Last Jedi is bad *Spoilers*

[TheSithChicken]

My question comes in like this: how much combat training or practical fighting experience did Luke have growing up?  It seems implied that Rey spent a lot of time defending herself on Jakku, being alone, while Luke grew up with a family and probably didn't spend a lot of time fighting off Tusken Raiders with melee combat skills.

The question is meaningless. School of hard knocks training with a staff would not at all translate to mastering a weightless blade that can remove one your one limbs with a careless swing. Not even close in discipline, muscle memory, or technique. Take this from someone who has studied melee combat his entire life.

[Nostalgia]

Also, if you give your heroine all the skills she needs to be good at the movie from her backstory, that's bad writing.  ::)

[Zelta Runa]

Eh, the writers don't seem to care how much training Rey gets so why should I?

I'm more bothered by the First Order. Who the hell are they? Where do they get the resources to build a planet-sized solar-system-murdering machine, or a spaceship the size of 15 Star Destroyers? It made sense for the Empire to do that stuff because they were a large-scale galactic government. But who the hell is Snoke? Why is he wearing a gold sequined bathrobe? Did he make his fortune as a galactic pop singer? We know nothing. As far as I can tell, the First Order is just the Empire with even stupider hats.

But my main issue with TLJ is that nothing the characters do means anything. Finn & Rose's whole mission to the casino planet ends up being pointless and actually results in a net loss to the Rebel Alliance Resistance. The one time Finn tries to do something meaningful, she stops him. Also what the hell was up with his scene at the beginning of the movie? Goodbye, all of his character development from TFA!

[Nostalgia]

RJ seems not to believe in character development in a traditional sense.

Like in the hollywood movie model of storytelling, you have a problem, you have experiences, you change, you're different.

In eastern literature or TV, you don't "get over" your character flaws, you do them over and over. So Finn is a coward and he's going to need that push over and over just like a normal person.

I like a LOT of this movie. Rose is a much better foil than Poe would have been on that casino trip. Everyone here is a writer, Rey is the new main character.

Luke's options were to revert emotionally, to get nerfed, or to be the main character of the new trilogy.

And one movie overwriting another one... lmao, I mean have you guys seen OT Star Wars before? That's an argument you can dismiss without even talking about. TLJ is a smart movie, but it's also a Star Wars movie about how people should stop worshiping Star Wars, so of course it's contentious with the fans. GOOD. It's okay to have one or two of those.

Rian did this weird meta teardown of the series, JJ is going to have to make a final chapter that:

RECONSTRUCTS to some extent and is a meta-rebuttal to TLJ's cynicism
keeps the new generation cast together (lmao, rey and poe have seriously had one sentence together)
gives finn's story arc a satisfying ending and also resolve this fucking weird rose-finn-rey-kylo love quadrangle
a few other things

he has some work ahead of him, but it's not impossible and star wars isn't ruined. tbh i WANT more stuff like this. even if you hated last jedi, it feels like a Lucas movie (except for the cynicism, which george of course would never do). it doesn't feel like it came from a lab, there are imaginative setpieces, muddled mortality, cool-ass animals, heroes doing NONVIOLENT shit in the climax... I want creators to get in there and do their thing and not be like Star Trek where everybody is intimidated by how the property is "supposed" to be.

so the next movie i want JJ to tweak the setpieces and conflicts of "STAR WARZ" in the same way Rian tweaked the morality and tropes of "STAR WARZ" and for it all to be a good time.

[Zelta Runa]

Calling it "meta" doesn't make it good.

[RubySlippers]

Eh, the writers don't seem to care how much training Rey gets so why should I?

I'm more bothered by the First Order. Who the hell are they? Where do they get the resources to build a planet-sized solar-system-murdering machine, or a spaceship the size of 15 Star Destroyers? It made sense for the Empire to do that stuff because they were a large-scale galactic government. But who the hell is Snoke? Why is he wearing a gold sequined bathrobe? Did he make his fortune as a galactic pop singer? We know nothing. As far as I can tell, the First Order is just the Empire with even stupider hats.

But my main issue with TLJ is that nothing the characters do means anything. Finn & Rose's whole mission to the casino planet ends up being pointless and actually results in a net loss to the Rebel Alliance Resistance. The one time Finn tries to do something meaningful, she stops him. Also what the hell was up with his scene at the beginning of the movie? Goodbye, all of his character development from TFA!

its implied they found planets outside the known space and exploited them Rose had a planet stripped of resources for the First Order and its war machine and its not likely the only one, lets say they found a premium planet like Earth how many ships and recruits and slave labor could they get even if the population was two billion people? I would like to see this more fleshed out but odds are they just found worlds and looted them regardless if they were uninhabited, inhabited or low tech to advanced more they exploited them. Is that so different than the conquest of the New World and colonialism in the real world history.

[Nostalgia]

i don't want 10 posts arguing about STAR WARZ in my post history because I'll feel like a lame-o. But:

- all movies are meta.
- TLJ is the most fresh, mature, surprising SW movie ever.
- the action scenes are surprising, well staged, and cool
- the character development for these characters was vital and pitch perfect even if their setpieces weren't (i mean, canto blight is not important but rose and finn's interactions are)
- luke and his man vs legend conflict is handled perfectly

its not an A+ movie, there are some things (like the lightspeed kamikaze) i would have never done, but it's time for fans to realize there's one all-time standalone classic and a bunch of mixed bags, and TLJ is gonne be one of them.

[Zelta Runa]

its implied they found planets outside the known space and exploited them Rose had a planet stripped of resources for the First Order and its war machine and its not likely the only one, lets say they found a premium planet like Earth how many ships and recruits and slave labor could they get even if the population was two billion people? I would like to see this more fleshed out but odds are they just found worlds and looted them regardless if they were uninhabited, inhabited or low tech to advanced more they exploited them. Is that so different than the conquest of the New World and colonialism in the real world history.

Yeah, but all of that stuff is in the supplementary materials. I hate to paraphrase Mr. Plinkett but I shouldn't have to read a bunch of tie-in novels, comic books or visual dictionaries in order to understand the movies.

It's a minor quibble, but it's not hard to explain stuff like that. The Empire didn't really need explaining, it's right there in the name, but A New Hope still threw in enough lines here and there that we weren't completely lost. But the whole political situation in the new trilogy is murky as hell and they do a terrible job explaining it. And don't throw a bunch of crap at me about the Galactic Concordance and disarmament treaties and blah blah blah. I'm well aware of the explanation behind the Resistance, I'm just annoyed that I had to read three Wookieepedia articles to find it.

Though that's more of a complaint about TFA than TLJ. TFA was enjoyable in spite of its issues.

- all movies are meta.

If all movies are meta, then what's the point of praising TLJ for being "meta"?

- TLJ is the most fresh, mature, surprising SW movie ever.

Why is it "mature"? Because a ton of people died? What was surprising about it? The thing with Kylo Ren? That's nothing new, it's the exact same thing Vader tried to do except Kylo succeeded. The big Luke twist? Whatever. The stuff with Benicio del Toro? Unexpected maybe, but what was the point of any of it?

- the action scenes are surprising, well staged, and cool

Eh. The opening space battle was fine, the fight with Snoke's guards annoyed me because they looked like green-screen stunt doubles except red instead of green (and having everything take place against a completely red backdrop didn't help), and the Crait battle was even more one-sided than Hoth somehow. Also this is the only Star Wars movie without a lightsaber duel (but I'm sure that counts as a cool "meta" subversion, ooh, ahhhh). I liked when Finn fought Phasma but again, that was mostly pointless.

- the character development for these characters was vital and pitch perfect even if their setpieces weren't (i mean, canto blight is not important but rose and finn's interactions are)

I don't feel like Rose and Finn's interactions were important at all. What, because she kissed him at the end? Because she stopped him from doing a single meaningful act BCUZ LUV? I don't see it.

its not an A+ movie, there are some things (like the lightspeed kamikaze) i would have never done

That's a shame because that was one part I really liked.

TLJ left me feeling frustrated. Frustrated that I essentially spent two hours watching the Resistance ride a bus somewhere so they could make a phone call. Frustrated that Leia spent most of it in a coma (yeah, nobody's gonna regret that story decision in hindsight, no sir). Frustrated that the answer to many of the burning questions from TFA was "Who cares?" Frustrated that everything everyone did was largely pointless. Frustrated that the ending left me with zero interest in what happens next. Frustrated that Han is the only original trilogy character whose death is going to have any meaning.

I'm glad you liked it but unfortunately I have to disagree with you.

[Inkidu]

Without any obvious 'two weeks later' kind of cues in Empire, it's foggy as to how long Luke was with Yoda training.  Considering the Milennium Falcon couldn't jump to hyperspace, the journey from the asteroid field in the Hoth system to Cloud City is speculated to have taken anywhere from days to months.  And knowing how Vader pretty much toyed with Luke in their duel, we can safely say whatever Yoda taught him as far as fighting wasn't anywhere near enough to be even at an average Jedi level of expertise.  Luke pretty much fought on instinct backed up by his natural force ability.

My question comes in like this: how much combat training or practical fighting experience did Luke have growing up?  It seems implied that Rey spent a lot of time defending herself on Jakku, being alone, while Luke grew up with a family and probably didn't spend a lot of time fighting off Tusken Raiders with melee combat skills.

See that doesn't track. It's shown that while she could smack some people around with her staff if she had to, her better scenes start her out as a rather promising guile heroine. Then you tack on Chewie-level mechanic, and Han-level piloting skills, and then savant-level force powers makes her rather boring as a character ultimately, because there's no real room for growth.

You'd honestly think Finn would have the better combat training, even when the army handles its own sanitation demands the troopers would still have basic combat experience, and that's further exemplified by Tr8-0R (that guy with the shock stick).

So what we could have had was a guileful scrappy non-traditional Jedi-to-be to play opposite Finn's pacifistic but fairly formally trained prowess, and what we got was a boring invincible female co-protagonist.  That makes me more sad than outraged or anything. I just get the feeling that someone, somewhere either adopted Rey as his creator's pet or (given how TLJ has apparently been directed) was scared to have a female main character who was weak in any way.

[Zelta Runa]

As much as I hate to rehash the whole awful "Rey is a Mary Sue" debate, revealing she was one of Luke's students from the ill-fated Jedi Academy would have solved a lot of that. If she'd had Jedi training at a young age it would make plenty of sense for her to be able to pull of the Jedi mind trick so easily, for example. And it would explain why Kylo Ren seemed so interested in her.

Having her just be a rando from planet garbage throws a wrench in all that. Though for the record I rather like Rey.

[Kazyth]

I'mma just jump in and say that I loved the movie.

The action, the suspense, the story development, all of it.  Rey being the balance for Kylo fits with the way the Force works, in all of my reading of Star Wars books, lore, and the myriad games I have played.

They could have made her a lost padawan, but her rise from nothing is the opposite of Kylo.  He was from a distinguished bloodline, trained by Luke Skywalker himself.

She came from nothing, her parents were nothing, and yet she is naturally gifted in a way that mirrors Kylo's power and ability.

I loved the inspiration that remained in the low points of the Rebellion, and the words of hope at the end.

If I have any complaint at all, it was that Phasma was under-used again.

Otherwise, I suggest folks go see it.

[Inkidu]

She came from nothing, her parents were nothing, and yet she is naturally gifted in a way that mirrors Kylo's power and ability.

Now, I've only seen TFA and I'm sure TLJ has a lot of reveals but if I were reading this sentence after seeing the TFA I'd say:

That's because she is nothing, has had nothing explained about her, and to be honest we're not sure she even has parents. She's a bunch of over-powered skills in the shape of a humanoid character.

I don't think someone vague and ill-explained is a good foil to anyone.

[Zelta Runa]

I actually have to agree with Kazyth on this one. While overall I disliked TLJ and I feel some aspects of Rey were poorly executed, her coming from nothing and being "nobody" (as she says in TFA) actually does make her a very good counterpart to Kylo.

[TheSithChicken]

Question: How the fuck does Kylo Ren know who her parents are? The Force doesn't give you magical genealogical mapping abilities - cause if it does that blows a huge hole in A New Hope.

[Kazyth]

He knows because she knew.

She always knew, but she lied to herself about it.  Their mental connection let them see deeper into each other.

[TheSithChicken]

So... bullshit bad writing handwaving? Gotcha.

[Kazyth]

That’s one way to look at it, I suppose.

Lore-wise, that sort of thing is entirely within the purview of the Force.  Mind reading, mind links, Force Ghosts and Posessions, all of that and more.

[TheSithChicken]

Lore doesn't make up for the fact that it's a lazy writing ass pull so the director doesn't have to actually deal with a story hook left over from the first movie.

[Zelta Runa]

TLJ also leaves open the possibility that Kylo is simply lying.

[Inkidu]

He knows because she knew.

She always knew, but she lied to herself about it.  Their mental connection let them see deeper into each other.

Of course she would always know, heaven forbid she have a real blind spot. >,>

(Yes, now I'm just venting my spleen.)

[mia h]

I think everyone needs to calm down and watch the latest episode of the Librarians, which about an old movie house and the over analytical lead character is told by another character.

"Be normal. Movies aren't meant to be dissected, they're meant to wash over you like a wave until you are totally immersed in the story, swimming in the characters. Can you do that?"

So who needs swimming lessons?   ;D

[TheSithChicken]

I think everyone needs to calm down and watch the latest episode of the Librarians, which about an old movie house and the over analytical lead character is told by another character.

"Be normal. Movies aren't meant to be dissected, they're meant to wash over you like a wave until you are totally immersed in the story, swimming in the characters. Can you do that?"

So who needs swimming lessons?   ;D

All forms of art are meant to be analyzed - especially if its flaws prevent immersion. Also the Librarians is terrible and should never be taken as a source of wisdom or entertainment.

[mia h]

Guess I know who needs a life preserver for Christmas.

Star Wars is aimed at 10 year olds and I'm sure the 10 year old SithChicken would have loved TLJ, you just have to let your inner 10 year old watch the movie and not over analyse everything.

As for The Librarians being terrible????? It's really low budget, it's silly and everyone involved knows it. But instead of shying away from those things, the show leans into them and that makes it work because they aren't taking themselves seriously, again 10 year old SithChicken would love it.

[Zelta Runa]

I have one person telling me TLJ is the most "adult" installment, someone else is saying it's for ten-year-olds. Which is it guys? ::)

Though I feel most ten-year-olds would be bored to tears by TLJ, aside from the X-wing scenes or the Snoke Ninja fight.

[Inkidu]

Guess I know who needs a life preserver for Christmas.

Star Wars is aimed at 10 year olds and I'm sure the 10 year old SithChicken would have loved TLJ, you just have to let your inner 10 year old watch the movie and not over analyse everything.

As for The Librarians being terrible????? It's really low budget, it's silly and everyone involved knows it. But instead of shying away from those things, the show leans into them and that makes it work because they aren't taking themselves seriously, again 10 year old SithChicken would love it.

He's right though, art never suffers in the long run from critical analysis. The problem only really comes when the film in question comes to wash over you, and it ends up breaking over you leaving a bad impact, or worse, no impact.

Is Star Wars meant for ten-year-olds? Sure. Does that protect it from criticism. Obviously not. Winnie the Pooh was also for ten-year-olds and you won't believe the criticism written about that. Hell, I did my bachelor's thesis on The Hobbit and that wasn't meant for adults.

Are there a lot of emotions tied up in Star Wars that feelings get hurt? Definitely. I'm not going to ignore a poorly written character though. It's not because it's Star Wars either. I'd be ripping Rey apart if she showed up in any other form because it's just bad writing, and if it can be established that it's bad writing, then people can learn from it and avoid it.