ST ST Criticism Discussion Thread

A rule made up of it not being “sporting” or “moral” by the same people who had no problem going around the globe slaughtering millions of people who were on land or resources they wanted.

It’s a war. He’s responsible for killing billions including people she’s close to. But because he’s got the right bloodline and he thought about not killing her for twenty seconds because he wanted her power, she should leave him alive as a strong leader on the vain hope that he’ll turn and somehow be a benevolent dictator. That she and Leia can turn him. Because benevolent dictatorships turn out so well. Because Luke and Han has such success with turning him back. Killing him might turn the First Order into chaos but really the reason he isn’t dead is that it’s movie #2 of 3. That’s all. Just like her not killing him due to the planet cracking in TFA was because it was movie #1.

I can’t quote the second post above because mobile Safari and this site do not play well together but Obi Wan isn’t responsible for Anakin turning, just as Luke trying to kill Kylo isn’t the reason he turned either. Their mistake was leaving an enemy alive. Anakin was turned for a variety of reasons which he should have explained to Luke but apparently all the Force ghosts did was leave a copy of the PT and never helped Luke at all. Kylo made his own decision to go dark and we haven’t got one onscreen reason for it outside of bloodline.

Also, this is movie 8 of the Skywalker saga. The real reason Kylo isn’t dead is that there would be no young Skywalker for movie 9 because we were all sold a bill of goods. This isn’t Rey’s story or Finn’s, it’s Kylo’s. Adam Driver is billed first after the Big 3 (or 2 in TLJ). They’re going to redeem his sorry hide, that killed and destroyed his family and all they did, because it’s fashionable to have a brooding anti hero. They destroyed Luke, Han and Leia for their Emo prince and I hope it comes back to bite them at the box office, just like his merchandise isn’t selling.

 

Btw on a scale of 1-10, how much of a cold-blooded murderer is Rey when she first sees Kylo Ren on Ahch-To (not knowing he's merely a projection) and shoots him with a blaster on the stomach 0.4 seconds after she sees him, only to realize that she just shot the wall of her tiny little hut? Are people going to find an excuse, saying that he wouldn't die from this blaster shot and not only that, but Rey knew that too? Cause he would die. She shot to kill him. She thought she was killing him.

Or is the line of defense going to be that he hadn't shown signs of redemption? Is he more redeemable after killing his Master and proclaiming that he wants to burn EVERYTHING to her?

 

This reiterates something that I already knew. Rey is a token feminine/feminist/female heroine. She has now been subverted to 3 male characters. Kylo, Luke, & Broom boy.

I have always DESPISED Broom boy and now I know why. He is RJ's self-insert into the GFFA. The resemblance is uncanny.

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Leia = KK, Rey = Fans/Audience, Broom Boy = RJ the future of SW!

 

This is an interesting analogy you bring up. However, in Shawshank Redemption Andy doesn't just disappear though. To the warden he disappears just like Rey, like a fart in the wind. But to the audience we follow him through the poster. through the river of ****, to that iconic moment where he's finally free, shedding his prison self, and letting the rain cleanse him. That's his culmination point. But his journey doesn't just end there? Does it? Nope. We see a happier and calmer Andy setting up bank accounts and evidence of the warden's crimes. We even see him send Red a postcard clue telling him where to find him. This is all done that when we do see him next, 40 minutes later, at the final shot of the movie, we know the journey he took to get to that beach.

It's okay for Andy's - or Rey's - journey to end before the the movie, but its not okay for the movie to give up on her. I agree with you that the way it's written the throne room is an vital part of Rey's arc in the movie, but I would argue that that's not the end of her arc. I think closing the door on Kylo on the Falcon is actually the culmination point. That's her 'standing in the river and letting the rain cleanse her' moment. That's where she finally makes a decision based on everything she's learned. That shot of her force tugging the saber is a defining one but not the end.

Just like we saw part of Andy's escape, shouldn't we have seen (not just heard from the bad guys POV) about how Rey escapes her "prison" and became a new person. If this was the end of her arc, shouldn't we now see 'new' Rey? One that is better for it? One that now decides things differently in that moment? A Rey that is now dealing with how her arc ended? Right there in that throne room is where you do it. That's the vital moment right there.

It's one thing for her arc to end during the throne room, it's quite another to just place her off screen because she's no longer important. It's baffling that the next scene we do see her in, she's overjoyed at killing tie-pilots. That's a huge disconnect from screaming and being mad/sad at Kylo. To me this actually leaves her defining moment off screen. We never see how Rey actually leans her final lesson. To me, that jump is just too great to just leave it to the narration of Hux. It commits a cardinal sin, show don't tell. I'd rather see it, than just hear it. They could have easily shown New Rey leave that room, so that we understand why Rey is happier in the next scene. They could have easily shown a more 'wise' Rey, one who won that tug of war, or picked up the pieces and decides to just leave because she's grown now.

 

Seriously?
How are those things even remotely comparable?

On Ahch-To, Rey just woke up to see the villain stand right in front of her, with no idea how he got there. That is a risky situation, as he clearly had to have found to way to appear there. In no way, shape or form is that comparable to murdering an unconscious and unarmed person. From her point of view, you have one situation in which the enemy suddenly found a way to find her and come after her (willingly and most definately conscious), while in the other situation she went to him, and he was neither awake nor capable of harming her in that moment.

On top of that, the Kylo Ren that appears to her is completely different from the Ben she is left with in the throne room. The former had just killed Han, possibly killed Finn and did his best to kill her as well. The latter had just saved her life (which conveniently gets ignored by certain people here) and pleaded with her to leave everything behind. She might not have agreed with him at that point, but there is no reason to assume that she would straight up murder him just like that. Pretending that those to situations are remotely the same makes no sense at all.

And then, there is another very important point to consider. She just saw Luke, the legendary Jedi-Master, wallow in self-pity over having thought for one fleeting moment to kill Ben in his sleep. How could she possibly murder Ben himself, in an almost identical situation?
She himself had said to Luke that there was conflict in Ben and that she saw that he could be saved, and now she is suddenly supposed to ignore all that and murder him while he is unconscious? How is that supposed to fit to her own point of view?

It's one thing to try and beat an enemy in a battle, or when under apparent thread from him, it is something entirely different to murder said person while he is asleep or unconscious. Doing so goes against everything the movies have ever stated. It goes against the nature of the Jedi, it goes against Rey's own pesonality. It's nothing but a trait of the darkside.

 

1) That scene is part of a larger sequence meant to show Luke's daily routine and how it couldn't be further from what Rey expected she'd find. This absolutely pushes the narrative forward as she was expecting to find Jedi Master Luke Skywalker but instead finds this crotchety old hermit.

2) Also part of a larger scene in which Luke encounters Artoo and leads to him agreeing to give Rey three lessons. The porgs are simply used to show that Chewie is distracted which allows Luke to sneak aboard the ship and have this moment with Artoo.

3) Again a part of a larger scene in which Rey takes the initiative to begin training herself in how to handle a lightsaber which is important for her development in the film. It also serves to begin to melt the icy exterior that Luke has on as he's undeniably intrigued by this young woman which starts his own healing process.

All three a part of larger scenes that absolutely move the narrative forward.

 

The fishing scene would have been enough to establish daily routine. The ultra-gross humiliating milking scene was done just to be super-gross. It was the equivalent of a fart or poop joke. A really expensive one to shoot.

I'm no fan of TPM but at least there they only did that with a stupid comedy relief character like Jar Jar. Not with the likes of Qui Gon and Obi Wan.

Taking Luke seriously as a "hero" at the end was even more difficult because of the milking scene. I mean it was cringy for me watching the character after that. Once you take away a character's dignity (and we`re not talking a raunchy comedy here), I have a hard time watching them.

 

The Porg humor worked for me. The rest no. My first impression when watching TLJ was that they were trying to please everyone. Darkness, kid jokes, art house images. It was all over the map. Sometimes that works but when it doesn't it can be messy.

 

yeah I agree the scene was added for the lol and gross factor, and because of that wasn’t necessary. But I don’t think it makes Luke less dignified or less of a hero. People here on earth milk cows and goats, does that make them less dignified?

 

I can see what they were trying for with Rey’s journey and why it’s different but it doesn’t work for me for a few reasons:

-It’s just too fast a transition from seeking my family to being a hero
-she’s just too powerful in the transition, no precedent for this in Star Wars
-her motives are still too muddy I still don’t know why she wants to save the resistance or be a Jedi or save the 3 friends she has known for a week
-her character just seems too inconsistent (I like this!)

Also we keep putting our morals or the saga morals on her which i guess is okay if we want her to be the protagonist but she has grown up alone for 10 years scavenging on a junk yard planet with no rules and much cruelty. We know she has a good heart from saving bb8 but beyond that we don’t know what she does when push comes to shove. TFA showed her as clever, compassionate, resourceful but I see a lot less of that in 8 despite her compassion for Kylo who tried to kill her a week ago and her cleverness in stealing the books and mailing herself from the Falcon


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Yeah I've been critical of TLJ Rey but the fact is she grew up alone and is still very young, even more so due to her isolation during her formative years. But I agree she got her powers too fast in both films.

 

It was unnecessary, and it was the way that they did it. Those breasts were, first of all, too similar to human breasts. Then they had Luke dink the milk like a drunkard, having it dribble all over his beard. It was VERY undignified. Even worse, this wasn’t the only time that they humiliated the character. He was also humiliated in that skirmish, where never-trained Rey beat him and he ended up in the wet mud, again looking undignified. THEN, they had Yoda Luke and “school” him like he was a stupid, young boy who knew nothing.

I hated all of it, but I might have been able to eventually forgive and forget this horrible, disrespectful portrayal IF they would have allowed Luke to live and train Rey and restore the Jedi order. But, no, after all this degradation of Luke, and after making him partly responsible for the fall of Kylo and SIX other students and doing nothing to fix the mess for six years, they killed Luke off, leaving him with no legacy at all. He never even trained Rey.

This disrespect of this iconic, beloved former hero was awful, and it was painful and profoundly disappointing to watch.

 

I think the problem a lot of us have is that Luke already learned these lessons. 30 years ago.

 

Well that was Luuke. Luke is actually in disguise as Captain Phasma the whole time!

 

Exactly! And Luke didn’t need to be diminished and ruined in order to make Rey the new hero. In fact, with TLJ, Rey was diminished along with Luke.

 

I get what Rian is trying to do. Just don't do it to Luke freaking Skywalker. Anyone else.

 

And @anakinfansince1983

People who live off the land, particularly those who live in isolated places, don’t concern themselves with silly social conventions such as appearing “undignified” while drinking some fresh milk. Luke is fully dug into his environment. That’s the main point of those scenes. To show how deeply connected to the land he is, and how difficult it’s going to be for Rey to extract him from it. Yes, there’s a little gross out humor there, but scenes usually serve multiple purposes. And the main purpose here is to show how hard it’s going to be for Rey to pull Luke away from this place, as he’s practically become an inextricable part of it.

It’s also one of the most realistic-looking parts of the film, and I love the sea-cow design. Looks like a creature that would evolve in a place like that. And it reminds me of how my father, who was a farmer that produced goat’s milk, would tease some of our friends and cousins from the city by grossing them out with things that were a daily reality for him and us.

For these reasons, that whole sequence of Luke going about his daily business is actually my favorite part of a film that I have a lot of issues with. In fact, I have difficulty reconciling the tone and style of a lot of the rest of the film with that very naturalistic series of scenes.

 

Yes. Her character arc is thin because her plot arc is super-lazy. She never truly gets challenged, not by the darkside, not by real defeat, not by anything. She bounces back from Kylo`s tale about her parents in seconds onscreen. Nothing truly fazes her. Aquiring super-Jedi powers came totally easy to her. She moves half a mountain like it is nothing to her. This is now a big affirmation for her because she is always super on top of everything anyway.

We know from her backstory in TFA that there were super hardships in her past but now, onscreen, she just hop-skips through her adventures. Her big "defeat" in the movie is her evil boytoy remaining evil.

In the new Jumanji, the video game character the Rock plays amusingly has all strengths and no weakness in the game which still allows the actual overly-scared and mousy high-school kid to have an arc through that. Rey is like that video game character and her actual journey is supposed to be embracing how she is all that and a bag of chips? That is an awful arc to me. A total turn off.

I grew up in basically a farming area and we had livestock when I was little. I don`t know anyone who would get right under the cow, rub the udder with a "yeah baby" skeevy look, slurp it right up and have it dribble all over their face. Because such a person sure would have raised more than eyebrows.

Farmers are not troglodytes. At least not any I`ve ever seen.

 

Googles "troglodytes."

 

This whole " Why Rey didn't kill Kylo" discussion wouldn'brave happened if they just let Kylo defeat her.

 

Hell. I still think originally Rey got life treatening injuries during the guard fight and Kylo gives a lifeless Rey his speech and then takes her away off the burning supremacy. She has no choice and is now in grave danger. This is the reason why it was never even written or concepted that she took Snoke’s ship. Everyone’s arcs end in that throne room. Movie would have ended with her taken by Kylo to safety. And Luke would need to save her, per Yoda’s warning.

I’m like 90% comvinced this is the original plan. Lol