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

Sorry but for me the milking scene was demeaning for Luke. Not because I take issue with farm work but the execution of it was gratuitous and over the top to make Luke look bad.

 

There's other creepy scene. Rose Tico and Finn in the Extended Fathier Chase

 

You are always welcomed to come here, but do know that this is a Sanctuary for literally all criticism, not just your personal ones. If you want to defend something in the movie that has been highly criticized, you should know that it will be met with an army of critics who did not like that scene.

That is not to say you can’t have discussion or disagreements here. I have disagreed with many posters here in the past and we’ve had out discussions, and still quite often people post opinions I don’t agree with, but I don’t expect the parts I disagree with the majority here or even the parts I appreciated from the movie to be met with support.

Either way, please don’t feel uncomfortable for coming here and I personally hope to see you more often, and I’m sure we would love you if you went on rant on everything you dislike about TLJ.


But as a more elaborated opinion on RJ’s worldbuilding and the Scene in Question:

I love SW worldbuilding.

That said, TLJ is not SW-like worldbuilding. It’s constantly made fun of or depicted as disgusting. I never felt disgusted at anything in Star Wars that was portrayed as natural environment/living of the universe. I was disgusted at Jabba for instance, but there was a clear intent from the filmmakers to make me feel that way. On the other hand, I was not grossed out by Jar Jar, or by Rey’s style of living, or Luke’s style of living, or Anakin’s style of living, or any of the creatures shown in Cantina and Cantina 2.0. Or even Dexter’s diner. There are elements of weird, bizarre, funny and grotesque in those scenes, but they were all framed from naturalistic lens and made to feel natural and part of the universe.

Which is not exactly what happened in TLJ, and in other instances of worldbuilding, where aliens get reduced to most pitiful portrayals of “lol that looks disgusting” for the laughs. That sort of takes me out of the universe and makes me realize I am watching something made from someone with a very childish sense of humor, who views the galaxy as some sort of joke.

And this is coming from someone who when I was a teenager I dreamed of having my room decorated by H.R. Giger, and even as an adult I foolishly searched through the streets of Osaka led by a rumor that there was H.R. Giger/Aliens-style bar (only to find out it had been closed long ago). I do love the “beautiful grotesque”, but there is a fine line between grotesque and disgusting, and it all boils down to intentions.

Using the Alien example, the xenomorph design is the ultimate example of where beautiful meets the grotesque in a symbiotic, perfect relationship. On its own the design is not necessarily disgusting, but there is also something really alien and unsettling about it as there is and artistic beauty in the carved and polished way every detail is designed and combines together, like I want to pause the movie to admire all its details. The alien becomes disgusting when it interacts with humans, as it’s intended from the filmmakers. The facehuggers and the little alien baby ripping through the chests is meant to make us feel uncomfortable and violated, persecuted, threatened. It’s an unnatural and unhealthy relationship.

I’m not saying the milking scene in TLJ feels like that, but the way it was filmed, as well as the thala-siren design, feels entirely disgusting and there is nothing “beautiful meets the grotesque” like there is in Alien. As I said, there is a fine like between the two, and it all boils down to intentions. Rian Johnson can say all he wants in the documentary, but when he crafts a movie with a scene that looks like that, I don’t see any “beauty” in it.


Let’s do an exercise: replace the thala-siren with a fathier and film Luke milking it into a bucket filmed from an objective/naturalistic/documentary style pov, I guarantee it wouldn’t come across as nearly disgusting or inspiring anyone to make sexual jokes like this.

It would feel alien (as in something that happens in a galaxy far, far away) but also familiar (like Star Wars always feels somewhat familiar to us), in a way that it doesn’t come across as mocking or degrading to either Luke, the animal or the job/living style in question. It could be seen as unsettling or a bit disappointing, but there is no need for the added "disgust" and "humor" to convey the things RJ wanted to convey narrative-wise.

 

...

I'm over and done.

 

Great post. And on a general level, I fully agree that most of TLJ’s world-building does not come across as naturalistic (though I find the fathiers to feel more forced into the narrative than the thala-siren, due to the heavy-handed use of them to make a point about greed and cruelty). It’s just that the scene in question, for me, is the most successful example of world-building in a film that lacks in that department. Rogue One, and it seems Solo, are far richer in that department. The simple reason for that may simply have to do with how real it looks, and how great of a design the thala-siren is. It just makes total sense that such a creature would be native to that environment.

Your post is a welcome contrast from the snideness, dismissiveness and selective listening that have come from some other quarters of the fandom.

 

I’m not sure how using an animal’s breasts for milking and drinking can be seen as problematic for the idea that mammals breasts are for a purpose.
Luke literally used the mammal’s milk for its purpose, sustenance.
That it also undercut Rey’s preconceptions about her hero doesn’t make it “objectification”

(Not debating whether the scene was good or not, but come on, you can’t claim objectification of breasts when they’re literally being used for sustenance)

 

Wait wait wait, is that real?

 

Of course not

 

OH MY....I totally blocked this from my memory. Now, I'm fully remembering it....ughhhhh... God...what else has my immune system blocked from this movie to protect my mind?

 

While I disagree entirely about RJ having a deep understanding about the philosophies of the saga, none of your points adressed the argument that a popular takeaway from TLJ is memes of Luke as basically a disgusting, creepy loser. Just as the final perception of Leia are the "Leia Poppins" jokes.

Both of those reduce the characters in their entirety to jokes. And this goes beyond "never meet your heroes" or humanizing mythological heroes. Because that still posits some sense of balance, where they still ARE larger than life heroes but also human.

But if Luke Skywalker is now "immortalized" as "gross milking guy", it leaves exactly one dimension to the character: being a joke.

Yoda introduced himself as some kooky little swamp creature but later dropped the act and showed himself to be a powerful Jedi Master. The reason why the character left a favourable impression as the latter and people weren`t just dismissing him as the "funny little creature from the swamp" was IMO because a) the scenes of him as a Jedi Master far overpowered the little act in the beginning and, probably even more importantly b) he did nothing that was SO grossly over-the-top at first that audience never came back from it.

With Luke we got the lightsaber toss, then the gross milking scene, all this whining and top it all off Rey knocking him down and standing victoriously over him with a lightsaber while he caved. After that Yoda had to school him again like a kid.

In serious matters, we learned that he had stupidly driven his nephew to his "embrace the dark side" moment. That`s also incredibly negative.

What did we get to off-set all of this? His little projection moment at the end and a non-fight with Kylo that wasn`t really all that and a bag of chips.

Then he died.

No wonder that the gross "got milk" scene overpowered everything to the point of becoming the meme for him after the movie.

If I had hated the character in the OT, TLJ would have been a fantastic movie for him because I would love to see a character I hated trashed so much. Do the same movie with Rey in 15 years and I`m buying the first ticket.

 

I don't see how an OT fan can like this film just off Luke's portrayal alone. Star wars shouldn't have to have it's hero be a failure. That's why the old eu was successful.

Luke had a legacy. Han and Leia had a legacy. Lando, the new republic had a legacy.

Good vs evil. It was black and white yet complicated. No one sided with the Empire, no one thought Vader was conflicted, it was a surprise when he saved Luke.

No of this carried over to the ST

 

The ST is packed full of non-world building the likes of which we've never seen. One of problems with the scene isn't that this is what Luke does it's that the scene is really Luke looking past the fourth wall. The scene isn't really for Rey but for the audience. Why Rey would react the way she did to Luke is odd as it's not like she was getting home delivery.

Luke didn't know Yoda was the Jedi Master but Yoda knew Luke was coming so he put on a performance. TFA ended with it seeming that Luke knew Rey was coming. He was in his Jedi robes waiting for her. Because JJ and RJ couldn't get together on Luke RJ had to do a reset. He quickly had Luke changes clothes then went into the routine. This was done to emphasize that this was what Luke did and not a "performance" as such except that it was. Now instead of a hermit turning out to be a Jedi the Jedi wants to convince someone they are hermit.

The mystic Force island that Rey dreams of that has the first Jedi temple, the ancient books etc.

Mostly but it's just far too aware of itself meanwhile all the other supporting details that we are used to get left out.

That TLJ entirely dropped the ball on the map and made the entire story thread in TFA a dead end is just one of many.

 

I had a lot of issues with TLJ. Quite a few. But as a lover of Arthurian myth, I greatly appreciated the “Fisher King Luke” storyline. It places him in the context of a long and ancient mythic tradition, and an essential story about aging, moral obligation and legacy. Perhaps as an older fan, who is indeed aging and losing a little youthful fire (after a life spent working for a few difficult causes), I can better relate to this version of Luke than some of the younger fans? I don’t know. I quite enjoy this old Celtic myth being reimagined in the GFFA, and applaud RJ for going for it.

 

I love Arthurian myth. Pretty much anything BUT the Fisher King story. Can`t stand this one, it never moved me.

It`s a super turn-off for me. And putting one of my most favourite fictional characters in it - and thus, to me destroying him - killed this movie dead in its tracks. The movie seriously made me wish Luke had not made it off the Death Star in ROTJ. Then he could have gotten out on a high note.

 

Also apparently the milking scene NEEDED to stay in, but Luke mourning Han (his best friend and brother-in-law for DECADES), NAH. We don't need that, lets just cut away from it and never have Luke properly grieve Han because it's not like people would actually be emotionally invested in that or anything (sarcasm).

The priorities of this film are baffling.

The problem with the "Arthurian" thing is that they had to twist the characters into pretzels to make that fit, and in the process basically torch everything that the OT stood for and everything that they accomplished.

Basically make them sad, pathetic, old people who accomplished nothing in the end.

 

Maybe that's how Luke grieves? By drinking milk from docile seamonsters?

 

Relax. It’s not in the movie...

Luke saying “Where’s Han?” with so much deep emotion in his face (brilliant acting from Hamill here) is 1000% more powerful than an extended scene of him mourning. There was a subtlety to how this was handled that I found to be the best thing about the film (vs the heavy-handedness of parts of the Finn/ Rose Poe/ Holdo storylines). They didn’t milk it (no pun intended), and it worked. In that context, the deleted scene is not only redundant, IMO, it diminishes the previous scene.

The sea cow scene was a really effective one in showing, rather than telling, just how native Luke had gone, while also fleshing out the world of Ahch-to (more successfully than the porgs and Caretakers, who I found were far more cartoonish and only played for laughs). So I think it’s far more worthy of staying in the cut than the extra mourning bit.

The Rey hologram scene with Finn and BB-8, however, needed to stay. That was important for that storyline, IMO.

 

We're on the same page there, Bor. I just turned 40, so I'm getting up there I guess. lol. Since TFA, I was thinking this was going to be a Arthurian GFFA legend story. I was thinking that Luke was going to be a Merlin-type, projector of the old knowledge, the very reason why he's on that island was perhaps to safe-guard that knowledge in some way from getting into the hands of the enemy, who's looking for the next Jedi or a new just King to come along. Luke is the redeemer of the former generation, the one who learned the lessons of the past, and is the perfect candidate to judge and decide who get's to carry on with those lessons into the future. I think a Fisher King type also works well too. I was hoping were might be some prized Holy Grail (the saber, I suppose, or maybe some other important relic that we hadn't seen yet) would be part of the story or even get a slay-the-dragon fight. (Man, remember when Luke had to battle daunting beasts in each OT movie as tests. I miss that lol)

Again, it's all execution. I think to a certain degree RJ wanted to tell that serious mythic story, and in some cases did, but then kept plugging in weird, loud, slapsticky humor that hindered the tone, the past, the editing, left people feeling disconnected to the characters they loved, some of whom were radically changed from how they appeared in former episodes, some of whom now just felt like punching bags for the story, and altogether muddied the tale.

 

I think the milking scene is not world building at all, it reminds me much more of adult swim humor, but if you take away the human looking breasts (those were not a depiction of udders) I could at least appreciate the look of the beast. But since you’re on the subject of world building in this movie, I think the cut party scene was the best world building scene in this movie. For me it’s the only scene in the entire movie that feels like a SW word building scene, and it’s happy and charming on top of it with Chewie and R2 mixing with the locals. Since this is Sanctuary, it annoys me to no end that RJ cut the only (for me) good world building in the movie, because who needs that anyway?

 

I’m with you 100%. Had RJ stuck with a more consistent tone, and not tried too hard to work silly Star Wars slapstick into the film, it would have been more successful, IMO. As it stands, the tonal inconsistency of the film is one of its biggest flaws, from my perspective.

 

Oh yeah, Rey was disgusted too. I'd forgotten like I tend to forget most things about this complex, extraordinary character for some reason.

Anyway, speaking of the importance of sources of sustenance and internal consistency and worldbuilding, should a wild desert flower like Rey even be disgusted by something like milking? Can people like her afford to be decorous about food and most importantly drink? Shouldn't she be like Mad Max?

 

Luke looked like a complete slob in that scene.

Who on earth would actually want to see Luke portrayed like that? And what on earth were RJ and KK thinking in imaging anyone would want to see Luke like that?

 

That would have been a good story.

I`m over 40, too, so no spring chicken but if TLJ!Luke was a valid take on "aging", then shoot me now. I only half-kid but I found it to be a horrible message. Heroes don`t necessarily turn to complete losers who leave nothing behind to show as their life`s work just because they get older. If Rey is supposed to be the audience surrogate, what does she tell us? Throw old people in the mud, they have nothing to offer anyway?

I also think it is unflattering for millenials because obiously all of them are smug, never suffer consequences for their mistakes and get handed everything without having earned it. Or at best those are the stories all of them want told.