ST Rey Skywalker/Daisy Ridley Discussion Thread

Regarding Poe I wasn't referring to his sartorial style but his personality.
Han had to be bribed to help rescue Leia, and post ANH he only stayed with the Rebellion because he loved Luke and Leia.
Poe was passionately devoted to The Cause.
Funnily enough he did remind me a bit of Che, not as much as Cassian Andor did though!

 

But in ROTJ he gets promoted to General and leads a strike team.

 

Wow, that's so...selfish...I guess. How base of him.

 

It's not grating to those of us who liked what the movie presented

And Luke did'nt blame his predecessors for his negligence - he blamed himself. You seem to be mixing up the convesations; he blamed himself for Kylo's creation and the PT Jedi for Palpatine's rise to power.

Okay, but why do you guys get to decide that they went "too far?"

Also your acting like somebody targeted you or something - obi made a general comment were he expressed his opinion, you accused him of making a strawman and I pointed out why he (and others) might see things the way the do while also expressing my own suspicions regarding how peaple would view the films if they were different. That's all, yet you seem to be acting as if we had an issue with your position specificly.

Luke did'nt change, he evolved - as everyone does as their life progresses; nobody ever said Luke would'nt face failure and make mistakes as his life went on, and how he was dipicted in TLJ is as valid a narrative choices as anything else, as not everyone evolves in a totally good way or changes for the better.

Why should Luke's circomstances be like Obi-Wan? Obi-Wan is a totally different character then Luke.

So your mad becuase he was'nt the shining knight you imagined that he should be and wanted him to be, but was instead dipicted as flawed and capable of mistakes and bad judgment. I understand that some peaple might not like that narrative choice, but that does'nt make it an invalid or wrong choice for Johnson to make.

Eh, I don't see how Poe's personality is any different in TROS then it was in the other films, nor do I see how the final film shows him as not being passionately devoted to the cause.

 

When I read the old Legends novels, starting with the Thrawn trilogy, they made perfect sense to me in how I would envision the story to go after ROTJ. Even without ever reading them, if someone asked him, I would go in the general ballpark of "they create a new democratic government and Luke rebuilds the Jedi Order".

Even if I didn`t think that was the natural conclusion or hadn`t read that, I wouldn`t have liked TLJ`s depiction or the general air of "now the OT failed so the shiny new ST toys can get all the glory" narrative. As a concept this will fail for me every time.

With Luke specifically, it is a subversion of traditional ideas of what heroism is. And traditional depictions of heroism has never gone out of style, it`s what made the MCU so super-popular so people still enjoy it en masse. RJ`s approach is more niche. And IMO will always be more niche.

Therefore IMO pointing to Legends headcanon is faulty, or even just "your headcanon is the problem" in general. If "headcanon" means nothing else in context than "things one usually enjoys". People always bring those with them to new stories. So IMO a story like TLJ that attacks rather popular concepts, no matter what ones thinks of the validity of that as a storytelling choice, will always be met with some resentment.

As for "the big heroic return" concept that Crait is supposed to be, due to how it was structured, executed and presented, it was also IMO a given that it would bring less people along for the "yay" effect than other blockbusters with similar scenes which are done with a more grandesque blockbuster style. One "sells" more than the other, as in literally "selling" the narrative to the audience members.

RJ had only really done more indie-films before doing a real blockbuster and he obviously brought indie-films sensibilities to his storytelling and making of TLJ. Some people seem to enjoy that greatly in a blockbuster because it is fresh and masterful to them and some don`t enjoy it all because they like the traditional approach and don`t care for that particular deviation.

 

Yep, well the latter got their way with TROS.
Traditional Bad Guy. Hero in white. Villain redeemed only by death. No shades of grey just guys in white hats versus guys in black hats.
In short, a movie version of the old kids' Saturday matinee shows.

 

It`s not that easy. After TLJ, TROS wasn`t the wish-fulfillment for people who didn`t like TLJ either. I think it was an attempt to be the wish-fulfillment for various groups who like and want very different things - and that is why it failed. You, as a Kylo-fan, aren`t happy now. I, as a Luke (and OG)-fan, also am not happy, TROS didn`t change that for me at all.

What TROS did was "join" us on the dislike-side. Which, I don`t think was the "reuniting of fans"-concept it had in mind overall (obviously not just individual fans like us specifically but in general). It wanted to reunite fans on the "like"-side but that was a pipe dream and even then they clumsily went after it.

 

I agree with everyone suggesting that Lucas helmet the trilogy. From every facet of its design and story element.

With that said I think many are being ignorant to the fact that any continuation of ROTJ would impact peoples perception in some way.

 

Of course it was. ST was never built for a trio, at least not Rey/Finn/Poe one. You can make an argument for Rey/Finn/Kylo trio (all 3 unmask and are POV characters in TFA) and for Rey/Finn/Han as TFA heroic trio. But the trio that marketing liked to push was never the trio on the screen and TROS (last movie) was not the place to try to make it work. The ship sailed, there was no reason to run after it. And the movie suffered.

 

I dont believe I asked or requested that. I'm pointing out that Luke's comments are meant to be taken in context of the saga.

Maybe a better way to put it would be to watch Luke's portrayal with the character of Quigon in mind.

 

I thought that TROS was boring in the way it's boring to watch other people play a video game. It had relentless pace of a video game but was as dull as a wait for someone to finish playing and get off the couch. It was supposed to be fun in theory because more action is more fun, in theory again, but in practice it was a snooze that just made one tune out altogether. That and shocking incompetence are main reasons why it's so disliked by both fans and critics alike. TLJ had faux arthouse veneer that helped it with critics while TROS wanted to build a cred with all fans but you know the saying, if you try to please everyone you'll please no one. truly one of the worst blockbusters I've ever seen, completely uninteresting, completely without artistic merit, and as such poised not to be rewatched.

 

Why ever that? I find TLJ-Luke to be an even worse disgrace when I think of Qui-Gon. So that has the opposite effect.

Though I would say the general problem with "take the parts you don`t like in context" is the assumption that there are parts someone does like. So what if one dislikes every single part of Luke`s in that movie? Context really doesn`t help with that. I consider myself lucky I still enjoy the character in the OT and the OT movies.

 

Luke didn't have to be an Obi Wan and Yoda-like recluse. They made him one (TFA set up, TLJ execution) because OT had two and obviously they couldn't imagine where Luke character could go that wasn't a repeat of those arcs - a Jedi master fails, his apprentice turns Dark destroys the school/order/whatever, master has to hide. Likewise, Han was back to smuggling because they decided that Sam the Smuggler should now be Finn the Storm Trooper but OT had a smuggler so why not have the real McCoy in that role? It's their desire to do the damage control from PT while making as much money as possible as quickly as possible that led them to the laziest solution - OT reboot. It worked the first time around but second and third time people saw that emperor had no clothes.

 

I think whatever the intent the only people who had their wishes fulfilled were the writer and director, but as ive said before, their eight year old selves weren't the ones paying to go and see it.

 

Well the character represents qui gon, thematically, by the end of Rotj and even in TLJ. People seem to forget that it was Lucas which failed the council, with quigon being the contrast for that in Tpm. Luke circa TLJ has a lot in common with quigon. He was in disagreement with Yoda and Ben, and the idea of The Jedi as an order is perhaps the wrong means going forward.

I'm simply saying that what Luke says is in context of the events of the saga. It has nothing to do with what someone did or did not like. Maybe a poor choice of words. I'm suggesting that maybe it's possible people are glossing over details and that, for these areas, keep such and such in mind to *maybe* get a better understanding of where these words may come from.

 

All writers and directors write for themselves first. It's just that some have better overlap with general public. or some of their ideas. Obviously JJ had more overlap with his TFA ideas than with his TROS ideas.

 

The difference to me is that I found Qui Gon brave and honorable so how he acts gives his words weight and gravitas for me. Whereas I found TLJ-Luke to be reprehensible coward so he can shove his ideas where the sun doesn`t shine as far as I`m concerned.

 

Yet his ideas are an evolution of quigon.

I dont see how holding true to "I will not fight" and becoming a representation of "luminous beings" is reprehensible. That's a pretty rewarding end to an arc.

 

Qui Gon was a unique character among the Jedi. Luke was Yoda/Obi Wan knock-off on purpose. It isn't that they couldn't go in a unique direction with him (not Quin Gon, not Obi-Yoda, not Legends). They simply didn't even try.

 

His "I will not fight" in ROTJ was very specific to a certain situation and IMO not at all a declaration that the character would henceforth stand around, whine and let every injustic happen without ever fighting again. So him throwing himself his little pity party with self-serving excuses on that island is what made him a reprehensible coward to me.

That he got to be a force ghost afterwards means nothing to me. I don`t think he deserved it, that lame thing on Crait didn`t change my opinion about him, but in fairness, neither did Anakin. And both got in.

I have zero respect for the character in the ST. And that is important to me, that I am able to respect a character on some level. Without it I can not sympathize either. Maybe if he had gone full evil darkside, depending on the reasons and the depiction, I could have respected him, I`m not counting that possibility that. But that is theoretical, I can only go by what we got and that, I could never respect.

 

The situation of what? Conflict? That's a broad specific, imo.

Displaying Luke's understanding of prior knowledge from Yoda I thought was pretty inspirational, very much in character, and really brings the idea of the jedi, full circle. And all done in peace.

 

The situation of "I will not fight because then I would play your game and into your hands, Palpatine". Like I said, I don`t at all take it to mean that he would never fight again.

Crait seems to fall in either the "yay" or "nay" category, I`ve seen little whatever-reactions to it. I just happen to fall into the latter. I found it lame, not remotely impressive and not inspirational either. As such, when the movie tells me it is and it was such a great inspiration for the galaxy, I just shrug and can`t suspend my disbelief on it.

What Luke is in TLJ, any point in the movie, is not what I value in Jedi and or what a true Jedi represents to me. Others feel differently, I feel like this. It is what it is.

 

Fair.

I thought RJ did a good job considering the setup of where the story started.

 

Crait is the worst part of TLJ, and one of my least favorite sequences in Star Wars