ST What do you think of TLJ 6 years later?

No, it's not saying much at all. I find all three movies unwatchable for different reasons. I saw TFA and TLJ both twice in theaters. I was disappointed in both, but I was still wanting to evaluate the movies properly so I saw them again. I can't get through the first 10 minutes of them at home. TRoS I didn't even bother to see in the theater, and I got 20 minutes into it watching it at home.

TFA starts with "This will make things right", "Who talks first?", and "WHOOPING!" TLJ starts with completely out-of-universe Yo mama jokes. The beginning of TRoS cranked up the cringy Abrams banter between the characters up to 11 where they yell and talk over each other. I guess Abrams just loved the part in TESB where the characters yell a lot because the hyperdrive doesn't work, and thought it would be fun for the characters to always act like that.

 

Ha! Exactly. To me there’s nothing worse than the yell over each other (preferably while running) dialogue of Abrams movies. It’s just the worst and makes me hate everyone.

 

Haven't watched it in about 2 years (but have watched it several times overall), but still think it's great. It has some of the best cinematography in the entire saga. I also enjoyed a lot of the themes explored in the film. I do wish we would've gotten lightsabers clashing more than briefly in the flashback with Luke and Ben. It's the closest thing to a lightsaber duel in the film for me. I don't count duels against lightsaber-resistant weapons as lightsaber duels, nor do I count ones where the blades never touch or strike (Projection Luke vs. Ben).
I think people way overreacted to the film. It's fine to dislike or hate it. But the venom spewed was quite overwhelming at times.

 

If by best you mean worst, I agree.

 

I honestly fail to see how TLJ could ever be interpreted as 'best cinematography' of the saga, when shots like this....


end up just looking like this...


Which is a crying shame. Because those salt flats in Bolivia are truly beautiful and almost other-worldly. And what RJ did to them is just a mess.

 

Yeah. I don’t know what happened, either, as usually his films look good. And definitely more naturalistic than TLJ. It almost feels like he wasn’t able to assert much control over the VFX department, and so they were allowed to artificially light all the CGI-heavy scenes without his input, resulting in this sort of airbrushed desktop background look to a lot of it. Like Kinkade doing Star Wars or something. Odd.

 

Yeah. There's a weird over exposure, and yellow milkiness tone added to all the shots. It makes things seem over processed, which betrays any sense of natural filmography.

 

Yeah the “great cinematography but bad movie” critique is even more baffling to me than straight praise for it. I really dislike the overexposed and artificial look of it. The only scenes that look good are the on-location sequences on Ahch-to, which are naturally lit.

 

Ahch-To is pretty much the only thing I like about the movie, and the entire trilogy. It was a really cool location. I like all the mystical locations that have to do with the Force. The Jedi Temple, Dagobah, Jedha. Before the movie's release I thought those aliens were the Whills to go along with the ancient tree temple. Turns out they were just used for an offhanded comedic bit. What a letdown that was.

 

The worst part is it was so close. Imagine if Luke really went there and had his green lightsaber and the scene was lit and shot properly. Luke actually beating Kylo could have been a realistic starting point for his redemption and the same goal in the story could have been accomplished with the rebels escaping. Of course the whole part with all the blasters attacking Luke so he could brush off his would have to go but it was dumb anyways.

Could have been one of the best scenes in Star Wars history. But no, we had to subvert and kill Luke in the process. Don't get me started on him using Anakin's saber in that scene.

 

Personally I think TFA was much less a love letter to Starwars and more Abrams finding a new franchise he could plug into the same formula as his Trek films, indeed I strongly suspect thats exactly why he was hired in the first place. I think theres a superfical cynicism to his work that doesn't seem like it comes from genuine love of the franchise or a desire to recreate it, it did very well in the short term trading on the massive nostalgia for the originals as did his Trek but also as with his Trek we saw the franchise couldnt sustain itself in that fashion.

Beyond a pretty vast difference in quality IMHO one of the fundamental differences between ESB and TLJ for me is that I think the latter sticks to its guns, Luke doesnt join Vader of course but really the sense of failure and the way his character is redefind by the revaluation of his being his father very much sticks were as I think TLJ backs off from its central premise, Rey rejects Kylo and by the end is pretty much the same character she was at the start whilst he's ever less complex.

I do wonder whether a TLJ that was allowed to be as brave as ESB might have been much more sucessful and led to less of the material of questionable quality.

 

TLJ was 2017 and RJ married in 2018. Apparently he stopped writing love letters after 2017.

 

If TFA and TLJ were their respective directors’ love letters to Star Wars, then filmmakers need to stop writing love letters and start making good movies instead.

 

I'd say the starting point of him losing faith in the Dark Side, as it were, would be Rey's refusal to join him. But I don't see how Luke's defeat of Kylo, whether as a mirage or in person, furthers Ben Solo's salvation in any way.

 

The problem with Ahch-To for me is that I was already familiar with the monastery at Skellig Michael before I saw TLJ and it felt like a real world location had just been copy-pasted into the Star Wars universe. It's a cool location for sure, but it only made it harder for me to suspend my disbelief.

 

It’s not all shot on location though. You can tell which aren’t because the scenery suddenly looks overexposed and fake. Primarily the scenes on the rock at the Jedi temple (in the temple itself obviously) and near the tree and cave.

 

I was able to rewatch the film (I may have been intoxicated). I will have to defend the look of this film. Shots like these are mesmerizing to me.




I liked Canto Bight, especially it's look from the outside. It reminded me of Naboo, so I commend Johnson for not being afraid to go for more "prequel-like" designs and for not just aping the OT.

Mark Hamill's performance is good and I liked "punished Luke" more this time around. Sure, I would have preferred a hopeful Luke, but I also get what Johnson was going for. Luke having a moment of weakness and contemplating killing Ben didn't seem as bad anymore. It mirrors his moment with Vader and he had another moment when he hesitated burning the tree temple. Luke's final act is a heroic one, so that counts for something, too.

Seeing Yoda was one of my favorite moments, though I still think he was written wrong in parts. He acted like the silly front he put on in his introduction in TESB to test Luke. I had the same problem with him sometimes in The Clone Wars, where the writers don't seem to realize that Yoda acted seriously in TESB once he revealed himself and in RotJ. I think the aversion to serious Yoda comes from dislike for the prequels, but the character was like that in the OT as well.

I absolutely loathed DJ when I first saw the film, and I still dislike him, but he wasn't as bad as I remembered. Top 2 most annoying Star Wars character after L3.

I think a decent trilogy could have been built around this film. It's just Abram's movies lack any substance, so to have him build the foundation (with empty mystery boxes) and deliver the conclusion was a disastrous idea. He would have been better suited for the middle film, though to be honest, I don't think he's ever made a decent film, so I wouldn't really want him anywhere near Star Wars. Johnson made Looper, which I really liked, and I championed him to direct Star Wars. The result is less than perfect, but the only ST film with any sort of creative spark.

 

Personally, the one film of the trilogy which annoys me the least.

 

I think when some talk about the cinematography of TLJ, they are probably just picking up on the fact that Johnson embraced the alien and fantastical elements of landscape and vistas more than Abrams. Crait is much more visually inventive, but in terms of pure cinematography, it's all rather flat and bland (IMO).

 

I think some people are capable of looking at shot composition without factoring in color pallet. Some things in TLJ are shot well... but exist in a sea of beige milkiness. I don't care how objectively well something is shot if WHAT IS BEING SHOT looks bad, but I also understand that's subjective.

Even looking at Crait in TLJ vs Jakku in TFA. They're both boring looking landscapes so filming one more "arty" isn't going to really elevate WHAT it is you're looking at. But, for some people, just by virtue of being shot "arty" is enough to elevate the scenery. Again, it's subjective... but I think TLJ looks like hot garbage.

 

Anyone telling me TLJ is the best cinematography in the saga has not seen Empire on a big screen. Empire is gorgeous. TLJ looks like it was shot through dirt, plus everyone looks terrible. Leia is the only person in a decent costume with combed hair. Everyone else looks like they were rolled down the stairs at Ach To and put on screen. Chewie looks fake on top of that.

Small is a perfect description (small-minded too). There's no heroism because heroism is degraded - and that is why the new saga fails. Star Wars is not post modern and cynical, it was created in opposition to the cynical movies of the 70s. Why they let a bunch of cynics in to run things is beyond me. Then again, I don't think Iger, Kennedy or any of them really "get" why Star Wars is a thing.

 

Because the entire ST was a cynical cash grab.

 

That's certainly part of the appeal to me. What I was positively surprised by on my rewatch, was that when TLJ wipes from scene to scene, it feels like Star Wars because you're traveling from one alien location to another. You get many wonderful shots of Skellig Michael and of Canto Bight. Crait has wonderful red, but is shot pretty boringly. The above mentioned shots that look like a fighting game are a good example.




And there are just shots like this too:



I understand the complaint about "milkiness", but I think it looks ten times better than what it is Abrams' movies look like. There is a somber tone in the film, like the shroud of the dark side is hanging over everything, so I think the look fits. It reminds me of the look of AotC and RotS in parts.