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


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One more point on all the resistance deaths:

Another major problem I have with TFA is the complete lack of pathos during the starkiller base destroying planets scene. A bunch of unnamed people get wiped out on a bunch of unnamed planets that have no real anchor to the main characters. 

In the orginal trilogy, Leia is the anchor.  Her planet gets destroyed, her crew is killed, her resistance needs help.

In that sense I thought the slowly dwindling resistance in TLJ added to the stakes of it all and gave the characters an earned sense of loss. 

 

 

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5 hours ago, sevendaughters said:

on the mirror version tip as outlined above by EVA, it occurred to me on a rewatch (friend wanted to see it) that maybe Snoke's death was as aware as Luke's was, a mirror-martyring to allow the new kid in town a run on top. idk, just tossing that out there.

I've seen it suggested--mostly by the "Snoke is Plagueis" crowd--that he just wanted a new body, since this one was visibly coming apart, and he'll have force-ghost possessed a living or recently dead body by the time IX rolls around. Like, Reanimated Force Lich Phasma or something. Idk. My suspicion (and preference) regarding pretty much the whole movie is that Rian meant for what appeared to have happened to be what happened--that Snoke's only weakness was an ironclad belief that he had none, and he's very permanently dead--but there's always room for JJ to reveal that his mystery box actually held within... another mystery box.

Fan theory stuff aside, while I know there's another trilogy promised, it feels like you should stick to a pretty simple story for IX: Snoke is dead, Rey is "just" Rey. What does Supreme Leader Kylo actually want, and how do the good guys build a viable resistance to it? Honestly, the former interests me even more than the latter. He wanted to kill Luke, but can't. He wanted to equal or exceed Vader, and in killing Snoke, has essentially done it. Turn Rey, I suppose? Negate the notion of turning altogether? His goals have seemed, thus far, very personal. It doesn't strike me that "only" ruling the galaxy would satisfy him.

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I don't think Snoke is anything. I think Snoke was there so 'Vader' could kill the 'Emporer' and take charge this time around. I'm sure they'll do a book or something, but I'd be really surprised if he's in IX beyond a passing mention.

(I know Vader killed Palpatine in the end, but it was a face turn) 

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I like the idea that Snoke is Plagueis and it really, really, really, really, really, really, doesn't matter at all to the story so they just didn't even put it in there.

That's one thing I've enjoyed with the Johnson interviews. He's so self-aware about both himself and, for the most part, the movie he was trying to make. 

It's crazy to me, absolutely crazy, that Disney let them start this process without having a clear beginning, middle, and end in mind for the trilogy. 

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2 minutes ago, Matt D said:

It's crazy to me, absolutely crazy, that Disney let them start this process without having a clear beginning, middle, and end in mind for the trilogy. 

Ironically, it recreates one of the signature aspects of the EU they wiped: Authors being forced to grapple with aspects of canon others introduced, that cast in a new light--or outright rebut--something they did or want to do.

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I'm actually much more interested in seeing what JJ does with 9 given that all of his pieces are all over the place than what he would have done on his own. 

---

One thing that has really hit home is how the story of these movies, up til now, is that the Hero's Journey just isn't enough. If I was George Lucas, I'd be very uncomfortable with that, but really, he opened the door by adding so much messy ambiguity with the prequels. 

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I'll allow for personal taste, but I saw TFA once, liked it just fine, and I may not bother seeing it again for some time. I can't wait to watch Last Jedi again. There are a lot of expectations from these movies, and we're all looking for different things from them. Since they're probably going to make one a year for the rest of our lives, I think we're in a fortunate situation where everyone will get serviced. 

Frankly, I'm astounded that of the first three Disney has produced that two of them I've absolutely loved and consider vital parts of the saga and extended universe now. 

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1 hour ago, Matt D said:

One thing that has really hit home is how the story of these movies, up til now, is that the Hero's Journey just isn't enough. If I was George Lucas, I'd be very uncomfortable with that, but really, he opened the door by adding so much messy ambiguity with the prequels. 

We'll probably never know, but I suspect this is a direction he likes. And even if he doesn't, it's hard to watch the prequels and conclude anything other than that the Jedi are--at best--dubiously efficacious and--at worst--actively detrimental; that governing a galaxy of endlessly varied interests is hard, so hard that a desire to control it by force is inherently attractive; that there are forces who are likewise interested in conflict rather than control, because profit is its own power; and that, as such, you'll never have peace and "balance" simply by being temporarily best at killing the other side, no matter how bad they seem. I'm certainly not here to suggest the prequels are actually misunderstood masterpieces, but I do think he was trending towards critiquing and deconstructing his own mythology. If that was never the intent, then the current course is still consistent, I think, with what he was suggesting in his last canon contributions. 

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I don't disagree except for that I do think that he wanted the pure Hero's Journey in 4-6 to hold up.

So one thing that generally worked well for me were the twists. I wasn't spoiled at all coming in but I did know that something was up with Luke and I was primed by the failures of Leia and Han. So, I was sort of relieved when Ben gave his point of view, because I knew it was too dramatically clean and there'd be at least one more twist to what happened that night (which worked for me). Likewise, I was on board for Ben killing Snoke, which seemed to play off of both the end of episode VI and the beginning of Episode III in ways I enjoyed. I also bought into what I he did next, because I wondered if they were going to go in a different self-aware direction with it, making it all about Balance, where Ben and Rey had to work together to create a new path for the force. I think they've cut that road off pretty significantly though. Then, with the bit at the end with Luke not being there, I thought that he had given himself up to the force when he was getting fired upon instead of astral projecting himself all the way from the island. I actually think that would have been more effective in general, but what they did mostly worked (even if the two suns bit was maudlin). The lesser ones of DJ making a Lando-ish deal and Holdo being true blue (purple?) were fine. Oh, and Rey's parentage. At one point I figured that they might be brother and sister what with the Force link, but that was set up smartly and self-awarely for the reveal. Rian knew what he was doing there (as he did for a lot of the movie).

Yes, it all probably would have been so much better if Leia sacrificed herself instead of Holdo but you can't predict that stuff. 

Again, it's a very, very self aware movie, in ways that learned from TFA. I think I was the only person in the theater that laughed when Leia hugged Chewbacca, but I did, because it was obviously there because all the fans were so pissy about it not being there in TFA. It was a "Here's your hug. Now shut up." moment. Likewise the Maz "Union Dispute" thing felt like they were taking the piss of the prequels "Trade Dispute"

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So, the fact that the high rollers at Canto Bight were all arms dealers got me wondering: how does the First Order afford all its snazzy equipment? I mean, presumably the Empire could just spend US-level amounts of its GDP on armaments, but I thought that the First Order were like the Tea Party or something. Star Destroyers can't be cheap.

Maybe Snoke shouldn't have been a Sith lord but a Koch Brothers-like donor to the cause who is grooming the next legit political entity. Yeah. So, like, back around First Hope he'd have been like "Hey, Palpatine, Death Stars don't grow on trees. You want more funding I'm gonna need that tax cut for the mega wealthy you promised me."

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The implication in assorted EU material has always been that the Empire just conquered whatever planet had the resources they needed, and as such, kept prices on their equipment relatively low. But you're right: If the First Order--up to now--didn't actually control that much space and--we're told--has been buying a lot of weapons... how? Extortion of outer rim worlds? Pay or else we'll conquer you? (Because while they can't occupy everyone, they could occupy you.) Maybe the arms dealers basically gave them loaner weapons at first, confident that it would be a good investment? (And it has been, it seems.)

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1 hour ago, Beech27 said:

We'll probably never know, but I suspect this is a direction he likes. And even if he doesn't, it's hard to watch the prequels and conclude anything other than that the Jedi are--at best--dubiously efficacious and--at worst--actively detrimental; that governing a galaxy of endlessly varied interests is hard, so hard that a desire to control it by force is inherently attractive; that there are forces who are likewise interested in conflict rather than control, because profit is its own power; and that, as such, you'll never have peace and "balance" simply by being temporarily best at killing the other side, no matter how bad they seem. I'm certainly not here to suggest the prequels are actually misunderstood masterpieces, but I do think he was trending towards critiquing and deconstructing his own mythology. If that was never the intent, then the current course is still consistent, I think, with what he was suggesting in his last canon contributions. 

One of my favorite things about this movie, maybe my absolute favorite, is how it gets back to the core values of the Force after it had devolved into merely being this power you could harness to perform spectacular violence post-ROTJ.  Even George kinda lost sight of that in his later years (unless, as suggested, he meant to imply that the Jedi becoming Galaxy Police and attempting to enforce "order" across the galaxy was a bad thing and led to their downfall).

I'm a huge fan of THE LEFTOVERS (and I am ALL IN on "Master Codebreaker" being another of Kevin Garvey's afterlife personas), so I loved the subtle implication that the Jedi religion, like every othe religion ever, is just a vain attempt to assign meaning to something that's inherently unknowable.   I feel like they got as close as they possibly could to saying that without fucking with the Mouse's money.

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I think we also hypothesized at the time TFA came out that there were plenty of planets in the galaxy and plenty of rich bad dudes on those planets that were loyalists. Basically, there's a whole bunch of Koch Brothers type people funding this shit. The First Order does some of their own fundraising as well and that's slowly built up like a giant snowball. In one of the books they explain that Leia in the senate was raising alarms about the start of this First Order and how they were building up steam, but the Republic didn't care to the point where they were like, fine, here's a fighting force, go patrol the galaxy and get out of our hair. It shouldn't have been left to a book to explain, but I think the people they show on one of the planets that blows up were people that didn't believe or listen to Leia and cast her out.

For 30 years or so the First Order has slowly picked up steam. Now they're at the point where they can afford super weapons and dreadnought class ships and all because no one heeded Leia's warnings.

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25 minutes ago, EVA said:

I feel like they got as close as they possibly could to saying that without fucking with the Mouse's money.

Yeah, we're not getting Star Wars away from people doing some sexy laser sword violence. Which... I mean, I wouldn't want that even if it were possible. I was as giddy as anyone at Kylo and Rey playing wolves in the throne room.

But I am curious how the films frame the ethos, going forward. My guess is it becomes something like emphasizing self knowledge and acceptance over asceticism and denial. You both discover and define yourself, and balance is achieved not by homogeneity but organic diversity.

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8 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

 

And, if nothing else, Kylo Ren is the most complex and interesting character this franchise has ever had by a huge margin. 

 

I would still go with Darth Vader. Adam Driver however plays Kylo like Hayden should have played Anakin.

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27 minutes ago, Craig H said:

I think we also hypothesized at the time TFA came out that there were plenty of planets in the galaxy and plenty of rich bad dudes on those planets that were loyalists. Basically, there's a whole bunch of Koch Brothers type people funding this shit. The First Order does some of their own fundraising as well and that's slowly built up like a giant snowball. In one of the books they explain that Leia in the senate was raising alarms about the start of this First Order and how they were building up steam, but the Republic didn't care to the point where they were like, fine, here's a fighting force, go patrol the galaxy and get out of our hair. It shouldn't have been left to a book to explain, but I think the people they show on one of the planets that blows up were people that didn't believe or listen to Leia and cast her out.

For 30 years or so the First Order has slowly picked up steam. Now they're at the point where they can afford super weapons and dreadnought class ships and all because no one heeded Leia's warnings.

I'm envisioning a Kickstarter page for the First Order:

Star Killer - Basically a Huge Death Star:

Help Us Own The Libtards with Awesome Weapon!

Pledge $3000 or More

Become Official Knight of Ren

Remember: It's OK to be knight!

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Finally saw this last night. Man was this awful. I had no idea the RT audience numbers were at prequel levels but it makes sense since this was as bad as any of the prequels. 

It amazes me people ragged on TFA over Rey being a Mary Sue when she's an even bigger one in this movie. She's a better Jedi than Luke, a better pilot than Han, a spunkier leader than Leia, she can master the Force in a week and kicks Kylo's ass every time they fight... There is nothing to her except Disney marketing another character along side Merida, Anna, Repunzel, etc.

The Finn stuff was terrible. They literally took a joke Kevin Smith made in Clerks about contractors building the Death Star and made that an entire subplot. You know what I never ever not once said to myself? "These Star War movies are great and all but I'm really bothered they never explored where the Empire buys their TIE Fighters."

The Luke stuff was great and I'm happy Hamill decided to bring his fastball to his last trip to the mound. I'm sorta glad the original three have bowed out now (I mean, I wish Carrie Fisher hadn't passed but I'm glad they plan to write Leia out) because this isn't my Star Wars anymore so I'd rather they go in their own direction without further mucking up the original. I totally understand now what Lucas was saying about this no longer being his story when asked about TFA. 

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2 hours ago, EVA said:

One of my favorite things about this movie, maybe my absolute favorite, is how it gets back to the core values of the Force after it had devolved into merely being this power you could harness to perform spectacular violence post-ROTJ.  Even George kinda lost sight of that in his later years (unless, as suggested, he meant to imply that the Jedi becoming Galaxy Police and attempting to enforce "order" across the galaxy was a bad thing and led to their downfall).

I'm a huge fan of THE LEFTOVERS (and I am ALL IN on "Master Codebreaker" being another of Kevin Garvey's afterlife personas), so I loved the subtle implication that the Jedi religion, like every othe religion ever, is just a vain attempt to assign meaning to something that's inherently unknowable.   I feel like they got as close as they possibly could to saying that without fucking with the Mouse's money.

I hope if we do get a TV show at some point, it's all about Master Codebreaker because Justin Theroux is great.

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