hobbsyoyo
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@GoodEnoughForMe How was it awful? Just a rehash of Empire?
[RD] The Last Jedi – Another Cold Rehash
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civvver
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I saw it last night. It was bad. It's hard to put my finger on what went wrong with the movie but it's probably the third worst star wars movie, narrowly better than attack of the clones (still heaps better than the trash that is phantom menace). Empire is still the best one, I loved force awakens, then all the rest kind of get lumped together except for last jedi and clones which are meh, and phantom which is garbage.
I'll explain my feelings about it as best I can without spoiling anything, although I am going to reference spoilers from force awakens so be warned, though that movies is two years old so if you haven't seen it by now I don't feel sorry for you.
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There were a lot of small failures of the movie but I think ultimately it comes down to tone. I left the theater thinking I just saw avengers in space. They took the franchise and all the stuff that made it star wars-y and eliminated it in favor of quips in the dialogue, sarcastic jokes that just don't work unless it's han solo delivering them, and the whole feel of it is very specific to our time period. Like the originals had no humor really except for han but he mostly won us over with his charm. The funny parts in last jedi feel forced and scripted, like you know how iron man and thor drop a lot of funny lines in their movies? It felt exactly like that. And while that tone is fine for marvel because it's set in modern universe and time, it ruins the authenticity of the star wars universe by making them speak like modern day teenagers. Luke and Leia both have lines that I couldn't even dream of them saying in the original. Like Luke tries to be funny and he's just not. I think part of this might be because han is not present so they try to give some lines that would be perfect for him to luke. It just doesn't work.
Too much cgi on aliens too. The cantina scene in force awakens had cgi but they mixed in some live actors too and made it feel true to the original. The equivalent scenes in last jedi seem to scrap all of that in favor of completely cgi'd aliens that feel fake and soulless.
There was also a TON of filler. Without giving too much away, nothing happens in this film. It's like one giant stretched out battle with a bunch of sideplots, only the sideplots don't lead anywhere. Like literally some of them are the good guys going hey we're in trouble let's try this, 20 mins later, well that didn't work, let's try something else. It's action with zero plot purpose. It feels like the writers were like here's our main conflict, oh crap that will only occupy 30 minutes of screen time, what can we write in for the heroes to do in the meantime?
There are a couple really good twists and that's about it. But it also does practically nothing to explain questions from force awakens. It was not a very good sequel in that regard.
You can tell they are trying to distance themselves from the old star wars ip and introduce new characters as well, but while fin and rey and po felt like natural elements in force awakens, in last jedi the new characters seemed forced and very much like movie tropes. Speaking of tropes, there's a ton of rebel alliance inspirational one liners, quotes like we will be the spark that ignites the fire in the galaxy. I think they said that four or five times. I mean comon, it's really lame. It's fine if leia says it maybe once but that's it. Just say the classic may the force be with you. Another really corny line, something about how we need to stop killing what we hate and start defending what we love. I mean can you get more cliche than that?
It felt preachy. You know how avatar is a very thinly veiled attack on industrialism and corporate greed? It's not quite that blatant but there are a couple points in the movie like that. It's very out of place in a star wars film.
Finally I didn't like the scope of it. Force awakens felt big like there was a huge galaxy and the first order had tons of troops and ships and the resistance/rebels did too. This doesn't feel that way at all. The space battles feel small by comparison.
Ok I guess that wasn't finally but some stuff that happens in these movies really irks me just from a physics stand point. I mean it's a movie about a mystical power called the force so of course you suspend reality, but comon guys there's no gravity in space you can't "drop" bombs from space ships onto stuff below and have them "fall" in space, at least not at the speed they do. That's all I can say about that cus I don't want to spoil it, but some of the stuff that happens now is completely ludicrous. Other stuff like hey we have this tracking beacon so our friends can find us, nevermind that we just traveled at faster than light speed to this location. I guess that means the tracking beacon signal also travels at faster than light speed and can reach every point in the galaxy simultaneously. I mean star wars has never been a technically correct show, extremely far from it, but this one goes way above and beyond asking you to just accept some ridiculous premises about the capabilities of their tech. And yet we still have to store super important secret plans on thumb drives inside droids and look at monitors of fleet movements that look like a war game on an atari lol.
It's just sad cus this could've been a really great film with a couple tweaks.
I'll explain my feelings about it as best I can without spoiling anything, although I am going to reference spoilers from force awakens so be warned, though that movies is two years old so if you haven't seen it by now I don't feel sorry for you.
.
.
.
There were a lot of small failures of the movie but I think ultimately it comes down to tone. I left the theater thinking I just saw avengers in space. They took the franchise and all the stuff that made it star wars-y and eliminated it in favor of quips in the dialogue, sarcastic jokes that just don't work unless it's han solo delivering them, and the whole feel of it is very specific to our time period. Like the originals had no humor really except for han but he mostly won us over with his charm. The funny parts in last jedi feel forced and scripted, like you know how iron man and thor drop a lot of funny lines in their movies? It felt exactly like that. And while that tone is fine for marvel because it's set in modern universe and time, it ruins the authenticity of the star wars universe by making them speak like modern day teenagers. Luke and Leia both have lines that I couldn't even dream of them saying in the original. Like Luke tries to be funny and he's just not. I think part of this might be because han is not present so they try to give some lines that would be perfect for him to luke. It just doesn't work.
Too much cgi on aliens too. The cantina scene in force awakens had cgi but they mixed in some live actors too and made it feel true to the original. The equivalent scenes in last jedi seem to scrap all of that in favor of completely cgi'd aliens that feel fake and soulless.
There was also a TON of filler. Without giving too much away, nothing happens in this film. It's like one giant stretched out battle with a bunch of sideplots, only the sideplots don't lead anywhere. Like literally some of them are the good guys going hey we're in trouble let's try this, 20 mins later, well that didn't work, let's try something else. It's action with zero plot purpose. It feels like the writers were like here's our main conflict, oh crap that will only occupy 30 minutes of screen time, what can we write in for the heroes to do in the meantime?
There are a couple really good twists and that's about it. But it also does practically nothing to explain questions from force awakens. It was not a very good sequel in that regard.
You can tell they are trying to distance themselves from the old star wars ip and introduce new characters as well, but while fin and rey and po felt like natural elements in force awakens, in last jedi the new characters seemed forced and very much like movie tropes. Speaking of tropes, there's a ton of rebel alliance inspirational one liners, quotes like we will be the spark that ignites the fire in the galaxy. I think they said that four or five times. I mean comon, it's really lame. It's fine if leia says it maybe once but that's it. Just say the classic may the force be with you. Another really corny line, something about how we need to stop killing what we hate and start defending what we love. I mean can you get more cliche than that?
It felt preachy. You know how avatar is a very thinly veiled attack on industrialism and corporate greed? It's not quite that blatant but there are a couple points in the movie like that. It's very out of place in a star wars film.
Finally I didn't like the scope of it. Force awakens felt big like there was a huge galaxy and the first order had tons of troops and ships and the resistance/rebels did too. This doesn't feel that way at all. The space battles feel small by comparison.
Ok I guess that wasn't finally but some stuff that happens in these movies really irks me just from a physics stand point. I mean it's a movie about a mystical power called the force so of course you suspend reality, but comon guys there's no gravity in space you can't "drop" bombs from space ships onto stuff below and have them "fall" in space, at least not at the speed they do. That's all I can say about that cus I don't want to spoil it, but some of the stuff that happens now is completely ludicrous. Other stuff like hey we have this tracking beacon so our friends can find us, nevermind that we just traveled at faster than light speed to this location. I guess that means the tracking beacon signal also travels at faster than light speed and can reach every point in the galaxy simultaneously. I mean star wars has never been a technically correct show, extremely far from it, but this one goes way above and beyond asking you to just accept some ridiculous premises about the capabilities of their tech. And yet we still have to store super important secret plans on thumb drives inside droids and look at monitors of fleet movements that look like a war game on an atari lol.
It's just sad cus this could've been a really great film with a couple tweaks.
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GoodEnoughForMe
n.m.s.s.
[I'll keep this specific plot spoiler free, but I'm going to cite some characters. Nothing actually really spoiler but if you literally want 100% ignorance I'm def going to name some characters and allude to what/who I thought sucked and some major drags on the pacing.]
That would be forgivable if the movie was good. Like if you squint you can see some plot similarities at the beginning and end. But it's not as bad as Force Awakens. What's worse in that regard is how dialogue and terms and proper nouns are recycled, badly. I can't really give away how or why because of what it reveals. But it makes the final scene almost hilarious, unintentionally, as well as a bunch of other moments.
Every single character's characterization, moral arc, and motivation is warped and changed. It's one thing to crap on Lucas's lore and general ideas - I expect that. But this craps on... Episode VII. Permissively. Rey is warped, Kylo warped, Luke warped, everyone is this weird caricature of what they previously stood for. The plot is simultaneously threadbare and cluttered. For long stretches, nothing ~really~ happens, nothing to actually move things, and yet we are inundated with deus ex machina moments and an overabundance of cheap parlor tricks. Del Toro's entire character is awful, and that entire plot line is pointless and meaningless, to say nothing of Phasma. But Del Toro... he has one of the worst speech disabilities (is it supposed to be drug addled? legit disability? who knows!) I've seen portrayed in a movie. I don't know how you make Del Toro look like he couldn't act in any capacity, but they did. 3/4 of the dialogue is yelling, and what isn't yelling is really contrived, cheap, over-the-top lines delivered for EPIC DRAMA that instead fall horribly, horribly flat. And as for the humour, there are a LOT of attempts at it. Lot is not the key word here, attempts is. Most of it is just bad.
Even the acting has regressed heavily. Any emotional depth from Finn is gone. Same with Poe.
About 1/3 of the way through I thought "this is not that good." About 1/2 through I thought "this is actually pretty bad." About 2/3 of the way through, I thought "the only thing stopping me from walking out is my crushing social anxiety and the fact that I didn't come alone and that this is Star Wars and I am holding out all hope for this thing to pull together."
As a movie, separate from Star Wars, it's awful. As Star Wars, separate from a movie, it's awful. It's logically inconsistent, non-sensible, cringey, and at the end of the day, just not fun.
There are just entire sequences that serve no point and have really easy get out of jail free cards. There's even an entire scene that is - a really, really, really important one too - that is literally, word-for-word, something I'd expect Spaceballs 2 to do if it was made today to parody new Star Wars. Tonally it's weird. Everyone is a smarmy smart ass now. That's ok in, say, Guardians of the Galaxy. It's weird here. There are so many contrived conveniences. The casino planet happens so fast and is so silly and stupid and pointless and rushed and yet not at all important I basically checked out for it. You could cut out 30-40 minutes in the middle and nothing would change. An entire plot line is dragged on for an hour. The final shot is basically Spaceballs again. They have a ring. It looks like it came out of a 25 cent coin machine at my local breakfast cafe. There's even a brand new technology introduced that I flat out hope they retcon out of existence. it completely changes the logistics now of every movie and book post Last Jedi, in a bad way. There's a major reason Lucas specifically avoided it.
Maybe once more people have seen it here I'll go into my major issues with characterization and motivation but there are so many bad ironies too. It's just a mess. And this is mostly just from a movie stand point. From a nerdy "Star Wars" standpoint, ugh.
Like I love the prequels, warts and all. Really truly do. Loved all 8 previous movies to death. This was... this was something. Not good.
hobbsyoyo
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Thanks for the comprehensive and spoiler-free review. Really appreciate that.
In one of the Star Wars threads I voiced my annoyance at how toy-like the space battles from Rogue One were. I'm very accustomed to completely non-physical action sequences in sci fi so that isn't the problem. The problem was they just looked stupid; like they dumbed down the sequences to the level that a kid would imagine while playing with their toy X-Wing. I get the movie is geared to be kid friendly but the don't have to make things look so disturbingly stupid.
In one of the Star Wars threads I voiced my annoyance at how toy-like the space battles from Rogue One were. I'm very accustomed to completely non-physical action sequences in sci fi so that isn't the problem. The problem was they just looked stupid; like they dumbed down the sequences to the level that a kid would imagine while playing with their toy X-Wing. I get the movie is geared to be kid friendly but the don't have to make things look so disturbingly stupid.
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hobbsyoyo
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Thank you for your review as well!
It's striking how much your and civver's summaries have in common. I'm now prepared to be let down. Yet I'm still going to see it in the theater.
Well if I'm as disappointed as I think I will be then this will be the last one I see in theaters. Tickets are too expensive these days to see things on a whim and it seems like Star Wars is turning into another superhero franchise that I have no interest in seeing.
Lexicus
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Well, I hadn't intended to see it and now I have two reasons to rationalize/retroactively justify that decision.
civvver
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I totally agree with everything you said. I think our reviews were very similar, and it was great to hear my thoughts expressed in another's words. I had a hard time expressing exactly what was wrong with last jedi so I appreciate another point of view.
Regarding this tech though what are you referring to? Spoiler your reply for the others I guess.
Spoiler :
Thank you for your review as well!
It's striking how much your and civver's summaries have in common. I'm now prepared to be let down. Yet I'm still going to see it in the theater.
I usually don't trust critic reviews that much, but if you look at user scores on metacritic force awakens is like a 6.9. Basically a lot of people loved it and a few hated it claiming it was just a soulless rehash of new hope. I loved it personally. But I understand the dissenters.
Rogue one was a 7.6 user score.
This is a 5.3, currently with 211 positive reviews to 184 negative.
GoodEnoughForMe
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I read a review in the Atlantic that said it was possibly the best Star Wars film since Empire. I was skeptical that I would see eye-to-eye with the reviewer on that. I didn't like TFA much, but the deciding factor for me to not see the sequel(s) was Han's death, he was the main thing I liked in TFA.
It's the old EU headcanon for me.
It's the old EU headcanon for me.
GoodEnoughForMe
n.m.s.s.
The RT score is the highest ever for SW and Metacritic is highest besides a New Hope (although both Empire and RotJ were critically mixed at release and now well loved. Like a "re-review" metacritic score for them would score much higher).
The IMDB score being 8.1 already when normally it's super inflated this early as fans give 10s is bad. Like Force Awakens was upper 8s/around 9 at this point on the site. This is going to be the lowest audience scores on various sites since Attack of the Clones. Which is weird! Critics have generally been ok with Star Wars but certainly not given out praise as much as fans. This movie the script is flipped.
Anecdotally, TFA and Rogue One got an applause. This got nothing when I went.
The IMDB score being 8.1 already when normally it's super inflated this early as fans give 10s is bad. Like Force Awakens was upper 8s/around 9 at this point on the site. This is going to be the lowest audience scores on various sites since Attack of the Clones. Which is weird! Critics have generally been ok with Star Wars but certainly not given out praise as much as fans. This movie the script is flipped.
Anecdotally, TFA and Rogue One got an applause. This got nothing when I went.
civvver
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civvver
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Well if you don't like the original star was cus you find them cheesy or the plot too much good vs evil, too black and white good guys vs bad guys fighting stuff which is what new hope and force awakens epitomize, then you might like this better. It's a big departure from that. Which is why so many people loved rogue one I think, except that rogue one had a proper tone and well written dialogue.
GoodEnoughForMe
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Lexicus
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No, I love the original Star Wars. I also love the prequels despite the fact that they suck.
GoodEnoughForMe
n.m.s.s.
I actually thought they totally whiffed on what would have been a cool morally fuzzy character arc in TLJ. Like the setup was there, it looked like it was going to happen, but then nah.
Lexicus
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heaters are too expensive but more importantly they're a weird combination of over- and under-stimulation. My attention span has been too warped by the internet to actually sit through a movie while doing nothing else, and theaters are like really loud and in-your-face, so it's just not that pleasant an experience for me usually.
Lexicus
Deity
My roommate just posted on Facebook that he didn't like it. Some way into the comments on his status he says he actually would like his money back.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I thought it was a pretty solid B-.
The first half was... a mixed bag The Luke/Rey/Kylo storyline, I liked. Built on Force Awakens, added to the characters and the lore, thumbs up. The Finn/Po/Rose storyline was... Not bad, but directionless. A lot happened, without anything much coming of it. It felt like a long-winded way of getting the characters into the right place for the final act. They would have made perfectly serviceable episodes of Rebels or Clone Wars, but that's not something you drop into the middle of a two-hour feature film.
The second half was much stronger. The plot and the story fall into step; the characters end up in the same place, acting with purpose; there's a big ol' murderfight with a bunch of exotically-armed imperial bodyguards, it's great. Not perfect, a few lines landed awkwardly. But I left the cinema feeling optimistic about the series.
Also, the porgs were not annoying. That's worth something.
The first half was... a mixed bag The Luke/Rey/Kylo storyline, I liked. Built on Force Awakens, added to the characters and the lore, thumbs up. The Finn/Po/Rose storyline was... Not bad, but directionless. A lot happened, without anything much coming of it. It felt like a long-winded way of getting the characters into the right place for the final act. They would have made perfectly serviceable episodes of Rebels or Clone Wars, but that's not something you drop into the middle of a two-hour feature film.
The second half was much stronger. The plot and the story fall into step; the characters end up in the same place, acting with purpose; there's a big ol' murderfight with a bunch of exotically-armed imperial bodyguards, it's great. Not perfect, a few lines landed awkwardly. But I left the cinema feeling optimistic about the series.
Also, the porgs were not annoying. That's worth something.
No, no, no, watch it first. It's not a perfect film (there really were too many jokes, too often) but you shouldn't let yourself be driven away by one or two bad reviews on an Internet forum.
