I was a giant Star Wars fan as a kid—watched them on vhs so many times I could re-play the trilogy in my head, every line, every cut, every musical cue; games, comics, way too many novels (seriously, in hindsight any is too many, even the “good” ones were bad—yes, even those). Toys. That crappy CCG. All of it.
Lapsed after AOTC, but, still, quite a fan. I definitely don’t hate Star Wars.
I’d rank The Last Jedi as the 3rd best Star Wars movie and my 4th favorite. I was very surprised at the Internet reaction to it—came out of the theater like “oh wow, that was kinda almost good, people will be so happy!” LOL.
You may have appreciated an attempt at something different, as I might have, but it didn’t land.
Luke was an “older brother” to me; seeing him changed from the epitome of hope to a milk-drinking murderer was repugnant—a betrayal. Not just bad but insulting too. The “Yoda” impersonator insults the Jedi books. Hamill said as much before he was shut up.
I can't judge the sequels, I don't like them very well myself. But, 20 years ago the prequels came out, and at the time people were like "wtf is this?"
But now, 20 years later the movies are still very much in people's minds, they get memed, their actors make (re)appearances in contemporary Star Wars related productions etc. So they must've done something right?
Original trilogy was not Shakespeare either but a lot of fun.
The prequels were simply bad, but not insulting like the sequels. They’re adjacent to the top three franchise of history so many people saw them. Memes tend to make fun of them, from memory.
I think the mistake is that after the original trilogy most fans just seem to want "more of the same" because they don't see the original trilogy as three separate films but rather "a thing". Spoilers from here on out.
The Last Jedi made perfect sense for what it was meant to be in the context of its trilogy. Yes, it had many faults but that is hardly a new thing for a Star Wars movie (except enough time has passed since the prequels that the kind of people complaining TLJ was "too woke" are more than likely to find reasons to argue that the prequels were actually great because they're comfortable handwaving their many weaknesses).
Most fans expected "another Star Wars adventure" following the common formula seen in so much Star Wars media: a chosen one finding their hidden power and overcoming obstacles to come out on top at the end with maybe a hint at a greater evil to be defeated the next time around. But that's not the story of a second movie in a Star Wars trilogy, that's the story of any episode in an episodic TV show. Trilogies have narrative arcs. And the second movie in a Star Wars trilogy is where The Empire Strikes Back, the mentor dies to give way to the underprepared hero, evil triumphs and all hope seems lost.
The movie did that. Luke Skywalker stalled the big bad long enough to give the unprepared Rey a chance to escape as he sacrificed himself the same way Obi Wan stalled Vader before allowing himself to be struck down. The rebels were decimated and forced to flee and regroup. All of this was very much beat-by-beat what The Empire Strikes Back did before.
But it was also a new movie in a new trilogy and it had to carry the universe forward rather than merely rehash what had been done before. The first trilogy had given many the idea that Jedi powers were entirely tied to bloodline, like a royal claim to the throne. The second had expanded on this with literal blood tests for Jedi powers, showing the Jedi to take kids with the right blood results out of their families to raise them under their watch and then demonstrating the futility and pointlessness of this approach as Anakin single-handedly murders all the younglings and wipes out most of the Jedis. It also showed the Jedi system as being contradictory and too obsessed with regulations while being not only incapable to defend its own but also mostly disinterested in preventing the rise of the Empire by eschewing politics.
The third trilogy allowed a fresh take on the Jedis: Luke's attempt to recreate the system that had allowed his father to become Darth Vader failed again by bringing forth Kylo Ren, his own fear of failure ruining any chance to save Kylo Ren from turning to the Dark Side. Meanwhile Rey, like Anakin a complete nobody with no noteworthy lineage, turned out to be uniquely talented with the force, punching above her weight even when confronted with the "classically trained" (but lacking serious guidance now completely undisciplined) Kylo Ren at least long enough to survive the outmatched encounter in the first movie.
The second movie of the new trilogy did what had to be done: Luke realizes the folly of trying to adhere strictly to the sacred texts and destroys them. Yes, this was not strictly necessary but the act was primarily symbolic as we hadn't directly seen much of them before: as Luke had to learn and Yoda tried to teach him before, being a Jedi was not about learning from books and only doing the right thing but about failure and confronting your fears and weaknesses not to simply defeat them but to learn from them. This is why Anakin fell for the dark side and why Luke failed to save Kylo Ren: rather than learn to acknowledge his fear and to see failure as an opportunity for growth, the fear had corrupted them. This is also why the ending scene with random kids using the force mattered: yes, it was very much on the nose but the point was that the force does not spring from the Jedi's sacred texts, the force comes from within and becoming a Jedi means growing as a person, not just getting better at using the force.
But that would have meant allowing Star Wars to evolve and that's not what many fans wanted, especially not when they were so deeply afraid of "politics" entering their allegory for a communist rebellion defeating the overwhelming American empire - err, sorry, I meant very serious apolitical sci-fi franchise. After all, they were already being forced into uncomfortable conversations about rooting for the genocidal ethnostate (not an ethnostate! they stopped using clones some time in the original trilogy but also it's woke identity politics that the storm trooper defector had to be played by a Black guy) wearing the sci-fi equivalent of Waffen-SS uniforms (there we go again calling everyone you don't like a nazi).
If you paid attention, the original trilogy was always more about the triumph of compassion over brute force and of friendship overcoming what a lone individual can not. Luke being potentially the most powerful force user would have meant nothing if he wouldn't have had Uncle Ben and Yoda helping him master his potential, his friends give him the emotional strength to continue and the rebels (and Ewoks) give him the opportunity to challenge Vader - and then Anakin's suffocated love for his own child winning against the Emperor's conditioning and allowing him to save Luke and defeat the Emperor.
And then Skywalker came out and threw all of that away in order to give us more slop and even bring back the Emperor so we could have a big fight scene with Kylo Ren randomly deciding to switch sides. Even if you disliked TLJ for the blue-haired girlboss blueballing our fighter hero or the Asian chick getting too much screentime or Luke being a pacifist or the gambling planet being a socialist soapbox or whatever complaint about politics you want to level at it, I challenge you to defend Rise of the Skywalker as a dignified Star Wars sequel rather than a hurriedly strewn together fan service shlock fest that completely flies in the face of both the trilogy and the larger narrative and thematic arcs altogether.
Sorry for ranting. I'll now step off my soap box again.
It's a false dichotomy that a movie has to be a "fresh take" or a rehash, with nothing in between or combination. Nihil sub sōle novum.
And different/unexpected != good, not by a long shot.
Simply, if core characters are changed to their opposites it fails to be the same story any longer. Change the name to "Space Opera" and no one would have cared.
I misspoke earlier when I implied agenda before, which while heavy-handed, wasn't what made me really angry. As mentioned elsewhere in thread it was the betrayal of Luke and Yoda.
(Also, the Empire was always modeled after fascist Nazi Germany, even down to the black, white, red colors, and storm-trooper terminology.)
If you want to see a progressive film made by grownups, watch "Brokeback Mountain", not this disrespectful pile of garbage.
> Also, the Empire was always modeled after fascist Nazi Germany, even down to the black, white, red colors, and storm-trooper terminology.
Yes but it was also explicitly an allegory for the US in the Vietnam War. George Lucas stated as much in an interview.
> betrayal of Luke and Yoda
I'm still not sure what you see as betrayal. You seem upset with the decision to torch the sacred texts and I admit that was at least a bit heavy handed for what it was trying to do but it's hardly a betrayal. Disney had already wiped out the Extended Universe with the first movie so that can't be what colors your perception at this point.
There's nothing in the other two trilogies to suggest that Yoda would be deeply invested in the Jedi texts. If anything, his most important lesson for Luke is that he is afraid to fall for the Dark Side. TLJ simply revisits this fear as something he didn't fully overcome and that led to Ben's transformation into Kylo Ren. It doesn't portray Ben in a sympathetic light here either, he was already a flawed student and burdened by his own insecurities and shortcomings so Luke merely gave him an excuse to choose the Dark Side - and we're shown conflicting retellings of those events anyway with both retellings being clearly motivated and unreliable.
TFA set up Luke to have failed because there was clearly no big Jedi Academy in his hermitage and if he trained new Jedi before he must have had some reason to have stopped. TLJ gave him a motivation to retreat: his fear had never left him and by losing his nephew and best friend's son to the Dark Side over it, he chose to retreat to avoid causing more harm.
TLJ also gave Luke a full redemption arc. The destruction of the sacred texts symbolically throws off the shackles of dogma that he upheld in his training of new Jedi but that ultimately turned out to be inadequate to overcome his and Ben's own flaws. This establishes that Rey's Jedi training will be different and have to be a strengthening of her character rather than her discipline or abilities. Luke then sacrifices himself not only to help her and the other rebels escape but also to overcome Kylo Ren not with superior power but with compassion and intellect. He plays Kylo Ren's fury and desire for revenge like a fiddle and demonstrates its futility and impotence.
The prequel trilogy overindulged in the "pew pew lasers and swordfights" aspect of the setting the original trilogy provided, TLJ went back to the characters and the meaning behind their actions. It's kinda ironic you keep saying TLJ betrayed the characters because for all I can see it's the first new movie that takes the characters seriously and goes more than just skin deep.
You’re over analyzing the movie. It’s not nearly as profound or well thought out as you imply.
The sequel trilogy folks even admitted that they winged it and didn’t consult each other, on purpose. Resulting in a conflicted mess.
The direct take is that the epitome of hope character—who never gave up on anyone—is changed to an angry milk-drinking murderer who’s main plot point is giving up on family. In the most condescending way, at that.
The author didn’t understand or respect the character. Hamill agreed.
That you are not editing posts down to make a coherent point is perhaps a clue why you don’t appreciate ‘economy of story.’ But you should:
“perfection is attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away” –Exupéry
