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This is actually an excellent summary of what I thought about the movie. I liked a lot of the ideas in this movies in theory, but the execution was not quite there. Too many times I was just thinking "okay yeah I like this idea" instead of actually liking what I'm watching. A major problem was also that there were so many attempts at twisting expectations that at the end they didn't take any of the twists anywhere.
For example Snoke dies somewhat unexpectedly but it has absolutely zero effect in anything. There's a huge tension building with Kylo and Rey but that Ends right back to where we left it at the end of the first movie. The supposed twist is that there's no twist. Which isn't actually a twist. It's just somewhat wasted screentime. Luke does supposedly unexpected things as the Jedi master and there's a whole scene about how this is the end of the jedi order, yet they finish with Luke specifically saying that Rey is going to continue the jedi order and she even apparently has the old books with her, essentially undoing the undoing of the jedi order. There's even that whole thing with Finn and Rose and BB-8 having their own side adventure that, ends up being completely irrelevant to the story. Which is kind of a twist but also makes the whole thing a complete waste of screentime, at least if the point is to tell a coherent story.
The most irritating part for me was that with all the supposed twisting of expectations, the story ends pretty much exactly where you'd expect, if it had just taken the most straightforward and obvious route possible.
I did enjoy it while I was watching, but as they say at the end of this review, I'm having trouble in staying interested in where this will go next. The Last Jedi kind of wasted a lot of good ideas and took the tension and drama out without leaving much to work with.
That said I'm certainly going to watch the next one just out of curiousity, because it's actually a somewhat interesting to see whether or not someone pulls the rabbit out of the hat in the last one
After all that criticism I did still enjoy the movie. I did kind of like it, there were a lot of nice visuals, I liked all the main actors and characters etc.
(Major Hondo was the only really failed character. Sure it's great to have her be "not what you'd expect", but when you even go so far as to specifically spell it out, you'd really need to go somewhere with that, and they didn't. In the end she had a very stock story arc, just with an unusual actor choice and weird stylistic choices which just made her weird in an non-interesting way. I kept waiting for that something unexpected there and the movie didn't deliver. The twist was that there's no twist, which again is not actually a twist.)
I think the movie had its flaws most notably the Vegas arc but try and tell a story where Rey is a Skywalker or Kenobi that makes sense. They don't work.
Huh? I've read or heard probably at least a dozen different perfectly valid things to do with that.
If you made Rey a Kenobi, you could do a whole "is lineage destiny". You could have Luke going dark side and Rey having to cut her down in the 2nd act, which would really build up the desperation for trying to save Kylo/Ben. Are the Skywalkers truly doomed, generation after generation to fall to darkness? Are Kenobis doomed to fail in their attempts to save them? Classic mythology stuff for a reason. If you then did a "there is no dark side and light side, we'll unite to recreate the Force in what it was always supposed to be", you could do either "lineage is not destiny, we are our own people" OR "these great families were always destined to bring final balance, through the power of love", which ever classical storyline you prefer.
Or alternatively you could have gone "yeah you're a Kenobi, but it's not what makes you special" thing with it. Or you could have just thrown it in somewhere with a deconstructive wink like they do with a lot of stuff in this movie, saying that "yeah she's a Kenobi, but it's not actually relevant to the story". Which would have been fine but still cool for many fans.
I actually really struggle to see how Rey being a Kenobi could possibly have been some major problem storywise. Unless of course you don't like space opera where the galaxy revolves around a very small group of people generation after generation... but then you probably don't like Star Wars in the first place.
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Originally Posted by blankall
Johnson just didn't follow any of the pre-established rules of the force. He was constantly making up new force abilities to solve problems.
I actually felt everything he did was well in line with the previous stuff and kind of felt right. The big force use moments just weren't written very well.
For example, Leias big force moment was IMO a great idea, but storywise it just managed to make the previous scene kind of irrelevant. She died... but she didn't! But she's still out of it, so.... huh. That kind of just happened. It was just a very weird moment to do it. I would have liked to see her get a big hero moment with force. And yes it's cheesy, but sometimes cheese is good.
I highly doubt it. You might see a slight drop simply due to over-saturation, as by the time it's released there will have been 5 Star Wars movies in 5 years (including the Han Solo prequel) . But I predict Episode IX will still rake in at least $900 million worldwide.
That would be a helluva downward trend from the TFA wouldn’t it?
That would be a helluva downward trend from the TFA wouldn’t it?
From TFA, yes. But it wouldn't be much of a drop from TLJ. I doubt we'll see another Star Wars movie hit the same box office highs of TFA ever again, especially now that Disney will have a new movie out every year or so going forward. My guess is that Episode IX will do about the same, or slightly less than TLJ.
TFA was the kind of rare cinematic event that you rarely see anymore. The fans had waited 10 years for a new SW movie, so there was crazy hype leading up to it's release. Not to mention the prequels were horrendous pieces of s**t, and people were excited and anxious to find out if TFA would right the ship and restore the series to its former glory. So naturally people showed up in droves to see it multiple times in the theatre all over the world.
By the time TLJ came out, we had experienced 2 new SW movies in 2 years, so the hype for this movie was nowhere near TFA levels. A drop in box office was inevitable.
^ I thought Last Jedi was still looking at close to $1.5 billion worldwide. $900 million would be a huge drop and as you point out, could be due mainly to franchise fatigue (were it to happen). But I still think a significant factor is how poorly they set up the next film in the trilogy.
But I still think a significant factor is how poorly they set up the next film in the trilogy.
I assume a lot of the fans who are butthurt over TLJ will likely boycott the next movie, so it'll be interesting to see how that affects the box office numbers once it's released. A lot will depend on the script and how well JJ Abrams ties everything together. And I imagine the trailers will have to be incredible in order to lure all the angry nerds back into the theatre. I wouldn't want to be in Abrams' shoes right now, that's for sure. I'm excited to see how it ends up.
Are you kidding? Any fan who is butthurt over TLJ is a big enough fan that they are not going to miss the next Star Wars, or any Star Wars movie. They'll winge and winge, them dutifully hand over their money.
The ones who are going to stop going are the ones who don't care all that much, and get tired of SW after SW, like I have with Marvel movies. Used to see them all, now maybe one a year.
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Huh? I've read or heard probably at least a dozen different perfectly valid things to do with that.
If you made Rey a Kenobi, you could do a whole "is lineage destiny". You could have Luke going dark side and Rey having to cut her down in the 2nd act, which would really build up the desperation for trying to save Kylo/Ben. Are the Skywalkers truly doomed, generation after generation to fall to darkness? Are Kenobis doomed to fail in their attempts to save them? Classic mythology stuff for a reason. If you then did a "there is no dark side and light side, we'll unite to recreate the Force in what it was always supposed to be", you could do either "lineage is not destiny, we are our own people" OR "these great families were always destined to bring final balance, through the power of love", which ever classical storyline you prefer.
Or alternatively you could have gone "yeah you're a Kenobi, but it's not what makes you special" thing with it. Or you could have just thrown it in somewhere with a deconstructive wink like they do with a lot of stuff in this movie, saying that "yeah she's a Kenobi, but it's not actually relevant to the story". Which would have been fine but still cool for many fans.
I actually really struggle to see how Rey being a Kenobi could possibly have been some major problem storywise. Unless of course you don't like space opera where the galaxy revolves around a very small group of people generation after generation... but then you probably don't like Star Wars in the first place.
I actually felt everything he did was well in line with the previous stuff and kind of felt right. The big force use moments just weren't written very well.
For example, Leias big force moment was IMO a great idea, but storywise it just managed to make the previous scene kind of irrelevant. She died... but she didn't! But she's still out of it, so.... huh. That kind of just happened. It was just a very weird moment to do it. I would have liked to see her get a big hero moment with force. And yes it's cheesy, but sometimes cheese is good.
How and why does Rey end up on Jakku if she's a Kenobi. And when exactly is she conceived as she notionally younger than Ren who was born Post ROTJ. . And if Kenobi has a son or daughter in between where were they and why did Kenobi have a family while being a hermit. It doesn't make sense and requires too many twists for no payoff and far too much exposition to get there. And when you do get there you get Oh she's a Kenobi, who cares. Only if she was a Skywalker would it have been meaningful and all the Skywalker, dropped on Jakku theories were brutal. Having Rey related to anyone just for the sake of a reveal is poor storytelling.
Star Wars to me isn't just a story about a family. It is the history of the GFFA. From Reven in KOTOR to the pre-Anakin Jedi councils to now Rey is 1000 years of history 30-50 of which involve the Skywalkers.
Are you kidding? Any fan who is butthurt over TLJ is a big enough fan that they are not going to miss the next Star Wars, or any Star Wars movie. They'll winge and winge, them dutifully hand over their money.
The ones who are going to stop going are the ones who don't care all that much, and get tired of SW after SW, like I have with Marvel movies. Used to see them all, now maybe one a year.
TLJ was very flawed but still an entertaining movie filled with lots of great visuals. I'll see episode nine in the theatres despite thinking TLJ is awful in a deeper sense. Star Wars has a built in audience that will guarantee episode 9 making a billion dollars. Families will flock to it in the holidays too.
When people talk about box office disappointment, it's about an opportunity cost. If the movie makes 1 billion, but a better movie would have made 1.5 billion, that's a major issue. That extra 500 million is pure profit that Disney has lost out on.
Another issue will be fatigue going forward. If episode 9 is seen as another letdown, a new trilogy and side protects become harder to sell. The impact of this becomes greater the more they diverge from the source material and the existing universe laws.
Are you kidding? Any fan who is butthurt over TLJ is a big enough fan that they are not going to miss the next Star Wars, or any Star Wars movie. They'll winge and winge, them dutifully hand over their money.
The ones who are going to stop going are the ones who don't care all that much, and get tired of SW after SW, like I have with Marvel movies. Used to see them all, now maybe one a year.
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Originally Posted by Strange Brew
^ I thought Last Jedi was still looking at close to $1.5 billion worldwide. $900 million would be a huge drop and as you point out, could be due mainly to franchise fatigue (were it to happen). But I still think a significant factor is how poorly they set up the next film in the trilogy.
TLJ is looking like it will fall short if the 1.5. It's hasn't opened in China, but apparently China doesn't care for star wars and the box office take should be about 100 million there max.
I don't think the lack of a bloodline is the issue. Its more about there being no explanation as to why Rey is so powerful with the force and it comes so naturally to her. She just just kind of gets it, with no training, and ends up doing it better than any of her heroes or foes. There have been plenty of non Skywalker force users -- but they at the very least had an implied reason for their powers. I suppose something about her could be revealed in episode 9, but so far her rise seems sort of hollow.
Did you care why Vader was so powerful in episode 4,5 and 6? Did you care what his background was? And then the prequels came and we found out Anakin sprouted from nothing powerful in the force...the beginning of the Skywalker lineage.
The bottom line is that blood lines basically have very little to do with Force users.
Palpatine was probably one of the most powerful Force Users in Lore and he was born to ordinary parents (That in Legends EU he slaughtered). Kenobi didn't have mystical parents, not did people like Qui-Gon. We never see stories about Big Poppa Windu the father of Mace.
Some people are just born with an affinity to the Force, and they came from ordinary parents.
I mean one of the most powerful Sith Lords of all time was Darth Bane and he was born to a drunken miner and a dead mother.
I like the idea that Rey comes from two drunk random parents, it makes the force more mystical.
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The more I think about it, the more I think they missed an opportunity to do something truly different by having Rey join Kylo after they killed Snoke. Her parents are no one, her main motivation meaningless. Nothing means anything, there's no larger purpose to it all, all that matters is what we make of what we have. They join together, reject the past labels of good and evil, and set out to make a better world, through a righteous, benevolent form of tyranny. In the following movie(s?), they are pitted against a rebellion that rejects all totalitarian rule, even if it thinks it's doing what's best for everyone. Ren and Rey are pitted against Poe and Finn, who are forced into doing shadier things out of desperation. It opens up so much new ground and actual interesting motivations beyond "I'm the good guy, he's the bad guy, let's fight with laser swords".
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Did you care why Vader was so powerful in episode 4,5 and 6? Did you care what his background was? And then the prequels came and we found out Anakin sprouted from nothing powerful in the force...the beginning of the Skywalker lineage.
Honestly when I first saw Vader in the theatre at the age of 10, I wanted to know everything about him.
Especially when you found out during the conversation between Luke and Ben that he was a betrayer, and a former Jedi.
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Anakin was basically the start of the Skywalker line. I mean his mother Shmi was a Skywalker
Anakin was basically the Christ figure created by the Force as part of an ancient prophesy. There were no Skywalkers in pre TPM Lore.
In Legends EU there were Skywalkers after that were very powerful. But those have been wiped away.
Anakin was powerful because he was conceived by the Force.
I didn't mind the idea of Anakin being a creature of prophesy, the Star Wars version of the Arthurian Tale. Except that the prophesy was misread, and Anakin betrayed everything.
I get that George kind of cornered himself by stating that Anakin was the most powerful Jedi ever, and then having to create a system of measurement in terms of a parasite symbiotic. Its the we're running out of gas writing blunder of the PT.
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Did you care why Vader was so powerful in episode 4,5 and 6? Did you care what his background was? And then the prequels came and we found out Anakin sprouted from nothing powerful in the force...the beginning of the Skywalker lineage.
Weird comparison. He wasn't the main protagonist and they weren't telling the story about his rise to power (until the prequels). One of the central themes of the original trilogy was to reveal Vader's backstory, so yes I suppose I cared about his background. As far as his story arc, he was immediately showcased as a powerful villain in the series and everything within the trilogy reinforced that idea, from his immediate character introduction to force choking generals. Any viewer could quite easily understand that the menacing 2nd in command of a galactic empire is powerful, and then revealing he was the apprentice to the emperor gave further weight to his power. So you got a glimpse of hierarchy, understood that there was some form of structure and progression, probably years of training and experience, and also had hints about his transformation told throughout the trilogy through Obi Wan and Luke (speaking about Anakin).
Or did I miss something and Vader started out as a scrap collector in A New Hope and joked his way to the emperor's side by Empire, easily defeating every Jedi he encountered along the way?
I said it before -- the lack of bloodline is not the problem with Rey's character. The lack of actual character development is.
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