#tbh canto bight good actually

[weedle-testaburger]

on second thoughts, don’t do that, it’ll piss off the fandom

#personal crap #andor #tbh canto bight good actually

[no-droids]

Ok this might be a dumb question but I don’t know how on earth to google this and I feel like you have expertise in the subject- if jedis have to keep an oath of celibacy, how can they reproduce? Like is strength with the force genetic? Do you just have to wait around for a genetic anomaly? I know midichlorians have something to do with it but like how? Anakin is immaculately conceived? Is that how new Jedi come to be? Or is it just force sensitive people that go into training? Pls help

This is not a dumb question at all

In fact Star Wars is kinda dumb because their canon is very hodgepodge and disorganized but I will attempt to lay out what’s canon and what isnt when it comes to the Jedi and force sensitives

So in The Locked Door, I wrote that Jedi take oaths of celibacy but that’s never been canonically confirmed. Jedi are not meant to form attachments or chase after certain emotional releases because they’re not technically meant to experience any strong emotion, pleasure or pain. They’re not allowed to have families or children, but to make things more black and white for my fic, I just included an oath of celibacy. There have likely been many Jedi who had families but the idea is that they weren’t supposed to, not according to the Jedi code

Strength in the force can be genetic OR it can pop up randomly. I can understand the confusion on that, because Star Wars has always had a bit of a bad habit of trying to make familial ties a really big plot point in every single trilogy. If you’re a badass in Star Wars, chances are your family lineage is important. Anakin was technically the result of an immaculate conception by the force, and was supposed to be the strongest force-sensitive in the galaxy when Qui-Gon first found him because of that. And then of course, he started the whole Skywalker royal family bloodline of force sensitives because his literal dad was the force itself, he’s our messiah character and is the reason we have luke, Leia, kylo, etc. A vast majority of Jedi, however, are found as infants and brought to the academy to train. What’s interesting (at least to me) is that Anakin was SUPPOSED to be the strongest, and yet Obi-Wan (a regular ol Jedi picked up as a baby and raised in the order) was able to best him in battle. Mace Windu, Yoda, they would’ve kicked Anakin’s ass. Which means it’s not about raw power in the force, but how well you’re trained

Midichlorians are weird tbh I have mixed feelings about lucas’s explanation for them. The idea is that force sensitives can come from anywhere. And the Jedi have dedicated people to go out and travel around to look for force sensitive children to bring back to the order and train when they’re very young. Sometimes they miss some (it’s a big galaxy and I’m sure many parents would’ve told them fuck no get away from my child) but yeah. The Last Jedi did a good job at explaining the force. Big daddy luke said the force is in everything, everyone, and that it doesn’t inherently belong to the Jedi. Anakin used the force as a pod racer when he was a kid, broom boy used the force to sweep the stables on canto bight, Ventress was a dathomirian witch that practiced the dark side with her sisters before joining the sith, Chirrut was HELLA force sensitive and had nothing to do with the Jedi. The force exists outside of all of this.

I’d liken it to the way magic works in Harry Potter. It can show up anywhere, but it’s also genetic. If you never got your hogwarts letter and never had any training and never actually believed magic was real, how long do you think it would take you to realize you were a wizard/witch? who knows

#anon #ask

[shinhatigf]

ok here is my star wars movie ranking because tumblr drafts ate my original one. this is literally only for me I like to format my thoughts on things I like and return to them later. these rankings are not as harsh to the movies as you think, the only movies I actively dislike are aotc and tros!

empire strikes back

a new hope

rogue one

the original episode ix script: duel of the fates

the force awakens

return of the jedi

revenge of the sith

the last jedi

solo

the phantom menace

attack of the clones

the rise of skywalker

some reasoning:

empire and a new hope are pretty much equal to me in terms of quality, story, characters, everything. they are perfect and i love them so much. empire is just slightly ahead of anh. solid 12/10 for both of em

the first time I watched rogue one at like age 12 I was like "oh I didn't rly like it" "I didn't remember the characters" so that was a fucking lie. this movie is honestly my favorite now what the HELL. the characters are incredible, they feel like real people with real motivations and problems. the cinematography and writing and visuals and ugh everything. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS MOVIE. I LOVE THIS MOVIE. 11/10 nostalgia is the only thing keeping me from ranking this number one

ok i know that duel of the fates doesn't actually exist and isn't a movie but if it did it would be here on my ranking list. most of the arcs for each of the characters are incredible (the exception being poe, whose arc isn't as good). finn, rey, rose, kylo ren, leia, even hux all have amazing arcs. it pulls from all corners of star wars; you can tell colin trevorrow did his homework. 9/10 I love it

the force awakens is SO GOOD yall. it's SO good. you guys are just mean. 8/10 I love it

return of the jedi is this low down bc this is the less fun movie of the trilogy. I actually don't like the whole beginning sequence on tatooine and I'm meh on the ewoks but the ending on the new death star and the emperor and luke's whole new look are all amazing. 7/10 big fan

revenge of the sith is what the whole prequels were building to and it did not disappoint!! I love this movie!! unfortunately it does suffer from Prequel Disease (bad writing, effects that didn't age too well imo, lukewarm acting), though not as horrifically as others on this list. plus in this movie I think the bad parts work really well and add to it. 7/10 wonderful movie

ok i think putting the last jedi here is controversial but HEAR ME OUT, it's actually pretty good. it's not amazing, but it's certainly an enjoyable film that explores interesting concepts. it loses a lot of points for how disappointing the canto bight sequence is and a little for taking luke's change a bit too far. 7/10 I really like it

solo is really really fun. a lot of people don't like this movie which I honestly can't understand because it's sort of everything you want from star wars. han solo + lando are cast really well, the story is a lot of fun, I am a darth maul shill so I didn't mind that. 7/10 very solid very fun

the phantom menace is boring. it's just boring. I love some bits of it a lot (padmé and naboo are incredible) and other bits I don't (qui-gon does not have the good vibes I think they had intended, he's mean to obi-wan and leaves shmi behind mainly because he doesn't care?). I like the podracing scene and I love young anakin, but strongly dislike jar jar + the gungans. 6/10 would rewatch but wouldn't overly enjoy it

I first put attack of the clones dead last, and objectively speaking that is where it belongs, but in my heart it is higher than tros. when I first watched this movie I absolutely hated it. anakin was creepy, the plot was a little too convoluted, geonosis as a setting isn't really fun to watch, it is the EPITOME of Prequel Disease. however, it has really grown on me. whenever I hear "I don't like sand" I giggle. I love anidala, so even though it isn't fun to watch then fall in love in this movie, I can imagine how it should have been. plus without this movie, the clone wars wouldn't exist. as a movie I would not enjoy rewatching it but I like it way more than the actual last movie. 5/10 not a fan tbh

you already knew this but the rise of skywalker is bad. its worst transgression is being incredibly disappointing. it took all of my favorite bits of the last jedi and just kind of threw them out. poe has a really bad and gross backstory, they no-homo finn and poe like 3 times, finn doesn't even get an arc??, reylo is incredibly Not It, do I even need to mention palpatine. it's only positives are that as a movie on its own its like. alright. the acting isn't bad, the main trio gets to hang out (the jedistormpilot of it all. I love them) and it looks really pretty. 5/10 i expected more

#ryn canon #<- I'll just use this as the tag for posts that are first and foremost for me #ryn dot text

[stilesssolo]

Ok, here’s a question: what did you think of tlj, honestly?

Sorry this took so long to answer, I had to go DIGGING through my twitter DMs with Allison to find what I sent her right after I saw the movie, because I lowkey haven’t watched it since it was in theaters, and I didn’t want to forget anything. 

I honestly thought TLJ was very... meh. Like. I didn’t hate it. I CERTAINLY didn’t love it. There were certain parts I really liked, and certain parts I really hated. It was probably my least favorite Star Wars movie (other than Phantom Menace, which is truly a very useless film, tbh) and that just... it aggravates me so much? I wanted to love it SO bad. But I came out of the theater just feeling... really indifferent towards it. 

Like I said, there were certain parts that I loved. I loved Luke and Leia’s interactions at the end. I loved the fight between Luke and Kyle Ron, especially when it cut back to Luke on Ahch-To. As much as I sobbed, I thought Luke’s death scene was beautifully done, with the Force Theme playing and the binary sunsets in front of him. I actually for the most part enjoyed all of the stuff that took place on Crait, and everyone reuniting on the Falcon afterwards. I really liked the ending scene with the little kids on Canto Bight, and that idea that the Force is for EVERYONE, not just the legacies of the Skywalker family. I also loved the female representation in the movie-- I LOVED Rose to pieces, Holdo was pretty cool, LEIA MY QUEEN like I don’t think I need to say more about her, just in general how there are female pilots and soldiers and background people like there never are in the OT. 

That being said, there were definite things I did not enjoy and did not agree with. While I loved Rose, her adventure with Finn seemed... almost pointless? I really love those two characters, and I loved them together, but their mission to find this one singular code breaker just seemed so poorly done and poorly thought out? (I mean writing wise, not like, the characters’ plan.) The movie was two hours and forty five minutes, and it FELT like it. (Unlike Infinity Wars, which had about the same run time and FLEW by.) I feel like the middle section really dragged, and that the whole thing felt about an hour too long. I just really wish that the other story lines apart from Rey’s had been... more well-considered, I think. They just felt kind of thrown together and unclear. Like, why DIDN’T Holdo just tell them all the plan, instead of leading Poe to try and stage a coup? It just didn’t feel super believable to me. And I know it’s Star Wars, but even in past movies, characters’ motivations always felt pretty genuine to me. 

The thing I hated the MOST was Rey’s story line. Oh, my poor daughter. I never want Rian anywhere near you again. I’m gonna preface this by saying I LOVE Rey, okay. I was SO disappointed with what they did with her arc. Instead of letting her grow as her own character, they basically reduced her to a plot device meant to further Kylo’s arc and feed his “tragic” backstory. And I don’t care about how innocent and naive she is, okay-- she has NO reason to want to redeem Kylo. He tortured her and killed her father figure in front of her and almost killed Finn, her only friend, as well. I thought the fact that she was suddenly so gung-ho for redeeming him was really ooc and a huge step back for her character, which was so disappointing, because I love Rey. I didn’t necessarily mind that her parents were nobodies-- and I think that REALLY could have tied into the theme at the end of the Force is for everyone, with those little kids, IF her arc had INSTEAD been about her figuring out she comes from nothing and ACCEPTING that. Accepting that she doesn’t NEED this family she’s been waiting around for, because she’s starting to build a new one. 

And I think that kind of touches on what really bugged me so much about this movie-- it would have been SO easy to make it really fantastic while keeping most of the major plot points. You want Luke to be cynical and hate the Jedi, as tough as that is for us to see? Fine, do that, but give him better reasoning. Have him feel like he failed because he couldn’t help save his nephew from the pull of the Dark side, and he couldn’t help save the other students Kylo slaughtered. I think it was RIDICULOUS that Luke “I believe there’s still good in Darth Vader, one of the most evil men in the galaxy” Skywalker sees how dark Ben’s mind is and tries to KILL him instead of HELP him. Like. What? That is NOT the Luke I know and love. 

Another thing-- and this is such a weird complaint-- but I didn’t like how funny it was? Like, sure, you need your few well-placed jokes (That’s not how the Force works) but all the little quips and one liners were just... too much, I though. I felt like I was watching a Joss Whedon movie, not a Star Wars movie. I think it would have felt more Star Wars-y with just a few good jokes. I know that you don’t want this to be just a complete remake of one of the earlier movies, and you want it to be different, but the overall tone just felt way too off with all those jokes, and I didn’t feel like I was watching Star Wars. 

So, yeah. Definitely not my favorite Star Wars movie. There were parts I liked, and parts I hated. I’m really hoping that after seeing all three movies in the trilogy I’ll like it a little better, but right now, it’s remaining very “meh” for me. 

(As a last note, I thought the r/eylo baiting was disgusting. Get that ship away from me, it’s abusive and gross and we don’t need that. JJ, you better not make me deal with that in episode IX.)

#star wars #tlj criticism #tlj #st #anti reylo #talk less smile more #asks #answered #kylermalloy

[truxi-twice]

I don’t want to make this a whole big thing, but I am increasingly frustrated by people saying that Finn’s arc in TLJ is choosing to fight for the Resistance and not for Rey, because that never happened. ( tldr: At the end of the day, Finn never has to make a choice between his old priority (Rey) and his new priority (the Resistance).  Since all of his actions help (or are intended to help) both Rey and the Resistance, there's no reason whatsoever to believe that his priorities have shifted from one to the other.)

Like, I get it.  Narratively speaking, we want that to have happened.  It makes sense.  Minds fill in the gaps to make it a satisfying story.  It could have technically happened, after all, and we just didn’t see it.

But on the screen?  That never actually happened.

Finn’s goal at the beginning of TLJ is to protect Rey.  His initial plan to do that is to take her beacon somewhere far away from the fight. He realizes he can’t do that--Rose will stop him.  Even when they leave ship, odds are good that if he runs, Rose will stop him.  So his second plan is to stop the First Order from tracking the Resistance.  That way Rey will still have a safe place to go back to.

So basically, every action Finn makes in TLJ is to protect Rey.  At most, you could say some of them are to protect Poe and Rose, but that’s still a focus on “these people are important to me” not “this cause is important to me.” 

Even, and almost especially, Finn being willing to ram the canon to save the Resistance. 

We’ve already seen that he’s willing to sacrifice his life to save the people or person he cares about.* So this moment really doesn’t have the impact it should have, because from what we’ve seen on screen, Finn’s overall goal is still to protect Rey.

Since the two goals of “help the Resistance” and “help Rey” are intertwined at the beginning of the movie, the only way to show that Finn has moved from “help Rey” as his primary goal to “help the Resistance” would be to make him choose between the two. That’s basic storytelling.  Force your hero to choose between two positives.  That’s how you move a character forward and how you show the audience what the character really cares most about.

(For that matter, I really don’t think the ramming the canon is all that impressive a decision anyway, because at that point, Finn doesn’t have the choice of running away--either he dies now, or he dies in a few minutes when the First Order breaks through.  There’s nowhere for him to run.) And yes, I KNOW that he has that moment with Phasma where he calls himself “Rebel Scum” (which is...just weird?  They’re not Rebels?).  But again, he’s identified himself as being with the Resistance before if it’s handy.  And if he’s trying to spit in Phasma’s eye, then...yeah, it’s handy.

*This is also what makes it so frustrating that Rose says “It’s not about fighting what you hate, it’s about protecting what you love” to Finn of all people.  It’s a good line, shoot, it’s a great line, and Rose is exactly the person to deliver it.  But that has literally been what Finn has been doing since midway through TFA. 

Finn doesn’t hate the First Order.  He might hate Phasma, like anyone hates an awful boss (an awful and murdery boss).  But we’ve seen before that he would be perfectly happy to just run off to the farthest corner of the galaxy and leave the First Order to whatever they feel like doing.  He’s never been about “fighting what you hate.”  But the reason he doesn’t run away and ignore the First Order is because he loves Rey, and he wants to protect her.  Even his choosing to ram the canon is, as far as we have seen on the screen, about him “protecting what he loves.” I can’t help but feel like that line was written with Poe in mind as the recipient, and they just couldn’t figure out where to put it.  It makes literally no sense whatsoever being delivered to Finn, but for Poe, who just sacrificed a whole bunch of lives for the chance to take out one enemy ship, it makes perfect sense.

At the end of the day, I think TLJ is something of a gestalt, where folks are seeing parts that aren’t there because those parts are needed to make the character actions make sense, or at least to create a meaningful character arc. I dunno.  It just frustrates me.  It feels like they could’ve kept all the overall plot the same (yes, even the stuff that the angry fanboys are ranting about.  I mean, tbh, Luke and Rey are, like, the least of the problems with that movie, and I think Luke was great, minus the milk scene, which is really more just about me not wanting to watch a grizzled old man milk something bipedal-looking and drink said milk while not breaking eye contact), but just...tightened up some thing, especially with Finn (and Poe.  And maybe Rose.  I mean, Rose is pure and goodness and light, but if they were going to have her kiss Finn, I wish we’d at least gotten some romantic tension.  And even if not that, I wish we’d gotten more conflict between them on Canto Bight, because they seemed a little too samey for most of that sequence.  Both of these actors--and characters--deserve better, dangit, and I really hope they get it in Ep9). so...anyway...yeah.

(oh, yeah, also, Film Critic Hulk? It’s kind of gross to dismiss a black person’s concern about the black character in an action movie being written as a clueless clown for most of his scenes as “an unwillingness to be silly,” given just how common a trope “comic relief black character” that has been in action movies for however many decades, and I’m kind of surprised at you for doing so.  I’m not saying the guy was right that Finn was a clown or comic relief (I’m not saying he was wrong either), but that feeling does not happen in a vacuum, and it shouldn’t just be dismissed like that.)

#star wars #don't mind me #pardon me while i have a strange interlude #tbh i'm kind of worried about posting this at all #because it seems like if you have any problems with the movie #you get lumped in with the toxic screaming fans #and it just feels like no one wants to actually acknowledge any of the movie's problems #with either its narrative structure or it's hashtag-whitefeminism

[sathinfection]

my thoughts on tlj

putting beneath a readmore

overall, i’d say it was... ok. i don’t think it will stand up very well over time, and there were lots of cringey scenes (some of the humor, some of the drama) in a way that felt very um prequel-like. not gonna get into Ship Discourse but my wife misheard snoke at one point and left the theater convinced that rey and kylo were somehow twins separated at birth and was confused, but trying to make it work. 

i feel like i saw a very different film than everyone else. what lots of people said was good was bad, what lots of people said was bad was good

A RUNDOWN OF THOUGHTS

i’ll admit that i went into the movie most apprehensive about finn. he’s my fave and i’d heard his section of the film was pointless and his character went nowhere. while the canto bight thing was completely unnecessary, i felt like finn actually had a really good character arc. it seemed to me like he was growing into his bravery and also totally kicked phasma’s ass. i actually liked that fight better than the one in snoke’s boudoir. yet more proof i saw a different movie than everyone else!

speaking of phasma, she’s not dead. there’s no way she’s dead. I AM CALLING IT NOW: SHE IS NOT DEAD. her armor is made of salvaged chromium from the emperor’s yacht. 1) that shit already survived being exploded once 2) chromium is super resistant to everything. that whole dramatic eye-glare thing just means that she’s gonna pop up in ep 9 with a cool missing eye. srsly i’m calling this now. i’m not even invested in her character but that was p obvious misdirection to me. 

dj’s character was pretty offensive. like, the inaccurate stutter, the movements, all seemed like “oh yeah let’s give the duplicitous guy some disabilities. yeah it’ll add to the menace!’” ugh. 

luke’s sloth milking was honestly so fucking weird, so early on. i wish the rest of the film had been like that tbh

every time rey and kylo reached out to each other, i thought of the “sun’s going down” gag from ragnarok. thank you taika. he is saving all of us from cringeworthy metaphors. 

porgs were great! i like how chewie and the porgs became friends. zero disappointments on the porg front. 

based on his luke, i actually have no idea whether or not rian’s seen the original trilogy. rian’s luke was TERRIBLE, absolutely bad and i couldn’t buy into any of it - just seemed like rian wanted to say what he wanted to say and he didn’t care about any sort of narrative consistency with THREE OTHER FILMS. i will again, bet people now that JJ will retcon luke drawing his saber on ben by revealing it was snoke manipulating him into doing it

speaking of character assassination, poe was terrible and i don’t understand why leia and holdo were just ok with him disobeying orders (IN A MILITARY!!!) and then VIOLENTLY TAKING OVER THE SHIP. oh my god. what the fuck. what the f u c k. i don’t understaaaaaaaaaaaand everyone was reacting like some sort of alien in this, and not the kind of alien like ackbar (RIP)

i’m not sure that snoke’s actually dead, but lol i killed him in an anti-climactic way first. pay me, rian. 

i enjoyed all the kylux interactions a lot. i came to this pairing for the fucked up, and this movie delivered. i’m pleased that hux is still alive and ready to fuck up at everything in ep 9

renperor was a twist i didn’t expect! i liked it. i would say that i’ve gone from predicting a definite redemption (based on previous films) to expecting him to stay the big bad. if snoke’s not really dead maybe he’ll have a disappointing last-minute redemption by death. i do love villain redemptions but based on tlj, him staying evil is the most interesting.

rose is delightful! i’m pretty sure she’ll die near the beginning of ep 9, though. 

still love bb8. holdo was amazing!!!

critics said the cinematography was great but i found it really bleh? no stirring landscape shots except for crait, and i didn’t like how claustrophobic a lot of the film felt. the entrance to the boudoir was nice.

editing was a total disaster. even going in the movie pre-spoiled i had difficulty following the internal timeline and i felt like the cuts between scenes were jumpy.

anyway i’m looking forward to what JJ does with 9 and also going to see ragnarok a fifth time

#tlj spoilers // //// ////

[hauntedfalcon]

TLJ reflections now that I’ve finally seen the damn movie

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS and LONG POST

I want to preface this by saying that we as fandom, any fandom, have thoroughly sold ourselves that line about how fanworks are the reclamation of our modern myths now that said myths have been fully commoditized. I felt powerful the first few times I saw that quote circulating. Then I started to feel tired, because every Johnlock shipper from here to space was using it in part to imply that they were, like, super progressive and important. Also, it has been used to justify some notion that fandom creates canon, and I’ve never agreed with that. 

And now I just feel hollow. Is there a bigger modern myth than Star Wars? Could there be more thorough reminder than The Last Jedi that no, modern myths do not belong to us, and if we try to stake any claim on them they will be put into the hands of someone who is wholly disinterested in any aspect of them that we value, and they will be fed to us in a form that defies us to create any fanworks about it at all? 

This is the first time I am watching a Star Wars trilogy as it unfolds where I actually care about most of the characters. For better or worse, and probably largely because of the impact of that idea of reclaiming our modern myths, I feel incredibly protective of them. I recognize that my basis for what I expect from those characters is one prior movie and a handful of expanded universe materials, so I wouldn’t say “the real [character] would never [heinous act],” because unfortunately the content of the movie I just witnessed is canon, but I can certainly say that my versions of those characters wouldn’t. 

All that being said:

Paige

Paige

Paige Tico

Paige didn’t even get to speak a line

would it have killed them to have her say “I’m on it Poe” as she went to drop the bombs 

with urgency and resolve and just a hint of fear in her voice 

Paige Tico is a hero 

Poe 

Poe Dameron

Poe was right

#PoeWasRight

Finn and Rose and Poe’s plan actually would have worked if Holdo had spoken to Poe in good faith and given him cause to trust her with that information

I’m still not sure what Holdo’s plan was, she died as she lived, with hair full of secrets 

Poe’s characterization was cocky, for sure, but people have been calling it chauvinist and I didn’t actually pick up on anything despite the efforts to play his concern when speaking with Holdo like a subtle wink wink nudge nudge to all the overqualified women in the audience who have ever had a dude tell them something they knew already 

(also can someone tell me where the line was where Holdo and Leia objectify him? because I was watching and all I heard was “He’s a troublemaker. I like him.” which was... not at all the sort of thing that people were talking about) 

I believe that Rian Johnson believes that Poe is the Han of this trilogy and I believe Oscar Isaac deliberately played all his scenes the opposite of how he could have played them and how Rian probably wanted him to play them 

that being said, my Poe would never get his fellow soldiers killed with recklessness

you could absolutely get Poe to the place he needed to be at the end of this movie without bloodying his hands 

“how did you two meet” was the most Jealous Boyfriend thing I have ever. heard. 

Finn

Finn

why was so much of this movie about Finn being in pain

I don’t like that 

his panic when he couldn’t move after being stunned? I don’t like that 

Rian Johnson is great at writing abuse, both physical and emotional

he’s terrible at knowing when to stop 

like when it’s an interaction between two people who are both supposed to be protagonists :) :) :) 

why wasn’t Finn given anything meaningful to do 

there was an interesting comment somewhere about how this is a movie about heroes failing, all the plans fail, every single one 

but that doesn’t actually make it any less tedious to watch, and as my husband pointed out it’s not what people want in a Star Wars movie

also while this is supposed to be the Empire of the trilogy and there were many call backs, Empire never backed down from the mood it established, while Last Jedi suffered from wildly disparate moods and tried to end on a high note where Empire embraced the low and still made us feel like there was clear forward momentum 

Rian Johnson had no idea what to do with Finn, just no clue how to handle him 

why was he excited about Canto Bight? we just don’t know

on the upside Finn’s immediate concern upon waking being getting to Rey was A+++++++++++++ consistent characterization 

as was the line “Rebel scum,” which indicated not a commitment to the Resistance the way I’ve seen people claim, but a commitment to rebel and as you might guess, I am one thousand percent HERE FOR IT

Rose 

Rose 

Rose Tico

you know how PacRim was in part such a big deal because for once the Asian woman didn’t sacrifice her life to further the white man’s story? TLJ gave us Rose stopping Finn from sacrificing himself and she didn’t have to die in the process 

I can’t believe Rose and Finn doublehandedly destroyed war profiteering 

Rose’s sense of wonder and her jadedness are my two favorite things 

Rose gave away her necklace and her vintage Rebellion ring without hesitation in order to further the cause so I think it’s only fair that in Episode IX someone gives her jewelry 

and by someone I mean Poe Dameron and by jewelry I mean one quarter of his mom’s ring because that my friends is a polycule in the making 

Leia 

why

why what? why everything honestly

why did they go to the effort of keeping her alive when she actually gets blown up in this movie, that was in the plot before Carrie Fisher even died 

what the fuck are they going to do now 

episode IX clearly would have been Leia rebuilding the Rebellion from scratch but uhhhhhhhhhhhh first they have to figure out what to do with the fact that they’re out of Carrie Fisher footage! and solving that problem is clearly going to require them to do one of the several things they’ve already said they wouldn’t do!

I surprised myself by not crying in any of Carrie Fisher’s scenes, but when R2 showed Luke the original message? HOO BOY it was raining on my face!!!!

no but the Confirmed Very Powerful Force User Leia Pulls Herself Back from the Cold Dark Vacuum of Space thing? gorgeous! gorgeous scene. gorgeous, breathtaking 

but I’m just operating on the headcanon that she died in her coma and what remained was a tangible Force ghost 

(Yoda bopped Luke on the snoot)

(the dice were a tangible Force projection what the fuck) 

p.s. why didn’t Leia move the damn rocks 

Rey

Rey spend half this movie talking to Krylon in her head but she didn’t even get to speak a line to Finn

they done you dirty Rey

I’m sorry Rey

the thing about this movie is that the people who are going to believe what they want to believe, no matter what, are going to find a way to say “that was misdirection!” 

and for once I’m not (just) talking about Re/ylo, I’m talking about the bit with her parents 

yeah Krylon doesn’t know shit about her parents and he was taking up the mantle of emotional manipulation and abuse that Snoke had just bequeathed 

but Rey coming from literally nowhere is SUCH A GOOD and I’m saying that as an avowed Rey Kenobi supporter 

let her come from nowhere and no one

let her be an example of a hyperpowerful hero in this series who didn’t get that way with midichlorians or bloodline 

let her strive to be great for her own sake, not in relation or reaction to what came before her 

Gareth Edwards

I SAW YOU GARETH EDWARDS, I SAW YOU IN THE TRENCHES, STICKING WITH STAR WARS TO THE BITTER, SALTY END 

that came out wrong 

Luke 

damn Mark Hamill threw everything he had into this and I really respect that when it’s clear from his interviews that he hated everything he had to do

hate that the character was in that position, hate the shitty writing of the intervening time, love the resolution, but tbh if he was just gonna die why not actually physically show up  

the total silence when Holdo jumps to light speed and everything gets reduced to stark iconic images: gorgeous, breathtaking

the hug: gorgeous, breathtaking 

vulptices and fathiers: gorgeous, breathtaking 

the Caretakers: I’d die for them 

Rose converting her FO uniform to biz caj chic on Crait: gorgeous, breathtaking 

Luke and Yoda cracking open a cold one while the Book Tree burns: gorgeous, breathtaking 

everyone’s makeup: bad, they looked either ill or painted

(I don’t actually know anything about makeup but I know I grimaced a lot)

all the many, many moments of bombast that covered over or otherwise distracted us from the few instances of nuanced ideas or potential plot progression in this film: gorgeous, breathtaking 

for half a second Luke was talking about how the light can still exist without the Jedi and I leaned forward in my seat like yes, yessss, but then we had to cut to Creepy Dark Cave on Training Planet Where You Go for Answers But You Only Find Your Own Face 

like Jesus just let the philosophy professor ramble for a little while, it won’t hurt anything and he’ll be in a good mood at test time

anyway this movie sure gave my eyes a lot to absorb and occasionally it activated all three of my feelings

but all it actually accomplished in the context of the trilogy is to kill some people and take some stuff away 

it occurred to me toward the end that there wasn’t anything in the movie I would have to edit out for my kid to watch it, but there’s no way she’d be able to sit through the whole thing

two and a half hours is too God damn long for a Star Wars movie, full stop

ten minutes of concrit from the story group could have led to some interesting avenues to explore and probably tightened it up a lot 

but instead it was painfully clear that no one said no to Rian at any point and what that got us was a movie that was extremely fatiguing to watch

#TLJ spoilers #Star Wars for ts #The Last Jedi for ts #SPOILERS #long post

[leupagus]

@stanandy messaged me with some awesome questions and said it was ok to answer them publicly, so here we go: 

1) I love the thematic elements of the Canto Bight storyline. When Finn and Rose got imprisoned, I was actually hoping they’d encounter a dishonored Phasma somewhere in that story. I thought she’d be a great way for Finn and Rose to grow and explore TLJ’s theme of failure in a compelling way. What are your thoughts on Canto Bight? 

I was actually not really on board with the Canto Bight scenes, although I did love the fathiers in general and the notion of seeing a different sort of the seedy underbelly of the galaxy—that just because it was beautiful doesn’t mean it was good. But there were a WHOLE lot of problems with the scene—one of which of course is that no, selling weapons is not the only way to become obscenely rich, and that felt like sloppy characterization. You can make the case for the indifference of the rich and even still have the really great moment where the Codebreaker points out that the guy whose ship they stole sold weapons to both the First Order and the Resistance. But framing the entirety of Canto Bight as some weird warlord Monaco was dumb.

I also think that scene did a real disservice to Finn, making him overawed with the sights and sounds and literally not realizing why that kind of display was bad. Like, Finn’s been raised by the First Order; he of all people understands the rot that can hide under a shiny facade. To have Rose telling her history with the background of fathiers and fathier-handlers suffering abuse made it clear that Finn was supposed to Learn An Important Lesson, one he absolutely already knows. It was supposed to be character growth, but it was kind of ridiculous to presume Finn wasn’t already there.

I think your idea of Phasma being in the prison cell instead of the Codebreaker is... frankly genius? Like oh my god I WOULD HAVE LOVED THAT, and the best part is that you could have it go either way—she could turn on them, or she could double-cross the First Order. That would’ve been amazing and a much more satisfying use of Gwendolyn Christie than we ended up getting (which was such a disappointment, honestly). 

That being said, I certainly loved the feel of the Canto Bight scenes—especially the escape on the fathiers, the beautiful imagery and the freedom, however temporary, that the fathiers enjoy at the end. I like to imagine that Finn and Rose set up a Fathier Rescue Fund in between all the Resistance-ing they do going forward, a la the farms dedicated to ex-racehorses.

2) I wonder if IX’s pillar could be Anakin, now that it can’t be built around a living Leia. What do you think about Ahsoka and/or Force Ghost Anakin playing an integral role in the next episode? 

I was never a real fan of Anakin or Darth Vader, tbh; I thought the prequels handled his character arc terribly, and so seeing more of him is not really something I’m interested in? But I certainly think it’s possible that Abrams will go that route, although lord knows the dude isn’t great at following through with interesting ideas. I think I personally would be more interested in seeing something almost entirely unrelated to the skywalkers, other than Leia—that is, I’d like to see what Poe and Finn and Rey do in order to build the resistance without Leia there to lead. Because if you think about it, right now the Resistance is Leia. Who are they without her? That story I think will be even more compelling, since Leia won’t live to see them succeed, and that adds to the risk that they won’t. I’m looking forward to it, as heartbroken as I am to have lost Fisher.

3) Lastly, it’s discomforting how negative the general audience reaction is to TLJ! So many howling, betrayed fanboys—it’s deafening. How do you navigate the negativity when all you want to do is love the damn film? I sometimes feel this irrational obligation to read fan opinions opposed to my own, as if I need to shore up my opinion and validate that yes, in fact, it’s okay to love this flawed film seemingly everyone takes issue with. Is that weird? Any tips for getting past that impulse?

It’s not weird at all! But I confess that I’m not NEARLY so mature; the past couple days I’ve just unfollowed most of the tags and when something negative shows up on my dash, I block the post. So far none of the negative reactions have carried a lot of weight with me, not because I necessarily disagree with their points but because I...don’t..,care what they think? Like I support those who didn’t like it but I don’t want to hear it; nor do I need to. There was very little Problematic Behavior in the movie (which I do feel I should listen to) and almost all of the criticism has been either plot-related (which I agree with) or “OMG HOW COULD THEY GET LUKE/POE/WHOEVER SO WRONG I’M GOING TO KILL RIAN JOHNSON” which I don’t. So I guess the tip I’d like to share is: have an ego so monstrous that you can easily discount any opinions you dislike about a movie you loved.

#star wars motherfuckers #seriously the haters can pull a u-turn out of my life for now #I love you guys but I don't want to hear it

[skywalkersapprentice]

LUKE FUCKING SKYWALKER aka my review of the last jedi

(spoilers)

Contrary to my feelings leading up to the force awakens, I was more nervous than completely excited for this film. I was so terrified that it wasn’t going to be good.

by the end of this movie, those fears had been soothed.

Bad Things(tm) 

it’s a shorter list than i thought it would be but it still exists

kylo ren’s entire existence annoys me. like i came out of tfa hating him and now i loathe him. 

thAt SHIRTLESS SCENE GOD I HATED THAT. it could have been so much worse and i’m grateful it wasn’t but jeez. i strongly echoed rey’s feelings of ‘put a shirt on’. 

the entire fucking force bond thing got on my nerves until i realized it was snoke’s fault. then it was okay. 

rey nobody. listen you guys, i’m all for the found family trope usually but you can pry rey skywalker out of my cold, dead hands. 

i feel like sometimes this movie didn’t know what it was doing with it’s plot. canto bight was beautiful, but that entire plot ultimately felt meaningless. 

same with luke’s purpose, i couldn’t.... really figure out the role he was supposed to be playing. 

some of the scenes on the island felt really fucking boring. 

why did hux slap finn like yeah mate we already know he’s an asshole

this was the biggest one for me- rey’s character. it could have been done so much better. she felt like she was aimlessly wandering around the island for half the movie and she deserved more than she got. i’m just thankful this is the middle act and that she’ll be back in the safe hands of jj abrams for the final movie. 

also finn and rey deserved a better reunion scene but the hug was adorable.

Good Things(tm)

this is a much longer list

ROSE TICO. omg i adore her???? she’s so awkward and tiny and charming. i spent most of the battle of crait thinking ‘omg please don’t die’ and i’m SO HAPPY she didn’t. i ended up not minding finnrose, which i thought i wouldn’t like. she and finn worked so well together.

LUKE THREW THE LIGHTSABER OFF THE CLIFF SDFGHGFDFGH I LAUGHED SO HARD. i immediately knew i was gonna like luke in this movie. 

also i dont’ wanna hear a word about ‘bad characterization’ when it comes to luke. it’s been 30 years since we saw him last and people change. 

i think it helps that i have read basically none of the post-rotj eu and so i had no expectations of what luke ‘should have’ been like. but anyway.

another thing i laughed so hard at: poe pretending not to know who hux was while he was speaking all pretentiously. that was hilarious. 

and then bb8 overextending himself trying to keep the ship working. bb8 was the silent hero of this movie and you all need to appreciate him.

CHEWIE AND THE PORGS. oh my godd when he was eating that one porg and then the rest of them show up with huge eyes and legitimately sad expressions. i was literally aww-ing. i’ve bought into the cute porg marketing. they made me smile every time they were onscreen. sue me. 

i really liked what luke had to say about the light side not ‘belonging’ to the jedi, because it’s true. time to think outside the box lads

rey looked so good in that jedi outfit

the golden four (finn, rose, rey and poe) all looked amazing tbh.

i almost liked kylo ren for one (1) second after he killed snoke and then he decided that he wanted to destroy the rest of the galaxy too and i was like Oh My God

also they made a bold move by killing snoke but i really liked that they did. now ren can step into position as the Main Villain, which is what he deserves. (no redemption arc bitch you’ve tried to murder everyone like twice)

also the way!!! snoke died!!!!! was so cool!!!! he could read ren’s intentions like a book, but the way ren deceived him into thinking that rey was his sworn enemy because ‘i can’t be betrayed’ was amazing. and this is coming from someone who despises kylo ren.

lmao @ hux and ren subtly fighting for control over their troops. i wouldn’t be surprised if hux eventually stabs ren in the back.

THAT SCENE WHERE REN AND REY BREAK ANAKIN’S LIGHTSABER

THAT WAS ABSOLUTELY BREATHTAKING

it would have more meaning if rey was also related to anakin but whatever

holy shit. the entire scene with yoda. i was silently squeeing into my hands the whole time.

this is the first time i have ever been happy to see yoda but oh. my god. that little troll cackling as he destroyed the early jedi texts (‘page turners, they were not’) was AMAZING. 

i almost forgot to mention but 

LEIA

USING THE FUCKING FORCE

TO SAVE HERSELF AND BRING HER BACK TO THE SHIP WHILE LOOKING LIKE A GODDAMN ANGEL

that was the first time the guy beside me offered me tissues. i was not okay.

also i love her dynamic with poe so much. and that scene where amilyn and leia are discussing him and amilyn says ‘i like him’ and leia goes ‘me too’ is so pure.

also leia and amilyn had one (1) scene together but it still managed to make me emotional. leia has lost so much and this was just one more thing, but their goodbye was good.

also i love my gay mom amilyn tbh. the luna lovegood comparisons were rolling in before the film and tbh i could see that! i’m so sad she had to die but what a fucking way to go. the entire theater was dead silent when she made that jump to hyperspace. 

i don’t think i’ve ever sworn this much in my life. whatever.

something i really liked that i didn’t expect to is how so close ren and rey came to leaving their respective sides. the lines between light and dark got so blurry in snoke’s throne room, but eventually what happened seemed to cement their respective positions, pushing them even further away from one another. it was cool.

leia marching onto the bridge of the command ship fresh from unconsciousness and stunning poe wow what an icon

also when will the gays learn to communicate i mean poe and amilyn come on

can we talk about that scene in the falcon when luke and artoo reunite :( omg. artoo still has leia’s old message and i personally want to die.

luke and leia’s (natural) force connection that spans half a galaxy!!!! ‘luke’ ‘leia’ i personally want to die (part 2)

canto bight looked straight out of the prequels and i was Living

i was also living for the way finn and rose destroyed it

“you have always been scum”. “rebel scum” THAT’S MY BOY I LOVE FINN

also there was something that finn said on crait while they were in the mine (i forget what it was) but poe and rose both looked at him like they were falling in love 

and also poe’s delight when seeing that finn and rose aren’t dead and immediately going ‘where’s my droid’ :( i love how much he loves bb8, it’s very reminiscent of anakin and artoo.

speaking of crait

LUKE FUCKING SKYWALKER

[INCOHERENT YELLING]

when the shadow appeared in the mine i was like..... omg. it can’t be. he wouldn’t.

and then it WAS and i realized that we were actually getting a leia and luke reunion, after i had convinced myself it wouldn’t happen, and then i started really crying. i don’t think i’ve ever cried like that at a movie before. i don’t even remember most of what was said, except for luke’s ‘no one is ever really gone’ (directed at leia, by then i was properly sobbing) and then the forehead kiss. i was a mess. the guy beside me offered me kleenex again.

That was, without a doubt, my favourite scene in the film. Luke and Leia got to say goodbye. I feel like that actually healed something in me that broke when carrie died last year. like, the movie was worth making just for that one fucking scene.

but then it got better.

when ren ordered all the walkers to fire on luke and then luke walked out unscathed someone in front of me actually clapped with glee. from the moment he ignighted his lightsaber, there was an energy of just joy in the theater, and you could tell that scene was exactly what everyone had wanted from luke.

AND THEN KYLO REN TRIED TO CUT HIM IN HALF AND IT DIDN’T FUCKING WORK

I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE DELIGHTED

'amazing. everything you just said was wrong.’ YES LUKE YES

I can’t wait for luke to haunt ren from beyond the grave in episode 9. i don’t know how i feel about the fact that he’s dead, but it’s far from the sadness i felt when han died.

like rey and leia said- there was a sense of peace there.

I just. I just wish Leia could find that peace. She has lost absolutely everyone. And now the movie that was supposed to be about her can’t exist.

‘in loving memory of our princess carrie fisher’ made me halt on the steps and bring my hand to my mouth on the way out of the theater. i’d forgotten that would happen. :(

I don’t want to end this on a sad note. I really did like this movie. It’s not quite good enough for a 9 and i hesitate to rate it as low as a 7 so an 8 it is. 

Overall- better than i’d hoped. had some absolutely magical moments that made me remember why i love this franchise so much. there were some truly cool force-related moments, i love the golden four and luke skywalker is fucking awesome. kylo ren is fucking terrible, i wish this movie had progressed it’s characters a little and rey deserves to be a skywalker.

bring on episode nine. 

#tlj spoilers #tlj #sw #star wars #the last jedi #the last jedi spoilers #THERE'S SO MUCH SWEARING IN THIS LMAO #shelby reviews movies

[cassatine]

Okay so! THE LAST JEDI. I wanted to do a coherent post and all but hings happened so. Spoilers ahead. Like a lot of spoilers. I recommend not reading if you haven’t seen the movie. No really don’t. 

The [tl:dr]: I loved it! I’m also glad I saw it twice. First viewing felt like a weird mix of things I’d expected (including things I expected two years ago and had started thinking would Not Happen) but the way it all worked together was a punch to the gut. Also I cried a lot, which is not great for visibility. Second viewing was more enjoyable. There’s something very smoke and mirror to the story; it plays with expectations and then turns things on their head. It’s a very clever movie, tho it’s definitely got its flaws. I hardly felt the two hours and a half, could actually have done with a longer runtime because some things moved really fast. It’s also very funny, when it’s not breaking your heart and stepping repeatedly on it. In a (mostly) good way. 

The more or less good:

Starting with that assault on the Dreadnought and Paige Tico’s death, the Resistance plot went where SW rarely does. Poe learning to look at the big picture and the sad economics of war and resistance, the bleeding out of Resistance forces, the unsurprising reveal that god guys and bad guys buy their military hardware from the the same sources, it’s a relentless onslaught. The New Republic is a non-entity, the First Order has weapons aplenty, and the stage is set for a new Empire to be born and a new Rebellion to rise, and it’s all very tragic, but it’s a Star Wars, so of course the good guys live to fight another day light the spark at the end, a source of inspiration for every child escaped from a Dickens novel across the GFFA

Finn and Rose’s plot was lovely - Rose was altogether amazing, and her line about fighting to protect what you love rather than destroy what you hate is... a tad cheesy i guess but in the best of ways. I love that she wants to protect her sister’s memory and that it’s freeing the farthiers that makes the Canto Bight events worth it (i mean they’ll probably be caught again in less than a week because that’s the way of the world, but attagirl!), and that “I saved you, dummy” line. That one reviewer that called her the heart of the movie was pretty much right. 

Luke throwing the saber behind him. Mark Hamill was nothing short of great, but this moment was so very understated and yet so defining, so meaningful. also: Rey’s reaction. 

Actually everything to do with Luke was pretty great. His backstory was kept sparse, but he’s basically following in his master’s footsteps by exiling himself on a nowhere planet after a massive fuck-up, very poetic. Being a Skywalker he’s got to take it one step further drama-wise, with the whole *the Jedi will die with me* thing. Vanity!, screams ghost Yoda. 

I love that it’s fundamentally a movie about failure, and what you do after. Luke’s failure of Ben looms large, and behind it there’s the Jedi Order’s failure but he’s not the only one. Poe fails at being a leader. Finn and Rose’s mission fails. Rey fails to turn Kylo, who kind of fails as a general rule. He failed and was failed by Luke, and he kind of failed Snoke as an apprentice, from a certain point of view. All the Resistance’s plans fail. Snoke fails and die. Chewie fails at keeping porgs away. It’s a debacle left and right, and then the 3D-marionette-Yoda gives us deep words of deeper wisdom than even Rose’s, reminding us that in every failure there’s a lesson. When it doesn’t kill you or you’re not a casualty for someone else’s lesson at least hahahaha. 

The Jedi Order’s founding texts and Yoda’s “page-turners they are not” yes thank you 

Snoke and his playing up Kylo and Hux against each other. From the moment he humiliated Hux publicly to his final words, Snoke is skin-crawling awful, moreso than in TFA. There’s not one moment I don’t want to point to and go “eeeeew” about, srsly.

Chewie eating a porg. I feel so validated. 

Kylo’s epic love story with bad choices. Attaboy. 

Force Bond. CAN YOU PUT ON A COWL SOMETHING thanks for this most cliché scene straight out of a romance novel I AM LIVING!!! fucking hell. On a similar note, Rey and Kylo’s handsex. fingertips sex? whatever, it was just wow, tag ur metaphorical porn star wars, please. also: Luke’s reaction. 

Vice-Admiral Holdo is the lady of my heart and if she had to die I guess her death scene was a crowning moment of awesome at least. I wonder if the discourse will now feature fights about “if it was that easy they’d have done it with the Death Stars” and “why didn’t they.” Not looking forward to that. Not looking forward any of the discourse. At all.

The Rey parentage reveal. The scenes on Ahch-to with the dark side spot calling to her and the vision were some of my favourites, and well, Rey Random’s always been my horse, so! Very satisfying. I’m kind of wary at this point, and not sure how much trust I can put in Kylo’s words tbh, but I’m choosing to believe. 

THE THRONE ROOM FIGHT WITH THE LOBSTERGUARDS??? The beginning with Rey and Kylo back to back was EVERYTHING and the whole thing was just perfect G O D

And then the Kylo/Luke fight happened and wow 

RENPEROR i mean - this is the one thing i wanted and had stopped believing in and i got it, he turned against Snoke in yet another crowning moment of awesome (HIS REAL ENEMY!!) and made Hux go long live the supreme leader - at which point i started to pity Hux. He’s having a no good, very bad, terrible day and he suffers so much it’s all kinds of amazing. Anyway, by the end of TLJ, Kylo’s more sympathetic than he was in TFA imo (for general audiences) and graduating to big bad. I kind of expected one or the other, but both at once? 

Something in me is disappointed at the Force plot - I wanted weird eldritch Force shit, and I guess I got some on Ahch-to, but nothing to do with Snoke. As much as I like pretty much everything, including how Snoke’s death subverted expectations and changed the game, I kind of miss the road(s) not taken. 

Speaking of subverted expectations - I think I need (more) sleep and another viewing or two or three to decide how much I actually like it all, but expectations were masterfully subverted. Who Snoke is doesn’t matter because he’s dead, Kylo is still conflicted, Rey kind of became a Jedi but wow does she flirt with the dark side, and Rey Skywalker was found dead and butchered in Miami. The Resistance ends up in tatters, Luke is busy with self-exile and never technically leaves Ahch-to

REY STOLE THE BOOKS oh my girl lbr i would have too

Luke’s final projection act and how beautifully set up it was and his reunion with Leia. Insert river of tears. 

The more or less bad and the stuff that made me sad:

Yoda looked fugly. I can’t not say it. 

I loved Amilyn, and her death was a crowning moment of awesome, but also, a woman died so a man could learn a lesson

on a similar note, a species (nick)named the Caretakers made up of feminine aliens engaged in (mostly) feminine-coded activities 

DJ was rather underwhelming as a character

Rey went really fast from murderous snake monster to ~touching Kylo’s hand - timeline wise, all this happens in huh less... than... 18... hours?? though Ahch-to is like, a vergence, which means time passes differently there, it’s just never made explicit, and it’s still less than 18 hours for Kylo Ben - head hurts - in any case just one more force convo laden with tension could have helped

*Everything* happened really fast tbh. There were a lot of twists and turns, and as I said it’s very clever, but sometimes at the expanse of character growth? it’s a bit bumpier a road

FUCKING INTENDED BOOK BURNING WHAT IS IT WITH YOU STAR WARS WEREN’T THE JEDI ARCHIVES ENOUGH??

RENPEROR yeah it’s both in the good AND the bad because: i wanted it, i wanted it dearly, but also: what. no really, what. 

noooooo rey don’t close the door on kylo don’t nooooo

Okay that’s not much on the bad and there’s things i’m undecided on but that’s long enough. 

#star wars #the last jedi #spoilers #i need a bucketful of coffee and for my hangover to go away #meta #lol more like a lot of squee #i'll be more critical later probably #when i'm done with the squeeing

[thenameismaynard]

THE LAST JEDI REVIEW AND SPOILERS GALORE

Ok folks, just got back from my viewing of the last jedi

under the cut SPOILER GALORE, I repeat SPOILERS GALORE

Overall, it was a fantastic movie, finally a truly GREAT star wars film after the lackluster TFA. It is a marvelous anti-war film, an intelligent movie, an ORIGINAL film, that had something to say, that had complex characters all around the board, my god why is JJ taking this back and dumbing down 9 when everything is so fucking great and well written and original

and it is a multishipper’s wetdream

however, oh boy you thought the fandom is horrible now, lol, we were summer children, the fandom is gonna be batshit from now on and it will be a shipper bloodbath, tumblr will drown in shippers blood

anyways without further ado

so since i know most just want spoilers , i’ll just do a clinical recap of the movie and then for those interested my feelings about it, and there are lots

Reylo is onesided on kylo’s part and could be seen as real but it will definitely never happen on screen, and will be relegated to fanfiction (which i am very ok with). Their bond and relationship IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC THO and wow, just wow, i’ve never seen such a balanced, complex relationship written between a female and male characters of equal strength, of equal power and with an equally devastating past that just make them all the more tragic. It is fanfiction ambrosia but with a very bleak ending, so be warned. and for this Rian thank you so much, i hope other writers take fucking note

Damerey is real guys, this is the craziest, damerey might have a shot at being endgame actually(i’ve always shipped it so i’m happy)

Finnrey is real and strong (AND WAS ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL) and might have a shot at happening in 9 but it might also end up being friends and may be replaced by

Finnrose that could also be the final endgame for Finn

Kylux is fucking real as well, Kylux is gonna rise after this film

And we have a fantastic rebel OT4 that will carry on the star wars saga but yeah the skywalker line is gone tbh

OK RECAP / SORRY FOR THE TYPOS

As far as i can remember, Rey is gonna be on the island for the first part trying to get Luke to train her, while Luke is very unwilling to

Kylo was reprimanded by Snoke and because of it leads a campaign to kill the last of the resistance, wants to kill Leia but can’t because mommy ( these two, MY HEART, they had no scenes, i’m so pissed). however his fleet succeeds in bombing leia’s ship but the force save her and she’s in a coma and is replaced by admiral holdo

Finn wakes up, is afraid for rey the whole movie and meets Rose just as he wants to escape. then both him and Rose talk with Poe to find a way to infiltrate Snoke’s throne room and blow it to pieces. they go on a mission to canto bight to get DJ so he can help them get into Snoke’s throne room

Poe is given a lot more to do in this film and his arc is fantastic and a great coming of age kind of way to become a true military leader. he comes against holdo’s way of doing things without having the big picture

Rey tries to sway Luke into becoming the hero of the resistance again and finally gets him to train her but while she’s alone on the island the force bond between her and kylo starts to manifest and they start to have conversation ( ACTUAL DEEP CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THEM BOTH, THEY’RE SO ALIKE BUT REY MAKES THE GOOD CHOICES WHILE MY TRASH SON FUCKS UP EVERYTIME)

anyways, Rey doesnt tell Luke about those bouts of conversation with Kylo through Force bond and learns from Luke why Kylo failed him, and Luke tells him what reylo peeps have been sayign to that damn fandom the whole time. Snoke targeted Kylo because Kylo had a lot of darkness in him, han didnt know how to react aroudn that and leia put Kylo under his care and Luke tried to train Kylo but he realized that Snoke won all along as the darkness in kylo only grew more and more and one night he went ot his room and realized how dangerous he would become and kylo woke up and destroyed the temple

however through another force bond convo, kylo tells rey that luke lied and that he was sleeping when he woke up and found Luke tryign to kill him whit his own green lightsaber and then his power went in overdrive and he destroyed the jedi academy

rey confronts luke and luke confesses that the night in question he went to kylo’s room and realized he was too dangerous and ignited his saber as his first instinct was to kill him but then he came to his senses and only felt shame to want to kill his nephew but too late as kylo woke up and thought his uncle tried to kill him and went dark phoenix style like int he xmen and destroyed the academy

such a fucked up family, anyways

there is a gaping hole under a cave in the island and it’s kind of a force well that pulls you and is filled with dark side, rey is attracted to it and after Luke’s final story on kylo goes into the well to know what it’s all about and there comes the greatest, freakiest, force scene ever

and then we seen rey and kylo talking in the infamous hut , sharing their loneliness, and they touch hands through the bond (CRAZINESSS) and rey tries to bring kylo to the light, he’s tempted but luke crashes literally in on them and the bond is cut, and luke and rey fight (reverse blue saber scene in the storm scene) and rey tries to persuade luke to go to kylo and bring him back to the light so they can defeat snoke at ast. Luke says kylo is too far gone so rey offers him the anakin saber so he can come with her and help with the resistance. luke refuses so rey goes with chewie on the falcon to try to get kylo back to the light, but for her there it’s only to use his turn to the light to defeat the resistance.

meanwhile, the FO has the las ship of theresistance surrounded as it is only surviving thanks to its shield but it’s running low on fuel so Holdo is commanding an evacuation, Poe discovers the evacuation and is against it as he wants to fight and orchestrates a mutniny but Leia wakes up and stops his mutiny and finishes the evacuation, as their plan is for the resistance to survive to be able to fight another day isntead of going into suicide missions that have no tomorrow.

Holdo stays put in the ship as last resort as everyone evacuates, and FINALLY A FUCKING DISCUSSION BETWEEN TWO WOMEN. Star wars finally passes a bechdel test for the first time in its history ever. it’s beautiful to see thoe two badass female war general veterans talking together and sayign their goodbyes before Holdo makes the ultimate sacrifice.

Finn and rose infiltrate the FO huge ship while Rey infiltrates the same ship after sending chewie to hide away with the falcon. she is met by Kylo and his guard of stormtroopers to bring her to Snoke. they are in an elevator ALONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and that CONVO IS FANFICTION GOALS, and rey tries again to bring Kylo to the ligth while calling him BEN, (you can die now reylo peeps) and sayign that teir shared vision when they touched hands showed her that he would turn to the light. but kylo says that he too has seen her and she’s the oen to turn in his vision and he has seen who her parents is

Finn and rose are betrayed by the DJ dude (benicio del toro) aboard the ship and are arrested and brought to Hux and Phasma

Luke is fucking lost mentally and is saved by YODA appearing as a force ghost and delivering the msot beautiufl message of the film, that they were the old gen and they have to pave the way for the gen, and let the past and old structures go to build new ones upon it ( HEAR THAT SW FANBOYS). and yoda also tells luke to stop beating himself down, that yes he failed ben, but failure is the biggest teaching experience and he has to learn from his failure to rise harder and stronger (like the fucking greyjoys) and that rey is the new jedi hope

Snoke welcomes Rey and Kylo into the throne room and kylo bows, he’s uber strong and tells rey to give her luke skywalker’s whereabouts so he can defeat the last jedi and have darkness reign upon the galaxy

rey refuses and asks ben to turn to the light as she has seen the cracks in kylo’s darkness (also here snoke says that he thought rey was a skywalker but apparently is not so REY SOLO and REY SKYWALKER HAVE BTH BEEN FOUD DEAD IN MIAMI BEACH) . Snoke laughs as he says he knows everythign about kylo and exploited that chunk in his armor to use the force bond so he could bring rey to him and kylo here looks up, surprised and betrayed (Dude gets fucked up by everyone he thinks kind of cares about him). then rey tries to fight snoke and escape and calls for kylo’s  saber when she is surrounded by guards and the anakin saber is taken by snoke but snoke takes kylo’s saber away from her and it falls near kylo.

Snoke gets into rey’s mind (the rey toture scene) to get luke. kylo looks conflicted but doesnt do anything. snoke then laughs and turns rey to kylo so he can kill her, essentially telling rey that kylo has no will and will do anythign snoke says. kylo picks his red lightsaber and acts as though he will kill rey but uses his hand behind his back and the force to turn the anakin lightsaber that snoke had put beside him and ignites it effectively cutting snoke in half ( i was udnerhwmlmed at how easy it was to kill snoke after he showed he was more powerful than both rey and kylo)

then REY AND KYLO FIGHT THE SNOKE GUARDS AND IT IS AMAZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG REY IS A BADASSSSSSSSSS

AND THEY SAVE EACH OTHER AND I WANNA DIE

but now is where it goes to shit for the kylo redemption as he will not be redeemed. Rey is ready for her and kylo to escape and help the resistance who is fighting still the FO ships but Kylo tells her that they shoudl let everything burn and rebuild from the ashes, this is where he says let the past die thing to rey (SOFT FUCKING VOICE AND ALL) and asks her to join him so they could rule together

- (which is kind of understandable on his part as he has been betrayed by everyone in his life, so rebuilding from scratch is his way of surviving and being free of all the pain that has paved his life because he was always kind of seen as a threat to be eliminated by his own or a tool to be used by his predator mentor or an obstacle to be dealt with with hux- this is not woobifying, the dude has had a fucked up emotional life, added to him being weak emotionally and making all the wrong decisions every fucking time. kylo is so relatable it hurts, but in the way no one wants to admit) -

you can see then Rey beign really distraught because you know she wont come with him and i think she is them mournign the kindred spirit she coudl have had with him and she feints giving him her hand and calls the her lightsaber instead but kylo understand her move and calls the lightsabe rback to him so the saber is stuck in the middle of both their outstretched hands pulling in their direction with the force

and then Holdo drives the last resistance ship into one of the FO ships that were attacking the evacuating pods while the resistance goes to crait to fall back there. the blast makes rey and kylo fall and anakin saber is cut in half but Rey takes both of the parts of the saber and escapes leaving kylo who got knocked out.

And this helps Finn fight Phasma and the fights i kinda too short lived but he beats her and then escapes with Rose who is just the ultimate BAD ASSSSSSSSSSSSS

Hux finds kylo in snoke’s throne room and is about to shoot/kill him but he Kylo wakes up and takes on snoke’s mantle and becomes the new supreme leader and he’s pretty much gone all full dark side, even worse than vader as everyone he wanted left him or betrayed him so he wants everyone and everything dead.

then the resistance hides in a cave in crait and behind a huge metal door but Kylo orders the FO to go to crait and kill everyone

poe and finn and rose go on the resistance kinda old tie fighter to try to shoot the big FO metal killer bazuka (the scenes of the rebel squadron tearing red lines on crait), however they’re losing a lot of people so Poe learn his lesson from Holdo and Leia and asks them to fall back so not to,lose more people but finn does not want to let the FO win and wants to sacrifice himself to shoot the FO weapon but rose save him in extremis, kisses him and falls into a coma from her wounds

then they all fall back into the cave and try to find a way out while Kylo and the FO continue to attack the door that keeps them safe, kylo is all the way gone now, he doesnt even care about leia. while rey gets back into the falcon and taers some FO ships apart and finds the rest of the resistance that were blocked behind a wall of rocks

and then we see Luke astral project and appear in the cave to talk to leia and it’s very emotional and they talk about kylo and leia resigns herself to accept that her son is gone so luke tells leia to save her people while he will try to save them

leia and  poe and finn, and rose and the rest follow the salt foxes and come against a wall barring their route but they are amazed to see rey lift all those rocks with the force and save them and they all board the Falcon to escape after REY AND FINN HUG IT THE FUCK OUT, PEANUTS ARE BACK

meanwhile Luke gets out of the crait cave to face the FO alone and kylo orders them to kill him but he survives and kylo then tells the FO to stay put and goes to face luke alone . they fight and Luke says that he will always be conflicted even though he kills him just like he killed his father, this enrages kylo who slashes through luke but we discover it was a projection. luke stayed on the island and projected himself into crait and then dies of too much use of the force

as rey and everyone board the falcon rey stays behind and looks behind her, she feels kylo get in the crait base now deserted and there is a last FORCEBOND MOMENT where kylo looks up imploringly to rey but rey loks back with pity and then close the falcon door on their bond

Aboard the falcon, Rey FINALLY meets Poe in the falcon and SPARKS FUCKING FLYYYYY and it’s pretty much the cute deleted written scene in TFA and those two have hearteyes for each other so yeah.

then Rey watches as Finn covers Rose who is still knocked out and as he watches over rose. Rey smiles as she watches finn with rose and them Liea comes to her and the SECOND GREAT BECHDEL TEST PASSSSSSS with Rey telling leia she felt luke go but he’’sin peace and asking leia how they can build a resistance with just them and Leia says it’s more than enough and the rebel OT4 and leia will become the big resistance HEROES

So, GREAT FILM, blows TFA out fo the water a thousand times over, written perfectly, KYLO is definitely the big bad and he has kind of to die and that’s why it will be the end of the skywalker line. JJ has not a single original bone in his body so he will be more than happy to copy Return of the Jedi and have Kylo die in rey’s arms or at rey’s hand so this conclusion is pretty much obvious if it was rian, at least we would have had kylo paying for his actions and delving deeper into his psyche, because his character is so fucking rich and complex and interesting and just wow

AND REY IS THE NEW JEDI AND WILL BUILD HOPE AGAIN THROUGH HE GALAXY

REY WAS SO BASDASS AND EVERYTHIGN WE WOUDL WANT IN A FEMALE HERO, RIAN DID HER WAY MORE JUSTICE THAN EVEN JJ

AND THANK GOD ROSE IS NOT DEAD AND SHE WAS THE BEST ADDITION, SHE WAS SO FUCKIGN BRAVE AND HEARTFELT AND RESILIENT AND BADASS AND INTELLIGENT AND SMART AND FULL OF HEART

REY IS THE JEDI BUT ROSE IS THE REAL HEART OF THE REBELLION AND THE REAL SPARK OF THE RESISTANCE

so much fanfic material it’s insane

ok gotta go watch it again in an hour

let me know if you have any specific questions

#reylo #tlj spoilers #star wars

[chasiingfreedom-blog]

My Thoughts On The Last Jedi *spoilers ahead*

Ahead lies thoughts about TLJ that are 100% true to me. Obvious spoilers ahead!

If you don’t think too much while you watch this movie and just take it at face value like a casual watcher, it’s a decent movie. Things blow up, the good guys escape actual extinction; typical action movie. But if you do actually start to think deep about what is actually going on for 2.5+ hours with characters and storylines you’ve been invested in for seven (or eight including Rogue One) movies, the cracks are so much more apparent. Characters are OOC, actual canon stuff that happened in the last movie are conveniently ignored; it’s like a badly written fanfic.

I came in fearing one thing and realized I should have been afraid of everything else, stuff I didn’t even think I needed to worry about because you’d never think they’d fuck up so badly. Though I should’ve realized when Rian said there’d be no time skip that things were just gonna go downhill from there.

Don’t get me wrong, there were things I loved about the movie, and I’ll start with those positives first!

Positives

Poe got more screen time. How they used that time is a different topic, but he had so little scenes in TFA because he was supposed to die in the opening that I’m happy that it got upped in TLJ.

Let the record show, once and for all, that Leia is Force-sensitive. Can you believe that there are still people, to this day, that think that Leia isn’t Force-sensitive? I didn’t even know the Force could work like that, but anything that kept Leia from dying on that bridge is welcomed by me. I was screaming in my head for a long time about how they lied about saying Leia isn’t killed in The Last Jedi until she awoke and propelled herself back to what remained of the ship. Glad that part was true at least!

Holdo’s death was pretty epic. My mixed feelings on her aside, that scene where she jumped to lightspeed through the First Order ship literally silenced the full-capacity theatre I was in. Like, literally—there was no rustling of popcorn bags or whisperings. It was just utterly breathtaking.

Hux and Finn have a scene. I’ve heard a lot of discourse about Hux slapping Finn, and while I understand where they’re coming from, I didn’t think of it on that level. What I did think of is how people are honestly confused as to why Hux actually felt personally attacked enough by Finn to do it. The stormtrooper program is everything to Hux, and Finn is a living, breathing reminder of his failure, that Mr. Perfectionist isn’t all that perfect after all. Wasted potential of a storyline aside, I’m glad they were able to meet.

Luke Skywalker deserves his legend status. LUKE BRUSHED A SPECK OF DIRT OFF HIS SHOULDER AFTER MINUTES OF BEING SHOT UPON. LUKE DID THAT. THE ROOM I WAS IN CHEERED SO LOUDLY AT HIS BADASSERY. IT WAS FUCKING SPECTACULAR. Don’t try to ruin the moment by saying he wasn’t actually there. Just. Don’t.

Kylo Ren’s arc progressed. Honestly his plot line was the whole point of the movie. Everything else was literally, actually meaningless in its wake. People who wanted him to have a redemption arc got a teaser for it, and him ascending to be the main baddie of the trilogy has solidified (which was my favourite of the theories regarding him tbh). It’s weird though, because while I had always hoped he’d off Snoke I honestly didn’t think it’d be that easy. It was too easy, actually. Really anti-climatic. I was hoping for an epic battle but alas. We never even got to find out who Snoke was, his orgin.

Rey’s past is finally revealed. While this, too, was anti-climatic, I’m glad it was addressed (unlike Finn’s, cough cough). I get why they wanted Rey to have come from nothing, to have someone that wasn’t apart of such huge dynasties like being a Skywalker or a Kenobi. Just know that I still love and adore any and all origin headcanons any Rey RPers have <3

The FinnRey was on point. And there was some FinnPoe and FinnReyPoe action. Finn’s and Rey’s first thoughts were always of each other. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TRANSLATE WHAT CHEWIE SAID WHEN HE INTERRUPTED REY ABOUT WHAT TO SAY IF CHEWIE FOUND FINN FIRST? I NEED IT LIKE AIR. Even that look Rey had when she saw the Finn and Rose moment OH BE STILL MY HEART. Also that tracker became the new jacket thing that they shared. Rey had one, and Finn took the one Leia had and then passed it on the Poe like FUCK ME I LOVE THIS. And then POE AND REY FINALLY MEETING IN THE MOVIE? (I mean, in the novel they had met at the end of TFA but I digress.) IT WAS SO CUTE. FUCK. I lived for all the scenes Poe and Finn had together honestly, whew.

The Reylo wasn’t actually there. This was what I was most afraid of going into watching TLJ. I heard enough murmurings about it that I was dreading having to watch it. (I don’t care if you personally like it; it’s just not my cup of tea.) Like, I can see where the shippers would just take and run with what they were given, but I didn’t see anything romantic about their interaction despite how hard they were trying to make it be. I mean, Snoke was the one who forced their Force connection. I just saw two lonely, powerful people who were trying to find someone who understood what they were going through, like, platonically lol Plus, Rey didn’t even join him. That was another thing I was afraid of; Rey going dark. So I was overall pleased by this.

Negatives

Poe was so OOC (as well as 90% of the characters in the movie). Yes, Poe may be very good at blowing things up, made quite the career out of it, but if y’all are trying to help him see that that alone isn’t going to win wars and show him that he’s more than a flyboy maybe y’all shouldn’t be slapping him needlessly or be hypocrites and send him out to do the very thing you just reprimanded him for ten minutes later.

And yes, Poe may be reckless, but only with his own life, never with the lives of his friends and squad and Resistance members that he considers family. Never. Ever.

And yes, Poe had technically defied Leia before in TFA (but that was in the novelization only when he had stayed behind until he had eyes on the Falcon after Starkiller blew up and honestly in the eyes of TLJ he had never defied Leia) it was a) for a damn good reason and b) he had told his squad to leave without him and they chose not to.

So watching Poe defy Leia and risk an entire fleet of bombers to destroy one Destroyer was just painful to watch. Watching some no name newbie character take command over Poe when Leia was out of commission was painful to watch. Watching Poe being treated like he isn’t a brilliant commander and having ALL HIS PLANS FAIL was painful to watch. Fuck, watching Leia taser Poe like he was a fucking terrorist was painful to watch. Honestly I think the whole theatre was stunned when Leia did that, DAMN. It was just all very painful.

Finn is not a traitor, please get that straight. That whole Finn/Rose scene where Rose said Finn was a traitor for trying to escape and lead Rey away from danger like WHEN THE FUCK DID FINN JOIN THE RESISTANCE? DO Y’ALL THINK YOU OWN HIM BECAUSE YOU HEALED HIM? Honestly I didn’t think he was all in until he said he was rebel scum tbh. He admitted that he was only on the Starkiller mission to save Rey, just as he was when he tried to leave. He doesn’t owe anyone shit. Tasing him was so unnecessary.

There was no time skip. Other than being typical of Star Wars trilogy movies, it just would’ve made sense. Can you tell me how the first sentence of the opening crawl said the ‘First Order had won’ or something to that affect? LIKE DID WE WATCH THE SAME MOVIE OR WHAT?

And then somehow the FO had developed tracker tech and didn’t use the entire time they were fighting the Resistance until the Resistance was fleeing D’Qar, which apparently must’ve happened right after they sent Rey off to find Luke because haha Rey and Luke’s first meeting scene is happening concurrently with the rest of this shit. It doesn’t make any sense. Finn recovers so rapidly without any physical therapy (Kylo’s face I can understand because hey the FO has the tech for that advancement).

All of this would just make sense if there was a time skip. The Resistance flees D’Qar shortly after Rey leaves because the First Order knows what system they’re in and it’s only a matter of time before they find out which planet. In the mean time, the FO develops the tracker technology (and all those fancy Destroyer ships and hey when did the Resistance get bombers, why weren’t the used at Starkiller??). The Resistance finds out about from whom the FO gets their funding from and heads to Canto Bight, or hey after a run in with those damn destroyers they know they gotta take them down and the whole Maz-code breaker-Canto thing happens and boom that fight in Canto is where the tracker gets placed and boom the standoff in Crait and during all this they don’t do Luke dirty and Rey really trains and DOESN’T THIS ALL MAKE SO MUCH MORE SENSE?

They did Luke dirty (as well as Ben/Kylo’s origin story). Another victim of being terribly OOC. This man wouldn’t even consider killing his own father but hey, my nephew Ben is being seduced by the Dark Side and I can’t hope to save him even though I saved my father who was even more fargone than Ben so let’s consider killing Ben for a hot second before that becomes a problem thus driving Ben over the edge. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. I’m gonna stick with Ben’s power just exploded, killing everyone, and in his fear he ran to Snoke. Oh, and they killed Luke off. Epic way to go, but still.

Out with the old, in with the new. Jessika, Snap and the rest of the squad from the first movie just mysteriously disappear in TLJ. In their wake we get Rose and Paige and Holdo, of which the latter two’s deaths really don’t impact us as much as they would have if, I don’t know, we knew about them before? Could y’all build up the characters you have instead of bringing in new even more underdeveloped ones?

Kylo Ren and Finn don’t meet. We got a Hux/Finn reunion, where was the Kylo/Finn one? This one actually makes more sense because, I don’t know, Kylo could name Finn by designation and wrecked a console upon hearing that BB-8 was with Finn and HEY HE FUCKING SCREAMED AT FINN FOR BEING A TRAITOR but nah, not one peep in TLJ. Makes sense. Not.

All that wasted storyline potential. Let’s be real here, folks. Everything that didn’t involve Kylo and Rey was utterly meaningless to the plot. Two-thirds of every fucking thing that happened in the movie meant nothing. Tons of people died for nothing and Poe and Finn and Rose got beaten and made to look like fools for nothing and this was really a 2.5+ hour filler movie to ascend Kylo into main antagonist.

Knowing that the people who help fund the First Order hang out in Canto Bight could’ve been huge.

Finn realizing that the same people who sold weapons to the First Order also sold to the Resistance could’ve been huge.

Kylo fighting Snoke could’ve been huge.

Finn returning to the First Order undercover could’ve been huge.

Finn returning to the First Order undercover and getting captured could’ve been huge.

A defecting stormtrooper piloting that machine instead of BB-8, as cool as that was, could’ve been huge.

Poe actually being groomed to become Leia’s successor could’ve been huge.

Finn’s force-sensitivity could’ve been huge. (PRY THAT FROM MY COLD DEAD FINGERS.)

The parallel between Poe willing to die for a cause and Finn finally finding a cause worth dying for could’ve been huge. (They both could stand to learn from Rose’s words to be honest.)

JUST. ALL. THE. POTENTIAL.

Luke and Leia deserved a real face to face meeting. I thought we had been blessed by a real reunion of the twins only to later find out Luke wasn’t really there. While I’m so glad we got something at all (that forehead touch fucking ENDED ME) I think we all deserved a real meeting. And now we’ll never get one.

There’s probably more for both sides that I’m missing that I’ll probably write as I think of them but I think I got most of it off my chest lmao If you made it this far, congratulations! I applaud you.

TL;DR: The movie had its good moments, but there were a lot of fundamentally wrong moments, too.

#tlj spoilers #the last jedi #star wars #meta #there were a lot of funny moments too #like the opening with poe/hux #and rey literally reaching out instead of with the Force lmAO #but when i've read fanfics with better characterization than this movie #yIKES #that's just sad

[misscrawfords]

Well, I saw The Last Jedi...

HERE BE SPOILERS

(Also - I will be tagging all posts with “spoilers” and “tlj spoilers” for you to avoid. However, from now on this blog is NOT SPOILER FREE and I can’t guarantee that something might not slip past by accident. Proceed at your own risk.

Okay, I’ve just got back and my head is whirling so don’t expect complex analysis.

However, I’ve been chatting with the lovely ladies in the spoiler zone of the Reylo discord chat and that’s helping me clarify my thoughts a lot.

So basic reactions first in no particular order:

- I am now in love with Poe Dameron. I now ship Damerey. I don’t know how this happened. 

- There’s a bit in the soundtrack that is basically the finale of Sibelius’ 2nd Symphony. No1 curr I know but I’m intrigued.

- There was way too much going on in this film. It was like a later HP book - some great things happening individually but overall I just want to kick it because there was too much and it was easy to lose sight of the heart of it and its message because there was YET ANOTHER BATTLE and yet another subplot and character development for a minor character. I’m really frustrated.

- Since when was Hux such an awesome character!? I loved how he was played for laughs but honestly this is absolutely Draco-in-leather-pants. Kylux is literally a Cassandra Clare fanfiction. What is life.

- Several deus ex machina moments that made me go “hmm”. Floaty sky princess? Um, okay. That was unnecessary and a bit weird. Felt like a cringey tribute to Carrie Fisher and then she was knocked out for most of the film. I have problems with that entire narrative arc. To be explored later. Also Force ghost Yoda. Really? 

- WTF was that child doing at the end? I’m so confused. My instant reaction is to be suspicious and annoyed. If that child grows up to have the Force and takes away from Rey then I will be so annoyed. Also, we don’t need more characters. We really, really don’t!

- I was disappointed in Rose and Finn. I just... I just didn’t care. Because, once again, there was too much going on. Their whole storyline felt tacked on. Like, there were elements I really liked. I loved the whole weapons dealing in space concept - it was blatant but really good. We were basically in space Saudi Arabia and I loved that and I loved the code breaker who betrayed them for money. It was a more interesting and morally grey update of the bounty hunter concept and I really loved it. Also it fitted very well with the overarching theme of both sides being flawed and the profit of war and it all being kind of pointless in a way. BUT there was too much of it and I feel like they could have shown that message and done Canto Bight somehow without so much subplot that really distracted from the main heart of the film. I’ll need to think about this further and how I would have preferred it to go. Also at the end, I was really annoyed at Rose for saving Finn. Like, I 100% did NOT want Finn to sacrifice himself - NO SIR - but Rose stopped him potentially saving the whole Resistance by taking out that gun. Like, strategically it was dumb since Finn had committed to doing that. (I’m sorry, I’m such a cool-headed Slytherin, but it’s true!) I don’t know where to go from here for these two characters and I didn’t really buy the romance. Perhaps I would have done if there HADN’T BEEN SO MUCH DAMN STUFF GOING ON.

- It was really funny. Like, I was not expecting the humour. Especially over the First Order. But seriously, the FO run by played-for-laughs Hux and emotionally unstable Kylo is not exactly going to be a slick administration, right? It’s a recipe for disaster! (Sorry, Hermione Granger brain taking over again.)

- SHIRTLESS KYLO FANSERVICE. what even

- Every single “inappropriate use of the Force” fic is now canon.

- I kind of need to do a separate post about my Reylo thoughts and feelings, but suffice to say I am actually very conflicted, as I am about most of the film. Everything that happened made total sense in terms of character development and as a continuation of TFA and I applaud that and yet I feel uneasy. I also felt a lack of romantic/sexual chemistry between them that the film could have built up with music and other techniques, even despite shirtless Kylo and the HANDTOUCHING SCENE OMG WHAT IS LIFE. I’m not saying that there isn’t a basis for something to develop in IX but I was left feeling... I don’t actually know. THERE WAS TOO MUCH GOING ON AROUND THEM. I need to watch it again. I may pick up on things on a second viewing I didn’t see this time.

- SAVE BEN SOLO. Honestly, I have no idea what is going on. The film is massively pushing a redemption arc in its plot and what everyone around Kylo is saying. And every time he has the opportunity to fall in with this, HE DOES THE EXACT OPPOSITE. He’s not the only one being torn apart tbh. I don’t understand what the film wants me to think about this. (This isn’t about me analysing it, it’s about an initial reaction to feeling that I don’t know what the film is doing. It seems to be saying “Redeem Ben Solo! It can happen! That’s where this is going!” at the same time as “Kylo Ren is a monster and is turning into the Big Bad of this trilogy” which I don’t really believe but also I just do not see how he can come back from where he is.) But oh my goodness, his was the performance to watch. And he is still the centre and heart of the trilogy, as he should be as the new Skywalker.

- Speaking of Skywalkers... I loved Luke. He was so incredibly “Luke” and yet different. Is it what I’d expected? From what I’d heard and the marketing, yes. From his character as I previously understood it, I’ll have to watch the OT again. I think it probably works. It’s interesting. And Mark Hamill was absolutely fantastic. I really loved the flashbacks and the explanation of the destruction of the school and how it was a horrible, horrible misunderstanding. Best way out. Really tragic. And I like how the adults are taking responsibility for what happened to Ben. But also, like, the choices he makes now are his own. And they are terrible, terrible choices??? Not just morally terrible but also just, like, terrible. Poorly thought out...

- And yet, to me, the most true thing anyone said at any point was Ben’s speech to Rey when he asked her to join him about needing the whole old order to be swept away and replaced. It just... it really does? I felt such a feeling of relief. Like, the legacy is so strong in these characters. They need to get away from their past and the mistakes of the past and the burdens of the past. And that’s shown with the Resistance story but also with the Jedi story. Kylo’s way of doing this is all wrong, of course, but his ideas and vision is right and true. And I feel like this needs to happen! I don’t know HOW Ben can be pulled back from all the awful decisions he is continually making and the fact that he is squandering every single chance he gets, but I just feel like the only ending that is truly satisfying is Rey and Kylo starting from scratch again with a clean slate.

- Which is why Rey Nobody is so important. Whether Kylo is telling the truth or not about her parentage, she’s not a Skywalker. Or a Solo. Or anyone from the OT. And that is so necessary and important.

-  I have no idea whether to talk about Kylo Ren or Ben Solo.

- Before watching it I kind of wanted Rey and Kylo to leave together on nobody’s side but their own but watching I realised that she would never leave with Kylo. She will only leave with Ben. But he is refusing to be that person so I don’t know if it can happen. But it also has to happen. Because if Kylo dies in an act of redemption (which is what I always thought would be his fate after TFA) then Rey is left alone again and there is no balance. Sure she has her Resistance friends whom she loves and who love her and that is GREAT, I’m not knocking it, but they don’t understand her. They build up the Force bond, they build up the fact that neither is alone because they have each other, they see their future with each other (and even if that is a manipulation of Snoke’s, he is showing them what they want to see so it is still true) - and then Kylo dies and Rey is all alone as the Last Jedi after being alone all her life. And like, yes, found family and all but... it’s just. Why set all of that up? I’m just incredibly conflicted.

- I’m going to spend the next two years trying to understand all of this by writing Poe/Rey/Ben love triangle fic. Because I loved that moment of chemistry between Rey and Poe and I think he is kind of like the hero she wants but she’s got this connection to Ben and she’s got to deal with that but I think a transitional period in which she awakens to romantic/sexual feelings via Poe would be very important to her. Because I think one of the issues I have with seeing Reylo in this movie is that Rey is just so forceful and determined on one thing that she is not thinking in terms of romance or anything like that at all. There’s just nothing coming off her in that sense - until she sees Poe. And I’m conflicted between what the symbolism is in the film and what the characters actually do. Symbolically and mythologically Reylo is the only answer. But the acting and the characters of them as psychologically realised individuals is problematic to me. I don’t know if any of that makes sense, it’s 1.33am now.

- So on the topic of Rey will only go with Ben and not with Kylo, Ben has to save himself. Rey MUSTN’T, for the sake of feminist narratives everywhere, this cannot become a “bad boy saved by the love of a good woman” story, and I don’t think it is because Kylo is rejected every attempt Rey is making to change him. When he does do something “good”, it is of his own volition. The throne room and killing Snoke, for instance, (also, I totally called that as something that could happen, not that I did it here so I can’t prove it - ah well!), he didn’t do because of Rey directly. So he has to work that out for himself but I have no idea how he is going to do it. I mean, sure Rey can be part of this process and even the catalyst, but she can’t do it for it.

- I’m still so confused by the ending. Were Rey and Kylo looking at each other? I’ve seen people say he was kneeling in front of her, but I’m confused because I thought he was in the main part of the base and they were in the Falcon somewhere in the salt mountains? And also I thought Leia was still on the ground and I was convinced she was going to stay behind and see Kylo but then she was on the Falcon and were Kylo and Rey just staring at each other? I’m confused. I think this may have been a meaningful moment but I was just trying to work out where they all were and what was going on.

SO over all. Overall, I enjoyed lots of it but I don’t think it was a great movie. There was simply too much of it and ultimately I think there was a really fascinating and subtle story surrounding Luke, Kylo/Ben, Leia and Rey with juicy goodies like Force Bonds and grey morality and growing up and growing old (for all that Yoda’s appearance made me roll my eyes, I loved the line about the roll of the master being to be outgrown or whatever it was because as a teacher it’s just, yeah... it meant a lot). But this great and interesting and new take on the SW universe was being lost in battle after battle and confusing Resistance politics and overlong subplots that went nowhere (Finn and Rose didn’t even succeed?! What was the POINT) and an attempt to shoehorn in this fascinating story into a generic SW movie about the plucky band of Resistance fighters and the big bad Empire that we’ve seen too many times before.

LET. THE. PAST. DIE. I’m over that plot and I’m just annoyed because it has the makings of a great movie but I’m just left feeling too much was going on and I’m confused about the bits I really wanted to focus on and linger over.

Anyway, going to see it again on Wednesday with school and I am going to really, really focus on Reylo and trying to find the possibilities for romance so that if nothing else I have fodder for fanfic!

#Star Wars #The Last Jedi #spoilers #tlj spoilers #reylo #I lied #these are not a few initial thoughts #this is a living example of tl;dr #sorry #I have lots of thoughts #most of them make NO SENSE

[jenniferladybug]

My Thoughts watching TLJ

So many....here it is. And it’s mostly all Reylo lol

1. Poe is a fricken badass in this movie.

2. Luke Skywalker THROWING the lightsaber over his shoulder was EVERYTHING. (I laughed for 5 minutes)

3. Not gonna lie, Finn was a tad annoying in this movie....I can’t place it....I don’t know why.

4. ALL OF THE FORCE BOND SCENES WITH REY AND KYLO I’M LIVING.

5. Especially the SHIRTLESS SCENE.

6. Especially the hut scene!!!!!!! Luke was like a fricken Dad walking in on his ‘daughter’ fooling around with a boy in her bed. Like WHAT THE SHIT. That was so romantic!!!!! I squeed so hard at the shot of them actually holding hands.

7. Canto Bight could have been left out tbh. It had no meaning, and DJ was a pointless character. (there were too many story lines going on if I’m honest.)

8. Oh, and when Rey attacked Luke, holy shit.

9. Ummm....where did the knights of ren go? What happened to all of that stuff they shot in Ireland? I’m so confused...?

10. Omg the backstory of Luke turning on Kylo!?!!?!!?!? HIS SCARED LITTLE BOY EYES?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!? OMGGGGGGGG

11. OMG Kylo and Rey on the Supremacy???

12. Omg they are LOOKING INTO EACH OTHERS EYES IN A BOX.

13. Omg they are LOOKING INTO EACH OTHERS EYES IN AN ELEVATOR.

14. Omg.....wait.....why isn’t Kylo helping her when she’s being tortured!?!?!? KYLO HELP HER!!!

15. Oh shit....somethings going to go down.....no way is Kylo going to kill REY

16. Wait...the force bond was made by SNOKE? What? What? What?!?!? OH HELL NO. THIS HAS TO BE MADE BY THE FORCE NOT FUCKING SNOKE. What the shit Rian!?!!?!?

16. HE JUST SLICED SNOKE IN FRICKEN HALF DARTH MAUL STYLE!!!! OMGGGGGGGGGGGGG...and the way Rey looks at him and they just know and turn to fight back to back omggggggggggggggggg

17. Rey and Kylo fight scene WAS EVERYTHING MY BODY WANTED. SO MUCH SQUEEEEEEEEEE

18. Kylo being a fucking BADASSSSSSS and Rey tossing him her lightsaber?!!?!?!?!?!? OMGGGGGGGGG

19. Poor Rey thinking that Kylo had actually turned. I was like Oh honey no. He is still dark girl....all that hope in her face.

20. REY CALLING KYLO BEN EVERY TIME OMGGGGGGGGGGG LIVING.

21. Kylo reaching his hand out to her....she’s from nothing. Her parents SOLD HER?!?! OMGGG WHAT?! POOR BABY OMG.

22. SHE MEANS SOMETHING TO KYLO?!!?!? KYLO YOU SOFTY!

23. Oh no, lovers quarrel....damn, how are we going to come back from this.

24. Oh no, Kylo is not handling rejection well....oh no he’s throwing a hissy fit. Oh dear....

25. Hux is quite hilarious. BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That comedic timing though.

26. OH SHIT LUKE AND LEIA REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD.

27. Wait, did Luke dye his hair? And his beard? Huh? When did he have time to go to a salon?

28. Oh no, Luke is going outside....annnnnnnd cue the Kylo melt down.

29. “I think we got him....”

30. SURPRISE MUTHAFUCKA!!!!!!

31. God damn it Kylo, why did you have to go all dark Supreme Leader on us? Damn it, you were so close. WHY GOD WHY? WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?!!?

32. Oh shit....Kylo.....you let your personal feelings get in the way of destroying the Resistance...uh oh....

33. That side glance from Hux....oh I bet my bottom that he is planning a Coup....He sees Kylo’s weakness....shit son.

34. REY IS THE LAST JEDI MUTHA FUCKAASSSSSSSS

35. Finn’s obsession with Rey is a little bizarre? Idk....it seemed forced in this movie tbh...now it seems like they have no chemistry. WEIRD?!?! Maybe cause after we saw the chemistry between Rey and Kylo it doesn’t even hold a candle to it. DAMN.

36. That mirror scene with Rey in the cave is crazy, so cool. Very artsy and amazing.

37. Porgs everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Yikes. When Chewy is trying to eat that prog by the campfire and those sad Porgs came along, omg SO CUTE. But by the end I was like ugh i hate porgs.

38. I felt like I didn’t get enough Kylo development tbh...the way people were talking about it...I imagined his character different. Idk....seemed lacking somehow? 

39. Like...does this mean....he’s going to just get darker? I don't like that one bit. I thought the whole point was redemption!!! And Leia lost all hope, but she was the one who said there was light in him. I don't get it. And then Luke said no, there is still something in everyone....but.....Kylo? Ben? Are you still there? Is there redeeming after this? TBH I think he’s going to die in 9. I don’t want him to. I want them to be happy and have lost of babies....but maybe this is where the Skywalker line ends for good. Damn.

40. When Leia shot Poe, THAT WAS EVERYTHING OMG hahahahahahah

41. Rey shutting the door on Kylo? Omg....my babies. :( Do you think they are never going to force bond again? What...I want more force bonding! 

This is all I have so far. I’m going to see it again tomorrow night with my mom. I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE HUT SCENE AGAIN. AND THE REY KYLO FIGHT SCENE OMG.

#REYLO #tlj spoilers #tlj #star wars #the last jedi #reylo fam #fuck me up

[chiyohlecter]

soooooo i watched tlj last night and got home really late and felt more like sleeping rather than posting about it on here. basically here’s my thoughts:

watch the jeremy jahns spoiler review here i agree with everything he says basically

but i will break it down a little:

- poe in the beginning was ooc with the blowing up the thing, but after that he was 100% right, why the fuck didn’t purple-admiral tell everyone about her plan???? like literally when leia told poe, he was like “oh, ok good”, but when he thought there was no plan, he acted on his own to try and save everyone??? anyway yeah he was right, i love my gay son

- the finn and rose stuff. ah, i love both of those characters and i can see the bare bones of what they were trying to, but god did the execution not work. finn was made the butt of a joke at every opportunity and that was hard to watch since he was my fav new character in tfa (and dare i say the best performance) and them being made to kneel before hux and finn getting slapped was just disgusting. and rose kissing finn at the end was just??? ok w/e

- on leia, my favourite character growing up. once again she was barely in the movie, she was in a coma for most of it and aside from her reunion with luke there was nothing interesting. like her trick with flying was kinda cool, i guess, but it looked super weird, but i was fighting back tears when she was like “i know what you wanna say, my hair looks different“ (i am probably paraphrasing here, since the version accessible to me was a shitty dub)

- on luke. oh boy. first of all, him milking that sea-monster and guzzling it up will haunt my dreams, so jot that down. as i said i liked his reunion with leia. another moment i really liked was when he saw r2 and r2 showed him the recording of leia from a new hope. his opinion on the jedi was like totally right. his little astral projection trick was pretty slick. BUT do these people seriously expect me to believe that luke “i will not fight you, father“ skywalker was totally ready to murder his nephew (who at that point hasn’t even done anything bad, mind you i’m not stanning kilowatt ronald mcdonald here and i wish he died, but at that point luke would never have done that). another bad moment: luke just throwing away the lightsaber. i get why he did it, it just seemed so stupid inserting a comedic moment into something that should have been serious. like if he just didn’t take it and walked right past rey i would have been like ok cool, but he was just like “this bitch empty, yeet“. that being said i was probably the only person in the theater who actually laughed when he trolled rey with that blade of grass or w/e, so guess i just don’t have a good sense of humour or smth

- on that yoda cameo. listen the prequels ruined yoda for me. when i was a tiny child watching the original trilogy i loved him. but at this point even rewatching the ot i can’t tell if i only hate him because of the prequels or if he’s actually bad and tiny-me liked him because i thought he was cute. so anyways not a big fan of yoda, but when he called luke “young skywalker“ (i mean he did in the dub at least) i was like awww, but other than that, getting the most jedi-est jedi to burn down that tree... it should have 100% been anakin or obi wan

- on rey. wow did i not like that stuff. it felt like the whole thing was just to achieve rey and crylo teaming up in that fight. and honestly everyone is really impressed with that fight and i’m like eh, it was okay. like i liked the tfa lightsaber battle in the snow much more tbh. anyway they just didn't give her character anything really, it was all connected to kylie renner. like that scene with the infinite reys made absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever, i guess she had the one moment at the end with lifting the rocks (which was some shitty cgi btw), i just didn’t feel it, at all. and the whole thing where they set up ooo who are her parents and the answer is just, nobody? like i don’t necessarily have a problem with that, but why the setup then?

- and i guess i’ll have to talk about rylo ken sooner or later, so i’ll do it. he is still a whiny pissbaby and again he was given a chance by rey to do the right thing (as he was by han the last movie) and rejected it, again. so if i see anymore posts about redemption or if it is in episode 9 again i will fucking explode, please just stop it. he is a fucking space nazi, what’s so hard to understand about that???? his shirtless scene literally made me go blind for like 2 minutes, my gay ass didn’t deserve to see that. at least last movie he only took down his stupid mask for a limited amount of time, this movie we had to look at his ugly face the whole movie. and he was in it like a lot. and oh boy was that acting not good. like he had the same fucking expression on his face like the whole time, like srsly emilia clarke got nothing on him. the one good thing he did was force-chocking hoax and throwing him into a wall. oh and i guess killing snoke? i literally could not give a fuck about snoke...

- i guess there’s also phasma and hoax, like they are there, they are evil, there is nothing else to say about that. although i did like that finn got to end phasma and when she called him scum and he said rebel scum that was a great moment and the best one finn had in the movie

- on the porgs: literally why? at least the ewoks played into the plot. these fucked up penguins were just there to look cute, i wish chewie had actually eaten the one he roasted (if for no other reason then to make oscar isaac proud). i think the creatures on canto-bight which finn and rose rode were much cuter, if they wanted to bank on cuteness that’s where they should have went

- one thing i liked: c3po is back bitches. unlike literally everyone i ever met, i love him. and i liked luke winking at him. but: where is his red arm????

- speaking of droids, bb8. is bb8 droid jesus? like is there anything he can’t do??? like he was cute in tfa and all, but in this one he literally did everything. like why isn’t he leading the resistance???? they would win in 10 minutes???? why don’t they just make a thousand bb8s??? the first order would be obliterated instantly.

and i guess that’s it.

#tlj spoilers #star wars

[pennelopiad]

I knew this would fucking happen tbh...

Major tlj spoilers below the cut, just me rambling.

i should have known that the first asian woman in a star wars film would get a shit ton of hate in the “”””””discourse”””””””. half of it seems to be because people are mad she gets in the way of their ship (classic) and then the other half are people saying she was completely pointless, useless, etc.

like, i get it, and i agree to a certain point. i wish she had been developed more and i wish she was more “important” to the resistance, and that the main goal of her and finn’s mission wasn’t such a colossal failure. BUT. to say that her and finn’s arcs were completely meaningless is just false. imo, the point of her and finn’s storylines was catharsis. 

rose told finn that she and paige grew up as exploited children in a place like canto bight and she wanted to tear the city to the ground. when she and finn literally rampaged that place and then let the animals free afterward, it made their failure of their main goal worth it.

as for finn, he defeated phasma. yes, it was made possible through holdo's actions, but he directly looked into the eye of the woman who abused and indoctrinated him as a child soldier and watched her fall to her death. To brush over that and say his storyline in this movie was completely fruitless is a disservice to these characters. they ultimately got to "destroy" (even if only temporarily) the very things that oppressed them their whole lives, and you can't ignore that.

and i actually saw a comment that said rose is responsible for luke’s death......... as in, if she hadn’t SAVED FINN’S LIFE, then the giant laser would have been destroyed and luke wouldn’t have had to sacrifice himself....................................................................................................................................................................... so instead of, yknow, blaming the fascist dictator kyle ron or even luke himself, it’s all rose’s fault. ok. that’s when you know people are just REACHING for reasons to hate her.

and this isn’t even including all the reasons rose, as a character, is so so so important to people like me, who rarely if ever see ourselves on screen LET ALONE as a main character in a huge ass blockbuster franchise LET ALONE looking so refreshingly normal and not like a beauty queen/supermodel, LET ALONE as a character whose gender, race, and sexuality do not define them in the least, and LET ALONE as someone so unequivocally good. rose tico is a good person, through and through, and i love that about her.

so yeah, i hope she gets a lot more development and a more important role in the resistance in ep ix, but to say she’s completely meaningless and the “worst character since jar jar binks”. really?

#the last jedi spoilers #tlj spoilers #rose tico #i actually heard there's a petition going around trying to get tlj officially wiped from star wars canon?? #not just because of rose but also bc of a bunch of other stuff too #and it's just like........................ the entitlement #wow #you can criticize or dislike the movie all you want i wont stop you #but to DEMAND that lucasfilms and disney officially erase it from canon... and... #what? make a new movie that satisfies your expectations?? #stop being whiny entitled infants and go write some fanfic #am i gonna get hate for this lol