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

The conceit of Star Wars is that it's a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and that there is a narrator telling us a story that happened. It's objective myth.

Clearly the narrator who created the first six episodes was highly detailed in terms of research and ability to tell a story of history. That narrator at some point retired and other people, maybe many others took over. These people who took over are not the historical anthropologist that the first narrator was. These new narrators just want to make a quick buck and so their new research and understanding of the earlier texts is shoddy.

The original narrator gave them an outline of basic events that happened afterwards in episodes VII-IX but rather than continue the research they just take what he gave them rearrange it and then find bits of other things that may or may not be true but they don't spend the time to find out the false narrative from the true one. They spend the rest of the time making things that sound good but don't really make sense.

Sometimes you find a real Sherlock Holmes story from Dr Watson's tin box and sometimes it's just one that somebody said came from his tin box.

When it's Sherlock Holmes vs Quasimodo fighting over Paris in a Nazi zeppelin chances are that isn't a real story from Watson.

So when a projection of coward Luke is fighting Kylo Ren while the Rebels are escaping on the Millennium Falcon seems ludicrous as to be what really happened then it probably is not what really happened.

Hey!

Dissenter's Island. Watch the language!



Seriously though the few brief glimpses of the real Luke that Mark Hamill was able to bring to TLJ really does make you want to cry.

 

Lucasfilm: our trilogy will show fascinating movies with representation, women having great arcs etc
Black Panther's Ryan Coogler: hi

 

T'Challa made Rey look like the high school theater protagonist she really is. Black Panther had real pathos, drama, stakes and character arcs. T'Challa was highly competent and skilled but had flawed beliefs and most importantly he was BEATEN to a bloody pulp and literally killed by the antagonist. We saw his CORE beliefs challenged by the villains' actions and it forced him to change and confront his own motives.

When Black Panther rises from his crucible of fire/snow we see a man changed and ready to defeat his inner and outer demons. You're rooting for him and feel the changed emotions of his character. A shame that Disney is afraid to give Rey any sort of character crucible or arc and just use her as a bland girl power prop whose perfect and never faces adversity.

 

Black Panther had 2h 15m and showed interesting arcs to every character. Sequel Trilogy already made 2 movies (the last one was the longest Star Wars movie) but everything looks "meh"

 

SPOILERS discussed from BP beware.

Obviously the right character to compare Rey to in BP is T’Challa, supposed protagonist vs. protagonist, but the other comparison I kept making in my mind was with General Okoye. This was a female character that wasn’t just a strong warrior. She also had a belief system. She didn’t bend her belief system even for her husband, let alone a stranger that tortured her while attractive.

Suddenly I’m reminded of the Bechdel Test that TLJ supposedly “aced” (lol). BP had a scene where Okoye and Nakia discuss how to move forward after their king has “died” and they debate principle, tactics. They each have strong povs based on their beliefs, and they disagree but clearly respect each other. Why, in two movies, didn’t we see Leia and Rey discuss tactics, or Rey’s path, or motives, with any depth? TFA ends with zero exposition between them and instead inexplicable hugs between strangers. TLJ gives Leia a cliche line basically about how everything will be fine. Ugh TLJ is just so annoyingly shallow and empty.

 

I sympathize and care infinitely more about a genocidal maniac in Killmonger in the hour of screen time he had than two WHOLE movies that try to force me to give a rats ass that Kylo is "pulled by the light." I legit almost shed a tear at his death and yet I felt nothing for Kylo killing his father. It's pathetic and just terrible writing on both JJ and Rian. Shame on them. Imagine if Ryan Coogler had done the same mystery box nonsense of the socalled genius JJ? We'd never learn anything about Killmonger's past/motivations or why he acts the way he does because "mystery box."

 

Black Panther Spoilers:

I got to see BP on Friday, and it was very, very good. In my humble opinion, easily the best of the current Marvel run and on par with The Dark Knight. In terms of comparing it to TLJ, it surpasses it in every regard, although they had somewhat different tasks to complete.

Both needed to resurrect iconic characters in a manner that was respectful to their canon but also making them relevant to a modern audience. BP accomplished this by imagining a visually and thematically rich Pan-African fantasy, and then challenged that fantasy through a charismatic and politically motivated villain. The result is something truly special and I recommend it to everyone, even those who don’t typically enjoy comic book movies. TLJ failed in its task by indulging in lazy subversion of its canon, and trying to support a poorly written story with predictable and bland special effects. The result is mostly forgettable.

Scene after scene in BP is simply gorgeous. There’s one where king T’Challa grapples with a royal challenger on the edge of a waterfall, shouting at him to yield. It brings you to the edge of your seat like you might fall off the waterfall yourself. For all his controlled infatuation with the color red, Rian Johnson could only wish he had thought up some of the scenes in BP where one of T’Challa’s bodyguards leaps from balconies with her red dress billowing like Superman’s cape. Compare that with the Battle of Hoth 2.meh, where clouds of red sand are supposed to disguise the laziest SW rip-off since Star Killer Base.

But the most impressive accomplishment of BP is how Coogler could make a film that was deeply political, in ways both subtle and blatant, and still make it work within the requirements of the genre. Forget superficial slogans about failure, hope, fighting for love and all that nonsense. BP provokes serious questions about racial solidarity, the relationship between the first and third world, the ethics of violence, the possibilities and limitations of Pan-Africanism itself, and much more.

That scene was intense, tragic, philosophical, and cathartic all at once. It worked because both characters had been developed for the audience so that we understand and sympathize with their conflicting views. Why didn’t TLJ have those kinds of excellent scenes while BP did? I think the simple answer is that Bryan Coogler was passionately telling a story about characters and ideas he has been interested in for his whole life. Rian Johnson saw his SW movie as existing on a spectrum between a professional job and a vanity project, a kind of monument to himself. There was little passion in TLJ and even less joy. He wouldn’t know how to make that kind of scene between Leia and Rey because he wasn’t really interested in either character. If he had been interested in telling a story about Leia then she wouldn’t have been in a coma half the movie.

 

But I thought we all hated strong women? Pfft. Consistency people, please!

 

As long as we're talking BP, I enjoyed it VERY much, and will wanna see it way more than TLJ in the coming weeks. The characters, the innovation, the tech, the locales, the settings; it had better world building than TLJ; Crait, for example. You can't have the MF lead TIEs on a merry chase and expect people to go 'oooh, big red crystals.' The Wakandan mine; Shuri's lab, I was just thinking: DAMN, THIS is what Crait could've been; but wasn't. Killmonger and T'Challa were orders of magnitudes better characters than most TLJ characters.

Hell, Wakanda reminded me of a smaller Coruscant without the hovercar traffic.

At this point, I think they're just gearing up to make SW seem like just another hero-ish movie that looks like it should fit alongside SW, but doesn't and never will.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwianIWjrLDZAhWQct8KHTlHAqgQqUMIMzAC&url=https://screenrant.com/star-wars-backlash-episode-9-jj-abrams/&usg=AOvVaw366Fn0GFlO_LwvOc92s0BV

Indeed, conspiracy. Because I've got problems with the film, I'm apparently 'sexist' and my voice will have no say in how the next movie goes; thanks a heap, 'Jar Jar' Abrams, you lost yourself a staunch TFA defender with that thoughtless insult. Where does he get the sheer gall to spout crap like that?

Messages: Dumb, hot-headed Men should shut up and listen to the women, help the animals not the abused children, who needs a teacher when you have books? The past is in the past but we'll use it however we feel, put up or shut up.' But no, these problems are because I'm sexist. It's agonizing what SW is reduced to now.

If Abrams is truly behind TLJ and how it wipes away everything he did and built, then fine, he embarrasses himself if the ST all-around flops.

 

Like you, I was a bit non-plussed when the movie opened with the Rebels/Resistance fleeing their base. I mean, after TFA remaking ANH, I thought "no way, they`re gonna make Empire now". But it didn`t bother me too much at this point, I just found it curious. Then Poe starts his maneuver and at first I thought "kinda clever ploy" but then the humour was drawn out and it really was like a deleted scene from Family Guy Star Wars. I laughed at it but more in a "um...is this the real movie?" way.

Luke throwing the lightsaber over his shoulder was just mega-stupid. That was episode`s 7 emotional and epic cliffhanger. I mean, they went for a helicopter camera shot and everything. And THIS is how you build on it, with a juvenile joke?

I think the milking scene was when I first closed my eyes in horror.

But what was really noticeable to me was how bored I was for large swaths of the movie on both times I watched it.

ANH had some scenes that dragged, first time I watched it the scenes with the droids wandering through the desert up to when they are sold to Owen and Luke are a bit... looooong. Luke`s family dinner farm life could feel this way but they break it with the epic, sweeping binary sunset scene. That tides you over till Luke meets Obi Wan. And from then on, it gets going at a pretty nice pace. TPM definitely had scenes that dragged. So did AOTC. IMO ESB, ROTJ (maybe some Ewok-ness) and ROTS, not so much. They are all pretty fast-paced. I also didn`t get bored through TFA, a bit through Rogue One but that final act gave me geek-gasms.

But TLJ, the entire chase plot? I think it did make for a thrilling 40 minute episode of Battlestar but over a 2 1/2 hour movie where he cut back to it every now and then, I was really bored. Then the Canto Bight stuff that connected to it was even more boring. Every second of that casino scene was tedious IMO because the casino was so Earth-like, just with some aliens. Star Wars is one of the few Sci-Fi franchises that don`t have Earth in it, don`t reference it and nothing and usually the planets and places we visit seem alien enough. But that casino was worse than Dexter`s diner and the sports bar in AOTC combined. At least those still gave me an alien vibe.

That leaves us with the Luke, Kylo, Rey stuff. And the Luke stuff was a catatrophe. THe force-skype really were the only scenes I could at least semi-enjoy, even though I questioned their purpose beyond shipping the couple.

Then we have scenes with dialogue lifted from my favourite scene in ROTJ where I`m like "be gone, unclean thing" at the movie. And of course the final act on Crait. Where for five seconds I think the movie might get going before the credits roll. But then nothing really happens, Luke doesn`t do anything actually impressive and then he dies. We got a tacked-on epilogue meant to convince us that Luke did something impressive. Dudes, I watched the scene not five minutes again and I don`t forget that fast. He didn`t so you can`t retcon your movie that quickly.

I recently re-organized my Star Wars blurays and now the Saga (all versions) plus Rogue One are on one shelf. TFA (and TLJ when I get it) are on a lower, separate shelf. This is how the movie-verse is for me now. I`ll take from Disney what I think is worth it (possibly just anthology movies before the OT, with their going rate) and the rest is classified as "Disney-fiction". If Lucas did this to the Saga, I would have a harder time because he is the creator and if he wants to smash his creations into smithereens, I couldn`t as easily dissociate but Disney? No problem, I just feel badly for people who can`t and for whom the OT is completely ruined now.

I`m also sad I won`t get a trilogy of trilogies that brings the Saga to an epic Finale as Disney promised. But no way, Jose, not like this. What I do feel bad about is that new people might see the OT characters in that new negative light now if they are first or only introduced to them as losers. Their story and they as characters held on for 40 years as heroes and that`s not what they deserved. I honestly don`t think the new characters will hold on for even a fraction of that time, especially not with the next and the next and the next movie right after it so if they get trashed down the line, it`s no big deal really.

And I`m still completely befuddled. I mean, I watched ROTJ and it wrapped everything up in a neat little bow with its happy ending. People would naturally imagine a "and they lived happily ever after", just in a Star Wars-y way where they continued to fight and have adventures etc. So when I picked up my first novel, which was the Thrawn trilogy, that book could have easily made me go "wow, what crap, that`s not what I imagined at all, that ruins my perfect ending". Instead I read it and felt "cool, I can totally see something like that happen, that fits very well with the movies". And the novels continued (with exceptions) in that vein.

So why could about twenty different novel authors in the 90s/early 2000s come up with stories that I felt fit pretty seamlessly in the Star Wars universe and yet Lucasfilm can not?

In that vein, it doesn`t surprise me to hear praise about PB right now. Kevin Feige knows what he is doing. He knows to hire the right people and has enough of a creative vision and enough oversight over the univese. You would not get a blandly perfect protagonist with no struggles and no real agency in those movies.

 

Alliyah I agree with everything you said. Felt almost exactly the same way in the movie and now great write up


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@Alliyah Skywalker

Right? The only thing TLJ did for me was give me a handful of scenes and music that I truly liked and make me go back to see what all the Legends EU had to offer, and I just think WHY, WHY, WHY couldn't they have gone the HP/Hobbit route? (Sidenote: Why is the Hobbit getting crap, anyway? I've always been a CGI visual effects guy, and they definitely hit all the right cues in making it an exotic place, which is FAR, FAR more than what TLJ has dished out.; Peter Jackson definitely knows how to take an old story and make the most of modern day movie magic, can ST say the same?.)

Of course, the directors will say I'm just nitpicking or being overly emotional, or some such nonsense...

 

I really wanna see Black Panther, but

Spoiler

I'm irritated that they killed Klaw and Killmonger. Black Panther has like 3 good villains and they killed two of them.

 

If the trailers aren't appealing, wait till Red Box, then decided if it's worth buying now, or waiting until the bargain bin. Sure I'll get TLJ when it comes out on Amazon, but just like ALL of my Rebels cartoons, I have yet to bother cracking the shrink wrap and actually watching -- not because I am expecting them to be collectors items, but because I have sooooo many better ways to waste my time. And that includes mowing the lawn.

 

I have no plans to get TLJ on disc. I've watched it at least a dozen times, each time just making sure I wasn't being irrational in thinking it was bad, holding out hope that it would actually grow on me, and it just got worse and worse. So I don't want to watch it any more, and I'll try to pretend like it doesn't even exist.

Came across this today, and wow, really hits ya how much of this stuff was lifted directly from ROTJ. I really can't believe that they couldn't come up with unique stuff. It's crazy how much is straight up copied from the OT:
[Removed]

 

Well, TLJ is Return of the Jedi in reverse, so this is unsurprising to me. And since ROTJ is my favorite Star Wars film, you'd think I'd like TLJ more for that reason- but instead, it only further highlights missed opportunities. For example: Rose should have been a Twi'Lek, and Ackbar should have been at the helm for the light speed takedown, Luke should have used his green lightsaber at the end...etc...etc...

 

Honestly I'm not even sure why Luke even bothered with a saber. He didn't even use it. He just did some ridiculously stupid looking CG flips, and a matrix dodge. So far the only explanation is "it pissed off Kylo, and Kylo is a dumb dumb so it wasn't obvious to him that the lightsaber should have been broken."

Congrats I guess? I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take that. It's weird that a thing exists only to point out how irrational and stupid the villain is when you just spent the entire film trying to make him sympathetic and interesting.

 

Just saw Black Panther. Now I'm more disgusted with TLJ than I was.

 

I"ll be seeing this movie with friends next week. Wow. Really looking forward to this!!!

 

Okoye and Nakia went clear to Sophocles' Antigone and Creon, and Okoye knowingly took on the odious moral hazard of backing the wrong horse for correct reasons. Where. The. Blank. was anything like this in TLJ. Gah

 

Black Panther that good, eh?

Mods, do we have that social thread open to discuss other recent films we've seen?

 

Well because he didn't wanna give himself away as just being a distraction I think. Keeping Kylo tensed up and focused on thinking he's in a lightsaber fight, notice how he just puts it away when the time is right. I gotta be honest, I don't really know why he used the blue one though, I have a feeling there's some kind of symbolic reasoning I'm just not seeing at the moment.

 

I heard that the reason he used the blue one was both because he came to detest his green one (since he nearly murdered a sleeping kid with it) and also to anger Kylo because Kylo believes that blue one should belong to him. Not sure if these explanations were confirmed by Rian Johnson, though, or if they're just fan-made explanations.