ST Critics' reviews for Star Wars: The Last Jedi

So looking at the first several pages today here are some of the 5 star positive reviews that stand out. I could justifiably use the same argument your using that these positive reviews are really hard to take serious as genuine reviews. I actually don't think they are and suspect they are astroturfing reviews or kids. I believe many of the 3 star positive reviews as they seem genuine but few and far in between. I also believe the zero to 2 reviews as thats where it sits for me as a long time fan.

Each is a 5/5 Star Sample.

David W
January 4, 2018
Amazing movie. Easily one of the best, if not the best, of the Star Wars movies.

Martin Z
January 4, 2018
It was fantastic. Don't let the 56% audience score prevent you from experiencing a new and fresh the Star Wars universe.

No name
January 4, 2018
Very good movie. Dont get why people are hating it so much. DISNEY DID A GOOD JOB

Joshua %
January 4, 2018
I love the last Jedi

Trieu T
January 4, 2018
I like it although it has bad jokes. Rian Johnson is trying to make some things new in Star Wars so we shouldn't be angry with this episode

Vaibhav A
January 4, 2018
Best movie in the series of star wars

No Name
January 4, 2018
I thought it was great. Way better than the force awakens

Graham D
January 3, 2018
Not really 5 star (I'd give it a 4/5) but need to counteract the asinine hate for this movie.

I don't know if this is off topic or not so lets not proceed if it is.

 

Richard Brody’s review for TLJ in the New Yorker has a passage that directly addresses why critics gave such overwhelming praise in spite of its flaws.

“Johnson is an auteur of sorts, one whose talent is ready-made for a generation of critics desperate to have one who works in popular genres and achieves popular successes, for fear that their enthusiasm for individual inspiration will isolate them from the celebrity circus of mass-market movies. He’s like Christopher Nolan but better, the other side of Nolan’s showily dour Janus-face. Unlike Nolan, Johnson has an authentically enticing virtuosity, joining a sense of vision to a sense of glee. But “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” yokes Johnson’s formidable cinematic intelligence to an elaborate feat of fan service that feels, above all, like the rhetorical and dramatic gratification of a religious sect. And what’s all the more disturbing about the experience is that—unlike inspired preachers whose own sense of fervor and possession threatens to run away with them, puts them into a public state of exaltation that they communicate to their flock—Johnson remains stolid, intelligent, in deft command. He leads, in “The Last Jedi,” not by example but from behind the curtain.” https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/star-wars-the-last-jedi-reviewed

I encourage everyone to read the full review as it’s very good (and after all, this is the critic’s review thread), but I also want to expand on his first point and take it in another direction. Professional critics have a different set of expectations from general audiences and they participate in a kind of professional politics that we don’t always pick up on.

A consistent point of praise that I’ve seen in critics’ reviews was that Johnson subverted fans’ (and presumably critics’) expectations for Star Wars by undermining traditional parts of the series' mythos. With scenes like Luke throwing away his lightsaber, Holdo’s about-face from being a suspicious character to a messianic one, and Yoda’s fourth wall breaking conversation with Luke, Johnson is dealing very measurably in artistic transgression, which is a dominating force in western art criticism.

The defense of transgression is so universally celebrated that it puts critics in a difficult situation. As Kieran Cashell put it, they must “either support transgression unconditionally or condemn the tendency and risk obsolescence amid suspicions of critical conservatism.” Johnson is issuing a sort of challenge to audiences, and drawing a coercive line-in-the-sand for professional critics.

But here is the cunning outcome of Johnson’s transgressions: they are only transgressive within the small fantasy of Star Wars itself, and therefore ask little of their defenders. The only people who care if Luke tosses away his lightsaber and renounces his role as an elder are die-hard fans. The world at large couldn’t care less about Jedi and Padawans. When Holdo is revealed to be wise and selfless after being introduced as a villain through a male gaze, it is only dutifully upholding consensus gender politics. Whether or not that kind of switcheroo is typical of Star Wars matters to no one outside the fandom. When Yoda is shown to actually destroy millennia of Star Wars history and then laugh about it, I can only call that what it is, a mocking joke made by a nerd hater for nerd haters (who are nerds themselves). It is a random, un-targeted broadside designed to cause maximum collateral damage, a joke that can be perceived to narrowly attack any specific fan of Star Wars, but in fact attacks all of them (and only them).

And to top it all off, these deliberate transgressions come with a seal of approval from one of the most powerful media conglomerates in the world which owns the fantasy in question. The Last Jedi is a kind of alley oop for film critics (a basketball technique where one player throws a pass designed for another player to dunk in spectacular fashion), and so it is no surprise they all jumped in on this slam-dunk contest, running and leaping to out-do the others with over-the-top praise. How many times have they called TLJ bold, ground-breaking, surprising, and the best Star Wars movie since ESB? It’s incredible. Some say that The Last Jedi is the best yet, but really it is the most manufactured.

TLDR: Film critics are tempted to like something because it is “cool” just like anyone else. When the controversy of that coolness is inconsequential, it’s even more tempting.

Addendum: I’ve seen many posters in this thread scoff at the idea that Disney, a multi-billion dollar corporation, could influence the reviews of critics. For an example of what their power looks like in the real world, read this. http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-disney-anaheim-deals/. Btw, the Los Angeles Times’ film critics were blacklisted from Disney screenings for the publishing of that article.

 

Or maybe the majority of critics genuinely liked the film and thought it was a good movie? It’s not like Brody isn’t known for frequently going against the grain; the only two Star Wars films he likes are Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, after all.

 

Great. Would you like to discuss any other part of my post or is that all you have to say?

 

Thats brilliant. Thank you and it really opened my eyes.

 

Yeah I'd agree with what you say. I'l rephrase it and take all user reviews with a grain of salt, be they negative or positive. One sentence reviews won't affect my opinion on the movie anyways.

 

FWIW, here's Mark Kermode's review of TLJ, which strikes me as genuine:

 

Last March saw the release of the highly anticipated (and long-delayed) game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, to universal critical acclaim (currently 97% on Metacritic with 109 critic reviews, 8.4/10 user score over 10022 ratings).

Critics (and the majority of fans) praised the game for breaking free of the fairly rigid, linear structure the series had fallen into since 1998's Ocarina of Time. A very vocal minority of fans intensely disliked the game for this very reason, claiming things like: it was no longer a Zelda game, it was just a generic open-world adventure game with the Zelda name slapped on it, Nintendo clearly paid off all of the reviewers, it ruined the Zelda series, etc.

The majority of Zelda fans clearly do love the game; it did not split the fanbase the same way that TLJ has. I bring it up because it is a recent example that clearly demonstrates how disappointed fans tend to dismiss widespread critical acclaim by suggesting (or outright accusing) that the reviewers were paid off. Also, they tend to make exactly the same kind of hyperbolic "this completely ruined the series/franchise" statements.

 

It's interesting that you bring up video games as a comparison for evaluating critics' reception vs audience reception. You may be on to something in that both Star Wars and specific video game franchises have sub-cultures with passionate fans. However I think a much better example for your comparison would be the reception of Mass Effect 3, which bitterly divided the franchise's fans mostly down the middle, while Zelda did not. Much like with TLJ, fans who supported ME3 claimed that the detractors were a small but vocal minority, and used the wide consensus of professional critics as evidence for this, even when detractors began voting against ME3 en masse on sites like metacritic, and discussing their complaints in detail on the Bioware forums. The good news is that eventually Bioware acknowledged what some fans could not, that the backlash was real and they set out to improve ME3 with downloadable content. I suspect that Lucasfilm knows that TLJ detractors are more than some imaginary nuisance.

 

I totally acknowledge that the hardcore Star Wars fans are bitterly divided over TLJ. I just don't think it matters much, since hardcore fans often have niche concerns that aren't shared by the general public or, indeed, critics.

 

Here is a negative review:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454743/star-wars-last-jedi-movie-review-lost-space

And another:

 

I remember reading Brody's review prior to seeing the movie. I was annoyed by it because he jumps right into spoilers without warning and then in the fourth paragraph, after detailing Rey's vision in the cave, states he won't spoil anything else.

On your broader point, I don't think Rian Johnson is undermining the mythos or committing transgressions; nor for that matter do I think this is him personally attacking fans. I know some friends who have voiced similar objections--that TLJ was designed as a slap in the face to fans. That Rian is someone who doesn't understand Star Wars. Look, this is a 40 year franchise. We've had nine movies already and Disney seems hellbent on adding a new one every year. If this thing is going to be sustainable, they have to expand the mythology. They have to breathe new ideas and push boundaries. And yes, they have to subvert expectations.

Some of the backlash with this sequel trilogy is that fans expect one theory to pan out and then it doesn't. When we walked into ROTS in 2005, it was kind of like seeing Titanic, we knew the ending. We knew Anakin would turn to the dark side, face off against the Jedi and become horribly scarred in the process. That's not a knock on the prequels, it's just that we knew certain things had to happen and had a general idea of how. Maybe some became accustomed to that.

For me, the most important thing is that a good and compelling story is told. George Lucas never cared what the fans wanted, he was going to make each film the way he wanted. From his comments, I think Rian took a similar approach--to tell a good story. It isn't about following fan expectations. When writing it, I think he was very deliberate about what ideas challenged the characters the most, what made it interesting. This wasn't personal against fans.

 

I'm not inclined to pay much attention to a 20 minute review by Ben Shapiro, the former editor-at-large for Breitbart, whose books include Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth and Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV.

 

You’re right that it’s probably not much use to try and interpret Johnson’s personal agenda. Although I was using his name (lazily) to identify TLJ’s authorial intent, I should have been more careful. The film speaks for itself regardless of who made it and why. As to whether Rian Johnson himself “understands” Star Wars, it seems he understands it perfectly well. Whether or not TLJ is a good movie is independent from that. As to your idea that it’s inevitable for expectations to be subverted because the franchise needs “new ideas” and to be “sustainable”: well yes of course that’s true, but it’s true of any pop-culture franchise. It was true as soon as they started pre-production of ESB and it’s still true. It doesn’t mean those subversions must be executed poorly with uninspired moves towards modernization. The point I was trying to make was that critics are inclined to give special consideration to disruption and innovation, but are also inclined to support it, especially when their evaluation is professional rather than personal.

This just doesn’t seem controversial to me. So what if fans hate TLJ because their theories didn’t “pan out”? Maybe some feel that way but this just isn’t how most fans, hard-core or casual, watch these kinds of movies. Sure fans want to see something familiar, but they want to be surprised too. Just because someone doesn’t like something, and suggests how it could be better, doesn’t mean they had unreasonable expectations or were committed to some personal outcome that invalidates their opinion.

Nor am I.

 

Just read over this and thought it was a pretty thought provoking review. I don't know the publication at all. http://www.weeklystandard.com/deconstructing-star-wars-and-the-last-jedi/article/2011020

Lol. just discovered its a Murdock owned publication. Now Murdock doesn't really reflect my some what left wing views all that well. I still like the article.

 

Here's one critic's take on why, perhaps, the critics are almost unanimous while the fans are divided:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...5_story.html?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.7dd184464f83

 

I've seen saying ever since The Phantom Menace that anybody who grew up with these films over the previous 20 years, watching each one dozens of times, playing with the action figures, getting into bed wearing their Star Wars jammies and getting tucked into their Star Wars sheets and blankets, eating their C-3POs for breakfast, buying Star Wars trading cards for 25 cents a pack, brushing their teeth with a lightsaber toothbrush etc... cannot be objective in evaluating the new films (the prequels). There is no way that growing up so immersed in something won't have a significant effect on how you perceive things, especially a new Star Wars film that comes along many years later.

None of the above has changed, except that we're now looking at double the timespan.

Film critics in general watch a lot of movies, of many different genres. Fans, by definition, tend to go for depth over breadth. Depth will give you a better understanding of that particular topic, but breadth gives you a more realistic and "objective" perspective on things.

 

I just posted this in another thread, but this is a better place. . . . . it's a commentary from the Washington Post about the reviewers' and fans' reaction to TLJ. I agree with it. Rian Johnson said what he wanted with TLJ and it was well worth saying:

 

Yeah, I posted it two posts above you. But I agree, it's worth the read.

 

Refreshing read ! Thanks !

 

As a Zelda fan myself, I did not notice any significant fan backlash with Breath of the Wild unlike Skyward Sword, which also had critical acclaim from big time critics but suffered a fan backlash that was noticeable enough for Aonuma to mention it in future Nintendo Directs despite once proclaiming that motion controls was forever the future of the Zelda series.

And really, though Breath of the Wild did break conventions, it was at the same time honoring core conventions of explorations and puzzle solving that Zelda was best known for since the first Zelda game. The Last Jedi, in my opinion, has a reception similar to Skyward Sword than Breath of the Wild.

 

1. Yoda doesn't actually destroy the texts, though. Hasn't this been established a million times?
2. I could see your point if Yoda burning the tree was, in fact, a joke. It's not. It's not in the slightest. It's a serious thematic and philosophical moment.The scene is not some meta-commentary on the fanbase. Yoda is forcing Luke to overcome his obsession with past failures and focus on stopping future ones.

You say this with such authoritative certainty, which I could respect if you had already established a coherent argument why that is the case. You've explained why you think Rian Johnson was trying to piss off fans, but not why he was making a "manufactured" product. If anything, a manufactured product would try and please as many people as possible, instead of, according to you, deliberately mocking fans of the product.

Except not really. There were serious reasons to be suspect of the reliability of the reviews for ME3: IIRC, it eventually came out that many of the reviewers hadn't played through to the end. In addition, the reaction to ME3 by fans was not divisive, as TLJ has been. It was almost universally negative. In the weeks following the game's release, you were hard-pressed to find anyone defending the game's ending. Needless to say, this has not been the case with TLJ. So the attempted analogy fails.

 

You mean to say you don't see how almost every scene in TLJ is a "version" (for lack of a better word) of an event/moment from past entries I. The saga? Really?

 

Any critique of TLJ based assertion that the creators of the film were acting in some strain of bad faith is, by definition, worthless.

 

A LITTLE LOUDER FOR THOSE IN THE BACK ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^