I don't interpret jedi mind reading quite as precise as that. I think all that was going on is that Snoke had up until that poing sensed conflict in him and it was replaced with resolve. What he was wrong about is exactly what Kylo was resolved to do.

Agreed

This is clearly correct and I don't think it was particularly subtle. I found it quite clever though and wonder how far back Kylo had planned it.

I was not very sober first watch and just totally missed it

I mean I like the event, Kylo seizing power. But man that was written so poorly. Snoke's dialogue totally ruins it with that true enemy nonsense

If your interpretation is that Snoke was reading Kylo's mind and in his mind he saw Kylo thinking about turning a light saber, I don't think that's what happened. I think what Snoke saw is the resolve thing that I explained earlier.

I do think that the turning of the lightsaber in his hand did trick Snoke visually. That is, when Snoke looks at him (just regular looking, no jedi stuff), he sees him manipulating his light saber.

If you look back to prior SW movies when guys like Yoda, Dooku, Emperor, etc. move stuff with the force they often make some hand gesture that's in the same direction as what they want the object to move. Not sure if it's strictly necessary, but it's pretty common and they all do it.

So Kylo turning the saber in his hand is the kind of movement that he would make if he was using the force to turn the light saber near Snoke, so when Snoke see it with his eyes, it's not obvious he's using the force to move something. That's one way he fooled snoke and it was clearly intentional, but it wasn't because Snoke read "I'm turning the light saber" in Kylo's mind.

Snoke was also fooled because he saw (using the force) the resolve in Kylo where he once saw conflict. I think Kylo may have done this on purpose as well (i.e., just focused on his newly found resolve without thinking about the object of his resolve. For example he could have been thinking "I'm totally gonna kill this mother****er" and Snoke didn't realize that Rey wasn't the mofo in question). It also could have been unintentional, I suppose. Haven't spent a lot of time thinking about that detail.

Melkerson,

Your interpretation is closer to what I meant; that Kylo used his turning the light sabre in his hand to cover up that he was moving the one next to Snoke. My opinion is that there was some mind-reading going on there, and that Kylo found a cool way to trick Snoke's perception. No way to know that though I suppose.

I do think Snoke's dialogue was meant to lead children along in understanding what was going on. Snoke does not come across as particularly intelligent in any of his dialogue, which along with Hux being Dark Helmet makes the empire look pretty non-threatening and cartoonish.

Yeah, thinking about it all jedi mind reading has always been about detecting emotional states and conflict. Well, except for Rey who was already the most powerful Jedi that's ever lived.

I think their biggest issue going forward is that they just aren’t creating characters we feel emotionally attached to.

Kylo is developing nicely by is the bad guy and likely has a predictable ending.

Rey is amazing but for some reason they kinda diminished her role despite her owning Ep 7.

No one cares about anyone else near as I can tell.

They need that common thread to bridge/spawn movies and they aren’t creating it at all.

If nothing else, I think JJ did a pretty decent job establishing the three new protagonists and making us somewhat interested in them in TFA. Part of Rian's job was to continue to develop them, and I think he really laid an egg there.

Poe is just a hotshot pilot now who cracks jokes and can't follow orders and has little else to do, totally one-dimensional. Finn tries to desert (again), stagnates in his side plot for a while, faces his stormtrooper nemesis (again) and then has an "ooh I changed my mind I care so much about this cause imma kill myself for it" moment, followed by an out-of-left-field romantic moment, thrust on him in his last minute or so of screen time. I care way less about either of them than I did at the end of Ep7, which is pretty impressively bad.

Even with Rey's fairly interesting arc, I'm not sure she's become any more compelling as a character, but breaking even there is a victory I suppose.

I definitely cared about Finn in SW7. Did not give a single **** about him in SW8, was turned off immediately to his character when he attempted to desert. Actually maybe in a way I cared about his character -- I was rooting for him to die, so I guess I was invested in him a little? Not sure if that's what the filmmaker was going for. When he was attempting to ram that door opener thing I was all



Poe wasn't really a protagonist in SW7, he was just kind of a guy who did some things, made some quips, then disappeared, and then showed up again. He did not make the transition to protagonist smoothly in SW8.

Saw the film yesterday. Thought it failed on a number of issues: premise, plot holes, script/dialogue, character development. About half way through it struck me how much of a pivot it had made to ultimately being a kids film on a par with other disney stuff and stopped taking it quite so seriously and made my peace with it.

Edit: Oh, and I personally don't care for the comedy bits and think that they take away from the tension/emotion of scenes, but again, I see why people making a kids film would include it.

I think I'm gonna skip this one and just see how long it takes for this to pop up on a screen that I happen to be watching. It will be interesting to see how long I can go without seeing this, kinda like last election I went like 2 days not knowing who the prez was. It's interesting to be out of the loop of something so big especially since as a kid I was a junkie for the Star Wars movies. I predict I end up seeing it the first month or so it's released onto other platforms just cuz other people will put it on at some point.

I haven't seen it either yet. I'm too much of a misanthrope to enjoy watching a film in the theatre, but unlike after TFA, I really didn't mind seeing spoilers this time around.

I had made my peace with Star Wars long ago already. After watching TPM and utterly hating it, I decided for myself that, for me, the Star Wars universe comprises the original trilogy and nothing more. I have not watched epII nor epIII a single time and I don't plan to. I only know some of what happens in them through the awesome reviews of Red Letter Media.

I gave TFA a shot, and I did appreciate the fact that they tried bringing at least some of the spirit of the original three back, but ultimately it was pretty forgettable.

However, when I say I made my peace with Star Wars, that's only half true. I still hate Lucas for gatekeeping the original theatrical releases. Thankfully the internet exist. And on the internet OCD nerd autists exist. And you should never **** with those in their natural habitat.


I cannot recommend the Despecialized Editions highly enough to anyone who considers themselves a fan of the original three. The internet savvy person knows where to find them (the "Cove" of "Buccaneers" has got you covered, for example).

With Disney buying Fox, the despecialized editions will become defunct anyway. I guarantee they'll re-release the originals in theatres and on Blu-Ray within a year or two. Maybe with just some of the broken FX cleaned up, but probably completely as is.

I actually think the Special Edition of Empire is an improvement. Come at me.

The Special Editions of the other two are atrocities.

You are two thirds correct. Not bad.

That's the nicest I can do.

At least since the point in TFA where he kills Han after saying something to him about "doing what he knows he has to do".
I think that final conversation with his father is what allowed him to fully embrace knocking off Snoke and taking control of the First Order

I'd almost have to see em side by side so I can see the improvements, all I remember are the little handful of things that were annoying (Luke going "aaaaaaa" as he falls down the shaft, some weird extra unnecessary line from Vader to Boba Fett where JEJ sounds off, etc.) Did they add/fix any major stuff?

Only changes I can remember are more stormtroopers, lizards and greedo shoots first.

Abrams screwed up episode 7 by setting up a story where the majority of the protagonists serve no purpose. Rey is Han solo and Luke from the start so why is anyone else needed? It's her story, cut the fat.

If anything I thought kylos assassination was too on the nose. "And now strike down your true enemy, the really bad one, maybe not the one you originally thought was bad but who you definitely know is bad now." Kind of ruined the surprise.

It has by far the least amount of stuff changed of the three, which is why it doesn't suck.

The most noticeable stuff is in the Cloud City scenes, there are windows added in which allow a view of the city outside the building they're in. There are also whole new scenes added of people in the city reacting when Lando broadcasts the warning to flee from the Empire. It all gives the scenes a less insular feel, you have more of a sense of scope. In the original it just feels like they're on another spaceship.

In the scene where Luke is in the cave with the wampa, there are added shots of it that give us a better look at it, which I think is an improvement.

The weird Emperor who was used for TESB is replaced with Ian McDiarmid, which is a continuity improvement but doesn't really improve the scene that I recall.

That's about it for things I care about. There are a host of other minor changes but crucially, there's nothing really annoying added. The other two both have tilting additions like CGI monsters that look like they're out of Roger Rabbit, and Anakin appearing at the end of ROTJ, etc.

I could do without Luke going "aaaaaa" admittedly, but it's not a deal breaker.

This is quite a neat idea, however if Disney had actually intended this narrative then they would have explained it point-by-point to the viewer, probably with the use of flashbacks.

Yeah I mean it's obvious (and admitted) that nothing was planned out beyond the first movie so that definitely wasn't intended. I guess you could draw that connection but I don't think there is anything concrete supporting it