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Yeah I was not talking about Yoda’s idiomatic syntax but rather his “mad muppet” act upon first meeting Luke.

Yoda doesn’t act that way after disclosing his true identity. He doesn’t act that way in the Prequels. But there he is in TLJ, mad muppeting for no reason. Well, maybe the reason is because he doesn’t actually belong in TLJ and shoehorning him in for marketing purposes means there isn’t enough screentime to develop his presence beyond a caricature that the widest possible audience demographic will mindlessly recognize.

Watching TLJ, it was just one shockingly dumb idea after another. Yoda appearing was yet another astonishingly stupid element. Making him act like a weird moron was just gak icing on the gak cake.

Yoda, as shown in the prequels & clone wars series, can be very playful. It makes perfect sense for a creature that is near 900yrs old and would have several life times of experience.

He had to be more serious in ESB due to the severity of the situation. That doesn't mean his personality is serious by default.

Basically, I felt the Yoda scene in TLJ perfectly fit Yoda. And was cool to boot. Yoda is a troll, afterall.

-

Yoda was amazing for one film and then Lucas took back over and had no idea how to write the character. He doubled down on the weird syntax and turned him into a joke.

As above, Yoda does not act that way in the Prequels. Saying Yoda is a troll demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of his character and role.

It’s not the difference between TLJ being the terrible movie it was and the pretty good movie it could have been. It’s just another example of the production misapprehending, or purposfully undermining, the continuity and themes of the franchise.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So what's the consensus on the ship design?

Wanted to come back to this because it really puzzles me. With the exception of the Profundity in R1, the vehicle designs in the Disney movies has been notably bland. The FO lander in TFA was my pick for worst offender until I saw the ... tank? In R1 but the dreadnought in TLJ is by far the laziest, ugliest design yet. It’s just a plane festooned with turrets. I made better looking designs from stray Legos as a small child.

TLJ’s production design was lazy, generally speaking. I have huge problems with Rogue One but I can admit it looked wonderful. Solo looks like it will also be visually interesting. TFA was pretty great along these lines, aside from Maz’s castle. By contrast, TLJ feels cheap and boring looking. Part of the issue is that so much of the film takes place in uninspired starship interiors.

I think he meant a literal troll-like creature

All the better. Yoda’s appearance was designed to make the point that such a funny looking being was actually a great and wise spiritual master. On Dagobah, Yoda took advantage of his deceptive appearance to test Luke. He acted like Luke (and the audience) would expect, judging him only by his appearance. Then he dropped the act.

 Manchu wrote:
All the better. Yoda’s appearance was designed to make the point that such a funny looking being was actually a great and wise spiritual master. On Dagobah, Yoda took advantage of his deceptive appearance to test Luke. He acted like Luke (and the audience) would expect, judging him only by his appearance. Then he dropped the act.

Yeah exactly.

Worst thing they ever did with Yoda was put a lightsaber in his hand.

I liked that Yoda, being 900 years old, has basically seen and done everything, and his attitude reflected it well; he could be serious, mirthful, a troll...basically, he knew what he needed to be to handle each situation. I think the only time he wasn’t in control is when his ego didn’t let him fully prepare to deal with Palpatine, and he got crushed. It was a wake up call for him that maybe he didn’t know everything yet. The stuff with Yoda, much like the stuff with Ren and with Luke were really the only parts of the movie I DID like. As much issue as I’ve found with TLJ, I still like Kylo Ren. And I’m HOPEFUL the story ends up actually being about him. I think that can save the trilogy. If it isn’t, and it is actually about Rey, as it seems now, I think episode 9 is going to be the same cesspool of waste that is episode 8. And only the Star Wars Hipsters will appreciate it; “Oh man, SW was like, so cool, but then it got dull! And Johnson man, he just pwn’d the classic story, you know? And made everything that we loved mean nothing. And that’s so cool and edgy, man!”

I just don't think that watching a chopped up version of ESB but your expectations are subverted at every turn makes for a particularly good movie. The only thing I'd keep is probably Del Toro's turncoat for money angle and we can go back to the jolly days of hives of scum and villainy.

 Lance845 wrote:

Which is why mary sue basically doesnt exist. Batman is a mary sue by "modern definition" . hes excessivly skilled, everyone likes or at least respect him. He always wins, orphaned, rich, etc etc...


Again, if Rey is a mary sue then everyone is. We follow exceptional people because exceptional people are interesting.

Uh, I don't know if you've read a Batman comic in the last 25-30 years, but Batman didn't suddenly wake up as an expert martial artist and detective. There was a progression, unlike Rey.

So no, you're still flat wrong.

Other than Rey, the characters were mostly very unlikable.

The plot was filled with pointlessness. There would be a big attempt, and it would make no difference to the ultimate outcome. It just felt you were spinning your wheels all movie without getting anywhere.

Ultimately after tons of heroic attempts, the final result was that a handful of rebels escaped the First Order.

I did not like the movie.

I think it's past time we addressed TLJ as a subversion of Star Wars, where it went wrong, and what a subversion done well looks like.

It's perfectly clear to all that Rian Johnson set out to make not a Star Wars movie, but a subversion of one. This could have resulted in a good film except... the main sequence of a franchise is the wrong place for a subversion.

Let's take a look at a subversion done well. The Watchmen. Based on the famous comic books, it's a subversion of super heroes and superheroic comics. None of the heroes are all that heroic, the villain is one of them, and they lose in the end despite all their efforts.

Now, imagine how that exact same story would have been received using big-name Marvel or DC characters all acting very much out of character. Superman instead of Dr. Manhattan, losing contact with humanity. Reed Richards planning world peace by blowing up several major cities.

THAT is why TLJ fails. It subverts not just the genre, but the characters themselves. And that's not a good thing to do in the middle of the main sequence of a franchise. Over and over, characters do things out of character - or even outright idiotically - just to carry the subversion to it's ultimate effect.

It would have been better for a sideline movie, where Rian could have created all new characters to be whatever he needed them to be. Taking existing characters and mangling them that way just wasn't going to go over well for fans of the franchise.

(Ironically, I find Luke's subversion the most believable. Yoda warned him way back in ESB that he was reckless, and always looking to the future instead of where he was and what he was doing right now. And what happens to him with Ben Solo? He spends too much time looking to the future instead of right now, recklessly pulls his lightsaber... and causes the very future he hoped to avoid. No wonder the poor guy went into seclusion; he had not only created Kylo Ren, but did so despite being warned by Yoda decades earlier!)

 Vulcan wrote:

Now, imagine how that exact same story would have been received using big-name Marvel or DC characters all acting very much out of character. Superman instead of Dr. Manhattan, losing contact with humanity. Reed Richards planning world peace by blowing up several major cities.

So, the DCU x2?

Doing that with characters could work if it were something like the Injustice series, where you have Supes go full dictator. But still, that is taking known characters and creating a separate, alternate universe to answer the question of "What if this guy went rogue?"

 Vulcan wrote:
Let's take a look at a subversion done well. The Watchmen. Based on the famous comic books, it's a subversion of super heroes and superheroic comics. None of the heroes are all that heroic, the villain is one of them, and they lose in the end despite all their efforts.

Now, imagine how that exact same story would have been received using big-name Marvel or DC characters all acting very much out of character. Superman instead of Dr. Manhattan, losing contact with humanity. Reed Richards planning world peace by blowing up several major cities.

THAT is why TLJ fails. It subverts not just the genre, but the characters themselves. And that's not a good thing to do in the middle of the main sequence of a franchise. Over and over, characters do things out of character - or even outright idiotically - just to carry the subversion to it's ultimate effect.

It would have been better for a sideline movie, where Rian could have created all new characters to be whatever he needed them to be. Taking existing characters and mangling them that way just wasn't going to go over well for fans of the franchise.

Yes, this! Exactly!

In my opinion, if you want to see this done right in Star Wars then look to Rogue One. In the original trilogy the Rebel Alliance were unquestionably the good guys, the white to the empire's black. But come Rogue One, we see them resorting to murder and assassination, making them in reality a shade of grey instead. And yet that doesn't detract from what they are in the main trilogy at all. This is why the spin off story movies are better for this type of thing. In the main trilogy, best to stick closer to black and white...except that even they subvert that by making Vader Luke's father the formerly good Jedi and having Obi Wan be a bit economical with the truth. So like all things it comes down to good writing...which Star Wars often lacks.

 Vulcan wrote:
(Ironically, I find Luke's subversion the most believable. Yoda warned him way back in ESB that he was reckless, and always looking to the future instead of where he was and what he was doing right now. And what happens to him with Ben Solo? He spends too much time looking to the future instead of right now, recklessly pulls his lightsaber... and causes the very future he hoped to avoid. No wonder the poor guy went into seclusion; he had not only created Kylo Ren, but did so despite being warned by Yoda decades earlier!)

Wow, that blew my mind!

Or the KotOR games which really tackle OT ideology head on and tear the Jedi/Sith simplistic worldview a new one.

Since we're talking about characters acting out of character and sloppy, lazy writing I'd like to bring up TFA and something that always bothered me. What ever gave anyone the impression that Luke Skywalker would ever abandon the people he cared about? I mean he ultimately didn't give up on his father, space Himmler. He sensed a tiny bit of good in his heart underneath the bodies of all the children his dad killed and still managed to hold onto that hope even with his sister now threatened. His nephew you though, eh who cares, I'm out. Seems very unlike him to me.

TLJ actually managed to salvage it for me in an okay way by making it about Luke's failure and not Ben's. It's still him giving up though. They wrote themselves out of a hole imo, but it was a pretty deep hole.

One thing that still annoys me:

Luke left everyone to go be alone and die

But he left... a map?

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Which is why mary sue basically doesnt exist. Batman is a mary sue by "modern definition" . hes excessivly skilled, everyone likes or at least respect him. He always wins, orphaned, rich, etc etc...


Again, if Rey is a mary sue then everyone is. We follow exceptional people because exceptional people are interesting.

Uh, I don't know if you've read a Batman comic in the last 25-30 years, but Batman didn't suddenly wake up as an expert martial artist and detective. There was a progression, unlike Rey.

So no, you're still flat wrong.

Oh hey! You're back!



I didn't say his martial arts or his detective skills I said his intellect. His raw intelligence. Give me a reason why the only people on the planet more intelligent then him are meta humans with enhanced intelligence or have something wrong with them to make them smarter. And even THOSE people are less intelligent than him the vast majority of the time. Or, we could keep talking about starwars.

Skaorn wrote:
Since we're talking about characters acting out of character and sloppy, lazy writing I'd like to bring up TFA and something that always bothered me. What ever gave anyone the impression that Luke Skywalker would ever abandon the people he cared about? I mean he ultimately didn't give up on his father, space Himmler. He sensed a tiny bit of good in his heart underneath the bodies of all the children his dad killed and still managed to hold onto that hope even with his sister now threatened. His nephew you though, eh who cares, I'm out. Seems very unlike him to me.

TLJ actually managed to salvage it for me in an okay way by making it about Luke's failure and not Ben's. It's still him giving up though. They wrote themselves out of a hole imo, but it was a pretty deep hole.

Luke Skywalker has always been quite a bit of a mopey guy. It's outside influences that kick him into gear. People he looks up to or are authoritative figures he answers to.

In the aftermath of RotJ he is the one and only Jedi master. Obi and Yoda are dead. His father is dead. His sister is closer to a peer, but not when it comes to Jedi/the force where he is basically top dog (as far as he knows). Everyone looks up to him and he has nobody to kick him into gear. So when he fails he retreats and mopes. Like Luke does. Luke needs council. He needs someone to bounce ideas off of and give him advice. Left to his own thoughts he thinks of his losses.

This was a very good and natural progression of the character considering the things we learned about what he saw.

 Manchu wrote:

Watching TLJ, it was just one shockingly dumb idea after another. Yoda appearing was yet another astonishingly stupid element. Making him act like a weird moron was just gak icing on the gak cake.

At the very least Luke didn't ride around on Rey like a backpack while remarking "Hmmm, hmmm."

But while I agree Yoda didn't need to be in TLJ, the way he acted in that scene wasn't too far off from some of the scenes where he's training Luke. Indeed his seemingly wise statements about the dark side consuming the people who start down that path are proven wrong in RoTJ, which makes it doubly weird when he claims that Luke lost Ben. As of TLJ Yoda knows people can be pulled back from the dark side, his force ghost is standing right there next to Anakin's at the conclusion of the OT.

 dogma wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

Watching TLJ, it was just one shockingly dumb idea after another. Yoda appearing was yet another astonishingly stupid element. Making him act like a weird moron was just gak icing on the gak cake.

At the very least Luke didn't ride around on Rey like a backpack while remarking "Hmmm, hmmm."

But while I agree Yoda didn't need to be in TLJ, the way he acted in that scene wasn't too far off from some of the scenes where he's training Luke. Indeed his seemingly wise statements about the dark side consuming the people who start down that path are proven wrong in RoTJ, which makes it doubly weird when he claims that Luke lost Ben. As of TLJ Yoda knows people can be pulled back from the dark side, his force ghost is standing right there next to Anakin's at the conclusion of the OT.

A constant in the OT is both Obi and Yoda saying something that is only kind of true when viewed in the right context but isn't wholly true.

They tell Luke what they think he needs to hear to set him on the path they think he needs to take. That often involves at the very least lies of omission.

Yoda tells Luke "There is nothing in there that Rey does not already posses". Which tells luke that she doesn't need the books. Omitting that Rey stole the books already. You have to look at EVERYTHING they say to Luke through that lens. What do they want Luke to know. What are they trying to nudge Luke into doing and what conclusions do they want Luke to reach. Saying Luke lost ben might be Yodas way to kick Luke in the pants and get him to have hope for the kid again in the same way that hearing he would have to face Vader made Luke try to save him.

 Lance845 wrote:

A constant in the OT is both Obi and Yoda saying something that is only kind of true when viewed in the right context but isn't wholly true.

They tell Luke what they think he needs to hear to set him on the path they think he needs to take. That often involves at the very least lies of omission.

Yoda tells Luke "There is nothing in there that Rey does not already posses". Which tells luke that she doesn't need the books. Omitting that Rey stole the books already. You have to look at EVERYTHING they say to Luke through that lens. What do they want Luke to know. What are they trying to nudge Luke into doing and what conclusions do they want Luke to reach. Saying Luke lost ben might be Yodas way to kick Luke in the pants and get him to have hope for the kid again in the same way that hearing he would have to face Vader made Luke try to save him.

So Yoda and Obi are both manipulative pricks, making them no better than Palpatine or Snoke?

Putting in that manner tends to forget that they tend to do it to teach someone to help themselves. Because saying you are no better then "Genocide the Jedi, Enslave the wookies and galaxy" Palpatine and "Genocide the species on that one planet, take over the galaxy" is.. kind of summing up things in a very weird fashion.

"Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Reconsidered?"

Reconsidered it. Still gak.

It is the movie-equivalent of a comic-book tie-in, the story between two real stories to let you know how they got from A to B. If this were an OT story, it'd be the comic book that told you how to got from Yavin to Hoth.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Putting in that manner tends to forget that they tend to do it to teach someone to help themselves.

It is true that the Jedi teach people in order to help themselves.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Because saying you are no better then "Genocide the Jedi, Enslave the wookies and galaxy" Palpatine and "Genocide the species on that one planet, take over the galaxy" is.. kind of summing up things in a very weird fashion.

Canonically the Sith were founded by a Jedi, the Wookies were already de facto enslaved by the Transdoshans, and Palp didn't enslave anyone. The slavery was all done by the Hutts.

 trexmeyer wrote:
Or the KotOR games which really tackle OT ideology head on and tear the Jedi/Sith simplistic worldview a new one.

Whilst Avellone and Co arguably overdid the mythos bashing/poking the Kotor games made more sense than TLJ (well with the restore content mod anyhoo)

 dogma wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

A constant in the OT is both Obi and Yoda saying something that is only kind of true when viewed in the right context but isn't wholly true.

They tell Luke what they think he needs to hear to set him on the path they think he needs to take. That often involves at the very least lies of omission.

Yoda tells Luke "There is nothing in there that Rey does not already posses". Which tells luke that she doesn't need the books. Omitting that Rey stole the books already. You have to look at EVERYTHING they say to Luke through that lens. What do they want Luke to know. What are they trying to nudge Luke into doing and what conclusions do they want Luke to reach. Saying Luke lost ben might be Yodas way to kick Luke in the pants and get him to have hope for the kid again in the same way that hearing he would have to face Vader made Luke try to save him.

So Yoda and Obi are both manipulative pricks, making them no better than Palpatine or Snoke?

If thats how you want to see it then see it that way. Thats how it is.

They don't tell Luke things strait up and they never have. So analyzing what they are telling Luke in THIS movie at face value goes against their character.

 Lance845 wrote:

They don't tell Luke things strait up and they never have. So analyzing what they are telling Luke in THIS movie at face value goes against their character.

Which means they've always been manipulative pricks.

 dogma wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

They don't tell Luke things strait up and they never have. So analyzing what they are telling Luke in THIS movie at face value goes against their character.

Which means they've always been manipulative pricks.

To be fair they are pretty standard in fiction/fantasty/sci-fi - Gandalf, Merlin etc etc all tell their charges / people what they think people need to be told in order to get stuff done - great good and all that.

 Mr Morden wrote:

To be fair they are pretty standard in fiction/fantasty/sci-fi - Gandalf, Merlin etc etc all tell their charges / people what they think people need to be told in order to get stuff done - great good and all that.

The angels and gods of the Tolkien universe are expected to be manipulative; they're angels and gods. Yoda and Obi-Wan aren't angels and gods.

 dogma wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

To be fair they are pretty standard in fiction/fantasty/sci-fi - Gandalf, Merlin etc etc all tell their charges / people what they think people need to be told in order to get stuff done - great good and all that.

The angels and gods of the Tolkien universe are expected to be manipulative; they're angels and gods. Yoda and Obi-Wan aren't angels and gods.

Im not sure what point you are trying to make.

Did you watch the ot? At any point obi could have said. Vaders your dad. The emperor corrupted him. Leias your sister. Dont kiss her. Sorry we raised you in the galaxys butt hole run by a slug monster farming moisture while your sister lived in a palace on a verdant world, but the irony of hiding one of anakins sons on his home world with the same last name was too big an opportunity to pass up. We jedi do it for the lulz.

He doesnt though does he?