#& they mention the other invalid claims disney has made in the past

[heatheniousmaterials]

Yeah, obviously this isn't allowed. That doesn't mean they aren't trying.

"Disney isn't legally allowed to make this claim" is NOT the same thing as "Disney is not making this claim," so you can shove your "fact check" up M*ckey's ass

They've tried this shit before, it failed then, & it'll probably fail now, but that doesn't mean it's not bad & it doesn't mean it's not happening

[adins-bejoty]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Before we begin let me shock everyone reading this by proclaiming that there will be spoilers. Do we really need to keep doing this? It's 2017, it's the internet. There's always going to be spoilers. Anyway, this is a long post (surprise!) and mostly about Luke, but there's other stuff down at the bottom. First, however, please set your opinions and emotions aside for a moment and let us give thanks for the one unimpeachable truth that all Star Wars fans should be able to unanimously agree on: This is a badass fucking land speeder.

So, I love Star Wars. I've read (listened to Audible on my daily 3-hour commute) about a dozen of the new canon books, I've read all the new comics, and I've seen every episode of The Clone Wars and Rebels multiple times. Yes I've had some issues with creative decisions, yes I'm kind of bummed that the old EU is now "Legends" and that my absolute favorite Star Wars content (Knights of the Old Republic, huge suprise I know...) is currently non-canon, but overall I've been 100% on board with the direction everything has been going.

My premiere showing of The Force Awakens is one of my all-time favorite movie-going memories. The first showing on opening night with fans in costume, lines wrapping around the block, and a highly reactive audience made for an amazing experience. The manager of the theater even came out and gave a little speech about how important Star Wars is to people before the lights went down. Then we were in it, no trailers, and the audience went wild as soon as that John Williams fanfare erupted. People don't cheer at the Marvel logo when it appears. Hell, I don't remember people cheering for the Enterprise in any of JJ Abrams' Trek movies, but one shot of the Millennium Falcon brings grown men to tears. And fucking BB-8 is the best. Can droids win best supporting actor awards?

I saw The Last Jedi at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh last Friday, so I was a day behind opening night. My audience was a little more subdued, possibly because some of them were already on their second showing, but we had the same cheers at the opening crawl and applause at the end so the experience was similar, but it will never be the same. And in general I think that's part of the message that this movie is trying to send: whatever your memories and emotions surrounding this franchise are, it can never be exactly the same as that one moment that made you a true fan. And that's okay, because the same isn't always the best.

And now spoilers...

But first! How about the backlash to this thing? It seems like there is an even split between people who really like this movie, and those who really hate it. I've yet to see a convincing argument as to why this film is as terrible as people claim, though. Just a lot of "it sucks" without much substance. A lot of the vitriol seems aimed at the perceived lack of payoff to some of the "mysteries" introduced by the last film including Snoke's backstory, Rey's origins, the Knights of Ren, and Luke's reason for exile. I've also seen quite a few claims that this movie does unspeakable, everlasting damage to the character of Luke Skywalker. (I don't agree, see below.) My absolute favorite reactions to read are from the people who bemoan the ruination of their childhood based on Luke's actions in this movie. As if years or decades of human social and behavioral development can be undone in an instant because a fictional character did a fictional thing or said fictional words that they didn't like.

Allow me to quote my thoughts on this subject from my recap of Sailor Moon Crystal:

Even more so is the utterly baffling prevalence of the notion of Crystal somehow “ruining” Sailor Moon for you? ... It cannot by virtue of its existence invalidate your affection for any other version of the story.

Slightly different circumstance, but the central thesis is the same: how does one thing totally destroy your enjoyment of another thing? You have the ability to ignore the thing you don't like. Stick with Legends, or if you never got into the old EU, just watch the original six films. Or just the original trilogy. Or just Empire Strikes Back since Star Wars content can never ascend beyond that lofty realm... Star wars isn't the sort of franchise where one big (perceived) fuck-up is going to drive away half of the fandom. I guarantee 98% of the internet pundits proclaiming that they're done with Disney and Star Wars forever will be back on opening day for Episode 9. We survived the Holiday Special, we survived midi-chlorians, hell we survived a whole rather poorly received prequel trilogy. We can survive one more bad movie.

Except this isn't a bad movie. It's a great movie in which bad things happen to good people. Kind of like real life! Now, I know there's an immediate rebuttal to be made there: I don't want movies to be like real life; I go to the movies to escape real life. True, but if we want our entertainment to be completely unrealistic, how can we derive anything more from them than simple escapism? People hold Star Wars as a source of inspiration in their childhood and have taken moral lessons from the series. Yes, most of the motivational posters would feature Yoda, but the simplest stuff comes from Luke: help your friends, look for the best in people, reject temptation, and aspire to greatness. Even a simple farm boy from Tatooine can become a great Jedi and save the galaxy. He is rightly every child's hero, including mine.

You want to know what I think about Luke dying? I fucking hate it. Luke Skywalker was a badass Jedi master who failed hard, but still had a lot of tread on the tires. I, like Mark Hamill,thought the scene in The Force Awakens where the Skywalker lightsaber is pulled past Kylo Ren's face was going to pan over to reveal the saber in Luke's hand, not Rey's. How fucking cool would that have been? In The Last Jedi I was expecting crusty, angry old hermit Luke to eventually realize "You know what, the galaxy really does need me for one last roundup" and fly off with Rey to face Snoke and Kylo together. How fucking cool would THAT have been? The two literal last Jedi going up against the two powerful not-Sith? So yeah, I hate that Luke is dead and that we won't get any grand master badassery like we saw in the EU, but OH MY FUCKING GOD I don't care because what we got was amazing and honestly the best possible way it could have happened. Did we as fans really want to see Luke Skywalker cut down by his nephew, or even worse by Snoke? Did we really want to see a possible turn to the Dark Side from the man who told the Emperor "Never!" and won by throwing his lightsaber away? No, we wanted Luke to survive the sequel trilogy and live forever happily training Jedi until the end of time because we want our heroes to have happy endings.

Except all heroes have to die sometime, and heroes, unfortunately, aren't perfect. That's what I can't wrap my head around when people say this movie was a character assassination of their childhood hero. Yes, Luke did heroic things, but he's still a flawed person who is often wrong. Becoming a hero doesn't mean your less desirable traits suddenly disappear. There are no perfect heroes, but we tend to deify all the good and forgive much of the bad. Luke has plenty of flaws: he's reckless and acts on emotion way too often. He's arrogant (see Return of the Jedi for all the proof you need) but thankfully nowhere near Anakin's level. He's fairly judgemental, especially in A New Hope. And while this isn't necessarily a flaw, he does whine a lot. It makes sense that in his old age the youthful whining has evolved into antisocial grouchiness. Also, remember that Star Wars is a space soap opera about a tragically fucked up family of drama queens who gratuitously overreact to their problems. A lot of Anakin's issues seem to have skipped over Luke straight to Kylo, but the big one that remains is his tendency to act on emotion first, and think later.

So the big bad moment in this movie has Luke at his Jedi temple suddenly feeling the dark side rising in Ben Solo. He stands over his nephew and sees the death and darkness he will unleash and for one split seconds he ignites the green lightsaber and thinks there's only one way to stop this. Then he immediately regrets it and feels (rightfully) ashamed. Unfortunately Ben wakes up, thinks he's about to be murdered and, predictably because he's part Skywalker, overreacts. Now, does Luke's action follow his character from the previous films as a guy who is prone to acting on instinct and emotion? Here are three big examples, one from each movie:

A New Hope - Sees Obi-Wan killed by Vader and immediately starts shooting at stormtroopers heedless of the danger around him.

Empire Strikes Back - Ignores Yoda's warning and jumps in an X-Wing to try and save his friends, losing a hand for his trouble.

Return of the Jedi - Completely loses control and starts wailing mercilessly on Vader after just mentioning Leia.

So yes, I do believe Luke could have a split-second moment where he considers a really bad decision but ultimately doesn't follow through. I don't understand why people think that throwing away his lightsaber and telling the Emperor he'll never turn to the dark side somehow means that Luke will also never make a bad decision or have a moment of inner conflict for the rest of his life. And to the bigger question of why Luke would just give up and go into exile after Kylo destroys the temple, well... everyone has a breaking point. Luke overcame huge hurdles and kept pushing himself and he blew up the Death Star, became a Jedi Knight, saved the galaxy, and redeemed his father. He was on his way to rebuilding the Jedi Order until that one bad decision (with outside influence from Snoke muddying the water) proved to be the last straw. It's sad to see a hero fail, but that's what makes them human and relatable. And since this is an ongoing saga,

you can have peaks and valleys of achievement and failure. For all his courage and heroic intent, Luke failed in Empire Strikes Back. He failed his training and he failed to save his friends. Then in Return of the Jedi he was the hero again, bringing Anakin back to the light. He rode that wave for almost 30 years until in a moment of conflict he failed again, but was then back in the heroic saddle by the end of this movie. It would have been unbearably tragic for Luke to die in disgrace with his last act being to turn his back on everything, but thankfully he and the audience had our cake and got to eat it too!

Luke straight up asks Rey what she though was going to happen, if he was going to face down the entire First Order with a (tee-hee) laser sword? That's the Luke we were expecting. It's the Luke I was expecting, anyway. What amazing things can Master Luke Skywalker do after 30 years immersed in studying the Force? Well, he can face down the entire First Order with a laser sword. He totally fucking does it, just not in the way we expected. I don't have a problem with the Force projection because it accomplishes so many things at once. We as an audience wanted to see Luke be a badass and he is, even if he's not bodily present. The Resistance needs to see Luke be the legend they've all heard about to restore a little bit of hope. Kylo Ren needs to see Luke to cement once and for all that he's not coming back to the light. And Luke needs to redeem himself after being cut off from the galaxy for so long by playing all of this as a distraction so Rey can rescue the remains of the Resistance.

And then Luke dies. We're made to believe it's because of the exertion of projecting himself across the galaxy, but I don't buy that shit for one minute. Obviously it was a strain on him, but after he turns off the projection and collapses he gets back up. I fully believe Luke could have fully recovered, but to what end? He's an old man now and for all the wonderful angsty frustration it's caused Kylo Ren, the Force projection is a one-trick pony. He can't pull that stunt a second time, so the only option is a direct confrontation which, as awesome as it would be, Luke would probably lose. He's made the symbolic sacrifice; there's no need for him to throw his life away on a no-win scenario. Much like Poe Dameron has to learn that being a suicide flyboy isn't the way to lead a resistance, Luke knows that falling on a lightsaber for no reason is no way to inspire a rebellion, or set an example for the next Jedi in line to carry on your legacy. To do that you project a badass immortal Jedi master to utterly humiliate your opponents while your allies escape. So Luke decides to let his legend live on and he goes out on his own terms, at peace, and having fulfilled his last noble purpose. For a farm boy who has lived through so much awful shit, it's really the best way for him to go.

Okay, enough about Luke. What about the rest of the movie? Bullet points FTW!

Loved everything with Poe Dameron. He's my favorite new character to come out of these sequels and if he's inheriting the Resistance from Leia, I'm all about General Poe doing some badass shit. "where's my droid?" The fact that he treats BB-8 like a beloved pet (and calls him "Buddy!") is so god damned endearing. Hopefully once he's dealt with the First Order he can go back to his old job as a champion for droid rights.

Leia was great in this although the Mary Poppins Force save in space was a little off. I get that the intention here is that she's reacting instinctively, like parents who get Hulk strong when their kids are trapped under a collapsed building, but I don't think we necessarily needed to see super-Leia flying through space. The hand motion, the eyes, maybe just a hint of movement would have been enough and we could have cut to the shocked faces of Poe & company before cutting to the airlock. I don't know how they're going to handle Leia's absence in Episode 9, but as a final appearance on film I'm happy with what we got.

Vice Admiral Holdo. While I have no real qualms with her function in this film and her lightspeed sacrifice was one of the greatest things I've ever seen with my own two eyeballs, I was kind of left unfulfilled by her character. That's probably because I read (Audible'd) the Princess of Alderaan book in which Holdo is introduced so I had expectations of what her character would be like going into the movie. Obviously she's several decades older than she was in the book so she would have evolved, but the younger Holdo was quirky and weird and has been described as similar to Luna Lovegood. She was fond of speaking in metaphor which Leia nicknamed "Holdo-speak" and I would've appreciated seeing at least one instance of that. But still, Laura Dern was great and I'm glad she did actually like Poe despite their head-butting.

Okay, one more thing about Luke: Nothing in this movie made me that emotional, but there was one moment that nearly wrecked me. Not "Where's Han?" or Luke and R2-D2 or Luke reuniting with Leia or even Luke dying with the majestic score and the binary sunset. No, it was C-3PO's delivery of the line "Master Luke..." and that fucking wink. Luke is (with the possible exception of Padme) the only character in the whole of Star Wars who doesn't lose his shit with Threepio. Even Leia tells him to shut up in this episode if memory serves. Luke was always calm and patient with him.

Yoda once again delivers some all-time great wisdom. "The greatest teacher, failure is." deserves to be up there with the rest of his sage advice. I've seen people complain about his "happy dance" after he blows up the Force Tree and... I don't understand why? Yoda has always been a giggly little muppet plus he's dead now, so what does he care if he lets his guard down and has some fun? I personally like the idea that one of the most powerful Jedi in history is a bit goofy and mischevious. "Lost a planet Master Obi-Wan has; how embarassing!"

Captain Phasma, oh how they continue to let you down. Her fight with Finn was great, but she literally just showed up for that one brawl. She had no presence in the film until that moment and the movie did nothing to develop her character beyond what it already was in The Force Awakens: a cool suit of armor. She got a novel and a comic book to build up her character and this is the best we could do? You know how much better TFA would have been if Finn fought Phasma on Takodana instead of the no-name stormtrooper? (His name is TR-8R. It just is.) Well, how much better would TLJ be if instead of having to escape Canto Bight police Finn and Rose have to escape Phasma, who has been dogging them the entire time? Then that last fight would have felt suitably epic. Also, she's not dead. Not if you don't see the body. RIGHT STANNIS?

Rose is a fun new character, fits the universe, and I like her. Not too much more to say. She has good chemistry with Finn and it'll be interesting to see what they do with her in the next film.

Rey being a nobody is perfect. Greatness from humble nothingness. I know Star Wars fans are conditioned to expect familial connections and for the movies to adhere to certain traditions (they rhyme!) but not everyone needs to have “that mighty Skywalker blood” to be a great Jedi. I really hope JJ doesn’t walk this one back. The only acceptable retcon would be if she were actually Han and Leia’s daughter, but at this point I don’t think you can make that work. Poor Jaina Rey.

One of the more common complaints I've seen of the movie is that the humor doesn't land as well as it should. To my memory the only humor that didn't really work with me was the first gag of Poe & Hux going back and forth like a bad phone call. It felt a little too goofy even though it's 100% in-character for Poe to be fucking around like that with a guy who only a short time before blew up an entire star system and ended a galactic government.

And while we're on the subject, let's talk about General Armitage Hux. I love with every fiber of my being how much Hux gets shit on in this film. Not because he's a badly written character or because I don't like him, quite the contrary. I think he's extremely effective at being a villain you can truly hate, especially if you know his backstory. He's like every upper-class rich little shit that you love to see knocked down a peg, and on top of that he's a backstabbing lunatic Nazi. So yeah, I love how cartoonishly evil he is, but I also love when Snoke literally mops the floor with him and when Kylo Ren knocks his ass across the cockpit of his shuttle. Considering how instrumental Hux's father was to creating the First Order I'm hoping he's a big part of the reason why it eventually falls apart. Maybe he'll try to lead an internal coup (which is totally something he would do) and it happens at the moment when Kylo Ren is about to claim his final victory, possibly by killing/turning Rey, and then Hux waltzes in and the whole thing goes to shit.

The Ships. Not the Supremacy or Kylor Ren's TIE Silencer or those badass new bombers, no you know what ships I'm talking about. Now, I've made it fairly clear in the past that "shipping" is not an activity I engage in, but this is Tumblr so here are my extremely meager thoughts: Finn and Rose isn't a thing. It's fairly obvious that she was in sort-of shock when she kissed Finn, he doesn't reciprocate, and he's totally still hung up on Rey. Finn and Poe probably should be a thing, but I think Disney is still hesitant to go all-in. I've heard some people claim that one of the final scenes where they meet for the first time is setting up Rey and Poe and... what? Finally, Reylo. Yeah they have a Force bond and shared some pretty intimate moments, but I think it's pretty clear from their final Skype call that she's literally closed the door on him.

So the legendary Skywalker lightsaber is broken now, but Rey kept the pieces. So... she's totally going to rebuild it, right? Jedi have to build their own lightsabers as part of their training and all, so that makes sense to me. It would also make sense for her to modify it into a double blade since she's obviously way more comfortable swinging her staff around.

Need to see it a few more times, but I wasn't particularly wowed by the soundtrack. I know John Williams doesn't have to prove anything to anyone (and the themes from The Force Awakens get dialed up to 11 here) but I don't remember any stand-out new pieces of music. I do love that March of the Resistance theme though. Oh my.

So those are my scattered thoughts, probably missed a few things but, yeah. Overall I enjoyed the movie. One curious thing I walked away with was a lack of any desire to immediately start theorycrafting over where Episode 9 is going to go. This movie definitely expanded the lore of the series, dashed a few people’s hopes and elevated others, but I really didn’t feel the need to start examining frames and looking for the hidden connections that might foreshadow the next big twist. For once I was happy just to experience a film on its own and not worry about its relationship to the rest of the series. I think that’s a pretty impressive feat for a Star Wars movie.

Possibly more later. MTFBWY.