Author Topic: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi  (Read 103383 times)

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Perhaps we should just drop the definition alltogether since whatever you may think about TFA or TLJ, they aren't the self-insert fan fiction that Mary Sue critiques.

Or to put it another way: Any self-respecting game critic never uses the words "gameplay" to describe how the gameplay feels - "The gameplay is good" tells nobody anything. If this thread wants to get past simple yet meaningless critique of Rey as a character, the people who think she's a mary sue should describe her in a way that completely avoids using that name.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2018, 02:19:34 pm by -Joshua- »

 

Offline The E

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi

yeah.
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Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Meh. I watched that video. It didn't change my opinion of the film. I never had an issue with the direction Rian was trying to take the story. I said months ago in one of these threads (Rogue One maybe?) that I wanted to see new things in Star Wars. Morally grey force users? Count me in for that!

My issue is with the way Rian told that story... Notably lacking any nuance or subtlety. It was RAWR THIS IS NOT GOING TO GO THE WAY YOU THINK RAWR in every single plot point. And in doing that, he killed every thread of mystery and destroyed every last character I was connected to without giving me someone else to latch on to first. Now, like the rest of the galaxy at the end of the movie, I don't care what happens to the Resistance.

I've been trying to hammer that home since I rejoined this thread, but counterpoints keep nitpicking other bits. My biggest problem with this film, by far, is that by trying to subvert everything ever, Rian subverted my interest in the whole plot going forward.

Also, I note that video didn't really bother even touching the issues with Holdo....
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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Meh. I watched that video. It didn't change my opinion of the film. I never had an issue with the direction Rian was trying to take the story. I said months ago in one of these threads (Rogue One maybe?) that I wanted to see new things in Star Wars. Morally grey force users? Count me in for that!

My issue is with the way Rian told that story... Notably lacking any nuance or subtlety. It was RAWR THIS IS NOT GOING TO GO THE WAY YOU THINK RAWR in every single plot point. And in doing that, he killed every thread of mystery and destroyed every last character I was connected to without giving me someone else to latch on to first. Now, like the rest of the galaxy at the end of the movie, I don't care what happens to the Resistance.

I've been trying to hammer that home since I rejoined this thread, but counterpoints keep nitpicking other bits. My biggest problem with this film, by far, is that by trying to subvert everything ever, Rian subverted my interest in the whole plot going forward.

Also, I note that video didn't really bother even touching the issues with Holdo....
Also going to second this. I have no interest in going to see the final installment. There was NONE of the build-up that we got in Empire Strikes Back.

 

Offline Black Wolf

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Meh. I watched that video. It didn't change my opinion of the film. I never had an issue with the direction Rian was trying to take the story. I said months ago in one of these threads (Rogue One maybe?) that I wanted to see new things in Star Wars. Morally grey force users? Count me in for that!

My issue is with the way Rian told that story... Notably lacking any nuance or subtlety. It was RAWR THIS IS NOT GOING TO GO THE WAY YOU THINK RAWR in every single plot point. And in doing that, he killed every thread of mystery and destroyed every last character I was connected to without giving me someone else to latch on to first. Now, like the rest of the galaxy at the end of the movie, I don't care what happens to the Resistance.

I've been trying to hammer that home since I rejoined this thread, but counterpoints keep nitpicking other bits. My biggest problem with this film, by far, is that by trying to subvert everything ever, Rian subverted my interest in the whole plot going forward.

Also, I note that video didn't really bother even touching the issues with Holdo....

Thirded. So much of the "backlash against the backlash" commentary has been generating strawmen about misogyny, Mary sues, misunderstandings of the plot, fanboyism, unwillingness to evolve, following the internet crowd and a thousand other reasons that are why people "really" don't like the film.

They all miss the point. A lot of people, myself included, walked out the cinema disappointed and fundamentally disinterested in the conclusion of the story. There were any number of reasons for this feeling, and those have been and will continue to be debated no doubt ad infinitum. But however you slice it, at the core is the simple fact that Rian Johnston's narrative and filmmaking decisions that is at best polarising in a franchise where fanatic devotion is basically baked in (compare the day 1 fan reactions to TPM (a film now mostly derided but at the time, at least initially, critically panned but pretty well liked by fans until the prequel hate trains really started rolling) vs TLJ, where opening night fan reactions were almost immediately deeply divided well before any online discussions got set off).
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Offline The E

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Or compare it to Empire, which is now regarded as the best of the original trilogy, but was wildly divisive upon release.....
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Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
But I was attached to the characters in Empire as a kid when I saw it the first time... not to mention that movie came with the biggest reveal in the history of movies. There's inherent interest there to find out how the characters are going to deal with all of that.

I don't care how any of the TLJ characters are going to deal with... what's the biggest problem for them right now, that there's only 30 of them?

You can compare TLJ to ESB in that they were divisive upon release and that they are "the dark chapters".. but not much more. Nothing in TLJ comes even close to the kind of "No, Luke, I am your father" stuff that happened in Empire. No one character is in peril. No one flew off into the space sunset to do a thing. They escaped... to fight another day. That's it. Booooooring.
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Offline Black Wolf

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Or compare it to Empire, which is now regarded as the best of the original trilogy, but was wildly divisive upon release.....

Are you purely making a debate point here, or do you really think that in coming decades people will be talking about TLJ the way they talk about ESB now? 
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Offline Mongoose

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I honestly think they will be talking about it far more favorably than the current Rotten Tomatoes review spam.

 

Offline The E

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Are you purely making a debate point here, or do you really think that in coming decades people will be talking about TLJ the way they talk about ESB now? 

I kinda do hope that it's going to go up in appreciation? It's impossible to predict, really; the way in which we view and discuss movies today is markedly different than it was almost 40 years ago, and of course our perspective as middle-aged men who grew up with Star Wars is really not comparable to our perspective on the OT when we first saw it.

The old trilogy had the benefit of happening in a Vacuum. It could play the monomyth painfully straight, without being called completely derivative, it could pull off "I am your Father" and have that be the most twisting twist ever. These new films, like the prequel trilogy before it, have to play in a universe in which Star Wars is already the biggest thing in pop culture, and both are reflections of that. The Prequels tried to dive deep into the Lore of Star Wars, fill out gaps in the backstory that didn't really need filling, and they got criticized hard for it. This new trilogy, with its obvious meta-discussion of the the impact of Star Wars on us and how we talk about Star Wars and how it changed and mutated over time, is infinitely more interesting to me than anything the prequels did.

But I was attached to the characters in Empire as a kid when I saw it the first time... not to mention that movie came with the biggest reveal in the history of movies. There's inherent interest there to find out how the characters are going to deal with all of that.

I don't care how any of the TLJ characters are going to deal with... what's the biggest problem for them right now, that there's only 30 of them?

And that's the difference, isn't it? I do care about these characters. I want to know who Finn is when he's not a serial deserter, I want to know who Rey is when she has to figure out how to Jedi properly, or who Poe Dameron is outside of his cockpit, or who Kylo Ren is without Snoke. The big revelation of ESB was intensely personal, and so are the revelations of TLJ. The big question at the end of ESB was "Who is Luke, now that he's revealed to be Vader's son", after all.

Quote
You can compare TLJ to ESB in that they were divisive upon release and that they are "the dark chapters".. but not much more. Nothing in TLJ comes even close to the kind of "No, Luke, I am your father" stuff that happened in Empire. No one character is in peril. No one flew off into the space sunset to do a thing. They escaped... to fight another day. That's it. Booooooring.

Be careful what you call boring. Yes, there is no single grand revelation at the end of TLJ, but that's entirely due to the original trilogy having a very clear protagonist in Luke. This new trilogy is closer to being a true ensemble piece, but that to me is something where these films differ, not a point in favour of one over the other. What happened at the end of ESB? Who was in peril there? The only one who can genuinely be said to be "in peril" was Han.... and all that happened to him was that he got to play wall ornament for some time. The rest of the crew escaped to fight another day. So, is ESB "booooooring"?
If I'm just aching this can't go on
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I really need lifе to touch me
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Offline Luis Dias

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Well, to be fair, ESB left off quite a few big questions that fans could engage with for a couple of years before Jedi, and these were good questions. First, how is Luke going to deal with Vader being his father? What is he going to say to Ben or Yoda who kept this truth from him? Second, who is this "another" that Yoda speaks about? Woooo, there's a mystery box here isn't it? Especially when you know that this "another" wasn't entirely known to the writers when they wrote ESB yet. Third, what happens to Solo now? There's going to be a rescue, that is for sure, Lando and Chewbacca are heading towards him to get him back at the end of ESB. But how is that going to play out? Fourth, how is the Emperor going to deal with the Vader / Luke duo and how is that going to play out in the end?

These questions are both very strong material but also very simple. Not convoluted. Straightfoward stuff. Everyone gets it.

I don't think TLJ manages to ask similarly good questions. "What is going to happen between Ren and Rey" is basically "it" now. But there's almost nothing linking the two except for "The Force" and being on the extreme ends of it. Even the interesting question, "Has Ben a chance? Will he turn?" seems as been answered in RLJ, and it would be anti-climatic to switch in episode 9 now. It's not clear what Rey wants, and what her drives are at this point, after learning she has no real past. There's no arc for her, except to be someone on the "light" side and trying to win a war against the "evil doers". What is happening to the Resistance should be a good question, but it's something that the movies have desperately avoided so far, so why should I care either about that?

I do know they'll get their hooks and they'll hype the last chapter well, I think. I think we'll see ghost Luke as well doing interesting things, perhaps coaching Rey. We'll see Rey clashing with Ren, finally, and yeah, because JJ is directing, I do think Ben is gonna fold at the end.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
The_E, if you want to use immediate reactions to ESB to compare to immediate reactions to TLJ, then you can't use ROTJ plot points against my thoughts here. At the end of ESB, we don't know that Han is going to be a wall ornament. All we know is that he's been essentially kidnapped by the bad guys and needs rescuing. That's interesting. Oddly, I agree with some of what Luis said. Much of what ESB leaves you with (when you don't know the plot of ROTJ) is stuff that begs questioning... demands an answer to. They are plot threads that you can pick out and say "here is a specific thing I want to know". Who is the other? Was Vader lying to Luke or not? Why would he tell Luke that? What about Luke's training as a Jedi? How is he going to feel about Obi and Yoda now? I need to see where this goes from here.

At the end of TLJ it's all sort of generalized.. I guess the Resistance and the First Order will fight some more? I guess Rey is going to teach herself some more? I'm bored by it. If Star Wars ended right here, right now. I wouldn't care. I wouldn't feel slighted by an cliffhanger plot. There's nothing left that I need to see in the next chapter.

Rian is like the hipster director of the Star Wars films. He did all these things just because it would be different and he thinks that makes it inherently good. He was so interested in subversion that he did nothing episodic in an episodic franchise. He capped the episodes in the interest of not even trying a plot twist. Or rather.. he tried subversion as his plot twist. This episode is neither TOS (almost no connectivity between episodes and/or larger season long plot threads) nor DIS (the entire season/show is one big story). It's this odd kinda in-between where every interesting thread is tied up in an unsatisfying bow and all that's left is the general "they need to fight some more". The next movie is a blank slate again for JJ, even more so than TFA. No original cast. (EDIT: I forgot about Chewie. That is not a point in TLJ's favor...) All the new characters are setup on their side of the board. All that's left is for them to collide again. Boooooring.

We've been through this before. JJ already took a blank slate and setup a whole world of his famous mystery boxes to play in. (Say what you want about JJ, mystery boxes in stories are a tried and true method to keep people thoroughly interested for long periods of time. Exhibit A: Freespace 2.) Rian said.. nah. Screw all the intriguing possible threads. Let's tie them up and THIS IS NOT GOING TO GO THE WAY YOU THINK RAWR. Now we get JJ again. I guarantee you, outside of corporate pressure from Disney, will setup mystery boxes as he concludes this trilogy he started. Aaaaaaaaaaand then we're back to Rian. Movies are not supposed to feel like an exercise in giving money to the corporate overlords even though that's exactly what they are. Star Wars feels like that now.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2018, 12:02:58 pm by mjn.mixael »
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Offline CliftonHaff

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
This is probably the last Star Wars film I'll watch in a theater.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
This is probably the best Star Wars film I've seen in a theater :cool:

 

Offline rubixcube

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
This is probably the best Star Wars film I've seen in a theater :cool:

How many of the SW films have you seen in a theater?
Stuff

 
Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Rian is like the hipster director of the Star Wars films. He did all these things just because it would be different and he thinks that makes it inherently good. He was so interested in subversion that he did nothing episodic in an episodic franchise.

Why are you blaming a director for failing at being a producer? Do you think that people aren't signing off on his script?  You think they'll let Rian singlehandidly dictate the story direction of a huge franchise?

As Abrams was executive producer of this film, either he agreed with Rian's answers to the questions his film posed, or more likely he just didn't care because he's JJ Abrams.  World building and story set-up aren't in JJ Abram's repertoire of movie making, he's more of a Michael Bay-type director.  He only gives a **** about the flow of the movie and cool stuff happening, and damn everything else.

Or compare it to Empire, which is now regarded as the best of the original trilogy, but was wildly divisive upon release.....

Also. Empire is boring. 
Why people consider that bore-fest the best is a mystery.  The only SW movie more boring is Attack of the Clones, it's prequel wannabe
« Last Edit: June 02, 2018, 03:52:18 am by Akalabeth Angel »

 
Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Let's talk about Umberto Eco!

 
Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I'm pretty late for this discussion, but I still believe that in these kind of grand scale sequels there needs to be a balance between the old and the new.

1) The NEW

I was totally fine with the fact that the old "extended universe" stuff wasn't used in the new trilogy. While I have a great amount of games, books and comics about the EU, I really felt that it would have been boring to watch movies about summarizing the "Dark Empire" or "Yuzhaan Vong invasion". I wanted these movies to bring something new to the table, something to surprise me.

They succeeded - kinda. I mean, I never expected the "Force Awakens" to be a such carbon copy of "A new hope" that I was genuinely flabbergasted. It was a huge surprise, and not in a positive way. Starting a new trilogy after 10 years with a blank slate, and this was the most ambitious/interesting story that they could imagine? They made a remix of ANH events (without Luke even) instead of bringing back old characters to have them try something new. A great deal of watchers noticed this and rightfully criticized TFA as a lazy sequel.

And then comes TLJ. There is no doubt in my mind that the theme of "overt subversion" (greatly explained by mjn.mixael) in TLJ is a direct consequence of the critical backlash of TFA. I bet Johnson saw all the comments about TFA being a mindless rehash (or even a pure fan service / fan fiction movie) and decided to go brutally 180 degrees into the opposite direction. "You thought there was too much plot fan service in TFA? Alright then, we will remove it ALL in TLJ! Got you know, didn't I?". I'm convinced that at some point there was a somewhat different overaching plot in the new trilogy, and that it was changed just before the TLJ production started in order to simply subvert the viewer. So many "gotcha!" moments now, that it became frustrating. I mean to who is this kind of movie made for? The old audience, the new audience, or the film critics? Seeing the Rotten Tomatoes score, I really felt that it was mostly the critics with their insatiable need the see every big film franchise "deconstructed" that got most out of TLJ.

2) The OLD

The old characters were one of the most important selling points of the new trilogy. I mean, who wouldn't want to see the old stars (Han, Luke Leia) to return to the big screen, one last time? That was the main expectation, and the reason many of the old fans bought the tickets for. TLJ outright mocked these people, and as a film it's of course "artistically" allowed to do that, but as a business practice it's never a good idea to insult your own base audience. Somehow I've seen this same kind of audience/customer mocking in contemporary video games too, but that's a totally different topic.

One has to wonder what is the motivation behind this "mocking". TFA only gave a laughable 10 seconds of Luke, and in TLJ the character was first ridiculed and then killed off. Leia almost had memorable and emotional death on-screen that we all expected after Carrie Fisher's death, but instead she turns into a flying superman and is still unceremoniously killed off-screen before IX. Han Solo is dead and he never got to meet old Luke. With the old cast gone, the reason to see IX is gone for many.

I also feel bad for Mark Hamill. Out of thee three old stars he was the most inspired and pumped-out to see himself returning to big screen. You can see his enthusiasm in many interviews and panel discussions prior TFA. "Luke" was the starring moment of his life, and a major alter ego of his. He knew his character inside out and what he represented: The youthful optimism and the attitude of never giving up. After TLJ Hamill has said many times, that this TLJ version wasn't "his Luke". He also threw a few passive aggressive statements against the movie.

"Let go off the past. Kill it if you have to". TLJ has definitely succeeded in this, but I don't think the payoff was worth it this time. I mean, if there was a better opportunity to "kill the past", it would have been in the IX movie. But this opportunity is now wasted and there is hardly any reason to see IX (especially since the plot points have stagnated). The best thing IX can do now is to skip 10 years, put some makeup on current gen actors, and focus on the young boy at the end of TLJ who's going to be the next major force user.

CONCLUSION

There is no balance between the old and the new in these 2 movies. TFA is too old-like with its plot points with barely anything new to show. TLJ respects nothing about the past and is haphazardly running around with its plot like a headless chicken. But yet, I don't think that they are the "worst movies ever". I even prefer TLJ over TFA, because it at least wasn't as lazy. People will talk especially about TLJ for a long time - the same way as Neon Genesis Evangelion is still discussed (which curiously enough is one of my favorite shows).

P.S This became far longer than I originally envisioned. I might have even gone to the topic about "What do people generally want to see in their movies, and what kind of experience is actually worth the money", but then I realized that I had opened the Pandora's Box and removed the whole section. :nervous:

TL;DR As movies TFA and TLJ are polar opposites, d'uh! :D

 

Offline The E

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I also feel bad for Mark Hamill. Out of thee three old stars he was the most inspired and pumped-out to see himself returning to big screen. You can see his enthusiasm in many interviews and panel discussions prior TFA. "Luke" was the starring moment of his life, and a major alter ego of his. He knew his character inside out and what he represented: The youthful optimism and the attitude of never giving up. After TLJ Hamill has said many times, that this TLJ version wasn't "his Luke". He also threw a few passive aggressive statements against the movie.

Small correction there: Hamill has also stated that he felt that Luke's trajectory from idealistic farm boy to disillusioned grump very neatly encapsulates his own disillusionment from 60s flower child to current grumpy old man Hamill. He has further stated that he got on board with Johnson's vision for the character once he understood what he was going for; at any rate, he certainly didn't let any misgivings about the script influence his performance.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
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