Ebb: Amazing. Every word of what you just said was right.
Hey, thank you!
Just saw it. Man, what a cliche. It was OK and I had fun watching it, but every major plot point resolved in the most utterly predictable way, and a lot of the dialogue was execrable. The Kylo Ren/Rey arc was the only storyline that had some development and left me guessing untll the end (though the final scenes were utterly predictable again).
As a general fan of movies where bad guys blow up in fireballs without much else going on, I can forgive a lot, and I didn’t hate this movie. It wasn’t truly awful the way Attack of the Clones was–I almost walked out of that one. This one was just meh. I’d watch it again, but I wouldn’t pay for it.
Courtesy of Slate; The Lost Diaries of General Hux.
It’s a fun and amusing little read.
I think the difference between me and some of you is that “Because it looks cool” is all the reason I need for something to happen.
I agree - if it works. If we’re complaining, then obviously it didn’t look cool enough.
Don’t understand the people who strongly dislike this movie. It was pretty much the same as all the other Star Wars movies. The ending was predictable but that was no big deal. And of course there were plenty of JJ Abrams lens flares.
I went in expecting the pew pews, and I got the pew pews. It met my expectations.
I went into Rian Johnson’s movie expecting the pew pews, and I got some surprising commentary on how empires are built on the comfort of the wealthy, and on how the best-intentioned bloodline-nobility religions cause more harm than they prevent, plus the pew pews. It exceeded my expectations.
TLJ would have been great if the characters hadn’t been so stupid at just the right moment. Drop the yo’mamma jokes, give Hux his dignity back, let Kylo go five minutes without a tantrum, and maybe let Holdo have a grasp on Crew Resource Management. Then they never end up in a situation where Rose has to save Finn from saving everyone else and we can cut the movie at 2-hours even with Rey pondering Kylo’s offer in the throne room, roll credits.
Liked it but didn’t love it. A few criticisms/questions popped into my head while I was watching.
The pacing was too frantic. Remember when Luke and Ben chartered the Millenium Falcon to take them to Alderaan? During the journey, there was time for a game of holographic chess and for Luke to practice with his lightsaber. Now, when KR uses his force connection to discover where Rey is, he’s on the scene about a minute later. That’s barely enough time to get his helmet and cape on.
Rey seems to be lost and feel that she has no family or close friends, but she brings too much of it on herself, and goes off on her own all the time. When everyone else is saying “we have to get out of here now” she goes wandering off across the desert without a word and Chewbacca gets captured when he goes to get her. It seemed like a lazy way to build tension; have a character who never shares anything and expect me to feel sympathy for her when it leads to trouble. Compare that with Luke in RotJ telling his friends that Vader is on the Star Destroyer they’re passing, or telling Leia that the he has to go confront him.
After spending the whole movie trying to find the secret path to Sith HQ, when the rebels get there there’s a whole fleet of ships waiting for them, and with full crews. Was it explained how they got there?
If anger and fear lead to the Dark Side of the Force, Rey should have been easy pickings. Is there a more scared and pissed-off character in any of the movies?
In a way, I’m still sort of stunned that it’s over. I was 11 when the first movie came out and it was the best thing ever. After it was a huge success, somewhere I read that there were going to be eight more movies; a trilogy of trilogies! But if they only made one movie every three years, it was going to take until 2001 to see them all, and that felt like forever. When I was sitting in the theater waiting for that opening chord, and the title, and the text crawling into the distance, I realized I’ll never have that moment again. There’ll be other movies in the SW universe, but the holy 9 are done. I’m glad so much of the cast lived long enough to see if finished.
TLJ still doesn’t make sense to me. The First Order is chasing the remnants of the Resistance fleet at sub-light speed. Meanwhile Finn and Rose can just sort of jet out to some casino planet and yadayadya yada.
But the First Order isn’t low on fuel or short on ships. They couldn’t hyperspace ahead and cut them off?
Finn has found a new battle–Social Justice Wars.
is that guy with the stupid fake voice going to do another 2 hour video telling us how bad this movie was?
The funny scene to me was when they ran a cable from ship to ship to transfer data. With all that tech they can’t do it wirelessly? No bluetooth? 
I don’t disagree, but I’m just thinking generally in terms of what took me from a willing suspension of disbelief and “it’s just the premise, roll with it,” vs. “these people are too stupid to live and I don’t know why I should care if they do or don’t.”
Johnson wanted to have a long-distance chase feature prominently in his movie, a la Master and Commander? Okay, I’ll grant the premise even though a thoughtful line of dialogue or better yet, a perfectly natural exchange of dialogue, about how the most obvious (to the viewer) solution wouldn’t work because of stuff where stuff doesn’t break any of the previous films would be nice. But I get it, sometimes you just have to roll with it for this kind of movie.
What I can’t roll with is a series of plot contrivances born out of imbecilic characters, at least some of whom we’re supposed to think of as “smart” or at least cleaver. That’s what ruined TLJ for me. Even the grossly out of place bombers I was fine with. What I was not fine with was Leia’s apparent helplessness and inability to control the forces under her command (even if that meant leaving Poe with his proverbial you-know-what hanging out and about to get it smacked), even as we are supposed to get the impression she’s some great leader. What Johnson apparently wanted me to feel about so many characters, and how I actually felt, was so frequently at odds that it took me out of the movie and all I could do was pick it apart.
So I’m trying to limit my “nice to haves” to the bare essentials, to what it would have taken to keep me in the movie and maybe pay to see the next and final installment in the trilogy. As opposed to just reading up on spoilers and sniping at the franchise from an online message board.
Hooray!
The Emperor is finally taken down!
Well, except that’s how ROTJ ended. Three wasted movies just to take us back to where we started, except they killed off the best characters.
In the end it isn’t quite a remake, more like a regurgitation of TOS. There are few scenes in these movies that weren’t done in TOS or the prequels. But tis is what Disney does these days. They go looking to make a buck off of old properties by remaking them with flashy new technology.
Chop Suey Order: I think if you cut these movies into individual scenes you could watch them in random order and it wouldn’t be any less coherent. It probably doesn’t even matter to keep scenes from different movies separate. Throw them all together and when you’ve gotten over two hours just stop. That’s one of the trilogy. It wouldn’t really matter what scene you’re on. The only thing that may make a difference is if William’s score is giving you the right note to go out on.
Continuity is of no value in these movies. Actions have no consequences. Han’s dead, except when he’s back. They killed Chewie, except they didn’t. Rey left her desert planet, only to find herself on others. Snoke was killed, but do that as many times as you like, they’ll make more. The Empire is gone, except they have even bigger ships and now they are back in control. Even though they are inexplicably back in control we are repeating their comeback with even bigger ships, I guess to destroy every single inhabited planet in the old republic!
There are many hundred, maybe thousands, of super large planet killing ships crewed by tens of millions. If you wanted to find the Emperor there must be dozens of planets working on his fleet. Just stop by any one of them and they probably have a ship leaving for there every four hours.
So, in the end didn’t the Emperor win?
He wanted Rey to kill him but she wouldn’t do it. And people are saying he was stupid because if he would have just stopped shooting force lightning at Rey he wouldn’t have died. But wasn’t that just a way to get her to kill him?
Seems like this was his plan: Sow discontent with the republic and gain control. Subjugate the galaxy and destroy a few planets. Go into hiding for three decades to build a fleet with a few million stolen children. Maybe do some more planet destroying. Then become a pretty young woman and I’m guessing hang around in the cantina and be the center of attraction, maybe join the band and take up a singing career.
Shouldn’t we be expecting the Emperor to start taking over Rey’s body? Or maybe he needed a female descendent to carry his next incarnation? Which is creepier? I’m thinking the baby one.
Matt Smith, the Eleventh Doctor, was slated to be the bad guy for this movie. He could have been fantastic but they should have started introducing him in the first movie. Instead they cut him in favor of dredging up the Emperor and doing back flips to explain how he got there.
Reylo shippers got what they wanted, They should have given them more and got those two married.
[fanfic]
Mr. and Mrs. Ben and Rey Palpatine Kenobi Skywalker Organa Solo. They should have kissed and then ended the movie with a photo montage to “Happy Together” by the Turtles.
Photo 1: Rey and Ben getting married by Yoda.
Photo 2: Rey threw the bouquet which is caught by Nien Nunb, who is making eyes at Lando.
Photo 3: Thanksgiving Dinner. Ben And Rey get ready to carve the turkey. Padme is rising out of her seat accusingly thrusting a pear at a Vader robed Anikin across the table. Asoko has her hand on his shoulder defending him. Luke and Leia are embarrassed. Han looks board. Grampa Palpatine in a bib having a hard time with a spoonful of broth.
Photo 3: Outside, kids are playing, one is falling off a cliff but Rey and Ben (shirtless) are having too much fun and don’t seem to care. Falling never killed anyone, except Mace.
Photo 4: Night time camping. Rey and ben are looking lovingly at each other, Two of the kids are clashing lightsabers, one red, one blue. The third kid is between them roasting a marshmallow on a stick from the saber heat.
[/fanfic]
It’s an insult to call this the Skywalker saga. Don’t put candles in a cow-pie and tell me it’s birthday cake.
If anything this was the Palpatine saga. Probably the main character I care the least about. The Skywalkers turned out to be a bunch of nobodies that couldn’t hold their force. Whenever they try to do something big they die.
If they wanted to do a “Skywalker Saga” the Skywalkers should have been front and center. When The Force Awakens started it was clear that this was about new characters and the old ones had just a supporting part. I rolled with it. It’s a big galaxy with lots of interesting people in it. Only, there wasn’t any point to it all when they are just inferior rehashes of the old characters.
There might be a JJ cut or even George cut but I can’t imagine it would be worth the effort. Too many bad choices.
Someone must have thought Rey killing Chewie with Sith powers was a good idea. I hear people saying that would have been powerful character development for Rey. Maybe in movies with introspection. Even though, it was brutal enough the way it is. For one thing, everyone loves Chewbacca. Rey is being promoted as a positive role model for children, so none of this sits well. It’s worse then if Luke went around stabbing Ewoks just for sport.
For all the taking back of events they could have kept Luke alive at the start of this film. So many crazy force powers going on here why not throw in another. They are just making up crap as they go along, only they aren’t good at that. It might have made things easier.
I love her, but it’s crazy that Carrie Fisher had more time in the movie she wasn’t around to film then in the previous two she was there for. Leia is maybe a bad choice to be a Jedi. Her character was always a bit of a hot head and too committed to a cause. She is a fighter for what’s right. She doesn’t seem the type to just put her trust in the force and let it lead where it may. It would have taken about a day for her to turn to the dark side. She should have been the one to rally the galaxy to put down the Empire once and for all.
Finn, we are supposed to believe has force powers. Except now it’s all about the blood line and Rey. Maybe like Dracula has Renfield, Rey has Finn and without her he has nothing.
Maybe the whole force being for everyone isn’t such a hot idea. If it rises above empathy most people would misuse it. There would be a good deal of force choking and mind tricking going on for petty reasons.
Rey claims the Skywalker name. It would have been funny if Uncle Ben and Aunt Beru clones where there as part of some weird backup plan. Since they’ve got nothing to do now might as well take up moister farming again. They tell Rey to get to work.
Hell, make the old woman be Shmi Skywalker, because why the hell bother making sense now
No. The sound of the force lightning was loud enough to almost drown her out, but if you listen carefully, you can hear her shouting, “Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!”
If it’s keeping me in the moment then it works. If my mind starts drifting to “Wait, what about…?” then it’s not working. I have enough things to do; I don’t pay money and take time out to intentionally cross my arms and glare at the screen and find things to bitch about, I go to be entertained. I’m happy to be entertained by spaceships or superheroes or dragons or car chases but, if the movie isn’t entertaining me enough for me to overlook the inevitable dumb/improbable dumb parts, then the movie is failing in “looking cool”. This movie consistently failed in that regard.
I know he sold the company but I wonder does Lucas still get some money from each movie because it always says the characters were created by him? He could have signed away any future money when he sold the company.