After watching this movie and reading one my former favorite sci-fi book series sequel

Spoiler

Red Rising

I got a little rant I want to get out of my system.

Fuck unoriginal authors, and their obsession with redoing the same stories over and over, and not knowing whats the purpose of a sequel.

After defeating the big bad, we don't need to see more of the same, otherwise it makes the struggles of the first story sort of pointless. We don't want to see the Rebels fighting the Empire for 50 fucking years without a victory, and we don't want to think that after all that death and destruction, The Society defeat was basically a setback, that somehow made things stay the same despite devastating irreplaceable losses.

We want something different, something new, we want to see how they will build and what they will build, the problems that this sort of nation build faces, among them, sure, insurgencies, allies that don't cooperate or downright hate each other, competing interests that are at least in some levels somewhat equally valid, different visions of what they're doing and people acting on those visions, the struggles of keeping to your principles when you're the powerful State as in - when you're the one in power and who has the advantage in power but not necessarily the moral one but you got to keep a state together damn it. Actually trying to stabilise things.

And better yet, we want a more personal story, we don't want to see our past heroes become sacrifical lambs for essentially new, identical in role versions of these same characters. That's cheap. You're just recyclying characters, not actually betting on any development of your old ones, making them face different roles and situations.

I'm tired, exhausted, of seeing promises of something better and people wanking off about the morals of whether the ends justifies the means, no matter how bad these means were and whatnot, when we never see the freaking end.

This is a journey with no end. You can't enjoy the journey if it doesn't matter, and a Journey without an end isn't a journey, it's just aimless, purposeless wandering.

Know who had the right idea of what a prequel and a sequel should be, at least their role and scope? Tolkien, and I don't even like LotR much. But the challenges and scope, and who the villains are and what the heroes do/objectives change accordingly as they should for a sequel and a prequel. Melkor isn't Sauron, and the Cult is neither of those, nor are what they do. They are, certainly, of the same thread of antagonism, but that is used to show how evil come in different kinds during different times.

Spoiler

No, seriously, fuck Brown

 

I think this hit home for me too. I enjoyed the visuals, but couldn't move past the fact that I've seen this movie way too many times before. I understand that there's an implied backstory with the First Order, but having none of it put in front of us, it just seems like the Empire-lite. There's so little nuance in the motives of anyone that it just feels tiresome at this point; we've seen it all before, just with better characters.

As to the movie as a whole. Enjoyable as a moviegoing experience; had some fun parts. Not enjoyable as a Star Wars movie. Luke and Kylo, of all people, were the most interesting. Luke because his character was way off where I thought it should be (enough people have dissected this so I won't bother); Kylo because he's by far the best written of anyone in this new trilogy. I'm actually interested to learn about his fall and hope, for the sake of variety more than anything, that Rey doesn't redeem him. He's killed Snoke (ugh) and taken command for the purposes of his own vision. Sometimes compelling people do bad things and need to be recognized as such. I'd much rather watch him die for the ideas he believes in than go back on what has actually been interesting character development thus far.

The less said about Finn and Rose's arc the better. What it accomplished for Finn, bringing him full circle from non-believer in anything to someone willing to die for his cause, was nice. The roundabout way it happened was shit. I also hate that he's been shoehorned into the stereotypical 2017-2018 America black guy as a character; some of his lines just take me right out of the narrative.

Rey is uninteresting. The way her power is supposedly rising in tandem with Kylo is something out of Indy!Harry fanfiction.

Leia "force-ing" her way back to the ship's bridge took me out of the narrative, as did the moronic Poe/Hux scene at the beginning. Could've worked, like Han hamming it up in the Death Star in IV, but it dragged for too long.

Bridge fight scene was the dopest of dope though (even though I was wondering why Kylo wasn't using more force powers).

8/10 movie. 4/10 Star Wars movie.

 

The new star wars films are just terrible versions of star wars fan fiction. The force has become a joke. The Rebellion has become a pasty resistance. And Disney just erased the entire star wars mythology to turn into part of the marvel superhero franchise.

I rewatched episode 5 dozens of times just to get rid of the depression

 

I mean, to be fair, Force Awakens and Last Jedi are very much in the style and form of the original trilogy. Hammy acting, awkward plot and all. To be fair, George Lucas’ writing and world building is absolute crap. What is there has been done through novels and comics and a lot of it contradicts itself, IIRC. I didn’t really like Force Awakens much either, I agree, but Rogue One was an absolute gem.

They would have been better creating other stories further into the past, IMO.

 

This, basically. There's so much content to choose from in the Star Wars universe and they chose to write a completely new story. And they fucked it up in the process.

Rogue One, basically a snapshot, was done beautifully. It had its flaws, yes, but worked very well as a standalone entry into the Star Wars canon. There were few characters that we could recognize, and therefore few characters that they could butcher.

Oh well. I suppose it's hard to argue with their intent given how much money they're making, but I do wish the story was just better. The original trilogy had plenty of flaws too, but I feel like given the time gap between when they were made, it's not too much to ask for the writing to be something approaching decent.

 

I think the largest issue of the new trilogy is that its written out of context.

The stories are being written as if it is only a few years after Return of the Jedi.

It ignores the "culture" of star wars that has grown over the years. I recognize they made many things "not canon," but there are certain rules of the universe that people consider integral to star wars.

Furthermore...writing has changed. Story development has changed. The directors and producers and writers don't seem to be aware of how cliche the tropes they put in the movie are...because to those directors/producers/writers those stories are new.

To the star wars fan who has grown up reading whether through the books, comics, games, or fanfiction...the new movies are just lesser quality of what we already have.

 

Eeh, debatable. I mean, yes, Most of it was done well, but then they took the gritty sci-fi war movie and threw in a Jedi fanboi and his Tsun-Tsun boyfriend, and then had Sol Garera throw away is life in a noble gesture of... futility? No deeper meaning, no noble sacrifice, just an "oh well, guess my burning passion for a more militant rebellion wasn't. I die nao."

 

How Star Wars The Last Jedi Should Have Ended.

 

I am 100% behind plan Akbar.

 

I think this is my favorite HISHE in a while. That was really nicely done.

 

Yep.

 

I am laughing so hard right now.

Not a single Oscar. Not a single one. GET REKT.

 

Star Wars hasn't won an Oscar since 1981, so it's hardly a slam on the Last Jedi in particular.

 

True, but none was hyped as this one, with so much of the critic hailing it as 'the best since Empire Strike back!' for... reasons.

 

I agree, actually. But, as Invictus said: the hype was real.

 

People who think blockbusters like TLJ or comic book movies are shoe-ins for Oscars either only see the blockbusters in a given year or don't know what the Academy likes.

 

What @ScottPress said. Plus, the awards this year were split between about 15 films and shorts. Does that mean that the thousands of other films released over the last twelve months or so were awful?

 

Right, since my brothers and one of my biggest SW fan buddies hasn't seen this yet, I'll have to rant about it here.

So where to start? I still remember the first time I saw Star Wars, I'm not gonna waste time by describing it all but to me SW simply stands out in my childhood memories, all 3 movies were just amazing and unlike anything I'd seen (Well I guess I'd basically seen Disney movies up until this point). Its where my deep love of sci-fi comes from, its the movie/tv genre I still prefer to this day and has that spark of the big questions. Are we alone in this galaxy/universe? Can humanity survive long enough as a species to create the tech to travel the stars and what happens when/if civilizations get to this point? Everything about that fascinates me to no end.

There's A LOT wrong with Episode 7 & 8 but the biggest problem in them both and this "new verse" is Luke Skywalker's character. He is a childhood hero of mine and just has a special place in my heart. When they win at the end of episode 6 and he turns away from the party to see Obi-Wan, Yoda and his father smiling at him... he's at peace and balance has been brought back to the force and the galaxy. That's how the story of the hero is supposed to end.

So to see that character, that hero being completely torn to shreds in TLJ is painful, since watching the movie last night I've spent most of the day reading and watching reviews dissing it as some form of catharsis and seeing the Mark Hamill comments/interviews that I'd heard of but stayed clear of... it really brought it home that the actor sees this character the same way I do. That his performances as Luke, his work & legacy as one of, if not the most popular hero of all time is now forever tarred by this pos script... that hurts.

That he'd ever consider murdering his own nephew in cold blood... even if he'd witnessed Kylo turning into everything his father was as Darth Vader I still think Luke would have struggled massively to actually kill Kylo, he'd probably try to incapacitate him and turn him over to his parents. There's "Let's shake things up a bit, we need new blood and let's shock the fans with how edgy and dark we're being!" and then there's this.


After TFA (which I felt was mjeh as a movie & really stupid when it came to parts of the story), this was a chance to see what had gone wrong with the badly introduced/written Emo Ren. I didn't like the whole idea of Luke having failed teaching his nephew as a Jedi in the first place, but if Kylo's turn to the dark side had been properly explained by him being corrupted by Snoke at some point... then I'd be able to accept it.

Yet we get none of it, instead its Luke who's the cause of Kylo's turning away from what he was being taught. Enough to kill his own father. And we get nothing about Snoke either. He's not this giant creature sitting on a throne on some distant, deserted planet, pulling the strings from afar. No he's just this dude in a golden robe... with amazing force powers... and end of story. I thought Snoke was a silly character in TFA but that with the right background he could ofc become so much more than a stereotypical power-hungry evil guy in the shadows.

They could have revealed that The Emperor had been an apprentice of Snoke's who thought he'd killed and usurped his master, yet Snoke survived his attack (hence all his wounds) and remained in hiding, closed off from the Force until the time was right to strike. Seeing the downfall of his former apprentice, whom he feared would ever find out he'd survived, he finally emerges from the shadows; quietly gathering up the remnants of The Empire; hiding them in the outer rim of the galaxy. He then returns once he's felt Kylo Solo's growing power and potential from being trained by Luke Skywalker himself, using his parents split as the opening for his infiltration and corruption of young Kylo's mind, for he knows that if Kylo Ren becomes a fully trained Jedi under Luke Skywalker; he won't have a chance. So he must act, even if the First Order is a bit of a shambles, they are merely a tool he can use to assert his dominion; for the real power lies not in star-ships and troop counts but with the Force.

What we get (instead of a story I thought up in 10-15 minutes) is nothing. No answers about Snoke. Kylo Ren is emo cus' his parents dumped him with Uncle Luke who then thought about killing him and now he wants to follow in his grandfathers footsteps, even if they led to him abandoning the dark side and killing The Emperor?

The storytelling and the characters are just so fucking bad, its such a huge mess that even with the fantastic visuals, good acting and epic score, this movie just can't be saved. And that's BEFORE we even get into the whole Rey story/character. That's BEFORE we get into the character that is Rose. I thought Finn's character in TFA was poorly handled as his story as a deserter could've been much more interesting but its even worse in TLJ since he has to go off on the most stupid and poorly written side-quest of all time. With Rose. Jeez, I feel sorry for the guy. He's the only black guy of importance in the new SW verse and gets shafted with that bs casino planet... talk about having it all against you come episode 9.

Leia should have died in space, her last moments/movements should've been her sending a feeling/thought to Luke. OR even if she somehow survived that attack, she should've been the one doing the kamikaze-warp (looked simply stunning btw, as far as visuals go that was epic enough to not make me care too much about how it all works). And I could sit here and write for 3 more hours easily but going out for some pizza with 2 friends. Maybe that'll cheer me up a bit

Edited to add a link to this video. The whole thing is worth watching but this is the most important part. His thoughts on Hamill & Skywalker are spot on and especially seeing that interview with Hamill & Pegg... that just drives the point home and makes it hurt all the more. I honestly do feel like the character has died in more than just a physical sense.

 

Well Solo is not doing so hot

http://www.businessinsider.com/solo-bombs-at-the-box-office-2018-5

I wonder how much of the backlash is due to Episode 8?

 

Critics are kicking it in the balls all over the place. Plus it's just not Han and Lando without Harrison and Billy Dee. I'll still see it, but it's just not the same for me.

If they greenlight an Obi-Wan movie (as they are still waffling over it) they better have Ewan or it'll do just as shitty.