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

Oh god, not the Vong.

 

Grasping at straws, basically what I mean is any situation where the achievements from the OT weren't completely nullified, and the Galaxy actually showed some growth rather than ending up in OT 2.0.

Extragalactic invasion was just the first thing I thought of

 

Personally, i'm fine with how things turned out. It could have been more interesting, but Disney wanted to play it safe for their first main installment, so bringing back the Underdog vs. Big Bad conflict from the OT made sense.

However, like I said, I think it could have been way more interesting. Like, maybe a Harry Potter-esque tale of young Jedi in Luke's Academy finding out about the sith resurgence? Or maybe seeing how the New Republic has corrupted from the inside out and having a kind of political thriller?

Hmm... on second thought, all of these sound much better as side stories. I can't really think of something good for the main skywalker saga.

 

Corruption from inside the New Republic would have been a lot more interesting than just "blow them all up with a superweapon".

But of course they were never going to go with something that "complex" or interesting given the reception of the politics-heavy prequels

 

I guess. But, as interesting as that idea seems, I just can't figure out how that would actually fit into a 'Star Wars' movie.

It's obvious that they wanted to go with a very OT style, with large space battles, lots of mysticism, and a focus on three 'good guys'. Political Corruption doesn't really lend itself to that type of narrative. At least, not very deep corruption. You'd ostensibly have to dedicate large portions of the movie to fleshing out this government and how it's fallen, which would contrast heavily with the more character focused portions and action scenes.

 

Gee, it's almost like it was better not to waste time whacking at this vague notion of "recapturing the magic". It's almost like they should have learned from both of the preceding trilogies in order to make this one. It's almost like they should have thought this out ahead of time instead of making some asinine justifications (i.e. "Th-th-the original trilogy wasn't planned out, you guyz!") for not doing so in the first place.

 

Would you like to actually contribute to the conversation, or would you prefer staying up on your high horse?

 

It would have been a very interesting movie (not trilogy) where Luke teaches Rey the ways of the force and in turn Rey teaches Luke how to read.

The interesting stories probably would not have been as well received (not enough action).
- The heroes are great at rebellion, but realize governing is much harder
- Perhaps Luke pushes for a theocratic government
- The New Republic have a hard time avoiding oppression themselves on some scale
- The First Order is more like a smaller hit and run terrorist group. Maybe having nothing to do with the dark side itself.
- Chewie takes Leia to court over his overlooked medal. It comes out that she called him a walking carpet and is forced to step down for her obvious intolerance of wookies
- a cohesive story
- Yoda still doesn't talk down to Luke considering Yoda got it wrong. Maybe it is time for Yoda to learn from the new(er) generation instead of just mocking them.

But the bigger problem is: What Skywalker story was left untold after RotJ? The restoration of a jedi order, which has still gone untold. As it is going now the Skywalker story is:

- Trusted Anakin Skywalker would set things right. He did not.
- Trusted Luke Skywalker would restore the Jedi Order. He did not.
- Ben "Skywalker" Solo helps bring back the pain

The End. Bravo.

 

Yeah, the breeze is fantastic.

 

About that theoretical Lucas VII plan

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Its only an outline so we have no idea about details. I'd hope Lucas wouldn't have had to rehash the Galactic Civil War (with the rebels even more of an underdog than last time, which is just a stupid story idea). Also maybe in that draft Luke could have actually have trained that girl rather than complaining for half an hour about the old Jedi. There's also not much time to squeeze in extra training (Dagobah has some wiggle room on the timing), since its set concurrent with that really slow warship chase.

I'm not completely against the idea of Luke being depressed, except that he only did one thing after he was talked out of his low point (and it was more due to Yoda than Rey). Like if a sequel trilogy had started with this hypothetical Kira pulling Luke back into the world, then the two of them setting off to save the galaxy, well, that still sounds better than what we actually have.

I still think TotJ Redemption could have served as a great outline for the Luke and Rey plot, but that story had too much hope for the sequels probably.

 

That's fair. And I think a story set at Luke's academy would be cool. But I also don't think it would work as an actual part of the main saga. Just like how the Jedi Academy books aren't really a main installment in Legends compared to the Thrawn Trilogy, The New Jedi Order, or other series.

 

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So what i'm gathering from most of my IRL friends is that most of them thought the red flowerpot men were the red flowerpot knights of Ren.

lol

Like, damn, clearly that "Kylo isn't a Sith, he leads the Knights of Ren" thing really stuck in the public consciousness after all and people really wanted to see it.

 

That is the big get out of jail free card I sometimes lend JJ.

Here's the genius of the PT / OT.

Anakin Skywalker was NEVER in charge of the Empire machine. Anakin was not consciously building the Empire. It was going to happen with or without him. Was he just bidding his time? Obviously. But we never really knew how he would have ruled. And the PT suggests it might have actually been closer to benevolent dictator. Had he seized power and then just kicked the destruction and oppression up another notch, a redemption would feel more like "thank god he finally stopped".

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But the ST now crossed that line. And it is the only Skywalker we know of other than Leia.

So I guess the Nine Episode theme is

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Control the Skywalker population. They might seem heroic, but they can get out of control in the blink of an eye.

 

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If the sequels bothered to do any worldbuilding, that's not the craziest conclusion to jump to (elite guards, Knights of Ren, something like that). Two movies in and we still know next to nothing about the Knights of Ren.

My current theory is that the Knights of Ren are Kylo's personal cheer squad, so that whenever he's down in the dumps about how pathetic he is, he calls them in and they do a cheer routine to improve his mood snd boost his low self-confidence.

Actually, its kind of funny how much of an influence the JAT would have on the later EU, how many characters it introduced. And while a JAT sidestory movie sounds great to me, I think a Jedi school could still serve as background for one subplot at least, just like how the Dagobah scenes in ESB established much of the current Force philosophy.

I think a Jedi Academy could serve as a home base, or a starting point for the heroes to depart from, but TFA shot down those ideas fast (leaving only not-Yavin as a friendly base).

 

The way I see it . . .

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For Point 1, I think that Luke's early line where he mocks Rey's expectation that one man with a lightsaber is going to take down the entire First Order is why he didn't get involved. Everyone expects Luke Skywalker The Legend to save the day, but hubris is how he got in this mess in the first place. He thinks he'll just mess it up like he did with Ben. It's his fear of failing again.

For Point 2, yeah, I'm not sure how to take that. There appears to be some glimmer of goodness in Ben since he didn't fire on Leia and Snoke mentioned it. And he tells Rey "this will not go the way you think" implying he doesn't think she can turn him either. Shouldn't he remember how he redeemed Vader? The only thing I can think of is that when Luke looked into Ben's mind/future, he was reeeally evil and already too far gone. (Hence the "Snoke had already turned him" line).

Ulicus

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It makes sense to me. I think part of why I wasn't upset with this movie the way others were is that I just saw it as "These controversial moves were already set up by TFA, at least Rian is exploring them and their consequences". And part of that was cutting off dangling plot threads that you know Abrams wasn't going to take anywhere because he's too busy rambling about a "mystery box"

Snoke? Gone. Phasma? Gone. So I'm going to assume the "flowerpot men" are Shrodinger's Praetorians: if the Knights of Ren show up in Episode 9, then obviously they're two different organizations. If the Knights of Ren don't show up in Episode 9, we can assume they were the Praetorians so we don't have a dangling plot thread.

 

It goes back, ironically, to what Kylo said: "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

And Count Vidian from A New Dawn said, "Forget the old ways."

 

Um, you realize those were said by villains right?"

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And as I said earlier, Vader turned because he feared losing Padme, and Ben turned because of Snoke/hubris/Luke's mistake. Implying "orders and Padawan sorting ceremony stuff" had anything to do with it is laughable.

Luke says a lot of negative things about the Jedi, but the fact that he goes from "it's time for the Jedi to end" to "I will not be the last Jedi" shows he's supposed to be wrong until Rey and Yoda make him regain hope.

Yoda may have blown up the tree, but the books survive, and I don't see any evidence for this "new Jedi who are different from the old Jedi because something something reasons" theory.

 

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But is confronting them and failing worse than doing nothing at all? It seems like Luke, because he was conflicted, didn't want to commit to the Jedi ending, so he exiled himself in the faint hope that a new hope would arise.

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See how I took that moment was that Luke correctly knew that Snoke was manipulating Rey in order to get her to run to Kylo. Secondly I took it as Luke acknowledging, like Obi-Wan couldn't redeem Anakin, Luke can't redeem Ben.

 

True, but even Yoda and Obi-Wan would have realized the old ways needed to be discarded in order to train Luke.

Sometimes, disregarding the past is good advice, no matter who says it.

 

Continued from this thread.

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Is there a Snoke cross-section!?

 

Well, they wouldn't have brought back Grand Admiral Thrawn if that was completely the case.

 

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I was so happy when they didn't do the Knights of Ren vs Luke's Island rumor. That rumor had been around since forever and it was so... boring.

But yeah, the problem with KoR is that if you're not following the details carefully, it's easy to think they're the red armor guys. Like when I saw TFA with real ppl, every single one of them -- including my mom who is NOT a hardcore fan by any means -- assumed Snoke was Palpatine's master, even if they couldn't remember the name "Plagueis".

It's interesting to consider what IRL mild/non-fans think who don't frequent online websites.

 

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And then killed him like a mere red shirt, without the old fish contributing anything significant to the story. It is exactly that. They're butchering the old way on the screen, and laughing.

 

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I think the idea is that the new Jedi should evolve and change, but build on the foundations that are already there. That's what Yoda is saying: you have to pass on everything, including failure, and the new generation will learn from what you did right AND what you did wrong, and then make their own mistakes. Luke thought that the Jedi could not continue because they kept making huge mistakes; Yoda told him that making those mistakes was important too and it didn't mean that the Jedi should end, but that they should learn from them.

So yes, the Jedi need to change, to react to the mistakes they have already made. That doesn't mean they won't make new mistakes, because they will - but that's okay. That's what I took from Yoda anyway.