To be fair to Rian Johnson, the
major problems with The Last Jedi do not begin with his movie. They begin with The Force Awakens; or more
specifically, JJ Abrams. Why Abrams is
considered a mastermind capable of handling the largest franchises of all time
is beyond me. His breakthrough project
Lost has literally the most infamously bad ending in television history. He built up a mystery for years and abandoned
the project so others would be blamed when no answers were revealed. He then developed Star Trek with
unsustainable world building, then abandoned it just when audiences lost
interest so others would get the blame.
He goes to Star Wars and admittedly
creates a fun story with likable characters, but it's a repeat of the original
with no coherent world building. It also
creates a mess which he once again walked away from, leaving someone else to
clean it up.
For instance, the basic logic of the
story of Force Awakens makes no sense.
Luke Skywalker (whose name is always uttered with extreme reverence) has
left a map to him which the heroes have to get back to the rebel... I mean
"resistance" base. If they get
the plans, they can go find him, but if the bad guys get it, they'll go kill
him. Now, why the hell would Luke make a
map to himself that could get in the hands of someone who could come kill
him? Why not just tell his sister, or
someone he trusts?
But the main problem this sets up
for the next film is that now they have to explain why Luke has isolated
himself on this planet, and why he made a map to be found. Standard Abrams setting up an impossible to
explain situation and leaving it for someone else. Speaking of which, he has a scene where Maz
hands Luke's lightsaber to Fin and literally tells him that the story of how
she got it is "for another time."
Never before has Abrams been so blatant in his plan to pass the buck
than that line.
The biggest challenge of all that
Abrams has left is how this galaxy even works.
He acknowledges the original trilogy and says it happened 30 years
earlier. But then he sets up a new empire
called The First Order and shows the rebellion is still fighting under the name
"the resistance." With such a
setup, one needs an explanation as to why that dynamic still exists three
decades after the climax of Return of the Jedi.
He makes it even more confusing by saying there is a new republic which
is somehow relegated to only one solar system.
This is confusing not only in that a GALACTIC REPUBLIC is only in one
star system, but it makes it all the more confounding that the
"resistance" is on their side.
Someone might need to get a
dictionary to Mr. Abrams so he understands that a "resistance" is set
up to resist the government. If there's
a galactic republic, they're supposed to be fighting that. If they're fighting for the republic, they're
either a government entity, or mercenaries.
He furthermore created a main character
that has started out where characters should end up; already powerful enough to
take on and beat the main bad guy. She
can also fly the ship that gets them around, and is adept at using the force. Dramatically, there's little room for her to
grow. However, Abrams did set up a
mystery with her parents, so perhaps they can explore that aspect, and there
will be something interesting there.
There's also a nitpicky thing that I
still think is a bit relevant. Abrams
being the hipster that he is, only put in the ships that he liked from the
original, and developed no others. So
the resistance has X-wings, and the First Order has tie fighters. Nothing else has been developed in 30 years,
and even the ships that had existed in the other movies, such as Y-wings,
B-wings, A-wings, tie interceptors, etc. have no upgrades. Only the ships Abrams thought were cool got
to continue to the next film... with new paint jobs. Oh, and of course, the Millennium
Falcon. Can't let the new characters
have their own identity with a new ship.
Only Abrams' memories shall be allowed here.
So
that's what he handed off to Rian Johnson with the new movie.
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