Sunday, January 07, 2018

Disney has made Star Wars Too Big Too Fail

"To become a Jedi requires the deepest commitment...the most serious of minds..."

- Yoda

It's okay that the new Star Wars is not for me, just like the new Star Trek before it is not for me.  But the critical appreciation of these movies?  can't we just be honest about this?  Star Wars is too big to fail - we get it.  But why do they have to try to convince us that up is down and down is up?  That a person can become a Jedi with no training, no experience or knowledge of such things whatsoever?  That it's as difficult to move things with your mind as it is to put on a uniform on Halloween?  Why can't they be at peace with the fact that they don't have a meaningful story to tell?  That they are in the business of selling movies and they'll do whatever it takes to sell movies and increase market share & demographic reach?  That Star Wars isn't pop art - it's a product, a commodity?  A business.

Which raises another, more interesting question.  Are there people who loved the trope subversion of Luke saving the Galaxy by the redemptive faith of love rather than cutting Vader's head off AND ALSO love the idea of Old Luke harbouring even a single thought of murdering his own nephew as he slept?  Because, to me, that raises the possibility that a lot of the people who say they love Star Wars are just frontin' because they think its something they have to say.  Vader's last words were 'Tell your sister, you were right.'  There was good inside of him (Vader) and that means there's probably some good left inside of everyone.  That's the lesson of Luke's life.  He might get burned now and again believing it but he'd never stop believing it, certainly not enough to turn his back on everyone he loved - damn sure not enough to turn his back on Ben Solo, his sister's son, his best friend's son.  If someone can easily believe this characterization of Luke - that the person who at 26 threw his lightsaber away and bet his life and the lives of everyone that he cared about on the sliver of good inside his Hitler father didn't become some sort of pacifist holy man who solves every problem with persuasion but instead became the person who at 60 could think murder a solution to his problem - I would question whether they were paying attention to Star Wars in the first place.

It would be like Martin Luther King Jr. getting elected president...and then locking every white person in the country in jail.

But this guy VCI commenting on Kotaku is so wonderfully cynical that I can't bear to write something that has already been written with such bile.  The disappointment that its all a crock of shit by talentless sell-out hacks given that singular directive from corporate to do nothing whatsoever to make it unappealing to a young demographic.

KD

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VCI
ChaseTheSwift
1/03/18 11:51pm
You’re right. The statement “TLG makes TFA more interesting” is a bizarre case of the groupthink going too far. It’s koolaid overdose. TLJ was passable at best and hot garbage at worst. But the zeitgeist is that it is the next Godfather. So in aping that theme we get word salad like “It’s fun if you know that Snoke kind of sucks. “

Uh, no. Part of what made TFA good was the promise and mystery of Snoke. I was not one to spend much time sussing out Snoke’s story but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to finding out more about him in the next movie. He was a very compelling villain due to his obvious power and the intimidation he exuded. Much of that was the mystery and I’m ok keeping it that way, but there was obviously a lot to work with that was left on the creative floor when Kylo kills him with a super simple headfake. To say it’s fun to know he sucks is ingsoc of the highest order. Reading this commentary was like reading “War is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.”


VCI
psyko_faze
1/03/18 11:59pm
What I like best is that all those asshats from the OT are shown for what they really are, washed up losers. Han and Leia are failures as a couple. They are failures as parents. Han has to resort to shit he did 40 years ago. Like a CEO going back to flipping burgers. Leia is leading a failed rebellion into the ground, grinding it into death with weak leadership. Luke failed to train even a handful of Jedi and eventually abandoned his sister and best friend in their times of most dire need. What a bunch of sad fucks. TBH why even make a movie about such a pile of losers? Nobody wants heroes amirite? Why bother? They’re all just phony. What makes good movies is failure and shit sandwiches of douchery. That’s good storytelling. When you can take iconic character and turn them into a shell of their former selves with almost no rational explanation? That’s bold, we need more of it. Here are some more I’d like to see explored.

A Back to the Future where Doc sucks at science and Marty is not cool.

A Rocky where Rocky is in a wheel chair and on trial for domestic abuse.

A Terminator where Arnold suffers from Bulemia and has lost like 80 lbs of muscle and testifies against his old lifting buddies.

An Aliens movie where the xenomorphs are all sterile and can’t reproduce. Also, they’ve become docile and people start keeping them as housepets.

I could go on, but you get the point. We want more unprecedented bravery. More subverted expectations. What’s that? You want the Terminator to terminate? LOL What an antiquated boob. A truly original Terminator movie would absolutely ignore any history of terminating. That would be true character growth and show the movie makers are being honest.

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psyko_faze
VCI
1/04/18 12:42am
I like the cut of your jib...

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emotiondesigner
Kirk Hamilton
1/03/18 10:59pm
I disagree. I’ve seen the last Jedi a pretty large number of times already and the more I watch it, the less it makes sense. It undoes everything in the Force awakens. TFA was all about finding Luke. Which was pointless. It sets up the mystery of who Rey’s parents are and why the light saber called to her and then none of that meant anything or had bearing on what comes next. They didn’t need to find the map to Luke or keep it from Kylo because Luke was never going to do anything but force phone in a fake appearance. Snoke was built up but then was nothing. They needed to destory Star killer base but then that didn’t even effect TFO. At the beginning of TLJ, TFO acts like they didn’t just have a huge planet sized base destroyed right before the film. And the Rebel victory was for nothing because there’s none of them left. If you ask me, the more I watch it, the more it feels like Rian Johnson didn’t even watch the Force Awakens. Either that or he was just like, hmmmm I need to get rid of all of this. In fact TLJ feels like the moment where Rey hands Luke the lightsaber he lost in Empire on cloud city. The light saber that belonged to his father and has played a part in the history of the Galaxy. And then Luke just throws it over his shoulder as if it has no bearing on the story. And that’s an Allegory for What Rian Johnson had to say about The Force Awakens and the Legacy of the journey to that point. He just wanted to wipe the entire slate clean. It doesn’t fit well because all the events of the previous movies amount to nothing and have little to no bearing on Rey’s Journey. I think in a story the events should form a chain of important events and choices that lead to the ending.

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emotiondesigner
emotiondesigner
1/03/18 11:03pm
My biggest problem was Luke. He sensed the dark side in Ben and thought about killing him because if he didn’t, he saw that he would destroy everything he loves. He feels guilty about that so he goes into hiding. Then he finds out that Kylo actually is destroying everything he loves. Kylo killed Han and his sister is in danger. This is a guy who never gave up and always risked everything. He never gave up on Vader. But now he would rather hide on an island than help his sister? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

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VCI
emotiondesigner
1/04/18 12:27am
Oh, shut up about your chain of events. It’s more interesting when the following events subvert our expectations by being completely disconnected and irrational. Didn’t you get the Disney memo?

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VCI
emotiondesigner
1/04/18 12:30am
But isn’t that refreshing!? Ugh. Luke never gave up on Vader when even Yoda and Obi-Wan did. Luke was proven right! In order for this new baby killer Luke to exist, we have to assume he learned nothing from his actions with Vader. No, we have to assume he learned the opposite. That it’s better to kill than to redeem. It’s laughably inconsistent. And the critics are losing their shit because they think it’s growth. Facepalm.

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Cedon
Kirk Hamilton
1/03/18 5:32pm
It’s fun if you know that Snoke kind of sucks.

I loved it when Snoke died, until I realized what a horrible decision for the script that was.

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VCI
Cedon
1/04/18 12:08am
I didn’t mind that he died, but how he died was SO hokey and lame. They seem to have no understanding of power curves in these new movies. They just don’t care. Luke had the exact same setup in RotJ. His saber was sitting right next to the Emperor. You think if that move was possible, he wouldn’t have done it? Or perhaps Lucas knew how hokey it was. Instead he force pulled his saber to his hand, ignited it and struck. This gave Vader a chance to intervene in an incredibly powerful scene. Think about this. If Jedi could actually manipulate their saber and ignite it at range, why would they ever fight hand to hand? Why not just force control sabers from a distance? Like so many things in these movies, it makes no sense and just makes the other movies suddenly have plot holes that they didn’t before.

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Dues1031
VCI
1/04/18 11:53am
I don’t think it would have occurred to Luke honestly. To deceitful. Plus I imagine dueling with any skill via the force would be extremely tiring.

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VCI
Dues1031
1/04/18 12:34pm
It didn’t matter if it occurred to Luke. The Emperor was ready AF. Snoke was a dupe. Beaten by a dark Jedi who was beaten by a girl with no training. Looking back now, the threat of Snoke was all just perception, with nothing behind it. The audiences were dupes as well. That’s one of the reasons TLJ hurts TFA.

And to your second comment, that force controlling a saber would be extremely tiring, that’s grounded in OT lore, which is burned to the ground with that hollowed out old tree. In Disneys galaxy far far away, a girl with no training can defeat a Skywalker trained from birth with a light saber she’s never used before. A girl with no training can use the jedi mind trick she’s never seen performed before. A young dark jedi can easily defeat a supreme leader with the flick of a saber. In Disneys’ galaxy far far away, there is no rhyme nor reason behind force power. No effort at internal consistency. Instead of a story device that is somewhat mysterious and slowly revealed in stages, it has become a pure and unadulterated deus ex machina playground, to be flipped and flopped this way and that with no attempt at a unified vision. In fact, the more rules we toss out, the more ground breaking we are. And if you have a problem with the stories that inevitably result from that, you’re just a butthurt fanboy.

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popjunkie
VCI
1/05/18 5:59pm
For a while I tried to convince myself that Snoke knew Kylo would kill/betray him and it was just part of his path further into the dark side. Alas...

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VCI
popjunkie
1/05/18 6:14pm
There you go trying to find a way to make it good. Don’t bother. I did that with TFA and had actually gotten to a pretty good place, at least, I realized there were lots of potentially cool options that were set up in TFA that any fool could make into a great movie. Annnnnnddddd, they ignored them all.

I mean, they killed Akbar to introduce an unknown general who would go on to set a trap.

I repeat, they killed Akbar to introduce a new general whose one move would be to set a trap.

HOW THE FUCK DID THEY NOT USE AKBAR TO SET A TRAP OMFG!?

Can you imagine that scene where Holdo slams the cruiser into the dreadnaught? Just walk with me a sec. Instead of Holdo at the helm in sacrifice (ignore the ability to program the ship), it’s Akbar, wounded from the earlier attack, bleeding profusely, slumped in his chair, fish paws on the console. Then, the cruiser slowly comes about, to face the dreadnaught. Hux (or whoever it was) looks inquisitively at it, “What is this?” Then the helmsman shouts, “It’s a trap”. We see Akbar smile as he hits the button to engage light speed. FUCKING GLORIOUS. The crowd would have been out of their seats, people talking about it for a generation. Nerd jizz on the screen. Instead, it’s only ever mentioned as visually stunning. No real story impact whatsoever. Fucking waste.

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Kamil Devonish
“FUCKING GLORIOUS. The crowd would have been out of their seats, people talking about it for a generation. Nerd jizz on the screen.”

And in the 10 sec it took for you to think that up that scene, you’ve proved how much more you give a shit about Star Wars.

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