• mindbleach
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • Bonehead@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • mindbleach
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        11 months ago

        Yeah they really undermined those guys’ story arcs from #7, like… uh…

        • Bonehead@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          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”.

          • mindbleach
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            11 months ago

            Having seen #9 - were they, though?

            • Bonehead@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              We already established that both characters were sidelined in #8. Trying to fix a character’s arc after its been destroyed is impossible.

              • mindbleach
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                11 months ago

                Right, because JJ never steamrolled the previous movie over a laser-sword.

                “Impossible!” What a ridiculous claim on its face.

                • Bonehead@kbin.social
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                  11 months ago

                  With the amount of stuff crammed into #9, which was a problem in itself because he should have been in control of all 3 movies to have enough time to do it all properly, there was no time to fix 2 side characters while also fixing the problems with the actual main characters. There was too much to fix. That’s why it was impossible.

                  Edit: Really? Downvotes for having a different opinion? You’re taking this all too seriously…have a nice day…

                  • mindbleach
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                    11 months ago

                    I haven’t downvoted anything.

                    Under no circumstances should JJ have been given all three movies. The man is so-so at setting up and absolutely terrible at paying off. Spreading #9’s garbage out into an extra two hours would not have made it less repetitious, whiplash-inducing, and fakeout-festooned.

                    There was nothing to fix. JJ just wanted to pretend the other movie did not happen, and somehow that didn’t involve any additional characterization for the two guys who did Not Much in the previous film. It’s not like they were dead. They just argued, got roped along, and survived.

                    You act like Rose peeled Finn open and took out his Force gland.