Sulphur on 1/9/2018 at 05:07
Quote Posted by SD
I liked that we got to see who the financiers of the war were, and how decadently they lived. When we saw that they're getting rich selling weapons to both sides... well, I think some people must simply not like flesh put onto the bones of their simplistic good guys versus bad guys drama.
The idea of more context is fine, but the problem with Casino Planet in the structure of the movie is that it almost completely kills the pacing. It also includes incredibly daft slow-chase logistics where you've got the starship equivalent of turtles dogging each other while a couple people in a fighter zip out to another fucking planet, get arrested, do a jailbreak, and get back without anyone having noticed or the situation having changed in any way, shape, or form in the interim.
For the record: Rian usually knows his shit. Apart from Looper and Brick, he also directed two of the best Breaking Bad episodes ever made - Fly, and Ozymandias. TLJ shows signs of hubris, sure, but it's not a complete intellectual compromise. It's a gorgeously shot movie with a couple of misfires, but in the end it brought more textural depth to the universe that's not midichlorians or Jar Jar Binks, so it's at least an order of magnitude better than any of the prequel trilogy rubbish.
icemann on 1/9/2018 at 07:58
Whilst simultaneously killing off many peoples favorite character in the entire franchise, with a death that did not befit what he deserved. The entire direction given to him was horrible really.
Sulphur on 1/9/2018 at 08:03
Yeah, they should have kept Han around so he could continue to chew people out - I enjoyed his grizzled, acerbic edge.
Right, you meant Luke. From a narrative point of view, having him around muddies the coming of age angle they're going for with Kylo and Ren. For the conclusion, they needed to clear the board to allow those two to wrap up their arcs, so it makes sense for Luke to cash in his chips and retreat into the background. And it's not like he's not going to be around anyway: that force ghost family tree is getting pretty crowded now.
Starker on 1/9/2018 at 09:32
I agree that giving Luke the Obi Wan treatment was unnecessary. He should have died like Yoda, old and forgotten or have been killed offscreen. But no, everyone's favourite character must have his last heroic moment.
It's little more than a blatant attempt to make his character more like the Jedi in the original movies, who used tricks and subterfuge instead of direct confrontation. For example, in the first movie, Obi Wan outsmarting the stormtroopers was to make his character seem more mysterious, like a wizard or something. But we already know everything there is to know about Luke and there's no need to give him any depth beyond that. He was neither clever nor wise -- he always went in winging it and basically lucked out a lot thanks to the force.
Sulphur on 1/9/2018 at 09:52
I don't think it's depth necessarily more than completing the disillusioned hero arc they decided to go with. Luke's never been much of a character, but giving him the surly and jaded master role to Rey's weird newcomer energy was a good dynamic.
I'm trying to think of ways it could have wrapped up without Luke playing a larger part in the final third, and none of them seem very satisfying to me. The maximalist final battle thing seems wholly necessary, and old man Luke essentially telling people to go fuck themselves before helping them out anyway is a very tried and true trope, but one I have zero qualms with when deploying it in this scenario; I thought most people had issues with the force hologram twist, which I again had zero qualms with because it's a pretty kickass way to tie things up in a bow, canon worshippers be damned.
Jason Moyer on 1/9/2018 at 14:10
Quote Posted by Starker
He was neither clever nor wise
Aside from all the fights with Vader, or the ploy to retrieve Han, or basically anytime he did anything after his training. Sure, he started out basically winging it, but I thought a growth in wisdom was part of his character arc in the OT.
SD on 1/9/2018 at 15:49
Quote Posted by icemann
Whilst simultaneously killing off many peoples favorite character in the entire franchise, with a death that did not befit what he deserved. The entire direction given to him was horrible really.
Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.
Luke redeeming himself with a final act of self-sacrifice to save the resistance was the perfect end for the character, and it was a career best performance by Mark Hamill too.
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I thought most people had issues with the force hologram twist, which I again had zero qualms with because it's a pretty kickass way to tie things up in a bow, canon worshippers be damned.
Little known fact, but force projection has been Star Wars canon since at least 2011, a full year before Disney even bought Lucasfilm. Obviously the fanboys were too busy jizzing over their Slave Leia posters to notice.
icemann on 1/9/2018 at 16:52
Quote Posted by SD
Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.
Luke redeeming himself with a final act of self-sacrifice to save the resistance was the perfect end for the character, and it was a career best performance by Mark Hamill too.
And yet Mark Hamil himself argued with Rian, and was of the opinion that Luke's overall depiction in the last jedi was completely out of character. Who better to know a character, then the one who played him. But hey, what would I know :p.
SubJeff on 1/9/2018 at 19:52
Nah, SD is right. They did Luke's arc well. Probably the best thing about the film.
Starker on 2/9/2018 at 01:58
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Aside from all the fights with Vader, or the ploy to retrieve Han, or basically anytime he did anything after his training. Sure, he started out basically winging it, but I thought a growth in wisdom was part of his character arc in the OT.
Except that all the fights with Vader have Vader toying with him, basically, and the harebrained scheme to retrieve Han was a comedy of errors. What clever or wise things does Luke do in those fights? Going against an opponent way out of his league? Letting Vader goad him and take information from him? Trying to negotiate with Jabba and letting himself be tricked by him?
I mean, just watch this final fight with Vader (where he's a full-blown Jedi master and his growth in wisdom has peaked in the series) and tell me what part of it was wise or clever:
[video=youtube;U1MnMA0TzGI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1MnMA0TzGI[/video]
