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The Confusing Philosophy of The Last Jedi

Discussion in 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' started by Suborn, Mar 1, 2018.

  1. Suborn

    Suborn Clone Trooper

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    Apologies for the length. First off, I don’t hate this movie but it’s going to seem like I do. I had a lot of fun watching it. Would probably give it an 8/10. As much as I enjoy it though here are some things that annoy me about the film


    1 “The Democratization of the Force”


    A lot of the praise for this movie seems to be focusing on how The Last Jedi finally took the Force out of the hands of a select few and gave it to everyone. This makes me question not only if these people have paid any attention to Star Wars over the years but also whether we watched the same movie at all. The prequel trilogy featured tons of Jedi who weren’t related at all from all sorts of places and walks of life with different strengths and weaknesses. I’m pretty sure most of the Jedi weren’t even permitted to have children or refrained from doing so, which makes calling the Jedi “monarchical” or a “hereditary guard” stupid beyond belief. It always seemed to me like kids could randomly be born with a strong connection to the force that their parents didn’t need to have and the Jedi would train these kids if their parents permitted without caring about lineage. It’s like how some kids have the potential to grow up to be professional athletes but require training. Obviously, there would be some hereditary element to force sensitivity, but not every professional athlete’s parents were star players. I also want to point out that some part of the Force was always hereditary in the OT. It didn’t start with midichlorians like many prequel haters seem to think. It’s the reason why Obi-Wan trained Luke and not Biggs Darklighter. Everybody had midichlorians but some people were simply born with more. One of the lessons of the prequels was that proper training and discipline can overcome natural talent or potential, as was seen when Obi-Wan, who is significantly weaker in the Force than Anakin, was able to best him on Mustafar. The idea that everyone who ever wielded the force was related to the Skywalkers is more about the critics focusing on fan theories than any commentary on the actual movies.

    The Last Jedi offers a much worse vision of the Force, where powerful users are simply chosen by the Force itself and have no real reason for being superior to others or becoming leaders. When Rey enters Snoke’s throne room, he says that Rey’s appearance is the light rising to meet the dark. What this means basically is that Rey’s awakening wasn’t some choice she made to fight evil because she wanted to emulate her father like Luke or a product of her wanting to follow the Jedi code and learning about the Force and training until she became a great warrior like Anakin but the Force callously working to balance itself. This totally robs Rey of all her agency, making her nothing more than a tool of the Force. In my opinion this is also a horrible misreading of what Lucas wanted "balance" to mean but that's another subject entirely. So rather than the force being something that was partially hereditary but could’ve just been a random natural mutation in Rey that she would work to master, she is essentially divinely chosen, the very definition of a monarch, and is more adept than Mr. Vergence of the Force himself, Anakin Skywalker, was without training. So yeah, EVERYBODY can use the Force effectively as long as the Force decides to choose you out of trillions of other people to be special and no amount of training or natural talent allows you stand up to these divinely chosen users. I like the idea of Rey being the kid of ordinary parents and it was what I wanted to be true going into the movie, but this film just destroys the whole point of that message by making her a worse version of the old “chosen one” trope than Anakin ever was. Anakin was heavily hinted to be the result of Palpatine or Plagueis messing with the Force in ROTS so maybe the next episode will include something to explain this. But as it stands now people aren’t born with midichlorians that they have to train to harness anymore, instead they’re just born as fully operational Manchurian Candidate force masters that relearn all their skills almost immediately when activated by the simple act of someone telling them about the Force. For a film that is trying very hard to be progressive, it has somehow turned Rey into a message that you should just wait for outside forces to fix all of your problems and grant you power with no effort on your part and Finn, who was far more effective as a regular person being a hero in incredible situations, into an unimportant side character. If the Force belongs to everyone why not have Rose and Finn or hell the whole Resistance use it? Why is Rey so special? Why is she more worthy in the eyes of the Force than the countless other heroes who died for the freedom of the galaxy? Arguably she's suffered less at the hands of the First Order than Finn and Rose and so many other more heroic resistance leaders. Why does Broom Boy get to use the Force but not his other companions? If midicholorians are out the window and it's not just a random natural ability, why did the Force choose him specifically? I just don't get it. And ultimately I think it weakens the story.


    2 Failure is the greatest teacher???

    Luke says the Jedi suck because they think they own the Force (when did they ever say that?) but mostly because their legacy is one of failure since they allowed the Emperor to take over and taught Darth Vader. This really makes me question Rian Johnson’s imagination. Luke could’ve rejected the Jedi for so many other reasons: maybe he found something sinister in their origins, an upcoming threat, maybe he decided that they were immoral for allowing organic and droid slavery or for their use of a brainwashed clone army or their repression of emotion in the extremely young children they isolate from their parents or their blind loyalty to a republic that had significant issues with corruption. Anything. But, no, Luke hates the Jedi because they failed. In a movie that celebrates failure as a great learning moment, shouldn’t this mean the Jedi will grow and get stronger because they failed? No, it’s time for the Jedi to end. Because they failed.

    The Jedi kept peace for a thousand years or generations. So if the Jedi’s greatest sin is failing once in a THOUSAND YEARS to discover a guy whose specialty is literally keeping himself hidden, why does anyone who has ever failed deserve a second chance? Fine, the Jedi were full of themselves and that blinded them to the rise of the dark side, but that’s no reason to get rid of them completely. This movie doesn’t make a strong argument for why the Jedi should change at all. It feels more like Johnson bowing to all the online “Top 10 Reasons Why the Jedi Actually Suck” article writers and expecting you to agree already than an honest discussion of the Jedi legacy. And I get that this is Luke really pushing his own personal failure onto the Jedi way, but Yoda comes in to reinforce the point, essentially telling Luke that it’s ok for him to think the Jedi ought to end. Now why would Yoda (and yes I know he’s aware the texts are safe) agree at all?

    The way Yoda and Obi-Wan trained Luke already involved developments the two learned from the Jedi’s failure to stop the Emperor. What has changed? What could have happened between Return of the Jedi and now that would convince Yoda that the Jedi were something that should be relegated to the past? Ben Solo’s turning? I mean at no point in training did Yoda or Obi-Wan teach Luke to sneak into some kid’s bedroom at night while he’s sleeping and rifle through his thoughts like a weirdo instead of speaking to him like a normal person and oh yeah bring your lightsaber with you while you do this even though you know you have had violent outbursts in the past. How would this convince Yoda to burn the tree and indicate to Luke that he should move on? Even after the Empire controlled the whole galaxy, Yoda still felt the Jedi were right and their code and teachings were the only truth. Seems to me that Rian Johnson just saw Yoda as a generic wisdom-giver who could make anything the director wanted sound smart and not a character with well-defined characteristics who very strongly identified with the Jedi. For no reason, this movie has Yoda lie to Luke by omission again by not telling him Rey took the texts. One of the biggest betrayals that clearly hurt Luke was when Yoda and Obi-Wan didn’t tell him that Vader was his father. It was a big deal. And Yoda just lies to him again. Why? Just to be a jerk?

    What’s even stranger is this movie doesn’t seem to realize it’s actually advocating for a stricter adherence to the Jedi code. This would have prevented the council from taking Anakin in and training him at all because he was too young and emotionally attached, which would have allowed for the Jedi to off Palpatine pretty easily and would have never resulted in Darth Vader. It was emotion and straying from the code that allowed the Jedi to give in to Qui-Gon’s dying wish and train the boy. So basically, Luke is saying the Jedi only suck because they showed compassion one time and they should follow stricter rules. But actually he wants the Jedi to end and Rey to have more freedom. But he also wants Rey to be the next Jedi. It’s all very confusing.

    I guess the idea is Rey is going to become a new, better Jedi that isn’t taught in the traditional way and explores the dark and light for herself. But isn’t that exactly what Luke was? I mean, he didn’t exactly get a traditional education. Yoda was even the one who encouraged him to enter the evil cave on Dagobah and was pretty upfront with him about the dark side’s strengths and weaknesses. I guess this is a question for the next movie, but how is this new and impressive? The idea of a morally gray Jedi isn’t even close to new. Even in the films, Mace Windu was already one of these.

    And if failure is the greatest teacher, why did Rey never fail in this movie? All of her “failures” are really problems with other people and this is where I can kind of see where the “Mary Sue” people are coming from even if I don’t agree with them. She fails to save Kylo because he’s a terrible human being and she fails to bring Luke with her because he’s also a terrible human being. The thing in this movie that stops Rey from being a Mary Sue in my opinion is how Snoke shows that she’s not invincible. The way the Force works in this movie and how it chooses winners and losers sucks compared to the PT and OT but compared to the other characters in The Last Jedi, Rey isn’t all that impressive. I can accept most of her skills came about because of how she grew up as a scavenger, but I would have really liked to see her fail and recover from it at least once.

    The message I get from Luke's treatment isn't that one should grow to come back and make amends for their failures, it's that all old farts should just die and let the young geniuses of the world fix all the problems. I really don't like this fetishization of youth or the idea that only the young people have the right idea and they don't need any help. I don't know if this is just the trend now but I'm tired of it. Certainly Star Wars was always centered on growing up and yearning for adventure but it also said that it was important for the knowledge and wisdom of older folks to be passed down while TLJ essentially says it's worthless and the only purpose for old timers is to get out of the way.



    3 The Death of Heroism

    I don’t understand why Rian Johnson decided to make Poe into a macho stereotype that is way less interesting than his character in TFA who was a mature, brave leader and a generally good guy or why Poe would have a problem with women leaders when his own mother was an A-wing pilot, but whatever. I really don't want to discuss this plot point because it's been done to death, so I'll just say this. Star Wars was at its core about the heroic struggle against the blind obedience the Empire demanded. I understand wanting to shake things up by highlighting the importance of following orders to live to fight another day instead of trying ridiculous schemes, but having a movie tell people that they should listen to their superiors even when they don’t give any justification or clear direction is just dangerous. I don’t care if that’s how they do it in the military, which I’m pretty sure it isn’t

    This movie tries to be about taking responsibility for your mistakes, but it fails. Instead of trying to save the galaxy from the evil he unleashed, Luke just leaves. Keep in mind, as the TFA title crawl states, the First Order didn’t take over until Luke had already vanished. So he wasn’t running from the Empire like Obi-Wan and Yoda or going to find new and useful information. He left the republic defenseless, probably without warning anyone, and went into exile because he was sad. But we’re supposed to see him as a hero when he comes back. Sorry, it doesn’t work for me. He’s a loser until he fixes his mistakes. As much as this film is praised for showing the human side of its characters, it ends up saying that the lie, the superhuman legend of Luke Skywalker, is more important than the real man because that's what will spark the Resistance. The real Luke would just depress them. He even has to fake his appearance when he astral projects. The film seems to indicate that, yes, every hero is in reality in a huge disappointment and you only like them because of lies people spread and embellish about them. It takes an earnest appreciation for heroism and flushes it down the toilet. Almost as bad as what Beowulf (2007) did to that character. Even if Luke were a brand new character in this movie, he would still be a letdown because of how utterly uninspiring and uninteresting he is. He does very little.


    4 Kylo Ren is not relatable to me

    A lot of people will disagree here, but Kylo Ren is a poor villain and one of the big weaknesses of this film in my opinion. He is interesting, but not as interesting as Rian Johnson seems to think. Adam Driver does a great acting job but that can't save him. This wouldn't be a big deal but basically the entire movie is structured around Kylo. According to Rian Johnson, who makes it sound like “the story” were some wicked jungle deity he had to make sacrifices to and not something he had direct and almost sole control over, Snoke was killed because the story had to focus on Kylo. Luke was turned into an almost murderer because the story had to give Kylo justification for going bad. Rey was transformed into a naive fool who assaults a defenseless old man against the back of the head and runs off to save Kylo because he needed someone to help him pretend to be conflicted. All of this is to make Kylo Ren relatable, to make the audience identify with him.

    Darth Vader was a great villain in TESB because he was terrifying. Anakin was interesting in ROTS because he was at least somewhat relatable in wanting to save his wife. Sidious was a great villain in the PT because of how clever he was. Kylo fails at all of these. Theoretically, the idea of a super powerful, mentally immature monster is great. The evil child with supernatural powers is a common trope for a reason. Kylo Ren is certainly an immature, stunted manchild but he's just too weak to be scary that way. Rey embarrasses him easily on multiple occasions. Because of this I understand why Rian Johnson tried to make Kylo relatable. He just did a bad job. Having Luke be the straw that broke the camel's back for Kylo Ren just isn't enough for me to forgive all of the problems I have with him. And in terms of intelligence, Kylo loses to a hologram so he's certainly no Sidious. What's weird is that Kylo Ren is literally the image of toxic masculinity and privilege, but gets treated better in this film than Poe Dameron who just wants to help the galaxy. Rian Johnson is quoted as saying

    “We can all relate to Kylo: to that anger of being in the turmoil of adolescence and figuring out who he’s going to be as a man; dealing with anger and wanting to separate from his family.”

    Honestly, this quote arguing that the genocidal fascist wunderkind Kylo Ren is relatable is a worse indictment of Rian Johnson than anything I could say. Uh by the way, Kylo is not an adolescent, the guy is over 30 years old. I'm pretty sure humans age the same way in Star Wars as in real life, maybe even quicker given how fast Obi-wan aged, so Kylo is nowhere near a child. No, I don't relate to wanting to murder my parents to find myself. I didn't empathize with Vader at the end of ROTJ, I pitied him. And yeah I could maybe feel that with Kylo but I'm not going to identify with him. Maybe if he even had a clear mission that would help. Snoke has a clear mission, at least in the short term. He wants to end the Jedi and rule the galaxy. What does Kylo even really want? We never get an answer because he doesn't have one. I realize that's supposed to be deep and complex, but it's simply disappointing to me.

    I honestly can’t imagine Han or Leia being terrible parents to him. So why does he drift to the dark side anyway? Was he just born a sociopath or is Snoke so powerful that he can turn anyone? In that case, why would Snoke need the First Order at all? Why not just brainwash all the leaders in the republic to make an army for him and give him control of the galaxy? Yeah it would be great if all of this is explained in Episode IX but the fact that I don't know it now makes it very difficult for me to care about Kylo or his issues. An important theme is how he can’t escape his past, but honestly AOTC had a way better exploration of this theme with Anakin’s past and how it informs his future, as well as how the Jedi's past mistakes were catching up with them.

    Anakin was way more relatable because he was someone who had a difficult life growing up and who continually had misfortune but tried to be good and follow the Jedi code. Ultimately he sought out the dark side for a very relatable reason: to save the people he loved. No motivation is given for Kylo turning to the dark side at all except for Luke pushing him over the edge when he was already moving in that direction and a general sense that he didn’t like the pressure of living up to his family legacy. None of that is relatable. Most people aren’t born into wealthy, respected families with all the opportunities in the world. I mean Kylo is old enough in the flashback that he definitely chose to join the Jedi himself. I doubt Leia forced him to. She probably recommended it and he agreed. So what's his problem?

    Here’s another thing. I'm a millennial and it really bothers me that Kylo Ren is being embraced by online writers as some sort of image of people my age. He's supposed to be reflective of the “struggle” by youth to overthrow the corrupt institutions of their parents who left them with no positive future. But Kylo didn't have to struggle, he’s literally a spoiled superpowered princeling who had everything given to him on a platter by his parents. He's mad at the world for no real reason.

    Kylo doesn’t want to “burn everything to the ground” and he doesn’t want a revolution. For all his talk about letting the past die, he means to take over the First Order, which is literally remnants of the past. He doesn’t want to dismantle the corrupt system, he just wants to be the new corrupt leader. This is either a biting attack on millennials or the movie completely missed its mark on making Kylo “relatable” to their coveted youth demographic which hates their Boomer parents so much and wishes they’d hurry up and die so the new definitely real utopia could hurry up and get here. He’s either a huge hypocrite or this film did a terrible job of making his views clear. He could have included a line about how Kylo would change the galaxy, instead he just offers Rey some vague promise of a “new order” while telling her to let the Resistance and her friends die. Great pitch, Ben.


    5 Destroy all fan theories! Wait, not that one.

    I usually don’t like to talk about many things outside of a movie, but this film contains a clear takedown of and a lot of meta commentary on Star Wars and the fanbase itself, so I think it’s fair. Briefly, I don’t understand why Rian Johnson went out of his way to cater to the Reylo fanbase given the rest of the movie is determined to see all fan theories crash and burn and aggressively disregards setups from TFA. This is a huge misstep and it weakens the whole film because so much of this movie seems set up to appease the followers of one creepy theory. The reason a large portion of the fanbase feels that this film is so insulting is because it was clearly designed to be, regardless of what Rian Johnson claims. The movie seems to take a perverse pleasure in attacking people for caring about and engaging in harmless speculation around a franchise they enjoy. If that’s what you want to do, why include sexual tension between Rey and Kylo? Reylo is such a clearly poisonous relationship and something that Rey in TFA would have easily avoided being a part of. Rey was dumbed down in this movie to the point where she gets over Kylo murdering Han Solo and intruding into her mind in the span of a couple of conversations. Yes it's all nice and good that Rey rejects Kylo and his abusive boyfriend ways in the end and realizes she doesn't need him to find a place in the galaxy for herself, but including this plot thread and the pointless shirtless scene is nothing more than the pure fan service that this movie pretends it hates. There’s really nothing I can say here that hasn’t already been said. It’s just odd.
     
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  2. DailyPlunge

    DailyPlunge Coramoor

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    I pretty much disagree with everything in this post, but thanks for your thoughtful take on the film. There have already been several well written takes on The Last Jedi and what it means it's a waste of time to go over everything you covered, but a couple of points.
    This film was written long before their was a Reylo fanbase to appease or any theories about TFA existed. In fact, RJ filmed scenes before TFA was ever released.
    To finish what Vader started. To let the past die. To sever all connections to the light.
     
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  3. Darth Basin The Greatest

    Darth Basin The Greatest Rebel Official

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    I agree with everthing u sed except 4 Rey having nobody parents. She should of bin Luke's or at least a clone. Like it or not this saga is/was about the Skywalkers. It wood of put most of the "Mary Sue" complainers 2 sleep. Oh well.

    So with all those nitpicks/complaints u still have it a 8/10? Uhm ok. 2 each thier own.

    My biggest complaint about this film besides the utter destruction of male masculinity (Luke. Poe) was this saga was once about the Heroes Journey thru faimly.

    Now it's a horrible fan fic based romance. If JJ kills only 1 thing in EPIX i pray it's Reylo.
     
    #3 Darth Basin The Greatest, Mar 1, 2018
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  4. McDiarmid

    McDiarmid Force Sensitive

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    Agreed with you, we have.

    But remember, greatest teacher,faliure is.

    So The Last jedi teacher the greatest was.

    Oh, young Skywalker, missed you have I.

    [​IMG]
     
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  5. Rayjefury

    Rayjefury Force Sensitive

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    Great post. Very nicely done.
     
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  6. greenbalrog

    greenbalrog Rebel Official

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    Something doesn't feel right about Kylo to me as well. His motives are unclear, or not convincing enough. Maybe that's what makes him interesting, the fact it's unclear, perhaps due to some complex thing we were not told about, or perhaps it's just much simpler than we think. So, I agree with what you say about your Kylo Ren point. I'm not a millennial, and I took his depiction as addressing the millennial stereotype (mind you, without being told about it, I just felt that was the "message" Not saying I'm right of course.).

    So, in the end, I interpreted his whole thing as grudge, pure and simple. He hates his uncle, his father (not his mother as much we're meant to believe). Why? Because he holds grudge. Perhaps because of personality incompatibility. We've all seen it in our families in one way or another. So, that part is relatable to me. Some family members just hold grudge against their parents, uncles, siblings, etc. It's the whole authority theme you can see interwoven in TLJ. Questioning and rejecting authority (you should do what your parents tell you, or should you not?). You see it in Kylo / Luke and Poe / Holdo, even Poe / Leia to some extent but in a more maternal point of view (and I'm probably forgetting others).

    So, maybe it's way more simple, but not less deep, than we think. It's probably not so much about grandious plans of taking over the galaxy. Some machiavellian and ingenius plan to rise to power, or to take revenge or whatever. Perhaps Kylo is just, and I say just in the most relatable way, a conflicted man, or manchild if you will, that holds grudge about his past, that fails to recognize how lucky he was and fails to be grateful for all he had.

    Why is it special here? Because he is extremely powerful. That's what makes it interesting. It's like the film is saying that this is what may happen when there's too much power in the hands of immature (or problematic, conflicted, clouded) people. Since Kylo is so powerful and conflicted he is also very dangerous.

    These were my 2 cents, and my best shot at who Kylo may be, and I'm sure others will articulate all this much better than I can, and figure out other meanings that I have failed to grasp.

    So, as you can see, we both wrote a lot about Kylo, and how odd and unclear his ultimate motives seem to be. But notice that we're writing about it, and thinking about it. Perhaps that was what the film makers intended.
     
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  7. andrea.conti.91

    andrea.conti.91 Rebelscum

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    To me, we have to keep our eyes on the whole trilogy as an ongoing story. When the OT came out it was basically a fairy tale in space, with a lead character (Luke) who had to go through a series of tests to become a Jedi Knight. Then, the PT expanded this very simple concept to a wider epic story, in which there was a Choosen One who was supposed to bring ballace in the Force, destroy the Sith and restore the light in the Galaxy. With the PT the inner logic of the OT radically changed: Luke was the lead character no more. Anakin was, while Luke's adventure became instrumental to Anakin's redemption.

    Now, the story assumed an even wider concept. The Force choosed Rey because the last Jedi Master went on a lonely island to die. Why Rey? We don't now if Kylo told her the truth. Maybe Ep9 will show us that Rey's parents were actually SOMEbody, who knows. But right now, she's a nobody. Who else was a nobody while the Force choosed him? Yes, Anakin! The Force gave Anakin birth because times were dark, because the Galaxy needed someone to go down to the Dark Side, and destroy the Sith from within. Now, the story repeated itself. Luke made a huge mistake, making the darkness rise again. And then, instead of fighting, he punished himself by going to the island and die. Literally, there were no light in the Galaxy. No ballance. So the Force choosed Rey.

    Someone could object: but Anakin was the CHOSEN ONE! That's why the Force gave him birth! Ehm... who wasn't so sure about that? Yes, Yoda! In Revenge of the Sith, Yoda says the Jedi could be wrong about the whole "chosen one" affaire. Maybe Anakin will not restore ballance in the Force. But he actually did, before Snoke, the FO and Kylo Ren brought darkness back in the Galaxy. So what? I think TLJ deeply reimagined the whole PT. The mistake of the Jedi Order was to think that a Chosen One could bring the ballance ONCE AND FOR ALL. TLJ basically tells us that the ballance is a dynamic concept, not static. The Chosen One is not just ONE. The Force chooses her own "chosen ones" when times go dark, which is another way to say: when the ballance goes destroyed.

    The Galaxy needed Anakin when the Empire arose, just like it needed Luke when times were mature enough to destroy the Emperor. Now, it needs Rey to redeem Luke's mistakes and restore the Jedi Order, going back to the original teachings of the first Jedi (the sacred texts she stole from the island). "Reylo" is just another way to say "ballance". If Kylo will really redeem himself, destroy the FO and start a new Jedi Order with Rey, then the ballance will perhaps be effective. But this doesn't mean a 4th trilogy will be impossible to have. Remember this: ballance is a dynamic concept, not static. Darkness will always be a threat. Light side and Dark side will always fight each other, because this is the essence of a dynamic ballance.

    So, as a recap:
    1) OT was the story of Luke becoming a Jedi and destroy the Emperor by saving his father;
    2) PT was the story of Anakin, the Chosen One, falling to the dark side just to be brought back by Luke;
    3) ST is the story of the Force as a mystical super partes entity, keeping its inner ballance by choosing her "chosen ones" when times go dark and unballanced.

    So, an ongoing story changing its inner "ballace" every time a new trilogy comes out. That's what I love about SW.
     
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  8. Madmartigan

    Madmartigan Force Sensitive

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    I think this is the whole point of the criticism, probably in an intangible and indirectly way.

    I've always said we can give criticism with respect and valid and constructive points as yours. I say this because i give a lower rating than yours and sometimes it can be misunderstanding for people who loves the film, who I respect to enjoy something I couldn't like them.

    Yes, the movie it's ok and the actors are all sublime, but there is a lecture behind all of it, a thought that enters into you and grows on you during the facts in a strange way (at least in me).

    The sensation seeing the film, (my personal sensation, and I have seen it 3 times), is that all established before has zero importance. It seems there is a non respect air floating during the film in scenes, situations, characters, expressions, forced humor...

    And all of this it brings me to the early photos and the famous Kylo's scar. Why change a simple scar? In that time I absolutely didn't give any importance but after the movie it seems to increase this strange sensation, the sensation of wanting to change too much aspects without controling all of it and receiving the proper feedback, the sensation of bad character development continuity, the sensation of not giving importance the backstory created before and, in some aspects, to the whole saga. I respect and like trying to be different and go in different ways that saga didn't explored before (really love the mental force connection and the relation of Rey and Kylo or Luke's character) but it has to show some kind of minor sense I guess (probably it has and I haven't caught it). I don't know if this sensation is unintentional or not, but I feel it in some scenes and characters.

    I have the sensation that the events of TLJ are not the events that should be while watching TFA.
     
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  9. Sparafucile

    Sparafucile Guest

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    I'm of the belief that TLJ is the product of access to information that producers never had before.

    They may not have to do it personally, but I strongly think they have people gathering information on fan theories. Then RJ "carefully" tried to write a story that would subvert as many people's expectations as possible. Taking SW in a totally new direction.

    In the past, this kind of access was not available, and more recently, I don't think people really thought of using it in this way. So yeah, in a way if this is what RJ did, then it's about as revolutionary as reality TV. I think it'll have an impact on cinema that will echo through decades. I also personally think it's cheap. They're not building from their own creativity so much as building to subvert others imaginations. Much like reality TV, it'll have its draw as the stories will be fresh and unexpected, but as we've seen, churned out too quickly it will also leave a sense of aimlessness.

    It loses something more, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Depth? Something... it just doesn't feel right. Just like I'm not a fan of reality TV. That said, I don't go bashing reality TV shows, but then again, I had nothing invested in Survivor, Big Brother or whatever other shows that out there. SW is something I was invested in for 35+ years.

    I will give RJ this. If this is what he did, it took guts. I applaud him on the attempt as this can potentially be ground breaking and his name can go down in film making history. I just don't think it serves SW very well. But that's my opinion.
     
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  10. Corn Cream

    Corn Cream Rebel General

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    I think this movie was made in a small room. The way they made Leia look in TLJ, you can make a case for Kylo turning out the way he has. Leia is the mother to the villain. Yet we haven't seen anything motherly from her. She slaps, and shoots her best pilot when he is only thinking about keeping them alive. If a man did what Leia did. He would be despised. There would be an outcry from the community talking about he was a bad leader. Leia was more abusive than leader. We haven't seen anything from Leia to tell us if she was good with younger people. It's implied in a book, but Han shown more of a paternal instinct than Leia has shown a maternal one in this new triloogy.
     
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  11. Benjamin Lewis

    Benjamin Lewis Rebel Official

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    Regardless of whether I agree or disagree with your points, I applaud you for having a thought-out opinion that's not either 0/10 or 10/10.
     
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  12. Darth Basin The Greatest

    Darth Basin The Greatest Rebel Official

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    I agree with everthing EXCEPT........ Anakin was never a "nobody". He was chosen by the Force BEFORE birth.
     
  13. Legend Knight

    Legend Knight Force Sensitive

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    I have a lot of the same problems with the film as you do and this is a fantastic post. I wish there was a way to move past these glaringly weird choices and enjoy the film but after four theater watches my opinion of the film have only decreased.
     
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  14. Darth Basin The Greatest

    Darth Basin The Greatest Rebel Official

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    Same here bro.
     
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  15. Darth Garth

    Darth Garth Rebel General

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    Hit the nail on the head on all points. Can you imagine the uproar if the marvel cinematic universe's characters were treated like Luke was in TLJ? It would be anarchy. Why are the MCU films so beloved? Because they don't belong to one person; same as Star Wars doesn't belong to one person. You can't disregard certain aspects of a character or set ups from a previous film. Who is Star Wars for? The fans; Don't cater, but don't annihilate everything either.
     
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  16. Legend Knight

    Legend Knight Force Sensitive

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    Totally on point. Hamill was definitely in the right thinking Luke was out of character so bad in this film. When he started all of that talk, I wrote him off and said surely Rian knows what he is doing. However I now fully side with Mark and feel that is not my Luke Skywalker.
     
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  17. JediMasterRobert

    JediMasterRobert Rebel Official

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    First, I want to thank you for going into such details, complete with examples even. I find it to be very constructive and insightful criticism.

    Second: I think this is generally a really great post, and I marked it as such. Well done!

    I agree with many of your excellent points: the question of Rey's agency, a missed opportunity to develop Finn further, Kylo, the questionable pitting of youth/newness versus maturity/wisdom.

    I was somewhat relieved to hear, in the end, Luke declare he would not be the last Jedi after all.

    Both his coming to Crait and that declaration convinced me he had a change of heart, after much sadness and soul searching, and decided he could and should play a decisive role in preserving both the Resistance and Rey/the Jedi from total eradication from the First Order.

    I look forward to the upcoming DVD and novel releases and hope we can learn more about each of these characters, especially their thoughts with respect to the novel.
     
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  18. cawatrooper

    cawatrooper Dungeon Master

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    Regarding Luke thinking the Jedi failed-

    The way I read it, it's not so much the fact that they allowed Palpatine to take control at the end of the Clone Wars that Luke is upset about. He had no issue with that in the OT, and up through the making of his own temple.

    Rather, I think that in the wake of his own failure, he saw a clear pattern- the ebb and flow of the power of the Jedi and Sith, and the destruction in the galaxy that results from that struggle. I think that Luke saw this as futility, and became extremely discouraged.
     
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  19. BobaFettNY21

    BobaFettNY21 Force Attuned

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    I think the fact that it makes you ask those questions....makes it great. (And I only think it's a 7/10)

    Rey is. That's the point. Are we really to question the Force's volition? Are we supposed to predict it's choice or action? It's telling that the characters that spend most time dwelling on the future, are the ones that fall into despair, or are the evil ones - Snoke & Palpatine's arrogance, Luke's worries about Ben, Anakin about everything, even Poe and Finn have to learn that in a more (certainly) cumbersome way (thus the 7/10, lol). Even Leia's worries about Ben as a child prove to be a failure.

    Is that theme an 'insult' or is it a moral lesson?

    The characters that dwell on the past similarly fall. Ben and Luke dwell on the past. It causes them to fail. Luke exits the fray. Ben becomes Kylo.
    The only one's confronting their challenges as they come at them, are Leia, Rey, Rose, Holdo - the ones that end up saving everybody until Luke decides to be the hero he always was.

    Attachment to the past and future take you out of the problems of the present. That's a pretty consistent theme throughout Star Wars - and if that is so endemic to 'speculation', well...too bad. Anakin and Luke are consistently looking away to the future. Anakin is attached to his fear for the future. Luke also is, until his attachment to his father - Anakin the Jedi General and Good Friend to Obi-Wan Kenobi - ultimately saves the galaxy. Anakin's fall is a lesson to Luke - his bionic hand. Anakin's Jedi heroism, on the other hand, is what Luke chooses to embrace. (That burden of perfectionism, is also a theme that costs Luke and the galaxy later on with Ben - so yes, failure is a big part of the lesson). The Jedi are attached to a certain dogma and interpretation of a prophecy that nobody can even really define all these years later. Rey sort of struggles with this, but isn't attached to it. She faces her 'cave' moment, and moves on. (Sure, one can criticize that, I guess, but whatevs, that's the lesson, bruh).

    Leia lives in the present, confronting each challenge the galaxy throws at her........outside of her son. Han and Leia blew that, and thus the galaxy is where it is now. Original sin, another basic mythological concept.

    I always laugh about healthy vs. unhealthy attachment - it's explicitly part of the mythology. We just don't seem to learn that lesson, apparently.
     
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  20. DailyPlunge

    DailyPlunge Coramoor

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    Mark says it's his favorite Star Wars film after Empire Strikes Back.

     
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