Star Wars: The Last Jedi

[Welleran]

Sidebar: Been listening to the NPR Radio Drama of the original Star Wars. It is most excellent. It has it's own tale of how the rebels got the deathstar plans.

I just finished the three of them earlier this week. They were quite good and some of the added material I rather liked. “Hey, Tarkin, you got this here Death Star...why not just kill the Emperor and take over?” I like how they filled the (many) plot holes, as well.

[MageInBlack]

Traveling for work, watched The Last Jedi in the hotel. Horrible. I want those 152 minutes of my life back.

HA! I told you you would end up watching it! I bet you held your stuffed Ewok and cried the whole time. Was your favorite part where Leia floated through space?

[Chainsaw]

Traveling for work, watched The Last Jedi in the hotel. Horrible. I want those 152 minutes of my life back.

HA! I told you you would end up watching it! I bet you held your stuffed Ewok and cried the whole time. Was your favorite part where Leia floated through space?

Hahaha! You were right, I admit it!

Almost immediately the movie compelled me to start a list of “dumb shit,” but when I had ten line items after fifteen minutes, I stopped keeping track. The whole thing felt like so many fucking stupid turds strung together that it’s hard to pick any one single stinkiest chunk.

[blackprinceofmuncie]

Finally got around to seeing this last night. I have to agree with Chainsaw's review. Bad Star Wars movie. Bad sci-fi movie. Bad movie in general. I'm not sure where they are going with the 3rd installment but, at this point, I'm pretty sure I don't care about any of the story lines.

[Blackadder23]

We finally watched the movie this weekend. I had rock bottom expectations due to poisonous word of mouth, and it wasn't as bad as I expected (comparisons to the prequels are fairly absurd IMO). I could nitpick it - for example, everything military-related was handled in the most ludicrous and juvenile manner imaginable, almost equaling the silly way that Anakin turned to the Dark Side in RotS (hey, maybe comparisons to the prequels aren't entirely absurd) - but overall it was watchable... I guess.

But I think I'm finished now. I have no desire to see Solo or any other Star Wars films. Enough is enough at some point.

[rogatny]

I rewatched the Last Jedi last night.

Second impressions - entertaining to great first 45 minutes and a decent to entertaining last 45 minutes. The hour in between those two 45 minute chunks was pretty much where all the problems lay.

I really don’t give a crap about dubious physics or other “sci-fi” problems. I do have a problem with some of the writing. And I can break it down in two big categories:

1. The Fin and Rose side quest was pretty much a complete cinematic disaster. It clearly originally was there as an excuse to reintroduce Lando and had to be radically re-written when Billy Dee Williams didn’t agree to join the cast. (Or whatever the issue was.) Without Lando, the sequence fulfilled literally no purpose. The writers could have simply said that Fin had the know how to get on the Imperial ship, skipped the sequence entirely, and then had the rest of the movie proceed exactly as is.

Instead we get this whole side trip that feels like it came from a completely different movie. The dialogue is different. The characters are different. The look is completely different - way more cartoony. The politics are way more heavy handed. It was either written by a different screenwriter or maybe written so close to the commencement of filming that it couldn’t be polished or rehearsed as much as the rest of the movie. The whole thing felt very Prequel-y.

2. There was utterly no reason at all for Admiral Laura Dern to keep her plans from Po and everyone else. None. They were in an absolutely desperate life or death situation and “Trust me you stupid little boy,” simply isn’t going to cut it. The way she was running the ship Cute Purple Hair deserved to have the crew mutiny. They had absolutely no reason not to think they were all going to die under her command.

It felt like the movie makers were going way, way, way out of their way to make a point. Something about how wise women are wise and hot-headed fly boys are hot-headed. And if fly boys would simply shut up and let the wise women pat them on the head and speak to them patronizingly, everything will be all right. The problem was that everybody involved were adult professional soldiers all of whose performances would have been enhanced had they been in on the plan. If the movie makers were going for some greater metaphorical message, the metaphor didn’t fit. It was bad writing.

Both those issues wasted a lot of time and would have shaved at least a half hour off the really long movie if they’d simply omitted them.

Other than those two (quite sizable) issues, I thought the rest of the movie was solid fun Star Wars stuff. I liked it more than the prequels, but less than the other 5 films. I haven’t seen Solo yet.

[ThirstyStirge]

Sidebar: Been listening to the NPR Radio Drama of the original Star Wars. It is most excellent. It has it's own tale of how the rebels got the deathstar plans.

Is this available somewhere?


I have a very dim memory of some OTR-like show on in the very early 80s -- perhaps of ANH or ESB. It was good -- once I got used to the voice actors whose voices didn't sound much like the original cast.

[rredmond]

https://www.npr.org/2015/12/18/46026988 ... lly-worked

Looks like it's about $100
But here's the article and the link is there.
--Ron--

[ThirstyStirge]

https://www.npr.org/2015/12/18/46026988 ... lly-worked

Looks like it's about $100
But here's the article and the link is there.
--Ron--

Try $1,533.51.

[rredmond]

Damn. That seems not right...
No chance I'll listen to that for sure.

[Falconer]

Try Audible or eStories.

[francisca]

Sidebar: Been listening to the NPR Radio Drama of the original Star Wars. It is most excellent. It has it's own tale of how the rebels got the deathstar plans.

Is this available somewhere?

https://archive.org/details/StarWarsRadio

[francisca]

1. The Fin and Rose side quest was pretty much a complete cinematic disaster. It clearly originally was there as an excuse to reintroduce Lando and had to be radically re-written when Billy Dee Williams didn’t agree to join the cast. (Or whatever the issue was.)

I hadn't heard the Lando story before.

My take on Fin/Rose is the studio said, "Hey, let's put some dumb-asses who look and sound like some cosplayers you see at Comic-Con in the movie, so the nerds will have someone to identify with."

[Matthew]

I rewatched the Last Jedi last night.

Second impressions - entertaining to great first 45 minutes and a decent to entertaining last 45 minutes. The hour in between those two 45 minute chunks was pretty much where all the problems lay.

I really don’t give a crap about dubious physics or other “sci-fi” problems. I do have a problem with some of the writing. And I can break it down in two big categories:

1. The Fin and Rose side quest was pretty much a complete cinematic disaster. It clearly originally was there as an excuse to reintroduce Lando and had to be radically re-written when Billy Dee Williams didn’t agree to join the cast. (Or whatever the issue was.) Without Lando, the sequence fulfilled literally no purpose. The writers could have simply said that Fin had the know how to get on the Imperial ship, skipped the sequence entirely, and then had the rest of the movie proceed exactly as is.

Instead we get this whole side trip that feels like it came from a completely different movie. The dialogue is different. The characters are different. The look is completely different - way more cartoony. The politics are way more heavy handed. It was either written by a different screenwriter or maybe written so close to the commencement of filming that it couldn’t be polished or rehearsed as much as the rest of the movie. The whole thing felt very Prequel-y.

2. There was utterly no reason at all for Admiral Laura Dern to keep her plans from Po and everyone else. None. They were in an absolutely desperate life or death situation and “Trust me you stupid little boy,” simply isn’t going to cut it. The way she was running the ship Cute Purple Hair deserved to have the crew mutiny. They had absolutely no reason not to think they were all going to die under her command.

It felt like the movie makers were going way, way, way out of their way to make a point. Something about how wise women are wise and hot-headed fly boys are hot-headed. And if fly boys would simply shut up and let the wise women pat them on the head and speak to them patronizingly, everything will be all right. The problem was that everybody involved were adult professional soldiers all of whose performances would have been enhanced had they been in on the plan. If the movie makers were going for some greater metaphorical message, the metaphor didn’t fit. It was bad writing.

Both those issues wasted a lot of time and would have shaved at least a half hour off the really long movie if they’d simply omitted them.

Other than those two (quite sizable) issues, I thought the rest of the movie was solid fun Star Wars stuff. I liked it more than the prequels, but less than the other 5 films. I haven’t seen Solo yet.

The weird thing about the two issues that you raise is that almost everybody accepts them to be true whether they laud the film or not. I have more problems with the film than the two points you raise, such as Leia's lack of agency. Most of the minor issues I could ignore (as I do in most Star Wars films), but in combination with the larger flaws I find them impossible to stomach. It is interesting to note that Luke does not bother telling anybody his plan either; it is left up to Poe to guess what he intends ... which he turns out to be wrong about, but luckily Rey happens to be in just the right place to rescue them. To put it another way, Luke had no plan when he decided to face down Kylo Ren as an illusion. He was buying time for some unspecified reason.

[Matthew]

Check this out: