Hey, guy, don't paint an incomplete picture of me based on your misconception. I didn't hate the prequels like everyone else did. True, Phantom Menace was rather weak but seeing the evolution of Anakin into Vader was new uncharted territory that was interesting. Was it profoundly good? No, but at least it was trying to do something new and different. This movie felt flat. Just because I don't like it doesn't invalidate my opinion or give you the right to be an a-hole who casts judgement on me as a person. I wasn't even born when the first three films came out, I'm not clinging on to them for some childhood nostalgia reason. In fact, I wouldn't even place them in the all-time best trilogy spot, that would be Back to the Future in my book. This movie tried to do too much and did really nothing at all. It had too many characters, and thus actual development of said characters failed. This gave a sense of rather flat characters. When you couple that with this being a long Disney commercial for Star Wars crap it hurts the film. I'm glad you liked it, but when people like everything that comes out it gets hard to appreciate truly ground breaking films. You know, the movies that actually go out and grab you. This is not one of those films.
Spoiler Considering Star Killer Base destroyed the Republic capital and likely every major space port with the majority of Republic military before being destroyed in TFA, it was likely pretty easy with star destroyers. But hey, they did save a few X-Wings and support personnel of the rebellion in TFA.
I think many in here are too worried about criticisms than actually sitting there and enjoying the movie. It was a good movie.
Huge Star Wars fan here and I'd like to give my $.02 on TLJ. I'm in my mid 30's, was not born when Episodes IV and V were released in the theater. I have two older cousins that gifted me all their Star Wars toys and my best friend had 2 older brothers that were both incredibly huge Star Wars geeks and passed theirs down also. I made lightsabers out of PVC pipe (created the handles by using ALL of my dad's duct tape) and for about 90% of my childhood, my bicycle was not a bicycle but a speeder on the forest moon of Endor. When I was three, I broke my leg right before Halloween. My mom took me trick-or-treating in a radio flyer wagon, dressed in a little white karate ghee (think Luke on Tatooine, ep IV) and when people asked me who I was, I dutifully replied, "Luke Skywalker... with a broken leg." I stood in line for hours to see The Phantom Menace and even kind of talked myself into it afterward (and then out of it after seeing it again). Hell, my wife put a piece of homemade fudge in my lunch this morning that was molded to the shape of Darth Vader's helmet (not actual size, lol... and yes, Star Wars molds are kick ass). I state all this to establish my Star Wars "cred." Even though I missed the initial trilogy's release and immediate cultural impact, I feel like I am and always have been an "old-school" Star Wars fan. With that out of the way, here's my spoiler-free, short review: It's not like any Star Wars movie they've ever made. I thought it was totally awesome and I enjoyed the hell out of myself... there were multiple instances where it took my breath away. Visually, it's just outstanding. Yes, the plot(s) went in some "questionable" directions and there was a scene or two that didn't really work visually, but that's true of almost any movie. If you haven't seen it, try to ignore the hype and make your own decision... let the narrative take you where it's going and let your natural reaction happen without the "noise" influencing you. I did and I had a blast.
The biggest problem right now is that the First Order feels too forced. It's there and bad and powerful and "won" because "plot device." I hate then narratives reach some point where they press some magic plot button to just reset everyone to the plot they want and completely wipe out everything that happened before. That's my issue with the new trilogy where we stand right now. How important were the Emperor and Vader really? The republic that took over was wiped out in an instant and the First Order won. Poof. The middle three movies, the ones that made it all matter, well...didn't matter. That whole narrative of overcoming the Empire was just a short term deal now. That bugs me. I get past it to enjoy the films, but it does bother me that we just undid the narrative that worked so well. I would have much preferred the First Order being a "remnants of the Empire" faction preparing to take over a struggling Republic with the struggle being whether the Republic could survive. The First Order being a military threat while Leia also tried to hold together a flailing political faction with traitors trying to restore the Empire would have been much more interesting to me. Just substituting "Empire" for "first order" and "rebellion" for "resistance" is cheap.
To be fair, that is probably exactly what they were planning on doing. The whole phrase of sometimes you just have to let old things die fits more than Kylo's disposition, that was endemic of the movie at large. That doesn't necessarily irk me, I love it when films/shows take risks like that. When your favorite character gets killed off, or things shift or move. That's great. True, it isn't always done right, but when it is it's a thing of beauty. This movie suffered from more than plot issues. While I agree it was visually stunning, it was rather vanilla. Too many characters, too many stories to tell, it felt like a long Disney commercial for plush toys and accessories available for purchase and not enough of a story. Hell, at the rate their going the lobby needs to have a disney store in it so you can buy characters from the movie right then and there (kind of like a gift shop in museums). I could spend days on the directing and the "comedic" relief but I won't. One thing I will say is this, after Episode 5 I couldn't wait to watch 6. Will Han make it? What becomes of Luke? I was in pure excitement. After Episode 2 I couldn't wait for 3, in spite of the fact I knew the outcome. I can't say I share that same level of excitement for 9. That in itself is diagnostic of it being a failure, in at least some sense of the word.
Saw it last night . .. . . it was a bucket of Meh Wasn't horrible but Wasn't near good 6/10 Spoiler Casino Trip - Purpose - None really .. . Well 2. Give Finn resolve and introduce the pivot from LIGHT VERSUS DARK to RICH VERSUS POOR and 2. To inspire the kid at the end Rey's arc . . . .Come to find out that Yea. . .the Jedi were nothing more than a bunch of religious wackjobs. anyone can get the force and master it in like a week. . . all that bullshit about Luke and Anakin (the most gifted in generations) running and training was crap. . just tell them what the force is. . have them feel it. . .then they could do anything like Rey. Running Ship Arc - I'm going to go out on a limb and say . . . that was not the complete Empire fleet . .. right? I mean no one could SPACE JUMP in front of the ship and box them in or something. . . . all the other ships were occupied? Space bombs dropping???? WTF? I know it is SCI-FANTASY but that isht was just dumb . . .. . . .I know they wanted a WOW MOMENT with Leia but man they should have just given her a light sabre at some point. . . or force push someone . .. did Luke even train her or do Female Force Users not require any training? They had at least 2 support ships. . . . one of them could not Hyperdrive bum rush the Snork ship before running out of gas? "HELP ME!!! I'M PRINCESS LEIA!!!!" - The Rebels "Nah . .. we good . .. " - The rest of the galaxy Uhm . .. are we sure the 'rebels' are the good guys? Cause the rest of the univese seem pretty ok with things the way they are soooo much more wrong in this movie. . . . . Rocket River
If rey had joined kylo and they ended the movie there that would have been epic. 9 would be about luke vs kylo/rey. That would be a decent conclusion to the story This is a huge miss. Getting it all explained in 9 isnot what im looking for either. Im not into the asian chick, poe or finn. Disney played it safe as usual. This abrams guy tows company line so hard this next one will be such a snooze fest I wonder if they will be able to recover. I guess it wont matter. As it stands now I will likely not attend the next trilogy and i will be done after 9. The excitement i felt for return of jedi AFTER empire strikes back was so intense. It was years to get it. Good times.thanks for remembering.
The whole movie happened in like 24 hours 1st space battle is like. . . .an hour maybe then the 18 hour space chase . . . . Rocket River
Was it the Effects or the Story? What part of the Story 'took your beathe away"? I saw an article that called it a Story Telling Ponzi scheme Where every movie they give you a nugget . . . .tell you it will pay off later .. . then it never pays off but they give you another nugget. Rocket River
-Opening scene -Snoke's throne room fight -Vice Admiral Holdo's "maneuver" -The red salt battle Those scenes were visually arresting and emotionally impacting to me. They weren't the only ones. If you hated it, that's cool. You're not wrong... art and entertainment are obviously not objective. I really enjoy it and am looking forward to seeing it again.
Again, because it bears repeating, the storyline of those sequences did? Like I get the visuals, sure, but the actual story? People who are panning the movie aren't doing so because they think the effects are bad, more the story seemed like something a middle schooler wrote.
Why are so many people so caught up and amazed at Snoke's throne room fight. Just because the room was RED and appeared nice on screen doesn't make it overwhelming for me. It was so out-dated with the slow motion > pause > skip ahead > move camera around fast > normal mode that it felt like I was watching a re-run of Matrix. It didn't even feel like a light saber fight at all which is odd because this was pretty much the only light saber fight (if you don't count Luke's hologram battle) in the entire 2.5 hour movie. Also those red guys were what? Kung-Fu martial arts master / storm troopers? Their weapons were that of the 16th century - making them glow red doesn't make this scene jaw-dropping. It's hard to imagine these 5-6 guys are protecting the "Supreme Lord Commander of the First Order". Lastly, the way the Snoke perished was even more underwhelming/unfulfilling. I was waiting for him to re-connect himself together using the Dark Side of the force after all the red dudes died. Like "HaHaHa" mofos you thought I was dead / kidnaps Rey / stuns Kylo then retreats to another Star Destroyer with General Hucks.
Spoiler They didn't allude to that in TFA. SKB showed up at Maz's planet and destroyed like 3-4 surrounding planets. It was never mentioned the surrounding planets were Republic strongholds or Coruscant. And I don't believe there was another scene after that showing more planet destruction.
With no true older dark side villian there's really no great outcome for the story to end. Yes there's the young Kylo but he can't even beat down a forceless Rey. We all assumed Knights of the Ren were bad mofos and Snoke was the grand leader but without him they're pretty damn worthless. You want to see both sides matched up against each other evenly but in this case it's very one sided especially since Rey owns Kylo, BB8/R2D2 can disable anything, Poe can single handedly take down Star Destroyers, Finn owns all storm troopers, Chewbacca can never be killed and also considering the fact that Leia = God mode. With Snoke you at least had a feeling that you needed EVERYONE to play their part to defeat him (especially since they have so few rebels left). It should have never been a force saber on/off switch.
I'm not a fan of empty effects. I have never been able to sit through even 20 minutes of a Transformers movie or anything remotely like it. So yes... the story was enjoyable to me. I'm not at all asking for those with negative opinions to justify why they feel the way they do. Again, art/entertainment is 100% subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One man's trash is another man's treasure. Etc...
