A/V Episode VIII - THE LAST JEDI - Official Movie Discussion Thread

I'm not sure what you're actually trying to do besides vindicate your position, sidv88.

The RT link shows overwhelming consensus:



370 critical reviews, of which 92% were positive.
222,864 user reviews, of which 89% were positive.

You may dislike it, and consider it hack fiction, but that view is fringe at best. And finding those negative IMDb reviews is great because you can see a lot of intensely passionate but astonishingly stupid people miss the entire point of why ANH was the TFA template.

Which means you can feel superior for knowing, unlike those plebian fools.

 

That "Star Wars" part of the title probably gave a +3 star handicap. It also follows internet culture's pattern. Love something. Hate it later. Defend it next. Debate now has nothing to do with the content, but the contributors. Yay. We made ourselves relevant. And we just had to be cliche' to be so "just a little better than you."

Calling it now. Ep. 9 will end with another mystery box. Literally resurrected Han getting out of a box delivered by ... Maz. But, the whole planet blew up. He fell to his death. How did you?

That's a story for another time.

 

Taking a break here, I removed the list identifying friends, shouldn't have allowed myself to get into doing that. Need to think before I make another mistake.

I will say one thing, I don't feel people should be forced to like something because everyone else does. Im glad they do, and I don't call TFA hack fiction, although people I know did. It was a well intended film, although I felt it had problems.

The hack fiction thing came from someone here calling EU this. I asked why this gets open to name calling and not TFA, but got drawn into the fight. Need to rest.

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While I disagree that the similarities are just the Monomyth (I've been over this before so I won't do it again) I think TFA works as a reflection of ANH as the thematic and rhythmic 'next beat' and that it's different enough to not be history repeating itself, but rather that similar things just happen in history.

I like the idea that the villains are neo-Imperials and not some other enemy, mainly for thematic reasons. If the Sith corrupted the Republic into a fascist state then I like the idea that even after they are gone the malignancy that they brought out still haunts galactic civilisation. The idea that this takes the form of an anti-rebellion against the dominant Republic, and is even more radical and destructive than the Empire itself - almost purified into the most destructive elements of the Empire - is exactly the right choice for the ST villains.

And to all the people who wanted Luke to be a bad-ass running around with all the New Jedi, in that scenario the film shouldn't have been Episode VII it should have been its own thing. The PT is about the destruction of the Jedi. The OT is about the Jedi in the wilderness and their return to destroy the Sith and the Empire. The ST should naturally be about, now the Jedi have won, should they simply fade away, rather than risk people like Ben Solo falling to the dark side and wrecking havoc. Hopefully the answer is that they must rebuild, beginning with Rey. It works thematically, far better than anything the EU provided.

 

Attack of the Clones has more positive reviews than negative. I'm glad we can finally put to rest any criticism on that movie. It was good. If you disagree, you are arguing with yourself and should keep it to yourself.

 

*face smack*

You guys are still missing the point.

You can not like things that other people like. But don't use the opinions of people we don't know to try to argue something. Thats it. Just use actual arguments instead of BS heresay.

 

Wait what, anakinfansince1983?

 

For the most part, I love the Kylo Ren character.

The first 20 to 30 minutes of TFA were downright AWESOME for me. Even the beats / visuals I mentioned in the "what makes SW for you" thread

1. Star Destroyer - not as dramatic as ANH, but it was interesting
2. Stormtroopers - Removing a taboo and showing Stormtrooper blood (OMG, I've watched them die a million times over, but this actually humanizes them)
3. Kylo Ren (Vader) entrance.

It started to fall apart for me once they left Tantoo .. Jakku. Probably the Rathtars was the definitive beginning of the end for me.

 

Yes, the infernal desert planet. It's not as if the motif of lifeless wastelands and oppressive conditions needs a physical avatar that screams solitude.

 

I'm just happy that you're happy.

 

This kind of cracked me up as this is argument that many "prequel defenders" use to explain why people feel the need to say things like the prequels are "awful."

 

Actually I have some problem with the writings of TFA, or at least the end product, mostly it is the lack of breathing room and explanations, which we see in GL's SW

 

Am I... the only person who doesn't hate this decision? Like I'm actually cool with this.

Don't worry JJ I like you. Just like I like the Separatist Council. Nobody likes them either. We can all be BFFs.

 

I'm basically just sitting here munching popcorn.

 

Real question is are you gonna go Telesync (where the audio is plugged in without crowd noise) or cam with ambient crowd noise. Or even just wait a few months for the blu ray / digital rip?

 

Well, in my case, I don’t know many people who loves TFA. But then again I live in Japan, which rated the movie as only slightly better than AOTC, so what do I know.

But I did follow the Western social media and the hype leading to and during the movie and the many, many reviews and comments on how the movie “washed the bitter taste left from the prequels, hence it’s awesome”. I do remember when I just came out of the threater and me and my group of friends were still reeling on the experience of just watching a Star Wars movie that superficially felt like the first movie we fell in love, but at the same time left us a bit confused with the strangely anticlimatic way it ended, and we didn’t know which of our feelings on the movie mattered the most. At first we were “it’s just made me feel like a kid again, I’m sure” and later we were “I’m gonna admit, I don’t like TFA and much as I thought I liked.”

At the beginning, it felt like it was just wrong to say anything bad about the movie after all the wait and hype we endured, especially after this franchise went through three movies that were extremely criticized and the fandom earned a very, very bad reputation after the “GL raped my childhood” period.

Like if we don’t like a movie that was deliberately shot and produced to make us feel like we were watching ANH again, then what kind of Star Wars movie will we ever like? Geez, Star Wars fans are never happy. Learn to be happy and enjoy TFA dammnit.

And that was the attitude that was prevalent in the English-speaking internet, every time someone said something negative about the movie. The first critic who wrote a negative opinion was bashed by the fandom and received death threats. That’s how insanely protective and overhyped the fandom was upon the movie’s release.

Then it slowly started to change as more and more people started noticing the flaws, the lack of an original plot, the shallow way the emotions are handled, the fact that movie hinges on nostalgia sentiment and not on coherent storytelling – and it’s not that people didn’t notice issues those before, it’s more that after all the hype died down, the fact that the movie “was not like the prequels” became less important in our appreciation of the movie.
For many of us, TFA soon revealed to be a movie that looked worse and worse on repeated watches.

I do remember I rated 8/10 in IMDB in the day I watched TFA. Now, that movie would hardly get a 6 from me.

Do I think that the movie is still loved by a lot of people? Absolutely. Do I think it still managed to create characters that were enough compelling on their own regardless of the plot and made people excited for them? Yes. But do I also get the feeling that this movie was grossly overrated in huge part due to the hype, like Avatar? Yes. I mean, I still know people who list Avatar in their favorite movies lists, even though a lot of people seem to be believe now that Avatar being a crappy story with good CGI is an universal opinion. Shall I remember that Avatar’s Metacritic score is higher than TESB’s?

So yeah, the fact that TFA has that critical score doesn't mean much to me; it doesn’t change the fact that I still think the movie is overrated, that JJ Abrams knows how to produce and edit a movie and manipulate the audience’s emotions but he’s still an uninspired writer with no creative vision that embodies too many things I dislike about Hollywood, or the perception that I have that the fandom would still largely prefer Rian Johnson to direct IX over JJ Abrams, even if JJ’s movies were technically more successful than any of Johnson’s movies.

I’e also gained a lot more respect for Japanese critics, as they called TFA for what it was right from the start.

 

It is win-win.
SW 9 turns out great. Sounds great.
SW 9 turns out awful. JJ Abrams' career is thrown down the reactor shaft.

There will be a behind the scenes release for Ep 9 if it is great. KK (Mick) tells JJ a successful Ep. 7 had more to do with the hype than the movie. JJ wasn't really defending the title in a tough fight. JJ starts to doubt himself. He's going to be exposed big time. Then his old nemesis he beat in Rocky 2, Apollucas, shows up to give him inspiration. Not to give anything away, but it ends with them running on the beach in shorts that show off more than you would want to see. Turns out Snoke started out strong, but he tired in the later episodes.

 

Kathleen Kennedy peered across the internet and saw there weren't nearly enough arguments about TFA. Then she knew what she needed to do.

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Not really, there is absolutely zero way this movie makes less than a billion dollars. He's only going to get more prestige and cash.

 

Tbf, there are different types of lifeless wastelands with oppressive conditions, and they could have done as little as play up the ruined former battlefield elements more to distinguish it from Tattooine.

I always feel bad about TFA, anyway, because I got spoiled about Han in line to get my ticket.

 

Everything you wrote described my initial reaction, growing reconsideration and final feeling to a T. Your summary was so spot on and well crafted, that I only hope the Ep. 9 writer can pull off what you just did.

The PT's simultaneously made a tone of money and destroyed Lucas' legacy. So it is very possible. I honestly can't think of a single Abrams story that hasn't ended ho hum at best for me. He's so not the guy to wrap stuff up in a bow and come out for the final bow. He'd probably be at the bottom of my list for the guy to finish the conclusion of anything. He has talent, but a satisfying story ending is not one of those talents. Hopefully Ep. 9 proves otherwise. And hopefully that proof doesn't go from a sugar candy rush euphoria on opening night to a crash of realizations shortly thereafter.

EDIT: This is also the first time I'm glad KK can't seem to get along with directors. Crossing fingers for the Hollywood Reporter breaking story "JJ out !!!"

 

TFA was JJ and Disney launching tier Star War in the absolute safest, most sure fire way imaginable. I didn't mind it, but I'm really hoping they don't do a note for note rehash of the whole OT. Abrams getting 9 makes me worry about that more.

 

Dude's been having the Internet holler at him for 2 years that TFA was just ANH. Ain't no way that Ep IX is going to be just ROTJ after all that.

Cripes, look at how the lens flare / shake cam in his movies started to be decreased after MI:3, Star Trek and Super 8. (Even Super 8 started to cut way down). I mean, it's still there but the X-Treme Abrams visual stylistic quirks are few and far between in TFA. It looks more like a Star Wars movie than a JJ Abrams movie (but, happily, he still has a few moments that look and feel like his own)

I mean, even the opening of ROTJ had Lucas freely admitting that he only had one real major story point, the confrontation between Luke, Vader and The Emperor, so he lets it groove on it's own with a wacky Jabba side quest that takes up the opening act. I get the feeling there will be a significant amount of dominoes from TFA and TLJ that'll need attending.