What is Your Opinion on The Last Jedi?

[ChrisTheLovableJerk]

I could literally go on hours about why I hate it. You would have to pay me a hefty sum to witness the wrong that is TLJ. I don't hate myself enough to watch it again. If I were to speak about how much this film angered me I'd look like Brad Dourif in Exorcist 3.

I am a huge, unapologetic Star Wars fan who loves the OT, PT, The Clone Wars, Rebels, Rogue One, and many novels, comics, and games. I even enjoyed TFA despite its flaws, but The Last Jedi left me feeling angry, depressed, and numb.

I hated it due the story being poorly realized, boring, underdeveloped, and incredibly contrived. A lot of the characters are too perfect (Rey, big time), bland (again, a major problem with Rey), uninteresting (Rose), forgettable (DJ and BB-9E (seriously, does anyone even remember BB-9E being there?)) and in a couple of cases flatout unlikable (Holdo). It blatantly disrespects beloved icons in favor of propping up new characters who don't stand up on their own at all because they're not being given good enough stories. What they did to Luke was so bad I am genuinely amazed Johnson wasn't kicked off the film after he turned in his script . It blatantly wastes story potential, character development, and world building in favor of surprising the audience with cheap jokes (Luke tossing the lightsaber) and deaths that render characters utterly pointless (Snoke). Not to mention stupid shit like Leia surviving the cold vacuum of space after getting blown up because the plot needed Holdo to be there. And absolutely no convincing reason whatsoever is given for why Luke would become this cranky, cowardly hermit. The 'weird' stuff we were promised like Canto Bight was nothing we wouldn't have seen in an episode of TCW or Rebels, or Star Trek or The Fifth Element or something else, and Rey's force vision was nothing but something out of a music video. Not to mention the story beats blatantly ripped off from ESB and ROTJ and the absolute worst character death of all time, where a 40 Year Old pop culture icon went out in an embarrassing afterthought of a death, while Rebels gave Kanan, who has only been around for 4 years, a more meaningful, impactful, heart-wrenching death that was written far better than TLJ.

The film actually feels like it was written by a teenage girl.

The opening bombing scene is the most contrived space ships of all time that feel specifically designed to be one-way death traps, that were so slow and weak, Leia was likely planning on leaving them for dead anyway.

That Leia scene was so damn stupid, I could have done it better: Leia senses the torpedoes coming and shouts for everyone to get off the bridge immediately, but the guards get her to the door first and Ackbar tries to raise the shields to maximum setting but it’s too late, and the bridge explodes. Leia is far enough away from the blast and close enough to the door that she can Force Pull herself to the door and use the Force to close it, but watches helplessly as Ackbar and other people that trusted and served her die horribly, and she passes out.

Did you know that a lightsaber duel in outer space between Grievous and Plo Koon, two characters that can (briefly) withstand the vacuum got cut from The Clone Wars cartoon? George Lucas demanded they rewrite the episode because he felt that was going too far. Let that sink in. Lucas made sure a Star Wars cartoon was more believable than these new main saga Disney movies.

Also, say what you will about Lucas, but at least he realized killing Maul was a mistake and brought him back in TCW. Snoke is just... there are no words to describe what a huge misstep it was. I mean, killing him off? Fine, absolutely, but tell us who he is and what's his deal or where he was during the events of the original saga? Possibly the biggest wasted opportunity in the history of the franchise.

I understand that not everyone needs a backstory, I'm not asking for that, but when you set up such a mysterious character who is the primary reason your main villain turned to the dark side, you NEED to do something, like with Palpatine we figure out everything we need to know quite brilliantly in the Opera House scene without being told directly that he was Plagueis' apprentice. And you can't say 'well we didn't know anything about the Emperor back in ROTJ' because here's the thing: ROTJ was always Episode VI, so there'd always be prequels to flesh Palpatine out and explain who he was and what was up with him. There is no such guarantee for Snoke, unless Abrams shoehorns in an explanation in Episode IX, and Abrams and explanations go about as well together as water and oil.

Another reason is that back then Star Wars was only made up of three movies, the comic book, the radio adaptation, a small handful of novels, and the television special that shall not be named.

Before The Last Jedi came out the universe was much more well-established, the canon was made up of eight (technically nine) films, two animated series, a ton of novels and comics, and one video game. Simply put, at this point the universe is too well established to just throw in some random uber darksider who appears to be just as powerful as Palpatine without giving us some kind of explanation as to who he is, not to mention having in written in such a way that I honestly wonder why they bothered including him.

That's why this was a bad move, it's such wasted potential, why try to make sense or be interesting when you can show you just don't give a shit?

I mean, the whole film essentially renders him pointless, as the only real point he really serves it to give the contrived connection between Rey and Kylo, which would have made way more sense if they were both Luke's students, giving them a bond and a reason as to why Rey is powerful in the Force.

Speaking of Luke, if Mark Hamill himself told me that he fundamentally disagreed with everything I was doing with Luke Skywalker, a decades old pop culture icon, I'd throw everything out and start over, but given how this movie went through like one or two drafts at the most, it's kinda clear Rian Johnson's arrogance was mistaken for talent.

And whatever kind of old, broken hero returning to greatness bit they were trying to do with Luke just wasn't given enough time to work so felt shallow and underdeveloped to me. Like, if they wanted to do a jaded Luke, fine, but in no way did I buy the explanation for it. Not for one second did I find it plausible that Luke would do most of these actions.

Let's not mince words, Luke's death was just fucking horrible. I expected Luke to die at some point in this trilogy, it was pretty much inevitable, but the way they did it was a slap in the face. He showed up and his actions were little more than a distraction, with most of the Rebellion dead, being a perfect example of 'too little, too late'. He toyed with Kylo for a few minutes, essentially said 'Sorry, not sorry' and then became the 'I Guess I'll Die' meme. I honestly wouldn't mind it, had it been done well. I think the death of any character is inevitable, but I take offense to incompetent execution and what I feel was an utter ruination of a 40 Year old pop culture icon. That is when you lose me, when the execution is so poor.

I don't find the film to be that interesting, as what interesting stuff it does have is underdeveloped and not given enough attention. Like, Luke's story in this movie would have been so much better had they fleshed it out more, explain how Snoke got to Ben or maybe he regrets not killing Ben, who was so far gone that he went on a kill crazy rampage at the first opportunity so maybe it would have been better if Luke had killed him that night. Luke's nihilistic viewpoint makes little sense, as he is the man who refused to see his father, Darth freaking Vader, as beyond redemption, so it just comes off as a total betrayal of the character as the explanation they gave makes little sense. Like, maybe if he had gone to Ach-To to find a way to defeat Snoke or learn about the origins of the Jedi and discovered some dark secret about the Jedi's origins that caused him to lose his faith, that'd be an interesting idea, but what we got was so lackluster, underwhelming, and rather insulting.

Rey is too bland and too overpowered to really care about. Nothing really works with her, no matter how much I try to like her; one of my favorite things about TLJ was Rey enjoying the rain for the first time, such a wonderful little moment that someone who grew up in a desert wasteland would react to rain like that. Then they fuck it up by showing she knows how to swim, despite never being around a large body of water until a few days ago. Plus, the actual explanation for her powers and gifts gives the Voodoo Shark a run for its money.

Me personally, I wouldn't mind what they did with the characters, had they just been done well, and to be blunt, they messed it up royally and I don't know how the hell they can salvage it for Episode IX, nor do I really care anymore. And that's the worst part, Star Wars is such a hugely important part of my life, and aside from the new episodes of TCW coming on the streaming service and the third Thrawn novel, I'm not looking forward to anything. I have yet to watch Resistance or Solo and I feel nothing but apathy and slight annoyance towards them at most, and I will not even pirate Episode IX, I care so little for it and what it could do.

That's why I hate this movie. If you like it, great, just understand those who hate it have legitimate reasons for doing so

[Worffan101]

oh, man, I forgot that Hamill himself criticized the script!

Yeah, Johnson strikes me as a guy with decent ideas, but he just can't fucking write worth a good goddamn. Hence he turns the most interesting character in the movie into a generic love interest, turns a beloved heroic figure into a mean drunk, fawns over a fascist thug, gives the alleged protagonist fuck all to do and way too little screen time, and shows what a great leader Holdo is by having her act like a soccer mom with a naughty toddler.

And keep in mind, I actually LIKED some parts of this garbage fire, like how it pissed on JJ Abrams' garbage 'worldbuilding' from TFA with utter and obvious contempt. I LIKED Snoke being killed off, but I think he should've been killed in, IDK, some Rebel strike on the SnokeShip that ingloriously blows him up, because he's such a completely nonthreatening, pathetic, stupid, and generally eye-rollingly awful ripoff of the Emperor that the easiest way to deal with him is to get rid of him. I LIKED the clear contempt for any idea that Rey was anyone but a nobody.

Of course the problem is that Johnson chooses the easy route and basically makes everything to do with the First Order a shallow, Spaceballs-esque parody of JJ's generic interpretation of Star Wars, which then kills the tension when we're supposed to take these fucking rubes seriously.

Seriously, TLJ is like Spaceballs except taking itself seriously.

[ChrisTheLovableJerk]

I LIKED Snoke being killed off, but I think he should've been killed in, IDK, some Rebel strike on the SnokeShip that ingloriously blows him up, because he's such a completely nonthreatening, pathetic, stupid, and generally eye-rollingly awful ripoff of the Emperor that the easiest way to deal with him is to get rid of him.

Yeah, in my opinion, Leia should have been the one on the Raddus' bridge and she should have been the one to kill Snoke. How awesome would that be?

Really, Holdo shouldn't have been in the movie at all, Leia should have been given a larger role, with a conflict between her and Poe, like the new generation butting heads with the old and pose the questions; have all the losses Leia's suffered: losing her home and family to the empire, separating from her husband, her son turning into a murderous darksider and thug of the reborn version of the thing she hated so passionately, her brother running away and leaving them all to die, being branded a paranoid old bat and warmonger by the galaxy, Hosnian Prime being blown up and losing friends on that world, and then reuniting with her husband only to have their son murder him, has all that taken its toll on her? Or is Poe an arrogant risk-taker? And have it be that she dies, taking out the leader of this reborn empire in an epic way, saving the new Rebellion in the process and maybe even everyone else. In the film itself its weird as in the Poe Dameron comics, Poe is presented as Leia's loyal right-hand man who does nearly everything she asks of him, no matter how outlandish and yet TLJ displays him as an insubordinate upstart

Also, I wondered why they didn't move the Hyperspeed ramming earlier so that's what distracts Snoke enough for Kylo to kill him, because in the film itself it just makes Snoke look stupid.

[Winter]

gives the alleged protagonist fuck all to do and way too little screen time,

Actually Rey has the most screen time out of all the characters, with only Luke managing to match her and Ren comes in with the thread most screen time. The problem with Rey is, as I said, she spends most of her screen time trying to better Luke and Ren. I'm not kidding 99% of her dialogue can be summed up as "Luke/Ren you can be so amazing if you just try."

Throughout the entire film there are only THREE scenes that are about her and her goals and both are less then 5 minutes long. The one where she tells Luke that she needs someone to show her where she fits in this story, the cave scene and her final chat with Ren. And ALL THREE are meant more as a means to either give both men something to do as they wait to confront each other or to better flesh out THEIR characters.

The scene where she's asking Luke to train her is meant as a means to show why Luke is the way he is now, her final chat with Ren is meant to show how far he is willing to go to manipulate her and the cave scene is largely pointless and meant more of a way to set up Rey's fight with Luke and to show Ren manipulate her into trying to work with him as a means to flip the bird to Luke.

Again, the main narrative of Last is to confrontation between Luke and Ren, it's what the film is building up to and Luke and Ren are the ones with the biggest narrative impact on the story. Everyone is either talking about Luke and Ren or something they are connected to them, (DJ's pointing out how the First Order and the Resistance both buy from the black market (which he has no reason to do BTW) I think is meant as a metaphor for how Luke and Ren are more alike then they realize or are willing to admit). And in the final few minutes of the film everyone is talking about how amazing Luke was in the final battle or how dangerous Ren is now that he is the leader of the First Order.

Over on the Web Series RWBY one of the major criticisms of the series is that the main character, Ruby, has gotten very little character development and that her special powers went unexplained. Now in Volume 6 the creators have decided to give her more development, explain her powers and force her into a situation where she Has to take charge and lead.

All this has helped to make Vol. 6 one of the best of the series and has led to some great character moments for RWBY. Which is what Last refused to do with Rey as the filmmakers seemed more interested in the conflict between her mentor and the big bad then her.

To bring the dead horse in for a bit more of a beating the reason Mara is so well loved is that once her backstory was established in Heir Zahn dedicated most of her screen into developing her character and giving her more to do in the plot. Mara's goals, flaws and character is explored in detail throughout TTT while we still know nothing about Rey and I honestly doubt that Episode 9 is going to do anything else with her and it will reportedly have the most characters in a SW film which means the film will be dividing it's time trying to giving everyone something to do, fleshing out the new characters, reintroducing old characters, explaining what happened to Leia, trying to sort out Ren and the First Order, still exploring the Force and likely giving Luke's Force Ghost as much screen time as possible.

Will they pull it off? I don't know at this point, all I do know is that this Feels like DEST is trying to copy Avengers: Infinity Wars winning formula by getting a ton of different characters into one film for the big finally. Many of whom will either be characters we have never heard about, Legend characters making the jump to canon or will be a mix of both.

[clearspira]

gives the alleged protagonist fuck all to do and way too little screen time,

Will they pull it off? I don't know at this point, all I do know is that this Feels like DEST is trying to copy Avengers: Infinity Wars winning formula by getting a ton of different characters into one film for the big finally. Many of whom will either be characters we have never heard about, Legend characters making the jump to canon or will be a mix of both.

Copying Marvel I would say is something that this series is already guilty of. I am of course talking about the humour. Disney saw how beloved that wacky and snarky Tony Stark and Starkiller are over on their other property and thought ''everyone loves that, so surely everyone will love a few yo momma jokes over here on Star Wars.''
Thing is, Star Wars has never been about that kind of humour, and every time they try it is rejected. (Hello Jar Jar.)

That BTW is a lesson that a certain other property about catching ghosts and a passion for blaming ''manbabies'' for its ills discovered when they took a property famous for its well planned out scripted comedy and replaced it with jokes about won tons in soup and vagina noises.

[Wargriffin]

Kylo pulling the apprentice Dream was perfect

I mean Snoke himself seems very much like he should have been a Paper Tiger, Yeah he's strong for a force user... when all the really strong force users are dead, retired, or untrained 'Remember that whole bit of Call Kylo back to me so I can complete his training that went nowhere

FUCK I still don't know what they are called the Knights of Ren and Where the other Six masked knights went


I mean the Snoke's design is based off Hugh Hefner, the only way they could have been anymore on the noise is if all the guards were obviously female

Kylo is a Vader wannabe, Snoke thinks himself a better Palpy except Snoke has nowhere near broken Kylo emotional to where Vader even at his most suicidal never thought of just brawling with Palpy to get it over with

[Winter]

Kylo pulling the apprentice Dream was perfect

I mean Snoke himself seems very much like he should have been a Paper Tiger, Yeah he's strong for a force user... when all the really strong force users are dead, retired, or untrained 'Remember that whole bit of Call Kylo back to me so I can complete his training that went nowhere

FUCK I still don't know what they are called the Knights of Ren and Where the other Six masked knights went


I mean the Snoke's design is based off Hugh Hefner, the only way they could have been anymore on the noise is if all the guards were obviously female

Kylo is a Vader wannabe, Snoke thinks himself a better Palpy except Snoke has nowhere near broken Kylo emotional to where Vader even at his most suicidal never thought of just brawling with Palpy to get it over with

So I decided to read up a bit on Jacen Solo and his fall to the Dark Side and really, the difference between him and Ren is Night and Day. Ren is, as just about everyone has pointed out, a Darth Vader fan boy with no real depth and doesn't really compare to Jacen and his fall to the dark side. I didn't read much on the character as he was the one who killed my favorite character Mara Jade (which everyone, from Timothy Zahn, fans, the writers who wrote the story themselves and even George Lucas said was a bad idea) and he seemed to be rather inconstantly written.

However, I do like the reasons he fell to the Dark Side, it was really a number of things but the most notable is that he saw a future where he's daughter would fall to the Dark Side so he decided "Damn the Galaxy I'm going to save my kid."

That is a motive that most people can understand even if they don't have any kids of their own and lends itself to a much more tragic story vs. "I want to be evil because Darth Vader is Super Cool and my Uncle Might Have Tried to Kill Me."

Again, tragic father who is willing to give himself to the dark side and let everyone hate him if it means saving his child from that fate vs. the Superboy Prime of Star Wars... Who Thought This Was A Good Idea!?!

[Wargriffin]

"Cause Motivations are HARD"

Jacen's Fall to the Darkside is a bad case of He had so many other outs but because We have to do the Vader Fall, He has to Fall

Then again I laugh cause I thought the whole point of Anakin Solo was He wasn't suppose to go down his namesake's path... then GL demanded Anakin Die and large chunk of his character arc got thrown onto Jacen... The Legends EU was such gawd damn mess by the end of it...

Honestly Han and Leia's outright disownment of him is probably the worst part

then again that series has quite possibly the dumbest statement I've ever read

"The GA has Named Natasi Daala Chief of State"


wat

[Worffan101]

I LIKED Snoke being killed off, but I think he should've been killed in, IDK, some Rebel strike on the SnokeShip that ingloriously blows him up, because he's such a completely nonthreatening, pathetic, stupid, and generally eye-rollingly awful ripoff of the Emperor that the easiest way to deal with him is to get rid of him.

Yeah, in my opinion, Leia should have been the one on the Raddus' bridge and she should have been the one to kill Snoke. How awesome would that be?

Really, Holdo shouldn't have been in the movie at all, Leia should have been given a larger role, with a conflict between her and Poe, like the new generation butting heads with the old and pose the questions; have all the losses Leia's suffered: losing her home and family to the empire, separating from her husband, her son turning into a murderous darksider and thug of the reborn version of the thing she hated so passionately, her brother running away and leaving them all to die, being branded a paranoid old bat and warmonger by the galaxy, Hosnian Prime being blown up and losing friends on that world, and then reuniting with her husband only to have their son murder him, has all that taken its toll on her? Or is Poe an arrogant risk-taker? And have it be that she dies, taking out the leader of this reborn empire in an epic way, saving the new Rebellion in the process and maybe even everyone else. In the film itself its weird as in the Poe Dameron comics, Poe is presented as Leia's loyal right-hand man who does nearly everything she asks of him, no matter how outlandish and yet TLJ displays him as an insubordinate upstart

Also, I wondered why they didn't move the Hyperspeed ramming earlier so that's what distracts Snoke enough for Kylo to kill him, because in the film itself it just makes Snoke look stupid.

I'm a big fan of Laura Dern so I would still give her a main role, but I'd have her dress and act like an Admiral, not a soccer mom.

The Hyperspeed Ram was fucking stupid.

OK, so here's how I'd have re-written the back half of TFA and then done TLJ.

Han steps forwards to LittleBitch McFuckboy. LittleBitch is all emo. Han tries to convince him to not be evil. He goes to stab Han...

And Leia LANDS behind Han, explosive dramatic action pose, Carrie Fisher's in full Jedi robes with a blue lightsaber, and every fanboy in the audience busts a nut. Leia hands LittleBitch McFuckboy his ass in 3 seconds flat and grabs Han, who's hurt badly but still breathing. Leia grabs him and heads for the exit, but Imperial stormtroopers are coming and LittleBitch is up again and moving. Rey and Finn fight LittleBitch as Leia forges a path through the stormtroopers, Han supported on one shoulder as Chewie comes down to help. They make it to the Falcon, Rey and Finn running for the ramp as a badly injured Fuckboy pursues with his minions; Rey finally beats his ass for good and the remaining stormtroopers haul their whiny boss away as Rey gets a beat-up Finn to the Falcon.

Han's hurt really, really bad, though, and while Chewie tries to help him, Leia pilots the Falcon. Han tries to backseat drive and Leia tells him to shut up and not die. Rey patches up Finn, and Leia flies them free of the Death Star's explosion.

They make it back to base but Han dies in Leia's arms. Rey comforts a heartbroken Leia as, back at the new Imperial base, Fuckboy swears revenge.

TLJ time.

Every plot but Rey's is essentially window dressing. Remember that fact. Rey's plot takes priority. Don't so clumsily ape Empire's plot outline with the buttfucked structure.

So after the Death Star nuked the Republic's government because JJ can't space, the Republic's fallen into chaos and the Empire's back in business. The Empire attacks the Rebel base, and Leia marshals the evac, Poe tries to fight off massive waves of Imperial dreadnoughts and fighters, no yo-mama jokes, the heroes manage to, well, heroically save the day, but one of them dies in a heroic sacrifice. Her sister, Rose, is all torn up about this, and by HERO OF THE REBEL ALLIANCE Finn's apparent non-heroic attitude when he wakes up and tries to run away to find Rey. Poe and Leia get into a fight--he asks her "what the Hell was the point? What am I doing out there if I can't protect my people? First <name>, then <name>, now <Rose's sister>--all my squadron has under our sigil's a bunch of dead heroes." She says, "You ARE making a difference. We lost hundreds every battle in the first Rebellion. Only a quarter of the fighters that went up with Luke to destroy the first Death Star survived. We lost half the fleet at Yavin and hundreds on the ground at Hoth. The pain we cause others when we die for them is real, and it's a GOOD thing. It reminds us not to throw our lives away. But Poe? Sometimes, you have to give up your life for those you love, no matter how much it hurts them. And sometimes, you have to order someone into that place. And trust me, boy, it never gets any easier."

Meanwhile Rey meets with Luke. He's wary of her and tests her with a lot of bullshit Mister Miyagi style. No, seriously. He makes her do a bunch of tedious menial crappy things that are supposed to get her to understand the thought process she has to adopt to mature. She gets angry at first but buckles down and resolves to prove to him that she can endure however much of his bullshit until he agrees to come save the day. Eventually, he realizes that she's the kind of person he's been waiting for and agrees to teach her. She asks about him saving the day. He says that's a no can do.

Leia is leading the Rebels to a secret hidden base. But Bitchface McShithead attacks, with Supreme Overgod Pretentious and his penis-compensation ship! Leia tries to lead the battle but she's off her game after her husband died in her arms last month, and the fleet takes a pounding before it escapes. Don't play it as a slow march through space, play it like nuBSG's 33. Leia's hurt, bad, in the attack by Bitchface McShithead, after he hacks Rebel coms through bullshit bullshit to taunt her about how much he loved killing Han. Rose and Finn think up a tech solution to the problem. Poe rankles under the Captain Jellico-esque leadership of Admiral Holdo, Leia's old friend. Holdo has no other options BUT running, and Poe, who's pissed as hell, stressed, hasn't slept and is nursing a massive case of survivor's guilt, challenges her in front of the whole crew. She throws his ass in the brig for blatant insubordination, but then comes down later and says that if he wants to make himself useful, he's going to apologize to her in front of the crew, and make it a GOOD one, then start hunting for a possible Imperial spy. Finn and Rose, thinking that Holdo's going to lead them all to their deaths and the Poe's imprisonment is UNJUST!!!, commandeer a shuttle and slip off in a desperate attempt to pull off a cunning plan using the rings of the planet they just jumped into orbit of and the oncoming Imperial response.

Luke teaches Rey the basics, but she wants him to come help. He says, OK, go down to that creepy cave. If you come back in one piece, we'll talk. He doesn't say what the other option is. Rey goes down and has her big spiritual revelation. Luke summarizes the Aesop about how anyone can be a Jedi, blah blah blah, Ratatouille had the same message and it works. Rey says "so you gonna come help now?" Luke says, "I'm old, cut myself off from the Force, and never spiritually recovered properly from my failure. You're the kind of person I was when I was your age. And now you're becoming the sort of person I became next. The kind who redeemed Darth Vader. But listen. Not everybody is like Darth Vader. Not everyone CAN be redeemed. You need to be better than me. You have to be able to tell the difference, and show compassion to those who deserve it and strike down those who must be. And you WILL fail sometimes. That's being human. But you gotta keep yourself YOU when you do." General sort of hero advice. Rey thinks she understands, but wonders why he's not taking himself, the last proper Jedi ,to save the day? Luke shakes his head with a sad smile. No, he says. YOU are the last Jedi, Rey. You've got my knowledge. You've got your spiritual growth. My sister's hurt and can't help. I'm an old man whose skills are rusty and whose body and soul are scarred beyond repair. YOU have to do this.

He passes on the torch, metaphorically. Rey sets her jaw stands, ready to save the day...

Poe tells Holdo that he couldn't find an Imperial infiltrator. Holdo says that Finn and Rose just turned up missing. Poe can't believe that they're IMperial spies, Rose's sister died just last week on a suicide mission...

Holdo and Poe reach the same realization at the same time, and Poe breaks, slumping against a bulkhead. Too many dead heroes. Holdo gets bad news at the same time--Leia's getting worse and they don't have enough medical supplies to treat her properly. If they don't reach the Rebel base, Princess Leia's gonna die (and every kid in the audience gasps in horror). Holdo sets her jaw, and starts barking orders. Poe remembers what Leia said. And he gets up and goes to get into his X-wing.

Bitchface can TASTE the victory. The Rebels are collapsing, Finn's hurt and Rose is being captured by the Empire as BB-88 tries to finish hacking the SnokeShip's systems. But THEN! The Millenium Falcon drops out of hyperspace, uses the power of sheer chutzpa to bust into the SnokeShip's hangar bay, and Chewbacca and Rey step out...

And Luke Skywalker is on Rey's other flank, his lightsaber buzzing to life. Rey's given him a heroic pep talk and convinced him to join the fray. Chewie roars. And the heroes charge.

Snoke orders Bitchface back to the SnokeShip ASAP because two Jedi and a Wookie are fucking up his guys. Rey reunites with Finn and Rose, Luke patches up Finn and gets him on his feet, Rose and Finn grab guns and start holding off stormtroopers. Meanwhile, Luke's Force presence is enough to get Leia staggering to her feet, and her arrival on the bridge rallies the beleaguered Rebels into a fighting retreat.

Snoke and Bitchface come face to face with Luke and Rey. Snoke gloats as his elite guards come in. Goes on and on about UNLIMITED POWAH. Luke and Rey look to each other, nod, and go at it. Rey on Snoke and Luke on Snoke's minions. Luke goes through the guards like a hot knife through butter as Rey heroically resists Snoke's Sith lightning, stubbornly marching towards him with lightsaber held high...

And Bitchface backstabs Snoke.

Bitchface fights Luke and Rey with a bunch of mooks as backup. Rey's knocked off-balance, and Bitchface kills Luke, who accepts his fate and evaporates into Force ghosthood as Rey screams. Rey comes back and beats the shit out of Bitchface, but she's hurt in the process and there's more mooks coming, so Chewie pulls her out of there and Finn and Rose fly everyone out on the Falcon.

On the Rebel flagship's bridge, Leia slumps as she feels her brother's death through the Force, Holdo helps her to a chair. The heroes escape to an old OT-era rebel base, complete with vintage gear, and dump their broken, empty-fuel-tanked ships, but Bitchface is coming with the remains of his army. Ground battle ensues, Leia sacrifices an advance force of volunteers (initially including Finn, but Poe and Rose save him) to buy the rest time to evac. Rey tries to get Leia to escape with the rest, but Leia knows she's dying and tells Rey that she's the Rebels' last hope. Leia pulls her hospital gown into some semblance of a robe, buzzes up her lightsaber, and goes out to face her son.

Bitchface McShithead lands at the head of a massive Imperial army, Leia going full One-Winged Angel as she survives the firepower of all of his walkers and speeders, and Bitchface throws a glorified tantrum as his mother keeps on walking. She's clearly struggling now, her stride uneven and each step taking increasing effort, arms and legs wavering, but still Leia pushes on, head raised and eyes defiant.

Bitchface charges into the fray himself, and his mother holds her own despite her mortal injuries. The Imperial troops watch in awe as Leia wails on their boss, and Bitchface is even more pissed off as he's forced onto defense by a mortally wounded woman in her 60s. Blood's staining Leia's robe as her internal injuries go external, and she's clearly gasping for breath, but she knocks her son flat on his ass and levels her lightsaber at him. She offers him one last chance to yield. One last chance at redemption.

He screams in rage. "NEVER!" Leaps to his feet, parrying her lightsaber away, and impales her. Leia gasps, slumps, her own lightsaber going out. She collapses to the ground, Bitchface rants about how great he is, and how he's totally not compensating for something, and his army is huge, OK, and he's the most powerful dude in the galaxy and she's a pathetic old woman who hid her true power and all that evil nonsense. But Leia's trying to say something with her last breaths, and he leans down, demanding to hear it again. And she murmurs it just loud enough for some of the nearby minions to hear.

"I still love you, Ben." And she dies.

Bitchface throws a gigantic screaming tantrum and kicks a bunch of sand up in incoherent rage because he's a rotten, snotty little punk and I have no respect for him. Overhead, with the escaping remains of the Rebels (the Empire is preoccupied with Leia's light show), Rey feels Leia's death and breaks down crying in a secluded corner. But she hears Luke's voice repeating something inspiring she said to him earlier in the movie, and turns...and we see Mark Hamill as a Force ghost giving her a smile and a wink.

We end there. The Rebellion is beaten, but not broken. JJ's crap has been given an ignominous Fuck You. The Empire has managed a Pyrrhic victory. And hope still burns thanks to the sacrifice of heroes...despite the pain their loved ones feel.

[Winter]

I was watching Linkara's review of The Force Awakens and one thing he mentioned in his review really got my attention which was that for all the paranoia fuel that Starkiller Base had going for it, it's ultimately a let down because there was no real build up to it. That's actually one of my major issues with the Disney Sequel Trilogy, there's no real build up to the threats the heroes face.

Starkiller Base, we see it a few times and even though it destroys a whole system no one really seems to be that impressed by it. Everyone just talks about it like it's another Death Star, which it is, and seems largely unimpressed. Han even shrugs off both it's size and casual mentions that there's always a way to blow it up.

With the First Two Death Stars and The Star Forge in Knights of the Old Republic, they were built up and were meant to represent the Empire you were fighting. Just think about the comic-con trailer for Rogue One, all we get is Obi-Wan's narration about how the Empire has now taken over the Galaxy and all we see is the Death Star on the horizon with a Darker Reprisal of The Imperial March.

Right away you're filled with a sense of dread just by the sight of it because you know what it means. And over with Return of the Jedi the heroes begin to lose their cool as soon as the Death Star destroys on of their ships in a single shot. Another advantage about the Death Stars is that they were a direct threat to or harmed the heroes indirectly. The First Death Star Destroyed Leia's home world and the Second Death Star was a threat to Lando and the Rebel Fleet and even took a few Rebel Ships out.

Starkiller Base, it destroys Not Coruscant, and then gets ready to destroy the Resistance Base which is undercut by the fact that the space fight is treated as less important then the stuff going on Starkiller Base itself as Linkara pointed out. Which then raises the question, if Starkiller Base is so unimportant then why even bother having it in the first first place.

With The Thrawn Trilogy, the Big Threat that was built up was Thrawn Himself as while the Katana Fleet sounds scary compared to a regular Star Destroyer these Dreadnoughts aren't really all that dangerous on their own. The reason they're important is that for the first two chapters of TTT the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant are currently evenly matched and this fleet could tip the scale of the war. But what makes this fleet a threat is Thrawn who has been able to keep the NR on their toes while the two were more evenly matched. So the moment our heroes learn that Thrawn has gotten most of the ships while they only got 17, two of which they lose during the battle, the heroes know their screwed. This gets even worse when Han and Luke find out that Thrawn has managed to get his hands on some cloning tech and has created a army to pilot the Katana Fleet.

So when you break it down, all Thrawn has in his fight against the Rebels is what's left of the Imperial Fleet after the Battle of Endor, a few Dreadnoughts that aren't even half as powerful as a regular Star Destroyer and a Clone Army. And yet, there is more fear and dread instilled in the reader by these three little things then anything we've gotten in all of the Disney Era because they are treated as something that is a genuine threat.

With DST Snoke is built up as a threat, only to be easily killed off by Ren in the third act of Last after doing nothing for two movies, Hux is easily distracted by a crank call from Poe, Phasma has lost to the Janitor on two occasions and Ren's most notable victories is beating said Janitor, (which is one more victory then Phasma has had) and killing Snoke's none Force User Body Guards and he needed help with them otherwise he would have died. Other then that he has lost every fight he has been in and the Resistance got away because he was easily tricked by Rey and Luke.

Thrawn was someone who felt like a worthy successor to Vader and Palpatine because he was someone who could, and did, restore the Empire to the Threat it once was.