Star Wars: The Last Jedi (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

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Discussion

r11co

6,244 posts

229 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
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southendpier said:
I think that you need to look at the special treatment reviewers get when invited to review the film. It is a business.
Not to mention the cold-shoulder they will get from the same studio when the next blockbuster is released if they dare publish a negative review. The reviewers have their own careers to think about and human nature being what it is......

Audience reviewers have exactly zero to lose from being honest. Their motivation is to improve the next film, not secure their ticket to the next press-screening.

warch said:
but it was really good.
You are entitled to your opinion, but objectively it wasn't. Bits of it might have been good for reasons that contribute only partially to why people pay for the cinema experience, but overall it was a bad movie.

Edited by r11co on Saturday 21st April 08:25

JagLover

42,265 posts

234 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
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r11co said:
There was a point made by one of Half in the Bag guys days after the release of TLJ that there'll always be a core group of people who will say any big-release blockbuster that they invested their time to go and see was OK and they 'enjoyed it' because they lack the critical eye to spot the flaws. Essentially true.
Some of the reviews of The Last Jedi have been more entertaining than the actual film.

The Half in the bag one was particularly good. Yoda dancing in a thong biggrin. Don't give Disney any ideas to piss on the franchise even more Stoklasa.

Anyhow despite my many criticisms the Last Jedi is not a complete disaster. It has some good scenes and some stunning production values. In looks at any rate this is firmly set in the Star Wars universe.

A 48% audience score on RT is about right IMO. Bad writing driving what could have easily been a very good film into a below average one.

As with any movie that is neither brilliantly good or diabolically bad many like it and many dislike it, and that's cool. Just don't invent reasons for why people disliked the movie and particularly don't make claims like "there is nothing objectively wrong with the movie" when there are many reviews on YouTube where people have gone through this scene by scene and pointed out the cr*p writing.



Edited by JagLover on Saturday 21st April 08:41

JagLover

42,265 posts

234 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
r11co said:
southendpier said:
I think that you need to look at the special treatment reviewers get when invited to review the film. It is a business.
Not to mention the cold-shoulder they will get from the same studio when the next blockbuster is released if they dare publish a negative review. The reviewers have their own careers to think about and human nature being what it is......

Audience reviewers have exactly zero to lose from being honest. Their motivation is to improve the next film, not secure their ticket to the next press-screening.
Undoubtedly a factor, but that doesn't stop the critics trashing many a blockbuster.

As pointed out before political factors are probably far more important. They got a free pass because of their "message", just as Ghostbusters did.



chris watton

22,477 posts

259 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
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JagLover said:
Undoubtedly a factor, but that doesn't stop the critics trashing many a blockbuster.

As pointed out before political factors are probably far more important. They got a free pass because of their "message", just as Ghostbusters did.
yep, the same is happening with game reviews, regarding politics. A couple of top titles were given luke warm to bad reviews recently, but the gameers made up their own mind.

They keep this up and they will become completely irrelevant.

JagLover

42,265 posts

234 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
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This is a somewhat long post and only connects with Star Wars at the end.

I would like to address the nonsense that people have an issue with this movie due to casting. Whether that be of "Strong" women or of ethnic minorities.

The issue around ethnic minorities can be quickly dismissed. The biggest movie star of the moment is undoubtedly The Rock, of black, Polynesian and Irish descent. This isn't the 1960s and the relative lack of black actors in recent typical Oscar bait movies shouldn't disguise this.

Turning to women I want to first talk about the difference between fantasy and reality. One of my all time favourite TV series is Generation Kill and I also recently watched 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Both were based on true stories and presented themselves as being an accurate portrayal of events. Both were grunts eyes views of the action and you can dispute certain aspects, but both feel "real". It hardly needs pointing out that neither have slim balletic girls waving their legs in the air and 200 pound men going flying. Both have war as an exclusively male domain. In both the key male characters have undergone years of training and then been tested in combat.

An interesting feature of the citizen soldiers of WW2 is how many couldn't bring themselves to fire at the enemy. These Recon marines (Generation Kill) and ex special forces (13 hours) kill without hesitation and suffer little regret as long as those killed are the enemy. When they are not fighting the enemy the men in both spend their time working out or engaging in hand to hand combat practice.

A key focus of Generation Kill is "Iceman" one of the leading Sergeants in the platoon and one of the most experienced. We see him expertly kill the enemy in ambush after ambush and the only time we see him breakdown is when his unit has killed a child by mistake.

Whatever your profession I would argue that this is the idealised male archetype. Caring for others, brave, and killing (if necessary) only for the right reasons, but doing so without hesitation or remorse.

We recently had a thread about a Burglar being killed. If their loved ones were in danger I imagine most men would wish for the courage to confront an intruder, the ability to fight them, and the will to do whatever is necessary to protect their wife and children. The same traits as these soldiers are manifesting on the battlefield.

Is this however the idealised female archetype?. If you were out the house would you expect your wife to meet these hypothetical intruders in the same manner?. I would argue not and outside the world of fantasy the female archetype remains rooted in the reality of the women we know.

What is the relevance of this to Star Wars and its casting controversy?. Well I would argue the most common feature of modern sci-fi/fantasy franchises is to give us the standard idealised male archetype but just in female form and men love it. How would Resident Evil or the Underworld have had as many movies as they have without Milla Jovovich or Kate Beckinsale?. The common feature of all these women is while they may look pretty they have few if any feminine personality traits. Hence why IMO men respond to them so well.

I would say therefore for this reason that having the "Luke" character this time round be a pretty girl was a positive with most fans not a negative.

The problem therefore is not the "strong women" of the Last Jedi but the way the script has to follow a certain, nonsensical, path to bring in its third wave feminist message.
Why was Rey not trained by Luke?. They had setup the time needed for this after all in the previous movie. With Kylo needing to be trained also. Is it perhaps that a woman has to know everything already? and cannot be mansplained too.

Why didn't purple hair explain her plan?, a decision which drives most of the plot. The Rebels have always been fairly egalitarian with their briefings after all and it is a Captain asking not the deck hand. This could have been written in so many ways to make the side mission of Finn reasonable. You can only assume that it was written as it was to have the strong woman putting down a man for his reckless male characteristics.

So it goes on throughout the movie. The problem was that the demands of the plot came second to the political message.


4x4Tyke

6,506 posts

131 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
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The problem with Rey, is not being a girl. The problem is lazy scripting, rather than building a character showing coherent progression, they used duex machine and ended with a Mary Sue. That lazy scripting also shows in other ways, like the weak way the acts and scenes are sewn together.

warch

2,941 posts

153 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
Actually I'd rather trust a review from a trusted reviewer, my preferred ones being the Guardian and Empire both of whom scored it 4 stars. Neither have ever shown any tendency towards going easy on a big film, indeed the Guardian are notoriously harsh on Hollywood blockbusters, or anything that isn't an independent production about female goat herders in Helmand.

The thing is that the internet is now full of amateur film reviewers and bloggers. Few of these are capable of reviewing films in an objective fashion, usually because they have a fixed opinion on what the film should be like. Additionally it is much easier to raise internet hits by using click baity titles like 'Why Star Wars sucks' or 'Ten things wrong with the new Star Wars film'.

Apparently The Last Jedi got quite a low score on Rotten Tomatoes because a hard core of people weren't happy with the storyline/treatment of the characters and spammed the site resulting in an low average result.

chris watton

22,477 posts

259 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
warch said:
Actually I'd rather trust a review from a trusted reviewer, my preferred ones being the Guardian and Empire both of whom scored it 4 stars. Neither have ever shown any tendency towards going easy on a big film, indeed the Guardian are notoriously harsh on Hollywood blockbusters, or anything that isn't an independent production about female goat herders in Helmand.

The thing is that the internet is now full of amateur film reviewers and bloggers. Few of these are capable of reviewing films in an objective fashion, usually because they have a fixed opinion on what the film should be like. Additionally it is much easier to raise internet hits by using click baity titles like 'Why Star Wars sucks' or 'Ten things wrong with the new Star Wars film'.

Apparently The Last Jedi got quite a low score on Rotten Tomatoes because a hard core of people weren't happy with the storyline/treatment of the characters and spammed the site resulting in an low average result.
It takes a lot more than a 'Hardcore fan' to effect the review ratings, these are exception and not the norm. I went in to watch it without looking too deeply into any reviews, I just knew that, based on the reviews I had seen, I was 100% sure I'd love it, and fully expected Luke to die somehow. When we can out of the cinema, there was silence, the audience didn't really say much, almost like shell shock at what we just watched.

Clearly, the reviewers were less than honest, and nothing anyone says can change my view on that. I went into this blind, and felt I was lied to, to get me into the cinema.

I know it made a lot of money, but I would think that executives are thinking they could have made a lot more - wasn't it pulled in China very quickly due to the audience feeling insulted by its stupidity. What does that say about us in the West who cannot see anything wrong with it, are we now living in an Idiocracy-type society, where some cannot tell good from bad?

JagLover

42,265 posts

234 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
warch said:
Apparently The Last Jedi got quite a low score on Rotten Tomatoes because a hard core of people weren't happy with the storyline/treatment of the characters and spammed the site resulting in an low average result.
A 7.3 on imdb from 365,000 votes.

Of the Star Wars movies only the first two prequels scored lower.

Halb

53,012 posts

182 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
JagLover said:
Some of the reviews of The Last Jedi have been more entertaining than the actual film.

The Half in the bag one was particularly good. Yoda dancing in a thong biggrin. Don't give Disney any ideas to piss on the franchise even more Stoklasa.

Anyhow despite my many criticisms the Last Jedi is not a complete disaster. It has some good scenes and some stunning production values. In looks at any rate this is firmly set in the Star Wars universe.

A 48% audience score on RT is about right IMO. Bad writing driving what could have easily been a very good film into a below average one.
The RLM media review is one of the best and most fair handed. Frankly, the quality of the reviews on yotuube far outstrip any so called professional reviewers. They seem to have a better handle on how films work, though I do like Kermode as well, he has a good grasp.

I checked and at 47% TLJ is actually the worst received film, even worse than TPM, not even mentioning the huge disparity in the opinion of the public and the reviewers, a strange occurrence in itself. I do not as of yet see Disney winding their neck in though, I guess SOlo might affect this.

warch

2,941 posts

153 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
Proves my point really. The Last Jedi is by any measure a way better film than any of the prequels, so for it to score below them suggests that the scoring system used by imdb/rt is flawed or open to abuse.

p1stonhead

25,489 posts

166 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
warch said:
Proves my point really. The Last Jedi is by any measure a way better film than any of the prequels, so for it to score below them suggests that the scoring system used by imdb/rt is flawed or open to abuse.
No way. It’s worse than the prequels by miles in my book.

Halb

53,012 posts

182 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
warch said:
Proves my point really. The Last Jedi is by any measure a way better film than any of the prequels, so for it to score below them suggests that the scoring system used by imdb/rt is flawed or open to abuse.
Which measures?

warch

2,941 posts

153 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
p1stonhead said:
warch said:
Proves my point really. The Last Jedi is by any measure a way better film than any of the prequels, so for it to score below them suggests that the scoring system used by imdb/rt is flawed or open to abuse.
No way. It’s worse than the prequels by miles in my book.
Now I know you're trolling. Actually they were fairly good films ruined by absolutely awful scripting and stilted acting. I always felt rather sorry for the cast of the prequels, because I get the impression that no one was around to stand up to George Lucas and his traditionally lackadaisical directing style.

Nik da Greek

2,503 posts

149 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
warch said:
p1stonhead said:
warch said:
Proves my point really. The Last Jedi is by any measure a way better film than any of the prequels, so for it to score below them suggests that the scoring system used by imdb/rt is flawed or open to abuse.
No way. It’s worse than the prequels by miles in my book.
Now I know you're trolling. Actually they were fairly good films ruined by absolutely awful scripting and stilted acting. I always felt rather sorry for the cast of the prequels, because I get the impression that no one was around to stand up to George Lucas and his traditionally lackadaisical directing style.
Yep, foul redcard The prequels were outright terribly written. Again, only rescued by superb visuals ...except for Annakin riding a giant grass flea thing, which is still one of the worst pieces of CGi ever. Ray Harryhausen rubber dinosaurs were more convincing. I still want to retire to Naboo, by the lake, though

p1stonhead

25,489 posts

166 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
Well considering it’s subjective I definitely think TLJ is the worst of all the Star Wars films.

JagLover

42,265 posts

234 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
warch said:
Actually I'd rather trust a review from a trusted reviewer, my preferred ones being the Guardian and Empire both of whom scored it 4 stars. Neither have ever shown any tendency towards going easy on a big film, indeed the Guardian are notoriously harsh on Hollywood blockbusters, or anything that isn't an independent production about female goat herders in Helmand.
warch said:
Proves my point really. The Last Jedi is by any measure a way better film than any of the prequels, so for it to score below them suggests that the scoring system used by imdb/rt is flawed or open to abuse.
Empire originally rated The Phantom Menace four stars

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/empire-magazine...

Once everyone had gone to the cinema, and the studio had its money, they revised this to three stars.




warch

2,941 posts

153 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
I can remember the original Star Wars rated at three stars in the Radio Times for years during the 80s and 90s. Its five now iirc.

HorneyMX5

5,308 posts

149 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
p1stonhead said:
warch said:
Proves my point really. The Last Jedi is by any measure a way better film than any of the prequels, so for it to score below them suggests that the scoring system used by imdb/rt is flawed or open to abuse.
No way. It’s worse than the prequels by miles in my book.
I went to the midnight showing and therefore had only early trad media reviews and the trailers as my influence.

I walked out and felt as let down as I did when I walked out of Phantom Menace. But this was worse. TPM at least had the opportunity to be the first Star Wars film in years and that gave it some leeway with me. TLJ followed on from probably one of the best films in the series, Rogue One, and it fell horribly flat.

I ought to give it a second watch to be sure but I feel no urge to. I’ve watched TFA and RO numerous times now.

Halb

53,012 posts

182 months

Saturday 21st April 2018
quotequote all
Prequels have many issues, I don't think the visuals are that great in my opinion. They have awful acting, mostly, some horribly miscast parts...the story arc is pretty decent, it was just executed poorly...for the most part. It also didn't make sense at some points. It smelled a tad of hubris.


warch said:
I can remember the original Star Wars rated at three stars in the Radio Times for years during the 80s and 90s. Its five now iirc.
I don't know what the professionals thought way back, but the first two are pretty perfect examples of cinema, I can recall the first two always being ranked highly, there's a reason that Star Wars is 13 in the AFI top 100 and it being preserved in 1989 as a cultural icon, it's rewatchability is a good indicator, rewatchability of a film is normally a good indicator of quality. The new ones, the poor plot structure denies them that, even though they look good, like a beautifully garnished cack sandwich. There are certainly good bits in there, but the mismatched humour and puns will age them horribly, I doubt they'd spawn a franchise or if they'll be beloved or watched in 40 years time. From the sounds of it the actors had less leeway; Mark, Harrison and Carrie would have been the oldhands here, but they were simply told how it was gonna go, back in '74 Guinness, Cushing could guide their dialogue, I can recall Guinness doing so in interviews.
I think back in the day there was a sneery attitude to certain genres, especially in UK circles, I can recall Clint Eastwood getting it, but then later on Clint's films were looked at again.

Edited by Halb on Saturday 21st April 14:58