What Could Have Improved Canto Bight?

I like Canto Bight and didn't have a problem with it. But I think it could have been a perfect opportunity for a Lando cameo. Maybe he recognizes who they represent, talks to them and points out a better Slicer sitting in a cell that they should use.They go break him out. I think that would have been a better reason for the CBPD to be after them than parking on the beach.

 

i totally agree about the Lando cameo!
even if it was just briefly at a table or maybe he recognizes them and signals a back down (even though they still get caught or something).
i like the idea of maybe something shady so, like you say, there's more reason for the CBPD to be chasing them (up those stakes!)

but i also still think it should have been Finn and Poe. i don't hate Rose, but we honestly didn't need her when we have Poe.
coulda shaved 15 minutes off the runtime (or put that elsewhere to something better) by making Poe's mutiny a "desertion" instead.
and i don't know anyone who didn't want a bro-venture between our flyboy and our ex-trooper. : o (

 

The proprietors of CB are pretty well demonized though. Associating Lando with that would be a decent disservice to the character.

 

this is why i think he should just be at a table, doing something nefarious (being a spy or something).

 

I agree. It would have been a good opportunity for a Bro adventure. I like Rose aslo as a character but she wasn't a necessary character either.

 

I feel like none of these poll options would truly fix it. Preface: I love The Last Jedi. But the whole Canto Bight thing feels contrived and incidental. I don't agree with people who say it "goes nowhere," because I actually really like where it goes--them failing, them getting betrayed, etc.

But the "we need a codebreaker" thing just feels manufactured to me. We've never needed a codebreaker before and we've had loads of sneak-into-the-bad-guy's-base storylines in Star Wars. And the plot moves forward because they just happen to park on the beach, and that just happens to be a jailable offense (for some reason?) and they just happen to find a codebreaker in prison and they just happen to find themselves in the Fathier stables.

 

Yeah. RJ, with impressively little nuance, paints all of CB (the people that run it and the people that solicit it) as morally bankrupt figures. Without some ulterior design, allying Lando with that backdrop would only serve to make him part of the problem. I know that’s not how I want the old smoothie portrayed. He’s a scoundrel, sure, but he’s not a creep.

 

this kinda makes me sad because i feel like we started out this ST with a bit more grey in terms of good guys and bad guys, but although DJ tows that line, it's a premise utterly rejected ultimately by what we see of the FO behavior and of Canto Bight. : o p

 

The first order doesn’t have to run it but they could have followed them there and given phasma a bigger role.

R2 was enough before, no reason to think BB8 couldn’t have done it, but the DJ doesn’t have a purpose. But he just needs to be the devil on Finns shoulder to roses angel. That was his real purpose

 

Maybe for scenes of the Master Codebreaker witnessing the Faithers chase eg:

 

i'd improve it by deleting it because of how unnecessary it was

 

BEFORE watching the film, I thought Canto Bight was a missed opportunity to have a Lando appearance. AFTER seeing it, I agree there was no place for him there within the film's discourse.

Now, Lando should have totally been Maz in both TFA and this. Removing a bit of the Force stuff, of course. But it would have worked wonderfully for the most part and fixed one of TFA's weaker points.

 

After re-watching this film a few times this is probably my least favorite part of the film, but it's also pretty short. I love the creatures and the set. I think we could have used more DJ, but the film was already long and I'm not sure it would have added much to the story.

I would have had Maz help them in Canto Bight. It would have been nice to get more from that character instead of that one short scene.

 

I honestly don’t believe Canto can be fixed. From the horrible special effects to the lack of any meaningful impact on the story, I really do think the film would be better if the entire sequence was just eliminated.

And just as a tangent I find the scene with Maz to be equally awful. What sense does it make that she knows Poe? Her 1000 year old watering hole has just been reduced to rubble and now she is in a gun fight somewhere in a union dispute? The entire scene is laughably bad and illogical.

 

Canto is not supposed to have any meaningful impact on the story any more than Han and Leia fleeing the Empire in an asteroid belt and ending up in a Space Slug stomach had on The Empire Strikes Back. The whole subplot exists for character development and relationship building. This describes it better:

 

Disclaimer - I loved TLJ but didn't like Canto Bight.

One of the things that bothered me most about it was the fathiers' strength and agility. It just seemed unrealistic. We see them cowering under whips then jumping through windows and smashing vehicles like they're apex predators.

An grazing animal the size of a rhino should move like a rhino, and with the speed of a rhino. It just seemed wrong physically to see them jump like jungle leopards and smash things like grizzly bears.

 

For those arguing that Rose and Finn should've saved the stable children and not the fathiers - what exactly would they have done with those kids? Bring them back to a war zone as they attempted to sneak on board a star destroyer? Dropped them off at a reputable space foster home wasting precious time in getting back to attempt the code break? Let them loose in the Canto wilderness to fend for themselves? They couldn't have escaped the Canto police to begin with and gotten away with 3 children in tow. They freed the fathiers only after they were used as their source of escape from the police. They could then live off the land as adaptable animals. Not so easy with young children.

 

Yeah, but the movie's solution is to have them still there with the difference that now, they have more work to do for the rich, thanks to Finn and Rose. Sure, they have hope, but they are still slaves.

The fathiers will be found and captured again (they have nowhere to go, because the casino land is surrounded by an ocean).

However, my problem is not what Finn and Rose did; my problem is the way Rose is satisfied and the "now is worthy" stuff.

I am not saying that *this way* or *that way* could improve the scene, but Rian should have come with something else.

 

How hard would it be to add a scene where via holonet they found out there was a Slave Rebellion that liberated Canto Bight due to the hope that Finn and Rose inspired, instead of Broom Boy?

edit:
dropping the slave children at the nearest space foster home would be a good plan. Because they wouldn't "waste precious time" because everything happens instantly in TLJ.

 

The final scene is about Luke's sacrifice on Crait. So a final slave rebellion at Canto Bight wouldn't really make sense in that context.