this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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The Last Jedi is the 2nd best Star Wars movie, period, behind Empire, IMO. Followed by Rogue One, so I can't agree with you on that one.
Rian Johnson gets so much insane criticism for TLJ, when he was just doing what he does - making great, original movies. If Kathleen Kennedy and JJ Abrams wanted a cohesive, overarching, three-movie storyline - like the guys down the hall at Marvel - they should have had it in place before pre-production began on The Force Awakens. Instead, you hire two directors to follow JJ who are both huge Star Wars fanboys and have visions of their own, and somehow you're surprised when the guy who takes the baton for the sequel doesn't walk a path he was never told existed.
If what they wanted was Luke coming back and kicking ass, they probably could have found out in a 10 minute conversation that Rian Johnson wasn't going to be their guy. But they gave him creative freedom! And the dude is an incredible writer and filmmaker; he probably looked at TFA and thought, "Well, okay, that was nice. But are we just remaking the original trilogy or...? Nah."
Then Disney doubled down on their mistake by, instead of taking things the new direction Rian had pointed them, bringing JJ back to steer things in to the most awkward, retconned, third-act ever. She's a...Palpatine? And an "ancient" Sith artifact is a map that matches up to wreckage of the Death Star that's like 50 years old? TF is happening?!
Ugh. Aside from the heavy-handedness of the Canto Bight storyline - there had to be a gentler way to impart to Finn that fighting for big causes is always gonna leave you empty, it's the "people you love" you fight for (or whatever) - TLJ is a freaking awesome movie.
(Also, I agree with you about Andor not being the blueprint for everything SW going forward. This is a project that fits a very specific type of storytelling by its very nature. It won't work for everything.)
If what they wanted was Luke coming back and kicking ass, they should have done so in TFA.
Luke's characterization is basically the only aspect that TLJ keeps from TFA. His nephew has turned to the dark side and cosplays as his father as a part of Galactic Empire 2: Electric Boogaloo, his sister was kicked off the government of the New Republic she helped to create, and his brother-in-law goes back to smuggling. And all that Luke does is playing galactic hide-and-seek? The Luke Skywalker of the OT would never abandon his friends, family and the galaxy, but that's exactly what JJAbrams did with his character. Johnson did what he could to save that shipwreck, adding the motivation of his failure and struggle with the dark side. But for some reason, the haters of TLJ think that Johnson is responsible for Luke's character assassination.
I would agree with Rogue One there if not for the fact that it... kinda got mediocre reviews when it came out.
It somehow was reappraised as "the good one" later, but at the time it was thought to be a bit of a mess.
I can't agree with The Last Jedi. The bad faith criticism of that one is way more annoying than the movie itself, which is well intentioned and creative. Its biggest sin is being a bit of a poorly structured jumble, which is also true of the original Star Wars.
Rogue One could have used a bunch of editing, and IMO Chirrut shouldn't have been there (can we not have "normal people" save the galaxy at least once without a magic Jedi wizard monk to take credit). Still the best Disney Star Wars movie of the bunch though.
The Last Jedi was the stake in the heart of Star Wars. The Rise of Skywalker merely desecrated the corpse. I don't think this is unpopular so much as it is controversial, though. Though less and less controversial over time I think.
Refer to the above. I disagree.
I'll even go one farther. TLJ is better than any other Disney SW movie, and it's better than any prequel.
It does have pacing and focus issues, and the degree to which Rian Johnson ignored some of the techno-lore didn't really serve him well in dealing with fans, but it's better made than any prequel and is the only Disney era film trying to to do anything interesting.
I think it has a much more interesting thing to say than any of the other modern Star Wars movies, that's for sure. Much as Iove many of the other Rian Johnson movies, though, I do feel he didn't navigate the requirements of this one to get a fully rounded result.
He should have given up on the whole "Stagecoach in space" idea the moment he couldn't find a way (or was told not to) keep the whole thing within the chase.
And they shouldn't have deliberated the point of the trilogy by making movies at each other, but that's not a problem with TLJ specifically, so I don't count it against it. Hell, Empire directly contradicts Star Wars just as often and it's also fine, mostly because Jedi sticks with those choices.
Nah, all of that is fine. It's the part where it can't keep the tension or weave all the characters into the same story effectively that kills it for me. Great outline, great concept, compromised execution, sadly.
Only you can't make that point in public in most places because the disingenuous trolls will immediately derail the conversation towards stupid stuff like image projection or family legacies or force pulling in space or whatever. I feel even here we're pushing by talking about it like normal people for this long.
Don't agree about TLJ, the prequel trilogy is just too ridiculous not to love, but I agree about rogue one. It was dull in all regards, color palette, characterization, erso's backstory and motivation...Im still confused by it's popularity. But I guess a lot more people than I realized actually don't like the Jedi. Which...then why watch star wars?