I came out with a good impression after the first viewing because I thought it was an unpredictable movie that trolled Star Wars fans, but there's a lot of elements from that long viewing that didn't really make it fun. Whereas JJ Abrams played it safe by breaking down the Star Wars formula and redid A New Hope, Last Jedi seemed to tear down way too much and made a postmodern effort move away from Anything Skywalker. What it really feels like is some Disney exec saying "how can we spin off more sequels and MCU this b**** beyond the originally planned 9 movies?" Then extremely smart people started doing just that while killing the core of what made people love Star Wars. I'm not really attached to the franchise, but I hope they give the last movie a proper send off.
A lot there in the trailer seemed to indicate it will in fact follow the same Return of the Jedi devices right down to the pirate ship at Jaworski's hut. Not a fan of following the original trilogy, however, they've done a decent job of it and still keeping it fresh. I feel like the 2nd movie was not that far from Empire Strikes as some may be indicating. It had the same basic premise basically. The rebels are found, the rebels escape, Han Solo dies, and a Skywalker gets training in the force, but doesn't follow the pattern he is supposed to. A skywalker connects with the darkside and was tempted. Isn't that the Empire Strikes Back movie in a nutshell. Anyways, I still liked it.
That's the one thing that worries me. What I'd like to see from Ep IX is a film that moves the story forward to a satisfying conclusion, but one that respects and balances the ideas and plots laid out in both previous films. Comments from Abrams seem to suggest he's doing just that. I certainly understand that some people may not like the film. That's the nature of art, as it can be highly subjective. What I've grown so tired of though, is that despite the critical and commercial success of the Last Jedi, despite it being well received by general audiences, there exists a small and concentrated toxicity toward it. There are so many things to process in the movie, and some work while others don't. The elements that work far outweigh those that don't. It is not a bad movie in my opinion. Divisive yes, bad no. In fact, right now I'd probably rank it top three behind Empire and Rogue One, and just ahead of A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. Perhaps a singular vision for the trilogy might have been better from the start. That's on Kathleen Kennedy, though, and not the fault of any of the filmmakers. Shoot JJ Abrams had to start completely over for Ep IX after Trevorrow left, and still finish the film by it's launch date. In any case, the ideas planted in Force Awakens could have taken us any number of directions. Rian Johnson chose a riskier path, but one that is definitely conceivable. And I have faith that Abrams will do the same, and will close the story out in a satisfying, but probably safer, way.
Han Solo died in the 1st of the new trilogy..not the 2nd Rey didn't get any training. Luke refused to train her.
I disagree entirely, not that it will change your opinion. IMO, it would have been a fine movie (despite its own internal inconsistencies) had it been a stand alone movie in a universe where Star Wars movies, with all the mythology and lore that goes along with them didn't exist...but as part of a deeper, longer, richer history and context, it failed massively. I unpacked that more in the thread about that movie. Incredible leaps (and not just with Luke's character...with Rey's in particular, especially around her relationship with Kylo...with no explanation for them at all, despite the fact that from the movies' chronologies, the time between her intimate skype session with him and watching him murder his own father is about 48 hours. And I don't believe it's just a small and concentrated toxicity to it. You have Mark Hammil saying he disagreed with every decision Rian made, but chose to do it anyway because he's an actor and it's the director's vision. You have Daisy Ridley just the other day saying that she can't get behind the whole Reylo thing because Kylo is a murderer. You now have JJ saying all the right things about Rian, but in the wake of "Let the Past Die" they've titled the next movie around the Skywalker name, brought back Lando and close the first trailer with the laugh of Palpatine. It seems Disney may have gotten the message, but we'll see.
really disappointed with how they turned luke into a total b**** in tlj. glad he died, tho should have been in a grander way. i really liked the ewoks as a kid. being them back pls. rotj was easily the best of the original trilogy.
This kind of debate has always fascinated me. First, there were parts of TLJ which were pretty good, and other parts which were absolutely cringe-y. I don't like cringe-y, so I didn't like those parts. I for one thought it was a mistake to have Carrie Fisher in the last two movies - scenes with her in them were unwatchable. Anyway, I think a lot of peoples' opinions on Star Wars 'stuff' have to do with the particular perspective of the opining person. And very often, it is extremely difficult for people to alter their perceptions in order to understand the thoughts behind differing opinions. This is not limited to Star Wars of course, it is all of human existence, but you get the point. For example: I have a certain perspective on Star Wars 'stuff', and always have. Unlike most people today, I was one of those people standing in lines around the block when Star Wars was released in 1977. I was one of those people who it touched originally, profoundly, in ways which are virtually impossible today. But I do want to try to explain it. The thing to try to understand is, when Star Wars was released in '77, it was released into a vacuum, as a complete piece, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The story was whole. Yes, there were some hints of a mythology and backstory, but they were broad strokes, and they were relatively unimportant to the story being told. It was a 'magical fantasy story' with knights and wizards and princesses rogues and monsters and dark knights, all set in outer space instead of some fairy-tale woods somewhere. It was a gimmick, to be honest. No one making the movie had any idea that it would be successful, at all. There was no media hype, there was no breathless anticipation, there was no blitz of marketing. There were a few commercials of pure corn, there were tiny tidbits in magazines, but nothing to whip people into a frenzy of anticipation. 'Science Fiction' as a movie genre was considered weird and risky. The people involved in making the movie were mostly expecting it to be a huge flop and then be forgotten. But either through genius or accident, they did ONE thing in Star Wars which made all the difference: they included this thing called 'The Force'. It was mysterious, it was unknown, but it was given essentially the role of the 'Holy Spirit' in the Bible - an always-present ineffable power, like an ocean, neither good nor bad; a power with which one could commune and interact if only one had some guidance and the willingness to learn. And in Star Wars, this 'Force' was there, for ANYONE. Literally ANYONE could 'learn the ways of the force', as Old Ben said. It had nothing, zero, NADA to do with having a special bloodline, of being some kind of 'royalty'. In fact it was the complete opposite - the reason it touched to many people was because it was the ultimate egalitarian equalizer. ANYONE could become a Jedi. There were no 'midichlorians' (bah I throw up in my mouth a little even typing the word), there was no 'Skywalker bloodline', there was no prophecy about 'restoring balance to the Force'. The Force was like the ocean - neither good nor bad, just whatever you make of it. It meant that the important thing was the content of a person's heart, of their character, and it was that which would ultimately determine whether you would deal in the Force with honor and goodness, or be 'seduced' by the easy and corrupting aspect of great power being in the hands of a person with low character. Everyone back then went to see Star Wars over and over, because it was amazing, and because for those two hours, we ALL got to go on that journey of being a literal *nobody* (just like Luke Skywalker was a nobody), through that classic 'hero's journey', to defeating the evil empire and becoming the hero being cheered by throngs of allies. And oh man did it work. It worked because it set our imaginations loose in this new universe, we could all pretend to be the young heroic White Knight, we could even pretend to be the evil Dark Knight, and anything in between. The Force was for ALL of us.
Then, even with Empire Strikes Back, this was all still true. Just like with anything, when Vader said 'The Force is strong with this one', it didn't imply 'force royalty', it just meant that Luke was perhaps more 'gifted' than most. Everything held to that, even through to the end, when the world was stunned and shocked, overwhelmed, with the words, 'No. I am your father.' Ultimately, this brought the idea of destiny into the story, as Vader said, 'The Emperor has foreseen this!'. But even still, not because of some kind of royal bloodline family tree, but simply because they happened to be exceptionally gifted in the ways of the Force. But still, even in Empire, the Force remained the domain of ALL of us. It was not, and never was, some kind of exclusive club to which only the 'special people' could join. Not everyone could be GREAT, maybe not even good, but it was nevertheless open to all. Especially with Yoda's mysterious 'There is another..' teaser. And then... the wheels fell off. TLDR - for the first two movies, George Lucas was under the thumb and control of 20th Century Fox, and he hated it. But with the success of ESB, and with some shrewd marketing licensing, Lucas had enough money financially to be able to form his own independent studio, 'Lucasfilm', and turn his back on the studio system altogether. That meant that George could now do everything HIS way, do what HE wanted to do, without anyone telling him 'No, George, you can't do that, that's stupid.' That's how we ended up with Boba Fett dying like a little b, that's how we ended up with Ewoks, with Jabba the Slug, with brass bikinis, with little robot feeties sticking out of the sand, so they can be picked up by a giant magnet... that's how we ended up with yet ANOTHER 'Death Star'. It's how we ended up with Leia being Luke's sister. Were ALL of these things terrible? Maybe not all, but mostly, yes. George is a terrible writer. And a terrible writer surrounded by yes-men is a really bad combination. When RotJ cam out, people were stunned. After one of the greatest movies ever, Empire Strikes Back, and expectations being astronomically high for the next installment, what people got instead was a bunch of horrifyingly ugly teddy bears defeating the Empire. People HATED it in droves. HATED it. And boy was George pissed. He had long before promised a 'nine movie cycle of stories', but after the critical panning he took from RotJ, he basically told everyone to go to hell, and he wouldn't be making any more Star Wars movies. Oh, if only that had been true. But not only is George a cringe-king HACK, he also has a planet-sized ego, and he couldn't resist the urge to 'fix' the original movies. So we got the super-cringe-y 'special editions', which are abysmal. BUT, the hunger which he saw was still there for all things Star Wars convinced him that the golden goose still had plenty of eggs left. So then we end up with midichlorians, with baby Anakin, Jar-Jar, keystone-cop-level robot armies, a secret evil dark Sith Lord somewhere out there waiting to take over, pod races, little baby Anakin flying a spaceship.. Padme Amidala, Qui-Gon, Maul, clones, Baby Boba. all of it, pure excrement. Because George NEVER understood that it was the egalitarian nature of the Force in Star Wars which gave it such value to all of us who had grown up with that universe. He had somehow come to believe that we were instead infatuated with the 'family story' of the Skywalkers, like how people are still infatuated with things liek royal weddings and stuff like that. As though the reason anyone ever went to see STar Wars was to see 'what would happen next to that wacky Skywalker family'.. Fast-forward to today. George has finally sold Star Wars to someone else. Even Disney is better than Lucas, so on balance it's a good thing. We finally get a new Star Wars movie in TFA, and it was neither a prequel filled with cuddly talking bananas, nor made by Lucas, so by default it was FAR better than the previous four movies. And while there were some call-backs to the original movie, and some imitations with the 'death star' and all that.. and some vestiges of the 'Skywalker Family Drama Hour', that was actually incidental. The main character, Rey, was pointedly NOT a Skywalker, or at least as far as we know. The only descendant with Skywalker bloodlines is Kylro Ren, and even with his character, the important factor is that he is conflicted - and at the very least, he is a tragic figure, and not at all 'royalty'. But the main thing about The Last Jedi was that Rian Johnson remembered that the Force was for everyone. We see that rather pointedly by the end, with mere street-urchin kids discovering and using the Force. I truly believe that the whole notion of 'let the past die, kill it if you have to' was in reference to the whole franchise having gotten lost with the 'Skywalker family' being the main focus. It should never have been, other than as characters we liked. Like I said, The Last Jedi was far from perfect - I seriously could have done without most of the rebel storylines, and evil capitalist space Las Vegas being liberated by the 99%ers on mooseback. It was stupid, plain and simple. And I suppose someone should have explained to the filmmakers that outer space has no 'drag' and that if you are going a certain speed in space, and you run out of fuel, you are not going to 'slow down'.. lol. Dumb dumb dumb. But the thing which did work for me was bringing Star Wars back to what it was supposed to have been all along - a universe in which the Force was available to all, and whether it went good or bad depended on what was in yoru heart, and not just in your DNA. I hope hope hope that Rey doesn't just turn out to be a Skywalker as well somehow. Anyway, the point is, I understand that people who didn't grow up with Star Wars as an original movie-going experience wholly separated from all the other movies may not see things the same way. I get that for younger people now, who can see all of them as basically one big ongoing 'saga' would look at it as obviously a story about the 'Skywalker family' and be ok with it. Personally, I hate that part of it, and will be glad when there is nothing left of it. So that's it I guess., I know, too long, didn't read. Cheers!
Rian Johnson taking a truly iconic cinema moment, the return of Luke Skywalker at the end of Force Awakens, and turning that moment into a joke with him throwing the lightsaber over his shoulder, let me know that The Last Jedi was destined to be a failure. Rian Johnson had no interest in the overall saga of Star Wars and what it meant to a lot of people, and frankly neither did Disney by signing off on that script.
i dont get people complaining about the star wars saga being focused on the skywalker family. its like complaining about the godfather movies being about the corleone family.
Even where I disagreed with most of what you wrote, it was just on opinion stuff..and that's fine, of course. But this point I quoted, I truly don't understand. Luke and particularly Kylo's grandfather (all Skywalkers) were every bit conflicted and tragic...to the extent Darth Vader is royalty, so is Kylo Ren. That lineage was there in the writing of Kylo's character, who takes his example from Darth Vader in every way. So much so that he thought long and hard about it first before killing his father....Luke thought long and hard about it first and decided not to. All 3 of those characters were/are conflicted characters. Every one of them has some connection to their powers because of lineage, regardless of broom boy at the end of the movie. Not that they're the only ones who can handle the Force...but that they're certain pre-disposed to be "strong" with it. And the title of the next movie certain implies Disney isn't done with the Skywalker bloodline. The directors and Kennedy herself have talked about this movie being the last of the Skywalker saga. But where was this idea that only Skywalkers can be Jedis....they were just all that was left after Palpatine took power. We saw the Jedi academy with tons of Jedis and we know some idea that there have been multiple Siths, and none of that was ever exclusive to the Skywalkers. I'm not sure where this idea came in that we needed to make it clear that others could wield the Force...we had seen that repeatedly.
Hey there are 2 good Star Wars movies. However they got made, we'll always have them. I didn't read any of the Dune sequels or watch all the other old Planet of the Apes movies either. Just appreciate the good stuff and move on with your life. There are lots of great books coming out these days, we're in a golden age of science fiction and fantasy. No reason to keep pumping money into this bloated and terrible franchise.
I think a lot of fans' disappointment with the Last Jedi was the wasted potential. A very simple change of direction on a couple of things could have really had a fascinating story. When Princess Leia gets blown out of the ship, I was immediately thinking: Kylo Ren is going to succumb to his feelings, rescue is mother, and fly away...and then with the "homing device" run into Rey and Luke...and have a Star Warsy, family, character driven arc with both the old and the new....in ways that could have gone a myriad of directions. Instead we get Mary Poppins Leia and a random trip to a casino world that didn't have any affect on the plot. This would have left a very entertaining arc alone: the rag tag fleet being pursued and slowly ground down...I think that was a very interesting direction...a hopeless grind down of our heroes trying to escape. I'm not even mad that they mostly get decimated, it was an interesting plot.
