Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

[radiator]

Yep, this movie - egregiously so - due to pacing, editing and some storytelling choices that I find utterly unfathomable, very much continues the trend (started in TFA) of making the Star Wars universe feel smaller and smaller.

The original movies (and to a lesser extent even the prequels) did a good job of giving us a sense of scale and a glimpse of a much wider ongoing conflict. The battle between the FO and the Resistance/Rebellon/whatever? has all the epic scale of a brawl in a pub car park. And as with TFA there’s simply no context given for the conflict. We’re told that the ‘First Order Reigns’. Erm, why, didnt they get their asses kicked at the end of the last film? Who even are the First Order again?

I very much agree with Mattofthespirs re: recycling of previous scenes. I had heard so much about how ‘different’ and ‘bold’ this one is, and how it takes the story in a really different direction. I didn’t feel that way at all - I thought it was very predictable and incredibly contrived from beggining to end. Some of the worst ‘twists’ in the whole saga.

Dear oh dear.

[radiator]

one of my main worries going in is that I feel TFA set it up to fail in certain respects - especially regarding Luke's exile and Rey's back story, which imo cannot really be satisfactorily explained.

Hey, I was right!!!

[Mattofthespurs]

Yep, this movie - egregiously so - due to pacing, editing and some storytelling choices that I find utterly unfathomable, very much continues the trend (started in TFA) of making the Star Wars universe feel smaller and smaller.

Spot on! I had the feeling all the way through TLJ that it felt 'small'.

[Mattofthespurs]

I do feel that Rey's backstory is bullshit in regards to what we learn in the film.

Certainly hoping so anyway the interaction between Leia and Rey certainly suggests Mother and daughter to me which would obviously mean that Ren and Rey are siblings which seems kinda obvious.

[radiator]

I completely take Rey's origins as stated in this film at face value - ie her parents were nobody, she comes from nothing.

It was really the only way it could have been resolved given how thoroughly TFA really painted itself into a corner - I've made my feelings on this matter clear in the past (that yes, in the original script for TFA, Rey was clearly intended to be the daughter of Han and Leia and the sister of Kylo Ren but there was a sudden late-stage script rewrite to nix this that caused a whole load of story problems), but having her suddenly turn out to be related to the Skywalkers at this stage would make no sense.

I'm not saying having her origins be humble is a bad thing - far from it. I'm saying teasing it as a mystery for 2 years and the best part of two long films only reveal it to be such is lame and unsatisfying.

Rubbish.

And while we're on the subject of fruitless wastes of time, what exactly was the point of Finn and Poe's stories in this movie? Why yet again dedicate so much screen time to the pursuit of a maguffin that ultimately turns out to be completely pointless? By the end of the movie you just feel like you've witnessed what basically amounts to wheel-spinning. By the end of the movie, nothing has meaningfully changed since the end of the last movie regarding character development except that what? Poe now knows how to run away?

Spot on! I had the feeling all the way through TLJ that it felt 'small'.

Like, why reduce the entire Resistance to '400' individuals? (and then proceed to apparently reduce that number down to half a dozen?). There's such a ridiculous amount of slaughter and destruction in this movie to the point where it loses all impact and meaning. As I say, a complete and utter lack of restraint. There's a desperation about this movie - a feeling of them throwing everything against the wall hoping some of it sticks. The tone is all over the shop.

And the borderline fourth wall breaking humour from TFA is back with a vengeance in this one. It's completely excruciating at times. I guess Finn's favourite movie is The Empire Strikes Back, since he seems to like referencing dialogue from it?

The more I think about this film, the more I dislike it.

[Mattofthespurs]

So, it's shit like I thought it was.

[radiator]

Without going into specifics, the ticking clock structure - often multiple simultaneously ticking clocks - designed to heighten the tension just feel so incredibly contrived and silly. That alone pretty much capsizes the whole thing. It's just so clumsily and poorly constructed.

It's all so convoluted that I really had trouble following what should be a really simple A to B kind of plot - and they seem to make up the rules of how everything works on the fly, so I found it impossible to get invested in what was happening, or feel that the stakes were real.

I don't think it's 'Attack Of The Clones' bad

One bit is. It feels like it was directly lifted out of the prequels. You know the one.

[Steve Green]

The giant rabbit riding thing? I thought that whole sequence could have been cut without it affecting the outcome.

Laura Dern's brilliant plan involved no-one on half a dozen star-destroyers looking out of the fucking window?Yes I know they said they were cloaked, but they looked pretty visible when she was watching them peel off.

Rose's intervention was wank (of the first order) so to speak - that and the little rascals at the end.... ugh.

Some spectacularly great bits like the beginning battle, bafflingly flat delivery by Daisy Ridley at times,was half expecting her to end a sentence with Ro-land at times.

Too much self-referencing, out of character dialogue - 'A page turner'

Was that Ackbar getting a shitty death?

So agree on the smaller and smaller scale of everything

[radiator]

Yep, I don't know if was the script, the direction or both, but some of Rey's line readings were awful. Just awful.

Agree on the final shot of the movie. It was so, so bad - total fan wank and nothing like anything in any other SW movie.

Yes on the space-horse race being the bit I was talking about. There's also another really prequely, bit when (shudder) BB-8 drives the walker.

[DrRocka]

Was it me, or was the whole thing a cartoon version of the Battlestar Galactica episode “33”?

[TordelBack]

Well I thought it was great!  Frustratingly long and uneven  I agree, but as a result filled with the kind of diversions that TFA lacked, and really  delightfully unpredictable in several places. I feel that seeing the various struggles, side quests and huge losses as irrelevant or inconsequential misses the one point that I thought the movie made very well.

Could have lived without Tiny Tim at the end, mind!

[Tinmachine]

Was it me, or was the whole thing a cartoon version of the Battlestar Galactica episode “33”?

Yes indeed! I had the same vibe.

[Tinmachine]

The movie was ok. Some good scenes, but good scenes don't make a good film.

I thought the art department was either heavily influenced, or just outright stole ideas from Hayo Miyazaki when it came to the design of the aliens in the film. From everything on that planet where Luke was playing Hermit to the Casino scenes. They all looked as if they stepped out of Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke etc.

[radiator]

Can anyone explain/clarify Kylo Ren's arc/plot in this movie to me?

I really couldn't follow it at all, and despite all the shit that happened, and all the illusion of a dramatic change, he seemed to me to end up exactly back where he started at the end of The Force Awakens...   Am I wrong?

I feel that seeing the various struggles, side quests and huge losses as irrelevant or inconsequential misses the one point that I thought the movie made very well.

Ah, so the weaknesses in the writing are actually the strengths! Got it! 

[TordelBack]

Can anyone explain/clarify Kylo Ren's arc/plot in this movie to me?
...
Ah, so the weaknesses in the writing are actually the strengths! Got it! 

I have much to say on these matters, but I'm typing on my shitty phone, so I'll hold off until I get to a keyboard. Suffice to say, the movie makes the point that war (even in the Stars) is a numbers game, in DJ's words 'the machine',  that only really benefits the money men, and that resisting a vast tyranny with an inferior military force only works in the long term if it inspires hearts and minds. All the suicidal trench-runs in the galaxy count for nothing if the galaxy itself doesn't change.   "We are the spark", not the fire itself.