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The I've Seen The Last Jedi Thread (spoilers OBV)


Dark Wader
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Saw it a few hours ago, still kinda processing this one, not sure if I like it, love it or what yet. This definitely didn't feel like an ESB clone to me and I thought it was probably the most unpredictable Star Wars movie I've seen...but possibly because this is the most spoiler free I've been for one, so most likely that. Also liked that it remained stylistically Star Wars but also did things we're not used to seeing in a Star Wars movie (actual flashbacks and the weird dark side vision).

 

Likes:

 

- Humour

- Space battle at the start

- Fight with Kylo/Rey and Snoke's guards

- Hyperspace jump into the Star destroyer thing

- Snoke's death

- Yoda

 

Dislikes

-Wasn't a huge fan of Luke's send off or Leia's spacewalk

- Artoo was STILL hardly in this one

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More thoughts:

 

- More I mull it over the more I like the movie, the "let go of the past and make our own future" theme was fitting after Force Awakens, liked that

- Still not a huge fan of Luke's send off, was really hoping he would stick around. I don't want him to be front and centre but I didn't really feel his story was resolved. 100% we will see him as a force ghost in the next movie though.

- I've read a lot of complaints about the humour in the movie and that it was overdone. . .I thought the balance was just right. Star Wars should be fun. Even with the darker themes in this one it still managed to be one of the most enjoyable Star Wars experiences.

- Porgs and Chewie were fantastic. That whole island and all the creatures were actually. Really enjoyed the caretakers and Rey as well.

- Same with Force Awakens and Rogue One, I like that they don't really talk about the prequels but they're not trying to ignore them or write them out either. Luke talking about the failure of the Jedi and Darth Sidious was a good way of working it in. But the little dig with Maz talking about unions was a nice touch.

- Laura Dern's character was a nice surprise - I expected her to be betraying them all to the First Order at the end. Instead gets one of the best send offs in the franchise - the hyper space jump was beautiful.

- Like the Kylo & Hux dynamic

- I had a feeling Kylo would kill Snoke but not right near the middle. I've read a lot of complaints as well that it was stupid to kill him off so soon and without a proper backstory, but I felt the opposite. The character was just a dull Palpatine rip off in the first place. Kylo taking power but still being so unstable really sets this apart from the last 2 trilogies.

- I genuinely don't like how little screen time R2 has gotten the last 2 movies. I love BB8 but I need to have a scene where R2 saves the day at least once in this trilogy.

-I didn't mind BB8 steering the AT ST like some others. . .it's not something that would of really felt out of place in the originals.

- I got what they were trying to do with it but really didn't like the last scene with the kid.

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The hyper space ramming was a jaw-on-the-floor moment. The silence.

 

I'm still processing it, but looking forward to seeing it again next Tuesday, or sooner if I get impatient and can't be bothered to save a little bit of money (Tuesday is discount day at my local theater).

 

Initial feeling about is positive, and I think I'm going to struggle with the lovers and the haters again. There were lots of things I didn't like, but I've learned to ignore them now or just switch off for a bit instead of getting more and more angry about them for the rest of the movie.

 

Thought I would dislike the caretakers, but they worked as a background thing that rarely drew attention to itself. Loved everything on the island, especially those sea cows things that Luke milked. That was a proper unapologetic "this might gross you out, but we don't care" moment. Rey's hall of mirrors. Great.

 

I didn't think I would like Leia's spacewalk either (was spoiled for me), but I went with it. Leia / Carrie was always going to have a Force moment (edit) eventually (edit), and it was very graceful.

 

Things I'm most happy about (apart from Luke / Hamill being fantastic) are Rey's parentage being a non-thing, Snoke being killed early / duped, and Kylo (probably) turning out to be the kind of nakedly ambitious and entitled villain that I wanted him to be.

 

I really thought Finn was going to die, and then he didn't. Not fair.

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Always hard to wrap your mind around a movie after seeing it once when you've see the other movies so many times. I loved so much of what they did. Love love love Kylo killing Snoke and taking control of First Order. Called it the first time I saw TFA. I love Reys parents being nobodies. I thought that was the way to go as well. As for Luke's end, it makes sense for the themes of this movie. It even goes along with Poe learning he doesn't have to be a daring hero. Luke didn't go out in a blaze of glory, but he did allow the Resistance to survive.

 

Like I said,always hard to wrap my mind around the movie after seeing it once. But when I think about it there isn't much I didn't like. The only thing I didn't like is that I wanted more. I wanted a real Luke saber fight, I wanted Kylo vs Rey II. It's ok I didn't get them though, what I did get I like basically everything.

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Also just loved the whole recurring theme of people being absolutely willing to die for the Resistance. Rose's sister at the beginning, Holdo later, Finn at the end. Such a sense of desperation. Thought that was great.

 

More I think about it, the more stupid little things I like. Rey tells Luke early that the galaxy needs a legend. Luke basically says he can't do it. So what does Luke do? He sends a legend. He sends an idealized version of himself with neatly trimmed beard and all. He sent the idea of what he was. The awe inspiring legend of the OT. He couldn't live up to that legend so he sent the legend. He sent a guy who can show up in a cave out of nowhere, who can tae hundreds of lazer blasts from AT ATs, who can't be killed by a lightsaber.

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I thought it was alright. I liked it as much as The Force Awakens, but I was let down. I was reading people were saying it was amazing and even better than Empire, but I didn't see it.

 

I did like seeing Luke and Leia and hearing that theme when they were reunited (even though it was only Luke's projection). Same with seeing Luke in a lightsaber battle.

 

Canto Bight was a cool location.

 

I liked hearing Luke say he failed Ben. It reminded me of ROTS. "I have failed you, Anakin. I have failed you."

 

Some of the stuff I didn't like:

 

Rey's backstory. I wasn't really hoping she would be related to anybody, but I was at least hoping for a better backstory than she was sold for a 6-pack of Busch Light.

 

It was good seeing Yoda and Luke have a scene together, but Yoda almost seemed too cartoonish at times in that scene. I like the dialogue Yoda had in Empire.

 

Can anyone explain why for half of the movie, the First Order's guns could not reach the Resistance starships, but then all of a sudden they were able to blast the transports heading towards Crait? Weren't the transports even further than the main starship?

 

Why are the Resistance fighters called Rebel Scum? Isn't the First Order technically the rebels? Or did that change after they blew up the Republic? Shouldn't they be called Resistance Scum? Or is that not catchy enough?

 

Snoke went down even more like a little b**ch than Darth Maul. He seemed really powerful, but he couldn't see that coming?

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Positives:

 

-I like the Rey/Ben dynamic that they have going. The two are starting to come together. Them fighting back to back for that moment may well have been the highlight of the whole movie. It may be that Snoke accidentally created an alliance that will be more important than he could imagine when he tethered those two together. It's a matter of getting them there, or if they will destroy each other first.

-Liked Ben's basic mission, to put an end to the cyclical conflict, oddly enough not far from where Luke was. At least in that way, his intentions have a logical motive.

-Enjoyed Luke in general. Particularly his failure.

-Yoda smacking Luke. Not sure how it's possible, but whatever. Though Yoda's words of wisdom and raining lightening on Luke are tempered by Rey stealing the books.

-In the end, I'm okay with Rey coming from nowhere. Still would have been happy with her coming from a Dark Side user like Palpatine, but having her in line with Anakin Skywalker's origins makes sense.

-Also liked that it's hinted that she has an affinity for the Dark Side and even seeks answers within it. I do wonder why it failed to at least give her a quick and easy answer of some sort. If nothing else, a little crumb from Snoke.

-Snoke turned out to be a major head fake, which I'm okay with. He brought Rey and Ben together, so that works and the way that he misjudged the situation was pretty cool. Guess we'll never find out what he is.

-Poe's progression is somewhat predictable, but turns out to serendipitous considering that Carrie Fisher is gone.

-There is pretty much nothing left of the Resistance though.

-The random topless Ben scene and Rey's reaction made me laugh.

 

Negatives:

 

-Kylo Ren is still a very weak villain. He's more interesting now, and dangerous in his way, but he's a mad dog with a fleet at the moment. Still a child, lashing out at the world. It's hard to see how he controls anyone, much less a government for an entire galaxy.

-Not a fan of Luke just dropping dead. C'mon, if he must die, let Kylo do it.

-War profiteers are bad. Umm... yeah thanks for that. Seriously, cool use of the stable boy in the final shot, but that whole casino city sequence could easily have been dropped from the movie and probably should have been.

-Finn's still embarrassing in general to the franchise.

-Still waiting on how Anakin's lightsaber ended up being in Maz's hands.

-They place you in prison for a bad parking job, but don't tow your ride? Not to mention scrambling an army apparently bigger than the whole resistance to stop them from leaving for that terrible crime. Why in the world didn't they just park where they were supposed to and saved themselves the trouble?

-Poe's belief that Luke getting in means there's another exit was a little sloppy.

-The structure was not the wisest. The whole movie was a gigantic slow-moving chase scene to the point where I expected they'd jump into a white Ford Bronco. There's constantly a countdown, but by the end, I just didn't care much anymore because the countdown ceased to mean anything because an entire movie was interrupting it. It wasn't until Luke stepped onto the field that the stakes felt real again even with the Resistance being whittled down throughout the movie.

 

Overall, much better than The Force Awakens. Rey's stuff worked. Luke's stuff worked. Kylo Ren's stuff worked. It was just let down by stretching out the danger for much too long.

 

So, all three of the original characters are gone (or will be soon). Daisy Ridley's not ready to carry the torch on her own yet, and may never be ready. But, again, the Rey/Ben connection means that she may not need to.

 

I'm sure other thoughts will come to me, but overall, I'm pleased for now.

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-Liked Ben's basic mission, to put an end to the cyclical conflict, oddly enough not far from where Luke was. At least in that way, his intentions have a logical motive.

 

 

I thought that was very Vader-ish of Ben, but I guess that is what it was meant to be. Like when Vader said in ESB, "We can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." Also interesting that he struck down his master. Also very Sith-ish even though he claims to be neither Jedi nor Sith.

 

Also interesting that you say Rey's origins are in line with Anakin's because when she saw her reflection in the cave, I was thinking that meant that the Force created her. Maybe there is still a possibility for that.

 

One scene I thought was the funniest was when Ben and Hux were on Crait. Ben gave an order (I forgot what he said). Then, Hux repeated the exact same thing and Ben looked at him like, "WTF? Didn't I just say that?" :D

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One scene I thought was the funniest was when Ben and Hux were on Crait.

 

It's Crait and not Krayt? I figured they were on the planet the dragons came from.

 

But I guess red salt is cool too.

 

 

 

Ben gave an order (I forgot what he said). Then, Hux repeated the exact same thing and Ben looked at him like, "WTF? Didn't I just say that?"

 

Yeah, Hux was a bit of a butt-monkey in this movie. Not sure why they made that choice in a movie where the top villain died. The Dreadnought captain seemed more formidable.

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One scene I thought was the funniest was when Ben and Hux were on Crait.

 

It's Crait and not Krayt? I figured they were on the planet the dragons came from.

 

But I guess red salt is cool too.

 

 

 

Yeah, it is spelled Crait.

 

http://www.starwars.com/databank/crait

 

Not sure what the krayt in krayt dragon means. Here is an entry on Tatooine from the Star Wars databank which mentions them:

 

http://www.starwars.com/databank/tatooine

 

And the Star Wars wiki (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Krayt_dragon/Legends) says they are native to Tatooine. However, I don't know how much of the wiki is canon.

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Best movie in the franchise. It's the first unpredictable one since Empire and topped even that one in that area. Every time you think you know what's going to happen, they swerve you. I loved that. That, in addition to all the obviously cool stuff we're used to and it's the best.

 

As far as things being "pointless" ... Well everything's pointless if you look at it hard enough. Snoke's death was perfect because even as powerful as he was (and he was the most powerful Force user we've seen) he was done in by his arrogance. That was much more satisfying than him being bested in a contrived fight we wouldn't have believed because of how powerful he was. He died the only way he could have. Arrogance.

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I think it should be noted that after appearing in five movies, Luke finally had a line of dialogue with a woman who he wasn't related to. Congrats to him! Guess that was just the last thing on his bucket list.

 

 

 

It's the first unpredictable one since Empire and topped even that one in that area.

 

True. Snoke dying came out of left field, and Luke could have gone either way throughout. Where Kylo would fall was also in doubt and his eventual path one I didn't consider.

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Wow - like others here, need a bit of time to take it all in from seeing it last night. Lots of emotions running around - had a great time watching it and hopefully will do on a second viewing over the next week.

Loved Snoke being taken out - he served a purpose in corrupting Kylo, but so much missing back story to his character. Same goes for Anakin's lightsaber - no explanation will come of that now in the final film I imagine. It should have just been Luke's green saber that Maz had in TFA and that would not be a prob.

 

The Rebels are sure in a pickle - barely a dozen or so people from the fleet at the end and whilst there will be others who answer the call, I think Episode IX will need to take place a few years later to allow for the rebuild.

So sad to see the end of Luke, but loved some of the scenes with him and Kylo on Crait. It was a touching way to go seeing the twin sunset again and throughout the film there were nice musical tributes played - aside from that scene, Leia using the force, the Falcon going through the rocky areas of Crait to the ROTJ music when they are doing the final run inside the death star brought a smile to my face!

Good to see Luke's green lightsaber, if only in flashback.

 

Benicio de Toro's "DJ" was a little bit of a let down - enjoyed the character initially, but was expecting more. When I saw the twin scars on his cheek, it reminded me of Ezra Bridger, but when I got home and googled, saw they were on the other cheek. Ah well!

 

The scenes with Kylo and Rey briefly on the same side and fighting the troopers was a nice moment. All set now for their final showdown. Not sure how JJ will tackle it! Hope Rian will be involved in the production somehow.

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Can anyone explain why for half of the movie, the First Order's guns could not reach the Resistance starships, but then all of a sudden they were able to blast the transports heading towards Crait? Weren't the transports even further than the main starship?

The main starship and the rest of the Resistance starships were shielded. The First Order's guns could reach them, but couldn't do any significant damage. The transports either had no shields or didn't have shields that were strong enough.

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I wish I didn't read the reviews of "best SW movie ever" because they really set my expectations high. It is the worst Disney SW (but I love both ANH and R1). I would put TLJ only above AotC and TPM.

 

That being said, I enjoyed myself. To me, this was a tale of two movies. The parts I enjoyed I LOVED...Rey, Luke, Snoke, Kyle, Leia, Chewie...were all awesome and I enjoyed every scene they were in. Johnson made Snoke out to be super powerful so I would like to know a bit more about him. I will likely read the book. The new force powers are pretty cool. I was sure Kenobi was going to pop his head into the Yoda scene (I loved the scene...but he looked like a cartoon) since Disney announced his movie the other day.

 

Finn, Poe, Rose, DJ, are awesome characters and Canto Bight is a cool location, but all are wasted on a meaningless side plot which only purpose is to give those characters something to do. It slowed the movie so much, I am sure I would have enjoyed the film much more if it was removed. I wish Rey would have received more than one day of training. Not enough R2 and 3PO.

 

I say 7/10, but probably would have been 8/10 had it been edited a bit better.

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More coherent thoughts:

 

I have a ton of thoughts. Most good, some bad.

 

I Despised with every fiber of my being Luke igniting his lightsaber against Ben. Even if it was one minuscule moment of weakness. I'm disappointed Luke ran away because of shame in that moment and we didn't get some reveal about the origins of the Jedi Order. Crotchety Luke was funny (thank God), but I am sad I didn't really get him training Rey voluntarily. Or him leaving the island with them. I wanted a better relationship with them.

 

That all said, the scene with Luke and Kylo on Crait was everything I hoped for.

 

I just wish he hadn't faded away at the end and desperately pray he comes back in IX.

 

Also, down with Reylo forever and Kylo better not be redeemed now. Rey closing the Falcon's ramp on Kylo was one of the most satisfying moments of that movie.

 

ETA: One of my problems was that I would have liked more of a time jump between movies. It was very jarring. And to get more sense of where do we go from here? Like, imagine if they had shown up in the Outer Rim and another fleet was beginning to amass, like in Rebels? I get the idea of the last scene but it didn't fit for me.

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It's the first unpredictable one since Empire and topped even that one in that area.

True. Snoke dying came out of left field, and Luke could have gone either way throughout. Where Kylo would fall was also in doubt and his eventual path one I didn't consider.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not but either way ... What I meant was:

 

1) I was genuinely shocked at the plan to sneak aboard the Dreadnought and turn off the Tracer utterly failed. It EVERY other movie that plan works. Star Wars never invests that kind of time with all that kind of build up and then the plan fails. That never happens. My jaw was on the floor.

 

2) Same thing with Finn at the end. He was totally set up for the heroic sacrifice to save the Resistance. Even if he doesn't die, he destroys the BIG WEAPON to save the day. That always happens. For it not to was shocking.

 

3) Luke not actually being there to face off with Kylo. What a swerve. It was all set up for them to fight for a while and then Luke allows Kylo to kill him.

 

None of the other movies had this level of unpredictability and it was glorious. What a step up.

 

PS. This is why the casino stuff was NOT pointless. It set up the shocking swerve that the rebels don't always win just because they try. Now in the third movie we can't automatically assume everything is going to work out just because they try hard or are willing to bravely sacrifice. That was well worth the time invested

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However, Finn, Poe, Rose, DJ, are awesome characters and Canto Bight is a cool location, but all are wasted on a meaningless side plot which only purpose is to give those characters something to do. It slowed the movie so much, I am sure I would enjoy the film much more if it was removed.

 

Yeah, in some ways I understand. The movie does broadly follow The Empire Strikes Back. After the rebel base is discovered, the movie is broken into two pieces, Luke/Rey's training and the chase sequence with the rest of the characters and DJ kinda/sorta taking over for Lando. With everyone coming back together and getting rescued on the Millennium Falcon.

 

But couldn't they have done something more interesting than have the bad guys sitting around waiting for the heroes to run out of gas? How hard would hit have been to call in another ship or just have one of the ships go to lightspeed for a moment and cut them off? These guys have a fleet big enough to control the galaxy, right? It's not like it would have been difficult to add some cat and mouse action instead of it just being everyone politely waiting for Finn to complete his mission before they restarted their side of the plot.

 

 

 

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not

 

Not sarcastic at all.

 

 

 

2) Same thing with Finn at the end. He was totally set up for the heroic sacrifice to save the Resistance. Even if he doesn't die, he destroys the BIG WEAPON to save the day. That always happens. For it not to was shocking.

 

Rose's love confession did come out of nowhere too. But not in a good way.

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