Once you realize that the theme of this entire movie is "failure due to hubris" - Luke even says those exact words when taking about the Jedi Order, I think it all falls into place. Nearly every single character/group in The Last Jedi fails because of their own hubris. Everyone fails.

The Resistance has a small victory in the beginning of the movie but then they spend the rest of the time running away, and their ultimate escape plan fails because Holdo considers Poe "just another brash flyboy" and not worthy of being told the entirety of the plan.

Snoke fails because he underestimates Kylo Ren.

Rey fails because she overestimated her own chances to turn Kylo.

Luke failed Kylo.

In the end, most of the characters learn from their failures. This movie was literally about, as Kylo says, "destroying the past" and moving forward. It wipes the slate. Episode IX should be interesting.

Oh. Not nearly enough R2-D2.

5 minutes ago, pkreynolds said:

Oh. Not nearly enough R2-D2.

True, very true. BB-8 was great in TFA, but I kinda wish R2 can go back in the spotlight.

2 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

True, very true. BB-8 was great in TFA, but I kinda wish R2 can go back in the spotlight.

I agree, and it doesn't help when R2 has one of the best scenes in the film with his interaction with Luke. But, I feel they really want to focus on the new characters, including BB-8 more than the old characters which also explains why they'd mostly killed off the old characters up to this point.

And what about the black BB8 FO droid?

Looked good and then.....

Just now, Larky Bobble said:

And what about the black BB8 FO droid?

Looked good and then.....

39 minutes ago, Hawkstrike said:

Well, minus the part where a hyper-capable enemy would have projected the enemy's course and jumped ahead to trap them, rather than chase them from behind for 18+ hours.

The First Order doesn't have a very competent military.

Go ask General Hux/Adolf about those competent military decisions.

49 minutes ago, Punning Pundit said:

Galaxies rotate along their central axis, though most star systems tend to rotate at slightly different rates from one another.

Dang it. Unexpected logic!

51 minutes ago, Animewarsdude said:

And yet they have the quickest turnaround for taking the galaxy over ever. Lei mentions that the First Order had taken all the important systems or something like that so within 2-3 days, though some have mentioned a week, the First Order was able to conquer the galaxy and nearly wipe out the resistance. They are so incompetent apparently they looped right back around into being competent, that or they have some heavy plot power on their side.

I'd argue that a lot of the FO is pretty decent but led by Hux. The dreadnaught commander seemed to have a good read on things, including grumbling about the lack of fighter support.

Well guys it's not hard to move in and say, "This is ours now" when you destroy their entire military in one fell swoop, just saying.

21 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Well guys it's not hard to move in and say, "This is ours now" when you destroy their entire military in one fell swoop, just saying.

Additionally, some planets were Imperial sympathizers and joined up.

When Luke is Astral projecting why is he using Vader's blue saber and not his personal green one? Also, shouldn't Kylo know the saber was destroyed since he broke it?

And why couldn't the flying wing thing track the falcon when it went to hyperspace like it could the cruiser?

4 minutes ago, FourDogsInaHorseSuit said:

And why couldn't the flying wing thing track the falcon when it went to hyperspace like it could the cruiser?

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.

Just about to watch for 2nd time. First time I really enjoyed this film, although I actually came out and told everyone I didn't like it.

Hopefully a second viewing will help me get my head around it some more, and work out why I didn't like it, while still enjoying it.

-------------------------------------------

One note:

A few people have been complaining about the hyperspace weapon method for destroying the Mega-ultra-Snoke-Class Star destroyer ( Seriously ! Why not just call it a Supremacy class Star dreadnaugh t?). If you want to see similar methods of destroying stuff, see Clone wars season one (malevolence arc) and season 4 of rebels (don't know the episode, but a U-wing flies though some space station (Without Destroying itself. Ugh.)).

Personally, I find this very realistic. If something travelling at > c collides with another stationary object, there IS going to be some serious carnage.

12 minutes ago, Infinite_Maelstrom said:

Just about to watch for 2nd time. First time I really enjoyed this film, although I actually came out and told everyone I didn't like it.

Hopefully a second viewing will help me get my head around it some more, and work out why I didn't like it, while still enjoying it.

You who where what now? Contradictions?

13 minutes ago, Infinite_Maelstrom said:

A few people have been complaining about the hyperspace weapon method for destroying the Mega-ultra-Snoke-Class Star destroyer ( Seriously ! Why not just call it a Supremacy class Star dreadnaugh t?). If you want to see similar methods of destroying stuff, see Clone wars season one (malevolence arc) and season 4 of rebels (don't know the episode, but a U-wing flies though some space station (Without Destroying itself. Ugh.)).

Personally, I find this very realistic. If something travelling at > c collides with another stationary object, there IS going to be some serious carnage.

YES! Someone knows that hyperspace craziness ramming exists! The reason why people don't do it is because you have to sacrifice an expensive ship and its entire crew . The Raddus had uber-advanced automated systems and could keep shields repairing, make a 180 turn, and jump with literally one person aboard. The Garel's Honor needed a full bridge crew to keep main engines going full forward and literally nothing else.

12 minutes ago, Infinite_Maelstrom said:

One note:

A few people have been complaining about the hyperspace weapon method for destroying the Mega-ultra-Snoke-Class Star destroyer ( Seriously ! Why not just call it a Supremacy class Star dreadnaugh t?). If you want to see similar methods of destroying stuff, see Clone wars season one (malevolence arc) and season 4 of rebels (don't know the episode, but a U-wing flies though some space station (Without Destroying itself. Ugh.)).

Personally, I find this very realistic. If something travelling at > c collides with another stationary object, there IS going to be some serious carnage.

I can't remember the Clone Wars episode in question, but the Rebels one was a U-wing going through an open area and only really damaged some AT-DPs, and a few other loose things in the hangar. I think the main arguments about the hyperspace attack thing is a) if you can do that why not just do that all the time and make large ships completely pointless by using an X-wing or something as really fast missiles to destroy capital ships (which really would have helped defeat the Resistance fleet wouldn't it? It isn't like the FO cares much about their troops, just launch them, have them jump and crash into the Raddus and be done with it), and b) the argument about if it was at hyperspace it shouldn't affect space all that much since it doesn't have a mass shadow. Basically it sort of depends on if you treat hyperspace collisions with planetary bodies as the ship being destroyed by the mass shadow itself or if the collision means the ship dropping out of lightspeed at its speed and slagging the planet.

Luke was the best part of the film. I wanted to see more of him. Some of the story (canto bight) seemed unnecessary but cool.

Hyperspacing droid kamkaze ships should have won the clone wars...

Or hyperspacing clone suicide ships! Whichever is cheaper and more replacable...

Just saw it..... absolutely loved it. Awesome! Humor was spot on (no farting or stepping in crap)

Action was wonderful.

Story line, one of the biggest “oh, you THOUGHT you new who she and he and he was.... here, hold my beer”. Bravo! Bravo!

Luke using the most bad a$$ force of ever in history of force! Force projection across the galaxy. Wow oh wow.

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

Loved it. Just loved it.

For the the first time in 40 years.... I don’t know what is next. So hyped.

Give or take another 15 years and the star wars franchise will be 100% Disney Cartoon. Every major character will be exactly like on the TV show "Once upon a Time" and in constant vacillating states of Good, Evil, In Between and back again. Not to mention, dead, alive, and back again. Until every penny is milked, metaphorically much like the blue milk Luke so unceremoniously milked from those alien boobs.

Some other random points I'd like to give my 2 cents on:

-Hyperspace destruction, slightly cheesy but it didn't bother me nearly so much. I could at least imagine some reasons why this wouldn't be a normal viable tactic in the universe, like for example it required the suicide of an expensive capital ship, could have been very tricky to pull off, could have been very predictable and easy to counter except for that situation, etc.

-Benicio Del Toro's character (what was his real name?) probably my fav character you could just feel him vibing 'just here to collect my paycheck you nerds... why even bother talking?' Much like the original Han Solo.

-Captain Phasma: IS COMING BACK!

But Luke tossing the saber over his shoulder was the lowest point of the movie for me. It jarred, badly.

If you can take Ani plummeting hundreds of meters onto a moving car and being fine, Leia's actions were similar in manipulating gravitional pull by using the force. Apparently a human body can survive for up to 30 seconds in a vacuum (don't quote me), so I wasn't so bothered by that scene. Luke though was a major disappointment after such a wait to see him again.

Just saw it earlier today and need a place to vent/ talk things out. (I’ll let you know when I start ranting)

The good:

Opening space battle.

The praetorian guard fight.

Tie silencer.

Luke, Leia, Chewie.

Rey/Rose/Finn.

BB-8 and R2-D2.

I surprisingly didn’t hate the porgs.

Lightspeed through the surprmeacy.

The lightsaber throw (snap hiss)

Yoda!!!

Space Leia didn’t bother me.

Chewies piloting.

Kylo Rens arc.

poor Hux. Reminds me of Kallus.

The Meh:

Force projection luke: cool, but will never beat actual Luke raising his t-65 from the ocean, and actually fighting Kylo Ren. Good send off for him to force ghost in 9 though.

Canto Bight: the city itself, neat, but not interesting.

Would have loved to have some adventure time with Rose/Paige onscreen. Sigh, another comic inbound.

new force powers: eh, kind of dumb like why didn’t Vader do this more often? Or Yoda during the prequel era? Is snoke more powerful than both? I mean Vader sent his thoughts to Luke, but not a projection.

Rey only got two lessons and no real formal training.

The Bad:

Poe’s character arc: Remember TFA where we have responsible level headed Poe that reminds you a little bit of comic/ROTJ Wedge? Well let’s flush that down the toilet because well this character needs “development”. And part of the reason for why we can evacuate all remaining resistance members on the Falcon. It completely guts the character for me. Also his constant breaking of command. We’re told he has respect for Leia but you don’t cut the comms on someone you actually listen to.

DJ: so predictable, badly written. And his little spill of profiting companies. That’s been a thing in legends forever and moreso in the prequels, I mean Kamino didn’t make those clones for free. This hits on something I’ll talk about later. Only redeeming thing is that he pretty much confirmed Sienar-Jammus still has T-85 x-wing plans. (From the guide book they all got blown up). This was a waste of Benico del toro.

Rey’s parentage/Snoke: oh those burning questions you had about TFA that generated tons of fan speculation? Here’s a double middle finger to both of those. And if you’re going to kill snoke while he’s monologuing, can it at least be about his past?

Phasma: not surprised, but disappointed. Hope she somehow survived, but given this movie, I doubt it.

The ugly: (rant time) which Exec thought it was a good idea to mix 2016 into Star Wars? Because they need to fall in that throne room blender. The whole ending with Leia saying “we’ll win them over” sounds like some political campaign bed time story they tell themselves after an election loss, not what a resistance of literally 15 or so people would say. Not “we can rebuild” or better yet “hope” or “we’ll find the others”. The empire ruled through fear and the rebellion was inspiring to bring hope and courage to the oppressed, and the First Order rules through... bribery? If the FO is as bad as Rose makes them out to be, why would no one answer the distress call? To try to overthrow the evil in the galaxy? And then saying “we’ll win them over”. No, you will obviously not, whoever heard that call is either being jammed or likes their new FO overlords enough they won’t help you. You need to recruit elsewhere.

Did anyone else get Mad max 3 vibes from the stable boys scene?

Also, Holdo not explaining the plan was very stupid, especially since there was no fear of spies at the time.

And that very end seen... I could have sworn that kid was about to start singing when you wish upon a Star.

Maz... waste of her character. should have had her on Canto Bight doing some reconnaissance or something, idk.

S/ and thank you game of thrones for making it seem acceptable to pointlessly kill off every character ever at random now/s

the funny:

hux/Poe interaction

Hux getting thrown/slammed (poor Hux)

bb-8 slot machine

“The supreme leader is dead!”

*choke*

”long live the supreme leader!”

“3PO wipe that concerned look off your face!”

Concluding thoughts: this movie has a lot of cool scenes, but the character sub-plots feel poorly written because it doesn’t seem to build on the existing world so it doesn’t make a lot of sense. It almost comes off to me as a dc film (pre-Wonder Woman). I don’t hate it, but for now it’s my least favorite Star Wars film. It’s the first time I’ve walked out of the theater disappointed with a Star Wars film. I’ll watch it again and give it another chance but for now to me it’s just a “meh” movie that tried to much to be something it’s not. It’s my opinion that They definitely should have stuck closer to the formula and I would have actually preferred after seeing this movie if they had just remade ESB with minor changes to fit the continuity of the new storyline.

28 minutes ago, Infinite_Maelstrom said:

Hopefully a second viewing will help me get my head around it some more, and work out why I didn't like it, while still enjoying it.

OMG, this statement was just an epiphany for where I am right now with this movie.

For the last 2 days my wife and I have had a hard time talking about this movie together, because she loved it.

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.

5 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

OMG, this statement was just an epiphany for where I am right now with this movie.

For the last 2 days my wife and I have had a hard time talking about this movie together, because she loved it.

Same boat. I don’t like some of it, and I think I know why, but I’m not sure if that’s the real reason.

Ok, everybody complaining about Leia surviving in vacuum need to stop. It's completely possible.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/survival-in-space-unprotected-possible/

Leia was only out there for maybe 60 seconds. Chimpanzees have survived as long as 3.5 minutes with no long term damage. Add force power capabilities, and Star Wars medicine, and it was a perfectly reasonable scene.