People have become so emotionally invested in Star Wars that they think their investment entitles them in a say in how it’s supposed to be made. They almost think of themselves as producers.
It is easy to forget that prior to Star Wars becoming a phenomenon, the notion of an “extended universe” was not really a thing. Inasmuch as there were fictional niverses, they existed in one medium; you had a number of Oz books, and they were the alpha and omega of all things Oz. You had Little House books, and they were the entire canon of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s take on the frontier. Even Star Trek in 1977 was just the TV show and a few animated episodes, if even that was out; I don’t recall.
Star Wars blew up into an extended universe that’s better documented than events in the REAL universe. There are people who know more about the X-Wing fighter than their own car. By the time “The Force Awakens” came out Star Wars was not just six movies; it was TV shows and video games and novels and encyclopedias and fan fiction and God knows what else. There are novels that expand upon the stories of characters in video games.
A hell of a lot of Star Wars fans seem to take anything that deviates from their vision of Star Wars as a sort of apostasy, or heresy. The fact that “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” are fun, rollicking adventures that don’t give a shit about Admiral Thrawn or the proper technical specs of an Imperial II Class Star Destroyer or whether a Jedi of level X can astrally project himself just drives the Star Wars fundamentalists crazy; as Loach says, it appears many just decided these would suck before they saw them 'cause it’s Disney, sort of, and so they’ll find things to say they suck.
I actually read one guy, published in an actual newspaper, say “The Last Jedi” was worse than the prequels, which is objectively insane. You’re really thinking with irrational hate if you think this movie was worse than “The Phantom Menace,” an absolutely horrible movie.
I don’t know, but wasn’t the whole point of having a map?
She was there a short enough time that she had never seen the lizard/monk/caretaker creatures before that day, when she blasted a hole in the wall of her stone hut.
That seems about right. I never cared to dive into the EU. Just too many books to keep track of. The only thing that exists for me are the movies and this one stands up to any of them. I too saw someone say “Disney” just made the worst Star Wars movie. Anyone sounds ridiculous talking like that. Even the holy trinity had flaws, some of them deep. Disney isn’t any more interested in selling toys to kids than George Lucas was. Many of the driveby posts on social media calling it awful are from people who would hate anything that was put out. If it’s the EU that keeps you from enjoying the movies just go back and read them. They still exist. Disney hasn’t burned them all.
Saw this yesterday. Like a lot of movies these days, it wasn’t too bad at the time but I doubt I’ll ever watch it again and the more I think of the plotholes the more they annoy me.
I actually had a strong urge to walk out at one point, when the gang were talking to the bug eyed alien and she told them to go somewhere to find the “Master code breaker”. Yeah, leave the ship that is being chased and go somewhere else to find a guy who will help you get onto the ship that is doing the chasing so that you can switch off the macguffin.
Like, who the fuck do the directors think they are fooling? Thats a busywork, filler, padded out load of crap that even I could spot a mile away. Thats not a plot, thats levels 4 and 5 of the videogame.
I stuck with it anyway and enjoyed a few moments. It helped that I was genuinely unsure for a while if they had the balls to make Rey go down the dark side path for a bit. But that didn’t go anywhere either. I think I’ll stop thinking about this film, the more I think about it the less I like it.
I really want to like this movie…but there is so much stupid stuff…
Was there a scene I’m forgetting where they showed how Rey got from the Snoke’s throne room back onto the Falcon?
How did Finn get Rose back into the base with Luke and Kylo having their fight right in front of the only door? Did all the Imperial walkers just ignore them? And the beam is melting the reinforced door, but not the flimsy ship that was already deteriorating that Finn was in?
Why is anyone surprised that they can track a ship through hyperspace? Isn’t that EXACTLY what was done back in 1977? (Yes I know they mentioned a homing beacon being on the ship…but they still were able to track them, and Leia specifically said it like she expected them to be. “Easy? You call that easy?” “They’re tracking us”)
The biggest thing that is bothering me though is, now that the resistance/rebellion is down to a handful of people, I’ve accepted that they were defeated. I don’t see where the next episode is headed, and frankly, I don’t care. We’ve already seen Rey and Kylo Ren face off, and then fight side by side…so what is the new shocking twist?
Luke’s death being so close to the reveal of him doing a force projection. While I was still trying to process what he actually did, they were already showing him becoming one with the force (in a long shot) so my reaction to him dying was…“Wait? Did he just die? Ok then”
FWIW I’ve heard some fan speculation on YouTube that Snoke didn’t actually die; that his appearance was actually a force projection designed to create the illusion of his death. That actually makes a certain amount of sense. It does seem odd that so much effort was put into building up this character only to kill him off without providing more of a back-story. I hope it turns out to be true, and that Snoke makes an appearance in the final episode.
And I’m surprised that so many people are just uncritically accepting Kylo’s explanation for Rey’s parents. I remember watching that scene in the theater and thinking to myself that he is full of shit.
Agreed with both. TFA and TLJ fail at explaining how this all went to shit. Basically they started off with Empire and Rebellion are still around somehow without really explaining why. Makes it more of a reboot in some respects than a jumping off for a new storyline. I mean, you can undo ROTJ’s victories, but you should probably explain better how it went wrong (and yes, that partially means you have to explain Snoke’s rise better, because apparently he’s the one who got Ben all twisted which somehow caused Luke to retreat inward). And not being interested in that explanation is just bad storytelling.
Here is another thing that I couldn’t gloss over for the simple fact that it was a pretty important plot point…
Are they lighter and faster than the Imperial ships or not? Because it was said that they were, and if they are, then they pull away from them. If they aren’t they get reeled in, thats just logic. So was that officer wrong and are all spaceships the same speed? Because there were a bunch of ships of all shapes and sizes, if the mammoth Snokeship was leeping pace why weren’t the smaller destroyers catching up?
And what about all the fighters? Ren caught them easily to begin with, and even flew inside their damn ship to drop some bombs so why do we never see another Imperial fighter or bomber come near them ever again? He destroyed their hangers, he knows he did it, whats the problem?
And if the Imperials can’t catch up, why not throw up a roadblock? They know the direction they’re going so zip a few ships through hyperspace to a point ahead of them and trap them easily?
None of this is crazy, out-there reasoning, its just simple logical things that anybody would have thought of in that situation. Ugh, this film.
If they go back on Snoke’s death and Rey’s parents in the next movie it would seem too disjoined, in my opinion. Like there were dueling directors “Here’s what’s happening in my movie.” “Well, here’s what’s going on now.” “Not so fast, that stuff that happened before didn’t happen because this happened like that instead.”
Making Rey’s parents nobodies is fine. That backs up the notion that the Force is part of the universe and isn’t just something a few special people get to have. It extends the universe beyond Skywalkers and Kenobis and whatever else prior trilogy character could have been her parent.
Snoke going out like a bitch was fine too because now we have a Kylo Ren who took a level in badass and is now the antagonist. Snoke wasn’t really interesting in either movie and was a huge jerk to Kylo in any case – liken him to the Emperor but at least Palpatine had a decent onscreen relationship with Vader. Palpatine was the big bad but he didn’t spend all of his time talking down on his subordinates like Snoke did. Snoke was just another “Just like before but MOAR!” that Abrams put in Force Awakens to be an analogue of Papatine but only bigger and eviler.
The only thing Johnson missed on, I think, is actually giving Snoke a little backstory. While Snoke is ranting at Kylo, he could have had a line about studying in the shadows under the guidance of Plageous and Sideus or something like that. Just a little to satisfy people who now think his character was wasted.
I don’t know anything about the extended universe other than there is a blue guy named Admiral Thrawn. That’s about it.
I just wanted these movies to continue the wonderful Star Wars story and universe that we left in Return of the Jedi. Sure, there are glimpses of that universe here and there, but overall these new movies seem to want to get rid what happened in episodes 4, 5 and 6. And then TLJ took what happened in TFA and rewrote it or crudely snipped the plotlines rather than resolving them in a coherent way. We need an overall storyline for the writers to aim at instead of just letting each movie reinvent the wheel.
I’m perfectly fine with the idea that any random person can be force sensitive, and can be identified and trained to be jedi from an early age. The problem is that Rey is not just “force sensitive.” In TFA she had no force training whatsoever but ended up kicking Kylo’s ass despite the fact that he not only comes from the Skywalker bloodline, but had actually received formal jedi training from Luke.
I’ve read arguments that there are actually some very subtle hints in the way that Snoke was portrayed in TLJ that point to him being a force projection. Now, that may just be some fanboys over thinking things, but I do think that if Snoke does make an appearance in the next movie it will be because of the overall story arch, and not just a case of different directors trying to outdo each other.
That would be awful storytelling. The scene between Rey and Kylo Ren works because of the genuine emotions. Someone way back in the thread described it as oddly romantic, and I agree. To make that a lie destroys a pivotal and powerful scene in the episode. And for what? Why is it so important for people that Rey have parentage of significance? I simply do not understand the need or desire for this. Anyone Can Cook!
Similarly for Snoke, there really isn’t anything about Snoke that I need to know. Bringing him back doesn’t move the story along. If anything its an unnecessary distraction that trivializes the prior episode and makes episode IX a farce. Personally, I think Snoke bit the dust because they couldn’t think of an interesting backstory for him that didn’t suck. It’s easy to say that Rey should have significant parents or Snoke should have a kickass history, but what is that nugget exactly? Maybe that path ends up being cheesy and stupid.
I don’t know why there is surprise that there is no backstory to Snoke and he was just dropped into the movies as the bad guy. Pretty much every bad guy in Star Wars was just dumped into the movies. It was one of the most jarring things about the prequels. The prequels explained the emperor but added other random bad guys that were never fully explained. Its a Star Wars tradition.
The thing there is, there is no “overall” story arc. Rian Johnson has been pretty emphatic that Disney gave him no instructions about how he had to resolve anything from TFA, or on anything he needed to put in place for the third movie. And he’s not giving Abrams any notes on how to resolve the stuff that was introduced in TLJ. They’re making the whole thing up as they go along.
Whatever the reason they did it, it’s fantastic art. It was one of the smartest moves ever made in franchise moviemaking.
Until Snoke dies like a bitch, for a full movie and a half, he’s the Emperor again with exactly the same storyline as the Emperor and Vader. It’s the same tale. And then in one slice our expectations are completely turned around. What the hell just happened?
It’s a magnificent decision. Kylo Ren’s character immediately becomes WAY more interesting; he’s not just Vader lite. He’s way more badass; Vader only killed Palpatine when he had nothing left. Ren pulled off a slick assassination for his own purpose. It adds depth to his relatlonship with Rey. It allows for far more development in the next movie. It makes “The Last Jedi” truly its own movie in the SW series. It was just awesome. Sold the movie for me.
We absolutely don’t need a Snoke backstory. He was an asshole who took power but he wasn’t good enough because now he’d dead, and that’s how the Sith roll. You snooze, you lose. I wanna see more of Kylo Ren, Rey, Poe, and Finn, with a helping of Rose and Chewie and don’t waste time with the dumbass who didn’t see it coming.
