AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited June 2020
One thing I do agree on that point is Rey's parentage. I firmly believe that's the part where JJ was consciously angry about the second movie and deliberately found the dumbest workaround to it he possibly could.
Everything else though, it appears you're completely in agreement with the entire rest of the thread that yes indeed, those decisions were conscious corporate meddling to answer to the loudest voices upset about those particular aspects. That you can't think of a meaningful story reason for any of that beyond corporates clear "We really needed to do the opposite of what was implied from the first two movies" is the point.
I'm just finding more and more reasons to be glad I only just saw TRoS like a month or so ago; I legitimately forgot the movie had been kicking around for so long and all these conversations feel more timely to me. I mean it's still deeply tedious and unpleasant, but I'm looking on the bright side, here.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I'm just finding more and more reasons to be glad I only just saw TRoS like a month or so ago; I legitimately forgot the movie had been kicking around for so long and all these conversations feel more timely to me. I mean it's still deeply tedious and unpleasant, but I'm looking on the bright side, here.
I only saw it on Wednesday. I had already seen the spoilers about Rey, so I already knew it was going to make me angry, but I had the lowest of possible expectations. It managed to come below even my "It can't be as bad as episode 1, surely" expectation level.
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I came in with absolutely no expectations. Films I know I'm going to watch in theaters I largely avoid watching trailers and spoilers for, because I want to experience them with as few preconceptions as possible. The most I knew about TRoS going in was the, "They fly now?" trailer which, while not great, didn't make me assume that it was going to be particularly bad.
The irony here is that I think this is one of the rare cases where if I was spoiled on the events of the opening crawl, I may have been more receptive to the rest of the film. As it was, once I read those fateful words, they only served as the initial shock into what would be an ever-spiraling descent into, "Holy shit, this is so bad..."
When was this Poe and Finn bickering happening? I only saw the movie once, because it sucked, but I remember Poe and Rey snapping at each other and Finn playing peacekeeper. I think the criticism is inventing the facts here.
It's early on in the movie, particularly with certain scenes like when Rey asks Finn what he wanted to tell her but then Poe shuts it down. Also fun fact, I just realized that whatever that was Finn never actually bothers to tell Rey in the whole movie. Unless I missed it, that entire plot point seems to have been utterly forgotten. Either way, the movie did enough for me to indicate that there wasn't the same bromance level camaraderie between then in Rise compared to Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
Edit: I'm pretty sure Finn is the one who has the problem with Poe being a former spice runner as well. You know, when that's suddenly revealed out of nowhere.
Poe shuts it down because he's playing tug o' war with Rey, using Finn as the rope. Seriously, Finn's secret could have been that he loved them both an wanted to be in a thruple. All the tension is between Rey and Poe.
I hate that I'm sticking up for this movie, by the way. It's absolute trash. But what you are describing didn't happen.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I don't agree with that. I saw it only on Wednesday and I feel my description is more than fair.
At the same time, I'm not watching this shit again to confirm that my impression was correct.
JJ doesn't strike me as resentful. I think he overvalues his own skills and ideas, but I don't hold that against artist unless it's an extreme case. He's just obnoxiously clueless when it comes to telling a story. I don't think the misogyny or racism in RoS comes from him.
Disney gives not a care for anything beyond money. They'd make a Star Wars with trans female hero with a cis lesbian interest if it was safe and profitable. They'd make a Star Wars with a cis straight white male with the villain as an androgynous female who tries to use the dark side to make everyone andro and the hero wins by making her fall in love with him if it was profitable and safe.
My point is that the misogyny and racism is in RoS not because of the makers being awful but because of trying to cater to awful people.
hey at least Mothra never gets retconned so that her strength is tied back to a powerful man's genetic lineage
Oh shit.
I hadn't even considered that aspect.
To go along with what Nobeard was talking about, I don't think it was intentional misogyny on the part of the filmmakers so much as it was an eagerness to do the legacy thing and play around with the "I am your father" trope. It was definitely a framework that had been laid down in TFA, and even though I thought TLJ handled the development of that perfectly, apparently Abrams (or whoever) had different ideas.
It just ends up being misogynistic because Abrams had no idea what he was doing when he decided to change the story to fit that mold. It simply does not read the same as it did with Luke and Vader.
As to how much the intent there actually matters versus the messaging that the final product has, well that's up to the viewer.
Edit: Just to put my own two cents in, I think Abrams' intent here does matter, but really only academically. It doesn't change how the point lands in the movie itself, but when a lot of the conversation comes around to discussing who Abrams hates and what he wanted to rewrite because the ST is all of a sudden his baby, well then yeah, what we think his authorial intent was does come into play.
BloodySloth on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Yeah, I don't think Abrams has the directing chops to even be subtle enough to make Rey's lineage a misogynistic thing. ANH and RotJ had Death Stars, so his two movies had to have super-duper Death Stars. Luke was the second most powerful Force user in the galaxy as Vader's son, so the only way Rey could be the most powerful Force user is by being the daughter of the first most powerful Force user in the galaxy.
Having it be a misogynistic agenda sort of thing would mean he had to reflect on the script at all when it was clearly a "one and done" sort of deal. Deep anything is just not in his skillset, positive or negative.
Yeah, I don't think Abrams has the directing chops to even be subtle enough to make Rey's lineage a misogynistic thing. ANH and RotJ had Death Stars, so his two movies had to have super-duper Death Stars. Luke was the second most powerful Force user in the galaxy as Vader's son, so the only way Rey could be the most powerful Force user is by being the daughter of the first most powerful Force user in the galaxy.
Having it be a misogynistic agenda sort of thing would mean he had to reflect on the script at all when it was clearly a "one and done" sort of deal. Deep anything is just not in his skillset, positive or negative.
I wish he understood this about himself. Cloverfield and Armageddon were perfectly good b grade junkfood.
Anyway, Star Wars. Daisy Ridley had a good moment when Rey thought she killed Chewie. That scream had shock, grief, all kinds of stuff in it. Great scene.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited June 2020
Then 2 seconds later we're shown that he's totally fine and there was a second transport. I honestly do not understand that baffling story decision unless they intended to reveal he was alive much later on.
Of particular interest is the argument that the main thing The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker did was basically sideline Finn from being a main hero into side character. With both of those movies trying to put Kylo Ren into an undeserved redemption ark.
Edit2: I had never really considered that the poor treatment of characters like Finn really started with The Last Jedi and not just a bad thing that Rise of Skywalker actually does.
I still don't understand how Rise of Skywalker got past the script stage. Discordant amalgamation of scenes does not a movie make.
Cause the suits and JJ think the audience for Star Wars is made up of ignorant children, misogynist, and racist. The awfulness is intentional.
As someone who liked RoS, I can't help but read these types of comments as being told I'm a child, or a misogynist, or a racist. Maybe I'm being told I'm all three!
It's definitely why I post in here less and less.
People have to believe that there was actual malicious intent behind the making of the movie. It's the only narrative that justifies their level of anger for it.
I like this statement because it applies to either TLJ or TROS, depending on which movie one prefers.
Because the clouds keep them from going up, duh. Oh, and along with miniaturizing the Death Star tech, they also decided to keep the "single all-destroying weakness" tech and apply it to every single ship.
So just to clarify, because I was honestly no longer even slightly invested in the movie by that point - is the answer actually something to do with clouds? I literally couldn't figure out what their problem was.
The planet they were on was at the center of some region of space that was basically 99.999% galactic thunderstorm by volume, except for a single particular route that may or may not be in the same shape it was the last time you looked. Flying in or out of the place requires you to do some special echolocation or whatever, so yes, the idea was that before they tried to send a fuckload of capital ships through the safe lane, they had to establish just where the safe lane actually was.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Honestly, I don't get the debate here. "JJ Abrahms is a piss-poor movie director" explains all the problems about TRoS, and is supported by all the other crappy movies in his filmography, and does not require a massive corporate alt-right-appeasement conspiracy.
Disney corporate doesn't care about the alt-right, or the right, or the left, or feminists, or misogynists, or anything beyond profits. The idea that they threw away the profitability of one of their biggest franchises, at the same times as they're building entire theme parks and cruise ships around it, in order to make a few internet trolls happy, is one that needs a lot of evidence to back up. I'm talking signed and authenticated memos by Bob Iger saying "screw money, I want to make r/redpill happy here" levels of evidence.
Then 2 seconds later we're shown that he's totally fine and there was a second transport. I honestly do not understand that baffling story decision unless they intended to reveal he was alive much later on.
Of particular interest is the argument that the main thing The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker did was basically sideline Finn from being a main hero into side character. With both of those movies trying to put Kylo Ren into an undeserved redemption ark.
Edit2: I had never really considered that the poor treatment of characters like Finn really started with The Last Jedi and not just a bad thing that Rise of Skywalker actually does.
I got the impression that The Last Jedi was trying resolutely to close the door on Kylo's redemption.
Given that TLJ had an entire story arc and character progression and love interest for Finn, setting him up to be a Real Rebel Now for the next film, I’m not sure how it made him a side character.
I'd also agree that Abrams is not the greatest of directors, had far too little time and didn't seem particularly interested in following the film that came before him. I don't think there needs to be any grand conspiracies about anything.
e: also it's great that people like stuff. I don't always see what they see but that's how it goes.
Then 2 seconds later we're shown that he's totally fine and there was a second transport. I honestly do not understand that baffling story decision unless they intended to reveal he was alive much later on.
Of particular interest is the argument that the main thing The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker did was basically sideline Finn from being a main hero into side character. With both of those movies trying to put Kylo Ren into an undeserved redemption ark.
Edit2: I had never really considered that the poor treatment of characters like Finn really started with The Last Jedi and not just a bad thing that Rise of Skywalker actually does.
I got the impression that The Last Jedi was trying resolutely to close the door on Kylo's redemption.
TlJ set up that Kylo is not Evil Prime, and Rey is not Good Prime. But it pretty clearly stated that Kylo is not 'bout that redemption life.
TROS, for all its flaws, I will give it credit for the force dyad thing, even if I think it ultimately failed to execute.
Then 2 seconds later we're shown that he's totally fine and there was a second transport. I honestly do not understand that baffling story decision unless they intended to reveal he was alive much later on.
Of particular interest is the argument that the main thing The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker did was basically sideline Finn from being a main hero into side character. With both of those movies trying to put Kylo Ren into an undeserved redemption ark.
Edit2: I had never really considered that the poor treatment of characters like Finn really started with The Last Jedi and not just a bad thing that Rise of Skywalker actually does.
I got the impression that The Last Jedi was trying resolutely to close the door on Kylo's redemption.
Yeah, I don't get this. This is one of the main things TROS reverses. TLJ very clearly puts forward the idea of a Kylo Ren redemption arc specifically so it can demonstrate that this is foolish and wrong.
And Finn is as much a main character in TLJ as any of the other two. Mostly what it does in terms of moving characters prominence is push Poe into more of a central character role. TFA had him as a bit of a step below Finn and Rey I'd say, probably because originally he was supposed to die.
Honestly, I don't get the debate here. "JJ Abrahms is a piss-poor movie director" explains all the problems about TRoS, and is supported by all the other crappy movies in his filmography, and does not require a massive corporate alt-right-appeasement conspiracy.
Disney corporate doesn't care about the alt-right, or the right, or the left, or feminists, or misogynists, or anything beyond profits. The idea that they threw away the profitability of one of their biggest franchises, at the same times as they're building entire theme parks and cruise ships around it, in order to make a few internet trolls happy, is one that needs a lot of evidence to back up. I'm talking signed and authenticated memos by Bob Iger saying "screw money, I want to make r/redpill happy here" levels of evidence.
Disney cares very much about appealing to the broadest swath of people imaginable so they can make all the money.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
Then 2 seconds later we're shown that he's totally fine and there was a second transport. I honestly do not understand that baffling story decision unless they intended to reveal he was alive much later on.
Of particular interest is the argument that the main thing The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker did was basically sideline Finn from being a main hero into side character. With both of those movies trying to put Kylo Ren into an undeserved redemption ark.
Edit2: I had never really considered that the poor treatment of characters like Finn really started with The Last Jedi and not just a bad thing that Rise of Skywalker actually does.
I got the impression that The Last Jedi was trying resolutely to close the door on Kylo's redemption.
As someone who loves AtLA...not necessarily. It's the middle chapter, after all. And while Kylo Ren has done or passively allowed much worse things than what Zuko did (Zuko's final redemption in AtLA was basically in response to the Fire Nation high command's plan being Final Order Destroyers), so did Vader, and as movies, they're also not being held back by Nickelodeon or "it's a children's cartoon on TV" bullshit.
Personally I would have been fine with a redemption arc, even one that let him live, so long as a. it wasn't half-assed and b. Rey/Kylo Ren wasn't the big romantic finale.
Honestly, I don't get the debate here. "JJ Abrahms is a piss-poor movie director" explains all the problems about TRoS, and is supported by all the other crappy movies in his filmography, and does not require a massive corporate alt-right-appeasement conspiracy.
Disney corporate doesn't care about the alt-right, or the right, or the left, or feminists, or misogynists, or anything beyond profits. The idea that they threw away the profitability of one of their biggest franchises, at the same times as they're building entire theme parks and cruise ships around it, in order to make a few internet trolls happy, is one that needs a lot of evidence to back up. I'm talking signed and authenticated memos by Bob Iger saying "screw money, I want to make r/redpill happy here" levels of evidence.
Disney cares very much about appealing to the broadest swath of people imaginable so they can make all the money.
Right. And making a movie for alt-right internet trolls at the exclusion of everyone else runs counter to that goal.
Honestly, I don't get the debate here. "JJ Abrahms is a piss-poor movie director" explains all the problems about TRoS, and is supported by all the other crappy movies in his filmography, and does not require a massive corporate alt-right-appeasement conspiracy.
Disney corporate doesn't care about the alt-right, or the right, or the left, or feminists, or misogynists, or anything beyond profits. The idea that they threw away the profitability of one of their biggest franchises, at the same times as they're building entire theme parks and cruise ships around it, in order to make a few internet trolls happy, is one that needs a lot of evidence to back up. I'm talking signed and authenticated memos by Bob Iger saying "screw money, I want to make r/redpill happy here" levels of evidence.
I don't think the decisions came from a thought like "oh shit, the alt right didn't like TLJ, we need to appease them." I think it was more like a "hmm the community doesn't seem to like TLJ very much, maybe we should try to win them back." They didn't realize how shitty that ends up being for characters like Rose because they have blind spots.
Honestly, I don't get the debate here. "JJ Abrahms is a piss-poor movie director" explains all the problems about TRoS, and is supported by all the other crappy movies in his filmography, and does not require a massive corporate alt-right-appeasement conspiracy.
Disney corporate doesn't care about the alt-right, or the right, or the left, or feminists, or misogynists, or anything beyond profits. The idea that they threw away the profitability of one of their biggest franchises, at the same times as they're building entire theme parks and cruise ships around it, in order to make a few internet trolls happy, is one that needs a lot of evidence to back up. I'm talking signed and authenticated memos by Bob Iger saying "screw money, I want to make r/redpill happy here" levels of evidence.
Disney cares very much about appealing to the broadest swath of people imaginable so they can make all the money.
Right. And making a movie for alt-right internet trolls at the exclusion of everyone else runs counter to that goal.
But that's not what you do or what people are even accusing Disney of doing. A product designed to appease reactionary elements shaves off all it's potentially controversial edges. So things like no gay stuff, no race mixing, etc. The other consideration is stemming negative press, because that cvreates negative impressions of the film and maybe then people don't go out and see it. If your last film inspires a massive rapid backlash among vocal communities and that tanks one of your review scores, you might try to appease those groups via addressing their complaints so that they don't do the same to the next film.
That's more like what people are accusing Disney of doing. Squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that.
shryke on
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AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
Watched Empire again last night. Why the heck does Leia kiss Luke right on the mouth at the end of the movie? I can accept that they don't know they are brother and sister yet, but she just professed her love to Han.... and now she's all smoochin up on Luke. It's weird.
Regardless of our thoughts on the particular movies of the ST. Can we all agree that Disney/LucasArts were kind of idiots for not calling up Kevin Feige and asking "hey got any advice on setting up a massively inter-connected franchise of movies"? Just the fact that they handed off what should have been a unified trilogy to multiple different directors/writers, who seem to have complete carte blanche authority regardless of continuity, didn't have the best overall outcome. I mean, these are supposed to be smart producers. Nobody could foresee an issue with trading movies between directors/writers as wildly different in scope and style as JJ and Rian? It just seemed like there was absolutely zero pre-planning that went into this trilogy whatsoever.
Regardless of our thoughts on the particular movies of the ST. Can we all agree that Disney/LucasArts were kind of idiots for not calling up Kevin Feige and asking "hey got any advice on setting up a massively inter-connected franchise of movies"? Just the fact that they handed off what should have been a unified trilogy to multiple different directors/writers, who seem to have complete carte blanche authority regardless of continuity, didn't have the best overall outcome. I mean, these are supposed to be smart producers. Nobody could foresee an issue with trading movies between directors/writers as wildly different in scope and style as JJ and Rian? It just seemed like there was absolutely zero pre-planning that went into this trilogy whatsoever.
It does seem a strangely cavalier way to treat a franchise you just spent an enormous amount of money on in acquiring. I understand the OT wasn't exactly meticulously thought out ahead of time either (though the extent of its slap-dashery depends on who you ask, and when you ask them) but it at least always had Lucas as a hinge, around which every addition to the story pivoted.
Honestly, I don't get the debate here. "JJ Abrahms is a piss-poor movie director" explains all the problems about TRoS, and is supported by all the other crappy movies in his filmography, and does not require a massive corporate alt-right-appeasement conspiracy.
Disney corporate doesn't care about the alt-right, or the right, or the left, or feminists, or misogynists, or anything beyond profits. The idea that they threw away the profitability of one of their biggest franchises, at the same times as they're building entire theme parks and cruise ships around it, in order to make a few internet trolls happy, is one that needs a lot of evidence to back up. I'm talking signed and authenticated memos by Bob Iger saying "screw money, I want to make r/redpill happy here" levels of evidence.
Disney cares very much about appealing to the broadest swath of people imaginable so they can make all the money.
Right. And making a movie for alt-right internet trolls at the exclusion of everyone else runs counter to that goal.
But that's not what you do or what people are even accusing Disney of doing. A product designed to appease reactionary elements shaves off all it's potentially controversial edges. So things like no gay stuff, no race mixing, etc. The other consideration is stemming negative press, because that cvreates negative impressions of the film and maybe then people don't go out and see it. If your last film inspires a massive rapid backlash among vocal communities and that tanks one of your review scores, you might try to appease those groups via addressing their complaints so that they don't do the same to the next film.
That's more like what people are accusing Disney of doing. Squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that.
Right. A vocal reactionary community that objects to homosexuality and race mixing and protested with online-review-bombing. Otherwise known as "the alt-right".
Regardless of our thoughts on the particular movies of the ST. Can we all agree that Disney/LucasArts were kind of idiots for not calling up Kevin Feige and asking "hey got any advice on setting up a massively inter-connected franchise of movies"? Just the fact that they handed off what should have been a unified trilogy to multiple different directors/writers, who seem to have complete carte blanche authority regardless of continuity, didn't have the best overall outcome. I mean, these are supposed to be smart producers. Nobody could foresee an issue with trading movies between directors/writers as wildly different in scope and style as JJ and Rian? It just seemed like there was absolutely zero pre-planning that went into this trilogy whatsoever.
It does seem a strangely cavalier way to treat a franchise you just spent an enormous amount of money on in acquiring. I understand the OT wasn't exactly meticulously thought out ahead of time either (though the extent of its slap-dashery depends on who you ask, and when you ask them) but it at least always had Lucas as a hinge, around which every addition to the story pivoted.
Though it does make some sense when seen through the lens of standard large corporate project management. Every employee is an identical, replaceable cog in the machine. Focus is never on quality, only on production capacity, and the only failure is losing money.
So you put Director A on Project 1 for X months, then schedule them for Projects 2 and 3 while Project 1 is in post. But that means A won't be available for part 2 of Project 1, so put Director B on it. Director B is getting shuffled off for Project 4 while part 2 is in post, so schedule Director C for part 3 of Project 1. But oops, Director C left/got fired so move Director D to our less important Project 3 and shuffle Director A back to finish Project 1 as they will need less time to get up to speed on it since they worked on it before and we have a deadline to meet.
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
I am willing to accept that JJ Abrams maybe did not *intentionally* craft TRoS to hit every bullet-point on the lists of TLJ haters who also happen to be alt-righters, but I also refuse to excuse him for unwittingly stumbling into crafting a film that hit every bullet-point on aforesaid lists.
hey at least Mothra never gets retconned so that her strength is tied back to a powerful man's genetic lineage
Man I understand this coming across this way, but Rey's strength at the end came from her connection to the Jedi, not her lineage. Her OP bloodline didn't help her parents, and just *being* powerful didn't grant her much either. Only once she started meditation and listening to Luke (and then Leia) was she able to find herself. Also she rejected her lineage and went with Skywalker. Idk.
Honestly, I don't get the debate here. "JJ Abrahms is a piss-poor movie director" explains all the problems about TRoS, and is supported by all the other crappy movies in his filmography, and does not require a massive corporate alt-right-appeasement conspiracy.
Disney corporate doesn't care about the alt-right, or the right, or the left, or feminists, or misogynists, or anything beyond profits. The idea that they threw away the profitability of one of their biggest franchises, at the same times as they're building entire theme parks and cruise ships around it, in order to make a few internet trolls happy, is one that needs a lot of evidence to back up. I'm talking signed and authenticated memos by Bob Iger saying "screw money, I want to make r/redpill happy here" levels of evidence.
Disney cares very much about appealing to the broadest swath of people imaginable so they can make all the money.
Right. And making a movie for alt-right internet trolls at the exclusion of everyone else runs counter to that goal.
But that's not what you do or what people are even accusing Disney of doing. A product designed to appease reactionary elements shaves off all it's potentially controversial edges. So things like no gay stuff, no race mixing, etc. The other consideration is stemming negative press, because that cvreates negative impressions of the film and maybe then people don't go out and see it. If your last film inspires a massive rapid backlash among vocal communities and that tanks one of your review scores, you might try to appease those groups via addressing their complaints so that they don't do the same to the next film.
That's more like what people are accusing Disney of doing. Squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that.
Right. A vocal reactionary community that objects to homosexuality and race mixing and protested with online-review-bombing. Otherwise known as "the alt-right".
Firstly, that's not just the alt-right. There's many more groups that object to this or that thing we're talking about.
But anyway, you said "making a movie for alt-right internet trolls at the exclusion of everyone". And you don't make it to the exclusion of everyone else. You take out the parts the complainers whinged about and hopefully stop them from being mad while also keeping the people who were ok with the last film. There's no exclusion here.
Then 2 seconds later we're shown that he's totally fine and there was a second transport. I honestly do not understand that baffling story decision unless they intended to reveal he was alive much later on.
Of particular interest is the argument that the main thing The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker did was basically sideline Finn from being a main hero into side character. With both of those movies trying to put Kylo Ren into an undeserved redemption ark.
Edit2: I had never really considered that the poor treatment of characters like Finn really started with The Last Jedi and not just a bad thing that Rise of Skywalker actually does.
I don’t think so. Finn gets a whole arc in TLJ in a way that makes him the hero. His transformation into a rebel is setting this up perfectly. He doesn’t succeed in TLJ sure. But neither does Luke in ESB. But ESB didn’t set Luke up to be sidelined. And we spend more time with Finn, alone without the other main characters, than any other character in the movie.
The only one who doesn’t get much of an arc in TLJ is Rey. Rey doesn’t change a lot and her sections are as much about Luke as they are her.
WRT the article... it gets a lot of things just factually wrong. Like the idea that TLJ was a departure from TFA. It says things like
It not only has to wrap up the “Rey Needs an Identity” storyline Jedi foisted onto her
. When TLJ resolves that thread.
Or this nonsensical section
On a purely aesthetic level, Skywalker communicates story better visually at the same time it overburdens the screen with excess. Sweeping vista shots and frantic pacing keep most action sequences (barring its climax) legible and energetic where they were flailing in Jedi.
Or this one
As the more ‘recent’ story, Abrams and Terrio do more to honor the narrative of Jedi than Johnson didn’t with the story of Awakens. A lot of the upended elements from Awakens that make it into the film feel diluted, remolded to fit Episode VIII and IX’s context. Most get little to no breathing room, just stand there menacingly, or are just callbacks like Rey scaling the Death Star ruins or Rey sliding down sand dunes on Tatooine.
Honestly, I don't get the debate here. "JJ Abrahms is a piss-poor movie director" explains all the problems about TRoS, and is supported by all the other crappy movies in his filmography, and does not require a massive corporate alt-right-appeasement conspiracy.
Disney corporate doesn't care about the alt-right, or the right, or the left, or feminists, or misogynists, or anything beyond profits. The idea that they threw away the profitability of one of their biggest franchises, at the same times as they're building entire theme parks and cruise ships around it, in order to make a few internet trolls happy, is one that needs a lot of evidence to back up. I'm talking signed and authenticated memos by Bob Iger saying "screw money, I want to make r/redpill happy here" levels of evidence.
Disney cares very much about appealing to the broadest swath of people imaginable so they can make all the money.
Right. And making a movie for alt-right internet trolls at the exclusion of everyone else runs counter to that goal.
But that's not what you do or what people are even accusing Disney of doing. A product designed to appease reactionary elements shaves off all it's potentially controversial edges. So things like no gay stuff, no race mixing, etc. The other consideration is stemming negative press, because that cvreates negative impressions of the film and maybe then people don't go out and see it. If your last film inspires a massive rapid backlash among vocal communities and that tanks one of your review scores, you might try to appease those groups via addressing their complaints so that they don't do the same to the next film.
That's more like what people are accusing Disney of doing. Squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that.
Right. A vocal reactionary community that objects to homosexuality and race mixing and protested with online-review-bombing. Otherwise known as "the alt-right".
Firstly, that's not just the alt-right. There's many more groups that object to this or that thing we're talking about.
But anyway, you said "making a movie for alt-right internet trolls at the exclusion of everyone". And you don't make it to the exclusion of everyone else. You take out the parts the complainers whinged about and hopefully stop them from being mad while also keeping the people who were ok with the last film. There's no exclusion here.
Firstly, they're just different flavours of alt-right. I'm not drawing a line on whether or not this or that group of hateful racist homophobic white conservatives technically fit the finer details of the definition of alt-right. If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, I'm fine with calling it a duck.
Secondly, by taking out the homosexuality and reducing it to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it background kiss between nameless extras, they remove a part complainers whinged about by excluding homosexuals and non-homophobic heterosexuals. By taking out the visible-minority-woman character, they remove a part complainers whinged about by excluding minority women and fans of that character. By taking out race-mixing, they remove a part complainers whinged about by excluding non-racists. It's not hard to understand how pleasing the alt-right crowd necessarily requires excluding everyone else. Hell, the entire ideology is based on exclusion of everyone else.
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Everything else though, it appears you're completely in agreement with the entire rest of the thread that yes indeed, those decisions were conscious corporate meddling to answer to the loudest voices upset about those particular aspects. That you can't think of a meaningful story reason for any of that beyond corporates clear "We really needed to do the opposite of what was implied from the first two movies" is the point.
So what's your actual disagreement again?
I only saw it on Wednesday. I had already seen the spoilers about Rey, so I already knew it was going to make me angry, but I had the lowest of possible expectations. It managed to come below even my "It can't be as bad as episode 1, surely" expectation level.
The irony here is that I think this is one of the rare cases where if I was spoiled on the events of the opening crawl, I may have been more receptive to the rest of the film. As it was, once I read those fateful words, they only served as the initial shock into what would be an ever-spiraling descent into, "Holy shit, this is so bad..."
Poe shuts it down because he's playing tug o' war with Rey, using Finn as the rope. Seriously, Finn's secret could have been that he loved them both an wanted to be in a thruple. All the tension is between Rey and Poe.
I hate that I'm sticking up for this movie, by the way. It's absolute trash. But what you are describing didn't happen.
At the same time, I'm not watching this shit again to confirm that my impression was correct.
Disney gives not a care for anything beyond money. They'd make a Star Wars with trans female hero with a cis lesbian interest if it was safe and profitable. They'd make a Star Wars with a cis straight white male with the villain as an androgynous female who tries to use the dark side to make everyone andro and the hero wins by making her fall in love with him if it was profitable and safe.
My point is that the misogyny and racism is in RoS not because of the makers being awful but because of trying to cater to awful people.
Oh shit.
I hadn't even considered that aspect.
To go along with what Nobeard was talking about, I don't think it was intentional misogyny on the part of the filmmakers so much as it was an eagerness to do the legacy thing and play around with the "I am your father" trope. It was definitely a framework that had been laid down in TFA, and even though I thought TLJ handled the development of that perfectly, apparently Abrams (or whoever) had different ideas.
It just ends up being misogynistic because Abrams had no idea what he was doing when he decided to change the story to fit that mold. It simply does not read the same as it did with Luke and Vader.
As to how much the intent there actually matters versus the messaging that the final product has, well that's up to the viewer.
Edit: Just to put my own two cents in, I think Abrams' intent here does matter, but really only academically. It doesn't change how the point lands in the movie itself, but when a lot of the conversation comes around to discussing who Abrams hates and what he wanted to rewrite because the ST is all of a sudden his baby, well then yeah, what we think his authorial intent was does come into play.
Having it be a misogynistic agenda sort of thing would mean he had to reflect on the script at all when it was clearly a "one and done" sort of deal. Deep anything is just not in his skillset, positive or negative.
I wish he understood this about himself. Cloverfield and Armageddon were perfectly good b grade junkfood.
Anyway, Star Wars. Daisy Ridley had a good moment when Rey thought she killed Chewie. That scream had shock, grief, all kinds of stuff in it. Great scene.
Edit: I've been reading this analysis of the movies and while I don't always agree with their points, I really can't help but agree with a lot of their take on the sequel trilogy. Be aware there are a few paragraphs that are spoilers for Jedi, Fallen Order - which I skipped through quickly - but it focuses largely on the movies.
Of particular interest is the argument that the main thing The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker did was basically sideline Finn from being a main hero into side character. With both of those movies trying to put Kylo Ren into an undeserved redemption ark.
Edit2: I had never really considered that the poor treatment of characters like Finn really started with The Last Jedi and not just a bad thing that Rise of Skywalker actually does.
I like this statement because it applies to either TLJ or TROS, depending on which movie one prefers.
The planet they were on was at the center of some region of space that was basically 99.999% galactic thunderstorm by volume, except for a single particular route that may or may not be in the same shape it was the last time you looked. Flying in or out of the place requires you to do some special echolocation or whatever, so yes, the idea was that before they tried to send a fuckload of capital ships through the safe lane, they had to establish just where the safe lane actually was.
Disney corporate doesn't care about the alt-right, or the right, or the left, or feminists, or misogynists, or anything beyond profits. The idea that they threw away the profitability of one of their biggest franchises, at the same times as they're building entire theme parks and cruise ships around it, in order to make a few internet trolls happy, is one that needs a lot of evidence to back up. I'm talking signed and authenticated memos by Bob Iger saying "screw money, I want to make r/redpill happy here" levels of evidence.
I got the impression that The Last Jedi was trying resolutely to close the door on Kylo's redemption.
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Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
e: also it's great that people like stuff. I don't always see what they see but that's how it goes.
TlJ set up that Kylo is not Evil Prime, and Rey is not Good Prime. But it pretty clearly stated that Kylo is not 'bout that redemption life.
TROS, for all its flaws, I will give it credit for the force dyad thing, even if I think it ultimately failed to execute.
Yeah, I don't get this. This is one of the main things TROS reverses. TLJ very clearly puts forward the idea of a Kylo Ren redemption arc specifically so it can demonstrate that this is foolish and wrong.
And Finn is as much a main character in TLJ as any of the other two. Mostly what it does in terms of moving characters prominence is push Poe into more of a central character role. TFA had him as a bit of a step below Finn and Rey I'd say, probably because originally he was supposed to die.
Disney cares very much about appealing to the broadest swath of people imaginable so they can make all the money.
As someone who loves AtLA...not necessarily. It's the middle chapter, after all. And while Kylo Ren has done or passively allowed much worse things than what Zuko did (Zuko's final redemption in AtLA was basically in response to the Fire Nation high command's plan being Final Order Destroyers), so did Vader, and as movies, they're also not being held back by Nickelodeon or "it's a children's cartoon on TV" bullshit.
Personally I would have been fine with a redemption arc, even one that let him live, so long as a. it wasn't half-assed and b. Rey/Kylo Ren wasn't the big romantic finale.
Right. And making a movie for alt-right internet trolls at the exclusion of everyone else runs counter to that goal.
I don't think the decisions came from a thought like "oh shit, the alt right didn't like TLJ, we need to appease them." I think it was more like a "hmm the community doesn't seem to like TLJ very much, maybe we should try to win them back." They didn't realize how shitty that ends up being for characters like Rose because they have blind spots.
But that's not what you do or what people are even accusing Disney of doing. A product designed to appease reactionary elements shaves off all it's potentially controversial edges. So things like no gay stuff, no race mixing, etc. The other consideration is stemming negative press, because that cvreates negative impressions of the film and maybe then people don't go out and see it. If your last film inspires a massive rapid backlash among vocal communities and that tanks one of your review scores, you might try to appease those groups via addressing their complaints so that they don't do the same to the next film.
That's more like what people are accusing Disney of doing. Squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that.
It does seem a strangely cavalier way to treat a franchise you just spent an enormous amount of money on in acquiring. I understand the OT wasn't exactly meticulously thought out ahead of time either (though the extent of its slap-dashery depends on who you ask, and when you ask them) but it at least always had Lucas as a hinge, around which every addition to the story pivoted.
Right. A vocal reactionary community that objects to homosexuality and race mixing and protested with online-review-bombing. Otherwise known as "the alt-right".
Though it does make some sense when seen through the lens of standard large corporate project management. Every employee is an identical, replaceable cog in the machine. Focus is never on quality, only on production capacity, and the only failure is losing money.
So you put Director A on Project 1 for X months, then schedule them for Projects 2 and 3 while Project 1 is in post. But that means A won't be available for part 2 of Project 1, so put Director B on it. Director B is getting shuffled off for Project 4 while part 2 is in post, so schedule Director C for part 3 of Project 1. But oops, Director C left/got fired so move Director D to our less important Project 3 and shuffle Director A back to finish Project 1 as they will need less time to get up to speed on it since they worked on it before and we have a deadline to meet.
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Man I understand this coming across this way, but Rey's strength at the end came from her connection to the Jedi, not her lineage. Her OP bloodline didn't help her parents, and just *being* powerful didn't grant her much either. Only once she started meditation and listening to Luke (and then Leia) was she able to find herself. Also she rejected her lineage and went with Skywalker. Idk.
Firstly, that's not just the alt-right. There's many more groups that object to this or that thing we're talking about.
But anyway, you said "making a movie for alt-right internet trolls at the exclusion of everyone". And you don't make it to the exclusion of everyone else. You take out the parts the complainers whinged about and hopefully stop them from being mad while also keeping the people who were ok with the last film. There's no exclusion here.
I don’t think so. Finn gets a whole arc in TLJ in a way that makes him the hero. His transformation into a rebel is setting this up perfectly. He doesn’t succeed in TLJ sure. But neither does Luke in ESB. But ESB didn’t set Luke up to be sidelined. And we spend more time with Finn, alone without the other main characters, than any other character in the movie.
The only one who doesn’t get much of an arc in TLJ is Rey. Rey doesn’t change a lot and her sections are as much about Luke as they are her.
WRT the article... it gets a lot of things just factually wrong. Like the idea that TLJ was a departure from TFA. It says things like
. When TLJ resolves that thread.
Or this nonsensical section
Or this one
Firstly, they're just different flavours of alt-right. I'm not drawing a line on whether or not this or that group of hateful racist homophobic white conservatives technically fit the finer details of the definition of alt-right. If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, I'm fine with calling it a duck.
Secondly, by taking out the homosexuality and reducing it to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it background kiss between nameless extras, they remove a part complainers whinged about by excluding homosexuals and non-homophobic heterosexuals. By taking out the visible-minority-woman character, they remove a part complainers whinged about by excluding minority women and fans of that character. By taking out race-mixing, they remove a part complainers whinged about by excluding non-racists. It's not hard to understand how pleasing the alt-right crowd necessarily requires excluding everyone else. Hell, the entire ideology is based on exclusion of everyone else.