It would be really boring if every character only made good, rational decisions that us viewing the movie from a safe theater would deem appropriate...

All that stuff you said is just character development and expansion of who these people are to me. Wouldn't agree with the negative things there really. I like seeing them develop and flesh out more, especially in dire situations.

No, I see your point. Remember when Star Trek: Generations came out, and all the trekkies got up in arms over the destruction of the Enterprise, and Kirk's death? They found it symbolic of Rick Berman's takeover of the franchise, intentionally destroying the old for no real reason except to make way for his vision.

I suspect that some reaction to The Last Jedi, including mine, is like that. It felt like Rian Johnson just wrecking things to wreck them. I full expect, and even encourage, him to do that with this new trilogy of his though. Star Wars can't be about the Skywalker clan forever.

I wasn't much of a fan of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. There were some story/plot decisions I hated. There were some story/plot devices that I thought were just pretty bad.


Honestly, I think they choose the directors out of order. Johnson should have directed Episode 7, then all of this crazy, wacky stuff would have been introduced from the beginning, instead of shoehorning it in mid-trilogy and basically tossing out most of what Episode 7 set up with the bathwater. Meh.

I liked it a lot. But I didnt love it. I want to see it again, and give it some time to settle.

Star Wars is a franchise that survives despite it's many notable flaws. It's amazing a franchise this regularly filled with embarrassments has not only lasted this long, but cultivated such a dedicated fanbase. It's why a big chunk of my fandom for it over the years has so waned. There was a time my brother and I pretty much had the original trilogy memorized, we watched them that much.

As much as I found moments to enjoy in the new trilogy so far (mostly on Kylo Ren's portrayal), and there was some moments even in the dreaded prequel trilogy, the original trilogy will never be matched--but even that has it's flaws. One of my gripes in general is that the first film (New Hope) is rife with terrible dialog and worse delivery. Much of it is cringe-inducing.

I tend to loathe JJ Abrams pretty much equal to Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich, and Zack Snyder as directors who care more about flash and pizzazz than they do in actually making coherent films with great characters. They all grew up inspired by Spielberg and Lucas and Zemekis and Landis and Dante (etc), but have no understanding of why those films were such classics to begin with. Even Spielberg seems to have forgotten how to make films with character development once he had a big enough warehouse of CG artists at his beck and call.

Personally, I think Abrams started the new trilogy lazily. If anyone remembers the "Bigger Jaws" bit from Family Guy, that is literally how JJ Abrams approached Star Wars. He just did all the same shit again, but "bigger." It's like Star Wars, but Bigger Star Wars. Which was a lazy, if nostalgia-baity way to start the new movies. He unfortunately set the stage for a bunch of repetitive retreading.



It is highly unlikely that there will ever be Star Wars stories or characters as memorable, iconic, or impactful as the original trilogy. Which is seemingly why Disney is interested in doing a bunch of unnecessary filler movies. I can't wait until they get to an IG-88-centric film sometime around 2029. Or when Bossk and 4-LOM get their own buddy-cop-bounty-hunter movie in 2037.

And for as much as George Lucas reinvented filmmaking with the original trilogy, he also introduced a whole shitload of obnoxious ideas that will always be a part of the franchise. Annoying cute characters intended for comic relief that everyone hates, but are used to sell a fuckton of toys. Iffy dialog and delivery. Stilted character development clearly invented and changed on the fly instead of with some overall plan. I liked Episode VIII for the most part. Not great, but they never will be again. A slow burn intro leading to a fun climax. Worth a watch, and I'll probably see it again, because my girlfriend wants to see it (I went with my son).

The problem with stuff like this is that it will never again be as good as it once was. Fans will support The Franchise (TM) regardless of quality just to have more of The Franchise (TM), and this goes for literally every major long-running IP. The hard work of building the fanbase is done. Keeping dedicated fans around is easy. Just give them more of anything and they'll come back. Justify the new stuff, find value in it, or walk away--but you won't walk away. All fandoms are ultimately religion. Once people have invested so much time and money into it, they aren't going to walk away years down the road when everything is terrible.

Just look at Simpsons fans.

Watched "Crank 2" last night - almost as good as the original. Jaystathe really has gone downhill - "The Mechanic 2" has to be one of the worst action films I've seen in a long time.

On a non-Star Wars note, I just recently wanted Jim & Andy, the Netflix documentary about Jim Carrey mostly, but also partially about the filming of Man on the Moon, itself a biopic about Andy Kaufman. I found it to be pretty interesting for the most part, but not great. It actually has a lot to do with just Carrey. About half of it is about the filming of Man on the Moon.

I remember some things about Kaufman pretty well, mainly his role on Taxi and his wrestling antics. I was a little kid during his earlier career. I was looking for some insight into why he is remembered as either a legendary comedian or a legendary asshole, and nothing in between. Didn't get it. I still think he was a genuinely unhinged dude who just happened come up with brilliantly funny things occasionally. Since that was my opinion to begin with, and one biopic + one documentary about the biopic hasn't changed my opinion, I have to say that Jim & Andy wasn't really a necessary thing to release.

Some movies I've seen this year (not necessarily released this year) which were good or outstanding:

Hounds of Love - excellent psych-horror
Blade Runner 2049 - Amazing sci-fi sequel
IT 2017 - surprisingly great
Nightcrawler - dark, thrilling
Baby Driver - good fun
Blood Father - Mel Gibson is excellent, Kyle!
Arrival - another great modern sci-fi classic
Logan - dark, more violent and a great finale
Get Out - astonishing, dark twist
Lost City of Z - good, even with Charlie Humdrum
Everybody Wants Some - fun
Green Room - dark violent
Spotlight - about paedo-priests
Nocturnal Animals - interesting

I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore - Elijah Wood sporting Priest & Saxon T-shirt

The Man with the Iron Fists - utter rubbish, but I laughed all of the way through it; it's hilarious!

War For the Planet of the Apes - Biggest disappointment of the year

I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore is so good. Between Colossal, Three Billboards and that, I feel like we've gotten quite a lot of amazing films that are extremely insightful this year.

Agreed. The first was complete dogshit and the sequel was somehow even worse!

Any movie that features a scene where a stripper is shot in the boobs and the silicone drains out, thus deflating the boobs, cannot be ALL bad.

Leatherface - An origin story for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, which doesn't feel at all like a TCM movie for most of its running time. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and if I found the middle 60 - 70 minutes engaging I'd praise the filmmakers for trying something different. But I don't think it worked too well overall. This was nowhere near as terrible as Texas Chainsaw Next Generation, which actively annoyed me; here I was just slightly bored most of the time. I'd probably have preferred a direct sequel to Texas Chainsaw 3D over this. Only recommended for TCM completists.


Reminds me to watch Scary Movie 1 again.

This is one of the few plot points I would truly criticize. Withholding the plan from the crew to instead act like they were doomed to drift until they used up their fuel serves no purpose other than to give the mutiny a reason to instigate, and have the big reveal they still had hope. Things that still needed to happen, but they way they were accomplished needed some smoothing.

That, and the fact that the ending of the movie doesn't really leave much room for Episode 9 other than... to do it all over again? First Order chasing down the Rebellion until a last stand, where Rey beats Kylo Ren in another lightsaber fight. TLJ ended with a very "final" tone that doesn't leave room for immense speculation like the ending of TFA did.

But other than that, I loved the movie, despite how undeniably bloated it was. Will need to see it a few more times, but tons of moments/visuals are standing out as definitive THIS IS WHAT STAR WARS IS scenes (even if the movie as a whole might not be the best in the series).

I almost turned it off within 10 minutes as I found the characters to be really dumb . I watched probably half of it, as it felt like a Rob Zombie movie to me, which I dont think is a good thing.

Yeah that was an example of idiotic horror movie behavior. You didn't miss much if you skipped the second half.

Is anybody planning to watch the Will Smith Netflix original movie Bright? Their original movies have been hit-and-miss for me (probably more misses, if anything) and this one has plenty of factors working against it. It's from the director of the mess called Suicide Squad, it's getting mostly bad reviews, and it's written by Max Landis, the latest alleged sexual assaulter working in Hollywood.

I found The Last Jedi to be sadly disappointing. I was looking forward to it so much, and it felt like the moviemakers took my hopes and just I dislike how Luke turned out (and I have Mark Hamill on my side there), Rey didn't develop much, Poe and Finn were just sort of there, and on the whole it seemed like the writers sat around a table, brainstormed a ton of ideas, and instead of discarding some and fleshing out others, they simply accepted them all and crammed them into an overlong movie. Yeah, even at 151 minutes, nothing seemed like it was given room to grow and breathe. The longer I watched it, the more restless and annoyed I became - but of course I couldn't walk out. After all, I spent the money on it, and even in the worst Star Wars movie (not counting anthologies), we can always look forward to

Sorry, I know that was rambling and probably a touch incoherent, but that's how the movie left me feeling. My feelings after one viewing are that it's just a touch better than Episodes I and II and worse than everything else (yeah, maybe even including Rogue One, which did little for me). I do want to see it at least once more though, to see if some of the chaotic narrative is more cohesive than it seems. With money being tight and tickets expensive, though, that reevaluation might be a long time coming.

Man, if I really loved Star Wars I think I would hate TLJ in ways I'd never hated movies before.

Since I don't, I thought it was okay. Pretty much all of the dialog was fucking painful, the humor (which there was a LOT of) worked exactly .00005% of the time, every once-interesting character was broken down to generic archetype and all of the bones Johnson threw to the fanboys never went beyond token........ and yet........ I walked away kind of happy with it. The final act transformed the movie into something that sits pretty well with me overall, despite me looking forward to lambasting it throughout the rest of the movie.

The film does undeniably reek of Rian Johnson's auteurism (remember guys, subverting cliches and expectations is good writing because good writing also avoids cliches and expectations!!! induction fallacies don't exist!!!), but reluctantly I have to say this is probably his best film because at least it kinda makes sense

on paper

if you don't think about it

sort of

Maybe when it comes out on blu ray we'll get a fan edit. Get rid of some of the dumb humor and Del Toro.

I feel bad for Mark Hamill. He's been eager to reprise his role as Luke Skywalker, only to have Rian Johnson take a complete shit on his character. Despite that, Hamill was still the best part of the movie. Outside of that, it was a disappointing clusterfuck. It pains me to say that, because as a Star Wars fanboy, I really wanted to like it. But I can't get over how flat the whole thing felt. It's as if the movie added absolutely nothing to the overall narrative of the Star Wars universe.

Johnson didn't take a shit on the character though. Everything that happened to him made sense and was done for dramatic purposes. I get why Hamill wouldn't be happy - it's his character since he was so young. But it would've been a worse movie if it was like he wanted it to be.

Are people still refusing to accept that Last Jedi is the best Star Wars movie aside from Empire?

I'd say New Hope is better, but otherwise, yeah, I would actually agree on that, Zelkiiro. Star Wars has always been a bit goofy, always had some odd parts to it and always divided its hardcore fans - I think TLJ is right in line with what the series has always been and is outstanding, much better than other big blockbusters recently.

A New Hope is still pretty dope. It's putting up a good fight for that coveted #2 spot.

Well I'd place Last Jedi above the prequels because it does have some redeeming qualities, but obviously nowhere in the same universe as the original trilogy.

I'm wondering if Disney is regretting announcing Rian Johnson's new trilogy before Last Jedi was released to such fan backlash and epic second weekend box office drops. Would be super hilarious but unsurprising if they quietly fired him.

Last Jedi wasn't the steaming pile of dog shit that was Force Awakens sure, that by no means makes it great. I'd give it a solid C. If i had to rank it I'd put it behind the OT and Rogue One, before the prequels.


I saw Shape of Water last night, i really enjoyed the movie. It was cute and funny with some pretty good commentary, also that actress, what an amazing job the lead did.

You can't be serious.

You can't.

He is. And I agree with him!

Even if you thought the film was imperfect, how much competition is there really? Most all of the other ones are imperfect in a lot of ways.

You're talking as if you're unaware Star Wars is one of the most beloved film franchises of all time. Besides, what kind of argument is that? We're not allowed to compare two films in the same franchise because both are imperfect? We're not allowed to say Alien: Covenant is shit but Alien is a masterpiece because each film has flaws? I'm not saying each film in the original trilogy is flawless, it's just that TLJ's flaws are a lot worse.

No, I'm saying it just seemed weird to me that people were acting like there were so many other Star Wars movies that were better than this one, when all I heard was a lot of grousing about pretty much all of them when they came out. I'm not saying you're "not allowed" to do anything. I actually think it's cool that people are dissecting and debating this new film even if I disagree with their criticisms.

Definitely, I've had a blast debating the movie with friends and family. If nothing else, it's probably become the most divisive Star Wars movie, even more so than Force Awakens and Rogue One.

A lot of mainstream movies don't really get talked about in detail by the general population - it's just "I liked it" or "I didn't like it." The level of analysis isn't that deep. But Star Wars' combination of nerdy superfans and the nature of TLJ's subversiveness in comparison with the previous movies have actually had some real conversation about this one. So it's pretty cool.

TLJ is remarkably similar to Batman V. Superman; an anti-franchise film that seems clinically designed to piss off hardcore fans. I respect both, even if they aren't actually any good once you peek behind their contrarian veil. But at least Batman V. Superman had competent action scenes, something that The Last Jedi simply refused to have.

I don't understand that complaint at all. There are some actions scene that I can't wait to see again.

Must. Watch. This.

I did get the parody vibe within the first ten minutes of the film. At best it seemed like a fun kids movie, at worst a piss take.

Edit: The last Jedi that is.

These aren't the dazzling sci-fi action scenes I was looking for... from a $200 million Star Wars film. I mean, I already saw that second one in fucking Star Trek: Nemesis, a C-tier sci-fi movie on a $65 million budget from 2003.

And hell, when you think about it, in The Last Jedi:


I know this was intentional... and in some ways, that makes me even more angry. It's really not that far from a Fast and the Furious movie with no car chases. Yeah, it's not what you expect, but not doing something can be way worse unless it's done very skillfully. And Rian Johnson is as skillful as Jar Jar juggling Gungan tech. Just imagine if they handed this to an actual visionary director like Villeneuve or the Coen bros or David Cronenberg or Michael Haneke. Sigh.....