Disney's Mistake With Star Wars
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
- Disney made a mistake with Star Wars. But what was it exactly?
00:00 Intro
01:36 The Easy Answer
12:47 The Better Answer
23:00 The Complicated Answer
35:01 Outro
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Topics covered:
What if they had changed Leia's character, and not Luke?
But critics can be wrong!
Do I really believe the discourse will have moved on? What about the prequels?
Is Naivity really a character flaw?
This is not an objective assessment.
Why do I have to be so insufferably special?
I remember a fantastic line from Princess Leia in the first trilogy, “I am not a committee.” And that’s exactly what the last trilogy suffered from, designed by a committee.
A committee where some of those members only care about how many ham sandwiches will sell it to the teens and nerds, overengineering it into a monstrosity!
“I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die while you discuss this invasion in a committee!”
Except it wasn't. The Last Jedi is a single unified vision by a writer director, not a comittee thought movie. That title belongs to The Rise of Skywalker, but that's on you for not appreciating The Last Jedi when it came out.
@@PhantomFelix211164 🤣😂🤣😂
@@PhantomFelix211164 not here to state my position on TLJ, but that movie from a completely unbiased was a direct middle finger from the writer/director to JJ Abrams and Fans of what TFA set up. TLJ tries to reinvent the Sequel Trilogy in the middle of said trilogy. The sequel trilogy is the result of not coming up with a plan and all three of the movie fighting for dominance in the little narrative they had.
The algorithm recommended the devil wears prada video and have now watched all 3 of your videos and subscribed! Keep up the amazing work! Your reviews are fantastic and well thought out. I have to say I am surprised you never mentioned Kylo Ren as a character because he is the thing that sours this trilogy the most for me. When I look at other media with redemption arc characters in them like Zuko from Avatar The Last Airbender, Kylo does things so much worse and he really only struggles with killing his own family. Sure this tugs at nostalgic heart strings for fans of the originals, but he never truly redeems himself. He fails to take responsibility for his actions entirely, but the films really want us to redeem him anyways. This is all without discussing his "romance" with Rey.
Thanks for the sub! I actually quite enjoy Kylo Ren in concept. They knew they'd never be able to create another Darth Vader, so the idea of a character who is trying but failing to be him is pure genius. But I agree that his redemption in Rise felt very undeserved. I thought Last Jedi did a pretty clear job of creating enmity between Rey and Kylo. He was offered redemption and refused it, so redemption clearly wasn't the point. Why do Darth Vader all over again? You're right, he doesn't do enough to earn it in Rise and I can tell you my eyes rolled painfully hard at that kiss.
The algorithm recommending me the devil wears prada video was also how I got here. I didn't watch that, but this vid and 1886 vid i did and i liked them both
there can be more than one evil guy in the galaxy. oh my god. oh my god. it doesn't have to be palpatine AGAIN. thank you for bringing this up sdhfjbkn
I feel like the Chewie Medal scene is blown so out of proportion. That medal was Han’s that Leia used to reach out to Ben. Maz just gave it to him at the end as a memento. But I can see how this has been made into the “Chewie gets his medal!!” scene by fans
8:08 Thank you so much for this Carrie Fisher segment. I relate to essentially everything you had to say about it. It was so hard watching those scenes in TLJ knowing what had happened to Carrie. Before then I was so hoping that IX would be her movie, and I'm so sad that never got to happen, both for us as viewer and for Carrie herself.
It's outrageous that this is your first video (if indeed it is). Perfect editing, great visuals, stellar writing, outstanding (and I mean OUTSTANDING) audio choices (musical and otherwise).
I understand how you loved the Carrie Fisher moment in TLJ. However, it did feel jarringly comedic. It would have been a really beautiful moment if she embraced her Force power to save those that were blown out with her, as a counterpoint to A New Hope where Luke uses the Force to destroy the Death Star.
Comedy has its value, even if unintended.
wut how is that suggestion a "counterpoint" to Luke using the force to blow up the death star?
Well, that and Luke also said he use to shoot Womp Rats with a T-16 Skyhopper. Comparing their size to the thermal vent.
I liked it in the theater. But it was incredibly forgettable and completely betrayed All set ups from the first and the third movie got rid of everything from the second.
Yes, excellently said. As much as I disliked certain things from the 2nd movie, if they had a valid reason and explained it in the 3rd I could have been ok with it, but instead they just pretended it didnt happen, like Rose being nonexistent! My biggest problem with the 2nd was the preachiness of mostly the character of Rose. Movies and shows are always teaching us lessons, but it is by showing the situation, actions, consequences and we the audience make our own conclusions. To me, it seemed to signal a direction filmmakers were trying to take things to beat up over the head with an belief or ideal and I am not here for it. Original Star Wars trilogy was supposed to be one movie that ended up being way to long so they made it into 3, the main story was already planned out. So important in having a trilogy with mystery and plot twists to not feel so crazy, unconnected and in the end, disappointing. Thanks for letting me express my thoughts on this, I'm mostly faced with "new Star Wars dumb" from friends so can't ever have a real discussion which I think is important to see how to improve things and learn for us all!
I didn't like Leia's space flight scene because I thought that would have been the perfect spot for her character to die (considering the actress had died). If Leia had died then, it would have felt like very poetic? irony to me, because Kylo knew she was on board, was about to pull his gun trigger, but then decided not to, only for another one of his army to pull their trigger and cause the explosion. It was as if Kylo had decided that the monster he had created was no longer right, only for the monster to do what it was trained to anyways. He's the one who started all this, but when he has a moment of reflection and decides 'No', it's too late, and what he has started is continuing with or without him. Even though he personally did not kill his mother, what he created did. I don't even remember why she died when she eventually did. But a scene like I described would have had a much more emotional impact, and might have solidified Kylo's resolve to turn away from the dark side
It also would have made the transition of power to Holdo more narratively clean.
Great video! It hits all of the points I feel towards what's become of the franchise/sequel trilogy in a detailed yet fair and succinct way. Amazing editing as well! Loving your work so far (found you through The Devil Wears Prada video), this is a supremely underrated channel.
Rather than Lucas, there's one guy who has proven track record of lore to have plan it and Disney wasted it at that time: Dave Filoni. This guy redeemed the prequel trilogy with the Clone Wars and is now the mastermind behind the Mandolorian.
I think if they just had one creative mind directing/spearheading all three movies, we'd have a good Star Wars trilogy on our hands. Doesn't matter who, just anyone with a passion and skill for space fantasy stories.
Filoni and Favreau rely so much on fan service that it convinces their fans that their stories are good. Bad batch is really lame. Mando s2 was just a nostalgia ride to give fan favorite characters a whole episode just to fight instead of fleshing out other characters. Book of Boba fett is terrible.
Mandalorian, the show that devolved into Fanservice before it's second season. Sure I totally trust him.
2 years later. Yeah I've lost faith in him too... I wonder how much of Clone Wars/Rebels good writing wasn't actually Dave?
I think you're overall right and I do have to agree with your clarification about the "not having a plan" and how that is not necessarily a setback - also of note, i do think sticking to a plan can hold a story back because I've seen shows and such where i thought the ending was not great and the people behind it went "oh, the ending was what we had in mind from the start" and if i take that at face value and assume it is truthful, that suggests to me that things in the story changed as it progressed from what they had expected, so the ending no longer felt as satisfying as what they imagined.
for the lack of a plan to not be a setback, though, you have to care about where the story is going organically. and rise of skywalker wasn't that, it wasn't a movie made by someone genuinely trying to tell a satisfying story. any semblance at doing that is clearly buried beneath studio demands and trying to meet the imagined audience's expectations. which i think is disney's TRUE mistake with the trilogy: it was always about making money first, and telling a story second.
yes, the real villain was greed all along. that is where a lot of the other problems come in, such as the near-simultaneous production of the first and second movies together and disney refusing to give the original screenwriter for force awakens the time he wanted to flesh the screenplay out.
also, i would argue the "disney is trying to please the crowd" problem goes even back to the Force Awakens, because why is it so like a New Hope? Because I think Disney was trying to distance themselves from the backlash against the prequel trilogy by making their new trilogy EXPLICITLY like the one that everyone loves. nevermind that this kind of hampers the story because when the 1/3 of your trilogy is pretty much like the 1/3 of a companion trilogy, there is only so much of a different story you can tell.
that is my main problem with the sequel trilogy as a TRILOGY and not merely movies- i argue it is a bad trilogy because every installment tries to apologize for what came before. force awakens is an apology for the prequels not being like the OT, the last jedi is an apology for the force awakens being too much like the OT, and the rise of skywalker is an apology for everything controversial about the last jedi. when every part of a trilogy is at war with itself like this, cohesion is impossible and it falls apart.
I agree with that last point about them all being reactions to the one before. I loved TFA, but even at the time, it felt like a successful Hail Mary that wouldn’t work twice. So the next 2 movies would have to pave their own path and be so good on their own that TFA would come off as quaintly nostalgia-baiting.
And while TLJ has its problems (both as a movie and part of a trilogy) I loved it partially because it felt like it was trying to forge a new path. Ironically it also made a cohesive trilogy even more difficult, and then IX next-leveled the problem with a sledgehammer.
Lol, I love this. As someone who loosely pays attention to these through the years, I found this latest movie to be disjointed. I'm glad you worked out the flaws in the system and presented them here. The movie plays like the ultimate Marketing scheme to create profit. Nostalgia force-fed.
I really enjoyed this video; a thoughtful analysis of some of the problems with the new trilogy.
I personally enjoyed TFA for its obvious parallels to ANH, but I concur that it was clearly Disney saying "hey look, this isn't like the prequels, you'll like this, we promise!". I loved TLJ for the refusal to redeem Kylo (despite extensive and sympathetic exploration of his character), for Rey's parents being nobody (going against the consensus that they had to be Somebody Important, because jedi), and for Leia's everything. I do agree that TLJ didn't really build on anything we saw in TFA, though I think as I only watched them when they came out I'd managed to overlook that. It's something that would probably be more obvious if watching them back-to-back.
Your point about Rey's big flaw being naivety was brilliant; I hadn't thought of that being her major downfall, but it's a thread throughout the first two of her films for sure, and played heavily into the emotional climax of TLJ with Kylo. It would have been interesting if Rey's journey through Rise had included coming to grips with her own poor judgement and ending with her standing strong as just "Rey", no last name.
For me, Rise had its enjoyable moments, and I certainly managed to switch my brain off while watching, but I did feel in retrospect that it ruined what they'd done so cleverly in TLJ - not redeeming Kylo even though they devoted a lot of screen time to exploring his and Rey's relationship, and not excusing his flaws on screen just because he felt bad sometimes... that was a big deal to me, as redemption arcs are so common in modern media and I felt that they had managed to be incredibly sympathetic to Kylo's perspective throughout the film without outright excusing his actions. That Rise tried to redeem him without actually addressing any of his crimes was a disappointment.
Note to self: if writing a trilogy, have a plan.
I think the trick with “needing a plan” is, like you alluded to, that it doesn’t need to be comprehensive. Just having a rough idea of where they would go with all the characters and plot threads they set up would have done wonders for the trilogy
Great first vid! The underlying answer to all three of the ones you gave is that Disney did not trust their audience. And the audience resented them for it.
I am here to say I 100% had the same reaction to the Leia "Death on the Bridge" scene as you. I watched all three movies on release night as was bawling most of this movie BECAUSE of Carrie Fisher, just like you.
And as far as the Easy Answer goes, I love dissecting movies so I can 100% see where people have problems with this series, but I CHOOSE to suspend my disbelief because I CHOOSE to love these movies.
Your comedic timing is perfect and I was 100% cackling along with Palpatine in your CC.
I need more Star Wars fans like you, everyone I know is just so angry about it and don't want to have a conversation on it.
I did appreciate TLJ exploring the force as more than just levitating rocks, while also using that point about the mythology of rock throwers as foreshadowing to how the heroes eventually escape. It's a film with something to say about its own franchise while still wearing the Star Wars badge with pride despite its criticism.
Great analysis and explanation, I was able to better understand why people enjoyed TLJ, which I did not. The Leia scene lost me and failed to regain me, I had not been following the production in any way, I don’t think I even knew Carrie was dead and I actually had a swelling, surging respect for the decision to kill off her character...and then the rest of the scene happened. It completely broke my immersion, and I felt they were trying to cheaply manipulate my feelings, to get payoffs they hadn’t earned. The Chewbacca scene in ROS felt the same to me.
I’m not really a Star Wars fan but I was never sold on Luke’s character shift. I don’t know why, I usually like stories which subvert classical happy endings, and I like grumpy, broken people. I think I was just too captured by his original arc. I couldn’t accept that he’d ever do that to Ben Solo. I still can’t. It just doesn’t make sense. So even though the conceit is interesting, it’s too much of a betrayal for me to want to go along with. Also, I felt that the Last Jedi, by splitting up the trio, kept them from becoming family the way other iconic trios are.
Personally, I think the Last Jedi's biggest flaw was the ending.
A very easy fix which would have made the film infinitely better (though of course not perfect) in my opinion would have been this:
You know that scene where Kylo holds out his hand and asks to join forces with Rey?
Yeah, cut to credits before she gives her answer. Boom. Way better, imo.
Obviously a few earlier scenes might need to be tweaked, removed, or replaced to make it work. But that change alone would solve a lot singlehandedly.
Suddenly, we have a cliffhanger driving people to see the next film. Will she join him or not? And now, the next film's director can have a chance to ACTUALLY subvert expectations and have Rey become a villain if they want. Which would set up some really juicy twists and turns and drama. And like you said, her naivete, coupled with her disappointment about her family and her disappointment with Luke, it seems plausible she would be convinced to work with Kylo.
Plus, it fixes Snoke's death. The reason why his death was such a stupid idea is because there wasn't a good replacement for him. In a series, you can't just kill your big baddie in the middle of the story! That's like if they killed the Firelord at the end of Avatar season 2. Terrible idea.
BUT. If there's already a bigger baddie set up and ready to take his place, then it's fine. (Palpatine doesn't count. They had never actually planned to bring him back to life to be the big baddie, and it really shows. To use him, they would've had to plant clues to it early on, and they didn't).
Rey joining forces with Kylo would have been a great idea to replace Snoke. It would be surprising, it's pretty well set up, and so far Rey has been so OP that it would make her a VERY intimidating final baddie. With a LOT more personal ties to our good guys than Snoke or Palpatine had, so would have been much more of an emotional finale.
So yeah, creating the cliffhanger and having Rey/Kylo duo ultimately replace Snoke as the big baddie would solve the major issues, in my opinion.
Though, one other thing as a side change which might've done a lot to make the Luke controversy less problematic: secretly making Luke dead the whole time. In other words, he's a Force Ghost the whole movie.
It is a valid criticism that Luke is unrecognizable as a character. And the reasons why he became this way seem flimsy, too. He decided to kill his nephew, who hasn't done anything actually evil yet, when he previously refused to kill his mass murderer father? That's really the best idea they had?
So, I think one way to make his change in personality make better sense is for him to be dead. Perhaps Luke tried to save Kylo (like he did with his father in the past) but this time he was killed for his trouble. And Luke's choice to try and save Kylo caused the destruction of the new Jedi order as well as countless others because of Kylo working with the first order. And now, because Luke is dead, he can do nothing to fix it. He's trapped, unable to fix his mistakes, which torments him. I could see that sort of experience causing Luke to become bitter and angry and defeatist like he is in the film.
And his character arc would be coming to terms with his mistakes, learning to trust the new generation to carry on after him, and ultimately finding peace in his death and finally letting go.
Bottom line, there was a good film buried in the Last Jedi somewhere, I think. It just needed a bit more work done to bring it out. At least, that's how I feel.
For me it was that they failed to make me care about the new characters and then immediately started taking away the old ones. They wanted me to get invested in all these little mysteries that I could barely be bothered to pay attention to and then would try to "subvert" my expectations about something that again, I didn't really care about to begin with. This ended up making me feel like the filmmakers we're just trying to play a trick on me. Rey's origins are mysterious? Fine whatever. Now turns out her origins don't matter. Ok than why were you making such a big deal about it and wasting precious time that you could have spent developing real relationships between the new heroes? Oh now she's a palpatine? Fine! Just commit to it then. Rey "Skywalker"? Kiss my a$$ Disney! Don't get me started on Kylo's completely unconvincing motivations for being evil...
Another thing about old Star Wars is that old Star Wars subverted our expectations all the time, but people have forgotten that because by now everyone knows the plot and none of it seems surprising 40 years after the fact. But when you watch it as a kid, with the exception of the Battle of Yavin, very little in Star Wars goes the way you expect.
But here‘s the thing: there‘s a fine line to walk here. Telling us in every conceivable way that Darth Vader is going to kick Luke‘s ass but knowing that we expect Luke to win because he‘s the hero, that‘s subverting our expectations. Having Luke drop out of the crucial Mission half-way through the final movie to surrender to the bad guys is subverting our expectations.
Setting up a whole plotline of a film only to tell us it was all pointless is not „subverting expectations“, it‘s just jerking us around.
Same goes for telling us basically everything Luke does in Eps IV-VI was completely pointless and he‘s now the opposite of that guy FOR NO REASON.
Same goes for setting up (this is a minor gripe) Phasma as a big villain and then killing her off immediately*. And doing the same with Snoke.
Like I seriously don‘t get how people think all these moves are smart and surprising when actually they are just blunt and clumsy. Actual great movies that have surprised audiences have always been quite a bit more subtle.
Anyway, however brilliant you personally regard this approach, to me it was just jarring and immersion-breaking. Tarantino once remarked that if you seriously disorient the audience then you loose them, and that‘s arguably exactly what TLJ does.
*yes Episode VI does a similar thing with Boba Fett, but that‘s only after he plays a small but crucial role in Episode V: the Empire wouldn‘t have caught up with the Millenium Falcon without him.
As someone who didn't hate TLJ but thought it uninteresting enough to not bother seeing RoS until it was on cable at my parents house: I think you hit my complaints straight on. All three of the new trilogy feel like they are more interested in being "about" Star Wars than in being Star Wars. FA cares chiefly about assuaging complaints about the prequels and highlighting recognizable characters. TLJ cares chiefly about upending the status quo and deconstructing Star Wars tropes but not building something new in their place. RoS cares chiefly about undoing TLJ and bending to backlash.
Yeah, the 28:00 bit explaining about how every complaint had a reply was amazing.
Disney rushed these films into production without having a cohesive plan. The tone and plot of the Force Awakens does not match The Last Jedi. I admire Ryan Johnson for taking risks but this is Star Wars not some indie film.
For a better example look at the Mandalorian. Disney actually moved the release of an episode of the Mandalorian as to not conflict with The Rise of Skywalker. They knew fans were more invested in a TV show vs a major motion picture. The Mandalorian is type of Story we missed out on in the films. It was the result of bring together a talented and diverse group and actors and directors who understood the Star Wars universe. Who respected the past but took the saga into the future. Dave Faloni and Jon Favreau have crafted an amazing series and taken Star Wars to new heights. They have shown what could have been done if the right people had been left in charge!!! Like Kevin Feige who shepherds the MCU, Disney knows not to mess with that guy. They need to do the same with Star Wars and leave Dave Faloni and Jon Favreau in charge!!!
This video was excellent, and I'm very appreciative of how nuanced it is. That being said, I'm still pretty... frustrated with the conversation around Luke. I like Rey, a lot, but my favorite part about narratives is their characters, and how those characters are shaped by and respond to the story. My least favorite parts of storytelling are when characters make decisions solely because they are necessitated by the story itself. That's all to say that if the only defense of Luke's status in the Last Jedi is because he couldn't have worked in Rey's story otherwise then maybe he shouldn't have been in Rey's story? And like I get it, they needed Luke to sell tickets and to get people excited, but if that was the plan, then it's no wonder people were and are upset. If the goal was to disappoint people with his appearance, then don't use him to sell the film. That or don't use him in the film. I'm still not sold on the fact that he couldn't have been different and still worked, but it's clear there's a disconnect there right? I really struggle with a story that makes me feel alienated for caring about it. Stories that change characters for the shock value because they know we love them, or refuse to give time to past installments because they are easier to leave behind are hard when you care. Seeing Luke in the Last Jedi felt like the film was making fun of us for caring. Luke's refusal to give up on his family no matter the cost or consequence in earlier films meant more to me than anything else in Star Wars. I would have prefered he be dead in the sequels over what we got.
I feel like the kind of people who liked The Last Jedi are also people who will never dance at parties. For me, watching TLJ felt like this:
Imagine you’re at a club opening night. You’re a bit tipsy and all your friends are with you too. You’re ready to dance. The DJ starts the party with ABBA’s greatest hits. A bit cheesy and overplayed yes but soon enough the dance floor is full and everyone is excited. Then the next set starts. It seems like it should be fun
SHIT the music stops. Everyone laughs because it’s funny. The DJ laughs too and fixes the broken speaker and starts the music up again. Not his fault it’s the venue’s problem but oh well and soon enough most people are dancing!
Then it happens again.
And again.
And again.
People aren’t laughing anymore.
They were there for that ecstatic feeling you only get from dancing or singing or listening to one of those old transcendent stories with hundreds of other people. That feeling is gone now.
Meanwhile, the club has another room for the kind of people who hate dancing. The food and booze is great and they have some great conversations. They think this venue is awesome.
And that’s why I don’t think anyone can quite pin down what pisses people off about TLJ. It’s not logical or about quality or consistency. They got everyone dancing and then the music stopped.
Your point about Leia's scene in the beginning of The Last Jedi was the perfect summary as to why that scene and everything after hit for me. Thanks for this -- I'm way more interested in the nuances rather than the vitriol most of "Disney Star Wars Sucks" videos lead with and revel in.
James -- these videos are gems. One correction, Disney and Lucasfilm (and George Lucas himself) said the original Nonilogy was about the Skywalker family.
I think starting the story with a character (Rey) wanting to know "where is Luke Skywalker" isn't the problem. I think the problem started when they decided to basically re-do the original, because the only way they could do that would mean every single character from the original trilogy had to be failures. Digging out from that deficit was never going to work. Especially when certain parts make no sense. Like, if General Leia is actually part of the actual Republic's military, why do they call themselves "the Rebellion". That's over. They won. The Republic was up and running (until that bigger Death Star came along...) They aren't rebels. They're the legitamet. The First Order are *invaders* not rulers.
But I do agree with everything pointed out about Rise of Skywalker. And yeah, they should have had a plan.
IMO, the most important line from the original trilogy was when when Darth Vader told the Admirals that compared to the power of the Force their technological terrors were nothing. And I think the First Order took heed and Finn, along with a LOT of the other Storm Troopers that had been kidnapped and forced to be Stormtroopers were actually Force sensitive and Rey was just one of the kids the FO tried to take but her parents were able to hide her from them. So at the end, Finn would have something more important to do, since he would basically have to get other conscripted kids to turn on the FO for the final battle. And Luke could have been gone not just because he failed Kylo but because he was trying to find out why suddenly he couldn't find more kids to train.
I may be the one person in the world who earnestly wanted to see that midichlorian trilogy.
Yes of course they should have had a plan. Long gone are the days where the next film in a trilogy is dependent on box offices and audience responses. Disney has the money to finance three movies all at once, so they shouldn't have gone for the approach used in the original trilogy, because it doesn't make sense and they dont need to.
Dude, this is a stupendously thoughtful video! Loved it and not just cuz I did a voice :) subscribed. More please.
I really appreciate you arguing from the side of an opinion you disagree with. debate vibes are immaculate.
there's a nice video by doctor wigs that talks about how in tfa a lot of the camera work around rey then cuts to a reaction shot of men acting amazed by her for simply doing things. I think it's a good point and sort of explains a lot of my issues with the character. not only that, but the shot you show of luke is an important spiritual moment and climax of anh. rey pulling out the drive exists simply so han can be impressed by her knowledge. not sure it's comparable. I also feel her flaws and motivations don't synergize well with her backstory. she's a lonely salvager; she shouldn't be as sociable with others as she is.
I don't like tlj that much but a lot of my issues stem from the terrible foundation established by tfa.
dunno if they needed everything planned out, per se, but it would've probably been wise to having the overarching plot and character arcs conceptualized. finn will always be my biggest disappointment since he was the most interesting character introduced in the entire sequel trilogy and they just wasted it.
My hatred of the sequels is 100% based in the horrifically negligible world building.
Ooooh yes. As a film fan before a Star Wars fan, it hurts to admit it, me and my friends were all unanimous in lacking just a good movie. Who the eff cares if it's a carbon copy of A New Hope as long as it's following storytelling rules and genre? And it was about the trio. The other two movies lost me completely when they dropped the story of the three friends. Just out of nowhere dropping Finn? Out of nowhere rebuilding the entire character of Poe? And just dropping everything about Rey actually making friends for the first time, as in found family? I just wanted a cool Star Wars movie. Lightsabers, cool Jedi, friends, pew pew noises, explosions and running. Don't complicate things. They work for a reason.
Their biggest mistake was putting the older characters into the sequels. They should have set it 100 years into the future where those characters are only legend. A time where there are many factions vying for power-that way you don't require one big bad that replicates the previous movies. Not to mention it would just be a more dynamic universe. Like a Star Wars Game of Thrones....
This needs so many more views. Thank you for putting into words what many of us, tired from the pointless backlash, have been unable to say.
The Holdo Manoeuvre IS a terrible part of the film. It is indeed a fantastic piece of cinematography but it breaks my suspension of disbelief. It invalidates every single space battle that happened previously in the trilogy. And even if you can come up with an "in universe" reason why it couldn't be used in ANY of the previous battles, I don't care. It's not your job to explain that part of the film to me. It's the film-maker's job. And it wasn't done at all (at least in this film). This isn't an "ooh, we get to discuss an important part of the film after it's finished" cool idea or subtle plot point. It is SO jarring that thinking about it just makes it worse! If the rest of the film had been great, I would still have hated this moment.
@BK Beatty exactly. Not to mention it completely takes away any meaning from Anakin’s sacrifice and redemption at the end of Return of the Jedi. Him killing the emperor and saving the Galaxy meant nothing because “sOmEHOw pALPaTinE reTUrNED.” Him being the chosen one means nothing because Rey ends up being the most powerful force user alive for no apparent reason and kills the Emperor herself. The sequels are just a pile of bad storytelling, poorly executed characters, and inconsistencies that have no reason to exist. And I hate to say all of this because 2 out of those 3 elements had potential, it just wasn’t fully realized due to Kathleen Kennedy’s incompetence as the head of Lucasfilm
The Holdo Maneuver and Holdo not tell Poe that she even has a plan are my biggest complaints about the movie overall & really take me out of it. I mean, if such a move is possible, why not have specially designed ships piloted by droids to preform it. 👀
Her not telling Poe her plan was just dumb, part of the job of the commanding officer is to reassure the crew to prevent a mutiny, plus if no one knows the plan, how are they going to perform their part in it? Also, her plant resulted in a lot of people dying. Since it directly resulted in Rose & Finn's little side quest, which resulted in her plan getting leaked to the enemy.
The Holdo Maneuver and Holdo not tell Poe that she even has a plan are my biggest complaints about the movie overall & really take me out of it. I mean, if such a move is possible, why not have specially designed ships piloted by droids to preform it. 👀
Her not telling Poe her plan was just dumb, part of the job of the commanding officer is to reassure the crew to prevent a mutiny, plus if no one knows the plan, how are they going to perform their part in it? Also, her plant resulted in a lot of people dying. Since it directly resulted in Rose & Finn's little side quest, which resulted in her plan getting leaked to the enemy.
Everything you questioned like “how can you write a story with Luke in it where he isn’t the point” can be answered in the books and comics. I know it’s cliche to say it at this point, but they had all the inspiration and source material they could ever need to make something good. One of those things was someone whose job it was to keep track of the overall story between media and to oversee the overarching plan. Instead they dumped the EU (probably because of money) saying it was all wrong, but then are using bits and pieces of it throughout.
As for “you have to adjust as you go along” Babylon 5 had one man with one plan and oversight and all the problems with it are to do with studios meddling. Planning and preparation prevent piss poor performance as they say.
“Instead they dumped the EU (probably because of money)”
I don’t think it was because of money. I think it was because of ideology
@@mechadoggy rumour has it (usually caveats apply but it makes sense) that keeping the EU and maintaining continuity was too hard and would limit the stories (and revenue) that could be told. They’d have to make films based on the EU books, comics, etc. but as they were already in print, no-one would need to see them because they’d been out for decades.
And they don’t want comparisons between the EU and films/TV the same way they don’t want comparisons between the Marvel comics and the films/TV since the original Avengers.
@@kettchuk918 They don’t have to adapt the whole EU, just maybe some major parts of it, like Mara Jade Skywalker, Ben Skywalker, Jaina Solo, Jacen Solo, and Anakin Solo
@@mechadoggy That's what they've been doing, taking bits from the EU and riding roughshod over them. That's my main gripe with the MCU, Transformers, Star Trek reboot, etc. too. If you don't talk about Khan and have all these references to WoK, no-one will make comparisons to your substandard crap JJ (Lord of the copy+paste approach to film making then bitching about people saying as much).
And don't give projects to people who hate the bit they've been given to work with, do what they like and laugh at anyone who gets upset...Looking at you Taika Waititi and Michael Bay. Just go off and make your edgy, tedious "comedies" or military porn explosion fests if you've no interest in the source material.
I like the point of fans being your audience, not your writers. For one, too many writers end up souring any story, and two, it's important to respect enough both your own vision, and the challenge it might present to some fans. There's this misguided idea that one can learn only from "kosher" stories and creators, when some of the most interesting challenges on how we perceive ourselves and society come from horrible stories.
I remember watching this video AGES ago, and kept thinking about it, but I had forgotten the channel's name! Finally found you again thanks to your video about comedians! lol
I think I know what could have saved this mess of a trilogy and it wasn't necesarily a plan.
They needed to know what they wanted to say.
Every time they had 2 options, every time something unexpected happened and they needed to add a change... everytime they just needed to ask themselves "what do I want to say and what choice could help me say that?"
It is clear this trilogy had nothing to say...
"Accusations that Disney had no plan first emerged after The Last Jedi". No, they emerged the moment they hired J. J. Abrams, who had no business headlining a serial after what he did with Lost.
I agree with a lot of your points, and I quite like TLJ too, but I have to disagree about Rey. She is still a full-on Mary Sue in my eyes, being naive is hardly a flaw - and you only point this "flaw" in TLJ, when her character actually has a development. I like Rey's opening scene, but I still don't understand how she become the most important character and somehow gain trust from everyone. For me personally, there's a foreshadowing moment in TFA after Han died, when Leia console Rey - who literally just know them for a while - rather than Chewie, their lifelong best friend.
If it were my choice, I'd take a slow burn (or milking it more, depends on the angle) on the trilogy. I rather watch story about the time Luke lost his faith, Poe's stormtrooper days, or even Ben turning into Kylo Ren.
Rey could be a great character, but for me she hasn't earned it. You would take the Force out of Luke, but you could still have an interesting character in him. Do the same with Rey, and you basically create a faceless nameless extra.
The fundamental problem I see with defenses of The Last Jedi, especially from people claiming to make an objective assessment of the film, is that it almost always boils down to how the movie made them feel, rather than how it was written, shot, edited, and otherwise made. The fact that a person likes a film has zero bearing on whether it has objective quality. It's the definition of subjective assessment, and any person attempting to assess a work objectively pretty much fails in the attempt the moment they associate the film's quality with whether they like it, or how it made them feel.
With all due respect to the video author, every defense of the strengths of the movie is based on his feelings and opinions, and every time he talks about the facts he acknowledges the very real flaws while also downplaying them as 'not having negatively impacted his enjoyment.' Whether they negatively impact one's enjoyment or not, they're flaws. Character arcs are rehashed from the first movie, with any growth being reset. There are too many subplots, at least one of which has absolutely zero impact on the how the plot plays out, and it grossly impacts the pacing. The tone is all over the place. It has plot holes everywhere, and the fact that it attempts to excuse them is more of a lampshade than an actual fix. Ultimately it's a bad film; a sequel that outright ignores any opportunity to build on its predecessor in favor of pursuing its own self-aggrandizing, yet poorly executed narrative.
Everyone acknowledges that The Rise of Skywalker is bad, but it never could have been anything else. The Last Jedi did everything in its power to leave whatever came next no room to make sense, which is how we got 'somehow Palpatine returned.' Killing Snoke wasn't a brilliant subversion; it was blatantly obvious it was going to happen as he narrated his own execution, and it forced Abrams to do a hard pivot. That's only one example of many when it comes to how The Last Jedi is a major contributor to why The Rise of Skywalker is so atrocious. The obsession with subverting expectations is condescending to the audience, especially when the subversions are so heavy handed and contrived. Worse, they're often included despite adding nothing to any character's arc, or to the plot as a whole, as in Canto Bight. Finn and Rose's entire arc makes zero impact on the film's plot, and certainly doesn't matter for the characters involved.
The tricky thing is that The Last Jedi has every flaw that the Rise of Skywalker does. Defenders of The Last Jedi wouldn't even think The Rise of Skywalker was bad if it hadn't been so intent on trashing every element of TLJ that went out of its way to subvert JJ Abrams' initial vision. They're both terrible, and for many of the same reasons. Neither is half as smart as it presents itself to be, both are riddled with plot holes, both have terrible, contrived plots with weak characterization and character development, and not one of the trilogy films can let one of the previous generation of characters be present without having someone from the new generation show them up, with their deaths both proving unceremonious and accomplishing nothing. Both films are shallow, cynical about their audience's intelligence, and their immediate response to criticism is to berate and defame anyone who isn't gobbling the flicks up like candy.
For anyone who likes these movies, all the more power to you. Love them to bits. Feel whatever it is they make you feel. But understand that neither liking nor despising a movie is an indicator of its objective quality. Positive critical reception doesn't make it good. Audience ratings don't make it good. If you want to be able to say a movie is objectively good, you need to be able to break it down, objectively recognize and acknowledge its flaws without making excuses for them, and figure out whether, on balance, the flaws detract from the plot, characters, and film as a whole. Acknowledging that a movie is bad doesn't mean that, as someone who likes it, you're wrong. It just means you like a bad movie, and that's okay. Lots of people love The Fast and the Furious franchise, but you won't catch many folks arguing that they're shining examples of cinematic craft.
Very well written, do you watch Mauler by any chance?
15:56 - But it IS a flaw. Being naive without being hurt or suffer as a result is unnatural. She has no arc - everything she does turns well& there's no price to pay. No learning so no need NOT to be naive...
This is exactly what I wanted to say. Being Naive is not a flaw to a character, if she suffers no consequences for being naive. Everything works out fine for her, at best she gets a few bruises. Everything she tries goes well, that's the opposite of what being Naive should have as consequences.
The problems with the sequel trilogy originate in TFA for me. It sets up a world that shouldn't exist. The sequels should never have been "The OT again". They should have been wildly different and about progressing the universe.
I like the PT and OT as a pair *because* they're so different.
I liked the Force Awakens but I hated everything about the sequels because they led to Disney listening to the loudest fucking people about them, so it turned into a themed ride of "ooooh, Whatshis Fuck The Jedroid is here to stop Cloned Vader...again." with the spinoffs leading up to that.
I haven't even watched Andor because the Mandalorian turned into another seat on the coaster.
I'm not someone who needs retcons of bad endings (i can still watch the first four seasons of got and enjoy it) but damn i think they should let rian johnson direct his own finale to tlj.
Hard to do without carrie tho. Rip.
If they let johnson direct the last movie they could at least have had another critically respected movie, probably while still pissing off those fans. Instead jj just made a bad film for everyone. I've heard people say johnson is a bad filmmaker, and imo knives out proves that wrong.
I’m also here from the Devil Wears Prada video, but an avid Star Wars fan. I’ve long said (mostly to my husband) that it felt like they got half way through the Last Jedi and realized Rey and Kylo had interesting chemistry. So they said “f it, let’s run with that” and put way less effort into everything else. If they had a plan, it got scrapped. I hadn’t made the link to Disney’s general “people pleasing” tendency as opposed to telling a story for the sake of the story. I really appreciate your detailed take on this. Need to rewatch the films again now 👍🏻
There are some great points here. However, The Last Jedi was a terrible film, but because they didn't explain Luke's transformation at all. A 15 second flashback is not adequate to change the direction and drive of a character we've spent 3 films with. Obi-Wan and Yoda isolated themselves because they were beaten and they had to hide for their lives until they felt the time was right to come out of hiding, but there's absolutely not enough in the film to show Luke was similarly hunted, in fact isn't not even implied. You can't just make an entire film about subverting expectations and then not explain anything.
Yeah, its not like Obi Wan and Yoda were beacons of positivity, its perfectly in line with their characters and state of the galaxy, but not for Luke.
It's one thing to not have an utterly strict plan nailing down every detail and having no outline whatsoever. It's like nobody had taken even a grade 10 creative writing course.
I love your videos and insights. Watching them has made me thing about the media I watch in a completely new way
My problem with tlj is rey being a nobody is answer in tfa when maz say her parents not coming back so why bring it back. But you have a point about if luke in it people won’t care as much for the new character,
I agree with this. Rey's emotional arc in TFA was to stop waiting for her parents, to live her life for herself without them. I wonder if it hadn't been such a hot topic in the fandom if TLJ would have felt the need to address it. It's another example of Disney trying to please people instead of finding the most apt story for the characters they'd created.
Im only four minutes into this and i already love it. Maybe it's your intelligent sounding accent, but i am here for the breakdown and i think we will agree so much and im so sick of the dichotomous treatment of the 2nd and 3rd movies (and Rey and Kylo's relationship) as all good or just rubbish. There can be more nuances in life and looking for a simple answer/solution doesn't really help anyone. Ps. I love Adam Driver and all he brought to the role and am not ashamed to say it. Ok, now to finish your video.
Bob Iger f*cked it up from the beginning with his command that it all be reset to ANH.
They could have done that successfully though, except they wanted the old stars involved and this meant nerfing their characters' achievements and struggles in the original trilogy. Thing is, although those films are old, they're still the core of the franchise. Now they're rendered pointless and sad and Disney wonders why people aren't as engaged as they'd hoped.
All Disney had to do was set the new films 100 years after ROTJ, have a couple of flashbacks to show Luke, Leia and Han had the kind of lives they deserved (total fan service but no-one would care), and now on with the rise of evil (again), but with new characters.
Personally in my own experience as a writer, the answer regarding having a plan or not is an in-between: you *should* leave some breathing room for flexibility and improvisation, be willing to drop or change parts here and here as you progress on the writing, but it's also important to have at least a base structure, a "skeleton" as I like to call it, to act as a guideline for the plan. Basic steps or key elements (usually the beginning, middle and end) that you try to deviate as little as possible from. They didn't need to plan *everything*, but they should have know some key parts from day 1.
I know what the problem is:
the films sucked past the Force Awakens because it tried too hard to please everyone and failed.
You have the fanbase who *militantly* adheres to the OT arguing over the people who wanted something different. Both crashed and burnt and now Disney is stuck in an endless loop of rehashing the Original Trilogy in varying ways.
This vídeo is soooo amaizing! Thank you so much for this! I got to know your channel from the video of the devil wears a fight, but star wars is one of my favorite topics, and it was wonderful to see your thoughts on this!
This video deserves 50x the amount of views it currently has (some 5204 at the time of this writing). It helps me to digest the disappointments I had with episodes 7 & 9, and cements why I think 8 is my 3rd favorite (behind 2 and R1, respectively).
I think the problem is that this trilogy was supposed to be an ending, a conclusion to the sage. You can't not plan an ending, or have a conclusion ignore everything that has come so far. That's not even about film--it's basic English. The concluding sentence, the concluding paragraph, they need to address everything that comes before. You need a plan for that--you can make things up while you're writing the story, but there's a point where you need to go back, fire any Chekov's guns and tie together any messy lines.
You can't introduce so many new things in a conclusion.
Personally, if Star Wars had to address any fan controversy, I wanted them to address the Jedi. I think the Jedi Order is misunderstood by a good deal of the fandom and gets a ton of backlash, and I wanted them to be redeemed. Episode 6 was about the Return of the Jedi, and maybe it's a bit stupid of me, but I wanted the next three movies to be about restoration of the Jedi Order after the cultural genocide inflicted on them and a rebuilding of a better Republic.
I understand why people didn't like the prequels as movies, but they were good at world-building, at expanding on the galaxy far, far away.
Maybe it's lame of me to not care about something being a good movie? But I like the Hobbit, I like the Lord of the Rings, and I like the Silmarillion, and those probably aren't winning any awards anytime soon. But I would argue that they are good and effective because they give the fanbase this massive world to play around in. The same is true for Harry Potter--arguably, the writing is terrible. Personally, I cannot reread the first books because it's just that bad. The characters are annoying, the fact it succeeded was more because it was the right thing at the right time... but the world was compelling and it enticed fans in.
I don't think Star Wars should have ever been considered a cinematic masterpiece or anything. We've got art films and stuff if people are really that picky about "good films". But Star Wars was more than its movies, it was a world, a galaxy. It inspired so much content? [gestures furiously at Legends]
And Disney tried to throw most of that away. And maybe that could have been fine. But even then... just from their backstories Rey and Finn had so much potential as characters? And the films just... ignored it. There are a few good videos by a CZcams channel called Darth'd that addresses them. And it's just... really disappointing.
Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise, though--this entire trilogy felt similar to all the Disney live-action remakes going on. :/
[I also came here through your video on the Devil Wears Prada. I would like to argue, though, that Rey feels weirdly overpowered and people might argue that she's a Mary Sue for the very important reason that her powers are too convenient. It's not that she has all of these super-powers, it's that they sprung into being when she or the plot needed it. Also, staffs and swords are really different? If she'd had a sword early on or had a saber-staff, I've have bought it more. But for example, it would have been amazing if instead of Force powers, Rey just... carried a massive jar of bacta around. Because that's in-character (she's a scavenger who's suddenly got access to resources) and could have survived without foreshadowing, even, just making sense because of the fact that yeah, she was with the Resistance, of course they'd have had medical stuff and of course, given Rey's background, she'd have brought some), and it would have carried them through the plot points without just adding something new (on top of everything else that was new) in the CONCLUDING trilogy.]
This was probably way too long for a CZcams comment. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It was an "ending" to a series that already had an end
So the best solution would have been to ignore all criticism. Isnt it always. See you at a new hope 3 in 2025.
10:02 my reason is simple. I did not know her work outside of starwars and did not know she had died
You have incredible videos. Really interesting and glad I found your channel.
I still say their main problem was NOT outlining the entire trilogy. Not a solid plan with them fully written out, but at least having the arcs for each of the main characters sorted before starting. Abrams' "mystery box" style of writing is bullshit unless you're supremely talented enough to tie things together by the seat of your pants. Johnson's approach to all the set ups was way too metatextual and instead of seeing a story all I could see was two directors playing tug of war.
i just found out about your channel, and i'm in love with it
This channel needs to grow. It's awesome.
I think (and this is coming from someone who honestly can't remember a ton that happened in this movie) that the biggest problem I had in this movie was how entirely predictable it was for me, and not in a way that was entertaining. I could find myself predicting every action/reveal they led up to for the characters. A lot of it felt cliche, and not in a good way. Finding out Rey's parents, the death of Snoke, even tiny choices they made in the moment, I could see all of them coming from a mile away. Even the choices I couldn't predict, they were so cliche in the end that I found myself disappointed. There were certain scenes I genuinely loved, and the idea overall, I also loved. But overall, it felt very....safe. It felt like Disney didn't want to do anything TOO out there, for fear of fans disliking it, and in the end, that made them stick with several very safe plots that had worked in the past. They just...didn't quite do it this time. Idk, that's my opinion haha
Honestly the whole Holdo manoeuvre is amaaaazing. Like not only the visuals, but the fact that the movie goes silent as it does so. Sure there is the arguments that the science of star wars is terrible and you can't hear blaster fire in the vacuum of space, but it doesn't necessarily bother me because even if you shouldn't be able to hear anything in the vacuum of space, the films are pretty consistent with having you be able to hear the movement of ships and explosions and such, and that consistency just makes the contrast impact that much harder.
in contrast the Leia space walk may be "unrealistic" but to me, the worst thing about it is the inconsistency. because when leia's ship is blown out, people are sucked out and she looks sort of what you could possibly expect of a person being sucked into space, but at the beginning of the film, the bomber ships also open up to space and not only does "normal" gravity work in space, but none of the pilots are sucked out and they don't die due to the exposure of space, which then makes it jarring.
tldr; the more consistent you are with your possible bs logic, the more it works
Have to pause just to say you fully encapsulate how Leia's scenes in TLJ made me feel. I find it so hard to understand people who found it cheap or implausible, but also I know that we don't fully control how we react to things on a gut level. And I think it's, to some extent, human nature to try and rationalize those gut reactions. When you mentioned tearing up in the theater, I was already tearing up just remembering how that scene made me feel. (unpaused, watched the rest of the video) I loved that TLJ genuinely surprised me! And so much of the backlash against it feels (and maybe this is uncharitable, I don't know) like people who are upset that a movie surprised them. I understand being frustrated when a piece of media seems to throw "twists" at the audience just for the sake of being unpredictable, but none of the reveals in TLJ felt that way to me. Leia, Snoke's death, Luke's force projection, etc, all immediately made sense as soon as I recovered from the !!! of it all. I wonder how much of it is die-hard fans being upset that they couldn't predict where a star wars movie would go, when, to their eyes, they've done the research, put in the time, so if something doesn't immediately make sense to them then it must be "out of character" or a "bad narrative decision", when in reality, it seems like they don't really WANT a story at all. Who wants to watch Luke Skywalker do cool force tricks and save the day with no struggle or conflict? That's not an interesting movie, and certainly not a solid basis for a film trilogy.
ANYWAY, thanks for a great video essay, that for some reason I am only watching in *checks watch* ...2022. Loved it!
I remember finishing the last Jedi and crying hysterically over Carrie fisher for 3 hours. There was an empty seat next to me and I’m not religious but I am spiritual. I felt Carrie’s presence the whole movie. She was there with me. She’s been my 2nd biggest inspiration in my fucking life. She’s a force of nature. I don’t understand what happened, but it did. And I’m thankful for it
The biggest tragedy of Carrie Fischer's death is I genuinely don't think it would have happened so soon if she wasn't forced to lose weight to reprise the role. What, were they gonna have her wear the gold bikini again?
4:37 really nails my opinion of The Last Jedi. I enjoyed it, but it seemed to paint the writers of the next movie into a corner. I remember talking about that with some other fanfiction- inclined friends of mine (older fanfiction writers are all about breaking down plots and stories like these video essays do) and we came to the conclusion that they had somehow fallen into the sort of trap many "publish as you go with little planning ahead" serialized stories do. The twists and subversion were interesting in the moment, but now what? The big bad is dead, so much of the heavy lifting exposition done by the earlier films was discarded, and the plot threads felt very seperate and difficult to weave back together.8 absolutely lost me at Leia's fake-out death and the point about how that rude (in my opinion) scene that played with our emotions so soon after Carrie's passing may have made the other twists hit badly is really insightful. I probably was primed to dislike later scenes and had a harder time getting immersed, but the absolutely amazing visuals did pull me back in. The movie was gorgeous, I'll give it that.
29:32 Comes back to these points because that difficult task of having new exposition in the final stage of the trilogy, weaving the remaining disparate plotlines together, and trying to gain back goodwill just did not go well. The retcon just made 8 feel even worse.
You can change things as you go. You can trash ideas and add new ones. You can take huge or minor sections of whatever prewriting you've done and remix, reorder, transform them, or light them on fire to dance on their ashes.
But any writer will tell you that you need a plan. Even just a single paragraph about where the end of the story should be. You can wind up in a vastly different place, but you need to know what direction to take.
I loved the Last Jedi.
I personally loved the Princess Leia Force-flying-through-space moment very much. I also thought the new take on Luke was creative and original, though perhaps slightly clumsily handled. I also very much liked the message conveyed by the revelation in "The Last Jedi" (reversed in the sequel) that Rey does not come from an august bloodline, though I also agree that the shift in stories and tone between "The Force Awakens" and "The Last Jedi" was jarring and clumsy, and that they should have planned at least a bare-bones outline to harmonize the movies. I do think that with some creative editing, reshuffling of scenes, and maybe some minimal redubbing of lines, the first two films could be made to fit together much better (e.g. removing the entire scene from "The Force Awakens" where Rey discovers Luke's lightsaber). It's really a shame because there are a lot of good ideas strewn throughout the first two movies in this latest trilogy that were just mishandled and ended up in the steaming refuse heap that was "The Rise of Skywalker"
It's always nice to hear a guy who likes Last Jedi but still is willing to acknowledge the problems with it. For me it's not a bad film but it lacks polish in several areas.
This was a fantastic video explaining what exactly was wrong with the sequel trilogy without descending into needless bashing. I pretty much agree with you on all your points.
I'm going to disagree with your assessment on the passing of the torch being a core problem, and I'm going to draw a comparison to Avatar and Korra. While Kora's seasons were pretty polarizing for many reasons, one thing that the fans all agree on was how they actually handled the returning, now elderly cast, REALLY WELL. Katara, Toph and Zuko all act as mentors and guiding figures to the world at large, while still leaving room for Korra and compony to effect the change and be the hero of the story. They could easily have done the same here.
"Where is Luke?" with many other plot directions, so long as they preserved the integrity of his character. Maybe he fails to meet Rey's expectations, or fails to save her when she was in trouble, on purpose to force her to grow. We see Obi Wan and Yoda using deception as a means of education enough, it would make sense for his character to grow into similar behaviors as his masters.
Maybe his absence is because he was deeply injured and unable to fight, maybe he set off on a journey chasing secret Jedi knowledge and got caught up in a different threat that he couldn't beat alone. They could have pulled a Revan, and had him spending decades locked in mind battle stasis trying to keep an ancient evil in check. He could have been the one to disfigure Snoke in battle, and had been left similarly injured in turn.
They Rey comes in, and someone needs to go on, to carry on what Luke cannot, either because its too big or he's too old, too injured, to worn down. They could have done SO MANY OTHER THINGS with him other than make him into a disappointment, other than throwing to the wayside his entire story arc. I've always maintained that a disgruntled Jedi, ashamed of his actions and hiding away on an empty planet, of Rey idealizing someone only to have that thrown in her face, would have been an excellent plotline if it was anyone other than Luke that it centered on. Alternatively, they could have kept his hiding in secret thing, but the explanation we got for WHY he abandoned the galaxy to go to hell and hide on a rock was NOT sufficient. The core problem was that Rey's rise should never have come from brining Luke down. You don't need to break a person's knees, just so you can stand above them.
I have other complaints, but I feel like this addresses your core argument for point number two. The rest I thought was a fantastic analysis, and you brought up a lot of points I hadn't thought of.
What's interesting about the comparison to ATLA and Korra you make is that the one character from the original cast who does not appear in Korra is Aang.
I'm not arguing that passing the torch as a basis for a story can never work, but that the interpretation of that idea which Abrams built the story upon created two characters that were competing for focus. All your suggestions could have worked for Luke's character, but none of them are as dramatic for Rey's arc than the direction they went with in Last Jedi. And as she is the protagonist now, the decision to prioritise her story over Luke's is the natural one. Prioritising Luke over Rey would have created a different problem.
Take the ending of the Mandalorian for example (spoilers).
When Luke appeared at the end, he immediately took all the plot away from Mando. He solved all the problems just by waving his lightsaber. It might be fun for a bit if you're a fan of Luke, but ultimately I feel it's quite uninteresting. It doesn't tell us anything new about Luke and he doesn't experience a character arc or any meaningful development. And if you're watching the show for Mando--and if not, why are you watching?--it robs him of all agency in his own story.
Excellent and thoughtful video.
This is an extremely thoughtful way of making sense of why The Last Jedi was so polarizing.
This trilogy was supposed to be a love letter to the fans. Instead it became a subject of cultural debate. The constant back and forth and twisting and pulling between those who would've rather seen it take a more progressive route, and those that would have liked to see it set a new stage for the new generation while respecting the last. It became what it is. Frankly, the fact that this shit show happened at all shows that we as a people are impatient and selfish. It's a shame.
the problem with Nostalgia always comes back to Old World Blues
I agree with your friend about Rey's parents. This is the sequel trilogy, and sequels means its a continuation of the story that came before which is about the Skywalkers. This is after all Episode 7,8 and 9 where the first 6 are about Skywalkers. They even market this as the Skywalker saga and therefore it is implied that the main character should be a skywalker just like the last two trilogies for it to be narratively satisfying. If you want a random nobody to be a hero, they shouldn't have call this a sequel trilogy to the Skywalkers then, but called it Rey a Star Wars story like Solo. They also did not need Rey to be a nobody to have a message that greatness comes from anywhere because that is what a jedi already is. You like most people have the common assumption that only Skywalkers can be jedi but obviously that is false as seen by the prequels. In fact, every jedi that has ever existed besides the Skywalkers are nobodies and came from nowhere. For example, we don't know Obi wan's parents, or Yoda's or Mace Windu's, etc. In fact, the only jedi that we know the parents of is the Skywalkers and that is because Anakin was the only jedi that broke the rules of having attachments and had a family. If you're a Jedi, by default, you came from no where and became a somebody by becoming a jedi. The message is already conveyed in the definition of being a jedi and Rey coming from no where is not any different than Obi wan or any other jedi besides the skywalkers.
A trilogy can still fit into the skywalker saga even though the main protagonist isn't by blood related to them. I mean are you aware of the fact that Kylo Ren, the main villain of the show is literally by blood a skywalker? Are you aware of the fact that it's also about Luke and Leia passing down the torch to the younger generation? ... now you also want Rey to share blood with them? What kind of incest galaxy is this? Who cares if Disney markets it in a way that excites you for the reveal of her parents. If anything, it only strengthens the idea that Rey finding out her parents are nobodies is the worst thing she and the audience could hear. And that's a great thing for interesting storytelling.
I loathe The Last Jedi - yet I sincerely believe the snoke death scene and the holdo maneuver are in the top 10 scenes of Star Wars. However these little moments of greatness do not make up for the inconsistent story. Both in terms of character and pacing. It's a shame Rian Johnson ruined this film and it's a reminder that if you don't get the characters right in your second film you will ruin your franchise.
In my opinion Rey didn't even do enough to be a Mary Sue. There were no stakes, minimal motivations, and no real growth to her character. She was just there. Still - I WANTED to like her. Poe and Finn had sparks of brilliance but were ultimately underutilized (btw BLESS YOU OSCAR FOR AKNOWLEDGING) . Same with Ben. I think the most telling thing about this for me was when Rey and Ben were with Snoke and Ben is trying to get her to go to the dark side independent of snoke - and I wanted her to do it! I wanted the growth from both of them! It's just a shame they never took what they had in the first movie and bothered to actually plot out the character growth to the end :/
People seem to forget that at the heart of it all, Star Wars was an opera about the Skywalker family. If Luke comes into the story, 'him taking over the story' is completely fine because he SHOULD be a big part of the story. Otherwise they should never have brought him back in the first place. What they ended up doing was this weird non-committal middle thing where he's not in it enough to be fleshed out as a character. The ending of the first film gave more than enough space to have Rey AND Luke both in the story in my opinion - especially with Rey's incredibly strong connection to the dark side. For example, the balance between light and dark could have been explored through Rey, with Luke learning from her that maybe the dark side can exist in balance with the light (something his old Jedi masters would have balked at). This would have been interesting and resulted in a journey of growth for both of them without them overshadowing each other. There are many other possible stories, but in the end the most simple answer is the writing and directing were just not at the level they needed to be for this franchise to succeed.
Despite its problems, I like TLJ for being a meditation on failure, and for rey's parents thing.
The reason the Leia-in-space thing probably didn‘t land with audiences is probably not because of the scene itself, but more that the whole film is un-immersive and jarring and due to it‘s tone-deafness genuine moments feel forced.
I nearly lost my mind at the mentality that you need to be a Skywalker to be force sensitive in this series. The issue is decades of harping on this family and I was SO excited that the last Jedi threw it out. That ending with the force sensitive child looking out into the night sky was the most hopeful I’ve ever felt watching any Star Wars media. I wished they had kept that theme up and not made things worse by back tracking
You said exactly how I felt about TLJ walking out of the theatre. Finally! Moving away from the Skywalkers, ending gatekeeping from the Jedi. Everyone could use the force and do something great, including an orphan girl abandoned by her nobody parents or a slave child. Then Disney chickened out by producing a movie of pure nostalgia and references but no real story. 😡
I hated that they retcon it to she’s a palpetine which added nothing
Naivety that never cost her wow such a flaw.
Excellent video, this channel is a gem
I was deeply on board with this channel before you made the same critical mistake Disney (and so many other film essay channels) did -- failing on just about every level to understand why The Last Jedi doesn't work as a film in itself, much less as a part of Star Wars.
the luke part is brilliant and soooo interesting as a casual watcher
This was cool. Wpuld like to see an analysis of the prequels
Why is Rose saving Finn dismissed as an inconsistency in the logic of the world?
The problem isn't that Holdo is "unlikeable", the problem is that she's *a bad leader.*
People like to say that soldiers follow orders, without questioning their Staff NCOs or Officers, so actually it's Poe who is in the wrong, and it's Poe we should find unlikeable. But, while of course it's very hard to disobey orders due to the nature of the military structure, you are *required* to disobey unlawful orders; it's not unreasonable to expect Holdo to command obedience through competence, rather than demanding obedience and expecting it because military.
In Band of Brothers, all the NCOs stood up to say they wouldn't let Ross from Friends lead them, even knowing they might be shot for refusing his command, because they thought he'd get them all killed. And that was soldiers fighting during World War 2, not a group of people LITERALLY called "Rebels". You think "rebels" are likely to unquestioningly follow orders?
The only reason she was unwilling to demonstrate her competence, that she had a plan, was because movie; the director wanted to spring a last minute Hail Mary on the audience, so much so that he was more than willing to sacrifice character and plot to do that. Bad choice.
Also: running out of fuel in space seems misguided.
And I've heard people try to push back against nit-picking, but the thing is: tell a great story and we won't nit-pick. Tell a bad story and suddenly all the little problems in your movie start to become larger problems, we'll start seeing them because we aren't distracted by a great story or great characters. We are much less likely to excuse one problem among many than we are one singular problem. Make a great movie with one or two problems and we'll be willing to overlook it, even assume that there's a reasonable explanation that we, the audience, simply missed. But make lots of obvious problems that can't be hand-waved away and suddenly your audience starts getting more nit-picking, because you've shown that you don't care about details, so we no longer extend to you the benefit of the doubt.
(I suppose you could argue you address this indirectly with "she had no reason to withhold her plan.)
Also: both Holdo and Rose being "unlikeable" is missing the point, IMO. I think it's more that they are badly written characters. Although I suppose we can quibble over how different those two things are.
-The "Holdo Manuever" breaks Hyperspace logic. That goes back to my previous point: we become nit-picky when you fail to tell a good, engaging story.
"The revelation of Rey's parentage is underwhelming" is part of "it's dismissive of the narrative promises of The Force Awakens." I don't think her parents being just some people is inherently bad, but JJ Abrams the hack decided that Star Wars is supposed to be a mystery (because, being a hack, there's only one story he can tell: somebody else's story, but with a mystery. A mystery with no answer, because again: hack).
My guess is that you didn't talk to people in between the release of TLJ and ROS? Because I'd imagine the "Rey's parentage" thing wasn't that big of a deal until ROS came out, and threw it away because JJ Abrams is a hack.
(Not to say that Rian Johnson is blameless. I think he's a talented film-maker, obviously; I quite enjoyed "Brick", and 'Knives Out" is incredible. But "Glass Onion" was terrible, TLJ ditto.)
Also: "Leia's space flight was unrealistic" should read "Leia's spaceflight was unearned."
I'm writing this stream of consciousness. I just like to have a record of what I thought at the time. I actually haven't gotten too far in your video (it was playing but I missed a bunch because it was, at the moment, background noise). I plan on watching the rest and editing or adding comments as I deem fit. But I have to step away for the next several hours, so in the event you see these comments before I finish the video and update them, just know they're a work in progress.
A very thoughtful and professional assessment. Although, as you know StarWars lost me pretty much after the 80s!
TLJ and TRoS were failures mainly because TFA's script was garbage. You cannot build a house on a bad foundation and expect things to go well. TFA was obviously a focus-group concoction designed to sell tickets and merch, there wasn't an honest attempt to tell a story. Everything that followed was just patchwork on a crumbling foundation. I find it very ironic that you say TRoS was pandering to racists and misogynist fans when TFA's script was edited, BY DISNEY et al, to exclude a relationship between Rey and Finn before it was even released. Let's also not forget the poster fiasco where they removed and/or reduced Finn's prominence to get on China's good side and push into their film markets, not because of the actual fans. (I'd go as far as saying that the writers' insistence to keep Rey and Finn out of a meaningful relationship, romantic or not, is what destroyed much of the storytelling.)
The sequel trilogies don't show women or POC in a positive light. How did the writers "empower women" by showing Rey constantly getting abused by and eventually pushed into a relationship with an murderous sociopath? Why was Poe a former drug dealer? Why is Finn a janitor when cleaning droids exist? Why was he either being insulted all the time or the butt of all the jokes? Why did he need to have a scene discussing slavery with a black woman? I could go on...
Of course you don't care about any of the countless problems with the sequels, as you stated, because you don't want to see them and take them seriously.
When you talk about how Rey is a character who pins her hopes on people who end up disappointing her, I immediately thought wow, they made such a perfect Mary Sue (in my definition a self-insert or audience-insert character) that she completely represents me.
I trusted Disney to make a decent Star Wars come back, but all I got was disappointment after disappointment. My woe with your beautiful reason of liking The Last Jedi is how the movie _could've_ been absolutely amazing if it got a redraft, smooth out all these rough edges, possibly making another timeless classic like Empire Strikes Back.
But that's not what we got, and that's why even if I got some enjoyment from how silly these movies gets (I'm the type of person who laughs at bad aspects from movies), my overall feelings will always be disappointment from such a massive wasted potential.
Disney's #1 mistake. "Maximize profit, above all else."
TFA was Fan Service. A "greatest hits" of the OT. Max Profits!
Complaints that Finn and Poe are too gay? Separate them, kill the arc.
Complaints that Rey is a nobody? Make her a Palpatine.
Reylo stans demanding a love story? Rey and Kylo kiss.
It's like a fan-fic being written by an author who takes every comment to heart. The writing, IMO, is immature and entirely focussed on appeasing fan reactions in the hope of making the most possible cash.
(Yes, I know George's dialogue w/o Marcia's input is terrible, that's not the writing I mean.)
JJs 2 movies are just 4 and 6 but bigger. I didn't want the origtrig though. I spent my whole youth in the Expanded Universe. I wanted Xar Kun, the Yuuzhan Vong, Lobaccas Bronze lightsaber. We didn't even get Mara Jade! Or go to the future, let me see Cade Skywalker overcome drug addiction and fight Darth Krayt. The Sequel trilogy gave me nothing I love about Star Wars. They didn't even consider the part of the fan base that I run with.
"The whole discourse about these films -- t he reviews, the backlash, the memes -- will have moved on"
* looks at the prequels *
Uh... are you sure about that?