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

Spoiler

It's time to bring in the Trek vs Wars feud again. At least Trek has antimatter propulsion and warp cores...

And transporters. Would have been a shock if Luke is looking at the Falcon lifting off on Ahch-to and thinking "Yay! They're finally gone"--only to feel himself energizing and

 

Why do other threads no longer need tags, but this thread still does?

Anyways...

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I think we still need an explanation for Snoke in IX. Not for Snoke's sake, but because it's important to the story of understanding the true villain of this trilogy, Kylo Ren. HOW did Snoke corrupt him? And HOW was he trained, and take over the First Order? Is Snoke just another Rey/Broom-boy, but his accident corrupted him? Was he the first of Luke's students to be knighted? And then thirst for vengeance and glory had him seek out the First Order in the Unknown Regions and take control, with them eager to embrace a "new Palpatine"? But how did he corrupt Kylo... what is Kylo's true motivation?

I'm also surprised no one has yet compared Luke in TLJ to his mother, Padme, in ROTS. I'm still mulling over Luke and my feelings on it. I think a lot depends on Episode IX and his Third Lesson for Rey, and hopefully soon after IX then Lucas reveals his original outline. And the novel or EU need to expand on why Luke chose the First Jedi Temple planet of all planets... did he just want to set that tree on fire and keeps postponing it?

The Resistance plotline had some plot holes... but I hope they are explained in the novel.
-Perhaps the bomb-drop in space worked because they were magnetically-attracted, and the remote manual was needed only because the rest of the ship was damaged?
-maybe the FO didn't try harder to catch-up to the Resistance, or send reinforcements to hyperspace-jump in front of them, because they wanted to see if the Resistance would lead them to another base and see if they had already evacuated some of themselves to another possible base?
-make it official that Holdo was afraid there was a mole in the fleet, possibly even fearing it was Poe
-explain why hyperspace-ramming isn't done more often... why need the death star, when you can send an automated large vessel with its only purpose to hyperspace-ram into a planet? why need an X-wing trench-run on the death star... just send an automated X-wing to hyperspace-ram it... etc. It needs to be explained why this isn't done.

Also, I understand the whole "the Republic is gone" means their entire federal/central government is gone, not the individual member-worlds and their governments and resources/defense-forces. I wish there was one line of clarification in there... and I hope rallying those member-worlds is a big plotline in IX. Since the entire movie is framed as the battle against the evacuation of the Resistance shortly after TFA, I can forgive them on this, but it needs to be addressed in IX.


But let me add... no one's legacy in the real world has ever really lasted forever. Even the pyramids will crumble one day, and today are just a tourist destination. Think of the World War II veterans who died just months after September 11th 2001. How do people deal with this? With fighting the good fight, and seeing it all seemingly ruined? That's a very relevant and relatable question. And I think that's the question the ST is primarily concerned with providing an answer to. And its answer appears to be heavily-influenced by Eastern Philosophy/Religion, as most of Star Wars has been. Which is that what we often think of as a "legacy" is just a distraction, an unnecessary attachment, that the truly good and heroic act not for a legacy and trying to earn a right they think they're entitled to and rest on their laurels, but to always fight evil and never give up that fight because all apparent victories are always temporary or an illusion. That theme is borrowed straight out of the Bhagavad Gita. Don't think of your legacy, think of the here and now and the right thing to do that you should be doing, as Qui-gon and later Yoda said.



Speculation/Hopes for IX:
1. The Knights of Ren, Luke's other students who sided with Kylo, appear and at least 2-3 are redeemed by Rey and live. Luke's Jedi legacy lives on. I feel if Kylo isn't redeemed, at least some of the other Jedi students must be redeemed. (And if Kylo isn't redeemed, I hope someone makes it clear that it's not because he was irredeemable, that anyone can be redeemed, but because he just chose not to be redeemed).
2. Poe/Finn/Rose and others rally the planetary defense forces (who are still holding out, since I'm predicting a much-needed time-jump, and some holdouts make sense after losing both Starkiller Base and the Supremacy within a few weeks)
3. Luke gives Rey her Third Lesson in IX

*an animated series focused on the Millennium Falcon as the home-base of the entire remaining Resistance (and Jedi! and all living hero characters!) in the year or two between TLJ and IX would be great. Plus it would mean more Leia... Leia was awesome in this movie And it could also carry on Finn's storyline on now being devoted to the Resistance, and Poe's of being the new rising leader of the Resistance, plus Rey reading the books with Leia and continuing her training.

 

Something I realized yesterday: Luke & Leia are only supposed to be 53 in these movies. I... guess they both adopted the Kenobi skin-care regimen?

 

The reason ships need fuel is because when they're in hyperspace they're still moving. The hyperdrives just drop you into another direction where moving faster than light is possible.

Mreh. Sound in space.

 

Sound in space is fun. Getting blown up like Jar Jar Binks learning to fly because you transferred engine power to lasers is not.

Rule of fun trumps Rule of reality, but if it's not fun then rule of reality should still apply.

 

Sidv actually reminded me of something... somewhat unrelated, but we seem to be jumping around anyway...

I just saw the film 2 days ago and I have to catch up with stuff here, so can somebody tell me if...

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Any official source confirmed the flower-lapel dude was actually the master codebreaker who Maz recommended? Because that seems like a huge uh... not really loose end, but plot bunny for another story. The spoilers said DJ was Maz's friend a while back and that's who I expected, but after watching the film it looks like DJ was just some random dude who tagged along and happened to be good at breaking codes, and Maz's friend was this other dude they never met.

 

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The Visual Dictionary confirms that flower-lapel dude is the actual master codebreaker, yes.

 

I think the Visual Dictionary does.

 

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Since they've already recanonized Thrawn, can't they just say this Master Codebreaker is http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Zakarisz_Ghent ? Since they probably will never name him anyway, they might as well give a treat to the EU fans...

 

Spoiler

Ghent is supposed to be a nerdy hacker stereotype.

 

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Hey character development remember! I find it easier to have Ghent changed to a corrupt Canto Bight slicer than it is to accept what was done to Luke.

 

I've been trying to muscle through some of these questions, too.

I can see some of this being important to the story, but mostly where it's related to Kylo. I actually think a lot of this can be mined in the rivalry between Hux and Kylo...

I was under the impression he didn't go there with the intention of becoming a hermit forever and dying. This is one of the reasons I think the movie suggests he looked at the books and found them lacking - he wanted to find something important that would help him, and there was nothing in them.

They're magnetic.

They don't try harder, I think, because they don't know they need to, and they can, and any other course of action is just a lot more complex and requires more resources. The first scene establishes Hux doesn't think this stuff through - but as far as anyone knows continuing to chase them will work. After all, that's the whole point of the hyperspace tracker.

I like this. I just figured she didn't tell him because he'd been demoted for being a liability.

This is true but TLJ didn't invent this problem.

 

Maybe he COULDN'T read them... not without the sacred Jedi seer stone.

 

Maybe Luke just can't read, he never went to the academy.

 

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As far as hyperspace ramming, in the EU it's explained why this isn't used more often. Against very powerful stations/vessels, it's not going to work. In the epic (but now Legends) comic strip that chronicled the Rebels' escape from Yavin, the Rebels were able to escape Vader's blockade. This was because Admiral Amise Griff, trying to beat Vader to catch the Rebels, made a hasty hyperspace jump and 3 Star Destroyers under his command had a hyperspace collision with the Executor. The Executor's shields took the brunt of the damage, and it was mostly unharmed--however it was slowed down enough that the Rebels were able to escape.

Thus hyperspace collisions weren't a surefire way to destroy a very powerful vessel/station in the EU.

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JJ can make the situation more desperate with having Rey unable to read the books in 9. Due to the language it's written in being 25,000 years old and all, and Luke spending 30 years learning the language. Then she will really have to start the Jedi from scratch.

 

I've said this to you privately but I may as well say it again: I really wish these movies had been set in 40 or 50 ABY.

There was no need for Kylo to literally be conceived during Yub Nub, or thereabouts.

 

but it explains so much

 

That would just make it more absurd why Luke has no half-decent padawans trained after 40 years. Even the 30 years we have now is stretching it.

There just was no need to have Jedi Purge 2.0 again. Absolutely none. They could have taken structure from the original 2000 X-Men movie, with Luke as Xavier and Rey as Wolverine--the promising newcomer and the audience's eyes to this whole new world. The other Jedi would be like the X-Men, and Kylo would have been Magneto, a former member of the X-Men/Jedi gone bad. It would have worked.

 

I kind of miss arguing about Vergere. I wish she was in this movie.

 

Kylo killed them all. It is no more or less absurd than the current scenario, it just means Mark Hamill is no longer portraying a character who is fifteen years younger than him.

 

Is the timing because Disney bought LucasFilm 29 years after Return of the Jedi?

 

You sure? Kylo'd probably turn her into a shish kebab.

 

Almost certainly, that doesn't make it any less daft. Neither Mark and Carrie were seriously passing for 22 year olds in RotJ.

 

It's absurd as it is now that only 12 Jedi all conveniently in the same place were taken out, despite Luke not showing he has more material now than he did right after ROTJ and Disney conveniently not having Luke train students in the 20+ years after ROTJ despite 8 and ESB showing combat ready students made in weeks.

Say someone has a fight with their 70 year old PhD advisor. He can attack the lab during a meeting and wipe his labmates out, but then he'd also have to find every single person the professor trained in the past 40 years and wipe them out too. It stretches plausibility someone can do this.

 

It doesn't matter if there are twelve, or twenty or a hundred. The answer is the same: "Kylo killed them all". Though if you've already got Luke waiting twenty years before he starts training Jedi, adding another ten or twenty really doesn't matter.

I'm not defending the decision to embark upon Purge 2.0 -- that much should be bloody obvious from what I've said throughout this thread -- I am simply saying that since Luke and Leia's actors are a fair bit older than their characters in these movies, I'd rather the timeline had been moved further along.

I'm sorry no-one wants to talk to you about Magneto or whatever.