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 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't think TFA is as subversive as some people are claiming. It's a matter of perspective and the future audience.

For one thing, we've had 6 films about the Skywalker family and it's time to let someone else have a go at being the main interest.

In a series of 9. Finish the Skywalker story, then move on. Don't just nuke it in the middle of the final arc. That's asinine and poor writing, no matter how you spin it.

I thought TFA was a shallow and unoriginal remixing of A New Hope, but JJ Abram's "Mystery Box" was interesting enough to give me the impression that it was setting up for a deeper and more compelling story to come in TLJ.

I mean hell, I thought Snoke was going to be Disney's adaptation of Darth Vitiate/Emperor Valkorian, an ancient Sith spirit who sustained his life by possessing new hosts and consuming the Force itself, slaying entire planetary populations in the process. I thought Snoke's obsession with finding an apprentice with the right balance of Light and Dark was about him finding the ideal host for his spirit to posses. Thats's why he keeps Kylo Ren close whilst not teaching him too much, and why he suddenly becomes interested when a new and potentially more powerful candidate (Rey) materializes.

But nope, none of that foreshadowing (as I perceived it to be) matters because Rian fething Johnson knows best and he's subverting our expectations y'all.

I mean, subverting expectations isn't always a bad thing, but I would prefer that a move did not subvert my expectations by being...gak.

Rey falling to the Dark Side and Joining Kylo Ren, or swapping sides with him entirely with Kylo Ren being redeemed by his mother Leia would have subverted my expectations in a much better way. I would love to see Rey fall to the Dark Side.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Isn't it interesting that Ghost in the Shell is accused of being whitewashed because they put a blonde European into the role of a Japanese woman, and it's also apparently wrong to put an oriental actress into a role in Star Wars which doesn't any previous racial definition?

Perhaps it would be less tokenistic if all of the roles were played by white men.

it would be less tokenistic if they made her a well developed character and not some crazed stalker who fall for the first guy she sees. Who then sexually assaults, after declaring her love for him. she comes off as a crazed stalker, and in no way a role model of any kind nor flattering towards asains.

isn't hiring people just because their white, discriminatory? so it's also as discriminatory to hire someone just because their asian? Yes to both.

Shouldn't they hire the best people for the jobs in front of and behind the camera? hiring for "diversity" is the modern form of discrimination. Where the races of the people working for you matter more than the qualifications. equallity is about hiring the best person for the job, irreguardless of gender or race, hiring them to check diversity boxes is highly discriminatory and racist.

Why couldn't they leave rey as finns love interest? what's wrong with a black & white interracial couple that lucasarts put a quick halt to that? There is some racism going on with the new star wars movies, but it has nothing to do with the audience.

 Manchu wrote:
Kilkrazy, you make it sound like TLJ was inevitable. But it was a reaction against an even more successful movie, TFA. TFA was not only more successful but a lot less polarizing. TLJ did not have to be the way that it was at all. That is the point of people who say Rian Johnson bravely and boldly turned away from JJ Abrams's lead.

Perhaps Disney will learn that a trilogy needs a unified vision. You can't have part 2 be a backlash against part 1, especially when part 1 was really well-received.

I'm not sure that TFA was really that much less polarizing. I know a lot of people who felt as I did when it came out, and none of us came right out with our feelings in a blunt manner. We soft balled our opinions and danced around the criticisms because the movie was such a juggernaut and the fans were just as hostile to criticism them. Suggesting TFA wasn't the greatest thing, on par with ROTJ or better, was tantamount to heresy, and I got a lot of flack for even stating that much. Plus, having seen the reaction to ST Into Darkness, we knew we could just wait a year or two for the high to wear off and popular opinion of TFA would be very different. By the time TLJ came out, the "haters" were tired of holding their tongues.

Also, the critical response to TFA wasn't the absolute bait that the critical response to TLJ was. Paid shills would have been more subtle.


And for the record, I agree that Rian Johnson had one job on TLJ and he didn't do it. Still, I got to respect him for taking a look at what he was given, tapping his inner Yu Law, and going out with his head and his middle fingers held high.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Isn't it interesting that Ghost in the Shell is accused of being whitewashed because they put a blonde European into the role of a Japanese woman, and it's also apparently wrong to put an oriental actress into a role in Star Wars which doesn't any previous racial definition?

Perhaps it would be less tokenistic if all of the roles were played by white men.

it would be less tokenistic if they made her a well developed character and not some crazed stalker who fall for the first guy she sees. Who then sexually assaults, after declaring her love for him. she comes off as a crazed stalker, and in no way a role model of any kind nor flattering towards asains.

isn't hiring people just because their white, discriminatory? so it's also as discriminatory to hire someone just because their asian? Yes to both.

Shouldn't they hire the best people for the jobs in front of and behind the camera? hiring for "diversity" is the modern form of discrimination. Where the races of the people working for you matter more than the qualifications. equallity is about hiring the best person for the job, irreguardless of gender or race, hiring them to check diversity boxes is highly discriminatory and racist.

Why couldn't they leave rey as finns love interest? what's wrong with a black & white interracial couple that lucasarts put a quick halt to that? There is some racism going on with the new star wars movies, but it has nothing to do with the audience.

Why do you keep claiming she was hired just because she was Asian? Do you have any proof of that?

Wow, there's a lot to get to. You guys are prolific in my off hours!

Manchu: I think you and I have very different ideas of what an inspiring hero is. Luke in TFA isn't an inspiration, he's just famous, one could say legendary, for his actions in the Civil War. But just invoking a famous person is not going to get anyone to fight the First Order. It's the difference between someone saying they knew Captain America in WWII and Cap suddenly, miraculously appearing in NY to fight aliens.

And as far as PR goes, how do you know Luke is dead? He tricked Kylo and the Order, then he vanished, like Star Wars' version of Coyote. The only ones who know definitively he died from it are Leia and Rey, possibly Kylo. We see that his stand becomes legend, though, and is exciting a new generation in a way that just being a famous person wouldn't. Even now, Luke may be walking among us, tricking and fighting the First Order...

Other stuff:

Neither Luke nor Rey are Mary Sues, because a Mary Sue is an author insert character who never fails.

Holdo did tell her command crew the plan, which she had from the beginning. Watch her, she's giving orders to her staff, requesting information, looking at charts. Poe keeps busting in and interrupting her. We know she told her staff because the older woman who introduced her is the one to fill Poe in on the transport.

Holdo's design is brilliant. She does not look military, yet she is renowned for winning a major battle. Poe himself remarks on this. This is on purpose, to make you align yourself with Poe not just because she looks out of place, but because a) you're conditioned to believe in the Plucky Hero Who Saves The Day By Bucking Hidebound Authority, and b) Poe is dressed in an identical color scheme and similar style to Han's Empire outfit, subconsciously reinforcing your trust in him as the cocky rogue.

Rey knows how to pilot the Falcon because one of her only forms of entertainment on Jakku was a flight simulator she had inside the AT-AT that she used obsessively. This is in a book, and like the crawl is something I wish was alluded to, however it is not strictly necessary to the plot. Luke also piloted an X-Wing simulator in an early version (that appears in the radio drama) to show he can do it, btw.

Rey's ability in the Force is explained in TLJ by Snoke: she is the chosen champion of the Light Side to balance Kylo Ren in the Dark Side.

Rey defeats Kylo not just because she lets go and trusts her feelings coupled with her knowledge of staff fighting, but in addition to Kylo being shot with a bowcaster which is shown to basically obliterate anything else. (Fun tidbit: apparently an idea was that Rey also tapped into the Dark Side to defeat him, watch her movements in the scene: she's very angry and stalks about like Maul. However the music cues do not support this, so it was obviously dropped post-filming)

The Resistance bombers were awesome, not because of their utility or being effective, but because they're space B-2 flying fortresses and Star Wars space combat has always been based in a WWII aesthetic. So I respect it.

And Snoke's backstory is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if he's a tauntaun farmer who found a Sith holocron or the reincarnation of the Emperor from SWTOR, he's just there for Kylo Ren to usurp to prove how powerful he is, that he's grown beyond his master. Kylo Ren is the main villain for the trilogy, and this was part of his arc. Snoke's origins are what the books are for.

And I really hope they don't redeem Kylo Ren in 9, he had his shot at that, twice now, and each time he's chosen the Dark Side. He might have a moment of realization that he was wrong as everything crumbles around him, but any last minute heroic act to return him to the Light is cheap at this point, at least to me.

I'm sure there's a bunch of other stuff I missed on the last 5 pages in there.

 Manchu wrote:
Again: No. Johnson was hired to direct the second episode in a series, where the first episode was a huge success. His job was to develop and deepen the points set up in TFA, not contain or retract them. Now we have no set up for a third film. Episode IX will basically be a soft reboot, a la Revenge of the Sith.

I think you're missing that RJ was given a large amount of creative control over his installment. He WROTE the screenplay...he wasn't some journeyman director being handed a script to shoot by the studio. I highly doubt RJ would have come on board to effectively be the replacement, 'sequel director'. He probably expected to be set up more like ANH did for the original trilogy.

Based on what we got in TLJ and what happened with Edwards, Lord & Miller and Trevorrow, it seems clear enough that Lucasfilm and Disney wanted directors' visions at first for the SW franchise...before they started getting second thoughts about that approach.

You're right that for a linked series of movies in a massive franchise, it probably makes more business sense to make the thing a studio-driven affair with films shot by competent, non-auteur directors. See Howard on Solo, the Russos and others on many of the Marvel films, etc. But all signs point to the studio thinking very differently at the time when RJ was brought on board, and in that environment Abrams did RJ (and Trevorrow at the time) very few favors.

I don't know that I would call TLJ "inevitable" but it depends what "inevitable" means. Certain bits were inevitable. Han Solo was killed off in the earlier film. Carrie Fisher died part-way through filming, I believe.

Those two events remove three of the original trilogy heroes from the saga whatever the director of TLJ decides to do.

(The scene in which Princess Leia is sucked out the cruiser's bridge looks as if it is the scene in which she dies, acknowledging the real life death of her actress. It was quite a neat reversal of expectations to have her come back to life.)

Likewise, the casting of Poe, Finn and Rey were done before TLJ.

Despite the above, it's clear that TFA was still in some sense a revised version of ANH with the amp turned to 11.

Could TLJ have been a revised version of ESB with the amp turned to 11? How would audiences have taken that? Will 9 be a new version of RotJ? Will Disney then start to revise the Prequel trilogy?

I would like to think they have a bit more long term vision.

If we accept that there is going to be change, and for good reasons, not "just because", the difficulty is how to manage audience expectations and reactions.

 Manchu wrote:

Perhaps Disney will learn that a trilogy needs a unified vision. You can't have part 2 be a backlash against part 1, especially when part 1 was really well-received.

Disney doesn't see TLJ as part of a trilogy, it sees TLJ as part of a franchise. What Disney cares about is keeping eyes on Star Wars so it can sell associated merch, and controversy keeps eyes on a brand.

Could TLJ have been a revised version of ESB with the amp turned to 11? How would audiences have taken that? Will 9 be a new version of RotJ? Will Disney then start to revise the Prequel trilogy?

TLJ is a bad scif channel version of ESB with a vast budget and poor direction. They chnaged the order of some events, removed any decent characters and made it as illogical as possible.

I guess the director watched ESB, made a list of what scenes to plagerise (badly) and then added in rubbish like Casino World and the Chase of Tedium, job done.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
(The scene in which Princess Leia is sucked out the cruiser's bridge looks as if it is the scene in which she dies, acknowledging the real life death of her actress. It was quite a neat reversal of expectations to have her come back to life.)

This was probably the scene I found most interesting on rewatching. Seeing her pre-react to the explosion and prepare herself before being sucked out is a nice touch I kind of caught but didn't appreciate the second time. Her frozen face is also one that's more concentration than unconsciousness on review, which removes some of that initial "I just woke up in space" feel you get when you first see the scene and assume she's dead.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Could TLJ have been a revised version of ESB with the amp turned to 11? How would audiences have taken that?

TLJ did recreate the Walker v. Speeder scene, turned up to 11 with the AT-M6 being attacked by ski-speeders. The walker is bigger, and the speeders are smaller.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If people are rating ROTS 1/10 and lower than TPM and ROTC, they’re clearly talking utter bollocks.

Can't rank TLJ higher than PM because PM has literally the best lightsabre battle in all of star wars.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Can't rank TLJ higher than PM because PM has literally the best lightsabre battle in all of star wars.

Ray Park is amazing.

Ray Park is amazing, and a really nice guy to boot.

I was working at a convention he was a guest at, and at the photo booth he only had a few people come in but he was slated to be there for 15 minutes. Since it was the last slot of the day and no one else was obviously coming, all the staff there just hung out with him, chatting about stuff, taking pictures with him, etc.

At one point he started doing jumping spin kicks, and during one there was a ripping noise. He landed, looked down and said, "I really need to stop buying $200 pants."

I disagree that TPM was the best lightsaber battle, though. While it had flips and cool moves, it lacked the personal stakes and heart of other fights. It did contain the one moment in TPM I unequivocally enjoyed, though, when they were separated by the force fields.

Their characters were perfectly defined in those moments: Maul paces back and forth like a caged tiger, Jinn kneels to meditate and center himself, Kenobi bounces on the balls of his feet, anxious and impatient to get back in the fight. No other moment in that film had as much character as those few seconds.

 dogma wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Could TLJ have been a revised version of ESB with the amp turned to 11? How would audiences have taken that?

TLJ did recreate the Walker v. Speeder scene, turned up to 11 with the AT-M6 being attacked by ski-speeders. The walker is bigger, and the speeders are smaller.

There are similarities in structure and pacing, considering both films as a whole. There is an opening battle sequence, then a chase and a slow "movement" to borrow a term from symphonic structure. Then at the end there is another battle and the rebels are on the run again. It's not the whole story, of course.

But reconsider that particular scene on the white planet...

It happens at the end, not the beginning. It starts with the Rebels definitely on the back foot, already fleeing their enemies, rather than being caught by surprise.

The speeder counter-attack is a failure, but they are saved anyway by the actions of Luke.

Yet finally, rather than a more or less orderly evacuation of the whole fleet, only a handful get away, thanks to the intervention of Rey, who acts from her faith and hope.

I think it is plain that TLJ rather than revise ESB, shakes up and recasts elements into a new form with a new purpose.

 frightnight wrote:
And as far as PR goes, how do you know Luke is dead?

By the same token, as far as PR goes, how do you know he was there? The point stands: Luke's actions at Crait don't move the propaganda needle for the Resistance.

 gorgon wrote:
I think you're missing that RJ was given a large amount of creative control over his installment.

So are you arguing that LucasFilm gave Rian Johnson free reign to castigate TFA? Based on what? TFA's poor performance. Can't be. Based on it's critical panning. Can't be. Based on major fan backlash. Can't be. Rian Johnson was entrusted to continue the work of JJ Abrams and blew it. That's why we don't have anything to look forward to with Episode IX barring a soft reboot set many years after the events of TLJ a la Revenge of the Sith.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't know that I would call TLJ "inevitable" but it depends what "inevitable" means.

I meant it in the sense of your post: TLJ must be the way it is because kids are SJWs (really?) who want visually muddled texts (really?), and the Skywalkers are played out (probably half true), and the original cast is too old (completely true). Even taking all of these points as true, none of it adds up to TLJ having to attack all the beats established in the very successful movie TFA. We can't pretend that TFA put RJ in a corner so that he had to make TLJ the way that it is. But another camp who also defends TLJ says that RJ is a genius because he deliberately chose not to follow JJ's lead and subverted TFA instead.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I'm not sure that TFA was really that much less polarizing.

I'm sure TFA was less polarizing than TLJ. TFA had its detractors when it came out, especially focused on whether Rey is implausibly powerful and whether Kylo Ren was too pathetic. But this wasn't "SW is ruined now" type stuff. Lots of people, like me, were content to say, yes it sucks that JJ Abrams pulled this again, setting up a huge mystery, but after all it is the first episode of the trilogy. Let's see what happens guys! And then TLJ came out and the air went out of the balloon completely.

 dogma wrote:
Disney doesn't see TLJ as part of a trilogy, it sees TLJ as part of a franchise.

I get what you mean but that is contrary to their own statements and marketing. It seems to me that they see this trilogy as the central framework of the franchise.

 frightnight wrote:
I disagree that TPM was the best lightsaber battle, though. While it had flips and cool moves, it lacked the personal stakes and heart of other fights.

Absolutely agree. Just contrast to the wonderful duel at the end of TFA. Fights are about feelings first and foremost. The moves are secondary, at best.

It's obvious that the big budget, main sequence films, to borrow a term from stellar evolution, are the rocky core or perhaps the skeleton or the chassis of the franchise, on which the spin offs depend.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

I think it is plain that TLJ rather than revise ESB, shakes up and recasts elements into a new form with a new purpose.

While TFA wears its inspirations more openly, both actually do really interesting things by taking familiar scenes and placing them in different parts of the narrative structure to alter their meaning and purpose.

I think that's right. The franchise needs a raft of new characters and scenarios to go forward.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If people are rating ROTS 1/10 and lower than TPM and ROTC, they’re clearly talking utter bollocks.

I can see why. It's overlong, and given that it mostly 'pays off' a lot of setups that have been pretty meh to begin with I can see why people would rate it the worst.

Personally I ignore them all and just go with Clone Wars as the best stories and representations of Anakin, Kenobi et al. But the whole era barely interests me. The absolute best it got was that last season arc where Barris Offee figured out the whole plot of the prequels and was denounced by the Jedi as a traitor.

looking into rose some more I came across some much more interesting information. As of right now she's not in ep 9. I wonder how the fans who rallied behind and defended rose & holdo over the last 5 months are going to feel about the next movie without either of them.

holdo was a great admiral: she's dead jim.
Rose was awesome: She's a no show.

apparently the cast of solo get's 3 movie deals, but not her. she was just a 1 and done.

 Manchu wrote:

 frightnight wrote:
And as far as PR goes, how do you know Luke is dead?

By the same token, as far as PR goes, how do you know he was there? The point stands: Luke's actions at Crait don't move the propaganda needle for the Resistance.

Because it's explicitly shown to have done in the film? The children at the end are retelling the story of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker's stand against the First Order, and excitedly acting it out with their "action figures". Then we see the young stableboy brandish the Rebellion ring, and look to the stars, inspired. That is literally the point of that scene.

 frightnight wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 frightnight wrote:
And as far as PR goes, how do you know Luke is dead?

By the same token, as far as PR goes, how do you know he was there? The point stands: Luke's actions at Crait don't move the propaganda needle for the Resistance.

Because it's explicitly shown to have done in the film? The children at the end are retelling the story of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker's stand against the First Order, and excitedly acting it out with their "action figures". Then we see the young stableboy brandish the Rebellion ring, and look to the stars, inspired. That is literally the point of that scene.

I haven't read the novelization. But my impression, as I have mentioned earlier ITT, was that those kids were talking about the adventures of Luke as depicted in the OT. We know from TFA that such stories are widely known in the galaxy. By contrast, there is no reason to believe that those kids heard about what happened on Crait a few minutes or hours or days before hand. Being kids, they would have grown some if it was a long time after. But the kid is the same age as when Rose showed, and I guess gave, him the ring.

sirlynchmob wrote:
looking into rose some more I came across some much more interesting information. As of right now she's not in ep 9. I wonder how the fans who rallied behind and defended rose & holdo over the last 5 months are going to feel about the next movie without either of them.

holdo was a great admiral: she's dead jim.
Rose was awesome: She's a no show.

apparently the cast of solo get's 3 movie deals, but not her. she was just a 1 and done.

Two worst characters in the film - good riddence to bad rubbish. Finn was not much better, - kill him off screen and move on.

Lets have some actual female and black characters (shock maybe even a black female character) - not pointless idiots and mere comic relief

Finn is a great character. One of my favorite SW moments comes from TFA when he finds the bravery to stand up to Kylo Ren to protect his one friend in the world, Rey. It sucks that TLJ undermined him and relegated him to comedy relief with no character development.

 Manchu wrote:
I haven't read the novelization. But my impression, as I have mentioned earlier ITT, was that those kids were talking about the adventures of Luke as depicted in the OT. We know from TFA that such stories are widely known in the galaxy. By contrast, there is no reason to believe that those kids heard about what happened on Crait a few minutes or hours or days before hand. Being kids, they would have grown some if it was a long time after. But the kid is the same age as when Rose showed, and I guess gave, him the ring.

You don't have to read the novelization, it's right there in the film. The Luke toy is facing down a scrub brush with a giant cannon-shaped attachment on it, and there is a backstop behind the toy representing the cliff wall and door. But don't take my word for it, here's Rian Johnson to make it definitive:

'Clearly, this final shot is meant to show that the Force is strong in people who have no connection to the Skywalker bloodline. But there’s also a deeper meaning, according to director Rian Johnson – and this one does involve Luke.

“It’s mostly about Luke,” he said. “To me, it shows that the act Luke Skywalker did, of deciding to take on this mantle of ‘the legend,’ after he had decided the galaxy was better off without him, had farther reaching consequences than saving 20 people in a cave.”'

http://ew.com/movies/2017/12/18/the-last-jedi-spoiler-rian-johnson-ending-explained/2/

So, is that Word Of God that the Resistance is down to twenty people plus Rey and Chewy? Does Rose count in that number? If so, the Resistance is down 5% in Ep 9 before the opening crawl.

Did you forget to post a quotation of RJ saying "the kids at the end are reenacting the previous scene"? Because what you posted does not support that claim. You and I aren't arguing about whether RJ wanted to tell a story about Luke accepting his place in legend. We agree that is the case. Our disagreement is whether that has any bearing on anything else that happens in the film.

Again, it makes no sense that the kids would have heard about what happened on Crait so soon after it happened. It's just not supported by anything shown in the film.

I forgot Leia. 10% casualties in the opening credits before it even begins.

 Manchu wrote:
Finn is a great character. One of my favorite SW moments comes from TFA when he finds the bravery to stand up to Kylo Ren to protect his one friend in the world, Rey. It sucks that TLJ undermined him and relegated him to comedy relief with no character development.

Finn was underutilized in TFA.

They should have done something really interesting with his past as a brainwashed, indoctrinated child soldier Stormtrooper. They could have introduced elements of PTSD, damaged emotional development, a tendency to cruelty and desensitisation to violence and suffering of others. And its only though his interactions with the Rebels that he redeems himself, recovers emotionally from his warped upbringing in the First Order and. Basically make him a rehabilitated and reformed Waffen-SS Nazi.

To achieve that, I would have made him a spy who "defects" to the Resistance as a ruse to implant a spy in their midst, but slowly goes native and has a change of heart over the course of TFA until finally culminating in him rejecting the First Order outright in TLJ in his showdown with Captain Phasma.

Instead, his time in the First Order seems to have left no lasting impression on his mental health and personality. If the movie didn't keep reminding us that he used to be in the First Order, he'd be indistinguishable from any other Rebel soldier.

Finn in TLJ felt to me like he was stereotyped and relegated to being a funny black man. Complete waste of potential.