Star Wars TLJ - Spoilers Inside

[coldel]

Went to see this at the weekend, premium seat, 3d, centre placing etc. was all set for over 2 hours of star wars mayhem. And was a little disappointed...started really well, slowed down far too much in the middle, then the end really kicked on but a few things really bothered me...spoiler alert so only click if you have seen the film!

 

Spoiler

Since when did the First Order fleet become so slow? Or why didnt they just jump ahead of the rebels or just behind them? Following them for over an hour seemed ridiculous.

 

Leia floating in space, coming back to life, flying through space, sorry thats not Jedi powers. 

 

Snoke was all powerful but couldnt tell that Kylo Ren was about to chop him in half and was in fact moving the lightsaber the whole time. 

 

Kylo Ren is the most underwhelming baddie ever in Star Wars, his nice boy next door face and droney voice is just awful.

 

What was the casino visit all about? What was the point? It just removed a couple of main characters from the main plot - I get that it inspired the boy at the end but it was a hefty bit of time and people resource to achieve just that.

 

We didnt see Luke in action, I was gutted as I wanted to see just one last hurrah, dodging under a lightsaber doesnt count. 

 

Why did Luke disappear/die? 

 

Anyway, it was a good bit of entertainment but nowhere near the 90%+ Rotten Tomatoes critics are giving it.

[Stutopia]

Very disappointed, it was closer to Ep 1, 2 & 3 than Ep 3.5, 4, 5, 6, & 7 in terms of quality.

 

If only it had more cute critters in it...

[marzman]

I agree with the majority of your points Coldel.  My breakdown is below.

Spoiler

Princess Leia flying in space was the worst part of the movie for me.

 

I disagree about Kylo Ren though - I think he's ace.  He was fantastic in the previous film.  Anyone who has the stones to kill Han Solo is pretty cool if you ask me.  However, I spent the first half of the movie thinking that a fan theory i'd read recently was going to come true - that Kylo didnt kill Han - Han killed himself.

 

From an online post:

 

I think Han is the one who activated the lightsaber, not Kylo.  "I know what I have to do but I don't know how to do it... will you help me?"  Han: "Yes, anything."   Kylo pulls out his lightsaber holding it in both hands.  Han reaches down to grasp the center of it.  We just see their faces but notice they arent struggling.  The lightsaber activates and goes through Han, Kylo looks startled for a moment and then says "Thankyou."  Han Touches his son's face and then falls into the abyss.

 

Kylo's journey to the dark side required him to kill his father. Han knew this and knew Snoke would kill his son if he failed this task. By Han activating the lightsaber himself Kylo can still go back to Snoke and report that the deed is done, but the fact that it wasnt really him that killed his father ensures there will always be a hint of light left in him that can never be extinguished. Thus eventually Han's sacrifice will succeed in his promise to bring his son home.

 

With this theory in mind, the first half of the movie made me think this is exactly how things were going to play out and that Kylo was going to see the light.  I don't really understand why/how he was so close to being good and then came up with his own new agenda to rule with Rey.  Didnt make sense.

 

Regarding the Casino scene, my brother made a point to me that until recently Hollywood movies always had the good guys winning, but now things are a lot more gritty and realistic.  They show there must be sacrifice and pain in order to fight for your cause and that good doesnt always win.  I liked this whole part of the story as it reflected this point of view exactly - .  I cant ever remember seeing a plot line in a movie which has the good guys failing like this.  I thought it was interesting.

 

Lastly, my biggest frustration with the movie was with Rey.  After TFA people were critical that this 'nobody' had Jedi-like skills with no training.  Now we find out she's super-powerful and clearly must have some of the Skywalker bloodline to be as strong as she is, but we still got absolutely no explanation whatsoever.  Strange.

 

As a spectacle though it was definitely enjoyable.  I'd rate the 3 most recent Star Wars movies as follows (just as a point of reference):

 

The Force Awakens 10/10

Rogue One 7/10

The Last Jedi 8/10

 

[coldel]

See I would have put Rogue One above both of the new SW films. It was so focused, so raw and sequences of action, information, reflection etc. came thick and fast. I agree with Stu that this film was much more like the prequels all a bit too fluffy, colourful and CGI based.  

 

Spoiler

 

Not sure on that Kylo Ren theory though, there was an article with JJAbrams a while back where he actually says why Kylo Ren killed Solo. Can't argue with the chap that made the film really. That he was too far down the path of the dark side to turn back - and in any case if you are stood on a barrierless bridge across a ten mile deep cavern its bound to all go wrong...

 

I thought it was a bit obvious what was happening with Kylo Ren in the fight sequence against the guys in red (who were they? the other jedi trainees?) that there is a fair bit of killing your peers to climb the chain of command on the dark side!

 

Get that the good side can fail, but it devoted I would guess 30-40 minutes on that part about finding the code breaker. Such a lot of time to add in for something that ultimately ended in nothing. Thinking back to Star Wars New Hope/ESP/ROTJ they had plans that failed and got captured, but it only took 10 mins or so - think ROTJ on the forrest planet when their effort to blow up the shield reactor failed at the first attempt?

 

 

[RickyZ]

Spoiler

What annoys me the most is that we still haven't found out who Snoke is, where he came from, and how he targeted Kylo in the first place? Now it seems we may never know and it kind of makes having him in the movies at all totally pointless.

 

[coldel]

Yes agreed!

 

Spoiler

Snoke completely came out of nowhere and has now disappeared. Presumably. 

 

Assuming he is as old as he looks, and taken years to become the top dog, he must have a fairly long back story - but they seem happy to allow us to just accept the most powerful being in the universe has just rocked up out of nowhere. Did Palpatine have a love child?!

 

Have to say I did like the moment the rebels jumped into the trenches on the salt planet, evoked strong Hoth memories although again it does make you wonder why the First Order landed so far away with their walkers when the rebels had no actual air defence (like they had on Hoth with the Ion cannon). Why land so far away with such slow vehicles? Why do the baddies keep insisting on monumentally slow walkers! They could have just plonked down right outside the mine and been no worse off. 

 

[Ekona]

Can we just put a spoiler warning in the title and stop with the hidden bits?! Common sense dictates you don't open a thread about a new film if you don't want to see people discussing it

 

My thoughts? It was okay. The start was ace (finally got to see an X-Wing be proper manouverable like they're supposed to be), the middle bit utter tosh, and the end meh. Having proper model Yoda instead of CGI Yoda was a very good idea, but Luke was utterly wasted. We get a glimpse of him about to snap and kill Ben so proper character development, but then he just becomes whingy and then fades away for no good reason. Pfft. I wanted a proper blood and guts fight! Or at least an Alec Guinness Obi-Wan style heroic death. Also, the end big fight felt like it was only there as DLC for Battlefront II. If that's not now in the game, I'll be amazed.

 

When it all went quiet when the ship went to lightspeed through the capital ship... Man, that was proper awesome. Absolutely bang-on in terms of impact. I'm really glad that they didn't make Rey related to anyone either, there's enough incest in this already without any more. Let her stand on her own. I'd have loved for her to have joined Kylo though post-Snoke and make the third film something to really look forward to, but I guess that was too much to ask for. The little kid doing a force pull with the broom at the end was a lovely subtle touch.

 

 

The fuzzy things are cute though.