This is quite a hard movie to describe - it's certainly the strangest SW movie so far - it avoids the excessive adherence to previous episodes that caused problems in TFA, but it also goes a bit too far in the other direction at times, and leaps right into dubious/semi-deranged fan-fiction territory.
It's entertaining, pretty well-acted and the dialogue is good for an SW movie - but it's also definitely not a movie that George Lucas would have made - at any point in his career.
Like TFA and Rogue One, it's slick and well produced, but it's also lacking some of the roughness and quirkiness of the first 6 episodes, which could be seen as both a good and a bad thing.
It's also quite decisively moving SW into a new place, not just story wise, but also in style and feel, and it'll be interesting to see how they develop it in IX - and it'll also be interesting to see how the box office performs - it's naturally going to open to a vast amount, but without the special build-up to the start of a new trilogy that TFA had, along with the somewhat noticeable difference between TLJ and previous episodes, the number of repeat viewings could be down a bit.
On the whole I enjoyed it. There were twists that I did not expect.
One thing however ...Spoiler for Hidden:
On the whole I enjoyed it. There were twists that I did not expect.
One thing however ...Spoiler for Hidden:
Spoiler for Hidden:
That really didn't bother me. It's insinuated in the movies that Anakin was created out of the Force, and in the old canon (especially in the KOTOR era) the Force did some crazy stuff. That event in TLJ really wasn't all that crazy, to me.
All this makes me wish Lucas did his original plan and did the prequels and sequel a lot sooner.
Since the Phantom Menace the Star Wars films just don't have the same magic for me as the three originals.
I always loved in the original that the Force was a magical thing that maybe anyone could tap into and use.
Then PM ruined that by making the Force bound to some mico organisms, so if you haven't got 'em in your system - "NO Force for You!"
So now instead of "May the Force be with You" it should be "May the Midichlorians be in You"
All this makes me wish Lucas did his original plan and did the prequels and sequel a lot sooner.
Since the Phantom Menace the Star Wars films just don't have the same magic for me as the three originals.
I always loved in the original that the Force was a magical thing that maybe anyone could tap into and use.
Then PM ruined that by making the Force bound to some mico organisms, so if you haven't got 'em in your system - "NO Force for You!"
So now instead of "May the Force be with You" it should be "May the Midichlorians be in You"
I hated TFA. It felt like it was Andy from Toy Story playing with his toys at the beginning of Toy Story. A child's imagination being made into a film. JJ Abrams only knows how to copy and make things bigger. A bigger Enterprise and a bigger Death Star. I could go on and on but it wouldn't matter seeing how the movies are already made.
I did enjoy some parts of the Finn and Rose storyline.
Can anyone tell me how the trio of Finn, Poe and Rey are supposed to be friends when Finn is the only one who interacts with both Poe and Rey ? Poe and Rey have no real interaction with each other.
Heard today that the Social Security Administration said the fastest growing name in the US is Kylo. What exactly would you be hoping for in naming your kid that? Might as well name the kid "Whiny Oedipus".
I think you're giving Kylo too much credit. I think he lashed out at Snoke like an over emotional teen, just as he did later when confronted by Luke. He sidetracked an entire army like a whiny brat given too much power. They spent all that time trying to build him up into Mr. Misunderstood, Darth Broody the romantic dark teen icon, and then tossed it out the window with tantrums.
What would you expect Mr. Misunderstood Darth Broody to do in that situation? Channel Patton?
If he had grown beyond the emo, as you say, I'd expect him to leave the military to do their thing while he confronted Luke in a less berserker rage kinda fashion. You know - show that he's actually grown. Without that growth, it's not an arc so much as a straight line. With that growth, one might consider that he knew what game Snoke was playing and was using the situation and Rey to get to Snoke while potentially getting a powerful ally on the hook that he could manipulate to his own ends. But it seems far more likely that Kylo was just inspired to action because he thought he had found someone who could understand him, and that Snoke missed it because he really wasn't all that powerful - just a puffed up redshirted Grima, to be disposed of unceremoniously.
I have had a realization about the Star Wars franchise and why it might be hitting some rocks with TLJ.
Fundamentally, Star Wars is a nostalgia property. Even the original in 1977 was a nostalgia movie to pulp serials and 1940's movies. It was about giving the audience what they have had before in creative ways. The stories and tropes in the movies were always predictable. What made them original is how they were put together, the effects and overall production values. It's all about what was awesome in the past, whether it's old movies, old stories or history within the franchise.
In TLJ, Rian Johnson has gone out of his way to destroy all of that. Subvert expectations, cut off old plot threads as irrelevant, make big changes to old characters, etc. You can argue about whether this is a good idea for the franchise or not, but he's not been following the pattern for the main Star Wars movies. The number one thing for keeping people happy is to manage expectations. If people are expecting movie #8 in the series to be the same style as the previous 7, you're going to be fighting up hill from the get-go.
So much of TLJ is not in my opinion bad, it is *wrong*. Those aren't the same thing. Bad cinema is technically incorrect: it is shot poorly, it is paced poorly, it is confusing, it is boring, it is unentertaining. Bad cinema would be bad anywhere. But a lot of TLJ is wrong: it isn't shot poorly or looks awful or is wildly unentertaining taken in small scope: it feels like it doesn't belong in a Star Wars movie.
I think you are conflating bad judgment with being emo. Are you saying that anyone who acted as Kylo did, giving impulsive commands to an armed force, is emo?
Plus, when you say you expected some particular behavior at that moment to show growth, why would his character growth hinge solely on that moment? Why would it negate any other character change prior to that moment?
Depends on the emotion they showed while doing it. If they acted like a raging screamo child while doing it, then likely yes.
If he's going to show that he's grown, then what better place than the climactic moment when he's confronted with the looming shadow of his childhood? The perfect place to show that maybe the earlier bid for freedom from Snoke was more than just a spur of the moment thing. As it was, that moment seemed more to me like a laser focussed "save the girl because of twisted love" kinda thing and there was no growth. He remains a damaged child, and he showed that when confronted by Luke.
The Force Awakens is not the greatest Star Wars movie, but I find myself hoping that he somehow fixes Star Wars by doing to Rian Johnson what Rian Johnson did to him: give TLJ the middle finger and ignore it completely when making the next film. I would literally not feel bad if at the start of Episode Nine we discover that Episode Eight was a bedtime story told to a child by a resistance fighter with a head injury that messes with his memory.
You guys have put more effort into thinking about this movie than the people that made it.
You guys have put more effort into thinking about this movie than the people that made it.
Picked it up yesterday at Best Buy. Still just as underwhelmed as when I left the theater. It's got its good parts, but still just doesn't fill me with the same joy as 1-6 do. I'm not holding my breath on Ep. 9 being much better.
Was in Sam's today and they had the Bluray menu up on all their TVs. Started laughing when I saw the audio commentary option. Has the potential to be the funniest alternate track since Brad Neely's Wizard People.
If you can find the first release of Michael Nesmith's Elephant Parts, that sets the standards for hilarious commentary. Except for one brief, hilarious, moment, the commentary has literally nothing to do with the video.
Unfortunately, he re-recorded a "real" commentary for subsequent re-releases.