I won’t put any spoilers in this post but we can discuss with spoilers in the thread, right?
Anyway the critics seem to love it unanimously – but looking at the comments below the line on, say, The Guardian’s review, other filmgoers seem much more scathing (don’t look at these comments if you don’t want to know what happens, by the way). And these aren’t Comic Book Guy ‘worst episode ever’ types but people who enjoyed the previous instalment and were genuinely disappointed by this one, and perplexed that it could have thrown away such promise.
Me, I can kind of see both points of view. It isn’t prequel-level bad and if you’re taking kids to see it you can still expect to have a good time. But after an amazing opening ten minutes it did feel at times like the film was losing its way – including one scene where I thought “this is getting ridiculous”. Many moments didn’t add up, weren’t adequately explained, or stretched the boundaries of credulity even for a film about people who make rocks float. But, overall, I feel there is just enough magic to carry it through and will probably go to see it again with my expectations suitably adjusted.
What did you think?
Bingo Little says
I’m with you, thought it was incredibly up and down. Saw it with a bunch of major fans who are generally pretty uncritical of Star Wars and they all came out confused and disappointed.
Personally, I enjoyed it more than TFA, but far far less than Rogue One.
HUGE SPOILERS FOLLOW
Good Stuff
* Adam Driver was great and the Kylo Ren character was played much less for laughs this time.
* Virtually all the Rey/Ren scenes worked well, particularly the throne room sequence, which was ace.
* Mark Hamill was great. Excellent speech about the force and loved his stuff at the end of the movie.
* Snoke, who seemed a really sucky generic bad guy in TFA, turned out to be really good.
* Laura Dern and Carrie Fisher, both brilliant.
* Laura Dern’s exit was marvellous. Brilliant spectacle.
* Benicio Del Toro. Wish we’d had more of that character.
* I quite liked the battle at the end.
* Kylo Ren’s “you’re nobody” speech was ace.
Bad Stuff
* The milking sequence. WTAF? I wanted the movie to stop so I could check whether it really happened.
* Leia flying unaided through space. Again, what did I just watch?
* The casino sequence. Belonged in a different movie, and probably not a Star Wars one.
* John Boyeaga’s entire story arc was pointless, and Finn’s basically a pointless character. Pairing him with Rose only made this worse.
* Oscar Isaac, one of the big successes of the first film, wasted here. His character is literally incompetent and gets hundreds of people killed.
* The Rebel fleet storyline was unimaginative and entirely nicked from Battlestar Galactica.
* Not sure why we get all this insight into how Luke has been living on the island, only for it to be revealed that he’s been looked after by fish people in Victorian bonnets. Appalling. The weird cute creatures crowbarred in for toy opportunities can do one too.
* Compared to Rogue One, the space battles are utterly anaemic.
* Barely any Chewie.
* I’m sorry, but Domhnall Gleeson is appalling in these movies.
* No real cliffhanger. Doesn’t particularly build anticipation for the next movie.
* The first Star Wars film where the universe feels so small. Usually you get a sense that the place is teeming with life, and the scale of the conflict is vast. Here it felt the exact opposite.
* I know most audiences don’t agree, but I think there were far too many sub par gags in TFA, and this was the same. Watch the original trilogy – they’re not so desperate to be liked that they try to make you laugh every thirty bloody seconds.
* On which note, the opening scene of this movie, in which Oscar Isaac literally prank calls a star destroyer, and the phone is answered by Adrian Edmonson, was stomach sinkingly awful. There’s literally a “yo momma” joke.
Bingo Little says
Despite all the moaning above, I did enjoy it. But I agree that the critics have basically played safe and waved it through without thinking.
From what I can see, it’s getting a proper hammering online, particularly from the fan community, and I can see why.
JustB says
Yeah, but the words “online fan community” should always be accompanied with a massive eyeroll.
I take totally the opposite view on Poe. He served no purpose in TFA, but here he’s got loads to do. Completely agree with KD below.
I think Johnson deliberately scuppered the space battles, which are always the most boring bit of any SF film, Rogue One included. The whole device of forcing the First Order and the rebel fleet together completely undercut a major Star Wars cliché in a really interesting way, I thought.
The only OT film with a cliffhanger is Empire. They don’t always need one. And I’m v keen to see how the resistance grows from here. Plus, it’s a neat metaphor for Actual Real Life, which Star Wars has never done before: the good guys seemingly scattered and on the run, but with the seed of everything they need to come back.
I do want to see Finn given more of a point next time around. He was this film’s TFA-Poe Dameron
Bingo Little says
It’s got a 69% audience score, and seemingly falling, on Rotten Tomatoes.
I enjoyed it, and would probably give it a 7 out of 10, but it’s getting the worst audience response of any of this wave of Star Wars movies.
Also, the space battles were the worst bit of Rogue One? You’re out of your mind!
Edit: SInce I wrote this, it’s dropped to 68%. Rogue One landed on 87%, Force Awakens on 89%.
JustB says
If opening weekend audience score were worth anything, The Phantom Menace would be regarded as a classic. Everyone came out of that desperate to love it and only realised it was pony after a fortnight or so. The backlash wasn’t remotely instant. Plus everyone who’s already seen it is a tragic fanboi (me included).
The wisdom of crowds can bite me.
Bingo Little says
Yeah, but audience scores trend down with time, not up (as per Phantom Menace). That’s the effect of opening weekend marketing buzz. So the 68% is potentially even a little peppy – it may well settle in the 50s.
End of the day, if we’re discussing audience response, there it is. IMDB have it a bit higher, but Rotten Tomatoes is the score the industry will be watching to determine how this has gone down.
As I say, I liked it better than TFA, and will see it again. But there are a lot of people who are not happy with this movie. And it’s not that difficult to see why.
JustB says
And they can all bite me. 😉
Bingo Little says
Ha! If you want to feel really annoyed; Pearl Harbour has a 66% audience score!
JustB says
Less annoying; more of a confirmation that I should ignore what anyone else thinks of films that I like. 🙂
JustB says
Hell, Justice League has 80%. Now I know how Brexit won. 😉
Bingo Little says
Have you seen Justice League? Holy mother of god.
JustB says
No. Given that I’ve rarely hated any films as much as I hate Suicide Squad, Man of Steel and Batman vs. Superman, there was little to no chance that I’d go and see it. I know several people who have seen it and rather than reviewing it, each of them just did a poo, upon which they then vomited, and walked off. It was quite something.
Bingo Little says
It’s a whole other level. It made me reappraise BvS upwards, which is saying something.
JustB says
When I saw what the robot bloke looked like (i.e. a bit like that character from Morph who wore a tinfoil dress) I literally laughed.
Have you seen the DVD extra doing the rounds in which they’ve tried to CGI a moustache off Henry Cavill’s face? It’s… again, quite something.
Bingo Little says
They CGI the moustache off his face in the actual movie! It looks ridiculous.
Also, this…
JustB says
Wait, they did it in the actual film?! Whaaaa? Was it a reaction to test screenings where the ‘tache was in? Surely anything prior to that would’ve just ended up with reshoots, no?
Bingo Little says
Wheddon wanted late reshoots, by which point Cavill was off elsewhere with a contractually mandated tache. The rest is history….
JustB says
Ahhh! I’d imagined it the other way around.
Incidentally, I’ve always really rated Burt Weedon as a film director. Who says a man can’t branch out?
Kid Dynamite says
My instinct is that time will be kinder to this one than it was TFA.
Kid Dynamite says
All the hardcore fans I know who have seen it are unanimously glowing with praise. I liked it a lot. Probably not as much as Rogue One, but then that is a high water mark of Star Wars for me. The Force Awakens is a film that gets slighter every time you watch it, and I don’t think that’s the case here – there’s less flat out spectacle than TFA, but a lot more substance. There’s a lot to chew on in this one. I thought the only real bum note was the Spiritualized* tribute.
Re: Oscar Isaac being wasted – nah. He has loads more to do than he does in TFA. Yes, he’s rash and makes bad decisions that get a lot of people killed, but that illustrates one of the main themes of the movie, the one summed up in Rose’s line about how “we win by saving what we love, not destroying what we hate”. That is exactly what Admiral Holdo is trying to do with her plan, and exactly not what Poe is trying to do throughout the film, until the end, when he gets it and realises that the right thing to do is get away, and live to ignite the spark of rebellion across the galaxy, not go down in a pointless battle. I’d say that, along with Kylo Ren, he has maybe the best character arc in the film.
*Ladies And Gentlemen, Leia Floating In Space, thangyew thangyew.
Bingo Little says
Ugh, that line was grim too.
I dunno, I was excited to see more of this character and he just felt like a cardboard cut out generic hothead flyboy. The lesson he learns is so glaring and so heavily signposted that it doesn’t really impact, and we could have been spared most of the movie’s drama if he’d simply followed orders. In that sense, the real lesson is “shut up and follow orders”.
Also, the “save what you love” business lead to the ghastly moment where Rose saves Finn.
Kylo Ren is awesome though. Turned out to be a great character.
Kid Dynamite says
Re the OP line about throwing away promise, I get the feeling Rian Johnson wasn’t the biggest fan of TFA. He undercuts the climactic lightsabre handover from that film, gets Snoke out of the way well before the climax, and then goes off in his own direction. Be interesting to see what happens when JJ Abrams comes back for IX.
joe robert says
SPOILERS
The “Spiritualised scene” was the ridiculous moment I was talking about in my OP, although I could have been talking about the casino escape, or the “milking” scene, or anything involving cute animals / wide-eyed waif-like kids, or any moment the rebels were cornered by a squadron of massive First Order ships who for some reason couldn’t simply open fire on them.
After 35 years I’d love to have seen Luke properly swinging a green lightsabre again – from his other brief action sequences in the film I reckon Hamill could have carried it off – and his death at the end was a bit… eh?
Unlike The Force Awakens this has left me with no desire to find out what happens next. And after two years of anticipation, that’s actually quite a relief.
But hey, don’t take my word for it – some people in the cinema actually applauded at the end.
Moose the Mooche says
The Spiritualised scene…?
Luuuuke in the middle of the afternoon, just him with a spike in his arm and a spoon…
JustB says
I loved it. I think people overthink this stuff a LOT. Literally the only thing that made me drum my fingers a bit was the casino sequence, but the payoff (broom, at the end) made it all worthwhile. I think it’s easy to fall over yourself to be a sceptic about Star Wars in general – of course it’s daft, of course it has holes, and that’s Rogue One’s big flaw: it’s too serious and cares too much about being A Great Film rather than a Star Wars film, which is why it doesn’t make my top spot, as good as it definitely is – but I was entirely charmed by TLJ. The cinema broke into spontaneous applause four times, too.
On the specifics: Leia is a Force user. Untrained but sensitive. It was implied she broke open the door to the bridge, as well as “force grabbing” the ship to get back to it. Assuming she can do that, holding your breath long enough to do it before you freeze isn’t particularly implausible. We’re so used to the idea that space makes you explode and cough blood and all that shit, but it doesn’t. If you float in space without a suit, you just freeze and suffocate.
I liked the cute birds. The Chewie joke with the fire took the saccharine out of them, as did the fact that they’re not *friends*, the birds have just colonised the Falcon and Chewie’s a softy so he doesn’t chuck em out. It’s not Wicket.
The jokes were good.
I loved it.
Kid Dynamite says
That very last sequence was proper lump in the throat stuff for me. Wonder if that’s where Johnson’s going with his new trilogy?
While I too liked the porgs, can I also get a hell yeah for the crystal foxes?
Bingo Little says
The last scene was great. Really, really nice way to end. The crystal foxes can stay. The porgs can do one, and so can the Victorian fish people.
DogFacedBoy says
I liked it, maybe not as much as Rogue One but the main thing I took away from the film was Kylo Ren’s line about letting everything go – Jedi. The Sith. Vader. The Rebellion. Let the series have that baggage fall and tell their own tales. In that same world but with new purpose. This film was trying to do that being portentous and a bit silly with equal measure.
The corny lines and messages are there in the original trilogy but you didn’t care as you still had some of that childhood wonder. And it’s fucking Star Wars – enjoy the ride
Small Yoda!
Yeah?
For Gods Sake burn it down!
Lando Cakes says
Saw it in a double bill with The Force Awakens. Loved it. Came away with a wide grin, which is surely the appropriate benchmark for a Star Wars film.
Leicester Bangs says
Me, it’s a ‘like’ but not a ‘love’ for what was a fairly workmanlike episode. For all that it was a retread of ‘A New Hope’, ‘The Force Awakens’ featured some really startling moments with genuine dramatic heft: Finn’s bloodied stormtrooper helmet (hell, the whole idea of a stormtrooper defecting), the return of Han Solo, his reunion with Leia, his death at the hands of his own son, the return of Luke Skywalker.
Everything here, on the other hand, was decent but really only just ‘decent’. The biggest emotional note was struck by the Carrie Fisher dedication at the end; there was nothing really ‘wow’ enough to take your mind off the flaws listed above, and to be honest it still felt like a lift from the original trilogy, especially in its third act. It was all a bit rote. I was never really moved.
Having said that, I did really like it; I had a great time. But I didn’t come out of it buzzing like I did ‘The Force Awakens’ and ‘Rogue One’. In my opinion the weakest of the new films — the ‘Quantum Of Solace’ to ‘The Force Awakens’ ‘Casino Royale’.
ganglesprocket says
Can I offer my hot take on this (HEY BITCHES! THE CONTRARIAN IS BACK IN TOWN! AND YOU NOT GREAT TRUTH HANDLERS BETTER BRACE YOURSELVES!)
It was Ok.
Po got the best plot arc in my opinion because he basically decimated the fleet at the very start by being an arse. Genuinely he had an arc and that is a good thing. I suspect in the next film he will have “grown” etc etc etc etc.
Finn. Indeed. WTF? John Boyega is a charming, witty and charismatic screen presence who, while not being entirely misused had NOWT to do. His plot was a waste of space which could have been left out.
Rey. Hmmm. Tricky. Was sort of well used but not really. Think Luke in Empire who has a similar arc. How badly was he fucked at the end of that film, but he was alive and ready to keep fighting? I think Rey just wasn’t put through the mill enough. But if she is Luke and Luke is Yoda? Could have done better.
Luke. Again, could have done better. There should have been more heft; the Kyplo, “He did this” and the Luke “I did this” should have had more kick. Hamill managed more than the script gave him.
Leia. I dug the “floating in space scene.” Dammit she’s an untrained Jedi who has NEVER in any of the films had proper Jedi agency apart from sensing Luke was in trouble at the end of Empire. Now she has seriously done the force? GOOD! About time.
Porg. An infestation! Lucky. The trailer had me in serious fear. The film did better than the trailer suggested.
So, in conclusion? Fine. Didn’t hate it, didn’t love it.
This wasn’t The Phantom Menace but it may have been “The Return Of The Jedi.”
Vulpes Vulpes says
It was bloody great. Awesome stuff. FUN! It was a Star Wars movie. It was watched in the run up to Christmas. We stuffed ourselves in Franky & Bennie’s beforehand. We had Revels AND Skittles! We had a bucket of popcorn that we munched continuously yet only got half way through. What more do you want, for Force sake?
And to top it all, they got yer actual Oz Clarke to play Supreme Leader Snoke! Genius!
NigelT says
My first thoughts on coming out if the cinema were that I really enjoyed it – I liked the light touches of humour, my wife and I agree Rey is a great character, and it was pretty damn spectacular to watch. I definitely need to see it a couple more times to be sure, but there were one or things I didn’t quite follow (possibly me rather than the film..?!)….
Killing Snoke was a good surprise as I had assumed that would happen Ep IX ( and I like the power struggle that seemed to create), but I have no idea of where he came from or who he was.
The Leia in space bit was risible – not necessarily the idea, but it just looked daft.
What do the ‘star destroyer’ ships actually do? Seems like a few fighters always surprise them.
The bit where they were picking off the transports – they have so much firepower, why does it take so long?
The Victorian fish room staff were a bit daft.
dai says
Just saw it. Had some great moments, but was something of a mess. Bit like the other movie with Jedi in the title. And am I the only one who doesn’t have a clue what is occurring in the battle sequences.
davebigpicture says
We saw it today. I’ve given up trying to follow the story arc over different films but we enjoyed it, more than the last one. My son is better at following the overall story but he’s skiing in Italy so we (me, Mrs BP, Ms BP) were left to figure it out for ourselves.