The Last Jedi Spoiler thread

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

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".

How do you set out to make a better world without ideas of good and evil?
Is this new direction a galactic version of Seinfeld? Star Wars -- about nothing?

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I was thinking about the whole starship chase, we're running out of fuel story line, which to me was kind of silly, since fuel has never been a concern in the Star Wars Galaxy. I mean all of the capital ships from the PT to the OT to the Death Star have all run on reactors. Hence why these things seem to be so easy to destroy.

The other stupid part of the chase is that in space you don’t need continuous thrust, just a little burst then coast in the frictionless environment. Every burst is an acceleration, so the only way the rebel ships could stay in front is by continuously accelerating, so the slow speed chase would become high speed pretty quickly.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Igottago

How do you set out to make a better world without ideas of good and evil?
Is this new direction a galactic version of Seinfeld? Star Wars -- about nothing?

Shades of grey? Does all fiction need to be obvious good guy bad guy stuff for you? One of the biggest issues I've always had with Star Wars is that the whole "fall to the dark side" thing is stupid. Like, Palpatine is obviously moustache-twirling evil. Only a complete moron would be like, "nope, he's definitely the good guy, Ewan MacGregor is the devil". But you can definitely see it becoming more blurred when you're putting down an insurrection that's standing in the way of what you think is a bold new vision for a peaceful and prosperous galaxy (what Rey and Ren could be about), and the rebellion fighting tyranny but having to do things that are morally suspect (like blowing up things that result in civilian casualties). Who's the bad guy? It's less clear. It can become more clear as ReyRen become more and more frustrated as their attempts to use the First Order's resources to do what they think is good are resisted, leading Rey to condone harsher responses to put down the Rebellion. Maybe Finn kills Ren as he's trying to save her or some other person or object that she thinks is important, and Rey sees it, and you finally have her fall fully to the dark side and seek vengeance, before being redeemed somehow. Some of the broad strokes still parallel prior Star Wars, but you're painting a different and more interesting picture rather than rehashing tired simplistic tropes. That's just an idea. There are so, so many options.

I mean, is there really any doubt that Ep 9 is going to feature some sort of super weapon that Rey and Co have to destroy? Does anyone have a burning desire to see that movie again?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

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".

Interesting except that the movie would last about two minutes which is long enough for Rey and Ren to basically slaughter Poe and Finn.

It wouldn't matter that Poe is the greatest pilot in the galaxy, all he'd do is a wilheim scream before he's snuffed out. And Rey who is incredibly powerful in the Force, would basically pull out Finns intestines with the force and wear them as a reckless.

Basically to me the best part of the Star Wars universe is its all about this metaphysical fight between basically super beings that can control and manipulate this energy force to do monstrous things. And the ordinary people get pulled into this war and suffer because of it.

Basically the Sith had it right. The weak and non force users should be serving the strong (The force users) its a natural order.

Right now, we're down to two force users, and neither of them this time are purely dark or light, they're both pretty much Gray. The next movie is about the final balance of the force, or the galaxy moving on from using the force.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Interesting except that the movie would last about two minutes which is long enough for Rey and Ren to basically slaughter Poe and Finn.

She doesn't want to slaughter them. She's a moderating influence on Ren, and he wants her to be part of their shared vision, and so he won't kill them outright, either. That would just make her obviously evil. She wants them to stop rebelling, see that what she's doing is the right thing, and join her in building a better galaxy. That's the point. It's much more interesting that way than asking who can kill who because they have magic powers.

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

She doesn't want to slaughter them. She's a moderating influence on Ren, and he wants her to be part of their shared vision, and so he won't kill them outright, either. That would just make her obviously evil. She wants them to stop rebelling, see that what she's doing is the right thing, and join her in building a better galaxy. That's the point. It's much more interesting that way than asking who can kill who because they have magic powers.

Just like Darth Vader tried with Luke...I like it.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Meh, I'm convinced that Disney would not let Rey being anything less than a shining beacon of light. The way they had little girls dress up for her, and go see the movie to see her kick butt. Having a ton of little girls (and boys, and well everyone) buy Rey action figures.

She's practically a Disney princess. She's not going to be ripping out anyone's intestines any time soon.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

She doesn't want to slaughter them. She's a moderating influence on Ren, and he wants her to be part of their shared vision, and so he won't kill them outright, either. That would just make her obviously evil. She wants them to stop rebelling, see that what she's doing is the right thing, and join her in building a better galaxy. That's the point. It's much more interesting that way than asking who can kill who because they have magic powers.

If she see's herself as part of a benevolent dictatorship that she believes is doing the right thing for the galaxy with Ren, and Finn and Poe are on the opposite side and represent a rebellion, she'd slaughter them like the ants they are.

Not only does power corrupt. But when you're a super being who believes you're doing the right thing, you're going to cast away any concept of morality in pursuit of a higher goal. She'd kill them and maybe feel bad about it later.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Meh, I'm convinced that Disney would not let Rey being anything less than a shining beacon of light. The way they had little girls dress up for her, and go see the movie to see her kick butt. Having a ton of little girls (and boys, and well everyone) buy Rey action figures.

She's practically a Disney princess. She's not going to be ripping out anyone's intestines any time soon.

This is a major issue with the film. Disney is so worried about creating any kind of controversy that the film can't really do anything. They have to introduce Benicio Del Toro, who's character was essentially a cartoon character, to be the betrayer, as Disney can't make any of their characters anything but good guys.

I really liked Daisy Ridley in this role. The opportunity to have one of the better Star Wars characters of all time was definitely there. Instead Rae is a parody of a jedi. She never faces a single challenge and masters the force with almost no training.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

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'm aware of that and that was my point and I think you agree based on your other posts....it isn't necessary for Rey to be of an existing lineage. The Star Wars universe has already set up parentage/lineage as not being necessary. But it goes further in terms of the movie universe to me.

Why is it a big deal if her parents are a known force using family or nobodies (or nobody at all)? We accepted Vader without knowing any back story in the original trilogy...I get we watned it but it took a bit for the pieces to come together and still the only thing you knew about his past was he was a powerful jedi who turned and had a couple of kids. Satisfying or not we then "accepted" the conceived by the force explanation. Well maybe forced to accept. We accept force can also follow bloodlines. There are several explanations available for Rey but ultimately it has never really mattered we know a full detailed character history before in the movies so why do we need it now? It's enough to know that these people can use the force , these ones can't, some appear to be particularly strong and light or dark side choices are made.

It isn't necessary for US, the viewer, to know that answer at this time IMO. The only thing that is necessary for the story is that REY wants to know the answer. It is something that causes her pain and her own imbalance and that Ren tried to use it to turn her. It will likely be a source of imbalance moving forward.

Sure we'd all like to know a long detailed history of every major character but it isn't possible nor is it necessary. Main protagonist or not. When you have another movie left in this set it can still be answered if that is what the story needs. And really I wouldn't be shocked to see them split the last movies into two different ones as seems to be the thing to do with multi-movie storyline franchises. First part dealing with the final major character from the orginal trilogy (leia....how they do it without her I don't know) and the last half purely the new generation.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Igottago

How do you set out to make a better world without ideas of good and evil?
Is this new direction a galactic version of Seinfeld? Star Wars -- about nothing?

Game Of Thrones is quite successful where it is hard to say if any house is "good" or "evil". Check out also The Malazan Book Of The Fallen.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by edslunch

The other stupid part of the chase is that in space you don’t need continuous thrust, just a little burst then coast in the frictionless environment. Every burst is an acceleration, so the only way the rebel ships could stay in front is by continuously accelerating, so the slow speed chase would become high speed pretty quickly.

If you're worried about physics, then that's what happened. Speed is extremely relative in space after all, and the distances so ridiculous that in the timeframe of that part of the story it doesn't really make a difference that technically the ships went faster all the time, while keeping the same distance from each other.

The First Order kept accelerating as fast as they could, and the rebels spent just enough fuel to stay ahead of the First order to optimize how long they could go on.

That said, I agree that it didn't really feel like a Star Wars plot. In that universe fuel is generally irrelevant.

Also, near light speed ramming is either a thing in the universe or it isn't, because it's a huge gamechanger. It hasn't been a thing before in Star Wars, so I somewhat disapprove of doing it now.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Itse

If you're worried about physics, then that's what happened. Speed is extremely relative in space after all, and the distances so ridiculous that in the timeframe of that part of the story it doesn't really make a difference that technically the ships went faster all the time, while keeping the same distance from each other.

The First Order kept accelerating as fast as they could, and the rebels spent just enough fuel to stay ahead of the First order to optimize how long they could go on.

That said, I agree that it didn't really feel like a Star Wars plot. In that universe fuel is generally irrelevant.

Also, near light speed ramming is either a thing in the universe or it isn't, because it's a huge gamechanger. It hasn't been a thing before in Star Wars, so I somewhat disapprove of doing it now.

Yeah the lightspeed ramming is interesting, because instead of firing a torpedo down an impossibly size hole. You'd ask for some volunteers in Star Fighters to basically fly over the death star main gun, tilt down and pull the hyperspace levers on your ship.

You would also build a strategy around Star Destroyer killers, remote controlled hyperspace based missiles, there would literally be no defense.

I also noticed for the first time in the Star Wars universe that they mentioned cloaking technology more then once.

Heck, I wouldn't need to spend all that money on a death star, I would take old Venator Class Cruisers, upgrade their hyper drives and make them planet killing missiles crewed by a driver droid.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by blankall

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.

If it plays like the other 2nd movie in the trilogies 68%-70% of TFA should have been the expectation. So 1.4-1.45 billion. It looks close to getting there. Domestically it is playing like Jurassic word so should finish up 650ish domestic and minus China is averaging 50% world wide so that's puts it at 1.3. Add in the 50-100 million from china and you are right around the 1.4 billion that should have been expected based on the previous sequel performances.

So I don't think an arguement can be made the the quality of the last Jedi hurt it's box office performance. It's an open question if it hurts the next movie but we won't know that until we see the opening weekend numbers in 2019.

[Oling_Roachinen]

You're looking at very unique situations to draw a predetermined conclusion of yours.

Star Wars was Star Wars. The second all-time adjusted movie behind only Gone With the Wind. You can't compare it to anything else really.

Star Wars the Phantom Menace was a huge let down after a significant wait and huge hype. It was not surprising that Attack of the Clones faltered as significantly as it did.

But take a look at the Lord of the Rings, it increased with each movie.

The Dark Knight made over double what Batman Begins did.

Even Iron Man 2 did as good as Iron Man and that was with a relatively weak The Incredible Hulk between the two in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Harry Potter only dropped to 83% from Philosopher's Stone to Chamber of Secrets. And again, Harry Potter was its own phenomenon.

If The Last Jedi gets under 70% of The Force Awaken's domestic gross, that's definitely not what they were expecting and almost certainly (in part) has to be attributed to its mixed reviews.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottme.../#4e362e2a4f81
From September

The conventional wisdom this far out, reviews and word-of-mouth obviously unknown, is that The Last Jedi will do around $750 million-$800 million this Christmas, good enough to easily take the domestic crown but not enough to best Wolf Warrior 2 as the year’s biggest single-territory grosser. By the way, The Last Jedi, like Wolf Warrior 2, is another great example of a big movie that is strong enough in its native country to not require an overseas rescue. But I digress, and that's not an official prediction so much as a realistic number around which to base some math.

A $242 million opening (the same 3% drop as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) and a 3.32x multiplier (the same as I Am Legend) gets the movie to $800m domestic. A $228m opening weekend (same 8% drop as Avengers: Age of Ultron) and a 3.5x multiplier (think The Hobbit) would be enough to get Star Wars 8 over $800m domestic as well. But, if it falls on opening weekend closer to Spectre (-20%) and earns $197m over the weekend (horrors, I know) and then plays like Rogue One, then it’ll be a sad/shameful $675m domestic, or third behind Avatar and The Force Awakens in terms of unadjusted domestic gross.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by GGG

If it plays like the other 2nd movie in the trilogies 68%-70% of TFA should have been the expectation. So 1.4-1.45 billion. It looks close to getting there. Domestically it is playing like Jurassic word so should finish up 650ish domestic and minus China is averaging 50% world wide so that's puts it at 1.3. Add in the 50-100 million from china and you are right around the 1.4 billion that should have been expected based on the previous sequel performances.

So I don't think an arguement can be made the the quality of the last Jedi hurt it's box office performance. It's an open question if it hurts the next movie but we won't know that until we see the opening weekend numbers in 2019.

Not sure where you get this huge drop off for sequels from...If you look at established franchises like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, etc...the movies don't show any substantial drop off and instead fluctuate based on reception. It's a different issue when you have a hit and randomly create a sequel to it.

Comparing a Star Wars trilogy to sequels as a whole really doesn't make sense. You have to compare it to other films in an established series.

[Nufy]

Originally Posted by Itse

If you're worried about physics, then that's what happened. Speed is extremely relative in space after all, and the distances so ridiculous that in the timeframe of that part of the story it doesn't really make a difference that technically the ships went faster all the time, while keeping the same distance from each other.

The First Order kept accelerating as fast as they could, and the rebels spent just enough fuel to stay ahead of the First order to optimize how long they could go on.

That said, I agree that it didn't really feel like a Star Wars plot. In that universe fuel is generally irrelevant.

Also, near light speed ramming is either a thing in the universe or it isn't, because it's a huge gamechanger. It hasn't been a thing before in Star Wars, so I somewhat disapprove of doing it now.

Totally agree...

In all the previous Star Wars Movies, energy wasn't an issue...blasters never ran out of ammo, fighters never needed to re-fuel...

To use that in TLJ was a weak plot tactic imo...

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Nufy

Totally agree...

In all the previous Star Wars Movies, energy wasn't an issue...blasters never ran out of ammo, fighters never needed to re-fuel...

To use that in TLJ was a weak plot tactic imo...

Yet Droids needed re charging. The Death Star Gun took hours to recharge.

But yeah they never mentioned fuel in ships.

If you look at the Imperial Ships and the death star they were powered by hyper matter reactors.

A hypermatter reactor, or hypermatter power plant, was a type of starship and battle station reactor that generated power by destroying hypermatter. The cores of such reactors were usually insulated with exfoliating doonium and dolovite. The hypermatter reactor of the Death Star was an elaboration of the ones equipped on Star Destroyers and other Imperial vessels.[1]

I guess you could argue that these reactors would need hypermatter to annihilate and that would be the fuel.

We did see refueling on StarKiller base when the planet sucked up the energy of the sun to power its weapon.

[Burninator]

I thought the humour really missed the mark in this movie. Almost of the jokes fell flat for me and the theatre I was in. The Marvel style jokes don't work in Star Wars. I also thought the jokes ruined any tension that was building because of their awful timing.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by blankall

Not sure where you get this huge drop off for sequels from...If you look at established franchises like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, etc...the movies don't show any substantial drop off and instead fluctuate based on reception. It's a different issue when you have a hit and randomly create a sequel to it.

Comparing a Star Wars trilogy to sequels as a whole really doesn't make sense. You have to compare it to other films in an established series.

Im comparing the performance of the Last Jedi to Empire and AOTC. In Star Wars Films the Reception hasn't mattered. AOTC was terrible and Empire was great box office drops Relative to their predecessors were the same.