The Rian Johnson Thread

RJ should at least be stuck with a few cowriters if he gets 2 keep his trilogy.

At first i was 100% against his trilogy after what he did 2 my beloved Luke & the lamest family reveal of all time. But if it does take place without any Skywalkers to ruin i can watch it. But i still don't want him 2 have the same level of controll he had on TLJ.

 

Because multiple screenwriters on films isn't one of the factors hurting the quality of modern films already....

 

There was a cowriter working on The Last Jedi, kind of - Carrie Fisher did a substantial amount of work on the script doctoring it.

 

That was just fine. Touching, really.

But it's very different from what @Darth Basin The Greatest was suggesting.

 

I know that he meant a full-blown co-screenwriter but it's still worth pointing out that Carrie had an influence on the final shape of the script.

 

For sure! God, I miss her...

 

Self-explanatory:

 

I totally agree with your suggestion : Rian may be good at writing "familial pots" (at least when he is invested in the characters) but he clearly need help to set up the bigger conflict.

The War part of Star Wars has never felt so small, uninteresting and meaningless.

Plus, it would be healthy for him to get some contradictors : it would help him ditch stupid ideas (Canto Bight, the parking infraction...) and refine his good ones (killing Snoke was an interesting move, but giving him such a lame characterization wasn't).

Many have argued the PT weren't as good as they should have been, because G.L. only had "Yes Men" around him, and no one to actually challenge his opinion...

 

Just watched The Brothers Bloom. And now I understand more aspects of Last Jedi and Rian's style, as you pointed (thank you for that). But it doesn't mean it's a good sign, for my taste.
Here are my thoughts (again, it's my opinion, as a fan of cinema and SW in particular, of all genres and subjects, and as a fan i like to comment and debate movies always with respect). And sorry for my english again. I will try to explain the best I can.

Before TLJ i saw almost his entire work except TBB and I was really excited to see what he could show to us. I was expecting a dark psychological approach to SW Univers, like Brick and Looper.
After seing TBB i think we can divide his work into 2 groups:

-the darker, serious and more psychological ones (Brick, Looper)
-the ones with humor, fuzzy plot and minor character development (The Brothers Bloom, The Last Jedi)

TV episodes probably are a better combination of those 2 groups (dark comedy, a third group? )

After Seing TBB, I have my conclusion: Rian is not good in developing humor through their characters, (or said in another way, I don't connect with his kind of humor). And probably this could be the biggest problem with TLJ (with some uninteresting ark stories and characters). In TLJ he plays with safe, cause visually is set in the SW world and this is always a really good point. Although there are some great aspects like Rey and Ren relation, Luke Skywalker (amazing Hamill) and Snoke's death. Those are good points. But the overused humor, specially in bad guys, rest fear and credibility to the characters, if you know what i mean. And it makes not the darker movie probably lots of people wanted or expected.
But TBB is not set in SW world, and i really didn't like it (I will never use the "hate" word as english and american do. For me it's difficult to hate a movie, for me the term "hate" is weird to say to a movie).
In fact (and I am still considering Looper one of the best syfy tales of the last decade) TBB is one of the most uninteresting films I have seen in a while (but not because is from Rian, just because i see it that way, like i could find boring and without "soul" Exodus, Marjorie Prime, Spiderman Homecoming, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 or Raw, to name just a few of my last movies). In The Brothers Bloom there are plain characters, inchorent scenarios and setpieces, and the humor is not funny at all. There is a lack of emotion and characters are not interesting at all. I like weird movies but here, for me, there is no equilibrium between drama, humor and the weird parts. Actors are good but it seems they don't know what to do to improve the dialogs and emotion.

If I had seen TBB before TLJ, I would have been more concerned, because the script is poor (only liked the symbolism at the end in the theater and the soundtrack, although it doesn't match with visual aspect)

Now I'm concerned about the new trilogy, unless Rian follows his darker and serious works.

Is curious one of the last quotes from TBB:

"There is no such thing as an unwritten life, only a badly written one".

 

Great. JW has a lot of energy. I hope that he will continues to work with SW for a long time still.

 

It's nice hear from people falling in love with the SW for the first time through Rian's film...

@LoveRianJohnson

 

Fans do have a choice not to see them. I have already made that choice. Star Wars died with TLJ. Disney will be lucky to make half of what they made on episode 8 when episode 9 comes out. 8 was a mockery of Star Wars. A bad parody.

 

Star Wars has been in a state of perpetual death since the mid-1980's. If that's what it looks when a franchise is dying, then I want more dying franchises.

 

Good point, Moral Hazard. I can't speak for anyone else but it's easy to forget that there are some people just coming into Star Wars now. For them, it's their first time seeing a Star Wars film. The Luke they will first meet is a grumpy, disillusioned warrior who lives alone on an island. He talks about the Jedi Order, and how broken it was, and how the Jedi need to end. He gives his life to give others hope through the legend that bears his name; they will get the to see the journey he goes on to become that legend.

No one knows anything about Rian's new trilogy yet; I could say I expect to love it or hate it but I don't know, and no one knows how they will feel about it for definite - probably not even Rian Johnson yet. Based on my mixed feelings on TLJ, I could be negative. It may be that with his own trilogy, characters and settings the new three films will blow me away. Who knows?

 

This thread has been entertaining to read through.

What I take away from it is basically that a lot of folks weren't that familiar with Rian Johnson.
Rian Johnson essentially comes in two flavors:
1) Sunshine is depressing
2) Austrian humor (even though he himself is not Austrian)

What's Austrian humor?
This is Austrian humor.

Jerry Seinfeld took Christoph Waltz to IHOP.
That's a very American style of joke.

Learning that Christoph had never been to one before, Jerry asks what he thinks of IHOP.
Christoph replies matter-of-factly, "I thought they were a sneaker store."

That's an Austrian joke.


That's basically Rian's film style in a nutshell.
Where you find humor, look again, and you'll likely find philosophy.
Where you find philosophy, look again, and you'll likely find humor.
And it won't apologize. It just does it and moves on.

True to form, TLJ is both of these attributes stirred up together, and it's also the second act so the film inherently is already a downer.
Then you throw on top of that the guy who can make Care Bears feel like Eeyore, and Honeymooners rolled up into one.

So yeah, as soon as I heard that he was doing the second act, I immediately laughed; turned to my wife and said, "The sunshine will be bleak and we'll be laughing at existential lightsaber jokes."

Sure enough, right out of the gate: *lightsaber chuck*

I was extremely delighted.
I loved his little touches; he was the perfect director for the ESB-like second act, and he did the best thing that the second act director could possibly do - pissed off some fans. HA!
To me; that's classic second act Star Wars. In your face, hard to swallow, dry humored, depressing, and pisses some fans off.
That was ESB back in the day....just with less flare. It was a tad too dry. Rian nailed it for me, and Kennedy nailed getting the right guy for accomplishing that effect.

I am mostly certain that Rian reads people's hate reviews and laughs - finding humor in the irony of what he's reading. He's a little prankster and loves the dark irony of life.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Lol, don't lie to yourself like that. You'll be there on opening night in 2019.

 

I'll b there for 9 as well. This time I'm bringing my pitchfork & torches.

 

I'm not sure you'll be able to enter a cinema with these... items.