Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

Don't forget Rogue One's Vader going "Try not to choke on your aspirations." Vader loves to pun.

“It’s ability to cause problems has certainly been confirmed.”

I kind of want more Vader in the films just so we have more of Anakin’s wit. It’s a damn shame he hasn’t appeared as a ghost to chew out Ben yet.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 22nd 2019 at 12:15:59 PM

I hope Force Ghost Ani doesn't show up to meet Kylo. That's a privilege Ren should never get. I do think however that it was a mistake that Force Ghost Hayden (maybe with some makeup) didn't do a scene with Leia. Because Leia needed some catharsis about the fact that the man who tortured her turned out to be her father. ROTJ didn't address that. And the ST didn't do it when it had the chance and now you're never going to get that.

I want Force Ghost Ani and Luke to show up to Rey in the next movie.

Yeah, legends were the only point in time when Leia interacted with Force Ghost Dad. So many opportunities are gone now regarding that.

To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if Leia interacting with Vader, Luke, Obi-Wan etc wasn't in their initial plan for Ep. 9 before Carrie's passing. Wasn't this upcoming one supposed to be the Leia showcase movie?

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 22nd 2019 at 12:55:47 PM

I want Yoda to appear before Rey only for her to have no idea who he is. Then Yoda spends half his visit grumbling about how no one respects their elders anymore.

Crotchety old man Yoda is best Yoda.

Yoda and Rey would be a little too random for my liking. Ani is too on the face of it, but given that Rey was set on the idea that Kylo could be redeemed and trying to understand how someone she cares for can be consumed by darkness, she needs a one-on-one with Anakin. I guess maybe you will get Force Ghost Luke next time.

Now I think Episode 3 of the ST is going to be a Lando Calrissian showcase movie and I am okay with that. Lando is the Fourth Musketeer and he should have been by rights in the first movie too. And of course Lando played a big part in ROTJ.

Do not deny me cranky old Yoda. It has been proven by magical space science that wizened old muppets make everything better.

I am definitely pro-Ghost Hayden, including for a Doylist reason - I want to see if he'd be less narmy under a different director.

Only time I want to see Ghost Anakin is when Kylo is near death,my idea is that we see this black shape watching Kylo as he's dying,Akain is basically the jedi equivalent of Death in this case

Hayden wasn't Narm all the way throughout the PT. Big dramatic scenes, like when when Padme tells him she's pregnant, Order 66, when he massacres the Trade Federation, the meeting with Padme and duel with Obi-Wan, and when he massacres the sand people (not so much when he tells Padme admittedly but everything from when he meets his mother to the end of that scene). All that works. As does the scene with him Windu, Palpatine. And Force Ghost Ani will by default be less Narmy since this is a Anakin who is at peace and brought balance to the Force, whereas he's a teenager, adolescent, emotionally stunted Manchild in the PT. I hope people remember that if and when they do bring him back because Flanderization might mean they might have has no Force Ghost Ani make jokes about sand and all that, which again has no place here.

Adam Driver's Kylo as more than a few point out is similar to Prequel-era Anakin, and people accept him because while I think Hayden is a good actor, Adam Driver is obviously a much bigger talent and he's got a star quality, i.e. charismatic screen presence which as they used to say "you either have or you don't" (It's why Harrison Ford broke out and Mark Hamill didn't, not that Hamill wasn't a talented actor, he just didn't have screen presence and only someone like Lucas would try and promote him as a leading man). There's also the fact that Kylo Ren is intentionally spelled out to you be a Vader fanboy and presented in a black comedy tongue-in-cheek way. He's someone who's halfway serious and halfway joking. Whereas Lucas didn't spell out or give you signposts on how to react to Anakin, leaving that for audiences to decide and judge.

Not to mention Anakin's general arrogance and lack of critical thinking skills.

"Chancellor Palpatine thinks I should be on the Council."

"Okay, you're on the Council. You're not a Jedi Master though."

"Why not?! >:C"

Because the entire reason he recommended you be on the Council was so that you could spy on them, that's why.

To be fair, Palpatine outsmarted Yoda, Windu, and everyone else in the Galaxy. So it's hard to fault Anakin for being dumber than the average Jedi.

I honestly don't know what to make of Kylo. Because he's presented in the first two movies as a poor man's Vader or a misaimed version of him, but the end of TLJ makes him Kid Palpatine. Think about it he's now the Supreme Leader, Palps' successor in effect, he purged the Jedi and made Luke die a pauper, just like what Palps did to Yoda, he overturned the new republic, and he killed Snoke the way Palps killed Darth Plagueis. So somewhere along the way, the joke version of Vader has become deadlier, more manipulative, more intelligent, and more competent and effective than the real Vader ever was. Vader failed to move past Stage 1 in his one attempt to coup Palpatine in ESB, but Kylo has gone all the way.

And Vader only attacked Palpatine by attacking him with his back turned while he was electrocuting Luke, you know dishonorable low cunning. Unlike Kylo's genius manipulation and punking of Snoke where he out-psyched the Psychic.

Calling what Ren did in TLJ "genius manipulation" is way too flattering of the guy. He killed Snoke while the latter was smugly assured of his absolute control over a ticking time bomb and even then Ren needed Rey's help to kill off the witnesses to his treachery. Ren took out Snoke because the guy's an even bigger moron than he is. Everything we've seen of the guy suggests he'll lead the First Order down a path of self-destruction.

Edited by windleopard on Mar 23rd 2019 at 10:08:47 AM

We don't know that until the next movie comes along. My feeling, my WMG if you will, is that JJ Abrams will have Kylo Ren survive the film. He's played by a young actor, and Disney needs Star Wars to create IP and stuff to spin-off for more stuff. So having Ren who is widely considered the most interesting character of the ST will be hard to do. My personal pitch...have Kylo Ren immersed in carbonite and imprisoned. I think that's the right karmic fate and plus you can then revive or update or do what you need for a later date.

But yeah, Kylo Ren punked Snoke. Palpatine punked the Galaxy. Ren punked a telepath, and yeah Snoke was a moron and underestimated Kylo and whatnot. But give the devil's lackey's grandson credit for going up in life from getting Satan's cigarettes to becoming the guy to whom I guess E-cigarettes are given.

The most general flaw in any Dark Side user, Sith or Dark Jedi, is that they're way to arrogant. Snoke thought he had Kylo firmly in hand and was so complacent that he didn't realize that when Kylo thought of killing his enemy, he didn't mean Rey (since he was trying to turn her, and she was trying to turn him), he meant Snoke.

The thing about Kylo is that he's filled with flaws, and thus is so far avoiding being stupidly arrogant.

Edited by theLibrarian on Mar 23rd 2019 at 1:27:44 PM

Wasn't one of the reasons Skywalker wasn't made a master was the fact that he didn't complete all the requirements to actually become a Jedi master?

On paper he ticked all the boxes. It was his emotional state and maturity that were raising flags -100% correctly as it turned out.

Wait, since when is Kylo Ren "widely considered the most interesting character of the ST"?

So are Finn and Rey. And I'm sure way more people are interested in them than the guy who's basically the fandom's new punchline.

Whose toys sell more?

I've somewhat lost interest in Finn. I mean, apart from being the black lead, what else does he really have going for him? Any connections he had to the First Order seem irrelevant at this point, and the only other characters he has genuine connections with are Poe, Rey, and Rose. My interest in him died around the same time Phasma did.

Rey, I'm only interested to know if Ren's claim about her parents being no one special was true, and how she'll resolve the main conflict, if she does. She apparently "doesn't have anything else to learn" so I don't see there being much internal conflict/growth in Ep 9. She's either going to ice Kylo or she isn't.

Poe doesn't feel like the type of character whose going to be in the room when Rey and Ren have their epic final showdown. He's going to be Kid!Anakin, shooting down the Trade Federation ships while Qui Gon and Obi Wan deal with Darth Maul.

Ren kind of is the most interesting person at the moment. Will we go full hog with him on Team Dark Side or will we see Luke redeems Vader 2.0? Will the First Order truly be defeated in Ep 9? Will Ren be the cause of it? He's got the most variables out of everyone. Him killing Snoke gave him a lot of narrative breathing room, too much even.

Edited by Soble on Mar 23rd 2019 at 3:29:10 AM

If the ST is considered the finale of the Skywalker Saga, then Kylo Ren is the last of the bloodline as of ST part 3, so that makes him the Villain Protagonist of the ST. Adam Driver is one of the best actors of this generation and TFA and TLJ made him a mainstream hearthrob. So yeah, I think it's fair to say that Kylo Ren is the most interesting and popular character of the trilogy.

I feel that John Boyega's Finn was misused and underserved and undercut first by the finale of TFA and doubly so in TLJ. It's unfortunate that he didn't get better than he deserved. George Lucas would have done right by him, and with Rey too. But Lucas isn't around anymore.

I doubt it's accurate Lucas would have done better. Frankly, Lucas was a pretty bad writer in general.

As for Kylo, I agree he's a very interesting character, though is he the most popular? Has anyone done any polls or anything on that?

He's weak on dialogue, but writing isn't entirely dialogue especially on film. Lucas has solid dramatic chops as a writer and a good sense of drama. There's a reason why none of the first 6 Star Wars had flashbacks after all and he created the characters. Yoda was created by him, as was Lando Calrissian. Lucas was the one who created the entire background and history of both, and of course Lucas, and Lucas alone, is the author of the greatest plot twist in movie history. He wrote the entire final exchange between Luke and Vader at Bespin, "No. I am your father". That's Lucas. Also Lucas wrote the parable of "Darth Plagueis the wise" and other great dialogue bits in the prequels.

Lucas would never do what Abrams did with Finn, where he's The Protagonist for the bulk of the film, our eyes and ears, One Degree of Separation from everyone in the cast, and having wonderful chemistry and friendship with Rey, and then suddenly the finale of TFA pulls a Bait-and-Switch and we realize that Finn is the sidekick and Rey is the hero, and Finn gets knocked out and put in a coma and basically gets Demoted to Extra in TLJ by Johnston. Lucas would never yank the audience's chain like that. Compare how Lucas treated Lando, where he comes in TESB in the third act, and in a few scenes has a complex redemption arc and in the next film is a big supporting character, the guy who leads the entire Death Star run. I feel Finn is an inversion of Lando in the first two movies.

I wouldn't consider Kylo the villain protagonist of the ST, because he's only really a protagonist in one of the movies so far, and even then only partially.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 23rd 2019 at 3:53:58 AM