Star Wars

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Re: Star Wars

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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Star Wars

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"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Star Wars

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Back from seeing TLJ. I'll reserve a lot of my judgement till I see it again—once it comes out on dvd—but neither B nor I cared for it. Rather, I didn't care for its execution. I liked a lot of the ideas within, about reframing old ideas and not being held hostage to old dogma, and I agree a great deal with Conway's generational analysis. And I don't have a problem with various characters' fates or lack of revelation about this character or that, or even characterization (as with some online complaints). But the film itself was, in spite of obvious acts of heroism and sacrifice, terribly bleak and lacking that swashbuckling romanticism of the series. That is, it was a lot like Rogue One, which I thought was a good movie but a poor Star Wars movie. I'm good with dark—TESB is my favourite SW flick—but this was just drenched in despair and doom. TLJ also didn't seem especially coherent, more like a whole lot of set pieces stitched together. So it often felt like one dire, final act fight after another (indeed, much of the movie felt like it should have been the final part of the series). So as an experience, it wasn't all that satisfying. There were some head-scratching plot holes, but meh, I expect that from SW. But I'm hopeful that on a second or third viewing, knowing how things play out, it'll seem more coherent.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Star Wars

Post by Wolter »

You and I saw a very different movie.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Star Wars

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Pretty sure I saw the new Star Wars flick. :huh:
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Star Wars

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We're watching a Revenge of the Sith during Star Wars marathon that's on right now. Perhaps the worst thing about it isn't "Noooooooooo!" but the fact that it's unambiguously the best of the prequels. I remember seeing it in the theatre and being a lot more charitable, thinking it not far from Return of the Jedi in ranking, but the prequels really do exist in their own little zone, away from all the others.

edit: Struck once again by what a cruel and cold-hearted fucker Obi-Wan is, leaving Anakin to die alone and in agony. No compassionate mercy killing for him.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Star Wars

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I liked TLJ.

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Re: Star Wars

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Spoilers, I guess:

Saw TLJ today, I'm gonna respectfully disagree with Doc's assessment of its doom and despair. I was attracted to what I thought was its heart-on-sleeves embrace of heroics - Laura Dern's Admiral Holdo was one of the best realized characters to ever emerge from a Star Wars movie imho, and brought a fairly beautiful portrayal of heroism, hope and sacrifice - and I think any movie that embraces the ethos of not "fighting what we hate, but saving what we love" is pretty damned optimistic in my book. Even when heroic efforts turn out to be disasters - recruiting Benicio Del Toro proved to be, uh, a fairly significant mistake - these missteps aren't condemned in the film as proof of a bankrupt moral order to the universe but instead hard lessons that recommit our protagonists to their most fundamental values.

I don't know if I have a lot of opinion about Luke's view of the Jedi Order, since that's never the sort of thing I cared about in Star Wars* (other than I thought it was mighty white of Luke to realize he had to stop teaching people to use the force once POC and women got interested :shifty: ). These movies, I do think, are infinitely better for having larger portions of the story spent on non-Skywalkers and non-Jedis living their lives and engaging in their own heroics, both small and great.

My rankings, since that's the sort of thing nerds do:

1. The Last Jedi
2. Rogue One
3. A New Hope
4. Return of the Jedi
5. Empire Strikes Back
6. Star Wars Christmas Special :shifty:
7. Attack of the Clones
8. Revenge of the Sith
9. The Phantom Menace

*Addendum: I sort of take that back, upon reflection. I don't have a lot of "in universe" opinion about jedis and shit, but it was a tremendous character arc in the film that resonated with the movie's themes as a whole, which was great.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Star Wars

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I think you're misinterpreting my use of the phrase doom and despair. I was referring to the atmosphere of the film, its presentation. It is a non-stop situation of dancing on the abyss (well, okay, with the exception of Rey's time on Luke's planet). Certainly it sets up conditions for characters to both fail and then to succeed, sometimes thru total sacrifice, which is noble. But the environment in which it takes place is just unrelenting, of being near extinction, constant peril towards being the total end (that's what made it feel less like a middle act than the final one). Cranking the danger to 11 from start to finish hinders the impact, imo. My issue is not with the premise or characterization—people upset about Luke's bitter turn have to reject the entire premise of these new films; why else would he have gone into retreat?—but pacing and grittiness. Even the conclusion, with a dozen people left, suggests more delayed martyrdom than heroic resistance.

But, as I said, I'm hopeful that watching it again and knowing how the story plays out will make that presentation more sensible.

edit: I have to disagree about Holdo's character, btw. A newly introduced character who keeps key information hidden before sacrificing themselves isn't effective portrayal of heroism because the audience has little investment in their survival and therefore their noble demise. I'm not sure why her sacrifice is any more significant than any other hero's, such as Rose's sister at the beginning.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Star Wars

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Eh, never felt any of the way you felt seeing the movie, so hard to really debate it. It always felt high stakes and on the knife's edge I guess, but as a meditation on hope, it constantly invites the viewer to share in that feeling of hope, even when things are bleakest, throughout the movie. Characterizing the end of the flick as an exercise in martyrdom is a very different read from the hope and optimism filled ending I enjoyed.

But to each their own, and such.
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Flex
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Re: Star Wars

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Also, rose's sister's sacrifice was extremely important. I'd never suggest otherwise.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Star Wars

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I can only assume that I'm conveying my thoughts poorly, and for that I apologize. I'm not saying that I don't perceive the essential meaning of hope thru sacrifice—that repeated line in the film about the spark is pretty obvious—it's that the way the narrative was constructed, its rhythm and several of its components, it was hard to take an emotional breather. Given how the entire story played out, if right before those remaining on the Falcon zipped off, would it have been unthinkable that another couple star destroyers showed up and yet another gut-wrenching fight took place? The logic of the movie, I think, made that entirely plausible because, as I've argued, it felt like one set of peril stitched to the next, rather than something building into the next to reach a sensible conclusion.

My comment about Rose's sister's sacrifice isn't that it wasn't important, it's that it's difficult to care about her when she is a generic rebel character—like Holdo. If Rose doesn't show up, does her character even get a name? How is she different from some pilot who gets blown up in his X-Wing? If we want to make Holdo's sacrifice have real impact, make it instead be Leia, someone whose fate we've been invested in for five movies and forty years. Were I to rejigger the story, I'd cut Finn and Rose's detour to the casino planet and get them onto Snoke's ship in a more direct fashion (best I can tell, it's there because those characters need a storyline, not because their mission is integral to the plot) and I'd get rid of the red salt planet altogether. Instead, make the climax on Snoke's ship, Luke doing his projection sacrifice to save Rey and let her escape, while Leia saves the remainder the rebels by doing the ramming speed maneuver. Both Skywalkers sacrifice themselves, one to save the real last jedi, the other to save the resistance. It's a big smashing conclusion on the scale of a Death Star exploding and reinforces the theme of sacrifice/heroism and ensuring that the final movie is solely about the new cast.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Flex
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Re: Star Wars

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Dr. Medulla wrote:
02 Jan 2018, 11:36am
I can only assume that I'm conveying my thoughts poorly, and for that I apologize. I'm not saying that I don't perceive the essential meaning of hope thru sacrifice—that repeated line in the film about the spark is pretty obvious—it's that the way the narrative was constructed, its rhythm and several of its components, it was hard to take an emotional breather. Given how the entire story played out, if right before those remaining on the Falcon zipped off, would it have been unthinkable that another couple star destroyers showed up and yet another gut-wrenching fight took place? The logic of the movie, I think, made that entirely plausible because, as I've argued, it felt like one set of peril stitched to the next, rather than something building into the next to reach a sensible conclusion.
I think I get what you're saying, but I still didn't really read it the way you did watching the flick. Would the Falcon getting vaporized in the final moments have come as a surprise (outside of the metataxtual read that knows a film franchise isn't going to wipe out a ship with all its leads when there's a bankable next installment to film, naturally)? It would have for me, since I think it would have pretty cynically wiped out the struggle and growth that our characters went through this whole time. I guess I'd juxtapose what I think was the movie's careful, deliberate character development against the backdrop of what was (I agree) the most bleak of Star Wars story sequences to date. If the entire thrust of the movie was to interrogate the meaning of heroism, hope and sacrifice (and one of the things I liked was that it landed firmly on the idea that sacrifice in the name of victory is not, inherently, heroic or acceptable. While some life-giving sacrifice was valorised, the movie was equally firm that no life is inherently expendable and there are - perhaps many - times when saving those you love is more important than sacrifice to destroy an enemy) then the Falcon blowing up in that context would have been harshly dissonant. I think the character arcs are so vital to the movie that decoupling them from the scenarios those characters are set into is cleaving away an important tool to reading what's going on in the film, and how we respond to what's on screen.
My comment about Rose's sister's sacrifice isn't that it wasn't important, it's that it's difficult to care about her when she is a generic rebel character—like Holdo. If Rose doesn't show up, does her character even get a name? How is she different from some pilot who gets blown up in his X-Wing? If we want to make Holdo's sacrifice have real impact, make it instead be Leia, someone whose fate we've been invested in for five movies and forty years.
I think that Rogue One, and continuing with this flick, did a lot to give credibility to the franchise for caring about the regular members of the Rebellion who aren't high falutin' generals or Skywalkers. I mean, yeah, Rose's sister is similar to the death of any X-wing fighter, and that's part of the point. Heroic sacrifice isn't something to strive for or to embrace so readily, which is what Holdo's arc grapples with (It helps that the fantastic Laura Dern pulls it off).

As an aside, and not specifically pertaining to this discussion, my special lady friend is of Asian decent and found the inclusion of Rose and her sister's stories in the film extremely powerful.
Were I to rejigger the story, I'd cut Finn and Rose's detour to the casino planet and get them onto Snoke's ship in a more direct fashion (best I can tell, it's there because those characters need a storyline, not because their mission is integral to the plot) and I'd get rid of the red salt planet altogether. Instead, make the climax on Snoke's ship, Luke doing his projection sacrifice to save Rey and let her escape, while Leia saves the remainder the rebels by doing the ramming speed maneuver. Both Skywalkers sacrifice themselves, one to save the real last jedi, the other to save the resistance. It's a big smashing conclusion on the scale of a Death Star exploding and reinforces the theme of sacrifice/heroism and ensuring that the final movie is solely about the new cast.
I'd argue the casino planet plotline is the heart of the film! It continues the importance of the common man in the direction Star Wars is taking us, and the tangible power relationships that make up the long ago and far away Galaxy. It answers one question I had at the beginning of this film - how the heck did the Republic fall so quickly again - by illustrating the ineffectiveness of those institutions and their structural rot (the Republic didn't improve the lives of the people on casino planet, and those weapons dealers worked with both First Order and Republic) and sets up two of our primary moral mouthpieces to work through the importance of helping the concrete, tangible struggles of the dispossed (as opposed to abstracted laser sword battles on star destroyers)

Similarly, the red planet escape - and particularly Rose saving Fynn - concretely verify the heart of the movie: sacrifices may have to be made, but not all sacrifices are noble and necessary. Saving what you love is more important than destroying the enemy. I think Luke's effort on saving the alliance fits well with his growth here: his cynicism has been cast aside in favor of a hope that extends beyond a single Jedi but an embrace of a more nuanced understanding of struggle, hope and sacrifice that aligns with what the movie has been moving us towards itself.

In any case, this movie more than any other of the franchise, has gotten me excited about Star Wars as something more than a fun, escapist romp.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
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Re: Star Wars

Post by Wolter »

I’d argue that the casino planet is where Finn becomes a real member of the rebellion instead of just caring about Rey.
”INDER LOCK THE THE KISS THREAD IVE REALISED IM A PRZE IDOOT” - Thomas Jefferson

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