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Post by 🔪 silly buns on Jan 8, 2018 19:03:33 GMT -5
I'm not quite sure how I feel about the movie. I guess this means I liked Force Awakens way more. It felt like there was either padding of superfluous characters and subplots or it was poorly written or edited or something...something was off and I got bored.
I didn't hate though. I definitely liked the ending with the kids.
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Post by Generic Poster on Jan 9, 2018 10:51:54 GMT -5
I'm not quite sure how I feel about the movie. I guess this means I liked Force Awakens way more. It felt like there was either padding of superfluous characters and subplots or it was poorly written or edited or something...something was off and I got bored. I didn't hate though. I definitely liked the ending with the kids. Casino Planet definitely threw off the pacing. Lack of Lando on Casino Planet also hurt. |
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Post by 🔪 silly buns on Jan 9, 2018 11:00:17 GMT -5
I'm not quite sure how I feel about the movie. I guess this means I liked Force Awakens way more. It felt like there was either padding of superfluous characters and subplots or it was poorly written or edited or something...something was off and I got bored. I didn't hate though. I definitely liked the ending with the kids. Casino Planet definitely threw off the pacing. Lack of Lando on Casino Planet also hurt. Yeah, I did get bored and question the point of the chihuahua-gazelle jailbreak, but at the end I saw the point, though they could have trimmed it up somewhat. |
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Jan 9, 2018 11:35:07 GMT -5
Casino Planet definitely threw off the pacing. Lack of Lando on Casino Planet also hurt. Yeah, I did get bored and question the point of the chihuahua-gazelle jailbreak, but at the end I saw the point, though they could have trimmed it up somewhat. Yea, the thematic explanations for the pointlessness and length of the Casino Planet break (what if a crazy ass plan by one of the 5 actually important people in the galaxy i sn't what actually works?) made me like it more retrospect. But in terms of actually watching and enjoying the movie, it was a drag. Really, I think the whole thing showed that Rian Johnson (or someone) had a really kick-ass idea for the second installment in this trilogy and then 3/4 of the way through realized they had no fucking idea what to do with Finn. |
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LazBro
Prolific Poster 
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Post by LazBro on Jan 18, 2018 10:17:45 GMT -5
For my birthday yesterday, some of the g'rents offered to watch the kids so we could go out. We were planning to go to a restaurant or whatever. But then they surprised us by saying they'd watch them at our house and would put them to bed and everything, meaning we could stay out later. I immediately pulled up the Drafthouse website and snagged some tickets!
Here are my thoughts on stuff you stopped caring about weeks ago:
- SO. GOOD. I walked out of the theater feeling like it was the best star war yet, and I still feel that way this morning.
- I don't think the battle in Snoke's room is the best lightsaber fight in series history - I mean come on ... Darth Maul! - but it is maybe the best scene in series history. Everything comes together: plot, character, stakes, misdirection, visuals, music. Electric!
- But this is also a problem. That scene was absolutely the emotional climax of the film, which made everything after it feel tacked on. The battle on the salt planet was badass, and if all of it somehow happened before the confrontation with Snoke, I wouldn't have spent the whole time wondering when the movie was going to end. Most agree the film has pacing issues, usually heaping a lion's share of the blame on the Finn plot/casino planet sequence, and that is bad, but for me the far greater pacing issue is that the movie ended about 2/3's of the way through and then kept going.
- Adam Driver is terrific, and Ren is by far the series' best villain.
- Porgs are bad. Why is their CGI noticeably worse than everything else in the movie?
- I'm fine with Space Leia from a narrative standpoint. They've laid the groundwork and have earned what happens in that scene. But Jesus H it looked so, so, so, so dumb. Also I don't remember who said it early on in this thread, but I too was taken out a bit in this scene, because my mind immediately went to "Oh, I guess this is how they handle the sad reality of Fischer's passing."
- It would have made no sense, and probably would have made most people mad, but I am an unabashed glutton for fan service, and I wanted the sport on Casino Land to be pod-racing.
- Oh man, Episode IX better find something more interesting to do with Finn.
- Luke to Ren: "See you around, kid." Goddamn! So good!
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Post by pairesta on Jan 18, 2018 12:41:51 GMT -5
- But this is also a problem. That scene was absolutely the emotional climax of the film, which made everything after it feel tacked on. The battle on the salt planet was badass, and if all of it somehow happened before the confrontation with Snoke, I wouldn't have spent the whole time wondering when the movie was going to end. Most agree the film has pacing issues, usually heaping a lion's share of the blame on the Finn plot/casino planet sequence, and that is bad, but for me the far greater pacing issue is that the movie ended about 2/3's of the way through and then kept going. This is a good point; something I hadn't really thought about. But yeah, there's what, 20-30 minutes left after that happens and I just kept thinking it was about to end. Later, I was totally preparing for the movie to end on a cliffhanger with Luke walking out to face the walkers, and then smash cut to credits, which I have to admit I still kind of like the idea of. |
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LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,281
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Post by LazBro on Jan 18, 2018 15:12:56 GMT -5
- But this is also a problem. That scene was absolutely the emotional climax of the film, which made everything after it feel tacked on. The battle on the salt planet was badass, and if all of it somehow happened before the confrontation with Snoke, I wouldn't have spent the whole time wondering when the movie was going to end. Most agree the film has pacing issues, usually heaping a lion's share of the blame on the Finn plot/casino planet sequence, and that is bad, but for me the far greater pacing issue is that the movie ended about 2/3's of the way through and then kept going. This is a good point; something I hadn't really thought about. But yeah, there's what, 20-30 minutes left after that happens and I just kept thinking it was about to end. Later, I was totally preparing for the movie to end on a cliffhanger with Luke walking out to face the walkers, and then smash cut to credits, which I have to admit I still kind of like the idea of. Yeah, I'm really conflicted, because I don't think what happened on Crait (thanks, Kinja Deals article from 5 minutes ago), would have been as strong if, say, Episode IX started there. I absolutely loved it, and the final scene with Luke and Ren is another one for the books, I was just so disoriented after being convinced the movie would end right after the Snoke battle. And yeah, smash cut just as Luke faces the walkers would be amazing ... but then, could they pull off the Luke/Ren scene at the beginning of a movie? Fact is, Last Jedi has two great endings and I can't reconcile them. |
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Post by Sanziana on Jan 24, 2018 11:36:47 GMT -5
Why did they have to keep my lovelies Finn and Rey apart? Gah! Overall, though, loved this so much more than The Force Awakens.
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Trurl
Shoutbox Elitist 
Posts: 7,699
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Post by Trurl on Jan 30, 2018 0:23:16 GMT -5
Something I've been thinking about since seeing it is what they did with the Force; they threw away all the "light side/dark side" handwaving and started giving a better explanation of how people ended up being good guys or bad guys. All the Force using characters (except Yoda) make terrible decisions because of what is revealed to them through the Force. The Force has become a small-f force, it doesn't show "truth", it just provides some information. Maybe what Luke saw in Kylo was accurate, but he handled it badly because of human weakness. Kylo and Rey came to completely different conclusions about how things were going to work out with their visions of the future, and Snoke *totally* misread the room.
Vader's redemption at the end of Jedi was always cheap and there was never a sense that Luke might be tempted to the Dark Side, but the original trilogy was more about myth than about people behaving like humans so you had to give it a pass. The dichotomy was artificial. They probably won't do it, but it would work narritively for Rey to team up with Kylo in a way that Luke and Darth teaming up wouldn't.
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fab
TI Forumite
strange days
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Post by fab on Jan 31, 2018 13:51:00 GMT -5
can't remember if I posted in this thread (and too semi-dazed to check), but I saw this a few weeks ago with a buddy.
I felt like the first act (or so) was kinda dragging or going for a lot of flash and pomp over setting up the narrative stakes enough, such that I didn't really feel any emotional resonance until things settle in with Rey seeking out Luke at his refuge. I thought they did a very good job with that, and that's what saved the movie for me -- I really enjoyed the rest of it from there on out. (I was also a bit stoned at the outset of the movie, which either made it more tolerable given how flashy yet weightless it felt at first... or my mild inebriation didn't help matters.)
didn't care for the excessive mugging at the camera with ridiculous references or overt cutesiness. (e.g. those fucking porgs, completely unnecessary fanservice inserts of C-3PO and R2-D2, etc. -- or wait, am I confusing that with Rogue One? fuck) I get why they're there... you can sell maybe another $20 million of tie-in merchandise with a cameo and I'm sure it goes over like gangbusters with test audiences, but when it comes to callbacks that don't have meaningful connections to the narrative arc, some restraint would be nice.
overall, I really liked it. as I said though, the first bit had me kinda rolling my eyes and hoping that the movie would step up to the plate. thankfully, it did so (and how!), with some great performances, solid setpieces, and enough big budget blockbuster popcorn fodder to make it a pretty darn good Star Wars flick. WAY better than TFA, which just felt like a beat for beat retread of A New Hope etc. and did absolutely nothing for me.
whereas TFA felt like an exercise in Disney scrambling to prove they could make a Star Wars movie that didn't suck horrendously, this one stands on its own merits as a good time. on a related note, I finally got around to watching Rogue One for the first time within the last month or so, and was surprised at how good that was. it was a really fun caper movie that didn't feel as pandering as the other two (which again, is mostly down to the overt mugging for the camera type crap, which I don't have much patience for) and I'd gladly watch that again. I think I liked Rogue One more, but I'd probably have to watch TLJ again to verify and properly articulate some of my thoughts.
there's a lot of interesting wrinkles and stories that can be told in the same universe, and I'm more interested in those than the main story arcs, oddly enough.
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Post by Ron Howard Voice on Feb 22, 2018 16:22:57 GMT -5
Porg enthusiasts, don't watch Rian Johnson's latest Instagram video!
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