See whenever I see people say "TLJ crapped on SW" or "crapped on the lore" all I hear is "TLJ crapped on Endor dance parties, teddy bears, and my favorite heroes who were supposed to live happily ever after." A lot of you *claim* that ESB is your favorite SW movie but it's clear that that isn't what you ever want out of SW again. What you really want is just more ROTJ. And by "you" I may mean you personally Bravomite or I may not. You judge.
But it definitely applies to a *lot* of TLJ naysayers.
Putting established (and to some degree squeaky-clean) heroes into the darkest, most twisted places imaginable is not the same thing as taking pre-existing mythology and not just subverting it, but mocking it (including by breaking the fourth wall.)
What crazy rule exists that says that when a hero stops himself mid-murderous rampage and then tosses away his lightsaber that suddenly he's this perfected being of light that is immune to any further temptation, inadequacy, failure, depression, etc.? That's some goofy arbitrary limitation that apparently *only* applies to Star Wars. When Professor X slaughters his entire school of students? Oh that's transcendent art. A real evolution of the genre. But if Luke Skywalker even *thinks* about killing *one* student who is on a path of galaxy wide destruction? Well crap that just breaks the Saga. Funny I don't recall any notmyprofessor hashtags or Jake Xavier memes when Logan was in theaters.
Trying to suggest that the young Luke seen battling Vader in ROTJ - and knowing everything that was at stake in that moment - is the same as a 30 year older Luke, now a mentor and teacher, attempting to murder his NEPEHEW - and Han's son - is the height of ridicularity. And yes, that deserved a newly created word.
TLJ has simply exposed the level of BS inherent in so many who claim that they hate the fact that Disney is making these movies when the fact of the matter is that most naysayers apparently want SW to be nothing but the MOST Disney-fied of all fairy tales. Remember Beauty and the Beast when he came back to life, kissed Belle, all the spells wore off and the castle was all shining as people lived "happily ever after" in cartoon heaven-on-earth fantasy? Yeah that's clearly what a number of people want out of SW. Oh they'll claim that they don't want things to be stagnant but that isn't really the case. They'll claim that they want to see development and/or conflict but at the *most* all they want is the pseudo-challenges experienced by your average MCU hero.
Said it before, I'll say it again - the logo at the start of the film has absoleutly no bearing on the film in terms of me going in with some kind of mouse-house prejudice. This "Disney-fied" thing is just a cop-out.
And the fact that Disney has now bought Fox - nearly the exact opposite of a company like Pixar - says this "Disney-fied" thing is even less pertinent than it allegedly was.
While it is true that Disney created Touchstone Picts (and later, Hollywood Picts) for more "adult" fare - "Splash" was its first movie - the reality is that what was a kids movie twenty years ago is way too tame for kids today.
Like Tony Stark in Iron Man 2. Where Disney tried to adapt "Demon in a Bottle," one of the most celebrated of IM tales...but without actually making Tony an alcoholic. Can't do anything that would make him a "loser." So he has this honorable affliction where the suit is merely infecting his blood or skin which then gives him the *appearance* of having the flaw of alcoholism...but not the flaw itself. Oh he had a little too much to drink at *one* party. Whoopety do.
In the comics Tony returns to being a weapons dealer too - over and over. He supposedly has a "creed" of who he sells to, but that's a little subjective.
And here's the thing (and I'm so not directing any of this directly at you Bravomite) if certain people want that out of SW that's fine. Clearly we got an entire film where everybody was a shining star of morality and pro-active righteousness (even the previously gray scoundrels like Han and Lando) in Return of the Jedi. And that's fine if that's singular format that you want all SW films to take with respect to story and characters from here on out. I'm sure Disney will make plenty of those types of movies for you eventually and you can embrace them while those of us who like our stories with flawed and relatable heroes can embrace films like RO and TLJ.
ROTJ was attempting to tie up the disparate threads of some of the best storytelling in film history and suffered because of it - it was painted into a corner in about ten different ways. TLJ had no such restrictions - it could have gone anywhere. And... it went where it did. Where even a #1 fan like you admit it set up nothing in the characters or story that creates hunger to see IX. I know you've tried to soft-pedal that with a "I don't need that" but given TLJ is the middle film, it's a huge problem for Disney, for the ST, and therefore SW in general.
TLJ screwed the pooch in terms of keeping demand high. It is landing at 1.35B - and much of that is momentum from TFA. The question is: where are we heading now with a film that has deeply divided fans and even has #1 fans admitting they're aren't all that excited about IX.
TFA made what it did because it was the long-awaited return of the OT timeline/heroes. TLJ made what it did due to the goodwill of TFA. IX will make what it makes largely due to whatever momentum or mojo was created by TLJ. And by all accounts, there is none.
"Wait Khev we actually liked RO it's just TLJ that sucked." Eh, now I believe that the only reason most TLJ naysayers liked RO is because they didn't have any preconceived notions about how Jyn and Cassian and everyone should be. If Jyn appeared in a previous film where she did something heroic at the end then she'd need to be perfect from that moment on and the second she hit a rebel in the face with a shovel everyone would have immediately disowned her. Because that's just how irrational and flaky a good portion of the fanbase is when it comes to these films.
We liked RO because they did the first successful conjoining surgery on a classic film. People don't love RO because of Jyn or Cassian - they were fine, but fans love it because it "feels" EXACTLY like an OT film, albeit one at least partly influenced by the stand-up comedy legacy of Christopher Nolan.
There have been countless tales about heroes or main characters who ascend to the top of their field only to come crashing all the way back down in order to set the stage for an epic comeback. "Why didn't Rocky throw the towel sooner??? He forsook Apollo!! He literally got him killed! #notmybalboa" " Why the **** is Aragorn off sitting in a bar while the world goes to pot? 'Strider?' What's that bull****? Osgiliath and countless strongholds are falling while he mopes around by himself instead of marching into the halls of Gondor and claiming his crown!!" When you apply the complaints against Luke to any other hero in any other genre the absurdity just gets all the more exposed. "Aragorn spilled Eowen's nasty soup on his beard! I'm gonna go make memes!" smh
Unfortunately Luke's epic comeback will be framed by a hazy blue glow. I only recall Burgess Meredith dying, not Rocky.
The truth is Rian Johnson actually dared to treat Luke Skywalker like a genuine character again. He isn't some force of nature in the background, he isn't a cartoonized embodiment of wish fulfillment fantasy (that people ironically scream bloody murder about when manifested in other characters like Rey,) he's a character with an actual arc who starts out lower than he's ever been before ultimately ascending higher than he's ever been. And that's simply good story-telling. I get it if people just want to escape and have AT-AT's and Sith Lords be stand-ins for whatever troubles you're facing in life. And that the extent of SW being an inspiring tale goes no further than watching things blow up so that you can either enjoy the pretty explosions or at most tackle your problems at home "just like Luke attacked that AT-AT." But what if Luke *himself* actually had to tackle your *real* problems at home? I'm not talking lightsabers and murder but simply the act of making a critical error that permanently estranges a close family member. Or handling hopelessness or depression. Those things just bring this epic space fantasy all the more down to real, honest, much more emotionally tangible themes.
As I said before...
I think somewhere along the line we forgot that movie heroes are yes, relatable... but also
aspirational. Just because you are a tired, burnt-out older dude figuratively marooned on your own island, doesn't mean you want your bigscreen hero to literally be that also. Who phones in his heroism to boot - doesn't even bother to get in the ****ing car to go fight his battle, just logs on and uses his avatar. Oh, but that's "clever" or Jedi-like... or something.
Honestly... the whole thing's not just sad but ****ing pathetic. An interesting commentary on what constitutes heroism in the age of social media stars, irreconcilable political disagreement and identity politics (where you can be a "hero" solely because of your gender, skin color, religion etc. etc.)
Ah, what makes a "hero" in Star Wars films for the "genitals don't mean gender" generation - what a field day for early 21st century Semiotics students of the future.
I've literally read about amputee military veterans coping with losing a limb because there's a certain "coolness" to having a prosthetic hand or something because it's so ingrained in our consciousness after it happened to Luke Skywalker. Now Luke has gone several steps further by becoming an "emotional amputee" of sorts. And like his reaction to losing a hand where at first he gave up, he ultimately pulled himself up by his bootstraps and faced life head on until the very end. None of that is negated by how he faltered along the way, however ugly (though lovably so) it might have been during that process. In fact in the end it's all enhanced by his shortcomings and failings. He got to prove once and for all that his victory in ROTJ wasn't a fluke. That no matter what gets thrown at him, no matter who fails him and no matter who comes at him, whether it be friends, family, or even *himself,* that he's never ever fully down for the count and in the end will always be the hero that we can respect and admire.
I'm honestly glad you found resonance in it - seriously. For me, he had no arc in this movie. Movies often show characters who have shut down because of something they have done or had done to them in the past. The reluctance to face those things is what generates the inner journey. But in this, even his backstory was so muddled and opaque (and ages aside, why the Luke-accepting-Han/Leia's-son-as-protege storyline was treated as backstory is a bizarre question on its own when there is so much more drama then in Luke/Rey) and his interactions with Rey seem to mostly exist on a "mock the mythology" level - Luke's silly jokes poking fun at our "Luke as Yoda" expectations for example.
Luke's decision to phone in the final battle from the comfort of his island Jedi hover-cushion felt like the same guy we met when we arrived on Ach-choo... and then he inexplicably dies. Oh wait - no, he dies because there "happens" to be a non-sensical, in fact non-applicable line spoken by Kylo about force-texting and "the effort alone would kill you."
Honestly, discussing TLJ is tricky because the movie is such a mess in such a multitude of overlapping ways; from its fundamentals (themes, plot, choice of characters) as a film in its own right, to its status as something that's supposed to fit into the OT and SW mythology, to the dozens of totally bizarre choices (all the gifs you've already seen.)
You really have to focus on one of the glaring flaws and work out from there, but you bump into so many other things that are utter train wrecks in their own right, the conversation widens and peters out just due to the scale and scope of the problems.
Another good post from a "hater"... It's nice to see that many of the people who were let down by this (like myself) do have valid & logical reasons. The supporters just want to hang on to the ridiculous media spread reasons, not that it was just an overall badly written and directed movie...
