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teagone posted:I'd agree that maybe they could've played up a narrative angle that maybe there's a mole on the ship feeding the First Order intel/coordinates of the Resistance fleet's location or something. But I felt the drama between Poe and Holdo was effective enough "as is" to demonstrate the whole need-to-know concept wrt top secret information and whatnot. But I get how that could be unsatisfying for some. Except the mole angle wouldn't make sense because some random mechanic doing guard duty on escape pods says, "Oh yeah, hyperspace tracking? Sure I know how they're doing it!"
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Jun 18, 2020 19:54
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Up Circle posted:This is why I can't even understand how you can praise the movie like you do. To me, almost every aspect of the film is like this. I understand what they are going for, but it isn't earned in the slightest. It's like at every point in the making of the movie they said "aw, gently caress it, thats close enough." "And you can make it strong enough even to make them forget reason. You see when you say that Cary Grant can’t possibly be killed so early in the film, that’s the application of reason. But you’re not permitted to reason. Because the film should be stronger than reason. ... You see the attitude of the man, the woman’s behaviour. Of course behind it lies some kind of plot, which I think is quite secondary. I don’t bother about plot, or all that kind of thing...That’s a necessary evil. But that’s why I’m always surprised at people and even critics who place so much reliance on logic and all that sort of thing. I have a little phrase to myself. I always say logic is dull." -Hitchcock, 1963 If the film is not stronger than reason for you, fair enough. Rise of the Skywalker wasn't for me, nor were any of the Prequels. Last Jedi absolutely was, overwhelmingly, to the point that I rank it as the #3 best film in the franchise. Like I said in an earlier post, at least 75% of the Star Wars franchise demands some of level of being able to ignore, gloss over and accept idiotic bullshit if you're going to enjoy it. Of the Feature Films, only 2 out of 11, Empire and New Hope, do not require you to excuse something stupid, lame or iffy in quality to appreciate it. Its a dumb franchise. But its also a franchise that resonates because the world and the characters and the deeper meanings of the images and stories and themes connect to people.
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Jun 18, 2020 19:55
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Up Circle posted:This is why I can't even understand how you can praise the movie like you do. I can be critical of something but also enjoy it, and there's more to engaging with film than just pointing out its plot holes and analyzing its messages. I try my best to not get caught up with trivial things that don't really affect the story being told either. Obvious gaps in logic and inconsistencies do stand out, but having them deter one's enjoyment of a movie isn't how I prefer to engage with the medium as an artform. I don't believe there's anything wrong with that approach, but it's just not how I personally like to watch movies. A significant part of what contributes to my own personal enjoyment of a film is its art direction and production design, shot composition, and how well directed certain scenes are, among other things. [edit] And I think The Last Jedi is easily the best looking/directed film compared to most others in the series. teagone fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 20:15
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Getting characters from scene to scene in episode 8 really is dogshit sloppy in that film and it’s where most of the contrivances lie. Sure it’s not game breaking in itself but any time a character needs to get to a new place it’s usually really badly done. Rose dragging Finn half a mile across an active battlefield, Rey crashing her ship at full speed into the rebel base before the doors close, the really awkward and clumsy tracking thing to get Rose and Finn off the rebel ship in the first act, to name a few examples. Transitions are things that get hashed out later in the creative process and I think they did a poor job on it because they were rushed, and I don’t think it’s a ‘cinemasins’ level critique to think that.
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Jun 18, 2020 20:57
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I don’t hate episode 8, by the way. It has things like ‘a general point’ and ‘themes’ which is pretty outstanding for most major studio franchise fare these days. Most of my frustration comes from a lack of cohesion among the trilogy. In a vacuum I think most of their arcs work, but compared to episode seven it feels like the overall plot moved about four inches. If for whatever reason I feel like another run through of the Star Wars saga and I’m not burnt out my 6, I’ll probably just skip to 8 and call it done.
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Jun 18, 2020 21:08
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Sanguinia posted:"And you can make it strong enough even to make them forget reason. You see when you say that Cary Grant can’t possibly be killed so early in the film, that’s the application of reason. But you’re not permitted to reason. Because the film should be stronger than reason. Hitchcock made very psychological movies. People could make emotional connections to the characters and get caught up in the events of the film. Part of what makes that work is that the characters made emotional sense and their emotional decision making made sense from scene to scene and was built up over the course of the films. Rose going all "Save what you love" just came out of left field. And with Poe, the audience's emotional sympathy was with him and not with Holdo - a character coded as a foolish martinet more interested in rules than success. RJ was apparently trying to subvert tropes - heroic sacrifice on one hand, plucky rebellious hero on the other - without bother to lay the emotional groundwork for it. This results in a jarring experience for the audience that is only papered over cuz the movie has reached its climax and events are moving quickly. I mean when Hitchcock was talking about reason in that scene, he was talking about the audience's meta-knowledge that a Hollywood superstar wasn't going to die in the opening scenes. He wasn't giving carte blanche for the events of a film to not hang together or anything.
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Jun 18, 2020 21:10
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The "Rey reaches out to the force and senses life and death all around her" sequence in TLJ is the best filmed part of all three movies and probably the second best sequence in the film. God drat I gotta rewatch TLJ this weekend, it's been too long since my last watch.
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Jun 18, 2020 21:16
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Bogus Adventure posted:I hadn't seen Ep IX Palps, but He seriously looks like some weird fan film's version of what they think Palpatine should look like after having seen the end of Revenge of the Sith maybe once. Also the hilariously understated part about that whole final Palpatine fight was that he creates a whole new wardrobe for himself out of the the Force. He literally uses a part of his granddaughter (and great-grandson, fyi)'s life force to upgrade his wardrobe to look more presentable to an audience. That is just peak rear end in a top hat Palpatine and I lowkey totally love it 
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Jun 18, 2020 21:21
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Funnily enough, this was the original take on the story. But Rian Johnson claims that he felt Finn and Poe were too similar Considering their most memorable interaction in IX is them repeating a single line of dialogue back and forth to each other, he just may have been right Bogus Adventure posted:I hadn't seen Ep IX Palps, but The force dyad was so strong that harnessing its power allowed Sheev to conjure up a stylish new robe for himself
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Jun 18, 2020 21:31
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nine-gear crow posted:He seriously looks like some weird fan film's version of what they think Palpatine should look like after having seen the end of Revenge of the Sith maybe once. Also the hilariously understated part about that whole final Palpatine fight was that he creates a whole new wardrobe for himself out of the the Force. He literally uses a part of his granddaughter (and great-grandson, fyi)'s life force to upgrade his wardrobe to look more presentable to an audience. OctoberCountry posted:The force dyad was so strong that harnessing its power allowed Sheev to conjure up a stylish new robe for himself I see that outfit and expression, and all I can see is Bill Corbett as the Observer.   I can't explain it, but it just feels like Sheev's got Big Brain Energy going on.
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Jun 18, 2020 21:44
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Brain-in-a-pan Palps would've been an awesome and suitably pulpy way to bring the character back, but I guess I'll just have to settle for the pickle jar full of Snokes
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Jun 18, 2020 21:57
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teagone posted:The Holdo/Poe dynamic is just basic compartmentalization, i.e., information security. I don't see anything wrong with what Holdo did. The reason she withheld information from Poe is because she knows his type: brash, arrogant, foolhardy, etc., why risk handing sensitive information over to someone like that when that person might just go do something stupid with that information? The irony is Poe does stupid things regardless and inadvertently ends up leaking the plan anyways, lmao. And who suffers for it? Holdo, who has to sacrifice her own life because Poe couldn't handle being out of the loop. Holdo was following protocol to ensure the safety of everyone onboard, but Poe was just being a basic bitch about the whole situation. The better question to ask, imo, is what reason is there for Poe to know the details of such a crucial operation? The guy is a glorified grunt imo, so what use is there in him knowing the escape plan? People have raised good concerns about why this subplot doesn't make a lot of sense, although I didn't find myself questioning the events of this plot when I first watched TLJ. I did, however, find myself questioning whether it was a good idea at all. Did we really need a story about unquestioningly following orders when superiors withhold information in a Star Wars movie? Did we need it in this Star Wars movie? e: I realize that TLJ wants this to be about trusting in comrades, and trusting in a cause, but it's framed as an interpersonal conflict with a person of (otherwise unquestioned) authority. That's a different kind of relationship! It especially rings hollow when you look at the antagonist characters, who overthrow and usurp their abusive, manipulative superior, Snoke. Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 22:04
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Cease to Hope posted:People have raised good concerns about why this subplot doesn't make a lot of sense I agree. It's not the greatest story arc, and relative to the other plot threads present in the film, I've acknowledged it as being the weakest one. But with all the shortcomings of the sequence, and questioning whether or not it was a "suitable" addition to the series, those criticisms of the Holdo/Poe dynamic aren't enough to deter me from enjoying the film or label it as "bad" imo. I hold to my own opinion of course, and that all these experiences are purely subjective.
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Jun 18, 2020 22:15
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teagone posted:I agree. It's not the greatest story arc, and relative to the other plot threads present in the film, I've acknowledged it as being the weakest one. But with all the shortcomings of the sequence, and questioning whether or not it was a "suitable" addition to the series, those criticisms of the Holdo/Poe dynamic aren't enough to deter me from enjoying the film or label it as "bad" imo. I hold to my own opinion of course, and that all these experiences are purely subjective. i'm saying that i don't care about the arguments those people are making though, i had a different problem
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Jun 18, 2020 22:29
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Jun 19, 2020 02:54
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The thing about Holdo is that there's no character there; she's just an abstract representation of 'authority'. There's a reason people always bring up her purple hair – it's because And you could have done interesting things with her – emphasize how much stress she's under, that she's clinging to the rules and regulations of the military because doing otherwise would be admitting that the Republic is gone and that they've lost the war. Give her something so that while she might not be a sympathetic character, she'd at least be a character who's viewpoint we can understand. Instead, she's a cypher who inexplicably goes from martinet to martyr without ever passing through human. And it means that in the conflict with Poe, we end up siding with Poe even when he's being a jerk for no reason because at least he's a character we can relate to.
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Jun 19, 2020 05:28
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Well, she is thirsty for Poe, which should make her relatable to 95% of the audience.
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Jun 19, 2020 05:35
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Holdo could honestly be replaced, and work better, as a manilla envelop holding two pieces of paper that says "I am leia's last will and testament. Maintain course for [x time] and only then read page 2 as otherwise my plan may leak, ruining it"
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Jun 19, 2020 05:37
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And the whole idea of blind obedience to authority as a virtue really is iffy in Star Wars in the first place, as well as ageing incredibly badly
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Jun 19, 2020 05:56
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Ghost Leviathan posted:And the whole idea of blind obedience to authority as a virtue really is iffy in Star Wars in the first place, as well as ageing incredibly badly This as well: films 1-6 are basically "systems which demand your unquestioned obedience are bad, no matter what they are replacing" and then we get TLJ which three times teaches its "heroes" you should always follow the plan laid out for you. Also the original 6 films feel like a repudiation of the idea of Great Men of History while the sequel trilogy revels in it. Barudak fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Jun 19, 2020 |
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Jun 19, 2020 06:03
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Barudak posted:This as well: films 1-6 are basically "systems which demand your unquestioned obedience are bad, no matter what they are replacing" and then we get TLJ which three times teaches its "heroes" you should always follow the plan laid out for you. Three times? Part of why the implicit moral of deference to authority in the Poe/Holdo subplot is that it clashes so much with the rest of the film, where authority figure after authority figure fails and their subordinates have to find a way to deal with that.
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Jun 19, 2020 06:17
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The reading that Poe/Holdo's storyline is about deference to authority is bullshit. The story's message is about temperance. Poe is an impulsive idiot who feels the need to DO AN ACTION every single time there is a problem, he thinks there's no virtue of leadership except knee-jerk proactivity. The Holdo storyline isn't about him having to kowtow to her because she's THE BOSS, its about him loving everything up because he has no patience and an egomaniacial inability to trust in other people. Also the conflation of inspirational figures and the power they have to help people believe and accomplish things with Great Man History is really gross. And I'd really like to hear how the first six movies are a repudiation of Great Man History when they Prequels are literally entirely about a Chosen One prophecy and a fascist leader seizing a galactic government through his Cult of Personality, and the OT is about a humble farmboy's journey to become a Legendary Knight so he can defeat his Legendary Evil Knight Father and save the universe by becoming The Most Famous Hero Of The Rebellion.
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Jun 19, 2020 06:35
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I don't know, Poe seems to put a ton of trust in Finn and Rose when they come up with a zany plan based on technology no one knew existed until five minutes ago and he's never even met Rose before. Additionally, in no particular order: 1. Luke Skywalker would've accomplished jack poo poo if not for Vader saving him and the rest of the Rebellion taking out the Imperial fleet and Death Star. Even on Hoth, he does nothing to change the loss of Echo Base. 2. Part of the reason why Anakin falls is because of the Jedi belief in the chosen one and treating him as this messiah figure instead of a person. You either will see Great Man History in everything if that's your take on it, or it is the nature of cinematic entertainment to inadvertantly push such an idea because it makes for a better story when our characters are also the movers and shakers.
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Jun 19, 2020 06:45
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Cease to Hope posted:Three times? Part of why the implicit moral of deference to authority in the Poe/Holdo subplot is that it clashes so much with the rest of the film, where authority figure after authority figure fails and their subordinates have to find a way to deal with that. It was mostly in jest but; Holdo's secret plan, maz kanata's contact, the two suicide runs, and Rey confronting Kylo. All of them the character is told to something without explanation, doesn't, and negative outcomes occur (Rey's is questionable since Luke dying is seemingly irrelevant). As for great men o history, again a bit of a joke but the prequels go out of their way to show characters wrapped up in socio-political conflicts and trying to ride the wave, with palpatine doing it the best due to his flexibility, while the sequels organizations only exist in so far as their is a leader and leadership changes occur freely because new strong person = new leader. Further Luke winning on the deathstar is 100% irrelevant to the fleet battle while its 100% reversed in the sequel where the fleet is meaningless without Rey or Palpatine. Even in TFA the plot hinges on Luke being important because he is, they literally never tell you anything about what he's done. Part of that though is the world building is loving atrocious in the sequels and a universe beyond the characters noses does not seemingly exist, especially in RotS Barudak fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Jun 19, 2020 |
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Jun 19, 2020 06:52
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Barudak posted:It was mostly in jest but; Holdo's secret plan, maz kanata's contact, the two suicide runs, and Rey confronting Kylo. All of them the character is told to something without explanation, doesn't, and negative outcomes occur (Rey's is questionable since Luke dying is seemingly irrelevant). They fail to find Maz Kanata's contact, the bomber suicide run causes the whole disaster in that half of the story (there are no fighters to stop Kylo from wrecking the bridge, which is important even though no character ever mentions it), Finn's suicide run would indeed have been pointless since it was a holding action anyway, and Rey confronting Kylo is how she overcomes the illusions that are holding her back. In particular, Rey's reverence of Luke is one of the illusions holding her back! The only one of these that fits into a story of defiance of authority being punished or deference to authority being rewarded is Poe's failure to follow the orders to fall back, which part of the Poe/Holdo arc. Sanguinia posted:The reading that Poe/Holdo's storyline is about deference to authority is bullshit. The story's message is about temperance. Poe is an impulsive idiot who feels the need to DO AN ACTION every single time there is a problem, he thinks there's no virtue of leadership except knee-jerk proactivity. The Holdo storyline isn't about him having to kowtow to her because she's THE BOSS, its about him loving everything up because he has no patience and an egomaniacial inability to trust in other people. The difference is that "other people" is, in this case, his military superior. What is respect and trust between friends is deference when it's a subordinate and a superior. Plus her plan's apparently kind of poo poo, but that strikes me more of a scriptwriting problem than an intentional thematic message. I don't think that plan's supposed to appear as bad as it does, by the end of the movie. Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Jun 19, 2020 |
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Jun 19, 2020 07:41
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They fail to find Maz's contact and instead find their own, who betrays them. Finn's suicide run is only pointless because Luke Skywalker, who they had no reason to believe would show up, shows up instead to stall for them and if Snoke weren't dead even this wouldn't matter. Rey confronting Kylo Ren makes him supreme leader and gets luke skywalker killed.
Barudak fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Jun 19, 2020 |
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Jun 19, 2020 07:45
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Barudak posted:They fail to find Maz's contact and instead find their own, who betrays them. Finn's suicide run is only pointless because Luke Skywalker, who they had no reason to believe would show up, shows up instead to stall for them and if Snoke weren't dead even this wouldn't matter. Rey confronting Kylo Ren makes him supreme leader and gets luke skywalker killed. Maz sent them to do something they couldn't do. It's not a matter of them failing to follow her instructions so much that she just wasn't helpful. I don't think it's a counterexample, I just don't think it's relevant. The run on the megalaser is buying time for help to come. Help does come, although it isn't the help they were expecting. Rose comes out and says, this is a victory for living another day instead of following authority to your death. Snoke being dead and Kylo Ren being the new supreme leader helps them (because he is ragebound and distractable), in the end, although it isn't presented as a straight line consequence. Luke Skywalker doesn't "get killed," he just dies. It's framed as peaceful and cathartic, especially contrasted with how he was consumed by fear and self-loathing before. Again, not so much a counterexample as just not relevant.
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Jun 19, 2020 08:00
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Barudak posted:They fail to find Maz's contact and instead find their own, who betrays them. Finn's suicide run is only pointless because Luke Skywalker, who they had no reason to believe would show up, shows up instead to stall for them and if Snoke weren't dead even this wouldn't matter. Rey confronting Kylo Ren makes him supreme leader and gets luke skywalker killed. There's a strong and interesting undercurrent of "You meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it" permeating The Last Jedi. Basically every action everyone takes thinking they can make things better ultimately winds up making things appreciably worse. Except for Rose. Rose taught a bunch of kids to say "gently caress capitalism" and they helped her break a casino, then saved Finn's life... several times over. So she's cool.
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Jun 19, 2020 08:00
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Yeah, those slave kids were totally happy with their situation until Rose came along.
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Jun 19, 2020 08:08
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Angry Salami posted:Yeah, those slave kids were totally happy with their situation until Rose came along. There is a difference between beaten down deference and having some defiant hope, even if it is a small difference.
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Jun 19, 2020 08:16
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I think it's important to note, Cease, that there are surviving fighters. Kylo just hits the hangar deck with a missile and blows up every single one of them before they can launch. So, really, sacrificing the bombers to kill a capship is an even better idea when they were all about to be destroyed anyway.
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Jun 19, 2020 08:29
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I still fail to see how Anakin doesn’t accomplish his destiny in balancing the force by literally killing every Jedi. Nor how you could interpret that prophecy different when you know there are hundreds of Jedi and zero to two Sith/Dark Jedi. If you believe in fate then Anakin did nothing wrong.
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Jun 19, 2020 11:51
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I mean there's absolutely a lot of fun to be had with mucking about with prophecy, given the mythic precedent and whole Hero's Journey style, but unfortunately it falls into the worst and laziest way to use it. A prophecy should be fulfilled like a punch line. Shakespeare understood this, as did Tolkein.
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Jun 19, 2020 12:17
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The idea that Luke became the Hero of the Republic isn't supported by the ending of RotJ at all. He mourns his father in a private ceremony and then joins his friends, but nobody knows that Luke was instrumental in killing the Emperor... before Lando would have blown him up, anyway. Maybe there is some residual fame to Luke's name from blowing up the first Deat Star, but his transition into this near-mythological hero figure is pure meta commentary. We know Luke is a savior, therefore every Star Wars character knows.
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Jun 19, 2020 12:25
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:I don't know, Poe seems to put a ton of trust in Finn and Rose when they come up with a zany plan based on technology no one knew existed until five minutes ago and he's never even met Rose before. Good news! He accomplished jack poo poo anyways. The emperor is still alive, the republic he and his friends sought to established is obliterated and he trained no Jedi!
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Jun 19, 2020 14:34
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Blowing up the first death star would be enough to make you a hero, considering that it singlehandedly saved the alliance and they held an award ceremony and everything, so while I don't disagree that the mythologizing of the OT cast is a meta action, there's good reason for him to be seen as a war hero. Or would be if said war had accomplished anything. It's a good point that his actions in RotJ are entirely personal and had no bearing on anything else, not something I had spent any time thinking about.
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Jun 19, 2020 15:10
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Yea Luke is a famous hero because of what happened in ANH and also the fact that he pops up after ESB as a powerful Jedi when they were thought to have all died out. It's like Neo after The Matrix. He probably would've been famous because of that legendary rescue of Morpheus but then he also busts out these ridiculous powers so of course everyone is like "yea, that's our guy, we're rolling with this guy."
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Jun 19, 2020 16:02
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The triumph in ROTJ hinges on cooperation. All of the heroes do something to contribute. Han, Leia, Chewie, 3PO and R2 need to take out that shield generator, or else Lando and Wedge can't blow up the Death Star. Luke confronts Vader and the Emperor, preventing them from stopping the Rebels (like Vader getting in a fighter and wrecking the Rebel fleet). It's my favorite Star Wars ending because everyone is critical for the final victory. What immediately turned me off about the Sequel Trilogy is that JJ & Disney have no interest in dealing with that victory. Instead, it goes right back to the crapsack galaxy and an evil Empire that, despite being a "fringe extremist group," dwarfs everyone else in arms, manpower, and money. It basically takes a poo poo all over ROTJ, which is my favorite of the OT movies. It loving sucks, it's not what I waited years to see, and I'm not going to waste my time watching it or "learning to love" it.
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Jun 19, 2020 16:31
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I really wish the idea of strict canon was done away with. Just let people make new Star Wars poo poo that respects the pre-existing stuff that particular creator wants to respect and idioms and ignores the rest. TLJ is a movie I enjoyed more than the rest of the sequels, but it probably could've been better if it didn't have to fit with everything else. ROTS would've been better too if JJ could've just ignored TLJ - still not good, because JJ isn't a good filmmaker, but better. gently caress it, why not just make another sequel trilogy? Just start from the the of ROTJ and let it diverge completely from the existing ST, it's fine, they can both exist. Fiction doesn't need to strictly adhere to a single canonical chain of events, that's stupid. I miss the Star Wars Infinities comics.
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Jun 19, 2020 16:54
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despite being a TLJ hater, I do agree that RJ would have done well being handed his own Star Wars thing rather than mainline.Some Goon posted:Blowing up the first death star would be enough to make you a hero, considering that it singlehandedly saved the alliance and they held an award ceremony and everything, so while I don't disagree that the mythologizing of the OT cast is a meta action, there's good reason for him to be seen as a war hero. Or would be if said war had accomplished anything. I think its easy to skip over blowing up the first Death Star, at least for viewers... Aside from the medal ceremony Luke never appears to be treated as a galactic hero in the OT. The ST treats the loving Knights of Ren with more awe than Luke ever got in episodes 5/6.
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Jun 19, 2020 16:58
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