.

That said, I don't see Solo moving any goal posts. We wont see the effects from these ripples from this until years down the road.

18 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

I would crumple up a lot of the details and reset the whole thing personally. No super hyperspace tracker BS. I would've had Interdictors and Poe and company blow one of those up. Then it would be like,

"We've got a partial hole in the Interdictor field but we can't go far and they'll be able to calculate our jump point pretty quick!""WE can't even be sure of our destination coordinates!!" "F it!, we've got no choice! Punch it!"

Then 'zoooooommmm' we jump and we are like "We've got maybe an hour! Where did we end up?!" "It's empty space!" Admiral Ackbar "We're less than 1/2 a Parsec from the ancient Whatchamacallit space battlefield!, We can hide there and set a Trap!"

"OK, we are gonna make our last stand in the ancient battlefield, it'll be very space Alamo and way more awesome than us driving in a straight line in empty space for an hour and a half!"

"We need our allies if we have any hope." "Finn, we need you to go get Rey and Luke, we need that Master Skywalker magic to rally our allies." "Poe, you're just an action figure that flies X-wings so you'll stay be here and be in several awesome cut scenes back to the Resistance fleet showing us fighting off the 1st Order in fighter scenes, sneaky uses of space mines, and infantry firing cannons from floating space hulks in the ancient ship debris, which again will look much cooler than driving in the straight line for 90 minutes in nothing."

Luke and Rey stuff more or less as was but with way less Force cell phone/telepathy boyfriend/girlfriend arguments between Rey and Kylo. Luke is just as burned out and grumpy then Finn shows up and says "Rey, Luke, the Resistance needs you! Only you can convince our allies!" Luke is like "No way I'm too old and grumpy" Then Finn plays a holo message from Leia and she's all "Help me Master Skywalker, you're my only hope." and he's like "Aww that's bull, but I'm in." Zooooommmmmmm, Then Finn, Rey, Chewie, droids fly off and get help from 'allies' and Benicio can be there and is like 2nd fiddle to whoever is calling the shots and he still turns on them and still delivers the best line of Last Jedi about 'Be free, don't join' or whatever.

Zoommmmmm, allies swoop into the middle of the big fight, the Resistance is holding but is clealry losing and then "Poe, we're here!" Queue the awesome Star Wars music we should have and it's all ships blasting and flying around, zapzapzapzap, kaboom!, space hulk crashing into star destroyer, zoommm, zapzap, it's like 3x better than the beginning of Revenge and end of Return together!

Luke is like "Chewie, get us onto that ship. Rey and I need to confront Snoke and Kylo!" Poe is like "I'll clear a path!" Zoooommmm zapzapzap.

Huge awesome Sith Lord/Jedi Master battle. Awesome Padawan/Apprentice lightsaber battle. Luke has to sacrifice himself to save Rey and Snoke gets him. Snoke gloats "Muhahhahaaha, now you're mine!" Except Kylo snuck behind him Zark! Lightsaber back stab! "No, she's mine!" All badaas Sith glowing eyes evil, Muhahahaha! Rey is frowny sad face and broken. Cut to Admiral Evening gown, "We're losing! Everyone to the pods! I need to sacrifice myself awesomely!" Zooommmmm Kaboom!!!! Lightspeed kamikaze crash!

Back to the bad guy huge ship. It's exploding, Chewie and Finn are crying they have to lift off soon and Rey isn't answering! Rey lies on the floor crying and heartbroken! Queue the disembodied Luke Voice! "Run Rey!" Rey looks up shocked and gets to her feet, sprints to the bay, and Force jumps onto the Falcon landing ramp at the last second! Zoooooommmmm!!!! They escape barely.

The 1st order ships are blasted. The Resistance ships are blasted. Leia says we're down but never out. Everyone fist bumps and high fives, we are the spark! Put it on a T-shirt! Zoommmmm!

roll credits.

THIS is now my favorite Star Wars movie.

I'm just super happy the duality of the Force was preserved, and that the moral relativist Slicer was a bad guy. Star Wars lives. I couldn't be more relieved.

47 minutes ago, Maelora said:

As much as I love Leia, it would have suited her better to be the one who sacrificed herself rather than Admiral Dangerhair. It felt like Tumblr Woman only really showed up to get redshirted instead of actually important people.

In retrospect, knowing the death that was lurking right around the corner, going with Leia instead of Vice Admiral Redshirt would have been the smart way to go, and the most sastifying from story terms. But unfortunatly by the time that sending leia out like that seemed like a good idea, the actress was unavailable for re-shoots. Catch 22.

47 minutes ago, Maelora said:

Or how about Ackbar? Better he go out like a boss than defrosting in space like some unwanted frozen fishfinger

That would have been the way to go. Perhaps since Ackbar's voice actor was dead, they were locked into the same problem with Leia? Okay, finding a sound-alike is easier than getting a Princess-alike, but perhaps it wasnt an option?

47 minutes ago, Maelora said:

I like Finn too, but it would have had much more impact if he'd been allowed to make that bold sacrifice. That poor guy never gets any agency, huh?

That would have been a great touch. As Finn was roaring along, I was thinking "Okay, everything else has been topsy-turvey so far. Are they actually going to do this?" Also, while we're rewriting bits - I might have subverted the thone room even more. Save Kylo Ben but turn Rey. How strong and unexpected would that have been?

47 minutes ago, Maelora said:

And I still don't understand what they were trying to tell us with Space-Superman Leia.

Okay, I'll admit that Superleia was one of the WTF moments of the movie. I did not like that bit.

15 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Okay, I'll admit that Superleia was one of the WTF moments of the movie. I did not like that bit.

How about Luke milking the sea cow and drinking it? Does that make the team?.....

5 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

How about Luke milking the sea cow and drinking it? Does that make the team?.....

Thank you. I'd managed to forget about that until you brought it up. Now I'm queasy again.

53 minutes ago, JorArns said:

THIS is now my favorite Star Wars movie.

2P51 put waaaay more thought into that post than Rian Johnson did into his film.

That said, I respect Desslok's opinion that it had some lofty concepts and broke the mould in many ways. It didn't work for me, but I can certainly see how it would be thought-provoking for many fans.

I actually get how this one actually divided the fanbase a bit. And hope they don't shy away from controversy in the future.

And yeah, switching Rey and Ren would have been awesome She'd actually been less of a 'perfect' character in this one, and the film humanised her a lot for me. In Force Awakens, she didn't seem so much of a person than the living embodiment of 'Girl Power(TM)'. Now, I love me some strong women, but they need a personality too. And this time, she didn't have it her own way, and got to show strength in actual adversity.

I genuinely hope they let her be a female version of Broom Kid and be awesome for herself and not her surname.

11 minutes ago, Maelora said:

2P51 put waaaay more thought into that post than Rian Johnson did into his film.

Flattering but tragic. They took months and blew through a quarter billion dollars. I did my morning slackercise and knocked that out in between breakfast burritos.....

4 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

Flattering but tragic. They took months and blew through a quarter billion dollars. I did my morning slackercise and knocked that out in between breakfast burritos.....

Mmmm..... Burritos. But in a more serious note, they could have done better. I get wanting to 'fake us out' so to speak, but some of this was poorly thought out.

Really the basic movie outline is fine. I just found the casino planet didn't work for me. Luke and Rey was fine. The Resistance fleet flying in a straight line wasn't clever, trend setting, new thinking, or any other fluffiness imo, it was just boring and needed a re-work badly. Plus in my version Luke/Rey needed to be tied to Finn more imo.

2 hours ago, 2P51 said:

It's actually below the prequels. So clearly whether people like or dislike it, this movie missed the mark with a F ton of fans. The only question really is what does that translate into for ticket sales. We will need a week or two to know that answer and whether Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy should be polishing up their resumes....

I definitely won't be going back to the theater for multiple viewings of TLJ like I did for ROTS and TFA. To be honest, I may just wait until episode 9 hits the discount theater next time around. That's how much it missed the mark for me. Complete travesty of a Star Wars film.

I wouldn't call it a travesty. Rather, they missed tying up plot holes (while creating entirely new ones) in an unsatisfying manner to me.

2 hours ago, Vorzakk said:

Thank you. I'd managed to forget about that until you brought it up. Now I'm queasy again.

Ya know it's totally the first movie GIF.....Milk. it does a body good....

1 hour ago, JorArns said:

I wouldn't call it a travesty. Rather, they missed tying up plot holes (while creating entirely new ones) in an unsatisfying manner to me.

I think Johnson did not feel obligated to clear up JJ "Binks" Abrams Mystery Box mess. The first scene with Luke makes this for me very clear. The movie felt very much not aiming for cheap emotions based on nostalgia, but going forward and leaving the past behind. This was one of the themes of the movie and it was how it treated the movies which came before. Acknowledging them, but not getting hold back by the past.