Star Wars VIII : The Last Jedi [WARNING: SPOILERS]

Soldato
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Who on earth decided the Luke / milk scene was a good idea...

I may be thinking 100% out of the box with this I know but how about this - with the satisfied grin Luke looks at Rey with as he wipes his mouth I wonder if the directors thought behind the scene was to show that Luke was doing something disgusting to show Rey how far he'd fallen from being the "Hero" she'd assumed he'd be with a kind of like a "look at your Hero now, is he worth it?" thought?

However thats just pulling a "meaning" to the scene outta my bum to fill in all the missing blanks the film has regarding Luke.
 
Man of Honour
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Watching this again right now and had to post urgently because its evidently such a big deal to me... the criticism about Leia's re-entry into the ship and that it should suck everyone out into space is absolutely unwarranted. There is clearly a second door (which must have closed behind her) - you'd have to be blind to miss it tbh. So much unwarranted criticism! :o :o :o
 
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The mere idea that it's worse then the prequels is ludicrous to me. AotC isn't even a film, just a series of moving images that aspire to be something even vaguely interesting.

The hyperbole surrounding this movie is mind blowing.

The prequels were in many ways hateful but somehow I didn't find them as dumb, stupid and insulting the viewer at every opportunity as this movie.

I'm not even into Star Wars just appreciated the escapism of the original 3 movies - not that bothered if they break canon, etc. but this movie did some of the most dumb and ridiculous things with characters that felt completely out of type without even bothering to backfill any kind of possible plausibility for it.

I seriously can't remember a movie before that made me want to bash my brains out every time they introduced something new - most of it ripped off themes from the original 3 movies but without any of the endearing or good elements of those things.
 
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Further to my previous post, I enjoyed it a lot on the second viewing (i.e. on the small at home). From a purely visual perspective, it truly is a beautiful film - ultra slick, bombastic and with truly absurd detail for the most fleeting of shots. I felt I could take it in more from the comfort of my couch.

As I alluded to earlier this evening, a lot of the criticisms in this thread are hilariously overzealous - I don’t have the energy to pour into it I’m afraid so I’ll summarise by saying (a): the technology they are using doesn’t even exist and never has, don’t criticise something for not making sense that cannot make sense and never has, (dog fights in space ffs - just laser them from afar!), just go with it, and (b): the only exception to (a) is making kamikaze light speed a thing... but perhaps there are shield reasons that always make this a no go in earlier episodes. That said, there are moments that are certainly rather dumb for sure (the flying in space scene is particularly jarring) but overall it’s a win. Having rewatched all of the earlier Star Wars films quite recently, as an overall product it sits quite easily as my second favourite (behind Empire).

There were some themes that I thought were more obvious on the second viewing - notably the theme of ‘luck and chance’. When asked by Poe how Rose and Finn met, Rose replies “luck” - foreshadowing their entire story-arc. I can see why people didn’t like that this didn’t go anywhere but that’s what I liked about it - a big rejection of the predictable trope of the good guys winning against stupid odds.

There were a couple of bemusing moments that tickled me more the second time around - most notably the James Bond character in the Casino and how he is hyped to be the most amazing person of all time... just what is Maz referring to when she says he can do ANYTHING :eek:

Also, I’m positive that Maz’s dialogue about a trade dispute (that “you won’t want to hear about” despite the action going on all around Maz) is a clever dig at people getting hung up on phantom menace for the wrong reasons, but simultaneously conceding that focussing an action film on a trade dispute is pretty lame! :p

It IS a lot longer on a second viewing for sure and it could be shorter in the final sequences. I also think the character of Rey needs fleshing our a bit and I agree she is just a bit too perfect (but her acting is pretty good given what she’s got to say and do). Kylo Ren was the star of the show. All of the scenes with phasma were pointless / boring and that hanger sequence should have but dramatically edited down. The casino sections of the film really don’t bother me that much... certainly not as much as the snore fest / ‘plot hole central’ that is Jabba’s palace in ROTJ!

Yeah, that was all sprawling thoughts but I enjoyed it again.
 
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the technology they are using doesn’t even exist and never has, don’t criticise something for not making sense that cannot make sense and never has, (dog fights in space ffs - just laser them from afar!)

There are plenty of movies and games, etc. though that make use of these things in a way that is sort of believable while at the same time they can't make sense. As someone who once read up the supposed specs of a Star Destroyer it was just horrible and mind numbing how they were used in the movie (or rather mostly not used). These things have dozens and dozens of mixed turrets from close range point defences to longer range closer to capital class weapons combined with long range tractor tech (120+KM) which probably wouldn't have been able to pull the cruiser towards them but a few of them would certainly have been able to slow it down considerably.

Never mind the bit with the cloaked ships that seemingly could be seen visually by the good guys at any time even outside of any kind of contrived "maybe they had some kind of HUD showing a visual representation of them, etc." but not by the bad.

The movie is dumb as **** from just about every angle the only thing I was impressed with was the visuals (which is pretty much the only reason I didn't turn it off as I'm always interested in that) shame the same attention to detail visually wasn't reflected in attention to detail anywhere else.

The movie was a string of contrived together to make it work where it was so contrived things didn't even have consistency from one scene to the next never mind any semblance of believability or the other movies, etc. it is literally hands down the worst movie I've ever watched.
 
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Man of Honour
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The movie was a string of contrived together to make it work where it was so contrived things didn't even have consistency from one scene to the next never mind any semblance of believability or the other movies, etc. it is literally hands down the worst movie I've ever watched.
Wow :eek: - scathing indeed!
 
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Ah finally remembered what those silly fish in frock caretaker things reminded me off... Miss Tiggy Winkle LOL - Beatrix Potter did it first.
 
Soldato
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@Nitefly I'm broadly on board with your way of thinking. As a generalisation I've found younger viewers and those who aren't diehard long terms fans enjoy it and those who are really invested seem to loathe it :p

Apart from the pointless casino arc I did enjoy it and I'm looking forward to the next one though u do struggle to see where they will take it as the end felt like a trilogy ending film with in regards to where it was left.
 
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@Nitefly I'm broadly on board with your way of thinking. As a generalisation I've found younger viewers and those who aren't diehard long terms fans enjoy it and those who are really invested seem to loathe it :p

Apart from the pointless casino arc I did enjoy it and I'm looking forward to the next one though u do struggle to see where they will take it as the end felt like a trilogy ending film with in regards to where it was left.

I'm definitely older and jaded as viewers go - not invested in Star Wars myself though I appreciate the escapism it can have.

Having played games like Eve Online a lot and watched a few movies that manage to do space battles in a semi-believable fashion with some kind of actual application of tactics and so on and without having to contrive everything to work and/or to produce a spectacle I find all those elements of this movie utterly trash - even the older ones were at least passable in that respect even if they didn't necessarily do it well.

I found the level of contrivance just destroyed any ability to even switch off brain and enjoy which I have managed to do with some other movies that had so-so writing, etc. but reasonably watchable action and great visuals - the odd time someone who just happens to have come from X at the right time in the script to know about Y, etc. you can pass over but the whole movie depended on it to move forward at every turn with one contrivance required to back up another while not even being consistent in the next scene.

At the same time if people enjoy it I don't have a problem with that as such/don't want to be too narky about it but personally my brain was and still is reeling from just how trash I found it (I'd heard it wasn't great but after Rogue One and TFA I thought it would atleast be passable if not good) - totally surprised the whole lot didn't just get deleted - never mind the hours and hours of content that was deleted that is mostly even worse and I didn't think that possible from watching the movie until I flicked through the bonus content.
 
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Randomly I laothed TFA which from your comments I would guess you liked? Weird :p

I will agree rogue one was fantastic though!

TFA was mostly forgettable for me - some good bits but overall it was just OK with a few bits I didn't like such as Maz Kanata who just felt out of place. On the basis of that I thought TLJ at least wouldn't be worse - I felt like they'd captured a lot of the essence of Star Wars but still had some work to do and I hoped they'd learnt from it going forward which Rouge One tentatively suggested they had started to.

Rogue One I mostly enjoyed - some really great bits, some bits I had to switch off brain but nothing that really stopped me enjoying it.
 
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Unless you start applying the same critical analysis to the originals as people are to TLJ then you obviously aren't going think it's any good.

I really don't understand how anyone can like Phantom Menace more than TLJ? :confused:
I reckon there are more ridiculously stupid bits in the TPM than in the other films combined.
 
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