Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi

the droid is mortally wounded and what's left of her CPU is inserted into the Falcon's database, so the idea that the presence of a character who's spent the whole movie trying to fight for her rights as a sapient being only becomes "justified" because she is rendered a voiceless, bodiless navigation system for a spaceship by the end of the film is...not a good one.

the droid is mortally wounded and what's left of her CPU is inserted into the Falcon's database, so the idea that the presence of a character who's spent the whole movie trying to fight for her rights as a sapient being only becomes "justified" because she is rendered a voiceless, bodiless navigation system for a spaceship by the end of the film is...not a good one.

I can see your points. I think that how the droid's nav database was ported to the Falcon was dark and downright morbid considering everything you mentioned. I wish that had been handled better and it really felt tacked on without much consideration to how the social rights implications might be interpreted, effectively making an outspoken character voiceless. No argument on that. I do wonder now as I type this, was it the droid's personality that was ported or were they just trying to salvage the only remaining usable elements of her (i.e., the navigation database), much like organs taken from dead donors to help others survive. The organ itself is not representative of the soul/personality as that has since passed. That's total projection on my part, but could be a fair interpretation. Still though, something could have been questioned during scripting or shooting to ease into whatever the intention of all that was, I feel.

I was eager for an uncomplicated thrill ride after TLJ, personally. This movie was a vent. I may have another opinion upon rewatch, far removed from the context of where my head was at the time of viewing. Totally possible. As I noted earlier, I believe I actually cringed watching the droid protest the fighting matches, calling for droid rights. While I thought in that moment that it was obvious lip-service, as you say, I felt (later) that it was necessary and at least paid off in part during the mining slave escape near the end. Had the extreme of her personality not been on full display earlier, then this scene might not have had any motivation to incite the droid riot that led to their escape.

Now don't get me wrong! I still think it was a weak effort all around, the keystone of the droid rights personality (especially in context of that personality being wiped from existence leaving behind the only useful and functioning aspect as a more or less slave GPS) in order for plot to move forward later in the story. I would rather something else had been written. What I am comparing against my criticisms of TLJ is that, as weak as I feel all this was in Solo, it did at least serve a purpose to move the plot forward and justified itself in doing so.

TLJ detoured for the sake of a detour (IMO) that eventually led nowhere for the plot. Yes, it did spotlight potential hypocrisy in judging the war machine when both "good" and "bad" sides are buying from the same machine. Interesting topic, but was it really necessary, especially considering that with that sub-plot removed the characters still end up exactly where they were? They didn't pursue their target (illogically, IMO) for the sake of political commentary to the audience? That's not a character choice, that was a choice by the writer, director, or anyone with authority during production and those motivations are completely separate from the universe in which those characters reside. That is terribly awkward to me. Add to that the release of the racing creatures while leaving the orphans behind to continue their suffering (assumed), there was no payoff for me. Not plot-wise, at least. Ideas were inserted but had no closure specific to the plot. Had Solo's droid only shouted protests earlier on and nothing came of it the rest of the movie, then my criticisms would have been the same for both movies.

I can see your points. I think that how the droid's nav database was ported to the Falcon was dark and downright morbid considering everything you mentioned. I wish that had been handled better and it really felt tacked on without much consideration to how the social rights implications might be interpreted, effectively making an outspoken character voiceless. No argument on that. I do wonder now as I type this, was it the droid's personality that was ported or were they just trying to salvage the only remaining usable elements of her (i.e., the navigation database), much like organs taken from dead donors to help others survive. The organ itself is not representative of the soul/personality as that has since passed. That's total projection on my part, but could be a fair interpretation. Still though, something could have been questioned during scripting or shooting to ease into whatever the intention of all that was, I feel.

I was eager for an uncomplicated thrill ride after TLJ, personally. This movie was a vent. I may have another opinion upon rewatch, far removed from the context of where my head was at the time of viewing. Totally possible. As I noted earlier, I believe I actually cringed watching the droid protest the fighting matches, calling for droid rights. While I thought in that moment that it was obvious lip-service, as you say, I felt (later) that it was necessary and at least paid off in part during the mining slave escape near the end. Had the extreme of her personality not been on full display earlier, then this scene might not have had any motivation to incite the droid riot that led to their escape.

Now don't get me wrong! I still think it was a weak effort all around, the keystone of the droid rights personality (especially in context of that personality being wiped from existence leaving behind the only useful and functioning aspect as a more or less slave GPS) in order for plot to move forward later in the story. I would rather something else had been written. What I am comparing against my criticisms of TLJ is that, as weak as I feel all this was in Solo, it did at least serve a purpose to move the plot forward and justified itself in doing so.

TLJ detoured for the sake of a detour (IMO) that eventually led nowhere for the plot. Yes, it did spotlight potential hypocrisy in judging the war machine when both "good" and "bad" sides are buying from the same machine. Interesting topic, but was it really necessary, especially considering that with that sub-plot removed the characters still end up exactly where they were? They didn't pursue their target (illogically, IMO) for the sake of political commentary to the audience? That's not a character choice, that was a choice by the writer, director, or anyone with authority during production and those motivations are completely separate from the universe in which those characters reside. That is terribly awkward to me. Add to that the release of the racing creatures while leaving the orphans behind to continue their suffering (assumed), there was no payoff for me. Not plot-wise, at least. Ideas were inserted but had no closure specific to the plot. Had Solo's droid only shouted protests earlier on and nothing came of it the rest of the movie, then my criticisms would have been the same for both movies.

I suppose that's a fair interpretation, though you'd think that it would still count as part of a droid's "brain" even if it wasn't the whole thing, like if you look a braindead human's frontal lobe by itself or something. In either case, it's not depicted all that clearly.

I think you've got to be careful when it comes to complaining about parts of a movie that "lead nowhere" - I could make the case that the plane fight and truck chase from Raiders of the Lost Ark lead nowhere because the Nazis manage to steal the Ark back from Indy afterwards anyway. The journey is the destination and all that, to say nothing of whether or not a particular choice which seems outwardly "illogical" to you ultimately makes sense in the movie's particular context (though I guess you'd have to be specific about what exactly you mean because a fair chunk of that last paragraph is really vague).

As for Rose and Finn leaving the orphans behind, I think their options were pretty limited in that regard - race-against-time mission, no guarantee of safety for said orphans, can't simply be set free into the wild like racing creatures, etc. (and even they got the movie's ultimate payoff by showing how Luke's final moments became galaxy-wide legend overnight).

I suppose that's a fair interpretation, though you'd think that it would still count as part of a droid's "brain" even if it wasn't the whole thing, like if you look a braindead human's frontal lobe by itself or something. In either case, it's not depicted all that clearly.

I think you've got to be careful when it comes to complaining about parts of a movie that "lead nowhere" - I could make the case that the plane fight and truck chase from Raiders of the Lost Ark lead nowhere because the Nazis manage to steal the Ark back from Indy afterwards anyway. The journey is the destination and all that, to say nothing of whether or not a particular choice which seems outwardly "illogical" to you ultimately makes sense in the movie's particular context (though I guess you'd have to be specific about what exactly you mean because a fair chunk of that last paragraph is really vague).

As for Rose and Finn leaving the orphans behind, I think their options were pretty limited in that regard - race-against-time mission, no guarantee of safety for said orphans, can't simply be set free into the wild like racing creatures, etc. (and even they got the movie's ultimate payoff by showing how Luke's final moments became galaxy-wide legend overnight).