Film Crit Hulk has written a piece now. Not surprising maybe that I share their opinion, and there are several points I had made on page one that are in there, too.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/32504876

The TL;DR is

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The problem? Well, the problem is what it’s always been…

Abrams has no idea how to tell a story.

Then it goes on to a lot of questions that

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are the backbone of all good writing. Surprise! Writing is hard! But it needs to be, because answering them well is precisely what allows you to build a story that both satisfies the needs of the given moment while building into a larger evolution of drama, character, plot, and theme.

And the bold part is what I miss. Abrams asks a different set of questions (which are stated). The key part:

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It’s a completely different set of questions and the difference in the results is everything. Going with the first set of questions builds a functional and meaningful movie that has a chance to last. In short, it builds the original Star Wars trilogy. But people often pick the second set of questions because, well, it’s a **** of a lot easier and more seductive (which is exactly what Yoda said about the dark side). And to fill the void, Abrams relies on the dull hum of manufactured conflict, often throwing diversion after diversion at us. He’ll introduce vague ideas before literally cutting away from them (known as plot-blocking). He’ll pile McGuffin after McGuffin on top of each other (many of which should really be characters to create meaningful conflict). He’ll constantly interrupt events because there’s nowhere the scenes are actually going .

With that bothering me, @ForceSensitive , I do what imo people who didn't like TLJ also do: they grasp for rationalizations that are not actually relevant. I said we would be more lenient if we were not bothered by the rest of the movie.

I don't want to get into yet another TLJ discussion. I fully disagree and I have an explanation that is good enough for me to not be bothered by the Holdo maneuver. But any such explanation does not matter to the larger evolution of drama, character, plot and theme of TLJ. It's also why the text vs texture discussion is so important here. TLJ has a lot of "text". You can like or dislike the content, but there is text, and it's well made from a story technical point of view. That does not mean you like the larger plot,theme and drama. Just that TLJ has some.

ROS does not. The box is empty.

Given that Abrams did not want or expect to create the last movie, I think he did OK.

Having said that, the whole ST feels like an uncoordinated art project with clashing colors and globs of extra glue everywhere.

Just seen this....thing, and have to get it out of my system. Rant warning

Synopsis of rant: If anyone finds crowdfunding for hitman to rid the world of hive of scum and vilainy called screewriters of this ......pile of banta poo I'm pitching my mothly salary, for real.

Long incoherent version of rant. Its the laziest, most incoherent, disrespectfull, illogical (well compared to universe rules set by every other film that came before) Star wars movie. Did i say laziest? Writers stole from everything from Mad Max to Romeo and Juliet (in snake healing scene I barely held myself from screaming "she's the heir to Slytherine! in theater). Every plot development seems stupider and stupider compared to last one. Like randomly giving each ********* star destroyer Death Star laser... And a Death star weak spot, because if you go low, you always can go even lower.

Plots points disapear into nothere ("Ray I want to tell you something") and appear out of nothere ("this random droid we found in desert has all the info on secret base we need because it was where over 20 years ago"). The frigin final planet, where laws of gravity apply as plot needs it, suspending your disbelief is barely cutting the surface. Director could be Hichcock himself, but with screenplay like this you just couldn't save this movie.

10 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

I'm sorry, I don't think I quite got where you were coming from earlier. My bad, I see your question now. Okay let me try to answer this.

The ep5 worm thing doesn't create a plot hole. So it doesn't bother me because I just assume that's a thing in that verse. Who knows, maybe the worm uses Force powers to maintain that atmosphere and gravity. Because, it doesn't change how anything in space happened before, they never showed that. They give you this one scene and it's like hey, this is how this works. And your like bu... Look man lasers block lasers, they in a space worm now. And as they never really repeat the conditions again, they don't have any plot holes later either. Now we're going to have A REAL problem if later we are inside one of those things again, the mouth opens, and everything gets blown out. For sure, we're agreed hard on that. THAT would be a hole. And your right, a bad one.

Holdo ram DOES create a hole because it uses only information we already have to do something that the information never did before. In the Canon hyper drives are common, their ancient even, we all know this. But never once across the entire thing do we see a hyper bullet, or a hyper missile, or a hyper torpedo. It's never even nodded at. At best we get Han saying your trip will end if you crash into something while your at hyper speed. He doesn't say anything about what happens to what you hit. and since every time a desperate measure would call for it, the story never even considers it, through all that time, against every world ending threat, there's no reason to assume it could even work.

Plus we saw HOW many ships ram, into Vader's ISD, in Rogue one, and NOTHING HAPPENED to it?? So why would his ship have not sustained damage, but holdo's maneuver caused SO MUCH devestation?

Was it cause she actually DID enter hyperspace, and those in Rogue one, got squished doing the run UP to it?

One in a million. You hit the jump a millisecond before and zip away, or after and splat. Holdo got it bang on the nose.

Lots of things to enjoy in this one.

Lots of things to complain about.

Ultimately, I think most of the complaints can be bundled into the film being 2h20 rather than 5h. Story complaints are one thing, I have some big ones, but they almost don't matter if the story that is there is given room to move properly.

Its obviously going to look amazing. I did think the characters were all engaging and well played. The action was fantastic. Comedy aliens were great.

Certain things were very much overexaggerated, which threw a lot of context out the window....

The actual compaint i wish to log here is: Godsdammit there was way not enough Darth Rey.

Why could she not be an actual clone....

Palp had kids bleh

So I just saw it the second time. And now, going in knowing which parts I could just ignore or dismiss, I did enjoy it.

The first time these things had taken me out of the movie - and they are in almost every scene. This time I could tick them off without having to think about it (as the answer is very often: don't!).

One thing I was still massively bothered by and that I had the opportunity to discuss extensively with my brother: the fight on the death star between Kylo and Rey. To him, it was clear that this was going to be it, the one where everything between them is decided. For him, the stakes were the highest they were going to be, at least between those two. But for me it wasn't. I don't see the build up to make this next fight that final clash. And one crucial component is probably the lack of music. Can't wait to see a fan edit with the battle of the heroes over it.

Another topic was how Leia tried the same thing for the third time and now it worked. For me it's lazy writing. For him, she was unwilling to go the full distance up to this moment, where she sacrifices herself to save Kylo - and now that she's willing to pay a price it works. Still think it's lazy writing, but I can accept that.

What's mounted under those star destroyers? It's quite phallic.

Spoiler, I have not and will not see the movie. Instead I will set, bait, and kill more mice in my garage. Hoping Mickey is among them.

This weekend I will continue to run my nieces and nephews through the West End games role-playing game referencing the old EU, with its many but less egregious flaws.

If the investors and/or the board at Disney have half a brain. It will s*** can anyone involved in 7 8 and 9. Bring in some of the top sci-fi writers, Zhan among them, and start over.

Spend a few years writing the story, polishing it, and then start filming it. I'd rather wait for good content then be fed dogshit .

Just got back from the film, and by golly, I'd rather watch The Last Jedi again. That was a trainwreck and a half.

6 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

One in a million. You hit the jump a millisecond before and zip away, or after and splat. Holdo got it bang on the nose.

I liked how they covered this. It was such a short line/moment but it helped things from EP8 make more sense. It’s not just that the FO didn’t expect a kamikaze run, it’s that it was very technically difficult to exploit a hyperspace jump to achieve the effect that Holdo did.

...Man I liked EP9. And 8. And 7 and 3 and 2 and 1. ( FIGHT ME )

6 hours ago, Cr0aker said:

Spe nd a few years writing the story, polishing it, and then start filming it...

...the sad thing is it's now too late for that. At least as far as the Original Trilogy cast goes.

Disney had their chance, they blew it. It's incredible to think they have one studio that gets it so right in Marvel, and one which gets it so wrong here.

Expect a total reboot of the Original Trilogy in a couple of years. Just need to recast Mark and Carrie...

6 hours ago, CoffeeMinion said:

I liked how they covered this. It was such a short line/moment but it helped things from EP8 make more sense. It’s not just that the FO didn’t expect a kamikaze run, it’s that it was very technically difficult to exploit a hyperspace jump to achieve the effect that Holdo did.

...Man I liked EP9. And 8. And 7 and 3 and 2 and 1. ( FIGHT ME )

You know, I'm starting to think the OT vs PT,ST,etc preference is a generational thing. If you grew up in the 70's and 80's and watched SW and old WW2 movies it was hard not to have an underlying notion of light vs, dark, good vs. evil. Even Jabba and what we now lump in as S&V resonated because of the fascination with organized crime. I understand not everyone feels this way, I'm just wondering. The OT is far and away my favorite. And enjoy the movie or not, I feel that R1 does the job of dovetailing into the OT. I mean after I saw it I thought "It's the Guns of Navarone in space, works for me!" Younger fans seem to feel similarly about the other trilogies. I guess that each generation has it's touch points with the story.

Abrams has yet to really finish a story well. Alias worked because it was entirely built around Jennifer Garner's character. Aside from that, the first trek reboot was the only other thing that was a tight story. That still felt like The Breakfast Club in space. Between Lost, TFA, and now this, I think JJ needs to think about his life choices. He can afford it.

SW has never been high caliber story telling. It was fairy tales in space for the most part. The PT was supposed to re-frame the story as the "fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker". It worked okay and gave us some new memorable scenes. I guess I'll enjoy what I like and enjoy my kids enjoying the rest.

Finally saw it yesterday and... I don't know how to feel about it. It will definetly needs a second or third viewing, since there is a lot to process (and with english not being my first language, I probably missed some things, but I always prefer to watch the original version of a movie) but I don't feel like rewatching it right now. It was alright. Not bad, not great either.

The weird feeling I had all movie long was that it felt like JJ or someone higher had a checklist of every complaints some fans had about the sequel trilogy and tried to address them, so it had a big fanservice vibe to me. Is it a good thing or a bad thing, it's hard to tell, but I think some of them removed some potencial for interesting side stories or was not necessary in the first place. For exemple the Snoke reveal, while I'm okay with it, I think it could have been better left alone for now and given later in a book or comic book serie... but I guess a lot of people complained that they wanted a Snoke backstory so they got it. Addressing so many things, some that didn't really need to be addressed, made some of those 'reveal' rushed and not really polished.

While most scene were visually great, and felt like Star Wars, I thought some were kinda forced into the movie, as if JJ had first a vision about a scene and then tried to find a way to put it into the movie, sometimes with a trivial reason as simple as 'I have a feeling'. But they were entertaining scene to watch so, it's not necessarily bad. It might be weird, but it gave me a Uncharted 3 vibe where the designer of the game had ideas about different game location or action scene and then tried to build a story to tie them all together, which gave us a game interesting from a gameplay and visual point of view, but with not real purpose, no real emotion. So I guess Episode 9 is an entertaining movie with great visuals, but it lack a real purpose, real emotion.

And that last part is kinda strange for me, because if there was something I loved about the Sequel trilogy was the emotion, specifically from The Last Jedi. Ben Solo in the Last Jedi was building up to be a very complex and interesting character, we really felt the conflict inside him and saw him heading head-on toward the darkside but still felt that he was torn apart and alone in his own darkness he built himself. In episode 9, it feels like JJ put all this character development, all this complexity aside and just gave us a generic villain at the start of the movie that chase our heroes with the inevitable redemption towards the end. We have Adam Driver that is such a talented actor and we hide him again behind a mask. I guess it made me appreciate Episode 8 even more. The scene with Han Solo is definetly my favorite of Episode 9, I loved how it mirrored the event of Episode 7. I was a little sadden that we didn't got a scene between Luke and Ben, a follow up to the last words of Luke 'See you around, kid'.

Lightsaber duel were nice, I loved the connection touch how they were moving from place to place during their fights, it made for some interesting visual. I prefer more grounded combat with less jumping like we had in Episode 4-5-6-7-8, but it was still okay. I understand that a lot of people prefer flashier combat and they got them in Episode 9. But I didn't felt the emotion in any of them, there was no real build up to any of them I felt. Like I said earlier, it was mainly Kylo chasing them, then a little combat with Rey, they escape, he catch up with Rey and another combat. It made me miss the Snoke Throneroom combat where there was a real build-up to the fight and then an aftermath right after. Here I thought the combat was there because they had to be there, to give the fans flashy lightsaber combats.

So that's pretty much where I stand. Was I entertain? yes. Do I think this movie needs to be rewatched and rewatched to analyse all the deeper meaning? No.... And I think that's what bums me out a little... that the big conclusion to the Skywalker Saga is not a movie that I want to watch again and again and again. I think Han express my feeling pretty well:

And now that the Saga is finished, here is my current ranking (it could definetly change with further viewing of Episode 9)

1-The Last Jedi

2-The Empire Strike Back

3-A New Hope

4-The Force Awaken

5-Return of the Jedi

6-Revenge of the Sith

7-Rise of Skywalker

8-The Phantom Menace

9-Attack of the Clones

What I'm wondering is what is coming next? Ultimately, I think that Episode 9 tried to play it safe to please as many fans as possible. Does it means that they won't take risk anymore because of the backlash of Episode 8? I don't think so. I think that now that the Skywalker Saga is finished, they can now move on to uncharted territories. They can do anything they want without being afraid of displeasing the expectations of some fans. And I hope they do so. I think that Star Wars is at its best when it tries new things. And since new stories will not be attached to old characters, I think that fans that will not like them will be able to move on without feeling the needs to destroy it because it 'ruined their childhood'. So now I think that they can make stories to please everyone, as long as everyone (and that's including me) is able to accept that not every movies will be designed for their personal taste. You like it? Good! You hate it? Alright, move on then!What I certainly hope that will not happens is that Disney turn Star wars into a generic blockbuster playground that never take any risk because it's too afraid to shake the Status Quo. Entertainement movies, with no real meaning.

22 hours ago, LTuser said:

Plus we saw HOW many ships ram, into Vader's ISD, in Rogue one, and NOTHING HAPPENED to it?? So why would his ship have not sustained damage, but holdo's maneuver caused SO MUCH devestation?

Was it cause she actually DID enter hyperspace, and those in Rogue one, got squished doing the run UP to it?

Uh, yeah. The ones that hit never got the chance.

21 hours ago, LTuser said:

Plus we saw HOW many ships ram, into Vader's ISD, in Rogue one, and NOTHING HAPPENED to it?? So why would his ship have not sustained damage, but holdo's maneuver caused SO MUCH devestation?

Was it cause she actually DID enter hyperspace, and those in Rogue one, got squished doing the run UP to it?

Errrr... no.

The Devastator dropped out of Hyperspace right in front of the fleeing Rebel ships before some of them could successfully make the jump to hyperspace.

The only ship that impacted with the Devastator was a single GR-75 Medium Transport, which couldn't pull out of the way in time:

Can't really compare this scene to the Holdo maneuver in any meaningful way; it could even be argued that the arrival of the Devastator directly in their flight path prevented the remaining Revel ships from completing their Hyperspace jumps.

2 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Errrr... no.

The Devastator dropped out of Hyperspace right in front of the fleeing Rebel ships before some of them could successfully make the jump to hyperspace.

The only ship that impacted with the Devastator was a single GR-75 Medium Transport, which couldn't pull out of the way in time:

Can't really compare this scene to the Holdo maneuver in any meaningful way; it could even be argued that the arrival of the Devastator directly in their flight path prevented the remaining Revel ships from completing their Hyperspace jumps.

But that's what i am on about. IF the Devistator's arrival halted everyone from going, cause of its mass in the way, How then did holdo get to do her maneuver, with the UBER MASS of Snokes flagship in the way?

6 hours ago, Red Castle said:

... the Snoke reveal, while I'm okay with it, I think it could have been better left alone for now and given later in a book or comic book serie... but I guess a lot of people complained that they wanted a Snoke backstory so they got it.

I think some explanation of Snoke was necessary since there was literally nothing known about him from an audience perspective other than he is head of the FO and trained Kylo Ren. Especially since it's obvious the characters (Han and Leia and presumably others) understand who he is which means it's not a big mystery to the characters in the story.

Speaking for myself I was pleased with how this was handled. It was only about two lines worth of information and we still know almost nothing about him. So there is plenty of room to fill in backstory in other media (books, comics, etc). They revealed just enough so that the audience at least has an understanding of how he came to be a player in the story.

1 hour ago, LTuser said:

But that's what i am on about. IF the Devistator's arrival halted everyone from going, cause of its mass in the way, How then did holdo get to do her maneuver, with the UBER MASS of Snokes flagship in the way?

I know applying Occam's Razor to a work of fiction isn't usually a good idea, but in this case it might be helpful: and Occam's Razor would say that Rogue One stuck closer to established Star Wars lore and background than The Last Jedi did.

Much closer.

5 hours ago, LTuser said:

But that's what i am on about. IF the Devistator's arrival halted everyone from going, cause of its mass in the way, How then did holdo get to do her maneuver, with the UBER MASS of Snokes flagship in the way?

That's now how it worked. It literally just stopped the ones that were about to jump from jumping. Nothing to do with mass.

The film that predates Rogue One, The Force Awakens, is even more evidence against ship mass stopping jumps.
The Devastator literally just GOT in the WAY.

I did not have the time to read every post, so let's hope I'm not just repeating something that someone else said. The story was interesting, although perhaps in need of more development to fill in the plot holes. What concerns me from a world building point of view is how mangled the Star Wars universe was left after this trilogy.

- The Holdo Manoeuver was not necessary. From a story perspective, simply turning around, full shields forward and crashing headlong into an enemy ship would have created the same effect (probably even more dramatic) without creating a scenario where you suddenly have to say, in every other movie, why don't we use the Holdo Manoeuver? The shot looked cool, but causes problems down the line.

- In the same manner, equipping every ship with a Death Star Weapon is simply useless. If you have a huge fleet like that then just send 10 at a time in a system and bomb the surface using conventional weapons, maybe have a specialized ships to pierce through planetary shielding if need be. Saying that now even a basic Imperial Star Destroyer can be a planet killer like the Death Star causes mind blowing problems for movies down the road. If it does not add anything to the story then don't make something overpowered.

How many people died from using the Force?

That stuff should come with a health warning. Even lightside powers'll get you.

Luke, Leia, Rey and then Kylo. All dead from using the Force to help others!

Still, barring the stupid hyperjump chase (Gravity wells are DEAD as a Dodo now), I quite enjoyed it. I had zero expectation after TLJ, I just wanted ti watch it so I could read the articles with spoilers.

It's not worth a return visit though.

22 hours ago, Cr0aker said:

Spoiler, I have not and will not see the movie. Instead I will set, bait, and kill more mice in my garage. Hoping Mickey is among them.

This weekend I will continue to run my nieces and nephews through the West End games role-playing game referencing the old EU, with its many but less egregious flaws.

If the investors and/or the board at Disney have half a brain. It will s*** can anyone involved in 7 8 and 9. Bring in some of the top sci-fi writers, Zhan among them, and start over.

Spend a few years writing the story, polishing it, and then start filming it. I'd rather wait for good content then be fed dogshit .

Yeah. They say they (Disney) rushed it, but imagine if they hadn't, and Carrie died before production'd begun.

Honest question.... Relatively crap trilogy including Fischer and the other originals, or..., a "better crafted" trilogy without her and with a much older Ford and Hamill.

I'm glad they rushed it, bad as it was.

How does one delete a thunder-thumbs post?

How does one delete a thunder-thumbs post?

I feel like the sequel trilogy was an unnecessary postscript. That's not to say I hate them. I don't. They are fun as "popcorn films." But, for me, they don't add anything I needed or hoped for. Abrams is brilliant at spectacle but a dullard with story. The man doesn't have an original bone in his body. Also, he has no sense of scale or proportion or subtlety. We basically got an original trilogy retread amped up to ELEVEN!!!

I would have been more interested in knowing about events in years closer to Jedi. But... its been 36 years and the actors are all older (or dead) now. They would have to be recast and I'm not sure the fans would have accepted that without whinging the project to death. But, for me, this time-frame was too disconnected from the events of Episodes I-VI to feel relevant. I had a hard time bringing myself to care.

One could have come up with something original and relevant without dipping into Legends material, but its a deep well for someone (like Abrams) who needs to get smacked with an idea. Some possibilities would have been a new take on the Thrawn Trilogy, lifting liberally from the Young Jedi Knights series (Jaina Solo is 100% girl power and, as "the sword of the Jedi," could have brought balance to the force), etc. Instead, I got De Ja Vu Wars.

That's my criticism for the criticism thread. I will save all my nice and glowing comments about individual things I enjoyed about them as nostalgia-fueled tent-pole spectacles, in some other thread.