Film & Water Special – Star Wars: The Last Jedi

THE FILM & WATER PODCAST

Special - STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

For this special episode of FILM & WATER, Rob welcomes his fellow Network All-Stars The Irredeemable Shag, Ryan Daly, and Max Romero to discuss STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI!

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22 responses to “Film & Water Special – Star Wars: The Last Jedi

  1. Great show once again guys, you really gave me something to think about.

    Now, one thing that sprung to mind with Luke as the force ghost haunting Kylo Ren: I have this vision of Kylo Ren in bed trying to sleep while the ghost of Luke is sitting next to him singing “I’m Kylo the Ren, I am I am” over and over.

    Oh, and there is no way that Rey is a Solo, NO WAY!

    And lastly, I think you guys missed the possibility that Snoke can return. I thought there was a lot of discussion missed down that road. All of the Star Wars movies have an element of Smoke and Mirrors from different points of view and J.J. Abrams was the one that gave us Snoke in the first place, so if he wants to bring him back, he will have a way.

    You keep recording, I’ll keep listening.
    Brian Hughes
    The 3rd Degree Byrne Podcast
    Fear the Walking Dead Podcast
    Both at twotruefreaks.com

  2. Firstly, this is the first SW Film that’s got me confused. Not sure how I feel – so I’ll judge that as a success. Secondly, love that it’s clearing the board. It needs to move on. Stagnation is death in all things. Thirdly, this man (me) lost his shit with that Luke/Leia scene. A wonderful goodbye to both characters.

    Shag is huffing glue is he thinks Rey is a Skywalker. Or a Kenobi. This installment did the smartest thing they could have with Snoke and Rey’s parentage – acknowledge and move on. No explaination would prove satisfactory.

  3. Someone he knows is his sister or first cousin. Kenobi theories are only still viable in the ‘ ways Abrhams can mess things up horribly’ sense.

  4. A few more thoughts: the only reason Snoke feels like he needs explaining is the dumb rule of two nonsense from the prequels. Just chalk that up as Sith disinformation and there’s not enough mystery left to care about.

    I think that an even bigger jump, 20-25 years, might make sense for Episode IX. With that much time, we could have Kylo with a couple of kids who might be turned to the light, which is the way to keep the Skywalker/Solo legacy around into the far ‘future’ without messing with Rey.

    Which brings me to my answer to ‘What more do I want from Star Wars’: a female Dark side force user. Also Lando, although I’m not holding my breath. And for J.J. to not blow up the Falcon in IX.

    Finally, anyone else notice that the kid at the end is basically Anakin? Slave-born, force-sensitive, employed as technical support for a racing sport. But instead of knowing that the Republic has neither the power nor the desire to ever help, that kid has the Resistance to believe in…

  5. It’s nice to see a reasonable discussion about a nerdy movie can actually take place on the internet. I don’t know if it’s actually worse these days, but it seems to be that movies need to be “the best thing ever” or “the worst thing ever” out there in the nerdverse, and I am pretty exhausted by it. The Last Jedi is a movie, it has flaws, and you may or may not enjoy it otherwise. As for me, I walked away liking it a bunch, despite problems I had with it along the way. #neededmorechewie 🙂

  6. It was brilliant the way you all channeled different characters from Sex & the City for this. Shagg is a terrific Charlotte, so emotional. Ryan was perfect being all analytical like Miranda. Rob steamed up my ear buds as Samantha, whilst Max was the perfect blend of the other three as the quintessential Carrie. Bravo!

  7. The casino sequence is required THEMATICALLY. Not only does it set up how democratic the Force now is, but it includes the best of several examples of our connection with Life, via the horses. If you live in balance with nature, as Luke does (milk beasts, even the Porgs), and also the Rebels at Salt Base (the crystal foxes), these semi-sentient animals are a help. The Empire/Order and their amoral weapons suppliers do NOT live in harmony with Life and abuse animals (and people), which is part of what the movie rejects as the “past.

    I liked what Bass recently said also about the distinction between a Rebellion and a Resistance. I think we could be able to look at the new trilogy in terms of that semantic filter. I wonder what such an analysis would reveal.

  8. Another great episode. Lots to talk about with this movie and you all did an admirable job – as always.

    I only have a few minutes and intend to be back later with a longer post with some of my thoughts. No surprise to those who know me!

    But I quickly want to mention that, unless I missed it when listing to the episode, no one mentioned the fact that the ancient Jedi texts could be seen in a “drawer” on the Falcon wen Finn was rummaging around to find a blanket for Grace. When force ghost Yoda said something along the lines of “Rey already possesses all that she needs” he was speaking literally, not just metaphorically. Interesting implications for the future of the Jedi Order.

    1. Oops. I did a re-listen and Ryan did mention the Jedi texts (albeit just in passing) when he was talking about the Knights of Ren. My bad.

  9. Soooooo, Tyan’s big problem is the film told a complete story. Hmmm he must have difficulty liking a lot of movies.
    One of the reasons I like Empire the least of the original trilyis because it FAILS completely at being its own movie. It is entirely dependent on A New Hope, and Return of the Jedi to tell its story.

  10. Thank you for the fun podcast. When I saw the film (at an Alamo) they had a Jedi battle before the film began. So it heightened the excitement of the film. I really liked the film and I was grinning and smiling during most of it. I felt it was a perfect homage to Carrie Fisher because she had this twisted humor. She would have thought this was the best film of her Star Wars saga ever. Luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder, I wouldn’t be surprised if Carrie suggested that.

    The only part I didn’t like was the bad cgi animation done for the chase scene on the Vegas planet.

    Still there is no such thing as a bad Star Wars Film.

    It just was weird when I saw and heard the comments about this film afterwards. Did I watch a different film? I have a really high bar for good filmmaking (being in the industry) and I thought it was a good film. I suspect a lot of the issues was on the continuity and storylines. If we could be honest- the Star Wars world is riddled with plot holes and inconsistencies. George Lucas was not a Tolkien of even a George RR Martin, Robert Jordon, Anne McCaffrey. Most of the original trilogy was just made up and sometimes certain majorly plots was done by accident or a last minute fix.

    Anyways awesome job! Have a happy holidays and here is to 2018 being a good year

  11. I liked this movie better than The Force Awakens, mainly because I didn’t have any moments that threw me out of the movie like I did with TFA. The fact that Rey isn’t a Skywalker/Kenobi/member of any family we’ve seen so far was terrific. (And why would Ben lie about that but tell the truth about everything else, Shag?) The whole casino world side-plot could have been severely truncated (not removed) and probably made the movie better.

    I’m surprised that no one mentioned what I saw that tipped me off that Luke wasn’t really there. He was using his father’s lightsaber, which we had just seen blow up. I didn’t realize why at the time, but I knew it was wrong and then the reveal made it make sense.

    My take-aways from this movie are:

    1) The First Order, much like the Empire in Star Wars, has numerical superiority but decides not to use it, which costs them the victory.

    2) If the Rebels had just COMMUNICATED, they would have come out better. (Leia commanding the bombers to NOT attack rather than leaving it to Poe, Poe telling someone in authority about the plan to get on Snoke’s ship, Vice-Admiral what’s-her-name telling ANYONE about why the transports were being fueled.) Anything would have improved their situation over the “I’m going to glare at the camera in frustration” mode that they all seemed stuck in.

    3) It turns out that I was right about Luke from TFA, he tucked it tail between his legs and ran rather than try and correct his mistake. Better to leave his nephew in the grips of the Dark Side and hide on a little island than to do anything about it.

    Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, but there were just some really glaring plot holes, at least to me.

  12. Didn’t get a chance to see SW until today and I must say I felt it was an overall disappointment. The story is all over the place and none of the characters resonate. The villains are weak and seem to have no motivation. Snoke and Phasma are pale imitations of Palpatine and Boba Fett. Adam Driver has very little screen presence plays”petulant” well, but his performance in one note. Laura Dern and Bencio del Toro were bland. I hate to say it but I caught myself looking at my watch occasionally. It was nice to see Luke and Leia one last time and the ending was dramatic, but it took much too long to get to it. I hate to say it but I think this was nearly as weak as some of the prequels.

  13. I was disappointed by the reveal of Rey’s parents.

    Why the big tease of the Skywalker light saber calling out to her and triggering memories of Jakku and Kenobi’s voice if she’s just some random force user??

    Sure Kylo could be lying but he basically gave her the same “search your feelings you know it’s true” schtick that Vader gave Luke.

    Rey seems to confirm that she knew deep down that her parents were nobodys.

    At this point, I’d be pissed if they went back on it in the next movie.

    Don’t give me a double misdirection.

    1. I fear the double misdirection. Knowing there was a different director, when I saw Luke throw away his lightsaber immediately followed by Kylo throwing away his mask because Snoke said it was stupid, I was thinking the smartest thing Rian Johnson did was NOT hashtagging myfanonrunsdifferent two years ago.

      Is this a changed J.J. Abrams from the one who thought it would be a good idea to stop marketing pre-2009 Star Trek? The next two years may be very interesting.

  14. I came away not disliking it but also not liking it. I can’t entirely point to a scene and say it was bad, but this was definitely the case for me where the whole was less than the sum of its parts. A problem I had was that for it to work the people in the movie had to be either one of the smartest or dumbest person in the Galaxy at any given time (the FO BB droid was apparently the exception).

    The worse scene I thought was the bombers: first you have a bomber design that makes no sense for space, they are gravity feed so whatever one is bombing must have a large enough gravity well to poll the bombs towards it, second the bombs either are not affected by shields or the bomber didn’t have any (in which case the bomb area was open to space) not sure how that works, third a bunch of bomber with charged bombs are all nearly destroyed at the same time but this doesn’t even scratch the paint but the payload of one is enough to destroy the Dreadnought, and fourth I find it hard to believe that a Dreadnought would only have armament for fighting against heavy and medium ships but no small ship protection. Whats worse in my opinion was that you could have had the bombers just chain-react like they did and that took down the Dreadnought all the same people still killed still have the same problems and dumb decisions and you would wouldn’t be going but wait that happened how, why, hu…

    Also seriously has the resistance never heard any version of the phrase “never keep all your eggs in one basket”?

    Though I will say on the plus side it didn’t feel like it had a 2 and half hr. run time to me.

  15. An excellent episode, fellows! I heartily agree with the above post by Max Travers where this incredibly nerdy passion can have a civil discourse on the internet. You all didn’t have the same opinion of the movie, but you listened to each other’s comments and, while not necessarily agreeing with them, could at least see where the other person was coming from and respect that. That is one of the reasons I’ve really enjoyed these get together episodes and hope to hear another for the Solo movie when it comes out.
    Having said all that about civil discourse, when I saw the movie, I was getting into a nerd rage because I thought they made a blunder when Luke appeared on Krait with his father’s blue lightsaber that got ripped apart in a previous scene. I couldn’t wait to get home and rail on how stupid that such a movie could make such a boner (thanks, Batman). When they revealed Luke was using a Force projection, I felt incredibly silly. Instead of getting all nitpicking-ly Star Wars-y on this, I should just sit back and enjoy that they are making Star Wars movies again and go along for the ride.
    Because none of you really addressed this in depth in the episode, may I ask how you all feel about J.J. Abrams directing Episode IX? I enjoyed Force Awakens quite a bit but I think I would like to see a different director to close off the Skywalker saga. But I don’t know who I would want. Bring back George Lucas in some way? Lucas’ pal Steven Spielberg? Or a new director like Christopher Nolan, Brad Bird or Edgar Wright (if they would even want to do such a thing)?

  16. It’s safe to say that I fall into the “loved it” category on this one, and agree with Rob that it blew Force Awakens out of the water. In particular, I enjoyed how Johnson (repeatedly) managed to build up my expectations and then shatter them to pieces. The other primary reason I love Last Jedi is that it (surprisingly) managed to affect me on an emotional level. On further reflection, I realize that I really connected with Luke’s story arc in this film. I’m of an age that I’m charging headlong into mid-life crisis land, and have been reflecting a lot on who-I-once-was compared to who-I-now-am. So watching Luke go on a similar journey really spoke to me.

    When it comes to Episode IX, I agree with Ryan that I want to see the Knights of Ren. I think there’s some good story telling potential in that mysterious group, and I hope they aren’t a plot point that gets lost in the shuffle.

    Thank you for the thoughtful discussion, gentlemen.

  17. Finally got to listen to this and was glad to hear Ryan’s problems weren’t the typical fanboy nerd rage issues sweeping the interwebs. I don’t really agree with feeling that the franchise is done for me because of lack of cliffhangers or dangling threads, but I can see where he is at with the story.

    I think a lot of the hurt comes from this movie NOT being the one everyone wrote in their heads. That’s why I personally like it. Like Rob, I had no idea what was going to happen one minute to the next!

    I’m still slightly struggling a bit with Luke’s moment of darkness, but really…he wasn’t wrong about Ben. I have always felt Luke channeled anger and darkness more than a Jedi is supposed to anyhow, and that really HE was the one who brought balance to the Force, not his father. So him going dark for a second in response to the evil oozing off this kid can be forgiven. Luke was never perfect. And the Jedis from the prequels who seemed perfect were the dolts who let their hubris get in the way of stopping Palpatine’s rise to power.

    I hope Rey REALLY is nobody. Maybe her parents traded her for that ship? The fact that a no one rises from poverty to challenge the lineage of the Skywalkers in the form of a petulant man-child is a far better story than two siblings going at it. And there is no way to not make Han and Leia look really bad with her being their kid. If she’s a Kenobi, I can live with that, but I’d rather she just remain a no one.

    I loved Ryan’s Cobra Commander and Destro analogy. Who’s Serpentor?

    Great show fellas!

  18. Great episode, guys! Man, I loved this movie so much. I think there’s still a lot to be seen in the next film as it relates to finding balance between the new powers that have emerged for Light and Darkness—Rey and Kylo. What will that balance look like? I think there is still much to be explored within their unique link to each other. I don’t think that link is entirely the work of Snoke.

    I’d also love to see exploration into the very nature of the Force. In TLJ, Luke describes The Force as larger than the Jedi religion, itself (and rightfully so). The Force belongs to ALL living things. We’ve seen that concept show up in the new films through Maz, Leia (who is not technically a Jedi, but a Force user) and even Rey (assuming she is not of Skywalker heritage). What does the galaxy look like with an egalitarian Force?

    Lastly, I think there are interesting themes regarding the masculinity and femininity of The Force. Up until this point in SW history, the major Force players have been male. And the world has been stuck in a repetitive cycle of escalating violence. The father figure in Star Wars has been a source of much of this violence. Anakin had no father, Luke was the son of Vader, Ben Solo murders his father. I wonder if there is something to be learned about the feminine nature of The Force. Is it nurturing? Communal? More peaceful? Kylo killed his father, but he was unable to kill his mother. Rey is the female yin to Kylo’s yang. In my own fan theories, the significant role Abrahms had in mind for Leia in the ninth film involve her motherly love restoring Kylo’s tormented heart. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the story turned on the phrase, “Kylo, I am your mother?” Unfortunately, I don’t know if we’ll get that, now. But I love the idea.

    I loved the discussions about FAILURE as a teacher. This movie featured a lot of failure and I thought that was a huge risk and a pretty powerful one. I’ve never cried in a Star Wars movie before, but I cried in this one. About four times. Each time I saw it.

    I can’t wait for this last film. I truly have NO idea where it will go and like many of you said… that excites me.

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