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

[Seto Kaiba]

On 6/3/2018 at 4:02 PM, kajnrig said:

Hm... Better to post this in the TLJ thread, or here?

 

Thanks for sharing that.  Easily the most intelligent thing I've seen on YouTube since someone filed a copyright claim against the uploads of Engineering an Empire.  

As prep for going to see Solo: a Star Wars Story, I rewatched Rogue One and The Last Jedi this past weekend, and this video spoke to one of my biggest issues with the new trilogy: that the First Order doesn't really have an established motive.  The Force Awakens had me write it off as an artifact of a lazy attempt to do a by-the-numbers copy of A New Hope, but after watching this I'm left to wonder if they're not backhanding out some real world political allegory after all.

I suppose it's all right there in the name, really.  The First Order.  The First Galactic Empire grew out of the Republic without overthrowing it, and here we have a group that's going well out of its way to "put on the reich" by aping the Empire's aesthetic in every conceivable way.  The First Order doesn't have an ideology of its own because it doesn't need one... it's literally the dark version of the Rebel Alliance, a militarized resistance movement rising up to reinstate the previous deposed government.  The First Order are nothing fancier than the Imperial version of Neo-Nazis.  It still feels pretty lazy, but I guess it'd better than them being a complete cipher.  

[jvmacross]

I would think the First Order would be comprised of friends, family and all the children of the parents murdered by the Rebels during the assaults on the Death Stars I and II.

[kajnrig]

God damn it, Youtube, your algorithm is taking me down a slippery slope. It's only two more videos before I watch a fan blathering on and on about how The Last Jedi signals the downfall of the global civilization...

This one, though, seems like it'll be another one of the reasonable ones. We'll see in a couple minutes.

EDIT:

So yeah, it's an older code but it checks out. It's more about analyzing the narrative aspects of the movie (obviously) than any critique of the film itself, which is the kind of stuff I absolutely love but I know some of you here probably aren't as interested in.

EDIT 2:

Oh boy, here we go.

"Star Wars: The Last Jedi - What Went Wrong? – Wisecrack Edition"
"Why Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a Complete Cinematic Failure"
"The Last Jedi And The Fall Of Star Wars: Part 1 - The Idiocy Awakens"

*long, protracted sigh* god damn it youtube...

Edited June 5, 2018 by kajnrig

[electric indigo]

Jeremy brings up the interesting point that Disney Star Wars isn't in a Galaxy far far away anymore:

As a bonus, he is able to present his opinion in a civilized manner.

[Seto Kaiba]

16 hours ago, jvmacross said:

I would think the First Order would be comprised of friends, family and all the children of the parents murdered by the Rebels during the assaults on the Death Stars I and II.

The impression I got from Return of the Jedi and, more recently, Rogue One was that both of the Death Stars were top secret projects that the Empire did an amazingly good job of keeping under wraps until they were essentially complete.  The Empire probably told the families of those who'd been killed in their destruction that their loved ones had died in the line of duty, but I doubt they would publicly admit the "insignificant" Rebellion blew up a clandestine, moon-sized, world-killing WMD with a crew of 1.2 million... let alone that it happened twice.  (Especially considering that it must have been world-bankruptingly expensive to build even one of those things.)

Do humans in the Galaxy Far Far Away live longer?  It's what, like 30 years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, right?  That'd put most of the immediate families of the Death Star's crew out of the military service age range, and wasn't the First Order mainly made up of kids who were abducted to become Stormtroopers?

 

 

14 hours ago, kajnrig said:

This one, though, seems like it'll be another one of the reasonable ones. We'll see in a couple minutes.

EDIT:

So yeah, it's an older code but it checks out. It's more about analyzing the narrative aspects of the movie (obviously) than any critique of the film itself, which is the kind of stuff I absolutely love but I know some of you here probably aren't as interested in.

Hey, I'll take one thoughtful analysis of the narrative over a hundred videos of butthurt fanboys who are busily whinging themselves inside-out about how The Last Jedi kicked their dog or whatever.

[Focslain]

16 hours ago, kajnrig said:

So yeah, it's an older code but it checks out. It's more about analyzing the narrative aspects of the movie (obviously) than any critique of the film itself, which is the kind of stuff I absolutely love but I know some of you here probably aren't as interested in.

EDIT 2:

Oh boy, here we go.

"Star Wars: The Last Jedi - What Went Wrong? – Wisecrack Edition"
"Why Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a Complete Cinematic Failure"
"The Last Jedi And The Fall Of Star Wars: Part 1 - The Idiocy Awakens"

*long, protracted sigh* god damn it youtube...

The Wisecrack one is more on the story structure issues then anything else.

Actually it was them that got me through TLJ, their themes explained video gave me something to hope for. Otherwise I would have walked out during the bomber scene.

[jvmacross]

32 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Do humans in the Galaxy Far Far Away live longer?  It's what, like 30 years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, right?  That'd put most of the immediate families of the Death Star's crew out of the military service age range, and wasn't the First Order mainly made up of kids who were abducted to become Stormtroopers?

Dunno....are you not including the officer class and just referring to the grunts?

Also....30 years is a long time for a new narrative to have not been disseminated by the New Republic about what the Empire was and who was in control of it.....the First Order, for sure has their own version of the "facts" of the last 30 years......Kylo refers to the Resistance...and by association, the New Republic,....as murderers, traitors and theives.....this is what he has been brainwashed to believe since he's actually born of them....I don't think it's that much of a stretch to see how many former Imperial families and friends would not legitimately have a deep hatred for the New Republic/Resistance and thus make up the core of the First Order leadership/elites.....

The fact is that the First Order is apparently now lead by someone who really isn't one of them....and at that scene where he kills Snoke he also no longer really seems to be tied to the same goals of the First Order, which seems to just be guided by pure vengeance.....his goal seems to be just to start fresh....not even sure if he even wants to "finish" what he thinks his grandpa started....I'm sure Episode 9 will fix everything!!! 

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Dunno....are you not including the officer class and just referring to the grunts?

Even the First Order's senior officers look awfully young.  General Hux and Kylo Ren both look like they should be more concerned with the headmaster catching them out of their rooms after hours than with the business of running a militant fascist movement set to topple the government of the entire galaxy.

 

8 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

the First Order, for sure has their own version of the "facts" of the last 30 years......Kylo refers to the Resistance...and by association, the New Republic,....as murderers, traitors and theives.....this is what he has been brainwashed to believe since he's actually born of them

Are we sure that's brainwashing and not just an unflattering and not entirely unmerited opinion of the people he grew up with after having fallen out with them?

"Murderers" doesn't seem like much of a stretch considering that he left the Jedi Order after being the target of a (failed) premeditated murder plot on the part of his own uncle.  It's not a stretch to assume the Resistance probably has factions like the Rebellion did (see Rogue One) that don't see tactics like assassination, anonymous bombings, and false flag operations as unacceptable.  Being traitors is a "certain point of view" thing, since the New Republic is (or should that be "was"?) the end result of a paramilitary coup that deposed the previous "legitimate" galactic government that had been installed by the democratic process of the government before that (which both sides of that conflict recognized as legitimate).  "Thieves" is questionable, but we do know the Rebellion's troops did steal supplies and ships when the opportunity arose and the Resistance doubtless does the same.

 

 

8 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

....I don't think it's that much of a stretch to see how many former Imperial families and friends would not legitimately have a deep hatred for the New Republic/Resistance and thus make up the core of the First Order leadership/elites.....

The First Order's seemingly headquartered out in the space boonies... it seems unlikely that there'd be a mass migration of Imperial loyalists so mad at the Republic they'd form their own new galactic government with blackjack and hookers.  Especially since, if what I'm reading is accurate, the New Republic branded anyone associated with the Empire a war criminal.

 

 

8 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

The fact is that the First Order is apparently now lead by someone who really isn't one of them....and at that scene where he kills Snoke he also no longer really seems to be tied to the same goals of the First Order, which seems to just be guided by pure vengeance.....his goal seems to be just to start fresh....not even sure if he even wants to "finish" what he thinks his grandpa started....I'm sure Episode 9 will fix everything!!! 

I dunno... for all Sir Sabertantrum's newfound noise about letting go of the past, he doesn't seem to be capable of making his words and deeds line up.  The first thing he does after taking over the First Order, apart from intimidating Hux into recognizing him as the new Supreme Leader, is pick up right where Snoke left off on the First Order's to-do list.  He promptly pursues the remaining members of the Resistance to Crait, where he then positively jumps at the chance to pursue Snoke's #1 goal of wiping out the Jedi by killing Luke Skywalker.

Looks to me like he's still out to finish what grandpappy started, just possibly for his own sake, not because "Darth Vader would've wanted it".

[jvmacross]

51 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Even the First Order's senior officers look awfully young. 

Perhaps you have not seen the movies more than once (don't blame you!)....but the higher ranking officiers seem to be much older than the troopers....like the commander that complained to his men about not sending out the tie-fighters while Hux was being trolled by Poe....

 

47 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Are we sure that's brainwashing and not just an unflattering and not entirely unmerited opinion of the people he grew up with after having fallen out with them?

yeah, pretty sure it was Snoke's brainwashing...at least at first.....same way the Emperor stroked Anakin's ego since he was a kid it would seem....

 

50 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

"Murderers" doesn't seem like much of a stretch considering that he left the Jedi Order after being the target of a (failed) premeditated murder plot on the part of his own uncle.  It's not a stretch to assume the Resistance probably has factions like the Rebellion did (see Rogue One) that don't see tactics like assassination, anonymous bombings, and false flag operations as unacceptable.  Being traitors is a "certain point of view" thing, since the New Republic is (or should that be "was"?) the end result of a paramilitary coup that deposed the previous "legitimate" galactic government that had been installed by the democratic process of the government before that (which both sides of that conflict recognized as legitimate).  "Thieves" is questionable, but we do know the Rebellion's troops did steal supplies and ships when the opportunity arose and the Resistance doubtless does the same.

 

Like I said, both sides have their own point of view...nothing shocking about it really I suppose....the New Republic/Resistance could easily utter the same words in describing the First Order.....

 

55 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The First Order's seemingly headquartered out in the space boonies...Especially since, if what I'm reading is accurate, the New Republic branded anyone associated with the Empire a war criminal.

hmmmmm......where else in the galaxy would you be able to hide effectively as a war criminal or sympathizer?  Especially if we have been made to believe that "Bounty Hunter" is a thriving workforce category in the world of Star Wars....

 

58 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I dunno... for all Sir Sabertantrum's newfound noise about letting go of the past, he doesn't seem to be capable of making his words and deeds line up.  The first thing he does after taking over the First Order, apart from intimidating Hux into recognizing him as the new Supreme Leader, is pick up right where Snoke left off on the First Order's to-do list.  He promptly pursues the remaining members of the Resistance to Crait, where he then positively jumps at the chance to pursue Snoke's #1 goal of wiping out the Jedi by killing Luke Skywalker.

Looks to me like he's still out to finish what grandpappy started, just possibly for his own sake, not because "Darth Vader would've wanted it".

Exactly......and this is where all that "talk" when the movie was released about "throwing out/killing" everything you knew about Star Wars is all a bunch of nonsense......rabid fans got all worked-up for nothing........Star Wars will always be just a rehash of the same storylines we have already seen......the only difference now will be the need to reboot it at a much quicker pace to keep the new generation of fans "locked in".....and the parks "filled up"....

[kajnrig]

2 hours ago, Focslain said:

The Wisecrack one is more on the story structure issues then anything else.

Actually it was them that got me through TLJ, their themes explained video gave me something to hope for. Otherwise I would have walked out during the bomber scene.

Ah, good to know. I didn't get the impression it would be an insensate rage video like some other reccs, but it popped up alongside them and I had to roll my eyes at The Collective Mass. I'll probably check it out.

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I dunno... for all Sir Sabertantrum's newfound noise about letting go of the past, he doesn't seem to be capable of making his words and deeds line up.
....
Looks to me like he's still out to finish what grandpappy started, just possibly for his own sake, not because "Darth Vader would've wanted it".

8 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Exactly......and this is where all that "talk" when the movie was released about "throwing out/killing" everything you knew about Star Wars is all a bunch of nonsense.

I take it as a defining character trait of his. He's self-deluding; he 100% buys into the lie he's set up for himself, and his lack of self-awareness only serves to make him more dangerous.

Anyway, I'm not gonna link to any of the articles because they're all clearly just clickbait spinning off of the same tenuous, poorly-researched, barest thread of a lead:

If true, then the fandom needs to get its collective crap together, but Tran has a history of being social media-averse, so these sites could have stood to do a bit more digging before publishing what is obviously half-baked nonsense for the sake of a couple more views.

[Mommar]

3 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Ah, good to know. I didn't get the impression it would be an insensate rage video like some other reccs, but it popped up alongside them and I had to roll my eyes at The Collective Mass. I'll probably check it out.

I take it as a defining character trait of his. He's self-deluding; he 100% buys into the lie he's set up for himself, and his lack of self-awareness only serves to make him more dangerous.

Anyway, I'm not gonna link to any of the articles because they're all clearly just clickbait spinning off of the same tenuous, poorly-researched, barest thread of a lead:

If true, then the fandom needs to get its collective crap together, but Tran has a history of being social media-averse, so these sites could have stood to do a bit more digging before publishing what is obviously half-baked nonsense for the sake of a couple more views.

It’s nothing new, have you seen how Jake Lloyds life has turned out?

[kajnrig]

Jake Who?

[Mommar]

33 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Jake Who?

Is that a joke or do you not remember the little kid who played Anakin in The Phantom Menace?  People at school were merciless with him over it.  He’s had all kinds if drug problems and such.  Closing a Twitter and Instagram account is nothing.

[kajnrig]

47 minutes ago, Mommar said:

Is that a joke or do you not remember the little kid who played Anakin in The Phantom Menace?  People at school were merciless with him over it.  He’s had all kinds if drug problems and such.  Closing a Twitter and Instagram account is nothing.

Ouch. That super sucks. And from such a young age, too. I honestly did not recognize the name or remember who he was. See, I never thought Young Anakin (or hell, even Hayden Anakin) was all that bad, either. Certainly didn't care enough to make fun of him for years and years and years about it.

[Mommar]

7 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Ouch. That super sucks. And from such a young age, too. I honestly did not recognize the name or remember who he was. See, I never thought Young Anakin (or hell, even Hayden Anakin) was all that bad, either. Certainly didn't care enough to make fun of him for years and years and years about it.

He wasn't very good, but he was eight.  He was only bed because the people doing the casting/director, i.e. George Lucas, made poor choices.  It wasn't Jakes fault, but he's had a rough life since then because of it.

[Seto Kaiba]

18 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Perhaps you have not seen the movies more than once (don't blame you!)....but the higher ranking officiers seem to be much older than the troopers....like the commander that complained to his men about not sending out the tie-fighters while Hux was being trolled by Poe....

I've seen the new ones exactly twice... and TBH, for The Last Jedi that felt like one time too many.

Hux really does look incredibly young, though.  So much so that he's jokingly referred to as the Evil Weasley out here.

 

18 hours ago, jvmacross said:

yeah, pretty sure it was Snoke's brainwashing...at least at first.....same way the Emperor stroked Anakin's ego since he was a kid it would seem....

Dunno... Snoke doesn't seem to be particularly good at it, especially with all that "admitting that I'm manipulating you" stuff he does in The Last Jedi.  Everyone could see that lightsaber coming except him.

 

18 hours ago, jvmacross said:

hmmmmm......where else in the galaxy would you be able to hide effectively as a war criminal or sympathizer?  Especially if we have been made to believe that "Bounty Hunter" is a thriving workforce category in the world of Star Wars....

Not super up on how bounty hunting works in Star Wars, but wouldn't the space boonies be the obvious first port of call for any bounty hunter looking for wanted fugitives?

 

 

18 hours ago, kajnrig said:

If true, then the fandom needs to get its collective crap together, but Tran has a history of being social media-averse, so these sites could have stood to do a bit more digging before publishing what is obviously half-baked nonsense for the sake of a couple more views.

I have to admit that I wouldn't be remotely surprised if it was true... though I'd question whether it was truly racially motivated, or whether the racist remarks are just the internet trolls going for easy mode on upsetting their target.

My parents are Trekkies, and I was raised on a steady diet of Star Trek's true-blue "diversity is good" ethos.  I find myself inclined to suspect that the racism in the online harassment of Kelly Tran is the means, rather than the motivation, simply because the character of Rose Tico offers SO MUCH for a viewer to dislike that there's no need to grope around for flimsy reasons like the actress's race.  It's not right or fair to transfer one's dislike of the character to the actor when that's largely the fault of the writers and editors, but some people have problems separating the character from the actor in practice.  (The guy who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies gets this all the time from kids on the street, or so I've heard.)

When I rewatched The Last Jedi a few days back, I was rather surprised at myself for how quickly Rose's voice became The Most Annoying Sound.  Jar-Jar Binks might've been an obnoxious racist caricature, but his power to annoy pales in comparison to Rose Tico's... partly because nobody at LucasFilm was ever foolish enough to devote half a movie to a completely unnecessary subplot in which he was a central figure.  It's bad enough that Rose is a central figure in an utterly pointless plot tumor, but she's also The Load.  She doesn't really contribute anything to the proceedings of their mission except whining, massive levels of naivete, and a lot of terribly stilted, fake-sounding dialog like her attempt to sit in judgement of an entire resort city or that out-of-nowhere, faintly comical line about love.  Even BB-8 makes more of a contribution.

Rose's status as the blatantly unnecessary rival love interest for Finn is enough to make me think that it was racially-motivated casting.  Not the representational diversity motive that some people have ascribed to it, but that the studio is backing down from a Finn x Rey pairing they'd spent so much time on in The Force Awakens because they're afraid of the potential backlash from having their main pairing be a white woman who chooses a black man over a white man¹ so they've set Finn up with a partner they think will be less controversial for Western audiences.  It's enough to make me consider Finn x Poe just to watch the bigots spontaneously combusting in the aisles.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Mommar said:

It wasn't Jakes fault, but he's had a rough life since then because of it.

That's putting it mildly.  Didn't he end up institutionalized a few years ago?

 

1. This is one of those awkward social dynamics about interracial relationships that I and some of my friends had an uncomfortable amount of personal experience with.  Society in general seems to be a LOT more open and accepting of interracial relationships when the man's status in whatever the local social/racial hierarchy is is equal to or higher than the woman's.  

[jvmacross]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Not super up on how bounty hunting works in Star Wars, but wouldn't the space boonies be the obvious first port of call for any bounty hunter looking for wanted fugitives?

Well.....you'd have a lot more of your brothers and sisters watching your back when they come looking....I think that would be a better way to avoid capture rather than going it on your own.....besides....you suggested that the whereabouts of Death Stars were well kept secrets....no reason to think that had changed under the First Order.....all hiding in Starkiller base until they no longer needed to....

Edited June 6, 2018 by jvmacross

[Chronocidal]

23 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Perhaps you have not seen the movies more than once (don't blame you!)....but the higher ranking officiers seem to be much older than the troopers....like the commander that complained to his men about not sending out the tie-fighters while Hux was being trolled by Poe....

This just begs the question of how all the people with half a brain wound up under the command of someone with all the tactical capability of a bran muffin.

I honestly felt really bad for the commander of that dreadnaught.  I know that look of frustration well.. it was like a more dire version of the expression I see all around me when our IT department manages to break our network again.  That feeling of "just for once, I'd like to expect the worst, and be wrong."

[jvmacross]

8 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

This just begs the question of how all the people with half a brain wound up under the command of someone with all the tactical capability of a bran muffin.

Nepotism? 

[Seto Kaiba]

20 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

This just begs the question of how all the people with half a brain wound up under the command of someone with all the tactical capability of a bran muffin.

The Dilbert Principle is alive and well in the Galaxy Far Far Away...

"The most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place they can do the least damage: Management."

 

Leadership seems to be pretty awful across the board after the fall of the First Galactic Empire.  The Jedi Order's leader, Luke Skywalker, failed employee relations forever when he decided the best and most appropriate response to fears that a student would fall to the dark side was murder.  The New Republic apparently had its head so far up its arse it seemingly paid no mind to the Galactic Empire 2.0 building a Super Death Star and an aircraft carrier big enough to carry battleships, to the extent that they never even saw the face of their enemy before being wiped out.  The Resistance's leaders are, respectively, an aging diplomat who is running entirely on hope, an Admiral so uninspiring that she faces a (temporarily successful) mutiny before she's even been in command a day, and Leeroy Jenkins Jr.  The First Order's Supreme Leader Snoke candidly admits the Dilbert Principle is in play when it comes to his most senior Army commander, his other senior commander is a dark jedi who has terrible impulse control issues and is prone to destroying equipment and assaulting his fellow employees, and Snoke himself is so bad at employee relations he's practically his own Starscream and so bad at reading his employees it literally is the death of him.

 

One can only assume that all the competent soldiers have either retired or died out, and we're left with the galaxy's collection of Arnold J. Rimmers fighting the galaxy's David Listers.  (We can only assume Cat's descendants currently run Naboo's fashion industry.)

[kajnrig]

50 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

This just begs the question of how all the people with half a brain wound up under the command of someone with all the tactical capability of a bran muffin.

37 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Nepotism? 

i mean it's not like there aren't plenty of topical examples at the moment...

[electric indigo]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

This just begs the question of how all the people with half a brain wound up under the command of someone with all the tactical capability of a bran muffin.

 

Ironically, that seems to mirror whatever department at Disney was responsible for greenlighting those Frankenstein Star Wars movies we get now.

[Dynaman]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

Leadership seems to be pretty awful across the board after the fall of the First Galactic Empire.  The Jedi Order's leader, Luke Skywalker, failed employee relations forever when he decided the best and most appropriate response to fears that a student would fall to the dark side was murder.  The New Republic apparently had its head so far up its arse it seemingly paid no mind to the Galactic Empire 2.0 building a Super Death Star and an aircraft carrier big enough to carry battleships, to the extent that they never even saw the face of their enemy before being wiped out.  The Resistance's leaders are, respectively, an aging diplomat who is running entirely on hope, an Admiral so uninspiring that she faces a (temporarily successful) mutiny before she's even been in command a day, and Leeroy Jenkins Jr.  The First Order's Supreme Leader Snoke candidly admits the Dilbert Principle is in play when it comes to his most senior Army commander, his other senior commander is a dark jedi who has terrible impulse control issues and is prone to destroying equipment and assaulting his fellow employees, and Snoke himself is so bad at employee relations he's practically his own Starscream and so bad at reading his employees it literally is the death of him.

 

That is a perfect summation of what is wrong with the latest movies.

[Seto Kaiba]

35 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

That is a perfect summation of what is wrong with the latest movies.

The schtick with the New Republic missing the First Order's military buildup is especially bad, because they literally did an entire movie devoted to the premise that word about a project that big WILL get out no matter how remote it is or how much effort you put into secrecy.

The vast expenditures of resources and capital to construct the Death Star didn't go unnoticed, how did someone fail a spot check so hard they missed someone remodeling  planet with a gun barrel the size of the Death Star?

[kajnrig]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

how did someone fail a spot check so hard they missed someone remodeling  planet with a gun barrel the size of the Death Star?

By way of JJ Abrams' incessant need to ape what's come before, that's how. I mean I joke, but not really...

[sketchley]

On 2018-06-06 at 6:10 AM, kajnrig said:

Anyway, I'm not gonna link to any of the articles because they're all clearly just clickbait spinning off of the same tenuous, poorly-researched, barest thread of a lead:

If true, then the fandom needs to get its collective crap together, but Tran has a history of being social media-averse, so these sites could have stood to do a bit more digging before publishing what is obviously half-baked nonsense for the sake of a couple more views.

 

Apparently it is true: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44379473

For those that want the short form, I'll leave you with this quote from a Twitter user in the article:  "It's fine to not like fictional characters. It's not fine to harass actual human people."

 

Anyhow... I've recently rewatched The Last Jedi, and while I couldn't divorce myself from some of the comments from here about lack of tactics (E.g. I found myself wondering why the First Order didn't fly a few ships in front of the fleeing...), I found the film disappointing for 2 reasons:

1) slow pace;  unlike other SW films -even the anti-climactic SWIII- this one never seems to build up any momentum.

2) the film doesn't appear to be about anything more then what you get on screen.  How can I put it?  It doesn't hint at or suggest something greater than what we're shown.

Don't get me wrong - I loved the film on the first viewing.  However, it seems to get worse on repeat viewings... (unlike The Force Awakens, which I really disliked on first viewing, but is inexplicably getting better on repeats... perhaps because it successfully captured the pacing energy from the original SW films?)

Edited June 7, 2018 by sketchley

[jvmacross]

Maybe Episode 9 can start with Finn waking up from his coma and describing Episode 8 as his nightmare....

[kajnrig]

12 minutes ago, sketchley said:

Apparently it is true: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44379473

For those that want the short form, I'll leave you with this quote from a Twitter user in the article:  "It's fine to not like fictional characters. It's not fine to harass actual human people."

I prefer Johnson's take: "When we talk about manbabies"

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I have to admit that I wouldn't be remotely surprised if it was true... though I'd question whether it was truly racially motivated, or whether the racist remarks are just the internet trolls going for easy mode on upsetting their target.

...I find myself inclined to suspect that the racism in the online harassment of Kelly Tran is the means, rather than the motivation, simply because the character of Rose Tico offers SO MUCH for a viewer to dislike that there's no need to grope around for flimsy reasons like the actress's race.

In the end, whether race is a motivating factor or not is kind of a moot point, isn't it? I mean insofar as gauging the effects of the "criticism" goes, the damage done is entirely racial. No one's writing any articles about Tran shutting down her accounts because Rose was a bad character.

10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's enough to make me consider Finn x Poe just to watch the bigots spontaneously combusting in the aisles.

Way I hear it, the cast and crew actively encourage All The Pairings, and Oscar Isaac and John Boyega intentionally played up the ho yay in TFA. Obviously there was less time available to dedicate to it in TLJ, but I'm sure some fans are keeping their hopes alive.

I still don't think, or maybe I hope not, that the Finn/Rose thing will actually be a thing come IX. I've said before that I read that little "romantic" moment as more of Rose taking on the big sister role from her own big sister. (and I mean it's not like there isn't precedent for siblings and romance to intersect anyway amirite)

[Mommar]

12 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Maybe Episode 9 can start with Finn waking up from his coma and describing Episode 8 as his nightmare....

FYI, the "Who shot JR..?" solution doesn't really make anybody happy either.

[Seto Kaiba]

11 hours ago, kajnrig said:

In the end, whether race is a motivating factor or not is kind of a moot point, isn't it? I mean insofar as gauging the effects of the "criticism" goes, the damage done is entirely racial. No one's writing any articles about Tran shutting down her accounts because Rose was a bad character.

Motive always matters... though I suppose it's really just a matter of degrees of human awfulness.

As far as what's being written on the subject, it's worth remembering the old truism that the news exists to sell itself.  They're going to approach a subject like this from the most attention-grabbing angle even if it's not strictly 100% accurate.  "Racists harass Star Wars actress into shutting down her Instagram account" makes the whole affair sound MUCH more dramatic and newsworthy than the more honest but markedly less bombastic "Immature Star Wars fans harass Star Wars actress into shutting down her Instagram".  The Internet Hate Machine makes for better headlines than a bunch of neckbeards who are calling her nasty names because they think her character sucks.

 

11 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Way I hear it, the cast and crew actively encourage All The Pairings, and Oscar Isaac and John Boyega intentionally played up the ho yay in TFA. Obviously there was less time available to dedicate to it in TLJ, but I'm sure some fans are keeping their hopes alive.

Well that's good to hear.  If Star Trek is busily forgetting its roots and making xenophobia a virtue, maybe a more inclusive Galaxy Far Far Away is in order.

 

11 hours ago, kajnrig said:

I still don't think, or maybe I hope not, that the Finn/Rose thing will actually be a thing come IX. I've said before that I read that little "romantic" moment as more of Rose taking on the big sister role from her own big sister. (and I mean it's not like there isn't precedent for siblings and romance to intersect anyway amirite)

I don't know... my read of the dynamic between Finn and Rose in The Last Jedi was definitely more towards a romantic relationship.  The kiss and all, well, hard to write that off as big sister-ly when she idolizes him like that. 

[jvmacross]

1 hour ago, Mommar said:

FYI, the "Who shot JR..?" solution doesn't really make anybody happy either.

FYI...100% of the fans will never be 100% satisfied anyway...

[Chronocidal]

18 hours ago, sketchley said:

Anyhow... I've recently rewatched The Last Jedi, and while I couldn't divorce myself from some of the comments from here about lack of tactics (E.g. I found myself wondering why the First Order didn't fly a few ships in front of the fleeing...), I found the film disappointing for 2 reasons:

1) slow pace;  unlike other SW films -even the anti-climactic SWIII- this one never seems to build up any momentum.

2) the film doesn't appear to be about anything more then what you get on screen.  How can I put it?  It doesn't hint at or suggest something greater than what we're shown.

Don't get me wrong - I loved the film on the first viewing.  However, it seems to get worse on repeat viewings... (unlike The Force Awakens, which I really disliked on first viewing, but is inexplicably getting better on repeats... perhaps because it successfully captured the pacing energy from the original SW films?)

I think the bigger flaws get more obvious on repeated viewings, while the first time you see it, the tension over what's going to happen next is a fairly good distraction.

While I think the slow pace is a literal consequence of the main plot being a slow speed chase to run the Resistance out of fuel, it does pick up rather quickly (if jerkily so) once they arrive on Snoke's ship.  To me, that's the turning point where the movie starts getting decently fun to watch, because you can kind of handwave the string of terrible decisions that led the plot to this point, and pretend something that makes sense happened instead.

Your second point though is a larger issue that spans the entire new trilogy.  The New Republic dies in a spectacular CGI washout, and no one responds??  We never got a great scope of the galaxy in the original trilogy, but the prequels made every effort to make up for that, showing us hundreds, possibly thousands of representatives in the senate, showing just how big the universe really is.  Now you're telling me that the New Republic was so incredibly inept at ruling that every single New Republic military asset was destroyed in the single attack from the First Order?  Was the New Republic just that ineffective that no one cares that the seat of government over the galaxy at large disappeared in a puff of smoke?

TLJ just kind of continues that narrow view of everything.  Now we have the single cruiser supporting the Resistance being pursued (badly) by what looks like the entirety of the First Order.  It may not be, but if they had more ships, why not divert something to blockade the single ship they can't seem to catch up with?  Is the rest of the First Order busy conquering the rest of the galaxy now that the New Republic is gone?  But the opening crawl would seem to imply that the First Order already took over, in the single digit number of days since the end of TFA.

The overall impression I have at this point is that the galaxy at large doesn't even care about the First Order or the New Republic, and are content to just spend their days gambling in luxury, profiting off of the two whiny kids down the street who keep buying bigger and better guns to shoot at each other with.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Chronocidal

[no3Ljm]

Star Wars The Last Jedi is now available to stream on Netflix.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80192018

 

[kajnrig]

Nothing major here, I just thought this was funny.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-last-jedi-geophysicist-explains-why-that-resistance-fighter-was-smart-to-lick-salt-on

According to this geophysicist, licking rocks on Crait is not only totally normal but also tactically sound

[Scyla]

Here is Mr. Plinketts take on the Last Jedi:

Which reinforces my opinion that this movie is a mess.