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STAR WARS: LAST JEDI DISCUSSION (OH SO MANY SPOILERS HERE)


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That stuck out to me. At the same time, I loved the bit of strategy to get enough distance away from the long cannons like it was a ship battle on the water. I thought that was really cool.

I was wanted more, a lot more of the motherfuckin' Black Leader blowing shit up. GIVE US A POE DAMERON MOVIE.

Anyone else think that Luke was going to fly in on the X-Wing that we saw was sunken on the island?

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26 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

OK, one nerdy thing that really, really bothered me: Cloaking has never been a thing in a Star Wars movie before, and now all of a sudden they're just cloaking ships left and right like it's no big deal.

Nerd mode on, don't you remember the line in Empire "They can't have disappeared. No ship that small has a cloaking device."

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24 minutes ago, Craig H said:

That stuck out to me. At the same time, I loved the bit of strategy to get enough distance away from the long cannons like it was a ship battle on the water. I thought that was really cool.

I was wanted more, a lot more of the motherfuckin' Black Leader blowing shit up. GIVE US A POE DAMERON MOVIE.

Anyone else think that Luke was going to fly in on the X-Wing that we saw was sunken on the island?

Between the shot of it underwater and R2 asking about it, yes. Until the reveal, I assumed it was how he got to Crait.

 

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2 minutes ago, happjack said:

Nerd mode on, don't you remember the line in Empire "They can't have disappeared. No ship that small has a cloaking device."

Damn, I totally forgot about that, and I was even thinking about that scene with the Falcon for the "no cloaking" thing

Well played.

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This was a mess.

Setting aside the Lucas-level, bullshit, lookie-loo, gutless, non-commital plot point early in the movie that reeked of fan service and/or Mouse interference, there was still just a lot of flab here. How many times do we need to fucking hear that their fuel levels are critical? We get the goddamned point. The bit with the "mirror" turned out to be an utter throwaway and they could have gotten to that connection differently. And Snoke should have been handled better; if he toys with them the way he does, it should take some Greek mythology-level hubris and serious distraction on his end of things to fall for a trick that was literally telegraphed from the second the lightsaber lands where it does. The cloaking stuff bothered me, too. It might have made more sense, for example, that Snoke toys with Rey, is able to sense Leia nearby (I mean, if he can connect two minds across the galaxy, why can't he perceive the 4th or 5th-strongest Force user a hop, skip, and a jump away?) and uses that to fire on the transports, and the effort he employs to immobilize Rey and try to shoot down the fleet gives Kylo the only opening he's ever going to get.

That said, you've got at least three set pieces and scenes that were as well-executed and impactful as anything in the series, and that's saying something. And aside from Mark Hamill being the quintessential Joker on Batman:TAS, this was the performance of his life. There isn't a single scene he's in that he doesn't knock out of the park. I hate speaking ill of the dead, but Carrie Fisher needed to step up her game in both of these movies, and Hamill made that abundantly clear with how great he was in this.

So, some really high highs, but it felt a lot like "Lord of the Rings: Star Wars edition" where they just jerk off at times before getting to stuff that blows your hair back. The difference being here that the good stuff actually does blow your hair back, as opposed to the LOTR dreck. It's better than 1-3, but I'm going to have to watch it a few more times and think about it before I say it's better than Return of the Jedi.

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2 minutes ago, twiztor said:

when Rey/Chewie make the save in the Falcon, i was sure that was going to be Luke in his X-Wing.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was really, really hoping we were going to get the best fighter pilot in the galaxy, Poe Dameron, teaming up with the man who took down the Death Star just before they made it to Crait. 

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I liked it. That is, I liked the things it was going for, and that it was generally brave enough to go for them. It was subversive of tropes and expectations to an extent I didn't think Star Wars would get.

The writing isn't equal to the broad ideas, though, and some of the plot holes are still needling me. Apparently important things are dropped; and then other things are made important without significant build or signal. I love twists, and I love that they had so many, but few felt really earned. In that regard it's... a bit like the prequels, I think? It's better, but still, I'm left feeling there's an even better movie than what got made, if extraneous bits were cut, and more essential plot points were given that space and time. It strikes me as the sort of movie where reading the novelization will make me like the whole thing a lot more, because--and it's 2.5 hours!--I felt a lot of helpful information/characterization was missing.

But still, some cool things that need to be seen. Rey and Kylo's throne room fight was probably my favorite bit, and made his offer right after all the more compelling. "See what we could do together?" is more effective when the audience has just seem them work together, albeit on a small scale. I thought their Force-Skyping a bit too convenient/weird, but their dynamic was still one of the best characterized things in the movie where chemistry often felt more insisted on than real. (Everyone just... quips at one another? I know dialogue has never been a strong point in the series, but still.)

I also loved the final setpiece, and Kylo/"Luke" facing off. Since Jedi have always been steeped in pseudo-eastern spirituality, I loved that they shot it like a samurai anime: Long pauses, punctuated by a rush, one quick strike, and then streaks of red on snow. That they got that visual without blood is really, really clever.

Tl;dr version: I love the broad strokes, the meta plot you could summarize in a few sentences to friends, and quite a few stunning visual moments. I really didn't feel the sinew was enough to support a lot of that weight, though.

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2 hours ago, Craig H said:

Oh, yeah, DJ isn't anything more than who he said he was. He works for the highest bidder. Hux even says "He told us the truth." So he was questioned and sold his intel to the highest bidder.

We’ll see. If you think that character is who he says he says despite the clear & obvious highlight that he was not the codebreaker they were after, and the intrigue around his character off screen, then ...

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1 hour ago, A_K said:

We’ll see. If you think that character is who he says he says despite the clear & obvious highlight that he was not the codebreaker they were after, and the intrigue around his character off screen, then ...

If Snoke can be snuffed out without explaining anything about who he is or how he came to power, and Rey's parents can be revealed as nobodies in a couple lines of dialogue, I think it's totally fair to believe a character with way less suggested intrigue is exactly as he's presented. That they got lucky, and found a guy to do The Exact Thing they needed is hardly unique in being way too convenient a plot contrivance, also.

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I actually like that. Hereditary blood magic is a limiting and problematic trope, and opening the Force up to anyone is better. And I liked killing Snoke too, frankly. It lets Kylo do something Vader never did, which makes him more compelling and not just a cosplayer. My point isn't that those things are bad, just that they were happy to hint at a lot of deeper things regarding both--and then swerve the other way--so I don't think there's reason to look too deep at that character in particular. It seems more consistent with how the film is written to assume he's just who he is.

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I just got back from seeing it. I was thinking about how in the last scene in the Falcon, they clearly showed the Jedi books in that drawer, so Rey must've taken them before she left.

Then I remembered the scene with Yoda talking to Luke, saying something to the effect of, "There's nothing in those books she doesn't already possess."

Ha.

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12 hours ago, steve said:

I just got back from seeing it. I was thinking about how in the last scene in the Falcon, they clearly showed the Jedi books in that drawer, so Rey must've taken them before she left.

Then I remembered the scene with Yoda talking to Luke, saying something to the effect of, "There's nothing in those books she doesn't already possess."

Ha.

Oh wait, are you sure? Holy shit, I completely missed that.

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Finished it up a couple of hours ago and absolutely loved it. Thought it was the best film since the original trilogy. Loved the twists they did and how they handled Rey and Kylo's characters. I thought this did a much better job of introducing/using the new generation of characters. Its not perfect with a few holes, but nothing for me that was truly big enough to really hurt it.

I am left wondering though how they handle things now with Fisher's passing. Feels like it was only just the beginning of the torch passing with her and Poe.

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That was almost like a survival horror movie at times with the good guys continually decreasing in numbers and the bad guys always being on step ahead. It really needed the humour to lighten the film or it would have been incredibly dark. 

Definitly my favourite since the original trilogy. 

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7 hours ago, Eivion said:

Finished it up a couple of hours ago and absolutely loved it. Thought it was the best film since the original trilogy. Loved the twists they did and how they handled Rey and Kylo's characters. I thought this did a much better job of introducing/using the new generation of characters. Its not perfect with a few holes, but nothing for me that was truly big enough to really hurt it.

I am left wondering though how they handle things now with Fisher's passing. Feels like it was only just the beginning of the torch passing with her and Poe.

I mean by the end of this film it's clear that she's exhausted with leadership.

So they can spin that into "she became one with the force" easy enough. Not as good as the "elder stateswoman of the force" story they planned, but it works.

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