Unpopular Entertainment Opinions • Page 149

I have no real interest in Star Wars and only saw A New Hope as a very little kid and Episode 1 in theaters, also as a very little kid

I'm slightly interested in Mandalorian since people are constantly talking about it.. is that something I can see with basically zero knowledge of the franchise?

 

I know they sent a beacon for a Jedi. I’m asking why Luke? Why not Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, or someone new? Imagine if it were a new Jedi when we know there are so few in the Galaxy? That’d be a bold new direction that makes the world of Star Wars bigger. Instead they’re sticking to literally every fucking thing in this world has to relate to the Skywalkers. Because Disney is about appeasement, not storytelling. They know people will be stoked to see Luke. That’s really it.

 

It’s a regression from Return of the Jedi, the movie where he casts his lightsaber aside and refuses to fight, my reference was to his original arc.

 

Remember when the best piece of Star Wars media since the Carter administration said “let the past die”? I felt that

 

Because...Obi Wan and Mace Windu are dead? Including a completely new character with such an important role in the last episode would just be clunky, not to mention pointless because Mando’s whole mission was to *deliver* BY to a Jedi. It was clear from the get-go that that Jedi was the end goal, not some whole extra terrain to explore within the show.

And so, yeah I hate that so much of the series revolves around the Skywalkers too, but that’s really not how I interpret the finale at all. I think of Luke as completely ancillary to this show. It’s a show about Mando and his journey, and Luke takes up all of 5min of that. I really, really don’t see them trying to include him in the future; it felt pretty definitive.

Honestly the Boba Fett inclusion is FAR more shoe-horned in than Luke was. He came out of nowhere and decided to stick around out of...a sense of loyalty?

 

forgot about the timeline for a moment, just pulled Jedi out of a hat. But Boba Fett and Luke in this show are symptoms of what holds Star Wars as an artistic playground back. It’s running from anything fresh or interesting for what they think fans will like seeing. The emotional crux of the series to this point hinges on a CGI human who can barely move his mouth. I don’t see how it would be clunky for a random never before seen Jedi to show up, it’d be interesting! It’d open up a million questions that you can explore in different movies and shows and video games and books or whatever you want. I think Star Wars can do better, but increasingly it seems like it doesn’t want to, imuo

 

I just don’t agree with this whatsoever. The emotional crux of the series is Mando and his relationship with BY, and now his connection with the other Mandalorians, and all the other characters he has allied with. It’s a show *about* him and his journey from ptsd-ridden cult victim recluse to someone capable of forming connections with others. Do you think it has not delivered on that front? How does CGI Luke take away from that at all?

I think your desire for them to branch out is totally reasonable, but I disagree that them not doing so here somehow lessens the quality of this specific show

 

luke has been on the show for all of five minutes. he wasn’t the emotional crux of the episode let alone the series

 

Well he is, in that BY and Mando are and their parting ways is because of Luke.

 

So you know, the emotional climax of the show does heavily rely on the cgi puppet

 

I don’t think the show is bad and I get why people like it, but this is an obvious pattern by now with Disney/Lucasfilm and I think it’s bad

 

I don’t have any big take on Luke have *a role* in this story (that I gave an honest shot & just could not connect with). If we’re gonna have a “baby Yoda” at this point in the timeline, then yeah, Luke is gonna be either directly or indirectly involved.

I watched the sequence tonight so I could have a more informed opinion, & my issues come down to two main things. The bigger one, which I hope even fans of the show who loved seeing Luke show up can understand, is that the CGI face is gross, both visually & conceptually/ethically. It just looks... so bad & distracting. I couldn’t finish the scene where he’s talking to Mando & company. And I hate that Disney has settled into this full embrace of CGI faces, especially since it started with a dead person in Rogue One (though it’s gross territory without that added moral mess on top).

My other issue is that it prioritized fan service (straight up following the Vader in Rogue One model while feeling like a “rebuke” of that dope TLJ finale) over characterization. I wouldn’t go as far as @Nathan with “pacifist” Luke per se, but there was some dissonance for me between the end of RotJ & this sequence. And, I didn’t even hate it as much as I expected to & smiled at one point early on! But, it was indulgent in a way that felt way more in line with fanboy desired than with Luke’s characterization as I personally understand it.

 

Why is it unethical to CGI Mark Hamill? He's still alive, I'm sure he gave consent. My issue is when studios do it with dead people who cannot give consent.

 

Luke has always been a pretty uninteresting character anyway so to me it’s like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But playing along: I’m not sure what the dissonance is supposed to be. In ROTJ didn’t he simply reject vengeance? Was there more to it than that that I’m just forgetting? He saw Vader’s robot hand and realized he was about to come that which he hated, so he stopped. He still absolutely considered himself a Jedi, and the Jedi were by no means pacifists. Especially when it came to droids lol. It seemed like a pretty standard Jedi take down to me.

 

he also didn’t attack the emperor bc he pretty clearly wanted to sway his father. that’s hardly some statement against all violence forever

 

He was letting go of his hatred, rage, etc. Like I said, calling him a literal “pacifist” is further than I’d go (this went down while his friends were still trying to win a war, lol), but there’s a difference in being willing to fight & being indulgent in the violence.

The initial bit of shadowy Luke surprisingly did make me smile a little, but it was too much. Which, some of that probably was more so the sequence going on much too long for my tastes, storytelling wise, more so than the content of the action? But, I also remember him taking time to slowly crush the one droid with the Force, which felt needlessly sadistic (even though, yeah, it’s a droid, lol) & not something any version of Luke I recall would’ve done.

Some tweaks & shortening could’ve made it feel cool & right to me the way him going to see Jabba in RotJ does. And, either not showing his face or recasting him would’ve been much better than that gross digital face. (Though, recasting an iconic character in a bit role would’ve been tough; maybe it just needed rewritten to avoid that.)

 

He was given credit at the end of the episode and Hamill posted an IG about it. Pretty sure they have his full consent. Much less ghoulish than the Grand Moff Tarkin stuff.

 

I mean, are we gonna pretend like they’re not going to do it until the end of time? If this were the only time it had happened in a Disney movie I’d be like, looks really bad but whatever. But they’ve done it three(?) times and it will likely not stop when the actors pass away

Also thanks @Tim, indulgent as a descriptor is a better way to phrase it than I was doing.

 

It was always going to be luke showing up when ahsoka sent him to that temple.

Ahsoka, Luke, Ezra, and Cal are the only four Jedi we know of at this point. Ahsoka didn't make sense, Cal is from a video game, and giving casual viewers both Ahsoka and Ezra in one season was never going to happen.

 

Is that what people were all excited about? I saw Kevin Smith cried and had to get off the Internet for a while.

 

I just think about how they started this trend with Tarkin of all characters. Someone whose actor had been dead for a couple decades; someone who was a supporting character, not a lead; someone who had already been recast in a cameo in RotS (which had a couple other cast members who came back in RO).

And then I also think about how they made a big deal out of how they were gonna honor Carrie Fisher in TRoS, only using unused footage from other Star Wars. But, they still couldn’t resist that completely unnecessary flashback with the digital recreation of a younger Carrie Fisher.

Also, Donald Glover saying, “I’m scanned into Star Wars now, my face and body. Who’s to say that at some point they won’t take that scan and say, ‘Let’s make another movie with Donald. He’s been dead for fifteen years, but we can do whatever we want with him.’”

And then, on top of that, factor in Disney’s ever growing monopoly in entertainment. The way all their Marvel, Star Wars, & live action remakes dominate the box office (in non-COVID times). So now, it’s established that this company has no problem using digital recreations instead of recasting (wonder what that body double gets paid). And, in the same way they can have contracts for multiple appearances in their franchises, they also have the ability to, at the casting stage, make new actors sign off whatever likenesses forever to this infamously unethical corporation.

And, I’m supposed to just trust this corporation to not eventually throw a digital puppet of Chadwick Boseman into a Marvel movie out of the goodness of their hearts. And, trust that, when Mark Hamill dies, they won’t do what they did with Carrie Fisher.

 

One more note before I tear myself away from yet another online Star Wars conversation, lol...

People wrote & directed this episode, & the ones before it. (At least, I assume as much. I don’t think they’re using literal algorithms yet.) They could’ve done more or less anything. They didn’t have to let two seasons of television culminate in this particular sequence.

 

Cal would be the easiest to put into the show. Though if anyone gets a spin-off it should be that. Or just make me a bunch more games. I'm good with that too.

 

I did not even know about this but oh my god, that selfie. Late contender for one of the top tweets of 2020.

 

Kevin Smith does like 3 tweets a year about how either Star Wars or a Marvel movie made him cry