The Last Jedi - General Movie Discussion

Exactly. I really, really think Johnson was hinting at that throughout his film. DJ showed Finn that the Resistance bought their weapons from the same dealers as the FO. Luke's cave on AchT To had the mosaic of the creature representing the 'yin and yang'. Notice too how Rey was wearing grey..and Kylo's costume had touches of gold in it. Most of all, Johnson took the notion of the legacy sabre as a kind of 'Excalibur '(which I didn't really like, but it was Abrams who first introduced it) - and turned it on its head. The sabre goes to the 'worthy' Rey in TFA - but chooses NEITHER of them in TLJ. In fact - it splits.
Johnson did say '95%' of his film was on screen - so I wonder if someone, somewhere either changed it or told him to change it at the end, it is known that the Rey/Poe flirt scene was in there because at the time Trevorrow was slated to direct IX, and he wanted a romance between them. For the record - I actually wanted Rey to take Kylo's hand at the end of TLJ, and no, not just because I'm a reylo - or was - but because it would have been completely out of the blue and the last thing anyone would expect.

 

I agree that it would have been unexpected. But that’s largely because it wouldn’t make any sense for her character.

“And still that fiery spit of hope. You have the spirit of a true Jedi!” When all seems lost, Rey is determined to fight to save the Resistance. To save the galaxy. When Kylo kills Snoke, she thinks he’s turned. “Ben! The fleet. Order them to stop firing. There's still time to save the fleet.” His response is “It's time to let old things die.” He intends to continue firing on the fleet and wipe out the Resistance.

In the context of the scene, if she took his hand in that moment, that’s what she’d be agreeing to: The death of the Resistance and last hope for the galaxy. Given everything that preceded this moment, why would she do that? Why would you want that? I don’t get it.

 

'Let them live, and I'll stay'.

Then we have Rey in the next film trying to use her influence on Kylo for good. While Hux plots behind their backs and Poe Dameron flatly refuses all offers of peace between them while Finn is torn between his loyalties to BOTH friends.

 

And Luke is free to get back to his fishin'. That's definitely a take

 

Well, I'll let Luke fans decide what to do with his character...but at least, he wouldn't die!!

 

I now have this image in my head:
Luke's hut with this sign on it:

'Gone fishin'...stick a sign upon the door'....

 

My Favorite Star Wars Film!

 

Last Jedi was a mockery to the franchise

 

Most of the fans don't think like that.

 

Luke's green milk from thala-sirens:

Sirens are a reference to Greek mythology, and Homer's Odyssey.

"I regard The Odyssey as a book of initiations, and the first initiation is that of Odysseus himself into a proper relationship to the female power, which was put down at the time the Judgment of Paris when the male principle was dominant in an excessive way. Now the female power must be recognized to make possible a proper relationship—what I call an androgynous relationship—in which the male and female meet as co-equals. They are equals, but not the same, because when you lose the tension of polarities you lose the tension of life." -- Joseph Campbell, Goddesses

 

Thanks, didn't know that.

 

Females play a big role in the trilogy, because of the goddess. The moon symbolizes the goddess, or the female. The Death Star is the dark new moon phase. Purple hair Holdo, I think is the same symbolism of Mace Windu's purple lightsaber, which is the crown chakra, the connection to the transcendent, or divine, returning through the female. Luke is the light, or spiritual sun. Leia is the goddess, or moonlight that has to be rescued from inside the dark moon. The trilogy ends with the triple goddess, the three women-- Rey, Leia, and the elder woman. These are the three quarters of the lighted moon. Leia is the full moon.

New moon, first/ waxing crescent moon, full moon, last/waning crescent
Elder woman must be the past, the last crescent before everything went dark.

The role of women is an important symbol in this Star Wars trilogy, as the goddess returning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Goddess_(Neopaganism)

It's why when Padme died, Leia the moon and Luke the sunlight that lights the moon were separated. Sacred feminine has been rescued by the light in the original trilogy and is returning.

 

Do we really know how many fans thought about "The Last Jedi"? I rather doubt that we do.

 

Every industry measure of the general audience who watched the film showed an overwhelming number of people liked the film. Those numbers aren't wrong. It's why Hollywood spends millions for tracking information. Audiences loved the film. It did very well at the box office. Pretty much every argument that the film was hated boils down to cherry picking numbers without any context.

Yes, people online have strong opinions about the movie, but the people on the internet aren't reflective of real life.

 

You'd think the people who liked TLJ would be content to enjoy the film and talk about it with other like-minded fans without feeling compelled to tell everyone who'll listen that most fans loved the film and the haters are just 'fake news.'

The numbers say audiences rated TLJ lower than any other SW film or TV show.
Below are Rotten Tomatoes' Audience ratings for Star Wars content from highest to lowest:

1. The Empire Stikes Back (film) - 97%
2. A New Hope (film) - 96%
3. Return of the Jedi (film) - 94%
4. The Clone Wars (TV animated series) - 92%
5. The Mandalorian (TV series) - 91%
6. Rogue One (film) - 86%
7. The Rise of Skywalker (film) - 86%
8. The Force Awakens (film) - 85%
9. Star Wars Rebels (TV animated series) - 84%
10. The Bad Batch (TV animated series) - 81%
11. Revenge of the Sith (film) - 66%
12. Solo (film) - 64%
13. The Phantom Menace - 59%
14. Star Wars Resistance (TV animated series) - 58%
15. Attack of the Clones - 56%
16. The Last Jedi - 42%

But let me guess, these numbers are 'fixed' to make TLJ look bad, right? It's just a freaky coincidence that all the other audience ratings for all the other movies and films roll out pretty much as you'd expect. Frankly, in doing this, the number I found interesting is that critics royally panned JJ's TROS yet it got a higher audience rating than his first SW film which was much loved by the critics.

Film franchises are expected to improve at the box office from one film to the next if the first one is a major hit. Look at Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy. The first film made over 894 million. The second film made 947 million and the third made 1.15 billion. Compare that to the STs: JJ's first one made over 2 billion dollars so you can imagine what the studio honchos were expecting from the next two films in the trilogy. But The Last Jedi made only 1.3 billion -- a staggering 33% drop! That led to a final JJ film that grossed half as much as the first one.

I don't think you have to be a studio exec -- or a rocket scientist -- to figure out that the audience lost their love for the Sequel Trilogy to the tune of at least a couple billion dollars once Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi opened.

As I've said before, if you love TLJ -- great!!! But please spare us your alternate reality. We get more than enough of that in politics.

 

I simply responded to a comment about how many people liked The Last Jedi. I'm sorry if that bothers you, but not one who really looks at the industry data really debates this reality here. It's just a segment of fans who are convinced otherwise.

Empire Strikes Back made less money at the box office than it's predecessor. TLJ final box office total fell within its projection range and had legs that are expected with a film that scored well with audiences.

Rotten Tomatoes admitted the audience figures were review bombed. Online polls are notoriously unreliable anyway. The internet isn't representative of the general public. This is why Hollywood studios spend millions on audience surveys. Those surveys are reliable.

I don't care if you love or hate The Last Jedi the data is the data. Every independent, controlled sample of the audience showed an overwhelming majority of people liked the film. Obviously, there are people who hate the movie. Star Wars is a huge IP and even if a minority of fans hate it they'll always be loud online.

 

You mean you wish people who enjoyed the film would stop raising objections and presenting more reliable statistics whenever people that don't like it are trying to dictate what "the fans" think.

 

Curious to see Solo above TLJ, as the former was considered a box office flop, and the latter, at least to my knowledge, wasn't. I do know that TLJ received a lot of critical acclaim, and as a moviegoer I really thought both Hamill and Driver deserved Oscar nominations; I was particularly impressed with Hamill, who was pretty critical of the film but delivered a career best.

@DailyPlunge ....interesting what you are said regarding what the GA think against what people on the internet think...on the SW official website a poll asking people to vote for who they wanted to see (yes, I know I've said this before) the most,voted Kylo in at a whopping 81%, poor old Rey got just 5% and Finn 1% - even less than Babu Frik. Yet both of the latter have many fans on social media, and Kylo is very much hated on other forums I've visited - so hated, in fact, that it actually scares me.

 

I mean people who like TLJ should stop trying to dictate their own reality about the film's reception.

My problem is with you and Maratoto pretending that only a "small minority of vocal fans" disliked the film. Actual industry insiders would laugh at your supposed 'data' to prove otherwise. A 33% drop-off from film one to film two in a trilogy followed by a 50% drop-off from film one to film three didn't really mean anything?

Given how thrilled you're telling us that Disney & Lucasfilm were with TLJ, it's a mystery why, in its aftermath, they put a screeching halt to rolling out new billion-dollar grossing blockbusters SW films every year once the films they already had in production (Solo & TROS) came out. You'd think they still be tapping away at such a guaranteed multimillion dollar money-maker, right? Why keep your goose from continuing to lay her golden eggs?

 

I'm not pretending. That's the conclusion of all the reliably sourced industry data.

Every thing you've presented here is conjecture based on confirmation bias.

As far as a film slow down the simple answer is the best. Lucasfilm needed to show down. The ST and movie schedule was too fast. It was big issue with the last film. I'm encouraged by Kennedy's interview this week about how they're planning the film future.

There's no need to rehash the TLJ debate. I've heard it all. If you've got some scientifically controlled data I'm all ears.

Star Wars has millions and millions of fans. Even a tiny subset of fans represents an enormous set of people. We know Star Wars fans are a passionate bunch. We see this every Celebration. It's great, but when you have this many people consuming a product you're gonna have highly passionate people online who don't necessarily represent the entire group. Rian Johnson has mentioned this before because people focus on the bad apples yelling at him online, but that still represents a small minority. People online were talking about his career being over after TLJ and he went on to make another hit, with a great cast, and now he's a super millionaire who can do whatever he wants. The internet reality was in no way, shape or form reflective of what movie audiences really thought. We see this when it comes to a lot of subjects on the internet.