I genuinely believe the theory that The Last Jedi tested poorly, and was heavily edited in post to switch the beginning fight scene with the ending fight scene
While I think there's merit to the claim the film was reconfigured as that end battle makes no sense. Last few of the resistance, suddenly there are lots for a battle. A battle where they literally drive skimming ships at the AT-ATs for no reason and do nothing but get blown up before retreating.
I seem to recall that there was no testing of the film. While the truth to what went on is always hard to know from the amount of grifter shit put online. I do recall that apparently only a handful of people had seen the final film before the premiere.
In the narrative that I would not necessarily consider reliable. There was talk about the script being rewritten a bunch during production and it was just scene-based. Without reflecting on how that scene impacted or contradicted the rest of the film.
While catching up on the thread someone was mentioning the Rose, Finn and DJ plotline. They went to Canto Bite to find the code breaker to disable the hyper space tracking. Nonsense happened. They got locked up in jail with a different code breaker. Who had a key to the jail cell. Then betrayed them. Utterly pointless.
This is an example where whatever the original idea was, it just got messed up in rewrites and reshoots. It was originally Finn and Poe. Clearly, the Rose shit with horses and lectures wouldn't have been in the version with Poe. RJ said he found Finn and Poe's dialogue interchangeable when writing it. Which speaks to his inability to understand characters. Shit like broom boy was done in reshoots. Alot of Holdo and Rose stuff was changed, added to in reshoots. It's a plot point in TFA that Finn isn't a pilot. Ignored in TLJ to force the plot. Why couldn't Rose have been a pilot? That's the level of lack of attention to detail put in.
I assume Holdo Manuever was also a reshoot, trying to make sense of a film that made no sense.
Also interesting to think about if Poe went to Canto, what was the Rebel fleet section of the film? Was it even there? Was the slow chase, Holdo, all of that follow orders no matter what shit. Was it another attempt to make sense of a disjointed film? Were changes made too late in production they had to stick with sets and locations already built?
Leia was clearly put into a coma to side line her to create Holdo and the conflict with Poe.
So much of the films dumb shit seems to stem from it being a mess and rewrites changing things. Probably the shit that made it through the most unchanged with the Luke and Rey stuff.
I always liked the idea Mark Hamill didn't know Luke died until the premier and that's why he was so shaken, but it was probably just seeing all his worst fears about how bad the film was come true.
The very fact they didn't keep him alive, especially after Carrie died is retardation of the high most level.
