The Last Jedi Tried to Free Star Wars From Its Fixation on Legends

I will occasionally go to the On Demand movie rental section on Bell TV just to play the trailer for The Last Jedi. There is so much conveyed in so little that gets across the important points – Luke and Rey, Kylo Ren and Rey – and nary a mention of that ludicrous ‘slow chase’ story. That’s the bit I can’t stand in the movie. Unfortunately, because the side trip to Canto Bight is part and parcel of the slow chase, I tend to regard it in the same negative light. This piece might help me re-evaluate that part, a bit at least.

I am still of the opinion that there is one good movie to be made out of The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. I worry that what I think would be the bits that made the good movie would be the bits others would prefer to leave on the proverbial cutting-room floor.

I was more taken aback by the strong reactions this movie got from people than anything else. Some claimed it was terrible, others that it was bold and refreshing. I found neither to be the case. Sure, it flirts with being bold, but in the end it’s just your average, mildly entertaining but too long mashup of ESB and ROTJ.

Luke is cynical, then he’s not. Rey is tempted by the Dark Side, then she’s okay. The bad guys are evil, then still evil. Things blew up. Inspirational words were said. Yep, it’s a Disney Star War. Pass the popcorn.

I’ve grown up with SW but never delved into it’s fandom, so its been really confusing to me that ppl believe RJ introduced the notion that the force was available for ordinary people. in the prequels you see a ton of jedis / force wielders from all over the universe. The force was always available for everyone. I remember reading an interview of George Lucas where he says everyone can use the force but it’s like training to get stronger, you have to train to use the force and some ppl are more attuned to it than others, so that scene with the kid with the broom didn’t seem so groundbreaking to me. Order 66 executed most jedi like 99% but that doesn’t mean they wiped out the ability to connect with the force. The OG films just focus on Luke &fam cause at that time they’re the only ones left with a direct link to the jedi and its sole surivor(s), but after Anakin yeeted Sheev it was only natural for more force sensitive ppl to show up again. So RJ pushing for Rey’s hero’s journey to be of non special origin felt more for her character than for “us”, tho I feel like like most of the flaws of the film comes from how RJ (and JJ) wrote the character arcs of the OG esp Luke which bleed into a flawed unfolding of events that doesn’t make sense for the characters &those effected by them. 

There’s plenty of Star Wars movies people don’t like. But of those, only The Last Jedi predictably summons up angry and sometimes toxic fans to attack it. @7, you cannot refute the claim that a subset of fans who hated TLJ did so because they are virulently racist or misogynist, because they correctly saw themselves on screen as Kylo Ren and because they cannot permit their power fantasies to be placed under scrutiny and attack in the way this film did. Nobody has made any claim about you or your preferences. And clearly, it cannot be the case that agreeing with terrible or toxic people on one specific item, which itself is neither terrible nor toxic, somehow makes their terribleness “rub off.” Hitler was a vegetarian, but that doesn’t make vegetarianism evil. The question is whether you end up defending something like racism inadvertently, or insisting that something problematic can’t be because you aren’t a bad person.

An example: Lord of the Rings undeniably seems to present a world where dark skinned people are evil, and a whole race (orcs) are inherently evil and corrupt. Perhaps Tolkien was making some racist assumptions, but I don’t believe that as an author, he intended to produce a series that would give support to Nazis or their philosophies and beliefs. That said, a great deal of LotR provides support for Nazi thought; the extent to which Tolkien draws from Wagner’s Ring cycle is as problematic as the way his world presents race, and while Tolkien doubtlessly sees his hobbits as the “little people” in contrast to the ubermensch, he also provides enough basis to argue that the Baggins “bloodline” is the source of their superiority and hence explains their heroism.

I think anyone setting about to, say, defend Tolkien or his work against accusations of racism needs to be aware of the differences between asserting Tolkien’s work sometimes undercuts his intentions, and claiming that the problematic things within that work are unproblematic.

Star Wars generally contains elements that, like LotR, provide plenty of support for Neo-Nazi beliefs. The Force elevates a small and select group of people on the basis of something in their blood, for example. The Campbellian mythic hero cycle is another thing Nazi myth-making seized upon with gusto, and it’s alive and well in the Star Wars setting. The Last Jedi goes to extreme lengths to interrogate and problematize these elements. The Empire feeds into Nazi propaganda about their superior war-making, from superior equipment to superior training, and its soldiers are even called “Stormtroopers;” despite all the on-screen evidence that could be used to depict them as incompetent and bumbling, everyone in-universe insists on treating them as an existential threat. “Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise” may be a joke to fans, but we’re meant to believe it as true.

Contrast with TLJ’s take on the First Order, which is that they have ridiculous amounts of money to spend on vainglorious, overengineered projects, their massive ships are a clear sign of overcompensation, their “elite” officers are humorless fools threatened by even the slightest mockery or insubordination because much of their power is based upon propaganda, and that while they are a threat, that isn’t because they are elite but because of a ridiculous force advantage.

The movie also attacks the “hero’s journey” model at every turn. Both Snoke and Ren believe that the Supreme Leader is the most important part of a nation or movement, that subordinates deserve contempt, that the purpose of an empire is to glorify Great Leader, and the propaganda which insists Great Leader deserves his position. This despite the fact that no Great Leader we see on screen on the First Order side has much beyond physical power and massive entitlement going for him. Contrast with Leia, whose leadership is focused upon ensuring her subordinates are capable of replacing her because the movement matters more than her own life. (Yes, the movie does fumble the contrast as a part of building up its Holdo subplot, but the intended message is clear.)

And that attack is seen most clearly with Luke and Rey. She arrives having discovered Luke’s whereabouts, but more significantly, believing that she lives in a world which operates by the rules of the “hero’s journey.” She’s passed through tests and dangers and now she is to be rewarded because she’s found Luke. She’s proved her worthiness and he will train her. He is a hero who will return and save them all (an Arthur coming to save Albion). But Luke responds realistically. He didn’t abandon the fight and isolate himself as a test to see if the right heroic person would track him down. He did it because he doesn’t want to be a part of things any more, not even the Force itself. Showing up with a lightsaber doesn’t change any of that. Luke isn’t a mcguffin or part of an inventory of people and objects that must be assembled to trigger the ending of the final quest. He’s a damaged person whose hopes and dreams have been shattered. He isn’t the savior, the great white hope, the (white male) hero (of a powerful bloodline) who can save the day.

And the best part of that whole subplot is that Luke is wrong. He’s challenging a mythic framework that deserves to be challenged, but he’s also rejecting more than he should be. By the end, he plays into Ren’s mindset by offering himself as the Resistance’s Great Leader, its hero, thus winning his entire focus when what Ren should be worried about isn’t an old Jedi Master at the end of his life but all the potential Jedi waiting in the wings to be inspired. Luke dies in part to enable the Resistance to survive (because the cause is what matters, not its champions), but he becomes more than that, he becomes a symbol and inspiration to others that one person can stand up against all the numbers and pomp and firepower of a fascist militaristic group and make a difference.

What makes me sad about the constant and often vehement, reflexive attacks on TLJ online whenever it is mentioned is that there’s a subset of people launching those attacks who are not offended by the movie because it attacks their core beliefs about race, power, fascism, and the like, but who dislike the movie for other reasons. And they often begin with a core assumption that anyone characterizing the ongoing toxicity surrounding much TLJ discussion online is claiming that all people who dislike the film are being accused of racism. Because the underlying thinking that drives that defensiveness is itself rooted in the same faulty thinking that underlies racism, the assumption that even a trait like racism itself is somehow genetic and not a learned behavior. To @7 (and others): first, recognize that we live in a moment of history where a Stormfront regular covered with swastika tattoos is likely to post to a site like this one claiming not to be pro-Nazi, so opening the conversation with the equivalent of “I’m not X, but…” comes across not just as defensive but as disingenuous. But second, understand that the stakes in this ongoing discussion have to do with the underlying concepts and ideas TLJ identifies and challenges within the broader Star Wars lore. There’s a difference between claiming that Tolkien isn’t a racist, and claiming that Tolkien’s orcs aren’t racially problematic. And there’s a difference between arguing that TLJ makes legitimate critiques of basic assumptions baked into Star Wars mythmaking, and arguing that it ought to do so more effectively, and arguing that the critiques themselves should not be made.

The last of those three arguments effectively says that nobody is even allowed to suggest that Tolkien’s orcs are racially problematic, that the challenge is itself off-limits. And by extension, that argument suggests that a challenge to racism itself is off-limits, that the conversation cannot take place. You do not have to be a racist to hold a position which shields racist behaviors and beliefs from scrutiny or criticism.

And that leads me to the last point in this very long post: there’s plenty of reasonable criticisms of TLJ (several made here already, like the problems with the Canto Bight section). But if several people are having a conversation about, say, real-life dead Black people, joining it by saying, “Yes, but what about NARRATIVE STRUCTURE” would be pretty odd, wouldn’t it? The conversation here about TLJ isn’t “Movie Good” vs “Movie Bad,” it’s “here’s some specific challenges to the franchise and the way we understand it that TLJ posed.” To respond by saying “Movie Bad” is to either shut down or redirect the conversation, away from meaningful and challenging thinking about the ways in which, for instance, 21st century popular American media might be unintentionally promoting a fascist world-view, and toward topics which are safe like plot structure and essentials.

It’s fine if someone doesn’t want to be a part of this conversation: it’s been a long few years, and we’re allowed to not be involved in a specific thread on the Internet without shame. But joining it with the effect of trying to shut down a meaningful discussion about racism, or misogyny, or fascism plays into the hands of racists, misogynists, and fascists. I assume nobody wants to do that. I especially believe that nobody would want to do that by mistake. So, let’s talk about the specific challenges TLJ makes to Star Wars mythmaking, and set the other stuff aside for a different conversation at a different time. Because this isn’t a Movie Good/Bad conversation, it’s about the challenges TLJ makes and the degree to which they are fair ones.

This was the last Star Wars movie I have seen.

I did not agree with the idea that Luke would be so frightened of Ben that he would turn against him and then flee the Force.  I think something else could have been found to disillusion Luke.  However, the way that disillusioned Luke approached Rey, and de-mythologized the Force, was pretty good.

I loved making the force accessible to everyone and trying to expand the horizons of the series from one dysfunctional family, and hated the central idea of episode 9 so much I can’t make myself watch the film. 

The digression to Canto Bight was fun as it was happening, but it makes no sense as a storytelling decision, because nothing that happened had any effect on the main story.  Either Rian was going out of his way to make a political statement about one percenters, or he was making some other point that has completely escaped me.

The entire Holdo/Poe plot was just infuriating.  The less said the better.

Luke’s final appearance was epic, and saved the movie in theaters, but doesn’t atone for the other problems in retrospect.

All IMO and FWIW, of course. 

Co-signing @24’s comment. TLJ isn’t my favourite Rian Johnson film, but it’s my favourite Star Wars film, and the only one since the original to remind me of how I first felt — age 11 — when George Lucas took something old and did something new with it. 

I didn’t like the movie. There were parts that were very well done, but they had some many characters being hit with the stupid stick in order to advance the “plot” that I completely lost immersion.

Nothing in the Poe vs. Holdo plotline made sense. The director was trying to make a good point about how real heroes have flaws but was doing it in the completely wrong way. On top of that, nothing about how they got into that situation in the first place made any damn sense either. You had the “best” of the rebellion fleet and their entire plot line was a choice between “should we do something stupid, or nothing at all?” And the director’s response was, “we should run away, but make the plan super secret so that it builds dramatic tension.” It just made no sense either as a movie or as a sci-fi space fleet.

The Luke & Rey plot was the strongest and even there it didn’t always work. I think if the rest of it hadn’t been such a mess I would have gone along with it, but the trope they were looking for with Luke was “crusty old cynic with a secret soft spot”, and they never managed to convey that. It went from one extreme to the other without any clues for the audience to how they got into this situation either. At least, nothing believable.

And the Canto Bight plotline was a complete waste of the best characters in the movie. The reason they got there didn’t make sense, their way of resolving this didn’t make sense and there was no reason for any of it to be in the movie.

In terms of what it did for “the franchise” it was the weakest thing since The Phantom Menace. And that was another case of someone trying to reach into the indie movie tradition and use it to say something bigger about society or the hollywood system or something. The end result is a mess that made the next movie even worse because it had to clean up what was left after the previous failure.

@18 & 24

thanks! Much more informative remarks than mine. I liked the movie very much, and Rose in particular. 

@39 – That is a good point about how incoherent the trilogy is. When it was first announced that 3 different directors would be writing and directing each movie, I thought that didn’t sound like the best idea. It turned out to be the worst idea made for the trilogy. Seemingly, it appeared all 3 were allowed to do what they wanted with the story. That would be like someone writing half a book and then handing it off to another author and letting them do whatever with the story and characters. If they wanted 3 different visions, there should have been, at minimum, an outline for the trilogy. Personally, I think the Force Dyad thing would have been very cool if planned from the beginning and built up over the 3 movies.

It sucked.  That’s it in a shell.  Yes, it’s been ignored and those of us who hated it (we are Legend) choose to ignore it.  It made all of us who loved The Force Awakens quite angry with the poor story-telling and inconsistency.  The only good part was the kid with the broom at the end — and yes, Rose kicked butt.  The casino thing though?  Awkward to say the least.  I loved seeing the aliens, but it was tacky story telling at best.  The hunt for Red October, I mean the rebel fleet?  Stupid.  Just stupid.  Disney should have not released it, hired someone else to write and direct, and left it at that.  In fact, I’m in favor of someone going into the past and pulling the plug on the Force in Episode One and leaving the whole thing alone, because it’s been ruined by the story-telling.  

Thanks Dan – loved it and agree with your points. TLJ Strikes Back!

There’s a few commentators I follow pointing out how exciting this film is and the directions it was taking the franchise.

I had planned a rewatch but now I’ll appreciate it more 

I thought TLJ’s deconstruction was unnecessary. The OT showed Luke rebelling against the old masters to become a new kind of Jedi, with attachment to other people. The Prequels recontextualised that shift by showing that the old way was in fact, part of what led to Anakin’s turn to the dark side.

So by Endor, we have Luke reforming the Jedi Order, and it’s hard to believe that he would just immediately repeat the mistakes of the old masters, moreso when his warmer methods had helped him redeem Darth Vader.

Instead of showing us Luke’s Jedi Order’s strengths and weaknesses, TLJ says that Luke mindlessly continued the Prequel Jedi Order, which has a basis to be deconstructed. But that is simply not true! 

TLJ fell victim to TFA’s Original Sin: trying to replicate the OT beat-by-beat, rather than doing it’s own thing. As a result, it felt like TLJ was deconstructing the Jedi Order that Luke was introduced to in ANH, (without the benefit of the Prequels). Maybe that is why it treated the fact that anyone can be born Force sensitive, and can train to use it better, as some sort of big Revelation. It’s almost as if the Sequel Trilogy was aimed at people (mainly kids) who knew about Star Wars through cultural osmosis, but not actually fans.

There is a lot to like in TLJ, but it’s central thesis does not make sense. It’s all cool shots and MCU-fied humour. 

Part of the DNA of the Star Wars franchise is that it’s a medieval, LOTR style fantasy set in space with magic, kings, queens and commoners with an uncomplicated black and white morality. “Light side”, “dark side” -it’s in the name. Subverting this is fine but one of the problems with any fantasy fanbase is that you’ll get a fair few who secretly yearn for this regressive stuff when things were “simpler” and people “knew their place.” It’s worth remembering that the original rebellion canonically weren’t revolutionaries, they wanted a restoration of an order run by elites and watched over by a caste of unaccountable religious zealots with secret police powers to upend a new order run by a previously defeated upstart sect and common soldiers. That’s not to say The Empire was better, they’re pretty damn fascist but what they replaced was more akin to the league of nations run by kings, queens and regimes built on systemic inequality. If you make the force more democratic it raises questions like why should the Old Republic have been run by a gaggle of elites with inherited power overseen by the space vatican? Why should we put so much hope and stock in space Musketeer nobles riding in to save the day? What exactly is wrong with Rey being a “nobody”?

I’m not reading any of the other comments because I just don’t want to go there again, but THANK YOU, this is everything I have been thinking since Last Jedi came out. I was so excited to see the Star Wars universe examine itself while still being fun and awesome, and then…episode 9 just gutted me. It’s going to take a while to recover from that.

A criticism of the most recent trilogy: all three skipped the hardest and most interesting part of the story. Great, you cobbled together a coalition to overthrow the bad guys. You won the war; now you have to build the peace. No movies address this at all; we go from multi-planet fireworks to Snoke and Ren. 

I liked half of the Last Jedi. The Poe Dameron plot was absolutely hideous. He should have been not just demoted for his actions, but placed in the brig. That General Organa gave him a mere slap on the wrist was execrable, and, to me, ruined the film. When I rewatch Last Jedi, I literally skip the chapters involving the Poe Dameron plot. 

My problems with TLJ are many, but they don’t seem to be what others are focused on.

My first problem is tone. The humor in this movie is completely puerile, from Po’s taunting of Hux, to the stupid iron coming down like a spaceship shot. From Luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder to flicking dust off his shoulder. All  completely  out of character for Star Wars. Star Wars humor is entirely situational, not gimmicks. The only humor that rang true was Chewie and the porgs, and Luke with the milk.

I love Rose and the other characters, but JJ whether he knew it or not had set up a gay romance for Finn and Po and the inclusion of Rose was a disruption of this. Canto Bite served zero purpose, but it would have if Finn and Po had gone together and they explored conflicted emotions.

The entirely artificial tension of the decisions made on the convoy smacked of 1980s sitcoms where everything could have been solved if everyone talked to each other. There was zero need for some new first order tracking tech when inserting the notion of a spy in the fleet constantly broadcasting their position would have added tension as the attempts to unmask the spy gathered fever pitch – and it would have been character driven.

The handling of Ren killing Snoke was also another missed opportunity. It would have been a powerful scene to watch a First Order throne room as Ren enters to a sea of troops and he takes his place on the throne. Not a word spoken. The return of Phasma was also pointless by the way.

Then there is the unforgivable handling of the death of Carrie Fisher. It seemed the director was so focused on shooting his sunset Luke death scene that he refused to tie up Leia’s story and left it to someone else to figure out, forgetting the poetry of the fact that Luke and Leia were twins born on the same day – they could die on the same day. Flying space Leia was ridiculous, but could have served as a way out. Equally, Leia could have been a wandering spirit only Rey was communicating with unaware that Leia was a ghost who suddenly isn’t around at the end of the movie since she had died in the vacuum of space. There are a whole host of other ways this could have been tied up giving the final movie a real boost. Instead, it was childishly, and irresponsibly ignored.

Finally a word on legends. Star Wars is literally a fairytale. Every movie starts with ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.’ To jettison the very fabric of what Star Wars is was hubris at best. Downright insulting at worst. The lack of Box Office for Solo in particular and TROS were direct consequences of the failure of this one film. I’ve been a massive Star Wars fan since I was 11 years old and even I nearly stopped watching because of this movie.

Thx for the great essay. And the responses are well worth reading also. Kudos to #18 and #24.

TLJ got me excited again after TFA fell mostly flat (for me). I still do rate TFA 3 out 5. The whole thing about basically remaking ANH just wasn‘t my thing. Death Star #3? Really? Oh, another desert planet! The rebellion is now the resistance. How (un)-original. I can absolutely understand why Disney did conceive the relaunch of Star Wars in this way, though.

„This will begin to make things right“ is the first line spoken in the sequel trilogy. In hindsight this is pretty ironic, but at the time the tremendous success of TFA validated the studio‘s strategy to appease to the fans of the original trilogy and give them basically the same. Four billion dollars have just been invested to acquire the rights from George Lucas, after all. So no risks. JJ Abrams was the right director hired for this job.

And there was no way that they would place the sequel trilogy 100 years after the original trilogy. Not with Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill alive.

That Leia‘s and Han‘s marriage failed was one of the more interesting aspects of the movie that ran against the grain of weaponized nostalgia. Likewise Luke‘s failure in reestablishing the Jedi Order, specifically his failings in preventing Ben Solo‘s turn to the dark side and his subsequent self-imposed exile. This is clearly established in TFA! Why do the detractors blame Rian Johnson‘s TLJ for that? It does not compute logically.

And it is not so as if RJ did make TLJ in a vacuum. Disney greenlit his script and the movie. And I am damn glad they did! It is the best of all Disney Star Wars movies. While superficially following the beats of ESB and ROTJ it surprises at every turn, not reveling in nostalgia, not ignoring or destroying what has come before but building on it.

With TLJ Rian Johnson maneuvered Star Wars to a place where new things could be done in Episode IX and the studio was on board with it. So I don‘t lay blame entirely on Disney or the directors. They were willing to engage audience expectations – at least up to a certain point.

Mostly I blame the toxic fandom that we got Rise of Skywalker. Disney panicked and gave JJ too little time and too little room to maneuver and he fell back on his worst instincts.

The fans that dislike TLJ are very well entitled to their opinion, but I would argue that the rejection is mostly an emotional one based on mismanaged expectations. #thisisnotmyluke. Logic does not play into this. Director Christopher McQuarrie put it far more eloquently than I could: Toxic Fandom and the Perils of Messing with Fan Expectations. Short video.

ROS was one of the most frustrating movie theater experiences ever. As it stands, the franchise is not dead to me but at the moment my enjoyment is greatly diminished.

#61 The death of Carrie Fisher occured after TLJ‘s principal photography wrapped.

I liked both The Last Jedi and “The Last Star Wars Film” (I like the film but I just hated the title, and can’t even bring myself to type it), but they do clash horribly with each other. I’m amazed there wasn’t some kind of overall plot for the trilogy worked out. I liked The Last Jedi best – but we did need some kind of explanation of where that gourd-headed guy came from (again – name too cringeworthy for me to type). What I really liked was how much the last film reminded me of the Lensman series – almost taking it back to the beginning of Space Opera.

Probably the smart thing to do would have been to imply Rey may be related to The Emperor some how (how has he got kids anyway? That’s never mentioned in the prequels), or maybe not, but leave it for the audience to work out. All you really needed was some reason for Rey to be tempted to take the Emperor’s place.

There’s another universe that subverted people’s expectations–KINGDOMS OF THE WALL, by Robert Silverberg. The whole point of the book was to not find the Magical Maltese Falcon, but to discover that the people on the quest are perfectly capable of finding their own solutions without the Grail. Silverberg said once in an article that this was one of his books that didn’t sell so well, and I suggest that not offering the Grail was part of the problem. 

I compare The Last Jedi to the final seasons of Game of Thrones. I don’t really care which course the story takes, just make it a good story. I have no big issues with the way both narratives went, but Game of Thrones went by way too fast en The Last Jedi was just a really boring movie up untill Rey returned.

The difference is the drop in quality. GOT had great seasons preceeding it but the other two Star Wars movies weren’t that great either.

Am I the only one who hates TLJ for the legitimately bad filmmaking? Like that choreography in the throne room fight scene or the unexplained omission of plot points set up earlier in the movie?

Did rehashed Verizon wireless commercial “can you hear me now?” jokes not pull anyone else out of the setting of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away?

Has anyone figured out why the second highest ranking official of the resistance was the only one who could have piloted the Raddus?

Did Johnson’s decision to waste screen time in order to make sure we knew Crait’s surface was made of salt with an incredibly blunt line not bother anyone else?

Did the nonsensical motivations of the resistance’s defensive strategy on Crait not raise any eyebrows? How about the disappearing trench troops who let’s be honest we’re only there to look cool pointing their guns (and I guess tell us about how salty the ground is)?

Did TLJ’s treatment of Finn bother anyone else as much as it did John Boyega? It bothered me…

I mean, I see a lot of people explaining what I think are not overly complex elements of the story. I see people talking about their childhoods, and Nazi’s, and a whole slew of topics, but I don’t see anyone talking specifically about just how poorly made the movie was. I know there’s a lot of people going out of their way to “explain” the movie to fans who they assume don’t understand it, but in cases like TLJ, I think most people understand it, they just aren’t as impressed.

Not that I hold it against anyone for enjoying it. It’s awesome to enjoy things, I’m jealous because I actually really wanted to enjoy TLJ. What I don’t get though is why the argument is always framed around silly criticism when there are glaring issues with the film which everyone seems to ignore. Very strange.

But I guess that’s kind of my point. There’s a difference between “something I didn’t like about this film” and “something that makes this an example of poor filmmaking” Right? I guess I just don’t understand why all of the technical issues in TLJ are pretty universally overlooked by just about everyone. 

I saw your comment and I don’t disagree with the majority of what you said, but I feel like it’s only half the story. I mean, you can love or hate what they did with Luke Skywalker. You can hate or love how they developed Poe, or the themes Johnson tried to inject in the movie. Those are all valid feelings, but they’re also subjective. I don’t understand why anyone doesn’t confront the elements of the movie that are just objectively poor filmmaking. 

I don’t know, I guess I just feel like everyone is so focused on the creative choices that they all collectively give the execution of the movie a pass. It’s weird. 

@78 What are the „technical issues“ / „the objectively poor filmmaking“ that are overlooked or not confronted by everyone?

TLJ excels in the technical categories of filmmaking. Sound design/mixing/editing, visual/special effects, production/costume design, etc. It got multiple award nominations and has won also. There is cinematography, editing and scoring (John Williams!). Is the fault there? Casting, acting and directing? No bad actors in sight and Rian Johnson got the best performance out of Mark Hamill.

Then there is the screenplay with the dialogue, the story, it‘s structure, it‘s themes and intended messages. Here you could argue that TLJ suffers pacing issues because RJ tries to cram so much themes into his movie, even the critics who lauded it with praise admit that. With the Canto Bight sequence especially the movie loses a bit forward momentum. But it does not derail the movie, because it is thematically necessary for Finn‘s arc.

You stated in your original post that you were bothered by TLJ‘s treatment of Finn. Why? And do you think that this is an objective statement? As it is presented in the movie, Finn progresses from someone who does not really believe in the cause of the resistance and just wants to save his friend Rey to someone who believes, who is willing to fight and even die for the cause. Significant character progress.

Where is the objectively bad filmmaking in TLJ?

The movie just didn’t do it for me. I get what Rian Johnson was trying to do but there were multiple problems with HOW it happened.

Luke Skywalker: While Luke has always had flaws he only really lashed out in high stress situations; the situation with him activating the sword above Kylo was less high stress so while Luke might have been scared I don’t see him doing something that drastic. Add in that Luke would have had some growth even if he never completely overcomes his flaws and it felt poorly done.

Finn and Rose: I hated Rose stopping the sacrifice; it majorly screwed the Resistance over

Too dark: While ESB had it’s share of darkness it expressed it differently.  Keven Nestiel of WordBasket summed it up as such. 

“Sound familiar?

Snyder’s beat sheet, though, isn’t just a storytelling device. It includes a specific moral mindset, one reminiscent of early Christian martyrdom. Snyder teaches that characters’ suffering is ennobling, and that only through suffering do we discover their true golden nature. Characters should constantly do right, even suffering great personal violence, and remain undeterred as the universe repeatedly demolishes their every accomplishment, confident that the universe will ultimately vindicate them. It’s like a medieval saint’s hagiography.

Except Star Wars isn’t based on this morality. George Lucas famously wrote the first movie with two books on his desk: a Webster’s dictionary and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Campbell, who was raised Catholic but abandoned faith when he discovered Jungian psychology, contends in this book that all religions, philosophies, and myths descend from the same internal struggle all humans face when passing into adulthood. Morality, to Campbell, is basically psychological.

Most important, to Campbell, suffering is common, but it’s not necessary. It’s simply a by-product of becoming yourself in a world that demands you conform rather than mature. In Empire, the Rebellion struggles because it believes in capital-T Truth, in a universe that is deeply impersonal and frequently unjust. In Last Jedi, the Resistance struggles because a morally invested universe needs to purge human illusions, before it can permit the Conversion Experience, and ultimate redemption.

There you have it. That’s why I still can’t get behind Last Jedi: because it tries to impose a humanist demi-Christianity on a narrative founded on moral psychology. The two moral forms don’t fit together, and the result feels awkward. Y’know what, though? I’ll still probably see The Rise of Skywalkerthis weekend. Because through it all, Star Wars is founded on faith in hope. And hope, I guess, will always keep me coming back.”
 

 Another thing is that the OT already had a much better subversion. Luke is forced to learn that his father, who he built up as a legend was in fact the arch villain who fell as hard as possible, and that his mentors were while well meaning ultimately flawed. Even the Archvillain is shown to be a broken man who continues his evil because he feels its too late to ever change. Hell even Luke redeeming Vader subverts things beautifully. The Empire is shown to be led by cruel and pathetic men (Ozzel literally ensures the Rebellion’s survival by going against Vader’s orders due to pride and stupidity, Tarkin gets bluffed by a teenager and dies in denial of his own failure, Motti becomes sniveling when Vader chokes him (incidentally NONE of his fellows come to his aid.) Vader himself is a broken men who puts on an act to escape his own crushing self loathing and the one exception (Needa) is killed in a fit of pique over a legitimate failure (and there’s implications Vader would have wiped out the entire crew if Needa hadn’t taken responsibility). 
 
I also think the Mandalorian Clone Wars and Bad Batch show there’s still fire in the franchise

@89 My post was a reaction to #76/#78, who wondered why no one confronts the elements of TLJ that are objectively bad filmmaking / the glaring technical issues „which everyone seems to ignore“. It seemed Riciblake had something to offer here that no one else had brought up (especially as he is okay with creative choice and the subjectiveness of it).

Since the pacing of TLJ was frequently brought up by as a weak point even by it‘s supporters and the professional critics (who still gave it high marks overall), this could be an example of an objective issue. That is why I mentioned it. But this must not have been what Riciblake meant, since it was not ignored by everyone.

So no, I did not answer my own question. You also left out the part where I mentioned that the pacing issues do not derail the movie. TLJ is not a train wreck and not the shining example of objectively bad moviemaking (an Ed Wood movie is). Of course it is not perfect, either.

Now, I looked at your comment #12 where you claim to list examples of poor filmmaking in TLJ, not just creative choices. However, I think you immediately veer off into the realm of creative choices.

The decision to mirror the OT in the sequel trilogy was a choice made by Disney early on. This was a business decision and also a creative decision. It led to financial and critical success with TFA. It is not objectively bad. I wrote about that in #63.

As a consequence, director RJ had a very tight studio-mandated framework in which to operate in:

Write and direct the middle part of a Star Wars trilogy
Mirror the OT very closely with certain plot elements and visuals (RJ chose the Battle of Hoth and the Throne Room).
Continue the plot threads of the first movie, which in this case were way more specific than in the other trilogies. A cliffhanger! Luke in self-imposed exile. Quote Han Solo in TFA: „He was training a new generation of Jedi. There was nobody else left to do it, so he took the burden on himself. Everything was going great, until… one boy, an apprentice, turned against him and destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible. He just… walked away from everything.“ Will Ben Solo / Kylo Ren finish what Vader started? What about his conflict with the light side? Who is Rey? What about Finn? What about the state of the galaxy and the resistance after the destruction of the New Republic by the First Order / Snoke? Han dead and Leia in charge of the resistance. What will Poe‘s role in the resistance be?

That is quite a handful. Yet all these things that were set in motion in TFA are developed further in TLJ, not ignored. It was established in JJ‘s movie that the legacy characters Han, Leia and Luke have failed in one way or the other. To claim that RJ blew everything up is not only a very subjective  statement, it seems not to be supported by the facts.

Already in the trailer for TFA Daisy Ridley‘s character says „I‘m no one.“ TLJ confirms that – the best dramatic decision for her, I think. She can forge her own destiny, not beholden to a legacy or family, yet still respectful of the past, because there are lessons to be learned. As Yoda says, „We are what they grow beyond.“

The themes TLJ presents are very much worth exploring. And it also was already announced in the TLJ trailer that „this is not going to go the way you think!“ Subversion will be part of the play. And the middle part of a trilogy is the perfect place to do it.

As for your other points, there is not much to respond to, since you don‘t tell us why you feel that way. Why is the science in TLJ way worse than in other Star Wars episodes, for example?