Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi

One thing that has crossed my mind.


That theory about Jar Jar Binks... and all the backlash... basically turned the prequels bad after Lucas had to change the script for Episodes 2 and 3.
He had to abandon a larger picture.


How about this............... the things done and seen in The Last Jedi, are part of a larger picture... and we have yet to see it.
Try leaving it as is... and let Episode 9 unfold.
There may be a massive twist in Ep9... which puts pay to a lot of the questions that Ep8 has put in place.


We talk a lot about how Hollywood never learns when they do remakes and sequels... maybe we should take that leaf of the book, and learn from what happened when the fans moaned about Jar Jar Binks.

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I think my life just changed a little. No mickey mouse ears?

Budgies!!!!!!!!

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Disagree. Her character was one of the weakest aspects of the flick. She said everything she was thinking/doing instead of acting it out in ways that would let the viewer know what she was up to or what she was all about. Having her figure out the light speed tracking AND how to defeat it was laughably bad. Didn't she says she was a pipe mechanic? Correct me if I am wrong here, as I have only seen the flick once and might be remembering it incorrectly. The choice in the script to push Finn to the side was a poor choice. Finn was already sort of adrift, and to saddle him with a poor actor on a mission that pretty much amounted to nothing kind of trashed his character.

Speaking of trashing characters: Poe, who I thought was a lot of fun in TFA, did pretty much nothing but get dressed down several times by characters that repeatedly made terrible decisions that made the Resistance seem completely inept, in the end, completely destroying the resistance. Why didn't Vice Admiral Bad Decisions simply tell Poe about her evacuation plan? Keeping it from him made zero sense, except to create conflict where there didn't need to be any. Withholding information and making your subordinates look bad in front of their peers is an Empire gig, isn't it?

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I've been down that avenue about Admiral purple hair withholding info with Yoda. Apparently it makes perfect sense for superiors to let their subordinates think they are heading to certain death without telling them otherwise. Many parts of that whole fleet plot are simply poorly thought through.

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I touched on this a few pages back, that A) it was part of the overall plan for the story to set things up in TFA then go another way in TLJ which is fine if it works. Then as you say in part 9 we may have an "Aha" moment or 2.

or

B) there isn't an overall plan for the story and Rian Johnston has been allowed to ignore a lot of what JJ did in TFA and go his own way. Now K.Kennedy is panicking and has brought JJ back to try and sort it out again.

Given the complete mess that is TLJ "B" seems far more likely. I hope I'm wrong.

The idea that a military leader would share sensitive plans with someone wildly impulsive and insubordinate is straight up nuts, dude. There's a reasonable way to critique that sequence but the idea that there's NO reason for her to would withhold that from him just makes no sense. There's plenty.

Sensitive plans? What's sensitive about them?

There is no reasonable reason for her to withhold that from her crew whichever way you look at it. It is simply a bad plot device to allow for a subplot to occur.

They specifically rely on the Empire not knowing they're going to do. And remember, from her perspective, the Empire has managed to inexplicably track them, which strongly suggests there could be a spy among them. So yeah, of course she's not telling people, least of all Poe.

I'm not really clear on what your argument is here, other than just saying this over and over. So let's be as clear as possible: is it your argument that military commanders routinely share broad strategic details with soldiers? Specifically, soldiers that have recently disobeyed direct orders and put lives at risk specifically to override strategic decisions from their superiors? If so, what are you basing that on? Because I don't think you can be basing it on real-life military procedure.

You realize that saying it's a "bad plot device" and saying there's "no reason" for it are not the same thing, right? The latter is an absolute. The former is an opinion (and one I'd actually be sympathetic to if anyone could manage to critique it in a borderline normal way).

I feel like these arguments have been consistently pointless because people aren't content to just say something wasn't good or could have been better: they have to overcompensate by saying something is the WORST EVER or that there's NO REASON AT ALL for something.

It's almost as if people keep being wrong about stuff just to give me something to argue about.

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Sometimes they're not even wrong, they just take a reasonable opinion and multiply it by ten and turn it into an unreasonable one for no reason.

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PREACH IT ADAM!

One person who would be justified in hating this is Rose O'Donnell.

She could have helped them bring back Jabba the Hutt

This is a fair point. I would counter with whether or not there is more of a chance Poe would do something rash if he knew the plans, or whether or not he would do something rash if he thought nothing was being done in a dire situation. If the answer is "both", I think it makes more sense to let him in on the plans to increase the chances of him actually going along with the plans.

The rebels have always been more of the volunteer-style organization, with everyone pitching in the best way possible with their skills at hand. See: the scene where Han Solo volunteers to lead the Endor mission, after which asking for volunteers for his command crew. There was always the underlying theme of people banding together to defeat the authoritarian nightmare machine empire. Vice Admiral Bad Decisions is a straight up authoritarian, and comes across as more of an empire style character to me in her conduct, her final sacrifice aside, of course. To see Poe go from a Han Solo style, seat-of-his pants hero that pulls off feats of daring do to a whipping boy was just plain lame.

I don't think I am being too hyperbolic here, btw. Not sure if I am included in the group against which those claims are being made.

I think "she shouldn't have risked his mutiny" is a perfectly fair argument, as is the idea that the Resistance, out of desperation and necessity, might need to have a pretty fluid set of protocols re: chain of command. But that's different than saying there's absolutely no reason for her not to share the information.

One tricky element here is whether or not it's okay for characters in movies to make mistakes. If done right it's subtle, nuanced, and adds to the realism. If done badly it comes off as a cheap way to create tension or conflict where it doesn't need to exist.

I will disagree a little with what you're saying about Poe, though, because I really, really think they're setting up a good payoff there in the third film. I like that he's learning about leadership, and I suspect in the third film we'll see him come to full maturation as a leader. I can dig why someone might not like that arc, but I think it was done deliberately and thoughtfully, and I like the nuance there. And it's certainly in keeping with the "Star Wars again, but with more nuance" vibe that both films have.

A lot of the character issues might very well get adjusted in the third flick, especially with JJ back at the helm. The funny thing is, that if the chips were down, I would probably have to give the title of better director overall to Johnson, but I think JJ understands the spirit of Star Wars a bit more. My friends and I were talking last night, and we all agreed that The Last Jedi was put together pretty well as far as direction and editing were concerned, and there are some stunning sequences that are very memorable. Our issues were that these films seem to be getting injected with more and more politics of today, when Star Wars has always been sort of apolitical aside from grander sort of mechanized fascist vs scrappy freedom fighter stuff. Another of our main issues was that we came out Rogue One excited and satisfied, while we all walked out of The Last Jedi annoyed. I think that says something.

Yeah, in my head I'm still partioning some of this stuff. There's stuff that has already resolved, and we can critique openly, and then there's a lot more critiques that are being made in the middle of an ongoing story without seeing the payoff. Not saying we can't analyze or criticize as we go, but it stands to reason some of the complaints people have are going to look very different after the trilogy is complete.

I agree with this completely. Very well put.

Yeah, it's a stunning film. I'd say it's both the funniest and the prettiest Star Wars film. I can't wait for it to come out on Blu-ray, because literally two dozen times throughout the movie there was a moment where I thought "this frame would make a great photograph/desktop background."

I did not care for poe's conflict with Layer's replacement. *giggles*. Sorry, I had too

I agree with Sedai especially. From A New Hope, the lead character has always been the type to look forward, be hasty and impulsive that tries to learn the awareness of now. The resistance has always also been very open with its plans. Yes there was leadership structure, but everyone knew what was happening. Luke, probably the most recent addition and lowest totem on the pole was allowed a chair during the discussion of the original Death Start attack plan.

Yes, in similar fashion, Poe too was impulsive and made to learn the danger of his way. That was reflected some when Yoda gave the same lecture to Luke about being mindful of the here and now.

Poe's arc in that context and isolated from the rest of the movie is reasonable. However, when the rest of the movie is included, I felt his arc less serving to him as a growing character and more serving a writer to create a conflict to justify a wasted sub-plot.

That idea is what bothers me so much. I'm drifting away from TLJ and am now speaking broadly, but I find many movies are not written from the empathic perspective of "what would this character do, given what we know of him? Lets really look at the world from his experience." Instead, they are written from the perspective of a writer who simply needs to get from point A to point B. The character is positioned like a chess piece NOT because that character would be self aware and place himself there as a result of life experience, personality, or sacrifice; but because simply the writer needs a character in that spot to make way for plot point X.

It's an outside-in approach to writing IMO and it is a poorly invested attempt by a writer not to create characters, but to create a product.

I find much of TLJ suggests this style.

Bombs in space.
Confine all of your bombers to the same approach so that when one explodes, a domino effect inevitably occurs.
Same with the salt sleds near the end.
Force Hux to play a comedic idiot in the opening "on hold" scenes. Really? For all the **** he's been in for continually failing Snoke, in what honest fiction would that character hesitate destroying what has been his mission for two movies? A msg from Layer *cough* to which he already said he wouldn't accept?
Tactical mistakes that play out that I believe a rank at that level would never make only for the sake of plot and humor.

It appears to me there is no deep thought or concern given to established character knowledge. Instead, a writer is moving pieces. That upsets me not as a Star Wars fan, but as a writer/story teller. I find it lazy.

Eh. I think that read somewhat angry. While there is a principled matter in there that I'm emotional to, the movie, for what it is, is fine. C+ grade. It looked gorgeous but had too many details frustrating me that I thought should have been obvious enough to critique during development.