Kevin's Watch

oh crap, spoilers!

Spoiler

I'm less upset about Luke. He did, after all, go full-on Dark Side. And the utterly passive final showdown is the quintessential "peaceful warrior", which is a very Jedi trait.

I get that TFA was blatant appeal to the fanboys and the old-school fans who hated the prequels. It needed to be. But this film should have concentrated on one story, in order to really flesh out the new characters. It didn't. At all. It's a jumbled mess with a whole lot of out-of-place humor. Very little in this film functions well at all, and there are parts that are laugh-out-loud bad.

Yeah, there were a few dumb bits, but really it did play with expectations very well.
My main complaint is that there are no rules for Force powers anymore. Anything goes. Seems like they are forgetting world building tips - set your rules and stick with them.

Did it ever have rules, in the main film series? (I assume the extended universe set way too many.)

Apparently the rules are, "it'll do whatever will advance the plot when necessary."

My biggest issues with TLJ are:

Spoiler

Luke's behavior isn't consistent with his established character.
In spite of the interest he generated in TFA, Snoke is/was an apparently unimportant character.
In spite of the interest she generated in TFA, Captain Phasma is/was an apparently unimportant character.
The mystery of Rey's parentage is apparently unworthy of our interest.
The casino subplot was an unnecessary distraction that only served to give Finn a purpose in the film.
The fake super jedi scene with Luke standing alone against the First Order Troops and Kylo reminded me of the Mandarin reveal in Iron Man 3.
Luke wasn't given a chance to be the exciting character we all wanted him to be before he faded away into the Force, presumably.
I can think of no logical reason Poe couldn't have been told about Leia's plan when he asked about it.

Other than that I quite enjoyed the film.

I'm Murrin wrote:Did it ever have rules, in the main film series? (I assume the extended universe set way too many.)

Cail wrote:Apparently the rules are, "it'll do whatever will advance the plot when necessary."

I suspect that now that "The Awakening" has occurred and that the Jedi and the Sith are both gone, there is no one around to tell anyone what "the rules" are--each new person who enters into a relationship with the Force (for lack of any better phrase) will experience it in a unique way.

I finally saw this. Overall it was pretty good, but it did feel a bit like ten pounds of porgi in a five pound bag.

One thing was clear to me ... how we hang on to the past, or don't, was a key meta for this movie. To me, it explains almost everything people are grumbling about. I caught on when Kylo was telling Rey about hanging on to her need discover her parents, how it was holding her back, which I thought was actually a bit profound - "it would seem like wisdom, but for the warning in my heart." Anway: with that as your compass, things like the Jedi books, the "fuzzy dice", Yoda, the reveal of Rey's parents, everything Luke did, Rose's pendant ... and a lot more ... all seem to be pretty neatly put together. I admire it .. it's a Star Wars movie with more than pyoo pyoo boom.

Best line: They really hate this ship!

Honorable mention: "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love." (Channeling more than a little Mhoram with that one, eh?)

Uses of the Force should freakin' blow our minds. There shouldn't be anything they can't do. Like GL rings, they should only be limited by the wielder's imagination and willpower. (And midiclorians, of course.) That's always been the greatest weakness of the movies. We've all read books with people doing much more amazing things with powers that may as well be the Force.

Fist and Faith wrote:Uses of the Force should freakin' blow our minds. There shouldn't be anything they can't do. Like GL rings, they should only be limited by the wielder's imagination and willpower. (And midiclorians, of course.) That's always been the greatest weakness of the movies. We've all read books with people doing much more amazing things with powers that may as well be the Force.

They should be able to survive while unconscious in the vacuum of space?

dlbpharmd wrote:

Fist and Faith wrote:Uses of the Force should freakin' blow our minds. There shouldn't be anything they can't do. Like GL rings, they should only be limited by the wielder's imagination and willpower. (And midiclorians, of course.) That's always been the greatest weakness of the movies. We've all read books with people doing much more amazing things with powers that may as well be the Force.

They should be able to survive while unconscious in the vacuum of space?

I'm just speaking in general, not about anything specific.

As far as that example goes, you can't say the wielder can possibly use imagination or willpower if they are unconscious, so I'd say No. However, Anakin was conceived by the Force, itself. No father. If the Force acted in that way, I suppose it can act in other ways. But I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know if there's reason to say that's not possibly what happened.

I thought it was great that Leia demonstrated some Force. By this time, it would be downright weird if she could not.

And hey, if you can move objects with the Force, then you can hold a bubble of atmosphere and pressure around yourself as you fly out into space, no big deal. (Which is really the only possible explanation, as her eyeballs did not freeze solid, etc.) I have no complaints there.

The affirmation of Force use far outweighed the plausibility issues when I was watching, that's for sure. It's fantasy, not sci-fi, in so many ways - especially re the Force.

And let's not forget -- the unexpected uses of the Force on display here were absolutely necessary to set up the fire-all-weapons-at-Luke scene at the end of the movie. The audience needed to believe it was plausible or it would have given away the whole trick. There needed to be hints laid along the way that the Force could be more powerful than we had as yet seen.

Saw it yesterday and freaking LOVED it

From whoa to go, the pace was whip cracking, every time Leia, Carrie Fisher was on screen it was a little emotional, what a tribute to the Star Wars universe. If I had to get nit picky I could but I really dont care. Could some things have been done differently, sure, in an infinite number of ways. But suck it up, it is what it is.

I fuckn loved it

Finally saw it. MUCH happier than I thought I'd be!

One great part was that important moment when Snoke was reading Ren's mind. Ren masked what he was really doing by doing the same thing where Snoke expected it to be happening. No need to dig deeper into Ren's mind when it already seemed Ren was doing what he wanted and expected.

Learning what happened to split up Luke and B/Ren helps with one of the big problems I had with TFA. It seemed that Luke could not defeat Ben, and ran away, forever, as Ben killed the rest. If Ben was that strong, then further trained by Snoke, Rey should not have been able to resist his mind-probe, then defeat him with lightsabers the first time she held one. But it turns out they weren't in a duel, or anything else that Luke lost.

I'm still not thrilled that Rey is as good at fighting with a lightsaber as she is. But I'll chalk it up to her having grown up in a pretty tough neighborhood, and perhaps instinctively using the Force the way Obi-Wan did in the RotS novel. He just let go, and let the Force work through him, achieving its desired end. She's obviously extremely strong in the Force. Holy cow, all those boulders, at once, with at least good enough control to clear a path down the middle!? That's some serious strength! So maybe she's just naturally able to work with it in order to fight. Much like the child Anakin was naturally able to use it to see slightly ahead in time so that he could race pods with the best of 'em.

And it sure took Luke long enough to get off his ass, but when he did...! THAT'S an imaginative, excellent use of the Force! I assume he was not acting telepathically, making them see what he wanted them to see by putting the images in their minds. I assume something like astral projection, and giving his astral self a seeming reality. Over a HUGE distance! Ren finding Han's fuzzy dice on the floor was probably the most impressive part of all. Leia drops them, they remain "real", and someone else finds them? Pretty good stuff!

So yeah, I'm happy.

Yeah Im with you FF ... I loved it! Yeah Lukes always been a slow chip. The force was stronger with Leia, as naturally occurring in her. She had no formal Jedi training did she? And look what she could do! I was dumbstruck by that! Also kind of how did she survive that expulsion. Unconscious.

But I choose to move on and let myself enjoy the treat the movie was. Yeah that Snoke scene was awesome! There were so many. Definitely like an astral projection thing.

I loved The Last Jedi, everything about it, plot holes, improbably escapes and all!

I'm going to see it again tomorrow night with my sister and a friend (spouse is off on a business trip, but he and I saw it together on a "date night" the first time, and he loved it, also).

The article that Cag posted upthread is really good.

Here's another article about The Last Jedi that I enjoyed:

https://bittergertrude.com/2017/12/20/t ... re-for-it/

These articles generally comment on how the movie is about breaking with the past.

But equally important, I feel, it's also about NOT breaking with the past. And when to know which is the right course.

Ren said, "The Empire, your parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi... let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That's the only way to become what you are meant to be." But does anyone think that this is entirely a good thing? I mean, the result, Kylo Ren, is right there in front of you. He may as well have said, "Let's just go to the Dark Side right now."

In the end, they did not let the Resistance die. In the end, the Jedi library was saved. In the end, Rose got her pendant back. In the end, they needed Skywalker, they needed a Jedi. Masters teach, and then their students go beyond them - but then they find students to teach. The past can hold us back, but it can also inspire us. There would be no Resistance if there was no memory from before there was tyranny. That little boy had a Luke Skywalker action figure, from the Trapped on Crait expansion set!

The Force, after all, is about balance. Not absolutes.

Rose's pendant said it all. She revered the memory of her sister. But she didn't let sentimentality prevent the future. Her reward was vindication - memories can't die.

I'm Murrin wrote:Did it ever have rules, in the main film series? (I assume the extended universe set way too many.)

I would say Lucas was consistent with the Force powers. I can't really think of anything in the prequels that wasn't at least a slight extension of what was set up in the original series.

I don't think the movie is about breaking with the past so much as it is about moving forward.

I finally got around to seeing it today. I thought it was ok. A little too long, though. The Casino plot seemingly was unnecessary. I liked the scenes with Luke, and thought the character showed depth that was lacking in his other appearances. Rey has taken over Luke's serious role from the earlier series, but with a little more fire. Kylo Ren acts like one of those twenty-something Roman emperors. He can be rather devious, but he's easily distracted and loses his cool rather spectacularly.

I left the movie not being too inspired by the Rebellion. Or at least its leadership, since they got most everyone killed. I found myself thinking that no one answered the signal they sent out because they thought of them as bumblers. Being a run of the mill Rebellion pilot has become the same as a stormtrooper. Not a long life span on screen, just getting blown up in one harebrained, futile scheme after another.