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The Last Jedi - Forum Opinion

Started by Link Prime, 29 January, 2018, 04:04:13 PM

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Mattofthespurs

Quote from: Professor Bear on 12 April, 2018, 06:41:16 PM
I disliked The Force Awakens even more on a second viewing and left it at that.  I didn't, for example, then go on and watch it four more times just to be sure I hated it, though I gather some did and this was what I was being sarcastic about.


The prequels, to me, always will be like shite cartoons. Loved TFA, despised TLJ, adored Rogue One. There is some good stuff, some great stuff, in TLJ, but, for me, the bad outweighs the good by a far margin.
But there have been plenty of films I've hated on first viewing only to soften when the weight of expectation has been eradicated and I'm hoping that's the case with TLJ.

Professor Bear

I'm not sure a lot of the hate for TLJ will soften with time as it did with the Prequels because the PT only disappointed Star Wars fans, whereas for a lot of people it seems like the Sequels actively insulted them, and then Disney's astrotufing marketing campaign painted them as racists and sexists for voicing criticism, or at the very least called them gatekeepers and killjoys who wouldn't let little girls have their own Luke Skywalker.  I can kind of see a lot of people holding a grudge against the film for that, to be honest.

If I can say one good thing about the film, though?  "Luke Skywalker saving the day is a stupid child's story" was always going to be a polorising theme, but the film had Luke Skywalker himself say this, and then he strained too hard on his Craggy Island crapper and fell over and died.  After 40 years, the last flickering embers of a fire that started in the hearts of children in a crappy monoaural movie theater in 1977 and weathered the storms of injurious experience that tempered them into the bitter adults that watched the world go back to Hell by making their mistakes all over again, finally died in front of an IMAX depiction of Luke Skywalker telling them that the stories they had in their head - that rich inner fantasy life that probably sustained them when all else let them down - were stupid, and then Luke fell off a toilet and died, just like they probably would.
Hate it or love it, you have to admit that in-canon punking an entire generation of fans is pretty funny.

TordelBack

Quote from: Professor Bear on 12 April, 2018, 07:51:31 PMAfter 40 years, the last flickering embers of a fire that started in the hearts of children in a crappy monoaural movie theater in 1977 and weathered the storms of injurious experience that tempered them into the bitter adults that watched the world go back to Hell by making their mistakes all over again, finally died in front of an IMAX depiction of Luke Skywalker telling them that the stories they had in their head - that rich inner fantasy life that probably sustained them when all else let them down - were stupid, and then Luke fell off a toilet and died, just like they probably would.

As always I get a kick out of your witty wordery Prof, but you know you're describing me there, to a tee; yet my reaction to TLJ was the complete opposite. 

I saw a hero who had lost everything through his own weakness, railing against what he once believed, convinced the universe was better off without him; then at the end found the strength to stand up again, confront evil in his unique non-violent way, and pass on the new hope he had once embodied.  What I saw was that - for once - all the stories I'd made up in my head weren't as good as the one I saw on the screen.  If TLJ did nothing else for me, it would still have given me that.

I do get the reaction to being told that you are wrong/a bad person/not a fan for not loving a film (especially when there is the strong suggestion of corporate malfeasance being behind it), but equally the internet tells me almost daily that I'm not a 'true fan' for thinking it's the best SW film since Jedi. 

We rewatched all the SW flicks and the Tartakovsky series in 'chronological order' over the last few weeks, ending up with TFA tonight, in preparation for the TLJ Blu-Ray. The prequels started off fun, and I was surprised to find I can now enjoy the more appallingly bad scenes quite a bit, but I still find the last quarter of RotS to virtually unwatchable. 

More surprisingly, I found that my enjoyment of TFA has been greatly improved by TLJ, the over-familiar super-weapon desert-planet rebel-base elements now feeling pleasantly nostalgic in the light of the knowledge that all this comfort food will soon be swept away, and the characters all the more interesting for the awareness of where they are heading.  An accusation often levelled at TLJ is that it ignores or dismisses all the groundwork laid by TFA - far from it, I think it elevates those elements by recasting them as the starting points of a more ambitious story.


Colin YNWA

Quote from: TordelBack on 12 April, 2018, 08:31:23 PM

I saw a hero who had lost everything through his own weakness, railing against what he once believed, convinced the universe was better off without him; then at the end found the strength to stand up again, confront evil in his unique non-violent way, and pass on the new hope he had once embodied. 

As ever Mr Tordelback captures my thoughts in a way I'd never even known I knew. The only additional I'd say is its not Luke's 'weakness' its his humanity. In the specifc of Kylo he had a moment, he conquered that moment but it had consequences anyway. In more general terms he followed his two mentors. When the moment was right you take yourself off.

But yeah Tordelback as we know is just right.

Professor Bear

Lads, you don't have to tell me about swimming against the current of opinion, but just say the word and I'll give you another 5000 word essay on the merits of Batman & Robin and/or Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

Mattofthespurs

Preaching to the choir on Star Trek V.

Tjm86

Having rewatched TLJ earlier this week, it is still a curious beast.  Plunging the rebellion / resistance into it's darkest hour worked better with ESB largely because there was a significant antagonist against which to rail.  For me, the biggest weakness of this new arc is that the New Order seems to have appeared out of nowhere, that Snoke is someone we ought to know better and that the 'resistance' has a lack of a clear opponent.  It just seems so contrived.  Perhaps if we'd had a film that showed the rise of Smoke and the first order, that showed the formation of the resistance or its evolution from the rebellion.  Whatever else you want to say about the original prequel trilogy, at least it made sense from a narrative perspective.

As a complete aside, something that I missed the first time round but caught my eye on the rewatch; the nipper at the end with the Rebellion ring sweeping out the stables uses the force on the broom.  It's incredibly subtle but it's there.

JOE SOAP

Quote from: Professor Bear on 12 April, 2018, 07:51:31 PM
After 40 years, the last flickering embers of a fire that started in the hearts of children in a crappy monoaural movie theater in 1977 and weathered the storms of injurious experience that tempered them into the bitter adults that watched the world go back to Hell by making their mistakes all over again, finally died in front of an IMAX depiction of Luke Skywalker telling them that the stories they had in their head - that rich inner fantasy life that probably sustained them when all else let them down - were stupid, and then Luke fell off a toilet and died, just like they probably would.

Oh, boo-hoo to them losers. My childhood hero turned out to be a douchey whinebag who killed a load of kids, choked his wife, and was nearly burnt to death by his best friend.



Professor Bear

Jedi propaganda - Lord Vader was burned while preparing food for starving war orphans.  Who the Jedi then killed.

JOE SOAP

Another Prequel should clear things up.


Tiplodocus

Picked up the 3D bluray and just watched it tonight.

It's still great.

The (scant) bonus material has an odd melancholy about it. None of the "Holy shit! We're making a fuckin'  Star Wars movie" feel of the TFA extras. And unusually candid in  that Mark Hamill's "You have Luke's character all wrong" get mentioned several times.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

TordelBack

#101
Nice relaxed re-watch last night,  bloody hell that whole opening sequence is one of the best SF action things ever committed to film. The wider shots of the fighters desperately trying to screen the bombers as they near their target... That's armrest-gripping stuff right there.

Awards season somehow ignored Ade Edmonson's career-topping turn as Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy, but if there's one death I really regret in TLJ it isn't [spoiler]Luke, Snoke or Ackbar,  [/spoiler]it's Mark Lewis Jones's splendid Captain Kanady, a character brilliantly created in just a few lines and a defiant sneer for the ages. Gone too soon.

Link Prime

Quote from: Professor Bear on 12 April, 2018, 07:51:31 PM
I'm not sure a lot of the hate for TLJ will soften with time

Don't think so either.

Tiplodocus

Kanady is great - he might only have one line. A prime example of bringing someone (and a script) to life by having them speak in something other than basil.

If people spent more time doing that on screenplays than they do on deciding the exact colour for the handle of a gun, films (and us) would be much better for it.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

TordelBack

Quote from: Link Prime on 16 April, 2018, 02:40:29 PM
Quote from: Professor Bear on 12 April, 2018, 07:51:31 PM
I'm not sure a lot of the hate for TLJ will soften with time

Don't think so either.

It may not soften for ye hard bastards, but you may have missed the massive (apparent) shift in opinion on the Prequels (and The Clone Wars).  Almost 20 unbroken years of 'that money-grabbing neckbeard hack Lucas raped my childhood' has seemingly transformed to 'if only a true visionary filmmaker like Lucas was still in charge, and not that money-grabbing hagbitch hack Kennedy'. 

Personally I've been resolutely in George's camp, especially his terrific (if sometimes bewildering) input into TCW, and his fantastic eye for picking iconic designs (which I do think is sorely missed), but that doesn't mean I don't also appreciate a new/different vision - Johnson's in particular - as a satisfying alternative to no new material, ever.  Despite Lucas' genuine creative control at points in the past, SW at its best has always been a collaborative effort, and after TLJ I'm convinced that the Disney years have the potential to continue in that vein.