Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi

[MediumHigh]

Disney had a chance to print money with a fanbase frothing at the bit for any thing star wars related and took the cheapest route possible. Which wouldn't be a problem, sometimes less is more....except when called out on the supposed meat of this story, they double down.

They have a blanket defense for producing crap;

*half of because of the undiscerning nature of the star wars fanbase
*half because when faced with hard criticism they can hide behind "the force is female" skirt and watch knuckle draggers ram their dicks at that ball idiocy
*half because at the end of the day their motivation to put any quality beyond visual effects into these movies is zero and if they can hide behind novelty and competent direction and acting talent they'll be critical darlings for the foreseeable future. 

That's the problem with JJ Abrams Star Wars, the problem with Rian Johnson Star Wars and will be a problem with every star wars until enough of people stop feeding into their day 0 opening box office and their toys, books, and video games. Which won't happen so welcome to the shlock. And the major source of exasperation fans are having that want to feed into this Disney monstrosity is that their hoping that the "3rd" movie in a fucking trilogy will be course correction. Will be that moment when Disney apologizes and goes "no no for real guys this is the star wars you always wanted." This is like watching someones gf go "my i see something in my abusive boyfriend, i can change him" after two black eyes. 

[Threash]

The idea that people are watching this movies because they actually like and enjoy them is really beyond your grasp isn't it? could they be better? sure, anything could be. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with them.

[TheWalrus]

If you walked away hating The Last Jedi, please don't go see the next one. Vote with your wallet. It will save everyone some pain and suffering.

[Ironwood]

Not as easy as that Chief.  Some of us have kids.

Gotta feed the beast.

[Goumindong]

TLJ was amazing and y’all are crazy.

[TheWalrus]

^

[jgsugden]

Fair criticisms of the film:

* It wasn't traditional Star Wars.
* It ignored or abandoned things set up in TFA in favor of a new direction.
* It presented sides to the Star Wars universe previously unseen and that do not align with known elements.
* One half of the movie was a remake of 'The Chase'  set in space and that film sucked.

However, it was an enjoyable film on its own.

Regardless, I think I'd have been much happier with the trilogy had JJ made all three films.  TFA was far from perfect, but I'd rather have seen three films with similar flaws than a series made up of drastically waffling flaws.

[eldaec]

I'm not sure Kathleen Kennedy can take a much firmer hand without choking the shit out of someone. See the whole replacing the directors thing with the Solo movie.

She's doing decent at maintaining a thematic consistency but she's not providing a vision for the current trilogy. At all. And that's why TLJ went the way it did is she gave Rian Johnson utterly free reign.

I liked the movie just fine but there being absolutely no plan for the trilogy and telling her she could do whatever she wanted IS in fact a horrible way to run things.

The thing that is perplexing about this is that they didn't need to make anything into a trilogy.

[Ginaz]

TLJ was amazing and y’all are crazy.

Half the movie was a dumb as fuck slow speed chase that seemingly could have been resolved by setting one of the ships on auto pilot and crashing it into the chasing ship.

[MediumHigh]

The idea that people are watching this movies because they actually like and enjoy them is really beyond your grasp isn't it? could they be better? sure, anything could be. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with them.

People are defiantly enjoying these movies. It's hard for me to grasp why star wars fans like these movies. And I'm not going to trash anyone personally taste, but there is a "why did you do that cry" coming from half the fanbase which is getting a "shut up and like it you god damn weeb" from the segment that are adoring this shlock. Even between the people who don't this these movies, there is those who genuinely liked TFA and are pissed off at Rian for shitting the bed or those who hated TFA and possible never going to like the main trilogy for being not star wars but is semi willing to give the in between movies a pass if their half decent.

[Threash]

There are certainly people pissed off at the movie, there was literally zero chance there wouldn't be. But calling it half the fan base is massively over estimating them. They are like the people who complain about comic book changes in the MCU movies, a loud annoying faction that can and should be easily ignored while they continue to rack up billions making people happy.

[MediumHigh]

Excerpt these are the fans that actually want to buy your merch, and your dvds, and see your movie 3-5 times in theater. On that metric the new star wars suffers. The comic book weebs are already a marginal market and are not the driving force of the marvel movies. The stars wars geeks... not so much, not if the only thing you want to sell are just movies.

[HaemishM]

There are certainly people pissed off at the movie, there was literally zero chance there wouldn't be. But calling it half the fan base is massively over estimating them. They are like the people who complain about comic book changes in the MCU movies, a loud annoying faction that can and should be easily ignored while they continue to rack up billions making people happy.

Based on what I've seen, I'd be more inclined to believe the takes on this movie are about 1/3 positive, 1/3 absolute hatred and that 1/3 that doesn't really have a firm opinion about anything. Rotten Tomatoes audience score is 48% liking the movie, with the average rating being about 3/5.

It ain't just the diehard Star Wars nerds that are hating on this thing.

[Malakili]

Here's my Hot Take as a pretty big star wars fan: The Last Jedi was a better movie than The Force Awakens.

[HaemishM]

My hot take as a Star Wars fan who drifted away from the franchise because of the prequels (and was never what you'd consider a die hard Star Wars fan), TFA was a better Star Wars movie than TLJ, a more coherent story than TLJ, though TLJ had better cinematography on the whole.

[Lakov_Sanite]

TFA was incredibly well made but unambitious and derivative. 

TLJ had some great ideas that were executed poorly.

[BobtheSomething]

Here's my Hot Take as a pretty big star wars fan: The Last Jedi was a better movie than The Force Awakens.

That doesn't really say much.  I mean, I agree with you, but most likely from the wrong end, the dental surgery is better than eye surgery end.

[Surlyboi]

My hot take as a fanboy who still builds his own lightsabers but was disappointed in the prequels and saw some missed opportunities in TFA:

TLJ was spectacular.

[Ruvaldt]

TLJ was amazing.

I'm looking forward to Rian Johnson's trilogy, whatever it is.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, I am really not inclined to make apologies for it. Of course there's a few elements I'd change, but that's true even of ESB and ANH. I thought it was a great film and a great Star Wars film. I'm still puzzling over what it means that people have such sharply divided feelings about it. I think in a way that's good? A truly mediocre film--like The Force Awakens--would inspire largely mediocre feelings, as it did.

[Velorath]

I think the big difference is that the MCU has Kevin Feige. He tightly controls what happens and there have been some movies that were misfires but it was all coherent and building towards a grand story. Star Wars doesn't have that. I think if JJ had stayed on we'd be in a much different place right now because he wrote an outline for the entire trilogy but Rian Johnson reportedly chucked almost everything he had for the sequel and went his own way. If this was Marvel Kevin Feige would've said "No, you can change some stuff but the general story thread needs to go HERE. You don't kill of Thanos halfway through the movie damn it. Rewrite that shit." Say what will you will about JJ but if he'd done this movie at least it'd be more coherent.

Sure, but I also think maybe the most important thing Feige has going for him is that he has a good eye for very talented directors who weren't necessarily huge commercial successes prior to coming on board. I mean, giving the guys behind You, Me and Dupree the keys to the Captain America (and now the Avengers) franchise? Giving cult favorites like Waititi and Gunn a chance at massively budgeted movies? Even Whedon wasn't a sure thing since his biggest success had been having one of the more popular shows on one of the least popular networks.

Once things were restructured to give Feige more control, I think he's been pretty trusting with the directors in allowing them to make the movies they want. It seems like Waititi in particular was able to make Ragnarok a much different movie than it was originally intended so I don't know that a heavy hand is particularly necessary.

Another big difference might be that with Marvel you have 50-70+ years of history with some of the Marvel characters that can be mined to come up with some sort of emotional core that makes them work. If you try to mine SW's source material (the original trilogy) for what makes them work, you've got cool laser swords, the fact that Lucas was really good at practical effects even on a smallish budget, and Harrison Ford in his prime. Yes, I'm being reductive, but I do think as long as they keep trying to make sequels/spin-offs of the original movies they're hamstringing themselves. Guardians of the Galaxy is a better modern Star Wars movie than any of the recent Star Wars movies.

[TheWalrus]

Yeah, I am really not inclined to make apologies for it. Of course there's a few elements I'd change, but that's true even of ESB and ANH. I thought it was a great film and a great Star Wars film. I'm still puzzling over what it means that people have such sharply divided feelings about it. I think in a way that's good? A truly mediocre film--like The Force Awakens--would inspire largely mediocre feelings, as it did.

If TLJ had been Lukewarm (Badum) stuff like TFA, there would have been mild bitching but a lot of nodding as the same old same old was done. It amuses me a tad that with IPs like this, the folk that want it to continue to do the same shit over and over but cry about how nobody tries anything new will be the same ones that throw holy hell over a new direction.

[eldaec]

Remember Ragnarok was Thor 3.

Feige is selective about when directors can go off reservation. It seems like the MCU is still enforcing the formula with an iron fist with intro movies. Dr Strange, Ant Man, even GotG were well executed but ultimately formulaic.

R1 and tLJ were both more of a departure from any SW formula than most MCU films are from their template.

[eldaec]

My only real complaints about tLJ remains the slowmo chase and the opening act. Seems like BSG shows you how to do that chase properly, and the opening sequence wasn't as funny as they clearly believed.

Casino planet side quest I understand the complaints but didn't bother me much.

[Velorath]

Remember Ragnarok was Thor 3.

Feige is selective about when directors can go off reservation. It seems like the MCU is still enforcing the formula with an iron fist with intro movies. Dr Strange, Ant Man, even GotG were well executed but ultimately formulaic.

R1 and tLJ were both more of a departure from any SW formula than most MCU films are from their template.

Feige didn't get full control of Marvel Studios until 2015. Maybe it's simplistic to give him credit for everything good and to blame Perlmutter for most of the bad, like Age of Ultron being a bit of a mess, but from the bits and pieces that people have said that sounds like it's largely been the case. I'd disagree with GotG being formulaic except in their need to have the hero vs. villain battles at the ends of the movies but regardless there's nothing in those movies that feels like it was shoehorned in against Gunn's wishes.

Considering that even the SW spin-off movies are just fleshing out characters and storylines from the movies that came out 35-40 years ago, I'd say they aren't really that much of a departure from the SW template aside from the fact that they feel like movies from the modern era. I guess maybe Rogue One was a departure in that unlike other Star Wars movies it didn't even have likable characters and performances to fall back on.

I'm less concerned about a SW vs. MCU comparison though and more just a general feeling of "Disney is capable of doing better". Yeah, they put out some shit like the last several Pirates of the Caribbean movies, A Wrinkle in Time, and have been churning out uninspired live action adaptations of their animated stuff, but they're also capable of stuff like Coco, Moana, Inside Out, and Zootopia which are all-ages movies (which SW movies are generally claimed to be) and which actually have a soul to them. Hell, I'd probably be happier at this point of Disney let Pixar take a crack at an animated SW movie. I know Pixar isn't as consistent as they used to be but they can still knock it out of the park every now and again.

SW just feels like it's coasting off peoples' attachment to the franchise. I genuinely believe that if you took the story structure of TLJ and used it to make a generic, non-SW movie nobody would be defending the mess of narrative and pacing. There's no story here, it's just each of the main characters learning one valuable lesson which is fine if you're writing a 22 minute episode of a TV show but less so for a 2 1/2 hour movie where you have to wait 2 years for the follow-up.

[eldaec]

I think Disney are not so much coasting on SW as they are overawed by the IP.

For tFA they were obviously petrified of repeating the prequel errors and R1 would benefit from cutting about half the obvious OT references to make room for more of the story at hand.

[HaemishM]

I look at it like this. Guardians of the Galaxy 1 was a HUGE risk, not only because the characters not only weren't household names or icons and they are weird as fuck, but mostly because James Gunn as a director is just an oddball. Even taking the Marvel formula, he managed to make both GOTG movies feel like a fresh take on the whole MCU. That's what TLJ should have been - giving an odd director (I mean, have you seen Brick?) the reins of a huge franchise and saying "do something different with it." And yes, I do consider the entire MCU one franchise because of how much it builds off the other films in the same way that Star Wars is now trying to be a huge franchise that branches out from the existing main story.

Gunn took the MCU and ran with it but stayed within parameters that never let you think that it didn't fit within the wider context.

As a "Star Wars" movie, TLJ didn't do that. It's risks and oddities didn't mesh with what had gone before. The casino scene is just the most jarring aspect of it, though the Poe Dameron phone call to the bridge of the Star Destroyer is another glaring example. It doesn't just go beyond subverting expectations - you still have to make those story beats work, and they didn't. As Velorath said, if this wasn't a Star Wars franchise movie, it would have been looked at like Valerian - an odd little movie that didn't gel together well.

[grebo]

I think that from ANH Disney confirmed their hypothesis that there was no point in targeting Star Wars movies at adults.  They aimed TLJ squarely at kids, which only required cool action sequences and kid-friendly characters.  There was no requirement or expectation of making what an adult would call a good movie.  They tossed random Star Wars tropes in there as a joke, porkins exploding, etc, because that's what Star Wars is to them, a joke.  They paid a lot for the franchise, they just want to make money off it, they can do that with no risk by shoveling out garbage that kids will like.

There will never be another good Star Wars movie, except maybe by total accident.  If you loved TLJ, you probably also love Peppa Pig.

[Threash]

Bunch of salty losers doom and glooming a franchise that keeps knocking it out of the park year after year up in here.

[TheWalrus]

I think that from ANH Disney confirmed their hypothesis that there was no point in targeting Star Wars movies at adults.  They aimed TLJ squarely at kids, which only required cool action sequences and kid-friendly characters.  There was no requirement or expectation of making what an adult would call a good movie.  They tossed random Star Wars tropes in there as a joke, porkins exploding, etc, because that's what Star Wars is to them, a joke.  They paid a lot for the franchise, they just want to make money off it, they can do that with no risk by shoveling out garbage that kids will like.

There will never be another good Star Wars movie, except maybe by total accident.  If you loved TLJ, you probably also love Peppa Pig.

You should fuck off.

[Threash]

Unless they start catering to me this guys are totally fucked! meanwhile:

[Velorath]

It's like I'm seeing the force ghost of WUA.

[grebo]

Yay they made lots of money.  They also make lots of money with a cartoon mouse.

[Goumindong]

Honest Question. Did you watch TLJ?

Cause I am failing to see how any of it, besides the horses, was made for kids.

[Threash]

Are we saying Toy Story 3 was bad now? cause i will fight you.