Star Wars: Episode VIII (2017)

[bbobb]

I enjoyed it, aside from superman Leia... that was fucking ridiculous.

[Calliander]

I felt the same with the Luke/Kylo backstory. Like there was supposed to be some big beef between the two, but you get the story, the "truth", the "real truth" all in quick succession and it's really nothing more than one encounter that lasts a few seconds to the audience.
You don't really have any feeling for the relationship between the two characters, no idea if Luke loved Kylo, no idea of how Kylo looked up to him. You just get "Kylo was strong and kinda bad, so we fought." There could have been some real interaction between the two besides what was shown.

This one I agree with wholeheartedly. They had a lot of room for movement here and didn't really move at all.

[kedawa]

I haven't seen the movie or read any spoilers, but I'm curious; did Fisher's death affect how this film turned out at all?
I keep imagining some ham-fisted end for Leia.

[Dunlap]

I'll spoiler the answer.
No. Filming was completed before Fisher passed.
Director Rian Johnson spoke about ideas to write her out of the movie, but it felt disrespectful to turn her into a CG puppet or outright kill her on screen. Also, it seemed a waste to scrap her scenes.
There are multiple scenes that seem to eulogize her now, but more as a happy accident than intentional. Maybe they would have been cut down if she was still alive. There's a particular scene at the end between Luke and Leia where Luke talks about Han's death. So much else in the movie is winking at the fourth wall, you can't help but read it as a commentary on Carrie. But I thought it was sweet.

[Cowutopia]

Winking? A little more obvious than winking imo.

I think Rian had a few things he personally wanted to say, and there were a few plot points that sort of needed to happen, and everything else sort of moved along boringly with stock/uninspired humor and action until they happened. The key lines and moments were pretty good and the other 95% of the movie was kind of awful.

I think all the jokes were lame or in the wrong places.
I am happy with how Kylo is turning out though it wasn't exactly how I called it. seems like a Zuko arc to me

I think the Luke stuff wasted a lot of time where Luke is just being rude or obstinate, and that time could have been spent more productively. It got better when he finally opened up about what happened or started teaching Rey, or had a reaction to R2 or Leia. When he talked about his feelings. I liked the stuff between him and Yoda about failure. There could have been more of that and less like...."Luke tosses the lightsaber over his shoulder which everyone will not expect and then shuts the door on Rey with no conversation" These throwaway lines like "You went right for the darkness and didn't even stop" didn't develop into anything. Luke and Rey being together didn't develop either character at all...all the scenes that moved it forward were between Rey and Kylo or about Luke and Kylo. It was really weird.

The Rose and Finn storyline was lame and had some very heavy handed commentary.

Every character comes off as a caricature of themselves. Poe, Hux, Leia, Kylo, Rey and Snoke in particular. Phasma has like....an extra minute of screen time compared to TFA but is given this grand exit as if she were a character that had fifty times that much time. She still never did one impressive thing...but she looked cool. Finn seemed to be the least silly out of all the characters but the stuff him and Rose go through and survive is completely ridiculous and kind of ruins it. So does the weird romance. It's a good line Rose delivers, "We're going to win this by saving what we love" but like come on. They JUST met.

Every narrow escape becomes more and more implausible.
The First Order are portrayed as being more silly than sinister.

I loved how awesome it looked when the admiral went lightspeed through the First Order fleet but like.................that tactic seemed way too effective to not have been utilized before.
It cracked like every goddamn ship somehow. A little much I think.

Snoke's chamber was cool.

The whole series seems sort of exhausted at this point. Like, there aren't enough ideas to fill a movie so they fill it with white noise and just stretch star wars things around what little they have. I mean they're still running with the theme of the first movie which was casting off the ghosts of the original trilogy so they could tell their own story but their own story is just there to support the theme of casting off the ghosts of the original trilogy...while being practical remakes. It's all sort of odd and circular at this point, and there seems to be a good story underneath it all but the frenetic pace it's presented at and the silly action and silly villains and general silliness takes a lot away from it.



I think The Force Awakens was more fun to watch and I'd be more likely to rewatch that one in the future despite the cringey fan service moments. This one had a lot less of that.
I just don't understand what's driving the narrative anymore...? It's not really the characters as much as it is a resignation to the idea that there will always be this archetypal struggle no matter what happens because Star Wars. It's very meta and very depressing.

[Dunlap]

Well, yeah, they all but speak into the camera. Or did they do that, too?

"It's salt."

[Cowutopia]

lol iknorite

[Cowutopia]

Honestly I think playing and consuming D&D media (The adventure Zone, Acq Inc., Critical Role) has been ruining my ability to enjoy movies even more than my reading. These 120 hour narratives make everything else seem so rushed and flat all the time.

[Error]

If you think it's tired and played out then stop watching. You're done. Move on. No shame in it. I hated Force awakens. I said to my friend in the theater while waiting for the start that if I saw more of the same bullshit that I saw in FA that I would have a very hard time watching episode 9. But I feel like this one kinda redeems some of Awakens. Rey is no longer just some fucking amazing person with the force, shes raw and needs to learn. Poe is an amazing fighter pilot but it turns out he's a shitty soldier and leader. Finn is as useless as he was before but now he's not so annoying. And Kylo is far more interesting, because he learned from the past. Johnson found a way to ground the movies in some sort of reality again after JJ bounced the Falcon around like a basketball and had all of the new characters act like cartoon characters.

[bbobb]

Well, yeah, they all but speak into the camera. Or did they do that, too?

"It's salt."

That line was horrible.