The Hobbit, Star Wars I-III, or T.L.J.?

[DarthSkywalker]

I truly believe The Last Jedi will be a more respected movie years from now. It gets way way more hate than it deserves, an I think once TROS is out, those who didn't like TLJ may look at it differently.

There are fundamental issues with TLJ which TRoS cannot help. If anything, Rey's lack of arc, Canto Bight, and whatever is going on with Finn and Poe will hang over the film forever. Because they are fundamental parts of the film. And stuff like Rey and Luke not really having a relationship might just be made worse by TRoS.

 

[Joe Von Zombie]

The Last Jedi's biggest issue outside of its piss poor handling of nearly all of its characters is that it's painfully dull. Be good or be a dumpster fire, just don't put me to ****ing sleep.

 

[Deck Rickard]

I feel like Rey’s arc is one of the better aspects of the film, honestly. I felt like she lacked an arc in TFA, to be honest. Yeah, she’s a badass and all that, but she also came off kind of... dumb? Like, her whole motivation in the first half of the film is just to go back to her little shack on Jakku and keep scratching tally marks on the wall until her parents never come back. I mean, seriously? In TLJ she felt like a whole character to me with her interactions with Kylo and Luke. I liked how she tried (and mostly failed) to save/help both of them and became somewhat disillusioned with the Jedi idea as a whole. If there’s one thing TLJ did for me, it was make Rey a more interesting character.

 

[Fincher]

I truly believe The Last Jedi will be a more respected movie years from now. It gets way way more hate than it deserves, an I think once TROS is out, those who didn't like TLJ may look at it differently.

I can't speak to what others will or won't do (although by the same token, you could say that the prequels experienced a turnaround due to younger people liking them), but I don't grade movies by what the movies that follow them do. Just as I don't hold it against The Force Awakens that The Last Jedi messed things up, I'm not going to reevaluate The Last Jedi if TROS fixes its mess. That's to The Rise of Skywalker's credit.

And like DarthSkywalker said, TROS can't fix everything. I liked the relationship between Rey and Finn in The Force Awakens. I was on board with the idea of them as a couple. Then TLJ separated them to put Finn with Rose who was just not interesting, and with Rey and Kylo I got what has to be one of the worst movie romances I've ever seen. I disliked them together as much as I did Bella and Edward after three Twilight movies. The scenes where they were connected through the force were like she was falling for a younger version of Ben Stein from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, except he's a gross Sith Lord. I'd take Anakin and Padme any day of the week. I'm not even exaggerating when I say I'd rather see Rey with Selacious Crumb. At least he had a personality, and at least he would be fun to go bowling with if he wasn't scratching your eyes out.

The Rise of Skywalker can't change that that happened, not unless it says The Last Jedi was all a dream, which I would prefer but which won't happen. The most it could do is put Rey and Finn together and ignore that it ever happened, or else have Rey say that she doesn't know what she ever saw in Kylo. No matter how well it handles it, I still had to sit through that trash, and it was the focus of Rey's story in TLJ.

 

[Zorro]

I prefer The Last Jedi but I actually like them enough overall

 

[thangaran]

The Last Jedi was a mediocre film that stumbled far too often in trying to be super intelligent with its “edgy” (more like worthless) subversions. It reduced Poe’s character to a big zero and Luke... let’s not even bother with how stupidly handled his character was

 

[henzINNIT]

The Last Jedi is comfortably the best film. It has flaws but is pretty good regardless.

I have a tremendous respect for Peter Jackson and the teams' efforts on 'The Hobbit' series after learning about how troubled production was. They were fighting against the clock and you could see them run out of steam over the 3 films. There is a lot to love about them regardless.

The prequel trilogy is superficially similar the the Hobbit: a trilogy of prequels under the shadow of a landmark series, overloaded with CG etc etc. The key difference though is that Peter Jackson is a better film-maker than George Lucas, and generally stages better scenes with better performances. The real standouts here are John Williams' score, scene-chewing Palpatine and all the fantastic artists bringing the galaxy to life. I understand why a lot of people have a fondness for them, the lore is cool and thanks to supplementary material it has become a well fleshed out era. The films themselves just... suck though.

 

[Filmfreak]

I like the first Hobbit movie a lot. I think it's quite good and enjoyable with many elements and aspects that I like even though it drags in the third act. The other two movies also had good things going on but they were both stretching the plot to extreme levels and added uninteresting subplots and events, something that tired me a lot in certain points, especially in the last one. Also the extensive use of poorly made CGI instead of more practical effects didn't help. I don't think the movies are as bad as some people make them out to be but the trilogy as a whole is vastly superior to the Lord of the Rings one and unnecessarily long. It felt mostly a cash grab without the love that I expected Peter Jackson to put in the universe again.

It's been a while but in retrospect I find the Star Wars prequels to be mostly mediocre, not necessarily bad. The first two have many problems and are definitely not movies that I want to revisit any time soon but at least they had heart and some vision. They didn't feel to me as soulless as the corporate products that Disney is massively producing for the past few years. They still felt like they barely offered anything new and were poorly handled in most aspects. The third one was pretty good, though. And if it had better acting and better built-up and it wasn't around things that we all knew how they were going to turn out it could have been much better in my opinion.

The Last Jedi is just awful. I find it to be the worst Star Wars movie and I'm not a hardcore fan that feels betrayed by the use of his favourite characters. It did however feel like it pissed all over the few interesting and relatively new things and plot points that the previous movie promised or tried to establish. There was great misuse in many characters. mostly new ones. Some of them kept struggling to find a purpose, some were purely there as plot devices, the plot barely moved forward, the acting and direction was cringy at moments and the subplots were so hard to watch. I'm someone who wants the franchise to move away from certain formulas and explore new ideas and tropes and I have yet to see anything remotely close to that ever since the original trilogy.

 

[childeroland]

Hate the Hobbit films.
Mostly indifferent to the prequels, though there's good stuff here and there.
Like The Last Jedi.

 

[titansupes]

This is some anti-Sophie's Choice stuff to me... in the sense that I'd like to see all these choices destroyed.

SW PT-- Boy, them are bad.Them. Are. Bad. They have some great world building, design work, obviously music, and the RotS does improve in a lot of ways (namely having a story worth giving a damn about this time), but gosh... But the direction is flat and lazy, the dialogue and acting lifeless, the FX almost sterile.

Hobbit-- I saw the first one. Didn't bother with the other two. Even when they come on TV, I've barely managed 30 seconds, honestly. The first movie, though-- Overwrought, bloated, overly CG, obnoxious direction etc.

TLJ-- Such a horrendous script... I'm flabbergasted by it. You can actually FEEL the writing, and not in a good way-- It's all so contrived, it's wheelspinny, and nothing comes together correctly. Even individually, no single story (Rey's, Poe's or Finn's) amount to very much, and what's there is frustratingly dumb or backwards.

Overall though, none of these choices have good scripts, so they can all share that negative. On the positive side, TLJ is probably the best acted, shot and directed of them.

So, unfortunately, I'd have to go with that as best... even though I'd PREFER RotS?

I don't know. Like I said, anti-Sophie's Choice.

 

[Gothamsknight]

There are fundamental issues with TLJ which TRoS cannot help. If anything, Rey's lack of arc, Canto Bight, and whatever is going on with Finn and Poe will hang over the film forever. Because they are fundamental parts of the film. And stuff like Rey and Luke not really having a relationship might just be made worse by TRoS.

While I do like TLJ, i do acknowledge some of its issues, such as canto bight, but I dont think that everybody will suddenly love it once TROS comes out, but what I meant was I think some people will be able to look past some of the things they didn't like when they look at the bigger picture. Attack of the clones is, by far and away, a much much worse film than TLJ but despite that, it's still part of the saga to me. And even those that hate TLJ, I'm hoping certain Revelations will make parts of that film more digestible for those who didn't like it. Things like Reys parents, who snoke was, etc. But who knows, honestly. I'm confident that the hate for TLJ will dwindle at some point but maybe not gone entirely. The Force awakens is still my fave of all the new stuff. I love love love that movie and I'm confident TROS will be just as good if not better. I think JJ is gonna give us satisfying answers while also connecting stuff from TLJ in a way that makes sense. And while it may not make TLJ better for those that hate it, I do TLJ may be more digested in certain aspects.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I feel like Rey’s arc is one of the better aspects of the film, honestly. I felt like she lacked an arc in TFA, to be honest. Yeah, she’s a badass and all that, but she also came off kind of... dumb? Like, her whole motivation in the first half of the film is just to go back to her little shack on Jakku and keep scratching tally marks on the wall until her parents never come back. I mean, seriously? In TLJ she felt like a whole character to me with her interactions with Kylo and Luke. I liked how she tried (and mostly failed) to save/help both of them and became somewhat disillusioned with the Jedi idea as a whole. If there’s one thing TLJ did for me, it was make Rey a more interesting character.

Except Rey doesn't become disillusioned with the concept of the Jedi in TLJ. It's Luke who has done that, because of his own shame. She doesn't even become disillusioned with Luke. She takes the books specifically because she never does. Because even after everything happens, she is still asking Luke to fix the situation.

In TFA Rey suffers from paralysis, do to the trauma of her abandonment. She wants people in her life, but fears not seeing her loved ones, so she stays put, missing out on finding new loved ones. She can't move forward, do to her far of losing the only thing she ever had.

The issue with Rey in TLJ is her "arc" is basically her same one from the first film, but with her taking a backseat to Luke and Kylo. Rey is looking for someone else to be the hero in TLJ, because she wants to go back to what she was doing before. Waiting and being insignificant. The issue with this is the end of the movie cuts her out completely. She does not rise above it all. She does not take the mantle. It is instead Luke who saves the day, while Kylo has big character stuff happening as well. This could have been helped if Rey and Luke somehow interacted during the finale. You know, like talked using telepathy or something, but they didn't. Same with having a relationship which would havae made his death matter to her.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Except Rey doesn't become disillusioned with the concept of the Jedi in TLJ. It's Luke who has done that, because of his own shame. She doesn't even become disillusioned with Luke. She takes the books specifically because she never does. Because even after everything happens, she is still asking Luke to fix the situation.

In TFA Rey suffers from paralysis, do to the trauma of her abandonment. She wants people in her life, but fears not seeing her loved ones, so she stays put, missing out on finding new loved ones. She can't move forward, do to her far of losing the only thing she ever had.

The issue with Rey in TLJ is her "arc" is basically her same one from the first film, but with her taking a backseat to Luke and Kylo. Rey is looking for someone else to be the hero in TLJ, because she wants to go back to what she was doing before. Waiting and being insignificant. The issue with this is the end of the movie cuts her out completely. She does not rise above it all. She does not take the mantle. It is instead Luke who saves the day, while Kylo has big character stuff happening as well. This could have been helped if Rey and Luke somehow interacted during the finale. You know, like talked using telepathy or something, but they didn't. Same with having a relationship which would havae made his death matter to her.

Eh, maybe you're right... I only saw it once (in the theater) so it's been a while. I'm probably going to watch it again tonight to prepare for TROS. I didn't really feel like she was taking a backseat though, other than in the finale like you said. I don't know; I just remember liking Rey as a character more in TLJ than I did in TFA. Same with Poe, even though he does a bunch of dumb **** that screws everything up.

 

[henzINNIT]

Except Rey doesn't become disillusioned with the concept of the Jedi in TLJ. It's Luke who has done that, because of his own shame. She doesn't even become disillusioned with Luke. She takes the books specifically because she never does. Because even after everything happens, she is still asking Luke to fix the situation.

In TFA Rey suffers from paralysis, do to the trauma of her abandonment. She wants people in her life, but fears not seeing her loved ones, so she stays put, missing out on finding new loved ones. She can't move forward, do to her far of losing the only thing she ever had.

The issue with Rey in TLJ is her "arc" is basically her same one from the first film, but with her taking a backseat to Luke and Kylo. Rey is looking for someone else to be the hero in TLJ, because she wants to go back to what she was doing before. Waiting and being insignificant. The issue with this is the end of the movie cuts her out completely. She does not rise above it all. She does not take the mantle. It is instead Luke who saves the day, while Kylo has big character stuff happening as well. This could have been helped if Rey and Luke somehow interacted during the finale. You know, like talked using telepathy or something, but they didn't. Same with having a relationship which would havae made his death matter to her.

I disagree with this reading. Rey in TLJ never expresses a desire to go back to waiting. She's looking for her place in the world, pro-actively now, but she looks to other people for the answers. Luke falls short of her expectations, so she takes a bet on Kylo and loses. She overcomes this naivety when she 'closes the door' on Kylo and saves her friends.