• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Episode VIII is "The Last Jedi"

Status
Not open for further replies.
It'll start like all the other saga films start. The fact they basically removed that stuff from Rogue One early in the game suggests they're not looking to fuck around with the framing elements of the Episodes.

Lucasfilm Logo
A long time ago...

STAR WARS

Episode VIII
THE LAST JEDI

(insert scroll probably recapping Rey's journey in the last movie/recapping the First Order's loss, talking about Snoke's plans for retaliation against the depleted resistance)

Pan either down/up, and depending on what characters are discussed in the last paragraph, either we go straight back to the island and pick up where we left off, or we go to the First Order home base and watch Kylo talk to Snoke before we cut back to the island.
 
UCBooties said:
Ok, so this is the midpoint in the trilogy. So we're gonna need to end on a down note. How dark do you think they're going to try to make this one? Obviously it's not going to be as bleak as Rogue One, and they already played the "surprise" major character death card in Force Awakens, so I'm curious what they're going to do with it.
Click to expand...

I think Rey will get beaten down a few notches like Luke in Empire, but I don't see the film being all that dark. Johnson still wants it to be funny.

The creative work has felt like play. It’s felt resonant and meaningful because it meant so much to me as a kid… I want [Episode VIII] to be a blast and to be funny and to be a ride the way The Force Awakens and the original Star Wars movies were.
Click to expand...
 
Do we know that it starts with the literal last scene of TFA? Or does it start in the same general time that TFA left off?

If the former, it will be interesting to see what they come up with to connect the starfield opening to the last scene of TFA...
 
LegendOfGood said:
Do we know that it starts with the literal last scene of TFA? Or does it start in the same general time that TFA left off?

If the former, it will be interesting to see what they come up with to connect the starfield opening to the last scene of TFA...
Click to expand...

Johnson's confirmed there'll be a continuation of the final scene.

"I don't want to skip ahead two years," Johnson told USA Today. "I want to see the very next moment of what happens."
Click to expand...
 
LegendOfGood said:
Do we know that it starts with the literal last scene of TFA? Or does it start in the same general time that TFA left off?

If the former, it will be interesting to see what they come up with to connect the starfield opening to the last scene of TFA...
Click to expand...
We don't know where the movie starts. We do know that when we see Rey and Luke it directly continues from the end of TFA. Like, immediately. There could quite easily be scenes of other characters/locations beforehand though. In fact I expect it.
 
LegendOfGood said:
Do we know that it starts with the literal last scene of TFA? Or does it start in the same general time that TFA left off?

If the former, it will be interesting to see what they come up with to connect the starfield opening to the last scene of TFA...
Click to expand...

We know they shot her handing him the saber, so yeah, we're going to see what happened immediately after TFA irised out.

The question is whether we're going to see what's up with the First Order before we get back to that, or if we're gonna pan straight down.

It's possible that if we don't check back in w/ the first order, we could end up with a scenario where we're already on the Island with Luke and we're watching him either sense and/or watch the Falcon come in from his POV.

The scroll could be entirely about Luke, since he is the Last Jedi. At which point you get that last paragraph with the ellipses... answered by the Falcon bringing Rey to him, and then his story continues on.
 
I hope the opening crawl is super literal.

STAR WARS

EPISODE VIII

THE LAST JEDI

Remember The Force Awakens? That movie you just marathoned before watching this? Yeah, that. That happen.

Pan down to the planet with Luke and Rey still holding that awkward pose with the weird helicopter shot.
 
Opening with the main title and cutting straight to the island is pretty awkward. The crawl has always been used to fill in backstory and events we haven't seen. It has nothing to tell us if the film opens where the last movie ended - we already know what's going on! Dramatically, I also think it undercuts the tension that JJ wanted to evoke in the final moments of TFA (will he or won't he?!).

My uninformed guess: Movie opens with a prologue that briefly recaps events from Luke's POV. Ben attacking the academy, the loss of his daughter, handing over the map to Lor San Tekka, and the journey to Ach To. So we arrive at the same point that TFA ends, but with a new perspective.

Then it hits you with the main title, and the story proceeds like normal.
 
UCBooties said:
Ok, so this is the midpoint in the trilogy. So we're gonna need to end on a down note. How dark do you think they're going to try to make this one? Obviously it's not going to be as bleak as Rogue One, and they already played the "surprise" major character death card in Force Awakens, so I'm curious what they're going to do with it.
Click to expand...

Luke's going to die, Rey's going dark side. Then it'll be up to Finn to bring her back with the power of friendship in episode 9.

Ren's going to be the one to kill Snoke and probably go out in some grand redemptive gesture.
 
TheXbox said:
My uninformed guess: Movie opens with a prologue that briefly recaps events from Luke's POV. Ben attacking the academy, the loss of his daughter, handing over the map to Lor San Tekka, and the journey to Ach To. So we arrive at the same point that TFA ends, but with a new perspective.

Then it hits you with the main title, and the story proceeds like normal.
Click to expand...

Why wouldn't that be the scroll instead of a prologue, like I just suggested?

The title of the movie makes it a lot easier for that scroll to essentially be a quick recap of Luke Skywalker's life up to that point. They're not gonna break tradition and insert a Rogue One-style prologue after making a point of how "not a saga film!" Rogue One would be by replacing its scroll with a filmed prologue instead.
 
It's Reyn Time! said:
Luke's going to die, Rey's going dark side. Then it'll be up to Finn to bring her back with the power of friendship in episode 9.

Ren's going to be the one to kill Snoke and probably go out in some grand redemptive gesture.
Click to expand...

I have been saying this since TFA now. But I hope Luke doesn't die.
 
Hollywood Duo said:
Doubtful that Rey is going to get disfigured in any sort of way. I don't think the mainstream public is ready for that sort of thing yet.
Click to expand...

The public is ready for it absolutely. The problem is that nobody really seems to have a good reason as to why something like that should happen within the story, and suggestions like yours frame that lack of reason as, instead, a lack of balls, or a presence of fear preventing people from taking the story where it should go.

But no one's really saying why it should go there. Likely because there's not much to those suggestions behind "coooooooooool" and "it happened before sooooooo"
 
LeonSKennedy90 said:
I hope the opening crawl is super literal.

STAR WARS

EPISODE VIII

THE LAST JEDI

Remember The Force Awakens? That movie you just marathoned before watching this? Yeah, that. That happen.

Pan down to the planet with Luke and Rey still holding that awkward pose with the weird helicopter shot.
Click to expand...

Hold on, how do you marathon one movie?
 
Bobby Roberts said:
Why wouldn't that be the scroll instead of a prologue, like I just suggested?

The title of the movie makes it a lot easier for that scroll to essentially be a quick recap of Luke Skywalker's life up to that point. They're not gonna break tradition and insert a Rogue One-style prologue after making a point of how "not a saga film!" Rogue One would be by replacing its scroll with a filmed prologue instead.
Click to expand...
Because I don't think it can be summed up in four or five sentences. Even if it can, maybe it shouldn't. I don't think the crawls have ever been a substitute for character drama. They set the stage and build intrigue. You decide whether or not the past six or seven years of Luke's life are worthy of screentime or text. I lean towards the former, especially since those years were built up with so much mystery in TFA.
 
TheXbox said:
Because I don't think it can be summed up in four or five sentences. .
Click to expand...

It's not like he won't be able to elaborate in the film proper. The scroll won't be the only opportunity for those subjects to be touched upon.

There's not gonna be a prologue, though. it's going to share the same formatics all the other movies have shared.

If it needs to be elaborated on, there'll probably be some sort of force vision or something.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
It's not like he won't be able to elaborate in the film proper. The scroll won't be the only opportunity for those subjects to be touched upon.

There's not gonna be a prologue, though. it's going to share the same formatics all the other movies have shared.

If it needs to be elaborated on, there'll probably be some sort of force vision or something.
Click to expand...
So what's the point of the crawl? It seems like we keep coming back to it because it's a fixture of this series, not because it serves any use. We fill in some vague hints about Luke's past, so what? Now we as the audience know more than Rey does, but less than Luke. What does that accomplish? It saps TFA's finale of all its tension and it puts the audience in a weird position.
 
Guys. I just had the most amazing idea. What if after the scroll instead of panning up or down, they pan to the left. Or the right. Or maybe even in-between one of the four directions.

Edit: Fuckin' hell, brandonh83.
 
TheXbox said:
So what's the point of the crawl? It seems like we keep coming back to it because it's a fixture of this series, not because it serves any use... Rey What does that accomplish? It saps TFA's finale of all its tension and it puts the audience in a weird position.
Click to expand...

How?

The point of the crawl is formatic, not functional. Nobody really gives a shit about it. It's there to be a stylistic touch first, an actual plot catch-up second. Almost everything said within it is further touched on in the film proper, in almost all the movies, I believe, and I'm not saying so much more concretely because I can't for the life of me remember almost anything within them off the top of my head.

The idea that something mentioned in the crawl can't be further expanded upon in the film proper otherwise something somewhere is wasted doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't work like that in any of the other Star Wars films, I don't know why that'd work here. I certainly don't understand why it would sap the tension of the preceding movie, anymore than the existence of Empire Strikes Back saps the tension from Star Wars (it doesn't)
 
I think "Luke Skywalker has VANISHED" was an incredible opening line to a crawl personally, wasnt expecting it
 
I dont think Rey will have any love interest, I think she will probably be presented as entirely asexual

Undecided on whether id like Luke to stay that way, probably veering towards yes, his life is dedicated to the force.
 
About the relevance of the crawl: let's not forget that these are movies aimed at children first (which doesn't mean they're not aimed at adults as well - or as if it's wrong to enjoy it as an adult), and I'm pretty sure me and my friends, and I'm betting most other kids, never really paid that much attention to the crawls. They're simplistic introductions to set the scene, not elaborate bits of lore (which is why the PT crawls felt wrong).

Imagine cutting out the crawl at the beginning of Empire, and just letting the movie begin. Nobody is going to be confused about what's going on, because all you need to know about those characters is in the first movie (in fact, Empire happened to be the first SW movie my girlfriend saw, back in the lead up to TFA - we happened to be watching that one while she came home - and she could follow everything just fine). I'm not trying to argue that they should cut the crawls out of the upcoming episode movies, I'm just saying that they're there for setting the tone more than anything.

The Jedi crawl (TLJ? This might get confusing) will simply say something about Rey starting a new journey in her life with Luke, and the Last Order rebuilding after their loss in TFA. That's all any crawl ever needed.

Slightly related: watching TFA for the first time in the cinema and seeing the crawl begin with simply 'Luke Skywalking is missing' was pretty damn amazing. That simple sentence suddenly made it all feel so real.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
How?
Click to expand...
I'm having a hard time articulating this. We know why TFA's ending is so effective; it's open-ended and there's a shit load of unresolved tension. If Episode VIII opens with virtually the same dramatic setup as TFA, then you have to wonder why TFA ever ended where it did in the first place.

And the crawl sucks in this case for exactly the reasons you described. Nobody really pays attention to it. It's not dramatic. It probably won't enhance the encounter between Luke and Rey or our understanding of it.

So let's say we open TLJ with a few sentences about Luke running away, his journey (and again, if this information is so banal that it's been relegated to flavor text that nobody reads, why was it hidden in the first place?), pan down to Ahch-To, and.... nothing has changed. Now we watch the rest of this scene from TFA play out, and I wonder why it was ever cut short in the first place. The answer is sequel-bait, I guess, but I don't believe that's 100% what JJ was going for.

The prologue, as I described it, substantially re-contextualizes the ending of TFA. It's dramatic. It deals with characters and events we actually totally care about. It casts the encounter on the summit in a totally new light. Now that split scene between 7 and 8 feels purposeful.

Sorry for the muddled ranting. You ask hard questions, Bobby! None of it matters much anyway and if the rest of the movie is fucking killer nobody will care about how it opens.
 
TheXbox said:
I'm having a hard time articulating this. We know why TFA's ending is so effective; it's open-ended and there's a shit load of unresolved tension. If Episode VIII opens with virtually the same dramatic setup as TFA, then you have to wonder why TFA ever ended where it did in the first place.

And the crawl sucks in this case for exactly the reasons you described. Nobody really pays attention to it. It's not dramatic. It probably won't enhance the encounter between Luke and Rey or our understanding of it.

So let's say we open TLJ with a few sentences about Luke running away, his journey (and again, if this information is so banal that it's been relegated to flavor text that nobody reads, why was it hidden in the first place?), pan down to Ahch-To, and.... nothing has changed. Now we watch the rest of this scene from TFA play out, and I wonder why it was ever cut short in the first place. The answer is sequel-bait, I guess, but I don't believe that's 100% what JJ was going for.

The prologue, as I described it, substantially re-contextualizes the ending of TFA. It's dramatic. It deals with characters and events we actually totally care about. It casts the encounter on the summit in a totally new light. Now that split scene between 7 and 8 feels purposeful.

Sorry for the muddled ranting. You ask hard questions, Bobby! None of it matters much anyway and if the rest of the movie is fucking killer nobody will care about how it opens.
Click to expand...

I had a dream after TFA that the next film opened with Han and Leia together in an outpost similar to Tattooine talking about something, then Han calls Ben over and its clear this took place like 6 years ago, they mention Luke and we get a short of Snoke lukring in the shadows. The dream itself was stupid but I would have enjoyed seeing a prologue with Han/Leia together and them interaction with Ben before all of this.
 
TheXbox said:
I'm having a hard time articulating this. We know why TFA's ending is so effective; it's open-ended and there's a shit load of unresolved tension. If Episode VIII opens with virtually the same dramatic setup as TFA, then you have to wonder why TFA ever ended where it did in the first place.

And the crawl sucks in this case for exactly the reasons you described. Nobody really pays attention to it. It's not dramatic. It probably won't enhance the encounter between Luke and Rey or our understanding of it.

So let's say we open TLJ with a few sentences about Luke running away, his journey (and again, if this information is so banal that it's been relegated to flavor text that nobody reads, why was it hidden in the first place?), pan down to Ahch-To, and.... nothing has changed. Now we watch the rest of this scene from TFA play out, and I wonder why it was ever cut short in the first place. The answer is sequel-bait, I guess, but I don't believe that's 100% what JJ was going for.

The prologue, as I described it, substantially re-contextualizes the ending of TFA. It's dramatic. It deals with characters and events we actually totally care about. It casts the encounter on the summit in a totally new light. Now that split scene between 7 and 8 feels purposeful.

Sorry for the muddled ranting. You ask hard questions, Bobby! None of it matters much anyway and if the rest of the movie is fucking killer nobody will care about how it opens.
Click to expand...

Right now you're arguing about an opening to a movie nobody has seen yet and a crawl nobody has read.

I wouldn't worry about it too much at this point.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

The Punisher: One Last Kill | Official Trailer
9
295
RavageX replied
Who will drink the last beer?
41
683
Shifty1897 replied
Avatar: The Last Airbender Movie leaks online months before release
News 
49
775
struggler_guts replied
Jackass: Best and Last - Official Trailer (2026)
24
273
Grildon Tundy replied
All episodes in the final season of ‘STRANGER THINGS’ will be over 1 hour, budget per episode is $50M-$60M
48
5K
Dirk Benedict replied
Top Bottom