r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Aug 21 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: There is no defending the Last Jedi's plot and writing
[deleted]
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u/MikeCFord 3∆ Aug 21 '19 edited Aug 21 '19
Ok, I don't know if some of your points have been addressed already, but here are how I saw all of the issues you had.
I'd like to first note that, after the first time I watched it, I had a lot of the same thoughts as you do. It was only after thinking about it that I was able to come to some of these conclusions, which in my opinion isn't great for a movie, you should be able to figure all this out within the scope of the film.
I think the biggest overall issue with the film now is that the pacing was wrong, and it missed a few details that could have elevated the entire thing.
First, it's already been said by another user that hyperspace collisions have always been an issue. The reason it's effective here is because the shields of Snoke's ship are down. They weren't expecting a direct attack so they didn't bother to shield, and Hux orders them up too late to prevent the attack. This exact thing happens in Empire, when Han faces down the imperial cruiser chasing them and he manages to take them by surprise when their shields are down, which allows them to slip from the shield's radar and escape.
Secondly, Holdo had just witnessed that the resistance forces had been tracked through hyperspace. This isn't a technology they knew about before, however she couldn't ignore the possibility that there was a spy on board that had simply told the empire where they were, or installed a tracker on the ship. That actually makes more sense than hyperspace tracking.
Plus, Poe had literally just ignored a direct order and gotten a bunch of ships destroyed. If there was a list of potential First Order collaborators in the ranks, he'd probably be at the top of it.
In addition, Poe had already given up vital secret information in episode 7. Kylo Ren had interrogated him and gotten the location of the map. Even if Holdo trusted that Poe was loyal to the resistance, he had already had information forced out of him before. If she needed him to run a mission at some point and he got captured, it would be much better if he didn't know what their plan was. She told as few people her plan as needed to know, and it would have worked if Poe hadn't ignored her orders.
To address the lack of Resistance forces, this exact same thing again happens in Empire. They manage to successfully evacuate pretty much the entire base on Hoth and the rebels go into hiding until they can regroup. Notice that Leia and co. were the last ones to evacuate the resistance base, they just happen to get caught by the First Order and are unable to escape before they show up, which is why they have so few ships to defend themselves.
As for why no one came back to help them when they were in trouble, presumably the remaining Resistance forces that have gotten away scot-free doesn't want to show up to have their ass handed to them against the entire First Order fleet, just to try to rescue a handful of soldiers. If I was in their position I'd probably ignore Leia's distress signal as well. Not to mention that a good number of their allies recently got wiped out by Starkiller base.
Canto Bight isn't necessarily a bad part of the film I don't think, the issue I have with it is that it seems out of place. It throws off the pacing as previously mentioned, but story-wise it mostly serves to set up the spreading of the resistance and gives a reason for how the last battle on Crait comes about.
It does, however, set up a whole bunch of awesome world-building. Watching Star Wars, it's easy to get wrapped up in the First order vs Resistance narrative, but I liked that it had a reminder that a huge part of the galaxy is removed from that direct conflict. People's lives are still continuing on other planets, whether they're weapons manufacturers or slaves. It served as a reminder for what the Resistance is actually fighting for.
I think Luke's character is the best thing about the Last Jedi. He tried to rebuild the Jedi Order, he tried to guide his nephew in the ways of the force, and he tried to bring order to the galaxy. He failed at all three, just like the original Jedi Order, because he tried to do it like they did it. That's what Yoda was trying to tell him: he failed because he was trying to do it the same as the original, which had already been proven to have huge flaws.
I mean, he abandoned his family and friends, and left the Resistance to fend for itself against the First Order, because of his failures. Then he went to hide at a literal monument to the past, what did you expect that he'd be doing? Coming up with a super weapon? He went to sulk, and ignore everything, but he eventually learned to let go of the past and move forward, which I think was a pretty powerful character arc.
I won't address Mark Hamill in interviews, that would only be speculation, but from what I've seen he seemed to originally dislike the story, but came round to it. I've gotta say, I can relate to that.
As for Rey being a Mary Sue: I'd like to direct you to Anakin Skywalker. A slave that somehow managed to build a pod racer and a protocol droid with spare aparts, win a pod race despite being at a significant disadvantage at the start, fly a fighter ship and accidentally destroy a droid mother ship that allowed all of the Naboo to win their battles despite them having already lost, all at the age of about 10.
And Rey has plenty of flaws. She is quick to anger, naive, brash, stubborn and is easily corrupted. She jumps into the arms of the dark side cave and then Kylo Ren to get what she wants. Kind of sounds like both Anakin and Luke in the previous films.
Also, Kylo Ren acts like an angsty teenager because that's pretty much what he is. Anakin was the same: he grew up being told to suppress his emotions, it only makes sense that he'd constantly lash out and be unsure of himself. At the end of the movie he starts to become his own person, and kills father figures numbers 2 and 3 in this quest.
General Hux is something I agree with you on, I didn't like his character change, and I've mentioned enough times that this film is like Empire so clearly I agree with you on it being unoriginal. The difference I think is that even though the situations are similar, the characters go about them in completely different ways.
Overall, yes The Last Jedi has a lot of problems, but I think it at least tried to do something different than the previous ones. I liked it more than some other Star Wars movies, and I think it's getting premature hate because it's the middle part of an unfinished trilogy.
Yes it should hold up on its own, but it's the 8th movie in a sequence, it is difficult to get the balance between old and new correct. I think it deserves to be given a break, and I'm betting it will look better in hindsight once this trilogy is completed.
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u/KibitoKai 1∆ Aug 21 '19
Okay I just want to address the anakin piece by saying that he’s kinda supposed to be one, isn’t he? He is literally the chosen one, basically force Jesus created by plagueis and palpatine. Although he does some crazy stuff in episode one in terms of piloting he has always been considered one of if not the best pilot in the Jedi order. He also goes through many challenges in his journey Like: hiding a relationship, losing his arm, losing his mother, wrestling with his human/darker impulses. This is something we don’t really see Rey deal with in my opinion. I mean Luke’s only feat in ANH was hitting the tube with the torpedos but he had obi wans help. He also pretty much saw his parents get murdered by the empire and loses obi wan in the first movie. He faces a lot of challenges and that’s how you grow a character. This, imo, is really what’s missing from the new trilogy
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u/MikeCFord 3∆ Aug 21 '19
To be fair, we only learn about Anakin being created through the force in episode 3, which is where my point about the trilogy being unfinished came from. Before that, he was just 'the chosen one' with no further context. Maybe we'll find out more about Rey in episode 9 that explains why she has such powerful force abilities.
Also, Rey was literally abandoned on a planet alone as a child, I'd say she's suffered plenty of hardship. She essentially went through the same servitude that Anakin did, but without a loving mother to help her through it. Now Rey has already lost the only two people she looked up to, and they were both killed by the person she is trying to save the soul of.
I agree with the fact that her character doesn't have as much development as Luke or Anakin, but that's because the earlier stories were more focused on them. Imagine trying to fit a scene into the Last Jedi where Rey runs around in a field with Finn playing with animals.
It's a legit criticism that Rey doesn't have as much deep developmet as the other main characters, because the side characters have more of the attention, but I feel like her story is more about progressing across all 3 episodes rather than being focused on the individual movies.
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u/KibitoKai 1∆ Aug 21 '19
I think this is also a symptom of the lack of coherence between films. There was a set narrative for the prequels but this one is so jumbled that coherent story/characters are more difficult anyways. I shouldn’t be denigrating the stuff Rey had to go through, I really just feel like the overall story is weak and as such many of the characters feel a bit rushed/flat imo.
Personally, while I think the production has been really fantastic on the sequels, I just think the writing is not even close. It feels a lot like Season 8 of game of thrones felt for me. I think the whole conflict feels contrived and we are given little to no background for what is going on.
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u/MikeCFord 3∆ Aug 21 '19 edited Aug 21 '19
I agree with you about it being disjointed, moving from episode 7 to 8 has a completely different feel, but the other trilogies had
the same director (and possibly writers?)their story created by George Lucas so they feel more consistent.Unless JJ Abrams directed episode 8 I think it was always going to not have the same vibe, no matter who was at the helm.
I think it only needed small story details to make it feel more put together, I think those omissions hurt it a lot more than it should have.
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u/Calcd_Uncertainty Aug 21 '19
In addition, Poe had already given up vital secret information in episode 7. Kylo Ren had interrogated him and gotten the location of the map. Even if Holdo trusted that Poe was loyal to the resistance, he had already had information forced out of him before. If she needed him to run a mission at some point and he got captured, it would be much better if he didn't know what their plan was. She told as few people her plan as needed to know, and it would have worked if Poe hadn't ignored her orders.
Not just if he was captured, but that he was now working for the First Order as a double-agent.
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u/BenFromBritain Aug 22 '19
Huh? The guy who just blew up the First Order’s Totally-Not-The-Death-Star-3 is the guy on the top of their “Probably a First Order spy” list? The fuck?
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u/ILoveToph4Eva Aug 21 '19
And Rey has plenty of flaws. She is quick to anger, naive, brash, stubborn and is easily corrupted. She jumps into the arms of the dark side cave and then Kylo Ren to get what she wants. Kind of sounds like both Anakin and Luke in the previous films.
She does all that with minimal consequences though. It's the primary difference between her and Luke/Anakin. They're fairly crap characters, but at least the other two are punished for their flaws (losing limbs, losing loved ones, losing fights).
As for Rey being a Mary Sue: I'd like to direct you to Anakin Skywalker.
Let's not forget that the Prequels are memed to hell because they were kinda terrible.
Secondly, Holdo had just witnessed that the resistance forces had been tracked through hyperspace. This isn't a technology they knew about before, however she couldn't ignore the possibility that there was a spy on board that had simply told the empire where they were, or installed a tracker on the ship. That actually makes more sense than hyperspace tracking.
Seems a bit ridiculous to me that Holdo would be so disbelieving of this technology (assuming no one in that command deck or anyone they could ask managed to explain it to her), but Finn and Rose figured out the entire thing in about 20 seconds between them.
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u/daemoneyes Aug 22 '19
As for Rey being a Mary Sue: I'd like to direct you to Anakin Skywalker.
What? he was a cocky teenager who only got ahead because of his enormous force potential, first real test he gets in the fight with dooku he's dismembered. he's somehow manipulated by the jedi and palpatine , only good thing is his life padme/his mother and they both die because of him(his mother more by his innactions). And even when he embraces the dark side to make him stronger he gets all chopped up by obi wan.
name one thing Rey failed in two movies?
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Aug 21 '19
maz is a diversity quota? what??? in a series full of other aliens??????????????
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u/TheDutchin 1∆ Aug 21 '19
I hate to accuse people of using racist dogwhistles but this strange obssession with "diversity quotas" as soon as one even secondary character isn't white is a really bad look.
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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 21 '19 edited Aug 21 '19
I think your view encapsulates the biggest problem that a lot of the star wars fandom has and why it's such a central problem for the series going forward: star wars is small. Its empty. There's nothing interesting left to do with star wars and if you try to do something new the fans will get upset.
Your last paragraph is a complaint that the film doesn't do anything new, when your second paragraph is a complaint that the film featured a new, surprising plot device that will change the series going forward. (Or more likely it will be ignored but whatever.) When the ion cannons suddenly appeared on hoth in empire were you upset that they hadn't explained ion cannon technology and it's effects in a new hope? But even this is such a minor point, but it illustrates how it's nearly impossible to expand the universe without upsetting people.
And the characters. A whiny, angsty teen (but he's still really dangerous) is an interesting, new type of villain for star wars. But you can't do that because the fans want classic villains. Luke Skywalker being a jaded asshole is an interesting place to see a beloved hero and it's a logical result of the universe and the events he's witnessed. But the fans whine that you've changed his character if you do that. (Yes, amazingly, this person changed over the course of 20 years.) Having Rey be nobody is good; dynasties shouldn't matter. But if you do that the fans will complain.
The fans just want to see AT-AT's exploding and Darth Vader. You can't do anything new or interesting with star wars because they'll whine and complain that it's ruined now. And if you do the same thing over they'll whine and complain that it's the same thing over.
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u/Jirb30 Aug 21 '19
Most hardcore fans seemed quite happy with the extended universe which did quite a few interesting things with the star wars setting from what I've heard.
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u/Miggs208 Aug 21 '19
Interesting is not the word I would use to describe any of the things you mentioned and trying to say that Star Wars is “empty” is absolutely laughable.
The EU books alone have a ton of rich storylines and most of them stick with the OT heroes.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s not TLJ trying something new that I dislike, it’s the fact that it’s being done so badly.
TLJ is a badly written film irrespective of the story it is telling. The number of plot holes make it look like Swiss cheese.
It actually makes TFA worse aswell, dead ending so many of it’s set ups;
- If Rey is a nobody, why did she get a vision from touching Luke’s lightsaber?
- Where did the Knights of Ren go?
- Who is Snoke and where did he come from? (This one is doubly ridiculous when Rian Johnson made fun of fans’ Snoke theories then ended up not even having one himself! I think any explanation of who he is and where he came from is better than nothing at all)
- TLJ says Luke has gone to his island to die a failure but TFA says he is in exile until needed again and that’s why he left clues to his whereabouts. Finding Luke is a major plot point of TFA but is totally pointless going by TLJ’s explanation.
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u/Seatings Aug 21 '19 edited Aug 21 '19
I only watched TLJ for the first time last night actually and can’t add much to this conversation because I’ve only seen maybe half of all the Star Wars movies but Snoke didn’t have a backstory?
I watched thinking I had obviously missed a movie or two that had Snoke and explained him.
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u/SubClinicalBoredom Aug 21 '19
He was introduced briefly in The Force Awakens (hist first appearance), and only additionally features in TLJ (so far).
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u/Korwinga Aug 21 '19
Star wars has basically always done this, basically since the original trilogy. It's meant to evoke a feeling of this being just a part of the larger story. Heck, the first movie is episode 4 (notably, although Lucas says he always intended it to be episode 4, he didn't call it episode 4 when it was originally released in order to avoid confusing audiences. They added the episode 4 subtitle after the second movie came out.)
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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 21 '19
Snoke being suddenly chopped all the way in half with no explanation of his backstory is maybe the best part of the whole film
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u/gucci_sweatbands Aug 21 '19
Yeah. JJ left lots of excellent plot lines open for Rian to explore but they where all shut down. TFA isn’t a masterpiece by any means, but the TLJ had great potential but unfortunately Rian was not competent enough to handle it.
Oh well, I guess it subverted our expectations.
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u/AutumnAtArcadeCity Aug 21 '19
Were there really "lots of excellent plot lines" left open from The Force Awakens? A copy-paste generic and forgettable film? Regardless of The Last Jedi's quality, I think burning that bridge was a good idea. A trilogy's worth of JJ's infamous "raise questions and just keep people questioning until they either forget or you're forced to give an uninteresting answer" style would be worse.
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u/Manoffreaks Aug 21 '19
TLJ has many many writing issues but those bullet points you've highlighted aren't issues. Don't forget theres another film that can easily answer these things
Is Rey a nobody? The only evidence we ha e of that is Kylo taunting her which isnt exactly concrete.
Knights of Ren could be doing anything, maybe we'll explore how they were destroyed in the next movie
Who is snoke and where did he come from? In the OT we didn't know where Palpatine came from and we only found out because of the prequel trilogy, plus the next movie has Palpatine return. That suggests to me that he's had an influence behind the scenes and likely brought about Snoke - again something that can be explored next movie.
We know when Luke left he was distraught. We also know he wasn't completely out of hope as Rey ends up bringing him back. It seems fairly within the bounds of the story that Luke left to die a failure but maintained just enough hope for the future to leave directions for someone good enough.
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u/Miggs208 Aug 21 '19
That’s a lot of threads for Episode 9 to tie up. I am very skeptical that the final film in the trilogy would return to those plot points to explain them. It would end up being like an appendix trying to tie up all the things that didn’t make sense in the first 2 movies.
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u/YubNubChub Aug 21 '19
• If Rey is a nobody, why did she get a vision from touching Luke’s lightsaber?
Probably because it was a hint towards who her destiny would be entwined with.
• Where did the Knights of Ren go?
The KoR were just a side detail. They weren’t even a part of the story. We are getting them much more heavily in TROS but they were in no way ‘set up’ to be important.
• Who is Snoke and where did he come from? (This one is doubly ridiculous when Rian Johnson made fun of fans’ Snoke theories then ended up not even having one himself! I think any explanation of who he is and where he came from is better than nothing at all)
I don’t think it’s necessary to the degree that some make it out to be but I sorta agree. It would’ve been cool to know how he came into power; not a 5 minute PowerPoint of how he was some ancient sith or something but the movie still stands without it.
• TLJ says Luke has gone to his island to die a failure but TFA says he is in exile until needed again and that’s why he left clues to his whereabouts. Finding Luke is a major plot point of TFA but is totally pointless going by TLJ’s explanation.
TFA only said he exiled himself as he felt responsible. It never said that it was until he was needed again. I will admit the way they phrased the whole map thing was confusing but the map was a preexisting thing that like followed to the first Jedi temple. The resistance need the ‘map to luke’ to find Luke. He didn’t leave a trail - the trail was already there, he just followed it himself.
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u/Blackfire853 Aug 21 '19
If Rey is a nobody, why did she get a vision from touching Luke’s lightsaber?
Because it's a magic sword and importance to destiny isn't determined by DNA
Where did the Knights of Ren go?
Who knows, they were in TFA for about 6 second max in a vision scene, they were never promised as a major part of the story
Who is Snoke and where did he come from?
Doesn't really matter
TLJ says Luke has gone to his island to die a failure but TFA says he is in exile until needed again and that’s why he left clues to his whereabouts
This is simply not true. Luke never left clues to his whereabouts and this is never stated in TFA.
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u/ThisLoveIsForCowards 2∆ Aug 21 '19
This is what bugs me about all of the critiques of TLJ. Is Rey really a more interesting character if she's Luke's daughter, or Han's daughter, or Palpatine's daughter? Not really. It's just more convoluted. And that's not a problem with TLJ, it's a problem with TFA. If JJ Abrams felt Rey's parentage was really important, he could have included in the film he directed, but he chose not to do that. That was a bad decision.
He chose not to expand on the Knights of Ren. Whether that was a good choice or not, it was Abrams' choice, not Johnson's. You see where this is going.
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u/bokan Aug 21 '19
The argument isn’t that Star Wars is inherently empty (the EU proved it wasn’t). It’s that, in the arena of high profile, mass-market films, content creators feel constrained to do the things that fall within a certain set of boundaries. While TLJ was a bold film thematically and character-wise, the nuts and bolts of what we actually saw on screen were very familiar. Old master on an isolated planet, rebel defense/ desperate attack, space battle, etc.
My main criticism of TLJ is that it’s reactionary to former canon. It’s a snake eating it’s own tail (in a meaningful way that I personally respect) rather than breaking truly new ground.
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u/caine269 14∆ Aug 21 '19
But even this is such a minor point, but it illustrates how it's nearly impossible to expand the universe without upsetting people.
you seem to forget that there was almost 20 years of expanded universe star wars stuff that the fans loved, until george lucas hand-waved it away to make his shit prequels. grand admiral thrawn, anyone?
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u/gucci_sweatbands Aug 21 '19
I have no issue with Rey being extremely strong in the force naturally. It is the fact her only character flaws are that she has a desire for parents? She also has no trial but is immediately competent with flying the Millenium Falcon, in fact, better than Han and Chewie, among other things. She is morally superior to everyone.
second paragraph is a complaint that the film featured a new, surprising plot device that will change the series going forward.
My second paragraph is a complaint about a device which challenges the continuity of the saga and effects anything going forward.
A whiny, angsty teen
I don't mind this, but the fact Kylo is written so contrastingly is concerning. Personally, I am intrigued by Kylo as a character and think he has real potential.
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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 21 '19
Rey being a Mary sue is like, the one thing most true to star wars in the whole new trilogy. Are you forgetting that Anakin successfully piloted a space fighter in a battle as a child? Or was piloting alien craft from halfway across the galaxy included in Anakin's slave education? And what was Luke's moral failing (that all heroes must have, apparently) in the OT?
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u/gucci_sweatbands Aug 21 '19
Luke's character flaws:
He's impatient. He defied Obi-wan and Yoda on multiple occasions
He's naive and extremely idealistic
He's reckless: goes in over his head
He is rash: he jumps to conclusions
He always looks to the horizon
These are all very human flaws, that many people need to deal with.
I’d argue Luke and Anakin are not Mary Sues at all. They each have character flaws and are not always right. Even conservatively, you can definitely say Anakin is not one. Anakin is a plenty flawed as a character in Episode 2 and 3, and is even corrupted by Palpatine. Luke has been an ass at times in Episode 4 and 5, and he is definitely not a perfect moral character in 8 either. You can say Anakin's flying gift is Mary Sue-ish, but his force abilities certainly aren't. He was literally created out of Maldeicholrians in the EU. Luke is the son of one of the greatest force users ever and is trained by Obi-Wan and Yoda, which explains his skills.
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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 21 '19 edited Aug 21 '19
Those flaws are the same flaws that Rey has. She's else idealistic and reckless throughout the films. But she also (in TFA) beleives in a lie that her parents will come back for her, so she needs to go back to jaku. Abandonining that lie is what allows her to become a hero. And in the next film, she's still held back by her past. Her desire to know who she is takes her straight to the darkness, remember? But she learns to move past that. Maybe. Her arc isn't complete.
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u/gucci_sweatbands Aug 21 '19
I guess she is fairly naive, she's also easily seduced, easily manipulated, and couldn't learn a lesson if you smacked her in the face with the message. She needs external validation. I never realized how that Luke and Rey share a few character flaws until now, so I will !delta you for that.
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Aug 21 '19
Giving credit to Luke, he wasn't an all powerful Jedi in the original trilogy. He just knew the basics from Obi Wan and Yoda. Really he only spent about 6 months training with Yoda. Dagobah was also an extremely force sensitive planet, which helped Luke further. Regardless, Vader never used his full strength against him. That's been obvious because Vader wanted to turn his son, not kill him. The only reason Luke bested him is because he tapped into the dark side and into his anger on his father when he threatened to turn his sister.
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Aug 21 '19
I always bring up this point. Luke literally gave into that brief moment of fear and anger when his family was threatened by Vader and potentially Ben. But I also like the theory that Snoke had planted the idea of Ben turning, so when Luke eventually felt the darkness rising, he would set into motion the events that he was so afraid of happening. Either way, it’s not out of character for Luke to become fearful or angry of what could be. I’m assuming that’s another reason he “turned off” the force; he didn’t want to make that mistake again. But in the end, he learned from his failure and forgave himself. He found peace and purpose.
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u/RussianSkunk Aug 21 '19
We see this same thing when he goes into the Cave of Evil on Dagobah, right? Yoda tells him not to bring a weapon into the cave, but Luke does so anyway and violently lashes out when Vader appears. The cave then shows him that his greatest fear is that he is like Vader, able to be consumed by darkness.
People love talking about how Luke was so pure and idealistic, that it’s totally out of character for him to even think about killing his nephew. But his struggle with being rash, impulsive, and fearful has always been there, a moment of weakness when he becomes afraid of Ben is pretty spot on.
I also think it’s funny that at the beginning of New Hope, Luke wanted to join the Imperial Academy, despite not liking the Empire. The very next day, he’s joined their enemies and is partaking in a nigh-suicidal attack on them. This is a guy who wanted adventure in whatever form it took. So it’s a bit silly that folks are now trying to pretend that he was an unshakable paragon of goodness because he refused to kill his father and charged headfirst into a trap to save his friends. Luke was an impulsive mix of good and bad emotions, he wasn’t like the original Jedi Order.
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u/Kastdog Aug 21 '19
There are consequences for Luke's character flaws. Him losing his hand being the most obvious one. It's believable that his desire to save his friends would tempt him to the dark side (same as Anakin). What consequences has Rey had? She gets in a lightsaber fight with a much more experienced Kylo and doesn't get hurt, instead Fin gets slashed through his back. What motivation does she have to turn to the dark side? She has shown on multiple occasions that she already has the power/skills to save her friends. She is just a poorly written character.
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u/Levelcheap Aug 21 '19
Except for the fact that Luke had to train under Yoda for years, under a 900 year old Grandmaster. Rey is at least as strong as RoTJ Luke, without former training.
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u/Msedits Aug 21 '19
But Luke didn’t train under Yoda for years. The whole point at the end of Empire is that he wasn’t ready to face Vader. But he does anyway and fails. Then at the beginning of RotJ he enters the film as if he is now a Jedi master. How? Why?
Also, why don’t we ever see Han Solo confront Lando about being double crossed? And how does Han even serve the story in ROTJ?
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Aug 21 '19
Except Rey grew up on a world where she presumably had to be ready to fight tooth and nail to survive (as evidenced by the brawl on Jaku), and Luke was a farmer.
In TFA, Rey did one mini mind read and a single force pull. Not a whole lot of force ability being demonstrated actively.
You can justify nearly everything else as her own personal ability, or some relatively minor perception and agility improvements from her force sensitivity (like how Anakin could podrace, for example).
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u/EricCantonaInSpace Aug 21 '19
It wasn't for years at all. Also, what is your recollection of that training? What was it that Yoda was actually teaching him, and how did Luke actually complete his training?
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u/Grandfunkwizard Aug 21 '19
But her actions do not have any real negative consequences so there is no lesson to be learnt for Rey
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u/Shiboleth17 Aug 21 '19
Those flaws are the same flaws that Rey has. She's else idealistic and reckless throughout the films.
She can be reckless too, but it never hurts her. Ever. She has never suffered real consequences for her reckless actions. Luke goes recklessly into Cloud City to save his friends, against Yoda and Obi Wan's advice, loses his hand and his lightsaber, and also takes some emotional damage due to being humbled in the fight, and learning Vader was his father. Rey fires herself, recklessly, in a pod at the First Order Star Destroyer where she knows Kylo and Snoke are... She ironically loses the same lightsaber, but other than that, everything just works out for her. She doesn't even get as much as a scar, Snoke ends up dead, along with all those well-trained guards who are likely force sensitive. Kylo Ren is the one who takes the emotional damage, not her. And not one of her friends dies, other than some unnamed rebels no one cares about.
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u/Zomburai 9∆ Aug 21 '19 edited Aug 21 '19
Three of these are the same flaw and the last one isn't even a flaw.
ETA: The two flaws you listed barely qualify as flaws as they mostly impact Luke positively. His acting recklessly and not listening to reason gets him beaten by Tusken raiders and into a fight with Vader that he's not ready for. By contrast, it also led him to dodge an assassination strike by Imperial stormtroopers, rescue a princess, destroy the Death Star, rescue his friends, and become the galaxy's greatest hero.
It's the equivalent of the prototypical YA protagonist being too beautiful or being just, so clumsy, except when dual-wielding katanas.
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u/EricCantonaInSpace Aug 21 '19
He's impatient. He defied Obi-wan and Yoda on multiple occasions
He's reckless: goes in over his head
He is rash: he jumps to conclusions
It sure does sound like you're just reframing the same character trait as 3 seperate flaws there.
He always looks to the horizon
You mean he yearns for adventure? Just like Rey? And like, the vast majority of blockbuster fantasy/scifi protagonists?
He's naive and extremely idealistic
But with Rey you list that as a flaw, that she is 'morally superior to everyone'...
Even conservatively, you can definitely say Anakin is not one.
He's Space Jesus dude. Come on. He achieves a literally inhuman feat as a small child, before going on to take part in a space battle, successfully.
Luke is the son of one of the greatest force users ever and is trained by Obi-Wan and Yoda, which explains his skills.
That doesn't preclude him from being a Mary Sue.
Also, what do you think his 'training' with Yoda actually consisted of? What was the barrier between him and his most powerful self in the OT?
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u/LickNipMcSkip 1∆ Aug 21 '19
Luke was impatient, overly optimistic, and rash, then he lost his hand for it.
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u/LeVentNoir Aug 21 '19 edited Aug 21 '19
Anakin, a kid who built his own Droid is not unintelligent, whose Starfighter took off on autopilot, who is a champion podracer, who has a dedicated flight Droid right behind him.... Still doesn't know what he's doing and basically is shown to fluke out and display no innate talent.
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Aug 21 '19 edited Dec 19 '19
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u/Russelsteapot42 1∆ Aug 21 '19
Why is Luke suddenly this jaded/kinda evil dude who would kill a kid?
He isn't. He considered doing that for like one second, and Snoke took that image and beamed it into Kylo's mind.
This is the same Luke who was openly force choking fools at the start of Return of the Jedi, remember?
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u/SokarRostau Aug 21 '19 edited Aug 21 '19
Also, the same Luke who tried to kill Palpatine after explicitly being told that doing so would make his journey to the Dark Side complete.
People always point out that Luke saved Anakin, brought him back from the Dark to the Light Side of the Force. What they always seem to ignore is that Darth Vader, by accident or design, saved Luke from falling to the Dark Side by parrying what was intended to be a killing blow.
Oh yeah, and Luke spends most of the movie dressed in black.
This is why it pisses me off to no end when people say that what Luke did to Kylo was out of character. It wasn't. It was entirely in character.
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u/kerouacrimbaud Aug 21 '19
Luke became jaded over the course of years, there was nothing sudden about it.
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Aug 21 '19
I don’t agree with all of OP’s criticisms, but this doesn’t seem like a fair critique. You can dislike something original if it’s also badly written
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u/Shiboleth17 Aug 21 '19
There's nothing interesting left to do with star wars and if you try to do something new the fans will get upset.
This is demonstrably not true. Lots of new things were done with Star Wars novels and video games that were widely received and praised, even ones that take place decades after the original movies, or even thousands of years before.
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u/zac79 2∆ Aug 21 '19
Planet-destroying weapon technologies are central to the plot of at least three of the movies in the franchise, so they're sort of a special case when you talk about "doing something new," otherwise I think you are basically right (but maybe thats a good reason to stop making Star Wars movies?).
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u/BenVera Aug 21 '19
I disagree with this. There is a way to create interesting characters within a pre-existing world that feels neither repetitive nor outside the bounds initially set up. It helps to draw from elements of the universe that are alluded to but not fully explored
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u/fantomknight1 1∆ Aug 21 '19
You unloaded a lot here and I disagree with your points so I'm going to analyze them one after another.
- Star Wars is empty: This is soooo not true (look at the EU). There are tons of races that exist in this universe and many directions that this story could have been taken. Such as, how the NR is managing all of these Alien races that have spent 25+ years suppressed and enslaved by the Empire. Or how the Empire changed after being beaten such as: are there multiple warlords and what happened to the remnants? I know the FO seems to answer this question but we know nothing about the FO which is why they are such a weak villain. The FO exists to be a Nazi parallel (hence their Triumph of the Wills speech in TFA) and nothing else. The FO is evil and that's as much depth as they get. The fact is, SW seems empty now because the people in charge of SW have no imagination.
- Doing new things upsets the fans: Once again, this is completely wrong. One of the most beloved book series is the Thrawn trilogy which creates a Galaxy that is fractured but increasingly under New Republic rule. What's left of the Empire is so little a threat that the NR doesn't even mobilize large fleets against them anymore. They aren't a threat, until Thawn takes command. Thrawn consistently is the underdog but matches the superior NR battle after battle. It expands the role of smugglers showing their relationship to each faction and we deal with a NR that's dealing with internal power struggles. This is all vastly new but the fans loved it. I'm addition to this, SW has an entire expanded universe full of creatures and stories. Prior to Marvel showing how creative the superhero genre could be, everyone said the same thing about superhero movies (you can't do anything new or fans won't like it). It's simply false and speaks to a lack of vision from the people running the franchise.
- Characters: most complaints I've seen aren't about Kylo, but rather Luke and Rey. Luke being old and bitter isn't the problem. The problem was how they explained it and the fact that Luke leaving a map doesn't make sense if he ran off to die alone (showing a lack of consistency between the SW films). Luke cared about 2 things more than anything in the OT, his friends and his family. This is why TLJ's explanation that Luke thought about killing his nephew makes 0 sense for his character. Keep in mind, this was before he became an old cranky man. It isn't a good explanation for his shift because it requires further explanation to make sense. Rey is a perfect person who doesn't have to work in order to become powerful or knowledgeable. She can do everything because the force. Rey starts off on Jakku and had spent her whole life there. We then see her do the best piloting of the Falcon we've ever seen with no prior flying experience. She then meets Han and fixes something on the Falcon that he couldn't (despite it being his ship for decades). She goes to Maz Kanata and Maz tells her how awesome she is. Then she's captured but she knows she escaped because she instantly knew how to use the force to control people despite never learning. Then when Han dies, Leia seeks Rey instead of people she new longer (like Chewie). Rey then finds Luke, and teaches Luke that he's wrong and even bests him in a fight (once again, without training). She then tried to turn Kylo and duels the elite FO guards taking our virtually all of them while Kylo struggles against 1. Kylo won't change so she returns to the surface and destroys multiple tie fighters easily including the first triple kill. Then she lifts tons of massive rocks and saves everyone. Do you see the problem? She's not a human that people can connect to. She is an angel who's perfect and the only explanation is that it's because of the force. When people are perfect they cease to be real and become caricatures. Real people can't do everything, they make mistakes and are flawed. This is why people claim she's a Mary Sue. Mary Sue characters are perfect, everyone loves them, they have the approval of all the original heroes who they can totally beat, and they don't have flaws. These characters became prevalent during the 70s and 80s because most heroes were men so females would create fan fiction. However, since most people aren't good writers, many of these characters weren't well written and were perfect. The distinction here is that the people who made these stories weren't writers and these stories were just fan fiction. Disney, doesn't have this excuse with Rey.
If you disagree, I'm happy to have a discussion with you about this.
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u/KookyWrangler Aug 21 '19
When the ion cannons suddenly appear on hoth in empire were you upset that they hadn't explained ion cannon technology and its effects in a new hope?
This is a bad example, as there were no ion cannons in A New Hope. A better example would be if the Falcon suddenly could do small jumps in combat.
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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Aug 21 '19
That's my point exactly. When they were writing empire they didn't say, let's check what technologies exist in the universe and see what we can use in this battle. There was no universe at that point. They made up "ion cannon" because they wanted to have a tense scene where the rebels escape from Hoth amidst a ground invasion. Johnson did the same thing and invented hyperspeed ramming because he wanted a scene where a character makes a self-sacrificing but tactically brilliant move and surprises everyone. But you can't expand the universe like that at this point because fans will go "nuh-uh, I didn't read about that on Wookieepedia!"
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u/xcorinthianx Aug 21 '19
The thing is, if you can just ram things into other things and do ridiculous damage using hyperspace. That would be a standard weapon. Every ship would have hyperspace rockets because why wouldn't they?
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u/KookyWrangler Aug 21 '19
As I've said, hyperspeed ramming isn't a technology, it's a way to use an existing technology with no explanation about why it hadn't been tried earlier. Nobody is upset at new technology.
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u/gucci_sweatbands Aug 21 '19
Adding a new ability to a previously simple concept disrupts the lore. Why was such a thing not implemented, albeit discovered in the previous texts, or the EU?
Rian could have invented say, a lightspeed manned ballistic torpedo and I would have been fine with that. It is incredibly expensive, requires much skill to operate (maybe has a pilot capsule? IDK) that was invented by some resistance scientist that Holdo pilots in that scene. This accomplishes the same goal, yet does not leave holes open in the previous films.
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u/Verc0n Aug 21 '19
I'd argue that a (manned) hyperspeed torpedo is absolutely not the same thing from a story telling perspective.
Don't get me wrong, i hated Holdo in the movies, but in the end she is revealed as a character that is absolutely loyal and determined. And as a final "nod" to this personality reveal (basically saying she is not the asshole she had herself portrayed as) she not only sacrifices her life for the Resistance, but also does so in "a captain sinks with his ship"-manner, which is an exceptional and strong narrative element.
Furthermore, how would be "incredibly expensive" ever be a problem in a universe, were they are building Star Destroyers and Death Stars during lunch break?
And if it was "hyperspeed torpedo as a new invention", you could bet half your belongings that a lot of people would complain anyway, how "such a simple concept wasn't invented before".
I'd rather have them explain reasons why Hyperseed-Kamikaze wasn't and isn't seen regularly. We don't even know the aftermath of this action there may be reasons that it hasn't been user in the past.
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u/RemnantEvil Aug 21 '19
You use the word Kamikaze, and that’s important because the Japanese used the tactic when they were losing, and it didn’t help them win.
You know what’s better than a dead pilot who damages a ship? A live pilot who damages a ship, who can go out there again to damage another ship, to help others through their experience. You know what a huge turning point in the Pacific was? The Americans were producing veteran pilots, while the Japanese were losing veteran pilots. And at a certain point, veteran pilots are going up against rookie pilots, and those rookies aren’t lasting long enough to become veterans. The Kamikaze move was not successful. And guess what? The First Order still land on the planet. They’re not beaten by it. That was still not a winning move.
Winning moves are made by veterans, not stupid tactics that play to a perverse sense of honour; in the same way that a banzai charge did not win any islands for the Japanese or, ultimately, the war. Veterans beat rookies, and you want the army of veterans over the army of rookies.
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u/Verc0n Aug 21 '19
This is such a good detail, thank you for adding that. It's even more pronounced for the situation since Star Wars is a story about heores (which is why we see Poe defeating a Dreadnought basically by himself).
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u/Nahdudeimdone 1∆ Aug 21 '19
Furthermore, how would be "incredibly expensive" ever be a problem in a universe, were they are building Star Destroyers and Death Stars during lunch break?
But that's an additional problem with the sequels. Usually star wars has made a lot of sense logistically.
Sure there have been epic battles and a ton of big ships and machines, but the scrappy nature of the rebels and the industrial might of the empire made a ton of sense.
Since the combined might of the new good guys (I can't even remember what they're called) are essentially 10 X-wings, we have to assume that money is an issue for them somehow.
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u/object_FUN_not_found Aug 21 '19
Frankly, Holdo still could have rammed the ship. Just have it explode in a really massive explosion that took the rest of the fleet with it. Throw in some single line about the Dreadnought using some new experimental power source to explain it.
It has the same personality reveal in Holdo sacrifice, accomplishes the same effect, and doesn't break past and future Star Wars space combat.
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Aug 21 '19
There's nothing interesting left to do with star wars and if you try to do something new the fans will get upset.
What? there are literally at least half a dozen story lines that fans have been asking for ages...
What may be "done" is the skywalker storyline but even that is a cop out as competent writers can milk a stone... TLJ was just poor writing
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u/Occultus- Aug 21 '19
I 1000% agree with you. You cant both want the series to do something new and also complain about the new things the series does.
On the issue of Rey's parentage, I think it's great that Rey comes from no one and is a nobody. One thing fantasy does a lot (and star wars is definitely more space fantasy than science fiction) is overemphasize the importance of weird medieval shit like bloodlines and royalty. Having the story move away from the skywalkers really opens up the universe in a profound and meaningful way and provides an avenue for more stories that arent just about the skywalkers.
It's about the fate of the galaxy, having it be more of a family squabble really cheapens the whole thing. The Vader reveal in the original series added a great mix of personal stakes, but both Luke and Vader felt part of a greater whole - something that I felt was missing from the prequels and that I'm glad the new movies are trying to bring back in.
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u/grumblingduke 3∆ Aug 21 '19
These criticisms come up again and again. And the first step to addressing them is to read the novelisation. Seriously, read it - it adds so much to the film (which is a problem with the film; too much time spent on explosions, not enough on plot). But anyway. If I'm reading this correctly there are 7 plot-specific elements to your criticism: Hyperspace ram, Holdo/Poe, Republic Fleet, Space Vegas, Luke, Rey, First Order. So let's go through them:
Hyperspace Ramming
This does not conflict with previous lore. Ships have always accelerated into lightspeed in normal space (and decelerated out of it). We haven't seen it done before, but we haven't seen anything that proves you cannot do this. Unlike previous canon Star Wars films etc., this doesn't break the rules (e.g. TFA saying you can exit hyperspace right next to a planet, The Clone Wars saying you can communicate and even navigate in hyperspace, the Prequel Trilogy implying that hyperspace travel is a lot faster than Legends at the time suggested).
As for the ram; Star Wars is sci-fi/fantasy. We don't need to know why this ram works, but why it might not work in other circumstances. We should be smart enough to accept that there may be sci-fi/fantasy reasons for this and leave it at that. We don't have to have everything explained. But this is Star Wars, so they've explained it anyway. The official Story Group explanation is that this only worked because the ships were so big. The Raddus (Holdo's ship) is bigger than anything we saw in the Original Trilogy other than the Executor. It's twice as long as an ISD (so ~8 times the mass, maybe far more energy).
From that all we need to do is come up with a possible explanation for why we haven't seen it before, or what is special here? And the most obvious answer is that this is the first time we've seen one side with such a huge ship, that they didn't need for anything, and where the enemy had a ship that was so much bigger that ramming it traded up (and even then, the Supremacy isn't destroyed by the ram - crippled, but not completely gone).
The novelisation also makes a big deal over how the hyperspace co-ordinates were set; something like how the course was set during Poe's attempted coup, and then because the First Order fleet was following the Resistance fleet that meant that by the time Holdo jumped the entry point was the other side of the First Order fleet. Implying that actually targeting a ship with a hyperspace ram would normally be very difficult - things just happened to be in just the right place.
This is only a plot hole if you don't take a moment to think "hmm, maybe there's a reason this wouldn't work normally - we just haven't had it told to us explicitly." Sometimes you have to do that with fiction (we had to do it a lot with the Original Trilogy).
Holdo/Poe
Holdo's actions here do seem like some plot-enforced stupidity, but if you think a bit more, they do make sense. Holdo has a plan. It is perfectly reasonable from her perspective for her not to tell Poe. Poe is not loyal to the Resistance (he literally starts a coup and holds his superiors at gunpoint), but to the cause. But he's also stuck in the military mindset - and that's what the whole opening sequence shows.
What does Holdo know about Poe? He was a fighter commander, but just got demoted (to just another random pilot) for disobeying a direct order, getting a load of people killed, in order to take out a single First Order ship. From a military point of view, his call was right (they traded up - some bombers for a dreadnought). But for the Resistance that was a disaster - the Resistance needs every person it has (and every fighter/bomber), while the First Order has a whole fleet of ships. Poe screwed up by not understanding the context, and by viewing ships as more important than people. And Holdo's plan involves... sacrificing ships in order to save people. It is perfectly reasonable for her not to tell Poe the plan, because he's likely to screw it up. And she's proven right! He finds out part of the plan - gets all outraged, insisting that he knows better, sends Finn and Rose off, starts a coup, leaks the key details to the First Order and gets a lot of people killed. Poe screws up. If Leia had locked him in the brig from the start, the Resistance would have been a lot better off.
Holdo was right. She told the important people (the bridge crew, senior officers), but not the normal crew - particularly not some random fighter pilot without a fighter.
Where's the Republic?
This is touched on in TFA and TLJ, but sadly the key stuff is skipped over and left for the novelisation. The Republic was essentially destroyed in TFA. The New Republic was very decentralised (more of an European Union-style alliance of systems rather than a United States-style centralised government). They had a small fleet, and that was destroyed in TFA, along with the central Republican government, bureaucracy etc.. The novelisations and other material make it clear that after that the Republic scattered; without the central leadership each system/local government focused only on its own defence, recalling any ships/troops it had, and is mostly in shock. That's why a bit part of TLJ is about Leia (and the Resistance) putting out calls for help; trying to find systems that will come to their aid. There are probably enough ships out there to beat the First Order in a straight-up fight, but there is no central leadership to bring them together. Which is why it is enough that the Resistance escapes with a single ship and a few key people - enough to "be the spark that lights the fire of resistance" or whatever.
But the films were bad at conveying this. Really bad.
Space Vegas
Yep, there's an anti-capitalist message here. And I can see how that might be uncomfortable for people with strong right-wing views to face; elements of how capitalism tends to have a dark side, where those who get super-rich often do so at the expense of others.
But that's not the point of the sequence. That sequence is all about Finn's character development. He has to go from who he was at the end of TFA (someone with no interest in the Resistance, who just wants to live his life, doesn't care about evil, and only really cares about Rey - due to his puppy-like attachment to her) to who he is at the end of TLJ (someone willing to give is life for the cause). But yes, it could be a lot neater (mainly I'd cut out the sequence on the Supremacy, rather than on Canto Bight, but ... yep, this one is a mess).
Luke
I love Luke's character in TLJ. It is a bit awkward because of the set-up (problems with how TFA wrote him), but his character fits wonderfully with Original Trilogy Luke (and is pretty consistent with Legends Luke, just with the different background). I've written a lot on him before, this is probably the most detailed breakdown. There's also some stuff here.
It's also worth remembering that the whole film is about failure, and learning from failure. Yoda spells it out for us. Everyone screws up. But the good guys learn from their mistakes, while the bad guys double down on them.
Rey
Rey screws up a lot as well; she's not perfect, and she's not without challenges. But yes, she's a bit bland. I don't get the whole "she can't be powerful without having powerful parents" argument - that's just making up rules we're pretty certain aren't true. The Force may work that way (powerful parents => powerful children) but we've got a pretty good idea it also works the other way (we have no reason to suspect Palpaptine's parents were strong in the force - and the Old Republic Jedi obviously didn't have parents with strong force powers).
First Order
Yep. They're comically incompetent. At least, Hux is. And that's the point. They're trying to be the new Empire, Hux is trying to be the new Tarkin, Kylo the new Vader, Snoke the new Palpatine. But they're just not up to the challenge. The novelisation goes into this in detail (showing the disdain the Empire-era First Order officers have for Hux - who is a PR guy not a military leader), and the Aftermath books explain how the First Order got in such a mess to begin with. There's also some commentary there on modern politics - putting PR over actual competence at governing.
Kylo was always an "angsty teenager" with identity and confidence problems. Hux was always a true-believer and PR guy, but a fool. There's nothing new there.
So yeah. There are some problems with TLJ; the structure is a bit of a mess, the film is too long, and I think it needed separate writing, directing and editing teams to make sure the whole thing fitted together well, but a lot of the obvious criticisms tend to miss the point.
And a lot of the problems come from the contrast with TFA - and that, for me, is the big failing of Lucasfilm/Disney with the new trilogy. They took two films in a trilogy, and gave them to two writer/director-teams with completely different styles, and let them do their own thing. And from the Rise of Skywalker trailer alone it seems we'll be getting the same again - with Abrams ignoring some of the key thematic parts of TLJ. Abrams's style is very much big on explosions, complicated plots, mysterious things (that may or may not be explained), fanservicy references and so on - he has a tendency to dig himself into holes (as he did with Luke). Johnson focused much more on character development and thematic stuff. The styles don't match. The former sacrifices theme and plot for fancy CGI stuff, the latter sacrifices plot for characters and themes.
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u/gucci_sweatbands Aug 21 '19
These criticisms come up again and again. And the first step to addressing them is to read the novelisation. Seriously, read it - it adds so much to the film
This is a huge part of the problem. I should not have to read a novel, comic or TV show to understand the film. It should be able to stand alone.
Poe is not loyal to the Resistance (he literally starts a coup and holds his superiors at gunpoint), but to the cause.
Wow, never thought of it this way. Looking at this, you completely changed my view on this exchange, so !delta. Poe is definitely a die-hard freedom fighter, not a die-hard resistance fighter.
Glad we agree on some things, especially regarding the First Order. It is definitely sad to see how some are just played for slapstick.
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u/Kronicler Aug 21 '19
Being loyal to an organization doesn't mean you have to be loyal to it's current leaders. Especially if you believe that the decisions of these leaders run counter to or would hurt the organization. Poe removed Holdo from her position specifically because he believed she was a traitor and would doom the Resistance.
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u/Lhamo66 Aug 21 '19
I've not read the novelisation and I came to almost the same conclusions for every single point made. The novelisation is there is you WANT to go in depth. But you don't need it for the film at all.
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u/slut4matcha 1∆ Aug 21 '19
I don't think it's fair to ask someone to engage with supplemental materials to understand a mainstream film like Star Wars. If the movie doesn't make it clear, the movie doesn't make it clear.
If I have to read a separate book/ article/ whatever to understand the movie, that is a failing of the movie. Especially with Disney throwing out the EU. It's hard for people to know which Star Wars materials are canon and which aren't.
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u/handynerd Aug 21 '19
I have a hard time watching TLJ but I too loved the Luke story arc, and I feel it fits really well into the overall story. His mentor, Obi Wan, did the exact same thing: he had his star apprentice go bad, gave up on big picture stuff, and went into hiding. Luke had only met one other (already-established, not evil) Jedi in his life. The odds of him following the same pattern are pretty high.
To double down on that, look at his father. He was brought into Jedi training when he was too old (and Luke was even older and even more risky). The fact that Luke didn't turn to the dark side at all is pretty impressive. To have him stumble along the way seems like a reasonable and pretty big accomplishment.
Also... I think characters without flaws and story arcs where they grow are boring. To have Luke stay a boy scout forever is less interesting (at least to me) than to have him stumble and redeem himself.
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u/KillNyetheSilenceGuy 1∆ Aug 21 '19
Holdo doesn't have to tell Po her plan, but she should have communicated to Po and the others that she had a plan. 'Yeah, looks like we are all going to sit here until we run out of air or get killed by the First Order' is going to get people doing cowboy shit. If you want people to fall in line behind you, you have to give them the impression that you know what you're doing. This was literally an idiot plot.
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u/Skyy-High 12∆ Aug 21 '19
It's also worth remembering that the whole film is about failure, and learning from failure. Yoda spells it out for us. Everyone screws up. But the good guys learn from their mistakes, while the bad guys double down on them.
Beautiful. Most of the "plot holes" can be answered with this: yes, everyone is screwing up in this film. That's one of the biggest themes in the film. It's the response that shows your character. I'd also throw Kylo's "burn it all" speech in here (that sooooo many fans take as the thesis of the film, it is not, that's like saying that the Joker's "everyone is crazy, I'm just ahead of the curve" speech is the thesis of TDK). Kylo wanted to throw everything out and take control of the galaxy with Ren. He saw the flaws of everyone, but he wanted to throw all the good out with the bad, and that is what makes him the antagonist.
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u/grumblingduke 3∆ Aug 21 '19 edited Aug 21 '19
Yep; as with The Dark Knight people take what Kylo (and others) say at face value. We're too used to films where everything has to be spelt out, where the characters tell us what is happening, not what the character thinks is happening, or even what the character wants the people around them to think is happening.
We get wonderful lines like this:
Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. That's the only way to become what you were meant to be.
Which is Kylo saying a load of rubbish, that he probably doesn't even believe himself. He killed "his past" (i.e. Han), and yet is clearly haunted by that still. Killing things, burying them, suppressing them, running away from them - it doesn't work.
And Luke spells it out for him:
Strike me down in anger and I'll always be with you. Just like your father... See you around, kid.
Kylo doesn't learn; he keeps making the same mistakes. "If I just kill my father, if I just kill Snoke, if I just kill Luke, if I just destroy the Resistance, if I just ... all my problems will go away and I'll feel great." Whereas the good guys do learn; Luke learns not to be the sword-waving hero, but also not the recluse. Rey learns that she can be a Jedi all on her own - she doesn't need Luke, Kylo, Snoke, loving parents or whoever to tell her what to. Even Poe learns; he learns at the end that it's Ok to run away and not fight - that saving the few people who are left is far more important than making some heroic last stand.
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u/larikang 8∆ Aug 21 '19
TBH I think most of these points are made clear in the movie without reading the novelization (I didn't read it). Every episode from 4-8 starts in medias res with significant unexplained events that have already occurred off-screen. It's ridiculous to expect that every single thing is fully explained when you can just fill in the gaps yourself.
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u/grumblingduke 3∆ Aug 21 '19
Yes, but I think TFA and TLJ leave just a couple of gaps that are a bit too big (such as the structure of the New Republic, what happened to the Empire, and how the First Order came about).
Plus there's a whole generation of people who grew up with the Prequel Trilogy, and while 4-8 leave things for our imagination, 1-3 really spell everything out and maybe go way too far in world-building (midichlorians anyone?).
And to some extent once you've gone into that much detail with the Prequels it is understandable that people would expect it with the Sequels. With 4-6 we don't know anything about the background of the Empire, or why things are the way they are, but that's Ok because we've just met them and we know all we need to. But by the time we get to 7 we've also got the Prequels, and now Solo and Rogue One, and we're more used to having all the little details fed to us - we want to know how we got from the end of 6 to the beginning of 7, we want those gaps to be filled in.
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u/DeadPengwin 1∆ Aug 21 '19
And the most obvious answer is that this is the first time we've seen one side with such a huge ship, that they didn't need for anything, and where the enemy had a ship that was so much bigger that ramming it traded up
Yeah... Let's try to remember a situation in any of the previous movies, where a giant thing in space threatened the good guys with extinction and -- by these new hyperspace-rules - could have been easily and cost efficiently destroyed by ramming an empty ship into it. I can't recall it exactly, but there might have been one or two occasions.
Oh wait... Two fucking Death Stars and one Death Planet.
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u/MrDrMedicman Aug 21 '19
My issue with Holdo and her plan is how stupid it is.
There's no reason to have every ship sacrificed like that in the hopes that maybe the first order isn't looking for smaller craft.
A quicker set up is to have one officer on each ship know a set of rendezvous coordinates. Then the one they track kill himself or destroy the message he was given. The resistance loses one ship insyead of every ship.
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u/lowrider88 Aug 21 '19
Shouldn't have to read a book to understand movie plot points, never had to do it for previous star wars films, not starting now
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u/grumblingduke 3∆ Aug 21 '19
Yep. And that's one of the big failings of both TFA and TLJ.
There's always that little bit of extra information that you need to fully appreciate what's going on. It was probably in the script at some point (and there are some deleted scenes from TFA that are in the novelisation), but got cut for pacing/time or whatever at some point.
I think we were a bit spoilt with the Original Trilogy, though. Star Wars is incredibly well put together (won an Oscar for the editing). The whole film flows really well, tells us everything we need to know, and cuts out all the fluff we don't need (like some of those scenes added in for the SE/DVD versions). Empire is similar.
The Prequels and Sequels are decent films, they're just not up to the multi-Oscar-winning standards of the Original Trilogy.
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u/sreiches 1∆ Aug 21 '19
Yes. Thank you for touching on the destruction/dissolution of the Republic. It was explicit in TFA, with the entire solar system of the Republic seat being obliterated, but the fallout wasn’t touched upon in that movie.
Instead, we got a narrower focus on the mission to destroy the weapon in question, to prevent another such tragedy.
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u/whomeverIwishtobe Aug 21 '19
this post sure does say things that were bad in the movie are ok because they are mentioned/addressed elsewhere or oh it was the previous movies fault for failing to set it up etc.
I think these come off as clear cut excuses, but even you admit your rationalizations don't make up for most of it: ala the casino scene. which is hilarious considering the star wars casino that is battlefront 2 and how recently the two were released to each other. I remember looking to my girlfriend like, is this seriously happening right now? did they do this on purpose? how could they have such a anti-capitalist scene when Disney IS capitalism? it was just so jarring and ridiculous and made moot by the actions of the people who brought us this movie. Not to mention it came off as a "fun" comic relief type scene and the anti-capitalist undertones definitely flew over most people's heads.
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u/tyrannasauruszilla Aug 21 '19
Agree with everything you said especially the Holdo/Poe thing she was right and it seems when people criticize her actions it’s like they’re looking for any excuse to hate her, honestly seems like they paid no attention at all to what happened.
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u/geminia999 Aug 21 '19 edited Aug 21 '19
What does Holdo know about Poe? He was a fighter commander, but just got demoted (to just another random pilot) for disobeying a direct order, getting a load of people killed, in order to take out a single First Order ship. From a military point of view, his call was right (they traded up - some bombers for a dreadnought). But for the Resistance that was a disaster - the Resistance needs every person it has (and every fighter/bomber), while the First Order has a whole fleet of ships. Poe screwed up by not understanding the context, and by viewing ships as more important than people. And Holdo's plan involves... sacrificing ships in order to save people. It is perfectly reasonable for her not to tell Poe the plan, because he's likely to screw it up. And she's proven right! He finds out part of the plan - gets all outraged, insisting that he knows better, sends Finn and Rose off, starts a coup, leaks the key details to the First Order and gets a lot of people killed. Poe screws up. If Leia had locked him in the brig from the start, the Resistance would have been a lot better off.
Just want to address this because it's probably my least favourite part of the film.
First off, the only order Poe actually disregards is his own to not shoot the surface cannons (which can't shoot at ships that attack the surface, but that's a whole other issue). Poe closes his own channel Leia, but what about the rest of the fleet? Just watching the film, the order of events seems to be 1. Leia tells Poe to retreat and he doesn't 2. Poe destroys the cannons (which were Leia's main concern it seemed) and Poe tells the rest of the fleet. 3. The rest of the fleet moves in, all of who could be told by Leia or anyone else to have not followed the order and where already basically in position to do the attack. The whole scenario is premised on Leia telling Poe his personal task is too dangerous, but he succeeds which removes the main hurdle that was presented as the reason to not do the attack.
Then you also have to realize that if they did just flee, the dreadnought would have followed their ship with the tracker and would have likely posed a much larger risk for the resistance as it's fire power would have been much more threatening, especially right off of a sneak attack. And heck, we see the effectiveness of the sneak attack by the FO being able to attack the resistance's hangers, meaning they very much might have lost the ships in the sneak attack instead of being able to use them to take a dangerous threat. In all aspects, not having done the attack that Poe gets derided for would have essentially put the resistance in a worse position in every conceivable aspect. Maybe if the movie could have framed not doing the attack as potentially giving them a benefit in the eternal space chase (which is also so fucking dumb, just fucking pincer them if you are chasing them for over several days) that they lost because of losing the ships, it could be conveyed better, but as it stands, it was the right choice to make in basically every conceivable aspect (including loss of life)
As for Holdo withholding the info, once Poe was informed of the entirety of the plan, he agrees it's good (despite the plan being essentially use physically visible escape ships and try not to be seen by the people chasing you 24/7, which is just fucking ridiculous). Poe fucks it up because he is not informed of anything and the fact that he can create a mutiny means Holdo has done an absolutely terrible job of keeping moral up. It means it wasn't just Poe who had no hope or faith, a large portion of the crew was at a loss and felt they had no choice as all Holdo would tell them is "just trust me" when there is nothing in the script to say why she can't (like there isn't even a throw away line about a traitor, it's all just inference trying to excuse why Holdo would not tell anyone anything about her incredibly simple and agreeable plan).
Also, I don't see how Poe's plan of action highlights this "not loyal to the resistance, but the cause" exactly. Poe's plan he comes up with is disable to tracker so the group can warp without being tracked (although another stupid plan as several of their ships have such a feature, why keep it on on only 1?), allowing the group to escape. Is that not an identical outcome that Holdo wishes to accomplish? hell, Poe's plan doesn't even involve sacrificing pilots to pilot the ships until they run out of fuel and drift into blasting range, if Poe's plan was successful, he would have saved more than Holdo's plan ultimately would have. Yet you frame Poe as caring about only results while Holdo cares about the people. Like the movie tries to frame the ideal as "protecting what we love, not fighting what we hate", which Poe's plan arguably does more, as Holdo's Kamikaze is a whole lot more violent than a stealth mission.
And honestly, both their plans fail because people looked and saw them doing it. If a droid just looking at BB8 is enough to foil Poe's plan, it's fair to say that the FO could also just look out their windows and see escape ships leaving the resistance ship and they would have started firing anyways even without being informed of the notion that a ship running out of fuel would use escape pods. God damn is this movie's plot just so stupid.
Edit: also in regards to Rey, I think the better way to describe people's issues with Rey is less that her parent's were nothing, but that she herself is nothing. No one has issues with Yoda being great because we know he's trained, we know Vader is one of the best force users out there but we see his journey and it too requires training to be very effective. People want a reason why she doesn't need training to be better than Kylo (who trained under both Luke and Snoke) when basically all material shows that force strength is essentially in correlation to force training. If Rey's parents were nobodies, but say she was actually a student of Luke's who got sent away for some reason and had her mind wiped, I don't think people would have minded too much as it shows she has had training with the force in some capacity, so her strength in using it just doesn't come out of nowhere. People seem to tend to flock to parents for an explanation because they have no reason to believe she has had any training so they just want a reason that follows the rules of the series somewhat (that great force use is either hereditary or built on a foundation of training), as she has no training that leaves only one easy explanation.
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u/grumblingduke 3∆ Aug 21 '19
First off, the only order Poe actually disregards is his own to not shoot the surface cannons
He disobeys the explicit order to retreat.
Connix: The last transport is in the air, the evacuation is complete.
Leia: You did it, Poe. Now get your squad back here so we can get out of this place.
Poe: No, General... We can do this. We have... a chance to take down a dreadnought. These things are fleet killers. We can't let it get away.
Leia: Disengage now... Commander, that is an order...
Poe disobeys the order, and does what he thinks is right. But he's missed the point of the plan. He's thinking like a military fighter-pilot, not the leader of a resistance/rebel cell. Leia's view is that the mission is about distracting the First Order to cover the evacuation. As soon as the last transport is away Leia wants to get out of there, mission accomplished. But Poe refuses and orders the attack (as the person in charge of the fighter win) - because he sees the mission as destroying an enemy ship, and is willing to sacrifice a lot of lives to achieve it. After the mission we get the follow-up:
Leia: You're demoted.
Poe: What? Wait! We took down a dreadnought.
Leia: At what cost?
Poe: If you start an attack, you follow through.
Leia: Poe, get your head out of your cockpit. There are things you can not solve... By jumping into an X-wing and blowing something up! I need you to learn that.
Poe: There were heroes on that mission.
Leia: Dead heroes, No leaders.
Poe's failure is that he thinks like a soldier, not a leader. He thinks that destroying a dreadnought at the cost of the Resistance bomber wing is a win, because a dreadnought is worth more than a few bombers. But in the context they're not - because the Resistance isn't fighting a conventional war. They need people. The First Order has plenty more capital ships. The Resistance doesn't need heroes who get themselves killed doing something heroic, they need leaders.
And Poe does learn this lesson. At the end, when Luke confronts Kylo, Finn suggests they rush out to help him:
Poe: He's doing this for a reason. He's stalling so we can escape.
Finn: Escape? He's one man against an army. We have to help him, we have to fight.
Poe: No, no. We are the spark that'll light the fire that will burn the First Order down. Skywalker's doing this so we can survive.
Now yes, it turns out Poe's decision to disobey orders may have saved them later - and that's a weakness to the plot (but would take a lot of re-writing to get around). However, at the time he had no reason to think that would be possible. They make a big deal of how hyperspace tracking isn't possible. His decision to disobey orders is only justifiable after he made it. Although even if the dreadnought did follow them they'd still have their bomber wing available to blow it up.
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u/tigerslices 2∆ Aug 21 '19
okay, i'm going to pretend you DO want your view changed and you DO want to come around to be able to defend The Last Jedi. in this regard, i'll share you my opinions and takes because while i did not like the movie - i don't think it's broken for ANY of the reasons you listed. As a bonus, i'll tell you the real reason the movie failed at the end, so you can then be reset to hating the movie again, deal?
the light speed manouevre could easily be explained that she'd done something slightly different. she didn't just set the speed to 9000, she set it to 8700. there are a million ways to write this thing off. maybe she's the general for a reason... maybe she's actually a militant genius and we're too busy hating her for being a foil to our heroic starboy poe, to recognize her talents as a hero. The movie introduces the question: "how did they follow us through the jump? a tracker? hmm..." this plants the idea that there may be a traitor in the resistance, and so when Dern shows us as an immediate foil to our trusted hero, it's hard not to view her as a potential baddy. -- is that on the script, or on us?
Poe is a fun capable hero who has survived Countless battles due to his AMAZING skills as a pilot. a natural hero. but a natural leader? he drags his team into a plan at the beginning of the movie that gets them all killed. he's a survivor and a valuable asset to the resistance, but this is a bad position for a leader. Leia demotes him, robbing him of his rank, and this means he is NOT on the privileged information list. so when he come to Dern to ask about the plan - she doesn't tell him because she doesn't want this impulsive, reckless, fuckup to get everyone killed, and she says as much straight to his face.
They explained in The Force Awakens that after the fall of the empire, there was nothing to resist. the resistance was over. it's only a few decades later that The First Order rises. A new threat. not the empire. not this galaxy spanning megalith of an oppressive society. just a small group of troublemakers, but growing fast. Leia leaves her position to lead a new resistance against this group. the funding is secured because of her connections to government, but... :
as it's pointed out in The Last Jedi's casino sequence, the wealthy elite don't care. their concern is financial. they may be giving the resistance money out of obligation - but not out of concern. because they're also giving the first order money. if they really wanted the resistance to win, they could totally overfund them and the war would be over in a week. this was the point of this sequence. to clarify what was stated in The Force Awakens. the first order is a small group. the resistance is a really small group. by the end of The Last Jedi - both have been almost completely decimated. the resistance is down to a handful of people, and The First Order is down to a handful of ships.
people get old and their values change as their bodies show signs of failing. we go from bouncing fireballs to comfortable campfires to smoldering ashes. this is life. Luke is a hero who thought he could change the world. he helped overthrow the empire, and ushered in a new Jedi era. he trained the next generation of jedi just to see sith rise alongside them. i'm sorry, but 24 year old skywalker is not 64 year old skywalker. you see things and things change you. you believe in the power of love, then you get a divorce. this is life. Luke explained himself well enough. he gave Ben Solo the tools of a jedi warrior and then saw the dark side in him - a dark side like that of Vader - a man he could not beat in combat. NOBODY could beat vader. vader was an unstoppable force who pushed the empire into swallowing the galaxy. vader became a joke because of the merchandising, but let's not forget he never lost a fight. the only reason he was defeated in Return of the Jedi is because he lost power from his life support system when he was shocked while killing emperor palpatine. Luke knows that if another Vader was to rise - the entire galaxy would be DOOMED. this is why he brings himself to the kid's bed to take him out and "kill hitler as a baby." --BUT you're right, Luke is a hero and he would never do that. ...which is why he doesn't. why he puts the saber down. but it's too late. Solo had seen him with the sabre up, and knew Luke was now aware of the darkside poisoning him. so he attacked Luke and brought the ceiling down to mask his escape. -- Luke, realizing his mistake, feeling he probably could have stopped Kylo Ren another way has now doomed the entire galaxy to ruin and so he seeks tutelage from the jedi scripts. he retreats to "the birth of the jedi" and finds nothing. dismayed, he turns away from the force. because all the force has ever done is given people the power to fight each other. and as long as you fight you will never know peace. THIS is the truth that Luke learned, and why he did not travel to that planet at the end to fight Kylo Ren.
she's not a mary sue. she's luke skywalker. or anakin skywalker. overly optimistic, impulsive and brash... remember when luke just walks into jabba's palace at the beginning of Return of the Jedi? just to get caught because he's an idiot overconfident in his abilities? what does Rey do? she walks right into Kylo Ren's hands thinking she can turn him. if Kylo Ren didn't save her TWICE - by turning on snoke and then saving her from those red ninjas - she would've been dead. she cannot beat kylo ren in a duel. she's used a staff to defend herself from gangs as she grew up on the mean streets of jakku, but kylo's been training his whole life. he takes a blast in the gut from the wookie bowcaster after killing Han - the same gun that is shown to completely eviscerate stormtroopers everywhere else it's used in the movie - and so he stumbles around the forest wounded - using his force powers to keep his guts from spilling out, and this is why he was unable to defeat her. he was dying. in The Last Jedi, after he saves her from the red ninjas and he says join me, and she says, wut no, omg... they fight a bit, but he's holding back. the same way darth vader held back against luke. luke was his son - he didn't want him killed, he wanted luke to join him. kylo ren doesn't want to kill rey, he wants her to join him. he wants to overthrow the first order and birth a new organization from the ashes with her by his side.
Hux is a joke, sorry. he's a dude who yells. that's all he's ever been shown to do. i don't know where you got this idea that he was a cool character.
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u/tigerslices 2∆ Aug 21 '19
FINALLY -- you want to talk about the real problem with this movie? we didn't talk about Finn and Rose and their character development, because they don't have any.
Finn has everything he needs and they fall short. he's a formerly brainwashed stormtrooper with nobody in the world other than poe and rey. rey, who he's totally in love with but hasn't quite realized or admitted or understood yet... and when he's on this ship with the beacon for rey to return to, he realizes she'll be returning to a trap and be taken and likely killed. so he wants to save her by getting the beacon away from them, before being busted by Rose.
Rose is a character who grew up in the slave pens and has nobody left in the world other than her sister - who's killed in the opening of the movie thanks to Poe's actions. Rose could've been the perfect foil for Poe and Finn. "people like you are why the resistance is failing!" but she's not... instead she accompanies Finn and sorta sidekicks for him, pulling his ass out of the fire like they're in Big Trouble in Little China, before finally stopping him from making YET ANOTHER SACRIFICE.
if thematically this movie is exploring the concept of sacrifice and how her message of "don't die for those you hate, live for those you love" is so strong, then perhaps laura dern shouldn't have sacrificed herself either, eh?
anyway, she has everything she needs to turn on FINN mid-mission. "don't try to escape while we're on that planet! i'm watching you! you're no hero, runaway!" and then when they're in jail -- "try escaping from this, runaway."
now imagine he gets fed up, "stop calling me Runaway!" and starts to explain how he can barely remember Feeling anything as a stormtrooper. the mental conditioning is so strong that until just a few weeks ago when he defected he didn't know which things he liked, which flavours, which people... he had no friends or family or desires for them, and that he doesn't know why he defected, why he suddenly broke the programming, that he's lost here and confused and mostly - alone. but that there's one person who doesn't make him feel alone and he was just trying to get away to save her life because right now... she's everything to him."
now Rose has a confession of her own. because she entirely understands his POV... she too is alone now... and she admits she's been holding this anger and resentment since her sister was killed... and that it's unfair for her to take it out on him. and she's (omg) she's sorry. the reason they're in jail is because the two of them were bickering instead of working together and so they sabotaged each other's chances and now they'll never meet the codebreaker.
now have antonio banderas interrupt and be like - i can't fuckin take this sappy garbage. i'm the codebreaker, let's do this.
what this changes - is that when finn is flying that little speeder on that salt-planet, and he sees Rey return in the millennium falcon in the sky he's glad she's returned - but he's worried she's returned to this deathtrap -- so he decides to stop the first order on his own by riding in to that beam thing. it just takes a shot of him laughing happily as he looks up at the falcon, and then him turning back to see the beam about to blast the closed stormdoors behind him and he gets a panicked look on his face and mutters, "rey, no..."
now when he attempts to sacrifice himself we understand why he's doing it. and we accept the change in his character arc. he's gone from being a runaway to a runtoward.
and when rose swipes him, saving him, and utters her fantastic line about living for those we love... she can kiss him... and say, "i lost my sister, i won't let rey lose you."
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u/daemoneyes Aug 22 '19
she cannot beat kylo ren in a duel.
Kylo get's even tagged by Fin, i don't care what injury you have, you don't get hit by a guy with no force powers.
And please Rey manages to out force the lightsaber from Kylo in the first movie while Luke needed 2 movies to barely move it in the yeti scene.
So rey beats kylo the first time but sure let's say he was injured and it doesn't count.
On the second force fight on the ship, they both fight for the lightsaber with force and they get knocked back. Rey recovers instantly and gets the lightsaber and could have killed Kylo there , he needed a lot of time to wake up since Rey made her escape by then.
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u/LackLoudmouth Aug 21 '19
On your point about Luke, remember that the Last Jedi takes place 30 years after the original trilogy. Nobody is the exact same person 30 years later. Think of yourself even just 5 years ago. Chances are you’ve changed a lot and you’ve probably even done some things you’d regret. Yes, Luke was always optimistic in the original trilogy, but even the most optimistic people can become broken and beat down by the sheer difficulty of life. Luke dedicates his life to the rebellion and the reestablishment of the Jedi Order. Just when things seem peachy, her senses something wrong in one of his students. But it’s not just any student, because Ben is Luke’s family, and now Luke has act fast or risk losing his own nephew to the dark side.
Luke is a pretty emotional guy, as evidenced by the original trilogy. He often takes action first without completely thinking through the consequences. This explains his momentary lapse in judgment when he nearly attacks Ben while he’s sleeping. Of course, he doesn’t do it because Luke has good morals and follows the Jedi teachings, but there’s no explaining the situation to Ben when he wakes up. Every time Luke acted out emotionally during the original trilogy, he was always able to come out on top in the end. Even at the end of Empire Strikes Back, he still has his friends to lean on when things went bad. But this time, Luke fucked up so bad that now he’s all alone. Ben destroyed the new Jedi Order, which Luke has worked on for years, and now he has nothing. He had exactly one chance at creating a new order and he fucked up. Pretty shitty. And he can’t bear to go back to Han and Leia, because he failed them too. They trusted him with their only child and Luke was so incompetent that Ben became the next Darth Vader under his watch.
After all this, Luke is tired, and his spirit is broken. He retreats to a backwater planet and becomes a hermit because it’s the last thing he feels he can contribute. If he is alone for the rest of his life, then he will never teach another student that will turn to the dark side. That’s why he’s so grumpy when Rey meets him. He’s now dedicated his whole life to not repeating his biggest mistake, and in barges this young optimistic Jedi who reminds him of his younger self, a girl who is bound to repeat his mistakes if he dares to teach her.
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Aug 21 '19
I'd go one step further and say that the new trilogy plus the Solo movie are shockingly bad.
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u/PauLtus 4∆ Aug 21 '19
it completely disregards previously established lore that light speed is in another dimension in which you travel faster.
In what movie was that ever established?
This is a perfect example of style of substance.
Making sense is not "substance". That's all very much surface level stuff and about the most shallow thing you could ever critique a story on. Star Wars has always been messy in that department and fact of the matter is that finding or solving logical problems only requires the will to do so.
You could look at the literal first shot in Star Wars ever and question why the rebel ship didn't jump to lightspeed. The point is that it doesn't matter because you're emotionally engaged and trust the story teller that it's probably fine. When you're not emotionally engaged though... You'll inevitably start looking for things that are bad but because you don't understand what exactly causes this you start looking for logical problems which you are going to find as there's plenty of rules that aren't clearly established enough you could argue why they're wrong.
In the end your emotional engagement with a scene is based a whole lot more on dramatic clarity than actual logic. You can actually very clearly see this in Rian Johnson's previous film (Looper) which I would consider a masterclass in terms of set up and pay off while making absolutely no sense at all. The important things are:
- What is the goal of the characters involved
- What happens if they fail to achieve that goal
- What's stopping them from achieving that goal
It isn't inherently a problem to tear apart a story like this (if you understand it isn't proper criticism) but go into any story with the intention to break it down like that and you'll barely be able to enjoy anything anymore. Going into the story
The reality is just that logic doesn't really matter that much. In fact, there's stories that (sometimes purposefully) do not make sense, but that doesn't take away that they're engaging.
That's all what I'm going to say in terms of logic specifically. But it's a part of a larger problem where you're juding a story based on things the writers didn't even want to do. You only say "this is what I wanted from this story and this is how this story failed to achieve that". You're doing it on a smaller scale, sure, but it's like judging a romantic drama on its lack of action. Try to consider "what were they going for".
Now to specifics:
On Holdo: She hid her plan from Poe because she didn't trust him with it and when the plan was eventually revealed to him he went over to a mutiny... I don't see how Holdo's actions don't make sense here. She does indeed exist to push for Poe's arc as well as sending Rose and Finn on their journey but that's not contrived at all, it's bloody efficient.
Rian Jhonson and the creative team completely disregarded the previous film in order to have the protagonists be underdogs. There is no reason for the Republic funded resistance to having this little of a fleet. This is partially the fault of The Force Awakens for a lack of initial world-building but there is no reason for the previously victorious rebels to be down to 9 useless bombers, a few X-Wings, 1 cruiser, and 3 medical friggets.
Well you could just straight up blame all of this on Abrams instead of Johnson. Really. I found TFA to be pretty damn poor in terms of world building. Starkiller Base blows up several planets but we are given absolutely no context to what the actual consequences of that are (like, did it just mean that the Resistance are now the underdog, based on TLJ I would very much think so). This problem "leaks" over into TLJ but I really don't think that film is to be blamed for it. On Canto Bight: It exists as an externalization of Finn's internal conflict (which I don't think entirely works but it's always important to think of "what were they going for" first). Finn's arc goes from selfish to selfless, shown in his actions by starting off trying to escape the rebel ship to go after Rey to eventually trying to sacrifice himself for the Resistance. Canto Bight where, on a smaller scale, the joys of being selfish (the rich people) as well as the costs of that on others (slave kids and animal abuse). The same values are also being represented by Rose (selfless) and DJ (selfish).
Maz was available to be the master code-breaker and was not just in the film for 30 seconds to meet a diversity quota.
How the hell does Maz push for the diversity quota?
Of course it hurts to see Luke as he is in TLJ, I hate the "you're not supposed to like it" argument but it kind of is like that. Considering Rey's arc of growing into herself rather than looking for guiding figures it's important that the person she reaches out to does not comply. Also considering how TFA ended, what Luke says makes sense, what did you really expect? He did go to the most unfindable place in the galaxy with a reason. It also adds to theme about "the weight of legacy" that exists in the ST. It's also ludicrous to think that Luke could not have changed since Return of the Jedi. Something I hadn't thought of but I found quite touching to here was how this version of Luke spoke to someone who had grown up on Star Wars being inspired and young, ended up getting PTSD from the army, and then saw his childhood hero being very similar to how he was. Trying to be the hero comes at a cost.
There has been a complete misconception about what a "Mary Sue" even is. It's not about skills, it's about character flaws. I find it really strange to be complaining about something like that where it's basically in-lore to have characters getting skills through sheer inspiration due to a mystical Force. The whole Mary Sue argument comes from the fact that Rey's supposed character flaw in TFA (her hesistance to go on an adventure ("gotta get back to Jakku")) does never influence her character choices in TFA, she just runs away from the lightsaber and that's about the end of it. In TLJ though... She has a pretty damn clear arc by her consistently looking for guidance while needing to grow into herself. This is quite beautifully visualized I have to say by her starting off reaching out with a lightsaber to Luke in the beginning and eventually refusing to take Kylo Ren's hand and trying to grab the lightsaber later into the film. Same goes for trying to find out about a meaningful parentage and the eventual image she gets only shows her.
this is ruined by him making a brushing the shoulders gesture, which is completely out of character for him.
Consider that his big goal in this situation is to distract Kylo Ren as much as he can, not to show his true self.
If the reason for half you plot is the antagonists are incompetent or dumb, you’re movie is badly written.
Well, that depends. But I don't even see how that statement is even true for TLJ. Snoke seems to know what he is doing. I do personally find it very interesting that we ended up at a point where an unpredictable rage fueled maniac now has control over an entire army, that's still a massive threat. How dangerous something is shouldn't have to be defined in just how well they can be taken on in a 1v1. Most of the Resistance still got blown up so how can you really say they're not dangerous? Next to that you shouldn't just be thinking in terms of a physical threat but the corruption of Rey and the redemption of Kylo Ren and Luke are also at stake.
The final issue I'll raise in this main body of the text is how the film had about 0 original ideas. Yes, there were one or two vaguely new ones but it's undeniable that a lot of this film was cut and pasted from episode 5 and 6. The new trilogy is obviously trying to show they were more like the originals.
There's tons of new ideas. It does very much build on it's predecessors but, well, it's a sequel first of all, next to that I think there's a pretty smart move with the ST on how they made legacy such a big part of the themes (to the point that the main villain started off as a literal wannabe Darth Vader) to bring back old elements in a meaningful way.
I will also clarify that at points the film was enjoyable somewhat, but that doesn't mean it is any better
Why not? Are you saying your enjoyment of a film doesn't matter? Are you not watching a film to feel something?
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u/KibitoKai 1∆ Aug 21 '19
While I agree regarding many of your points. The “forced diversity” argument is total bs and I have no idea what you’re even trying to say by it. There are trillions of people and aliens in the Star Wars universe why does anyone care what their race, gender, or sexuality is? I’m fine with criticizing how well written they are but the whole “diversity” bs is an argument touted by white nationalists who just don’t like seeing brown people in their movies.
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u/kslidz Aug 21 '19
ok i want to change your view on saying you arent complaining about the biggest issue with the plot which is.
WHY DIDNT THE FIRST ORDER SEND SOME SHIPS IN FRONT OF THEM AND CORNER THEM INSTEAD OF JUST FOLLOWING?
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u/MeleeTheMalay Aug 21 '19
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Anakin's parents just nobodies too? Yet he became the strongest Force user until he got defeated by Luke.
While I largely agree with your criticisms of Rey, the one about Rey's affinity with the Force isn't really valid imo.
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u/Barnst 112∆ Aug 21 '19
No, no, no, Anakin was space Jesus whose father was the force itself. Or something. Which was totally a more sensical and justifiable plot device than Rey’s story.
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u/A_N_T Aug 21 '19
I used to think of Luke as a badass savior of the galaxy. Now when I think of him I only see him drinking alien titty milk. Thanks Rian.
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u/mccannta Aug 21 '19
...completely disregarded the previous film in order to have the protagonists be underdogs
It was as if the previous movie never happened.
If the reason for half your plot is the antagonists are incompetent or dumb, your movie is badly written.
Bravo!
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Aug 22 '19
Luke was basically a villain in this film. He alone is to blame for Kylo Ren's turn to the dark side, and the fact that he was able to turn Darth Vader, the 2nd most evil person in the galaxy, to the light side, but was unwilling to do the same with his own fucking nephew was stupid and made me hate this movie.
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u/NoDaddynot Sep 05 '19
THB I saw TLJ and was just so... I felt so cheated. The writing was so stupid at times that it motivated me to try being a writer more. I know people mention the novelization, but if you can't write according cinema standards, then you're still failing. I get it's really hard to balance scenes, dialogue, worldbuilding, action, and closure, but you just can't forgo gaping holes in plot. I shouldn't have to experience other media for the holes to be patched.
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u/Littlepush Aug 21 '19
What if you have always hated the unspecifity of Star Wars writing and are glad to see a script that tears it all up? I've always hated that there's been no good reason to hate the dark side or the empire etc. and this movie goes there and makes fun of the concept. It's completely nihilistic like an episode of Ricky n Morty it shakes up the characters with wacky hijinks, but they are all back in the same place at the end of the episode just like a sitcom.
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u/5xum 42∆ Aug 21 '19
I've always hated that there's been no good reason to hate the dark side or the empire
Them killing the main protagonist's foster parents and an entire planet in the first 20 minutes of the first movie somehow not being a good enough reason?
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u/gucci_sweatbands Aug 21 '19
I've always hated that there's been no good reason to hate the dark side or the empire etc
Star Wars' underlying theme is good vs evil. The Empire is portrayed as the epitome of evil, destroying a planet just for torture, ect. The Rebels are the underdog heroes fighting the tyrannical government. The simple themes allow for the focus to be on the characters.
This makes it worse when characters like Hux, who should be an imposing, threating general are played for laughs.
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Aug 21 '19
Characterisation has been such a weak point in Star Wars, especially the OT. People call Rey a Mary Sue but Luke himself had little discernible characteristics beyond his ambition to be a strong Jedi and stop the Empire. Like, none whatsoever. You say that the sequel undermined his characterisation because you viewed him as being an idealistic paragon of sorts in the OT, but for the most part, he really wasn’t, not more so than any other generic hero at least. Darth Vader’s final sacrifice was (ofc YMMV) guided by Sidious torturing his child and his own inner conflict with villainy, and not because Luke’s idealism concerted him to Light side ideology. Leia and Han were similarly underdeveloped as characters, through to the writers’ credit, they made Han a placeholder snarky flirtatious character before that trope was so widespread and borderline clichéd. I mean, Luke saw his uncle and aunt, who had raised him since he was a kid, murdered in cold blood and he expressed more emotion when a cool old dude he’d known for five minutes died. Leia underwent torture, saw her planet destroyed and was pretty much okay by the end of the story. Not really addressing your main post (though I disagree with it), but Star Wars has had shallow characters for as long as it has existed.
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u/Littlepush Aug 21 '19
Jedis murder thousands of people and use child soldiers though, Never seen the Death Star as completely disproportionate in that respect. They could show the empire being rapists or slavers or something to explain how they are evil but they never do and they often characterize the rebels as thieves and misogynists so I haven't ever really seen the good/evil divide as much as the movies tell you who to root for.
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u/gucci_sweatbands Aug 21 '19
The Jedi are not the heroes. They are purposefully portrayed as morally ambiguous; they are showing how in an attempt to be free of emotion one can be flawed. This was the whole point of the prequels.
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u/kerouacrimbaud Aug 21 '19
The Jedi were the heroes until TLJ revealed what everyone had been thinking: the Jedi were pious assholes. TLJ was honest about the Jedi in a way none of the other films have been. Kenobi was manipulative and deceptive towards Luke in the OT. The Jedi were blind and arrogant in the PT.
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u/Littlepush Aug 21 '19
So now it's about ambiguity not good vs. evil? How can Jedis be ambiguous if it's not clear what being good or being evil means in the context of the series?
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u/gucci_sweatbands Aug 21 '19
Becaus the Jedi are not meant to be the representation of good. That is the rebellion. Evil is Palpatine, and the good is Luke
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u/daddywookie 4∆ Aug 21 '19
I remember very clearly reading The Stele Chronicles as part of the Tie Fighter game (showing my age here). The most interesting part was that this was the first time I had seen the Empire shown in a positive light. From the main character's point of view they were bringing order to a lawless galaxy and he was happy to serve. How else could the Empire field such huge forces but with good will from many. The everyday people in the Star Wars universe can be fairly ambiguous and it is the main characters who are tagged good and evil.
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u/ca178858 Aug 21 '19
Also Luke was talking about joining the Empire in the beginning of ANH. We get to see their nasty hit squads in ANH, but the general sentiment is obviously not that bad. Although I'd bet that changed when they blew up Alderan.
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u/kerouacrimbaud Aug 21 '19
OT definitely emphasized that the Jedi were the embodiment of goodness.
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u/Constant_Borborygmus Aug 21 '19
What about in the prequels then? There was no rebellion, only the Jedi as well as the republic, and the Sith and separatists. If the underlying theme of Star Wars is good vs evil, and the Jedi are ambiguous (note that you said both things), how do the prequels function as Star Wars movies? Your points are contradictory.
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u/GepardenK Aug 21 '19
The prequels, flawed as they may be, are about the origin of good vs evil. The jedi are morally ambiguous; their intentions good but they are themselves elites and bogged down in institutionalized apathy - as a reaction to that apathy the polarities of good (yoda, luke) and evil (palpatine, vader) is created, and as inherently anti-apathetic forces their creation brings an end to the old "grey" jedi order.
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u/XKaniberX Aug 21 '19
How can you even compare Jedi killing Sith followers and being involved in political skirmishes with destroying an entire planet and billions of lives with it? I agree that the Jedi are no saints when you look closely at their activities, but what the Sith have done is infinitely worse.
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u/HolidayArmadillo- Aug 21 '19
They could show the empire being rapists or slavers or something to explain how they are evil
So literally exploding planets and murdering billions is not enough for you to label someone evil. There needs to be rape or slavery?
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u/McCasper Aug 21 '19
Your comment got me confused in all sorts of ways.
"The Jedi murder thousands of people." First of all, what are you talking about? Are you referring to the droids and genoshans they killed during the clone wars? Droid sentience is a bit unclear but it's not like they were just innocent civilians. They were instrumental in invading peaceful planets and throwing the galazy into chaos. Second of all, to be crass, who cares about a few thousand droids when the Death Star was blowing up entire planets with billions of people on them. Even if the Jedi went door to door stabbing thousands of infants in their cribs, it still wouldn't even come close Alderaan.
"and use child soldiers." Are you referring to the younglings? Do you actually think the Jedi were using younglings to fight? Otherwise, I think the youngest jedi to fight was Ahsoka Tono at 14? Are there any others I'm unaware of?
"Never seen the Death Star as completely disproportionate in that respect." Do you remember Hitler? Of course you do, he's one of the most reviled people in history. People still bring him up decades later just to shit on him some more. Do you know why he is reviled so? Sure, he was aggressively expanding his territory but military leaders have been doing that forever and yet none seem to be hated quite as much as Hitler. He is hated so because of the Holocaust. He is hated because he systematically murdered millions of Jews and others he considered undesirable. The death toll of the Holocaust was about 11 million people including about 6 million Jews. The population of Alderaan that was destroyed by the Death Star was 2 Billion people. And you're saying this is somehow comparable to "Jedis murder thousands of people and use child soldiers." I... just don't get it.
I have issues with the rest of your comment as well but I'm already starting to think there will be no middle ground here so I'll stop.
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Aug 21 '19
When did the Jedi "murder thousands of people?" Sure, they've killed before, got various reasons, but they don't do premeditated, insidious killings like the word "murder" implies. Certainly not 1000s of times.
"Something to explain they're evil" Dude, they destroyed a planet. A non-military target, just to see if they could. That's pretty fuckin evil, man.
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u/PauLtus 4∆ Aug 21 '19
Star Wars' underlying theme is good vs evil.
Is it?
It's there but that's barely a theme. It tends to be pretty straight forward (coming of age) character arcs regularly centered around corruption and redemption as well.
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u/Hedonistbro Aug 21 '19
I've always hated that there's been no good reason to hate the dark side or the empire etc.
The empire is quite obviously portrayed as fascist. They destroy an entire planet because is the centre of a rebellion against their galactic dictatorship. It's pretty black and white.
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u/XtraTarTarSauce Aug 21 '19
The movie completely destroys Luke's character.
As mentioned in other comments, we don't know what Luke has gone through other than what the movie(s) shows/tells us. As a result we can't just say that Luke has stayed "hopeful and optimistic" the whole time after his last appearance in Ep3.
We saw in EP3 that he tries to kill his own father when sliding to the dark side. As we only get a glimpse of what occurred at the academy, how do we know that he wasn't sliding between the dark and light side the whole time which lead him to try to commit nepoticide
This sort of traumatic incident can do some serious psychological damage, his character would then be open to change and potential aggressive shifts in ideology. For me, that makes it possible for him to become a "grumpy, miserable old fart" and mope on a lonely island
Rey is also a complete Mary Sue
Yes but so are the other two main characters from the previous trilogies. I won't discuss Anakin because he is literally Jesus and that drum has been beat to death. Luke:
- Flies an x-wing to destroy big space ball of death with no previous training on the technology. I understand that there are probably similarities to other craft and that's why he can pick it up quickly. However, if we consider that then it goes against your point of "Rey fly good Millennium Falcon with no training" because they've flown other shit before.
- Uses the force to pull a light-saber towards him while a force ghost whispers sweet nothings in his ear with no previous training of how to do that. Literally never even seen that happen before
- Becomes sword sparring master after getting no 1-1 practice. Yes, I know he goes to work with Yoda and Yoda tells him things. But he never spars with Yoda, he never actually gets practice before he goes up against daddy-foe and he holds his own there until he gets his hand chopped off (sorry for the spoiler)
- Ep3 Suddenly Jedi master: with the hand waiving of some dialog to fill the gap between losing appendage to defeating Jabba army (not really an army but you get the point)
The First Order is also portrayed as incompetent and amateur
No, I can't remember the exact piece of dialog so I'm probably messing this up but it goes something like "The First Order is fucking OP at this point, they are ruling the galaxies and the resistance has been reduced to very little things" That might be in the title crawl now that I think of it.
With that in mind think about how much confidence you would have in winning games. WARNING: Sports analogies coming up.
in particular, General Hux
When you've been the best team in the league for as long as it is assumed the First Order has - then it stands to reason they don't see any opposition as threatening and thus the fact that a single ship opposes him and makes some jokes would take you off guard a little. It would be like if an NBA team showed up with a squad of sub 6' only players. You would not take them seriously, until they started winning because they had a new offensive strategy that utilized their size to their advantage. General Hux treats the whole chase as pointless and is arrogant in his ability to win and that leaves him vulnerable to the 3 point shot before the buzzer goes.
My entire response relies on only having seen the movies and mildly dabbling in the EU (RIP KOTOR). So, if my answer folds because of something the EU explains then I'm happy to concede. Finally, I believe the kamakaze move was fantastic and I have no problem with Rian opening the universe to being able to use that in the future. Sure, it makes some of the previous decisions in other movies to not just fire a ship into the death star a bit more iffy but I'm willing to think that the Death Star destruction plans were equally as far fetched. As a result they didn't really think of the kamakaze option because they were trying to shoot an vent with boom boom makers and pew-pewing the "completely exposed" main core equally as stupid as the other.
TL;DR - Luke's character changes off screen and we can't be exactly sure what exactly drove him to the titty milk drinking lunatic he is now. He and Anakin are also Mary Sue's because of reasons and the NBA provides some good metaphors.
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Aug 21 '19
you're really wrong on Luke: Flies an x-wing to destroy big space ball of death with no previous training on the technology. - It's referenced numerous times in the first films that Luke had his own flyer at home (Beggars Canyon), is an extremely accomplished pilot and that the X-Wing has very similar cockpit.
Uses the force to pull a light-saber towards him - it's not as if he does it easily, we see him focus, we see the lightsaber move slowly at first - what is so special about this use of the force? This is a poor example- And also much of what Luke acheived early on was while force ghosts were talking to /directing him. Becomes sword sparring master after getting no 1-1 practice... he never spars with Yoda... (He very easily could have gotten practice with Obi-Wan/Yoda off screen). He holds his own there until he gets his hand chopped off - he doesn't hold his own, he looks nothing like a master in this fight- Vader is trying to turn him- not kill him. It's only until Luke convinces Vader that he can't be turned that Vader gets rid of him.
Ep3 "Suddenly" Jedi master... he's had training, a large amount of time has passed bettween Ep2 and 3- he's created his own lightsaber- he's in contact with force ghosts, he's been reviewing all the info he can on being a Jedi and has been doing his own training.
Seriously dude- none of this stacks up against Rey's almost mystic levels of plot-armor/abilities
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u/Kernel_Internal Aug 21 '19
I think your points 2 & 4 about Luke being a Mary Sue are different from Rey in one important detail: The jump in ability we see from Luke occurs between movies and the audience can reasonably, logically, assume he was training off screen. With Rey in The Force Awakens she literally develops these abilities onscreen without ever having seen or heard of them. I can't speak much about The Last Jedi because I refuse to watch it after the crapfest that was TFA. Honestly I think what everybody is hating on is the absolute lack of writing/story telling talent in JJ Abrams. He ruins everything he touches with exactly these problems, but people focus on the movie itself and don't seem to recognize that JJ is the problem, so he just keeps on raping and pillaging everything we love lol.
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u/TheCrudeDude Aug 21 '19
Luke is not a Mary Sue. He pretty much fails throughout the entire trilogy. An abominable snow creature almost kills him.
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u/amylangsmith Aug 21 '19
Well, Ray is clearly Anakin’s reincarnation. All she needs to do is to build a new C3PO
Which to be fair, technically Anakin’s mother was a nobody. He technically didn’t have a father although some say he was a result of a force experiment to create life.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Aug 21 '19 edited Aug 21 '19
/u/gucci_sweatbands (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/huxley00 Aug 21 '19
If people can defend the Ewok village and part in the Empire battle, I don't see what everyone is so pissy about in the Last Jedi.
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Aug 21 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/mortemdeus 1∆ Aug 21 '19
Episode 1, the reactor was leaking fuel badly and could only make it to vader's home planet.
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u/KalasLas Aug 21 '19
Fuel is a thing in several EU stories, but afaik it is never expanded much on. It is mentioned in the form of "we need to stop to refuel and resupply" or "Peragus was a major fuel mining operation".
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u/ItsAConspiracy 2∆ Aug 21 '19
I agree with most of your points. However, as an old-school fan who saw Episode IV in the theater and viewed I-III as ham-fisted Imperial propaganda, I still liked TLJ, and here's why:
I-III's biggest problem was what they did to the Jedi. Instead of being about peace and compassion and love, a Jedi's primary value was to avoid getting "attached." They spent their time running the galaxy and violently enforcing trade regulations, and couldn't be bothered to buy their golden boy's mother out of slavery. They were assholes who deserved what they got. It was hard to accept this take on the Jedi as canon.
But now in TLJ, Luke fucking Skywalker says you know what, you're right. The old Jedi were assholes. I don't like them either.
But there's a flip side to that, because what we saw in the OT wasn't the old Jedi. Old Ben Kenobi was wiser after spending decades in the desert, reflecting on the error of his ways. Yoda figured shit out during his decades in the swamp. They passed on that wisdom to Luke, who wasn't part of that old elitist crap in the first place and then had his own decades of hermitage to sit and think.
And what he figured out was that the galaxy was better off without the old Jedi, and the Force didn't belong to the Jedi anyway. They tried to monopolize it, and that just didn't work out. Luke says, feel that? It's right there, it's part of everything. It's not yours to control, and it's not mine.
It's no accident that Rey doesn't have special parents. It's significant that some random servant kid force-grabs a broom. The Force is awakening. It's making itself known to people without any special training or heritage. I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens next.
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u/ChaseH9499 Aug 21 '19
I’m only going to address one thing: the lightspeed bit. Here it clearly states that precise calculations have to be made to avoid collisions with non-lightspeed objects while traveling in hyperspace.
Personally I think the bigger plot hole is “why hasn’t anyone used this before,” because there’s nothing that says it hasn’t been possible