Current Events > Why I really enjoyed Last Jedi despite some problems *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Problem 1 - Subplot of Poe/Rose/Finn starting a mutiny, going to a casino, etc. etc.

Problem 2 - Snoke being an abject failure of a "leader" compared to Palpatine, though you can explain some of it away

Beyond these two issues, I really feel like the movie is fantastic in a number of ways.

I love how the movie focuses so much on a meta commentary on how we expect/want "heroes", and that often in a war the most heroic thing to do is not to die for the sake of winning a clash, but to retreat and live through all the shit to win the war. I THINK that is what we were supposed to get from Problem 1, but they did it quite clumsily and it took the wind out of the sails of the film in a number of ways. You could have basically done the same without them having to go to the casino and do any of that shit. Just have Poe trying to subvert what's her name and incite a revolution with Rose and Finn throughout the film. It leads to the same conclusion (Poe taking over) without all that other shit. We would have met a few other Resistance members and could have even introduced Del Toro's character through that.

Snoke being punked out I feel like was just to show that regardless of him not being a "Sith", that those who use the Dark Side end up being blinded by their own arrogance. He was EXCEPTIONALLY powerful with the Dark Side but was not a Sith. He used the Force to manipulate events. Hell, I assume even Kylo Ren has now realized that Snoke played a vital role in what happened between himself and Luke. I'm not even sure Kylo decided to kill Snoke until he found that he and Rey could run the universe together. Snoke is killed by someone just doing his scheming better than him.

I loved everything to do with Luke. I know this is kinda contentious, but this is how I see it. The only real father figures Luke has ever had have basically failed and have pushed themselves away from the world in their failure. He is raised by his Uncle and Aunt who basically push him to be a nobody. He meets Obi-Wan whose first action as a father figure is to lie to him (from a certain point of view) and then abandon the cause and allow himself to die. Arguably that was a better move for him at that point (I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine) in his life, thus why Luke chooses the same at the end.

He then meets up with Yoda, who literally abandoned the galaxy due to his failure. He goes to live somewhere with so much life and force that it masks his presence. Yoda then dies, again probably because his abilities as a Force Ghost are more useful than his ongoing existence in a physical sense. The events of ROTJ happen and we are led to believe a big 'ol happy ending takes place for Luke. He turns his father back to the ways of the Jedi, they destroy the DS2 and Emperor Palpatine, AWESOME!

Only... the Empire is not really gone. Sure there is a power vacuum, but the fight against evil doesn't stop. So, he has a brief moment of clarity and happiness, and then goes right back into battle. But, not only does he have to battle for the Rebellion and the New Republic, but also to try and bring back the Jedi, which is a group as a whole he doesn't REALLY know and doesn't have as much respect for as the viewer thinks he should. He goes around finding a bunch of old relics, helps the New Republic and eventually establishes his own Jedi Temple.

What is crucial to realize is that he wasn't raised in a temple. He found some relics sure, but he has NO IDEA how to really establish a Temple. He doesn't know how to be a Master, how to raise an Apprentice, and a key point, he doesn't know how to be a father figure. You can argue that a Master shouldn't be and that is against the teachings of the Jedi anyways, but it is key to his story line. The father figures he has had are kinda garbage. All Luke Skywalker knows is how to be a hell of a powerful Jedi and whatever he found in those 6000+ year old texts.

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Fast forward to his time in the Temple, and what we know of it. He tries to raise some students, feels a deep seated evil within Ben Solo, and in a brief moment of weakness he almost gives in to his FEAR and resolves himself to kill him. He stops himself, but by this moment Ben has seen his most recent father figure (assuming from the sounds of it that Han was not really around) looking like he was gonna kill him. I have a theory that all of this was done by Snoke, as we have seen he is exceptionally powerful with this aspect of the Force, and Luke was always a little susceptible to being given dreams and suggestions. Again, he was not really taught about ANY of this, and I assume in the Jedi text he found there was not really much said about this... again, the hubris of the Jedi just assuming they were stronger and more "in the right". This sort of reflects the failures the Jedi teachings had for Anakin. Anakin was basically mind fucked by Palpatine into being turned, the fear of losing someone so precious to him forcing him to turn to the Dark Side. (If we are "keeping score", Luke has now committed the same "mistakes" as Anakin, though he caught himself before actually turning to the Dark Side)

Ben Solo is turned by Snoke, and Luke blames himself. Luke again commits the same mistakes as one of his mentors, this time turning his back on the galaxy to atone/pay for his failure (like Yoda). He then turns himself off completely from the Force to mask his presence, as he doesn't want anyone to drag him back to all this. Yoda just found some backwoods place that naturally masked his presence. Luke then stews in his failures and realizes that the Jedi have always had this innate failure, in a way. They always ended up allowing the Dark Side to return, based purely on the fact (in his opinion) that their teachings are wrong, their hubris was a counter-balance to that same arrogance the Dark Side has, and that the only way for this cycle to stop is for the Jedi to end. He comes to the conclusion that the Force will always "be there", and it is time for the Force to kinda imbue itself into a new generation, a new group of people who can decide how to best utilize it. Notice how his first lesson he gives to Rey has nothing to do with "Jedi teaching", but rather about the nature of the Force itself. The Force has a light side and a dark side, there is no light without shadow. This is echoed in the fact that Snoke himself is not a Sith, but just someone who utilizes the Force for nefarious purposes. He never once calls himself a Sith lord, he never once calls Kylo Ren a Sith, does not enforce the title of "Darth". The Sith are gone, and Luke is hoping that the Jedi will also be gone.

The rest of the film happens where we find that Luke will not come back to the fight. People have a complaint about this, but quite frankly it is what Luke has been taught to do by the only masters he has ever had. Yoda abandoned the fight. Obi-Wan left to watch over Luke instead of fighting the Empire. Yoda Ghost reminds him of the fact that we learn from our failures more than our success, and even though the texts are gone from the tree anyways (Rey stole them), he burns down the tree, signifying that even he realizes that the Order of the Jedi needs to be changed.

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Rather than fight directly (and die) to the First Order to give them a rallying cry, the last act Luke does as a living person is to basically make the new Supreme Commander look like a fool infront of his army. He stalls for time to allow the pinned down Resistance a chance to escape, while never once putting himself in any jeopardy. To most of the universe, Luke Skywalker showed up out of the blue, fought Kylo Ren and was never even touched by him. He held back The First Order, saved the Resistance, and then disappeared. Oddly enough, Luke Skywalker, the man who realized how ridiculous it was to be "a legend", realized his worth as that same legend and allowed his legacy to be a beacon onto others. Thus the reason the film ends with those kids telling stories about Luke Skywalker standing up to the First Order. He passes into the Force itself, to become to Rey what Obi-Wan was to him.

I know a lot of people are pissed off that Luke didn't get a proper send off, but it felt actually really appropriate to the kind of life he led, the kind of people who influenced him, and a proper send off to the Jedi Order as a whole.
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Finally, I found somebody who has pretty much the same outlook on the movie that I do.

1. The casino world side story was obviously just an excuse to give two of their main characters something to do. It sucks, but the story kind of made it necessary.

2. I thought Snoke could have been far better used/developed, but we still have a 3rd movie to go. We might learn more about him posthumously.

3. The whole "lightspeed battering ram" thing really bothered me. I vaguely remember there being an established reason why that could not/would not work. It might have been in one of the Expanded Universe books, but it still should have been carried over. If that was an option, why the hell did they need Luke Skywalker at all in New Hope...just empty a couple Mon Calamari cruisers and kamikaze jump them into the Death Star
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I am assuming that it has something to do with relative size and proximity.

Notice how she had to turn the ship and get REALLY close to Snoke's capital ship before it worked. My assumption is that after a few seconds you enter into Hyperspace and thus you don't impact items in regular space anymore. So you need to be close in order to make that work.
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It was expanded universe but they said that objects cast a shadow in hyperspace and colliding with those shadows is what fucks you up. Movie canon however it's never really established.
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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

My assumption is that after a few seconds you enter into Hyperspace and thus you don't impact items in regular space anymore.

nope

point x in hyperspace coincides with a definite point y in real space

edit: by which i mean yes, by current canon you'd hit things in real space even if you were in hyperspace
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Tag for later discussion.
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Maybe the point of Space Monaco was to show us the force sensitive kid?
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Space Monaco just seemed to me to be them having to have Finn do something. Seems Rian Johnson just really needed to get Finn over to the other ship to face off against Phasma. I hope/assume she is still alive.
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einegutePerson posted...

Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

My assumption is that after a few seconds you enter into Hyperspace and thus you don't impact items in regular space anymore.

nope

point x in hyperspace coincides with a definite point y in real space

edit: by which i mean yes, by current canon you'd hit things in real space even if you were in hyperspace

Back in Episode 4, Han did say that if your headings weren't exact, you could warp right into an asteroid field or bounce too close to a supernova, so it would seem that you are still impacted/impacting regular space.
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Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

einegutePerson posted...

Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

My assumption is that after a few seconds you enter into Hyperspace and thus you don't impact items in regular space anymore.

nope

point x in hyperspace coincides with a definite point y in real space

edit: by which i mean yes, by current canon you'd hit things in real space even if you were in hyperspace

Back in Episode 4, Han did say that if your headings weren't exact, you could warp right into an asteroid field or bounce too close to a supernova, so it would seem that you are still impacted/impacting regular space.

exactly

the idea is that your hyperspace navicom thing will bring you out of hyperspace if you get close to a gravitational mass

you can override things to shorten trips, like Han Solo does for his famous "kessel run"
but you run the danger of running into shit
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Canto Bight was world building for the plot. Gives you the face and how people are living up making all this money on death.

FO gets rearmed because of the people on Canto Bight, people get a explaination about how the FO got armed in the first place.

Second thing it is used for is the focus on the slaves at the end. Showing you that hope as returned to the galaxy. The kids reenacting Lukes stand against the FO is supposed to show you that Lukes sacrificed lit the spark of hope in the galaxy and that the fire is spreading. Also the force sensitive child for a future Jedi generation.
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