Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) (WITH SPOILERS!)

[AstroZon]

I had intended to watch The Last Jedi in the theater just after Christmas, but I came down with a very virulent case of bronchitis - so I stayed home. Anyway, I picked up the DVD a week ago and have since watched it twice. Hmmmmmmm.

All characters were cast in a dark light even to the point of having black eye shadow. I'm not sure what the point of that was except for the sake of a bleak middle chapter in a trilogy - rather formulaic. And just about all characters lacked the spark they had in The Force Awakens: Rey, Poe, and Finn especially. Laura Dern seemed totally lifeless as Vice Admiral Holdo, C3PO was straight from Cartoon Network, and those little birds that Chewbacca befriended were nothing more than obvious marketing placements.

The editing seemed bad throughout which led to unfocused, confused, and incomplete plot lines. And speaking of plot lines, there were too many. Finn and Rose's excursion to Canto Bight seemed out of place - not to mention DJ, the second choice code breaker.

I really liked The Force Awakens and Rogue One and had high hopes for this installment. But I'll gladly take Ewoks or Jar Jar Binks over this mess.

 

[ctg]

 

[ctg]

LOL https://kotaku.com/the-last-jedi-you-look-different-1827305120

 

[night_wrtr]

Okay wait, is Kylo wearing Shredder's armor?

 

[ctg]

“Why did Luke give up in The Last Jedi? What other events made Luke give up?” fan Cameron White asked on Twitter, tagging Hamill and writer-director Rian Johnson. “From what we know Luke made one mistake and he gave up. That doesn’t really make sense.”

“When I understand, I’ll let you know,” Hamill replied.

The Last Jedi revealed Skywalker exiled himself to out-of-the-way water planet Ahch-To after an encounter with tainted Padawan Ben Solo (Adam Driver) resulted in the destruction of Skywalker’s rebuilt Jedi Order. A shamed Skywalker marooned himself on “the most unfindable place in the galaxy,” cut himself off from the Force, and waited to die.

“I was shocked. I said to Rian, number one, Luke was the most optimistic, hopeful character, and now he’s this miserable, despondent hermit,” Hamill said in one interview when asked about his reaction to Johnson’s script.

“You see in the story why that is, but I had a real problem, because I don’t believe a Jedi would ever give up. You see, if he makes a mistake, he doubles down and does the right thing, regardless of the magnitude of his mistake — choosing Ben Solo and being so wrong and giving rise to the possible Darth Vader.”

Hamill famously said he initially “fundamentally disagreed” with Johnson about the direction of the character, but later clarified those comments, saying they were “inartfully [sic] phrased.” The longtime Star Wars actor explained he was “surprised” at how Johnson saw Luke, adding it took him “a while to get around to [Johnson’s] way of thinking.”

Despite a more prominent role than his wordless, movie-ending cameo in The Force Awakens, Hamill conceded Johnson’s film was about the new generation instead of his now-grizzled disillusioned Jedi — but to understand Skywalker’s fall from grace, Hamill had to invent his own backstory.

“In this new one, I was saying to Rian Johnson: I need to know my backstory,” Hamill told The Vancouver Sun. “It was kind of unclear. You read where he is now and what he’s doing now and sort of have to fill in the blanks for yourself. So I did do a backstory myself. It’s not about Luke anymore, so it’s not really important. But I had to make sense of it for myself.”

Mark Hamill Doesn’t Understand Why Luke Gave Up in ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’

 

[Phyrebrat]

Glad to see Luke’ll be in EP9.

pH

 

[ctg]

New research suggests that much of the negative reaction to 2017's "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" came from Russian trolls and was politically motivated.

While critics loved it, the rest of world seemed quite divided on "The Last Jedi." Some people liked director Rian Johnson's experimentation with the story and the world we thought we knew.
But some in the fandom thought Johnson had destroyed what they once loved in a way that couldn't be repaired.

In the wake of the film's release, many of those who hated the movie aggressively made their feelings about the film known.

There were racist and sexist comments made toward actors in the film, particularly Kelly Marie Tran, who played Rose Tico and left social media.

In early 2018, a mysterious Twitter account emerged, the sole purpose of which was to get the movie remade with a different director. Johnson also experienced harassment online that has continued since the film's release last December.

A recent study's findings, published in "Weaponizing the Haters: The Last Jedi" and the strategic politicization of pop culture through social media manipulation" by researcher Morten Bay, looks into the reactions to the movie online — particularly the negative criticism that's made the movie controversial within the Star Wars fandom.

In the paper, Bay suggests that much of the aggressive negative criticism isn't genuine and that some of it isn't even coming from Star Wars fans. Bay wrote that there was "evidence of deliberate, organized political influence measures disguised as fan arguments."

"Overall, 50.9% of those tweeting negatively was likely politically motivated or not even human," Bay wrote, adding that a number of those users appeared to be Russian trolls.

Bay also wrote that the Trump era influenced the fandom, because the themes and messages within "The Last Jedi" are the same as the other Star Wars films.

"The divisive political discourse of the study period and the months leading up to it has likely primed these fans with a particular type of political messaging that is in direct conflict with the values presented in 'The Last Jedi,'" Bay wrote.

A lot of the criticism of 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' actually came from Russian trolls and bots, new study finds

Effing Russians and their information warfare campaigns. This is totally pissing me off.

 

[Khuratokh]

A lot of the criticism of 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' actually came from Russian trolls and bots, new study finds

Effing Russians and their information warfare campaigns. This is totally pissing me off.

I'm not buying it, not completely anyway. While I don't dispute the mysogenist and homophobe Russians are everywhere these days. More than most are just disgruntled, entitled man-children who feel the various franchises should only cater to them and no-one else, while forgetting or flatly denying that franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars were inclusive from the get-go.

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

This is problematic for multiple reasons, one of which being that this could in the long run be used to easily dismiss any legitimate criticism as an attempt to troll or influence the opinion of the masses. Right now we're talking about a movie, but we can all think of at least one political figure who regularly dismisses their critics by calling them 'fake' or 'trolls' to avoid having to argue their points. And taken to its logical conclusion, this new trend will give rise to a new form of censorship, in which whoever happens to be in power is the only authority who can decide what the truth is, while everyone else is regarded as a troll or as being under the influence of trolls.

So what now? Is The Last Jedi the greatest movie ever simply because an estimated 50% of its critics were trolls? Nope, even if this is true The Last Jedi is still the worst Star Wars movie as far as I'm concerned. And the last thing I want is to see my numerous points about the flaws of the movie dismissed as troll speech.

We will always need to hear and actively seek out both sides of any argument if we value our freedom.

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

I'm not buying it, not completely anyway. While I don't dispute the mysogenist and homophobe Russians are everywhere these days. More than most are just disgruntled, entitled man-children who feel the various franchises should only cater to them and no-one else, while forgetting or flatly denying that franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars were inclusive from the get-go.

My point exactly. It has become way too easy to dismiss an intellectual opponent as a troll or a man-child.

The majority of the people who criticised The Last Jedi had nothing bad to say about the inclusiveness of the film. But their criticism of the movie's shoddy character development, plot and editing was drowned in the ocean of racist or sexist remarks from actual trolls and man-children.

 

[ctg]

I'm not buying it, not completely anyway. While I don't dispute the mysogenist and homophobe Russians are everywhere these days. More than most are just disgruntled, entitled man-children who feel the various franchises should only cater to them and no-one else, while forgetting or flatly denying that franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars were inclusive from the get-go.

This is problematic for multiple reasons, one of which being that this could in the long run be used to easily dismiss any legitimate criticism as an attempt to troll or influence the opinion of the masses. Right now we're talking about a movie, but we can all think of at least one political figure who regularly dismisses their critics by calling them 'fake' or 'trolls' to avoid having to argue their points. And taken to its logical conclusion, this new trend will give rise to a new form of censorship, in which whoever happens to be in power is the only authority who can decide what the truth is, while everyone else is regarded as a troll or as being under the influence of trolls.

I took that article out from a very serious information warfare thread which studies the russian trollfactory and their information warfare campaigning and cultural influencing. There has been several cases over the years and this is just a proof of their abilities to shift masses perspective. Nobody cannot deny that there has a lot of that recently.

I don't like what they did for one bit. Hence I try to read the reviews afterwards and avoid fan hyping as much as I can. I guess all I can say is that there is propaganda everywhere these days and one has to be careful not fall in their trap, and get influenced by wrong ideals.

 

[soulsinging]

This is problematic for multiple reasons, one of which being that this could in the long run be used to easily dismiss any legitimate criticism as an attempt to troll or influence the opinion of the masses. Right now we're talking about a movie, but we can all think of at least one political figure who regularly dismisses their critics by calling them 'fake' or 'trolls' to avoid having to argue their points. And taken to its logical conclusion, this new trend will give rise to a new form of censorship, in which whoever happens to be in power is the only authority who can decide what the truth is, while everyone else is regarded as a troll or as being under the influence of trolls.

I myself thought the movie was dreck and have posted why elsewhere. There are many legit grounds for doing so but this article is not talking about them, it's talking about the howling hordes that felt the movie was some sort of devious plot by feminists and minorities to ruin Star Wars. If you're not one of said people, that's great. But I'd also say that if you're more concerned about your well-reasoned critiques of a fantasy movie's shortcoming being "censored" than by the number and ease with which hordes of howling trolls and man-children were unleashed on real people by a carefully orchestrated propaganda blitz from a nation rife with real misogyny and racism... then I guess I feel like maybe to some extent you're worrying a little bit about the wrong thing.

What concerns me is 1) how many real people bought into this and got caught up in it, which is enough to shake one's faith in reason and their fellow humans and 2) how easy and effective it was. Russia has found the weakness of the west, and it is our belief in "individuality" and our refusal to believe that at the end of the day we could ever be "manipulated" by propaganda. It works so well because we consume it freely believing it could never work on us free-minded individuals, but we're all of us social/herd animals on some level. We can't see what we refuse to acknowledge exists.

That said, The Last Jedi still stinks. I cannot comprehend the reviews it got.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I think the fact that the term ‘Toxic Star Wars Fan’ has worked its way into common parlance should speak volumes.

TLJ took the franchise in a new direction. I thought Luke’s characterisation was outstanding. Rey seems a bit OP but I’m willing to forgive that till ep9.

My own opinion is male fans who are vociferous about their hate for TFA or TLJ is to with denying their patriarchal privilege no matter how eloquent their arguments to the contrary might be.

As soon as I see the phrase ‘social justice warrior’ I know I’m speaking to a poor benighted chauvinist

But... that’s just my opinion

pH

 

[KGeo777]

I don't believe it.
Corporate Disney makes micromanaged bad movies. They don't hire based on talent or audience identification. They are like a hedge fund manager singing a Beach Boys song to an audience in Beijing. It's insincere, chaotic, and without merit.

But they have the money to keep doing it without concern about audiences. It's like printing a political leaflet to them.

 

[soulsinging]

My own opinion is male fans who are vociferous about their hate for TFA or TLJ is to with denying their patriarchal privilege no matter how eloquent their arguments to the contrary might be.

What if you loved TFA but dislike TLJ because you thought it spent too much time on the angst of white Skywalker patriarchs like Luke and Kylo and not enough on interesting stories for Fin and Rey?

 

[Brian G Turner]

A lot of the criticism of 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' actually came from Russian trolls and bots, new study finds

My experience was that YouTube's algorithm insisted that anyone interested in Star Wars must also be interested in angry American's deriding The Last Jedi. Is YouTube's algorithm owned by Russia?

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

If you're not one of said people, that's great. But I'd also say that if you're more concerned about your well-reasoned critiques of a fantasy movie's shortcoming being "censored" than by the number and ease with which hordes of howling trolls and man-children were unleashed on real people by a carefully orchestrated propaganda blitz from a nation rife with real misogyny and racism...

I just don't think that their number is anywhere that high ('hordes'). Yes they caused some harm when they started insulting cast members online but I don't think they have the power to sway the opinion of the masses one way or another. And I don't think that it's what they're trying to do.

My concern arose from my attempts to discuss TLJ and its flaws with fellow fans online after the movie was released. Any debate soon devolved into name-calling on the part of the people defending the movie because they didn't want to hear anyone with opposite views and were quick to draw the 'man-child' card. You write 'Finn's arc was little more than fodder', they read 'I don't want black protagonists in my Star Wars.' and cease to engage with what you're actually saying.

This is why trolls are dangerous. Not because they unleash a tidal wave of negativity online, but because they are driving people to stop listening to each other.

 

[Parson]

This is why trolls are dangerous. Not because they unleash a tidal wave of negativity online, but because they are driving people to stop listening to each other.

And don't I wish that was limited to actually unimportant things like entertainment choices! ---- It seems that serious discussion has left the building here in America. (Sigh!!!)

 

[Rodders]

It’s an interesting thought, but I don’t buy it.

Even on theses boards, the recent Star Wars movies have suffered much criticism.

 

[Phyrebrat]

What if you loved TFA but dislike TLJ because you thought it spent too much time on the angst of white Skywalker patriarchs like Luke and Kylo and not enough on interesting stories for Fin and Rey?

In that case I’d have to insist they were saying something they didn’t feel, or face the thought of my thesis crumbling

In all seriousness though, I’m surprised TLJ gets such a hard time from SW fans whereas TFA was an inferior film inasmuch as it being a retread of ep4.

Rey’s agency is complex in itself and it (if not her mission - depending on Luke) doesn’t rely on patriarchy to be told. I agree the Canto Bight side mission is a pointless one, it reminds me of the whole asteroid and space slug sequence in ESB which I find tedious in the extreme as well as narratively redundant.

If Finn and Rose’s side quest had been undertaken by, say, Poe and Finn, and was devoid of the love thread, I wonder if it’d have received the same amount of derision.

Going back to my previous post, and the idea of SJWs; the fanboys better hope my prediction for Poe and Finn is not true. From TFA onwards, I’ve been expecting them to fall in love. Their behaviour in both films suggests it - or perhaps scriptwriters who give Male Heterosexual characters lines like; ‘You got a boyfriend? You got a cute boyfriend?’ (Finn to Rey, aboard the Falcon TFA), are so oblivious to what they’re writing as to make all the character’s motivations unclear.

pH