Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

Qhue · Dec 18, 2017

Rian Johnson employed the age-old technique of 'show don't tell' to good effect. This is why he got his own trilogy.

I love Star Wars but the movie series has been absolutely crap at communicating with the audience other than blatant exposition. Take Vader for example. How do we know he has good in him? It sure as hell aint there in A New Hope and it doesn't seem to be manifest in Empire either. Only in Return of the Jedi do we see any notion of Vader's redemption (nominally the main arc of the whole prequel + OT hexology) and only then because Luke tell's us that he senses good in his father. Luke actually mentions it a few times (to Yoda, Leia, even to Vader himself) yet at no point do we, the audience, see Vader show even a hint of reluctance to do something terrible much less anything good until the moment he picks up the emperor and chucks him over the railing.

LiquidDeath · Dec 18, 2017

Miguex said:
Its so interesting to me how you and I share just about the same nerd/collector cred for SW (except you have me beat by Celebration attendance by a long shot, but I've got you on years of fandom by at least a decade, since the original being the first movie I ever saw in a theater) and I loved this movie (also a gigantic fan of TFA). I don't think this is a perfect movie, only Empire even comes close to that in this entire franchise, but I think the positives in this so far outweigh the few negatives that they are negligible to me, after 3 viewings now. Can't help but feel there's a ton of Goldilocks syndrome going on with these new films (not with you specifically). TFA too much like old stuff!! TLJ not enough like old stuff!! Maybe I'm not smart enough to see all the flaws that have pissed everyone else on here off. Maybe I'm lucky for that.

If you love Luke Skywalker, I don't see how you can come away with this opinion of the film. I think it was a terrible movie, but had great audio and visuals and also was just able to scratch the Star Wars itch.

R.E. Laura Dern. I hated her in this movie because all anyone over the age of 25 can see is LAURA DERN playing the same role she has ever played but this time in Star Wars. She would have fit in better in Rogue One with it's more sombre tone, but she stuck out like a sore thumb in this one. Contrast her performance with Benecio who just slid in and did it perfectly. He was one of the best parts of the movie and gave his character some depth with limited screen time. Dern's casting just underscores that Disney way over thought this movie instead of going with what worked.

LiquidDeath · Dec 18, 2017

Qhue said:
Rian Johnson employed the age-old technique of 'show don't tell' to good effect. This is why he got his own trilogy.

I love Star Wars but the movie series has been absolutely crap at communicating with the audience other than blatant exposition. Take Vader for example. How do we know he has good in him? It sure as hell aint there in A New Hope and it doesn't seem to be manifest in Empire either. Only in Return of the Jedi do we see any notion of Vader's redemption (nominally the main arc of the whole prequel + OT hexology) and only then because Luke tell's us that he senses good in his father. Luke actually mentions it a few times (to Yoda, Leia, even to Vader himself) yet at no point do we, the audience, see Vader show even a hint of reluctance to do something terrible much less anything good until the moment he picks up the emperor and chucks him over the railing.

You're arguing that we only get exposition while discussing the major plot point wholely centered around their intuition based on an invisible energy that flows in and around all things. I understand your point, but I disagree that this somehow makes the original trilogy bad at telling the story. TLJ was clearly an inferior story told in a worse way.

sukik · Dec 18, 2017

Show don't tell is great when what's being shown isn't out of character motivations, mustache twirling villainy and cringey virtue signalling.

sukik · Dec 18, 2017

I found a picture of Domhnall Gleeson preparing for his performance as Hux in The Last Jedi.

Royal · Dec 18, 2017

Hux is supposed to be a pretender who rose in rank not because he was actually capable but because he's an underhanded weasel. His father was a first rate asshole and a generally unrespected officer in the Republic Army who served the Empire but was never formally a member of it's military. Gleeson's character was his illegitimate son by a servant girl. He eventually ended up having his father killed. His depiction in TLJ was probably a bit closer to how the character was originally envisioned though none of that is set up in the movies themselves, which is a failure on their part.

sukik · Dec 18, 2017

Royal said:
Hux is supposed to be a pretender who rose in rank not because he was actually capable but because he's an underhanded weasel. His father was a first rate asshole and a generally unrespected officer in the Republic Army who served the Empire but was never formally a member of it's military. Gleeson's character was his illegitimate son by a servant girl. He eventually ended up having his father killed. His depiction in in TLJ was probably a bit closer to how the character was originally envisioned though none of that is set up in the movies themselves, which is a failure on their part.

That would be fine if that was shown in the movie. He just ended up being the silliest part of a silly group of villain caricatures.

Royal · Dec 18, 2017

sukik said:
That would be fine if that was shown in the movie. He just ended up being the silliest part of a silly group of villain caricatures.

The captain (Captain Canady) of that dreadnought that Poe attacked at the beginning of the movie seemed like a legit, no nonsense badass. It was a shame he bit it so soon.

sukik · Dec 18, 2017

Royal said:
The captain (Captain Canady) of that dreadnought that Poe attacked at the beginning of the movie seemed like a legit, no nonsense badass. It was a shame he bit it so soon.

He was cool. He reminded me of Jack Fisk from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica.

Muligan · Dec 18, 2017

Royal said:
He (Rian Johnson) got an offer to do his own trilogy.

I found the conversation between Disney and Rian Johnson.... He's getting sent off to "Toy Testing" (His on trilogy) where he can't mess things up.

Warrik · Dec 18, 2017

This movie gets worse the more you reflect

Space Leia flying, Ghost Yoda blowing shit up, Snoke repeating the EXACT character arc as Dartth Maul (as in, no Arc, both have limited screen time, hint towards being awesome, just to be cut in half and disposed of). Finn is a shit character, and Rose was an insult to the series. The entire Casino scene was Prequel level bad.

This was Episode One level, bush league writing and execution. These characters are zero dimensional. To quote Red Letter Media: Describe Finn or Rey characters. Laura Dern? Non existent. There is no emotional investment in these characters. Seriously, fuck this film. Atrocious.

The originals were great because it had very strong characters that pulled you in. You cared about the story. This mess? This was space battles, canned humour (don't get me started on how bad this humour was), special effects, and filler.

Oblio · Dec 18, 2017

Warrik said:
This movie gets worse the more you reflect

Space Leia flying, Ghost Yoda blowing shit up, Snoke repeating the EXACT character arc as Dartth Maul (as in, no Arc, both have limited screen time, hint towards being awesome, just to be cut in half and disposed of). Finn is a shit character, and Rose was an insult to the series. The entire Casino scene was Prequel level bad.

This was Episode One level, bush league writing and execution. These characters are zero dimensional. To quote Red Letter Media: Describe Finn or Rey characters. Laura Dern? Non existent. There is no emotional investment in these characters. Seriously, fuck this film. Atrocious.

The originals were great because it had very strong characters that pulled you in. You cared about the story. This mess? This was space battles, canned humour (don't get me started on how bad this humour was), special effects, and filler.

I said this in my original post, I look forward to the resurrection of Snoke in the next Star Wars Cartoon Series where he teams up with his long lost brother and actually gets an origin story along with a death that does him justice.

Gavinmad · Dec 18, 2017

Oblio said:
I said this in my original post, I look forward to the resurrection of Snoke in the next Star Wars Cartoon Series where he teams up with his long lost brother and actually gets an origin story along with a death that does him justice.

Darth Maul doesn't die in Clone Wars

*edit* Oh never mind I looked him up and in the process spoiled an unwatched Rebels episode for myself

Oblio · Dec 18, 2017

Gavinmad said:
Darth Maul doesn't die in Clone Wars

*edit* Oh never mind I looked him up and in the process spoiled an unwatched Rebels episode for myself

Shit my bad dude, though that episode is about nine months old. Also, Snape kills...

Kreugen · Dec 18, 2017

Oh ffs, tone down the red pill gamergate moronic shit, it wasn't "lol womyn r better than men", it was CLEARLY age/experience vs youth/bravado and the pro/cons of each. Especially when it comes to making sacrifices when they really count. It was about learning from mistakes and moving on as a wiser person. It you don't catch that the first ten times the movie hammers on it, it gets spelled right the fuck out when the past is literally (der) killed with fire.

Unfortunately, the example of NOT moving on from mistakes had to be Goddamn Luke Skywalker. God. Dammit. Well, it's consistent - the Skywalkers are clearly blinded by their emotions above all fucking sense. Yoda justified it - new times, new ideas, blah blah. But c'mon man, they dicked Luke hard.

Also, Yoda blowing up the Jedi texts could be interpreted as a huge middle finger to religious fundamentalism. Adapt to the times, etc.

Yes you could erase Dern and put Ackbar there. But Dern was there because Poe didn't trust her judgement and neither did the audience and so you had the mutiny thing. That arc wasn't about Dern, that was about Poe. And Poe sure as shit would have trusted Ackbar.

I liked that Del Toro was an actual scoundrel instead of another romance novel "scoundrel." It's a shame they couldn't do something better with the casino bit than those donkey things. Suddenly I was in a Harry Potter movie.

I assume they intended the real slicer to be Lando but thankfully realized that would have been cheap shit to use him like that.

Stuff did happen that moves things forward - Kylo as Supreme Leader should be a disaster, and that retarded huge ship that got fucked up looked expensive. It was enough to make it plausible that the pitiful Resistance has time to regroup for Ep 9. The First Order is big but it's no Empire - they didn't even want to waste fighter craft finishing off that cruiser. (another /eyeroll) Do you think Palp would have given a flying fuck about that?

Look, I grew up on this shit. And I can still rip any one of these movies apart if I want to. Obvious example: Escaping the Death Star. Leia: "YIPPEE WE DID IT!!! Hugs all around! Oh, actually you suck and they let us escape, they are tracking us. But we'll go straight to our base anyway!"

There was a lot to enjoy in this movie. But I don't think it's one that you rewatch much. Hell, I can only watch Jedi by skipping the Ewoks.

tl;dr Go see Thor 3 if you haven't.

LiquidDeath · Dec 18, 2017

Kreugen said:
Oh ffs, tone down the red pill gamergate moronic shit, it wasn't "lol womyn r better than men", it was CLEARLY age/experience vs youth/bravado and the pro/cons of each. Especially when it comes to making sacrifices when they really count. It was about learning from mistakes and moving on as a wiser person. It you don't catch that the first ten times the movie hammers on it, it gets spelled right the fuck out when the past is literally (der) killed with fire.

Unfortunately, the example of NOT moving on from mistakes had to be Goddamn Luke Skywalker. God. Dammit. Well, it's consistent - the Skywalkers are clearly blinded by their emotions above all fucking sense. Yoda justified it - new times, new ideas, blah blah. But c'mon man, they dicked Luke hard.

Also, Yoda blowing up the Jedi texts could be interpreted as a huge middle finger to religious fundamentalism. Adapt to the times, etc.

Yes you could erase Dern and put Ackbar there. But Dern was there because Poe didn't trust her judgement and neither did the audience and so you had the mutiny thing. That arc wasn't about Dern, that was about Poe. And Poe sure as shit would have trusted Ackbar.

I liked that Del Toro was an actual scoundrel instead of another romance novel "scoundrel." It's a shame they couldn't do something better with the casino bit than those donkey things. Suddenly I was in a Harry Potter movie.

I assume they intended the real slicer to be Lando but thankfully realized that would have been cheap shit to use him like that.

Stuff did happen that moves things forward - Kylo as Supreme Leader should be a disaster, and that retarded huge ship that got fucked up looked expensive. It was enough to make it plausible that the pitiful Resistance has time to regroup for Ep 9. The First Order is big but it's no Empire - they didn't even want to waste fighter craft finishing off that cruiser. (another /eyeroll) Do you think Palp would have given a flying fuck about that?

Look, I grew up on this shit. And I can still rip any one of these movies apart if I want to. Obvious example: Escaping the Death Star. Leia: "YIPPEE WE DID IT!!! Hugs all around! Oh, actually you suck and they let us escape, they are tracking us. But we'll go straight to our base anyway!"

There was a lot to enjoy in this movie. But I don't think it's one that you rewatch much. Hell, I can only watch Jedi by skipping the Ewoks.

tl;dr Go see Thor 3 if you haven't.

And yet the two young females in the movie are not portrayed anything like the young males....

HMMMMMMMMM......

Kreugen · Dec 18, 2017

Also, a bit /eyeroll but...

If Snoke actually is Plagueis and not just Palpatine's pen pal from deep space or whatever, he could always show right back up as some young dude in a golden Hugh Hefner robe, or even reassemble himself like the T-1000. Which I 10% expected right then and there.

Kreugen · Dec 18, 2017

LiquidDeath said:
And yet the two young females in the movie are not portrayed anything like the young males....

HMMMMMMMMM......

..... You're saying Rey's decision making was flawless in this movie? Because she was so sure of herself and accomplished her goals so well?

... and that lovestruck/hero worship chubby whose plans worked out so great?

Gavinmad · Dec 18, 2017

Kreugen said:
Oh ffs, tone down the red pill gamergate moronic shit, it wasn't "lol womyn r better than men", it was CLEARLY age/experience vs youth/bravado and the pro/cons of each. Especially when it comes to making sacrifices when they really count. It was about learning from mistakes and moving on as a wiser person. It you don't catch that the first ten times the movie hammers on it, it gets spelled right the fuck out when the past is literally (der) killed with fire.

Yes you could erase Dern and put Ackbar there. But Dern was there because Poe didn't trust her judgement and neither did the audience and so you had the mutiny thing. That arc wasn't about Dern, that was about Poe. And Poe sure as shit would have trusted Ackbar.

tl;dr Go see Thor 3 if you haven't.

Except you just perfectly spelled out one reason why people are coming away with the impression that Johnson was pushing a womyn narrative. There was absolutely no reason to present Poe as such a fucking moron, and that was the only reason Dern's character existed, was to try and present Poe as a fucking moron. And it turned out Dern was fucking wrong in the first place, and their secret womyn power plan was fucking retarded, like full on Family Guy parody level retarded.

Lois: We're evacuating into outer space, with literally infinite directions in which to flee. However, we have decided that our transports will travel directly towards the fleet of Star Destroyers. Any questions?

Rebel soldier: Yeah. Is there someone from the military we can talk to? A man, perhaps?

Oblio said:
Shit my bad dude, though that episode is about nine months old. Also, Snape kills...

Yeah it's fine, I fell behind on a lot of my shows and I get spoiled every now and then

Kreugen · Dec 18, 2017

I don't think it made Poe look like a moron. He wasn't in the loop. They fucked up just as much by not trusting him with the information. "Even heroes/smart people fuck up" was beaten to death all over this movie.

And they weren't flying towards the imperial fleet, I'm not sure where you got that. More like this / because if the cruiser had been pointing right at the planet it'd have been too obvious and the FO would have just blockade... hey why didn't they just jump over and blockade once they saw....? lol, dammit.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

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