A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 8

            Let me take a step back and point out something that was both a great direction for Star Wars to go, and the biggest insult to the fan base.  Some of the best scenes involved Kylo and Rey talking to each other while she's on the island.  Neither one seems completely in control, and they're both trying to work out their places in the galactic events happening around them.  It's unique, it's emotional, and it all makes sense.

            And when Kylo says to Rey, "Let the past die, kill it if you have to," it's such a curious thing.  First we have to acknowledge that he's not really saying it to her.  It's not really particularly appropriate under the circumstances.  They're talking about her family history, and while it's completely appropriate for him to say she needs to let that go, to say she should "let it die" and she should "kill it" is such overkill... No pun intended.  The appropriate response to that would be, "overdramatize much there, Kylo?"  So no, he's not really talking to Rey there.

            He's talking to the audience.  He's telling us to let the past die, to "kill it if we have to."  Or is he telling that to JJ.  Again, this was a conversation they should have had before JJ began writing The Force Awakens.

            At any rate, this is a very curious thing to say.  I admire it, because I think there is too much clinging to the past.  We live in an era when people would rather recite or remake movies from the past rather than create something new.  There's constant rehashing of the '80s while they miss the very thing that made the '80s great; the fact that movies were original.  While there were some remakes and adaptations, most of the most classic movies that we admire today were original screenplays.  But now we either have mostly retreads, reboots, long-ago sequels, or movies that constantly refer to the past and pander to an older audience.

            So yeah, we could all use a dose of letting go of the past.  But there are two very important things to consider.

            First, if Rian Johnson really feels that way, why is he doing a sequel to a 40 year old movie franchise?  Why isn't he taking as big a risk as Lucas and creating something entirely fresh and new?  It's a little hard to take a speech about killing the past from someone who's keeping the past alive.

            Second, if we all wanted to kill the past, we wouldn't be in the theater watching this sequel to a 40 year old movie.  The very fact that we came means we're interested in continuing something from the past.  It can certainly go in new directions, and we hope it will.  But to kill it off entirely... well then you don't have a movie!

            It would have been very nice if Johnson and Abrams had discussed all of this before writing their movies because they come from such extreme ends of the spectrum that they probably would have compromised in the middle, right where it should be; utilizing elements of the past, while having a new vision of the future.  Too bad they didn't because now we have this constant tug of war rather than two great movies.

            So anyway, at last Kylo Ren and Rey face Snoke.  Along the way the movie sets up an expectation that this will be like Return of the Jedi. though you get the idea that something's going to go wrong with it.  Like Rose, Rey is basically a fan girl of Luke Skywalker, and she wants to reenact his dramatic turning of the ultimate evil person to good right in front of the Emperor... Or whatever the hell Snoke is supposed to be, but Kylo knows about this, too, and is going to have his guard up.

             It's not entirely a bad idea, but this is where Rian Johnson was clearly wrestling with himself.  He wanted to do something original and different, but he kept relying on the original series to set up scenes.  It's a bit hypocritical.

            That being said, I have to give it up to Snoke.  He's truly terrifying.  Not only is Andy Serkis's performance gripping, but his powers just come across as even more terrifying than the Emperor.  He lifts people in the air and tosses them around with only his mind.  He strikes lightning at... well, lightning speed.  And it has a powerful impact, throwing anyone near it across the room.  It truly feels like he can do some terrible damage to people.

            I'm really looking forward to learning more about this guy, and I'm figuring now will be the time that we learn who he is, and what the First Order is all about.  I don't need a whole complete back story.  I definitely don't need an entire movie about him.  I just want to know who the hell the bad guys are so I can understand what I'm supposed to be fearing and why.

            But then he's cut in half before we find out any of that.

            I've seen excuses for this claiming that it's okay because he's not the real villain, Kylo is.  Snoke, and some of the others, were just tools for them along the way.  And that's where their lack of vision is so disappointing.

            You see, one of the best quotes of all time in storytelling is that there are no small parts, only small actors.  This should be remembered by everyone who writes a story.  No character should be nothing but a tool.  That might be their eventual purpose, they might be there for the primary reason of boosting another character's story, but they should ALWAYS be a complete character.

            For example, in Infinity War, there's a magical sidekick to Thanos whose primary purpose is to build up his boss's plan.  But the writers STILL gave him his own motivations, his own reason for being involved in this overall story.  The writers for that film didn't use the excuse that he's just a tool to build up another character.  So when he's blown out the side of a ship, it has an emotional impact.

            And that's really what it comes down to; emotional impact.  It's okay that Snoke dies before the end, and it's okay that Kylo goes on to be the main bad guy.  But I need to give a shit.

            Think about how you felt when you saw King Joffrey killed in Game of Thrones.  Was it joy?  Surprise?  Horror?  All of the above?  Whatever you felt, you felt SOMETHING.  But if you claim to have felt something for Snoke's death, I'm calling bullshit, because there is nothing to feel.

            Everything Snoke did in both films was in regard to someone else.  Everything he said was about someone else.  He belittle Kylo and told him to do better.  He sent orders to Hux.  He referred to Han Solo, pronouncing each syllable like it was the most important letter in the alphabet.  He spoke of Rey, and wanted to find Luke.  But he never revealed anything about himself, or how and why he's built up this First Order we're supposed to fear.

            To be fair, the Emperor didn't explain how he created the Empire, but there are two things to consider here.  First, the basic concept of the original Star Wars didn't need the explanation.  It was first, and they just said the galaxy was run by a dictatorship.  And if these movies were all alone, the same would be true here.  But they have listed on them episodes 7 and 8, meaning they're part of a series, so they must answer to what came before.  And what was established before was that the Empire was taken down.  Therefore you must explain how it grew up again to understand it, and its leader.

            The moment that lightsaber ripped through him, all those answers were forever destroyed.  We would never learn who the hell these guys were and why we should fear them.  So much for Hitchcock's advice that your movie is only as good as your villain.

            The fight scene that comes next has one thing I have to say in its favor.  It's well shot from a camera point of view.  It matches the great cinematography and effects that play throughout this film.  However, when you watch the fight coordination closely, you'll notice the stunt people purposely having to miss Rey because she doesn't get out of the way in time, and Kylo once inexplicably stabs the floor between two enemies and nothing happens except they politely allow him to pull his lightsaber back up.  Rey, of course, masterfully wields her lightsaber despite still having never been trained in it.  Again, she's good with a staff, but as I said earlier, that doesn't really translate effectively.

            To be honest, though, that didn't bother me so much.  The next part really killed things; what's truly the litany of insults toward the fans.

            First, Kylo tells Rey that she comes from nothing.  This isn't really so bad at first glance.  In fact, I'm glad she's not a Skywalker.  I found the fan theories unendingly annoying.  She's a Kenobi.  She's a Skywalker.  She's a Palpatine.  How about something more original?  It's a fucking galaxy!  Not everyone has to be related!

            However, saying her family was nobodies who died on Jaku causes even bigger problems.  For one thing, we saw glimpses of her watching her parents fly away in a ship.  How did that happen if they were nobodies who stayed on Jaku?  Most importantly, though, why make such a big thing of it in the first film if it's going to turn out to be irrelevant?  It'd be like me saying, "Guess who I'm writing about next!  Guess who!  You'll never guess!  Oh, take a guess."  Then I said, "No one!"  You'd feel like I wasted your time, and I did.

            This goes back once again to JJ Abrams, who set up this whole concept, then left the mess for someone else to clean up and take the blame.  Rian Johnson's part was simply not coming up with something better to excuse Abrams' incompetence.

            But then they could have done something that might have made up for most of the problems; that could have truly been unpredictable and taken the story in a whole new direction, as Rian Johnson claimed he wanted.  Kylo tells Rey to go with him.  How cool would that have been?  How interesting would it be to have a third faction rather than just good versus evil?

            But nope.  By having Rey choose to go back with the rebels, Rian fell back into the very formula he pretended to be shrugging off.

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 7

            Let's go back to the island again.  I said that it was my favorite part of the film, but there are problems.  One of them is that Luke's excuse for not going back is that he has no confidence in his ability to train others.  This is understandable and a good story arc.  But it doesn't explain why HE won't go back.  His own abilities are not under doubt, not even by him.  It would have worked better if Luke recognized an evil growing within himself that he's not sure he can control.  That would give him the fear that he might turn on the resistance rather than the enemy.

            But the real problem was, of course, when Luke turned stupid.

            Most people say it's when he turned evil, but that's not really the true problem here.  Luke sees darkness in Kylo and considers killing him to stop those terrible things from happening.  Had it been only a thought it could be written off as temptation that Luke overcame.  In fact, I think this was a good climax to this arc.  The only thing that would truly cause Luke to lose heart would be something that he himself had done.  Only that huge amount of guilt would keep the most optimistic person in the galaxy grounded like that.  So yes, it should absolutely be about Luke beginning to turn to the dark side and feeling guilty for it.

            But it doesn't mean he had to turn to the stupid side.  Here's what I mean.  Luke has turned on and off his lightsaber plenty of times during his life.  He knows that it's loud.  Yet he turns it on while standing over Kylo.  And what was his plan exactly?  Was he going o turn it on, expect his prey to remain asleep while he sliced through him?  What would he tell Kylo's roommate?  What about the other trainees?  How about his sister and best friend?  "Sorry I sliced your son in two, but he was gonna turn bad."  "You didn't kill Darth Vader, and he was already bad!"  "Yeah, but, you know.  Had to do it."

            They could have accomplished this same goal in a more interesting way.  Instead of Luke lighting his saber, he goes by his home and looks at Kylor... or Ben at the time.  He sees all the horrors he will unleash and all the terrible things he was capable of doing.  Luke is horrified by all this and considers killing him.  But he stops himself, realizing that he can have an influence on the boy, and determines to work on that.  He walks away, believing Kylo is still asleep.  But Kylo is awake, and he entered Luke's mind as well, reading his thoughts on killing him.  He either does not notice or does not care that Luke turned away from the temptation.  He becomes frightened, and that fear becomes anger, which in turn becomes hate, (sound familiar?)  We could then see the Knights of Ren formed in an extended scene as they determine to overthrow their master, and then do it through an ambush.

            How... fucking... cool would that have been.  And it would have worked without Luke holding a lightsaber over his nephew ready to slice him in two.  Just sayin'.

            Speaking of the force, a lot of people made a big deal about Yoda being able to call lightning down even though he's a spirit.  This is a very good point.  But there's something else that I found downright offensive.  After Yoda calls down the lightning, as the tree burns, Yoda begins laughing his ass off.  To this I say to Johnson and anyone who excuses it, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

            Look, I get that this movie is trying to switch directions and get people to move on from preconceived notions.  I admire that.  But this tree has symbolized the Jedi order for over a thousand generations.  Think of that, a religion that has been around for about 20,000 years with a single temple as its center.  Now that temple is being destroyed.  That's a solemn-fucking-occasion.

            Let me put it another way.  Imagine if the Vatican was being demolished, and there's the Pope over to the side laughing his ass off.  That would be pretty goddamn inappropriate, don't you think?  And that religion's only been around for 1/10th the time the Jedi would have been.

            And to be honest, I don't really see what destroying the tree does, anyway.  I get the whole "we have to move on" stuff, but what does destroying it do?  It accomplishes nothing.  But considering that pretty much everyone accomplishes nothing in this movie, I shouldn't be surprised.

            Also, Yoda's look is the strangest here.  It's like they took the worst aspects of both the puppet and CGI and mixed them together.

            I should probably at this point address the elephant in the room.  Throughout this film, and the subsequent talks Rian Johnson gave on it, it was clear that this writer/director wanted to subvert expectations.  He had seen how obsessive fans were with their speculations, and he had seen how predictable Abrams had made the last movie by retreading the old ones.  He sought to change all this by subverting everyone's expectations.  What Johnson didn't seem to understand is that it's not enough.  One has to replace the expectation with something more interesting.  Subverting an expectation is not an end, it's simply the beginning of the process.

            Or to put it another way, my expectation was to get something awesome, and Johnson subverted that by giving me something lame.

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 6

            So begins the longest slow speed chase since OJ Simpson in the Bronco.  Somehow the resistance ships are able to pull just a little ahead of the First Order ships, but they're not able to gain any more space than that.  I'm not sure how that works, but that's what they claim is happening.

            They're also steadily running out of fuel.  Now, a lot of people have pointed out that this is the first time fuel is mentioned in the Star Wars universe.  That's not true.  You see ships being fueled up in several movies, and you can pretty much assume in any film that ships need fuel.  That's not the problem.

            The problem is, why would they not have taken more fuel with them?  Even if they were escaping in a hurry, you'd imagine that, these being republic ships, they're going to be pretty well fueled.

            But the really baffling part comes when Rose sees Fin.  First, I'm not sure why Rose would be a fan of his because he didn't do anything on the Star Killer Base that would have warranted attention.  But that's beside the point.  What's truly baffling is what she's doing there; keeping people from escaping.  But... that's the whole point of what they're trying to do.  Leia even says later in the film that if at least one person escapes, they can be the spark that reignites the rebellion and restores freedom to the galaxy.  Well then, why not jam the escape pods full of people, launch them, and send them all in different directions.  For that matter, why not have the capitol ships all fly in different directions.  They also apparently have a transport ship that has enough fuel for several jumps as Fin and Rose leave and return on it.  I can't imagine that would be the only one of those transports on board, so use another one.  They could also call Rey back and fill the Falcon with people and have that fly in yet another direction.

            You might be countering this with two things.  First, that the escape pods don't have jump drive ability, which I would be with you on, but if that's the case, why did four people and Fin try to use them to escape in deep space?  Clearly they have hyperspace capabilities.  Second, there are enough First Order ships to follow each of them.  But they make it very clear that only one of them can track them.  So if the resistance just split up, the First Order could only follow one of them.

            But then comes one of the most face palming elements of the entire movie, and it baffles me that I haven't heard anyone else talk about this problem.  So apparently they can only get through the First Order shields with a code breaker, and in the entire galaxy, only two people can do it, Maz, and this person she knows.  Maz tells them she can't do it because she's involved in a labor dispute.  She says this while she's exchanging gunfire with someone.

            So... Let me get this straight.  Maz is... shooting at her employees, and they're shooting back at her.  Seriously.  This is one of the good guys, the owner of a bar who is literally shooting at her employees because of a labor dispute... Huh.  I'm afraid to ask what she does to an employee if they arrive five minutes late.  Also, supposedly she could break this code, but she's too busy to do that because of this labor dispute.  Nice to know that an employee strike at a bar takes precedence over saving the entire galactic republic.  Used to be a time when the rebellion versus the Empire meant something.  But now, it's all about who wants a day off or a raise.

            So Rose and Finn are off to the casino planet where they wax poetic about slavery and cruelty to animals.  Now, I relate to their plight for animals.  My girlfriend and I foster cats and are big into animal rescues.  It's an important issue to us.  But if Nazis were about to take over the world, I think I'd be a little more concerned with stopping them than whether or not someone was whipping a horse.

            In fact, when Rose sets one of the animals free and it runs into a field, I couldn't help but think of how it would look in an episode of The Simpsons.  It disappears into the tall grass, then we see a ship come down from above and scoop the animal up.  You see, setting the animals free in that moment wouldn't do anything.  All they accomplished was to inconvenience the slavers for a little bit.  The way to stop them would be to restore the republic and have that republic make these activities illegal.  You know, that republic that Rose and Fin are supposed to be saving, but might not because they're temporarily setting a few horses free?

A Reasonable Discussion of The Last Jedi - Part 5

 While Luke and Rey are on the island, Snoke chastises Kylo.  What's odd about this interaction is that everything Snoke criticizes is stuff that was set up in episode 7; the fact that he's mimicking Darth Vader, the fact that he was beaten by an untrained girl, etc.  It was here I started thinking that this movie was an argument between Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams.  I really felt like I should leave and come back when they've finished the argument and written a pair of scripts that supported one another rather than tugged in two different directions.  I mean, when Snoke says, "Take that ridiculous thing off," he's literally calling something JJ Abrams came up with a "ridiculous thing."  This is not something that should be coming up partway through the second movie of a trilogy; it should have been in the writer's room of the first one.

            Had this been a conversation they had before episode 7 was made, I'd be more on Johnson's side.  It is better to be original with these films, and Kylo Ren's character arc is the most interesting one.  We want to see his face through most of it, so the mask needs to be gone for that.  But once something has been established, right or wrong, you need to go with it.  You can alter course, but as any improv actor will tell you, you don't just say the last person's idea was stupid; you try to run with it and make it better.

            But instead, Johnson wanted Kylo to be completely different from Vader.  That's why he had him jump in a ship just like Vader's and fly into battle, leading tie fighters just like Vader did, destroying apparently the only hangar in the fleet.

            When he turns on the bridge, it's an interesting moment.  He can't bring himself to fire on his mother, and there seems to be a moment where they sense one another.  This sort of interaction with Leia would be interesting.  Perhaps they can do something with it where they connect through the force and...

            Nope, a minion blew up the bridge.  And here is one of the biggest fuck you moments in the movie.  Johnson had several well known figures from the earlier movies on that bridge, including Admiral Akbar and Nin Num.  Okay, think about how old those guys would be.  To be an admiral you have to be pretty old already, and Akbar was admiral 30 years earlier.  Nin Num was also supposed to be high ranking.  For them to be still in their positions would be like having admirals from World War I in charge during World War II.

            What I'm getting at here is that there was no reason to even have them there.  They should be retired somewhere and it should be new people working the bridge.  But Rian Johnson placed them in the bridge with the sole purpose of killing them.  It was the equivalent of someone taking out your favorite toys from when you were a kid and pissing all over them; it's entirely unnecessary and just a dick move.  What was the point if not to just troll the audience?

            Then of course there's Leia being sucked into space, then flying back in.  Now, I've been looking forward to Leia using the force ever since Return of the Jedi.  I've always felt they ripped her off of being as strong a character as she could be.  I had hoped that they'd rectify it in these new movies, but instead, all they've given her is the ability to sense her husband's death and the ability to be Mary Poppins.  Now with Carrie Fisher's death, the idea will never be realized.

            What's even sadder about this being Fisher's final performance is the fact that she spends most of it in a coma.  I genuinely hope this haunts Rian Johnson at night.  He had Carrie Fisher for her final performance, and he wasted it having her lie on her back with her eyes closed for most of it.  And what did he put in place of her?

            Purple hair woman.  Now, don't get me wrong, I think Laura Dern is a fine actress; and I resent a lot of the cruel names people have called her.  However, to replace what they had with this character is insulting.  Consider this.

            When they made Return of the Jedi they hired teams of craftsmen and women to work tirelessly to bring alien beings to life.  Using the best that existed in make-up and effects, they created faces that expressed emotions and felt real.  Now...

I've got some purple hair spray!

            I felt insulted the moment that woman walked on screen.  My movie ticket cost more than they put into her character.  This is supposed to be a galaxy of different species, made by a studio with more money than entire countries, and the best they can do is a human with purple fucking hair???

            Now I get that they're trying to push forward feminism, and I'm completely on board with that.  I believe feminism is by far one of the most important issues in the world, (they make up more than 50% of the population for god's sake,) and women need good representation in movies.  Leia herself is a feminist icon, (which again leaves me baffled why they wouldn't leave her conscious throughout this movie.)  But women can be of all different species.  One of the concepts they always subtly pressed in Star Wars was the idea that the Empire was a racist organization, employing only humans while other species joined the rebellion.  They could have hit both of these points by making Holdo a female alien.  But no, purple hair.

            Also, she doesn't appear at all until the others on the bridge are killed.  If she's the highest ranking officer left, why have we seen others in command positions and she's only now showing up?  The way they portray her it's like they just brought her up from the kitchen.

            Then, of course, there's the problem that everyone has noticed, (even those who love this movie but refuse to admit this problem exists,) she doesn't tell anyone her plan, essentially forcing everyone with any initiative to mutiny.  But that's coming up.