Here you have a man, a man who's the incarnation of hope (literally "A new hope"), who hopes for the best on everyone. Who was literally gambling the future of the galaxy, betting the life everyone in the resistance because HE BELIEVED his father could be redeemed.

His father? The personification of evil, a genocidal monster, LITERALLY A CHILDREN KILLER. So this man is willing to risk EVERYTHING because he things, he believes there's still good in his father.

This same man is getting ready to execute his nephew, his apprentice, a troubled teen, because he "might turn bad".

SAY WHAT!?

Fuck Rían Johnson, fuck Disney for not having a plan, fuck Lucas for literally selling out

Andor is amazing. Everyone should watch it. Red One is also very, very good.

AND THAT FUCKING ENDING. The boy with the broom. WHAT!?

In Rogue one you have a monk, someone who has trained his whole life to have a glimpse of the power the Jedi can wield.

I'm one with the force and the force is with me.

But nah, fuck that, everyone can have powers, you don't need training.

Goddamn it.

WHAT THE FUCK?!

[–] vegeta1@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

Too much subversion and all that. I like riaan Johnson other movies and it works for those but here.... Its meh. A paragon archetype becoming disillusioned usually would need some better writing to make it work otherwise it starts looking as goofy as injustice.

[–] Carl@hexbear.net 50 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (11 children)

Hearing someone's "last jedi take" is the ultimate window into their soul.

itt: everyone showing me their soul. I guess I'll give my take too - TLJ had a lot of great ideas, and a lot of terrible ones, in equal measure. It is unfortunately made worse in hindsight by the abject failure of Rise of Skywalker, which instead of paying off TLJ's setup completely backed off in the most incredible act of corporate cowardice in Disney's history. It'd be like if audiences didn't like Vader being Luke's father and Return of the Jedi retconned it and also Luke grew his hand back.

[–] laziestflagellant@hexbear.net 28 points 2 days ago (1 children)

my hot take is that disney was so scared of Finn/Poe shippers that they invented a love interest for Finn and wrote one of the worst cinematic subplots ever all for the sake of keeping Finn and Poe from interacting with each other.

...wait that's not even a hot take that's just literally what happened lmao

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 13 points 2 days ago

Finn and Poe both getting a beard in Rise of Skywalker was wild

[–] Thordros@hexbear.net 20 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It had some really neat ideas buried in all the fan service (that the fans fucking hated anyway, lol, lmao even).

The idea of there being no chosen one prophecy savior hero mega power jedi, and no big bad invincible villain god sith with three boss phases, was pretty cool. The hero is just some random junker born to nobodies, and the villain is just some dipshit that gets Final Destinationed by a kid who's pissed off at his uncle. And the lil slave kid in the final shot, who casually uses the Force to sweep up a bit faster, really sold the idea that anybody has the potential to be a hero.

Anyway that's too brainy, MORE LASER SWORDS PLS!

[–] thefunkycomitatus@hexbear.net 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The hero is just some random junker born to nobodies, and the villain is just some dipshit that gets Final Destinationed by a kid who's pissed off at his uncle. And the lil slave kid in the final shot, who casually uses the Force to sweep up a bit faster, really sold the idea that anybody has the potential to be a hero.

I completely agree and that was one of my favorite things about it. This is also political because it means the distribution of power is not tied to a royal bloodline nor divine right. Magic can be harnessed by anyone. It's not fate or destiny.

Then you couple that idea with killing the past. Moving past nostalgia in favor of creating something new. Kylo is a Vader fanboy who becomes willing to smash that legacy in order to forge his own thing. He no longer cares about the legacy or the ceremony of the dark side. That means the story then is about the conflicting interests of Rey and Kylo. Shifting from mysticism to political economy.

The movie is political, but not because there are non-white and women characters in big roles. It's political in a way that doesn't jive with the corporate nostalgia bait. It's surprising that it was greenlit at all but you can be damn sure there will be no more challenges to the Star Wars dynasty. I think the Baby Yoda program is a good example. It tells a "new' story but makes sure to tie in as much nostalgia bait as it can while making sure your childish fanboyism is taken seriously and treated with dignity. Basically reassuring viewers that they are not silly for being really into a muppet laser toy commercial.

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 9 points 2 days ago

I think the Baby Yoda program is a good example. It tells a "new' story but makes sure to tie in as much nostalgia bait as it can while making sure your childish fanboyism is taken seriously and treated with dignity.

The best way to do something interesting with Star Wars is to give the creative direction to someone who doesn't give a shit about Star Wars. See Andor as the shining example.

The whole Mandoverse is Dave Filoni's big pet project, and he's so much of a weird Star Wars fan that he only accidentally stumbled into interesting things. Not that his output is specifically bad, he's just too much of a fan of the franchise to take risks.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 28 points 2 days ago

It's OKAY with some cringey lib epic catchphrase moments. The bigger problem the whole trilogy has however is being slop with absolutely nothing to say, it lacks a political message which makes the story not really strike a chord with any of the audience.

[–] bobs_guns@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I liked the red salt planet. Very visually striking.

[–] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's salt! not-built-for-this

[–] bobs_guns@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 2 days ago

Yeah! Give it a lick if you dare.

[–] vegeta1@hexbear.net 24 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Its mid slop. Which makes it more baffling that people went to war over it. i-cant

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think a lot of "Star Wars fans" built up the series in their heads as some kind of incredible tour de force of film making, rather than the silly, inconsistent and schlocky sci-fi that it actually is, and built their entire personalities around worshipping this idea of these movies in their heads, so when the Disney sequels came out and were safe, generic slop, it pissed a lot of people off because it wasn't like the perfect movie in their heads, but neither were the og movies anyway.

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 5 points 2 days ago

Especially the fans of the EU. Star Wars has always been kinda inconsistent and mid.

[–] SerialExperimentsGay@hexbear.net 9 points 2 days ago

TLJ should have been Space Balls II but gay, but Disney were a bunch of cowards as usual so they ruined it

[–] XiaCobolt@hexbear.net 11 points 2 days ago

I think if Leia had done the hyperdrive ram (as I read was originally the plan), it would have made perfect sense.

Jump too early you ghost through them, too late they stop you with shields/mass/tractor beams. Hitting that sweet spot is next to impossible, not even a droid or computer could do it.

Leia who has run from the force, turned her back to it her whole life, in her last moments reconciles and taps into the force, allowing her to perfectly time hitting the hyperdrive.

Then when Luke dies ascending to the force he travels momentarily back in time as a force ghost to guide Leia the way Ben guided him in a New Hope.

[–] thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net 15 points 2 days ago

it was ok better than force awakens

[–] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 12 points 2 days ago

It was decent. Needed a little tightening up

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I didn't really care for the Force Awakens, it was fine, but just slop, and it was a tipping point for me in not actually seeing movies in theatres anymore. So I ended up not seeing the last jedi, though from what I've heard I probably would've enjoyed it more than FA.

[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 19 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It was definitely the strongest of the three (admittedly not a high bar), largely because it had the courage to not just do complete fan service rehashing of the original trilogy again. There were some threads introduced that were somewhat interesting, but they dropped every single one of those threads for the third entry after the response from the fandom was overwhelmingly "we don't want anything except exactly the same slop we've seen half a dozen times already."

[–] KhanCipher@hexbear.net 17 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Honestly, just about every single problem with the sequel trilogy can be traced back to J.J. Abrams being given the reins for any amount of time.

[–] Carl@hexbear.net 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

JJ Abrams and the guy who wrote Batman v Superman.

Star Wars doesn't need a brilliant script, it just needs a simple, competent one. That's what The Mandolorian (season 1) had, which is why people liked it so much.

[–] KhanCipher@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago

and the guy who wrote Batman v Superman.

I mean, just about any DC ip movie writer is suspect as hell imo, because more often than not it feels like the writer had only read Dark Knight Returns, Killing Joke, and Watchmen. And coincidentally those three stories seem to always be the only ones that DC ever remembers publishing as well.

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

And I've heard that Rise of Skywalker was exactly the same slop, even bringing back Palpatine just because, and of course, those same fans who demanded it fucking hated it as well.

[–] KoboldKomrade@hexbear.net 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

To be fair, they also killed the big bad (Snoke lmao) in movie 2 of 3. Without any plan or reason. So they needed a big bad ultimate evil, because Palpatine was behind it all in both previous trilogies. Having him be the big bad in the prequels made SOME sense, but it was slop the third time. I enjoyed it for being a giant embarassment as wells as "old man has way too much fun being goofy evil".

Like they could have had Kylo Ren become the actual big bad, but then people might be upset that their bad boy becomes Space Hitler (despite already being Space Hitler Youth).

They toyed with the girl... That I literally can't recall the name of now. Rei? Ray? whatever. They toyed with her becoming evil, but resolved it so loosely I don't even recall there being a "no this isn't me, this is bad, I'm good" scene.

They could have even had some banality of evil shit, where the rank and file Hitlerites become the villians for a movie. But nah, completely jumping the shark.

[–] Carl@hexbear.net 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I really think that if Johnson had been allowed to finish the trilogy, or if the person who did finish it hadn't thrown all of his ideas directly in the fire, the third movie could have paid off some of these ideas and made the second one better in retrospect.

Snoke was a boring villain. Getting a cheap kill on him to refocus on Kylo was the right move, "somehow Palpatine returned" was the wrong one.

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 14 points 2 days ago

All of those ideas you had sound like they would've involved themes and depth which we can't have, because it challenges audiences, and the focus group testing shows that audiences hate being forced to use the lump of meat in their heads, so it is obviously a no-go.

[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah. I thought one of the more interesting moves the middle entry made was to suggest that Rey wasn't a super special lost Skywalker (or Kenobi or whatever): she was just some girl from the middle of nowhere who happened to be thrust into greatness. That flies in the face of the "special boy does special things" theme of the series though, so they had to retcon it immediately.

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah, which is funny that all the CHUDs were mad about her being the special chosen one special girl, but somehow got even madder about the idea that there is no special chosen one destiny at all.

I guess it makes sense, they want life to hand success to them without effort on their part, so they want their media to reflect that.

[–] Andrzej3K@hexbear.net 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The script was mechanically flawed but I liked it. It took the entire mess of Star Wars lore and somehow turned into a coherent thesis, setting things up perfectly for the finale. Abrams's retcons were criminal imo.

Of the sequels, it is the only one that even resembles a movie.

Also, the way Luke goes out was fucking epic and anyone upset by it needs their head examined.

[–] Beaver@hexbear.net 44 points 2 days ago (2 children)

If The Last Jedi ends the long nightmare of American hegemony, I might be forced to critically re-evaluate it.

[–] invo_rt@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago

I will also reevaluate it as a still flawed, but ultimately consequential piece of fictional media.

[–] elPerroAsalariado@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Don't ask me to be okay with the death of my father that ended up saving the town.

Not like this.

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 34 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Laura Dern is a saint and Kelly Marie Tran got hate for simply being Asian...in a world with literal space aliens.

[–] regul@hexbear.net 8 points 2 days ago

That's not true! Some people hated her because she is a woman! Some people hated her because she is not rail skinny.

This is misogynist and body-shamer erasure!

[–] djsaskdja@reddthat.com 9 points 2 days ago

Equal parts racism combined with equal parts her being the focal point of all the most boring parts of the film.

[–] BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I remember watching the first of the sequels. There's that scene where the golden british robot twink appears on screen with a red arm and he yells right into the camera "hello! It's me! C3PO! Do you remember me? You might not recognize me because of my red arm, but it's still me. I just have a red arm! It's me, C3PO!" And I thought to myself: Is this what culture is going to be now?

Just endless regurgitation of the same slop with superficial changes, each of which will be explained to soothe a coddled audience angry that youth is fleeting and their bodies are decaying? So they can be led to the merch store where they are handheld through the ordeal of deciding on what funko pop to get? (The one with the new red arm).
Yes. That is what culture would be from now on. I didn't watch the following movies.

Andor is good though. So is Knives Out.