Agnostic.com

6 1

omg The Last Jedi sucks

JiunnWong 5 Dec 24
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

6 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

1

Not a Star Wars fan but saw it yesterday and think it was ok. Like Rey 🙂

1

@JiunnWong

Flaws that you perceive in the movie are only flaws that you choose to see.

Sure bombs don't fall in space, but do you know how THOSE particular bombs function? Do they have internal mechanisms that draw them toward their target through means not explained in the movie? It's science FICTION. If you choose to nitpick over trivial details then you'll never enjoy any science fiction movie ever.

As I see it, the rebels were in a bad situation in which they had no real chance of winning. Fleeing was their only course of action. And people aren't infallible. Not every leader is a genius tactician.

I don't see how Luke Skywalker's character was ruined. I think this is just your interpretation of events. My interpretation was quite different. He had a great deal of weight put on him and he made a mistake. Everyone seemed to think that he could magically fix all the problems in the galaxy and defeat the First Order. He needed to come to terms with his actions and the actions of Kylo and eventually face Kylo one last time. And in the end, Luke's fate should have been expected. This trilogy is largely about passing the torch from the original characters on to a new generation.

Also, I'm 9 years older than you, not a child, and I have a good knowledge of the original material. Even Lucas said that he reserved the right to disregard any and all of the many many books as non-canon material. Disney doing so was hardly a surprise.

But you are partially right. These movies weren't written for those of us who are old enough to have seen the original trilogy in theaters. We are almost never the target audience of any major movie. These movies are for a new generation who probably have little interest in watching a bunch of senior citizens fly around in space.

I think author Dan Wells had some really good comments about the movie that helped alter my expectations of The Last Jedi prior to seeing it.

[goodreads.com]

1

I heard some negative comments about The Last Jedi prior to seeing it and I read some negative reviews and posts as well. This made me very apprehensive about seeing the movie, until I read a post by someone that changed my perspective.

The Last Jedi might not have been the movie that I wanted or expected but I still enjoyed it. If I had gone into the movie with a list of preconceptions and demands I would have likely been very disappointed. Instead, I read some spoilers that helped prepare me and I ended up really enjoying this movie.

Much of the movie went in a direction that I hadn't expected and some questions weren't answered and may never be answered but I enjoyed the movie for what it was rather than hating it for not being what I wanted. That would just be childish and petty.

Well if you see scifi as childish fantasy and see the film as a kids film, yes, you can call it an enjoyable film. The same way you enjoy a Flash Gordon film i guess

I wasnt expecting a typical childrens film, so it felt really shallow and messy. I wanted to like, i avoided reviews and spoilers. It was not enjoyable for me because the film was inelegantly made and poorly structured, and the child oriented aspects were really odd. People in general want the movies to have a point, and the Last Jedi was largely pointless or really nihilistic so it felt like a waste of time. It wasnt the film went in a direction one didnt expect, its that theres no direction at all.

About the bombs, Holdos bad leadership and Lukes character, they are just examples of which there are many many plotholes fans have been complaining about. I didnt this them all to keep my theory explanation short.

And my theory is that the movie is made to be consumed by young children, the evidence is the trend in the examples: Every plot hole complained about stems from the film makers not caring about the accurate details of various fields of knowledge. This is often done in Childrens movies because Children are not expected to know astro physics or good story structure in a movie.

Good movie making involves research to make sure every little detail is as accurate as possible. This is why martial arts experts, military consultants, and in the case of scifi, astrophyscists are employed by movie production to do just that. Suspension of disbelief is important in an movie to be consumed by adults.

Scifi audiences especially, often demand more attention to scientific accuracy, not less.

But my complain is not about the plotholes. Its about how no warning is given that this film is meant for young children. You really cannot blame people for being angry about getting something instead of what they think they were buying. Would you be happy if you got fish when you thought you bought a chicken for dinner?

And IF this film is really meant for young children, I would be angry that they assume kids are too dumb to notice plotholes. Our kids deserve the best and smartest especially since films educate and inspire children a lot.

No, I don't think the movie was childish at all. You're certainly entitled to your opinion of the movie, it's just that in my mind I can fill in most of the plot holes to allow me to enjoy the movie.

Even the original Star Wars was not perfect and had things that made no sense. Luke's aunt and uncle were murdered and he barely gave their deaths a second thought before running off with an old man he'd just met. Princess Leia barely reacted when her entire planet was destroyed. Don't forget her mysteriously disappearing British accent or the Millennium Falcon making the Kessel Run in 12 parcecs (a unit of distance, not speed). I could go on and on, but I'd rather not dissect one of my favorite movies. I'd rather enjoy it.

Personally, I saw a lot of purpose in The Last Jedi. I think that Kylo's battle with phantom Luke might have further put doubt into Kylo about his dedication to the Dark Side. And of course, Luke's passing was significant, since I believe that a major purpose of this trilogy is to say good-bye to the original characters and bring in new characters for a new generation. Sure, I'd love seeing movies about the original character for years to come, but reality won't allow that. Also, the ending seemed a bit dark, but the final scene had the message that there is hope and future heroes in the next generation (unless you missed the scene with the young boy with the broom).

And just because you don't get what you wanted doesn't mean what you got was bad.

Sorry that you did not enjoy the movie. There will likely be a new trilogy in the near future. Maybe that one will be to your liking. 🙂

0

I saw it yesterday. It was ok. I should say it's about as good as JJ Abrams can do. I don't know what all the hoopla is about this guy. He literally turned Star Trek in to a cheap action movie franchise, although the part about an alternate future was kinda cool.

This one wasn't JJ Abrams.

Actually it was. He produced the movie and I assume he is producing the franchise as well, so he is in effect, the man behind the curtain.

Rian Johnson directed it, He is also on contract to do a trilogy in the Star Wars Universe but has nothing to do with the main 9 movies.

JJ Abrams directed VII, He produced VIII. I know this because I saw it in the credits at the end of the movie. No he did not have anything to do with episodes 1 through 6. That was George Lucas productions. I hope this clarifies my original statement.

3

Respectfully, I disagree. Trying my best to not spoil anything...

I was worried about Snoke/Kylo because it seemed to me (based on limited information in TFA) that they would be a regurgitation of "dark side" motifs. So, you can see how I appreciated the direction they followed through on. They could have stuck to their guns with some characters and went in interesting directions, but I think those possibilities are limited and difficult to take seriously.

Honestly, they managed to save us from Hollywood-engrained bad philosophy and are steering the franchise outside of the tired "light" vs. "dark" false dichotomy. People are more complex than that, and so characters should be more complex in order for us to relate to them.

forgo Level 4 Dec 24, 2017

I believe I have uncovered a sound theory to explain the divided opinions on the movie.
Flaws in the movie which makes people dislike it are elements that disregard good knowledge of a
subject matter. Falling bombs in space is a result of disregarding good knowledge of gravity.
Admiral Holdo acting like a poor leader stems from disregarding good knowledge of military science
and leadership. Ruin of the Luke Skywalker character is a direct result of disregarding
good knowledge of Star Wars Lore. The reason why this movie was made this way is because it is
targeted at a group of people with poor knowledge of most things: CHILDREN .
The side effect is, all the people less than average knowledgeable of most things will like this film,
while people who are more knowledgeable than average would dislike it.
Personally, I feel it is morally important to make entertainment targeted at children to be
as smart as possible

@JiunnWong I'm not sure if you are implying I'm not knowledgeable, but I enjoyed the movie. I grew up watching Star Wars and I have a degree in aerospace engineering.

I just choose to accept the artistic liberties and physics blunders for the sake of entertainment. Are we arguing about the bombers over the asteroid in the Empire Strikes Back? Not really.

We just accept that as a fun scene because we were probably... errr... children when we first watched it. These movies were always marketed to children. That doesn't mean we can't enjoy them.

I don't claim to know anything about military science or leadership. Also, while I would have liked to see Luke Skywalker play a different role, I realize that is just an emotional attachment to the character I grew up with. The dynamic shifts play out as they do in real life, in my experience. People get old and bitter and things don't end up the way we expect.

@forgo Sweet! I got my aerospace degree back in 2004, never got to use it though. Why be offended if people say you are no knowledgeable? Its the information age, anyone can get smarter instantly, its the people that get defensive for being called stupid that stays stupid and calls facts fake news.

My point is not that though. If you look at criticisms of The Last Jedi, each one is about the movie being dumb about something, be it simple physics, more nuanced military science (you can find summaries of Art of War easily enough), space combat tactics in a a scifi setting, economics, good story structure in film making, the content of past Star Wars films and the popular lore, and the big one in my opinion: Suspension of disbelief in a Scifi Fantasy with respect to real astro physics. These topics are complex and it is unlikely to be understood by any child, also some adults to varying depth.

However, if your intention is to entertain children, you can make as many mistakes you want in these more complex fields of knowledge, and you will still not irritate the intended audience with these logical fallacies. Such a film maker would not bother with fact checking these details for purpose of quality. There is plenty of other elements of The Last Jedi which strongly suggest the intended audience is young children: The cute creatures, the style of humor and the lack of death of main good guys characters.

Of course, the smarter children and more educated audience is going to pick up on these logic mistakes and plot holes, and it can destroy suspension of disbelief if it not made clear that the movie is intended as a child's fantasy.

My big problem is when film makers make children's entertainment dumb, it alienates the gifted children, and the film cannot grow up with the audience. Case in point: the prequels.

I seriously doubt The Empire Strikes Back is intended to be consumed by young children, it is too dark and too frightening. Han Solo's carbonising and Lukes hand was often censored and removed from the film for general consumption insome countries.

The depth of the problem with Lukes character in The Last Jedi is there is no continuity from the paragon Jedi Knight to the bitter hermit. The character did not grow, Luke suddenly changed. It matters not to a young audience who just see an entertaining weird wizard character, but to people who know Lukes character and is interested in knowing how Luke might become such a person now, the Last Jedi offers no satisfying answer.

Thank you for your points for discussion and sorry for this long lordy reply xD

@JiunnWong So, gravitational fields aren't a thing in the SW Universe? Fields exist in 3 Dimensional space, much like your WiFi signal, usually has a spherical coverage pattern.
This means if a ship is close enough to "drop" bombs, it can take advantage of their gravitational field.
Pretty dumb, right? 😛

@JiunnWong I'm not offended. I wanted to make it clear that I'm knowledgeable on the physics parts, and I'm okay looking past that with most movies.

I see some of your points about darker themes in the older Star Wars, but I don't think these elements are ultimately necessary for me to enjoy it. I would have enjoyed a "darker" Star Wars, but that's not what we got.

I have imagined that some future spin-offs will be allowed to go in varying thematic directions. For example, the Boba Fett movie. If they make THAT a children's movie, I will get upset. Hahaha. Either way, I guess I'm pretty easy going at the movies.

As far as not dumbing things down for children, I agree with your point, but did anybody honestly expect Disney's Star Wars to make a shift to hyper-realism? This hope wasn't really heavy on my mind. Certainly, it would have been interesting if they went that way.

@JiunnWong Ultimately, I feel I understand where you are coming from in your criticism better now. Looking back at some of the elements, it's clear that they made this more consumable by children.

Nevertheless, it seems some of your attribution to "adult" material in TESB relates to violence. I don't think a movie has to be overly graphic to be articulate. Some people, like my parents, don't enjoy violence in movies because they experienced traumatic childhoods and abusive parents, for example. I respect their decision and try to empathize with it, even if I think it's ridiculous at times.

We can argue elements like violence make movies more "adult", but I don't think we can justly argue that instances of violence or graphic visuals are intellectually "dumbing it down" for the children or necessary to make a good story.

So I believe it is a sort of false equivalence to bring the graphic nature of TESB to support your dumbed-down assertion. For instance, if we don't see a hand severed on screen, that doesn't really tie into promoting realism in physics, military strategy, etc. I just wanted to point that out so we don't get sidetracked on the "darkness" factor.

The core of your issues with the newest movie seem more to do with the shallowness of the philosophy, which I agree with. I've honestly always had this issue with Star Wars. However, for reasons mentioned in my first post, I think some of this shallowness was partially addressed in this new film.

They could have spelled it out the gray philosophy bits at different checkpoints, but isn't that a little too on the nose? To me, personally, that would have been dumbing it down.

You may feel differently, but I was able to take away a meaningful message that I believe is often neglected in movies (more to do with emotional intelligence than academic intelligence). From that perspective, I think children will benefit in the long term in more important ways than paying attention to gravity or military strategy.

It is yet to be seen where the next movie will go, but it excited me that they are shying away from "the one"/Jesus/hero complex (which we find in pretty much all movies these days). I will call this alternative the "distributed hero", for the sake of argument.

I am a little worried this deviation won't last because of the ending. Standalone, I think this "distributed hero" message was conveyed well and discreetly for a huge blockbuster. I like to take minimal progress where I can.

The lack of attention to detail with physics was not surprising, but I see your point if you are hoping children take their physics lessons from the theater and want to promote more realism in movies. I get that. That's simply not why I go to the movies. I go to feel something emotional.

@MuzikDan I think he's referring to the much diminished effects of gravity at such an orbital altitude. I won't claim to know the mass of the ship. Let's assume it's not great enough to produce a "drop" effect in the scene.

Ultimately we can explain away pretty much anything in Star Wars. It seemed as though they were making an analogy to old-time war bombers dropping cargo on Earth for the sake of capturing precedent and emotional attachment to the scene.

We can explain the "dropping" by simply giving the bombs an initial velocity from the cargo bay. If we analyze the scene and find that the balls are dropping at different rates, maybe we have something to talk about. But, like, whatever, right? It's a movie =P

@MuzikDan well that was only an example. If you run the math, if its gravity that was pulling those bombs, they would be very close to something the mass of our moon...

My point is the film maker is very careless about making details in the film smart and accurate, from basic physics to more nuanced facts. I assert that this is done because the film is intended for children who usually will not understand or care about more complex details and ideas.

I have no problems with philosophies and themes, these movies seem okay in that regard.

The guys who are upset at The Last Jedi plotholes are disturbed by the errors they can recognize because these viewers have the knowledge to do so. They are not told that this movie is intended as a child's fantasy and such errors are not important to the intended audience. Thus the annoyed fans are offended and frustrated to be "forced" to accept falsehoods in order consume the story. This is my conclusion.

If the viewer cares not for these errors for any reason, be it they are ignorant due to age or lack of opportunity to learn the knowledge or willingly ignoring these errors to consume the story for cathartic purposes, then, the viewer would find the movie quite like able.

Perhaps if Disney marketed the movie as a children's movie, then there would be much less backlash.

I don't think movies actively educate children, but children do learn from movies and kids definitely are inspired by these movies. MY PROBLEM about making these errors is that as each child grows and become smarter, they will become alienated by these plotholes, or awkward un-poetic dialogue in the case of the prequels, and feel like the current annoyed fans. It is a sign that the film maker only cares about what is entertaining to the child and no longer cares if that child grows up and become smarter.

1

Sigh... going to see it in an hour. Grrr. Why do we commit so something that regularly disappoints us?

Admin Level 9 Dec 24, 2017
Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:10206
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.