I don’t really see the problem here. I take it as the guy they went looking for (the “master codebreaker”) is the only person with that capability known to Maz Kanata. The empire/First Order is big enough where there are probably thousands if not millions of nobodies out there constantly trying to crack into their systems.
I mean, it’s not like in the real world all of these intrusions and data thefts are being carried out by some “master hacker,” they’re being done in the shadows by people who are little-known.
You’re talking about a series that started with a women who hides a code in a droid who then lands in the middle of the desert, only to be unknowingly purchased a couple of days later by the woman’s brother. Coincidence (or fate, or the Force) is etched deep into Star Wars’ bones.
I care about the Resistance because I care about Rey, Finn and Poe. If they raise a new army, then I’ll care about it because of them.
Rian Johnson’s approach was to set up the formula, and then subvert the formula. As Luke says “This is not going to go the way you think.” You found it unsatisfying, I found it refreshing and exciting. It opens up Star Wars and doesn’t railroad it to fulfil the Hero’s Journey one more time. Something else is going to happen; It has to, the fairy tale solutions are no longer available.
and that was the theme which under-pinned the entire film. and if nothing else, TLJ did have a coherent and clear theme.
that (IMO) was probably the biggest reason the prequels were so bad; there was no real theme to them. it was just "ok, we all know Anakin becomes Darth Vader so here’s a random smattering of events which give him the sads.
Oh, and a bunch of boring stuff about trade federations."
eta: and that’s why I think it’s wise to hold off judgement until we see what the next film is. TFA was a predictable re-set/re-hash. TLJ was not, really, apart from the general story of the Empire… I mean, First Order striking back… I mean, responding to the attack on Starkiller. TLJ ended in such a way that they can pretty much take the story anywhere.
if, on the other hand, the next film is a predictable RoTJ rehash, then we can stick a fork in the franchise.
It’s not so amazing to me that one character makes an outrageous claim and then another character repeats the claim. Especially when that second character is a manipulative bastard who was eavesdropping on the protagonists discussing what they needed.
I loved the Kylo-Luke fight. It shows wisdom beating youth.
It’s like the Vader-Obiwan fight in original: Vader thinks he’s in a sword duel to show who’s the best fighter. Obiwan has a different goal. Vader is confused when his “win” turns out to be a loss.
Kylo is aching to prove that he’s better than his former master and wants to win a one-on-one duel. But Luke is fighting a different a battle, which he wins. The Last Jedi completes Luke’s story-arch perfectly, as far as I’m concerned. The impulsive young kid has mastered patience and finally controls himself and attains mastery of the Force.
I’m sorry, but his approach was to set up a formula and then stick with it. There was absolutely nothing in the story that wasn’t formula. Johnson was checklisting cliches, not subverting them.
Personally, I assumed that the guy they met on the casino planet was exactly the guy they went there to meet. The only description they have of him is the one piece of bling he was wearing. OK, so he lost it in a bet, or it was taken from him when he was arrested, or whatever, and some random self-absorbed prick who knows nothing about codebreaking ends up with it. But it was unforgivable that they didn’t give him a name.
And I also loved the casino planet being the new take on “the most wretched hive of scum and villainy in the galaxy”. Because really, folks in tailored suits sipping expensive cocktails have been behind a heck of a lot more villainy than low-lifes in rags with rotgut.
The Star Wars galaxy was never truly unified, even under the Empire, with plenty of worlds having their own militaries, and they probably got even stronger after the Emperor’s death. If the Resistance gets enough worlds on their side then maybe they’ll have the core of an army.
After that, it depends on how much time passes between Eps 8 and 9. If it’s something like 5 years, that’ll be enough. As we’ve seen in the real world, with a big enough population and industrial base, 5 years is sufficient to raise the biggest army the Galaxy has ever seen.
Maybe… but going against this is the fact that he betrayed them, and you’d think that Maz Kanata would have recommended someone more reliable. (Unless, he was literally the only one who could do it.) And also, I’d have thought that twist would have been made more explicit to the audience if that’s what they were going for.
I do like that subversion of expectations. The really bad guys aren’t hanging out in some scuzzy cantina, they’re living large on the proceeds of their misdeeds. (Of course that probably doesn’t do much for the folks – e.g., Stonebow – who are complaining about the movie being non-stop subversion of expectations.)
I certainly would have liked it if Canto Bight had a purpose other than give Finn and Rose screentime. You could completely cut them out of the movie and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference in how it turned out.
Phasma dying (or appearing to die, anyway, I bet she Kenny’s back) excepted.
If people say they enjoyed the prequels more, sure, nothing wrong with that. That’s subjective, of course. And if the elements that The Last Jedi subverted were the things they were excited to see play out as they expected, then I can see why that was a frustrating movie-going experience.
But it does bug me when I’ve seen people arguing that this is a worse film than any of the prequels, in terms of a (supposedly more objective) assessment of the film-making craft involved. Film making is more than just “did you like the story-telling choices”. There are lots of youtube videos with pretentious titles like “The Last Jedi is a complete cinematic FAILURE.” Which I guess means that the 91% of professional movie reviewers who gave it a positive review on rotten tomatoes can’t recognize “complete cinematic FAILURE”.
Take the Phantom Menace. You’ve got super-cringy dialogue (“Now this is podracing!”), serious pacing problems (the whole podrace), weird tonal shifts and incongruous elements (two-headed podracing announcer) and a major character (Anakin) who’s intended to be endearing to the audience (to increase the sympathy they feel for him, and the emotional impact of his eventual turn to the darkside) but who fails to evoke any kind of emotional connection. [By the way, have I mentioned how much I love the podrace and everything connected to it…]
Maybe some people disagree that Anakin wasn’t endearing… but really, did anyone find him more likable than Scott Lang’s daughter in Ant-Man and the Wasp (just to pick literally the most recent movie with a kid in it that I happened to see)? Or any of a hundred other “kids the audience is supposed to like” in movies?
Honestly, if Anakin had crashed his pod and burned to a crisp, I’d have been less sad about it than I was about that one Porg that Chewie roasted. Some of that is me being a weirdo, but some of that is George Lucas not managing to write the sort of scene that would have made Anakin endearing. (Hell, just have one of his friends get eaten by a giant alien while he makes big puppy-dog eyes – how hard is that? ;))
The Phantom Menace has elements I liked, too (the score, the fight choreography, etc.), but it has a ton of flaws even within the confines of the story Lucas had decided to tell. Whereas the complaints about The Last Jedi are mostly objections to Rian Johnson’s story choices, which are certainly fair game to complain about, but they don’t make the film a “cinematic FAILURE”. I suspect that Rian Johnson working from a George Lucas plot synopsis would have given us better prequels than Lucas did.
If they hadn’t gone to Canto Bight, they wouldn’t have picked up Benicio Del Toro, which means the evacuation wouldn’t have been betrayed. The whole ending of the movie - the flagship’s destruction
Even though I’ve been defending the film, I recognize that one of the flaws was that there were characters in it who seemed to only be included because they’d been in the previous film, not because they served an important story function. Maz Kanata and Captain Phasma being two examples. I guess Phasma at least gave Finn a chance to have a small victory over an antagonist we recognize. Maz Kanata’s scene could have been replaced with a single line of dialogue given to another character. (“Hey, I know about this famous code breaker…”)
If they hadn’t gone to Canto Bight, they wouldn’t have picked up Benicio Del Toro, which means the evacuation wouldn’t have been betrayed. The whole ending of the movie - the flagship’s destruction and Rey’s subsequent escape, the showdown with Kylo Ren - wouldn’t have happened if Finn and Rose hadn’t screwed up. The Force works in mysterious ways.
Ah yes. Their quest didn’t have a good or even neutral effect. It was actually bad.
Basically Finn does more damage to the rebellion now than when when he was a Stormtrooper.
I disagree. Forget about the flagship’s destruction. Luke face-off against Kylo - which, apparently, was watched by the entire galaxy - was a massive propeganda coup and worth the deaths that led to it.
Oh, as for Phasma, the Empire has a well-established tradition of people outside of the standard rank structure holding a disproportionate amount of power, and the New Order is clearly following in the traditions of the Empire.