Board 8 > General Star Wars/The Last Jedi Topic 5: The Chinese Strikes Back [spoilers]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, the show is good, the movie was awful.
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AquaArcane posted...

You should head on over to the Star Wars board, you'll fit in well there

Nah he likes 8 over 2
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AquaArcane posted...

So something about Luke, specifically to the people that thought he was "out of character" or whatever in TLJ, did those people watch Return of the Jedi? He literally force chokes gamorrean guards, wears solid black to symbolize that he's on the edge of the dark side the entire film, and the only reason he beats Vader is by unleashing his rage.

Like yeah, he chose the light at the end, but he was never infallible.

How does any of that stuff line up with him becoming a despairing coward who won't leave an island to help his own family? The whole confrontation with Vader is about persuading him but when he faces Kylo in this movie he doesn't offer a single nudge to the light despite it being spelled out to the audience that the guy is conflicted? Can he not sense that? I just don't see where this defeatist attitude came from, certainly not Return of the Jedi.

https://www.pedestrian.tv/entertainment/last-jedi-mra-fan-edit-women/
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Uh, what? Kylo Ren was clearly not going to come back over to the light, Luke tells Leia he can't save him. Because he can't. Just the sight of Luke's image is enough to send Kylo spiraling further into darkness. You can see his face getting more distorted at the end because of the dark side swelling up in him. I'm thinking he might have the yellow eyes in the next movie.

I mean, Kylo Ren was so blinded by his rage he didn't even realize Luke was using the lightsaber that he just destroyed 20 minutes ago. There was nothing Luke could have said to make things better.
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Bane_Of_Despair posted...

https://www.pedestrian.tv/entertainment/last-jedi-mra-fan-edit-women/

We live in the most aggressively ridiculous timeline.

God damn if that's not one of the most truest things I've ever read
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Well I guess he shouldn't have even bothered then since he clearly only made things worse. Kylo had spared Leia and saved Rey earlier in the movie, they should have gone out to meet him.

The point wasn't to save him, he was too far gone. Rey was misguided in thinking she could turn him, he was set on destroying the past. He only saved Rey because he believed he could turn her to his side, and took the opportunity to dispose of his true enemy. Which is what Sith have always done, kill your master and take their place.

Luke's mission was to renew the spark of hope by facing down the First Order. Restoring the legend restored hope. The Rebellion has been reborn. All that jazz.

Rey and Leia walking out to meet him wouldn't have changed anything either. Kylo tells Luke he'll destroy the girl as well, he doesn't care anymore.
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Seginustemple posted...

Well I guess he shouldn't have even bothered then since he clearly only made things worse

Yeah he should've just exiled himself somewhere no one could find him
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They should've just not made any more Star Wars movies

Honestly I can't blame Rian too much, he inherited a lot of problems from TFA and there weren't many ways to go with Luke's character based on what he was given. Not sure how to feel about J.J. coming back for IX

You know you don't have to watch the movies.

I'm super happy that Disney got the rights to Star Wars, I was happy about it from the start. I don't think there will ever be too much Star Wars for me, like seriously. There's sooo much to explore in that universe, and I simply love being a part of it.
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Ah as long as they come out around the holidays I'll end up seeing them with the family. But shit you know what Leia always said, hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you can see it you'll never make it through the night - I remain optimistic we can get one decent film out of this trilogy!

We've actually gotten two incredible movies already, plus the fantastic side movie

Maybe you just need better taste
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Was there ever any indication that Snoke was possibly a new alias for an established character, or was that just a fanbase run amok?
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Jakyl25 posted...

Was there ever any indication that Snoke was possibly a new alias for an established character, or was that just a fanbase run amok?

Fanbase.
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Just got back from my third watch. Roommates came. What a lovely thing it is to have two eager and happy perspectives. We spent the ride home talking about what we loved. One of them analyzed it all from a literary perspective (he can't help it -- he, like me, is a writer) and came away with little to critique. I think on rewatches he may spot more quibbles, but they were both very, very enthusiastic about the movie and one of them is a big fan of the franchise.

"Definitely better than 7" was said multiple times. I still like 7 more, but hot damn if 8's "Reyveal" isn't legitimately my favorite plot beat in the franchise. Screw off with your lineages. I got someone I can really effing relate to, and as a 30-year-old man that's pretty cool because it means there are tons of kids out there with abusive/abandoning parents who will get that much more mileage out of it, and crucially.

Keep hope alive, yo. Anyone can be a Jedi. Kids, survive your rough tides and grow up to be your best damn you.
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Anyone being a Jedi was already explained in the PT. Or did we all ignore the many Jedi younglings? (Okay, I cringed as much as Ewan McGregor did when I typed that word)

Being an inspiration for a certain audience shouldn't be the determining factor for making a story. Rey's lineage was already strongly hinted at in VII. Rian "trollmaster" Johnson just said fuck it to every mystery in the previous film.

And I would have been okay with this, if it led to Rey going with Kylo and things going all grey and uncertain heading into the next film. But even that trigger wasn't pulled.
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Pokewars posted...

Rey's lineage was already strongly hinted at in VII

Yes, there were strong hints that her parents were no one special. You just missed it because you're bad at reading a children's movie. That is the crux of your disappointment.
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Pokewars posted...

Anyone being a Jedi was already explained in the PT. Or did we all ignore the many Jedi younglings? (Okay, I cringed as much as Ewan McGregor did when I typed that word)

Anyone as long as you apply by a certain age and meet the requirements to be deemed worthy of being taught by a council of old people
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foolm0r0n posted...

Yes, there were strong hints that her parents were no one special.

oh yeah like that flashback where they splice Alec Guinness' voice to call her name and butthole eyes tells her "this was luke's lightsaber and his fathers before his and now it calls out to you"

it's so clear in hindsight

In that same vision, young Rey is watching a spaceship fly away, yelling at them to come back. I don't know how you can get more obvious than that.

Face it, ya'll haters are just blind because you didn't get your way.
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Jakyl25 posted...

Pokewars posted...

Anyone being a Jedi was already explained in the PT. Or did we all ignore the many Jedi younglings? (Okay, I cringed as much as Ewan McGregor did when I typed that word)

Anyone as long as you apply by a certain age and meet the requirements to be deemed worthy of being taught by a council of old people

This is a problem with the PT that I actually didn't realize until very recently, but it was really dumb to the Jedi Temple on a giant city planet.

It's funny how Knights of the Old Republic kinda had it right, to feed into the mysticism of the Jedi, by putting a Jedi Temple on essentially a farm planet. This isolated location away from modern society.
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KotOR had a lot of things right. I would kill for a movie in that era. I'm holding on to hope.
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In fact, the storyline of Malak and Revan breaking off to fight in the Mandalorian Wars should have been how they handled Obi-Wan and Anakin going off to fight in the Clone Wars. That these two Jedi (and maybe a handful of others) broke away from the Order to fight in these wars, against the wishes of the Jedi Council. And that would actually be more interesting than "we now have an army and all the Jedi are generals by default."
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TheRock1525 posted...

This is a problem with the PT that I actually didn't realize until very recently, but it was really dumb to the Jedi Temple on a giant city planet.

In hindsight isnt that just part of the self-righteous hubris Luke was referring to?

They had taken a spiritual way of life and turned it into spiritual law enforcement
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TheRock1525 posted...

In fact, the storyline of Malak and Revan breaking off to fight in the Mandalorian Wars should have been how they handled Obi-Wan and Anakin going off to fight in the Clone Wars. That these two Jedi (and maybe a handful of others) broke away from the Order to fight in these wars, against the wishes of the Jedi Council. And that would actually be more interesting than "we now have an army and all the Jedi are generals by default."

We could go on for hours about how to make the prequels good.

Like how the clones shouldn't have just been regular soldiers, they should have been the enemy or something more interesting.
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Having a 4-year old nephew who is interested in Star Wars, its really crappy in hindsight that Stormtroopers are good guys in stuff set in the prequel era and they look exactly the same as all the media where theyre bad guys.

Its confusing for him
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Seginustemple posted...

it's so clear in hindsight

It's clear that you were deceived by a children's movie, I'm not denying that

But you're definitely not alone... I remember having to argue a lot in the TFA topics about how it was explicitly made obvious in that movie that Rey's parents are not any major character and probably not even jedis.
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I mean, they're only the good guys for roughly 3/4ths of a movie (last quarter of AotC, first half of RotS).
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TheRock1525 posted...

I mean, they're only the good guys for roughly 3/4ths of a movie (last quarter of AotC, first half of RotS).

He found one of the animated series on Netflix where theyre good guys
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foolm0r0n posted...

Seginustemple posted...

it's so clear in hindsight

It's clear that you were deceived by a children's movie, I'm not denying that

But you're definitely not alone... I remember having to argue a lot in the TFA topics about how it was explicitly made obvious in that movie that Rey's parents are not any major character and probably not even jedis.

I'm of the mindset that they probably could have been under a different writer/director. Rian even said that JJ had no idea how to resolve all these plotlines, so it's not like it was a guarantee they'd be no one.

Hell, a different director probably could have made Snoke Plagues or whatever.
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TheRock1525 posted...

I mean, they're only the good guys for roughly 3/4ths of a movie (last quarter of AotC, first half of RotS).

Unless you watch the show (which I assume a lot of kids do), where they are fleshed out immensely. I actually enjoyed that a lot, but still... they never should have been good guys in the first place.
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Jakyl25 posted...

TheRock1525 posted...

I mean, they're only the good guys for roughly 3/4ths of a movie (last quarter of AotC, first half of RotS).

He found one of the animated series on Netflix where theyre good guys

Ooooooh. Yeah, that's like a lot of episodes of them being the good guys.
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Rey being nobody was the best route they could have gone but you'd have to be deliberately obtuse to not see the mixed messages there. Or just regularly obtuse

Of course there were mixed messages, they wanted people to speculate and create buzz.

I doubt they had any idea it would cause the biggest wave of ridiculous entitlement in any fanbase ever, but go figure.
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TheRock1525 posted...

I'm of the mindset that they probably could have been under a different writer/director.

They intentionally left a lot of things open enough for the next director to have a lot of things to work with

But there was no way Rey would be related to Luke or Kylo, those options were taken off the table in 7
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Also the thing I've found most stunning about the hate towards the movie is the reaction to Rey and Luke's mini fight

Rey attacks him from behind, then they have a very quick fight that LUKE WINS EASILY, then she grabs the lightsaber which obviously beats a fucking pole

But all that is to a lot of people is evidence that Rey is "OP". The movie went out of its way to show her being clearly outmatched in combat when facing Luke (and Snoke, and then she struggled with faceless mooks). But no, because she advanced on an unarmed Luke with a lightsaber, she's overpowered.

Like I know these people being myopic is not a shock but she actually fucking lost this time, in like 15 seconds. It was bad enough after TFA, even two years after TFA, when you had people complaining about her beating Ren when the movie went out of its way to show Ren taking a bunch of hits beforehand, looking to capture and not kill, and being an emotional wreck during the fight. But this is actually worse!
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What?! People complain about Rey vs Luke? Well that shouldn't be surprising actually, but my god.

And that was an extremely out of practice Luke as well. He had just reconnected himself to the Force prior to their little skirmish and he still had no problem disarming her with a damn lightning antenna.
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Star Wars is rapidly turning into one of the worst fanbases around.
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There's a very clear shot of Luke's hand when he "loses" that, to me, says he was prepared to bust out the Force to stop her if she was going to kill him, but he saw she wasn't so he held back.
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Oh it long passed that benchmark

Why can't people just like things anymore
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Xiahou Shake posted...

There's a very clear shot of Luke's hand when he "loses" that, to me, says he was prepared to bust out the Force to stop her if she was going to kill him, but he saw she wasn't so he held back.

It was showing him using the Force to cushion his fall, but you could still interpret that he was ready to defend himself. I like that.
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Luke would have just shot lightsabers from his eyes
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LinkMarioSamus posted...

Star Wars is rapidly turning into one of the worst fanbases around.

I wonder if this is what our parents had to deal with back during the originals
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Luke with just a few years of training walloped a man BORN FROM MIDICHLORIANS
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foolm0r0n posted...

Pokewars posted...

Rey's lineage was already strongly hinted at in VII

Yes, there were strong hints that her parents were no one special. You just missed it because you're bad at reading a children's movie. That is the crux of your disappointment.

And you're bad at reading....in general. My last paragraph said I would have been fine with her parents being nobodies if it led to more than just the characters ending up at the same situation they were in at the beginning of the film.

And a movie that has an uncle contemplating killing his nephew, people kamikazing into a space fleet killing thousands does not a "children's" movie make. Children being able to enjoy a movie doesn't automatically make it a children's movie. But maybe it's easier to portray it as such so you can just hand-wave the problems with a film.
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I don't care about your last paragraph, I was responding the part that I quoted, with the overall point that maybe you're not reading these movies very well and you're missing important things that lead you to your disappointment. Some of it is definitely the movie's fault since Rian sucks at directing, but not the things you're complaining about.
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Pokewars posted...

contemplating killing his nephew

This is what aggravates me about the complainers, because the movie blatantly shows you that it's just a fleeting impulse. He doesn't even contemplate it. He regrets it immediately.

Also it's not a children's movie, it's an everybody movie. Star Wars is made for everyone. Not you, not me, not the nerds, not the kids, not the niche group of people who just want dark and gritty things. It has to appeal to the widest audience possible. So you can complain all you want that you didn't get your way, but everyone else did.
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Poor choice of word then on my part, but it's semantics. I obviously didn't mean "he thought for a long time" about killing his nephew. And missing the point entirely, which was to show this series can be dark and not suitable for kids at times.

And it's a stretch to say everyone else got their way when this has the lowest audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for a Star Wars film. Obviously a sizable chunk of the fanbase was disappointed.
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Another "easter egg" video, this time about the score

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY_w6rOmRiA
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