i thin kthe two biggest problems i had with this movie is that that whenever we glance over to what is happening on the cruiser, its far to antiseptc. the ship just received major damage and there is no sign of damage control.
The second is that his movie feels like it set up nothing for the third one. the third one is meant to cap off this trilogy but it feels like there is nothing for the third one to do. the resistance is literally down to 20 people. its practically a reset button.
I am still baffled at the first order's place in all this. where is the republic? after getting 5 of their planets destroyed they should be mobilizing for war and yet the movies treat the republic as if its been conquered already.
On the bright side now that we actually have shield effects rendered on the screen it makes the importance fighters clear. fighters can get inside screens and cause massive damage.
The implication to me was that when the Starkiller Base opened fire in Ep 7, it was essentially a decapitation strike against the Republic, and the First Order followed it up with a general offensive against an enemy that was already partly-demilitarized and had just had its command and control network pulverized, along with its main fleet bases. More coup d'etat than military invasion. Hence the desperate hope that allies on the Outer Rim can come to their aid (and don't, presumably having written Leia off and just trying to survive on their own).
I love how they foreshadow that Luke's not really there by his non-chalant survival of the massive bombardment of the FO's ground forces. Sure, the Force is magic and one might buy that Luke's strong enough to somehow deflect all of those shots, but then we find out the far more plausible reason: he was a projected Force image the entire time.
This movie may be my favorite in the franchise. Is it perfect? No. But it manages to keep the spectacle and feel of Star Wars while zigging where we all expected it to zag. I was worried about where they were going with Luke's "The Jedi must end", but they did well representing it as disillusionment and realization that the Force is about more than the Jedi. Luke's error was in trying to rebuild the Jedi as they were; the destruction of the tree and the writings is a good way to symbolize that what's needed is a new approach. And the end, with the passing of the torch to Rey...
I seriously loved this movie. I look forward to Episode IX.
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
Administrator of SFD, Former Spacebattles Super-Mod, Veteran Chatnik. And multiverse crossover-loving writer, of course!
What this movie fully set up in Kylo as the main villain and Rey the main Heroine, not more need for an older mentor figure for either of them. It's about moving on.
Episode IX is going to be the conclusion of three movies, and that's why is good for this film to mostly reset the board.
Starting to wonder what the overall reaction among viewers is. I noticed this over at RT,
and that low, low Audience Score seemed odd to me. Could be hundreds of new accounts spamming 0.5-star reviews at it to bring down the score (spontaneous or collaborated or otherwise), but then I check my Twitter feed and
And I'm thinking, huh, maybe it's just really polarizing. It got a Cinemascore of "A", so overall audience reaction seems to be positive, but it's just not connecting with some. It reminds me a bit of last year when Rogue One also got an 85% Tomatometer, a 87% audience score, another "A" Cinemascore, and I didn't like that movie much at all.
Though I feel this is a good movie it takes risk and swerves in ways that are HIGHLY polarizing. I've seen at least two rants going into detail about how this film ruined Luke Skywalker by having him contemplate killing his apprentice and then dying a failure that didn't bring back the Jedi Order. I am trying not to be an elitist fan...but my feeling is that Luke flew at Vader in a rage when the man mentioned turning his sister, despite Luke previously stating he was here to save him, so he has his hot buttons...it's just this time he caught himself before acting on that emotion...it was just too late. As for the Jedi Order, this movie is about failure and how trying to do the same thing as before won't work. Finn, Poe and Rose try the same kind of infiltration the Rebels pulled in ANH, and Rogue One....the bad guys eventually put things in place to handle that kind of attempt. The same goes for Rey trying to save Ben. So Luke trying to bring back a flawed Jedi Order exactly as it once was, is shown to have been a mistake.
Also, Vice Admiral Holdo (And she needs a ship named after her in the next film) might just have single hand idly crippled the First Order. Her maneuver took out a bunch of Star Destroyers and caused sever damage to Snoke's ship which is also the FO's main construction facility for Star Destroyers and other vehicles/equipment. This might be just enough breathing room for the Rebellion to find it's footing.
I'm kind of hoping Finn and Rose return to Canto bight in the opening episode IX, with Poe and Rey in tow to pull a heist to fund the rebellion...and punch DJ in the face for selling the fleet out and getting hundreds of people killed.
Steve wrote:
I love how they foreshadow that Luke's not really there by his non-chalant survival of the massive bombardment of the FO's ground forces. Sure, the Force is magic and one might buy that Luke's strong enough to somehow deflect all of those shots, but then we find out the far more plausible reason: he was a projected Force image the entire time.
There's an even more subtle hint that he's not there, he doesn't leave foot prints. every other person stepping on the salt flat breaks the bleached crust an reveals the red underneath, except Luke.
MissKittyFantastico wrote:
I've got to nitpick though - I still feel like I don't have a great idea of what the First Order even is. I mean, do they have boots on the ground all over the galaxy? Do all the previously-free (I guess) planets of the New Republic now have stormtrooper patrols marching along their streets checking people's papers and locking up dissidents? Apparently they're poised to rule the galaxy, and Poe says the cheese slice is "a dreadnought" like there's more than one of them around, so I guess they're a large organisation, but you wouldn't know it from what we actually see. I mean, what's Kylo Ren supreme leader of now, what's he got besides one crippled flagship with its starboard wing duct-taped back on?
I like to think of the First Order as something like Cobra, an organization that wants to take over the world or in this case galaxy.
Having now seen the movie, I'm a bit more surprised by the wildly positive reactions than I am the wildly negative ones. This movie has some fantastic visuals, but it also has some real problems.
Subverting expectations can be good/gratifying, but it isn't necessarily good in and of itself. Killing off Snoke- Good surprise. Some of the other things they subverted or didn't explain at all? Ehhh.
The Empire and the Rebellion were simple concepts, but there was no reason to think an Empire couldn't be in power (and the prequels explained how that happened). Here, there was a time of peace, and yet the Republc never grew beyond a small handful of planets apparently within the same system. The Republic never had a military of its own, it never seized the Empire's old assets/technology, and the First Order and Snoke arose out of nowhere. I would say it's poorly thought out, but it doesn't seem like they gave the universe at large any thought at all. Granted, this is as much a JJ Abrams problem as it is a Rian Johnson problem, but they really doubled down on it here.
The movie really drags in a couple spots, and the Casino scenes seem particularly pointless.
There's a few plot holes, although I'd have to rewatch to remember them all. For example, if the Resistance knew that they could only track the lead ship, why wouldn't they break up the fleet? Why did they only tell Poe the plan after he screwed everything up?
There's a ton of out of place humor.
Leia pulling a Superman stunt was embarrassingly cheesy. I can't believe that made it into the movie.
The more fanboyish complaint is Luke's role in all this and what this does to the legacy of the OT characters (a legacy of- nothing, really). I hate to see a childhood hero die at all, but I felt the character was made almost unrecognizable. The cynic in me would say that Luke took this route not so much because it made sense for the character, but more because it was as an easy way to "Kill the past" and cash in with countless new movies. It's as if they tried to find an arc that wouldn't let Luke upstage any old characters but would also avoid ticking off OT fans by having him be overpowered by Kylo. They partially succeeded, given how many major Star Wars fans are pretty accepting of Luke's arc... but there's also a ton of pissed off Star Wars fans as well.
The good stuff-
Kylo Ren's arc has been pretty great, and he's easily one of the best villains Star Wars has had.
The ticking clock with the chase, limited fuel, and slowly losing ships was well done.
Rey has really come into her own.
Nice action scenes this time around.
Impressive visuals, especially the lightspeed kamikaze was great.
While I'm not happy about Luke, it was refreshing to see mistakes being made by he heroes. and some of the old Star Wars cliches (sneaking onto the ship and breaking something) not only failing to pay off for once but backfiring.
Strong acting by several of the leads, with Ridley, Driver, and Hamill being the standouts. Even Carrie Fisher (rest in peace) was, I thought, much improved this time around.
Abrams has been left with a really difficult task. This movie basically reset the situation, minus all the old characters and most of the Resistance. My guess is they're going to have to use a time jump, deal with Leia off-screen, and Abrams is going to have to set up his own scenario to wrap up this trilogy.
