So I stayed away from this thread and whatnot in the real world until we were able to see the movie which was last night (Christmas night). Movie theater was nearly full in a large theater (just the bottom portion right by the screen still had some seats left). Forgive me for taking out the spoiler tag parts due to quoting portions here and there of people's quotes. Hopefully as over 10 days has passed and quite a bit of the more recent talk on this thread (which at least has Spoiler in the title) contained spoiler type stuff I'm ok here for doing that. If you need me to do spoiler tags I can just let me know if it really bothers anyone.
Overall my husband and I liked the movie. I did feel some things here and there were not to my liking. Probably one of my favorite scenes was the Throne room for multiple reasons; the tension, the reveal of the why behind the force connection between the two, the fight sequence, the Snoke killing (which I honestly did not see coming in this movie rather than a later movie), etc
I am not an all-knowing Star Wars fan so my opinion comes from that. I don't read any extra stuff for backstories, etc. so details may not be known to me. Apologies for the longer post here I just took snippets of comments to piece together more my thoughts.
I didn't believe him at all about her backstory, I think he was playing her.
For that scene two thoughts went through my mind:
1) He's telling the truth from what he knows and what she remembers and knows
2) He's outright lying or bending the truth in order to lure her more over to him by way of strengthening the connection between the two (relying on each other, shared pasts, etc)
And then later on a third thought went through my mind in that Snoke, who openly admitted to manipulating the two with the forced connection fabricated a story.
The line from Kylo about remembering though throws a wrench here in that I'm not sure if she's remembering the truth, remembering what someone wants to remember, or what she is remembering is being taken out of context.
The casino heist just felt out of place though, but I understand what they were trying to do with it (war is a machine .. is there really good guys or bad guys when it comes to war) .. just didn't seem to fit with the rest of the movie.
The whole scene I would agree but some parts I made me think of it in different ways. I could see this as a political move given the current climate but I could also see it as an evolvement in the movies for the current audiences. There's good side and bad side but there's also the middle ground where you have people who may be removed enough from the issue that they remain more in the grey area.
Makes me wonder if the rebellion (and forgive me if this is already a known thing out there) knows they are getting devices to help fight the war from people who are giving devices to their enemies to help fight the war. This can be mirrored in real life too. Mercenaries have been around for long long time. Ones who fight on whatever side gives them what they want. The city they were in showcased how majority of things were being given to the first order who seemed to reward them the most. If the resistence showered the city with gold and excess would they help them out more than the first order.
Personally I didn't quite get that they were talking about the 1%ers like others thought.
2. Cut with the comedy. Please! It's nice to have a little. However, the comedy they are putting in TFA and now this movie is just one and done comedy for me. I haven't enjoyed seeing the comedy in TFA whenever I have watched it again.
I do agree at least TLJ. I enjoyed some of the humor injected in but there were times that I was like "ugh so it's just a current reference to try and make a connection to me" moment. It came off forced rather than a natural fluid humor.
4. Mark Hamill was great in this movie for what he had to portray. However, does anyone really think Luke Skywalker was not himself for the majority of the movie?
It's an interesting thing for me to watch what I think most saw in the past with a Luke who was mostly good. This version of Luke made me see an evolution of him. The years of fighting and loss and responsibility weighing him down but also that he's still has faults. The fact that he did even for a few seconds try to kill Kylo without much thought because he saw something bad for the future showed to me he's more human than this hero who can do no wrong and what all look up to.
There were a lot in my theater last night. I will say that there was not a lot of clapping after the film though in my theater which is strange.
There was quite a bit of clapping in our theater. Maybe Christmas had something to do with it? IDK
There wasn't hollering but there was more than half the theater clapping when it was over.
And I thought it was so out of the blue how Rose says she saved Finn because it's about who you love or something like that and then she kisses him. Where the heck did that come from?
Yeah that part I didn't get. I liked Rose as a character but all I could see is someone who just had her sister die, see someone abandon them, but no wait not abandon but go on a secret mission, etc. I could see admiration and respect but a love in the romantic sense-enough for her to kiss him? That was just not what seemed to match in my mind at least the direction.
In my mind, Leia should have taken on that responsibility as leader of the Resistance.
I will be in the minority of this. I know it would have helped given that Carrie Fisher is gone but to me that would have been the wrong move. Being a leader in the fiction sense doesn't mean you
always sacrifice yourself. It
can mean you sacrifice yourself at the right moment if that means the world will be at peace, the threat will be over completely if you do sacrifice yourself, etc.
More often than not leaders are the ones that by nature have to watch those around them that are aligned with them die for the cause or get hurt for the cause. They shoulder that burden of knowing great people sacrificed so they can continue to lead until the right moment comes.
I will admit I'm intrigued for sure about how Leia will fit in and what role she will play for the next movie.
I think what i don’t like the most about these movies is our heroes have such sad lives. Luke never married or had Ben, instead abandoning the force and living like a hermit for God knows how long, bitter and defeated. So different from our Luke who turned Anakin back to the light. Leia and Han never had a happy marriage or any calm. Their son is essentially the devil.
It wasn’t all sunshine in the expanded EU, but geez. It just seems like such a depressing life, especially for Luke.
Being married or having a child shouldn't be perceived as the way to a happy life. That's not realistic nor feasible even in real life. Not every person should have a child-I don't even know how our resources could handle that.
Heroes in fiction sense tend to be lonely ones. They shoulder a lot of tough stuff. I get why Leia and Han didn't have the most romantic lovely dovey marriage. Having had a large chunk of time passing between TFA and the original movies it's possible that sheer responsibility got to them. Han was always perceived as a roguish (in the charming sense), more carefree or at least had different responsiblities. Leia on the other hand had quite a lot of responsibilities. While well-matched in some ways other ways that I can see could have led to a less calm or 'happy' marriage. I'm sure also knowing their son went to the dark side also put a strain on the marriage.
As far as becoming a hermit. In the fiction sense here the toll it must take to be a leader, to be the one everyone looks up to, to try and win the battles and wars often with great costs, etc. Sometimes it's about being jaded or just mentally unable to continue on with the realities.
I wouldn't call Kylo the devil. Not by a long shot. Doing bad things doesn't make you the devil. And as far as other villians go Kylo is meek. He shows a questioning aspect that others don't exhibit. When you're really the devil you don't second guess what you're doing--you just do it and move on rather than pausing or reflecting on the emotional toll it took.
The problem with Rogue One (which I thought was a really good movie) is that like EP3 (which was *not* a really good movie), it's just so damn bleak. There's not a lot of incentive for repeat viewing unless you're into that kind of thing.
I'm sure that plays into a lot of the more negative responses.
I do agree on repeat viewing. Rogue One was a good movie, it really was. It was also a very sad movie too, necessary for setting up and showing us how things got to be, but still a very sad movie.
Some movies are just like that.
I just think kylos character is really angry/confused. I don’t think he’s evil per se, but conflicted, and I think this movie added more depth to him instead of the emo hot topic vibe from TFA.
I do agree. There was a lot more inner turmoil you got from Kylo this time around. You had someone who he could connect with telling him he can change himself when for a while now he's heard about forgetting who he was before and instead becoming someone like Vader.
I am still not sure he pulls it off (the character not the actor) as a true lead villian. He still seems more petulant boy with daddy issues than grand schemer.
I can see where you get that vibe.
I see it as he's unbalanced mentally. Clearly he didn't care about wiping out the resistence when Luke showed up--he became distracted and his own men were like
let's just get this whole thing over with and kill all the rebels whereas Kylo became too singularily focused on revenge and took his eye off the ultimate prize which cost him since the resistence got away.
But since I see him as mentally unbalanced I can see where the scale could get tipped the other direction. To me it brings up the question of was he ever really designed from the beginning as the true lead villian or someone who is currently a villian.
I'm sure I'm in the minority, or at least I was when I stopped reading to add my thoughts, but I liked the comedy. When Luke tells Rey to "reach out" and then tickels her with the branch was one of my favorite parts! "That's the Force! Wow! It must be really strong in you!" *SMACK
That scene was funny and pretty much all laughed for that. That was a part where the humor and comedy worked for me. But there was other stuff that just seemed forced or out of place in order to try and connect with current audiences.
