Star Wars (Spoilers)

[hiplop]

I thought that scene looked awful, no real issue with the force use or w/e

[Agent Sparkles]

I don't think the trick itself was ridiculous, unlike most people. More impressive things have been done with the Force before. It's just the circumstances.

[xRECKONERx]

I think a lot of people have a problem with Luke because of the EU. As someone who never fucked with much of the EU, and didn't care that much when Disney made it Legends, I really loved Luke in this. Old, crotchety, and bitter. How he should be, IMO. I didn't have a problem with that. I did, however, have a problem with the final battle and Luke not showing up. It just felt kinda pointless? Felt like smoke and mirrors for the sake of smoke and mirrors just to have him die anyway. I guess they did it so there wouldn't be two movies back to back where "big bad Kylo kills OT character" but it felt pointless. Especially since, with a little tweak, Leia could've died instead and Luke could've lived on and his storyline would've made perfect sense. Had Luke not died at the end, his choice to force project himself to buy the Resistance time would've been great. Then we setup Luke as the OT member who has to help Rey stop Kylo in IX.

I definitely don't care about episode 9 as much as I should. Like, what're the stakes? Thinking back on, TFA set up all this promising foundation, which TLJ should've built upon and had us waiting to see how things conclude. But there's nothing driving the narrative forward. TLJ could've been cut by an hour and a half and stuffed with the introductory scenes in TFA and been a completely continuous movie that sets up a good franchise. Instead we have one movie left to wrap things up and I feel like nothing was added to the stakes or plots in TLJ. They're at the exact same place where they started.Why don't I feel like Hux is competent? He's a joke. What is Finn's grand arc? Because I'm pretty sure he "learned not to run" in TFA when he stood up to Kylo in the forest. Maz is there as a plot device and nothing else. Chewie is there for furniture and nostalgia. Poe's arc seems to be "hotheaded flyboy who doesn't learn anything".

Compare it to the end of ESB. The stakes had changed. After the up note of the first film, we saw Han get frozen in carbonite after getting betrayed. Leia was taken captive. Luke lost a hand and found out his enemy was his father. The Empire held the upper hand, and we wanted to know how they would get out of it this time.

[hiplop]

^ bingo

[Majiffy]

https://kotaku.com/star-wars-the-last-j ... 1821721569

[Firebringer]

That wasn’t really accurate description of Finns arc in the movies

[xRECKONERx]

no. no it wasn't

[Cheetory6]

Was thinking tonight about how the scope of the series is kind of fucked.
The way it's set up, we basically don't really have any kind of overall context for the state of the rest of the galaxy.
We don't really know what the Republic is, who's leading it, why we should care about it, why it has a rebel force operating within it rather than just having Leia be a part of the Republic fleet.

Why is the First Order so powerful at the start of the first movie? Like, realistically, the Republic hears about the First Order shooting up, you just had Palpatine. Like. So recently. It's such a stretch to think that the Republic would be apathetic that quickly. How do you let them get that out of control and not just be like "fuck these idiots we're killing them, we're not doing this shit again".

I get that there's Imperial infrastructure, but it's kind of hard to believe that they were able to create a weapon like that in such a short period of time after being defeated, all without anyone finding out until after the entire Republic is destroyed.

Just some kind of context on what the hell happened would help explain a lot, primarily because it makes the entire focus of the trilogy on the Empire and the Rebellion again and we have absolutely no scope on anything else going on. I'm not really sure how you do this without it being dry for audiences, but it would definitely help if Disney wasn't so invested on requiring that these movies try to be engaging for kids 100% of the time.

When Leia calls for the rebel's allies and no one answers, it just kind of rings hollow because you would think people would really want to deal with the First Order when they literally just murdered a bunch of planets. Or at least just explain why no one would come or establish who those allies are and why they might not come.

More backstory for Snoke, probably in terms of how does Luke know him. If you'd had Snoke be some kind of hermity old teacher helper at Luke's academy who turned out to be a Sith Lord in disguise or at least establish what it even means for Snoke to have reached out to Kylo, you just get a much clearer picture of what happened and maybe actually have some kind of clue about what to think of him when he actually gets confronted. They already did flashbacks, don't think it would be that much of a stretch to flashback and help us understand one of the most important parts of the Kylo/Ren/Luke relationship, which is literally the most important relationship in the movie.

Cut Canto Byte and flesh out what's going on better and TLJ feels a lot more sturdy to me.

[I swear, I actually like both of these movies too, lol
this is also word vomit, don't read it]

[TwoInAMillion]

Was thinking tonight about how the scope of the series is kind of fucked.
The way it's set up, we basically don't really have any kind of overall context for the state of the rest of the galaxy.
We don't really know what the Republic is, who's leading it, why we should care about it, why it has a rebel force operating within it rather than just having Leia be a part of the Republic fleet.

Why is the First Order so powerful at the start of the first movie? Like, realistically, the Republic hears about the First Order shooting up, you just had Palpatine. Like. So recently. It's such a stretch to think that the Republic would be apathetic that quickly. How do you let them get that out of control and not just be like "fuck these idiots we're killing them, we're not doing this shit again".

I get that there's Imperial infrastructure, but it's kind of hard to believe that they were able to create a weapon like that in such a short period of time after being defeated, all without anyone finding out until after the entire Republic is destroyed.

Just some kind of context on what the hell happened would help explain a lot, primarily because it makes the entire focus of the trilogy on the Empire and the Rebellion again and we have absolutely no scope on anything else going on. I'm not really sure how you do this without it being dry for audiences, but it would definitely help if Disney wasn't so invested on requiring that these movies try to be engaging for kids 100% of the time.

When Leia calls for the rebel's allies and no one answers, it just kind of rings hollow because you would think people would really want to deal with the First Order when they literally just murdered a bunch of planets. Or at least just explain why no one would come or establish who those allies are and why they might not come.

More backstory for Snoke, probably in terms of how does Luke know him. If you'd had Snoke be some kind of hermity old teacher helper at Luke's academy who turned out to be a Sith Lord in disguise or at least establish what it even means for Snoke to have reached out to Kylo, you just get a much clearer picture of what happened and maybe actually have some kind of clue about what to think of him when he actually gets confronted. They already did flashbacks, don't think it would be that much of a stretch to flashback and help us understand one of the most important parts of the Kylo/Ren/Luke relationship, which is literally the most important relationship in the movie.

Cut Canto Byte and flesh out what's going on better and TLJ feels a lot more sturdy to me.

[I swear, I actually like both of these movies too, lol
this is also word vomit, don't read it]

Why is the first order so powerful? Think about it. Han is back to smuggling and Luke is hiding out on a backwater planet. Kylo Ren is the most powerful force user in the galaxy.

We will probably get more Snoke backstory in IX.

It's a good thing we don't have a lot of backstory on the Resistance and First Order, because then it would be like TPM.

[DeathNote]

I agree that First Order doesn't have enough backstory to explain how they got to where they are however, I just assumed that their would be a massive power vacuum since the last movie and the, well... first order to step in with a large enough army would take control. It's not like the republic had a way to control the galaxy, they expanded as fast as they could and held quite a few planets until they got blown from existence by DS3.

Yes, I want to see the story of how Snoke gained power but I also kinda figured out that story on my own.

[Cheetory6]

I agree that First Order doesn't have enough backstory to explain how they got to where they are however, I just assumed that their would be a massive power vacuum since the last movie and the, well... first order to step in with a large enough army would take control. It's not like the republic had a way to control the galaxy, they expanded as fast as they could and held quite a few planets until they got blown from existence by DS3.

Yes, I want to see the story of how Snoke gained power but I also kinda figured out that story on my own.

I'm okay with either of these stories for the First Order and Snoke.

Not giving the audience something to directly work with for either in either movie sucks though.
It's especially bad with Snoke because they could have really easily built a relationship between him and Luke. Shouldn't Luke hate him? Have more of a feeling on him? It's shitty planning to not explain that stuff and then off both of them. I don't really care if Snoke is some big twist. Have him be a generic Sith Lord, that's fine, but just make it clear how that turning happens in a flashback. I'm sure they could have come up with a cool way to do it.

I wouldn't be surprised if more Snoke/Luke flashbacks were cut from the movie because it needed to be faster paced in Disney's eyes. I just think it makes the movie/canon suffer as a consequence.

It's not hard to infer some kind of explanation for things. But it's kind of frustrating that fundamental information feels like it's completely missing.

Why is the first order so powerful? Think about it. Han is back to smuggling and Luke is hiding out on a backwater planet. Kylo Ren is the most powerful force user in the galaxy.

We will probably get more Snoke backstory in IX.

It's a good thing we don't have a lot of backstory on the Resistance and First Order, because then it would be like TPM.

i) Pretty sure a single force user isn't the driving force that decides which huge government system triumphs over the other.

ii) I don't care. It's a waste to kill Snoke before explaining him.

iii) They could have done a solid 2 minute intro instead of the crawl visually showing what happened since ROTJ. Use Disney power to make it look amazing. Woah look, suddenly not a shit ton of exposition and it's still a good movie. Almost as if I'm not asking for politics everywhere, just context.

It's bad film-making to expect the watcher to need to fill in the blanks that excessively, but honestly wouldn't be surprised if JJ didn't have the answers to the questions in TFA [especially since RJ was told he could do whatever he wanted, so basically no plan at all in the longrun].

RJ I'm giving the botd that he may have lost some crucial stuff in the edit.
It honestly seems like the edit made a lot of the mess with the movie.

[Cheetory6]

I forgot how much I love Star Wars.
I didn't realize I could talk this much shit about something just because parts of it didn't hit my expectations lore-wise, even if I found most of it really entertaining.

q.q

[TwoInAMillion]

Space Opera focuses on single people being huge influences on the galaxy at large, even if it's not "realistic". It's just the way it is.

[xRECKONERx]

Space Opera focuses on single people being huge influences on the galaxy at large, even if it's not "realistic". It's just the way it is.

space opera can still have worldbuilding

[TwoInAMillion]

Space Opera focuses on single people being huge influences on the galaxy at large, even if it's not "realistic". It's just the way it is.

space opera can still have worldbuilding

It can, but it's more focused on interpersonal relationships.

[xRECKONERx]

the OT and PT both had excellent worldbuilding

so it's not out of left field for it to exist in star wars

in fact, id wager the tertiary worldbuilding is one of star wars strengths

[TwoInAMillion]

I think that's part of the reason it's not as prevelant in the sequel trilogy. Since more attention was placed on it previously, it's not as necessary here. We take a lot of it for granted. As star wars viewers, we know that the fate of the resistance and the first order is going to rest on what happens with Rey and Kylo Ren, and I think most are okay with that.

[zoraster]

I think one of Star Wars' strengths (particularly the original trilogy) is its ability to hint at a larger world and give tastes of it. Palpatine dismisses the Senate, raising questions about the republic before. The clone wars are mentioned. Leia's home world is blown up, of which she is a princess. Etc. I think these strengths start to weaken when going too far into depth on them. The Clone Wars were cooler and more interesting as an idea before they were given a story from the first.

It's the reason Episode 4 starts at Episode 4. We come in in the middle.

I do think one of the weaknesses of TFA (and TLJ as a result, though TLJ does do some world building with Canto Bight, the former jedi academy, the ancient jedi texts, etc.) is that there's very little of this that hints at a larger world or why things came to be the way they are. TFA in particular is bad about this as it essentially goes "okay. there was a republic. For some reason there's a resistance too but it's not resisting the republic. it's resisting an external threat. Okay. Republic is blown up and we reset." I get that some expanded universe stuff gives reasons for this, but I can't accept that should be necessary.

[xRECKONERx]

it makes everyone else feel useless. which was never the case previously.

[Agent Sparkles]

Prequel trilogy focuses a lot on buildup and not enough on delivery.
Sequel trilogy focuses a lot on delivery and not enough on buildup.
Original trilogy probably has the best balance of both.

[scotmany12]

A lot of the world building, unfortunately, has been relegated to all the other media in the franchise. I believe a lot of the novels expand on who the new order is, why there is a resistance, etc. Which obviously not everyone is going to experience.

Still love TLJ, definitely top 4 for me.

[zakk]

it's like rian johnson created episode 8 in a vacuum and nobody else was around to give him opinions until it was too late

then kathleen kennedy was like "ya thats cool, just make sure to add in a dose of my agenda here and there. perfect"

it's awful.

[TwoInAMillion]

I'm sure Abrams was consulted as well. I don't see it as any different from Kershner, Kasdan and Lucas for Episode V.

[inte]

theres just so much that happens in tld that seems like its advancing plot for the sake of having plot rather than story

like pretty much all of finn/rose's side quest

everything about poe/holdos little tiff

how quickly snoke was cut in two and offering no kind of character development

[zakk]

its ok inte


let the past die

kill it if you have to