ST ST Criticism Discussion Thread

I thought he was pretty good.
Imposing with the mask on (with the change of voice of course), and some nuance without the mask... I buy that he is really an insecure young adult playing make-believe to a horrifying degree. I'm curious about where the character will go.

 

He's thirty. That's past young adult...

 

Lol, well I wanted to say "child" metaphorically but thought that was going too far.
He's essentially a scared kid in a mask, with the dark side added to the mix. Like Rey says "You're afraid".

But you are right.

 

I agree. For me that`s past the age where I give leeway for "finding yourself" and being a young adult and expect people to get a grip on. Anakin in Clones was 19 so him being somewhat whiny, I`m judging a whole lot less than a 30year old Kylo screaming and trashing walls. I know there is this joke about the Skywalker males being whiny but Anakin and Luke both at 23 showed honestly more decorum than Kylo.

There is this tendency in our society now to baby people far beyond the age where it`s IMO good for them. I don`t like it in fiction either.

 

Kylo isn’t a metaphorical child to me. He’s an adult, full stop. There’s nothing ambiguous about it. A grown ass man acting like a small child isn’t a metaphorical child or like a child or youthful or sympathetic. He’s just a grown ass man that’s kind of pathetic. I hold children to account more than this fictional character is seen as responsible for his behavior. You can’t expect kids to grow up with a sense of responsibility if we coddle them while they think they shouldn’t have any.

 

I think JJ will make him accountable for his actions, regardless of if he is at all redeemed. I doubt they will completely drop the ball by glossing over it like RJ did in TLJ.

 

Famous last words.

 

Is it me, or is The Last Jedi just genuinely unpleasant to sit through?

What I mean is that, for comparison, Revenge of the Sith is an extremely sad film, especially the 2nd half. However, the music, the visuals, the characters and their interactions with each other, make it an amazing and unforgettable experience. I find myself going back to Revenge of the Sith more than any other film, because of how beautiful it is, and while extremely sad, has a strong sense of hope, staying strong, as well as the feel of Star Wars itself.

I don't get any of that from The Last Jedi. The music, the characters and their interactions with each other, the visuals, do nothing to help with any of the Star Wars experience, besides a select few songs. Even taking away the horrid characters and plot, the film has a sense of dread, but not like Revenge of the Sith. The Last Jedi is so in your face doom and gloom, that that itself actively discourages me from watching it.

Each trilogy has a sad movie, but they're all handled differently.

Revenge of the Sith was a sort of "romantic" type of film, watching this civilized society crumbling into a brutal and evil dictatorship, and watching the guardians of peace, as well as Anakin fall. It fits perfectly with the Prequels and Star Wars overall.

The Empire Strikes Back was much more focused on personal events and characters, and the sadness came from the suffering of the individual characters, which was similar to Revenge, though the Prequel film was more focused on the galaxy as a whole. As far as the feeling of Star Wars, if Star Wars '77 established the feel, Empire cemented it.

The Last Jedi feels like Teen Angst: The Movie. Kylo is a psychotic 15 year old in a 30 year old body, everything is over the top and doom and gloom, and everything and everybody act all super depressed 24/7.

 

I like JJ but he is not the guy you go to for complexity. I foresee more storytelling like "Kirk is dead - just kidding, here is magical tribble blood" for the conclusion of episode 9. It was certainly well-meant in wanting to give the audience a happy, hopeful ending, there was just too much "aww honey, no, not like this" clumsiness to it. And that was not remotely being faced with the divisiveness he is now.

 

Perhaps, but he does have a co-writer and is known to be open to advice from collaborators.
I don't think they could ignore the source material on the scale of Ep8 if they tried. Even just the natural progression of any narrative has to follow on from the established saga somewhat, and they have said they are specifically aiming for this as well. I'm eager to see what they have planned.

 

Agreed, and I disagree with the commonly held idea that something is more "adult" because of it being in your face depressing. Imo Attack of the Clones is much more mature and "adult", and dealing with more adult themes than The Last Jedi ever did, and while AOTC was sort of a dark film, TLJ was much darker.

In my opinion, maturity is a perfect mix of optimism, cynicism, and realism.

 

A co-writer who has hits but also some big misses.

Now I fully believe that they intend to do all this "satisfying end" and "tying everything together". But intent and execution can be lightyears apart. RJ most certainly didn`t intent to make Luke Skywalker into a reprehensible coward who died after a lame projection show that didn`t accomplish much and yet here we are.

I do actually predict the narrative to basically hit all the main beats one would expect. Trouble is if someone doesn`t want to see those beats hit. The only serious question mark hangs over Kylo Ren`s redemption. In which case, if one`s happy end is that character`s gruesome, unmourned death, you might be out of luck.

Personally, I`d just as well have them ignore the existing Saga of episodes 1-6 as much as possible. Finish off the ST with whatever but at least leave the limp and beaten body of the previous films alone. Haven`t they suffered enough?

 

I feel like one of the major things going against it, is mostly how it seems to go out of its way to avoid the fantastical and mythic portions of Star Wars, in spite of the fact that this is the first major movie in the new series to really try and hone in on the Jedi and look at them closely. Jedi is even part of the title again. And yet, somehow in spite of that, what we get in the 2 and a half hours that this movie devotes to its premise, is a great heaping helping of... Absolutely nothing. We see nothing of Luke's work to revive the Order after the end of the Civil War. We see no real development of the philosophy or understanding behind the Force. Because the last Master that could really help us understand what's changed in the time since we've seen him last wants nothing to do with the Force. Or his family. Or anyone. In fact, we learn he apparently didn't even try to take on students or build a school until his sister begged him to teach her son, in which case he got off his rump, gathered students from who knows where and got started. And the whole thing crashed and burned. And our hero, the Poster Boy of the Rebellion, most powerful Jedi of his era, THE hero of the Star Wars saga.... Threw up his hands, drove his X-Wing into the ocean, curled up in a hut and went full on Lt Dan. They should have had some scotch bottles scattered around the floor of his hut for extra effect. In fact, we throw the entire concept of the Force and the Jedi in reverse and go backwards past 1977 in trying to reduce the Force to Magic and Sorcery that's apparently been held hostage by the mysterious and wizardly Jedi and the Skywalker Wizards most of all. Our new protagonist has nothing to learn and apparently the Force and Lightsaber combat are now easily downloaded via a Jedi Skill App that any sufficiently trained Master can produce on command, which completely nullifies the intense training, emotional control and centered-ness required of Luke in the OT and of all the Jedi of the PT and CW. If this was all one needed, then the Jedi Order of old should have been comprised almost entirely of Master level warriors, given how fast the new kids pick everything up. The whole sequences on the island seem to be a take on: What if Star Wars had a Hogwarts, but its headmaster was a total douchenozzle and on top of that, the 'school' is like sitting inside the remains of a bombing test site with a bunch of birds and little alien nuns randomly moving rocks around in wheelbarrows. The Darksiders don't fare any better either. Kylo Ren's whole motivation seems to have been boiled down to "Uhhhh, I dunno... Stop trying to make me DO things!!! I WISH EVERYONE WOULD JUST DIE. The past is so stupid OMG". Snoke is made to look threatening, but we have no idea what he wants, where he came from or how he was able to put this war machine together that's just been curb stomping the New Republic and any other opposition left and right in apparently the last 48 hours that we saw him. The Rebellion spends its time coasting around on fumes, but lacks the charisma of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher to at least make the ride enjoyable. Instead, we have Rose screaming at Finn to shut up and follow orders, Finn reverting back into his subservient role as a cog in a military machine completely under the thumbs of a freaking tech and whenever Poe, proven in the last film to be a capable and devoted soldier, tries to put out feelers to Command to figure out just what is going to be done to ensure the survival of the remaining troops, he gets lectured and told to sit down and shut up by Commander "I-Just-Got-Here", who we know nothing about, but she's a REALLY big deal. Just shut up. It works if you don't think about it. But at the same time, REALLY think about it. Because this is a movie you have to watch over and over to REALLY understand. Unless you start noticing the plot holes, character inconsistencies and settings breaking BS that we pulled when we decided on Rule of Cool over working within the parameters of the universe that was built and defined well before the current director got his mitts on it. All of this is set to drab lighting. Somber, funeral dirge music. Rain, LOTS of rain and punctuated briefly by a series of very underwhelming action pieces, culminating in one of the biggest cinematic blueballings I've ever sat through, since Superman Returns came out 12 years ago, which funnily enough, gave an incredible trailer, followed by one of the most un-needed, mediocre sequels that I have ever sat through. Luke literally goes back into hero mode to simply troll his nephew and die. Cut to the Falcon and we're all going to try and smile and pretend this depressing mess was actually all about hope, because that's what we need to save the ones we love. Not sacrifice, not ingenuity, not dedication or training or knowledge. Just blind hope in the nebulous future and our superiors. This is not a movie about realism or adult themes or taking the franchise in a new direction to avoid stagnation. This is re-treading the same themes and in a lot of cases, completely missing the original point, while trying to cash in on blatant nostalgia and using badly placed references and homages to try and cover the spit and bailing wire job that this movie was put together from in terms of story cohesion.

 

The thing about Revenge of the Sith, and Lucas in general, is that it deals with mature themes yet manages to wrap it into escapism. By the time AOTC rolled around, the world was wrapped up into wars in the Middle East, and George managed to show that turmoil from the early 2000s without heavily pounding you over the head with cynicism like TFA and TLJ.

Sure, the Clone Wars portrayed in the prequels were more complex than the theories of Mandalorian invasions from the 1980s, or the evil clone slave masters from the 1990s, by showing the dangers of proxy conflicts, and civil war between authoritarian disguised as democracy and greedy war-profiteering disguised as rebellion, YET they still had funny battle Droids with lots of personality and badass, competent clone troopers with cool armor.

TLJ (or the ST in general tbh) doesn't feel like a product relevant to the times really. It feels like it's trying to be "too cool" for SW, and is trying to appeal to modern cynicism on escapism and fantasy yet doesn't really have anything deeper to say about the state of war, or fiction, in the 2010s.

The OT is a product of the Vietnam/post-Vietnam war while the PT is a product of the Afghanistan/Iraq conflicts. Even TPM (released in 1999), has a very peaceful feel with small border wars/disputes that were also prevelant around that time.

TLJ doesn't have anything relevant to say about war, politics, fantasy, or escapism in the 2010s. They don't wanna talk about politics because GASP! The Prequels!
(Unless its about a heavy handed subplot about war profiteering yet the Trade Federation/Confederacy was a better metaphor for that anyway), but it also wants to be relevant by "letting the past die" yet making sure TFA was a reset of the OT, and actually only helping to reinforce that by having their incredibly funded GIANT PLANET KILLER-affording terrorist organization rule the galaxy while the Resistance literally changes their name back to The Rebellion.

Oh yes, TLJ sure changed SW in a more mature and deeper direction.

 

The thing is, we could have had a great story if you wanted to tie in modern themes, about the tensions of having to maintain Republic based military installations on the still Imperial controlled Core, the tensions between those who want to expand that militarization in an oppressive way, those who want to make more concessions, which could be just as dangerous, since the Empire is still being allowed to keep control of a very key portion of the Galaxy and this could allow them to get punchy again once the Republic pulls out, or better still, show what happens when you completely destabilize a massive bureaucracy and then don't have a great plan to replace it- *Cue the Mandalorians sniggering and petting their blasters expectantly*

 

By setting this as a backdrop, you maintain the relevance the series has managed to preserve throughout it's lifespan and you have a great motivator for your villains. "See what happened when the 'good guys' won? Nothing got better. But we can make it better. We will make it better."

The story expands from here, by showing a conscious decision of the Galaxy to act based on the fickle nature of a society all too willing to forget why it endured so much hardship and misery just to try and get a bit of peace and quiet after almost 40 years of ceaseless hard fighting. You have a great motivation for the Jedi to return, but then, we have to figure out why they still haven't come back yet. Which gives you your next set piece: Ben Solo. He's young, ambitious. He sees a system that isn't working just like grandpa did. He wants to act, but Luke isn't letting him. Luke knows the Jedi can't fall back into the trap of becoming aggressive enforcers. The Jedi have to be patient and consider the long game, but Ben can't do it. Cue Snoke preying on that need to make a change, to be better than his parents and convincing Ben that he's only being held back because the government at large is too afraid of losing face by being embarrassed by the power of the Force and suddenly, you have a betrayal that is both understandable and intriguing. Ben wants change not just because, but because he can feel the outcry for peace and stability from the Galaxy as a result of his power and he wants to save people, just like his grandpa did. Just like his uncle and parents used to do.

And once Ben commits and Luke loses what he tried to build, he comes to understand that he failed from inaction just as much as overreaction. In trying too hard to avoid conflict, he neutered his fledgling Order into impotence and that cost him his family, both genetic and extended. So he sets out to find the first temple. To figure out how to build a more vibrant, active Order that can ensure peace, avoid the sins of its past and make a brighter future. Han and Leia convene with Ackbar to begin mounting defenses against Ben's coalition, which has bandied with the Mandalorians to increase their strength and size with tested and vicious warriors. Surprisingly, the Imperial Remnants are also willing to make league here, the more moderate factions realizing that mutual survival is going to require compromise, while the hardliners defect to Snoke's new army.

This creates a very different setting than what we left behind us and makes for a lot of potentially awesome ideas while remaining relevant to the current situation in the American occupied Middle East.

 

Music in rots vs TLJ. Enough said.


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Even the underrated and unreleased songs are sooo good

 

And any plan to replace it would have to include a newly constituted Jedi Order.

 

As much as I love some themes like Rey's Theme and Jedi Steps (I believe that's the name of it), the music that plays from Padme's funeral up until the end of the film alone stomp the entire ST. And, as much as I actually liked TFA, the scenes from the "you were the chosen one" speech up until the end of ROTS stomp the entire ST in film quality as well.

 

Back in the early 80's Lucas had more than plans, he said he had written short outlines for each ST film.
Those short outlines has never been seen.
So his plans were serious enough to write short outlines.

But this is different in that Lucas went further than this and wrote short outlines and making more than six films was something he was pursuing back then.

Lucas has said that he wrote short outlines for the ST films, he talked about them more than once, both with the media and with the people he worked with.
So he did have plans and trying to deny it is iffy to me.
Simply say that he did have some plans but he changed his mind, people would have no problem with that.
Lucas has done this before, when the he changed the Greedo scene he tried to deflect criticisms by claiming that Greedo was always meant to fire first. So he didn't really change the film, he was restoring it to what it was supposed to be. Which is not supported by any of the scripts and denied by other people that worked on the film.

Well Lucas has claimed that he wrote a huge script back in 1975 that had the title "The Tragedy of Darth Vader.". This script had Luke and Leia as siblings and Vader as their father and it was basically the whole of the OT as we know it. And he also says that he cut into three parts and made ANH from the first part.
This huge script has also never been seen but Lucas did say that he showed it to Coppola but Coppola has no memory of reading it.

So Lucas is the one who says he had very concrete plans. He also said that he planned the PT back in the 70's but decided to start with the OT because of limitations of effects and the OT was more audience friendly.

Who is to say?
Well George Lucas for one. He spoke to some other people, Alan D Foster was one of them I think, about a possible prequel with younger version of Obi-Wan, Luke's father AND Darth Vader.
And also spoke of the battle of Condawn where Luke's father was killed and later how Obi-Wan fought Vader on a volcano and Vader fell down.
Also, the scripts.
The first time Vader appears he is a human general and dies at the end. And he is provably not the father of the hero as the father is shown as another, separate character.
Then Vader becomes a sith Lord, one of several, but he still dies at the end and he is still not the father.
Then ESB where the first draft has the ghost of Luke's father.

Why it matters? Well first I find looking at the origins and development of stories interesting, what could have happened, how did this idea come about and so on.
The Vader twist is no less brilliant by having it being a late idea and not something planned years in advance.
I could ask you, why is it so important to you that Lucas had this grand plan? Why would it be so terrible if the Vader reveal was just an idea he had when doing ESB?

Nope. Luke is the one speaking in Leia's mind, he does the work, she is just listening.
A telepath speaking in the mind of another does not make that other a telepath as well.
And she was picked because she was the logical choice for Luke to try and contact. The droids are out, he does not know Lando and Chewie would look silly.
So no, ESB did not have Leia as the "Other".

That got changed when making RotJ and Lucas decided to take some of the stuff he had in mind for the ST and put it into RotJ, like the emperor and the "other". The former was fairly easy to add but the latter was more of a problem.
Also, Leia being the other makes no sense based on ESB as she is in Vader's hands but Yoda and Obi-Wan say that Luke should not try to help even if it would mean her death.
So they are totally fine with letting one of their two only hopes die?
Also, when Luke leaves, now BOTH hopes would soon be in Vader's hands so what hope is there?
The other was Luke's sister Neelith and she was supposed to have been hidden elsewhere and was also being trained.

I haven't watched much of TCW but it does change things, like now the Jedi know that Dooku is Tyrannus and yet they still don't see the clones as a problem. The clones now have a chip inside them to make them do things, not genetic tampering.
Sifo-Dyas was killed before TPM not after it.

As far as PT retcons, well you have Leia's memories of her mother, which now makes no sense since her mother died when Leia were minutes old.
I know people try to make of various Force powers to explain it away.

Well back in the day I did come across plenty that said the PT was genius because it subverted expectations and was different to what people were expecting. That Lucas did not pander to the fans and have lots of suited Vader killing Jedi.

I would say the major problem most people had with the PT is the execution. Uneven acting, directing and writing.
That Vader would fall in love was totally expected by me because he did have two kids.
I also expected political plotting and schemes, my problem with them in the PT is that they make little sense and only work if you assume that everyone except Palpatine is a moron.

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TFA overall works for me, largely because I liked the characters.
Which was the main problem I had with the PT, I just didn't care about the characters.
But TLJ does not for many reasons, lack of follow up from TFA or outright ignoring it.
An Idiot-Plot, humor that didn't work, pointless side-quest.

To sum up and to stop derailing the thread, to ME, the ST had a better start than the PT, I liked TFA more than TPM. But a worse second film.
What happens now?
I have no idea, it would be kind of fun if JJ did the "Stepping out of the shower" scene. It would not go down well but it would be amusing to watch the reactions.
RotS was the strongest of the PT and did a lot, possibly a little too much.
What will EP IX do? I have seen various "spoilers" but if there is any truth to them I don't know but I doubt it.

Bye.
Old Stoneface

 

And I could definitely see the New Republic wanting one, Jedi are unaffiliated politically, require less funding since they live simply and have to create their own weapons and can fill a multitude of roles in a given situation. The major drawback that I think should be considered is that even in 30 years, their growth would still have been extremely slow, because Luke would want to be very careful in not just trying to produce a bunch of warriors for the government to use to help enforce its goals. Not to mention how rare Force potential is and that it's still difficult to find the people who would be willing to commit to the Jedi Order. They might have a total of 50 or so fully trained Jedi by this point, which isn't nearly enough to be a significant part of the Galaxy. However, we have enough of a base there to have a few Masters, some Knights and a few Padawans to allow for perspective and to keep the story interesting, while also remaining true to the nature of the setting. Luke and Kylo learned fast and completed training very quickly because they were exceptional cases and not the rule.

 

I've said it before, but TLJ feels like it's trying SO HARD to be too clever for it's own good. Pretty much everything seems predicated around being "shocking" or "subversive" or "not giving you what you expect" as opposed to, you know, telling a good coherent story and delivering a satisfying film. Like it wouldn't shock me if Rian started out with a bullet point list of "surprises" that he wanted to do and then cobbled a story around them.

Also its a movie that wants SO MUCH to be "deep and mature." Hence haphazardly throwing in all of these "real world" concepts and themes. But none of them get explored properly and it's all very surface level.

Essentially to quote Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park "you were so obsessed with whether or not you could that you didn't stop to consider whether or not you should."