Author Topic: The Last Jedi  (Read 16187 times)

Solid Blake

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Re: The Last Jedi
« Reply #60 on: December 19, 2017, 02:34:11 PM »
Poe probably should have died in the final battle. Him learning his lesson was forced and not really appropriate given the situation. The last of the resistance is behind that door. There is no retreat. This is their last stand. Would have made a lot more sense that he flies into the cannon.

That said, a lot of suicide bombings in this movie...

Finn* ?

philip918

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Re: The Last Jedi
« Reply #61 on: December 19, 2017, 03:15:25 PM »
Poe probably should have died in the final battle. Him learning his lesson was forced and not really appropriate given the situation. The last of the resistance is behind that door. There is no retreat. This is their last stand. Would have made a lot more sense that he flies into the cannon.

That said, a lot of suicide bombings in this movie...

Finn* ?

Nope. Poe. I didn't really think it made much sense that Finn was making the suicide run.

As fun as Oscar Isaac is as Poe, I think he overshadows Finn's storyline too much.

Junior

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Re: The Last Jedi
« Reply #62 on: December 19, 2017, 03:35:06 PM »
Junior is bae.

The best lightsaber fight is Vader v. all in Rogue One though.

Thanks friend. U 2.

But I'd also argue that Vader's is more of a slaughter than it is a fight. Is there any real, ahem, resistance to him in that hallway?

I really don't get the hate for Leia in SPAAAAAACE. Do we need a scene with an explanation of her ability to do that? Do you just need it too look different? It makes sense and it looks cool to me.

It just seems too far-fetched, which is mildly ridiculous considering we have lasers acting like cannonballs and cardboard space bombers. I know that it's silly to go "space doesn't work that way!" in my space wizards franchise, but it's such a massive jump in terms of what we've come to expect from the character and really stretches the believeability. Leia doesn't need force powers to be a badass, her character is already established as one. Yeah, it makes sense she's got an innate ability with the Force, but to quote another 1970's classic, "that's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras."

I guess it has happened before in books, but also isn't it just kinda the opposite of pulling a lightsaber (or a broom) to you? If you grab onto something bolted down in the ship and you're out in space and then you pull, wouldn't that work roughly as depicted. We know that you can survive space for a short period of time before freezing or whatever you'll do, so I don't think any one part is particularly inaccurate. It looks a little goofy, sure, but so does Luke as he pulls that X-Wing out of the swamp in ESB, so I'm not going to ding the only opportunity Leia will ever have (in a movie) to do some awesome Force thing just because it's one goofy thing in a franchise full of them.

Is there anything these kids could have done that would not inspire this response?
Unfortunately no. This is Star Wars and Disney and we don't live in a vacuum. Perhaps if the scene wasn't filmed like a commercial for the new Star Wars land Disney is building, but as it plays now it's as blatant a commercial as the product placement in Batman & Robin.

I just very much disagree. If it's a commercial, what is it for?



Here we've got a company paying for exposure in a film that isn't (very much) about buying things. What is Star Wars advertising? Brooms? In the scene we have a homemade toy, two salvaged parts used as ships, and a broom. If it was what you're saying it was he'd have an official lightsaber replica. They're all over the stores. Instead, what he has at the end is what my friends and I used as our lightsabers. It's an acknowledgement, once again, that the larger ideas matter more than the details. It's a shoutout to kids who want to grow up in a place where their talents could also make them important. I know you aren't the only one who saw the ending this way, I just wish you could see it as I saw it. It isn't out of place when it sums up the whole thrust of the film in a few shots.

pixote saw this movie before me and predicted that I would hate it. While it is true that The Last Jedi is an indulgent movie and does a lot of the kind of stuff I didn’t like in the earlier films, it turns out that my problems with those earlier films wasn’t with the content but rather the execution.

My actual prediction (not fully expressed) was that you'd love the new film, and the seemingly irreconcilable contradiction vis-à-vis your opinion of the earlier movies would drive me to drink.

Bottoms up.

pixote

I basically wrote that because of your review and the little bit of provocation you threw in there. It really made me think about why I was reacting this way now when I didn't like the others very much, and so I want to thank you for that. I hope what I wrote made some sense in that direction.

I do wonder, given your linking of this film to RotJ, if I would like the OT more now. Tastes change (see my recent review of Aliens for a shining example) and maybe I'd love them now. I think it's been about a decade since I watched them. I'm probably going to wait on a 4K rerelease and maybe Disney's ownership of Fox will get us a de-specialized official release, finally. I'm eager to see what I make of them now.
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Will

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Re: The Last Jedi
« Reply #63 on: December 19, 2017, 05:54:52 PM »
2. Kids playing with Luke Skywalker figurines in the final scene. BECAUSE DISNEY NEED TO SELL THE TOYZ. This doesn't sour the film as much as the previous scene, but if the Leia scene didn't exist and this one still did, it would still keep me back from overlooking the other minor problems I had with the film.
I wrote the same and since then I've been listening to other opinions that mostly love the final scene, taking it for what I believe was its true intention, showing the optimism of hope. I can believe that was the intent, but coming from a Star Wars film, one of the great merchandising tools of our lifetime, I can't get past seeing it as selling the mania to future generations.

Is there anything these kids could have done that would not inspire this response? If they were lightsabering around it wouldn't change anything, lightsabers come in all kinds of buyable shapes and sizes. I suppose the one could have just been telling the story to the others, but is that how kids work? Do they sit down to tell each other stories at that age, or do they act them out? It's been about 25 years for me, but the toy version feels like the most realistic thing they could have been doing. We got past the cynicism for The Lego Movie, when are we gonna get past it for Star Wars? (I feel I should point out that perhaps the most important plot/character point in the film, Rey's decision to not join Kylo Ren, is a choice against cynicism.)

What are you talking about? Legos ARE toys. There wasn't a lego film then legos made from that film. And I don't know about you, but I never played with soldier action figures based on real life people. Chris Kyle isn't a massively popular action figure.

Your line of argument is so confusing. It presupposes that this scene was the only thing that they could've done, that this is the only way they could've ended the movie, then you appear to negotiate as if the screenwriter was cornered by this apparently logical conclusion. People do this kind of technique all of the time, in order to justify their defense.

No, there's plenty of different conclusions they could've gone.

The entire trilogy up to this point has people telling stories. There could've been an older person of authority telling the story of Luke Skywalker with kids surrounding him. That happens, that's still true and authentic. Point being I have no problem with the idea behind the scene, just with the execution. Even the lightsaber broom isn't so much a problem because lightsabers are just swords. But action figures? Knowing the course that the film series took because of the merchandising (Harrison Ford being told by Lucas that he wouldn't kill off his character in RETURN OF THE JEDI because no one would buy dead Han dolls), it leaves a pretty sour taste in my mouth. Add to the fact that Disney is infamous for milking films for all its toy worth, it just sours more. And to tie that all up, the way it's shot, with the kid's hand moving the action figure toward the camera (!!!) triggered instant 90s toy commercials in my mind. No. It's a bad scene, regardless of the idea behind it, because the execution is god-awful.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2017, 05:57:24 PM by AliceGuyBlache »

Will

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Re: The Last Jedi
« Reply #64 on: December 19, 2017, 06:07:04 PM »
Leia would've died from the burns in that explosion. The fact that's not even scarred is ridiculous. The fact that she survives that and space is eye-rolling and insane. If you're defending that, then you can't critique anything that you see as stupid in the mythology of the force in the prequel trilogy. It's Christmas Holiday Special bad.

By the way, Disney loves a good fake-out death of a character. Off the top of my head - The Beast, Groot, Baymax, and now, Leia...

Solid Blake

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Re: The Last Jedi
« Reply #65 on: December 19, 2017, 06:34:32 PM »
As much as I didn’t like the notorious Leia scene, it’s somewhat palatable when you break down how space actually works in a galaxy far, far away.

-There’s sound in space.
-Pressurized airlocks aren’t a thing.
-Bombing runs need to be directly over a target (gravity exists?).
-And this is where I copy and paste a link of an article explaining the scientific shortfalls of the Star Wars films, but I’m too lazy to Google right now.

1SO

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Re: The Last Jedi
« Reply #66 on: December 19, 2017, 09:08:05 PM »
Is there anything these kids could have done that would not inspire this response?
Unfortunately no. This is Star Wars and Disney and we don't live in a vacuum. Perhaps if the scene wasn't filmed like a commercial for the new Star Wars land Disney is building, but as it plays now it's as blatant a commercial as the product placement in Batman & Robin.

I just very much disagree. If it's a commercial, what is it for?
Star Wars. The films, the toys, all of the merchandise. It's a commercial to extend the brand to the next generation.

Junior

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Re: The Last Jedi
« Reply #67 on: December 19, 2017, 09:33:18 PM »
2. Kids playing with Luke Skywalker figurines in the final scene. BECAUSE DISNEY NEED TO SELL THE TOYZ. This doesn't sour the film as much as the previous scene, but if the Leia scene didn't exist and this one still did, it would still keep me back from overlooking the other minor problems I had with the film.
I wrote the same and since then I've been listening to other opinions that mostly love the final scene, taking it for what I believe was its true intention, showing the optimism of hope. I can believe that was the intent, but coming from a Star Wars film, one of the great merchandising tools of our lifetime, I can't get past seeing it as selling the mania to future generations.

Is there anything these kids could have done that would not inspire this response? If they were lightsabering around it wouldn't change anything, lightsabers come in all kinds of buyable shapes and sizes. I suppose the one could have just been telling the story to the others, but is that how kids work? Do they sit down to tell each other stories at that age, or do they act them out? It's been about 25 years for me, but the toy version feels like the most realistic thing they could have been doing. We got past the cynicism for The Lego Movie, when are we gonna get past it for Star Wars? (I feel I should point out that perhaps the most important plot/character point in the film, Rey's decision to not join Kylo Ren, is a choice against cynicism.)

What are you talking about? Legos ARE toys. There wasn't a lego film then legos made from that film. And I don't know about you, but I never played with soldier action figures based on real life people. Chris Kyle isn't a massively popular action figure.

Your line of argument is so confusing. It presupposes that this scene was the only thing that they could've done, that this is the only way they could've ended the movie, then you appear to negotiate as if the screenwriter was cornered by this apparently logical conclusion. People do this kind of technique all of the time, in order to justify their defense.

No, there's plenty of different conclusions they could've gone.

The entire trilogy up to this point has people telling stories. There could've been an older person of authority telling the story of Luke Skywalker with kids surrounding him. That happens, that's still true and authentic. Point being I have no problem with the idea behind the scene, just with the execution. Even the lightsaber broom isn't so much a problem because lightsabers are just swords. But action figures? Knowing the course that the film series took because of the merchandising (Harrison Ford being told by Lucas that he wouldn't kill off his character in RETURN OF THE JEDI because no one would buy dead Han dolls), it leaves a pretty sour taste in my mouth. Add to the fact that Disney is infamous for milking films for all its toy worth, it just sours more. And to tie that all up, the way it's shot, with the kid's hand moving the action figure toward the camera (!!!) triggered instant 90s toy commercials in my mind. No. It's a bad scene, regardless of the idea behind it, because the execution is god-awful.

Putting your personal attacks aside, I didn't really think this was too hard an argument to follow, but I'll lay it out again for you real slow.

1. The concern going into The Lego Movie was that it was a cynical way of boosting Lego sales.
2. While that may have been an outcome, it only worked because the movie was so good.
3. The movie itself actually undermines Lego's business model because it's about being creative outside of specific Lego sets.
4. Turns out the cynicism towards The Lego Movie is unjustified.

5. These new Star Wars movies were seen to be cash grabs by Disney. This is still ongoing, obviously, and is a backdrop to the rest of this part of the argument.
6. Concerns were brought up about the last scene because some people see it as a commercial to sell toys.
7. There are going to be toys sold based on this movie whether that scene is in it or not. Probably because there are a lot of cool designs for the ships and stuff. AKA, sure, more toys sold, but only because the movie is good.
8. The movie itself actually undermines the Star Wars business model because the Luke figurine is homemade and the kid turns his broom into a lightsaber.
9. Turns out the cynicism towards Star Wars is unjustified.

See, not that hard.

But you made me think a little, too. What's the movie about? The democratization of Star Wars. No longer is it a patriarchal lineage story, now anybody can be a Jedi. And in the final scene what do we see? Literally the most oppressed (enslaved?) kids begin to give each other hope by telling the story of Luke and (one can assume) everybody else in the resistance. Hence the shot of the ring. They do so through the use of homemade props, including a figurine made of wood and string. Then its broken up by their owner and the one kid goes outside to sweep up. But he looks to the horizon and holds not a weapon but a broom handle like its a lightsaber. That's exactly what I did as a kid. I'm sure millions of others did the same. Until this movie we had to pretend that we were being part of that patriarchal lineage. Now we (including girls and children of color) can be part of the story too. And that's like the best thing, isn't it?

So tell me how an older person of authority telling the story gets that same message across. This version uses the language of film way more than your proposed coda would as well. The story is being told in this version, yes, but it's in an alien language and only Luke Skywalker's name is recognizable. The power of the scene comes from that push into the foreground that you complain about (a shot that mirrors what we saw happen not five minutes earlier), it comes from the small gesture of the force pull of the broom. It comes from the change between tool and weapon by the kid's change in grip. As I said in my review, which I'm sure you read, Rian Johnson's greatest feat is bringing movie magic to Star Wars for the first time. The last scene is a great example of that, and that's why I don't understand the cynical reaction to it.
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Solid Blake

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Re: The Last Jedi
« Reply #68 on: December 20, 2017, 04:43:59 AM »


Depressions turns to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate... leads to cynicism

DarkeningHumour

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Re: The Last Jedi
« Reply #69 on: December 20, 2017, 04:58:08 AM »
More nitpicking post second watch:

Highs:

- How Kylo offs Snoke. I followed it better this time, it's pretty cleverly done.

Mixed:

- The mirror sequence. It looks cool, but seems too disconnected from all we know about the dark side to make sense mythologically.
- The physics of it all keep getting worse and worse but I am not sure I care anymore.

Lows:

- The implication that something might happen between Poe and Rey in the future. By Jove, I so don't want any of that.
- The pacing. I felt it much more this time. There is too much of a stretch where little action happens.
- No Knights of Ren.
- This one is a big one. TLJ makes it clear that the non-empire empire is able to field multiple star destroyers, not to mention massive dreadnoughts (with an s) and an absolutely gigantic flagship. I would have to estimate the number of their army in the millions at least. Then we have the Resistance, which counted at the very most a couple of dozen X-Wings and such in Episode VII and an army numbering in the thousands at the very most. (1) How are they a threat of any kind to Snoke? (2) How does it make any sense that the Resistance should be so minuscule in a galaxy populated by trillions of people? Even the French resistance was better at recruiting in an occupied country of only a few million.
- Kylo's posture. Stand up straight, punk, you're not fifteen anymore.
- Why aren't people hyperspacing into each other's fleets as a common space tactic all the time?
- No one mentions midichlorians.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2017, 05:00:43 AM by DarkeningHumour »
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