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Cosmic_Equilibrium
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:03 pm
Posts: 842
PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 10:03 pm 
 

***MINOR SPOILER***





Spoiler: show
The one involving a lone admiral and a Rebel cruiser ship making an interesting decision to go to warp drive....


Last edited by Cosmic_Equilibrium on Fri Dec 15, 2017 10:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Zelkiiro
Pounding the world with a fish of steel

Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 5:30 pm
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 10:04 pm 
 

Ooooooooohhhhhhh. That scene.

That was pretty fuckin' sweet, yeah.
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GTog
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 12:50 am 
 

Just got back from seeing The Last Jedi. I won't go into a long, scene by scene, spoiler laden review just yet. I will just say that it offered a stark contrast between Light and Dark, but not in the way they intended. It was 50% pure awesome, and 50% utter garbage.
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darkeningday
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 1:35 am 
 

Rian Johnson has never made an even remotely good movie so I can't possibly imagine he'll suddenly make a good one now. It's horribly depressing that I was actually relieved to see JJ Abrams will be returning for Episode 9, and Johnson has stepped down from this section of the franchise.
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~Guest 21181
The Great Fearmonger

Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 3:44 am
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 2:40 am 
 

Chewie killing Leia on accident with his crossbow was definitely the low-point of the series.

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MetallicaTrueFan
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Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2017 8:23 pm
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:25 am 
 

Huge dissonance between what critics and audiences think of The Last Jedi... now I am way more interested in see it now than I did before.
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Xenophon
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:07 am
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 12:04 pm 
 

MetallicaTrueFan wrote:
Huge dissonance between what critics and audiences think of The Last Jedi... now I am way more interested in see it now than I did before.


Yeah, that is a weird discrepancy in the Tomatometer for a mainstream blockbuster action movie, especially one for a franchise as beloved as Star Wars. I remember hearing about political tweets and stuff put out by Star Wars over the past year or two, and I also remember reading somewhere that this new movie was supposed to be the "most political" Star Wars movie yet, so maybe a lot of people got angry at the political views of the movie and/or thought they were too unsubtle? I hope the reason for the discrepancy in audience vs. critic opinions is something more interesting though. I haven't seen the movie yet either, but I'm probably going to see it with my family when I get back for Christmas break.

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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 1:30 pm 
 

darkeningday wrote:
Rian Johnson has never made an even remotely good movie so I can't possibly imagine he'll suddenly make a good one now. It's horribly depressing that I was actually relieved to see JJ Abrams will be returning for Episode 9, and Johnson has stepped down from this section of the franchise.

Rian Johnson made two excellent movies and one mediocre movie before making Star Wars. He also directed one of the best episodes of Breaking Bad. JJ Abrams has never made anything better than a decent movie, and a lot of terrible ones.
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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 1:39 pm 
 

Loved Brick and those Breaking Bad episodes he did, so I'm on his side. Looper wasn't that great for me, but it wasn't terrible or anything either. I'm fine with him and really looking forward to Star Wars. I think the polarization in opinions says that this is a more ambitious and audacious film than the last few crowd-pleasing ones, so I hope I'll really like it.

I loved Super 8 and The Force Awakens from Abrams and didn't like the Star Trek reboots, so I am maybe 50/50 on him.
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GTog
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 2:52 pm 
 

The Last Jedi scores:

Rotten Tomatoes Critics: 93%. Audiences: 57%
Metacritic Metascore: 86. Userscore: 5.0

Critics and audiences often disagree to some degree, but whenever I see a huge disparity like that it's always safe to go with the audience. It works the other way around too - when the critics say a movie is shit but the audience loved it, then I'll go see it.

The Last Jedi, I think, simply fell victim to shoddy directing, shoddy writing, or possibly script-by-committee. There were things in the movie that they knew they wanted to do, but they didn't know how to get there. There is clearly a story, but the audience has to piece it together because the director didn't know how to tell it.
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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 3:01 pm 
 

I usually side with the critics on opinions of a lot of movies I feel like. Most of what is "critically good" is usually stuff I enjoy every year - I don't read reviews very often though.
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Razakel
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Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2006 8:36 pm
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 3:29 pm 
 

I couldn't have been more excited to see The Last Jedi. I enjoyed Force Awakens but had my issues with it, and everything looked lined up for Last Jedi to be a better, more ambitious film. I was very disappointed by it. It's really frustrating because there was quite a lot in it that was really, really good but also way too much glaring bullshit weighing the whole movie down. Here's a list in spoiler tags of things I liked and didn't like:

Spoiler: show
The bad: - The Finn/Rose storyline is probably the biggest detractor. Rose was just such an uninteresting character and there was no chemistry between her and Finn like there was between Finn and Rey in Force Awakens. To add to this, their whole journey to that casino planet was, and I don't say this lightly, straight out of the prequels. Oh my god. Drunk midget aliens inserting coins into BB-8 for him to later spit back at security guards is R2-D2 suddenly having jetpacks. It's Episode II material. The whole sequence was just one long comedic side story that fell so flat for me. Painful to watch. The humour, in general, was inconsistent and there was too much of it. Some of it was funny, some of it was bad.

- Leia flying through space like Mary Poppins is just... does anyone even have an excuse for this? Does Rian Johnson? Fucking atrocious.

- The pacing was...strange. I felt like I was constantly waiting for something to happen, and then kept waiting for something else to happen. There was no climactic battle (even though we got the set-up for one) and not even a lightsaber fight. I know this movie aimed to break conventions, but at least have satisfying alternatives.

The good: - Luke Skywalker. I was a bit nervous about seeing old Mark Hamil in the role again but I'll be damned if he didn't blow it out of the water. Luke and Rey were easily the best parts of this movie, and I'm so thankful that I can say they handled Luke very well. I loved everything about him.

- I actually liked all of the original trilogy characters more in this movie than in Force Awakens. And holy shit, RIP Admiral Akbar. A Mon Calamari legend if ever there was one.

- That Snoke scene. This was unexpected and I don't even really care if we never learn who exactly Snoke was, this was a great scene, and all the more surprising that it took place halfway through the movie. Too bad there wasn't another action scene like it.

- And how about that Yoda scene? I thought it was nice, I wasn't expecting it, but it felt a bit "off" at the same time, like his dialogue was out of character or something. It was also strange that they made force ghosts look different in this movie, or maybe it was just the 3D.


Ugh. Not the movie I was hoping for, in spite of some things that were great. And also there was only one scene partway through that you could say had Rian Johnson's signature on it. Otherwise this could easily have been directed by Abrams.

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Xenophon
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 3:39 pm 
 

I'd say Abrams' films have been pretty consistently the same quality for me. Just enjoyable, action-y sci-fi films with not a whole lot of depth or character development or anything. His Star Wars work was probably his best though.

In general, I tend to agree with the critics more when it comes to the big-budget type of movies. For smaller movies sometimes the critics' ratings can be quite inflated to me, but there's a certain threshold of obscurity past which the trend starts to go in the opposite direction, like the critics sometimes underrate those movies imo.

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schizoid
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 4:03 pm 
 

Just saw The Last Jedi. I haven't seen a Star Wars movie since Attack of the Clones, so maybe that will make my appraisal more objective (or less well informed). It was... OK. But I was struck by how spastic the tone of it all was. From the beginning, it seemed like it was all tongue in cheek, then serious, then comedic. Disjointed is the word.

I really liked the Snoke character, but not having seen the previous film I assumed he was a continuation, and not the complete waste of potential it seems he actually is. I guess it just really seemed like a bunch of side stories, without any real driving plot. Fan fiction.

On Critic vs Viewer reviews/scores, a few months ago I wanted to see War for the Planet of the Apes, based entirely on how much I enjoyed the previous installment. Again, I don't have any real dedication to the franchise, having missed the first one. But before viewing I decided to check out some reviews on IMDB. While I don't usually take much notice of the unwashed masses, on this one, viewer reviews were overwhelmingly negative, especially compared to the generally positive critic reception.

So, was I missing anything?
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GTog
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 5:12 pm 
 

I agree that:

Spoiler: show
The character of Rose was completely unnecessary. She didn't do anything useful or forward the plot in any meaningful way.
I also agree that the entire casino segment of the film was a waste of time.


Help me out with this part though, because I can't shake the feeling that it really couldn't have been this obvious, and I might have missed something:

Spoiler: show
So the Resistance cruiser Giant Target is fleeing the Snokeship because there's no point in going to lightspeed, because then they'll be out of fuel and helpless. They have to run for it at sublight speed only, to get to a nearby secret base that has enough power to send out distress calls to any Resistance allies.

Poe and Finn and the useless Rose somehow conclude that the First Order can track them through hyperspace. So they embark on a stupid plan to sneak aboard the Snokeship and turn off the hyperspace tracker, because of course even though they just hypothesized its existence 10 seconds ago, Finn knows exactly what that is and where it will be.

So they hop on a fueled up, lightspeed capable shuttle, and... hang on. They had one of those on board the whole time? A crew could have gotten to the hidden base easily! They could have been spending the last 12 hours sending distress signals out to literally everyone!

But instead shit happens, and Vice Admiral Purple Hair ends up in charge. She embarks on actually a pretty good plan to sneak everyone off the ship by fueling up all the transports, engaging their cloaking devices, and... hang on again. They had cloaked transports on board the whole time? Why is anyone even on this fucking cruiser? What is it except a giant target? Vice Admiral Purple Hair was going to use it to ram the Snokeship anyway (which was awesome). Fight could have been over. Resistance win by TKO in round 1.

Meanwhile, everyone on the Snokeship has forgotten that they're packing a couple of big-ass supercannons, and instead spend the next several hours using the Resistance cruiser Giant Target for artillery practice. Why? The cruiser can't possibly be out of range of the supercannons. We just got done watching them obliterate surface targets from orbit.


So yeah. There's a hour of movie in there that only happens because literally every single person involved, on both sides, came down with a case of the stupids all at the same time.
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darkeningday
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 5:29 pm 
 

Brothers Bloom was far worse than mediocre. I can get why someone could like Brick even if the whole thing felt like a really superficial reading of Hammet, with none of the clever dialog and memorable characters. But fucking Looper? The movie where Emily Blunt licks her hand to masturbate but decides she'd rather have JGL instead? The movie where Bruce Willis manages to kill like 30 people off-screen without any explanation or even a hint how? The movie where the approach to time travel makes the silliest time travel episodes of TNG look like Stephen Hawking treatises written for postdoctoral MIT students?

Surely you jest. Even Timecop was better than Looper.
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failsafeman
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 6:24 pm 
 

I thought Looper was excellent (despite some admitted flaws) and as someone who has actually read a lot of hardboiled detective fiction, including Hammet, I disagree completely with your assessment of Brick. There's a strong core of humanity to both movies that make the characters and their struggles transcend fiction to the point of feeling not just like a good story, not just like reality even, but like the elevated symbolic reality all art struggles to be. I couldn't give a shit if the fictional time travel system in Looper didn't make as much fictional sense as it could have. But we've had this argument about Johnson before and there's no reason to have it again.
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Turd Blaster
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 8:01 pm 
 

I saw Last Jedi Thursday night. I've sat on it til now so I could really analyze and think about it, so I will also pull up the spoiler tags. This is all over the map, both real analysis and also just shit I thought was cool or lame.
Spoiler: show
Cons:
The Last Jedi reeeeeally needed a better script editor. The dialogue is rough at times, overly expositional at others (how many fucking times did Rey tell Luke the resistance needed him?!?!), and just wasn't that great. I'll also agree that it was, tonally, kind of all over the place. Rose sucked so much, the out of nowhere "maybe she's Finn's love interest!" angle was whack, and what the hell was the deal with her super special amulet? I can absolutely agree with you guys that their sideplot was not very good and brought about because of some kind of suspect writing. Also: you spend almost the whole movie with them off doing dumb shit, then nearly kill Finn? Whack. Leia's gotcha of a """death""" made me kind of angry. We heard after Episode VII that Captain Phasma was gonna be an actual real character this time but psych, totally wasted again (possibly for good. Did she die? What the fuck was that?) A character we do know is dead: Admiral Ackbar. How you gonna just casually kill him off with like half a line of dialogue? Fuck off. Benicio del Toro's character sucked hard. Also, here's a scorching hot take: I no longer really like Poe. He was cool for the first literally less than fifteen minutes of the movie and then turned into a hot-headed dickbag.
Not sure if this is a pro or a con so it's getting a separate category in between:
Snoke's death. Definitely a cool scene transitioning into an even cooler fight scene but like...are we just never gonna have any clue who he is, where he came from, and why he was basically a more powerful Sith lord than fucking Darth Vader? Conflicted on this one.
Pros:
HOOOOOOOOOLY SHIT so many completely badass scenes that literally dropped my jaw in the theater. Commander Purple Hair taking a fat shit onto the chest of Snoke's corpse (obviously not literally)? Badass. Fight scene in Snoke's chambers? Badass. LUKE FROM THE MOMENT HE ARRIVES ON CRAIT UNTIL THE VERY END???? BEYOND BADASS. Seriously, that was the coolest fucking thing I've seen in AGES. Force ghost Yoda was such a nice surprise. Luke as a whole blew away my expectations. They treated his death so damn well, I wasn't even upset. Porgs had such a high potential to be terrible but I think they're the most adorable little suckers. The Adam Driver-Daisy Ridley duo though: those two are great together, Ridley's great without Driver, and Driver's showing the potential to quit being quite the edgelord turd I hated in Force Awakens. Even though he pulls off some serious bullshit (taking out all the guards in prison, piloting a fucking AT-ST), I loved BB-8. The amount of spaceship porn in this one is next level. Weird geometric shapes suddenly just appearing on screen from light speed is like crack to me, and they really killed it there.

From an analytical and critical standpoint, the movie's likely in a weird C+ to B range. From a general entertainment moviegoing standpoint though? Easy A at the least, possibly A+. It's just such a fun movie and I'll likely watch it again.
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aaronmb666
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:28 pm 
 

Saw it thursday night and my thoughts:

Spoiler: show
Hated Snoke's death, as we've been anticipating him this whole time, only for him to be in the movie for 5 minutes.
Benicio's character and scenes could've been edited out.
Rey's parent reveal was pretty lame too.

However, I really enjoyed it and really curious as to where the next one goes, as I have no idea what they could do.

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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 1:37 am 
 

Last Jedi was pretty damn awesome. Loved the cinematic, epic scope, the snappy yet also involved and jam-packed storytelling and the characters. This was a great time. I was wrong about it being different or more artsy or something - it was a fucking fine-tuned, well-written, super polished action movie with mega-doses of sweeping epic drama.

I can't really agree with the critiques I'm reading - for a big blockbuster action/sci fi this was pretty much perfect.
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lordcatfish
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 8:12 am 
 

I thought Star Wars was OK as I left the cinema, but the more I dwell on it, the worse I think it was. It's biggest problem was the pacing. It was treading water for much of the first half, and despite upping the ante for the second half, it felt like even more of a slog. It would definitely have benefitted from some editing.

I also thought most of the humour was ill fitting and missed the mark, and there were some really cringe worthy moments as well. On the positive side, there were some great scenes and some visually impressive stuff.

Overall I'd give it a 4 or 5 out of 10.
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henkkjelle
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 2:52 pm 
 

Just came back from Star Wars. On par with Empire strikes back. Probably the second best in the series over all. I cant even think of what people do not like about it right now. The general audience is definitely wrong about this one. Everyone in my group loved it as well.
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GTog
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 5:46 pm 
 

Well, from my perspective, this was the key scene the The Last Jedi:

Spoiler: show
Recall that at the end of The Force Awakens, we're left with Rey holding out Luke's old lightsaber, and some genuine suspense over whether or not he'll accept it or what. That should have been a clear and obvious join to The Last Jedi. Instead, Luke takes it and casually chucks it over his shoulder like he doesn't give two shits.

That scene is actually Rian Johnson saying that he doesn't give two shits. He literally takes the setup done by TFA and deliberately throws it away.


Rian Johnson wanted to make his own movie, his own way, with whatever original vision he wanted to bring to it. He clearly didn't want to have to follow The Force Awakens in any way. But dude, you were hired to make a sequel, the middle movie in a trilogy. The story and the characters are not yours to fuck around with. Your only job here is to move along a story that has already been started, and leave it in some kind or order so Episode IX can cap it off.

He failed miserably in that respect.
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Bishop_Drugsalot
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 5:53 pm 
 

Autistic at-some-level EU lover Star Wars dude here. Just watched it, am completely bewildered aaand:

Spoiler: show
- They learned absolutely nothing from the feedback of the shot-by-shot "homages" from ep 7? A sickly amount of ESB/ROTJ shot-by-shots and worship, and as a second straight movie of this saga, they don't feel like clever winks to the audience, they piss me off
- Space-Leia was idiotic. A very subtle way to show off her force sensitivity
- If someone had told me about Yoda in this film, I would've been excited and maybe a little sentimental, but that scene felt off. Yoda looked odd and the dialogue was lacklustre
- Am I the only one who connected many of the "new" themes to Kotor 2, that Rian Johnson has reportedly played? Force bonds, the force sensitive dark spots that remind me of the Apathy-cave in Korriban, and the weird sidenote that Luke had switched off his connection to the Force (the wound in the force), as if it could be turned on and off like a switch?
- Loved the Leia hologram, and Luke's and Leia's reunion (since I looked it as Mark's and Carrie's farewell), but gotta admit, the emotional impact would have been stronger if I had watched the scenes apart from this movie
- Reused conflict dialogue, boo
- Darth Sidious mention +++
- Space Casino was utter horseshit. Straight Disney garbage with all its abused animals and the CGI-chase with Jar Jar-esque casino characters was on par with the actual worst moments of the prequels.
- Didn't buy the "let's just tail these rebels" plotline at all. I mean they had a bunch of Star Destroyers just idling it out? Convicing
- Not this film's fault, but the mere mention of the New Republic got my blood boiling, such stupidity
- Space Balls level joke and Poe's video game manouvers at the beginning, not cool
- Absolutely loved the Snoke's throne room scene, even if they were a little too close to a rip-off zone for a second there. The payoff was great and the action was amazing.
The fate of Snoke though is fucking silly if they don't explain it in any way. A sith lord of such power just spawned from nowhere? He also seemed to have a connection to earlier events. There better be more to this
- Luke as a character was almost shot to shit, but although the whole hologram-schtick was basically insane, at least I had the feeling that here is a true Jedi master. Don't approve his killing off in that manner though, by what, overextensing his use of the force? Come on
- Visually the first hour and a half was really boring, luckily the last hour held some stunning visuals.
- Something was off with the closeups, they switched in and out of focus franticly and left me scrambling
- PHASMA, really!? People complained about riding the Phasma fan merch wave when the character did nothing. We get assurances that she's relevant in 8. Again we get merch and promo shots with solo Gwendoline without her helmet and shit, and she has like 30 seconds of screen time? Get out with that shit
- General Hux reduced to a comic relief character
- Props to Kylo Ren character development, Rey not so much
- The midget asians heartfelt speech bah


Don't know how to feel about it really. Bigger high and low points than mediocre Ep 7, but really doesn't feel like my Star Wars anymore. I liked Rogue One though.

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henkkjelle
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 6:54 pm 
 

GTog wrote:
Well, from my perspective, this was the key scene the The Last Jedi:

Spoiler: show
Recall that at the end of The Force Awakens, we're left with Rey holding out Luke's old lightsaber, and some genuine suspense over whether or not he'll accept it or what. That should have been a clear and obvious join to The Last Jedi. Instead, Luke takes it and casually chucks it over his shoulder like he doesn't give two shits.

That scene is actually Rian Johnson saying that he doesn't give two shits. He literally takes the setup done by TFA and deliberately throws it away.


Rian Johnson wanted to make his own movie, his own way, with whatever original vision he wanted to bring to it. He clearly didn't want to have to follow The Force Awakens in any way. But dude, you were hired to make a sequel, the middle movie in a trilogy. The story and the characters are not yours to fuck around with. Your only job here is to move along a story that has already been started, and leave it in some kind or order so Episode IX can cap it off.

He failed miserably in that respect.


And when that scene happened, I pretty much knew it was going to be good. It's still Star Wars to it's core, but enough happens and enough gets jumbled up and thrown around to make it interesting again. It would have been very easy to make the more obvious and expected sequel and it would probably have been good as well..... but it would have been expected and boring to a certain extent. I'm glad Rian Johnson went this way. It worked like a charm and I love it.

@Bishop_Drugsalot

A lot of criticisms seem to boil down to the movie "not being Star Wars enough". Rogue One was Star Wars enough. But Rogue one was also boring until the last two scenes.
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Zelkiiro
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 7:11 pm 
 

henkkjelle wrote:
But Rogue one was also boring until the last two scenes.

I really liked Rogue One--it was like if Gen Urobuchi made a Star Wars movie. Though it was tragically lacking in three-piece suits. And negative utilitarianism. And characters going gibbering insane after crossing moral event horizons.
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Bishop_Drugsalot
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 7:29 pm 
 

henkkjelle wrote:
@Bishop_Drugsalot

A lot of criticisms seem to boil down to the movie "not being Star Wars enough". Rogue One was Star Wars enough. But Rogue one was also boring until the last two scenes.

That's a pretty simplified pointer, don't you think? A lot of my criticism wasn't about the movie being Star Wars enough.

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henkkjelle
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 7:51 pm 
 

It wasn't a response to all your points. Just the "but really doesn't feel like my Star Wars anymore" part. After reading some criticisms that seems to keep coming back in different forms. That and people being a bit disappointed in the change in direction away from The Force Awakens. For me it was all positives though.

Spoiler: show
I do agree that the casino scenes were a bit out of place, but nowhere near Jar Jar levels of cringe. Or Ewoks. I also really really hope we haven't heard the last of Snoke. I do love how the scene played out, but I'm just curious about his place in all this.
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Necroticism174
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 7:59 pm 
 

I liked about 60% of the Last Jedi. That 60% was incredibly solid. The other 40% though? Get out of here.

The thing I find the most insanely puzzling is that
Spoiler: show
They had every opportunity to kill off Leia or give her a fitting end. Instead, we got floating space Leia. What the hell? What are they going to do now? Bring her back as terrible CGI or kill her offscreen?
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Razakel
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2017 10:09 pm 
 

Spoiler: show
Disney's already said Leia won't be in Episode IX at all. I guess their options are either to kill her off in the opening crawl (which would be horrendous) or simply mention that she's doing other Resistence stuff elsewhere, which probably wouldn't make much sense, but it doesn't seem like Disney cares about Star Wars manking sense anymore.

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Bishop_Drugsalot
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 5:36 am 
 

henkkjelle wrote:
It wasn't a response to all your points. Just the "but really doesn't feel like my Star Wars anymore" part. After reading some criticisms that seems to keep coming back in different forms. That and people being a bit disappointed in the change in direction away from The Force Awakens. For me it was all positives though.

I loved the fact that it was a departure plotwise from TFA which was really stale and by-the-numbers in my books. It's just that in the process, all my spoiler-hidden issues happened as well.

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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 9:51 am 
 

Razakel wrote:
Spoiler: show
Disney's already said Leia won't be in Episode IX at all. I guess their options are either to kill her off in the opening crawl (which would be horrendous) or simply mention that she's doing other Resistence stuff elsewhere, which probably wouldn't make much sense, but it doesn't seem like Disney cares about Star Wars manking sense anymore.


Spoiler: show
Well, to be fair, her dying in-between films was hardly the planned course and they'll have to write around her now.


Some other shit...

Spoiler: show
I didn't have a problem with those casino scenes or with Rose. I liked that they gave Finn something to do and Rose is another cool character to add to their repertoire of younger, kick ass actors and characters. I can see not liking those parts as much as Luke and Rey on the island or some of the more somber parts, but I liked that they had every character doing things and being active as a part of the story.

In addition, Poe and the Resistance were really cool too - I enjoyed that there was no real plan that would work for them as a victory and yet they were fighting on just to stay afloat. Super exciting shit.
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Zelkiiro
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 10:26 am 
 

Empyreal wrote:
Some other shit...

Spoiler: show
I didn't have a problem with those casino scenes or with Rose. I liked that they gave Finn something to do and Rose is another cool character to add to their repertoire of younger, kick ass actors and characters. I can see not liking those parts as much as Luke and Rey on the island or some of the more somber parts, but I liked that they had every character doing things and being active as a part of the story.

In addition, Poe and the Resistance were really cool too - I enjoyed that there was no real plan that would work for them as a victory and yet they were fighting on just to stay afloat. Super exciting shit.

It really adds to the feeling of the middle films being the "Empire equivalents".

Spoiler: show
The entire point of the casino scenes everyone apparently hates was that they had a solid plan that backfired. The stealthed transports backfired. The initial light-speed jump backfired. The First Order had a fuck-you laser that ate their impenetrable door for breakfast. Everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong, and it was super intense.
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Resident_Hazard
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 11:02 am 
 

Zelkiiro wrote:
Empyreal wrote:
Some other shit...

Spoiler: show
I didn't have a problem with those casino scenes or with Rose. I liked that they gave Finn something to do and Rose is another cool character to add to their repertoire of younger, kick ass actors and characters. I can see not liking those parts as much as Luke and Rey on the island or some of the more somber parts, but I liked that they had every character doing things and being active as a part of the story.

In addition, Poe and the Resistance were really cool too - I enjoyed that there was no real plan that would work for them as a victory and yet they were fighting on just to stay afloat. Super exciting shit.

It really adds to the feeling of the middle films being the "Empire equivalents".


For a chunk of the movie, I was worried it was heading down a path of just copy-pasting chunks of Empire with Luke taking the Yoda role and Rey taking the Luke role. I was glad it didn't go this route.

Quote:
Spoiler: show
The entire point of the casino scenes everyone apparently hates was that they had a solid plan that backfired. The stealthed transports backfired. The initial light-speed jump backfired. The First Order had a fuck-you laser that ate their impenetrable door for breakfast. Everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong, and it was super intense.


Just saw The Last Jedi yesterday with my son. Here are my general thoughts:
Spoiler: show
I felt the first third of the film was a slow-burn with little tension. A slow space-chase segment seemed poorly supported, logically. Some similar issues with the "this is not how gravity works" elements, but not as bad as the opening of Episode III.

Those stupid fluffy bird creatures that were clearly designed as toys first, characters second were obnoxious. Most of the "comedic" points in the first half of the film fell flat and weren't amusing. They were annoying.

Kylo Ren totally stole the show. As much as it was great seeing Rey come into her own, Kylo Ren's character arc threw action, drama, and twists into the formula, continuing to show his transformation in a superior manner to Vader's in the prequel trilogy. Honestly, I don't want him to be saved, but I do want to know more about why he's so angry and disturbed. What set him on this path? Was it just "darkness inside?" Living in Vader's shadow? His parents' rocky relationship?

The final third of the film was fantastic, action-packed, and kept adding surprises. I thought it was about to end two or three times, but there was more to go. It set up a deeper story with Ren and Rey, and I loved that Rey is essentially a nobody who just happens to be in tune with the Force. I loved the concept that the old ways need to die across the board, but I did not feel Luke's "end" was justified, the way he just "faded" from life. I also caught the subtle point that the Jedi tradition did not die with the burning tree or Luke fading, as the ancient books had clearly been stolen by Rey, as they were in the Falcon. You see it briefly in only one shot, but she has them.

I was surprised Snoke was killed off. I didn't much care for the character to begin with. I am much more interested in how Ren will run things moving forward, and dare say I hope it involves him killing the First Order due to inept leadership and tunnel-vision focus on hunting his prey.


One final note that is not a spoiler: Regardless of the science and technology and Force, no one in the Star Wars universe yet understands flanking maneuvers. At some point, they have to develop a strategy other than "charge straight into a hail of laser fire." I know they do it because it makes the heroes look daring and shit on film, but come on.

Dialog and delivery didn't sound "like Star Wars," which can be good or bad, depending on your point of view. The original movie (New Hope) wavered between 70's-era delivery and lingo and Star Wars-universe comments (bantha fodder and all that), so to be fair, A New Hope has some truly awful dialog and delivery for large chunks of the movie. Watch it without rose-colored fanboy glasses, you'll hear it and cringe. Kylo Ren's pure rage also feels very out of character for Star Wars, but his delivery is so fucking good. Even at it's best, Star Wars has always hovered with emotionally flat characters, but Kylo Ren pours raw human feelings onto the screen making him seem at once like the most realistic, terrifying, and sympathetic character in the entire fucking saga.

Remember the detached way Luke revealed to Leia that they were siblings compared to the way Ren screams his way through a single moment of perceived failure.
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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 11:07 am 
 

I thought the whole story was tight and they worked in every detail very well for how much of it there was. Every character had shit to do and things came together for the climax very well and in ways I didn't really expect. In terms of the way the whole thing was written, I thought it was damned marvellous.

Kylo Ren really is a great addition, yeah - he's fucking on point as a character, with a brooding intensity, and Adam Driver is spectacular.

Spoiler: show
The stuff they did here with him and Rey, with their psychic connection, his fleeting feeling he could be with her and be rid of all the other shit, and then his turn to betrayed, emotive, juvenile rage - that is fucking immaculate. Splendid stuff. The meat of this movie.
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Resident_Hazard
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 11:43 am 
 

Empyreal wrote:
I thought the whole story was tight and they worked in every detail very well for how much of it there was. Every character had shit to do and things came together for the climax very well and in ways I didn't really expect. In terms of the way the whole thing was written, I thought it was damned marvellous.

Kylo Ren really is a great addition, yeah - he's fucking on point as a character, with a brooding intensity, and Adam Driver is spectacular.

Spoiler: show
The stuff they did here with him and Rey, with their psychic connection, his fleeting feeling he could be with her and be rid of all the other shit, and then his turn to betrayed, emotive, juvenile rage - that is fucking immaculate. Splendid stuff. The meat of this movie.


Handily my favorite moments in the film

Spoiler: show
all had to do with Ren being needled by others around him, realizing how he's been used as a tool, then destroying everything around him that failed to properly fear or account for the rage inside him. The way he smashed his helmet after being called "just a boy in a mask." The way he effortlessly cut Snoke down when Snoke was basking in his over-confidence. The way he exploded awash in rage after being denied everything he wanted. Absolute gold. These are easily some of the best moments in the entire Star Wars saga.
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Zelkiiro
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 1:22 pm 
 

He also gave us one of the best moments in TFA, where he flies into a blind rage and the Stormtroopers outside see shit being wrecked in that room, decide that's not their fuckin' problem, and turn and walk the other way.
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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 1:45 pm 
 

Here's a good piece about a controversial part of the movie... kind of underscores things I was thinking about all of it and gives some context I think people are being too quick to toss aside.
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Razakel
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 3:02 pm 
 

Zelkiiro wrote:
Spoiler: show
The entire point of the casino scenes everyone apparently hates was that they had a solid plan that backfired. The stealthed transports backfired. The initial light-speed jump backfired. The First Order had a fuck-you laser that ate their impenetrable door for breakfast. Everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong, and it was super intense.


Spoiler: show
Absolutely not. The fact that whole storyline didn't amount to anything was only the insult to the injury, as in, 'oh my god, we just had to endure all of that bullshit and now it doesn't even matter?' What I can't stand about that whole section of the movie is simply that it was stupid; it immediately reminded me of the prequels - it was dumb, it didn't make sense, it involved characters I wasn't invested in, and it was desperately trying to be funny but wasn't funny. Even that brief Maz Kanata scene that resulted in them going on that mission was ridiculous. I didn't particularly like Maz in TFA but at least Abrams tried to set her up as an actual character, not just a one-dimensional excuse for comic relief. I also like Del Toro as an actor, but wow his role in this movie was trite, not to mention cliche. Sharing your jail cell with the man who's able to break you out? Whoa, never seen that one before!

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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 4:15 pm 
 

What would you have rather had happen? I thought all of it played out just fine.

Spoiler: show
Del Toro's character has been done before, but eh you can't have every detail be original I guess. It didn't really affect my opinion of the movie at all.

Also it wasn't overly goofy or anything - it was a casino for rich amoral assholes exploiting kids and animals and it opened the characters' eyes to what's going on out there. I guess if that didn't matter to you, fair enough; I thought it was an interesting tidbit.
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