#like i Will Not Elaborate because this is tumblr but. snoke.

[moinsbienquekaworu]

Remembering why I vibed so hard with Kylux fanfic Kylo is just making me want to rerereread Super Fade and All Hearts Come Home for Christmas and And All That Road Going and What We Want and From the Last Whelming Sea and finish the Structural Fabrications series and maybe even reread Dollars to Donuts

[frumfrumfroo]

The Reylo fandom is my villain/hero ship with the highest canon odds but somehow the most negative fandom. I’ve never shipped anything that had such a shot at canon before, but also it’s been the most negative and anxious fandom experience. I don’t understand how that tracks; I’m guessing it’s because Reylo is seen as an unwelcome intrusion on the SW fandom that was seen as about adventure and platonic love *at most* before? But that’s just a guess

I think there are a lot of reasons, but big ole schmoopy romance has always been a huge part of Star Wars, so it isn’t the existence of a love story per se. A specific segment of the audience is upset because the love story is the A plot and it’s from a female POV, which I think is why some of them genuinely struggle to understand what’s going on in the trilogy. SW is a capital-R-Romance and always has been (what we now call ‘adventure’ is frequently synonymous, Romance is distinguished by chivalric virtues and fantastical elements over militaristic virtues and ‘masculine’ storytelling in conventional epics), but having romance-romance genre conventions be the genre conventions is new and frightening for some people.

But the vast bulk of the anti-reylo harassment we’ve dealt with (and all other SJW fandom policing using identity politics as a cudgel) is coming from female-dominated tumblr/fic fandom, not from the old school dudes. Old school dudes are the ones speculating about elaborate lore and convoluted Macguffin plots and Snoke theories, they are dismissive of shipping as a whole. Those are the ‘lol it’s not Twilight’ people. They don’t care that we exist as a fandom or write fic because the streams essentially don’t cross, they’re only upset canon isn’t catering to them.

The stream do cross in the depiction of Ben as an object of desire. You’re not allowed to find him hot because he’s not the ‘correct’ male image (ironically, woketivists and dudebros agree that you should find P0e hot instead), hence he is not ‘manly’, and therefore he can’t be the romantic lead. So clearly it’s a cautionary tale or somehow Rian has hijacked the narrative to indulge his deviant Kylo Ren fetish. All of this is inherently sexist and full of ‘ew icky girly cooties’ logic, because he’s a romantic ideal that shows up like clockwork in A plot love stories written by women. The exact stories antis are in hysterics about, because female fantasies are dangerous and being feminine is bad- you need a Strong Female Character who doesn’t feel feelings or wear dresses to teach you to never trust your own judgement and always defer to fatherly authority figures. Stoically and ruthlessly kick ass, don’t ever indulge in compassion and remember not to have any sexual desires. That’s ‘empowering’.

So yeah, antis are ‘not like the other girls’ re: redemptive/transformative love (which is like... 85% percent of the romance genre, even if the stakes are usually a lot lower/more mundane) and that’s part of it.

But as for general negativity- I think it would still be an anxious, panicky fandom even without the ridiculous asshole parade from both the tumblr new wave and the old entrenched fans, just because of the nature of the story.

[carrionkat]

Response for kateofthecanals

Here ya go, @kateofthecanals

I don’t really use Tumblr all that much so I apologize for any formatting hiccups or errors in courtesy.

Well, since I agree with literally all of your positive points (especially how Rey and Kylo’s visions could be the same, just viewed from a different perspective), and this is already getting too long I’m just going to address your negatives!

- The turning point for me, going from “YES YES YES!” to “oh…” was immediately after the team-up in the throne room, when I quickly realized that Kylo didn’t kill Snoke because he suddenly “woke up”, and he didn’t do it for Rey… he did it so that HE could be the HBIC.

I actually read the scene differently. Conflict is the central theme of Kylo’s character, so I saw him as undecided up until he realizes that he will never be out from under Snoke’s boot. He wants to be free to decide who he is and the path his destiny will take (as seen in his “let the past die” speech) and he can’t do that while Snoke lives. I think it’s less about taking charge of the First Order, and more about killing the monster who has been pulling his strings since he was an infant. And I think Snoke demanding he kill Rey is what wakes him up, in that it makes him realize that he will never be allowed to make a meaningful choice while Snoke lives. He doesn’t want to kill Rey (in fact he wants her to be a part of the future he creates). He achieves avoiding this by killing the person making her death a possibility.

- I was really bummed when Snoke “revealed” that he was the one who facilitated the Force-bond between Kylo and Rey, but I was relieved to see this wasn’t the case after all at the end when Kylo and Rey had that one last Force-encounter. But again, what was this actually worth in the end? She closed the door on him. It was established in this film, via Luke, that a Force user can close themselves off to the Force. Who’s to say Rey won’t do the same to Kylo? That she will find a way to cut him off completely? There’s literally nothing stopping her, because she has clearly given up on him…

 This is going to be a steep hill to get over, but I think a grand enough gesture from Kylo could get through to Rey. Once she knew what happened to him as a child with Luke, she forgave him for a whole lotta bad. If he were to, say, sabotage the First Order or release a prisoner or something that showed he was still conflicted, I think that could change her mind.

 - … as has everyone else. And with good reason, tbh. The moment Kylo threw Rey under the bus for Snoke’s death, declared himself new Supreme Leader, and went fucking buckwild on Luke, I knew all hope for redemption was gone. Even Leia was like, “nope, I was wrong, he’s lost for good.” Basically what I got out of this movie was, Rey and Kylo “flirt” with the other sides of the Force for a hot second but then just ultimately decide that they belong where they were in the first place. Gee wow what awesome character development…

 I think there was actually development here. Kylo has gone from puppet to free being. His personality beyond that is still malleable. The Dark is what he knows and it’s what he’s been trying to be since childhood, so it’s the path he follows, for now. I’m not sold that it will be the one he continues to follow, however. I also think the hopelessness of the situation is supposed to parallel Empire Strikes Back. We’re supposed to feel grim. This is our heroes’ lowest point; we’re only going up from here.

Also, he despises Luke for good reason. Him going buckwild on Luke isn’t really a condemnation of his entire character. His uncle, who he trusted and loved, tried to kill him. That’s gonna leave some damage. His rage isn’t born out of a hatred for Luke’s ideologies or of hatred of the Light, it’s born out of having his trust broken in the most cruel way possible. Maybe even resentment that Luke’s actions drove him into Snoke’s less-than-kind tutelage, but that’s probably reaching.

 - The revelation of Rey’s parents was just so… banal. I felt like this was thrown in there just to put the question to rest, without any additional thought or exploration, even though that was made such a HUGE deal of in TFA. But, nah, they were “nobodies”, end of story, case closed, that’s all she wrote. It was never even explained how Kylo knew about Rey’s parents!!

 The way I thought Kylo knew is because Rey knew, the whole time, and was just in denial about it. He sees it through their connection. She sees herself in the Dark part of the temple because she already knows the answer. (Also her saying she was “unafraid” while stuck in the Dark says something, but we’ll see if it gets followed up on).

 - I’ve seen people claim that this movie “shuts down” anti arguments for good and that is simply not the case. There is still plenty of ammo from this movie they can use, chief among them Kylo’s cringeworthy statement to Rey that “You’re nobody. But not to me.”

 Oof, yeah, I actively cringed when he said that. Someone’s been reading PUA shit. But if you want to dig for excuses you can bring up that Kylo has literally zero positive interactions with anyone except Rey, and is thusly a social moron who has forgotten what kindness is. What he’s saying is what Rey feels (that she’s nobody), followed up by what he feels (that she’s somebody) and with no pretty trimmings about it. It’s still a really shitty thing to say and I wish that line wasn’t there.

 - I’m glad everyone’s happy that Kylo didn’t actually KILL Leia (which I knew he wouldn’t) but I dunno how many brownie points he gets considering he still let those other fighters take her out…

 He does seem a little shocked when the other fighter’s shots connect, so maybe he was so focused on making a choice that he didn’t realize the fighter’s were taking the shot? Still, I agree with you.

 - And he barely even flinched when Snoke was torturing Rey. You’d think that, I don’t know, since they have a Force-bond and everything, that he would have been able to feel her pain or something???

 Yeah, some kind of reaction would have been nice. I thought I saw him trembling, but I can’t remember it very clearly so I would have to rewatch.

 - During Kylo’s attack on Crait, at a certain point (around the time Luke shows up), Rey just, like, disappears, completely, and doesn’t show up again until the very end to do her rock-lifting trick. Firstly, where the hell was she that whole time, but more importantly, wouldn’t it have been kind of awesome if, like, she could sense what was happening between Kylo and Luke and using their Force-bond try to talk him out of it? And see him actually STRUGGLE with it because he’s still torn between wanting to be with her and wanting to be the Big Bad? Buuuut no, because at that point, both their minds were made up, and Rey had given up on him anyway.

 Rey’s part (or lack thereof) in that battle seemed really messy narratively. There’s no reason for them to be flying over the mountains in the Falcon; they have no reason to believe that the rest of the Resistance is trying to flee the base. Why aren’t they back there in the action? Why don’t they try to blow the cannon up? Or take out the Walkers? The bond that Rey has with Kylo AND the student/teacher one she has with Luke are both just left dangling there. The Kylo/Luke confrontation is incredibly tense and I loved so many things about it, but it does feel like substance was cut for style there.

 - On a more technical level, I was really disappointed by how the Force-bond sequences were filmed. I expected way more from Rian Johnson; this was something any first-year film student could have come up with. Now, I’m not claiming to be “better than Rian Johnson”, but in my headcanons of Rey and Kylo’s Force-conversations, there was a noticeable atmospheric shift – some sort of visual cue that something “different” was going on… Instead of just this basic cutting back and forth between them in their respective locales. Meh.

 There was a bit of an audio cue (the sound warped) but a bit of blur around the edges or color shift or something would have been a nice visual cue.

 - I didn’t find Rose that memorable, sorry. And her whole mission with Finn, much like the Kylo/Rey storyline, ended up being completely pointless, thanks to Admiral Holdo needlessly keeping vital info about her plans from Poe. WHY??? All of it was just an elaborate excuse to send Finn off on another adventure where he would end up back with the First Order so he could finish off Phasma, period. Like, yeah, there was that little hint at the very end that those kids who took care of the fathiers would, like, have something to do with the Resistance in the next movie, but honestly that could have just been a little meta commentary about how kids have been inspired by the Star Wars franchise over these past 40 years. Which is nice and all, but Finn and Rose’s mission was still pointless.

 Agreed; it felt like the weakest part of the movie to me. I wanted to like Rose and Finn, but I kinda ended up resenting that their (ultimately) pointless story was taking so much time away from what I thought were more interesting plot lines.

 I think the last bit was meta commentary, as well as showing that Luke’s words are true; he isn’t the last of the lightside. It’s not just Rey who will succeed him, it’s every child who has heard his story and strives to be good because of it.

 - Same with Holdo. So here’s this lady who just shows up out of nowhere, keeps vital information from Poe for no good goddamn reason, thereby forcing him to come up with his own plan and send Finn & Rose on a wild goose chase, and then suddenly we’re supposed to buy this close, intimate relationship she has with Leia so that we’ll feel all wistful when she decides to go on a suicide mission to protect the Resistance?? That should have been Leia, tbh… and not just for cheap emotional impact. At that point, Leia believed both the cause and her son to be lost and really had nothing else to lose at that point, and it would have been well within her personality to take out as many motherfuckers as she could to go down with her. Holdo should have been set up as Leia’s heir apparent going forward, and Leia going all kamikaze on the First Order would have been an interesting parallel to Luke also sacrificing himself to protect the ones he loved. AND it would have solved the whole issue of how to move forward in the story after Carrie’s death. I mean, we know that Leia was supposed to play a big part in Episode 9, but we’ll never know what that was supposed to be anyway…

I feel Holdo’s story was weakened by that last interaction with Leia and where she says she liked Poe. If she stuck to the opinion she voiced earlier about him being a liability, maybe cautioned Leia about his recklessness, it makes her character more consistent. She’s presented as being kind of “by the rules” as opposed to Poe’s casual improvisation. If they kept her mindset as “he’s an idiot who can’t take orders and that’s an issue; the chain of command exists for a reason; we can’t have everyone second guessing every decision I make and that’s why I didn’t tell him” it wouldn’t feel as wishy-washy. Maybe it could have even worked as a lesson for Poe.

I like that Leia didn’t die here. It helps keep that idea of hope alive. While the reasons you point out for her doing Holdo’s maneuver make sense on a personal level, Leia being alive gives the Resistance hope, and it gives the audience hope.

For some of my personal thoughts on where Kylo and Rey could end up going from here...

Where we leave Kylo he's still in strife. He's gotten everything he's wanted: eliminating his 'weakness,' eclipsing Vader in power (after all, Vader didn’t survive the Sith ideal of killing his master) but it will not bring him any sort of joy. He's lonely and lost, not power-mad, and becoming Supreme Leader is only going to isolate him more. His force bond with Rey is still intact, despite her metaphorically closing the door on him. Their interactions haven’t been intentional, yet they still happen, because they’re both lonely and long for understanding. That’s not going to change for Kylo, even if it does for Rey. That could be a piece of what causes him to change.

Kylo Ren doesn’t give a shit about the First Order, not really. He isn’t making rousing speeches about the necessity of the cause like Hux; his actions are all concerned with Snoke’s orders and his own internal strife. He doesn’t want to lead the First Order because he believes in it, he’s leading to use it as a tool. He wants to destroy his past so he can finally shape his own destiny and decide for himself who he wants to be. He’s been shaped by others all his life; now he’s free of that. Snoke, the biggest influence in his life, is gone. He couldn’t kill Leia when he had the chance. He is pulled to Rey over and over. He seems to feel regret at the end when he finds Han’s dice. The question is, who will be created by this situation? Will it be enough to pull him, maybe not entirely to the light, but into the grey?

Snoke made a comment that I think/hope will come to be very relevant. Something to the effect of “darkness rises, and light to meet it.” The Force strives to create balance. The more dark there is, the more light there must be. But trying to balance two extremes causes tension and strife. They try to eliminate one another, and the pendulum swings wildly between the two. The true way to create balance, is to move towards the middle. I think that’s what the point of Luke’s arc was. Luke’s fear of the Dark helped create Kylo Ren from Ben. His adherence to an order that gave rise to Sidious and pushed his own father into Dark caused it to happen again. This makes it clear that the Jedi order of old doesn’t work anymore.

The Jedi were a defunct order. They swung the pendulum to far to the “Light” and demanded impossible things: emotionless, passionless, unquestioning devotion. Does any of that sound like Rey? Emotion drives everything she does! To eliminate her emotions, to make her a Jedi, it would destroy her entire character. If they do that they’re throwing out all the themes and messages they built up over Last Jedi. Same thing if Kylo stays entirely Dark. I think (hope) that they both come to realize that neither of them actually wants the destruction of the other. Maybe Rey reads those texts that made it onto the Falcon and realizes that she can’t follow the Jedi ideals. Maybe those old texts contain the idea of grey Jedi instead of the Light/Dark dichotomy; after all, there was a shrine to the Dark on the island, so the founders of the temple couldn’t have rejected it entirely.

They’ve set up plenty of signs that point to the emergence of grey Jedi instead of the Sith and the Light. They could end up pulling the rug out from under us and just make IX flat “good” vs evil with no nuance, but that would be ignoring all the work done in Last Jedi, and it would be messy story telling to not follow the cues that they already laid.

And honestly is Kylo goes grey there’s no reason why he and Rey wouldn’t end up together. Force bonds are powerful things, and their awareness of one another is almost painful. Rey would have to shut herself off from the Force to cut off her awareness of him, and is she really going to do that? Maybe she will for a time, but that’s not a long-term solution.

So while there are no steadfast assurances that we will get what we want from IX, I would say that the necessary groundwork for what we want has already been laid.

Oh! Another thought. Kylo’s “rule the galaxy at my side” is the SAME EXACT THING Vader offered Luke (but, like, without the romantic undertones). Like Luke, Rey rejected his offer. But Vader was still redeemed in the end. If Kylo’s story continues his mirroring of Vader, we will get a redemption. The real question is, will we get it without Kylo dying?

[yellow-saber-blog]

The Star Wars Fan Wars or why some fans hated The Last Jedi.

If you are into StarWars or into films in general you are probably aware that the SW fandom is currently divided into two groups - those who hated the TLJ and those who loved it. Or so it would seem....I am pretty sure there are many people, like me, who stand in between: people who acknowledge the film’s flaws but who still find things they enjoy in it. But one thing is certain - those who stand at the extreme lines are very vocal about their opinions and are often pretty rude towards each other.

I am writing this post here on Tumblr because I want to address a particular issue that is bothering me a lot and that is: how people who liked the TLJ are  labeling those who didn’t like the film as “butthurt fanboys” and discredit their opinions and feelings as being simply “broken expectations”. 

I want to defend those angry “fanboys/girls” a bit, because it seems that some fans miss the point of why others hated TLJ. Lots of the complains people have, even though often expressed with anger and harsh words, are legit. 

Now, before we go further, I want to address another issue that people neglect - personal oppinion vs facts. 

Now imagine you are going to buy a shirt in the store with your friend. You both like clothes from the StarWars brand. They now have a new collection of shirts. You absolutely love that new blue shirt but your friend doesn’t like it at all. This shows your different taste and leads to your opposite opinions on something that is subjective. No one can convince the other that their opinion is right or wrong because that is the nature of subjective opinions and personal taste. 

The same is with movies - someone will enjoy a film that another will hate and both are free to express their joy or frustration as much as they want without trying to discredit the other. 

Now there is another aspect to things - the facts. As much as you like that new shirt’s design if you look at it closely, you might notice that it’s not sewed properly or that there are some other defects on it. You can still like it or buy it but you cannot deny the fact that there are defects on that shirt and that is not made as good as it could have been done. 

The same thing can be said about the TLJ - that film is not stitched up together as good as it might have been. You can still enjoy it immensely but you will be lying to yourself if you insist that this is a good movie because it isn’t. The script, the pacing and the inconsistent tone of the movie are some of it’s bigger problems. When audiences go to see a StarWars film made with billions of dollars from some of the best in Hollywood, they naturally expect to see a decent, competent movie. You can’t blame people for complaining when they are given something far less professional than promised.  

I think we can all acknowledge that TLJ has weak points in terms of storytelling, consistency and basic logic. That being said, we should also all acknowledge that visually this film is magnificent and one of the best looking StarWars films. Those aspects we can consider facts about the film. You will be insulting a lot of classic movies if you insist these things aren’t true.You can still love or hate the movie all you want but you should at least acknowledge those basic truths about it. So objectively this film deserve probably around 6/10. Definitely not the best of StarWars. But it can still be your favourite SW film, nonetheless. 

Now lets get to the point - why some fans hate this movie? The main reasons are simple and I will list them in no particular order: 

- Silly side story -  the dump and illogical things that happen with the Resistance and all the subplots revolving around Poe, Finn and Rose. The movie just doesn’t know what to do with them. The plan about going to Canto Bight gets stupider the more you think about it. General Holdo’s motivations and character in general are simply weird for a Resistance leader. Everything there feels like a filler episode of a TV show. Is that all they could come up with? You might at least understand why such a silly plot makes some people angry or irritates them. StarWars never had any super complex plot points - but no matter how simple those stories might have been, they were at least bound by a basic logic and overall narrative purpose. ( and they were much more fun to watch) 

- The First Order start to feel like a joke. Snoke is killed without explaining anything about him at all, Hux is more like a comic relief and not like a serious bad guy. The whole First Order feels underwhelming. The Dark Side has always been very cool and a bit frightening. Now is more like a bunch of idiots with cool looking ships. 

- The bad treatment of the original characters - Luke is misused and his character is completely changed without proper explanation or motivation. I won’t even go into details about Luke because it will take me ages. Leia, in turn,  is given close to nothing to do and her “force flying” appears to be more laughable than impressive. Yes, there are some good scenes with Luke and Mark Hamill is amazing in the part but the negative things are just overshadowing the good ones. 

To those reasons you can add other complains that people still have about Rey being a Mary Sue, about Snoke being useless, about Kylo Ren’s still unclear motivations and so on. 

But let me condense it all in it’s basic essence - Disney/Ryan/Kathleen Kennedy and whoever else was involved - they all tried to be original in the wrong places and changed things they shouldn’t have changed AND at the same time they were unoriginal and silly in story points they should have changed or be creative with. Let me elaborate: 

Luke won’t train Rey the way you think. Luke is not the hero you might expect to see. He is actually responsible for the fall of Kylo Ren and he did things against his character because you won’t expect that. And when Luke finally decides to do something he just Force project himself to have a “surprise” at the end. And dies. Basically Luke is written to be nothing you expect him to be, so you will be surprised. But the truth is: no one wants to be surprised by Luke or see him as a broken old man, no one wants to see their beloved characters killed off in such ways as Han and Luke.  Give the audience the Luke they love and know. Surprise the fans with new characters and plots points without ruining the things fans already love. That is what will make people happy, why is it so hard to understand? 

The "This is not going to go the way you think” theme goes on -  Rey parents will be nobodies because you won’t expect that. Snoke will die, because you won’t expect that, Holdo has a secret plan all along because you won’t expect that. These choices are not about being original or creative, they are just doing the opposite because they want people to get something “they don’t expect”. 

JJ and the marketing team created all that mystery around Rey and Snoke, it’s not just the fans’ imagination going wild. Still  they didn’t deliver anything intriguing about those “mystery boxes”.  I am personally ok with Rey’s parents being nobodies - I actually expected that to be the case. But you can’t blame people for wanting to know more about Snoke. When the first Star Wars films  were out it was enough to say “this is the Emperor” and he is the bad guy. Now we have 6 movies and even more canon books and tv series. You have all that existing history there. The context of the story is different.  It’s normal for people to want to know where those new powerful characters are placed in the history of the story. If you give them no answers about Snoke, you make the character pointless to the fans. So he is just a tool for Kylo to rise to power? But it’s Star Wars - people want to have something more to the story than just unexplained and undeveloped characters. 

Still with the new characters, people are more perceptive to changes therefore one can do something really bold with them and change them upside down and get away with it.  But the characters we grew up with - they need to be consistent with what we know about them. There is the balance between things you can twist/change and things you should respect and honer. 

Now despite all the “ this is not what you expect” ideas, the creators of the film have the same story points as the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi - we have a space chase, a white planet battle with walkers, an exotic world where we meet someone who will betray our characters, Rey will face Snoke as Luke faced the Emperor and so on. Those story similarities are the things they could have made completely different and be as creative as they want with those. Yet, they chose the similar plot points and visual elements to echo the OT but changed the characters from the OT. Why??? That is a very dump decision if you know anything about StarWars fans or if you know anything about people expectations and behaviour in general. Disney are not trying to win Oscars with this, they are trying to please the audience. But something in their research tables and marketing graphics went totally wrong. 

There are at least 100 ways to write that same story both pushing forward the new characters and honouring the OT characters. They killed Han in an idiotic way, Luke is now gone in a poetic but useless manner. All those misplaced creative choices make the new films out of balance. They talk about balance so much in the story but they cannot achieve it. The balance between new and old, between the old generation and the new, between creativity and honouring the established lore. This imbalance it the real problem of the new trilogy. And this is a REAL PROBLEM no matter if it personally bothers you or not. If it doesn’t - good for you. But don’t disregard the opinions of those who are bothered by the unbalanced new trilogy and don’t call their complains “whining” or “lack of vision”. 

You can enjoy the characters and the movie despite those problems but to deny that those ARE problems is a bit naive and short-sighted. 

At this point it seems that Disney have no real idea of what they are doing with this franchise. At times it’s apparent that they are more concern with marketing and money rather than making a good film product. But is that really true? I am sure no one at Disney wanted to make a bad movie on purpose. But it turned out to be a rather messy one. One can make huge mistakes with the best of intentions. 

They are nuances to things - nothing is black and white. Neither “playing safe” nor its opposite “disregard the film legacy” are good choices. 

I just want to conclude this post by saying that people who grew up with StarWars don’t take this universe lightly. Life might suck big time but when you go to your StarWars corner of the galaxy, things should be better there. When someone hurts a character you love from your childhood you have the right to be angry, you have the right to complain, you have the right to demand a better treatment of that character. 

We should all demand to be given better movies, better treatment in general as audience. I am sure there are many new, original and great stories that are not given green light so we can have more Marvel, more DC, more Star Wars. Therefore Star Wars movies should be made worthy of their title, of their popularity and of the resources poured into them. The hardest thing in all aspects of life is to get the balance right.   

I really hope that Lucasfilm are making something better for the final movie, something that will bring fans back together. 

I personally consider everything from TFA until now to be alternative universe and this is how I am fine with it. But still I would prefer to see a movie with a more intelligent script and not a filler subplots. 

How many times per day we say to each other the same thing - do not disregard people’s feelings and opinions just because they differ from yours, don’t attack or insult those people because what they say makes you feel uncomfortable. 

We all love the same thing lets be more civilised about it. 

[ivegotsingleissues]

My review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (MINOR SPOILER WARNING)

Okay, so I’ve been sitting on this for a couple of days. I saw it this past Saturday, and I’ve been wanting to re-watch it because I want to see it again to reaffirm what I believe. However, until then, these are my honest opinions on The Last Jedi, and once again, I will try to be as vague as I can.

Honestly, I loved this movie. I did. It has some problems (okay, a LOT of problems), but guess what? So do a lot of the other Star Wars movies. I love Star Wars to death, I really do. I got into it when I was in fourth grade, and I absolutely lost it when Force Awakens came out. I got to see a Star Wars movie in theaters! Now I’ve seen THREE of them, and they’re still going!

But enough of that. Onto Last Jedi. Like I said, it has problems. It adds a LOT to the lore that some people aren’t going to like. It elaborates on a lot of Force powers and how the Force works. There is an absolutely amazing scene where Luke Skywalker talks about what the Force truly is. I absolutely loved it, but I can see how it will definitely confuse people.

The action and cinematography in this movie are especially beautiful. There’s no actually *lightsaber duel,* but there are two especially amazing scenes that involve the lightsabers, and blah blah blah. I’ll get into that later.

Despite how much I praise it and confess that I do love it (because I often feel that I’m the only one that enjoyed this film and I feel like this is the only place I can openly admit that), there are problems. This will get a LITTLE BIT SPOILERY SO CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Specifically my biggest criticism has to do with Finn. Now, I absolutely love Finn. He was one of my favorite parts of TFA. But in this film, they paired him up with a new character named Rose. From the start, I didn't really care about Rose as a character. She honestly to me felt like a forced (hehe, “forced”) attempt at diversity and a love interest. TFA showed that we can have amazing diverse characters and not have it feel out of place. Anyway, the two go to a casino planet called Canto Bait and have to find someone and then get off the planet and infiltrate a Star Destroyer. But the thing is, it honestly gets boring. I found myself zoning out every time they cut back to Canto Bait, because I didn't care. I was more invested in what was going on with Poe and Leia, or Rey and Luke, or even Kylo Ren and Snoke. The whole subplot just felt out of touch with the rest of the movie. 

OKAY, YOU ARE GOOD.

Another criticism is that this movie takes questions that viewers had from TFA and does a bad job at answering them..... Because there are no answers. They just either ignore the questions or just straight up throw the questions away in one case. 

Perhaps the one thing this movie does great right are the main characters. This movie actually made me fall in love with Poe Dameron. Jesus, Oscar Isaacs did an amazing job, and I was hooked on him from the very beginning. Daisy Ridley did an excellent job as Rey, but the best performance of this film goes to Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker. Judging from interviews, he may not have enjoyed what they did with the character, but he does an absolutely amazing job. This film made me fall in love with Luke all over again, and it’s so amazing to see where his character went after all of these years. He is one of the main reasons I want to see this movie again.

Carrie Fisher deserves her own paragraph. I think we all were saddened and weary of what would happen with TLJ when we heard of her passing. I dreaded seeing the credits for fear of  breaking down. What disappoints me quite a bit is how little she did in this movie. She had some absolutely heartbreaking scenes, and I caught myself choking up at one in particular, but overall her character didn't do much. Yet, I still found myself loving every moment she was on screen, just like Mark Hamill. And yes, I almost shed a tear when the music in the credits died down and it read, “In Memory of Our Princess, Carrie Fisher.”

Like I said, I don't really want to get into spoilers right now. Maybe when the movie is out longer and I see it again I will, but I feel it’s far too early for me to say something on tumblr yet about spoilers. Did I enjoy this movie more than TFA? Eh, I don't think so. Maybe after a second viewing. But I definitely don't think that it deserves all the hate and criticism it gets (and it is CERTAINLY not as bad as the prequels). 

As of right now, I’m going to rate Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi a 7.5 out of 10. 

Seriously, give it a watch and see for yourself. I don't think it’s as bad as everyone thinks.....

But the porgs did piss me off after a while.