On 12/18/2017 at 5:04 PM, subtrendy2 said:

I mostly agree, but I have a bit to add.

First, I think that while Luke ultimately was trying to buy time for The Resistance, he also did something arguably more important. Consider the final scene of the movie: the Jedi stable boy thing.

In my opinion, that scene was not only important because it implied a wider view of the Force, but because we see the kids telling the story of what happened on Crait. The Resistance is in a super dark place right now and really have almost no assets- but the galaxy itself is still a really big place, and Luke may have just inspired hope in it to finally throw the First Order down. These kids are telling the story, and you can bet many more people in the GFFA are also spreading the word of Luke's actions and Kylo's embarrassment on Crait. Leia spoke of allies- maybe now they'll be inspired to take action.

Also, Luke technically didn't even attack Kylo on Crait. What seemed like it would be an epic saber showdown actually was simply an illusion. This may well be the most Jedi-like behavior that we've ever seen in a Star Wars movie. Instead of resorting to violence and murder when confronting his enemy, Luke resorted to a very Zen-like trickery. In doing so, I see this as almost a fixing of the rather hypocritical behavior of the Jedi during the Clone Wars- Jedi that would preach peace while also being heavily active in war.

Return of the Jedi Luke was amazing, but The Last Jedi Luke truly encapsulates what it means to be a master- even if it's not as showy or flashy as some fanboys might have wanted.

This, this, and this! I finally saw the movie last night (I know, late to the party) and Luke's "final stand" was my favourite part of the whole thing for all of the reasons that you're talking about here.

As cool as epic lightsaber battles are that's not what being a true Jedi is all about. Think back to the end of the third movie. Luke didn't defeat the emperor by out-dueling him or by being stronger in the force; in fact, it was when he was going all-out against Vader that he was in the most danger of falling to the dark side. In fact that was the entire point of that scene - he cuts off Vader's hand and realizes that, while he might be winning the fight, he was following in his father's footsteps and was in real danger of embodying everything that he was supposed to be fighting against. It's only when he shut off his saber and refused to give in to his hatred that he was able to defeat the emperor, not by being stronger but by inspiring the good in others (in this case his father).

Like Subtrendy said above, that's what the stable-boy scene is showing and that's why Luke's actions were so important beyond just saving the rest of the cast. I thought that it was pretty much the best way that they could have ended his character arc.

I left the Force Awakens thinking "well that was a fun popcorn movie" and that's about it. I liked it well enough but there wasn't really anything to get excited about. This time I left it not only thinking that it was a fun movie, but also that it felt like Star Wars . Needless to say I'm a fan. My biggest worry now is that I'll be let down by the next installment after having been drawn back into the universe by this one.

Also, even though we didn't get a real big Luke showdown we did get a fantastic lightsaber show just after Snoke was killed. I'd go so far as to say that it was the best fight in the entire franchise: more exciting than the plodding strikes of the original trilogy, but without the physics-defying whirligigs of the prequels. The only one that comes close for me would be the Darth Maul fight, but half of that is probably due to the awesome score.

Anyways, last thing, I thought that the cinematography was surprisingly great throughout the whole movie. The fight on that salt planet was absolutely beautiful, and there were some other moments (the fight scene above, the silence after the hyperspace collision, etc.) that I thought were also really well done.

Oh, and last last thing: Porgs. I thought this movie had a perfect amount of porgs. They were cute, they were funny, they will sell toys and they did not take down a single Imperial walker.

It's like Christmas came early and Disney decided to do their own holiday special.

On 12/17/2017 at 5:04 PM, Spidey NZ said:

just imagine, if admiral Holdo was Ackbar, butting heads with Poe and then doing the ultimate sacrifice, with the hyperspace collision . that would have been great for fans

Sadly Erik Bauersfeld who voiced Ackbar past away last year at 93. TFA was his last movie. They replaced him, very briefly, in TLJ, to send that character off into space forever. I'd think they handle the situation the best possible way rather than replacing such an icon. Be nice if they handled all the old characters with such class. Sadly Disney clearly wanted some eye candy in there. I mean purple hair and no uniform but a party dress? WTF was that about.......

The whole point of Holdo was she wasn't respected or battle tested like all the officers lost when the bridge got hit. **** she couldn't even be bothered to wear a proper uniform. Poe would dare many things, butting heads with Ackbar though? Holdo, **** yes, that should have happened.

4 hours ago, Mep said:

Sadly Erik Bauersfeld who voiced Ackbar past away last year at 93. TFA was his last movie. They replaced him, very briefly, in TLJ, to send that character off into space forever. I'd think they handle the situation the best possible way rather than replacing such an icon. Be nice if they handled all the old characters with such class. Sadly Disney clearly wanted some eye candy in there. I mean purple hair and no uniform but a party dress? WTF was that about.......

The whole point of Holdo was she wasn't respected or battle tested like all the officers lost when the bridge got hit. **** she couldn't even be bothered to wear a proper uniform. Poe would dare many things, butting heads with Ackbar though? Holdo, **** yes, that should have happened.

i dont think it matters that much that the voice actor died. actors/voice actors can be replaced or changed over time. especially if it is a costumed character. people wouldn't have minded. but that whole story with mutiny and poe going rogue would have worked well, even with ackbar. the idea is that poe is a hotshot and needed to learn team work, which he did. and Ackbar could have challenged him the same way.

Worst Star Wars movie to date.

The plot is bad, the editing is bad, and for the first time I caught myself staring at my cell phone during a Star Wars movie

Why didn't Holdo inform others about her plan?

What was Rey's training exactly?

Did Kylo fall to the dark side because of a misunderstanding with his uncle? Or is he just a dark side Fan boy?

Did anyone actually laugh at the jokes?

Where was Snoke during the six previous movies? Don't say that we didn't know much about the Emperor in the OT. We knew enough. Now here comes a big bad guy, supposedly older and stronger than the previous one, and somehow the audience is at fault for not buying it. If he is just a plot device then the plot is bad

Luke dying from using the Force. That's.... Convenient.....

It's amazing how versatile the idea of a plot hole has become in the span of a week. Thanks for training the new generation of seasoned reviewers, Cinema Sins.

Two years ago I had absolutely NO expectations when I went to watch TFA and it was a blast! Seeing the OT characters (with some that had a bigger story role than I would have thought) was great, as well as discovering the new ones.

Now last Friday, it was the reversed. I HAD expectations for that movie and I brought them with me on that night. After the movie I was disappointed. At that time I couldn't put my finger on how I was feeling about the movie but later found out it was disappointment. Then I watched it a second time 2 days later and this time I really liked it. It's not a perfect movie, but to say that it is the worst in the whole franchise is definitely a path I will not take.

The thing with Star Wars is that the movies are stand alone for the casual movie watchers while for the hardcore fans, we might have to seek other medias to get the answers that we felt were not covered in the movies. Who's Snoke? Well I bet we'll learn more in a comic book series. Why did Ben felt to the dark side? Learn more in the upcoming novel, etc. And if you ask me that is pretty fine with me. For the casual movie watcher, what is the point in discovering how Snoke was able to hide from the Jedi and from Palpatine's Empire?

The plot in this movie is not perfect (and it happened before too!). The rescue of Han Solo in RotJ is one example. Did Luke came up with the crappy plan to send all his friends to Jabba instead of actually taking care of business himself? But if made otherwise it might not have made that scene memorable without all the crew reunited to fight their way out of pit of Carkoon.

But in the end it's great to read everyone's opinion about the movie!

6 hours ago, Mister Egglemon said:

Why didn't Holdo inform others about her plan?

What was Rey's training exactly?

Did Kylo fall to the dark side because of a misunderstanding with his uncle? Or is he just a dark side Fan boy?

Did anyone actually laugh at the jokes?

Where was Snoke during the six previous movies? Don't say that we didn't know much about the Emperor in the OT. We knew enough. Now here comes a big bad guy, supposedly older and stronger than the previous one, and somehow the audience is at fault for not buying it. If he is just a plot device then the plot is bad

Luke dying from using the Force. That's.... Convenient.....

Ever been in a leadership role before? Perhaps she didn't formulate the plan until after the mutiny.

She had to survive on a hostile planet and was a skilled stick fighter (as witnessed when defending BB-8) and mechanic. More than that we don't know. Just like we don't know Han Solo's "training".

He flirted with the Dark Side, as witnessed by the discussion about the dark part of the island that Rey visited. They literally discussed this at length.

I did, my kids did. Although I thought the Poe one went on one repetition too many. Finn was a little blunt, but then again he was in the TFA as well.

Dunno, haven't gotten to that point in the comics yet. However the Star Wars universe is huge and the outer rim is large. Remember Tattoine was run by a criminal syndicate separate from both the republic and empire for 6+ movies.

Luke didn't die, he did the exact same thing Qui-Gon, Obi Wan, Yoda, and Anakin did. Qui-Gon discovered the technique and came back as a ghost to teach OW and Yoda.

Really you are just picking at nits. Oh well, haters gonna hate.

8 hours ago, Mister Egglemon said:

Where was Snoke during the six previous movies? Don't say that we didn't know much about the Emperor in the OT. We knew enough.

Actually ..... back in the early 80s we didn't know any thing about the Emperor other than he was the Emperor. He dissolved the senate in ANH (one line by Tarkin), had a brief convo with Vader as a hologram in ESB and was used as a plot device to get Luke to turn, and then finally made an appearance in RotJ. I'm not sure we even learned his name in the original movies. Snoke isn't any different except the build up wasn't quit as good but as far as how much we knew then about the Emperor compare to how much we know about Snoke right now is about the same. I think the key difference is, we don't care to know about Snoke anymore since he turned out to be just a prop and plot device for Kylo to overcome. The Emperor and his rise to power was something everyone wanted to know and why the prequels had so much excitement about them when they were going to be finally made.

Pay off is key and Snoke didn't pay off. That is why people are wanting more there. The Emperor was the last big challenge for the heroes to over come to win. Snoke is just a obstacle Kylo has to hurdle to come into power. I think the real problem is this new series is trying to be too much like the old series and the interchangeable parts don't quit fit. The Emperor and Snoke are the same part but they don't do quite the same thing but yet we expect them too. The movie is trying to tell the audience to let go of the past all the while the whole point of TLJ is to escape, just like the whole point of ESB is to escape. They are making too many parallels between the movies and people are connecting dots yet those dots aren't to be connected. That is Disney's fault, not the audience.

Snoke isn't the Emperor. Don't confuse him with the Emperor. Snoke is just a place holder of power for Kylo to arise too. The story works much better when you don't try to make all the characters interchangeable parts, because they aren't no matter how hard Disney is trying to make us think they are. It is pretty screw up way of handling things.

Trigger warning?

Come on, let's leave the garbage politics out of this at least. Good lord, can't we enjoy Star Wars without trying to ruin it with weak accusations of political backlash?

In an ode to Tommy Boy, allow me to paraphrase; I could take a crap in a box and label it Star Wars and hordes of people would buy it. Rian, with an 'i', Johnson, Kathleen Kennedy's arm elbow deep in his keister, raises his fist, extends his middle finger to the OT and utters, Star Wars is mine now, b***ches. Rian Johnson and Kay-Kay treated Luke Skywalker in a similar fashion to the way Omi-san treated Captain Blackthorn in the first episode of the TV miniseries Shogun. That's actually generous, because it was more like a certain scene from Pulp Fiction. This was a incoherent, disjointed,non-cohesive mess of plot holes and virtue signalling BS. If it didn't have Star Wars in the title, and it wasn't garnering phony critical praise from people invested in carrying water for Kay-Kay's agenda, it would be panned and forgotten as deck like Jupiter Ascending. Maybe I was too hard on TFA, because to this garbage, it seems almost decent. Even Rebels, which I largely hate, had a fantastic scene in which Obi Wan is confronted by Darth Maul on Tatooine and it is revealed that his self imposed exile was to protect young Luke so he could grow into a powerful Jedi. That short scene has more emotional resonance than anything in this film even approximates. TLJ also craps all over it by making Luke into a joke. Rian thumbs his nose at the very foundation of the property, the Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice. Instead they are cowards who flee from their duty while nihilism rules the galaxy.

The EU may not be perfect, but at least Luke lives his life serving the new Republic and trying to train future Jedi, guiding them away from the dark side, not plotting to murder them. How anyone can defend this crap is beyond me, but whatever. For me it went beyond flawed like TFA and right into F-U territory.

46 minutes ago, King_Balrog said:

Trigger warning?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjkgLSPiZzYAhWI44MKHW_XAEkQtwIIKjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DLPsRp7uUXUk&usg=AOvVaw0D_jtULZv5q--SQcLOgvmQ

Not sure if this link brings you to the half way point or if it was because I watched it earlier, but this whole video should be watched to get the full context of A) How idiotic the film is, and B) the reasons these idiotic decisions were made. Best line: " There is no reverence for any of the foundations of the story. Instead the focus is on sweeping the old stories away as quickly as possible to make way for the new narrative order. " Absolutely spot on.

4 hours ago, mtagge said:

Ever been in a leadership role before? Perhaps she didn't formulate the plan until after the mutiny.

She had to survive on a hostile planet and was a skilled stick fighter (as witnessed when defending BB-8) and mechanic. More than that we don't know. Just like we don't know Han Solo's "training".

He flirted with the Dark Side, as witnessed by the discussion about the dark part of the island that Rey visited. They literally discussed this at length.

I did, my kids did. Although I thought the Poe one went on one repetition too many. Finn was a little blunt, but then again he was in the TFA as well.

Dunno, haven't gotten to that point in the comics yet. However the Star Wars universe is huge and the outer rim is large. Remember Tattoine was run by a criminal syndicate separate from both the republic and empire for 6+ movies.

Luke didn't die, he did the exact same thing Qui-Gon, Obi Wan, Yoda, and Anakin did. Qui-Gon discovered the technique and came back as a ghost to teach OW and Yoda.

Really you are just picking at nits. Oh well, haters gonna hate.

Nitpicking?

Really?

One big and one small subplot were based upon Holdo's totally unrealistic unwillingness to share her plan. And this resulted in near total disaster for the resistance

I mean Rey's jedi training. It's just her and Luke arguing back and forth. Even in the dark side cave, she got no lesson.

Kylo/Ben flirted with the Dark Side, yes, but this really is not a reason for Luke to - momentarily - think about killing him. It's out of character for Luke and a silly reason for Ben to go over the edge.

As for Luke's death, yes I know that he became one with the force. But he had no reason to, except his life force being depleted from the projection. Which is totally against what we have known about the Force up until now. Tiny old Yoda can effortlessly lift starships. There is no try, and all that.

And just to be clear, there are more feelings in life than hate and love. It's not my fault this is a bad film and loving it won't turn it into a masterpiece.

2 minutes ago, Mister Egglemon said:

I mean Rey's jedi training. It's just her and Luke arguing back and forth. Even in the dark side cave, she got no lesson.

It would have been great if Luke gave her the Pai Mei treatment from Kill Bill 2. Once can more readily accept that the Bride's ability to kick-butt based on her time under Pai Mei's tutelage.

not knowing who the emperor was during the original trilogy was fine, because it had already been established that the galactic empire had already been in control of the galaxy for a awhile. but when you have a film sequel come in from the coat tails of the empire being disbanded, a little explanation about Snoke and the rise of the first will help.

use the force in the battle with the red guards. freeze them kylo. you should always write your characters to do the best things that they can in the situation and write a rebuttle from that with your other characters.

I was fine with Luke's force projection as it was very jedi like 'there are alternatives to fighting.' though i don't think he should have force ghosted from doing it.

luke from bespin had little to no training and got his *** handed to him. it needed to happen to rey, not have her become guard dispatching efficient.

i do not agree that finding these flaws are nitpicking. if the film did its job, we would not be bored, we would be invested in characters. we would not say 'why' over character decisions.

i liked the Luke, Rey and Kylo stuff.

I didn't like the side adventure and running out of gas plot.

I feel pretty indifferent and confused with my feelings to this film, probably because it is using actual actors from the original trilogy that im in love with. thats why i can dismiss the prequels and choose my own canon for what happend before episode four and rogue one.

I ramble ramble ramble, doesn't change anyones position, post internet comment. just some food for thought.

(oh and dont have your bloody cell phone on in a theater please.)

On 12/22/2017 at 6:29 AM, IanSolo_FFG said:

The thing with Star Wars is that the movies are stand alone for the casual movie watchers while for the hardcore fans, we might have to seek other medias to get the answers that we felt were not covered in the movies. Who's Snoke? Well I bet we'll learn more in a comic book series. Why did Ben felt to the dark side? Learn more in the upcoming novel, etc. And if you ask me that is pretty fine with me. For the casual movie watcher, what is the point in discovering how Snoke was able to hide from the Jedi and from Palpatine's Empire?

Sounds like DLC for movies. in a bad way

Id agree with you if they didn't make this one with SJW undertones. I prefer my star wars with boring politics like trade negotiations...

3 hours ago, Spidey NZ said:

Sounds like DLC for movies.

So true!!

Some spoiler about the book "A journey to the last jedi : The legends of Luke SKywalker"

The prequels were a total troll on current politics.

I don't think anyone could get away with that these days. Whatever they come up with would be completely unbelievable given the current state of things.

If The Last Jedi proves anything, it's how hyperbolic movie discussions have become these days. Everyone reflexively needs to voice an opinion, most of which are badly articulated, superficial rhethorics filled with all sorts of recycled talking points from the one-dollar-bin of internet movie reviews. Discussing a movie beyond mere plot points, like with regards to its themes, its place in a franchise and in todays very different movie-world has become an almost lost art. Instead we get a choir of zoo-noises, most of which are only capable of declaring a movie as being the best or worst ever, with no ability for a level-headed, nuanced analysis. It's not Disney which ruins Star Wars, it's today's pea-counting, hysterically self-entitled nerd-culture with it's babyish need for everyone shouting the supposedly most unique opinion into the digital ether.

did anyone notice how the resistance was renamed half way through the film to 'the rebels'.

The biggest annoyance I have with the new trilogy is the history doesn't seem to make sense to me.

Luke, Leia, Han and the alliance to restore the republic (rebels) won the galactic civil war at the end on ROTJ (yes, I know about the legends stuff and how a war never ends in one big battle but lets roll with it for now) and then suddenly all the winners find themselves inexplicably in the minority of the galaxy rather than the ones in power (i.e. government). If they were in government then how the **** did they miss the first order building so many super weapons and big mega massive turbo charged extra Killy star destroyers? their intelligence dept is incompetent at best or has too many tea breaks at worst with their motto being 'meh, I'm sure it will be fine...'. The Timothy Zahn books handled this twist in power with the thrawn series much better in my opinion and there was crazy stuff happening in them too.

Leia should have died when the bridge died, a good way to end her character, still achieves Ren's internal struggles for that plot line and gives a good send off to her. Then they missed another trick by not reshooting the light speed cruiser torpedo to have Purple Hair replace Leia as a potentially strong female lead in the army and have Leia do the whole self sacrifice thing. It also would have been a good send off for her rather than wasting an epic act on a nobody character.

Yoda bit was handled well.

luke passing left me feeling sad, disappointed, somewhat empty but ultimately it was the right thing to do and I'm not sure how I could have done it better.

I enjoyed most of the humour, I feel maybe there were 2 jokes too many but other than that Poe's opening lines were spot on.

13 hours ago, Mister Egglemon said:

Nitpicking?

Really?

One big and one small subplot were based upon Holdo's totally unrealistic unwillingness to share her plan. And this resulted in near total disaster for the resistance

I mean Rey's jedi training. It's just her and Luke arguing back and forth. Even in the dark side cave, she got no lesson.

Kylo/Ben flirted with the Dark Side, yes, but this really is not a reason for Luke to - momentarily - think about killing him. It's out of character for Luke and a silly reason for Ben to go over the edge.

As for Luke's death, yes I know that he became one with the force. But he had no reason to, except his life force being depleted from the projection. Which is totally against what we have known about the Force up until now. Tiny old Yoda can effortlessly lift starships. There is no try, and all that.

And just to be clear, there are more feelings in life than hate and love. It's not my fault this is a bad film and loving it won't turn it into a masterpiece.

Again I will ask. Have you ever been in a real leadership role? Like ever? Then I will reiterate my point that perhaps she hadn't formulated the plan at that point. No military leader would ever say "I don't know what to do" in that situation. Besides this insubordination came from an officer who literally just ran an operation against orders and got demoted.

But whatever. If you'd already decided you hate the film, it's not like anything anyone is going to say is going to make a difference. And there is no problem with not liking the film, its just the reasons your mind created post hoc are complete nonsense. All nitpicks you have can be levied against virtually every movie and it seems your resolute defense about why the movie is the worst thing ever is a red herring for something else. No hard feelings though.

44 minutes ago, Collins said:

Luke, Leia, Han and the alliance to restore the republic (rebels) won the galactic civil war at the end on ROTJ (yes, I know about the legends stuff and how a war never ends in one big battle but lets roll with it for now) and then suddenly all the winners find themselves inexplicably in the minority of the galaxy rather than the ones in power (i.e. government). If they were in government then how the **** did they miss the first order building so many super weapons and big mega massive turbo charged extra Killy star destroyers?

A friend pointed out to me that Star Wars has officially become what George Lucas wanted in the first place. A crappy Saturday morning serial for children, with no rhyme, reason, or continuity. The bad guys just have death weapons because they are the bad guys; cartoonishly evil as anything you'd see in a 40s Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, or The Adventures of Rocket Man.

1 hour ago, Collins said:

did anyone notice how the resistance was renamed half way through the film to 'the rebels'.

The biggest annoyance I have with the new trilogy is the history doesn't seem to make sense to me.

Luke, Leia, Han and the alliance to restore the republic (rebels) won the galactic civil war at the end on ROTJ (yes, I know about the legends stuff and how a war never ends in one big battle but lets roll with it for now) and then suddenly all the winners find themselves inexplicably in the minority of the galaxy rather than the ones in power (i.e. government). If they were in government then how the **** did they miss the first order building so many super weapons and big mega massive turbo charged extra Killy star destroyers? their intelligence dept is incompetent at best or has too many tea breaks at worst with their motto being 'meh, I'm sure it will be fine...'. The Timothy Zahn books handled this twist in power with the thrawn series much better in my opinion and there was crazy stuff happening in them too.

It's movie DLC like someone pointed out to me yesterday. Your questions (how and why First Order remained insignificant to the New Republic, why the New Republic forces seem weak, etc) are (partially) answered in the novel Bloodline. Like I mentioned previously for a non-Star Wars fan, it is not important as such detail is not helping the movie plot.

1 hour ago, Collins said:

luke passing left me feeling sad, disappointed, somewhat empty but ultimately it was the right thing to do and I'm not sure how I could have done it better.

I felt the same when I watched it for the first time. I felt differently on my second viewing and like you I thought it was the way to go.