#Phonepunk#
Banned
"I think the instant you start thinking in terms of how do you not step outside of the bounds of what the original movies did, you're not thinking the way the people who made the original movies did," Johnson shared on the Creative Processing with Joseph Gordon-Levitt podcast. "They were with every movie, they were pushing it forward, with every movie they were stepping outside those bounds and pushing the characters into new, emotionally honest, but surprising places. That's why those movies are great. That's why they're alive. If they had been looking at something that came before it and saying, 'Oh, we better not do this because that is outside of this or that,' it would've been different."
Star Wars: The Last Jedi Director Rian Johnson Details His Reasons for Pushing the Saga Forward
Prior to 2017, the most divisive conversations about the Star Wars saga focused on whether fans did or didn’t like the prequel films. The debut of Star Wars: The Last Jedi then became a line in the sand for many audiences, as writer/director Rian Johnson embraced the opportunity to break new...
comicbook.com
A couple of things here:
1) Rian Johnson pretending he did something different. I am tired of this, so very, very tired of it, and it is why I keep talking about TLJ even now. There is this myth going around that everyone who hated the film hated it because it was too different. Personally, I hated it because it was too similar, the whole island thing was incredibly boring and constantly reminded me of Dagobah. When we left the island, I thought, thank God, we can do something new. Immediately he went into the ROTJ throne room, with Rey ending up in cuffs just like Luke, with the whole red guards just like the Emperor, they even lifted dialog directly from the movie. Following that, we immediately cut to AT-ATs and the guy tasting Hoth as "salt". This jackass thinks he can get away with ripping off the OT by promoting these myths that he did something new and unexpected. Please, for the love of God, can we stop pretending he did all this vastly new stuff, when a solid hour and a half of the movie is repeating major chunks of 2/3rds of the OT?
2) "pushing the characters into new, emotionally honest, but surprising places." Luke, sure, fine, but what about the other characters? are new characters "pushed into new, surprising places?"
Rey? she was a one note character crying bout her parents in TFA, same here. was i surprised she effortlessly saves the day? Emotionally honest, I mean she did the whole back and forth thing with Kylo in TFA, not really a drastic shift there. She excels at pilot the Millennium Falcon exactly the same as she excels at using the Force or "confronting the dark side" in that tree stump. She's a consumer there to take the ride in the Star Wars theme park, little has changed. She even watches her friends die just like the last movie. Not new.
Poe, people say he had this great arc, about listening to people, but the supposed conclusion of his grand arc is still him barking orders at other people, only now Leia has given him license to kill. he has shown he can just ignore orders and do whatever and the general is cool with it so he can do whatever. This will serve him well as he went from a guy leading the Resistance to a guy leading the Resistance. In the last film, he is the "best pilot of the Resistance" and in this one he is the same thing. Not new.
Finn, well, what a brave, new place he was taken to, once again having his every agency robbed, being ordered around by military fanatics, considered a possible traitor or thief, always seen with suspicion. Bravo, Rian, for showing this refuge of a fascist army that gambling is bad, and that keeping pet animals is evil. Really brave, emotionally honest storytelling there. No need to explore his youth as a child stolen from a distant planet, brainwashed by a fascist organization, his rejection of murder at the hands of the First Order, nor his near immediate resuming of murder of all his former friends. Last film he was dragged around by a girl, same here.
Kylo, who has turned into a one trick pony at this point, highly emotive, a less imposing Darth Vader with the mask off. He starts and ends at the same place, with the destruction of a key FO asset (to be ignored by the next film) chasing Rey and friends on the Falcon. For all his "complex" emoting, he is still just Space Hitler, with the screen showing him pause to look sad for 2 seconds before killing people, and taking this to be deep storytelling. Again, the mope act was done in the last film as well. Nothing new.
Rian failed on every level except selling his bullshit as brilliant.
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