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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Supreme Leader Snoke slams Starkiller Base criticasters: "At least I'm creating jobs!"

 

Offline MP-Ryan

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I actually really liked TFA (and still do), but the whole "Resistance" contrasted to "Republic" (complete with fleet) did annoy me and still does.  I thought somewhere here actually pointed out that there was supposed to be a comic or something tying ROTJ through to TFA, but I've never read it.  And like most of you, I agree there was a much better way of handling this, along the lines of (fleshing out some of the above):

-Rebellion defeated the Empire at Endor.
-Republic was immediately proclaimed.
-Mop-up operations pushed what was left of the Empire, leaderless and in disarray, into the outer fringes of the Galaxy.
-The First Order emerges from the ashes of the Empire military forces as a charismatic leader gives them new direction which is more extreme, wiping out much of the remaining leadership.
-The First Order begins quietly rebuilding on the outer fringes of the galaxy.
-The Republic is busy consolidating and re-establishing control in the primary systems of the former Republic, based in the Hosnian system, and retains its fleet for protection.
---Meanwhile, Luke has reestablished Jedi training and Han and Leia have had Ben.
-The Republic leadership (now much, much wider than the former heroes of the OT) is unwilling to expend resources confronting a rumoured threat well outside Republic space and is generally convinced they have beaten back the Empire (and given the way we see the Old Republic function in the prequels and hear of the end of it in ANH, this is perfectly believable in-universe).
---Leia and a few select former members of the Rebellion get fed up with the official stance of the Republic form a new Resistance to the First Order, which select members the Republic quietly support despite the fact that it is operating outside of its controlled region.  They are able to take a number of ships and volunteer personnel, relocating to a secret facility outside of Republic space and positioned to disrupt First Order operations.  The official Republic stance remains that they will protect and defend their controlled regions of the galaxy with the Republic fleet, based in the Hosnian system.
-The Resistance continues operations against the First Order, but remains ignorant of the true threat it poses, until Starkiller base is revealed with the destruction of the entire Hosnian system, wiping out the Republic and its fleet and leaving the Resistance as the sole remaining force of challenge to the resurgent remainder of the Empire.

Half of that could have been established in the opening scroll, and the remainder could have been flat-out explained to Rey by Han and Leia, given she grew up isolated in a backwater at the ass end of the universe and only knew bits and pieces of the OT to begin with.

There, I just fixed TFA.  And suddenly TLJ picking up off TFA makes more sense too, because not only did The First Order wipe the Republic out of existence, but their fleet has now managed to track down what's left of the tiny Resistance who suddenly have no one else to back them up, and is trying to wipe them out too.
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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Quote
-Mop-up operations pushed what was left of the Empire, leaderless and in disarray, into the outer fringes of the Galaxy.

Incidently, Battle of Jakku

 
 
Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
The "Resistance" part of TFA was the Big Dumb Object that I couldn't ignore for the sake of suspense of disbelief. It's so mind boggingly pointing to the lack of any atom of thought being put to what are the political realities 30 years after the battle of Endor that it becomes impressive as a statement itself "I refuse to think!" I can almost hear JJ shout directly to my brain. And when you put the Prequels into context, it looks like it was intentional, as a 10 meter tall middle finger to George Lucas. Which is a shame, given how talented he clearly was in building out the canvas in which they made a new Star Wars with so many things right.

Thing is, the kind of canvas JJ is interested in is about characters, action pieces, tensions and mystery boxes. The whole "worldbuilding" trend in writing has absolutely evaded the likes of him, to whom that word must be some kind of dirty four letter shenanigan. To this guy, putting a black dude in a stormtrooper helmet and make him defect is "worldbuilding" enough, but then he refuses to think this through and makes Finn shout in joy while he's killing his former comrades (at least in TLJ Finn is embued with a suicidal mania, which makes more sense).

There's no better example of how much of a hack JJ Abrams is when the second Star Trek movie was coming out and all the Trek fans were like "oh, he's just gonna do Khan again, that's the most popular" and JJ said "nope, not doing Khan". Then he cast two actors that deliberately looked like they were from another episode of the series, and put cumberbatch in a starfleet uniform, and when the movie finally came out what was it about? Khan. Even lifted dialogue directly from the original script-  "Hey but this time, Spock and Kirk will read each-other's lines. Man I'm a genius!"


There, I just fixed TFA. 

Not quite. Changing the opening crawl doesn't stop the characters from teleporting all over the place, nor the plot being driven by random, out of the blue events and characters who don't think for themselves.

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
J.J. also doesn't have a sense of space and distances, or at least isn't remotely interested in conveying it to the audience. He made this mistake in Star Trek too. It all appears to happen in the same system. The StarKiller base is in the same system as the entire Republic, which is in the same system of that ancient not-female-Yoda character, which is the same system as the resistance base planet. It's also the same sun that seemingly doesn't quite disappear while the StarKiller base is charging up that is all fine at the end illuminating the resistance planet as if nothing had happened.

 
Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
J.J. also doesn't have a sense of space and distances, or at least isn't remotely interested in conveying it to the audience. He made this mistake in Star Trek too. It all appears to happen in the same system. The StarKiller base is in the same system as the entire Republic, which is in the same system of that ancient not-female-Yoda character, which is the same system as the resistance base planet. It's also the same sun that seemingly doesn't quite disappear while the StarKiller base is charging up that is all fine at the end illuminating the resistance planet as if nothing had happened.

Yeah the Peanut lady.

The thing is, JJ Abrams says these planets are all in different systems, just he presents the effects of the weapon being visible everywhere. Like the republic is light years away but people can see it from anywhere and it explodes in real time, they don't see the effect 20 years later when the light reaches the place.  Because he wants some dramatic moment where everyone looks up and feels sad, and the audience gets sad when someone who looks like Dr Who's companion and a bunch of other nobodies gets blasted by hyper-dimensional MIRV space laser.  To me that doesn't really matter.  The effect is no different than them watching it on space TV because story wise, all it does is disseminate information to the characters.

What bothers me is characters moving around effortlessly and defying the laws of space time in general.  Crash landed in the middle of nowhere on starkiller, getting to the base, takes no time. Finding Phasma? Effortless. Finding Rey? She's right behind you dumbass. Getting to the vital heat sink, easy? Up and down a 5 storey ladder in the ice and wind? Just cut to the next shot, I'm there *****es. Heat Sink explodes devastating miles around and Finn, Rey and Kylo had 2 minutes to run into the snowy forest? Don't worry they're miles away, lost in the woods. But no so lost that the Falcon and Hux can't find them immediately when the planet starts exploding.

« Last Edit: January 12, 2018, 01:12:39 pm by Akalabeth Angel »

  

Offline MP-Ryan

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Quote
-Mop-up operations pushed what was left of the Empire, leaderless and in disarray, into the outer fringes of the Galaxy.

Incidently, Battle of Jakku

Look at the source list on that.  This is what pisses me off - the films are the primary canonical source, and yet all of the important worldbuilding aftermath of ROTJ is left to filler works and not even mentioned in the films.  In short, **** you JJ Abrams. (and I still liked TFA).

Ultimately, while the time-and-distance thing is annoying and could have been easily fixed with a little less lazy writing, I think the fact that it could have been easily fixed by expanding the timescale is why it doesn't piss me off nearly as much as some of the other flaws in TFA.  I don't find the film less entertaining for those flaws, as they intruded on my "going along with the film" much less than the "why the **** is there a Resistance?!?!" thoughts.

I say all of this having watched TFA on four different occasions.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2018, 01:15:54 pm by MP-Ryan »
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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Ultimately, while the time-and-distance thing is annoying and could have been easily fixed with a little less lazy writing, I think the fact that it could have been easily fixed by expanding the timescale is why it doesn't piss me off nearly as much as some of the other flaws in TFA.  I don't find the film less entertaining for those flaws, as they intruded on my "going along with the film" much less than the "why the **** is there a Resistance?!?!" thoughts.

Well, I don't really agree that re-writing the movie is an "easy fix". A longer run time or less in the movie would've helped, but basically just need someone else who cares more about world building to do JJ Abrams job.

I think that caring about "why is there a resistance" is kind of nitpicking a small point in what is an obvious big answer. The big answer is that TFA is pretty much just ANH with a sprinkle of ROTJ.  It's the same story. The resistance exists because the Resistance is the Rebels but they can't call them the rebels, it would be too obvious even for regular folks, so now it's the resistance which sounds Romantic. Vive la resistance!


One could have easily written the story to have Leia a general in the republic and have the "resistance" force, that which attacks Starkiller base to basically be republic survivors that escaped the massacre.  Instead of A New Hope, it could've been Pearl Harbour and the Doolittle raids sort of thing. Maybe Leia was the one voice of reason in the midst of a Republic that was apathetic to the First Order threat.  She was lobbying for immediate action, no one listened, or maybe only one or two did, so she abused her position to conduct unsanctioned missions to help find Luke and in one of these missions the attack happens so the force she has with her becomes the resistance.  That way the audience might've actually met and cared about some people who got killed on the Republic planet. Even put some secondary character like Wedge Antilles on the planet to get blown up.  But instead, within the story the Republic Capital isn't Pearl Harbour it's just Alderaan, a nothing planet that serves only to illustrate the threat.  Jakku is Tatooine. Peanut lady's bar is the Cantina. A lot of elements are there, mish-mashed in one way or another, what's missing is any sort of tension or suspense or even wonder.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2018, 02:07:40 pm by Akalabeth Angel »

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I understand how my words fail to convey what I meant here. I never disagreed that there were flaws in the movie, but that the overall experience was a blast, which it was! It is true what you say here, that as time went on, this tiny rock in the shoe called "Resistance vs Republic" started to annoy the hell out of me, to the point where I eventually think it's the biggest problem of that movie, despite all of its other mistakes / errors / character flaws / etc.

I think it's odd that you think that is the biggest flaw. I'll agree it is a big flaw but for me the fact that the map, the central McGuffin of the film is never explained is the biggest one for me. I think it's more due to the fact that I can come up with sensible explanations for the Republic / Resistance while I can't think of any explanation that makes sense for there being two parts to a map with one part being in a powered down droid (and in the possession of the First Order) an the other half being on a planet in the middle of nowhere. It just slaps me in the face as lazy, stupid writing because I know with almost 100% certainty that no one involved with writing the film had ever considered any of those questions.

In the end I didn't mind TFA at the time and I still think it's a watchable film. But it is very annoying when you realise that it could have been much, much better.
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Offline Mika

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Alright, now the discussion is getting interesting

First of, the pacing and how the story is told both fall under the skill of story telling in my books. While the lulls are scarce in TFA, TLJ has them. It's one of the factors why I think TFA was quite bland, there's action going on all the time, but this has an effect of dulling the senses of the audience so that not a lot of it will be remembered. But look how the lulls have been utilized in TLJ, it's not particularly effective as it appears most of the important things are just briefly mentioned, while the lulls sidetrack to something unrelated. There was sufficient time to explore Poes relationship with the crews of the B and X-wing squadrons. There could have been people that were out-right angry since he got a lot of pilots and friends killed. It wouldn't be the first time the field justice is served by lower ranking people deciding to execute the officer for getting a number of them killed needlessly, just to give some ideas what could happen after that kind of "exploit". It wouldn't need to go that far, but that certainly would have made the difference and shown that the world is alive and reacting. Imagine what would have happened had those people understood that it was Poe's insubordination that got so many people killed in the escape pods.

TFA's Luke's disappearance is left quite open for interpretation. However, the film made me think it's actually Luke who wanted his location to be discoverable. I don't see any other logical explanation for R2D2 having a large section of a map of the region Luke was going to. The droid was in Luke's X-Wing for a significant portion of OT. Why the droid was shut down I took as a shutdown until certain time has passed or droid remaining in some kind of sleep & observation mode until some condition has been met. I thought it was quite a dumb for R2D2 to suddenly open up without a good reason visible for the audience after the Starkiller base was destroyed, but that was seen in the movie and stays as it is. Apparently R2D2's trigger was either time passed, or a condition of another force sensitive manifesting himself. This I took so that Luke intended it so that people would only come looking after him after some time has passed, or that the person coming after him would have some affinity to the Force. This leaves the Luke's Jedi school uncovered, but I don't recall now what exactly TFA said about Luke's Jedi school to begin with.

The reason Luke was out may not have been because he wanted to escape something or hide from something. It could well have been that he was investigating something where he thought it's beneficial for people not to know where he was for some period of time (something related to Snoke perhaps?). But he unfortunately could not for some reason return. His X-Wing may have had a mechanical failure in a world where repair tools were simply not available. Then R2D2 would function as a last chance security measure assuring somebody would come look after him after the time he thought he needed to investigate things had passed. If the rumors of the original script are correct, Lucas original vision was that Luke was avoiding Sith Force Ghosts, which makes me wonder if JJ Abrams tried to keep things open for this possibility.

I'm not saying the next director should have made a perfect job of explaining all the stupidity originating from TFA. However, I don't think a professional director should ignore significant plot points of an earlier film. Some times you just end up with a ****ty hand, and have to deal with it the best you can. I don't get to ignore such things as volume requirements of a pre-existing system used in factories for example. If there's something stupid done in the earlier system and a larger volume would be needed to get it good, I just have to suck it up and make the best I can to design a better system to fit in the volume available. Just do the best you can to explain the mess in the beginning of the movie and then subvert it to your own story. What I see here is that Rian Johnson still did have significant room to expand the story, and the fact that JJ Abrams left the First Order and Resistance practically ungrounded also offered a great opportunity for him to take the story where he wanted to go. But he gave up, which I took to be quite unprofessional. Then there's always a possibility the backstory has been told in far more detail in some god damn magazine that everybody was supposed to have read before the movie (MP-Ryan listed one which I from other sources understood to actually be the backstory). But this shouldn't happen with a movie to begin with.

I have taken it that the Force sensitivity would manifest in some individuals being considerably better than others in some area of the life. That was an indication of Force acting on the person, but it required conscious training to be able to utilize some other aspects of the Force. If a number of Jedis would get killed in a short amount of time and the Force had the postulated built-in balancing factor, yes indeed it would make sense the Force sensitives would start to pop up everywhere. However, this opens up a big continuity issue: why doesn't this happen with the Sith during the Old Republic, and why isn't this happening already during A New Hope? Where are the Force Sensitivies then? The better explanation is that anyone talking about the Force having a will is talking from their limited subjective perspective.

I fail to see what exactly it was the TLJ managed to build. To make room for the next generation Jedis and Siths, the old cast had to go. That's clear. But the way they went and the way they build the new characters as completely unrelatable and the entire backstory still being open leads to a single conclusion: I don't care. JJ Abrams screwed up the world building part, and made a lot of dumb stuff happen on screen, starting from recycling the entire plot of ANH. But I think it was still recoverable - perhaps not gracefully, but recoverable still. Rian Johnson then managed to compound the problems, and I don't see a way this could be recovered any more. There simply isn't enough time available any longer. Wouldn't like to be in the shoes of the guy who directs Episode 9 after the mess of Episodes 7 and 8.
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Offline Aesaar

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
The guy directing Episode 9 is JJ, the guy who created the mess in the first place.  It's probably going to be a ****ty movie.

 

Offline The E

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Quote
I'm not saying the next director should have made a perfect job of explaining all the stupidity originating from TFA. However, I don't think a professional director should ignore significant plot points of an earlier film. Some times you just end up with a ****ty hand, and have to deal with it the best you can. I don't get to ignore such things as volume requirements of a pre-existing system used in factories for example. If there's something stupid done in the earlier system and a larger volume would be needed to get it good, I just have to suck it up and make the best I can to design a better system to fit in the volume available. Just do the best you can to explain the mess in the beginning of the movie and then subvert it to your own story. What I see here is that Rian Johnson still did have significant room to expand the story, and the fact that JJ Abrams left the First Order and Resistance practically ungrounded also offered a great opportunity for him to take the story where he wanted to go. But he gave up, which I took to be quite unprofessional. Then there's always a possibility the backstory has been told in far more detail in some god damn magazine that everybody was supposed to have read before the movie (MP-Ryan listed one which I from other sources understood to actually be the backstory). But this shouldn't happen with a movie to begin with.

Have you considered that maybe Rian Johnson took this story exactly where he wanted it to go? And that the direction he wanted to go in wasn't the direction you wanted to go in?

I mean, you're saying a lot of things here, that he's unprofessional, that he gave up, that he should've stuck to whatever JJ Abrams had in mind (when it is likely that JJ Abrams didn't have anything in mind), all based on you not liking the movie that much. I'd say you were overreaching quite heavily here. You don't like TLJ discarding the irrelevant story hooks TFA set up, fair enough, but don't pretend like there was some grand master plan that Johnson intentionally ****ed up beyond repair.

Also, another thing to keep in mind: Whatever Johnson has in mind for Star Wars was so convincing to Disney that they gave him creative control over the future of Star Wars, not just in directing TLJ, but also in masterminding the SW films after Episode 9.
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Offline Aesaar

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Yeah, unlike JJ, I have absolutely no problem believing Rian Johnson actually does have a long term plan for where he wants to go with Star Wars.

Rian Johnson's version of TFA would have probably been really interesting.

 

Offline Mika

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Quote
I'm not saying the next director should have made a perfect job of explaining all the stupidity originating from TFA. However, I don't think a professional director should ignore significant plot points of an earlier film. Some times you just end up with a ****ty hand, and have to deal with it the best you can. I don't get to ignore such things as volume requirements of a pre-existing system used in factories for example. If there's something stupid done in the earlier system and a larger volume would be needed to get it good, I just have to suck it up and make the best I can to design a better system to fit in the volume available. Just do the best you can to explain the mess in the beginning of the movie and then subvert it to your own story. What I see here is that Rian Johnson still did have significant room to expand the story, and the fact that JJ Abrams left the First Order and Resistance practically ungrounded also offered a great opportunity for him to take the story where he wanted to go. But he gave up, which I took to be quite unprofessional. Then there's always a possibility the backstory has been told in far more detail in some god damn magazine that everybody was supposed to have read before the movie (MP-Ryan listed one which I from other sources understood to actually be the backstory). But this shouldn't happen with a movie to begin with.

Have you considered that maybe Rian Johnson took this story exactly where he wanted it to go? And that the direction he wanted to go in wasn't the direction you wanted to go in?

I mean, you're saying a lot of things here, that he's unprofessional, that he gave up, that he should've stuck to whatever JJ Abrams had in mind (when it is likely that JJ Abrams didn't have anything in mind), all based on you not liking the movie that much. I'd say you were overreaching quite heavily here. You don't like TLJ discarding the irrelevant story hooks TFA set up, fair enough, but don't pretend like there was some grand master plan that Johnson intentionally ****ed up beyond repair.

Also, another thing to keep in mind: Whatever Johnson has in mind for Star Wars was so convincing to Disney that they gave him creative control over the future of Star Wars, not just in directing TLJ, but also in masterminding the SW films after Episode 9.

Of course Johnson has done what he wanted to do. The whole point was that he did in a way that broke the continuity of the OT and prequels in a very jarring way, managed to make the Force look even cheaper than it was in TFA, and deconstructed Luke Skywalker, and did even that very poorly. This makes it look like he never understood what Luke or Force actually represented to the audience. The metamorphical level (which I think was quite important for hooking in the adults) is completely missing from the prequels, but even more so, from seventh and eight episode. Nobody expected that from JJ Abrams, but that Johnson fails here too is telling.

Why is it so difficult to believe some people were genuinely interested in Abrams hooks? Regardless how irrelevant they were, they ARE still in the film, and with the members of the original cast, they were pretty much the only things that kept viewers interested. The story continuity is built from these hooks, which Abrams left (luckily) quite open ended. But the change of Luke Skywalker from the end of TFA to the beginning of TLJ looks very jarring. That's a result of Johnson's choices. The result of Johnson's choices is also that we still have no on-screen idea of the backstory between La Resistance and First Order. The result of Johnson's choices is the weird pacing of the film, that there are no relatable characters any longer, no underlying philosophical messages except I guess ****'s random, and even with all the reigns in his hands, he STILL had to pull a deus ex machina at the end.

Getting your ideas sold on executive level is a easier than you think. Getting the ideas sold on the people who actually build, do or make them otherwise happen is far harder. Based on what we saw in TLJ, what makes you think Johnson is going to do any better than JJ Abrams? Both directors are very flawed but in different areas. JJ Abrams is an action director with no patience to world building or even pausing the action. Johnson is a director who can't pace things and can't differentiate dramatic scenes from comedic. As a writer he thinks he is clever, but that's a common problem with a lot of authors. In reality he can't anticipate the general audience reactions, nor can he make characters or the world relatable in any way. He doesn't understand the importance of building on somebody else's work, he wants to go his way or the highway.

Guess what would likely happen if a personality like Kylo Ren actually were your commanding officer or even NCO? I think that the moment his staff knows he can't determine who did something in any reasonable time, they'd mercilessly play practical jokes or prank him at any given opportunity to disgrace him as much as they could. They would stand emotionless in rows when Ren is shouting in bouts of epic RAEG "Who did that?" and laugh about it loudly in the barracks whenever superiors aren't listening. Even the superiors could participate in that game once they figure it out. The sad thing is, Johnson has no idea about this.
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Offline The E

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Of course Johnson has done what he wanted to do. The whole point was that he did in a way that broke the continuity of the OT and prequels in a very jarring way, managed to make the Force look even cheaper than it was in TFA, and deconstructed Luke Skywalker, and did even that very poorly. This makes it look like he never understood what Luke or Force actually represented to the audience. The metamorphical level (which I think was quite important for hooking in the adults) is completely missing from the prequels, but even more so, from seventh and eight episode. Nobody expected that from JJ Abrams, but that Johnson fails here too is telling.

You are really bad at this whole film analysis thing, aren't you?

TFA and TLJ, TLJ in particular, are all about the Star Wars fandom and how it has mythologized the original trilogy. That's the metaphorical hook here. When Han says in TFA that, "It's real. All of it.", that's him talking straight to you, that's JJ Abrams telling you that, yes, everything you thought about how good the OT was and how magical it was is all real and justified.
TLJ is the next step. It's about how Star Wars has been better in our memory than it actually was in reality; it's telling you, straight up, that the magic of those films is still there, but it's futile to recreate it verbatim; You might end up in an okay place, but it will never be a good place again. You need to reinvent it, make it matter to you personally, in order for it to be actually good.

Quote
Why is it so difficult to believe some people were genuinely interested in Abrams hooks? Regardless how irrelevant they were, they ARE still in the film, and with the members of the original cast, they were pretty much the only things that kept viewers interested. The story continuity is built from these hooks, which Abrams left (luckily) quite open ended. But the change of Luke Skywalker from the end of TFA to the beginning of TLJ looks very jarring. That's a result of Johnson's choices. The result of Johnson's choices is also that we still have no on-screen idea of the backstory between La Resistance and First Order. The result of Johnson's choices is the weird pacing of the film, that there are no relatable characters any longer, no underlying philosophical messages except I guess ****'s random, and even with all the reigns in his hands, he STILL had to pull a deus ex machina at the end.

What the films are telling you is that this window dressing doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader and the Empire vs Luke, Leia and Han and the Rebellion or Snoke, Kylo Ren and the First Order vs Rey, Finn, Poe and the Resistance: There's always going to be fascists, and there's always going to be people brave enough to say ¡No pasarán! and stand up for themselves and everyone else.

If what hooks you into Star Wars are the worldbuilding aspects, yeah, then these new films aren't going to be for you, because Johnson thinks that characters and how they change and act is more interesting than figuring out exactly which school of Sith Snoke belonged to. And, let me be absolutely clear on this: The fact that these are open questions is JJ Abrams' fault. He could have provided answers, but chose not to, expecting someone else to actually do the heavy lifting and finish his thoughts for him instead of telling their own story. If you think what Johnson did was disrespectful, I think that what Abrams did was worse.

Quote
Getting your ideas sold on executive level is a easier than you think. Getting the ideas sold on the people who actually build, do or make them otherwise happen is far harder. Based on what we saw in TLJ, what makes you think Johnson is going to do any better than JJ Abrams? Both directors are very flawed but in different areas. JJ Abrams is an action director with no patience to world building or even pausing the action. Johnson is a director who can't pace things and can't differentiate dramatic scenes from comedic. As a writer he thinks he is clever, but that's a common problem with a lot of authors. In reality he can't anticipate the general audience reactions, nor can he make characters or the world relatable in any way. He doesn't understand the importance of building on somebody else's work, he wants to go his way or the highway.

How many film scripts and concepts have you sold to Disney recently? I'm just asking because I am not sure that whatever experience you have is entirely transferable here.

Guess what would likely happen if a personality like Kylo Ren actually were your commanding officer or even NCO? I think that the moment his staff knows he can't determine who did something in any reasonable time, they'd mercilessly play practical jokes or prank him at any given opportunity to disgrace him as much as they could. They would stand emotionless in rows when Ren is shouting in bouts of epic RAEG "Who did that?" and laugh about it loudly in the barracks whenever superiors aren't listening. Even the superiors could participate in that game once they figure it out. The sad thing is, Johnson has no idea about this.

Wait, are you under the impression that the films want you to think that Kylo Ren is an intimidating or even effective figure?

I mean, fair enough, people were thinking that the Prequels were trying to portrait the Jedi as good....
« Last Edit: January 13, 2018, 03:50:52 pm by The E »
If I'm just aching this can't go on
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There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
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Offline karajorma

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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
he should've stuck to whatever JJ Abrams had in mind (when it is likely that JJ Abrams didn't have anything in mind)

It's not even just a matter of likely. Rian has flat out stated that no one had any idea who Snoke was when he came on board. So it's a fact unless we claim that Rian Johnson is lying and JJ Abrams never called him out on it or that JJ Abrams did know who Snoke was and lied to Rian Johnson. And Snoke wasn't the only thing Rian Johnson complained about not being told about.



Why is it so difficult to believe some people were genuinely interested in Abrams hooks? Regardless how irrelevant they were

It's not hard to believe that people were interested. What is hard to believe is that they would be able to get satisfying answers to those mysteries since JJ Abrams had no idea how to solve them when he wrote them. There are no answers to JJ Abram's hooks that are satisfying because they were added deliberately to be massively unlikely. But go on, name a single reason for Luke's lightsaber to be sitting around in the basement of a cantina that makes sense.

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But the change of Luke Skywalker from the end of TFA to the beginning of TLJ looks very jarring.

Wrong again. Luke Skywalker didn't change one iota between TFA and TLJ. TFA had already set him up as someone who had decided to run away and become a hermit. Once again there are no real ways to write the second film out of that hole.

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The result of Johnson's choices is also that we still have no on-screen idea of the backstory between La Resistance and First Order.

It's massively unfair to complain at Rian Johnson for not doing something that should have been done by the first film anyway. Especially since as we keep pointing out he inherited both factions with no backstory. If you want a backstory, wait for JJ Abrams to make the next film. It's his plot thread, we could just as easily say that Rian left it for him to resolve.
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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Snoke's backstory is that Andy Serkis needs more work

 

Offline Mika

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

You are really bad at this whole film analysis thing, aren't you?

TFA and TLJ, TLJ in particular, are all about the Star Wars fandom and how it has mythologized the original trilogy. That's the metaphorical hook here. When Han says in TFA that, "It's real. All of it.", that's him talking straight to you, that's JJ Abrams telling you that, yes, everything you thought about how good the OT was and how magical it was is all real and justified.
TLJ is the next step. It's about how Star Wars has been better in our memory than it actually was in reality; it's telling you, straight up, that the magic of those films is still there, but it's futile to recreate it verbatim; You might end up in an okay place, but it will never be a good place again. You need to reinvent it, make it matter to you personally, in order for it to be actually good.

Have you considered the possibility that I thought about that, and thought this meta to be so short-sighted and stupid that it would mostly piss off everybody seeing the movie? "I have no clue how to do the stuff Lucas managed, and don't even want to try! Lower your expectations!"  Yeah, good luck with that.

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What the films are telling you is that this window dressing doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader and the Empire vs Luke, Leia and Han and the Rebellion or Snoke, Kylo Ren and the First Order vs Rey, Finn, Poe and the Resistance: There's always going to be fascists, and there's always going to be people brave enough to say ¡No pasarán! and stand up for themselves and everyone else.

If what hooks you into Star Wars are the worldbuilding aspects, yeah, then these new films aren't going to be for you, because Johnson thinks that characters and how they change and act is more interesting than figuring out exactly which school of Sith Snoke belonged to. And, let me be absolutely clear on this: The fact that these are open questions is JJ Abrams' fault. He could have provided answers, but chose not to, expecting someone else to actually do the heavy lifting and finish his thoughts for him instead of telling their own story. If you think what Johnson did was disrespectful, I think that what Abrams did was worse.

If it's about the window dressing, how about the further simplification: we drop the needless act of any space setting or any characters to begin with, and settle down to the realm of written text. How's this for the best seller, I reckon it's gonna be yuuuuge.

1) Good guys clash with bad guys and lose
2) Good guys regroup and clash again with bad guys, and win.

That's all. There, far more simpler and no window dressing. No need for fancy movie equipment or high paid actors! Clever, huh?

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How many film scripts and concepts have you sold to Disney recently? I'm just asking because I am not sure that whatever experience you have is entirely transferable here.

No, not with Disney. I'm preparing my own book of my research and engineering field to be published in the near future. However, I do have some years of experience of selling certain R&D ideas to the top brass of certain international companies. And let me tell you, they typically are the easier audience to sell to. It's the R & D department that is usually a greater challenge, but also more fun. I don't see a reason why the setting would be any different in movie & entertainment industry.

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Wait, are you under the impression that the films want you to think that Kylo Ren is an intimidating or even effective figure?

I mean, fair enough, people were thinking that the Prequels were trying to portrait the Jedi as good....

I thought Jedi were portrayed more as a police there, with a rather understandable degradation over the last 25 000 years. But the execution, oh the execution of the prequels... But humor me why would Snoke keep Rey around otherwise, if he isn't supposed to be even effective? To have a force sensitive pet to berate? Or to have a fall guy available if plans don't come to fruition? Ren isn't even good at lip service to stroke Snoke's ego, so he isn't even good as a yes-man. Although, yes, we probably haven't yet seen a mentally unstable emo that ends up killing his dad and nearly offing his mum so I guess that's a first.


As for Karajorma, I wasn't aware Rian Johnson had publicly complained about the backstory being unavailable for him. Unfair yes, but it doesn't matter in the end. That statement also means the story line was open and he HAD the time to fill in what he needed for the second installment. He could have left parts of it open. Instead he chose to wreck it all, invalidating the point of watching the first movie in the trilogy. Now this really is quite unprofessional and amateurish, and this in a series of movies famous for their continuity! Did he really even spare a second of thought to what it would do with respect to the general reception of the trilogy? Besides, what did Disney ask Abrams to do? Direct the first movie of a trilogy is one thing, but what does that contract say about the entire story line? If it wasn't part of his contract, there's your answer. And having seen enough corporate BS for my life time, I wouldn't be particularly surprised if this actually happened.

I have been in a situation where my senior colleagues screwed up a design of a system and barely managed to make it work in the end. I joined the project later, and was supposed to improve it with the assignment basically stating "make it better but don't change anything". Did I quit? No! I pulled it through, and the customer was quite happy about my performance and I got more work from them later. I do have to thank one of my senior colleagues for pointing out an obvious truth at one particular moment of despair: if I fail and make it worse, then what will happen is that it will be me who will be blamed more than the earlier screw ups. Funny thing is, the reality works in a way that the guy who fails after the first will absorb the blame from the first part. Understanding this is part of being a professional. You don't always get dealt with four aces in the hand, and you can't let that discourage you.

What I'm saying is what Rian Johnson did here is a very risky move, which, if it fails, can be career ending. He essentially becomes a quitter who couldn't. Second installment in the trilogy (I'd expect) would contain more of the plot weaving and character development. If Johnson is good in that, he pretty much got a blank slate to work with! And that's more what a writer usually gets in any series! But the result on the character development front is abysmal, with or without the background plot. Deal with the hooks as well as you can in the first ten minutes of the movie, and get on with it to make the rest of 1 h 50 minutes great would be the sensible choice. It was crucial to do the background development in the second movie of the trilogy, since the third one will not have enough time to handle it all, and it will also look very weird there. I don't think this mess is recoverable any more, and I wouldn't be particularly surprised if JJ Abrams threw in the towel here.

By the way, where does TFA state Luke became a hermit and ran away? I recall the opening text crawl said he has disappeared, but not much else. Having checked it today, the ending scene in TFA looks quite different in tone than how it continues in TLJ.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2018, 02:14:53 pm by Mika »
Relaxed movement is always more effective than forced movement.

 

Offline The E

  • He's Ebeneezer Goode
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Re: *SPOILER THREAD* Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Mika, look up who Kathleen Kennedy is and what she has done. If you think that woman is an easy audience for an executive summary type presentation like the ones you have to do to get your projects approved, I would advise you to reconsider.
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
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns