The Last Jedi was an amazing deconstruction of Star Wars. I don’t think better execution would have helped it with a fan base that wants to be stuck in the past reliving the hero’s journey ad nauseam but it had a lot more potential than you see on screen.
It’s a bad star wars movie because of the hyperspace ram.
SciFi inherently requires suspension of disbelief and so I find the way these types of stories ground themselves is through the rules they set. For example fire/explosions don’t really make sense in space but its a consistent thing so w/e.
Hyperspace ramming breaks the entire concept of Star wars BC why hasn’t anyone done it before? Its the perfect weapon for asymmetrical warfare, its cheap and its very effective. Imagine how a weapon like that could be used with a robot piloting a junk ship, why even build a death star just strap a bunch of garbage to a hyperspace drive and ram it into a planet. Its so effective that every fight in the future needs to consider it as well.
I’d defend this movie far more if it didn’t do this. But it didn’t only damage its own movie it damaged every story star wars has told retrospectively.
As I recall, hyperspace is like a pocket dimension. They just speed up a whole lot to enter hyperspace. So you can’t collide with things ‘in hyperspace’, but only as you’re going really fast while transitioning to hyperspace, which is quite a bit more limited in capability.
Hyperspace drives are expensive, and droids are sentient (so its still suicidal). Using it as a weapon would be like having an shotgun in an fps game, where the first 5 feet is extremely lethal to really big targets, whereas anything after that is a waste of time. Also each shot is $10k.
The real question would be why didn’t she just splat against the cruiser’s shields as they established that was a problem in the previous movie (when they need to hyperspace through the shielding of that planet), unless they had a Galaxy Quest moment where they forgot to flip the shields on.
I guess I am thinking of droids as not having free will even if they are sentient.
I don’t find the expense of a hyperdrive to be a valid point though mostly because even if they are expensive they can’t be that expensive. Han Solo has one and he never seemed like a character with money. I.e. an individual likely wouldn’t be able to try this but an army, with unquestioning soldiers and an immoral general would absolutely try it imo. 1 life/ship lost to kill a fleet is a worthwhile trade
So actually to add onto this, this was bothering me so I had to look into it further:
I was very incorrect - Hyperspace isn’t a pocket dimension per se and you can hit things while moving through hyperspace. The reason they ‘sometimes’ get past shields is because shields have a refresh rate so it may be able to phase through if you get it just right.
I’m more with you on this now, its a little ridiculous that no ones really tried to weaponize hyperdrive engines.
As far as I know all droids in Star Wars have free will.
Han Solo gambled and won the Falcon from Lando (who appears well off), it was definitely too expensive for him to have bought normally.
I think the hyperspace battering ram is funky, but I believe it was less that it was a good tactical idea and more of the First Order being extremely arrogant by not having their shields up, not using a tractor beam, and not just sending a smaller ship forward to close the gap and blowing it up.
I think the movie wanted to show that they were savoring the victory and were willing to draw it out as they believed the rebels were drowning in hopelessness.
TLJ takes a bunch of the exact same elements from the original trilogy including the young jedi training in a remote location, the empire/first order finding the secret rebel base with the main characters escaping at the last moment, the protagonist being captured by their rival and being brought before the sith leader where they wind up battling, the protagonist finding out that they’re related to their rival, the hermit jedi master sacrificing themselves etc, etc, etc. The last trilogy is just a recycling of the original to the point that they had to add stupid dialog like “it’s salt” in a vain attempt to convince people that they aren’t just copy and pasting major plot points from the original
That seems like a distinction without a difference.
Just for the fun of it, I took a screenshot of Google AIs take on the “deconstruction” argument:
“Challenging the Chosen One narrative”
Rey’s parents were “nobody” yet so were Luke Skywalker’s parents. The final film is titled “The Rise of Skywalker” on her path to becoming the chosen one.
“Revisiting Luke’s Heroism”
Rehashes the same failures Obi Wan felt for not preventing Anakin from going to the dark side.
“Undermining Jedi Ideals”
Irrelevant point that could just as easily signify the film’s creator’s not being familiar with the intricacies of the source material.
“Exploration of Failure and Complexity”
Throughout all the films, the rebels are constantly facing failures. They get attacked, captured, fail to prevent events from occurring, etc.
“Subverting Expectations”
An expression ripped straight from the final season of GoT and widely mocked. This film didn’t subvert any of my expectations as it all plays out quite predictably in Disney fashion where the “good guys” come out on top in the end. The fact that this argument is even made illustrates the similarity to the previous films which set an expectation for how things are going to play out. I don’t see how they really differed in any meaningful way as it all plays out the same in the end.
I didn’t use AI to make my argument for me. I used AI to make their argument since nobody was willing to actually make an argument outside of saying the movie is a “deconstruction” three separate times without stating what they mean or how it isn’t just a blatant ripoff of the older films.
Well, I mean nobody has actually made any defense for the movie here other than repeating the word “deconstruction” without elaborating any further, and I’m not going to do a deep dive and write out a counter argument to my own position, so the machine will have to do. For all we know this is the same machine that Disney used to recycle these old plot points for TLJ 😆
The “subverting expectations” thing is was ruined it for me.
You could feel the “Too-clever TV writers” at work here. It felt like later-GoT and LOST where stuff randomly “just happens” and has zero payoff because it was written without any kind of grounding or plan, but it sure was surprising and subverted expectations!!! …and then you catch on that there never was a plan, it was just a moment to get an emotional rise out of you, and nothing makes any sense outside of a very limited 5-minute window.
But it’s a self contained story and doesn’t get potentially-numerous “seasons” to come up with a reason “This totally makes sense, you guys. I had it planned all along!”
So yeah, what we’re left with is a “deconstruction”…as in:
“Someone kept loosening bolts and pulling off panels until the hangar was a total mess, but they still don’t understand how an X-Wing works…annnd CREDITS ROLL!”
Also, the way they completely dumped Finn’s character and relegated him to “Guy who shouts ‘RAAAAAAAAAY’ every 10 minutes.” is an absolute insult to competent acting and what could’ve been a beloved and deep character.
Disagree. The first two sequels kept making a defeated bad empire stronger and stronger without any explanation. The rebels then suddenly became just 400 to 20 people. A different type of journey would have been welcomed with open arms if clever enough.
And I think embracing the jedi, but killing the wars aspect, rather than trying to destroy the jedi but keeping the wars it would have been a much better answer to the franchise.
I think I’m really unusual in that I dislike almost everything after IV. I think the first film was brilliant, back when Lucas was fighting for money and had to rely on vision and had Campbell to advise with. After that it was all introducing cutesy characters strictly for marketing, they all lacked the charm of the original.
I know I’m an exception. Nearly everyone liked V and/or VI more. Everyone dunks on Jar Jar, but I could not stand the Ewoks. It was so disgustingly blatant.
At the time I was dying for sequels, and when they finally came I was so disappointed. You know, I think I just realized that it was the Vader/Luke connection that sunk it for me. That all of the major characters had to be related somehow made the universe smaller, and more petty. They only got worse after that; I think I watched all of I-III, but I actively hated those.
Anyway, I think there might have been a path, and I’m no story teller so I couldn’t fix it, but I think the while thing went off the rails after IV.
Good friends have told me the Mandelorian was good, but “Baby Yoda” represents everything I loathed about the series and I refuse to watch it.
Anyway, what were you saying about the Hero’s Journey? Maybe I should watch The Last Jedi, because while the Campbell formula worked for the first film, it didn’t improve any of the sequels, so maybe I’d like it. As long as there are no obviously pandering character designs that exist clearly because they can easily be marketed as toys. Looking at you, BB-8.
I won’t push you to watch Star Wars since it seems like you’ve landed where you have for good reason, but if in the event you were looking to give any piece of Star Wars media another chance, Andor is the one I’d choose.
Mandalorian is really just a spaghetti western with a Star Wars skin. It has cool moments, but also doesn’t take itself too seriously, a mix of action and comedy, and though the individual episode plots are contrived, they know the more important things is really just spending time with the characters. But if you don’t like the characters, then the whole thing kinda falls apart, like what happened with the boring Boba Fett spinoff.
Andor is a spy drama which goes all in on the gravity of its plot. It’s not lighthearted, doesn’t have goofy moments or mascot characters, and despite taking place immediately before the original trilogy, it’s not riding the coattails of nostalgia. An almost 100% human cast with no helmets or painted skin also makes it easier for the quality of acting to really shine on the screen.
Merely being different doesn’t inherently make one better than the other, but what makes Andor stand apart for me at least is that it is the only Star Wars property I know of that was not at all made for children. Not that it’s crass or gory or full of profanity, but it tackles topics like fascism and genocide that could never be as thoroughly explored in any other Star Wars property intended for children.
Andor is an incredible espionage thriller and I do absolutely love it.
This is also why I liked Rogue One and also the series “Rebels.”
It made the Empire believable, and the Rebels really are an insurgency, the galactic situation is dire and against overwhelming odds. It doesn’t just feel like a hero fantasy.
(Rebels can sometimes, it’s geared to a younger audience, but it takes itself surprisingly seriously in a great way.)
There are a bunch of adorable space critters that you’ll think are that when you’re watching the movie, and they certainly were marketed and merchandised like crazy, but they’re actually there due to the unwanted presence of adorable Earth critters during filming. They couldn’t shoot the scenes without including these birds that lived where they were shooting so the solution they came up with was CGI-ing weird faces on them and including some close-ups to make them look deliberate.
How Ben and Luke tell the story of how the latter nearly killed his nephew could’ve used better execution/storytelling, that alone would significantly reduce the amount of discussion on how the movie “killed his character”
I really hate what they did to Luke’s character. It felt like they deliberately trashed him and everything he stood for so some random nobody gimmick character doesn’t look as 2-dimensional. :(
I’m also pro-TLJ, but I do think it could have done with a few tweaks to the script to catch some stuff. In terms of how it looked and was acted on the moment-to-moment scale they nailed it though, so I’m not sure if that falls under “better execution”
True, but I would argue that TLJ actually did substantially better than the Disney and Star Wars averages on the visual front. Not necessarily in terms of the technical execution of the effects since they’re always basically as good as they get for the time in both Disney and Star Wars stuff, but in terms of the composition of shots
I understand your point, but imagine you go to the movies expecting to watch [something you like] and it’s actually a two hours long lecture on how [something you like] is dumb and bad.
Rian Johnson is a master of deconstructing genres.
if you went this long without watching it I won’t spoil it but to say the themes are not typical of the rest of the franchise and the fans hated it for that.
I love Rian Johnson’s other work, especially Brick and Knifes Out.
I also love Star Wars.
I thought TLJ was dreadful though. He was just a really bad fit for it IMO. Has nothing to do with not being open to change, but it has to be the right change. “Can you hear me now?” gags and Luke casually tossing away an item that had been set up as important in the previous film were not the right changes.
Luke casually tossing away an item that had been set up as important in the previous film were not the right changes.
Agreed big time. This felt less like “cleverly unexpected” and more just a total disrespect for the source material.
“Hey remember the symbol of hopeful optimism you followed through trials and tribulations for 3 movies a long time ago? He’s now a cynical burnout drunk uncle lol. Isn’t that sooo unexpected but relatable and grim? SUBVERTED! I’ll take my Oscar now…”
It felt like if some grimdark-TV-bros got ahold of a sequel to the LOTR trilogy, and we were to suddenly find Aragorn a heartless wannabe totalitarian ruler in the middle of a bitter divorce with Arwen. There would also be silly gags where he drunkenly shatters Andúril trying to cut a melon or something, and the kids absolutely loathe him because dysfunctional interpersonal drama is trendy. “Didn’t expect that, did you?? Lol!”
…Then being told your expectations were childish and stupid when you find yourself upset by this. Lol
The Last Jedi was an amazing deconstruction of Star Wars. I don’t think better execution would have helped it with a fan base that wants to be stuck in the past reliving the hero’s journey ad nauseam but it had a lot more potential than you see on screen.
It’s a bad star wars movie because of the hyperspace ram.
SciFi inherently requires suspension of disbelief and so I find the way these types of stories ground themselves is through the rules they set. For example fire/explosions don’t really make sense in space but its a consistent thing so w/e.
Hyperspace ramming breaks the entire concept of Star wars BC why hasn’t anyone done it before? Its the perfect weapon for asymmetrical warfare, its cheap and its very effective. Imagine how a weapon like that could be used with a robot piloting a junk ship, why even build a death star just strap a bunch of garbage to a hyperspace drive and ram it into a planet. Its so effective that every fight in the future needs to consider it as well.
I’d defend this movie far more if it didn’t do this. But it didn’t only damage its own movie it damaged every story star wars has told retrospectively.
As I recall, hyperspace is like a pocket dimension. They just speed up a whole lot to enter hyperspace. So you can’t collide with things ‘in hyperspace’, but only as you’re going really fast while transitioning to hyperspace, which is quite a bit more limited in capability.
Hyperspace drives are expensive, and droids are sentient (so its still suicidal). Using it as a weapon would be like having an shotgun in an fps game, where the first 5 feet is extremely lethal to really big targets, whereas anything after that is a waste of time. Also each shot is $10k.
The real question would be why didn’t she just splat against the cruiser’s shields as they established that was a problem in the previous movie (when they need to hyperspace through the shielding of that planet), unless they had a Galaxy Quest moment where they forgot to flip the shields on.
I guess I am thinking of droids as not having free will even if they are sentient.
I don’t find the expense of a hyperdrive to be a valid point though mostly because even if they are expensive they can’t be that expensive. Han Solo has one and he never seemed like a character with money. I.e. an individual likely wouldn’t be able to try this but an army, with unquestioning soldiers and an immoral general would absolutely try it imo. 1 life/ship lost to kill a fleet is a worthwhile trade
So actually to add onto this, this was bothering me so I had to look into it further:
I was very incorrect - Hyperspace isn’t a pocket dimension per se and you can hit things while moving through hyperspace. The reason they ‘sometimes’ get past shields is because shields have a refresh rate so it may be able to phase through if you get it just right.
I’m more with you on this now, its a little ridiculous that no ones really tried to weaponize hyperdrive engines.
As far as I know all droids in Star Wars have free will.
Han Solo gambled and won the Falcon from Lando (who appears well off), it was definitely too expensive for him to have bought normally.
I think the hyperspace battering ram is funky, but I believe it was less that it was a good tactical idea and more of the First Order being extremely arrogant by not having their shields up, not using a tractor beam, and not just sending a smaller ship forward to close the gap and blowing it up.
I think the movie wanted to show that they were savoring the victory and were willing to draw it out as they believed the rebels were drowning in hopelessness.
i love TLJ so much i skipped the rest of the movies
if you also like TLJ you should watch Kagemusha and When the Last Sword is Drawn and 13 Assassins
This seems counter to most complaints I’ve seen about the movie that they just rehashed the original trilogy.
That is an apt criticism of TFA and TRoS, but not TLJ at all.
TLJ takes a bunch of the exact same elements from the original trilogy including the young jedi training in a remote location, the empire/first order finding the secret rebel base with the main characters escaping at the last moment, the protagonist being captured by their rival and being brought before the sith leader where they wind up battling, the protagonist finding out that they’re related to their rival, the hermit jedi master sacrificing themselves etc, etc, etc. The last trilogy is just a recycling of the original to the point that they had to add stupid dialog like “it’s salt” in a vain attempt to convince people that they aren’t just copy and pasting major plot points from the original
TFA and RoS are rehashes, TLJ is a deconstruction
That seems like a distinction without a difference.
Just for the fun of it, I took a screenshot of Google AIs take on the “deconstruction” argument:
“Challenging the Chosen One narrative”
Rey’s parents were “nobody” yet so were Luke Skywalker’s parents. The final film is titled “The Rise of Skywalker” on her path to becoming the chosen one.
“Revisiting Luke’s Heroism”
Rehashes the same failures Obi Wan felt for not preventing Anakin from going to the dark side.
“Undermining Jedi Ideals”
Irrelevant point that could just as easily signify the film’s creator’s not being familiar with the intricacies of the source material.
“Exploration of Failure and Complexity”
Throughout all the films, the rebels are constantly facing failures. They get attacked, captured, fail to prevent events from occurring, etc.
“Subverting Expectations”
An expression ripped straight from the final season of GoT and widely mocked. This film didn’t subvert any of my expectations as it all plays out quite predictably in Disney fashion where the “good guys” come out on top in the end. The fact that this argument is even made illustrates the similarity to the previous films which set an expectation for how things are going to play out. I don’t see how they really differed in any meaningful way as it all plays out the same in the end.
Only losers and goobers use AI to make their argument for them. Try thinking like a real human.
I didn’t use AI to make my argument for me. I used AI to make their argument since nobody was willing to actually make an argument outside of saying the movie is a “deconstruction” three separate times without stating what they mean or how it isn’t just a blatant ripoff of the older films.
You were the one using AI, goober. Stop.
i ain’t arguing with a machine
Well, I mean nobody has actually made any defense for the movie here other than repeating the word “deconstruction” without elaborating any further, and I’m not going to do a deep dive and write out a counter argument to my own position, so the machine will have to do. For all we know this is the same machine that Disney used to recycle these old plot points for TLJ 😆
The “subverting expectations” thing is was ruined it for me.
You could feel the “Too-clever TV writers” at work here. It felt like later-GoT and LOST where stuff randomly “just happens” and has zero payoff because it was written without any kind of grounding or plan, but it sure was surprising and subverted expectations!!! …and then you catch on that there never was a plan, it was just a moment to get an emotional rise out of you, and nothing makes any sense outside of a very limited 5-minute window.
But it’s a self contained story and doesn’t get potentially-numerous “seasons” to come up with a reason “This totally makes sense, you guys. I had it planned all along!”
So yeah, what we’re left with is a “deconstruction”…as in:
“Someone kept loosening bolts and pulling off panels until the hangar was a total mess, but they still don’t understand how an X-Wing works…annnd CREDITS ROLL!”
Also, the way they completely dumped Finn’s character and relegated him to “Guy who shouts ‘RAAAAAAAAAY’ every 10 minutes.” is an absolute insult to competent acting and what could’ve been a beloved and deep character.
Disagree. The first two sequels kept making a defeated bad empire stronger and stronger without any explanation. The rebels then suddenly became just 400 to 20 people. A different type of journey would have been welcomed with open arms if clever enough.
And I think embracing the jedi, but killing the wars aspect, rather than trying to destroy the jedi but keeping the wars it would have been a much better answer to the franchise.
I think I’m really unusual in that I dislike almost everything after IV. I think the first film was brilliant, back when Lucas was fighting for money and had to rely on vision and had Campbell to advise with. After that it was all introducing cutesy characters strictly for marketing, they all lacked the charm of the original.
I know I’m an exception. Nearly everyone liked V and/or VI more. Everyone dunks on Jar Jar, but I could not stand the Ewoks. It was so disgustingly blatant.
At the time I was dying for sequels, and when they finally came I was so disappointed. You know, I think I just realized that it was the Vader/Luke connection that sunk it for me. That all of the major characters had to be related somehow made the universe smaller, and more petty. They only got worse after that; I think I watched all of I-III, but I actively hated those.
Anyway, I think there might have been a path, and I’m no story teller so I couldn’t fix it, but I think the while thing went off the rails after IV.
Good friends have told me the Mandelorian was good, but “Baby Yoda” represents everything I loathed about the series and I refuse to watch it.
Anyway, what were you saying about the Hero’s Journey? Maybe I should watch The Last Jedi, because while the Campbell formula worked for the first film, it didn’t improve any of the sequels, so maybe I’d like it. As long as there are no obviously pandering character designs that exist clearly because they can easily be marketed as toys. Looking at you, BB-8.
Out of curiosity, have you seen Andor at all?
I won’t push you to watch Star Wars since it seems like you’ve landed where you have for good reason, but if in the event you were looking to give any piece of Star Wars media another chance, Andor is the one I’d choose.
Over Mandalorian?
Absolutely. But that’s just my preference.
Mandalorian is really just a spaghetti western with a Star Wars skin. It has cool moments, but also doesn’t take itself too seriously, a mix of action and comedy, and though the individual episode plots are contrived, they know the more important things is really just spending time with the characters. But if you don’t like the characters, then the whole thing kinda falls apart, like what happened with the boring Boba Fett spinoff.
Andor is a spy drama which goes all in on the gravity of its plot. It’s not lighthearted, doesn’t have goofy moments or mascot characters, and despite taking place immediately before the original trilogy, it’s not riding the coattails of nostalgia. An almost 100% human cast with no helmets or painted skin also makes it easier for the quality of acting to really shine on the screen.
Merely being different doesn’t inherently make one better than the other, but what makes Andor stand apart for me at least is that it is the only Star Wars property I know of that was not at all made for children. Not that it’s crass or gory or full of profanity, but it tackles topics like fascism and genocide that could never be as thoroughly explored in any other Star Wars property intended for children.
Andor is an incredible espionage thriller and I do absolutely love it.
This is also why I liked Rogue One and also the series “Rebels.”
It made the Empire believable, and the Rebels really are an insurgency, the galactic situation is dire and against overwhelming odds. It doesn’t just feel like a hero fantasy.
(Rebels can sometimes, it’s geared to a younger audience, but it takes itself surprisingly seriously in a great way.)
Sold. I’ll watch it.
There are a bunch of adorable space critters that you’ll think are that when you’re watching the movie, and they certainly were marketed and merchandised like crazy, but they’re actually there due to the unwanted presence of adorable Earth critters during filming. They couldn’t shoot the scenes without including these birds that lived where they were shooting so the solution they came up with was CGI-ing weird faces on them and including some close-ups to make them look deliberate.
How Ben and Luke tell the story of how the latter nearly killed his nephew could’ve used better execution/storytelling, that alone would significantly reduce the amount of discussion on how the movie “killed his character”
I really hate what they did to Luke’s character. It felt like they deliberately trashed him and everything he stood for so some random nobody gimmick character doesn’t look as 2-dimensional. :(
The Ben Swolo memes were hilarious though.
I’m also pro-TLJ, but I do think it could have done with a few tweaks to the script to catch some stuff. In terms of how it looked and was acted on the moment-to-moment scale they nailed it though, so I’m not sure if that falls under “better execution”
I mean it’s a high budget Disney film, the script should be the only place for improvement.
True, but I would argue that TLJ actually did substantially better than the Disney and Star Wars averages on the visual front. Not necessarily in terms of the technical execution of the effects since they’re always basically as good as they get for the time in both Disney and Star Wars stuff, but in terms of the composition of shots
I understand your point, but imagine you go to the movies expecting to watch [something you like] and it’s actually a two hours long lecture on how [something you like] is dumb and bad.
Never watched it, but am intrigued. How so?
Rian Johnson is a master of deconstructing genres.
if you went this long without watching it I won’t spoil it but to say the themes are not typical of the rest of the franchise and the fans hated it for that.
I love Rian Johnson’s other work, especially Brick and Knifes Out.
I also love Star Wars.
I thought TLJ was dreadful though. He was just a really bad fit for it IMO. Has nothing to do with not being open to change, but it has to be the right change. “Can you hear me now?” gags and Luke casually tossing away an item that had been set up as important in the previous film were not the right changes.
Agreed big time. This felt less like “cleverly unexpected” and more just a total disrespect for the source material.
“Hey remember the symbol of hopeful optimism you followed through trials and tribulations for 3 movies a long time ago? He’s now a cynical burnout drunk uncle lol. Isn’t that sooo unexpected but relatable and grim? SUBVERTED! I’ll take my Oscar now…”
It felt like if some grimdark-TV-bros got ahold of a sequel to the LOTR trilogy, and we were to suddenly find Aragorn a heartless wannabe totalitarian ruler in the middle of a bitter divorce with Arwen. There would also be silly gags where he drunkenly shatters Andúril trying to cut a melon or something, and the kids absolutely loathe him because dysfunctional interpersonal drama is trendy. “Didn’t expect that, did you?? Lol!”
…Then being told your expectations were childish and stupid when you find yourself upset by this. Lol