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Ghost Leviathan posted:So what's the answer? Cede ground to the Nazis? Pretend to like things to spite them, proving them correct? The answer is to be truthful and accurate. Last Jedi is bad because the heroes are Contras, yet the movie isn't conducive to being read as satire. Boom. Easy. In other words, the choice isn't between the far right and the centre. You have to go left. Just liking/disliking things is worthless. That's why the nazis have been so successful here: there was a vacuum that they filled with bad pseudo-analysis. The people thumbs-upping the film because the protagonist is a sexually ambiguous Latino dude who's teamed up with are several women and a black guy have their heart in the right place, but that's also not good enough. That's frankly the same as Trump tweeting "I love Mexicans!" while eating a taco bowl. Its like calling Mulan Remake the greatest movie ever made because the whole cast is Asian. Its just garbage-quality apolitical poo poo. There are reasons why Last Jedi sucks - and reasons why people get really intensely invested in it anyways - but they can only be found through ruthless ideological critique. If you want to talk about politics, you need to talk about socioeconomics. If you want to talk about race, gender, etc., you need to talk about how those intersect with class struggle. And yeah, in an even more basic sense you have to get really technical with the cinematography, and editing, and how all those things inter-relate. So: Last Jedi is bad because the heroes are Contras, yet the movie isn't conducive to being read as satire. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Sep 14, 2020 18:25
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 22:25 |
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Cease to Hope posted:The Contras were far right paramilitarios, not centrists. The resistance are right-wing. The directly-literal plot of the films is that they're neofeudalists serving Palpatine in his efforts to obliterate the Galaxy's left wing.
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Sep 14, 2020 18:50
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Some Goon posted:They effectively won before the trilogy even started, the First Order are not the resistance movement in these movies. I am talking about Leia's Resistance. In the last movie, Palpatine turns to the audience and says "I want Leia's Resistance to win because they are actually the bad guys, as established at the end of The Last Jedi when the DJ character explained it in very clear terms." Straight up, like "hey Rey I want you to win because we have the same politics." And then Rey wins.
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Sep 14, 2020 19:06
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Cease to Hope posted:I have no idea what scenes you're possibly talking about, but Palpatine is shocked and dismayed by the way Rey defeats him by causing him to kill himself. He does not react as though this is all according to his plan. Palpatine is good at making frowny faces to manipulate people. The question is what Rey stands for politically. If you can't say what Rey stands for politically, and how that differs from what Palpatine stands for, then you haven't thought this through. And that's what allows nazis to step in and fill the void. It's not complicated: if both the Resistance and the First Order are working for Palpatine, as DJ correctly points out in TLJ, then the actual good guys are those who are excluded from either side. Those good guys would be DJ, Ben Solo, and all those background slaves and serfs who are largely ignored by the protagonists. (We can also point to certain characters who are good-ish, like FN before he joins Leia, and whoever in the First Order gave DJ a crate of free welfare money.) SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Sep 14, 2020 |
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Sep 14, 2020 19:23
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Cease to Hope posted:There's no indication that Palpatine is somehow manipulating Rey, seeing as this is at the very end of the movie. The basic plot of the films is that Palpatine has been manipulating everyone by setting up a fake strawman political party called The First Order. Palpatine literally pretends to be the spirit of Darth Vader in order to recruit people sympathetic to Vader's goal of political revolution. That Snoke is a fraud is the fairly obvious subtext of the first two films, and then directly explained to the audience in the first couple minutes of Part 3. Palpatine's goal in creating a fake-leftist boogeman is to trick Luke Skywalker into becoming the new fascist Emperor, but he later switches his attention to Rey. This is explained in Last Jedi, when Snoke says "Darkness rises, and light to meet it. .... Skywalker, I assumed." Rian Johnson personally tweeted out confirmation that Luke went into self-exile because he realized he was a fascist. So, Palpatine actually wants a superpowerful "light" person to rise up and take over the Galaxy. This is again directly explained in Part 3 when Palpatine explains that this is all an elaborate ritual to transfer his 'spirit' to Rey. Palpatine explicitly doesn't consider Kylo Ren/Ben Solo politically compatible, but Rey is. Rey takes up the name "Skywalker", but we just established that Luke Skywalker was a fascist and Palpatine's goal was for a fascist Skywalker to take over the Galaxy. So: what is Rey is fighting for? Is Rey a leftist? Can you answer that question? SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Sep 14, 2020 |
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Sep 14, 2020 20:05
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Just a quick softball question: what does Rey think about property? A: she beats FN with a metal rod for allegedly stealing a coat from BB-8’s master (the person who owns BB-8 as property). That’s a bad look in 2020. But was it ever a good look? Keep in mind that the numerous continuity errors in the beating scene indicate that the beating of FN was a studio-mandated reshoot.
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Sep 14, 2020 22:56
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McCloud posted:If people insist on calling you a nazi or misogynist for it they're either arguing in bad faith or they're stupid assholes and can be ignored either way (unless of course, you're an actual nazi I guess). To be clear though, it’s not just a matter of “having the courage of your convictions” (as George W. Bush put it). If your claim is that Rey is just so pure that she just instinctively dismantles all forms of oppression, you need to address the part where she and BB beat and taze a black man for alleged theft of a cheap leather coat. If you don’t address that, then the nazis can jump in and say that Rey is violent because she wants to take away videogames, or that FN deserves cop-death (or both; they don’t care if there’s cognitive dissonance). In any case, the truthful and accurate reading is that Rey is a racist and classist who’s beating up FN not only because he’s black, but because she believes him to be a random ‘scavenger’. And that’s bad. She’s a bad person.
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Sep 15, 2020 00:06
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McCloud posted:That is quite the take, certainly. I don't even remember the scene where they taze FN, which isn't surprising because TFA was mostly forgettable For a quick recap: Rey is hyped up on pure rage because two of Unkar’s guys tried to steal BB-8 away from his rightful owner (Rey’s incredibly invested in this loss of ownership because she sees it as analogous to her parental situation). So, coincidentally at that moment, BB-8 spots FN and yells something like “hey that guy stole my master’s jacket!” - so Rey chases him down and strikes him in the face with an upwards swing of her steel pipe. FN is literally knocked into the air with a surprise blow that realistically would have shattered his jaw - and, while he’s rolling on the ground in pain and confusion, BB repeatedly tazes him with an electric prod. The fact that it’s so unmemorable points to several of the problems with the film: the brutal violence against an innocent man is played for light comedy, the scene in question is poorly constructed because of the reshoots, and FN instantly forgives being struck in the face with a pipe and starts quirkily flirting with Rey.... Contrast this with Luke being knocked out by Sandpeople. So it’s politically bad, but also just stupid and shoddy. The building FN gets beat in is a hastily-repurposed set from abother scene, so props and lighting change drastically from moment to moment.
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Sep 15, 2020 04:23
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 22:25 |
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Finn’s last name is Toowonateseven
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Jan 19, 2021 20:45
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