Star Wars Episode 8

[SecretAsianMan]

6 hours ago, Gormongous said:

 

I feel like the problem with the new Star Wars movies is overwhelmingly inconsistent characterization. Characters are dumb until they're smart, cautious until they're cocky, and conflicted until they're confident.

 

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I personally thought that this thing was as hot a pile of refuse as the prequels. Why take the technology of Star Wars, which has always been a stand-in for the magic of the plot, and bolt a Battlestar Galactica-style resource crisis onto it? Even if this is the Empire Strikes Back of the trilogy, it's not remotely plausible that they're just going to run out of fuel and get blown out of the sky, especially not after Ackbar's token death that's an attempt to make up for their unwillingness to give Leia a suitable end (and after the incredible moment when Kylo Ren hesitates on the trigger and then his wingman takes the shot for him, ugh).

 

On the other hand, I didn't expect to like the training stuff, but I did like maybe eighty percent of what Mark Hamill was doing — the world-weary sage stuff, not the smug saves-the-day act that he warns against and then later does anyway — and I found the scenes between Rey and Kylo to be strangely powerful, especially the telepathic ones, and a great way to enhance the mystique of the Force that's not just old men jabbering at you. Too bad it ends up being Snoke's doing, because the secondary antagonist needs to be built up somehow, and too bad that that and everything wraps up perfunctorily and arbitrarily.

 

I also felt that the universe in the movie felt incredibly small? People and places didn't get mentioned unless they were going to be (or already were) part of the plot. Big-name actors like Laura Dern and Benicio del Toro get flown in for a few scenes that are usually far out of tone with the rest of the movie. In fact, it really felt like the script was written by someone who loved Star Wars and then heavily revised by someone who had no idea what Star Wars is.

 

I'd agree with most of that

 

Spoiler

Despite all the complaining I do about Kylo Ren, I also liked the parts where he and Rey are linked.  It seems like a plausible "force" thing while also adding some intrigue and a way for two characters to have a connection without being near each other.  Unfortunately the payoff was terrible.

 

Normally I'd be all about the dumb made up technological quandary the rebellion finds themselves in but in the case of Star Wars I agree it's not a good fit.  Having a device that can track them through hyperspace feels like something better suited to Star Trek than Star Wars.  Sending some of the characters on a side quest to fetch a hacker (really?) feels very out of place in a world where space magic is literal.

 

While I also liked the characterization of Luke as a failed teacher, I was very dissatisfied with the scenes that followed Rey leaving.  When Luke is training with Yoda and decides to leave to save his friends, Yoda scolds him for not being ready.  Yet when Rey does the exact same thing Yoda tells Luke Rey has what she needs to learn despite having FAR less training than Luke did.  It may have worked out better this time but I don't have the impression that anyone involved knew it would before hand.

 

[clyde]

I just figured Luke needed way more training than Rey did. Always looking toward the future he is.

[SecretAsianMan]

Luke is kind of a crappy Jedi.  I think he gets way more credit than he deserves.  I feel that Rey has more potential than any Force user seen thus far given all that's she's been able to accomplish with zero training but as @Gormongous said character portrayals have been very inconsistent.

[Gormongous]

19 hours ago, clyde said:

I just figured Luke needed way more training than Rey did. Always looking toward the future he is.

 

44 minutes ago, SecretAsianMan said:

Luke is kind of a crappy Jedi.  I think he gets way more credit than he deserves.  I feel that Rey has more potential than any Force user seen thus far given all that's she's been able to accomplish with zero training but as @Gormongous said character portrayals have been very inconsistent.

 

 

I like that Rey's defining factor is not her level of skill but her sense of self and where she comes from, but overall I still find her to be a very boring character when not playing off someone with actual conflict, like Kylo Ren or Finn. Part of the reason that people, especially the toxic fanbabies that have rejected this movie so violently, were so attached to Luke is because he grew so much in the course of three movies. Rey is very static, with other characters having to come in and inform her (and us in the audience) of her own abilities that she just... has. But she's not the Chosen One or anything! Sometimes she feels like an attempt to write a protagonist who experiences no struggle or failure, with plot contrivances like just finding the Millennium Falcon or just having the Jedi texts teleported onto it propelling her along.

 

This is a complaint that I don't like making because the well's been poisoned, but it just feels weird (albeit correct) to say that Luke is still struggling and failing decades later but Rey just... gets it.

 

[clyde]

It is a bit of a missed opportunity that she doesn't have many obstacles. It would be nice if they did something like have all the established characters constantly explaining to her that she can NOT have jedi capabilities because she ain't got the midis; to the point where she is trying to convince herself that they must be right because they know more about it (while levitating shit or whatever). And then Kylo is like "You have the most amazing abilities." But he is just trying to get her to do labor for his problematic agendas. That would be cool imo.

[Cordeos]

18 hours ago, clyde said:

It is a bit of a missed opportunity that she doesn't have many obstacles. It would be nice if they did something like have all the established characters constantly explaining to her that she can NOT have jedi capabilities because she ain't got the midis; to the point where she is trying to convince herself that they must be right because they know more about it (while levitating shit or whatever). And then Kylo is like "You have the most amazing abilities." But he is just trying to get her to do labor for his problematic agendas. That would be cool imo.

They are far too busy rushing to the next CGI heavy action scene to really give the characters much development. There are also so many characters that all need screen time so the film is spread thin between them

[SecretAsianMan]

22 hours ago, Gormongous said:

 

 

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I like that Rey's defining factor is not her level of skill but her sense of self and where she comes from, but overall I still find her to be a very boring character when not playing off someone with actual conflict, like Kylo Ren or Finn. Part of the reason that people, especially the toxic fanbabies that have rejected this movie so violently, were so attached to Luke is because he grew so much in the course of three movies. Rey is very static, with other characters having to come in and inform her (and us in the audience) of her own abilities that she just... has. But she's not the Chosen One or anything! Sometimes she feels like an attempt to write a protagonist who experiences no struggle or failure, with plot contrivances like just finding the Millennium Falcon or just having the Jedi texts teleported onto it propelling her along.

 

This is a complaint that I don't like making because the well's been poisoned, but it just feels weird (albeit correct) to say that Luke is still struggling and failing decades later but Rey just... gets it.

 

 

Mostly agreed.  Part of the anger toward the characterization of Luke is also his status in the lore and fandom as the literal white savior of the galaxy so naturally making him anything but perfect amounts to heresy.  Except he's not the savior.  His struggle during Empire and Return is a personal one, he doesn't do much on a galactic warfront scale.  All of this other companions are the ones who actually bring the empire down, he's at best a distraction to the Emperor.  I even have issues with the way he takes down the first Death Star.  Besides a lot of design nonsense that bothers me (keeping in mind I haven't seen Rogue One), I have a personal theory that the Force had nothing to do with it.

 

Also regarding Rey I agree that she's too much of a blank slate.

 

Spoiler

Even Kylo says her parents are complete nobodies (if you believe that story).  She feels defined more by what she does than who she is, contrary to almost every other character in the series.