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

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im gonna go out on a limb here and say the heroes of yavin's only legacy being darth klebold, for starters

 

Review embargo lifts in an hour and a half people.

Brace yourselves.

 

Looks like a 91 right now on Metacritic, was a 92 when it first went up. The reviews haven't populated yet though. (edit: 86 now with 10 reviews)

 

Waiting for reviews to load in on RT. Looking good so far.

 

What a great time of the year, it’s snowing outside and in a few days I get to see a new Star Wars film featuring Luke freaking Skywalker.

I’m not reading any of the rumors or spoilers so I have no idea what folks are talking about or if the movie will be good or if I’ll like it or not. But Luke freaking Skywalker and also it’s snowing outside.

 

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poor starfish

 

Bleeding Cool is a rumour site, therefore a measure of scepticism is necessary but even so, I can't say I'm happy with the info here. If you wish to look at it, you will have to click twice:

Don't even try the 'I clicked it by error' card

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Click here:
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/12/12/star-wars-the-last-jedi-spoilers/

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I think for me it's what it says about the weird, discordant handling that has been the hallmark of the new material. That is to say there is:

• PT stuff, dark times stuff, OT stuff: It's all surprisingly hopeful, looking to the future with hope.
• ST: The future is here and it is daaarrrrrkkkk. Han Solo is killed by his son, a wannabe Empire resurgent with a new super-Death Star, all hope is looooosssttt.

It's as if there's two teams on Star Wars and they don't talk to each other.

But, the bigger problem for me is this: Is SW really ulmitamely shackled to the OT structure forever? Can it not grow and develop? Was it expecting so much that they would have planned out the ST trio? The defence of that is that the OT was done the same way, but it's 40 years later, are things not supposed to move on from that?

More, these developments, if true - and they really are sounding to be so - represent to me the most stunning corporate cynicism I've ever seen. To borrow a Solo line, I've seen a lot of bad stuff but nothing like this. It may be they are all wonderfully executed, to be as artistically done as possible, but it comes across to me as soulless, hollow and empty.

Now, does this mean there's going to be an incineration in the back garden, fist held to the heavens, vowing vengeance on LFL and all its works? Of course not.

Those aspects and stories of the new material I've greatly enjoyed I will keep and continue to enjoy, but the ST era? That's getting excised. They have done some excellent work in other eras, but the far future?

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It's starting to resemble its Legends counterpart but on crack.

 

[Ducks in, eyes blindfolded]
Just popping in to note that I heard the new Variety review DOES drop a big spoiler or two unannounced, so for those looking for reaction reviews without spoilers, might want to avoid that one.
[Ducks out]

 

"starting to"?

: P

 

As a side note, that is what bugs me the most. Like, nearly everything that people spent decades complaining about Legends is in the ST turned up to 11, but now people are loving it death.

Sometimes, I just don't understand human behavior.

 

What makes it worse is that for anyone who has belonged to this fandom for any significant period of time prior to The Force Awakens' release, the writing was already on the wall.

 

Any chance of E9 getting a TUF level wrap-up that makes us look back better on TFA and TLJ?

Or will it be like Invincible and Apocalypse and kick the can down the road once more?

I'm going with 3 timelines.
The EU
A timeline where Anakin Solo survives SBS thanks to Darth Caedus and Tahiri's actions in timeline 1 during Inferno. The Skywalker/Solo family becomes legion. About 138 ABY Snoke from timeline 2 goes back in time and sets up the NEU. And tries to bring back Abeloth to destroy the Skywalker/Solo family.
The NEU. Snoke from timeline 2 paves the path for Snoke from timeline 3 to destroy the Skywalker/Solo family.

Snoke wins just like Lumiya won in LOTF. Wonder if we will see an Abeloth like situation in E9.

 

Can you give some examples? So we are on the same page, bitte

 

I just hope that the final Skywalker in the Skaywalker Saga is not just some crazed emo.

I will say this, in fairness to RJ, he had a load of mystery box crap from TFA to wrap up that JJ left him with as well as having Rey (the main character) complete her hero’s journey right off the bat So admittedly he was stuck in a bit of a bind right from the beginning.

 

It isn't really a surpirse.

There is alot of confirmation bias when it comes to the ST.

 

Swedish starwars.se gave it a 9 and said "A very daring movie with a long-awaited depth that expands everything we know about Star Wars."
http://www.starwars.se/texter/blogg/1742-recension-av-star-wars-the-last-jedi

 

This'll be the TFA debates redux.

With perhaps the added edge of everyone seeing what they're going for conceptually, but still also either profoundly agreeing or disagreeing with it. I suspect there will be little in the way of a middle ground.

 

I'm starting to believe that we get a major surprise in Episode IX, when it will be revealed that the true leader of the First Order is Thrawn.

 

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If the rumors I have heard about this are true, then I am not going to buy a single Star Wars book in the future. I'm going to vote with my wallet, because if they aren't willing to answer any of the questions they raise in the films in the films themselves, I will be done with Disney's run on canon.

It's not that hard, guys. If you make up completely new characters and don't explain where they come from or what their purpose is in this universe, then maybe you shouldn't be making new characters. It's not hard to connect these new movies to what came before, but it seems they just refuse to do that and I don't understand why.

I am sincerely trying to give Disney the benefit of the doubt. It took me a second to appreciate The Force Awakens and I was so sure they would at least answer some of these questions in the next film. But apparently they aren't. We shall see.

 

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Eh, it was spoiled a long time ago via Luke's tweets that we weren't going to get Snoke's history.

 

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Mind you, I think Mark Hamill will be playing a big role in Episode 9.

Dead doesn't mean gone with Jedi.

 

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Personally I am more annoyed that he pulled out some brand new power of incredible use and implication, for little storytelling reason other than making his appearance as surprising as possible, rather than just taking him on the ship.

Some of the technology and tactics similarly open up a lot of questions without a lot of storytelling reason behind it as far as I can tell.

*nods*

Well, the biggest thing would have to be the dark tone. Like, people were complaining constantly that Legends was gratuitously dark, that it had undone the heroes' successes, and made the events of the films largely pointless since it was all part of a never ending cycle of violence - and I feel like the ST does that more than legends. Now I have had some long arguments with people holding the opposite view, but for me it certainly feels worse.

Similarly, I saw much mockery of gray jedi and similar concepts, yet some of the recent canon stuff seems to be moving in that direction.

Oh, and the reliance on superweapons, particularly those with a sense of one-upmanship of the Death Star, and they literally had a line about how much bigger and scarier Starkiller base was than the Death Stars (even though the First Order should logically have a lot less resources than the Empire, yet they can one up the Death Star, super one up super star destroyers, and build a giant fleet of warships bigger than isds, all without anyone but the heroes noticing?)
In particular, a lot of people used the Suncrusher as a emblem of how the EU was bad and should be gone, and the Galaxy Gun wasn't popular either, yet the starkiller base is pretty much both combined. (Or, I suppose it is pretty close to Centerpoint station actually.) And yeah, Starkiller isn't exactly the most loved part of the ST, but I feel like it is getting something of a pass compared to Legends superweapons.

Similarly, I remember complaints about legends just using warlords/darksiders wearing black and using red lightsabers as villains over and over again, and those are our villains of the ST.

Related to the first point were all the complaints about how legends made democracy too corrupt and ineffectual all to prop up the heroes , and was almost admiring of fascist efficiency. And yeah the Republic struggled against the Vong and whatnot, but at least they didn't fold like origami after the first attack.

I think there is more, but those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head.

That sounds exactly right.