THE LAST JEDI thoughts/reactions/reviews/mind-explosions (spoilers!!)

[Ban my account ffs!]

4/5.  I enjoyed it.  It did have a much different feel than other Star Wars films.  The characters were more relatable.  They weren't just characters on a quest.  They are people.

I think what bothers people is that movies, especially sci-fi/fantasy movies, are about escapism.  When you make the characters relatable and bring them down to a more real-world level, you aren't escaping any more.

[Keep cool-idge]

I saw the film yesterday, and I thought it was a very well done film. Some things I thought were stupid. Rey's parents being one of them.

The little boy at the end of the film who forced the broom to himself, and had the resistance ring. Could he be the basis of Rian's next trilogy?

No because his movies aren’t going to be 10/11/12 there totally new.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

I saw the film yesterday, and I thought it was a very well done film. Some things I thought were stupid. Rey's parents being one of them.

The little boy at the end of the film who forced the broom to himself, and had the resistance ring. Could he be the basis of Rian's next trilogy?

No because his movies aren’t going to be 10/11/12 there totally new.

Rian Johnson's films have nothing to do with the Skywalker saga.

[WritOfCertiorari]

I enjoyed it, but I have to say that I found it to be really different than most of the other movies in the series. The writing was better than in the prequels or TFA, but it's going to be hard to translate that into Episode IX since it won't have the same director. I think the main point here is that the series has finally transitioned into focusing only on the new characters, and that will be interesting to see in the next movie.

I'll give this one a 4/5.

[Mr. Smith]

4/5.  I enjoyed it.  It did have a much different feel than other Star Wars films.  The characters were more relatable.  They weren't just characters on a quest.  They are people.

I think what bothers people is that movies, especially sci-fi/fantasy movies, are about escapism.  When you make the characters relatable and bring them down to a more real-world level, you aren't escaping any more.

Highly disagreed on all counts.

Firstly, I don't see this cast as relatable, well besides Rose anyway.

Second, a completely a unrelatable character in movies, especially sci-fi/fantasy is a character you can't use to escape because there is no means from which to connect. Only in some types comedy can you get anywhere with a completely unrelatable character.

So I highly disagree with the premise that relatability and locking down to earth = not being able to escape.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

They were planning on originally having the trilogy without Luke, Leia and Han, and even told Mark, Carrie and Harrison as such, Carrie jumped on board first with Harrison and Mark following suit, it's quite obvious they are being quick to move away from the OT three for the ST three.

[Keep cool-idge]

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same its weird.

Yep

[Enduro]

I saw the film yesterday, and I thought it was a very well done film. Some things I thought were stupid. Rey's parents being one of them.

The little boy at the end of the film who forced the broom to himself, and had the resistance ring. Could he be the basis of Rian's next trilogy?

No because his movies aren’t going to be 10/11/12 there totally new.

Rian Johnson's films have nothing to do with the Skywalker saga.

And that kid has anything to do with the Skywalker saga? He's never even met a Skywalker.

[Mr. Smith]

They were planning on originally having the trilogy without Luke, Leia and Han, and even told Mark, Carrie and Harrison as such, Carrie jumped on board first with Harrison and Mark following suit, it's quite obvious they are being quick to move away from the OT three for the ST three.

Ah, so that's why they never asked Billy Dee to return as Lando.

[Keep cool-idge]

I saw the film yesterday, and I thought it was a very well done film. Some things I thought were stupid. Rey's parents being one of them.

The little boy at the end of the film who forced the broom to himself, and had the resistance ring. Could he be the basis of Rian's next trilogy?

No because his movies aren’t going to be 10/11/12 there totally new.

Rian Johnson's films have nothing to do with the Skywalker saga.

And that kid has anything to do with the Skywalker saga? He's never even met a Skywalker.

Well if he is let’s say one of Rey’s first students at the new Jedi order then that is going to be a main series film. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if the new trilogy explains stuff about snoke.

[America's Sweetheart ❤/𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖙𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖗]

Bad, bad, bad. No cohesive arc. It's like they took all the promises of the Force Awakens and shoved it down a garbage chute.

I know this is off topic, but your signature irks me.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I saw the film yesterday, and I thought it was a very well done film. Some things I thought were stupid. Rey's parents being one of them.

The little boy at the end of the film who forced the broom to himself, and had the resistance ring. Could he be the basis of Rian's next trilogy?

No because his movies aren’t going to be 10/11/12 there totally new.

Rian Johnson's films have nothing to do with the Skywalker saga.

And that kid has anything to do with the Skywalker saga? He's never even met a Skywalker.

Well if he is let’s say one of Rey’s first students at the new Jedi order then that is going to be a main series film. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if the new trilogy explains stuff about snoke.

Re: Snoke/whoever the villain is in IX (Kylo Ren won't work, that's just not the character): I'm sure they'll invent some exposition-heavy way to explain it away, but that doesn't mean it'll make any sense, be dramatically satisfying, or provide any sort of coherent narrative.  J.J. Abrams has one hell of a task before him after the mess Rian Johnson left him with and, as some folks have noted on other sites, it's easy to see how Johnson's selfishness got Colin Trevorrow fired.  Disney is gonna have a hard time finding a script they like for Episode IX and they can't really fire Abrams like they did Trevorrow even if he comes up with an unsatisfactory script because it'd be like publicly announcing that the whole thing is unsalvageable.  As one article noted, Disney has built up this brand for Abrams as "the Star Wars idea guy" and as a result, it's gonna look pretty bad for them if they sack him too.  The real question is whether or not Rian Johnson's planned trilogy gets either scrapped or assigned to a new director with Johnson "moving on to other creative ventures" in like 4-5 months. 

Again, I'm not a Star Wars fan or anything (nor a J.J. Abrams fan, I'd argue the best thing he's done by far was producing 10 Cloverfield Lane and even Rian Johnson is a far better director) but I really feel for folks who are because I totally get why many of them are so unhappy with Last Jedi (it's how I felt when David Fincher went way out of his way to take massive sh!t on Aliens or when D&D basically abandoned all pretense of doing an adaptation of ASOIAF in GoT seasons 6 & 7 in favor of making a glorified fanfic that dumbed the major characters down to one-note cliches who have little in common with their book counterparts).  In the same way that if you have always been a huge fan of something and it is executed flawlessly (ex: IT: Chapter 1 will always hold a special place in my heart since I've been a fan of the book ever since elementary school...even if Tim Curry's performance in the awful mini-series scared the sh!t out me when I was little), if material that is special to you is horribly botched then it can be much more frustrating than you're run of the mill poorly made film. 

Btw, for a Star Wars film (i.e. a franchise pretty much guaranteed to top $600 million on brand name alone no matter what) Last Jedi is not doing well at all (especially domestically) and we should remember it needs to top $800 million just to have any chance of breaking even when you factor in things like marketing and costs outside of the formal budget.  Not only is it doing far worse than Force Awakens was at this point, it saw one of the biggest first week drops ever (IIRC, bigger than the first week drop for one of the prequels, IIRC).  Even though it'll definitely be in the year's top ten box office releases in terms of ticket sales simply on the strength of the Star Wars brand (and fanatical dedication of the franchise's fanbase), the word of mouth for this film was clearly pretty bad...at least in the U.S.*

*Not to pick on the Chinese too much or anything, but they're kinda screwing up the natural order of the franchise system   Filmgoers in China keep turning out in droves for whatever crappy franchises Hollywood churns out and that market is thus the reason we keep seeing stuff like Michael Bay Transformers films even as the rest of the world (or at least American and Canadian filmgoers seem to have finally more or less realized are really bad).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Luke would never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever even consider doing that. Ever.

The movie had good stuff in it, but this ruined it for me. 2 stars.

[SoLongAtlas]

3/5. Gimmicky and forced comedy, action scenes that defy physics (gravity bombs in space - only way that works is with thrusters on the bombs to direct them "down"), purple hair on a VADM (I took her way less seriously with that alone and the fact that she hid her intentions - it made it seem like she was a First Order plant), bases with no point of egress, emotional scenes in the middle of a battle (they should have let Finn do it), worthless Canto Bight sequence, whipped Luke, and worst of all Leia Poppins. They should have made serious additional alterations to the script before shooting this.

It had some good scenes but I doubt Luke would have ever considering doing what he did (either to Ben or not going back, granted his X-wing was in the water for a decade or more so it was useless).

[Virginiá]

Btw, for a Star Wars film (i.e. a franchise pretty much guaranteed to top $600 million on brand name alone no matter what) Last Jedi is not doing well at all (especially domestically) and we should remember it needs to top $800 million just to have any chance of breaking even when you factor in things like marketing and costs outside of the formal budget.

I've seen this mentioned before. Is this really true though? This seems more like a "Hollywood Accounting" figure as opposed to something realistic. The film's official budget was $200 million, and even if you factor in another $200 million (+/-) for marketing/etc (which is a lot), that's still only 400. I read this for The Force Awakens (link)

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Which definitely sounds more realistic. I don't understand how TLJ could cost almost a billion dollars. It doesn't make sense to me unless they were holding money bonfires every night during production.

Also ftr it does appear to have surpassed 800 million so far.

[Anna Komnene]

Btw, for a Star Wars film (i.e. a franchise pretty much guaranteed to top $600 million on brand name alone no matter what) Last Jedi is not doing well at all (especially domestically) and we should remember it needs to top $800 million just to have any chance of breaking even when you factor in things like marketing and costs outside of the formal budget.

I've seen this mentioned before. Is this really true though? This seems more like a "Hollywood Accounting" figure as opposed to something realistic. The film's official budget was $200 million, and even if you factor in another $200 million (+/-) for marketing/etc (which is a lot), that's still only 400. I read this for The Force Awakens (link)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Which definitely sounds more realistic. I don't understand how TLJ could cost almost a billion dollars. It doesn't make sense to me unless they were holding money bonfires every night during production.

Also ftr it does appear to have surpassed 800 million so far.

The reason why they say that is because the studios don't make as much profit from grosses in places like China because they take a smaller share and have to pay fees to companies that market there. A movie like Transformers relies on China for its boxoffice, so it makes less money. Star Wars has more of an even split. IMO, that's not as big an issue for Star Wars because despite opinions to the contrary, it's actually not doing bad in the US market and is actually doing quite good! People have to remember that TFA was one of the biggest grossing movies of all time. It's not a fair comparison.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Btw, for a Star Wars film (i.e. a franchise pretty much guaranteed to top $600 million on brand name alone no matter what) Last Jedi is not doing well at all (especially domestically) and we should remember it needs to top $800 million just to have any chance of breaking even when you factor in things like marketing and costs outside of the formal budget.

I've seen this mentioned before. Is this really true though? This seems more like a "Hollywood Accounting" figure as opposed to something realistic. The film's official budget was $200 million, and even if you factor in another $200 million (+/-) for marketing/etc (which is a lot), that's still only 400. I read this for The Force Awakens (link)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Which definitely sounds more realistic. I don't understand how TLJ could cost almost a billion dollars. It doesn't make sense to me unless they were holding money bonfires every night during production.

Also ftr it does appear to have surpassed 800 million so far.

The reason why they say that is because the studios don't make as much profit from grosses in places like China because they take a smaller share and have to pay fees to companies that market there. A movie like Transformers relies on China for its boxoffice, so it makes less money. Star Wars has more of an even split. IMO, that's not as big an issue for Star Wars because despite opinions to the contrary, it's actually not doing bad in the US market and is actually doing quite good! People have to remember that TFA was one of the biggest grossing movies of all time. It's not a fair comparison.

It’s had one of the biggest first week drops of all time.  That’s really bad no matter how you spin it and the domestic box office numbers were abysmal for a Star Wars movie, IIRC even Phantom Menace had a smaller first week drop.  That kind of toxic word of mouth is only gonna get worse.  The standard here is how it did for a Star Wars film and by that measure, it’s borderline-imploding at the domestic box office.

[Anna Komnene]

Btw, for a Star Wars film (i.e. a franchise pretty much guaranteed to top $600 million on brand name alone no matter what) Last Jedi is not doing well at all (especially domestically) and we should remember it needs to top $800 million just to have any chance of breaking even when you factor in things like marketing and costs outside of the formal budget.

I've seen this mentioned before. Is this really true though? This seems more like a "Hollywood Accounting" figure as opposed to something realistic. The film's official budget was $200 million, and even if you factor in another $200 million (+/-) for marketing/etc (which is a lot), that's still only 400. I read this for The Force Awakens (link)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Which definitely sounds more realistic. I don't understand how TLJ could cost almost a billion dollars. It doesn't make sense to me unless they were holding money bonfires every night during production.

Also ftr it does appear to have surpassed 800 million so far.

The reason why they say that is because the studios don't make as much profit from grosses in places like China because they take a smaller share and have to pay fees to companies that market there. A movie like Transformers relies on China for its boxoffice, so it makes less money. Star Wars has more of an even split. IMO, that's not as big an issue for Star Wars because despite opinions to the contrary, it's actually not doing bad in the US market and is actually doing quite good! People have to remember that TFA was one of the biggest grossing movies of all time. It's not a fair comparison.

It’s had one of the biggest first week drops of all time.  That’s really bad no matter how you spin it and the domestic box office numbers were abysmal for a Star Wars movie, IIRC even Phantom Menace had a smaller first week drop.  That kind of toxic word of mouth is only gonna get worse.  The standard here is how it did for a Star Wars film and by that measure, it’s borderline-imploding at the domestic box office.

Yes and? It had the 2nd biggest opening weekend of all time and it was right before Christmas weekend, so it had a long way to drop. It's still made more money in 11 days than the Avengers did and only marginally less than Jurassic World. It's still going to make a massive profit before all is said and done. I don't really care for the narrative among the boxoffice "journalism" which is basically kowtowing to the MRAs who want to see this film fail because they have nothing else going for them in their lives. When all is said and done, it will have made a ton of money and a big profit. There might be a sense that the movie was a "failure," but that's only because of ridiculously absurd standards that make no sense. It was never going to match the hype of the Force Awakens.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Btw, for a Star Wars film (i.e. a franchise pretty much guaranteed to top $600 million on brand name alone no matter what) Last Jedi is not doing well at all (especially domestically) and we should remember it needs to top $800 million just to have any chance of breaking even when you factor in things like marketing and costs outside of the formal budget.

I've seen this mentioned before. Is this really true though? This seems more like a "Hollywood Accounting" figure as opposed to something realistic. The film's official budget was $200 million, and even if you factor in another $200 million (+/-) for marketing/etc (which is a lot), that's still only 400. I read this for The Force Awakens (link)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Which definitely sounds more realistic. I don't understand how TLJ could cost almost a billion dollars. It doesn't make sense to me unless they were holding money bonfires every night during production.

Also ftr it does appear to have surpassed 800 million so far.

The reason why they say that is because the studios don't make as much profit from grosses in places like China because they take a smaller share and have to pay fees to companies that market there. A movie like Transformers relies on China for its boxoffice, so it makes less money. Star Wars has more of an even split. IMO, that's not as big an issue for Star Wars because despite opinions to the contrary, it's actually not doing bad in the US market and is actually doing quite good! People have to remember that TFA was one of the biggest grossing movies of all time. It's not a fair comparison.

It’s had one of the biggest first week drops of all time.  That’s really bad no matter how you spin it and the domestic box office numbers were abysmal for a Star Wars movie, IIRC even Phantom Menace had a smaller first week drop.  That kind of toxic word of mouth is only gonna get worse.  The standard here is how it did for a Star Wars film and by that measure, it’s borderline-imploding at the domestic box office.

Yes and? It had the 2nd biggest opening weekend of all time and it was right before Christmas weekend, so it had a long way to drop. It's still made more money in 11 days than the Avengers did and only marginally less than Jurassic World. It's still going to make a massive profit before all is said and done. I don't really care for the narrative among the boxoffice "journalism" which is basically kowtowing to the MRAs who want to see this film fail because they have nothing else going for them in their lives. When all is said and done, it will have made a ton of money and a big profit. There might be a sense that the movie was a "failure," but that's only because of ridiculously absurd standards that make no sense. It was never going to match the hype of the Force Awakens.

1) Umm...what do MRAs have to do with any of this?  No one in this thread except you has said anything remotely relating to those clowns.  I and plenty of others have listed numerous legitimate issues with the film. 

2) Maybe the standards are fair and maybe they aren’t, but that is how Hollywood is gonna judge it and Rian Johnson is probably gonna get fired from the planned trilogy in about half a year.

[Enduro]

I saw the film yesterday, and I thought it was a very well done film. Some things I thought were stupid. Rey's parents being one of them.

The little boy at the end of the film who forced the broom to himself, and had the resistance ring. Could he be the basis of Rian's next trilogy?

No because his movies aren’t going to be 10/11/12 there totally new.

Rian Johnson's films have nothing to do with the Skywalker saga.

And that kid has anything to do with the Skywalker saga? He's never even met a Skywalker.

Well if he is let’s say one of Rey’s first students at the new Jedi order then that is going to be a main series film. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if the new trilogy explains stuff about snoke.

I guess it's too early to tell; we'll have to see the last film to determine if it will have the kid. This also begs the question: will the main series be continued at the same time as Johnson's films?

[Enduro]

Btw, for a Star Wars film (i.e. a franchise pretty much guaranteed to top $600 million on brand name alone no matter what) Last Jedi is not doing well at all (especially domestically) and we should remember it needs to top $800 million just to have any chance of breaking even when you factor in things like marketing and costs outside of the formal budget.

I've seen this mentioned before. Is this really true though? This seems more like a "Hollywood Accounting" figure as opposed to something realistic. The film's official budget was $200 million, and even if you factor in another $200 million (+/-) for marketing/etc (which is a lot), that's still only 400. I read this for The Force Awakens (link)

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Which definitely sounds more realistic. I don't understand how TLJ could cost almost a billion dollars. It doesn't make sense to me unless they were holding money bonfires every night during production.

Also ftr it does appear to have surpassed 800 million so far.

The general rule of thumb is that a movie has to make 3 times it's production budget to be successful.

[Lumine]

The film has its issues and it is clearly no Empire Strikes Back, but I find it a bit silly to see people attempting to brand it as a catastrophic failure in terms of performance (when it isn't) or even worse, as I've seen in other places, as if The Last Jedi was somehow worse than The Phantom Menace or done worse things than some of the most ridiculous moments in the entire saga.

One can question why they made certain decisions on where to move the story in TLJ (I liked the film and yet I strongly disagree with some of those creative choices), but come on, even the Original Trilogy has moments as ridiculous as a bunch of glorified teddy bears defeating what are supposed to be the best troops in the whole Galactic Empire.

[Enduro]

The film has its issues and it is clearly no Empire Strikes Back, but I find it a bit silly to see people attempting to brand it as a catastrophic failure in terms of performance (when it isn't) or even worse, as I've seen in other places, as if The Last Jedi was somehow worse than The Phantom Menace or done worse things than some of the most ridiculous moments in the entire saga.

One can question why they made certain decisions on where to move the story in TLJ (I liked the film and yet I strongly disagree with some of those creative choices), but come on, even the Original Trilogy has moments as ridiculous as a bunch of glorified teddy bears defeating what are supposed to be the best troops in the whole Galactic Empire.

I agree, it's a well done film, but also feels like an insult to the franchise as a whole. In my opinion, the fact that it's a good film is the worst part. I wish I could say what a horrible movie this was, but the only thing wrong with it is the disregard for continuity, and lack of vision for setting up a third film.
It ain't as bad as the prequels, or the teddy bear sequence, but it is my least favorite of the new films.

[Devout Centrist]

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Uh...this is Star Wars. Everything that makes Star Wars Star Wars defies the known laws of physics.

[Lumine]

I agree, it's a well done film, but also feels like an insult to the franchise as a whole. In my opinion, the fact that it's a good film is the worst part. I wish I could say what a horrible movie this was, but the only thing wrong with it is the disregard for continuity, and lack of vision for setting up a third film.
It ain't as bad as the prequels, or the teddy bear sequence, but it is my least favorite of the new films.

Actually, I think you hit what I see as the heart of the problem with some of the reactions thus far. There is a difference between finding TLJ a good or bad film and whether one personally likes it or dislikes it (as it's aptly showcased on your post), but it seems to me the rather vocal group of fans who thinks of TLJ's events as some sort of heresy are prepared to burn the whole ship down and brand the movie a disaster (or portray it as such as much as possible) just because they disapprove of the choices that were made.