ST Luke Skywalker/Mark Hamill Discussion Thread [SEE WARNING ON PAGE 134]

I don't necessarily mean you when I say this, but literally the only praise I ever hear about TLJ Rey is not Daisy's acting or the writing of the character, but people liking a concept they had in their head about her. Namely the fact that she, in their opinion, embodies the ideal that "anyone can be a hero" or that she represents sexual liberation because she wants to shag Kylo.

Daisy never got half the recognition Adam and Mark were getting at the height of the film's popularity and beyond, and there are no standout scenes that are praised featuring her aside from the Throne Room scene, which was far more of a payoff to Kylo's arc than hers, what with the revelation of her parentage just being tacked on at the end and given no further relevance to her arc.

And most of the people who think of her as the sole avatar for the "nobodies" in Star Wars don't actually understand what Star Wars is and just want to feel like they're more enlightened than the typical fanboy, despite the fact that Rian himself has never claimed any deeper meaning to Rey being a "nobody". That, or they just really didn't want Reylo to be incest so they didn't care what the answer was as long as it wasn't Skywalker or Solo.

 

But is that written as stupid or is the movie just stupid? Because if Rey is written as that stupid on purpose, I don't find that believable. And if the movie's stupid, I think that's not something I think suggests Rey being a flawed character, to me.

 

Since LFL was insanely in love with Kylo/sad boi Benny, Rey was ultimately supposed to be right and wildly relatable in falling for him. So no, I don't think she was supposed to be seen as having real faults in TLJ. Her standing smugly victorious over Luke alone cememted her super-OP status.

 

Rey, in my opinion, is the worst conceived, written and developed 'leading' character in all of Star Wars. It was right that Star Wars have a woman as the leading character in in the sequels, but the problem is, when studios want to appear 'inclusive' for the sake of it, is that it means little when you hire certain affluent white men to make your films (especially someone like Abrams)... and it really tells (IMO). It's not that Abrams/Kasdan/Johnson et al hate women or people of colour, it's that they don't really know how to best represent them... and it's not enough to just have them in your film... especially when it appears that those characters get demoted throughout, and the actors under-utilised.

 

Seeing lots of strong opinions and assumptions about characters, the people who like them, write them, direct them; based on... I don't even know.

Anyway, I still don't get the "Rey was overshadowed" opinion. She's a very popular character that has been prominent in the ST. So agree to disagree.

 

I'd say every ST character outside of Kylo, was more popular after TFA than either after TLJ or the ST as a whole. And Kylo was the character who made it out of the ST the best, out of all old and new characters. And that is with him dying.

 

I think that popularity is owed a lot to design. None of the other characters have the kind of visual gimmicks that Kylo does.

Speaking of which, while I kinda liked Luke's greyish Jedi robes, I wasn't a fan of the beard.

 

I think Rey IS an authors avatar. And she is only supposed to view the men's story from the sidelines while also being denied the middle chapter of her own story. As far as RJ is concerned, that's Rey's function... to support his male story.

Am I saying RJ is sexist?




...yep.

 

I think Luke looks great in TFA and TLJ. Somehow, they messed up his hair in the reshoots for TROS, though.

 

I don't think this is an applicable argument. Kathleen Kennedy, a woman, as far as I've seen, had say over all this and not only let this happen, may have encouraged it.

 

So if you believe it’s not an ‘applicable argument’, you must therefore believe that Abrams, Johnson and the writing team *do* hate women and people of colour, and that they actively discriminated against them? Is that what you’re stating? Or are you trying to state that it’s all Kennedy’s fault and that she actively encouraged, indeed forced, the filmmakers to devalue/demote the female and POC characters/actors?

 

I have to say that I really disliked the way they set out to make Luke look substantially older and more frumpy than Hamill himself looks. I understand that they have to dress the actor for the part, and not to make the actor look necessarily ‘good’, but (IMO) it represents the move to convey Luke as an old, failed has been… which was a big narrative mistake in my opinion. I think Luke’s projected image on Crait (TLJ) was the best, most fitting, look he had for how a Luke Skywalker should have looked in his 50’s/60’s…

 

I'm suggesting this isn't a solely male thing. I felt that was the implication behind this:

I'm sorry if I misunderstood.

 

It's a shared culpability. If you employ white, middle aged and affluent men to make your films, don't be surprised when they reflect their own biases/preferences.

It depends on how one wishes to apportion blame, and indeed, if one believes there is any blame to be proportioned. I don't think anyone in the chain of command, from Iger to Abrams/Johnson, had the actual interest to put a really strong female lead/strong black lead, at the heart of the ST. It was largely about PR and spin. To me, it's obvious that Abrams and Kasdan were far more invested/interested in Han Solo and Kylo Ren... which is fine and all, but that Rey and Finn aren't really at the centre of the ST, not only reflects DLF's overall cynical approach to the ST, but it actually destabilises what should have been the underlying narrative of the ST... which would have been much more rewarding if not undone.

 

I'd suggest that's a bias/preference that may be shared by Kathleen Kennedy as well, and, in theory, someone like RJ may have been someone who shared similar preferences. Maybe she wasn't surprised and got what she wanted.

 

Are you agreeing with what I wrote or disagreeing?

 

lol. I'm not sure anymore.

 

Just wanted to come back to this because I was browsing the main Star Wars subreddit and came across another example of this exact thing (although not limited to TLJ this time).



In the comments there is just mountains of praise for Adam Driver across the board, followed by Mark, then passing mentions or ridicule for everyone else.

As an aside, it was particularly frustrating to see a whole thread of people loving "The Return of Ben Solo", knowing that a similar sequence was taken from Finn, and despite Adam's character being written just as poorly as everything else in the ST, they gave him just barely enough to have become solidified as a high point.

 

To be fair, that was the first time he had a real personality, however small that was.

But yeah, still not too into Kylo.

 

I think the Ben Solo sequence of him fighting the KOR on Exegol, as poorly choreographed as it was, gives the audience a fleeting insight into what a Han Solo type hero/Jedi in the ST could have looked like. It could have been good. And I think that jives with a lot more fans than the vanilla and dull Rey (sorry Rey fans). Adam Driver has all the physical attributes of a villain, but I think the ST would have been better with him just as the Ben Solo character, with Rey as Luke’s daughter (as the lead protagonist) and with Finn the defected stormtrooper who falls for Rey (if they needed a romance angle)… with Kylo Ren *not* being related to anyone. That would have given the films a much more solid centre IMO, and there would have been clearer lines of delineation, less fudge and more opportunity to focus on plot rather than all the empty mystery boxes.

 

I think the beard is Mark Hamill, not Luke. What makes it worse is Luke has the beard before he draws his saber on Ben, so we can't even say he grew it out of grief.