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SPOILER TALK - The Last Jedi (open spoilers allowed!!!)


Jay

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My ideal order is IV-V-VI. Stop. And VI is optional.

 

16 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Yeah, those are truly Lucas' vision, and because they were building towards the original Star Wars, he had the basic contour of the plot figured out

 

Which is more than you can say for this new trilogy.

 

If the OT did what they're doing in the new trilogy, Richard Marquand could have said "I'm not really interested in who the "other" Yoda spoke about is, we don't have time to fit it in and it doesn't advance the story I'm trying to tell. The same with Vader being Luke's father. That's interesting, but not really something we're going to be exploring. We don't need to return to Dagaboh either; been there, done that." 

 

 

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I'm not necessarily talking about the "mysteries" or answering any particular plot point. In the two years between TFA and TLJ I thought about who Snoke is, who Rey's parents were, and who the Knight's of Ren are for a total of about three minutes (if that). I never really cared that much about the particulars of it all, I just would have liked to see those things dealt with thoughtfully.

 

My issue is that there doesn't seem to be any one person driving this train who's interested in pulling it all together. I think it hurts the story. For all GL's faults, he was still the guy with the vision.

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32 minutes ago, mstrox said:

TFA presented Snoke as a big guy named Snoke who ruled the First Order.[...] TFA presented Rey as a person abandoned by parent(s) on Jakku - parents who never came back. 

 

You don't need the characters to voice the mystery for the audience.

 

What you want as an audience is for elements that are planted to be payed off. That's the most basic element of narrative structure.

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The mystery of Rey’s parents wasn’t even really acknowledged much in TFA and has very little time devoted to it.  There was just this cynical awareness, I felt, that the series was trapped in its own tropes and would probably try to do something with her parents in order to pinch more money in our wallets, as would be typical for anything JJ Abrams touches.  I never cared about Rey’s parents and thought it undercut her character to have to worry about that.  I am glad they went another way.

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14 minutes ago, mstrox said:

But what element was "planted" in "Big Evil Guy Named Snoke?"  The mystery was wholly invented by Internet fan theory.

 

That the "big evil guy" will have a significance in the story, which he ended up not having.

 

I actually think showing Ren "complete his training" under Snoke would have been very interesting to see: We never saw that with Vader. It could have infused the film with a nice theme about indoctrination.

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I only consider the ones Lucas was involved with. The Holiday Special was out of his hands. I-VI are canon, although the OT is slightly debatable since they don't seem to align with Lucas' vision and have required various edits.

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I prefer to see the original movies as their own complete story, and everything else that comes after as a  kind of quasi-alternate-universe Rosencratz and Guildenstern exploration/riff on established characters/worlds etc. 

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The prequels feel like a complete story with symmetry and shit and I dig that about them. The originals feel decidedly more slapped together, if you will, especially the transition from ESB to ROTJ, which is all wrong. That adds to their charm, but it has the feeling of being made up as they went along and not unified as a complete vision like the PT.

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1 minute ago, Philippe Roaché said:

The prequels feel like a complete story with symmetry and shit and I dig that about them. The originals feel decidedly more slapped together, if you will, especially the transition from ESB to ROTJ, which is all wrong. That adds to their charm, but it has the feeling of being made up as they went along and not unified as a complete vision like the PT.

 

Yeah, although I do think the OT films each bring their own charm and work well as a trilogy, I must agree that the PT is the most cohesive. It seems the more hands-on Lucas is, the more cohesive things are, which makes sense.

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The only two prequel movies that I think are cohesive when viewed as a whole are AOTC and ROTS. TPM doesn't really do anything; anything of story relevance is rehashed in the first 5 minutes or so of AOTC.

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2 hours ago, idril said:

TPM also does a lot of character-building for Padme, especially politically, and it establishes Anakin and Padme's relationship as stemming from a childhood idealisation. The reason I think this works really well (at least in theory, how it's directed/written is a slightly different conversation) is that it adds to the fact that Anakin has put Padme on a pedestal. When he is reunited with her AOTC, she is untouchable and perfect to him and his obsession with her is so extreme that it contributes to his moving towards the Dark Side in ROTS. If they just met in AOTC, it would come off more like an ordinary teen romance, which is fine, but adding that childhood idealisation really shows how fundamental Padme has been in Anakin's entire life. Plus TPM establishes Padme's daring and curious nature in going undercover. I feel like her fighting in the finale of AOTC would feel rather forced, since she is a senator, if we hadn't seen how she was as a queen.

 

I suppose my issue here is that Padme isn't a believable character at all. Neither is the romance in AOTC. Anakin is a borderline sexual predator, and based on how Padme reacts to his advances earlier in the movie, she's creeped out and disgusted by this dude. That's bad enough, but because the plot needs her to, she suddenly falls in love with him, despite her being an upright and reputable senator with a strong sense of morals and right and wrong. Talk about bad writing.

 

I also give her credit for being in one of, if not the worst moment in the Star Wars saga; Anakin tells Padme that he enjoyed massacring the entire tribe of Sand People (including the women and children, mind you) and she just shrugs it off. I'm not saying she forgives him, or helps him reform, which could've been interesting and compelling. She literally just forgets about it two minutes later and basically just says "we're all human, everyone gets angry sometimes!"

 

It's just awful. It's so bad, people actually have headcanons that Anakin was just using one big old mind trick on her. It's also disturbing. The reason (most) people feel so uncomfortable watching this is that because they know someone made this movie thinking that this is OK behavior. That's worrying.

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1 minute ago, Philippe Roaché said:

To be angry is to be human.

 

Actually yeah this points to the fact that Padme was pulling Anakin away from the inhuman abnegation of the Jedi and towards a more emotional place. But in the process she was overlooking the dangers of this, and I think lying to herself about how disturbed/dangerous he was.

 

There's no doubt that their love is unhealthy and damaging to both of them. But I'm not sure it's fair to say she is creeped out and disgusted by him - just because she doesn't fall into his bed straight away doesn't mean she isn't potentially attracted to him! She obviously has reservations, as she should, considering he is a Jedi, but she willingly goes along with flouting the rules and getting married anyway. And she is endangering his position as a Jedi more than he is endangering hers as a senator. Senators can obviously get married, Jedi cannot. 

 

I don't think that they have a healthy relationship, mind you. A healthy relationship wouldn't contribute to someone falling to the Dark Side! But the PT is Padme's tragedy as much as it is Anakin's. She is a strong, intelligent, driven and highly moral politician - with one terrible human flaw, which is falling in love with someone absolutely inappropriate. I love Padme's character because of this. She isn't perfect. She compromises herself and falls into an unhealthy romance. She reflects a very common type of person, who is devoted and righteous and good in their professional life, but terribly flawed in their personal relationships.

 

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11 minutes ago, Philippe Roaché said:

To be angry is to be human.

 

Not to the extent that Anakin takes it. In the later two prequels, he's pretty much a sociopath, with little to no likable characters traits at all. A very loathsome protagonist.

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Yeah, when I first got to watch Attack of the Clones, it must have been the first time I was loathing my protagonist.

 

And because he is the way he is, it also drags Obi Wan down, like when he chastises Anakin in front of Padme, or in the end "come to your senses!" Makes him sound like a jerk, too. Which is to say nothing of the Jedi council.

 

The only one who has a genuinely fatherly dynamic with Anakin is Palpatine. But we as an audience are supposed to understand why Anakin would side with Sidius, not relate to him siding with him!

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Rian Johnson's response to a fan on Twitter who had a quibble with the "Leia Poppins" scene from The Last Jedi:

 

 

:lol::lol::lol:

 

He always seems like a really great, down-to-earth guy. Like the type of person you'd invite over for pizza, and sit on a couch and talk for hours about geeky stuff.

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All this rationalizing after-the-fact is irrelevant, though.

 

It should just have been staged so that the visual didn't look as it does.

 

Also, I'm generally not a fan of the "Oh, sh*t, a character is dead, no! Oh, s/he isn't."

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Even though I've read all the spoilers since I don't care anymore, it's interesting the amount of spoilers so casually mentioned in news stories and social media at this point. It'd be infuriating for someone who hasn't seen it yet and wanted to go in clean.

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So Leia dies in this one?

 

I thought Han's death was atrocious. It was very awkward and when he fell into the abyss it looked like when the Reman viceroy falls down the shaft in Star Trek: Nemesis.

 

This trend of killing classic characters and passing on the torch or whatever is so Star Trek: Generations.

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I didn't mind Leia using the force. In fact, I always wanted to see Leia train as a Jedi but her flying through space just looked silly to me.  I'm not sure the point of it except as a way to introduce Holdo and have her take over while Leia was comatose. I suppose the music made up for it, though.  That rendition of her theme before she starts flying is absolutely beautiful.

 

Also, if Leia could something extraordinary like fly through space using the force, then why couldn't she move those rocks at the end or do something else to help the Resistance escape?  Unless if she used up all her force power and was waiting for a refill.

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She never trained to use the Force, but she had the potential in her. That moment was supposedly a purely instinctive reaction to a dire situation.

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Leia used the Force to hear Luke's cries for help below Cloud City, and again to sense his escape from Death Star II. A Force muggle like Han would not have been able to do either. Do people forget this? 

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10 hours ago, someonefun124 said:

I didn't mind Leia using the force. In fact, I always wanted to see Leia train as a Jedi but her flying through space just looked silly to me.  I'm not sure the point of it except as a way to introduce Holdo and have her take over while Leia was comatose. I suppose the music made up for it, though.  That rendition of her theme before she starts flying is absolutely beautiful.

 

Also, if Leia could something extraordinary like fly through space using the force, then why couldn't she move those rocks at the end or do something else to help the Resistance escape?  Unless if she used up all her force power and was waiting for a refill.

My guess would be that it was a survival instinct and a small pull of the force through space is enough to propel her towards the ship. At first I thought the scene was a little awkward, but after a little time to gestate it, it isn't too far-fetched that a novice with no training (like Rey) could at least use a portion of their force powers.

 

 

I'll never get over the ludicrous reactions from countless idiots who think they're clever by pointing out the ridiculousness of the scene. They're almost the same as the dickheads who hoped Snoke would be the reinvigorated Mace Windu... Now THAT'S ridiculous! 

 

I'll quote Christopher Hitchens here: "People prefer a junk theory over no theory at all". 

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You're approaching this the wrong way. People take issue with that visual, not with th fact that Leia uses The Force.

 

The whole thing simply had to be staged differently.

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On 20.1.2018 at 11:57 AM, Holko said:

She never trained to use the Force, but she had the potential in her. That moment was supposedly a purely instinctive reaction to a dire situation.

It's that simple! Some people don't seem to get that.

I don't care for the visuals. In ten years it's a classic Star Wars moment.

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Yeah of all the problems with TLJ, I don't find this anywhere near the worst. Maybe the visuals don't come off quite right, fine, but I don't think there's any problem with Leia having an instinctual response of survival through her latent connection with the Force. If anything the problem was in TFA, that Leia wasn't established as being a Force-user (which was heavily implied to be her path in ROTJ).

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7 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

I don't care for the visuals. In ten years it's a classic Star Wars moment.

 

But its a film: the visuals are the most important thing.

 

You’re all approaching this subject as fans of Star Wars where you should approach it as fans of cinema: the difference being that, for the latter, as opposed to the former, the universe exists only to serve the film and the narrative, as it should be.

 

I don’t think people will warm up to The Last Jedi as much as you think. Fan criticisms aside, it’s a deeply flawed movie.

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Remember about a month before this movie came out, people here were so confident about its impending high quality and how Disney/Kennedy must be so confident about Johnson, so the movie will probably be a near-flawless masterpiece? Hehe.

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5 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I don’t think people will warm up to The Last Jedi as much as you think. Fan criticisms aside, it’s a deeply flawed movie.

Hell, no. The prequel trilogy is deeply flawed. The two Jedi movies are flawed, but not deeply.

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