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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

The Last Jedi Discussion Thread - **UNTAGGED SPOILERS WITHIN**

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction and Writing Resource' started by mavjade , Dec 10, 2017.

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  1. Lady_Misty

    Lady_Misty Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 21, 2007
    To be fair i thought he would be at least polite to Rey; but I will admit that i got a kick out of the 'get off my lawn', 'there was a hand with that' and other such memes. But it makes sense that Luke was bitter about the turn of events and how the good guys just want him to swoop in and save them. He probably feels that Leia mostly wants him back because he's a trained Force User and not because she misses him. That he's the one that people turn to to fix their problems and he's internally screaming "I am not your freaking maid! Fix your own messes!"
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2018
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  2. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    Something TLJ did not answer that I want to know is how Mez got her hands on Anakin's/Luke's lightsaber and why Luke didn't seem that surprised that Rey has something that should be resting in the heart of Bespin.
     
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  3. Jedi_Lover

    Jedi_Lover Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2004
    There are so many unanswered questions that we don't know what is going through Luke's head. When he saw Rey, did he have a flashback of himself and how eager he was to save the galaxy and then he remembers how it all turned out and he wants dissuade her from taking up the lightsaber and running into danger like he did? In that case it is less of a grumpy old man, but a man who doesn't want others to make the same 'mistake' he did. Or did he throw away the saber because he knows she wants him to teach her and he sees himself as a failure as a Jedi Master and unworthy of even holding a lightsaber again. I wish we had a little more backstory on what Luke has been doing between ROTJ and TFA.
     
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  4. Lady_Misty

    Lady_Misty Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 21, 2007
    Here's a video exploring why for the divide with TLJ. I thought it was fairly insightful.

     
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  5. CosmicDust

    CosmicDust Jedi Knight star 1

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    Jul 16, 2017
    I find the divide really interesting because nothing really shocked me about the movie except for stuff Holdo and Rose did, I think mainly since they're new. I had a theory that writing fanfic and wanting to keep in character and compliant with themes established in TFA affected me. Other fiction I'm obsessed with but don't write fanfic for, I get more surprised by because I haven't approached it by thinking as a writer versus just part of the audience.

    Did that make any sense? haha There's a fic I have gathering dust in a word doc because it is 99% how Rey and Luke interacted but it... Uh, diverges because the Force match makes Rey with Cassian Andor.
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2018
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  6. gizkaspice

    gizkaspice Force Ghost star 4

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    Nov 27, 2013
    Lesson from TLJ: shirtless Kylo should be a running gag in every fanfic now
     
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  7. Ewok Poet

    Ewok Poet Force Ghost star 6

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    Jul 31, 2014
    Too buff.
     
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  8. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

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    Aug 14, 2002
    He put a good amount of work into creating that video.
     
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  9. Mistress_Renata

    Mistress_Renata Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 9, 2000
    Yes. Gotta say, though, I found him so annoying! Maybe I'm just in the wrong mood.

    But it is a good point. Fans who went with expectations that questions would be answered, or who were still smarting over the end of the original EU ("Luke is Rey's father!" "Snoke is so important!" "Finn and Poe are going to fall in love!" "They're going to say how Maz got the lightsaber!") really, really hated the movie, and have been vocal about it.

    Now I've been a fan for a long, long time (won't go into how long) as have my friends. But we haven't paid too much attention to the speculation, and we tried to avoid the spoilers. So we went in without any particular expectations, just curiosity. Luke did not react the way we thought he would, the Resistance didn't triumph the way we thought it would, and actually... we really enjoyed the film! Because it wasn't the same old-same old Dark Side/Light Side wise-Jedi-master-trains-young-apprentice and-rides-to-the-rescue stuff that we've seen again and again and again. Snoke and the First Order turned out to be paper tigers, fearsome in appearance, but not as powerful or cohesive as the Empire, which I loved. It wasn't black/white, EVERYONE had flaws, making them, to my mind, much more interesting. And there were a lot of questions which were left unanswered. Which I liked. They can be fleshed out in the final film or in other films, they can be fleshed out in books or other materials. So in that respect, because I had no particular expectations, only curiosity, I was thrilled.

    Now (as long as I'm on a diatribe), I think some of the problem, too, is that many fans who are comparing this to OT are forgetting that in most cases, they came to a completed OT. I heard someone complaining, for example, that Rose and her sister were not interesting characters, without a fully-fleshed out backstory, like Boba Fett or the other bounty hunters, like Bossk and IG-88.

    But when Empire came out and the bounty hunters first appeared, none of them had backstories. They didn't even have names until the action figures were released a few months later! (I was there, 1980, I remember this, they were just guys in funny masks in the background). Boba Fett looked cool and scary, but really... he didn't actually do anything. It took books and comic books and the PT to give him and the others a backstory and flesh them out and make them cool. All the cool stuff we know about the OT, Rogue Squadron, Aurra Sing, Boba Fett, the 501st... all of that stuff came later, in the other materials, like the books and things. (Oh, and Darth Vader being Luke's father... was a HUGE shock! Now, all the younger fans know the story of Anakin and how he became Vader and the reveal doesn't have the same power, but back when rocks were soft, this was mind-blowing).

    So, I dunno... I almost want to say to people upset about TLJ, "Breathe. Just...breathe." Because when I was first introduced to Star Wars (it wasn't Episode 4, it wasn't ANH, it was just Star Wars), we didn't have any of this. We just had to sit back, and take it in, and wonder where it would go from here, with an open mind.
     
  10. Carlos Danger

    Carlos Danger Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jul 25, 2013
    @Lady_Misty that was a good video. I think the theory of Chekhov's gun is spot on for me. I expect things that are focused on in the movie to mean something. There is a pattern to movies that we expect. If the movie focuses on a person or object in a crowded room...we expect that there is a reason for that. If you get to the end of the movie and realize there was no reason for putting the focus on something...then I feel tricked. I think that is because we see something of interest and we start wondering how that is going to tie into the rest of the movie. We expect to see hints of what is to happen. Breaking Bad was a great example of this. If they focused on an object in episode 1 it may be a key to a scene in episode 20. It was good writing. When we don't find out anything about Snoke it's frustrating. Maybe we will find out later, but after he is dead, why bother? What really ticks me off is I think they are writing the movies in a way that we will have to buy novels to fill in the blanks...and that is rude. The movies should be able to stand on their own and make sense without having to read a novel about Rose, Finn or Rey's younger days. It starts to look like a money grab. It reminds me of the uproar about Star Wars Battlefront where you have to pay a lot of money to unlock features. I am not buying anymore books just so they can become Legends in twenty years when Star Wars gets rebooted again. :(

    Sorry for the rant. I just wanted to say it was a good video.
     
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  11. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2002
    And this should show J J Abrams that he needs to answer the questions that he himself raises in one film, rather than shifting responsibility onto the next director.

    I quite liked Rose, but I did not like the way that she led the narrative. Eg. Just because she says the only way to be that rich [enough to play on Canto Bight] is through war profiteering, does not mean that is true.

    Lando won Cloud City in a sabaac game. If he'd been able to sell it, I bet he would have been able to play alongside those other gamblers, but that would have gotten him trampled by floppy-eared equines in her world.

    And that end kiss, felt like a cop out from a potential Finn / Rey onscreen ship.
     
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  12. Chyntuck

    Chyntuck Force Ghost star 5

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    Jul 11, 2014
    One aspect of TLJ that IMO hasn't been highlighted enough is that the narrative POV is mostly third-person limited – actually so limited that it borders on unreliable narrators all along. We get to see the Poe vs Holdo conflict from Poe's POV, so of course we're going to think of Holdo as an inadequate commander until Poe finds out what she was really up to. We learn of Kylo Ren's backstory and motivations through Rey, who is piecing together the elements she finds out or perceives through her Force Skype sessions, but we never get all the details from Luke, who was there all along and presumably has reasons to claim that Kylo won't return to the light. We hear about Canto Bight from Rose, who is fiercely devoted to the Resistance, so she describes the gamblers as "people who sell weapons to the FO". Ironically enough, Finn's first answer to what can make someone that rich is "war", but Rose corrects him and we have to wait until DJ comes along to get confirmation that Finn's first assumption was true. There are many other smaller instances of this throughout the film (for instance when Luke gives Leia the dice, she clearly realises that he's not really there but she remains silent until the end).

    I think that this is a very unusual narrative approach for a SW movie. I mean, okay, "from a certain point of view" is one thing, but TLJ outright misleads the viewer from beginning to end without resorting to in-universe lies or deception, and that's not something I expected to see.
     
  13. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

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    Aug 14, 2002
    Yeah, some good spots there.
     
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  14. Mistress_Renata

    Mistress_Renata Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Sep 9, 2000
    Well, the raising questions to let viewers ponder is sort of his trademark, I mean look at lost. It doesn't mean HE had the answers in mind. Maybe, since he knew other directors would be taking over, he was thinking of it as sort of a round-robin... you throw a few things out there and see where other people go with them.
    Rian Johnson is known for twisting the narrative, aka Looper and Breaking Bad. Good guys aren't always good, bad guys aren't always bad.

    So I think expecting a straight A to Z, with everything answered and wrapped up at the end, is not something we'll get, even with Episode 9, because these directors don't work/think that way. (Look at the finale of Lost!)
     
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  15. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

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    Dec 16, 2012
    He could at least still have created some alternative explenations to all the questions raised in TFA to suggest the next director (who could have used or ignored them) instead of just giving them nothing to work with but unanswered questions, which is how I understand it happened.
     
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  16. Lady_Misty

    Lady_Misty Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Mar 21, 2007
    It has been suggested that the seed for Rey's parents selling her is planted in TFA when Plutt offers her a ton of rations for BB-8; at first she's going to accept his offer and going as far as beginning to gather them before looking at BB-8 and then refusing. Deep down she knows that her parents (of at least her caregivers) sold her for food,/money/a ship and remembers how it felt so she's not going to do the same to a droid that trusts her to give him back to his Master.
     
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  17. Cowgirl Jedi 1701

    Cowgirl Jedi 1701 Force Ghost star 5

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    Dec 21, 2016
    Good eye!
     
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  18. brodiew

    brodiew Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 11, 2005
    @Carlos Danger: makes good points, but I still think TLJ stands well enough on its own.

    Does this new trilogy give the same feels and continuity as the OT? Not even close. But is that even possible? Not likely. Going home again is so hard to achieve in cinema. The wow factor is no longer necessarily available. I am older and have seen a lot since 1983. What that means is that the onus is on Disney to create a character driven science fiction adventure that placed me in the familiar universe and engages me fully. Disney has done an okay job of that. They have give me good, not great characters and epic imagery, but failed to make the story epic. Yes, I'm along for the ride, but I'm not really invested in the fates of Finn, Rey, and Poe. Their story is not in he same ball park as the Han, Luke, and Leia.
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2018
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  19. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2002
    I was watching a Rant Compilation last night, and one reviewer mentioned something that I was chalking up to a gap in my memory.

    How did Rey get back onto the 'Falcon, after getting away from the unconscious Kylo?
     
  20. Chyntuck

    Chyntuck Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 11, 2014
    @Sith-I-5 When Rey leaves the Falcon she tells Chewbacca to wait for her signal, then Hux says that she stole Snoke's escape pod, then we see her on the Falcon on Crait. It's safe to assume that her return to the Falcon was fairly uninteresting and happened off-screen.
     
  21. Sith-I-5

    Sith-I-5 Force Ghost star 6

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    Aug 14, 2002
    Thank you.
     
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  22. brodiew

    brodiew Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Oct 11, 2005
    On the subject of the characterization of Kylo Ren:

    This came to mind as I considered a plot bunny: Is Kylo Ren emotionally capable of having a romantic relationship with anyone, much less Rey? The snark relating him to a toddler or man child are not mere hyperbole. His character is unbalanced to say the least. Though his character deepened, or, at least, became more interesting in TLJ, I fear a redemption arc for him fall with as hard a THUD as Kirk's death scene in ST: Into Darkness. Sadly, we will have JJ to thank if Kylo has a smarmy death scene. [face_waiting][face_frustrated] SORRY! Tangent!
    What say you about Kylo's relational skills?
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2018
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  23. Lady_Misty

    Lady_Misty Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 21, 2007
    I say Kylo could have a meaningful relationship after he comes to terms with the events in his life, speaks to a Counselor about the very real traumas of having someone trying to mess with your mind since before birth and your uncle, who was supposed to help you deal with your emotions and Force Powers, almost murdered you in your sleep, maybe some therapy too and a partner that is emotionally able and willing to be there for him and help him. It would be an uphill battle but it could be worth it.


    Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
     
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  24. Briannakin

    Briannakin Former Manager star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Feb 25, 2010
    Since the spoiler period for TLJ is well over, any discussion can be moved from here to the appropriate resource thread. I'm locking this thread now.
     
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