Wolfsheim posted:

I still wonder what the original context for 'Evil Rey with foldout lightsaber' was, and how many entire script overhauls happened between filming it and the movie that exists now

Assepoester posted:

Otherwise, Canto Blight and Dee Jay show Finn where cynicism and both-sides-ism would lead him

Spermando posted:

A lot of the arguments for TLJ come from people making up a movie in their heads that successfully develops the zero setups RJ left for the next director. The discourse is so poisoned at this stage that the anti-grifter side has to to pretend Episode VIII of the Star Wars saga is actually too good for the saga and any fault you find in it is because all the movies that came after and before failed to give it good setups and follow ups.

No Mods No Masters posted:

maybe the star war should be looked at more in terms of material conditions,

No Mods No Masters posted:

I guess it makes me think that maybe the star war should be looked at more in terms of material conditions, and less in terms of who got owned by a yo momma joke

Mantis42 posted:

metacommentary is lame, no one wants that

feedmyleg posted:

In context, TLJ is a bad Star Wars and a bad sequel. Out of context, TLJ is a good metacommentary with interesting (f a bit confused) thematics. Is it a good movie? I think that depends on how easily you're able to remove it from its context as a franchise entry, or whether you think that's a valid or valuable thing to do.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Taken this way, Episode 8 is a condensed remake of Lucas’ Star Wars in its entirety - and ‘improved’, from the standpoint of TVTropes.

Xenomrph posted:

Could you expand on this, specifically the first part?

feedmyleg posted:

TLJ actually does recognize this—it agrees that Luke should toss out the Space Bible and shed the baggage of organized religion, starting fresh with something more fundamental and pure. It knows that the Jedi were bad, and that it is a mistake to continue their ways.

feedmyleg posted:

I think a lot of traditional film criticism needs to be adjusted or amended when examining a modern media franchise. We're at a place where a "franchise" is probably now as valid an artwork as a song or a painting. It's a bit of a difficult pill to swallow, because rights holders who control a franchise are a soulless capitalist collective, and many people are inclined to (incorrectly) cast them in the same role as the artist when considering a franchise as an artwork. They are not a creator, but instead an embodiment of medium—representing the establishment of parameters of the medium that this franchise exists within.

The cynic has an easy argument to make for the soullessness of the entire medium, and it's really easy to write off a franchise as a valid type of artwork due to the fact that most of them suck poo poo and are full of garbage. But whether we like it or not, a singular story told through the collective works and called 'canon' by a corporate entity is indeed a type of art unless your definition of art requires intent—though you'd be bucking the art establishment if you were to do so. Canon, unfortunately, does exist. Multiple simultaneous canons, even (and hell, headcanons and fan-fiction canons, too). You can choose to ignore that in your interpretation of the work, but that doesn't mean it's not a potentially valid aspect of the work.

From that perspective, you can think of a franchise as a book. Every new entry that comes out is a new chapter in that book, and adding it constitutes the creation of a new edition of that book. New chapters can be added at any point in the story, or old chapters can be revised and updated. From this perspective, each new chapter has a certain responsibility to other chapters and to its reader to continue a larger story in a way that is thematically and narratively connected to prior and subsequent chapters. Your favorite edition of the book might be the 4th, while someone else's might be the 12th, and each can exist side-by-side as separate works. This book will update for as long as Star Wars stories are made. And Star Wars has been playing in this territory since at least 1981 with the rerelease of ANH with the subtitle and chapter number, and redefined how these books can be revised in 1997. It happened again in 2008 when Clone Wars overwrote the '03 series and was declared to be in-canon, and in 2015 with the establishment of the new canon and the jettisoning of the (arguably already invalid post-prequels) EU.

When looking at TLJ through this lens, it becomes a lot easier to understand some of the film's louder critics. Take the portrayal of Luke, for instance. Personally, I think having Luke be a burnt-out loser who hosed up and let everyone down is a cool, unexpected choice. He gets to represent the perpetual disappointment of each generation in the eyes of the next, having been given the keys to the kingdom but winding up having learned nothing and maintaining the status quo. He is an especially great metaphor for the boomers, a generation of Vietnam-protesting hippies who turned yuppie and kept all the old bad systems in place instead of burning them down. Luke was the last Space Catholic left in the galaxy, and instead of tossing it all out and saying "let's be nice to each other," he built a new Space Catholic Church and enrolled a bunch of kids saying that surely this time, his wisdom would mean nothing bad would ever happen again inside Space Catholicism despite having the same beliefs and using the same book. It embodies the best of mythological storytelling, weaving inherently human truths into the narrative using existing characters and scenarios, which follow organically from what came before.

However, through the lens of franchise-as-book, that choice could be read as a somewhat muddled continuation of the larger themes and character dynamics present in prior chapters. I'm not going to rehash all of the arguments because it would more or less be a laundry list of people's complaints about Luke's characterization and place within the story that you can find on any Reddit rant, but I think many of them are valid in this context. I also, personally, tend to think "who cares?" and appreciate the film in a different context, but that doesn't make them points without some merit. But that doesn't mean those same thematic points I found compelling couldn't have still remained contained within the story, but instead illustrated through the failures of Han and Leia and the New Republic, while Luke could have embodied the "I'll never turn to the dark side" attitude from the previous chapter, which might have lead to a more mythic continuation of the character.

TLJ actually does recognize this—it agrees that Luke should toss out the Space Bible and shed the baggage of organized religion, starting fresh with something more fundamental and pure. It knows that the Jedi were bad, and that it is a mistake to continue their ways. But instead of Luke being the driving force behind this—which would have been a natural continuation of him saying "gently caress you" to Yoda and Obi-Wan, believing in the good inside of his father, saving his friends, and dismantling the status quo all against the emotionally-detached teachings of the Jedi—he starts the story by being completely ignorant of this, having seemingly never considered it. He has to learn that message over the course of the film, and it rings extremely hollow when it's a lesson given to him by Yoda, the guy he defied in the first place—and indeed, the very embodiment of the hypocrisy and failures of the Jedi. It's pretty wonky stuff, when taking the larger picture into account. Instead of continuing Luke's story, TLJ repurposes him so that another character can step into the Hero with a Thousand Faces protagonist role, but in doing so pulls a thematic retcon and feels out of step with what comes before.

Personally, I prefer franchises that say gently caress you to the whole idea of canon like Mad Max. With that franchise, it's built into the storytelling, thematics, and even the text that these entries cannot and will not connect cleanly and that to try and do so betrays the very nature of what Mad Max is. It's a more flexible way of building a franchise, and makes it easier to tell great stories within it because they're less beholden to the story of the other chapters, but are still able to pick up the ball of thematics and run with it. Star Wars could have gone this direction if it wanted to, with each entry being another tale in the Journal of the Whills, connected and disconnected wherever appropriate for the parable being told. As it stands, Star Wars—as canonized by Disney, but more importantly presented (and conceived) by the artists who write each chapter—is intended to be a single artwork, taken in full. Whether you choose to take that aspect into account or not, intent is one of the factors that can and often should be considered when conducting criticism on a work. Death of the author is a way to look at art, not the way. Choosing to throw out all of these ideas means that your'e working with a limp and incomplete analysis of the work.

e: Andor is a miracle because it manages to sidestep the whole minefield by generally treating Star Wars like a setting rather than a narrative. In doing so, it satisfies all camps. Future entries would be wise to take the same path. You can currently watch Mandalorian falling apart at the seams because it veered in the opposite direction.

WIFEY WATCHDOG posted:

hey guys i liked the newest mando episode it had some star wars stuff

feedmyleg posted:

I think a lot of traditional film criticism needs to be adjusted or amended when examining a modern media franchise. We're at a place where a "franchise" is probably now as valid an artwork as a song or a painting. It's a bit of a difficult pill to swallow, because rights holders who control a franchise are a soulless capitalist collective, and many people are inclined to (incorrectly) cast them in the same role as the artist when considering a franchise as an artwork. They are not a creator, but instead an embodiment of medium—representing the establishment of parameters of the medium that this franchise exists within.

Vim Fuego posted:

My friend owned one! She said it was a lot of work (and she had a pet skunk and horses, so definitely an animal person). She had trouble selling it to a new owner because it would masturbate when prospective people would come to meet it. She highly discourages baby yodas as pets.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

I really hope one day they get to make a follow up to the Zillo Beast.

Assepoester posted:

Dark Side Dentistry will never not be funny to me

feedmyleg posted:

I think a lot of traditional film criticism needs to be adjusted or amended when examining a modern media franchise. We're at a place where a "franchise" is probably now as valid an artwork as a song or a painting. It's a bit of a difficult pill to swallow, because rights holders who control a franchise are a soulless capitalist collective, and many people are inclined to (incorrectly) cast them in the same role as the artist when considering a franchise as an artwork. They are not a creator, but instead an embodiment of medium—representing the establishment of parameters of the medium that this franchise exists within.

The cynic has an easy argument to make for the soullessness of the entire medium, and it's really easy to write off a franchise as a valid type of artwork due to the fact that most of them suck poo poo and are full of garbage. But whether we like it or not, a singular story told through the collective works and called 'canon' by a corporate entity is indeed a type of art unless your definition of art requires intent—though you'd be bucking the art establishment if you were to do so. Canon, unfortunately, does exist. Multiple simultaneous canons, even (and hell, headcanons and fan-fiction canons, too). You can choose to ignore that in your interpretation of the work, but that doesn't mean it's not a potentially valid aspect of the work.

From that perspective, you can think of a franchise as a book. Every new entry that comes out is a new chapter in that book, and adding it constitutes the creation of a new edition of that book. New chapters can be added at any point in the story, or old chapters can be revised and updated. From this perspective, each new chapter has a certain responsibility to other chapters and to its reader to continue a larger story in a way that is thematically and narratively connected to prior and subsequent chapters. Your favorite edition of the book might be the 4th, while someone else's might be the 12th, and each can exist side-by-side as separate works. This book will update for as long as Star Wars stories are made. And Star Wars has been playing in this territory since at least 1981 with the rerelease of ANH with the subtitle and chapter number, and redefined how these books can be revised in 1997. It happened again in 2008 when Clone Wars overwrote the '03 series and was declared to be in-canon, and in 2015 with the establishment of the new canon and the jettisoning of the (arguably already invalid post-prequels) EU.

When looking at TLJ through this lens, it becomes a lot easier to understand some of the film's louder critics. Take the portrayal of Luke, for instance. Personally, I think having Luke be a burnt-out loser who hosed up and let everyone down is a cool, unexpected choice. He gets to represent the perpetual disappointment of each generation in the eyes of the next, having been given the keys to the kingdom but winding up having learned nothing and maintaining the status quo. He is an especially great metaphor for the boomers, a generation of Vietnam-protesting hippies who turned yuppie and kept all the old bad systems in place instead of burning them down. Luke was the last Space Catholic left in the galaxy, and instead of tossing it all out and saying "let's be nice to each other," he built a new Space Catholic Church and enrolled a bunch of kids saying that surely this time, his wisdom would mean nothing bad would ever happen again inside Space Catholicism despite having the same beliefs and using the same book. It embodies the best of mythological storytelling, weaving inherently human truths into the narrative using existing characters and scenarios, which follow organically from what came before.

However, through the lens of franchise-as-book, that choice could be read as a somewhat muddled continuation of the larger themes and character dynamics present in prior chapters. I'm not going to rehash all of the arguments because it would more or less be a laundry list of people's complaints about Luke's characterization and place within the story that you can find on any Reddit rant, but I think many of them are valid in this context. I also, personally, tend to think "who cares?" and appreciate the film in a different context, but that doesn't make them points without some merit. But that doesn't mean those same thematic points I found compelling couldn't have still remained contained within the story, but instead illustrated through the failures of Han and Leia and the New Republic, while Luke could have embodied the "I'll never turn to the dark side" attitude from the previous chapter, which might have lead to a more mythic continuation of the character.

TLJ actually does recognize this—it agrees that Luke should toss out the Space Bible and shed the baggage of organized religion, starting fresh with something more fundamental and pure. It knows that the Jedi were bad, and that it is a mistake to continue their ways. But instead of Luke being the driving force behind this—which would have been a natural continuation of him saying "gently caress you" to Yoda and Obi-Wan, believing in the good inside of his father, saving his friends, and dismantling the status quo all against the emotionally-detached teachings of the Jedi—he starts the story by being completely ignorant of this, having seemingly never considered it. He has to learn that message over the course of the film, and it rings extremely hollow when it's a lesson given to him by Yoda, the guy he defied in the first place—and indeed, the very embodiment of the hypocrisy and failures of the Jedi. It's pretty wonky stuff, when taking the larger picture into account. Instead of continuing Luke's story, TLJ repurposes him so that another character can step into the Hero with a Thousand Faces protagonist role, but in doing so pulls a thematic retcon and feels out of step with what comes before.

Personally, I prefer franchises that say gently caress you to the whole idea of canon like Mad Max. With that franchise, it's built into the storytelling, thematics, and even the text that these entries cannot and will not connect cleanly and that to try and do so betrays the very nature of what Mad Max is. It's a more flexible way of building a franchise, and makes it easier to tell great stories within it because they're less beholden to the story of the other chapters, but are still able to pick up the ball of thematics and run with it. Star Wars could have gone this direction if it wanted to, with each entry being another tale in the Journal of the Whills, connected and disconnected wherever appropriate for the parable being told. As it stands, Star Wars—as canonized by Disney, but more importantly presented (and conceived) by the artists who write each chapter—is intended to be a single artwork, taken in full. Whether you choose to take that aspect into account or not, intent is one of the factors that can and often should be considered when conducting criticism on a work. Death of the author is a way to look at art, not the way. Choosing to throw out all of these ideas means that your'e working with a limp and incomplete analysis of the work.

e: Andor is a miracle because it manages to sidestep the whole minefield by generally treating Star Wars like a setting rather than a narrative. In doing so, it satisfies all camps. Future entries would be wise to take the same path. You can currently watch Mandalorian falling apart at the seams because it veered in the opposite direction.

Jerkface posted:

ya the guy who previously tossed his weapon aside would never do that

Vintersorg posted:

He was throwing it aside as he didn't want to kill his dad.

ruddiger posted:

The REAL Goobusters posted:

I just have to accept that there are some fans out there like yourself that actually thought what they did with Luke in TLJ in creating them as this “burnt out loser” as a good thing.

News flash, people REALLY like Luke Skywalker. He’s the main character of the original trilogy and goes through a pretty drat good character arc. For that to be foolishly tossed away for this rubbed people the wrong way. People don’t want to see Luke Skywalker the loser.

feedmyleg posted:

Canon, unfortunately, does exist. Multiple simultaneous canons, even (and hell, headcanons and fan-fiction canons, too).

Xenomrph posted:

It’s like this for me, too. “Guess what, the heroes you loved grew up to be losers” is a choice, and could work with the appropriate character development and build-up, but the sequel trilogy didn’t provide that. All of the transition happened off-camera, which makes the character change feel like whiplash (not to mention that the change itself is unappealing).

It’s not entirely dissimilar to Anakin’s heel-turn in the prequel trilogy. Yeah we know it has to happen because narratively he becomes Vader, but the way it plays out is so abrupt that it feels unsatisfying.

Elias_Maluco posted:

I don’t know, Anakin starts very early in the movies to show signs of his rear end in a top hat tendencies, vanity and lust for power. It never felt abrupt to me. With Luke the change is completely 100% off screen