Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi

Nope. We've discussed this already, but there were plenty of reasons to expect a drop-off regardless of quality. And I don't dispute that it received a more mixed response than TFA, anyway.

BTW, the incessant sarcasm is a bad look, and I'm pretty sure it's a crutch that's inversely correlated with the strength of the argument. Be cool.

Nobody, dude. Literally nobody gets the "final say" as to what's good.

The mere act of citing them at all implies otherwise, and I gave you a couple of quotes showing that the reaction wasn't quite as straightforward as this. There's been a lot of implications and flirtation with conspiracies and the like.

Sure, but that's not what happened. You decided it was suspicious immediately, simply because you didn't think it was negative enough. That's backwards reasoning.

Sure, very simple, a well written story and interesting characters. Probably be a good idea to leave real world political flavours out of it too.



The debate still happens because of the unendurable excuses of the films defenders and their condescending straw man arguments for why people don't like the film, example Patricks "Star Wars fans don't want change, they hate it because its different", nope its because its terrible from start to finish. Rian Johnston can't leave it alone on Twitter either and stirs the pot frequently.

Thinking about it I actually think Patrick is trolling the TLJ haters, basically to bump up his viewer count and fair play to him, guy is a genius. So much of that first few minutes is pure "hate bait" that I just cant take it seriously. Patrick is simply milking the situation.

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Marvel doesn't have drop off though. Ultron was less well received than Avengers yet still did 1.4B to Avengers 1.5B, now Infinity probably the best yet has done well over 2B. Where is the dropoff?


I'm a sarcastic guy, sorry, that isn't ever gonna change.


I guess there has never been a good or bad film then . Surely profit is the absolute base score, huge dropoff between ep 7 and 8, huge dropoff between spin off 1-2.



It is suspicious. If you roll an 8 sided dice 50 times and get the same result 49 of those times, a result which is at the opposite end of the scale from the mean then you have a very rigged game. I'm not a mathematician but those are some long odds.

The only question is why this has happened on RT?

The debate still happens because the people who hate the movie can't stop talking about it, even if they don't have anything new to say. I mean, do you wanna count the number of times the film's critics have bumped this thread relative to its defenders? Heck, let's count yours against all the apologists combined, even.

Also, you say "straw man," but every time we talk about this I explicitly quote you, and the conversation almost always ends shortly after. So what's supposed to be so unfair, exactly? That when you get mad and blurt stuff out, I actually remember what you said?

IIRC, earlier in this very thread, you literally told me something was bad because it wasn't the kind of thing they'd done before.

I feel like most of your expressed resentment boils down to "I said something kinda carelessly and I'm annoyed that people thought I meant it." This has happened a few times where you say something obviously over the top, I argue with it, and after awhile you just sort of say it should be obvious you didn't literally mean it. Case in point:

Periodic reminder that overstating your position does not actually make it seem stronger. Just the opposite.

Marvel isn't typical, in any number of ways. Not sure why you think one example of a series having only a small drop off disproves the idea that big franchises very often see significant ones, though.

Then you really need to append it to better arguments. Otherwise, I'm gonna be the guy who points out that the sarcasm isn't earned. That's not ever gonna change, either.

Nope. There's just never been a film you could prove was good or bad, objectively.

Really? Take a look at modern pop music and say that again. We both know there are tons of examples of crap making lots of money.

Also, I'm not even sure this argument works internally, since The Last Jedi made a freak-ton of money compared to most other films you presumably like a lot more.

You've misunderstood. You said it was "very suspicious" immediately, meaning back when the film came out, based on nothing more than the fact that the scores were higher than you thought they should be.

Please, stop it. You bumped this thread after 2 weeks of well needed inactivity, for something that no-one but yourself even remotely cares about.

Somebody kill this thread.

Yeah, God forbid the series that featured villainous foot soldiers named Stormtroopers from its inception suddenly starts making references to real-world politics.

But seriously, "a well-written story and interesting characters" is...an unsurprising answer because why else would anyone watch movies, but does it really help matters when there are Star Wars fans who say they got exactly that out of Last Jedi and your immediate response is to say they're "making excuses" because you yourself didn't like it?

Like I said before, acting like people who defend the movie are just "making excuses" is also pretty condescending for assuming that they "know" it's bad but refuse to admit it instead of, y'know, being human beings with their own differing opinions. As for "straw man" arguments about how the fans don't want change, isn't one of the biggest complaints about the film (if not the biggest) is that old man Luke isn't some sort of heroic badass like he presumably became at the end of ROTJ?

I think there's an interesting contrast between both videos - the "what do we want" video came out several months ago and he initially just seems intrigued enough by the divided reactions to make an essay asking why it all happened, but the "Patrick Explains" video came out earlier this month and he just sounds like he's had as much of the bellyaching as anyone else so he's resorted to just making his own case for the movie (and he even ends the video by saying he's done talking about Star Wars for the rest of the year). I've watched a good chunk of his videos and he's genuinely passionate about filmmaking as a craft (breaking down action sequences, analysing under-appreciated works, etc.) even though it draws the ire of cynical know-it-alls who want to argue about plot holes or whatever. Most of the "Explains" videos are for genuinely under-appreciated movies like Blade II or Alien: Covenant so I get the impression that he doesn't like that he even has to explain why this is so great so that explains the tone of the video.

Also, what's up with the constant disputing everyone and trying to see through them by saying they're making excuses or accusing them of trolling or "milking the situation" simply for expressing this? Too many ad hominems there.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Do you believe anyone at Disney cares what anyone here thinks?

Of course not, they have shown that since taking over the franchise. They’ll care though when we stop spending our cash to buy their products.

You know there are more examples than Marvel of consistent box office, Harry Potter for example, Dark Knight. I think a trend will show that where a film series sequels sit well with the audience and are well received the box office is quite steady, rising even. Some series even dip then rise again when audiences like them better, Fast and Furious for example.

The defenders of TLJ seem to cling to an idea that SW films buck the trend and always perform worse, yes the OT followed that trend back in the late 70s, early 80s but that was before film series of this kind were a thing, and ROTJ is quite less well received than the other 2, despite a legendary ending. The prequels suffered terribly from 1 to 3 because they were terrible.

I have no doubt that ep9 will perform terribly, then we will get a hiatus while Lucasfilm get their house in order, hopefully lessons will be learned and box office will rise again with better work in the future.

I find this quite astonishing tbh.


According to you there's no such thing as good or bad anything, or crap even so what pop music are you talking about?

Sure if you look solely at TLJ, say a $250m budget + maybe $200m marketing returns you $1.3B, + whatever you get from digital sales/DVD it looks like a fantastic success. However when you look at the previous instalment $2B, then the resulting fallout leading to a loss/breakeven for Solo (and whatever poor returns from 9) that success is questionable.


Cmon you know full well its dodgy, you haven't explained what could have caused it, all you can do is attack me for leaping to an obvious conclusion, if it's wet outside I'm going to jump to the conclusion that its been raining.

Sorry dude I'll try (again). I blame Plinkett for kicking the nest

73 pages now of "But I didn't like it!"

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Could any characters currently carry their own movie? At this point there is very little interest in the resolution of any character arcs for ep 9.



The Luke thing is one of your continuous straw mans through this thread, saying the complaints are that Luke isn't the main hero or that he isn't the same as 30 years ago. Literally no one has asked for those things, the complaints are that he has been turned into a complete joke. He clearly should have some sort of small role, in that sort of teacher, wise old helper mould, perhaps at some point getting his proper "Dumbledore vs Voldemort" moment.


For the record I like Blade 2, although Alien: Covenant is one of the most boring films I've ever seen.

I agree with Patrick that continuing to talk about this film has been a constant bellyache.

I could make a list of all the retarded comments by Patrick in the opening few minutes of his video and thereafter but I've better things to do.

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Nobody gonna bring up the fact that Empire was panned on release by hardcore fans of the original?


Oh, and for the very same reasons that TLJ has been getting a kicking?


Just sayin'

Speak for yourself.

Yeah, how dare he get turned into a joke. Next thing you know Rey will have to meet this other Jedi Master who's actually a goofy green Muppet that steals food and hits droids with his walking stick. Also, "Dumbledore vs Voldemort" moment?

You can put "learn to stop using retarded as an insult" at the top of your better-things-to-do list for starters.

Somehow I don't think we're very likely to start seeing TLJ reaching the upper tiers of various all time greatest movie lists though.

I think quite a lot will be speaking with their wallets.



Yeah how dare he.

Bit of a HUGE difference in the fact that Yoda was acting that way to get the measure of Luke before revealing his true self. Luke actually was a hobo, sadly it wasn't an act.



Don't forget that I am actually a bad person who doesn't like strong females or minorities and -insert various leftie labels here-.

Oops being sarcastic again, damn.

So you (and Larry) keep saying

It can be two things.

You wouldn't have to point out that you were (allegedly) being sarcastic if you hadn't firmly established yourself as being one of those dudes who complains about SJWs enough to make that first sentence seem plausible.

As always, time will tell. The Thing flopped hard with 1982's critics and audiences only to later be hailed as one of the greatest horror movies ever made, so you never know what'll stand the test of time or not.