The Last Jedi
Feb. 22nd, 2018 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzWhile the movie certainly has its flaws, I just can't help but be all SQUEEEE over watching Star Wars. It's Star Wars! I grew up watching the Rancor through my fingers because it was too scary to watch whole.
We discussed the movie over dinner and came up with the major stuff, but I just can't help but feel a happy glow from going to see this movie.
I'm assuming by now I'm probably the last person in the Netherlands to watch the movie anyway, but since Star Wars isn't everyone's cup of tea here's a cut.
First off: the First Order are probably the most sore bunch of rag-tag military we know. I think they are only fit for military parades, which is pretty much all we see them get right. Although the Dreadnought captain seemed to be gruff and knowledgable, there's just no comparison in the First Order to the likes of Grand Moff Tarkin. We were shivering reeds because that man was a tactical genius. He was dangerous, an excellent military stategist. "I'm taking an awful risk, Lord Vader. This had better work."
Mr. Hugsley, who seemed to be a young upstart in the Force Awakens who was barely dry behind his ears looked roughly 20 years older to me now. What is he doing primping and preening and most of all pretending to be someone that deserves to be in charge? I'd not even scuff my pretty boots on him, and the worst I ever did in larp was dally with demons. But the major satisfying moment when he was force-squished into the control panels got me cackling though. And he's not as dumb as he looks, he knows how to lick the boots when he needs to ("Long live the Supreme Leader"). I just hope we'll see him unfold his baby wings in episode 9.
General Organa's Super Fart Space Inertia Beater. Space is a vacuum. Now she didn't have anything to push off against (re: vacuum of space) so the only thing I can guess at is that she's had cabbage for dinner and uses it to get back to the ship. It defied all logic and the laws of space and time, and really spoiled that scene for me.
I like how Luke Skywalker fell off his pedestal -- hard. He failed in teaching Ben and then made the horrible mistake which was the final push Ben needed to turn into Kylo. I can totally see why Mark Hamill said "This is not my Luke." but I like flawed characters. You may be a Jedi, but you don't know everything. When the Jedi assume they know everything, that's where it goes wrong. In the prequels the Masters had a Sith Lord close to their heart and they were oblivious to him. As much as Luke was the hero in the first three movies, he certainly did more damage than good in these two so far. He's too afraid of the dark side, which means he can't guide his students where they need his guidance the most!
It really struck home when Luke said that Ben was gone and Kylo could no longer be saved. Everyone shat bricks for Vader, but Luke still believed Vader had some good in him. I think it's the fear of the Dark side talking there and it broke my heart he gave up on Ben like that.
Kylo. Poor beautiful emo boy. I'm quoting Jen here: "They've created the most sympathetic and tortured villain that I've ever seen."
His heart-wrenching drama. I love it to bits!
The storyline of Kylo and Rey made the movie for me.
The rest of the plot was a bit bland. Some unexplained thingummajig can track someone through hyperspace? Fine. So what's the plan?
No plan?
Oh, there was a plan, we just Do Not Speak of the Plan. This isn't Fight Club, little purply bimbo! Even though you're in charge, you can't keep your crew in the dark for hours, while they see any hope of escape slowly drain away as the fuel tanks get more and more depleted.
You want a mutiny? Because that's how you get a mutiny.
Thank goodness they managed to fill the empty hours of watching a fuel gauge with some ill-conceived plan that utterly failed. Because what else could we do?
I guess I'm not really watching these for the plot, because there's just so much wrong with it. Maz just suddenly breaking into a private conversation while she's casually dodging laser blasts and fists? What about Chewbacca, from a hunter-gatherer society, not eating the already cooked porg because the other porg is looking sad? Or how about Finn dragging Rose back on foot all the way to base in roughly the same time it took the speeders to go out to the cannon in the first place? Disney-villain deaths? Mass military incompetence? Weaponised hyperspeed jumps? A Master Code breaker in your relative galactic back-yard and taking an unauthorised shuttle out undetected while the First Order is trying to fry your shields? Isn't anybody paying attention to their instruments on that damned frigate?!
But the characters. Luke's inner struggle on how to be a Jedi Master everyone looks up to. Rey's instincts and her intimacy to Kylo. Ben/Kylo's struggle. Leia's impossible task of struggling with the loss of Han and the loss of her son and trying to keep everyone inspired in an impossible war. Poe being tied hand and foot by leaders who are unwilling to listen, fueled by his own rashness and impatience. Woo!
It'll take a while for all this dust to settle and Eisirt is going to spew facts at me for a few weeks at random intervals. But I loved loved loved seeing this in the cinema in stead of not going at all.
We discussed the movie over dinner and came up with the major stuff, but I just can't help but feel a happy glow from going to see this movie.
I'm assuming by now I'm probably the last person in the Netherlands to watch the movie anyway, but since Star Wars isn't everyone's cup of tea here's a cut.
First off: the First Order are probably the most sore bunch of rag-tag military we know. I think they are only fit for military parades, which is pretty much all we see them get right. Although the Dreadnought captain seemed to be gruff and knowledgable, there's just no comparison in the First Order to the likes of Grand Moff Tarkin. We were shivering reeds because that man was a tactical genius. He was dangerous, an excellent military stategist. "I'm taking an awful risk, Lord Vader. This had better work."
Mr. Hugsley, who seemed to be a young upstart in the Force Awakens who was barely dry behind his ears looked roughly 20 years older to me now. What is he doing primping and preening and most of all pretending to be someone that deserves to be in charge? I'd not even scuff my pretty boots on him, and the worst I ever did in larp was dally with demons. But the major satisfying moment when he was force-squished into the control panels got me cackling though. And he's not as dumb as he looks, he knows how to lick the boots when he needs to ("Long live the Supreme Leader"). I just hope we'll see him unfold his baby wings in episode 9.
General Organa's Super Fart Space Inertia Beater. Space is a vacuum. Now she didn't have anything to push off against (re: vacuum of space) so the only thing I can guess at is that she's had cabbage for dinner and uses it to get back to the ship. It defied all logic and the laws of space and time, and really spoiled that scene for me.
I like how Luke Skywalker fell off his pedestal -- hard. He failed in teaching Ben and then made the horrible mistake which was the final push Ben needed to turn into Kylo. I can totally see why Mark Hamill said "This is not my Luke." but I like flawed characters. You may be a Jedi, but you don't know everything. When the Jedi assume they know everything, that's where it goes wrong. In the prequels the Masters had a Sith Lord close to their heart and they were oblivious to him. As much as Luke was the hero in the first three movies, he certainly did more damage than good in these two so far. He's too afraid of the dark side, which means he can't guide his students where they need his guidance the most!
It really struck home when Luke said that Ben was gone and Kylo could no longer be saved. Everyone shat bricks for Vader, but Luke still believed Vader had some good in him. I think it's the fear of the Dark side talking there and it broke my heart he gave up on Ben like that.
Kylo. Poor beautiful emo boy. I'm quoting Jen here: "They've created the most sympathetic and tortured villain that I've ever seen."
His heart-wrenching drama. I love it to bits!
The storyline of Kylo and Rey made the movie for me.
The rest of the plot was a bit bland. Some unexplained thingummajig can track someone through hyperspace? Fine. So what's the plan?
No plan?
Oh, there was a plan, we just Do Not Speak of the Plan. This isn't Fight Club, little purply bimbo! Even though you're in charge, you can't keep your crew in the dark for hours, while they see any hope of escape slowly drain away as the fuel tanks get more and more depleted.
You want a mutiny? Because that's how you get a mutiny.
Thank goodness they managed to fill the empty hours of watching a fuel gauge with some ill-conceived plan that utterly failed. Because what else could we do?
I guess I'm not really watching these for the plot, because there's just so much wrong with it. Maz just suddenly breaking into a private conversation while she's casually dodging laser blasts and fists? What about Chewbacca, from a hunter-gatherer society, not eating the already cooked porg because the other porg is looking sad? Or how about Finn dragging Rose back on foot all the way to base in roughly the same time it took the speeders to go out to the cannon in the first place? Disney-villain deaths? Mass military incompetence? Weaponised hyperspeed jumps? A Master Code breaker in your relative galactic back-yard and taking an unauthorised shuttle out undetected while the First Order is trying to fry your shields? Isn't anybody paying attention to their instruments on that damned frigate?!
But the characters. Luke's inner struggle on how to be a Jedi Master everyone looks up to. Rey's instincts and her intimacy to Kylo. Ben/Kylo's struggle. Leia's impossible task of struggling with the loss of Han and the loss of her son and trying to keep everyone inspired in an impossible war. Poe being tied hand and foot by leaders who are unwilling to listen, fueled by his own rashness and impatience. Woo!
It'll take a while for all this dust to settle and Eisirt is going to spew facts at me for a few weeks at random intervals. But I loved loved loved seeing this in the cinema in stead of not going at all.
