30 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

On the contrary, after the prequel trilogy, Star Wars fans were mad and rightly so. Disney set out to address the fan complaints in the new movies and have largely succeeded, leading to better movies.

I am not saying listen to every last fan criticism, I'm saying listen to the reasonable ones.

Meanwhile, everyone believes that their criticisms are “the reasonable ones.” Who gets to determine which ones really are?

Back in the 80’s, Marvel had a comic called Power Pack. It started off with great sales, and ultimately was left with a small but extremely loyal fan base. In an effort to keep the series alive, Marvel began to implement almost every fan suggestion ever made, resulting in a mess of a book that was finally put out of its misery. Poor Power Pack was hugged to death by its fans.

LFL would be best advised to follow their collective instincts. They’ve been on target so far.

5 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Meanwhile, everyone believes that their criticisms are “the reasonable ones.” Who gets to determine which ones really are?

I would hope that Rian Johnson is a reasonable enough guy to judge for himself. I'm just saying, he shouldn't close his ears to the concerns of fans as a matter of principle. He should listen to the concerns about TLJ and see if he agrees with any of them. If he's smart, for example, he'll come to agree with the people who are saying that most of the Canto Bight sequence, with its butt-ugly production design and fake-looking CG aliens, felt like it came from Episode I rather than Episode IV, and everyone hates Episode I, so maybe he won't include more scenes like those in his next movie.

On the other hand, he's a smart enough guy that I doubt he will agree with the stupid criticisms of the bold decisions he made with Luke Skywalker's character.

Is it stupid to thing that the guy who fearlessly walked into the Emperors lair to save his father wouldnt be the guy who decides to murder his nephew in his sleep?

2 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

I would hope that Rian Johnson is a reasonable enough guy to judge for himself. I'm just saying, he shouldn't close his ears to the concerns of fans as a matter of principle. He should listen to the concerns about TLJ and see if he agrees with any of them. If he's smart, for example, he'll come to agree with the people who are saying that most of the Canto Bight sequence, with its butt-ugly production design and fake-looking CG aliens, felt like it came from Episode I rather than Episode IV, and everyone hates Episode I, so maybe he won't include more scenes like those in his next movie.

On the other hand, he's a smart enough guy that I doubt he will agree with the stupid criticisms of the bold decisions he made with Luke Skywalker's character.

Meanwhile, I don’t agree with this criticism of the Canto Bight sequence. So, does that make the criticism unreasonable or me unreasonable?

Further, Johnson - despite being placed in charge of a new trilogy - isn’t LFL, and isn’t responsible for making those decisions.

So, again...who decides which criticisms are “the reasonable ones?” Answer: the very people who approved of what Johnson did in TLJ and placed him in charge of another trilogy.

1 minute ago, korjik said:

Is it stupid to thing that the guy who fearlessly walked into the Emperors lair to save his father wouldnt be the guy who decides to murder his nephew in his sleep?

Well, it’s certainly cherry-picking to ignore that “the guy who fearlessly walked into the Emperor’s lair to save his father” found himself hammering away with a lightsaber at that same father when dear ol’ dad pushed the right emotional buttons (or any of his other in-the-moment lapses of impulse control that we saw on screen).

19 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Meanwhile, I don’t agree with this criticism of the Canto Bight sequence. So, does that make the criticism unreasonable or me unreasonable?

Further, Johnson - despite being placed in charge of a new trilogy - isn’t LFL, and isn’t responsible for making those decisions.

So, again...who decides which criticisms are “the reasonable ones?” Answer: the very people who approved of what Johnson did in TLJ and placed him in charge of another trilogy.

Perhaps I am too idealistic, but I like to think people can listen to good faith criticism, recognize their mistakes, and change their minds.

I suspect that Johnson does indeed have enough creative control as director of the next trilogy that he can avoid shooting ugly prequel-esque scenes in the future if he chooses.

2 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

This may just be a semantic dispute. What counts as "a divide"?

I think when people speak of TLJ causing a divide, they mean that TLJ is more divisive than other Star Wars movies. They aren't saying that most fans dislike it, or that it's 50/50. They're saying that a sizable minority of fans really hate it, whereas the other non-prequel Star Wars movies are all considered at least mediocre/OK by pretty much all fans.

10% is a sizable minority in my book, if most of that 10% hates the movie instead of just finding it meh.

It's hard to know what to make of this number without knowing whether that 78% is lower or higher than the percentage of fans who liked Force Awakens or Rogue One. My sense is that most Star Wars fans like Star Wars movies, so it's no surprise that a majority of them liked TLJ. The interesting question is whether TLJ is hated by more fans than TFA or Rogue One--my personal sense from anecdotal evidence is that it has more haters than those movies, but as you say, polls are a better way to learn the answer to that question. But to accomplish that the polls need to ask the right questions. Not just "Do you like TLJ?" but "How much do you like TLJ?" and "How much did you like the other recent Star Wars movies?"

Again, that’s not how this works.

That’s not how any of this works.

Just now, DanteRotterdam said:

Again, that’s not how this works.

That’s not how any of this works.

Again, you'll have to explain what you are saying here. Which of the things I said do you disagree with, and why?

Because your desperate attempts to create a divide out of a very clear minority by adhering their level of dislike and trying to bring outside elements is disingenuous and is sidestepping the fact that it is indeed a small minority that is vocally expressing a dislike. That’s why.

2 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

Because your desperate attempts to create a divide out of a very clear minority by adhering their level of dislike and trying to bring outside elements is disingenuous and is sidestepping the fact that it is indeed a small minority that is vocally expressing a dislike. That’s why.

Suppose a more thorough poll found that 78 percent liked TLJ when it was released, while 95 percent of fans liked Rogue One and TFA at the time of their release.

Would you still say it's wrong to claim that TLJ is pretty divisive for a Star Wars movie?

Yes

40 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

Perhaps I am too idealistic, but I like to think people can listen to good faith criticism, recognize their mistakes, and change their minds.

I suspect that Johnson does indeed have enough creative control as director of the next trilogy that he can avoid shooting ugly prequel-esque scenes in the future if he chooses.

Of course people can listen to good faith criticism, recognize their mistakes, and change their minds.

What you view as mistakes, however, may not be a mistake - real or perceived - to them.

1 hour ago, DaverWattra said:

On the contrary, after the prequel trilogy, Star Wars fans were mad and rightly so.

No they weren't. These so-called "fans", wallowing in their mom's basement screaming "feed me!", had no idea what they wanted...now it's a new generation of the same type, craving the old while pretending to want the new, crying about their spoiled childhood, achieving nothing...

...

There...I believe I pushed all the right buttons...

30 minutes ago, whafrog said:

No they weren't. These so-called "fans", wallowing in their mom's basement screaming "feed me!", had no idea what they wanted...now it's a new generation of the same type, craving the old while pretending to want the new, crying about their spoiled childhood, achieving nothing...

...

There...I believe I pushed all the right buttons...

Hey, if you can stomach the Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, more power to you. Live long and prosper.

45 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

Yes

OK, so you just set a higher standard than I do of how much dislike a movie needs to attract before it counts as "divisive." That's totally fair. It just means this is a semantic question and not a real disagreement.

My view is that TLJ was enjoyed by a solid majority of fans, but that we have every reason to believe that this majority is noticeably smaller than the number of fans who liked TFA and Rogue One when they were released.

If you don't disagree with that, then you and I have no disagreement.

So basically we weren’t in disagreement the first time you tried to move the goal posts then?

You see there is no “semantics” issue surrounding the words “small minority” it is only once you lend creedence to the vocality of the minority we got to arging over it.

35 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

Hey, if you can stomach the Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, more power to you. Live long and prosper.

There’s more to enjoy than not enjoy in both of them.

8 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

So basically we weren’t in disagreement the first time you tried to move the goal posts then?

I think we just began with different goalposts and it took a while for us to figure that out!

4 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

You see there is no “semantics” issue surrounding the words “small minority” it is only once you lend creedence to the vocality of the minority we got to arging over it.

Of course there is: what size of a minority is too big to count as a "small minority"? That's a semantic question.

Since the other recent Star Wars movies received 87-88% positive reviews from moviegoers on Rotten Tomatoes, I think of a 22% minority as a comparatively "large" minority. After all, 22% is almost twice the size of the 12% minority that disliked Force Awakens.

Anyway, we were talking at first about how "divisive" the movie was. The way I use the word "divisive," a movie that is loved by 90% and hated by 10% is more divisive than a movie that's liked by 90% and found to be mediocre but not terrible by 10%. But I gather you don't use the word "divisive" the way I do. That's fine. Again, the disagreement is just semantics.

We are not talking about 22% of moviegoers.

Moviegoers gave it an “A”. Outright

We are talking about a niche group within a niche groupe known for its overt criticism. That 12% you are quoting is from a way larger subset.

You are not being consistent in your sourcing of figures.

12 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

We are not talking about 22% of moviegoers.

Moviegoers gave it an “A”. Outright

We are talking about a niche group within a niche groupe known for its overt criticism. That 12% you are quoting is from a way larger subset.

You are not being consistent in your sourcing of figures.

You're right about that, but I'm not sure what else to do. We don't have a Star Wars Underworld poll of reactions to TFA, nor do we have a comScore poll of reactions to TFA. So it's impossible to use consistent sources--unless one just uses Rotten Tomatoes scores for both movies, which have probably been manipulated in the case of TLJ, as you pointed out earlier.

We don't have any good systematic information that compares reactions to TLJ with reactions to TFA. So if you will only accept a good systematic comparison, I respect your standards of evidence but there is no way to meet them with the information we have in hand.

You don’t know what to do because you are bending over backwards to feed a narrative that doesn’t exist or at thw least try to perpetuate a narrative that has no basis in reality.

3 hours ago, Nytwyng said:

Well, it’s certainly cherry-picking to ignore that “the guy who fearlessly walked into the Emperor’s lair to save his father” found himself hammering away with a lightsaber at that same father when dear ol’ dad pushed the right emotional buttons (or any of his other in-the-moment lapses of impulse control that we saw on screen).

Actually, its not.

2 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

You don’t know what to do because you are bending over backwards to feed a narrative that doesn’t exist or at thw least try to perpetuate a narrative that has no basis in reality.

I'm not trying to push any sort of agenda here.

I did a bit of googling, and it actually turns out that the comScore results of TFA were made public as well and were very similar to those for TLJ. So that is a point in favor of the claim that this movie is no more divisive than previous SW movies.

It's still possible that the "hardcore fan" demographic captured by the Underworld poll enjoyed TFA more, but we don't have any information about that one way or another. So I'm happy to grant that there's no scientific reason to assume that the Last Jedi backlash goes beyond the negative reactions of some outspoken individuals plus the review-bombing on RottenTomatoes.

15 minutes ago, korjik said:

Actually, its not.

Please elaborate. Luke demonstrated - on more than one occasion - that he was prone to impulsive behavior. TLJ shows us Luke exhibit another such moment...that he was able to step back from, just as he ultimately did in the sequence that you cited. In what way is it inconsistent characterization?