cant say
twitch.tv/jakecantsay
There's enough discussion being generated about this movie to warrant its own thread so I've moved all the relevant posts from the general movie thread. shade said it was ok!
Obviously opinions are split on this thing, personally I hated it but I can see why many others liked it, and I want to encourage discussion between people of both sides.
As for what I thought, I guess I'll list everything because I have no other idea of how to make it coherent lol. Basically my issues are with the story / plot, for the most part it was a decent movie and would have been pretty sick if it wasn't labelled "Star Wars'
I guess that's all I can think of off the top of my head. I will admit that I probably got too invested in the fan theories which always leads to disappointment in any franchise, but with the amount of fanservice that was in TFA I feel like this strayed too far from that in trying to make a completely new film. Star Wars has never been overly complicated and that was part of its charm, I guess that's the biggest reason for this not sitting so well with me. I also spent the weekend beforehand watching all 7 movies (didn't have time for Rogue One) which is probably another reason I feel salty because we didn't get rewarded for it with a "Rey is related to [X]" or "Snoke is [Y]" reveal.
I'll end my overly critical post with this; I've been to premier screenings for all the prequel trilogy and TFA, and at the end there was applause for them all at the end from the crowd, but it was dead silent when this one finished until I was outside and could hear the murmuring of others trying to figure out what they just saw.
Obviously opinions are split on this thing, personally I hated it but I can see why many others liked it, and I want to encourage discussion between people of both sides.
As for what I thought, I guess I'll list everything because I have no other idea of how to make it coherent lol. Basically my issues are with the story / plot, for the most part it was a decent movie and would have been pretty sick if it wasn't labelled "Star Wars'
- right off the bat it goes for a laugh with the cringey back and fourth between Hux and Poe. Obviously this is reminiscent of Poe and Kylo's meeting on Jakku at the start of TFA, but that didn't feel anywhere near as forced as this one. Maybe it could have been better if it was just the initial gag but it dragged on and just made Hux look like a fuckin idiot after having been built up as a pretty decent bad guy in the previous film.
- the resistance bombers. I just don't get how they go from using Y wings that drop laser bombs to these huge, slow, clunky pieces of shit that drop metallic bombs. not only that, but they rely on gravity to fall on something to hit it, in outer space... and why did they send them out in the first place if Leia didn't want them to risk being destroyed. Maybe I missed something but that had me scratching my head.
- Luke throwing the lightsaber off the cliff. Again they've gone for a gag at the very beginning of a scene and it's the first of many plot threads from TFA that have been thrown away by Rian Johnson (perhaps this is meant to symbolize where the movie is going lol). This thing was built up so much in the previous film, it's his freaking original saber that he lost on Bespin, it gave Rey the force vision, and Maz Kanata even hints at how she got it is its own story. If they want Luke to throw it away at some point then fine, but why couldn't there have at least been some dramatic "where did you get this?" etc. beforehand?
- Kylo decides to not kill Leia despite having just killed Han. Him killing Han was meant to be the turning point for him (or part of an elaborate plan between him and Han if you bought into the fan theories) but he's still conflicting with himself. This inner turmoil thing is the only theme from TFA that they kept in, but it's one that doesn't make sense to me.
- Leia. Of course we all know Carrie Fisher passed away so they needed to solve what happens to Leia in the film, but it seems they just kep it as is and she just won't be in IX? The frustating part is that they had AMPLE opportunity to kill Leia off in the movie in a way fitting her character. When Kylo's squadron shoots their ship, as I was watching it I thought it was too soon in the movie to do it but I figured it was the best they could do without any reshoots, but OH NO they have her FLY THROUGH SPACE USING THE FORCE....?? Literally everyone in the cinema (and this was a 200+ sold out session) groaned in bemusement. Not only was it a poor display of the force, but SHE SURVIVED THE VACUUM OF SPACE on top of a huge explosion.
- Admiral Holdo. She has got to be the most unnecessary character in the whole thing (apart from Rose). Literally everything she did could have been done by Leia or Ackbar, but instead they unceremoniously kill off Ackbar and keep Leia around... How much better would the (already cool as fuck) hyperdrive kamikaze scene be if Ackbar or Leia was the pilot? I thought they were hinting at Leia doing it when they were saying "someone needs to pilot the ship" but whatever. Not only that, but she was already committing to going down with the ship, why did she wait until a heap of escape ships were destroyed before flying into The Supremacy? Better yet, why not have a droid pilot it?? Not to mention the whole "don't tell Poe the plan so he can tell Finn to go off and do something and learn a lesson at the end" was a terrible story arc.
- A lot of things wrong with Luke. The biggest is that I don't buy him trying to kill Ben in his sleep because he saw his bad thoughts. He refused to kill Vader because he could still see light in him despite all the terrible things he did, but wanted to kill Ben for not doing anything? Come on man. That goes against Luke's whole character. Then they just kill him off at the end. The force projection trick was cool, but surely it would have just been better to have him actually duel with Kylo? Not to mention he basically implied to Leia he was going out there to fight him and possibly kill him. I guess becoming one with the force is cool but it just seemed such a strange way to do it.
- Rey is a nobody. I get the symbolism behind it (special people can come from anywhere) but trying to make a statement like that in a STAR WARS movie instead of just making her important is just super lame. Why kill off the Skywalker dynasty? That is literally what the movies are about. I guess we get to see 'evil Skywalker' in Kylo Ren but we got to see that with Vader anyway... Why did Anakin's / Luke's lightsaber call out to her in TFA and show her being dropped off on Jakku? Why does the lightsaber want to show her junkie parents leaving her? That doesn't seem relevant now lol. I don't buy it's because she's just strong with the force. She was built up way too much and the "reveal" was disappointing. Other than that, (and the scene with her and the mirrors / echoes but I'm probably just too stupid to understand that) Rey and Kylo were the highlights of the film.
- Kylo Ren and Snoke. Firstly, Kylo killing Snoke in the way he did was sick, but why wasn't that saved for the climax of episode IX? It doesn't make any sense to quickly kill off this dude without anything being revealed about him. I'm honestly just baffled that they skipped over this part, I think Abrams clearly intended for him to be important and have a reveal for him, but that's just been completely thrown away now. We don't know his backstory and Luke never faced him, a huge missed opportunity. As for Kylo, we're simply shown that Luke was the one to drive him away with his attempted murder with iirc some hints about Snoke getting in his head, but did Kylo meet Snoke at some stage? What were the images in his head that scared the shit out of Luke? Who are the Knights of Ren? They say that he escaped with a few of Luke's other pupils, meaning there's Jedi(?) out there. Again it seems a plot thread set up by Abrams has been completely thrown away for Johnson's vision, which seems to totally contradict what was originally set up. Apart from this and him not firing on Leia, Kylo was probably the best part of the film though.
- The whole casino side quest with Finn and Rose (and the hacker dude) was just super dumb. Firstly, if they were able to escape undetected, why didn't they all just do that?? I know that was part of Holdo's plan and it was foiled by hackerman, but if Finn's ship was able to esacpe and was undetected through hyperspace, why did Holdo have to wait until they were closer to Crait? Couldn't they all have scattered in different ships to different planets and then meet up somewhere later? As for the casino itself, it felt so out of place in the Star Wars universe it isn't funny. I guess they needed an alternative setting in the movie otherwise it would be 2 hours of them floating in space trying to outrun the First Order, but I dunno man why couldn't they just spend more time on Ahch-To with Rey and Luke?
I guess that's all I can think of off the top of my head. I will admit that I probably got too invested in the fan theories which always leads to disappointment in any franchise, but with the amount of fanservice that was in TFA I feel like this strayed too far from that in trying to make a completely new film. Star Wars has never been overly complicated and that was part of its charm, I guess that's the biggest reason for this not sitting so well with me. I also spent the weekend beforehand watching all 7 movies (didn't have time for Rogue One) which is probably another reason I feel salty because we didn't get rewarded for it with a "Rey is related to [X]" or "Snoke is [Y]" reveal.
I'll end my overly critical post with this; I've been to premier screenings for all the prequel trilogy and TFA, and at the end there was applause for them all at the end from the crowd, but it was dead silent when this one finished until I was outside and could hear the murmuring of others trying to figure out what they just saw.
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