Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi

If they pandered to the fanbois would it have been so bad, they would have been placated and the rest if the audience would’ve gone along with it anyway as it’s Star Wars. The reason it’s so successful is because of Luke etc, kids would still relate to them and the new characters
 
che_don_john said:
Four examples of bad writing that have nothing to do with fanboyism. They don't even have anything to do with Star Wars - you could replace 'Stormtrooper' with Franco soldier in the Spanish Civil War, Captain Phasma with Radovan Karadžić and so on, and you'd still have badly written subplots and character arcs. The context - Star Wars - is irrelevant and thus so is fanboyism.
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That's not bad writing, that's you not understanding the writing. That's not the same thing.

tormtrooper indoctrinated and trained from a very young age suddenly has a pang of conscience on his first mission, develops a sense of humour and clumsiness and quickly joins the resistance. Do you really think that character arc couldn't have been better-written?
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I think everything not called The Godfather Part 2 could be better written. Not being the perfect piece of literary genius doesn't equate to badly written.

And no, for the record I don't believe that out of tens of thousands of children kidnapped from their families and raised to be a soldier that one of them started questioning his training when brought into a live fire situation. In fact quite the opposite.

- Dyed-in-the-wool First Order stalwart Captain Phasma agrees to turn down shields at gunpoint without so much as a struggle or fight. This is a woman whom we had earlier seen massacre a village in the name of the First Order; surely she'd rather die or be tortured than just go "yeah, sure, I'll turn off those shields because three of you guys told me to". Again, if the writers really needed to get to a point in the story where the shields were deactivated, is that the best they could come up with?
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The key words being "at gunpoint". It turns out that threat of execution is a pretty big motivator - in the real world and also it seems in the galaxy far far away. It also turns out that a Hollywood movie wrote a villain to be a coward really. It's almost as if they wanted you to think this woman some sort of hypocrite and develop negative feelings towards her or something.

Luke Skywalker sees a glimmer of good in Darth Vader and would rather die trying to bring it out of him (over the course of two movies!) than give up and join the Emporer. Years later an older and wiser Luke suspects a bit of darkness in his nephew and considers murdering him in his sleep, because the writers needed a way to explain why he became a hermit and why Ben Solo became Kylo Ren. Do you think that's good writing? Mark Hammill certainly didn't think so.
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No, no, no. This and the next point is where we stray into the "you just didn't get it" territory. You've logic'ed backwards here, starting from the end point and tried to work backwards to why that happened and you blindly missed the point.

The entire theme of the film was pointing to the flawed concepts of 1950s like overly heroic perfect people and tearing them down as an entity to reveal them as realistic and flawed humans who committed great deeds at the time. Luke Skywalker along with characters like Superman are the embodiment of that. The last time somebody with the power of Kylo Ren ascended, TRILLIONS of people suffered at their hands and it was Luke Skywalker himself who had to end this through a remarkably fortuitous (and some might say badly written) series of events. Luke lived with this growing realisation for many months and had a single moment of weakness and anger, almost like he's not actually some robot but a flawed human who isn't constantly 100% heroic at all times. It was the "would you kill Hitler if you could go back in time" problem put into film. And he didn't "suspect a bit of darkness", he literally said that "Ben had already been lost". If you're going to criticise the film's writing, you need to at least pay attention to the film's writing.

- Finn and Rose attempt to help the Resistance escape destruction (because it ran out of fuel...). They end up at some interstellar Monte Carlo where they fail to contact the person they were sent there to contact, only to be conveniently aided by a smart con man who appears out of thin air (deus ex machina) and screws them over just as we all knew he would. That entire subplot feels like an RPG side mission where nothing makes sense and has no impact on the actual story. It was long, dull and unnecessary. As George Orwell always said, if something could potentially be easily cut then it shouldn't be in there in the first place.
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Oh you mean that side story that served to inform Finn's character arc, gave him a reason to actually fight for the Resistance, and showed the idea that the Resistance and the First Order and all of the structures like this are not the REAL enemy but instead the people who finance this state of ongoing war and slaughter in the galaxy are instead the real villians in the Universe? That's the thing you think had no impact? Again, that's just not paying attention.
 
Damocles said:
I think everything not called The Godfather Part 2 could be better written. Not being the perfect piece of literary genius doesn't equate to badly written.
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Never said it did. Straw man.

Damocles said:
And no, for the record I don't believe that out of tens of thousands of children kidnapped from their families and raised to be a soldier that one of them started questioning his training when brought into a live fire situation. In fact quite the opposite.
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Not saying it couldn't happen; I'm saying that perhaps the consideration and deliberation of that character could have been more interesting. Why not take us on that journey with the character, so we can see his pre-conditioning unravel as he learned more about the FO through various actions and events, as opposed to one thing just suddenly 'cracking' his programme? And before you say it; yes, I know the writers had a short space of time to do it, but it's been done in many films before; in fact, they managed it with Darth Vader in half an hour at the end of ROTJ.

Damocles said:
The key words being "at gunpoint". It turns out that threat of execution is a pretty big motivator - in the real world and also it seems in the galaxy far far away. It also turns out that a Hollywood movie wrote a villain to be a coward really. It's almost as if they wanted you to think this woman some sort of hypocrite and develop negative feelings towards her or something.
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The whole character was built up as some kind of badass. I think her crumble at the hands of an old man and a rookie traitor was inconsistent with that. The fact they they went back to her being the die-hard FO badass trooper in Last Jedi further highlights how 'out of character' it was.

Damocles said:
No, no, no. This and the next point is where we stray into the "you just didn't get it" territory. You've logic'ed backwards here, starting from the end point and tried to work backwards to why that happened and you blindly missed the point.
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Kylo Ren tells Rey that he felt betrayed by Luke and that that was what led him along the dark path. What point have I blindly missed? It's clear that the writers wanted to show that Luke was responsible for the creation of Kylo Ren - Christ, Luke even said so himself. That's not logic'ing backwards - that's pure chronology and causality.

Damocles said:
Oh you mean that side story that served to inform Finn's character arc, gave him a reason to actually fight for the Resistance, and showed the idea that the Resistance and the First Order and all of the structures like this are not the REAL enemy but instead the people who finance this state of ongoing war and slaughter in the galaxy are instead the real villians in the Universe? That's the thing you think had no impact? Again, that's just not paying attention.
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How was it necessary for him to fly to a casino planet, fail to recruit a hacker, accidentally recruit a bastard, escape in some owl-camel stampede and then make it back to base having gained nothing order to relay that message? The whole sequence was jarring and suggests that the writers felt that had to do something with Finn because he was doing nothing.

Your answers to my criticisms about the writing has simply been, for each point, "oh, you're stupid, you just don't get it". Come on, you know that is lazy and just not true. You can't presume lack of intelligence in someone simple because they prefer a different standard to you. I wouldn't presume you to be stupid for thinking that the writing is good and you should not do so likewise.
 
Blue Maverick said:
Nope bit oneminute she’s on Snoke ship with loads of stormtroopers and REN to stop her, next minute she’s on the millennium falcon. Lazy story telling.
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Your idea of a plot hole = that the film doesn't tell us how she escapes from Snoke's capital ship.
What I've pointed out to you = the film telling us how she escapes from Snoke's capital ship.

There are plot holes in it, but that's not one. He obviously lets her go. Much as Kenobi fails to finish Vader in ROTS, Vader lets Leia and Luke escape in both ANH and ESB and both Palpatine and Vader pass up multiple chances to kill Luke in ROTJ. Really don't see how this is a problem that exclusively exists in TLJ but not in any prior films, one of the Sith's main weak points if their arrogance.
 
Recent star wars moviers left me disappointed, and at that especially disappointed with modern hollywood culture which seems to value succesfull formula's over actual creativity. Were bombarded with so many movies nowadays that are the upteenth in a line of a movie franchise. And i wonder what remains left to talk in favour of star wars when people lay asside their mostly youthfull love for the franchise for a minute.

The newest star wars movies goes into terrains mostly explored before. It uses a buckload of elements and characters that people know from the old star wars if only to work on that nostalgia. I'm not even gonna make a summeisation of that, it would be lenghty and i'm sure people can see it for themselfs. Besides that it coasts on it's familiar formula, youre gonna get some high budget sci fi fights and battle's to the tune of i guess about 20% of the flick and those were always popular in the franchise.

Take away the idea that this is a movie in the star wars franchise, rather picture for a minute that the recent star wars movies would be stand alone sci fi movies. They would get utterly destroyed by reviews withought cover of the franchise name imho. Because the story, though unmistakingly taking place in the star wars universe, is so light and full of holes that at points its doesn't even seem to matter.
 
Was OK as an action movie but as a Star Wars universe film - rubbish!
To many new characters introduced - especially the code breaker. What was the point?
Luke meeting and training Rey - Did we actually learn anything important about either of them? No not really.
Who is Snoke - how did he get to be supreme leader? Feckin irrelevant now. What a let down!
Technology - Star Killer Base was bad enough but he Hyperspace Tracker is a Star Wars universe killer - The Rebel alliance is fecked whatever they do.
So disappointing considering how good Rouge One was.
I'm probably done with Star Wars.
 
Blue Maverick said:
How did Rey get off Snokes ship? Yet another plot hole.
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When they both fought over Lukes lightsaber with the force until it ripped apart and exploded, Kylo was left unconscious. When he awoke Hux told him Rey had left in Snoke's escape pod which, as they were in his throne room, would be nearby.

Apart from the casino scenes I liked the film a lot, sure there were a few bum parts - too many goofy moments imo, but that aside i loved it.

A door has to be opened somewhere so that the SW universe evolves because you can't just have good v evil the entire time and I think this film will pave the way for the following films.
I really can't see why people cry like babies so much. Why can't you just go with it and have a bit of escapism and fun? I'm 45, still a SW fan and pretty much enjoyed each and every film on the whole.

I'm sure there'll be some fan edit that comes out some time that removes the major gripes too.
 
I’m a young 48 ;) and the problem is I grew up reading the EU there were so many stories etc good ones that the stuff they put out pales into comparison. If I’d not read that stuff and how the characters developed maybe I wouldn’t have been as attached to them, I just think they missed the boat, the force has never really been used to it’s full effect battle wise and I think that’s what people like me wanted, shit been ripped up etc, that’s why the Vader scene in R1 was what everyone had been waiting for all those years, vader been badass.
 
What annoys me is that the last 2 movies basically take place over a very small period of time. Rey's abilities are way too powerful for somebody with only a few days training.

There is a 3 year gap between a new hope and empire. Yet Luke still struggles to do the basic stuff "lifting rocks" Rey did so easily after only a few days.

The filmmakers have changed how the force works. It no longer required training. The force seems to choose you. It sort of contradicts there message that anybody can be a hero
 
Thorin Oakenshield said:
What annoys me is that the last 2 movies basically take place over a very small period of time. Rey's abilities are way too powerful for somebody with only a few days training.
Yet Luke still struggles to do the basic stuff "lifting rocks" Rey did so easily after only a few days.

The filmmakers have changed how the force works. It no longer required training. The force seems to choose you. It sort of contradicts there message that anybody can be a hero
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Agree with what you say.
In essence, Rey has become the ultimate 'Mary Sue'.

Part of the problem is that if you start to point it out loads of people start to lose their collective shit about it for some reason.
 
Thorin Oakenshield said:
Rey's abilities are way too powerful for somebody with only a few days training.
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This is the dumbest shit in this whole thread. Luke Skywalker took on the strongest Force user in the history of the Universe with "a few days training".

Ghandi's Flip Flops said:
Part of the problem is that if you start to point it out loads of people start to lose their collective shit about it for some reason.
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It's because it's wrong and the only reason people call her that is because she's female.
 
Damocles said:
This is the dumbest shit in this whole thread. Luke Skywalker took on the strongest Force user in the history of the Universe with "a few days training".

It's because it's wrong and the only reason people call her that is because she's female.
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Err okay.
So please explain how Rey defeated Kylo without previously handling a light saber?
 
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