Hmm... although an American, I'm not a very political person (especially in an American sense, I don't really like trying to divide things up in the whole liberal vs. conservative thing). But I do have a few thoughts about the political thoughts above (I didn't quote anyone because I'm not singling anyone out or really trying to argue with anyone).

Diversity - I actually thought that this was very well done. Characters seemed pretty randomly chosen, and I personally think that was the best way to handle this. Plenty of the generals and random foot soldiers in the Resistance were white guys, and as noted above many of them were also ethnic minorities and aliens. The First Order, although having mostly white guys as their leaders, also actually had pretty good ethnic diversity from what we saw of the non-speaking roles (the random lieutenants walking around in the background). I also liked the fact that older women were portrayed in leadership roles, and that there was very minimal makeup on any of the actors.

Empowerment of women - action movies, in my mind, usually do a bad job at this. In a lot of older movies, women only acted as damsels-in-distress, and the reaction has been to have newer movies have women leads who are often pseudo-men, who think with their fists rather than their heads, and have irrational rage and other overly macho qualities. I think that portraying women as having to act like men to survive in an action movie is a huge trap - it ends up disempowering women, because they are at a huge disadvantage pretending to be something they're not. And that's something that I think Star Wars always did better - Princess Leia was the original empowered yet feminine lead, and she fit the damsel-in-distress archetype while still fighting the Empire (Star Wars Insider has written some excellent articles on this subject). And I think that Rey follows this example very well. Rey is definitely empowered in the way people expect of modern action movies - fighting the royal guards, lifting the rocks, firing the guns on the Falcon. But she's also a character who's not afraid to be feminine - she cried at least five or six times in the movie, did what she did to protect her friends (not to seek vengeance), and was intelligent in her conversations with Kylo, trying to reason with him rather than intimidate him. Basically, Rey is the same character as Luke - this powerful Jedi who has a perfect balance of masculine and feminine qualities. It makes for a good movie, because all the decisions are harder for such characters (Luke only barely chose to fight Palpatine, only barely chose not to kill Vader, only ignited his Lightsaber twice in RotJ. Rey only barely decided not to follow Kylo, only barely decided to leave the island, etc.). But it also makes for great characters, because it shows that both men and women should be allowed to use both sides of their personalities. And that's why Rey is now tied with Luke as my favorite Star Wars character. As for empowerment of other women, as I said earlier, I really liked that older women were allowed to do stuff (Holdo, Leia, Leia's aide), and those women were all allowed to be relatively feminine.

1 hour ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Oh yes, please continue to tell me how i'm supposed to view and think about star wars.

He's not telling you how to think about Star Wars -- he's stating facts about the director. You can also think of this as he's not telling you how to view Star Wars, but the guy who created it certainly is and can. If you're well versed in authorship and the theories around it (whether it's St. Jerome's de Viris Illustribus, Sontag, Foucault, or auteur theory from the Cahiers du Cinema crowd), even after hundred of years these aren't the parts in debate -- foundational tenets of any discussion of authorship are that an author speaking about their influences at the time of the conception of a work is about as good of a source as you can get. Rather than trying to modify facts to fit your view, consider shaping your views to fit the facts.

I mean, I love Rose. So I will fight anyone who criticizes her inclusion.

5 minutes ago, Sithborg said:

I mean, I love Rose. So I will fight anyone who criticizes her inclusion.

6 hours ago, RedHotDice said:

You guys still discussing this movie?!?

Beats reading the latest nerf thread.

I'm pretty interested in the social political themes people have found in these movies, and people are keeping it quite civil, which is the important part.

28 minutes ago, Wondergecko said:

He's not telling you how to think about Star Wars -- he's stating facts about the director. You can also think of this as he's not telling you how to view Star Wars, but the guy who created it certainly is and can. If you're well versed in authorship and the theories around it (whether it's St. Jerome's de Viris Illustribus, Sontag, Foucault, or auteur theory from the Cahiers du Cinema crowd), even after hundred of years these aren't the parts in debate -- foundational tenets of any discussion of authorship are that an author speaking about their influences at the time of the conception of a work is about as good of a source as you can get. Rather than trying to modify facts to fit your view, consider shaping your views to fit the facts.

Yes, its fine for information, but you're ignoring a whole school of artistry which admits once art is out in public view, it is no longer the artist's only to say how it is. Froo Fee Hoity Toity philosophies aside, the basics are that whether Lucas likes or dislikes a Star Wars movie, for example, hardly matters anymore. Unless you're going to swear, for some reason, that his view of Star Wars is Gospel as the creator.

And if you do, I cannot help you, because that means you like Phantom Menace, too.

It's certainly fun, though, to know what creators were thinking. Like, how Jar Jar Binks actually made it into the prequels...

I didn't like the movie, but more because it felt like the movie didn't know what it wanted to be rather than certain plot points in the movie. Is it a kids movie? Because some of the scenes (Snoke getting bisected for instance) really scream, "Don't take your kid to see this."

There's a ton of scenes in all the movies that feel weird.

I think the worst part about this movie is that after watching this one, I don't particularly care about the series anymore.

16 minutes ago, KelRiever said:

Yes, its fine for information, but you're ignoring a whole school of artistry which admits once art is out in public view, it is no longer the artist's only to say how it is. Froo Fee Hoity Toity philosophies aside, the basics are that whether Lucas likes or dislikes a Star Wars movie, for example, hardly matters anymore. Unless you're going to swear, for some reason, that his view of Star Wars is Gospel as the creator.

And if you do, I cannot help you, because that means you like Phantom Menace, too.

Yes, it's very common to say that interpretation is in the hands of the viewer, but only as a lens through which to view other things. In other words, it's fair for me to interpret the Iraq war through a lens colored by ANH, but it's not fair for me to say that ANH was an allegory for WW1. In other words, a viewers interpretation is valid and true as long as it doesn't try to twist the author's intent beyond what is demonstrably untrue. As for hoity toity -- that's in the eyes of the beholder. These are no more challenging to read than any Star Wars novel, it's just a matter of what you choose to read. By your own admission, art isn't inherently elitist, right?

Now, as for the prequel trilogy: There is a corollary to authorship theory (see, it's worth reading!) that states that an 'author' is a consistent set of beliefs, styles, and knowledge. This is used to identify sections of works with multiple/questionable authorship, like the Bible and Homer. Basically, even though there might have been 30 dudes writing the Iliad, if we can only identify, say, ten, it's because the others are indistinguishable in style and quality. This means that although there might be 3 dudes, we only identify one author. So, an author is more an idea than a physical person, if you can have multiple physical people to one author. Now, here's where it gets weird but cool:

If you can have multiple physical people to one author, you can also have multiple authors to one person. If the person's beliefs, style, etc. change so drastically over time that they simply cannot be identified as the same author by all the aforementioned traits that define authorship, then you can say that they are two authors. This is the case with Lucas! Late Lucas is very much a different author from early Lucas.

Anyways, I highly suggest St. Jerome's chapter on authorship, it's a quick read and super helpful primer to conversations like this.

P.S. Regarding interpretation of work -- Edmund Burke has a really interesting bit that basically states the correct interpretation is determined through debate, and that he best able to defend his opinion has the most valid interpretation of quality. It's a bit confrontational, and the dude's kind of a jerk overall, but he has some really interesting stuff to say. Also a really good read -- "On the Sublime & Beautiful", which is a reference to the similarly titled and focused work by Longinus.

Welp... that didn't take long!

54 minutes ago, ricefrisbeetreats said:

There's a ton of scenes in all the movies that feel weird.

I think the worst part about this movie is that after watching this one, I don't particularly care about the series anymore.

My wife and I are really at odds about this movie. Like to the point of "How Star Wars Ended My Marriage."

So, last night, we returned to the pleasure of Rogue One, which we both agree is The Best Star Wars Ever.

Johnson talks about how he wanted to make his film less serious, hence all the "light and playful interactions." (Can't find the interview just now.)

So anyways, RO has a lot of funny moments, many of them courtesy of K-2SO, but even Krennic offers us wry humor.

But, the funny moments (with the exception of roast porg) in TLJ come at the expense of the (quality of the) characters:

Luke is flippant of the fate of the galaxy and disrespectful of the lightsaber/Jedi Order. Our Jedi of lore is a crabby old man.

Hux is a bumbling fool who falls for a Knock, Knock joke in combat, and goes from Kylo's competition to a servile mutt.

Poe goes from being an trustworthy asset of the Alliance on a secret mission to get the map to Luke to a "I gotta blow it up" and "I need to know" immature flyboy.

Finn just runs around squirting bacta or getting zapped as necessary, but not really getting much done.

The humor makes our heroes caricatures of there former selves. And yeah, I'm divested from any anticipation of IX. Sure, I'll go see it, but at this point, I can wait.

7 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

(with the exception of roast porg)

Not going to lie, I liked the roast porg. Pretty much all the porg, in fact. And the green milk. And the fish-nuns.

2 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Not going to lie, I liked the roast porg. Pretty much all the porg, in fact. And the green milk. And the fish-nuns.

Thing about that porg humor is that simple physical gags hold up over time. It'll still be the same level of 'makes you smile' in ten years, which is great. The quippiness, not so much.

14 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Not going to lie, I liked the roast porg. Pretty much all the porg, in fact. And the green milk. And the fish-nuns.

I didn't have any problem with the turtlenuns aside from the scene with Rey where the rock crushed their cart. And it wasn't really a problem with the turtlenuns, just, as usual, the completely tonally inappropriate humor to ruin the dramatic tension of a character-establishing scene.

The milking scene was odd. Not sure I have any opinion of it beyond that. Didn't like it, didn't hate it.

Porgs were surprisingly fine. I think they just got used too many times.

12 minutes ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

The milking scene was odd. Not sure I have any opinion of it beyond that. Didn't like it, didn't hate it.

I think it was just the crazed-hermit expression on Mark's face. Squeeze a teat, take a swig, aaaahhhh... wipe from beard. It was out of nowhere humour

On 20/12/2017 at 11:19 PM, Forresto said:

I want to preface this that I studied film making and scriptwriting in university and its my career, that doesn't mean I know better or i'm smarter then other people at all, it simply means the lens in which I watch films is different because of my education.

The point of me writing this is to give those who may hate the film some insight on why someone who is trained in this field loves this movie. I speak for myself and myself alone.

~

So i've re-watched the Force Awakens and on the same day went to view the Last Jedi a second time now.

I remember how the Force Awakens mystified me the first viewing before I started to see its cracks that were exposed entirely after a second viewing, so I stayed open to the possibility that the Last Jedi on a second go round is not as good as I thought.

Nope. I realized how incredible a movie the Last Jedi really is, and how awful and clumsily written the Force Awakens seems in direct comparison. People complain that Rian Johnson screwed up what JJ set up, which he actually didnt (JJ never had a story beyond TFA just loose ends for the next director), but The Force Awakens is so simplistic Rian had to shake a lot of things up to keep the trilogy from being a rehash of the OT, which is is really what JJ set up.

I remember understanding the whole story of the Force Awakens, all the symbolism, all the stuff in the background in two viewings, and thats not good writing or film making in the Star Wars tradition. When I go and re-watch A New Hope I still notice new things all the time from visuals to story that I somehow missed even after a thousand viewings, thats incredible film making, not so with TFA. I'm still trying to figure out everything about the Last Jedi and I think it may take years and ultimately I think the Last Jedi will be vindicated just as The Force Awakens has diminished in popularity over the last two years.

~

Rian Johnson has created perhaps the most complex Star Wars movie ever with The Last Jedi, which is filled with incredible depth and beautiful writing throughout. The acting is massively improved with Deisy Ridley and Carrie Fisher allowed to show more personality and Mark Hammil delivering one of his best performances.

John William's score is phenomenal. Go listen to it (especially the Canto Bight part), every theme from the Force Awakens (a film unjustly maligned for its score) is brought back with new vigor and woven perfectly into Johnson's story and the new tracks are vividly distinct.

The script is one of the most solid and succinct i've seen in a film in a long time with every part of the film serving a purpose to either move the story forward or to distinctly develop or indicate a character's...well character. That's the first thing you learn in script writing, every part of a script needs to matter, superfluous junk serves to destroy the flow of a film. Superfluous scenes are one of the fundamental flaws of the prequels (and two dimensional writing yowza).

~

EDIT: After I initially wrote this I came across an article that I entirely agree with, especially in terms of what Rian Johnson had to work with what JJ left him.

The Force Belongs to Us: The Last Jedi's Beautiful Refocusing of Star Wars

Amazing. You said some things there and absolutely none of them were true.

6 hours ago, Spider said:

Amazing. You said some things there and absolutely none of them were true.

I think that line is a fine line, if you actually explains why afterwards, just like Luke did. Using it as a meme without substance ... is just making us stupid, like all oversimplified internet memes do.
We get your emotion, but nothing of rational substance.

4

3 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

I think it was just the crazed-hermit expression on Mark's face. Squeeze a teat, take a swig, aaaahhhh... wipe from beard. It was out of nowhere humour

I didn't see it as humor though, it was part of luke's "gtfo my island" being antagonising to rey, with a sly nod to anh and blue milk.

1 hour ago, SEApocalypse said:

We get your emotion, but nothing of rational substance.

This entire thread in one sentence.

On December 22, 2017 at 2:08 PM, KelRiever said:

Yes, its fine for information, but you're ignoring a whole school of artistry which admits once art is out in public view, it is no longer the artist's only to say how it is. Froo Fee Hoity Toity philosophies aside, the basics are that whether Lucas likes or dislikes a Star Wars movie, for example, hardly matters anymore. Unless you're going to swear, for some reason, that his view of Star Wars is Gospel as the creator.

And if you do, I cannot help you, because that means you like Phantom Menace, too.

It's certainly fun, though, to know what creators were thinking. Like, how Jar Jar Binks actually made it into the prequels...

JarJar was expected to be the hit of TPM by the actors involved during filming. I enjoyed TPM far more than this movie, and yes, I believe that Lucas' vision was his, and his alone, to decide, until he sold it to Disney. (Watching TPM with my five year old daughter emphasised how good it really is - she loved it, especially JJ).

This movie killed my love of Star Wars. I thank the director for it as I can move on. I don't hate, I am glad for having the wool lifted from my eyes. I believed in Lucas' vision, but now anything can happen in the universe, GOT style. It's cool, but not for me.

One silencer for the collection, a couple of Gunships for nostalgic flying, finish this season of rebels. And I'm done. I have no desire to involve myself more. That movie trampled hard on my inner four year old (That loved Luke, not Han).

Fly casual, have fun.

(My inner five year old is now the Goblin King from Lego Elves)

10/10

8 minutes ago, Celestial Lizards said:

10/10

Now this is good Jizz.

Just now, SEApocalypse said:

Now this is good Jizz.

It reminds me a lot of the Tintin score, which is also fantastic.

18 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Poe goes from being an trustworthy asset of the Alliance on a secret mission to get the map to Luke to a "I gotta blow it up" and "I need to know" immature flyboy.

It appears to me that your opinion of Poe is based on assumptions made about the incomplete character presented in TFA. Have you read “Before the Awakening” or the Poe Dameron comic? One of the things I love about TLJ is the continuity with Poe’s character development from other media, including TFA. The chronological development of the character shatters assumptions many people make based on TFA alone.