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[Pejo]

I agree with you OP. Out of all 3 of the new trilogy, I hated 8 the least. That's not to say they're all awful movies and ruined so many characters. TRoS was by far my least favorite, what a shit movie.

 

[pramod]

Oh for sure, by no means am I defending TLJ or RJ or any of that. I just think as far as Rey specifically is concerned it could've led to something a bit more interesting than what people thought we were gonna get before TLJ, and what we ended up getting after.

Yeah, I think RJ was actually trying to do something with Rey and setting her up to be different from just another generic expected force user-descendant to explain her powers. Rey had potential to be the most interesting character if they actually carried through with this setup. But instead they gave up on it and went back to the most boring lazy origin possible.

The baffling thing is that RJ went thru all the trouble already to setup the "Rey is a nobody" thing.

 

[sobaka770]

I am always interested on which kind of story TLJ defenders think Lucasfilm should have done after TLJ.
There is literally nothing left anymore.

Snoke was dead.
Kylo Ren is a joke. It's been shown again and again he doesn't stand any chance against Rey.
Hux is a joke. Shown as a clown type character in TLJ.
Luke is dead.
Han Solo is dead.
Poe was nerfed beyond belief in TLJ.
Finn's Stormtrooper backstory amounted to nothing.
The rebellion is 13 people chatting happy on the Millenium Falcon.

And Rey is as boring as watching wall paint dry. Her parents were "nothing", anyway, like Kylo said in TLJ. Her whole story line and main motivator being trashed by that.

So, yeah. RoS was shit.
But there was literally nothing to salvage from the wreck that was TLJ.

TLJ singlehandedly destroyed one of the biggest franchises of the last 100 years.

This is one of those comments which truly baffles me. There are very few actual movies with proper set up for the finish line and even movies that do e.g. Avengers 3-4, Matrix 2-3, Pirates of the Caribbean 2-3 still feel like 2 disjointed experiences and don't nail the ending. And we're talking pre-planned pre-written movies shot back-to-back! But let's talk Star Wars specifically.

First of all let's address ESB as I guess the consensus is that it was great and what TLJ was supposed to be. Well what hooks did it really give to wrap the plot up in a single movie: Han is missing, Empire is as strong as ever, Vader's a beast, Luke's crushed by revelation and lost a limb, Emperor is this Godlike hologram we know nothing about. There is no real story hook to wrap things up in 2 hours. I guess they were going to Tatooine to save Han at the end of ESB? That only took 40 minutes of filler before final confrontation.

Episode 6 very conveniently brings all characters around the same location to literally wrap up the whole conflict over in a single spot. It nerfs Vader, Imperial troops get wiped out by Ewoks, DS2 is destroyed etc etc. Now you can say that RotJ is just not as good of a movie but the truth is that ESB didn't really set anything up for the end either, only a bunch of loose threads to follow. What RotJ did however is to follow through the existing narrative and create a whole new plot (Death Star 2) to bring characters into final conflict organically.

Let's switch to TLJ - there are also no clear story hooks that are left to follow. The main point of narrative is Resistance is rebuilding as an underground movement and Kylo Ren having completed his journey to dark side assuming control over his new "Empire". However ESB did the same thing, and there are small story hooks to follow in TLJ: the ancient first Jedi books in Rey's possession, Kylo Ren completely turning to the dark side while challenged by Hux, the resistance becoming more than just a Rebel group but a societal revolution as described in TLJ. Was any of this fleshed out? No - but it doesn't need to, there was a whole movie to get us to the end point. But to say there's nothing left is frankly baffling.

All that was needed is to follow the characters and story organically. Kylo should never have been redeemed, his fall was complete in TLJ after Rey literally shuts the door on their connection. Poe completed his journey to become a Rebellion leader. Finn was ready to fight for the cause. Resistance needed to rebuild, Kylo needs to assert control over himself and the galaxy. JJ could've made another gimmick akin to second Death Star to create conflict and bring characters to end state and resolve everything. But instead he went with resetting the characters, resurrecting an old villain while redeeming the existing one, totally rewriting major TLJ points, sidelining character - basically a hack job based on internet mob rules. You don't have to like TLJ, but you gotta recognise that this was a movie with a clear vision, character arcs, themes and a conclusion to that vision would've made for a much stronger trilogy and a better reaction overall.

In general: you don't always need to set up the next movie with obvious hooks, it's rarely done and very few franchises actually go through such meticulous planning. The only success story we have is arguably Marvel and even then it's hard to say how much of their stuff is pre-written ahead of time when Endgame was a weak ending to Infinity War even with all the reshoots. For Episode 9, there was enough material to work with - heroes were all in place after TLJ, villains were known and dangerous, evil force was dominating the galaxy. I can probably write several potential stories to wrap this up without retconning shit just to satisfy stupid mindless internet mobs.

 

[Come On Tars]

Agree. For someone who ultimately doesn’t care about lore,this one was the most enjoyable movie. Lot of banger scenes and intrigue.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

This is one of those comments which truly baffles me. There are very few actual movies with proper set up for the finish line and even movies that do e.g. Avengers 3-4, Matrix 2-3 still feel like 2 disjointed experiences and don't nail the ending. And we're talking pre-planned pre-written movies shot back-to-back! But let's talk Star Wars specifically.

First of all let's address ESB as I guess the consensus is that it was great and what TLJ was supposed to be. Well what hooks did it really give to wrap the plot up in a single movie: Han is missing, Empire is as strong as ever, Vader's a beast, Luke's crushed by revelation and lost a limb, Emperor is this Godlike hologram we know nothing about. There is no real story hook to wrap things up in 2 hours. I guess they were going to Tatooine to save Han at the end of ESB? That only took 40 minutes of filler before final confrontation.

Episode 6 very conveniently brings all characters around the same location to literally wrap up the whole conflict over in a single spot. It nerfs Vader, Imperial troops get wiped out by Ewoks, DS2 is destroyed etc etc. Now you can say that RotJ is just not as good of a movie but the truth is that ESB didn't really set anything up for the end either, only a bunch of loose threads to follow. What RotJ did however is to follow through the existing narrative and create a whole new plot (Death Star 2) to bring characters into final conflict organically.

Let's switch to TLJ - there are also no clear story hooks that are left to follow. The main point of narrative is Resistance is rebuilding as an underground movement and Kylo Ren having completed his journey to dark side assuming control over his new "Empire". However ESB did the same thing, and there are small story hooks to follow in TLJ: the ancient first Jedi books in Rey's possession, Kylo Ren completely turning to the dark side while challenged by Hux, the resistance becoming more than just a Rebel group but a societal revolution as described in TLJ. Was any of this fleshed out? No - but it doesn't need to, there was a whole movie to get us to the end point. But to say there's nothing left is frankly baffling.

All that was needed is to follow the characters and story organically. Kylo should never have been redeemed, his fall was complete in TLJ after Rey literally shuts the door on their connection. Poe completed his journey to become a Rebellion leader. Finn was ready to fight for the cause. Resistance needed to rebuild, Kylo needs to assert control over himself and the galaxy. JJ could've made another gimmick akin to second Death Star to create conflict and bring characters to end conflict. But instead he went with resetting the characters, resurrecting an old villain while redeeming the existing one, totally rewriting major TLJ points, sidelining character - basically a hack job based on internet mob rules. You don't have to like TLJ, but you gotta recognise that this was a movie with a clear vision, character arcs, themes and a conclusion to that vision would've made for a much stronger trilogy and a better reaction overall.

In general: you don't always need to set up the next movie with obvious hooks, it's rarely done and very few franchises actually go through such meticulous planning. The only success story we have is arguably Marvel and even then it's hard to say how much of their stuff is pre-written ahead of time when Endgame was a weak ending to Infinity War even with all the reshoots. For Episode 9, there was enough material to work with - heroes were all in place after TLJ, villains were known and dangerous, evil force was dominating the galaxy. I can probably write several potential stories to wrap this up without retconning shit just to satisfy stupid mindless internet mobs.

At the end of ESB, the rebellion is shown to be strong, with lots of cruisers, etc.
Han is was taken captive but is alive (story hook). Luke was defeated but is alive and you know he will grow from this experience (story hook).

TLJ doesn't have anything at the end. Everybody's story has been told, and these people are either dead, been shown as inneffective or at the end of the road for their story thread.

RJ just didn't give a fuck to make this movie work within a trilogy or even within the greater framework of Star Wars. He wanted to tell his little story, trashed all story threads of the former movie, shitted upon the characters of the OT, gave not shit about the lore and mechanics of the SW universe, and just did his own thing.

There was nothing left of interest at the end of TLJ.
JJ pulled RoS out of his ass, but don't try to convince anyone that any other director would have come up with any kind of interesting follow up to the end of TLJ, where nobody gave any fuck anymore about these people standing there idly chatting with the "sense of adventure music" after losing a few hundred people. This movie was tonally all over the place, and this was its final gravestone.

Sorry, but I will never get TLJ defenders. You are just a bunch of hipsters to me with no former connection to Star Wars who want to play the "I am so special"-card with no substance to sustain this in any manner.

A Star Wars movie with a "your mother"-joke.

 

[Codes 208]

9 tried to hard to fix the issues with 8 and lost a lot of its own identity, and it was pretty meh to begin. The fact 8 exists for this to happen says to me nah, it is not the best but rather the worst. 7 comes off as a safe copy pasta of 4 but at the same time I atleast found it entertaining enough to watch because it was based on a better movie.

8 was just a bland and offensively terrible movie.

 

[Reptars Revenge]

Movie was so bad 9 didn’t have a chance.

 

[sobaka770]

At the end of ESB, the rebellion is shown to be strong, with lots of cruisers, etc.
Han is was taken captive but is alive (story hook). Luke was defeated but is alive and you know he will grow from this experience (story hook).

TLJ doesn't have anything at the end. Everybody's story has been told, and these people are either dead, been shown as inneffective or at the end of the road for their story thread.

At the end of TLJ:
- Resistance is shown to be small but people are on their side - i.e. billions are behind them.
- Rey is alive and will grow as she got the training and mentor (Leia)
- Han being alive is not a story hook for the endgame of Star Wars OT. In fact the whole Jabba sequence has no effect on the main conflict and only wastes time in grand scheme of things.

Sorry but if you read my post only to repeat same baseless arguments that TLJ has nothing after I literally gave you the explanation for why neither TLJ nor ESB have story hooks and why story hooks are not needed when you have good writers then you're really the only one missing the substance of things.

 

[O-N-E]

The best is the one with Babu Frik.

Stuff happened in that one.

 

[godhandiscen]

Nahh, space zombie Leia was trash writing that would be laughed at even on fanfic forums.
There is no “best” movie on that trilogy. The whole thing needs to be forgotten.

 

[Punished Miku]

Nahh, space zombie Leia was trash writing that would be laughed at even on fanfic forums.
There is no “best” movie on that trilogy. The whole thing needs to be forgotten.

I almost blocked out that awful scene.

Thanks for reminding me

 

[Sakura Doritos]

Good for you OP. Being wrong about Star Wars just means you still care enough to bother. I was once like you. Then I hit the view number of no return. That one time you watch again and it just clicks in your head that you actually love or hate a thing. I chose hate. I was right. Tell your sister, I was right.

 

[pramod]

At the end of TLJ:
- Resistance is shown to be small but people are on their side - i.e. billions are behind them.
- Rey is alive and will grow as she got the training and mentor (Leia)
- Han being alive is not a story hook for the endgame of Star Wars OT. In fact the whole Jabba sequence has no effect on the main conflict and only wastes time in grand scheme of things.

Sorry but if you read my post only to repeat same baseless arguments that TLJ has nothing after I literally gave you the explanation for why neither TLJ nor ESB have story hooks and why story hooks are not needed when you have good writers then you're really the only one missing the substance of things.

Yeah I used to hate TLJ for the same reasons many others do, that it messed up everything and left nothing to carry on in the next movie. But now I realize that isn't true. RJ did set things up for something that could have been truly original and unexpected, but the problem is, it would have taken courage, and actually good creative writing, to see it through. Neither Disney nor JJ had the guts or talent to pull it off.

For example they could have just continued with Kylo being the completely irredeemable villain, and Rey while strong but still weaker than Kylo, has to somehow figure out the best way to save the galaxy. Does she have to kill him? Join him? Work with him? There were a lot of of possibilities. It might have pissed off a lot of "fans" but it might have ended up making a more satisfying trilogy.

 

[Punished Miku]

Yeah I used to hate TLJ for the same reasons many others do, that it messed up everything and left nothing to carry on in the next movie. But now I realize that isn't true. RJ did set things up for something that could have been truly original and unexpected, but the problem is, it would have taken courage, and actually good creative writing, to see it through. Neither Disney nor JJ had the guts or talent to pull it off.

For example they could have just continued with Kylo being the completely irredeemable villain, and Rey while strong but still weaker than Kylo, has to somehow figure out the best way to save the galaxy. Does she have to kill him? Join him? Work with him? There were a lot of of possibilities. It might have pissed off a lot of "fans" but it might have ended up making a more satisfying trilogy.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

At the end of TLJ:
- Resistance is shown to be small but people are on their side - i.e. billions are behind them.

13 people. And nobody gave a fuck in the whole movie helping them.

- Rey is alive and will grow as she got the training and mentor (Leia)

How does she need to grow, when she is already the greatest force power user Star Wars has ever seen?
We already know Kylo is a wuss and no match for her.

- Han being alive is not a story hook for the endgame of Star Wars OT. In fact the whole Jabba sequence has no effect on the main conflict and only wastes time in grand scheme of things.

Yet we have NOTHING to make a further movie about after TLJ.
After ESB, we want to know what happens with Han, since he was one of the main protagonists of the existing two movies.

Sorry but if you read my post only to repeat same baseless arguments that TLJ has nothing after I literally gave you the explanation for why neither TLJ nor ESB have story hooks and why story hooks are not needed when you have good writers then you're really the only one missing the substance of things.

You are talking shit. ESB is perfectly setting up the next movie, while TLJ has literally nothing going on after it.
Mind, I don't debate here that RoS was shit.

It's just that TLJ did its own thing, buried and destroyed everything set up in TFA, and was a shit hole of a movie.

And sorry, if you want to defend "your mom", the nonsense bombers, blue alien tit milk, retard Snoke who fell for the lamest trick in the galaxy, destroying Luke as a character, Mary Poppins Space Leia and Holdo maneuvre in a Star Wars film, it's hard to take your opinion seriously.

And equating the shit hole that was TLJ with ESB is laughable.

Honestly, just stop.

 

[showernota]

I consider TFA to be a better movie, and TROS was more memorable.

I really enjoyed Luke on the island in TLJ, too bad he died there.

 

[sobaka770]

13 people. And nobody gave a fuck in the whole movie helping them.


How does she need to grow, when she is already the greatest force power user Star Wars has ever seen?
We already know Kylo is a wuss and no match for her.

Yet we have NOTHING to make a further movie about after TLJ.
After ESB, we want to know what happens with Han, since he was one of the main protagonists of the existing two movies.

You are talking shit. ESB is perfectly setting up the next movie, while TLJ has literally nothing going on after it.
Mind, I don't debate here that RoS was shit.

It's just that TLJ did its own thing, buried and destroyed everything set up in TFA, and was a shit hole of a movie.

And sorry, if you want to defend "your mom", the nonsense bombers, blue alien tit milk, retard Snoke who fell for the lamest trick in the galaxy, destroying Luke as a character, Mary Poppins Space Leia and Holdo maneuvre in a Star Wars film, it's hard to take your opinion seriously.

And equating the shit hole that was TLJ with ESB is laughable.

Honestly, just stop.

I had definitely no issues with green alien milk or Snoke dying or the awesome visual which was Holdo ramming for sure. Leia visual was not great in technical sense but story-wise it was an awesome development for the character.

The only issue I have is that people are simply not being honest about why they dislike TLJ and therefore give crap arguments like: TLJ didn't set up the next movie or pinpoint minor scenes. Mind you, neither ANH or ESB did any better set up either, so once again, this makes 0 sense.

 

[Neolombax]

Liked TFA the best out of the sequel trilogy. I did not like TLJ, and hated TROS. TROS was such a cringe fest.

 

[Porcile]

It was one of those modern blockbuster movies where you come out of the theatre thinking "that was kinda aight" and by the time you get to the car to go home you've already started to dissect how awful it was. Episode 9 on the other hand was clearly awful from the beginning.

 

[McCarth]

TFA is by far the best for me. TLJ was alright, but just dropped the ball on so many opportunities TFA set up that could've been taken in any direction, and then in turn TRS tried too hard to veer back.

It's a shame, but it's still an enjoyable trilogy.

 

[StormCell]

ST was bad enough that I think they should consider making the ST non-cannon. In fact, the OT was best on its own without so much contextual story added around it.

That said, if I'm to be completely honest, and this could have to do with my age at the time, I actually enjoyed the Phantom Menace faaaaar more than I've enjoyed any of the ST. Just felt like I experienced a lot more new stuff while watching that one. I also thought Attack of the Clones wasn't bad.

Everything since... has only hurt the franchise more.

 

[oagboghi2]

TLJ is not only the best of ST it's only second to Empire in terms of SW movie quality. Abrams really dropped the ball by retconning half of the stuff that Rian set up and instead of closing the story of Kylo Ren descent he wrote a trilogy in a single movie with another planet-destroying weapon.

Too bad that people today are hooked on Marvel easy-digestible brand of entertainment. The whiplash they would've gotten if a boring and slow "half-of-the-movie-is-a-boring-chase" ESB was to be released today would be unfathomable.

The only thing worst than the last Jedi are it's stupid defenders.

The amount of pure shit and holier than thou arguments I've seen people conjure up just to defend that awful movie is amazing. How people could have the audacity to criticize Marvel or DC films, but praise that dreck is truly something else.

 

[Nester99]

7 is the beat.
lay off the drugs

 

[TyphoonStruggle]

TLJ had potential but it completely shit the bed. The movie would be significantly improved if Rey grasped Kylo’s hand after Snoke died and ended on a dark note.

 

[PaddyOCanager]

I had definitely no issues with green alien milk or Snoke dying or the awesome visual which was Holdo ramming for sure. Leia visual was not great in technical sense but story-wise it was an awesome development for the character.

The only issue I have is that people are simply not being honest about why they dislike TLJ and therefore give crap arguments like: TLJ didn't set up the next movie or pinpoint minor scenes. Mind you, neither ANH or ESB did any better set up either, so once again, this makes 0 sense.

Why do you "honestly" compare this movie's quality to the OT at all? If you care about TLJ and want to defend it that's cool, but no one needs to defend the OT because it stands up for itself 40+ years later. The OT has issues for sure, but validating it vs TLJ is a stupid conversation period.

 

[Davey Cakes]

Force Awakens was hope. Last Jedi was despair.

I still haven't seen RoS.

 

[Davey Cakes]

I consider TFA to be a better movie, and TROS was more memorable.

I really enjoyed Luke on the island in TLJ, too bad he died there.

If TLJ had cut the entire Canto Bight segment in favor of more Luke+Rey on the island, it would've been a far better movie.

 

[showernota]

If TLJ had cut the entire Canto Bight segment in favor of more Luke+Rey on the island, it would've been a far better movie.

Completely agree. I know a lot of people had an issue with Luke's portrayal, but I kind of dug it. I didn't like the "I'm going to kill my nephew. Eh, nevermind. OH SHIT I RUINED IT!" reason why everything happened, didn't feel very Luke-like to me after the OT. But depressed Luke was interesting. Cut out Canto Blight and put in more of that, and fully commit to subverting expectations and have the movie end with Rey joining Ben.

All we really got was 152 minutes of film devoted to killing Luke and 99% of the rebels, pretty piss poor setup for the middle of a trilogy.

 

[PaulBizkit]

They are all trash but TLJ at least had some memorable(but dumb) scenes. The throne room. Poe vs the Dreadnought. Space Leia. And Luke force projecting himself across the galaxy was pretty badass.

TROS is of course at the bottom of the heap but now that i look back, there really was nothing that special about TFA besides the nostalgia factor.

i'm sorry for what i'm about to say, I don't want to attack you, but all of those scenes you mentioned were badly executed and/or cringe. Space Leia was the final nail in the coffin, i knew SW was dead in that single cringe inducing moment.

The Last Jedi is a disaster, is boring, made all previous major plot point pointless and created ITS OWN set of pointless plot points. And the worst part is that Rian Johnson just didn't care about anything, he made a movie he wanted and then fucked off, leaving a mess for JJ to repair.

The only good thing about TLJ is what we don't see, which is the intention of moving away from the norm and do something different. Next time, don't waste 20 minutes in a casino planet freeing cgi animals, Rian.

EP7 is a 7
EP8 is a 3
EP9 is a 3.5

Come back, george, we forgive you