Yes: This trilogy is pre-planned.

Sadly its a mix of Millenialism and SJW in today's entertainment world. There is nothing wrong with things evolving it's just that it always goes to the extreme to make its point. TV is a great medium to see how everything in society changes. If you go back and watch 60's/70's TV shows, the Husband still ruled the house as that was too extreme where the wife was essentially 2nd class (All in the Family, Leave it to Beaver, The Honeymooners, Dick Van **** Show) . Then it started evolve in the 80's/90's where the husband started to become the big oaf and the wife was the well knowing (Family Ties, Cosby, Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens). The Last Jedi is the full evolution where the women run everything (Holdo, Leia, Rey) and the men are all either reckless (Finn, Poe) or bumbling fools (Hux, Luke, Kylo Ren).

Hollywood can never find a happy medium because there is room for every type of character. There is nothing wrong with strong female leads, but in the same vain you can still have your Clint Eastwood/John Wayne type male hero in the process. They had one extreme of a male/female in the 50's/60's and now they have another extreme of a male/female in 2018.

Maybe I'm old school and people like this stuff, so maybe I'm out of touch.

 

There is nothing edgy or modern about retired disappointed heroes. It’s one of the most common literary tropes. The SW universe has already shown us a few: Obi Wan and Yoda.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 21, 2018, Original Post Date: Mar 21, 2018 ---

Maybe Hollywood is trying to compensate for decades of perpetuating discrimination towards women in movies and TV shows. Nothing wrong with that. I think most men can see these empowering efforts for what they are, a strong push towards equality, and not as an attack, or Hollywood being simplistic or incompetent, or both.

And to all those men who feel bad about being ill represented in these new SW movies I’d say: just imagine how women have felt about the way they have been represented in most films for many decades now...

 

Never said it was not. I totally agree it is a common trope though. As for Obi he had a purpose on Tatooine other than dying. Yoda while reluctant at first still trained Luke to the best of his abilities.

 

I don't disagree with your premise but I hope you can see that your thought process is exactly why the pendulum has swung to the other side. Some will say things like, "this is unrealistic how overpowering and demeaning these female characters are being to the male characters." Oh, so you're starting to feel the same thing that females felt for generations watching films where females were 2nd class citizens. There hasn't been enough empathy so now things are having to go to the extreme almost to prove a point.

I know I prefer balance and I hope that the pendulum will settle in the middle eventually but for now I can understand the desire to have the same power the opposite side has had since the beginning of human history.

All that being said, I think TLJ is 10% of what you're suggesting. Holdo and Leia are military leaders, and Leia even passes the torch to a subordinate male near the end of the film. Rey is running the plot of the movie but that's about all she's in charge of. She gets talked down to by Luke and Snoke at different points in the film and is shown to be reckless and naive at other points. Sure Finn and Poe are reckless but if you watch TFA you'll see they're pretty reckless in the first place. Luke and Kylo are bumbling fools? What movie were you watching? Hux is shown as a bumbling fool so I will give you that one.

 

It's definitely more planned than the OT. They are actually doing a fairly good job of keeping all the canon together. The OT was made up as it went. Vader wasn't Luke's father, Leia wasn't his sister. Those are big plot points.

 

Id bet they (the directors) get a list of things they have to do, like a list of characters who can't die in the episode.

 

You said that deconstructing heroes was hip nowadays referring to a post which alluded to Luke having turned into an disillusioned green milk drinking hero. (“Loser” I think the poster said). To deconstruct is a term that usually means to destroy traditional interpretations of text, a trend of modern literary criticism, and “hip” means “modern”, “new”. Neither of those ttwo words sit well with the old trope “becoming a desilusioned hero”.

 

If Rian Johnson was never told "no, you can't do this", then yes. My point isn't do debate the merits of the film, but to argue that Disney is making the final decision on everything.

 

If being told "no you can't do this" defines the comfort zone, then no movie ever is outside the comfort zone...because if they did it then they weren't told they cant....

 

How is turning men into buffoons empowering?

Creating strong female characters is what empowers. Star Wars used to do that very well.

 

Really? It doesn't seem like it.

 

I'm pretty sure JJ wrote the entire story, Before writing TFA. The basic framework was made, but it is up to the directors to fill in the blanks. JJ was a producer of TLJ, and if it got his approval then it fit within his guidelines.

 

In 2005, George was asked what Darth Vader meant: "Darth is variation of dark, while Vader (in Dutch and German) means father." However, as far as Leia is concerned, yeah I think George would have done the Luke and Leia kiss scene a bit differently. If he knew they were gonna be brother and sister. While true, keep in mind Lucasfilm at the time was a independent company and didn't have the big budget like Lucasfilm does now. So, I think people are more forgiving of the OT in that regard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Darth

 

In this trilogy, as in the previous trilogies, men are depicted as flawed individuals and, sometimes, as people in subordinate positions, not as buffoons.

I think all the male characters in TLJ have very interesting, insightful arcs. I don’t know where all this “buffoon” business is coming from. Rey is the only female character with a protagonist status, the rest are male. It appears that the secondary mentoring parts were given to women, which meant that, occasionally, men had to be taught a thing or two by women -Oh my, what a crime.

 

Because overcoming flaws in their character is making them more relatable?

I thought we hated 'Mary Sue' characters? lol

 

Yes, the trilogy was fleshed out and planned by JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan, but Rian "thought" he could do better, threw away their scripts and came up with his own fan fiction.

 

Sure that's not your own fan fiction?