Entertainment things everyone else is wrong about, and you are right about.

[batguy]

1. TLJ sucks. No, it doesn't. It's a fantastic film with a ton of interesting messages in it. However, as a sequel to TFA and as the middle chapter between TFA and TROS, it's really, really out of place. It didn't have to be, though. That film threw down the gauntlet and challenged the people in charge of the franchise to think bigger than just reiterating what's been done before. But they chickened out and went with recycled plots, and we got TROS. TLJ was great because it laughs and tells you that all the build-up that JJ Abrams created in TFA was a bunch of meaningless chicanery with no soul. TLJ purposefully broke down all the conventions of Star Wars films and cleared the ground to start again with something new, stylistically, structurally, and even in-universe for the characters. It was incredibly ambitious, but the producers flinched in the wake of irate fans who want their heroes preserved in amber

I know what you're getting at, and there's validity to it. But I cannot be that charitable to TLJ. It did a lot of throwing spitballs at characters/themes that the audience is emotionally invested in.

I mean, Luke greets Rey by tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder and milking a space cow? That's 'Saturday Night Live' worthy stuff.

Remember the SNL land shark skit? You could say that was challenging the JAWS franchise to step up its game. But that skit cannot be in the continuity with the real JAWS movies. It dissed the source material way too hard to coexist with it.

 

[Psab keel]

A handful of interesting/ challenging ideas can't make up for a plot that doesn't make a lick of sense or for characters who lack any likeable quality. The Prequels consisted of ambitious and interesting concepts but just like the ST, the characters were underdeveloped and the plots weren't as clear as they could have been. Where the Prequels have them beat is having an overall story arc that was evident from the first film and at least attempted to not totally rehash what came before. The ST did not, by even the greatest stretch of the imagination, have a plan. 1,2, and 3 were about the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker and the fall of the Republic. The ST? I couldn't tell you. Maybe.... iconic heroes get snuffed out by hack writers? That's about all I can fathom. Especially 8 and 9 being nothing more than a pissing match between two directors trying to undo each other's work. 7 was a pale imitation, and has major flaws, but they're nowhere near as egregious as it's sequels.

As far as TLJ, as batguy points out, and I too have discussed at length since 2017, is that you cannot openly/ repeatedly mock the very tropes that lie at the foundation of a franchise (within the film itself), only to rely on those same tropes by the end of the movie and expect that the audience will be duped into going along with it. Either you embrace the idiosyncracies of this space adventure plot or you don't, but you can't make fun of what people like about this series, and then get mad when they react badly to it. Make fun of what makes the series popular and by extension you're mocking your audience. It's just a snobbish way to write a story to prove you're "smarter" than them. There are so many examples of this and I don't feel like bothering to expound anymore because we've discussed that steaming turd of a film to death. The Last Jedi is absolute garbage. In case you weren't aware of how I feel about it.

I do agree with you that more is NOT necessarily better. Just more. Often not better because what we initially got was enough.

 

[Solo4114]

I know what you're getting at, and there's validity to it. But I cannot be that charitable to TLJ. It did a lot of throwing spitballs at characters/themes that the audience is emotionally invested in.

I mean, Luke greets Rey by tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder and milking a space cow? That's 'Saturday Night Live' worthy stuff.

You know I've got a real response to this, right? I mean, you had to expect that.

TLDR version:

The stuff you're pissed about isn't the stuff you're pissed about, and the blame for all of this lies squarely at JJ Abrams' (and whoever else was first brainstorming the new trilogy) feet. Assuming the writers actually care about having characters behave believably and in realistic ways (i.e., actually being able to write characters instead of just caricatures or walking tropes), then this was the necessary result and any additional cheekiness is beside the point; what really bothers you was that Luke was diminished, not that he was cheeky. And that's down to JJ setting that up.

Longer version:

So, Luke is snarky and grumpy and cheeky towards Rey. And this is played for laughs to some extent. I grant you that.

However, that really just boils down to a question of "How will Luke behave towards here," not "Why is Luke on this planet in the first place?"

In a way, Luke's initial behavior is a lot like Yoda's in ESB. He's goofy and silly and irreverent. And if we all showed up not knowing who Luke is (other than "famous Jedi warrior" or whatever), then we'd probably respond similarly. But we don't. We show up with preconceived notions of Luke, both in terms of the Luke we saw in the films, and in terms of the Luke we imagined in the future of the films (or read about in the EU, in some cases, which, again, remains crap mostly ).

So, let's ask why Luke is there in the first place. He is absolutely broken with guilt and shame, and a healthy dose of self-pity. He justifies this all by saying that the Jedi failed, that he failed, and that he'd only cause more harm than good. And now, let's ask why that is? Not why does Luke feel ashamed. That part's pretty obvious, I think. But rather, why was Luke in that position in the first place?

It was, ultimately, an extra-narrative decision to sideline the OT heroes so they wouldn't overshadow the new heroes. The kids needed to save the day, not the retirees. (It's Star Wars, not Cocoon.) Buuuut we also "needed" to have those characters in the films. If you have those two requirements, then the end result is "The OT heroes are diminished." Their victory is undone. Their power and heroism proved insufficient to stop it. And now they're diminished and someone else needs to take up the mantle.

And that was it. Alea iacta est. You were set up from the very beginning, at least if you were going to actually honor the narrative you created. In other words, if you set up all these awful tragedies that reset the galaxy to "Basically the Empire again, and we need these kids to save us instead of the OT heroes" then you're either going to ignore those, or you're going to honor them and play them out as they'd play out.

There's an approach that would basically ignore all of that stuff. It's probably what would have happened if JJ had also done the middle chapter. It'd have Rey show up and hand the lightsabre to Luke, and he'd respond with incredible gravitas (because, of course, he's the new mentor after all), and say something like "Come. We have much to do." And then you get a training montage and blah blah blah you know what comes next. Then he'd go with Rey and heroically die helping her or whatever, and it all just paints itself by numbers, right? But here's the thing: if Luke was ready to do all of that why did he go to the isolated planet in the first place?

JJ doesn't care about that stuff when he's making films, because he's not making internally consistent, carefully designed stories with real characters; he's making roller-coaster rides. Damn fine ones, no question, but ultimately roller-coaster rides and that's it. His stories tend to be internally inconsistent and to not withstand even mild scrutiny. If he'd done the middle film, and it had gone as described above, that would leave the question "So how come he went there in the first place?!" In other words, if he's just going to turn right around as soon as Rey shows up and say "We have work to do" and get ready to go kick NuImperial ass....why'd he disappear to this planet at all? Even if he didn't kick ass, even if he pulled a Ben Kenobi and died to buy Rey time to do whatsit, the question would remain "If he was so willing to go with her and get back to being a hero, why the hell did he leave in the first place?!" But JJ would be like "NEVER MIND WE'RE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT HELTER-SKELTER ACTION SET PIECE!!!"

Instead, I would argue that once you put Luke on that planet, you require that his reason for being there is a damn good one and one that he wouldn't just flip back on. Like, Luke's a hero. He's a guy who saved the galaxy multiple times. He redeemed Darth Vader and his involvement led to Palaptine's death! He had a duty to re-start the Jedi! So, why would he ever say "Nah, I'm out. Off to Remote Planet X"?

Ultimately, there is no way to reconcile the stuff that JJ set up and have it actually be meaningful, unless you give Luke genuine motivations. And once you do that, once you give him those motivations, if you're not a complete hack and actually care about the integrity of your story, you have to pay them off and honor them. He can't just turn on a dime, and his reasons have to be so serious that they would 100% sideline him as the First Order rises to power and Ben is out there just being all evil.

JJ stuck Luke on This Island Not-Earth at the end of TFA. The entire film is a chase to find out where he is. I would bet dollars to donuts that JJ....had no idea why Luke was there. Or to the extent he did, it was a very thin reason. "He's distraught about the destruction of the Jedi order. There. That's the reason." Except it's not as simple as all of that if you actually care about grounded characterization.

I would argue that, if anything, Rian Johnson showed great respect for the franchise by actually accepting the circumstances that JJ gave him, and then writing a Luke that was entirely believable and consistent with that set-up. He's sidelined for a real, very serious reason. It's not just "Oh I felt sad, but now that you're here, let's go! Hooray!" He's crippled with grief, shame, and self-pity and -loathing. He blames himself for all of the ills in the galaxy now, he's ashamed of his failures, and he just wants to hide away for the rest of his days. And all of that is because of his own personal failure, where he -- for a split second -- actually contemplated killing his nephew to save the galaxy. (Basically the "Baby Hitler" thought exercise.) And it was that split second, that moment of weakness that he absolutely cannot ever take back that set in motion everything else. THAT is why he's on the planet, THAT is why he's bitter and hidden away. And THAT is why when he comes back at the very end it holds real meaning. Because we've seen the toll this all took on Luke. We've seen how it broke him and what it turned him into.

Basically, if you have a character who is as heroic as Luke was in the OT, to fully sideline them, there needs to be something that fundamentally changes their character. Of course Luke wasn't going to behave like the Luke you know! That's because JJ sidelined him. And the only way that makes sense is if the reason for him being sidelined is something so awful that it fundamentally changed him. Because otherwise, the Luke you knew in the OT would have found a way to overcome it and keep fighting for good.

But he didn't. He left. And that demands an answer as to "Why?"


Rian Johnson took that assignment seriously and treated it with integrity. It's not his fault that JJ didn't ever bother to think through the consequences of his own extra-narrative decisions.

So, ultimately, that's why I don't really care that Luke's cheeky towards Rey. The real disappointment isn't "He drinks green milk from weird walrus-cows" or "he's a jerk and throws away his sabre." It's "Luke abandoned the position of 'hero' and left the galaxy to fend for itself. Why the hell would he do that?!" Johnson's answer is entirely reasonable and acceptable. The problem fans have is that there was a reason to ask that question in the first place. And that was set up before a single second of film was ever shot.

 

[CessnaDriver]

Topgun is silly unwatchable MTV style drivel.

 

[CessnaDriver]

Oh and Beetlejuice isn’t funny.

 

[Usagi Pilgrim]

You know I've got a real response to this, right? I mean, you had to expect that.

TLDR version:

The stuff you're pissed about isn't the stuff you're pissed about, and the blame for all of this lies squarely at JJ Abrams' (and whoever else was first brainstorming the new trilogy) feet. Assuming the writers actually care about having characters behave believably and in realistic ways (i.e., actually being able to write characters instead of just caricatures or walking tropes), then this was the necessary result and any additional cheekiness is beside the point; what really bothers you was that Luke was diminished, not that he was cheeky. And that's down to JJ setting that up.

Longer version:

So, Luke is snarky and grumpy and cheeky towards Rey. And this is played for laughs to some extent. I grant you that.

However, that really just boils down to a question of "How will Luke behave towards here," not "Why is Luke on this planet in the first place?"

In a way, Luke's initial behavior is a lot like Yoda's in ESB. He's goofy and silly and irreverent. And if we all showed up not knowing who Luke is (other than "famous Jedi warrior" or whatever), then we'd probably respond similarly. But we don't. We show up with preconceived notions of Luke, both in terms of the Luke we saw in the films, and in terms of the Luke we imagined in the future of the films (or read about in the EU, in some cases, which, again, remains crap mostly ).

So, let's ask why Luke is there in the first place. He is absolutely broken with guilt and shame, and a healthy dose of self-pity. He justifies this all by saying that the Jedi failed, that he failed, and that he'd only cause more harm than good. And now, let's ask why that is? Not why does Luke feel ashamed. That part's pretty obvious, I think. But rather, why was Luke in that position in the first place?

It was, ultimately, an extra-narrative decision to sideline the OT heroes so they wouldn't overshadow the new heroes. The kids needed to save the day, not the retirees. (It's Star Wars, not Cocoon.) Buuuut we also "needed" to have those characters in the films. If you have those two requirements, then the end result is "The OT heroes are diminished." Their victory is undone. Their power and heroism proved insufficient to stop it. And now they're diminished and someone else needs to take up the mantle.

And that was it. Alea iacta est. You were set up from the very beginning, at least if you were going to actually honor the narrative you created. In other words, if you set up all these awful tragedies that reset the galaxy to "Basically the Empire again, and we need these kids to save us instead of the OT heroes" then you're either going to ignore those, or you're going to honor them and play them out as they'd play out.

There's an approach that would basically ignore all of that stuff. It's probably what would have happened if JJ had also done the middle chapter. It'd have Rey show up and hand the lightsabre to Luke, and he'd respond with incredible gravitas (because, of course, he's the new mentor after all), and say something like "Come. We have much to do." And then you get a training montage and blah blah blah you know what comes next. Then he'd go with Rey and heroically die helping her or whatever, and it all just paints itself by numbers, right? But here's the thing: if Luke was ready to do all of that why did he go to the isolated planet in the first place?

JJ doesn't care about that stuff when he's making films, because he's not making internally consistent, carefully designed stories with real characters; he's making roller-coaster rides. Damn fine ones, no question, but ultimately roller-coaster rides and that's it. His stories tend to be internally inconsistent and to not withstand even mild scrutiny. If he'd done the middle film, and it had gone as described above, that would leave the question "So how come he went there in the first place?!" In other words, if he's just going to turn right around as soon as Rey shows up and say "We have work to do" and get ready to go kick NuImperial ass....why'd he disappear to this planet at all? Even if he didn't kick ass, even if he pulled a Ben Kenobi and died to buy Rey time to do whatsit, the question would remain "If he was so willing to go with her and get back to being a hero, why the hell did he leave in the first place?!" But JJ would be like "NEVER MIND WE'RE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT HELTER-SKELTER ACTION SET PIECE!!!"

Instead, I would argue that once you put Luke on that planet, you require that his reason for being there is a damn good one and one that he wouldn't just flip back on. Like, Luke's a hero. He's a guy who saved the galaxy multiple times. He redeemed Darth Vader and his involvement led to Palaptine's death! He had a duty to re-start the Jedi! So, why would he ever say "Nah, I'm out. Off to Remote Planet X"?

Ultimately, there is no way to reconcile the stuff that JJ set up and have it actually be meaningful, unless you give Luke genuine motivations. And once you do that, once you give him those motivations, if you're not a complete hack and actually care about the integrity of your story, you have to pay them off and honor them. He can't just turn on a dime, and his reasons have to be so serious that they would 100% sideline him as the First Order rises to power and Ben is out there just being all evil.

JJ stuck Luke on This Island Not-Earth at the end of TFA. The entire film is a chase to find out where he is. I would bet dollars to donuts that JJ....had no idea why Luke was there. Or to the extent he did, it was a very thin reason. "He's distraught about the destruction of the Jedi order. There. That's the reason." Except it's not as simple as all of that if you actually care about grounded characterization.

I would argue that, if anything, Rian Johnson showed great respect for the franchise by actually accepting the circumstances that JJ gave him, and then writing a Luke that was entirely believable and consistent with that set-up. He's sidelined for a real, very serious reason. It's not just "Oh I felt sad, but now that you're here, let's go! Hooray!" He's crippled with grief, shame, and self-pity and -loathing. He blames himself for all of the ills in the galaxy now, he's ashamed of his failures, and he just wants to hide away for the rest of his days. And all of that is because of his own personal failure, where he -- for a split second -- actually contemplated killing his nephew to save the galaxy. (Basically the "Baby Hitler" thought exercise.) And it was that split second, that moment of weakness that he absolutely cannot ever take back that set in motion everything else. THAT is why he's on the planet, THAT is why he's bitter and hidden away. And THAT is why when he comes back at the very end it holds real meaning. Because we've seen the toll this all took on Luke. We've seen how it broke him and what it turned him into.

Basically, if you have a character who is as heroic as Luke was in the OT, to fully sideline them, there needs to be something that fundamentally changes their character. Of course Luke wasn't going to behave like the Luke you know! That's because JJ sidelined him. And the only way that makes sense is if the reason for him being sidelined is something so awful that it fundamentally changed him. Because otherwise, the Luke you knew in the OT would have found a way to overcome it and keep fighting for good.

But he didn't. He left. And that demands an answer as to "Why?"


Rian Johnson took that assignment seriously and treated it with integrity. It's not his fault that JJ didn't ever bother to think through the consequences of his own extra-narrative decisions.

So, ultimately, that's why I don't really care that Luke's cheeky towards Rey. The real disappointment isn't "He drinks green milk from weird walrus-cows" or "he's a jerk and throws away his sabre." It's "Luke abandoned the position of 'hero' and left the galaxy to fend for itself. Why the hell would he do that?!" Johnson's answer is entirely reasonable and acceptable. The problem fans have is that there was a reason to ask that question in the first place. And that was set up before a single second of film was ever shot.

 

[batguy]

Basically, if you have a character who is as heroic as Luke was in the OT, to fully sideline them, there needs to be something that fundamentally changes their character. Of course Luke wasn't going to behave like the Luke you know! That's because JJ sidelined him. And the only way that makes sense is if the reason for him being sidelined is something so awful that it fundamentally changed him. Because otherwise, the Luke you knew in the OT would have found a way to overcome it and keep fighting for good.

But he didn't. He left. And that demands an answer as to "Why?"


Rian Johnson took that assignment seriously and treated it with integrity. It's not his fault that JJ didn't ever bother to think through the consequences of his own extra-narrative decisions.

So, ultimately, that's why I don't really care that Luke's cheeky towards Rey. The real disappointment isn't "He drinks green milk from weird walrus-cows" or "he's a jerk and throws away his sabre." It's "Luke abandoned the position of 'hero' and left the galaxy to fend for itself. Why the hell would he do that?!" Johnson's answer is entirely reasonable and acceptable. The problem fans have is that there was a reason to ask that question in the first place. And that was set up before a single second of film was ever shot.

Yes I totally agree about the setup from JJA. Luke became a recluse and that requires a pretty galactic reason behind it. JJA left a big problem for the next movie to solve.

But RJ's solution to that problem, both general and specifics, was not acceptable IMO. It went too far into character & audience betrayal.


You can solve the problems of continuing the 'Terminator' franchise by having 13yo John Connor get waxed at the beginning of a new movie. But the audience is not coming into that movie in a neutral state. They are invested in Johnny and sending him off like that will cost the movie too much goodwill to recover from it.


There were other ways to handle Luke's TLJ situation. Luke has amnesia. Something has blocked his contact with the rest of the galaxy. Maybe it's the bad guy and he has been decieving Luke for years. Maybe Luke lost his powers and he doesn't know why or is trying to regain them. Maybe he would have to do something morally unacceptable to get his powers back and he's not willing. Maybe he saw the future and saw that his mission would fail (without the baby Hitler incident). Maybe he's concentrating with all his Jedi powers to retroactively change the final season of 'Game of Thrones'. There were so many ways to write TLJ that didn't involve grumpy-old-Luke throwing away the lightsaber & milking a space cow & trying to kill his nephew.

 

[batguy]

Also, I would argue that TLJ left the writers of the next episode in just as much of a mess as TFA did. (A different kind of mess, but still a mess.)

I walked out of TLJ with mixed feelings about it. But I had a clear feeling that I didn't care where the story went from there. It was clear that nobody was steering the ship and they weren't even respecting the old characters. I didn't need to follow the leaks & rumors about ep#9's troubled production for two years just to know it would be a disappointment. That outcome was baked in by the previous two episodes.

The writer of ep#9 turned out to be JJA again. But it could have been some other poor chump having to deal with the mess.

 

[Psab keel]

Exactly. Rian's option wasn't the only one.

Luke could have gone to that island to regroup and find a way to bring Ben back to the light. His ship malfunctioned and he was stranded there because there was no other way to get off planet. The planet is undeveloped with no transports on or off world. There. Simple way to maintain the character's integrity and explain his absence from the fight.

 

[Schlegel]

My opinion that I haven't heard from others but is objectively true:

Live action Princess Jasmine's handmaid Dalia is hotter than Jasmine.

 

[blueraptor15]

Arnold can't act. Hard to say, but wrong. There is a scene in his Zombie movie with his daughter. No Dialogue, but man that crazy Aussie actually showed he can act. You really feel for his character.

I honestly think Arnold is one of the few actors who, the more experience he got acting, the worse he got at acting.

 

[Joek3rr]

You know I've got a real response to this, right? I mean, you had to expect that.

TLDR version:

The stuff you're pissed about isn't the stuff you're pissed about, and the blame for all of this lies squarely at JJ Abrams' (and whoever else was first brainstorming the new trilogy) feet. Assuming the writers actually care about having characters behave believably and in realistic ways (i.e., actually being able to write characters instead of just caricatures or walking tropes), then this was the necessary result and any additional cheekiness is beside the point; what really bothers you was that Luke was diminished, not that he was cheeky. And that's down to JJ setting that up.

Longer version:

So, Luke is snarky and grumpy and cheeky towards Rey. And this is played for laughs to some extent. I grant you that.

However, that really just boils down to a question of "How will Luke behave towards here," not "Why is Luke on this planet in the first place?"

In a way, Luke's initial behavior is a lot like Yoda's in ESB. He's goofy and silly and irreverent. And if we all showed up not knowing who Luke is (other than "famous Jedi warrior" or whatever), then we'd probably respond similarly. But we don't. We show up with preconceived notions of Luke, both in terms of the Luke we saw in the films, and in terms of the Luke we imagined in the future of the films (or read about in the EU, in some cases, which, again, remains crap mostly ).

So, let's ask why Luke is there in the first place. He is absolutely broken with guilt and shame, and a healthy dose of self-pity. He justifies this all by saying that the Jedi failed, that he failed, and that he'd only cause more harm than good. And now, let's ask why that is? Not why does Luke feel ashamed. That part's pretty obvious, I think. But rather, why was Luke in that position in the first place?

It was, ultimately, an extra-narrative decision to sideline the OT heroes so they wouldn't overshadow the new heroes. The kids needed to save the day, not the retirees. (It's Star Wars, not Cocoon.) Buuuut we also "needed" to have those characters in the films. If you have those two requirements, then the end result is "The OT heroes are diminished." Their victory is undone. Their power and heroism proved insufficient to stop it. And now they're diminished and someone else needs to take up the mantle.

And that was it. Alea iacta est. You were set up from the very beginning, at least if you were going to actually honor the narrative you created. In other words, if you set up all these awful tragedies that reset the galaxy to "Basically the Empire again, and we need these kids to save us instead of the OT heroes" then you're either going to ignore those, or you're going to honor them and play them out as they'd play out.

There's an approach that would basically ignore all of that stuff. It's probably what would have happened if JJ had also done the middle chapter. It'd have Rey show up and hand the lightsabre to Luke, and he'd respond with incredible gravitas (because, of course, he's the new mentor after all), and say something like "Come. We have much to do." And then you get a training montage and blah blah blah you know what comes next. Then he'd go with Rey and heroically die helping her or whatever, and it all just paints itself by numbers, right? But here's the thing: if Luke was ready to do all of that why did he go to the isolated planet in the first place?

JJ doesn't care about that stuff when he's making films, because he's not making internally consistent, carefully designed stories with real characters; he's making roller-coaster rides. Damn fine ones, no question, but ultimately roller-coaster rides and that's it. His stories tend to be internally inconsistent and to not withstand even mild scrutiny. If he'd done the middle film, and it had gone as described above, that would leave the question "So how come he went there in the first place?!" In other words, if he's just going to turn right around as soon as Rey shows up and say "We have work to do" and get ready to go kick NuImperial ass....why'd he disappear to this planet at all? Even if he didn't kick ass, even if he pulled a Ben Kenobi and died to buy Rey time to do whatsit, the question would remain "If he was so willing to go with her and get back to being a hero, why the hell did he leave in the first place?!" But JJ would be like "NEVER MIND WE'RE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT HELTER-SKELTER ACTION SET PIECE!!!"

Instead, I would argue that once you put Luke on that planet, you require that his reason for being there is a damn good one and one that he wouldn't just flip back on. Like, Luke's a hero. He's a guy who saved the galaxy multiple times. He redeemed Darth Vader and his involvement led to Palaptine's death! He had a duty to re-start the Jedi! So, why would he ever say "Nah, I'm out. Off to Remote Planet X"?

Ultimately, there is no way to reconcile the stuff that JJ set up and have it actually be meaningful, unless you give Luke genuine motivations. And once you do that, once you give him those motivations, if you're not a complete hack and actually care about the integrity of your story, you have to pay them off and honor them. He can't just turn on a dime, and his reasons have to be so serious that they would 100% sideline him as the First Order rises to power and Ben is out there just being all evil.

JJ stuck Luke on This Island Not-Earth at the end of TFA. The entire film is a chase to find out where he is. I would bet dollars to donuts that JJ....had no idea why Luke was there. Or to the extent he did, it was a very thin reason. "He's distraught about the destruction of the Jedi order. There. That's the reason." Except it's not as simple as all of that if you actually care about grounded characterization.

I would argue that, if anything, Rian Johnson showed great respect for the franchise by actually accepting the circumstances that JJ gave him, and then writing a Luke that was entirely believable and consistent with that set-up. He's sidelined for a real, very serious reason. It's not just "Oh I felt sad, but now that you're here, let's go! Hooray!" He's crippled with grief, shame, and self-pity and -loathing. He blames himself for all of the ills in the galaxy now, he's ashamed of his failures, and he just wants to hide away for the rest of his days. And all of that is because of his own personal failure, where he -- for a split second -- actually contemplated killing his nephew to save the galaxy. (Basically the "Baby Hitler" thought exercise.) And it was that split second, that moment of weakness that he absolutely cannot ever take back that set in motion everything else. THAT is why he's on the planet, THAT is why he's bitter and hidden away. And THAT is why when he comes back at the very end it holds real meaning. Because we've seen the toll this all took on Luke. We've seen how it broke him and what it turned him into.

Basically, if you have a character who is as heroic as Luke was in the OT, to fully sideline them, there needs to be something that fundamentally changes their character. Of course Luke wasn't going to behave like the Luke you know! That's because JJ sidelined him. And the only way that makes sense is if the reason for him being sidelined is something so awful that it fundamentally changed him. Because otherwise, the Luke you knew in the OT would have found a way to overcome it and keep fighting for good.

But he didn't. He left. And that demands an answer as to "Why?"


Rian Johnson took that assignment seriously and treated it with integrity. It's not his fault that JJ didn't ever bother to think through the consequences of his own extra-narrative decisions.

So, ultimately, that's why I don't really care that Luke's cheeky towards Rey. The real disappointment isn't "He drinks green milk from weird walrus-cows" or "he's a jerk and throws away his sabre." It's "Luke abandoned the position of 'hero' and left the galaxy to fend for itself. Why the hell would he do that?!" Johnson's answer is entirely reasonable and acceptable. The problem fans have is that there was a reason to ask that question in the first place. And that was set up before a single second of film was ever shot.

And heck it wasn't even JJ. It's like nobody wanted to figure out Luke. George whips up this idea of a depressed Luke on an island. That's it. Michael can't figure out what to do with Luke. So he passed it of to JJ and Lawrence. They can't or don't want to figure out what to do, so they pass it off to Rian. Poor guy knows he can't pass it off to anyone else.

 

[batguy]

I honestly think Arnold is one of the few actors who, the more experience he got acting, the worse he got at acting.

He went from trying to play characters to playing himself.

It's probably down to his rising fame and the types of roles he was in. When you have a well-established persona the writers will be tailoring your scripts to fit it.

 

[CopperRevan]

You know I've got a real response to this, right? I mean, you had to expect that.

TLDR version:

The stuff you're pissed about isn't the stuff you're pissed about, and the blame for all of this lies squarely at JJ Abrams' (and whoever else was first brainstorming the new trilogy) feet. Assuming the writers actually care about having characters behave believably and in realistic ways (i.e., actually being able to write characters instead of just caricatures or walking tropes), then this was the necessary result and any additional cheekiness is beside the point; what really bothers you was that Luke was diminished, not that he was cheeky. And that's down to JJ setting that up.

Longer version:

So, Luke is snarky and grumpy and cheeky towards Rey. And this is played for laughs to some extent. I grant you that.

However, that really just boils down to a question of "How will Luke behave towards here," not "Why is Luke on this planet in the first place?"

In a way, Luke's initial behavior is a lot like Yoda's in ESB. He's goofy and silly and irreverent. And if we all showed up not knowing who Luke is (other than "famous Jedi warrior" or whatever), then we'd probably respond similarly. But we don't. We show up with preconceived notions of Luke, both in terms of the Luke we saw in the films, and in terms of the Luke we imagined in the future of the films (or read about in the EU, in some cases, which, again, remains crap mostly ).

So, let's ask why Luke is there in the first place. He is absolutely broken with guilt and shame, and a healthy dose of self-pity. He justifies this all by saying that the Jedi failed, that he failed, and that he'd only cause more harm than good. And now, let's ask why that is? Not why does Luke feel ashamed. That part's pretty obvious, I think. But rather, why was Luke in that position in the first place?

It was, ultimately, an extra-narrative decision to sideline the OT heroes so they wouldn't overshadow the new heroes. The kids needed to save the day, not the retirees. (It's Star Wars, not Cocoon.) Buuuut we also "needed" to have those characters in the films. If you have those two requirements, then the end result is "The OT heroes are diminished." Their victory is undone. Their power and heroism proved insufficient to stop it. And now they're diminished and someone else needs to take up the mantle.

And that was it. Alea iacta est. You were set up from the very beginning, at least if you were going to actually honor the narrative you created. In other words, if you set up all these awful tragedies that reset the galaxy to "Basically the Empire again, and we need these kids to save us instead of the OT heroes" then you're either going to ignore those, or you're going to honor them and play them out as they'd play out.

There's an approach that would basically ignore all of that stuff. It's probably what would have happened if JJ had also done the middle chapter. It'd have Rey show up and hand the lightsabre to Luke, and he'd respond with incredible gravitas (because, of course, he's the new mentor after all), and say something like "Come. We have much to do." And then you get a training montage and blah blah blah you know what comes next. Then he'd go with Rey and heroically die helping her or whatever, and it all just paints itself by numbers, right? But here's the thing: if Luke was ready to do all of that why did he go to the isolated planet in the first place?

JJ doesn't care about that stuff when he's making films, because he's not making internally consistent, carefully designed stories with real characters; he's making roller-coaster rides. Damn fine ones, no question, but ultimately roller-coaster rides and that's it. His stories tend to be internally inconsistent and to not withstand even mild scrutiny. If he'd done the middle film, and it had gone as described above, that would leave the question "So how come he went there in the first place?!" In other words, if he's just going to turn right around as soon as Rey shows up and say "We have work to do" and get ready to go kick NuImperial ass....why'd he disappear to this planet at all? Even if he didn't kick ass, even if he pulled a Ben Kenobi and died to buy Rey time to do whatsit, the question would remain "If he was so willing to go with her and get back to being a hero, why the hell did he leave in the first place?!" But JJ would be like "NEVER MIND WE'RE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT HELTER-SKELTER ACTION SET PIECE!!!"

Instead, I would argue that once you put Luke on that planet, you require that his reason for being there is a damn good one and one that he wouldn't just flip back on. Like, Luke's a hero. He's a guy who saved the galaxy multiple times. He redeemed Darth Vader and his involvement led to Palaptine's death! He had a duty to re-start the Jedi! So, why would he ever say "Nah, I'm out. Off to Remote Planet X"?

Ultimately, there is no way to reconcile the stuff that JJ set up and have it actually be meaningful, unless you give Luke genuine motivations. And once you do that, once you give him those motivations, if you're not a complete hack and actually care about the integrity of your story, you have to pay them off and honor them. He can't just turn on a dime, and his reasons have to be so serious that they would 100% sideline him as the First Order rises to power and Ben is out there just being all evil.

JJ stuck Luke on This Island Not-Earth at the end of TFA. The entire film is a chase to find out where he is. I would bet dollars to donuts that JJ....had no idea why Luke was there. Or to the extent he did, it was a very thin reason. "He's distraught about the destruction of the Jedi order. There. That's the reason." Except it's not as simple as all of that if you actually care about grounded characterization.

I would argue that, if anything, Rian Johnson showed great respect for the franchise by actually accepting the circumstances that JJ gave him, and then writing a Luke that was entirely believable and consistent with that set-up. He's sidelined for a real, very serious reason. It's not just "Oh I felt sad, but now that you're here, let's go! Hooray!" He's crippled with grief, shame, and self-pity and -loathing. He blames himself for all of the ills in the galaxy now, he's ashamed of his failures, and he just wants to hide away for the rest of his days. And all of that is because of his own personal failure, where he -- for a split second -- actually contemplated killing his nephew to save the galaxy. (Basically the "Baby Hitler" thought exercise.) And it was that split second, that moment of weakness that he absolutely cannot ever take back that set in motion everything else. THAT is why he's on the planet, THAT is why he's bitter and hidden away. And THAT is why when he comes back at the very end it holds real meaning. Because we've seen the toll this all took on Luke. We've seen how it broke him and what it turned him into.

Basically, if you have a character who is as heroic as Luke was in the OT, to fully sideline them, there needs to be something that fundamentally changes their character. Of course Luke wasn't going to behave like the Luke you know! That's because JJ sidelined him. And the only way that makes sense is if the reason for him being sidelined is something so awful that it fundamentally changed him. Because otherwise, the Luke you knew in the OT would have found a way to overcome it and keep fighting for good.

But he didn't. He left. And that demands an answer as to "Why?"


Rian Johnson took that assignment seriously and treated it with integrity. It's not his fault that JJ didn't ever bother to think through the consequences of his own extra-narrative decisions.

So, ultimately, that's why I don't really care that Luke's cheeky towards Rey. The real disappointment isn't "He drinks green milk from weird walrus-cows" or "he's a jerk and throws away his sabre." It's "Luke abandoned the position of 'hero' and left the galaxy to fend for itself. Why the hell would he do that?!" Johnson's answer is entirely reasonable and acceptable. The problem fans have is that there was a reason to ask that question in the first place. And that was set up before a single second of film was ever shot.

Don't know if you did this on purpose but you just gave a very detailed explaination of why the Sequel trilogy should have never been made in the first place and how horribly mismanaged it was before The Force awakens even saw the light of day...absolutely nothing was thought out from the beginning and to justify everything that happened in these movies based on a different version of Luke who leaves everything and everyone behind(of course, leaves a map to his location so he can be found...huh?) so eventually, a scavenger girl could push him down on the ground with his back turned and lord over him somehow motivating him back to action(by a force projection, not in the flesh) is not just diminishing a character...but is insulting, disrectful to the origins and it's erasing the whole entire premise and redemption of the character itself...also by reinstating a character(Palpatine) thereby undoing what had already been completed.

We all know their motivation behind this mess. How? They are still doing it...currently! To justify the ends without justifying the means is just incompetent and lazy. I know a handful of people on this forum that could have produced something 10 times as good as what the audience got. I know...many will say, "well Lucas changed the OT as it went along too" Please! That is most definitely true yet, when you take the OT as a whole...It's a cohesive and complete story with a message that speaks to the heart. Where is any cohesiveness to the ST? What is the overall message of the ST? Is it inspiring or thoughtful or heart provoking? No it is not! ("oooh...Rey kissed Kylo...how romantic! It's so romantic kissing a guy that murdered his own father and broke his mothers heart to death, but for Him? He got to kiss the most powerful woman to ever exist!) Man, i think i talked myself right into loving this...not! lol

 

[wuher da brewer]

I’m hoping everyone knows this, not just me. If you’re thinking about buying the Indiana Jones Props for under $30 that are from sponsored ads on Facebook, don’t do it. Everything about the ad screams fake including poor customer support options, fake address, no security seal, discounts to good to be true, fake social media presence, no trust score, and obvious plagiarism of other websites. They’re probably stolen pics from members.

 

[Treadwell]

Batman 89 is not a good movie, and Keaton is not a good Batman nor a good Wayne.

All it has going for it is spectacular art design, and a cool main title theme (although the rest of the score is mediocre).

Oh, and Alfred.

 

[ScourgiousJinx]

The Big Bang Theory is an absolutely horrible show. I just cant do it. Sitcoms are a hard sell for me in general but I cant even sit through 2 minutes of it.

Also laugh tracks and sitcom live studio audiences really turn myself stomach. There's nothing worse than being told when to laugh.

 

[OzReturner]

Also laugh tracks and sitcom live studio audiences really turn myself stomach. There's nothing worse than being told when to laugh.

A friend saw a recording of The Drew Carey Show, and yes, they were literally told when to laugh, even if they didn't think it was funny. Couple that with potentially multiple takes, and you are really doing some hardcore fake, forced laughing.

 

[JamesM242]

Hudson Hawk is an underrated work of genius. I have spoken. ;-)

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Not to turn it into a Star Wars thread, but TLJ was trash. It's ESB in reverse. Same as the other movies being ANH and RotJ only worse and trash. Sure... they look pretty... but so does a gilded turd.

It was nonsensical. A slow crawl chase through space, when the First Order have hyperspace and can send some ahead or call in other ships from other directions - if the Resistence was crippled and couldn't flee faster... it should have been an easy win and none should have escaped, but of course... that natural step wasn't taken, which makes it impossible to understand how the First Order could even take over in the first place, 'cause they are dumber than dumb. Finn and Rose leave the crawling ship without issue and return from a pointless mission that didn't even achieve what they set out for when they could have gotten fuel instead. None of the subversions work, because they are immediately subverted shortly after leaving you back where you started.