Star Wars Episode VIII SPOILERS thread

[DaneMcCloud]

For all things Episode VIII related info including spoilers.

The release date is now December 15, 2017.

The Official Synopsis from Star Wars.com

“In Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Skywalker saga continues as the heroes of The Force Awakens join the galactic legends in an epic adventure that unlocks age-old mysteries of the Force and shocking revelations of the past.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens in U.S. theaters on December 15, 2017.”









New footage in Japanese Trailer

[Hammock Parties]

[Hammock Parties]

Loose lips sink starships.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/co..._relationship/

It's been suggested over and over again that Holdo should have shared her plan with the crew and Poe and it would have solved a lot of strife and confusion.

This line of thought completely ignores the fact that as soon as the plan is shared (from Leia to Poe) the First Order gets wind of it and wipes out most of the Resistance. There is a reason she kept it close to the vest. She didn't want it to leak.

As soon as the plan was shared to Poe, what happened? It leaked.

[oaklandhater]

.

On Tuesday I spoke at length with Rotten Tomatoes spokesperson Dana Benson regarding the movie ratings site's Audience Score of 55% for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I was curious to know whether there was any merit to conspiracy theories that have circulated in recent days alleging organized vote campaigns to drive down the film’s scores from their “proper” levels, and why there is such a big disparity between the mediocre Rotten Tomatoes audience ratings and other, higher critics' and viewers' responses, such as the “A” rating from Cinemascore.

Benson, who is the Vice President of Communications at Fandango, the parent company of Rotten Tomatoes, told me that Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes are fully confident in the ratings and scores for the Star Wars picture. She assured me that Rotten Tomatoes has gone to great lengths to verify their ratings' accuracy and authenticity.

“We have several teams of security, network, and social database experts who constantly monitor reviews and ratings to ensure that they are genuine,” Benson said. “They haven’t seen anything unusual with The Last Jedi, except that there has been an uptick in the number of written user reviews submitted. Aside from that, everything is normal and we don’t see any unusual activity. We looked at The Last Jedi compared to other blockbusters and it has been consistent with those past films.”

Some critics and social media commenters have questioned the gap between the Rotten Tomatoes score and the ratings on other services, highlighting it as proof that there is something amiss with the Rotten Tomatoes numbers. Though Quartz and other outlets have explored how the score may be rigged, the simpler and far more credible explanation is simply that a lot of people don’t like the movie.

One widely circulated story about an anonymous individual who runs the Facebook page “Down With Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys” claims that this person created bots to manipulate the Rotten Tomatoes score. But Benson and other company reps I spoke to dismissed such claims as nonsense. Although anyone can post whatever they want on the site in the effort to drive ratings either up or down, Rotten Tomatoes has nearly two decades experience at identifying and controlling for such efforts to push the scores in one direction or another.

I pressed Ms. Benson for her hypothesis, but she chose not to offer a theory as to why the gap between Rotten Tomatoes’ critics' reviews and those of fans now stands at 38 percentage points, 93% to 55%.

“I can’t explain why there’s such a disparity,” Benson told me. “How we take this is that people are super passionate about this movie. On the positive side, our site is popular, and it has become an important platform for debate and discussion.”

Benson noted that Rotten Tomatoes isn’t the only social media platform with such mixed reactions to The Last Jedi, and added, “We’ve been working around the clock to ensure the numbers are right. Authenticity is very important to us. We have security teams, network teams, database teams who work so hard, it’s a little disheartening for them to see people make such [accusatory] claims without knowing the facts.

https://screenrant.com/rotten-tomato...di-user-score/

Vindication

Though Quartz and other outlets have explored how the score may be rigged, the simpler and far more credible explanation is simply that a lot of people don’t like the movie.

[oaklandhater]

The Hate is Real.

[Hammock Parties]

It's already explained to you that someone subverted the rating system with bots.

[oaklandhater]

Originally Posted by Hammock Parties

It's already explained to you that someone subverted the rating system with bots.

Some one didn't read RT just said it's real no one subverted the system.

[The Franchise]

So a bunch of angry Star Wars fans got pissed because they read fan theories for 2 years and the Director didn't pick one of those? Boo ****ing hoo.

[oaklandhater]

Originally Posted by Pestilence

So a bunch of angry Star Wars fans got pissed because they read fan theories for 2 years and the Director didn't pick one of those? Boo ****ing hoo.

if it was only that Simple It's not just one reason.

Some hate the shit humor in the movie and the plot holes.

Others hate the how Rey is overpowered with no explanation

Some hate how it tosses all the Story threads from TFA in the Garbage and does it's own thing.

I personally won't be seeing Rian's trilogy after this.

I don't like his style of Sci fi at all.

[The Franchise]

The humor that has been in past Star Wars movies? Don't buy it.

Rey is overpowered? Need a training montage?

[Hammock Parties]

Rey wasn't overpowered in this movie.

She owned some dudes who had no force ability with her lightsaber, and moved some rocks.

[oaklandhater]

Originally Posted by Hammock Parties

Rey wasn't overpowered in this movie.

She owned some dudes who had no force ability with her lightsaber, and moved some rocks.

She kicked Kylo ren's ass in TFA and ended with a Tie in TLJ doing this with no blood line/history of real teaching.

Lets not act like she had any real moments of learning from Luke in TLJ.

[The Franchise]

Kicked his ass? She was on the defensive for the almost the entire battle in TFA. And even then....he had just taken a Chewie blast and a lightsaber wound. The only time that she had the upper hand was at the end when she got all pissed off and went psycho. It's not like she doesn't know how to fight or that it takes some special skill or training to wield a lightsaber. It's a ****ing sword basically.

[Discuss Thrower]

Half-assed fantheory here, but you can handwave Rey being overpowered with the force without any of the training that was implied by prequels / Legends canon, but maybe only having a few force wielders at any given time magnifies the innate abilities of those who are force sensitive. Since the Force binds everyone and anything, it's not as "tied up" as it was during the Old Republic era by duo of powerful darksiders and a plethora of Jedi.

Thus why you see Finn not eviscerate himself with a lightsaber in TFA.

[DaneMcCloud]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...htmlstory.html

Q&A Rian Johnson on the evolution of the Force in 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' and more spoilers

As Obi-Wan Kenobi once told young Luke Skywalker, “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things — it surrounds us, and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.”

Ever since Tatooine’s favorite farm boy learned about the Force, “Star Wars” fans have devoured every bit of the universe that’s come alive in the galaxy far, far away over the course of eight movies and counting. But in Disney’s weekend box-office smash “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” writer-director Rian Johnson (“Brick,” “Looper”) takes bold leaps and shakes up the “Star Wars” universe, sending “Force Awakens” heroes Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) further into the fight between light and dark with one surprise after another. How much does “The Last Jedi” redefine the rules of Force physics as we know it — and what do these tantalizing new possibilities mean for the future of “Star Wars?” Who is Snoke, anyway? What exactly can Force ghosts do from beyond the astral plane? Has Kylo Ren ever kissed a girl?

Back in Los Angeles between globe-trotting appearances, a week after his star-studded premiere, Johnson answered all these burning “Star Wars” questions and more. Heavy spoiler warning: Best to read after watching “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”

“The Last Jedi” takes much of what we all thought we knew about this 40-year-old franchise and how the rules of the Force work, and expands them in some wild new ways. Knowing the doors you were going to open, what were your consultations like with Lucasfilm’s in-house protectors of the canon while writing the script?

There is a man named Pablo Hidalgo who is the sweetest dude in the universe, and he’s one of several keepers of the flame at Lucasfilm. It would always be a conversation, and if the story required it and if it felt like it stretches into new territory but doesn’t break the idea of what the Force can do, Pablo was down — I got the blessing.

The evolution of Rey’s relationship with Kylo Ren takes an intense and pivotal turn in “The Last Jedi.” We learn that Supreme Leader Snoke has linked them through the Force, as if he were connecting a call at a switchboard — an idea thematically mirrored in Poe’s “bad connection” scene with Hux earlier in the film. Where did that idea originate?

It was always through the demands of the story. With the Force connections between Rey and Kylo I thought, “OK, I need to get these two talking. But if I put them face to face they’re going to either fight, or one of them has to be tied up” —

Well, they could also make out …

They could also make out! I’m going to give you a spinoff movie …

Even if they make out, then they can’t be talking. So I knew I wanted them to talk, and to talk enough to where we could go from “I hate you,” to her being forced to actually engage with him. That’s where the idea of these “Force connections” came from, which is kind of a new thing. It’s a little bit of a riff on what happens with Vader and Luke at the end of “The Empire Strikes Back,” but it’s entirely new in some regards.

I’ve got a catchy name for Rey and Kylo’s sexy “Force connection” sessions for you: “ForceTime.”

[Laughs] I’ve heard “Force Skyping,” but that’s good! I’ve got to talk to Apple. There’s a real big co-branding opportunity here.

Some of these revelatory new Force possibilities might be challenging for fans to accept. Are they such a stretch within “Star Wars” science and the greater franchise?

The truth is, because “Star Wars” until “The Force Awakens” has been set in amber and we hadn’t had a new “Star Wars” movie in 10 years, you forget that they were introducing new Force stuff with each movie, based on the requirements of the story. Force-grabbing didn’t come around until “Empire,” it wasn’t in “A New Hope.” Same with Force ghosts. They’d introduce new ideas of what could happen with the Force each time.

After the climactic battle on the salt planet Crait we learn Luke was projecting himself from his island the whole time. How does that scene rewrite the rules of the Force? Could a Force user projecting themselves physically influence the world around them, not just the minds of others?

That’s a question. When Luke shows up he’s projecting, it’s like a hardcore variation of what Kylo and Rey have been doing the whole time and that’s why it takes so much out of him. In the version that we play, no. We tried to play really, really fair. In terms of his footsteps – we removed all of his foley — there are no footstep sounds. They never touch. And if you look, the salt flakes that are falling are sparking off of Kylo’s saber and not off of Luke’s.

What about Force ghosts and the suggestion that Jedi masters wield even more previously unknown powers from beyond the grave? Can powerful Force users create physical, tangible manifestations?

The one point where we do introduce a bit of a twist in terms of Force ghosts is where Yoda calls down the lightning onto the tree. That, I think, is a tantalizing hint of the potential of someone who is a Force ghost interacting with the real world.

Hypothetically speaking, can dark Force users become Force ghosts?

I think that would be interesting. We haven’t seen them in the movies as far as I can remember. But that would be really interesting considering the dark side is about self-preservation, trying to find immortality, and the notion that the light side actually got to it through selflessness — what would the dark side version of that look like? There’s so much cool [stuff] to think about if you’re willing to open your head a little bit!

Another surprise in this film is seeing Leia use her latent Force powers after decades of being the Skywalker twin who doesn’t wield the Force. Why was that an important parting gift to give both Leia and Carrie Fisher?

That was something Kathy [Kennedy] was always asking: Why has this never manifested in Leia? She obviously made a choice, because in “Return of the Jedi” Luke tells her, “You have that power too.” I liked the idea that it’s not Luke concentrating, reaching for the lightsaber; it’s an instinctual survival thing, like when you hear stories of a parent whose toddler is caught under a car and they get superhuman strength, or a drowning person clawing their way to the surface. It’s basically just her not being done with the fight yet.

I wanted it to happen [for Carrie] and I knew it was going to be a stretch. It’s a big moment, and I’m sure it will land different ways for different people, but for me it felt like a really emotionally satisfying thing to see.

Han’s dice are a nice touch that resonates with Luke, Leia and Kylo, not to mention the fans, and a callback to how he got the Millennium Falcon in the first place.

When I wrote it, it was something that was in “The Force Awakens.” I think they shot it and didn’t end up using it: When Han comes onto the Falcon, he takes his dice out of his pocket and hangs them back up, like, “This is mine again.” When it got pulled out [of “The Force Awakens”] I thought, even if it’s not directly set up I think you’ll get it that these are Han’s dice. The notion that they get used different ways ending with Kylo, I liked.

Fans have been obsessed with Snoke’s origins since “The Force Awakens,” and while we get to know him much more in “The Last Jedi,” you don’t necessarily give that answer. Does it matter who he was?

Not in this story it doesn’t, which is not to say it wouldn’t be interesting — they might explore it in the next movie or elsewhere. I wrote this script before “The Force Awakens” came out, so when I wrote it, the “Who is Snoke?” mania hadn’t arisen with the fans yet. Even if it had, my perspective is it’s similar to how the Emperor was handled. The first three movies you know nothing about the Emperor because you don’t have to, because that’s not the story. You know exactly what you need to know. Whereas in the prequels, you know everything about him because that is the story.

In this movie, Rey doesn’t really care where he comes from, so if in any of their scenes he had stopped and done a 30-second monologue about how he is [Darth] Plagueis or whoever, Rey would have blinked and looked confused and the scene would have gone on … and we would have ended up cutting it in the editing room because it doesn’t matter to the story right now.

Why does it matter, then, who Rey’s parents are — the idea that she doesn’t come from a lineage of “special” Jedi kin?

It felt like the way to go because it’s the hardest thing that she could possibly hear. It would be the easy thing for her to be defined by, “yes, this is how you fit into this story — it’s because your parent is so and so!” In that moment, for Kylo to be able to use that [information] as a knife and twist it to try and get what he wants, felt like the most dramatically potent option.

Please explain the dramatic necessity of giving Kylo Ren a shirtless scene.

At the premiere I heard somebody in the balcony say, “Yesssss!” You can see Adam was training hardcore throughout the whole process. It’s fun but it also has a specific purpose, which is the increasing feeling of uncomfortable intimacy. That was sticking with the theme of trying to give Rey the hardest thing you could possibly give her, which would be unavoidable intimate conversation with this person that she wants to just hate. This was just one more way of upping that ante.

So … is this the first time Kylo has ever held hands with a girl?

I actually talked about that with Adam [Driver]. Adam was like, “So … have I actually kissed a girl before?” I would think maybe he has. Maybe after hours in the Jedi camp, there was a game of spin the bottle — “spin the lightsaber…”

[Hammock Parties]

Rian is a gem.

I cannot WAIT to see his trilogy.