The Last Jedi Thread (with Spoilers)

“Star Wars for adults” about a teenage boy with a destiny made by a guy who made a shitty pointless sequel to Blade Runner and a movie that was Iike Contact with Jodie Foster but with a worse actress. Yeah no. Zero percent chance that a 100 million dollar movie will keep the “Shai Hulud will cleanse this world” stuff with the manipulative protagonist who of course does exactly that with zero hesitation. Look at who they cast. Aquaman and Hans Zimmer. There’s no way Warner Brothers can afford to make a multipart movie that climaxes with the protagonist smoking worm shit to genocidally jihad across the known universe. How will they slap Space Hitler on a Slurpee cup? He better surf down sandworms like Legolas.

 

Dune: The Musical

 

I'm not debating that Rian Johnson made a movie and called it Starwars, I'm debating whether that piece of crap is At All in keeping with the spirit of the movies that made Starwars an important enough franchise to its fans to still be making sequels 40 years later in the first place. In that regard, this was, IMO, an absolute turd, and hardly a Starwars movie.

Again, I'm all for Social Justice, messages of tolerance and acceptance, intellectualism and art... but putting that shit in a film and calling it Starwars while you completely f**k up The Force, Hyperspace, Iconic and Beloved Decades Old Characters that we'll never have a chance to see again in a film whose plot and sub plot and dialogue are absolute laughable jokes (and is proud of itself, geezus...) ... Naw Man, that ain't Starwars, that's a bunch of bullshit.

 

“Forcing” that shit into the film would be more accurate. Some may accuse the first modern sequel, and Star Trek: Discovery for that matter, of having a liberal bent. But what was done largely fit with the narrative and universe, even if it wasn’t a common perspective. Personally I found them incredibly refreshing. But there’s so much bullshit in episode 8 that just doesn’t work, agenda or no.

Episode 8 was a bad film first and foremost because it was a bad film. The ham fisted liberal/equality stuff was bad because it was ham fisted shoehorned crap, highlighted much more so because it was plastered atop a bad film that would inherently draw widespread attention.

 

Mate Blade Runner 2049 was great, the only people I know that didn't like it have verifiable shit taste in films and think Solo was "totally awesome man". If you think its slow or dull there are a whole host of Fast & Furious films waiting for you, explosions and naked chicks galore. Warner Brothers poured cash into Blade Runner, a film with an extremely niche audience which is part of an IP the greater movie going audience couldn't give a shit about. Villeneuve requested pretty much a media blackout beforehand and an extremely unforthcoming trailer, both moves that studios hate doing as they are box office suicide.

The dude even said in an interview that halfway through filming he knew it wasn't going to do well in theatres and he didn't care, got a huge release anyway. Why would their support of Dune be any different? Maybe someone at Warner Bros actually wants to release some interesting films this decade.

Do you actually know anything about it or did you just get bored watching the trailer with all the other Black Panther acolytes?

 

Star Wars has always had aspects of social justice, inclusion and diversity. The Empire is a stand in for Nazis, but it’s also a stand in for America during Vietnam. The Rebels were analogs for the Vietcong. The Rebels were always shown as a diverse group of people from all over the galaxy, while the Empire was pretty much all white men. These themes are fully present in the OT and yet people think they’re being “forced” into the sequels. It’s simply nonsense. Part of the reason Star Wars is so beloved around the world is because any of us can relate to the Rebels, relate to their struggles and their desire for a more just and fair world.

The prequels were in part a commentary on the W. Bush administration. The films have always been political and have always criticized American imperialism as one of its many political themes.

Without social justice, Star Wars has no meaning. It’s a series about a bunch of self important space wizards who ruin life for everyone in a galaxy without themes of justice and good triumphing over evil.

You’re free to hate TLJ, but to me it’s as Star Wars of a movie as has ever been made.

 

Wow, everyone here seems so polarised about this topic! It's surprising to me.

For me, the recent Star Wars films were so blah that I don't remember them much. I watched the YouTube clips in the thread, and sometimes remembered, but mostly didn't, and had to go to wikipedia to look up the plot of the movie to even remember what it was about. And the prior film, too. I do remember thinking, while watching it in theatre, that it was Disney trying to just reboot A New Hope for a new generation, because it had so many parallels with the original. (Once I read the plot, I remembered how I'd felt about it).

The opposite of love in this case isn't hate, but rather ambivalence. It's hard to debate one viewpoint or the other when you just don't care. And perhaps that's really the biggest critique of the films for the makers.

 

It's getting there slowly, that's for sure. But yeah, this thread is a good example, after all this time, people are still either very bitter or defending it valiantly.

 

I think TFA feels stronger after seeing where the story goes in TLJ. The things that felt like retreads now feel more like rhythmic echoes that serve as a launching pad for this new generation.

In the same way the prequels were derided and later accepted by the fan base, I think we’ll see the same thing with the sequels.

 

While I've seen a few people here and there change their minds, the vast majority of SW fans still seem to hate the prequels. If anything the hate only got stronger over time.

 

There will always be people who hate the prequels, but I’d say by and large those films have been accepted by the fanbase, including people who used to trash them (myself included). It’s a combo of kids who grew up with the PT getting older, plus The Clone Wars series giving people a new appreciation for that era.

 

And memes, don't forget the memes!

Doubt that it'll happen for squels though. SW will probably die.

 

There’s a whole new generation who are now growing up on the sequels. Star Wars will live on without a doubt.

 

The prequels tried to expand the OT and failed miserably. TLJ tried to take a shit on the OT and most of its fans and did a magnificent job.

None of those movies deserve any respect.

 

I definitely agree on the political aspect of the Empire representing Nazis, but not so much America. If that was the case, Communists could also be represented by the Empire, or even Britain.

Whether people like it or not, TLJ IS A STAR WARS movie, and there is nothing anyone can do to change that fact. For better or worse, it is what it is.

I also liked "Solo", and watched it again the other day.

 

Maybe I'm just confusing the word "accepted", because I'm not under the impression anybody who hated the prequels are suddenly under any delusion that they're actually good movies now. I mean they're still trash and are still considered a joke. Absolutely abysmal on every level. Memes are making fun of them. Maybe "accepted" means they are no longer disowning them like a black sheep family member and see them as having some value on a completionist level? I would like to see some evidence of this supposed turn around though, since over the years I've frequented forums and news stories, the prequels were always derided by most people. Is there some sort of online poll I'm not aware of?

I also can't really take anybody who grew up during the prequel era seriously. No offense to those individuals. I would actually expect the opposite. There are tons of bad movies I grew up with that got a pass because of the naivite of youth, but once I got older and my tastes matured I could see their failings. If anything the prequels would fare worse the older one gets, not better. This is of course still assuming "accepted" means "thinks is good". I could be misunderstanding the term here.

 

Lucas may have used Nazis as reference for an Evil Empire but to say that the Empire represented Nazis is pretty debatable.

Lucas lifted WWII aerial dogfights, shot by shot, from films of WWII planes. That doesn't mean the X-Wings represent P52 Mustangs or that Tie Fighters were representing German FW-190s.

The OT was inspired by Flash Gordon for f**k's sake. It's not social commentary, it's a laser sword movie. Sometimes laser sword movies are Just laser sword movies.

 

I grew up with the prequels and absolutely loved them. I was 11 when episode 1 came out, so I was definitely the target audience, but the older I got the more I realized how bad they were. Now when we do marathons we skip Ep. 1 entirely and watch 2 and 3 for a laugh.

For the record I really liked both TFA and TLJ. They aren't perfect, but despite the missteps I think they did a lot of things right. Maybe in 10-15 years I'll think the sequels suck too, but for now I can just enjoy them.

 

They may not be nazis, but they are definitely fascists.

 

I get it, you don’t like anything but the OT. I and others do like the PT and the ST. And we find them meaningful on many levels. I respect all the Star Wars films, even the ones I don’t personally love.

You could make those parallels, but Lucas has said in interviews that the Empire is commentary on American imperialism, specifically in Vietnam. And the prequel trilogy is about how a once honorable Republic is destroyed and turned into an imperialistic fascistic society, and they were made during the W. Bush presidency (except for TPM which has the least amount of overt political symbolism).

I mean accepted as enjoyed and appreciated as integral and essential elements of the Star Wars saga. I listen to a ton of Star Wars podcasts, spend a lot of time on the Star Wars corners of Twitter and Reddit, and just generally keep a close eye on all things Star Wars. The vast majority of people in those spaces talk positively about the prequels, and for some of them the prequels are their favorite Star Wars films. The community that played Star Wars Battlefront II fought tooth and nail to get more prequel era characters, and to have them voiced by the voice actors from The Clone Wars. A ton of fans genuinely and unironically love the prequels, including most of the members of r/prequelmemes.

Well, that is extraordinarily condescending.