Re: Star Wars: The Last Jedi SPOILER DISCUSSION THREAD
And I’m glad you brought that up too because I’ve also seen some shade thrown at the MCU in this thread... “they’re trying to turn Star Wars into a Marvel movie!” First of all, no, not even close. Secondly, if it were the case, is it so terrible because Marvel movies are horrible pieces of junk? Lol, well then now I see why so many people are drinking Haterade here. If Marvel movies are a low bar to set, then I see very little chance JJ will be getting any love here come winter 2019.
For me I'd put it slightly differently. If I was to say, 'They're screwing it up by trying to add Marvel movie humour!' I would mean that they are trying to imitate Marvel and coming off poorly. The humour works in the Marvel movies. It's a part of their formula. It's baked deep into the mix, and Marvel loves their Whedon-esque lampshading asides. We love 'em. And that stuff is fine if it is an intended part of the package. And it works when you have talented scriptwriters baking it in from the get-go.
Like you say, it works in Thor, because it's part and parcel of what the movie is. If you add lampshading jokes to franchises that haven't been that way before, it's adding a layer of irony and detachment and self-awareness ('we're in a movie and look at how much we're joking about being in a movie!') that undercuts tension and suspension of disbelief in a bad way. In a Marvel movie the humour, built in from the start, might be a clever breath of fresh air, undercutting tropes, and opening out the narrative, and taking away some of the pressure of established comic book beats we know are coming. 'Don't worry, if he turns out to be evil we'll just kill him!' But if Star Wars characters or Batman become aware they are characters in a movie, then we've suddenly been pulled through the fourth wall, punched, and put back again, and the joke has just undermined drama and characterisation rather than adding to our enjoyment.
Long story short: humour in Marvel movies is great. It's the weak facsimiles of humour in Marvel movies, written by unfunny people and jammed into existing properties where it thematically doesn't fit, that frustrates people. Plus, it comes across as 'You are trying to be a Marvel movie, because Marvel movies are fun and popular.' You shouldn't be thinking of a better movie while watching something. If you know a film is trying to please you by blatantly imitating something better then you immediately know it is second best. When you can feel those real world concerns creeping in you are taken out of the movie as well.
Superman's 'Do you bleed?' is an example here. Justice League had a lot of examples. Suddenly those characters were all ironic and knew they were in a movie. They were making jokes and performing for a crowd that did not exist in their world, instead of making jokes to each other. Superman knows full well Batman bleeds. Even as a threat it came off wrong, because why would you threaten someone by giving their previous threat cred by repeating it. Maybe if you were weak and felt fear and were striking out in terror you would mimic someone's threat back at them. If you were Superman, and could crush a guy in an instant, why would you even give him the satisfaction of knowing you were hurt enough by his previous threat to mimic it back word-for-word? It was a joke made by a guy who knew he was in a movie, and it didn't fit the established feel of the universe. Same with laser swords, blue milk, 'you've changed your hair', etc.
I think part of what the film was doing WAS trying to comment on Star Wars as a phenomenon in the real world. There is nothing else like Star Wars. But I'm not sure it entirely works. Star Wars has always 'rhymed', but once it becomes completely self-referential there is a risk we disappear down a navel-gazing rabbit hole, to mix my metaphors very poorly. You're not referencing a genre. You're referencing Star Wars, because Star Wars is so huge it's a thing unto itself, culturally.
And you can comment on Star Wars subtly, without having the characters themselves lampshade Star Wars tropes through comic asides. As someone else very observantly pointed out here (and I wish I could work out how to 'rep' people on these boards), the joke about Rey using the lightsaber and knocking the stone onto the cart those Stations from Bill and Ted 2 were pushing was a Star Wars joke. That worked. It happened in-universe and was funny to us. We like humour in Star Wars. But the lampshading jokes? If you are being ironic about something then it suggests you are slightly embarrassed by it. You are being guarded. People are ready and willing to embrace Star Wars 100%. You don't have to be detached, ironic, and 'too cool for Star Wars' in a Star Wars movie. It feels like a bratty teenage thing to do, and Star Wars is about wide-eyed childhood wonder.
I was just joking.
