The other thing sticking out is whatever creepy uncle Luke was plannign to do to Kylo when he snuck into his room at night. I know they showed a few versions, but I don't think it fits with Luke character.
I envisioned Kylo's turn would go down differently, and didn't like how Luke ended up being the catalyst for Ren's turn to the darkside.
I thought Snoke already had Ben fully in his grasp by that point, and Luke was trying to decide what to do about it. I don't think that night was the one thing that turned him into Kylo. it's not like Anakin's turn which was "what have I done??? (5 seconds later)...yes master, I will go ahead and murder all the innocent children in the temple."
There was never any humor in the exchanges between Darth Vader/Leia/Tarkin. There was humor through the original trilogy but it was still serious when it came to the empire. I can't think of one punchline that revolved around the empire being a laughing stock.
When Hux gave his speech in TFA he was a serious character, they should have kept him as someone to be feared, not ridiculed.
In Episode 7 the back and forth between him and Kylo was pretty equal, and there were circumstances where each side came out on top. Actually in 7 you could say it was Kylo's failings that led to their defeat more than Hux.
Even in 8 it wasn't as bad as him just being a chew toy - until Snoke was defeated. Sure Poe had some fun with him, but I believe it was Hux who announced they had Lightspeed tracking.
Then once Snoke died Ren started to physically abuse him (force choke, push into the wall) which was interesting because Ren never once tried any physical conflict before Snoke's death.
Probably sets something up for Episode 9.
Snoke gave Hux a comedic force shove 15 minutes into this episode and really set his character for the rest of the movie.
Ignoring Poe making him look like an idiot 14 minutes prior, of course.
There was never any humor in the exchanges between Darth Vader/Leia/Tarkin. There was humor through the original trilogy but it was still serious when it came to the empire. I can't think of one punchline that revolved around the empire being a laughing stock.
When Hux gave his speech in TFA he was a serious character, they should have kept him as someone to be feared, not ridiculed.
Disagree.
The context following Rogue One has Leia basically flipping Vader the bird after he boards the ship "What plans? I don't got any plans."
"Tarkin, I should have known you'd be here holding Vaders leash."
Tarkin and Leia had a pretty great casual back and forth before it was revealed they were going to blow up her planet.
I dunno. I loved Poe trolling Hux. I thought it fit his character perfectly. Are they all supposed to be super serious wooden soldiers all the time? I thought the humor was one of the best parts of the film. BB8 fixing the X-Wing like trying to plug a dam had me laughing pretty hard.
I also never really considered the First Order to be the force that the Empire was and it was obvious that their leadership was thin. I saw them more as a decently organized terrorist group than a fully integrated and functioning government entity like the empire.
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The context following Rogue One has Leia basically flipping Vader the bird after he boards the ship "What plans? I don't got any plans."
"Tarkin, I should have known you'd be here holding Vaders leash."
Tarkin and Leia had a pretty great casual back and forth before it was revealed they were going to blow up her planet.
I dunno. I loved Poe trolling Hux. I thought it fit his character perfectly. Are they all supposed to be super serious wooden soldiers all the time? I thought the humor was one of the best parts of the film. BB8 fixing the X-Wing like trying to plug a dam had me laughing pretty hard.
I also never really considered the First Order to be the force that the Empire was and it was obvious that their leadership was thin. I saw them more as a decently organized terrorist group than a fully integrated and functioning government entity like the empire.
Yeah, and the string of terrified officers failing Vader in ESB. "Apology accepted, Captain Needa." Those guys are entirely Vader's punching bag, but being military officers they know their place and just accept it. Hux doesn't know his place, which is why I think he's great for the FO.
That moment where he sees Kylo on the ground, hesitates, reaches for his blaster, then Kylo moves and he realizes he missed his chance... that's perfect. No imperial officer would even dream of that, but Hux would spend the rest of his (probably short) life regretting that moment of hesitation.
Agreed, but it's more of a dark subtle humour in the first movies, it feels more slapstick in these ones, and I like my villians to be feared.
I don't think anyone lol'd at 'holding Vaders leash' or 'Apology accepted'.
Vader and Tarkin were evil, they felt evil, they scared you. Hux is on par with Gru at this point.
Yeah but is he supposed to be that? To me if he had the composure of someone like Tarkin it wouldn't be as interesting. He's not a hardened military leader. He's a fanatical supporter of a terrorist regime. The people who remained after the death of the Empire as supporters would have only been the most fringe of them. Everyone else was just working for the man. I doubt many of them actually believed in what was actually happening. Snokes choices for leadership were probably pretty thin.
Yeah but is he supposed to be that? To me if he had the composure of someone like Tarkin it wouldn't be as interesting. He's not a hardened military leader. He's a fanatical supporter of a terrorist regime. The people who remained after the death of the Empire as supporters would have only been the most fringe of them. Everyone else was just working for the man. I doubt many of them actually believed in what was actually happening. Snokes choices for leadership were probably pretty thin.
The humour was interesting. I thought the Hux/Poe scene near the beginning was pretty funny, but at the same time it is something I might expect from Robot Chicken.
I dunno I thought Luke's explanation seemed fine. He went there to see into Ben's mind. Presumably while sleeping is a good time to do that without resistance from Ben. And I like that it was a moment of weakness and shame for him that became a catalyst for Ben turning into Kylo.
I think people forget (even the movies themselves sometimes) that Luke is not and never was a fully trained Jedi. He is powerful with the force and has strong command of it, but his personality is still full of holes and his discipline lacking.
Also it fits Luke's fear. In the cave with Yoda in empire he sees Vader and shoots him and it's himself.
Luke's biggest fear was falling to the dark side. So as a trainer of Jedi his fear is losing his students to the dark side. And in classic Star Wars poetry the actions Luke takes to prevent his conversion to the Dark Side leads to his conversion to the dark side.
That sequence was the classic path to the dark side.
My other thought today after a rewatch is did the hyperspace suicide actually rip the dreadnought apart or did Rey and Kylo's force fight rip the ship apart? Luke's saber was ripped in half at the exact moment of the hyperspace attack.
Really looking forward to a 2nd viewing, I feel like so much happened that I have already forgot half of it. To date the only Star Wars movie that took time to grow on me was Rogue One. After a few viewings I enjoy it much more, however I am always left with the impression that it wasn't as polished as it could have been. The Last Jedi from a production and effects standpoint felt very polished. The 3D was much better than it was for Force Awakens. Luke's cynicism about being a legend reminds me of Logan when Wolverine kind of thought that the X-Men comics were a joke, exaggerated fiction only to later realize it was all about hope for a new generation, similar theme plays out in The Last Jedi.
The thing is though, this movie was very similar to a combination of ESB and ROTJ. A young jedi gets trained by a hermit jedi master in a desolate place.There’s a dark area in said desolate place where young jedi has a vision.The bad guy and the good guy meet up in the throne room of the ultimate bad guy.Ultimate bad guy makes good guy look out of the window at their space fleet getting destroyed.Good guy and bad guy team up to kill ultimate bad guy.The Empire First Order invades a Rebel Resistance base on a white planet with the help of Giant walkers while the defenders rush to trenches.
Most of the main scenes were a roll-up of those two movies combined, the only truly 100% original sequence was the stupid Canto Bight casino Act that basically stops the movie dead. The only fresh new direction this movie went was making Luke Skywalker kind of a dick, at the end we still have a band of freedom fighters against the evil power except this time it's run by two guys in their 20’s.There was some good stuff in this movie but they kept cutting away from it for useless plotlines which only make sense in the context of them wanting to set up new spinoff trilogies.A fresh direction would have been Rey turning to the dark side by joining Kylo Ren, but that would never happen because Rey has never once been challenged or experienced failure during either of these two movies, which makes it hard to relate to her.She’s mastered everything she’s ever tried, there’s no struggle in her character.Its boring.
The sad truth is Star Wars has fallen prey to the main Hollywood money making scheme these days which is the method of soft rebooting beloved franchises. It’s essentially a remake, the exact same things happen, but they set it in the future and keep referencing the original movies to make it feel like a sequel.It happened to Jurassic Park, to Ghostbusters, and it’s happening now to Star Wars.I was really pumped for TFA, I didn’t read any spoilers or watch the trailers because I was excited about what would happen, but my heart dropped as soon as I read that opening crawl.They just reset everything to the beginning, there was nothing new there.I don’t blame Disney for doing it, they needed a minimal risk movie to put their movie on the right track (financially, not story-telling wise) and it obviously worked because the movie was well received and made a tonne of money.There were a few new additions that were creative but that’s the trick of the soft reboot, at the core the story is stale because it’s a clever way around not straight-up remaking a movie.I was in the minority of people who didn‘t like TFA because I’d seen what was essentially the same movie 20 years earlier on VHS tape, and I’ve seen a much better, less convoluted version of this last movie before as well.Say what you will about the prequels, and lots of people have, they were stories that we hadn’t seen before that didn’t rely on cheap nostalgia and virtual shot-by-shot retakes like these last two movies.It’s ironic that the main piece of originality in TFA, the vision Rey has in the cantina and the mystery box associated with it, was completely stepped in on this movie like it didn’t matter.More so than a bunch of nerds being upset that their Snoke theories were a waste of time, I think most people who turned on this movie because did so because it snuffed out the one bit of mystery and intrigue from the remade A New Hope.As a result the cracks are starting to show around this new trilogy, the Rotten Tomatoes score and the 42% decrease from the first Tuesday numbers between this movie and TFA are indicative of that.
People might say “Well this movie isn’t for you, 27 year old DiracSpike, it’s for the kids and a new generation of Star Wars fans”. I agree with that, it’s obviously true because if they were making these movies for people who watched the Original Star Wars they wouldn’t just do a cheap remake of those movies with the exact same villains and problems just set slightly in the future to try and remind you that this isn’t a remake.If some 10 year old kid out there is stoked on these last two movies and it’s their first introduction then that’s great, I’m happy for that kid.I’m also happy it’ll help Disney keep pumping out movies and toys and video games and hopefully make them a lot of money because I’m a Disney share holder and that’s good for me.But for me as someone who enjoys originality and story telling, these are just hollow window dressing movies that I haven’t enjoyed and won’t pay money to see any more of them in the future.
Last edited by DiracSpike; 12-21-2017 at 10:06 AM.
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Also it fits Luke's fear. In the cave with Yoda in empire he sees Vader and shoots him and it's himself.
Luke's biggest fear was falling to the dark side. So as a trainer of Jedi his fear is losing his students to the dark side. And in classic Star Wars poetry the actions Luke takes to prevent his conversion to the Dark Side leads to his conversion to the dark side.
That sequence was the classic path to the dark side.
In Episode 6, Luke believed so much that there was good in his father, even while being tortured by the Emperor, but still never had any intention of killing him. He wanted to save him, despite all the bad he had done. He felt he was redeemable.
Luke senses darkness in his sister's son, and for a moment thinks that the right thing to do is to kill him?
We already went through this character arc with Luke, and it's not in his character to do something like that, and it confirmed Ben Solo's transition to the dark side.
Just seems weird to me but I guess that's just what this movie is.
In Episode 6, Luke believed so much that there was good in his father, even while being tortured by the Emperor, but still never had any intention of killing him. He wanted to save him, despite all the bad he had done. He felt he was redeemable.
Luke senses darkness in his sister's son, and for a moment thinks that the right thing to do is to kill him?
We already went through this character arc with Luke, and it's not in his character to do something like that, and it confirmed Ben Solo's transition to the dark side.
Just seems weird to me but I guess that's just what this movie is.
He saw the light in his father. A naive boy with minimal training wanted to save his Dad.
Now he is in the Kenobi situation of having trained a Monster and upon seeing inside him there was no light gives into his fear of the power of the dark side. Luke is far more interesting as a flawed Jedi like everyone who came before him than this fanboy perfection persona.
I think he could have had a flawed persona without unsheathing his lightsaber as a teenage boy lay sleeping.
Obi-wan left Anakin for dead as he slid into the lava river. He believed he was beyond saving. That he felt this way in episode 4 is consistent with his persona.
Killing a young boy instead of trying to save him is not within Luke's persona, no matter how flawed.
Last edited by Ashasx; 12-21-2017 at 11:44 AM.
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I just saw this last night and wanted to get my thoughts down while they're still vivid, so I apologize if I rehash a bunch of things that have already been said.
Okay, so it was a good movie, but I cant help feeling somewhat disappointed.
Calling it a 'Empire Strikes Back Rehash' is a bit simplistic but not entirely incorrect either.
I initially gave The Force Awakens a lot of slack because while it seemed like a nearly shot for shot remake of A New Hope, it was the first movie of the new Universe, it was laying groundwork for the whole new paradigm in the Galaxy and then they could take that groundwork and build off of it.
So to say that I was disappointed with an Empire re-hash that included the Galaxy's slowest, dumbest and stupidest slow-motion chase scene is a bit of an understatement.
Some of the cutesy stuff I get is there for the kids, but its also irksome at times.
Were the pigeons necessary? Why does Chewy allow them into his home?
In the original series Droids were characterized almost as friends and one can say that R2D2 and C3P0 were main characters, but now they're basically pets. BB8 is basically Poe's Dog.
The entire Casino scene was obviously their version of the 'Cantina' scene but you very literally could have eliminated it, Finn and Rose entirely and with the admitted loss of Benecio Del Toro who I hope gets something of an expanded role in the future, nobody would have missed anything.
They could have found another way to hammer home the point that the Force is everywhere. Which isnt a message that I minded at all.
Snoke was a nobody but incredibly powerful.
Rey is a nobody but incredibly powerful.
That kid sweeping up Space-Elk feces is a nobody but he has potential.
'Hope is everywhere!' Great. We got it.
I liked the overall message though, the Jedi were wrong. Burn it all down and start again, you could even imagine that at one point Luke and Kylo were more or less at the same page at the end there but they just couldnt get over their own crap.
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