The Last Jedi was a film designed to cup your heart in its hands and then crush it repeatedly at intermittent intervals. I counted no less than twelve moments that destroyed me. There are probably more. But let’s start with those. (How about you?)
Note: If it’s not obvious, this article and its comments will be full of spoilers for The Last Jedi. Last chance to turn back!
Paige Tico’s Death
The Last Jedi hits us straight out of the gate with a ton of losses. A good portion of the Resistance dies trying to get rid of a First Order dreadnought in an ill-considered attack by Poe Dameron. While the vessel is destroyed, it takes the majority of the Resistance’s fighters and bombers with it. The only reason that they win that minor battle itself is because of Paige Tico, Rose’s sister. Piloting one of the Resistance bombers, Paige is forced to evacuate the pilot’s chair when her bomb technician is knocked out. She struggles to drop the payload onto the dreadnought, knowing that succeeding will mean her death. With the detonator out of reach, Paige kicks at the ladder it is perched on, dropping the remote into her hands, pressing the button and going down with her ship.
We don’t know this woman. We have no idea what her stake is in the Resistance. Yet in that moment, she is everything about this war focused into a micro setting and her bravery is a sight to behold. When we finally meet her sister Rose, it is no surprise that she cannot stop crying. After knowing Paige Tico for thirty seconds, we’re all mourning her too.
“Where’s Han?”
There’s so much left unspoken in this film. Perhaps a little too much. But it makes the places where things are spoken that much more painful. When Rey first pleads with Luke to come back to the Resistance because his sister has asked for him, he is immovable and unmoved. But Rey is persistent. She insists that he needs to get on the Falcon and return with them, and when Luke suddenly sees Chewie there alone, he utters two brutal words, “Where’s Han?”
Two words and Luke realizes that he’s lost a family member and a dear friend, and he hadn’t known, he didn’t feel it. Two words and it’s clear just how important Han Solo was to him, how much Luke counted on his continued presence in the universe as a reliable constant. Two words and Han Solo dies all over again, and there’s still no bringing him back.
Leia Drags Herself Back Into the Rebel Cruiser Using the Force
General Leia Organa is a Skywalker. She has the Force. We’ve known this basically since The Empire Strikes Back. But because Leia is already importantly positioned as a political and military leader, we never really get to see her use of that power. She’s plenty powerful as is, the fact that she also has access to the wellspring of the Force just seems unfair to the rest of the galaxy. Leave some for the rest of them, Leia. You are too incredible for this universe.
There’s a brief moment where it seems that we may have lost our general after the bridge of the Resistance’s main cruiser gets blown out. But Leia opens her eyes in the middle of the cold black of space, and uses the Force to speed herself back into the ship. (And before anyone says “That’s not how the Force works!” I would like to point out that there is canonical precedent for this; Kanan Jarrus uses this trick at one point in Star Wars: Rebels—though he doesn’t make it look anywhere near so cool.) It’s a dearly important reminder of just how powerful Leia is. It’s also an important reminder that no one gets to tell the General when her journey ends. She will do that when she’s good and ready.
Luke Talks to R2-D2
When Rey meets Luke, she soon discovers that he wants nothing to do with her. There is a gruffness to the Jedi Master that has consumed him in years of exile. He’s become cagey and difficult and downright cynical. In fact, he behaves a lot like Yoda did when they first met. It’s hard to see glimmers of the Luke that we knew all those years ago in this jaded, broken man. But then he decides to board the Millennium Falcon for the first time in years. He finds his friend’s old cockpit dice and pockets them. Then he sits down in that same spot where he sat after Ben Kenobi died, and R2-D2 wakes up not twenty feet from him. And the moment R2’s name passes his lips, suddenly he’s former farmboy Luke Skywalker all over again. Time falls away and you can hear that sweet young man in his voice, and see that old brightness in his eyes.
The fact that R2 tells him off for being gone, that he guilts Luke with a reminder of the very first time his sister ever requested his aid (by virtue of her message to Ben Kenobi), cements this as the moment where Luke comes back to us, even just a little. He is reminded of being a boy who wanted to do something meaningful with his life, and all the trappings that came with it; old friends, his call to action, the first spaceship that ever took him away from home. It proves that he and Rey are not so different. It sets him on a path home.
Yoda
When his weirdly shiny CGI Force ghost showed up, I was deeply worried that Yoda’s appearance was going to ruin the whole film. Then he turned around in puppet form and Frank Oz’s comforting tenor came through the theater speakers, and Master Yoda essentially saved this movie from its own dour schema. In Luke’s fear and petulance, he makes a bid to wipe out all the old Jedi knowledge, and their very first temple with it. And Yoda shrugs his shoulders. When Luke cannot go through with it, Yoda summons enough power from beyond the grave to strike the damn place with lightning and set it ablaze. So what, he says. Were those books really all that great? I’d rather catch up with you.
Yoda, in his now truly infinite wisdom, agrees that the Jedi as they functioned before didn’t really work. He also acknowledges that teaching isn’t about showing your students the right way to do things—it’s also about exposing them to your own failures so that they don’t have to replicate your errors. After all, Luke didn’t make the same mistakes that Yoda and Obi-Wan did; he saw their failures and chose to make entirely different ones. And on and on it goes because that is the nature of the Force: it doesn’t have a correct answer. It is not a single state or idea or thought.
But Yoda’s sudden landing in Luke’s backyard is another signal; it’s a welcome mat in front of the door. Luke’s former master is there to tell him: it’s almost time. We’ve saved you a seat. There are so many people waiting to talk to you. It’s time to let this all go.
Amilyn Holdo Saves the Resistance
We don’t get nearly enough of this graceful, poised, fierce lady. We don’t get enough of her friendship with Leia, which is a beautiful thing to behold in the brief moments we are allowed to witness it. And while losing her before getting to know her feels like such a cheat, she does go out in the most ferocious manner possible; she goes into lightspeed through Supreme Leader Snoke’s ship, cutting the thing in half. She is the hero this Resistance deserves, though she deserved much better.
Rey and Kylo Ren Fighting Side By Side
Kylo Ren actually got some decent character development in this film, including the gleeful scene where Snoke trashes him for being an entitled brat in a mask. And while the constant tug-o-war for his soul unsurprisingly leads to bad choices on his part, we do get a fantastic glimpse of what it would look like if Rey and Kylo truly pooled their power. The story mimics everything that we recall from Return of the Jedi; a salivating over-confident monster who taunts the new kid in front of his “loyal” apprentice, then shows the good child her fleet of friends dying in a maelstrom of technological might. But instead of the apprentice crossing blades with the new recruit to teach them a lesson, Kylo Ren slaughters the old fool and has to team up with Rey to disperse Snoke’s guards.
The fight choreography of that scene is something glorious to behold and the two of them are a flurry of might, seamlessly integrating their knowledge and combined strengths to stop a team of highly trained combatants. It’s like having a wish answered that you never voiced out loud—what would it have looked like if Vader and combined forces with his son to dispatch the Emperor and his guards? Now we know. And it’s incredible, even if it doesn’t last.
“Your parents are nobody.”
A smart decision that hopefully the final film will not go back on. I have been rooting for Rey not to be related to anyone of note in this universe from the very beginning. It’s important, both as a way of bringing the Skywalker legacy to a close and as a point about the Force itself, which has no reason to simply favor a single bloodline when it’s meant to be a part of everything. When Kylo Ren insists that Rey admit her parentage, and she tells him that she knows they’re no one, that they sold her and left her on Jakku, it reframes the entire narrative of this current trilogy. Effectively, Kylo is saying that if Rey refuses to align herself with him—with the Skywalker bloodline—that she cannot be important to this story. That she cannot hope to defeat him or do anything of import with her life.
By rejecting him and using her powers to protect others, by heading down a path to become her own kind of Jedi (or Force-wielder) free of any Skywalker nagging, Rey makes it clear: the Force is for and a part of everyone. Not a dynasty, not the Jedi Order, not megalomaniacs who think the universe should be theirs. It is for everyone. The poor and the destitute. The lost and the unknown. Even a child whose parents didn’t want her. The Force is hers. The story is hers.
Because she decided it would be.
Poe Scritches BB-8 Like a Puppy
Poe Dameron gets taken down several notches in this film, and it’s probably more entertaining than it has any right to be. (Watching Leia, you get the impression that she puts up with him because she probably thought that this was the kid she and Han were more likely to have.) But for all his flaws and all that he learns, Poe has all the heart and the best of intentions. He also has a little rolly droid that he adores, and when Rose and Finn deliver BB-8 back to Poe he literally scratches the droid’s belly like he’s a puppy. I would like a calendar that just features pictures of this, please. I will never recover.
Rose Saves Finn
Finn didn’t get as much to do in this story as I would have preferred, but his lessons were incredibly important and far more universal—as in, what Finn learns, the audience is also meant to learn. Having spent his entire life under the brainwashing of the First Order, Finn is terrified of being caught in their web again, while he wants nothing more than to bring them down for all the pain they cause. Enter Rose, a woman uniquely positioned to understand how the First Order causes harm far beyond their ability to blow up ships and planets. First, Finn learns a lesson on Canto Bight, that people with all the wealth and sparkly surroundings are seldom people who do anything but help themselves and thrive on their ability to use and abuse others. But after being captured and nearly killed again on Supreme Leader Snoke’s ship, Finn channels all of that knowledge into rage, and nearly gets himself killed trying to destroy the First Order’s battering ram canon.
But Rose saves him, a point she makes very clear when he tries to berate her for “stopping” him. And she tells Finn that the Resistance won’t win by fighting the things they hate—they will win by saving what they love. Even if I’m not 100% for a romance here (that happened real fast, even by movie standards), Rose was instantly made the standard bearer for their fight. She lost the most precious person in the galaxy to her, and she still found room in her heart to continue to push back against evil for what she loves. What an absolute star of a human being.
Skywalker Twins
For powerful siblings connected through the Force, we sure don’t get to see Luke and Leia interact much. This continues to be the case despite the fact that they are family and clearly love each other very dearly. It’s one of my biggest peeves about Star Wars that has spanned the ages; it was largely true of the Expanded Universe novels, it has been true in the new novels so far, and it’s true of the films. Luke and Leia just don’t get any time to be brother and sister, and given all the garbage the universe has piled on them, it’s a state that seems cosmically unfair. Add to that Luke’s guilt over failing Leia when her son turns to the Dark Side, and the whole thing is more depressing than ever. Their sudden reconnection once Luke reopens himself to the Force is not enough to bridge this terrible chasm.
But then Luke makes his way across the galaxy in a feat of Force-driven astral projection that is devastating to behold. Before we realize that is the case, all we know is that he has arrived on Crait, and the first thing he wants to do is talk to his sister. John Williams’s “Luke and Leia” leitmotif plays in the background as Leia teases him and he apologizes, and for a moment, it’s just them. Luke and Leia, decades older and still in desperate need of family, of someone who knows them this instinctively. And when Leia tells Luke that she knows her son is gone, Luke tells her, with the wisdom he’s earned since pulling their father out of an abyss and losing his nephew to that same darkness: “No one’s ever really gone.” Then he gives her Han’s dice (as the theme fades over to Han and Leia’s music), and he walks out to face Ben and give his sister a fighting chance to live. Because they were born into destinies that neither of them got to choose and they both deserved to have this instead. To just be Luke and Leia, not Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and General Princess Leia Organa.
Luke Skywalker’s Final Moments
As with Han Solo, I figured it was coming, in this film or the next. And I knew there was no way to prepare myself for it. There are so many fictional heroes out there to connect to, but it seems to me that there’s always one in particular, for everyone. One who means the world to you.
Luke Skywalker is that hero for me.
I pretended to be him on the playground as a child. I learned to recite the Jedi Code in place of the pledge at school. I searched for every book I could find with him between the pages. He was a constant and comforting figure that I relied upon, like a weird guardian angel I could call up with a the right novel or film. And I knew that I was going to have to give him up.
And while his final confrontation with Ben Solo was a miraculous sight to behold, a worthy feat of one of the greatest Jedi the galaxy has ever know, it really was nothing in the scheme of things. No, the most traumatic yet dazzling moment of the entire film is Luke Skywalker, exhausted from the hardest trial of his life, tracking the horizon and finding absolute peace. The boy from Tatooine ends his journey precisely where began it—staring off into binary suns and wishing for something greater.
It was a beautiful death, if such a thing can be said to exist.
It was also emotionally shattering and I am not okay. And that’s probably all I’ll be able to say about it for some time.
Emmet Asher-Perrin would like to thank her spouse, who she sobbed on through the whole credits. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
There’s actually no way that Luke could fulfill his plan to destroy the sacred texts of the Jedi—Rey stole them when she left Ach-to! (You see them in a drawer on the Falcon at the end of the movie when Finn is looking for a blanket for Rose.) Which is even more delicious: Yoda destroys the tree to cover for her, trolling Luke yet again.
Agree with many of these, but I don’t think Paige was a pilot, but the lower end gunner of one bomber craft – hence why she was at the bottom of the ship?
I would add that gorgeous final scene, I didn’t even notice the force grab, just loved its static imagery of Luke-esque staring.
Not only did Luke use the force to astral project his form across the galaxy he also transported solid matter, han’s dice, with him.
Destroying texts belongs to the Dark Side, says this history major.
I knew Luke was gonna die!
I suspected something when Luke took off the robes and I whooped when I saw his black clothes underneath, just like in Jabba’s palace in ROTJ, but he looked as skinny as in Return. His eventual death scene was beautiful to behold, and gut-wrenching at the same time.
So happy Rey is a nobody. There won’t be a Chosen one. There will only be nobodies who rise up to be somebodies. And anyone can be a Jedi.
Anyone strong in the Force.
This film completely repositions the Original Star Wars trilogy as a tragedy. That’s why Yoda gave me the most feels in a way because I think his appearance is really directed at the fans as if to say…. “Hey I’m cool with allthis. If I’m cool you can be cool with it too”.
On a somewhat different topic, anyone else catch the “Godspeed” General Holdo utters as the Resistance makes their escape…. Has the “G” word ever been uttered in a Star Wars film, since the Force has been presented as a kind of Space Buddhism…. A faith without a Godhead.
I agree with most of these…but Admiral Holdo’s incompetent leadership got a significant chunk of the Resistance killed (but for Luke, Rose stopping Finn would have gotten a lot of people killed too, which kind of cuts against her given reasoning).
#4 @Arioch, Luke didn’t actually transport Han’s dice. Kylo Ren walks into the deserted base, appears to pick up the dice, and the illusion evaporates in his hand.
It hit me after leaving the theater — Yoda tells Luke that Rey already has everything in those books… because she has the books! A+ Yoda trolling. He may have even encouraged Rey to take them.
I held it all together until this essay, Emily.
Now, finally, I’m gutted. And loving it with no intention of recovery. Thank you for lighting all those amazing moments.
I’m fine with Rey not being a Kenobi, I’m fine with Snoke dying, I’m fine with Luke dying, I’m fine with Kylo continuing to be a megalomaniac, just with higher rank, I’m fine with the messages of the film – I’m not fine with the writing employed to get us to those points. The film was centered on an unrealistic 3-6 day long grindingly slow chase scene which could have resolved earlier and in any number of more creative/sensible ways. Rey is a force sensitive who has held a lightsaber for under two weeks and exhibits Jedi master skills, even though she still hasn’t received any training at the close of the second film. Finally, it’s absurd to say the Jedi way needs to end – the Star Wars galaxy features psychokinetic Hitlers, and the opposition choosing to discard ancient wisdom as a teaching method in favor of random chaos is asinine. There’s just no common sense in that galaxy – guess that’s the price to pay for access to psychokinetic powers.
I’ll nominate one more moment that slayed me: Rosie’s release of the saddle from the Fathier, and “Now he’s free.”
I bet that Lando was supposed to be the codebreaker. That’s why Canto Bight was so awkward.
@9: Pablo Hidalgo tweeted a long string of religious references in Star Wars, including a “godforsaken” from Dooku andan “Oh my Gooood!” shouted by a battle droid (of all things). It’s a big galaxy; people believe all sorts of things.
@16: Rian has said there was never room for Lando in the story, and he never really considered including him.
“no one gets to tell the General when her journey ends”
Except, well, you know. How the heck are they going to deal with that? It seems that the next film was being set up, in part, to bring an end to Leia’s arc, and now they can’t. Darned real life, messing with our movies.
The in-universe timing seems off. Rey spends, what, a few weeks with Luke, but the rest of the movie takes place over a couple of days? Empire Strikes Back had that problem, too.
Lots of people going to be Rey/Ren shipping, I think. <i>Lots</i> of chemistry there.
Good article!
I also was touched by the little boy at the end, who appeared to exhibit a hint of Force power when he summoned his broom. Long live the Resistance!
@@.-@:
No he didn’t. He did create solid illusions though. The dice disappeared in Kylo’s hands. So they weren’t ever really there. Or he somehow called them back. I’ll take the former interpretation.
@14:
I’m afraid it wasn’t 3-6 days. After the first hour or two of the chase, we are told they only have 18 hours of fuel left. That is before Finn and Rose leave for the Casino world. So, less than one day. The entire film happened over one or two days, with no sleep in between.
EDIT: At least, the Resistance timeline. We don’t know how long it was after Rey left for Ach-too that the First Order attacked the resistance base.
I liked the foreshadowing. Luke saying did she expect
to get his laser sword and face down the whole First Order, and then doing exactly that.
And Yoda saying there is nothing in tree Rey doesn’t already possess.
This was a much more cleverly written movie that it’s predecessor.
@21 — Star Wars has always had a problem with the passage of time. It’s only gotten much, much worse in the recent movies.
Two things:
1) I didn’t buy Laura Dern as Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo. She just didn’t carry a “hero of the rebellion” vibe. Everything she exuded had a “don’t trust her” smell to it. And why not tell whats left of the rebellion that the plan is to jump on transports and go to Crait? Playing “I’ve got a seekrit” is not how you do things when it gets down to this point.
2) Kylo Ren was lying his ass off when he said Rey’s parents were nobodies. Look at his face. And we already know that he thinks his own parents are nobodies. He lied, and the only reason it looks like Rey believes it too is that she doesn’t know any better. Remember, in TFA Rey didn’t even know Jedi were real.
I wish they showed a few scenes of Luke giving Rey some practical applications on how to use The Force (I am sure he did though).
Hate Hate Kylo Ren. I winced whenever they hinted at a Rey/Kylo relationship. I can’t wait for this stupid kid to get what he deserves.
I just don’t see that, now I saw a 10:20 pm showing so I’ll double check my own interpretation, but here’s what I saw in that moment.
Kylo’s bid to win Rey over was based on a theme of rejection (not bloodline). Of being unwanted to the point where your life is forfeit for the benefit of another’s selfishness. And Rey’s attitude is; when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. After all, he failed Luke. Not the other way around. Kylo has no idea how good he had it. She thinks he’s a selfish brat who always had and still has the chance to embrace the great people who helped raise him.
Kylo continues to highlight an absentee father who was too busy being a scoundrel to be a decent parent, a mother who kind of sends him to boarding school rather than raising him herself, all culminating in good ol’ uncle Luke’s Mace Windu moment. He was equating all of that to Rey’s drugy parents selling her into child slavery.
I don’t think Kylo is making healthy choices, but his bitter attitude makes a certain kind of sense to me. And his appeal to Rey was based purely on her joining him in his quest to, “let the past die, kill it if you have to.” To dominate the universe into something that can’t hurt you, because it doesn’t want you anyway.
@10 I didn’t see it as Holdo being incompetent (though some reason to play things so close to the vest would have been nice). Her plan was totally working. It was Finn and Rose getting caught and Benicio codebreaker there selling info about the escape transports that revealed their plan. To me that makes Po, Finn, and Rose responsible for getting everyone killed, which left me supremely frustrated about our heroes and about Leia et al practically shrugging like, “well, Po, as long as you learned a lesson…” Meh.
What samtastic said.
@19, another great moment! And one really important to the series, I think. A glimmer of hope when so much seems lost–Luke dead, the Resistance reduced to a remnant, the Republican home system destroyed, no help forthcoming. A little grassroots reaction will go a long way.
@27, the trouble I have with that view is that Poe’s actions were entirely predictable. We JUST saw him go off script when he thought it necessary (I do think Leia had the better of it there). And we know he is the Resistance’s best pilot and extraordinarily well respected. And if would be different if Admiral Holdo said, “hey, I’m a pro, I have the best interests of the Resistance in mind, I have a plan, you can’t be privy to it but the time will come when we will need your skills.” Instead, she is actively treats him derisively and derogatorily.
More troubling is that the filmmakers didn’t seem to think she did anything wrong. Better from a storytelling perspective to commit to the incompetent general trope. And if the deaths were the fault of Poe, Finn, and Rose…ideally your protagonists don’t burn half a movie getting a bunch of people on their side killed.
@27, @29
And why, exactly, could Poe not be privy to the plan? He wasn’t so junior that he would never know any plan. And there was no security situation on board that would make discussing the plan dangerous, like a suspected listening device or First Order mole. At that point the entire rebellion consisted of 3 ships and 400 people, so they said, so it’s not like some private demanding to know the general’s master plan. (It’s not clear what his rank was before, but he was a captain afterward. A naval captain is a highly senior officer, equivalent to an army colonel, and usually in charge of a capital ship or a squadron, with commanders — a lower rank — commanding the individual ships.)
He was risky and headstrong, not a traitor or security risk.
Holdo should have told him about Crait from minute 1. At the least, he should have been reviewing the plans for the station, inventory of equipment and supplies, and planning a defense strategy. And if it was true that the First Order was not bothering to track smaller ships through light speed, he could have taken a transport or a squadron of X-wings and jumped directly to Crait and gotten an 18 hour head start on the defenses and the distress call. And it would have gotten him away from any temptation to act directly agains the First Order ships that were following them.
Even if entire Canto Bight subplot had been removed, Adm Holdo had every reason to tell him exactly what the plan was and no reason to keep it secret other than being a smug jackass. Or in this case, because the plot required it.
Don’t forget Poe was demoted. Need to know is kept to the higher level officers.
He no longer warranted that trust after he “inspired” a followon attack against the Dreadnaught Class Star Destroyer that got a lot of pilots killed and wiped out their bomber squadron.
He only thinks tactically. Not strategically. He continued with that behavior and should have been shot when he mutineed. Not stunned. Shot. It’s his second offense.
But don’t worry, because he’s a popular guy so he just gets stunned and when he wakes up his hair gets ruffled and he’s gently chastised. Because we know he really cares. He’s not a narcissistic jackwad who only prioritizes his own emotions.
Popular high performers usually do get a pass on wreckless, willful disobedience. But that kind of crap typically doesn’t fly in a military context. So the whole thing was very Hollywood. Consequences don’t apply to me. Now where have I seen that in the news lately…?
@31, Sorry, it’s still Holdo’s fault.
If you insist on thinking like a real military, then some other officer would have replaced him as senior flight commander or whatever his operational position was, and that officer would have been told the plan and sent on ahead to make the base on Crait operationally ready and send out the distress signal. Poe would have been an officer in that squadron under the new commander, or he would have been grounded or in the brig, but he would have known that some operation somewhere was underway, and his fellow pilots would not have been on the carrier to back up his mutiny because they would have been on Crait instead, with the early recon force.
Someone would have been told, “We’re headed for an abandoned base on Crait, and we’ll only barely make it. Take a squad, small enough to be beneath their notice, recon the base, and get it ready for our arrival.”
(As it was, we had no indication that anyone else was in charge of the flight operations, just that Poe was in charge with a different insignia.)
My biggest problem with this movie, even though there were a lot, was that the ending left me with basically no hype at all for Episode IX. I’m worried that Episode IX is just going to be “The common people around the galaxy slowly rise up and overthrow the First Order through the power of the united masses!” And that’s not a storyline I’m the least bit interested in. Especially if the only villains remaining are Kylo Ren and General Hux, who I think work fine as secondary villains, but will be horrible if they’re all we get.
… Why did they kill Snoke, again?
And if I remember right, the capture of the “away team” led to the discovery of the cloaked transport ships. So Poe gets the winner winner chicken dinner on that little gem too.
He used his command authority to start an undisclosed side mission that completely compromised the main effort. Ugh, it’s like Rian Johnson felt the need to go so over the top with emotional moments that his characters broke free of gravity and drifted away into space. But don’t worry. They can use the Force to Mary Poppins thei way back to solid ground. He went beyond emotional recovery. His character’s actions don’t fit their contexts. He only wanted visceral highs and lows. Even at the expense of the story. That’s where he lost me. He didn’t want to sell a story. He wanted to sell emotions. And he did. Viewers are torn down the middle between bitterness and elation.
If anyone needs to find an island, milk some agrarian space creatures, fry some space fish, toss a weapon over his shoulder, make a door out of his X-Wing, and fade away into obscurity, it’s him. Not Luke.
Man alive. The more I process this film the more my confusion is resolving into anger.
Tor, please fix your freaking site. Why do comments always give me so much trouble?
As I posted in the non spoiler thread, I just don’t know how I feel about this movie. It felt…unsatisfying to me. I tried to go into it with an open mind, and not be colored by ‘What I Think Star Wars (and Luke) Should Be’ but…I guess it’s hard to shake it.
That said:
Here were the big emotional moments for me:
1)Leia using the Force. Oh my goodness. This is an area where I feel like the trailers ruined the impact for me, because I KNEW she couldn’t be dead since it was so early in the movie, but it was still just amazing. (I’m so glad you mentioned the Rebels scene because I was totally thinking that!) And, honorable mention to Kylo NOT being able to do it.
2)Luke seeing Chewie again for the first time and asking where Han was.
3)Luke sneaking onto the Falcon, and really smiling for the first time upon seeing Artoo. And then when Artoo played that hologram…I just kind of lost it. It was such a poignant scene for me because it just took me back to everything I originally loved about Luke.
4)Luke reconnecting to the Force and reaching out to his sister, and THAT being what spurred her recovery.
5)The binary sunset. Just…damn. I wasn’t ready either, even though I knew it was coming. Maybe that’s part of why I find myself uninterested in the next movie (except not really). Do I really want a Star Wars without Luke Skywalker? Except that, in his last conversation with Leia (OMG. And they finally reused the Luke and Leia theme, which is one of my FAVORITES) he tells us – nobody is ever really gone. He’s part of the Force now. I hope he’ll make good on that threat he made to Kylo – that he’ll always be around. And this IS the movie where we see Yoda as a more powerful Force ghost than ever before – to the point where he uses the Force to interact with the physical world! So I desperately hope this is not the last of Luke because I feel there’s so much more for him.
6)The little Force sensitive street urchin with his toy Luke Skywalker, oh man. :(
7)When Luke said he would not be the last Jedi. Even though it ended up being an illusion, seeing him well kept, somewhat hopeful, giving a cheeky wink to Threepio. In some ways that makes the end even more heartbreaking to me. I really wanted MORE of that.
(Part 2, because apparently my first comment was too long)
Okay, other thoughts.
Kylo Ren definitely has a lot of his grandfather in him – during the first battle, he tried spinning, that’s a good trick!
Darth Sidious got name dropped! I love any and all prequel references and now I really want to know how Luke knows about that.
More to the point about that scene and the general Jedi stuff – I really liked that they were exploring the failure of the Jedi in the prequels, the idea that the Force and the light do not belong to the Jedi. But one of my nagging complaints (and why I felt unsatisfied) is that they really didn’t go far enough with this! Maybe because I’m so used to discussing this kind of thing in depth, I just wanted more details. Later, Luke obviously goes back on this idea that the Jedi need to end when he declares that he is NOT the last of the Jedi and that Rey is taking his mantle – but they still never really explain what that MEANS. What are the Jedi, what is the balance, etc? What is the new path they will follow? I mean, yes, they go into it a bit (the balance of life and death) but I just felt like it wasn’t enough, especially when it comes to light and dark side stuff.
I really loved Yoda’s scene – so, I listened to the soundtrack (on purpose) before I watched the movie, and when I heard Yoda’s theme I got really excited. I thought, oh, man, how cool if there was a Yoda ghost, but they probably won’t go there – it’s probably just training montage music. BUT THEN THEY WENT THERE! That said, I spent the first part of that scene distracted by how AWFUL the Yoda CGI was. Maybe I’m the only one, but he looked nothing like he did in RotJ, he just looked creepy. It was just…weird. But here’s another one of those things that I loved, but was both unsatisfying – seeing Luke get yet more teaching was great. Seeing him get a pep talk…learning that failures are also part of the wisdom he has to pass on (in a weird bit of synchronicity, I’m reading Oathbringer right now and there’s a chapter that touches on this exact concept). I loved it. But then it just made it even more unsatisfying when Luke dies at the end because…he really hasn’t DONE this! I mean, he never really trains Rey at all, or really passes ANYTHING on, aside from the few moments we seeing the movie. I guess it’s all off screen but I just wanted more from this.
As a book person, I found myself cringing at the destruction of old books (even if I understood the point of the scene and it being about moving on – it’s not like their knowledge is USELESS, even if it’s not the whole story) but! There was a split second reveal that Rey really has the books and that brings an extra level of hilarity to that scene and Yoda’s statement that she already has what she needs.
Luke’s development – given how much I hated the setup to start with, I guess they resolved it about as well as could be expected. I still find myself wanting more. There was a moment where I was worried they were going to go full on with the whole ‘Luke was totally going to murder Ben in cold blood’ thing and…I just do not want to go there with Luke’s character. And even once you hear the ‘truth’ and know that Luke wasn’t really going to do it, and was just facing his own fears and temptations…it still doesn’t sit right. This is the guy that couldn’t even kill Darth Vader, who represented love, attachment, hope, etc. It just…doesn’t feel right for his character. (To this day, I think the best non-movie characterization of Luke Skywalker is Stover’s book Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor – this is also a Luke haunted by his legacy/the burden of public perception, and even struggling with despair but…it just goes in a much different place)
I guess the most frustrating thing about Luke’s death to me is that they killed him off right when he was starting to ‘come back’ to himself and it just seemed kinda pointless. I was hoping for a little more of a BAMF moment – I mean, the Jedi illusion thing WAS really sweet, and badass in its own way, but at the same time, I kind of wanted to see Luke show that he really COULD survive a duel or a barrage of blaster fire, or that he really was willing to let himself be struck down. And in a way, maybe that’s what he was doing – I honestly couldn’t quite tell if the duel really had injured/fatigued him physically and he had truly made a sacrifice, or if he was just deciding to peace out because…reasons (ETA – there was apparently a line I completely missed where Kylo Ren mentions that Rey couldn’t possibly be projecting herself because the strain would kill her. So I suppose that establishes that Luke just pulled off an amazing feat, knowing it would likely kill him). And while I understand that he no longer wants to be the one responsible for the fate of the galaxy, and the movie did go into some interesting directions regarding his hubris and his image and how it’s time for the next generation to take over…it just seemed premature and kind of anticlimactic. It’s like he left just as we were finally going to get some answers and finally see his character develop to a new place (then again, I hope we will still get more in the next movie with him as a ghost). If I’m honest, I really am not satisfied with how they handled his character and felt he deserved better. I kept waiting for some scene where he showed up (in person) ready to live again, or where his X-Wing would suddenly appear (it’s still there in the ocean, lol) or SOMETHING. I’m glad Rey was able to confirm that he was at least at peace with himself and the world, but it just felt like a bit like too little, too late.
And all the more heartbreaking to me is Kylo’s arc – one can understand why Kylo feels the way he did, but it was just so sad to see Luke and Leia basically both come to terms with the fact that he’s gone (or is he? There could be some additional meanings to Luke’s statement that nobody is ever really gone). And it makes me sad that Kylo will basically always think Luke was intending to kill him. Because by the time Luke walks out to face him, he pretty much admits he’s not there to save his soul anymore. He does admit that he failed him, but I was really hoping for more – frankly, I wouldn’t have minded if he had begged forgiveness for falling to that moment of temptation, or at least explained it a little more. Maybe Luke’s last words planted another seed, maybe not. I just wanted…more from that confrontation. Likewise, I’m sad that we’ll never get to see Leia and Ben interact.
The connection between Kylo and Rey had some really amazing potential and was some of the most interesting stuff in the movie (and the twist that Snoke was the one behind it was pretty good). And I desperately wanted to believe that Rey really was seeing the good in him and that he would continue to make the right choice. That scene where he turns on Snoke and they fight side by side – there was a moment where I thought, “This could be so great, and I’d love for this to be where the movie is going, and for Kylo, Rey and Luke to continue to learn more about the Force.” But I knew it couldn’t last – it’s only the second movie and so it was hard to believe that all the villains would be dead/turned by now. So when he asked Rey to join him in taking over the galaxy, I wasn’t really surprised, even if it did mean my one last hope spot was gone. I really didn’t want his arc to go that way, and there might still be room for more conflict, but…sigh.
Snoke was totally channeling Palpatine. I thought I heard the Emperor’s theme at one point; when he was first interrogating Rey. I really need to listen again (I don’t recall it being in the soundtrack itself) – it was one of those things where I wasn’t actively paying attention to the music, but then I did a double take and thought, “wait a sec, was that the Emperor’s theme???” But, that said, his death was in some ways very anti climactic in that we still have no real clue as to his motivations. Is he really dead? I kept waiting for some twist. Is this really all that’s left of this character?
Rey’s parentage – I would actually have loved for Kylo to be telling the truth. That she’s ‘nobody’ – but it’s okay, because she DOES have a place in this story, and Kylo is just dead wrong. She doesn’t depend on him to be ‘somebody’. That said, I could see how they left it open for him to be lying to her.
Phasma is a throwaway character who really adds nothing to the saga. I love Gwendoline Christie and she was just criminally underused.
My biggest complaint is the Canto Bight stuff was just pointless. It gave Finn and Rose something to do (and I LOVED Rose, don’t get me wrong), but it really didn’t advance the overall plot at all. It gave them a little development to their characters (although Finn was just doing the same stuff – wanting to run away, but then not doing it), and Poe had his whole arc with knowing when to fight and when to save things (I really did love Rose’s big line about that), and his realization about Admiral Amilyn’s wisdom…but it just seemed to take away precious time from the things I mentioned above that I wish had been more developed. I know that the plight of the Resistance is itself important, but it just seemed to be unevenly paced. And Rose and Finn basically enter in on a fool’s errand that accomplished nothing – they tried to disable the tracker, failed, and then escaped after Amilyn blew up the ship and ended up right back with the Resistance at the end. I guess unless you count the little boy getting the rebel ring? It was almost like a completely different movie. I suppose it’s ‘realistic’ in that not everything works out, but honestly, you could have removed all those scenes and it wouldn’t have taken much away from the movie. Oh, except for establishing a Rose/Finn/Rey love triangle thing.
The humor in this movie was definitely different – although I still laughed quite a bit. While on one hand it seemed a little out of place, Poe ‘tooling’ Hux with the ‘can you hear me? can you hear me now?’ thing was hysterical. Likewise, when the scene with Rey and Luke at the very beginning builds up, and then Luke just takes the lightsaber and throws it off the cliff. On one hand, it was definitely a funny subversion of this epic scene we all expected, but on the other it was maybe a little too on the nose and self aware, and, I don’t know, I felt like the moment deserved a little more respect. That said, I got a huge kick out of Luke snarking off to Rey, as well as playing the part of incorrigible old man (the look he gives her after taking a swig of fresh green milk…priceless).
So, yeah, I guess I still don’t know how I feel about this movie. It spread itself too thin, and the resolution of characters like Snoke, Phasma and Luke just didn’t do it for me (and let’s not forget Admiral Ackbar! Loved that the flagship was named the Raddus though :D). Maz Kanata too, I felt was brushed aside too much for my liking. And what about Anakin’s lightsaber (and how she got it). Rey did still have the pieces, so I do wonder if it will make an appearance.
I feel deeply sad at Luke’s passing – not just because he was one of my first fictional loves and meant so much to me – but because it just seems like there was so much more that could have been explored, and selfishly, I wanted something a little better for him.
The moment that kills me is the very ending scene with the children of Canto Bight, telling their stories and playing with their toys, and one child–who may be force-sensitive, if he pulled that broom to himself–looking up into the stars and dreaming, while wearing Rose’s resistance ring. That spark of hope for the future.
That moment of watching them play and retell the story of Luke’s stand against the First Order was like seeing my childhood, more than 30 years ago, in my cousin’s bedroom playing with our Star Wars toys and retelling the original movies’ stories and making up our own. It was 40 years of childhoods put onto the screen, and resonated with me in a way no other scene in any other film ever has before.
@27 – oh man, I didn’t even make that connection. This makes the Canto Bight/Amilyn stuff even more frustrating in some ways. It’s actually one of my least favorite tropes in fiction – when characters don’t TALK to each other (ie, Amilyn not telling Poe she has a plan – even if she doesn’t have to tell him the whole thing – and Poe doing his own secret thing) or are burdened by misunderstandings (such as Kylo assuming Luke was truly intending to kill him). Argh! Especially when, as is the case of some of the Canto Bight/Amilyn stuff, it’s simply because the plot requires it.
(And I actually forgot about Poe’s mutiny. that was definitely a bit extreme and probably should have had real consequences).
Oh, one other question – Luke mentions that Kylo took some of his students with him. What ever happened to them? Will they appear in another movie? Are they dead?
Screen Rant suggest that they are the Knights of Ren which we’ve never seen.
@39 — My guess is that those were the “Knights of Ren”, of whom Kylo is the last, so I don’t think we’ll see them unless we get another flashback?
I also wouldn’t be surprised if at some point we get a novel that covers Luke’s Unsuccessful School for Gifted Force-Users.
Yeah, but were the Knights of Ren always a thing, or did Kylo invent it? I figured they were Knights of Ren, but I’m just wondering what happened to them in the interim, or if it’s just going to be another throwaway reference.
Also: YAAASSS The Emo Kylo Ren Twitter Feed is back :D https://twitter.com/KyloR3n?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Although not necessarily ‘destructive moments’ the most memorable for me were:
– the sudden silence when Holdo split Snoke’s ship in two, with the camera pulling back to show the flying wing being cleaved in half, almost like a lightsaber slash
– chewie being guilt tripped into not eating the roast porg
– luke throwing his own lightsaber off the cliff after all the build up of his introduction
– the visual of luke walking towards the First Order force on Crait with the sun a blazing backdrop
– luke’s cloak flying off into the sunset after he passed into the Force
– ren turning the lightsaber on snoke’s armchair 90 degrees to the left and realising what he’s about to do
– the half second slow motion when rey and ren turn back-to-back with Snoke’s guard flying towards them
– any of rey and ren’s Force chats, but especially when rey asks if ren could put on some clothing
“I think we got him.”
Couple questions:
Who the hell was Snoke anyway? I’m not prepared to read vast tracts of novelized lore to find out. Shouldn’t some basic facts have been in the film?
Why didn’t any of the rebel outposts on the Outer Rim respond to the distress call? Nitpick: if you set up a base in a cave, should you not explore it to see if there are other ways out? Tactically, the Resistance is a mess.
Vern’s review is great.
http://outlawvern.com/2017/12/18/star-wars-last-jedi/#comments
Agreed with all the moments, especially with Luke’s projection (heartbreaking) and Leia using the Force visibly. It was one of my Star Wars dreams, and Johnson (at Kathleen Kennedy’s behest, I read last night) made it come true.
Oh, and Poe giving BB-8 a belly rub. That was adorable. I do love that Poe learns to be a leader in this film.
Luke’s final moments… also heartbreaking, with the binary sunset. I loved how we were shown Luke being a badass, uber powerful Jedi Master helping save the Rebellion/Resistance/Republic spark; but at the same time, he doesn’t break his self-exile.
“Not with sadness, but with peace and intent.” (Or something to that effect.)
@1 – rwb: Yoda trolling luke is amazing.
@2- Jarvisimo: Yes, Paige isn’t a pilot, she’s a gunner. And what force-grab?
@18 – wiredog: How does Rey spend a few weeks with Luke? There’s no indication of that. A few days at most.
@22 – pjbwilson: Yes, but at the same time Luke doesn’t get in front of the whole First Order with his laser sword.
@30 – StrongDreams: Poe was a Commander before being demoted to Captain. I agree with some of what you say, but I add that he couldn’t have taken an X-Wing ahead to Crait. Yes, they say the First Order isn’t tracking smaller ships, but they also say when launching the transports that they’re using some sort of cloaking device on them; something that quite possibly couldn’t be fitted onto an X-Wing.
@36 – Lisamarie: Yoda looked great to me, in fact, a lot of people are saying he looked just like the puppet… I think he was CGI, but good one. Also, that’s not green milk, it’s blue. Not the old shade of blue, but still blue. :)
@43 – Gaz: I would have preferred if we weren’t shown the lightsaber turning 45 degrees. It would have been much more impactful when we saw Snoke die.
@45 – Sunspear: They never mention rebel outposts in the Outer Rim, only “allies in the Outer Rim”. Maybe smugglers, old rebel agents, etc, but nobody actually answers, perhaps because they’re cowed by the First order.
@36 – I have no idea why the Yoda looked so off to me, but he did – I think I did read somewhere that it was a puppet, in fact and most people think he looked great, so obviously I’m just weird. If I watch again I’ll have to try and put my finger on why he seemed so off – something about his face.
As for the milk, I was actually debating internally what color it was…it seemed a little more greenish than bluish to me but to tell the truth, as funny as that scene was (Luke playing up the crotchety old man persona was funny, even if kind of heartbreaking) that scene kind of grossed me out (I hate watching people eat) so I wasn’t paying THAT much attention, lol. I got the callback though :)
One of the things I liked was that the Code Master wasn’t Lando Calrissian or Han Solo. No last minute jump to the side of the angels. Scoundrel is really good is a trope that’s followed way to often in these movies.
Thanks for taking the money and running.
Tropekiller, this film is.
“Effectively, Kylo is saying that if Rey refuses to align herself with him—with the Skywalker bloodline—that she cannot be important to this story.”
I didn’t take it that way. I took it as Kylo saying to Rey that OTHERS might see her as nothing, with no part in the story – but not him (hence after he says all that he says, he finishes with “Not to me.”)
I feel that his end-goal is the same with both interpretations – “You’re better off with me.” but your interpretation makes it seem like he’s an egotistical ass “You’re nothing without me.” and mine makes it seem like he’s at least *trying* to sound sincere “Nobody will appreciate you like I do.”
Neither interpretation paints Kylo in a good light, mind you.
@49 – the funny thing about the codebreaker thing – and understand I struggle with facial recognition – but for the entire movie I assumed that DJ WAS the code breaker, just dressed up like a bum, and he had snuck into their cell. It wasn’t until I watched the credits that I realized they actually were different people. (Which, honestly, kind of strains belief…that they happened to be in a cell with ANOTHER master codebreaker?)
I also might have to watch more closely, because I don’t remember if Finn/Rose were privy to the information, but how did DJ know about the transports in the first place? There might have been a scene that established that they all knew and I missed it though. There were parts of the movie I missed due to answering kid questions, keeping them quiet, etc.
@51 – as the Emo Kylo Ren twitter feed points out, he’s basically negging ;) And this is why I wish the Rey-lo ship would just die already. It’s a really dysfunctional relationship and I think we’re supposed to see it as such. Don’t get me wrong – I would like to see some kind of redemption for Kylo, but not in a romantic sense.
But honestly, Kylo is so conflicted inside and out, it’s probably both. I think he truly does feel “affection” for Rey, but just in a very twisted way. But he could mean both things, to be honest – he also has an inflated view of his own importance, so he might really believe Rey ‘needs’ him in order to be central part of ‘the story’ (And now I can’t remember if he specifically referred to it as ‘a story’ in the movie, but even while watching it, I felt like it was kind of a meta statement, and a statement on the idea that Rey needs to be one of the legacy bloodline characters to be important. But also goes to show Kylo’s frame of mind – he views himself as a great player in a grand story).
@47, if Finn and Rose could leave in some kind of vessel and jump to Canto Bight and not be noticed (or be beneath the notice of) the First Order, then why not a another small ship with a small recon force?
@34,
And if I remember right, the capture of the “away team” led to the discovery of the cloaked transport ships. So Poe gets the winner winner chicken dinner on that little gem too.
You either remember wrong or that’s a gaping plot hole. Finn, Rose (and by extension DJ) thought the plan was to disable the tracker so the rebels could escape in hyperdrive. There’s no way that any of those three people could have told the First Order that the real plan was to head to Crait on the transports.
OK. I loved the movie. I thought they did a great job of not retelling an old story the way The Force Awakens did, while keeping along the same lines of The Empire Strikes Back with not everything going according to plan and the rebellion be severely decimated like with the Battle on Hoth. I really enjoyed the experience.
The only negative that I have for the film is that, to me, it didn’t seem as if the female characters had any flaws. Aside from Phasma (who had about 150 seconds of screen time before they eliminated her) there weren’t any female bad guys. It seems to me that they have swung the pendulum too far to the other extreme. I agree that the only purpose of a female character should not be just to get rescued by the big strong male. I agree that young girls should have strong role models portrayed in film as well. But for that to be the “go to” in every situation seemed a little contrived to me.
Need someone to sacrifice themselves and drop the bombs? Make them a female character. Someone to take over after Leia is incapacitated? Make them a female character. Someone got to sacrifice themselves to be the big hero of the escape? Gotta be that female character. Need someone to save Finn from sacrificing himself (when he tried to do the same as the aforementioned female character?) Look the female character. Obviously, with Rey being the lead in this series it makes sense that she is the one who holds out hope of turning Kylo Ren away from the Dark Side and being the one to be willing to face down Snoke. Luke’s effort to stall the First Order balances that out so those characters equate in their significance.
But for the rest of the film, it seemed that boys are only good at blowing stuff up and they don’t see the big picture like the girls did. They needed to be taught lessons like “winning a battle can lose a war” and “those we love are more important than actually surviving.”
I’m good with female heroes, but to find them at every turn almost to the exclusion of all else seemed forced (no pun intended.) I would like to have seen more balance.
Just my .05 cents worth.
@54 – StrongDreams: Good point. Now that I think about it, the cloaking device only shielded the transports, which were quite evidently on sublight speed (they probably lacked hyperdrives). A quick jump to lightspeed might have gone unnoticed by the First Order; like it was with Rose and Finn’s ship; and with the Falcon.
@56 and yet…I am betting you have no complaint about ‘balance’ whatsoever when any other movie you want has the male character fill every single one of those roles…Frankly, I don’t even see why them being female characters needs to be remarked on like it’s some really special thing for a writer to do, or like there needs to be some reason for them to be female and doing something.
@55 – StrongDreams: I don’t have a problem with inferring that DJ found out about that plan somehow, perhaps reading some sensor activity on the First Order’s computers that they hadn’t noticed meant the transports were flying away. Dunno, it doesn’t bother me.
@55,
You either remember wrong or that’s a gaping plot hole. Finn, Rose (and by extension DJ) thought the plan was to disable the tracker so the rebels could escape in hyperdrive. There’s no way that any of those three people could have told the First Order that the real plan was to head to Crait on the transports.
If I remember correctly, just before the codebreaker gets them into the room where they are ultimately captured, Finn and Poe have a radio conversation where Poe tells them to hurry up and stop the tracking; Holdo has a crazy plan to escape on transports instead, doesn’t he? I’ll have to see it again to be sure, but I remember noting Finn and Rose’s worried expressions and thinking what poor operational security it was to be having this sort of conversation in an open hallway where members of the First Order could just walk past at any moment. So my assumption was always that the codebreaker overheard, and used this to sell them out.
@60: exactly! Holdo’s plan was solid, and would have worked if Poe hadn’t violated OpSec (the Resistance needs to adopt Starfleet Regulation 46A!). I want a stand-alone movie about her, starring Laura Dern, after Episode IX, or better yet, right now.
And I just have to squee a bit about Luke’s big “showdown” with Kylo. This is what I always wanted a Jedi Master to be: not charging in to a (small-f) force on force battle, but applying wisdom and misdirection with a healthy dose of compassion, to save the day without needing to kill, or even injure, anyone. Luke lived what Rose told Finn: don’t destroy what you hate, protect what you love. And as for his “death”, I’m stuck with what Rey said about “peace and purpose”. Like didn’t just let go and fade away, he went somewhere because there’s something he needs to do.
@60, could be. Would need to see it again. (But why didn’t he say, “forget tracking and come back right away, we’re going with a different crazy plan that doesn’t need the tracker turned off.”)
Liked: poor Hux can’t get no respect; Canto Bight revealing the bankrollers for First Order (some follow-up plot potential here); samurai moves; Chewbacca demonstrating it wasn’t all Han onboard the Falcon (and Finn’s line, “They hate that ship!”); Yoda’s cameo; lots of attractive CGI.
Disliked: shark-jumping Force usage (Leia, Yoda, Luke); learning nothing about Snoke; anachronistic language and information withholding (SW traditions, but still annoying); Rey is 100% impervious to dark side temptation; Rose’s line about saving the things you love as the Resistance refuge explodes in the background; little tension or mystery going into Episode 9.
Still missing Lando. We need a petition.
@58 As far and looking for balance it would depend on the story being told. If it’s a WWII epic about a small platoon of soldiers, forcing women in a roll that has no realistic reason for being there other than balance would make no sense. So no, I wouldn’t complain about a lack of balance. But, neither would I complain about a story about the Amazons in the Wonder Woman Universe not having enough men. Because that makes sense to the story being told.
As a general rule I do try to keep an eye out for things like that, regardless of whether I complain about it or not.
The only reason I commented on it was because it seemed to be so contrived into the story that it detracted from it in purely my own opinion. It’s fine that Paige and Rose are sisters, but it could just have easily been a brother/sister relationship. There’s plenty of history in the Star Wars universe that women are in command, so I have no problem with the chain of command decision on its own. But in conjunction with all the other decisions it just made everything stand out more.
I was merely stating that, as a society, we have the tendency to over-correct for past problems. It doesn’t mean that the past wasn’t a problem, but the over-correction isn’t without its own problems. In this case it seemed like it was an over-correction that detracted from the overall experience.
thanks for this review.
I realized afterward that it was probably Disney’s influence that Rey turned out to be “no one” and “no one’s child.” Lucas was all about the special Skywalker family.
Rey, though….I hate to say it, but the message of Rey is the same as Anton Ego’s line from Ratatoullie. “Not everyone can be a Jedi. But a Jedi can come from anywhere.”
@60 – BenTGaidin: I saw it three times, and I don’t remember that.
@63 – cecrow: Canto Bight revealed no First Order bankrollers, only their suppliers that became rich.
BTG@60
Yup. That’s how it happened. Poe caused a lot of deaths due to his impulsive flyboy narcissism in this film. Which bums me out because he was one of the more enjoyable characters in Episode VII. I think the character low point Johnson put him through as writer/director was too much to recover from in the context of the immediate film. It just doesn’t make sense.
He should have been kicked out, imprisoned, exiled, or executed. At least the severity of those options would have matched the insubordination and deaths he caused. Not once, but twice. My issue with Poe’s character has a lot to do with my beef against the whole film. It’s just the easiest example of Johnson prioritizing emotion over plot. Snoke was another disappointing moment for me. Not his death, but the lack of character development. Because of how they handled Snoke the dude became entirely unnecessary to this trilogy. You could cut him out, change a few lines, and it wouldn’t change much in the plot at all. That’s bad writing folks.
One plot hole I’d like to mention: The using a lightspeed ship to destory the giant star destoyer bit. It was a cool moment in the movie, but I have so many issues with it:
1) I could swear that somewhere in canon it was mentioned that this can’t be done, that the way lightspeed works specifically stops you from running into anything because the gravity or whatever of the object would pull you out of lightspeed. Am I crazy, or does anyone else remember this?
2) But if I’m wrong and it CAN be done… why in the heck hasn’t it been used before???? If one decently small-sized rebel ship can destroy one of the largest imperial ships in existence this way, why bother with attacking normally at all and risking casualties? Why not just get a large hunk of rock/metal/whatever, slap a hyperdrive on it, and BOOM! Instant giant missile that can destroy star destroyers, death stars, etc.
@63 – hmm, I didn’t see Rey as impervious, but I guess we’ll see. I think she still has a connection to Kylo, and that’s going to play into the next movie.
I kind of feel like I am ready to see this again although I probably won’t get a chance for awhile.
Realizing I had missed a crucial line of dialogue when Kylo and Ren have their fist connection: “You’re not doing this, the effort would kill you” Aside from being a really good bit of foreshadowing, it helps to firmly establish two things that I really wasn’t clear on at the end of the movie – that Luke is truly doing something amazingly special, AND that his death was an intentional sacrifice (not just….floating away for no reason, or because he feels like it). Along with knowing that he had both peace and purpose, and remembering some of his last lines “Nobody is really gone” and his parting remark to Kylo with that grin – “See you around, kid”. I feel like…it’s okay. We’re not REALLY loosing him.
That said, it’s still gutting. The one part that REALLY gets me is remembering that wink he gives Threepio. Everytime I picture that scene, I just want to lose it. I REALLY wanted us to get more of that Luke – the Luke that had the spark of humor and friendship and camaraderie again – before he was taken away. I think that is what I am really mourning, that and the fact that we just won’t ever see him and Leia get to enjoy their relationship as siblings. But here’s hoping we get Luke as a snarky (but not too snarky) Force ghost. (Really, I want to see ALL THE FORCE GHOSTS in the next movie, and yes, including GHOST ANAKIN).
Speaking of that wink – it occurred to me that it’s kind of cool that a droid could sense a Force projection. Which goes to show (along with the fact that Leia and Kylo could interact with the dice) that he was there in a physical sense and not just an illusion in a mind, which is more mystical and a droid might be immune to. I wonder if he could somehow determine programmatically that something was up? Luke didn’t leave footprints but would he emit a heat signature, etc?
And honestly, having some time to process it I think has helped. When I first saw the movie, aside from being distracted by kids, pretty much every time Luke was on screen (especially during his confrontation with Kylo) I was just like “Is this it? Is this where he’ll die? Oh my god he killed him – wait, no he didn’t” or just worrying that this was the scene where they’d do some horrible subversion of his character. But I think I’ll be able to enjoy the movie more now that I know what’s happening and can just enjoy the flow of the movie and what it’s leading to.
When we got home from the theater last night I was still kind of numb and trying to figure out how I felt about it. But I finally, this morning I constructed what I deemed a thematically appropriate playlist and cried for like 15-20 minutes straight (because I’m a huge dork) to just get it all out. (If you’re wondering, it was: The Immolation Scene, The Birth of the Twins and Padme’s Destiny, A New Hope (the RotS finale with the binary sunset but also includes Leia’s Theme and the Throne Room theme), The Jedi Steps, The Spark, The Last Jedi, Peace and Purpose and the Finale from TLJ). But honestly, then I felt pretty good, like I had started to work through what the movie meant, thematically. (This really sounds so overwrought and the epitome of first world problems).
Line in any movie, there’s stuff I still wish was done differently (such as the fact that we never really get a chance to see the characters interact as much as I’d want them to, especially now that Carrie Fisher is gone), and I do wish that this movie didn’t basically put them in the same place they were in 30 years ago (outgunned, facing a massive Empire, a ragtag Rebellion, etc), and I wish we’d gotten a little more of Luke’s growth (or regrowth) and more depth surrounding what it means to be a Jedi and what Luke may have learned, but…it is what it is. I am hoping the next movie will have Rey exploring more of this, although I wonder if it’s mostly going to be about the push and pull between her and Kylo. It seems like their connection was still intact. But they’ll obviously have to figure out what to do about the Resistance/First Order too.
@64, sorry, I just don’t feel that way. The fact that women stand out is itself the problem. It should be no more remarkable (unless it’s, as you say, a context that is specifically dominated by men – which the Star Wars galaxy is NOT) than all of the characters having brown eyes. I guess it’s telling when actual parity seems like over-representation.
@69 – Actually, I feel like in ANH Han mentions the exact opposite – if you do fly too close to a star/supernova, yes, it will pull you out but you’ll also crash and die.
Also – and this could just be my faulty reading of the scene and the fact that I don’t remember all the details – did she fully get into Hyperspace? Or had she just started going REALLY REALLY fast and made impact just before she would have actually ‘jumped’.
This doesn’t really address your second point though :)
68. CireNaes
Poe here seemed completely different than Poe in the last movie. The one who was trusted with a top secret mission and didn’t engage the enemy unless there was no other choice. Sure he was cocky, but he was also good enough to basically fly into the eye of the needle and hold up to non-force methods of torture. When Finn needed his help rescuing Rey, they went right up the chain of command to do it.
Since the main plot was centered on this new and reckless Poe, thus the whole foundation of the film felt a bit off to me.
@71 – Lisamarie: She definitely jumped, and not just because others said so on screen. You can see that the impact is not a regular explosion, but more like it generate some kind of lightning streaks that “cracks” the Supremacy in two; and radiate out to destroy a few of the Star Destroyers around it.
@72 – AyeJaySedai: One could argue that Poe feels emboldened because of the triumph against Starkiller Base, and then desperate because despite that victory, the First Order has found their base and is forcing them to evacuate, and they’re loosing people. Everything from there is a downward spiral. He’s not perfect, and I, at least, do not need everything spelled out on screen to come up with plausible explanations as to why he behaves like he did.
@Lisamarie
If you don’t feel the same way, I can understand that. I’m not trying to win you to “my side.” I agree that it should be something that goes unnoticed. That is why I was bringing the point up. Because it was noticeable to me, so it didn’t seem like parity. It seemed like girls=good and noble, boys = cause all the problems or are the bad guys. (hyperbole intended.)
It’s all opinion and comes with whatever baggage we bring to the table. I’ve got no quarrels.
@74 That may be true in the case of this movie, but I think the only reason it’s noticeable is that it’s uncommon. How many movies/plots have you seen where the (few) women in it either A) Aren’t really important to the plot at all or B) Are a big cause of most of the problems, and it’s the men who fix everything? That happens all the time, so seeing it the other way around I think is just a little jarring.
It shouldn’t be, like you said, but it’s a lot like that statistic I’ve seen (I don’t remember specifics, but roughly), that men (and women too, I believe) feel like there are an equal number of men and women in something when the actual number is like 33% women/men ratio. We’re so conditioned to the fact that men have been the majority for so long that it feels “wrong” and “off” when there’s an actual 50/50 ratio.
I may have explained that badly, hopefully you all know what I’m talking about :)
@71 If the “physics” from the old EU still hold, plantets and stars and such have sufficient gravity to stop a hyperspace jump or pull a ship out. If the gravity well is deep enough, it ends badly for the ship.
Regarding the why isn’t it done more? I was halfway through fan-wanking an explanation before I remembered that nothing about the space combat in the movie makes any sense.I recommend assuming that if Star Wars had a rigorously explained model for space combat there would be reasons why it normally wouldn’t work or be worth doing.
@73 – yeah, it was definitely something special (and I LOVED the silence as sound effect…similar to the sonic charges). In my head I figured that she was just on the cusp of jumping (if she had truly jumped she’d be in hyperspace which is some other dimension, right?) and perhaps that phase transition just doesn’t go well when something is in the way. Or perhaps the hyperdrive reactor blew.
In truth, I really don’t care and am fine with whatever fan wanky explanation they come up with – I know some people really do care and I think that’s fine, but I never get too hung up on the space battle stuff and so it doesn’t really impact my enjoyment of the films the way it does for others. I KNOW it’s an inconsistency but it’s just not the important part of the story for me. I find other things to get upset about that nobody else cares about ;)
To further cement how little I pay attention to ships/tech – I never realized the Falcon had gold dice. I thought they were invented for this movie as a kind of gag (like, oh, sure, Han would have dice hanging in the cockpit). When I mentioned this to my husband, his mouth just dropped open and he said, “How can you have been a fan for 20 years and NEVER NOTICED THIS” and then put on the part of A New Hope where Chewie bumps his head on them. And sure enough, there they were, lol.
@74, no quarrels, I thank you for a civil discussion. As a woman I obviously have a bit more of a ‘dog’ in the fight – not to say that it’s not an issue that men also can’t be interested in – and have been noticing the imbalance in the other way more acutely. @75 is basically making the point I am trying to make.
I’ve seen a lot of dissatisfaction with the way Rose and Finn’s journey was ‘pointless’, and that they and Poe are responsible for the destruction of the Resistance. That’s true to a point, and I think there is some sloppiness in the way this is handled (a little more operational security, resistance fighters!) Thematically though, I don’t think these are pointless plots. All of the heroes basically fail. Finn, Rose, and Poe failed to stop the hyperspace tracker. Rey convinced herself that she could turn Kylo Ren the same way that Luke turned Darth Vader, and she was wrong.
The older generation failed. Even if it was only a moment of weakness, Luke failed Ben Solo and his other students. Han and Leia failed their son. Worse, Luke and Han react by isolating themselves, leaving Leia to lead the Resistance alone. But Leia and even Holdo are too easy on Poe; he probably should have been in the brig from the start. Maybe they saw in him a bit of the Ben Solo that should have been. In any case, everyone has hard lessons.
What I liked about the movie is that beyond this theme of failure, it puts the previous movies, and maybe the entire franchise, into a new context. The Prequels made the Jedi seem kind of like idiots. I resented The Force Awakens a bit for dragging our heroes out of retirement and showing us that their lives were miserable and they were still fighting the same Space Nazis they were supposed to have beaten in Return of the Jedi. But now there is a more coherent idea at work–that the universe is not just an endless cycle of violence, but maybe there is a possibility for learning and growing. I don’t know if the future movies will fulfill that promise, but right now it changed the way I look at Star Wars.
@78 – That’s actually basically what my husband said when we got home. That the theme of the movie is ‘failure’.
And I think it could have ended up being way too much of a downer (I feel the same way about how TFA treated the characters) but I think Yoda’s addition gave it the necessary spark of hope to help put it in perspective – that the failures are not the end.
@75 I understand what you are saying. But I think my emphasis was not about the quantity of each gender, but rather the roles that the genders played. As I said initially I couldn’t think of a single female character portrayed in a negative light, but rather only as heroes or “good guys” (excepting Phasma who had minimal screen time and a very minor part.) At the same time most of the male roles were portrayed in a negative light or at least non-heroic (either being the actual First Order or the cause of most of the deaths and of the rebellion.)
I appreciate the comments. Like I said, I’m not trying to win anyone to my side. It’s just my one detraction from what I otherwise thought was an excellent movie.
I definitely had strong feelings about this, so if that was Johnson’s goal, he succeeded. I haven’t wanted to verbalize them until I see the movie again this coming Wednesday. This movie is no where near as straightforward as TFA was, and I want to make sure I give myself every chance to like it before I start posting about my thoughts. Once I’ve written them down, and processed them to that degree, it will be hard to feel differently.
So, anyway, until then, folks.
I am just super pissed no one lost a hand, tbh.
The side jaunt to the casino I think serves as means to explore why our heroes are back fighting the same Space Nazis. They took down the Emperor and Vader but they didn’t deal with the people and the causes that let the Emperor take over. It echoes the bits about legends. The Rebels though that they could restore Freedom to the Galaxy by taking down the legends but evil isn’t just the cackling mad man on the throne. It’s the conflicted young man looking for power and security; both the drifter and plutocrat for whom the lives of others are just business; the teacher who considers using violence to escape the consequences of his failure. If you want freedom, you need to resist all evil and not just the obvious.
Final thought: let’s pour one out for General Leia Organa, who watched her planet get blowed up without breaking down, and who stood up to being tortured by the baddest dude in the galaxy. Who still had time to comfort a callow farm boy who lost his family and his mentor. Who lost her son to evil, and then her husband and brother to self-pity–and who kept it together to keep fighting Space Nazis, including said son. Who welcomed the wayward men in her life back into the fold with open arms, and then watched them march off to get killed by said son. Who still had it in her to teach a new generation how to be heroes, and how to keep going in the face of loss.
I guess IX was supposed to be her time to shine. She still shines as the hero at the center of it all, even if they didn’t give her enough to do.
@84. Word.
And in some ways, that is what still miffs me about how both Han and Luke were treated. Leia was, and continues to be awesome – fighting to the end, as she said. It just sucks that everybody else basically let her down or abandoned her. In addition to being mad on her own behalf, it irritates me as a person who was a fan of those characters in their own rights. I really wanted to see them as a team again, but alas.
@82 — I thought I saw Snoke’s hand lying on the floor at one point. But I suppose that doesn’t really count …
@79 – Lisamarie: Just like with Thor: Ragnarok, the humor is there to soften the blow of a very harsh story.
@82 – Nycki: I said the same, but it was pointed out to me that Snoke loses at least one.
@83 – noblehunter: Bravo.
@86 – hoopmanjh: It totally counts.
On a similar note, BB-8 is the one who says “I have a bad feeling about this.”; but in three viewings I still haven’t found the Whilhelm Scream.
MaGnUs, I heard the scream, but it was in an unexpected context — it was part of the sound mix for something else happening. I can’t remember when now, only that I recognized it when I heard it. It’s not a fall or anything like that, though.
Regarding ranks, I am pretty sure that the old Imperial forces used one rank system for both naval and army forces, where the rank immediately below Admiral was General, then Commander, and then Captain. And most folks who command ships are not Captains, they are Commanders. It appears that in the new movies, both the First Order and Resistance use something like this scheme. Thus Poe’s demotion from Commander to Captain, which to those familiar with current naval rank systems, sounds like a promotion instead.
“Aside from Phasma there weren’t any female bad guys”
That’s already, like, infinitely more than in the previous 6 episodes, yes?
I honestly never even noticed the male/female ratios in TLJ until I started reading the articles and comments. If you’re the one going “Hey, what’s with all the girls?” I think that says more about you than the filmmakers.
@89 Finally, an advantage to being steeped in the old EU. The drop from Commander to Captain made total sense to me.
Actually what made want to cry was how bad the whole film was.
Literally I wanted to cry.
Poe was an idiot who got people killed
Finn was an idiot who got people killed
( the entire casino sequence was pointless )
Leia was hardly in it and when she was she was Superman in space
Holdo was an idiot who got people killed
Rey was her usual perfect self
( I genuinely couldn’t care less about any of the new characters… I was hoping Finn would die, he’s comic relief )
Luke went from risking his life to save his father, to considering murdering his nephew? No way.
and then couldn’t be bothered going to help his sister?
R2 D2 and C3PO have been pushed to almost complete irrelevance
The list goes on and on…
it was an awful movie, just the nostalgia of Star Wars that covers it up
@81 – I am definitely looking forward to hearing your thoughts. I’ve also been still somewhat ‘processing’ how I feel about all of this (Process them!)…I think this is a movie that needs a rewatch before fully forming an opinion, especially as there was just so much going on, and I want to watch it with a more ‘high level’ view to see if I change my opinion on some of the stuff I initially felt was a waste of time. There are some moments where I feel pretty good about it and some that it just makes me upset all over again about lost potential and of course a lot of that is based on my own very subjective desires about what I wanted from the story. It definitely emotionally gutted me, so that’s something – although it’s also hard to tell how much of that is just due to the previous investment I had in the characters. But on the other hand, I think my own investment sometimes prevents me from appreciating parts of the movie simply because they aren’t what I wanted.
It took me a LONG time to come to terms with The Force Awakens, and honestly, part of it is just by taking solace in writing shitty fan fiction that only I will ever see :)
@90 Again, my point was never “What’s with all the females?” Check all the other comments.
I honestly think I like the movie even more for having read this article. You pulled all the small moments apart, tied it all together with what came before, and detailed how it sets us up for more to come. Even the parts of the movie I wasn’t totally thrilled with, I feel more comfortable with now.
Great job!
@47
Actually, that’s true. If we had been shown ren’s face and heard the sound of the lightsaber activating, then the sound of a body hitting the floor…then show rey turning around and snoke on the floor, it would have been pure WTF…but still i found the actual sequence incredible.
@78
That’s actually one of the things i loved about The Last Jedi – that none of the are-you-kidding-me escapades that have always worked in these types of movies actually worked. Impulsiveness wasn’t rewarded, and made a mess of careful, restrained planning, with terrible consequences. Both the old and new generations fail, but manage to learn and grow from their failures.
In general, there seems to be a lot of people complaining about the lack of payoff for Snoke, and rey’s parentage being a non-issue. I’d much rather see Ren’s development than learn about how Snoke came to power (they could publish a Snoke novel easily) and his usurping of the supreme leader was a great vehicle for that. I was one of the people abuzz with ‘WHO ARE REY’S PARENTS’ after VII but I have to say I ended up liking this treatment even better. Why does Rey have to be from a particular lineage to be special? We already have Thrones for the whole ‘you have to be from a dynastic family to save the world’ angle.
@93
HAHA I was actually going to say something like that in an earlier post – something like ‘honestly if people hate some of this movie’s choices so much, then go and write fan fic on exactly how you wanted it to happen.’
@97, honestly, it’s not bad advice. It’s kind of empowering, and it means I can have my own little world, and let people have their world, and it’s fine ;)
Also, I just want to say that, as always, I’m grateful for the fine community here. I was saying to my husband that I was looking forward to getting on Tor because I knew there’d be a lot of good thought provoking discussion that would help see things from other perspectives, especially since I’ve only seen it once so far and I feel like I never really get the whole feel of a movie the first time I see it. I think the Canto Bight stuff is especially something that, when you’re in the middle of the movie (and mostly wondering about the other characters) it feels like it doesn’t belong, but once you see the main themes (especially regarding hubris, failures and how we learn from them)…it actually does end up fitting in, but it takes some distance to see it. Don’t know if that’s making sense. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how the movie feels the second time. (If anything I’ll probably be even more emotional since I was just trying to keep up during the first viewing – a few things brought tears to my eyes, but now, there are certain things that will probably really hit me hard…)
Yoda was a puppet, obviously they added CG over the top to make him a force ghost but he was even cast from the original molds.
Perhaps there is some uncanny valley from using computer effects on top of a puppet that has confused some people but I saw puppet yoda and loved it.
Well, it was a fun movie, but I think most of the the Resistance ‘slow chase’ sub-plot felt overly contrived to me, and I usually have a higher tolerance for that sort of thing if well done. Since when do space bomber rely on gravity bombs, in space? I realize that much of Star Wars fleet battles is base on WWII type battles, but that was a little bit too much. It felt especially contrived to ratchet up tension for Rose’s sister and evoke the classic B-24/17 bomber run, right down to opening bomb-bay doors and ‘dropping’ the bombs onto the target. I’m no Star Wars fanatic, but I thought it was established that there were fast, agile bombers (A-wings, Y-wings ?) that could get in and get the job done.
And the entire resistance was concentrated on that one base? They were much smarter than that as the Rebel alliance, where Luke, Han, & Leia are only part of one group of the spread out rebel Allience, and they had a fall back position already prepared and could evacuate at the drop of a hat. Then again, it seemed like the entire First Order was out after them, despite the opening crawl suggesting that they were taking over the rest of the Galaxy, there just didn’t seem to be anything more to the FO outside General Hux, Captain Phasma, et al.
Admiral Sacrifice-herself was cool, but what was with the whole “I’ll wear this flowing evening gown as part of my uniform”? Show that they are the raggedy upstarts without uniforms and a patched together organization? And it seemed like she was putting things needlessly at risk by not telling anyone the plan. Contrived to generate controversy. It would have been better if there was some sort of tracker or mole on board that they had to worry about. At first I thought that Rey & Leia’s tracking beacon was somehow giving them away, but no, no that.
I warmed up to Luke’s sub-plot, and thought his feat at the end was incredible. Except when he speaks with Leia he clasps her hand and gives her the “fuzzy dice” from the Falcon. Continuity error, or just using jedi mind-trick like affect to make others think they feel his hand and that they are holding the dice.
I don’t think there was an error. Luke wasn’t just an illusion at the end; just like the connection between Rey and Kylo Ren was real enough to make him wet from the rain, Luke was sort of real. Real enough that I think Kylo Ren’s lightsaber really did hurt him enough to kill him. But not so real that his nephew would get any satisfaction from it. He gave the dice to Leia, and then brought them back with him.
@21 Anthony Pero – Exactly. The scenes with Rey unfold over the course of several days on Ahch-to. While she is there, Ren is onboard Snoke’s flagship slowly tailing the Resistance fleet. If Ren is sharing contemporaneous visions with Rey, and these scenes are interspersed throughout the film, then the slow chase scene (which, as the pivotal setting of a 2.5 hour film is the equivalent of a narrative dead duck) did last for 3-6 days, depending on how long Rey was “training.” Everything from the “18 hour fuel limit” to Canto Bight, to the pointless mutiny subplot, is filler to make it seem like something is happening. Almost nothing happens.
@100,
Part of the reason why the “resistance” is poorly prepared has to do with the history. When the empire finally fell at the battle of Jakku, there was a “unification” government formed from elements of the old republic and empire that was the new republic. The first order rose from elements of the empire that didn’t want to unify, and it was supported by some of the new republican senators behind the back of the senate while the official stance of the new republic was peace and harmony. Leia formed the resistance also behind the back of the senate and with secret support from some senators, but it was never as big as the old rebel alliance because many of the rebels had become part of the new republic and didn’t want to be seen as undermining it.
I love Holdo’s gracefully draped gown, but is that really what an Admiral should be wearing to command a battle?
A lot of the planets in Leia’s corner were obliterated along with a good amount of their capital ships in Episode VII. Watch the Sun Plasma Hyperspace Steerable Stream of Separable Power when Star Killer Base Fires in Episode VII. You can see the smaller capital ships caught up in the destruction while pulling planetary defense. They looked like Mon Cal cruisers to me.
And I was fine with Holdo’s methodology when she jumped to light speed with just some general coordinates. Of course she would run into the First Order Fleet. I was not fine with the ripple effect that enveloped the other Star Destroyers. It was over the top for me.
And I’m fine with the overall theme of failure in the movie. Heck, that’s what the gospel of Mark emphasizes too and I’m fine with it too. It was the devil may care attitude towards character development and the weird nature of the space combat that really threw me for a loop.
This is the fist Star Wars movie where I felt like I wasn’t really watching Star Wars. Kind of reminded me of reading the Yuuzhan Vong Wars sagas in the EU material…but more so due to the contextual inconsistencies.
I enjoyed this review and am making my way through the comments before posting any thoughts of my own about this movie. But one thing really stands out to me and that’s that General Leia slapped Poe Dameron. I can see why this is overlooked with all the other things to talk about (Luke’s characterization seems a particularly egregious sacrifice to serve the plot.) But physical abuse of an underling – it’s even underscored when one of the First Order baddies (I can’t recall who in this busy movie) later slaps an underling too.
@75 Watch TV in the US, don’t ff thru the commercials. I believe there is now a federal law requiring that women be portrayed as possessing all sense and information while men must be portrayed as clueless simpletons.
Additionally, if the Resistance leadership had been such spiffy fighters perhaps the First Order wouldn’t have risen from the ashes of the Empire to reduce the good guys to a rump force. Perhaps fighting rearguard actions while running away isn’t a viable strategy? Is that how Mon Mothma ran things? I think not.
Sometimes you gotta kill the enemy. Sooner is generally better than later.
Star Wars is about cowboy space wizards. If you went in expecting something different…
I loved Yoda, I loved Luke. Great to see some Jedi actually think about their screwy philosophy in a real way.
I thought Battlestar Galactica handled the chase & timing situation much better with 33 Minutes. I would have much preferred that situation, and I’m a little bummed they didn’t just steal it.
I think Rey is crazy, they did a great job giving her flaws. She does not have an infallible moral compass, and she’s more comfortable ending a conflict with violence than with any sort of discussion. Where Luke went off to to save his friends in ESB, Rey goes with Kylo because she might turn him. I think it’s pretty clear she doesn’t really believe that, it’s really that she’s just tired of waiting for Luke. Luke won by rejecting violence and refusing to fight. I don’t see how Rey can do that now. She had the opportunity to resolve the conflict peacefully and instead decided that Kylo’s arguments for ending both the first order and the rebellion were best answered by trying to kill him rather than something along the lines of “this is not how you form a new government, let’s do this the proper way…” In short, she’s a great cowboy space wizard.
@102:
I wouldn’t make the assumption that Kylo’s scenes happen in order. The only thing you can count on is the state of his scar. I’ll have to watch it again.
@105:
To be clear, the New Republic had no military at all. Mon Mothma disbanded the Alliance military very early after ROTJ, after a decisive battle against the Empire. Hux’s father, along with another dude, disappeared with a portion of the Empire’s fleet, which became the New Order.
So, the only military forces are local system government’s military forces. The Resistance was basically Leia saying “this is a dumb idea,” and gathering some old Alliance friends and forming her own military force that isn’t beholden to an individual planetary system.
Why are people criticizing Holdo’s dress but not Leia? Yes, they could have changed into a uniform at some point, but don’t sweat it over this.
@88 – StrongDreams: Yes, now that you mention it, it’s at some weird point, I think it was when Kylo tries to cut Luke in half with his lightsaber.
@89 – AlanBrown: No, Imperial Navy and Army used different ranks. In the Navy, Captains usually commanded ships, and Commanders were their XOs. Starfighter corps in Star Wars Alliance/New Republic usually use a mix of Army/Navy ranks, where Captain is lower than Commander.
@91 – noblehunter: Exactly.
@99 – ChocolateRob: You got a link to an article about them using a puppet and the original molds?
@101 – Colin R: That just it. They made the effort of showing us that Kylo got wet from the rain, and that they could freaking hold hands. How can someone think that Luke interacting with Leia at the end is a continuity error?
@110 – Anthony Pero: Yes, the New Republic did have military forces, and Poe and others were part of it. It was just small, and New Republic politics forbid it from engaging the First Order. The Resistance was born out of Leia and others in the New Republic that understood that they needed to take the fight to the FO.
@AP
Then why attack those particular planets? A simple gesture of power or potential competitors/supporters? I think it’s the latter.
@112: The planet the FO destroyed in FA was the New Republic’s current capital; they also took out most or all of whatever fleet the New Republic possessed at the time.
I do have to say that based on what we saw in both movies, I’m having a little trouble envisioning the FO actually marching across the galaxy as they’re described as doing in the opening crawl; they must’ve been a much larger force than anything we’ve seen in the two films.
Actually, given how incompetent both Hux and Kylo are, I am wondering how much influence the FO actually has and who’s running the damn thing! Or was it all Snoke? But he’s gone now so…maybe it will all self destruct and that will be the true demise of the FO in Ep 9 ;)
@74, BigBillyB, You are not imagining things. A Vanity Fair review also notes that the male characters are WRONG and have to set straight by women and thinks this is a wonderful thing. Seems Womansplaining is totally not a problem.
@111,MaGnUs, you are absolutely right, what the heck is GENERAL Leia wearing? It is at least more tailored and official looking but long skirts? But the real question is why are Admiral Holdo and General Organa making such a point of wearing civies? Is it some kind of statement?
@113 – hoopmanjh: Of course the First Order’s forces are much larger than the bits we see in these two movies. So were the Empire’s forces much larger than what we saw in the Original Trilogy.
Everything in this review is exactly what I think. Exactly.
One little tiny thing bugs me – as for Rey and Kylo touching hands and feeling the rain, I think it was just a really intense telepathy; I don´t believe they actually physically touched. Same with Luke, he was just an astral projection. So… how come C-3PO could see him?
OK, two things: after the movie a friend told me she did not understand the “dark side hole” on the island, and I started to explain that of course, it makes perfect sense to me – before I realized I´m explaining it with stuff from Thrawn trilogy…
Magnus@111
Ok, so what am I misremembering about Bloodlines and the Aftermath trilogy? Mon Mothma disbanded the Alliance forces. They made a huge deal about Akbar thinking it was a bad idea. Then in Bloodlines, by my recollection, they did have a small force of pilots to shuttle around New Republic dignitaries, but it was a token force that wasn’t much bigger than what Leia put together. Wex was one of the pilots.
@118 – Tessuna: It’s not just astral projection, it’s in the visible spectrum, that’s why Threepio can see him. And it also has sound and touch, because Leia and Kylo touch the dice. Kylo didn’t just feel the rain, the water was there on his glove and the floor after the connection had been cut.
Even if all tactile sensation is, as you say, super telepathy, it’s obvious that it also has a visual component, because Threepio sees it, and everybody, even those who have no connection to Luke see it.
And why do you need to explain the Thrawn Trilogy for the dark side hole when we saw a dark side cave in Empire Strikes Back?
@119 – Anthony: I think it was the comics, they show that the New Republic does have a small fleet, including X-Wings and the like, but it’s only for dealing with pirates, etc.
CireNaes@112:
Because that’s where the Senate was. And the leadership of the New Republic. My understanding, which may be wrong based on what Magnus is saying, it that basically, the vast majority of the fighting force of the New Republic is like it was in the Old Republic at the time Palpatine took over. In control of local systems. But they could be called upon for mutual defense.
No, there was still a central New Republic starfleet, but much smaller than the Republic’s at the height of the Clone Wars:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/New_Republic_Starfleet
Ok, thanks for the clarification. I’m not sure it changes the point I was making though. Even if they had the single largest fleet, there are thousands of other worlds, and one can still extrapolate from that that the vast majority of the fleet power in the galaxy that WASN’T the First Order was divided up amongst those planets. There is still plenty of military might to rally to attack the First Order, especially now that they’ve attacked the New Republic.
I’m just not sure who is going to rally them now that Carrie Fisher has died.
There might still be enough military forces to opposed them, but rallying them together, that’s something even Leia couldn’t do. They’re talking about a time jump between TLJ and Episode IX, so perhaps they manager to rally some of those forces in the interim.
@115 – womansplaining is not (as much as) a problem (in general, I am sure there are people who do it on an individual sense) because it is not as common for men to be dismissed simply for being men. It DOES happen – there’s certainly a ‘bumbling guy’ stereotype out there and I agree it’s very damaging and in some ways it’s rooted in the same ideas about rigid gender roles, and sometimes is even an excuse for men to be held to lesser standards. Wheras women who make the same mistakes might get drummed out for not being perfect and it’s just proof women don’t belong.
I did read that article you mentioned and I think it’s a valid interpretation and I don’t even disagree with the point (although I do disagree with the sentiment that ‘the future belongs to X’ because the point is that the future belongs to all of us and we can all be a part of it, not that we’re just going to kick one group out and replace it with another) – it IS commenting on a known cultural phenomenon. A lot of times certain ways of thinking (that we tend to associate with masculinity) do tend to cause more problems and need to be cleaned up. I also disagreed with their ending grouse that Luke Skywalker still gets the ‘Big Damn Hero Moment’ because it’s LUKE FUCKING SKYWALKER and in my opinion he didn’t get enough hero moments, and at the end he explicitly passes the torch to Rey, so it’s not like the movie is trying to make some statement that the story only belongs to men. I mean, at the end of the day, it *shouldn’t* matter, but it does, in part because we are reacting to the current imbalance of things (no pun intended).
That said it definitely irritates me that we can’t have a movie where the people who are ‘right’ (and I do think Holdo does make some mistakes too and so does Rey, and so does Rose) happen to be women, and it has to be turned into a wider men vs women thing instead of just…characters who happen to be women. Which maybe just goes to show that we still don’t have enough representation if whenever a woman is in a movie it’s seen as some wider statement, whereas when men are in a movie we don’t assume they are representing all of men, it’s just guys in a movie.
All that said, I did find the wardrobe choice a little odd. Leia to me was dressed in what seemed as ceremonial, formal regalia and so it seemed to fit the context of her as the leader. Holdo’s didn’t, but I just figure different cultures have different standards and perhaps wherever she comes from her dress IS official formal wear.
But this is kind of like the debate as to whether Troi should wear a Starfleet Uniform :) (I actually prefer her in the uniform, tbh). The VF article also mentioned the dress as trying to make a statement on femininity and what that looks like, and how she doesn’t have to look like a boy, and I can dig it, but I still also tend to think the context of dress does matter so I am a little more on the pro-uniform side – and there are ways to have feminine, ‘military’ style uniforms. So, yeah, I did raise an eyebrow at the dress but I accepted it as just part of that universe.
Sorry, no, it made no sense for Leia to be wearing a gown, ceremonial or not, when she wore a military uniform for most of Episode VII. I won’t lose my mind about it because she looked great in that blue dress, but from production photos and trailers, I thought Leia and Holdo were part of the casino storyline.
I also thought Holdo was part of the Canto Bight storyline, lol.
Leia though – I actually saw the gown as somewhat militaristic and thought maybe it was something like Mon Mothma – she wasn’t in a uniform either, but she was still clearly the leader. But like you, I’m not going to lose my mind about it.
@120 MaGnUs: I meant the fact (or rather a speculation) that such “place strong with the dark side” is created on the spot where “dark jedi” dies (it was written pre-prequels, so no mention of sith), and Yoda chose to live near such place because it somehow shielded him from Emperor and Vader. So I assumed thats why this island is such a good hideout for Luke. Kylo cannot find him there using the Force.
I still think that what we saw with Rey and Kylo were more like vivid halucinations – we saw it as real because it seemed real for them, but there´s no way their inner connection could transport water over the galaxy. I think about it as if Snoke sort of “bonded” them together (as in WOT Androl and Pevara bonded each other) so they can read each others mind but it is not real. I can also imagine Luke appearing to not just Force-users, but all people, using the Force, but I don´t think it should work on droids. But thats just my theory.
Mon Mothma was the civilian leader of a political movement with an army. She was making a statement about the nature of her authority and the Rebellion with her civvies. I don’t get what statement General Organa and Admiral Holdo think they are making. Granted it isn’t an important point but one wonders.
Leia and Holdo are not womansplaining to Poe. He’s just straight up wrong and out of line and probably should have been in the brig the whole movie. It’s a bit gratuitous that they said that they liked him. The movie is a little less clear on the distinction between Holdo’s sacrifice and Finn’s attempted sacrifice–I assume he had no chance of actually succeeding.
While I wouldn’t expect him to fill Leia’s shoes, it seems like there is an opportunity for General Calrissian to at least offer a hand in reforming the Fleet. He had a bit of a role in blowing up a Death Star, and maybe you’ve heard about his little maneuver at the Battle of Taanab…
If C-3PO can be lifted by the Force in ROTJ, why can’t he see a Force projection? The Force may be “generated by all living things” (midichlorians or not) but it “binds the galaxy together” — not just the living parts.
@131 StrongDreams: OK. Now I have no idea why I have “droids cannot see Forceghosts or other Forceprojections” so firmly lodged in my headcanon. Wasn´t there something in the novelizations or in Thrawn trilogy…? I vaguely remember Luke talking to a Forceghost and R2D2 being completely confused by him apparently talking to himself? Also, yes C-3PO can be lifted. A rock can be lifted. But seeing things… I don´t know. It just seems to be a thing of a “soul,” something that should separate droids from other sentient beings. I don´t even know why I´m still talking about this – as evident in the movie, C-3PO can see Luke, so… (shrug). It still bugs me.
Well, there seem to be certain quantum phenomena that require a “conscious” observer to be detected. Simple machine relays and sensors do not observe the quantum effects unless there is a human observer present. This raises several interesting real world questions such as, could a (monkey/dolphin/etc) observe the quantum effect (and how would you know since you ultimately need a human to interrogate the monkey). Could a sufficiently advanced AI observe the quantum effect? Then moving into the realm of fiction, and assuming force projections are similar, maybe R2 and 3PO can see Luke because they have developed a threshold of consciousness that other droids don’t necessarily achieve, perhaps because of their experiences or because their owners have not been doing regular reboots and clean system reinstalls.
@128 – Tessuna: Gotcha on the cave. About the other thing, well, the movie just showed us he was visible to droids, so there was a visual component. The tactile parts you can explain away with telepathy, but I still think the rain and holding hands was used as foreshadowing.
Also, in the old EU books the Force was shown to be able to affect techonology, and there was even an example of a Jedi’s spirit inhabiting a computer.
If the Force can be used to move starships, why not to affect the visual an auditory sensors of a droid? (And as StrongDreams say, lift a droid, Threepio himself.)
On another note, my personal theory (that still jives with the film) is that Luke used his connection to Leia and Kylo to boost his signal.
130 – Colin R: Oh, I wish Lando shows up.
@132 – Tessuna: Force ghosts are not the same as what Luke did. It’s a different manifestation.
Or, go simpler. What Luke did was a solid, manifestation that affected gross matter. WAY harder than a projection, which doesn’t.
The bottom line with a lot of this is that its obvious the Story Group doesn’t have as much of a guiding hand over this trilogy as a whole as I would like. I guess that makes sense. It would be difficult to attract the proper talent to write and direct if they were hamstrung by the Story Group. Still, it doesn’t seem to be hurting Marvel. The lack of cohesion between what was laid down in TFA and what was summarily dismissed in TLJ is what is leading to a lot of the backlash against this film.
Maybe that will change after IX, and this will be proven to be masterful in the minds of the people who are so far resisting the turn of the trilogy. One can hope. That is, after all, the essence of Star Wars.
@135 – gwangung: I’ve seen the film three times already, but I didn’t notice something I read today: Luke never leaves footprints on Crait’s ground, while we’re show multiple times how others (including Kylo in the same scene) do. It’s an indication that he’s not solid, except for when he touches Leia, and the dice projection that even outlives himself for Kylo to pick up.
@137:
Yeah, that’s the entire reason for the salt flats. I noticed it, but dismissed it at first. Along with, you know, his non-grey hair, the hair cut, the black clothes, how much thinner he looked, surviving a blaster attack that would level a small mountain, etc. They weren’t being subtle. They were slamming us over the head with it, lol, and I still missed it until right before the reveal.
@137:
Each thing on its own has alternate explanations. That part is really well done. Its only when taken on aggregate that I felt stupid for not twigging to it earlier. For example, many people, myself included, took the lack of footprints to mean that he was more skilled at moving than Kylo.
CireNaes@105:
I think this is fair. It might explain my own feelings, as well. It felt like… something that was trying to appeal to fans of Star Wars, but still be its own thing. Or a reboot, in the vein of Star Trek (2009). Its, well, different. And that on it’s own is just fine. There’s nothing wrong with different. It’s just not going to work for everyone. Like covering a classic tune in a new style. Depending on your emotional attachment to the tune, it might not work for you. I don’t think the direction this trilogy is taking is working for me. That is… hard, because of my emotional investment.
Its the same reason so many people went into TFA (and even this film) having already decided not to like it. Because its not the EU, in which they were emotionally invested. I decided pretty early on that I could get past that. But I don’t think this is as good as what its replacing. I mean the thing as a whole, not just these two movies. I don’t really like the new books. I do love Rebels, but I don’t like the direction of things post-Jedi. I’ve given it a fair shake. I’ve consumed it with an open mind, but I don’t like it as much. I’m probably never going to.
This is the first time ever that I felt like I could picture Star Wars as being something beyond Return of the Jedi. The New Jedi Order stuff, and that beyond it, was different not just in that it was about a new generation–it was tonally something darker and more ‘adult’. That made sense for the novels, I think. But even with those novels, they could not quite escape being centered on Luke, Leia, and Han. Now I can imagine a Star Wars that exists beyond them–and it might be okay!
…Let’s not talk about the Legacy comics.
Another thing I keep thinking about: Rey’s vision in the “dark side hole”. It was probably meant to mirror Luke’s in ESB, but… what does it mean? Luke saw Vader, defeated him, Vader turned out to be himself – clear warning: if you use your anger, you became the same as your enemy; also foreshadowing of the “I am your father!” thing. It was easy to interpret. But Rey seeing herself in the mirror…? I love metaphores, the more difficult and deep they get, the more I love them. But this? I have no idea.
@138 – Anthony Pero: Oh yeah, the moment I saw him with the shorter hair and beard, also non-grey, I knew something was up. I thought it was Leia having a vision. Then, when he started interacting with others, and went out to face the First Order, etc, I got caught up, and just let myself be swept up in the moment. I missed the lack of footprints, and only when he’s blasted with that barrage, I said “of course, he’s a projection”. It still made me cheer when I saw him levitating and concentrated on Ach-to. :)
@142 – Tessuna: If we’re to take the revelation that her parents were nobodies, then that’s what the vision is about; that her heritage is not important, that she is important because she’s herself. That’s in keeping with the movie’s theme about tearing down legends.
@142 It could mean any number of things, but my tentative interpretation is that she is, essentially, responsible for herself. She is asking who her parents are, but I think the vision, and Kylo, are both telling her that’s not really what she wants to know or needs to understand.
If the question is what formed her, the answer is she formed herself. If the question is why does she matter, the answer is because she caused herself to matter.
Now the dark side is associated with selfishness (or at least egotism), so this could just be a call to solipsism. Forget about others. There is only you.
But, on the theory that we are still somehow heading towards a synthesis of dark and light that goes beyond the old doctrines, this could also be another cue that origins do not dictate fates.
That too, keithrose, that she’s responsible for bringing herself up and making herself into the heroic and formidable young woman she is.
I also interpreted it that way – that the answer is within herself, not within others. Her origins don’t matter. She is who she is because of herself, not because of who her parents were, and who her parents were do not have bearing on who she is.
As for the infinite Reys, I don’t know if there is more to that – as @144 points out, that could be a bit of the Dark Side – something tempting her to a kind of despair or nihilism (looking into the abyss and just seeing it stare back at you) or sense that she is the only one who really exists/matters (I like the egotism connection).
The problem with modern movies in general is the complete lack of reality.. like Leia being blown into space and not being instantly dead.
In the original series everyone assumed such would be a death sentence, since that is the way “space” works.. but now because of the wonders of CGI reality is just whatever the film makers want to make it – which makes it feel like fake plastic.
It’s too bad because the basic story was great – but it was just overdone with reality defying moments that are completely unneeded.. like BB8 now is apparently a ninja commando that can down armies of 10+ soldiers himself while commandeering ATT walkers.
So in sum, the story itself was good but it was ruined by random moments of complete stupid that have to be ignored to enjoy the rest of the story.
“A smart decision that hopefully the final film will not go back on.”
I am so apprehensive about JJ helming the final film. I think his instinct will be to go back on a lot of TLJ’s best and boldest choices as hard as possible.
I liked the Dark Side underwater cave (?) scene. I suppose we need a geologist to give us the right term on this one.
My guess is it was a deterministic vision based on a circular rebirth type of cosmology. You’re you. You become you each time. Something like that. It felt very WoT to me. Or I’m projecting WoT into it.
Or the Dark Side doesn’t like a competitor and it’s giving her a hostile vision to discourage her. That’s a more living force type of explanation.
The problem with the cave scene is that it is not understandable, at least not yet, in the way ESB was. You could be reasonably sure that what Luke was meant to learn that if he kept trusting his weapons and aggression, he would end up like Vader. I have no idea what the cave vision was supposed to be telling Rey. To me it looked like Kylo’s silhouette in the mirror, but when she wiped away the frost it was her. I suppose the message in keeping with the rest of the film is, your past doesn’t matter; make your own future instead. But that’s not a very dark-sideish message.
Let the Essay begin.
1: Everything about Amilyn Holdo’s ‘sacrifice’ is annoying to me. Yes it was spectacular to watch, yes her actions saved the resistance, and yes, it was a noble, honourable and truly selfless thing to do, but what a cheat it was! We were given absolutely no time to become attached to her and thus we had no true sense of loss or gravity to the act. If they really wanted that scene to hold some kind of emotional impact, rather than an excuse to make pretty images, then Leia would not have let Amilyn go and would have taken command of the cruiser herself. This film was obviously supposed to be about ‘out with the old and in with the new’ and Leia’s sacrifice would have been one epic and heart wrenching way to ‘save’ the new rebellion and say goodbye to such a wonderful character. Instead, we had the pretentious, unemotional loss of somebody we really don’t care two hoots about.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the film and it’s full of adorable moments (Poe and BB8, Chewie and the Porgs, Luke and Leia’s goodbye) but it’s so easy to find holes in it too and this film seems to have squandered opportunities aplenty. It also seems to be suffering a bit from the Curse of Ironman 2. I honestly believe that his film would have been better as three 2 hour films than one 2.5 hour film; it certainly has enough plots being thrown into the stew, but they’re all a bit lacklustre and nothing hangs around long enough to really sink your teeth into it.
Fin and Rose’s ‘romance’ is a fine example, if you can even call it that. She starts off hero-worshipping him, drops to broken hearted disappointment then back up to something vaguely resembling affection, but in less than a day of screen time! I have no issue if a romance with Rose is where they want Fin to go (though I would rather explore the budding buddy/bromance he had with Poe in VII: what was, quite frankly, one of the few redeeming qualities of that pile of tripe) and it certainly seemed to me that Fin doesn’t understand what’s happening there either and feels more beholden than actually romantically interested. She does make a great hero though.
@30: Not sure he’s a Naval Captain; remember that an Airforce Captain is a much lower rank respectively.
@37: Agreed, watching that little tiny scene with the kids makes me hope we’ll see a time-shift between VIII and IX, taking us 5-10 years ahead and moving on from that point, but doubt it some how. More likely we’ll see the kids in a Rebels style cartoon series.
@69: When it comes to the efficacy of military actions taken in Star Wars, there has always been a major requirement on the suspension of disbelief, with VIII just being the very worst of a poor selection in that regards. Apparently Lucas and Disney have not heard of things like Military Advisors, because all of this was dreadful: the tactics from the Dreadnought attack were abominable on both sides, and the decisions of military leaders was consistently unreliable and/or poorly thought out (and quite frankly, those bombers were not an effective replacement for the Y wings, so whoever sold them to the Republic should be given an award for their sales pitching).
@Lisamarie, @MrBigBillB and @Sam_Smithyooo:
None of the female characters felt forced or shoehorned in to me. I noticed it, but only as an after thought to a different revelation. I don’t know, maybe this is a result of my upbringing, or being gay, or simply not caring, but they all seemed to justify their positions through merit, so I’m not bothered by them being there, or where there is for each of them. What I am bothered about, and the thing I did notice, is that all the female characters are far more rounded characters and much more emotionally mature than the male characters, and that they all seem to be there to teach lessons to the male characters, who act like children throughout the film.
From the ill-considered and spur-of-the-moment choices of Poe, to the whimsy of Yoda, to the selfishness of a depressed and broken Luke throwing his toys out the pram because one wasn’t perfect, to the teenage insecurities and railing against authority of Kylo, to the demeaning, arrogant and show-off bullying of Snoke, to the desperation to ‘fit-in’ and be one of the ‘big boys’ of Hux, to the fearful wish to run away and hide of Fin. All of them were children. Hell, even Chewie allowed the Porgs to emotionally bully him out of lunch (though, it’s probably fair to say that they are at least semi-sentient and the fact Chewie got as far in his meal as he did is therefore quite an alien and harsh idea for a family film!).
This childishness is certainly a male trait to some degree: as a man, I’m more than comfortable saying that we are more prone to being big babies or big kids (it’s why we all still play games and have Lego’s, etc..), but it’s such a harsh divide between the ‘men who must grow up’ and ‘women who have to grow up their men’ in this film: and only two of them actually seem to get something from these lessons, which mostly seem to revolve around personal responsibility. Luke and Fin both realise, as a result of the intervention of a woman, that their behaviour is going to solve nothing and that they are only going to make things worse by continuing it. They both determine to change this, and improve on the person they have been, but of the two, it’s fairly clear that only Luke actually thinks about what, where Fin just seems to be more reactive. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see if Kylo and Poe can learn anything from their lessons.
Anyway, that’s my 10p.
@113 and 117,
In RotJ you get to see a vast fleet of Star Destroyers. In ESB Vader’s task group has several SDs all to itself with every indication that there are more ships scattered around the rest of the galaxy. Even in ANH the entire concept of a vast Galactic Empire suggests even if it does not state that the Imperial Fleet is far larger than what you see on screen.
In TFA all you are told is that the FO is a rising power in the Outer Rim. You only ever see Starkiller Base and a single SD. Based on the fact that the old Imperial Fleet is basically wrecked (heavily reinforced by all the imagery on Jakku), it is easy to assume that the FO is still relatively small. In the opening sequence of TLJ, however, the FO has several additional SDs plus a Dreadnought, with no real explanation for their origin, plus the film eventually states that they are rapidly taking over the whole galaxy. There is no establishing shot of a FO fleet setting out from a rally point to the various systems they intend to conquer. There is no scene where the Resistance looks at a map of the galaxy and you can see systems turning red as the FO takes them over, nor any real mention of what resources the FO might be using to do such a thing.
What we do have is the ending cut scene in the Battlefront II campaign. It reveals that the FO is far larger and more powerful than everyone assumed, and actually shows a galactic map with the positions of FO SDs, and they are quite numerous. Why they couldn’t have included even a single reference to this in one or another of the films is beyond me. There were plenty of scenes in command rooms and briefing or planning chambers, but unless I missed it in the background somewhere there didn’t seem to be any indication that the Resistance had intel on FO fleet composition or deployments.
The fact that a (arguably) reasonable explanation exists in canon but is not ever given to the film audience is a failing on the part of TLJ especially and the sequel trilogy more generally up to this point.
On another note, I have long been convinced that, regardless of what the keepers of the canon may say, the Galaxy Far Far Away does not have a vacuum in space. Rather, it seems to have some kind of thin aether or phlogiston analog, allowing sound to propagate through space, allowing ships to move as if through a material that imparts resistance and causes friction, attenuating blaster bolts as they pass through it, and in general making things behave in a far more consistent manner than if space in that galaxy were actually vacuum. The mere fact that sonic weapons in space are a thing seems pretty definitive. Most of the problems with the special effects in pretty much all SW space battles are resolved if space is composed of some kind of thin pseudo-atmosphere.
@152: Yes, the astronomy and physics in the series wouldn’t pass a freshman 101 course. Hell, maybe not even high school… or middle school… The bombs hanging down like beads on a rope, even banging together, outside the planet’s atmosphere. The bomb bay doors were open to vacuum, but they would never dropdown as if in a gravity well. An aerial battle translated to space, not accounting for vacuum.
Also, re: the Dark Side vision. Can the Rey multiples be suggesting that she’s a clone? (Yeah, I’m being facetious.)
@153 – I actually had the crazy idea, that the Rey multiples might mean she’s another vergence in the Force (somebody here had posited that theory at some point after TFA) and literally does not have parents, or is her own parent, or something like that.
(That said, I still think it’s more likely it’s just saying that her parentage just doesn’t matter, and I do hope the story continues to honor that.)
Regarding the vision, the POV Rey seemed to be not quite at the front of the line. Her actions would begin behind her, she would then do the thing, and they would repeat into the distance. This might suggest that the DS is telling her that she doesn’t actually control her own actions. If she was elevated by the Force to serve as a counterbalance to BS (great initials for Ben Solo, now that I think about it) then she might not have control over her own actions. So many of the things that she has done so far have been as if inspired. The DS could be trying to convince her that she is but a puppet of the LS, with the intent of undermining her faith in the Force.
It’s a bit of a stretch, and it doesn’t work if the Reys were a loop rather than an infinite line, but if DS visions tell you something sinister (Luke is on the path to becoming Vader, for instance), then what Rey saw should be sinister too.
@152 — Conveniently, I’m almost done playing the Battlefront II campaign.
@152 – Porphyrogenitus: The crawl literally tells you they’re conquering the galaxy, and Rose says they plundered and destroyed her colony. That’s enough, we’ve been told on screen in big bold yellow letters, and out loud by one of the main characters.
@157, 152:
For reference:
In actuality, The Battle of Jakku is only 2/3rds of the Original Empire’s fleet. So, the first order starts out with 1/3 of the Empire’s fleet.
Also, in the movie we are told by Rose that these people are selling weapons and ships to the First Order. So we know they are building up more. Not sure what the confusion is.
My problems with “The Last Jedi”
1) There is no gravity in space, you cannot just open bomb doors and let the bombs “drop” onto a dreadnought.
2) Isn’t Luke the person who insisted over and over that “there is good” in Darth Vader? And yet we are supposed to believe that the same person who insisted that the smallest spark of good in his father means he can be saved, then turns around and attempts to kill his nephew because he sees a hint of the dark side in him?
3) Snoke – No explanation, no backstory. He looks old, but somehow a Sith Lord just appeared out of no where and took over the remains of the Empire? Where was Snoke during the original series?
4) Kylo goes through the trouble of killing Snoke and his dozen bodyguards just to tell Rey that he just decided to use her as a distraction so he could kill a master that he still had a lot to learn from? The “connection” to Rey was Snoke’s doing, yet the Sith Lord that can fortell the future can’t see Kylo stabbing him in the back? Yes, to have Kylo turn would have made Episode 9 hard without a villian, but Snoke was a better villain than Kylo Ren. And we still never learned anything about how Snoke appeared out of the ether.
5) After seeing Luke insist for the entirety of Return of the Jedi that Anikin still had good in him, suddenly the newly returned Luke in The Last Jedi tells his sister that her son is totally lost to the dark side? Hmmm…
@160 – Gary: It’s Star Wars, we’ve seen ships with their bridge destroyed drop down towards a Death Star, in fact, we just saw other bombers being damaged and dropping down as if they were airplanes. It’s Star Wars, normal physics don’t apply. And in any case, perhaps the massive dreadnought below the bombs attracts the bombs… or they have some sort of magnetic guidance system.
2) Yes, but he’s also the same person who rushed off to save his friends due to a vision he had on Dagobah? Who’s to say he didn’t see a vision of Kylo killing Han? Or almost killing Leia like he almost did in this film? Or actually killing her, since the Force shows you possible futures too.
Luke saw goodness in Vader, and darkness in Ben Solo. He’s either infallible, or he’s fallible. If he’s infallible, he didn’t make a mistake in either case. If he’s fallible, he could have made a mistake in either case.
3) Same as Palpatine in the OT. We didn’t even get his name. How did he rise to power? How did he kill all the Jedi?
4) The Force doesn’t give you every detail. Snoke’s hubris was his undoing.
5) See #2.
Also, by Porphyrogenitus, from another thread:
Had Poe not carried out the attack on the Dreadnought, it would’ve followed them through hyperspace and the movie would’ve been over approximately 30 seconds later.
Admiral Tumblrina may have given him crap for trying to mansplain his plan, but it was the right plan. Poe’s plans throughout the movie were consistently the right plan screwed up by someone else either refusing or being too incompetent to do their job.
I saw the movie a second time today. I felt calmer this viewing. The contrived plot choices meant to prioritize emotion over everything else didn’t irritate me. The odd aliens and bombastic weaponry still made me feel like I wasn’t really watching Star Wars. I suppose I will always wish that Luke had showed up to free Rey from Snoke’s clutches, giving the Resistence cruiser the distraction it needed to make an untracked jump to light speed. Then cut the casino. Let Poe learn his lesson the first mistake. Cut out Holdo since she’s another throwaway character, just like Phasma and Snoke ended up being. Luke could die eliminating Snoke and tell Rey to run as a disembodied voice because Ben strikes him down soon right afterwards. Sigh, it’s like I’m watching the Clone Wars and reediting that film in my head all over again. Here’s hoping whatever comes next makes some kind of sense.
I can only hope that Disney hires Gareth Edwards to help the writers out for the third film. Someone who understands and enjoys Star Wars. Who knows how to create emotional connections with characters rather than simple, emotional characters.
All that being said, I paid more attention to the movie score this time around. Very lovely.
An excellent list of the most impactful elements. But no mention of the dedication to Our Princess just before the credits? That hit me harder than anything in the story, perhaps due to its real-world finality.
Although poignant, I didn’t find Luke’s death to particularly painful because it doesn’t seem at all final. Obi-wan gave himself to the Force in exactly the same manner midway through ANH yet remained a major character for the rest of that film plus the two that followed. And now we have confirmation that such Jedi can still have physical influence. I expect that Luke will have an active role to play in the events of Episode IX.
After a night to sleep on it, I’ve noted a couple more aspects (although I guess they don’t really qualify as ‘moments’) that seem particularly impactful:
* The deconstruction of The Plan trope is just brutal. With two exceptions, not a single character on either side develops and executes a plan that ends up working as intended. Those exceptions? Luke and Holdo—both of whom only saw their plans fulfilled because they paid with their lives.
* The new-generation characters will now finally be forced to resolve the story mostly on their own, following the on-screen deaths of Han and Luke combined with Leia’s forthcoming Actor Existence Failure. A corollary is that, with Snoke’s death, we will at long last have a film in which the plot and conflict will be primarily driven by the on-screen characters without manipulations from a separate, Force-sensitive Big Bad.
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I find the complaints about the emphasis on emotion over plot coherence to be simultaneously befuddling and exasperating. For one thing, the structure of a feature-length film simply lends itself better to that type of emphasis. But the complaint is especially ironic when applied to Star Wars since it slams the exact aspect of filmmaking that worked so well in 1977! The original film is a pastiche of B-movie western serials, mid-century sci-fi epics, war films, and samurai stories; it works not so much because it is a finely crafted original story but rather because it mixes together a plot structure, character archetypes, and allusions through dialogue that allowed the audience to do most of the narrative work—freeing the filmmakers to focus on visual design, pacing, and (most importantly) developing heroes and villains with whom the audience could make emotional connections. If JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson have made choices that maximize the in-the-moment impact of what happens to the characters on screen at the cost of some broken Fridge Logic, then they are merely following in George Lucas’s footsteps; so, it seems a bit churlish to criticize them for it while holding up ANH as some sort of gold standard.
Star Wars is a series of popcorn movies. Give the filmmakers credit for their cleverness in manipulating your emotions for a couple hours, and enjoy the ride!
Did you really like this movie ? This was awful. I never once felt sad, never felt my heart strings tugged. I just wish it would have ended 150 minutes earlier. so many terrible things about this movie to name here. throw away older characters, totally unnecessary new characters and a stupid casino planet. I cried when I left the movie, knowing I had wasted 2 + hours and cash on this heap of dung.
Another moment for me: the last moment we see of the A-wing flight leader when Kylo torpedoes the hangar.
For some reason, folks in this galaxy seem to prefer dictatorships who spend untold sums on giant metal ships – maybe this is kind of a New Dealer Kensyian stimulus that has appeal to the masses in the various systems. But at least the rebels can keep ramming them at hyperspeed and keep the economic engines humming.
Amilyn Holdo was a terrible commander. She basically kept everyone in the dark on her plan, or that there was even a plan beyond “faith” that things would work out until interested parties had a mutiny. Think about that. She was the commander for a grand total of 6 hours before her crew had a mutiny. And it’s not like Poe was some rogue operator, she lost the loyalty of basically everyone on the bridge within that short amount of time. Nice job Holdo. At least she was somewhat redeemed by sacrificing herself, but her role was pretty much being a strong-headed fool while most of the rebels were killed in defenseless escape pods.
Once more, Holdo told her plan to the people who needed to know it. And she didn’t lose the loyalty of everyone on the bridge; the only one in the bridge I recall seeing as part of Poe’s mutiny was Lt. Connix.
Star Wars: A New Hope was released when I was in middle school and pulled me in. It wasn’t perfect and didn’t have to be.
Luke’s death, as noble as it was, tore me up. My 12 year old looked at me as if I had lost my mind as tears rolled down my face in the cinema. Good bye, Master Skywalker. May the Force be with you…Always.
Emmet Asher-Perrin, I absolutely love your writing! You make me smile, you make me weep, and most importantly, you introduce me to new ideas and perspectives in a delightful and wonderfully thought-provoking way. Thanks!
I enjoy reading the comments, too. It’s so nice to read the articulate opinions of people who are so knowledgeable (and adorably opinionated!) about SW.
Thanks to all, for a good read. :)
Maybe it was that I saw it in a 3D theater, or that my kids had to go to the bathroom twice, but I kept getting pulled out of the story by the production. These moments you’ve highlighted have way more emotional power over me in retrospect than they did during the film. Thank you.
Oh.. for a quick minute I thought this was a serious list?
This was literally one of the worst movies I’ve seen in the last 5 years? It wanted so badly to be “meta” and complicated but if failed so hard.
I realised after reading this list that you are being sarcastic..lol.. my bad!
The Last Jedi should have been renamed Super Bad. The movie was atrociously AWFUL and ruined Star Wars. The brand is forever tarnished by Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson and the feminist “story” group that bought and hijacked this franchise from George Lucas.
Disney equals Poor Man’s Star Wars…and it is not really Star Wars anymore. Disney is selling garbage with the Star Wars name. The only reason for the box office receipts is the legacy Star Wars brand and fans wanting to see Luke, Leia and original aspects of the original Star Wars movies. The new characters are bland, unlivable and poorly written. Take your arrogant purple-haired, ball-gown wearing feminist military “leader” and give me a real leader like Mon Mothma from Return of the Jedi.
It’s like they figured ESB was such a success because it was a bit of a downer and decided to dial the angst up to eleven. And have you noticed how Poe, Finn and Ren are all getting more fan attention than Rey, our supposed hero and protagonist?
@175. Former Star Wars Fan: name and comment synergy checks out.
I’ve never been religious about the SW franchise, so Last Jedi was not a disappointment. There’s lots to question and debate, but one thing was missing for me. Despite Luke’s acknowledgment of the mistakes (sometimes huge ones) made by the Jedi Order, I though they would finally establish Gray Jedis, ones capable of more subtle moral thought. Not everything is good/evil, light/dark, unless it’s a story aimed at young children. Even then, you could have a fractured fairytale.
Last Jedi just reestablishes the status quo. Good and evil back to their respective corners and lets wait for next round.
@175, I personally have no problem simply dismissing the Disney trilogy from my personal continuity. I practiced on the EU.
@177, that exactly the problem I have with the Disney movies, they discard everything established before.
@179, how’d Ian Malcom criticize John Hammond? “You stood on the shoulders of geniuses and you took the next step, etc.” Same situation, and really though? A random passage from Path of the Jedi? Is that canon, or just a justification for what is, at best, a decent graphic novel script?)
Could I have done better, probably not, but here’s a few off the top a the head rewrites: Luke still doesn’t want to train Rey and still throws the LASERSWORD(what, did the journals AND boy Anakin call them that?) have Clone Wars Anakin Force Ghost confront Luke on shutting himself off( sorry Hayden) Luke surpised he even sees him, Anakin admonishes Luke for thinking HE controls the Force and convinces him to train Rey in the FORCE, Have Snoke trace Luke using the Force mind link, Kylo and the Knights go fight Luke and Rey(awesomely!) Luke can kill the Knights Rian, Kylo kidnaps Rey, Chewie gets Luke outta here. They go to Crait cuz the Resistance left before the FO got there, Finn and Poe go get Rey after Rey and Kylo still team and kill everyone?, FO tracks Finn, Rey, Poe to Crait, Luke and Leia talk about Ben and Leia says he brought their father back, dice? sure, Luke faces FO, Hux orders the guns, Ren throws a fit, he must face him alone, aweseome actual lightsaber duel, Resistence escapes, Luke still goes, but as the true hero he was and still is. So….I get it though, and regardless what I think, it is Episode VIII(hey, EP2 is EP2 too), it’s visually neat(it is 2018, so it should be)but the script…bantha fodder, may the Force be with IX.
First part…@178…apologies
– It was also emotionally shattering and I am not okay. And that’s probably all I’ll be able to say about it for some time.
I too bawled like a baby, that was such a classy, dignified, amazing way to say goodbye to a character that been a part of my life since forever
Late to the party as I usually am, but can we pause a moment to go back to several comments I’ve seen disparaging Poe’s assault on the Dreadnought, and to the purple giraffe’s anger in the movie with him.
From both a tactical and a strategic viewpoint, what Poe accomplished was incredible. At the loss of several hundred fighter craft, which while not a great thing is not intolerable when considering how many would be stationed aboard a ship or the size of fleets, they destroyed a massive starship that must have been crewed by tens of thousands of trained soldiers and easily would have cost hundreds of thousands or billions of credits in raw resources and technology to construct. Did the directors not even bother thinking about legitimate military strategy when considering the dialogue and scenes in this movie? What Poe accomplished would have earned him enormous praise in reality.
I finally saw the movie last night. It’s been a rough winter. And somehow avoided spoilers all this time! :D
Going on what Kylo Ren was saying to Rey just after killing Snoke and their battle with the guards, it seems to me he isn’t just going to take over as the new evil leader of the First Order. He’s using them right now to wipe out the Resistance, but he’s declared EVERYTHING must be wiped out, including the Sith, the Jedi and the First Order. He wants to destroy all the old systems and make the galaxy start over completely from scratch with government and religion. In the interim between this movie and the next I can imagine him going from world to world not only subjugating them but smashing every church and shrine and citadel and castle, every university and museum and monument everywhere he goes, killing the past to make way for the future.
And when will the First Order realize they too are on his list of institutions that must be wiped out? When Kylo Ren literally ticks off the entire galaxy, is he going to have some way to carry out his plan alone?
On a different topic that I’ve wondered about in the past hours: if Jedi can become ghosts, what about Sith? Is it just given that the evil guys have no afterlife, or has this been dealt with at all?
This movie crushed me 12 times because that’s what I paid in dollars to see this piece of crap. The Force Awakens was a remake, but Rogue One was promising, but this one deserves the boos it got on opening night. No doubt why an unprecedented 70% of the crowd stayed away the following weekend.