I thought it has its moments but the writing was piss-poor. The worst thing is that Disney / LucasFilm clearly had no real idea for the overall story arc. I just don't understand that at all. And why too much is yet again a retelling of a prior movie.

PatrickS77 said:

lust said:

Could it be that a lot of the problems that you’re citing are actually the fault of George Lucas with the overblown prequel trilogies. He took a much loved fun space opera and expanded it with prophesies and midichloriens and, not to mention boring galactic politics and trade embargoes. Aren’t the new lot just fun like t the originals?

I take the PT, with all it's problems, over this new trilogy any time. And really, I can't take anyone serious who prefers this trilogy over the PT trilogy.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Phishanga said:

[...] And why too much is yet again a retelling of a prior movie.

especially since the biggest and most valid criticism of TFA was, that it was too much a remake of A New Hope. it's plain idiotic that JJ did not learn from this

lust said:

... bullshit like Greedo shooting first ...

some nitpicking here:

in the original '77 version Han did NOT shoot first. and also Greedo did not shoot first.
there was just one shot. no order.

Han shot. Greedo never shot at all. that's it

BombSquad said:

had some more sleeps and thoughts about the new movie.

also over the weekend I watched the original trilogy again.... oh boy....

it is absolutely PAINFUL to see the end of ROTJ knowing about Ep9

my anger at JJ was so big, I felt like smashing the TV screen


I could mabye have enjoyed Ep9 with the other flaws it has, but bringing back Palpatine is simply unvorgivable

WHY JJ? just WHY??

hey, but Rian killed of the main villian. so I have to bring a new main villian. let's take one that is already dead.... oh wait... Duh!

seriously?

they didn't even explain how Plapatine survived, so they could easily have done the same with Snoke and simply bring HIM back!! (that would have been another cool slap at Rian Johnson of course.)

the "real" Snoke could also have been using clones of himself, and one clone just got cut in half, so what, no big deal. or they could have had Plagueis producing Snoke puppets... or Uncle Owen!! whatever, ANYTHING else but Palpatine!


I'm pretty sure by now that the original JJ outline always had Rey as a Palpatine. that explains how Snoke or Kylo talk about the girl and her mighty hidden powers, how obsessed they are to find her, or Luke saying "I've seen this raw strength only once before. It didn't scare me enough then. It does now."

yes, that all makes sense now, Rey was always a Palpatine.

but his physical return was a new idea, most likely as a fan service to win old fans back.... oh boy, did that backfire!


Rian tanked one movie. I could have lived with that.

but now JJ tanked the whole trilogy and basically the whole saga with this one BULLSHIT decision

so sad

[Edited 12/23/19 2:56am]

TrevorAyer said:

Disney murdered Star Wars ... complete and utter shit ... ruined all the characters ... ruined the story ... fucked with all the basic rules of the force and turned it into another shitty hairy potter movie .. and even so couldn’t even produce a movie that made a lick of sense even if we accept the isiotic world disney created ... hope disney goes bankrupt so they can never rape my eyes like this again

I too wanted to sleep on it ... before commenting .

I saw it on Sunday (yesterday as I write this ) .

I will say on the positive side - I think it was a nice enjoyable movie . I am a star wars fan from the original and I will say I think this is the first movie that I really do not have a desire to see it again at this point - even the last jedi had me wanting to see it again for the parts i missed something etc ...

JJ is known for "rehashing movies " and I think this one just was over kill for me .

The "emporer " was never a great charactor .... and .... I think he made him even worse ...

I was hoping that somehow it would be like Plageous or .... someone else as the villian and the emperor was just a tease kinda .... that Col Pryde or whoever that was was more interesting when he was on the screen but then again - another wasted charactor ....

I think that could be the theme of my review - wasted charactors - and so many seem like you want to know more about them ... like the above comment why cant we hear how the emperor survived or ... more of Poes relationship with that chick .... but ... noooooo ....

the ending to me was just too predictable ... the love thing with reylo etc ... blah ...

My son is 13 and was looking forward to it so much - he was in tears afterwards as far as how much he hated the movie ! lol

ColAngus said:

My daughter was next to me laughing and weeping, gasping and jumping just like i did when 'The Empire Strikes Back' was on the big screen in '80.

I'm the big dummy thinking episodes 1-9 were already written before the movies were made???

nayroo2002 said:

BombSquad said:

in the end lots of (sometimes quite entertaining) fan service over solid storytelling.

That is the beginning and end of it. I think JJ incorporated more oif the look and feel of Filoni's canon projects, which is probably why I enjoyed it as I was watching it.

Honestly, the braver choice would have been to follow Rian's lead on TLJ. They should have let Rian complete his vision.

But I can't complain about the fan service, being, well, a fan since 1977.

lust said:

Imagine getting hold of George’s 70 page draft! Would love to know what that story was. Now that the dust has settled after a few days since seeing it, and listening to some of the main fan podcasts, I live it even more. Can’t wait to see it again.

I heard his more recent draft(s) got more and more ethereal. But his sketch of VI-VIII before the prequels was apparently pretty fascinating.

namepeace said:

I liked it. Glad Rose was less irritating

BombSquad said:

Rian tanked one movie. I could have lived with that.

but now JJ tanked the whole trilogy and basically the whole saga with this one BULLSHIT decision

...it must have been when you were kissing me. At least some people with sense here. Took the words right out of my mouth.

TrevorAyer said:

Disney murdered Star Wars ... complete and utter shit ... ruined all the characters ... ruined the story ... fucked with all the basic rules of the force and turned it into another shitty hairy potter movie .. and even so couldn’t even produce a movie that made a lick of sense even if we accept the idiotic world disney created ... hope disney goes bankrupt so they can never rape my eyes like this again [Edited 12/23/19 8:48am]

You too. Exactly my thoughts.

lust said:

I do think that there’s a risk of not being aware that we’re appraising the new trilogy as middle aged people and comparing to how we felt watching as children where plot gaps didn’t matter so much. When Star Wars came out, I fell in love with it but my parents and grandparents thought it was shit. “I am your father - gimme a break”. Oh now she’s you’re sister? An entire galaxy and all the protagonists are unknowingly part of a nuclear family? Pffft. But we loved it because it’s a kid’s film and now we’re just sad because we’ll never get back that initial wonder. It’s why kids loved the prequels but we hated those too. And now with this, the kids will love it and experience what we did. And I’m good with that.

Why not. It makes all sense. It wasn't a coincidence that Leis was enroute to Tattoine, where the droids would get in contact with Luke, And really. Being middle aged has nothing to do with the new movies being crap. Even with grown up eyes I can watch the OT and it makes sense for the most part. And I do like the prequels.

PatrickS77 said:

The ending reminded me a LOT of The Matrix Revolutions.

lust said:

PatrickS77 said:

Why not. It makes all sense. It wasn't a coincidence that Leis was enroute to Tattoine, where the droids would get in contact with Luke, And really. Being middle aged has nothing to do with the new movies being crap. Even with grown up eyes I can watch the OT and it makes sense for the most part. And I do like the prequels.

Sure. As long as you can suspend disbelief enough to accept that droids crash landing on a planet a little smaller in size to earth and they just happen to bump into the bloke they’re looking for the next day and then accept that Owen and Beru Lars who used to own C3PO (a protocol droid made by Anakin with a very unique personality for his kind) would have no recollection of it! The whole saga is full of holes if you go looking for them.

Well, them crashlanding on Tattooine is not really a stretch. They were on the way there after all. They didn't just bump into the bloke. Luke had a suspicion the were looking for Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan was watching over Luke, so he was close by. CP-3O's are dime a dozen and he had his memory wiped. So why would Owen and Beru know that it was exactly this droid from 20 years ago, when the droid wasn't alluding to that fact. And also even Obi-Wan forgot he once had a droid. But yeah, the connection between trilogies was sloppily done and could have been better, but within trilogy things did work for the most part.

namepeace said:

The ending reminded me a LOT of The Matrix Revolutions.

I've seen it twice now and I agree.
The second watch it felt rushed and way to many things happening for a story told in two hours.

I liked it.

I enjoyed it much more than the last movie. It had more of an "old-school" feeling to it.

Some of the acting seemed off, but for the FIRST time I felt that Adam Driver delivered a good performance (I wound up wincing at some of his acting in the last 2 films).

The Leia/Luke retro scene was cool. As an avid reader of the Expanded Universe, it brought a smile to my face.

The VERY end was confusing tho'...

WHY would she say "Skywalker"?

PurpleJedi said:

EmmaMcG said:

PurpleJedi said:

I liked it.

I enjoyed it much more than the last movie. It had more of an "old-school" feeling to it.

Some of the acting seemed off, but for the FIRST time I felt that Adam Driver delivered a good performance (I wound up wincing at some of his acting in the last 2 films).

The Leia/Luke retro scene was cool. As an avid reader of the Expanded Universe, it brought a smile to my face.

The VERY end was confusing tho'...

WHY would she say "Skywalker"?

Just seen it today myself. Really enjoyed it. I posted my feelings on it in the "last movie you watched" thread but just to reiterate a point I made there, Palpatine is a great villain. A purely evil bastard with zero redeeming qualities. My guess as to why she said her surname is Skywalker is that she obviously wants to cut all ties to Palpatine. Like, in real life, you don't see many people called Hitler anymore. So she was always likely to change her name. As for why she chose Skywalker, I'd say it's because Luke and Leia were the closest things she had to parents. Her only real family. Taking their names makes a lot of sense.

I agree

JJ Abrams did a way better job with Star Wars than he did with Star Trek

Last time I made a secret fleet of Imperial Cruisers (the original spoken name if you're a fanatic) in my country house, the police still found out because of all the trucks going back and forth.