ST Rian Johnson (Director Of TLJ) Discussion Thread

Yeah, haha. Jesus Christ.

Ridiculous statement.

 

Great post!

 

She's a rebel.. But she's not a Skywalker..

 

I've always said that if Abrams had a clear parentage in mind for Rey, then he should've made it clear in TFA. He wasn't supposed to be back, and he knew it. He was doing the same thing he did with Lost and Star Trek, where he kicks something off and then bails.

 

Ren killed Han to impress Snoke and to prove to him that he was genuinely a really bad guy. When Han Solo says "anything you need" I would contend that he takes this to mean he is willing to die. He has to kill him to pass his master's test. Of course he sounds crazy talking to Han because he is. We are told by Snoke that this test caused Ren to fall apart and Snoke blames this for his loss in the lightsaber battle. No mention of the bowcaster wound, I guess, because Snoke doesn't want excuses.

Interestingly, it is after he DOESN'T kill Leia that Snoke says "Where there was conflict I now sense resolve." Both Kylo and Snoke assume Leia is dead (in my reading) but Snoke may not yet know that it wasn't Kylo who killed her.

 

Most here probably remember the quotes from JJ about not wanting to have too many character reveals in the first movie. But that's the problem; JJ could only think of character heritage in terms of surprise and reveal, and not simply as introducing family members as main characters.

For him, Ben Solo as Kylo Ren must be a mystery for some period and then surprise! And then the same for Rey, or for Jannah. Why can't we just have a banal introduction to character: ah yes, we've found Palpatine's granddaughter; she's on Jakku. Just introduce the plot for goodness sakes, not everything needs to be mysterious.

 

He ruined Luke skywalker to me unforgivable IMO I not gonna bash him on his twitter though it's childish but That really made me mad they did miss a trick though If Rey had actually joined Ren after the Snoke death scene there would have been some real interest and intrigue going into part 9 had he booked that I would have given him big props for a real swerve that was actually a good one.

 

Yesterday night, my wife and I watched Johnson's KNIVES OUT at the movies and I've got to say that I was very pleased with it: I really had a great time. The friends that came with us were delighted too so I had to tell them:

- Do you know what was Johnson's previous movie? (Drum roll) STAR WARS EPISODE VIII!
- You mean, the one from last christmas?
- No no no, the one from 2017.
- I see, the backlashed one.
- Yep, that one."

All of them were totally surprised (this is not my SW-friendly group obviously) and several of them told me they would/will surely watch THE LAST JEDI when they get the chance to. So I'll let you know soon.

Anyway, KNIVES OUT is awesome.

 

There's a pretty fascinating tidbit in this article that over 50% of TLJ was actually filmed digitally, per director of photography Steve Yedlin.

https://www.polygon.com/2020/2/6/21125680/film-vs-digital-debate-movies-cinematography

 

I think some of the conversation I see here makes an assumption that isn't necessarily warranted--namely that the directors, producers and even actors haven't kept secrets and that their accounts are simple truths rather than careful public relations. It's entirely reasonable not to take their statements at face value.

 

What if Matt Reeves handled Ep 8 instead? He's close to JJ and he handled what was set up in Rise of the Planet of the Apes very well IMO when he directed the sequel to it. He fleshed out the supporting characters more. He made the 2nd act in a trilogy much darker than the first.

The ending of ROTPOTA was very CLIFFHANGER in nature. A lot was set up like a potential Ape civil war between Caesar and.. Forget the villain apes name. Matt followed up on that set up really well... even adding much more depth to the bad ape.

He also did the right thing in having a time jump a few years later. So it's more easy to buy that the characters have a close connection to each other. Also DOTPOTA set up stuff for the 3rd film well more than TLJ did for ROS.

Guarantee Reeves and JJ would have been talking to each other a lot. They grew up together talking SW. I just don't see Matt Reeves going in a totally different direction to what JJ set up.

OK this is a RJ thread. As for Rian, he told collider he wanted to kill Luke no matter what because he saw Luke getting in the way of the new characters. So going by the original plan in George's ST of Luke dying in ep 9...RJ still gets his wish of killing Luke.... But in ep 9 not 8.

 

Not sure why there's an assumption that Johnson dictated the death of Luke from the start or, conversely, that it was a mandate thrust upon him. Yes, it was in the script from the beginning, but it's been made clear that the arrival to that decision was discussed heavily by Johnson and many of the people at Lucasfilm in the lead up to Johnson's first draft.

 

Are you saying you wanted more explanation/screen time devoted to how Palpatine returned? I get that. Yet, I also think that Sith/Dark Side magic and mumbo jumbo was always going to be the reason. I mean, it is Star Wars we are talking about...

Nope. Look how much of a fit some people are throwing about Rey being an "adopted" Skywalker and not a "pure blood/true heir." She is the chosen heir to the Skywalker legacy, and for some it's somehow like "Palpatine won". Which is ridiculous...

Perhaps if Kylo would not have been Han and Leia's only child there'd be no need for his redemption, but (as has been said) this would be very bleak and cynical thematically.
This coming from a person that was very okay with Kylo dying as an evil SOB after he killed Han Solo. Yet, TROS made me care about Ben Solo.

 

Disagree. He still could have peaked as a villain and been redeemed at the end. It would have required a better set up in TROS though, and we didn’t get that.

The only thing I learned about Ben Solo in TROS is that a force light saber handoff was a cool concept, and maybe I would have come around if the redemption had been written well and if none of the tacitly endorsed mass murdering torture stuff had happened. But it wasn’t and it did so... yeah.


Again, Rey didn’t have to be a Palpatine. She could just as easily have been a Skywalker.


I don’t mind random Rey adopting the Skywalker name, so we agree on that.

I do think telling conveniently wandering folks your last name on a planet that it makes no sense to visit if you stop to think about it was pretty ridiculous tho.

 

Ah, I misunderstood you. I thought you meant he could/should not have been redeemed.

Agreed.

Well, there are a lot of moments in Star Wars that are like that, though.

 

Around the time of the dvd release of Sith is when I started telling people that I believed Lucas was going to make the sequels. This was all based on the content of RotS and the way in which Palpatine was describing the force.

With JJ though it feels more like he just used the conclusion of that without having an understanding of the concept behind the idea, which is something I feel may have been central to the idea from Lucas.

 

Briliant

 

What the hell is a Kast Jedi?

 

Jodo Kast was a bounty hunter dressed like Boba Fett in a West End Games Star Wars role-playing game module. If he had an expanded universe life after that I'd like to hear about it because I doubt I will ever examine the source material.

 

The legs on Knives Out are insane. Going to have yet another strong weekend.