The Force Awakens vs The Last Jedi

[sirmarkus]

Overall I'd give it to TLJ for being much more original and for not dropping off a cliff in quality the moment Kylo Ren takes off his mask.

I thought that was where Kylo really started to come into his own.

[David Walton]

I find it really hard to compare SW films.

Comparing TFA to TLJ is a lot like comparing ANH to ESB. They're so different tonally that I'm not sure how you'd honestly say which is better. It depends on what you're looking for.

TFA, like ANH, is more energetic and open-ended.

TLJ, like ESB, is more character-based and thought-provoking.

Both, I think, accomplish what they intend to.

[Scott Taylor]

TLJ was the more interesting narrative, but I found it to be a boring film. Most of that, for me, is that the stakes felt very small for a Star Wars movie. The First Order didn't really feel like a galactic-level threat. And the Rebellion seemed hopelessly disorganized.

I guess on the good side of things, the galaxy should be nice and safe for a good long while.

[Username taken]

I much prefer the Force Awakens.

The Last Jedi was dull and had some ridiculous creative choices.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

The Force Awakens felt more tonally consistent than the Last Jedi. The Last Jedi's first half felt like it was trying too hard to be funny and it dragged a bit.

Finn was used better in Force Awakens and Rey was better in Last Jedi.

[SpiderClops]

Finn was used better in Force Awakens and Rey was better in Last Jedi.

I agree with this. Especially Rey, her character improved a lot.

[Gorthon616]

How about neither? They both are bland and uninspiring.

Agree, though I will defend the first 10 minutes or so of The Force Awakens, as I was really engaged in those early opening scenes... however as soon as they started talking it all went downhill.

That said, at least The Force Awakens gave me those 10 minutes.

[WraizeM]

The last Jedi was great because to me it marked the point of change, everything leading to the ending of that movie indicates a new direction so I’m excited to see what they have for us next.

[Pinsir]

TFA > TLJ. They are both worse than the Original and Prequel trilogies, but TFA at least had consistent themes, even if they were cliches. The morals of TLJ are at best conflicting, at most horrid.

> Within, like, a twenty minute period we see the vaunted Admiral Holdo heroically sacrifice herself to save the rebel fleet and the characters celebrate her martyrdom, yet Fin is lambasted for doing the same. Why is matyrdom acceptable when Admiral Holdo does it, but not Finn?

> Admiral Holdo may very well be the most ill-conceived character of the century. She was clearly designed as a role model, demonstrating that women are capable of military leadership, yet she is so grossly incompetent that she reinforces sexism against women in military authority. I actually read an article today that sums up my thoughts well;

Holdo is held up as someone that people in the Resistance are supposed to respect as a leader, and yet she refuses to tell the very people she’s leading what their plan is, citing Poe’s earlier reckless actions as an excuse. Even according to the Navy’s Leadership Principles, keeping your people informed is the second principle on the list. In other words? It’s pretty important. Vice Admiral Holdo’s refusal to do so is driven by petty motives, and while Poe is painted as ridiculous and childish the entire movie, he’s actually proven right when the First Order does the very thing he was afraid they would do.

One of the “lessons” from Poe’s story line is you should always blindly trust authority figures even when they provide no valid reason for doing so, and this is an extremely dangerous and topic example to set, especially in today’s society when people of color are so often made targets of police brutality, which again feeds back into the movie’s underlying theme of systematic racism.

The full article can be found here and rebukes a lot of the claims that TLJ is a woke masterpiece.

> Another quote from this article I think is worth sharing also concerns the treatment of Fin and Poe:

This conflict [Holdo vs Poe] is disappointing. It focuses on a female leader putting an aggressive, chauvinistic male in his place. It’s supposed to be empowering, but it’s not, especially when you have to have one character act so differently in order to get to that point. The problem is that the kind of feminism this movie is preaching is white feminism, which is dangerous in and of itself.

But what does white feminism mean in this case? Vice Admiral Holdo, and even Rose, both undermine and belittle Finn and Poe, treating them like children. This concept of infantalization upholds racist stereotypes of black and Latino men being both incompetent and irrational. In Poe’s case, it works to also uplift the alleged moral superiority of white women over people of color. And it’s not feminism.

[Sacred Knight]

Both are better than any entry in the Prequel series. And I'm not a hater, I enjoyed those films. But each installment alone had more flaws than TFA and TLJ put together. Lucas was just simply done as a director.

[Pinsir]

Both are better than any entry in the Prequel series. And I'm not a hater, I enjoyed those films. But each installment alone had more flaws than TFA and TLJ put together. Lucas was just simply done as a director.

Not all flaws are equal though, you may criticize Lucas's choice of cinematography, actors, etc, but the themes of the Prequel trilogy, how democracies surrender themselves to fascism and how actors with good intentions can embed this occupation, is a well-defined and compelling narrative to all three films. The Sequel trilogy so far just doesn't have any similar narrative, it tries to have one about the 'strength of diversity,' but as I already said, they bungled that with the Last Jedi.

[Soubhagya]

TFA > TLJ. They are both worse than the Original and Prequel trilogies, but TFA at least had consistent themes, even if they were cliches. The morals of TLJ are at best conflicting, at most horrid.

> Within, like, a twenty minute period we see the vaunted Admiral Holdo heroically sacrifice herself to save the rebel fleet and the characters celebrate her martyrdom, yet Fin is lambasted for doing the same. Why is matyrdom acceptable when Admiral Holdo does it, but not Finn?

> Admiral Holdo may very well be the most ill-conceived character of the century. She was clearly designed as a role model, demonstrating that women are capable of military leadership, yet she is so grossly incompetent that she reinforces sexism against women in military authority. I actually read an article today that sums up my thoughts well;


The full article can be found here and rebukes a lot of the claims that TLJ is a woke masterpiece.

> Another quote from this article I think is worth sharing also concerns the treatment of Fin and Poe:

That's a long article. I will get into detail sometime later.

Has anyone considered that films need not have a message to be good or great? Godfather was mafia film. There's nothing good about that. And its a masterpiece. Deadpool shall be condemned if we are looking at messages. Its okay to kill people left and right while having fun?

And to say that it will appeal to only single white male is a huge assumption. It kind of says what to expect from the article. I did not find TLJ political. Maybe its the writer who is being political here. Projecting his or her thoughts on a piece of popcorn entertainment.

[Rise]

Both are better than any entry in the Prequel series. And I'm not a hater, I enjoyed those films. But each installment alone had more flaws than TFA and TLJ put together. Lucas was just simply done as a director.

Not really, the prequels have a better story than the originals and sequels and the cast is also pretty good (the actors have given a really memorable scenes which stayed with me all these years which can't be said about the sequels). The biggest problem they suffered from is editing.

[Coin Biter]

TFA was a bit of a mechanical film, and suffered from a somewhat uninteresting protagonist. But it was very competently done.

TLJ was a bit more unpredictable, although at least part of that is because in some respects it was a mess. It was kinda interesting in that in the Poe storyline it challenged the very notion of maverick heroism which was the foundation of Star Wars in some ways. That said, in any believable military structure that would leave to Poe's imprisonment or even execution in the next film. (Though, stopping Finn's self sacrifice, although it fitted with the "challenging heroism" theme, was a good illustration of one of the messy things that just didn't work.)

Both films are underpinned by one very fine performance: Adam Driver as Kylo Ren.

The prequels were interesting in that they, by design, described an incredibly depressing story arc. A children's entertainment space opera description of the fall of the Weimar Republic and the Rise of the Third Reich. That's actually a remarkably ambitious thing to attempt. However, the prequels are tragically undermined by their extraordinary levels of incompetence, especially in scripting. "Not even the Younglings" - Christ, I know he was never a great scriptwriter, even at his peak, but what was Lucas thinking?

None of the problems with the prequels are attributable to the cast, who never stood a chance (except for Ian McDiarmid, who was given opportunities, and took them with both hands).

[Zero Hunter]

For me the Force Awakens did what it set out to do, and that is wipe away the ill feelings of the prequels and set the new era on a solid footing going forward. TLJ then came in and undermined so much of what was set up in TFA and sent the whole franchise spinning. While TFA did lean quite a bit into ANH it almost had to just to get things set up moving forward. TLJ just had so many "WTF are they thinking?!?" moments and just plain bad ideas slapped together it will always be the worse of the two for me.

I was excited for the next Star Wars movie after TFA. I was so disapointed with TLJ that I am not at all excited for Episode 9, and even less so for Rian Johnson's new trilogy he is working on.

And just to set the record straight it is not because "TLJ was not the movie I had built up in my head" which is the line the die hard TLJ supporters always throw out there. It is because to me TLJ was a deeply flawed movie storytelling wise with just way to many plotholes and dumb choices on top of very weak character development outside of Rey and Kylo. Every other character just came off as dull and lifeless.