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Star Wars: The Last Jedi discussion thread(Warning: Spoilers!) (1 Viewer)

Tino

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As JJ Abrams says, reading Rian Johnson's Script and being clueless about the direction, or path of major characters proves the "mystery box" concept. If there was an outline, Abrams would have known before reading Rian's script about their direction from the outline. Outlines hammer home major plot points you know.

What are you not seeing that I am?
Thats a minor characters fate. How do you extrapolate not having a overall plan for the trilogy from that??
 

Bryan^H

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Thats a minor characters fate. How do you extrapolate not having a overall plan for the trilogy from that??
From the same article:

“When I read his first draft, it made me laugh, because I saw that was his take and his voice,” he said. “I got to watch cuts of the movie as he was working on it, as an audience member. And I appreciated the choices he made as a filmmaker that would probably be very different from the choices that I would have made. Just as he would have made different choices if he had made Episode VII … I felt the biggest surprise was how dark Luke was. That was the thing that I thought: ‘Oh, that was unexpected.’ And that’s the thing The Last Jedi undeniably succeeds at, which is constant subversion of expectation. The number of things that happened in that movie that aren’t the thing you think is going to happen is pretty fun.”
 

Tino

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From the same article:

“When I read his first draft, it made me laugh, because I saw that was his take and his voice,” he said. “I got to watch cuts of the movie as he was working on it, as an audience member. And I appreciated the choices he made as a filmmaker that would probably be very different from the choices that I would have made. Just as he would have made different choices if he had made Episode VII … I felt the biggest surprise was how dark Luke was. That was the thing that I thought: ‘Oh, that was unexpected.’ And that’s the thing The Last Jedi undeniably succeeds at, which is constant subversion of expectation. The number of things that happened in that movie that aren’t the thing you think is going to happen is pretty fun.”
Yeah....and? My point still stands. :)
 

Bryan^H

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Yeah....and? My point still stands. :)

That is fine.

I find JJ being "surprised" reading Rian's script enough proof that these were written and made completely independent of an overall outline.
But again, whatever. The only think that matters is the finished movie, and I was extremely satisfied with TLJ.
 

Tino

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I find JJ being "surprised" reading Rian's script enough proof that these were written and made completely independent of an overall outline.
I don’t. I see it as the individual directors and writers given some room to work within the overall plan.
 

Tino

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Kathleen Kennedy



“Well, first of all, when we sat down to do Force Awakens we spent a great deal of time working out all three movies and doing a real deep dive on the previous six and talking about that, understanding the mythology that George [Lucas] had created, bringing in people who had worked on those films, been a part of Lucasfilm,” Kennedy began. “We brought in two or three different writers. There were, what? Eight of us usually sitting in that room and whiteboarding what the possibilities are and looking at character arcs, identifying. Because George had already gone to Harrison [Ford], Carrie [Fisher] and Mark [Hamill] to do the film. So we knew that was a given. That we were bringing them back into the trilogy and we’re introducing new characters. So we had a sense of where this was going.

https://comicbook.com/starwars/2019...ilogy-storyline-wasnt-planned-from-beginning/

And again the headline is clickbait. When you actually read what Kennedy said you see there was an overall plan all along.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Ahead of The Rise of Skywalker tomorrow, I re-watched all of the previous live action Star Wars movies in chronological order.
Watching The Last Jedi tonight felt like a breath of fresh air. Not that I didn't enjoy the movies before it -- I did, for the most part! -- but I've seen the original trilogy a ton of times, and The Force Awakens felt like a slicker regurgitation of the original trilogy. This movie feels like something new and fresh, and the story feels like it's moving forward, past variations on the same theme.

It breaks certain longstanding rules, and introduces new ones. It has certain structural problems, especially early on, that are similar to the problems I had with The Force Awakens. Part of that is necessitated by how The Force Awakens left things: Episode VII asked the question "Why isn't Luke Skywalker around to save the day?" and then cut to credits just before it could be answered. The audience wants to hear the answer to that question, which means picking up more or less immediately after The Force Awakens ended, which means picking up with our protagonists separated from one another. While The Empire Strikes Back spent most of its running time with Luke separated from Han and Leia, it opened with them all together on Hoth and then separated out from there. The Last Jedi didn't have that luxury, and so it resorts to match cuts where we might expect the wipes, and an unorthodox use of parallel editing so that Rey and Kylo Ren can have conversations with each other despite the immense distance between them. The latter technique I think works really well. The former technique just doesn't feel like Star Wars to me -- at least not a Saga film.

I still don't love all of Rian Johnson's choices in the film, but I understood many of them better this time around. In particular, Finn and Rose's adventure on the casino planet and its aftermath. My previous opinion was that it was pointless in terms of plot, since they didn't succeed in their mission. But it actually played a significant role in terms of plot: Because Finn and Rose's stuttering slicer alerted the First Order to the cloaked Resistance vessels, the remaining Resistance wasn't able to make it to Crait in secrecy. Lots of people died who otherwise wouldn't have. If the covert evacuation had been successful, Laura Dern's character might not have gone kamikaze on Snoke's flagship. And if she hadn't gone kamikaze on Snoke's flagship, Rey, Finn, and Rose might not have been able to escape in the ensuing confusion.

I like Poe Dameron's journey a lot in this movie, teaching him to unlearn the squadron leader mindset and think like a general would. And it's to the movie's credit that we see him learn that lesson by the end of the movie. My problem with his storyline is that it relies on Laura Dern's character being a bad leader. Her plan is absolutely the plan that saves what's left of the Resistance. She was absolutely within her rights not to share battle strategies with a recently demoted fighter pilot who exacerbated the problems the Resistance is facing. But the questions asked by Poe were questions that a lot of the rank and file were asking, As a general rule, the rank and file deserve to know what's going on in moments of mortal peril. There's a reason Poe's mutiny got as far as it did; he was the only one speaking to the people who desperately wanted a path to follow. Dern's character was a great strategist and and a brave leader. But she wasn't a good communicator, and there is arguably no more important quality to have as a senior leader than good communication skills.

I like Finn and Rose together in this movie a lot. Rose is his tour guide to the wider galaxy, to all of the things that matter to people who weren't stolen away at birth for war, and all the things that don't fit neatly into the First Order-Resistance dichotomy. Finn has to learn who he is as a man, rather than as a stormtrooper. His journey is to find a reason to commit to this Resistance that his friend Rey believes in so strongly. Rose's journey is to go from being the person who cleans up the destruction of the big plays to being the person who executes the big plays.

The half of the movie centered around Rey and Luke and Kylo Ren is just about perfect. I love everything that happens on that island. I love how Luke Skywalker is an obstacle, but only because he, driven by idealism, has made a very difficult moral choice. He's on that island waiting to die to spare the galaxy any more Darth Vaders. He looks at the decisions made by the Jedi Council in Revenge of the Sith, and sees the terrible cost of their failure. He looks at the decisions he made training Ben Solo, and sees the terrible cost of his own failure. And so he makes the mistake of dealing in absolutes: If the Jedi can't be perfect, they shouldn't exist at all. He took the guidance from Yoda's that he ignored in Empire Strikes Back, and took it to a far too extreme position. He's not staying out of the war with the First Order because he doesn't care; he's staying out of the war because he cares too much.

I love the relationship between Luke and Rey, and how -- after a movie where everything came really easily to her, especially when it came to her destiny with the Force -- we see her struggle here. She is desperate to be guided by Luke, and he wants nothing to do with her. He fears the possibility she represents. Their conflict has major implications for the Force, but it's a human conflict driving their story. Rey needs to coax this cranky old hermit back into the world. Luke needs to reign in this incredible prodigy, before she flies too close to the sun.

I loved ghost Yoda's appearance to set him straight. One of the themes this movie conveyed so well is that there are things that really matter, but you shouldn't confuse those things with the trinkets that are associated with them. Anakin's lightsaber has a lot of history to it, but at then of the day it's just a lightsaber. Another one can be built. The tree that housed the sacred Jedi texts has centuries of history to it, but at the end of the day it's just an old tree. The knowledge lives on, even if that trappings don't. At the same time, it's cool to see Luke and Yoda talk master to master. The real world equivalent would be two teachers chatting in the staff lounge. Frank Oz is delightful as Yoda.

The throne room battle is so interesting on so many levels. Both Rey and Kylo Ren went into the battle with clear understandings of what the future held. The things they'd seen were all correct, but they didn't mean what either of them thought they'd meant. The decision to kill of Snoke was a masterstroke, because it places Rey and Kylo Ren in the eye at the center of the conflict between the Resistance and the First Order. The frenemy vibe that Rey and Kylo Ren have fascinates me, and I'm intrigued by every new development that complicates their relationship.

The Battle of Crait might be my favorite battle in all of Star Wars. It's one of the most visually spectacular sequences in all nine films. And it's the culmination of Luke's Unforgiven arc. Luke doing what he said at the beginning was impossible to do -- I'm gonna walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order? -- is just such a "Fuck YES!" moment. And the fact that he triumphs over Kylo Ren by outthinking him makes it all the sweeter.

I really like where the movie ends, with the Resistance as a clearly-defined organization functionally wiped out, but the cause of the Resistance sweeping across the galaxy. The little boy retelling the Battle of Crait and the heroics of Luke Skywalker.

It ends with the most brutal setbacks of any of the Star Wars films, and yet it ended on moment and feeling of such hope.
 

Sam Favate

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The Last Jedi, for me, isn’t a satisfactory experience. Visually, it’s different from the other films. The scenes in space are much darker than all the previous films, so much so that it’s hard to get a clear picture of the Dreadnaught in the beginning and other ships during the film. Even films like The Phantom Menace, which strike a different tone and feel wrong in that regard, are the same visually. For the record, I applaud the movie for many of the reasons the Internet idiots hated it: I love Rey as the central character, and love that the other main characters are a black man, an Asian woman, and a Hispanic man.

My objection concerns the storytelling. Johnson did his best to subvert fan expectations, but in ways that make the story less interesting. Rey’s parentage is a big deal, and having her be “nobody” isn’t good storytelling. The central conflict of the film concerns the slowest chase in the galaxy, while Star Wars films were always about speed. Also, the fighting among the rebels is just dumb. If Laura Dern’s character had simply confided in her team, Rose and Finn wouldn’t have gone off on a mission that went nowhere and ultimately cost lives. I didn’t much care for the characterization of Luke. I thought the best relationship in the movie was between Rose and her sister. I also thought Rose was the most refreshing thing about the movie. She may be a “nobody” but she displays the kind of heart we look for in our heroes. She's this movie's Han Solo. The movie, like Episode VII, suffers from not relating to classic mythology the way the other films did. Those were Joseph Campbell archetypes, and that’s missing here.

It has some good set pieces and Rey is a delightful central character, even if she doesn’t have as much of a hero’s journey as, say, Luke in Empire. Also, the rebels have always been underdogs, but this movie had them so overpowered that even their meager survival was implausible. The entire rebellion fits in the Millennium Falcon? Come on. My main problem is the writing and the fact that there’s no overarching story planned on the level of Kathleen Kennedy. I hope the entire saga can be tied together for the finale. These movies deserve an epic ending that explains the inconsistencies that have come up throughout the films.
 

Jake Lipson

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I watched this again last night, and it's phenomenal from start to finish. I probably will get some heat for saying this, but I think The Last Jedi is the best thing that has ever happened to Star Wars.

I really hope the events of it are upheld/respected/not changed in the finale. We'll know soon.
 

Greg.K

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I've been about 50/50 on this movie since it came out but I enjoyed it quite a bit on yesterday's rewatch. Luke/Rey/Kylo Ren arc is still the overall highlight and saving grace for this film for me. It's also pretty distinctive visually from the previous movies with some terrific cinematography.

I'd still love to see Rian Johnson do a standalone Star Wars trilogy.
 

Sam Favate

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I'd still love to see Rian Johnson do a standalone Star Wars trilogy.

Despite my misgivings about the film, I agree with this. Johnson is a terrific film maker and he'll almost certainly be back to Star Wars.
 

Robert Crawford

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I watched this again last night, and it's phenomenal from start to finish. I probably will get some heat for saying this, but I think The Last Jedi is the best thing that has ever happened to Star Wars.

I really hope the events of it are upheld/respected/not changed in the finale. We'll know soon.
I watched it again this morning as I finished watching all of the Star Wars movies except Solo. I think it's among the best, but right now it's below Empire Strikes Back and Rogue One in my personal rankings.
 

Jake Lipson

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I wouldn't go that far but I do think it's the best SW movie since Empire.

I will say in fairness that I came to Star Wars in mid-to-late 2001, so by the time I became a fan, I knew that Darth Vader was Luke's father in A New Hope through general pop culture osmosis; the special editions were all that was available of the original trilogy; The Phantom Menace was already a given part of the saga; and Attack of the Clones was only months away. This doesn't mean I'm less of a fan than anyone who saw the films before me, but it does mean that my experience encountering them was largely different from most people who hold the originals as a cornerstone of their childhood. I think they're great, but they're just not that for me, because of how and when I first found them.

Although I saw both Clones and Sith in theaters and reasonably had fun with them at the time, they have not aged well, and I never really felt a personal ownership over the prequels as "my" Star Wars trilogy. I consider the current trilogy, where I have been a fan from the beginning of this current arc, to be the one that is "mine" in that I'm having the kind of experience with this trilogy that older fans got with the others of feeling deeply connected to these new characters and being excited to experience for the first time where their journey goes.

So, The Last Jedi is my favorite one and I think the best one and I own that and I am proud of it. However, it's likely that some of my affection for it comes from being on board the fandom now and getting to go in and watch it and be bowled over by it in the way that those of you older than me probably were in 1980 with The Empire Strikes Back.
 
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Robert Crawford

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I was in college when the "A New Hope" came out so I watched it 4-5 times in a movie theater back then. With that said, other than Disney+ stuff, I seriously doubt I'll be such a big Star Wars fan after "The Rise of Skywalker". It's time for me to let go and that's what I'm going to do. Of course, if I'm still around walking this earth then I reserve the right to change my mind when a new Star Wars movie comes out in the future.;) However, I'm done going to opening nights for these type of movies.
 

Edwin-S

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It was so riveting that I fell asleep while watching it. Superlative film making. My estimation of JJ Abrams as a film maker may have to be revised upward if he manages to ignore most of what was in this film.
 

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