Topic: Everything Star Wars discussion thread| How you doing, you old pirate?

The Last Jedi was meh. It lacked real progression and the realism of the space battles was below Star Wars standards.

@Henmii
Rian didn't actually do anything new. He just threw everything 7 had set up out the window. In my opinion he was trying too hard to be innovative and ended making fun of everything we were expecting. And everything the trailers set up was a lie.

So yeah Rian played it very safe and didn't venture into new territories with the force.

@Peek-a-boo First time we disagree I think!

@Henmii TFA was a very safe film, but in hindsight better than TLJ. Not because TLJ is different, I have no issue with that, but because TLJ has absolutely no respect for the lore and anything that's established in the previous films. TLJ treats the events in TFA like a joke. It felt like a giant tug of war between Abrams and Johnson, undoing the things there were established in episode 7 and introducing a whole new cast, and concept, without explaining any of it. It felt like all of the characters in TLJ were competing for screen time, and we saw no character progression at all.

This was supposed to be the film that explained the things that needed explaining from episode seven, show some character development of the new cast introduced in 7, and setting us up for episode 9. Instead, we got even more characters without any character progression whatsoever. And going in the final film of this trilogy, there's even more things that need explaining. Either way, it's going to be a mess, because I don't think another 120 minutes is enough time to fix all of this. And I wouldn't be surprised if Abrams retcons some of the things Johnson introduced.

Anyway, TL;DR, it felt too much like a Marvel comedy, and not enough like Star Wars. Characters are way too underdeveloped, and the film created too many loopholes with respect to the other films.

I liked Rogue One, and at this point I'm more interested in the spin-offs than episode 9.

I've just seen Episode 8, and I left thinking WTF have they done. I've never been so disappointed in my life.
I nearly walked out when Leia turned into superman. Rey with no Jedi Training at all (Episode 5 shows how Jedi training should be done). And Snoke, killed off with no information on who he is - big mystery build up from Episode 7 wasted. Could have been a good build up to Darth Plagius the Wise.
I am currently watching Rougue One again - this is a true Star Wars movie

Just in general, the only reason for the mystery of Snoke even being a thing is because of PR build-up. Yes, we saw him show off his importance in Force Awakens by magnifying himself to huge proportions, and we know he's been instrumental in bringing Kylo up. However, as we see in Last Jedi, he's also a show-off in other things too, so him being easily tricked plays into that [along with an arrogant streak that we also see]. Everything plays out with him almost the exact same as with Palpatine.
As for Rey and her 'training', all she really wanted to know was about the Force. Luke gave her that.

...But there was like a half hour's worth of training scenes in The Last Jedi.

Unless I'm forgetting something, there was Luke teaching about the balance, the light, and the dark, and control of the Force. Rey's combat training was done by herself. In a way, you can count the visit to the cave, but half hour? Maybe I'm missing something.

@DarkRula The hologram? That's Star Wars tech, not the force.

Yes. The hologram. I don't think I mentioned the Force in that bit, but it all still fits in him showing-off. "Look how big and important I am" sort of thing.

"He just threw everything 7 had set up out the window"

Yeah, it does seem like that. And that's a pity. That's also a reason why I want Rian to do ep 9. Because I think j.j. will throw away stuff to. That way the trilogy is even less cohesive. Lol, and those knights of Ren, do they even exist?!

As for Snoke: they showed him cut in half so explicitly that it must mean something. We already knew he died, but will he rise again? If he's plagieus, remember someone (probably Palpatine) killed him already in his sleep. But if he could truly create life, maybe he revived himself. Maybe he will do it again. Maul also got revived in the Clone wars. Its daft, but not impossible

@Octane,

You call the first order a joke: they killed off almost every rebel. By the end of the movie there where only 10 or 15 left. We have never seen this amount of carnage before in Starwars. In reference: In the original trilogy we had a Stormtrooper who bumped his head, lol.

It looks like my spoilers were not blacked out. Sorry to all for giving spoilers. Fixed now
Regarding my comment on the training. I just don't think it was as in depth as previous episodes. Luke explained light and dark. He did not explain anything on emotion (fear, aggression, anger, hate, etc). Maybe I missed it. And with Rey self training, again, swinging a pole / light sabre in front of a rock doesn't seem like sufficient Jedi training to me, I didn't get the cave or the message it was giving (it was like trying to copy the Dagobar Cave but then adding the Harry Potter mirror, or maybe the inspiration was Enter the Dragon, I don't know) but thats just my opinion
Maybe if I watch it again, it might not seem as bad.

Why do people say Leia did a Superman? The lass reached out and pulled herself to the door! We've seen the force work like this before. Why is it so bad? I don't get the hate. The film was fabulous in it's own right, I thought (way better than Force Awakens!)

@GrailUK Because it was a deus ex machina.

Last Jedi may have been a better 'film', but Force Awakens was a better 'Star Wars film'.

The 'hate' is there because whereas Force Awakens seemed to be continuing something, albeit after a long hiatus, and that something being the biggest cultural phenomenon since the Beatles, Last Jedi, at least at this point in time (maybe Episode IX will change this) feels like Disney is throwing that opportunity to continue something that was brilliant away and instead are turning it into something else.

It's not clear cut, but my gut says I've got a bad feeling about this.

@GrailUK I just didn't like it. She was in an explosion, sucked into space, I think unconscious when she did the 'as I described, poorly if you like' Superman thing.
I don't recall anything similar in the previous episodes, correct me if I'm wrong.
Maybe I got my hopes up too much on this film. I was disappointed with Ep7 because it felt too much like a copycat reboot of Ep4. Ep8 to me was worse than Ep7. It just felt like it tried to copy to many things from previous Episodes and just mix matched them together, I dunno, I just didn't like it.
One thing that did make me laugh was when I saw Vivian at the helm of Star Destroyer. I didn't see Neil, Mike or Rik though.

@Octane But...but...she's got Skywalker blood.
@Gerald Luke lifted up an Xwing. If Luke was floating in space, wouldn't he have been moved towards it? It's Star Wars...you can selectively hear things in space! Laser blasts are fine, but a huge starship collision makes no sound. It's fantasy not realism. So suspended disbelief For me it was a great fantasy flick but a poor soap opera...and Star Wars has always been Neighbours in Space.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE ^^

@Octane You could also say that about Luke blowing up the Death Star in Ep. IV (not to mention R2 and BB-8 (and astromech droids in general, I suppose) being universally compatible with and having a solution to everything).

And with Lucas originally intending the Force to be an analogue for God, is that really a problem?

I'm still waiting for the chance to see Ep. VIII again, but the more I reflect on everything the more I feel like TLJ is really nothing more than a glorified, two-and-a-half hour prologue to Ep. IX rather than its own complete story and there needs to be an Ep. X for the "Sequel Trilogy" to be an actual trilogy.

There are also interviews in which Johnson said he did what he did with Snoke and Luke because this is essentially Rey and Kylo's story and he wanted to keep the focus on the new characters. I feel like it's worth mentioning that Atlus said and did the same thing with Tokyo Mirage Sessions and it resulted in Chrom and the other Mirages being borderline inconsequential to the plot. So it seems like that's an inherently detrimental writing philosophy to hold when trying to handle both new and well-established characters in the same story.

@SilverEdge92 That wasn't a deus ex machina. It's established R2 and BB-8 can hack nearly every single device. That's just part of it I guess. Just like how we are all fine the fact that there's gravity in the Millenium Falcon, or any other ship for that matter. Those are the established rules of the Star Wars universe. Luke destroying the Death Star is more extreme luck to drive the plot than anything else, that happens in every (Star Wars) film.

@Gerald,

About the training it didn't feel like training at all. It was more of a trip to get Luke on board. She didn't succeed, it was actually Yoda that brought Luke to his senses. Its still weird that Rey is so strong, I definitely feel there's still more to her. She often looks angry, at one scene Kylo kneels before her. Wouldn't surprise me if she is the actual evil, the actual sith-lord! I am serious here

As for Leia as weird as it was, I liked the scene. It had something mystical around it. I personally found the scene where she busts through the door with bandages much more corny. And that scene with Finn's watery suit, awful. Now that we are talking about strange things, supposedly there's a scene where a laserbeam from a spaceship curves. I missed it, but that's impossible. Okay, there are some sloppy things in this new trilogy. Things that would never happen with George Lucas at the helm, that's just the truth. Still I found the movie entertaining and it felt fresh to me

That this site still doesn't have a proper spoiler-tag is a shame!

Hey look, a verbatim definition of character development.