That was my favorite part of the movie!

Not my favorite Star Wars movie on the whole. The fast travel stuff (getting all the way across the galaxy in just hours) is a bit much for me.

Also, I think the Republic being totally destroyed and the first order just being in full control is silly. The republic was tens of thousands of worlds. Blowing up a handful of planets in one system in the last movie destroyed the republic entirely? What happened? The scale of the battles makes no sense.

Many people don’t like the prequels, but the war felt like a war and not just a skirmish.

Light speed ramming was great, but question...why didn’t they just do this to destroy the Death Star in one of the prior movies that featured a Death Star? Seems like a simple solution to the Death Star problem, ram a cruiser into it at light speed.

The prequels were action packed with Jedi duels and the mythology of a functioning Jedi order (revealing lots of fascinating history) with a war that seemed to be the scale of a real war (and not a skirmish). They also were generally paced well, they just suffered from some dialog challenges (particularly in the last one) and a character that bothered people (mostly in the first one).

The two on one Jedi battle at the end of Phantom Menance was far superior than any light saber duel we’ve seen in either VII or VIII, not even close frankly.

The light speed ram destroyed many First Order ships, not just the giant Dreadnaught. Maybe it takes two or three cruisers to take out the Death Star but one would clearly damage it at least. Should have at least been discussed as an option.

I don’t know, I enjoyed TLJ enough (I’m a pretty big Star Wars fan in general) but I do feel it was the weakest of all the entrees in the series. Star Wars is supposed to be a fantasy soap opera in space, it needs things like good villains and consistent mythology.

Does any one really feel like Captain Phasm was as interesting as General Grevious or Bubba Fet? Does anyone feel that there was a light saber battle in TLJ as solid as the two on one Jedi/Sith battle to close Phantom Menance? Does anyone think Snoke was as interesting as the Emporer was in the prequels? Did the land battle at the end of the movie match the intensity of the land battle to start Empire?

I think ultimately there was too much comedy, it felt very much like a Marvel film or Transformer film. I enjoy movies that have comedy and don’t take themselves too seriously but quick easy jokes like Luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder (and kind of ruining one of the best moments from TFA when he was presented the saber) hurts re-watchability. This will be the first Star Wars movie I do not go see more than once at theaters.

Star Wars should not be cheesy, this movie had several moments of somewhat cheesy scenes that were designed to get a quick laugh. I think Disney is applying their super hero movie formula to Star Wars, it doesn’t fit organically...at least this is how it seems to me.

The dialog was great in the original trilogy, sure all of the movies have some humor, but they went for lower brow jokes on this one. Some of it worked, the Porgi trying to copy Chewies battle cry was great. The light saber over the shoulder, not so much.

Again, I’m a pretty big Star Wars fan. I did enjoy the movie, but it is not in contention for best movie this year for me ..not even in my personal top five (IT, Logan, Thor, Blade Runner, and Switch were all better movies in my view) which for a Star Wars movie is a shocking thing for me to say.

I noticed that too and think it’s pretty funny. It’s a Star Wars movie, it was going to have all this discussion anyway...except that if it was a good Star Wars movie literal life long fans such as me wouldn’t have words like “disappointed” littered all in the discussion.

Out of the eight main movies and Rouge One, this one easily falls in at number nine for me, and it’s not even close...I will not be as excited for Episode 9 or the Solo movie over the next two year and that’s a real shame for me as I really looked forward to this movie and all before it.

Episode One was, hands down, better than Episode VIII.

Phantom Menance had a supporting character people did not like, fair enough, but Que Gon Jinn and Kenobi were superb characters. Darth Maul was far better than any villain in Episode VIII. The two on one Jedi duel with that phenomenal sound track (Duel of Fates was amazing) was better than any fight in movie VIII (which had no Jedi duels at all). Seeing the functional Jedi order and counsel was cool. Learning rules about the Sith was interesting. The blockaid and political intrigue of the Senante being paralyzed and not able to over come their own beuracracy and sending in a committee to discuss it while seeing the Emporoer weasel into power was far superior to wondering if a ship would run out of gas...

Episode One smokes Episode VIII, pretty much every way imaginable.

Star Wars has always excelled in grey, or did you only watch the remake version of IV where Han didn’t shoot first? Lando wasn’t a grey? How about the entire (superb) Clone War cartoon saga...basically every character except for maybe a half dozen were grey characters.

No we are not. Re-read what we are saying.

Episode One was actually well received by movie goers when it was released, the view of it over the years by fans didn’t age well and now people make quick digs at it because it’s the “cool thing to do”. Sorry you have “visceral” reactions while watching any movie. That is somewhat an unusual trait.

Change? What change did this movie bring really?

This movie waves a magic wand and brought back the empire and the resistance. No explanation. No plot points. No clever manipulation, political intrigue, or battle strategy.

This movie expects us to believe that the destruction of a handful of planets revolving around the same sun destroyed a political organization made up of tens of thousands of planets and reinstituted the previously defeated empire’s control over tens of thousands of planets in a matter of days.

This movie just unwound all the progression the series made and reverted right back to where the galaxy stood in Episode IV...and didn’t do it well, just waived a magic wand and said this is the situation again.

I was okay with that one as well (other than adding in the “your mother” at the end, a bit too juevinile).

I wasn’t a fan of the blond male villain dude the gag was played on either, too panicky to be a commander of anything, wouldn’t cut it in a military force at all actually.

I know...horrible. I think they could still pull him out. I’m just baffled that Disney thinks they put out a top quality product with TLJ and want the same director as the future of the franchise.

Disney needs to consult someone with some measure of talent on scripts and plots, maybe see if they can get George R.R. Martin to give them an idea or two, because Johnson has nothing but “fly the Leia”.

You might need to go watch it again. They have no problem penetrating the shields, it was only penentrating them at the distance they were at, or so they said. Now that ramming is allowed I’m not sure why they don’t just remote ram them with a small ship (manned or unmanned) and take out all of the rebels in one hyper space jump.

So, TheFamilyArcade and several others have made this statement in this thread to people that didn’t like TLJ. Also, I looked around the net a bit and see several reviewers have made similar observations for those fans that are most unhappy with this show.

Here is my reaction on this “you must be old and grouchy if you don’t like this new offering from Disney” attitude many have to those of us that feel disinfranchised:

I love Star Wars, pretty much all Star Wars, I am a life long fan of the franchise. I even love the prequels (*gasp, a non-conformist*). Sure, I found EMO Anikan’s portrail in II and III to leave something to be desired here and there. Sure, the Ewoks were not my favorite characters and were at best poorly thought out. Sure, I thought TFA was a bit of a rehash and could have done without the planet Death Star.

But, in the end, I’ve bought all the movies in multiple formats (VHS, laser disc, dvd, Blue Ray, and digilitally); I’ve gotten many of the comics; bought many of the video games; bought toys; bought encyclopedias; went to actor signing events; listened to expanded universe books on tape; watched the Clone Wars and Rebels cartoon; etc.

For me to complain about something Star Wars means there is a problem, because I have no issue suspending disbelief and I get the difference between science fiction and fantasy. I’m vested in this franchise. I want this franchise to succeed. I’m fine with “new directions” and all that jazz but a good fantasy world (whether it’s filled with Hobbits or Ewoks) has rules that it follows within itself...these aren’t plot structure rules but rather rules that you stay within your own fantasy guidelines.

Rey becoming super powered with no training and no teacher violates the fantasy guidelines that were set out. This whole the force will always find balance thing means one side will not advance beyond the other. The whole Fly the Leia power and ramming and cheap low brow comedy spread across the entire episode combined with the weak story line of running out of fuel just makes me concerned for the future of the franchise.

It’s like James Cameron used to say, there is a big difference between giving people an ambiguous answer vs no answer when pushing plot points to a conclusion. Much of TLJ answers were “it doesn’t matter, move along” which is not how a good soap opera works, fantasy or otherwise.

Yea, I could live with the "entitled" description. I do feel entitled to a good consistent product from the flagship series of Star Wars given the reasons I identify in the prior post. I've spent a lot of time and money with this franchise, I want to receive epic movies and I want the lore and history explored deeper...I am disappointed this did not happen.

As I said earlier in the thread, I had fun watching TLJ. I didn't walk out of it or anything. It just was simply not a worthy flagship movie in my opinion. If they wanted to take the comedic tone with the Han Solo spinoff I would not have a problem with it, but they went this direction with the flagship...they went the direction of no soap opera, no interesting questions and rendering older movies less important. Odd choices.

I'll be back in the theaters for Episode IX, just less excited about it than I was walking in for Episode VIII. It'll be a boring two years in the Star Wars realm with literally nothing for us fans to talk about for the first time since Disney bought out the franchise. I guess we do still have a half season of Rebels left and that show has been getting better and better, so that's a plus.

When you just take in the prequels from the perspective of “what did they add to the franchise?”...the answer is a heck of a lot.

History of the Jedi order, history of the Sith, history of the republic and how it functioned politically, the master padawan relationship and Jedi trails, etc.

What have we learned from TLJ that added to the franchise lore? Lasers have a limited range and resistance ships don’t carry much fuel. Force ghosts can use force lightening I guess is biggest thing. I expect to see Yoda zapping Kylo Ren in the next movie repeatedly.

I was interested in her because the actress is a Game of Thrones star and pretty awesome. Sadly, it wouldn’t have mattered who was wearing that suit in the end, we get an eye only right before her death...anyone could have acted that part. Waste of an excellent actress’ talents.

Well, there is a difference between a Sith and a basic dark side force user, but ultimatly yes they’ve backed away from it and did so well. Watch the Clone Wars cartoon (which is superb by the way) to see multiple trained dark side users and four active Sith at one time with two masters and two aps.

While you are correct that Maul is an amazing villain (my favorite in the series actually) he was not killed off in TPM. See both Clone Wars and Rebels for more on Maul, they are both cannon and he survived the fight again Ginn and Kenobi.

I don’t want to spoil Clone Wars with particulars, but Maul played a big part in that show and was a fierce Sith rival to the Emperor and Dooku and had his own Sith apprentance. He obviously was not “whole”...

And you feel the review from the critics is perfectly fair and reasonable? Disney does seem to use intimidation here and there with critics. I have no faith in the critics myself, they collectively seem wrong with so many reviews in so many ways.

My feel is they wanted to emphasize he was dead when they zoomed in on his tounge hanging out of his mouth several minutes after he was sliced in half.

I agree with all your points on this. Also, I think TLJ Director is going to be pulled from directing the next trilogy. Even though the first week’s numbers for TLJ were okay (any new SW will draw in big numbers the first week of release) the drop off is due to the bad word of mouth.

I feel you could slap the Star Wars title on anything and generate a $500 mill opening week, at least as Episode VII left the franchise. Episode IX may not enjoy the same type of opening, it certainly won’t generate the same level of buzz from the lifelong fan base.

All I want is a good quality movie with a story line that doesn’t cheapen itself with jokes that won’t even be funny on a second watch through (the lightsaber toss over the shoulder should have been on a blooper reel, it kind of ruined an amazing moment from Episode VII). I want to have a desire to go back to the theater for more than one viewing to see what I missed and try and piece together mysteries left by the writers/directors...this movie left zeltch...no reason to watch it a second time, certainly not in theaters.

So, the studio only receives one half of the domestic box office, the theater gets its cut. The studio only receives 25% (on average) of international box office, the theaters over seas get their cut.

A movie with a $300 mill budget must crush the box office to make its money back in theaters. Of course, movies have trailing revenue...rentals, premium tv, video game tie ins, etc.

That’s a great point I had not considered. The director couldn’t get a single tear to drop when Luke died...a character that is 40 years old and draped with emotions faces death and passes and no one sheds a tear.

That is a shockingly inept total fail that sits solely at the directors feet.

Confirmation bias from those who made it a big event for them and their family as opposed to treating it like just another movie. It wears off on people once they leave the theater and sleep on it. This movie will not generate the re-watches that SW normally thrives on.

That is pathetic, seriously sad. It totally explains why this doesn’t feel like a trilogy in any way though.

The prequels added a lot to the Star Wars franchise. They expanded the Star Wars universe in many positive ways and gave a lot of interesting questions for everyone to ponder. Sadly, group think and the quest many people have to conform and get “likes” and what not has made it cool to dislike the prequels.

TLJ expanded nothing, just detracted. The director of TLJ has no business being involved in the franchise any further.

How about seeing a functional republic and how it was governed? How about seein a functioning Jedi order? How about learning about the Sith and their history? How about seeing them slowly unfold how Palpatine corrupted the republic from the inside? The prequels gave us all kinds of stuff.

The biggest thing the prequels gave us was a real war. We got nothing from TFA and TLJ except Death Star 3.0 then an instant return galaxy wide to the empire running the show and a small resistance (we didn’t get an explanation of how the republic fell and why it happened in one day...across tens of thousands of worlds...).

Any show can introduce a new character, that is a meaningless addition. You have to look at the lore that is added and expanded upon to see if a fantasy movie contributes to the franchise.

In this case, TLJ (and to a lesser extent TFA) introduced nearly instantaneous travel across the galaxy (which sucks for story telling purposes long term). They also introduced hyper drive ramming, which was cool on one watch through but ruins fleet warfare moving forward for the entire franchise.

Star Wars is not science fiction, it never has been. Star Wars is fantasy. It has always been fantasy. The only movie to even hint at science fiction aspects was TPM.

As an aside, good science fiction doesn’t toss physics aside either, it usually just bends a couple rules of physics and the rest is supposed to be possible. The most recent Star Trek movies have moved away from science fiction and towards fantasy as well, I’m not sure where to qualify the last Star Trek movie with the ship bouncing off rocks and then going into outer space...certainly not science fiction, probably fantasy...but even fantasy tries to stay within whatever rules it has created.

Yes!!! Loved that series. Haven’t watched season 3 yet, super disappointed it is canceled.

You are correct, I’ve been criticizing the director but my complaints are really more with the story itself than the directing. I guess I’m unclear on who is in charge of the story: writer or director. I know for Episode One Terry Brooks (Shannarah Chronicals author) said George Lukas walked him through the plot that he wanted, Terry had little creative direction.

Heck, I agree. Not like they can “ruin it” any further. If Kennedy and the other ladies feel they need Leia’s character for whatever reason then recast her. If they want to just mention in the opening credits of the next movie that she died, fine with me also.

It’s not like she is really key to any trilogy plot line they have built up...

And with the fast travel they introduced anyone anywhere in the entire universe could have been there in time to help (cross the entire galaxy in two hours and all that)...so yea, the writers made her meaningless anyway.

I know they made it feel this way since the writers decided to hit the reset button and go back to the empire vs rebellion with no explanation or story (beyond five planets being destroyed in one solar system bringing tens of thousands of other planets to their knees instantly), but the universe is huge and they could have taken it anywhere. They decided to hit the reverse button and add SJW features because they couldn’t think of anything better to do...

Yes, different version of him though.

So, this Kennedy person and her team...how did Disney find these people? They have any skins on their wall that made them worthy of the job they couldn’t pull off? Surely she and her team have some successes they can point to?

Yep, and that was a story point they were saving for the future, but now that it’s just broken in half and destroyed it totally doesn’t matter. Just another “screw you” that Kennedy and Johnson gave to the fans...they made that plot line meaningless...it’s almost like they wanted to render the plot points from the prior movie that people have been enjoying discussing be totally meaningless.

I’m just baffled the critics gave VIII a good review. Has to be Disney...

I agree. For many people Star Wars is an event, a family event at that. Someone who spends $100 on tickets and concessions and gets their family of four all out to a movie at the theater is going to say they enjoyed the movie when they walk out...that is just how the human brain works, call it confirmation bias or whatever else (same reason why we who buy a NIB game are likely to rate it highly).

This movie has hurt the SW franchise long term though. Episode IX and Solo will not have anywhere near the buzz and built in positive feelings. In big franchises like this your box office performance has almost as much to do with how good your prior movie was as it does with how good your current movie is. The XMen franchise has many good examples of this phenomenon.

No one has lung cancer. Mace Windu crushed his lungs and other organs during the Clone Wars cartoon. When General Grevious was 100% he pretty terrifying, he wiped out Darth Maul’s people nearly single handedly.

The prequels were a billion times the story TLJ was. You have a villain that makes sense and slowly corrupted the republic from within with subtle manipulation and political moves...not like the First Order that just waived a magic wand and became the empire and instantly subjected tens of thousands of worlds for no reason whateversoever (lazy writing).

Yea, few people are going to waste their time reading yet more stuff from Kennedy and her band of SJWs they want to disrespect their own fantasy world.

I stuck with Star Wars through thick and thin, I even defend the prequels (which I believe were pretty good, though I recognize some dialog weaknesses) and the expanded universe (even the Force Monsters), but what Kennedy has done to the universe is shameful (and I had some fun in the movie, and laughed in several spots, but recognize is weakened the franchise horribly).

Easy. Threshold Guardian style characte in the form of a warrior priest.

Quo Gon Jinn is a better character (acted by a better actor) than any character in the current “trilogy” (I use that term loosely since Kennedy and her team have no cohesive plan and are making it up as they go).

A threshold guardian is an important character type in literary fiction. Mace fits that role for Anakin.

He certainly joins the battle at the end to defend the Death Star as a fighter pilot.

Fighter pilots on aircraft carriers are pretty serious warriors. The entire aircraft carrier and crew revolve completely around them, they are attune to the quarterback of a football team. A fighter pilot is nothing like an old guy riding around in a rascal...a fighter pilot is a fighter pilot.

He did kind of let himself go after his vacation to Mustafar.

But it certainly could be popular there. It just needs to improve its content.

I wonder what the Chinese critics have said about the latest offering, Kennedy, and all the social justice warrior tie ins featured in the movie. I’m sure they were less kind to Disney than those here in the states that perhaps thought Disney may deny them press passes in the future if they didn’t give TLJ a positive review...

Agreed, quality doesn’t equal box office success. But a movie in the mold of TLJ with that plot structure was never going to be a big hit in China.

I agree TLJ made a bunch of money, but the damage done to the franchise is almost impossible for Disney to recover from. When you have a movie that alienates your fan base it is felt on future movie releases.

Excitement like what Star Wars “had” cannot be forced on the public, it has to organically grow. What could they possibly do to get people excited and talking about the next movie in anticipation of release now? Nothing, not even canning Kennedy will bring any interest in the next movie.

Star Wars will always be a big franchise and it will have future $1 billion releases I am sure, but the days of people going to see it I. Mass four or five times on release are over and it’s because of the TLJ.

Yes, I probably should not have used the word impossible. Nevertheless, Disney does have a challenge on their hands. They should have written the entire trilogy in one go and had a direction for the story.

I was wondering whether Disney would try and do any damage control. I personally doubt they will. They still think (or at least state publicly) that Kennedy and RJ created an absolute bloody masterpiece of story telling and all of us unhappy people are really just bots on the internet.

To do damage control they have to first admit they made some mistakes here or there...and that us unhappy fans are not fake bots on the internet.

With Kennedy in charge I’m sure Chewy will be rescued from an animal cruelty circus operated by some incompetent white dude. I’m not even kidding, that would be my bet on how they meet in the movie.

So many people mistake Star Wars for Science Fiction instead of fantasy, just look at those in this thread that call it Science Fiction, one can forgive George for trying to introduce some measure of science into the methos. An attempt to explain the force isn’t an unreasonable thing to do.

To say those thirty seconds of TPM were worse than anything in Eposide VIII is laughable. The prequels actually ushered in major lore points that have kept the franchise fresh for over fifteen years, Episode VIII just killed off interest in the franchise of previously dedicated fans.

Episode VIII is the dog of the franchise. Fine for a single viewing (I enjoyed my single viewing, which will be the only time I watch the movie) but it abused the rules of the fantasy world so bad and insulted everyone’s intelligence so deeply while simultaneously wacking iconic characters like Luke and Akbar needlessly there is nothing left other than the Mary Sue they created.

Just to briefly piggy back on this point by kvan99 , in 1999 we were witnessing the evolution of true high quality surround sound in theaters across America. The pod racing scene was designed to feature and promote the high quality LucasFilm surround sound system that now everyone takes for granted. Just as Avatar unveiled the newest in 3D quality film, TPM unveiled the highest ever sound quality and the pod race sequence was the coming out party.

Technology advances are important, but are often forgotten by people that judge old movies by modern criteria without taking into account what was so ground breaking by them.

I'm excited for Jumanji, though I haven't seen it yet. The Rock has some drawing power.

Like could pull a professor X and just take over the Rock’s body then go layeth the smacketh downeth on Ben Solo in Episode IX. I’d go watch that for sure.

Well, Star Wars TLJ officially under performed. I think it’s funny how all the media outlets say it’s due to Star Wars burn out generally, none of them say it was due to the plot of the movie not being any good... Hopefully RJ and KK get canned quick. I still can’t believe how bad they blew it here.

Here is one article: https://www.investopedia.com/news/disneys-last-jedi-box-office-sales-lower-wall-street-expectations/

I hear you. I just hope Disney takes it more seriously and recognize Kennedy’s social platforms she wants to use for SW have simply alienated the fans that made SW big to begin with. The new types of casual fans (that like her social issues) she is hoping to pick up will not replace the hard core fans that would previously have gone six times to theaters, bought the books, bought the toys, bought the other tie in products, etc...

SW needs it’s hard core fans. Those fans can’t be kept with a bad quality story product and a plethora of lame jokes.

Don’t get too excited. I predicted weeks ago that Kennedy is going to have Han save Chewbacca from some type of animal abuse circus ran by some incompetent white dude - mark it down, that will be a big plot point they will use. Kennedy won’t be able to help herself.

Disney had a pretty good quarterly earnings report, but I have to laugh with the analysts saying there is "Star Wars fatigue" and this is to blame for the last movie missing expectations...I've read this now twice this afternoon. Neither time did the respective author mention the possibility that the last movie just wasn't a good installment and the "fatigue" they reference is actually just a reaction to weak product.

The media refuses to acknowledge this "fatigue" is self inflicted by RJ and KK pushing their personal agendas over the best interest of the franchise, combined with a trilogy that wasn't even mapped out and doesn't feel cohesive.

If the product was good that would be a feature. Since the product was not good it’s a problem for them.

Their approach would be fine if they had a plan and a cohesive story that made sense and was interesting. Large volume doesn't always mean poor quality, but...man...that last movie really hurt them.

The lightsaber Luke cared so little about he threw it over his shoulder like a blooper reel gag? They devalued the item so much for that quick laugh that no one will care how they got it since it is worthless (and now destroyed to boot).

The problem with the Marvel movies is they feel like there are no stakes. None of the good guys die. They don’t even get injured. War Machine was walking again by the end of the civil war movie.

Marvel needs to take some chances and kill off some heros here and there. Civil War was a failure as nothing changed, not even how the characters viewed each other (with the cell phone message from CA to IM at the end letting him know they were still pals). Marvel needs to take a page from XMen movies and kill off characters every now and then to give a feeling of stakes.

I thought he lived. I looked it up, you are correct.

Thanks for the recommendation, just added to my watch list.

And it’s probably a violation of an NDA or employment agreement...

I couldn’t agree more. Kennedy has no respect for the fan base. RJ takes zero blame for delivering a poorly plotted product. They just say we are sexiest if we don’t like their movie...it’s the only defense these Hollywood types can muster.

I really get a chuckle when they say the hard core Star Wars fans have Star Wars burnout. We were never going to have burn out so long as the product was good and the story was interesting and the lore developed and grew.

I agree, but question Ben: why did the critics go bonkers over TLJ falling over themselves to give it basically innacurate reviews? What was in it for them to fawn over the movie so irresponsibly like they did?

It’s got to be more than just that. Does Disney pay for their travel and lodging to these premiere’s and host a party for them or something?

I enjoyed the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The depiction of Hyde was great. Dorian Grey was great. I think had it been released when the super hero craze really got going it may have been successful enough for sequels.

He practically has sunk the entire franchise. I agree with HoakyPoaky in that only the animated series (and whatever the GOT people are doing) is worth getting excited about.

Everything from this whole instantaneous travel thing SW has going on now (warp across the entire galaxy in one hour!) to the perfect balance between the light and dark side of the force at all times (so if someone powerful dies someone else just instantly has power and needs no training) are really horrible things for the franchise. Just hitting the reset button and turning the First Order into the Empire in one day and having the Republic completely destroyed and subjegated is an hour is extra stupid...they treat the taking over of tens of thousands of worlds as if it were as easy as a short drive across town...

They’ve basically had SW becomes simple bad magic that makes no sense.

I think you can find some of those videos on the internet already... I don't think they carry and endorsement from the mouse though.

But trilogies are not supposed to be sequels. LOTRs final chapter smoked the prior two movies in its trilogy. Of course, TLJ was a sequel and not a true trilogy installment, felt that way anyway.

I didn’t love the TFA (it was okay), but did think it could potentially be a good lead in episode for a solid trilogy. TLJ hurts TFA’s legacy badly.

The throne room fight scene was okay but the problem with it was it had no stakes. It was two known characters fighting a bunch of nobodies in masks. It ended with the destruction of one of the series top artifacts (Luke’s lightsaber) that supposedly was going to get an interesting back story.

Why destroy the saber? It just makes whatever backstory we will eventually get on how Maz got it seem unimportant. I just still can’t get what KK and RJ were thinking...

I think that’s why they announced the RJ future trilogy. They were hoping to create buzz and excitement behind him even in the face of what they had to knew was going to be a harmful movie to franchise health. My guess is that trilogy gets canceled.

On the positive end of the Star Wars spectrum, I finished watching Rebels today. The show was hard to watch during the first season but kept getting better.

In my opinion, on the whole Clone Wars was the better animated show but Rebels was respectable. I’m interested in the next show.

Let’s get back on topic here gang:

Kennedy and Johnson are ruining Star Wars and both must go. We all know they are going to blame the destruction of Star Wars on viewer fatigue and not the bad product they generated.

And, also, we all know Solo is going to save Chewbacca from some type of circus show or animal cruelty place ran by an incompetent white dude and that’s how their friendship will have formed. Anyone think their meeting would be any different from that?

I had a good time watching it live on opening night with a giant group of friends in a rented out private theater (only the treatment of Luke, the ram, and flying Leia really bothered me in the theater).

The more time that passed the more irritated I became when I thought of the plot holes and what it did to the franchise in general. When I started reading all the garbage “positive” reviews from “experts” I got really irritated.

Snoke’s death bothered me too. But generally, nah, the lame jokes were “okay” (just okay) on an initial viewing in a packed theater filled with my buddies on opening night (I actually still like the Porgs). It was over the coming days as I thought about it that I realized the permanent damage the movie did to the franchise.

And able to completely subjugate an entire galaxy in about twenty minutes. Disney has shrunken the galaxy to where it is about the size of a small town...

Would be great but it’s not true. Heck, I wish those early allegedly leaked scripts for TLJ were true. A couple of them were strikingly awesome compared to the garbage we received.

Smart of Disney to lock him in. The worst outcome as far as staffing goes is they don’t lock him in and the movie is a huge hit and then they have to go back and negotiate with him to be in the sequels.

I doubt they paid him much more than a respectable “hold fee” (to keep his schedule open) for what is effectively an option to do two additional movies with him in the role. If they pick up the option he plays the part, if they don’t do the movies he got what he made for movie one and a schedule hold fee.

I just don’t understand why Star Wars is the franchise they have taken over and decided to run into the dirt. Disney paid a bunch of money for the franchise but they just handed it over to these morons and are letting them run amok with their SJW agenda.

Oh well, we all know Solo is going to totally bomb next week. I hope it stays below Deadpool, that would be freaking awesome.

I, surprisingly, don’t know of anyone who has made plans to go see it opening night. I’m not planning to catch it at all.

What a missed opportunity with all three of those people (Harrison Ford’s role in TFA was good, the others not so much). Look what Karate Kid was able to do with its two “old guys” in the amazing Cobra Kai series. Give them a story to tell and use the old characters...not hard, but didn’t fit Kennedy’s personal agenda from what I could tell.

Sure, but at least Ford's death had meaning (or, potentially had meaning...it got tarnished in the following movie and ended up meaning nothing) unlike Luke's death that was one of the worst most useless passings of a major character on any show ever.

Great article on what Kennedy has done to Star Wars and it addresses this BS that there is “fatigue” for Star Wars.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2018/05/26/go-woke-go-broke-solo-crash-lands-at-box-office/amp/

My guess is the Disney people do get it they just don't want to admit it publicly. In the end, Disney understands the bottom line, they will just keep their true opinions to themselves. The RJ trilogy series will never see the light of day in my opinion.

If the Star Wars product was better it would do better over seas. Bad product is the problem.

This is spot on. The series can’t be saved in its present condition. They need to time jump backwards or forward a thousand years and start totally over with competent show runners and a full new cast.

I agree Disney has likely already decided to terminate Kennedy.

Well, the good news is the internet is starting wake up and not believe the official narrative any longer:

https://heroichollywood.com/star-wars-last-jedi-blame-solo/

Agreed. We need thoughtful plots and consistent methos and rules. Complex characters would be nice as well, the characters on episodes 7 and 8 (especially the “villains”) are so one dimensional as not to be any fun. I don’t want a mustache twirling villain, I want someone with some depth (yes, even the evil males...). I don’t want a perfect hero who is great at everything, I want a flawed character that has something to overcome (or at least went through some horrifically hard training to be good at something).

A little depth to our stories would be nice. Making the galaxy be a big place would be nice also...it’s so small on the current series it’s kind of ridiculous. The entire galaxy is far far far smaller than our earth it’s just ridiculous...make the scope of things feel meaningful and big.

This only is true of a casual fan. A super fan that often goes to multiple screenings, buys video games themed SW, buy pins themed SW, buys action figures, travels to conventions, buys comic books and novels, buys Halloween costumes, etc spends much much more in time and money than you identify.

The super fans are the ones shit on the most by a studio when a bad product is generated, casuals won’t really care. SW has lost a meaningful and noticeable percentage of its super fans. Can they be won back by the studio is the question. With Disney not acknowledging the problem with RJ and KK it seems unlikely. Those two must be fired without further ado.

It really is amazing. Look what the Karate Kid franchise just pulled off with its actor’s 34 years later. It’s incredible how amazing Cobra Kai was led by a nearly 60 year old Johnny Lawrence character that is a nobody in the anels of fiction compared to Luke Skywalker.

Of course Cobra Kai has the opposite message of most canned franchise shows these days and was incredibly insensitive to the SJWs like KK...one of the reasons it’s so popular and legitimately well reviewed in my opinion.

I respectfully disagree. All they need is a good product. American's don't get tired of anything...ever, so long as it is a good and compelling product.

They are going to have to double down and try and save the franchise in some way by correcting a lot of RJ’s BS. They will go back to Rey being the child of someone important, I’m sure, and probably place her in a predicament she can’t solve with her perfection (not sure what that would be).

They would need to do something incredible to trigger interest. A Rey heel turn to the dark side to set her up as the big bad of future SW stuff or their television show would be interesting.

Their real problem from a story standpoint that simply can’t be solved is the First Order instantly gaining full control over thousands of thousands of planets. They’ve made the galaxy such a tiny small insignificant place with instant travel and light speed ramming weapons and warp drives on fighter planes...negating the need for carriers...I’m not certain how to solve this plot problem. It’s all a fantasy universe destroyer.

No one wants it to just "be the same", we just want a good cohesive well written story. Sure, a decent send off for the old cast would be a nice bonus as well...but so long as the plot is good and compelling and interesting and plot points generated in the first part of the trilogy actually have some type of meaning in the second part of the trilogy we would be happy.

I don't think anyone feels like TFA and TLJ feel in any way like part of a trilogy. At best they are like Highlander and Highlander II, disjointed sequels.