Last Jedi Spoiler thread

Do I need more about Snoke? No. Would I like more? Yes. A lot in the Star Wars universe turns on his involvement and, as it stands now, he basically comes out of nowhere.

I like how the article above described Rey's parentage (paraphrasing): the revelation of who her parents are is a non-revelation, which is in itself kindof a revelation. "Rey, your parents are...completely ordinary and inconsequential people."

Johnson on the deleted scenes coming to blu-ray.

https://www.cbr.com/star-wars-the-last-jedi-deleted-scenes-blu-ray-release/

Lighten up.

@Diacanu is embarrassing himself unfortunately.

I think the "nobody" explanation fits well for Rey but leaving Snoke with no background makes the character into a massive ass-pull. It's like Kirk becoming a captain straight out of the Academy, also in an Abrams universe. And like a lot of the stuff in the Marvel movies that makes me dislike them too.
It's all about moving straight to the action and not bothering with a plot.

So, the inevitable Snoke novel isn't going to make your soul whole?
You wanted screen time wasted on that?
Ooookay then....

So, I watched the film twice back-to-back last night, and noticed something cool on second viewing...

When Luke goes out to meet Kylo Ren at the end, Luke does not leave red footprints (naturally). There's even a close-up shot of Luke's feet and when his heel comes off the ground...sure enough, no red stuff underneath.

I thought it was cool that we finally got to see something I've been wanting to see since I was 8: one ship light-speed crashing into another. Results? As predicted.

I also like how earlier in the film Luke says something like: "What do you expect? That I'd walk out with a laser sword and take on the whole First Order?" and then later he does exactly that (in a sense).

His browner more trimmed hair and beard, and having the blue Anakin saber when Kylo and Rey just broke it were also part of his force avatar, and clues that it was that.

...I mean, I suppose he could have pulled the old X-Wing out of the sea, and he had years to build a whole closet full of Anakin saber duplicates, and the lizard-nuns could be really good hair stylists...but..y'know, Occam's razor.

Noticed the darker beard (and the youthful hairstyle), totally missed the saber.

A friend of mine--who really didn't like the movie--noticed something that I hadn't really thought about:

This movie does NOT have a light saber fight in it.

Yes, Kylo Ren and Rey use light sabers against Snoke's guards, but they never fight each other with them. And, yes, Kylo faces Luke in a (seeming) light saber duel, but their swords never touch (naturally), and Luke never makes an offensive move.

This is the first Star Wars film that does not have a light saber duel in it.

The first SAGA film.

Rogue One had no saber fight either.

And he turns up in the middle of the cave. And the way Leia says, "I'm glad you are here." quite clearly sounds like air quotes. Plus, of course, it is a sensible explanation for surviving the first onslaught from all of their guns.

I actually had the thought that Luke was some kind of hologram when the barrage didn't kill him.

Never occurred to me that he was a Force projection. Of course, I'd only learned of that concept an hour earlier.

I didn't know what the Hell was going on until Kylo slicing him in half did nothing, and even THEN, I had a split second of "did....did he already die??", then we see him on the rock, and I'm like "ohhhh!! ".

Then, when I thought about it after, all the weird little clues came back to me.

Johnson on why no Obi-Wan ghost.

https://www.cbr.com/star-wars-last-jedi-obi-wan-didnt-return/

@11:00, "It's like somebody shot John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison all in one night."

The Yoda scene was good, but I agree, why was it crazy Yoda? The lesson was basically the same one Bruce learned from Batman Begins, " Why do we fall?" it just could have been handed better. The moment that got me the most came from R2 showing the distress call from ANH, they could have tied in R1 and ANH so much better.

Why doesn't Ben (Nope, I refuse to call him Kylo Ren anymore after this) realize it's not really Luke? He has the blue light saber that was just destroyed.

Uh...that's a NO.

It was only the updated version of ROTJ that had the fireworks throughout the galaxy, which, if you think about it just stupid, and TFA set the scene where post ROTJ there were the remains of the Empire and the start of a New Republic, and they were in state of - if not war, then certainly not peace - so I'm not sure the story does need it. We got the broad brush strokes in TFA.

The SE of ROTJ seemed to assume that the 99.999999% of the Empire not working on the second Death Star shrugged their shoulders, put down their arms and reported to the nearest Imperial outpost which now had "New Republic Unemployment Office" over the Imperial logo in dripping white paint. No general ever hollered over the intercom "hands who wants to be a pirate! Yaaar!" or "We've a big fucking ship armed to the teeth, feeling bored with being given orders? Well, lets rock up to the nearest world and start giving orders!" It's the kind of setup where someone who wants to shout orders can find themselves a whole raft of people who've only ever known a life of having orders shouted at them.

Snoke is, if anything, a parallel to Putin. Not many people know the tale of how he requested support for the KGB house he was trying to defend, only to be informed it wasn't coming, and how that impacted his worldview. You don't really need to know it. And that's the real world, not a space-based fantasy.

Sure, if you want to know more, information is available - and there doubtlessly will be on Snoke with, as @Diacanu pointed out, novel tie-ins. Think of those as the history books to bolster what you see in a big screen news report from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The aside which expands upon the article.

He's still a mystery box. Just a dead one. There are other avenues for opening it rather than trying to reveal the past as you push the narrative forward.

To reveal information about Snoke either required General Exposition commanding a vessel, the plot revolving around Snoke and a reveal being key to the story or weighing it down with historical interjections that are damned difficult to insert into a story without jarring the flow of the narrative.

TLJ is all the better for not being the first or last options, as for the second, that would be another plot entirely and I cannot say if it would've been better or worse.

Fuck no.

Can you imagine what he'd do with the Porgs? Ooooh, lets make them talk! And what cute ways can they kill Stormtroopers?

It would've been Lucas' Trouble with Tribbles. And it would've been fucking awful.

I object to the inclusion of Natalie Portman in BDSM gear on a list of the things that Lucas fucked up.

But that's the thing. TFA follows through on the SE ending of ROTJ: The huge Republic is so secure in ist power that is is ignoring this new threat at its borders. We would like to know why they are wrong. Even more so as the same complete reversal of fortune seems to have taken place in reverse again between TFA and TLJ. Now it's the formerly huge and powerful Republic that has crumbled as soon as it has lost a few planets, admittedly including the capital.

Precisely this. That's what I understood TFA as telling me: This guy? Watch him very closely. The story we're telling you revolves around his secret identity.

In addition, though not quite as important, I'd expect all of our heroes to want to know more about him as well. If they already do, we are widely disconnected from their experience of the events we're watching.

It doesn't though, IIRC it explicitly mentions that battles continued up to the Battle of Jakku, at which point the remnants of the Empire retreated from known space and agreed to a peace treaty.

Another suitable parallel would be the Treaty of Versaille and the period between World Wars, with the New Republic being representative of the victorious parties. Germany eventually weaponised itself in secret, and crushed all opposition. In a very rapid sequence of events mainland Europe fell.

I'll happily agree that there ought to have been some years between TFA and TLJ to adequately explain such a rapid collapse of the New Republic, although there exists a number of alternative scenarios such as laurel-sitting, or mothballing of military spending in light of no enemy to fight. Following it on directly is a fairly minor sin though.

Perhaps it'll turn out Snoke was just a really medicore painter from Hoth?

I never got that, just a new Emperor figure - a strong, Force-enabled leader who had taken control. Given TFA was effectively a retread of ANH, I found him just a necessary stand in for an Emperor.

As would I, just not at the points we see in both movies. In TFA there's the pressing matter of taking out the Starkiller, in TLJ they're too busy running for their lives to muse on things.

Pondering is best done when no one is trying to kill you, otherwise your life expectancy may start to drop...

Yeah. Few people tell that story without mentioning Adolf Hitler at least once. But either way, I think the following is the heart of the matter:

This is where our impressions differ. And it's actually quite interesting because one of the strengths of Star Wars to me has always been adding so many details to the world that it seemed, if not plausible, at least plausibly dense with facts. "He fought in the Clone Wars." "Made the kessel run in 3 parsecs." <Guy with three extra tentacles arguing with a kobold.> And, of course, Boba Fett. All of that worked well as background that never needed to be filled in. So it makes complete sense to me that Snoke could have been that too, and apparently to you he is. I think ultimately what makes him stand out to me as different is the Wizard of Oz way he was staged in TFA. Everything about that said, Look! There's something different behind the curtain. 'The same guy but smaller.' doesn't quite cut it for me.

I cannot speak from experience on that, but I'll ponder it.

Other nice bits I forgot to mention:

Luke's voice getting younger as he talks to R2 in the Falcon.
The theater waiting to turn up the lights until the Carrie Fisher dedication left the screen.

Bad bits:
Still not buying that the Republic forces were down to just three capital ships.
I buy the spacewalk, but the way it was filmed was hokey.

Disagree -- he was Boring Big Face in TFA and I only cared about him in TLJ when he was actively telling Ren off or Rey was in the room.

You know in "Evil Dead 2", when Ash's severed zombie hand is scurrying around, and it gets caught in a rat trap, and Ash lets out this sneering hateful laugh like "HA-HAW!!!!" with all his lung power?

When Snoke died, I came this > < close to letting one of those babies out in the middle of the theater.

Johnson on the new force powers.

https://www.cbr.com/rian-johnson-force-powers-last-jedi/