theryaney said:
But do you understand the context?
What's "context"? ( :dodgy: )
Had [Poe, Finn and Rose] not gone to Canto Bight and trusted DJ, Holdo’s plan for escape without the knowledge of the First Order would have worked. This subplot adds so much dimension to Poe’s, Finn’s and Rose’s characters.
So to enable the Resistance remnant to get where they're going, Rian Johnson has to write three major characters as stupid? And in your mind, "so much dimension to [their] characters" = a hearty helping of
stupid...? Cuz that's the only dimension that was shown to us. Now Rose by herself had more substance than that - but in the context of the new trilogy's storyline, her character is nonetheless useless and shoehorned into things, when Johnson should have been focused on adding real development to the already existing characters.
As far as Holdo's grand plan, why not pull a so-called "rhyme" from
The Empire Strikes Back: just as Boba Fett figured out where the
Millennium Falcon was headed, and jumped ahead of them to Cloud City - there's no reason that part of the FO navy, or a paid informant, couldn't likewise have sussed out the Resistance's destination and leaked it to the FO.
There you go: as a nonprofessional I just came up with a superior storytelling device to what Johnson offered.
[Canto Bites] shows the galaxy around, diversity, other people, character development for Finn and Rose, how they are not just fighters, they can be peaceful and happy, and we also see them fail. That is what they accomplish. The experience of choosing bad mistakes.
(1) As stated previously, by myself and others: remove this entire subplot and the outcome within this one film, along with the whole new trilogy storyline, remains unchanged. Ergo: dumb subplot. (2) Look again at what is commonly viewed as the best of all SW films: TESB. Failure is also a major theme of that movie - yet the storytelling was so, so much better, and unfailingly(!) entertaining.
You and other TLJ apologists need to understand something: the camp I'm in doesn't have an issue with
failure as a theme. What we have an issue with is
sloppy, uninteresting storytelling.
You can just think about it a little, and you'll understand.
Dude, that's a really elitist, unnecessary comment. Assuming that the critics "aren't thinking" is, ironically, a failure of thought on your part.
Yeah, [Holdo] could have told Poe what the plan was, but she doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to.
A more interesting - and useful - subplot would have been to include some scenes in which Dameron inadvertently, because of circumstances he can't control, gives a few officers the impression that he might just be a traitor-informant. This would (a) create tension and suspense for the audience, since we ourselves wouldn't know the truth of the matter at that point, and (b) give Holdo a perfectly sensible reason to keep mum about her escape plan.
"There you go" #2: I just came up with a superior way of getting TLJ to the same ultimate destination.
But it makes Poe's story better, expands his character, shows us his leadership as well as cockiness.
No, dude, it doesn't. It makes him a twit. He was fun and admirable in TFA, but merely a twit in TLJ.
It's like Luke leaving Dagobah early. He could've stayed and trained more to be powerful, but he fell into a trap by Vader.
Ah, I'm glad you referenced TESB again: that writing of Luke's character was superior to the portrayal of Poe in TLJ. Why? Because in context the audience could understand and sympathize with the overwhelming pull Luke felt to try and save his friends. It was a bad choice on Luke's part, with a nearly tragic outcome - yet the same time not so "out there" as to make Luke appear just plain stupid, or to lose the audience's sympathy.
In Poe's case, though he's not a Force-user, he's nonetheless a military veteran, more mature, and has already proved to have a good head on his shoulders. Therefore TFA leads you to expect better of him - and then TLJ foolishly detonates that expectation.
TMBTM said:
In the end I'm feeling that THE main understandable problem that people have with this movie that I can understand (not agree with but understand) is about the death of Luke.
I fully expected him to die either in this instalment or Ep9 - but was disappointed by the sleight-of-hand
way he died. If his situation had been better written so that there was a good reason for him to remain on "Ireland" (I don't remember the planet's name), and he had to come up with an alternative way of helping the Resistance, then I wouldn't have minded the Force-projection idea so much. But as I was sitting there in the theater, believing that Luke was
really there and using the Force to overcome the FO's bombardment, I was thrilled to think that, this time, "the gloves were off" and we were now gonna see the super-Jedi we'd all been waiting for. So to find out moments later that it was just an illusion was really disappointing; took me emotionally right out of the scene.
Especially when the Force-projection resulted in Luke's apparent death. Boiling it down: the script sets up the audience to be THRILLED with Luke's climactic appearance and Force-prowess - and then STEALS that thrill by dumbing down what's actually happening. And you can argue all you want about how "it takes monumental power to project onself with the Force, blah-blah-blah" - but I'm sorry: it's just not a thrill. Especially when a thrill seemed to be in the offing and then was yanked away.
How much more moving would have been if, say, Luke had previously been severely injured and was in a coma, so that you think he's down for the count - and in
that type of circumstance he mounts a Force-projection that allows the Resistance to escape. Yeah, THAT would've been cool
in that sort of context, but not the way TLJ actually did it.
Canon Editor said:
Exactly, TVs Frink. That is EXACTLY what people want.
Uh, no; no, it isn't. The critics of this particular instalment just want
quality, coherent storytelling.
TVs Frink said:
Ranking a movie versus a book is silly.
Not at all. I mean, if you're expecting a note-for-note parallel with a novel, that's obviously not gonna happen because they're different media. But if we're talking about comparing
ideas,
character notes, and
plot structure - yeah, that can be done between a book and a film.
bionicbob said:
The whole Canto Bight subplot, I thought was an interesting attempt to shed some reality on the nature of war profiteering, which I never would have expected from a SW movie.
Not a bad concept in and of itself - but it simply doesn't fit here. It was (a) shoehorned into the larger plot; (b) wasn't terribly entertaining; and (c) had zero impact on the larger story's outcome.
The Luke Skywalker arc.... if I was in my teens or twenties, I probably would have hated this. But being much, much older now, and been worn down by many of life's hard realities, I thought Luke's fate felt believable.
There was zero logical linkage to
Return of the Jedi, making this "Luke" (note the quotation marks) fail to jive with how we knew him from the OT (especially the noble character he finally became in ROTJ). Now, if the new trilogy had instead
begun with a Luke-centered prologue in which he is met with overwhelming tragedy of some kind, THEN for him to subsequently go the hermit route would have been understandable. But that was very poorly set up, making this "Luke" seem rather abrupt - and, frankly, quite unlikable. It's one thing for life to get him feeling burnt out or unable to contribute - but another thing entirely to make him the a-hole he behaved as toward Rey.
Again: not a terrible concept, but terribly rendered.
The SW cynic in me finds it shocking Luke would think he was even able to train any future Jedi with true success. I mean he spent what... one or two days with Obiwan, and maybe a week or two with Yoda... and that makes him a Jedi Master?
Well . . .
. . . my TESB reedit will fix that. He'll be on Dagobah for about a year.
Though I do agree with Gaith the Thrawn trilogy, along with the first few expanded universe trilogies, were much better written than the current SW films.
Which makes Disney's jettisoning of the whole EU-as-canon utterly incomprehensible to me. I mean, good grief, we all know there's some not-so-good stuff in the EU, but the bigger reality is that there's just so darn much of it altogether that a great deal of it is an utterly superb basis for crafting a new film series. (My personal favorite is the
New Jedi Order series, featuring the invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong.)
I loved the reveal that [Rey] is just a "nobody"... not another Skywalker... no special parentage... to me this feels more real.
It's not at all "more real"; it's the exact opposite. She doesn't have to be a Skywalker; I don't care about that - but she sure as heck ought to have
something special in her backstory to make it believable for her to be a Force-phenom right out of the gate. Johnson foolishly, inexplicably gave us nothing like that, and so Rey's very existence becomes a bit stupid.
I loved Leia's limited but powerful appearances.
Mary Poppins Space-Leia was ridiculous.
Poe and the Laura Dern plot, generally worked for me. A leader does not have to share strategy with their underlings, especially those with a hot head reputation. But still.... a lot of wasted lives and time could have been saved.
As I've said elsewhere, this could have been much better set up so that we don't have to accept Poe being an out-and-out moron.
Indeed, Johnson appears to have made every possible effort to make virtually every single character (a) stupid and/or inexplicable, and (b) unlikable.
Things that left me frustrated... no explanation how the First Order was able to track the Rebel Fleet? Was it a traitor? A tracking device? Why was no effort make by the rebels to figure this out????? Snoke. No development or explanation. Nothing. Who was he? How did he become so powerful? How did he seduce Ben? What's his relationship to Luke? It was interesting all the classic SW style villains... the dreadnaught Admiral, Phasma, Snoke.... are killed and we are left with two snivelling, whiny bad guys.
:exclamation: Right there with ya.
Granted, at least Kylo Ren has a tragic element to him, but again totally undeveloped or explained.
Kylo and Rey both leave me frustrated now and again - yet they're the two most interesting of the new characters. A properly executed new trilogy would have done better to focus more squarely on them - and MAKE THEM MAKE SENSE.
Fettclone1 said:
Some of the things I did enjoy:
- The so-called "Forcetime" between Rey and Kylo.
Yep, I thought that was well done. Those bits will feature strongly in my TFA-TLJ mashup.
- Yoda's appearance on the island.
This was an utter failure to me. (a) Makes no sense having Yoda show up for one last ghost-show after all these decades; and (b) he just friggin' looked weird. Visually speaking, that was a complete detonation.
- Benicio Del Toro's character.
A character nowhere nearly interesting enough to save a useless subplot.
But hey, folks - this is why we're at a website that's all about rectifying movie disappointments!