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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2019-12-25, 09:17

At the risk of further traumatizing drew a few more thoughts/opinions (I guess a "trigger warning" here would be required?)

- The Knights of Ren...next to Captain Phasma, probably the most hyped-up-but-ultimately-useless characters in the trilogy? Did they have any point or purpose? Like Phasma, they looked cool and probably could've been used to really ratchet up the tension and danger our heroes faced. They just kinda stood around like cosplayers who showed up at the wrong exhibit hall.

- Maz's "a story for another time" promise from The Force Awakens when asked how she had Luke's lightsaber. In two followup movies, nobody saw fit to address this? And I don't wanna hear any shit about "it's in the comics/novel/video game". If you bring something up in a movie, then you address/resolve it in a movie (same one or a future installment). I don't mind the other media expanding on things and all that, but they can't be the sole location of major cinematic plot points. That's stupid. People have lives, families, jobs, gutters to clean, etc. And you can't expect them, especially casual fans who are going to make up the majority of your box office earnings, to buy and read all this ancillary shit to try and figure something out that should be addressed in the movie. They couldn't spare one minute to make that interesting bit of knowledge known to everyone watching (Cloud City janitors staff found it in some ductwork at the bottom of Cloud City, gave it to Lando who traded it to Maz a few years late for some droid porn, etc.)? That's J.J. and his stupid "mystery box" of just asking things/dangling tidbits and never really doing anything with it; you folks who suffered through Lost, you don't feel yanked around by that stuff? How is that "entertaining", after the first 1-2 times?

- Why do some Force users disappear immediately upon death (Obi-Wan, Yoda, Luke, Kylo), while others (Qui-Gon, Anakin, Leia, Rey*) manage to stick around as long as the script demands (for someone to mourn over them, scream, etc.). Rey was indeed dead, but managed to lie there (without disappearing) long enough for Kylo to crawl out of the pit, stumble his way to her, look at her, hug her and then heal her. If there was any consistency, she should've been long gone/disappeared way before Kylo made it over to her. Leia died and they just threw a sheet over her for most of the remainder of the movie (she finally disappeared when her son did, so I'm assuming there's some sort of family clause in the Force that dictates this kind of stuff).

- Did Keri Russell's character serve any point other than a friend of J.J.'s getting a paycheck? Someone that hot/engaging, you give her something to do. Maybe she should've been in the Jannah role, on the horse? Like Phasma, why hire a known, popular genre actor and then shove them into a mask/helmet the entire time? And her return at the end, everyone in the theater groaned/laughed. That scene was so corny and rah-rah. But, hey...'dat ass, right?

- The whole Palpatine thing was just stupid in ways that would require 3-8 paragraphs to convey. But then to have the actor/character saying the exact same stuff he said in previous movies ("Strike me down", "rule the galaxy", etc. jibber-jabber/mustache-twirling) just made it so goofy. Again, lazy and uninspired. This entire thing was a Star Wars Mad Libs...just fill in the blank of names, places, stuff, etc. and presto! Don't worry about whether or not it makes any sort of sense, just seal-clap for the benefit of your childhood.

- I think it would've made much more of an impact had the ghosts of Jedi past appeared in visual form in some cool, unique way. If you're a casual fan of the series, disembodied voices aren't going to mean much. But even those casual fans would recognize McGregor, Jackson, Neeson, Yoda, etc. (and the hardcore ones would've absolutely lost their minds, and it could've been the "bringing it all full circle" high-point of a movie that seemed to desperately be seeking one). Again, missed opportunity. These movies are so weird in that they emphasis silly stuff that doesn't need it, but then they'll turn right around and ignore/skip over a great opportunity where maybe a bit of attention or detail - or another 30-45 seconds of screen time - might make a huge difference in how something is perceived by the audience. There's just no rhyme or reason to so much of it. I just imagine lots of coin tosses taking place between Abrams and Terrio as they labored over their MacBooks..."heads, we take 30-45 seconds to elaborate on this really important point that the audience needs to understand...tails, we have Finn go "whooo!" again. Ah...and tails it is!"

- There was a Pirates of the Caribbean/magical journey/Narnia/Potter aspect to this movie that has never really been part of Star Wars lore...the endless "finding shit to leading you to further shit that should lead you to the final shit you're ultimately seeking" thing, which I've never been a fan of. Just one of those "quests to gather arcane, magical doo-dads" to help explain away this or that just seemed out of place...these wayfinders, that "Sith dagger", Keri Russell's cheat coin, etc. All these little "things" that you have to gather/have for other things can happen just seems so weird, suddenly jammed into this ninth movie. That sort of thing hasn't been a SW trope all this time. It's never been a treasure hunt or video game-like "search and gather" type of franchise, at least the first six haven't been. There's been information sought, or reasons given via spoken exposition or setup. But there hasn't been this whole "go here, now go there, now travel to here and work you way through the maze and then go here and..." approach. It seems to waste a lot of time, and chew up time that could be be put to use laying out a coherent, engaging story.

- Did Chewie's "death" really fool anyone? And why let us, the audience, know he survived before the other characters? We would've shared in their joy at discovering he was alive, but they didn't even do that right. The fake-out didn't even last seven minutes. If you're going to do something like that, stage it better, don't reveal the outcome early and maybe actually let it linger and hurt for more than one scene transition? That's cheap, lazy manipulation that I hate in TV and movies, Star Wars or otherwise. It was, however, a cool way to show Rey tapping into some scary powers she didn't seem to be aware of (Force lightning from her fingers). But they could've done it without the "ohmigod, they killed Chewie" fakeout that really didn't pay off.

- On a related note, did anyone think Threepio was "gone forever" (especially once they made it known, beforehand, "doesn't Artoo back up your memory"? Again, out of nowhere, but needed to set up that "all is not lost". But, by doing so, you dampen the effect of "ohmigosh, we lost Threepio as we know him...". Again, just lousy writing/storytelling. Any high-schooler with a passing interest in literature/fiction/creative writing knows that you hold those things back and you don't give the audience a giant "this isn't really as important/tragic as it seems" heads-up...you don't spoil your own setups/twists before they even have a chance to make an impact on the reader/viewer! Is this not basic Storytelling 101? But when you have J.J. and the guy who wrote Batman v Superman and Justice League, what do you honestly expect?

- The little nod to Empire with the Knights of Ren ship hiding amongst the rubble/asteroids(?) where our heroes' ship was briefly hiding out. When our heroes powered up and took off, you saw the red engines of the KoR ship light up and pursue them. That echoed Boba Fett's tactic to track the Falcon to Cloud City. Again, just restaged/reshot sequences we've already seen in far better movies, decades ago. Yeah, they might tweak the angles, distances and perspectives (so you can't nail them for being complete hacks with no ideas), but it all boils down to "hey, remember that time when...". Again, tribute band Star Wars.

- That very first planet we saw where Kylo was killing people in the forest, I think that's supposed to be Mustafar, but the first time I've seen it with any vegetation. You see it from space and it's definitely all volcanic/lava-y, but when you cut to the action on the planet's surface, it has trees (but the skies are still glowing red, and that wayfinder thing they found/stole was obviously in some man-made container/vault, so I'm just going to assume that maybe they were at or near Vader's castle that we saw in Rogue One? And, if so, maybe that would've been a cool opportunity to pull the camera back a few hundred yards and make that known to everyone watching, so they can realize "oh, Kylo is stealing stuff from Vader's nightstand" or whatever. If I'm wrong on this being Mustafar, then ignore the above. If it is Mustafar, then my point stands.

- Were those actual living beings in that big stadium surrounding Palpatine? For some reason, I found that part eerie/creepy...all these thousands(?) of hooded, chanting figures just standing there, slightly moving. When it looked like Rey and Kylo were getting the best of the red guards and the Knights of Ren, why didn't a few hundred of them run out to help their evil coworkers? They just sat there, eating popcorn and enjoying the action? If I'd been Rey or Kylo, I would've been terrified by the prospect of a bunch of those people treating the proceedings like a soccer game, jumping out of the stands to attack those on the field. Or were they just ghosts/spirits and unable to engage in such actions? Again, nobody sees fit to make this clear so you're just sitting there going "who are all those people in hoods...they seem content just to watch". I guess they were Sith fan club members with the ultimate E tickets?

- Could they have handled Han's appearance in a way that made it seem more like a memory/hallucination for Ben? For Han to just be standing there, no translucency, waviness or echoing voice just seemed so weird. People in my audience laughed or had a dismissive "WTF?" sigh. I know the scene ends with Kylo there alone, so he was obviously imagining it. But they didn't help it on the front end, and went a long way toward making the scene more jarring (and less well-received) than it could've been (a running theme throughout this thing). In fact, I'd say Han shouldn't have been the one put there at all, but Anakin...I'm sure Hayden Christensen would've cleared some time in his schedule for 1-2 days of shooting. That would've made a hell of a lot more sense (and impact), for the grandfather, who Kylo has sought to imitate for so long, be the one there to encourage him to shed the Kylo Rey persona, chuck the cross guard saber and become Ben again. It's already established that Force ghosts exist and can appear anywhere, especially when people need it most. So Anakin being the one to appear in this scene would've been 10x less idiotic (and reaching for the fan-service award) than just random Harrison Ford looking all grizzled and homeless (and the two of them basically repeating their exchange from the bridge in The Force Awakens). Seriously, nobody is writing this shit. They're just thinking of cool things they want to show, and then figuring out if they have the time and/or budget to pull it off ("can we afford to bring in Harrison for a day? Give him a call and see if he'd be interested in doing something really goofy...").

- How many times are they going to crash land the Falcon in this trilogy? How is that ship not ripped to shreds by making these hard, skidding landings without the gear down? If Han were still around, he'd be livid. "Stop crashing my ship!" (complete with the pointing finger/scowl)

- Apparently ships in the Star Wars universe can sit abandoned in the desert (or underwater) for a decade or two, but start right up and fly when needed most. Who knew? I sometimes have to struggle with my Saturn on a cold morning, after driving it the previous day. I can't imagine pulling it out of a pond after 15 years, turning the key and zipping down to the corner Stop 'n' Rob for a cold one and a lottery ticket.

- Luke going for the Robert Plant look...nice hair, doofus. And I like how they got Hamill in shape for TFA (the best he’s looked in years), but I assume once he realized he wasn’t going to factor into this trilogy in any real way he eventually just said “screw this 'diet and exercise' horseshit...” and got back to the White Castle and Ho-Hos regimen. He looks horrible here (worse than Harrison), and that creepy pedo smile (like father, like son?) as he Force-lifted the X-wing up was weird. Again, no applause or cheer from my audience, but laughter. In fact, it was almost like he was playing himself (unhinged Twitter moonbat Mark Hamill) here as opposed to Luke Skywalker, the way he sounded/came across when he was talking to Rey. Odd choices all around. It should be pointed out that Luke Skywalker has been nothing but a complete dick in these movies.

- Cool that the old lady showed up out of nowhere at the end to give Rey the chance to tell everyone her new name. Where did she come from? Rey had about a 25-mile unobstructed 360 view and she, Force-gifted as she is, didn't sense some old woman and her space camel approaching, and then walking through, the Lars homestead? I chuckled at this part; it just struck me as funny for some reason.

- Interesting that after all this time, all the Skywalkers are dead and the only person surviving/moving forward is a Palpatine. I know the message they were going for, but it kinda sucks in light of everything. But a very 2019 thing to do...family is whatever you want/need it to be, and blood factors in the least. And while I actually kinda agree with that in real life at times, it’s a jarring way to end the Skywalker story. IMO, Ben should’ve survived and Rey died (the last Skywalker lives on, the last Palpatine dies), but Disney wasn’t about to make such a bold (and “sexist”) move. Twitter would've surely crapped its pants and gone supernova.

- Poe Dameron is given to speechifying and exposition, isn't he? How many times did he repeat what's going on, the stakes involved, the plan they've come up with, what must be done/who needs to do it, etc. for the benefit of the audience? Four times, at least, by my count. And when he's not doing that, he's constantly doing the "let's light 'em up and kickstart the flame of freedom that will shine across the galaxy!" pep-talks from his X-wing (as his friends and fellow pilots are getting blown out of the sky).

- Is it just me, or was Artoo completely wasted in this trilogy? Including this final movie. He was, IMO, the lynchpin of the previous six movies (the prequels and especially the original trilogy). In these new ones, he was turned off/covered with a tarp for 95% of The Force Awakens, he had maybe one real scene in The Last Jedi and I honestly can't remember anything he did in this movie other than sad-beep/bloop/bleep when Leia died (he was left back at the base while the other droids went on the knick-knack treasure hunt). Poor Artoo...is J.J. Abrams known to actively dislike this character? Because he sure did get the short end of the stick across three movies. Sorry, Disney...but BB-8 is never going to fill those particular shoes. God knows you tried, but all you did, in the end, is needlessly sideline the one character who should've been front-and-center across all nine installments. Nice going.

Last edited by psmith2.0 : 2019-12-26 at 01:06.
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