BriarThrone Reviews: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

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Re: BriarThrone Reviews: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

Post by Ares »

Arkrite wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 3:22 am Okay, I have more thoughts.

::drags out the dead horse and his bat::

... Okay on second thought I have a question.

Is there anywhere left to go in the next movie? I mean, Rey already is better than Kylo so no real tension there, and every other story thread I can think of is either resolved, unimportant, or relies on a character they've killed off...
Well, the way they wanted the audience to feel at the end of the Last Jedi was along the lines of "Empire Strikes Back", in much the same way "The Force Awakens" was a shameless rehash of "A New Hope". Both of which were mistakes.

The Reb-, I mean, the ReSISTANCE is left with very few resources or personnel (because it turns out their escape plan was very stupid), enough that apparently every surviving Resistance member can fit into the Millennium Falcon. Rey and Kylo have literally broken the iconic lightsaber that started the franchise off, fighting over it like a pair of spoiled little kids. The Resistance feels betrayed because no one answered their call for help . . . which asks us to conveniently forget that their allies are all dealing with the fact that several of their PLANETS were destroyed in the last movie. It's one thing to say "We've been betrayed by our allies who chose not to help us" and another for the case to be "We have no aid to offer right now because our entire system of government just got turned into an asteroid field by a giant space laser.

Rey and the Resistance clearly need to start rebuilding the Resistance from the ground up, find new allies and train a new generation of Force using individuals with the books Rey took from the Jedi temple, while Kylo Ren apparently go gets the other Knights of Ren to help the First Order defeat the Resistance once and for all. And the movie ends with one young slave using the Force to bring a broom to him, holding that keepsake Finn and Rose gave him, staring off at the moon in a shot meant to parallel Luke gazing off at the twin suns, showing us that hope for the next generation of heroes exists. That when the First Order returns in the 3rd film, there will be a new group of heroes to fight them and return peace to the galaxy.

That's what I believe they intended. That we're going to get a time skip with Kylo Ren having being the new Supreme Leader of the First Order, trying to one up the Emperor, Vader and Snoke (*snicker*) by bringing the entire galaxy under his heel, taking advantage of the chaos caused by the New Republic's destruction to bring the Galaxy under his rule, with only the Resistance to stop him. Meanwhile Rey will be leading a new group of Force Using heroes who have trained themselves without any master, because clearly Rey don't need no man teaching her how to use the Force, she's just that good.

And it's all just SO STUPID.

I love Star Wars, I've never made any bones about it. But my God did the new trilogy just completely miss the boat.

The classic trilogy is just about perfect. The first film is an iconic Space Opera Blockbuster film that has become the template for the summer movie, showcasing the start of a new hero, introducing a new villain, a new setting, reinventing the classic Film Serial for a modern audience and doing some damn fine genre bending, giving us the classic story of an evil empire overthrown by righteous rebels, but in space. The second film opted to not simply be "Star Wars 2", instead having the big action sequence at the start of the film, and instead really focusing on the smaller character moments, the growth of everyone, getting into their motivations, their reasoning, and ending in a very personal confrontation that the hero loses, having been broken down to his very core by the revelations. The third film does a mix of both, showing the person Luke has built himself back up into being, while having the same kind of action and world building of the original, culminating in final battle that is a massive starship battle, a ground-based military battle, and a very personal battle between the forces of good and evil, that ends with good not defeating evil, but redeeming it.

The Prequel Trilogy did not mirror the original films. It showcased familiar characters, but since it was about the fall of the Republic and the Rise of the Empire, it needed to showcase the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker, since he was instrumental in that rise to power and was the central villain of the original films. Instead of a Rebellion, the first movie showcases what would likely have been "just another day" for the Jedi, dealing with trade disputes, stopping a war, and likely would have done so smoothly without the return of the Sith. The second film showcases a young hero conflicted over his duty and his emotions, as well as the peace of galaxy broken by civil war. The third film continues to show that civil war, while also having some mild political intrigue, ending with the bad guys winning in establishing their Empire and a hero falling to darkness.

All in all, both trilogies are very different, in terms of the kind of fights they have, the motivations, the adventure structures, etc. The original trilogy is about a small group of heroes trying to overthrow a corrupt government while the main hero tries to reignite a heroic tradition and redeem his father. The prequels is about the fall of a government into darkness through treachery and deceit, and the corruption of a good man into a force for evil.

The prequels had their problems, but for me, it was all in the storytelling. The acting, the directing,the editing choices, that's where the problems lay. The story was fine, it's how that story was told was the problem.

The new trilogy . . . is a complete re-tread of the original trilogy, but with worse storytelling. Technically, in terms of the look and direction, they're fine films. But more than any other films in the franchise, they bank on nostalgia while simultaneously doing the modern SJW thing of pissing on their fanbase. The Force Awakens is about a group of Rebels fighting against an evil Imperial force who have a planet destroying superweapon, and the fate of the galaxy relies on a small astromech who is wandering around the desert before being taken in by the hero of the film. The enemy is The Empire, the Emperor and Darth Vader in all but name. They need to break into the Super Weapon to rescue someone, they need to destroy the Super Weapon by attacking it's weak point in a specific bombing run, etc. The most original thing they do is have the escape attempt and the bombing run happen at the same time, and they actually kill off Han Solo.

The Last Jedi is basically the Empire Strikes back, but much dumber. They decided to move the Escape from Hoth to the end of the film rather than the beginning, missing the point of that action scene's placement. They have Rey go to get training from Luke, only to have him not train her, but she becomes awesome at using the Force anyway. The tense scene of the Millennium Falcon escaping multiple Star Destroyers is replaced with the most boring and illogical chase scene ever, as two space ships just follow each other for a couple of days, waiting for the smaller one to run out of gas. The scenes in the asteroid field and on Cloud City, which do some world building, give the characters a chance to grow, set up betrayal and intrigue and a hero's rash decision, are replaced with a military leader acting like a completely incompetent bitch who gets people killed, a pointless sidequest to tell us gambling is wrong, animal cruelty is wrong, and people who sell/buy weapons of war are evil, which winds up having no pay off. Rey receives no actual training, and the scene meant to emulate Luke's vision in the cave teaches her nothing. She goes to save Kylo Ren and all she winds up doing is breaking her lightsaber. And of course, the first big thing Rey has to lift with little training, she can do without problem, because screw that whole "size matters not" scene.

I could go on, but the only good points in The Last Jedi were the scenes when Mark Hammill was actually able to showcase his acting chops. I feel so terrible for the guy that they gave him so little to do and ruined the iconic hero he helped bring to life on the screen.

So yeah, there realistically is no place for the new trilogy to go, because the new trilogy is just the old trilogy, but worse. It would have been better to just set the new trilogy 100 years into the future, a new status quo with a Republic, a new Jedi Order with Grandmaster Skywalker in charge, having the first new film establish the changes to the setting and actually have a new threat. Hell, take a page from the books and have the Empire and the Republic made peace over time, with the Empire doing its own thing, with the New Republic basically being a more heroic United States while the Empire is a much less evil Russia, in a luke-warm cold war. Then you can have a new threat show up where both forces have to work together, you get to see Storm Troopers fighting alongside Republic soldiers, TIE fighters and X-Wings working alongside each other, and Jedi doing what they should have been doing all along.
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Re: BriarThrone Reviews: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

Post by Batgirl III »

The First Order needs to unveil (and the heroes need to vow to stop) the Newest Biggest Meanest Doomsday Weapon Evar in Act I.
Finn needs to prove his love for Rose and discover the fatal flaw in Deathstar v.4.0 during Act II.
Rey needs to coax Kylo back from the Dark Side in Act III.
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Re: BriarThrone Reviews: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

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Batgirl III wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 5:26 am The First Order needs to unveil (and the heroes need to vow to stop) the Newest Biggest Meanest Doomsday Weapon Evar in Act I.
Finn needs to prove his love for Rose and discover the fatal flaw in Deathstar v.4.0 during Act II.
Rey needs to coax Kylo back from the Dark Side in Act III.
No, you're doing it wrong. The next movie is clearly going to be their "Return of the Jedi", just with a few things moved around and a lot more stupid. So it'll be more like:

- The equivalent of the "Jabba's Palace" scene will be moved to later in the film.

- Kylo Ren and his Ginger General will be shown rebuilding the Super Not-Death Star from the Force Awakens, because making a "better" version of the iconic Star Wars super weapon everyone likes is a great idea.

- Rey and the Resistance will be training a new group of Not Jedi with lightsabers. A few of the white boys will struggle, while Rey casually demonstrates Force abilities she has no right to know at this point.

- Luke's Force Ghost will appear to her and tell her Kylo Ren is beyond saving and is totally different than when he tried to save Vader. Rey will decide to try anyway.

- There is an assemblage of the Resistance forces, the hierarchy of which is all women. The heroes will be briefed on the new Super Weapon, which it turns out is a giant Force Field Generator that will slowly spread out and push non-human life out of the galaxy. Creating, in essence, A Wall keep the aliens out. Because these assholes aren't subtle.

- Rose and Finn will be in a relationship now, despite their being no chemistry or build up to it. Rose will make multiple bad decisions throughout the movie and be praised for her courage and intelligence.

- The heroes will go to the planet where they need to stop The Wall. There will be illegal, I mean, undocumented aliens trying to get past The Wall. We will be meant to feel sorry for them. The First Order Stormtroopers will be used as analogies for police brutality.

- Hyperdrives will do something to contradict previous continuity and create plot holes.

- Poe will do something reckless, proving the female high command right about his recklessness once again. He will be captured by some crime boss, requiring Rey, Finn, Rose and Chewie to infiltrate it and save him. While there, they will learn more about The Wall and find some weakness.

- The Resistance will use the undocumented aliens as allies in getting past The Wall. But the aliens will be designed to look edgy and cool so as to not have that Ewok stereotype.

- Capt. Phasma will inexplicably show up guarding The Wall's instillation. Finn and her will fight, and it will be their shortest fight yet. Because Phasma is everything people hate about Boba Fett dialed up to 20.

- Rey will have conflicted feelings between Poe and Kylo, and ultimately decide to go save him. Unfortunately, like Luke said, he's a super duper evil person with no redeeming traits who is also simultaneously a poor guy with puppy dog eyes and washboard abs you feel sorry for. Which is to say he doesn't really have much of an actual personality, so any debate will feel hollow.

- After another fight where she kicks his ass, Rey manages to get Kylo to turn to the Light. The rest of the Knights of Ren decide they don't like that, even though Kylo was apparently the one that convinced them to become evil. Rey's Junior Jedi squad show up and there's a fight where all of the bad guys are killed and a good chunk of the Jr. Jedi are killed. They even let one of the girls die to let us know it was serious business. Kylo will die saving Rey's life, being redeemed with this one last act of heroism.

- Meanwhile the rest of the heroes destroy The Wall, which blows up and kills the Ginger General and most of their forces.

- There will be a celebration, and Luke and Kylo's Force Ghosts appearing at the end to assure Rey she made the right choice.

And the day after its release, there will be riots in the streets as angry geeks everywhere set movie theaters and Disney properties on fire.
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- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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Re: BriarThrone Reviews: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

Post by HalloweenJack »

So I watched Last Jedi.


It was okay. It had it's problems, but I didn't hate it like alot of people seem to. Rose was fine until the big save on Finn. Gwendoline Christie deserves better. Still not feeling alot of the characters. I feel like if everyone had just done their job, alot of lives would have been saved.


Still....it was worth it for Luke showing up


"Have you come to tell me you forgive me?"

"...No."
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Re: BriarThrone Reviews: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

Post by Batgirl III »

Mark Hamill is seriously undervalued as an actor.
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Re: BriarThrone Reviews: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

Post by FuzzyBoots »

Batgirl III wrote: Thu Jul 05, 2018 10:02 pm Mark Hamill is seriously undervalued as an actor.
{nods} Honestly, he was pretty wooden in the first Star Wars movies, but I think all of the voice-acting has done wonders, forced him to learn how to properly emote.
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Re: BriarThrone Reviews: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

Post by mrdent12 »

It finally came to Netflix and Mark Hamil is rather good in the film.

If it wasn't named Star Wars: Episode 8, I probably would have enjoyed it more as the visual effects and production value was pretty good. Given what it is, the writing is expected to be a little bland. The biggest issue I had was it was a blatant attempt to kill off the old qualities of Star Wars and try to introduce new characters sometimes in nonsensical plot diversions. Clearly, Rian Johnson wanted to give a big FU to fans of the previous movies and say it was now his so deal with it. That all might have been mitigated if the new characters weren't so badly envisioned. Rey, while a promising character idea got too powerful too fast. Finn and Rose, no idea why they are even a thing or primary characters. Kylo Renn comes across as a tandrum throwing boy with power, which may have been the intention yet didn't come across as a deep or enjoyable character. The others are just forgettable.
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Re: BriarThrone Reviews: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

Post by BriarThrone »

Early in the most recent season of Voltron, one of the characters takes lesson in Galra history and culture from an alien governess.

The number of Space Mary Poppins I encounter keeps growing. Leia remains the worst.
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Re: BriarThrone Reviews: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

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Yondu is best Mary Poppins, y’all.
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Re: BriarThrone Reviews: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

Post by Hawk »

Batgirl III wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 10:52 pm Yondu is best Mary Poppins, y’all.
I agree. :lol:
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