A/V Episode VIII - THE LAST JEDI - Official Movie Discussion Thread

Rey doesn't need to learn the same lessons as Luke. She already has "the most serious mind" and if she was on Dagobah, Yoda would teach her entirely different lessons to what we got in ESB.

Johnson doubles down on the Maz comment about "the belonging you seek" and makes Rey's The Last Jedi arc all about finding her "place" in what is essentially a family saga, and she tries to bend figures around her to fit that type (which is why Kylo's comments on that front are the ones that sting the most). Rey is her own worst enemy in this sense, and Kylo evolves into a psychological villain rather than a physical one because now is not the time for yet another smackdown, literal battle. Kylo uses his own pained history to try and warp and confuse his opponent, and he succeeds. She is so hell-bent on finding her "place" that she puts her total faith in a vision of the future, that she is willing to ignore her own instincts regarding Kylo and instead places her trust in the Force, and in the redemptive arc that was Luke's redemption of Vader. In many ways the sequel trilogy is the story of how people react to the stories of the OT in-universe. It's why Snoke's throne room is an ersatz DSII sequence that is turned on its head and then goes horribly wrong.

Like Finn's arc, it's not about living up to some momentous destiny, it's about accepting the need to stand with your allies and resist evil no matter the odds, which is something that the OT never really explored - the characters, like in TFA, wind up with the good guys through convenience and happenstance.

So Rey's development is consciously not a mirror of Luke's, who treads a straight path and then has hidden avenues opened to him. She instead is looking for the hidden avenues and finds them all bricked up. This is surely a good raison d'etre for new films rather than a broad repetition of the touch-points of the OT.

 

The turmoil comes out as the film progresses. Bear in mind he's had about six years to be racked by personal guilt by the time Rey shows up, so him being cold and numb at the start fits for me, at least. It's not a recent thing, so when Rey shows up, sure he's apathetic. He left all of that behind years ago, and has accepted his lot in life on the island in the meantime. He's also making a statement to Rey that he doesn't care about the saber -- which is him being in denial.

It might not be as much on the surface as Kylo or Anakin's turmoil, for instance, but I'm glad it isn't. Theirs is a very broad version of inner conflict; Luke's -- Mark's -- is much more restrained and thought-through. There's an arc to it.

 

Thoughts?

 

I have found my new favourite sound effect in TLJ - the “baddabaddabadda” thumping of the TIE fighter lasers pounding the ground in that sweeping shot across the trench. I don’t know why but it just sounds so so sweet.

Great analysis. I really like the style as well so I may as well subscribe.

 

Those are two very different things, though. Alluding to elements of a larger world is part of the world-building that Lucas did so well. Talking about the Senate without showing it, mentioning an incident on Ord Mantell that changed Han's mind, Vader telling Boba Fett "No disintegrations" in a way that clearly suggests he's had some issues with Fett before, those all suggest that there's more to this universe than just what we're being shown, that things go on outside the confines of the camera's view. But even if we don't see the basis for these references, it's never unclear or confusing. Nobody's left going, "Wait, what happened on Ord Mantell?" because we're given everything we need to know to understand the meaning of the incident. Han ran into a bounty hunter, reminding him that he still faces the consequences of Jabba's bounty. We don't need to know exactly what went on between Han and Lando in the past because the point is just that something happened that left them possibly on bad terms. But while Obi-Wan might allude to a big history of the Jedi Purge and the rise of the Empire, much bigger than the few details we get, we get enough details to grasp it. We're not left with no explanation of what happened to the Jedi, why they're reduced to one old hermit in the desert.

That doesn't really compare to the ST approach, which just leaves most of the transition from VI to VII totally unexplained. That's not throwing out an allusion to wider events to make the universe feel bigger -- it's just failing to make connections. There are a few stabs at aping the alluding style -- things like Han being in debt without the debt being particularly explained come to mind -- but I do think it's notable that the world of the ST doesn't feel very large. It doesn't feel bigger than the movies. The Resistance fits in the Falcon. We visit mostly deserted planets and get very little feel for what's going on in the larger galaxy, how people live outside the tiny bubble of the Resistance. We're not given much in the way of backstory to the films. The view we get is very constricted, very narrow, and the ST doesn't do much to inspire the sense of the larger universe beyond its camera, a backdrop to its tale.

 

That's fair - I don't think there's a lot of opportunity for it, but that in and of itself is a choice on the filmmakers part, and the situations they create. A few things come to mind, but mostly in TLJ - Poe mentions at battle Holdo fought in, the mention of Luke's other students leaving with Kylo Ren, the whole existence of Canto Bight, Maz Kanata's whole deal - but certainly nothing so colorful, delightful, and inspiring as, say, what Solo does with those things.

 

Apparently KMT has deleted all of her Instagram posts due to the hate she was getting.

I understand people can not like a movie but it’s incomprehensible to then take that out on the actor/actress themselves. It is beyond ridiculous.

Star Wars fans are the absolute best most of the time but boy oh boy the worst definitely drags the rest of us down.

 

Yeah.

And furthermore: I think Rose was delightful.

 

I don’t have any issues with her character in TLJ but even if I did I could separate a character from the person.

 

Absolutely.

 

I didn't care for the Rose character or her role in the story.

The actress seems like a lovely woman and its appalling she's been harassed.

This kind of behavior gives STAR WARS fans a bad name. Mind you, it's just part of the fact nerd culture has been getting more and more toxic with seemingly no end in sight.

 

Certainly there can be a way to stop that?

 

I agree with this so much. It's not just about mentioning an event and not explaining anything about it. It's about framing. There was enough of a framework within the little nuggets of information we received in the OT to give us an understanding of the event in question and how it affects our characters now, as well as make the universe feel bigger. The references in the ST just feel like the narrative equivalent of blue balls. Back then we really wanted to know what actually happened on Ord Mantell because it sounded like a cool story. Now we just want to know what happened because we don't understand what is actually happening.

 

Unless some sort of electro-magnetic pulse that wipes out our electronic technology and shuts down the internet comes along, I don't know if it can be stopped. Social media is filled with a mob mentality of shutting down "the opposition," YouTube and the blogosphere are filled with ponderous "hot takes." All because "being right" and getting likes/views is the endgame. Is this everyone on the internet? Heck no, there are reasonable discussions and well crafted think pieces out there, but the loud always drown out the quiet. And the loud are toxic.

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Take away the jerks computers? There's no cure for being an internet troll, I'm sorry to say.

The cure for this situation is that it requires the immature members of our fandom to grow the hell up.

Which is asking a lot of some people. I say that as someone who needed some hard knock lessons from life myself.

 

It's not just Star Wars though--this awful behavior gave us Gamergate, etc. Something's deeply wrong in society the past few years and people do all sorts of awful stuff in the name of "fighting political correctness", whatever that means.

This horrible type of behavior goes far beyond Star Wars. It will require massive changes to ingrained biases in people all around the world. And, sad to say, that just might not be possible. I'm beginning to realize in life that maybe there are no solutions.

Capt. Kirk in Star Trek is wrong, there are No-Win Situations in life, and the Kobayashi Maru is very real. That doesn't mean we should stop trying to do the right thing, but we have to go in knowing we're probably fighting a losing battle. For every toxic online poster people take down, 5 more will spring up in their place.

I understand and support Ms. Tran's decision to just stop fighting the awful behavior and just run (by deleting instagram). There are just some fights you can't win.

 

Chuck Wendig wrote a thread on twitter about that very thing, @sidv88. Naturally, he was lambasted.

 

My personal theory is nerds are no longer the isolated outcasts but just part of regular society and the people who would nasty bullies if they weren't outcasts....have become nasty bullies.

 

It's not just nerds doing this though. Ive seen this behavior in those one would define as "jocks" (comnents about serena Williams etc). The whole world is going through this sort of thing, and I don't know how it will get out.

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I mean that's true, but I also think there's a certain element of insularity that comes from feeling like you were an outcast but at least you had this, and now other people are coming for this thing too. Too many people are reacting to the mainstreaming of nerd culture with hostility.

Additionally, "SJW" nerds were never welcome in Nerd Culture, and the perception is that they're "winning" now only because "outsiders" are taking over and "ruining" things nerds love with their "agendas."

Oh well.

I think this is a similar thing. Sports are "for men," so when a woman is obviously the best player the sport has ever seen she has to somehow be discredited.

 

I think it was always there, personally, it's just the internet has made it louder. The world isn't any more racist, but the racists and misogynists haven't gotten smaller like we thought they would.

Or not small enough.

And yes, in the late 80s/early 90s I remember it was a thing that many fans actively resented the idea women could be Star Wars fans--despite always being them. It was like women had invaded "their" space.

 

Strange that's something I must have missed. Most people I've met are happy to have female Star Wars fans, and I've been fortunate enough to meet a few female fans myself.

It does seem the female fans are far rarer than the male fans (I think even this board may represent that), so my take was that the fandom wanted more female fans, not less. This group of "fans" you're mentioning who are hostile to female fans sound awful and I'm glad I missed this set of "fans" entirely.

 

Well, in my case, there was harassment, anger, and disbelief at their very existence.

But I'm glad your experience was better.