TLJ - A great movie but an awful sequel?

NoSir. Not Nearly Drunk (...Not Yet, Anyways)

Mad ?!
YES !
At Closed Minded Folk !!!!

 

How do you know they are close minded if you didn't read?

 

I will continue to say that RJ should have been given a Standalone movie first instead of a Saga movie, because obviously he didn't want to deal with many setups from TFA. He readily admits that Snoke is hampering Ren's story so he offed him. Now he maybe right, but you can't just kill him in TLJ after this big buildup in TFA. The same goes with the lightsaber toss by Luke, the very little explanation about Rey's heritage and why she can do ANYTHING with the force without having ANY training. TFA has been rendered irrelevant as you could pop in TLJ and I don't think it would skip a beat.

 

I get both sides to liking or disliking this movie, but this was not a good episode two of three.

I liked it, by itself.

But the fact of the matter is, for the first time EVER, I have zero interest in watching it again.

I have watched each SW movies hundreds of times and get endless enjoyment from doing so.

For me that is the problem. It doesn't feel like Star Wars. Luke was tragic wreck that I really didn't enjoy except for the moments. The day-to-day following him and Rey around was tiresome, but more importantly - joyless and uninteresting.

Finn could have been left out of the movie completely and nothing would have changed. The hour or so devoted to his storyline was meaningless. Canto Bight was noticeably underwhelming when compared to the Cantina or Maz's place. His battle with Phasma was about as unclimactic as you could have made it (though it was visually stunning).

The endless chasing of the Resistance cruiser was mind-numbing. Every 10 minutes or so we would get yet another clip showing the same thing, over and over. While I actually appreciated Holdo's character, Poe was an idiot several times over and there was realistically good opportunity for them both to explain themselves.

Where was Rey's development. She went from knowing quite a bit to, well, knowing quite a bit.

Snoke's guards were comical. The choreography of the fight seen was alright, but their weapons were overly fanciful and their exaggerated stances were not believable.

Hux is complete idiot. Not much else to say there.

So look, there were good parts, even some epic parts. But they were just "parts" and "moments." They didn't really even grow to become great "scenes."

The bottom line is this film left me feeling empty and unenthusiastic. Whether you feel the same or not, the reviews from life long Star Wars fans are troubling. Will I see the next movie on opening night? Sure. I'm not calling for mass extinction of my Star Wars fandom. But as I opened with: I have zero interest in watching this again - and that, my friends, is a first.

More disturbingly, of the ten people I went to opening night with, eight feel exactly the same.

 

I couldn't have said it any better then this. SW movies were always fun to watch and even though the PT had their problems, I still revisited them in the theater or on DVD. I have no desire to watch this ever again.

 

I went to see it with 8 other people too. and of them I'd only describe myself and my friend as fans of the saga. everyone except for us loved it. and three of those people work in the film industry, one as an acting coach they all loved it. I have massive problems with the film i've only seen it once as of right now, I want to see it again and see how I feel then.
I felt the tone was off and that Luke was out of character. It felt more like Frozen to me than Star Wars. Having said that my favourite character is Kylo Ren and he still got a lot of decent and interesting development so I enjoyed all of those parts.

I hated the comic tone and the cheesy lines. I think fans have less of a desire to watch it because it is basically beating them up through out the duration. breaking down and questioning the things they hold dear, while new comers don't have that experience at all. lots of it enjoyed, the general tone I hated.

However I do think it sets up 9 well, and I do think people need to ask what is left to resolve. for me the issues are-

The fate of the Skywalkers and what the 9 films say all together about this family.

The fate of the galaxy and how peace can be achieved in the face of such odds.

The personal journeys of our new characters.


all of those things need answering, and I am really excited to see that concluded, especially as lots of Rian's themes and character arcs in TLJ deal with pacifism and its application.

 

I'm seeing this more and more as my friends/co-workers are a good section of diehard to casual SW fans. The casual fans like/love it, and the diehards all disdain it. I think I sort of figured out the reason why, as RJ pretty much crapped on the SW lore and diehard fans pick up on that, where the casual fans don't look into the movies that deep.

I can relate because I am not a big Star Trek Fan (my favorite is Star Trek 4: Voyage Home), so I never got into the politics or the different races in that franchises. My diehard Trekkie friends take offense to movies like Star Trek 5, where I saw it and thought it was entertaining but moved on. So I think the average movie goer sees TLJ and isn't really invested that much in Luke so doesn't care what RJ did to his character, as they just enjoy the 3 different stories and the constant action. The diehards see all of the flaws, all of the disrespect at the OT/PT mythology and it is more infuriating then enjoyable.

 

Also, add to your list:

why/how did a map to Luke exist?

why/how did R2 have the missing piece of said map.

as per TLJ, if Kylo Ren believed Luke to dead following the destruction of the Jedi temple, why was he searching for the map?

what happened to Hux in the short timespan to change him from fearful space nazi to comic pantomime villain?

how did Maz Kanata cone to be in possession of Anakin's lightsaber?

how/what has Vader shown Kylo Ren of the dark side?

has Kylo Ren ever REALLY communed with his grandfather?

Luke has faced and survived both Vader and the Emperor who were masters of the dark side of the Force and infinitely more powerful and capable than Kylo Ren. Why does Luke, now a powerful force user, fear Kylo Ren's power so much?

I could go on .....

 

Yeah I think thats mostly true. its one of the things that irked me was the lack of continuity and tone from the others compared with TLJ. I'm actually a fan of the arcs involving Rey, Luke and all that, including all the reveals and twists. but not at all the execution of those things.

Like, luke towards the end of the film. we get this big twist during the showdown, then we get the next twist in relation to luke. and its meaningless. I feel like the film offers fake high stakes, it makes a call and characters make choices but at every point these 'meaningful' choices are undercut or shown in the next moment to be meaningless, which I think is the weakest point of the film, like....let Finn make his own decisions, let their actions have concequences or their no risk for us as an audience and their is no investment. thats another reason i doubt it will hold up on multiple viewing, every meaningful descision a character makes is doubled back on quickly afterwards. exept for a couple of Kylo's which he sticks to.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 20, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 20, 2017 ---

can I just ask as for the anakin saber...when we see Ben Solo in the flashback is the blue saber he uses Anakins?
did anyone see the hilt?
does that mean Maz took it from him? does it explain why he wants it back so much?
and how come when luke fights him at the end he doesn't notice Luke is using a saber Ren just watched get pulled apart?
I noticed....why the hell didn't luke have the green saber? that was poor continuity and thats how I read it while watching the film, anyone who knows what that saber looks like would have noticed luke was using a saber that had just been destroyed....why didn't kylo ren?

 

I'e seen it twice and not really itching to see it again although I no doubt will once it is released for the home market. For me, unlike all of the other movies, there's nothing spectacularly memorable and no particular scene that I can't wait to revisit. I can't even really recall any memorable lines, which is a shame.

 

I didn't think it was a good movie in general, but it was an even worse sequel to TFA. One of the worst follow ups to the chapter before it.

 

I proudly still hate TFA thankyouverymuch!
And I do like TLJ, although really, hate and like both might be too strong of words to use for these films. It all depends on what happens in IX.

I'm going to see TLJ again tomorrow, so I rewatched TFA today, (which I meant to do before seeing TLJ but left the film at our cabin). I really agree with you, especially about the Force flashback. There's a lot in there that is still unexplained or actually contradicted. My hope is that some of this will be explained in a satisfactory way by JJ since he is coming back. But honestly, I don't have faith in him in terms of the plot, I thought the plot in TFA was very weak.

I am a little hopeful that the fact Rian got another trilogy to work with means this one can be resolved satisfactorily in terms of the Skywalker saga. They bit off more than they could chew trying to end that story and start a new one at the same time. So now Rian really has a new toy to play with- that's where the new story will be, not with Rey. There's not a whole lot more to say about her considering there's only one more movie left and she's almost already a Jedi. So I'm more hopeful that Kylo's story arc will be paid attention to, and however Rey intersects with that. Including in the past, because I still think he has known her or at least known of her, for a long time. If JJ could circle back to those things, he could better connect TFA to TLJ and finish out the story in a much better way.