The Last Jedi discussion (not an analysis thread)

[Greg]

Okay, so two things.
1. I don't mean to disparage anyone else's taste in movies. I can see why others would like this film. I was mostly entertained, if perplexed, while watching this movie and only really came to dislike it after it was over and I had seen the full thing. If it had not been called Star Wars: The Last Jedi but instead called Galactic Fighters: A New Franchise You've Never Heard Of Before, I would have thought it was much better, though still inconsistent.
2. I realize this thread was started without much direction and wound up complaining about this trilogy's lack of direction. To correct that, I have a specific (and spoiler-y) question that relates to storytelling and storyform.
SPOILER ALERT********

Vice Adm Haldo sacrifices herself to save the resistance. The movie plays this like she was doing a right and heroic thing to be admired. Immediately afterward, Finn is about to sacrifice himself and is stopped by Rose who tells him we don't win by killing those we hate but saving those we love. Never mind that saving those he loved was what Finn was doing and Rose's actions would have essentially doomed the entirety of the resistance had they not found a way out of the cave it had already been established that there was no way out of. These two scenes are an example of why I felt the movie was inconsistent. Seen from a Dramatica POV, did the rest of you feel this was an inconsistency, or should I maybe view it as more of a thematic conflict? As in maybe the Haldo scene when compared to Rose's scene should be telling us something about the nature of Self-Interest vs Morality, like sometimes self-sacrifice is good, but sometimes it's not?

[Lakis]

As in maybe the Haldo scene when compared to Rose's scene should be telling us something about the nature of Self-Interest vs Morality, like sometimes self-sacrifice is good, but sometimes it's not?

Pretty sure that was supposed to be the point. I read a review to that effect as well. (The OS Issue is Self-Interest). Maybe it didn't work, or left too much implied.

I enjoyed the movie, (and felt like it the narrative was solid) but I had trouble answering your poll, mainly because even though I was definitely a first generation Star Wars kid (with the requisite love for the franchise) I can't say the "Star Wars universe" is coherent enough to answer the question of what fits in or not.

Mike says

I'm super, super picky about Star Wars*, to the point where the prequels don't exist for me.

which is kind of how I feel too, but then if that's true, isn't the whole series kind of half-baked and full of poor setups and weak payoffs? I mean, once they failed to deliver (well) on the whole Anakin-becoming-Darth thing, what was left? In other words, doesn't the poor execution of Episodes I-III kind of ruin IV-VI?

But then even internally, the original trilogy has some pretty inexcusable storytelling holes. I mean, Princess Leia is Luke's sister, which means she's Darth Vader's daughter. Does she have any kind of reaction when finding this out? Did Darth Vader know she was his daughter when he made her watch as he committed genocide by blowing up her home planet? Isn't that kind of important one way or another?

My wife thinks the entire Star Wars franchise is utterly ridiculous. After we saw The Force Awakens (which I was so excited to see and share with the kids) she went on such a rant about how terrible it was that I told her she wasn't allowed to see The Last Jedi with us. Meanwhile my 10-year old son absolutely loves everything Star Wars now. (Interestingly though, his favorite movie is Rouge One.)

I pretty much have no expectations for the movies anymore. My original love for the original series lies in the nostalgic past of childhood. Everything else ... well, let's just say the bar is low.

[Greg]

Good points. Maybe I was expecting too much to begin with. I'd say that the stuff that didn't fit was every instance where this film saw something in a previous film and essentially decided it wasn't important, didn't happen, didn't need to be addressed, didn't mean what it had claimed to mean, etc. doing that once or twice the right way is a great way to make a story interesting and unique. But doing it in every single scene just to do it just tells me that everything in the story is pretty much meaningless.

[mlucas]

In other words, doesn't the poor execution of Episodes I-III kind of ruin IV-VI?

There are no Episodes I-III. Or perhaps better to say, Episodes I-III only exist in my imagination, where they are awesome.

Vice Adm Haldo sacrifices herself to save the resistance. The movie plays this like she was doing a right and heroic thing to be admired. Immediately afterward, Finn is about to sacrifice himself and is stopped by Rose who tells him we don't win by killing those we hate but saving those we love.
... [Is this] telling us something about the nature of Self-Interest vs Morality, like sometimes self-sacrifice is good, but sometimes it's not?

The real problem in this movie is that everyone is doing things their own way and taking matters into their own hands. "My way or the highway" kind of attitude. Holdo is just as guilty of this as Finn and the others -- her self-sacrifice is shown as a noble gesture but ultimately futile. (Which I thought was really cool, to have a movie where the self-sacrifice was useless, even costly!)

Rose is the one who seems to know the "truth". When she says they'll win "not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love" she captures the essence of the film. "Fighting what we hate" isn't just about Empire and Rebels* killing each other, it's about Finn and Poe struggling against Haldo's way of doing things, Holdo not telling anyone her plan, Luke hiding away because he hates himself, etc.

Meanwhile, Luke's sacrifice at the end works thematically because he is patently NOT doing things his own way. (He didn't even want to get involved.)

I think you're right that it's a subtle take on Self Interest vs. Morality ... it's sort of saying, self-sacrifice is noble and all but isn't a solution that works to further your own way of doing things.

* Yeah, yeah, First Order and Resistance. I'm old school. (First Order just sounds dumb. We know what they are.)

[Prish]

Did it work as a Star Wars movie for you?

If you want feedback, Star Wars has been dead to me ever since I heard they killed off Hans Solo. If they have the plotting show he is actually still alive, then I'll start watching them, again.

[HaroldLloyd]

Very thoughtful analysis of TLJ's story structure (at the end of the page):
https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/movie-storystructure/star-wars-episode-viii-the-last-jedi/

[mlucas]

Thoughtful, perhaps, but wrong-headed. I think her need to fit the story into her little boxes made it difficult for her to enjoy it. Several of her comments demonstrate an inability to appreciate the story's meaning holistically. For example this:

Rose learns that Finn was right, in the beginning, when he was willing to run away from the fight in order to save someone he cared about. She says “we have to save what we love.” Arguably, however, this is a horrible lesson, since her choice would have gotten everyone killed, if not for Luke’s serendipitous arrival.

You can't play "would have" with a story. (If Luke hadn't come, it would have been a different story anyway.) The whole point of what Rose does there is that it doesn't seem like the right choice, but it turns out to be.

[Greg]

Jim says about Solo:A Star Wars Story:
‘The reason this is the first Star Wars flop is this giant hole in the narrative structure of the story’

I haven’t seen it, but I’m thinking Solo was already going to lose around a hundred million dollars before anyone had seen it. There’s several reasons for that, but the relevant one for this thread is the narrative hole not in Solo, but in the Rey and Finn saga. Turns out you can’t spend the second part of your trilogy telling the audience that the first part and everything before it didn’t matter or mean anything and expect the audience to still care about the stories you’re only half heartedly telling them. It’ll be interesting to see if people have regained any of their curiosity or enthusiasm for this franchise when part 3 rolls out in a year and a half.

[jhay]

I agree. I think TLJ had a big hand in this one bombing, not to mention the production mayhem. It just seems like a really weird decision to have JJ set up elements for a whole new trilogy and then let someone else triumphantly dismiss all of it in part two. Bold, yes. Interesting, definitely. But weird and inconsistent.

I know people that love Star Wars that either didn't see Solo because of TLJ completely disregarding the first reboot/sequel thing, or they saw it and flat-out hated it because of the myriad of story reasons Jim stated in his article (and the fact that it's a wholly unnecessary cash grab).

Also I think the fact that it's distinctly un-Star Wars-y (no force/space battles/lightsabers, etc.) probably didn't help, although that may explain why it's the first Star Wars movie of the whole franchise I've seen that I also enjoyed. I'll get my coat before people see that.

[Greg]

there’s a handful of reasons that I’m not seeing Solo (even though I’m sure I’d think it was at least an okay, probably pretty fun film). The choices made in TLJ are definitely a large part of it. My interest in Disney/Lucasfilm Star Wars is now pretty much relegated to “will they try to fix TLJ, and if so, how?” I can’t think of a way to completely fix it, but I can think of one thing that would fix most of it, and all of the biggest issues. But it would probably anger the part of the audience that did like TLJ. Haha.

[jhay]

I don't think they can 'fix' it, honestly. It's an unwinnable situation. If they reverse what happened in TLJ, you have two movies that have basically been pointless. But if they continue with the TLJ threads, the die-hard fans will actively boycott it like Solo. I don't know that there's anything they can do to rectify that error now, but I'm morbidly curious to see their attempt (and dreading the inevitably violent blowback from that small, but vocal, minority of social media trolls who seem to think actors write their own scenes).

I just cannot get my head around how they didn't have a gameplan for this trilogy. I get that Lucas didn't have one for his, but he's one man and he created the franchise. Of course he can figure it out. But to get three different filmmakers to create one part each without someone to guide it is baffling to me. It's like doing a Story Embroidery here, but giving everyone a different storyform to work from. Like... none of that is going to make any sense when you put it together. You need some kind of continuity and structure.

[Greg]

I think you could fix anywhere from about fifty percent to maybe eighty percent of the stuff people found unforgivable. But certainly not everything. But at this point it’s not even about if they can fix it. It’s about Lucasfilm telling everyone “hey we know we called everyone a bunch of ugly names for not liking TLJ, but we still really want your money, so here’s an attempt to course correct.’ If I get even that much, I’ll give it another shot and probably even see the next movie twice to make up for Solo. I’m not holding my breath for that to happen, though.

[Greg]

I get that Lucas didn't have one for his

I feel like he at least had a direction even if not a clear map. Lucasfilm right now doesn’t have a direction at all. What’s the point of calling something a trilogy in advance if there’s not a story in place that will ultimately connect them together?

[JBarker]

I didn't hate TLJ, but I went into it a wee bit wary because I'm not a huge Rian fan. Took me three attempts to finish watching "Brick." I never did finished watching "Looper" and he directed the one episode of Breaking Bad I thought was the absolute worst and would have been the one I almost tapped out on (it was the one with the fly.)

That being said, JJ and Kasdan didn't do fans any service other than nostalgia with laying the foundation for the new trilogy, essentially putting themselves in a corner after Arndt struggled to come up with a serviceable story. From what I read, JJ and Kasdan had SIX MONTHS to write a final draft before filming which probably explains the carbon-copy feel of the original.

I honestly found TFA to be pretty meh. Never did the universe feel as small as it did in that film with its contrived coincidences.

[Greg]

I didn’t hate TLJ at first. While watching it, I’d say I was entertained but perplexed by some bizarre storytelling choices. Leaving the theater I knew I didn’t like it but it probably took me a week or two to decide I full on hated it.

Never saw brick, thought Looper was okay until toward the end, and was fine with the fly episode but wanted it to move along to something more exciting. I’m obviously not going to be a Rian Johnson fan going forward.

I was excited about Star Wars so forgave TFA it’s faults knowing that Ford only came back if they killed off Solo (why did he not go out in a blaze of glory?) and assuming they had a good story to tell. Now that I know TFA was just JJ offering up a bunch of mystery boxes and Rian has told us that those mystery boxes were all empty, the only Disney era movie I care for is Rogue One.

[HaroldLloyd]

Well said. I think of it this way: content criticisms aside, why don't I feel much story anticipation for 9? Sure, I feel some anticipation due to loyalty and intellectual curiosity about how they're going to write their way out of this, but not "OMG, how will he/she/they get out of this?"

I have a hypothesis with 2 parts.

1) What are the personal dramatic questions that were raised in TFA and/or TLJ that haven't been answered yet and need to be answered in 9? I can't think of any. Sure, they could contradict previous answers. While that would technically be bad writing, I suspect we'll be happier with that than we would with strict coherence given the current mess. I think the current condition of the story is that broken. Luckily, JJ Abrams isn't famous for story coherence. On the other hand, he's also not famous for satisfying answers to big mysteries.

2) The #1 structural reason why the story is so broken is that the nominal MC Rey wasn't the actual MC of either movie. So even if they write her as the MC for 9 and have some payoff at the end of 9, I don't see how the payoff could possibly be a "trilogy-sized" payoff.

[Greg]

Here’s some of what I see as the biggest problems.
1. By ignoring TFA and making large changes to various characters, this “trilogy” has lost any sense of cohesion. TLJ feels like neither a continuation of TFA nor a stepping off point to another movie and definitely doesn’t feel like the middle part of a story. I think there are ways to fix this in the third movie so that, as a whole (trying to think holistically here) it feels like a trilogy again. To do this, they probably would have to contradict some parts of TLJ, but that shouldn’t be a problem. The people that liked TLJ apparently had no problem that it contradicted TFA and the original trilogy and the only way to get a decent part of the audience back is to contradict TLJ and say ‘no, actually we need to hold onto parts of the past, some of it does matter.’ I can’t think of a good way to do this, but there is a way that it can be done and at least have this thing make sense as a trilogy instead of being a tale told in three parts.
2. You’d have to have seen Mark Hamill’s comment for this to make sense, but Luke Skywalker hasn’t even been in this series yet. All we’ve seen so far is Jake Skywalker. Again, there is a way to fix this. It’s not a good one, but it would be better, in my opinion, than what we’ve got.
3. They keep calling these episodes 7, 8, and 9 as though they’ve are a continuation of the Skywalker episodes 1-6. To me, these are the Rey and Finn saga, completely unrelated to the Skywalker saga, and the numbering suggests Rey and Finn episodes 1-6 in the future. With TFA, I was fine with it being episode 7 of a Skywalker saga. But with TLJ, that has changed. Again, I think this can be fixed. I can’t think of a great fix, but I can think of one that, if done, would at least have me giving Disney/Mucasfilm another chance.

So what is it that I’ve come up with to fix all these problems? Well, I don’t have time to type it out right now. Haha. But maybe I’ll post it when I get a chance, just for fun.

[bobRaskoph]

Here’s some of what I see as the biggest problems.
1. By ignoring TFA and making large changes to various characters, this “trilogy” has lost any sense of cohesion. TLJ feels like neither a continuation of TFA nor a stepping off point to another movie and definitely doesn’t feel like the middle part of a story. I think there are ways to fix this in the third movie so that, as a whole (trying to think holistically here) it feels like a trilogy again. To do this, they probably would have to contradict some parts of TLJ, but that shouldn’t be a problem. The people that liked TLJ apparently had no problem that it contradicted TFA and the original trilogy and the only way to get a decent part of the audience back is to contradict TLJ and say ‘no, actually we need to hold onto parts of the past, some of it does matter.’ I can’t think of a good way to do this, but there is a way that it can be done and at least have this thing make sense as a trilogy instead of being a tale told in three parts.

Ok, maybe I missed something, but where is TLJ contradicting TFA? And where is it contradicting the original trilogy? And if it does, where does it actually matter, and cannot be explained away with a 30-year time difference?

So what is it that I’ve come up with to fix all these problems? Well, I don’t have time to type it out right now. Haha. But maybe I’ll post it when I get a chance, just for fun.

The biggest problem Star Wars has is its Fandom, and the people who keep making Star Wars movies instead of leaving the Franchise alone.

[HaroldLloyd]

Now that you mention #3, in retrospect perhaps the ideal way forward for 7-9 was to not have any major roles for characters from 4-6. It's hard (impossible?) to share the MC role over a trilogy. An extreme version of such a "merge old with new" handoff mess is Terminator Genisys--but that's apples to oranges since it was also hampered by turning into Primer due to the layers of time travel.

Perhaps the plan all along has been to have 7-9 serve as a handoff trilogy before the bona fide Rey trilogy in 10-12. I would be thrilled to see that and I would happily eat crow if that's how it plays out. Perhaps that's why Rey (and possibly Finn) were cast with actors so young. And I think her comment that "episode 9 is it for me" is just a sensible negotiating tactic. I could just be thinking wishfully.

[Greg]

Ok, maybe I missed something, but where is TLJ contradicting TFA

Just one off the top of my head...I forget the exact lines, but I’m pretty sure the Kylo Ren sees Rey and says something like ‘so you’re the girl’ and then Snoke wants her brought to him. Why? Because she’s a nobody orphan? No, because TFA was setting her up to be somebody. And I don’t know the economics of a galaxy far far away a long time ago, but seeing Rey’s parents flying away in a ship as she’s left behind and being told they need drinking money makes one wonder how many credits a beer costs on that planet.

The biggest problem Star Wars has is its Fandom

You sound like you might work for Lucasfilm. Haha. Clearly the problem with Star Wars is the people who care about it enough to ask for some consistency in story and character. Just look at how those people have failed The Lord of the Rings and Marvel movies! When fans feel that something they love is being ruined, clearly the best course is to stay quiet and let it be ruined.

Look, it’s fine to like TLJ, but it ignores and/or changes so much that I’m not even sure how it can be in the same canon as TFA. Clearly Lucasfilm is happy enough with TLJ that they’re going to dismiss every valid criticism with ‘you’re just threatened by women’ and whatnot. That’s childish, but it’s fine. If it’s worth it to them to lose eighty plus million dollars on Solo, they can and will continue down that path and the people that love Star Wars will step aside and let Lucasfilm make movies for people who like TLJ. In the meantime, fans are just taking Rose Tico’s advice And trying to save what they love.

And by the way, Lucasfilms’ name calling and denying that a large part of the fans disliked the movie gives off the distinct vibe of fighting what they hate.

Note: the sarcasm in this post is all meant ina good-natured, joking way.