The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

[Rakaydos]

Looking foward to your thoughts of the "palete cleanser" movies, Rogue 1 and Solo.

[afroakuma]

Saph, I've gotta ask, what is your verdict on "Snoke" as a name?

[Saph]

Saph, I've gotta ask, what is your verdict on "Snoke" as a name?

Honestly, I didn't really notice it one way or the other, though now that you mention it, it really doesn't sound very impressive for a Dark Lord of the Sith. Makes me think of "smoke", "snort", and "snorkel".

[Hopeless]

How would you have reacted if Rey was the force sensitive former Storm Trooper and Finn was the scavenger?

[Saph]

How would you have reacted if Rey was the force sensitive former Storm Trooper and Finn was the scavenger?

I honestly don't even know what that would mean. Finn's whole character is that he's a former Storm Trooper, he's got no identity apart from that. I've no clue who Finn would even be as a scavenger. Do you mean John Boyega as a scavenger? Because I can imagine scavenger-Boyega, but I can't imagine scavenger-Finn.

[super dark33]

TFA was perfect for the moment it was released on and aged like fine milk from then.

Watching this movie perfectly blind after all the anticipation of a sequel trilogy is at first very exciting and fun, JJ doesnt write a good story but he does know how to hype a crowd.

Once you start putting your thoughts into it, everything begins to fall apart....


I guess your mext film is Rogue 1, which i havent watched.


But in the sequel trilogy, the next is TLJ which i will keep saying is the best Stars War to be put on a screen.

[Sapphire Guard]

Ineffective villains can work, but if they can't threaten the leads they need to be able to threaten something the leads care about. Issue is, our leads aren't invested in anything.

The republic is destroyed, but none of our leads have ties to it. Rey has no ties to Jakku, Finn has no ties to his fellow troopers. Poe doesn't get a reaction to the Republic going down. Starkiller base does the single greatest war crime in the history of the galaxy, but none of our characters care or get to react.

Spoiler: Force Pushes and Combat, other nonsense

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I think that is just a difference in how we watch things. For example in PM I noticed Obi and Qui doing a super speed move right in the beginning. And then the next three movies I tried to count all the times super speed would have solved a problem. I counted decently high. So I’m more prone to thinking that the people I’m watching are idiots. You’re more capable of just accepting that the characters are performing to the best of their abilities.

I used to think like that more than I do now, but more often than not, when I actually looked into things or learned more about what they were doing, the person that was wrong was me. We can't tell watching how tired people are, for instance, and something that looks easy can be much harder to execute in practice.

Taking that super speed moment, the fact that they use it once in an appropriate situation doesn't mean it's always appropriate. Let's say it's analogous to full tilt sprinting.

The ability of people to sprint doesn't mean they can do it all the time, and a consequence of running fast generally involves more difficulty stopping. Suppose Obi uses it in the final fight v Maul...and thus can't stop and falls right into the hole at the end of the laser gate corridor, or is out of breath from his super speed run and then has to face a fresh Maul.

Now, that analogy may not be accurate, but it's possible, and that's enough for me to say 'maybe the people studying these things for years know more about their powers than me.'

You keep saying that Kenobi could just Force Push Anakin into the lava. Well, earlier in the fight, we see them both Force push each other and cancel each other out. So they could do it again, why not, and Anakin doesn't get pushed into the lava. Or, if you want to go the if X is viable it would have been more useful there," then Force push would have been more useful when Anakin jumped than what Kenobi actually did, so Force pushing there must not have been viable, by that logic.

Also, as to your claim that Kenobi dying if Vader also dies being acceptable for Kenobi... no it wouldn't be? Kenobi can't afford to assume Yoda will win, just as Yoda can't afford to assume Kenobi will win; they each have to do their very best to defeat their Sith and also survive themselves to maximize the chances of the Jedi getting to the babies. Kenobi dying would be winning the battle to lose the war, so far as he knows. Plunging the galaxy under the dominion of the Empire so long as Anakin dies. Does that sound like a trade Kenobi would make?

The Force pushes don't cancel each other out, they send both combatants flying backwards off their feet. In which case Anakin goes backwards into lava, and Kenobi falls further back up the rock. A push lock there is a victory for Obi and death for Anakin.

Move the platform? Same applies. Short jump forward? Same applies.

Lifting and carrying stuff with the Force is generally shown to be slower and take more concentration than the simple push, as Dooku takes advantage of against Yoda in AOTC.

My point was Anakin won't throw lava if it leads to him being pushed off a platform to his death based on the possibility he might hit Obi with lava. There's also potential for the lava to be pushed into his face. if he throws it forwards into Obi's push.

His one (long) shot is to get into a position he can't be pushed into lava, hence the attempted long jump over Obi's head.

Is any of this irrefutable truth? No. But it makes enough sense that it's premature to decide 'these characters are idiots that are badly written'.

[Peelee]

But in the sequel trilogy, the next is TLJ which i will keep saying is the best Stars War to be put on a screen.

I don't think anyone would argue that it's the most divisive Star Wars.

[Saph]

The republic is destroyed, but none of our leads have ties to it. Rey has no ties to Jakku, Finn has no ties to his fellow troopers. Poe doesn't get a reaction to the Republic going down. Starkiller base does the single greatest war crime in the history of the galaxy, but none of our characters care or get to react.

Yeah, this. I vaguely noticed at the time that my reaction to this giant act of galactic-scale death was 'meh'. It's because the film doesn't give it any impact. We don't know any of the people who die, none of the characters know any of the people who die. We don't even know who dies! It's vaguely implied that the strike hurts the Republic somehow, but we have no idea what the Republic is or whether it's good or bad. The planets that are destroyed don't even get names.

[ImperiousLeader]

Yeah, this. I vaguely noticed at the time that my reaction to this giant act of galactic-scale death was 'meh'. It's because the film doesn't give it any impact. We don't know any of the people who die, none of the characters know any of the people who die. We don't even know who dies! It's vaguely implied that the strike hurts the Republic somehow, but we have no idea what the Republic is or whether it's good or bad. The planets that are destroyed don't even get names.

Yeah, that was a weakness of the movie ... that and the fact that we see it in real time in another system (?), though this is something JJ did before in Star Trek 2009.

From context, though, the strike on the Hosnian system destroyed not only the Republic government, but also the bulk of their navy. It would be like if Pearl Harbor had happened while the US government was visiting and got wiped out as well in the airstrike.

[Fyraltari]

The movie was originally planned to spend some time on Hosnian Prime but that was cut, leaving us with a single shot of charcters we should have known watching their impending doom.

Most of that plotline was incorporated in the very good prequel book Bloodlines.

[Mechalich]

Yeah, that was a weakness of the movie ... that and the fact that we see it in real time in another system (?), though this is something JJ did before in Star Trek 2009.

And people yelled at JJ for doing it in Star Trek 2009, notable people, even. Neil Degrasse Tyson brought it up over and over again. Which meant that if you'd heard anything about it before it totally breaks your suspension of disbelief when he does it again. It's a massive testament to JJ Abrams complete hack nature that he doubled down on repeating a shot that it had been repeatedly explained would not work. He should have known the effect it would have on a significant portion of the audience, but he just didn't care.

[Dire_Flumph]

Yeah, that was a weakness of the movie ... that and the fact that we see it in real time in another system (?), though this is something JJ did before in Star Trek 2009.
From context, though, the strike on the Hosnian system destroyed not only the Republic government, but also the bulk of their navy. It would be like if Pearl Harbor had happened while the US government was visiting and got wiped out as well in the airstrike.

The one big Kudos I will run at Star Wars: Resistance is it retroactively gave that action weight by making it matter to the characters resisting the First Order on the Colossus. Kaz had family on Honsian Prime, and was trying to get information there to stir the Republic to bring help. The moment where Kaz realizes in horror that no help is coming and his family might all be dead is the one great bit of earned drama in the entire 1st season.

And then JJ does it again later, blowing up a planet I can't remember a thing about even though our characters were just there.

[Bartmanhomer]

I can't wait when you review the Rise Of The Skywalker, Saph.

[russdm]

But hey! The next one makes the ideas in this one worth it.

Actually it doesn't. If The Force Awakens can be seen as a retread of A New Hope, then The Last Jedi is very much a Retread of Empire Strikes Back, but in Prequel levels of bad. And adds in bad stuff

To Compare)

Spoiler: The Last Jedi spoilers

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Empire-Battle in the Snow // TLJ--Battle on Crait in snow with walkers even!
Empire-Escape from the Empire/Imperials, through asteroid // TLJ--Escape after evacuating base (same as Empire), no asteroids and many ships
Empire-Visit Bespin and Lando, explore Lando having to handle balancing his loyalty to Han versus protecting the town he runs from the Empire // TLJ--Visit Canto Bight and meet DJ, covers that people selling weapons make money, tries to make a moral point with Rose, but fails because its really weak
Empire-Rebels lose badly in end // TLJ--Resistance loses nearly all its members
Empire-Luke Learns Force Powers // TLJ--Rey self trains mostly, because Luke is having a tantrum
Empire-Luke duels Vader // TLJ--Rey meets with Kylo, Snoke dies, and then duels alongside Kylo
Empire-Meet Emperor // TLJ--Snoke shows up in flesh, Snoke also dies
Empire-Han uses a special move to escape the fleet // TLJ--Holdo uses special fleet tactic to wreck opposing fleet, also completely making every single other scene of space battle pointless in the entire saga at the same time.
Empire-Nothing // TLJ--Holdo is incapable of encouraging or improving the morale of the soldiers, leaves many of them believing there is no hope nor any kind of plan for surivival
Empire-Snowspeeder battle with tow cables // TLJ--Bizarrely designed bombers all try to bomb a single ship, succeed at mostly dying, also why doesn't the Resistance have Y-Wings? Those are way better than the bombers here
Empire-Nothing // TLJ--Poe decides being a hotshot pilot means he doesn't have to listen to orders, also Holdo is bad at being Admiral
Empire-Nothing // TLJ--Rose Tico, self-appointed guardian of the escape pods, designated moral person of Canto Bight, risks life to stop Finn from destroying gun that can break door that can buy more time for Resistance to escape. All to deliver a pithy line about love or something, door gets destroyed
Empire-Nothing // TLJ--Ships need fuel, or fuel actually matters more
Empire-Nothing // TLJ--Hyperspace Tracking
Empire-Nothing // TLJ--Holdo manages to cause a mutiny in the Resistance, which is based on the Rebellion, which has a very limited employment of military protocol and chain of command as previously depicted in movies/books/games

Material available for use in a sequel thanks to TLJ: Snoke is dead, so gone; Kylo Ren is in charge, has been stated to be pathetic or lacking as villain; Hux is around but is terrible; The Resistance has only the people on the Falcon still alive, thanks to Holdo; No one came to support the Resistance despite claims they would, so the First Order is definitely in control of galaxy despite the damage taken during TLJ; Rey has the Jedi texts; Luke is gone/deceased/one with the Force

The The Last Jedi is a horrible sequel to The Force Awakens. It completely wrecks anything that comes after, and it completely makes a poor use of characters like Luke and Leia. It also does nothing to help explain why we should care about the Resistance, it makes them appear highly incompetent.

JJ Abrams may have been bad at writing, but Rian Johnson is just as bad.

I don't think anyone would argue that it's the most divisive Star Wars.

Because many fans think it was terrible, while a bunch of critics thought it was great. Some fans thought it was good, other critics thought it was bad. TLJ is very much that you either hate it in varying degrees or you like it in varying degrees.

Honestly, The Sith Lords video game did a way better job of exploring deconstructing various star wars themes, and seems to more enjoyable.

Regarding Canto Bight: Yes, the movie tries to make the point that selling weapons is bad, but it doesn't set it up well. Yes, Rose, history, yes; but it isn't explored well. When there are two opposing sides in a war, you can make money by selling them weapons. Well, the Resistance needs weapons, so where does Rose think they come? Trees? The galaxy has been at war not that long ago, and everything in the canon shows/depicts that the New Republic provided no effective leadership, that it left many systems to the mercy of pirates and marauders. In fact the New Republic doesn't believe in having a military force to protect it nor that it should invest in peacekeeping. Just wishful words.

The other point of Canto Bight is that apparently gambling is bad, given that apparently people make money selling weapons then go to play gambling games. What was the essential point here {scrubbed}?

Spoiler: The Last Jedi spoilers

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Oh, and DJ totally ends up selling them out in the end.

[Aeson]

And people yelled at JJ for doing it in Star Trek 2009, notable people, even. Neil Degrasse Tyson brought it up over and over again. Which meant that if you'd heard anything about it before it totally breaks your suspension of disbelief when he does it again. It's a massive testament to JJ Abrams complete hack nature that he doubled down on repeating a shot that it had been repeatedly explained would not work. He should have known the effect it would have on a significant portion of the audience, but he just didn't care.

To be fair, the scene in The Force Awakens can at least have the non-explanation of "weird hyperspace physics" for why the shots are visible all over the galaxy whereas the Star Trek scene lacks even that much plausibility.

Mind you, I still think it's a ridiculous thing to have done in the movie, and that there's basically no reaction to it within the movie beyond "let's go blow up the bastard child of the Death Star and the Galaxy Gun" just makes it worse.

....

As to The Force Awakens, I generally agree with Saph's assessment of it. One comment that I have is that it feels to me like Starkiller Base getting blown up should've been pushed to the second film of the trilogy - the superweapon was introduced relatively late with basically no setup, the Resistance pretty much immediately knows how to deal with it because technobabble and Finn's convenient heretofore-unhinted knowledge, and the Resistance's dozen or so X-Wings are enough to destroy the place despite a reasonably rapid response from the installation's anti-fighter defenses and past Imperial experience with how well starfighters and gigantic spherical superweapons mix.

[Dienekes]

This is a pretty good breakdown, actually. I'll try to remember this one.

Hey, an actual writer thought my analysis of stories was good. I get to pretend I’m clever now!

And reading the rest of the thread I see the reason I never posted my “is Rey a Mary Sue?” thread has begun. While I myself am a defender of TLJ (though find it very very flawed). It is insanely divisive. Saph, I don’t know if it’s even possible at this point. But I’m hoping to see your unbiased review. I expect after it finishes though, things might get weird. And aggressive.

But before that nonsense, Rogue One!

[Forum Explorer]

Put me in the 'loved the Last Jedi' camp. Also, I disagree with you Russdm, while there are similarities with Empire Strikes Back, The Last Jedi is significantly different in that none of the scenes feel the same. The closest I'd say is that it parallels the Empire Strikes Back, but even that doesn't feel right.

I will agree that it's extremely divisive though.

[DataNinja]

For me, TLJ could be summed up as "scenes, in a vacuum, were fine. But taken relative to the franchise, or the rest of the movie... it just didn't work for me."

[super dark33]

Its only divisive because a lot of people insist on being wrong

Honestly though, its not surprising that the only one of the sequels that actually wants to SAY anything - messeges that arent truly out of place if youd compare them to the otiginal trilogy! would have a lot of people not liking it, especially since the messeges are Very Political.


Its the best stars war

[The_Snark]

I didn't care for The Last Jedi, but "it rehashed Empire Strikes Back too much" would not be one of my criticisms. There are a few broad similarities, notably

Spoiler

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it opens with the Empire decisively smashing a Rebel base, and then follows up with a prolonged chase scene and a general framing of "the good guys are just trying to escape and survive at this point, not win"; meanwhile, the Jedi member of the main cast goes off for an extended training sequence.

And of course the fight against the Imperial walkers on the salt flat planet at the end is an obvious homage to the Hoth battle in ESB. I suppose one could argue that the casino planet is a nod to Cloud City, but it doesn't feel all that similar to me, nor does it play out the same.

But it didn't feel like it was trying to mimic the original trilogy as closely as possible, the way TFA did. It was more its own thing, for better or worse.

[Peelee]

Honestly though, its not surprising that the only one of the sequels that actually wants to SAY anything - messeges that arent truly out of place if youd compare them to the otiginal trilogy! would have a lot of people not liking it

Given how the rest of the sequel trilogy, and the prequel trilogy as well, had a large amount of fan complaints, I would hazard a guess that "trying to SAY something" was what made people not like it. May have had something to do with how many people didn't like it or how vocal they were, but I'd hardly call it the biggest reason even then.

Its the best stars war

Given how divisive it is, that seems as good a reason as any reason to declare it the worst Star War.

[Hopeless]

I honestly don't even know what that would mean. Finn's whole character is that he's a former Storm Trooper, he's got no identity apart from that. I've no clue who Finn would even be as a scavenger. Do you mean John Boyega as a scavenger? Because I can imagine scavenger-Boyega, but I can't imagine scavenger-Finn.

Given how little character development they ended up using Finn's character and from your own description this isn't the first time its left me wondering whether had they swapped these characters over would that have changed anything?

You now know why Rey is so good at everything if she had been in training to become another Knight of Ren or part of Phasma's special forces unit.

Finn would have no reason to give a damn about the storm troopers and making him more of a Han Solo fan would help explain why he helped Rey escape Jakku.

And he gets to meet Han Solo so he'd actually meet his hero and like us would geek out over it!

Anyway best wishes with the next part I still can't bring myself to watch the Last Jedi I know enough about the story to understand the criticism and shake my head at the excuses made to cover up the mess it made!

With Knives Out now released it makes me wonder who was keeping watch over Rian during his latest movie that prevented what happened with episode 8.

More likely he knew he needed this to succeed.

[Peelee]

With Knives Out now released it makes me wonder who was keeping watch over Rian during his latest movie that prevented what happened with episode 8.

Rian Johnson directed three episodes of Breaking Bad. One is considered the best episode of the show. One is considered the worst.

Dude just seems like he's really hit or miss.

[Forum Explorer]

With Knives Out now released it makes me wonder who was keeping watch over Rian during his latest movie that prevented what happened with episode 8.

More likely he knew he needed this to succeed.

I think Knives Out just suits his style better. It's a comedy mystery, two genres that support and encourage subversion and surprise. Seriously, subverting expectations is a key part of a lot of comedy routines, and what fun is a mystery if you know what's going to happen right from the start?

While with something like Star Wars, subverting expectations is always going to piss off entrenched fans. Also I maintain he was working from a deficit to begin with, having to come off of The Force Awakens, where JJ Abrams basically reset the universe.

[Peelee]

I think Knives Out just suits his style better. It's a comedy mystery, two genres that support and encourage subversion and surprise. Seriously, subverting expectations is a key part of a lot of comedy routines, and what fun is a mystery if you know what's going to happen right from the start?

*Columbo whistles innocently*

[Forum Explorer]

*Columbo whistles innocently*

You still don't know what's going to happen in Columbo, just what you don't know has been inverted.

Anyways, I've been reading reviews of Rian's past works and a common statement is that his stuff is 'brave, original, ambitious,' and even 'risks ridicule.'

Point is, the guy tries to do something new with whatever he's given. That can backfire, and would certainly be divisive in an established franchise like Star Wars.

[Kitten Champion]

Rian Johnson directed three episodes of Breaking Bad. One is considered the best episode of the show. One is considered the worst.

Dude just seems like he's really hit or miss.

It's not like he wrote any of them. Unless his direction is so conspicuously different from the baseline series, it's difficult to subscribe to an auteur outlook for a long-running television show of which his artistic influence is rather minor -- for good or ill.

Though admittedly I am generally a fan of Johnson, I loved Brick and Looper especially.

I'm looking forward to seeing Knives Out at some point. That, Jo Jo Rabbit, and Parasite are on my "movies I missed in 2019 I really hope come to the library or a streaming service I currently have access to".

[Fyraltari]

Given how divisive it is, that seems as good a reason as any reason to declare it the worst Star War.

I think it’s safe to say that being the most divise Star Wars qualifiés it for being the most Star Wars Star Wars.

[ImperiousLeader]

I'm looking forward to seeing Knives Out at some point. That, Jo Jo Rabbit, and Parasite are on my "movies I missed in 2019 I really hope come to the library or a streaming service I currently have access to".

Knives Out was a joy to watch in theatre, and I think is still showing in a few, at least in my neighbourhood. Well constructed, a lot of moments of Fridge Brilliance, funny, and Daniel Craig was really good. Like, I didn't know I needed Daniel Craig with a Southern accent, but after Knives Out, I need more.