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  1. - Top - End - #211
    Dragon in the Playground Moderator
     
    Peelee's Avatar

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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by dancrilis View Post
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    Also, the Death Star wasn't to control the regional governors, it was to help the regional governors (and by extension, the Emperor) maintain control without the bureaucracy.
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  2. - Top - End - #212
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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by dancrilis View Post
    Also, the Death Star wasn't to control the regional governors, it was to help the regional governors (and by extension, the Emperor) maintain control without the bureaucracy.
    Right, and Tarkin was the most important of the regional governors - a 'Moff' was a regional military governor, and Tarkin was 'Grand Moff' with control of the Outer Rim, or close to a quarter of the whole galaxy. The point of the Death Star was that it would be so absolutely terrifying that the governors could go forward ruling through complete autocracy rather than continuing to maintain the fig leaf of a galaxy policy making body. {scrubbed}
    Last edited by Peelee; 2020-01-10 at 03:18 PM.
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  3. - Top - End - #213
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by Daimbert View Post
    But we do have a reason: it's ridiculous to think that destroying one system will LITERALLY destroy the entire government and the entire fleet, and unless the Republic was only in that system it also clearly didn't literally destroy the Republic. So we would reasonably assume that he means destroying it as an effective opponent, and there's also no reason to think from his speech that the first shot is the one that will do that rather than repeated shots -- which they were clearly planning for -- which is more reasonable. So the context and common sense works against it being taken as literal, which is why it suddenly being the case in TLJ is jarring.
    How were they clearly planning for multiple shots? There a hyperdrive on that planet so they could get to another sun? I assume the original system had binary suns, which got them the initial shot and the attempt at the next. Unless they can move the planet to a different star system, they shot their wad there.

  4. - Top - End - #214
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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    Also, the Death Star wasn't to control the regional governors, it was to help the regional governors (and by extension, the Emperor) maintain control without the bureaucracy.
    From the movie we have no idea how the regional governors were appointed/elected - it is possible that it was based on the US (an elected Senate to oversee the laws of the galaxy, and elected governors to oversee the individual regions) or it should be appointed governors by the Emperor, the movie leaves the question open.

    Either way if the governors needed to call on the Empire's superweapon to maintain order they were likely for the chop anyway.

    Also just because the governors can use the threat of the death star to ensure their populations are kept in line does not mean that the Emperor is not also using it to make sure that the governors are kept in line.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    ...
    You are linking my name (and post) to Peelee's words, I suspect you may have been replying to me and than they posted and you choose to support them.
    Last edited by dancrilis; 2020-01-10 at 03:25 PM.

  5. - Top - End - #215
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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Credence View Post
    How were they clearly planning for multiple shots? There a hyperdrive on that planet so they could get to another sun? I assume the original system had binary suns, which got them the initial shot and the attempt at the next. Unless they can move the planet to a different star system, they shot their wad there.
    Apparently it's easier to put a hyperdrive on a planet than a transport shuttle.

  6. - Top - End - #216
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    hamishspence's Avatar

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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by dancrilis View Post

    You are linking my name (and post) to Peelee's words, I suspect you may have been replying to me and than they posted and you choose to support them.
    The most common reason for a mis-attributed quote IMO is accident - quoting a nested quote, trying to delete the bits you don't want, and deleting the wrong bit.
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  7. - Top - End - #217
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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    The Last Jedi (3/3)



    Thoughts While Watching

    • I’m feeling numb and empty by this point, praying that the slider bar on the video player will move faster so that this torture will end. This is actually mentally painful to watch. I did a strength workout this morning and I’d rather spend the next 50 minutes doing that same workout again than watching the last third of this movie.
    • Hux confronts the captured Finn and Rose and is like “Haha! My continual and abject failure has brought me inevitable victory, just as I foresaw! Now that I have been given the secret information about the highly visible transports that we recently saw depart the enemy flagship within clear visual range, I know to scan for the highly visible transports that we saw dock with the flagship earlier! Men! Scan for the highly visible transports!”
    • So . . . Holdo’s plan is a total failure? I’d like to give the writers credit for this being some clever subversion, but I’m pretty sure they think they’ve written her as competent.
    • Snoke throws Rey around a bit then tells Kylo to kill her. I assume this is where Kylo turns on Snoke.
    • Snoke: “I cannot be betrayed, I cannot be beaten.” Yeah, he’s about to be both.
    • Kylo kills Snoke. This is supposed to be a big payoff moment but it makes no sense. Kylo was willing to murder his father, was almost willing to murder his mother, but now he turns on Snoke because Rey tells him to? Why? Because he thinks Rey’s hot? (I was off in my estimate by 25 minutes, by the way.)
    • Finn yells at the criminal guy for being a “murdering bastard,” to which the guy replies “they blow you up today, you blow them up tomorrow.” It’s sad that this guy is probably the most insightful character in the film so far.
    • I think Snoke’s red guards are supposed to have special lightsaber weapons, but it’s hard to tell.
    • Man, this fight is taking a long time. They’re just guards, guys. The Sequel Trilogy has a bad habit of having these long spectacular fights after the bad guys have already lost.
    • So Kylo’s whole ideology is ‘let it all die’. Sure, I guess nihilism and hatred of tradition does explain his actions so far, more or less.
    • ”We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy!” I’ve heard this something like four times in Star Wars movies, and the answer is always no. If Rian Johnson really wanted to be original, he’d have Rey say yes.
    • Rey’s parents . . . were nobody. Who cares? Was it supposed to be a big mystery? I suppose a lot of viewers got sucked into the JJ Abrahms mystery box routine.
    • Finn and Rose’s ‘executions’ drag out.
    • Rey and Kylo fight over Luke’s lightsaber and break it.
    • Holdo goes to lightspeed and rams the SSD and destroys it.
    • And destroys the rest of the First Order fleet as well.
    • . . .
    • . . .
    • I think that is the stupidest thing I’ve seen in this film so far. It’s not actually the lowest point – Yoda’s line to Luke was more actively offensive – but for sheer stupid writing that breaks story and continuity, it wins the prize.
    • Finn and Rose are just fine, of course, because we couldn’t have the destruction of an entire enemy armada cost the life of more than one named character, that would just be silly.
    • Phasma or whatever her name is shows up, BB-8 blows up her stormtroopers from inside a walker. Even Finn gives a weird side-eye at that, as if to say “Seriously? Who’s writing this stuff?”
    • So Finn gets his big duel against Phasma. It’s set up to be this big dramatic confrontation, but . . . isn’t this the same person who Finn threw into a garbage chute last movie? She’s already a joke.
    • Phasma gets dropped into a pit. “Looks like Team Rocket is blasting off again!”
    • Lots of explosions, Kylo blames Snoke’s death on Rey and takes over.
    • I’m not sure why the movie is still going. There’s nothing interesting left to do with the story, why do we have to have a ground combat as well? Did they just feel like they needed to reprise the Battle of Hoth, only at the end of the movie instead of the beginning?
    • Poe’s affection for BB-8 is kind of cute. I mean, I can understand it, I like him more than I like the human members of the Resistance, too.
    • So this battle is being set up as some big desperate important fight where the Resistance has to survive, but again, there are no real stakes. In the big scheme of things, it doesn’t matter much whether there are 100 Resistance members left or 400 or 30 or 20 or 10. This is the problem with movies that don’t care about consistency or logic. We already know that the protagonists are going to succeed at everything whenever the plot demands it, because they always do, and we know that the number of NPC allies makes no difference, because it never does. A handful of Rebels destroyed Starkiller Base, Holdo wiped out the enemy fleet solo, Finn’s X-wing is an even match for an enemy dreadnought. The protagonists aren’t under threat from the First Order, because the First Order is a joke that’s had every ship and weapon and superweapon they own blown up in the same movie they appear in. So at this point we’re just watching explosions and battle scenes to mark time until the inevitable escape/victory.
    • ”This is the only way in or out.” Yeah, no reason to have a back door in a rebel base.
    • ”We gotta take out that cannon!” I guess since there’s only half an hour left we don’t get a full-sized superweapon, just a miniature one.
    • The battle visuals look really cool with the red salt trails, and for once the First Order guys actually seem to be trying. It’s a shame that it’s happening after such a trainwreck of a movie.
    • Poe gives the order to pull out because it’s a “suicide run”. Except by this point they’ve lost 75% of their number already. I think it’s supposed to show that Poe’s wiser now or something, but there’s really no way to know what the right decision is here. I mean, the attack on the dreadnought earlier was a suicide run too, and that worked out fine.
    • Finn is about to do his suicide run when that stupid bloody Rose character rams him. So . . . she’s a moron. And should have just killed both of them, given that they just crashed at full speed into the ground right in front of an enemy army. But of course they’ll both be fine.
    • ”That’s how we’re going to win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.” That is . . . so . . . I hate this film. I hate Rose, I hate the writers. I’m not even going to bother to explain how delusionally stupid you have to be to believe something like that. What would be the point. I’m just pissed off. The one half-decent scene in this film and they’ve managed to wreck that as well.
    • ”Our distress signal’s been received at multiple points, but no-one’s coming.” So you dial up the Outer Rim, and you’re upset that it takes them more than fifteen minutes to scramble a defence force to get there. You’re all ****ing idiots. If the Resistance would be wiped out at this point it’s be a triumph for the galaxy, just for the increase to the Star Wars average IQ.
    • No, Luke! Don’t do it! Let evolution win!
    • Luke goes off to face Kylo. This could have been such a cool scene.
    • Luke survives a million blaster bolts, Kylo goes out to duel him.
    • ”We are the spark that’ll light the fire that’ll burn the First Order down! Derp!”
    • Poe leads the Resistance out. There are literally about 9 of them at this point.
    • Finn gets another friendzone hug.
    • So apparently Luke was a force hologram and was basically trolling Kylo.
    • Mercifully, Luke’s allowed to die.
    • Last shot of a bunch of kids talking about Luke Skywalker. And end credits.
    • ”Written and directed by Rian Johnson.” **** you, Rian Johnson.


    Overall Thoughts

    The Last Jedi is ****ing awful. It’s the worst film I’ve seen this year, worse than any film I saw last year, the worst Star Wars film I’ve ever seen, and one of the worst films I can remember. The two and a half hours I spent watching it today felt like seven.

    I hate this movie, and I don’t use that word lightly. There are very, very few films I actually hate – in fact I can’t think of any off the top of my head, even the ones that it’s fashionable to dunk on. I don’t hate Twilight - hey, you want a romance fantasy about sexy vampires and werewolves, go you. I don’t hate cheesy stupid action movies like Street Fighter or Judge Dredd. I don’t even hate objectively awful movies like Battlefield Earth, because they’re fun to watch and laugh at. The Last Jedi isn’t fun. It’s like distilled anti-fun and anti-enjoyment. Whatever good movies give you, this is the opposite.

    I think the reason The Last Jedi hit me so hard is because of how much I loved Star Wars as a kid. For such a long time I had this special place in my heart for Luke and Han and Leia, and on some level I thought of them as going on forever. The Last Jedi shatters that. We get to see the future of all three of them, and it’s awful. Han runs away from Leia to become an inept swindler racking up debts, who’s such a failure as a father that he gets literally murdered by his own son. Luke becomes a bitter, bad-tempered hermit who fails at his quest to rebuild the Jedi Order and just goes away and gives up, waiting to die. He sacrifices his life in an empty gesture to save about 8 or 9 people after 99% of the Resistance have been already wiped out. And Leia . . . the films try to build her up as much as they can, but they miss the fact that Leia was supposed to be a political leader, whose job was supposed to be to build a new Republic. All the hyping her up and the deferential “Generals” mask the fact that she’s failed at her really important task before the series even begins.

    And this is the future of Star Wars now. Disney owns the IP, this is the story they’ve chosen to tell with it. We’ll never get all the good stuff from the EU, we get this garbage pile instead. This is how Leia, Luke, and Han will be remembered from now on. 


    I can see how why some Star Wars fans hated TLJ so much. Right now I hate TLJ, hate the Sequel Trilogy as a whole, and hate Rian Johnson in particular. I even kind of hate the people who liked TLJ, even though I know that’s completely irrational, just because I’ve had to watch all the stuff I loved as a kid set on fire and some people are apparently happy about this.

    Okay, don’t want to talk about this any more. Let’s get onto the less personal ways in which TLJ is bad.

    Spoiler: It’s bad as an individual movie
    Show
    The villains are incompetent and unthreatening. The plots make no sense. The story’s internal logic is inconsistent. Everything is done by ‘tell, don’t show’, because the audience have to be spoon-fed everything since there’s no way they can work anything out for themselves. The pacing is terrible – the supposed high-tension chase takes hours and gets interrupted by a casino trip. The dialogue is awful, characters spouting out platitudes which we’re expected to see as wisdom. The old characters aren’t taken in any interesting directions and the new ones (Rose and Holdo) are annoying. The overall plot is meandering and badly designed. There’s no effective work done to make us empathise with the protagonists. The film as a whole is plodding, slow, and a full hour longer than it needs to be, with huge amounts of time wasted on side material that leads nowhere. Worst of all, it’s boring. I spent most of the movie wishing it would just hurry up and end.


    Spoiler: It’s bad as a second part of a trilogy
    Show
    None of the material from Force Awakens is built on effectively. The big emotional hook of Rey’s parents is ignored – we never see them, never hear them, never find out anything more about Rey’s relationship with them, they’re just dismissed as ‘nobodies’. Finn’s background as a stormtrooper continues to be ignored, he just becomes Generic Resistance Guy #3 whose job is to yell “Rey!” and “Yeah!” from time to time. Poe gets a big character lesson where he’s taught to not do things that worked and instead to back down from risky decisions and blindly hope for deus ex machinas instead. The big event of TFA, the destruction of Starkiller Base, has no consequences whatsoever, instead a new fleet of ships show up out of nowhere, to be destroyed in turn, leaving no hook for Movie 3. The big villain from TFA is killed off like a chump. None of the questions about the Republic or the First Order or where all these fleets are coming from are answered, they’re just treated as boring background story that Rian Johnson has zero interest in explaining.


    Spoiler: It’s bad as a piece of the wider Star Wars continuity
    Show
    Huge parts of the ground rules of the Star Wars canon are ignored or explicitly contradicted. Capital ships have no anti-fighter defences – a single X-Wing can just blow a capital ship apart one piece at a time until it runs out of fuel or gets bored. Fighters can fly through shields and blow up capital ships from the inside (so what’s the point of capital ships?). Going to lightspeed is apparently a superweapon that can be used to nuke an entire armada for nothing but the cost of a single hyper-capable ship of your own, which makes the whole concept of a fleet battle meaningless. ‘Cloaking’ on a ship seems to be meaningless. The whole Jedi tradition is treated as a failed experiment to be burnt down and forgotten about, except when its a legend and so inspiring, except when being a legend is bad, except when being bad is good because it’s a failure, except when it’s not.


    Spoiler: It’s bad as a vehicle for messaging
    Show
    “Weapons dealers are bad!” . . . Except for all the ones who sold the Rebellion all those ships and guns, because that’s fine. “You shouldn’t do heroic suicide runs!” Except that Holdo and Luke do exactly that and it’s treated as a great victory both times. “We’ll win by saving what we love, not by fighting what we hate!” Pretty much no-one acts out of love at any point in the movie. They fight and kill First Order troops by the thousand, though. “You don’t need to read the core texts of the religion you claim to respect, you already know everything you need to!” Yeah, just . . . no. “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.” Are we supposed to be following this advice? Because it comes from Kylo, but it sure seems to be what Rian Johnson believes.


    Final Grade

    E. It’s an awful movie, I hated watching it, and it may have singlehandedly killed my enthusiasm for Star Wars in general.
    I'm the author of the Alex Verus series of urban fantasy novels. Fated is the first, and the final book in the series, Risen, is out as of December 2021. For updates, check my blog!

  8. - Top - End - #218
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Lizardfolk

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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    The Last Jedi (3/3)



    Thoughts While Watching

    • I’m feeling numb and empty by this point, praying that the slider bar on the video player will move faster so that this torture will end. This is actually mentally painful to watch. I did a strength workout this morning and I’d rather spend the next 50 minutes doing that same workout again than watching the last third of this movie.
    • Hux confronts the captured Finn and Rose and is like “Haha! My continual and abject failure has brought me inevitable victory, just as I foresaw! Now that I have been given the secret information about the highly visible transports that we recently saw depart the enemy flagship within clear visual range, I know to scan for the highly visible transports that we saw dock with the flagship earlier! Men! Scan for the highly visible transports!”
    • So . . . Holdo’s plan is a total failure? I’d like to give the writers credit for this being some clever subversion, but I’m pretty sure they think they’ve written her as competent.
    • Snoke throws Rey around a bit then tells Kylo to kill her. I assume this is where Kylo turns on Snoke.
    • Snoke: “I cannot be betrayed, I cannot be beaten.” Yeah, he’s about to be both.
    • Kylo kills Snoke. This is supposed to be a big payoff moment but it makes no sense. Kylo was willing to murder his father, was almost willing to murder his mother, but now he turns on Snoke because Rey tells him to? Why? Because he thinks Rey’s hot? (I was off in my estimate by 25 minutes, by the way.)
    • Finn yells at the criminal guy for being a “murdering bastard,” to which the guy replies “they blow you up today, you blow them up tomorrow.” It’s sad that this guy is probably the most insightful character in the film so far.
    • I think Snoke’s red guards are supposed to have special lightsaber weapons, but it’s hard to tell.
    • Man, this fight is taking a long time. They’re just guards, guys. The Sequel Trilogy has a bad habit of having these long spectacular fights after the bad guys have already lost.
    • So Kylo’s whole ideology is ‘let it all die’. Sure, I guess nihilism and hatred of tradition does explain his actions so far, more or less.
    • ”We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy!” I’ve heard this something like four times in Star Wars movies, and the answer is always no. If Rian Johnson really wanted to be original, he’d have Rey say yes.
    • Rey’s parents . . . were nobody. Who cares? Was it supposed to be a big mystery? I suppose a lot of viewers got sucked into the JJ Abrahms mystery box routine.
    • Finn and Rose’s ‘executions’ drag out.
    • Rey and Kylo fight over Luke’s lightsaber and break it.
    • Holdo goes to lightspeed and rams the SSD and destroys it.
    • And destroys the rest of the First Order fleet as well.
    • . . .
    • . . .
    • I think that is the stupidest thing I’ve seen in this film so far. It’s not actually the lowest point – Yoda’s line to Luke was more actively offensive – but for sheer stupid writing that breaks story and continuity, it wins the prize.
    • Finn and Rose are just fine, of course, because we couldn’t have the destruction of an entire enemy armada cost the life of more than one named character, that would just be silly.
    • Phasma or whatever her name is shows up, BB-8 blows up her stormtroopers from inside a walker. Even Finn gives a weird side-eye at that, as if to say “Seriously? Who’s writing this stuff?”
    • So Finn gets his big duel against Phasma. It’s set up to be this big dramatic confrontation, but . . . isn’t this the same person who Finn threw into a garbage chute last movie? She’s already a joke.
    • Phasma gets dropped into a pit. “Looks like Team Rocket is blasting off again!”
    • Lots of explosions, Kylo blames Snoke’s death on Rey and takes over.
    • I’m not sure why the movie is still going. There’s nothing interesting left to do with the story, why do we have to have a ground combat as well? Did they just feel like they needed to reprise the Battle of Hoth, only at the end of the movie instead of the beginning?
    • Poe’s affection for BB-8 is kind of cute. I mean, I can understand it, I like him more than I like the human members of the Resistance, too.
    • So this battle is being set up as some big desperate important fight where the Resistance has to survive, but again, there are no real stakes. In the big scheme of things, it doesn’t matter much whether there are 100 Resistance members left or 400 or 30 or 20 or 10. This is the problem with movies that don’t care about consistency or logic. We already know that the protagonists are going to succeed at everything whenever the plot demands it, because they always do, and we know that the number of NPC allies makes no difference, because it never does. A handful of Rebels destroyed Starkiller Base, Holdo wiped out the enemy fleet solo, Finn’s X-wing is an even match for an enemy dreadnought. The protagonists aren’t under threat from the First Order, because the First Order is a joke that’s had every ship and weapon and superweapon they own blown up in the same movie they appear in. So at this point we’re just watching explosions and battle scenes to mark time until the inevitable escape/victory.
    • ”This is the only way in or out.” Yeah, no reason to have a back door in a rebel base.
    • ”We gotta take out that cannon!” I guess since there’s only half an hour left we don’t get a full-sized superweapon, just a miniature one.
    • The battle visuals look really cool with the red salt trails, and for once the First Order guys actually seem to be trying. It’s a shame that it’s happening after such a trainwreck of a movie.
    • Poe gives the order to pull out because it’s a “suicide run”. Except by this point they’ve lost 75% of their number already. I think it’s supposed to show that Poe’s wiser now or something, but there’s really no way to know what the right decision is here. I mean, the attack on the dreadnought earlier was a suicide run too, and that worked out fine.
    • Finn is about to do his suicide run when that stupid bloody Rose character rams him. So . . . she’s a moron. And should have just killed both of them, given that they just crashed at full speed into the ground right in front of an enemy army. But of course they’ll both be fine.
    • ”That’s how we’re going to win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.” That is . . . so . . . I hate this film. I hate Rose, I hate the writers. I’m not even going to bother to explain how delusionally stupid you have to be to believe something like that. What would be the point. I’m just pissed off. The one half-decent scene in this film and they’ve managed to wreck that as well.
    • ”Our distress signal’s been received at multiple points, but no-one’s coming.” So you dial up the Outer Rim, and you’re upset that it takes them more than fifteen minutes to scramble a defence force to get there. You’re all ****ing idiots. If the Resistance would be wiped out at this point it’s be a triumph for the galaxy, just for the increase to the Star Wars average IQ.
    • No, Luke! Don’t do it! Let evolution win!
    • Luke goes off to face Kylo. This could have been such a cool scene.
    • Luke survives a million blaster bolts, Kylo goes out to duel him.
    • ”We are the spark that’ll light the fire that’ll burn the First Order down! Derp!”
    • Poe leads the Resistance out. There are literally about 9 of them at this point.
    • Finn gets another friendzone hug.
    • So apparently Luke was a force hologram and was basically trolling Kylo.
    • Mercifully, Luke’s allowed to die.
    • Last shot of a bunch of kids talking about Luke Skywalker. And end credits.
    • ”Written and directed by Rian Johnson.” **** you, Rian Johnson.


    Overall Thoughts

    The Last Jedi is ****ing awful. It’s the worst film I’ve seen this year, worse than any film I saw last year, the worst Star Wars film I’ve ever seen, and one of the worst films I can remember. The two and a half hours I spent watching it today felt like seven.

    I hate this movie, and I don’t use that word lightly. There are very, very few films I actually hate – in fact I can’t think of any off the top of my head, even the ones that it’s fashionable to dunk on. I don’t hate Twilight - hey, you want a romance fantasy about sexy vampires and werewolves, go you. I don’t hate cheesy stupid action movies like Street Fighter or Judge Dredd. I don’t even hate objectively awful movies like Battlefield Earth, because they’re fun to watch and laugh at. The Last Jedi isn’t fun. It’s like distilled anti-fun and anti-enjoyment. Whatever good movies give you, this is the opposite.

    I think the reason The Last Jedi hit me so hard is because of how much I loved Star Wars as a kid. For such a long time I had this special place in my heart for Luke and Han and Leia, and on some level I thought of them as going on forever. The Last Jedi shatters that. We get to see the future of all three of them, and it’s awful. Han runs away from Leia to become an inept swindler racking up debts, who’s such a failure as a father that he gets literally murdered by his own son. Luke becomes a bitter, bad-tempered hermit who fails at his quest to rebuild the Jedi Order and just goes away and gives up, waiting to die. He sacrifices his life in an empty gesture to save about 8 or 9 people after 99% of the Resistance have been already wiped out. And Leia . . . the films try to build her up as much as they can, but they miss the fact that Leia was supposed to be a political leader, whose job was supposed to be to build a new Republic. All the hyping her up and the deferential “Generals” mask the fact that she’s failed at her really important task before the series even begins.

    And this is the future of Star Wars now. Disney owns the IP, this is the story they’ve chosen to tell with it. We’ll never get all the good stuff from the EU, we get this garbage pile instead. This is how Leia, Luke, and Han will be remembered from now on. 


    I can see how why some Star Wars fans hated TLJ so much. Right now I hate TLJ, hate the Sequel Trilogy as a whole, and hate Rian Johnson in particular. I even kind of hate the people who liked TLJ, even though I know that’s completely irrational, just because I’ve had to watch all the stuff I loved as a kid set on fire and some people are apparently happy about this.

    Okay, don’t want to talk about this any more. Let’s get onto the less personal ways in which TLJ is bad.

    Spoiler: It’s bad as an individual movie
    Show
    The villains are incompetent and unthreatening. The plots make no sense. The story’s internal logic is inconsistent. Everything is done by ‘tell, don’t show’, because the audience have to be spoon-fed everything since there’s no way they can work anything out for themselves. The pacing is terrible – the supposed high-tension chase takes hours and gets interrupted by a casino trip. The dialogue is awful, characters spouting out platitudes which we’re expected to see as wisdom. The old characters aren’t taken in any interesting directions and the new ones (Rose and Holdo) are annoying. The overall plot is meandering and badly designed. There’s no effective work done to make us empathise with the protagonists. The film as a whole is plodding, slow, and a full hour longer than it needs to be, with huge amounts of time wasted on side material that leads nowhere. Worst of all, it’s boring. I spent most of the movie wishing it would just hurry up and end.


    Spoiler: It’s bad as a second part of a trilogy
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    None of the material from Force Awakens is built on effectively. The big emotional hook of Rey’s parents is ignored – we never see them, never hear them, never find out anything more about Rey’s relationship with them, they’re just dismissed as ‘nobodies’. Finn’s background as a stormtrooper continues to be ignored, he just becomes Generic Resistance Guy #3 whose job is to yell “Rey!” and “Yeah!” from time to time. Poe gets a big character lesson where he’s taught to not do things that worked and instead to back down from risky decisions and blindly hope for deus ex machinas instead. The big event of TFA, the destruction of Starkiller Base, has no consequences whatsoever, instead a new fleet of ships show up out of nowhere, to be destroyed in turn, leaving no hook for Movie 3. The big villain from TFA is killed off like a chump. None of the questions about the Republic or the First Order or where all these fleets are coming from are answered, they’re just treated as boring background story that Rian Johnson has zero interest in explaining.


    Spoiler: It’s bad as a piece of the wider Star Wars continuity
    Show
    Huge parts of the ground rules of the Star Wars canon are ignored or explicitly contradicted. Capital ships have no anti-fighter defences – a single X-Wing can just blow a capital ship apart one piece at a time until it runs out of fuel or gets bored. Fighters can fly through shields and blow up capital ships from the inside (so what’s the point of capital ships?). Going to lightspeed is apparently a superweapon that can be used to nuke an entire armada for nothing but the cost of a single hyper-capable ship of your own, which makes the whole concept of a fleet battle meaningless. ‘Cloaking’ on a ship seems to be meaningless. The whole Jedi tradition is treated as a failed experiment to be burnt down and forgotten about, except when its a legend and so inspiring, except when being a legend is bad, except when being bad is good because it’s a failure, except when it’s not.


    Spoiler: It’s bad as a vehicle for messaging
    Show
    “Weapons dealers are bad!” . . . Except for all the ones who sold the Rebellion all those ships and guns, because that’s fine. “You shouldn’t do heroic suicide runs!” Except that Holdo and Luke do exactly that and it’s treated as a great victory both times. “We’ll win by saving what we love, not by fighting what we hate!” Pretty much no-one acts out of love at any point in the movie. They fight and kill First Order troops by the thousand, though. “You don’t need to read the core texts of the religion you claim to respect, you already know everything you need to!” Yeah, just . . . no. “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.” Are we supposed to be following this advice? Because it comes from Kylo, but it sure seems to be what Rian Johnson believes.


    Final Grade

    E. It’s an awful movie, I hated watching it, and it may have singlehandedly killed my enthusiasm for Star Wars in general.
    This was my feelings as well. I actually stopped watching and disney products for about a year due to this movie, with the exception of some free tickets I got to the Marvel films.

    The next one is much better IMO, but not like salvation better.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    • I think Snoke’s red guards are supposed to have special lightsaber weapons, but it’s hard to tell.
    • Man, this fight is taking a long time. They’re just guards, guys. The Sequel Trilogy has a bad habit of having these long spectacular fights after the bad guys have already lost.
    Did you catch the disappearing dagger? It's easy to overlook on a first watch, but once you see it you can never unsee it
    Last edited by TheSummoner; 2020-01-10 at 04:11 PM.

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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    • No, Luke! Don’t do it! Let evolution win!
    Ok, I laughed at that one.

    Also, tiny cool detail I enjoyed - Luke doesn't disturb the salt.
    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    “You don’t need to read the core texts of the religion you claim to respect, you already know everything you need to!”
    Actually, they do show Rey has the ancient Jedi texts on the Falcon at the end. It's a blink-and-you-miss-it shot though.
    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    It’s an awful movie, I hated watching it, and it may have singlehandedly killed my enthusiasm for Star Wars in general.
    If you really feel like that, I recommend doing The Mandalorian before the rest, even though that's not the plan. I think it might be therapeutic.
    Quote Originally Posted by TheSummoner View Post
    Did you catch the disappearing dagger? It's easy to overlook on a first watch, but once you see it you can never unsee it
    I never mind that as much as the guy who starts to attack and then stops solely because it would have been successful.
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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Credence View Post
    How were they clearly planning for multiple shots? There a hyperdrive on that planet so they could get to another sun? I assume the original system had binary suns, which got them the initial shot and the attempt at the next. Unless they can move the planet to a different star system, they shot their wad there.
    So they built it deliberately in a binary star system to get off two shots? One of which they didn't need because TLJ shows that hours after it was destroyed they were able to wipe out the fleeing Resistance anyway?

    From what I recall you're right about most of the science, but we'd then have to trust that Abrams cared enough about that to have it make sense. Anyway, all of those resources and time spent on a two-shot device wouldn't make them any more credible as villains. Logically, it should have been one -- they planned to take out the Republic -- or more than two.
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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Credence View Post
    I assume the original system had binary suns, which got them the initial shot and the attempt at the next.
    Quote Originally Posted by Daimbert View Post
    So they built it deliberately in a binary star system to get off two shots?
    Not a binary system. It didn't drain a star entirely for one shot, both its shots were needed to drain the star (and it didn't get the second one off).

    Spoiler: Why they built it there
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    Starkiller Base was built into the planet Ilum, which was one of the biggest sources for kyber crystals and the Jedi's most sacred planet. The Empire stripped it, among other planets, for crystlas for the Death Star, and created the enormous trench, and also left behind a large amount of infrastructure and technology.
    Last edited by Peelee; 2020-01-10 at 04:26 PM.
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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Well I love the Last Jedi. I thought it was a masterpiece just like any other Star Wars movie.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    The Last Jedi is ****ing awful. It’s the worst film I’ve seen this year, worse than any film I saw last year, the worst Star Wars film I’ve ever seen, and one of the worst films I can remember. The two and a half hours I spent watching it today felt like seven.

    E. It’s an awful movie, I hated watching it, and it may have singlehandedly killed my enthusiasm for Star Wars in general.
    Don't hold back; tell us how you REALLY feel [grin].

    I liked TLJ slightly better than TFA, although I didn't care for TLJ all that much either. The more I thought about TFA, the stupider it was, and I didn't think it was smart while watching it. TLJ's big advantage -- and disadvantage -- is that it's so ambiguous that if you don't like a message you can pretty much ignore it because there's usually plenty of evidence for another interpretation that you might have liked better. But it is indeed a plodding adventure. I'm just not convinced that TFA is less plodding.

    That being said, TLJ did kill my interest in at least the Disney Star Wars. I generally bought anything Star Wars, but now I'm not sure if I'll ever watch TRoS and have no interest in any of the new EU works in the ST timeline. The only other movie I skipped in Star Wars was Solo.

    So I'm not one of the ones who hates TLJ or who hates the people who hate TLJ, but even then it killed my enthusiasm for Star Wars.
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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Credence View Post
    How were they clearly planning for multiple shots? There a hyperdrive on that planet so they could get to another sun? I assume the original system had binary suns, which got them the initial shot and the attempt at the next. Unless they can move the planet to a different star system, they shot their wad there.
    I had, in fact, assumed that they built a hyperdrive onto the planet, simply because that's how the Death Star worked and Starkiller Base was essentially Death Star 2: Electric - wait, we already did that in Return of the Jedi. Death Star 3: It's Even Bigger This Time, You Guys, You've Got To Take It Seriously.

    Maybe that's a little uncharitable of me. But nobody in the film ever says anything to suggest that Starkiller One is a limited-use weapon, or an immobile target. It would be a reasonable assumption in a series that cared more about logistics and plausibility, but I think that ship sailed some time ago.
    Last edited by The_Snark; 2020-01-10 at 04:47 PM.
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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    The Last Jedi (3/3)



    Final Grade

    E. It’s an awful movie, I hated watching it, and it may have singlehandedly killed my enthusiasm for Star Wars in general.
    Well, you were right about one thing - the negotiations were short you were wrong.

    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    Predictions

    The Last Jedi

    D and hope I'm wrong.
    Last edited by Peelee; 2020-01-10 at 04:50 PM.
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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    If you really feel like that, I recommend doing The Mandalorian before the rest, even though that's not the plan. I think it might be therapeutic.
    Yeah, lots of people have said that it's a good show if you prefer the OT style and aesthetic.

    And I wish the negotiations movie had been short.
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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

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

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    Default Re: The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

    Quote Originally Posted by Bartmanhomer View Post
    Hey Saph I can't wait when you review the Rise Of The Skywalker next.
    Next is Solo, not The Rise of Skywalker.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    Next is Solo, not The Rise of Skywalker.
    Ok Solo was great as well. Do Solo next Saph. I love to hear what you have to say about it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bartmanhomer View Post
    Hey Saph I can't wait when you review the Rise Of The Skywalker next.
    Not sure I'm going to make it that far to be honest.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    Not sure I'm going to make it that far to be honest.
    Well, all your movie reviews are very honest and right on point. I really enjoy it and your movie review are way better than my movie review, I'll give you that.
    Last edited by Bartmanhomer; 2020-01-10 at 05:15 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    Not sure I'm going to make it that far to be honest.
    Understandable (and why I think The Mandalorian can recharge your batteries enough so you can make it that far.

    No slight to Solo, but TM is far and away the best Star Wars Disney has put out to date).
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    I can see how why some Star Wars fans hated TLJ so much. Right now I hate TLJ, hate the Sequel Trilogy as a whole, and hate Rian Johnson in particular. I even kind of hate the people who liked TLJ, even though I know that’s completely irrational, just because I’ve had to watch all the stuff I loved as a kid set on fire and some people are apparently happy about this.

    E. It’s an awful movie, I hated watching it, and it may have singlehandedly killed my enthusiasm for Star Wars in general.
    My sentiments exactly. Once again, Palpatine said it best.

    TLJ soured me so much on the franchise that Solo was the first Star Wars movie I didn't see in theater. (TROS remains the second) And Solo wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. Almost as good as Rogue One, I'd say. I'm not sure how I'd rate it if I watched it immediately after TLJ though.

    edit:
    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    No slight to Solo, but TM is far and away the best Star Wars Disney has put out to date).
    I probably should get around to watching this at some point.
    Last edited by Narkis; 2020-01-10 at 05:27 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Narkis View Post
    TLJ soured me so much on the franchise that Solo was the first Star Wars movie I didn't see in theater. (TROS remains the second).
    That's pretty much how it was with me. I still haven't seen either yet.

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    I think that's a common response. Solo lost money after all.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Narkis View Post
    My sentiments exactly. Once again, Palpatine said it best.
    Was really hoping that you had linked to this.
    Quote Originally Posted by Narkis View Post
    I probably should get around to watching this at some point.
    I wholeheartedly approve!

    Let me put it this way; regardless of your opinion of the movies or the show, The Mandalorian is inarguably the least contentious live-action Star Wars since the 80's. At least, from everything I've seen.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    Was really hoping that you had linked to this.

    I wholeheartedly approve!

    Let me put it this way; regardless of your opinion of the movies or the show, The Mandalorian is inarguably the least contentious live-action Star Wars since the 80's. At least, from everything I've seen.
    The Mandalorian is everything good about the first star wars. Mysticism, evil people, space western, etc. In a sense it moves back before the Empire Strikes Back when the story becomes about politics and the Skywalker family.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    If you really feel like that, I recommend doing The Mandalorian before the rest, even though that's not the plan. I think it might be therapeutic.
    Even speaking as someone who hasn't seen the show (because I'm not touching Disney+), might be a good idea. Solo is a decent film that, IMO, did not deserve to tank as badly as it did in theaters, but I'd be exaggerating if I said it would be a great palette cleanser after seeing TLJ for the first time. Rogue One might do the job, but since you're watching in release order, that one already passed. If The Mandalorian's reputation is at all deserved, though, it might be the way to go.

    And, yeah, very familiar feelings in that review there Saph. For what it's worth, there's nowhere to go but up, by all accounts. While I haven't seen Rise of Skywalker due to a combination of TLJ killing my enthusiasm for the sequels and an active desire not to give Disney money for it since I can't go back in time and not give them money for TLJ, all accounts would lead me to believe it's a better film than TLJ, and as above I can vouch for Solo being a much better one even if it is flawed.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Saph View Post
    E. It’s an awful movie, I hated watching it, and it may have singlehandedly killed my enthusiasm for Star Wars in general.
    Just curious you have given some movies a plus (+) and others a minus (-) rating, do you think it is better then an E-, and if so what are the saving graces?

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