So. To the like... two people left who check this forum.

Thoughts? Considerations? Concerns?

I am still conflicted on my opinions of the film.

I just finished watching it for the second time and um . . . well . . . see . . .

It definitely had its moments, I'm just not sure it was good. I can't decide how spoilery I want to be right now, and I'm finding it hard to distill my criticisms into succinct statements, so I'm not sure what to say right now.

Yeah, I feel more or less the same way. Like I said, conflicted.

I watched Kevin Smith's hour and a half review of the movie, and now I think I've decided to love it. There's definitely a version of the movie that exists in my head that I like a lot more, but of course there is. 

*Spoiler Alert*


I liked aspects of it.

There is one thing that I can't quite get my head around, and that's the way Luke is portrayed, he's like the Anti-Luke.

I can understand Luke being reluctant to teach someone, or even becoming a bit hermit -like, but attempting to kill one of his own students?
Hrm.... not so sure about that (and it appears Mark Hamil felt the same)

I felt that the death of Snoak was a bit disappointing, Darth Maul all over again. Would have preferred him to stick around a bit longer, I won't say it made his character pointless but .... more like a red-herring. I like a good villain , me.

On the subject of Rei's parents; Assuming we believe what the Solo-killer tells her, Rei has nothing 'extraordinary' going on there, so no relation to any of the previous characters. I can't help but feel this was the director attempting to 'do the unexpected'  - It felt a bit...well, forced to me. That being said, I kinda liked it, lol.

I really liked the interaction between Rei and Solo-stabber, something new and worked well I think.

One last point, it was really good to see Luke again, a bit like seeing an old friend you haven't seen in ages (on that note, hello! Happy new year everyone! Hope you all had a great Christmas lol)  - However I felt his death , a pretty significant event in the film (and the franchise as a whole) should have been at the end, I dunno just felt that should have been the climax really, and not some kid with a christmas cracker ring. 
The way it happened was a bit ...odd for me also,  it felt a bit disrespectful to me. I understand why it was done (a nod to the future generation and all that) For some reason I got a flashback of the way Kirk died in Generations; i.e: rubbish (omg! did he just mention Trek??)

I feel that most of what I said above is being hypercritical and is mainly my personal taste, on the whole I enjoyed it.

Scenes I liked:

*Leia sensing her Solo-Slaughterer is about to attack her ( that whole scene was pretty good actually, though not sure about the floaty bit after)
*Rei and Solo-killer's interactions (especially through the Force) was awesome, and liked the way it was portrayed.
*I liked the way Luke tricked the Solo-exterminator at the end, diverting his attention from the fleeing rebels  (but just not the way Luke farted and died afterwards)
*The face-off between Snoak, Rei and Solo-destroyer, just would have liked Snoak to last a bit longer I guess, but a great scene nonetheless.


I have only seen it once, I think I should see it again.



 

Didn't enjoy it, overall.

There were moments, but there were far too many lacking ones throughout, in my opinion. My biggest eyeroll came from that 40 minute casino pseudo-political bullshit scene rammed down my throat, going on about the 1% and how they're playing both sides, etc. Just was completely unnecessary and really, really heavy handed with scripting.

Also, I think Ackbar should have been the one to do the hyperspace jump. Not some random introduced in the same movie, with no real connection to her save being told 'she did something important a few times not in the movies once'. Didn't care for her, but the jump was pretty stunning.

I enjoyed Kylo a little more in this. I'm glad they (seemingly) doubled down on his being evil, and didn't go with the 'I'm conflicted and will become good guy' trope.

Rey was Rey. Eh.

Luke was... disappointing. But Mark played what he got greatly. And I get the whole 'don't meet your idol' and 'legend is bigger than the man' type of deal they were aiming for, but it just seemed that Luke gave up after a single failure (which, granted, led to a lot of death and slaughter), but it was a little out of place for him to abandon everyone and just cover his ears and say he couldn't hear anything. Very different from the Luke who leapt into action to protect people. Jarring, almost.

I just can't help but feel my Luke wouldn't hesitate to use his legend and fame to spur a call for the struggling resistance?

Speaking of resistance... what happened? How could so much change in between the two movies? The resistance took some knocks, but the first order were REALLY down and on the out... but in the space of an opening text crawl the tide had shifted and the resistance had about 50 people left? Seems odd.

Also, alien walrus boobs.

Overall, eh.

The only thing that saved a stupid resistance is the even more incompetent First Order.  I never really understood the galactic political situation of the new trilogy much.  There was a Republic.  There was a First Order and I got the impression that the First Order was much smaller and the starkiller base was to level the playing field as well as give them a boost.  Republic volunteers set up a resistance inside the First Order to blow shit up but now, in this movie, the First Order suddenly is kicking the resistance (and Republic's?) ass.  I would have thought the blowing up of Republic worlds by starkiller base would have galvanized them into declaring war and the Last Jedi would be a war flick.

But instead we got a slow chase at sublights.  Marc Bernardin (in Kevin Smith's review) asked why the bad guys just did not send some ships ahead of the sublight rebels.  That chase would have been over fast. 

The remote lightspeed tracker was a guess that people acted on as if it was fact and soon in the story it became fact (presumably).  We were shown where something like that might be in a big ship but they never got to see it.  Let's hear it for Imperial BB-8 droids!  That droid did more for the First Order than Snoke, Kylo, starkiller and Captain Plasma or Phasma or whatever put together.  Hell, BB-8 did more for the resistance than ... lol lol..I now know BB-8 can operate an AT-ST.

Kylo.. meh.  the only thing cool about him is his voice when he has the helmet on.  Otherwise, he's a whiny emo kid.  I did not understand Rey's wanting to "save" him.   I would have made sense if they were related but apparently they aren't.  It's not like he's had a shitty life like her so he relates to her.

For once, I would love a larger than life hero to actually be larger than life (go out with a bang with all the fanfare that creates) rather thana wimper.  It's like no one wants to do right by the larger than life character.  They try to do some artsy thing by giving them a lame death.  I mean, if Bruce Lee is gonna die in a film, it should be fighting 1000 bad guys, while stopping a time bomb that would have destroyed the galaxy wilst saving a family of kittens.  Instead, nowadays, he'd get hit by a bus or lose a foot to diabetes.

That's how Luke's death made me feel.  He got hit by a bus.

The casino was a meaningless diversion.  The infiltration on the ship amounted to nothing.  Phasma couldn't even execute someone correctly.  Why is she in the movie?

I do not understand why the bombers did not spread out more.  It's as if they thought their slow asses wouldn't get hit?  The resistance did more damage to themselves than the First Order did.  Physical bombs do not drop in space.

Why the fuck did Po mutiny?  And what was the problem about not letting your peeps know what the plan was? It was not like operational security for the crew of one ship was really necessary.

I don't know.  It seems like anyone, other than Snowkan, at TRF could have come up with a much better strategy for the script or at least one that made sense.

Ackbar was....   hit by a bus apparently.   Should have gone out like a boss but went out like a chump.

He should have been the one, as Watcher said.  Hell, he should have been the one to come up with the idea to use their smaller ships to do the ramming at lightspeed rather than let them run out of gas and get blown up.

The darkside is a big black hole in the ground.


I enjoyed Yoda.  That took me back...