I am upset and baffled


I liked force awakens. After growing up watching the originals, coming of age as the prequels came out, I was primed and ready for it. I was skeptical yet optimistic walking into the theater. The movie was a nostalgia feast, but it managed to elicit a true emotional connection with me through the introduction of original characters that were nuanced archetypes that lived up to the classic characters. The score was impeccable, and the pacing of the movie was on point. There were issues. As a sequel to return of the jedi, the non appearing republic and subsequent destruction was sort of a slap in the face to the classic trilogy and its climax. But as a self contained story, I felt it had a new, fresh, polished yet back to the basics take on the hopeful mystical world we've come to love, an interpretation of that world that was much needed after the dense, dizzying, and ametuerish efforts of the prequels.

I was on the fence with rogue one. The characters felt like cardboard cutout action figures, and I could not emotionally invest. The world building aspect of the movie was incredible, the new planets fit into the canon like a glove. The moral ambiguity of some of the characters were very welcome. But the movie reaked of studio interference, which is no secret to anyone reading about reshoots. The only part that truly worked for me were the final 40 minutes, and that's strictly on a pacing and visual storytelling perspective. What really bothered me after watching this movie was that for the first time in 30 years, I watched a star wars movie, and felt like the movie, at the end of the day, was unnecessary, redundant, a glorified 2 hour deleted scene from the canon story.

Last Jedi blew my mind with how much didn't work for me. I went in very excited, but by half way through I knew something was wrong, and the last third of the movie something was tragically wrong.
1. Luke's storyline and character motivation was on point. I felt like this was really an extension of the character we had watch grow up, the whiny young teenager sounding very similar to the curmudgeonly old sage. But then, so many of his lines we stunted, portentious, and the quiet moment's with him never came. For a movie that was 2.5 hours long and seemed to take its time, i felt no atmosphere on that island, no tension. The addition of the porgs was insulting and the nuns were underused in my opinion.
2. Kyle and Reys relationship and communion was one of the best parts of the movie. The fleshing out of these two characters needed to happen and the way they did it was effective.
3. Reys journey into the dark side hole was anticlimactic, I don't know what the point of that trial was. Please help. I thought it was going to maybe show the lightest side of rey and the darkest side of rey, or maybe her childhood and then her death, but nothing fucking happened. please explain.
4. Yodas scene was great. That was yoda, i believed this was the same character and his talk with luke was poignant and timely.
5. Poe is a dumb piece of shit. I did not need to watch an hour of the movie with poe getting the entire fleet destroyed with him being a hot head and wasting everyones time. This plotline felt like it belonged in a star wars rebels episode it was so juvenile and spoonfed.
6. The leap of faith required for the set up of the equally paced star destroyers and rebel cruiser chase that lasts the entire movie is insulting. Star wars succeeds because there is a rugid internal logic to the tech. I believed the at-at design and neccesity because they spent 30 minutes establishing that hoth is obnoxiously inhospitable and harsh, and it takes a long time for them to get there. In this movie, internal logic is sacrificed for plot convenience time and time again. I didn't mind the starkiller base and the x wings getting in because the movie spent an HOUR warming me up and used the same logic. It was a plagiarism but it still worked by the same logic. The crait scene is obviously a mirror and throwback to hoth but in reverse, but in the context and pace of the movie, it makes no goddamn sense.
7. The scene where bb8 becomes an AT ST and the hangar is on fire and 10000 stormtroopers die but our two heros survive and then they explode and escape felt like a scene from the prequels or indiana jones 4 when they go down 4 waterfalls. Except the waterfall scene is a tongue in cheek jab at itself, this was again, a logic-breaking scene.
8.Snoke is noone. Rey is noone. Thank you JJ abrams for another empty mystery box you piece of shit I can't believe I watched all 6 seasons of lost.
9. Maz kanatas scene felt like a cutscene from a video game.
10. Benicio del toros character arc was another high point of the movie. It felt like Johnson was trying to explore some morally grey area with this movie that never came to fruition in the climax thematically, which is a huge misstep.

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11. The casino planet and story was cool, but the timeline of those events are a stretch, and for it to ultimately lead nowhere with the betrayal and not crashing the tracker, again, anticlimactic.
12. Captain phasma is a gross missuse of gwendilin christie.
13. Suprisingly, the force projection did not bother me, at all, I actually thought it worked pretty fine on screen. What I did not like was everything else about that entire act. To watch thousands of resistance fighters reduced to like 30 by the end of the film should have been more upsetting. it wasn't though, we watched like 25 transports get shot one by one and it just stopped mattering, because the main characters weren't going to die, just the other 500 people. The crait fighters they get in are stupid and theres no tension there. the atats have the worst aim on earth. It felt like the entire movie after laura dern crashes the ship was reshot or rewritten, or was one of three different versions.

I feel like disney is suffocating this franchise in postproductions and reediting the soul out of all these movies.

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Yes, Disney is INTENTIONALLY removing the thousands of years of lore between the evil sith and holy spirited jedi knights! As well as REMOVING the SKYWALKER family! This movie felt like "rogue 2" because so much screen time was COMPLETELY WASTED with "little china girl" and Finn, both of which are NEVER meant to be essential to the main storyline! For God's sake, the "adventures" of little china girl + Finn got more PRECIOUS SCREEN TIME than Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2D2 combined!!!!!! Your review in a nutshell = the last jedi is a SHIT SHOW!!!

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"As well as REMOVING the SKYWALKER family!"

Lucas would have done that even faster. He stated openly that his sequel ideas left the characters of the original trilogy behind.

This reminds me of people criticizing Disney for merchandising Star Wars toys... As if Lucas never did that.

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Yes disney binned the extended universe. Time to get over it precious.

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Trust me about 3/4 of the star wars fans feel the same as you do. I can't believe the script for this was ever approved. Kennedy placed way too much faith in Johnson.

Overall the movie is a turd with genius sprinkled and I do mean sprinkled in.. but it's like it was intentionally a turd they made these choices deliberately. I just don't get it. With the prequels there were huge problems but you could tell Lucas and Lucas film were trying to make good movies. This movie is like Rian Johnson playing a sick joke on the star wars community. He is clearing skilled at least at directing yet he is purposefully making these terrible decisions with the plot and script.

You have this story and set up in a way that you could have done anything with it yet you chose to consistently take the worse possible direction as if you are intentionally steering at ship towards an iceberg. Then you try to call it new, fresh, and unpredictable. Yeah, it's unpredictable cause nobody in their right mind would do these things... That's not a complement.

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Yes, bravo bravo....... My exact sentiments, my friend star wars friend!

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Probably not too hard to upset and baffle you

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It is a mistake to analyze this movie. It is way to early for that.
What it is, is a bad movie. Pointless, confusing, the ultimate in
special effect blotting out every other aspect of movie-making.

From the lame shots of Skywalker living on his island with the
little butlers who fix his huts, to the little cute penguin creatures,
to him milking whatever those were, to the catching of the giant
fishes ... the whole movie was a dreadful bore.

I have to wonder why IMDB and other sites even have voting
on movies when they are allowed to be rated before the movie
even comes out. Also, we all know these ratings are fake now
because most people think this movie is at best average, and at
worst, unacceptable.

Whosever vision of Star Wars this was did not seem to even
understand the movies. It doesn't matter that much because
the whole thing was gone after Return Of the Jedi. The first
movie was loved because it was cute, not because it made sense
or had rigid logic ... it formed an attachment to the viewer that
they have successfully exploited for decades. Maybe it is time
for Star Wars to die.

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You really need a life - loser

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I told u before shut ur friggin face you sticking chonies

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Eff off - keyboard warrior

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Bravo bravo! Beautifully stated!

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Agree with almost all your points, and yet, I still walked away with enough to enjoy. Ben and Rey, Luke and R2D2, Snoke (before we find out that's all we get from him), the casino, etc. I just don't expect enough from these "extra" Star Wars films to make an emotional investment. I've got my OT, and also Ep III, to keep me happy.
It is a shame, though. It would have been pretty easy to make a really great film with the best parts of Last Jedi.

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In the mirror scene Rey's past and future are the same as the image repeats itself infinitely. Her parents do not figure in her reality even though she may want to know who they were.

I disagree, there were many quiet moments with Luke: scenes of his survival/food gathering; his quiet intensity; his time with Yoda at the tree; the scene at the end where he collapses with exhaustion then fades away into the Force as the Sun is setting, evocative of his youthful contemplation of the setting Suns on Tatooine thinking of his future perhaps (queued by "Luke's theme" music).

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Well said. Took the GF and a few clients from work and we were all categorically disappointed. I hold the OT (especially ESB) as sacrosanct. Very unhappy with this. I'll rate it around a 5/10. Need to sleep on it.

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I didn't read your essay, but perhaps you should save your upset for things that are actually worth being upset over. It's just a movie!

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