A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense. Never for attack 
Hugs. General Hugs. With an “H”.
The line was a callback to that, but the precedent for peacefully dissolving into the Force was Yoda’s death in ROTJ.
While I have some of the same gripes about the un-doing of ROTJ’s victories, the blame doesn’t rest on TLJ there, but rather TFA. I was dismayed about Leia and Han being separated, Han going back to smuggling (and doing a poor job of it), Luke failing to rebuild the Jedi, the fledgling New Republic falling, and a new “Empire” rising… but that was all in TFA, and I’ve had 2 years to get over it.
Of course, they couldn’t keep a Happily Ever After forever and still do more movies. But I do wish they’d found a way to introduce new conflict without making the OT victory moot. Maybe Ep IX will find a way to turn things around on that point. After all, without the rebels winning in ROTJ, this new “spark” of rebellion at the end of TLJ wouldn’t exist. (There would have been no Luke to buy time, no Leia to lead, no Falcon to be the last ship holding the rebels… etc)
I thought the same. And I likewise thought that the tasting bit was there to say to the audience: “This white stuff isn’t snow, it’s salt. See, this scene isn’t a do-over of Hoth at all!”
I’m sure you are right, but the presentation in the movie had me thinking the opposite. The salt tasting specifically happens after the red underlayer was revealed by the footprints. If he tasted the salt before the red was revealed, then it would have been clear to me; but since he tasted it immediately after the red was first shown it gave the strong impression that the dude was answering the question in my head, “Why is there blood there?”
Oh well. I think red salt is way cooler. I guess they didn’t want another snowy planet like Hoth. So instead we get Salty Planet. I’m fine with that, but red salt seems so Star Wars-y. So much for my dream of Roasted Porg with Craitian Red Salt at Walt Disney World 
Red Dirt does make the billows of Red Dust more sensible though. Salt doesn’t really behave that way. I loved the look of the Red on White background. Then again, salt on the ground doesn’t really stick to your boots like snow does either.
If that’s the whole point of the movie, then it makes no sense for her to also be stopping someone from sacrificing himself to save the rebellion, given that we see at least two other people nobly sacrifice themselves to save the rebellion in the very same movie.
Instead, if the message is “this is how we’ll beat them, by saving what we love” then there should have been a situation where Finn was captive or injured, and the rebel ship was going to escape, and Rose slowed down the escape, risking everyone, in order to save Finn. That would be “this is how we’ll beat them… by saving what we love”.
Otherwise the rebellion is going to be pretty nonfunctional, when any time someone puts themself in danger on an important mission, their lover bonks them on the head and brings them back.
Crappy speeders, but yeah. At that point of the movie I wasn’t really pleased with it and thought to myself “We haven’t even seen AT-ATs.” Well at least we got some.
Furthering the Empire Strikes Back parallels, the Luke/Rey storyline was a lot like Yoda/Luke on Dagobah. Rey went to seek out a Jedi master, just like Luke went to seek out Yoda. Luke was reluctant to train Rey but finally relented, same as Yoda/Luke. Rey went to a place strong with the dark side of the force just like Luke did.
I guess the overall tone of TLJ was also dark like ESB, but the humor in TLJ seemed disjointed and forced to me.
I watched it last night and I loved it. I don’t tend to pick apart movies that I enjoy to find ways to make me like it less. I guess that makes me a bad film critic. I’ll go back and read the thread now.
A couple of random thoughts that no one cares about.
I think Adam Driver was much better in this movie. I wonder if the smashing of the helmet was fan service.
I was expecting the code breaker to be Lando. I wish it was Lando. I hated Del Toro’s vocal tic. Luckily he didn’t over do it.
They put in cutsie George “This is a kids movie” Lucas moments but just the right amount. It wasn’t overdone.
Like others I was hoping for a little bad guy back story but I realized not giving a bad guy back story is a Star Wars staple. How much did we know about the Emperor at the end of RoJ or how he met Vader?
I’m wondering if they will do a time jump to the next movie and just have Leia die of old age off screen?
They certainly left room for a Luke return next movie. What the hell bring on all the Jedi ghosts.
Man, I hope so. The next movie should start with her funeral. I’m glad they kept her fully in this movie as planned, instead of editing out some great moments because Carrie Fisher died & can’t be in 9. But if they use that as an excuse to CGI her in, I’m turning in my stormtrooper helmet.
I’d bet good money that the opening scene of Episode 9 will be Leia’s funeral. The opening crawl will say something about her never fully recovering from her wounds in the previous film.
Still, though, that’d just put in sharp relief the point I apologize in advance for dwelling on: if it had been Lando who had those skills, and who’d gladly pitch in to help Leia and Chewie and the rest like before – what, was he just hanging out at the casino until someone came to tap him on the shoulder?
General Lando Calrissian – who, after infiltrating Jabba’s palace for the cause, personally led the assault that blew up the Death Star – was, after all this time, perfectly willing to drop everything (a) to do it again, but (b) not yet, dammit?
What the heck would he have been waiting for?
One thing I have learned from seeing people comment on the movie (mostly elsewhere) is that if they criticize “Disney” as the filmmakers instead of talking about the writers, Director, producer, their opinion can be dismissed. They made up their mind that they won’t like it before the last movie.
There was no romance it was a crush. She had a hero worship thing going on. Then it turned then it came back. He was a little busy to think about romance and was caught by surprise. The gesture at the end showed he started thinking about it.Maybe it will turn into a romance for the next movie but that’s not what happened here.
The resistance has about 15 people right now. I don’t think that will make for a great next installment. Even if Carrie Fisher was alive I would guess they would make at least a time jump of a few years.
I went in wanting to love this movie, but it didn’t love me back. I didn’t care that Disney took over as long as someone was making the movies. I just didn’t want Star Wars too Disney-fied. It isn’t, but something is still off. Probably the disjointedness between different writers/directors on each movie and no overall blueprint/storyline to span the movies. Sort of like what happened in Lost or The X-Files.
I mostly liked The Force Awakens even though it was largely Star Wars. I didn’t like that Kylo Ren killed Han Solo. But TLJ I disliked more than I liked, sorry to say.
I think they seem to be setting up a love triangle between Rey, Finn, and Rose.
The Star Wars universe is so vast they could make movies forever using different times/places/characters.
I’m going to disagree somewhat, and say that it’ll be more like Captain America: Civil War. So I see Episode IX opening with some sort of battle, and then, while the rebels are debriefing/decompressing, that’s when they find out about Leia’s passing.
I very briefly thought that as well. Last I heard, though, Billy Dee Williams is not in the best of health, so it may not have been feasible even if they wanted to use him.
As I mentioned above, the people next to me in the theater rather loudly hoped for the code breaker to be Boba Fett. Just because. Somewhat ironically, they also complained about the movie spending too much time on “the old guys” instead of focusing more on the current generation of characters. You can’t win.
Speaking of the old guys versus the current generation, one other thing I noticed: For the first time, Peter Mayhew’s credit was “Chewbacca consultant” rather than “Chewbacca.” Talk about the passing of era!
You know I applied for that gig. Apparently it’s all who you fucking know in Hollywood.
Something I don’t think some people who are complaining about inconsistencies get (not in this thread necessarily but online in general) is the story lines for Rey and Poe/Finn were not concurrent at first. Rey’s took place immediately after the end of TFA and eventually catches up while the rest of the story starts months after the end of the first movie where the First Order was able to expand and dominate the New Republic after destroying its capital in TFA.
I think if the TFA had spent a little more time explaining the status of the Galaxy this would be clearer.
The problem is that Rey started having the visions with Kylo Ren shortly after arriving at Luke’s island, but this was after the First Order/Resistance fleets slow chase was already in progress. So either it took months to get to Luke’s location (and only hours to return), or they were completely concurrent.
How long did it take to find? How long was she there? She could have been waiting for him to change his mind for months.