Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Post-release)

alienscollection.com said:

Side note - my brother judges a kid's baking competition on tv - last year this little 10-year-old girl wins, and a bunch of mouth breathers on social media jumped all over her, saying some of the worst **** I've ever seen/heard - saying they wanted to sexually assault her, crap like that - I mean stuff you can't imagine ever saying to a kid - mind boggling...

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I hated both Anakins. I hated Jar Jar. I hated Boss Nass. I hated Holdo. I hated Rose. I hated L337.

You know what I've never once had any desire to do? Bully or harass the actors.

I will confess that I have expressed some vitriol toward Lucas; I am not blameless here.

But I'm so sick of fans' poisonous rage. It's one thing to not like a character in a movie, but to make the actors suffer and torment them is sick.

She may be tempted by Kylo Ren when he asks her to join him and she refuses but her entering the cave isn't much of a temptation for her to resist. There is no danger in her entering it because all she is doing is asking to see her parents faces. That doesn't come across as very dangerous to me or enough of a risk for her turning to the Dark Side.

I think fans are hyper critical of Rey not because she is a woman or Daisy Ridley but they hold her character to a higher standard because she is the protagonist of their favorite film series. Structurally speaking this entire trilogy rests on her character's journey. Her development is more central to the story than any other character because we are supposed to be witnessing everything through her eyes.

In all fairness I was hyper critical of Anakin's journey

It comes down to the scripts. Plain and simple. Actors are people too and it's not their fault if the scripts are bad.

Kelly Marie Tran being harrassed, or Ahmed Best being harrassed is unacceptable. I didn't like their characters but that's no excuse to rip them apart as people.

Psab keel said:

She may be tempted by Kylo Ren when he asks her to join him and she refuses but her entering the cave isn't much of a temptation for her to resist. There is no danger in her entering it because all she is doing is asking to see her parents faces. That doesn't come across as very dangerous to me or enough of a risk for her turning to the Dark Side.

I think fans are hyper critical of Rey not because she is a woman or Daisy Ridley but they hold her character to a higher standard because she is the protagonist of their favorite film series. Structurally speaking this entire trilogy rests on her character's journey. Her development is more central to the story than any other character be a use we are supposed to be witnessing e etytjing through her eyes.

In all fairness I was hyper critical of Anakin's journey too.

It comes down to the scripts. Plain and simple.

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Are you sure?? Because Bryan and JD and Funky and Seth and Ruin all say we don't like Rey and TFA/TLJ because we're ignorant sexists and misogynists. <smh>

The Wook

The Wook said:

Are you sure?? Because Bryan and JD and Funky and Seth and Ruin all say we don't like Rey and TFA/TLJ because we're ignorant sexists and misogynists. <smh>

The Wook

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Do you like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor? That's my stock comeback when someone accuses me of being sexist. Hell, Kill Bill is one of my fave movies. The Bride is awesome.

cayman shen said:

Do you like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor? That's my stock comeback when someone accuses me of being sexist. Hell, Kill Bill is one of my fave movies. The Bride is awesome.

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I LOVE them! I also love Buffy! And Faith! And Starbuck! And Kat!

And in real life I love Ronda Rousey!

I am not put off or intimidated by strong female characters. But I don't like Mary Sues in serious productions like Star Wars.

The Wook

Princess Leia
Selena Kyle
Ellen Ripley
Katniss Everdeen
Hermione Granger
Imperator Furiosa
The Bride
Princess Buttercup
Eowyn
Arywen
Galadriel
Mary Jane Watson
Marion Ravenwood

And the list goes on and on. I would even add the female characters from Black Panther too if I knew their names. Those royal guards were totally badass!

Psab keel said:

The Bride

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I would like to add to your list:

* The Bride of Frankenstein
* The Bride of Godzilla
* The Bride of the Killer Tomatoes
* The Bride of The Blob
* The Bride of Manos: Hands of Fate
* The Bride of Hitler's Brain

...just to name a few.

The Wook said:

Are you sure?? Because Bryan and JD and Funky and Seth and Ruin all say we don't like Rey and TFA/TLJ because we're ignorant sexists and misogynists. <smh>

The Wook

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Not all of "you". Some of you, or them, without question. It's certainly on display in social media. Men who hate having a woman as the hero of the saga is a real thing. People hating Rose because she is Asian is a real thing. People hating Finn because he is a black stormtrooper, that happened. Its a curious side effect that I find myself often most at odds with middle aged single men. Perhaps thats coincidental, perhaps not.

And this is happening TODAY in response to the harassment of Kelly Marie Tran.

The Wook said:

I would like to add to your list:

* The Bride of Frankenstein
* The Bride of Godzilla
* The Bride of the Killer Tomatoes
* The Bride of The Blob
* The Bride of Manos: Hands of Fate
* The Bride of Hitler's Brain

...just to name a few.

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Bride of Chucky ?
Princess Bride ?

Bryancd said:

Not all of "you". Some of you, or them, without question. It's certainly on display in social media. Men who hate having a woman as the hero of the saga is a real thing. People hating Rose because she is Asian is a real thing. People hating Finn because he is a black stormtrooper, that happened. Its a curious side effect that I find myself often most at odds with middle aged single men. Perhaps thats coincidental, perhaps not.

And this is happening TODAY in response to the harassment of Kelly Marie Tran.

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As long as there is a clear distinction to the people who love TLJ that the people you are referring to ARE ******** and then there are people who are fans that have valid criticisms, then I am in full agreement with you. The racists, sexist, trolls aren't just a problem in Fandom but this country.

Psab keel said:

As long as there is a clear distinction to the people who love TLJ that the people you are referring to ARE ******** and then there are people who are fans that have valid criticisms, then I am in full agreement with you. The racists, sexist, trolls aren't just a problem in Fandom but this country.

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Agreed, but for purposes of this forum we are limited in scope of that discussion.

It's one thing for studios to communicate with fans, it's another thing to lower themselves to petty levels.

Alleging that the fans are just racist/sexist for disliking your movie? It's little better than he-said/she-said crap. There aren't many times when that is an appropriate studio reaction. The fact that there may be some truth in it does not justify a studio smearing the other part of the dissatisfied fan base with that brush.

Fans are thousands of individuals. Studios have hired pro publicists, careful control over their comments, and a lot to lose. Studios should be taking the high road.

cayman shen said:

They weren't much of a fan then, IMO. I swear some of you would leave your child at a rest stop because he didn't wash his hands before dinner one evening. For SOME, TLJ was a mis-step. One film out of 10. One film out of hundreds of hours of TV, a bajillion pages of books and comics...ONE film you didn't like.

I hated the Fly episode of Breaking Bad also. Worst episode of the series. I didn't walk away from Breaking Bad. It is an amazing show, with one or two lesser episodes, and one really bad one.

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I disagree. I think my reasoning is sound.

cayman shen said:

They weren't much of a fan then, IMO. I swear some of you would leave your child at a rest stop because he didn't wash his hands before dinner one evening. For SOME, TLJ was a mis-step. One film out of 10. One film out of hundreds of hours of TV, a bajillion pages of books and comics...ONE film you didn't like.

I hated the Fly episode of Breaking Bad also. Worst episode of the series. I didn't walk away from Breaking Bad. It is an amazing show, with one or two lesser episodes, and one really bad one.

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Are you kidding? "ONE film out of 10 you didn't like.", is how you'd characterize most fans opinion on the Star Wars franchise?!

Where the hell do you get that TLJ is just ONE film out of 10 that we don't like?! I don't like 8 of 10. A lot of folks don't like 7 out of 10. Plenty more don't like 6, or 5, or 4 out of 10. And more yet don't like 3, or 2 out of 10. I daresay the number of people who only dislike ONE out of 10 is very small.

The Wook

There is now more bad Star Wars than good. Where once, studios would tremble at having to put a movie against a Star Wars film and schedule around it, now Disney/Lucasfilm will will be the ones worring what they are going against.

@Lord Boron, I'd argue there's been more bad than good since RotJ (counting the Holiday Special), and definitely since TPM. Been my stance as a fan for a looooong time that there are good moments and clinker moments in all the Star Wars films. I can't flat-out label any one single offering as "bad", top to bottom, but neither can I give any one a full 100% score, either, even if it's little things like poor conveyance of the passage of time in Empire.

@kristen jones, I think I'd forgotten that the MCU failed to engage you. Frankly, I love the universe-building and longform storytelling happening there. What is it about it that leaves you cold?

...Because regarding universe-building and longform storytelling and creative oversight and such... Well, going from TLJ to Solo, seeing what everyone has said about it all, positive or negative... I see what LFL is trying to do in this new era, and also why it's having so much trouble getting traction. I applaud taking one's time and building the universe brick by brick. I like how the MCU started with, essentially, character delves and then started upping the stakes toward bringing the Phase 1 group together, and then continuing to evolve and ramp things up further. But it was all forward.

With Star Wars, we had Episodes IV, V, and VI. Then we went back and got I, II, and III. Then we got Clone Wars. Then we got VII. Then we got Rebels. Then we got Rogue One. Then we got VIII. Then we got Solo. We have been so all over the place on the timeline it's silly. If we still had three years between films, maybe the marketing could acclimate people to the setting of each, but with them coming out so close, it needs to be linear and it's not. One of the big responses I saw to Rogue One was confusion over where Rey and Poe and the other folks they'd seen in TFA were. After all, wasn't this the next movie?

The criticism I've been seeing of Solo not being a movie anyone asked for... Well, yes and no. If things had come out in actual chronological order, it'd be a great character intro, and a nice change of pace after the grimness ending RotS. Whether it then led into Rebels or a Kenobi or Fett movie (or both), we'd have that, then Rebels would segue into Rogue One, and that into ANH. I think a less scattershot approach to telling the story would be the best move. But we can't go back to 1975 and convince George that starting in the middle might not be the best approach.

And the same criticism of TFA and TLJ I and others have made still applies: More transition from RotJ to TFA is necessary. Not just something we would have liked to see, but necessary. We could probably much better accept Luke as a bitter old man had we seen him get gradually more and more frustrated/disillusioned with how the galaxy saw him and kept expecting him to swoop in to save the day rather than step up to solve things themselves. We could probably much better accept Han and Leia if we'd seen him spending time away from the tedious politics that were her life, while still being in love and in communication, only having their crisis happen when Ben turned.

And yes, someone needed to have given Rian's first draft a polish. Much of it I like, but much of it needs work. Please don't now agree with that by repeating all the things you hated that I think actually worked just fine, like Poe's winding up of Hux, "Leia Poppins", Rose, or Luke becoming one with the Force.

For all Star Wars is a cyclical retelling of the Hero's Journey, many seem to forget the last stage of the journey. After the establishment of the new normal, at the end of the quest, there is often a "happily ever after" cut. But classical myth also gives us the last arc: Dissatisfaction with the tedium of the new normal, a New Call to Adventure they welcome, the Final Trial, and Apotheosis. Back then, it was often transubstantiation into the heavens, and Obi-Wan, Yoda, Anakin, and Luke doing what they did is a pretty good sci-fi analogue.

My biggest beef is that there's a lot that's good, all the way back... But it's so disjointed and inconsistent and compressed. There are so many instances of things happening on screen that should happen off, and vice versa... So many instances of things that need more time to elaborate and evolve, while so many others get way too much and drag on... I think one of the reasons I have less of a problem with TLJ than some on here is that for the last thirty-five years or so, I've looked at everything that's come out as a useful bin of characters, events, and data points to use in a theoretical linear, consistent, deliberately-structured episodic sequence of films and animated series that start at zero and go ever forward. None of it has felt like something I just have to accept in its entirety as-is. As with Transformers, holding out hope that it will someday become the epic I know it to be is the only way I can stay sane and not scream into the void.

There are so many instances of things happening on screen that should happen off, and vice versa...

I agree with this 100%!

Too often there are germs of ideas in these movies that are mentioned in passing that could make great story elements in and of themselves and too often there are entire sequences that should be cut as they are not only unnecessary but bog down the pace or distract from what actually matters.

I just realized that Rey is vulnerable in only TWO scenes between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. When she encounters Kylo Ren in the woods outside Maz Kanata's castle and he pins her in place with the Dark Side and subsequently knocks her out. The other scene is where she is being thrown around by Snoke in the throne room. At every other point in both movies if she ever ends up in a scrape she is able to get out of it with little to no resistance. It's the element that has been eluding me that has bothered me so much with regards to her comparison to Luke.

I can relate to Luke more because when he ends up in trouble has has to rely on other people at times to get him out of it, despite the fact that he is capable and that he has the Force on his side. Even then his best efforts fail sometimes, especially throughout most of Empire. I get that Rey is capable and self reliant but the way they scripted her they beat you over the head with it and don't let the tension build enough with the audience so that we get the sense that she is ever in danger. We know that she will make it through because she is the protagonist but in order to keep the tension up (and subsequently the interest of the audience) we need to believe even for a short time that maybe, just maybe she won't survive.

This also robs Kylo Ren of being a better villain. While I am all on board with making him a conflicted character and being afraid he will never live up to the mantle of his namesake, by making Kylo and Rey equally matched in their powers it robs both characters of any real dramatic tension. One mark of a relatable protagonist is having an antagonist who is more powerful for them so that the struggle between the two characters is palpable. This is what allows the villain to be formidable and the hero to be triumphant because they were able to overcome the antagonist.

Having them join forces to face off with Snoke would have been amazing but by having Ren kill off his master so easily robbed that scene of it's tension. The guards were obviously never going to stand a chance against them so it would have worked better if they fought the guards first then Snoke. Given that Snoke was abusive to Ren earlier in the movie I suspected that he would turn on his master but to have him so stupidly outwitted made Snoke no threat at all. I thought he was going to openly threaten to replace Kylo with Rey and further antagonize his pupil by telling Kylo his days as student were numbered. In jealousy Kylo would kill Snoke, or team up with Rey to kill Snoke. This would have lent itself to Kylo's need to try and live up to the father figure he saw in Snoke that he apparently never had in Han and would have made Luke another "failed" father figure for him as well.

Now this next paragraph is a bit of fan speculation on my part as to what could have potentially been an interesting way to explore Ben Solo's past and character so please take it with a grain of salt. I would have been more interested if Kylo viewed Luke as being weak for holding back his Force abilities. Luke being the calm, centered Jedi Master that he was, saw Ben's potential but also cautioned his nephew to practice patience and focus to keep that strength from overtaking his impressionable student. Luke could have been trying to get Kylo to control his powers while he was training him and there was some confrontation between them where their opposing views on the Force led Kylo to turn his back on his uncle. Kylo then feeling like his father abandoned him and Luke holding him back from his true potential turned to Snoke who promised him that he would be able to fully realize his power, but when Snoke betrayed him by threatening to replace him with Rey it would have sent Ren over the edge. Just some food for thought.

In fact I thought it was actually an interesting development to have Ren turn on his master but it would have been more interesting if he enlisted Rey's help because Snoke was too powerful to be beaten by Kylo alone. Again, by having Snoke be a more fearsome villain, it would have made Rey, Kylo and Snoke better characters because the danger of the fight would have been more real to us. That was a turning point in the movie too. When that scene came up I felt like wow this could go in a new direction and push the story into uncharted territory, but sadly no.

Also this video makes a lot of great points as per the comparison between Luke and Rey. Many of them are things that I have pointed out repeatedly but he frames them perhaps more eloquently than I did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SoveFDjfOI

cayman shen said:

I hated both Anakins. I hated Jar Jar. I hated Boss Nass. I hated Holdo. I hated Rose. I hated L337... But I'm so sick of fans' poisonous rage. It's one thing to not like a character in a movie, but to make the actors suffer and torment them is sick.

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I didn't realize how bad it had become until I heard that the actress playing Rose had deleted her Twitter account. Any one of us would be thrilled to be in SW film - regardless of how well the film does or doesn't do or how good/bad the script is. We would all JUMP at the opportunity to be part of the SW universe. But to attack the actors/actresses for simply doing their job is beneath contempt. It's disgusting!

Jaitea said:

Yes, but it's still the same polarising Rian Johnson...Fly is a prime example & replicates the exact reception of TLJ

...IF... he is still involved in the next trilogy lets hope he has that 'make your trademark' out of his system & can create something more universally pleasing like Ozymandias,...
I'd say LFL will make sure the same mistake of TLJ doesn't happen again

J

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Rian Johnson did a job on Breaking Bad. He didn't write Fly (nor Ozymandias). He did Fly under very strict constraints and he did so without the bickering or whining of fanboys to nitpick and poison the well of four decades of lore.

I don't see the point of a saga outside besides our already established lore. I think it will dilute the Star Wars universe even more. Similarly, while I enjoyed it - Solo was unnecessary... and the idea of a Boba Fett movie makes unneeded and unnecessary seem like understatements.

That said, I don't think Lucasfilm thinks The Last Jedi was a mistake and they're not concerned about moving on with Rian. Kennedy and LFL has shown nothing short of high regard for Johnson, they approved and worked with him on the story that became The Last Jedi. What might change things might be a concern for Star Wars oversaturation.