What is Your Opinion on The Last Jedi?

[Winter]

It has now officially been One Year since the release of Star Wars Episode 8 The Last Jedi so I would like to know, what are your opinions on the film. Do you like it, dislike it or are you just sorta meh on it? One last point Please remain polite while discussing said opinion on this film this is not meant to start a argument but rather to get an idea of what everyone thinks of this film, nothing more nothing less.

[Karha of Honor]

It's horrible.

[Riedquat]

Pretty much the same as most - not keen on it at all.

[TGLS]

It wasn't that bad. Many parts were too much of a rehash, but it wasn't excessively bad. But it wasn't great either.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I thought you would never ask.

What I was subconsciously expecting (with the new trilogy) was a follow up to the original trilogy consisting of the principal characters of then being the principal characters in these movies. Emotionally I'm not all there with these movies, and am willing to put that on me and not the quality of the 2 saga films or the direction literally anyone involved had influence on. When I talk about the principal characters being principal in these movies, I'm mainly alluding to the idea that the story concerning Rey & Kylo along with Finn & Poe is the prime development, and not so much Luke, Leia, and Han & Chewie.

I have to take my own feelings with a grain of salt, but I don't feel very much steam has been picked up. I liked The Last Jedi more than The Force Awakens, but while the drama between Rey and Kylo is actually budding pretty interestingly, it's just very discrete in lieu of The Order vs The Resistance. I'll have to brush up on what was going on with Leia, Laura Dern, and Poe in The Last Jedi because I do remember a pretty epic battle with drama and undertones of order and directive, but all of these plots haven't really come together for me. Again, the casino planet with kid slaves being freed... Probably the most interesting undertones for me as I see it ties into Luke Skywalker's commencing legacy, but I just haven't put it together with the rest of what's going on.

[PerrySimm]

At the risk of making every old thread new again, it's got a lot of problems.

It's certainly guilty of trying to rehash Empire Strikes Back, but that's not really the problem. The Force Awakens rehashed A New Hope but mostly got away with it because of the focus on character.

So you get to the inevitable Disney reboot of ESB. Fine, let's keep moving forward with the character drama. Where's the Lando? Where's the Boba Fett?

DJ might be a little of both. There's the evil First Order droid. Phasma COULD have been the Boba Fett. But no, wasted again. Wait, is Holdo the Lando? ... could very well be! That would make DJ the Boba Fett, eh?

And... Rose is maybe what happens if Dash Rendar's part got a little too big in the film. They really needed a "hey! It's that guy!" for the background of these films. Poe could have been that, but they had other ideas. So why not have Rose be that? Just that recurring tech character they're always running into in the basement. Zaps the hero and puts him in the brig, HA HA! Goes away until the next film, and then it's another fun moment.

They also made the film waaaaaaaaaaaay too bleak. If you're flipping expectations then unlike ESB, the good guys should have WON at the end. The other planets SHOULD have come to the rescue. Luke SHOULD have come in person, and lived.

Bad movies with good endings at least keep butts in the seats. Bad movies with bad endings end franchises.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I'd judge it by three criteria-

If I were trying to look at it simply as a film, divorced of all other context, I might look at it as a movie that does some things well, some things badly, and averages out as "ok."

If I judge TLJ by how it fares as the second film of a trilogy, as the penultimate film of the Skywalker saga, and as a part of the Star Wars cinematic universe as a whole, I'd say it's genuinely awful.

As a fan with my own preferences and things I want to see/get out of Star Wars, its my least favorite movie in the entire franchise and I have to remind myself not to go over-the-top railing against it.

Overall, the second of the three criteria is probably the most fair. Rian Johnson had some ideas he wanted to try out, and he wanted to take risks and break new ground. I can respect that, but he shirked his responsibilities to build a cohesive story that continues on from the groundwork laid in TFA and builds toward a logical culmination of the story. That's what a trilogy is. TFA had its issue, but Rian Johnson just ignored it and ended up resetting everything to ground zero while simultaneously dumping on the old heroes and haphazardly changing the reading/meaning of the entire Skywalker saga. I blame Kathleen Kennedy almost as much for failing to establish a modicum of oversight and failing to ensure an overall consistent direction and goal for the story. At this point it's almost impossible for the trilogy to function as a cohesive unit, and I certainly don't expect it from this group.

[Winter]

Rian Johnson had some ideas he wanted to try out, and he wanted to take risks and break new ground.

I don't really felt that he did take any real risks or broke new ground. Most of what was done in Last was already done in Star Wars before, War Profiteering, the heroes and villains both buying from criminals, slavery, Luke being tempted by the Dark Side and even the First Jedi Temple were all done before and, In My Honest Opinion, done better... except for Luke turning to the Dark Side which I don't think has ever worked either long or short term.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Rian Johnson had some ideas he wanted to try out, and he wanted to take risks and break new ground.

I don't really felt that he did take any real risks or broke new ground. Most of what was done in Last was already done in Star Wars before, War Profiteering, the heroes and villains both buying from criminals, slavery, Luke being tempted by the Dark Side and even the First Jedi Temple were all done before and, In My Honest Opinion, done better... except for Luke turning to the Dark Side which I don't think has ever worked either long or short term.

Maybe "new ground" is the wrong wording. What I mean is, any decent writer is trying to write a story that is about more than just the immediate plot. The story might tackle universal human themes or ideas the writer finds important.

I think one big reason why more big blockbusters are less successful as stories than they should be is because the director and writer(s) are too worried about fan-service, clever throwbacks that will trigger expected audience reactions, and putting on a light show, to the point that the heart of the film (whatever that might be) is obscured. To me the worst of the nu-Trek movies is easily Into Darkness. and a big part of that is the lack of a really identifiable, consistent theme.

The one thing I can say about Rian Johnson is that he had a serious theme that he wanted to explore, and every single major story thread (with the possible exception of the Canto Bight sequence, which is a big mistake however you look at it) contributes to and expounds on that theme. To me, that's all positive, and the reviews by critics reflect that. The problem is that the way he expounded on his theme was out of sync with the characters we knew and the story as told up to that point, and it didn't advance the trilogy and saga toward a final chapter.

[Winter]

The one thing I can say about Rian Johnson is that he had a serious theme that he wanted to explore, and every single major story thread (with the possible exception of the Canto Bight sequence, which is a big mistake however you look at it) contributes to and expounds on that theme. To me, that's all positive, and the reviews by critics reflect that. The problem is that the way he expounded on his theme was out of sync with the characters we knew and the story as told up to that point, and it didn't advance the trilogy and saga toward a final chapter.

I see what you mean there and that is something I can give to this film as it is, at the very least, picks a theme and sticks with it whereas Star Trek Into Darkness did lack that as revenge wasn't really a theme so much as a word thrown around. However, one point that does bug me is the bit where Yoda almost decides to tell the viewer what the theme of the movie is instead of just letting us see it for ourselves.

Contrast with this with The Wrath of Khan where Revenge and the fear of growing old is the main themes of that movie. There's no moment in that movie where the characters flat out state that the lesson of the movie but it does manage to get those themes across in a way that feels rather natural.

Case in point, when Kirk is talking to Carol Marcus when all his crew has left and he reveals what he is feeling. The difference between these scene and the bit with Yoda is that it's Kirk baring his soul and showing us the man behind the myth and going over his fear about how he has failed and sums it all up with three words "Old, warn out."

By contrast Yoda gives a big speech and, going over the Prequels, the Original Trilogy and the Clone Wars I can only really recall one speech he gave which was the "My Allie is the Force." Which is less of a speech and more of him trying to get Luke to grasp something that he still doesn't understand.

Maybe that's just me but I felt the speech with Yoda was rather hand fisted and for me (seriously this is just my opinion here) I felt that the puppet was really unconvincing and took out of the film.