ST The Last Jedi: Nihilism

I read the initial post and my thoughts are simply this:

I agree, but I understand why TLJ had this "vibe" of being irrational/unrealistic. To branch out. They wanted to reach out to more people and get more people involved. Maybe. Not sure exactly why, but that's what it would seem.

I mean, the originals, and the prequels to some degree, were such deep, complex, complicated stories. Star Wars fans love all of it, but non-fans never had interest. I know someone who went to see TLJ but never was interested in the saga beforehand. But she enjoyed TLJ, because to her, a general audience, it was entertaining.

Even if it didn't make complete sense/seemed too shallow-minded to us. Personally, I agree with the original post...I prefer deep, complicated, complex but logical stories, because I'm into that stuff. I don't care about big and stunning visuals and cheap entertainment/humor. But I assume they went more that route in attempt to reach out to a larger audience.

 

I think TLJ is the deepest SW film to date from a character drama and thematic pov. It's possibly too ambitious, and possibly too counter-intuitive at times. But it's certainly not shallow. There are some logic jumps, sure, but I personally think that's OK if the human drama is compelling - and for me it is. I'd take the Hitchcock approach to plot logic every time though. I can understand though that some people prefer their logic loops closed and it can draw you out of the story if they're not - everyone's mileage varies I guess. I do think that if we placed the same scrutiny that we place on a newly released SW film on any of the originals, they would suffer in exactly the same ways. Years of growing up with the films make the flaws seem like part of the charm, rather than itches that need to be scratched. I think that's where the critical reaction to these films is pretty accurate across the board TBH.

 

I couldn't agree more with this. Personally, I really liked many RJ's ideas and in some cases I almost clapped my hands in the cinema. However, some of the plot/tone decisions that made it possible to accomplish those ideas were a bit questionable to me. It's the price someone has to pay to be brave and ambitious. So, even though I think I wrote around 100 comments on the complaint thread, I can surely say that I enjoyed the movie. It's very subjective where the threshold is above which someone starts disliking the movie because of possible logic jumps or issues with the tone.

 

Yeah, and I think ideally, you diminish those issues as much as possible without sacrificing the drama, but if something has to give, I know which I'd rather it be. Another thing worth point out - I imagine in the first script, and at some point in the edit, a lot of these things were "clearer" from a certain POV. There comes a point where you assume that the audience will read between the lines at times, or that to focus on something that most viewers won't care about at the expense of pacing (for example) or drama is not worth it. Sometimes putting in that clarification would be to the detriment of the overall picture. It's very hard to strike that balance right, and it's almost impossible to know who is going to react in what way.

I wrote a film where - in the edit - an entire character arc and their fate in the 3rd act of the movie was completely chopped out. It drove my fellow writer and I nuts, because it looked like we hadn't thought about it and created a "plot hole" but the feeling was that it took away the focus from the leads and that in the greater scheme of things, people wouldn't care much. They were right in the end. Likewise, I've spent a lot of time trying to close logic holes, only to sit in the screening and realise, no one cares if the story is moving forwards. Most people don't go online afterwards and start to rip things apart with a logic micro-scope.

Obviously with something like SW you get a stack of viewers who do exactly that, but really, to what end? When a passable explanation is given, most refuse to accept it anyway - and I think that's because often these kind of nitpicks have little to do with the issue at hand, but due to the fact the viewer was not drawn into the story. Yes, there is a point where it's the logic issue drawing some out, but it's a catch 22 - I think if you're engaged, the logic won't matter too much - or you'll let it slide when you here the rationale, especially when the rationale is given in the movie. But sometimes people don't like a movie for whatever reason, then pore back over it to weaponise every little nitpick against it as proof it sucks, when I think it's a little more complex than that.

Every single science issue and most o the logic issues fall into this category for me (for some people not all) - because I simply do not believe that these issues apply to TLJ and TLJ only. They can be found in every single SW film that exists. And it's nostalgia, familiarity, ancillary material and good old fashioned head canon that enable 99% of us to ignore the same issues in our favourite SW films whilst lambasting the latest new release.

I actually think a couple of moments of tone in ACT 1 did more to draw people out of the story than any logic issues. Once the tone issue drew people out of the story, the logic issues become an easier thing to pinpoint and complain about, but I think if you dialled down the humour in the Poe/ Hux exchange, filmed the saber toss in a different way and changed the milking scene, you'd wipe out a good chunk of the problems some had with the film. I don't think you need to cut any of those beats, and I like a lot of the Poe/ Hux scene, the idea of Luke tossing the saber away and the filing scene, but I do think the tone of those beats were jarring for some in a way that they found it hard to bounce back from. Was it worth it? Debatable.

 

"Yes it is fiction, and more than that, it is intentionally mythological. Luke doesn't just take the next-best plan. Luke's "death" is reconciliation with the Force. He ascends beyond the limits of this mortal plane--he has become more powerful than we can possibly imagine. He has fully entrusted himself and the galaxy he loves to the Force, an act of utter renunciation to the divine.

Death, for Star Wars, is not the end. This is a consistent theme of the Star Wars movies, even in the prequels, Yoda says words to that effect. Moreover, what Luke preserves, precisely, is hope. That resistance puny fleet was never going to beat the First Order. The goal of the resistance is to rally system to fight. Yes, such fighting is shown with ambivalence, especially next to the Skywalkers victorious pacificism, but it is at least apposite to the state of life of those in the galaxy. Maybe we can go on to talk about a Jedi just war doctrine..."

 

are you nuts? *don't ban me point made"

as opposed to making even more btb posts.. i am one of the most negative and sometimes completely nihilistic feeling people on the planet. i also have a moral code and positive feeling about life as much as it has diminished over the years... if i don't see nihilism in a film, it isn't there.

this comes from people who's positive world outlook is not affirmed by their fav film franchise. i know what nihilism is. i have to deal with it myself every day. it's insulting for people to compare this film with true nihilism and hopelessness. just stop.

 

existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s essay The Ethics of Ambiguity

“Nihilism is disappointed seriousness which has turned back upon itself.”

The Archetype: The nihilist is someone who sees the lack of meaning in life, but refuses to make use of their own freedom. Rather than be empowered to take action, the nihilist would rather retreat into their own lives, taking shelter in conventional morality or seeking annihilation for its own sake. Life for a nihilist is simply a veil drawn over absolute void.

a personal attack that is totally unnecessary, this thread is supposed to be about Nihilism in TLJ.
OT Han a Nihilist? Yes, but his character arc changed him... part of that was Luke...

"When we first meet him in A New Hope, Han is Nietzsche’s “Overman,” Marx’s bourgeois, the embodiment of Sartre’s “hell-is-other-people,” the end of love. Han lives solo, alone, beyond society’s limitations or expectations. He is the secular, modern materialist, unbound by medieval superstition. He survives by his wits and skill, his truest connection only with nature in the form of the wookie Chewbacca, man’s best friend on two legs. Han is existential man, with no use for tradition, myth, institutions or anything else that might limit his individual, free choice. His classic advice to Luke in A New Hope sums up Han’s will-to-power, his Darwinist, survival-of-the-fittest wisdom: “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”

But the original trilogy slowly eroded Han’s confident exterior. Enveloped in Luke’s friendship and especially Leia’s affection, Han turns out to be the guy who goes out into Hoth’s frigid snowfields, to almost certain death, to rescue Luke. There’s something worth living for, worth dying for; life is not mere physical survival. While he initially gives voice to Western thought’s great “Masters of Suspicion,” Han Solo becomes a picture of a man changed by love.

Now, in 2015, we meet Han Solo in his 50s, and he’s found religion. “I thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo,” he says, “A magical power holding together good and evil? The Dark Side? The Light? The crazy thing is, it’s true. All of it. The Jedi? They’re real.”

Star Wars has always been a postmodern story. It gives voice to our skepticism, our suspicion that talk of The Force or of God or of Good and Evil is just another way for the powerful to control the weak. If you set aside the sci-fi fantasy setting, Star Wars rings true to the world we live in, the world where it looks like violence is the only way to survive. But in the symbolism of complex characters like Han Solo, we also get hints of hope that there might be another way."


http://thesaltcollective.org/the-spoiling-of-han-solos-nihilism/

But now Luke is a Nihilist? Like his father before him?

“Nihilism is disappointed seriousness which has turned back upon itself.” Luke throws his father's saber over his shoulder...


" The nihilist is someone who sees the lack of meaning in life but refuses to make use of their own freedom. Rather than be empowered to take action, the nihilist would rather retreat into their own lives, taking shelter in conventional morality or seeking annihilation for its own sake. Life for a nihilist is simply a veil drawn over the absolute void."

Luke, " I came here to die"


https://rhapsodistreviews.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/sw_existential/

 

I couldn't agree more about transcendence. We know that becoming one with the Force is the ultimate for a Jedi, and that their power is increased by such an act, not diminished.

The underlying message of this film is not nihilistic, nor bleak, unless your focus is such.

QGJ nailed it.

I'd say this is the most ethereal and mystical of the SW films since ESB.

 

“I wrote a film where - in the edit - an entire character arc and their fate in the 3rd act of the movie was completely chopped out.”

And to be fair, Norbit works brilliantly even without Shia Lebouef. Well done, @Satipo

 

That kind of praise is what I live for @CEB

 

come back to me when your life has no meaning at all and you contemplate suicide everyday.

no professor's speeches or dictionary/encyclopedic references.

and @CEB is pretentious. you are pre ten sious.

 

This doesn't really seem to be about The Last Jedi any more.

 

Everyone please remember to play nice in here... discuss the topic, not other posters.

 

Woah, I’m in a thread about the concept of nihilism as applicable to The Last Jedi and its characters and creators, my only post in here namechecked the film Norbit, and I still manage to be the most pretentious person here?

I feel almost proud of that

 

I disagree with that diagnosis, but let's not talk about each other. @EHT is being patient, IMO. Let's not test the limits ...

 

It doesn't get more pretentious than Norbit, mate.

 

Thanks! I just had to fix my typos...

 

The OT stories are very simple; that was kinda the point. You can make the case of the PT being a bit more complicated, but not by much. In both cases, there is depth to be found, especially if one wishes to dig for it (that's also why the whole thing has resonated so well for so long) but SW movies have always been accessible entertainment geared to general audiences first and foremost.

Back in the day, all one had to do to be considered a "fan" is enjoy the movie(s). I'm thrilled to see LFL reinforcing that outlook through the ST, rather than playing at being gatekeepers. Star Wars is, and should be, for everyone.

 

Yeah...I kind of said that in the wrong way...the OT was a simple story, but there was something about it that felt more "real." There was a lot of dialogue. A lot of specific dialogue to the Star Wars universe. Watching Empire the other day I picked up on that. I could see how a non-Star Wars fan could get bored.

Whereas the ST seems to have more shallow dialogue...geared for a more general audience.

 

More shallow, I would certainly dispute. More colloquial, maybe. Or at least more modern-day colloquial, which I suppose could be jarring in its own way, when one is used to the more arch aspects of SW dialogue combined with 35-40 year old iterations of "casual" dialogue. But that works for me; time has moved on both IRL and in the GFFA, and speech moves with it.

 

Thanks for clearing all that up. I admit I haven't followed the new canon much aside from the TFA Visual Dictionary and Claudia Gray novels.

 

A different approach to the issue from another perspective:

Was Charles Foster Kane (Citizen Kane) a nihilist?

The premise of Orson Welles masterpiece is a journalist trying to figure out the meaning of Charles Kane's last dying word ("Rosebud"). In interviews and flashbacks we get some very good insight into the life of that media tycoon, but never do we get the feeling that he realized and acknowledged that he himself was responsible for all the ills in his life. Ultimately, on his deathbed he somewhat pities himself and wished his life would have taken a different course, i.e. not to become the tycoon he became.

That Luke does see twin suns on his deathrock (IIRC) doesn't look coincidental to me but rather like a clear allusion to "Rosebud", i.e. as if he wished he had never left Tatooine and perhaps that it would have been better had he not been born.

I believe that would qualify as a truly nihilistic attitude.

 

I think that is highly interpretive. Interesting. But highly interpretive.

After all his last thoughts weren't regret it, was purpose.

 

i apologize for that. didn't feel very good yesterday.

 

Hope you're feeling better today, Traitor