Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson, December 15, 2017) Movie • Page 382

Still my favorite Star Wars thing of the Disney era

 

Depending on my mood it's my favorite Disney star wars movie but I think season 7 clone wars is my favorite Disney thing if that counts.

 

That lightsaber battle was everything I’ve ever wanted out of one. The emotional catharsis with the heavy, unpolished weight of the swings was absolutely riveting

 

I remember watching that scene and thinking "yes! Rey and Ben are teaming up!" and then Ben pulling an Uno reverse like 5 minutes later and my excitement immediately leaving.

 

See I had the exact opposite reaction, it was amazing seeing them not team up and set forth a far more interesting dynamic for the next movie

ROTS was not that movie

 

I was wanting Ben to get redeemed ever since The Force Awakens. So the little tease in TLJ that ended up just being a carpet pulled out from under me wasn't to my liking.

 

I still think that lightsaber battle and the lightspeed attack are my favorite things SW ever did visually, and this probably is my favorite of the new trilogy, but Mando is getting to the point where it might be my favorite SW related media.

 

I think redeeming Ben is not as interesting as the idea that some people don't really want to be redeemed. You can't save everyone. I know we as an audience always want a happy ending and for good to triumph, but I think the point of Luke's warning to Rey is exactly the above.

I thought it would be better if Ben remained a lawful evil, like a Token Evil Teammate trope, where Rey and Ben bring balance to the Force by both existing and working together from opposing sides. Maybe that's a terrible idea though.

 

The main reason I always rooted for Ben to be redeemed is because I didn't want them to end the Skywalker saga with the last skywalker (by blood) getting killed off while being a villain. Though, in hindsight I would have much preferred Ben be the main villain in TROS and not Palpatine, but I didn't know Palpatine was coming back when I saw TLJ in theaters.

 

It still baffles me how they attempted to undo everything from TLJ because they thought it was too divisive (which I still don't fully understand). Like... great, not only did you turn in the worst movie of the entire series but in the process you pulled the rug out from underneath one of the best films and anything interesting it could have offered.

 

TROS is the worst Star Wars movie and also the most spineless movie ever made in terms of everyone involved just coming off like a coward

 

I had a co-worker who absolutely hated Last Jedi and everything they did and felt it trashed everything he was excited about from Force Awakens. I had to listen to all his complaints and arguments. He and people like him are why Rise happened.

 

Even not being a massive fan of everything in TLJ, the approach to TROS very clearly brings down the trilogy as a whole. If they would have done an actual follow up to TLJ, at least the trilogy would've felt cohesive as a whole.

 

It's been said ad nauseaum, but cohesity from the beginning would've gone a long way. I have no idea who thought the different directors being given as much free reign from movie to movie was a good idea. I think we would've been given a better story arc if JJ was given reigns to all three even if Rian did give us the most interesting movie IMO.

 

The plan for having different directors each handing off the baton to the next and giving their take on a Star Wars movie would have been pretty cool and worked if they didnt just bring back JJ again to suddenly remake Return of the Jedi at the end and throw out every idea RJ brought to the table.

They could have done literally anything after The Last Jedi - it could have been a decades later timeskip for all we know, but the absolute laziest way to do a third movie was taken instead. Yes Rian wrote them into a corner, but a good filmmaker would take that as a challenge and use all that Disney money to make something rad. Not get scared and throw it all out, almost like just outright saying NO in the middle of a "Yes And" exercise in an improv class

 

I think Disney/Lucasfilm should have planned the ending and had a clear path how to close out the skywalker saga before they started episode VII. Then saved letting directors choose their own path with anthology films. Oh well, too late now. Nothing but dreams.

 

I really don't see any problem with the approach Disney took at the start of the new trilogy (three storytellers rather than one unified vision). In fact, I applaud it for showing the teeniest bit of bravery in an industry that is absolutely terrified of stepping out on even the strongest limb.

The problem was Disney losing its nerve and abandoning the plan at the last possible minute.

Whatever Collin's shortcomings as a filmmaker (and they are legion), the end result would have been, at the very least, a cogent story that progressed naturally from what came before. Which, of course, is like the bare minimum requirement for any serialized story.

 

If Colin made literally any other movie besides The Book of Henry after Jurassic World, he would have totally been able to stay on as director of Episode IX right?

 

Rian left things wide open for them to do almost anything. Only the most deeply inept writers would think they didn’t have anywhere to take it.

 

Yup. One of the main talking points from the worst people you know online was that Rian killed the franchise to the point where there was nothing anyone can do after The Last Jedi - which uhh... I guess JJ & company agreed with?

 

Y’all keep reminding me that I’m due for a rewatch of this.

 

I truly didn’t care either way about the “anyone can be a Jedi” thing because…I kind of already assumed that? Like every other Jedi we meet in the story is, as far as we know, the only Jedi in their family. Skywalker and Palpatine happening to have relatives that could also use the force doesn’t seem that earth shattering to me in either direction lol. I assumed the “you come from nothing” thing was just Kylo messing with her head from the second he said it anyway.

it was lazy storytelling in the 3rd either way, but of all the things that I liked or disliked about the second, the “anyone could be a Jedi” part was extremely unimportant to me because I had already assumed that anyway lol

 

Yeah I have always viewed being force sensitive as the same as being a mutant in the marvel universe. A lot of people are just born with it and some are not. It’s not like a royal bloodline, though, in some cases, a family can have strong ties to the force.