1. Damn fine fun. Certainly in the Top 3 of the franchise, along with Empire and Rogue One.
2. Gorgeous FX (from the grand to the subtle), great sound editing (remarkable use of silence), and some nifty non-talking-heads direction.
3. Subverts a both a lot of tropes and expectations for the series, and expectations from me as an audience member. Stuff I kept expecting to have happen didn’t. Stuff I wasn’t expecting did. And, for the most part, that was awesome.
Very glad I saw it. Can’t wait to talk with more people about after they’ve seen it.
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I just wanna know – but don't tell me – who loses a hand in this film. 😉
Might be able to see it in the next couple of weeks, looking forward to seeing how this one digs itself out of the giant hole of Mary Sue/near exact copy of a New Dawn suck of the first one.
+Stan Pedzick I won't spoil anything — you probably won't be fully satisfied, but I think there are elements you will enjoy.
I loved it. I only wish there were some new memorable music score on the level of Duel of the Fates.
+Isaac Kuo There are some nice musical bits, but nothing of that noteworthiness.
For those who don't mind massive spoilers, this review touches on a lot of what caught my eye.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/12/the-last-jedi-twists-spoilers-star-wars-episode-viii/548402/
Here's the thing which really sticks with me that's new. The Last Jedi asks (and answers!) the question – what's so good about the good guys?
We have seen plenty of things showing how evil the bad guys are throughout the franchise. And Rogue One cynically picked away at the idea that the good guys were really so good. But where were any examples of the good guys being good, helping someone who wasn't somehow immediately useful for them?
I can only remember one instance, and it was played off as an unimportant side joke (Obi-Wan tries to turn around the life of a drug dealer by compelling him to rethink his life). Generally, the "good guys" see injustice in the world and do nothing about it.
I won't spoil the details, but I'll say this much – the answer comes from someone who isn't an eloquent speaker – that character has no clever verbal answer. But she (unknowingly) succeeds at doing something the Resistance has been failing to do because of how she shows the answer with her inate actions-not her words.
The value of the good guys, and the problem with the bad guys, is definitely one of the themes of the movie — it's not just about heroes fighting villains, but the why and what-for of that struggle.
And that's talked about a bit more in this spoilery commentary:
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/12/the-last-jedis-biggest-storytelling-innovation/548609/?utm_source=atlgp
+Isaac Kuo the one thing I really loved about Rogue One was that it should the rebels as terrorists. That was a giant leap forward for Star Wars IMHO.
Well I saw it today and while I mostly enjoyed it, the big incentive was to get away from the 38°C heat. And I got my scene, but I wont say what with who.
+Laura Ess While I live in a (well, the) Fahrenheit nation on Earth, I understand Celsius for normal body temp. So I can understand wanting to spend a few hours in an air conditioned theater.
I loved it so much in all the ways. All I can say for the folks who hate on it is that I'm really really sorry that this starwars wasn't for you too.
+Stan Pedzick I found that message cynical, even if it's artistically a good direction to go in.
But I think it's more subtle than that. We see in Rogue One a rebel alliance. The various members of this alliance have varying degrees of … "dirtyness". But the point is, they're all sullied by the worst of them, whether they like it or not. They just aren't strong enough to oppose the Empire unless they're united together.
I find the message in The Last Jedi to be more uplifting, and perhaps Rogue One actually helps by providing a point of extreme contrast. There's so desperately little of The Resistance left, but what's left is good. Where desperation in Rogue One drove the rebels to use any means necessary, desperation in The Last Jedi did not cause Rose to lose the thing which made the good guys better than the bad guys.
+Isaac Kuo still haven’t seen it so I will reserve judgement until I do see it. I generally have high levels of disappointment of every Star Wars movie since Empire, so I will approach it with the cynical jaundiced eye of that disappointment and hopefully I am surprised.
you going to post the trailers that played before Star Wars
Alas, we got to the theater while the trailers were running (it wasn’t the normal theater we go to, and that’s where we went first), so I didn’t get them written down.