ST Rian Johnson (Director Of TLJ) Discussion Thread

The 'there's still light in him' line is like Luke's 'there's still good in you'. And then Luke says: 'that's why you couldn't kill me'

So, did Leia knew for a fact about Kylo not being able to kill someone? This would have happened before TFA.

Maybe it's there in the forceback. Kylo kills the clan leader and then he walks toward someone, someone moving behind Rey (who is not there). Then Rey turns back and...little Rey appears. Little Rey was behind adult Rey.

We don't see Jodie Comer being killed, and maybe she was not for Ochi to kill. Maybe this woman and Leia knew each other. Kylo could not kill her, according to this theory.

Who gave Leia those dice, and when? Han did not have them with him in TFA. He had them originally but that was changed. The development of TFA and TLJ overlapped for a year or more (Sep.2014-Dec.2015)

 

How was Luke supposed to stop the planets from being destroyed? Nobody even knew about Starkiller Base until it fired. Likewise, is he supposed to have his force sense tuned into Han at all times, realize that Han had walked out on a bridge with Kylo, and then get there within the next 2 minutes to save him? Quite frankly, there wasn't enough time for Luke to stop the events in TFA. RJ did however get to choose Luke's reaction to all of these events, and he alone chose to show Luke with complete indifference and outright hostility towards cries for help.

I will give that TFA did have Luke in hiding during those years while the First Order was starting to grow. However, TFA also portrayed the First Order as believed to be small until Poe's shock at the size of the ship plus Starkiller being fired (both of which happened over just one day). Like @christophero30 said, I've seen dozens of sensible reasons suggested by people who are not professional writers as to why the last Jedi in the galaxy might be isolating in preparation to fight against a growing but thought to be small evil. Indeed, TFA put Luke at the first Jedi temple. This might be considered a clue as to what Luke could be doing. RJ: Hmm, Rey found Luke at the first Jedi Temple. Where were they going with this? I know, they did that so she could find some books and get her training from those!

 

Yeah, 'hating' TLJ's politics is somewhat conflicting personally. I consider myself as progressive as they come. (well, maybe not according to the JCC Senate lol). Am I in the 'just the right people' group that he should be pissing off? Maybe I'm so progressive, that I don't think TLJ is actually espousing progressive liberal views, despite the film being a lightning rod for conservative fans who hate woke Hollywood agendas. I think RJ may have been trying to do that, but like most of the themes in TLJ, there's just too much of it, and it ends up not really making any damn sense.

End of day, the film was made by a wealthy, privileged white dude, among a studio of insanely wealthy, privileged, mostly white people, with all the biases and blind spots that come with that. And I say that as another very privileged, although mostly broke w/ no savings, white dude myself, who is constantly trying to be aware of my own biases and blindspots. Whether that be in my day to day life, but also in my professional design work, my art, and the stories I write. I would love more diverse movies and stories out there by diverse marginalized people. Hire them. Let them tell their stories, or any story they're interested in. Let them have a voice. That's how you showcase progressive values. That's how things really change.

 

I think a key point is also that entertainment is supposed to be...entertainment. It is absolutely no problem to tackle issues and put forth progessive values. Many entertainment properties have done that for ages, Star Wars included, but personally I want to see some creativity behind it if it comes in entertainment form. Not it be incredibly on the nose, done with a hammer, lecturing or a combination thereof.

Rose becoming a soapbox Sadie and lecturing Finn, the former child slave, on universal moral values of freedom and the wrongs of the new Empire Order? At the very least a movie from the 80s, 90s or early 2000s would have had such a scene between a working class character like Rose and some pampered royalty character who truly doesn`t know any better so the lecture at least lands. Also, "animal cruelty and war profiteering are bad, m`kay" are low hanging fruit when it comes to progressive morals. You don`t say, movie, I never would have known that without you. ANH in a lot of ways is a very simple good vs. evil tale but they were never that on the nose about it. And yet within the same movie of TLJ we should all cry tears about Mr.Edglord Privilege himself. So animal cruelty is bad but that crybaby is supposed to have a sympathetic point long enough for the "romance" parts to work and the "gotcha" at the end when wonder, oh, wonder he stays evil. Maybe the wranglers on Canto Bight have a far more sympathetic background. Just not really ugly high rise pants, I guess.

 

I wholeheartedly agree, the feminism of TLJ is inauthentic and the politics in general are more like a series of talking points than a serious commentary. At the same time, if we look at how public reception of TLJ unfolded in the context of the culture wars, how the "lines" were drawn, it was often liberals (mostly) defending TLJ while conservatives were criticizing it. At least that's how most of nerd media characterized its reception.

Judging by TLJ's press tour and RJ's own comments, I think it's pretty clear that he and LFL expected and intended for TLJ to be a "controversial" film. A more charitable reading might be that they wanted it to be culturally/politically "relevant", but either way, I think they were very calculated in deciding which buttons to push.

So I do think he has his "finger on the pulse," only insofar as there's a general impression that his films are landing on the "liberal" side of the culture wars. Knives Out was much more explicit with its politics because of its contemporary setting, but I think that many of the problems with TLJ carry over, particularly with identitarian essentialism. Like Holdo is wholly good for being a woman, Marta is wholly honest for being Latina, even biologically different from the white characters to establish her honesty. RJ plays around with identity in very ham-fisted ways imo, that are not as "woke" as he intends.

 

Every alternate explanation I've seen makes Luke look weak or incompetent. In the Blu ray special features, Johnson says up front that Luke would never stay out of the fight or let anything stop him unless he genuinely believes that's the moral thing to do. Luke would never let billions of people die unless something had profoundly changed in him.

 

Lol. But thats exactly what RJ did. Every alternative I’ve seen is better than “gives up and puts the phone off the hook.” Even if that’s supposedly genuine.

There are a dozen good reasons for Luke to be on the island with a purpose.

 

IMO Luke still looked weak and incompetent, as well as cowardly and stupid in the version we got so to me that was not avoided at all.

 

I just find the whole subculture surrounding Rian Johnson really odd. I've never seen a director with so many sycophants chasing after his attention and approval, giving him the benefit of the doubt at absolutely every turn, and defending every decision made with no acceptance of any fault. I mean, he's made a few decent films, but certainly nothing groundbreaking or a certified classic IMO, yet a lot of his fans seem to think he's just the most clever filmmaker out there who couldn't possibly make a bad decision when filming. He just doesn't have the filmography to justify the amount of adulation he receives, Knives Out was good, but he's not the second coming of Kubrick. It just seems like anything involving Rian Johnson becomes an absolute hill to die on for his fans, no matter how small, and you'd have to be an idiot to not see his intent or message.

 

Weak? What does that mean? Not being a super sentai Luke and knowing everything that's going on? Luke can't possibly be blocked from being able to help or something else?

The thing here is, if the deleted scene with Rey is to be suggested, I think it suggests that Luke doesn't think sitting around is the moral thing to do. If I remember correctly, he tells Rey that the jedi say to sit and do nothing and that rushing in to help is what the galaxy needs or something like that. So, why is he not doing that?

 

That's because Luke isn't consistent in his beliefs in the movie. Nor does RJ write his characters consistently in his own film, or with how they behaved in previous films. He's lucky that scene was removed - not just because it didn't flow time wise - because it really puts Luke in a bad looking place. Besides trolling Rey, and playing a practical joke on her while her friends are literally dying, it means he doesn't really care about anything, and is just looking for any excuse not to join the fight or help people. It turns him into a person with out principles or beliefs. And that's even worse then just hopeless or misguided.

 

There's also, to me: The man who, I think, story arc involved him compromising until he lost his way and gave up, doesn't have anything to say to Luke about him making a mistake and giving up? Even Obi-Wan? Why not use all 3 of them, at least?

 

Yes, Kylo killed Luke's students.
Luke couldn't locate the young man after that.
Luke goes into seclusion with his newer Jedi.
Kylo links up with the FO.
FO amasses power in Luke's absence.
FO unexpectedly destroys the bulk of the Republic.
Luke must now decide to join the fight or stay and complete the training of his newer students.

Unless this older and wiser Luke has a bunch of students that he needs to stay behind and train. This isn't TESB Luke anymore.

 

And none of them make sense, because Lucas never intended Luke to be taken out of the action of Episode 7.

The thing is, the definition of "cowardly" is someone who knows the right thing to do, but is too scared to do it. In Luke's case (in TLJ), he genuinely believes he IS doing the right thing, so he's not technically cowardly, but is instead carrying a burden.

I had never heard of him prior to TLJ. But I loved TLJ so much that it made me seek out his other films. I've been a SW fan since I was 10 years old when TPM was released. What Rian did with Luke was similar to something I had actually thought of myself years before: "What if Luke learns about how screwed up the Jedi really were in the prequels, and decides to write them off like Luther wrote off the Catholic church?"

My point is that Luke is simply not going to stay out of things. He's going to at least TRY to stop planets from being destroyed, and he would've stepped in long before that to try to turn his nephew back to the light. I love what Hamill said about suggesting to Abrams that Luke be the one who pulls the lightsaber out of the snow at the end of TFA; He shows up to save the day. Michael Arndt, JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan destroyed Luke Skywalker, albeit unintentionally.

Luke is not going to allow billions to die, full stop. That's the Luke of all three OT films. He's not going to go "Well, I guess I'll run away from trying to help my nephew, and go train a bunch of younglings instead while my nephew takes over the galaxy and kills people." He's going to sense his nephew through the force and track him down. JJ had no vision. He simply threw a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what would stick. Rian was like one of those "monkey paw" genies who gives you exactly what they are instructed to give (and he was instructed by TFA in this case).

 

You're in here saying 2+2=5 so I'm not gonna debate with you. I'm going to simply say you are wrong and leave it at that.

TFA was a mess, but RJ had tons of room to grow the story. He just chose not to.

 

I actually see a lot of parallels with Rian Johnson and Zack Snyder. Both have insanely dedicated fanbases that do sometimes act in the manner you described, part of it seems to be how interactive they are with their fans and how they seem to be very nice guys.

They both know how to shoot pretty movies (though I think both of their use of CGI can be atrocious), and some of their fans seem to value that highly without recognizing their flaws as writers. Some just have a different priority for what makes a movie good, because I don't mind flatter direction if the writing is solid. From what I've seen, both write very weak narratives and pitiful (basically non-existent) character arcs, and the defenses of their movies sometimes seem to conflate recognizing directorial intent with good execution of that intent.

 

I met Zach Snyder once. At Comic Con. He was outside looking at the batmobiles that they had lined up. No one was around. It was early morning. No one even knew who he was at that time. I did. I liked Watchmen. And we chatted a bit about the cars and upcoming movies. Nice guy. Genuinely nice.

I still don't care for his DCU.

 

For the record, I haven’t seen a ton of Johnson’s movies. Only 3, really. I thought Looper was OK and Knives Out was pretty good. I just happen to love TLJ independently of the fact that Johnson directed it. And *no* director is flawless in my view. No movie, either.

 

Hamill has a very dry sense of humour, the wookiee has no pants, giant cricket in the corner at the bar, him and Carrie seeing the Star Wars trailer being roasted in an audience, complaining about his hair not being wet after the trash compactor (if you watch the movie Mark got his way and he's ruffling his hair ahahah). not being used to it or just seeing bits of it you think he's embittered and snarky but that's just how he rolls.

 

I have. And I usually can be civil to someone without praising them.

 

I was gonna bring that up. Zach is the only one I can think of, but at least by the time he got that big he had a few blockbusters under his belt. 300 was fun, I like Watchmen and I thought Man of Steel was decent, but as soon as he made a "Last Jedi" style pretentious mess, the whole world dropped him like a sack of bricks.

People in media cheered at the death of his daughter because that meant he would no longer be directing Justice League, and the studio that he'd had a good relationship with for years immediately jumped at the opportunity to ditch him and his whole story.

Johnson's trajectory has been entirely different as far as I'm aware, and even though Zack is on a kind of resurgence, he still gets called a racist, fascist, woman-hater for no discernible reason.

 

That’s the key... and something I’m often banging on about i.e the amount of pointless tokenism that’s in TV and films, which is counter productive. It’s about the positions of power... and the artistic control that affords. As you say, the studios need to give those jobs to women/people from more diverse backgrounds, and empower them to tell their stories their way. It’s the only way a modicum of parity will be achieved.

 

Even if I bought into that, that still leaves me with weak, incompetent and utterly stupid (if he genuinely believed hiding away was the right thing). So I'm not seeing a sympathetic but misguided person carrying a burden, I see a loathsome weakling. And that was all TLJ to me, up to and including Crait. In TFA he was just a McGuffin, could have been salveagable.

 

I see some people are taking this Netflix news as badly as I expected they would.