After reading the spoilers I can see why the Audience score currently sits at 58% Rotten.

 

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I didn't miss that. It just seems like an exceedingly silly reason. If they just wanted cool red smoke, why not simply do it that speeders have like air blast that kicks up the smoke, like the X-wings on the lake in TFA?

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I guess it's a choice between sticking to established themes of a 40 year old franchise and, I dunno, getting with the times, trying something new when you're 8 movies in, taking a risk, evolving instead of stagnating. It's not like this is a radical idea that's never been tried. Fuck, HP went from children's to YA. Fast and Furious went from stealing DVD players and driving in a straight line to international heists and dropping cars from airplanes. And you know what? It works. Polishing the visuals just ain't enough when your storytelling is so laughably infantile.

 

Saw it.

Meh. Good flick but nothing stunning.

Better than Force Awakens but not by much.

Not worth watching twice.

Going back to the books. As good as Hamill was, he couldn’t save this version of Luke for me. I see why he had disagreements with the director over the direction of Luke.

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That said, the choice between Rey choosing to join Kylo or not should make for some good fanfiction point of divergences. Any takers?

 

Btw, what the fuck is up with Kylo's wannabe-Nazi uniform? It just looked ridiculous to me, especially the comically large boots. What was wrong with the cool as fuck robes from TFA? Nothing, that's what.

At least Hux looked great. Seriously, his outfit and eyebrows were some of the best stuff in the film.

 

The wikipedia page is actually fairly thorough, if you navigate down to the Legends section and select the appropriate era you're interested in. Insofar as post-Return of the Jedi material is concerned, starting with Fate of the Jedi is pretty much at the very tailend of anything involving the Original Trilogy or its cast, so that'll definitely color your perception on things. As far as post-Return of the Jedi books / series to hit, the main ones IMO are the following:

1. Zahn's Thrawn trilogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command): Pretty much what set off the craze of Star Wars material back in the early 90s and still one of the best Star Wars series around, and fairly pivotal in introducing and developing some of the key EU characters, especially Mara Jade.

2. Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy (Jedi Search, Dark Apprentice, Champions of the Force): IMO, suffers from various problems symptomatic with Anderson's writing, but this is a fairly important trilogy for setting up the New Jedi Order era later, so it's not exactly skippable.

3. Zahn's Thrawn duology (Specter of the Past, Vision of the Future): Again, another Zahn work so you can expect quality, and it importantly furthers and solidifies Luke's development especially in relation to Mara Jade; this is the series where they eventually end up getting together.

4. New Jedi Order: Pretty much the capstone of the EU as far as I'm concerned. Major books to hit here would be Salvatore's Vector Prime, Stackpole's Dark Tide books, Tyers's Balance Point, Denning's Star by Star, Stover's Traitor (especially do not miss this novel!), Williams's Destiny's Way, and finally Luceno's The Unifying Force.

Most everything else in between in that era is either forgettable or while fun (e.g. Stackpole's and Allston's X-Wing books or Stackpole's I, Jedi) is not as pivotal in tying to the overall arcs traced in the EU and so can be safely skipped.

I would safely ignore everything after The Unifying Force, except perhaps the Legacy comics way way into the future (137 ABY in fact), as it's pretty much all garbage IMO. Dark Nest is not wholly terrible, but it's kind of the beginning of the end with the sheer character assassination and narrative derailment and worse that we we see in the mess that is Legacy of the Force, and Fate of the Jedi is at best an attempt to try to salvage what's unsalvageable IMO. The only mildly redeeming thing about Legacy of the Force is that it inspired what's probably the best Star Wars fanfiction out there (Adahn's Only Right) but that's damning with faint praise at best.

As far as I'm concerned, The Unifying Force is probably the safest place to stop in the EU chronologically, especially after Disney pulled the plug on the EU just as the Sword of the Jedi trilogy was being planned. The narrative arc traced from the Original Trilogy to The Unifying Force is fairly complete and the closest thing to a proper "end" of the books. (Or alternatively, Adahn's story linked above)

And for the prequels, I would just read Stover's Revenge of the Sith novelization. IMO, you're better off just reading that than watching the actual prequel trilogy itself as the book is, as far as I can tell, far better than the actual film itself, let alone the preceding ones.

 

Sincerely appreciate the information. Very helpful.

 

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I really don't mind Luke's character assassination. He was always a goody-goody Gary Stu, in the movies AND legends, and this humanizes him, which is a good thing. The BAD thing is that it was done in a very stupid, very hamfisted way.

 

So, to make that clear first, Ep VII was, in my opinion, the worst film of the franchise, an absolute disgrace. It had awful storytelling, no suspense and it destroyed everything that was to come after. You can't make a good 2nd part if the 1st one was that bad. That said, Ep. VIII was halfway ok.

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But it would have been far, far better if Ep VII hadn't destroyed the storyline. SNOKE was the menacing, dangerous character, and he's killed in a very lame way - so that leaves us with Kylo Ren as the evil guy. And Kylo Ren is awful at being the evil guy PLUS he was already defeated by a Rey who knew nothing about anything. When? In Ep VII. God how I HATE THAT SHIT MOVIE.
Also, Adam Driver isn't a bad actor, but I'm still not sold on him being able to do something more evil than killing a fly.
Luke was amazing, but still ... he thought about killing his apprentice? Really? I mean, it was really well acted, but I still can't connect that with the Luke I know from Ep VI. It's not made better by all these references to who he was.
The scene where he misleads Kylo Ren is still epic, even though it's not the best of the movie (I think we pretty much all agree on that one).

This movie relies on plot holes. Not only does it completely ignore every law of physics and human bodys which made me roll my eyes several times - no, it also relies on stupidity several times to make the plot work. Why the hell doesn't the lilac-haired woman (forgot her name) simply tell Poe what exactly she's up to? It really looked like she didn't have a proper plan, so...

That said, the movie managed to surprise me a few times, it managed to make me chuckle (one time too often even, I'd say - some things just had better been left out), and Luke's finale was pretty epic. So, not really sure what to think, but better than Ep VII (the worst scenes of Ep I and II combined are better than VII, but whatever).

 

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Highly highly disappointing. The whole movie felt like a roller coaster, a lot of franchise highs but a lot of lows too. I couldn't enjoy it because everytime something awesome would happen to hype me up, something stupid or nonsensical would bring me right back down to earth.

Major props to that warp speed scene though, visually spectacular.

How is Carrie Fischer's character the only one left alive!?

 

Had lots of laughs, had my jaw dropped from incredible visuals a couple of times, overall enjoyable with a few glaring whatthefucks. I wasn't very positive of TFA at first but on watching it again before TLJ I enjoyed it more, it grew on me. Maybe TLJ will too.

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When do we get the Knights of Ren? Where those royal guards it? Seems weird to have a force named after and loyal to Kylo guarding the King of the Nazis.

Why introduce a mysterious badass villain and tease the shit out of the fandom, and hype him with some extremely cool and precise force tricks only to have him Worf to the most basic trick? I get that it's a callback to the Sidious swan dive but come on. I really fucking liked Snoke, he just oozed menace and power in a way Kylo never did.

Bad guy is stronk so the Force Mario kart rubberbands the heroine? That's not how the Force works!

Time and Space, like the first film it feels like it takes place during an afternoon in one solar system, it's a fucking galaxy with millions of worlds and quintillions of people, not a slap fight between two third world banana republics that can apparently only field a handful of ships and still somehow control the entire galaxy with that tiny military force.

How the fuck are they gonna give Leia a plausible and grand exit when they just wasted the two best shots they ever had? In the next one they're gonna have to settle for CGI or off-screen death, neither sounds appealing.

So Snoke was secretly training Kylo the whole time and that was the growing darkness Luke sensed in him, how the fuck did he manage that? Where they room-mates in that tiny hut that was like a mile from the temple? Where they out of dorm rooms and Kylo had to take the groundskeepers hut? I get that he probably did that Force-have-long-coversations-from-a-distance that apparently everyone can do now but no one from the prequels could which is why they always used comms but why the fuck would Kylo listen to this obviously evil monster to begin with?

If the rebel ships are faster why don't they gain a lead during that long chase? Why don't the bad guys micro-jump ahead of them? Why aren't they calling in reinforcements to cut off the rebels? Why didn't anyone think of emptying one or two ships and then have them do a suicide FTL-jump, that was my first thought when they told us they won't escape and can only run and die.

Still undecided on Luke Skywalker's 2nd tumble with the dark side, on the one hand Luke Skywalker doesn't contemplate murdering his nephew in his sleep, he's not fucking Darth Sidious. On the other just because you resisted temptation once when you're a kid it doesn't make you immune for the rest of your life and incapable of any wrongdoing.

 

Movie was bad.

I went out with friends to see it, so that was okay but if going on my own I'd have preferred to stay home and read spoilers.

 

Is it a fun time that doesn't require your brain to be turned on? Yeah. Visually, it's amazing.

But this doesn't sweep away the fact that this is a sub-par movie and a sub-par STAR WARS movie. I hated watching this, with its random nonsense - and if you can make me say 'That's fucking stupid' in a god damn Star Wars film, something is messed up.

I didn't enjoy this one bit. The one good part was the warp drive visual. The rest is a steaming pile of garbage.

 

Well, I liked it.

 

So I saw it last night and I have mixed feelings. There were things I liked a lot and things I didn't like at all, but overall, I think it was mostly a positive experience to me. Like, I didn't regret seeing it, I never was really bored, even though I rolled my eyes a few times and had instances where I had to exchange a suffering look with my mate, when seeing something particularly dumb.

I liked it a lot more than Rogue One, that's for sure but then again, all the prequel movies were better than Rogue One, so not a high bar to clear.

The movie definitely did have problems but Rey being a "Mary-Sue" wasn't one of them. As with most times, that term is thrown out a bit too easily for female characters and I honestly doubt that most people using that term would have applied it to Rey had everything been exactly the same but her gender.

It just didn't really feel like Star Wars at times, not the way TFA did. I think in that regard, TFA was the better Star Wars experience.

Well, to the more indepth stuff:

Spoiler

- I think one of my biggest problems though, that I have a bit of a hard time understanding the state of the galaxy at the moment and who exactly each faction is and how many factions there even are, because both new movies really did a bad job at explaining things.

Who exactly is who? There is the Republic but that one was destroyed in the last movie, kinda, but do they have nothing else left? Then is the First Order the new faction that has absorbed the old Empire bits or is it a different entity from them? I would think the former but honestly, the first movie kinda implied that the First Order and the Empire Remnants are different things. Also, why is the Resistance so ill-equipped? Did nothing from the Rebellion/Republic remain? Weren't they kinda in control for a good while? Why and how is the First Order so massive?

And why was the movie behaving as if the First Order was constantly winning? Sure, the Resistance lost a good portion of their fleet and the Republic planets, but their fleet was nothing to write home about anyway, about a dozen ships if you counted the bombers, but hell, the First Order lost 2 of their dreadnoughts, one massive fleet with more than a few star destroyers, their starkiller base and the fleet around that and their supreme leader.

Since I don't know the scale of anything, I can't tell if these losses have been devastating or something not even worth mentioning. Was this a "darn, lost two dreadnoughts. Oh well, let's roll out our other 60" moment or a " FUCK! SHIT! FUCK! WE LOST 2 OF OUR 3 BIGGEST SHIPS!" moment? It could be either one, seeing the potentially unlimited resources and manpower the First Order seems to have.

At the same time, whenever we see a planet that isn't any empty battlefield, the people on that planet never really seem to give a shit about what is going on one way or another. So what's the deal there? Are the people of the galaxy so jaded about the Rebellion/Empire conflict that they are so done with it that they are just living their life and hope they won't get hit? Who is in control of what?

I don't know and honestly, I doubt even the movie knows. All I got is that the Resistance lost a good portion of their people, maybe, but they have allies sorta waiting and the way these movies treat these kinda things, those allies could be anything from a full-fledged fleet of destroyers to a few junk ships with misfits and cast-outs.

Say what you will about the Prequels, but they did give the GFFA a tangible feeling of scale and life. We saw how things worked there, we understood how different kinds of people lived in different places in the galaxy. We knew who was what. Sure, people joke about the taxation and border politic stuff, but honestly, at least it gave us something. I kinda knew how people on various planets lived and felt about the state of the galaxy as it was, whereas I have really no clue whatsoever about anything in these movies, except that the First Order is evil.

- And while TFA was way worse in the sense of how it used time, this one also had moments where the timeline was questionable, to say the least. The excursion to the gambling planet, while I appreciated the message they were going for and I did actually kinda like that, the gambling stuff itself was rather meh, it didn't really feel Star Wars-y. It was just a 20s-30s casino with an alien paintjob, which was disappointing.

- The movie's humor was a bit obnoxious as well. Most of the shoehorned in plushies can die in a fire, as can the humor that came with them. I could tolerate those ice pokemon on the last planet but those furbies which you can no doubt buy for 9,99€ at some point with Chewbacca were just obnoxious and broke the illusion for me whenever we saw them. That one weird alien pushing coins into BB8 was just dumb, for example. In general it seemed to me there were a few inappropriate for Star Wars moments in it, but then i remembered the things Jar Jar and R2 did in the prequels so never mind.

- I too feel that Luke got a bit shafted and I can see why Mark Hamill would hated these things. I have a really hard time believing, that even for split second emotional reaction, that Luke Skywalker would have considered decapitating his sleeping nephew who at that point hadn't done anything yet. Luke wasn't really supposed to be jaded at that point. He was willing to give his father a chance in the face of the Emperor and I have a lot of trouble that he would even consider walking up to his sleeping nephew with his lightsaber on his person, let alone draw it "in a moment of weakness".

What I would have believed is that after the Kylo debacle, that Luke would have been tempted to kill Rey, sensing the same darkness potential in her that he saw in Ben before he turned. That at that point, a Luke who lost his faith, sense of self and was plagued with doubt and guilt, would be tempted to do such a heinous thing. And that Rey would wake up, and see him doing that and would have served as a similar point of her hero falling from the pedestal, only it would have made more sense, imo.

But not a Luke who at this point was by all intent at a good point in his life with a new jedi order on the rise, the galaxy seeming okay, his family being okay and all, that that Luke would even for a second have the notion that killing a sleeping family member is something he should do.

- Similar to the factions thing, I think I would have liked to know a bit more on Snoke. I guess that we didn't really need to know anything more than that he was basically the Emperor for all intents and purposes but I dunno, I felt he fell short of that. The Emperor was initially like Sauron, in that even as barely as he appeared in the first movies, he cast a long shadow on the Empire and we felt that it was his will and influence that drove things, that behind Vader was an even bigger threat. Didn't really have that with Snoke.

- Rey being a nobody. Don't know how fair that complaint is, since it is mostly because I had liked the idea that she would be a Kenobi. I do like the concept that it is the Skywalkers fucking things up/fixing things in the galaxy and Rey having been someone completely unconnected to that was a bit weird. Like, I got what they wanted from that, and fair enough, but I felt a bit let down.

Things that I did like:

- I quite liked the characters. I like the new characters Finn, Rey, Poe, Kylo and Rose. Didn't really care much for the hacker guy. That whole side-quest thing and resolution with him was just meh. I liked the Vice-Admiral and the lesson/conflict she had with Poe. That clash of vastly different viewpoints and the lesson that there is a time and place for everything and that you can't solve everything with grand actions and risky gambles was actually nicely done and I appreciated it.

-The old guard was really great to see again. The robots didn't get a lot to do and I am honestly disappointed with how they used Chewbacca as he seems to have resigned himself to just be a follower. I had hoped he would take charge at some point, like he would tell Rey and others what to do in certain situations but he wasn't really active. I guess him not being able to talk English/basic is kinda the reason but dunno. Luke and Leia were of course great and had such a great presence that they always stole the show. Their scene together was great. Leia's dynamic with Poe was interesting and compelling, as was the Luke and Rey thing.

The Rey-Kylo dynamic was a bit...difficult. It wasn't bad, it just was, I found the change that Rey underwent with regards to her opnion on Kylo a bit unrelatable. She got sympathetic to him a bit too fast, for not good enough of a reason. Sure, redemption is a good thing to seek and probably the reason why Rey got so force chosen to begin with, being the thing that Luke is no longer, but at the same time, I felt a familial connection would have gone a long way to explain that better. Like, if they had gone with the Jaina-Jacen thing in the books, or even the family relationship to the Kenobi's or something else. I dunno, it wasn't terrible but for Rey it felt a bit like too fast of a jump, from "you're scum" to "we all make mistakes and it is not too late for you". I get that she had a vision but come on.

I also quite liked the Rosa and Finn team-up. It was interrupted by a bit of a lame humor at times but the perspectives they shared were interesting enough. And not going to lie, i really liked Rose's sister and was rather sad she died, would have loved to see more of her.

- maybe a bit childish but I really loved that they finally used the activating/deactivating mechanism meaningfully in a fight. That was pretty neat to see. And while I think TFA had the best lightsaber battle scene in the whole star wars franchise, the battle against the Imperial Guards was a pretty good one. The lightsaber fights all around are handled excellently so far, in both movies. A lot more visceral and brutal than the jumping around in prequels but also more impactful and exciting to watch than the OT, where it was always more of just a conversation between the characters. Which wasn't bad or anything but the new ones were that as well on top of exciting and raw fights.

That said, weird that Kylo forgot his ability to freeze enemies/things in place, but maybe he was too emotionally torn to use his fancier force powers.

- Luke being all badass. Every AT-AT unloading on him and him just walking out, completely unphased was such an anime moment, that I kinda loved it, cheesy as it was. The twist there, that Luke was projecting from his backwater planet, was rather interesting. The force in general is used rather differently all around.

- I actually liked the Yoda scene, was a great moment and when i first saw him, I was prepared to hate it but honestly, really good use of the character. He didn't look horrible either.

- the space battles were fun enough.

-Luke dying was a bittersweet moment and I expected to have a stronger emotional reaction but I was kinda alright with it, the way it was done.

That's as much as I remember right now, probably some other things that I might recall later on. But yeah, overall, I didn't love it but nor did I hate it. It had its many, many flaws but it also did a lot of things well, so, overall sitting on a more pleasant experience than a bad and boring one like Rogue One but I can't deny that I was somewhat disappointed despite going in there with the expectation that it would be horrible. Apparently I didn't, and believed deep down it would be amazing.

 

That's bullshit.

--- Post automerged ---

Spoiler

Btw, does anyone have any idea what that Evil Dark Hole on the island was supposed to be? And what the fuck was up with the conga line of Reys snapping fingers? Did I miss something important there?

 

Spoiler

Not definitively, but the island is the first Jedi temple, by my understanding, and had that mosaic that was like a fountain, which looked a little like a yin/yang symbol to me, so I assume that the pool Rey fell in was something like a Sith temple? Hinting at a time when they were perhaps more different points of view rather than directly opposed groups?
As for the queue of Rey, I took that simply as weird-ass Force vision shenanigans, which personally I'm OK with, but as with so much of the film, YMMV.

 

@ScottPress I mean Nemrut is not wrong. Gary-Stu is the term if Rey was male...

Seriously though, people have problems now with Luke being able to combat Vader so quickly in Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi
and consider it a plothole.

The Prequels and books gave us power levels and a power scale. For a character to immediately show up and be able to fight on the level of someone who had trained their whole life...yeah it was messed up.

That said, I noticed in the fight in the throne room, Kylo did a much better job against the red guards than Rey did. He took out several compared to Rey's one.

The fight in Force Awakens made it clear Kylo was severely injured by Chewie's bowcaster shot. So, in regards to power levels, its not that insane of a jump. Kylo is stronger than Rey imo.

Its the other things which make Rey a Mary Sue. How other characters react to her and such...

 

Just saw it.

Things I enjoyed:

- The direction they took with Luke, Rey and Kylo Ren in terms of characterisation.

- The more spiritual/mystical depiction of the Force compared to a lot of the (now discarded) EU, which still significantly influences how the fandom views the force. To me the EU version of the Force felt too much like video game mechanics.

- Spectacular visuals and music.

- Awesome "Luke arrives to save the day" moment that I've been waiting for. Especially when the smoke cleared from the guns and he was still there. Though somewhat undermined by the later revelation that it was a trick.

- The fact that Rey is not neatly tied into the previously established Star Wars elements and is just genuinely some random person.

- The small glimpse we got of the wider galaxy at the casino.

Things I did not enjoy:

- The pacing was odd. It seemed to have multiple climaxes. That resulted in a lot of fun action but it gave the film an odd sense of momentum. It also meant that the actual ending was somewhat overshadowed by the more significant pre-climaxes which had preceded it.

- Snoke's origin and how that fits into Sideous/the Jedi order during the Republic remains a mystery.

- As with TFA, the galaxy lacks a real sense of geography/travel time.

- Luke's "disappearing act" seems pointless. If the end result is that he becomes a Force ghost either way, then why not just have him be physically at the scene and die there? The two situations seem functionally identical, and therefore the simpler version should have won out when plotting.

- Luke's disappearing act seems unjustified. He's at peace so he disappears? That doesn't make so much sense for someone who is still well within the natural lifespan of his species.

- Bit of a Checkov's gun moment with Luke's X-Wing which was under water. It recalled ESB Yoda bringing it out of the swamp and Luke raising it out of the water would have been a neat way of demonstrating how he is now the Master.

 

In the end I care about Luke Skywalker more than anyone else, and now that he's gone I'm not really invested in any of the others.