Star Wars Episode 8

[sdp]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

Spoiler:

I thought it dealt a lot with themes of nostalgia getting in the way of actual forward progress. The greater good of the long game vs the momentary elation of a quick win. How a change of address doesn't magically make one's problems go away. Grief, and the unhealthy ways we deal with it. Rigidity of thought and action, and how that's incompatible with life.

Stuff like that, which might not be your jam, but it sure as heck is mine.

Haha sorry but you're reaching with most of your points.

Spoiler:

What theme of nostalgia getting in the way of progress? Because of the Jedi and Luke/Yoda saying it was ok for it to end?
You're looking too much into it when the movie ends with Empire vs underdog Rebels, now that is nostalgia getting in the way.

What Long game? That the resistance escaped so the first order "didn't" win when Kylo Ren wanted to "end it once and for all" but instead "the war just begun"? ugh, I can't believe going back to the status quo is something interesting to you.

Change / grief cannot be just be ignored/dealt with like that? Isn't that the same thing that we saw with Obi Wan and Yoda in the OT?

I don't know what movie you watched but you're being really forgiving of the flaws, did it have cool moments? Sure, but storytelling took a huge hit for the sake of having Empire vs Rebels again.

About Finn: Instead of being treated as a main character, he was more of a side character, I guess they didn't feel confortable in having a Black man be he main focus of the movie again, and maybe the inter-racial relationship wasn't what Disney wanted? He was supposed to be a hero, in TFA we saw him go from a coward to accepting his fate in doing something about it. Here the only heroic thing he did was try to disable the tracker which not only did he do it poorly but also failed at it.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Watching it tonight about 11. I wonder if my having read all the spoilers will temper my expectations.

Who knows, it might not be as bad as you imagined so you'll like it more than you thought and have a positive opinion on it or since you already know the major twists than had you wondering it might be even more boring. Though there are a few smaller things that haven't been mentioned that I'm not sure will be your cup of tea either.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by sdp

Haha sorry but you're reaching with most of your points.

Yeah...I don't think we saw the same movie.
Especially with regards to Finn.

Mileage varies.

[sdp]

It appears plenty of people are seeing the movie I saw however.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by sdp

It appears plenty of people are seeing the movie I saw however.

I'm glad for you all?
Kind of like I'm equally glad for all the folks I know saw the same movie I did.

Yay?

I am surprised that the breakdown of like/dislike of stuff isn't going neatly to one side or the other, ie. Conservation fans vs Transformative fans.
Which is interesting.

[Krutch]

So what's everyone's current rankings of Star Wars movies?

I think mines currently looking like this...

-A New Hope
-Empire Strikes Back
-Return of the Jedi
-The Force Awakens
-Revenge of the Sith
-Phantom Menace
-The Last Jedi
-Attack of the Clones
-Rogue One

[sdp]

I'm not very good at this, I saw all the OT so young and always together that it's hard for me to separate them but I guess if I must:

ANH > ROTJ > ESB > TPM > AOTC > ROTS > TFA > TLJ

I'm not putting Rogue One since it's a spin-off and if I must then I'd feel obligated to rank the Clone Wars film and even the Ewok movies. Rogue One is definitely down there though, and even if I didn't absolutely hate it, I feel it's unnecessary and don't feel like I ever want to watch it again.

Things to note:
I don't care about how "good" ESB is, I prefer ROTJ. You can't have Star Wars without ANH, the ESB and ROTJ fleshed and improved what we saw on ANH but it was still just improvements over what we saw in ANH.

I consider Episode I almost as good as the OT, I really like it, hate on me, I saw it as a kid.
AOTC I really enjoy, if you take the Anakin/Padme love scenes it's far better than it's given credit.
ROTS I am not a fan with anything they did with the characters.

The hype I had for TFA puts it over TLJ, and most of what makes me hate on TLJ is it just doubled down on the things I hated on TFA, so TLJ being last might be a little unfair, TFA did most of the damage but at least I liked the new heroes in TFA.

[NinjaPug]

The discrepancy in scores between critics and the audience for this movie in relation to DC movies is fascinating to me. It's almost like these aren't real people giving out scores.

Seems like there are a bunch of people upset they didn't get powerful Force user Luke wrecking **** and that Rian decided to ignore JJ's stupid mystery box setup from TFA. I've got issues with the movie but these decisions weren't part of them.

[sdp]

We did get an OP Luke being a bad ass and wrecking **** though, what are you talking about?

Spoiler:

because he died? Han died last movie and people didn't rate the movie badly, Luke was awesome and everyone seems to agree with that, that is not the criticism of the movie

So you're implying because fans are not liking the movie that they're wrong and the superior critics are right?

Rian didn't ignore anything from JJ, he doubled down on it, maybe people just realized what JJ made isn't what they really want going forward. I never liked TFA but it took almost 2 years for most people to realize it wasn't that good, when TLJ didn't deliver either they're being less forgiving.

[NinjaPug]

Originally Posted by sdp

We did get an OP Luke being a bad ass and wrecking **** though, what are you talking about?

Spoiler:

because he died? Han died last movie and people didn't rate the movie badly, Luke was awesome and everyone seems to agree with that, that is not the criticism of the movie

So you're implying because fans are not liking the movie that they're wrong and the superior critics are right?

Rian didn't ignore anything from JJ, he doubled down on it, maybe people just realized what JJ made isn't what they really want going forward. I never liked TFA but it took almost 2 years for most people to realize it wasn't that good, when TLJ didn't deliver either they're being less forgiving.

How did he wreck **** exactly? He bought them time to get away. I don't think Force projection Luke is what people had in their heads when thinking of Jedi Master Luke using his Force powers.

I'm not sure where you got that implication from. I think it's interesting that vocal Internet fanbases can move the needle on scores like that to the point that bots are used to help push the score up/down. You'll never see me say a critic's opinion is superior.

I don't know if it was JJ's intention to have Snoke killed in part 2 with no backstory or to have Rey parents being Junkers that sold her into slavery. My point is that using the mystery box technique that JJ does opens up the possibility for disappointment from the audience when the reveal doesn't match what they've been theorizing for two years.

Those were the things that I've seen people bitch about the most. Like I said, those didn't bother me. I had other issues with the movie.

[Shark_Blade]

Originally Posted by Krutch

So what's everyone's current rankings of Star Wars movies?

I think mines currently looking like this...

-A New Hope
-Empire Strikes Back
-Return of the Jedi
-The Force Awakens
-Revenge of the Sith
-Phantom Menace
-The Last Jedi
-Attack of the Clones
-Rogue One

1. The Phantom Menace (9.8/10)
2. A New Hope (9.5/10)
3. The Last Jedi (9/10)
4. Rogue One (9/10)
5. The Force Awakens (8/10)
6. Return of the Jedi (7/10)
7. The Empire Strikes Back (6/10)
8. Revenge of the Sith (3/10)
9. Attack of the Clones (2/10)

[Sabacooza]

Originally Posted by RaphaelinSTL

I still need to see this thing but damn ... look at the disconnect just from one day.

https://i.imgur.com/Dy8CaU7.png

I wonder how this will shift over the weekend.

I saw the movie and even though it's a nice movie to look at, I'd say the 53% score is more accurate. Most of it was odd and out of character. It didn't feel quite like Star Wars.

[TonySiegel]

Once the hype dies down... youll see this movie for what it is...

I can't believe they started the movie with a prank call and a your mom joke...

Oh well I gave up on star wars long ago...

Cool movie... but an alright star wars film...

[Shark_Blade]

Originally Posted by TonySiegel

Once the hype dies down... youll see this movie for what it is...

I can't believe they started the movie with a prank call and a your mom joke...

Oh well I gave up on star wars long ago...

Cool movie... but an alright star wars film...

Revenge of the Sith had R2D2 pissing oil on enemies and burnt them. Jokes are not that uncommon in Star Wars.

[Andrew NDB]

Saw it.

Spoiler:

To begin with, I'd sure have cut the hell out of the awkward jokes at the very beginning of the movie (to me, Domhall Gleeson's General Hux seemed like a caricature of a high-ranking Imperial officer in TFA, like a kid wearing a general's clothes trying to act tough and unintentionally failing at it... now why would you open the new movie only accentuating that rather than making him actually legit fearsome? it makes it momentarily feel like an Austin Powers sequel to TFA), also a good number of the excessive Marvel-style "better lighten the mood about now!" jokes sprinkled throughout that don't land and don't seem appropriately placed (Yoda DOES have some great humor here, but there's one joke in particular from him that fell completely flat and seemed out of character, about two from Luke, too... all of this kind of stuff can be scrapped)...

... but I rather enjoyed it. I did. It didn't feel remakey, which was my #1 worry about this movie after seeing TFA two years ago and the previews for this movie. Having seen it, it mostly felt new and fresh while still having good doses of original Luke and Leia stuff. I'd definitely retailor the ending to have Luke actually *physically* showing up in his old X-Wing limping there and just f**ing wrecking those Walkers with the Force, pulling down TIE Fighters and smashing them into the ground like toys (we needed at least one big "HOLY SH**!" Force moment with Luke, IMHO) and goading Kylo to come out and face him mano-e-mano, then beating Kylo in a lightsaber battle, but before delivering the killing stroke... rearing back and letting Kylo kill him just like Obi-Wan went out. That'd seem much more digestible and allow Luke to go out like a G and even further sell his guilt about Kylo. I think the reason that that didn't happen, or something close to it (i.e., Kylo killing not one but two OT characters) was that it will make it too hard to sell Kylo's full turn to the Light in IX. I also think Rey is going to go full-on evil in the next one, but that's neither here or there. And don't believe the big parents reveal here at all.

But that's just what I'd do. What's there isn't bad. I like the organic cutting back and forth throughout. It's actually shocking how much the Resistance loses in this. We begin, it's a giant Mon Calamari Cruiser, a bunch of bombers, a bunch of frigates that go blooie... then it's a handful of escape ships... then it's reduced to a scant number of people that are all able to fit on the Falcon. Shesus. Probably 800,000 people died on-screen. It could be argued that more people died in TFA with the five planets that were destroyed, but not one care was given to it by the script or the filmmakers. "POOF! Possibly 20 billion lives gone, let's not even talk about it," was the order of the day 2 years ago. So why would the audience care or even make note? This movie actually made every ship going blooie make me worry.

Since TFA I've been complaining that I have no idea what the political landscape is or what the lay of the land is, which means I don't know what the stakes are or basically even what's going on at all. Eh, I kind of understand it now. It's pretty dodgy, but I think I can wrap my head around it now. ROTJ => Empire is defeated => Rebel Alliance forms the New Republic => 35 years of peace (I guess?) => Resistance is formed quietly to be on guard from what the First Order is doing (while for reasons unknown the New Republic is 100% pacifistic, we're told) => First Order blows up those planets in TFA and dismantles the New Republic, leaving only their oddly-named "Resistance" around. I just wish they'd clarified this all a bit better. I have a strong suspicion that it's that Disney is deathly afraid that even the slightest, most passing discussion of galactic politics in-movie will equate to "Oh nooes!! Politics! That's what everyone on the internets complained about in the prequel trilogy!!! Avoid it at all costs!!" Even if it prevents audiences from having even the most basic understanding of who is fighting who and for why after the last movies.

If TFA made me sad that there wasn't actually any fighting in space (i.e., no... Star... Wars?), TLJ made me sad that two movies into this new trilogy, we haven't had even one good lightsaber battle. In TFA it was a semi-rookie vs. full-on rookie lightsaber fight... and it was truncated. This time we get a "let me Force-push a button on my lightsaber and kill you without any fight" fight with Snoke, a scuffle with non-Force users in that same throne room, then a FAKE lightsaber fight between Kylo and Luke where one of them wasn't even actually there. C'mon, folks. It's not hard math. You have to make original stories, but a numbered Star Wars film? At least one great lightsaber fight is a prerequisite. I did enjoy the artsy, samurai-esque touches to the FAKE Kylo-Luke fight with the footwork and angles, though.

No idea where they'll go from here. I suspect they'll do a big time lapse after this and maybe it's "Yay! We found some star systems that will help, plus we have these here 19 year old Jedis Rey has trained!" But yeesh. TLJ isn't even set up on a cliffhanger, really. The whole saga could just end here and it sort of works. If TFA was ANH on crack, TLJ wasn't TESB, but it does amplify the grim impact of its ending tenfold.

Sidenote: didn't the last movie literally show us that when you jump into Hyperspace, you phase through any physical matter in your path, even if it's 5 meters in front of you? That makes the Admiral's sacrifice kind of impossible.

These kind of rankings pop up but are meaningless so close to having seen the latest movie to add into the equation (always have... go back and look at most people's rankings of the Indy movies right when Indy 4 came out, as one example), but I'll play anyway:

Personally...

1. Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope
2. Star Wars, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
3. Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
4. Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace
5. Star Wars, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
6. Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Little bit of a gap, and then:

7. Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones
8. Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Disclaimer: I watched this movie after having spoiled myself on all of the spoilers in the movie. I think this helped. My expectations were tempered.

[Shark_Blade]

I recently realized that purple hair woman Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo was the woman from Jurassic Park! No wonder she looks familiar. Iconic.

[NinjaPug]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Saw it.

Spoiler:

To begin with, I'd sure have cut the hell out of the awkward jokes at the very beginning of the movie (to me, Domhall Gleeson's General Hux seemed like a caricature of a high-ranking Imperial officer in TFA, like a kid wearing a general's clothes trying to act tough and unintentionally failing at it... now why would you open the new movie only accentuating that rather than making him actually legit fearsome? it makes it momentarily feel like an Austin Powers sequel to TFA), also a good number of the excessive Marvel-style "better lighten the mood about now!" jokes sprinkled throughout that don't land and don't seem appropriately placed (Yoda DOES have some great humor here, but there's one joke in particular from him that fell completely flat and seemed out of character, about two from Luke, too... all of this kind of stuff can be scrapped)...

... but I rather enjoyed it. I did. It didn't feel remakey, which was my #1 worry about this movie after seeing TFA two years ago and the previews for this movie. Having seen it, it mostly felt new and fresh while still having good doses of original Luke and Leia stuff. I'd definitely retailor the ending to have Luke actually *physically* showing up in his old X-Wing limping there and just f**ing wrecking those Walkers with the Force, pulling down TIE Fighters and smashing them into the ground like toys (we needed at least one big "HOLY SH**!" Force moment with Luke, IMHO) and goading Kylo to come out and face him mano-e-mano, then beating Kylo in a lightsaber battle, but before delivering the killing stroke... rearing back and letting Kylo kill him just like Obi-Wan went out. That'd seem much more digestible and allow Luke to go out like a G and even further sell his guilt about Kylo. I think the reason that that didn't happen, or something close to it (i.e., Kylo killing not one but two OT characters) was that it will make it too hard to sell Kylo's full turn to the Light in IX. I also think Rey is going to go full-on evil in the next one, but that's neither here or there. And don't believe the big parents reveal here at all.

But that's just what I'd do. What's there isn't bad. I like the organic cutting back and forth throughout. It's actually shocking how much the Resistance loses in this. We begin, it's a giant Mon Calamari Cruiser, a bunch of bombers, a bunch of frigates that go blooie... then it's a handful of escape ships... then it's reduced to a scant number of people that are all able to fit on the Falcon. Shesus. Probably 800,000 people died on-screen. It could be argued that more people died in TFA with the five planets that were destroyed, but not one care was given to it by the script or the filmmakers. "POOF! Possibly 20 billion lives gone, let's not even talk about it," was the order of the day 2 years ago. So why would the audience care or even make note? This movie actually made every ship going blooie make me worry.

Since TFA I've been complaining that I have no idea what the political landscape is or what the lay of the land is, which means I don't know what the stakes are or basically even what's going on at all. Eh, I kind of understand it now. It's pretty dodgy, but I think I can wrap my head around it now. ROTJ => Empire is defeated => Rebel Alliance forms the New Republic => 35 years of peace (I guess?) => Resistance is formed quietly to be on guard from what the First Order is doing (while for reasons unknown the New Republic is 100% pacifistic, we're told) => First Order blows up those planets in TFA and dismantles the New Republic, leaving only their oddly-named "Resistance" around. I just wish they'd clarified this all a bit better. I have a strong suspicion that it's that Disney is deathly afraid that even the slightest, most passing discussion of galactic politics in-movie will equate to "Oh nooes!! Politics! That's what everyone on the internets complained about in the prequel trilogy!!! Avoid it at all costs!!" Even if it prevents audiences from having even the most basic understanding of who is fighting who and for why after the last movies.

If TFA made me sad that there wasn't actually any fighting in space (i.e., no... Star... Wars?), TLJ made me sad that two movies into this new trilogy, we haven't had even one good lightsaber battle. In TFA it was a semi-rookie vs. full-on rookie lightsaber fight... and it was truncated. This time we get a "let me Force-push a button on my lightsaber and kill you without any fight" fight with Snoke, a scuffle with non-Force users in that same throne room, then a FAKE lightsaber fight between Kylo and Luke where one of them wasn't even actually there. C'mon, folks. It's not hard math. You have to make original stories, but a numbered Star Wars film? At least one great lightsaber fight is a prerequisite. I did enjoy the artsy, samurai-esque touches to the FAKE Kylo-Luke fight with the footwork and angles, though.

No idea where they'll go from here. I suspect they'll do a big time lapse after this and maybe it's "Yay! We found some star systems that will help, plus we have these here 19 year old Jedis Rey has trained!" But yeesh. TLJ isn't even set up on a cliffhanger, really. The whole saga could just end here and it sort of works. If TFA was ANH on crack, TLJ wasn't TESB, but it does amplify the grim impact of its ending tenfold.

Sidenote: didn't the last movie literally show us that when you jump into Hyperspace, you phase through any physical matter in your path, even if it's 5 meters in front of you? That makes the Admiral's sacrifice kind of impossible.

These kind of rankings pop up but are meaningless so close to having seen the latest movie to add into the equation (always have... go back and look at most people's rankings of the Indy movies right when Indy 4 came out, as one example), but I'll play anyway:

Personally...

1. Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope
2. Star Wars, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
3. Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
4. Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace
5. Star Wars, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
6. Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Little bit of a gap, and then:

7. Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones
8. Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Disclaimer: I watched this movie after having spoiled myself on all of the spoilers in the movie. I think this helped. My expectations were tempered.

They expanded on the political landscape after ROTJ in one of the books. It adds detail but it still seems forced to make the Republic forces like original Rebellion.

After the Battle of Jakku, the New Republic (mainly Mon Mothma) essentially decommissioned the majority of their military. The reasoning for this was spotty but it was to show they weren't going to rule by force like the Empire. Leia was against it. During this time Empire sympathizers begin plotting its return.

~15 years later Leia learns of the First Order. Support for her in the Senate evaporated when it became public knowledge that Vader was her father. No one believes her about the First Order but is eventually given the OK to form the Resistance to investigate and stop the First Order from growing into a legit threat.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by Shark_Blade

Revenge of the Sith had R2D2 pissing oil on enemies and burnt them. Jokes are not that uncommon in Star Wars.

I mean, the prequels alone gave us Jar Jar.

[sdp]

There's nothing wrong with Jar Jar, Star Wars has always been for kids.

[newfan]

Saw it, I didn't come on out with a 'wow that was so awesome' feeling on it, still, curious as to where they will go from here.

When it very first started I did wonder if it was more a re-boot they wanted to do than a sequel but that passed.

Spoiler:

Luke.... not overly happy with his arc but liked Hamil's acting.
I can see why Carrie asked for more involvement with the next movie, I liked her in the parts she had, not sure about the part where she flew through space but is sensitive to the force too. Sad we won't see her again.

Definitely agreed there would be more to Rey, so, Ren's equal in light. Should Snoke have seen Ren's intentions to kill him, maybe is was showing strength in Rens part or Blindness of Snokes? Palpatine had blindness with Vader, he didn't expect him to choose Luke.

On a smaller note.. Yoda.... I did wonder if they would go back to puppet yoda, I liked the look of Yoda in the old movies compared with the GCI, his face was slightly different, I was pleased to see him with his old look.

[TigerClaw]

I thought it was amazing, I don't get why some fans were hating on it.