STAR WARS The Last Jedi *SPOILERS!*

[sunofdarkchild]

Well, looking at the broader scale of STAR WARS, there were struggles between the Light Side and Dark Side of the Force for millennia before the advent of the Skywalkers, and probably will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Neverending battle, and all that.

Even the real life has its parallels: did the struggle for equality and justice in the U.S. stop upon the end of slavery and the U.S. Civil War? With the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s? There are victories and setbacks, but the struggle continues. Same in life as in STAR WARS.

Query: could a Force ghost wield a lightsaber?

Judging by this film, I'd say yes to the lightsaber question. Once you can hit people with a stick why not a lightsaber? Maybe the proximity to the ancient Jedi site that was so strong in the force helped, but that was never explained and if that isn't the case, then force ghost is now the most OP power in the franchise.

Really, once they decided to make sequels to Return of the Jedi they would run into this problem of making the original trilogy pointless. Any empire-like threat that took 3 movies to beat would make the original trilogy cast's accomplishments meaningless. I suppose they could have used an extra-galactic threat like the Yuuzhan Vong, but no way were they going to be that brave after the prequels.

[Starter Set]

Problem is not that much with what they did against the empire, cause yeah, eternal peace is pretty hard to reach, but more on a personal level.

Luke failed at rekindling the Jedi flame. (and abandoned everything and everyone to go experience the amazing life on an hermit, even when he was sorely needed) Han failed as a father, a husband and for what we have seen he pretty much stayed a smuggler, not growing up one bit. Leia failed at bringing peace to the republic and destroy the empire, which was her dearest ambition, and as a mother.

Chewie still kicking though lol.

[brettc1]

I understand people feeling that the OT has been diminished in importance because of the destruction of the Republic homeworld and Ben Solo turning to the dark side.

On the other hand, the Galaxy had 30 years of relative peace an in real world terms that's longer than the span between World War 1 and 2. An entire generation of sentient creatures had the chance to grow up free, and that's not nothing.

My biggest problem with the movie is that we still know nothing about Snoke.

And weren't those Imperial Guards the Knights of Ren that Kylo turned? I would have thought that with Snoke dead they would have simply kneeled before their new Master.

[sunofdarkchild]

Problem is not that much with what they did against the empire, cause yeah, eternal peace is pretty hard to reach, but more on a personal level.

Luke failed at rekindling the Jedi flame. (and abandoned everything and everyone to go experience the amazing life on an hermit, even when he was sorely needed) Han failed as a father, a husband and for what we have seen he pretty much stayed a smuggler, not growing up one bit. Leia failed at bringing peace to the republic and destroy the empire, which was her dearest ambition, and as a mother.

Chewie still kicking though lol.

And Chewie was the only one killed in the EU.

[Starter Set]

And Chewie was the only one killed in the EU.

Now he can enjoy the far better fate to share his 2 minutes of screentime with porgs lol.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Well, looking at the broader scale of STAR WARS, there were struggles between the Light Side and Dark Side of the Force for millennia before the advent of the Skywalkers, and probably will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Neverending battle, and all that.

Even the real life has its parallels: did the struggle for equality and justice in the U.S. stop upon the end of slavery and the U.S. Civil War? With the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s? There are victories and setbacks, but the struggle continues. Same in life as in STAR WARS.

Query: could a Force ghost wield a lightsaber?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Yeah but the point of the OT was the classical fantasy set up of the farm boy becoming a great warrior and him and his band of companions saving the land from evil. Right now the entire original series was at best just a small weakening of the original empire that plunged the galaxy into a longer and more complicated war that is arguably worse and more messy and the Return of the Jedi was really just Luke temporarily expelling the dark side for a few decades until Snoke showed up and then any hope of rebuilding the old Jedi Order was snuffed out and Luke became a hermit.

Before the sequels: Luke restored order to the galaxy defeating the last two Sith, becoming the next generation of the Jedi, and helping the Rebellion finally defeat the Empire.

After the sequels: The Empire just becomes the First Order. Luke tries and fails to bring the Jedi back. Two new Sith sprout up within about a decade or two.

At least with the prequels it was basically sacrificing some type of artistic freedom to put over how important the OT trilogy was and how important and predestined all those events were. Now it's like "why should I care about the Luke/Han/Leia? They were failures who didn't make a difference".

[Midvillian1322]

Now he can enjoy the far better fate to share his 2 minutes of screentime with porgs lol.

Whats??? I thought he was gonna be Reys righy hand man. Hes barely in it?

[sunofdarkchild]

I think the shadow of the prequels was a big part of the problem. Because the prequels were so badly received, they decided to remake A New Hope to 'restore fan confidence,' which required a new Empire, a new Rebel Alliance, and no new Jedi. Such a reset by its nature undermines everything done by killing Vader and Palpatine and defeating the empire. Even making it 'the Republic vs the First Order' would have ruined the 'ragtag seriously outgunned rebels facing a big mean empire as the underdog' schtick they wanted to go for.

A big part of the reason I'm not as upset as some others about this development is because I was upset about it two years ago. I already saw that this was what they had done when I first saw The Force Awakens, and I'm not going to hold the mistakes of the last movie against this one.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I think the shadow of the prequels was a big part of the problem. Because the prequels were so badly received, they decided to remake A New Hope to 'restore fan confidence,' which required a new Empire, a new Rebel Alliance, and no new Jedi. Such a reset by its nature undermines everything done by killing Vader and Palpatine and defeating the empire. Even making it 'the Republic vs the First Order' would have ruined the 'ragtag seriously outgunned rebels facing a big mean empire as the underdog' schtick they wanted to go for.

A big part of the reason I'm not as upset as some others about this development is because I was upset about it two years ago. I already saw that this was what they had done when I first saw The Force Awakens, and I'm not going to hold the mistakes of the last movie against this one.

The issue is this movie double downed on it. Realistically there was no reason they couldn't have tweaked some of the EU stories instead of basically invalidating everything that happened before. Or even just tweak this.

Instead of the First Order it's just some ostracized guerilla fighters the equivalent to bro Nazi's who are trying to rekindle the Empire's flame. They are causing problems for the new Republic. Because Snoke is leading them and training them in the dark side they are too difficult to defeat via the Republic's traditional law enforcement. Leia who is estranged from Luke for reasons unknown (later revealed to be Kyle abandoning them and turning to the dark side and actually being part of the guerilla fighters) must implore him and his new Jedi Order to help stop the attacks. This causes conflict as neither side wants the government and Jedi Order too closely intertwined after what happened years ago. Ironically Han is the peacemaker between his brother in law and wife. It is discovered that the Rebels are preparing a force based weapon to destroy a key Republic planet. Rey a prominent force user vagabond escapes the guerilla fighters with plans for the weapon along with repentant wanna be failed force user and new wave storm trooper Finn. She meets up with the Republic leaders and Leia trains Finn to be a soldier and Rey is trained to be a Jedi by a reluctant Luke who fears her power.

You can do the exact same story without compromising the integrity of the original films. And nothing is lost.

[sunofdarkchild]

The issue is this movie double downed on it. Realistically there was no reason they couldn't have tweaked some of the EU stories instead of basically invalidating everything that happened before. Or even just tweak this.

Instead of the First Order it's just some ostracized guerilla fighters the equivalent to bro Nazi's who are trying to rekindle the Empire's flame. They are causing problems for the new Republic. Because Snoke is leading them and training them in the dark side they are too difficult to defeat via the Republic's traditional law enforcement. Leia who is estranged from Luke for reasons unknown (later revealed to be Kyle abandoning them and turning to the dark side and actually being part of the guerilla fighters) must implore him and his new Jedi Order to help stop the attacks. This causes conflict as neither side wants the government and Jedi Order too closely intertwined after what happened years ago. Ironically Han is the peacemaker between his brother in law and wife. It is discovered that the Rebels are preparing a force based weapon to destroy a key Republic planet. Rey a prominent force user vagabond escapes the guerilla fighters with plans for the weapon along with repentant wanna be failed force user and new wave storm trooper Finn. She meets up with the Republic leaders and Leia trains Finn to be a soldier and Rey is trained to be a Jedi by a reluctant Luke who fears her power.

You can do the exact same story without compromising the integrity of the original films. And nothing is lost.

The Republic fighting space-terrorists? Sorry. That would never work as a numbered Star Wars movie, especially a sequel to Return of the Jedi. The old EU could get away with that kind of story (many times over) because it was told in novels which were never supposed events like a new movie. Like it or not, Star Wars is a victim of its own successes and failures, and it can't have a lesser threat in episodes 7-9 than it did in the earlier movies. If episode 7 was a deescalation rather than an escalation it would have failed spectacularly and there never would have been material for 3 movies. They would have needed to come up with an entirely different kind of threat to not fall into this hole, and they were not willing to take the risk that would entail.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

The Republic fighting space-terrorists? Sorry. That would never work as a numbered Star Wars movie, especially a sequel to Return of the Jedi. The old EU could get away with that kind of story (many times over) because it was told in novels which were never supposed events like a new movie. Like it or not, Star Wars is a victim of its own successes and failures, and it can't have a lesser threat in episodes 7-9 than it did in the earlier movies. If episode 7 was a deescalation rather than an escalation it would have failed spectacularly and there never would have been material for 3 movies. They would have needed to come up with an entirely different kind of threat to not fall into this hole, and they were not willing to take the risk that would entail.

The prequels were literally the Republic fighting space terrorists, that became the empire in the last third of the final film. I'm sorry but that excuse just doesn't cut it. A bunch of competently trained Sith who are committing guerilla warfare can be just as dangerous as the Empire (as we've seen in the real world where the largest war of the last decade was over terrorists). In the fact the biggest failing most people had with TFA was that the First Order was an Empire retread. Or just have the First Order be Sith invaders from another galaxy. It doesn't really matter. Just make it not the Empire or an extension of the Wmpure under a different name that has been at war with the Republic since the end of the last film in the serried. It just retroactively diminished the originals in a way that can't be undone.

[brettc1]

The issue is this movie double downed on it. Realistically there was no reason they couldn't have tweaked some of the EU stories instead of basically invalidating everything that happened before. Or even just tweak this.

Instead of the First Order it's just some ostracized guerilla fighters the equivalent to bro Nazi's who are trying to rekindle the Empire's flame. They are causing problems for the new Republic. Because Snoke is leading them and training them in the dark side they are too difficult to defeat via the Republic's traditional law enforcement. Leia who is estranged from Luke for reasons unknown (later revealed to be Kyle abandoning them and turning to the dark side and actually being part of the guerilla fighters) must implore him and his new Jedi Order to help stop the attacks. This causes conflict as neither side wants the government and Jedi Order too closely intertwined after what happened years ago. Ironically Han is the peacemaker between his brother in law and wife. It is discovered that the Rebels are preparing a force based weapon to destroy a key Republic planet. Rey a prominent force user vagabond escapes the guerilla fighters with plans for the weapon along with repentant wanna be failed force user and new wave storm trooper Finn. She meets up with the Republic leaders and Leia trains Finn to be a soldier and Rey is trained to be a Jedi by a reluctant Luke who fears her power.

You can do the exact same story without compromising the integrity of the original films. And nothing is lost.

The Republic fighting space-terrorists? Sorry. That would never work as a numbered Star Wars movie, especially a sequel to Return of the Jedi. The old EU could get away with that kind of story (many times over) because it was told in novels which were never supposed events like a new movie. Like it or not, Star Wars is a victim of its own successes and failures, and it can't have a lesser threat in episodes 7-9 than it did in the earlier movies. If episode 7 was a deescalation rather than an escalation it would have failed spectacularly and there never would have been material for 3 movies. They would have needed to come up with an entirely different kind of threat to not fall into this hole, and they were not willing to take the risk that would entail.

It seem to me whichever way you go you are copying something. The current model seems to be redoing the original trilogy, the suggested model by Knight of the Lake sounds a lot like prequel trilogy.

I guess the current model has the virtue of doing the originals kind of backwards.

And honestly, the First Order must be seriously decimated by the end of this movie. In the space of about four days they have lost Star Killer Base, Snoke's flagship, a dreadnought, several Star Destoyers and what would have to be literally tens of thousands of personnel.

An Executor class ship has a crew of about 280,000 with a full compliment, and Snoke's ship looks to be at least twice as big. Conservatively Vice Admiral Holdo took out almost half a million enemy combatants with one shot [a role I really feel should have gone to Ackbar]. Assuming Star Killer base had a complement maybe equal to the first Death Star [another 280,000] and The First Order has racked up losses of about three quarters of a million highly trained personnel in under a week.

Basically it seem like both military forces should be crippled by this stage.

[Bossace]

I mediocrely enjoyed my times but I rolled my eyes ALOT here’s when:

Leia flying in space, seriously?
Luke dying because he projected himself to much
Every force link scene
The damn yoda scenes, they felt SO corny
Phasma getting shafted again, a character I felt they over hyped for 2 movies and we got nothing
Snoak just dying, okay then supreme leader I know nothing about

That’s probaby it for my eye rolling but I’m sure there were more scenes

Also are they discreetly implying Leia is Bi? I got that hint and I think the fact they made it SO vague that it could Frustrate people that they weren’t more explicit and left it so vague that people will feel it was cheapened.

All the new aliens surprised me, I was impressed sometimes but all these new races really hit me the most. I want the Art book if there is one now to fully appreciate it.

Rip ackbar

This movie just felt too jokey and corny to me I’m sorry I came in with high hopes and I left laughing going “what the hell was that” I mean it was fun but it didn’t feel epic.

[Somecrazyaussie]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I just want to understand what people are actually upset over. Before anyone insinuates I am defending the film, I am not. I recognize there were faults with it. Faults I am quick to point out. Most of the criticism I have heard from others I've spoken with about the film are dissatisfied with the fact Luke was killed. That he won't be the one to end the First Order and be the hero like he was in the original trilogy. I get that. But lets get real here...

Obi-Wan and Yoda didn't end Anakin and Darth Sidious/The Emperor, respectively. Aren't they failures? One could say that are. Obi-wan left Anakin to his fate, when he really should have delivered the killing blow. Yoda got overwhelmed and decided to retreat. Thus allowing the empire to rule for 19 years. To live and fight another day. That the hope of the galaxy was going to be in the hands of Luke and Leia.

Obi-wan knew he could never beat Darth Vader. So he sacrificed himself to allow Luke and the others to flee the Death Star with the plans for the rebels. Luke knew he could never defeat Kylo. He was too powerful and, unlike Vader, couldn't be reasoned with. The rebellion was backed into a corner facing certain defeat. Any chance of beating the First Order would die with them. But Luke pulled an Obi-wan and made a sacrifice that will pave the way for the defeat of the First Order in Episode 9. If that isn't a hero, what is?

Luke failed to establish a new Jedi Order? Well, yes. Because Killing Ben Solo wasn't in him (which is why he didn't face him in person.) Anyone else would have slain him while he slept. Luke couldn't. Luke never really defeated Vader (Vader in turn taking action to save Luke by killing the emperor.) He just appealed to the good that was in him. Something he couldn't do with Ben because he won't be reasoned with. That is something that was definitively proven in The Last Jedi.

Okay, so the new trilogy is recycling the original trilogy? A fair claim. But look closely at the EU. It was an endless cycle that repeated itself over and over. Real life and history is littered with examples of repeating patterns. Star Wars is cyclical in nature. So I can't see why it would be a problem. Was TFA a redo? Yes. But it needed to be in order to recapture the feel and spirit of what we fell in love with Star Wars in the first place.

Why did the Republic fall? Empires rise and fall. The Sith/Empire hunted the Jedi to near extinction. You can kill a person, but you can never kill an ideal. It is why, no matter how many Islamic State Terrorists get killed, you will never truly crush them. Because there will always be someone who will come along and take their place. The Rebel Alliance may have delivered a crushing blow to the Empire, they never truly defeated them. Same deal with the Jedi. Same deal with the Rebellion now. The First Order will be crushed by the Rebellion. The next trilogy will repeat the pattern. I guarantee it.

[Bossace]

Also why didn’t Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo just tell her damn crew what her plan was instead of Risking a mutiny