I'm so disappointed.. by the fans

I wasn't happy that he was in charge to begin with so no.

 

Yes, it's a great movie, even if Rian butchered some of the characters, especially Luke. Should the fans be blamed when the miss greatness? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. You can't blame fans for disagreeing with certain characterizations. They have that right. Should people be more open minded to some things? Sure. But don't waste your time being disappointed by fans. We live in a very non-critically minded, impatient society, and people mainly think like consumers. It's a waste of time to be disappointed by them. Save your disappointment for those who know better (Rian, for example, who should have created a better backstory for Luke and Ben).

 

This is what i'm saying. People seem to want to "rationalize" in their own way, why people didn't like the movie. I think its a legit, badly written story. On a macro and micro level. Holdo's unwillingness to tell poe her plan makes no sense, but it causes the movie to essentially happen. Its also silly that the FO wouldn't see crait and be like "hurr these rebel scum are fleeing to the planet". Rey did feel like she was sort of swept aside. Not really sure whats up with that. I also don't know why you double down on her being neo if its for no reason. I'm not saying she had to be a skywalker (even though as of TFA, it made the most narrative sense), but you cant just say "because reasons" when confronted with the question of why she's so powerful. That turns the force into a deus ex machina. Holdo was a big narrative foul up. Then little stuff like luke repeating lessons he learned when he was in his early 20's to rey swimming, all made me really dislike this movie.

EDIT: Also, i'm sorry, but i just don't buy the idea that rey= anyone can become jedi/have the force. Thats bantha poodoo. Nothing rams that notion home more than a stormtrooper that defects to the good guys and ends up becoming a jedi of sorts. Who is less likely to end up swinging a lightsaber? So yeah, I don't really buy that notion in regards to rey being neo.

 

Rey has those Jedi texts, so it seems to me she'll have an apprentice or two in E9. Should create some surprising situations considering Rey herself is even less experience than Luke was when he was the last Jedi.

I also expect that the new First Order empire will split in two, with Hux and Kylo Ren squaring off against one another, allowing the new Jedi and Rebelling time to rise.

Maybe E9 will finally be called Revenge of the Jedi, or Rise of the Jedi, as fans have often speculated (as possible film titles generally).

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 18, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 18, 2017 ---

On Holdo: It's sort of a trope in war films that the leadership doesn't share their plans with the underlings. Especially if someone like Poe was just demoted. Maybe Holdo didn't want any First Order spies to possibly overhear her secret plan? That's reasonable.

But you also have to consider Holdo's character. She comes from an artsy, intellectual world (I hear). And she doesn't seem to trust macho "fly boys" like Poe. So why should she trust her secret plan with him? Just because fans want her to?

 

The Skywalker saga is coming to an end. There is only one left. Rey not being a Skywalker is fine because the saga is ending.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 18, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 18, 2017 ---

Then don't give your money. But you're arguing semantics.

 

In the same way that Obi-Wan's side story from AOTC leads to the Clone Army rescuing everyone on Geonosis, Finn and Rose's side story leads to the FO tracking the Resistance to Crait.

You seems to be confusing productive with relevant. Finn and Rose's journey was rather unproductive, but it was entirely relevant. And the unproductive nature of their trip was kind of the point...half-assed spontaneous plans don't really work all that well.

 

This dude just expressed everything I wanted to say about the movie right now.

 

Still am. Wearing the Galaxy Premier hat as I type.

 

I'm not disappointed with the fans.... yet. I think it's very emotional to have Luke die, and realize we won't get to see the "big 3" ever again, barring force ghost. I think the entire movie was so bold that it scared people off who weren't ready for it. Most people need to vent this, to find people who are as distraught as they are. But when cooler heads prevail, I hope that eventually acceptance will happen and the haters will bury the hatchet. There's five stages of grief, denial and anger are two of them. But acceptance is the last one. Let's give the fans who didn't like this movie time to come around.

 

Where I disagree with his thesis is that fans that hate TFA hate TLJ. Most people I know (including me) loved TFA and disdain TLJ simply because it pisses all over TFA.

This whole psychoanalysis of fans is utterly annoying. Here is the reason I didn’t like TLJ: cause it’s a bad movie! Yes, that’s right we have all seen bad movies in our lives yet SW fans are the only who have to explain it and defend our reasoning.

I wanted to love this movie, I thought I would like it as much as TFA. I watched the Trailers and Hamill’s interview so I knew EXACTLY how Luke would be. I walked out of the movie, and without pause thought it was complete garbage.

For this continuing of calling out for expectations, wanting this and that from the story, etc is total BS. Some fans like it, some loved it, some thought it was ok, and others thought it was garbage. When I walked out of TFA in 2015, I loved it. Sorry I can’t explain my feelings on liking or hating a movie. Oh that’s right, cause it’s called an opinion.

 

The pitch will not go the way you think...hehe

 

I respect your feelings about this movie.
It's definitely a divisive movie. And that is good IMO.
Good news is, we'll have a Star Wars movie every year from now on.

It worked for me... but I see why it doesn't work for others.
And it's a very personal thing.

 

Honestly, I think it’s a bad thing if it’s a divisive movie. If these were standalone movies like the Indiana Jones franchise, then it wouldn’t be a bad thing.

But the Saga movies have to work as a Trilogy. Now of course they don’t have to all hit a Homerun but they have to work in a sense that you can enjoy them as one entity.

Not only do I hate TLJ, but now I don’t want to revisit TFA ever again because that movie is just a lot of mystery box BS. You can blame JJ for introducing them or RJ for not answering them that makes any sense, or Disney for letting these 2 guys essentially make their own movies without being on the same page. This is bad for the Trilogy because I don’t even care about Episode 9 cause JJ is literally writing this on the fly. Why even speculate for 2 years when JJ probably knows as little as we do for Episode 9. It’s a complete mess by Disney and I can’t believe they threw all of the goodwill built up with TFA and R1 with fans like me.

 

I thought your point about too many characters and storylines is valid to a degree, but sorry —
Did we truly see the same AoTC? The movie was a mess with syrupy and unbelievable love story, with the corniest possible dancing-in-the-meadows scenes; pouty, unrelatabable main character; and plot holes that never got explained afterwards (read: Syfo-Dyas and clone army)...

 

I think where The Last Jedi fails where Attack of the Clones arguably succeeds is in the fact that the characters have dimension added to them whereas everything seems to be resolved and the protagonists and antagonists are pretty firmly put into the camps of good guy and bad guy. This is why I don't believe this film even comes close to being as good as Empire, let alone surpassing it.

 

I'm saying that TLJ doesn't add much dimension to the characters while Empire did. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

 

Comparing TLJ and AoTC is like comparing whiskey and vodka. They are so different, I don’t see point in it.

I recall wanting to leave AoTC in the middle of the screening because of its weak, two-dimensional characters, and silly plot that felt sometimes so glued to its place, and for its badly written script.

I agree that having a strong narrative for good and bad guys can work for a movie. Yet, it also often strips it off any complexity and nuance. I can enjoy the prequel movies as part of GFFA, but to me they are ultimately the weakest movies in the whole saga: both story-telling and character-wise.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 18, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 18, 2017 ---

That is so interesting! We clearly saw the same movie, yet it appears we didn’t.

 

Hopefully this will not continue to go ignored as I've posted it in several other threads without much reaction from anyone. I would like to start a discussion on what some of the lovers and haters think.
I am going to make my best attempt to break down the film.

I think The Last Jedi, more so than any other film in the series, relies on parallel themes. First the theme of legends and how holding someone or yourself at a high standard only leads to disappointment and failure:

Kylo with Luke
Poe with Holdo
Rose with Finn

Or surpassing you former idol:
"We are what they grow beyond" as Yoda said.
Finn with Phasma
Kylo with Snoke

The Luke complaints in my opinion are unrealistic. Do you think a human being is incapable of making a mistake like Luke did? The whole point of the film is that no one, even a legend, is incapable of mistakes. Someone as great as Obi Wan did with Anakin. Not a huge stretch of the imagination to me.

There have been a lot of complaints about Snoke as well. He gets no more or less a back story than Palpatine in Return of the Jedi. He is a victim of his own arrogance. Kylo, who couldn't win a fight with Snoke one on one defeats him the only way he can, by exploiting a character flaw. He thought he was so powerful and knew Kylo so well. He underestimated him because Snoke believed his own myth. He closed his eyes and looked into Kylo's mind but couldn't see what was happening right in front of him.

Poe was so disappointed and distrusting of Holdo he refused to hear her reasoning before calling her a traitor and committing mutiny because she was famous and he held her to an unrealistic standard.

Finn's ambivalence to the cause is reflected through his willingness to run away at the beginning in the escape pod scene. Rose as a result feels betrayed by her "legend" image of "the Finn". The hard truths of the moral ambivalence of Canto Bight and DJ's betrayal lead into Finn's defeat of Phasma and embrace of the name "rebel scum". These the beginnings of his embrace of the rebel cause ending with his willingness to sacrifice his life to save everyone.

The next is destroying the past and moving forward:

Kylo's mask
Rey's parents
The Jedi Tree
Anakin's Lightsaber

Kylo destroys his mask to move away from Vader idolotry and become his own person.

Rey thought her parent's identity would give her meaning or the fans thought being a Skywalker would give her a place in the Saga.

The destruction of the tree is a symbol of the end of the old Jedi order and a move away from the religious aspects of the black and white Jedi vs Sith. As Luke says why should a religion take ownership of something as universal as the force?

The final scene between Kylo and Luke is an act of pacifism. He has no intention of killing Kylo. Like Obi Wan in A New Hope he sacrifices his life against a failed apprentice to save the others and "the last jedi".

The two suns aren't merely a call back but an emotional parrallel. In A New Hope he was a farm boy ready for something greater and now he is a Jedi Master in the same place he was then, ready for something greater. "Luminous beings are we. Not this crude matter"

I wrote this in a past post but I don't think anyone payed attention. A detail I caught at the beginning of the film is when Rey hands Luke the lightsaber he's wearing white robes. Luke then returns to his hut then puts them up in a box. We do not see him wearing this until near the end. It seems he was ready to die at the beginning of the film and Rey interrupted him.