THREAD FOR THOSE WHO HATED THE MOVIE

Oh Magnar, not another troll rating for this, surely? I was being nice. I'm worried about. You haven't been the same since you found out 2 years worth of your posts were utterly wrong.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 8, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 8, 2018 ---

And was it?

 

Korea:
http://movie.daum.net/moviedb/main?movieId=95547

Japan:
https://movies.yahoo.co.jp/movie/スター・ウォーズ／最後のジェダイ/360445/

 

Hanlon's razor and all that.

That being said, having seen his films, as offensive as TLJ is, I'd lean towards RJ just being stupid. There might have been a peppering of trolling here and there, but I'd wager it's mostly unguided by-product of the corporate feminism agenda foisted upon the ST by Kennedy - at worst the trolling probably took the form of childish 'oh we're really going to flip the tables with this one!' re snoke, etc.

(AKA it wasn't trolling for the sake of trolling, but either juvenile stupidity thinking 'killing the old white man' without proper dramatic setup would play as deep and profound, or outright cynicism re the audience being too busy mindlessly lapping it all up to care. Neither is intentional trolling for the sake of upsetting fans.)

The main reason I think he's not trolling are that the 'big play moments' of the film - Holdo, Luke, Rose, Rey-rocks etc. - come from an honest attempt at sincerity. He's trying to craft these big emotional moments, and the fact that they don't work onscreen/fail goes a long way towards indicating that he wasn't trolling and is just stupid.

Now, all that being said, definitely on the surface it does look like 100% trolling. When you get pretty much literally everything wrong possible, it's going to look like you did it on purpose.

Another reason I think he wasn't trolling is the sh!t-eating grin he sports in so much of the BTS material.

It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't immediately recognize that expression from experience, but if you've worked in a profession at a high level, you'll instantly recognize that expression. It literally is 'having fun, making movie, derp derp'. He is completely unaware that he's making a poor film. That particular type of grin is one that you see when, for example, you're in charge of something at work, and you ream someone out for doing an poor/okay job when they think they've been doing a good job and they just grin, like 'why are you on my back'? because they really don't understand what they did wrong.

Again, if you've worked in a top position in any field, chances are you've seen that look more than a few times. It's very distinctive and immediately recognizable. In short it's the look of someone who doesn't feel the weight of the task.

Good, intelligent directors are always stressed/pained because their intelligence renders them acutely aware of the fine lines involved in storytelling. For a perfect relatively contemporary example, look at Peter Jackson (pretend the Hobbit never happened) in the LOTR behind the scenes material. Steven Spielberg in his films', hell, GL in the making of ANH. They might laugh or joke once in awhile but if you know what you're looking at, they are deadly serious about what they're doing because they understand HOW HARD it is to tell a proper story and it is eating at them inside.

I'm pretty sure GL would agree with you. What you've outlined is technically what GL was doing with the PT. The Jedi had institutionalized The Force and Anakin was The Force trying to fix that. I know you're probably saying 'that's exactly the problem!' Bear with me for a second.

Where GL erred was in not burying that theme (balance, nature's self-correction) in the plot, in not making the Jedi's overuse of The Force/over-abundance of the Force a story element. Now, to be fair to him, this is the hardest thing to do in screenplay writing.

Think of burying theme in plot like weathering a model tank; building a model tank that you want to make look battle-scarred. You build the model, then you mess it all up, add rust, dents, etc. to make it look 'real'. What GL did is basically just build the tank. But even just to build the tank, you need to know what you're doing and GL clearly did: The PT and OT have a very clear theme - fate vs. free will. You mean it controls your actions? Partially, but it also obeys your commands.

The six-film arc ends up being about fate (Emperor/Dark Side) vs free will (Luke/Rebellion), with 'fate' winning the first round, and 'free will' winning the second.

Anakin's tragedy stemmed from being 'chosen' not through his will to be the vessel for this balance. Fate giving him much too much power for one person to handle. Lucas didn't do the work to bury the 'chosen one/balance' issue within Anakin's day-to-day struggles as he succumbs to the idea of fate and then to actual fate.

From a technical standpoint, it's the same problem as in TLJ. Once you have your theme ideas, you need to 'paint' them into the plot so that during the climax everything hits the audience on an emotional level and feels real and earned. Otherwise you end up with unearned moments like Holdo for the sake of a 'female badass sacrifice', Finn/Phasma's stupid fight because 'we need them to fight', etc.

The much-lambasted midichlorians thing is actually a device to drive the fate angle. People come at it from the wrong angle re him being 'powerful'. What it really is is that he's a freak. He's a monster. Fate/The Force made him be born with that 'disability' that makes him 'different' and it's up to him to deal with it without collapsing into self-pity and he fails.

Anyway, to recap, the prominence/fate angle of The Force in the PT is intentional, and designed to serve the story as the weight that breaks the tragic figure of Anakin. GL just didn't bury that theme in the plot well enough. Burying theme in plot is imho the hardest thing to do in screenplay writing. I don't blame GL much for failing at it in the PT. Unless you're like Shakespeare, you need a team of people at the top of their game to get it done.

Otherwise, and I know you already said this, he did a good job of doing exactly what you outlined in your post and having the Force being a tool - like lightsabers - to reveal character.

 

Well, I've never heard any other director say "my movie is really, really funny".

It's kind of like that friend who wants to show you a funny video, but before the video even starts your friend will say "oh look now when he's gonna trip over, it's SOOOOOOOO funny you're gonna die laughing!".

 

I saw it again finally. It is wild how much better it was the second time for me. Even after all the analysis poking holes in the movie and the intense disappointment I had after the first viewing. Now, I don't LOVE it, but it clicked with me much better and I think it is a pretty good SW movie, flaws and all. It is a strange thing.

 

I can cry at the end of TFA and when Luke appears in crait up to his death at the end. I still think both movies are terrible. At this point I think it's 90% John Williams that makes me emotional.

 

I completely agree. The Orville is fantastic with real substance compared to the glossy glum that is Discovery.

 

I hate the film more than ever now. Every viewing makes it worse, reveals more and more plot holes. But the unforgivable sin is trashing Luke Skywalker due to lack of imagination. It would have been great just to see an interesting story about Luke and Rey building the Jedi Order together. Luke should have been on Ahch-To for lore reasons, not because he was pouting. It's some of the worst, laziest storytelling of all time.

Rian had no interesting take on the Jedi. He had nothing to add to their story except "crazy powers." You know, like the worst fan fiction.

What about the Force? What writer will be imaginative enough to more boldly and directly explore the Force and what balance means, and how it relates to the rise of the First Order?

 

Oh, absolutely, man. What that hack, Rian Johnson, did with Luke is an indelible *hit-stain on the Star Wars story.

You know, I never liked Rey much. And I like her less now. But, it would have been cool to see the plot line of apprentice seeking master (set up in TFA) picked up properly in TLJ. You had the chance for some great mythological story-telling and the ability to draw on some of the classic tropes of film history (especially from the martial arts genres) as Star Wars has always done. Instead, we got something yucky and low and mean and small (the opposite of Star Wars).

I saw this on the Force Net and thought it a powerful image for what might have been, Rey and Luke connecting and learning and fighting together, side by side:


Art Credit: The Last Jedi by Shimet Sukage

 

****ing Star Wars Rebels had more to say about the Darksaber and history of Mandalore.

 

Love this image. It begs the question of why such a portrayal is impossible for LFL and Rian to imagine? Wouldn't this move SW forward in a more heroic, courageous style of adventure than miserable failure Luke?

It's not surprising to me that Rian Johnson thinks in terms of failure. His own film is a testament to failure.

 

They will try, but Rey will never be as beloved of a character as Luke, Han, Leia. The ST characters are quite forgettable.

 

He knows what the fans want. What they would expect, to a certain degree. He has been to so many celebrations and fan events. He is in tune with the character and understands the universe.

It is clear that Rian did not. Or he did, and chose to disrupt, not delight.

 

Agreed, Rian is a nice but incredibly stupid man.. like Dave Filoni.

The Force Planet was easy to sweep under the rug, but force projection? Jedi flying through space? Bad CGI space horses? Jedi masters drinking milk to make the protagonist look better? Protagonists getting turned on by guys who killed their friends? Chrome dome?

 

To be fair, I think I oscillate between thinking rank incompetence and thinking trolling is the basis for TLJ's utter rankness. And in another post, I think I said you shouldn't ascribe malevolence for incompetence. So, I'm generally with your way of thinking.

It's hard though, you know? Because of the constant "gotchas" that seem to pepper the film (and which is apparently, at least to some, wonderful storytelling when really, given the doses RJ dishes it out with, it's actually stupid story-telling). It's a constant send up of expectations and then a "nope". The most recent example I thought of was Luke's X-Wing under the water. Makes you think he might take it out when he leaves, right? Nope. He Force projects in to Crait instead, and dies. And the movie is riddled with worse examples of the same kind of juvenile banal "gotcha", all at the expense of character and story. It's like he didn't actually have a story to tell. So, bereft of any actual ideas he just thought he'd muck around with expectations and mock all that came before him thinking it brilliant. That kind of thing is really all about RJ, "yippee! Look at me!" And not about a story seriously and honestly told.

Actually, you may be right. He actually might be that stupid. Worse, he might be the kind of stupid that is unaware of his stupidity. Which might explain his grin from the BTS scenes. And, I do get your analogy from work. You're right about that. When you have a difficult task and you're aware of it, and that you might not be up to it, boy, does it weigh. And usually, it means you try. You might mess up. But, at least you give it an honest serious try and often that shows.

I don't see that in TLJ. Just smug self-satisfied (unaware) stupidity.

Yeah, that's a good way of seeing it. I guess my main beef with the expansion of the Force concepts, if I can call it that, in the PT is that it sort of opened the door to what we've seen in TFA and especially TLJ. Especially in terms of the (nonsense) idea of the Force being equal Dark/Light as seemed to be suggested in TLJ. The same is occurring with Force powers. To be fair to Lucas, that may have happened anyway. The Force as used by Jedi/Sith is better when it is contained to seeing things a little before they happen, telekinesis, unusual strength and agility and thats it (Lucas, for example, never revisits and rightly the "Force Speed" idea briefly shown in TPM) . This is the case for all of the OT/PT. Unfortunately, we seem to be moving in the ST toward superhero levels of Force power.

Returning to story-telling, using the Force as a prop also means that you can have Rey as suddenly a powerful Force user and one who is basically inexplicably so (and worse, one who is suddenly able to do whatever needs done for the story because "the Force"). The only explanation need be the Force is surging or somesuch and giving her these abilities. Now, the effect of this in story-telling terms is quite clear. You have a less interesting lead character. This is because a character who has to struggle and strive (like Luke over the OT) is a more relatable and real and better character for story-telling purposes than one who is not.

 

the doubling down of things that people didn't like in the force awakens...the utter annihilation of nearly everything people liked about TFA

liked finn and wanted him to have a bigger role...well looks like you are out of luck, not only does finn have a useless subplot, but the movie makes it a point to make sure that poe and finn have no meaningful interactions at all. instead of using its assets, rian johnson shoe-horned rose tico. Finn and poe are fantastic together in TFA and the film did not exploit that seemingly on purpose. Those that accused finn of being mere comic relief in TFA also had their views validated by rian johnson at the worst possible time....the middle chapter where it was the do or die movie of the ST. This theme reoccurs with Rey, who not only has no meaningful relationship with luke skywalker, but barely has any real training with luke. instead of exploiting daisy ridleys already great talent of blending in with cinematic legends like han solo and princess leia, the relationship between luke and rey is utterly nonexistent. Not to mention her poor quality of training validates the mary sue allegations.

didnt like the underdog versus establishment set up of TFA but held out hope that the planets of the republic would ban together under the resistance banner and create a free for all where the alliance of republlic worlds go up against the centrist worlds of the first order as jason ward hinted at..........NOPE, not only did the resistance not get any help, but the film makes it a point to make the "rebels" label a thing again, EVEN JOHN WILLIAMS made a freaking track about it called "the rebellion is reborn".

didnt care for the idea that luke skywalker was a coward but held out hope that the reason why he did that was basically so that he can find a way to defeat snoke, setting up a dumbledore-voldemort type relationship between snoke and luke and making the ST into a cool space version of harry potter..............NOPE not only does luke give up, but he has a force induced heart attack for good measure.


didnt like the randomness of snoke but was excited for rumors of snoke being either a force vampire or the prime jedi....NOPE

excited for the journal of the whills worldbuilding and deep revelations of the force....well not only are those things generic texts, but they are hand waved

I love TFA and TLJ and how Kylo ren has come on his own...which seems to be the thing everyone agrees with.

but the rest of the movie is in many ways the release of pent up rage that star wars fans had over certain decisions in TFA.


rian johnsons passive agressive personality isnt helping things either with his "your snoke theory sucks meme". because star wars fans will become toxic and understand star wars much better than he does, this is also why i think the box office has been affected

 

I think you're being overly dysphemistic. By "force induced heart attack" do you mean finally finding peace with the Force?

This post actually helps confirm my own theory about the TLJ backlash, which is that alot of fans wanted world-building, theory-confirmation and set-in-stone OT chracters, rather than a character-driven film with something real to say.

I didn't know how to feel about it on my first viewing. But when I put aside my expectations and let the movie speak for itself, it really opened up to me.

 

So, basically because things didn't happen how you expected, it didn't work for you?

Finn & Poe could have gone on an awesome dudebro adventure, hopped in a ship and blown stuff up, but haven't they already done that? Canto Bight was a bit tedious, but the point was that Finn learned about the values that the Resistance were fighting for. Poe's route was all about the importance of leadership. Both came out of the movie in a better light due to the overall theme of the narrative- learning from failure.

Rey had a similar relationship with Luke to what he had in ESB with Yoda. Both masters were reluctant to train a student and both pupils rejected the wisdom of the master in favour of more pressing concerns. If people expected Rey and Luke to rock up to the FO and plough an army then they were always going to be disappointed.

If you can't comprehend what Luke did in the finale then I'm afraid you probably will never appreciate what the film was getting at. It was like Obi-Wan's sacrifice in ANH but amped up to 11. That single act inspired the downtrodden in the galaxy and ensured that the rebellion will live on.

I found that letting go of my preconceived ideas about what the film SHOULD be about really helped in understanding the reason the plot had to be this way. Once again this film is suffering from trying to be too like the OT in some cases, and not enough like it in others. The degree to which end of the spectrum you agree with is based on your own ideas about what constitutes a SW film.

 

i loved TLJ more than TFA...but there is some decisions in this movie that are utterly unnecessary....rose tico is a dreadful character, canto bight is equally awful, the lack of snoke backstory is utterly aggressive in some ways

 

Saw this online and thought it hilariously apropos of Luke's mischaracterization in TLJ: