Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi - Page 14

Rey stole the books. So what? A kid, whose knowledge about the Jedi and the Sith can be summed up with "Force means balance and Luke doesn't consider himself a worthy legend" will rebuild or build a new Jedi order? BASED ON WHAT?!?! It's like forming Christianity number 2 after you talked with the pope for an hour, but 50 minutes were spent by the pope wallowing in self-pity so you did not actually learn much

Yes, the idea of Rey being the pioneer of a new Jedi order which tries to learn from its predecessor's mistakes is awesome! Too bad that instead of Rey getting meaningful lessons from Luke and life, we had to watch two characters - whom the director clearly hated - riding some spacehorses in a story which eventually lead to nothing. Yes, that subplot told us a story about people with good intentions eventually doing more harm. But the first 15 minutes of the movie was literally about this but with different character and in space!!!!

I mean that subplot was so worthless. Fin is getting rolled down to the brig. They arrive at the brig and do their dance of hatching the plot to stop the interwarp scanning. DJ happens to be in the brig because he was one of the people rose stunned earlier trying to bail like finn. The timer gets eliminated because the fuel needed to escape is put in the transports so they will be able to make it all the way to the secret base in time. Everything in the movie happens normally and nothing changes. Leia is caught in the debris instead of killed when the shield stops atmo from escaping allowing the rebels to get back on the bridge to repair in and use the ship more. She doesn't become a literal space wizard and nothing in the story changes. Ghost Yoda doesn't say much he lightnings the tree but responds when luke tries to save the books that rey stole them on her way out. Luke smiles and the two watch the tree burn while talking about why the tree is a thing. Plot is better we fill in a couple holes and it makes the ending scene no less impactful but allows people to see them and smile instead of be confused if they are what they think they are.

And do you think Rey is adequate enough to do any of that? What this movie needed was an unconventional training from Luke. He did not believe in the way Jedi used to train their Padawans so he could have been this grumpy,
arrogant Jedi Master, who teaches Rey not black or white, but somewhere in between. I mean, the movie tried to go that way, but shied away from it. Rey should have been the - not literal - child of Luke, Kylo and Han. Luke represented wisdom, but had no hope. Kylo represented hope, but he was terribly misguided by others and he was afraid. And Han was the embodiment of a practical man, who, in the end, still chose family over his assured safety.

It would have formed Rey into a very interesting grey character (chaotic good or something), who would no doubt fail in many things (most likely in trying to convert Kylo), but she would represent the Good we really need in this trilogy.

But instead they dropped the ball with Luke, and instead of meaningful lessons (both spiritually and physically), he only gave Rey some /r/getmotivated shit.

Obi-Wan had his master killed, and his best friend, his young Padawan turned out to be Vader, which he considered his personal failure. Luke saw the selfless sacrifice of Obi-Wan, he believed in father till the very end (which was a stupid, but human thing to do), and he too suffered when he tried to raise new Jedi. Rey had none of that; she doesn't understand what it means to be a Jedi (or a Sith for that matter), or the burden of bearing the Force. She heard snippets, she felt that Luke was killed by the suns and the clouds and that is all.

Rey was royally fucked by the writers in this episode. I furiously defended her piloting, Force and lightsaber skills after TFA, I tried to explain to every single person why they are being extremely unfair with her, and just wait till episode VIII,
where her true power will be unleashed. Turns out nothing got unleashed, and her character development was put to a halt.

For comparison's sake, Kylo was expanded by a lot. He became a fully fleshed out character and I am extremely interested where goes from here. Well, would be, because by killing Snoke, they left him no other plot to be involved in other than kill the rest of the Resistance aka those 15 people or so. This movie could have gave us a cliffhanger, like Kylo planning to murder every strong force user because he has self-esteem issues and he is too afraid that he will be overtaken, or Kylo wanting to chase his past (Han, Leia, Luke, possibly even Chewie) in one way or another, or.. or...
anything man, anything.

Yoda pointed out Luke's hypocrisy, that he never even read them. Which was a good scene, I really liked it,
but it made no sense that Rey has them now. First of all, you won't learn how to cook by reading half a dozen cookbooks. Then keep in mind, Luke was a harsh critic of the Jedi antics and how they did many stuff badly (I guess he had time to watch the prequels there), so what good does a bunch of antiquated book will do for Rey and the future of the Force users?

I am absolutely flabbergasted how people are preoccupied by a flying Leia which - if you reaaaaallly think about it -
kinda makes sense, even if it looks silly, but no one worries about the future of this story. Many people are sucking off Rian for being brave with Rey's parents, killing Snoke and basically pulling a tabula rasa, but they forget that it's like burning bridges. It looks amazing, but then the flame dies out and you are left with ashes with nowhere to go.

Is there a secret Jedi sect somewhere which can do something useful with those books? No. Is there some mighty Sith lord out there to hunt/pursue Kylo? No. Is there ANY meaningful question left hanging? No.

Mark my words and screenshot this: J.J. will have to pull things out of his ass, and people will jump at his throat for introducing brand new, mysterious things in the last episode, while Godemperor Rian Johnson was so brave and
unorthodox to do away with those!

I don't blame casual watchers for this oversight, because they care about one thing: did they enjoy TLJ? Yes or no and they move on. But if you are just slightly a fan who actually cares about this franchise, it is slo glaringly obvious that this very much watchable movie was actually a trainwreck story-wise.

And to make another jab at Rian: not only he forgot to watch TFA, but he also missed an important quote from the OT:
"do or do not, there is no try." You either make a heavy movie to swallow with lots of shockers and scenes which will be discussed even 50 years from now, or you make a feelgood, by-the-book movie like TFA or RotS. There is no middle-ground. You can't burn people alive and show a goofy robot ball bouncing and screetching around. You can't copy half your movie from previous SW episodes and hope that people will only talk about the other half, which is actually innovative. You can't promote a movie as one of the darkest in the franchise, when in the end you direct a scene where the POWER OF LOVE AFTER A SHITTY TINDER DATE is more important than the entire existance of the Resistance. The same Resistance which were shoved down our throat in the very last scene, implying that you can never get rid of it - unless you are in love.

You know, if this movie would have ended by Kylo and Rey forging an alliance and making plans to train Force users, but not as Jedi or Sith, just simple training, while they have enemies out there (either Leia and the resistance if Rey stays with Kylo, or Snoke and the First Order if Kylo stays with Rey). Or you know what? Kill off Snoke for good!
Let's try a Jedi-Sith alliance, where they try to merge the best from each side! Will it work? No, but the answer to the question "why can't it work?" would make for an interesting last episode.

Though we would still need some kind of opponent... but hey, the writer's job to figure it out, right?

Bah I'm really disappointed at it. Such a disappointment! I can't stand Kylo Ren as a villain, Snokes' death and the fact that Luke gave Rey basically no training at all is really annoying. It's unreal that they wasted the scene of the first contact between Luke and Rey with a stupid joke with Luke throwing the lightsaber out. When they showed the X-wing underwater I thought we might see some training but we got not at all. It doesn't make any sense that Rey is strong, there is no build up to her character, there is also no build up or improvement for Kylo. He is just a very emotional villain it seems. Meh tbh I hate, I hope they can some how fix it in the last movie.

The casino /code breaker part, purple hair stories and at least some of the toys characters (Phasma, the red guards and the little furry)

I believe Yoda said "there is nothing in those books she does not already know" or "hasn't already taken with her" so in true literal dick Jedi fashion he was lying to Luke since he knew she had taken the books already. He never said they were worthless per se.

Paraphrasing here but Yoda also pointed out to Luke that none of those books were impossible to put down while reading - which Luke never even did -, implying that they are either bad or boring. But he's main point was that Luke should not worry about them, but not because Rey has them.

Basically Yoda got to be the well fed goat while still keeping the Lettuce. Showed the unimportance of those books to Luke while also keeping them intact.