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 Formosa wrote:
Funnily enough I and others who didn't like this film had a genuine SJW try to pull there usual crap, they even said and I quote "you only don't like the film because it challenges the male hierarchy" and "as a white male who has never had to deal with oppression"

It's laughable the length these parasites will go to virtue signal

Laugh at those people. One can be Lefty McBleedingheart, love all the diversity in the casting, and still think the film was poorly written, even poorly conceived. The casting and diversity have literally nothing to do with the complaints. Holdo could have been played by Bruce Penhall and it wouldn't make the character any less frustrating.

Every time I think about this film I end up revising my opinion down further. It's really poor, isn't it? I mean, we're talking about scraping new depths of the barrel. I can't think of a level this works on. It ruins classic characters we fell in love with decades ago, it does nothing with half-baked characters we've been waiting to like. It sets up nothing going forward. It's an utter failure as a sequel, a Star Wars story and as a movie.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
One can be Lefty McBleedingheart, love all the diversity in the casting, and still think the film was poorly written, even poorly conceived.

Yo.

Now that the initial weekend flush is behind it, that hot period when pretty much anything that had the Star Wars name on it could have earned $500 million worldwide, audience fervor for Star Wars: The Last Jedi has cooled off like a chilly winter evening on planet Hoth.

In North America, daily holds for the Rian Johnson-directed flick have been significantly worse than those experienced by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and if the pattern continues The Last Jedi could actually wind up doing not much better than the 2016 spin-off movie.

That, of course, would be a catastrophic result, akin to Warner/DC’s disastrous, money-losing fiasco with Justice League.

Just as Justice League jammed all of DC’s biggest and most valuable superheroes into a single, swing-for-the-fences mash-up that failed to earn even as much as the single-hero, half-priced (yet far superior) Wonder Woman, so it appears that Disney may have turned the one-time opportunity to put Luke and Leia together in their last movie into an under-performing debacle that earns little more than the band-of-nobodies Rogue One.


Not that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is in any danger of losing money. There’s too much momentum behind the franchise, too many people who will pay to see it even when they’ve heard it’s a disappointing mess. Disney could have called it The Star Wars Movie That Will Completely Turn You Off From Ever Seeing Another Star Wars Movie Again and it still would have collected $1.2 billion at the box office and turned a tidy profit.

But for Disney, and for anyone watching, this isn’t really a matter of whether The Last Jedi turns over a billion or more in revenue. That was always an easy target. This is a matter of how well the film succeeds in meeting financial expectations, how well it fulfills the needs of the franchise, and whether it strengthens the Star Wars brand for future projects.

By those measures, The Last Jedi already looks like a dud.

After opening at nearly 90 percent of The Force Awakens' strength, The Last Jedi has steadily fallen behind, and by Wednesday, its 6th full day in release, it was holding its audience at a lesser rate than every one of the previous eight live action Star Wars movies. It had retained just 16 percent of its opening day gross, a figure that, as the chart below shows, is well below the holds for The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and the last of the prequels, Revenge of the Sith.

I wanted to avoid cluttering up the chart, but I could have added all five of the other previous Star Wars live action movies and the image would remain the same: The Last Jedi is the rock-bottom, worst-holding movie of the entire 9-film franchise. Even Attack of the Clones looks like a champ in comparison.

In fact, The Last Jedi isn't even holding as well as Justice League did. On its sixth day the DC film retained 27 percent of its opening day audience, nearly double what the Star Wars picture has done.


If you object to comparing Last Jedi's daily grosses to the film's $104.6 million opening day with its $45 million in Thursday previews included, compare the grosses instead to the Saturday number. Or Sunday. Or Friday without the preview figures. The story is consistent: The Last Jedi is flying like a fat turkey in the Star Wars universe.

The movie's flight trajectory will more than likely improve as schools let out for the holidays and Christmas week arrives. But the Yuletide competition has begun to boil with Downsizing, Father Figures, Pitch Perfect 3, The Greatest Showman and Jumanji all arriving in theaters to stake their claims on the box office. It's far from certain that The Last Jedi will hold its own against such an onslaught, especially since it's being led by Jumanji's Dwayne "The World's Biggest Movie Star" Johnson.

Star Wars will survive, of course, in the domestic market and in the handful of territories where it's a successful legacy franchise. But in key markets like Korea and Mexico and China and India, places where The Force Awakens wasn't well received and audiences could go either way, The Last Jedi may burn that bridge, and truly turn off mass audiences from ever seeing another Star Wars movie again.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/2017/12/22/last-jedi-daily-grosses-are-swiftly-collapsing-the-worst-holds-of-all-9-star-wars-movies/

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Funnily enough I and others who didn't like this film had a genuine SJW try to pull there usual crap, they even said and I quote "you only don't like the film because it challenges the male hierarchy" and "as a white male who has never had to deal with oppression"

It's laughable the length these parasites will go to virtue signal

Laugh at those people. One can be Lefty McBleedingheart, love all the diversity in the casting, and still think the film was poorly written, even poorly conceived. The casting and diversity have literally nothing to do with the complaints. Holdo could have been played by Bruce Penhall and it wouldn't make the character any less frustrating.

They tried to pull the same trick with the remake of Ghostbusters.

@Manchu: I hope it with all my heart because for once the villains could be punished, J. J. Abrams first and foremost. But is as much difficult as shooting two proton torpedoes in a thermal exhaust port.
People will watch this... movie-thing (in the John Carpenter sense) over and over for Christmas.

The "coverage" is already shifting conversation away from a discussion about the movie itself to a discussion of the audience. As with Ghostbusters (2016) (and, laughably, The Force Awakens and Rogue One), the story needs to be that poor TLJ is "being attacked" by 4chan, trolls, the Alt Right, MRActivists, mysoginists, racists, manchildren, and whatever other vague, faceless categories of scum & villainy. The logic being, if "bad people" hate TLJ then TLJ must be good and noble. Oh and there's also the implicit threat: if you dare not to like TLJ then it is clearly because you are a horrible, bigoted man-baby. So you better like it!

If that Forbes article is accurate, I think we can expect Rian Johnson's 3 movie contract to evaporate.

Disney has already established that directors are disposable.

 Manchu wrote:
The "coverage" is already shifting conversation away from a discussion about the movie itself to a discussion of the audience. As with Ghostbusters (2016) (and, laughably, The Force Awakens and Rogue One), the story needs to be that poor TLJ is "being attacked" by 4chan, trolls, the Alt Right, MRActivists, mysoginists, racists, manchildren, and whatever other vague, faceless categories of scum & villainy. The logic being, if "bad people" hate TLJ then TLJ must be good and noble. Oh and there's also the implicit threat: if you dare not to like TLJ then it is clearly because you are a horrible, bigoted man-baby. So you better like it!

Seen this myself. "Alt right trolls claim to be the cause of low Rotten Tomatoes score"... Sure.

 Manchu wrote:
The "coverage" is already shifting conversation away from a discussion about the movie itself to a discussion of the audience. As with Ghostbusters (2016) (and, laughably, The Force Awakens and Rogue One), the story needs to be that poor TLJ is "being attacked" by 4chan, trolls, the Alt Right, MRActivists, mysoginists, racists, manchildren, and whatever other vague, faceless categories of scum & villainy. The logic being, if "bad people" hate TLJ then TLJ must be good and noble. Oh and there's also the implicit threat: if you dare not to like TLJ then it is clearly because you are a horrible, bigoted man-baby. So you better like it!

It will probably shift again when that doesn't fly. Those numbers from Forbes indicate that the will of the people is against TLJ. I wonder if the next step will be casting the film's supporters as the bad people.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
Disney has already established that directors are disposable.

Sure, if you hire directors like RJ and JJ.

I know I'm behind the times but I've only really encountered these SJW recently, my line of work insulates me from that kind of person (I work with the army), and I've been trying to research quite how to deal with them as at some point, I will have to (recruitment), and I'm just finding very difficult to see things from there perspective, I've had ethnic and diversity training as part of my job and have been doing it for a long time and still yet I find it difficult to understand.

Don't want to derail the thread though, I just can't understand this virtue signaling (newly learnt term for me) when I am knee deep in actually tackling these issues.

 Formosa wrote:
I know I'm behind the times but I've only really encountered these SJW recently, my line of work insulates me from that kind of person (I work with the army), and I've been trying to research quite how to deal with them as at some point, I will have to (recruitment), and I'm just finding very difficult to see things from there perspective, I've had ethnic and diversity training as part of my job and have been doing it for a long time and still yet I find it difficult to understand.

Don't want to derail the thread though, I just can't understand this virtue signaling (newly learnt term for me) when I am knee deep in actually tackling these issues.

The Army is possibly the most equal-opportunity, diverse organization on the planet. It's a shining example of how people from all kinds of backgrounds, ethnicities and even nationalities can work together side by side and actually accomplish something, without politicization, tribalism or victim culture. Just apply the values you learn working with the Army (Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage) to every situation and you will always be in the right. The best way to deal with culture warriors is to plainly and honestly state your case and move on. Don't let them make you apologize for something like not liking a movie, but don't give them any ammunition, either. Just do the right thing as far as you know it and respectfully decline to be shamed or admonished.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

It will probably shift again when that doesn't fly. Those numbers from Forbes indicate that the will of the people is against TLJ. I wonder if the next step will be casting the film's supporters as the bad people.

It isn't so much the will of the people as it is the will of the fans, the sort of folks who will rope others into seeing a film they wouldn't otherwise take special note of, and the sort of folks who are easily cast as neck-beards.

 dogma wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

It will probably shift again when that doesn't fly. Those numbers from Forbes indicate that the will of the people is against TLJ. I wonder if the next step will be casting the film's supporters as the bad people.

It isn't so much the will of the people as it is the will of the fans, the sort of folks who will rope others into seeing a film they wouldn't otherwise take special note of, and the sort of folks who are easily cast as neck-beards.

Are you implying that everyone that liked the movie is an innocent, causal moviegoer that wants to watch a good movie, and whose who disliked it are all rabid neckbeard lost in pointless details?

I know I'm behind the times but I've only really encountered these SJW recently, my line of work insulates me from that kind of person (I work with the army), and I've been trying to research quite how to deal with them as at some point, I will have to (recruitment), and I'm just finding very difficult to see things from there perspective, I've had ethnic and diversity training as part of my job and have been doing it for a long time and still yet I find it difficult to understand.

Don't want to derail the thread though, I just can't understand this virtue signaling (newly learnt term for me) when I am knee deep in actually tackling these issues.

 dogma wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

It will probably shift again when that doesn't fly. Those numbers from Forbes indicate that the will of the people is against TLJ. I wonder if the next step will be casting the film's supporters as the bad people.

It isn't so much the will of the people as it is the will of the fans, the sort of folks who will rope others into seeing a film they wouldn't otherwise take special note of, and the sort of folks who are easily cast as neck-beards.

Star Wars is the most popular film franchise in the Western world. The line between casuals and fans may not even exist.

 Formosa wrote:
I know I'm behind the times but I've only really encountered these SJW recently, my line of work insulates me from that kind of person (I work with the army), and I've been trying to research quite how to deal with them as at some point, I will have to (recruitment), and I'm just finding very difficult to see things from there perspective, I've had ethnic and diversity training as part of my job and have been doing it for a long time and still yet I find it difficult to understand.

Don't want to derail the thread though, I just can't understand this virtue signaling (newly learnt term for me) when I am knee deep in actually tackling these issues.

I want to try responding to this comment again because I've thought of a way to bring it back to the topic.

Ultimately, what we are talking about here is postmodernism. I posit that TLJ is a postmodern take on the SW franchise.

From Wikipedia:

postmodernism is typically defined by an attitude of skepticism, irony or rejection toward grand narratives, ideologies and various tenets of universalism, including objective notions of reason, human nature, social progress, moral universalism, absolute truth, and objective reality

Sound familiar? TLJ is consciously trying to deconstruct the audience's expectations of what a Star Wars movie is and strip them of their context and meaning. Most of the characters are in a regressive state compared to their characterizations in the previous movies, in some cases acting in ways that directly contradict their known traits and patterns of behavior. Everything we know or expect to be true about the setting and the characters is conspicuously shown to be meaningless (Jedis don't need training or the Jedi tradition, warriors don't need acts of heroism or sacrifice, bad guys don't need to be externally identifiable as bad guys, defeats can be victories, the internal rules of the setting don't matter, there is no right and wrong only different perspectives etc.)

People like the ones you are finding out about tend to have a decidedly postmodern worldview. That is, they have been taught to deconstruct things to alienate them from their context and meaning as a critical technique, typically in liberal arts or social sciences programs. Critical theory and post-structuralism were originally techniques developed for the analysis of literature or other cultural goods. TLJ is basically a postmodern criticism of Star Wars in the vein of that type of literary analyses.

Some people don't stop at literature or culture, they apply a postmodern dialectic to everything. That is, they want to deconstruct the meanings, hierarchies and contexts of institutions, social groups etc. So basically, they are skeptical of anything previously established and tend to see everything as a construct of human culture and society as opposed to something which may have naturally arisen. In many cases they are right, but in others they are not. The most fervent adherents of this kind of worldview flatly deny the value of rationality, logic and sometimes even science, and perceive them as merely oppressive social constructs instead of expressions of some kind of objective reality. The extent to which they will clash with other people is determined by how far they apply the drive to deconstruct the parts of culture and institution that others obviously inhabit.

It is very important to note that while many extreme postmodernists have a left-leaning bent, postmodernism is by no means limited to one side of the political spectrum. Neither is being an "SJW". The right has SJWs just as much as the left does, really.

So, that is where they're coming from.

I don't have the energy to argue over a film when I won't change your opinion and you won't change mine. Internet arguments are even more pointless than the Finn-Rose subplot. Ultimately the box office numbers will decide the fate.

A few things.

Luciferian described the postmodernism take very well, even though I disagree with some details. I agree that TLJ is very much a deconstruction and that is a large part of the division.

There is a very clear line between casuals and Star Wars fans. I read most of the old EU (reread the Thrawn Trilogy prior to watching the TLJ and am rereading the sequel now), played through KotOR I and II way too many times, still play ToR at times, played and modded JK2/JK:O, etc, etc. I really enjoy the Star Wars universe. I partake in a great deal of Star Wars content. I still enjoyed the movie, but at the same time I don't care enough to read any of the new books simply because they don't interest me enough anymore.

I don't think TLJ (or TFA) qualifies as a postmodern deconstruction of SW. (The Prequels actually have a much stronger claim there.) The Disney films are just sloppy, jumbled-up remakes.

Yeah, I don't buy the idea that TLJ (and R1/TFA) is a deliberate deconstruction or anything like that, it's flaws feel more like things that are just flaws. Everything seems built around brief moments of CGI spectacle or "clever" one-liners or toy commercials, with whatever plot is required to connect the dots kind of lazily thrown in. Rey's training isn't omitted because the director is deconstructing the idea of the hero having to train, it's omitted because it isn't enough of a spectacle and they'd rather get on with Rey having another Heroic Fight Scene. The rules of the setting aren't violated because of some well-reasoned academic theory about the nature of rules, they're violated because the people writing the story don't care enough to invest the effort required to make it consistent. Etc.

 Peregrine wrote:
Yeah, I don't buy the idea that TLJ (and R1/TFA) is a deliberate deconstruction or anything like that, it's flaws feel more like things that are just flaws. Everything seems built around brief moments of CGI spectacle or "clever" one-liners or toy commercials, with whatever plot is required to connect the dots kind of lazily thrown in. Rey's training isn't omitted because the director is deconstructing the idea of the hero having to train, it's omitted because it isn't enough of a spectacle and they'd rather get on with Rey having another Heroic Fight Scene. The rules of the setting aren't violated because of some well-reasoned academic theory about the nature of rules, they're violated because the people writing the story don't care enough to invest the effort required to make it consistent. Etc.

Yeah, the training example is one where I disagree, but Rian Johnson really strikes me as the type of director who would intentionally subvert things for the sake of it.

The end of TLJ really emphasized that for me (continuing on from what Motyak said)

The Falcon turns up last second, shoots some TIE fighters, somebody in the Falcon goes WOOO. But it was on salty Hoth and not the Trench Run.

Meanwhile the Empi.....First Order were trying to get in a Rebe.....Resistance base by ground assaulting the shield gene....Large Door.

Then Luke Skywalker has a emotionally charged fight with a relative, while things looked super grim for the Rebe.....Resistance, up until he resolved it and the Rebe....Resistance succeeded in their objective (yes I'm glossing over their different objectives).

Then the Falcon escapes from Vad..... Kylo Ren from Salt Hoth. (You could also say something about escaping from a cave with the only difference being the Falcon flies out of a cave and they walk out).

The call back to the two suns on Tatooine shot was nice.

 Peregrine wrote:
Yeah, I don't buy the idea that TLJ (and R1/TFA) is a deliberate deconstruction or anything like that, it's flaws feel more like things that are just flaws. Everything seems built around brief moments of CGI spectacle or "clever" one-liners or toy commercials, with whatever plot is required to connect the dots kind of lazily thrown in. Rey's training isn't omitted because the director is deconstructing the idea of the hero having to train, it's omitted because it isn't enough of a spectacle and they'd rather get on with Rey having another Heroic Fight Scene. The rules of the setting aren't violated because of some well-reasoned academic theory about the nature of rules, they're violated because the people writing the story don't care enough to invest the effort required to make it consistent. Etc.

 trexmeyer wrote:

Yeah, the training example is one where I disagree, but Rian Johnson really strikes me as the type of director who would intentionally subvert things for the sake of it.

It could be both. Incompetence, but some decision has been dictated, not necessarily in a conscious way, by the cultural Zeitgeist.
The Cynism and "ironic" approach to stories is undeniable, IMHO, in most modern blockbusters.
(BTW Luciferian, what a post!)

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Yeah, I don't buy the idea that TLJ (and R1/TFA) is a deliberate deconstruction or anything like that, it's flaws feel more like things that are just flaws. Everything seems built around brief moments of CGI spectacle or "clever" one-liners or toy commercials, with whatever plot is required to connect the dots kind of lazily thrown in. Rey's training isn't omitted because the director is deconstructing the idea of the hero having to train, it's omitted because it isn't enough of a spectacle and they'd rather get on with Rey having another Heroic Fight Scene. The rules of the setting aren't violated because of some well-reasoned academic theory about the nature of rules, they're violated because the people writing the story don't care enough to invest the effort required to make it consistent. Etc.

Yeah, the training example is one where I disagree, but Rian Johnson really strikes me as the type of director who would intentionally subvert things for the sake of it.

Honestly, he doesn't to me. I think its a combination of general inexperience- this is his 4th film, (all of which he was writer/director on), and other than that he's done 4 tv episodes (not series, episodes), and a couple shorts (which mostly look like film school projects). It's also a matter of specific inexperience- most of his films are a sort of crime drama or sometimes comedy (with a weird time travel twist in the case of Looper), not sci-fi or space opera, and honestly it's been awhile since he's been behind a camera. From Mark Hamill's comments (particularly 'This is not Luke Skywalker'), it doesn't seem like he has much familiarity with Star Wars in particular.

Going from really personal crime stories to a massive effects blockbuster is a pretty big leap. For all that i didn't like TFA (or Abrams other films) very much, I understood why Abrams was tapped to direct it. Johnson? No clue. But as writer/director, I think he flubbed it. Not out of malice and certainly not deconstruction, but just inexperience and unfamiliarity with the patterns and scope of the genre or franchise.

It's more like what Peregrine comments- a lot of the film's flaws come from focusing on the spectacle, and not 'pausing' the scene to really delve into (or even appreciate) the details or characterization (which is something Johnson himself happily admits to- it's his own justification for not delving into Snoke's background or history).

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

Are you implying that everyone that liked the movie is an innocent, causal moviegoer that wants to watch a good movie, and whose who disliked it are all rabid neckbeard lost in pointless details?

Not at all. I'm explaining why the media narrative that all those who dislike the movie are some variant of misogynist has been able to gain traction. It isn't true, of course, but it fits the neck-beard stereotype.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Star Wars is the most popular film franchise in the Western world. The line between casuals and fans may not even exist.

It's actually MCU, and there is a very clear line between casuals and fans in that case; a line Disney is very intent on protecting.

Perhaps the entire movie isn't meant as a deconstruction, but it definitely explores a lot of postmodernist themes. The traditional Western ideals of heroism are too specifically subverted not to be intentional. Really, the entire mythological framework of Star Wars is so thoroughly dismantled by this film that the more I'm thinking about it, the more it seems like much of it was done on purpose.

The entire series up to this point has been firmly rooted in syncretic archetypes of Western and Eastern mythology. The main conflict in the rest of the films is one between the ideologies of the Jedi (process oriented) and the Sith (goal oriented). The Jedi are very organized and traditional. They are usually very cautious about the means they use to an end. By contrast, the Sith believe the ends justify the means, and will take whatever action they think is necessary to achieve their goals. The Jedi and the Sith at times want the same thing (order and peace) but they have drastically different ways of going about it. The Jedi take pains to make sure that everything is done in a proper and traditional way, while the Sith are more reactionary and emotional. The series up to now has been about the conflict between these two systems of ethics, their upsides and downsides and how they play off of each other. The disadvantage of the Jedi is that their traditionalism makes them hidebound and slow to adapt, and the disadvantage of the Sith is that their emotionality and willingness to take shortcuts leads them astray and damns their cause.

The prequel trilogy is about the failure of the hero to find a balance in himself. He lets his emotions control him and he does not do things the "proper" way, and as a result he is lost, along with what he cares about. The original trilogy is a much more archetypal hero's journey; the hero gains a purpose, is mentored by a spiritual better, has to delve into his own dark subconscious in order to gain mastery over himself, and then returns with the power he needs to save those he cares about. They are the same story, only Anakin fails where Luke succeeds.

TLJ does away with the ethical debate outright. Luke teaches Rey that there are not two sides to the force, there is one side. Rey's journey to confront her subconscious is very conspicuously subverted when she learns nothing (!). Everyone rejects the process-oriented traditionalism of the Jedi order, and it is destroyed (by the quintessential Jedi, Yoda, who says, "We are what they grow beyond.") Likewise, the way of the Sith is unceremoniously killed with Snoke. Neither Kylo nor Rey have any purpose or attachments, only power. Rey is deprived of her past in a major subversion of expectations, and Kylo intentionally destroyed his own. He even gives a postmodernist screed:

The Empire, your parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi... let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That's the only way to become what you are meant to be.

At this point, Kylo represents a rejection of all meaning. He is more or less nihilist, or at the least trying to represent a Nietzschean Will to Power. He is neither of the dark side of the force (Sith) or the light side (Jedi), because he is not striving for any purpose or goal. He doesn't care about anything or anyone, while even Anakin cared about Padme and his children, and later the Emperor and Darth Vader cared about forcefully imposing order and peace. From that point on, he only represents the impulse to destroy. And he does destroy the Resistance (whose only purpose is to... resist) almost to a man.

By the end of the movie, everything in the mythological framework of Star Wars has been destroyed. The Sith, the Jedi, the dark side and the light side of the force and the heroes and villains who represented them, the Empire and the Rebellion. Just like Kylo said. He wins. That one quote really sticks out to me now as the core purpose of this movie: to clear away the past. The central danger of postmodernism is, of course, that if you only deconstruct and destroy without installing a viable replacement, you give way to nihilism. So we will have to see what the next film fills the void with, but this one was clearly about creating that void.

Many other tropes and expectations which are subverted in this film may be just that. There are plenty of examples, some of which I mentioned earlier. Certainly most of the audience's expectations were subverted; including the importance of characters like Snoke and Phasma, the value of heroism and sacrifice, the danger of passivity, the integrity of specific characters like Luke, Poe and Finn, the "specialness" of Rey, etc. Objective morality is another big one. While in the previous movies there are some shades of grey, and everyone makes mistakes, it is very clear who the good guys and bad guys are. Again, it goes back to the ethical argument about means and ends. However, this movie goes out of its way to at least introduce the idea that both sides are just blowing each other up, and what is bad or good depends on perspective. The two opposing sides aren't really defined by any kind of values or principles. The First Order dress in black and blow gak up, and the Resistance get blown up. And sometimes free animals (but not the slaves tending them).

So at the end of the day, whether it was intentional or not, this film utterly gutted the mythological and philosophical armature of Star Wars without replacing it with anything new. I suppose it's possible that Johnson just really doesn't know anything about what Star Wars is, but to me it seems like too concerted an effort to be a mistake. This movie felt very empty to me, and originally I thought it was because Johnson didn't have the balls to commit to anything, couldn't bring himself to bring in any meaning or direction. Now that I'm thinking about it, though, I'm not so sure.

 Luciferian wrote:
He even gives a postmodernist screed:

The Empire, your parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi... let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That's the only way to become what you are meant to be.

You may have noticed that Kylo is the villain of the story, and his appeal is rejected by the hero. That seems like the exact opposite of endorsing the supposed postmodernist theme.

And he does destroy the Resistance (whose only purpose is to... resist) almost to a man.

Uh, what? The purpose of the resistance is to protect the galaxy from the first order's evil. I'm not sure how you missed this and think that it's just resistance for the sake of resistance.

By the end of the movie, everything in the mythological framework of Star Wars has been destroyed. The Sith, the Jedi, the dark side and the light side of the force and the heroes and villains who represented them, the Empire and the Rebellion.

Again it seems like you and I watched a very different movie. Remember how Luke says that he is not the last jedi, with it pretty clearly implied that Rey continues the order? Remember how she runs off with the sacred jedi texts? Remember all the speeches about how the resistance survives, and will be the heart of a new rebellion?

the importance of characters like Snoke and Phasma

Kind of like how the OT subverted the importance of Palpatine and Boba Fett? Snoke and Palpatine were both supporting characters at most. You never learn anything about them other than their character archetypes ("evil emperor and dark wizard") without resorting to the EU. They're important from an in-universe point of view, but story-wise they never rise above generic archetypes or see any meaningful character development. Same thing with Boba Fett and Phasma, they're background characters with cool armor and any "importance" they had consists almost entirely of their action figure sales.

the value of heroism and sacrifice

Did your theater's projector break down when Admiral Purplehair makes her suicide run, saving the resistance? If so, sorry about the spoilers, but you should go see the movie again. It's a really beautiful scene.

the danger of passivity

Are you talking about how the passive plan of "just run away" turns out to be right? That's not about the danger of passivity, it's about Poe being too impulsive and Admiral Purplehair being an idiot for the sake of the plot. The whole point is that, while Poe is right that they should do something, they are doing something. It isn't a passive acceptance of their fate, it's a plan that he hasn't been informed about.

the "specialness" of Rey

Which was mostly fan speculation, assuming that because Rey had power her parents must be Important Star Wars Characters. Turns out she's special in some ways, acknowledged by Snoke as Kylo's counterpart in the light who grew stronger as he did, but not because she has famous parents.

However, this movie goes out of its way to at least introduce the idea that both sides are just blowing each other up, and what is bad or good depends on perspective.

No, I'm pretty sure that the Space Nazis are still the bad guys. You know, with all that talk about crushing hope and ruling the galaxy by force. The fact that the movie criticizes arms dealers for being sociopaths with no moral beliefs beyond the accumulation of money does not mean that both sides of the war are equal.

After the debacle of these two new films, wild horses couldn't drag me into a cinema to watch IX, but even from a neutral viewpoint, what is there to look forward too?

We know that Luke Vs. Snoke in an ultimate showdown ain't happening.

We know for obvious reasons that Leia is gone

And we know that the rebels will defeat the First order, and we'll be right back where we were at the end of ROTJ...

It's a pile of meh, because Rey Vs. Ren is not setting the world on fire, and Hux's death would be a mercy killing, given how badly his character was developed.

Woah there. Not sure I give into the simplistic continuation of the counter arguement.

No only has Rey consistantly failed to anything Jedilike aside from swing a lightsaber about, but she's never said anything Jedilike either, promised to do anything, or seemed particularly in keeping with wanting to restablish the Jedi herself. She wanted to redeem Kylo, sure, but that's about it, and her reasons for doing so appear to be, 'Despite us not being related the plot has magically connected us! Also you're evil.'

Wanting to beat the badguy does not a Jedi make, even if you are the protagonist of a Star Wars film.

So the Resistance is Resisting the First Orders Evil[TM]? Sounds very resisty. What else do they actually, do, though? We've not seen them save anyones lives, do anything worth a damn, express any degree of competence, or anything. They Resist! That's all the plot requires them to do, and they're quite bad at it. While I agree the Space Nazi's are so much a caricature of evil they're unsupportable. [At least the Empire had a pretty clear reason for building and using the Death Star. These guys appear to have built theres purely for it's cinematic value] The Resistance has no clear reason for supporting them other than, 1) Carrie Fisher is on their side, 2) They're not Space Nazis.


Phasma was billed as a strong female villian. It sure would have been nice if she turned out to be anything but cheap, but I guess we can't have strong female villians, can we?

The whole suicide run thing is bizzarely done. We're in the far future without autopilots? We couldn't have done that earlier with the three escort vessels? It was wrong to do it in the opening scene, right for purple hair to do it, and wrong... Or right? Or something when the speeders didn't do it later? I am confused as to what the movie wants me to think, here. I honestly thought Purplehair was going to jump away, and the next movie was going to cast her as the leader of the resistance as she and her one ship + Heros on the Falcon did stuff.
It's not even clear what her sacrifice achieved. Whoo. She blew up one ship. The first order clearly has another dozen in that shot. Now the rebels have gone from 1-0. The dialogue implies the First Order have more forces and the rebels at best have allies that ignore them. There's no logical reason for her sacrifice to save the transports, all in all Purplehairs decision sounds poor. At least she could have put her ship between the transports and the guns shooting them?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
Funnily enough I and others who didn't like this film had a genuine SJW try to pull there usual crap, they even said and I quote "you only don't like the film because it challenges the male hierarchy" and "as a white male who has never had to deal with oppression"

It's laughable the length these parasites will go to virtue signal

Laugh at those people. One can be Lefty McBleedingheart, love all the diversity in the casting, and still think the film was poorly written, even poorly conceived. The casting and diversity have literally nothing to do with the complaints. Holdo could have been played by Bruce Penhall and it wouldn't make the character any less frustrating.

Diversity has never been a problem for me.

My all time favourite Star Wars character is Lando, and obviously, Billy Dee Williams is not white.

Princess Leia is another legend of the series, and Carrie Fisher was obviously a woman

It's only with the advent of the internet that diversity has been seen as a problem. I think most people don't care.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
I don't think TLJ (or TFA) qualifies as a postmodern deconstruction of SW. (The Prequels actually have a much stronger claim there.) The Disney films are just sloppy, jumbled-up remakes.

I think the problem is that there is nobody in overall creative control in a way that George Lucas used to be.

There's a famous Michael Moorcock comment about the creative arts being the only place where a dictatorship actually works.

Lucas, for all his faults, could at least plan a story arc over a trilogy and get it nailed down, give people something to work with.

e.g the prequels: I = Anakin's birth, II = his life/development III = Anakin's 'death' fall into the dark side. etc etc etc

This new trilogy is a mess of directors and producers being hired and fired, which makes it harder to do some long term planning story wise.

I'm no JJ Abrams fan, but if he was directing all 3, then his story arc could have been nailed down from day 1, and there at least would have been some continuity with villains like Snoke, rather than a new director coming along and throwing the previous film out the window.

 Luciferian wrote:
Perhaps the entire movie isn't meant as a deconstruction, but it definitely explores a lot of postmodernist themes. The traditional Western ideals of heroism are too specifically subverted not to be intentional. Really, the entire mythological framework of Star Wars is so thoroughly dismantled by this film that the more I'm thinking about it, the more it seems like much of it was done on purpose.

The entire series up to this point has been firmly rooted in syncretic archetypes of Western and Eastern mythology. The main conflict in the rest of the films is one between the ideologies of the Jedi (process oriented) and the Sith (goal oriented). The Jedi are very organized and traditional. They are usually very cautious about the means they use to an end. By contrast, the Sith believe the ends justify the means, and will take whatever action they think is necessary to achieve their goals. The Jedi and the Sith at times want the same thing (order and peace) but they have drastically different ways of going about it. The Jedi take pains to make sure that everything is done in a proper and traditional way, while the Sith are more reactionary and emotional. The series up to now has been about the conflict between these two systems of ethics, their upsides and downsides and how they play off of each other. The disadvantage of the Jedi is that their traditionalism makes them hidebound and slow to adapt, and the disadvantage of the Sith is that their emotionality and willingness to take shortcuts leads them astray and damns their cause.

The prequel trilogy is about the failure of the hero to find a balance in himself. He lets his emotions control him and he does not do things the "proper" way, and as a result he is lost, along with what he cares about. The original trilogy is a much more archetypal hero's journey; the hero gains a purpose, is mentored by a spiritual better, has to delve into his own dark subconscious in order to gain mastery over himself, and then returns with the power he needs to save those he cares about. They are the same story, only Anakin fails where Luke succeeds.

TLJ does away with the ethical debate outright. Luke teaches Rey that there are not two sides to the force, there is one side. Rey's journey to confront her subconscious is very conspicuously subverted when she learns nothing (!). Everyone rejects the process-oriented traditionalism of the Jedi order, and it is destroyed (by the quintessential Jedi, Yoda, who says, "We are what they grow beyond.") Likewise, the way of the Sith is unceremoniously killed with Snoke. Neither Kylo nor Rey have any purpose or attachments, only power. Rey is deprived of her past in a major subversion of expectations, and Kylo intentionally destroyed his own. He even gives a postmodernist screed:

The Empire, your parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi... let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That's the only way to become what you are meant to be.

At this point, Kylo represents a rejection of all meaning. He is more or less nihilist, or at the least trying to represent a Nietzschean Will to Power. He is neither of the dark side of the force (Sith) or the light side (Jedi), because he is not striving for any purpose or goal. He doesn't care about anything or anyone, while even Anakin cared about Padme and his children, and later the Emperor and Darth Vader cared about forcefully imposing order and peace. From that point on, he only represents the impulse to destroy. And he does destroy the Resistance (whose only purpose is to... resist) almost to a man.

By the end of the movie, everything in the mythological framework of Star Wars has been destroyed. The Sith, the Jedi, the dark side and the light side of the force and the heroes and villains who represented them, the Empire and the Rebellion. Just like Kylo said. He wins. That one quote really sticks out to me now as the core purpose of this movie: to clear away the past. The central danger of postmodernism is, of course, that if you only deconstruct and destroy without installing a viable replacement, you give way to nihilism. So we will have to see what the next film fills the void with, but this one was clearly about creating that void.

Many other tropes and expectations which are subverted in this film may be just that. There are plenty of examples, some of which I mentioned earlier. Certainly most of the audience's expectations were subverted; including the importance of characters like Snoke and Phasma, the value of heroism and sacrifice, the danger of passivity, the integrity of specific characters like Luke, Poe and Finn, the "specialness" of Rey, etc. Objective morality is another big one. While in the previous movies there are some shades of grey, and everyone makes mistakes, it is very clear who the good guys and bad guys are. Again, it goes back to the ethical argument about means and ends. However, this movie goes out of its way to at least introduce the idea that both sides are just blowing each other up, and what is bad or good depends on perspective. The two opposing sides aren't really defined by any kind of values or principles. The First Order dress in black and blow gak up, and the Resistance get blown up. And sometimes free animals (but not the slaves tending them).

So at the end of the day, whether it was intentional or not, this film utterly gutted the mythological and philosophical armature of Star Wars without replacing it with anything new. I suppose it's possible that Johnson just really doesn't know anything about what Star Wars is, but to me it seems like too concerted an effort to be a mistake. This movie felt very empty to me, and originally I thought it was because Johnson didn't have the balls to commit to anything, couldn't bring himself to bring in any meaning or direction. Now that I'm thinking about it, though, I'm not so sure.

Good post.

I think you hit the nail on the head - there is a nihilistic element in this new film, and in modern blockbusters in general these days, but in this instance, I think it was unententioal, to the detriment of the series as a whole.