Star Wars Episode VIII - The Last Jedi

SPOILERS...






Thoughts?

 

It raises some good points, but it is hardly bashing. The cons of both movies are discussed.

 

I would have definitely preferred this version:

 

Rian Johnson

I'd link a Youtube video analyzing his failures but they tend to have too much profanity to link on a family friendly site such as L-O.

 

Touche!

Hahaha... he definitely has a large number of detractors! I doubt we'll ever see his rumored SW trilogy after the intense backlash against The Last Jedi.

 

One of the MANY problems with the Last Jedi is that people with creative control switched between movies. That (presumably) means that there were some planned character arcs that were aborted. The character arcs are either missing or make no sense.

Example. Empire Strikes Back. Luke Skywalker starts out as the optimistic happy-go-lucky kid. He gets mauled by an ice bear, recuperates in a vat of good, runs away from his one place of safety, gets psychologically abused by a Muppet, sees visions of his friends in pain, has a freaky vision quest in a cave where Vader has his face, fails to save his friends, loses a hand, and learns that his arch enemy is his father. By the end of the movie and for most of Return of the Jedi, he is pretty somber. But a lot of the lack of an arc was bad writing. Rey suffered roughly as much trauma as Luke. Among other things her hero snubbed her, she failed to redeem a loved one, and she gets to watch the Rebellion go from 46,000 people to 12. But the trauma leaves no impact on her character arc.

To paraphrase Mr. Plinkett. At the end of the Empire Strikes Back Luke was hanging on some scaffolding over Bespin with one hand, his spirit broken and crying for Obi Wan to help him. She was shooting at TIE fighters in the Millennium Falcon during a high speed chase) shouting "WOOO! I like this!"

One would argue that weak character arcs is why the Marvel movies tend to consistently outperform the DC movies, but I'll let Scalenex cover that. I like(d) Star Wars, he's more superhero focused.

 

That's because Rey is like a video game character with all the cheat codes activated. She is unstoppable. At least she isn't as bad as Rose.

 

She's a Mary Sue. Likely became that way from reasons.

1) She is basically a wish fulfillment character, so she's perfect.
2) There was a big push to push social justice values, so Rian didn't want to give her any flaws or ever fail, despite the fact that compelling heroes (and compelling heroines) need to fail before they succeed.
3) The Hero's Journey is a basic component of good action stories. But since Rian wanted to "subvert expectations" he threw out huge portions of the hero's journey motif just to be edgy. It's worth a topic in and of itself, but if you subvert one of the basic building blocks of a story, you need to do it carefully. Rick and Morty, One Punch Man, and to a lesser extant Deadpool manage to tell compelling stories while subverting expectations but they subvert expectations artfully and the entire stories are built completely around the subversions where as Rian subverts something and then tries to resume the main story formula.

If you are going to subvert a trope, or a major building block of storytelling you need to have a deep understanding. It's like Rian is reading a recipe and making substitutions but he never cooked before and doesn't understand.

Reminds me of when Dennis the Menace tried to make popcorn.

"We need some peanut oil or butter."
"How about peanut butter?"

You don't have to grease the pan with peanut oil or butter, but the replacement better be something that can grease the pan like olive oil or vegetable cooking spray.

It's like Rian Johnson fixated on reveals. A New Hope, the old guy is Obi Wan. Obi Wan plans to sacrifice himself, Empire Strikes Back, the weird Muppet is the Jedi Master, Darth Vader is Luke's Father. Return of the Jedi Leia is Luke's sister, Seethreepio is god of the teddy bears, Darth Vader redeems himself.

Last Jedi is just a series of gotcha moments. Like 12 gotchas at least.

The Dark Knight is arguably the best single movie in a pop culture franchise, so tons of movies go for a dark motif thinking that is what drove it to success. Marvel is arguably the most successful formula for a pop culture franchise, so a lot of movie people think the secret to a successful movie is constant quips. Problem is, if you try to mix dark grittiness with constant quips and jokes, you get something that is neither satisfyingly dark or satisfyingly funny.

Arc problem. By shoehorning in a love story, her character arc was throne out the window. Previous films she chastised her sister for not putting the Rebellion first. Now, she lets almost the entire the Rebellion get hit by a big laser in order to save her boy friend.

I think Rose is just a scapegoat much like Jar Jar Binks. Phantom Menace main problem was that it didn't have a clear protagonist or a well developed villain. If you take out Jar Jar Binks, it doesn't really make Phantom Menace better. It's just that our brains were mildly disappointed by Phantom Menace and our conscious minds didn't know why, so we attack the character that stands out most.

 

This is very true.


I am very curious how Episode IX will fare financially. Solo was a disaster, and while I think IX will do better, I doubt it will even come close to matching VII.

 

I respectfully disagree. Franchises seem to be doing the opposite. Harry Potter, Twilight, and the Hobbit all had a movie split in pieces that could have easily been a single movie as part of a blatant cash grab. Justice League was originally planned to be released as a part one and part two.

The Last Jedi had a run time of 2 hours 34 minutes. Return of the Jedi, the longest of the original movies was 2 hours 11 minutes. Revenge of the Sith was 2 hours 20 minutes. A lot of franchise movies seem to be gradually having longer run times.

But as for rushed movies. Star Wars movies used to take three to five years. Now Disney is releasing one a year. Maybe they will slow down after Solo lost a lot of money and there is talk of cancelling or postponing their Boba Fett and Obi Wan spinoff movies.

 

I agree. The movie Alien is a great example of slowly building up suspense. Jaws is another one (although that is partly due to the mechanical issues with the shark). The first Planet of the Apes also comes to mind. These movies are all "slow" by today's standards, but they really created a mood and feel that current films often lack.

 

I disagree with this. In my view it wasn’t the Last Jedi that was bad, it was what Rian Johnson had to work with (I.e. Episode VII) that was bad. It is unfair to say that he was a bad director just because he wanted to do something new with a load of characters and plots that were so samey and were clinging onto the Original Trilogy like a terrified gecko. It would be a much better test to let him create his trilogy and then evaluate whether these films are good or not. If they are good, then perhaps people should have a change of heart in my view. If they are bad, then I will agree that Rian Johnson isn’t a good Star Wars Director.

This is a real shame because it just shows how horrid the Star Wars fan base can be, just because he killed off their beloved Luke Skywalker in a way they didn’t want. They complain “Oh, Rian Johnson doesn’t understand Star Wars”, when it’s actually that they’re the ones who don’t understand it. Star Wars doesn’t revolve around the Original Trilogy, at least not in my eyes or in the eyes of most casual viewers, that’s why I and most casual viewers think Episode VII was awful. It played far too safely and was purely a tribute to Episodes 4-6 done by a purist - I can’t blame Rian Johnson for wanting to kill off so much of the Episode VII stuff, I would probably have done similar if I was directing it, as if to say “sod off J.J., we don’t want this OT remake nonsense so I’m killing it off”. Star Wars needs to let go of the OT and expand, to create a universe as in-depth as the previous Expanded Universe.

 

J.J. was doing all of this in VII. J. J. Abrams started all of this. What I can’t understand is that in his Star Trek films he was able to remain faithful to the beloved Original Series yet produce some new and exciting stories, yet why didn’t he do this in Episode VII? It makes no sense. Furthermore, what makes even less sense is why some fans can’t see that VII is blatantly a remake of IV and that this is a bad thing. One thing I like about the Last Jedi is that while there were some certain similarities to the OT, Rian Johnson gave these situations vastly different outcomes to those in the OT, which in my eyes at least produces new and more original scenarios. For example, in the Last Jedi the villains actually win a major victory through the battles over Da’Qar and on Crait that result in the Resistance being hammered, whereas in Empire the villains win a pretty minor victory and the vast majority of the Rebels escape to fight another day.

I agree with this wholeheartedly.

 

Except that Episode VII was both better received and more financially successful than TLJ. As much as you may like TLJ, those are immutable facts.

I bet his rumored trilogy is dead and gone! Unless Disney just wants to lose money (like with the Solo disaster).

He shit on pretty much everything they loved... what did you expect? If you don't give the fans what they want, then they won't financially support your endeavors. Plain and simple... people get to vote with their wallets.

In your eyes most definitely, but I think you are sadly mistaken when it comes to casual viewers.

Episode VII was far more successful than TLJ (both in the way it was received by the public and financially). It may be in opposition to your personal feelings, but those are the facts.

Then you'd find yourself in the same situation that they find themselves in now. They are slowly devaluing the most lucrative movie IP in history. The movies are getting more backlash and making less money.

In terms of revenue:

The Force Awakens >> The Last Jedi

Rogue One >>>> Solo


Solo is the first Star Wars money to lose money at the box office. A great deal of that is due to TLJ backlash (the identity politics hurts them as well).

Funny you should bring up villains, Rian Johnson managed to turn General Hux into a complete and utter imbecile to the point where he is no longer a credible villain. The guy is a joke. Kylo is better but still a long way off from the villains of the OT or PT. With Snoke gone, there isn't much of an opposition to oppose the all powerful and unstoppable Rey.