ST Reformed TLJ Haters: What changed your view?

Helpful. If you've nothing non-trollish to add, this may not be the thread for you.

 

Another personal attack.

 

Lol, what? Probably should just leave the thread if you have nothing constructive to add - thanks.

 

I had a slightly similar reaction.

It went from "Oh my God in heaven this is my favorite film ever! I'm shocked I love it so much" to "merely" one of my favorite movies and second best in the series.

I can even see it settling down to to Return of the Jedi levels (still a masterpiece for me just not as perfectly so as Empire or as forever world altering as Star Wars) over time or maybe bouncing back to the top again.

It is hard to put a new movie into context with others one has seen hundreds of times but I don't think I will ever let go of that never since childhood level of thrills and feels that I thought was a thing of the distant past.

There is no explaining or quantifying awe but I felt it for the first time in a theater in a generation and nothing concrete can supercede that emotional and even spiritual response.

 

I stopped caring is what happened.

Subsequent viewings helped clarify apparent plot holes and solidify the story, but my opinion didn’t change drastically (I also didn’t hate it, btw)

I simply got tired of the mockery and insults - both on a meta level and via pretensious articles entitled “here’s why you didn’t understand TLJ” - just because I actually cared emotionally for the story being told, so I became a casual fan.

A certain dose of strong negativity is the price you pay for a passionate following. But they prefer indifference. And they succeeded.

 

That was my take on it too. Even though I went into TLJ knowing that my theories and predictions could be wrong I was in denial about how incredibly attached I had become to those theories so when I was wrong about Rey's parentage and when Luke died I was very disappointed.

Then I let all of that go and enjoyed the film for what it was on the second viewing.

On a side note after my first viewing I only had two main hang ups about the movie, (as mentioned above) but then I started reading the complaints on this site and I actually found myself starting to enjoy the movie a little less with every criticism I read. It was like I was getting turned to the dark side! As such I stopped myself from reading the complaints until I saw it a second time. No offence to anybody here but sometimes people are too nitpicky. The internet could take the best movie, book, song, etc...of all time and nitpick it to death.

 

Calling someone a troll isn't a personal attack now?

 

I was VERY torn after the first viewing. I wanted to love it. I knew this movie was going to go in a different direction because of everything I had read, but wasn’t prepared AT ALL for some of the artistic interpretations. “Flying Leia” used the Force for (arguably) the second or third time ever. And using it in a MASSIVELY powerful way. Luke throwing the light-saber over his shoulder was the biggest gasp moment for me. My favorite scene of TFA was him receiving it from Rey. I do think they could've done that part better, and have him show some trepidation that RJ was trying to convey, with him maybe giving it back or just dropping it. Throwing it over his shoulder was like, "Eh, who cares." The out of place humor, Luke’s “activities” on the island, the burning of the “Jedi tree” and throwing away of legends and myths; had me shell-shocked. There’s others I had issue with, but those are the main ones. My whole family left the theater stunned.


I knew Luke was going to die, because some jerk threw it out there for all to see the day after the premiere, and I was unintentionally spoiled. I was wrecked for days leading up to my first viewing. I was sick about it. I was happy the way they did it, him becoming one with the Force, so I was OK with that rather than Kylo killing him, or Rey, or something random. I thought the movie looked great, with the exception of some seemingly underdeveloped CGI. I’m a HUGE fan of John Williams and all his work, and an amateur scholar of his storytelling through the music, and I was a bit underwhelmed.


There were some high points for me, but too many negatives to appreciate them fully. I also didn’t like how we never truly got answers to so much that was left open from TFA….. I knew subsequent viewings would maybe change my thoughts…. Maybe….


HOWEVER, like so many others have said in this thread, I was able to get past the shock of everything the second viewing, and went in and paid closer attention to the story and the intended message. Also, I saw the movie in IMAX 3D for my second viewing and it made the movie stylistically gorgeous. I was able to focus on the narrative. I also now think the music was some of the most beautifully interpreted work by JW since the OT. Listening to the soundtrack now, and calling back those points in the movie almost bring me to tears. I realized Luke’s intended arc better, and while I wanted a Force Unleashed version of Luke to come and save the day, I think RJ’s interpretation of the journey of Luke was stunning and appropriate upon second view. It actually made me go back and pull things out from previous films that lead us in this direction. Too many to list here, but Yoda’s last conversation to Luke before he passed was one of them.


I went from a 2.5/5, to a 4/5. I’m sure it’ll stay there, but I’m anxiously awaiting the 4K blu ray release so I can discover even more over time.


Sorry for the long post, as I probably could write a book on this. Thanks for the thread @jaqen, I was wondering if others had the same experience as me, and why.

Cheers to you all!

 

I love reading these posts. Yeah, I can’t wait to just to have the movie at home.

 

More than any other SW episode, by far, this is exactly how I feel. I've never experienced anything like this.

 

I keep trying to come up with theories to explain it and posting dumb polls here to see if I can figure it out (spoiler: I haven't figured anything out, but on a sample of about 100 forum respondents I did find a moderately-strong correlation between the age of the viewer, in that the younger crowd reacted more strongly on the "hated it" end of the spectrum, and older viewers reacted more strongly on the "loved it" end).

My latest dumb theory is that I think in some ways the movie is too effective (note that I'm not saying "too good", or "too likable/popular" or anything like that), in that the emotions that it's trying to elicit on a storytelling level are blasting right thru the "normal", more superficial, parts of our movie-watching brains and hitting us right in the 'ol subconscious, and we're collectively going thru very real stages of grief -- anger, depression, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance, the whole 9.

(don't know if you saw it but there's a great review from the guys at Tested where Adam Savage, who hadn't really been following the online reaction in the initial days, was stunned to find out some fans were very angry/upset over the movie. As he asked questions about why and processed the answers, he basically says at the end, "you mean plot points that were intended to be challenging and upsetting to the movie's characters were experienced as challenging and upsetting by the audience? Achievement unlocked!" -- that's kind of what I mean)

I think TLJ did -- in some important ways -- "kill" Star Wars as we knew it, and I think everyone's just dealing with that in whatever way is appropriate for where they are and were with their love for the saga. Some are in denial (#notmyluke), some are angry ("Disney won't get any more of my money, and here's a -1 star RT review just to show you"), depression ("I'm walking away from fandom; I'm done"), bargaining ("Well, hopefully JJ can fix this mess with IX, maybe Kylo is lying"), etc.

One of the subjective reasons I think that is that even though I have eventually come to love the movie, I strangely don't have a lot of interest in IX at this point. I'm sure I'll see it and will watch the trailers drop with everyone else but I'm feeling like I can finally let these movies go in terms of my demands and expectations for them and just sort of send them off into the future with well wishes and the hope that they continue to inspire and motivate kids (and adults!) the way the OT did for me.

 

I volunteer that I have discovered something I did not know was provided as expository information inside the film in TFA, that I did not see in seven viewings, because it is tiny and you need to know to look for it. The hologram map of the galaxy in TFA has place names in Aurebesh. The clustering of place names, once you know what you are looking at, occurs in such a way that there is a section of map that has nearly no place names. This allows me to not outright reject the initial premises in TFA that the First Order found a fertile ground that was outside the domain of the Empire, which the "Republic", in the TFA scroll, must geographically represent if a viewer's last information was the ROTJ SE celebration scene from representative planets of the Empire; i.e., 'the Republic is restored', in geography if not in policy or appearance. I can now conceive of giving TLJ a second viewing, because of this thorn (that TFA did not give sufficient information) being taken out. Anyway, that's all. This post is devoid of backhanded construction.

 

I’ve now seen the film 11 times, I still love it the same as if I saw it for the first time yesterday. Over these viewing I believe the character development of certain characters are easier to interpret, understand and analyze easier thanks to the understanding of the narrative.

Character motivations are not what they appear, every interaction shouldn’t be take at face value and the film for these reasons continues to get better.

 

Watched TLJ 3 times
First session in the day of the release, i liked, but i feel some things strange, i lefted the cinema in TFA in a better mood.
But rewatching again, was better experiences.
TLJ it's not a perfect movie, but it's a good SW movie, not the best, but not the worst.

 

After my first viewing, I had such incredibly mixed feelings. Some things I really liked. The throne room scene, everything with Leia, Luke against the First Order, Luke and Leia’s reuinion. Some things I despised so much that they removed me from the film. The bad humor, Luke’s unLuke character, Rey’s badly written development.

The 2nd time, I went with my niece, who is 14. I personally was able to enjoy everything in the movie a liked a lot more when I knew all of the bad stuff was coming. A lot of the subtleties that had gotten by me before were much more noticeable.

But most importantly, my niece loved it. She was into it the whole time. She has grown so attached to the new characters. She was legitimately in terror for Finn when he was about to sacrafise himself. That’s when I realized, this film isn’t for me. It’s for a different breed of fan. But the fact that newer generations of fans like my niece can enjoy it so much while her interest in Star Wars grows: it gave me a newfound peace with the film.

I still am not a fan of this film in a great deal of ways, nor the directions they are taking the characters or the story of Star Wars. I now fully consider the EU to be the true sequal to RotJ. But that doesn’t mean I am incapable of enjoying the Disney sequal trilogy for what it is.

 

Very fair indeed, Dallos. I’m glad your niece enjoyed it


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Incorrect. See the time stamps. Post wasn't up for 10 seconds.

 

I was also flabbergasted at some of the response.

I was thinking love letter to Star Wars that might lose the general audience some only to find gnashing of teeth and furious anger from a chunk of fans.

I fully grant it was goofy not to think there would be fans that hated it but personally on first view it hit shockingly well for me that I was blind to the possibility of this kind of disparity.

I mean it sure wasn't hitting my wish list for events. I was all for Luke surviving the trilogy and finally getting to be Yoda teaching the new Jedi while Rey would be out an about in the galaxy.

I'd prefer Finn escape the friend zone and get with Rey. I'd love for him to be force sensitive too, to be honest.

I wanted Rey to be Luke's daughter.

I didn't get what I wanted but wow, I got what I needed, I guess.

As a constant part of my life, hundreds and hundreds of views Star Wars fan of what 40 years now I truly and honestly believed that there was enough to at least be favorable to any type of fan.

The weird thing is that seemingly it is just that the reverse is true too.
At least under the easy divisions.

It is pretty interesting to consider the possible dynamics at work to make this movie seem so weirdly super subjective.

 

Yes. Her fan level is definitely increasing. And I do have the ST thank for than in many ways. And Yoda. My god, that kid is a huge Yoda fan. She was fidgeting in her seat like a little kid when the camera panned back to Yoda in TLJ.

 

Well said.

 

I finally saw TLJ a 2nd time, but let me explain my first experience. I saw it opening weekend, and REALLY didn't like it, and was kind of shocked I felt that way. I loved TFA, liked R1, so I was expecting to atleast like the TLJ. I mulled it over the Christmas Break and just got more mad at the movie when I thought about it. I think I was mad at myself for not liking the movie!

So what I decided to do is just take a break and don't go back to the theater right away. I read many Pro and Anti TLJ blogs, comments and even YouTube videos and both sides made good points. I finally cleared my mind after a few weeks and saw it again recently and I have to say I liked it this time. I can't say I loved it as much as TFA, but I definetly had a much different movie going experience the 2nd time around.

What changed?

I loved the Rey/Kylo stuff in the first half of the movie, as those 2 are great leads for this trilogy. While I didn't care for Luke's character the first time around, I didn't have as much a problem the 2nd time, as the Rey/Luke stuff was pretty good. While I liked Poe Dameron in TFA (in a more limited role), I really liked him in TLJ as he should be the leader of the Resistance for Episode 9. The ending worked for me on the 2nd viewing as I didn't know how I felt after the 1st viewing. While I rolled my eyes at the Luke/Ben faceoff at the end, now I get what RJ was trying to do, and it put a smile on my face when Luke totally played him. The death of Luke never bothered me as I always expected the Big 3 to die in this Trilogy, simply because EVERY major SW character gets killed (Obiwan, Anakin, Padme, Palpatine, Yoda), so why should this trilogy be different?

I can't give a true rating to TLJ because it usually takes 4-5 viewings at home on BluRay to really get a sense at where it fits in the Saga for me. I still like TFA more, but TLJ will be probably be right behind it when it is all said and done.

This is why I love the Saga movies because it forces you to come back to them because they all tie together. For many years I was lukewarm on the PT, but I learned to appreciate the good and tolerate the bad. I did the same with TLJ, and I'm ready for the Bluray now!

 

I'm compelled to admit that makes me all misty.

 

I hated the movie at first. I saw it two more times (3rd and final time today) and I certainly don't hate it anymore because I'm trying really hard to accept it for what it is, but upon further examination I find it has more logistical plot holes than any film in the saga.

Anyhow, I don't hate the film, but I still think it's the weakest of the saga.