TFA = this gens 'Star Wars'
TLJ = this gens 'Empire'
TROS = this gens 'Jedi'
what does it say about this era and todays generation? idk..
or maybe Infinity War is the ESB for this generation
I agree with AP: it's superficial similarities. This film might have tried to be Empire (darker notes, "sad" ending, focusing on character failure, having the parental reveal, etc.), but if it tried, it didn't succeed. It's story makes little sense, there are plot holes everywhere, the editing is bad, the tone is wacky and oscillates between goofy adventure and dark drama with little regard for pacing...and on and on it goes. I don't blame Johnson - he had a worse set up.
Infinity War was boring. It was like watching very pretty paint drying.
If RJ was a competent writer he could have course corrected what EPVII set up. JJ dug SW grave and put it in a casket. RJ nailed the casket shut and threw SW in the grave.
shareLooper, Brick...he's a competent writer.
He was handed a bunch of Abrams' mystery boxes, given impossible riddles to solve (why would Luke abandon everybody for ten years...?), given a bad foundation (Han's a deadbeat dad who lost the Falcon!), and my theory is that he looked at that mess and went...well...let's take some risks.
So, he tried to craft a story that nobody would see coming: Luke is bitter, there's moral grey everywhere (arms dealers and the union of Kylo and Rey), and flyboys are no longer the kings of the Star Wars universe. Then, because he spent his time trying to go against the grain, he wound up sinking.
But I applaud the effort to take Star Wars where it hadn't gone before - that takes guts. While at the same time I recognise that he failed. Hamill sums it up perfectly in the interviews where he basically says he disagrees with every choice, but then commits to the project anyway. He knows that this is a ballsy move, even if he thinks it's the wrong one. I concur.
But, yeah, he's not a bad writer. He has multiple scripts under his belt of considerable quality.
Yeh had he just done a few things different (i.e. got shot of Casino land, had a smokin hot actress as Rose, eased up abit on all the SJW stuff, had Luke less of a grinch and physically go to the salt planet to do a Gladiator style end lightsabre battle with KyloRen, and introduced Palaptine at end of movie as a cliff-hanger) TLJ would've been considered a great SW movie by most
shareYup, lots of stuff he could have done. But I blame a lot of that on a bad set up and the Disney machine breathing down his neck, too.
The casino thing was bungled end-to-end.
I didn't mind Kelly Marie Tran as Rose, I just didn't think the film justified having the character Rose.
Johnson was absolutely given a bad foundation to work on, with some truly impossible-to-fix mistakes (e.g., killing Han, and thus ensuring the original trio would never be onscreen together, ever again), but frankly, his choices in response pretty much amount to setting said foundation on fire, and then pissing on the remaining ashes.
In response to Luke disappearing, he made him a pathetic moping coward, who spent years chugging sea-cow milk while the nephew he drove to the Dark Side went on his merry genocidal way, only to finally redeem himself... by pulling a prank on said nephew. And then dying from the effort.
In response to Snoke being a discount Emperor with a dumb appearance and even dumber name, he killed him - the Big Bad - halfway through the trilogy, and set Darth Emo, such a pathetically ineffectual villain he got his ass kicked by the protagonist in the very first film, to fill the position. And instead of actually building him up as a credible threat, made him even more pathetic.
In response to Rey being very heavily implied to be related to a character we had previously seen (which would explain her instantly and effortlessly succeeding at every Force-related task she ever attempts, a couple of literal hours after having learned it was actually real), he made her... nobody. Who is that good just *because*.
As terrible a film as Abrams made, he at the very least seemed to understand he was making the first in a three-part story. Johnson, on the other hand, seemingly doesn't know how sequential storytelling works, or simply doesn't care, because The Last Jedi left absolutely nothing behind it, and no way to tie the resulting disjointed mess into anything resembling a cohesive whole.
I mostly agree with your assessment. He didn't make good use of it. I champion Johnson for two reasons: 1) he tried to do something new. In a world of copy-paste aesthetics and bloated franchises, he dared to go out on a limb. The limb broke, but I want to applaud the attempt because I'm tired of committees giving me pre-packaged superheroes. The only way out of stagnancy is innovation.
2) I think it might be impossible to make a Star Wars movie that (a) is great, (b) is loved by the majority of fans, and (c) is innovative and brings something new to the table. The way forward might be more in TV shows like Clone Wars and Mandalorian. I don't know; I haven't seen either, but I hear good things. Then again, I heard good things about Rogue One...I don't like Rogue One.
That said, you're right on the rest of it: he swung for the fences and missed. He was given a bad bat by JJ, no bases were loaded...but he still struck out.
I'd have bought Luke as having become too enlightened to involve himself in petty struggle (like Yoda on Dagobah), not that he was just wallowing in self-pity for a decade. Maybe a day or two. Not a decade. So, yeah, Johnson made a grievous mistake with Luke's character.
I was okay with Snoke dying. I found Snoke, as you say, a poor excuse/substitute for the Emperor. I was much more interested in Kylo Ren and Hux fighting for power and ego. So, I was down with him dying. I thought, "good riddance", and it was one of the only times I thought Johnson's efforts were interesting. (More on this below).
I didn't really care about Rey being a nobody. I liked it a bit. I never got the fuss about "Oh, she must be Obi-Wan's daughter!" or something like that. I thought it was a bit interesting to have her arc maybe be something like, "You're special," and then "Psyche! You're not special!" and have the Dark Side forces (or...Forces...) try to break her spirit and then prey on her while she was feeble and vulnerable.
But my real disappointment with The Last Jedi was the lack of payoff.
Snoke is dead, Kylo and Rey look like they're going to form their own alliance. She's feeling vulnerable because of the cave. She feels abandoned by Luke and everybody else. She and Kylo will try to blend Light and Dark and she didn't learn Luke's biggest lesson: don't allow even a fraction of evil into your life; even a moment's lapse to the Dark could cause your nephew to abandon goodness and maybe damn his soul.
This is GREAT drama.
But...nope. End of that fight, and Rey is on the good side, Kylo's on the bad side. He didn't even go pedestrian and have her (or him) switch sides. Could've ended The Last Jedi with Luke landing on the salt world to face Kylo only to see Rey standing by Kylo's side (either as a Dark Jedi or as "Grey" Force users), but Johnson didn't pay it off.
Maybe Disney made him end the movie in a certain place? I don't know. But he set up all these subversions and didn't follow through. Luke did show up with a "laser sword" and fight everybody by himself. What expectations did he subvert? Really? He didn't pay off his character arcs or set-ups, and then Rise of Skywalker retconned them all real fast instead of paying them off in the third film (they even hinted in the trailer Rey would turn - which was, by the way, the moment I knew she wouldn't, or else it wouldn't be in the trailer).
So, yeah. Ultimately, I agree with you: missed opportunity and he dropped the ball.
Hahaha....This pile of burning horse crap can't hold a candle to "Empire Strikes Back." Whatever bad feelings people had about "Empire" when it first came out, it comes nowhere near the shock, horror, confusion, and later anger and rage people felt when TLJ came out. I could watch "Empire Strikes Back" any day of the week and know it's still a decent film. TLJ is so horrible, it cured me of ever watching another Disney Shit SW film ever again, and if anyone makes the mistake of bringing one of those DVD's into my house, I will burn it on the driveway and use my dog's poo as fuel.
shareHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA please tell me this is a troll job. TLJ is NOTHING like ESB, ESB was good, TLJ was not. Same thing with TFA vs. ANH and TROS vs. ROTJ.
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