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

No, no, no - what on earth do you need to apologise for? This has been a fun TLJ exchange - there's not a lot of those!

 

Thanks man it has been fun even if we don't agree on things all the time.

The Meta-Narrative idea for the ST as well also makes me curious of nine because if they continue on that track then I feel 9 might be a commentary on Star Wars endings. Especially consdering on where JJ, Terrio, KK and the rest all come down on Return of the Jedi itself, considering not everyone back in the day considered ROTJ the best follow up to Empire, even if Nostalgia and time, and the Prequels have made people more forgiving of it.

So I'm curious if that Meta-Narrative will comment on that, or even things like Redemtion and ending a Star Wars trilogy, even maybe the FO is destroyed or heck NOT destroyed ...We don't know. It could go anywhere.

Even the 'safest' option is still different to a degree.

 

I'd really like to hear your thoughts on some of the more controversial aspects of Luke in TLJ.

 

If we are talking meta-narrative I would assume that they'll definitely have the FO wiped out, or at least their nature changed in such an extreme way.

I'm not a "Kathleen Kennedy and the SJWs are ruining Star Wars!" guy but I do think that there is definitely a conscious decision made to diversify Star Wars (which is good, especially when the actors and directora they are getting are fantastic) and put in a clear message about things that are prevalent in our society for the people viewing the property, and I would think that a big part of that is "We must push back against evil--it must not be allowed to hold power over our lives." So if the FO isn't destroyed, then their nature must be changed from an evil force with a lot of accumulated power to something that is stripped of its powerbase and/or they choose to peacefully disarm and collectively make a Darth Vader Heel Turn realizing the error of their ways.

If neither of those things happen I will be VERY surprised.

 

Oh, wow — good point. The First Order, just like Star Wars fans, went into the ST prepared for Luke to have trained NJO 2.0. Joke’s on them, those suckers over-prepared!

 

From a meta-narrative standpoint can it be said that the large amount of fanservice/winks to the OT could be seen as a comment at the SW writers tenancy to give every little detail/item seen in the movies its own story/backstory?

And/or could it be seen (from a meta-narrative standpoint) as a comment the tendency of the EU to constantly reusing the same equipment or designs?

 

Yes...Essentially as someone put it Ep 7 is Rey going through the Star Wars museum and being able to survive Star Wars because she's a Star Wars fan and knows how the tropes work.

And yes because well essentially the FO and Resistance are two organization trying to live up to and under the shadow of the Organizations that they are trying to emulate.

The ST is essentially Star Wars commenting on Star Wars.

 

To the first, no. To the second, yes.

 

I post this as someone who adores The Last Jedi, but, well...

Not so much "up" as "down".

 

Slight difference with Obi-Wan: wasn't he also looking after Luke to protect him growing up?

 

No, I think you vastly misunderstood what was happening in ANH. Obi-Wan was going to eat Luke once he fattened him up enough. That's why when he saw Luke on the Death Star in the fight with Vader he paused momentarily because he was thinking about how good Luke was gonna taste--and that's when Vader killed him.

 

I do appreciate an equally mischievous reply!

 

I think you're mistaking me with @Nobody145 who made the ORIGINAL point of "Kylo is probably (long) pass that point by now." I reacted to your comment on Vader.

And with Vader, we got the explanation of his motivations in the PT. With Kylo, until we get the explanation of his motivations, we can only guess why he's doing what he's doing. I'm hoping we'll get it in IX, but I'm not keeping my hopes up.

We didn't need to have explanation for Vader back when the OT was made. The movies worked without it. But times changed, SW evolved, and not having clear explanation why the son of Han and Leia is murdering people, seriously hurts the ST IMO.

Doesn't mean they can't redeem him IX though. Its SW after all. No one is ever really gone.

I'm sure the floodgates will open and we'll get tons of books and comics, maybe even a video game, set in between ROTJ and TFA, after IX is released, and I'm going to read it all as I always do, but I would have much preferred to have it in the movies.

 

Yoda then?

 

I'd like to take the perfect opportunity offered here to shill for my favorite Episode IX theory of Finn trying to begin a stormtrooper revolt.

 

thing that irked me when I saw the movie, still does kinda, is that both Poe and Finn simultaneously realize to call Maz to help them break into Snoke's destroyer. Just how did they come to that, there's no indication that Poe knows Maz (although it's quite possible he does) and Finn's interaction with Maz was a day or so ago where she told him he has the eyes of a coward and then gave him a lightsaber. There's a possible way they would key to Maz on that idea but seems like a stretch.

But also, on the flipside, the Maz cameo ends with her flying away in a jetpack so all is forgiven.

 

Its hard to really compare the two, considering the decades of stories we've got of Vader/Anakin and the little we know of Kylo Ren/Ben. I'll try to keep it to just ANH/ESB and TFA/TLJ though.

By the end of ESB we saw that Vader wasn't all rage and hate, though that's his reputation (and its true). You could see the Executor bridge crew getting ready for more "demotions" after Luke escaped but instead Vader simply turned around and walked out. Vader had accomplished some of his goal, he had finally met his son face to face and talked to him. We had also seen earlier in the movie that there was someone even higher up that Vader reported to, and that Vader had tried to convince Luke to join him in overthrowing the Emperor, that he couldn't manage it by himself.

With Kylo, well, half the time we see him breaking something out of frustration. The crew is used to walking the other direction as soon as they see him slashing stuff apart. He killed his own father to try to prove how "bad" he was and nearly killed his mother and blames uncle Luke for a lot of things (though Luke didn't do that good a job either). We also saw that Kylo served someone else and wanted Rey's help to defeat him. With Snoke dead, he's basically in command in now but sure doesn't seem more stable. Rey had hoped that without Snoke Kylo wouldn't be so bad, but so much for that. When Kylo saw Luke again, he had his entire invasion force try to shoot him and probably would've had them keep firing for a while longer until Hux ordered them to cease fire (when Hux is the saner voice, that's not a good sign).

There's still a chance for Kylo to turn around as Vader did, but Vader came off as the dark knight figure, he still had some pride. We didn't know his full story except for being an old student of Obi-wan's and being involved in the "death" of Luke's father.

TFA introduced Kylo as a Vader fanboy/wannabe Vader. I still wonder how Leia and Han's son turned out so bad. TLJ showed that fateful night with Luke's bad decision but it can't have been only that. Vader was still waiting for his chance to take out the Emperor (not that he was a well-intentioned extremist, but still it restricted some of his choices) Kylo's already in charge and not like he's shown any "improvement" to his personality. Leia's given up on him, Luke said he can't save him either, though its ambiguous whether someone else like Rey can. And aside from Rey we don't know of anyone else with any bond who could convince Kylo to turn (compared to Luke and Vader) and that bridge has been burnt by the end of TLJ.

I wish they would go more into Kylo Ren's backstory, or at least a bit more than what we got in TLJ. Maybe post-IX. The prequels showed Anakin was flawed, and by AotC obsessive but up until RotJ he still had good qualities and Obi-wan was a serious check on his worse impulses (as well as Padme). We also had Palpatine, galactic chessmaster, whispering in his ear for years. I doubt Kylo's fall will turn out to be that convoluted, but we'll see.

 

FYI, a few of the "Journey to TLJ" books are in the Kindle book of the day sale today. Ahsoka, Leia: Princess of Alderaan, and Legends of Luke Skywalker.

 

Not to double-post, but speaking of Legends of Luke Skywalker - I haven't seen this mentioned before, but does anyone else think it's possible the framing story of it is set after TLJ, not before? I mean, it begins with people on a Canto Bight-circling freighter talking about how Luke took on twenty AT-ATs with just his lightsaber... just as TLJ showed us that's a legend of Luke Skywalker on Canto Bight.

 

Possibly, though they also mention he rode a tauntaun while taking on those walkers (and someone else thinks he took on two hundred instead), so it's meant to be Hoth, albeit as a nice bit of foreshadowing for Crait. The New Republic is also mentioned in the present tense, and none of the events of the sequels are referenced.

 

got in my last viewing of Last Jedi for awhile, made it a double-feature night with Solo. I'm at 17 viewings total plus one with commentary track. going to hang back on viewing Last Jedi again in full until Dec 2019 before Episode IX but I'll probably break down and watch the Luke vs. Kylo finale again at some point. movie is pretty committed to memory at this point which is good cuz the proper episode Star Wars movies to me are gospel to quote chapter and verse. The spin offs and others are really more of the Old or New Testament supplementary stuff. Still, great movie anyway!

 

Rogue One being the Book of Maccabees?

I'm actually writing a paper on how similar the narrative of Star Wars is to the narrative of the Bible. The Old Testament is the prequel era, with the Judges, Kings, and Prophets taking on the role of the Jedi. Era is complete with all sorts of political maneuvering and Separatist movements, especially in the time after David. Fast forward to the New Testament and the Prophets (Jedi) are very few in number. Jesus (Luke) is even visited by the Force Ghosts of former Prophets (Jedi) at a certain point.

It's easy to make Luke the Redeemer over Anakin because as I have it, Anakin isn't represented in the Bible through one figure all the time, though sometimes he can be. Rather, he is a representation of the people of Israel. So as Jesus confronts Death and Hell to redeem his people, Luke comes and redeems his father.

Now that we are getting more ST stuff I have the opportunity to delve into the Apostolic period and make comparisons there (Luke takes on twelve students, is betrayed by one of them ala the Apostles and Judas Iscariot, the 20 Resistance members on the Falcon spread the message of Luke's sacrifice on Crait to the rest of the Galaxy, the Battle of Crait is a representation of the final battle in the End Times where Jesus comes at the last moment to route the forces of evil, blah blah blah).

 

Has there been any explanation for Leia's and Holdo's wardrobe choices mid-evac of D'qar?

The gowns make no sense to me given the situation, unless they were planning to flee D'Qar and escape the FO and hold some sort of holo-net press junket to call the peoples and politicians of the Republic to their side. Playing up Leia and her inner circle as politicos rather than militants.

It seems especially odd considering Leia is in a military uniform until the end of TFA.

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