The problem isn’t female leads, it’ trash-tier writing. Like introducing a self-conscious stormtrooper and then having him unemotionally kill his mates pretty much immediately. Or introducing a nobody and then make her the child of a somehow™️ returned supervillain. Or having your minor villain and your female lead fall in love and then having them pretty much just revert back to where they were before. Or replacing the Death Star with an intergalactic Death Shotgun. The list goes on
The problem isn’t female leads, it’ trash-tier writing.
Worst part about the sequels was the compulsive need to regurgitate elements of the prior series.
Empire is back, kids!
Death Star Plus
And we’re back on Tantoine again
Harrison Ford again
Getting killed by Discount Darth Vader to buy time to escape the Knock Off Death Star
Only a direct hit on the main loud farting sounds
There’s so much lore from the books and the games and the toys and the cutting room floor of the original movies. And they had a ton of good ideas at the outset. A storm trooper who defects? A six foot tall super trooper in mirror armor? A Sith Lord who isn’t stoic and morose, but hot headed and self-destructive? These are cool good ideas!
Shame they got drowned out in Disney fueled nostalgia.
Like introducing a self-conscious stormtrooper and then having him unemotionally kill his mates pretty much immediately.
If you paid attention to the movie, Finn doesn’t know how to fly a TIE fighter, because Storm Troopers don’t fly TIE fighters. So when Finn is blasting TIE fighters, he’s explicitly not killing Storm Troopers. In fact in every military I’m aware of, pilots of expensive fighters are always officers. Who abducted Finn from his family? That would be First Order officers. Who is Finn shooting at? First Order officers. Doubtful it would be the same officers that pressed him into the First Order, but it’s easy to understand why he wouldn’t all that broken up about it.
Some online review told you the movie is stupid because Finn is shooting at his friends, but if you think about it at all, that is explicitly not true.
Also consider that a Star Wars movie made you think about the morality of killing Storm Troopers. You might even consider thinking about it more and consider how many wars involve killing people not because they are evil, but killing people simply because they are on the other side and will kill you for the same reason. You may find that the answer to that question is it’s every war that’s like that. That’s what a war is: killing people because they’re on the other side without any consideration to what kind of person they are. Yeah, wars are a bad thing.
Also consider that Finn was indoctrinated and conditioned to be capable of killing people without hesitation. Consider how many militaries in the real condition people to kill other people without hesitation. How many militaries do you suppose do that?
Do you think that if someone realizes they’ve been indoctrinated into something, all other indoctrination and conditioning disappears from their brain instantly? Like it’s a Saturday morning cartoon and someone gets bonked on the head and suddenly they’re a good guy in all things? I think it actually makes more sense that Finn is still conditioned to kill without hesitation than what the internet that says he’s supposed to have some moral crisis about killing First Order officers.
So a Star Wars movie made you the morality of killing people in a war. But you stopped yourself from thinking about it too much because the internet told you the movies sucks. Instead of asking questions and thinking about what’s happening in a scene in a movie, you didn’t think about it because you’re defaulting to the answer “because the movie sucks”. And this is how the internet ruins movies for people, you’re not allowing yourself to even consider why things are happening in a movie because you’re supposed to answer “because this sucks” and stop all thought.
Or introducing a nobody and then make her the child of a somehow™️ returned supervillain.
It’s possible the point of the sequel to explore relationships in the past (shocking!). Something to think about: Why didn’t Rey try to bring Palpatine back from the dark side (as Luke did with Vader)? Luke didn’t even suggest that she try to do this. Why not? There’s seems to be difference between the relationships explored in RoTJ and in RoS. Why is Vader redeemable, but Palpatine isn’t? Maybe think on what the difference is.
Or just go along with the internet narrative and turn off your brain, because that’s easier.
Mate have you considered that it’s possible for people to have different opinions about a movie than you, without them being brainwashed by the internet?
Have you considered that media/art is highly subjective and that even if a movie was internationally adored, it would still be valid for someone to not like the movie, and criticise it?
I’m all for a lively debate over the qualities of certain media, but your main point seems to be ‘you just don’t like it because you can’t think for yourself’, which is just a bullshit argument. It feels very similar to “you just don’t believe in my god because you haven’t prayed enough” or “you just don’t like pickles because you can’t cook well enough”.
This post is mocking people like Ben Shapiro, the crtiical drinker, the quartering and other such douchebags who shit on good movies with good writing that are popular among audiences and critics, because “forced diversity, DEI hire, woke, radical feminist agenda.”
Sometimes, but more often bad writing can make a great actress look like a bad female actor.
Natalie Portman can act, but those prequels were rough on her reputation. The camp value od the prequels wasn’t immediately apparent and it was rough on her.
I remember someone saying that they thought Ewan McGregor and Liam Neesan were great, and the response was ‘yeah, in Trainspotting and Schindlers list.’
Some people just hate women and they suck, but often the something with a female lead just sucks. It sucks that the former complicates the latter.
I remember Patty Jenkins when Wonder Woman was due to come out saying that the problem with being a female director is That if a man makes a big budget film and it flops then that’s because the film is bad. But if you make a big budget film and it flops then that’s because women can’t direct.
Yeah, I never even noticed “Kal el no” in the movie when I watched it. But it’s a meme, so we all have to pile on about something completely forgettable being the worst thing ever!
That’s how this shit works. Just short clips about nothing burgers turned into memes and made to loom large in your mind as being something egregious.
I don’t even know what kal el no is, but i do know that it’s often unfair to call out any actor for s line delivery, because it’s often the case that they’ll do the same scene 6-7 times with very different deliveries, each prompted by the director, and then the director will choose which clip to use in editing.
I’m honestly not even mad at that. What broke my immersion was how everyone was just flat out stunned that they would try it a third time, and with no defensive countermeasures whatsoever. They were caught off guard a third time
And that third time they figured out how to bend space lasers to hit every planet at once and auto win
They did have countermeasures for a Death Star that had to move within range of a planet. Star Killer base could strike from across the galaxy, which they weren’t prepared for. In fact their preparations for a Death Star attack resulted in most of the Republic fleet being destroyed… presumably because they gathered near the most likely target of a Death Star attack.
The Death Star was the equivalent to a bomber carrying nukes, while Star Killer base was an ICBM. They had the defenses prepared to take down a bomber and got hit with an ICBM.
Where did you see that they had countermeasures for even a death star? I’m looking it up and everything about the plot conveniently has everyone grouping up for a conventional attack, only for a gigantic super death star #3 (planetary variant) to just destroy everything.
Star Killer base could strike from across the galaxy
Star Wars has always played fast and loose with concepts like the laws of physics because they want space magic and the speed of light is for nerds but this is a particularly egregious one.
It was lack of common direction through the trilogy. JJ set up his signature mystery boxes in the first movie, only for Rian to ignore those and leave nothing to work with for the next one.
I believe the reason why Palpatine somehow returned was because Rian killed off Snoke, and they really needed some big baddie Kylo and Rey could team up against so Kylo could have his redemption arc.
Bringing back Palatine was always the plan. If you rewatch 7, it’s painfully obvious that was the plan. Rian Johnson did the right thing by saying “Fuck that, I’m going to make something not shit”, and then making the only noteworthy movie of the trilogy. Did he make mistakes? Yes, the gambling planet was a mistake, but The Last Jedi was the only movie with interesting stories in it at the end of the day. JJ Abrams would have made a worse movie, and a way worse trilogy if he got full creative control.
only for Rian to ignore those and leave nothing to work with for the next one.
JJ choosing to ignore the second movie doesn’t mean “nothing was left”. Baring the bizarre casino, TLJ was the most interesting SW story since RotS. Episode IX could’ve been an amazing finale coming out of that, but JJ did what JJ always does and absolutely failed to deliver.
*Also, I feel it’s important to point out the “Mystery Box” was and is bullshit, lazy writing. Yes, it’s important to leave things in a story for the audience to wonder about and anticipate. That’s not a valid excuse to throw esoteric shit at the wall and call it a day. The audience doesn’t need to know where the plot is going, but the fucking writer should. JJ left Rian with hollow shell of “intrigue” with nothing substantial, got pissy when Rian did what he wanted with that, then shit out a boring finale trying to reverse everything back.
Really? What happened in TLJ that wasn’t already done in Star Wars? It felt like they just threw ESB and RoTJ into a blender and threw it onto the screen. Except they removed the point of all the plotines they copied from the other movies.
I know there’s a narrative about TLJ being interesting, but the biggest criticism from people that aren’t terminally online is that it was boring. And yeah, it was just a bunch of stuff we saw before with the point of the plotlines removed.
I’ll just reiterate my other reply since you did the same - your inability to see the potential of TLJ on it’s own merits says more about you than the movie.
Nothing new was set up for the grand finale. No new conflicts or threats to look forward to.
Compare with Empire Strikes Back. A bigger villain has been revealed. Han has been captured. Darth Vader is revealed to be Luke’s father. Romance between Han and Leia. Lots of exciting new threads for the final movie.
TLJ had nothing of that. When I went out of the theater I had no excitement at all for the next movie.
The resistance is on the backfoot, desperate for an answer.
Kylo is coming into his power as the big bad and the First Order is adjusting to the sudden power vacuum.
Rey is finally realizing her capability and is left to decide if she’ll follow the Jedi way or blaze her own path, still haunted by her unknown past.
Other force sensitives are awakening across the galaxy.
Leia is revealed as a force user (which obviously couldn’t be addressed after the death of Carrie Fisher, but that wasn’t a known change at the time of shooting).
Even a subpar writer could’ve done plenty with half of that, but JJ and Disney got scared and shit out the blandest finale possible.
Compare with Empire Strikes Back.
No. Stop comparing the new to the old, especially at such a minuscule, beat-for-beat level. Not only does that kill any possible innovation, it’s a nostalgia trap and exactly why VII and IX were so fucking boring. Nothing will replicate the feelings had watching beloved movies for the first time, and expecting anything to match that is just an excuse to be dismissive of it.
The resistance was not on their back foot, they were fucking dead. It was 30 some people and the Falcon by the end of TLJ.
Kylo makes a terrible villain for the big bad. He already lost to Rey in the first movie even if weakened. He failed to turn Rey with his big join me speech in TLJ, and he gets embarrassed by ghost Luke. There’s nothing scary about someone who’s been throwing temper tantrums for basically two entire movies. Secondly, there was now way he wasn’t going to end up being good, Disney wasn’t going to greenlight a conclusion with him being evil.
Rey made peace with her past and admitted it didn’t matter, there’s nothing to explore there without the retcon Rise did. She also had multiple defining moments of choosing the light, basing a movie on yet another time is stupid.
Other force sensitive people is a meaningless thing to base the conclusion of a trilogy on. Elmer Sleazebaggano son of Elan appearing and being the big good or bad out of nowhere is just as bad as Palpatine. You could do something with an established character becoming force sensitive, but they butchered that anyway.
Leia even if Fisher hadn’t passed couldn’t be the main plot. Sure she could be a source of help or counsel for Rey, but that’s about it. If Leia became the hero of the resistance like she was for the rebellion by using the force and welding a lightsaber it just begs the question why she didn’t bother at any point in the last 20 years before everyone was dead. It also doesn’t work with Disney’s need to sunset the established character is and bring out the new heroes of the galaxy.
It’s not about comparing the feelings of empire or the beat for beat replay. It’s about comparing the narrative and where it was at that point in the story. Empire left room for growth, there were new questions to answer, TLJ didn’t.
The rebels were scattered after Hoth, but most the ships were able to escape. This lets the following movie have the option of gathering on or off screen. TLJ left almost none alive, the next movie needs to invent new people.
The main characters were thoroughly beaten by the bad guy. This provides something for them to overcome in the next movie. TLJ ended with Rey succeeding, the first order is now 0-2 at being the big bad guy.
Luke had to process his father being Vader, Han needed rescue, and Leia wanted to rescue him. Rey, Poe, and Finn were all happily on the Falcon.
you had the seeds of romance in both. The problem with Reylo was Ren couldn’t be the big bad and the love interest or the movie just ends with him telling the first order to stop once he acknowledged his love. You also had Rose and Finn, but that was one sided as he was obsessed with Rey the whole movie.
It’s not about comparing the feelings of empire or the beat for beat replay. It’s about comparing the narrative and where it was at that point in the story.
Contradicting your own claim in the next sentence. A+. Thanks for proving my point.
And deliberately holding up the worst interpretation of how those plot lines could be developed isn’t meaningful. Might as well slap together a Chad-Soyjak meme and say you won.
The shot of the kid with the broom left me so hopeful for all the new things I thought were coming. All the retreading that Episode 9 did left me disappointed.
The resistance is on the backfoot, desperate for an answer.
This was done better in ESB.
Kylo is coming into his power as the big bad and the First Order is adjusting to the sudden power vacuum.
Who cares? We have no idea who Snoke was. Because of this there’s nothing to indicate Kylo Ren is doing anything different than Snoke would’ve done. There’s zero perceptible change because they didn’t bother to spend any time defining the First Order or Snoke.
Other force sensitives are awakening across the galaxy.
I always assume there’s other force users across the galaxy all of the time. I think you’re taking the things you see in a Star Wars movie to be 100% of the events that happen in that Galaxy. For those of us that take it as some of the more interesting stories coming from this massive galaxy of who knows how many people (trillions? quintiliions?) that scene is meaningless. Like, yeah that’s always happening, all of the time. I generally assume that there are many Jedi out there. The movie is calling itself “The Last Jedi” to present the galaxy as something narrow (which is stupid because Leia would be a Jedi FFS, just another thing they would need to fix later) just so you will think it’s interesting to broaden something presented to as being something narrow. It was never narrow, it was only TLJ that attempted to present Star Wars as something narrow. it was always broad, nothing new happened when they suggested it was broader than only TLJ presented it to be earlier in the movie.
Stop comparing the new to the old, especially at such a minuscule, beat-for-beat level.
Why wouldn’t we? First of all TLJ is just ESB and RoTJ thrown into a blender with the point of all of the plot lines they re-hashed removed. Benicio Del Tor is Lando. Kylo Ren kills the old evil guy like Darth Vader did. They have to blow up a super laser. There’s AT ATs walking across a white plain. Ah, but it’s different because TLJ’s version of Lando doesn’t learn anything? It’s different because Kylo Ren doesn’t change? It’s different because they fail to blow up the super laser? It’s different because the AT ATs are walking on salt instead of snow? Sorry, but it’s the same kinda shit just without any point to it. Which makes it boring to anyone familiar with the movies it’s clumsily copy and pasting from.
RoS is way more interesting than TLJ. There’s at least a point to it, at least it wasn’t just blindly copy and pasting things from better movies without even understanding them.
i much prefer where rian johnson was going, even though the main plot was meh. he left so many open plot threads that tied into the old eu that they could have used, but then jj went back to his first idea.
I believe the reason why Palpatine somehow returned was because Rian killed off Snoke, and they really needed some big baddie Kylo and Rey could team up against so Kylo could have his redemption arc.
I think there’s no doubt that’s why they had to do that. After TLJ the only thing left is for Rey to fight Kylo Ren (which already happened in TFA) or for Rey and Kylo Ren to kiss (which is lame and stupid). Both of these things happen RoS, and didn’t take up much screen time, so what are you gonna do for the other 90+ minutes of screen time?
Also Palpatine denying death fits with the grieving process theme of the movie, it fits with the relationship to the past theme of the trilogy, but the surface level online “reviews” will never discuss that since they are pushing a narrative that there were no themes in the movie. And for whatever reason people act upset about a sequel trilogy having any kind of theme about relationship to the past.
It sucks, yes, but was there a good way to do it otherwise? The movie was in late post-production, about a year from release, and Carrie featured heavily in the end of the movie. It would’ve required pretty major changes and reshoots to organically insert Leia’s death in.
But yeah her too. Really tho having her blown out during decompression was THE WAY to give her a solid heartfelt death, only then to suddenly have her display wild Jedi powers she never hinted at before was a choice.
As for the space walk, that choice was definitely made before her death, and while it would have made a good point to add it in, it would still require significant changes to the ending. It is unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s fair to hang that on Rian.
Redo the end of the movie, delay the release if need be. The plot can still move forward if Leia is propped up as a martyr. Just don’t have her fly back into the spaceship and everything up to that point can stay exactly the same.
Delays and reshoots not only cost loads of money, they throw off the pace of production, increasing the likelihood of a bigger disaster then just running it as it was.
And imo, the ending would have been much worse off without Leia’s scenes. Changing that would change the entire story.
The dialog has ranged from acceptable to dog shit. The plot and story beats are pretty solid. The new movies contradict themselves within the same scene sometimes.
The problem isn’t female leads, it’ trash-tier writing. Like introducing a self-conscious stormtrooper and then having him unemotionally kill his mates pretty much immediately. Or introducing a nobody and then make her the child of a somehow™️ returned supervillain. Or having your minor villain and your female lead fall in love and then having them pretty much just revert back to where they were before. Or replacing the Death Star with an intergalactic Death Shotgun. The list goes on
Worst part about the sequels was the compulsive need to regurgitate elements of the prior series.
There’s so much lore from the books and the games and the toys and the cutting room floor of the original movies. And they had a ton of good ideas at the outset. A storm trooper who defects? A six foot tall super trooper in mirror armor? A Sith Lord who isn’t stoic and morose, but hot headed and self-destructive? These are cool good ideas!
Shame they got drowned out in Disney fueled nostalgia.
If you paid attention to the movie, Finn doesn’t know how to fly a TIE fighter, because Storm Troopers don’t fly TIE fighters. So when Finn is blasting TIE fighters, he’s explicitly not killing Storm Troopers. In fact in every military I’m aware of, pilots of expensive fighters are always officers. Who abducted Finn from his family? That would be First Order officers. Who is Finn shooting at? First Order officers. Doubtful it would be the same officers that pressed him into the First Order, but it’s easy to understand why he wouldn’t all that broken up about it.
Some online review told you the movie is stupid because Finn is shooting at his friends, but if you think about it at all, that is explicitly not true.
Also consider that a Star Wars movie made you think about the morality of killing Storm Troopers. You might even consider thinking about it more and consider how many wars involve killing people not because they are evil, but killing people simply because they are on the other side and will kill you for the same reason. You may find that the answer to that question is it’s every war that’s like that. That’s what a war is: killing people because they’re on the other side without any consideration to what kind of person they are. Yeah, wars are a bad thing.
Also consider that Finn was indoctrinated and conditioned to be capable of killing people without hesitation. Consider how many militaries in the real condition people to kill other people without hesitation. How many militaries do you suppose do that?
Do you think that if someone realizes they’ve been indoctrinated into something, all other indoctrination and conditioning disappears from their brain instantly? Like it’s a Saturday morning cartoon and someone gets bonked on the head and suddenly they’re a good guy in all things? I think it actually makes more sense that Finn is still conditioned to kill without hesitation than what the internet that says he’s supposed to have some moral crisis about killing First Order officers.
So a Star Wars movie made you the morality of killing people in a war. But you stopped yourself from thinking about it too much because the internet told you the movies sucks. Instead of asking questions and thinking about what’s happening in a scene in a movie, you didn’t think about it because you’re defaulting to the answer “because the movie sucks”. And this is how the internet ruins movies for people, you’re not allowing yourself to even consider why things are happening in a movie because you’re supposed to answer “because this sucks” and stop all thought.
It’s possible the point of the sequel to explore relationships in the past (shocking!). Something to think about: Why didn’t Rey try to bring Palpatine back from the dark side (as Luke did with Vader)? Luke didn’t even suggest that she try to do this. Why not? There’s seems to be difference between the relationships explored in RoTJ and in RoS. Why is Vader redeemable, but Palpatine isn’t? Maybe think on what the difference is.
Or just go along with the internet narrative and turn off your brain, because that’s easier.
Mate have you considered that it’s possible for people to have different opinions about a movie than you, without them being brainwashed by the internet?
Have you considered that media/art is highly subjective and that even if a movie was internationally adored, it would still be valid for someone to not like the movie, and criticise it?
I’m all for a lively debate over the qualities of certain media, but your main point seems to be ‘you just don’t like it because you can’t think for yourself’, which is just a bullshit argument. It feels very similar to “you just don’t believe in my god because you haven’t prayed enough” or “you just don’t like pickles because you can’t cook well enough”.
Of course female leads isn’t a problem.
This post is mocking people like Ben Shapiro, the crtiical drinker, the quartering and other such douchebags who shit on good movies with good writing that are popular among audiences and critics, because “forced diversity, DEI hire, woke, radical feminist agenda.”
Why does the Critical Drinker sound like he hasn’t taken a shit in a week and needs to make it your problem?
A thousand times this. People hate bad female actors not because they are female but because they are bad actors.
Kal el no
Sometimes, but more often bad writing can make a great actress look like a bad female actor.
Natalie Portman can act, but those prequels were rough on her reputation. The camp value od the prequels wasn’t immediately apparent and it was rough on her.
I remember someone saying that they thought Ewan McGregor and Liam Neesan were great, and the response was ‘yeah, in Trainspotting and Schindlers list.’
Some people just hate women and they suck, but often the something with a female lead just sucks. It sucks that the former complicates the latter.
I remember Patty Jenkins when Wonder Woman was due to come out saying that the problem with being a female director is That if a man makes a big budget film and it flops then that’s because the film is bad. But if you make a big budget film and it flops then that’s because women can’t direct.
Yeah, I never even noticed “Kal el no” in the movie when I watched it. But it’s a meme, so we all have to pile on about something completely forgettable being the worst thing ever!
That’s how this shit works. Just short clips about nothing burgers turned into memes and made to loom large in your mind as being something egregious.
I don’t even know what kal el no is, but i do know that it’s often unfair to call out any actor for s line delivery, because it’s often the case that they’ll do the same scene 6-7 times with very different deliveries, each prompted by the director, and then the director will choose which clip to use in editing.
No, she really is a bad actress. But the biggest problem people have with her isn’t “Kal-el no”, it’s “Bibi yes!”
The other problem is that there were 2 death stars in the original trilogy and another one in the sequels. Like, think of something new, will you?
Sir, another death star has hit the big screens.
I’m honestly not even mad at that. What broke my immersion was how everyone was just flat out stunned that they would try it a third time, and with no defensive countermeasures whatsoever. They were caught off guard a third time
And that third time they figured out how to bend space lasers to hit every planet at once and auto win
Come on
They did have countermeasures for a Death Star that had to move within range of a planet. Star Killer base could strike from across the galaxy, which they weren’t prepared for. In fact their preparations for a Death Star attack resulted in most of the Republic fleet being destroyed… presumably because they gathered near the most likely target of a Death Star attack.
The Death Star was the equivalent to a bomber carrying nukes, while Star Killer base was an ICBM. They had the defenses prepared to take down a bomber and got hit with an ICBM.
Where did you see that they had countermeasures for even a death star? I’m looking it up and everything about the plot conveniently has everyone grouping up for a conventional attack, only for a gigantic super death star #3 (planetary variant) to just destroy everything.
Star Wars has always played fast and loose with concepts like the laws of physics because they want space magic and the speed of light is for nerds but this is a particularly egregious one.
It was lack of common direction through the trilogy. JJ set up his signature mystery boxes in the first movie, only for Rian to ignore those and leave nothing to work with for the next one.
I believe the reason why Palpatine somehow returned was because Rian killed off Snoke, and they really needed some big baddie Kylo and Rey could team up against so Kylo could have his redemption arc.
Bringing back Palatine was always the plan. If you rewatch 7, it’s painfully obvious that was the plan. Rian Johnson did the right thing by saying “Fuck that, I’m going to make something not shit”, and then making the only noteworthy movie of the trilogy. Did he make mistakes? Yes, the gambling planet was a mistake, but The Last Jedi was the only movie with interesting stories in it at the end of the day. JJ Abrams would have made a worse movie, and a way worse trilogy if he got full creative control.
JJ choosing to ignore the second movie doesn’t mean “nothing was left”. Baring the bizarre casino, TLJ was the most interesting SW story since RotS. Episode IX could’ve been an amazing finale coming out of that, but JJ did what JJ always does and absolutely failed to deliver.
*Also, I feel it’s important to point out the “Mystery Box” was and is bullshit, lazy writing. Yes, it’s important to leave things in a story for the audience to wonder about and anticipate. That’s not a valid excuse to throw esoteric shit at the wall and call it a day. The audience doesn’t need to know where the plot is going, but the fucking writer should. JJ left Rian with hollow shell of “intrigue” with nothing substantial, got pissy when Rian did what he wanted with that, then shit out a boring finale trying to reverse everything back.
Really? What happened in TLJ that wasn’t already done in Star Wars? It felt like they just threw ESB and RoTJ into a blender and threw it onto the screen. Except they removed the point of all the plotines they copied from the other movies.
I know there’s a narrative about TLJ being interesting, but the biggest criticism from people that aren’t terminally online is that it was boring. And yeah, it was just a bunch of stuff we saw before with the point of the plotlines removed.
I’ll just reiterate my other reply since you did the same - your inability to see the potential of TLJ on it’s own merits says more about you than the movie.
What was set up for the last movie?
Nothing new was set up for the grand finale. No new conflicts or threats to look forward to.
Compare with Empire Strikes Back. A bigger villain has been revealed. Han has been captured. Darth Vader is revealed to be Luke’s father. Romance between Han and Leia. Lots of exciting new threads for the final movie.
TLJ had nothing of that. When I went out of the theater I had no excitement at all for the next movie.
Right, “nothing”.
Even a subpar writer could’ve done plenty with half of that, but JJ and Disney got scared and shit out the blandest finale possible.
No. Stop comparing the new to the old, especially at such a minuscule, beat-for-beat level. Not only does that kill any possible innovation, it’s a nostalgia trap and exactly why VII and IX were so fucking boring. Nothing will replicate the feelings had watching beloved movies for the first time, and expecting anything to match that is just an excuse to be dismissive of it.
The resistance was not on their back foot, they were fucking dead. It was 30 some people and the Falcon by the end of TLJ.
Kylo makes a terrible villain for the big bad. He already lost to Rey in the first movie even if weakened. He failed to turn Rey with his big join me speech in TLJ, and he gets embarrassed by ghost Luke. There’s nothing scary about someone who’s been throwing temper tantrums for basically two entire movies. Secondly, there was now way he wasn’t going to end up being good, Disney wasn’t going to greenlight a conclusion with him being evil.
Rey made peace with her past and admitted it didn’t matter, there’s nothing to explore there without the retcon Rise did. She also had multiple defining moments of choosing the light, basing a movie on yet another time is stupid.
Other force sensitive people is a meaningless thing to base the conclusion of a trilogy on. Elmer Sleazebaggano son of Elan appearing and being the big good or bad out of nowhere is just as bad as Palpatine. You could do something with an established character becoming force sensitive, but they butchered that anyway.
Leia even if Fisher hadn’t passed couldn’t be the main plot. Sure she could be a source of help or counsel for Rey, but that’s about it. If Leia became the hero of the resistance like she was for the rebellion by using the force and welding a lightsaber it just begs the question why she didn’t bother at any point in the last 20 years before everyone was dead. It also doesn’t work with Disney’s need to sunset the established character is and bring out the new heroes of the galaxy.
It’s not about comparing the feelings of empire or the beat for beat replay. It’s about comparing the narrative and where it was at that point in the story. Empire left room for growth, there were new questions to answer, TLJ didn’t.
Contradicting your own claim in the next sentence. A+. Thanks for proving my point.
And deliberately holding up the worst interpretation of how those plot lines could be developed isn’t meaningful. Might as well slap together a Chad-Soyjak meme and say you won.
The shot of the kid with the broom left me so hopeful for all the new things I thought were coming. All the retreading that Episode 9 did left me disappointed.
This was done better in ESB.
Who cares? We have no idea who Snoke was. Because of this there’s nothing to indicate Kylo Ren is doing anything different than Snoke would’ve done. There’s zero perceptible change because they didn’t bother to spend any time defining the First Order or Snoke.
I always assume there’s other force users across the galaxy all of the time. I think you’re taking the things you see in a Star Wars movie to be 100% of the events that happen in that Galaxy. For those of us that take it as some of the more interesting stories coming from this massive galaxy of who knows how many people (trillions? quintiliions?) that scene is meaningless. Like, yeah that’s always happening, all of the time. I generally assume that there are many Jedi out there. The movie is calling itself “The Last Jedi” to present the galaxy as something narrow (which is stupid because Leia would be a Jedi FFS, just another thing they would need to fix later) just so you will think it’s interesting to broaden something presented to as being something narrow. It was never narrow, it was only TLJ that attempted to present Star Wars as something narrow. it was always broad, nothing new happened when they suggested it was broader than only TLJ presented it to be earlier in the movie.
Why wouldn’t we? First of all TLJ is just ESB and RoTJ thrown into a blender with the point of all of the plot lines they re-hashed removed. Benicio Del Tor is Lando. Kylo Ren kills the old evil guy like Darth Vader did. They have to blow up a super laser. There’s AT ATs walking across a white plain. Ah, but it’s different because TLJ’s version of Lando doesn’t learn anything? It’s different because Kylo Ren doesn’t change? It’s different because they fail to blow up the super laser? It’s different because the AT ATs are walking on salt instead of snow? Sorry, but it’s the same kinda shit just without any point to it. Which makes it boring to anyone familiar with the movies it’s clumsily copy and pasting from.
RoS is way more interesting than TLJ. There’s at least a point to it, at least it wasn’t just blindly copy and pasting things from better movies without even understanding them.
Your inability to see the potential of those plot threads doesn’t prove the movie is bad, just your lack of vision.
Ah, my point exemplified. Thanks.
i much prefer where rian johnson was going, even though the main plot was meh. he left so many open plot threads that tied into the old eu that they could have used, but then jj went back to his first idea.
What plot threads? People keep repeating that TLJ opened possibilities but no one can explain what possibilities it actually opened.
You wanted Rey and Kylo Ren to kiss in the next movie? We saw that happen and it sucked. What other possibilities did it open?
I think there’s no doubt that’s why they had to do that. After TLJ the only thing left is for Rey to fight Kylo Ren (which already happened in TFA) or for Rey and Kylo Ren to kiss (which is lame and stupid). Both of these things happen RoS, and didn’t take up much screen time, so what are you gonna do for the other 90+ minutes of screen time?
Also Palpatine denying death fits with the grieving process theme of the movie, it fits with the relationship to the past theme of the trilogy, but the surface level online “reviews” will never discuss that since they are pushing a narrative that there were no themes in the movie. And for whatever reason people act upset about a sequel trilogy having any kind of theme about relationship to the past.
Or having a beloved character die off screen
Or faking a death and undoing the fakeout within a couple of minutes.
It sucks, yes, but was there a good way to do it otherwise? The movie was in late post-production, about a year from release, and Carrie featured heavily in the end of the movie. It would’ve required pretty major changes and reshoots to organically insert Leia’s death in.
Oh, see I actually meant Admiral Ackbar 😂
But yeah her too. Really tho having her blown out during decompression was THE WAY to give her a solid heartfelt death, only then to suddenly have her display wild Jedi powers she never hinted at before was a choice.
I’ll push back on “never hinted at” because way back at Bespin she was force-sensitive enough to find Luke under the city.
Pretty sure that’s just a normal ability for twins /s
Oh, hah. Fair.
As for the space walk, that choice was definitely made before her death, and while it would have made a good point to add it in, it would still require significant changes to the ending. It is unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s fair to hang that on Rian.
Redo the end of the movie, delay the release if need be. The plot can still move forward if Leia is propped up as a martyr. Just don’t have her fly back into the spaceship and everything up to that point can stay exactly the same.
Delays and reshoots not only cost loads of money, they throw off the pace of production, increasing the likelihood of a bigger disaster then just running it as it was.
And imo, the ending would have been much worse off without Leia’s scenes. Changing that would change the entire story.
Star wars writing was always dogshit, but you fuckers only tie yourself in knots when the woman on the screen has clothes on.
The dialog has ranged from acceptable to dog shit. The plot and story beats are pretty solid. The new movies contradict themselves within the same scene sometimes.
That’s nostalgia talking, it was always intertaining nonsense.