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Eimi posted:The only more fitting thing than Poe calling Hux Hugs is if later in the movie Kylo called him General Sux. Hux: From now on everyone will call me General Fux-- Pryde: *immediately shoots him* Only I may hold that title.
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Jan 7, 2020 04:03
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McCloud posted:So by sparing vader, pleading to his father and saying "i sense good in you" he is demonstrating himself to not give Vader the benefit of the doubt? See, I can be disingenuous too! He made a conscious decision to spare Vader. The point of showing him the rebels dying and taunting him about his sister was to make him lose his self-control, because he is not naturally merciful and pacifist- the same conflict he can sense in Vader is taking place within himself
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Jan 7, 2020 04:12
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Isn't everything in Nature force-sensitive by default or...??? Man idk anymore 
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Jan 7, 2020 04:14
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Luke’s arc in the ST is redundant
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Jan 7, 2020 04:22
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Ignis posted:Isn't everything in Nature force-sensitive by default or...??? Luv 2 cut down Force-sensitive trees to make my books
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Jan 7, 2020 04:24
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McCloud posted:Let's charitably assume Sheev-o isn't using some dumb force manipulation to seduce Luke but is just sticking to good old fashioned manipulation. I think it's fair to take this stance, but I'm not sure you can make the same assumption about what happens in TLJ. Using the Force to communicate and manipulate from a distance is central to the film. Snoke corrupted Ben from afar. Magic may also be involved in how Luke is tempted in that moment. I tend to think it's the Dark Side itself tempting him, but it could be Snoke himself or even possibly ghost Palpatine in light of TROS. Also, I don't think Luke ever consciously considers killing Ben. Igniting the saber is how the film visually conveys his temptation. He resists that temptation. His first conscious thought is shame at not being immune to temptation.
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Jan 7, 2020 04:26
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McCloud posted:The circumstances are a tad bit different though, aren't they? Let's charitably assume Sheev-o isn't using some dumb force manipulation to seduce Luke but is just sticking to good old fashioned manipulation. Lukes friends are in immediate danger, the rebels are losing, his father is being a dick, he is all alone with no one coming to help him and in it all, despite Vader pushing juuust the right buttons, he still restrains himself, tosses away his saber and Trusts that things will work out. It's not unreasonable to think that, but Rian Johnson had specific narrative goals in mind for Luke's character. I thought it was great to write him as a weary failure and using those failures to further explore Luke's character and the Jedi/Sith mythos. Would it have been just as good if Luke was basically "Obi-Wan times 1000" and could like, force destroy entire planets with the clench of his fist? I guess. But I was more engaged with the idea of Luke secluding himself off from the galaxy because his defiance against the emperor years ago turned out to be false empowerment. That he could still be tempted by the dark side of the force and and wasn't some paragon of light is a vastly more interesting take on the character that leads to more genuinely affecting drama, imo. Especially wrt our perception of Luke in the OT. Also relevant: https://twitter.com/rianjohnson/status/1207878802464018437
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Jan 7, 2020 04:29
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I find it telling that the only alternative people can imagine to Luke being a sad-sack child abuser is that he would be some kind of unstoppable superhero. It's a profound misunderstanding of what he achieves in the OT. He doesn’t even use his powers to win. Of course, that's exactly the reason JJ basically didn’t write a role for Luke in TFA in the first place: his imagination was so dominated by the popular conception of Jedi as demigods that he couldn’t figure out a way to credibly give Luke a challenge.
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Jan 7, 2020 04:34
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Zoran posted:I find it telling that the only alternative people can imagine to Luke being a sad-sack child abuser is that he would be some kind of unstoppable superhero. It's a profound misunderstanding of what he achieves in the OT. He doesn’t even use his powers to win. What other character trajectory makes sense for Luke? I'm obviously being hyperbolic with the "destroying planets with the force" thing, but inserting Luke into the ST using the "Obi-Wan" template seems like a natural progression of where the character was headed. Becoming a Jedi like those in the years before him (PT-era) does make sense, i.e., he can jump high, run fast, is basically invincible, etc, [edit] but I also use that as a point of criticism because of how rote that would be. [edit] I just read the 5-page preview of The Rise of Kylo Ren comic's next issue, and it's basically depicting Luke as an uber badass Jedi so... lol. teagone fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Jan 7, 2020 |
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Jan 7, 2020 04:37
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2house2fly posted:I think the specific reasons behind it was what bugged people, I've read a lot of "they made Luke into a child murderer!" People probably assumed Luke was blameless and was hiding out on the island planet because he was scared of the villains or something Fourth Question: Seriously, What The gently caress Is Going On? It’s vital to never forget that the Lucas films ‘end’ with Vader dying our sins - in what is, narratively, the middle of the story. Lucas’ point with that twist is that, while the Jedi keep talking about the eventual appearance of a ‘Chosen One’ who will balance the universe, “the Messiah has already arrived; the Event has already taken place, [and] we are living in its aftermath.” (Zizek, my italics) In other words, killing the emperor doesn’t solve anything in-and-of itself. So long as there is still inequality, the job isn’t done. Vader’s crucifixion - literally the death of God, aka The Force - means simply that there never was an excuse for suffering. We are freed from ‘the energy field that controls our destiny’ - but authentic freedom is a burdensome responsibility. So, David Fincher was correct to say “Star Wars [is] the story of two slaves who go from owner to owner, witnessing their masters’ folly - the ultimate folly of man.” Lucas’ films can only truly be read two ways: either you believe in Christ and demand an end to droid slavery, or - however well-intentioned you may be - you are on the side of Rome and suffering. Fincher was approached to do Episode 7, but declined. Three guesses what ideas Disney went with instead. “Well, if droids could think, there'd be none of us here, would there?" This line, clearly demonstrating Obiwan’s intense racism, is Disney’s quasi-official political stance. We see it in Black Panther, for example: if black slaves could think, “the sun will never set on the Wakandan Empire.” Black leftists ‘go too far’ and seek to enslave the white race in retaliation. Episode 9, likewise, makes Kylo Ren suddenly an avowed imperialist and - simultaneously - reveals that Snoke was, all along, an organic droid. Moreso than even the Clone Troopers, who were at least raised from infancy, Snoke is an organic machine. But Snoke is evidently ‘a droid who can ‘think’ and therefore endeavours to eliminate humanity. (Pop Quiz: can you name the other Star Wars character to wears only gold, and sits on a throne as god-king?) Disney’s policy of ‘anti-imperialism’ sounds appealing, because who can say they like imperialism? But it’s ultimately a trick: anti-imperialism in defence of capitalism is a dogwhistle for anticommunism. A few decades ago, they called it ‘domino theory.’ Anyways, if you’ve seen only the Disney films, Darth Vader is presented exclusively as “a very powerful evil guy”. All reference to Vader as a Christ figure has been scrubbed. But, still: why was Ben so angry? What made him open to Vader’s teachings (via Snoke) in the first place? It’s not actually a mystery, of course. Ben’s dad trafficked endangered species for the venal rich, and his mom headed some kind of extralegal feudalist death squad. Ben begins thinking commie thoughts, and that is why Luke plots to murder him. This is not to say Snoke is a good person, of course. He’s still just a quasi-Stalinist ‘Evil Pope’. But the filmmakers still, curiously, decided to make Snoke an enslaved clone-droid - a hybrid of the two most overtly oppressed peoples in the Star Wars. And his sendoff is a big closeup of his tongue drooping grotesquely out of his dead face, like “gently caress you, Snoke!” And then Pippin dismisses cloning as unnatural.
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Jan 7, 2020 04:47
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teagone posted:What other character trajectory makes sense for Luke? Luke had a concise arc in the OT. That’s where his story ends. Anything else is just tacked on balderdash.
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Jan 7, 2020 04:56
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:And his sendoff is a big closeup of his tongue drooping grotesquely out of his dead face, like “gently caress you, Snoke!” I'm getting intense Jabba / Bigger Fish vibes from this.
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Jan 7, 2020 05:06
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Goddammit SMG, thanks for reminding me we were denied a David Fincher helmed Star Wars movie.
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Jan 7, 2020 05:06
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teagone posted:What other character trajectory makes sense for Luke? I'm obviously being hyperbolic with the "destroying planets with the force" thing, but inserting Luke into the ST using the "Obi-Wan" template seems like a natural progression of where the character was headed. Becoming a Jedi like those in the years before him (PT-era) does make sense, i.e., he can jump high, run fast, is basically invincible, etc, [edit] but I also use that as a point of criticism because of how rote that would be. The great challenge set before Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi is what to do with the burden of being the last Jedi. How does he pass on what he knows? How does he teach the lessons he learned in the throne room to people who weren’t there to witness them? What does he do differently this time to avoid the mistakes of the old order? These run in parallel with the problem facing any follow-up to the Lucas films. They assert the existence of a cycle: you watch a liberal democracy fail, become an empire, and then be overthrown; but if you watch the trilogies in the other order, you have a successful rebellion that establishes a liberal democracy, only for it to be undone from within. So a new trilogy, if it's going to say anything at all, has to assert a way to break the cycle. But writing that is genuinely hard, so everyone responsible for writing the sequels gave up and just recapitulated the whole saga in three films. The older generation sucked so bad that the fascists became the preeminent political party and seized power everywhere in a week. There is once again a single hope for the Jedi, except this time the ingenue doesn’t ever have her philosophy challenged or develop a new moral clarity—she just Fights Good and gets divinely inspired.
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Jan 7, 2020 05:11
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teagone posted:What other character trajectory makes sense for Luke? I'm obviously being hyperbolic with the "destroying planets with the force" thing, but inserting Luke into the ST using the "Obi-Wan" template seems like a natural progression of where the character was headed. Becoming a Jedi like those in the years before him (PT-era) does make sense, i.e., he can jump high, run fast, is basically invincible, etc, [edit] but I also use that as a point of criticism because of how rote that would be. Like Zoran says, there's a vast gulf between "fratricidal loser" and "Uber-powerful Jedi Master". You can have similar story beats where Luke feels enormous pressure to bring back the Jedi Knights, and in turn puts high expectations on Ben. Maybe Luke felt frustrated by Bens lake of progress as he wasn't as strong in the force as his uncle, and that drives him away. Instead of making Bens fall the blame of Palpatine or Snokes manipulations with Force Skype, have Luke actually be the reason Ben falls. Ben finds it easier to tap in to the dark side because he has all these negative emotions because Luke is pushing him too hard, Leia is pushing him to be a jedi for the good of the republic and Han reluctantly follows the advice of his two friends and very reluctantly avoids contact with Ben. Ben in turn feels abandoned resentful and also guilty for turning away from his family. That would go a long way to explain the rift between the three friends. Han blames himself for not being there for Ben and blames the Jedi siblings for losing Ben. Luke feels guilt and shame for failing and can't bear to face his friends, Leia buries herself in the political stuff to avoid confronting her feelings, and is resentful of Han for blaming her for doing what she thought for the greater good. Not very creative, maybe a bit predictable and rote, but the upside is that Luke didn't turn into a child murderer, so it evens out on balance. You even have the same general story beats, these mythic heroes are still just flesh and blood, they too are flawed and they too hosed things up. There's plenty of other ways to come up with a story that doesn't backtrack on Lukes (Or Hans or Leias for that matter) development in the OT, but that would require effort, and neither JJ nor RJ were so inclined McCloud fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Jan 7, 2020 |
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Jan 7, 2020 05:12
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:(Pop Quiz: can you name the other Star Wars character who wears only gold, and sits on a throne as god-king?) 
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Jan 7, 2020 05:16
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But making him an embittered old failure of a recluse drinking sea-cow milk. That's respecting the character!
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Jan 7, 2020 05:22
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But he didn't get a video game power up 
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Jan 7, 2020 05:25
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Respecting the characters would have been not making these movies in the first place. I just don't think RJ's follow up is all that bad given how terrible TFA was in setting up a new story. TFA establishes that all of the original heroes are enormous failures, their victories fleeting and meaningless. It's all in the service of soft rebooting everything, but as a continuation it cheapens the OT so much that I get RJ wanting to write about these characters, and Luke in particular, being the gently caress ups.
Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Jan 7, 2020 |
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Jan 7, 2020 05:28
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Qne
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Jan 7, 2020 05:31
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The Little Death posted:Respecting the characters would have been not making these movies in the first place. I just don't think RJ's follow up is all that bad given how terrible TFA was in setting up a new story. TFA establishes that all of the original heroes are enormous failures, their victories fleeting and meaningless. It's all in the service of soft rebooting everything, but as a continuation it cheapens the OT so much that I get RJ wanting to write about these characters, and Luke in particular, being the gently caress ups. Well, I can certainly agree with TFA did a poo poo job setting up the new story
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Jan 7, 2020 05:34
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This movie loving rules. Every day I cry a little bit because we never got the promised sequel.
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Jan 7, 2020 05:37
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I would've loved to see a Luke who was held up as a hero of the Republic but knows, in his heart, that if it wasn't for Vader - who people remember as a monster - he'd be dead. You could still have an isolated Luke who cut himself off from the Force! The real issue is that Kylo burning down Luke's academy should never have been in flashback. It's pretty much the inciting incident of the whole ST.
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Jan 7, 2020 05:42
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Horizon Burning posted:The real issue is that Kylo burning down Luke's academy should never have been in flashback. It's pretty much the inciting incident of the whole ST. The Force Awakens is a sequel to Revenge of the Sith. We saw Kylo burning down Luke's academy; he was just called Anakin Skywalker in that movie.
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Jan 7, 2020 05:48
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Zoran posted:[...] McCloud posted:Like Zoran says, there's a vast gulf between "fratricidal loser" and "Uber-powerful Jedi Master". I'll 100% agree in retrospect that JJ retreading story beats to kick off the ST gave little room for inspired writing moving forward, but I still hold firm that RJ's direction on further developing characterization in TLJ was some of the best writing the franchise has to offer. The idea of Luke ending up being this weary iconoclast just hit all the right notes for me, and was a take on his character that I found surprising in a good way. Not sure what else to say; I just enjoy how RJ wrote Luke.  That said, I also won't disagree with any other ways some folk might've wanted to see Luke—even the uber-ultra Jedi grandmaster take—but that kind of character writing wouldn't have worked as well for what TLJ needed, which was a Luke who was at the end of his rope, broken, and emotionally defeated, and I think the platform RJ set up for TLJ to have that depiction of Luke was really good. Horizon Burning posted:The real issue is that Kylo burning down Luke's academy should never have been in flashback. It's pretty much the inciting incident of the whole ST. Though, I agree with this 100 percent. Whatever they're writing for this Kylo Ren comic should've likely been a large chunk of narrative for the ST. teagone fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Jan 7, 2020 |
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Jan 7, 2020 05:59
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"it cheapens a hero character to have them make mistakes and have flaws" ~ internet pundits
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Jan 7, 2020 06:06
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The Little Death posted:I just don't think RJ's follow up is all that bad given how terrible TFA was in setting up a new story. TFA establishes that all of the original heroes are enormous failures, their victories fleeting and meaningless. It's all in the service of soft rebooting everything, but as a continuation it cheapens the OT so much that I get RJ wanting to write about these characters, and Luke in particular, being the gently caress ups. I think this is basically what I really wanted to say, but I sometimes have trouble explaining what I'm thinking/feeling. So I'll just quote this and say thanks  Writing Luke as a gently caress up is great. I also keen on broken characters and witnessing their conflict and drama. RJ gave me exactly that in TLJ, which is why it's my favorite Star War outside of the TV shows and comics (which both offer much better Star Wars-ing imo).
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Jan 7, 2020 06:11
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Bleck posted:"it cheapens a hero character to have them make mistakes and have flaws" ~ internet pundits psssht, there is plenty of room between being a superhero and a flawed character who makes mistakes. he could be a superhero who stares broodily into space sometimes, for example
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Jan 7, 2020 06:17
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SolarFire2 posted:But making him an embittered old failure of a recluse drinking sea-cow milk. That's respecting the character! Literally the only flaw in the movie is that he used a pitcher instead of guzzling straight from the dickteet.
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Jan 7, 2020 06:23
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Bleck posted:"it cheapens a hero character to have them make mistakes and have flaws" ~ internet pundits Luke absolutely didn’t need to be made a mockery of his past self. After all he went through in the OT he ended up as a quitter. A weird hermit. He’s learned nothing at all I guess. This is a much more satisfying end to the character then what Lucas wrote! Thanks Johnson!
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Jan 7, 2020 06:23
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:(Pop Quiz: can you name the other Star Wars character to wears only gold, and sits on a throne as god-king?)
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Jan 7, 2020 06:24
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teagone posted:Though, I agree with this 100 percent. Whatever they're writing for this Kylo Ren comic should've likely been a large chunk of narrative for the ST. This happened with TFA too, people searching for force-related artifacts everywhere, religious schisms about how the force works and The Church of the Force and poo poo? I forget if the visual dictionary names them all. Are the Knights of Ren, like, called Ren because were servants of Kylo Ren or are they all named _____ Ren because Ren is the order they're apart of?
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Jan 7, 2020 06:28
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sponges posted:Luke absolutely didn’t need to be made a mockery of his past self. After all he went through in the OT he ended up as a quitter. A weird hermit. He’s learned nothing at all I guess. I don't know if you watched ESB or ROTJ but Luke literally bails on most of his training and the whole climax of the OT story is him rejecting his identity as the hope of the Jedi in the name of compassion (i.e Luke is not a hero because he is a Jedi, he is a hero because he is a good person) that he fails in reviving the Jedi Order because of the conflict between his own ethics and the problematic aspects of Jedi culture is basically the only reasonable, organic way for any of that stuff to go down
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Jan 7, 2020 06:29
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I can never quite understand why people get so upset about what TLJ does with Luke as a character. I personally found him slipping up and giving into temptation and screwing things up pretty interesting, even though I don't think the film quite squares the circle at the end. Its at least an intriguing place to go with the character. Like Rian put it in that tweet above, it's pretty silly and uninteresting to just have Luke be an unimpeachable Perfect Jedi Master, and most of all, super unrealistic. Nobody just ascends like the Buddha to being this perfect being. Every stage of life has its own challenges and growth. The movie (and really, the sequel) fails in that Luke doesn't really get to do anything after coming to the realization that he has to persist after his failure. It renders Yoda's words pretty hollow, because Luke doesn't get a chance to really pass on his knowledge at all, to dust himself off. He just dies, and that goes to Leia, apparently. His taunting of Ren also leads to nothing, just dropped in the next movie. The only thing he does in ROS is pretend he didn't say any of the things he said in TLJ, its not growth, its just sloppy erasure. The most interesting thing in TLJ is everything around Rey-Luke-Ren. It's too bad about the Casino planet and the slow ship chase which are theoretically interesting but mostly convoluted and incoherent.
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Jan 7, 2020 06:29
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Not sure why the slow chase is such a problem either tbh. Nobody minds that the lightning-fast star destroyer at the start of ANH is travelling at 400 miles per hour
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Jan 7, 2020 06:32
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It's an original and creative decision to make Luke exactly the same as Yoda.
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Jan 7, 2020 06:35
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2house2fly posted:Not sure why the slow chase is such a problem either tbh. Nobody minds that the lightning-fast star destroyer at the start of ANH is travelling at 400 miles per hour The idea behind the slow chase kicks rear end - I absolutely love the idea of doing a Das Boot style submarine chase. Its whats going inside the ships thats dumb
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Jan 7, 2020 06:35
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Mike N Eich posted:I can never quite understand why people get so upset about what TLJ does with Luke as a character. I personally found him slipping up and giving into temptation and screwing things up pretty interesting, even though I don't think the film quite squares the circle at the end. Its at least an intriguing place to go with the character. Like Rian put it in that tweet above, it's pretty silly and uninteresting to just have Luke be an unimpeachable Perfect Jedi Master, and most of all, super unrealistic. Nobody just ascends like the Buddha to being this perfect being. Every stage of life has its own challenges and growth. I did like that as an attempt to give Leia more to do, two of the only things I liked about Rise of Skywalker was Jedi Leia and how that's just a given and also the idea that while Luke was cut off overall he was still working regularly with Lando with Lando being his eyes and ears trying to find the Sith homeworld. Which of course adds the extra unintended hilarity of how Lando knew where Luke was the whole time. 
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Jan 7, 2020 06:35
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Bleck posted:"it cheapens a hero character to have them make mistakes and have flaws" ~ internet pundits The question is: which mistakes? What do you understand to be the mistakes? “[Ben] would bring destruction, pain, death, and the end of everything I love because of what he will become.” Does this mean Luke clings too tightly to his Republican ideology? Evidently not, because Luke openly declares his love of Republican war at the of the film. If anything, Luke believes his mistake is that his faith in Republicanism wavered. But then, note the “will become” in that quote. A future tense. At the midway point of TLJ, according to Luke, Kylo is still not yet the destructive threat he predicted. Did Luke predict the Exogolian Deathstar-hive? If so, why is his prediction wrong? Did he get Ben confused with Palpatine - or with Rey? Ultimately, we have no clue what Luke is talking about. We know he’s lying about the instinct part - so what else is he lying about?
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Jan 7, 2020 06:37
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Bleck posted:I don't know if you watched ESB or ROTJ but Luke literally bails on most of his training and the whole climax of the OT story is him rejecting his identity as the hope of the Jedi in the name of compassion (i.e Luke is not a hero because he is a Jedi, he is a hero because he is a good person) No, the climax is the synthesis: Luke reclaims the mantle of Jedi for himself and for his father, identifying “Jedi” not with the laser sword or the magic powers but with the ability to show compassion in the face of evil.
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Jan 7, 2020 06:37
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