ST The Sanctuary - (Dissenters Unite! - Warning on page 232)

Point taken.

 

I really want to disagree with everything this guy says, I really want to come back at him and tell him he's talking absolute ****, but he makes so many valid points.

 

Time to cleanse my soul of The Last Jedi.
[Removed]

 

I love this guy!
I mean, his videos. Maybe.

 

I like this guy's videos. Here is his most recent video.

 

I haven't been posting lately (Star Wars Rebels killed me, resurrected me, and sent me to the celestial Force plane and I still haven't recovered), so sorry if this has already been discussed recently, but is anyone annoyed with the "making of The Last Jedi" documentary that's included with the Blu-Ray? It feels like 2 hours of Rian Johnson smugly walking around and stroking his own ego. I honestly can't think of too many "behind-the-scenes" featurettes or documentaries that focused so much on how "brilliant" and "groundbreaking" the director/writer's decisions were. It again, honestly felt like 1/2 Rian Johnson power booster, 1/2 damage control.

 

The only way the ST makes sense is if Snoke is from a timeline where the Skywalker/Solo family was the dominant power in the timeline for generations.
Multiple kids for Han and Leia and Luke and spouse. None die early. Or fall to the Dark Side. Maybe spread through out the galaxy. Etc. The New Jedi Order flourished and had members from all over the galaxy and the New Republic was successful.
And Snoke wanted to create a timeline where the Skywalker/Solo family, the New Jedi Order, and New Republic were cut down before it get to that level of influence.
So even in death, Snoke wins.

 

You mean this guy?


Yes, and now in retrospect so much of that seams tone deaf...

 

Most – if not all – of behind the scenes featurettes since Disney Star Wars are about that. Even the Rogue One ones (and I love that movie). It’s almost hilarious how the franchise has become a relentlessly constant self-advertising product, even when they are aiming to fans that don’t need to advertisement.

I do think though that it was an interesting documentary that didn’t entirely play like a full blown commercial on the movie (like the behind the scenes featurettes), but nonetheless, it was quite noticeably heavily curated. For a documentary titled “The Director and the Jedi”, we barely got to hear from the Jedi himself. Most of MH’s gripes were told from the point of view of Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman.

Most of the documentary instead seemed to focus on practical sets, and if you didn’t know that they had 120 practical sets (or something like that), well you know now. Some fans have put this in the same level of The Beginning and I don’t agree. The Beginning was actually an extremely informative, brief but complete summary on all stages of the making of the movie, down to sound editing and even post production digital manipulation of scenes - and all told like an episode of The Office. It was shot in a very raw way, with no dedicated soundtrack or clever editing to emotionally manipulate the audience. It even includes a most famous scene of Lucas acknowledging his mistakes with the movie and the others criticizing his choices.

This one is nowhere near close to that. I really didn’t learn anything that I already didn't know, aside from maybe CGI can be cheaper than practical, which was practically the only substantial content in this documentary. Which is fine, but like a I said, for something titled “The Director and the Jedi” I was expecting it to be more focused on the title subjects and not much an overlong fanservice trip on Star Wars prop shop. And my god, can we please shut up about real locations? The Beginning showed filming in Tunisia and Italy like it’s normal, but here you’d think it’s totally rare to go to Croatia to film a scene for a movie.

 

Great post.

I have heard the criticism from others that we knew a lot of this stuff before though and I think that might be more of a reflection on the access to information that’s available online, the amount of interviews that have occurred, our general increased understanding as older Star Wars fans of visual effects, the creature shop, etc.

However, imagine a 12 year old whose first experience is the ST with their parents seeing something like that doc who hadn’t been following all that we have in the lead up or after. I can imagine that the less you knew heading into TLJ, including set locations or creatures, and the less Star Wars documentaries you’ve seen over the years, the more mind blowing it would be. That’s probably true of the ST in general and I suspect they know that and made aspects of it for younger fans whose first experience with the brand might be this most recent saga. Same reason they reboot or do soft reboots on properties all over Hollywood.

I was actually expecting it to be more self-serving on the Porgs and Falthiers front because it’s my understanding that Johnson had envisioned and had more control over the details of those creatures from the ground up in other clips they had released prior to the film and they sort of glossed over that in the doc. Perhaps I missed it but the only thing I really saw on that front was that clip of Johnson looking at a droid design and rejecting it and saying it seemed too Doctor Who.

 

Worst of all, he is technically right. Our Snoke theories did suck, because all of them were wrong and Snoke was nobody special.

 

JediBen, absolutely! This is a sacred Star Wars saga, and the sequels don't meld at all well. They took up two crucial permanent chapters in this epic saga. It is ironic that the anthology film Rogue One far better told a story and fit into the Star Wars universe (a great film) than the supposed "continuation" of the saga which didn't continue anything at all!

I know. I actually feel unbelievably sad. I feel like I'm watching the Order 66 scene, or that moment the Homestead is burnt down. What did they do?

They had NO PLAN whatsoever. To think they threw out Lucas' scripts, no doubt visionary and telling a story that continued and concluded the saga, for...this.

Agreed! I mean this is as far from a plan as you can get. And one gets the impression they haven't even watched a single episode from Episode 1 to 6 if this is their idea of continuing the saga.

That is so true! An upside down question mark.

It's so sad that the entire saga just worked wonderfully. From TPM to ROTJ, it all was one. The Force was strong with it. One epic, cohesive, flowing space opera. A saga about the Skywalkers. Everything fits together.

I was hoping that the ST would continue and build upon the 6 films to give us an epic continuation and conclusion. Instead, after ROTJ, I feel utterly lost and depressed. If the OT cast weren't in it, it feels like a very bad attempt at a parody or fanfic.

It's a shame because with 2015 and 2017 visual technology, these could have been epic. To think they threw out Lucas' outlines?? For this?!

Lucas I am sure had the whole thing panned and laid out. And pretty sure he would have continued the STORY, with the old and new characters succeeding and progressing on merit of the story and how they fit into it. With exposition of the galactic status quo, the back stories of villains and crucially having an internal sequel arc and a wider overall overarching 9 film saga arc too.

I feel like this all started with TFA. And TLJ just took those poor foundations and made a pig's breakfast of it.

The shroud of the dark side has truly fallen. Help us George. You're our only hope!

 

Painful to hear they're still harping on that. That whole marketing spiel was an immediate turnoff to me as soon as Disney started doing their thing, and I say this as someone who would be interested in seeing a new SW film that legitimately fits in with the visual/effects style of the OT.

 

This is why IMO Johnson did him a favor. RJ didn't just open the mystery box and showed everyone that it was empty, he obliterated the whole thing. Subversion! Luke was pathetic, nobody's background matters and everyone's boring af except Kylo Ren. Roll with it.

Abram has nothing to explain, he just has to solve the villain problem (Knights of Ren?) and serve a decent final lightsaber duel.

IIRC, Abrams said killing Han at the end of TFA was "bold", right? Johnson dealt with the hardest OT kill for him. A rainbow cupcake and a Thank You card are in order.

 

Eh, I agree with most of your points, but keeping the Emperor and the Sith dead is more fitting, honestly, everything that happened with the Emperor and the Sith in the old EU made Anakin's entire arc pointless.

 

BBM- if that is what happened then I am really really glad I never read anything from the EU.

 

Wish we saw Lucas' vision!

 

Nobody is special, not Rey, not Finn, not Poe not even Maz Kanata. Nobody other than Kylo is related to anyone we know. All those characters from earlier trilogies and none had children or grandchildren that followed in their footsteps?

I diverse from the actual point about Snoke, but the way Snoke has turned out it would make him something like a sanitized version of a child molester. He had this great set up and in the end he's just someone who craved power and recruited an army of kids. Snoke was sold to everyone in WWII terms as this equivalent of a neo-Nazi in the jungles of South America, some background character in the way of things who wanted to create a Fourth Reich. I think killing him off was the best thing they could've done with him, they didn't have a plan for him, no background and the bonus was it actually made Kylo look strong for a change.

 

Back when all we had was the old EU I was okay with it because they kept Anakin's legacy alive and chose to make most of his descendants via Luke and Leia as heroes, but still, not only leaving the Sith around but also the Emperor alive kinda did destroy Anakin's arc, which had been built up to that moment. Though Anakin's arc sort of is getting ruined since the last Skywalker is an evil nutjob, but, oh vell.

 

THIS THIS THIS.

Absolutely!

Exactly!

One arc, one saga!

Agreed. It is truly sad to see Mark's interviews. Even post TFA.

Yes GL gave us 6 stories that flow as one. I want a STORY!

"You were supposed to continue the saga, not leave it in darkness!"

I wish GL's ST was what we were getting.

 

So in the original timeline, Snoke is jacked up by Luke Skywalker and the rest of the Jedi, who destroy his dark side goals? This is his revenge?

Cool, thanks, you’ve provided me my new favorite headcanon to explain TLJ.

 

Not gonna lie, from the arguments I see on Reddit, it feels as though Last Jedi fanboys hate the OT.

 

Pablo once said that "half the fun with Star Wars is speculating". But if the speculation never leads anywhere, whats the point of doing it? It's just a big waste of time.

 

The thing with Bruce Wayne/Batman and Jor El/Superman is they've been reimagined many times, they have spanned many forms of media and they're more or less different from the last. But always the core characteristics continue, they don't break away from the fact Bruce Wayne is a man who was broken and rebuilt himself as Batman, he's two sides to the coin. Superman is different but he never loses the charm as Clark Kent or the steely single minded determination. You can add other comic book characters to that such as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and the Hulk.

Luke and Leia have never had other versions, never been played by a different actor, they've never been remade. Now we have this new version of Luke and 50% of the fan base doesn't like it, they don't like how the man who refused to kill his father after he committed the most heinous crimes imaginable can now murder his totally innocent nephew because he felt a darkness within him. I think that is a perfectly reasonable criticism, something so out of character and at a stage of his life where Luke isn't under pressure, isn't struggling with personal demons.

The way Luke is portrayed by Mark Hamill isn't under criticism and rightly so, it's a magnificent performance, it makes it even worse that should he have been given a greater ending it could've been absolutely epic. Why not just leave Kylo's version of events as Kylo's, don't give any explanation, leave it until the final episode so the audience can be left wondering "surely Luke didn't try to kill Ben Solo?". Why not give Luke his epiphany slightly earlier, have Rey tell him they're leaving in the morning and during the night Luke opens up and is visited by Yoda? Why not have Luke go to Crait, have him dual with Kylo for real and not an illusion? This is Star Wars and there isn't one lightsaber dual, in Rogue One there wasn't a need as Vader had nobody to fight but in TLJ we have Luke, Rey and Kylo.

Finally we have the 'illusion' of Luke stopping the FO and facing off against Kylo, an illusion that is supposed to be the inspiration for every broom boy, stable hand and scavenger to become Jedi. But it's an illusion, it isn't real and can be unravelled as easy as the FO telling everyone that Luke Skywalker is dead and has been dead for years, what happened was a 'party trick' by a few desperate Resistance fighters. But in the end RJ felt that unlike JJ Abrams had done with Han, Luke Skywalker didn't deserve to go out with a bang. There was no rapport with Rey on the island and there wasn't any final battle, Luke didn't get his "big moment" as Mace, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan got and it wasn't their trilogy was it?