Star Wars The Last Jedi *SPOILERS*

[ClanAskani]

I don't care that Rey's parents are dead scumbags. It's just the whole she knew/she didn't know angle almost has the feel of a retcon. Didn't they mention that she saw their graves too? I don't know. The memory thing just didn't do it for me. But that's just me.

Why wouldn't Unkar Plutt tell Rey this? Why would he keep it a secret from her? Because he's a nice guy and wants to shield her from the truth? No way.

[Carabas]

Why wouldn't Unkar Plutt tell Rey this?

You really think she'd believe a nice and trustworthy guy like Plutt when he tells her bad stuff about her parents?

Which he probably did all the time.

[KOSLOX]

Last thought, diversity in the First Order... why? Are we that nuts that we have to show diversity every-freakin-where? Now hang on... I know what you're going to say. Hear me out. These are the bad guys. They should look like white male WWII german Nazis because that's what everyone hates. How am I supposed to hate a First Order that's an equal opportunity employer? What kind of a degenerate would that make me?

They are basically "human"-supremacists. Notice that you don't see any aliens as members of the First Order, the Empire was mostly that way too, aside from employing an alien bounty hunters when it suits them.

[hawkeyefan]

I don't want to keep going around in circles so just some quick hits...

The 30 year gap is what it is. If I read all the novels and comics or whatever then supposedly I'd understand. So that's on me.

I don’t think you need to read all the novels and comics. I’ve read none of them since the new era, and I get by. I think you just have to accept that there are 30 years of history in there and we don’t know it all.

I don't care that Rey's parents are dead scumbags. It's just the whole she knew/she didn't know angle almost has the feel of a retcon. Didn't they mention that she saw their graves too? I don't know. The memory thing just didn't do it for me. But that's just me.

There’s no retcon. And no graves ever mentioned that I recall. It’s simply something that Rey wanted to believe so badly that she convinced herself it was true, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Regarding Finn... who cares? Why am I supposed to care about his journey? Whether he's a coward or a hero, what is his contribution? Is it so major that it requires us to go on this pointless journey of redemption with him if his overall role in the story is insignificant? And how anti-climactic was the Phasma showdown anyway?

I don’t know...maybe kids that like Finn? There are lots of them out there. I like him, but I do think this was the weakest part of the film. I do think that they had to solidify Finn as a member of the Resistance, so I think that was the goal.

As for Phasma, I wasn’t let down. Not because the showdown was awesome so much as my expectations weren’t all that high. I don’t get the Phasma love. She’s a shiny Storm Trooper. To me she was far less disappointing than Boba Fett.

Everything else you said I'll just say all fair points. I've got other stuff to crab about on other forums. But I had to point out the one glaring issue here:

Did you notice that in describing every female character's flaws, you managed to include aspects of the men behaving badly that kinda contributes to these flaws? So if men didn't exist in this world, there wouldn't be any problems?

Not really, man. Holdo’s hesitation, Rey’s weak sense of self, Rose’s emotions clouding her judgment...none of these rely on men. You’re determined to make the connection.

Last thought, diversity in the First Order... why? Are we that nuts that we have to show diversity every-freakin-where? Now hang on... I know what you're going to say. Hear me out. These are the bad guys. They should look like white male WWII german Nazis because that's what everyone hates. How am I supposed to hate a First Order that's an equal opportunity employer? What kind of a degenerate would that make me?

I have no idea what this is about. I thought the Empire and the First Order afterward were human centric, but beyond that who cares? Why worry about this stuff?

[Buried Alien]

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Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[BeastieRunner]

So, last three days in a row the movie's seen an actual increase in revenue compared to last week, and not an insignificant one either(+27.4%, +36.9%, +29.3% respectively), so it seems any significant dropoff talk was very premature

All of the major releases have seen increases, which was expected since most schools weren't out. The problem is the gap is closing between TLJ and Jumanji. Jumanji is gaining momentum and TLJ is falling off. So you can't blame weather or people not going to the movies. Theaters are required by Disney to have Star Wars in their largest theater for 2 weeks so many places Jumanji is in a small theaters and selling out while there are tons of empty seats for TLJ.

The metric to measure the WOM and "legs" is the multiplier - the total domestic box office divided by the opening weekend. TFA had a 3.8, Rogue One had a 3.45. With a 220M opening, TLJ would be expected to get to 792M domestically with a 3.6 multiplier. Right now it's on pace for about 660M, which is a 3 multiplier. That's okay but Disney execs will be disappointed. If the domestic box office falls below the 3 multiplier, then there's major issues for Disney.

Jumanji opened very low, so it's on track for a 6+ multiplier. The worst impact of Jumanji is it shows other studios that they don't need to just counter-program against Star Wars or Avatar. They can just go with a fun Rock/Chris Hart type action comedy with broader appeal. So Episode IX will face more competition.

TLJ using your math means it will make 57M ... putting it at #1 in 2017 ... just in the US.

Let it go ... lots of people love this movie and is has legs.

Jumanji might make 40M by what you're saying.

That's a huge gap.

Fellowship of the Ring came out with the same calendar and picked up on New Years Monday weekend just like TLJ is.

Come on son ...

[Carabas]

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Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

This is brilliant.

[hawkeyefan]

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Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

This sums up a lot of the complaints.

[ClanAskani]

TLJ using your math means it will make 57M ... putting it at #1 in 2017 ... just in the US.

Let it go ... lots of people love this movie and is has legs.

Jumanji might make 40M by what you're saying.

That's a huge gap.

Fellowship of the Ring came out with the same calendar and picked up on New Years Monday weekend just like TLJ is.

Come on son ...

I have no idea how you are coming up with those numbers. Multipliers are simply opening weekend box office x multiplier. 220*3=660. Jumanji underperformed with a 36M opening and is on track for at least $250M now. That's a 6.9 multiplier.

I know people at Sony, they cannot believe how well Jumanji is doing and could never have predicted TLJ would do so poorly.

If this 4-day estimates are correct, TLJ even a 3 multiplier is in doubt. Right now it's just ahead of what Rogue One did. Theaters are also reversing Jumanji and TLJ and putting Jumanji in the largest theater. It's possible Jumanji will beat out TLJ as the #1 movie in the US & Canada on New Years Day.

The real question is next week since more kids will be off school. If it stay 10% ahead of Rogue One, then it's might come in around $640M domestically. For international, the big question is China. What studios want to see a a movie have only 35% of the total box office be domestic (US & Canada). This never happens with Star Wars films. Domestic is usually 50%. If TLJ opens huge in China next week, it could change everything.

Edited to add: TLJ did 19.06M on Friday, Jumanji did 17.75M. TLJ was down 23% from the previous Friday, while Jumanji was up 42%. Estimates for this weekend keep being revised to decrease the projections for TLJ.

[Buried Alien]

Remember when we were able to just enjoy/not enjoy movies, without having to micromanage the box office totals AS IF WE were going to get any of that money?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[ClanAskani]

You really think she'd believe a nice and trustworthy guy like Plutt when he tells her bad stuff about her parents?

Which he probably did all the time.

He'd probably offer to show her proof, tell her to talk to other people, show a purchase agreement. This would have been in Rey's face every single day.

I don't think Rian Johnson ever thought about anything like this when he wrote the script.

Remember when we were able to just enjoy/not enjoy movies, without having to micromanage the box office totals AS IF WE were going to get any of that money?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

I remember going to see Phantom Menace as part of a big SW fan event trying to get the film to beat Titantic at the box office. Fans then were obsessed with the fact that it didn't beat Titantic.

[Carabas]

He'd probably offer to show her proof, tell her to talk to other people, show a purchase agreement. This would have been in Rey's face every single day.

Why would Plutt even have proof?

I think you may have put a bit too much thought into finding reasons to dislike the movie.

[godisawesome]

Why would Plutt even have proof?

I think you may have put a bit too much thought into finding reasons to dislike the movie.

Yeah, that's what everything outside the Force plotline is for.

Seriously, though, I do think that the space chase and Finn's plot are the most legitimately badly plotted parts of the story.

[Hypestyle]

My general reactions: (major spoilers)
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Luke: I suppose it was kind of expected that he'd end up being a reluctant teacher to Rey. I wanted to see a lot more teaching sequences, though, seems like there wasn't that much, compared to Luke's experiences with Ben Kenobi and Yoda.
I didn't anticipate that Luke was doing a big fakeout in the climax. It was intriguing, for sure. I didn't know that Jedi illusion casting was that deep; in looking back at what happened, I'm surprised that droids (Threepio) were fooled by this as well, though I suppose Luke's wink was a semi-giveaway that something else was at work. For this to be Luke's "final" (in body) appearance, ah well. I would have appreciated him being portrayed in the super-acrobatic way that CGI and stunts allow nowadays, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Leia: At last, we got to see Leia exhibit some Jedi powers besides the telepathic bond with Luke. I was glad to see her do a lot more plot-wise, though I was shocked to see her taken out of the story early on.

Finn: This film kind of continues Finn's arc of being an amiable bumbler, to me. I don't know if the intent is to continue to portray him as an everyman who is kind of overwhelmed by the circumstances around him, or.. something else? Heh. I think the exchange with Rose could have been handled in another way rather than him getting tasered, lol. Ah, well. With the fight against Captain Phasma, I wish that it had lasted longer and ended in a more "substantive" way for me. The angle of him falling and landing on a floating skiff then sneak-bashing Phasma, eh.. lol.. I was wanting Finn to have a more "traditional" victory against the bad guys. (On a side note, Phasma has kind of become Boba Fett to me, where the visual image is promoted as this big deal character but on-screen, doesn't really get to do a heck of a lot). I get that this is supposed to mark Finn's final choice to really "join" the Rebellion, but then his near-death experience against the Empire's super-cannon stumbles into the "noble self-sacrificing black guy" trope; at least now he's at least portrayed as having made baby steps into having a relationship with a woman (of color) who is not Rey. Hopefully the writer(s) will have a platonic bond between Finn and Rey and deepen the relationship with Rose.

Poe: I enjoyed Poe's general portrayal, I don't think you've had this kind of tension in previous films regarding the policies and agendas of members of the rebellion. It was kind of Star Trek-ish in the past were there was a general lack of conflict. So this was a nice turn of events.

Rey: I was surprised by the depth of the cross-galactic telepathy, and how Rey was able to see landscapes and not just the "mind" of the person she's in contact with. I'm still perplexed at what she was supposed to have seen in the cave (an update of Luke's cave wandering in Empire?).

Kylo: Whoo-boy, wow. I'm glad he wasn't enough of a maniac to fire on his mother, but clearly he was still enough of a maniac to go through with the assaults on the rebel groups in general. I still don't know what the Knights of Ren are supposedly all about, anyway-- there's no backstory on just how Ben was able to be sought out by Snoke and how he was gradually corrupted. The "reveal" on his fateful confrontation with Luke was an interesting twist. I enjoyed the fight sequence against the Crimson guards.

DJ: I'm not sure what Benicio's thief/hacker added besides the eventual betrayal. But I won't complain about his presence. The way that he "conveniently" was able to escape the jail was kind of a subtle nod that everything about this guy wasn't on the up and up.

I'm still wondering where all this is going, in a way. Emperor Snoke is dead, and so I guess Kylo has declared himself the supreme leader of the New Order. The rebellion is reduced to whoever fits on the Falcon ship, now, so what systems can they run to? How widespread is the New Order Empire this time around? What would it really take to remove all their elements and restore a new republic? Seems like this would take way more than one more movie.

Chewie: I liked his presence in the film but I wanted to be more of it. I wanted to see him have some extended conversations (growling aside) with Luke and hopefully Leia, about Han. I wasn't overly interested in seeing him as the fuzzy sidekick character anymore. I'd like the next film to have him in more of an out-front leader role. Why not? He's already been through any number of political/war conflicts already. What is the Wookie culture response to the New Order?

Still missing:
Lando- we need to see his take on Han's passing, as well as Luke and whatever Leia's post-Carrie Fisher fate is. Did he become a family man? Did he become an administrator again? Is he in exile post-New Order?

Sex: do people still, you know, hook up, in this universe?

Religion: Is the Jedi religion the only one out there? Is that the only path to have certain metahuman powers? What about other belief systems and technological-biological connections that are considered a part of worship or rituals?

[AngryComicBookNerd]

I have no idea what this is about. I thought the Empire and the First Order afterward were human centric, but beyond that who cares? Why worry about this stuff?

In all honesty, I said this part just to be a dink. We take ourselves way too seriously sometimes. Keep this forum alive!