5 minutes ago, Captain Pellaeon said:

What you said applies for each and every SW movie. None of them hold up to scrutiny. The way I see it, people are mostly getting annoyed by things that didn't bother them in previous episodes.

- Why can fighters fire through shields? - Luke also did that in ANH. Apparently shields work differently than how we thought.

- Rey is a nobody now! - Anakin Skywalker himself was a nobody. He had a slave mom and we only got a handwave explanation about his father.

- Snoke was built up to be a villain then got killed in 5 minutes! - Count Dooku was built up as a villain, then got killed in 5 minutes. Heck, before the Prequel Trilogy, we had no idea who Palpatine was, either. And as soon as he Luke and Vader weren't duelling, he died in minutes, in an also rather undignified way.

- Leia defied the laws of physics and reality! - So does the Force. IIRC people were really angry at George for trying to make the Force be more "scientific" with the midichlorians and all. Now that the Force is magic again, people are really angry. *sigh*

- Where is the Republic fleet, how did the FO conquer the galaxy? - Where was the Old Republic fleet during the blockade of Naboo? Oh wait, they didn't have one. They didn't have anything except for local militias until the end of AOTC. The FO didn't conquer the galaxy yet, like 2 days have passed between TFA and TLJ

- Casino scene was pointless detour that dragged the movie! - Yeah, like Jabba's palace in ROTJ, Tatooine in TPM, Naboo in AOTC, the Anoat asteroid field in ESB... Some character development happened there, but not a whole lot that really affected the main plot.

- Luke was acting weird and stupid! - Like Yoda in ESB.

- Phasma was useless! - So was Boba Fett.

The list could go on. I'm not going to act like TLJ is absolutely flawless, of course it's not. But I can't really understand why people say this movie "ruined" Star Wars. I can actually appreciate it for trying new things for once, not just copypasting like TFA did.

This is a good rebuttal. I like it.

1 minute ago, FTS Gecko said:

....and yet, you've just posted a huge list of ways it apparently copy/pasted from the rest of the series. Are you trying to have your argument both ways, perchance?

It did do similar things, but in a different way. Quite a few different ways, really.

1 minute ago, FTS Gecko said:

....and yet, you've just posted a huge list of ways it apparently copy/pasted from the rest of the series. Are you trying to have your argument both ways, perchance?

I'm making observations, not arguments. I'm not trying to convince you to change your mind about anything.

Both the prequels and the sequels have callbacks to the Original Trilogy. Why is that such an abominable thing, again?

TFA had the entirety of its plot from ANH. Compared to that, TLJ feels a lot more fresh to me.

One thing nobody commented here: this movie was not made for selling toys (excluding the porgs) - which is kind of new for SW and Disney.

The story (like it or not) is for the sake of the story and much more mature.

The big bad is not a faceless "Darth Vader" surrogate anymore - he is now a person.

Almost no new ships (just RZ-2 A-Wing?) and no new dozen of stormtrooper types (but the cool Praetorian Guards).

The public is not children this time, like the RoTJ and the (early) Prequels. The marketing guys will have a hard time to milk this one.

41 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

...not to mention destroy absolutely everything that the characters in those three seasons of Rebels, Rogue One and the Original Trilogy fought and sacrificed for in the process.

What do you expected? Rebels is literally two generations in the past, what the alliance to restore the republic achieved lasted two generations. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Every generation has to pay that price and even just one generation screws this up … you are ending right in the middle of The Last Jedi or the Empire Strikes Back.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. I'm not sure how reliable those games are for canon discussions, but it's certainly something to keep in mind. I was under the impression that much of the FO forces were gathered for the attack.

To be fair, it's only been around since the 13th. It's an official licensed product, and the story has been advertised as official canon (although they have made other claims about the story that are borderline false advertising at best).

26 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

....and yet, you've just posted a huge list of ways it apparently copy/pasted from the rest of the series. Are you trying to have your argument both ways, perchance?

If that is copy and pasting for you. Than calling you a word is all the retort my post would need. ;-)

9 hours ago, Animewarsdude said:

MEGA class Star Destroyer. My guess is that it wasn't around long enough to be targeted for that, or the thing can only target one ship at a time.

Ok, well there's only one ship left since the otherone overrode it's jump computer to clip the wing. Falcon even has a history of being tracked.

27 minutes ago, Odanan said:

One thing nobody commented here: this movie was not made for selling toys (excluding the porgs) - which is kind of new for SW and Disney.

Don't make me bring JJJ back again, Odanan. It's far too soon.

30 minutes ago, Odanan said:

One thing nobody commented here: this movie was not made for selling toys (excluding the porgs) - which is kind of new for SW and Disney.

Tie silencer, wing Star Destroyer, Dreadnought, Resistance Bomber, A-wing 2.0, Porgs, Salt-mine-skimmer, Sabertooth-gorilla walker, smart-racing horses, and that decoder ring. These are all the toys I could think of off the top of my head. And it didn't even get into action figures of main characters who all had costume changes.

9 hours ago, Ccwebb said:

Explanation of where the First Order got its funding (gambling and arms selling) nice touch.

Don't forget sentient (human) trafficking and just good old looting and raiding.

9 hours ago, Meade said:

Yes, the reactions to Leia's scenes are ill-informed by countless way-over-the-top sci fi scenes of what happens when you're ejected into a vacuum. Doesn't mean it wasn't cheap and didn't look dumb.

BTW, it looked a lot cooler in rebels ;-)

1 hour ago, Odanan said:

And that is what Star Wars is about.

Bravo. Bravo.

A fun and imaginative movie designed to create stories, make believe and smiles.

31 minutes ago, FourDogsInaHorseSuit said:

Tie silencer, wing Star Destroyer, Dreadnought, Resistance Bomber, A-wing 2.0, Porgs, Salt-mine-skimmer, Sabertooth-gorilla walker, smart-racing horses, and that decoder ring. These are all the toys I could think of off the top of my head. And it didn't even get into action figures of main characters who all had costume changes.

Star Destroyers, Salt-Mine-Skimmers and racing horses don't make good toys, though...

EDIT: And those Resistance Bombers... they are meant to be used as pistols by children?

All they need is to have any "sharp edges/points" blunted, and they can make decent toys. The non-blunted ones can be more "display pieces". I could easily see there being new plastic Airfix-style star destroyer models.

No merchandise in the movie?

Hehehe. Very true. That movie stopped me from wanting to get a resistance bomber. I would have got one had I not seen it suck so badly in space battles!

There was plenty of merchandise there. It'll be interesting to see how much they can shift. I'll get Kylo's fighter for this game, but nothing else. And I have quite a bit of stuff from all the other films.

1 hour ago, Captain Pellaeon said:

- Snoke was built up to be a villain then got killed in 5 minutes! - Count Dooku was built up as a villain, then got killed in 5 minutes. Heck, before the Prequel Trilogy, we had no idea who Palpatine was, either. And as soon as he Luke and Vader weren't duelling, he died in minutes, in an also rather undignified way.

Let me stop you RIGHT there!!

Count Doku aka Darth Tyranus was built up over several scenes and even Yoda explaining him to be his old padawan. He had several good interactions both with Yoda, Palpatine, Jango fett, Obi wan, Anakin - and is one of my favorite Siths.

There is no comparison to how weak Snoke is presented.

This goes for a lot of the other comparisons you present in your list.

26 minutes ago, Odanan said:

Star Destroyers, Salt-Mine-Skimmers and racing horses don't make good toys, though...

EDIT: And those Resistance Bombers... they are meant to be used as pistols by children?

Why don't they make good toys? There's a lego skimmer, and I'm sure plush of those horses, and don't tell me you didn't already buy your bomber on wave xii release day.

4 minutes ago, RedHotDice said:

Let me stop you RIGHT there!!

Count Doku aka Darth Tyranus was built up over several scenes and even Yoda explaining him to be his old padawan. He had several good interactions both with Yoda, Palpatine, Jango fett, Obi wan, Anakin - and is one of my favorite Siths.

There is no comparison to how weak Snoke is presented.

This goes for a lot of the other comparisons you present in your list.

You mean several scenes as opposed to two years fan speculation?

1 minute ago, RedHotDice said:

Let me stop you RIGHT there!!

Count Doku aka Darth Tyranus was built up over several scenes and even Yoda explaining him to be his old padawan. He had several good interactions both with Yoda, Palpatine, Jango fett, Obi wan, Anakin - and is one of my favorite Siths.

There is no comparison to how weak Snoke is presented.

Snoke seemed pretty powerful to me, and he was built up a fair bit through this movie and the last. I noted the subtlety however in what Kylo was doing, basically making both motions at the same time. That's not something you do if you're confident you can 'solo' your master. Kylo feared what Snoke was capable of. Further, had Snoke lived we'd go into Ep9 knowing exactly what was going to happen. Removal of this character however opens the door to new things. It also makes Kylo, who the movies so far have focused mostly on, the big villain moving forward. I prefer it that way.

How much did we know about Palpatine (or as he’s really only known as ‘The Emperor’) in ROTJ?

Not much. We know he’s a Sith, we know he’s eeeevil but we don’t know where he came from, how he got to power, or how he turned Vader.

We don’t need to know any of it. We just see a caricature of a mastermind villain. He serves a purpose for Luke to resist him and help Vader redeem himself (something I have always had a big problem with but that’s for another thread).

What more do we really need to know about Snoke? Nothing.

Although there were many things I disliked about the movie, Snoke just getting offed was not one of them. Seriously, although it was unexpected and caught almost everybody off-guard, I think it worked. Especially considering that we have the path cleared for Kylo vs. Rey now. It's also completely consistent with dark side "tradition".

However, I do hope that some light will be shed on who Snoke was. Because how can this supreme entity of power exist (and by his age, it's safe to say that he already would have been old and powerful even at the time of the prequels) without anybody knowing about him? And then - poof - just as the Empire had fallen, Snoke came along. That's just lazy. I understand that you need to have a new big baddie for a new trilogy. But make him believable, make his existence make sense. Give him a story that makes us go: "Oooooh, THAT'S why we didn't hear about him in the other six movies. That's frikkin' awesome!" That's not too much to ask.

Because if all that would just not be important, they could just as well introduce another even bigger baddie for Ep.IX that we never heard about before. And we'd have to be fine with it, right?

9 minutes ago, RedHotDice said:

Let me stop you RIGHT there!!

Count Doku aka Darth Tyranus was built up over several scenes and even Yoda explaining him to be his old padawan. He had several good interactions both with Yoda, Palpatine, Jango fett, Obi wan, Anakin - and is one of my favorite Siths.

The combined screentime in AOTC and ROTS for Count Dooku was about 20 minutes, including the lightsaber duels. Don't get me wrong, I liked him (always hugely respected Christopher Lloyd) but he wasn't really fleshed out for me. All you get to know about him in AOTC that he used to be a Jedi, you get 1 three word sentence thrown in saying Yoda was his master and Qui-Gon was his padawan. And that's pretty much it.

I still think that the not much buildup -> appearing as great big evil mastermind -> disappointingly quick death arc fits both him and Snoke.

Interesting to see the power of the Mouse.

The discrepency between paid reviewers and the audience is easy to see on Rotten Tomatoes, but look at the audience reviews that they choose to show (before you click on the link to see more). Average audience score 3.3 out of 5. Average of the previewed reviews - 4.5 and gushingly positive.

8 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

How much did we know about Palpatine (or as he’s really only known as ‘The Emperor’) in ROTJ?

Not much. We know he’s a Sith, we know he’s eeeevil but we don’t know where he came from, how he got to power, or how he turned Vader.

We don’t need to know any of it. We just see a caricature of a mastermind villain. He serves a purpose for Luke to resist him and help Vader redeem himself (something I have always had a big problem with but that’s for another thread).

What more do we really need to know about Snoke? Nothing.

The difference is that, for the ST, we have a huge amount of context (the previous 6 movies, books, games etc.) while the OT had little to none at the time it came out.

We need to know more about Snoke, because in the context of the previous movies he shouldn't even be there.

I have the feeling that people have an idealized memories of the previous movies. Mostly because of all the background information provided by the other medias (TV shows, books, games...)

I recently re-watched A New Hope for the first-time in years and I was quite surprised how weak is the Force. In this foundation film, we only see a Force choke, Obi-wan feeling the destruction of Alderanaan, his body vanishing and the same Obi-wan talking to Luke after his death. And that's it. No wonder Han Solo was skeptical.

I consider The Last Jedi to be a good Star Wars movie.