ST TLJ-The critical flaw the critics won't talk discuss

Disclaimer, the contents of the post below are all my opinion only. Anything that sounds like it comes off as me stating indisputable fact is usually me stating a strong opinion or thoery only (though I'd be my life that many of those theories are likely correct).

A bit of background. I love Star Wars. The Making of Star Wars, ESB and Jedi by J.W. Rinzler all sit proudly on my shelf and I find it fascinating and insightful to read into the thought process, script meetings, contract negotiations and daily production that defined these films. It gives me a deep appreciation for how much thought and care went into the development of the stories and character arcs in these films and while not all of it is perfect everything was given consideration and accommodated in the best way they thought they could realistically manage balanced against things like clashes in personality, budget and the demands of their personal lives and inclinations. I like and even love some parts of the prequels. I've listened to the director's commentaries and eventually concluded that they really only have two major problems which if they had been addressed would have easily put them close to the original trilogy 1) dialogue (95%) 2) misjudged comedy (5%). I have no problems with their underlying stories or the actors involved (because bad dialogue can make even terrific actors look bad and average actors look terrible). I also came to love to love Rogue One and appreciate it even more on each viewing (I find Jyn, Cassian and Baze's arcs genuinely moving). I looked darkly on a lot of the completely unnecessary set piece stealing going on in TFA and have come to despise the film more and more with each subsequent viewing with it's only redeeming feature being some of the characters who seemed like they might have intriguing arcs later (which as of TLJ I don't think they do).

I've been reading up on opinions on the film ever since it came out and I notice that major publications like Digital Spy, Gizmodo, Forbes (except contributor Rob Cain) are shilling REALLY hard for this movie in the face of significant audience backlash. They keep creating citing various arguments and theories from supposedly immature or extreme fans in an attempt to marginalize the influence of those who didn't like or outright loathed the film. (i.e. fans are just afraid of change, didn't go the way certain fans wanted, ESB was widely derided too, it's just the alt-right and other such crap) all of which is highly debatable but various disney sock puppets seem to be pushing as absolute fact.

If there's one thing that utterly convinces me that those articles are paid off or otherwise delusional Disney shills, it's this. There is one criticism about the film they don't seem willing to address and it is my belief that they won't do it because they basically know they don't have any defense for it. This criticism is to me the primary reason why many people turned their backs on the film. While the film is full of glaringly obvious faults right from a first viewing I'd be willing to be that most of those would be forgiven or at least put up with had this particular weak spot been addressed and they know it (but aren't in a position to admit it).

The development of Luke Skywalker.

As many people have pointed out, he goes from Jedi who redeemed one of the most fearsome and powerful beings in the galaxy through his faith in some spark of goodness in him to a terrified teacher who was willing to consider killing children in their sleep who hadn't actually DONE anything terrible yet. Mistake No. 1.

Then ran off to hide after that completely abandoning everyone he loved and cared about to the tender mercies of the First Order rather than being determined to do the right thing. Mistake No. 2.

Let me very clear to any critic or defender of the film who happens to be reading this. I would be Ok with BOTH those things IF the writing and directing has sold me on the emotional credibility of those things happening.

It did not. And what angers me is the fact they didn't really bother save for a bit of token flashback more suited to a 30-min cartoon episode that only served to layout what happened but not the emotional why. A couple of lines of dialogue doesn't cut it. The answer to an emotional question must BE emotional if you want it to have any emotional weight or credibility. The fact that they didn't understand or couldn't be bothered with this I find tremendously disrespectful to the franchise, good film making in general and insulting to the audience, particularly those with emotional investment in the film's characters and their respective arcs.

Luke's major character flip is arguably what sets most of the character arc of Kylo Ren in motion. You can't just write that off in a ham-fisted emotionally empty flashback. This event is too critical from a plot perspective but even more importantly from an emotional arc one. The sequel trilogy is very much Kylo Ren's story at least as much as Rey's. In contrast, the original trilogy is Luke's story, not Vader's. Vader's fall doesn't need to explored to the same emotional depth because it's not needed for the emotional momentum of Luke's journey. We're learning about Vader at the same time Luke is which allows the audience to emotionally move at the same pace that Luke is. We see the same thing Luke is seeing and experiencing at the same time (save for a moment or two where the focus is on Vader reacting to Luke's actions).

Regarding Mistake No. 1
I have seen two primary defenses for Luke's major character regression:
1. He's done it before when he tried to kill Vader in RotJ

His friends and his whole world are dying right now outside the window and he's clearly losing the battle for his father's soul. When they threaten to take even his sister's soul away from him that's finally the straw that breaks the camel's back. There's a build up to that moment and Luke is clearly fighting it every step of the way as he tries to hold off from fighting over and over again. The scene and the character moment work because we took the time and care to push an otherwise good character to the edge of an emotional cliff. The TLJ flashback is a couple of lines of dialogue and suddenly a lightsaber over a kid's head from someone whom we know forcibly resists the urge to do the wrong thing even in the face of his whole world burning RIGHT NOW just outside. In this sense TLJ is really, really lazy. Emotional credibility for this major defining moment in Luke/Kylo's life is ZERO and everything that follows from it becomes hollow and forced because the root of it wasn't believable. The fact that Rey (a nobody character from no where) basically has to show up and hold him accountable for it only lends more fuel to the Mary Sue arguments that are going around (which I don't want to endorse but the evidence isn't leaving me much choice).

2. People change over 30 years

When that change is critical to the plot and more importantly to the emotional credibility of the character arcs that are the PRIMARY FOCUS of the story you'd better be prepared to get the audience there emotionally. TLJ isn't interested. They said, wouldn't it be cool if Luke tried to kill Ben? We could turn Luke into kind of an anti-hero! They worked out where they wanted to be at the end but weren't interested in making a credible emotional argument about how we got there which sabotages the whole thing. Lazy or incompetent. Take your pick but neither is acceptable.

It should be noted here that most critics likely aren't diehard Star Wars fans. They probably haven't seen the movies in years (if ever in some cases) and are going off wikipedia summaries about what the last film was about. To them, Luke is just a character. TLJ could start him off as an insane axe-murderer and they wouldn't care so long as the rest of the film works from that starting point. Fans are different. We know these characters a lot better as well as their likely actions and intentions. Unlike critics, our impressions of these characters persists fairly clearly from film-to-film thus lapses or changes to characters in-between them jump out at us a lot more though I have yet to see a critic insightful (or honest) enough to realize this and admit it.

Regarding Mistake No. 2
2. Yoda and Ben ran away too

This defense is an exercise in poor memory at best or self-deception at worst. Lie to yourself but don't lie to others when you make an argument. The moment they learned about order 66 they IMMEDIATELY took action to try and kill Vader and the Emperor and warn other Jedi away from returning to the temple. Vader looks dead by the end of it and Yoda realizes he can't match the emperor. They then take pains to save the children and Yoda says "Until the time is right, disappear we will." They come to the conclusion that there's nothing more they can do at this moment despite having given it their best shot, but they will act when the opportunity arises. Whether you think they should've done something else is a separate matter but the point is worth repeating. They did not give up.
Luke by his own admission in TLJ "came here to die".

Do these look like the same thing to you?

I have nothing but ABSOLUTE UTTER HATRED for any entity that attempts to reduce people's ability to perform objective analysis and think critically. I view it as a crime against humanity because it's essentially an attempt to make people stupid for your own ends (which in Disney's case is profit). And that garbage spreads. When you teach someone to ignore facts you're doing them a major disservice because they will carry that attitude into life and into other things they analyze. Over the long term, that's how you create sheep who don't know what's up or down anymore except for what they're told. Now you can feed them anything you like, attach a few buzzwords to it (It's edgy! Risky! Different! Unexpected!) and tell them they're supposed to like it and they'll believe you because they'll start equating buzzwords with "therefore it must be good and I should like it". You remove people's ability to analyze anything beyond what you've told them to like (or ignore). If they want me like something, they should make a good argument about why, both emotionally and logically not drown it in buzzwords and hope I don't think about it too much. Broadly speaking, the intelligence of the audience should challenge the filmmaker who should in turn challenge the audience in a way that respects the fact that the audience is intelligent. That leads to good filmmaking and good films. Sabotaging their intelligence leads crap filmmaking.

Disney is pushing the "let's make sheep" angle right now which makes me sick. The fact that they are applying it to a property that I have a deep respect for makes me completely furious.

Basically, they don't want people to analyze this film and particularly it's most glaring flaw. They can't afford it. A lot of money is being left on the table by TLJ right now and future profits are at stake. Shareholders like profit but they will still fire you if they think you unnecessarily left too much money on the table and if the China box office is anything to go by, certain execs are likely in huge trouble for failing to break into such a major market.

If securing more profit means turning people into sheep and marginalizing legitimate criticism then so be it as far as Disney is concerned. They'll pay off every critic and buy as many follow-up articles they think they need to to try and "stupidify" the public and turn them around because no (public) blockbuster movie company wants bad audience reviews. At best you can ignore them but they are NEVER actively sought. Word-of-mouth is box office business and bad of word-of-mouth equals less business. So TLJ's major story flaws? Sweep them under the table and tell every critic we pay to swear there's no elephant in the room.

I'm happy to reconsider this argument if someone can find me a critic or article that has the courage, honesty and objectivity to address the two major story mistakes I've pointed out above (rather than trying to blame the alt-right, fanboys or other such insulting nonsense). Until then my statement is thus:

Don't let Disney or it's paid shills turn you into fools. Demand quality moviemaking from your films. If they won't do it, let them know that. Otherwise, be prepared to be served lazy, poorly thought-out garbage on a regular basis with the name "Star Wars" attached to it.

minor note: I also notice that articles commenting on the disparity of the critical vs. audience scores are willing to blame various iterations of fandom/extremists as being responsible, but not ONE that I have seen dares to even breathe the idea that a lot of critics might be risking their meal tickets by angering Disney.

That speaks volumes about how much you should trust them.

 

Oh Gawd. Somebody wanted to create a complaint thread about how Disney pays off critics.

 

No. Somebody wanted to create a thread about a key and commonly cited flaw (by fans) which critics don't seem to be interested in addressing in their defense of the film. But hey, I covered marginalization of criticism in the post so congrats. You were featured!

 

Might want to take this over here:
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...ussion-thread.50047246/page-108#post-54806549

 

IN B4 THE LOCK !

HI MOM !

 

There is a thread for this: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-island-a-luke-in-tlj-teeth-gnashers-perspective.50048016/

Locking.