Don't Fall for the Backlash Hype: The Last Jedi is Huge Hit

Sadly he has been an interview a couple of days later were you can see that he has still major issues with TLJ.

“I said to Rian, I said ‘Jedis don’t give up.’ I mean, even if he (Luke) had a problem, he would maybe take a year to try and regroup, but if he made a mistake he would try and right that wrong, so right there, we had a fundamental difference, but, it’s not my story anymore,”
“I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker, he’s not my Luke Skywalker.”
“I still haven’t accepted it completely, but it’s only a movie,” Hamill said. “I hope people like it. I hope they don’t get upset. And I came to really believe that Rian was the exact man that they needed for this job.”

(interview was done this wednesday)

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 22, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 22, 2017 ---

Again, it is the decline of ticketsales that worries me. It means that people are not coming back as much as they did with the other SW movies and that word of mouth is a lot worse compared to any other SW movie. The rapid decline is what makes me worry especially given that presales were only marginally smaller than TFA's which means people were very interested before the premiere but they are rapidly losing interets in TLJ.

 

So, his interpretation of Luke is different to that of the writer, hopes people don't get upset and he believes that Rian was the right man for the job. Guess all those zealous fans hating Johnson's interpretation of Luke are failing Mark Hamill right.

Why would his vision of Luke be the correct one. Because he's the actor? Lucas mostly ingored his imput to Hamill's great frustration. But that doesn't mean that Hamill hated Empire or Jedi. I see nowhere that he hates the Last Jedi.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 22, 2017 ---

There could be dozens of other factors involved. They have been doing these movies for three years successively. There might be some genuine fatigue. The holidays have started. There has been some negative buzz on comment sections. But it really could be any of these things. Ticketsale for Empire was less than half than that of the original Star Wars.

More importantly, it still doesn't tell us anything about the question whether it is a good movie or not. That's something that you as an individual must decide. Saying a movie is 'bad' or 'good' because this or that part of the audience likes it or not really is a non-argument. For both sides. You can look at verifiable sources, critics, to measure whether as a movie-making enterprise and as judged by the people who know something about it, the movie was a succes or not. In the latter case we can be absolutely sure. Critically, TLJ is a smash hit. I'm more inclined to trust the judgement of critics than I am to look at box office numbers, negative/ positive buzz or audience aggregators. Why? Because they're verifiable and written according to a an aknowledged set of parameters and criteria.

But really, what is important is whether you, as an individual, like the movie or not.

 

I don't think the "fatigue" argument is really good because the tickets in presale sold almost as good as they did with TLJ. I wasn't a fatigue it was dissapointment. As for the critics they focused on the TLJ as a movie, not as a Star Wars movie. TLJ is a good standalone movie but a pretty bad sequel and only a mildly interesting steup for IX. Critics don't care for the movie that came before or the movie that will come after TLJ but fans do which is why there's sucha big difference between fan ratings and crtitics ratings. And since there are more fans than critics there's a huge drop in ticket sales.

"...so right there, we had a fundamental difference, but, it’s not my story anymore,” this is what many fans seem to think of TLJ. It hurts me as a SW enthusiast to see people so divided but honestly, what did they expect.

 

I think we should not risk generalizing like this. First of all, the critics do take into account that it is a sequel: look at the critic reviews gathered at metacritic for instance.

Secondly, I don't think there is any kind of general sentiment about this movie. I've seen many reasons why people liked it or didn't like it. But I think the Luke one is indeed a more general one. Your heroes might not meet up to your expectations initially (the theme of this movie). For many Luke is indeed acting very strange in the beginning of this movie. This is not how we have last seen him or imagined him. But then when the movie progresses Luke rediscovers his old self and at the end of the movie he is exactly how we imagined him to be. As many disappointed fans say: we hoped to see more of Luke how he was at the end of the movie. But please also note that this was intentional. You are meant to feel just as disappointed as Rey when you first meet Luke. But then in the end he lives up to all your expectations. Just like Finn for Rose and Holdo for Poe. You are supposed to feel what Rey feels. Like Rey, many of these people would run from Luke as he is on that island. Me too. But I'm not a person who says: Luke on the island disappointed me and therefore I didn't like the movie. I try to understand why he is presented in this particular fashion, what his narrative purpose is, and whether or not he recovers some of his old self. Its a great arc, meant to upset you.

 

If The Last Jedi is doing so well. That it has a 93% rotten tomatoes rating by critics. Why do the critics not have it as a top 50 movie of 2017.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/05/the-50-top-films-of-2017-in-the-us

Also, while it has made a profit. Why is it tanking at the box office?

 

No blockbuster movies are ever on those lists. And the films isn't doing badly. People are freaking out and projecting their want of it to fail. Wait a few weeks and we see if it will. It's been one week. One. Week. And people are spamming ticket holdings of all things, ignoring its the middle of the week and it's prime audience of children are still in school.

 

Oh, just everyone pointing to money and shouting how great people like it, and then people pointing to RT user score and shouting how people hate it.

I liked it. If we're doing numbers things, I'd give give it at least top bill of 5/5 with ANH and TFA; possibly 6/5 due to how well crafted this movie is. It's symmetrical and a chiasmus of multiple movies at once...that's hard as hell to do!
Seriously...it's one thing that TFA had to mirror ANH and ROTS (ROTS is a chiasmus of ANH) and dash in a bit of Emp, but TLJ had to balance 5 and 6 so 9 can have room to break form and in balancing 5 and 6, it inherently has to balance 1 and 2 (TPM is the chiasmus of ROTJ).
Not only that, but 2 (AOTC) is already a reversed Emp so you can't just flip the reverse button and say you accomplished your turn at the writing helm's chiasmus (a requirement of SW film fyi).
Further, Emp is symmetrical, so that meant that AOTC was as well and in reverse, so now you have to make your second film symmetrical because that's the SW pattern.
But, like I said, you've been handed more content to deal with that, not only has to get to 9 - the idea of breaking the karma cycle of the past, but also has to mirror/echo every theme that was created in the Originals and then inverted in the Prequels, and then you know from JJ, Kasdan, and TFA that now it's about reversals of themes with plots in the forward flow.

No pressure RJ. You got this.

And holy crap man, he did.
This film is a narrative masterpiece with how complicated the relations and structural organization is.

Lucas may like a dash more of being subtle about the chiasmus, but I'd guess that he is impressed with RJ's weaving patterns (even if it's not the story Lucas would write); which is most likely what he was thinking of when he said that it was beautifully made.

 

The thing is that Luke had his story arch of temptation and failure and he proved himself to be a true Jedi. Luke was so convinced that there was still good in Vader that he voluntarily let the Dark Lord capture him. Vader, a massmurdering Sithlord who was directly or inderectly responsible for the deaths of multiple of Luke's friends yet Luke did not kill him. when he got the chance. But Rian wants to make us believe that Luke honestly considers murdering Kylo in his sleep like a coward when his student shows singns of darkness (what they looked like we don't know, Rian didn't bother explaining Snoke's influence on Kylo). I cannot imagine Luke walking down to Kylo's hut far away from the academy, standing there in the dark, trying to bring himself to kill Kylo. This is not a character trait Luke showed in any of the three OT movies adn I can only quote Hamill from 3 days ago: I said to Rian I'm really shocked how you see the character of Luke.. Rian is a good director, don't get me wrong but he doesn't understand SW. Rey has still nto failed at anything making her more and more uninteresting the longer she continues to win at everything. She needs no extensive training, no special knowledge or background. She is a Mary Sue. I have told people for 2 years how we shoudl wait to call her that because we don't know her background. "Maybe she was trained as a child, maybe she is the reincarnatioon of the force, lets wait fo VIII", I said. Now I know she is just badly written, a flawless comic heroine in any way. Luke however, he needed to be broken, his character developement needed to be thrown back further than when we first saw him in ANH.

 

Because this list was published on the 5th of december. Its even says so in the link. The Last Jedi was released the 13th.

 

I don’t remember ever seeing this much hatred from a fan base for a film that was incredibly well reviewed.

 

And i thought i was rude....

 

It crossed Luke's mind to end it all with one stroke, but he didn't do it, he was left with shame. But that's the difference with his father, Anakin did kill. Luke always resolves things in the right way, but only after internal conflict. Isn't that what happens in Empire and Jedi. Doesn't Luke inadvertedly confront Vader in Empire, experience the fear and pull of darkside, and only then drops himself into the Cloud city abyss? Doesn't Luke use the darkside, his anger, to defeat Vader only then to realize after he sees Vader's chopped off robot hand that he might face the same fate? Luke's confrontation of young Kylo is all pretty much in-character to me. Typical and archetypal Luke stuff.

As for Rey, she wasn't a Mary Sue in TFA and definitely isn't now:
1. Mary Sues never cry, because crying is equal to female emotional fragility
2. Mary Sues never require a man to teach them or "to show them their place in all this" i.e. the narrative
3. Rey faces several failures throughout the two movies. She fails to escape Kylo on Takodana (she is literally motionless) She ran from the sabre in Maz's Castle: she initially fails to embrace her destiny. Rey fails to trust Luke's version of Kylo's turn and inadvertedly thinks she can turn Kylo.
4. Nor is she liked immediately by everyone: Luke mistrusts her initially whereas mary sues are immediately liked by everyone.

 

Well, most of the critics isnt Star Wars fans in the same way as us. Most of them doesnt review TLJ in the context of 8 films and a long family chronicle.

 

He joined today, I forgot to welcome him to the forum. This was his first post. I don't hope I scared him.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 22, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 22, 2017 ---

They do, read the metacritic reviews. They get to review the films because they are not Star Wars fans. Their editors want solid reliable reviews, not fan editorials.

 

I have read many of the american mainstream reviews.

 

So Luke just likes to watch Kylo sleep in his hut far away from the academy. Not creepy at all. I don't mind the part where he lights the lightsaber, I mind the part that he actually stood there and waited for Kylo to fall asleep so he could murder him. It was more than just a second of weakness.

As for the Mary Sue. She is like 90% mary sue. For every point you made I could name you a one thing she is so extremely good at it's insane.

Luke's entire training on Dagoba is Rey's warmup. But it's okay, she knows about the force for like 2 weeks or so so it should be expected that she is already better than Yoda.

 

Really?

Star Wars The Worst Return of the Jedi Ever
Star Wars The Worst Phantom Menace Ever
Star Wars The Worst Attack of the Clones Ever
Star Wars The Worst Revenge of the Sith Ever
Star Wars The Worst Force Awakening Ever
Star Wars The Worst Last Jedi Ever
Star Wars The Worst __________ Ever

And specifically TPM...my god so much hate while critics said good stuff and then came the 'backlash' articles...same with TFA.

It isn't Star Wars unless there's a pile of fans pissed off.

It's a mystery why Lucas said 'Screw it' like Luke...

 

Tanking? If that's the case why did it make about 6% more yesterday than Wednesday?