ST What do you think of TLJ 6 years later?

Funnily enough the first thing I remembered when watching the trailer was:

'oh man...this movie ain't gonna have a traditional lightsaber duel is it...?'

the other thing I thought was 'we're keeping with the trend with lacklustre planets I see'

 

I remember SO MUCH hate for "it's time for the Jedi to end" in that trailer.

Jumanji (directed by Jake Kasdan) and Greatest Showman, which came out of nowhere.

 

Considering what was actually happening on the board, I can only imagine the mod discussions behind the scenes during that time.

 

Dp

 

Yes that scene was a surreal moment in theaters... I remember hearing the scattered laughter. I reflexively looked over to my friend and he did the same, and I felt that shared theater experience as many people in the room probably shared the thought, "what the **** are we watching".

My straw that broke the camel's back moment was Finn's "let's go chrome dome". Relatively innocuous but after a movie of nonsense needling away at me, that did it.

 

The biggest red flags for me leading up to the release were RJ's interviews. In particular: "We can all relate to Kylo" and "Rey and Kylo are almost two halves of our protagonist" To see the way Kylo treated Rey and Finn and come away with the takeaway that Kylo was the relatable character (can you think of a better example of white male privilege?)? To follow the first Star Wars movie with a clear female protagonist and then decide she was really only half and the angsty male needed to be promoted to her equal? Red flags everywhere. I still had hope though, but then the movie came out and it was worse than I could have imagined in regards to these issues.

 

You always hold out hope that the Director is either being purposely misleading or just voicing their thought process poorly. But nope, RJ threw everyone under the bus on purpose to try and make Kylo look better.

 

There was no straw for the camel back for me, just a sense of boredom and the thought that the film lack any kind of forward momentum. I left thinking how has this move the story on to be resolve in the final chapter? It felt like a spin-off, detach from the main plot. It was episode 7.5 and JJ then had to resolve with a compressed 7 and 8 in The Rise of Skywalkers.

This is also true, I actually fall asleep during one cinema visit to this film. I was very tired already, and I nap for about twenty minutes during the screening.

 

I relate to Kylo in the same way I relate to a toaster. A toaster is an appliance that makes toast by burning it with metal coils, and I am not made of metal coils and can't naturally burn toast with the heat of my body.

 

‘Kennedy loved Driver” also plays a part. I still think the most interesting story to be told is how they decided to green light this mess.

 

Some cool things here and there, but I still don't care for it much. For me there has always been something off about it. Oh well.

 

I don't know, but it's ridiculous. Like, in regards to Luke and the convo people here were having the other day; They didn't want Luke to overshadow any of the new characters, but to Johnson, it wasn't enough that Luke had fallen from grace and thus missed out on the entire first film. No, he had to go the extra mile and pin Kylo's fall on Luke.

And on a side note, I was thinking yesterday on how TLJ takes the most deflating turns away from TFA's setups, again using Luke as an example: Sure, he didn't look happy at the end of TFA, and I doubt most people expected him to just immediately jump into action at the start of Ep. 8.

But there was enough in TFA to suggest that Luke didn't just straight-up quit and do nothing for six years. How did Leia end up with R2? Why did Luke go to the very first Jedi temple? Why was everyone so sure Luke was alive and would be found?

An optimistic writer that understands Luke's love for his family would make at least one aspect of the TFA journey a deliberate bread crumb from Luke, because even if he felt he was the problem, even if he felt Leia wouldn't want to see him after failing her son, even if he was grieving the loss of his students, he'd never fully abandon his family.

Maybe he left with a backup plan, maybe he searched for answers, but after so many years went by, he found nothing and convinced himself he was unneeded. Fine, but have Rey latch onto that spark of optimism he had even in his darkest hour that led him to leave a door open for Leia, have Rey pull that hopeful Luke out of the jaded hermit he's become.

No, Johnson has them be bitter and annoying to one another for their entire screen time. Just, why?? Why not lace even a sliver of hope or romanticism through the story?

 

Leia surviving the way she did was a major issue for me, force or no force. I mentioned it elsewhere and people said shes a jedi or former jedi why wouldnt she survive? It was just wrong. Had they known poor Carrie wasnt going to live they may well have had her die at that point. Who knows? They would never have known that of course.

Of course she couldve escaped the bridge before the blast and struggled on that way before succumbing to her injuries but they decided to have her be wonder woman and float back in space to the ship after being blasted through.

 

No, no. We all know it was Kylo’s swoleness that Rian was drawn too.

And no, I will not post the bouncing Kylo gif. And everyone else, please resist the temptation. It is the easy, more seductive way.

 

By far the best of the Sequel Trilogy and up there in the top 5 of my favorite in the entire saga

 

I think the movie could've worked more if they'd done some clever re-editing and reshoots, to alter parts of the movie, and that Leia thing is among them. Here are the ideas God, if He wills, has blessed me with for that:

Have Luke reject Rey at first, and then, after finding out Han is dead, showing the grieving Han scene, have him agree to help.

Make Luke and Leia's scene a shared dream state when he reaches out to her through the force.

Later change Holdo doing the maneuver, and use some creative editing to make it Leia doing it. Show her hand reaching out, her eyes closing, buttons being pressed by her using the force to calculate the exact trajectory and using the force to flip off the shields on the first order ships. Use similar reaction shots of Hux, only now it has the context that their shields are being taken down, and in doing this, Leia puts the ship into hyper drive and, having calculated the exact trajectory using the force, brings the ship out of hyperdrive right before the first order ship, hitting it. There may still be complaints about it, but I think they'd be, mostly, more muted and less focused on with this being Leia's big cool sendoff.

As well, keep the scene where Finn talks to the stormtroopers.

Take out Luke dying and the broom boy scene. Add a scene of Luke on Ach-To, asserting himself and lifting the ship out of the water and end the movie there.

Obviously I think more reshoots would be necessary for things like some Rey stuff, but I think this movie could've been more crowd pleasing with these changes, to me.

 

Some cool ideas there. Especially the ending scene or maybe have Palpatine awaken on exegol to tie in with episode 9.

 

This would have change the whole tone of the film, for the better in my opinion. Luke initial reluctance and grief now make him realise he has a job to do and reason to join the war against the First Order. If the film had end with him lift his plane from the sea and ready to fly to the rebels, then that would have been an exciting cliffhanger prospect for 9.

 

Absolutely NONE OF THIS subverted my expectations.

0/10