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

The meat will all have been stripped from the OT bone by the end of IX so some people are gonna really have to put their thinking caps on. You have to hope though the force is put back to sleep to a certain degree or things could get ridiculous. One of the things I use to have in the back of my mind when watching Star Wars or reading Dune is that I was in part rooting for an elite or aristocracy, but do we want a Star Wars universe where use of the force is more commonplace.

 

Referencing the fact that RJ could not figure out how to make Finn and Poe on an adventure together work. First, see TFA. Second, great point by others here that Poe is the long time resistance pilot and Finn the newbie (as in hours).

But let's really get to the heart of this. How does Finn and Rose's adventure end? With a kiss. Is RJ homophobic? Because most people scratched their heads at the Finn and Rose kiss. However, there was tons of speculation about the bromance between Finn and Poe. Poe never really gave any intent on his sexual preference prior. Finn had a thing for Rey, but it had more to do with her treating him like a person. Finn could have realized that after 20+ years of not being able to think for himself, he realizes he prefers Poe over Rey. Self realization after years of brainwashing.

But nah. RJ couldn't figure out how to make Finn and Poe work despite TFA already setting up that the are the best new pair of the saga. I'm not even joking. Somebody needs to ask RJ if he is homophobic.

 

The trailers were fantastic. What they successfully did is establish and maintain a wonderful tone. I wish the film itself had the tone of the trailers.

 

I said this even before... I'm perfectly fine with a gay romance.
Even more than that: I'll wellcome it.

That said, to me TFA gave us a bromance. And a moving one.
I loved it.
And because of that - of my personal take (those were just two guys who bonded in very unusual
and hard circumstances) - to me, the Finn-Poe-romance-hype... sometimes felt - as a paradox we may say -
a little bit homophobic.
Like "if two good looking men - or just two men - share a hug they must be gay". Why?
It's... I don't know, but sometimes this is homophobia too.

But putting aside that, I think the real issue is that Rian wanted all the main new characters (and not only) to face failure.
That was one of the theme (together with the "let the past die").

In Finn's case, that became the CB and the Supremacy plot.
I just think... that another take, another way to test him, would have served better the character.
I said for instance, what if the point with him was that not everyone in the Resistence trusted him?
Like, he did everything he did in 7, but there is still someone among the Resistance that see him as a former stormtrooper.
As the last addition.
Maybe Rose.
Just because, what I didn't like the more about her, was the fact that she idolizes him when they first meet.

And I understand one/she may see him as an hero, but... she also sees herself as someone irrelevant.
Everybody is cool but her. Why? Maybe her job (when we meet her) is not the most exciting.
But I would have loved to see her more proud and conscious that everyone plays a part. And an important one.
That everyone - herself included from this pov - is an "hero" in his/her own way.
So by contrast... maybe, yeah, choosing her as the one who tells Finn "you're the last one that came, you still have to really
prove yourself to this cause", that would have been interesting as an acr for them both. More than what we've seen, imo.

Just an idea... but there could be millions.

Same for Poe... they had to make a 32 old look like a kid, a commander (that... commands: so he should give orders) disobey,
they made Leia demoting him for that (not obey) but literaly ignoring the munity (which is far worst)...
While maybe, putting him in command (instead of Holdo) and make him fail in that position and then maybe rising again...
that could have been a little bit more in character and less un-logical IMO.
Or do something totally different...

Overall, I think there are some arcs and plots that are good in theory, but not that well handled.
And sometimes that this kind of obsession for arcs and plots and themes mirroring one another
it's again a good idea in theory, but sometimes didn't serve the best way possible every characater, plot, etc...

 

PH isn't anywhere close to the final say on anything in Star Wars. If JJ Abrams says "I wan't the knights of Ren to be Force Sensitive" do you think Pablo will scoot up his glasses and say "er, well, actually, I said on twitter that..."

Abrams won't care. Neither will any of the filmmakers. TLJ should have made it obvious that the story group doesn't get to work on the actual story portions of films. Just trying to squeeze out as much head canon as they can into Visual Dictionaries to try and make all this stuff make sense or have more than surface level depth.

The Last Jedi states Ben took half of Luke's students. Luke sure as hell wasn't teaching a bunch of non-force wielding kids how to be Jedi. Ergo, the KOR are force sensitive.

Sorry Pablo, guess you'll have to change it again.

 

Yep great point. This is the guy who nearly had a panic attack on jakku because of innocents being killed.

Now he slaughters his old comrades on takodana and the supremacy.


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Nother great point. I mean we know he would be closest to Ben but shouldn’t he show some more remorse about the students who went to the dark side and those killed?


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We still don’t even know what Ren is. I mean we didn’t know what sith were in the OT but how often was that phrase used in the first two movies?


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The word Sith was never uttered in the OT.

Knights of Ren were mentioned once, by Snoke. I think it’s reasonable to believe that an explanation for their origin (which has already been set up, IMO) will come when/if they actually have a substantial presence in the next film.

I’m strongly inclined to believe that it was JJ’s request to RJ that a number of students defect with Ren. In the StarWars Databank it originally stated that Luke’s students were slaughtered. There was no mention of any of them joining Ren. The entry has been changed since TLJ was released. I think JJ’s thinking on the KoR has evolved since they were first dreamt up. I’d venture the prospect of more ‘many vs a few’ duels was too good to pass up. More Samurai-like action to come.

 

We didn't need to hear the word "sith" or get a lecture on what it meant. All that word does is in hindsight is describe Vader and the Emperor. While watching the OT, you don't need that vocabulary. You can see the story playing out. They show you what Vader and Sheev are in that trilogy. They're dark side users that rule the galaxy and are obsessed with power. They hate Jedi, who use the light side. It's simple and it works. There's nothing to pick apart or be confused by.

I would appreciate the explanation that Kylo is master of the Knights of Ren because he recruited them to follow him from Luke's school by his charisma and power in the dark side if we actually saw them. As is, all we have of their "story" is told, not shown. It's the inverse of the word "sith" from the OT.

 

I think the problem was was there was no Obi-wan mentor exposition-role. Han played that a bit, telling Rey and Finn that the dark side was real, that Luke ran off, etc. Finn and Rey didn't know it, but really, we almost already knew all of that. Obi-wan revealed to Luke and us, in one simple scene, the entire history and current stakes of the galaxy. Sure, some of what he said was a POV lie, but he explained enough so that the audience was like...OK..I'm ready for this adventure. I get it. I don't know everything, but I know the stakes and the history of the characters involved. I know the motivations of Obi-wan, Leia, Luke, Vader. It's all there.

TFA named a bunch of characters, places, things, organizations, but never explained how it all related to one another. They were just names tossed out, meant to intrigue us. And because all of this stuff happens after the last episode, with little to no real exposition, it confuses the story being told.

Edit: And the further problem is, is that Han isn't a POV character. It's not his place to tell the story. Obi-wan was, hence his point of view tale. the OT was happening because of his failure. He knows why it failed, and how to explain it to Luke. Who will be the next POV character. When he tells his tale, he's passing the torch to Luke. Handing over the keys. Following this, Luke should have been that character to pass the torch, the story, the stakes to Rey. He was set up in EP 6 to pass on what he had learned. Pass on the story to the next POV character. And that should have happened in TFA.

 

One other thing that bothers me is the use of Holdo. I love Laura and I really like Holdo, but I feel she was wasted. She should have lived and Ackbar should have led the suicide mission. Why create a new character while killing a beloved character in an off-handed way? Also, did RJ watch TFA? Holdo wasn't at the base, didn't participate in the SKB attack plan, Poe doesn't know her, yet she is a Vice Admiral in charge of the fleet after Ackbar and Leia? Makes no sense.

 

So, I just realized that depending on how JJ Abrams handles it, you can almost skip TLJ. Only three real dynamics happened
1. Luke died
2. Kylo killed Snoke and became Supreme Leader
3. The Resistance is decimated

You could actually fix that with some minor tweaks and 1 added scene at the end of TFA

SKB is actually successful and destroys D'Qar with only a small ships worth of higher ups escaping. Poe still destroys SKB, but he just happens to be 5 minutes late. I actually wish that happened anyway. That's suberting expectations. Oh its the Death Star run all over again. HOLY CRAP. They failed.

Rey didn't go to Ahch-To to train. She went to get Luke. She is literally stagnant in TLJ. No new training. For some reasons thinks she can save Kylo despite not even knowing him and his own father failing.

That's the case in TFA and TLJ. Luke simply says ok to "let's go". He takes the place of Rey in the throne room. Except after Snoke is killed, Kylo surprises Luke by killing him simply because Luke thought Kylo had been redeemed and had his guard down.

That's like a mere 20 minutes added to TFA.

We can now start Episode 9 a few years later.

That's how worthless TLJ was. The only other things that happened beyond that was all the nonsensical stuff.

 

Right. She got, what, 10-15 minutes of screen time max and then we were supposed to feel something for her sacrifice after she allowed several Resistance transport ships to be blown up for no reason. It seemed like she was introduced just so she could die, or just for the sake of having a new female character. If only Rose was there so that she could've slammed Holdo's ship out of the way and told her that her sacrifice was pointless. What was the message of this movie again?

 

I think that they could've brought back Mon Mothma for the Admiral Holdo role if they wanted to have another strong female character. It would be a redemption arc. We always think of the villains needing ways to be redeemed, if they wanted to truly subvert that notion they could've had it be done with the heroes. The de-militarization of the New Republic was mainly her idea and they were destroyed for not being more vigilant. So Mon Mothma has joined with the Resistance because she realizes that her wish for pacifism was "idealistic" and not sustainable when their enemies are more than willing to commit genocide to accomplish their goals. Her last act would be to save the Resistance in order to finish what she had started all those years ago.

 

To the Rey/Luke responses: absolutely. They're strangers, with no connection, and Rey is willing to leave Luke to his own end (literally) by the end of their time together. Which is... terrible. Who would want to watch that? I know RJ is all about subverting expectations, but there's nothing enjoyable about what we get from Luke and Rey, so why subvert our expectations and not give us something enjoyable?

As for the 'because RJ says so' damn if there isn't a better encapsulation of this movie's sequence of events (it sure as hell ain't a plot), I haven't heard one.

 

I felt more empathy for Needa, to be honest.

 

TFA: Made it cool to be a Star Wars nerd again
TLJ: Made it uncool to be a Star Wars nerd again

 

TFA: Made me more indifferent towards the fanbase
TLJ: Made me more indifferent towards the fanbase.

 

Serious question. I know Rian wanted the theme to be failure and we see failing in spades. But what’s the point of failure? Failure leads to learning? Failure is a part of life?

I am not sure what i am supposed to take away from the point that Luke, Rose, Finn, Holdo, Rey and Leia all fail in various ways.


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So glad more people are talking about this. Ridiculously unrealistic character. Brainwashed stormtrooper from birth to funny guy laughing at killing his lifetime friends in a couple hours. They show him being affected by the death of one of his fellow stormtroopers in the beginning of the movie, which makes sense: he has lived with these people 24/7, since as far back as he can remember.

However, later the same day he is very overjoyed, like as excited as you could possibly be (HUGE GRIN YAYYY), when he's killing them (or they're being killed, by Poe for instance), multiple times throughout the movie. How about showing at little depth, a little remorse. Have him feel regret over this, be conflicted. I guess that would be too interesting for these movies.

 

Luke learns that if you force project yourself for 5 minutes, it undoes ALL of the bad you did the past 5 years.

Rose learns that if you are interested in somebody to not waste time and instead just kiss them.

Finn learns that if you are a black male interested in a white female, don't be surprised when the so called "diversity" toting white male says "not on my watch!"

Holdo learns that if your character is so poorly written, the only way out is suicide

Rey learns absolutely nothing

Leia learns that if the director doesn't like your acting, don't be surprised to end up in a coma. Not to mention learning that Crait was not covered in what you had hoped. I'm told a deleted scene is Leia yelling the Skywalker "NOOOOO!!!!"

Poe learns Rey's name. That is actually a two movie arc where his failure was originally not securing the digits.

But the question every interviewer needs to ask Rian is "So what did you learn from your Star Wars failure?"

 

Yes, as Yoda says, failure is the greatest teacher. I'm fine with that.
I just have a problem with Rey on this point of view. Her failures are all due to other people's weakness: she fails in convincing Luke and then she fails in convincing Kylo. It seems they're afraid to show flaws in her. Even in the moment in which she should be most vulnerable (the scene with the mirrors) she looks quite comfortable.

 

@3sm1r
Rey learns to not count on other people. I wish I was joking.

 

Why should she ? She can already do anything !