The problem isn’t female leads, it’ trash-tier writing. Like introducing a self-conscious stormtrooper and then having him unemotionally kill his mates pretty much immediately. Or introducing a nobody and then make her the child of a somehow™️ returned supervillain. Or having your minor villain and your female lead fall in love and then having them pretty much just revert back to where they were before. Or replacing the Death Star with an intergalactic Death Shotgun. The list goes on
Its how they do the female leads. They still have to be “hot,” of course. And in order to be “strong?” Well obviously masculinity is the strong gender, and OBVIOUSLY masculinity is toxic. So a “strong female character” is either just toxic masculinity with a pretty face pasted on, or a beige parody of stoicism.
The problem isn’t female leads, it’ trash-tier writing.
Worst part about the sequels was the compulsive need to regurgitate elements of the prior series.
Empire is back, kids!
Death Star Plus
And we’re back on Tantoine again
Harrison Ford again
Getting killed by Discount Darth Vader to buy time to escape the Knock Off Death Star
Only a direct hit on the main loud farting sounds
There’s so much lore from the books and the games and the toys and the cutting room floor of the original movies. And they had a ton of good ideas at the outset. A storm trooper who defects? A six foot tall super trooper in mirror armor? A Sith Lord who isn’t stoic and morose, but hot headed and self-destructive? These are cool good ideas!
Shame they got drowned out in Disney fueled nostalgia.
Sometimes, but more often bad writing can make a great actress look like a bad female actor.
Natalie Portman can act, but those prequels were rough on her reputation. The camp value od the prequels wasn’t immediately apparent and it was rough on her.
I remember someone saying that they thought Ewan McGregor and Liam Neesan were great, and the response was ‘yeah, in Trainspotting and Schindlers list.’
Some people just hate women and they suck, but often the something with a female lead just sucks. It sucks that the former complicates the latter.
Wasn’t the woman from the Twilight movies accused of being a terrible actress and it nearly ruined her career, until she started getting other roles and her reputation turned right around. She even commented on it saying “Yeaaaah… Bella was a garbage nothing of a character. I did everything they asked of me, she’s just that terrible.”
I remember Patty Jenkins when Wonder Woman was due to come out saying that the problem with being a female director is That if a man makes a big budget film and it flops then that’s because the film is bad. But if you make a big budget film and it flops then that’s because women can’t direct.
That’s bullshit. People generally do blame the director when a movie is shit regardless of whether it’s a man or a woman. Does anyone ever say “TLJ sucks, but it’s not Rian Johnson’s fault, it’s a bad movie for mysterious reason, but it’s not Rian Johnson’s fault because he’s a man”?
Patty Jenkins did a pretty good job on the first Wonder Woman which she directed, but didn’t write. Wonder Woman 1984 which she both wrote and directed was a complete turd. After that debacle, LucasFilm wanted to bring on some other writers to help her with the Star Wars movie they were going to spend hundreds of millions on, seems pretty reasonable. She dropped out instead of accepting help in an areas she’s weak.
Seems to me Patty Jenkins just sucks as a writer. But she’s unable to admit that and instead wants to blame everyone else. There’s an audience for the narrative that the man is preventing women from succeeding. Even when the CEO of LucasFilm was a woman, it’s somehow still a man holding her down. But this is coming from the person that wrote and directed Wonder Woman 1984 so I’m going with someone that sucks at a thing blaming everyone else instead of admitting they aren’t good at a thing. And it’s too bad, she could have a lot of success if she was partnered with good writers, but she insists she doesn’t need that.
I dunno. The amount of (deserved) flak the likes of Kevin Feige, JJ Abrahams, and Alex Kurtzman are getting for ruining the ships they’re running kinda disproves that.
Yeah, I never even noticed “Kal el no” in the movie when I watched it. But it’s a meme, so we all have to pile on about something completely forgettable being the worst thing ever!
That’s how this shit works. Just short clips about nothing burgers turned into memes and made to loom large in your mind as being something egregious.
I don’t even know what kal el no is, but i do know that it’s often unfair to call out any actor for s line delivery, because it’s often the case that they’ll do the same scene 6-7 times with very different deliveries, each prompted by the director, and then the director will choose which clip to use in editing.
It was lack of common direction through the trilogy. JJ set up his signature mystery boxes in the first movie, only for Rian to ignore those and leave nothing to work with for the next one.
I believe the reason why Palpatine somehow returned was because Rian killed off Snoke, and they really needed some big baddie Kylo and Rey could team up against so Kylo could have his redemption arc.
Bringing back Palatine was always the plan. If you rewatch 7, it’s painfully obvious that was the plan. Rian Johnson did the right thing by saying “Fuck that, I’m going to make something not shit”, and then making the only noteworthy movie of the trilogy. Did he make mistakes? Yes, the gambling planet was a mistake, but The Last Jedi was the only movie with interesting stories in it at the end of the day. JJ Abrams would have made a worse movie, and a way worse trilogy if he got full creative control.
only for Rian to ignore those and leave nothing to work with for the next one.
JJ choosing to ignore the second movie doesn’t mean “nothing was left”. Baring the bizarre casino, TLJ was the most interesting SW story since RotS. Episode IX could’ve been an amazing finale coming out of that, but JJ did what JJ always does and absolutely failed to deliver.
*Also, I feel it’s important to point out the “Mystery Box” was and is bullshit, lazy writing. Yes, it’s important to leave things in a story for the audience to wonder about and anticipate. That’s not a valid excuse to throw esoteric shit at the wall and call it a day. The audience doesn’t need to know where the plot is going, but the fucking writer should. JJ left Rian with hollow shell of “intrigue” with nothing substantial, got pissy when Rian did what he wanted with that, then shit out a boring finale trying to reverse everything back.
The Last Jedi wasn’t interesting. It was one piece of wasted potential after another.
We got what looked like the start of what could’ve been the best buddy friendship in The Force Awakens, only for The Last Jedi to completely ignore that potential.
It turned Finn into a coward, then forced a character he had no chemistry with onto him.
The casino arc was this attempt at rolling in some sort of… Message…? As if we don’t already know about neutral profiteers like The Banking Clan. And then it still only pays minor lip service to this message.
Captain Phasma was completely useless. Snoke was completely useless. Luke Skywalker could’ve been an interesting direction, but nothing was done with him and then he died after one cool moment.
It had scenes and direction that made absolutely no logical sense, even internally. Such as slow as shit bombers getting completely wasted when only one was actually needed. A complete lack in competent leadership causing a mutiny, which would’ve been interesting if it was meant that way, but it’s not. Deus Ex Rose dooming her comrades.
Really? What happened in TLJ that wasn’t already done in Star Wars? It felt like they just threw ESB and RoTJ into a blender and threw it onto the screen. Except they removed the point of all the plotines they copied from the other movies.
I know there’s a narrative about TLJ being interesting, but the biggest criticism from people that aren’t terminally online is that it was boring. And yeah, it was just a bunch of stuff we saw before with the point of the plotlines removed.
I’ll just reiterate my other reply since you did the same - your inability to see the potential of TLJ on it’s own merits says more about you than the movie.
Nothing new was set up for the grand finale. No new conflicts or threats to look forward to.
Compare with Empire Strikes Back. A bigger villain has been revealed. Han has been captured. Darth Vader is revealed to be Luke’s father. Romance between Han and Leia. Lots of exciting new threads for the final movie.
TLJ had nothing of that. When I went out of the theater I had no excitement at all for the next movie.
The resistance is on the backfoot, desperate for an answer.
Kylo is coming into his power as the big bad and the First Order is adjusting to the sudden power vacuum.
Rey is finally realizing her capability and is left to decide if she’ll follow the Jedi way or blaze her own path, still haunted by her unknown past.
Other force sensitives are awakening across the galaxy.
Leia is revealed as a force user (which obviously couldn’t be addressed after the death of Carrie Fisher, but that wasn’t a known change at the time of shooting).
Even a subpar writer could’ve done plenty with half of that, but JJ and Disney got scared and shit out the blandest finale possible.
Compare with Empire Strikes Back.
No. Stop comparing the new to the old, especially at such a minuscule, beat-for-beat level. Not only does that kill any possible innovation, it’s a nostalgia trap and exactly why VII and IX were so fucking boring. Nothing will replicate the feelings had watching beloved movies for the first time, and expecting anything to match that is just an excuse to be dismissive of it.
After Force Awakens I had the following questions:
Why did Luke leave a map to his hiding spot?
Who is Snoke?
Who are Rey’s parents? Why is she so good with the force?
Who are the Knights of Ren? Will they make an appearance in the next movie?
It doesn’t take much imagination how to make an exciting follow up with these open threads. TLJ decided that none of these threads matters and went in a completely different direction.
The resistance was not on their back foot, they were fucking dead. It was 30 some people and the Falcon by the end of TLJ.
Kylo makes a terrible villain for the big bad. He already lost to Rey in the first movie even if weakened. He failed to turn Rey with his big join me speech in TLJ, and he gets embarrassed by ghost Luke. There’s nothing scary about someone who’s been throwing temper tantrums for basically two entire movies. Secondly, there was now way he wasn’t going to end up being good, Disney wasn’t going to greenlight a conclusion with him being evil.
Rey made peace with her past and admitted it didn’t matter, there’s nothing to explore there without the retcon Rise did. She also had multiple defining moments of choosing the light, basing a movie on yet another time is stupid.
Other force sensitive people is a meaningless thing to base the conclusion of a trilogy on. Elmer Sleazebaggano son of Elan appearing and being the big good or bad out of nowhere is just as bad as Palpatine. You could do something with an established character becoming force sensitive, but they butchered that anyway.
Leia even if Fisher hadn’t passed couldn’t be the main plot. Sure she could be a source of help or counsel for Rey, but that’s about it. If Leia became the hero of the resistance like she was for the rebellion by using the force and welding a lightsaber it just begs the question why she didn’t bother at any point in the last 20 years before everyone was dead. It also doesn’t work with Disney’s need to sunset the established character is and bring out the new heroes of the galaxy.
It’s not about comparing the feelings of empire or the beat for beat replay. It’s about comparing the narrative and where it was at that point in the story. Empire left room for growth, there were new questions to answer, TLJ didn’t.
The rebels were scattered after Hoth, but most the ships were able to escape. This lets the following movie have the option of gathering on or off screen. TLJ left almost none alive, the next movie needs to invent new people.
The main characters were thoroughly beaten by the bad guy. This provides something for them to overcome in the next movie. TLJ ended with Rey succeeding, the first order is now 0-2 at being the big bad guy.
Luke had to process his father being Vader, Han needed rescue, and Leia wanted to rescue him. Rey, Poe, and Finn were all happily on the Falcon.
you had the seeds of romance in both. The problem with Reylo was Ren couldn’t be the big bad and the love interest or the movie just ends with him telling the first order to stop once he acknowledged his love. You also had Rose and Finn, but that was one sided as he was obsessed with Rey the whole movie.
It’s not about comparing the feelings of empire or the beat for beat replay. It’s about comparing the narrative and where it was at that point in the story.
Contradicting your own claim in the next sentence. A+. Thanks for proving my point.
And deliberately holding up the worst interpretation of how those plot lines could be developed isn’t meaningful. Might as well slap together a Chad-Soyjak meme and say you won.
The shot of the kid with the broom left me so hopeful for all the new things I thought were coming. All the retreading that Episode 9 did left me disappointed.
The resistance is on the backfoot, desperate for an answer.
This was done better in ESB.
Kylo is coming into his power as the big bad and the First Order is adjusting to the sudden power vacuum.
Who cares? We have no idea who Snoke was. Because of this there’s nothing to indicate Kylo Ren is doing anything different than Snoke would’ve done. There’s zero perceptible change because they didn’t bother to spend any time defining the First Order or Snoke.
Other force sensitives are awakening across the galaxy.
I always assume there’s other force users across the galaxy all of the time. I think you’re taking the things you see in a Star Wars movie to be 100% of the events that happen in that Galaxy. For those of us that take it as some of the more interesting stories coming from this massive galaxy of who knows how many people (trillions? quintiliions?) that scene is meaningless. Like, yeah that’s always happening, all of the time. I generally assume that there are many Jedi out there. The movie is calling itself “The Last Jedi” to present the galaxy as something narrow (which is stupid because Leia would be a Jedi FFS, just another thing they would need to fix later) just so you will think it’s interesting to broaden something presented to as being something narrow. It was never narrow, it was only TLJ that attempted to present Star Wars as something narrow. it was always broad, nothing new happened when they suggested it was broader than only TLJ presented it to be earlier in the movie.
Stop comparing the new to the old, especially at such a minuscule, beat-for-beat level.
Why wouldn’t we? First of all TLJ is just ESB and RoTJ thrown into a blender with the point of all of the plot lines they re-hashed removed. Benicio Del Tor is Lando. Kylo Ren kills the old evil guy like Darth Vader did. They have to blow up a super laser. There’s AT ATs walking across a white plain. Ah, but it’s different because TLJ’s version of Lando doesn’t learn anything? It’s different because Kylo Ren doesn’t change? It’s different because they fail to blow up the super laser? It’s different because the AT ATs are walking on salt instead of snow? Sorry, but it’s the same kinda shit just without any point to it. Which makes it boring to anyone familiar with the movies it’s clumsily copy and pasting from.
RoS is way more interesting than TLJ. There’s at least a point to it, at least it wasn’t just blindly copy and pasting things from better movies without even understanding them.
i much prefer where rian johnson was going, even though the main plot was meh. he left so many open plot threads that tied into the old eu that they could have used, but then jj went back to his first idea.
I thought it would have been cool if rey fell to the dark side and that this pushed kylo ren back into the light.
Like, he was clearly struggling to even UTILIZE the dark side. He was begging for guidance from the totem of Anakin’s mask, and Anakin wasn’t even fallen anymore.
Rey, meanwhile, seemed to demonstrate clear dark side aptitude and compatibility. While kylo had to STRIVE to act out and push himself for emotional volatility and it turned out kind of pathetic, Rey just easily slipped right into emotional impulsivity.
If Kylo watched Rey descend, attain what he thought he’d wanted, only to discover that it’s horrifying and painful, and that he doesn’t like what it does to her… That could have not only scared him straight, but also driven him to try to save her.
There were relatively few people left in the galaxy who were still even receptive to the force after decades of Anakin slaughtering every force sensitive individual the empire could find AND THEN Luke’s little failed attempt at reviving the Jedi order turned into a honey trap that lured the ones that remained into one place where they were all murdered right under his nose
Rey and Kylo were two of the only few people in the galaxy left who were force sensitive and ALL THAT POWER was trying to flow through them. Kylo struggled to overcome his inner good, what with the training he HAD received having been focused on the light side and therefore interfering with the dark’s influence. Rey on the other hand was just raw unfiltered potential, a big ole unregulated CRACK in the dam–as perfect a tool for the dark side to possess and manipulate as there could have ever been.
Kylo had family who loved him and were still alive, he had a home, he had a future, and not only did he have to struggle to throw that all away, his parents KEPT trying to reach out to him, right up to the moment just before killing his father lamenting that he WAS indeed struggling. Killing Han didn’t even measurably empower him in any way for fucks sake–he went on to LOSE a saber battle against a literal nobody!
Rey meanwhile had had EVERYTHING TAKEN FROM HER. she was isolated, lost, questioning, unguided, no prospects, and nothing to lose. Even Luke saw how she didn’t resist the dark side at all.
It still feels like how these films turned out was just a bad dream and part of me is still waiting to wake up and find out things were going to head in a more meaningful direction. Instead, everything that COULD have happened inverted completely.
At the end of TLJ, on top of all the other pointless house shit that happened in that movie, REY AND KYLO SHOULD HAVE DISAPPEARED TOGETHER because it would have opened up possibilities that would have been very satisfying
HUX seizing the power vacuum of the first order instead of literally the opposite, which was becoming even more of a sniveling nitwit liability
Finn, Poe, and the other members of the resistance crew would be in a position to actually be fucking USEFUL instead of mere comic relief–i especially despite how TLJ did them all dirty. Kelly Marie Tran’s character Rose Tico could have been a fantastic everymanperson POV where she grows in competency, agency, initiative, and leadership…
Instead of palpatine we could have had something actually interesting as a bigger bad behind the scenes.
Now I know this is controversial but … While most people only joke about the concept of a Darth Jar Jar, i think it could have been a worthwhile twist. Without that stupid childish vocal affect and dopey weaponized pretend-incompetence, he could have been legitimately sinister. Imagine the way the temperature drops in a room when a cynical sociopathic manipulator discards their charade and shows their true colors.
… oh well. It’s just going to suck forever now. Just gotta accept it, live with it.
the main thing was that while jj leaned heavily on the ot, johnson took things from the prequels. say what you want about them but at least they continued the story rather than rehashing it. of the top of my head, the most interesting thing they weave into the narrative is the possibility that the jedi and sith balance thing was based on a complete misunderstanding of the force. this ties back to not only the eu but also episodes 1-3, and opens up the gray jedi and force-witch paths again, not to mention that it basically retcons midichlorians. they also tried getting rid of the prophecy crap, which didn’t make sense to begin with.
I missed that part of it, I must’ve been distracted be the movie being almost entirely a clumsy re-hashing of things from ESB and RotJ.
Seems like an extremely boring way to portray a magical force. In good Star Wars movies The Force = Power. Obviously the name tells you that, Star Wars isn’t subtle about things. In our world, power has a tendency to corrupt people. It takes discipline and moral fortitude to avoid being corrupted by power. Same goes for the Force in Star Wars. Removing that eliminates the whole analogy between the Force and political power in our world. It makes it to be just some magical powers some people have and its not big deal. It says power doesn’t corrupt people, it’s just something people have for random reasons and there’s no consequences for people that have that power.
But that’s the nature of TLJ, isn’t it? Rian Johnson was unable to understand the deeper meaning behind anything in Star Wars and thought it was just silly stories about space wizards and went about removing things he didn’t like without any concern about it meaning anything. He was tearing down a whole lot of Chesterton fences, which later had to be rebuilt. And it’s weird, it’s not like anything in Star Wars is difficult to understand the meaning of, they are kinda children’s stories, really. But it seems like he came into it with an arrogance and didn’t bother considering why things are the way they are in Star Wars.
So Rian Johnson thought of Star Wars as just a bunch of random stuff that doesn’t have any meaning to it, so he put a bunch of meaningless stuff onto the screen. This only appeals to those that also see Star Wars as a bunch of meaningless stuff that has no meaning. If you think Star Wars movies are just dumb movies about space wizards than you might like TLJ. But for those asking for more from a Star Wars movie than just a bunch of dumb shit about space wizards, TLJ falls very very far short of the mark. This is why people say TLJ is a movie for people who aren’t Star Wars fans. It only appeals to those that have never thought of what things in Star Wars represent in our world.
I believe the reason why Palpatine somehow returned was because Rian killed off Snoke, and they really needed some big baddie Kylo and Rey could team up against so Kylo could have his redemption arc.
I think there’s no doubt that’s why they had to do that. After TLJ the only thing left is for Rey to fight Kylo Ren (which already happened in TFA) or for Rey and Kylo Ren to kiss (which is lame and stupid). Both of these things happen RoS, and didn’t take up much screen time, so what are you gonna do for the other 90+ minutes of screen time?
Also Palpatine denying death fits with the grieving process theme of the movie, it fits with the relationship to the past theme of the trilogy, but the surface level online “reviews” will never discuss that since they are pushing a narrative that there were no themes in the movie. And for whatever reason people act upset about a sequel trilogy having any kind of theme about relationship to the past.
I’m honestly not even mad at that. What broke my immersion was how everyone was just flat out stunned that they would try it a third time, and with no defensive countermeasures whatsoever. They were caught off guard a third time
And that third time they figured out how to bend space lasers to hit every planet at once and auto win
They did have countermeasures for a Death Star that had to move within range of a planet. Star Killer base could strike from across the galaxy, which they weren’t prepared for. In fact their preparations for a Death Star attack resulted in most of the Republic fleet being destroyed… presumably because they gathered near the most likely target of a Death Star attack.
The Death Star was the equivalent to a bomber carrying nukes, while Star Killer base was an ICBM. They had the defenses prepared to take down a bomber and got hit with an ICBM.
Watch the movie. The Republic fleet is discussed. I recall C3PO saying the Republic fleet was destroyed.
Maybe in Legends or some bullshit Disney+ TV shows they do what you’re talking about but in the actual movie, the Republic fleet is a thing that exists. A little unfair to criticize a movie for things that happen in other works.
But that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Starting with the premise that a movie is bad and just making up things to prove the movie is bad while completely ignoring the movie itself.
Where did you see that they had countermeasures for even a death star? I’m looking it up and everything about the plot conveniently has everyone grouping up for a conventional attack, only for a gigantic super death star #3 (planetary variant) to just destroy everything.
Star Killer base could strike from across the galaxy
Star Wars has always played fast and loose with concepts like the laws of physics because they want space magic and the speed of light is for nerds but this is a particularly egregious one.
This post is mocking people like Ben Shapiro, the crtiical drinker, the quartering and other such douchebags who shit on good movies with good writing that are popular among audiences and critics, because “forced diversity, DEI hire, woke, radical feminist agenda.”
I agree with the vast majority of his critiques, none of those movies are good or have good writing.
And he’s the first to point out examples of good female leads like Sarah Connor and Elen Ripley, as well as diversity done right like Arcane.
But hey, if you think most of the shit hollywood’s been shitting out in the past decade is good, all the more happiness to you i guess.
Tangentially, he seems to be a right-wing moron when he’s not talking about movies though, at least in one instance i saw him defensing poor Charlie Kirk; but i tend to stick to the movie critics and not the hour long open bars so maybe that was a one-off.
The problem with his example of good female leads is that they’re 40 years old now. So in 40 years of movies, no other female character was worth mentioning?
I have my doubts that Sarah and Ripley would be bastions of “Diversity Done Right” if their movies had been released for the first time within these last 10 years. The consensus would be more like “Typical, the males die and the woman lives. What a load of anti-men Hollywood DEI bollocks”
It sucks, yes, but was there a good way to do it otherwise? The movie was in late post-production, about a year from release, and Carrie featured heavily in the end of the movie. It would’ve required pretty major changes and reshoots to organically insert Leia’s death in.
But yeah her too. Really tho having her blown out during decompression was THE WAY to give her a solid heartfelt death, only then to suddenly have her display wild Jedi powers she never hinted at before was a choice.
As for the space walk, that choice was definitely made before her death, and while it would have made a good point to add it in, it would still require significant changes to the ending. It is unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s fair to hang that on Rian.
Redo the end of the movie, delay the release if need be. The plot can still move forward if Leia is propped up as a martyr. Just don’t have her fly back into the spaceship and everything up to that point can stay exactly the same.
Delays and reshoots not only cost loads of money, they throw off the pace of production, increasing the likelihood of a bigger disaster opposed to just running it as planned.
And imo, the ending would have been much worse off without Leia’s scenes. Changing that would change the entire story.
Like introducing a self-conscious stormtrooper and then having him unemotionally kill his mates pretty much immediately.
If you paid attention to the movie, Finn doesn’t know how to fly a TIE fighter, because Storm Troopers don’t fly TIE fighters. So when Finn is blasting TIE fighters, he’s explicitly not killing Storm Troopers. In fact in every military I’m aware of, pilots of expensive fighters are always officers. Who abducted Finn from his family? That would be First Order officers. Who is Finn shooting at? First Order officers. Doubtful it would be the same officers that pressed him into the First Order, but it’s easy to understand why he wouldn’t all that broken up about it.
Some online review told you the movie is stupid because Finn is shooting at his friends, but if you think about it at all, that is explicitly not true.
Also consider that a Star Wars movie made you think about the morality of killing Storm Troopers. You might even consider thinking about it more and consider how many wars involve killing people not because they are evil, but killing people simply because they are on the other side and will kill you for the same reason. You may find that the answer to that question is it’s every war that’s like that. That’s what a war is: killing people because they’re on the other side without any consideration to what kind of person they are. Yeah, wars are a bad thing.
Also consider that Finn was indoctrinated and conditioned to be capable of killing people without hesitation. Consider how many militaries in the real condition people to kill other people without hesitation. How many militaries do you suppose do that?
Do you think that if someone realizes they’ve been indoctrinated into something, all other indoctrination and conditioning disappears from their brain instantly? Like it’s a Saturday morning cartoon and someone gets bonked on the head and suddenly they’re a good guy in all things? I think it actually makes more sense that Finn is still conditioned to kill without hesitation than what the internet that says he’s supposed to have some moral crisis about killing First Order officers.
So a Star Wars movie made you the morality of killing people in a war. But you stopped yourself from thinking about it too much because the internet told you the movies sucks. Instead of asking questions and thinking about what’s happening in a scene in a movie, you didn’t think about it because you’re defaulting to the answer “because the movie sucks”. And this is how the internet ruins movies for people, you’re not allowing yourself to even consider why things are happening in a movie because you’re supposed to answer “because this sucks” and stop all thought.
Or introducing a nobody and then make her the child of a somehow™️ returned supervillain.
It’s possible the point of the sequel to explore relationships in the past (shocking!). Something to think about: Why didn’t Rey try to bring Palpatine back from the dark side (as Luke did with Vader)? Luke didn’t even suggest that she try to do this. Why not? There’s seems to be difference between the relationships explored in RoTJ and in RoS. Why is Vader redeemable, but Palpatine isn’t? Maybe think on what the difference is.
Or just go along with the internet narrative and turn off your brain, because that’s easier.
Mate have you considered that it’s possible for people to have different opinions about a movie than you, without them being brainwashed by the internet?
Have you considered that media/art is highly subjective and that even if a movie was internationally adored, it would still be valid for someone to not like the movie, and criticise it?
I’m all for a lively debate over the qualities of certain media, but your main point seems to be ‘you just don’t like it because you can’t think for yourself’, which is just a bullshit argument. It feels very similar to “you just don’t believe in my god because you haven’t prayed enough” or “you just don’t like pickles because you can’t cook well enough”.
I wouldn’t go so far as “dogshit”, but I agree that people look at the OT with heavy nostalgia glasses. Watching the movies objectively, the dialogue, story, and particularly the acting are all pretty rough. It’s all enjoyable still (I love them myself), but it’s far from the masterpiece a lot of people like to hold it up as. In truth, the franchise’s best asset was and is the universe around the stories, which does a fantastic job bolstering the less than stellar parts. And, thankfully, even a downright terrible movie won’t topple that.
The dialog has ranged from acceptable to dog shit. The plot and story beats are pretty solid. The new movies contradict themselves within the same scene sometimes.
The problem isn’t female leads, it’ trash-tier writing. Like introducing a self-conscious stormtrooper and then having him unemotionally kill his mates pretty much immediately. Or introducing a nobody and then make her the child of a somehow™️ returned supervillain. Or having your minor villain and your female lead fall in love and then having them pretty much just revert back to where they were before. Or replacing the Death Star with an intergalactic Death Shotgun. The list goes on
Its how they do the female leads. They still have to be “hot,” of course. And in order to be “strong?” Well obviously masculinity is the strong gender, and OBVIOUSLY masculinity is toxic. So a “strong female character” is either just toxic masculinity with a pretty face pasted on, or a beige parody of stoicism.
Worst part about the sequels was the compulsive need to regurgitate elements of the prior series.
There’s so much lore from the books and the games and the toys and the cutting room floor of the original movies. And they had a ton of good ideas at the outset. A storm trooper who defects? A six foot tall super trooper in mirror armor? A Sith Lord who isn’t stoic and morose, but hot headed and self-destructive? These are cool good ideas!
Shame they got drowned out in Disney fueled nostalgia.
A thousand times this. People hate bad female actors not because they are female but because they are bad actors.
Kal el no
Sometimes, but more often bad writing can make a great actress look like a bad female actor.
Natalie Portman can act, but those prequels were rough on her reputation. The camp value od the prequels wasn’t immediately apparent and it was rough on her.
I remember someone saying that they thought Ewan McGregor and Liam Neesan were great, and the response was ‘yeah, in Trainspotting and Schindlers list.’
Some people just hate women and they suck, but often the something with a female lead just sucks. It sucks that the former complicates the latter.
Wasn’t the woman from the Twilight movies accused of being a terrible actress and it nearly ruined her career, until she started getting other roles and her reputation turned right around. She even commented on it saying “Yeaaaah… Bella was a garbage nothing of a character. I did everything they asked of me, she’s just that terrible.”
Kristen Stewart I think her name was?
I remember Patty Jenkins when Wonder Woman was due to come out saying that the problem with being a female director is That if a man makes a big budget film and it flops then that’s because the film is bad. But if you make a big budget film and it flops then that’s because women can’t direct.
That’s bullshit. People generally do blame the director when a movie is shit regardless of whether it’s a man or a woman. Does anyone ever say “TLJ sucks, but it’s not Rian Johnson’s fault, it’s a bad movie for mysterious reason, but it’s not Rian Johnson’s fault because he’s a man”?
Patty Jenkins did a pretty good job on the first Wonder Woman which she directed, but didn’t write. Wonder Woman 1984 which she both wrote and directed was a complete turd. After that debacle, LucasFilm wanted to bring on some other writers to help her with the Star Wars movie they were going to spend hundreds of millions on, seems pretty reasonable. She dropped out instead of accepting help in an areas she’s weak.
Seems to me Patty Jenkins just sucks as a writer. But she’s unable to admit that and instead wants to blame everyone else. There’s an audience for the narrative that the man is preventing women from succeeding. Even when the CEO of LucasFilm was a woman, it’s somehow still a man holding her down. But this is coming from the person that wrote and directed Wonder Woman 1984 so I’m going with someone that sucks at a thing blaming everyone else instead of admitting they aren’t good at a thing. And it’s too bad, she could have a lot of success if she was partnered with good writers, but she insists she doesn’t need that.
I dunno. The amount of (deserved) flak the likes of Kevin Feige, JJ Abrahams, and Alex Kurtzman are getting for ruining the ships they’re running kinda disproves that.
Yeah, I never even noticed “Kal el no” in the movie when I watched it. But it’s a meme, so we all have to pile on about something completely forgettable being the worst thing ever!
That’s how this shit works. Just short clips about nothing burgers turned into memes and made to loom large in your mind as being something egregious.
I don’t even know what kal el no is, but i do know that it’s often unfair to call out any actor for s line delivery, because it’s often the case that they’ll do the same scene 6-7 times with very different deliveries, each prompted by the director, and then the director will choose which clip to use in editing.
No, she really is a bad actress. But the biggest problem people have with her isn’t “Kal-el no”, it’s “Bibi yes!”
It was lack of common direction through the trilogy. JJ set up his signature mystery boxes in the first movie, only for Rian to ignore those and leave nothing to work with for the next one.
I believe the reason why Palpatine somehow returned was because Rian killed off Snoke, and they really needed some big baddie Kylo and Rey could team up against so Kylo could have his redemption arc.
Bringing back Palatine was always the plan. If you rewatch 7, it’s painfully obvious that was the plan. Rian Johnson did the right thing by saying “Fuck that, I’m going to make something not shit”, and then making the only noteworthy movie of the trilogy. Did he make mistakes? Yes, the gambling planet was a mistake, but The Last Jedi was the only movie with interesting stories in it at the end of the day. JJ Abrams would have made a worse movie, and a way worse trilogy if he got full creative control.
JJ choosing to ignore the second movie doesn’t mean “nothing was left”. Baring the bizarre casino, TLJ was the most interesting SW story since RotS. Episode IX could’ve been an amazing finale coming out of that, but JJ did what JJ always does and absolutely failed to deliver.
*Also, I feel it’s important to point out the “Mystery Box” was and is bullshit, lazy writing. Yes, it’s important to leave things in a story for the audience to wonder about and anticipate. That’s not a valid excuse to throw esoteric shit at the wall and call it a day. The audience doesn’t need to know where the plot is going, but the fucking writer should. JJ left Rian with hollow shell of “intrigue” with nothing substantial, got pissy when Rian did what he wanted with that, then shit out a boring finale trying to reverse everything back.
The Last Jedi wasn’t interesting. It was one piece of wasted potential after another.
We got what looked like the start of what could’ve been the best buddy friendship in The Force Awakens, only for The Last Jedi to completely ignore that potential.
It turned Finn into a coward, then forced a character he had no chemistry with onto him.
The casino arc was this attempt at rolling in some sort of… Message…? As if we don’t already know about neutral profiteers like The Banking Clan. And then it still only pays minor lip service to this message.
Captain Phasma was completely useless. Snoke was completely useless. Luke Skywalker could’ve been an interesting direction, but nothing was done with him and then he died after one cool moment.
It had scenes and direction that made absolutely no logical sense, even internally. Such as slow as shit bombers getting completely wasted when only one was actually needed. A complete lack in competent leadership causing a mutiny, which would’ve been interesting if it was meant that way, but it’s not. Deus Ex Rose dooming her comrades.
Really? What happened in TLJ that wasn’t already done in Star Wars? It felt like they just threw ESB and RoTJ into a blender and threw it onto the screen. Except they removed the point of all the plotines they copied from the other movies.
I know there’s a narrative about TLJ being interesting, but the biggest criticism from people that aren’t terminally online is that it was boring. And yeah, it was just a bunch of stuff we saw before with the point of the plotlines removed.
I’ll just reiterate my other reply since you did the same - your inability to see the potential of TLJ on it’s own merits says more about you than the movie.
What was set up for the last movie?
Nothing new was set up for the grand finale. No new conflicts or threats to look forward to.
Compare with Empire Strikes Back. A bigger villain has been revealed. Han has been captured. Darth Vader is revealed to be Luke’s father. Romance between Han and Leia. Lots of exciting new threads for the final movie.
TLJ had nothing of that. When I went out of the theater I had no excitement at all for the next movie.
Right, “nothing”.
Even a subpar writer could’ve done plenty with half of that, but JJ and Disney got scared and shit out the blandest finale possible.
No. Stop comparing the new to the old, especially at such a minuscule, beat-for-beat level. Not only does that kill any possible innovation, it’s a nostalgia trap and exactly why VII and IX were so fucking boring. Nothing will replicate the feelings had watching beloved movies for the first time, and expecting anything to match that is just an excuse to be dismissive of it.
Why? The sequel trilogy is doing itself all the time. So why shouldn’t we?
Aren’t these also Star Wars movies? Set in the Star Wars universe?
After Force Awakens I had the following questions:
It doesn’t take much imagination how to make an exciting follow up with these open threads. TLJ decided that none of these threads matters and went in a completely different direction.
The only question I had after TLJ was:
Much weaker way to build up for the grand finale.
Answered
Answered
Answered
Yeah, TLJ totally ignored it all 🙄
And I already addressed a handful of the threads left by TLJ, so I won’t repeat myself.
The resistance was not on their back foot, they were fucking dead. It was 30 some people and the Falcon by the end of TLJ.
Kylo makes a terrible villain for the big bad. He already lost to Rey in the first movie even if weakened. He failed to turn Rey with his big join me speech in TLJ, and he gets embarrassed by ghost Luke. There’s nothing scary about someone who’s been throwing temper tantrums for basically two entire movies. Secondly, there was now way he wasn’t going to end up being good, Disney wasn’t going to greenlight a conclusion with him being evil.
Rey made peace with her past and admitted it didn’t matter, there’s nothing to explore there without the retcon Rise did. She also had multiple defining moments of choosing the light, basing a movie on yet another time is stupid.
Other force sensitive people is a meaningless thing to base the conclusion of a trilogy on. Elmer Sleazebaggano son of Elan appearing and being the big good or bad out of nowhere is just as bad as Palpatine. You could do something with an established character becoming force sensitive, but they butchered that anyway.
Leia even if Fisher hadn’t passed couldn’t be the main plot. Sure she could be a source of help or counsel for Rey, but that’s about it. If Leia became the hero of the resistance like she was for the rebellion by using the force and welding a lightsaber it just begs the question why she didn’t bother at any point in the last 20 years before everyone was dead. It also doesn’t work with Disney’s need to sunset the established character is and bring out the new heroes of the galaxy.
It’s not about comparing the feelings of empire or the beat for beat replay. It’s about comparing the narrative and where it was at that point in the story. Empire left room for growth, there were new questions to answer, TLJ didn’t.
Contradicting your own claim in the next sentence. A+. Thanks for proving my point.
And deliberately holding up the worst interpretation of how those plot lines could be developed isn’t meaningful. Might as well slap together a Chad-Soyjak meme and say you won.
The shot of the kid with the broom left me so hopeful for all the new things I thought were coming. All the retreading that Episode 9 did left me disappointed.
This was done better in ESB.
Who cares? We have no idea who Snoke was. Because of this there’s nothing to indicate Kylo Ren is doing anything different than Snoke would’ve done. There’s zero perceptible change because they didn’t bother to spend any time defining the First Order or Snoke.
I always assume there’s other force users across the galaxy all of the time. I think you’re taking the things you see in a Star Wars movie to be 100% of the events that happen in that Galaxy. For those of us that take it as some of the more interesting stories coming from this massive galaxy of who knows how many people (trillions? quintiliions?) that scene is meaningless. Like, yeah that’s always happening, all of the time. I generally assume that there are many Jedi out there. The movie is calling itself “The Last Jedi” to present the galaxy as something narrow (which is stupid because Leia would be a Jedi FFS, just another thing they would need to fix later) just so you will think it’s interesting to broaden something presented to as being something narrow. It was never narrow, it was only TLJ that attempted to present Star Wars as something narrow. it was always broad, nothing new happened when they suggested it was broader than only TLJ presented it to be earlier in the movie.
Why wouldn’t we? First of all TLJ is just ESB and RoTJ thrown into a blender with the point of all of the plot lines they re-hashed removed. Benicio Del Tor is Lando. Kylo Ren kills the old evil guy like Darth Vader did. They have to blow up a super laser. There’s AT ATs walking across a white plain. Ah, but it’s different because TLJ’s version of Lando doesn’t learn anything? It’s different because Kylo Ren doesn’t change? It’s different because they fail to blow up the super laser? It’s different because the AT ATs are walking on salt instead of snow? Sorry, but it’s the same kinda shit just without any point to it. Which makes it boring to anyone familiar with the movies it’s clumsily copy and pasting from.
RoS is way more interesting than TLJ. There’s at least a point to it, at least it wasn’t just blindly copy and pasting things from better movies without even understanding them.
Your inability to see the potential of those plot threads doesn’t prove the movie is bad, just your lack of vision.
Ah, my point exemplified. Thanks.
No, it’s pretty definitive proof the movie is bad. The world just has easily amused dummies.
i much prefer where rian johnson was going, even though the main plot was meh. he left so many open plot threads that tied into the old eu that they could have used, but then jj went back to his first idea.
I thought it would have been cool if rey fell to the dark side and that this pushed kylo ren back into the light.
Like, he was clearly struggling to even UTILIZE the dark side. He was begging for guidance from the totem of Anakin’s mask, and Anakin wasn’t even fallen anymore.
Rey, meanwhile, seemed to demonstrate clear dark side aptitude and compatibility. While kylo had to STRIVE to act out and push himself for emotional volatility and it turned out kind of pathetic, Rey just easily slipped right into emotional impulsivity.
If Kylo watched Rey descend, attain what he thought he’d wanted, only to discover that it’s horrifying and painful, and that he doesn’t like what it does to her… That could have not only scared him straight, but also driven him to try to save her.
There were relatively few people left in the galaxy who were still even receptive to the force after decades of Anakin slaughtering every force sensitive individual the empire could find AND THEN Luke’s little failed attempt at reviving the Jedi order turned into a honey trap that lured the ones that remained into one place where they were all murdered right under his nose
Rey and Kylo were two of the only few people in the galaxy left who were force sensitive and ALL THAT POWER was trying to flow through them. Kylo struggled to overcome his inner good, what with the training he HAD received having been focused on the light side and therefore interfering with the dark’s influence. Rey on the other hand was just raw unfiltered potential, a big ole unregulated CRACK in the dam–as perfect a tool for the dark side to possess and manipulate as there could have ever been.
Kylo had family who loved him and were still alive, he had a home, he had a future, and not only did he have to struggle to throw that all away, his parents KEPT trying to reach out to him, right up to the moment just before killing his father lamenting that he WAS indeed struggling. Killing Han didn’t even measurably empower him in any way for fucks sake–he went on to LOSE a saber battle against a literal nobody!
Rey meanwhile had had EVERYTHING TAKEN FROM HER. she was isolated, lost, questioning, unguided, no prospects, and nothing to lose. Even Luke saw how she didn’t resist the dark side at all.
It still feels like how these films turned out was just a bad dream and part of me is still waiting to wake up and find out things were going to head in a more meaningful direction. Instead, everything that COULD have happened inverted completely.
At the end of TLJ, on top of all the other pointless house shit that happened in that movie, REY AND KYLO SHOULD HAVE DISAPPEARED TOGETHER because it would have opened up possibilities that would have been very satisfying
HUX seizing the power vacuum of the first order instead of literally the opposite, which was becoming even more of a sniveling nitwit liability
Finn, Poe, and the other members of the resistance crew would be in a position to actually be fucking USEFUL instead of mere comic relief–i especially despite how TLJ did them all dirty. Kelly Marie Tran’s character Rose Tico could have been a fantastic every
manperson POV where she grows in competency, agency, initiative, and leadership…Instead of palpatine we could have had something actually interesting as a bigger bad behind the scenes.
Now I know this is controversial but … While most people only joke about the concept of a Darth Jar Jar, i think it could have been a worthwhile twist. Without that stupid childish vocal affect and dopey weaponized pretend-incompetence, he could have been legitimately sinister. Imagine the way the temperature drops in a room when a cynical sociopathic manipulator discards their charade and shows their true colors.
… oh well. It’s just going to suck forever now. Just gotta accept it, live with it.
What plot threads? People keep repeating that TLJ opened possibilities but no one can explain what possibilities it actually opened.
You wanted Rey and Kylo Ren to kiss in the next movie? We saw that happen and it sucked. What other possibilities did it open?
the main thing was that while jj leaned heavily on the ot, johnson took things from the prequels. say what you want about them but at least they continued the story rather than rehashing it. of the top of my head, the most interesting thing they weave into the narrative is the possibility that the jedi and sith balance thing was based on a complete misunderstanding of the force. this ties back to not only the eu but also episodes 1-3, and opens up the gray jedi and force-witch paths again, not to mention that it basically retcons midichlorians. they also tried getting rid of the prophecy crap, which didn’t make sense to begin with.
I missed that part of it, I must’ve been distracted be the movie being almost entirely a clumsy re-hashing of things from ESB and RotJ.
Seems like an extremely boring way to portray a magical force. In good Star Wars movies The Force = Power. Obviously the name tells you that, Star Wars isn’t subtle about things. In our world, power has a tendency to corrupt people. It takes discipline and moral fortitude to avoid being corrupted by power. Same goes for the Force in Star Wars. Removing that eliminates the whole analogy between the Force and political power in our world. It makes it to be just some magical powers some people have and its not big deal. It says power doesn’t corrupt people, it’s just something people have for random reasons and there’s no consequences for people that have that power.
But that’s the nature of TLJ, isn’t it? Rian Johnson was unable to understand the deeper meaning behind anything in Star Wars and thought it was just silly stories about space wizards and went about removing things he didn’t like without any concern about it meaning anything. He was tearing down a whole lot of Chesterton fences, which later had to be rebuilt. And it’s weird, it’s not like anything in Star Wars is difficult to understand the meaning of, they are kinda children’s stories, really. But it seems like he came into it with an arrogance and didn’t bother considering why things are the way they are in Star Wars.
So Rian Johnson thought of Star Wars as just a bunch of random stuff that doesn’t have any meaning to it, so he put a bunch of meaningless stuff onto the screen. This only appeals to those that also see Star Wars as a bunch of meaningless stuff that has no meaning. If you think Star Wars movies are just dumb movies about space wizards than you might like TLJ. But for those asking for more from a Star Wars movie than just a bunch of dumb shit about space wizards, TLJ falls very very far short of the mark. This is why people say TLJ is a movie for people who aren’t Star Wars fans. It only appeals to those that have never thought of what things in Star Wars represent in our world.
I think there’s no doubt that’s why they had to do that. After TLJ the only thing left is for Rey to fight Kylo Ren (which already happened in TFA) or for Rey and Kylo Ren to kiss (which is lame and stupid). Both of these things happen RoS, and didn’t take up much screen time, so what are you gonna do for the other 90+ minutes of screen time?
Also Palpatine denying death fits with the grieving process theme of the movie, it fits with the relationship to the past theme of the trilogy, but the surface level online “reviews” will never discuss that since they are pushing a narrative that there were no themes in the movie. And for whatever reason people act upset about a sequel trilogy having any kind of theme about relationship to the past.
The other problem is that there were 2 death stars in the original trilogy and another one in the sequels. Like, think of something new, will you?
Death dildo!
Along with two death stars, of course.
Sir, another death star has hit the big screens.
I’m honestly not even mad at that. What broke my immersion was how everyone was just flat out stunned that they would try it a third time, and with no defensive countermeasures whatsoever. They were caught off guard a third time
And that third time they figured out how to bend space lasers to hit every planet at once and auto win
Come on
They basically turned a planet into a death star and no one noticed or worse, they did and allowed it to happen.
They did have countermeasures for a Death Star that had to move within range of a planet. Star Killer base could strike from across the galaxy, which they weren’t prepared for. In fact their preparations for a Death Star attack resulted in most of the Republic fleet being destroyed… presumably because they gathered near the most likely target of a Death Star attack.
The Death Star was the equivalent to a bomber carrying nukes, while Star Killer base was an ICBM. They had the defenses prepared to take down a bomber and got hit with an ICBM.
Funny thing, there wasn’t a Republic fleet, it was dismantled by Mon Mothma leaving the defense of the Republic to each of the planets.
Watch the movie. The Republic fleet is discussed. I recall C3PO saying the Republic fleet was destroyed.
Maybe in Legends or some bullshit Disney+ TV shows they do what you’re talking about but in the actual movie, the Republic fleet is a thing that exists. A little unfair to criticize a movie for things that happen in other works.
But that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Starting with the premise that a movie is bad and just making up things to prove the movie is bad while completely ignoring the movie itself.
Where did you see that they had countermeasures for even a death star? I’m looking it up and everything about the plot conveniently has everyone grouping up for a conventional attack, only for a gigantic super death star #3 (planetary variant) to just destroy everything.
Because I didn’t “look it up”.
I just watched the fucking movie.
Star Wars has always played fast and loose with concepts like the laws of physics because they want space magic and the speed of light is for nerds but this is a particularly egregious one.
Of course female leads isn’t a problem.
This post is mocking people like Ben Shapiro, the crtiical drinker, the quartering and other such douchebags who shit on good movies with good writing that are popular among audiences and critics, because “forced diversity, DEI hire, woke, radical feminist agenda.”
I agree with the vast majority of his critiques, none of those movies are good or have good writing.
And he’s the first to point out examples of good female leads like Sarah Connor and Elen Ripley, as well as diversity done right like Arcane.
But hey, if you think most of the shit hollywood’s been shitting out in the past decade is good, all the more happiness to you i guess.
Tangentially, he seems to be a right-wing moron when he’s not talking about movies though, at least in one instance i saw him defensing poor Charlie Kirk; but i tend to stick to the movie critics and not the hour long open bars so maybe that was a one-off.
The problem with his example of good female leads is that they’re 40 years old now. So in 40 years of movies, no other female character was worth mentioning?
I have my doubts that Sarah and Ripley would be bastions of “Diversity Done Right” if their movies had been released for the first time within these last 10 years. The consensus would be more like “Typical, the males die and the woman lives. What a load of anti-men Hollywood DEI bollocks”
Why does the Critical Drinker sound like he hasn’t taken a shit in a week and needs to make it your problem?
Or having a beloved character die off screen
Or faking a death and undoing the fakeout within a couple of minutes.
It sucks, yes, but was there a good way to do it otherwise? The movie was in late post-production, about a year from release, and Carrie featured heavily in the end of the movie. It would’ve required pretty major changes and reshoots to organically insert Leia’s death in.
Oh, see I actually meant Admiral Ackbar 😂
But yeah her too. Really tho having her blown out during decompression was THE WAY to give her a solid heartfelt death, only then to suddenly have her display wild Jedi powers she never hinted at before was a choice.
Oh, hah. Fair.
As for the space walk, that choice was definitely made before her death, and while it would have made a good point to add it in, it would still require significant changes to the ending. It is unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s fair to hang that on Rian.
I’ll push back on “never hinted at” because way back at Bespin she was force-sensitive enough to find Luke under the city.
Also, Luke straight up predicts she’ll be as powerful him and their father in RotJ. It didn’t come out of nowhere.
Pretty sure that’s just a normal ability for twins /s
Redo the end of the movie, delay the release if need be. The plot can still move forward if Leia is propped up as a martyr. Just don’t have her fly back into the spaceship and everything up to that point can stay exactly the same.
Delays and reshoots not only cost loads of money, they throw off the pace of production, increasing the likelihood of a bigger disaster opposed to just running it as planned.
And imo, the ending would have been much worse off without Leia’s scenes. Changing that would change the entire story.
If you paid attention to the movie, Finn doesn’t know how to fly a TIE fighter, because Storm Troopers don’t fly TIE fighters. So when Finn is blasting TIE fighters, he’s explicitly not killing Storm Troopers. In fact in every military I’m aware of, pilots of expensive fighters are always officers. Who abducted Finn from his family? That would be First Order officers. Who is Finn shooting at? First Order officers. Doubtful it would be the same officers that pressed him into the First Order, but it’s easy to understand why he wouldn’t all that broken up about it.
Some online review told you the movie is stupid because Finn is shooting at his friends, but if you think about it at all, that is explicitly not true.
Also consider that a Star Wars movie made you think about the morality of killing Storm Troopers. You might even consider thinking about it more and consider how many wars involve killing people not because they are evil, but killing people simply because they are on the other side and will kill you for the same reason. You may find that the answer to that question is it’s every war that’s like that. That’s what a war is: killing people because they’re on the other side without any consideration to what kind of person they are. Yeah, wars are a bad thing.
Also consider that Finn was indoctrinated and conditioned to be capable of killing people without hesitation. Consider how many militaries in the real condition people to kill other people without hesitation. How many militaries do you suppose do that?
Do you think that if someone realizes they’ve been indoctrinated into something, all other indoctrination and conditioning disappears from their brain instantly? Like it’s a Saturday morning cartoon and someone gets bonked on the head and suddenly they’re a good guy in all things? I think it actually makes more sense that Finn is still conditioned to kill without hesitation than what the internet that says he’s supposed to have some moral crisis about killing First Order officers.
So a Star Wars movie made you the morality of killing people in a war. But you stopped yourself from thinking about it too much because the internet told you the movies sucks. Instead of asking questions and thinking about what’s happening in a scene in a movie, you didn’t think about it because you’re defaulting to the answer “because the movie sucks”. And this is how the internet ruins movies for people, you’re not allowing yourself to even consider why things are happening in a movie because you’re supposed to answer “because this sucks” and stop all thought.
It’s possible the point of the sequel to explore relationships in the past (shocking!). Something to think about: Why didn’t Rey try to bring Palpatine back from the dark side (as Luke did with Vader)? Luke didn’t even suggest that she try to do this. Why not? There’s seems to be difference between the relationships explored in RoTJ and in RoS. Why is Vader redeemable, but Palpatine isn’t? Maybe think on what the difference is.
Or just go along with the internet narrative and turn off your brain, because that’s easier.
Mate have you considered that it’s possible for people to have different opinions about a movie than you, without them being brainwashed by the internet?
Have you considered that media/art is highly subjective and that even if a movie was internationally adored, it would still be valid for someone to not like the movie, and criticise it?
I’m all for a lively debate over the qualities of certain media, but your main point seems to be ‘you just don’t like it because you can’t think for yourself’, which is just a bullshit argument. It feels very similar to “you just don’t believe in my god because you haven’t prayed enough” or “you just don’t like pickles because you can’t cook well enough”.
Star wars writing was always dogshit, but you fuckers only tie yourself in knots when the woman on the screen has clothes on.
Star Wars character dialogue has been shit, because Lucas can’t write good dialogue. But he’s great at creating worlds and adventures in those worlds.
Star Wars became what it is because of that. The sequel trilogy, however, has neither.
I wouldn’t go so far as “dogshit”, but I agree that people look at the OT with heavy nostalgia glasses. Watching the movies objectively, the dialogue, story, and particularly the acting are all pretty rough. It’s all enjoyable still (I love them myself), but it’s far from the masterpiece a lot of people like to hold it up as. In truth, the franchise’s best asset was and is the universe around the stories, which does a fantastic job bolstering the less than stellar parts. And, thankfully, even a downright terrible movie won’t topple that.
The dialog has ranged from acceptable to dog shit. The plot and story beats are pretty solid. The new movies contradict themselves within the same scene sometimes.
That’s nostalgia talking, it was always intertaining nonsense.