you guys are taking the fun outta Star Wars.
for real. lol.
Rian Johnson and Disney did that by crafting a plot, dialogue, and characters so insipid and mind-boggling, they take away your suspension of disbelief for a galactic space opera in which a backwards-speaking green elf teaches a plucky farm boy how to fight the baddest man in the galaxy with a magic glow stick.
I almost long for the days of âI donât like sandâ to return.
It takes an impressive effort to pull that offâŚ
Star Wars took the fun out of Star Wars. You know what I always wanted to see in my Star Wars movies? Animal activism. Or how about 1 of the greatest Jedi of all time moping through 3/4ths of the movie only to make a Jedi skype call in the last ten minutes before dying of exhaustion. Itâd be like Obi-wan dying of a ruptured appendix right after turning off the tractor beam in A New Hope.
I donât think Finn being a bad ass is too hard to believe. Star Wars is about people becoming heroes, and rising up to insurmountable challenges. Itâs always been that way, and itâs not unique. I mean, in Lord of the Rings, the hero is a god damned midget.
The prequels took some decent talent and gave them some of the worst dialogue ever spoken. Thatâs not something you want to happen.
At least the same group that did the Kylo Ren stuff made a parody of the movies subbing in the dialogue. I love the explanation behind midichlorians.
Except that he wasnt the hero because he fell to the rings power anyway. it was a group effort, like it always was. In Star Wars thats the same thing. I mean even Anakin is a fuck up in the prequels. Just because his birth is unnatural and gave him unnatural power didnt suddenly make him a god. He needed his support group, like his son did, to get to that next level. And thats the problem with this new trilogy, there is no support group for anyone.
Rey apparently is always strong and doesnt need to be taught anything because she will always win. Likewise, Finn will always lucksack to victory because that has been what is deemed right and proper. Po is probably the only one who hasnt been so lucky despite being the guy who helped blow up the fucking base. I mean he was supposed to die in the first movie anyway so theres no telling where the could go with that. But the biggest problem with this entire trilogy is the three main characters are ALWAYS SEPARATED. They dont come off as friends or people who hang out together and try to save anything, it just sort of happens that way.
Even in the OT and Prequels, the main characters are never far from each other and it helps build that chemistry and camaraderie. These guys here dont come off that way. Theyre just acquaintances and nothing more.
Not speaking to how well written the narrative devices are, but they certainly shouldnât come off as people who hang out together. Finn and Poe have been in the same vicinity as each other for cumulatively less than a single day over the course of two movies. They meet, get the fuck out of dodge before Poe seemingly dies, donât meet up again until near the tail end of the movie which is right before the trench run of the Starkiller Base, Finn gets comaâd and doesnât wake up until the start of TLJ until which they get split up quite quickly yet again and donât meet up until near the end of the movie. Poe and Rey never met before the movie, so literally just Finn and Rey spent ANY amount of time with each other, and it was at most days.
Both the Prequel Trilogy and the OG Trilogy had the benefit of longer time skips to allow the characters actual time with each other, which is important as all 3 trilogies have the main characters separated from each other for long periods of time. But, itâs fine as theyâve had plenty of time in between movies to be together anyway. Obi-Wan and Anakin had years, the OG Trio had months (Between 4-5 at least, obviously little to no time between Empire and RotJ). When it comes to the Sequel Triolgy, you guys probably have had more time talking to people on SRK IRL than they have had together.
Then there shouldnt be 3 main characters or 3 different storylines going on at the same time. Either focus on 1 or two of them and leave it at that. Because it feels like this trilogy doesnt know what it wants to be or where it wants to go and so does EVERYTHING and FAILS at ALL OF IT! Like if Rey is supposed to be the main god character then fucking follow her and have the movie be about her learning about the force and her place in the universe, with Luke helping her. Have the movie be about Rey rekindling the sense of adventure and possibilities in an old man who didnt see anything but a constant sea of death and ignorance brought on by those who wielded power and did NOTHING to help or protect the galaxy with it. And have it all culminate in a battle royale between masters and apprentices? How fucking cool, interesting, and different enough would that have been?! And that doesnt go all that outside of what Rian was attempting either. Although I would seriously drop the âattempted child murderâ plot. But the rest would have gone a long way toward legitimizing Reyâs character and give Luke something to actually do thats fun and doesnt insult the audience that grew up with him or him as an actor forced to say and do dumb shit. So fucking simple.
Now Iâm imagining Lukeâs T-16 with the Fujiwara tofu shop decal.
Again, I wasnât arguing for the narrative devices. I honestly do not care at this point. Itâs not worth my time arguing about. What I will do, is state facts that are shown and nothing more.
Your Expectations Will Not Be Met
Fandom is a tricky bear to wrestle. We love a thing so deeply, we entwine ourselves within it. We thread a little bit â sometimes a lot â of our identity into the thing. And we come to believe we own that thing, and further, we join a tribe of fellow owners who all have threaded themselves into it both intellectually and emotionally. We feel excited by what this thing can bring us. We develop pet theories. We craft and conjure the path we would take if we were ever handed the keys to the Thing We Love. We become excited and obsessive, a little bit. Sometimes a lotta bit.
But hereâs the thing:
Stories can never be written for the fans.
Fan service isnât a bad thing, per se, but it is sometimes a fairly lazy thing â itâs a comfortable signal, a soft chair, itâs Norm from Cheers where everybody knows his name. Itâs to say, âYouâre lost here, but look, here is a familiar friend to help you through. Itâs to let you know that despite all the strange flora and the eyes glowing in the dark, youâre still a known quantity in a known land. This is a safe place.â When done overmuch, fan service does more than just introduce a few friendly faces. It burns down the trees. It lights up the dark. It slides a jukebox over and slams the top of it like itâs fucking Fonzie and suddenly, the Greatest Hits begin to play, just as you love them. Maybe in an order you donât know, but still the songs you know and you adore.
The Last Jedi is not without its fan service moments, but they are few and far-between, and even when they exist, they exist to challenge you more than they do to bring you succor.
The Last Jedi will not meet your expectations.
Oh, it knows them.
It is well-aware of them, in fact, and is well-aware that you have them. And it willfully⌠I donât want to say disregards them, precisely, but in a sense, it has weaponized them against you. It knows youâve seen all the movies. It knows you know the narrative beats, the tropes, the rhyming couplets of George Lucas, and then it gently puts them all in a magicianâs hat, and then it reaches into the hat, and instead of pulling them back out, it pulls out a porg.
And then the movie hits you with the porg.
Whap.
That metaphor may have gotten a little out of hand, but I think you grok me.
The Last Jedi cares very much about your expectations.
Itâs just not going to meet them.
You, a fan, have explicit ideas about what a Star Wars movie can and should do, and itâs going to use that against you. And itâs going to play for a larger audience, as it must. It canât work just for you, dear fan â never mind the fact that fandom is not a singular, globular entity, like a giant amoeba with one set of desires to be met. It has to go bigger. It has to please a wide variety of viewers while trying to make new fans along the way.
This message is clear within the first 20 minutes of the movie.
You wrote (or most likely stole) all that shit, and completely ignore the fact that this movieâs plot and characters make no sense and go nowhere for 2 and a half hours.
This isnât about âmeeting unrealistic fan expectationsâ, but just being a poorly written and directed film that tramples over beloved characters and their universe for no real goddamn reason.
If youâre going to do subversion, have it lead somewhere, or make a coherent point.
This whole new trilogy is fan service, what is this guy talking about? If anything TLJ is TOO fan service-y.
TLJ âFan serviceâ
Empire
Hoth walker assault
TLJ
Salt Hoth walk assault
Empire
Super Star Destroyer
TLJ
Two Super Star Destroyers
Empire
Seek old Jedi master (get trained)
TLJ
Seek old Jedi master (not get trained
Rotj
Throne room and rebel fleet destruction
TLJ
Throne room and fleet destruction
ANH
Old master vs dark apprentice. Masterâs death
TLJ
Old master vs dark apprentice. Masterâs death
I am sure thereâs more
Kylo Ren Challenge
Hamillâs mistake was he didnât secure screen time before signing the contract, now itâs too late.
in his defense, he didnt know George would up and quit film making, leaving him to hold the bag with the worst people in the known universe.