Star Wars Rewatch

[The Firebird]

Please don't "we" on this.

This is part of why people think it's "bad faith" (and as you say, a lot of it is clearly is), because of "we all know" stuff like this!

Let me be very clear. I didn't think, for one bloody heartbeat that her hair colour was supposed to indicate anything at all. Maybe I'm too deep in Star Wars lore, but I thought that was just Star Wars set dressing to me. No more strange a choice than a thousand others.

Maybe it has a different valence culturally or generationally? Again, I agree with the point Johnson is making. Which is, women in positions of power are often not given the respect they deserve. And this is especially true if they break traditional norms of dress. I think this is a really important point to make; I've seen in manifest in the sciences along exactly the lines he draws.

So how is this different?

Not liking Johnson's approach is not equivalent to siding with the empire.

 

[payn]

Sometimes there are things that don't make any kind of sense, even though you know that it's a (relatively) common thought. Like, I've seen people say "I don't understand how anyone can like The Last Jedi". Conversely, I can understand why some people don't like TLJ. It's a great film but it's definitely not for everyone, it does have significant pacing issues (though show me a Star Wars film that doesn't!). It has things to say about the world that people are bound to disagree with (those people are wrong, but we're not diving into that can of worms). It's particularly unsubtle about its messages, but people still didn't pick up on "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" in the prequels and there's still plenty of "Star Wars can't be about the Vietnam War, that would make The Empire based on America!!" so maybe Some Anvils Need To Be Dropped. There is definitely legitimate criticism of the film. There's also a ton of bad faith criticism out there, but that's usually easy to spot (ex. Laura Dern's hair color gets mentioned). None of this should really be news to anyone.

Like it, I understand, the love on the other hand... I think TLJ was a mess and I say this as someone who likes Riann Johnson films. Its SW so its impossible to separate it from the franchise, so im not gonna try. I'll sum it up by saying TLJ felt like Johnson's version of a Tarantino film. 2-3 incredible scenes wrapped in a huge pile of meh of a complete film. Though, yes, none of its problem were due to hair or skin color.

Now there are Star Wars opinions that fill me with the "How could anyone...." It almost became consensus at one point that not only was Revenge of the Sith good, but that it was even better than Return of the Jedi, and that always makes me do the Psyduck meme thing.

I think this was in stark contrast to TPM and AotC. Folks finally felt like the end of the prequels had been reached, and it was not a straight for kids movie or overwhelmed with exposition. It was a grade on a curve.

The other? Thinking that The Last Jedi, a film that is as much if not more of a love letter to fans than The Force Awakens, hates Star Wars fans.

There is a lot to unpack here. Despite any unpacking though, no its not a hate the fans film.

It's not fair to say I can't even get it; I kind of can, because I've read all the arguments, but they really all depend on either a shallow, incorrect, and/or incomplete reading of the film. The best case I can see is being upset that Luke/Leia/Han didn't end up living happily ever after, and you know what? That's fair, I guess. Kind of unsure how you'd have any kind of stakes in a sequel if that were the case, but I do still kind of get it. Incidentally, I really don't think this is built in to love/preference for the old EU... if anything the EU puts the big three through the wringer even worse.

It was odd. When we last left off the Emperor was dead, and everybody in the galaxy were dancing. Though, when it comes back, everything is pretty bleak and it turns out that Endor run was just a battle win in a long war. Any confusion here is on JJ tho. He does it again in RoS were he just resurrects the empire as a major threat without much explanation, logical or otherwise. You know, im not sure why JJ doesnt get as much blame for things off the rails as Johnson?

Now, there's a couple of scenes/lines that are often brought up in this argument. The biggest, I think, is Kylo Ren's "Let the past die, kill it, if you must." The quote here makes sense as a dig at fans... if Kylo is meant to be film's mouthpiece. Reminder though: he's the bad guy. I get that there are people who think the Empire/First Order are/were in the right, but I think of those folks less as "Star Wars fans" and more as "absolutely horrifying".

Absolutely, absolutely horrifying...

I took the "let the past die..." line as more of Kylo talking about himself then any Rey legacy. He has been fighting to find himself in all this, and now he has finally thrown off the shackles of masters and is ready to define his own path. He is trying to get Rey to do the same. Folks took that as verifiable truth that Rey's past didnt mean jack. I think that was amplified by the fact that Snoke was left utterly undefined and instantly dispatched in Fett style. Its hard to put two and two together within the "skywalker" saga of the line too. Has nothing that came before matters anymore? A lot of TLJ leads to a "eff the skywalker saga" and a lot of folks showed up to see the skywaler saga carried on. Then, the Luke stuff...

The other is Luke, when he tosses the lightsaber and sneers out about he's not going to "Face down the entire army with nothing but a laser sword." Spoilers: he ends up doing exactly that. And it's extremely important and impactful. Because that's the point. That's the point of the whole damn sequel trilogy (well, the two movies that actually have a point, anyway, TFA & TLJ). Luke has grown cynical and thinks the mythos of the Jedi (hint: Star Wars) is meaningless or worse. Spoilers: he's wrong. And he learns he's wrong.

Folks didnt like seeing their childhood hero grow into a cynical old man. We just saw it moments ago, "Luke would never!!!" Although, for me it was worth it for astral projection Luke. I mean, how beautiful was that scene? It felt very samurai and maybe even the only moment in the entire franchise that didnt feel like a hack samurai attempt.

I think the point of the mythos being meanginless, oh but wait... was fumbled. Such a thing needed to be poignant in the entire trilogy, but we are now getting that left turn after we got nostalgia bait from JJ. It was a confusing turn of theme for the second of a three film stretch. Then, whiplash as JJ rides in to save the day with more nostaliga bait... The issues of TLJ are not all its own, but really the disjunction of its place in a saga and franchise.

These two movies in particular have a very clear stand-in for "Star Wars fans" (actually TLJ adds a second but we'll get to that), and it's not even subtle: it's Rey. She is an uber-Star Wars fan. She's obsessed with Jedi. She's incredibly enthusiastic. Hell, TFA has her literally playing with Star Wars toys. It's one of the first things we see her do. Like I said, unsubtle. Those would call Rey a "Mary Sue" but then also say TLJ hates Star Wars fans are pretty much contradicting themselves. I'm not going to entertain that particular argument beyond pointing out how much those films are absolutely littered with her failures. Anyway, TLJ has Rey trying to get Luke to do something about what's going on (she fails, more or less; Luke needs a talking to from Yoda to really get it through his thick skull) because she knows how important the Jedi and their mythology are to providing hope. Hell, she steals the Jedi teachings anyway! And then Luke actually goes through with showing up! And it matters!

Yeap. Again the contrast of too on the nose with too subtle was whiplash. In one instance, you got an orphan on a desert planet that is adept with machiens and a naturally good pilot who is force senistive who stumbles on a droid with a McGuffin... that turns out not to be a skywalker at all...

And that brings us to that second "Star Wars fan" stand-in that TLJ gives us, and it's really this that's what ties the whole Canto Bight business thematically into the rest of the film. It's the little slave boy. He has hope. He tells others the story of Luke Skywalker's incredibly heroic last stand. He plays with his broom handle like it's a lightsaber (and let's be real, who hasn't?). We see he's got the Force. Because that and Rey the nobody (do not get me started) drive home the major theme: the Force is for everybody. Star Wars is for everybody. Star Wars is for the fans.

Again, none of this is subtle, and so it's the one argument that has never really held any kind of water for me. And it doesn't help that the most logical arguments are the ones that are in bad faith (see: purple hair, "woke", etc). Which has made the illogical arguments suspect, often unfairly. People are often wrong. People think Sarah Conner is a great mom. People think Tyler Durden is right about everything. Hell, they think he's right about anything.

But, and I cannot think of any better way to get across that it is a very clear and simple fact that The Last Jedi thinks extremely highly of Star Wars fans, loves Star Wars fans*

Its a good point, but a really weird place to make it. Especially, on the heels of JJs skywalker saga nosalgia trip. Speaking of coming off the heels of something, TLJ had a very wierd tone about the rebellion force. It was clearly influenced by Rogue One, which I enjoyed as an outside the Skywalker saga experience. Though, lets examine that further.

Opening sequence of TLJ has fighters get wasted and all kinds of rebels dying nobel deaths to bring down a big empire ship. Later in the film, we have a guy pilot to a noble suicide becasue of gas... god the gas thing... Anyways, why did the guy have to pilot the ship until it was shot by the empire? Well, it was for the feels! Ultimately, the skywalker saga always put the imperials and the rebles int he background. It was the skywalker saga. Not to say ther eis no room in SW universe outside the skywalkers, but its their saga. To suddenly remove the skywalkers, or demostrate the intention of doing so, in the middle of a trilogy about the Skywalkers, was not bold, but I think a bad decision. Simply because this tone added tot he confusion of fans and led them away from the otherwise good points the film had to make.

*Unless you're one of those "fans" that thinks the Empire/First Order should've been the real good guys, in which case yeah, TLJ hates you, but also... so does pretty much all the rest of Star Wars, so... congratulations, I guess?

Are there such folks? On second thought, please dont answer that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not liking Johnson's approach is not equivalent to siding with the empire.

But that's not what's being said - the film doesn't hate people who "don't agree with the approach", and nothing you or others have said has shown any "hate" for people merely based on not agreeing with the approach (which is a pretty significant bar to reach, to claim a movie-maker "hates" you - not that it never happens lol). What @Gradine said is, and I agree with, the film does hate some people - people who think The First Order is right, but as Gradine and I both pointed out, that's the same as the rest of Star Wars.

In fact, let me go a little further - I'm very confident in suggesting Rian Johnson does not, in fact, "hate" people who dislike this movie, so claiming he does seems like, truly wild. I don't think you actually believe he does, do you?

 

[Gradine]

For the record, I don't think anybody who hates TLJ is a bad person, or is someone who either would in reality or explicitly do support the Empire/First Order. And I don't think TLJ dislikes anybody except for bad people who would and/or do support the Empire/First Order, which I think is also true of all Star Wars films.

I think it's absolutely true that people with legitimate, non-terrible problems with TLJ were unfairly lumped in with the "No woke in Star Wars*" brigade, and that's unfortunate. As long as you're not a part of that, no, TLJ does not hate you, or spit in your face, or whatever people would say about it. TLJ is, probably, the most openly antagonistic to those specific "fans", but again, those folks absolutely deserve it.

*One of my favorite quotes about sci-fi fandom: "Racist Star Wars fans upset me. Racist Star Trek fans confuse me."

 

[The Firebird]

But that's not what's being said - the film doesn't hate people who "don't agree with the approach", and nothing you or others have said has shown any "hate" for people merely based on not agreeing with the approach (which is a pretty significant bar to reach, to claim a movie-maker "hates" you - not that it never happens lol). What @Gradine said is, and I agree with, the film does hate some people - people who think The First Order is right, but as Gradine and I both pointed out, that's the same as the rest of Star Wars.

I've said my piece on this subject, here:

And the problem is the people making that criticism see it as a very clear line, and think its really obvious. But not everyone feels that way. It's a very black and white reading. And people who aren't fully on board with Johnson feel that, and wonder if the "yeah, this film hates you" applies to them.

I think the challenge of TLJ is what Gradine says here:

TLJ is, probably, the most openly antagonistic to those specific "fans", but again, those folks absolutely deserve it.

The danger of being more openly antagonistic is that your words may not come across how you intend, and people will, perhaps incorrectly, perceive them as being directed towards them. Especially with such a large fanbase of so many different generations and backgrounds.

In fact, let me go a little further - I'm very confident in suggesting Rian Johnson does not, in fact, "hate" people who dislike this movie, so claiming he does seems like, truly wild. I don't think you actually believe he does, do you?

No, I do not think this.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Not liking Johnson's approach is not equivalent to siding with the empire.

This has been a big problem with talking about Star Wars in the past few years. People read all kinds of things into not liking a movie

 

[Bedrockgames]

To be fair, his character didnt. It was a momentary reaction to great fear, but he held true al beit too late to help Ben.

Sure, but it still felt very uncharacteristic of Luke to sneak into his Nephew's room with the intent of murdering him. If it was a spontaneous moment of rage, I suppose that might have been more understandable. But this was done with intent. And so very out of character

 

[Bedrockgames]

It lined up with the character's motivations and beliefs, so I guess for me it works.

I think it's weird that people read it as the overall message of the movie given with was a badguy turning back into badguy mode when he was saying it (after briefly being helpful/decent). Trevorrow's script (which to be clear, overall was just as bad as TRoS) kind of ran with that direction too.

To me it read as commentary on the Star Wars franchise. If he hadn't been taking a meat cleaver to aspects of it, then maybe it would have been something. But even if it were the whole "kill it if you have to" just didn't work for me as dialogue. Again, there were some very promising things going on in the scene, but there were also some very odd things that felt like the plot was being directed by Rian's broader ideas

Yeah and for me that's how I read it.

But I think what we needed, what we didn't have, and what it really would have been kind of Johnson's job to give us (and which might still be given in some future Filoni cartoon or something) is an insight into what was going on at the Jedi training place at the time this happened.

Like, had Luke basically started following Prequel-era Jedi approaches because they seemed to work or something? Or because perhaps a prequel-era survivor(definitely not Ahsoka though!) or force ghost was influencing him? So he got into thinking in bad Prequel-Jedi ways?

I could see any number of explanations. But I think having him try to kill his nephew stretches the character too much. By all means give them a falling out over the Dark Side, but this is his Nephew. You get the impression he cares more about Rey than his Sister's son in the movie. It just wasn't handled well in my opinion. There are a lot of 'could haves'. But in the end this part wasn't done well at all IMO

So I do feel like it was a bit of a leap. Like the lead-up should have been dwelled on more.


I guess I don't see the insulting bit, because Luke didn't do it.

Loads of people have had a very bad idea and nearly acted on it. Everyone over the age of about 20, maybe. Luke isn't a saint. He nearly fell to the Dark Side before. But then he didn't. Was that "insulting"?

I mean it is insulting because it is such an inexplicable turn for the character. It is insulting because the audience has no reason to buy it. No one is saying Luke has to be perfect or a saint. They are saying his optimism and his affection for family are clear established character traits. And I am all for morally gray, but this isn't The Sopranos or Walking Dead. Star Wars is about heroic characters. And of course loads of people have bad ideas, but most people don't try to murder their nephew like an assassin. It is just bad. This isn't a momentary lapse in judgement. If he had done something during Kylo's training that showed Luke wasn't perfect, that would have been fine, and it might have helped explain the fracturing that occurred between them. But they had him genuinely contemplate doing something that about as unforgivable as possible, and all because his nephew might be turning to the Dark Side. His father was a Sith Lord, and yet he believed he could be redeemed. So I just struggle to see how this works in any way with the character at all

 

[Bedrockgames]

Like it, I understand, the love on the other hand... I think TLJ was a mess and I say this as someone who likes Riann Johnson films. Its SW so its impossible to separate it from the franchise, so im not gonna try. I'll sum it up by saying TLJ felt like Johnson's version of a Tarantino film. 2-3 incredible scenes wrapped in a huge pile of meh of a complete film. Though, yes, none of its problem were due to hair or skin color.

While I don't share your "pile of meh" criticism of Tarantino movies, I do you are right and hitting on a very good point here. Johnson is much more of a Tarantino style director. And while there has been talk of Tarantino doing a Star Trek, as much as I love his films, I would had for him to get involved with the franchise. Tarantino and Johnson I think are very good at doing movies that are their own, They are very passionate writer-directors who work great using their own material, love building towards set-pieces, but there is a quirkiness to it that stems from their films being one man visions (which I like, I just don't think you put someone like that at the helm of an existing franchise like Star Wars----especially right in the middle of a trilogy). Maybe giving Johnson his own franchise would have been cool. I could see him doing interesting space opera movies. Star Wars just has an established mood and style.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean it is insulting because it is such an inexplicable turn for the character.

I think it's inexplicable for EU Luke, was like Super-Luke.

I don't think it's inexplicable for a Luke who came from the OT but didn't do all the EU stuff.

This is where I think the disconnect is. People see this saintly, super-experienced EU Luke, who has had countless adventures as the good guy, but that's not the scenario here I think.

And I am all for morally gray

It's not "morally gray".

Bringing that up suggests you aren't understanding the scene. The film's position is that Luke would have been entirely wrong to murder Kylo Ren, even if it's what Prequel Era Jedi would have done (and it is what they would have done, by and large).

This isn't a momentary lapse in judgement.

No. That's literally, textually wrong. I know neither of us have seen the movie for a while, so here is the scene:




It is absolutely described as a momentary lapse in judgement!!!! ALMOST LITERALLY! Luke says "and with the briefest moment of pure instinct".

So let's be clear, the sequence of events is:

1) Luke realizes Ben Solo is falling to the Dark Side.

2) Having failed to stop this, Luke goes to Ben Solo's room to do some kind of Jedi mind-scan/soul-scan to see how far he has fallen. He explictly has not come to kill him. His lightsaber is not in his hand, he's there to find out.

3) Luke BELIEVES that he sees that Ben Solo has completely and totally fallen to the Dark Side, and serves Snoke. This is surprising to Luke and he wasn't expecting it - that shows you are proven wrong when you claim Luke was planning a murder. Don't take it too hard, you haven't seen the scene for a long time, neither had I, but that's a fact! Luke would not have been surprised if he was planning to kill him, he merely would have been saddened.

Now believes is important here, because if you watch the scene, it seems like Luke might think he was tricked - presumably by Snoke or the Dark Side itself, perhaps exaggerating how far Ben Solo had fallen.

4) "and with the briefest moment of pure instinct" - i.e. a momentary lapse of judgement - Luke draws his lightsaber and considers striking down Ben Solo. Only considers, and only in that moment. This was textually not a planned murder.

5) Ben Solo wakes up and is like "WHAT THE F*** MAN?!?!" - and Luke realizes he's just a scared child. This again is indicative of Luke being in some what tricked by the Dark Side of the Force, because he goes from seeing this terrible threat to "just a kid"

(Now we might want to recall that this bloodline has something of a habit of killing kids... just saying... them younglings!)