EPTStar Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi - Page 32
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Spoilers for the film are in this thread, read at your own peril if you have not seen the movie. No more spoiler tags from page 20 | ||
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Sermokala
United States14061 Posts
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levelping
Singapore759 Posts
On December 26 2017 18:38 Sermokala wrote: If anything the movie needed more feminism with its poor gender balance and its potrayal of the females inability to deal with poe properly. Women can and should be played as strong evil characters just as much as token minority characters. Why isn't the problem with the way Poe is written? In TFA he's a good fighter pilot who wants to help his friends and he shoots things. In TLJ, he gets most of his friends killed, has his plane blown up, and then tries to play the role of an Admiral. Speaking of - where did the rest of the resistance leadership go? Did Greg Grunberg's character die or something. | ||
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
If it's the lack of nuance then that's true, but at the end of the day it's a star wars movie and not some character study. This isn't the new ghostbusters where it actually was jarring. | ||
Falling
Canada11381 Posts
On December 26 2017 03:24 palexhur wrote: How are those deaths even comparable? First as you can see in the OT the Emperor doesnt have the power to sense everything, second he is fighting mainly vs Luke, and third it is the climax of the movie when you dont know if Vader will return to the light, you saw a different movie? People keep saying this as though the Emperor was anything comparable to Snokes because they both didn't have much screen time. That's silly because it misses how the power of the Emperor is built offscreen. For one and a half films, the OT built up the power and competence of the Emperor's subordinates. Tarkin and Darth Vader first- and even the generals around the Death Star conference table are Very Serious. Maybe you have Ozzel to undercut, but that only serves to show that Darth Vader is ruthless. And Veers is Very Serious. Basically, by the time the Emperor first shows up on screen, you are already sold on how bad ass a villain Darth Vader is. So when he bows down to the Emperor and the Emperor seems to have a mystical insight into both Skywalker, the mightiness of Darth Vader transfers to the Emperor. We already know how competent Darth Vader is- and he bows to this Emperor, he must be even more powerful in some way. Every time Darth Vader is raised up, the Emperor is raised up too for when the moment that Vader kneels before him. The storyteller does the leg work with Vader, and the Emperor reaps the benefit (unless the story tricks us with a paper tiger- a wizard of Oz. Invariably, a frustrating experience for the reader, unless done well.) And then when the Emperor finally gets his moment to shine in Return of the Jedi, he really goes for it. I mean one line really introduces him so well without doing a thing. Darth Vader "The Emperor is less forgiving as I am." This ironic statement is brilliant in character development. Everything we know about Vader has shown that he is the opposite of forgiving. And the Emperor is less tolerant of failure? That's awesome. And the film does nothing to undercut our estimation of Vader and the Emperor. The Emperor holds Vader's leash. Vader wants to seek out Luke, the Emperor says no. Vader has had free reign for an entire movie, and only Tarkin said no to him in the past. We know what Vader can do- the fact that he is obedient, tells us so much about The Emperor's power over Vader. Then The Emperor proves to be prophetic- he says Luke will come to him ahead of time and he is right. He sets up a trap and it works- He's blowing apart the Rebel fleet without using his own fleet and his legion had at that moment captured all the Rebels. Like Saruman, he had left the inhabitants of the woods out of his calculations, but that's the first and only misstep in his entire plan thus far. And he was almost right about Luke too. I hate when people say they think Return of the Jedi is a weak film. That throne room battle of wills, and battle against self is such a climatic ending to Luke's journey as a Jedi from the first film. Powerful stuff. Last Jedi had already lost me with their cruiser subplot, so by the time we got our nu-Throneroom scene, I resented it for the weak-tea mimicry that it was. By contrast, Kylo is an interesting conflicted character in Force Awakens, but not a very impressive villain- Vader had controlled rage. Kylo had out of control tantrums. Vader beat Obi Wan, most of the Rebel Starfighters in the trenches, took out the Hoth Base, captured Han, tricked and beat Luke, etc. Force Awakens portrays a conflicted character- a villain at the beginning of his villainous path. Hux and Kylo in the last film were hauled before Snokes as though they were two school boys before the principal. One of my complaints in the last film was that we had no really impressive villain, but I was willing to see where they went with Kylo. But here never had his Rocky training montage. He never manned up. That's fine for Kylo's character. But that means Snokes has to do his own heavy lifting to prove his villainous chops... and he's got nothing. He's got a weak tea version of trap, but none of the prophetic insight of the Emperor, and none of the build up from either of his minions, who continue to behave in less than impressive ways. The Emperor was already built up because of the commanding figure of Darth Vader that over-shadowed the series. They just needed to add a little more on top for a multiplying effect. Snokes position is unearned, because they were using his subordinates for other purposes and then failed to build up Snokes in any way as compensation. There was little to nothing to multiply. | ||
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Sermokala
United States14061 Posts
On December 26 2017 19:15 levelping wrote: Why isn't the problem with the way Poe is written? In TFA he's a good fighter pilot who wants to help his friends and he shoots things. In TLJ, he gets most of his friends killed, has his plane blown up, and then tries to play the role of an Admiral. Speaking of - where did the rest of the resistance leadership go? Did Greg Grunberg's character die or something. Poe isnt inherently a problem feminism wise but the way the movie has people reacting to poe. They call him dangerous like it's a good thing and refuse to punish him even verbally. I mean I guess poe commenting on how she doesnt look like much is terrible writing and problematic but the black man is confronted and attacked after not following orders while the white guy commits literal mutiny and no one mentions it again. | ||
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Falling
Canada11381 Posts
If Finn gets a pass with the military training and baton, why doesn't Rey's staff offer the same preparation? He doesn't. I think it's stupid that they keep him giving him melee weapons. Guns and grenades worked well enough in Rogue One. Give that man a firefight and something to do, something to believe, something to fight for. Tragically underused in this film. Oh, listening around, I think I'm closing in on a main reason I didn't like Rose as a character beyond line delivery. From another reviewer- she's preachy and inconsistent. I'm not sure about the inconsistent part yet, preachy, yeah. That tracks. When I wanted to add a Serious Idea, I used to throw it in really badly and make tangential preachy subplots or characters. It's like, thanks Hollywood, I'll be sure to fight the 1%ers with vandalism, not abuse or kill cute animals... I'll even do one better and not abuse kids (too soon?) Regardless of why its there, it's not integrated well at all. Animal abuse is tangential to anything going on in the rest of the plot (themes of the dangers of heroism) and it is dropped immediately anyways. War profiteering is an interesting angle, but is dropped immediately after one destructive ride through town. It's not integrated and so it stands out like a sore thumb. They told us about it once, never showed anything, and then it's like it never happened. I hated the plot for its didactic nature. But it's Rose that believes all those things, and so while I couldn't identify it immediately, she is the preachy character. Finn is just there for the ride. And honestly, her way of righting wrong is really lame. (I just want to punch them in the face. Really?) | ||
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
However, the rest of Falling's critiques of the male characters are true, but just lacking (again IMO) the context, that the Female characters are one-dimensional and suck in similar ways, its just that the director wanted them to be cool, but failed in his execution. I think, for instance, Poe-Purple hair was supposed to be a tale of a hothead and a "bad" leader (that was secretly competent) butting heads and him learning a lesson, but was poorly executed. To be honest, the "mutiny" actually happened in the first scene when all the bombers chose to follow his orders instead of Leia's. It is clear to the viewer that the Rebel leadership structure is fully discredited among the ranks at that time, but the writer/director didn't know it. Finn/Rose both have stories that are so bad that trying to extract a narrative is impossible. General Redhead is a weakling that engenders no respect, and I think that a better script would have revealed that Snoke (who we still no nothing about) wanted it that way because Snoke was jealous with his power and wanted a flunky instead of a person who would question his judgment and/or be a person who could realistically stage a coup (and we see that mutiny/coups are weigh heavily on the mind of this movie). So, poor writing kind of doomed all the characters and no one seemed to have any gravitas, so the entire script felt unhinged. IMO, the key to IX will be a timeskip, hopefully giving 2 (or all 3) of Poe, Kylo, & Finn a wife and maybe even kids (or pregnant wives which is also good because child actors are usually bad) so we can actually see what these people value and are fighting for. Even Rey with a child would give her context. I don't think the 1 movie can establish enough gravitas while also having a good conclusion, so instead they should go down the, "this is what we fight for" path, which I suppose the Las Vegas city thing was kinda supposed to be about, but I don't really think it accomplished anything at all. | ||
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Falling
Canada11381 Posts
I see it differently than falling, because I think the female characters we have, generally, are as weak as the male characters. Is that materially different from what I said? I say Finn doesn't get a pass for melee weapons because it bugged me, but it seems to me outside of Kylo, Rey, and Luke most of the characters, male or female are pretty weak. That's what you are saying, I think? I wish they gave something for Finn to do because I liked his story arc in the first film. Icing him for the entire film with a sidequest and an NPC escort mission was a waste of the actor's abilities and the character's potential. I certainly agree that it's in execution that they failed. In many places I can see or at least guess what they were trying for, but it really, really didn't work for me. Like, I've seen the hard-ass commander vs the cocky/ hotshot pilot done very well before: Colonel Tigh vs Starbuck and/or Apollo amongst others. (The one other thing this movie reminded me of, besides a Frankenstein version of Empire and Return, is a very badly done Battlestar Galactica episode). It's a really neat storyline, but not the way they did it here. | ||
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
Generally, people still consider IV and V the strongest movies, and a big part of that is that almost no scene in IV is not directly related to what Luke is doing, and in V there is Luke + Han/Leia in the beginning and end, and they temporarily split up for the middle third of the film. Its really hard to execute a film like the current film particularly if its not a crime/heist type movie where people expect all the various parts to come together in the end (and then you DO make them come together). | ||
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levelping
Singapore759 Posts
- I think a time jump is inevitable. You need to allow Leia to die, for one. - I would really like if they can revisit some of the beats of TFA and TLJ. In TFA we see Rey being dumped by her parents, and in TLJ we see Luke confronting Ben. The latter incident is extra interesting because we are shown those events by an unreliable narrator (Luke) and another narrator who would have reason to lie (Ben). The true sequence of events would be great to see - what if Ben had known that Luke was coming, when Luke "looked" at Ben through the Force he realized that Ben was already taken by Snoke, but also that Luke realized that if he did not kill Ben now the galaxy would see the rise of the First Order - and in the end realized he still could not kill his own nephew. Something like this would flesh out Luke's reasons for hiding on the Island. - I feel like while Kylo is now the supreme leader, he needs to be something else besides Snoke's replacement. He talked about killing the past, so it would be interesting if they can make Episode IX First Order something which is not simply evil. - TLJ gave a lot of growth to Kylo, so I would want to see Rey get some love as well. I think that making her a mother is not doable with just one movie, but I think that you can explore her relationship as a lone figure against the other characters who do have family. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10826 Posts
That would be the dumbest and most nonsencial route they could take... But hey, after TLJ this is a real possibility. | ||
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Deleted User 26513
2376 Posts
On December 27 2017 03:50 Falling wrote: People keep saying this as though the Emperor was anything comparable to Snokes because they both didn't have much screen time. That's silly because it misses how the power of the Emperor is built offscreen. For one and a half films, the OT built up the power and competence of the Emperor's subordinates. Tarkin and Darth Vader first- and even the generals around the Death Star conference table are Very Serious. Maybe you have Ozzel to undercut, but that only serves to show that Darth Vader is ruthless. And Veers is Very Serious. Basically, by the time the Emperor first shows up on screen, you are already sold on how bad ass a villain Darth Vader is. So when he bows down to the Emperor and the Emperor seems to have a mystical insight into both Skywalker, the mightiness of Darth Vader transfers to the Emperor. We already know how competent Darth Vader is- and he bows to this Emperor, he must be even more powerful in some way. Every time Darth Vader is raised up, the Emperor is raised up too for when the moment that Vader kneels before him. The storyteller does the leg work with Vader, and the Emperor reaps the benefit (unless the story tricks us with a paper tiger- a wizard of Oz. Invariably, a frustrating experience for the reader, unless done well.) And then when the Emperor finally gets his moment to shine in Return of the Jedi, he really goes for it. I mean one line really introduces him so well without doing a thing. Darth Vader "The Emperor is less forgiving as I am." This ironic statement is brilliant in character development. Everything we know about Vader has shown that he is the opposite of forgiving. And the Emperor is less tolerant of failure? That's awesome. And the film does nothing to undercut our estimation of Vader and the Emperor. The Emperor holds Vader's leash. Vader wants to seek out Luke, the Emperor says no. Vader has had free reign for an entire movie, and only Tarkin said no to him in the past. We know what Vader can do- the fact that he is obedient, tells us so much about The Emperor's power over Vader. Then The Emperor proves to be prophetic- he says Luke will come to him ahead of time and he is right. He sets up a trap and it works- He's blowing apart the Rebel fleet without using his own fleet and his legion had at that moment captured all the Rebels. Like Saruman, he had left the inhabitants of the woods out of his calculations, but that's the first and only misstep in his entire plan thus far. And he was almost right about Luke too. I hate when people say they think Return of the Jedi is a weak film. That throne room battle of wills, and battle against self is such a climatic ending to Luke's journey as a Jedi from the first film. Powerful stuff. Last Jedi had already lost me with their cruiser subplot, so by the time we got our nu-Throneroom scene, I resented it for the weak-tea mimicry that it was. By contrast, Kylo is an interesting conflicted character in Force Awakens, but not a very impressive villain- Vader had controlled rage. Kylo had out of control tantrums. Vader beat Obi Wan, most of the Rebel Starfighters in the trenches, took out the Hoth Base, captured Han, tricked and beat Luke, etc. Force Awakens portrays a conflicted character- a villain at the beginning of his villainous path. Hux and Kylo in the last film were hauled before Snokes as though they were two school boys before the principal. One of my complaints in the last film was that we had no really impressive villain, but I was willing to see where they went with Kylo. But here never had his Rocky training montage. He never manned up. That's fine for Kylo's character. But that means Snokes has to do his own heavy lifting to prove his villainous chops... and he's got nothing. He's got a weak tea version of trap, but none of the prophetic insight of the Emperor, and none of the build up from either of his minions, who continue to behave in less than impressive ways. The Emperor was already built up because of the commanding figure of Darth Vader that over-shadowed the series. They just needed to add a little more on top for a multiplying effect. Snokes position is unearned, because they were using his subordinates for other purposes and then failed to build up Snokes in any way as compensation. There was little to nothing to multiply. The power of both characters is irrelevant when we compare them. As you said their powers are tied to their subordinates. They are the only variables in this equasion. The characters of Snoke and the emperor are almost equally not explained. So we have to make assumptions about them based on their subjects. The both characters themselves did almost nothing until their final showdown. The difference here is that Snoke is not that important to this trylogy as the emperor was for the first one. Yes he is the leader of the new empire, but as it turns out this is not your generic fantasy story and killing the ultimate evil doesn't automatically end the story. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10826 Posts
Until he kills him because, why not... Then he immediatly returns to his raging teenage self again. Why anyone in the first Order actually would follow Kylo (anyone not in his immediate presence at least), is really beyond me. | ||
hexhaven
Finland955 Posts
On December 27 2017 23:08 Velr wrote: Until he kills him because, why not... Then he immediatly returns to his raging teenage self again. Why anyone in the first Order actually would follow Kylo (anyone not in his immediate presence at least), is really beyond me. Well, his leadership skills are questionable | ||
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Falling
Canada11381 Posts
The difference here is that Snoke is not that important to this trylogy as the emperor was for the first one. Yes he is the leader of the new empire, but as it turns out this is not your generic fantasy story and killing the ultimate evil doesn't automatically end the story. Right. So why have him at all? Like, throw him entirely into Kylo's backstory (offscreen, maybe mentioned, maybe flashbacks, that it) and give Kylo more room to just be his own man. Part of what undercuts Kylo's authority is he has to run to big daddy who apparently considers Kylo to be equal to a simpering clown of an officer. As soon as they cut him down, my immediate thought was- his character has no point. They should have left him on the cutting room floor- part of why I think the film is a mess. @clutz. I agree- there was far too much going on in subplot land. I think part of the problem was upgrading Poe from a minor character to basically one of the mains. I see why- he's a very charismatic dude. But if you give him more space, you suck up oxygen for everyone else... especially when you split the party. Really, Poe and Finn should have gone off together and ditch the preachy Star Wars fangirl that stumbled onto the set. It would make more sense for Poe's maverick arc and he can actually see his plans blow up in front of him as he's captured on the deck of the Dreadnought. Of course that still gives nothing for Finn, but maybe an interesting arc could develop if Finn had a better character to bounce off of. (The inconvenience of finding no slicer anywhere in the galaxy in a hurry except on Casino Royale planet, which turns into very convenient because the slicer they need and couldn't get anywhere else that just so happens to be in their very prison cell, who can walk out at any time, but chose to walk out then is really starting to bug me now more so than before. Everything about that plot line is so stupid.) | ||
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TaardadAiel
Bulgaria750 Posts
Both militaries have an extremely non-military feel to them. A bunch of aunties are the leaders of the Resistance (since when is Leia Organa a general? She's always been a diplomat), doing absolutely nothing of essence. They have this hotshot pilot, who gets under ten minutes of great flying on screen - and then he disobeys orders, kills a bunch of comrades in the process, gets bitch-slapped by an aging lady, commits mutiny and gets away with it. Even better, while the hotshot pilot is being carried away on a stretcher, said aunties talk how likable he is. We get a glimpse of Ackbar's face, then he dies an anonymous death. This is possibly the greatest Alliance military leader, or at least one of their best naval commanders. In his stead we get Leia, Holdo and that other female commander - and they fit more around a table sipping tea and possibly playing bridge. Certainly not on the bridge of a capital ship and in no fcking way at the top of military leadership. Then we have the First Order. The actual archvillain of the series, Mr. Kylo Ren, is prone to throwing tantrums and looks like a highschool bully. They have this other military commander, who is even more childish and would've been dead for 10 years if Vader was around. The Empire from the original trilogy had a very disciplined, orderly feel about themselves. Tarkin was a sophisticated sadist; Vader was as intimidating as a villain can be and killed high-ranking officers on a whim; all commanders had a very accomplished look overall, reminiscent of Nazi Wehrmacht in its prime. What we have in TLJ is really disjointed - all the flashy armor stormtroopers, superweapons capable of destroying ships and structures with a few blows (btw, those projectiles are hilariously slow-moving) and a leadership consisting of several teenagers. The plot consisted mainly of holes and WTF-moments; the whole casino line was in essence useless, besides having a very accessible leftist message. For some reason both Jedi legends decide to destroy knowledge that has survived a gazillion years and let a (really motivated) young girl become a Jedi all by herself. Combined with the amazing lack of discipline in both the Resistance and First Order, the message of the movie is something like "do whatever you want, you'll get away with it and you need absolutely no education to be great". I really don't buy the idea behind burning the damn books. Lacks depth and credibility. Another thing that got me "come oooooooooooon!" while watching the movie was the blatant abuse of scenes and themes from the original trilogy. The chase through the crystal caverns at the end was SO much reminiscent of the battle inside the Death Star II in RotJ. But then we had Nien Nunb, Lando, Wedge and a Tycho Celchu to lead half the TIEs on a merry chase. Now we have Chewie piloting the Falcon on his own and Rey vaping three TIEs with a single shot. There were a lot more similar moments; the white stuff on the planet being salt and not snow does NOT help in convincing the audience that it wasn't a Hoth ripoff. The main upside of the movie was Rey's character, which had some depth to it, unlike pretty much everyone else. Most battle scenes looked great from an aesthetic point of view. The funny animals were cute, too. The dealbreaker, though, was Benicio del Toro's codeslicer. I REALLY wish he recurs in episode IX, because for his dozen lines and several minutes of screen time was the most believable and charismatic character in all post-Endor movies. A Lando Calrissian on steroids with more charisma and less moral objections. If it wasn't for him, I'd want my money back. Oh, and Leia surviving in hard vacuum WHILE UNCONSCIOUS (so no control over the Force, at least initially) and the horridly slow bombers dropping free-falling bombs in zero gravity had me more WTF than all Jar Jar Binks moments combined. | ||
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bertolo
United States133 Posts
On December 28 2017 07:02 TaardadAiel wrote: For some reason both Jedi legends decide to destroy knowledge that has survived a gazillion years and let a (really motivated) young girl become a Jedi all by herself. Combined with the amazing lack of discipline in both the Resistance and First Order, the message of the movie is something like "do whatever you want, you'll get away with it and you need absolutely no education to be great". I really don't buy the idea behind burning the damn books. Lacks depth and credibility. I'm pretty sure the books were saved by Rey in the falcon, they show them at the end. | ||
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levelping
Singapore759 Posts
On December 27 2017 23:33 hexhaven wrote: Well, his leadership skills are questionable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaOSCASqLsE When the Kylo shirtless scene came on in TLJ, I immediately remembered this and though hey he does have a six pack | ||
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Godwrath
Spain10135 Posts
On December 27 2017 04:09 Falling wrote: He doesn't. I think it's stupid that they keep him giving him melee weapons. Guns and grenades worked well enough in Rogue One. Give that man a firefight and something to do, something to believe, something to fight for. Tragically underused in this film. Oh, listening around, I think I'm closing in on a main reason I didn't like Rose as a character beyond line delivery. From another reviewer- she's preachy and inconsistent. I'm not sure about the inconsistent part yet, preachy, yeah. That tracks. When I wanted to add a Serious Idea, I used to throw it in really badly and make tangential preachy subplots or characters. It's like, thanks Hollywood, I'll be sure to fight the 1%ers with vandalism, not abuse or kill cute animals... I'll even do one better and not abuse kids (too soon?) Regardless of why its there, it's not integrated well at all. Animal abuse is tangential to anything going on in the rest of the plot (themes of the dangers of heroism) and it is dropped immediately anyways. War profiteering is an interesting angle, but is dropped immediately after one destructive ride through town. It's not integrated and so it stands out like a sore thumb. They told us about it once, never showed anything, and then it's like it never happened. I hated the plot for its didactic nature. But it's Rose that believes all those things, and so while I couldn't identify it immediately, she is the preachy character. Finn is just there for the ride. And honestly, her way of righting wrong is really lame. (I just want to punch them in the face. Really?) Answer to the bolded part. I can understand why you can dislike it. But it is a movie designed for children. The didactic part is and should be present on any movie designed for children. I simply enjoyed it through the parts that hit the nostalgic fan that i am and be done with it. I don't have big expectations on the trilogy being good movies for me because i am an adult already, so i adjust my expectations. The trilogy is not being done to push the story forward, but to hit a new generation with Star Wars merchandising right to the face. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10826 Posts
Good stuff for children isn't obvious or dumb, its just not overly sarcastic/ironic. The problem also wasn't the message (that only comes up in the totally useless part of the movie) but how hamfisted it was shoved in. | ||
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