I am on an island about TLJ because I don't like it but for reasons that have nothing to do with most of the backlash
I think - and I trace this back to TFA, but it feels more acute in TLJ - it makes the universe feel small, like the entire conflict is between a couple hundred people
I think - and I trace this back to TFA, but it feels more acute in TLJ - it makes the universe feel small, like the entire conflict is between a couple hundred people
Reposted from
Nute
Tonight seems like the ideal night to relitigate The Last Jedi
Comments
Apparently someone at Disney wanted more 'Star' in their 'Star Wars' though, and order them onto ships instead.
At one point Finn would spot an infiltrating commando unit using his Stormtrooper training knowledge, and rallied the engineers to ambush the attackers.
All I have to say is TLJ actually made me give a damn about this franchise again. Too bad I'll probably never watch it again.
I probably give the movie more grace than it deserves on a technical level. I came out of it really loving it.
After TFA I felt like they’d just kinda tried to cram in key elements from the OT and I hated that, but TLJ fundamentally diverged from that trend
I thought it was really cool that they went “there’s no way to make a good movie where Luke saves the day again so we’ll just not try”
The three flashback scenes was a really cool technique to borrow too.
I really liked the Rey/Kylo like force connection scenes too
I liked that they wanted to make Star Wars play with big themes a bit
Tying protagonists to bloodlines and doing secret prince shit is kinda tired IMO
And reducing the entire fight to a few hundred people definitely was a choice
Tell a story that has nothing to do with anybody named Skywalker!
They did Boyega DIRTY.
Lots of things that could have been done better with a unified vision from the get go.
This movie also made it clear that they didn't really have a story line for the trilogy planned in advance
except, you know, make canto bight better
https://acoup.blog/2019/12/29/miscellanea-the-latest-jedi/
You can't tell a new or interesting story with that. The team was right to start over rather than build a jenga tower out of poo. But yeah, that meant doing p2 of a trilogy with no p1.
However I really liked the zoom call. He bested an entire army with pacifism. I liked that.
In the sequel trilogy, the starkiller base attack DESTROYS THE NEW REPUBLIC GOVERNMENT, and then the FIRST ORDER DOES ACTUALLY TAKE OVER THE GALAXY, and not only do they not show it, the films don't even really tell it.
We had to find out with non-film material that it wasn't Coruscant, which also means they chickened out.
It's a random city planet. Ho hum.
But you can’t do that after you set up her family as a mystery. That’s just wildly frustrating for viewers. You’d do it via dialogue (“but she’s a nobody!”).
That said being a nobody who clearly rocks the force upends the first 6 movies completely too
But to be fair, the third installment didn’t grab the balls he tossed.
In general, I don't like how the sequel trilogy kinda repeated the whole guerilla war aspect from the OT, in a rather clumsy manner. I would've preferred, say, NATO v. Warsaw Pact in space, for size and scope.
The Rey/Luke/Kylo parts, that was the stuff I liked. The B plots felt like a waste of time, by the end.
I will never get over that
Star Wars is an action series, not high cinema.
it’s incredible how badly The Other TLJ Haters poison this topic and lead people (or me at least) to avoid it
But that wouldn't have worked with grumpy Luke. So we got. Slow speed space chase. Resolved in a manner they could have just done the whole time.
Beautiful movie, great ideas! But… flawed and it’s hard to talk about bc of the lunatics
Thematically I love the idea that the FO and Resistance get winnowed down to almost nothing, but it doesn't totally work as you say
Yeah, cranky Luke and the Force stuff is the best part. And I LOVE that part of it. Thematically it's all there
because the new movies wanted to rewind and put us back in Plucky Underdog Vs Empire mode, they had to effectively erase the victory of the OT
I get so, so angry thinking about TFA lol
TLJ then compounds this greatly by putting the entire conflict - the whole first order vs the whole resistance - in a single ship chase
The least tense tension building I've ever seen in a film. I didn't even think about it in terms of narrowed focus, but you're right about that too. That really lowers the stakes for the conflict.
I would rather have seen it through the eyes of someone watching it on a Holo.
Instead, Resistance bases all over the galaxy are being hit one by one with overwhelming force. Someone is leaking their locations. Finn, we need you to go to this rich people planet full of defense contractors. They sell us tech. One of them is a rat
At the end of the day TLJ is remarkably similar to Empire side characters flee from the Empire while the Jedi trains with an old master hiding from their failures
and then they were being chased by basically the entire First Order, which was no galaxy-spanning menace like the Empire
At that mismatch you may as well pare it down to a single plucky crew in the wrong place at the right time.
We eventually sorta get an explanation in Neo-Palpantine's magic fleet. Which is too late and *so* unsatisfying.
Hecka Taurian Councilor energy for leadership with living memory of The Empire.
it's just 9 messes it up by "oh actually the First Order has like a billion Star Destroyers"
in some ways it fell flat enough for me that its attempt to make the universe a bigger place actually backfired
Thing is, you can tell a really good space chase story. 33 from BSG does an amazing job of this. But you have to commit to it in a way TLJ can't.
it tried to deconstruct the Han Solo myth with Poe, but that whole thing is a huge Idiot Ball plot that could have been resolved with a conversation
the Cranky Old Luke bits are the best part of the movie
...and then they chickened out. I guess only certain bloodlines have/deserve power...
Star Wars ship combat makes no sense but I can mostly Rule of Cool it
post-Holdo, all I can think is "the solution to the Death Star is strapping a hyperdrive to a big rock"
Where he is telling the last stand of Luke broke me
For me, what they did with the conception of the Force and saying fuck you to the chosen bloodline stuff just massively outweighs it.
You might be onto something here with the main canon. And I can really buy into this argument.
HOWEVER, this was supposed to post-war. The alliance had been crushed to almost nothing. It should feel small, right?
I know the worst people in the world hate it for the worst reasons but that doesn't make it good!
Just because the edgelords hate it doesn't mean you have to like it!
If you follow the logic of the movie the entire galactic resistance is the size of a moderately sized improv class by the end of the film