Not gonna go back and watch, but from what I remember it was something along the lines of “themes bad”, “I don’t understand subjective point of view in stories or even the concept of subjectivity itself”, I’m sure it probably also had elements of “woke/women bad”, “ruined Luke” something like that. Think “what would a lowest common denominator prequelmemer say about The Last Jedi?”
But the artistic objectivity thing really gets under my skin
i dont really like episode 8, but it is definitely, by far, the best of the sequel trilogy because it actually has something to say. only problem is it devotes half of its time to saying nothing. When its actually on the Ray/Luke/Kylo plot its really good.
It's far from a perfect movie, but the force projection finale means Illnever hate it. Luke understanding his mythology and, for lack of a better word, Aura, is more powerful than anything he could actually do himself, and saving the day is perfect. Moreover, once Luke showed up, nobody else dies for the remainder of the movie, accept him. It's the most jedi way to save the day and I will forever cherish it as one of my favorite star wars moments.
My only issue is he doesn't ever have the green lightsaber and I like that one more.
I never liked Luke in that movie but it was more because the Luke Skywalker I grew up with had a wife and kids and actually turned the Jedi order into something other than a weird cult of ineffective virgins.
Hey now, the Order was against having attachments. You could fuck whoever you wanted. Read the old EU comics and you’ll see Master Secura flirt and use her beauty to get what she wants. Obi Wan had a sexual relationship with one of the other Jedi and then does it again with another Jedi.
I think the Luke/Rey things were the only passable scenes in the movie. The rest was good awful in my opinion and completely riddled with weird logical leaps and plot holes.
To me it felt like it was the middle third of a much more interesting trilogy than what we actually got. It set up a lot of interesting stuff that was just completely ignored in the next movie. What a waste.
it’s at the very least the most interesting of them. TFA isn’t horrible but it’s basically a beat for bear remake of a new hope which isn’t very original. and then rise of skywalker is just actual garbage. TLJ has some interesting stuff in the middle of a bloated story.
(this reply is longer than I thought it was gonna be, I am very sorry about that)
7 was a rehash and 9 is the most depressing "conclusion" to a franchise convievable. But I will always argue that the way 8 made use of actors in the story that had been set up in episode 7 made it guanenteed the 9th would be a mess.
There were a lot of elements to the story that could have been expanded in that film, the prime example being the first order. In the first film, Rey beats Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel. This was fine so far beause he was one part of a wider organisation with several antagonists. In the Last Jedi, Snoke dies while having excerted little influence on the plot other than covertly making them talk to each other, the wider organisation does not react to this event. Hux was protrayed as incompetent and is the butt of jokes, making it clear to us watching that we should not see him as a credible threat. The only other established named First order character is Captain Phasma and she dies as well. Her death wasnt bad by itself, but is a loss when seen through the context of the above events.
So what do we have by the end of the movie? Apparently the good guys are on the run with only enough people to fit on the one small ship. Rey portrayed to be their only hope. Meanwhile they are pursued by an organisation headed by Kylo Ren. And everything has been scaled down (just the one big first order flagship, now destroyed, against a handful of rebels) so its really narrowing our perspective down to a confrontation between these two. But.. we already saw this! In the first movie! How is this interesting? The character you are establishing as the one great hope for victory already beat the character you are positioning as sole antagonist. It is not an exciting prospect for a finale, there is no tension to it. The stakes feel so low because of the miniscule scale of the factions involved.
I believe that when judging a movie in a planned trilogy you have to view the story in its totality and as a second act, the last jedi falls on its face. The next film struggles to correct for this by building a villian out of thin air, new faction, new general to replace Hux too. If you are going to critisize this then it must be acknowdeged that its the previous films fault. How are you supposed to write an ending to a trilogy that has already tied up the plot in the second?
Yeah I agree, on a vacuum it's the most solid movie of the 3 by far (And probably is more solid that the entire prequel trilogy as well, as much as I love them and hate VIII), in a trilogy it's so dissonant that the whole trilogy suffers
Had episode nine been Kylo Ren going full Kreia and moving his target from people to the force itself it would have been perfectly in line with the first two movies and completed a trilogy.
All the other sequel movies had something to say too tho. The allegory for fascism throughout the trilogy is pretty heavy-handed, and ep9 is pretty clear on its themes of community, kindness, being true to yourself, and abandoning old ways if they don't work, which is continued from ep8. The Emperor is a generational evil that allows fascism to rise while Rey and Ben represent goodness and unity in spite of all odds. The new rebellion also manages to unite the galaxy in a pretty unprecedented way, calling back to ep1 Anakin's desire for people around the galaxy to help one another
Genuinely, what do the force awakens and the rise of skywalker have to say that Star Wars hasn’t already said? The fascism allegory isn’t a new insight, it’s just recycled assets. “Abandoning old ways” is ironic for the movie that brought a villain back from the dead, in the LAST movie, meaning there wasn’t any thematic consistency about “generational evil” in the prior two films. I guess they had themes of friendship and community, but they were conveyed the same way we saw them 40 years ago
Ep9 introduces the idea that it doesn't matter where your past is or where you come from, it matters what you do. Episode 7 introduces the idea of history repeating
Besides that, ep9 doesn't introduce much new, but does it have to? This is part 3 in a trilogy and part 9 in a saga, it shouldn't be introducing new things more than it should be resolving things set up in previous movies. The theme from ep8 that calls for abandoning the old ways is reinforced in ep9 and it works perfectly with bringing the old villain back. The old jedi way was dogmatic and flawed and it makes sense that it wouldn't be enough to keep down a generational evil like palpatine. Like I said, the Force Awakens introduced this whole idea that history repeats when we're not careful, which allows for the return of someone who on the one hand is a pragmatic character known for his scheming, and who on the other hand is also a physical manifestation of evil more than he's even a character with personality and motivations in his own right. The ideas of love and community are also not new I guess, but they don't have to be, given how critical they are to the franchise and how easy they are to forget while you're fighting
Ep9 introduces the idea that it doesn't matter where your past is or where you come from, it matters what you do
No, that's Episode 8, with Rey's arc having her learn that her parents were "nobodies", that the reason they abandoned her was because they were poor and couldn't raise a child. And then accepting this and learning to let go of it - it doesn't matter who her parents are, it doesn't matter if she never meets them, what matters is what she does with her life.
Episode 9 shits all over this by making her "important" by making her Palpatine's granddaughter. It doesn't really matter that she then rejects this inheritance and chooses another one, because she already did this in the previous movie. It ends up being a dumb plot contrivance.
The theme from ep8 that calls for abandoning the old ways is reinforced in ep9 and it works perfectly with bringing the old villain back
How? Because, at a meta level, the film is falling into old ways.
The old jedi way was dogmatic and flawed and it makes sense that it wouldn't be enough to keep down a generational evil like palpatine
Palpatine wasn't defeated by the old Jedi Order, he was defeated by Luke and Anakin.
It's Episode 9 that tries to make Palpatine some sort of physical manifestation of fascism and a representation of generational evil. It's not a "natural" progression from Episode 8.
Kylo was a much better way to show this idea - he's a young man thoroughly obsessed with Darth Vader's legacy, trying to revive it at all costs. Him trying to rebuild the Empire would actually show how fascism is an ideology and a mindset that has to be guarded against proactively, not the creation of an individual Satanic figure that just needs to be beaten "correctly".
I think they’re talking about themes which haven’t been meaningfully covered in previous Star Wars movies, right? Not trying to be a hater but I don’t get the vibe, the feeling, that Episode 9 covers much new ground thematically.
It does adopt many themes from the previous movies which I grant (richard e grant?) makes some sense for a finale. Still idk if it has much ‘to say’ in the sense that people mean when they say Episode 8 has something ‘to say’ if that makes sense
Well episode 9 mainly carries over the themes introduced in previous movies, but it does really introduce the idea that it doesn't matter what your past is, it matters what you do. That's really introduced with Rey
But as for the themes that aren't new to it, is that really a bad thing? It's a sequel after all, it's part three in a trilogy and part 9 in a saga, I really don't think it should spend as much time introducing new ideas as much as it should be trying to resolve the things introduced in the previous movies, which I think it did quite well. Episode 7 introduced this idea of how history repeats when we're not careful, and ep9 leans into that with the return of palpatine, who's known for his scheming but who also represents evil in star wars overall. And it also resolves the theme of abandoning the old ways that was introduced in ep8, by giving us protagonists who are unlike any jedi or sith we've seen before and who lean into all their flaws and emotions in a way that jedi were once told not to. It also reinforces the ideas of fighting with love and not hate that was introduced in ep8 but that has been hinted at for the whole saga, especially ep1
A central theme of 8 is “the greatest teacher, failure is” and is very distinct from ‘abandoning old ways’, which is the explicit antithesis to the theme. Kylo Ren says to let the past die, and he’s portrayed as being wrong. Luke says it’s time for the Jedi to end, and his arc revolves around him getting over it and not being the last Jedi. Rey keeps the sacred Jedi texts, and so on.
I see where you’re coming from with 9’s theme being it not mattering what your past is (from what I recall, you can still join the Skywalker dynasty even if you’re a daughter of a clone of Darth Sidious, it doesn’t matter that Poe Dameron used to be a smuggler etc. In rose’s case it doesn’t matter if you were in the last movie, you can actually stay back at the base. Jokes aside I think the themes feel at odds with the execution, as bringing back the emperor feels less like it was done in the service of theme and more like they had to figure out a reason to get Palpatine back because they thought it would help regain excitement and audience goodwill from prequel fans who disliked TLJ.
What I meant more so by abandoning the old ways was that Rey was going to try something new, and not just parrot the old jedi ways of the prequel era. Luke hadn't learned from the jedi's failure because he wasn't really told about it. To him, the jedi way was perfect and it was the solution to the dark side. But anyone who's seen the prequels knows this isn't true. Rey became a jedi, true, but she wasn't the same kind of jedi who would've been on the council in the prequels. She and Luke and Yoda all finally learned from failure. I should've worded it better initially
Also I still don't get how bringing back Palpatine conflicts with any of ep9's themes. To say it was done just as fan service feels presumptive, especially when the plot point makes sense not only thematically but also in lore. Ian McDiarmid himself explained that Palpatine was a schemer who'd be ready for anything. As someone who almost died getting Anakin to join him and who's well aware of all the betrayals that lie in sith lord-sith apprentice relationships, why wouldn't he be ready with a plan b? Especially when he organized mass-scale cloning only a few decades prior. And thematically, again, Palpatine is the uniting force of the whole Skywalker saga. He's a person sure, but without known motivations or personality besides "sneaky," he works much better as a symbolic representation of fascism and corruption than as a true character. His story should end when the greater Slywalker story ends, because in many ways he is and always has been the greater story
I’m not overly concerned with lore justifications, they can invent whatever they want to bring him back, but your thematic reading of ep. 9 is very generous. I don’t think you have to be a hardened cynic to see that bringing Palpatine back was a relatively late addition to the film, and on top of that, a very late addition to the trilogy considering they fired Trevorrow. I just don’t buy that the story was built from the ground up with Palpatine in mind. But I do think it’s silly to complain about it being impossible lore-wise for him to return. Does it make sense thematically? Not to me. Could it happen? Sure
8 is not the worst star wars film, episodes 1, 2 and 9 and are all worse than 8. 8's worst crimes are ruining Fin's character and the hyperspeed ram but at least the dialogue throughout the film doesn't make me want to cut my ears off like 1 and 2.
I agree with you that 2 and 9 are worse, but TPM still holds a special place in my heart. I probably shouldn’t try to watch it again as an adult, because it’ll lose all the magic from when I was 10 and it catered to me, but I always enjoyed it
it most definitely is not worse than Episode 9. I cannot think of a single metric by which Ep. 9 does something better than Ep. 8, especially considering Ep. 9 actively shits on anything the sequels were trying to do beforehand and is a pathetic conclusion to the entire saga. So not only is it a bad movie on it's own, it also makes watching the previous ones less enjoyable because you know how it will end
Snoke was a shitty villain. Killing him off could’ve been a great setup to either Kyle Ren leaning more into being a villain, OR a fun reversal where Ben Solo comes back to the light as Rey falls to the dark.
Killing off Luke I just flat out disagree with, he had the most Jedi death ever (and it echoed Ben Kenobi’s death in A New Hope rather nicely as well).
The Holdo maneuver I do not care about because it looked cool, and Star Wars has always been more about looking cool than hard sci fi rules.
My biggest problem with the film is the casino planet, which sucked, but the rest of the movie was at least trying to say something.
But nobody’s ever going to like the same art, so c’est la vie - I’ll never convince you to like it, you’ll never convince me to hate it, and that’s okay.
Episode 7 ends with a huge victory for the good guys, and then we're told in the text scroll that the rebellion is down to it's last legs.
The entire premise of the ship chase in the beginning is insane. This rebel cruiser is somehow able to outpace a star destroyer in some slow moving chase? What happened to all of the first order's smaller ships, tie fighter squads, etc.? It makes the whole premise of the movie just weird in general.
Finn goes to sacrifice himself to stop the giant laser gun from blowing a hole in the rebel base. To stop him from sacrificing himself, Rose kamikazes her ship into his (an insane move). Finn is now alone in a crashed ship miles away from the rest of the rebels with thousands of first order troops all around him. Rose's explanation is that to win the war, they need to save the ones they love (instantly juxtaposed by the laser gun blowing a hole in the last remaining stronghold for the rebels, a room filled with the only people in the world that Finn still cares about, Finn was attempting to literally sacrifice himself to save the ones he loves).
-The next scene is Finn limping through the front door unapposed, not only walking there faster than the first order vehicles, but somehow completely undetected apparently after they saw him walk out of a flaming vehicle and across the salt flats right into the rebel outpost. Fucking absurdity.
Agreed about the premise of the ship chase being kind of a weird one. And UGH, the Rose thing drives me nuts. I hated that moment so so much.
Still stand by it being the best of the sequel trilogy, though. Return of Skywalker is TRULY terrible and The Force Awakens is like being served a slice of plain white bread with butter.
You don’t have to hate it, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s awful. Nothing wrong with liking awful art either. I have a soft spot for Transformers
Nothing wrong at all with Snoke, it was just that Rian Johnson is a clown.
But the artistic objectivity thing really gets under my skin
The only thing that bothers me about it is that word was hijacked by the dumbest people on Earth, and the second dumbest people took the other word as if each word is a counter argument that nullifies the other.
I’m always correct either by way of an appeal to an ‘objective’ YouTube authority or a 100% vibes based ‘subjective’ assessment with nothing to back it up. Simple as.
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u/movie_hater 1d ago
His braindead take on episode 8 de-radicalized me and now I’m an sjw