Star Wars: The Last Jedi

[scottcr]

TFA made it pretty clear that things went wrong with Luke's training of Ben and some others - and Luke did a runner and hadn't been seen since.  

 

If anything, TLJ re-establishes Luke as the ultimate hero who inspires folks across the galaxy.

[scottcr]

What blows my mind is that Mark Hamill is 3 years old than Alex Guinness was when he played Ben Kenobi.

[SpagMasterSwift]

Luke Skywalker has fucked off.

In his absence, the comedic FIRST ORDER has risen

from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest

until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed.

[BossSaru]

48 minutes ago, matt0 said:

My favourite Luke moment in the film was...

 

  Hide contents

...the line "If you strike me down in anger, I'll always be with you." It felt like he was coming to terms with his moment of weakness where he attempted to kill Ben, but also like it was his interpretation of what Obi Wan Kenobi meant by "if you strike me down I'll become more powerful than you can ever imagine". An interpretation he'd possibly arrived at years after the fact, maybe even at that exact moment.

 

 

They should take this one step further by

 

adding scenes to Eps 5&6, or another spinoff, where Darth Vader is constantly plagued by ghost Obi Wan trolling him.

"Well done Anakin. You just lost the Death Star to a fucking farmer. You fucking idiot"

"Nice goo tank arsehole. Was that the prize you got for winning the 'most children slaughtered' competition?"

"What does this big red button do? You don't know if I can press it do you? Maybe I can and maybe I can't. Oooh, what about this even bigger red button?"

"Why not force strangle another general to let off some steam? Seems to be working well so far."

"Let me get this straight - you thought it would be a good idea to cut of his hand and then tell him that he is your son? How hard did I hit you back on Mustafar?"

 

[stefcha]

6 minutes ago, SpagMasterSwift said:

Luke Skywalker has fucked off.

In his absence, the comedic FIRST ORDER has risen

from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest

until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed.

 

The perfect summary. However it begs the question, 

 

Spoiler

are the First Order just going to have a nice lie down now then?

 

[kensei]

18 minutes ago, stefcha said:

 

Did it bollocks, he'd done a runner and not many knew why (and the audience certainly don't know why) or what he was away doing or even barely how to find him at all, and even that's being attempted in an act of desperation that's hoped to be used as a rallying call. The expectation of him you're giving there is, as you say, from how things were left at the end of RotJ and that is how he was and that all did happen but also a lot of time has passed even since then. It doesn't detail what happened, but the first sentence of opening crawl of TFA alone should be enough to confound that expectation of the audience, at least to some extent. 

 

Yes he obviously went to find the first Jedi Temple to mope. That was totally my expectation by the end of TFA.

 

Who predicted Luke was going to be a "damaged warrior" prior to the first TLJ trailer? The honest answer I think is "basically no one". In which case you are running counter to the expectations of your audience. Mark Hamill was clearly a bit taken aback too. Which is fine, but you have to be prepared for large sections of the audience to have trouble with it.

[JohnC]

The fact he fucked off and hid on a planet not on the maps after failing Ben wasn’t a hint for you?

[NickC]

Yeah, Luke disappeared before TFA and didn't help anyone out whilst stars and planets were being destroyed by the First Order.  Did you think he was on holiday enjoying himself with no phone reception or something?

 

Luke was either dead or fucked up in some major way. At the end of TFA you find out he's been hiding in the middle of nowhere, and he wasn't exactly enthusiastic at seeing Rey find him.  So yeah, there's gotta be a reason for him hiding out there.  Surely most people got that?

[kensei]

1 hour ago, JohnC said:

The fact he fucked off and hid on a planet not on the maps after failing Ben wasn’t a hint for you?

 

No. I believed he was away to research some Jedi stuff that might help him turn Ben back or help him fight the First Order. Because he's Luke Skywalker, hero and so optimistic he reckoned he could turn Darth Vader good.

 

The idea he was having a huff was just a Twitter piss take thing, not what he was actually doing. Given the actual marketing had a Luke saying "This isn't going to go how you think", I can't be the only one.

[Uncle Mike]

He was obviously off having a lonely meditation time just from TFA.

 

Everything about his whereabouts, the way Leia talked about him, his hidden status, and his face when Rey turns up at the end shows a man who'd run away - not one who was productively working on saving the galaxy. I was not expecting Luke to be all "Hey guys, well done for finding me. I've been sat here in Ireland thinking about stuff, and I think we can solve this whole thing by doing one simple trick the First Order hate. Also, it's great to see you, let's party, I've missed you all."

[K]

Obi-Wan went off to hide in a desert for thirty years after he fucked up training a jedi, so it's not like it's out of character for bearded Jedis to go off and get pissed in a hovel for several decades when they make a mistake.

[matt0]

Luke's motivations for vanishing are never given in TFA, but it's not a massive stretch to imagine he's in self imposed exile.

 

I'm happy they steered clear of a certain subsection of the audience's expectations on this one since I suspect those expectations would be something like:

 

Luke went to fight some super badass Sith sect that was super secret and was hidden on a super isolated super planet where he had some super light saber battles with a super Sith lord with six arms and a light saber in each hand and light saber claws on his feet and it's all going to be explained in this expanded universe novel/comic/shitty CGI cartoon.

 

Luke being a broken, failed Jedi teacher who has turned away from everything is built on simple, understandably human motivations and reactions. Those kinds of motivations and human frailties are an integral part of the clockwork that drove the original trilogy and that Lucas was reaching for (and failed to stick the landing on) in the prequels.

 

 

[stefcha]

1 minute ago, matt0 said:

Luke's motivations for vanishing are never given in TFA, but it's not a massive stretch to imagine he's in self imposed exile.

 

Han said pretty much exactly what had happened and that as a result that's what he did. 

[matt0]

1 minute ago, stefcha said:

 

Han said pretty much exactly what had happened and that as a result that's what he did. 

 

I haven't watched TFA since it came out but now you mention it...!

[matt0]

5 minutes ago, Captain LeChuck said:

"He was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy, an apprentice turned against him, destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible... He just walked away from everything."

 

Han's words.

 

Then I'm even more mystified by the idea that nobody saw TLJ Luke coming. 

[SpagMasterSwift]

"He was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy, an apprentice turned against him, destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible... He just went fishing...sort of"

[stefcha]

"He was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy, an apprentice turned against him, destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible... He just went away to research some Jedi stuff that might help him turn Ben back or help him fight the First Order. Because he's Luke Skywalker, hero and so optimistic he reckoned he could turn Darth Vader good [some 30 years prior]"

[NickC]

"He got addicted to blue reclining dinosaur tit milk, no-one saw him again"

 

Not my words, the words of HAN FUCKING SOLO.

[Girth Certificate]

I hope those comic relief people who tend to the island remember to milk the titty-walrus

[Glasgowchivas]

There are 100% issues with the comedy in 'The Last Jedi' but I won't have a WORD spoken against the Caretaker's. They were fantastic. The one who's wheelbarrow get's destroyed by Rey gives an absolute masterclass in physical comedy.

[kensei]

2 hours ago, matt0 said:

Luke's motivations for vanishing are never given in TFA, but it's not a massive stretch to imagine he's in self imposed exile.

 

I'm happy they steered clear of a certain subsection of the audience's expectations on this one since I suspect those expectations would be something like:

 

Luke went to fight some super badass Sith sect that was super secret and was hidden on a super isolated super planet where he had some super light saber battles with a super Sith lord with six arms and a light saber in each hand and light saber claws on his feet and it's all going to be explained in this expanded universe novel/comic/shitty CGI cartoon.

 

Luke being a broken, failed Jedi teacher who has turned away from everything is built on simple, understandably human motivations and reactions. Those kinds of motivations and human frailties are an integral part of the clockwork that drove the original trilogy and that Lucas was reaching for (and failed to stick the landing on) in the prequels.

 

 

 

I didn't expect some sort of super secret Sith Jedi magic. But I expected him to be going to look for answers, not to die. Here's a plausible story, render though the filter of me being crap:

 

Luke tried to reach Ben like he reached his father, but the result was the destruction of his temple and the death of his students. He thinks the only option he has to (try to) kill him, but he just can't kill his nephew. He goes to search for answers in the earliest Jedi texts.

 

I reckon someone with more talent than me could riff on that in a productive way. It doesn't have to be a million miles off TLJ either, as he could easily be anguished or frustrated by being unable to find what he's looking for. But it means when

 

Spoiler

Rey offers the possibility of a different future for Ben, it might be something that gives Luke his answer, or a reason to train Rey. It allows his character to be a bit different and not quite as broken.

 

TLJ is not the only possible workable riff on TFA. One line in that film does not overcome three films worth of character. Evidently Mark Hamill thought Luke was an optimist too, so I can't be that insane.

 

As I said, Hamill was my favourite part of the film. Just a bit of me wanted to see a different Luke.

[Darren]

Somebody was asking the other day about whether any of the novels or comics fill in any details about the background of the New Republic, Resistance and First Order, and I've just finished reading Cobalt Squadron which adds a teeny bit of extra info, so I thought I'd write up my understanding based on reading most of the new canon books and comics published so far. This is from memory so I might have made mistakes, but I think overall it's about right.

 

Spoilers: lots of stuff from various books and comics, so if you're planning to read much Star Wars spin-off material don't click.

 

At the end of Return of the Jedi the Empire didn't completely disintegrate immediately. Several senior Imperials saw themselves as the obvious top dog which led to leaderless chaos and infighting. The reason there was a power vacuum was that far from having any kind of succession plan in place, Palpatine saw the Empire as his and his alone. So as a kind of counterpoint to the concept of the captain going down with the ship, Palpatine instead had an emergency protocol to be followed by his most trusted advisors in the event of his demise: destroy the remaining Empire. If Palpatine couldn't have it, nobody could.

 

Of course, Palpatine didn't foresee his own death, so while this ultimate "salt the earth" plan was in place, nobody was actively following it until after ROTJ. But before Vader threw him down that big hole, Palpatine was pursuing other plans, besides the obvious Death Star-related ones. One in particular centred around a "dark presence" Palpatine (but explicitly not Vader) had started to become aware of, located somewhere outside the known galaxy. He was determined to go to the source of this dark presence - a kind of ripple in the dark side of the force, I suppose - and so set a group of techies with their computers the task of calculating the hyperspace jumps required to get there. It was much more complex than the kind of calculations a ship might make in flight, as the jumps were through uncharted space, so I imagine (I don't think this is spelt out) they were kind of remotely mapping as they went along. Anyway it was all very complicated, difficult and time consuming, and it was still unfinished when Palpatine died.

 

So there were a bunch of Imperials vying for position amongst themselves, but not realising there was someone else who'd been tasked with (and given the tools for) destroying the thing they're fighting over. But that person also knew about Palpatine's plan to go outside the galaxy to meet up with the dark presence, and what's more, by the time all the pieces were lined up for the final solution, the calculations were completed and the route was ready. So Palpatine's confidant betrayed his former master and rather than destroy the Imperial remnant, he planned instead to take it with him on this great mysterious journey into the unknown. But he himself was defeated by the "winner" of the warring Imperials, who took the journey instead with the now much-depleted Imperial fleet including among its personnel Brendol Hux, who had pioneered the Empire's techniques for turning children into soldiers, and his son Armitage. They disappeared and were not heard from again for many years, as far as we currently know.

 

Meanwhile Mon Mothma, leader of the fledgling New Republic, was determined that as soon as the remains of the Empire were dealt with the galaxy should almost completely disarm, to prevent any possibility of the kind of military tyranny the Empire had imposed for twenty years bookended by the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War. Others, including Leia, were vocally doubtful of the wisdom of this course of action, but Mon Mothma was resolute and her way prevailed. And indeed for many years her way seemed to be the right one, with no sign of aggression from the former Empire and a new era of galactic peace.

 

Mon Mothma eventually retired, but without her unifying influence the New Republic soon developed two opposing factions - the equivalent of a two-party system, perhaps - with the Populists believing power should be devolved as far as possible to individual systems and planets, and the Centrists not surprisingly standing for more centralised power and a stronger, unified galactic military. However this continued as a political debate, never boiling over into another civil war.

 

But meanwhile the former Empire hadn't disappeared, it was just biding its time and rebuilding its strength. The exiles found their way to the dark presence (we are led to infer - this isn't explicitly confirmed anywhere as far as I know) and through it they found Snoke. It's not clear whether Snoke was the dark presence, or was a powerful force user who was himself drawn towards it just as Palpatine had been. And it probably doesn't matter, although I prefer the second option. Either way, the Imperials found Snoke, or Snoke found them, and when they got together, it was moider! (aka The First Order). Under Snoke's leadership (we have to presume he quickly dealt with any Imperials who objected to him taking charge) they set about rebuilding and recruiting using Brendol Hux's techniques which in time he taught to his son Armitage. Slowly they started taking over worlds in the uncharted regions until in due course they had enough territory and firepower to start to encroach on their former territory, now under the New Republic.

 

When the First Order broke cover, two very significant things happened. The first was that the New Republic went straight into appeasement mode, entering into talks with the First Order and signing a non-aggression treaty. This presumably defined the boundary between New Republic and First Order space, with the aim being peaceful co-existence. The second was that Leia, not believing the First Order had any intention of honouring any such agreement, resigned as a Senator and persuaded the New Republic leadership to allow her to set up the Resistance, which was effectively the Republic's Secret Service, covertly observing and monitoring the First Order and gathering evidence of transgressions which it could take back to the Senate. The Resistance was funded by the New Republic but was not officially recognised or acknowledged. It was also under strict instructions not to ever engage the First Order militarily, but simply to spy and always to withdraw before being detected, a policy that was in still in place at the beginning of The Force Awakens. Of course it didn't always go according to plan, which meant that Hux Jr was telling the truth in his TFA speech when he said "At this very moment, in a system far from here the New Republic lies to the galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance." Of course what he didn't mention was that the Resistance's transgressions were as nothing compared to the First Orders', who were merrily enslaving and killing entire populations, and that's before you get to the fact he said it while standing on, and immediately before firing, a weapon that destroyed the entire system housing the New Republic's government, leaving the galaxy without a functioning government or military and ready to be conquered.

 

tl;dr:

The First Order is what's been built from what was left of the Empire after it ran away and found/was taken over by Snoke.

The New Republic is a political talking shop scarred by war and so focused on peace at all costs, but paralysed by divisions and not very effective. Quick to appease the First Order in return for which it was destroyed by the Starkiller.

The Resistance was the New Republic's secret service, but was never allowed to actually fight the First Order until the events of The Force Awakens.

The galaxy is now leaderless and presumably vulnerable to a hostile takeover by the First Order.

The Resistance won't be able to do much about it because their entire personnel now fits into a minibus.

 

I think that's about right. Correct me where I've got it wrong, New Canon thread regulars!

[freezycold]

I'm just baffled how out of ALL the various directions this movie could have taken following TFA, it went that way. Who thought that was a good idea? Any of it!

[ZOK]

Me.

[martingee]

Watched this for the first time today and enjoyed it.

 

I can see why people might be confused/frustrated by the story, it seemed to miss it's mark a couple of times for me but I'm thinking that it may suffer from been part of a trilogy and might make more sense after the next one.

 

My only real concern was who the hell Snoke is?

 

 

somebody previously mentioned the final Snoke scene not been earned and I have to agree. He only seemed to serve as a "big bad" but was soon offed when it served the story, he never seemed a foreboding figure like the Emperor did.

Add to the fact his "identity" is never really revealed, is he Darth Plaguis (sp?) etc. or just some random bad guy. I know Darren above hints at some canon story stuff but nothings ever mentioned in tfa or tlj afaik. I mean, look at all the speculation after tfa and it was for nowt?

Again may be this will be explained a bit more in the next one.

 

[Uncle Mike]

I don't really agree with this modern need for everything to be explained. Who cares who he was? Surely Kylo was always going to be the bad guy in the third film.

[kensei]

10 minutes ago, Uncle Mike said:

I don't really agree with this modern need for everything to be explained. Who cares who he was? Surely Kylo was always going to be the bad guy in the third film.

 

I think the problem with Snoke is that not enough was explained rather than not everything was. 

 

He is both of interest in and of himself, and in how he impacts other characters, particularly Kylo Ten / Ben Solo.

[Harsin]

The problem with Snoke is that he’s a lame lazy retread of the Emperor and they double down on it in TLJ even giving him his own red guys, except these ones each have their own special weapons like Ninja Turtles (buy the whole set kids).

[Nick R]

I think that the lack of explanation/backstory for Snoke is a reasonable criticism of the film. It sticks out as feeling incomplete because Star Wars films have always given some explanation of how powerful Force users learned to control their powers and rose to their positions.

 

Even if we didn't see their training and origins in as much detail as Luke's and Anakin's, we had enough to fill in the blanks: we knew that Yoda and Rear Windu were part of an ancient order; we knew that Maul was an apprentice in an opposing order, trained by Palpatine; we knew that Dooku was a former Jedi who became a Sith. Even Palpatine gets that Darth Plageuis story which is enough to hint at where Palpatine's own Force knowledge came from.

 

The prospect of a powerful Force user rising to the leadership of the remnants of the Empire is an easy blank to fill in. The question is: did Snoke gain his mastery of the Force independently of the Jedi and the Sith - if so, how; we've never seen someone do that? (Could Anakin have risen to the same level of power and mastery if he'd never escaped from Tatooine?) Was he around during the time of the Jedi Council and the Republic, sticking to the shadows during the Rebel/Empire war and biding his time until Palpatine's downfall? Or is he someone who was not at all involved in the previous events, who first made himself known to the galaxy at large when he began tempting the most powerful student in the revived Jedi order?

 

These origins may not be relevant to the story being told in these films. But the lack of explanation sticks out as odd, compared to the depiction of every other powerful Force user in the series.

[Shoes]

This thread is crazy.