THREAD FOR THOSE WHO HATED THE MOVIE

I've seen this video before, he makes a lot of good points. He makes a lot of bad ones too. For example, Ellen Ripley was a well written, well developed, and organically evolving character when we see her in Aliens (which is the 2nd installment in the franchise). And while they didn't specifically set out to create an advocacy film reel against sexism, they didn't avoid addressing sexist behaviors and tropes; especially in Aliens. And not just through Ripley but through Vasquez as well. There was a great job of balancing a future world vision where (in this instance) the female marine is as respected as the male marine and, by and large, treated no differently and our current world where sexism exists and a world where a civilian woman isn't taken seriously by her male counterparts. A similar tone is struck in Aliens 3, with Ripley narrowly avoiding rape, being talked down to by a Prison Warden who would not listen, and being accepted as the leader (albeit begrudgingly by some) of the inmates when they attempt to fight back against the Alien. Ripley is never all powerful, and never a damesl in distress. She doesn't get anything she hasn't already earned. Example, Ripley doesn't just hop in a loader and fight the Alien Queen, they show earlier in the movie that she has been trained on one already and demonstrates her proficiency; and it's consistent with her existing profile in the franchise.

I saw also where the youtube author mentioned that people were questioning whether Capt Marvel might be used as a social justice platform. I assume people who think this never followed the comic books since Capt Marvel has been many people, Carol Danvers included. I hope people will give that movie a chance because it was really well done in striking the balance I spoke of above. I think any movie that exists within "our" galaxy and on "our" earth has an implicit right to speak to social issues that would affect that character. There are a number of moments when they do so in Capt Marvel and they all feel appropriate; they aren't forced or heavy handed, but they are sober and realistic and it's something that informs the characters outlook. The differences (IMO) in how Marvel is portrayed vs Rey are pretty stark because

1. They make the effort to tell the story of how Danvers comes to be who she is mentally and physically
2. Danvers doesn't just ascend to power, the story ensures that her ascension is plausible and earned. There is one particular moment in Capt Marvel that invokes the feeling that I think the Rey Lighsaber Force pull was supposed to invoke; but I think it's only achieved if the character is being subjected to adversity. It worked really well in Capt Marvel, not so much (for me) in TFA.

These things could have been done for Rey, should have been done for Rey. And I know that there are some differences example Capt Marvel doesn't share screen time with the same number of character who need equal development. But Rey is in a trilogy, surely there was enough bandwidth to do what was done with Ripley and Danvers, for the benefit of Rey.

I say all that to say, I see some of his points in this video, but he's not entirely right

 

Here is my one beef with Luke/Kylo Ren flashbacks and how Rian Johnson played them to the public. From what I have read about the comics (and please someone correct me if I'm wrong), Kylo Ren was already headed to the Darkside, and Luke igniting his lightsaber had nothing to do with it. Kylo was using that as an excuse to manipulate Rey (get sympathy) even though I'm sure he believed it in his own twisted way. My point is Rian Johnson portrays to the moviegoer that Luke was the cause of everything that is wrong in the galaxy, and I think it's a disservice to his character and the audience. I understand that showing Luke at the beginning feeling that way, but the last scene with Rey makes it look like even Rey believes that his actions cause everything (even though she believes Kylo can be redeemed) when she squares off with him in the rain and pulls the lightsaber on him.

That's the stuff that just doesn't sit well with me regarding TLJ Luke and I will never embrace the movie solely for that reason. I still think there was a way that Rian Johnson could have portrayed Luke in a way that he had in the movie, but I still feel he went overboard and my example above is just another reason.

 

I made this argument in another thread and I"ll make it here, I think ultimately TLJ's ambition is part of it's failure. It's not that it creates new paradigms, but that it tries to change established ones. And not just ideas established in the anthology, TLJ even bucks the datapoints being generated in it's own trilogy

• Force Users don't require training
• Powerful fetes of Force can be done with minimal instruction
• The Resistance is about saving what you love
• Low probabilities missions are to be avoided
• Leadership Doesn't Share Information
• Luke is a Curmudgeon

Each idea on their own are things that could be legitimately added to the SW fabric, but that's the key, it has to be added to, it doesn't supplant the known dynamics of the galaxy without the story teller explicitly setting forth metadata that explains why. And TLJ doesn't do that. And so I understand why Luke's metamophosis (which is very much technically possible) doesn't work for you. To draw an analogy, it would be like only showing an audience member Episode I and Episode IV and asking them to take on faith that the events that would have taken place in Episode II and III properly explain and contextualize this new unfamiliar landscape.

Sure, we know the last time you saw Anakin, he was just a kid, but now he's Vader. Take it on faith, you don't need to see it. Same with Luke. It is an evolution which has done nothing to earn your buy-in. Now if they had did the leg work to show the Luke we remembered becoming the Luke of TLJ, I think (even if you don't like the direction), you still buy in because they are at least telling the story. Without it, you basically have someone independently rebooting an anthology and asking your head canon to do the work his pen should have. (Or more aptly, he is requiring that your head canon do the work his pen should have because there simply isn't enough bandwidth to immerse the audience in all the wholesale changes they are asking you to accept)

 

This.

If you're going to radically change an iconic character, than atleast take the time to show us that transformation so we can understand why and then we may appreciate the payoff. If Disney/Lucasfilm decided that the ST was going to be about the 'Redemption of Luke' and was told over a 3 story arc with the new characters playing a major role (just like the OT characters play a major role in Vader's redemption in 4,5,6). That could be the micro story and than the macro story could be about re-establishing a government that for multiple reasons let the First Order build right under their nose.

Episode 7 could have given us OT Luke that we all loved, and than Ben Solo turns at the end of the movie. THEN we get angry/hermit Luke in Episode 8, so we the fans feel his pain cause we witnessed it in Episode 7. His 'get off my lawn' attitude wouldn't be as jarring because we know exactly why it happened. Episode 9 could have been his redemption (he does something with Rey) to defeat the First Order, and than his death would be finality and closure for the fans.

Sorry, but we NEVER got any traces of OT Luke once in TLJ, and that is what bothers me. I look at a move like Unforgiven (where Clint Eastwood is sort of playing the same role as TLJ Luke where he is broken down by years of murder in the Old West), but the difference is his characters he played were always a grizzled veteran. He was the SAME character in terms of appearance and personality, but deep down inside he was a different person. And that is why Unforgiven works for me cause he is still Clint Eastwood that I loved before in High Plains Drifter, The Good Bad Ugly, even Dirty Harry, but his new story of an aged over the hill gunslinger is still compelling. They could have done that with Luke, but Rian Johnson never once gave us OT Luke (even at the end when he faces down the First Order).

And if JJ gives us Old Luke in Episode 9, than it is going to make TLJ Luke even more jarring on repeat viewings.

 

Wild speculation: Rian Johnson put the "laser swords" line in the movie purely to annoy me

 

An alternative to your alternative might be this (and yes I realize everybody completes every pass when your the armchair quarterback but hear me out):

What if Luke went to Ach-To not to die but to figure out how to fix what was wrong with the Jedi? What if he discovered what he needed to do was to close off from the Force and wait for the "right" student? What if part of his realization in his failure with Kylo and his study of the ancient Jedi text was that it wasn't simply enough to be capable of teaching a student, it was necessary to have a student who was capable of being taught? What if this one of a number of evolutions that Luke realized the Jedi needed to undergo before a New Order could begin? What if Rey was that student he was waiting for? What if Rey's parents were killed by Force Users? What if she discovered this fact in meeting with Luke?

Imagine Rey struggling with her commitment to help the Resistance, because it compels her to seek out a person with whom he has misplaced animus, and who is the last hope for the Resistance. Imagine the internal conflict of realizing you are what you are beginning to hate (Force User). It would have given Rey so many more layers and an actual obstacle to fully overcome by the 3rd installment. If they truly needed to move the Legacy characters to the periphery to allow the new characters to bloom, ok fine, just give Luke a real send off. An actual LS battle, not a hologram hoodwink, and after providing the necessary distraction (just like Obi Wan did) become one with the Force. And this is just me spit-balling here.

There were ways to innovate and still give the fans what they wanted; it is puzzling (to me) why they chose a "win-lose", when there were apparent "win-wins" on the table.

 

I think a great macro story for the ST could have been taken straight from the novel 'Bloodline' after Leia was exposed as Darth Vader's daughter. Episode 7 could have started with Chancellor Leia and General Han while Luke is training a new Jedi Academy with his star student (Ben Solo). Everything is going great, but you could have another Phantom Menace (Snoke) who exposed Leia and Luke as the children of Darth Vader and forces a complete split in the Galaxy (everyone has to take sides).

This could be believable because part of me would not trust the offspring of Darth Vader running the Republic, so you could understand the mutiny that may take place. This would set up the next War (with the Phantom Menace/First Order who exposed this huge secret) as that would give a believable reason why Ben Solo goes to the darkside (he was never told about Darth Vader being his grandfather, so he turns into a total whack job). That way we could all see the story unfold and develop and than you have Rey, Finn, Poe (introduce them much like TFA) to help in the new struggle against the First Order. That is much better than jumping into a story where all our characters are drastically different and we get 3 flashbacks to tell the story.

 

I'm in agreement that the ST isn't really that much about the legacy of Anakin/Vader. Having the big reveal explained in the crawl would have been enough though in my opinion and the film could have picked up with the Falcon entering the moment the crawl finishes and going down to the planet of Luke's academy to discover its destruction and no sign of Luke and Ben. Have a few scenes between Han and Leia, Han leaving and the Resistance being formed. Moving onto the search for Luke etc

 

Rian hated TFA script. Snoke, KOR, Luke, Jedi Temple, lightsaber, situation of galaxy, and proceeded to tell an original sw hitjob

 

And this is where Disney screwed the pooch on the ST. Iger insisted they needed to have a film out in 2015. Originally it was May 2015 in keeping with the tradition of Star Wars. When JJ came on board he was able to get Iger to allow it to come out in December. But they had NOTHING since they'd decided to completely abandon GLs treatments. Two bad ideas, two strikes so to speak. The third strike was not realizing just how much people wanted to see Luke Skywalker doing Jedi stuff.

I've probably said it 1000 times in this thread already, but they really should have had two films PRIOR to VII, films which introduced us to the galaxy in the year 34ABY. THEN do Episode VII. Heck, even just STARTING OFF with Rogue One might have been better, as it would have given JJ an extra year to develop a script.

The other problem.... NOT having JJ act as "show runner" and allowing each director to do their own thing. We know now that there is no plan. Both RJ said as much and the interview with JJ that came out yesterday confirms. NO FREAKIN PLAN for the ST.

https://www.fastcompany.com/9033123...and-building-bad-robot-into-a-hollywood-force

He says, "There was no story." He doesn't say "we had just an outline..." No, there was nothing.

Oh well. I just hope he and Chris Terrio came up with a proper good Star Wars tale.

 

Here is what I don't understand, what is the point of the story group? I thought the story group developed the big picture story, the narrative, the theme for the movies and the Trilogies, and then each director put their spin/style on it. I see so many interviews with Kathleen Kennedy talking about the story group, yet it sounds like JJ/Kasdan wrote TFA and Rian Johnson wrote TLJ, and Colin Treverrow was writing Episode 9? And now JJ/Terrio are wrote Episode 9 from scratch, as he even admitted that Rian Johnson changed things around from his vision from TFA.

 

That's a great question. I saw something recently where the Story Group's job is mainly to make sure the stories don't contradict each other and that the time line is maintained. But that is already a failure as Chuck Wendig's comic from last May (or so) had contradictions in it. Then you add to the fact that it appears there wasn't even the barest bit of out outline for the ST... I just hope to god somehow some way JJ is able to hit a home run and make this all worth it. Hey, a boy can dream!

 

I have low expectations that this can be achieved, but maybe that can work to JJ's advantage. Since so many of us believe it won't be good, and have low expectations, maybe it makes it easier for him to beat them.

 

Abrams and Kasdan had ideas for VIII and IX which Abrams brings up in that interview and the old interview. The problem is there was no mandate for those ideas and Rian Johnson and Lucasfilm took the story in a different direction with VIII* which derailed the easy implementation of those ideas. So they had to start from ground zero on IX when he came on to the project to get back to them.

J. J. Abrams: “[I had differences of opinion] all the time [with Kathleen Kennedy], [but she] really takes in what people say and finds a creative way to aggregate and distill the conversation.” “I had a bunch of ideas from the beginning, back on [Episode] VII, of where the story would go, I just never in my wildest dreams thought I would have a chance to execute them.” (May 10, 2018) (archive)

J. J. Abrams: “[The time constraints were] because they had announced release dates, and everything works backwards.” “To have no script [for Star Wars: Episode IX] and to have a release date and have it be essentially a two-year window when you’re saying (to yourself), you’ve got two years from the decision to do it to release, and you have literally nothing . . . . You don’t have the story, you don’t have the cast, you don’t have the designers, the sets. There was a crew, and there were things that will be worked on for the version that preceded ours, but this was starting over. And because this was such a mega job, I knew at the very least I needed a cowriter to work on this thing, but I didn’t know who that cowriter would be. There was nothing.” “But it was a completely unknown scenario. I had some gut instincts about where the story would have gone. But without getting in the weeds on episode eight, that was a story that Rian [Johnson] wrote and was telling based on seven before we met. So he was taking the thing in another direction. So we also had to respond to Episode VIII. So our movie was not just following what we had started, it was following what we had started and then had been advanced by someone else. So there was that, and, finally, it was resolving nine movies. While there are some threads of larger ideas and some big picture things that had been conceived decades ago and a lot of ideas that Lawrence Kasdan and I had when we were doing Episode VII, the lack of absolute inevitability, the lack of a complete structure for this thing, given the way it was being run was an enormous challenge. However, to answer your question—truly, finally—now that I’m back, the difference is I feel like we might’ve done it. Like, I actually feel like this crazy challenge that could have been a wildly uncomfortable contortion of ideas, and a kind of shoving-in of answers and Band-Aids and bridges and things that would have felt messy. Strangely, we were sort of relentless and almost unbearably disciplined about the story and forcing ourselves to question and answer some fundamental things that at the beginning, I absolutely had no clue how we would begin to address. I feel like we’ve gotten to a place—without jinxing anything or sounding more confident than I deserve to be—I feel like we’re in a place where we might have something incredibly special. So I feel relief being home, and I feel gratitude that I got to do it. And more than anything, I’m excited about what I think we might have.” (April 9, 2019)

* Rian Johnson: “When I came into [Star Wars] there wasn’t a secret white board with the whole story laid out. It was really just, I read JJ [Abrams] and Michael [Arndt] and Larry [Kasdan]’s script for [Star Wars: Episode] VII and it was ‘what happens next?'” “No [they hasn’t sketched out the next two movies at all]. No, no, no. This was more like a baton handoff. And first of all that seemed crazy to me, coming into it I was like, ‘Wow really?’ And then as I got into it and started working it was like, ‘Oh thank God,’ because as opposed to just tagging bases, it meant that I could honestly react to what I felt from The Force Awakens and those characters, and find the path forward that felt honest to me and felt real, and that led to some surprising places we might not have gotten to if the whole thing was drawn out.” “[Abrams and Kasdan] had nothing they dictated to me, no. They were really gracious in kind of leaving it open.” “Yeah [their input ended with the end of their movie]. And for example, the question of Rey’s parentage, which was a big question in this. I never got like the, you know, remember in Clue you had the packet of things, ‘so and so in the library’? I never got the equivalent of that for all the answers in this movie [Star Wars: The Last Jedi].” (December 17, 2017)

 

I meant to point out his comments about RJ and TFA, but I couldn't find them again when I posted the link to the article. But I just saw them again, this time repeated in the article on Collider. JJ says, "It was a completely unknown scenario. I had some gut instincts about where the story would have gone. But without getting in the weeds on episode eight, that was a story that Rian wrote and was telling based on seven before we met. So he was taking the thing in another direction. So we also had to respond to Episode VIII. So our movie was not just following what we had started, it was following what we had started and then had been advanced by someone else."

Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, he can tell the story he meant to have told when he did The Force Awakens. He will have to wrap it up in a 2 film cycle, vs. a trilogy, but oh well. KK should have simply had JJ stay on and do the entire trilogy. She easily could have given him a bit of extra time to get VIII done and then have him do IX, or at least oversee them. But no. She went with no freakin plan, and no overall guiding visionary/leader behind it. God what a mess.

 

I think what bothers me about these quotes is many fans like us were criticized by Disney and the Pro-TLJ crowd for our 'expectations' of TLJ based on the mystery boxes from TFA. And in the end, we were right because those mystery boxes were simply ignored and Rian Johnson essentially made his own standalone movie. So I'm not mad that we have Random Rey, I'm mad that TFA setup all of these red herrings (The Skywalker Lightsaber calls to her) that made it appear she was a Skywalker, and there was no plan to follow up on that in Episode 8 once Rian Johnson took the reigns. I never once thought of Rey Skywalker or Rey Solo until I walked out of TFA thinking all arrows were pointing that way, so Disney were the one who set it up for fans to have a certain expectation. Then we get buried for being blindsided that all those mystery boxes were really shoved aside for Rian Johnson's narrative.

All of these quotes confirm what I have been saying for the past year (and many Pro-TLJ fans on this site have taken me to task for saying it), but TLJ is an entertaining standalone film when you don't think about the previous 7 movies, but it's a terrible Saga film when you put it as Part 8 of the Saga puzzle. JJ confirmed everything I have had a problem with this movie (not the small things like Canto Bight, but the big picture/narrative story) in his quotes this week.

 

I'm with you on this. However, I'm not mad even at JJ for setting up red herrings... I'm upset with LFL/KK, the folks that should have stepped in and told Johnson, look dude, you can't just make a film that takes EVERY single setup and throws it under the bus. That's not how this is going to work. You need to operate within the structure of the trilogy AND within the mythology that has been setup over the previous 8 films (I'm including Rogue One in that count). Rey "no one" is okay, assuming Kylo was simply lying... But hyperspace ramming should not be a thing.

Anyway, thank god we have only about 28 hours or so until we get a teaser/trailer for IX. I have a feeling we will be able to watch TFA and skip TLJ and then watch IX without a problem, which is the way I'm going go to do it. As far as I'm concerned TLJ doesn't exist.

 

That's interesting. I know I can skip Rocky 5 and go from Rocky 4 to Rocky 6 and it totally works for me.

 

It took me 7x watching it to finish this movie. I kept stopping after Luke milked that animal and stared into Rey's eyes while drinking it. I just couldn't...

 

I don't know what boggles my mind more:

A) The fact that they didn't have a comprehensive outline for this trilogy, or
B) The fact that some are still in denial about point (A) despite the myriad of quotes from both RJ and JJ proving it (not to mention how painfully obvious it should be to anyone who saw the movies)