Re: STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Official Thread SPOILERS!
Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2017 11:48 pm
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.
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.
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.
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.