I can buy Kylo Ren being the Kim Jung Un of the galaxy although that doesn’t make him a particularly menacing antagonist.
Something I’m not clear on. What resources does the first order have left?
I would assume that they lost a decent amount of their assets with the destruction of starkiller base.
I’ve not really followed Star Wars in other media, so I don’t know if it is addressed there.
But, does the fleet coming after the resistance in this last movie represent the totality of their forces, the bulk of them, or just a minor branch?
That’s a good question. No one ever really seems like “Oh shit, we’re down to our last three ships”.
Also, for all the WWII parallels in battles, the movies are kind of like “What if Hitler cruised the oceans in a German battleship, getting into naval battles?” You’d really think that Snoke, Ren & Hux would be on whatever passes as the First Order Capital Planet calling the shots via hologram and Force-Skyping rather than putting themselves on the front lines. Of course, Vader engaged in the same silliness including having a specially designed Tie Fighter to call out “Kill Tyrannical Second-in-Command Here”
It’s whatever the next director decides.
I understand what you’re getting at. With consistent world building, the audience gets a real appreciation of the stakes. If you know the rules of the universe and the resources of the characters, the audience doesn’t have to be told the parameters of a particular set-piece, because it’s already been established.
Welcome to Star Wars, where such things do not exist, and everything runs on rule of cool.
I don’t like the moral relativism. The original trilogy was good vs. evil, light vs. dark. The prequels showed that the Jedi had become too powerful and somewhat corrupt. Fine.
But now, even Luke Skywalker himself says that the Jedi need to end and that there is really no difference between the light side and the dark side? That, IMHO, destroys the premise of the original trilogy.
I think they are adding complexity to what is basically a fairy-tale, because Star Wars needs to grow up alongside its audience. Any movie that was made today with the same approach to its world building would be forgotten or relegated to an obscure TV channel. What was fine for 1977 is not quite so fine today.
Complexity? That seems to be overstating it. It’s still simplistic, it’s simply shifted the goalposts and added a few idiotic talking points. Like the whole business with the TIE fighters and X-Wings being sold by the same people. Really? How the hell else was the Rebellion/Resistance going to get X-Wings? Make them by hand? Conjure them out of thin air with the Force?
It’s on streaming today, DVD/Blu-ray in about 10 days or so. I saw it again today.
This music is such a disappointment. I’m watching parts of it thinking, “Uh, John Williams. You got anything new to show us here? Anything at all?”
Nope, minimal effort on this one from Williams.
The movie is really good, but flawed. Flawed in interesting ways, though. It’s not lazy at all. Rian Johnson really went for it and I give him credit for that. And credit to Disney for letting him go for it.
Canto Bight is still boring and a waste of time.
Adam Driver is great.
It’s hardly the “as bad as the prequels” level some are claiming. It’s just a kind of weird and different take on the movies.
I like the Force Awakens more. This one is decent, though. :shrugs:
I think TLJ is even better than TFA. the casting has been just about perfect, and if these two films have done one thing a million times better than any of the six Lucas was behind, it’s having the characters act human. not wooden.
y’all can nitpick over details. I’ll be enjoying myself.
The fact I am so conflicted over it is actually a point in its favor. It’s definitely a movie. A very interesting and odd movie.
My kids will get me the Blu-ray for Father’s Day. 
Me, too.
And thank you for nailing the biggest thing that makes these work better than the prequels: “having the characters act human.”
I think that’s why I’ve watched this and TFA and Rogue One a couple of times, unlike most superhero movies (and I’m a huge comic fan).
Holy crap, that means we’ve got aliens from a galaxy far, far away who are more human than earthlings… [jedi keanu] whoa… [/jedi keanu]
Netflix has Rogue One and I’ve seen it 2-3 more times in the past six months. It doesn’t just hold up, it improves with many viewings. I was surprised how much better it seemed now I know it really well.
Rogue One was great!
I know this isn’t a R1 thread, but i just watched it again this week (possibly the fifth time I’ve seen it now) and it’s hands-down become my favorite SW movie. None of the others captures my attention like that one does. I mean, five times, ferpetesake!
TLJ, on the other hand, I’ll end up buying eventually, but I don’t feel that rush to do so like I did with R1 & TFA. Still think it’s a great movie, with awesome visuals and nice twists into the storyline, but I’m not carried away with it for some reason.
ETA: I actually feel more excited about what comes next in the tv series than I do the movie series at this point.
Someone on reddit pointed this out, so perhaps this was all obvious to you, but I did not realize this:
You can see the moment Kylo Ren decides to spin Luke’s light saber and kill Snoke that way. Rey had his saber pulled from her and it spins in front of him. He sees it and looks up with the idea in his head.
Just bought the digital TLJ and watched it again. I still liked it a lot. A lot of the criticism is towards the Luke Skywalker characterization, but I think that’s about the only way he could have been handled. He secluded himself for 30 years for some reason – it wouldn’t have made sense if he was eager and ready to get back into the fray when he’d hidden even as the First Order came back to power and destroyed planets with Starkiller Base. He had to be very reluctant, and it had to be for a good reason. And I think the confrontation with Kylo that ended his Jedi training school fit.