Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Post-release)
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MrSouthpaw
Sr Member
Let me put it another way. After Star Wars I went into Empire "expecting" things to be better than they were. The Rebels had won. Yeah, there was the title "The Empire Strikes Back" telling us that there was going to be pushback, but to what extent, and how effectively, we didn't know. I certainly didn't know the structure of a multi-act saga when I was 5. Or the Hero's Journey. I don't know how many in the audience -- even in their 20s or 30s -- did. I don't know what people were expecting going into "Star Wars 2" (if you mentally automatically added "Electric Boogaloo, take a drink)... But I have a feeling it wasn't the Rebels being on the run, getting routed out of their new base, Han being the one to end up with Leia, Luke getting beaten by Vader and losing his hand, or Han ending up frozen and delivered to Jabba. My expectations were well and truly subverted.And I was reeling. I didn't know what to think. I can certainly tell you it was hell waiting three more years to find out what happened.
Then again with the Special Editions. I was expecting what all the press was saying -- re-done visual effects to compensate for embryonic technology at the time. I was not expecting all the new errors (all the X-Wings at the Battle of Yavin being Red 2 with R2-D2 in the back and Luke in the cockpit... or the lack of appropriate shadows from the altered light sources of the newly opened up Cloud City), and I was certainly not expecting all the poor choices/additions George made (shot-blocking ronto, distracting slapstick, narrative-breaking Jabba scene, fully-visible wampa, Luke screaming as he falls, the sarlacc's beak, etc.). I think the change I liked best was, of all things, the addition of the "interhull passthrough" on the Falcon when Lando rescues Luke. Fixed a thing that needed fixing and looked good.
(Those expectations kept getting subverted as George kept tinkering, even after the theatrical SE release. Hayden Christansen, Tem Morrison, and all that.)
Then the Prequels. Having grown up with a lot of the Lucas'-notes-derived lore, we knew the Clone Wars had happened over a decade or so, ending maybe fifteen years before the movies, that somewhere in there the Jedi were discredited and purged, and the Republic shifted to Empire. Leia and Luke were written in Star Wars as having had young-but-still-in-their-lifetimes memories of the later stages of the Clone Wars. Of course, this was also when Anakin and Vader were still separate people, and Luke was a few years older than Leia because they weren't twins... But still. What we ended up getting in the Prequels? Expectations so massively subverted it isn't even funny. And not in the good way of Empire (for me, anyway -- I know others differed and differ on both Empire and the Prequels).
So it's a good point to try to consciously go into a new installment or adaptation of a thing knowing it might not unroll for the audience in the way you had come up with in your head. That's not the same thing as "turning your brain off". A movie or TV show still needs to stand up internally, characters still need to behave believably. Empire, to keep the comparisons up, falls down on that score. They were in the Hoth system. When the Falcon finally shakes Imperial pursuit, they're in the Anoat system. And from there, they head to the Bespin system... All without hyperdrive. How?! That's bugged me since i was still in single digits.
That's not intended to give a pass to the newer films. If anything, I'd prefer Lucasfilm 1) learn from George's mistakes, both structural and stylistic, and 2) strive to always surpass the existing body of works. Not like constantly trying to out-wow the audience, but like... "Okay, here's where this plot point was kind of weak in the last film -- let's try to avoid that sort of thing in the next one". And as I have said repeatedly in this thread and others, I think most of the problems everyone has with the new crop of Star Wars movies -- fans and haters alike -- would be solved by uncoupling themselves from the trilogy model -- which was a bad call on George's part in the first place. I and others have argued how the OT suffered for it, the PT suffered for it, the ST is suffering for it, and the standalones are suffering for it. Let the story be told in as much run-time as it takes, broken over as many episodes as needed.
I don't care if it's only ever going to be my own mental self-gratification, but my re-write project is intended in part to see if I can make all the stuff we've gotten work, call out and fix the truly unworkable elements, and to show others an alternate way it might have been structured and delivered, and leave it to them to say which they think is better. Every movie so far -- including Rogue One and Solo -- fits in a numbered saga. But not as they've been delivered. This project also addresses George's other big early misstep -- starting at the actual beginning and going ever forward.
A lot of the criticisms I see leveled at TFA, TLJ, Rogue One, and Solo wouldn't even get a look-in if the overall story had been plotted out (at least in rough terms) and delivered more or less in sequence. All the unanswered questions about the thirty years between ROTJ and TFA that the audience needs to know to make sense of the new films (not counting the unanswered questions that help clarify things along the way, which are different), that have been being filled in piecemeal and scattershot from the latter film's release up to the present and still ongoing? If those plot points had been delivered to the audience prior to the ST, we'd all understand how things got to this point better and probably be far more accepting of things as they are. Rogue One and Solo "telling the origin stories no one asked for". Delivered in-sequence, they work great. And even as after-the-fact delves, I enjoy them (prefer the first version of Rogue One over the final cut, though). Who cares that we weren't asking for them, they were a nice treat. Someone gives you a nice surprise gift, you're going to shove it back in their face angrily because "you didn't ask for it"?
All of this requires the self-awareness to be mindful of the fact that, as humans, we have expectations, figure out what they are, and try to set them to one side going into any serialized offering. Also a mindfulness that missteps have been being made with the sequential presentation of Star Wars since 1975, so don't expect the information we have bridging any two installments to be the only information we ever get bridging those two installments. Yeah, it'd work better linear. That's what we in the Western World tend to be familiar with and prefer in our storytelling. But like it or not, we've got a non-linear pointillist storytelling exercise underway.
But none of that requires "turning your brain off" to enjoy it. There are a few turn-your-brain off moments in Star Wars going all the way back to the first film, but those moments truly are not whole films. Not even the excruciating "love story" that infiltrates fully half of AOTC. Not even the "good idea executed badly" of Canto Bight. Not even the "we get what they were going for but it needed to have been tweaked slightly to work better" of the chase and Holdo. I enjoyed far more of TLJ than I didn't enjoy. When I tally up the specific beats that fall flat (from my admittedly-subjective-but-I-try-to-be-as-objective-as-possible point of view), I end up with something shy of fifteen minutes out of about 145 of actual content that kicks me out of the experience. But, again because of the way the human brain works, those fifteen minutes, because of the discordance of the experience, is what we remember.
You are confusing "subverted expectations" with, plot, plot twists, and surprises. For something to be subverted there has to be a setup, an expectation that something else would happen.
If ESB was called "The Rebels Empowered" or something like that then your expectations that the Rebels would win would have been subverted right from the start on Hoth. But the title literally tells you what will happen in the movie. No subversion.
Similarly, there is nothing prior that suggest Leia and Luke would definitely end up together, that Luke would not get defeated or would not lose to Vader or lose his hand, and that Han would not end up getting frozen in Carbonite. In fact a lot of this is heavily foreshadowed by Luke and Yoda. Luke sees a vision of his friends in danger. Yoda insists Luke isn't ready.
As for the rest of your examples. You might have had personal expectations about the SE or the prequels, but they were disappointed...not subverted. Lucas changing little things around is also not a subversion, it's more artistic license or creative choice.
TLJ, specifically, is subversive because it takes many reasonable expectations setup in TFA and either does not deliver on them or turns the delivery on its head.
annanake
Sr Member
If they would just admit they kinda $h/t the bed on this one everybody could move on .
I did not find the movie THAT terrible but when you add the uppitty attitude and continued excuses that contradict themselves , it's turned me completely against caring i didn't see Solo and I'm prolly not gonna see IX until it's on Netflix or t.v. I don't mind if they take my money and the movie sucks hey at least they tried . But to turn around and say I have to love everything about it, that I'm in the wrong ???????
Sorry I'm keeping my money then . Wouldn't want to offend anybody by not likening the movie .
I did not find the movie THAT terrible but when you add the uppitty attitude and continued excuses that contradict themselves , it's turned me completely against caring i didn't see Solo and I'm prolly not gonna see IX until it's on Netflix or t.v. I don't mind if they take my money and the movie sucks hey at least they tried . But to turn around and say I have to love everything about it, that I'm in the wrong ???????
Sorry I'm keeping my money then . Wouldn't want to offend anybody by not likening the movie .
Where the heck is that tinfoilhat building tutorial?
Oh wait. RUSSIAN HACKERS?
WOLVERIIIINES!!!
Oh wait. RUSSIAN HACKERS?
WOLVERIIIINES!!!
russellsch
Master Member
Hhmmm. I never knew I was a Russian bot. I just thought I hated this horrible movie. :unsure
&, I don't need a Russian bot telling this movie was crap. I was able to come to that conclusion on my own, when I saw it on opening night..... I still haven't recovered :wacko
&, I don't need a Russian bot telling this movie was crap. I was able to come to that conclusion on my own, when I saw it on opening night..... I still haven't recovered :wacko
Are there SERIOUSLY conspiracy theorists on this subject to defend this stupid movie? Maybe, just maybe, the polling in this film is exactly as it shows. Maybe people just didn't like it.
I doubt Russia has better things to do with their time than try and slander a movie.
People are insane.
I doubt Russia has better things to do with their time than try and slander a movie.
People are insane.
kalkamel
Master Member
Someone should make a list of all the excuses used against everyone who hated the movie just to show how ridiculous they are, i.e. if you hate The Last Jedi, you're a:
Mysoginist
Sexist
Racist
Alt-right
Anti-diversity
Manbaby
Russian hacker
Russian bot
Ad infinitum, ad nauseum...
Mysoginist
Sexist
Racist
Alt-right
Anti-diversity
Manbaby
Russian hacker
Russian bot
Ad infinitum, ad nauseum...
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Looking at our voting poll suggests that 35% of us are actually Russian bots that are easily angered and hate filled fan monsters , a further 17% were just OK and moderately disappointed bots , and the rest were actually human beings worthy of appreciating a new vision of SW, drowned out by all the on line hacking.
And of the 222 pages and 5530 posts written here , well, 3/4 of those were obviously done by strangely literate and emotional bots , capable of critically thinking and good sentence structure, who can also identify fairly weak plotting and stupidly contrived jokes .
AIs have certainly come on along way in the last ten months.
(I guess the reasonably low $16 million BO take in Russia will be blamed on this as well. What's the excuse for Chinas)
And of the 222 pages and 5530 posts written here , well, 3/4 of those were obviously done by strangely literate and emotional bots , capable of critically thinking and good sentence structure, who can also identify fairly weak plotting and stupidly contrived jokes .
AIs have certainly come on along way in the last ten months.
(I guess the reasonably low $16 million BO take in Russia will be blamed on this as well. What's the excuse for Chinas)
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Not getting into the whole Russians-are-coming thing. Yeah, professional Russian trolls go after a number of things, including downvoting TLJ. But I'm not going to grasp at straws and lay it all on them. At the same time, the responses here are mostly predictably derisively dismissive. That's a nest of eels I have no desire to slog into...
I see you and I have differing interpretations of "subvert". That might go some way to explaining the disagreement. Maybe I was just a stupid kid, but what I got out of Star Wars was the Rebels won and Luke got the girl. My expectation going I to Empire was that there was only so much striking back we could expect from them. And I certainly didn't expect Our Heroes to lose. Those expectations were thwarted, dashed... overthrown -- which is what subvert literally means.
Similarly, when the SE was announced, I expected it to be a cleanup/upgrade of Star Wars (later, the other two films, too), not have George change actual content. With the Prequels, I was expecting the Obi-Wan-centric story a decade and a half of making-of delves into George's notes had primed us for. Those expectations were disappointed, yes -- I'm not seeing how that's somehow not the same as subverting. I had expectations. What I got was wildly different. Textbook.
Meanwhile, with the new films, I'm not feeling any of that. I take issue with the density of these stories, the lack of character and plot development that results... I acknowledge twists and revelations, but the main subversion came before the first teaser for TFA, when Lucasfilm announced the EU was now not to be treated as gospel. From there I knew anything goes -- and even then, the ST hews amusingly close to the old post-ROTJ EU... from a certain point of view. I am finding my expectations subverted far less here than with earlier films. I know that's not an objective metric, but the conflicting subjective experience at least serves to demonstrate expectation-subverting vis-a-vis TLJ isn't universal.
I see you and I have differing interpretations of "subvert". That might go some way to explaining the disagreement. Maybe I was just a stupid kid, but what I got out of Star Wars was the Rebels won and Luke got the girl. My expectation going I to Empire was that there was only so much striking back we could expect from them. And I certainly didn't expect Our Heroes to lose. Those expectations were thwarted, dashed... overthrown -- which is what subvert literally means.
Similarly, when the SE was announced, I expected it to be a cleanup/upgrade of Star Wars (later, the other two films, too), not have George change actual content. With the Prequels, I was expecting the Obi-Wan-centric story a decade and a half of making-of delves into George's notes had primed us for. Those expectations were disappointed, yes -- I'm not seeing how that's somehow not the same as subverting. I had expectations. What I got was wildly different. Textbook.
Meanwhile, with the new films, I'm not feeling any of that. I take issue with the density of these stories, the lack of character and plot development that results... I acknowledge twists and revelations, but the main subversion came before the first teaser for TFA, when Lucasfilm announced the EU was now not to be treated as gospel. From there I knew anything goes -- and even then, the ST hews amusingly close to the old post-ROTJ EU... from a certain point of view. I am finding my expectations subverted far less here than with earlier films. I know that's not an objective metric, but the conflicting subjective experience at least serves to demonstrate expectation-subverting vis-a-vis TLJ isn't universal.
Joek3rr
Master Member
First off, I don't agree with giving someone a title.
But consider this. When people say they hate TLJ because it ruined Star Wars, the Force, or whatever the heck people say. When in fact the opposite is true. What do you think the people at Lucasfilm are going to think about the fans?
Everything we've seen come from the Sequel trilogy, has already been seen and hinted in the other two. It's just being expanded upon. I know that YouTube videos seem to get booed at on these threads. But I'm going to post one, and I implore people to watch it.
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kalkamel
Master Member
Those aren't Russian bots... it's SKYNET!
MrSouthpaw
Sr Member
In artistic terms, subverting expectations essentially means to take something conventional and then deliver something unexpected. You seem to think that expecting something for no reason except "I think so" and then something else happening is subversion. It is not, that is simply being incorrect.
You argue that your younger self did not understand certain things. That does not mean your expectations were subverted. It simply means you were incorrect. This is a normal thing for younger people to experience. Kids are wrong, often. You state about ESB that you "had a feeling that it wasn't the rebels being on the run" etc. Again, you were simply incorrect. You chose to ignore the titled theme of the movie, the Empire Striking Back. That was your error, not a subversion of your expectation. In fact them literally making the movie about the Empire striking back is pretty much the opposite of subversion, it is delivering what is promised.
The SE you have even less of a case. Almost everything you list as something you did not expect were right there in the trailers for all three SE movies. Did you expect the Ronto or the Sarlacc beak that was in the trailers to not make it into the movies?
Where the PT is concerned you simply put too much stock into notes instead of what happened on screen in the OT. Logically the prequels would always play off of what was in the actual movies, not some notes GL had lying around. GL never promised the movie you wanted and then failed to deliver. And while the movies were not OWK-centric, he played a HUGE role in them. I'd say close enough.
GL himself never treated the EU as gospel when he owned SW. In fact he ignored most of it, compared it to an alternate universe, and said a lot of major elements simply did not happen.
http://www.furiousfanboys.com/2016/06/07/george-lucas-think-old-star-wars-eu/
Yes, I agree that your assertion that the ST is not as subversive as the OT, SE OT, or PT is definitely not objective. It is, like your incorrect determination that you were subverted by the prior works, simply you thinking so while ignoring what was definitely on screen for all to see. Like the Ronto in the SE trailers.
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I think this whole thing boils down to the fact that the fans who disliked TLJ simply want Lucasfilm to stop blaming them for not liking their movie. Instead of acknowledging that they have valid criticisms they are attacked and called names. I don't know about you but most people don't take too kindly to that kind of thing. Instead of agreeing that perhaps their stories won't be made for everyone, they come up with wild accusations, which are unfounded mind you, and theories about why these fans are so upset. Maybe the blame shouldn't be placed on these fans, and maybe, just maybe, you made a **** movie. Ever consider that Lucasfilm?
It's clear that after 10 months of heated debate that we are no closer to agreement on the subject and everyone is firmly planted in their ideas about the movie. Had Lucasfilm acknowledged the angry fans in the first place and treated them like they mattered I'm sure a LOT of the issues the fan base has dealt with would have dissolved long ago.
I'm fine with people liking this movie and I'm fine with people loving it. What I'm NOT OK with is Lucasfilm (and in some cases fans) showing total intolerance for dissenting opinions in any way shape or form. It shows the insidious nature of the kind of control that these people really want over our thoughts and before you suggest that what I'm saying is overly exaggerated, just consider that we are currently discussing the notion that Russian hackers are trying to take down fan opinions of a fictional movie as a means to disrupt people's lives. That kind of thing smacks of the insane conspiracy theorists that plague our airwaves and needs to be called out for what it truly is.
Has anyone been able to confirm whether this nut job is writing for theonion, because I'm honestly frightened to think that we are so delusional as a society that we could even take such a preposterous idea even remotely serious.
It's clear that after 10 months of heated debate that we are no closer to agreement on the subject and everyone is firmly planted in their ideas about the movie. Had Lucasfilm acknowledged the angry fans in the first place and treated them like they mattered I'm sure a LOT of the issues the fan base has dealt with would have dissolved long ago.
I'm fine with people liking this movie and I'm fine with people loving it. What I'm NOT OK with is Lucasfilm (and in some cases fans) showing total intolerance for dissenting opinions in any way shape or form. It shows the insidious nature of the kind of control that these people really want over our thoughts and before you suggest that what I'm saying is overly exaggerated, just consider that we are currently discussing the notion that Russian hackers are trying to take down fan opinions of a fictional movie as a means to disrupt people's lives. That kind of thing smacks of the insane conspiracy theorists that plague our airwaves and needs to be called out for what it truly is.
Has anyone been able to confirm whether this nut job is writing for theonion, because I'm honestly frightened to think that we are so delusional as a society that we could even take such a preposterous idea even remotely serious.
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Thank you for this post. It pretty well sums up my feelings about TLJ and the resulting controversy.
Joek3rr
Master Member
As I mentioned before, in "The Director and the Jedi" Rian is seen talking with the first assistant director. When he pulls out his phone to show him the flood of tweets from Russian accounts. All begging him not to kill off Hux. So they were already sending stuff before the films release.
And why should Lucasfilm cave to the "fans" "valid" criticisms? If someone thinks TLJ is straight up a bad movie, that's their opinion, and not an objective fact. If someone thinks the lore of Star Wars was ruined, that person is - I believe - wrong.
The Original trilogy started it all, the Prequels expanded upon the ideas and themes. And The Clone Wars upon that. And now the Sequel trilogy is expanding upon all that came before.
And I imagine that after the reception the Prequels got. George told them all to ignore the fans, let them yell all you want. You make the movies you want.
It's not a matter of caving to the fans. You don't openly insult your customers. That's what I have a problem with.
You are essentially telling me that my opinions aren't worth anything. The fact that you put the words, fans, and valid in quotation marks is exactly the kind of behaviour that elicits angry responses, as if to assume that because I don't blindly love everything that comes out of Lucasfilm that I am somehow less of a fan than you are. It's the kind of mentality that has been exhibited by Lucasfilm and it's the reason why people are so pissed off.
Neither one of our opinions is going to make a difference in Lucasfilm plans for future content. I just don't want to be accused of being something I'm not because I didn't like a movie.
You are essentially telling me that my opinions aren't worth anything. The fact that you put the words, fans, and valid in quotation marks is exactly the kind of behaviour that elicits angry responses, as if to assume that because I don't blindly love everything that comes out of Lucasfilm that I am somehow less of a fan than you are. It's the kind of mentality that has been exhibited by Lucasfilm and it's the reason why people are so pissed off.
Neither one of our opinions is going to make a difference in Lucasfilm plans for future content. I just don't want to be accused of being something I'm not because I didn't like a movie.
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