Overall, I think I liked this one a lot. By the standards of Star Wars, that is.
Things I liked, in no particular order:
- Poe's sexism destroys half the resistance and nearly gets the other half.
- While the movie had a lot of parallels to ESB, it didn't come across to me as an almost scene-for-scene remake (the way TFA did).
- I'm pretty sure the rebel bombers are the stupidest spaceship design in star wars, but I have to appreciate the WWII inspiration which gets back to the origins of spaceship combat in the series.
- The very tight focus helps mask the lack of worldbuilding.
- Rose and Vice Admiral Holdo are both great.
- Nihilistic Like has some great points. I'm a little sad they didn't have him go full Kreia, but that wouldn't really have allowed for his change of heart.
- Luke sarcasm, while completely out of character (at least in terms of OT like), was pretty great.
- The movie acknowledges that the Jedi (Luke Skywalker, even, who I'm pretty sure can do no wrong according to the OT) can screw up pretty royally. Ben turning to the dark side is pretty clearly largely Luke's fault. That's a wonderfully refreshing break from normal SW morality.
- Rey S Pumpkins!
- Ben is a slightly inscrutable, but his actions pretty much make sense, I think. His behavior certainly lines up well with everyone else's doubt that he'll turn back to the light.
Things I didn't like, also in no particular order:
- There's still no world-building going on. I believe I said this when TFA came out, but I'll say it again. SW has never done good worldbuilding. I had hoped that would change with TFA and/or Rogue One, but I guess not. At least I wasn't expecting much this time.
- Canto Bight, as Moff said, felt a bit throwaway, though I guess it gave a chance to explore Rose's character a bit.
- The movie sort of toys with the idea of whether Rey will turn to the dark side, but they only go so far as to make the audience think she's being tempted, rather than actually have her be tempted. On reflection at the end of the movie, it's pretty clear she was never actually particularly close to the dark side, and having the hero be so morally one-sided kind of undermines the more ambiguous theme of the movie.
- I don't have strong opinions about this one way or the other, but I thought it was interesting that the movie had such a strong animal right's message.
The resistance has three ships and four hundred people? I've heard of plucky underdogs, but that's ridiculous.
Yeah. Definitely took issue there.
I think this definitely could have been explained in a way that made sense, but it really wasn't. The lack of worldbuilding really shows here.If we had at least seen some evidence that that one child with a broomstick is not the only support that the resistance have, it would have been perfect, but as it stands I feel that it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth: "Hey, pretty much everyone is dead and no one wants to help us but this kid is inspired!" I'm not convinced. It's like the 'fire of rebellion' they've been talking about the whole time is... this kid. A little bit underwhelming.
I don't know, nobody coming to the rescue felt pretty logical to me. If I'm the leader of a small rebel cell in the Outer Rim, and I learn that the resistance just lost all of its spaceships, most of its personnel, and is being besieged by a sizeable First Order fleet I would write them off. The most likely outcome if you go to help is that you just get yourself killed pointlessly.But here's my thing. If this trilogy is supposed to be about the Skywalker family (something we were told at the series conception) then what the hell is the point of Rey being the main character?
I don't think you're wrong, but I think it's a little silly to grouse about the fact that the trilogy has a slightly different subject than was advertised.Of course, the rest of the movie was more like Return of the Jedi instead of Empire.
I think pretty much just the scenes with Snoke and Rey. Everything else was far more like ESB than RotJ. The main character goes off to train with the wise older Jedi. The rebels have to evacuate their base. The rebels have to hold off an imperial assault on a planet covered by white stuff.The writing definitely got too quippy and leaned hard on the fourth wall at times.
I disagree, I think the level of quips was perfectly acceptable.
Maegereg
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Free Kenan[This message has been edited by Maegereg (edited 12-15-2017 @ 11:27 PM).]