STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

If you have seen STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, how would you rate it?


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Lucasfilm is the most creatively bankrupt it has ever been.

I mean even the DC film universe has better world and character building than the new SW movies...

The sad thing is that through so much source material, from the shows Rebels and Clone Wars, along with all the books, comic books (either canon or EU)....Lucasfilm has so many blueprints for stories we haven't seen in live action yet.

The animated shows actually made Darth Maul into a semi-interesting character. Admiral Thrawn is pretty cool in Rebels as well. Why the f*** is Thrawn not in the sequel trilogy?

I remember thinking that the EU was all fan fiction garbage.....now I wish Lucasfilm would look into the EU and cherry pick the coolest ideas, places, and characters and insert them into canon.

Kind of like what George did with Coruscant.
 
Lucasfilm is the most creatively bankrupt it has ever been.

I mean even the DC film universe has better world and character building than the new SW movies...

The sad thing is that through so much source material, from the shows Rebels and Clone Wars, along with all the books, comic books (either canon or EU)....Lucasfilm has so many blueprints for stories we haven't seen in live action yet.

The animated shows actually made Darth Maul into a semi-interesting character. Admiral Thrawn is pretty cool in Rebels as well. Why the f*** is Thrawn not in the sequel trilogy?

I remember thinking that the EU was all fan fiction garbage.....now I wish Lucasfilm would look into the EU and cherry pick the coolest ideas, places, and characters and insert them into canon.

Kind of like what George did with Coruscant.

I think it comes back to hiring Abrams again though, the man simply is not a very ambitious or original, he clumsily reheated some elements of the originals and the built up demand made it a success but it had limited potential to lead into a trilogy of substance.

All the talk of it being what Starwars needed was nonsense for me, it was a cheap low risk option that had a clear negative effect on the franchises future. That actually seems to be what so many of todays commentators actually celebrate though, unambitious workmanlike blockbusters churned out with little real belief in them.
 
Does TFA really set up Rey as having a "destiny" and the belief that she has one? I really don't think it does, we only get some vague hints from Snoke and the vision that again depend on the mystery box style where someone else needs to fill in the depth. I mean I'm not excusing Johnson of many of the failings of TLS but yeah I think people vastly overpraised TFA, partly just as a backlash from the prequels, partly because its faults were not quite as obvious. That film did I think introduce a lot of the weaknesses we saw within the sequel, the poorly realised setting and characters, the confused tone, etc.

As I'v said before I tend to think of TFA not just as the sequel to Starwars but as the sequel to over a decade of the culture of prequel bashing, I mean yeah I don't rate those films highly at all but it felt like some fat geek pushing over a disabled boy and then proclaiming himself the greatest fighter on earth, TLS was the same fat geek getting the shit kicked out of him when he bought his own hype and tried to face down a street gang.

I think you're missing the forest for the trees and critiquing the analogy but not the point. The point is with a one line synopsis its easy to create the illusion of depth.

Look at Kylo Ren using only Force Awakens. He's without a doubt a deeper and more nuanced character than Darth Vader is if you're only using ANH. So in 1 movie, the antagonist is a deeper, more layered character.

Rey is similar to Luke. Fin has as much depth as anyone in ANH save Luke. Poe is more on par with someone like Han episode 4.

What about Palpatine? He's barely in the second part of the trilogy, Snoke has more screen time in the first movie than the Palpatine did prior to the 3rd part of a trilogy.

I should note, that none of these things mean that any of this is superior to episode 4, Vader is undeniably one of the greatest villains of all time, where Kylo is not. It's just a reasoning to why I dont agree with the original point about the mystery box and lack of character building.
 
I think you're missing the forest for the trees and critiquing the analogy but not the point. The point is with a one line synopsis its easy to create the illusion of depth.

Look at Kylo Ren using only Force Awakens. He's without a doubt a deeper and more nuanced character than Darth Vader is if you're only using ANH. So in 1 movie, the antagonist is a deeper, more layered character.

Rey is similar to Luke. Fin has as much depth as anyone in ANH save Luke. Poe is more on par with someone like Han episode 4.

What about Palpatine? He's barely in the second part of the trilogy, Snoke has more screen time in the first movie than the Palpatine did prior to the 3rd part of a trilogy.

I should note, that none of these things mean that any of this is superior to episode 4, Vader is undeniably one of the greatest villains of all time, where Kylo is not. It's just a reasoning to why I dont agree with the original point about the mystery box and lack of character building.

What TFA does it attempt to lift both from ANH more directly in terms of plot and from ESB/ROTJ in some other areas.

Kylo is obviously setup along similar kinds of lines to what we see in the Luke/Vader story in the latter two films but the problem is theres just not the depth there. Kylo wants to remove the lightside from himself and kills his father in the hope of doing so but why? its not explained at all, basically leaving the depth for someone else to fill in after Abrams has picked his low hanging fruit. The character survives on a combination of being an inversion of what we'd seen in the originals, killing off Han who had been established by the originals plus the mystery Abrams hoped someone else would fill in for him.

Vader in ANH doesn't need to have his motivation set up because the character isn't behaving in a fashion that demands it, its not until ESB and ROTJ that its needed and that's when its introduced. The Emperor is never setup as needing motivation because again the drama isn't coming from his characters decisions.

With Finn we basically have an introduction that seems like it might lead to an interesting character only to have it totally abandoned and the character suddenly shift into an annoying goofball sidekick. Abrams himself has admitted the choice to make him a stormtrooper came late on and he obviously didn't bother to exploit the potential of that at all.

You see it with Luke as well, Abrams doesn't want to take on the job of actually dealing with Luke and his potential story/motivation but he sure does want to take the low hanging fruit of reintroducing him, thus stealing with of the big dramatic moments of the sequel.

ANH is a relatively simple film but within that simple outline it gives us well developed characters in terms of motivation and a very well developed setting. TFA looks to give the impression of something more but ultimately does little of that for me.
 
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What TFA does it attempt to lift both from ANH more directly in terms of plot and from ESB/ROTJ in some other areas.

Kylo is obviously setup along similar kinds of lines to what we see in the Luke/Vader story in the latter two films but the problem is theres just not the depth there. Kylo wants to remove the lightside from himself and kills his father in the hope of doing so but why? its not explained at all, basically leaving the depth for someone else to fill in after Abrams has picked his low hanging fruit. The character survives on a combination of being an inversion of what we'd seen in the originals, killing off Han who had been established by the originals plus the mystery Abrams hoped someone else would fill in for him.

Vader in ANH doesn't need to have his motivation set up because the character isn't behaving in a fashion that demands it, its not until ESB and ROTJ that its needed and that's when its introduced. The Emperor is never setup as needing motivation because again the drama isn't coming from his characters decisions.

With Finn we basically have an introduction that seems like it might lead to an interesting character only to have it totally abandoned and the character suddenly shift into an annoying goofball sidekick. Abrams himself has admitted the choice to make him a stormtrooper came late on and he obviously didn't bother to exploit the potential of that at all.

You see it with Luke as well, Abrams doesn't want to take on the job of actually dealing with Luke and his potential story/motivation but he sure does want to take the low hanging fruit of reintroducing him, thus stealing with of the big dramatic moments of the sequel.

ANH is a relatively simple film but within that simple outline it gives us well developed characters in terms of motivation and a very well developed setting. TFA looks to give the impression of something more but ultimately does little of that for me.


I think your disdain of Abrams might be skewing your outlook. Theyve talked a lot about Luke and how best to incorporate him in the movie and went through a lot of variations. Stuff like "making choices late" is really common in the film business, especially big blockbusters. I dont really consider it a negative or a positive, its standard practice.

I dont think Kylos story is similar to Luke or Vader at all, personally. I mean maybe in the sense that hes "conflicted", but Id argue thats Johnsons idea, not Abrams.

At any rate, I dont think we're going to be doing much besides disagreeing and pointing out random things with our own interpretations. I respect your position, I just disagree. It's all good.
 
At any rate, I dont think we're going to be doing much besides disagreeing and pointing out random things with our own interpretations. I respect your position, I just disagree. It's all good.
This happens quite often, especially with @moreorless87 who is pretty intractable when it comes to STAR WARS, not to mention a tad dodgy when it comes to logic*, but as you've noticed before opinion is a difficult thing to argue between each other -- and sometimes it's not even all that clear within the one person, as everyone who has called me "cryptic" can attest.

Abrams is certainly weak when it comes to story, but he's also operating on a very different wavelength while still trying to keep his shit STAR WARS. He's firmly rooted in the veracity style of today where the atmosphere feels less stagey and portentous. His STAR WARS is young, hip, and buddy buddy. Johnson wrangled Abrams' divergent style back into the fold, which was no easy task as it clearly met with varying degrees of success from fanboy to fanboy. Based on the previous style of directing, which is what confines @moreorless87's criteria here, yeah Abrams falls a bit short when it comes to text. He makes up for the lack of text with texture, which is readily appreciable on a baser level. Easily palatable, albeit a bit nebulous.



*And yes, this might be, as you may infer, the pot calling the kettle.
 
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I think you're missing the forest for the trees and critiquing the analogy but not the point. The point is with a one line synopsis its easy to create the illusion of depth.

Look at Kylo Ren using only Force Awakens. He's without a doubt a deeper and more nuanced character than Darth Vader is if you're only using ANH. So in 1 movie, the antagonist is a deeper, more layered character.

Rey is similar to Luke. Fin has as much depth as anyone in ANH save Luke. Poe is more on par with someone like Han episode 4.

What about Palpatine? He's barely in the second part of the trilogy, Snoke has more screen time in the first movie than the Palpatine did prior to the 3rd part of a trilogy.

I should note, that none of these things mean that any of this is superior to episode 4, Vader is undeniably one of the greatest villains of all time, where Kylo is not. It's just a reasoning to why I dont agree with the original point about the mystery box and lack of character building.
I agree with most of that. Kylo was an interesting character before Rian regressed him and everyone else, other than Rey.

Rey is awful, all around, but there was room after TFA to make her compelling. Rian turned her into uber Mary Sue.

Finn suffered the most at the hands of Rian. After his arc from TFA, he was turned into Jar Jar at the expense of the ever pointless Rose and virtue signaling.

I didn't care much for the TFA, but I can understand why JJ played it so safe. We'll never know if it could have grown into something more.

Rian's an idiot for sure, but the fact that KK signed off on his script, and JJ never really wanted to make the entire the trilogy, I blame them all for TLJ and the state of SW.

I'm glad to see that Iger has acknowledged some issues. His silence regarding KK and Rian said the most.
 
Rian turned her into uber Mary Sue.
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Lucasfilm is the most creatively bankrupt it has ever been.

I mean even the DC film universe has better world and character building than the new SW movies...

The sad thing is that through so much source material, from the shows Rebels and Clone Wars, along with all the books, comic books (either canon or EU)....Lucasfilm has so many blueprints for stories we haven't seen in live action yet.

The animated shows actually made Darth Maul into a semi-interesting character. Admiral Thrawn is pretty cool in Rebels as well. Why the f*** is Thrawn not in the sequel trilogy?

I remember thinking that the EU was all fan fiction garbage.....now I wish Lucasfilm would look into the EU and cherry pick the coolest ideas, places, and characters and insert them into canon.

Kind of like what George did with Coruscant.

The extended universe should not be out of bounds. Think of how fans would have reacted, or would react, if starkiller showed up.. Vaders apprentice. Rey could be his daughter.. SOMETHING cool for God sake.
 
I think your disdain of Abrams might be skewing your outlook. Theyve talked a lot about Luke and how best to incorporate him in the movie and went through a lot of variations. Stuff like "making choices late" is really common in the film business, especially big blockbusters. I dont really consider it a negative or a positive, its standard practice.

I dont think Kylos story is similar to Luke or Vader at all, personally. I mean maybe in the sense that hes "conflicted", but Id argue thats Johnsons idea, not Abrams.

At any rate, I dont think we're going to be doing much besides disagreeing and pointing out random things with our own interpretations. I respect your position, I just disagree. It's all good.

Making choices late is a negative if its obviously resulted in a worse film and I think that's clearly the case with Finn. You have the plot point of him being an ex strom trooper introduced I think its clear the character was mostly left as he existed before that which leaves any potential it introduces largely untapped and honestly makes the character rather non sensical.

What happened basically is Michael Arndt asked for a year to come up with a script and Disney fired him and brought in Abrams who cobbled together a script very quickly and it shows.
 
Making choices late is a negative if its obviously resulted in a worse film and I think that's clearly the case with Finn. You have the plot point of him being an ex strom trooper introduced I think its clear the character was mostly left as he existed before that which leaves any potential it introduces largely untapped and honestly makes the character rather non sensical.

What happened basically is Michael Arndt asked for a year to come up with a script and Disney fired him and brought in Abrams who cobbled together a script very quickly and it shows.

Which begs the question:

How the hell did JJ come up w/ a script so fast for episode IX? He was hired like less than a year ago.

I really hope he didn't just rush it.
 
The extended universe should not be out of bounds. Think of how fans would have reacted, or would react, if starkiller showed up.. Vaders apprentice. Rey could be his daughter.. SOMETHING cool for God sake.
That would only make Rey special because of another white Male. Rey is the Vagina Messiah, she don't need no heritage.
 
Which begs the question:

How the hell did JJ come up w/ a script so fast for episode IX? He was hired like less than a year ago.

I really hope he didn't just rush it.
Honestly, it cant get much worse.
 
2 things id like to announce.

As a major star wars fan, ive spoken about skipping the next entry entirely because of last jedi. I cant remember who, but i was doubted in my avoidance. Fast forward to today and ive already shown i can do it in skipping Solo AND skipping The Predator, another franchise i love. Solo i did watch via stream, however, as i felt like its a stronger point.

The second...it wasnt until the last jedi that i learned the term "canon" and now i cant remember..what is EU? :)
 
2 things id like to announce.

As a major star wars fan, ive spoken about skipping the next entry entirely because of last jedi. I cant remember who, but i was doubted in my avoidance. Fast forward to today and ive already shown i can do it in skipping Solo AND skipping The Predator, another franchise i love. Solo i did watch via stream, however, as i felt like its a stronger point.

The second...it wasnt until the last jedi that i learned the term "canon" and now i cant remember..what is EU? :)

Extra uniforms
 
2 things id like to announce.

As a major star wars fan, ive spoken about skipping the next entry entirely because of last jedi. I cant remember who, but i was doubted in my avoidance. Fast forward to today and ive already shown i can do it in skipping Solo AND skipping The Predator, another franchise i love. Solo i did watch via stream, however, as i felt like its a stronger point.

The second...it wasnt until the last jedi that i learned the term "canon" and now i cant remember..what is EU? :)

A few years ago one would have thought it impossible for the franchise to ever become this poisonous, let alone so quickly. This is the kind of fuckup they'll be lecturing about in MBA schools.
 
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