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shadowkat1. From elisi - This is not Going to Go The Way You Think - The Last Jedi is a Subversive AF and I Am Here For it.
I'd say that this isn't the only film or television series, or book this year that has pushed this theme or view. Everything I've seen to date has -- and I watch a lot of television, read a lot, and seen a wide group of films. At top volume. It's as if people looked at what happened in 2016 at the ult-conservatives who voted with hate and fear and bigotry in their hearts and souls -- and shouted with a thunderous roar - NO! What's odd is Last Jedi was filmed in 2015 -2017.
Our culture is shifting folks. Finally.
That said? I still think the movie would have benefited greatly from a good editor. A lot of those themes got a bit lost in all the tiresome action sequences and fight scenes that went on and on and on, and the horrid plotting. I know of several critics who would have loved seeing that theme but were distracted by the aforementioned bad plotting and pacing.
* I kinda love Whil Wheaton -- his blog post I agree with for the most part. (I thought the action sequences went on too long. And no, cramming two movies into one isn't always a good thing.) - This is non-spoilery.
* We Need to Talk About Last Jedi Controversy
When I told my 75 year old mother about the controversy she had the same reaction as Harrison Ford most likely would -- "really, I can't believe you are reading this stuff. It's unbelievably silly."
Apparently it has escaped my mother's notice that I'm a geek and a bit of a nerd. (You'd think she would have figured it out with the whole Buffy bit.) Much like her cousin. There's a nerd in every family, it landed on me. I find discussing this stuff endlessly entertaining and amusing. It's a nice distraction from real life worries I can't do a damn thing about. And besides, Star Wars was technically speaking my first serious fandom. (I was about 11 or 12 when I saw it in 1978. I got the action figures for Xmas, which much to my mother's chagrin later sold for more than her couch. Actually they got more than just about anything else in their estate auction. Blew her mind. She keeps talking about it. I saw the Holiday Special -- it was horrible, and I've forgotten 98% of it thankfully. Read various books -- the radio play, Alan Dean Foster's Splinter in the Mind's Eye, all the novelisations of the films (by the way, the novelization of Return of the Jedi is much better than the film. I thoroughly spoiled for both Empire and Jedi, because I read the books first), the novels that followed the first series of films, some comic books, the prequels, the animated series The Clone Wars...I gave up after the last of the prequels, which sort of soured me on the franchise and Lucas. Partially because I'd been anticipating the prequels for twenty years, had written fanfic in my head about them, and well -- in short I set myself up for epic disappointment. I can't say I hated them exactly, the middle film wasn't bad.)
Anyhow I rather like this link because I sort of agree with both sides.
* Crazy Long Rolling Stone Interview with Mark Hamil and Rian Johnson
*
The Star Wars Last Jedi Backlash Controversy Explained
Some interesting passages from this link are below:
Interesting -- the divide between how a professional film scholar/critic views plot and a fan views it. It's true -- I took cinema studies in undergrad and was taught to see how craft and theme worked visually, and paid less attention to plot. Also my brother who had been a film major, did the same thing to a greater extent. He's not found of plotty films, and tends to focus on craft and visuals more. I'm not saying there's a right or wrong way of looking at it -- just that this explains the divide between the two point of views. Or why a film critic may love Jedi but not Greatest Showman, or prefer Jedi to Force Awakens, while the average movie goer might prefer Force Awakens. Various film critics felt Force Awakens was a fun movie but didn't have anything to say because JJ Abrahams has nothing much to say, while Last Jedi had oodles to say.
I highlighted the bits of that which are worth noting. I think differences in philosophy are at the root of some of our current political and cultural wars. A while back I found myself knee deep in a philosophical battle with someone regarding feminism. I gave up, because we, well, I realized we just had to agree to respectfully disagree. The philosophical divide between us was too deep. And we started talking at one another or pontificating as opposed to actually communicating and connecting.
Which is why it is almost impossible to have a meaningful and productive political discussion on social media with someone. Sooner or later it derails into name-calling and well a good old fashioned pissing contest. This is true of ship wars, and fandom wars as well. I've grown too old for that. And no longer have the patience for it that I had when I was in my twenties and thirties. Now? I'm tend to shrug and think, this is silly and getting me nowhere. I've got better things to do.
As tempting as it is to write long persuasive essays on these topics. Time and experience has taught me that..in the end, all you are doing is preaching to the choir, the congregation either is ignoring you, telling you to stick it, or left the building.
That said, our inability to put our collective egos to one side and actually listen to another perspective that is vastly different from our own -- and try to understand it, and kindly question and think about it, may well be why we've had so many wars and violent infractions. To listen with kindness, not anger, not hate, not judgement, is something I'm working on. But I have a lot of triggers apparently, and considering I still can't make it through one of Trump's speeches without feeling an overwhelming need to throw meat, rotten fruits and various garbage at the speaker..is telling. Until I can do that, I don't trust myself to discuss these things. I may never be able to do it with certain people. We all need to acknowledge our flaws, don't we?
Anyhow, I tend to agree with the writer of that article for the most part.
Interesting, I didn't know that about Empire or don't remember that. Also, I always thought Return was a weak film. (I remember being disappointed in it. While I loved Empire.)
Do however agree -- middle films are hard. However, as a writer? I tend to be better at middles than beginnings and endings -- which is a problem. I'd be better off if I was the opposite.
I thought this bit really answers some of the recent online criticisms I've seen of the film.
And this final non-spoilery bit -- is well what I thought about when I saw the Doctor Who Christmas Special and the controversy over the female Doctor Who earlier this summer, which in some ways reflects the current fan controversy over Last Jedi. [Anyone else feel as if the US is echoing the Brits? They vote for Brexit, we elect Trump. Who knew the two countries still identified that closely culturally and politically speaking?] And, you could just as easily substitute the words Doctor Who for Last Jedi/Star Wars and it would have the same meaning. I said years ago, that Star Wars was in some respects the American take on Doctor Who -- a sci-fi politically themed fun series aimed at kids, and adults. And like Doctor Who -- it has dramatically changed it's verse for the new generation.
It’s not enough to destroy the old order from without. The Last Jedi demands that we examine our own complicity in the corruption of the old ways. Poe’s belief that all problems can be solved by shooting something down is shown as dangerous when unchecked; it’s the same toxic masculinity wielded by Kylo Ren, and a mainstay of war culture. The film indicts war culture and toxic masculinity throughout. Leia slaps and demotes Poe for sacrificing lives to bring down a dreadnought instead of escaping as ordered (“dead heroes. And no leaders”). Later, after his failed mutiny, she tells him that Holdo was more interested in “saving the light rather than looking like a hero.” But nowhere is the struggle against our own complicity with war culture more prominent than when Benicio Del Toro’s amoral DJ reveals to Finn and Rose that the “worst people in the galaxy”– the wealthy arms dealers who congregate at the Canto Bight casino– make their money selling weapons to both the First Order and the Resistance.
The Last Jedi has a clear message: The nearly all-white, overwhemingly male, privilege-based way of thinking that celebrates war culture and toxic masculinity and that created the First Order has to go, both in the larger world and as it’s internalized in our hearts and minds, and in its place will be something entirely new, created by diverse young people who are walking away from war culture, walking away from toxic masculinity, walking away from systems of privilege. What new society will they create? We don’t know. But we do know that old ways of thinking have failed us in every possible way. The wisest of the older generation, like Luke, have known this for a long time. The selfish, small-minded, hateful, and power-hungry in the older generation will continue to hunt and seduce the next generation, but the light still stands. No matter how much power they accrue, no matter how many angry young white men they convince we are the enemy, the light still stands. The future is brown, and female, and brilliant, and fierce, does not give even one single fuck about the way things used to be.
Those who wanted a safe and comforting Star Wars movie are understandably upset. The Last Jedi is anything but safe. It’s as subversive as it gets, and I am here for it.
I'd say that this isn't the only film or television series, or book this year that has pushed this theme or view. Everything I've seen to date has -- and I watch a lot of television, read a lot, and seen a wide group of films. At top volume. It's as if people looked at what happened in 2016 at the ult-conservatives who voted with hate and fear and bigotry in their hearts and souls -- and shouted with a thunderous roar - NO! What's odd is Last Jedi was filmed in 2015 -2017.
Our culture is shifting folks. Finally.
That said? I still think the movie would have benefited greatly from a good editor. A lot of those themes got a bit lost in all the tiresome action sequences and fight scenes that went on and on and on, and the horrid plotting. I know of several critics who would have loved seeing that theme but were distracted by the aforementioned bad plotting and pacing.
* I kinda love Whil Wheaton -- his blog post I agree with for the most part. (I thought the action sequences went on too long. And no, cramming two movies into one isn't always a good thing.) - This is non-spoilery.
* We Need to Talk About Last Jedi Controversy
When I told my 75 year old mother about the controversy she had the same reaction as Harrison Ford most likely would -- "really, I can't believe you are reading this stuff. It's unbelievably silly."
Apparently it has escaped my mother's notice that I'm a geek and a bit of a nerd. (You'd think she would have figured it out with the whole Buffy bit.) Much like her cousin. There's a nerd in every family, it landed on me. I find discussing this stuff endlessly entertaining and amusing. It's a nice distraction from real life worries I can't do a damn thing about. And besides, Star Wars was technically speaking my first serious fandom. (I was about 11 or 12 when I saw it in 1978. I got the action figures for Xmas, which much to my mother's chagrin later sold for more than her couch. Actually they got more than just about anything else in their estate auction. Blew her mind. She keeps talking about it. I saw the Holiday Special -- it was horrible, and I've forgotten 98% of it thankfully. Read various books -- the radio play, Alan Dean Foster's Splinter in the Mind's Eye, all the novelisations of the films (by the way, the novelization of Return of the Jedi is much better than the film. I thoroughly spoiled for both Empire and Jedi, because I read the books first), the novels that followed the first series of films, some comic books, the prequels, the animated series The Clone Wars...I gave up after the last of the prequels, which sort of soured me on the franchise and Lucas. Partially because I'd been anticipating the prequels for twenty years, had written fanfic in my head about them, and well -- in short I set myself up for epic disappointment. I can't say I hated them exactly, the middle film wasn't bad.)
Anyhow I rather like this link because I sort of agree with both sides.
* Crazy Long Rolling Stone Interview with Mark Hamil and Rian Johnson
*
The Star Wars Last Jedi Backlash Controversy Explained
Some interesting passages from this link are below:
The Last Jedi is more or less a metaphorical depiction of the baby boomer generation (a generation that featured a lot of white dudes — good and bad — in positions of power) handing off leadership roles to younger generations, particularly millennials, who tend to be more racially diverse and to advocate having more women in positions of power. The series’ millennial good guys are a young white woman, a black man, a woman of Asian descent, and a Latino man, while its millennial bad guys are two white dudes.
Individual plot lines/moments don’t make sense: As with all movies of this scope and size, there are seeming plot holes in The Last Jedi if you start to pick it apart. (One that kinda bugs me: How does Benicio Del Toro’s character know a very important piece of information late in the film? You can hand-wave this away, but it takes a couple of logic leaps to do so*.) This is especially true of the film’s pacing, with Rey’s Jedi training seeming to take months, while everything else in the movie takes place over a matter of hours.
The most common complaint in this regard is that Finn and Rose’s journey to the casino planet of Canto Bight is a slow, pointless distraction from the more immediately involving plots involving Rey and Poe, one that gums up the middle of the movie and doesn’t amount to anything in terms of the plot. And I can certainly see this, since the Finn/Rose plot nearly lost me the first time I watched the film.
But when you reach the third act, and the thematic impact of this plot clicks into place (as the Atlantic’s David Sims has written about here), it becomes more impressive within the whole of the film. Put simply, Johnson’s film, on a first watch, seems to have a lot of pieces that don’t fit, because he’s not planning to make them fit until the film’s very end. And that can be taxing to watch.
Ultimately, these sorts of plot holes and storytelling choices are of less interest to critics, who tend to focus more on a film’s craft and its themes, than fans, who like to pick apart the nitty-gritty details of a movie. And I’d argue that almost all of the so-called “plot holes” fans have brought up are ultimately explained away within the film, or justified by how they play into the movie’s overall storytelling structure. It’s rare in this film that a setup doesn’t have a payoff and vice versa. But they’re not always where you’re looking for them, and that can lead to confusion and consternation.
Interesting -- the divide between how a professional film scholar/critic views plot and a fan views it. It's true -- I took cinema studies in undergrad and was taught to see how craft and theme worked visually, and paid less attention to plot. Also my brother who had been a film major, did the same thing to a greater extent. He's not found of plotty films, and tends to focus on craft and visuals more. I'm not saying there's a right or wrong way of looking at it -- just that this explains the divide between the two point of views. Or why a film critic may love Jedi but not Greatest Showman, or prefer Jedi to Force Awakens, while the average movie goer might prefer Force Awakens. Various film critics felt Force Awakens was a fun movie but didn't have anything to say because JJ Abrahams has nothing much to say, while Last Jedi had oodles to say.
The characters’ journeys aren’t what was expected: This is probably the fan critique with the most meat to it. But it’s also, ultimately, the one that has the most personal spin on it. Do you think that Rey’s journey in the film shows the slow dawning of her realization that she has agency in and of herself and doesn’t need it to be given to her (as I do), or do you think it silos her off in the middle of a plot that takes her movie from her?
Do you think that Luke Skywalker is an old man who learns a lesson about aging and wisdom, or a cranky cynic who never would have become what he is? Do you think the movie is optimistic about the future, or unable to compete with the wonders of the past?
What’s interesting about the critiques of The Last Jedi is how often, when you talk about them, many of the above criticisms fall away, and you’re left with a distinct philosophical difference between people who love the film’s insistence that the future can be better if we make it and those who don’t like the way it forces us to grapple with the sins of the past, with the way it argues the Rebellion might have won at the end of Return of the Jedi, but it largely upheld the status quo.
Or consider the way that the film seems as if it’s largely left behind the central Force Awakens trio of Poe, Finn, and Rey — who are split up into three separate plot lines in Last Jedi — in favor of more focus on Kylo Ren’s journey through his own indecision toward something darker and more foreboding, as well as Luke’s journey from cynicism back to hope. I don’t think this is a terribly accurate read of the film, where all three characters get full, complicated character arcs and are tested in interesting ways, but if you really keyed in on, say, Finn and Rey’s interplay in Force Awakens, I get the disappointment.
This philosophical difference of opinion extends to none other than Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself. While Hamill has turned into one of the film’s biggest boosters, he’s made no secret of the fact that he disagreed considerably with Johnson’s vision for the character. (For his part, Johnson took Hamill’s criticisms to heart and changed certain things about Luke’s arc — though we don’t know what.)
That push and pull between director and star resulted in one of the best performances in any Star Wars film, but its existence gave lots of fans leeway to question Johnson’s intentions, as Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson has written about astutely.
It’s impossible to figure out, too, where any given Star Wars fan will fall along this divide. Consider this Twitter exchange between authors Rainbow Rowell (who loved the film) and Noelle Stevenson (who didn’t). It’s clear they’re both huge Star Wars fans, but it’s also clear they were looking for very different things in Last Jedi. One found it, and the other just didn’t.
And if you think about that exchange for just a little longer, you’ll realize something key: What works about The Last Jedi for some of us is also what doesn’t work about it for others. And that’s intimately tied to what this film and what this trilogy as a whole are.
I highlighted the bits of that which are worth noting. I think differences in philosophy are at the root of some of our current political and cultural wars. A while back I found myself knee deep in a philosophical battle with someone regarding feminism. I gave up, because we, well, I realized we just had to agree to respectfully disagree. The philosophical divide between us was too deep. And we started talking at one another or pontificating as opposed to actually communicating and connecting.
Which is why it is almost impossible to have a meaningful and productive political discussion on social media with someone. Sooner or later it derails into name-calling and well a good old fashioned pissing contest. This is true of ship wars, and fandom wars as well. I've grown too old for that. And no longer have the patience for it that I had when I was in my twenties and thirties. Now? I'm tend to shrug and think, this is silly and getting me nowhere. I've got better things to do.
As tempting as it is to write long persuasive essays on these topics. Time and experience has taught me that..in the end, all you are doing is preaching to the choir, the congregation either is ignoring you, telling you to stick it, or left the building.
That said, our inability to put our collective egos to one side and actually listen to another perspective that is vastly different from our own -- and try to understand it, and kindly question and think about it, may well be why we've had so many wars and violent infractions. To listen with kindness, not anger, not hate, not judgement, is something I'm working on. But I have a lot of triggers apparently, and considering I still can't make it through one of Trump's speeches without feeling an overwhelming need to throw meat, rotten fruits and various garbage at the speaker..is telling. Until I can do that, I don't trust myself to discuss these things. I may never be able to do it with certain people. We all need to acknowledge our flaws, don't we?
Anyhow, I tend to agree with the writer of that article for the most part.
If you look back all the way to 1980, to the earliest reviews and reactions to The Empire Strikes Back, now almost universally acclaimed as the best Star Wars film, you’ll find lots and lots of people talking about what a disappointment the film was compared to its predecessor. (Look, here’s the New York Times doing just that!) What’s more, if you look to reviews of 1983’s Return of the Jedi, now largely written off as the weakest of the original trilogy, a lot of them talk about the film as a return to form.
My point is this: Beginnings and endings are (comparatively) easy; middles are hard. And, as Rian Johnson points out in an interview with Vox’s own Alissa Wilkinson, The Last Jedi, like Empire before it, is a very middle movie:
Especially when your job is to make a good movie, and making a good movie means drama, and drama means throwing roadblocks in the way of the easy answers and the expectations. That means in some ways you’re going to be butting up against your own instincts as to what you as a fan want. You have to defy wish fulfillment in order to tell a good story — especially to tell a good second act of a story, which is what the middle chapter basically is.
The central theme of The Last Jedi isn’t good versus evil. It’s not figuring out how to be good. It’s not even about flirting with temptation (as Empire arguably was).
Interesting, I didn't know that about Empire or don't remember that. Also, I always thought Return was a weak film. (I remember being disappointed in it. While I loved Empire.)
Do however agree -- middle films are hard. However, as a writer? I tend to be better at middles than beginnings and endings -- which is a problem. I'd be better off if I was the opposite.
It is a movie about knowing what’s right and doing that, even though everything else in the universe is stacked against you. It is a movie about why you might start a rebellion against a fascistic order, rather than simply going along with the status quo. Part of the movie is about how the worst people in the universe aren’t even the First Order, but the rich profiteers who are happy to go along with whoever’s in power, so long as they keep making a few bucks.
The theme of The Last Jedi, then, is about being tested, about having everything you value thrown into question and figuring out for yourself the right thing to do. You can’t make the world perfectly safe for your metaphorical children. You will fail them, and they will fail you.
But sometimes they fall into simpering self-pity (as Kylo Ren does), and sometimes they rise above what even you expected of them (as Rey does). It is easy to be a good guy in other Star Wars movies, because the lines between good and evil are clearly drawn. They aren’t in The Last Jedi, and that makes the moments when good and hope triumph all the more powerful.
And the movie does, occasionally, undercut itself in this regard. To wit: I’m not precisely sure why Holdo’s sacrifice is noble but Finn’s thwarted sacrifice was considered foolhardy. But even when it can’t seem to reconcile its headier ideas with the fact that it’s a swashbuckling space adventure, the movie will always save itself at the last minute — as when Rose explains that she saved Finn because you need to save what you love, not destroy what you hate (something Holdo did as well, if you think about it).
To say that a movie espousing these ideals being released at the end of 2017 is timely is, once again, an understatement. But even if it didn’t have political resonance with this particular moment in history, The Last Jedi would have resonance with this particular moment in Star Wars history.
I thought this bit really answers some of the recent online criticisms I've seen of the film.
And this final non-spoilery bit -- is well what I thought about when I saw the Doctor Who Christmas Special and the controversy over the female Doctor Who earlier this summer, which in some ways reflects the current fan controversy over Last Jedi. [Anyone else feel as if the US is echoing the Brits? They vote for Brexit, we elect Trump. Who knew the two countries still identified that closely culturally and politically speaking?] And, you could just as easily substitute the words Doctor Who for Last Jedi/Star Wars and it would have the same meaning. I said years ago, that Star Wars was in some respects the American take on Doctor Who -- a sci-fi politically themed fun series aimed at kids, and adults. And like Doctor Who -- it has dramatically changed it's verse for the new generation.
The first Star Wars film debuted 40 years ago. [Doctor Who fifty years ago]. The fans who grew up with it not only have kids of their own, but those kids have grown up to have their own ideas of what Star Wars [Doctor Who] is and what it should be. It’s a franchise that is torn between the lefty ideals of George Lucas [BBC writers] (who initially envisioned the Rebels as the Viet Cong and the Empire as the United States) [okay you'll have to come up with your own analogy for Britain] and the fact that it became a major capitalist cash cow.
It’s a franchise that seems to want to break new ground with this new trilogy [new Doctor], but is also sprinkling in prequels about old, beloved characters amid its new chapters. The Force Awakens was attacked for being too slavish to the old Star Wars movies [Russell T Davies Doctor similarly]; The Last Jedi [the new Doctor] is being attacked for not being slavish enough.
An idea I’ve seen bandied about a lot online in the wake of the backlash is that Star Wars [Doctor Who] is for everyone, not just a certain subset of fans who feel a certain way about the projects. Whether you love Rey [Bill/Capadali] or Luke [Tennant/Rose] best, whether you think Jar Jar Binks [Nardol] is hilarious or not, whether you think Han shot first or not [Doctor lonely god or madman with a box] — Star Wars [Doctor Who] is for you, and for everybody who disagrees with you too.
But having that big of a tent (and Star Wars [Doctor Who] just might be our last big-tent [British] American pop culture thing) means you inevitably have to rub elbows with people who’ve entered the tent thinking something very different from what you think. If Star Wars [Doctor Who] is going to continue being a major force in pop culture, then it needs to keep adapting.
But if it’s going to keep pleasing those who love it most, then it needs to stay preserved in amber (or, if you will, frozen in carbonite), leaving Luke Skywalker [Doctor] as the best boy [the best man] who ever lived and continuing to tell endless variations on the story of a [alien white guy] young kid from a nowhere planet who learns he’s part of the biggest saga of them all. But that kind of fetishization of what’s come before is the quickest way to kill off a pop culture artifact.
The Last Jedi [the Doctor Who Christmas Special] is about this tension, about the ways that generations uneasily give way to other generations and the ways we all learn to accept that our parents (or parental figures) sometimes have the right answers and sometimes don’t. It’s a big, bold, complex film [take on Doctor Who], full of contradictory notes, a little like Empire was. I suspect, in time, it will age just as satisfactorily, but it’s also possible I’m wrong. Loving it means letting go, just a little bit, of some rosy past and embracing a future that might lead to disappointment.
The people we were aren’t always the people we become, and that’s both a necessary lesson and a bitter disappointment, but you can’t become yourself without learning to live alongside that discomfort. And now there’s a Star Wars movie [Doctor Who arc] about that very dilemma, right when we all might need it most.