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Star Wars VIII - The Last Jedi

bionicbob

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As a non-Wars guys, and thinking about the some of the reactions to the Canto Bight subplot, it occurred to me, what has the Empire or First Order done (onscreen) that is so bad?

I mean we are told they are Evil.   They act all moustache twirling.  Yeah they blew up a few planets, but they are at war.

But what have we seen?  How are the people of the galaxy oppressed?

In the TPM, during the golden age of the Republic (the good guys), slavery exists.  That sounds evil to me.

In ANH, with evil Palpatine in full power, farm life for Luke, while hard, looks free and unoppressed.

I think Rogue One sort of showed a bit of the tyranny on the common people.

But for me, that is one of the weaknesses of the modern SW relaunch, I don't want to be told the First Order is bad, I want to be shown their cruelty, their tyranny... I want to feel the plight and pain of the common citizen so that I root for the rebellion.

I dunno.... these are only half formed thoughts and filled with plot flaws.... but it is one of the reasons I applaud the Canto Bight plot, it is the first real attempt to show SW society and why there is a need for rebellion.
 

TV's Frink

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One of my big problems with complaints about the new Star Wars movies is how often the exact same issues in the OT are completely ignored.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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TVs Frink said:
One of my big problems with complaints about the new Star Wars movies is how often the exact same issues in the OT are completely ignored.

ignorance_is_bliss_matrix.gif
 

Moe_Syzlak

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Well I think those movies existed in a time and place that captured the zeitgeist and allowed people to go along with them warts and all. Especially the first one. Empire started to make the SW cinematic universe deeper, but even that movie was criticized by the public upon release. Frink, you and I are old enough to remember. As we’ve gone along, both society and the SW universe have changed and there’s different expectations. Not to mention that each die hard fan seems to have their own definition of what makes Star Wars Star Wars.
 

TV's Frink

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There was also no such thing as the internet, which is a horrible, horrible thing.
 

The Scribbling Man

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But without the Internet, we wouldn't have you, Frink... Oh, great and masterful Computer Overlord.
 

TV's Frink

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IT IS INDEED A PICKLE
 

TMBTM

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I love Redlettermedia's humor and all their videos, but I disagree almost totaly with their video on TLJ.
In fact it's the first time I could not finish one of their reviews. 
And usualy I can even when I don't agree with them because they are fun and smart. But on this one... I don't know. Their arguments fall flat to me.
 

TV's Frink

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I just watched their PT videos.  Never really cared for much else.

JEDIT: Forgot their Star Trek one, which is pretty good.
 

Moe_Syzlak

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TMBTM said:
I love Redlettermedia's humor and all their videos, but I disagree almost totaly with their video on TLJ.

And I agreed almost totally. I found their sentiments pretty spot on actually, especially in the broader sense. It was entertaining but too long and kind of a mess. It did seem a reaction to the criticisms of Episode 7 in some of its defying expectations. And it did seem like a good A story bogged down by a shoehorned B story, giving the other characters something to do. 


*shrug*

But our differing takes on the movie have been discussed.
 

The Scribbling Man

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I haven't seen much of thier stuff other than Mr. Plinkett's in depth review of TPM.
 I recently watched thier pretend Rogue One review and found it hilarious.
 

TMBTM

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Oh, Redlettermedia always are good fun to watch (followed them for years now) and I do share "some" thoughts (TLJ is not a 10/10 movie anyway), it's just that, for people who make fun at other youtubers on their "Nerd Crew" videos (VERY COOL by the way!) they are just as nitpicky and nerdy as everyone else on their review of TLJ. I usualy find them smarter than the average youtube reviewers and that was not the case on this one.
But you'll tell me that's because I don't agree with them and maybe you'd be right (!) I don't know.
 

Gaith

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bionicbob said:
But for me, that is one of the weaknesses of the modern SW relaunch, I don't want to be told the First Order is bad, I want to be shown their cruelty, their tyranny... I want to feel the plight and pain of the common citizen so that I root for the rebellion.

Agreed. In the OT, there was certainly the visual/casting implication that the Empire was species-ist/Nazi-esque in terms of human supremacy, an idea make explicit in Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, as you know, and somewhat elaborated upon in the EU. And movie writer/critic Tom Shone has argued that ANH specifically, and the OT generally, is in large part a cultural riff on the American Revolution (diverse, peaceful upstart farmers against the British-accented Empire) - a conflict which, he notes, is conspicuously under-represented, given its enormous importance to the nation and its character, in the canon of classic war movies. Of course, the trap in glorifying the American Revolution is the slave-holding nature of many of our Founding Fathers (notice that HBO's epic miniseries on the era focuses on humble, anti-slavery Boston lawyer John Adams), so to actively show the Galactic Empire enslaving non-human species might get uncomfortable - and is also just plain unnecessary, when there's limited budgets, runtimes, and a whole mythos to build from scratch. Also, ANH showed, not told, the Empire's evil when they casually blew up Alderaan.

Now, granted, blowing up entire planets is about as cartoonishly evil as one can possibly get... which is why I find the whole "elites don't care about the Empire/First Order" angle of the Canto Bight sequence weird and out of place. Surely even non-political elites do lots of business on capital planets, and don't want themselves or their business assets to be blown up (with zero warning) due to political fights they aren't personally invested in? The in-universe time to explore issues of war profiteering is before entire capital planets start getting nuked, i.e., the PT era, and for all his filmmaking faults, Lucas did nod to some of that with the Trade Federation in TPM especially. So while I appreciate the attempt to bring depth to the universe, its narrative placement felt way off.


TVs Frink said:
One of my big problems with complaints about the new Star Wars movies is how often the exact same issues in the OT are completely ignored.

Maybe, but again, the OT was building up Star Wars from nothing, and on a limited budget, whereas TFA/TLJ are lifting almost all of their spaceships, plot points, costumes, sets, character arcs, character archetypes, and themes from the OT (and a handful from the PT), while adding very little that's new - and what new stuff they do add, IMO, is mostly sloppy and underdeveloped. (Examples: Finn never once behaving like someone brainwashed/programmed to be a fascist since birth, Maz having Luke's saber and knowing where to find a hacker within reachable distance and being super-helpful for pure plot convenience, the First Order being able to build Starkiller Base in secret, and suffering zero outside attacks despite blowing up only a few planets, etc.) Heck, even the decadence of Canto Bight is reminiscent of the water opera in RotS. So, I don't think it's at all unreasonable to ask that these new mega-budget movies bring something of substance new to the table, particularly when both TFA and TLJ are as long or longer than the OT films.
 

TMBTM

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bionicbob said:
But for me, that is one of the weaknesses of the modern SW relaunch, I don't want to be told the First Order is bad, I want to be shown their cruelty, their tyranny... I want to feel the plight and pain of the common citizen so that I root for the rebellion.

First scene of TFA, the First Order Kills an entire village (women, children, bye bye).
Never saw the Empire do that on screen.
They killed Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen and that was emotional because the audience see that from the eyes of Luke, but it was offscreen. Vader/Anakin killing the younglings, offscreen. In fact we are told the Empire is evil in the OT but except some troopers reguling traffic in the streets of Mos Eisley we don't see much!
EDIT: OK Tarkin is evil. FO can't compete with that bastard. But I feel more emotion with the killing of the village than when Alderan is destroyed. Probably because we see the face of the people who'll die. (the acting between Carrie and Peter makes the scene overally better though)
 

The Scribbling Man

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I guess we see that they're BAD, but we don't really get much of a feel for thier dominance over the galaxy. They don't really have much of a presence. I wouldn't say that the OT is much better or worse in communicating this. The OT gets away with a lot of things that the new trilogy can't, due to nostalgia, if anything - but Star Wars has gone beyond being just a fun, camp space opera. It's grown into something that now requires a lot more depth and substance, which is a hard thing to bring out when you're simultaneously trying to pay constant homage to the OT. 

I like the new trilogy (so far), but it's far from perfect, and could certainly do with just stepping out and taking some much bolder risks. I doubt that'll happen soon though, being that Abrams is back for the 3rd film (not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly not a bold thing).
 

Moe_Syzlak

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@"Gaith" hits on a lot of my feelings. I don’t want to hammer on them too much because I don’t hate the movies. I think they’re miles more entertaining than the PT. I think I could distill my issues with both movies—eps 7 & 8–by saying too much of it feels like the writers just say “then this happens for some reason” simply to get the plot where they wanted it to go. Also, both movies are too concerned with fan service. Episode 7 by trying to give the fans exactly what they want; Episode 8 by trying too hard to subvert fan expectations. Both are equally poor ways to approach a story IMO.
 

TMBTM

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The Scribbling Man said:
I guess we see that they're BAD, but we don't really get much of a feel for thier dominance over the galaxy. They don't really have much of a presence. 

You have a point on this.
The simple fact that the Emperor is the ruler of the galaxy in the OT makes the Empire a real "Empire", hense a sens of total control.
The First Order... they are a force that tries to be an Empire and I guess they sort of are by the time of episode 8 but it's a bit less obvious.
 

The Scribbling Man

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TMBTM said:
The Scribbling Man said:
I guess we see that they're BAD, but we don't really get much of a feel for thier dominance over the galaxy. They don't really have much of a presence. 

You have a point on this.
The simple fact that the Emperor is the ruler of the galaxy in the OT makes the Empire a real "Empire", hense a sens of total control.
The First Order... they are a force that tries to be an Empire and I guess they sort of are by the time of episode 8 but it's a bit less obvious.

Yup, and tbh,
Snoke is dead and The First Order is being lead by a teenager with anger issues. It doesn't come across as a particularly stable organisation - General Hux certainly doesn't like or trust Kylo. It looks like it's about to crumble from the inside. 
 

TMBTM

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But I don't see the fact that the First Order is not exactly as strong as the Empire as a huge problem for what the movies had to tell.
 

bionicbob

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TMBTM said:
First scene of TFA, the First Order Kills an entire village (women, children, bye bye).
Never saw the Empire do that on screen.
They killed Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen and that was emotional because the audience see that from the eyes of Luke, but it was offscreen. Vader/Anakin killing the younglings, offscreen. In fact we are told the Empire is evil in the OT but except some troopers reguling traffic in the streets of Mos Eisley we don't see much!
EDIT: OK Tarkin is evil. FO can't compete with that bastard. But I feel more emotion with the killing of the village than when Alderan is destroyed. Probably because we see the face of the people who'll die. (the acting between Carrie and Peter makes the scene overally better though)

Valid points.  As I said, my thoughts were not quite thought through... LOL. :p
 
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