Film Star Wars: Episode VIII
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From what I gather on Reddit, most of the pure nerd backlash is around Luke's brief temptation to kill Kylo Ren. Did anyone have a problem with that?
I didn't. It fits well with theme of flawed characters.
Just looking back through the thread... Wow, didn't realise it would be so negative... Then I've seen from the interwebs that a lot of Star Wars fans in generally hated it.
I can probably see it more from non Star Wars fans I suppose... But as a Star Wars fan I'd be slightly surprised if other Star Wars fans absolutely hated it. Not quite what they wanted? Or not the story they'd have told? Sure... But I mean, there is so much going on here for Star Wars fans to enjoy that hate seems a bit much.
I can probably see it more from non Star Wars fans I suppose... But as a Star Wars fan I'd be slightly surprised if other Star Wars fans absolutely hated it. Not quite what they wanted? Or not the story they'd have told? Sure... But I mean, there is so much going on here for Star Wars fans to enjoy that hate seems a bit much.
The opposite, it was excellent I thought.
A good twist that helps you sympathize with Ren a bit, and adds complexity to a villain... Which is never a bad thing
Besides, when was Luke ever the perfect Jedi in the original trilogy?
The clone wars is still cannon as far as i know
I'm much more excited about Star Wars IX following on from VIII than i was VIII following on from VII
[QUOTE="Annihilate Now!, post: 21876993, member: Besides, when was Luke ever the perfect Jedi in the original trilogy?[/QUOTE]
He was a try hard hero who almost always needed the help of his friends to suceed, not a potential cold blooded murderer of said friends' child.
He was a try hard hero who almost always needed the help of his friends to suceed, not a potential cold blooded murderer of said friends' child.
There’s star wars fans and there’s Star Wars fans, I guess. If you’ve only ever watched the movies I agree it does seem odd that someone could find so much to hate. If you’ve spend the last couple of decades balls deep in this whole “Expanded Universe” stuff I’m learning about in this thread, then I guess its inevitable the movie will disappoint and the intensity of that disappointment will match the intensity of the obsession.
As far as I know most fans hated the EU anyway. I've not read any of it but apparently it was a giant, incoherent mess. The problem many people seem to have isn't that it was wiped and replaced, but that it was replaced by a kids tv show and sub-par films.
EU novels/comics/games that took place before the movies were superb, as was the Thrawn trilogy and X-wing series which take place immediately - 5 years after Return of the Jedi. After that it became an incoherent mess, with Emperor Palpatine returning with God-like powers, which in turn needed Luke to get God-like powers. After that threat gone, there was an invasion of racist aliens from some other galaxy, and it was revealed that Palps actually overthrow the Republic primarily not because he was evil, power-hungry or a Sith, but because he thought that a bureaucratic Republic doesn't have any chance against those aliens, while an efficient Empire can defeat them. Anyway, after the war against aliens which resulted in orders of magnitudes more victims than the Clone Wars and made the Clone Wars look like a small local conflict in comparison, suddenly there was peace and everyone worked together to make the Republic a better place. Until obviously Jacen Solo/Ben Solo/Kylo Ren turned dark and the cycle continued. Add to that, the occasional strong Force wielders like Abeloth who made the returned Palpatine look like a punk in comparison, which obviously meant that Luke Skywalker needed to get leveled up again. I said before, it was more Dragon Ball Z, rather than Star Wars. Oh, and the writing for most part was awful.
So yep, me and most of EU fans weren't unhappy that those events aren't anymore canon (though I found it stupid that they also decided to make the events of other timelines become un-canon, but they have been fixing those mistakes by reintroducing Thrawn, and supporting The Old Republic which in the eyes of many make those things canon anyway). However, the new movies made the original trilogy look a bit pointless (really, The Republic/Resistance/Rebels/Whatever are in a worse position during the Last Jedi than they have ever been during the events of the original trilogy), made Luke weak in addition to almost a cold-blooded killer and essentially make no sense whatsoever in the context of other Star Wars lore.
2 wrongs don't make a right!
Both TV shows are canon. TOR (and by extension KOTOR) while not totally canon, are supported directly from Lucasarts and I think that the official policy is that those events aren't going to get contradicted by other Star Wars events (novels or movies), so essentially they are canon. TOR has been the only Star Wars thing which hasn't been terminated after Disney bought Lucasfilm. Some part of the old EU, like Thrawn has been in the process of recanonized (Thrawn being the main villain of the Rebels TV show).
After the purchase, there have been released a shitload of books (I didn't read most of them). But anyway, that part of the lore is right there, and can be reused any time (like the case of Jacen Solo/Kylo Ren), so saying that there is no depth in Star Wars is wrong IMO. Probably, there isn't an another fiction thing that has more work than Star Wars.
That’s such a bizarre criticism. It’s a flipping movie! Lots of time has passed since the last one. If it helps them tell the story they want who gives a shit if they decide the rebels have had their arses handed to them in the couple of decades since the original trilogy? Ditto the Luke stuff. They can do what they want to a character in the movie. If they choose to make him weak/flawed then that’s fine. Even more strange to moan about this when heroes turning out weak/flawed has always been one of the main themes of the Star Wars movies.
He was a flawed hero with weaknesses...by his own admission in this film it was a very brief moment of weakness... He wasn't actually going to murder him.
Just watch one or two of the 50,000 negative fan reviews doing the rounds on youtube right now instead of speculate.
Just about all of them make mention of the same problems they had with the film, the same reoccuring points over and over.
Just about all of them make mention of the same problems they had with the film, the same reoccuring points over and over.
I'm not a massive Star Wars fan but I didn't like it. I don't think this is a case of hardcore fans not being happy because it's too different. I'm sure there's some of that but mostly I think people just don't like the film.
The comedy didn't work, there were too many B stories that not only didn't accomplish anything but also diluted the movie and really fecked with the pacing and suspense of the main story. Common sense was often sacrificed for a cheap laugh or twist in a way that it completely takes you out of the film. The new characters are kind of pointless and hollow. You need some rationality and real motivations behind a character in order to connect to him. That was lacking. Some were bizarrely changed completely, midway through a trilogy (courtesy of a new director), and that kind of takes you out of it, as well.
To me it felt like a Marvel movie in a Star Wars universe at times and it's just not a good combination.
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Luke is arguably the lightest character in the Star Wars (even including the EU events), so even thinking for one moment and actually lighting his lightsaber, was very out of character for him.
He is the same character who threw his lightsaber in the RotJ (although I always found him stupid to do so) putting all his hopes in his evil dad. Yet, for a second or two, he was almost killing his teenage nephew.
As Hamill said 'who is this character?'.
These are my thoughts too. It played on Old Ben's 'certain point of view' theme and made both Kylo Ren and Luke more sympathetic than either Ankain or Obi Wan. The idea that Luke has been this terrible Jedi who's been in exile for 30 years is a crazy too, he's clearly only been there for a couple of years and no doubt had numerous noble adventures between ROTJ and losing his best friend and sister's son to the dark side.
The failure of his character has more to do with him becoming a recluse and washing his hands off his own failure. Luke in the OT was always prone to a hot head moment or two, leaving Dagobah to rescue his friends in ESB and flying into a rage and beat Vader when he mentioned turning Leia onto the Dark Side.
I'm fine with him momentarily considering killing Ren, it's dark and requires a bit of believing, but the whole arc of him stowing away on an island while the galaxy is in flame doesn't wash.
This is moments after he nearly, for a split second, kills his dad. It's almost an exact replica echo of what happens in TLJ.
Yeah, he bets everything on a shred of light he still sees in Vader and then he can't deal with a somewhat conflicted teenager? And the explanation we get for that is that he became a legend after defeating the empire and thought he can do no wrong? I dunno...
The gag at the beginning definitely felt like it came straight from Pratt's character in Guardians of the Galaxy. When I left the theatre I was surprised to discover that Johnson wasn't the dude who directed that movie.
Agree with this, though I don't see Luke even thinking to kill Ren.
Vader was an evil man with whom Luke had no relations bar him cutting his hand, torturing his sister, putting on freezing acid his best friend, personally killing his mentor and leading the attack which killed his aunt and uncle. On the other side, Ren is a conflicted teenager (who has actually done nothing wrong up to this moment) whom Luke has known during his entire life and for whom Luke had taken the responsibility of educating. I think it is very different, as worse as Anakin trying to kill Obi-Wan
It reminded me of that, as well. The way the "bad characters" delivered their lines was comically Marvel-esque too. Smirks and exaggerated brow furrows, "kill them all" lines and all that. Making someone evil for the sake of it never works in serious films. Especially when you make him stupid, too.
But what Luke sees is the death of millions at the hands of his own trainee. If you could stop a new Vader before he rises, wouldn't you? For a second he was tempted, it doesn't feel like much a of a leap to me.
That general was really a Marvel villain. Snoke was just a shit Palpatine.
I wonder if they will actually decide to combine Star Wars and Avengers sometime after Infinity War.
Two recurring points I'd like to address: Holdo not revealing the real nature of her plan. At the time I thought it was odd but upon reflection think it was because she might have suspected a spy/traitor who sent them the coordinates - since they couldn't normally be tracked through hyper space. We know there were people trying to use the escape pods--presumably to defect.
The other is the notion that Rian undid all Abrams work. Abrams was the Executive Producer on this. And it was known he would direct the next one so I think its safe to presume that they had discussions about the story and characters.
Btw has anyone read the canonical Aftermath trilogy?
The other is the notion that Rian undid all Abrams work. Abrams was the Executive Producer on this. And it was known he would direct the next one so I think its safe to presume that they had discussions about the story and characters.
Btw has anyone read the canonical Aftermath trilogy?
Luke declined to kill Vader, let he is considering killing a teenager whom he has known since his birth and whom he has been educating. I mean, Obi-Wan was hesitating to go after Anakin even after he saw Anakin killing kids, and Luke is supposed to be a lighter character than Obi-Wan who was always quite a bit gray.
A better thing that Luke could have done, would have been to try to turn Ren light again. He saw that even people who have gone dark for decades, can be turned back to light, and Ren still had not turned dark (and even a decade or so after those events, he has still some light on him).
It isn't the biggest flaw on the movie (or near it), but it goes against everything we know about Luke from the original trilogy (and EU). Luke then just giving up and going into self-exile was much worse, and had nothing to do with Luke that we know. Which apparently made Mark Hamill mad too.
Abrams wasn't supposed to direct the third movie until the second movie was finished. There was some other director hired, but then Disney decided to fire him and Abrams came back. He was executive producer, but apparently the plan all along was to give Johnson full creative freedom.
Being fair, I don't think that JJ had actually some master plan. His mysteries usually don't have a solution and they are made as he goes along. We saw that before in Lost, and Alias and practically everything he did before. So, I guess that Rey's parents weren't decided as wasn't the origins of Snoke, and I doubt that he had a clue what was going to happen after the Force Awakens. Which might explain, why he didn't have problems with Johnson's decisions.
Most likely, he will just ignore the open-ended things in the new movie, add a couple of new unresolved mysteries, but in the end produce a visually great movie. It is what he does.
That's just you trying to rationalize it for yourself though. There was nothing in the film to suggest that. The whole thing was about Poe's character and making him into a leader by seeing the errs of his ways. It was set up with the bombing scene at the beginning and his conversation with Leia and it ended with his decision to retreat and escape from the cave. Except doing feck all in the face of a problem is not really the mark of a leader and that's what it looked like he was being taught in that "not telling you the plan" bit on the ship.
I agree. And to be fair you can't really blame Johnson for this. He's spoken about how the first thing he had to figure out when he came on board was why Luke would have taken himself out of the action like this. JJ and Kasdan wrote him into a corner by setting up something in Force Awakens they didn't know the answer to. There is no possible reason for Luke to run away like that without it seeming out of character, so the only real alternative was to change his character a bit as he aged.
I just don't see it that way. I always saw Obi Wan as lighter than light and Luke as a good kid with no guidance or real training who was doing his best. His exile makes at least as much sense as Yoda's. I never sensed that Luke was as powerful or wise as Yoda, and his instinct was to run away after one fight. He's seen his mentor die, his aunt and uncle reduced to charred skeletons, his second mentor die of space cancer, his Dad abused him and cut off his arm, then he dies and he goes on to see his nephew turn bad under his tutelage. The dude has got issues.
We are still talking about Star Wars, right? The movies with the Laurel and Hardy droids and the dancing teddy bears?
For me holdo not revealing her plans to Poh is because Poh has a record of being impulsive and going all ape shit when he stresses out..making it too risky for her stealth plan to share with him.
That's a different kind of silliness.
Which were the B stories that didn't accomplish anything? The Casino one is the main one, but that is all I can think off... And even that plot line develops two characters, gives us a glimpse into a whole new part of Star Wars that the movies haven't explored before (Haves vs. Have not / arms dealing / is there good and bad/ the nihilism of Benicio Del Toro) and, in BDT, there was the reason how the First Order knew about the Rebel Escape Plan.
All the main characters get arcs, and they all develop through the movie, I don't really see how they're pointless.
Having said that, I can see not liking the film of course...but hate? That I don't get.
There's a thing called projection. Perhaps you thought you were having an 'argument' where the other party was just going "Oh, okay (s)he needs some more info." Okay, some more then I guess. Except it goes on for about six more posts and surely you can imagine at that point the other person would start to feel it getting tedious? Not everyone on the internet is trying to "fight" and "win". Some people come on to read and add some info where they feel it might help.
Source was, as mentioned earlier, an associate. If you need it spelled out, obviously it meant an associate who works in the business at a level where (s)he is in a position to know such things and also whose word I have no reason to question. Otherwise it wouldn't have been posted at all as it would be disrespectful to anyone reading it.
Being in the misfortune(?) of being in a position to know what Disney is doing, I disagreed with you that "they would NEVER do this because of PR exposure" or some such. Because they're doing such things as per the articles I posted.
Well there you have it. It's not true at the very least where you are. May I ask what country you're in? Or just the region? (Scandinavia, Central Europe, etc?)
Is it, though?
What I'm getting that here is that the movies have always had the kind of flaws that this movie is being crucified for. I loved the original trilogy, because I was a kid when I watched them. But they were full of loads of daft stuff and would, no doubt, be ripped apart if they got the same sort of online scrutiny as this latest one. FWIW they'd still be my personal favourites and, arguably, the best of the lot. The prequel trilogy was absolute garbage though. Which is why I find it strange that fans of the original movies are anything other than pleased that, since JJ Abrams got involved, there's been a marked improvement to a much-loved franchise. Out of interest, where would you rank this movie out of the seven that came before it?
Luke in the OT was essentially any random uni student who gets obsessed with activism and is suddenly a vegan hippy who is unwavering in his ideals, as he mellowed in his older years he'd have lost that. I don't see much wrong with it. Expecting someone as an old man to be exactly the same staunch person they were like 50 years ago is a little silly.
I think it is. The atmosphere was silly at times in the original films but the characters and story took themselves seriously. It kind of went back and forth in that regard in this film.
The original trilogy is far from perfect. I'd find a lot of things to criticize in it if it came out now. But as a whole the films work much better than this one, in my opinion. It's hard for me to rank it because, as I said, there's enough material in there to make one fantastic film but there's even more unnecessary shit that dilutes that. Probably ends up at 5th or 6th place for me.