- Joined
- Dec 21, 2002
- Messages
- 24,497
- Real Name
- Jake Lipson
This film did not work for me at all.
I'm annoyed by a lot of the minutia of the plot, but the biggest problem for me was the decision to basically remake Return of the Jedi. I was on board with that for The Force Awakens in relation to A New Hope because there, Abrams had to reintroduce the series and establish new characters in a way that made up for the dreadful, dreadful prequels, and going back to the structure of what worked so well in the first film made sense to me for that circumstance.
But that was the first movie of this trilogy. This is the last movie, not only of this trilogy, but supposedly of the entire saga.
So why are we back here with the protagonist facing the Emperor? Why are the others once again trying to destroy a bunch of Death Stars? We've done all that before. It felt so tired and stale to me. I just sat there thinking, "We've seen this already. What else have you got?", and there was nothing.
Whether you liked The Last Jedi or not -- which for the record, I did -- there's no question that Rian Johnson made bold choices in it. I remember thinking when I came out of that movie two years ago that this was a real gift to Abrams, because Johnson had shaken it up enough that it would be impossible for Abrams to just come in and remake Return of the Jedi. It seemed like he was going to have to go somewhere new. Abrams proved me wrong, and that's a big disappointment.
There was so much potential in the end of The Last Jedi for this one to be really anything they wanted, and it's deeply unfortunate that Abrams chose to revert again all the way into the standard Star Wars tropes that have existed for seven whole movies before Johnson came in and did something new.
I just sat there and was bored for most of the time. Except for the Rey as a Palpatine twist, which made me furious. But everything around it was just...yeah, okay. I did not invest in this at all.
Rey being a Palpatine could have worked if that was something that was foreshadowed in the second movie, but it isn't there. There's something to be said about Rey (the biological heir to the Empire) coming to the light while Ben (the biological heir of the Skywalkers) was seduced by the dark. But it didn't work because this was just dropped in for the last movie and not something that was threaded through the entire series.
But that's not what they did. It goes back to what I think is probably the best thing in The Last Jedi, which is s Johnson's decision to say that Rey is not connected to anyone historically significant in the conflict at all, which I think is the best decision he could have possibly made. Although Abrams paid lip service to this by saying "They pretended they were nobody so Kylo didn't lie," making Rey a Palpatine is obviously a radical shift in the thinking for her place in the trilogy. There is no way that Johnson meant to lead into this, and if Abrams wants to change something, that's his prerogative because this is his movie. But it does create a tonal whiplash between the two.
I hate that twist so much that for me it just kind of shits on the entire trilogy, even though the rest of the movie is essentially competent. I also thought Palatine's resurrection is completely unnecessary. Making him the main villain of this movie is the worst case scenario of what I thought they might do with him when it was announced that he was coming back. I was done with him when he died in Return of the Jedi and felt no need to see him again. Plus, his return robs Anakin's final act of killing him of its significance, and that to me is a huge problem.
It would have been far more interesting to follow through on what The Last Jedi set up and see what happens when Kylo Ren is actually the big bad in charge, instead of just pivoting from Snoke to Palpatine. Having Rey call Ren out on just serving another master doesn't make it any less stupid of a choice.
I have defended Kathleen Kennedy on numerous occasions, but I think that this trilogy as a whole demonstrates a lack of vision overall on her part, because Abrams and Johnson have fundamentally different filmmaking philosophies and it shows. I do not say this disrespectfully to either one of them as they have both made Star Wars movies I liked before, as well as other movies I liked before. But it does make the trilogy -- and therefore the saga because this is now part of that -- feel extremely incongruous. Although I am all for allowing the filmmaker to realize what their vision is, she needed to have a firmer guiding hand saying "This is what the overall arc is," like how Feige lets each filmmaker play in the MCU sandbox, but it's his sandbox. There is no way she did that. There is no way.
In thinking about this trilogy as a whole, I wish that either one of two things had happened: 1) Rian Johnson made Episode IX; or 2) Abrams had made all three. I love, love, love The Last Jedi, but this ping-ponging between the two of them just makes no sense at all because they are trying to tell two different stories here, and it's not a cohesive whole.
This movie is not awful. But I have no desire to see it again whatsoever and it dents my enthusiasm for Star Wars going forward severely.
But I'm keeping the soundtrack I pre-ordered. Even though I didn't like the movie, John Williams did beautiful work with the score, and if you take that out of the movie and just listen to it as a standalone piece of music, then it's really quite wonderful.
I'm annoyed by a lot of the minutia of the plot, but the biggest problem for me was the decision to basically remake Return of the Jedi. I was on board with that for The Force Awakens in relation to A New Hope because there, Abrams had to reintroduce the series and establish new characters in a way that made up for the dreadful, dreadful prequels, and going back to the structure of what worked so well in the first film made sense to me for that circumstance.
But that was the first movie of this trilogy. This is the last movie, not only of this trilogy, but supposedly of the entire saga.
So why are we back here with the protagonist facing the Emperor? Why are the others once again trying to destroy a bunch of Death Stars? We've done all that before. It felt so tired and stale to me. I just sat there thinking, "We've seen this already. What else have you got?", and there was nothing.
Whether you liked The Last Jedi or not -- which for the record, I did -- there's no question that Rian Johnson made bold choices in it. I remember thinking when I came out of that movie two years ago that this was a real gift to Abrams, because Johnson had shaken it up enough that it would be impossible for Abrams to just come in and remake Return of the Jedi. It seemed like he was going to have to go somewhere new. Abrams proved me wrong, and that's a big disappointment.
There was so much potential in the end of The Last Jedi for this one to be really anything they wanted, and it's deeply unfortunate that Abrams chose to revert again all the way into the standard Star Wars tropes that have existed for seven whole movies before Johnson came in and did something new.
I just sat there and was bored for most of the time. Except for the Rey as a Palpatine twist, which made me furious. But everything around it was just...yeah, okay. I did not invest in this at all.
Rey being a Palpatine could have worked if that was something that was foreshadowed in the second movie, but it isn't there. There's something to be said about Rey (the biological heir to the Empire) coming to the light while Ben (the biological heir of the Skywalkers) was seduced by the dark. But it didn't work because this was just dropped in for the last movie and not something that was threaded through the entire series.
But that's not what they did. It goes back to what I think is probably the best thing in The Last Jedi, which is s Johnson's decision to say that Rey is not connected to anyone historically significant in the conflict at all, which I think is the best decision he could have possibly made. Although Abrams paid lip service to this by saying "They pretended they were nobody so Kylo didn't lie," making Rey a Palpatine is obviously a radical shift in the thinking for her place in the trilogy. There is no way that Johnson meant to lead into this, and if Abrams wants to change something, that's his prerogative because this is his movie. But it does create a tonal whiplash between the two.
I hate that twist so much that for me it just kind of shits on the entire trilogy, even though the rest of the movie is essentially competent. I also thought Palatine's resurrection is completely unnecessary. Making him the main villain of this movie is the worst case scenario of what I thought they might do with him when it was announced that he was coming back. I was done with him when he died in Return of the Jedi and felt no need to see him again. Plus, his return robs Anakin's final act of killing him of its significance, and that to me is a huge problem.
It would have been far more interesting to follow through on what The Last Jedi set up and see what happens when Kylo Ren is actually the big bad in charge, instead of just pivoting from Snoke to Palpatine. Having Rey call Ren out on just serving another master doesn't make it any less stupid of a choice.
I have defended Kathleen Kennedy on numerous occasions, but I think that this trilogy as a whole demonstrates a lack of vision overall on her part, because Abrams and Johnson have fundamentally different filmmaking philosophies and it shows. I do not say this disrespectfully to either one of them as they have both made Star Wars movies I liked before, as well as other movies I liked before. But it does make the trilogy -- and therefore the saga because this is now part of that -- feel extremely incongruous. Although I am all for allowing the filmmaker to realize what their vision is, she needed to have a firmer guiding hand saying "This is what the overall arc is," like how Feige lets each filmmaker play in the MCU sandbox, but it's his sandbox. There is no way she did that. There is no way.
In thinking about this trilogy as a whole, I wish that either one of two things had happened: 1) Rian Johnson made Episode IX; or 2) Abrams had made all three. I love, love, love The Last Jedi, but this ping-ponging between the two of them just makes no sense at all because they are trying to tell two different stories here, and it's not a cohesive whole.
This movie is not awful. But I have no desire to see it again whatsoever and it dents my enthusiasm for Star Wars going forward severely.
But I'm keeping the soundtrack I pre-ordered. Even though I didn't like the movie, John Williams did beautiful work with the score, and if you take that out of the movie and just listen to it as a standalone piece of music, then it's really quite wonderful.
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