Star Wars: Episode VIII (The Last Jedi) - SPOILERS POSSIBLE*

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by MLutthans, Nov 10, 2015.

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  1. David Campbell

    David Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Luray, Virginia
    I think it's possible since Luke didn't have offspring and Leia never took the Skywalker name, Rey may actually adopt the Skywalker sir name as her own as not only a tribute to her brief Master, but to ensure the name lives on and that the Galaxy doesn't forget the legend of the Skywalker clan.

    That way Rey is a Skywalker. Just not genetically.

    Maybe that is why they didn't give her a sir name in TFA. Not to indicate to the audience " Aha! She's a Skywalker/Solo/Kenobi!" But because she's destined to adopt a name for herself as a final rite of passage. Maybe like the sith used to rename themselves as "Darth" whatever, the new Jedi order has "Skywalker" as a title of sorts. Remember, at one time Darth Vader was just a name and not a title until the prequels officially retconned it.

    Plus I almost want this to happen so the " Diznee muhrdured muh Star Warz/Ruin Johnson ruined muh life/bring back the EU now!" loons really do loose their collective minds. It would be the ultimate troll to a group of fans who honestly deserve to be trolled. It would be quite entertaining.
     
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  2. wolfram

    wolfram Slave to the rhythm

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    God, I hope Rey remains a nobody. The moment that Vader said to Luke "I'm your father" was the moment everything in Star Wars went wrong.
     
  3. CraigBic

    CraigBic Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Zealand
    The thing is though, the reason Rian chose to make Rey's parents are nobody important is the same reason why the Vader being luke's father works. It's the last thing Luke wanted to hear at that moment, for Rey to hear Luke is your father or whatever would have been too easy. How can she be special if her parents aren't special, how can she play an important role if she's not important the answer being that none of that stuff really matters. The movie played with those ideas in part by introducing the character of Rose and in another way with the broom boy at the end.
     
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  4. David Campbell

    David Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Luray, Virginia
    Yes and no. As it was for the OT, it worked and still works as it's own thing.

    The problem is that many of the old EU writers and eventually Lucas himself decided that the Galaxy was a small place as everything suddenly related to each other by pure coincidence. That's where we got stuff like C3PO built by Anakin, Chewie hanging out with Yoda, Boba Fett being related to the stormtroopers, multiple Skywalker offspring etc .

    I think the fanbase grew to just accept that as being part and parcel of Star Wars. A new character or hero can't be just a new character. They have to be related to another character or " it's not Star Wars" . It's what most of us have been conditioned to. It's hard to break that cycle without some blowback.
     
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  5. delmonaco

    delmonaco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    I can’t understand this attitude. Why these fans deserve to be trolled?!? SW movies are meant to be entertainment, their main goal is not to push people out of their comfort zone, just the opposite. The fact that someone want to escape from the reality for 2 hours, watching the next installment of a beloved franchise, and having some expectations, based on the franchise tradition doesn’t mean that this person is dumb, evil, and deserve punishment. If someone wants to break his balanced healthy diet, and to let himself once in a fool moon to eat a Big Mac, he would expect a Big Mac, not a tofu cheese with broccoli.

    Established brands and franchises must be predictable to certain extent, they can and have to offer some new things, but carefully, and within the already established standards.

    Star Wars is not a platform for experimental art movie making, nor is some social educational program. I don’t think that the fans that enter the cinema with the hope of watching a new story that follows the already familiar established general brand rules and traditions deserves hate and punishment because of that.
     
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  6. wolfram

    wolfram Slave to the rhythm

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    Vader being Luks's father never worked for me. I thought it was a totally forced (pun intended) revelation, that didn't go along with the first Star Wars film. Leia being his sister was even worse. I never saw the fascination with people in stories being suddenly and surprisingly related. It usually feels constructed and unlikely.

    And no, a hero doesn't need a great lineage to be a hero. Solo didn't and I prefer it that way.
     
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  7. wolfram

    wolfram Slave to the rhythm

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    As I said, it never worked for me. And you are right, it lead to all the stupid connections we got afterwards.
     
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  8. Jim B.

    Jim B. Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    It really shows a complete lack of respect by Lucas and others in the fans intelligence and ability to accept things that everything had to be related like this I think, like fans wouldn't accept just new characters, or coincidence and chance? I suppose judging by the trolls who hate TLJ perhaps, ironically, Lucas may have been right in not thinking the fans were very clever.

    What's even more bizarre is that the fans accept all these really silly links in the original trilogy and prequels (to an extent) but then bust a blood vessel about some really minor thing in TLJ. You can find far far worse and many more questionable plot devices and decisions in the previous films than are in TLJ. I mean these trolls pick holes in TLJ and say because of this or that the film is bad but the plot holes in the original trilogy are huge compared to anything in TLJ.
     
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  9. David Campbell

    David Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Luray, Virginia
    Not all people who disliked the last Jedi. Just the ones who act like petulant children who wanted their head canon validated and can't get over it, and the alt right loons who spout hateful things. In other words the extreme fringe of fandom who themselves troll those who disagree with them. To put it more simply, if 6 months later you are still making YouTube videos daily telling us how much you hate Disney and hate Kathleen Kennedy and hate Rian Johnson and how much your childhood is ruined, then in my view yes that person deserves to be trolled.

    The fandom at large? No. Still that doesn't mean that we get to a point where the fandom drives the direction of the franchise and future creators become so fearful of pissing off the fans that they don't try something out of the norm and instead keep everything within an arbutrary tight box as not to upset the fans in any way. There's a danger in always giving what is expected and anticipated and meeting expectations every single time. That way leads to stagnation, irrelevancy and death. Sometimes you gotta swing for the fences.

    Again I ask, if George Lucas and Larry Kasdan and Irwin Kirshner just played things safe and gave us a sequel to the original Star Wars in which it played things safe, didn't take risks, and only played to expectations and do the minimum required to get butts in seats, would we still be talking about Star Wars today? They flipped the script, upended most of what we assumed about the story coming out of 1977 and took one of the biggest risks ever for a narrative...And it led to everything that came after.
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2018
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  10. David Campbell

    David Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Luray, Virginia
    Like the TIE bombers in ESB dropping bombs in zero gravity and no one bats and eye, but you have people screeching about the same thing in this movie as being some sacrilege and proof that Rian Johnson ruined star wars because it wasn't scientifically accurate.

    It boggles the mind.
     
  11. bferr1

    bferr1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    Or that Finn's arc in TLJ is an unnecessary repeat of his arc in TFA, ignoring the fact that the same is true of Han in TESB. As late as Cloud City, Leia thinks he's "as good as gone" once the Falcon is repaired. Han doesn't actually commit to the cause until after he's rescued from Jabba's palace in ROTJ, once he's freed from the mistakes of his past, thus the stunned look on Leia's face when she learns he's leading the Endor mission. Finn committed to the Resistance a heck of a lot sooner; all it took was Rose and DJ presenting him with a stark choice.
     
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  12. Quadboy

    Quadboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Leeds,England
    I'm no scientist.......but wouldn't some of those asteroids have a small gravity pull .................as with our moon?

    I have no wish to get involved in any argument ...................i haven't liked the way this thread has deteriorated.
     
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  13. bferr1

    bferr1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    Possibly, but I believe that the bombers are actually pushing or launching the bombs, and that inertia is doing the rest.
     
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  14. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Senior Member

    Yeah, but you do this, and then suddenly, people are saying "man, these superhero movies are all the same, why would I watch any" - what is the point of "established standards" if it's to the point that people aren't watching.

    Yes, I know, it's not a LOT of people not watching in these situations, but still.
     
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  15. delmonaco

    delmonaco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    Well, I don't say it's easy to offer something interesting and fresh and still to keep your style (or franchise trademark) intact. That's why the people involved in creating such things are very well paid professionals, because it's difficult.
     
  16. Jim B.

    Jim B. Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    LOL yes. Not to mention, in the same part, the Exogorth. How can any creature grow that big and what does it feed on. I know there is some cobbled together explanation in canon to 'attempt' to explain it but sorry, it's nonsense. In that asteroid belt nothing to eat would get near and why would it even lunge at the MF. Why does it have huge teeth and what does it breath? It's a cool scene but more unrealistic than anything in TLJ.

    You could go on and on and literally pick apart each film. I don't, because I know it's just a fun fantasy film, but those fanboys who rip apart TLJ need to really get some perspective.
     
  17. bferr1

    bferr1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA
    ^ Exogorth is there to force the Falcon out of hiding. Otherwise, the chase movie completely stalls. Shh, don't tell anyone.... :righton:
     
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  18. Neil Anderson

    Neil Anderson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    i thought it was pure genius. luke and leia as brother and sister was jumping the shark.
     
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  19. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    Agreed, Lucas needlessly overcomplicated the story by making Vader Luke's father- all the other 'connections' came later. The Secret History Of Star Wars book -essential reading for Star Wars fans IMO- goes into all that in great gory detail. It all reminds me of how Stephen King gratuitously started tying in every other novel he wrote after 1989 thereabouts to the Dark Tower saga.
     
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  20. David Campbell

    David Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Luray, Virginia
    The Vader reveal itself wasn't the problem. It was and still remains a great dramatic twist, particularly when taking the OT on its own.
    It was the reveal that Leia was Luke's sister that began the bad precedent.

    To be fair though that was almost out of Lucas' control as his marriage broke down in the lead up and making of ROTJ and suddenly his plans to do a more movies evaporated and he had tie up the thread in ESB ( " there is another") that was supposed to set up movies beyond ROTJ. So, Leia became Luke'' sister and I think honestly that's when a certain kind of rot set in to the franchise, first through the EU books and materials, then Lucas himself.

    Yeah, the " oh! This character is connected to this character and that character is connected to this other one because that's how it's supposed to be" trope eventually became a Star Wars trope , but one that should have died after JEDI.

    For all of my issues with TLJ, I'm glad Rian Johnson broke this convention with Rey. Yeah, making Rey the offspring of someone we know from past movies may have been a quick easy way to explain her power within the Force and been comfortable for the fanboys who had come to expect everything in the Star Wars universe to be Six Degrees of Luke Skywalker, but that makes for good fan wank. Not necessarily a good story.
     
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  21. greg_t

    greg_t Senior Member

    Location:
    St. Louis, MO
    [/QUOTE] Again I ask, if George Lucas and Larry Kasdan and Irwin Kirshner just played things safe and gave us a sequel to the original Star Wars in which it played things safe, didn't take risks, and only played to expectations and do the minimum required to get butts in seats, would we still be talking about Star Wars today? They flipped the script, upended most of what we assumed about the story coming out of 1977 and took one of the biggest risks ever for a narrative...And it led to everything that came after.[/QUOTE]


    Along these lines, if anyone wants to go deeper into the Lucas, Kasdan, Kirshner, Kurtz and Empire story, I highly recommed reading the book "the secret history of star wars" by Michael Kaminski. Excellent read and made me understand better why Empire was called "the hard one". It can be found in free pdf format on the net and is a really interesting read for those who want to better understanding of empire, "the other", why leia is the sister, etc.
     
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  22. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    Yep, like I said, The Secret History Of Star Wars is essential reading for Star Wars fans. Cheers to @Vidiot for recommending it:righton: Hell, given everything that's gone down in the ten years or so since the book's publication, maybe it's time for a sequel!
     
  23. delmonaco

    delmonaco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    I agree with many things of your post, but I’m not sure that Rian Johnson really “broke the convention”. It is more like he sidestepped the question about Rey’s backstory and her powers and skills, leaving it for the next director to elaborate on them. Actually this is my main issue with this trilogy, that Disney/Lucasfilm didn’t have a clear concept about all three episodes from the very beginning. At least this is what I understood by Rian Johnson interviews – he said that he had to deal with what JJ Abrams set in TFA, and he had some difficult time to decide which way to go with certain plot lines and characters, in some instances taking important decisions based mainly on what would surprise fans the most (so basically, one of his goals was to surprise the audience in the same manner as Lucas in ESB and ROTJ, by just doing the opposite) . At the same time, he claimed that he actually started writing TLJ before the release of TFA. This all sounds like a real mess. And now, JJ Abrams have to decide what to do exactly in order to continue from where Rian Johnson stopped.

    Working without a concept for follow ups is perfectly understandable when the original SW was shot. But doing this now, when the franchise is what it is, and these final three episodes were firmly planned for release in 2015, 2017and 2019, just doesn’t make sense.

    Also, repeating myself from my previous posts, these bloodline connections, like it or not, are already established for the “Skywalker” saga, and this saga is planned to be finalized with the last 9th episode. And yes, most fans, understandably so, are expecting the main new characters, introduced to these final episodes, to be connected somehow to the previous episodes and to the original characters. And even the most banal explanation about Rey’s origins wouldn’t be an obstacle a good and entertaining story to be created.

    Apart from this 9 episodes epic, they are free to create countless of movies set in the SW universe, with all kinds of different new main characters that are not related in any way to Skywalkers, Kenobies, Solos, Jabbas or Grido’s. That’s why I don’t see TLJ as some sort of breaking point for the franchise, as long as it’s just the episode that precedes the final conclusion of this particular (Skywalker) story.
     
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  24. Jim B.

    Jim B. Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    This is wrong sorry. There was no real explanation needed.

    I'll try and make it simple as some people have a real problem with this:

    1) Anyone can be born strong in the force. Any random person anywhere of any alien race. It is not solely an inherited 'power'.

    2) Rey survived on her own in a tough environment and we can see from the start she had pretty good fighting skills with her staff, it's not like she's some sheltered child having to learn from scratch.

    3) when she fought Kylo he was half dead from Chewies blaster hit, he was in no shape to fight her so it's not a surprise she did well against him

    4) Maz says in TFA "The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead" meaning her parents, whoever they were, are not coming back and not important. She has to move on.

    5) In TFA when Rey is escaping Kylo senses she is powerful and learning fast so it's no surprise she attempts to use the force powers Kylo uses on her to use on others.

    All of that makes perfect sense so no more explanation is needed about her backstory (there isn't one really) or her powers and skills.
     
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  25. dobyblue

    dobyblue Forum Resident

    I bet many of those "loons" know the difference between "loose" and "lose". (harmless ribbing intended)
     
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