And again:

Someone snuck the sacred Jedi books out of the tree and onto the Falcon on Ahch-To ... it's in the final scene when Finn opens a drawer the texts are tucked into the drawer.

It's unknown whether Rey knows they are there - it depends on who / how they got onboard the Falcon....

VanZandt92 said:

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I didn't think it cerebral whatsoever. What did I miss?

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It wasn't. The problem is that he was trying to make it this way and did not succeed.

02skiag had a good point about the pseudo-intellectualism, though. It probably appeals to a certain age group and Star Wars movies have always aimed for a wider age range than most films. The sophomoric cynicism of Benicio del Toro's character and Finn and Rose trashing the casino was probably consciously geared to target adolescents and woke college students. But it's pretty on the nose to an older viewer.

SeattleAgJr said:

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'Last Jedi' Grosses Are Collapsing With The Worst Daily Holds Of All 9 Star Wars Movies

Talking about how the percentage holds are dropping, in comparison to the other films.

In North America, daily holds for the Rian Johnson-directed flick have been significantly worse than those experienced by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and if the pattern continues The Last Jedi could actually wind up doing not much better than the 2016 spin-off movie.

Not that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is in any danger of losing money. There's too much momentum behind the franchise, too many people who will pay to see it even when they've heard it's a disappointing mess. Disney could have called it The Star Wars Movie That Will Completely Turn You Off From Ever Seeing Another Star Wars Movie Again and it still would have collected $1.2 billion at the box office and turned a tidy profit.

But for Disney, and for anyone watching, this isn't really a matter of whether The Last Jedi turns over a billion or more in revenue. That was always an easy target. This is a matter of how well the film succeeds in meeting financial expectations, how well it fulfills the needs of the franchise, and whether it strengthens the Star Wars brand for future projects.
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The movie's flight trajectory will more than likely improve as schools let out for the holidays and Christmas week arrives.
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But in key markets like Korea and Mexico and China and India, places where The Force Awakens wasn't well received and audiences could go either way, The Last Jedi may burn that bridge, and truly turn off mass audiences from ever seeing another Star Wars movie again.

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The true damage of Johnson's decision will not be seen until the release of the third film. I have a feeling at that time the fallout will be fully realized and it will be larger than many expected.

SpreadsheetAg said:

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And again:

Someone snuck the sacred Jedi books out of the tree and onto the Falcon on Ahch-To ... it's in the final scene when Finn opens a drawer the texts are tucked into the drawer.

It's unknown whether Rey knows they are there - it depends on who / how they got onboard the Falcon....

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Just got out of a second viewing. There is a scene before leaving the planet where she throws a blanket over the books and closes that exact drawer.

Definitely enjoyed the second viewing and enjoyed canto bight way more even if it was not required. Loved the Rey force bison and the stuff with Kyle and Rey was even better. I thought the jokes would annoy me on a second viewing but they actually made me enjoy them more.

Very disappointing to see all the criticism this film is receiving. The Diverse casting and empowerment of characters who identify as female should be a very welcome development, and the undercurrents of the negative responses are really noxious. I'm glad that Johnson is being empowered to continue his work, and hope that he continues in this vein. The cinematic arts have changed, and even though larger cultural progress proceeds at a small pace, achievements such as this film deserve our praise and admiration.

Redstone said:

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Very disappointing to see all the criticism this film is receiving. The Diverse casting and empowerment of characters who identify as female should be a very welcome development, and the undercurrents of the negative responses are really noxious. I'm glad that Johnson is being empowered to continue his work, and hope that he continues in this vein. The cinematic arts have changed, and even though larger cultural progress proceeds at a small pace, achievements such as this film deserve our praise and admiration.

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Solid troll.
I give it a 10/10.

Well done, grandpa. Well done.

Redstone gonna Redstone.

Saw it yesterday and really enjoyed it, maybe more than TFA.

Same quibbles as everyone else in regards to space Leia, casino planet, milking scene, etc.

The Rey and Luke stuff could have been tightened up and get rid of the helper creatures.

Luke sky walking to the rescue was awesome and I thought a great show of his powers.

There were lots of cheers and laughs throughout the movie.

Bunk Moreland said:

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Everything MC Swag said and more.

Im not a star wars super fan but I watch them all, and that was just a terrible movie by any standards, much less star wars. TFA was way better. Hell Rogue One was better.

It's been however many years and they decide to open the Rey storyline up on day 1 on the island?! Took forever to get 3 dumb lessons and all the sudden she's the ultimate badass.

The Skywalker academy stuff was such a cheap use of "we'll show you some but not all to make you think the opposite, then peel back more later to show it all in context... Wait.... Then show one more time that it actually was a tough call for Luke cause he could see darkness." garbage.

They should have opened the movie up with a flashback to the Skywalker academy and began with the swerve so we at least had that context.

And speaking of dumb, I can't figure out what's dumber... Leia space floating back to the ship or Rose's entire character and her/Finn's hour long subplot that ended up meaning zero for the movie.

She goes from a nothing at the bottom bowels of the ship to a girl with her hero on a ridiculous mission (oh and BTW how about 2 ridiculous emotional plug plot lines with her sister and the racing animals in a 20 minute span) and the entire situation resulted in absolutely nothing!

But hey they luckily got back to the barracks planet so at this time the only obvious thing to do is assume little girl who is nothing and has no experience is now an advanced pilot flying those mono skiers, even to the point that she has to help Finn (IIRC) out by explaining how to use the mono ski to properly fly it.

Then Finn is somehow flying literally into a Frickin laser beam and yet his hunk of junk craft is holding up until Rose bashes him away. He walks up to her completely unconscious and she immediately snaps awake, fully aware and kisses him?? The entire theater laughed when this happened, I **** you not.

Holy ***** After 30 minutes I knew I was in for an all time stinker and there was nothing I could do about it except continue to watch fumble after fumble by the filmmakers.

So much unnecessary bull*****

The Snoke scene and the light speed kamikaze were cool. So there's that.


Edit: oh and the whole Holdo swerve? How ridiculous. She just stubbornly won't tell any chain of command about her plan, to the point that Poe leads a mutiny and then she gets the ship back because Leia decides to wake up and say "Poe, I know you spend half the movie looking out the window, but for some reason you didn't notice that giant planet right out the window that has been in clear sight that we've been heading towards for some time now. See? Holdo has had this plan all along and that's why she's smart and you're just a dumb emotional fighter pilot."

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B-b-but you just need to see it a few more times and then it gets good!!

A-a-and Luke sending a Hallmark Hologram of himself instead of actually showing up and kicking Walker ass in an X-wing fighter before somersaulting out and lighting up his lightsaber is a zillion times better, because that's the most advanced use of The Force evaaaarrrrrr!!!!

lol at the delusion of fanboys having to convince themselves that this garbage was any good.

Although the movie was not perfect, it was still a good movie and an enjoyable 2 hours. You can take any movie in history and nitpick it to death. Sometimes it's ok to just sit back and relax for the enjoyment of a movie. The originals weren't perfect. The prequels definitely weren't. And these won't be either. A lot of y'all are missing the forest for the trees.

Space Leia was dumb though. They should of let her die right there. Casino planet with the fur baby deer/horse things and the whole bleeding heart lib moment was painful too. But these things still didn't make me throw the movie away as a failure.

Last Jedi is probably the second worst episode behind the painful episode 2.

Tried so hard for the comic relief. Shoved so much information into 1 movie that it should have been 2 and that made it painfully long.

Kylo Ren is basically J.P from grandmas boy but paid $100 more.

Episode 7 was really good and I thought the acting was garbage. Too many side stories

I saw it today and think most are smoking crack. It was damn good. 1000X better than the New Hope clone.

they should have stopped after Return of the Jedi.

Although the light speed ramming was awesome the rest of the movie was hot garbage.

Anyone who says this film is worse than the prequels is jaded as hell and whose opinion shouldn't matter

Saxsoon said:

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Anyone who says this film is worse than the prequels is jaded as hell and whose opinion shouldn't matter

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I disagree. The acting in this one was heads above the prequels, but the story and subplots were quite bad. There are some pretty badass sequences in the prequels. Please don't say the Snoke scene was great. It was a Prometheus CGI guy who was protected by ninjas

I guess it's "cool" to bash this movie. I will not partake.

I'm not a nerd star wars fan. I've never read any of the books, and have never cared about "canon". I've only watched the movies (many times) and played the video games back in the 90s. After the disappointment that was the Force Awakens, this movie was a pleasant surprise. There were several moments I thought were going to be cliche, but they were not. For example, when Luke walked out to challenge Ren, I was prepared for Ren to order everybody to hold their fire so that he could take him on "man-to-man". It was great that Ren ordered them to fire everything they had at him instead. Then when Luke survived that without without a scratch, I rolled my eyes at the notion that he would live through that barrage. I was prepared for them to have a Kill Bill-esq fight to the death like in so many other movies (Star Wars franchise included) and for Luke to be an absolute badass in it. However, it was a great change of pace that the whole thing was a ploy that also explained Luke's supposed invincibility.

I think the death of Snoke was brilliant. I'm so glad it was through cleverness rather than the typical duel where one guy grits his teeth and merely "wants it more". It was great the first time in Return of the Jedi, but it's been WAY over done since. I also love how afterwards Ren wasn't "turned" like Luke in RotJ and instead merely wanted control for himself. I was totally prepared for Ren to be a good guy after Snoke was killed (and I was about to accept it). But the path they chose was WAY better.

I loved how the plan to lose the tracker and then jump was a failure. The fact that they wasted their time on that was awesome. Then again their secret plan became a failure too. That sort of crap happens all the time in real battle/life. How many times do we need to watch the rebels pull off a intricate and improbable plan? Again it was great in RotJ, but has become WAY too formulaic since.

I'm tired of predictable movies where winning is little more than being better at karate (or the force). That's a lazy writing. This movie had smarts that has been missing in many movies.

I do wish Liea and Finn died. I assume Disney set that ground rule for future movies. I think the line about "saving what you love" like was cheesy as hell. But overall, I would put the movie right next to Rogue One and RotJ which is above the Force Awakens, all the prequels, and a New Hope. Only Empire is clearly above it (probably for nostalgia reasons on my part). I'm going to watch it again with my other kid in the next few days.

I agree with everything you said except some stuff in your last paragraph...
Great post!