If The Last Jedi was Episode VII...

In light of the hoopla surrounding Solo and it’s box office returns, here’s a question…

After the massive success of The Force Awakens and the lukewarm reaction The Last Jedi, how do you think the world would have reacted if the movies were swapped and TLJ was released as Episode VII (or a movie identical in tone and direction, obviously)?

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What an excellent day for an exorcism.

The first movie would still have a good chance of doing TFA numbers simply by being the first new Star Wars movie in years whereas the second one would have to win back the crowd (which was already what TFA was trying to do in the first place so it may well succeed in that regard anyway if the reviews and word-of-mouth proved good enough). TLJ was only divisive, not disastrous.

This is true, but would it have garnered the repeat viewings that TFA had? Of course, it's all opinion, but I'm not sure that it would have (and I liked TLJ)

I would disagree with your last sentence. The Last Jedi, as a movie, was both divisive and disastrous. Part of the reason that it was disastrous was because it was divisive. Part of the reason that it was disastrous was because it was simply an incredibly bad movie. Lots of characters that we didn't care about went off and did lots of things which all failed. The pacing was horrible, nobody did anything worthwhile (except Luke) and it was just a non-ending hodge-podge of a mess. None of it made sense, not of it mattered and Luke's death was nigh pointless.

Its funny to me how when The Force Awakens came out the main defense over it being a rehash was that all it really needed to do was wash the bad tastes of the prequels and set up for better things to come. At least thats how it came off to me. It does seem likw with each new film the reception is less positive.

If it really were that disastrous, I'd be agreeing with you. Since it's not, I went with "divisive" instead.

Yes I heard that numerous times...”it’s setting up for the next one”. Well the next one was the last Jedi lol.

X 2 nailed it on the head.

Tbf i havent seen TLJ myself but the reaction does seem more negative than positive. Even people trying to defend it seem unable to overlook its flaws. I was watching Red Letter Media and even though it seemed like they were trying to go for a middle ground view point (I dont wanna say its a mess but it feels messy) the video felt very scathing towards the film.

I liked The Last Jedi, but I'm still worried about the ninth installment. There's not very much they could do to take the franchise further, and I'm starting to think that maybe the death of , as emotional and welldone as it might have been, could have been a mistake. Maybe it would have worked better to in the final movie instead.

I think you should watch it. I think it’s shockingly bad but you might have a different perspective with an altered expectation. However.,.i’d be confident you won’t like it if you thought the force awakens was mediocre at best.

Ps I love red letter media. They feel honest.

I havent been big on any of the films really. I always go to Space Balls as my favorite Star Wars movie ^^

And yeah Red Letter Media is great though im still new to the channel. I binged those Plinkett videos though.

YouTube keeps trying to recommend me anti-TLJ videos and each one looks more horrendous than the last. So far I've only managed to watch this one and it starts off with some relatively decent arguments before revealing that its whole thesis is based on the idea that the movie itself posits that Kylo is right and falls apart as a result. Oh, well.

Try watching the Red Letter Media video on it. Not an anti TLJ video but as i said above its pretty scathing overall without having some agenda to just bash the film.

Those hour long plinkett prequel reviews are amazingly hilarious. That too is what got me onto the show years ago...

I had known of them for a while but for some reason it took me a while before i actually checked them out. I think it was Dan from Game Grumps who got me interested.

They are a big commitment...well for a YouTube video...being over 1 hour each. So funny though the basement/dungeon scenes.

Theyre long but time flew with each vid. Wish we had more Plinkett.

Agree

I just did and it mostly plays like another review that goes over the same complaints everyone else had so there's next to no point in spending 45 minutes in watching it (also, I really don't care for reviews/essays that complain about a movie's weak sense of humour yet also show themselves to also have bad - if not worse - senses of humour). RLM aren't completely useless but I never feel particularly compelled to check out their takes on, well, anything. Even the prospect of watching these supposedly-great Plinkett prequel reviews sounds like homework more than anything else.