Star Wars: The Last Jedi

[Doomguy]

Enjoyed it but the order feels wrong.

 

i.e. Star Wars seems to go; empire wins a battle, middle about the force, end with an epic space battle / light saber fight.

 

This at times felt like 'lets just overload on CG'  when most of the screentime should have been taken up by Luke - that's all he did after the first 3? grow a beard and train some jedi? surely he did more.

[Stig]

Good news for all of you that hated TLJ. These plucky upstarts want you to help them rewrite and remake TLJ with them

 

 

[MDY]

They're going to try and crowdfund 200m + marketing??

 

[SMD]

They could tap up the Star Citizen backers

[Harsin]

I do a pretty good Yoda impression. Call me and we can discuss remuneration packages.

[Mr Cochese]

Tommy Wiseau's The Last Jedi

[Smitty]

The more I think about the film, the more critiques I read the more I can understand why some old fans are so annoyed about the treatment of Luke. He really is wasted.

 

When taken in isolation there are good scenes in the movie like the confrontation between Luke and Kylo. But taken in context they fail to have the impact that they should. Ultimately the impact of a scene is the sum of earlier scenes. To really appreciate that confrontation I have to feel and understand Luke's character and motivations and I don't.

 

You don't get to see him reacting to the death of Han for instance, which seems like a massive failure. When Klyo is his ex student, the killer of his friend and the thing that drove him into seclusion than surely his reaction to him murdering Han - with all the guilt that would cause - should be one of the most important scenes of the film?

 

Imagine waiting 30 years to see Luke in Star Wars again and you can't even get a scene like that. What's the point of bringing these characters back only to fart around with them?

 

Stuff like the opening gag (one of many tone-ruining jokes) where he throws the lightsabre over his shouder ruin the film AND Luke's character. Why not have him react with disgust/anger/horror and suddenly run towards the sea with Rey chasing him as he pledges to 'destroy this thing'? Why not have him hand it back to Rey with disgust on his face and a warning about how such weapons only cause pain?

 

Both of those are much better I think. You can still have Luke rejecting the lightsabre, just in a different way. They preserve the weightiness that fans wanted to see with Luke's return, they are dramatic and meaningful, and they don't paint Luke in a silly light.

 

I think Luke comes across in a somewhat unbelievable fashion at the beginning with Hamill's acting struggling with this frankly comical depiction of a grumpy old man. I think Ridley's performance is very variable in quality in those island scenes as well, there are some really flat line readings in there.

 

As an aside I didn't really enjoy the conversation between Luke and Leia (my boyfriend remarked that it felt flippant and silly for two people divided for decades) and I really disliked the stupid 'force dice'. Who comes up with shit like that?

[SMD]

Luke was perfect in The Last Jedi.

[Stig]

3 minutes ago, SMD said:

Luke was perfect in The Last Jedi.

 

Shhhhh, you're not allowed to like the film or say you liked Luke.

[Smitty]

5 minutes ago, SMD said:

Luke was perfect in The Last Jedi.

 

What, even the bad acting when he was being comically grumpy? How do you feel about them choosing not to show his reaction to Han dying?

[Smitty]

2 minutes ago, Stigweard said:

 

Shhhhh, you're not allowed to like the film or say you liked Luke.

 

Get off the throne, drama queen.

[Unofficial Who]

 

They're going to do this by committee? Oh no...

[Smitty]

Here's one line that summarises a major problem I have with TLJ: what do you want me to feel, Rian?

 

That's something that I kept thinking throughout the film. When discussing the film later with my BF he agreed that was a good way of highlighting the rapid and uncomfortable tonal shifts of the film.

 

What am I meant to be feeling right now? That came up again and again.

[Smitty]

1 hour ago, Stigweard said:

Good news for all of you that hated TLJ. These plucky upstarts want you to help them rewrite and remake TLJ with them

 

 

 

This kind of stuff is so silly. Why? WHY?

 

That said, if somebody was interested in just writing a screenplay that aims to fix some of the problems with the film, i'd be interested in that. I think a talented writer could come up with a very compelling story.

[Don Rosco]

 

8 minutes ago, Stigweard said:

Get off your high horse and take a break.

 

Easy now. Smitty is perfectly entitled to his opinion and is expressing it well, even if he's DEAD WRONG about Luke. Hamill is magnificent in this, and I completely buy his motivation for hiding out. All the more impressive given his well publicised opinions on the direction Luke was taken in TLJ. I fucking loved the Luke / Kylo / Rey triangle in this. Star Wars gold.

[SMD]

14 minutes ago, Smitty said:

 

What, even the bad acting when he was being comically grumpy? How do you feel about them choosing not to show his reaction to Han dying?

 

I don't need to see everything. Luke was clearly tortured and isolated and Rey caused him to re-evaluate a lot of what he spent decades hiding away from.

[Don Rosco]

52 minutes ago, Smitty said:

 

How do you feel about them choosing not to show his reaction to Han dying?

 

I thought that was handled pretty well with his reaction to seeing Chewie without Han. He knew straight away and delivered the goods in one word. Hit me right in the gut

[Smitty]

26 minutes ago, SMD said:

 

I don't need to see everything. Luke was clearly tortured and isolated and Rey caused him to re-evaluate a lot of what he spent decades hiding away from.

 

I just found a lot of his stuff somewhat unsatisfying, and his performance uneven. I don't think he acted in character sometimes and that his character and role weren't used in the right way.

 

I'm definitely not saying it was terrible though. At other points in the film he performs well and communicates quite a lot with his face and expressive eyes.

 

Looking around a bit at different critiques a I think a lot of people unhappy with Luke's portrayal were really hoping to see more of this kind of Luke we see below and even I, someone who's not a serious fan of these movies (the sort who would get angry about the use of the old characters, rather than just mildly critical), did feel the Star Wars magic returning in scenes like this.

 

 

 

That managed to pull at my withered and cynical old heartstrings. I think that's the thing: I WANT to feel the power and romance of this story.

 

He generally feels so different in the film from when we last saw him that its sometimes hard to feel the connection from the past to the present. I think that I just want more sense of the old Luke, more of that character coming through. I think of Hamill saying 'who is this guy' in an interview about when we first see him, because he often does feel like someone else.

 

I don't think it's a surprise that Hamill has intimated multiple times that he's not really happy with the role of Luke in TLJ. It's not without its moments, but overall I feel like its a wasted opportunity.

 

I'm just glad i'm not as invested in these characters as some others are (OG fans who fell in love back in 1977) because I think i'd be bitterly disappointed with how they have been used. I think Han was used poorly in TFA, and I felt basically nothing when he was killed. I knew an OG fan from my last job who was livid about that.

[Darren]

All good points Smitty, but as an OG fan who's been "Star Wars mad" since I saw it aged 7 in April 1978 (it only arrived in London in December '77, the rest of the country had to wait for the prints to do the rounds), I think both Han in TFA and Luke in TLJ were spot on. Both had been damaged in different ways by Ben/Kylo. Han went back to his comfort zone, smuggling and dodgy dealing with Chewie. Luke blamed himself and cut himself off from the universe and the force itself to avoid doing any more damage. Both had to be persuaded to return to the fray. In both cases this was an echo of their reluctance in the first film, and in Luke's case there's a further dimension because now he's the Obi Wan figure and Rey is the Young Luke equivalent, but this time it's the apprentice trying to persuade the reluctant master rather than vice versa.

 

I think Hamill plays it really well. For the first few scenes he's literally just a grumpy old man, he's made himself more of a hermit than Obi Wan ever did (we all know he was a regular in the Cantina, otherwise how would he know it's where all the best pilots hang out, or that it can get a little rough?) and he's not spoken to anyone in years. This fresh faced young woman turns up to remind him of the young man he used to be and brandishing the same talismanic weapon that was passed from his father, via Obi Wan, to him, when he's spent the last however many years telling himself the universe is better off without him. Of course he rejects it and her, he doesn't even want to speak to her, he doesn't want this constant reminder of the life he ran away from.

 

The whole Luke/Rey/Ben triangle is far and away the best thing in TLJ for me. (I agree some of Rey's lines on the island are delivered a bit flat but apparently she was directed to speak in a much "posher" accent because they were worried Americans wouldn't understand her natural delivery, which can't have helped.)

[Dirty Harry Potter]

Darren, I think you come across as an intelligent and considerate poster - and you also seem to really love anything that has a Star Wars label on the tin. 

 

Personally, Im pretty surprised by the lack of foresight and carelessness Disney has taken with the franchise. Why rush them all out? Why have no grand plan? Why start indicating to fans what they should and shouldn’t like?

 

Specifically with TLJ I have no problem with beaten up Luke- if it’s logical and feels earned.  The problem with Luke is that he decided to murder the his nephew - son of his best friend and sister. Because he showed hints of the Dark side side. Say what? The guy who’s last three films was spent redeeming the irremediable - thinks fuck that - I’ll just murder him. Ryan Johnson just figured none of us idiots would notice (and some of us didn’t). And the whole plot rests of this

 

It’s the worst kind of plot contrivance and is qualified by flashbacks ( the cheapest of narrative devises). 

 

Anyway it’s made now and  we have all discussed this a million times.

 

George Lucas must be laughing his ass off. 

[Darren]

Whereas I see that as Luke being momentarily tempted by the dark side to take the quick and easy path to solve the problem he foresees of an incredibly powerful Ben himself turning to the dark side... and of course it’s that moment of weakness that prompts the very thing he’s trying to prevent. It all fits.

[Stig]

 

[Smitty]

2 hours ago, Darren said:

All good points Smitty, but as an OG fan who's been "Star Wars mad" since I saw it aged 7 in April 1978 (it only arrived in London in December '77, the rest of the country had to wait for the prints to do the rounds), I think both Han in TFA and Luke in TLJ were spot on.

 

Sure, i'd never pretend that all OG fans are of one opinion on this film or any of the others. Some like them, some really really don't.

 

All I was saying is that it's that kind of Star Wars fan, the people nursing that love for 30 years, who are the ones who get REALLY angry/upset about these movies when they don't like them. I'm just saying if I took the view they did in the context of their fandom then I'd probably be really mad. As it is I can just say 'didn't really like the portrayal, found it unsatisfying' instead of really going off on one. I'm criticising it here, but it's not personal for me. I'm not emotional about it. Those guys are.

 

I still have all kinds of problem with the film but if you took the Rey/Kylo/Luke scenes (notwithstanding my criticism of them) in isolation and cut out of the rest of the stuff out then you'd have a much better accumulated quality of scenes. I agree those are better scenes, and interesting ideas and relationships. But for me they'd just have to exist in another film, another story entirely.

 

As it is, the whole thing just doesn't hang together for me. It's weird because on one intellectual level I appreciate some of ideas, on paper (as i've said) it sounds great. On the page i'd appreciate the symbolism of Luke 'fighting' as a force projection and then dying from it; in reality I found that I was pretty much nonplussed by it. Again, I didn't feel anything when Luke died. My reaction: ok, Lukes dead. I feel like that's a dramatic failure.

 

As I've said before the reason why I'm so harsh is because I enjoyed parts. I should be here saying that the Kylo/Ren showdown was legendary, a brilliant scene. Because in many ways it is. When I see potential dashed, when I see fois gras next to dog shit I tend to react quite badly.

 

I felt very odd afterwards, confused. What was that, I asked myself. It's both good and terrible. I think, judging by the very strong backlash in some quarters that I am not the only person who had this reaction. For me its the weirdest Star Wars film there is. The artistry, the performances, the technical aspects, the direction and everything all so far above the level of the prequels (as with TFA) but its given me kind of prequel-level enjoyment. To my mind it just shows that you having the right story, told in the right way with the right way is crucial. You can be a way better film maker than pre-era Lucas and still make something that doesn't deliver.

[Jammy]

12 minutes ago, Darren said:

Whereas I see that as Luke being momentarily tempted by the dark side to take the quick and easy path to solve the problem he foresees of an incredibly powerful Ben himself turning to the dark side... and of course it’s that moment of weakness that prompts the very thing he’s trying to prevent. It all fits.

Which kind of mirrors Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side to try and stop Padmé dying, only to find that his fall to the Dark Side is actually what causes her death.

[kensei]

15 minutes ago, Darren said:

Whereas I see that as Luke being momentarily tempted by the dark side to take the quick and easy path to solve the problem he foresees of an incredibly powerful Ben himself turning to the dark side... and of course it’s that moment of weakness that prompts the very thing he’s trying to prevent. It all fits.

 

But we don't see why Kylo is so bad that he'd be momentarily tempted, and the film clouds the fact that we know Kylo is bad because he killed Han Solo, the film spend sit time trying to humanise him and sell the idea he might turn back. 

 

The last we saw of a Luke he was the hero of ROTJ, and TFA does not disabuse us of the notion that he's still a hero and the Force is with him. There is a ton of groundwork needed to sell the set up of TLJ that just isn't done. 

 

That a lot of it still works very well is a testament to how great Hamill was. 

[Delargey]

27 minutes ago, Smitty said:

 

As it is, the whole thing just doesn't hang together for me. It's weird because on one intellectual level I appreciate some of ideas, on paper (as i've said) it sounds great. On the page i'd appreciate the symbolism of Luke 'fighting' as a force projection and then dying from it; in reality I found that I was pretty much nonplussed by it. Again, I didn't feel anything when Luke died. My reaction: ok, Lukes dead. I feel like that's a dramatic failure.

 

 

I totally get the whole 'It's a good idea on paper' there are lots of passes I give this movie because I liked the idea, if not the execution... It was almost as if I rewrote them in my head while watching the movie...For example The Rey/Ren mind link, rather than it happening over a few days I imagined that it happened over a few weeks/months, where both of them where frustrated with thier own positions and gradually opened up to each other, making their scene in the throne room powerful (when they probably only had four conversations).

 

This Luke's death, think it was really well done...It was a great ending for Luke. I think maybe the reason you didn't connect was because of the weaker story lines surrounding them rather than the scene itself.

 

Also the older fans just wanted Luke to be an a hero, wise and noble and just. Luke, which is boring.

 

 

 

 

[kensei]

The idea you can't write wise, noble and just as interesting is boring. 

[Harsin]

2 hours ago, Jammy said:

Which kind of mirrors Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side to try and stop Padmé dying, only to find that his fall to the Dark Side is actually what causes her death.

 

[b00dles]

Also, we didn't see Luke react to Han because JJ wanted the mystery box of only revealing Luke at the end. Personally I think he should have been more involved from the off but that's not what they did and I think Rian did very well scrambling it back from TFA.

 

I also think there's a hell of a lot of rose tints going on, Luke is barely a coherent character over the original three films if you're really going to be picky. You could level the same lack of reaction to finding out about Han to Leia finding out in one scene (effectively) that not only was her dad the biggest evilest bad man but now he's also dead. Oh well, comedy scene with Han being semi jealous.

 

The new trilogy was almost never going to work as much as the prequels were never going to work but they did them and I think that Rian did a much better job with what he had (and given the alleged lack of structure, which we don't actually know is totally true) than we could rightly expect given what has gone before.

 

Anyway, I think Smitty and dirty Harry potter might not like this but I'm not sure, as much as I think Darren, myself and clipper thought it was good. Who knew, I'd bet dollars to donuts there are other films where we're also on the other side of the argument.

 

Prometheus was shit though, we can all agree on that

[jonamok]

7 hours ago, Harsin said:

I do a pretty good Yoda impression. Call me and discuss remuneration packages we can.

 

FYIFT.