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

I think Kylo is way more interesting than Rey. But this opinion is very subjective of course. And I agree that most of the interest in Rey from the internet is more focused on her parentage. With Kylo, despite being a polarizing character, there is a lot more speculation and theorizing about his personality, what he represents, his motivations, his uncertain arc, etc. But at the end of the day, Rey is still more popular, in general, than Kylo.

And it is pretty clear that Rey is the hero of the ST and nothing is going to change that. Lucasfilm is very serious on promoting the importance and heroism of female characters in Star Wars. They are not going to blow that up just to suddenly focus on a 30-year old white man child. It would be weird.

Kylo functions well as the nemesis of the new female protagonist that is the opposite of him in every aspect. In fact, I would say that is the main reason why he works so well. He is well inserted in his antagonist role. He wouldn't work so well as a protagonist, imho. He would be almost unbearable to watch and nearly impossible to root for.

 

Captain Phasma becomes the hero. Phasma might be pretty uninteresting at this point, but Gwendoline Christie is. Phasma will become more interesting when it is revealed she is Rey's mother.

 

They also had him kill Han Solo as well another no no

 

I can't wait for Abrams's Episode IX to reveal that the real threat was Rotta the Hutt and his budget version of Starkiller Base all along.

 

Ah, ah...Rey as General Madine's daughter confirmed.

(if we're using the Darksaber novel analogy)

 

So it seems like they're reusing the original idea for Luke in TFA... but this time, instead of Luke witnessing his own power and being afraid of it, it's him witnessing Kylo and Rey's power...



"I’m told that in the back story for the film, Luke Skywalker does something amazing with the Force. He’s really powerful (seems to now be the backstory for Kylo Ren, and what Luke fears is possibly the future for Rey), more of “wizard than lightsaber wielding warrior.”

Basically, Luke Skywalker has a “Force Unleashed” moment and realizes he might be bad for the universe. The aftermath of that event is difficult for Luke.(now it's Luke thinking the return of the Jedi might be bad for the universe, especially training super-powerful ones like Kylo and Rey)

Luke Skywalker has become the most powerful Jedi ever, but he doesn’t believe he’s the wisest. He doesn’t want to make the mistake his father made by thinking he knows what’s right for the universe.(or thinks that this is the mistake Kylo made, and Rey might make)

Skywalker becomes somewhat deranged in his seclusion. He is consumed by his fear that if he should return to “society” his power could be misused, he could be manipulated, and he may accidentally hurt the one’s he loves.(now it's consumed by the fear that if the Jedi should return, their power could be misused, they could be manipulated, and they will hurt people he loves... like what happened with Kylo)

For these reasons, to protect the galaxy and himself, Luke retreats into self-imposed exile for many years. (...now to prevent the same thing that happened to Kylo from happening to more)

I’m told he can’t always control the power. While he sits in a meditative state, he levitates things unconsciously and he’s not always in complete control (this is EXACTLY what we see with Rey in the trailer) and he’s never sure if he’s doing the will of the Force or acting on his own passions.

Luke is seeing the past, the present, the future, “old friends long gone” and other things that prey upon his sanity.(Rey already had a vision like this in TFA)

Luke Skywalker is described as “creepy and frightening in appearance” because you supposedly can see “the fire in his eyes” behind his grizzled appearance during some scenes.
For most of Luke’s appearance in Star Wars: Episode VII, it is questionable if his madness will result in evil. Not even those that have known him for most of his life know if he’s sane or not. However, the villain and the new hero both draw Skywalker out and he’s forced to intervene in the galactic conflict. The imbalance he feared bringing back to the galaxy is set into motion by the new evil. But it is not only evil that brings Luke Skywalker out of exile. The good in the universe does as well when one of the heroes convinces him the place he is in is not where he belongs. By the last act of the film, it is clear where Luke falls on spectrum of good and evil."

http://www.starwarsunderworld.com/2014/11/rumor-state-of-luke-skywalker-in.html

 

Legends as Luke's vision confirmed! Lol!

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OK, watched it.

Overall? I'm, er, Luke-warm on it.

And I can't help but suspect Ep 9 will be titled Rey-turn of the Jedi.

 

Reminds me of Jacen's vision in NJO. I do feel like we may yet get to see some of the broad strokes of the Legends-verse play out in the new films. Characters and plot may be different, but similar themes.

 

I half expect Rey and Kylo to have Jacen-like TUF experiences. Maybe become sort of avatars of the light and dark sides respectively.

That would be some crazy ish, though.

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Re: Rey going dark side

Tempted by, yes, fall to? No. Feels like there's been too many cases in stories of 'woman gets power, woman turns into evil psychopath' aka Woman Scorned stereotype.

 

I have a bad feeling. This trilogy is going downhill. Meh trailer.

 

This is kind of interesting, combined with the Vong on the cover of Vector Prime. It couls be mistaken for Snoke, and now Snoke has red knights.

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It's an unfortunate stereotype in fiction, but not really used in Star Wars from what I recall--only Ventress comes to mind in the filmed media.

 

Yeah, plus we just got that with Anakin in the last trilogy. Also you'd have to ignore everything else and make it all about Luke and Kylo in order to try and make that believable.

 

Kylo being crazier and more conflicted in TLJ than in TFA (which is quite saying something) is very probable because, as mentioned, this kicks off the second that TFA ends so Kylo is literally still healing (he wears the cool black space bandage earlier on in the film as you can surmise since we see him without it later and in all the merch it's sans space bandage) and obviously killing his own father caused a ... situation. In his brain. To be all crazy like. (see. TFA: "We're not done yet." line delivery as he was completely off his freakin rocker by that point. Moreso!) So basically his crazy conflict is probably going to worsen and we'll see how Kylo Ren grieves for killing his father which probably involves a whole lot of murdering Resistance folk. Personally, I would hope for Kylo tapdances with the light and redemption but then goes full bore evil even more because unlimited powah.

I also support the notion that the Kylo reaching out to Rey bit at the end is utter base trailer editing trickery. Which I'm totally okay with! The outfits / Kylo lack of space bandage doesn't match. Basically, Rey is wearing her Resistance outfit when she says she needs someone to help her (which we can tell is from the beginning of the movie so she's probably talking to Luke) and Kylo reaching out to her he doesn't have the space bandage (which it seems he'll have at the start) so it's later in the film. And the backgrounds don't match. So it's just a trailer bit and I was miffed if the trailer gave away such a big moment but the shot continuity doesn't match. HOWEVER, that being said, it doesn't take away the notion that at some point in the narrative, Kylo does reach out to ... help someone. Probably a hero. Maybe even Rey. And there's fire in the background. So stuff has been going down. Third act hand reach, definitely.

I still think Leia could be killed off way at the start by Kylo. Poe is emotionally chattering about how they are the spark that will ignite the flame that could burn down the first order, so he's definitely trying to motivate them after a big loss. Which could be Kylo blowing up Leia. And, to go back to outfit detective game, we haven't seen a lot of Leia footage or different outfits. There's the grey one and the brown one. That's about it. Maybe two costume changes from brown outfit to grey outfit and then Kylo blows her up. Maybe.

 

If Kylo kill Leia, then you can pretty much stick a fork in any potential "redemption arc" for him. Because I doubt that most of the audience would buy it at that point.

 

If Kylo kills Leia he's deader than Jacen Solo. I mean, Jacen took a shot at Han and Leia, gutted the Falcon, killed Mara and posted up like he'd take out Ossus. He was brutally maimed.

Gah..

I do not want to see another Solo son g through that. He better not kill Leia.

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True, it's a road I'd be happier for SW to never go down at all, but maybe that's just me.

 

Well most of the Reyloers and Kylo Fans would be fine with it (since most of them believe Leia was a terrible mother anyway), but I doubt the GA would agree. Although I don't think that it will be that he hesitates and lets her go, because there was a rumour earlier that

Spoiler

she's shot down in her ship and grievously wounded but uses the Force to escape, so that could be from Kylo shooting her down

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I also think the trailer is being misleading, but I do think they team up at one point. I'm not sure how they're going to sell Rey agreeing to team up with a man she saw murder her father figure in cold blood and maim her best friend in front of her without looking like an idiot though, no matter what kind of sympathetic backstory she learns from Kylo (which seems to be mostly "My parents had careers", which I doubt Rey would be very sympathetic to).

 

Kylo's origin: I got a B+ while everyone else got As. But they're not laughing now because I killed them all, their families and even their pets! Doesn't this make me sympathetic? No? Then I will ravage this Porg until you give me what I want!

 

That shot of Kylo reaching for his lightsaber seems incredibly significant. Maybe there's a process through the film that Kylo goes more into his evil shell, starting with space bandage as he's all crazy and conflicted, sans space bandage as he's getting it under control, then finally back to his helmet and reaching for his lightsaber to do evil.

 

They really dropped the ball on not giving any sympathetic reasons on why Kylo would go bad. He actually has no reasons at all from the material we've been given.

It would have been better if they angled this after the X-Men franchise, with a galaxy afraid of Force users persecuting them and Kylo taking a Magneto stance against the galaxy while Luke takes an Xavier stance. Then we'd actually have detailed reasons for why characters do what they do rather than the Sith-lite Knights of Ren (who aren't really Sith because the creators said so, not for any actual reason).

After the New Republic tries to drain Rey of her midichlorians, she snaps and pronounces, "Kylo was right!"

 

Moment of appreciation for Mark Hamill looking like he's going to knock the gat-damn thing out of the park.

"I've seen this raw strength only once before. It didn't scare me enough then. It does now."
"This is not going to go the way you think!"