ST The Sanctuary - (Dissenters Unite! - Warning on page 232)

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...ee-warning-on-page-9-before-posting.50048016/

Let's give it a proper memorial service, by at least saving the above link to it - and all those that contributed there before it sinks into oblivion.

 

yes, the place will be long remembered.

 

Well, we did get into other problems with TLJ other than just Luke, so technically that was off-topic. Here, I can freely post about how they ruined Luke, how the scene with Leia floating in space is silly, how the Poe mutiny is ridiculous, and how Rey underwent absolutely no growth at all in this film all in one place without being told to get back on topic.

 

Forgive me @La Calavera for replying over here to your post from the Plot Holes thread. But I saw your post and just marveled at this dialog. I don't have any issue with it being a plot hole or not, frankly I don't even care about plot holes in this movie.

Moreover, it just's amazing to me, how Finn has worked in every important FO ship or location. Out of this huge FO military order, which probably has 100,000 of soldiers and officers, a huge death star planet main base, droids, fleets of huge star destroyers, etc etc...somehow Finn has worked on all the most important ones, or whenever the story needs him to. In TFA, this was forgivable, because you assumed that the soldiers on Jakku were probably based on SKB. But now, Finn must have worked on all the ships in the FO. It's like they had 1 mopper, and they employed him all over the FO. He knows Starkiller Base, he's familiar with the trash compactor, he was on Jakku as a fighter, he was cleaning up on the Supremacy and knows the exact room that they need to get to. Just amazing. And it's not like they're using Finn's knowledge of the grander FO, or what he might know about their larger plans, or their fleet capacity, which is something I'd imagine many FO soldiers or officers might know. Nope. He was actually in the exact room they need to get to. I just find this lazy. Absolutely lazy.

 

It's not a matter of agreeing or not. I didn't say that you can't love TLJ and be a true SW fan, just that I personally don't get how that's possible. It's like, I don't get how people eat fried butter at those state fairs, and yet they do, and apparently love it. I mean, there are probably hard core Jar Jar fans out there. I don't get that. I don't actually hate the character, but come on! And yet, he has his true fans. Go figure. It's a big world.

 

As I explained above, I'm not bashing people who loved TLJ, just expressing my befuddlement at them, especially if they're true fans of the franchise. As for what I didn't like about TLJ, I've weighed in on this before, and intend to do so again soon, with a slightly different and more forgiving take based on having seen it an additional two times. But, I still don't think that it works, as a SW film, for much the same reasons that you and most others have given: it veers too far away from what I believe SW is all about. Of course, that itself is open to debate and no one has the final word.

...Woops, forgot to merge again, me exsqueeze me. Is there a button or function to do that, or do you have to manually do this?

 

@RexTano, I would never base someone's fandom on whether they liked or didn't like one, two or even half of the films in a series. If someone tells me they are a fan, that's good enough for me. Like you, I find it very perplexing -- befuddlement is a good word -- that anyone, fan or no fan, could possibly like TLJ when there's so little to be liked about it. The only perfectly noble character is Rose. Everyone else makes at least one morally ambiguous decision. There's so much conflict just for conflict's sake, except between the main antagonist and protagonist, who refuse to fight each other despite one being a mass murderer and the other being his greatest threat to his power.

 

For me, it's not any one or two or three things about TLJ that bothers me about it, but the entire concept itself, PLUS a whole bunch of specific details, PLUS how it's implemented and put together.

And maybe it's not even the concept. At a certain point Luke should have been challenged profoundly, as were the Jedi in the PT, and he should have failed, as they did. Same for the Rebellion/Resistance. More broadly, at a certain point SW itself should have been challenged. That's ok in my view, even necessary. But the WAY in which RJ did it just didn't work for me. It was a noble, even necessary step to take, that he clearly wasn't up to, and failed at.

It's like Macbeth, which is notoriously hard to stage successfully, as many have found out the hard way. But if you're a Shakespearean director or actor, at a certain point in your career you HAVE to attempt it. But not as your very first professional Shakespearean effort! It's like, you don't send a AAA phenom in to hit cleanup in a do or die situation in the bottom of the 9th in the 7th game of the world series.

What RJ attempted to do in TLJ probably needed to be done at some point, probably in VIII. But not the way he did it. He either lacked the talent, or nerve, or just wasn't seasoned enough, and lacked the maturity and confidence to call in some old hands like Kasdan or even Lucas. He will be living that down for the rest of his life and career, whatever happy face he tries to put on it now.

 

TLJ sucked so bad it destroyed theforce.net boards.

 

See, here's where the apologists lose me: The keep saying that Luke's mistake and withdrawal and his ultimate return to heroism are part of the hero's journey, Campbell, blah, blah, blah.

BUT

Luke isn't the hero of this trilogy. Rey is. Luke went through that cycle in the OT. Rey should be the one in the hero's journey cycle in ST. Where was her struggle in TLJ? When was she humbled in TLJ, the way Luke was in ESB and Anakin was in AOTC? Her story arc went nowhere. She got stronger as the film progressed with absolutely no training at all. She ends the film in the same place she started.

I agree with you that at some point a SW film needed to be outside the box and weird, but I thought that's what the anthology, stand-alone films were for. I would also have been fine with RJ creating his own characters and telling different, weird stories in a tangent trilogy. But not on part 8 of a 9-film series. TLJ sticks out like a sore thumb, and always will. That's my issue. It doesn't fit with the other films, and it stands out so strikingly that it feels like he intentionally did it, which makes it even worse.

 

The way Finn knows about “stuff” is so randomly dropped at the most convenient times, despite the narrative also wanting to paint him as a janitor to make jokes about it.

It’s not just that he conveniently worked in several ships and mopped the floors of all the most important locations. It’s also the dialogue with Rose, makes it sound like he took a course in engineering as he is able to follow her thought process about the complexities of tracking. It’s just weird the way they write these characters.

 

Let me say this for the one millionth time: Rian Johnson wrote a story and shoehorned Star Wars characters into his story. He wrote new ones where he needed them, and forced existing ones into his story with his dialogue. That really is the root problem with the whole film. Rather than coming into this galaxy and writing stories that fit the established characters, he changed the characters to fit his story.

 

It's totally anecdotal, and on it's own meaningless, but I have yet to come across anyone in real life who does love TLJ. I'm serious. And I would love to know someone, personally, who enjoyed it, so I could actually talk to them about it. I have a whole group of close friends that I've known for 25 years, all super star wars nerds, friends from all walks of life, family who love star wars, co-workers who love star wars and some who could care less, people who don't really care at all about star wars, non-nerds, people from all walks of life, and all of them have been in the dislike category. (That is if they even cared at all) The most positive thing I've gotten from them is "yeah, it was alright". And one or two random friends of friends on FB who 'loved it'.

I have one friend in particular who sees every star wars at least a dozen times in the theater. He loved TFA. Loved Rogue 1. When TLJ came out, he saw it instantly, whereas I had to wait a day. (The horror!) I asked him if he was going to see it again...and he said "probably not. no need". I was shocked. After seeing the movie, I asked what he thought in detail and it mostly lined up with what I had perceived. Slowly I started catching up with my other friends. All of them expressed disappointment and couldn't get over the writing, the non-sense, the lack of stakes, the pointless subplots, the Empire vs Rebels redo, poor characters. (And no one had issues w grumpy Luke either). People who didn't know about the saga story intimately (as we do here) were left somewhat confused and knowing that I'm into this stuff, asked me what the story was...they thought the Empire was gone, and were confused why the Resistance was just a few ships after destroying the FO SKB. They were confused over how the FO reigned over the galaxy after just a few days. Some where angered that Poe was turned into a cliche hot-head, or didn't understand why Rey wanted to save Kylo even though he killed Han a few days earlier. Some liked the humor, and the fights, but also thought the movie was too long. I got a lot of uncaring shrugs, accompanied with "dude, it's just star wars, whatever'

This is literally the only place where I've seen people defend the movie. And that's fine...I get that the movie is well-liked and reviewed by a lot of people...but I wish I knew at least one or two in my life who did.

 

I know a couple of people who liked it, but had issues. One guy initially told me he liked it, but the more he thought about it, the more it bothered him and he ended up not liking it. Look at the box office. Despite what the gushers are saying, TLJ opened strong and then didn't have the legs that TFA had, because of bad word-of-mouth and people not going back for multiple viewings. I am sure Disney expected a drop-off, but I don't think this is what they thought it would look like. Were it just a matter of sequel blues, the opening numbers should have been just as far off as the overall take, and they were NOT.

I don't know anyone who has seen it more than once, even those who said they liked it.

 

Ahh! Home at last. Welcome back to the Cave -- a domain of evil it is!

Really, though, I would have liked a movie that I could like. I would have accepted a movie that was just a meh. What I found was a movie that was just plain awful. For the pre-JJ Star Trek movies, all of the odd ones are somewhat bad while the evens are mostly good. It almost feels like we can do the same with SW trilogies if you consider the PT=1.

I think this goes into what people kind of expect when we have trilogies in a saga. In "main" Star Trek the continuing thread is the Enterprise. In most of the off-shoots you usually have a thing or two that ties it back to the main thread. In the ST it feels like we are calling it a saga and trilogy just because that's what we've been doing since '77.

The ST has left me so SW-unmotivated that I haven't even bothered to see the trailer/teaser yet. However, Solo has potential because you can tell the story of how HS got the MF, or how he dropped the spice for Jabba, or how he and Chewie got into a place more heavily guarded than the bunker in ROTJ. If anything there should be less pressure on the writers because we already essentially know how the story will end, or at least we know how it won't end.

Been hatin' since 0230 of TFA's opening day.

 

Not many people in my family or social circles care about Star Wars. Only anecdotal evidence I have is a cousin in his 20s who liked Rogue One but thought TLJ was way too silly. Maybe he's too young to appreciate art house sensibilities like BB-8 shooting out coins, a brilliant deconstruction that ironically reconstructs the capitalistic urge to--okay, just having a bit of fun.

Not to be too hard on fans who plumb the depths of deeper meaning they find in films. I like to do that too, but only after the more immediate aspects of character, plot and tone adequately capture my attention. TLJ ultimately failed at this for me. I've said before that aspects of TFA reminded me of a Space Balls sequel more so than a Star Wars one, and this was even more true for TLJ. Silliest SW by far, imo.

 

I know two people in normal life that absolutely loved it. My brother is a hardcore SW fan and loved it. My oldest friend is not a hardcore SW fan and loved. They’re the two. Other people were okay with it or didn’t like it. An old employee of mine kind of satire-liked it because, as she put it, Kylo and Rey needed to bow chicka wow wow, in a very 50 shades kind of way.

Of the two that genuinely loved it, if I tried to summarize briefly why they loved it, it would be Kylo Ren. My brother thought he was absolutely fascinating. My friend, who didn’t like Kylo at all in TFA and actually laughed when he took off his helmet in the theater during the torture scene, came full circle and liked him here. I feel like RJ was openly the most interested in Kylo and everything really comes back to being about him in this movie, so I can understand forgiving everything else if you’re on board for his piece of it. My friend that loved it even agreed with everything I thought about what they did with Luke’s character, and agreed Rey wasn’t the protagonist and it wasn’t about her, but she just didn’t mind those things. She never really liked Luke anyway. As she put it, she was cool with seeing him as the bad guy. With Rey, she just accepted that Rey isn’t important and Kylo is. She was super grossed out when I suggested Rey is important as Kylo’s love interest though. Opposite from my employee that wanted the dirty love angle, she was more like, “noooooo stop it don’t even go there.”

I actually think it’s hella interesting how differently this movie is interpreted by people. Even just basic impressions of the themes for people seem completely different depending on the person.

 

I totally agree with the comment about shoehorning characters into the story. Having said that I don’t get the story!

A good portion of the premise relies on the hyperspace tracking and then Finn and rose seemingly solving the issue in 5 minutes. But then this whole thing doesn’t matter.

Everything is a pointless vehicle to decimate both sides and result in Luke’s death


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I don't understand why the Resistance leaves the planet in the first place, which seems pretty secure...and you know...is an entire planet that can't be blown up. I get that the FO has found them, and that's troubling, but to leave a semi-secure bunker and travel in dangerous close pursuit, just so they can get to another semi-secure base that the FO destroys almost just as quickly, seems rather misguided. It's like let's run from this semi-safe spot, to another equally semi-safe spot, but do so in such a manner that leaves us completely vulnerable and might get everyone killed in the process. Oh, and along the way, let's not tell anyone of this crazy plan, especially our second-in-commands, and hope there's no mutiny. Let's also hope this potential mutiny doesn't lead to some wild banter chase around the galaxy, that the FO doesn't chase for some reason, and only discovers them, conveniently at the last moment. Let's also hope that Luke Skywalker finally shows up to create distraction on this other planet. Deal?

And this is a pared down version of the story...which plays out more like A leads B, which leads Q, which also means X is happening, but only because Y occurs, but they need do-hicky M, to get the other thing, but in the background P is also happening. which destroys W, and hope that Z occurs, but instead L happens.

 

Thank god I am not the only one who thinks this. What a relief! I thought I'd suddenly become sexist.

Rey in TLJ is indeed unimportant. And it has nothing to do with what she accomplishes. She could save the galaxy 100 times and she would still be unimportant, because she doesn't feel real.

I will add a personal opinion: IMO this is true for all the female characters a part from Leia.
I saw Laura Dern in an interview. She looks so full of energy, so interesting, I would really like to have a conversation with her and listen to her stories. How is it possible that Holdo gives me nothing? And I know that it's not her fault, 'cause she's a good actress. Rose? Nothing. Phasma??? OMG even less than nothing, if it even makes sense.

Lol the most interesting new female character turns out to be Maz.

It would really be great if they could create some compelling female characters, instead of randomly casting women without knowing what to do with them.

My boss says that the reason is that the writer is a man. I don't know, Tarantino is also a man, but Beatrix Kiddo is great. The same is true for George Miller and Furiosa.

Please, even if now it's against the rules, I invite whoever wants to openly disagree on this.

 

I've had several people give me explanations, but I still think it is ridiculous that there's a fatal difference between what Luke does at the end of TLJ, and Kylo/Rey did in the film and what Yoda did in Rebels. I understand what the difference is supposed to be, but it is extremely weak, especially when you consider it is the swan song for Luke Skywalker. I just cannot believe it.

 

I know you asked for disagreement, but I'm going to agree anyway

I feel genuinely confused when people call this a feminist movie. The female characters would have to be compelling for me to agree with that assessment, and they're not. Holdo was great, in a novel. In the movie, despite a fantastic actress portraying her? Meh.

I wanted Rey to be the most important character because I felt TFA built to that and I thought DR proved that she could carry it. But, you've gotta write for her. DR can't spin garbage into gold. Rey was irrelevant in this movie. You could take her out and seriously very very little would change.

 

My best friend really liked the movie - solely because she liked the humour. She isn`t a Star Wars fan. She knows all the movies and likes the OT fine but she liked TLJ the same way she liked the Family Guy Star Wars parodies. Which, I agree with her, are hilarious. I laughed myself silly at them. Also love Space Balls. I don`t love an actual Star Wars movie to be that way.

It isn`t even like Marvel. Guardians and the latest Thor are way more comedies than anything else and even they know when to let a dramatic scene breathe. When something is serious and weighty. When to have the hero have a real believable struggle and conflict.

TLJ made a joke of just about everything. It overexplained social commentary to the point that there might as well have been a banner on the screen, reading "this is bad, m`kay?" Meanwhile it underexplained really important, crucial plot points because hey, let that twist in the wind and let people make up want they want from it. Really, RJ, I thought you didn`t want to make Luke Skywalker into a coward for example? But his entire story on the island, the backstory twists in the wind so much, of course he ends up looking like one to a lot of people. Which was easily foreseen.

And the worst part of his backstory was only done to get Rey of the island faster. So that stunt in Kylo`s hut that changes the fate of the galaxy and brings Luke Skywalker on a trajectory that doesn`t follow his character progression in the OT at all was just done because "hey, how could I get Rey off the island?" It wasn`t a pivotal plot point in itself. Urgh.

There were some misgivings about Rey`s quick and easy progression through everything after TFA so what do we do? We double down on it, give her virtually no real believable conflict and struggle in this movie. And she progresses even faster and more easily through everything. The only difference? Canonical Reylo hints. That`s like if a 11-year old fanfic writer and a 15 year old Tumblr fan came together and thought out a story for Rey. I imagine this would be the result.

Leia using the force? Fine in principle. Have her not blown out into space but trapped under some debris and use the force to free herself for example. Did noone notice how weird it looks with the shape of her costume if she flies through space like that? The hand pose starts as Superman and then we go into Mary Poppins. Did noone see this and thought "yikes"?

The final stand on Crait, the final confrontation between Luke and Kylo, did noone think, it played kinda underwhelming as a final act in a blockbuster? A couple wide shots, a Matrix dodge aaaand we`re done. This is the only scene Luke really does anything in the movie and it is that short and, pardon the pun, uninspiring? When the message of the movie is how inspiring it was supposed to be to the galaxy?

If a movie is done with a lets say 50 Million dollar budget, I expected a very unepic climax. Then again, you don`t shoot blockbuster on such a budget in the first place.

As for the space chase scene, I think this little joke I heard sums it up perfectly:
Person A: "Hey you remember when the Death Star was going to Yavin to blow up the rebel base but then it ran out of fuel?"
Person B: "No."

 

The shroud of the Dark Side has fallen....

Begun, the Board War has.