MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) Discussion > What moment absolutely ruined TLJ for yo...

What moment absolutely ruined TLJ for you?


Superman Leia...totally screwed the movie's pooch I nearly walked out.

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There were TONS but I would say when Luke died.
I figured Luke would snap out if his funk at some point and be heroic again but he just died for no reason...just anti-climactically vanished on that rock, never even left the island.
All he did was psyche out Kylo.
That finalized that Luke coukdn't be salvaged, he had been permanently ruined and had a weak, meaningless death.

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[deleted]

Yep, the Hux/Poe scene. Same for me, it was right off the bat that I realized this movie wasn’t going to be the movie I had hoped it would be...

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I know right!
Same here.
Right away I was like something is wrong and it just gets worse.def the worst Star Wars movie ever and I lost any interest in seeing the next one.

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The opening scene.
Hux: Muwahahaha! We have caught the rebel scum in the middle of their evacuation! Bomb them! Open fire! Blast them etc.etc.etc.

Nobody moves.

Officer: X-wing to see you sir.

Hux: Eer... what do I do now?

X-wing out-maneuvers all the turrets and Tie Fighters and causes mayhem on a huge battleship in an act that has never ever been seen before in the history of Star Wars.

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None. It was a pretty good movie.

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The jokes about hux and his mother at the very beginning, totally list me at that psrt and it went further downhill

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Luke's force projection along with Rose ramming Finn off his collision course was when I was shaking my head for the first time, while laughing out loud. The other stuff before (Mom joke at the beginning, Luke milking action, BB8 taking on trained military, the ironing scene, all people wearing tuxedos on the casino planet etc.) made me vomit internally too, but didn't force a physical reaction. Overall quite the visceral experience, that movie.

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No one moment ruined it, it was an aggregate of frustration - unrealised themes, poor plotting/pacing, weird tone, and character work that made no sense.

But I think I knew the movie was in trouble with the lightsabre flick. That moment at the end of The Force Awakens was so powerful. There was this great tension between Rey and Luke, Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill just standing there, holding that moment. Hamill gave such a powerful performance with one look, it was astounding...and then the whole thing was squandered by "subverting" it with that shoulder toss...oh man, I was dumbstruck.

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Yes, flinging the lightsaber over the shoulder stunned me, and not in a good way. It's so opposite to who Luke Skywalker is. Completely out of character. It was also deeply insulting, as it was clearly a metaphor for Disney tossing lore and the fanbase over their shoulder like it was nothing.

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Honestly? The out-of-character part was but a small piece of what felt so wrong. Chiefly it was that the final moments of The Force Awakens stayed with me all year. Hamill's amazing performance in ten seconds of screen time was so powerful, more so because of its briefness, that I couldn't wait to see the fallout from it. The "what-happens-next" was so palpably great. Then they took that and did worse than nothing. They made it a joke. It was like something you'd see in a spoof film. As thought somebody made The Last Jedi, that moment continued into its powerful glory, and then a year later somebody else made a parody film, like the Zucker Brothers, and included the over-the-shoulder toss as their punchline to rip on the original's gravitas.

And that highlighted everything going haywire in the film. It sacrificed great moments for comedy. It spat in the face of old heroes and friends. It sacrificed so much potential because Rian Johnson wanted to subvert expectations... Which... I get that. I really do. Twisting with an audience's head can be glorious. Think about the moment in Lord of the Rings when they make it to Mount Doom, FINALLY, and the quest could be over, but then... Or closer to home, the knowledge that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. It completely changes every relationship and dynamic the audience thinks is true about the story - but it also pushes the story further and makes sense in the world. The Last Jedi failed there.

I've never hated Rian Johnson for what he did. I don't like faulting artists for trying and failing, because it discourages them from trying again. I feel comfortable saying that The Last Jedi wasn't good and didn't succeed at doing what it attempted, and that the structure was broken. But I don't rail against Johnson for that.

I mean, imagine being handed the reins to Star Wars and trying to make something surprising, artistically great, and that could make fans happy? It's maybe impossible.

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The 45 minutes on the casino planet that did nothing but lead to the destruction of the resistance.

At this point I’m not struggling to root for the first order, if I even bother care about episode 9.

Of course there was also the scene where the question of whether Adam Driver has six pack abs or not was answered.

And Luke sucking the green milk was a delightful scene.

And there was my favorite scene, when the fat Chinese girl’s sister is blown to a million pieces. We get to see fat Chinese girl’s mourning over her sister. But when Luke, the most important character in the entire franchise, learns of his best friend’s death, another beloved character, what was his reaction? Oh that’s right, we never got to see it. Fat Chinese girl is deemed more important than Luke effing Skywalker.

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Come on man, don’t be like that.

Anyway I hated the fact that the movie was boring overall and did nothing to further Episode 7 and as a result JJ now somehow has to connect all this shit to Episode 9.

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