Star Wars: the Last Jedi (get your tantrum on)

[Underseer]

There has been a lot of discussion about the latest Star Wars movie, so perhaps it's time to put all that gnashing of teeth in its own thread.

I thought Moviebob had a decent take on some of the whining:



Bonus: the above video includes a short but hilarious parody of Sargon of Akkad from YouTube.

Trigger warning: the parody makes fun of Sargon, so fascists, white supremacists, and woman-hating man-babies should avoid watching the above video entirely.

 

[Malintent]

Icouldn'tfollowthevideobecausetherewerewaytoomanywordspermillisecond. Bob,pleaseslowthefuckdown

 

[ronburgundy]

Goes without saying that this thread will have spoilers, so don't read if you haven't seen it.

I thought is was pretty solid, and about as good and Force Awakens if you factor it didn't rely as much on nostalgia for seeing the old characters again.

I liked that she turned out not be Luke's daughter and was just a "nobody". I liked that Luke was kinda a dick who doubted how much the Jedi actually helped in the long run.

The negatives were that there was too much time spent on the ship and with the "chase" and not enough on any of the planets, especially the casino planet. They could have let Finn and the audience find out about child slavery and corruption of that planet more organically than by just having that woman tell him about it as soon as they get there.

 

[Sarpedon]

Well its not all about Finn, is it? Rose needed her own character development, and that scene gave it to both of them very effectively. Just think, if they hadn't established the casino's dark underbelly before the escape scene, people would have said "oh and those random slave children who just happened to be there to help the Resistance? Ewoks!" Finn makes a great audience surrogate, as he's totally ignorant. This makes it ok for other characters to simply tell him things from time to time. Rose gets to explain why she and her sister are in the Resistance, while DJ provides a counterpoint that she's wrong to blame the First Order for all this, and this sort of thing is all there is. It's thoughtful and efficient.

 

[prideandfall]

okay so kicking off a more specific discussion i'm going to first explain why i think the original trilogy works despite it having plenty of plot holes and insane coincidences and other silly shit.
basically my opinion is that a new hope and empire strikes back work very well because the bare-bones story is solid, uncomplicated, and compelling - this makes them hold up as movies even if there are plot holes and stupid coincidences, because those are screenplay problems of narrative convenience but the overall story is still working.

the 'original trilogy' is really just this if you break it down to its basic elements:
1. there's a government that is omnipresent, militaristic, and oppressive which has been in power for about 20-some years.
2. there's a scrappy group of rebels defying the empire but not really having the means to do much against it.
3. the rebels happen upon the design plans for a new imperial weapon and embark on a mission to sabotage it.

that's basically the plot of a new hope if you take out the jedi shit, and i think that's why it works so well despite assorted issues with the smaller details - because the background structure of the narrative is simple and functional and executed reasonably well if you just follow the arc of the plot that the rebels find these plans, get caught, chuck the plans out the window in a panic, a boy finds them, and in his attempts to return the plans to them ends up joining them.
and then of course there's all the force shit and the weird 'luke is the chosen one' crap but etc etc joseph campbell, blahblah.

empire strikes back is:
1. the government from the first movie taking the threat more seriously and putting a plan into motion to wipe out the rebels.
2. the 'chosen one' getting training in the powers he discovered.
3. the big bad from the government taking a personal interest in a specific few rebels and chasing them down.

which IMO again is why it works, because the backdrop of the plot is really solid, and you can fuck up a couple of the details here and there without it breaking the cohesion of the overall structure, and then you can fap around with all this telekenesis stuff and laser swords and it's just *cool* and you don't really need to explain it because it's not integral to the plot, it's just icing on top of it.

... which is why return of the jedi does NOT hold up as well, because it started to break away from that. instead of it having a solid story and some cool lore crap being used as window dressing for a simple but functional plot, it has a bunch of fappery with jedi monologues and teddy bears and then cobbles together some rehashed BS as an excuse to justify the fapping.

and IMO that's where the star wars franchise went off the rail and continues to be off the rails: instead of having a solid core story with some fancy trimmings, each movie is just lightsabers and jedi bullshit, with some half-assed ripoff of story elements of the first two movies being used as an excuse to justify said lightsabers and jedi bullshit.
all the mumbo jumbo is first, and the rest of the movie is just there to link "cool jedi shit" scenes together. the other problem is that the prequels (as well as 7 and 8) have nothing to them EXCEPT "jedi shit" - there was kind of a story in the phantom menace about how this dude single handedly took over the government, but it was this C-plot to "jedi shit" and fan servicing.
i honestly don't even remember a single thing about the clone wars, and revenge of the sith was just "jedi shit: the movie" with nothing else going on except call-backs to better movies.

the force awakens and the last jedi, same problem... there's no real underlining core story at work here so it's nothing BUT the surface details, so if those are completely screwy then the entire narrative collapses under the weight of its own bullshit.
it's all just crap cobbled together from better versions of the franchise that serves no function except "jedi shit" and "fan service shit" - so IMO elements of the force awakens and the last jedi can be "cool" but the movies are fundamentally terrible on a foundational level, the same way the prequels were.

 

[Sarpedon]

I disagree, I think the new series DOES have a potentially awesome underlying story: That in life, even when you 'win' you don't get to live happily ever after. The Last Jedi delves deep into that theme. You have Luke giving up on the whole idea of the battle between good and evil. You have the casino of rich people who profit from conflict, and you have Rose who blames the other side for it, even though it is BOTH sides.

Also, I think its time to dispose of the whole 'First order' is just unrealistic rehashed fan service Empire that came out of nowhere idea. The possibility of a more powerful, more dangerous force coming from a defeated enemy is a well establish fact of history. The obvious analogy being:
German Empire --->Nazi Germany
Galactic Empire--->First Order
But there are others.

Even in the narratively thinner Force Awakens, we have Han and Leia admitting they are no good at being at peace, so both went back to what they were good at: fighting and smuggling.

The new Star Wars movies are profoundly character driven, rather than plot driven, as the first were. If the third one brings it to a worthy conclusion, we will have two excellent series that are different but complimentary.

 

[repoman]

In the middle of the video he talks about "That Guy", is that kind of like "The Ace"?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheAce

The Ace might be a type of machismo based Mary Sue, but not totally sure.


------------------------------------------------

I have watched a few reviews by non politically minded youtubers of a good age, race and gender mix. I seems like the subversion of expectations for the JJ Abrams setups is what was making them upset.

On a spectrum of follow through or subversion of setup points, I think that either extreme is not good. If there were 5 major setups and all were concluded in very safe predictable ways that would suck. If they are all subverted and it seems that surprise value was the goal that would be terrible as well.

So, this woman was not happy with what happens in TLJ, but also says that TFA was too much of a knockoff of ANH. Only 3 minutes of it are needed. This is a typical layperson (I have seen some industry people review it as well) reaction by the people who did not like it. I have seen about 20% of the YT reviews being positive, but maybe those are not getting hits.



People want control too much, it is NOT your movie.

 

[prideandfall]

I disagree, I think the new series DOES have a potentially awesome underlying story: That in life, even when you 'win' you don't get to live happily ever after.

that isn't a story, that's a theme - there's a distinct difference.

The Last Jedi delves deep into that theme. You have Luke giving up on the whole idea of the battle between good and evil. You have the casino of rich people who profit from conflict, and you have Rose who blames the other side for it, even though it is BOTH sides.

none of those are plot points or underlying story structure, those are incidentals that make for "cool" moments but also make for a shitty movie from a structural standpoint when there's nothing except those moments in the film.

The obvious analogy being:
German Empire --->Nazi Germany
Galactic Empire--->First Order
But there are others.

disagree, because A. the title crawl of the force awakens completely pig-fucks the idea of that, and B. even if it didn't, the nazi/first order analogy doesn't work because if the entire world had drones and scanners and satellites scoping out germany from 1920 until 1950 and both the political authority and military capacity to step in and prevent the nazis from happening, the nazis never would have happened.
one small country can build up its military more or less in secret in an era basically before modern technology existed, i don't buy that space nazis can build a laser planet without anybody noticing.

The new Star Wars movies are profoundly character driven, rather than plot driven, as the first were.

like i said... "jedi shit"

If the third one brings it to a worthy conclusion, we will have two excellent series that are different but complimentary.

and i'm all for you enjoying it, nothing about my distaste for the new star wars movies makes me feel like it's a requirement that other people also dislike them.
i enjoyed watching TFA and TLJ in the theater when i was watching them, and then as soon as it was over pretty much despised them - they're both very fun to watch, but god awfully terrible movies.

 

[Underseer]

Goes without saying that this thread will have spoilers, so don't read if you haven't seen it.

I thought is was pretty solid, and about as good and Force Awakens if you factor it didn't rely as much on nostalgia for seeing the old characters again.

I liked that she turned out not be Luke's daughter and was just a "nobody". I liked that Luke was kinda a dick who doubted how much the Jedi actually helped in the long run.

The negatives were that there was too much time spent on the ship and with the "chase" and not enough on any of the planets, especially the casino planet. They could have let Finn and the audience find out about child slavery and corruption of that planet more organically than by just having that woman tell him about it as soon as they get there.

As Moviebob pointed out in another video, Star Wars is all about disappointing father figures. We should not be surprised that Luke turned out to be yet another disappointing father figure, particularly given his lineage.

 

[Playball40]

Goes without saying that this thread will have spoilers, so don't read if you haven't seen it.

I thought is was pretty solid, and about as good and Force Awakens if you factor it didn't rely as much on nostalgia for seeing the old characters again.

I liked that she turned out not be Luke's daughter and was just a "nobody". I liked that Luke was kinda a dick who doubted how much the Jedi actually helped in the long run.

The negatives were that there was too much time spent on the ship and with the "chase" and not enough on any of the planets, especially the casino planet. They could have let Finn and the audience find out about child slavery and corruption of that planet more organically than by just having that woman tell him about it as soon as they get there.

As Moviebob pointed out in another video, Star Wars is all about disappointing father figures. We should not be surprised that Luke turned out to be yet another disappointing father figure, particularly given his lineage.

Uh, I though Uncle Owen WAS a good father figure. Bratty Luke just wouldn't listen!! He hasn't changed much.

 

[ronburgundy]

Well its not all about Finn, is it? Rose needed her own character development, and that scene gave it to both of them very effectively. Just think, if they hadn't established the casino's dark underbelly before the escape scene, people would have said "oh and those random slave children who just happened to be there to help the Resistance? Ewoks!" Finn makes a great audience surrogate, as he's totally ignorant. This makes it ok for other characters to simply tell him things from time to time. Rose gets to explain why she and her sister are in the Resistance, while DJ provides a counterpoint that she's wrong to blame the First Order for all this, and this sort of thing is all there is. It's thoughtful and efficient.

Seems rather lazy to have important plot point mere stated rather than revealed by events. Allowing both Finn and Rose to discover the underbelly would have been far more interesting. It's Star Wars, not "My Dinner with Andre".
Yeah, it is "efficient" but that is the problem. They should have spent more time on developing that world and then less time on the ships, much of which was boring and kinda pointless, like the clash between Poe and Laura Dern (pretty much her whole character could have been eliminated without losing any substance).

 

[Tom Sawyer]

But if you eliminate Laura Dern's character, you also eliminate Poe's entire plot line of thinking that Laura Dern is evil and then changing his mind after all the main characters decide to talk to each other for thirty seconds.

Oscar Isaac is a hot commodity these days and if you cut his screen time, you still have to pay him the same amount and that's just wasting money.

 

[Sarpedon]

The new star wars trilogy is committed to its trio of Rey, Poe, and Finn, just as the original was committed to Luke, Leia, and Han. You can't just ignore one of them for half a movie. Even when Han got frozen, he was only offscreen for about 20 minutes each for two movies, and even then much of the plot revolved around him.

 

[bigfield]

The entire find-the-hacker arc should have been left out. That arc, and the repeated switches between The Pursuit and Jedi Island, killed any tension in the movie. The writers are failing at parallel story arcs.

Kylo Ren's betrayal of Snope and Luke's stalling tactic on Hoth 2.0 were both outstanding scenes.

The new star wars trilogy is committed to its trio of Rey, Poe, and Finn, just as the original was committed to Luke, Leia, and Han. You can't just ignore one of them for half a movie. Even when Han got frozen, he was only offscreen for about 20 minutes each for two movies, and even then much of the plot revolved around him.

They should get rid of Poe--I wanted Finn to get more screen time, rather than being tacked on as a pointless side-story that hurt the movie. His character had/has a lot of potential.

 

[repoman]

 

[repoman]

What is the Star Wars mythos? Is it fairly consistent in the original trilogy? How did it come about, was it Lucas alone or also from a lot of influence by his staff and wife?

If you can figure that out, then did Rian Johnson improve it or demolish it?

What is the deal with the force needing balance? Why would that have to be?

Isn't the dark side of the force sort of like the result of losing the personal struggle with evil, fear, hate and selfishness? To beat back the dark side is a a never ending task, like mowing the grass.

 

[Underseer]

Moviebob argues that this movie is about celebrating fans.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What is the Star Wars mythos? Is it fairly consistent in the original trilogy? How did it come about, was it Lucas alone or also from a lot of influence by his staff and wife?

If you can figure that out, then did Rian Johnson improve it or demolish it?

What is the deal with the force needing balance? Why would that have to be?

Isn't the dark side of the force sort of like the result of losing the personal struggle with evil, fear, hate and selfishness? To beat back the dark side is a a never ending task, like mowing the grass.

Ya, the whole notion of balance in the Force doesn't make any sense. You had at least a millennia with thousands of Jedi running around the galaxy handing out milk and cookies to school children with only a couple of Sith just sitting there hiding out in their tree fort. This didn't cause any sort of imbalance whatsoever.

If Rey was increasing in power because Kylo Ren was and the Force demanded a balance as a result, shouldn't there have been boatloads of teenagers across the Republic suddenly developing the power to crush their enemies with their minds?

 

[Sarpedon]

Not really, there might have been only a few Sith, but they sure seemed stronger.

Also, the dark side of the force might be present in non-Sith.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Not really, there might have been only a few Sith, but they sure seemed stronger.

Also, the dark side of the force might be present in non-Sith.

No, they specifically stated that the Dark Side is quicker, easier and more seductive, but not more powerful. Also, Yoda and the Emperor fought each other to a standstill and Samuel L Jackson was kicking the Emperor's ass until Darth Whinybitch jumped in to save him, so that's two Jedi who were each a match for the most powerful Sith and the second most powerful got hacked in two by some half-trained Padawan. The Jedi had all the same mind control powers as the Sith, they just chose not to restrain themselves and not use them except in very limited instances. An individual Sith was clearly not a power match for a couple thousand Jedi.

If the power levels match out by having the opposite spread out amongst the general populace, then it makes no sense why Rey would suddenly jump in power levels to match Kylo Ren's training as opposed to a bunch of people across the galaxy each getting a 0.00000000001% Light Side power boost every time he did his morning workout.

They're clearly doing something different in the new series which doesn't match up to the mythology of the earlier series.