The Last Jedi What would you have done differently?

[Agent Orange]

*edit*

Forget it.

 

[Gothamsknight]

Hmm okay. Many other films have come back from far worse. You may not like TLJ, I get it, but it's not the worst movie by far... not even the worst movie of 2017. You're over reacting. At worst, it's an ambitious movie that didn't measure up to it's predecessors. At worst.

Im astonished at the overreacting this film has generated with the people who didnt like it. Its almost as if they WANT it to be as bad as the prequels because they hate disney. Its not anywhere near as controversial as people are making it out to be.

 

[random_havoc]

Im astonished at the overreacting this film has generated with the people who didnt like it. Its almost as if they WANT it to be as bad as the prequels because they hate disney. Its not anywhere near as controversial as people are making it out to be.

You're making tons of assumptions and generalizations. For example, I don't hate Disney at all, I actually love the fact that they've given Marvel the funds to make movies faster and higher budget than they would've had without being bought by them.

Millions of die-hard Star Wars fans hate this movie. HATE it. You might not see it, but there's a reason, in fact there's a bunch of them. I'd list some but there's already tons of reasons laid out all over these boards.

As for the comparison to the prequels, I didn't bring that up the other poster did and I responded. The prequels were terrible in an entirely different way. They're unwatchable on many levels. The way in which I said this was comparable is that while the franchise was able to recover from the midichlorians, the prequel trilogy itself never recovered. In the same way, having Luke (as one example of what's wrong with TLJ) be a huge loser who doesn't leave his little island for the entire new trilogy can't be recovered from. There's a reason why TLJ has the record for the biggest drop in income from first to second weekend, and I'd submit that one reason is because a lot of people were super excited to finally see the hero of the original trilogy again, and then were pretty pissed off with what they got.

 

[random_havoc]

Hmm okay. Many other films have come back from far worse. You may not like TLJ, I get it, but it's not the worst movie by far... not even the worst movie of 2017. You're over reacting. At worst, it's an ambitious movie that didn't measure up to it's predecessors. At worst.

No, at worst it's a movie that doesn't give a crap about the movie it's supposed to be a sequel to (evident right from the very first scene), and a movie that takes a giant dump on the hero of the greatest film trilogy of all time. That's why this trilogy won't recover.
I never said it was the worst movie, so please don't put words in my mouth. But saying it's not as bad as Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones (as many are saying in way of defence) is a pretty friggin low bar to set

 

[MaceB]

It chose to broke convention, yes. But I don't think you can say that means it doesn't give a crap. Same thing about the treatment of Luke. You don't like it.. but it was trying to give him a fitting end. To you it failed, but it is a subjective thing. It wasn't what you were expecting... what most of us were expecting... and we'll never get it. Never. That's a bummer. I get it.
The comparison to the prequels sets a low bar, it's true... but hey, it's brought up because it's true. This is not the worst Star Wars film. So when you talk about what it can take.. well I think that too is arguable. Time will tell. But this film was made well and it left room for growth in the next film. It just wasn't your taste. Don't exaggerate so much.

 

[godisawesome]

To me, it's a decent movie. But it's unworthy of comparing to the OT; any attempt to big it up next to ESB is laughable. And it's unworthy of TFA; that's my real burn with it. TFA gave me my favorite character in Finn and gave him, Rey and Kylo Ren all intriguing character arcs and explorations at the center of the film, and then posed several interesting questions. And TLJ was almost totally diametrically opposed to that:

-Finn and Rey are largely static, with the former getting bad busy work in a meaningless sidequest the writer has admitted he underwrote out of laziness and the latter having her meta question become an anticlimactic focus for her character where she repeats the scene from Maz's palace and we're supposed to see it as a major character moment.
-Kylo gets a bit of development, but only in his progression up the ladder of the First Order. We still have no idea why the son of Space!Churchill wants to cosplay and worship Space!Himmler, since Luke's "scared little boy" judgement doesn't fly with immediate mass murder and mass corruption; kid clearly was already a Snoke disciple, though we can't find oIt why because reasons. He's effectively the same tumultuous brat from the end of TFA, just with a more pimpin' title.
- Where Han got a fun and bittersweet treatment as a supporting character in TFA, Luke gets a controversially subversive and bitter storyline that effectively consumes the story. There's a reason his confrontation with Kylo is both awesome and the true climax of the film, but there's not a real good one for why he had to be lectured by Yoda instead of leaning something from Rey, or why he had to be *so* resolutely uncaring for the moral obligation to help the universe. The film's message on failure is so sacrosanct to its construction that it overrides even basic potential character interactions.
-A weird pursuit of more bitter and mournful themes than TFA...while simultaneously treating various aspects with less weight and investment than before. Where TFA tries to make sure you understand that Hosnian Prime's destruction is a tragic evil, even in its truncated presentation, and shows the impact makes Finn return to Han if just to warn him, Poe makes a mistake that gets hundreds killed in TLJ... But never feels the actual weight of his actions or gets directly punished outside of a stun. Finn's story in TFA is played for pathos at key points coming from his situation, whereas TLJ seems to avoid his past even if it would fit it's themes perfectly.
-And of course, TLJ doesn't just use a few anti-climaxes for TFA's hanging threads; it uses anti-climaxes for all of them. Don't ask why Snoke has his power. Don't ask what made Kylo go bad. Don't invest in Rey's parents. Don't expect anything new in the Galaxy. Don't wonder what Luke may have rediscovered about Jedi doctrine JJ his studies. Sit down, and learn your pessimistic if vaguely idealist lesson for all these characters, half of whom will be stuck in underwritten side quests.

 

[TheVileOne]

I do kind of feel there was something about the ancient Jedi texts or doctrines we should've learned about that helped Luke come to his decision. I mean they built up those books so much in the marketing material, and they weren't all that important as far as the actual plot.

 

[titansupes]

^ Yep. The books and the whole of the First Jedi Temple thing were brimming with potential... All but wasted.

 

[TheVileOne]

I mean there might've been more they filmed with that that was cut from the film. Apparently there was a lot more Phasma that would've justified all the hype of "Phasma has a bigger role! We actually gave her a backstory in the comics and books!" Instead Phasma turns out to be a total chump yet again

 

[Aximili86]

Millions of die-hard Star Wars fans hate this movie. HATE it.

And millions more don't.

It gets a little tiresome listening to the ad nauseum whineing. You're obviously entitled to your opinion, but it all comes off really crybaby at a certain point, some of the emotional outbursts.

 

[Consona]

I never said it was the worst movie, so please don't put words in my mouth.

I'm one of those who said it was the worst of all the SW movies. To me,
• at least prequels felt like SW movies, TLJ did not. It was a random space action movie in the Star Wars attire.
• those films had some focused story that led somewhere, TLJ did not
• TLJ was so anti-climactic, even the ending of AotC felt totally awesome compared to TLJ, which was again, so random.
• there was some sense of logical continuity with prequels, in TLJ there was not
• while Jar Jar humor was awful, so was some of the TLJ humor to the point it felt completely out of place
• that star warsy talk started to feel like it has become a parody of itself, it was really cringy at some places, like you use all those mandatory SW jargon but the sentences does not make sense, again... felt so random
• prequels expanded the universe, all those new planets, designs, races, it showed us senate, etc, TLJ gave us Monte Carlo SJW casino and pseudo-Hoth with pseudo-all that old Imperial tech but repainted. (Ahch-To and Lanai were great though, IMO)
• and I could repeat all those other, IMO valid, critiques

tldr: no focused story, quite the contrary, it was an anti-climactic mess; no sense of continuity, universe-wise, character-wise, tone-wise; wasted characters, badly written characters; cringy humor, cringy pseudo-star warsy twaddle, etc... So yeah, no reason to say it was better than the prequels.

 

[KILLING JOKER]

I did like the movie a-lot. I was one of the those people wanting to see Luke pull out the green saber in an epic moment of return. However, when you boil that down to fit a specific narrative it's actually pretty generic.
The thing I can't really defend though is Johnson's blatant extension of the Force and how sort of ridiculous he made it. Sci-fi fantasy needs to have rules that make at least some fundamental sense but if you take it too far which TLJ certainly did, you're left with this feeling of nothing really matters because anything is possible. Therefore the tension goes and the excitement kind of goes too.
I respect Johnson for having a vision that was bold and went against what I was expecting but let's face it, we all would have made a completely differently movie.

Holdo, a character we have no attachment to, should not have held what is arguably the most dramatic scene in the film. In fact I have more of an issue with the Poe vs Holdo plot than I do the Casino world stuff. The whole thing with Poe and Holdo was a bait and switch to the audience. She's introduced as someone we're supposed to dislike and she treats Poe who we're supposed to like with utter distain. Then somehow the message is that we are supposed to understand and like both of them? It just kind of falls apart for me. If they hadn't made her act so vile towards Poe it may have worked better but as the film plays out she's just a woman who respects Leia but seems to hate men. Yet in the end Leia says that rebels should follow Poe? Just all seems pretty flimsy just so they can pull the bait and switch.

Luke and Rey. I have to admit that I was so excited for Luke to leave the island and join the action. It was something I was thinking about while anticipating the release of the film. So the fact that he never leaves is sort of a real downer. Again I respect what Rian was going for and I can accept what they did with Luke in terms of making him more like Yoda and Obi Wan but to say it satisfied me completely would be a lie.

 

[Gothamsknight]

And millions more don't.

It gets a little tiresome listening to the ad nauseum whineing. You're obviously entitled to your opinion, but it all comes off really crybaby at a certain point, some of the emotional outbursts.

Agreed. The amount of irrational criticisms ive seen are astounding in many ways. Seriously, if you dont like the film thats fine, but wow some of these people are going absolutely crazy. i think the fact that the film was critically claimed is whats pissing them off. For some reason the fact that a lot more people love it than they realize pisses them off. Which also makes me baffled because if the majority love it, why do the haters have to get so bent out of shape?? They're always the ones claiming that others dont have affect on their views.

 

[BigSams50]

You're making tons of assumptions and generalizations. For example, I don't hate Disney at all, I actually love the fact that they've given Marvel the funds to make movies faster and higher budget than they would've had without being bought by them.

Millions of die-hard Star Wars fans hate this movie. HATE it. You might not see it, but there's a reason, in fact there's a bunch of them. I'd list some but there's already tons of reasons laid out all over these boards.

As for the comparison to the prequels, I didn't bring that up the other poster did and I responded. The prequels were terrible in an entirely different way. They're unwatchable on many levels. The way in which I said this was comparable is that while the franchise was able to recover from the midichlorians, the prequel trilogy itself never recovered. In the same way, having Luke (as one example of what's wrong with TLJ) be a huge loser who doesn't leave his little island for the entire new trilogy can't be recovered from. There's a reason why TLJ has the record for the biggest drop in income from first to second weekend, and I'd submit that one reason is because a lot of people were super excited to finally see the hero of the original trilogy again, and then were pretty pissed off with what they got.

Yes its called Christmas. Their 3rd weekend was almost 100 mill, 30 mill more than the 2nd weekend. That big drop was only due to Christmas and CHristmas eve.

No, at worst it's a movie that doesn't give a crap about the movie it's supposed to be a sequel to (evident right from the very first scene), and a movie that takes a giant dump on the hero of the greatest film trilogy of all time. That's why this trilogy won't recover.
I never said it was the worst movie, so please don't put words in my mouth. But saying it's not as bad as Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones (as many are saying in way of defence) is a pretty friggin low bar to set

This trilogy isnt dead, i dont know why people assume that. If IX has an epic trailer, which lets be honest, it will, it will still have a huge opening weekend, and if its a good movie? Will go on to have a great run.

Holdo, a character we have no attachment to, should not have held what is arguably the most dramatic scene in the film. In fact I have more of an issue with the Poe vs Holdo plot than I do the Casino world stuff. The whole thing with Poe and Holdo was a bait and switch to the audience. She's introduced as someone we're supposed to dislike and she treats Poe who we're supposed to like with utter distain. Then somehow the message is that we are supposed to understand and like both of them? It just kind of falls apart for me. If they hadn't made her act so vile towards Poe it may have worked better but as the film plays out she's just a woman who respects Leia but seems to hate men. Yet in the end Leia says that rebels should follow Poe? Just all seems pretty flimsy just so they can pull the bait and switch.

This part i can agree with, Holdo's sacrifice was supposed to make us feel something for the character, but it really doesnt cause she is a new character with like 6 minutes of screen time.

 

[Aximili86]

Random, the drop in and of itself taken in a vacuum doesn't mean ****.

The budget for this thing was, what, 200 mil tops, if we want to cover our bases say 300 including marketing.

The movie made $1.3 billion, worst case scenario.

Disney's not losing sleep about the drop. This thing still clearly got a hell of a lot of repeat business, second and third viewings. Their wallets are lined sufficiently, the critics and half of the fans love it. That other half of the fanbase, while entitled to feel as they do, aren't something Disney/Lucasfilm is going to lose sleep over so long as they have the other half, the critics, and the benjamins in their pockets.

Once again, The Force Awakens was a white whale. Disney never expected this to do TFA money.

 

[Adhesive Boy]

Random, the drop in and of itself taken in a vacuum doesn't mean ****.

The budget for this thing was, what, 200 mil tops, if we want to cover our bases say 300 including marketing.

The movie made $1.3 billion, worst case scenario.

Disney's not losing sleep about the drop. This thing still clearly got a hell of a lot of repeat business, second and third viewings. Their wallets are lined sufficiently, the critics and half of the fans love it. That other half of the fanbase, while entitled to feel as they do, aren't something Disney/Lucasfilm is going to lose sleep over so long as they have the other half, the critics, and the benjamins in their pockets.

Once again, The Force Awakens was a white whale. Disney never expected this to do TFA money.

Lol, TFA had a marketing budget of $223 million but you think that $100 million for TFA is really covering your bases?

 

[Gothamsknight]

Random, the drop in and of itself taken in a vacuum doesn't mean ****.

The budget for this thing was, what, 200 mil tops, if we want to cover our bases say 300 including marketing.

The movie made $1.3 billion, worst case scenario.

Disney's not losing sleep about the drop. This thing still clearly got a hell of a lot of repeat business, second and third viewings. Their wallets are lined sufficiently, the critics and half of the fans love it. That other half of the fanbase, while entitled to feel as they do, aren't something Disney/Lucasfilm is going to lose sleep over so long as they have the other half, the critics, and the benjamins in their pockets.

Once again, The Force Awakens was a white whale. Disney never expected this to do TFA money.

This, this, and this!!!!


Which makes me laugh even more at how some of these youtubers actually think star wars is dead lmao. Its laughable at this point, honestly.

 

[BigSams50]

Lol, TFA had a marketing budget of $223 million but you think that $100 million for TFA is really covering your bases?

TLJ had a budget of 200 mill, so over a billion in profits from the boxoffice alone, not including merchandise. In every star wars trilogy the first film in the trilogy has been the highest grossing. A new Hope outsold Empire, The Phantom Menace outsold AOTC, there was 0 chance in this making as much as TFA, a film that even with the box office revenue adjusted for inflation, is set at 2 for the franchise. NOw i dont know if you are dogging the BO of TLJ or not, but i dont see how anyone can.

This, this, and this!!!!


Which makes me laugh even more at how some of these youtubers actually think star wars is dead lmao. Its laughable at this point, honestly.

Exactly this. Its like saying the Avengers franchise is dead because AOU underperformed compared to The Avengers.

 

[Adhesive Boy]

TLJ had a budget of 200 mill, so over a billion in profits from the boxoffice alone, not including merchandise. In every star wars trilogy the first film in the trilogy has been the highest grossing. A new Hope outsold Empire, The Phantom Menace outsold AOTC, there was 0 chance in this making as much as TFA, a film that even with the box office revenue adjusted for inflation, is set at 2 for the franchise. NOw i dont know if you are dogging the BO of TLJ or not, but i dont see how anyone can.

No, just like TFA the cost of TLJ will rise above $400 million including marketing. Then you need to account for that the studio doesn't get all of the BO money, plenty of that goes to the theater chains. TLJ isn't making anywhere near $1 billion in profit. It's making a lot of money, but not near that, or as much as it could have (despite that I agree that it certainly wasn't doing TFA numbers). A disappointing financial success, as someone said before.

There's of course nothing mutually exclusive about making a ton of money and being a disappointment. The former is just about making money without any context, the other is about what educated expectations that were on the endeavor.

But all that wasn't what I was saying. I was pointing out a highly inaccurate guess for what it costs to market a film like TLJ. That's often more expensive than the actual production cost, which was the case with TFA and most likely with TLJ.

 

[BigSams50]

No, just like TFA the cost of TLJ will rise above $400 million including marketing. Then you need to account for that the studio doesn't get all of the BO money, plenty of that goes to the theater chains. TLJ isn't making anywhere near $1 billion in profit. It's making a lot of money, but not near that, or as much as it could have (despite that I agree that it certainly wasn't doing TFA numbers). A disappointing financial success, as someone said before.

There's of course nothing mutually exclusive about making a ton of money and being a disappointment. The former is just about making money without any context, the other is about what educated expectations that were on the endeavor.

But all that wasn't what I was saying. I was pointing out a highly inaccurate guess for what it costs to market a film like TLJ. That's often more expensive than the actual production cost, which was the case with TFA and most likely with TLJ.

Well of course, but adding in marketing and all of theri merchandise that they have sold for TLJ, im sure this movie is extremely profitable. But I get what youre saying. I was more so responding to the people saying this BO performance is a disappointment, when i really cant see any way that it is.

 

[Gothamsknight]

Exactly this. Its like saying the Avengers franchise is dead because AOU underperformed compared to The Avengers.

Yup. Speaking of Which, The Last Jedi is much better critically reviewed film than even AOU was, so that point drives home even more!

For me, Last Jedi is a bold movie that Was needed in order to allow star wars to go new places. I loved it, and i think the future of Star Wars is extremely bright. we literally have NO idea whats gonna happen in IX! Easily my most hyped film of 2019 by far. The final chapter in this amazing 40 year saga.

 

[TheVileOne]

It's not over a billion in profits, but more like over a billion in revenue.

 

[Mjölnir]

Yup. Speaking of Which, The Last Jedi is much better critically reviewed film than even AOU was, so that point drives home even more!

For me, Last Jedi is a bold movie that Was needed in order to allow star wars to go new places. I loved it, and i think the future of Star Wars is extremely bright. we literally have NO idea whats gonna happen in IX! Easily my most hyped film of 2019 by far. The final chapter in this amazing 40 year saga.

I don't think they went to many new places. There are lots of plot beats and even scenes taken from the old films. While they did a radical change of Luke we still have Rey who's pretty much like OT Luke, just with less of a character arc and struggle. It's just a switch to the new model.

I'd say that the bold move that takes Star Wars where it needs to go is when they start making films that aren't repeating the old ones and/or use the old characters. If Rian's new trilogy is actually something new, then that's what I'll consider taking SW in a new direction.

As for having no idea what's going to happen in IX, I have some fairly strong guesses like Kylo vs Rey, the First Order taking a big loss, etc, so I'm not without ideas. It's really only the prequels that were more predictable than usual since they were leading up to something already established, and it's not really fair to compare that scenario to the OT or this trilogy.

 

[Aximili86]

So, all said and done, Disney's made 400 million bucks or so in actual profit, when you take out expenses and everything else.

Whaaaa, we can fund the next two Star Wars production budgets sans marketing just off what we made from TFA. Whaaa. Unacceptable, call in Kennedy! Where's my cool chewing-people-out suit?!

Zis eez outrage!

It's a drop. It's not "recalibrate Lucasfilm 'cause they're ****ing things up" panic time. They seriously don't care, it's a mild disappointed shrug and move on.

 

[Mjölnir]

So, all said and done, Disney's made 400 million bucks or so in actual profit, when you take out expenses and everything else.

Whaaaa, we can fund the next two Star Wars production budgets sans marketing just off what we made from TFA. Whaaa. Unacceptable, call in Kennedy! Where's my cool chewing-people-out suit?!

Zis eez outrage!

It's a drop. It's not "recalibrate Lucasfilm 'cause they're ****ing things up" panic time. They seriously don't care, it's a mild disappointed shrug and move on.

They definitely care and it's ridiculous to suggest they don't. These are companies that make films because they are investments. It's not only about how much money you make but how much you left on the table.

There's of course no panic or disaster talk by any means, that's silly to suggest. But so is suggesting that they don't care that they came in perhaps millions of dollars below expectations in profit (Jurrassic World money was definitely no overly bold expectation, especially after that monstrous OW). I'm refraining from making silly caricatures of what you say though, like you do for the ones that you disagree with.