Brack

Who can say how powerful Rey is. She moved rocks out of the way. So?

GuessWho

Obi-Wan was a nobody
Yoda was a nobody
Palpatine was a nobody
You don't have to have a Jedi bloodline to be powerful in the Force. In fact, the concept of bloodlines would be against old Jedi code as they were not able to have attachments...thus, no kids

The whole idea of a Skywalker bloodline is skewed and an exception because its origin is a bastardized immaculate conception.


It's OK if Rey is a "nobody."

kefrank

I promised to post more detailed thoughts and here they are.

First of all, The Last Jedi is NOT a bad movie by any objective measure. The biggest problem this movie has is an audience with expectations that are too specific and colored by elements outside of what's actually on screen in its predecessor, The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens raises several questions that are entirely open-ended. Where did Snoke come from and how did he rise to power? Who are Rey's parents and why did they abandon her? What state of mind is Luke in now and will he be the hope that the rebellion is longing for? Since the release of The Force Awakens, fans have obsessed over all kinds of crackpot possibilities and ideas for answering these questions.

The Last Jedi offers some answers, some non-answers, and some possible misdirection and much of it is not what many fans had crafted in their own minds. While that may make the movie somewhat subversive, it doesn't mean the movie is bad.

The Last Jedi answers the Snoke question this way: it doesn't matter if he's connected to some Sith lore of the Star Wars past and it's clear that his particular combination of being strong with the force and being gifted at psychological manipulation is what gained him his position. What is important about Snoke is that he is just as doomed as all those who embrace the Dark Side to be brought down by the singular ambition for power that is bred in every apprentice.

The Last Jedi answers the Rey question this way: Rey's parents are still an unknown. The island refuses to show her despite her plea. Kylo tells her that her parents are nobodies, junk traders who simply didn't care about her, but he does so in an attempt to manipulate her into joining him, so it should at least be considered somewhat dubious. It may or may not be true and there is room for it to still be explored in Episode 9. What The Last Jedi does reveal about Rey is that she is perhaps even stronger in the force than was shown in The Force Awakens and combines that with a somewhat naive, but ever-present and abundant sense of hope. These attributes are much more important than who her parents may or may not be.

The Last Jedi answers the Luke question this way: Luke is guilt-ridden and jaded about the Jedi. He has cut himself off from the force and wants no part of being the hope for the rebellion. He's not some badass force monk who has been contemplating the Jedi ways for decades in seclusion so he can rise up and destroy evil. He is shown to, in fact, still be learning (thanks Yoda!) and in need of Rey to "turn" him, not from the dark side to the light, but from guilt and cynicism to self-forgiveness and hope. Once he does make that turn, his last act as a Jedi is a transcendent one that goes well beyond some cliched "badass lightsaber duel". From start to finish, Luke's arc is the strongest thread through The Last Jedi, in my opinion.

All that said, there are several things that make The Last Jedi a mixed bag. Leia's "force flight" through space didn't really work for me. The entire Rose/Finn sub-plot felt too contrived, forced and largely unnecessary. A reworking of that section of the film would have solved a lot of its pacing problems. All in all, I give it 3.5/5. I'll be seeing it again Sunday, so maybe a second viewing will shift my opinions a bit in one direction or another.

kefrank

That interpretation carries weight, but I disagree that it is as definitive as you believe. And it's not because I want Rey to be the descendant of some known character powerful in the force. I don't. Personally, I think the character works best if she's the children of nobodies, who left her not out of lack of care, but rather with the hope that her situation would be better than if they kept her with them. This would make Ren's statement a mixture of truth and deception, which is in keeping with the psychological manipulation that his master, Snoke, employed.

BearFan

So, her Dad is Jacob

rennervision

It's just that she needs no training to be as strong as the most powerful Jedi. Her powers seem off the charts for someone without a good explanation on her heritage. But then again, we've seen a number of Jedi powers in this movie that I never knew existed before.

fumanstan

I think people are more upset at how much it was hinted at that Rey is/was a somebody in the previous movie and in other interviews.

But yeah, pertaining to the actual lore it doesn't really matter of Rey is a nobody to me.

candyrocket786

Those other guys you mentioned...they had training and probably more than three lessons.

stingermck

Surely Disney signed Hamill to 3 movies. I hope to see Luke again.

milo bloom

There were many, many good and even great scenes in this movie last night but there were also a lot of scenes that really didn’t work. They had an entire year to reshoot the scenes necessary to give Leia a good send off and they missed it every time.

But Luke astral projecting to screw with Kylo was perfect as was Kylo slicing Snoke like a bagel was awesome and I’m so, so glad that Reylo didn’t happen.

Admiral Holdo was a good character but I wish that they had done something to have Leia being the one to ram the cruiser and have Holdo take over the fleet.

This is not going to end up as a top Star Wars movie for me, but it’s not outright terrible either. I really enjoyed TFA and Rogue One but this seemed to really go off on its own a bit too much.

And the kid at the end totally used The Force to pull the broom to him, wonder if he’s going to play a part in Rian’s New trilogy?



Also, to my dying days I will never understand why these weren’t filmed all together like Lord of the Rings.

Joe Schmoe

Leia surviving in space is my biggest problem with this movie. Are we to believe even though she never became a Jedi (that we know of) she learned how to survive the extreme coldness of space, survive without oxygen, and how to move through space without any sort of propulsion device? Is it possible she died when she was sucked into space, and during the rest of the movie everyone was looking at her Force ghost or she was using the Force to project herself? Yoda hitting Luke showed that his ghost had mass, so maybe Leia's did too? I'm just trying to find a way to explain the biggest cringeworthy moment in the film I can't forgive Johnson for.

rennervision

You're right. That would have been a fantastic send-off. Mark my words, Episode IX is going to really suffer from Leia just disappearing from the story. And it's all because the writers were too uncomfortable writing in a Leia death scene out of fear of some imagined backlash following Carrie's untimely death. No one would have judged them harshly for that. No one.

Joe Schmoe

That's what I thought was going to happen while I was watching it. That would have been a good ending for Leia, but I guess Johnson didn't want to kill off the Skywalker twins in the same movie. Now poor J.J. Abrams has to explain her absence in Episode IX, assuming we don't see her at all. I know Disney has said they won't use CGI to re-create her in IX, but maybe we'll see old footage of her re-used or some shots that ended up on the cutting room floor?

Timber

I liked it but I had problems with it.

Bad: Leia in space is chief among those problems. It took me out of the movie and made me roll my eyes. The whole casino city was much like the Han smuggler scene in TFA, just horrible and not Star Wars to me. Too much Rose, the kiss didn't work, and it's a ham handed way at a love triangle. It was too dark in long stretches. It may have been my theater but there were stretches that I couldn't tell what was going on on the screen.

Good: When Holdo flew her ship into Snoke's ship and everything went silent. It was something we haven't seen before and it gave an impact that worked IMO. We finally got to see an apprentice become the master. I can't believe it took 8 movies for them to finally show it to us. Love love loved Kylo and Rey fighting together. I'm probably in the minority but I really dig the way Driver plays Kylo. You can feel his pain, you can see it in his face. They sold it as him joining Rey but he went off and became what he was destined to become.

The more I think about the positives the more I like it. They could've taken out 30 minutes but it was still very good.

JeremyM

I believe the idea was that Luke used his "force connection" with Leia to appear on that planet (established earlier in Empire and when she's in the coma along with the little Han Solo dice-deal). I could be wrong on that, but that was how I took it. So she couldn't have been in the Hodo spot.

JeremyM

They probably should have had a line with Leia saying something to Luke like "those handful of Jedi lessons you gave me paid off" or something. Could've even spun it as "not all your teaching was futile" or something when she was trying to forgive him for Kylo's fall. Then it at least explains her using the Force there. (For the record, I don’t think she was flying but pulling herself toward the ship in zero gravity.)

That said, while she obviously completed filming her part, I read she couldn't loop her lines so they had to use everything from the set, and obviously any reshoots were out of the question.

rennervision

I'm kind of confused why so many reviews suggest this movie takes risks and is not a copy of Empire. I feel a strong case can be made that this one follows just as many Empire beats as TFA followed A New Hope. (Loved the previous post that pointed out the Resistance on Crait was on the right and the Rebellion on Hoth was on the left. You just know they made a conscious decision to shoot it that way so everyone can proclaim it was "different." )

Really - if you're going to do this, why not simply rewrite it so Jakku is Tatooine and Crait is Hoth? I think it would be appreciated a lot more to revisit these planets rather than structure it so part 1 and part 2 of a trilogy just happen to be on planets that look exactly like their counterparts from the original trilogy.

And I don't quite see where the risks were, because this trilogy seems to be following a very deliberate, predictable conclusion.

Mabuse

Star Wars

Episode IX

Representatives of one thousand star
systems gather for the funeral of Princess
General Leia Organa. Stirred by her lifetime
of service, countless new volunteers join
the Resistance.

Sensing that some in attendance might
be First Order spies, Rey dispatches Poe
Dameron and Finn on a daring mission...

See how easy it is?

rennervision

And what a cheap way to write out a beloved character.

tanman

I guess I can understand why people are confused by this scene but at the same time I can't. She isn't flying through space. There is no gravity in space. How many times have we seen astronauts manipulating heavy objects in space with very little effort and how many times have we seen force users using telekinesis to move boulders or light swords or even ships. It won't take much effort to move yourself through space so she didn't suddenly become super man. The issues I do take is how the entire scene played out which I totally blame Rian for. The way it was put on film was terrible because it just looked utterly ridiculous. I think they were trying to make her look graceful or powerful but it ended up being huge but of unintentional comedy. I like the idea of the scene because we finally see her using a little bit of the force. I think if he filmed it in a more subtle manner it would have played a lot better. Like make the scene a lot faster maybe her losing consciousness after she realizes what's happening and extending her hand towards the door to better communicate what she's trying to do. It was just extremely poorly executed.

GuessWho

Physics were fine, she just looked a bit like megamaid

tanman

What exactly would you have them do then? CGI her?

Actually I think that's a brilliant way to open the movie and would be a fitting tribute. A funeral scene would be a great way to jump start the movie and could be the impetus for several factions to join the rebellion.

DVD Josh

I really think you are giving Ren way too much credit.

kefrank

Well, it's possible to hold to my interpretation without giving Ren any credit at all. Snoke revealed that he was responsible for the Rey and Ren "force skype calls" and their respective visions while connected. It certainly seems possible Snoke manipulated Ren to see exactly what he said, for the purpose of Snoke having various chips he could play to manipulate Rey and or Ren further as needed. Ren may have been using what he thought was truth to manipulate Rey - but the circumstances surrounding it still cast doubt on whether it's true (or at least fully true).

rennervision

Yeah - I'm sure everyone is thrilled about an off-screen death for Leia. We see Han's death and Luke's death. But Leia? Her's happens off-screen inbetween movies.