THREAD FOR THOSE WHO HATED THE MOVIE

Can someone please explain why they didn't do this?

Why not give Luke a truly badass moment before he had to go? Why not have him pull out the green lightsaber one last time or show a brief yet extraordinary mastery of the force (there's literally a million ways they could have done this). And then after that the end result could have been EXACTLY the same. He could STILL have sacrificed himself to buy time for the others. Disney would still have their end result of killing Luke off to bring the focus onto the new generation of characters.

Literally just one 20-30 second sequence and NOBODY would have complained about it either. The general audience would have loved it. The die hard fans would have loved it. Nothing to lose. Why?!

 

Because Disney wanted to show that they are bigger than Star Wars and in particular Mark hamill and George Lucus. There was a lot going on behind close doors with this film. They would prefer to produce a lemon of a film than bow to their advice/demands.

They run the show now, as well as the critics and a quarter of the fan base. Well I say that, there is a lot a fake news out there on forums. I am amazed that so many people actually like this film. I am very dubious about that. No fan would like this film.

If I was JJA I would pull out of Star wars.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 16, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 16, 2017 ---

To the person who added a trolly thing to my comment. In my experience, the people who call people trolls are usually the trolls themselves.

 

How is what he did not badass???? He made Kylo look like a fool and GREW his Legend that will spark the new Rebellion and Jedi. He did it all while never having to strike Ben Solo in anger. Once again Luke figured out how to turn the tide without using anger or fear. Remember, Rey says "maybe the galaxy needs a Legend?". She was right, because those kids at the end were replaying the Battle of Crait with Luke, and the force sensitive kid was looking to the stars. Hope had returned. Real hope.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 16, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 16, 2017 ---

For those of you that HATED this movie after the first viewing...STOP. Watch it at least 2 more times. There will still be things you didn't like. Choices you didn't agree with. But once you start to see the bigger story they were telling, you will appreciate this movie more.

 

Yeah, that was just their (filmmakers') approach to the development of the Poe character. They wanted to take him the direction of future leader so they gave him few lessons to learn something from. Yes, very much dumbed down and rushed, but again that's the problem of the whole movie. Popcorn viewers (the majority) won't care much though.

 

1. Leia flying was just awful. Surprised nobody told Rian how bad it was in execution. Would have rather her not blown into space but injured using spontaneously using the force to protect some people on the bridge.
2. Kylo isn't stupid either. He was showing his true feelings, that he wanted his enemy dead. Snoke just was too arrogant to understand that Kylo had shifted his anger to him. I have no issues with this scene.
3. Circle? He's not conflicted anymore. He's ready to wipe out his mother and everyone else, unlike earlier in the movie. You can see him gradually get colder and more angry after Snoke was gone.
4. I loved Finn in TFA but he's not exactly an easy character to write for. If you want your heroes like Luke and Chewy and Leia doing cool stuff, it leaves out things for Finn. I didn't love or hate his story this time. He did what he needed to do.

 

9

For me the Kylo Ren story was absolutely baffling and showed a basic lack of understanding by Johnson towards the saga as a whole.

Ren kills Snoke - then decides he wants to kill both the First Order and the Resistance before deciding to side with the First Order again. It's absolutely terrible.

As for Finn, he's arguably the most important character within the saga as he's the key to destroying the First Order with his inside knowledge, in return he gets a horrendous storyline which resorts in him going to find this master ******* before being caught anyway. His fight with Phasma was absolitrly atrocious in terms of choreography and importance.

As for Leia's plan and Poe's mutiny, the less said about that the better.

 

Slightly off topic, but why are there people in this thread telling us we are wrong or silly for not liking this "masterpiece?" Should I march into the thread for people who loved the movie and be condescending and insulting because our opinions differ? And enough with the comparisons to ESB. That movie did something to advance the plot, things actually happened and the end left you hopeful and wondering what would come next. Even AOTC set the next chapter up better than this. Anakin was in love and secretly married to Padme, he'd also taken his first steps toward the darkside. Palpatine's plans were moving forward and beginning to take shape. I'm no prequel lover, but the stories did advance with each chapter. TLJ "plot" went in a circle of nothing and I'm not feeling hopeful or sure if I even care about what comes next. Commence with the condescending comments!

 

It just doesn't work (IMO) at it comes at Rey's expense in a way that is counterintuitive. You don't saw Vader do that with Luke even when he had greater mastery of the Force or Dookou with Anakin or (most importantly) you don't see Snoke do it with Kylo. It's a moment of levity that's wholly misplaced

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 16, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 16, 2017 ---

I saw TFA 3 times in the first week, I won't be paying to see this one again. Bear in mind my favorite characters are Luke and Finn and I didn't love the bait and switch with Finn or the cameo appearance by Luke, I STILL went to see it 3 times in the first week, and another time after that. And I have been a diehard fan since the original ANH premiere. And I feel I have nothing to look forward to in Episode 9. Maybe it will turn out ok, but there's really no overarching story here like the OT, and PT. It'll be like 3 separate movies telling 3 unrelated stories that happen to feature the same characters.

 

You've missed the whole point here, friend. My point is that because of how we've seen Luke in the OT, the entire "i got scared by the darkness so I decided to kill my nephew" thing in TLJ is not plausible as a plot point. It simply contradicts the established character of Luke.

Yet he was given a lot of backstory in ANH (fake backstory as it turns out later), yet he does not kill his son in TESB and tries to draw him to the dark side instead.
I disagree that he's not seen complex until ROTJ, both ANH and TESB does its character development well.

Did you miss the whole part where I said that he sought knowledge? Why else would he travel across the galaxy searching for Jedi Temples? He Just wasn't strong enough to go and fight Snoke right away because Snoke was so powerful that he made Kylo Ren switch sides.
No contradiction there: You fail at your new Jedi academy - A new powerful enemy emerges - You need to find a way to defeat them - You go on a quest for ancient Jedi knowledge that will make you stronger. Luke being in exile had to have so much more of importance that it does in TLJ. "I got scared, I'm a coward, I ran away. Screw Ben, screw Leia, screw Han, screw the entire galaxy, I'm gonna milk some alien titties and I don't give a damn about whatever Snoke and the FO does to you all."

Then, learn to understand things.

The kid force grabbing the broom was a good scene, but it did not belong in this movie. That scene should've been in IX, giving us the message, that even though the Skywalker saga is over, there's force in all of us, there's a Skywalker in all of us and establish some ground for the future non-Skywalker Star Wars films.
There was no need to show the scene in TLJ and no need to build up to with the Canto Bight subplot.

Didn't you see TESB and ROTJ? The force facetiming is somewhat we've already seen, but a little bit advanced. But pulling yourself to a ship in vacuum with no force training? No, sir, not on my watch.

It is 2017. You can't afford having bad visuals given how advanced the technology is and the unlimited budget of Disney. Fury Road's visuals were very unique. The only thing that stood out a little in TLJ was the design of Crait, that's it. But we did not even get to see it until the very last act of the film.

So why even litter the movie runtime with relationship we couldn't care less about? (applies to FinnRose, too)

Luke and Darth Vader are a son and a father. Their force bond does not come out of nowhere.

Wasn't Rey's parentage boring in TLJ? And did you just ignore my paragraph where I said how they should've used the 'no one' variant of her parentage.
Make her no one, but make it good, make in meaningful, use it to advance the story and character development.

Yeah, but he did that in his own way by plugging his stick into the socket. (Except the ROTS where he kills droids, that one was the same as these new scenes wth BB-8.)

He does. He does have to show them while the audience still cares about them. No one needs them in IX, the garbage TLJ plot went too far with its nonsense. People don't care about the Knights of Ren anymore.

Was there even a need for stalling? I mean, the walkers and the cannon moved extremely slow. The whole tning with the head on flight onto the cannon made no sense. Did they expect to destroy it? Did Finn expect to destroy it with his sacrifice? Wouldn't he just have burnt to death and made no damage to the cannon?

Rian Johnson did not bring anything to any character. He killed off Snoke, and made him a non-character, He did not show Kylo Ren's growth. He's still a conflicting kid the way he's in TFA, Rey is still a no one. Finn could've been given some importance for the story with the sacrifice he was willing to make, but Rian failed to give him that importance by Rose-saving him. He misrepresented Luke in a big way. I hope the Rian Johnson trilogy doesn't happen after all. I mean, I believe in second chances, but not in case my favorite saga is under a threat of being raped, again.

 

I think a lot of us felt this way and it's being continuously overlooked

 

For the record I’m 45 and saw ANH when I was 4 in the theater. I love TLJ. I liked TFA but didn’t love it. I think a lot of us older fans loved TFA because it was a retelling of ANH, beat for beat. I don’t want anymore retellings. I wanted something different and fresh. I think a lot of people have missed the point of this film.

The Poe story really works from a military stand point. I’m an Air Force officer and to lead and command lots of pilots have to learn to be leaders. Lots of Fighter pilots are brash and can’t see the big picture. Leia was pissed at Poe for the opening attack. The cost was to high. Dern had a plan. Leaders don’t always lay out in black and white what that plan is. At the end of the movie there are only a handful of people left. Leia may still be pissed at Poe but what can she really do. There is no more resistance at this point. Court martial him? Then you are down one more person. Leia is hoping Poe has learned that he has to be more than a point and shot fighter jock. He has to learn to really lead and think strategically not just tactically.

I think Luke went looking for answers and found a hard answer. He even says what that answer is in the movie. One person, one legend can’t stop the FO. I don’t agree with his choice but it is a choice. Luke came to understand the Jedi were the problem. They allowed the dark side to rise and to allow Anakin to turn. The Jedi became just as arrogant as the Sith. RJ played this out with the way Snoke was killed. Snoke was easly killed because he was to arrgorant to see what Kylo was really thinking. Luke just decide to stop and not allow the Jedi to continue. Further, I loved the very different prospective of kylos version vs Luke’s of what happened. Luke had a moment of weakness. A moment of self doubt. He wasn’t going to kill Ben but he thought about it. From Bens perspective Luke was evil, he had been corrupted by Snoke and there was no doubt Luke would kill him. The visual was even great Ben thought Luke looked Evel at the moment but from Luke’s point of view he was just Luk This is very similar story to Anakin and Ben. Anakin thought Padm betrayed him and Ben was there to kill him. Ben was there because he loved Anakin and was heart broken by what Anakin had became but was going to kill Anakin. No one was upset that Ben was sent by Yoda to kill Anakin. He was not sent to try and bring him back. He was sent to end him. Vader was already made but Ben’s actions cemented it. Vader was forged. Luke had a moment of self doubt and thought about killing Ben. A lot of you are upset by this but no one complains about Ben being sent to kill Anakin. Luke forged Kylo that night. Luke failed as Ben had and it changed him fundamentally. This was his sisters son and he failed his sister, Ben and the galaxy. This had a huge impact on him. I’m nit sure how I would react and everyone would react different.

Yoda’s Scene was important.(why didn’t yoda appear befor now is a good question). Yoda had to tell Luke that he should have passed on failure and humility to the new Jedi not just the ways of the force. The Jedi failed because they forgot humility. This movie didn’t forget the prequels but used it in a very unexpected way. This movie is deep and not just a surface move like TFA was. Yes RJ did things that goes way far away from TFA but it’s not bad. Luke could have been Vader in the comics and Rogue one and unkillabe and a Jedi God but what’s the point of that. Luke swoops in kills Kylo and Snoke end of story. That’s not a great movie. Luke could have been Ben but Mark said it best it had been done and done by a legendary actor. I wanted something different and that’s what we got.

 

But... they did. Everything about being a badass Jedi does NOT have to include lightsaber combat. His mastery of the Force was on FULL display in that final scene...

What he did there surpassed anything even My favorite star wars character (Yoda) has ever done... proving Luke was the strongest Force user known in the Galaxy...

How is that not a badass moment? Oh is it because it didn't fit exactly what you wanted? Hey I wanted Yoda to defeat Sidious in EP III, but I didn't say the movie sucked because he didn't, lol that would be laughable in my opinion

 

I think you are in the wrong thread.

 

The plot was terrible. This was the first time in a SW movie where I found myself conscious of the plot as I was watching it. The rebels are stuck in space while Finn and Rose go running off to find some hacker. I suppose that could have worked under the right circumstances but I remember being supremely disappointed in the moment when I realized this was all that was going to happen.

I have MANY more objections to the movie but I'm trying to focus on one glaring problem at a time.

 

Yeah, I feel like the response from people who loved the movie (for some reason) to us is generally like this:
1) Ohh, you're just butthurt that Rey is not a Skywalker.
2) Ohh, you're just butthurt because Luke is not way you wanted him to be.
3) Ohh, you're too stupid to understand the depth of the movie, look at the critics score.

To which my response is:
No, b*tch, I'm butthurt because this movie contradicts everything we've seen in the OT, it contradicts everything that was built up in TFA. There's no logic in what happens in TLJ. The whole plot of it doesn't make sense. It uses cheap twists and sells it as a defying move from the visionary director. Whoever has got a fraction of a brain in their skull would understand that.

 

Totally agree. Long time fan that hasn't judged any previous movie harshly. Sure there were some glaring problem with the prequels but if you look closely at the OT you see they're not perfect either.

I loved TFA. Happy to embrace new characters. Didn't need the fan service but didn't mind it. I'm not obsessed with the lore and I'm ok with trying something new. But man was this awful.

While watching this movie I felt like I was being PUNKED. It was that bad. It felt like a cruel joke.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 16, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 16, 2017 ---

I don't understand why Finn and Rey are separated the whole damn movie. That seemed pointless. I get that she has Jedi training to do (or whatever passes for training in that film) but why are we introducing Rose at this point? Those two had legit chemistry in the first movie.

Every interesting character was isolated from one another and paired with new terrible characters. The one glaring exception being Luke and Rey which they literally turned into a complete joke from their first scene together.

 

One thing I noticed after subsequent viewing is how let down I was with the Crait battle scene. I actually find this scene from Star Tours more visually stunning, I expected the movie to surpass it:

Spoiler: for those who haven't seen the Star Tours leak

 

Holdo wishes whats left of the resistance God speed before she rams her ship into the FO fleet. It is just such an earthly human phrase that doesn't fit for me. There are no actual gods that we know of in the SW universe

 

Yea it seems the people who genuinely enjoyed this movie are more butthurt about us not liking it than we are about the actual film.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 16, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 16, 2017 ---

Probably nitpicking but when Finn referred to the authorities as "Cops" it bugged me a bit.

 

Didn't completely hate it.

I wanted to see it again before sharing opinion, and now I have. I gave it a 4/10 in the poll thread.
I found it genuinely disappointing. As an action/sci fi movie, it's fine, well made, well shot, fine. As a star wars movie it left an awful lot to be desired.
You know, I'm all for trying a new direction, and not trying to re-hash what's been done before, and that's what they tried to do in this movie, but they just simply got it wrong in my opinion.

I'm just gonna list what I enjoyed and then what I didn't.

The good:

The space battles were excellently shot and genuinely exciting. The camera angles were great, as were the effects, without being overbearing. The moment where Holdo jumps the ship straight through the Supremacy, intertwined with Rey and Kylo pulling Luke's lightsaber apart was genuinely one of the strongest and most visually stunning moments in any Star Wars film.

Tying in with that, I liked the whole premise of the last resistance ships on the run with the First Order in close pursuit and slowly weakening their defenses. There was a genuinely tense feeling of them being hunted down and I think it added a lot to the movie, even though it's not an original concept (Battlestar Galactica did it first and better). Although I liked this concept, it did introduce the need for refueling of the resistance ships which has never been mentioned before in any movie, and does seem a little convenient.

Yoda's appearance. They caught the vibe and tone of OT Yoda perfectly, the little dance, the playful nature. It was a wonderful few minutes, and probably the only stage during the movie where I felt like I was watching an actual Star Wars movie.

Kylo Ren. He's a great character, and a great actor. Not much more to say about that.

The final battle with what was left of the Resistance against the First Order. I thought it was well set up, with a slight feel of the Helm's Deep battle from The Two Towers. It was a bold decision to all but kill off the Resistance, and one that I think works for the trilogy as it means that Episode 9 now can't really end with one big space battle between the FO and Resistance, which we've seen enough times at this point.

I've seen a lot of complaints about Luke's force projection at the end, and I understand the disappointment with that. I would have preferred Luke to physically be there facing Kylo, imagine what an epic battle it could have been. That said, I thought the force projection idea was novel and different, and fairly well executed, so I'd have to put it down as something I enjoyed in the movie. Yes, we've never seen it used before, but only Luke was shown to be capable of doing it, and we know he's extremely powerful with the force, so it makes sense he may have abilities we haven't seen before.

The lightsaber battles were fine, fairly well executed, in particular Kylo and Rey versus Snoke's guards.

I will also say I found the acting in general very good.

That's about as much as I can find to be positive about.


The bad:

Lets start with the inevitable; Luke. I found him throwing the Lightsaber away like that to be very jarring and odd, straight off the bat. It was symbolic in it's message to the audience to throw away their expectations for the movie, and that's exactly why it's in there, but you can set things off in a different direction and make a unique movie without affecting the continuity of a character we all love and know very well. Luke to me, is calmer, more measured and wiser than that and his now overly grumpy and impulsive nature is a theme that continued with his character throughout the movie. I mean, OT Luke was wiser and more mature than this version, even though he's much older and more experienced now. It didn't feel right and is a serious misstep, as Mark Hamill pointed out himself. They made him seem such a basic character. He went through all he did with Vader and the Emperor, saved the Galaxy.. but yet couldn't handle a failed Jedi academy and losing his nephew to the Dark side? He would have known from Vader that no one is ever beyond saving. He would have tried. He wouldn't have holed himself up as a hermit and given up. They've simplified his character. Luke should have a much deeper and nuanced backstory than this. Hamill did the best he could with the script. One of the most disappointing aspects of the movie for me. I'm not going to complain about them killing him off because at least it was done well, even if the reasons for him dying are a bit weak, and frankly they made such a mess of the character he's probably better off gone. Even so, he should probably have been kept around until early in episode 9.

The entire Finn/Rose/DJ storyline was stupid and pointless and had awful CGI moments that felt very PT. Don't need to go into it in detail, you've all seen it. It felt weird and out of place with the rest of the movie and worse, it felt like it was just tacked on to give Finn something to do because realistically he wouldn't have had much else to do in this movie. He was wasted in this besides ending Phasma and he's had a serious demotion from essentially being a co-main character in TFA. It's a shame. I think having him sacrifice himself to destroy the cannon at the end would have been a better choice for him because there would have been some emotional resonance for the audience at least and a reasonable completion of his character arc. What they're going to do with him in Episode 9 I'm not sure.

The Rey/Kylo mind connection plot was a little dull for me. It didn't really add much to the story. I mean, when Luke and Vader were able to verbalise basically all the same things about finding light or darkness in each other and turning etc. I think it would have been enough for Rey and Kylo to discuss those things when they're on screen together also. A good chunk of screen time was wasted with these sequences that I thought weren't particularly well executed anyway.

I'm not gonna complain about Phasma dying because I wasn't overly enthralled with her character in the first place. She's a stormtrooper who was physically imposing and had a leadership role, that's it. We don't need more character development for her. However between the 2 movies she had a combined 10 minutes screen time perhaps? Could have been used to better effect.

Snoke definitely was under used and under developed as a character. Another serious misstep to kill him in this movie, and was probably done because Johnson was so intent on getting away from re-using beats from the previous movies and didn't want to use another Vader/Palpatine type motif for Snoke and Kylo. He was potentially an even more interesting and powerful character than Palpatine, it just seems like a massive wasted opportunity. I wanted to know more about him and I wanted him to have more screen time. The comical look on his face while Hux viewed his dead body says it all about the apparent distain Rian Johnson had for this character. Inexplicable.


There was a lot of good things in this movie, and its very well made in general, but the story and character flaws are glaring and a major disappointment for me. I'd have no issue with Johnson directing again but perhaps let someone who has a better grasp of characterisation write them.

Here's hoping episode 9 can repair some of the damage and salvage this Trilogy.