Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

[Spaceghost]

I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that I'm wrong, an idiot, or both, because I thought it was fantastic.

[SIP]

It's really bad, on a whole new scale.

Just watched this.........absolutely spot on.

https://youtu.be/ZQ8ir66M5XU

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

I'd forgotten about the 'the capitalists are the real evil' bit

[Rusty]

I hadn't thought about the weaponizing a spaceship via jumping through another at light speed. That literally breaks the entire series in one fell swoop. Well, almost. It reminds me of the meme's depicting the plans to blow up the Death Star, and the last frame shows a ship hyper jumping through it to blow it up. Seriously, this film feels like it was made to poke fun of the entire fanbase and lore of the originals the more you break it down.

[jacob g]

Seriously, this film feels like it was made to poke fun of the entire fanbase and lore of the originals the more you break it down.

Yes, and it's great.

The same goes with influences behind SW. Even if we put aside The Bridge on the River Kwai and Three outlaw samurai influences Johnson adressed before, he manage to go full Kurosawa in many scenes (like Ran) because Star Wars means nothing without him.

[TordelBack]

I'd forgotten about the 'the capitalists are the real evil' bit

Weapons dealers and war profiteers specifically, no? Not that there isn't a strong argument for the former interpretation.

I don't see how this is a problem, or at least any more of an over-simplification than 'galactic Nazis are evil'.  Was it not interesting to see the backdrop to all this, what the folks that aren't crime-lords, bounty hunters or barflys (sometimes literally) are up to while the bad guys and the good guys are killing each other?

In presenting Finn (a man who up to a few days previously had only ever been a soldier/janitor) with a third way, 'don't join in', I thought the whole Canto Bight/DJ sidetrip was a great idea, and gorgeous to boot.  A nice thematic parallel to Rey's journey too.

I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that I'm wrong, an idiot, or both, because I thought it was fantastic.

That makes two of us.  Flawed, challenging, but fantastic. 

[Rusty]

Seriously, this film feels like it was made to poke fun of the entire fanbase and lore of the originals the more you break it down.

Yes, and it's great.

The same goes with influences behind SW. Even if we put aside The Bridge on the River Kwai and Three outlaw samurai influences Johnson adressed before, he manage to go full Kurosawa in many scenes (like Ran) because Star Wars means nothing without him.

Yeah, I'm fine with that. I just wish it was a better constructed film, though.

[Professor Bear]

I hadn't thought about the weaponizing a spaceship via jumping through another at light speed. That literally breaks the entire series in one fell swoop. Well, almost. It reminds me of the meme's depicting the plans to blow up the Death Star, and the last frame shows a ship hyper jumping through it to blow it up.

When I went to see The Force Awakens, the bit where the chasm separates Ray and Ren made the audience groan and tut and someone loudly said "ah yer fuckin jokin", and a similar thing happened with TLJ when Laura Dern martyred herself and claimed her rightful reward of 72 virgins (all Star Wars fanboys) at the right hand of Allah.  Someone in the audience could clearly be heard saying "why don't they just fuckin do that all the time?" when the audio dropped.

[JOE SOAP]

That was more of a slow shutter speed type thing wasn't it?

Oh, also the inclusion of flashbacks - which IIRC is another break with the traditional SW style?

More slowing it down to 12fps or something rather than shooting high speed and played back at 24fps.

Yeah, pretty sure flashbacks are a new thing - think there was a timelapse in the Rey/Luke scene as well?

In the Dagobah cave sequence the editor had each frame optically duplicated and then spliced-in each extra frame beside itself so it created a strobing effect.

There is the force-back vision in The Force Awakens which amounted to a flashback.

The one in The Last Jedi seems like it's another Kurosawa influence by invoking Rashōmon and its multi-perspective telling of the same incident in fragments from a certain point of view each time - thereby making the literal text of Star Wars visual.

[Rusty]

When I went to see The Force Awakens, the bit where the chasm separates Ray and Ren made the audience groan and tut and someone loudly said "ah yer fuckin jokin", and a similar thing happened with TLJ when Laura Dern martyred herself and claimed her rightful reward of 72 virgins (all Star Wars fanboys) at the right hand of Allah.  Someone in the audience could clearly be heard saying "why don't they just fuckin do that all the time?" when the audio dropped.

That should have been a line in the film.

It's a similar deal with the Millenium Falcon at this stage. I overheard someone saying about why don't the NO (was going to write Empire there) just build a fleet of the bastards. It's practically a deus ex machina now in that it conveniently shows up when the plot needs it, and it can't be blown up.

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

Weapons dealers and war profiteers specifically, no? Not that there isn't a strong argument for the former interpretation.

I don't see how this is a problem, or at least any more of an over-simplification than 'galactic Nazis are evil'.  Was it not interesting to see the backdrop to all this, what the folks that aren't crime-lords, bounty hunters or barflys (sometimes literally) are up to while the bad guys and the good guys are killing each other?

It's not the end of the world but it undermines the First Order and the old Empire's scary image a little bit to think of them getting their AT-STs on finance and being beholden to weaselly money men, when I guess I thought they took what they wanted, conquered worlds and built their own war machines with the resources and economies they controlled.

But mainly the problem was to me that it was a huge new concept introduced flippantly and then unexplored, in an already messy film.

[The Legendary Shark]

Seems like a perfectly logical in-universe duality idea to me. Arms manufacturers/dealers sell weapons to both sides just as the Force bestows power on both sides. Good and evil being two sides of the same coin, as it were. I think it also ties in with Luke and Yoda's decision to end the Jedi - without the Jedi there's no need for a Sith (etc.) - and the apparent evolution of the Force as a power available to everyone, or at least stable boys. Destroy the eternal Good vs. Evil conflict and the arms industry loses much of its wealth and power, wealth and power that can be diverted towards more constructive projects like Life Stars and X-Wing Tractors.

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

It's definitely not illogical, that can be the way it works if they want to write it that way. Certainly how our culture works here on Earth.

[TordelBack]

But mainly the problem was to me that it was a huge new concept introduced flippantly and then unexplored, in an already messy film.

None of the key concepts introduced in ANY of the SW films have been explored - on screen at least.  That's one of the things that makes thinking about it so much fun (40 years and counting). Force ample, I've been pondering it for decades now, and unlike Han I still have no clue how the Force works. Even less of clue now!

It is a messy and uneven film, no questions, but there's so many new things in there that it'll keep me entertained for years. The absence of this wide-open novelty was my only real gripe with TFA, so despite having plenty of issues with aspects of TLJ, I'm pretty darned pleased.

I wanted new Star Wars, not more of the Star Wars I already have. And boy did I get it.

[Professor Bear]

So why don't the Rebels buy their own Ultra Mega Super Star Destroyers?  Leia's a princess, she's minted.