[Abyss]

Question: When Luke was explaining The Force ™ to Rey, am i the only one who kept suppressing giggles and wanting to shout out ‘midichlorians!!!!’?

[Abyss]

I suppose you would have been equally annoyed when Rey asked Luke to explain 'her place in all this' and i almost yelled out 'You're the Chosen One 2.0!!!'.

[Abyss]

Am i also the only one who spotted Jar Jar in the trench with the other surviving rebels at the end?

All those shuttles blown up and his made it... go figure.

[Abyss]

Speaking of doctors, where can i get one of those medical hot tub suits Finn was rocking?

[Serenity]

T, on 15 December 2017 - 06:32 AM, said:

Spoiler

That fight/entire scene with Smoke was amazing. I just really wanted, at the point Rey and Kylo united, something new... it was on the cusp of going somewhere completely different, with those two as a combined force. And then they parted... And Kylo just carried right on as if nothing had changed.

I agree with this 100%

Spoiler

when they joined up to fight I thought "ooh, this is different and exciting" - and to be honest I thought the movie had dragged quite a bit up to that point - but then they threw all that away and went down the predictable path. Oh well.

I thought they spent almost as much time repeating stuff from the earlier movies as TFA did. Another Dark Side vs Light Side throne room battle? Check. Deactivate the tractor beam? Not quite, but here's a tracking device instead. Another base on an icy looking planet? Here you go. Another training scene and a bit underground where the Dark Side holds sway? Yep. And I thought splitting Finn and Rey up for almost the whole movie was a mistake, too - but that's cos I enjoyed their relationship in TFA.. Ho hum.

And it was way, way, WAY too long. My opinions will probably soften with time - they're a bit knee-jerk at the moment - but I'm so disappointed with it at present. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood.

[Traveller]

Serenity, on 15 December 2017 - 05:46 PM, said:

T, on 15 December 2017 - 06:32 AM, said:

Spoiler

That fight/entire scene with Smoke was amazing. I just really wanted, at the point Rey and Kylo united, something new... it was on the cusp of going somewhere completely different, with those two as a combined force. And then they parted... And Kylo just carried right on as if nothing had changed.

I agree with this 100%

Spoiler

when they joined up to fight I thought "ooh, this is different and exciting" - and to be honest I thought the movie had dragged quite a bit up to that point - but then they threw all that away and went down the predictable path. Oh well.

I thought they spent almost as much time repeating stuff from the earlier movies as TFA did. Another Dark Side vs Light Side throne room battle? Check. Deactivate the tractor beam? Not quite, but here's a tracking device instead. Another base on an icy looking planet? Here you go. Another training scene and a bit underground where the Dark Side holds sway? Yep. And I thought splitting Finn and Rey up for almost the whole movie was a mistake, too - but that's cos I enjoyed their relationship in TFA.. Ho hum.

And it was way, way, WAY too long. My opinions will probably soften with time - they're a bit knee-jerk at the moment - but I'm so disappointed with it at present. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood.

Just imagine what could have been if

Spoiler

Rey had joined Kylo. Forging something new - the balance hinted at? And then have the pair of them working out how to mop up all those First Order generals who were still loyal to Snoke, or sitting and testing their new bond. Finding out the reason for the link (outside of snoke) and even having some nice link back to the Son and Daughter on Mortis. They could have started to bring the jedi back together; bringing in Luke at the same time. These stories don't have to revolve around small groups of rebels fighting big bad; there are so many other options. Remaking the OT is so lazy and... condescending.

The First Order always smacked of something hastily put together to replace the Empire; it was weak in tFA but at least there was Snoke. With him taken out there needed to be something major to fill the sudden void - and it didn't happen. All that lovely build up between Rey and Kylo, that amazing fight, and then they pulled the punch; (I was willing Rey to take his hand) and when she didn't the opportunity to take these movies in a bold new direction slipped away.

This post has been edited by T'rav Elar: 15 December 2017 - 07:49 PM

[Cause]

Spoiler

when the movie ended one as scared to tell my friends that i was not impressed.
Didn't want to be the one to bring the mood down.

But WTF. Horrible. There are cool moments. But that's just it. There are cool moments mixed with bad moments tied up in 3 separate plots that seem to fly in circles while having nothing tondonwith each other.

I'm convinced Kylo monologue was a stand in for the writers. Let the jedi die, let the sith, let the Empire and the rebels all die and let's Do something new! TFA was essentially a redo of episode 4 and this movie had obvious homages to Empire strikes back. THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE AND THIS WILL HAPOEN AGAIN.

The entire casino arc was pointless. Phasma? Really? Did they even plan to have her be interesting or is she just supposed to sell chrome toys? Poe is a mutineers and an incompetent and gun trigger commander. Is that the message I'm supposed to take away from this film? His every action in the film was in error and honestly why did the admiral keep her plan such a secret?

The time period of the movie made no sense.

The fleet chase scene was contrived.
The military tactics and weapons of star wars make no sense, not even in the internal logic of the universe. Bombs? Really? Instead of guided missiles? Why wouldn't 4 carriers launch their fighters the minute they exit hyper space. Why did no-one ever think to hyperspace a ship into the death star. Why is the vice admiral dressed for a cocktail party? When they figured out hyper space tracking is a thing now how on earth did they figure out where it would be on the ship? How do they have fully detailed plans for the ship?

There were some great jokes and some fun moments but these scenes on their own do not a good film make.

This post has been edited by Cause: 16 December 2017 - 09:00 AM

[Tsundoku]

Time lapse Death Star construction.

It's pretty cool.

http://www.theforce....Star_177977.asp

[Silencer]

Just finished it, thoughts in spoilers below:

Spoiler

On the one hand, I loved this movie. Loved it. SO much done right. Rey. Luke. Salt planet Hoth homage (mostly). Character development and chemistry. Fight scenes. Rose and her sister, and Rose and Finn. Lightspeed suicide ship was neat.

On the other hand, it was...kind of disjointed, kind of pointless. I actually like the fact that the "main characters" in terms of Poe and Finn essentially not only went on a pointless mission that didn't work, but also that they inadvertently contributed to the casualties suffered by the Resistance by bringing Mr Hacker del Toro with them. That's actually a really conceptually good arc. It didn't quite pay off because there was no gravitas to the realisation or consequences but I still liked it.
My problem is that it spent most of the movie with the core group split up and they worked really well together in the first film AND it didn't end up going anywhere, plot-wise. It was basically "give them something to do" while Rey trained. The build up to Snoke was simultaneously great and a big let down. Like, he's obviously super-powerful in the Force...but we still know NOTHING about him, and he fell in to the usual Sith trap: arrogance. Was it a great Malazan-esque moment of this veritable Force-wielding God getting struck down by a casual lightsaber? Sure. But it left the First Order headless and at the whims of Kylo Ren (note: still haven't seen the Knights of Ren? Really?!?) who clearly isn't anywhere near as big a threat as Snoke was, and doesn't have his head screwed on - though I do like Hux's characterisation in the moment where he starts to get his gun out to kill the defenseless Ren.
We've got a similar problem in that the expansion of the side cast, while great, had a few too many faces without any real depth behind them, and the Resistance/Rebellion basically have almost no-one left. And we've now established that a ship moving at lightspeed can and will act exactly how you would expect a projectile at that speed to act - which means there is now a one-death-only-required solution to any enemy fleet, ship, space station, moon, whatever. Plus, ships in Star Wars now have actual shields! That actually stop things from hitting them some noticeable distance from the surface of the ship! When did that happen!??!?!

The Maz scene was kind of weird. Not sure if I liked it or not. The running of the bulls was kind of CGI nonsense. Some of the messages were very heavy-handed and on the nose. And much as I loved the Porgs and those diamond-salt-fox-rabbits they were all a bit too shoe-horned in for no real rhyme nor reason.

All of this sort of combines to the fact that I, like others upthread, left the theater feeling kind of...flat. Like, I really enjoyed the film and want to see it again immediately. And despite the disparity in paragraph length I actually liked a lot more things than I disliked in this film. The important things worked. It's just that there's all these really small, or less important parts of the film that didn't quite come together. And I've got no idea where the last film is going to take us. I didn't even mind the similarities to Empire - hell, I loved TFA despite it being extremely similar to ANH, and this was less directly a clone of the ESB plot than that. But it just kinda didn't leave me feeling giddy and standing-ovation-y like I did for TFA. Though there were a bunch of laugh/shout/cheer out loud moments in the film. It's kinda weird. I will have to watch it again to help crystallize these ideas.

Overall I give this a 7/10, where TFA was a 8.5, and Rogue One around an 8. I think. Maybe.

[Traveller]

I'm still all over the place with this one. Time will tell I guess.

I kind of want to see it again though.

By the way,

Spoiler

was that line of Luke's at the end to Kylo one Han used in the OT? It seemed familiar...

This post has been edited by T'rav Elar: 16 December 2017 - 05:45 PM

[worry]

My review is as follows:

Spoiler

I liked everything except the casino/racetrack/kid scenes, which I disliked. That stuff approached Phantom Menace territory. Other than that, I was surprised multiple times, and almost always in a good way. Adam Driver is MVP again.

[worry]

Spoiler

Also last night, when re-watching TFA, I realized that when Maz looked into Finn's eyes and saw "running away" or however she put it, and how she'd seen those eyes before, she was almost certainly referring to Luke...who had obviously been through there on his way to self-exile and left (ie abandoned) his light saber in her care.

[QuickTidal]

So I wrote up a whole long post about my feelings yesterday and my browser fucking ate it. I was pissed cause I spent a half hour on it!
Anyways, let's try again.
I want to start by saying, I liked it. I did. But the complexities of that statement are myriad, so I'll need to air them out...and I think it MIGHT sound like I didn't like it. But I did, I just have some farily glaring issues with it.

Spoiler

Let's get the things I flat out hated out of the way first.

Rian Johnson completely character assasinated Luke fucking Skywalker. I now understand why Mark Hamill so disagreed with Johnson's take on the character. Deconstructing Luke after years of failure and introspection to the point where he questions everything is fine. I get that and I knew that going in...but what he did here is turn him into someone he's not and flies in the face of his hero's journey in the OT. Luke saves the galaxy by never giving up on his father in the OT...but darkness builds in his nephew that he can sense, and he gets paranoid and decides to kill him? Fuuuuuuuuuuuck you Rian Johnson. Fuck you hard. Above and beyond that having Luke seal himself off from the Force? Jeezus, wtf? A deconstructuion of Luke is fine, but what he did here was make him unrecognizable as the person he was. Look at Obi-Wan....HIS failure was WAY greater than Luke's was...not seeing his best friend falling to the darkside and ending a multi-thousand year order? Luke comes to him and he's still got hope that somehting can be done about Vader. Luke fails with Ben and decides to seal himself off from the force to go to an island and die (then why pick one wiht a Jedi temple?) and then REFUSES to train someone who obviously wants to be a new hope for the galaxy. Then, of all things (the one thing I didn't want to happen in this movie, Rian did), Luke dies...not in battle, not for any other reason than "I won't leave this planet, so I'll do some deadly (and let's be clear it's only deadly becuase Kylo told Rey earlier in the film that such an effort would kill her) astral projection force tricks to let the Rebels get away!" Then he fades away. So let's tally. Rian turns Luke into someone he never was, and then uses him as a plot device to let the Rebels escape the FO, and also table clear the Jedi for Rey. And Luke essentially CREATED Kylo Ren by losing faith in his pprentice and nephew. It's...Just....fuck this. Fuck it.

That brings me to my second point. JJ and Rian should be having a celebrity kickboxing match against one another. JJ set up a whole bunch of plot lines and mysteries in TFA, and Rian destroys every one in the name of "subverting the narrative" repeatedly. He spends 2.5 hours DECONSTRUCTING what JJ built and treating it all like garbage. This is where I feel the "there is no overarcing narrative plan for how the new trilogy would go" REALLY hurts the thing. But yeah, let's list the shit that Rian undoes from JJ's start:

-Kylo's mask (whch I liked) is removed and destroyed in minutes of him appearing on screen.

-Rey's parents are simple junk traders (now I knew she probaly would be random, and that would be fine...but JJ made it a mystery and I have to assume for a reason. I'd lovde to know who he intended her parrents to be...as I don't think this was his intention).

-Phasma is a wet fart again. Criminally underused (since Gwen Christie is a GREAT actor) and treated as a "look, cool looking character is in the movie for 5 minutes!" and dead. She's inserted in a spot she needn't be, and used to try to peddle some narrative with Finn that never blossomed into anyhting in TFA anyways. So it dosen't land.

-Snoke. Ugh. Killing Snoke (while cool, see below) was (I'm sure) NEVER JJ's intent. It's like Rian said, well I want Kylo as the main baddie, so let's show how SUPER powerful this guy is....and then unceremoniously kill him off without every getting into his back story (and how he co-opted Ben Solo). Becuase Kylo and Hux are somehow able to run the First Order when they are no better than petulant, squabbling siblings? I mean, TFA showed us how immature Kylo is..and Rian expects me to buy that he can run the FO?

-There is no longer a chance for any endgame for the FO. Snoke's goal with the FO appeared to be domination of the galaxy like the Empire. With him gone, you only have Kylo...and Kylo's ENTIRE exsitence was about fighitng the conlfict within him and killing Luke Skywalker (and teaching/turning Rey if he got the shot). There is nothing about Kylo Ren that speaks to a larger plan of why the First Order should succed and what they would do if they did.

-The Knights of Ren are (again) entirely absent. They get (I assume) a BRIEF mention by Luke (the students Ben took with him when he left)....but otherwise are non-existent. So they are either dead....or the second damned movie to speak of them refused to show them. Since Kylo is their "leader"...they should ahve been present in both films, but ESEPCIALLY this one. And nada.

-Luke tossing his father's lightsaber....one he "lost" with his hand years and years ago...away. It's utterly fucking ludicrous and I shook my damned head. Worse, it's played for a laugh...and the less said about milking the teat of that space creaure the better.

-Finn is reduced to side character. He was essentaily the victim of "What can I come up with for Finn to do" and we end up with the nigh-pointless Canto Bight sequence. And don't get me started on pulling the one moment Finn had to be cool. If he'd have sacrficed himself to take out the big gun, what a great end to a heros journey where he began it on the other side of the conlifct. But nope. Pulled out from under us to serve a "love story" that is not remotely developed with Rose.

-Speaking of Canto Bight. Maz's code hacker "friend" was the PERFECT opportunity to bring in Lando. And at a gambling city to boot? But instead we get this weird switcheroo where they want this one guy to be that, can't get at him, end up in jail and SOMEHOW there is DJ who can code hack? And Benicio Del Toro is WASTED. He's not charming, or rogueish like he should be...he's just a waste used to make the overall plan not work with an obvious betrayal.

-The ENTIRE main plot is hinged on the fact that Admiral Holdo (for ZERO reason) keeps her plans from Poe about how to escape (never mind the stupidity of the "we are running out of fuel and they can track us through hyperspace" nonsense) and as a result ALL the other parts of that plotline kick off resulting in many casualties, and multiple failures. Yes, Poe is at fault for a lot of shit in this movie, but Holdo (written as a moron by Rian) is the reason that everythign that befalls the Rebels does. If she had told Poe (the main commander of the forces) the plan...none of the rest would have had to transpire as it did.

-Superman Leia. Ugh. I liked that we got a new force ability (surviving the vacuum of space) but this scene waa weird and overwrought. The only reason it was a nice get out of dying free card was becuase it allowed for a Luke & Leia reuniion at the end of the film.

-He killed off major characters in a stupid way. Admiral Ackbar is killed off in the bridge explosion...that pissed me OFF. The rebels are down to like 12 people by the end who can all fit aboard the falcon. I mean wot?!

-Where is Temmin Wexley? I guess the goodwill betwen JJ and his actor friend didn't extend to Rian's movie. Nevermind that he seemed to be second in command of Black Squadron under Poe.

-The crystal foxes are the biggest Checkov's gun in the new trilogy by FAR. Og, these mineral creatures that live here...yeah they may turn out to be important! Ugh. They looked cool as hell, but their use was hackneyed.

-No force ghosts for Anakin or Obi-Wan. Using Yoda was great! But the fact that Force Ghost Anakin and Obi-Wan were not present show how Rian was tailoring the narrative to serve his goals and not organically. By all intents the two ghosts SHOULD be present because of the insight they can shed on A GUY TURNING TO THE DARK SIDE FROM THE LIGHT AND BEOCMING A DARK LORD...and beating him or turning him back. Anakin's insight alone would hav helped Rey and Luke.

The only interesring narrative thing Rian attmpeted here was the almost turning back of Kylo in Snoke's trhone room (my fave scene in the movie) to the light...and I was like "Oh, this is awesome! Kylo will be turned back and we get to see what the aftermath of that will be, and how the anti-hero can redeem himself over a whole movie and a half!...then I realized Snoke was gone, and without an antagonist...yup, Rian pulls the rug and Kylo goes "Oh right, as you were, let's rule the galaxy as evil folk!". Now I get that Kylo pulls off what Vader never could (defeat your master and rule in his place)...but he's in NO way capable of that ruling fist. None. If anything, his failure on the Crait fields in the face of his old master shows that he's still just an immature, conflicted manchild. How is that a "big threat" going forward, I don't know.

Also, no lightsaber duels. Not one. The throne room and the Luke V Kylo were both non-lightsaber duels. Consider me non-plussed about that.

Now, this all makes it sound as if I hated this movie. I didn't. I liked a lot in it...but make no mistake, it's only becuase I have to disconnect it from "canon" in my head as it's gone completely off the rails in that capacity for me. Rian made everythign too different and changed everything in ways that feels unorganic and un-Star Wars. As a space opera film with Star wars stuff in it, I had a great time with it and there is lots of stuff to love. But George Lucas's restrained "It's a very beautiful film" whe asked what he thought of it...takes on whole volumes of subtletly now to me. He liked how it looked, and played, but didn't like what they did to his story. I concur.

Stuff I liked.

-Throne Room fight. Amazing start to finish. Just a gloriuous and enjoyable section of the film.

-The crait battle sequence was cool throughout.

-Yoda! Probably my second fave scene in the movie was Yoda. Him taunting Luke was great. I especially liked his bit about Rey "Already has all that was in that cave"...and we find out at the end she TOOK the Jedi Order books! Awesome.

-Forshadowed stuff. Luke: What do you expect me to do? Take on the whole First order?....proceeds to kind of do exactly that later in the film.

-Holdo. As much as I hated her as a character and what Rian did with her...Laura Dern was amazing in the role!

-Leia. Any scene with Carrie was better for it. She really did a fantastic job and should be proud of her final turn as the character.

-The space battle stuff, particularly the opening with Poe and Paige's sacrfice aboard the bomber was perfectly done. Probalny my third fave scene in the film. Is it sad I think I'd rather have seen Paige with Finn instead of Rose? Rose felt too "fangirlish" to me as a character.

-The Leia hologram callback by R2 to Luke.

-The boy at the end with the SUPER subtle force pull on the broom and the holding it up lime a saber to the moon. Lovely shot to end on.

So yeah. I liked it as a soldily entertianing movie (if a bit long)...as long as I don't look at plot holes too hard (and there are a lot) and I don't apply it as a Star Wars movie too much. It felt like Rian was so hell bent on clearing the existing table, he middle-fingered anyone who wanted a contiuatuon story and not a reset one. I'm happy to see what JJ does in IX, and I have HOPE that he is able to salvage the trilogy from what I think Rian did to it here...but I'm SO much less impressed with the sequel trilogy now. ROGUE ONE was better than this for me.

Laslty, and this will make BK all kinds of excited I'm sure...I think I need to re-read the old EU. Go back to the continuation of the story that I liked and thought was mostly organic. Where the charaxcters continued in ways that made sense, even years later. And instead of resetting a galactic war on the same principles as before...it was a fledlging Repulbic dealing with growing pains and what was left of the Empire was still around and began to exhibit tendecies to messing with that peace. To that end, there is a comixology sale right now on all Star Wars comics and I bought the adaptation of the Thrawn Trilogy from 2009 and only one issue into it, and after being disappointed by THE LAST JEDI and the direction Rian took his film...Thr Thrawn trilogy feels like home. Sorry I didn't like this as much as everyone else seemed to. Trust me, I'm as sad about that as ever.
Time to re-read the entire old EU and go back to what I'd like the Galaxy Far Far Away to look like after ROTJ.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 17 December 2017 - 04:08 PM

[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 17 December 2017 - 05:17 PM, said:

Old EU is mostly gold and yeah I still get tears knowing it’s gone. NJO is where it’s at!

I'm going back to it whole hog now. Gonna do a full reread of the NJO and other stuff after that.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

worry, on 17 December 2017 - 07:48 AM, said:

My review is as follows:

Spoiler

I liked everything except the casino/racetrack/kid scenes, which I disliked. That stuff approached Phantom Menace territory. Other than that, I was surprised multiple times, and almost always in a good way. Adam Driver is MVP again.

Cheating slightly, but honestly Worry said pretty much word for word what I thought. Aside from my same pick of "naff bit", I really loved it all. Star Wars grew up - but not without the odd self referential wink. Genuinely so pleased with it!

[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 17 December 2017 - 07:14 PM, said:

For QT. I enjoyed the

Spoiler

Superwoman thing. Don’t think any of what she did was new powers. She tranced and then nudged. That was probably the easiest nudge ever since there is no gravity in space. I was just happy she was shown using the Force other then telepathy as for years we have read her as a full blown Jedi in EU.

Yeah, maybe I just didn't like how it was shot. It was nice to see that level of power used.

[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 17 December 2017 - 07:45 PM, said:

Should be interesting bks that get into exactly what she can do and how she learned it.

Except Rian goddamn Johnson probably didn't even think it out do it will have to be retconned by someone else sadly.

[Coco with marshmallows]

So, saw it last night.... not great IMO.

I'm sure many of these points have been raised/answered but:

spoiler

Spoiler

Finn's character arc ending there with self sacrifice would have been perfect, and perhaps could have contributed further to Poe's development as a leader.

Since when were there gods in Star Wars? Admiral Holdo saying "God bless you" as the rebels escaped literally threw me for a loop for a moment in the cinema

Speaking of the rebels - there were a couple hundred in the trenches, and more still in the base, but only enough survived that they could all get onto the Falcon?

I have other gripes too, but these are the main ones.

[Chance]

Just saw it and it is the least impressive of the new movies to me. Worth seeing but nothing special.

Spoiler

To me the entire movie was a mess with occational cool scenes. Yes it was entertaining but...

While light speed ramming was cool! Its implications are devestating.

Finn and Rose sidequest was a pure waste of time. So was most of what Poe was doing.

Stop with the "cute" alien thing it feels like the prequels once again.

When it comes down to it this was a visually stunning movie with only a few scenes with real gravity and drama to them; Luke walking out to face Ren, Throneroom fight, Yoda Calling Lightning, Lightspeed Ramming, Opening bomber sequence.

I think they really wasted possibilities with killing off Luke, not telling us any backstoy on Snoke before killing him and possibly also in not connecting Rey to what has come before. So many things in this film lacked weight becuase there was too little emotional investment in them.

This post has been edited by Chance: 17 December 2017 - 10:53 PM

[Silencer]

Briar King, on 17 December 2017 - 11:42 PM, said:

I don’t believe Ben for a second with

Spoiler

him leading Rey into her parents were no body. He’s evil. Evil people lie or distort shit. It is possible from a certain point of view that her parents were nobody vanillas but one of their parents could be someone powerful and known to us.

I sure hope not. Much better the way it is.