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Goffer posted:Kylo is the quintessential child that has gotten themselves in too deep - "I’m being torn apart. I want to be free of this pain. I know what I have to do but I don't know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me". Han knows what Ren has to do. Nah. His dialogue was written so the characters thought he meant that being free of the pain meant giving up the darkside, while the viewers knew he meant he thought that killing Han would relieve his pain and attachment to the world. It's there to make the audience feel clever, but there is no indication that Han thought that Ren was talking about killing him. And then TLJ does a similar scene with dialogue that could go both ways to mirror the earlier scene.
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Jan 3, 2018 00:11
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Rey's attachment to Han wasn't believable in TFA and it's still not believable in TLJ. We're supposed to believe that Han was like a father for her but...it just doesn't track. There's just not a compelling enough reason for us to believe it, there's not enough time, and the writing and chemistry just isn't there. The movie expects us to buy Rey's peculiar attachment to Han Solo just because we're peculiarly attached to Han Solo. But Han Solo isn't Rey's dad in TFA. He just isn't. Rey has nominal motivations (abandonment issues, a desire to be someone) but nothing about the way the character is written or integrated into the story well enough to make it feel honest or human. It feels like exactly what it is: Some generic trait that the writers came up with because they needed a Thing to give her some pathos. Compared to Anakin's obsessive attachment to his mother and existential terror of being diminished by loss, and Luke's yearning for a father as an expression of his desire to transcend his boyhood impotence, Rey's just an empty vessel with some token words of characterization scrawled hastily on the surface. And it's a shame, because Daisy Ridley is certainly a better actor than either Christensen or Hamill. She just isn't given much to work with. I can't empathize with her character because I don't viscerally believe in it, and I don't think the writers really do either. TLJ is far more about Luke and Kylo Ren than it is about Rey. Which is a weird choice, because by the second entry in the trilogy I feel like we should probably be getting an actual sense of the main character. But whatever, I'm not the one making a billion dollars over here.
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Jan 3, 2018 00:14
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Well, that's the thing, Cnut. If these films were 'about' Ren as opposed to Rey, she'd be getting torn to pieces as a flat character who does nothing but exist as a prop for the stories of the male characters the throne room scene, my God. But if you say the films are about her, people will hold her up as an exemplar simply because she's a symbol of the New Star Wars.
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Jan 3, 2018 00:29
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Jeb! Repetition posted:Again, no. I'm talking specifically about people on this forum, who all hated the prequels until SMG anyway, and I'm talking more about their interpretations than how much enjoyment they got. I can't speak for anyone else, but I have always liked the prequels (for the most part) since before I read SMG's posts, and before I even joined this website. I've never not liked the prequels.
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Jan 3, 2018 00:33
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SimonCat posted:Nah. His dialogue was written so the characters thought he meant that being free of the pain meant giving up the darkside, while the viewers knew he meant he thought that killing Han would relieve his pain and attachment to the world. It's there to make the audience feel clever, but there is no indication that Han thought that Ren was talking about killing him. Kylo outright says that he does not have the fortitude to kill his father, and asks Han for help. Han helps. How does Han help? By trying to take his lightsaber away? By trying *not* to die? Does Kylo need Han to struggle to feel justified in killing him?
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Jan 3, 2018 00:46
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porfiria posted:I agree that Kylo (which is to say Adam Driver could play a carton of milk and make it interesting) is the only compelling character, but it's hard to get around the plot beat of, like, murdering in cold blood your own dad who's at least trying to be nice. Like, who does that? It's honestly the worst thing any character does in any of these movies other than Anakin killing the babby jedis. It's just like...this guy is just an utter sociopath. Does he even have any particular reason to hate Han other than he's a deadbeat dad? Kylo doesn’t hate his father; he loves his father. What he hates the false ‘Light Side’ of the neofeudal Resistance. We could call it the Seductive Light, to distinguish it from the True Light that is the Holy Spirit. The conflict in TFA stems from the fact that Han is now a full-on Jedi-worshipper, saying “it’s all true - all of it” in reference to Max Von Sydow’s teachings about the glory of Luke Skywalker. When Han approaches Kylo with an offer of forgiveness, this offer is exclusively in his terms. Han doesn’t even consider, for a second, questioning the ideology of the Resistance (even though he is not even a part of it); the goodness of the Resistance is natural and self-evident to him. The idea that the jedi are bad is literally incomprehensible to him. So when Han says they can all be a family again, that is if and only if Kylo abandons his ethics, renounces Christianity, and serves the Resistance. The point is that Han is, however unwittingly, (ab)using his son’s love as a weapon. However much he loves Kylo, Han loves the Resistance more. The only way to reconcile this is for Han to die for both his loves. He must die for Kylo and for the Resistance. And so, Kylo kills him. And the point of TLJ’s Luke subplot is that Luke agrees completely: Kylo is right. But then Yoda shows up as this perverse imp and goes all “lol who cares if he’s right lol. Nothing matters. Dare to be stupid.” Literally taking ‘good is dumb!’ from Spaceballs and flipping it into a rallying cry. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Jan 3, 2018 |
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Jan 3, 2018 00:48
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turn left hillary!! noo posted:I can't speak for anyone else, but I have always liked the prequels (for the most part) since before I read SMG's posts, and before I even joined this website. I've never not liked the prequels. And I’ve never liked the prequels but find the level of grousing about them excessive, as if they are fundamentally incompetent in the Ed Wood sense rather than being ambitious departures from some basic storytelling rules that Lucas wasn’t up to pulling off and which have some baffling and stupid elements peppered through them.
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Jan 3, 2018 00:56
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Goffer posted:Kylo outright says that he does not have the fortitude to kill his father, and asks Han for help. Han helps. Please let kill me so you can be evil. - Han Solo
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Jan 3, 2018 00:59
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business hammocks posted:And I’ve never liked the prequels but find the level of grousing about them excessive, as if they are fundamentally incompetent in the Ed Wood sense rather than being ambitious departures from some basic storytelling rules that Lucas wasn’t up to pulling off and which have some baffling and stupid elements peppered through them. Don’t talk poo poo about Ed Wood like that
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Jan 3, 2018 01:03
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The prolbem with TLJ is it needed to be lonhger so you could see every detail and story beat exlained carefully and in explicit detail, also its too long, futhermore,,
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Jan 3, 2018 01:18
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Cnut the Great posted:Rey's attachment to Han wasn't believable in TFA and it's still not believable in TLJ. We're supposed to believe that Han was like a father for her but...it just doesn't track. There's just not a compelling enough reason for us to believe it, there's not enough time, and the writing and chemistry just isn't there. The movie expects us to buy Rey's peculiar attachment to Han Solo just because we're peculiarly attached to Han Solo. But Han Solo isn't Rey's dad in TFA. He just isn't. It's a consistent character theme for Rey that she feels lost and trying to find her place in the galaxy, with family as a surrogate for that arc. Like Finn, who is similarly bereft of family or connections, she's quick to attach herself to people in search of companionship or a sense of belonging. That includes Han Solo, the legend she's heard so much about and respected so much, and projects an idealized image onto that isn't actually accurate. Yes, he's not her dad, but the idealized version she's concocted in her mind is a surrogate father figure. Additionally, her rage at Kylo for killing Han isn't just due to her feelings for him, but her feelings for family in general. She's enraged because she never had a family, and can't understand how anyone who had parents (I think she said loving parents, which again would point to her idealized version of Han since the actual Han was quite open about not being the best parent, but I might be misremembering here) would murder one of them. As for it not being integrated into the story, I disagree wholeheartedly. Rey outright narrates to Chewie/the audience as a surrogate that she went into the dark side pit on Ach To's island because she thought it would tell her who her parents were. She threw herself into that without hesitation twice, the first time to a degree that shocked and disgusted Luke. Like, I'd ask if you needed her to do an Office moment, look directly at the camera and talk about her motivations, but that pretty much already happened in the film! Plus, her whole thing with Kylo is based upon those two axes - abandonment and belonging. She feels empathy towards him because after learning the truth behind his last encounter with Luke, she believes he was abandoned, but that he can be found and brought back to the Light. That her place in the Galaxy is to be the one person who can turn Kylo, because she believes she's the one person who truly understands him. This also points towards her idealization again, this time of Luke, and her desire to redeem the evil Sith lord just like he did. Honestly I feel more and more baffled by most of the criticisms of TLJ I see in this thread. They seem to mostly have a conclusion in mind - namely that TLJ and the ST are awful - and then make the argument to fit that conclusion.
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Jan 3, 2018 01:31
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business hammocks posted:And I’ve never liked the prequels but find the level of grousing about them excessive, as if they are fundamentally incompetent in the Ed Wood sense rather than being ambitious departures from some basic storytelling rules that Lucas wasn’t up to pulling off and which have some baffling and stupid elements peppered through them. It's truly amazing to me; it often seems more as if the prequel haters are reciting conventional wisdom as a sort of virtue signaling, a nerd signifier identifying the speaker as a true fan. I do not say these fans actually like the prequels and pretend not to, or even that they would like them if they gave them a new fresh chance. They probably wouldn't, but who cares. I'm much more interested, in general, in hearing from people who like things than people who don't like things, and even more from people who have interesting things to say regardless. SMG is brilliant, not because he is always objectively right or because I agree with him, but because he is interesting and not just repeating "movie bad, acting wooden, CGI, shot reverse shot."
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Jan 3, 2018 01:32
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Scenes of the clone army on Kamino do not portray suffering of the slave-clones (past exposition and a couple of good shots, like the slave clone looking angrily up at his owner) because it is shown from the point of view of Obi-Wan Kenobi, who loves slicing up sentient droid mofos with a beaming grin on his face. The gravity of it is completely lost on him, an enlightened Jedi Knight, as it is Yoda who the film shows as having no issue with using an army of slaves in his political war. Like, it's just baffling to me that a poster is saying "nah they didn't show enough to elicit sympathy for the slaves for it to be about slavery" when the film, during those important scenes, are being told from the point of view of an ostensible Good Guy and Guardian of Peace and Justice, peacefully and without disgust, interacting with slave traders. Could it possibly be that we are seeing the slaves as Young Man Kenobi views them? The fact that the oldest and wisest and "goodest" of the Good Guys drops into the battle in a choppa and throws his slave clones into the meat grinder is a fantastic exclamation point, and entirely consistent with the Jedi through-line of the prequel trilogy that we see echoes of in the OT, and that has now been brought into focus again in the ST. Shrimp or Shrimps fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Jan 3, 2018 |
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Jan 3, 2018 01:41
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I think it was a genuine revelation for a lot of nerds back when Red Letter Media made videos that used basic film-school concepts to explain problems with the prequels, like they were giving voice to something widely perceived on a subconscious level and getting a perspective on film (a practical and professional one) they had never encountered before. But instead of using those videos to learn something about film and why movies turn out like they do, they just cargo-culted it and began repeating everything in them.
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Jan 3, 2018 01:43
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Lol I forgot about the falcon dice. Did they ever appear in a previous film?
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Jan 3, 2018 01:49
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No but it’s not hard to get who’s they were
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Jan 3, 2018 01:50
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Arglebargle III posted:Lol I forgot about the falcon dice. Did they ever appear in a previous film? I seem to recall reading that they were in a deleted scene in A New Hope.
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Jan 3, 2018 01:51
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That is a perfect emblem for all these modem reboot movies. It's an icon that purports to be part of a legacy, but isn't. The audience has to remember the dice that weren't hanging from the rear view mirror that the Falcon doesn't have. If you can do that you can enjoy these sad films.
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Jan 3, 2018 01:55
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Arglebargle III posted:That is a perfect emblem for all these modem reboot movies. It's an icon that purports to be part of a legacy, but isn't. The audience has to remember the dice that weren't hanging from the rear view mirror that the Falcon doesn't have. If you can do that you can enjoy these sad films. Imagine if they had a plan for these films and they had, say, introduced the dice as Leia's last gift to Han (or Ben's gift to Han or something) in TFA. Imagine if they had introduced Rose's sister, Rose, or all the pilots that get killed on the hangar deck in TFA.
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Jan 3, 2018 02:07
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Arglebargle III posted:Lol I forgot about the falcon dice. Did they ever appear in a previous film? The Falcon had dice in some of the scenes in a New Hope.
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Jan 3, 2018 02:15
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Arglebargle III posted:That is a perfect emblem for all these modem reboot movies. It's an icon that purports to be part of a legacy, but isn't. The audience has to remember the dice that weren't hanging from the rear view mirror that the Falcon doesn't have. If you can do that you can enjoy these sad films. The dice were in ANH, it's not a cut scene, I'm not sure where that's coming from.  ANH was the only movie they were in until they returned here. There's speculation they'll also been in the Solo movie. Interestingly they were in the TFA Visual Dictionary before appearing in TLJ. Not sure if that was Pablo dropping a hint to remind people about them or if they were a part of the TFA set dressing that wasn't easily seen at the time. I'm guessing the latter since the Visual Dictionaries are basically "Hey look at this prop that was made, let's give it a backstory." Teek fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Jan 3, 2018 |
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Jan 3, 2018 02:17
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I’ve never noticed them. But I’ve only seen Star Wars in HD once and that was the despecialized editions.
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Jan 3, 2018 02:28
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Arglebargle III posted:That is a perfect emblem for all these modem reboot movies. It's an icon that purports to be part of a legacy, but isn't. The audience has to remember the dice that weren't hanging from the rear view mirror that the Falcon doesn't have. If you can do that you can enjoy these sad films.
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Jan 3, 2018 02:46
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Arglebargle III posted:That is a perfect emblem for all these modem reboot movies. It's an icon that purports to be part of a legacy, but isn't. The audience has to remember the dice that weren't hanging from the rear view mirror that the Falcon doesn't have. If you can do that you can enjoy these sad films. Yeah, except as amply demonstrated; they're there. They exist. They've been a part of Star Wars since 1977.
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Jan 3, 2018 03:01
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Previously established nostalgia is not necessary to establish the significance of an object. An reverent stance toward a returning prop can even be harmful when overdone. I feel it very likely that they will return in the Han Solo anthology film, however.
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Jan 3, 2018 03:07
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business hammocks posted:I think it was a genuine revelation for a lot of nerds back when Red Letter Media made videos that used basic film-school concepts to explain problems with the prequels, like they were giving voice to something widely perceived on a subconscious level and getting a perspective on film (a practical and professional one) they had never encountered before. Yep - and this happened because their (obviously failed) goal was an ‘apolitical’ technical criticism. There was no critique. RLM could say with certainty that Obiwan is not a protagonist - but they were unable to critique the racism of the Republic and thereby identify Jar Jar as the actual protagonist. So RLM fans still repeat the false claim that Episode 1 has no protagonist. Recent discussion has again proven that these technical arguments are easily disproven, and exist to disguise the ideological uniformity to ‘prequel-hate’. Postnouveau’s familiar criticism is, fundamentally, that George Lucas is not liberal enough. George Lucas must naturally promote the Jedi, but fails to make them cool enough. If George Lucas wanted the make a film about slavery, he should have addressed slavery in liberal terms of humanist empathy, philanthropy, tolerance, etc. Porfiria is resolutely postmodernist - there is no truth, only conflicting views. Consequently, you also get a lot of irony - belief in ‘trolling’, etc.
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Jan 3, 2018 03:25
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George Lucas is certainly no leftist. Liberal is the perfect term for his politics. He’s a fwd:fwd:fwd: grandpa, although less hostile to poor people and not as racist.
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Jan 3, 2018 03:37
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business hammocks posted:George Lucas is certainly no leftist. Liberal is the perfect term for his politics. He’s a fwd:fwd:fwd: grandpa, although less hostile to poor people and not as racist. Lucas as an individual is irrelevant. Preoccupation with his identity (e.g. “he’s old!”) is actually a core component of the liberal prequel-hate ideology.
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Jan 3, 2018 04:05
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I thought the new prequel hotness was sith lord jar jar .
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Jan 3, 2018 04:15
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business hammocks posted:George Lucas is certainly no leftist. Liberal is the perfect term for his politics. He’s a fwd:fwd:fwd: grandpa, although less hostile to poor people and not as racist. George Lucas literally based the Empire on the US in Vietnam.
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Jan 3, 2018 04:30
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Sith Lord jar jar is stupid. But he is quite obviously the protagonist of TPM. He's in the same narrative position as Luke in ANH, showed up in the film at approximately the same time (with Obi Wan and Qui Gon being parallel to the Droids of ANH), has the most explicit character arc where he gains the acceptance of his tribe and convinces Amidala of the strength of his people and encourages both sides to fight together.
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Jan 3, 2018 05:18
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i like rlm, but the thing i resent about them, and it never gets brought up, is how it contributed to this whole notion that star wars is somehow about the characters and the story. like, gently caress no it isnt, star wars has only ever excelled at one thing: design. without its visual and sound design no one would give a poo poo about its generic characters or story. so basically its all about the spaceships and the lightsabers
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Jan 3, 2018 05:20
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jivjov posted:Yeah, except as amply demonstrated; they're there. They exist. They've been a part of Star Wars since 1977.
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Jan 3, 2018 05:21
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No Wave posted:I thought the new prequel hotness was sith lord jar jar . That’s just the obverse the liberal racism that sees Jar Jar as intolerably undignified. ‘Death Jar Jar’ is a straight-up antisemetic conspiracy theory. In truth, Jar Jar would be a “Guardian Of The Whills” - a non-mutant Jedi - if it weren’t for the fact that he‘s a polytheist who doesn’t even believe in the Force. Jar Jar is a master of what Chirrut spent his whole life training for.
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Jan 3, 2018 05:45
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Finally got around to seeing TLJ. It was insanely bad. Right from the get-go every scene seemed like a joke devised by someone trying to get a rise out of the audience and turning the absurdity up one notch every time it failed to get the negative reaction they were looking for. Rey learns nothing, Finn actually rolls back five steps of characterization from the end of TFA in service of giving Rose a reason to exist, Poe kind of wanders around the film kicking over chairs, Holdo is a complete jackass and managerial failure who doesn't earn her martyrdom, and Luke is retroactively ruined forever. As someone who loves Rian Johnson's work, it seems like he saw every possible route he could've taken with this film and opted for the exact opposite in service of surprising the audience or "deconstructing the mythos." It's shocking that we got this after how competent and fun TFA was. loving hell
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Jan 3, 2018 07:30
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Zas posted:i like rlm, but the thing i resent about them, and it never gets brought up, is how it contributed to this whole notion that star wars is somehow about the characters and the story. like, gently caress no it isnt, star wars has only ever excelled at one thing: design. without its visual and sound design no one would give a poo poo about its generic characters or story. so basically its all about the spaceships and the lightsabers Mostly false. Like yeah it’s everything around it that makes it special, but there’s a reason why Han, Leia, Chewy, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are iconic. They’re arcatypes that anyone with a brain can understand. You can disagree, but look at all the people itt who are mad about what they did to Luke. Like the character work is there. And the prequels were 100% about Anakin and Obi Wan.
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Jan 3, 2018 07:33
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CelticPredator posted:Please let kill me so you can be evil. Kylo killing Han Solo is meant to complete his training, allowing Kylo to shed his humanity and to fully embrace his dark side. Why then did he hesitate before killing his mother? Why did he do what he did in the Throne room? Because he did not kill Han, and therefore he is not fully evil, he never took that final step.
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Jan 3, 2018 08:07
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Um...
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Jan 3, 2018 08:09
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Goffer posted:Kylo killing Han Solo is meant to complete his training, allowing Kylo to shed his humanity and to fully embrace his dark side. Why then did he hesitate before killing his mother? Why did he do what he did in the Throne room? Because he did not kill Han, and therefore he is not fully evil, he never took that final step. There's a theory somewhere that Han was the one that pointed the lightsaber at his chest and turned it on, thus delaying Kylo from having to make the choice to join the darkside.
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Jan 3, 2018 08:11
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Orrrrrrr....he killed Han, and still has cold feet about being an rear end in a top hat babby Sith. Because every male in the Skywalker family is a big ol' babby who constantly questions their own decisions. It's genetic, really. Leia is the only one who does poo poo and doesn't wreck herself with anxiety about whether or not it was the right choice. When Luke showed up and told her Kylo was beyond saving, she was like "Yeah, I know. Oh well. I blew it." She doesn't become paralyzed by a panic attack over her poor parenting skills and get everyone on Crait killed over it. Kylo is one of those people who stands in line for 5 minutes at the grocery store because he can't decide what flavor of gum to buy. Gonz fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Jan 3, 2018 |
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Jan 3, 2018 08:11
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