Author Topic: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi  (Read 103381 times)

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
So I've been watching The Force Awakens today.

I find it interesting that, with the exception of Finn, every character is driven by nostalgia. Han and Leia want their son back. Rey wants her parents back. The entire First Order wants the Empire back. And yet, all of their perceptions of the past are flawed in some way:
Ben wants to project a certain image of Darth Vader but does not understand how it came to be, even stubbornly believing that Darth Vader never went back to the light side at all. He is really seeking a father figure that Luke and Han were not.
Rey wants her parents back, yet stubbornly wishes to believe that her parents didn't abandon her.
Leia and Han want their child back, but Leia in particular seems to hold on a notion that any turning will be similar to how Darth Vader turned (The Last Jedi also plays with this very effectively during the throne room scene).
And in their grief, Leia and Han go back to what they knew best.
Many of the Resistance fighters are driven by the good memories of the old days of the Rebellion, including Leia.
The First Order seeks to emulate the history of the empire, but they don't know their history and as such are doomed to repeat it. The First Order in particular looks at the Empire and thinks it's failures are due to not being brutal enough, and a significant part of it's major players are youths whose only quality for their powerful positions is personal loyalty to the supreme leader. There's probably a parallel in history somewhere there (obligatory reminder that we went from the A7V to the Königstiger in a smaller timeframe then Death Star and Starkiller).
The exception to all of this is Finn, whose primary character motivation is running away. This continues all the way to the end of the Last Jedi, as a suicide, even if it's an heroic suicide charge, is an escape from things.

So almost every character in TFA is interested in reconstructing a flawed understanding of the past, whilst TLJ is interested in deconstructing it. There's a nice thematic line going on there, with Episode 9 firmly setting its sights on creating something.

What I am also noting is that TFA is a far more simple film, and in some ways TLJ should have picked up a bit on that. In TFA, a few new and old heroes go to starkiller base
1) to blow up something up
2) So that the starkiller base can be shot at
3) which they know about because Finn was a janitor on the base

TLJ's tech-breaking plot involves
1) Going to a casino planet
2) To find a shield breaker
3) who can get them onto an empire vessel
4) to disable a tracking device
5) that needs to be disabled rather then destroyed
6) because the Empire can track ships trough subspace
7) But only one ship at the time
8) and they need to be unaware that they've lost that ability
9) because other ships can also do it but don't because reasons

This in turn leads them trough all sorts of different plot points involving red herrings and a simple level of moral greyness in the mind of a mercenary, but it's unnecisarely convuluted in a way that doesn't allow any of that to shine because they're spending a lot of time on detail-based sci-fi and returning a character from TFA purely for exposition purposes.

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
If you want an indepth look at the whole light side/dark side thing and what they mean, you can't do better than just playing through KotOR 2.  It remains, IMO, the best Star Wars story ever told, in spite of all the game's flaws.

If you don't want to do that but have 2 hours to spend watching a youtube video, this looks into it quite well:


Finally got to watch / listen to this. It's really good, especially for me, I haven't played any KOTOR game.

This other video by the same guy goes to the table about the Grey Jedi, how exactly Luke is one of them, and how TLJ didn't by all means "ruin Star Wars". It's also pretty good. Have a go at it.


 
Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Hey that is indeed a good video. It also doesn't suffer from being waayyy tooo long to make it's point, which is an issue I normally have with youtube videos.

 

Offline Mika

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I mean both movies have non-sensical plots and are populated by downright moronic self-destructive characters showing zero competence to their tasks and top that off with utterly idiotic decisions once panicked. Both movies probably wrecked a significant fraction of interest in the follow ups and managed to render stuff made before them retroactively bad. But yes, Alien:Covenant still does a tiny bit better than TLJ in the audience reviews, so I should indeed apologize for dragging A:C to the TLJ levels. What, did you think this would go the way you thought it would? :D

You're into some kind of delusional cinemasins level of analysis here if you think I give a damn about audience scores. The fact that TLJ scores are faring a lot lower than the prequels ever were (ooh yeah) should give everyone's pause regarding "audience scores" everywhere. If there's any evidence that the audiences are generally morons, this is it. I guess George Carlin was right. Think how dumb the "average man" is. Then realise half of the population is dumber than that. If people tell me that TLJ isn't their thing, that's fine. If they tell me it's worse than Covenant or Phantom Menace I'll just say "god bless you", because their brain surely isn't.

I know you don't. But why is it so hard to believe that some people genuinely find TLJ worse than Phantom or AotC? While the prequels were bad (I specially didn't like AotC, while RotS started awful it recovered at the end), the story still carried forwards and links quite well to the original trilogy. TLJ mostly breaks everything apart and thinks it's smart and philosophical, when this is in reality quite easy to do. Far more difficult situation would have been to built on the foundations introduced in TFA in any believeable way and then going to your own direction.

It's an amazing feat to deconstruct one of the biggest heroes in the cinema history with as little thought as demonstrated here and then expect people to swallow it. There are likely going to be... consequences about that. I'm sure that will in no way be visible in the merchandise sales, people born in 70s and 80s certainly never were a large market of the Star Wars stuff after all.

Why the old-school way of learning the Force step by step is perceived good? Because that mirrors learning any actual skill in real life and makes it relatable. Nobody starts throwing headspins or windmills in their first breakdance session even if they really really really wanted to. Those are skills that need be learned the hard way (the wooden floor is particularly unforgiving to your hip bone once you start crashing the move), and take some years to master - and all that for a movement with a duration of some seconds! Same stuff for the University level students: when you are lectured by a guy specialized to the field, you'll at some point realize that your skill gap to him is massive, and getting to the same level where he is will take a considerable investment of time and dedicated learning. Worse, if he keeps on doing stuff at his rate, it's unlikely you'll be able to close the skill gap between him and you, unless you get some direction from him telling what not to do. There are no easy ways around it, and that's in my opinion the correct message to send to the people.

EDIT: Regarding action movies, I don't rate the Raid that high since well, if you know martial arts, the action scenes are kinda realism breaking and overtly long for what they do. Fury Road was OKish, though also suffered from PG13itis, but the movie did have its moments.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 01:23:05 pm by Mika »
Relaxed movement is always more effective than forced movement.

 
Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I know you don't. But why is it so hard to believe that some people genuinely find TLJ worse than Phantom or AotC? While the prequels were bad (I specially didn't like AotC, while RotS started awful it recovered at the end), the story still carried forwards and links quite well to the original trilogy. TLJ mostly breaks everything apart and thinks it's smart and philosophical, when this is in reality quite easy to do. Far more difficult situation would have been to built on the foundations introduced in TFA in any believeable way and then going to your own direction.

The Last Jedi does build upon the foundations in TFA, characters develop. Finn is still a coward at the start of the movie, then starts to grow a backpone. Po is a hothead but starts to be a leader. Rey is a child, lashes out to defend herself, but then develops some compassion and starts to empathize with Ben.  The movie picks up right after the last movie ended with a conventional attack on the Rebel base and trying to get away.   The Resistance stood alone and is trying to bring allies into the fight. etcetera The movie even tries to explain why Rey is such a bull**** natural with the force.  What did people want? Backstory on generic 2d hologram villian? Backstory on generic good vs evil dynamic?

I don't really think it's about deconstructing star wars.  Rather people I've seen on other forums think that the film has a feminist agenda. And people are lashing out as what they perceive by Disney's star wars on the "heterosexual white man".  Because you know, while every Disney Marvel movie features a heterosexual white man as the hero (until BP comes out), Disney has a "feminist agenda" because TLJ's director liked a feminist t-shirt on twitter.  Just read the user reviews on rotten tomatoes, many of the complaints don't stem from the actual story.  Personally I think Star Wars just has more girls in it to sell more merchandise and movie tickets.

With Luke people also seem to fail to grasp the fundamental role that he's playing in the story. He's not the hero anymore. He can't be. Because the movie is NOT about him. What these movies do right is that they focus on important times in the characters life.  You know, there's an idea that if you're telling a story you ask "is this the most important thing that's ever happened to this character? And if not, why isn't this story about that instead of this other thing".   Stories aren't interested in happily ever after. That's the end of the story not the middle of it.

All those years when Rey was scavenging junk? don't matter. This is important.
Finn's life as a janitor? Doesn't matter. It's when he defected that matters. 
Kylo as a student and a pawn? Less important than becoming supreme leader.
Luke's failures as a teacher and life as a hermit are less important than his days teaching Rey and his destruction of the jedi tree and his ultimate sacrifice to save the alliance.




 

Offline The E

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I don't really think it's about deconstructing star wars.  Rather people I've seen on other forums think that the film has a feminist agenda. And people are lashing out as what they perceive by Disney's star wars on the "heterosexual white man".  Because you know, while every Disney Marvel movie features a heterosexual white man as the hero (until BP comes out), Disney has a "feminist agenda" because TLJ's director liked a feminist t-shirt on twitter.  Just read the user reviews on rotten tomatoes, many of the complaints don't stem from the actual story.  Personally I think Star Wars just has more girls in it to sell more merchandise and movie tickets.

Yeah, the rottentomatoes user score becomes completely unusable whenever the portion of the internet that believes that a feminist agenda against white men exists thinks that a film or series is a direct attack on them.
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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I don't really think it's about deconstructing star wars.  Rather people I've seen on other forums think that the film has a feminist agenda. And people are lashing out as what they perceive by Disney's star wars on the "heterosexual white man".  Because you know, while every Disney Marvel movie features a heterosexual white man as the hero (until BP comes out), Disney has a "feminist agenda" because TLJ's director liked a feminist t-shirt on twitter.  Just read the user reviews on rotten tomatoes, many of the complaints don't stem from the actual story.  Personally I think Star Wars just has more girls in it to sell more merchandise and movie tickets.

Yeah, the rottentomatoes user score becomes completely unusable whenever the portion of the internet that believes that a feminist agenda against white men exists thinks that a film or series is a direct attack on them.

And honestly I don't know how these people think, because on another forum one of the same people complaining about TLJ being "The Last SJW" or "Last White man" also bemoaned the fact that Star Trek was becoming too progressive which is the epitome of irony.

 
Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Quote
Luke's failures as a teacher and life as a hermit are less important than his days teaching Rey and his destruction of the jedi tree and his ultimate sacrifice to save the alliance.

Minor nitpick: Luke doesn't destroy the Jedi tree, Yoda does, in full knowledge that it doesn't actually contain anything of value anymore.

(I really love that we got to see the Empire Strikes Back Yoda again, the playful one).

I find it hard to detect a feminist agenda in TLJ. The most overt political statement it makes is that there's a moral complexity to arms dealers.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 03:53:06 pm by -Joshua- »

 

Offline Snarks

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I find it a bit irritating that the First Order is overtly white and human, other than Finn (who also happens to be a deserter). I don't recall anyone on the bridge crews to not be white. There's no indication that there's any racism involved, but it almost feels like to join the Dark Side, there's a unspoken requirement that you have to be human and white. I get a lot of this has to do with the Empire and First Order being modeled after Nazi Germany, but it just feels lazy at this point when the directors have made a it a point to diversify the cast. Whether or not you can attach a feminist agenda to this, I don't really know or care. It just feels like a cheap trick and adds to the list of things that make it harder to maintain suspension of disbelief.

 
Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I find it a bit irritating that the First Order is overtly white and human, other than Finn (who also happens to be a deserter). I don't recall anyone on the bridge crews to not be white. There's no indication that there's any racism involved, but it almost feels like to join the Dark Side, there's a unspoken requirement that you have to be human and white. I get a lot of this has to do with the Empire and First Order being modeled after Nazi Germany, but it just feels lazy at this point when the directors have made a it a point to diversify the cast. Whether or not you can attach a feminist agenda to this, I don't really know or care. It just feels like a cheap trick and adds to the list of things that make it harder to maintain suspension of disbelief.

Did it bother you that the Empire in the original trilogy were all white and british?

I find it hard to detect a feminist agenda in TLJ. The most overt political statement it makes is that there's a moral complexity to arms dealers.

I think people just see four female characters, two in positions of authority, a third a lead character, and think feminism.
They don't seem to think "Disney is cashing in on the Hunger Games audience"

 

Offline Snarks

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Did it bother you that the Empire in the original trilogy were all white and british?

Not as much since the rebels were all white as well. It's about consistency ultimately. If the galaxy is indeed full of humans of all skin colors, facial features, etc., then it should be represented accordingly. I can forgive the original trilogy because as I understood it, Hollywood was very much white dominated and money was a bigger issue for the producers then.

What did bother me was the prequel trilogy where the aliens were racist stereotypes, which was about as lazy.

I feel like TLJ is a half-ass attempt at diversifying the cast. Our main leads, Rey and Kylo Ren, are both white. The First Order is still white, even though there's no in universe reason for it. For all the talk about diversifying the cast, it still feels very much like token minorities being thrown into minor roles to show "diversity."

 
Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Did it bother you that the Empire in the original trilogy were all white and british?

Not as much since the rebels were all white as well. It's about consistency ultimately. If the galaxy is indeed full of humans of all skin colors, facial features, etc., then it should be represented accordingly. I can forgive the original trilogy because as I understood it, Hollywood was very much white dominated and money was a bigger issue for the producers then.

What did bother me was the prequel trilogy where the aliens were racist stereotypes, which was about as lazy.

I feel like TLJ is a half-ass attempt at diversifying the cast. Our main leads, Rey and Kylo Ren, are both white. The First Order is still white, even though there's no in universe reason for it. For all the talk about diversifying the cast, it still feels very much like token minorities being thrown into minor roles to show "diversity."

I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that Finn isn't a main lead in TFA, and in TLJ, it seems to be turning into more of an ensemble cast.

And to be honest I didn't notice any minorities in secondary/background roles on either side in TLJ.  I was just happy to see that Greg Grunberg wasn't there. Hopefully he was on one of the transports that exploded
« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 06:21:44 pm by Akalabeth Angel »

 

Offline Snarks

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

I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that Finn isn't a main lead in TFA, and in TLJ, it seems to be turning into more of an ensemble cast.

And to be honest I didn't notice any minorities in secondary/background roles on either side in TLJ

So we have Poe, Leia, Han, Luke, Rey, DJ, Hodor, Rose, Finn, Kylo Ren, Hux, and Phasma. Am I missing anyone?

Everyone's white except for Finn and Rose, who are black and asian. How does this not fit the token minorities setup?

We see some minorities in the ship crews in the Resistance, but as far as I can tell, none in the First Order.

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

I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that Finn isn't a main lead in TFA, and in TLJ, it seems to be turning into more of an ensemble cast.

And to be honest I didn't notice any minorities in secondary/background roles on either side in TLJ

So we have Poe, Leia, Han, Luke, Rey, DJ, Hodor, Rose, Finn, Kylo Ren, Hux, and Phasma. Am I missing anyone?

Everyone's white except for Finn and Rose, who are black and asian. How does this not fit the token minorities setup?

We see some minorities in the ship crews in the Resistance, but as far as I can tell, none in the First Order.

Well for one thing Poe is not white. Oscar Isaac's mother is from guatemala and his father is cuban.  Isaac is actually his middle name, his family name is Estrada.  Don't know if hispanic is the term but central american at any rate.

So the main six actors are arguably Poe, Finn, Rey, Kylo, Hux and Rose, and of those, half are white and two are women.


Luke, Leia, Phasma, Gollum, the Thief and the Holdo are all secondary characters really through screentime alone. And notable background characters? Three rebel women: the Awing pilot, Rose's sister and the bridge officer who mutineed and then on the Imperial side, we had the DN Admiral and  . . the shuttle pilot?  There was some guy outside an elevator who had a line of dialogue and a woman officer with him as well which is fairly new. I think there were some women bridge officers in general on the imperial side.  The stable slave kids were a mix of races and genders as well if I'm not mistaken.

So minorities, in the main cast at least are 50% and while they are less so in secondary/bg characters, there are a lot more women.

« Last Edit: January 10, 2018, 07:16:06 pm by Akalabeth Angel »

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I do think some diversity amongst the first order wouldn't be a bad thing. There's no good reason we can't have a mixture of races there.
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Offline Firesteel

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I remember some amount of diversity in the First Order in TFA. But yeah looking back at TLJ they were overwhelmingly white. I get the feeling it's an attempt to make them even more space Nazis than the Empire was with the diversification of the rebels.

Also @ Star Trek being too progressive now.  :lol: :lol:
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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi

 
Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Well for one thing Poe is not white. Oscar Isaac's mother is from guatemala and his father is cuban.  Isaac is actually his middle name, his family name is Estrada.  Don't know if hispanic is the term but central american at any rate.
Well, "hispanic" or "latino" seems to be more of northern America thing, on the other side of the Atlantic that would pretty much qualify as white.

 

Offline Det. Bullock

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Well for one thing Poe is not white. Oscar Isaac's mother is from guatemala and his father is cuban.  Isaac is actually his middle name, his family name is Estrada.  Don't know if hispanic is the term but central american at any rate.
Well, "hispanic" or "latino" seems to be more of northern America thing, on the other side of the Atlantic that would pretty much qualify as white.
Yep, I can pretty much confirm, but then again I heard of cases of mixed black-white couples that got away with it because the white part was of Italian origins during Jim Crow times, boy even racism is weird in the US.
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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Well for one thing Poe is not white. Oscar Isaac's mother is from guatemala and his father is cuban.  Isaac is actually his middle name, his family name is Estrada.  Don't know if hispanic is the term but central american at any rate.
Well, "hispanic" or "latino" seems to be more of northern America thing, on the other side of the Atlantic that would pretty much qualify as white.

Yeah I don't know European monikers for people of different backgrounds.  Here for example you might count anyone from the middle east who isn't from Israel to be "arab", or persian if from Iran, but someone like Amal Clooney, whose family is from Lebanon is fairer skinned than someone like Oscar Isaac.

Either way if Poe doesn't represent diverse skin colour, then diverse cultural background.