re: WSJ: Disney concerned with Star Wars in wake of The Last Jedi

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the last jedi makes me wonder if rian Johnson saw the OT for the first time right after being hired but only kind of paid attention here and there because he was doing dishes and talking to someone on speaker phone. how else can you explain yoda in that scene? frick that, how I can't rationalize any part of that scene. or just the general lack of reverence for star wars such as luke tosses the lighsaber, luke is blowing an alien, mary poppins carrie fisher...that kind of stuff makes me wonder if he ever saw star wars at all really.

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I think the Mary Poppins thing was just weird and poorly executed. I don't have much to say other than it was just badly done - but I can give some benefit of the doubt and assume it was intended to add to the audience's sense of Leia's gravitas.

The same just can not be said about how he handled Luke and Yoda. Taken as a whole they made Luke (and Yoda in the brief time he was on screen) less admirable, less likable, and less noble characters. I think you just have to view this as a major deconstruction of the major characters and ethos (the values of mentorship, character development, and improvement through failure)

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Dude needs help. He got fricked in the head after watching

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all of that stuff about ledger's preparation and staying in character is either total bullshite or greatly exaggerated

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I don't think it was. But it was something completely different from Leto.

Ledger apparently locked himself in a hotel room trying out voices and watching characters and trying out laughs and walks and watching documentaries about psychopaths and sociopaths. And trying to step into the character he was creating. Stuff and actor does to prepare for a role.

Leto was doing dumb shite like sending his coworkers rats and condoms and shite like that. That's not profesional and it's not what an actor does.

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Disney is still “digging into” the reasons



So let's see....

A) Kill off the most beloved hero in Star Wars lore
B) Kill off the single most compelling bad guy in the "new" trilogy.
C) Undermine the lineage of the main protagonist...which right or wrong had become a big story line coming up to TLJ
D) SJW...all that needs to be said

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Basically it's a case study in the SJW transformation of society through their vision of the world regardless of the consequences.

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Basically it's a case study in the SJW transformation of society through their vision of the world regardless of the consequences.

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I 100% agree. And I've been trying to avoid the SJW aspects and focus just on plot and character development issues because talking about the political nonsense usually starts an asinine debate, but here we go. I'll just ramble out some rough issues with them from a political standpoint:

Look at Rey. The young equal woman. She never trained. She never earned what she has. She never struggled. She never falters. She the most powerful force aware person we've ever seen and she gets that status without a single bit of explanation or character development.

She's a woman and a brave one and that's enough. Everyone should just accept it because women are powerful and equal and that's that.

I'm not even going to dignify Leia with an analysis other than she has got to be the most bumbling and inept failure of a leader maybe ever. At the end of RotJ there is Galactic peace, the Empire has fallen, and Leia, who was a brilliant leader all throughout the OT is in command of the republic government. Within 30 years she had allowed her brother to go missing, her son to become a new Sith lord, her husband and marriage to fall apart, the republic to lose power, the First Order to rise up unchecked, the resistance to the first order to have almost no allies or power, etc....

Look at Finn. The black guy. He's from the first order and he's just immediately embraced and accepted by the Resistance without so much of a question. I mean, why does no one ever suspect that guy is a spy? They have all kinds of issues with the first order tracking them through hyper space and showing up at their hidden bases. No one ever says, hey, you know that guy we know nothing about who was a stormtrooper? Maybe he has something to do with this? Nope. He's above reproach. And they give him the most critical mission to go get the code breaker and all that. No one else is more qualified than the storm trooper they've known for all of 6 hours?

Look at Poe. The white guy. Over the course of these two movies it has been established that Poe Dameron is: one of the best pilots in the SW universe, one of the most ballsy characters in the resistance, the only character who has the brains to accomplish shite without thinking of the consequences (ie his decision to blow up the dreadnaught), the only one trusted with the map to Luke, etc... But no one in the SW movies or the resistance hierarchicy ever acts like they give a shite about him. Worse the activity shite on him. Leia and Holdo constantly rebuke him and belittle him, and demote him and hide things from him.

Look at Holdo, the older Feminist Marcher. Who the frick is she? We're just supposed to accept that this person we've never seen before is the second in command and second in line leader of the resistance? Why wasn't she on the command deck with every other person when it was blown up? Why does no one in the room recognize her when she claims to be Leias successor? Why doesn't she wear a fricking military uniform when addressing the soldiers as their new commanding officer? Why does she feel the need to project superiority and shite all over Poe?

Look at Rose. What the frick was the point of her character? She did nothing, served no purpose, and doomed the resistance twice without ex machina plot armor saving them. But she's celebrated as a massive success and hero of the resistance. If Luke didn't ASTRO project himself at the end, she stops Finn from sacrificing himself and then the First Order and Kylo annihilate the resistance.

I can't wait to watch this piece of shite again just to pick up some more problems with it.

all I can say is that Black Panther is gonna be way better than Infinity War

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I'm not even going to dignify Leia with an analysis other than she has got to be the most bumbling and inept failure of a leader maybe ever. At the end of RotJ there is Galactic peace, the Empire has fallen, and Leia, who was a brilliant leader all throughout the OT is in command of the republic government. Within 30 years she had allowed her brother to go missing, her son to become a new Sith lord, her husband and marriage to fall apart, the republic to lose power, the First Order to rise up unchecked, the resistance to the first order to have almost no allies or power, etc....

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This is the only part of your post I can't agree with. If you've read up on the stuff that happens after ROTJ, there definitely wasn't galactic peace right then and there, it took a little while to stomp out the remnants of the empire. Also, Leia was screaming from the mountain tops about the danger of the first order, but the republic didn't want another war so soon and played pacifist with them.

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I can't wait to watch this piece of shite again just to pick up some more problems with it.

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You're a masochist. Once in the theater and then rewatching online clips and reading a few reviews (to see if I had gotten it wrong) was more time than I should have spent.

I was never a star wars fan boy in the sense that I didn't buy tons of toys, didn't see the prequels more than once, didn't go to conventions or play online star wars games. But I did really love it when I was little.

Moreover I think the series was inarguably enormously important in other ways beyond toys and money. It did carry important social values that taught people to embrace life lessons as they grow, accept mentorship, and learn from their failures. It does boggle my mind that people are so resentful of that history that they want to just tear down and destroy things other people love because they resent other people loving them. It also boggles the mind that the company with a vested economic interest has failed to guard their own economic interests.