Commentary Track - Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Colin, you say definitions are important and then move on without giving a definition of Metroidvania! What happened??

Jake Z

Rewatching The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi with these commentary tracks was an absolute delight.

This movie is the second worst imo, only barely beating out Attack of the Clones. I feel like 49% of this movie is good in concept, but terrible in execution (a movie where all the main characters fail their primary tasks is something I've wanted to see for a long time, but it doesn't work when their goals are based on the most asinine and contrived plot ever conceived), and then another 49% is terrible ideas with outstanding execution (Holdo's lightspeed ram is the most beautiful shot in all of Star Wars, but it fundamentally breaks all of our understanding of space combat AND it invalidates the entire rest of the movie: why send an entire fleet of bombers to their deaths when one xwing pilot with a hyperdrive could've taken out that dreadnaught ten times over?). The final 2% of this movie is Kylo sliding in to Rey's force DMs, and it is great. Attack of the Clones, on the other hand, is 99% garbage and 1% John Williams' Love Theme

I really liked watching both of these movies with your commentary. Well done!

Christopher Reardon

Just throwing my two cents in here, too: Please consider doing some more commentaries at some point, Ben! Perhaps use all the Irishman knowledge and hang out with Jeffm at some point :)

Travis Morgan

Listened to both along side the movies, Ben and Ross's discussions are definitely a neat way to experience them again. I hope you continue this with both star wars and non star wars movies.

Ill continue listening to this after ep. IX is out. They talk about trailers way too much for someone who's trying to avoid any spoilers, i had no idea some of those things happen and didn't expect that from the last commentary.

John Bookout

This is a terrible movie!

Bumbuman

I'm glad you and Ross could meet your soul mate through this little side-project. I wish you both many years of happiness!

Would love ross on the spoilercast for rise of skywalker if he isnt already planning to talk to another group of game journalists and editors

Great commentary! You should go back and do the older starwars movies at some point. Not now obviously that'd be nuts.

Thomas

Honestly if this movie fleshed out the Luke/Ben relationship and the build up to Luke peeving on him at night I'd probably like the movie overall and give all the other stuff a pass. I only covered half of the logic issues above too but my biggest hangup is with there being no natural development of this massive moment in Star Wars history. Oh and also Rey saying her parents are "no one" is dumb since they're her parents so they're someone. Why would she think they're anything more than that? Rian literally had Rey respond directly to the fan theories and that's the only logic behind saying they're no one in that manner.

Nick E

Save the child slaves? Nah. Save the horses? Oh absolutely! OH! And lets trash the place with the horses so that the slave children have guaranteed work for months!

Nick E

Super important high priority mission with hundreds of lives on the line?! PARK ON THE MOTHER EFFIN BEACH!

Nick E

Maz felt forced in. Also how does she know that dude would be at Canto at this time? Does he live there and play every day? Poe suggested calling her if I remember right but he never even met her in TFA? Does he just know her somehow?

Nick E

Issue with her living through space is that she survived the explosion, survived the vacuum of space, survived being pulled through a debris field, survived the temperature of space, then woke up and pulled herself to the ship. Then they just open the door without an airlock. It felt like a very contrived way to take her out of the movie so that Poe and Holdo can have a conflict.

Nick E

Snoke making fun of the mask felt odd. It's not like this is a new thing to Snoke unless he's always not liked it and just now finally brings it up? Why now?

Nick E

Not getting Luke's reaction to losing Han is actually a big negative to me IMO.

Nick E

Grumpy Luke is a fantastic concept however Luke didn't have to toss it over his shoulder. Could have dropped it straight down, handed it back, etc. Flippantly tossing it as a gag didn't land and set the tone for Luke on the wrong foot for most.

Nick E

Poe saved everyone by destroying the dreadnought despite losing the bombing fleet. They just don't ever acknowledge it after they've been tracked through lightspeed. If the dreadnought followed... game over. He deserved a promotion.

Nick E

That said I felt like almost all major story points, dialogue, etc all felt contrived for reasons I could go into. The movie looks amazing and is acted well.

Nick E

Gotta give it up to John Williams. His Star Wars Legacy will remain un-tarnished. What a career.

Nick E