It seems to me that the people who loved it and the people who hated it, do for the same reasons. The fact that it threw so many of our expectations right out the window. Some of us are okay with that. Some of us are apparently very much Not Okay.
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On a different note: why is everyone talking about them Porgs, but no-one one about Chewie? The only reason he was in the film seems to be to roast one of a at least semi-conscious species and then make up for it by at allowing their relatives to be transported to a war zone.
Also, since we are indeed already talking about the Porgs, again: if this island is, as indicated, a place basically offering direct access to both sides of the force, nearly physically, would have an influence on the caretakers and the wildlife? Are we going to see force-Porgs?
Just kidding. Please don’t.
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C-3PO and R2D2 didn’t have much screen time either, which is great! I’m tired of these stories shoehorning old characters for no good reason. Sure, Wookies have long life spans, but is this the only wookie in the whole galaxy?
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Side question: Does anyone know why social justice and the people who advocate it are bad, in the words of the people using that acronym?
They never stick around here long enough for me to ask.
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Poe didn’t even just screw up, he basically killed 98% of the resistance because he kept refusing to listen to the women in charge. I mean, you wanna know why Holdo didn’t tell you her plan, Poe? Because the instant you thought you knew what it was, you leaked it to the criminal-for-hire on an enemy ship! That is why people don’t tell you things, Poe!
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The thing is, the people I know are all “warriors” for social justice, or at least extremely left-wing people. Their complaint is that they don’t want their nostalgic Star Wars to be stained by current politics in the real world.
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I was blown away by this movie, really. I find it contending with Empire for the number one spot on my list, and I really want to go see it again. Some of the comic relief doesn’t quite land, and it perhaps swings a bit too wildly in tone from “sort of goofy” to “mass murder” from time to time, but on the whole I think everything worked.
Thoughts in no particular order:
I know some people have griped about the map to Luke being a plot hole if he didn’t actually want to be found, but I don’t think it is. If Luke had wanted to be found in case of an emergency, I don’t think there would have needed to be a scramble to find a map in the first place - someone like Leia would already have had it. The fact that Poe is off in the ass end of nowhere in TFA talking to a haggard old maybe-Jedi to get the mapguffin suggests it was the product of something else. Considering that the First Order found R2’s portion of the map in the Imperial archives, I think Luke was working from Sith intel to find the original Jedi temple. When he vanished, that was the best idea anyone had for where he went.
Whoever made the decision to cut the entire soundtrack at the moment of Admiral Holdo’s hyperspace jump needs about ten super-high-fives. I knew what she was going to do as soon as she started to steer the cruiser, and on an intellectual level I knew exactly what that was going to do to Snoke’s ship, but that moment was still so powerful I clapped my hand to my mouth and couldn’t move for what felt like five minutes. I’ve never been stunned stock still like that in a movie before. Ever.
They’re really leaning into the World War 2 But In Space thing with their arcing cannon fire and vertical-drop bomb bays. And honestly, I don’t even mind.
https://twitter.com/kyleauxren/status/942516563730722817
I watched Rogue One right after getting home from TLJ, and while I did perk up at Jyn saying that, it didn’t fully click until I saw it today on Twitter. The Empire was researching active hyperspace tracking before A New Hope.
I really enjoyed Yoda’s appearance. He works a lot better as a possibly crazy old coot than as the head of the Jedi council, and the 30+ years between RotJ and TLJ just disappeared when he and Luke were talking. It was delightful.
If you listen to Snoke’s dialog during his conversation with Rey, he just straight-up states the fact that he’s manipulating these insecure, angry kids into serving him by directing their anger into a weapon that he can wield. Like, at that point it wouldn’t have been any more blunt if he’d put on a red baseball cap, looked directly into the camera and said “GET IT?”. This trilogy is not even remotely interested in making the bad guys cool in any way, and I am 1000% okay with the asshats who idolize the Empire having a problem with that. (Also seeing Hux get body-slammed by Snoke at the start of the film was intensely satisfying, because Hux is a sniveling little weasel on an unending power trip.)
When they blew up the bridge of the cruiser, I thought “oh, well, I guess that’s how they’re gonna deal with it, then.” I wasn’t at all mad when she hauled herself back aboard. Even if it was surprising (and also extremely satisfying) to see her actually break out her Force powers, that sort of casual defiance of being in a dire situation is pretty in keeping with her character. This is the woman who casually leapt into a garbage chute to evade capture, strangled a Hutt with his own chain, and shot a storm trooper right after being hit with a blaster bolt. She does not take shit lying down. Besides, it wasn’t anywhere near as goofy as Yoda and Palpatine leapfrogging around the Galactic Senate chamber throwing hovercraft at one another.
I don’t agree that it would have been better for her to disappear with Luke. She’s clearly a much more tenacious person. She’ll take the First Order apart bolt by bolt on her own if she has to. The fact that they didn’t kill her in the end suggests to me that Disney is planning on re-casting the part, and that the plans for Episode IX to be Leia-centric still have a green light. I don’t think Carrie Fisher would have wanted the show to stop on her account, and I’m sure they can find someone who will treat the role with the appropriate amount of respect. Everyone knows they’d have to re-cast the part, and sweeping her under the rug is no way to see her character close out the series. I honestly just hope Disney sticks to its promise not to Tarkin her. It worked well enough for Rogue One, but I think the loss is just still too immediate for them to be able to get away with it for General Organa.
Speaking of deaths, though, by the time Finn was flying into the battering cannon, I’d figured someone in the main cast wasn’t going to make it out, and was entirely prepared for Finn to do the cliche heroic “finally decided not to run by killing himself instead” thing, so I was (pleasantly) surprised when Rose knocked him away at the last minute. They really do need to stop leaving someone in critical condition at the end of the movie, but I’m just glad she didn’t actually die in an equally cliche manner after delivering her moral-of-the-story line.
As last stands go, Luke’s was pretty great though.
He was along for the trip to find Luke as co-pilot, and as was often the case in the original trilogy, he wasn’t given much to do outside of that. With as many arcs going on as there were, I don’t think a focus on Chewie would have done anything to aid the plot.
As cute semi-conscious animals go, I liked the crystal foxes better.
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It feels a lot like Return of the Jedi to me.
And I’d like to point out that Snoke’s fate retells the story of the sith once again.
Just as Plageius was murdered and usurped by Palpatine, and just as Palpatine was betrayed by Vader, the end of the sith master is always at the hands of his own apprentice. Their hubris and misplaced trust being their downfall.
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I think that was possibly THE single best moment in the whole thing. The whole time they’re shooting transports, I’m like “turn your damn cruiser around and ram them, Holdo!” She was staying behind as a distraction/sacrifice anyway. Everyone knew she wasn’t going to come back. And when the FO officer said she was preparing to jump to hyperspace I was like “oh … oh my GOD”
I’m madly in love with Holdo’s look, and I want to cosplay it desperately. Except I really really hate the feeling of anything touching my throat. Even a crewneck shirt is too uncomfortable for me sometimes. So I don’t see how I could wear that more than 30 seconds.
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I loved Leia saying “Wipe that nervous look off your face Threepio.” Because. That’s like … his only face.
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She was quite beautiful!
This trilogy is going to have a pile of unrequited love stories in the next installment. In TFA I joked about a 4 way homo/hetero unrequited love square, but there’s new players in here it seems like. Either possible or explicit crushes, we’re looking at:
Poe > Finn
Finn > Rey
Rose > Finn
Kylo > Rey
Would I watch a Star Wars soap opera, if that’s what we got with episode IX? You’re damn right I’d watch a Star Wars soap opera.
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I was so disappointed to see nothing more happen between Poe and Finn. I swear I don’t go in for shipping, but just this once, what with that clip from TFA, I held a candle for them.
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Some of the humor was pretty badly forced. I didn’t like the porgs, the green milk bovines weren’t particularly funny (although I will say Hamill played the hell out of that scene to try and save it), the made-of-boobs alien in the casino “Oh look she’s screaming and terrified, that means comedy right?”.
There were some good high points though. Poe pulling the first order’s leg with the “yes I’ll hold” thing was pretty funny I thought.
Also, when Rey and Kylo are psychic chatting, and Rey’s like “couldn’t you at least put on a towel or something?” got a chuckle out of me.
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I hated how people in the showing for rogue one were cheering when Darth Vader came in. He’s the bad guy!
I’m not alone!
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This!
I think someone needs to start doing Leia GIFs from TLJ asap.
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I get the feeling that Rey knows that Finn has a crush on her and couldn’t care less. She’s got way bigger things on her plate than puppy love from a guy she’s met, like, twice.
I’d very much appreciate a little nod to the Finn/Poe shippers. Casually acknowledging that Poe’s gay, at least, would make a lot of fanboy heads explode, so I’m all for it.
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Yeah, there’s a lot of stupid ideologically motivated bullshit “critique” of the movie going around. I liked it, a lot, but I readily admit it has its flaws and I can understand why someone would not like the direction it’s taking the story and the characters. But then there’s these idiots, who make me wonder what the fuck is their major malfunction, and whether they actually paid attention to anything in the movie at all. (Of course, as said, Kylo Ren and Hux are exactly what these guys would be, if you gave them Force powers and/or a war machine to use.)
Well, to be honest, Vader’s an iconic villain, one of the greatest in the movie history, and they don’t hesitate to portray him as a deadly juggernaut there. It’s a terrific scene, in so many ways. And I give the movie a pass on that, since it also shows us the petty spiteful backstabbing power struggle with Tarkin and Krennic, and the scenes on Mustafar remind us that while Vader is an awesome villain, being Vader sucks horribly.
Dunno, exactly, but as I recall, “social justice warrior” was originally a term on Tumblr I think, used to describe people nominally on the same side as you, but who were more interested in ideological purity and Sticking It To The Man than achieving practical goals or converting anyone to your side, or strident idiots who lash out at you for not agreeing hard enough. (And, sadly, a small but extremely toxic group of people who used the various social justice ideals as an excuse to bully and attack others with impunity.)
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Growing up, I thought her line was “somebody has to save us kids”, which made sense to me because she and Luke are like 18, tops. I still think it’s maybe a little more badass that way, hehe.
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My boyfriend eats, sleeps, and drinks Star Wars and hates this movie with a fury I’ve never seen before. His complaints:
• It set up Snoke as a major, interesting villain… and then killed him.
• It teased Rey’s mysterious parentage… and then said she was nobody.
• It teased the Knights of Ren… and never mentioned them again.
etc. He feels that Rian Johnson took what Lucas and Abrams set up (a 9-movie saga about the Skywalker clan) and destroyed it.
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