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Doc, who was complaining about over-analyzing a film not long ago?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
they're forgetting we knew very little about the characters in the original trilogy

ANH sufficiently characterizes the protagonists: Luke is a wide-eyed hayseed from nowhere, Han is a smuggler who owes money to a crimelord, Leia is a politician trying to overthrow the Empire. The audience doesn't need exhaustive biographical information. To the contrary, characterization should be concise and direct. Because the point is for the protagonists to have comprehensible, relatable motivations. Contrast these simple, effective characterizations with Blind Kung Fu Man and Mr. Big gun in R1. They are Guardians of the Whills and BKFM, in contrast to his comrade Mr Big Gun, has not lost his faith in the Force. What's a Guardian of the Whills? What are the Whills? What does the Force religion teach? Why would Mr. Big Gun have a crisis of faith while BKFM doesn't? None of this is touched on at all in R1, which is no surprise - there's no time to go into all that. The result is, I have only the very weakest sense of who either of these characters are or why they do anything. It's not just that I don't care about them; there's nothing for me to care about.

This was a mistake but it wasn't an accident. Disney isn't just making these films to sell movie tickets. The larger point is to revise and expand the SW IP. The committee of marketing analysts and accountants who design these products wants to emphasize the entire licensing web. So they introduce a character or concept in one channel and expand on that in various other channels.

 Manchu wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
they're forgetting we knew very little about the characters in the original trilogy

Luke is a wide-eyed hayseed from nowhere, Han is a smuggler who owes money to a crimelord, Leia is a politician trying to overthrow the Empire.

Blind Kung Fu Man and Mr. Big gun in R1. They are Guardians of the {Temple}, in contrast to his comrade Mr Big Gun, has not lost his faith in the Force.

The audience doesn't need exhaustive biographical information. To the contrary, characterization should be concise and direct.

I shuffled your stuff around a bit to show that the guys in R1 got just as much characterization as Han, Luke, and Leia in your analysis. Therefore, by your own admission, R1 characters were just fine for the needs of the movie.

So you re-wrote my post to prove that you missed my point.



"The audience doesn't need exhaustive biographical information. To the contrary, characterization should be concise and direct. Because the point is for the protagonists to have comprehensible, relatable motivations."

 Manchu wrote:
So you re-wrote my post to prove that you missed my point.



"The audience doesn't need exhaustive biographical information. To the contrary, characterization should be concise and direct. Because the point is for the protagonists to have comprehensible, relatable motivations."

But they did, didn't they?

Jyn Erso was honouring the dying wishes of her Father who she idolised, and the values and sense of morality that he instilled in her.
Galen Erso was following his conscience.
The monk guy felt he was serving the will of the Force. His bodyguard buddy was protecting his best friend (basically a Chewbacca life debt type of character).
The Imperial Pilot was honouring his Friend Galen Erso, and following his own conscience.
The Captain/sniper guy was an idealistic Rebel fighting for the cause.
The Droid is a Droid.

The Imperial Commandant type guy was an ambitious career Imperial, climbing the ranks at whatever cost necessary.
Vader is Vader.

Rogue One also serves as a character study of The Rbellion and The Empire.

Hence, we get relative mooks to show the sorts on both sides.

No, BKFM and Mr. Big Gun did not have comprehensible, relatable motives.

We know they are Guardians of the Whills but (in addition to the audience not knowing what "the Whills" is? are?) they don't seem to be guarding anything. We have no idea what they believe or why. We have no idea what "trusting the Force" means to them. This is actually why the big "trust in the Force" scene makes no sense and has no emotional meaning. He walks to the Plot Device and doesn't get shot. Then he pushes the button and gets shot. So why did the Force protect him up til he pushed the button? Are we talking about the Force or just the script writer? The script writer needed him to get to the button under fire. "So the Force did it."

Contrast this to the "trust the Force" scene in ANH: this scene was set up earlier in the movie when we see Ben train Luke. So it made sense later on, that if Luke trusted in the Force, rather than his targeting computer, that he could - as Ben said - reach out with his feelings and make the shot. Because this makes sense to the audience (set up/pay off), the audience can see how Luke has developed as a character over the course of his arc: he wanted to be part of something bigger and learn the ways of the Force - and when the moment came, he embraced it. What do we learn about BKFM when he walks up to the Plot Device chanting? The answer is Nothing. He's been chanting like that the whole time. Nothing impactful is going on and it has no meaning, other than simply advancing the plot and disposing of a now-unnecessary ancillary character.

Characters with clear motivations tend to be more relatable, more understandable, and therefore more interesting than characters with unclear motivations. R1 really proves this point. The strongest character is Krennic, partially because he has a clear agenda.

This isn't the only measure of good characters. But it is very important, especially for tracing a development arc. For example, Snarky Robot is enjoyable thanks to his wise cracks. But why does he do anything that he does? Programming? His own choice? We don't know and that diminishes the death scene of this otherwise engaging character.

Chirrut and Baze have very clear motives.

- They believe in a religion the Empire is trying to repress, so they resist it.
- Chirrut, if you'll excuse the pun, has blind faith as his primary motive, while Baze is arguably more interested in staying true to his friend than to the Force.
- Both of them believe the Empire is evil.


As for Chirrut being protected until his death, it makes perfect sense. He believes the Force is guiding him towards a specific purpose, comes to the realisation that this purpose is to play a part in the larger victory against the Empire by performing one crucial action, and once this purpose has been fulfilled, his work is done. He says as much himself. 'All is as The Force wills it.' The Force, as a guiding hand (at least as he envisions it) protects him as long as it needs to until his job is done, at which point he dies content. Baze dies moments later having reconciled his faith in The Force and his faith in his friend, having witnessed the latter essentially perform a 'miracle' under the influence of the former.

It all makes perfect sense within the rules of the universe.

R1 does not explain that the Empire is repressing any religion. Neither character has any lines revealing their political positions. BKFM "has faith" but the meaning of this is completely unexplained and unexplored by the movie.

Your interpretation of the blind faith scene is fine. But the film called R1 does nothing to set that up. For example, BKFM could have been characterized as searching for his purpose. Then we could have a scene where he comes to a realization. But that's not the scene we actually have because there was no set up.

Why does it make sense that he would get shot after pushing the button? Imagine this: Luke trusts the Force, turns off his targeting computer, reaches out with his feelings, makes the shot, the torpedoes go in - and then his X-Wing gets shot by a TIE Fighter and he is killed. "All is as the Force wills it," is not a sufficient explanation.

Mr Big Gun gets angry and starts killing people before being killed by a stray grenade. Now with him, we have some set up: for whatever unknown reasons the film can't be bothered to explain, Mr. Big Gun is disenchanted with his mysterious religion that the film cannot be bothered to explain. When he sees BKFM die he recovers some of his faith. So that would be the time for pay off. But instead the movie has him killed by a stray grenade after he shoots some goons who are not obstacles to the plot in any way, shape, or form. Shrug, I guess.

It's Star Wars. The explanation is the rest of Star Wars. It's a standalone film, but you can't take it in a vacuum.

Do you really need R1 to spell out that the Empire is against anyone who believes in The Force and the teachings of The Jedi? That's been there since Admiral Motti mocked Vader's 'sorcerer's ways' and Jedi past in ANH. Chirrut and Baze made their political positions quite clear when between the two of them, they murdered a platoon of Stormtroopers. It's clear from the writing/directing/acting in Chirrut's final scene that he's realised his purpose and resigned himself to his fate.

Baze dies to a stray grenade after attempting to avenge his fallen friend, which can be read as either a reflection of how The Force has always been shown to work (use it to seek vengeance, you'll meet a sticky end) or highlighting the fact that even with The Force in play, this is still a war and people still die due to bad luck and chance. It's a counterpoint to Chirrut's miraculous survival which hammers home that not everyone gets to be the hero.

Yeah call me crazy but I think movies that substitute setting - or in this case, a brand of IP - for characterization are bad.

It's not enough to have BKFM endlessly chant a line about the Force to establish what he, as a character (rather than an action figure), is about and why he does stuff.

Are you seriously arguing that Mr. Big Gun died because the Force punished him for being angry that his buddy died?

I'm saying that's definitely one way of reading that scene. Time and time again, Star Wars has shown that a) The Force can influence all manner of 'random' events and b) those who invoke it in the name of revenge meet unfortunate demises. So yes, him chanting 'The Force is with me, and I am one with the Force' while violently and pointlessly gunning down the troopers who killed his friend (as you say, it serves no tactical purpose, thus it's clearly just an attempt to inflict pain and take revenge) is deeply hypocritical and it's not unreasonable to suggest that it's a form of poetic justice being dished out by the Force's guiding hand.

It's not substituting brand for characterisation, it's assuming that someone who's going to watch the 8th Star Wars film to be released over the last 40 years has at least some knowledge of how Star Wars as a setting works, and doesn't need to rehash 'Light Side, Jedi= Good, Dark Side, Sith, Empire= Bad' every single time.

But at the same time, you seem to be suggesting that I should understand BKFM's motivations because I have seen other films where people talking about trusting the Force are Good Guys.

I'm not seeing the conflict there. Those who have been shown to put their faith in the Force have typically (though not always) done so with good intentions. That doesn't mean any time someone invokes faith in the Force that they are either a good guy or going to be protected in any way. Baze invokes the Force for good while carrying out an act of evil, and thus it's no wonder it didn't protect him as it did Chirrut.

It all depends on how you look at The Force on the spectrum between 'it's a guiding force with a will of its own, which steers everyone in the universe towards their destiny and acts through Force users' and 'the Force has no will, and is bent into shape by the will of Force users'. From everything we've seen, it's somewhere in between; predetermined destiny does seem to be a thing and The Force aids and pushes people towards fulfilling it (Chirrut, Luke's trench run), but equally, exceptionally powerful individuals manage to use it to achieve their own ends (Anakin's creation, Palpatine clouding the Jedi's perception if that's still canon).

 Paradigm wrote:
IPalpatine clouding the Jedi's perception if that's still canon.

It is, but now he's got the help of a Dark Side nexus or something being directly under the Jedi Temple that he's also using to help manipulate them, or something. Its dumb.

If R1 is really showing us how the Force is punishing Mr. Big Gun then it is an even worse movie than I thought. That is most emotionally deaf interpretation of the scene imaginable. It is supported by nothing previously explained or portrayed in R1. I don't think there is any other scene in a SW movie that shows the Force punishing someone for shooting storm troopers in anger and sorrow (Luke on the Death Star after Vader kills Ben, for example).

I flat out do not accept that a stand-alone movie like R1 should be let off for failing to establish its characters just because in other SW movies there are people who "trust in the Force." BKFM is not in other SW movies. He's only in R1. If R1 fails to establish his character, that's all we got.

 Manchu wrote:
But at the same time, you seem to be suggesting that I should understand BKFM's motivations because I have seen other films where people talking about trusting the Force are Good Guys.

Or you could go with the information actually presented: they're temple guardians whose temple has been ransacked- those crystals the Empire is carrying off. So ex temple guards fighting back against the empire that sacked their temple. Huzzah, actual motivation, established shortly after they're introduced.

That's just as good if not better than untrained farm boy, smuggler with heart of eventually gold, and Princess who apparently inherited a noble tile from her father the elected Senator because the boys need a princess to rescue from the tower, even if she hauls her own weight for a couple scenes, then stands around biting her lip in a command center and hands out medals and creepy smiles.

Voss wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
But at the same time, you seem to be suggesting that I should understand BKFM's motivations because I have seen other films where people talking about trusting the Force are Good Guys.

Or you could go with the information actually presented: they're temple guardians whose temple has been ransacked- those crystals the Empire is carrying off. So ex temple guards fighting back against the empire that sacked their temple. Huzzah, actual motivation, established shortly after they're introduced.

That's just as good if not better than untrained farm boy, smuggler with heart of eventually gold, and Princess who apparently inherited a noble tile from her father the elected Senator because the boys need a princess to rescue from the tower, even if she hauls her own weight for a couple scenes, then stands around biting her lip in a command center and hands out medals and creepy smiles.

Yes, exactly. To say that these characters have clear motivations when given broad strokes, while others are not when given with the same style of broadstrokes is disengenious.

Now, not liking the broadstrokes that were used to "motivate" those characters is a different argument, but saying they were not as good is just not true. I mean, untrained farm boy isn;t a motivation.... it is an archetype. No different than BKFM and Big Gun guy.

Not really because a golly gee farmboy living in the middle of nowhere and his yearning to see the wider world doesn't require any knowledge of any other movie or anything that the movie is responsible for explaining. "Guardian of the Whills" is meaningless to the audience. "Protectors of the temple" is equally meaningless. What's the temple? Why is it significant? Something to do with yet another brought-up-then-abandoned bit of non-exposition, the kyber crystal. OK so the temple is connected to these crystals and the Empire wants the crystals so therefore the guardians of the temple don't like the Empire. We're still missing any connection between the crystals and the Force or any explanation of what BKFM belives/what Mr Big Gun no longer believes. Tellingly, even R1 doesn't care about these topics because I have just addressed them at greater length than the actual film.

 Easy E wrote:
[untrained farm boy isn;t a motivation.... it is an archetype.

Whoa there, everyone knows Luke wanted to be part of something bigger because he was a nobody from nowhere.

Only because we are dealing in Archetypes.

Yeah, there is a bit of dialog about leaving the farm and going tot he Academy, but that is about it.

No, there's more - that's the initial set up. Then Ben offers him that chance, which he declines. Then he sees his hime and his family have been destroyed and again he wants to leave, but now with a purpose rather than just a sentiment. Already from the start, Luke's motivation becomes developed.

 Easy E wrote:
Only because we are dealing in Archetypes.

Yeah, there is a bit of dialog about leaving the farm and going tot he Academy, but that is about it.

l
Yep. He wanted to be an Imperial Officer. (give that a think for a minute, really let it settle in there) If there is another academy for something else, we're not given any indications as to what it might be.

Then his family is killed, and now he wants revenge, and he gets swept along by stronger characters, and put in a pilot's seat like he always dreamed, with a ghost space wizard riding shotgun for reasons.

Next movie he's told that revenge is probably bad, and wanting adventure and excitement is bad (but his new life consists solely of adventure and excitement, so...whatever, Yoda) so he thinks he's setting out to get himself killed, but his friends are in trouble so he has to go.

Third, he finds out he probably has to die on a new trip, but can get his level up if he kills or redeems his father, and goes with redeem his father because... mass murder is secretly fine if you say you're sorry later*. Or if your kids say that they're fine with it, I guess.

Gosh, those clear motivations.


*though Vader is never actually sorry, he was just fatally wounded while killing his boss, after failing to kill his son. Completely in accordance with the way of the Sith, he took advantage of his master's distraction. Not that anyone knew anything about the Sith at the time, it was a religion with no real tenets... Huh, so was being a Jedi in fact. Vader was all that left of their religion, supposedly, and mostly what he did was choke people, particularly for lack of faith.

I'd think the Empire killing off the Jedi, hunting them down, and then proceeding to strip the temple of kyber crystals is clear repression. Doesn't he have a line along the lines of there is nothing to guard (at the temple) anymore?


Related TLJ. I find myself surprisingly unexcited for the upcoming movie. Something just seems off. I've been rereading the Thrawn Trilogy and I can't help but think the PT/ST jacked up what could have been six really good movies if Lucas had had someone there to rein him in. As much as I like Kylo Ren the direction of the ST just seems really off and incredibly politically implausible.

 trexmeyer wrote:
I'd think the Empire killing off the Jedi, hunting them down, and then proceeding to strip the temple of kyber crystals is clear repression. Doesn't he have a line along the lines of there is nothing to guard (at the temple) anymore?

Yes, he does. Which fleshes him out just as much as any other character in SW.


Someone posted an interview with Gollum's (Snokes) actor on another site. It is... irritating.

http://ew.com/movies/2017/11/22/star-wars-last-jedi-andy-serkis-snoke-backstory/

Basically the First Order has unlimited resources, because reasons.
The Resisty is the Republic's military, because the writers/directors are idiots.
And Snoke is Evil because reasons... that TLJ won't explore.
Fun!

So, from a Mod point of view, would a second The Last Jedi thread intended to contain spoilers from those that’ve seen it be ok?

It would be properly labelled so nobody can accidentally blunder in?

Would just be cool to have somewhere to froth over it.

New thread or old, I'd like to chime in with the polite request that everyone be VERY CAREFUL with spoilers here. Obviously, please spoiler tag everything even remotely relevant to the film, but also keep in mind that if there's a spoiler at the top of the post, it will show up when hovered over (easy to do by mistake while scrolling though) and things like that, so please just be mindful of that sort of thing.

And with that, I'm bowing out now until my mind has been blown one again by Star Warsy goodness.... And man am I hyped, especially having just seen an initial reaction from the premiere that called it the best Star Wars film ever.... High praise, let's hope it lives up to it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
So, from a Mod point of view, would a second The Last Jedi thread intended to contain spoilers from those that’ve seen it be ok?

It would be properly labelled so nobody can accidentally blunder in?

Would just be cool to have somewhere to froth over it.

This is definitely the thread for trailers for this movie.

Most modern day movie goers know that most trailers show too much, so they should also know to be careful when viewing any trailers ever...

I was more meaning for those of us who get to see it ASAP?

Anyone still running around in here once this movie hits theaters has either seen it, doesn't care, or is being so reckless that no one talking about the film here should care.

Don't weep for the stupid you'll be crying all day

Ahh... but we in the UK get to see it before the Former Colonies!