MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) Discussion > One Edit which Shows Just How Much they ...

One Edit which Shows Just How Much they Fail to Understand Star Wars

posted 6 years ago by Buttholio (198)
18 replies | jump to latest

So why is there no "I have a bad feeling about this" in this movie? The most iconic SW line ever doesn't make it in?

Well as most of you probably know it actually was in the script. Poe and BB8 are in the cockpit, BB8 makes a bunch of beeps and Poe says "Well I have a good feeling about it." This actually would have been a refreshing way to work in the old line, it could have been a nice little SW moment.

So when they're doing the final edit they just cut Poe's line. BB8 bleeps meaninglessly and that's it. About 3 seconds of dialogue they couldn't be bothered to keep to reference that old line and keep the tradition going. Why would they give a crap about that? Got to free up thirty minutes for that propagandastic Cantino Bight sequence!

I can't think of anything that epitomizes better their COMPLETE AND UTTER FAILURE to understand Star Wars on any meaningful level. And we're supposed to trust these guys with the future of the franchise?

[–] TheBlackWaffle (226) 6 years ago

You can’t boil what once made Star Wars work down to a single piece of dialogue. I absolutely hated The Last Jedi, but while the movie fails on nearly every conceivable storytelling level, Disney cutting a line that’s been overused to begin with wasn’t the problem.

[–] TexasJack (12515) 6 years ago

I agree with the OP. It's a perfect example of their smug contempt for the universe they were entrusted with.

[–] Buttholio (198) 6 years ago

It's not like the line itself is such a big deal, but they couldn't even spare three seconds for it? It's emblematic of their failure to understand what makes SW work at all.

[–] Frogarama (12942) 6 years ago

There are other things. There is no traditional 3 year gap in the story, meaning the opening scroll is literally updating us on stuff that JUST happened and that the First Order basically started suddenly "taking over the galaxy" while the ending of Force Awakens was happening, with no time needed to regroup after losing Starkiller base. (And yes, even with the ending of TFA, there could have been a gap)

Oh yeah, so little happens in between the movies that the opening scroll literally tells us something that happened close to the middle of Force Awakens. It mentions that the Republic was decimated (when Starkiller blew up those planets). That's like if the Empire Strikes Back scroll mentioned Alderaan.

This is also the first Star Wars movie where the title is clumsily spoken in a line of dialogue, which is something that movies tend to avoid because it sounds gimmicky (unless the title is a character/location name or something).

Of course, with Canto Bight, this is also the first Star Wars movie that has a subplot which doesn't affect anything and is unnecessary. What's worse is that it causes it to be the longest Star Wars movie, too.

[–] Buttholio (198) 6 years ago

Good points.

Also the fact this is the first SW to use "flashbacks." Since when does SW have flashbacks? Flashbacks is the sort of thing you use if you want to lazily shoehorn some BS into your story that doesn't really fit... Oh right...

[–] Frogarama (12942) 6 years ago

I knew there was something else, can't believe I forgot the flashbacks. I think there's still something else that makes TLJ stick out like a sore thumb. It seems like it was fairly recently that someone pointed it out.

[–] Buttholio (198) 6 years ago

Also the first SW with no actual lightsaber duel.

But hey it's "subverting expectations!" Going to see a movie called "Star Wars" and expecting it to actually be a Star Wars movie makes you a bad person apparently...

[–] Frogarama (12942) 6 years ago

I remembered another, but it's not the one I was trying to remember: This is the first Star Wars to incorrectly portray a Force Ghost. Rian just took the on-scene Yoda puppet and added some blue glow around his edge.

He's not translucent whatsoever, completely solid. Even had to make it more obvious by including a shot where Yoda's ghost is framed in front of the burning tree, proving we can't see through this "ghost" at all.

Plus the puppet looked far worse than the original from the early 80's.

[–] Buttholio (198) 6 years ago

Also Force Ghosts being able to affect the physical world.

And random Force Powers out of nowhere with no basis in the earlier movies, and not even any real attempt to justify them in this one.

[–] Frogarama (12942) 6 years ago

I can't get over Han's dice. Luke is Force-projecting them, making them solid enough and independent enough to hand them to Leia. Okay, I buy that.

But then this reminder of Han, which Luke went through so much trouble to project across the galaxy... what does Leia do? SHE DROPS THEM ON THE GROUND! Whoops, butterfingers!

Then, the projected dice survive Luke's passing. Long after Luke has vanished, Kylo is looking around in the abandoned Crait base. The dice are still there on the floor, still projected by Luke who is now gone.

They last just long enough for Kylo to pick them up. It's all so silly!

[–] LukewarmCereal (88) 6 years ago

I'd argue that there actually is a gap between the events of TFA and this film. And also a gap during this film. I think there's a period of time between the destruction of Starkiller base and Rey arriving on the Luke's island hideaway, and another gap between her arriving on that island and the slow-motion space chase that makes up a major portion of this film.

But the passage of time here is very poorly shown on screen, and makes it very clear to follow the path the characters are on, or the wider events taking place in the galaxy.

So:
TFA Starkiller base blows up -> some time passes -> Rey leaves to find Luke/finds him -> more time passes -> The absurd chase scene happens, and it happens to coincide with Rey leaving the island.

That sequence of events is the only way I can find to make some sense of what we see on screen. I think this is a bad film.

[–] Frogarama (12942) 6 years ago

But we know that the traveling distance to Ahch-To is pretty short with hyperspace, since the Falcon leaves and then arrives back with the rest pretty quickly (and we even have a time frame due to the slow chase, which started at 16 hours of fuel remaining and they didn't use all that up since they used the fuel for the transports to get to Crait, as well as having fuel left for one light speed jump into Snoke's ship).

Of course, that didn't even need to be said, because since Rey arrives and sees Luke at the end of Force Awakens, that necessarily means the end of TFA overlaps with the beginning of Last Jedi.

[–] LukewarmCereal (88) 6 years ago

Not if the story in the Last Jedi is non-linear. Maybe Rey arrived on that island months before the chase started, and left there weeks before the chase events we see. I don't know if the film-makers intended for this to be the case or not, and frankly I don't much care. The film-makers made a bad film, their opinions don't matter much to me. If you take the events in the film as not actually happening in sequence, it makes a lot more sense, and fits in with a longer passage of time occurring to allow wider events to take place.

Basically you have two stories, Rey arrives on the island, spends an indeterminate amount of time there, then leaves. After she leaves, the rebels/republic/resistance (Too many R words to describe the hapless losers) get involved in their tedious chase, and soon after that she arrives purely by chance at the most opportune moment.

But those stories are chopped up and interleaved, and only sync up at that very last moment as the dregs of the resistance come crawling out of their hole.

[–] Frogarama (12942) 6 years ago

Maybe Rey arrived on that island months before the chase started, and left there weeks before the chase events we see.

One element throws a wrench in that and proves the events are linear: Rey and Kylo doing their "Force Skype" conversations.

[–] LukewarmCereal (88) 6 years ago

Forcetime

[–] Frogarama (12942) 6 years ago

^I like! *golf clap*

[–] LukewarmCereal (88) 6 years ago

And yeah, that is a problem. It's a real shame that the plot of the film gets in the way so hard of a coherent and logical story.

[–] NotoriousRio (12927) 6 years ago

I have a bad feeling about this - wasn’t that the tagline of this lacklustre movie?