Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, on home media Mar. 13, 2018

[kajnrig]

The review is enjoyable for what it is. The Plinkett reviews are kind of the genesis of the whole "frothing at the mouth blind rage criticism" review trend, but they still do it the best and the most smartly. They put more critical thinking into their reviews than other people do.

Agree with you that the movie is a mess, disagree that that makes it not great.

EDIT:

whoops created a new page, here's the quote for those not in the know:

2 hours ago, Scyla said:

Here is Mr. Plinketts take on the Last Jedi:

Which reinforces my opinion that this movie is a mess.

 

Edited August 28, 2018 by kajnrig

[TehPW]

clearly the WTF moment was the wine short...

[dizman]

Now that I think of it he's right TLJ was a corny comedy movie, no wonder I liked it. Maybe IX will change things up again and be a super serious crime drama.

[Knight26]

15 hours ago, dizman said:

Now that I think of it he's right TLJ was a corny comedy movie, no wonder I liked it. Maybe IX will change things up again and be a super serious crime drama.

TLJ would have been better as a "buddy cop" movie with Poe and Finn off a mission to help the fleeing resistance, while Rey was off training.  Amongst other changes.

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, Knight26 said:

TLJ would have been better as a "buddy cop" movie with Poe and Finn off a mission to help the fleeing resistance, while Rey was off training.  Amongst other changes.

See, now I'm just imagining the entire casino arc of TLJ re-written as a condensed Oceans Eleven plot, where Poe and Finn make off with a fuel tanker. That would have made so much more sense, and been so much more entertaining to watch.

[nhyone]

Sadly, the RLM review is as lackluster as the film. 

One reason is that it had been covered too death by other YTers and they were late to the party, ie they didn't bring anything new to the table.

I like the wine short, though.

[Knight26]

17 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

See, now I'm just imagining the entire casino arc of TLJ re-written as a condensed Oceans Eleven plot, where Poe and Finn make off with a fuel tanker. That would have made so much more sense, and been so much more entertaining to watch.

That would have been much more entertaining for sure, and would have fit the plot better.

[Roy Focker]

6 hours ago, nhyone said:

Sadly, the RLM review is as lackluster as the film. 

One reason is that it had been covered too death by other YTers and they were late to the party, ie they didn't bring anything new to the table.

I like the wine short, though.

Also if they went with their usual brutal and comedic takedowns it would just look like more man child hate.  When it comes to certain movies you have to tone down the hate or even your legitimate criticisms will be dismissed.

[nhyone]

20 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

Also if they went with their usual brutal and comedic takedowns it would just look like more man child hate.  When it comes to certain movies you have to tone down the hate or even your legitimate criticisms will be dismissed.

Let me retract my statement a little. 

Unlike other YTers who merely analyze what's wrong with the film, RLM also tried to explain what caused it to go wrong in the first place.

Many people were expecting it to be a retread of ESB, so RJ wanted to "subvert expectations". There are still many elements similar to ESB/RotJ, just way out of order/context.

Not to mention JJ's mystery boxes.

[TehPW]

6 hours ago, nhyone said:

Let me retract my statement a little. 

Unlike other YTers who merely analyze what's wrong with the film, RLM also tried to explain what caused it to go wrong in the first place.

Many people were expecting it to be a retread of ESB, so RJ wanted to "subvert expectations". There are still many elements similar to ESB/RotJ, just way out of order/context.

Not to mention JJ's mystery boxes.

what mystery boxes? 

[Chronocidal]

16 minutes ago, TehPW said:

what mystery boxes? 

The piles of unanswered questions that fans were left with at the end of TFA, and subsequently told in TLJ that they should ignore them, because they don't matter.

Basically, enough dangling plot threads to knit a sweater.

Edited August 31, 2018 by Chronocidal

[derex3592]

Anyone who fell in love with JJ's LOST for 6 seasons can attest to that....

[kajnrig]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

The piles of unanswered questions that fans were left with at the end of TFA, and subsequently told in TLJ that they should ignore them, because they don't matter.

Basically, enough dangling plot threads to knit a sweater.

To be fair to TLJ, mystery boxes in general and TFA's mystery boxes in particular are stupid stupid STUPID approaches to filmmaking/storytelling. Touching as few of those as it could and flat-out abandoning the rest was probably the best way they could have gone about it.

[TehPW]

Did they ever give a good reason why the production & direction duties were changed between films? Was this a Disney directive from above? (or basically, would have TLJ been better if JJ helmed both films?)

[Mommar]

21 hours ago, TehPW said:

Did they ever give a good reason why the production & direction duties were changed between films? Was this a Disney directive from above? (or basically, would have TLJ been better if JJ helmed both films?)

The plan was always to have different directors for each film.  The original trilogy had three different directors too (yeah, yeah, Lucas was aleays standing over their shoulder.  But still...). The original plan was Abrams, Johnson , Treverow.  Treverow left when Johnson started to fully ruin everything and they’re trying to salvage the whole thing with captain loose strings storytelling.

[TehPW]

I never paid too much attention, I suppose (I always thought Lucas directed all of the 6 previous films and got sick of it during the end of RotS?

[apptt4]

the most surprising thing about The Last Jedi, for me, was it revealed Disney don't/didn't have a long-term plan for where the franchise was heading.

 

Johnson was clear that he was given NO notes on what to do or beats to follow, and had carte blanche to do as he saw fit. astonishing that they never put a roadmap in place even just for this trilogy.

[sketchley]

1 hour ago, apptt4 said:

the most surprising thing about The Last Jedi, for me, was it revealed Disney don't/didn't have a long-term plan for where the franchise was heading.

Agreed.  I think some of the complaints about TLJ stem from that fact—it highlighted how many of the supposed plot points in TFA were just JJ.A doing his usual (highly unsatisfying) thing of setting things up, without regard to where it is all going.

 

I got around to watching the Plinkett review and... I think they focused on the right thing: the writing.  However, I do take issue with their complaining about the kids.  Kids are the target audience (in fact, my son even said the broom scene at the end was one of his favourites!)  Complaining about that reminds me of when people complained about G Gundam being too kiddified way back when...

[David Hingtgen]

G-Gundam has Rain, and the best attacks in the franchise.  Therefore it’s awesome.  

[spacemanoeuvres]

On 8/28/2018 at 3:32 PM, Scyla said:

Here is Mr. Plinketts take on the Last Jedi:

Which reinforces my opinion that this movie is a mess.

Finally got around to watching this and it was brutal/hilarious 

[kajnrig]

Maybe with the extra scrutiny on Russian trolls and bots, this next movie can avoid the same shitstorm of... stupid... from everybody... that TLJ suffered through:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-wars-last-jedi-was-targeted-by-russian-trolls-study-says-1148475

https://comicbook.com/starwars/2018/10/01/star-wars-the-last-jedi-rian-johnson-harassment-bots/

[Duymon]

31 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Maybe with the extra scrutiny on Russian trolls and bots, this next movie can avoid the same shitstorm of... stupid... from everybody... that TLJ suffered through:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-wars-last-jedi-was-targeted-by-russian-trolls-study-says-1148475

https://comicbook.com/starwars/2018/10/01/star-wars-the-last-jedi-rian-johnson-harassment-bots/

 

Reagan may have used the 'Star Wars' program to economically destroy us in the 80's and cause the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Mother Russia will have its revenge by review-bombing a star wars movie 30 years later.

Sounds Legit

Edited October 2, 2018 by Duymon

[kajnrig]

hoooooboy i regret my decision already

2 minutes ago, Duymon said:

Reagan may have used the 'Star Wars' program to economically destroy us in the 80's and cause the collapse of the Soviet Union, but We'll have our revenge with internet Manipulation of the reviews of a Disney Kids Movie 30 years later?

Sounds Legit

I don't think the point was to get revenge with a single initiative, but to continue to sow and foment discord among a US citizenry.

A whole lot of points were made about how TLJ was just a downright bad movie, many of which are fair, but some of which were and are extraordinarily dumb. I remember one being that Holdo had dyed hair. That was the criticism. Not that she was a bad CO and/or that her plan was needlessly convoluted and/or what have you, y'know, actual problems with her as a character or her role within the narrative. The criticism was that she had dyed hair, and that because she had dyed hair, she was the result of a progressive social movement in the US of A. And because she was the result of said movement, all her other faults are also a result of that movement.

Russian trolls fan that flame, and progressives (perhaps also unwittingly aided by Russian trolls), hit back with incredulity at how such a blatantly dumb criticism could be so popular among detractors (when in reality it's not, none of the reasoned criticism I see here cares about that).

I mean you might think it's far-fetched, but just look at how stupid people have gotten on this thread. All of the reasoned criticism of the movie is being drowned out by racist, sexist jackasses making racist, sexist comments that are amplified by Russian bots. All of the reasoned counter-points are being drowned out by reactionary, impulsive, barely-considerate idiots making reactionary, impulsive, barely-considered responses... that might also be amplified by Russian bots all too prepared to capitalize on the backlash. Eventually, that's all the conversation becomes about.

It makes the extremes of both sides seem bigger than they actually are. There are maybe a handful of people on this forum whose opinions I don't bother with because they're either dumb racist trolls or dumb... just dumbs who lose all ability to function when confronted with dumb racist trolls. Everyone else has gotten dragged into the shitstorm unwillingly (some more unwillingly than others, but all unwillingly).

Gahk;lajsdflakjsdf;lasdjfk;

Anyway.

Just thought it'd help everyone calm down a little to know that the crap we're flinging at each other comes from the butt of a hostile foreign government.

[TehPW]

We didn't need Russian Trolls to tell us that TLJ was written by retards (I want to say that it did help but... it just that it ended up as the Topic Bus driven into oncoming traffic, through the mall AKA Blues Brothers and right into the Senate's Parking Garage. The Beirut Bunkers stopped it there... but barely)… But it reminds us how potentially weaponizing social media is... which is Putin's goal after all.

Wow, from crappy movie speculation to honest to [non]goodness poltics… ik. I GTG to work noa... 

[azrael]

"Madness, as you know, is like gravity, all it takes is a little push."

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, kajnrig said:

I don't think the point was to get revenge with a single initiative, but to continue to sow and foment discord among a US citizenry.

Seems like practically everyone wants to take "Russian cyber-interference" as a get-out-of-jail-free card these days...

Anyway, an abstract from an unpublished doctoral student's essay with a premise based on vague, highly subjective criteria and with an unnecessarily hyperbolic conclusion hardly seems like a news-worthy topic.  I can practically hear his advisor's eyes rolling.

[kajnrig]

4 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Seems like practically everyone wants to take "Russian cyber-interference" as a get-out-of-jail-free card these days...

Anyway, an abstract from an unpublished doctoral student's essay with a premise based on vague, highly subjective criteria and with an unnecessarily hyperbolic conclusion hardly seems like a news-worthy topic.  I can practically hear his advisor's eyes rolling.

To be honest, I didn't take too long a look at the articles. Taking a better look at it now, I think I may have fallen for clickbait more than anything. Boo.

That said, the articles do link to the paper itself - dunno if it let you just download the whole paper, but it let me - and the methodology sounds... sound. Or as sound as you'd expect a PhD candidate without access to the huge amount of data that Facebook and the federal government regularly do to be, anyway.

It's authored (and researched) by a single person, which is problematic. I haven't looked through the entire paper, but it would be more bulletproof if it had been the result of a broader effort, with more people able to define the scope and methodology of the research.

I'll get back on this one, though. There's some interesting bits in there worthy of independent verification. It would be nice if the author also provided the data he studied for such a thing.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

That said, the articles do link to the paper itself - dunno if it let you just download the whole paper, but it let me - and the methodology sounds... sound.

On a skim of the paper during a particularly tedious and unnecessary meeting I just escaped, I have to say I find his conclusion specious.  

Dr. Bay's sample size is vanishingly small at just 967 tweets collected over a 219 day period, focused exclusively on ONE Twitter account (Rian Johnson's).  Actual description of his methodology is short and vague, and points to a highly subjective filtering approach beyond the most basic distinction of positive vs. negative commentary.  For much of his analysis section he's drawing conclusions based upon circumstantial or insufficient evidence, particularly in connecting Russia to the 33 accounts he categorized as malicious actors based on highly general conditions common to disposable "burner" accounts.  

While it's true that 3 or 4 of the accounts he examined were purged by Twitter in one of its periodic purges of sockpuppet accounts, he doesn't seem to have even considered that people creating new accounts specifically to behave like jackasses and post inflammatory material is not a hard and fast indicator of an account being part of a Russian influence campaign.  It feels rather bizarre that the doctor, a research fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at USC's Annenberg school, would be overlooking or completely discounting the rather more obvious possibility that many of these bad actors are just ordinary trolls and butthurt misogynistic fanboys covering their asses by creating a disposable secondary account.  We do live in a time where employers are terminating people over things they post on social media, after all.  

For the TL;DR crowd... this chap's conclusion feels a bit like McCarthyist paranoia.  There's a vague possibility he's onto something, but it feels more like he's jumping at shadows.

[mickyg]

specious

ˈspiːʃəs/

adjective

adjective: specious

1. superficially plausible, but actually wrong.

   "a specious argument"

 

Thanks for teaching me a new word, Seto.  I hadn't encountered it before and thought you'd potentially typo'd even.  Should have known better.

I'm getting absolutely spammed by this "Russian meddling plot" stuff in my Android phone's news feed lately so this whole discussion is fascinating, at the very least.

[Roy Focker]

Good job Mr. Bay you've managed to get your academic paper published by the main stream media.  That's much better than a scholarly journal.  Back in my school days if you wanted to go on to graduate school and be somebody in academia getting published was key.  He's done a great job by picking a topic that people outside academia care about.  I don't know if any scholarly journals published it as well.   They only publish research if it passes their standards.   Other researchers who subscribe to such journals get to read and evaluate the value of articles within.

Main stream media doesn't care too much about evaluating research methods.  I haven't read his research.  I only got a undergrad degree in a related field.  Even without doing the research I think it is common knowledge that the alt-right, Russians and trolls were heavily involved with all the hate.  These people like to stir the pot for kicks.  Main stream media covering research like this unfortunately allows studios and the press to place all future negative criticism on them.  

That's what I dislike about this type of fan backlash.   Your legitimate complaints will be ignored when you have an element of fandom that crosses the line.  If you use the same rhetoric you'll be lumped together with them.  Which is part of the reason why we don't want to see it here.   You're all capable of legitimate and the occasional childish criticism on pop culture.   Sharing and repeating ideas of the alt-right even when they're valid doesn't do your own argument any good.

[Seto Kaiba]

16 hours ago, mickyg said:

Thanks for teaching me a new word, Seto.  I hadn't encountered it before and thought you'd potentially typo'd even.  Should have known better.

One of the pitfalls of academia... you end up learning a lot of superficially polite-sounding ways to say one of your colleagues is full of crap.  Once you've got tenure, the foul language flows a good deal more freely.

 

7 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

Good job Mr. Bay you've managed to get your academic paper published by the main stream media.  That's much better than a scholarly journal.  Back in my school days if you wanted to go on to graduate school and be somebody in academia getting published was key.  He's done a great job by picking a topic that people outside academia care about. 

His paper certainly ticks all the usual checkboxes for a study aimed at grabbing the attention of the mainstream media's sensationalist side.  It's a small independent study with a sample size that's far too small to be taken as entirely reliable and a vague conclusion that can be easily reinterpreted by omission to sound far more incendiary.

"The Last Jedi haters are all trolls or Russian influencers" sounds a lot more impressive and headline-worthy than "assuming this tiny sample population is a perfect scale representation of the entirety of the Star Wars fandom, that my poorly-explained and highly subjective methodology for determining what constitutes 'trolling' is perfectly valid, and that there are some resemblances on a few accounts to Russian election year social media trolls, I conclude that the hate for The Last Jedi is a secret, evil Russian political campaign intended to undermine our democracy... no, stop trying to take away my tinfoil hat".

 

7 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

I don't know if any scholarly journals published it as well.   They only publish research if it passes their standards.   Other researchers who subscribe to such journals get to read and evaluate the value of articles within.

It's marked as Preprint status, so it hasn't been accepted by any scholarly publication at this time... let alone actually put out for comment.

 

7 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

Even without doing the research I think it is common knowledge that the alt-right, Russians and trolls were heavily involved with all the hate.  These people like to stir the pot for kicks.

That's the biggest hole in the paper... at no point does Dr. Bay consider that there might have been other motivations for the malicious behavior, like people just being a-holes.  He leaps directly to a conclusion that it's part of a sinister social media influence campaign aimed at triggering some kind of sociopolitical upheaval.

Seems a bit hyperbolic for angry fans raging about a movie full of angsty space wizard-monks with laser swords.

 

7 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

Main stream media covering research like this unfortunately allows studios and the press to place all future negative criticism on them.  

Honestly, as poor as the quality of this study was, I suspect that may have been the point.  Dr. Bay does seem to have gone into it with, if not a goal of then a vested interest in, smearing The Last Jedi's critics.

 

Weirdly, thinking back on this, I have to admit I think I might see why the Star Wars fans on the far right seem inclined to hate Disney for brooming the old Expanded Universe to make way for this new trilogy.  The old Star Wars EU seems to carry a fairly overt Aesop that democracy doesn't work and that authoritarianism is the only way to get crap done or form a functioning society.  There are some shades of this in The Last Jedi vis a vis the commentary on how useless the New Republic is, but it's not nearly on par with the books showing them as an ineffectual and hopeless corrupt bunch of total bunglers who go barely last a century of chaotic democratic rule before the Empire takes over again.

[azrael]

15 hours ago, Roy Focker said:

Main stream media covering research like this unfortunately allows studios and the press to place all future negative criticism on them.  

That's what I dislike about this type of fan backlash.   Your legitimate complaints will be ignored when you have an element of fandom that crosses the line.  If you use the same rhetoric you'll be lumped together with them.

All they needed was a little push...
So I guess I'm now a Russian or Chinese troll who is interfering just because I was one of the 1st here to come out hating this flick (and the last one).

I find this study's focus on Twitter to be short-sighted. Tweets are relatively easy to mine data, but what about forums, Facebook, Reddit, etc.. Simply, this paper has de-legitimized actual complaints from real people about the movie and I take offense to that because now these types of excuses will be used elsewhere when people disagree. Social media trolls may have exacerbated the issue to weird levels (like Kelly Marie Tran closing her Instagram account), but the dislike for this movie is legitimate.

[kalvasflam]

Entering rant mode: 

And people wonder why nobody trusts the news media these days.  All we get is click bait and crap like this.  Throw in the words: racist, social justice, black lives matter, Trump, illegal immigration... and there is an instant reaction from people, and our media doesn't help at all, all these people care about are eyeballs, if there was a mass shooting, or a riot, or whatever, our media will be right there to cover it with their spin and whatever crazed political agenda they have.  If it happens to tear apart society a little bit, well, it's not their fault.

When I saw that idiotic article, my first thought was I hope this guy's research isn't government funded, because what a waste of time and money.   

TLJ was awful on its own.  The bad plot, the useless side trips, the scale of it was worse than  all of the prequels combined.   If they literally made a ten minute short about Kylo and Rey and that throne room scene, it would've been heads and shoulders above.  And don't get me started about Leia's magical force power, how convenient that was, it was too bad there wasn't a turbolaser bolt blasting her at that point.  

Done Ranting.  

And now, for a moment of levity.  I think I need to go pee right now, odd, I just went half an hour ago.  I bet it's the Russians fault.  Quick, somebody call CNN, MSNBC, and Fox.  

P.S. Azreal, how dare you claim to be a Russian or Chinese troll, that's cultural appropriation I'll have you know.  The  Russian and Chinese trolls will be filing suit shortly.  

[Bolt]

14 minutes ago, kalvasflam said:

TLJ was awful on its own.  The bad plot, the useless side trips, the scale of it was worse than  all of the prequels combined.

I hate to , but I agree. None of it had to do with race, or gender or self righteous scrutiny..

wah!!

what are the Chances JJ is going to pull off ep 9 and save this out of control train wreck of a once beloved franchise..?

I'll always be a fan but I won't always love what THEY'VE done to it..

going back now to re read the expanded universe and think of the good ole days..

[Seto Kaiba]

3 minutes ago, Bolt said:

what are the Chances JJ is going to pull off ep 9 and save this out of control train wreck of a once beloved franchise..?

I'd say roughly 0%, but that may be tainted a bit by my complete dissatisfaction with his work on the new series of Star Trek movies...

They've done such a good job of making [Ben Solo/Kylo Ren] an unlikeable little b***h, appropriate to his role as a major villain who jumped off the slippery slope feetfirst, that I really don't see a way for them to wrap up his arc short of Redemption Equals Death like they did for Vader.  Trying to go any other route, like having him see the light and repent, would just feel like a karma houdini for a guy who's got multiple counts of mass murder on his CV.