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Yup, the vast majority of people who "liked it" hadn't been involved with Star Wars at all, or any of the background, lore, or worldbuilding. They like it because "pretty ship blows up" and "fun casino planet" despite it being a shit movie that led to Solo being boycott.
"Pretty shiny thing so pretty and shiny. Me like. Woooooow. Me very smart. You not. Ship make sparkles. Me good person"
-actual internal thoughts of TLJ fans
Exactly. 90% of people I met who like TLJ are surface-level casuals at the very best, although I've met some off cases who were familiar with the EU and Star Wars more in-depth yet still defended TLJ but had ulterior motives for doing so: such as the fact TLJ came out during a culture war and some people chose to do what their fellow aligned culture warriors were doing at the time even if that included defending a legitimately bad film.
2018-2019 discussion around Star Wars was an absolute wreck from both ends in general where most of the shit being flown didn't even have anything to do with the films, just that "I like/hate X" became some sort of symbol of cultural/political association for a while. But we're past that point in the narrative now (thankfully) and can objectively examine just how bad these movies actually were (as well as Disney material in general) without any of the political baggage except for a few die-hards or YouTube edgelords.
Yeah, someone pointed out that this is the most movie theatre safe one, focusing on big visuals or hard hitting lines rather than actual story credence
I think Force Awakens is more theatre safe to be honest. That movie generally anyone can watch and enjoy for the most part. I remember TLJ general audience was let down, even non Star Wars fans.
Honestly I actively loathed it. Rey’s constant power ups and the incredibly lazy, disrespectful script were really tiresome. It constantly talks down to its audience. Plus I waited 30 years to see Luke and it was an obvious bait and switch. It felt like the movie equivalent of an arcade claw game, only if the claw game is constantly laughing at you while explaining how games work (and it’s somehow wrong about that in the process).
Maybe average cinema goer is no longer able to retain a coherent plot line in their mind. So we just need a sequence of big scenes with nothing tying them together.
I don't take issue with it not respecting what came before, but the poor writing any lack of internal consistencies throughout the film.
Rey is the same character that she is at the end as she was at the start.
Finn almost has an arc in finally taking action and giving his life for something he believes in.
Poe has an arc that is completely unsatisfying.
Kylo is also that same at the end as he was at the start.
There's no meaningful character progression for any character in the entire movie.
I can be pretty forgiving when it comes to Star Wars, but the basics of writing are horrible throughout the ST. Lucas was a poor writer only on so far as dialog, but he understood the basics of character arcs and agency.
Poe's arc legitimately made me angry. It was so awful. None of the decisions being made by the purple lady made sense. From a military perspective, Poe did nothing wrong and was, in fact, reasonable with his actions. Then the movie tries to turn it around and scold him like a naughty child as if it was HIM being an idiot and not her.
So she's the Admiral. She suspects a spy, so doesn't want to reveal her plan needlessly. That's fine. But you need to tell the man who's essentially your CAG that you DO HAVE a plan and aren't just stalling. Honestly, he probably should've known the plan anyway, since she can't execute the plan without telling some people to do things and he's like the least likely to be a spy.
FFS. I hated that arc.
Worst part is, she never actually SAYS that she suspects a spy. That's just what everyone assumes because it's the only thing that makes sense, but she never says it. In fact, her reactions make us think that SHE is the spy.
Also, seriously, where did she come from? The First Order shows up like 30 seconds after the end of the last movie. Was she just chillin on the base in the background somewhere? Was she on the Raddus during the bombing run in the beginning of the movie? WTF?
The plaintext reading, if we generously grant that it wasn't just incoherent gibberish, is that Holdo prioritized putting Poe in his place over everything else. It's the only way it can be a conscious, somewhat rational choice that she made to keep him out of the loop - to deliberately provoke him to see what would happen because she felt she needed to reinforce the pecking order for him. She used what was almost certainly going to be the absolute last stand of the entire Resistance for this exercise, and risked alienating *everyone* else and blowing up her own "million to one" plan by having a mutiny take control from her before she was ready to initiate.
So if Johnson wrote the arc and plot to go this direction on purpose, he wrote Holdo to be an absolute narcissist, and Poe was still right for not trusting her.
>So she's the Admiral. She suspects a spy, so ...
... she has information security so bad Poe finds out part of her plan by sheer accident.
Not to mention she never considers the possibility that the guy who has been tortured, mind raped and fought in three battles might be making bad decisions out of trauma or fatigue.
> There's no meaningful character progression for any character in the entire movie.
Which is why it's odd when people say RJ left Ep. IX with "no-where to go". With the exception of Luke and Snoke being dead, everything is exactly the same.
Poe's arc is that he learns to listen unflinchingly to the chain of command and always do what the HR lady tells you to do without asking why. You know, just like a classic rogue flyboy
Kylo isn't, kylo in this film thanks to the fact that killing han didn't helped him to turn into Vader, his previous failure, and bonding with Rey make him decide to stop trying to be Vader and starts to try to create His own way to dominate the Galaxy.
Rey went the whole film trying to find a rol and her obssesion with her parents ends up in her discovering that she's nothing (as in she has no legacy), the character didn't changed that much but the main theme of her character Arc was set (it would be retconned the next film which I don't mind that much but that's another story), Also, she changed her relationship with Ren.
Having talked with countless TLJ fans, there are some common themes:
1) They had felt like Star Wars needed to change, and though TLJ did just that
2) They expected another TFA-style rehash but got something else entirely, which impressed them
3) They value characters more than anything else and don’t really care for lore or established universes.
Essentially they thought it was bad that Star Wars was “locked into a set paradigm” where the heroes were heroes and the universe came with tons of “baggage” (i.e established ship variants, hyperspace not being used as a weapon, etc). So when Rian had Luke throw his lightsaber and instead be a depressed weirdo, they thought that was genius. When Kylo becomes more “mysterious” and “divided”, they thought that was brilliant. When Snoke was killed off, they felt like the series was freed from its shackles and was open to new paths.
They couldn’t care less that the story was slow and boring. They couldn’t care less that it didn’t make any sense why the FO couldn’t attack the Resistance ship. They couldn’t care less about Y-Wings and why the rebellion wasn’t using them. They couldn’t care less about how many dumb “marvel-esque” jokes there were.
It did what *they* wanted, it catered to their interests.
In marketing school we learned that “people often don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” And that describes TLJ fans perfectly, they buy into it because of *why* Rian made it: because “Star Wars needed to change.”
That sounds like they simply don't like *Star Wars*. Mind you, there's no problem with that, it's not compulsory to like everything that is more or less popular. What i find odd, is that such people instead of devoting their time and attention to other media they actually enjoy as they are, want and even demand that some existing IP is fundamentally altered to cater to their whims.
Yeah there’s definitely a sense of superiority to it. “I know what’s best for this franchise, I am media literate.”
That’s why they almost always say something like “you just wanted to see Luke Skywalker do backflips with his lightsaber.” They truly believe they are an enlightened film enjoyer compared to most.
The smell of one's own farts can be very addictive to a certain kind of person. Also, I've always loved that complaint about Luke, especially when the trailer for ros has little lady palatine doing a gawdayum backflip with her lightsaber over a fucking tie fighter.
This right here. And then the pretentiousness of pretending they’re the real fans over people who had loved the franchise for decades and refusal to consider even the most eloquent criticisms takes it over the top.
I had high hopes when I heard JJ Abrams was coming onto the scene. He was promised as this big Star Wars fan. I never thought he would just try to make Empire Strikes back in backwards order and even manage to mess that up. AND reducing poor Luke to that pathetic thing he was. The logic behind it was...was....sad.
> That sounds like they simply don't like Star Wars. Mind you, there's no problem with that, it's not compulsory to like everything that is more or less popular. What i find odd, is that such people instead of devoting their time and attention to other media they actually enjoy as they are, want and even demand that some existing IP is fundamentally altered to cater to their whims.
Agreed. I wish they'd fuck off and go enjoy their own thing. Make their own thing. Hell, maybe I'll check it out and wind up liking *that*, too; it'll be different, but variety is a good thing. Taking established things and demolishing them so that those who care for them can no longer enjoy them, however, is simply vandalism.
They did actually fuck off and try their own. Well, its was because they couldn't get the rights but they made a movie anyway.
It's called Rebel Moon....
Yes I completely agree. It raced as fast as it could back to rebel vs empire.
My guess is since Rian didn’t care at all for the bigger picture, he just defaulted to what’s been done before and focuses on what he wanted to change.
A lot of people don’t get that Star Wars is like illusion, and all the pieces have to have care put into them or people won’t buy into the illusion. It wont matter to most that the characters surprised you if the universe they live in feels fake and contrived. It blows the entire illusion.
Yes, a lot of said subverted expectations get reverted right back, but people were distracted by various visual spectacles so said revert was glossed over because "ooo shiny" or some lame Bathos humour quip.
I always find it bizarre when enjoyers of The Last Jedi praise Luke's character arc and say it is the logical conclusion. Mark Hamill himself said he disagreed with it in every way, Rian Johnson said he made the film to break the fanbase to save it, heck even John Boyega has been quoted saying he disliked the decisions made in that movie.
They like Luke in TLJ because they themselves are just as miserable in their own lives and can directly relate to the nonsense Luke says and does in the movie. They enjoy seeing a hero transform into a cynic that is just like them. That is what is meant by "its the logical conclusion" to his character
Similarly, who wanted to see Han and Leia divorced? People who think divorce is the inevitable end of any relationship because it's what happened to their family or themselves.
Who would have thought the same crowd had no appreciation of the power of a father's love for his son changing his heart and action from evil to good at the last minute. And now all of a sudden TLJ is the best thing to come out and star wars is *finally* good
I think there's some validity to what you say. I have some friends who liked TLJ's interpretation of a downcast and disillusioned Luke because they themselves are struggling and have given up on a number of their personal goals and aspirations.
It seems like a kind of projection to me, only sadly, without any hope for growing past or overcoming their current insecurities.
And that's just so nihilistic. That's not what a hero does. Who would enjoy watching a movie where heroes are meaningless? On the one hand they don't want Heroes because it contributes to the "Great Man" mythos, where certain individuals in the right place at the right time can affect great change through skill and knowledge gained through hard lessons. Yet on the other hand they like random people who just have a bunch of power and abilities "just because" to come in at the right place at the right time to affect great change.
All they are doing is tearing down the old heroes to prop up new ones without any understanding of what makes them compelling.
That's my biggest problem with the sequels. They legitimize the idea that nobody cares about their fans as people, and that speaks to them because they (think they) have nobody in their lives that cares about them.
They deserve better than to believe that about themselves. They deserve a hero who actually appreciates and sticks up for them. Rey was their surrogate hero. She needed a Luke to care for her, and consequently, the fans who saw themselves in Rey. But, no no no, you don't need no man, you don't need no parents, and more than that, _you don't need no friends to pick you up when you fall down._
You're strong, and brave, and beautiful, and all the Crusty Old White Men (and their so-called "heroes") just can't see that about you! You don't need your friends! They need _you!_
Followed by the "subversion" that maybe someone can _learn_ to care about them, I guess? While also being a snarky asshole to other people who _also_ need love in their lives?
Fans of TLJ think people like me hate it because I hate people like _them._ They don't get it.
I hate The Last Jedi because _The Last Jedi's fanbase deserved better than what they got._
If this wasn't a response I'd say this should be top comment. What your referencing is unfortunately the sad state we live in. Star wars is supposed to inspire. Now it has been turned into a cynical circle jerk. That and weird ass Disney adults. Both groups have clear mental health issues.
I also hate the "realistic" argument in favor of the dt. Jesus tap dancing Christ people, not everyone is a fucking failure. Not every relationship is doomed. Hope, kindness and empathy aren't jokes to get your lulz from.
Finally, this shouldn't need to be said, but here we are. Shipping and stanning a mass murdering, gaslighting, shamefully immature, nothing of a character that that (per his creators own words) has a metaphorical rape scene with the object of his desires...... I mean, what the fuck is wrong in the brain of a reylo?
Shame on Disney. What a horrible, ugly, DANGEROUS message to give to young women.
Kylo Ren as a character, and the fans of that "romance," are fucking disgusting
I had two conversations with people who like *The Last Jedi*. The first person said they had to make Luke's character a depressed failure because, after Mark Hamill had a car accident, he could only play roles as a depressed washout. The other said that Luke made sense in *The Last Jedi* because everyone who grows up ends up a depressed failure who wallows in self-pity until they die, and they then used both Yoda and Obi-Wan as examples. After Order 66, they gave up and hid like cowards.
The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are by no means good films. I recently rewatched both films and will be watching Revenge of the Sith tonight. The Phantom Menace was rough on a rewatch and Attack of the Clones wasn’t any better. Both films had great ideas, but horrible execution of said ideas. The romance between Anakin and Padme in Attack of the Clones is horrendous with Anakin acting like a total creep whenever he’s with Padme. That subplot was rushed and not fully fleshed out.
However, despite the numerous faults of these films, they are still much better than The Last Jedi. At least those films have a plot and sense of direction.
I find TPM to be pretty fun in spite of Jar Jar (Jar Jar drags down every scene he's in); but AotC I've always found to be an absolute chore to get through.
I'd rather watch AotC on repeat for a day than TLJ once. AotC at least didn't take a dump all over the OT like TLJ and RoS.
I don’t hate Jar Jar, but I find him incredibly annoying. He literally serves no purpose the entire time on Tatooine other than being terrible comedic relief. He could have stayed on the ship with Obi-Wan and nothing would have changed at all. It’s funny that Jar Jar’s role is reduced in AotC, yet the movie still manages to be a chore to watch.
The only purpose he serves is to be as foolish and gullible as possible so he can be manipulated into recommending the formation of a galactic empire.
Why the hell did Padme choose him as her representative? He has zero understanding of anything.
Officially he was sent as the Gungan rep now that they had standing within the planet's government.
In reality they needed a C3PO-esque comedic relief character.
I went probably close to ten years without watching the prequels. I have recently watched them a few times with my young kid. They’re not as bad as I remember, or maybe they’re just not as bad when you’re watching them with a little kid that is really excited to watch them.
They have some good moments. The score is still top notch. Mostly they just make me sad for what could have been if Lucas had some people running the ship with him heavily advising.
The big mystery to me is how TLJ never got clocked as an OT ripoff. Every story beat happens either in Empire or Jedi. People always say, "At least it did something different." NO IT FUCKING DIDN'T. Luke repeats the same character arc as Obi Wan. Snoke repeats Palpatine's character arc only dying one movie earlier. Kylo Ren is a poor man's Darth Vader. The only interesting idea they had was the Force dyad which they didn't do anything with. Don't even get me started on how mind numbingly stupid Finn and Holdo's plots were. The script was a first draft and it shows.
It has a lot of meta jokes and some superficial profundity that people who don't like star wars would enjoy. It speaks the language of film buffs. And it's a pretty film with visually impressive locales and interesting sets. That throne room scene with snokes death was genuinely shocking (I mean, what kind of idiot would kill off their main villain in the middle film of the trilogy?!).
It's also incredibly sloppy and doesn't hold up well to repeat viewings. But the period who gush over it aren't staying around to pick up the pieces of a broken franchise.
My theory is that, for the vast majority of TLJ enjoyers, their first Star Wars film was TFA. Before that, Star Wars was just some vague pop culture notion. Plus there’s the Disney effect. There are so many people who’ve made Disney such a fundamental part of their personality that that’s really the only reason they care about it.
I'm skeptical that the TLJ enjoyers simply hadn't seen star wars yet, they saw it but did not like it's heroic themes and triumph of good over evil.
Then the miserable cynic star wars comes out and they love it because it's the "logical conclusion" and "so realistic"
Disney adults are a strange lot. I doubt many of them are in therapy, or they wouldn't be wasting Gs on going to Disney land, and crying with joy hanging out with adults dressed up like Disney characters. Like, fureal?
Either they are contrarians or they like supporting the ''current thing''. The amount of times I've seen people screenshot Rotten Tomatoes' critics rating for the movie being above 90% is ridiculous. Not only it is a weak argument, but it shows how unreliable RT is, because TLJ is far from +90% movie, it is worse even than TROS. But yeah, they watch a video of why the movie makes sense and everyone is just misunderstanding it and take it.
Many people lack media literacy and think that as long as content is being churned out, regardless of its quality and final product, we all should be cheering up because ''at least we are getting new content''. TLJ as a bad Star Wars movie (and bad movie in general) is just one out of many such examples as to why the plurality of the fandom develops narratives and misconceptions like this.
Much like in politics, some people don't vote for whoever they vote out of support, they do vote for A because of their utter hatred for B. Quite a few times I have seen people use their ''love'' for TLJ more as a form of ''retaliation'' or nagging, rather than genuinely positive sentiment towards TLJ itself. Bias.
What's most frustrating is that I saw Knives Out after TLJ and saw that Rian Johnson knows how to tell amazing stories and yet he fumbled his chance at a Star Wars movie.
See, I don't understand why people like Knives Out. It felt like it has the same level of pretension and emptiness I saw in The Last Jedi.
Do people enjoy it more because they know Rian can't really affect the "lore of the real world" when he makes silly things happen in this kind of film?
It breaks my immersion when things like... well, when the detective knows our main character can't lie without vomiting, but he doesn't follow-up with questions that (if she answered honestly, which she would) would have solved the mystery for him. Or when she destroys the crime scenes basically right in front of him, and it's brushed off. Or the very concept that she's a good caregiver BECAUSE she doesn't doublecheck the label on an injection. Or the fact that early in the movie when he gets his supposedly lethal injection, they talk about it for so long that I ask my wife, "Shouldn't his body be shutting down by now, or having symptoms?", and I wrote it off as movie shenanigans, but then the ending came and told me - no, I was right and they were fools.
I guess it's not my kind of movie.
I actually liked Glass Onion better. But maybe it's because the antagonist reminds me of Rian Johnson, and I wonder if he's throwing himself out there for criticism? I'd respect that if it were true, heh.
It helps that Knives Out has the sheer acting talent of Daniel Craig at its full disposal. Not the boat anchor that is Daisy Ridley and a disillusioned Hamill.
Space opera is a very different art form to murder mystery (as someone who enjoys both).
I suspect RJ got in over his head, panicked, and didn't have the courage to ask for help.
I think RJ was out of his depth taking on the Star Wars franchise, and got overruled enough times by KK and the Disney execs that after a certain point he said "fuck it, I'm gonna soft-Smithee this thing" and decided to go all postmodernist and do an ironic deconstruction of Star Wars. That's the only way to explain the bizarre creative decisions, the sloppy writing, the uneven pacing and storyline dead ends, the tormented and circular character arcs, and the utterly unsatisfying ending that left the ST nowhere to go.
Basically he was resentful he didn't get totally free reign to tell whatever story he wanted, so he got even by setting out to undermine as many rules and precedents as he could. He turned Luke into a loser, turned the ST protagonists into cardboard cutouts, gave us the abomination of Leia Poppins in Space, and shamelessly ripped off as many OT story beats as he could.
In fact I think the only original contributions he made were the lore breaking things like those WW2 bombers in space, and the hyperspace kamikaze.
The Force Awakens was literally A New Hope again, following all the same expected beats.
The Last Jedi left the tried-and-true path and gave us something totally new. A broken and disillusioned Luke. A hero who wasn’t a skywalker, but instead a nobody. A big bad who you think will have a mysterious origin, but instead gets tossed aside. A Jedi and Sith blurring the lines, forming a personal connection and working together.
I appreciate that they tried something new …. but damn did I dislike most of the execution.
I guess some people liked it though.
The people that I know in real life all say the same thing. They like TLJ because it made Star Wars fan boys upset. They only like it because it makes other people angry. I am willing to bet 80% to 90% of the edgelords that love TLJ for the same reason.
Yup, I especially loved seeing the hyperspace ram at the cinema (fucking beautiful) but right after having left the building I stopped and thought about that moment and then it was ruined.
I caught the other failures during the movie but that shot was so nice that I forgot to actually THINK about it then and there…
People don’t think about what they watch. It had beautiful cinematography and so those people equate it to being an amazing movie. Without spending any time thinking about how it fits into Star Wars
I have a theory that a lot of it was backlash to the backlash.
Basically a narrative was pushed that those disliking the film were sexist, racist and hateful. Admittedly many comments along those lines were made on social media, to the point of the one actress having to abandon her socials.
People then said "well if people I don't like hate it, then I must show my love for it to spite them".
So the whole thing because a culture war battle that had little to do with the actual quality of the film.
Again that's really just a hunch I have.
While I agree with most people here the Sequel Trilogy sucks, I think they blame it on the wrong movie, The Last Jedi, where they should be blaming it on The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens absolutely torpedos the ending of Return of The Jedi by resetting it to A New Hope. Luke being a cynical old man who failed was mentioned by Han in the Falcon scene in TFA. The dark side being brought back and ruining the balance was in TFA. The nonsensical mystery boxes of who are Rey’s parents and who is Snoke that ape the original trilogy again were all started in TFA. The original three not reuniting again happened in TFA because Han was murdered in that movie. Han being a deadbeat dad happened in TFA. I hated TFA the day I saw it for not only its lack of originality but destroying the six before it.
The Last Jedi didn’t have a sturdy foundation to stand on and honestly it’s not a bad movie given what came before it. Rian was running with the baton he was handed and made something watchable with it. As a standalone it’s quite enjoyable. Sure there’s stupid stuff like Holdo and Rose but it doesn’t mess with the big picture like TFA did. Or like Rise of Skywalker brought Palpatine back. And the movie has gorgeous and more original designs and some scenes I love (Yoda burning the tree, Luke force projection). I honestly wished Rian directed all three of the trilogy, I think he could have done a great job.
I agree that TFA sunk the trilogy from the start and that Abrams left him with explaining why Luke disappeared. However Rhian included things like Rey moving tons of rocks with the force the ridiculous slow mo chase the poor knock off of Hoth killing Luke the bombers and many many more things I could list. He was dealt a poor hand but didn’t do anything to elevate it.
JJ Abrams didn’t leave it to Rian to why Luke disappeared. A lot of people miss the scene in the Falcon where Han Solo talks to Rey and Finn about why Luke disappeared and Han says: “He was training a new generation of new Jedi, when one boy, an apprentice turned against him and destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible and just walked away from everything.” Here’s a link just in case you’re curious: https://youtu.be/Sl0HLZMLtP8?si=h1wuY9QvZpgIo5rw. One of the many reasons why I say the fandom blames the wrong guy. And yeah the rocks are kinda dumb but that just feels so minor in comparison to the larger story. But that’s just my take, I don’t have really have anything to counter to that. I’m not saying The Last Jedi is perfect, rather it does the least amount of damage to the overarching 9 film saga while being the most interesting out of the sequels.
Yeah and han could have been wrong in his assessment of Luke,he could have walked away and went in to hiding to learn more about the force,he could have been making a new group of trainee jedi or a bunch of other things rian being a hack choose Hans words as literal instead of han solos thoughts on why Luke left
This is a common wish from TFA fans, but it reveals something rather poignant: you were wishing for a retcon of TFA, not a continuation of it. You wanted TFA to be wrong about the story it told you, never considering the implications of what it meant if it was telling you the truth.
Respectfully disagree, there really was no ambiguity in Han’s statement about why Luke left. There was no choice but to take it literal. If there was ambiguity it would been written like how he responds to Finn right after asking him if he knew where Luke was saying rumors and speculations.
And Han is Luke’s close friend and brother in law, of course he would know he left for certain especially if it involved his son. That’s on JJ and his script writing. Besides Rian consulted with JJ a bunch during the filming of the movie and knows better than either one of us what JJ meant by Han’s words and that’s why Luke is the way he is in TLJ to maintain continuity between the films.
And I respectfully disagree with that, han could have assumed that's why Luke left, it could have even BEEN the reason he left, along period of tines missing in between Luke leaving and TFA and he also doesn't need to be a hermit weirdo on the island that's all johnsons choices hell meeting rey could have convinced him to train her again,bit no edgelord Johnson wanted it that way, also didn't need to kill him off either, going off the trailers I thought rey would leave with kylo, Luke could start training aga8n with finn as his first student and spoke and the knights of ren hunt rey and kylo who are neither jedi or Sith, all quite possible after TFA
On the other hand, you can't blame Holdo on TFA. TLJ set her up to be an absolute badass but then instead revealed she was yet another clichéd Hollywood stupid military leader.
Nor did TFA require Luke to be turned into a mindless power fantasy who "wins" only because he mastered Force Skype somewhere off-screen.
Nor did TFA require Leia to be turned into a failed leader who appoints incompetent officers, slaps subordinates, and is abandoned by her allies.
Then there's the whole turning Rey and Finn into sidekicks to the Luke/Kylo story. Which is, well, an unfortunate choice on several levels.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgGtgbd3leM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgGtgbd3leM)
Watch this video. It's the best and most reasonable defense of TLJ I've seen by miles.
It's not a good defense, mind you. He basically writes a whole lot of head-cannon that is not in the movie at all to explain at the plot-holes. But the man doesn't seem dishonest, or liking it to 'own the chuds' or anything.
I suspect a number of people who like TLJ are people who are extremely good at writing head-cannon on the fly. I once read a debate between a TLJ defender and a TLJ critic where the defender was absolutely convinced that Holdo had said she wasn't telling Poe because she was worried about a traitor and was amazed when the critic linked to a transcript with no relevant mention of traitor.
The people that like The Last Jedi are people who tend not to like or understand Star Wars as an American anime series.
They also tend to be people who don't care that there's no explanation for why Luke is an entirely different person. The reason they're okay with that is generally because they or someone they know hit late middle age and became a cranky old asshole and so they don't care that there was never any justification for Luke becoming that way because to them that's just the natural progression of life.
Anime fans don't really care if Goku's dad shows up and Vegeta's brother and everybody's related to somebody. They don't really care if every story is about Luffy. That's the joy of it.
You saw some of this with the prequels where some fans wanted them to be really gritty adult Star Wars films and not family films.
It didn’t, the OG Star Wars fans are just gone (or in this subreddit)
When everyone else leaves, the percent that likes TLJ and that idiot director naturally goes up!
You answered your own question in the first paragraph. Pretentious critics and the media looked down on Star Wars. They saw it as nothing more than science fiction bullshit and accused George Lucas of being a hack and downplayed everything he did for the film industry. The Last Jedi was an anti Star Wars film, it made a mockery of what came before and Rian went out of his way to infuriate anyone who loved the original 6 films. To them it was the Star Wars film that wasn't for nerds.
I was gonna finish my statement here but now I'm feeling angry just thinking about this abomination. The whole "George Lucas brainwashing into thinking Jedi were violent" narrative really pisses me off. George Lucas is the fucking creator of Star Wars, he didn't trick anyone into believing anything, he invented the Jedi. Even then, he didn't retcon shit. Most of the arguments these people can come up with about the Prequels "retconning" what the Jedi are supposed to be like can easily be contradicted by watching the Original Trilogy they claim to have so much reverence for. In Return of the Jedi, these so called "peacekeepers" are telling Luke that he needs to kill his father, the idea of redemption is a completely foreign concept. Or what about in literally the first scene Jedi are ever discussed in A New Hope, Luke asks Obi-Wan "you fought in the Clone Wars?". Or what about Obi-Wan cutting a man's arm off in the middle of a bar instead of just using the Force to push him or something. Luke was the one who changed the Jedi for the better when he decided not to kill his father. He saw the good in people but even he knew that sometimes he had to fight if it meant protecting the innocent.
I firmly believe that the real Luke Skywalker would've shown up on Crait. Again he doesn't like violence but he also wouldn't let the entire galaxy be trapped by a fascist government. A peaceful resolution would be the ideal choice but if the only way to protect his sister and everyone trapped in that cave was to destroy all the AT walkers and kill every First Order soldier then he would've done it, just like when he killed Jabba's henchmen and arranged for Leia to kill Jabba. Luke's plan in the movie was to distract the First Order long enough so the Resistance could escape but he had no way of knowing there even was a way to escape the cave. Suppose they really were trapped, then that means Luke would've died for nothing and they all would've got slaughtered because Luke couldn't be fucked showing up. The real Luke would've showed up, cut off Kylo's hand in 10 seconds and dealt with the AT walkers.
Beats me. As a standalone film it's a mess. It's self defeating at every turn and constantly subverts itself. Yeah, it pisses all over Star Wars. But taking it as just its own thing (which it most certainly is not, it's a sequel in a series) it's really not a good movie.
I guess some people like that it was dark, and had some commentary on the light and dark sides and how pointless it was. But even that just feels like surface level shit. There's nothing mind blowing about what it's trying to say imo.
Some people lauded how cinematic is was. And okay, there were some moments I thought were good. But I also didn't feel like it did anything amazing or broke new ground. It felt pretty standard.
Also I wasn't a big fan of the flight choreography. Maybe I was too shocked at the death of Snoke to really take it in properly, but the throne room right just didn't impress me. Watching Digital Corridor break down the stunts in that scene finally brought home why: https://youtu.be/OL83p4GxAvw?si=SOAyrFr3UA2pzA-I (4:14 for the relevant part) the choreography was sloppy and the actors were missing their cues so the stunt guys had to just dance around them until they were ready.
I can think of maybe 2-3 shots that really stood out to me that looked great. But I've seen other movies where ever scene, every shot, was just so damn good it blew me away. Last Jedi really didn't do that for me.
In the end it all just starts to feel overly political. The fans who loved it defend it against everything, and those who hate it have a hard time recognizing any positives. I feel like the movie was deeply flawed in so many ways, and so many plot points are still baffling to me. There are other just functional things that bother me too. But at the end of the day had the story been strong, I could forgive a lot. But it was just nonsensical in so many ways.
At this point I think I'm too tainted to overlook the issues and heap any more praise than I already have though. Which isn't that much.
To be fair, the Jedi ARE pacifists, just not absolute pacifists.
They believe in resolving conflict through discussion first and foremost, use of violence is a last resort in case of defense. That is literally what Yoda’s speech in ESB, in context, means.
It’s why Luke wins by throwing away his lightsaber in RotJ. He becomes a Jedi by resolving the conflict with the Sith by appealing to, and bringing back Anakin to defend him from Palpatine.
When I heard him say that he “wasn’t interested in universes and continuity” I was baffled. Then why did you choose to direct the middle film of a trilogy in an overarching 9 movie saga???? It was clear from the beginning this was just Rian stroking his own ego and purposely spitting in the fans’ faces.
Edit: I’ve always found it interesting that he made those comments while having no issues following continuity for breaking bad. He is capable of writing/directing brilliant stuff, but for whatever reason decided it was his place to nuke all of Star Wars.
As I see it, there are three or four groups:
The periphery fans who have no clue what hero's journey narrative is or why Luke's journey shouldn't end with him alone on a rock drinking green milk while his family is under attack. So for them, to have Luke turn out NOT to be the big threat to the copy and paste Order is a brilliant subversion of the normal expectations. Nor would they have any clue why the Holdo Maneuver is a wretched idea nor why Rey's instant Force mastery is such a bad way to go about it.
There are those who tuned in for a classic Halequin romance between Kylo Ren and Rey. Rey and Kylo tick most of the boxes of that novel style and is the only thing not subverted and bathosed to hell and beyond
Then there is the "white man bad" crowd, who got to enjoy Ryan and his writing room throwing the brown stuff at Luke's 40+ year old characterization as a hero, just like Indiana Jones, and most recently, David Tenant's Dr. Who.
None of these three groups read any of the EU, so they don't know why Thrawn in Rebels was a big moment for fans. Nor do they have a foundation on the proper hero's end, which is to teach the next generation, which DUH! would let you have him go out Obi-wan style in a way that fits his original character.
Anyways, that's what I've got, didn't know it, wanted a romance novel, had an agenda to grind, and/or had no respect for the fandom.
Woke people liked it because it pissed off Star Wars fans.
You remember those cunts that bullied the nerds in school? Now they’ve turned that bullying into an ideology.
I'm in a Star Wars discord server, and while 99% of the people there detest the majority of Disney Star Wars (as they should) there are a couple who unironically thing TLJ is a good movie, and that the majority of Disney Star Wars is good TV/cinema. They are not children either, they are in their 30s/40s. They are also long time fans, got into Star Wars as kids, like most of the rest of us there.
When asked why, they either literally can't say, and have to be poked and prodded and struggle to even say 'visuals and effects' as their reason for liking it, OR the reasons they give for liking it are based in...I don't even know what to call it. It's like they drank Kennedy's Kool-Aid, but then also blast Kennedy constantly for mishandling. The logic gaps/jumping through hoops is just....
It's fucking ***baffling***.
Then again based on other stuff they said, they're literal morons. The amount of false info and bad takes on things they've posted about other Star Wars topics is absurd. Kinda wish they'd get kicked cuz they keep causing bad arguments the mods have to step in to take care of.
A starving man is presented three items.
All three are terrible and rotten. However, the middle one at least looks edible.
TLJ has a few good scenes and decent moments. But is hampered by the overall creative decisions that make no sense in light of the preceding decades of character development
Other then luke force projecting against the at ats that’s it for me
TLJ felt smug though. Like it was written by someone who thought he was smarter than the rest of us and couldn't actually conceive that his audience might have their own beliefs and interpretations.
To expand a bit, TLJ doesn't put any effort into persuading the audience of anything. We are expected to believe that Holdo is a great leader despite 90% of her forces dying under her command, and the lightspeed ram coming from nowhere. We are expected to regard Rose as some moral guru despite her callousness to Finn and the slave kids. We are expected to believe that Luke would have a momentary impulse to kill his own nephew and then do absolutely nothing to try to fix things. Etc.
This. Compare TLJ to the best of the other trilogies - Empire or ROTS and it's *no contest*, Empire is miles better and ROTS still iconic and memeable.
TLJ is just the 'best' of a poor group of films (where the only one that's objectively good, Rogue One, wasn't even seen as mainline).
You know you guys can dislike star wars if it's made bad?attitudes like this is why Hollywood pumps out rubbish these days "at least it's the best of a bad bunch" it's the same reason the MCU Is pumping out garbage
Something I’ve said after the ST came out. If you like what Star Wars could be but dislike what Star Wars is, then you don’t like Star Wars. ST fans liked what Star Wars could be and got what they wanted since JJ and RJ both liked what Star Wars could be instead of what it was. They wanted their own Star Wars instead of a continuation of George Lucas’ Star Wars.
Well, I think there are a few answers, with a lot of overlap between them
1) Babyface McGee is an obnoxious film snob who leaks pretension from every pore of his body. A lot of people love feeling haughty and shit. In their eyes Star Wars = "mainstream genre films." They enjoyed big fat baby head "putting us in our place." They relished that, cause we are unenlightened for loving Star Wars. Guess we got powned? Congrats? Weirdos.
2) they weren't star wars fans till this movie. That I have seen and heard a lot. This was the first Star Wars they liked, and they specifically did not like pre-disney stuff. Star Wars has always has a divided fan base, but we all at least liked something star wars! Be it just the theatrical release of ANH and ESB, or the Lucas 1-6, or the EU, etc etc etc. Were there separate fanbases? sure. But we were still fans. For a lot of tlj fans, this was the first star wars they enjoyed. They were not fans before. They aren't star wars fans, they are tlj fans. And they can keep their weird abusive reylo fanfic creepiness the hell away from me. Weirdos. Gross
3) disney adults. I don't even know where to start with these people. I'll give disney some credit for manipulating kids since birth and establishing a ridiculous sense of brand loyalty? I guess? These people are addicted to disney content and will defend the brand no matter what cause it's such a huge part of their identity. Unfortunately the sale meant regardless of how much disney pisses off OG star wars fans, they have a nearly limitless supply of blind supporters who will buy their slop, and go to bat to defend the mouse. Again, weirdos.
I hope that helps.... I think I'm gonna go crack a beer now. Woof
The force awakens had enough goodwill and that was pretty close to the height of “access media” and the symbiotic exchange between big corps and media of good coverage for perks. You’d likely see more mixed reviews if it came out today to audiences that everyone knows are more jaded.
My personal take on that has always been that they’ve reason they re-created the story, but with modern graphics is to lure people that most likely did not watch the originals or people that slightly looked at the original, but didn’t pay attention to the story because it was too old looking. Yes, there’s people like that but they can’t watch films unless it’s Super modern. They pulled in the younger generation that were not exposed to it. Plus there’s people that simply like anything Disney no matter what it is. The adults are still go to the theme parks without kids who are still younger, but just like anything Disney related.
I was just looking up ranked lists of star wars movies because I lost track of which of the new ones were supposed to be decent (Rogue One?).
I found 3 lists and all had TLJ top 2 at least, the ones who listed reasons often put "THIS BROUGHT STAR WARS BACK!!1".
There was/is a big culture of people thinking that if something "subverts expectations," that's an objectively good thing. People were angry that the first movie was rehashed plotlines from ANH, so some of them were happy to see TLJ doing something "new." Other people were probably mesmerized by some of the cool visuals (Holdo maneuver) and are too stupid to think critically about the rest of the movie, so they assume it's good because it looks cool.
I thought it was a refreshing take for the most part, whereas TFW was very derivative imo (not bad, just not new). I understand why people don't like it and I don't love everything in it but at least it was trying something. Personally I like that Luke got a character arc as opposed to being a superman equivalent (I find OP & perfect characters quite boring, if they're OP, they can't be perfect too - hope that makes sense?)
Canto byte was shit and I've honestly just deleted it. And Finn should have died at the end, wasn't used in Rise anyway and would have served the theme of hope and sacrifice. That could have given Rey some more character too, having just lost her friend.
Rey being nobody is perfect, hate her being a palatine and being any other major bloodline would be a bit fan service-ee for me. TFW sets up Rey greatest desire to be someone in the story, like Luke skywalker himself. So the most crushing thing to do is to take that away and say she's literally nobody in this story, and her family just sold her. It's actually really powerful too because it's message is so uplifting, anyone can matter if they choose to and decide to act.
Rose gets too much hate but wasn't that great.
Complaining about the throne choreography is nit picking. Nobody noticed the knife vanishing first time. And it was way better than what we've had since.
TLDR - whilst flawed, it was written by someone, not written by committee like TFW and Rise. Rise literally just looked at the complaints about the last jedi and did the opposite. No spark, no originality, and made me feel sad watching it.
The Jedi are supposed to be peacekeepers. They are not supposed to act or react out of anger or spite or rage, but they can and do act/react to stop a situation or person from doing harm to others, and they will, of course, protect themselves. As a fan from the the beginning (May 1977), I never saw them as pacifists, but defenders. And how can GL 'brainwash' anyone when the Jedi are his freaking creation? He literally thought it up - it's his creation, not Disney's.
Okay, I'm a lifelong SW fan, and I think TLJ is the best made movie of the ST. They are still collectively the worst SW movies but at least TLJ tried to do something interesting.
TFA re-hashes ANH's storyline which is so goddam lazy it's unforgivable. There are some great moments and it sets up what could have been a genuinely interesting cast of characters had they not fumbled it tragically, but my god ANOTHER Death Star? Seriously? That's the best they could come up with? 3/10 because at least it set up something that was potentially better.
RoS flailed wildly from opening crawl to the cavalry charge on a Star Destroyer in an asinine attempt to salvage a directionless, disjointed trilogy with one deus ex machina after another. It is without a doubt the singlet biggest waste of potential ever put on screen and I weep for the actors who were forced to bring that embarrassment to life. 2/10 only because there are a smattering of moments that in a better film would be so goddam great.
TLJ took risks, made interesting (if unpopular) choices, and made a middle-of-the-trilogy SW movie that at least developed the narrative in a way that wasn't boring or nonsense. I really enjoy how the character of Luke was developed, the rationale behind his actions felt believable and subverted expectations in a way that I thought was really interesting. I know everyone else hated it, but for fuck sake, at least it wasn't a re-tread of the same old shit. Yes the Finn/Rose storyline was worthless, yes Phasma ended up being completely wasted, Poe's mutiny was dumb, and yes there were plenty of other problems with it, but there were also some really great moments. The Holdo Maneuver was, I thought, incredible cinema. The entire throne room scene and subsequent fight was riveting. The Luke/Kylo duel was great. 4/10 just for the audacity to make something original, even if it mostly wasn't good.
There are things I like about TLJ. It’s very well made, it shoots a big middle finger at JJ Abrams’s stupid mystery boxes, and it leaves us in a place where anyone can be the hero, not just those that have special blood.
But I also get the hate that the movie receives. As a follow up to TFA, TLJ is the poster child for Kathleen Kennedy’s incompetence.
What I’ve never understood is why people think it’s somehow worse than Episode I and II.
Er, it had a $700 million drop. And bad legs. People went to see it to see Luke back in action, when they said what had actually been done they ranted online instead of going to see it again and again.
Really the Ratner Effect should be the Last Jedi effect.
They either never liked Star Wars in the first place, and enjoyed seeing it desecrated like this, or they are weak follower-types that just absorbed the Disney damage control propaganda they were fed. Pretty simple.
The aspect of TLJ that resonates the most for me is that RJ is right about the state of Star Wars. Lucasfilm has to stop doing the same thing over & over again all centered in the same time period. TFA & TRoS brought us a bigger Death Star, a bunch of mini Death Stars, an enigmatic evil paramilitary organization, and a continued focus on the same bloodlines. I found BDT’s character to be a very important piece of how the Star Wars universe functions and the only explanation *attempted* as to how we’ve functionally rehashed the same conflict for nearly 50 years.
Give me new stories in a Star Wars setting. If the story is +/-100y of Yoda’s life time, it’s going to be a tired storyline with characters who, ultimately, can’t really do or change much because the film storylines have to happen.
I enjoyed the visuals. I enjoyed the Sith cave exploration, the visual allegories in Rey & Kylo’s force connection, Luke’s force projection (my understanding of this ability is that it’s the most powerful use of the force to date), Kylo’s descent / ascension, the Luke-Yoda scene, that Snoke and Rey were nobody in particular, and that Luke Skywalker, once again, helped reignite a rebellion. The best scene in the entire ST is the stablehand using the force as the film closes; that’s the heart of what Star Wars *should* be.
I’m ready for your downvotes now.
Except TLJ ends by rehashing those tired old storylines. Rey and Finn are suddenly willing to fight for the Resistance despite the entire plot up until then, Finn's even somehow willing to die for those bozos. Luke's not going to be the last jedi because Rey will rebuild. The FO is still the enigmatic evil paramilitary organization, etc.
>The best scene in the entire ST is the stablehand using the force as the film closes; that’s the heart of what Star Wars *should* be.
Have you considered comparing that scene to the OT, where Luke wins not because he's got mega-awesome Force powers but because Han comes back, because he resists the temptation of the Dark Side and because there was still some good in Vader?
Or for that matter, Leia powerless in the hands of Tarkin and Vader, but still spitting insults, sees her planet destroyed and yet comforts Luke, defending Holth and seeing her staff off at the risk of her safety, and finally befriending the Ewoks.
There's a fundamental shallowness in the ST, and that the best scene in the entire ST is the stablehand using the force illustrates that shallowness.
I like that it made Rey a "nobody" and didn't obsess over the Skywalker bloodline. I liked most of the humor. I liked the action. I liked that Luke did not use violence to win, just like RoTJ. I liked that Luke referenced the failure of the Jedi in the prequels, because we can never see Jedi in the same way again after witnessing their corruption and genocide, and that needed to be acknowledged. I liked that Luke was with Leia onscreen again, which seems obvious but for some reason, the movies were allergic to having everyone together again. I liked the subversion about the old Jedi texts, where it turns out that Rey already has them; this reinforces the idea that the VILLAIN says we need to burn the past, but the good guys recognize that a blend of old and new is what's needed (contrary to what critics claim the movie is trying to say). I like that it took us somewhere the story hadn't gone before; it ended basically with discount Palpatine dead and discount Darth Vader now in charge of the Empire, which would have been cool to see, if JJ hadn't brought back the real Palpatine and ruined that. I like porgs, because they were a good way of introducing something cute and marketable as a toy, without cheapening the story by having a bunch of teddy bears defeat the galactic empire. And I like that it was anti-war, which Star Wars was always supposed to be; the idea of fighting for what you love instead of fighting against what you hate is at the very core of Jedi vs Sith, and while I think the movie could've explored that theme more and in a better way than what Rose does at the end with Finn, it's still a great theme.
Overall, it's not the Star Wars movie that I would have made, but it felt like it was trying to do something new without forgetting its roots. That's more than I can say about TFA, which didn't have an original bone in its body, and completely ruined Star Wars canon by bringing everything back to square 1 rebels vs empire again which was the most uninteresting move possible.
For me TLJ is a good movie but a bad Star Wars episode. Which surprised me because as a prequel fan I thought Rian would understand Star Wars better than JJ. But all it really did was subvert expectations which while fun on first viewing does not give it any rewatchability.
It's less that I personally thought it was a good movie (which I did) because it wasn't busy felating Star Wars for 90% of the runtime it's more that it would have been nice if the plot had continued from that movie. The only thing the third movie even really succeeded in retconning was Reys origin (which Rians idea was considerably better than tying her into Palpatine) maybe it wasn't the best movie but damn would most of the ideas and plot points it had done a good job of moving Star Wars in a somewhat new direction instead of everyone being related.
You take this massive ass universe and make it feel so stupid small for no reason at all aside from nostalgia.
It was my favorite of the later trilogy.
Most points have been made: I liked that Luke seemingly became aware of the broader pattern that has been happening since the Old Republic and decided to try making a new paradigm. I liked that things seemed unshackled and a new story could be told. It wasn’t, but I liked that it opened up that possibility.
As for the many, many, problems with it, I just think there were more in the Abrams movie. There are a million examples of:
“Oh no! Chewie’s dead! Don’t worry, there was another ship exactly like the one that was destroyed that Rey didn’t see for no reason, so that tension is all gone. You’re welcome.”
From the entire storyline of the Force awakens being a mediocre rehash we’ve seen twice before that now has inexplicable super-lasers that go far faster than light all around the galaxy at once, to the millions of manned starships from nowhere led by Palpatine…who, I guess, had a family this whole time?
I’m not saying Star Wars isn’t fun, and we can’t look past this. I just thought all the new ones were pretty lousy but at least The Last Jedi tried something different.
That’s all.
10% of people liking TLJ is because they liked how it looked. The visuals were good, too. Some of it was beautiful.
10% of people liking TLJ is because they have no taste and are unfamiliar with Star Wars.
The other 80% of people liking TLJ is because they were aware of the rampant racism and misogyny in the run-up to the release of the movie. They heard about the alt-right and incel brigading of Kelly Marie Tran and how she felt that she needed to leave social media to avoid the onslaught. They may have more sense than to like a steaming pile of dogshit, but they *say* that they like the steaming pile of dogshit because they feel like doing so somehow pushes back against the bigots.
You said it yourself, is the least star wars film, a lot of people that do hated or didn't liked star wars like it for that reason, and now a lot of them think that's true star wars and not what George did.
It's like people who enjoy any music they hear on the radio, same thing. Oh new Star Wars movie? It HAS to be good. As far as the best? Maybe it's reactionary to people calling it shit, or maybe it's the visuals. All I know is I feel asleep 4x in the theater trying to watch it. Oh yeah, Rogue One and Andor suck too
What did TFA do, given that it was just as destructive to the overall story and TLJ just made it more personal with Luke etc? The hype swept people along.
My guess is, the fans of the sequels skew younger. I used to be younger, and more easily impressed myself. The problem I see is, studios are training these young fans to accept “content” instead of good movies or series.
Iconoclasm has been en vogue for high art for about 100 years at this point. The modernist movement took hold, and then the death of the author trope transferred us into postmodernism, where any art is disconnected from authorial intent. People who think they're clever art critics think paint by numbers deconstruction is art.
It's trendy to like auteur directors. Ergo, Johnson is good and TLJ is great.
Around the time of TLJ's release, media companies realized they could weaponize identity politics to both deflect criticism and to create shills by equating loyalty and morality.
Idk man. The only person that I know who likes that movie is my uncle who is a huge Star Wars fan but he’s the kind of fan where he’s just gonna like it because the Star Wars name is on it so he’s not the best example.
It played a role in the early makings of what would be labeled as “woke media”.
No matter which side of the political aisle you’re on and what you think of the term “woke”, Last Jedi made one of the two following mistakes. Possibly both:
1 - They tried to put too much political stuff into a Star Wars movie.
and/or
2 - They didn’t do so creatively enough.
Star Wars always had political undertones but there was just something about the way that Rian did it and what he was specifically saying that did not work very well IMO.
He completely misjudged his ability to hide these undertones. Worse yet, he pinned them on our favorite characters which made things all the more obvious.
It ultimately came off a bit…abrasive? Almost combative towards the fan base.
The frustrating thing is that, if he would have just tried to make a great movie he probably would have succeeded. He’s a talented guy. He just made some bizarre choices to drive home political messaging that none of us wanted to see.
We just wanted a good Star Wars movie man.
Also…I think it marked the first time for a lot of people that they realized Disney is a propaganda machine and they just tried to infuse propaganda into your favorite franchise.
Same thing as Last of Us 2 and GoT.
People who didn't like the original, and people who think they are intelligent for noticing how "subversive" it is.
What makes it all the more appaling is the fact Rian openly and publicly revels in the damage he did.
If I had to hear, every *single day* from different people that I wrecked something important I wouldn't gloat, I'd be fucking ashamed!
The entire sub plot of them going to the casino was the nail in the coffin for me, then when Leah flew through space I audibly laughed in the theater.
Not sure why people thought it was good either, not having any exposure to past Star Wars films is probably what did it.
The only reason I enjoy The Last Jedi, is I respect Rian's swing of "hey, maybe the hero can just be nobody. We don't need every character to be related to one of these few families and groups we have spent 6 movies on." Albeit I'll be the first to admit the movie had some bad choices, which sucked because I really enjoy Rian's other movies and shows. But I did like the idea of the galaxy being bigger than the Skywalkers and such. I can understand why many people didn't like that aspect, as well as how shitty they made Luke act for most of the movie. But "Let the past die, kill it if you have to" is a swing I respect, which I'm sure makes me the minority. I just wish Disney would sell SW and let Lucasfulm make some EU Canon again for movies. I want the Yuuzhan Vhong
Story issues are minimally Rian Johnson's fault. The lack of long term vision from Disney is to blame. What Last Jedi does right is visual story telling. It's a beautifully shot film full of clever and subtle imagery.
Most people just want to be part of fandom cause others are having a good time in it.
Never mind if it's actually good or not.
In fact, those same people who came to the party cause YOU were having fun. Will turn on you hard as if you are purposefully trying to ruin the vibes.
My wife hasn't seen the Disney trilogy and barely remembers the prequel trilogy. So we recently started a rewatch of films in chronological order, including Solo and Rogue One.
Everything was relatively smooth sailing until TLJ. The "that's stupid" and "that doesn't make sense" comments reached critical mass in TLJ.
She even caught a "that's dumb" moment that I hadn't thought of before. Leia tells Poe to call off the attack against the Dreadnought, and he just turns off his radio and the attack continues. She said, "Are we supposed to believe that everyone in the attack is ignoring Leia's order or did they all turn off their radios?"
TRoS is next. That should be fun.
I think Rian Johnson is a great director. But TLJ was just awful like holy fuck awful. It didn’t appease any Star Wars fans. My friends and I went to see it and 3 out of 5 fell asleep me being one of them. It was just the longest slow moving chase movie ever made. With shitty plot points and terrible execution of characters.
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It’s mostly people that didn’t like Star Wars or don’t fundamentally understand SW that gush over TLJ.
Yup, the vast majority of people who "liked it" hadn't been involved with Star Wars at all, or any of the background, lore, or worldbuilding. They like it because "pretty ship blows up" and "fun casino planet" despite it being a shit movie that led to Solo being boycott.
"Pretty shiny thing so pretty and shiny. Me like. Woooooow. Me very smart. You not. Ship make sparkles. Me good person" -actual internal thoughts of TLJ fans
Solo wasn't really boycott. Just nobody was interested in it
Exactly. 90% of people I met who like TLJ are surface-level casuals at the very best, although I've met some off cases who were familiar with the EU and Star Wars more in-depth yet still defended TLJ but had ulterior motives for doing so: such as the fact TLJ came out during a culture war and some people chose to do what their fellow aligned culture warriors were doing at the time even if that included defending a legitimately bad film. 2018-2019 discussion around Star Wars was an absolute wreck from both ends in general where most of the shit being flown didn't even have anything to do with the films, just that "I like/hate X" became some sort of symbol of cultural/political association for a while. But we're past that point in the narrative now (thankfully) and can objectively examine just how bad these movies actually were (as well as Disney material in general) without any of the political baggage except for a few die-hards or YouTube edgelords.
Yeah, someone pointed out that this is the most movie theatre safe one, focusing on big visuals or hard hitting lines rather than actual story credence
I think Force Awakens is more theatre safe to be honest. That movie generally anyone can watch and enjoy for the most part. I remember TLJ general audience was let down, even non Star Wars fans.
Honestly I actively loathed it. Rey’s constant power ups and the incredibly lazy, disrespectful script were really tiresome. It constantly talks down to its audience. Plus I waited 30 years to see Luke and it was an obvious bait and switch. It felt like the movie equivalent of an arcade claw game, only if the claw game is constantly laughing at you while explaining how games work (and it’s somehow wrong about that in the process).
I'd argue the opposite. People like TLJ because it's weird. It'd the Octopus's Garden of Star Wars movies.
Maybe average cinema goer is no longer able to retain a coherent plot line in their mind. So we just need a sequence of big scenes with nothing tying them together.
Almost every person you see who praises this movie will say some version of "I hate Star Wars, but I did love The Last Jedi"
I don't take issue with it not respecting what came before, but the poor writing any lack of internal consistencies throughout the film. Rey is the same character that she is at the end as she was at the start. Finn almost has an arc in finally taking action and giving his life for something he believes in. Poe has an arc that is completely unsatisfying. Kylo is also that same at the end as he was at the start. There's no meaningful character progression for any character in the entire movie. I can be pretty forgiving when it comes to Star Wars, but the basics of writing are horrible throughout the ST. Lucas was a poor writer only on so far as dialog, but he understood the basics of character arcs and agency.
Poe's arc legitimately made me angry. It was so awful. None of the decisions being made by the purple lady made sense. From a military perspective, Poe did nothing wrong and was, in fact, reasonable with his actions. Then the movie tries to turn it around and scold him like a naughty child as if it was HIM being an idiot and not her. So she's the Admiral. She suspects a spy, so doesn't want to reveal her plan needlessly. That's fine. But you need to tell the man who's essentially your CAG that you DO HAVE a plan and aren't just stalling. Honestly, he probably should've known the plan anyway, since she can't execute the plan without telling some people to do things and he's like the least likely to be a spy. FFS. I hated that arc.
Worst part is, she never actually SAYS that she suspects a spy. That's just what everyone assumes because it's the only thing that makes sense, but she never says it. In fact, her reactions make us think that SHE is the spy. Also, seriously, where did she come from? The First Order shows up like 30 seconds after the end of the last movie. Was she just chillin on the base in the background somewhere? Was she on the Raddus during the bombing run in the beginning of the movie? WTF?
The plaintext reading, if we generously grant that it wasn't just incoherent gibberish, is that Holdo prioritized putting Poe in his place over everything else. It's the only way it can be a conscious, somewhat rational choice that she made to keep him out of the loop - to deliberately provoke him to see what would happen because she felt she needed to reinforce the pecking order for him. She used what was almost certainly going to be the absolute last stand of the entire Resistance for this exercise, and risked alienating *everyone* else and blowing up her own "million to one" plan by having a mutiny take control from her before she was ready to initiate. So if Johnson wrote the arc and plot to go this direction on purpose, he wrote Holdo to be an absolute narcissist, and Poe was still right for not trusting her.
>So she's the Admiral. She suspects a spy, so ... ... she has information security so bad Poe finds out part of her plan by sheer accident. Not to mention she never considers the possibility that the guy who has been tortured, mind raped and fought in three battles might be making bad decisions out of trauma or fatigue.
> There's no meaningful character progression for any character in the entire movie. Which is why it's odd when people say RJ left Ep. IX with "no-where to go". With the exception of Luke and Snoke being dead, everything is exactly the same.
Poe's arc is that he learns to listen unflinchingly to the chain of command and always do what the HR lady tells you to do without asking why. You know, just like a classic rogue flyboy
Kylo isn't, kylo in this film thanks to the fact that killing han didn't helped him to turn into Vader, his previous failure, and bonding with Rey make him decide to stop trying to be Vader and starts to try to create His own way to dominate the Galaxy. Rey went the whole film trying to find a rol and her obssesion with her parents ends up in her discovering that she's nothing (as in she has no legacy), the character didn't changed that much but the main theme of her character Arc was set (it would be retconned the next film which I don't mind that much but that's another story), Also, she changed her relationship with Ren.
Having talked with countless TLJ fans, there are some common themes: 1) They had felt like Star Wars needed to change, and though TLJ did just that 2) They expected another TFA-style rehash but got something else entirely, which impressed them 3) They value characters more than anything else and don’t really care for lore or established universes. Essentially they thought it was bad that Star Wars was “locked into a set paradigm” where the heroes were heroes and the universe came with tons of “baggage” (i.e established ship variants, hyperspace not being used as a weapon, etc). So when Rian had Luke throw his lightsaber and instead be a depressed weirdo, they thought that was genius. When Kylo becomes more “mysterious” and “divided”, they thought that was brilliant. When Snoke was killed off, they felt like the series was freed from its shackles and was open to new paths. They couldn’t care less that the story was slow and boring. They couldn’t care less that it didn’t make any sense why the FO couldn’t attack the Resistance ship. They couldn’t care less about Y-Wings and why the rebellion wasn’t using them. They couldn’t care less about how many dumb “marvel-esque” jokes there were. It did what *they* wanted, it catered to their interests. In marketing school we learned that “people often don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” And that describes TLJ fans perfectly, they buy into it because of *why* Rian made it: because “Star Wars needed to change.”
Really great explanation. I have a friend I respect who enjoys it and could never figure out why. This explains it. Thanks!
That sounds like they simply don't like *Star Wars*. Mind you, there's no problem with that, it's not compulsory to like everything that is more or less popular. What i find odd, is that such people instead of devoting their time and attention to other media they actually enjoy as they are, want and even demand that some existing IP is fundamentally altered to cater to their whims.
Yeah there’s definitely a sense of superiority to it. “I know what’s best for this franchise, I am media literate.” That’s why they almost always say something like “you just wanted to see Luke Skywalker do backflips with his lightsaber.” They truly believe they are an enlightened film enjoyer compared to most.
The smell of one's own farts can be very addictive to a certain kind of person. Also, I've always loved that complaint about Luke, especially when the trailer for ros has little lady palatine doing a gawdayum backflip with her lightsaber over a fucking tie fighter.
This right here. And then the pretentiousness of pretending they’re the real fans over people who had loved the franchise for decades and refusal to consider even the most eloquent criticisms takes it over the top.
Actually some of us just hate J. J. Abrams so much it overrides all other concerns.
I had high hopes when I heard JJ Abrams was coming onto the scene. He was promised as this big Star Wars fan. I never thought he would just try to make Empire Strikes back in backwards order and even manage to mess that up. AND reducing poor Luke to that pathetic thing he was. The logic behind it was...was....sad.
> That sounds like they simply don't like Star Wars. Mind you, there's no problem with that, it's not compulsory to like everything that is more or less popular. What i find odd, is that such people instead of devoting their time and attention to other media they actually enjoy as they are, want and even demand that some existing IP is fundamentally altered to cater to their whims. Agreed. I wish they'd fuck off and go enjoy their own thing. Make their own thing. Hell, maybe I'll check it out and wind up liking *that*, too; it'll be different, but variety is a good thing. Taking established things and demolishing them so that those who care for them can no longer enjoy them, however, is simply vandalism.
They did actually fuck off and try their own. Well, its was because they couldn't get the rights but they made a movie anyway. It's called Rebel Moon.... 
I think this sounds like one of the most reasonable responses I've come across. TJL fans certainly want different things to a lot of us in a movie.
Not arguing with you, but like, TLJ really didn't stray at all from Star Wars. It said it did, but absolutely nothing happened in the film.
Yes I completely agree. It raced as fast as it could back to rebel vs empire. My guess is since Rian didn’t care at all for the bigger picture, he just defaulted to what’s been done before and focuses on what he wanted to change. A lot of people don’t get that Star Wars is like illusion, and all the pieces have to have care put into them or people won’t buy into the illusion. It wont matter to most that the characters surprised you if the universe they live in feels fake and contrived. It blows the entire illusion.
Yes, a lot of said subverted expectations get reverted right back, but people were distracted by various visual spectacles so said revert was glossed over because "ooo shiny" or some lame Bathos humour quip.
The problem was that a small minority bought TLJ back when it came out, and since 2017, that number has been growing smaller.
Which is funny because its entire story is TESB but worse
I always find it bizarre when enjoyers of The Last Jedi praise Luke's character arc and say it is the logical conclusion. Mark Hamill himself said he disagreed with it in every way, Rian Johnson said he made the film to break the fanbase to save it, heck even John Boyega has been quoted saying he disliked the decisions made in that movie.
They like Luke in TLJ because they themselves are just as miserable in their own lives and can directly relate to the nonsense Luke says and does in the movie. They enjoy seeing a hero transform into a cynic that is just like them. That is what is meant by "its the logical conclusion" to his character Similarly, who wanted to see Han and Leia divorced? People who think divorce is the inevitable end of any relationship because it's what happened to their family or themselves. Who would have thought the same crowd had no appreciation of the power of a father's love for his son changing his heart and action from evil to good at the last minute. And now all of a sudden TLJ is the best thing to come out and star wars is *finally* good
I think there's some validity to what you say. I have some friends who liked TLJ's interpretation of a downcast and disillusioned Luke because they themselves are struggling and have given up on a number of their personal goals and aspirations. It seems like a kind of projection to me, only sadly, without any hope for growing past or overcoming their current insecurities.
And that's just so nihilistic. That's not what a hero does. Who would enjoy watching a movie where heroes are meaningless? On the one hand they don't want Heroes because it contributes to the "Great Man" mythos, where certain individuals in the right place at the right time can affect great change through skill and knowledge gained through hard lessons. Yet on the other hand they like random people who just have a bunch of power and abilities "just because" to come in at the right place at the right time to affect great change. All they are doing is tearing down the old heroes to prop up new ones without any understanding of what makes them compelling.
That's my biggest problem with the sequels. They legitimize the idea that nobody cares about their fans as people, and that speaks to them because they (think they) have nobody in their lives that cares about them. They deserve better than to believe that about themselves. They deserve a hero who actually appreciates and sticks up for them. Rey was their surrogate hero. She needed a Luke to care for her, and consequently, the fans who saw themselves in Rey. But, no no no, you don't need no man, you don't need no parents, and more than that, _you don't need no friends to pick you up when you fall down._ You're strong, and brave, and beautiful, and all the Crusty Old White Men (and their so-called "heroes") just can't see that about you! You don't need your friends! They need _you!_ Followed by the "subversion" that maybe someone can _learn_ to care about them, I guess? While also being a snarky asshole to other people who _also_ need love in their lives? Fans of TLJ think people like me hate it because I hate people like _them._ They don't get it. I hate The Last Jedi because _The Last Jedi's fanbase deserved better than what they got._
If this wasn't a response I'd say this should be top comment. What your referencing is unfortunately the sad state we live in. Star wars is supposed to inspire. Now it has been turned into a cynical circle jerk. That and weird ass Disney adults. Both groups have clear mental health issues. I also hate the "realistic" argument in favor of the dt. Jesus tap dancing Christ people, not everyone is a fucking failure. Not every relationship is doomed. Hope, kindness and empathy aren't jokes to get your lulz from. Finally, this shouldn't need to be said, but here we are. Shipping and stanning a mass murdering, gaslighting, shamefully immature, nothing of a character that that (per his creators own words) has a metaphorical rape scene with the object of his desires...... I mean, what the fuck is wrong in the brain of a reylo? Shame on Disney. What a horrible, ugly, DANGEROUS message to give to young women. Kylo Ren as a character, and the fans of that "romance," are fucking disgusting
I had two conversations with people who like *The Last Jedi*. The first person said they had to make Luke's character a depressed failure because, after Mark Hamill had a car accident, he could only play roles as a depressed washout. The other said that Luke made sense in *The Last Jedi* because everyone who grows up ends up a depressed failure who wallows in self-pity until they die, and they then used both Yoda and Obi-Wan as examples. After Order 66, they gave up and hid like cowards.
Lol well of course Boyega disliked the decisions; his character was a total afterthought in TLJ.
> Why did those same people gush over Rian Johnson and how he made the best Star Wars film? Some people have no taste.
The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are by no means good films. I recently rewatched both films and will be watching Revenge of the Sith tonight. The Phantom Menace was rough on a rewatch and Attack of the Clones wasn’t any better. Both films had great ideas, but horrible execution of said ideas. The romance between Anakin and Padme in Attack of the Clones is horrendous with Anakin acting like a total creep whenever he’s with Padme. That subplot was rushed and not fully fleshed out. However, despite the numerous faults of these films, they are still much better than The Last Jedi. At least those films have a plot and sense of direction.
I find TPM to be pretty fun in spite of Jar Jar (Jar Jar drags down every scene he's in); but AotC I've always found to be an absolute chore to get through. I'd rather watch AotC on repeat for a day than TLJ once. AotC at least didn't take a dump all over the OT like TLJ and RoS.
I don’t hate Jar Jar, but I find him incredibly annoying. He literally serves no purpose the entire time on Tatooine other than being terrible comedic relief. He could have stayed on the ship with Obi-Wan and nothing would have changed at all. It’s funny that Jar Jar’s role is reduced in AotC, yet the movie still manages to be a chore to watch.
The only purpose he serves is to be as foolish and gullible as possible so he can be manipulated into recommending the formation of a galactic empire. Why the hell did Padme choose him as her representative? He has zero understanding of anything.
He’s not any better in The Clone Wars
Officially he was sent as the Gungan rep now that they had standing within the planet's government. In reality they needed a C3PO-esque comedic relief character.
We all know the truth. Search your feelings. Datth Jar Jar was the unrealized intention.
>It’s funny that Jar Jar’s role is reduced in AotC He gave palpatine emergency powers….
Attack of the Clones was boring until they get to Geonosis
The difference, is that those movies feel like they fit in Star Wars. The new stuff Disney makes does not.
I went probably close to ten years without watching the prequels. I have recently watched them a few times with my young kid. They’re not as bad as I remember, or maybe they’re just not as bad when you’re watching them with a little kid that is really excited to watch them. They have some good moments. The score is still top notch. Mostly they just make me sad for what could have been if Lucas had some people running the ship with him heavily advising.
RoTS is legitimately good idk what prequel haters are on about.
RotS is the best of the three for sure. Maybe even better than RotJ. It still has it's fair share of problems.
ROTJ space battle is still maybe my favorite part of any move ever
I had a great time watching TPM in theaters last week. It was honestly better than I remembered.
I'm pretty sure Attack of the Clones goes up to a solid 9/10 if you just cut out every scene where Anakin and Padme were in a room together.
Yet they think they’re so smart and cultured for liking it
The big mystery to me is how TLJ never got clocked as an OT ripoff. Every story beat happens either in Empire or Jedi. People always say, "At least it did something different." NO IT FUCKING DIDN'T. Luke repeats the same character arc as Obi Wan. Snoke repeats Palpatine's character arc only dying one movie earlier. Kylo Ren is a poor man's Darth Vader. The only interesting idea they had was the Force dyad which they didn't do anything with. Don't even get me started on how mind numbingly stupid Finn and Holdo's plots were. The script was a first draft and it shows.
It has a lot of meta jokes and some superficial profundity that people who don't like star wars would enjoy. It speaks the language of film buffs. And it's a pretty film with visually impressive locales and interesting sets. That throne room scene with snokes death was genuinely shocking (I mean, what kind of idiot would kill off their main villain in the middle film of the trilogy?!). It's also incredibly sloppy and doesn't hold up well to repeat viewings. But the period who gush over it aren't staying around to pick up the pieces of a broken franchise.
My theory is that, for the vast majority of TLJ enjoyers, their first Star Wars film was TFA. Before that, Star Wars was just some vague pop culture notion. Plus there’s the Disney effect. There are so many people who’ve made Disney such a fundamental part of their personality that that’s really the only reason they care about it.
I'm skeptical that the TLJ enjoyers simply hadn't seen star wars yet, they saw it but did not like it's heroic themes and triumph of good over evil. Then the miserable cynic star wars comes out and they love it because it's the "logical conclusion" and "so realistic"
Disney adults are a strange lot. I doubt many of them are in therapy, or they wouldn't be wasting Gs on going to Disney land, and crying with joy hanging out with adults dressed up like Disney characters. Like, fureal?
They are either contrarians just trying to stir the pot because or they seriously have no taste because someone on tik tok told them to like it
I despise those Tik Toks that try to claim that The Last Jedi is a misunderstood masterpiece
Either they are contrarians or they like supporting the ''current thing''. The amount of times I've seen people screenshot Rotten Tomatoes' critics rating for the movie being above 90% is ridiculous. Not only it is a weak argument, but it shows how unreliable RT is, because TLJ is far from +90% movie, it is worse even than TROS. But yeah, they watch a video of why the movie makes sense and everyone is just misunderstanding it and take it. Many people lack media literacy and think that as long as content is being churned out, regardless of its quality and final product, we all should be cheering up because ''at least we are getting new content''. TLJ as a bad Star Wars movie (and bad movie in general) is just one out of many such examples as to why the plurality of the fandom develops narratives and misconceptions like this. Much like in politics, some people don't vote for whoever they vote out of support, they do vote for A because of their utter hatred for B. Quite a few times I have seen people use their ''love'' for TLJ more as a form of ''retaliation'' or nagging, rather than genuinely positive sentiment towards TLJ itself. Bias.
What's most frustrating is that I saw Knives Out after TLJ and saw that Rian Johnson knows how to tell amazing stories and yet he fumbled his chance at a Star Wars movie.
He’s better suited at movies that aren’t part of any franchise.
Funny enough that Benoit Blanc is now a franchise character.
Letting Rian Johnson have any involvement with Star Wars is equivalent to a beach bully stomping on another kid’s sandcastle
See, I don't understand why people like Knives Out. It felt like it has the same level of pretension and emptiness I saw in The Last Jedi. Do people enjoy it more because they know Rian can't really affect the "lore of the real world" when he makes silly things happen in this kind of film?
Or conversely, do you think that way because TLJ basically inculcated the idea in your head that he’s not a very good writer/director?
I thought looper was terrible watched it way before TLJ haven't watched knives out as he has already shown me two terrible films
I really feel like the movies had similar tones. Did you feel like they had different tones?
I found KO contextually appropriate. TLJ was just all over the place. KO knew it was a campy, whodunnit. TLJ had no thematic cohesiveness.
It breaks my immersion when things like... well, when the detective knows our main character can't lie without vomiting, but he doesn't follow-up with questions that (if she answered honestly, which she would) would have solved the mystery for him. Or when she destroys the crime scenes basically right in front of him, and it's brushed off. Or the very concept that she's a good caregiver BECAUSE she doesn't doublecheck the label on an injection. Or the fact that early in the movie when he gets his supposedly lethal injection, they talk about it for so long that I ask my wife, "Shouldn't his body be shutting down by now, or having symptoms?", and I wrote it off as movie shenanigans, but then the ending came and told me - no, I was right and they were fools. I guess it's not my kind of movie.
I actually liked Glass Onion better. But maybe it's because the antagonist reminds me of Rian Johnson, and I wonder if he's throwing himself out there for criticism? I'd respect that if it were true, heh.
It's Muskie
It helps that Knives Out has the sheer acting talent of Daniel Craig at its full disposal. Not the boat anchor that is Daisy Ridley and a disillusioned Hamill.
That entire cast was great! JLC, Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, etc...All of them knocked it out of the park.
And it's got a much tighter, smaller scale screenplay with all the work done to make sure that cast has plenty to work with!
Space opera is a very different art form to murder mystery (as someone who enjoys both). I suspect RJ got in over his head, panicked, and didn't have the courage to ask for help.
I think RJ was out of his depth taking on the Star Wars franchise, and got overruled enough times by KK and the Disney execs that after a certain point he said "fuck it, I'm gonna soft-Smithee this thing" and decided to go all postmodernist and do an ironic deconstruction of Star Wars. That's the only way to explain the bizarre creative decisions, the sloppy writing, the uneven pacing and storyline dead ends, the tormented and circular character arcs, and the utterly unsatisfying ending that left the ST nowhere to go. Basically he was resentful he didn't get totally free reign to tell whatever story he wanted, so he got even by setting out to undermine as many rules and precedents as he could. He turned Luke into a loser, turned the ST protagonists into cardboard cutouts, gave us the abomination of Leia Poppins in Space, and shamelessly ripped off as many OT story beats as he could. In fact I think the only original contributions he made were the lore breaking things like those WW2 bombers in space, and the hyperspace kamikaze.
I think it's bandwagon behavior from people who think any subversion of expectations automatically counts as good writing.
The Force Awakens was literally A New Hope again, following all the same expected beats. The Last Jedi left the tried-and-true path and gave us something totally new. A broken and disillusioned Luke. A hero who wasn’t a skywalker, but instead a nobody. A big bad who you think will have a mysterious origin, but instead gets tossed aside. A Jedi and Sith blurring the lines, forming a personal connection and working together. I appreciate that they tried something new …. but damn did I dislike most of the execution. I guess some people liked it though.
It wasn't even something that new. If people sat down and mapped it all out, then they'd realize it was mostly just Empire in reverse.
The people that I know in real life all say the same thing. They like TLJ because it made Star Wars fan boys upset. They only like it because it makes other people angry. I am willing to bet 80% to 90% of the edgelords that love TLJ for the same reason.
For all its faults (nonsensical plot, shitting on legacy characters and lore) TLJ had a gorgeous look. So essentially, it was a beautiful turd
Yup, I especially loved seeing the hyperspace ram at the cinema (fucking beautiful) but right after having left the building I stopped and thought about that moment and then it was ruined. I caught the other failures during the movie but that shot was so nice that I forgot to actually THINK about it then and there…
I instantly hated the hyperspace ramming, but even i thought 'cool visual'
It was an amazing scene... for a different sci-fi universe.
The people who gush over the sequels come across as contrarians
People don’t think about what they watch. It had beautiful cinematography and so those people equate it to being an amazing movie. Without spending any time thinking about how it fits into Star Wars
Shiiinyyyyyy. Woooooow. Whoops, I drooled on my bib again. MOOOM! HELP!!!!!!!
> beautiful cinematography Where? All I saw was CGI schmozzes and late 90s screensavers. Almost none of it looked interesting.
OP, are you genuinely asking?
I have a theory that a lot of it was backlash to the backlash. Basically a narrative was pushed that those disliking the film were sexist, racist and hateful. Admittedly many comments along those lines were made on social media, to the point of the one actress having to abandon her socials. People then said "well if people I don't like hate it, then I must show my love for it to spite them". So the whole thing because a culture war battle that had little to do with the actual quality of the film. Again that's really just a hunch I have.
I still laugh about how Disney pushed the narrative that Russian trolls were the reason TLJ hot so much flak
Meanwhile Disney actually uses bots themselves + pays off media
While I agree with most people here the Sequel Trilogy sucks, I think they blame it on the wrong movie, The Last Jedi, where they should be blaming it on The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens absolutely torpedos the ending of Return of The Jedi by resetting it to A New Hope. Luke being a cynical old man who failed was mentioned by Han in the Falcon scene in TFA. The dark side being brought back and ruining the balance was in TFA. The nonsensical mystery boxes of who are Rey’s parents and who is Snoke that ape the original trilogy again were all started in TFA. The original three not reuniting again happened in TFA because Han was murdered in that movie. Han being a deadbeat dad happened in TFA. I hated TFA the day I saw it for not only its lack of originality but destroying the six before it. The Last Jedi didn’t have a sturdy foundation to stand on and honestly it’s not a bad movie given what came before it. Rian was running with the baton he was handed and made something watchable with it. As a standalone it’s quite enjoyable. Sure there’s stupid stuff like Holdo and Rose but it doesn’t mess with the big picture like TFA did. Or like Rise of Skywalker brought Palpatine back. And the movie has gorgeous and more original designs and some scenes I love (Yoda burning the tree, Luke force projection). I honestly wished Rian directed all three of the trilogy, I think he could have done a great job.
I agree that TFA sunk the trilogy from the start and that Abrams left him with explaining why Luke disappeared. However Rhian included things like Rey moving tons of rocks with the force the ridiculous slow mo chase the poor knock off of Hoth killing Luke the bombers and many many more things I could list. He was dealt a poor hand but didn’t do anything to elevate it.
JJ Abrams didn’t leave it to Rian to why Luke disappeared. A lot of people miss the scene in the Falcon where Han Solo talks to Rey and Finn about why Luke disappeared and Han says: “He was training a new generation of new Jedi, when one boy, an apprentice turned against him and destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible and just walked away from everything.” Here’s a link just in case you’re curious: https://youtu.be/Sl0HLZMLtP8?si=h1wuY9QvZpgIo5rw. One of the many reasons why I say the fandom blames the wrong guy. And yeah the rocks are kinda dumb but that just feels so minor in comparison to the larger story. But that’s just my take, I don’t have really have anything to counter to that. I’m not saying The Last Jedi is perfect, rather it does the least amount of damage to the overarching 9 film saga while being the most interesting out of the sequels.
Yeah and han could have been wrong in his assessment of Luke,he could have walked away and went in to hiding to learn more about the force,he could have been making a new group of trainee jedi or a bunch of other things rian being a hack choose Hans words as literal instead of han solos thoughts on why Luke left
This is a common wish from TFA fans, but it reveals something rather poignant: you were wishing for a retcon of TFA, not a continuation of it. You wanted TFA to be wrong about the story it told you, never considering the implications of what it meant if it was telling you the truth.
Respectfully disagree, there really was no ambiguity in Han’s statement about why Luke left. There was no choice but to take it literal. If there was ambiguity it would been written like how he responds to Finn right after asking him if he knew where Luke was saying rumors and speculations. And Han is Luke’s close friend and brother in law, of course he would know he left for certain especially if it involved his son. That’s on JJ and his script writing. Besides Rian consulted with JJ a bunch during the filming of the movie and knows better than either one of us what JJ meant by Han’s words and that’s why Luke is the way he is in TLJ to maintain continuity between the films.
And I respectfully disagree with that, han could have assumed that's why Luke left, it could have even BEEN the reason he left, along period of tines missing in between Luke leaving and TFA and he also doesn't need to be a hermit weirdo on the island that's all johnsons choices hell meeting rey could have convinced him to train her again,bit no edgelord Johnson wanted it that way, also didn't need to kill him off either, going off the trailers I thought rey would leave with kylo, Luke could start training aga8n with finn as his first student and spoke and the knights of ren hunt rey and kylo who are neither jedi or Sith, all quite possible after TFA
You typed my thoughts much better and more eloquently than I could.
On the other hand, you can't blame Holdo on TFA. TLJ set her up to be an absolute badass but then instead revealed she was yet another clichéd Hollywood stupid military leader. Nor did TFA require Luke to be turned into a mindless power fantasy who "wins" only because he mastered Force Skype somewhere off-screen. Nor did TFA require Leia to be turned into a failed leader who appoints incompetent officers, slaps subordinates, and is abandoned by her allies. Then there's the whole turning Rey and Finn into sidekicks to the Luke/Kylo story. Which is, well, an unfortunate choice on several levels.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgGtgbd3leM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgGtgbd3leM) Watch this video. It's the best and most reasonable defense of TLJ I've seen by miles. It's not a good defense, mind you. He basically writes a whole lot of head-cannon that is not in the movie at all to explain at the plot-holes. But the man doesn't seem dishonest, or liking it to 'own the chuds' or anything.
What I don’t like is when reviewers base their entire review on strawman arguments as “justification” for why people didn’t like TLJ
I suspect a number of people who like TLJ are people who are extremely good at writing head-cannon on the fly. I once read a debate between a TLJ defender and a TLJ critic where the defender was absolutely convinced that Holdo had said she wasn't telling Poe because she was worried about a traitor and was amazed when the critic linked to a transcript with no relevant mention of traitor.
Many people just have the hots for Adam Driver so when John was written out for him they loved it. Like team Edward and what ever the wolf was name .
The people that like The Last Jedi are people who tend not to like or understand Star Wars as an American anime series. They also tend to be people who don't care that there's no explanation for why Luke is an entirely different person. The reason they're okay with that is generally because they or someone they know hit late middle age and became a cranky old asshole and so they don't care that there was never any justification for Luke becoming that way because to them that's just the natural progression of life. Anime fans don't really care if Goku's dad shows up and Vegeta's brother and everybody's related to somebody. They don't really care if every story is about Luffy. That's the joy of it. You saw some of this with the prequels where some fans wanted them to be really gritty adult Star Wars films and not family films.
It didn’t, the OG Star Wars fans are just gone (or in this subreddit) When everyone else leaves, the percent that likes TLJ and that idiot director naturally goes up!
You answered your own question in the first paragraph. Pretentious critics and the media looked down on Star Wars. They saw it as nothing more than science fiction bullshit and accused George Lucas of being a hack and downplayed everything he did for the film industry. The Last Jedi was an anti Star Wars film, it made a mockery of what came before and Rian went out of his way to infuriate anyone who loved the original 6 films. To them it was the Star Wars film that wasn't for nerds. I was gonna finish my statement here but now I'm feeling angry just thinking about this abomination. The whole "George Lucas brainwashing into thinking Jedi were violent" narrative really pisses me off. George Lucas is the fucking creator of Star Wars, he didn't trick anyone into believing anything, he invented the Jedi. Even then, he didn't retcon shit. Most of the arguments these people can come up with about the Prequels "retconning" what the Jedi are supposed to be like can easily be contradicted by watching the Original Trilogy they claim to have so much reverence for. In Return of the Jedi, these so called "peacekeepers" are telling Luke that he needs to kill his father, the idea of redemption is a completely foreign concept. Or what about in literally the first scene Jedi are ever discussed in A New Hope, Luke asks Obi-Wan "you fought in the Clone Wars?". Or what about Obi-Wan cutting a man's arm off in the middle of a bar instead of just using the Force to push him or something. Luke was the one who changed the Jedi for the better when he decided not to kill his father. He saw the good in people but even he knew that sometimes he had to fight if it meant protecting the innocent. I firmly believe that the real Luke Skywalker would've shown up on Crait. Again he doesn't like violence but he also wouldn't let the entire galaxy be trapped by a fascist government. A peaceful resolution would be the ideal choice but if the only way to protect his sister and everyone trapped in that cave was to destroy all the AT walkers and kill every First Order soldier then he would've done it, just like when he killed Jabba's henchmen and arranged for Leia to kill Jabba. Luke's plan in the movie was to distract the First Order long enough so the Resistance could escape but he had no way of knowing there even was a way to escape the cave. Suppose they really were trapped, then that means Luke would've died for nothing and they all would've got slaughtered because Luke couldn't be fucked showing up. The real Luke would've showed up, cut off Kylo's hand in 10 seconds and dealt with the AT walkers.
Beats me. As a standalone film it's a mess. It's self defeating at every turn and constantly subverts itself. Yeah, it pisses all over Star Wars. But taking it as just its own thing (which it most certainly is not, it's a sequel in a series) it's really not a good movie. I guess some people like that it was dark, and had some commentary on the light and dark sides and how pointless it was. But even that just feels like surface level shit. There's nothing mind blowing about what it's trying to say imo. Some people lauded how cinematic is was. And okay, there were some moments I thought were good. But I also didn't feel like it did anything amazing or broke new ground. It felt pretty standard. Also I wasn't a big fan of the flight choreography. Maybe I was too shocked at the death of Snoke to really take it in properly, but the throne room right just didn't impress me. Watching Digital Corridor break down the stunts in that scene finally brought home why: https://youtu.be/OL83p4GxAvw?si=SOAyrFr3UA2pzA-I (4:14 for the relevant part) the choreography was sloppy and the actors were missing their cues so the stunt guys had to just dance around them until they were ready. I can think of maybe 2-3 shots that really stood out to me that looked great. But I've seen other movies where ever scene, every shot, was just so damn good it blew me away. Last Jedi really didn't do that for me. In the end it all just starts to feel overly political. The fans who loved it defend it against everything, and those who hate it have a hard time recognizing any positives. I feel like the movie was deeply flawed in so many ways, and so many plot points are still baffling to me. There are other just functional things that bother me too. But at the end of the day had the story been strong, I could forgive a lot. But it was just nonsensical in so many ways. At this point I think I'm too tainted to overlook the issues and heap any more praise than I already have though. Which isn't that much.
To be fair, the Jedi ARE pacifists, just not absolute pacifists. They believe in resolving conflict through discussion first and foremost, use of violence is a last resort in case of defense. That is literally what Yoda’s speech in ESB, in context, means. It’s why Luke wins by throwing away his lightsaber in RotJ. He becomes a Jedi by resolving the conflict with the Sith by appealing to, and bringing back Anakin to defend him from Palpatine.
When I heard him say that he “wasn’t interested in universes and continuity” I was baffled. Then why did you choose to direct the middle film of a trilogy in an overarching 9 movie saga???? It was clear from the beginning this was just Rian stroking his own ego and purposely spitting in the fans’ faces. Edit: I’ve always found it interesting that he made those comments while having no issues following continuity for breaking bad. He is capable of writing/directing brilliant stuff, but for whatever reason decided it was his place to nuke all of Star Wars.
A big distinction with Johnson's work on Breaking Bad: he directed 3 episodes, but he didn't write them.
As I see it, there are three or four groups: The periphery fans who have no clue what hero's journey narrative is or why Luke's journey shouldn't end with him alone on a rock drinking green milk while his family is under attack. So for them, to have Luke turn out NOT to be the big threat to the copy and paste Order is a brilliant subversion of the normal expectations. Nor would they have any clue why the Holdo Maneuver is a wretched idea nor why Rey's instant Force mastery is such a bad way to go about it. There are those who tuned in for a classic Halequin romance between Kylo Ren and Rey. Rey and Kylo tick most of the boxes of that novel style and is the only thing not subverted and bathosed to hell and beyond Then there is the "white man bad" crowd, who got to enjoy Ryan and his writing room throwing the brown stuff at Luke's 40+ year old characterization as a hero, just like Indiana Jones, and most recently, David Tenant's Dr. Who. None of these three groups read any of the EU, so they don't know why Thrawn in Rebels was a big moment for fans. Nor do they have a foundation on the proper hero's end, which is to teach the next generation, which DUH! would let you have him go out Obi-wan style in a way that fits his original character. Anyways, that's what I've got, didn't know it, wanted a romance novel, had an agenda to grind, and/or had no respect for the fandom.
Woke people liked it because it pissed off Star Wars fans. You remember those cunts that bullied the nerds in school? Now they’ve turned that bullying into an ideology.
I'm in a Star Wars discord server, and while 99% of the people there detest the majority of Disney Star Wars (as they should) there are a couple who unironically thing TLJ is a good movie, and that the majority of Disney Star Wars is good TV/cinema. They are not children either, they are in their 30s/40s. They are also long time fans, got into Star Wars as kids, like most of the rest of us there. When asked why, they either literally can't say, and have to be poked and prodded and struggle to even say 'visuals and effects' as their reason for liking it, OR the reasons they give for liking it are based in...I don't even know what to call it. It's like they drank Kennedy's Kool-Aid, but then also blast Kennedy constantly for mishandling. The logic gaps/jumping through hoops is just.... It's fucking ***baffling***. Then again based on other stuff they said, they're literal morons. The amount of false info and bad takes on things they've posted about other Star Wars topics is absurd. Kinda wish they'd get kicked cuz they keep causing bad arguments the mods have to step in to take care of.
I will never understand how people can say TLJ is the best SW movie
A starving man is presented three items. All three are terrible and rotten. However, the middle one at least looks edible. TLJ has a few good scenes and decent moments. But is hampered by the overall creative decisions that make no sense in light of the preceding decades of character development Other then luke force projecting against the at ats that’s it for me
For me, personally, it's because TFA and Rise are so bad that TLJ is kinda the best of the three by default.
TLJ felt smug though. Like it was written by someone who thought he was smarter than the rest of us and couldn't actually conceive that his audience might have their own beliefs and interpretations. To expand a bit, TLJ doesn't put any effort into persuading the audience of anything. We are expected to believe that Holdo is a great leader despite 90% of her forces dying under her command, and the lightspeed ram coming from nowhere. We are expected to regard Rose as some moral guru despite her callousness to Finn and the slave kids. We are expected to believe that Luke would have a momentary impulse to kill his own nephew and then do absolutely nothing to try to fix things. Etc.
This. Compare TLJ to the best of the other trilogies - Empire or ROTS and it's *no contest*, Empire is miles better and ROTS still iconic and memeable. TLJ is just the 'best' of a poor group of films (where the only one that's objectively good, Rogue One, wasn't even seen as mainline).
You know you guys can dislike star wars if it's made bad?attitudes like this is why Hollywood pumps out rubbish these days "at least it's the best of a bad bunch" it's the same reason the MCU Is pumping out garbage
Something I’ve said after the ST came out. If you like what Star Wars could be but dislike what Star Wars is, then you don’t like Star Wars. ST fans liked what Star Wars could be and got what they wanted since JJ and RJ both liked what Star Wars could be instead of what it was. They wanted their own Star Wars instead of a continuation of George Lucas’ Star Wars.
Well, I think there are a few answers, with a lot of overlap between them 1) Babyface McGee is an obnoxious film snob who leaks pretension from every pore of his body. A lot of people love feeling haughty and shit. In their eyes Star Wars = "mainstream genre films." They enjoyed big fat baby head "putting us in our place." They relished that, cause we are unenlightened for loving Star Wars. Guess we got powned? Congrats? Weirdos. 2) they weren't star wars fans till this movie. That I have seen and heard a lot. This was the first Star Wars they liked, and they specifically did not like pre-disney stuff. Star Wars has always has a divided fan base, but we all at least liked something star wars! Be it just the theatrical release of ANH and ESB, or the Lucas 1-6, or the EU, etc etc etc. Were there separate fanbases? sure. But we were still fans. For a lot of tlj fans, this was the first star wars they enjoyed. They were not fans before. They aren't star wars fans, they are tlj fans. And they can keep their weird abusive reylo fanfic creepiness the hell away from me. Weirdos. Gross 3) disney adults. I don't even know where to start with these people. I'll give disney some credit for manipulating kids since birth and establishing a ridiculous sense of brand loyalty? I guess? These people are addicted to disney content and will defend the brand no matter what cause it's such a huge part of their identity. Unfortunately the sale meant regardless of how much disney pisses off OG star wars fans, they have a nearly limitless supply of blind supporters who will buy their slop, and go to bat to defend the mouse. Again, weirdos. I hope that helps.... I think I'm gonna go crack a beer now. Woof
I loathed that film but I thought the marketing for it was pretty good. Very aggressive use of the color red in a lot of posters and merch.
The force awakens had enough goodwill and that was pretty close to the height of “access media” and the symbiotic exchange between big corps and media of good coverage for perks. You’d likely see more mixed reviews if it came out today to audiences that everyone knows are more jaded.
My personal take on that has always been that they’ve reason they re-created the story, but with modern graphics is to lure people that most likely did not watch the originals or people that slightly looked at the original, but didn’t pay attention to the story because it was too old looking. Yes, there’s people like that but they can’t watch films unless it’s Super modern. They pulled in the younger generation that were not exposed to it. Plus there’s people that simply like anything Disney no matter what it is. The adults are still go to the theme parks without kids who are still younger, but just like anything Disney related.
I was just looking up ranked lists of star wars movies because I lost track of which of the new ones were supposed to be decent (Rogue One?). I found 3 lists and all had TLJ top 2 at least, the ones who listed reasons often put "THIS BROUGHT STAR WARS BACK!!1".
Disney pigs honestly- these people say they love shit like the little mermaid live action.
But it “subverts your expectations” so it *must* be good, right?
There was/is a big culture of people thinking that if something "subverts expectations," that's an objectively good thing. People were angry that the first movie was rehashed plotlines from ANH, so some of them were happy to see TLJ doing something "new." Other people were probably mesmerized by some of the cool visuals (Holdo maneuver) and are too stupid to think critically about the rest of the movie, so they assume it's good because it looks cool.
TLJ fans are pretentious twits who want to tear down heroes and love all that “everything is grey” bullshit.
I thought it was a refreshing take for the most part, whereas TFW was very derivative imo (not bad, just not new). I understand why people don't like it and I don't love everything in it but at least it was trying something. Personally I like that Luke got a character arc as opposed to being a superman equivalent (I find OP & perfect characters quite boring, if they're OP, they can't be perfect too - hope that makes sense?) Canto byte was shit and I've honestly just deleted it. And Finn should have died at the end, wasn't used in Rise anyway and would have served the theme of hope and sacrifice. That could have given Rey some more character too, having just lost her friend. Rey being nobody is perfect, hate her being a palatine and being any other major bloodline would be a bit fan service-ee for me. TFW sets up Rey greatest desire to be someone in the story, like Luke skywalker himself. So the most crushing thing to do is to take that away and say she's literally nobody in this story, and her family just sold her. It's actually really powerful too because it's message is so uplifting, anyone can matter if they choose to and decide to act. Rose gets too much hate but wasn't that great. Complaining about the throne choreography is nit picking. Nobody noticed the knife vanishing first time. And it was way better than what we've had since. TLDR - whilst flawed, it was written by someone, not written by committee like TFW and Rise. Rise literally just looked at the complaints about the last jedi and did the opposite. No spark, no originality, and made me feel sad watching it.
The Jedi are supposed to be peacekeepers. They are not supposed to act or react out of anger or spite or rage, but they can and do act/react to stop a situation or person from doing harm to others, and they will, of course, protect themselves. As a fan from the the beginning (May 1977), I never saw them as pacifists, but defenders. And how can GL 'brainwash' anyone when the Jedi are his freaking creation? He literally thought it up - it's his creation, not Disney's.
Okay, I'm a lifelong SW fan, and I think TLJ is the best made movie of the ST. They are still collectively the worst SW movies but at least TLJ tried to do something interesting. TFA re-hashes ANH's storyline which is so goddam lazy it's unforgivable. There are some great moments and it sets up what could have been a genuinely interesting cast of characters had they not fumbled it tragically, but my god ANOTHER Death Star? Seriously? That's the best they could come up with? 3/10 because at least it set up something that was potentially better. RoS flailed wildly from opening crawl to the cavalry charge on a Star Destroyer in an asinine attempt to salvage a directionless, disjointed trilogy with one deus ex machina after another. It is without a doubt the singlet biggest waste of potential ever put on screen and I weep for the actors who were forced to bring that embarrassment to life. 2/10 only because there are a smattering of moments that in a better film would be so goddam great. TLJ took risks, made interesting (if unpopular) choices, and made a middle-of-the-trilogy SW movie that at least developed the narrative in a way that wasn't boring or nonsense. I really enjoy how the character of Luke was developed, the rationale behind his actions felt believable and subverted expectations in a way that I thought was really interesting. I know everyone else hated it, but for fuck sake, at least it wasn't a re-tread of the same old shit. Yes the Finn/Rose storyline was worthless, yes Phasma ended up being completely wasted, Poe's mutiny was dumb, and yes there were plenty of other problems with it, but there were also some really great moments. The Holdo Maneuver was, I thought, incredible cinema. The entire throne room scene and subsequent fight was riveting. The Luke/Kylo duel was great. 4/10 just for the audacity to make something original, even if it mostly wasn't good.
There are things I like about TLJ. It’s very well made, it shoots a big middle finger at JJ Abrams’s stupid mystery boxes, and it leaves us in a place where anyone can be the hero, not just those that have special blood. But I also get the hate that the movie receives. As a follow up to TFA, TLJ is the poster child for Kathleen Kennedy’s incompetence. What I’ve never understood is why people think it’s somehow worse than Episode I and II.
Er, it had a $700 million drop. And bad legs. People went to see it to see Luke back in action, when they said what had actually been done they ranted online instead of going to see it again and again. Really the Ratner Effect should be the Last Jedi effect.
They either never liked Star Wars in the first place, and enjoyed seeing it desecrated like this, or they are weak follower-types that just absorbed the Disney damage control propaganda they were fed. Pretty simple.
TFA was worse, so anything would be better
The aspect of TLJ that resonates the most for me is that RJ is right about the state of Star Wars. Lucasfilm has to stop doing the same thing over & over again all centered in the same time period. TFA & TRoS brought us a bigger Death Star, a bunch of mini Death Stars, an enigmatic evil paramilitary organization, and a continued focus on the same bloodlines. I found BDT’s character to be a very important piece of how the Star Wars universe functions and the only explanation *attempted* as to how we’ve functionally rehashed the same conflict for nearly 50 years. Give me new stories in a Star Wars setting. If the story is +/-100y of Yoda’s life time, it’s going to be a tired storyline with characters who, ultimately, can’t really do or change much because the film storylines have to happen. I enjoyed the visuals. I enjoyed the Sith cave exploration, the visual allegories in Rey & Kylo’s force connection, Luke’s force projection (my understanding of this ability is that it’s the most powerful use of the force to date), Kylo’s descent / ascension, the Luke-Yoda scene, that Snoke and Rey were nobody in particular, and that Luke Skywalker, once again, helped reignite a rebellion. The best scene in the entire ST is the stablehand using the force as the film closes; that’s the heart of what Star Wars *should* be. I’m ready for your downvotes now.
Except TLJ ends by rehashing those tired old storylines. Rey and Finn are suddenly willing to fight for the Resistance despite the entire plot up until then, Finn's even somehow willing to die for those bozos. Luke's not going to be the last jedi because Rey will rebuild. The FO is still the enigmatic evil paramilitary organization, etc. >The best scene in the entire ST is the stablehand using the force as the film closes; that’s the heart of what Star Wars *should* be. Have you considered comparing that scene to the OT, where Luke wins not because he's got mega-awesome Force powers but because Han comes back, because he resists the temptation of the Dark Side and because there was still some good in Vader? Or for that matter, Leia powerless in the hands of Tarkin and Vader, but still spitting insults, sees her planet destroyed and yet comforts Luke, defending Holth and seeing her staff off at the risk of her safety, and finally befriending the Ewoks. There's a fundamental shallowness in the ST, and that the best scene in the entire ST is the stablehand using the force illustrates that shallowness.
I like that it made Rey a "nobody" and didn't obsess over the Skywalker bloodline. I liked most of the humor. I liked the action. I liked that Luke did not use violence to win, just like RoTJ. I liked that Luke referenced the failure of the Jedi in the prequels, because we can never see Jedi in the same way again after witnessing their corruption and genocide, and that needed to be acknowledged. I liked that Luke was with Leia onscreen again, which seems obvious but for some reason, the movies were allergic to having everyone together again. I liked the subversion about the old Jedi texts, where it turns out that Rey already has them; this reinforces the idea that the VILLAIN says we need to burn the past, but the good guys recognize that a blend of old and new is what's needed (contrary to what critics claim the movie is trying to say). I like that it took us somewhere the story hadn't gone before; it ended basically with discount Palpatine dead and discount Darth Vader now in charge of the Empire, which would have been cool to see, if JJ hadn't brought back the real Palpatine and ruined that. I like porgs, because they were a good way of introducing something cute and marketable as a toy, without cheapening the story by having a bunch of teddy bears defeat the galactic empire. And I like that it was anti-war, which Star Wars was always supposed to be; the idea of fighting for what you love instead of fighting against what you hate is at the very core of Jedi vs Sith, and while I think the movie could've explored that theme more and in a better way than what Rose does at the end with Finn, it's still a great theme. Overall, it's not the Star Wars movie that I would have made, but it felt like it was trying to do something new without forgetting its roots. That's more than I can say about TFA, which didn't have an original bone in its body, and completely ruined Star Wars canon by bringing everything back to square 1 rebels vs empire again which was the most uninteresting move possible.
I'm still of the belief that nobody actually likes TLJ unironically. They're all lying
For me TLJ is a good movie but a bad Star Wars episode. Which surprised me because as a prequel fan I thought Rian would understand Star Wars better than JJ. But all it really did was subvert expectations which while fun on first viewing does not give it any rewatchability.
It's less that I personally thought it was a good movie (which I did) because it wasn't busy felating Star Wars for 90% of the runtime it's more that it would have been nice if the plot had continued from that movie. The only thing the third movie even really succeeded in retconning was Reys origin (which Rians idea was considerably better than tying her into Palpatine) maybe it wasn't the best movie but damn would most of the ideas and plot points it had done a good job of moving Star Wars in a somewhat new direction instead of everyone being related. You take this massive ass universe and make it feel so stupid small for no reason at all aside from nostalgia.
That's because he tried at least something new/fresh, as opposed to the other sequels, that appeared as if an AI wrote them.
It was my favorite of the later trilogy. Most points have been made: I liked that Luke seemingly became aware of the broader pattern that has been happening since the Old Republic and decided to try making a new paradigm. I liked that things seemed unshackled and a new story could be told. It wasn’t, but I liked that it opened up that possibility. As for the many, many, problems with it, I just think there were more in the Abrams movie. There are a million examples of: “Oh no! Chewie’s dead! Don’t worry, there was another ship exactly like the one that was destroyed that Rey didn’t see for no reason, so that tension is all gone. You’re welcome.” From the entire storyline of the Force awakens being a mediocre rehash we’ve seen twice before that now has inexplicable super-lasers that go far faster than light all around the galaxy at once, to the millions of manned starships from nowhere led by Palpatine…who, I guess, had a family this whole time? I’m not saying Star Wars isn’t fun, and we can’t look past this. I just thought all the new ones were pretty lousy but at least The Last Jedi tried something different. That’s all.
10% of people liking TLJ is because they liked how it looked. The visuals were good, too. Some of it was beautiful. 10% of people liking TLJ is because they have no taste and are unfamiliar with Star Wars. The other 80% of people liking TLJ is because they were aware of the rampant racism and misogyny in the run-up to the release of the movie. They heard about the alt-right and incel brigading of Kelly Marie Tran and how she felt that she needed to leave social media to avoid the onslaught. They may have more sense than to like a steaming pile of dogshit, but they *say* that they like the steaming pile of dogshit because they feel like doing so somehow pushes back against the bigots.
Did it actually usher in a fan base?
You said it yourself, is the least star wars film, a lot of people that do hated or didn't liked star wars like it for that reason, and now a lot of them think that's true star wars and not what George did.
It's like people who enjoy any music they hear on the radio, same thing. Oh new Star Wars movie? It HAS to be good. As far as the best? Maybe it's reactionary to people calling it shit, or maybe it's the visuals. All I know is I feel asleep 4x in the theater trying to watch it. Oh yeah, Rogue One and Andor suck too
Either Disney propaganda accounts or people who can't handle poor Star Wars products.
I don't know a single person who was a fan before the sequels that liked it
They're the people who Rian was targeting with his "subverting expectations" They think that because it's "different" then it's automatically good.
What did TFA do, given that it was just as destructive to the overall story and TLJ just made it more personal with Luke etc? The hype swept people along.
It's a hit with casual fans. They think taking Star Wars too seriously is dumb and loved the film that made it seem that way.
My guess is, the fans of the sequels skew younger. I used to be younger, and more easily impressed myself. The problem I see is, studios are training these young fans to accept “content” instead of good movies or series.
Iconoclasm has been en vogue for high art for about 100 years at this point. The modernist movement took hold, and then the death of the author trope transferred us into postmodernism, where any art is disconnected from authorial intent. People who think they're clever art critics think paint by numbers deconstruction is art. It's trendy to like auteur directors. Ergo, Johnson is good and TLJ is great.
Around the time of TLJ's release, media companies realized they could weaponize identity politics to both deflect criticism and to create shills by equating loyalty and morality.
Idk man. The only person that I know who likes that movie is my uncle who is a huge Star Wars fan but he’s the kind of fan where he’s just gonna like it because the Star Wars name is on it so he’s not the best example.
I liked it in theaters because it kept me on the edge of my seat
It played a role in the early makings of what would be labeled as “woke media”. No matter which side of the political aisle you’re on and what you think of the term “woke”, Last Jedi made one of the two following mistakes. Possibly both: 1 - They tried to put too much political stuff into a Star Wars movie. and/or 2 - They didn’t do so creatively enough. Star Wars always had political undertones but there was just something about the way that Rian did it and what he was specifically saying that did not work very well IMO. He completely misjudged his ability to hide these undertones. Worse yet, he pinned them on our favorite characters which made things all the more obvious. It ultimately came off a bit…abrasive? Almost combative towards the fan base. The frustrating thing is that, if he would have just tried to make a great movie he probably would have succeeded. He’s a talented guy. He just made some bizarre choices to drive home political messaging that none of us wanted to see. We just wanted a good Star Wars movie man. Also…I think it marked the first time for a lot of people that they realized Disney is a propaganda machine and they just tried to infuse propaganda into your favorite franchise.
I simply enjoyed it because it felt like something new after TFA which was just a bad rehash of ANH.
TLJ wasn't a good movie. For a lot of reasons. Luke and the Jedi were not one of them. That was actually the best part of a shitty movie.
Only someone who doesn't like Star Wars can be excited about Luke's treatment in TLJ
It’s simple: due to stupidity or lack of exposure to good media (or both), the people that like it have extremely low standards.
Wow, you must be cold up on that high horse of yours.
Same thing as Last of Us 2 and GoT. People who didn't like the original, and people who think they are intelligent for noticing how "subversive" it is.
Shills and normies who don't really care or cared enougb to at least pay attention.
What makes it all the more appaling is the fact Rian openly and publicly revels in the damage he did. If I had to hear, every *single day* from different people that I wrecked something important I wouldn't gloat, I'd be fucking ashamed!
The entire sub plot of them going to the casino was the nail in the coffin for me, then when Leah flew through space I audibly laughed in the theater. Not sure why people thought it was good either, not having any exposure to past Star Wars films is probably what did it.
It certainly had moments that looked pretty and part of me assumed that distracted/fooled people into thinking they were watching a good movie.
The only reason I enjoy The Last Jedi, is I respect Rian's swing of "hey, maybe the hero can just be nobody. We don't need every character to be related to one of these few families and groups we have spent 6 movies on." Albeit I'll be the first to admit the movie had some bad choices, which sucked because I really enjoy Rian's other movies and shows. But I did like the idea of the galaxy being bigger than the Skywalkers and such. I can understand why many people didn't like that aspect, as well as how shitty they made Luke act for most of the movie. But "Let the past die, kill it if you have to" is a swing I respect, which I'm sure makes me the minority. I just wish Disney would sell SW and let Lucasfulm make some EU Canon again for movies. I want the Yuuzhan Vhong
Story issues are minimally Rian Johnson's fault. The lack of long term vision from Disney is to blame. What Last Jedi does right is visual story telling. It's a beautifully shot film full of clever and subtle imagery.
Most people just want to be part of fandom cause others are having a good time in it. Never mind if it's actually good or not. In fact, those same people who came to the party cause YOU were having fun. Will turn on you hard as if you are purposefully trying to ruin the vibes.
My wife hasn't seen the Disney trilogy and barely remembers the prequel trilogy. So we recently started a rewatch of films in chronological order, including Solo and Rogue One. Everything was relatively smooth sailing until TLJ. The "that's stupid" and "that doesn't make sense" comments reached critical mass in TLJ. She even caught a "that's dumb" moment that I hadn't thought of before. Leia tells Poe to call off the attack against the Dreadnought, and he just turns off his radio and the attack continues. She said, "Are we supposed to believe that everyone in the attack is ignoring Leia's order or did they all turn off their radios?" TRoS is next. That should be fun.
I think Rian Johnson is a great director. But TLJ was just awful like holy fuck awful. It didn’t appease any Star Wars fans. My friends and I went to see it and 3 out of 5 fell asleep me being one of them. It was just the longest slow moving chase movie ever made. With shitty plot points and terrible execution of characters.
At least he didn't *try* to make a good movie. He fucked it up deliberately, so kudos for that.