Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi (2017) (spoilers free to be seen)

[NRRork]

See, if more people had said it like THAT, I wouldn't lay into them so much.

I'VE had that feeling about movies and stuff. Where I totally GET what they were doing with the story and what they were trying-- but I still didn't like it.

Season 4 of Arrested Development comes to mind. I get the type of storytelling they were attempting, and why they had to do it that way. And I can even applaud for trying something new. But I STILL didn't laugh nearly as much as the previous seasons.

[Pak-Man]

Ah, but they need to leave something for the books and midquels.

(Are midquels a thing yet? They will be. They will be...)

[NRRork]

I'm not against filling in the gaps, so to speak, but I think that's better suited for the EU.

Books, comics, video games, tv series, etc.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Huh, didn't get the new messages posted while you were typing message...

The filmmakers are telling us "A long time has passed, the characters you loved were changed by significant events. This is a story about the effects of those changes." That is something that audience members individually have to either decide that they are interested to see where this goes, or not. But that's a personal choice.

Yeah, if people were invested in those characters to the point where anything less than a happy old age is a disappointment then they are not going to like these movies and wish they were set much farther on after those characters were long gone.

[arutha1000]

Why would anything less than a happy old age be a disappointment? People have troubles and issues all the time that they struggle with. What I don't like is a person who has gone almost completely against his own character. Think of a story you liked with a hero. Imagine a sequel where everything that hero did is undone and he's a completely different person. I don't think the writers did a good enough job to justify that with either Luke or Han. I think it's insulting to think that people who think different are morons who only like happy endings and no changes ever. Some of us like good writing, which I did not feel I got with TLJ.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I wasn't speaking to you, there are people that can't accept anything bad happening to characters.

Tragic events can change people drastically, making them act completely differently than they did before, it doesn't "undo" what they were before.  If you don't think what happened was a big enough event to do that to Luke that is a different topic.

[Darth Geek]

I think of it similar to how fans of MST3K reacted to Season 7 when Dr. Forrester went from a domineering boss of TVs Frank to suddenly cowering from his mother. The change in behavior makes sense from a human perspective. And the writers are more interested in what different they can do with the characters. But the fans who are used to characters behaving in a certain way aren't always going to be accepting of that change.

[arutha1000]

Mark Hamill, who may know a thing or two about Luke Skywalker, said on multiple occasions that he completely disagreed with every decision made about Luke in TLJ. He said that in order to play that character, he had to assume that he was no longer playing Luke, but maybe his long lost uncle or some other relative. He could not make himself believe that he was still playing Luke Skywalker because everything he did was the antithesis of Luke's established character. Maybe Mark Hamill is just some guy who can't believe bad things happen to people and it changes them.

[Cyrusso]

Then from what I heard, Mark had a change of heart after seeing the film. Here's how I see it, if an actor is really unhappy with a script, he or she can opt out and walk away, and the rest of the cast might have followed suit, contract or no. So the way I see it, if Mark really had any serious reservations with the script, he could have walked away OR Rian Johnson, being an Actor's director from what I understand, would have changed the script to work with Mark.

Maybe Mark was for a while living in a certain place where he thought Luke would always be like one way, and when you're an actor playing a character it can be hard to accept change, but we all have to face the fact that time changes you. I'm certainly not the same person I was even 10 years ago, and 10 years from now, I'll have to face whatever changes life throws at me. It's the exact same thing with Luke. Events, tragedies, loss changes you, and it can really just break you even if you're a strong person. Things change, people change and even opinions change. It's just a fact of life, no matter who you are, whether you're just a regular Joe or the Savior of the Galaxy.

[Imrahil]

I wasn't speaking to you, there are people that can't accept anything bad happening to characters.

Tragic events can change people drastically, making them act completely differently than they did before, it doesn't "undo" what they were before.  If you don't think what happened was a big enough event to do that to Luke that is a different topic.

It's a fantasy story. It's not supposed to be a documentary. It's not supposed to be about "well, marriages don't end well" or shit like that. That's why you go to movies like Star Wars, to avoid that kind of shit.

[Cyrusso]

Now we're getting into what specifics you personally want in a movie. Here we're entering a place where everything is highly, highly subjective. You know Im, some of us want Star Wars to be about more than just business as usual, and on some level that applies to The Last Jedi, just like in ESB, the Resistance are on the run from the First Order, but this time the focus is different. It's not about Han and Leai's romance or Luke's training. This time, it's about Rey being trained by Luke and Luke having to come to terms with his perceived failure. It's about Finn and Rose embarking on a journey to try and stop the First Order from tracking their fleet through hyperspace. Now while that later aspect may be much less important, it's no less meaningful that Finn and Rose tried their plan, without approval, and failed, just like Luke thought he failed. You'll recall Yoda's line, "Failure, the greatest teacher is.". But the movie was about more than that, I think the primary theme was self-sacrifice, whether it be Admiral Holdo's or Luke's sacrifice. That I feel is the perfect theme for the middle chapter because this is when things are at their very worst, at their very darkest, even more so than any time in the past.

Here's a thought, having failure as a theme kind of brings the whole Star Wars story to our level because that's such a human thing. You'll never know how many things I've failed at over the years, so to hear Yoda say "Failure, the greatest teacher is" was so refreshing to me. It also kind of in an interesting way reinforces the notion that hope is not always lost. That was poignant to me, and that was great.

You know Imrahil, Star Wars has to change, it has to on some level go some places past fantasy and tell tales that we all as people can relate to in a meaningful way... and I think that is The Last Jedi's greatest strength.

[Edward J Grug III]

I wasn't speaking to you, there are people that can't accept anything bad happening to characters.

Tragic events can change people drastically, making them act completely differently than they did before, it doesn't "undo" what they were before.  If you don't think what happened was a big enough event to do that to Luke that is a different topic.

It's a fantasy story. It's not supposed to be a documentary. It's not supposed to be about "well, marriages don't end well" or shit like that. That's why you go to movies like Star Wars, to avoid that kind of shit.

Fantasy stories shouldn't contain any realistic themes? Bad marriages are just for documentaries?

The theme of a terrible past mistake leading you to exile yourself is literally in A New Hope. It mirror's Obi Wan's story.

[Edward J Grug III]

Mark Hamill, who may know a thing or two about Luke Skywalker, said on multiple occasions that he completely disagreed with every decision made about Luke in TLJ. He said that in order to play that character, he had to assume that he was no longer playing Luke, but maybe his long lost uncle or some other relative. He could not make himself believe that he was still playing Luke Skywalker because everything he did was the antithesis of Luke's established character. Maybe Mark Hamill is just some guy who can't believe bad things happen to people and it changes them.

Mark Hamill, who may know a thing or two about Luke Skywalker, has also said on multiple occasions that he was wrong to think that.

[NRRork]

And regardless, that's a classic Appeal to Authority fallacy.

And Mark isn't Luke Skywalker-- he plays him at various points in his life. There's a difference. Mark Hamill didn't personally live Luke's life.

[Edward J Grug III]

And regardless, that's a classic Appeal to Authority fallacy.

And Mark isn't Luke Skywalker-- he plays him at various points in his life. There's a difference. Mark Hamill didn't personally live Luke's life.

Absolutely - It's a terrible point made even worse by Hamill admitting his mistake.