STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Toy Sales Fall

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AndyDursin
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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!

#76 Post by AndyDursin »

Baffling is also how I'd describe your enthusiasm for this film!

I think you are giving Johnson and this movie way more credit than it deserves for being "risky" and "veering from formula". That's not why I didn't like it. I didn't like it because I thought it was just bad storytelling, flabby filmmaking, uninteresting and boring. And any movie that features a FLYING PRINCESS LEIA saving herself in OUTER-SPACE has a serious problem. I would've laughed my rear end off (like the guy in front of us) had I not been so utterly shocked and appalled that the single worst moment in the entire Star Wars series ended up on-screen in a movie that godawful demon George Lucas DIDN'T write. I mean, was Kathleen Kennedy too busy firing a better director and let some s---t like that slide? It wasn't just bad -- it was FLIPPING HORRIFIC, totally inappropriate to these films in its half-assed poetry...I had NO IDEA Leia was like Superman and could save herself even freezing to death in space. :roll:

But beyond that, I just saw a different movie than you did. Even with (heavily) diminished expectations I thought this film had massive problems. I mean, great -- Rian Johnson didn't remake EMPIRE. I gave him credit for that. The problem is the story he DID tell was not interesting and massively flawed. The movie he made "aims higher" than what Abrams did, but that by itself doesn't make it any good. He's not a good writer, and this movie needed rewrites from other people to whip it into some kind of shape -- it played like some awful Director's Cut with self-indulgent scenes that should've met the cutting room floor.

What part of this film was I supposed to care about? The incredible inner conflict of Kylo Ren? The boring-as-crap sequences of Finn and the mechanic girl? The lazy performance of Benicio Del Toro? The HIDEOUS casino scene? The Marvel humor -- most of which was awful. No there's nothing with humor --
but the stuff in this movie was unlike anything in 7 (or 8 ) prior Star Wars movies. The pacing, the CGI -- all of it smacked of a modern Disney corporate product. NOT Star Wars. If I want to watch GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY I'll go watch that. It's not what I want out of a Star Wars movie. I couldn't believe how PAINFUL the scene was with Poe and the First Order at the beginning of the movie...and speaking of him, I thought the character was totally ineffective. I didn't think Oscar Isaac at all made a big impression in this film, as all the male characters were (as Paul said) whiny-wishy-washy losers who needed to be "put into place" by wiser females.

Again, WHAT am I supposed to be caring about heading into Episode IX? I couldn't believe how "resolved" most of the story was at the end of this...there's literally nothing left to "fix" except whether or not emo-Kylo is going to be bad or redeem himself.

As much as you think we're all "butthurt fanboys", I truly don't understand at all what in this movie entertained you so much. :cry:

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!

#77 Post by Monterey Jack »

AndyDursin wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 11:48 pmAs much as you think we're all "butthurt fanboys", I truly don't understand at all what in this movie entertained you so much. :cry:
I can't really explain it either. For whatever reason, the movie just worked for me. :| And since I'm such a terrible critic, I lack the neccesary tools to make my thoughts coalesce in the right way.

I have a bad habit of "liking" movies too much, so as long as something doesn't piss me off in an egregious manner, I can let a lot slide. And for all the 'horrific" adjectives thrown at the "Space Leia" scene...if a Jedi can make objects move with their mind, why can't one in zero-G use the force to "latch" onto a massive, stationary object (like a spacecraft) and pull themselves towards it? Plus, wasn't Leia still within the ship's force field?

And, having seen the film twice now, I can't recall anyone reacting with the kind of audible annoyance you would expect from the hysterically overwrought reactions online. Some guy behind me tonight yawned a few times, but I've seen plenty of good movies where I've yawned, simply because I was tired.

It's a very good movie with flashes of greatness, and yet the baby is getting thrown out with the bathwater, as it always does when a good sequel fails to live up to what fans "expect" it to be after years of fevered speculation. It is overlong and indulgent and has ideas that don't really work, but it's also visually stunning and screws with expected payoffs in ways that made me kind of gleeful to see in a big, corporate cog. Gimme that over yet another spin-off that just fills in the cracks in an already well-worn narrative from decades past.

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!

#78 Post by AndyDursin »

And for all the 'horrific" adjectives thrown at the "Space Leia" scene..
Was she wearing, like, a space suit or something? Apparently now they're Kryptonians who don't need it as she's able to fly into outerspace and avoid freezing to death. Remember this is the 8th (or 9th, whatever) movie in a series that's been around since 1977, with no prior sequence (I can recall) that would ever once point to that kind of melodramatic moment. I found that sequence hysterically overwrought, totally out of place in this "universe" as it were. Williams' equally melodramatic (and unintentionally funny) use of the Princess Leia theme made it even worse. I'd rather watch Jar Jar Binks pilot a spaceship than see that sequence again.
if a Jedi can make objects move with their mind, why can't one in zero-G use the force to "latch" onto a massive, stationary object (like a spacecraft) and pull themselves towards it? Plus, wasn't Leia still within the ship's force field?
The power of suggestion -- the Jedi mind-trick, as seen in the original trilogy -- is one thing, but the Disney movies have "retconned" the Force into some ridiculous Marvel super-power. To the point where why does anyone carry a gun or a lightsaber? Why do you need it? If Vader can now throw dozens of rebel soldiers around at will at the end of ROGUE ONE, why does he need an entourage of stormtroopers to help him board the ship? That sequence "looked cool" and surely appealed to the Marvel fanboys, but it was logistically out of sync with the film it was leading into.

There's a thing called suspension of disbelief, yes, but the consistency of "the rules" of this series is gone, in place of scenes where Princess Leia can avoid death by magically willing herself in the depths of outerspace back to life. I fully thought that was the end of her character and couldn't believe they put such a stupid, garbage moment in one of these movies, especially when fans used to go crazy over each and every element in the prequels that they found silly.

Anyway, maybe they can hook up these characters with The Avengers now in a Disney multi-verse crossover film -- wouldn't THAT be cool? Imagine it: Rey AND Captain America AND Wolverine AND Spider-Man AND Kermit AND Fozzie Bear sharing screentime together! AWESOME!!!!! :mrgreen:
I have a bad habit of "liking" movies too much, so as long as something doesn't piss me off in an egregious manner, I can let a lot slide.
I've noticed that -- or when you find a movie absolutely worthless that might have redeeming elements in it. Like FIRST BLOOD which I think is a classic for what it is. Even if you disagree, there are a lot of people who think that film is an action classic 35 years after its release -- I don't think many are going to consider THE LAST JEDI to be anything other than one more bloated, forgettable Disney product 35 years from now. Time will tell.

Also, I know you think it's "risky" but for most fans, they have an absolute right to be pissed off that Disney brought back "the characters you love" just to kill them off in such a worthless manner. Han in the first movie, Luke in this movie, Leia in the next one. I'm sure Leia was going to meet the Grim Reaper in this movie also until Carrie Fisher actually did die. Is that really "risky" storytelling that "takes chances" though -- or is it lazy and dumb storytelling because they couldn't come up with anything interesting for the characters to do?

These Disney films, this one in particular, also have a strange way of literalizing violence also that the original films didn't do. We knew Lando was a scoundrel, but outside of having Han captured, we didn't see how his actions benefited the Empire -- it was enough that it was suggested. Here, Del Toro's (awful) safecracker unloads info to the bad guys, who proceed to literally murder (on-screen) and blow up rebel support ships. Laura Dern's sacrifice also felt like something out of another movie galaxy as well...not to mention ROGUE ONE had to actually show the deaths of characters whose demise was, again, just talked about in a line of dialogue in the 1977 movie.

So weird a "family friendly" series has actually become more violent under Disney's hand. You could show STAR WARS to a young child, but I'm not going to show Theo this movie until he's much older. If at all, because I have no interest in sitting through it again.
It's a very good movie with flashes of greatness, and yet the baby is getting thrown out with the bathwater, as it always does when a good sequel fails to live up to what fans "expect" it to be after years of fevered speculation.
Trust me -- I have enough going on than to worry about where the story of THE FORCE AWAKENS was going. I just expected a good movie. This movie isn't good. Did you LIKE the casino sequence? If you actually were entertained by that set-piece, I would immediately revoke your film-critic license (lol). But you I also know you liked LOOPER, which I found totally overrated.

My big problem too is I never once was emotionally engaged by the film. I didnt care where it was going. I didn't care about the new characters. I don't feel any emotional investment in the plot. Even FORCE AWAKENS made me feel SOMETHING as it was going along, but I felt nothing while this movie was going on -- that I attribute to Johnson. In a bad way.

I mean, you loved it, and that's perfectly fine. I'm not going to say you're "wrong," it's how you feel and it's your opinion. On the other hand, I don't think you can make a blanket statement as to why people don't care for it. It's not that it's not what some of us expected -- it's that, for seemingly a lot of people, it's not a good movie. That's an aesthetic disagreement that's hard to debate. People value the film differently than you do. No worries, that's just how it is. :D

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!

#79 Post by jkholm »

Monterey Jack wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 12:20 am I can't really explain it either. For whatever reason, the movie just worked for me.
* timidly raises hand from the back of the forum *

Ummm, I liked it too.

It was definitely the STAR TREK: GENERATIONS of STAR WARS movies in that by the end the torch has finally been passed from the old heroes to the new ones. I think that's why so much was resolved. This was all about looking to the future and allowing the past to turn into legend. (I don't necessarily agree with that philosophy but what do you do?)

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!

#80 Post by AndyDursin »

I think that's why so much was resolved.
That's precisely a problem too. There's nothing left for fans to even talk about leading into the next sequel!

The ending to this movie felt like the end. Rey's a Jedi (story resolved) and knows her parents were nothing (story resolved), the Resistance (all 13 people, apparently) will rebuild (story resolved) but they've got the Jedi kids on another planet (sequel/spin-off planted), Snoke's dead (story resolved), Luke's dead (story resolved)...good luck JJ. They're pinning Episode IX's dangling dramatic strands entirely around the non-event of whether or not Kylo Ren is gonna be bad or redeemed (unless you care about the thinly-defined "triangle" of who Finn is gonna fall in love with -- not me!).

Really, really bad writing, and indicates to me these three films weren't even laid out effectively at the outset. If you don't care about Kylo -- what exactly are people supposed to be excited about here at the end of this movie? It's not like the finish of EMPIRE where people were on the edge of their seats and hated to see it end that way...this is a story that comes to a conclusion on a number of levels. If Luke had killed Kylo (but died in the process), that would've been an appropriate end, I guess -- to this trilogy of films altogether.

I do hope Disney though goes the extra mile of "throwing a bone to all groups" and throws in a gay relationship between Poe and the First Order Nazi commander. I'm also still puzzled as to how Finn literally became the only black member of the First Order -- there's got to be a story in there in somehow (one that's more interesting than this film!)

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!

#81 Post by Monterey Jack »

I have a bad habit of liking sequels everyone else hates for some reason (Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Spectre, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, etc.), so maybe I just have awful taste in film. I always view flawed but still solid sequels with the Homer Simpson approach to criticism, "It's just a little dirty, it's still good, it's still good...!" :lol:

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!

#82 Post by esteban miranda »

I see the same flaws (for the most part) that have been detailed several times in this thread already, but they seem to upset me less than they do others, I just don't take these movies seriously enough to get that worked up about it. The flaws that I also see in eps. I-III don't keep me from enjoying those at some level.
The question is, would I like to see this movie again? Yes, but I don't know how well it will fare over multiple viewings.
I know I deducted a star from The Phantom Menace the last time I watched it, it really does seem mostly superfluous, but I can't say I hate it.

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!

#83 Post by AndyDursin »

I feel a disturbance at the box-office!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/20 ... rs-movies/
'Last Jedi' Grosses Are Collapsing With The Worst Daily Holds Of All 9 Star Wars Movies

Now that the initial weekend flush is behind it, that hot period when pretty much anything that had the Star Wars name on it could have earned $500 million worldwide, audience fervor for Star Wars: The Last Jedi has cooled off like a chilly winter evening on planet Hoth.

In North America, daily holds for the Rian Johnson-directed flick have been significantly worse than those experienced by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and if the pattern continues The Last Jedi could actually wind up doing not much better than the 2016 spin-off movie.

That, of course, would be a catastrophic result, akin to Warner/DC’s disastrous, money-losing fiasco with Justice League.

Just as Justice League jammed all of DC’s biggest and most valuable superheroes into a single, swing-for-the-fences mash-up that failed to earn even as much as the single-hero, half-priced (yet far superior) Wonder Woman, so it appears that Disney may have turned the one-time opportunity to put Luke and Leia together in their last movie into an under-performing debacle that earns little more than the band-of-nobodies Rogue One.

Not that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is in any danger of losing money. There’s too much momentum behind the franchise, too many people who will pay to see it even when they’ve heard it’s a disappointing mess. Disney could have called it The Star Wars Movie That Will Completely Turn You Off From Ever Seeing Another Star Wars Movie Again and it still would have collected $1.2 billion at the box office and turned a tidy profit.

But for Disney, and for anyone watching, this isn’t really a matter of whether The Last Jedi turns over a billion or more in revenue. That was always an easy target. This is a matter of how well the film succeeds in meeting financial expectations, how well it fulfills the needs of the franchise, and whether it strengthens the Star Wars brand for future projects.

By those measures, The Last Jedi already looks like a dud.

After opening at nearly 90 percent of The Force Awakens' strength, The Last Jedi has steadily fallen behind, and by Wednesday, its 6th full day in release, it was holding its audience at a lesser rate than every one of the previous eight live action Star Wars movies. It had retained just 16 percent of its opening day gross, a figure that, as the chart below shows, is well below the holds for The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and the last of the prequels, Revenge of the Sith.

I wanted to avoid cluttering up the chart, but I could have added all five of the other previous Star Wars live action movies and the image would remain the same: The Last Jedi is the rock-bottom, worst-holding movie of the entire 9-film franchise. Even Attack of the Clones looks like a champ in comparison.

In fact, The Last Jedi isn't even holding as well as Justice League did. On its sixth day the DC film retained 27 percent of its opening day audience, nearly double what the Star Wars picture has done.


If you object to comparing Last Jedi's daily grosses to the film's $104.6 million opening day with its $45 million in Thursday previews included, compare the grosses instead to the Saturday number. Or Sunday. Or Friday without the preview figures. The story is consistent: The Last Jedi is flying like a fat turkey in the Star Wars universe.

The movie's flight trajectory will more than likely improve as schools let out for the holidays and Christmas week arrives. But the Yuletide competition has begun to boil with Downsizing, Father Figures, Pitch Perfect 3, The Greatest Showman and Jumanji all arriving in theaters to stake their claims on the box office. It's far from certain that The Last Jedi will hold its own against such an onslaught, especially since it's being led by Jumanji's Dwayne "The World's Biggest Movie Star" Johnson.

Star Wars will survive, of course, in the domestic market and in the handful of territories where it's a successful legacy franchise. But in key markets like Korea and Mexico and China and India, places where The Force Awakens wasn't well received and audiences could go either way, The Last Jedi may burn that bridge, and truly turn off mass audiences from ever seeing another Star Wars movie again.
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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!

#84 Post by esteban miranda »

AndyDursin wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 3:43 pm I feel a disturbance at the box-office!
I find it a curious notion that if a Studio expects (or hopes) that their movie will make $1,000,000,000 and makes only $600,000,000 that it's a "box-office bomb" and a disaster. Really what that means is they will just have to re-evaluate next years budgets because their revenues didn't meet projections.

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!

#85 Post by AndyDursin »

Well of course, it's not going to be a disaster -- but if it is $400 million or more off THE FORCE AWAKENS and ends up underperforming domestically, that's at least a sign this film was as "off" as viewers seem to think. May well cause them to rethink hiring Rian Johnson for his "Jedi Child Slave Labor Kids" movie or whatever it is he's planning on making.

Look I'm not worked up about it, but it is interesting I have still not met one person socially who's liked it -- and I've seen a lot of people say the same thing. If word of mouth is as rampant as that, this movie will end up in the $600 mil ballpark of ROGUE ONE and basically confirm they did some damage with this picture.

For Disney, that's going to be a problem, because if movies don't hit their mark, they tend to be, well, "reactionary". lol

Still a long way to go, and they will make up a lot with kids out of school over the next 7-10 days. Going to be interesting to follow at least :D

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!

#86 Post by AndyDursin »

Mark Hamill -- bravo, sir. He's not "my Luke Skywalker" either.



Mark Hamill, the actor behind the iconic Star Wars character Luke Skywalker, was none too happy with the direction of the new Skywalker in Star Wars: The Last Jedi — especially with one line in the film about the Jedi and its future (don’t worry, no spoilers here).

In press junket interviews leading up to the December 15 bow of Episode VIII, Hamill told more than one journalist that he was not keen on writer-director Rian Johnson’s vision of what happens to the character that Hamill has lived since 1977’s original film and knows so well.

“Luke was so optimistic and so hopeful and cheerful. Here he’s is in a very, very dark place,” Hamill told one journalist about the new movie. The actor said he spoke to Johnson about “a fundamental difference” about the integrity of the Luke character, but then said, “It’s not my movie anymore.”

Hamill ultimately said he did his job and made sure he did the best he could to realize the director’s vision. But he did make it known that he felt Luke Skywalker as written, and even Princess Leia’s words and actions, were not true to that of the original characters.

He also said he wished Johnson would have listened to Star Wars creator George Lucas about the character; Lucas has not been involved in the Star Wars franchise since 2012, when it and Lucasfilm were sold to Disney. “This is the next generation of Star Wars,” Hamill said, “so I almost had to think of another character … but I had to do what Rian wanted me to do because it serves the story well, … I still haven’t accepted it completely.”

The interviews have been making their rounds as compilations now that the pic has hit theaters.

In another interview, Hamill said he understand the Luke character’s “regret at being wrong about who the chosen one was,” which in Star Wars: The Force Awakens resulted in him living in self-imposed exile. But, he said, Luke’s dialogue about the Jedi in the new film is something he believes Luke never would say. So he had to figure out “what could have happened that would make the most hopeful, optimistic character end up in this dark place.”

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - "He's Not My Luke Skywalker"

#87 Post by Paul MacLean »

These new Star Wars movies are kind of like a "tribute band". They play the same songs, wear the same outfits and sport the same hairstyles -- and nostalgia-crazed fans who want to return to "the good old days" love them.

But it's not the real thing.

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - "He's Not My Luke Skywalker"

#88 Post by AndyDursin »

Good news everybody -- the guy who wrote BATMAN V SUPERMAN is JJ's co-writer on Episode IX! We're all saved! :lol:

Paul, you made a good point I didn't address earlier -- why is it that Disney settled on Leia as the focal point of the original trilogy characters in these films? I mean, I'm sorry Carrie Fisher is gone, but she's the weakest element of the original trilogy in terms of her actual performance, and her character was NEVER the glue that held those movies together. I think I've read they thought she was "the heart and soul of Star Wars" -- I mean, REALLY?

I get that Harrison Ford didnt want to make any more movies (cashed his $25 mil check and took off) but the way they've framed Leia as this all-knowing, glowing heroic figure while turning Luke into a one-off, grumpy Jedi they dispose of by the end of the only movie he's in -- I just find it bizarre. Like a really strange interpretation of what made the original movies work. Not to mention Fisher could hardly deliver a line of dialogue now so it's not like she added anything to either of these movies (was she dubbed in a lot of this film? It often didn't sound like "live audio," I wonder if someone had to loop her lines. Certainly her performance in TFA was "massaged" in the editing room, the cuts were so fast every time she was on-screen).

Plus they backed themselves into a corner here in that Leia is still alive at the end of this! Why not kill her off and have her drive the ship that Laura Dern piloted?

Anyway it's probably a battle for the worst performance in this movie. My vote goes to Del Toro, who is absolutely horrid -- a combination of a badly written script and a terrible performance. He's not charming, or funny, or interesting -- total misfire, one of many things that went wrong in this film. Looked like he wandered in half in the bag off the set from his new Heineken commercial...

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - "He's Not My Luke Skywalker"

#89 Post by KevinEK »

I had time this evening to go ahead and see the movie, so I had a "What the heck" moment and went down to the local theater.

This was an extremely strange and overlong movie - it could easily have been 20 minutes shorter and we would not have noticed the missing material.
Rian Johnson's writing and directing was a serious problem, unfortunately lining up with what I saw in "Looper". I agree with Andy that the moment of Space Leia was bizarre enough to take people totally out of the movie. But there are other areas that made just as little sense. How did Rey suddenly become super-powered? She's had pretty much NO training and just had one or two discussions with Luke and now she can lift practically an entire mountain? What's the deal with this hyperspace tracker MacGuffin, and how is it that both Finn and his new friend Rose suddenly know everything about it? What was the point of going to the salt planet if they were only going to stop there for a moment and then leave? The notion is put in as this idea of an armored station where they can base for quite some time - as opposed to an empty mountain with a couple of emplacements outside, where the first Imperial assault can level the place in ten minutes. Who the heck was Snoke and what did he have to do with everything that had happened? There must have been a history there, but we never get any idea of what the heck it is, and the character is greatly diminished into something quite ordinary. The whole "Rebel fleet in danger" story dragged on endlessly - and the mutiny sequence makes no sense whatsoever. Laura Dern's Admiral could have just said to everyone, "we are heading to that salt planet where we have weapons and a base we can use". There's no point in her character being secretive, particularly at a time when you'd think she'd want to show everyone what she was thinking - especially since this was apparently Leia's plan anyway. The entire casino planet sequence winds up being pointless unless it's there to trigger the next trilogy like Andy is thinking. But when you look at it, they're going to the casino to get a codebreaker and they never get the guy they're after, and the guy they do get never actually gets them all the way to their objective. It just felt like a long shaggy dog story that ultimately went nowhere.

There were a couple of interesting ideas along the way, which could have been developed by a stronger writer. I was curious about what the connection was between Kylo and Rey, and whether Kylo actually was manipulating the situation with Snoke to take him out and then take his place. Those scenes could have been played of Kylo actually setting up Rey to help him in his power grab, but the whole storyline just bogged back down to the usual histrionics.

Not sure what the point was of the Maz hologram call, other than to give that character a cameo and set up the pointless codebreaker idea.

I wasn't as annoyed about Benicio del Toro as Andy was - I thought he was okay. Wasn't sure what the stuttering thing was about.

The Luke/Kylo flashbacks and story make no sense and do not line up at all with the Luke Skywalker we've known from the original trilogy. We're supposed to believe that Luke goes to the trouble of setting up a Jedi Academy, featuring his nephew, but that suddenly he had a change of heart and decided to go ahead and pull a lightsaber on him? Huh? Was he planning on telling his sister about this at any point? The Luke we've known would have "sensed the conflict" in his pupil and would have worked to bring him around. The Luke in this movie just quits. Andy is correct to note that we will be seeing Hamill in the next movie, since he'll be around as a Force Ghost for a couple of scenes every time.

Carrie Fisher's final performance sadly came off even worse than her appearance in the Abrams movie two years ago. She didn't look well, and I agree with Andy that they must have looped nearly all of her dialogue.

I may be wrong on this, but I have a feeling that Rey's parentage is going to be revealed as different in the next movie - I don't trust what Kylo Renn told her, and it simply doesn't track that Rey just comes out of nowhere and suddenly is super-powered with the Force. Or if that's the case, they'd need to do some writing to make that the point. As it is, Rey's abilities are mystifying. In the prequels, the Jedi go through decades of training at the Academy. In the original trilogy, Luke gets a few days with Ben and then a few weeks with Yoda and somehow muddles through. For these new movies, Rey has had no training at all, and still Yoda says she already knows everything she needs. That's bizarre beyond belief.

There's another hanging chad - what the heck happened with Luke's students. Luke says Kylo took several with him. Okay, where'd they go? Are there other trained force users running around out there?

I now understand what my friend meant when he said he found this movie to be a complete waste of time. It's not surprising that it's already running out of steam - I was at a Friday night 8:45pm showing on a holiday weekend when everyone is off from school and work. There were maybe 10 people in the movie theater with me.

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Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - "He's Not My Luke Skywalker"

#90 Post by AndyDursin »

There were a couple of interesting ideas along the way, which could have been developed by a stronger writer. I was curious about what the connection was between Kylo and Rey, and whether Kylo actually was manipulating the situation with Snoke to take him out and then take his place. Those scenes could have been played of Kylo actually setting up Rey to help him in his power grab, but the whole storyline just bogged back down to the usual histrionics.
When Kylo asks Rey to join him -- well, frankly, she should have, because THAT would have been interesting. Or have Kylo shift his allegiances but keep Snoke alive and put them on the run. SOMETHING that's not just the same thing that keeps their conflict/relationship in the exact same place it's already been in.

Instead, the movie ends with Kylo and Rey...back in the exact same place they were in at the end of The Force Awakens.

Why
are we supposed to find that interesting? How is that good or effective drama? It's like they teased you with a major plot development -- and then nothing happened. In fact, for a 150 minute "middle chapter," very little DID happen. :?

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