Rose is the protagonist. TLJ is an anti-war movie about a soldier losing faith in the cause. This is thematically echoed by the incompetent bickering between officers during a low-speed chase, the hidden mentor telling the alleged main character that magic can’t be owned, the evil dragon telling her that nobody owes her a destiny, and the aggressively unsubtle metaphor of freeing the casino-planet’s animals to inspire the enslaved children who casually use magic while looking to the stars.
The Last Jedi is about Rose stopping Finn from deserting again, ‘or her sister died for nothing,’ and then stopping Finn from repeating her sister’s sacrifice. Disney claims they didn’t fuck with anything in the story. Disney is plainly lying. The last twenty minutes after that are a panicked rush to undo and nuh-uh every prior element of the movie.
How that anarchist response to Star Wars got made into an actual Star Wars film is beyond me. Certainly, it was not a good movie, as released. But it was easily the least stupid of the three, and invited people to imagine this universe beyond one family of space wizards, and everybody fucking haaated that.
The good ending to the movie would’ve been leaving Kylo’s offer unanswered, or at least leaving Rey’s destination ambiguous. In the absence of her showing up to deus ex machina an exit - it should’ve been some nobody. A shellshocked grunt wandering around back, finding those CGI foxes, and getting the are-you-seeing-this shot as she magics eight tons of rock into midair. She doesn’t have lines. She doesn’t have a name. Who she is does not matter. That’s what the entire rest of the movie was writing in eight-foot-high letters: anyone can be a hero.
Finn was serial number Stormtrooper that broke ranks, joined a rebellion, and started discovering his own connection to the Force. Poe was a decorated war hero. Both arcs were better than “my sister died so now I have to be all whiny about it”.
Cavalry raid riding large animals on top of a Star Destroyer that is lifting off into space.
That is all.
That was #9.
You’re right. Sorry.
2 hour long chase through space with a weird side trip to a casino that ultimately had absolutely zero effect on the plot.
Edit: Which also completely neutered and sidelined the black male lead and made all the men either cranky or just dumb in comparison to women.
My guy, that was the plot.
Rose is the protagonist. TLJ is an anti-war movie about a soldier losing faith in the cause. This is thematically echoed by the incompetent bickering between officers during a low-speed chase, the hidden mentor telling the alleged main character that magic can’t be owned, the evil dragon telling her that nobody owes her a destiny, and the aggressively unsubtle metaphor of freeing the casino-planet’s animals to inspire the enslaved children who casually use magic while looking to the stars.
The Last Jedi is about Rose stopping Finn from deserting again, ‘or her sister died for nothing,’ and then stopping Finn from repeating her sister’s sacrifice. Disney claims they didn’t fuck with anything in the story. Disney is plainly lying. The last twenty minutes after that are a panicked rush to undo and nuh-uh every prior element of the movie.
How that anarchist response to Star Wars got made into an actual Star Wars film is beyond me. Certainly, it was not a good movie, as released. But it was easily the least stupid of the three, and invited people to imagine this universe beyond one family of space wizards, and everybody fucking haaated that.
The good ending to the movie would’ve been leaving Kylo’s offer unanswered, or at least leaving Rey’s destination ambiguous. In the absence of her showing up to deus ex machina an exit - it should’ve been some nobody. A shellshocked grunt wandering around back, finding those CGI foxes, and getting the are-you-seeing-this shot as she magics eight tons of rock into midair. She doesn’t have lines. She doesn’t have a name. Who she is does not matter. That’s what the entire rest of the movie was writing in eight-foot-high letters: anyone can be a hero.
Except for the black guy. Or any other men. Which was established in the first 20 minutes, before the execs got involved.
Yeah they really undermined those guys’ story arcs from #7, like… uh…
Finn was serial number Stormtrooper that broke ranks, joined a rebellion, and started discovering his own connection to the Force. Poe was a decorated war hero. Both arcs were better than “my sister died so now I have to be all whiny about it”.
Having seen #9 - were they, though?
We already established that both characters were sidelined in #8. Trying to fix a character’s arc after its been destroyed is impossible.