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Ace_Spade's Replies
Overall, I wasn't a big fan of The Last Jedi, but it did have some great moments.
1. Rey in the cave. I thought it was just trippy enough.
2. Luke teaches Rey what the Force is.
3. Luke says that preserving the Jedi is vanity. These two moments are the only moments that I bought Luke being a Jedi master. He had actual interesting, profound things to say and was behaving like the old, wise version of Luke. All the other stuff on the island was pretty terribly written.
4. Kylo Ren and Rey in Snoke's throne room. I didn't know what would happen, who would turn from their path, and the fight at the end was an excellent capper to the whole thing. It felt like a scene from a much better draft of the script had sneaked into this film.
5. Luke vs. Kylo Ren.
6. As dumb as it was, particularly given the repercussions for the rest of the Star Wars universe, the hyperdrive battering ram was really, *really* beautiful, visually speaking.
...but good.
I think fans think they were solid from beginning to end because that's the story Lucas keeps telling. "I always thought there would be 1/3/6/9 movies," things like that.
That doesn't sound like much of a spoiler. It barely gives away anything - certainly not the nuances of the twist or the extent of the betrayal. It also doesn't give away the double-double-cross which redeems Lando. Even if it was, it's not Williams' fault. The interviewer said, "evil character", so Williams' response doesn't give away anything extra.
I love Glover's story. "Just be charming." Perfect.
I always assumed that Lando was plugged into be a possible "replacement Han" if Ford had elected not to return.
I think it means that to give in to his anger, impulses, and aggression might bring him victory, but will destroy himself in the process - turning to the Dark Side.
I love the idea of Palpatine having a mail room, ghost writers answering letters from his fan club.
I don't know why they have personalities. It could be that they're deliberately given them, but I'd guess that it's actually a bi-product of the advanced AI. Why? Well, C-3P0 is annoying, jittery, and cowardly (not traits you would want in your droid), and R2-D2 is headstrong and rebellious (and rude), and you *definitely* don't want a droid with those traits.
They are bought and sold with no moral problem for even the purest hero, so I'd say they're like smartphones: property. Slavery seems to be rampant in the Star Wars universe, but the heroes don't like it, so that gives us an idea of where they are, property-wise.
Socially, they were kicked out of the cantina. So some people don't like them. They're treated as friends by those closest to them, but that's probably the same way people get sentimental about, for example, a car or a guitar - amplified by the fact that you can converse with them.
I agree. I think you can already start to see the decay setting in a bit in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. They're still brilliant, of course.
The long hiatus, fan expectations, too many cooks, and the idea not being fresh and exciting anymore have made subsequent endeavours lackluster.
Ah, heck, even during the era of the original movies they were already squeezing it for gimmicks and spin-off films. Remember "Caravan of Courage"?
Snoke was still working his way up the ladder during A New Hope. He's the stormtrooper who bumps his head.
Maybe Han's Jewish and meant it like, "You're a real mensch."
Either way, it's obviously sarcasm.
For me, the problems of The Last Jedi are the story and the characters. It needs a total re-write. The major beats were fine, but the execution was rotten.
I like the themes (failure, subversion of expectation, etc.), but they weren't implemented well. With the casino planet, Rose's character, Holdo's tight-lippedness, and easily three-quarters of the redundant scenes between Luke and Rey, there are a lot of scenes and sequences that are just dead weight.
Luke only said a couple of profound things, I would have liked to have seen him as more of a Jedi master. It was wrong to have him sulk for thirty years. They kicked it off wrong with his flip response to being handed the lightsaber, then had him and Rey repeat the same scene ("Help us!" "Go away!") over and over again.
So, for me, it's the writing. The script was overlong and poorly plotted. It has too many digressions, superfluous distractions, etc. That's 3/4 of the film's big problems.
I do have one, big, glaring problem with the film, though. As I said, I like the themes. I like that the heroes fail, blurring lines, stripping away expectations and vanity is all good. But the film doesn't support those themes. Right? If Johnson really wanted the film to be about "this isn't going to go the way you think", Finn should have died (one of the two main characters of the new series dead by the second installment), Luke shouldn't have shown up at the end, and the rebels should have been capture and/or killed instead of running away.
SPOILERS FOR WATCHMEN BELOW:
Watchmen is to superheroes what Johnson wanted Last Jedi to be for Star Wars. The difference, though, is that Johnson didn't (or wasn't allowed) to end his movie properly to bring home the theme. Watchmen ends with Ozymandias accomplishing his plot for the good of the world, and we're left uncertain if he's a villain or a hero, and he wins, and the people we thought were heroes and villains aren't what we thought. The Last Jedi doesn't back up its themes.
Her theme played there, yes, but I can't recall if they modified it or just played the original note for note.
That only implies that it's dangerous for the ship doing it, not that it's a fleet-obliterating weapon. When Holdo rams the Imperial fleet, it obliterates one ship and causes shrapnel to blow up several others. All Han says is, "That'll end your trip real quick."
As far as the crawl goes, I'd put it in a "character error" type of goof-up. Luke clearly isn't leading the rebels despite what it says. It is wrong.
Rey's flying was not a problem for me given her apparent knowledge of speeders and things. She has spent her life cruising around the desert on that hoverbike, so she knows how to drive things. It's not as well-bolstered as her other skills, but it is there.
They did invent cooler force powers for everybody, yes. I think the biggest problem-power, however, actually belongs to Yoda. If, as a force ghost, you can summon atmospheric phenomena like a god, it's amazing Han and Leia were left to take down the shield generator in Return of the Jedi without assistance. Akin to the lightspeed battering ram by Holdo, it raises more questions than it answers (even though those moments were, individually, cool).
I have seen these sorts of things in current sci-fi/action films, such as superhero films. Basically, they make individual scenes or moments as impressive and awe-inspiring as possible and neglect the bigger picture. In Abrams' Star Trek series, one or two torpedoes will devastate a star ship, tearing gaping holes in the hull, creating maximum peril and drama. In the next scene, seven or eight torpedoes won't do half the damage because then the whole ship would explode. So you get Kylo's laser freezing because it's awesome and makes the audience go, "Whoa!", not because the plot needs it or because it is proportional or anything. Nerdwriter talked about this kind of thing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38Cy_Qlh7VM
The new films, I think, are more flawed than the old, which were flawed. But, maybe people focus on the new films' flaws more because they've intensified it and that makes these things stand out more...? I'm just spitballing.
Darn right with auto-pilot. That scene was a beautiful moment, well-shot, so well executed, but created a *ton* of problems with the rest of the series. If hyperspeed kamikaze runs are so crippling, they should have a bunch of blockade runner or Millennium Falcon-sized ships piloted by droids just ramming each other to smithereens. Six or seven ships like that would decimate that entire fleet. Even two or three (which could easily have been the other ships in The Last Jedi who didn't go "ramming speed") would cripple them.
Heck, Poe's best move right at the beginning would have been to just never exit lightspeed and smash into the dreadnought. One ship sacrificed, one insanely powerful warship is history.
Rose had no excuse either. They were moving at extremely high velocity in open-air cockpits. Rose was also a totally superfluous character, but that move at the end? That was next-level stupid.
Luke hearing Obi-Wan has more to do with Obi-Wan than Luke. Luke's arc in Star Wars still sees him fail or need help a lot more than Rey does in The Force Awakens, even with the X-Wing thing (which, I agree, he should not be there).
I also agree that Luke isn't trained long enough to justify his skills, but he is still trained. I think a lot of people don't notice the lack of actual training time because the movie makes a point of showing him get trained. It's movie logic, but that's one reason why people don't gripe about Luke but do gripe about Rey.
The text crawl in Empire doesn't seem to be telling the truth. Luke is never treated as *the* leader in Empire Strikes Back. It says the rebels are led by Luke Skywalker, but I think that was just clumsy writing. Leia's the one doing the briefing during the evacuation while Luke is a component of the AT-AT defense. I'd say Luke isn't leading and the crawl is speaking more about his status as a hero.
I think Rey's abilities to fight, fly, and fix things are all justified by her backstory, but because we don't see her fail as often as Luke did, it is more *apparent* that she's a wish-fulfillment character. Luke is definitely wish-fulfillment, but it's masked more.
Again: I like Rey. I think she's fine. I don't have a problem with her. But I can see why people complain (and I do prefer Luke, possibly for nostalgia).
As to why people complain, well... Most are probably a combination. Misogyny is definitely one reason. A lot of people are grumpy and don't want Star Wars to change; they wouldn't have been happy with any protagonist. Some people just didn't like the character. Just because you and I don't mind Rey doesn't mean somebody else hated her. I'd say most people who don't like the new characters fall into the "grumpy" category.
I think Holdo's suicide "okay" in movie terms because she was already dead. Poe's actions lead to a lot of lost ships. Now, an argument could be made for his actions (destroying the dreadnought was a HUGE morale bump for the rebels and a MASSIVE psychological hit to the empire), but I think there is a difference between committing to a risky attack with a high cost and using a "walking dead" ship/pilot to buy some time and kill some guys.
Didn't mind the prank call as a cheeky ruse to prevent Hux giving a "fire" order. The problem I had was that Hux would take the call at all. His orders were to wipe the last of the rebel fleet out of the sky. The movie made it clear that there were no more rebels, so you don't need to interrogate anybody to find more bases. Just wipe them out.
I didn't like Luke's complaining because I felt like every scene with Luke and Rey for the first half of the movie was the same scene. "Help me!" "Go away!" ad nauseum. It's bad writing. Scene 1 makes Scene 2 happen with building urgency. If Scene 2 is Scene 1 again, one of those scenes is pointless.
I bought Luke's moment of fear. I thought it was a great illustration of how one *tiny* moment of weakness can be ruinous. Luke isn't immune to lapses of judgement and so I didn't think that was a problem. Luke's characterisation was mishandled, but not because of that.
Milking scene -didn't care.
I prefer Rey with no "special" parents. I'm tired of characters in movies all being directly related (Sandman in Spiderman 3, for instance).
Holdo's drove me nuts. She should have either told Poe the plan or told him, "You're a soldier, I'm the general, you do your job and I'll worry about mine". Either way, Poe still could have gone off half-cocked. In fact, it would have highlighted the problems of his impulsiveness *more* if Holdo was a good leader, but just too patient for Poe's liking.
Everything about the Casino Planet plotline and Rose's superfluous character were aggravating. Rose's idiot move at the end deprived a brilliant character arc for Finn: coward to martyr.
Snoke was boring. I don't miss him. It was a great scene, too, which the movie needed more of.
Phasma was boring, too.
I prefer Luke as the main character. I'm sorry he's dead. That said, it was epic. If they had to kill him, they did it well.
Well, I'm not on-board with disliking Rey, I think the character is fine, but she is closer to that camp than Luke was.
However...
1. In Star Wars, Luke is shown being trained by Obi-Wan. You're right: a ridiculously short period of time, but trained nevertheless. In the Millennium Falcon, he spars with the practice droid and requires multiple attempts before achieving a small success.
2. Luke spends a lot of Star Wars failing, actually. He loses R2 (a beneficent failure, but a failure, nonetheless), is beaten to unconsciousness by Sand People, would have died in Mos Eisley if Obi-Wan didn't do any amputating, would have blown everybody up in the Falcon without Han making the hyperspeed calculations, etc., etc.
3. Luke's ascension through Force abilities is a lot more gradual. In Star Wars, he goes the whole movie before being able to guide his one-in-a-million shot in the Death Star trench. At the beginning of Empire Strikes back, he can kinda move his lightsabre with deep, deep concentration. Then he almost dies on Hoth (Han saves him). He trains with Yoda, barely moving rocks, failing to pull the X-Wing out of the swamp, and failing hard in The Cave. He can't best Vader because Vader is much, much stronger with the Force.
There are other examples of Luke failing. Contrast this to Rey, who has Luke's Force sensitivity AND Han's piloting skills right from the start of Force Awakens. She can also repair things (Chewie/R2 seemed best at this in the OT). By the end of the first movie, with no mentoring whatsoever, Rey can bend minds ala Obi-Wan. End of Empire Luke didn't seem like he would have been able to move the rocks that Rey did.
Again: I don't have a problem with Rey. But, I think people do because Luke displayed fewer abilities than Rey and at a lower/slower competency. Neither are realistic, both are silly, but Luke had more of a gradient and at least had lip-service training.