The Last Jedi General Discussion

Was there is First Order thread? If there is could a moderator move it - terribly sorry as I can’t keep track.

I was most pleasantly surprised to see Ade up on the big screen. I sure hope he survived somehow as I’d love to see him utilised in IX. I don’t know if the 2min snippet with Graham Norton will work if you’re outside of the UK

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05v4s65

MrsWindu wrote:Was there is First Order thread? If there is could a moderator move it - terribly sorry as I can’t keep track.

I was most pleasantly surprised to see Ade up on the big screen. I sure hope he survived somehow as I’d love to see him utilised in IX. I don’t know if the 2min snippet with Graham Norton will work if you’re outside of the UK

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05v4s65

@MrsWindu

I spotted it was him straight the way, my friends who I was with didn't believe me and Googled it after the film.
I love how he does an eye roll at Hux, you would miss it if you wasn't directly watching him. Also when he says to Hux, "I think he's tooling with you sir' (or words to the effect of) with  reads to Poe.

I hope he comes back in IX

How to destroy your haters without a single word: A Thread by Rian Johnson.

Kylo Rey wrote:






How to destroy your haters without a single word: A Thread by Rian Johnson.

@Kylo Rey

I got to say that I love that he has The Far Side Gallery on that shelf. Rian is my people.

Kylo Rey wrote:






How to destroy your haters without a single word: A Thread by Rian Johnson.

@Kylo Rey

How Kylo Ren of him. re:Snoke

Savage.

The one criticism on projections that what I thougt was interesting was - how do we now will know when someone who appears in scene is a real person because it could be a projection.
And I thought - welcome all the - Kylo creates his force projection and then probably dies speculations! Similar as people thought Kylo reaching hand to Rey was a vision - which ironically was one of the meetings that they had in person not the force bond scenes.

He has such a good attitude towards this type of sh*t, versus other authors/filmmakers who can have freak outs or be thin skinned from social media criticisms. Otherwise - digging the palm tree wallpaper motif and look all the way over there on the left, a Roald Dahl anthology. Which brings to mind the low key comparisons Daisy Ridley's been making between Matilda and Rey for 2 years now.

snufkin wrote:He has such a good attitude towards this type of sh*t, versus other authors/filmmakers who can have freak outs or be thin skinned from social media criticisms. Otherwise - digging the palm tree wallpaper motif and look all the way over there on the left, a Roald Dahl anthology. Which brings to mind the low key comparisons Daisy Ridley's been making between Matilda and Rey for 2 years now.

@snufkin

He's so good at it. JJ would have issued an apology by now and been backtracking all over the place

I noticed he has a copy of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, heh. Nice to know he reads him.

@Kylo Rey Well we've had two years of passive aggressive Tweets about how JJ didn't include the Story Group or Lore Mastery in TFA versus Rian, so you're probably right. I mean, it's an extra sick burn that Rian went to the pages of a book because some of the nerds sniping at him about this are probably the same ones who endlessly debate about things being canon. But JJ would've probably just blurted something out because he got put on the spot or "thought it was cool."

Kylo Rey wrote:

snufkin wrote:He has such a good attitude towards this type of sh*t, versus other authors/filmmakers who can have freak outs or be thin skinned from social media criticisms. Otherwise - digging the palm tree wallpaper motif and look all the way over there on the left, a Roald Dahl anthology. Which brings to mind the low key comparisons Daisy Ridley's been making between Matilda and Rey for 2 years now.

@snufkin

He's so good at it. JJ would have issued an apology by now and been backtracking all over the place

I noticed he has a copy of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, heh. Nice to know he reads him.

@Kylo Rey
Agreed. J.J. definitely concedes to critics in a way Rian never has. One of the first things he did when TFA came out was come out and acknowledge disparaging cries by defending his movie from rehash backlash. He had some great things to say about how Star Wars needed to poetically look back at what came before in order to move forward, which is so true, but of course critics interpreted that statement as him coming out and admitting to doing all the things he was being accused of. Cue click bait headlines. Rian, on the other hand, is taking an approach that involves extensively explaining the choices he made as a creator rather than addressing criticism and going on the defensive. He's really the perfect filmmaker and person for a company like Lucasfilm.

I feel like Matt's take here on why filmmakers shouldn't cave to criticism or pressure from fans likely aligns with Rian and LF's general take.

I just hope J.J. won't be afraid of acknowledging the PT in Episode IX. We need a full circle story and one that can bring the story fully together. One thing I apperciate so much about Rian too is that he acknowledged the Jedi and their complacency and arrogance. I think this makes a viewing of The Phantom Menace - The Last Jedi more meaningful. I just hope we'll get to say that with Episode IX too.

A few ways.

1. Learn about Sifo-Dyas.

2. Learn about why the Force created Anakin.

3. Learn the meaning of " To cheat death is the power only one has achieved but, if we work together I know we can discover the secret."

And, I'm sure there's others. We just need to bring things together and if they decide to go beyond IX, we won't be restrained to the past.

Kylo Rey wrote:

snufkin wrote:He has such a good attitude towards this type of sh*t, versus other authors/filmmakers who can have freak outs or be thin skinned from social media criticisms. Otherwise - digging the palm tree wallpaper motif and look all the way over there on the left, a Roald Dahl anthology. Which brings to mind the low key comparisons Daisy Ridley's been making between Matilda and Rey for 2 years now.

@snufkin

He's so good at it. JJ would have issued an apology by now and been backtracking all over the place

I noticed he has a copy of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, heh. Nice to know he reads him.

@Kylo Rey

I noticed that too. I love that Rian seems to have such a healthy amount of intellectual curiosity and varied literary and film interests.

@MyOnlyHope - thanks for posting that Twitter exchange. I am so encouraged that the LF story group seems to be adopting the mindset of not giving into pressure from external fans/critics. That kind of thing kills creativity.  It also begs the question: what external feedback/criticisms is deemed worthy of heeding? it’s a very slippery slope since you can never please everyone. It comes off as especially problematic when a lot of the criticism revolves around very personal preferences, which differ from person to person.

I’m glad Rian is taking the critics in stride and not apologizing for being true to his creative vision. I hope JJ has the fortitude to do the same.

Bittersweet realization of the day.

If Ben Solo had never fallen to the dark side, Rey would've died alone on Jakku.

If he'd grown up happily, if his family had been there for him, if Snoke had never poisoned his mind, if Luke had never betrayed him, then he never would've destroyed the temple. If he'd never destroyed the temple, Luke never would've gone into exile. If Luke had never gone into exile, the map to Ahch-To never would've been sought after. If nobody cared about finding the map, then the events of TFA never would've occurred. Rey's light never would've risen to meet Kylo's darkness. She would've died alone on Jakku waiting for her parents to come back until the very end.

In a way Kylo needed to be abused and betrayed in order to set off the chain of events that eventually led Rey off Jakku, led to her becoming his equal in the light, and led to them meeting and bonding in the Force.

Kessel wrote:

Kylo Rey wrote:

snufkin wrote:He has such a good attitude towards this type of sh*t, versus other authors/filmmakers who can have freak outs or be thin skinned from social media criticisms. Otherwise - digging the palm tree wallpaper motif and look all the way over there on the left, a Roald Dahl anthology. Which brings to mind the low key comparisons Daisy Ridley's been making between Matilda and Rey for 2 years now.

@snufkin

He's so good at it. JJ would have issued an apology by now and been backtracking all over the place :D

I noticed he has a copy of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, heh. Nice to know he reads him.

@Kylo Rey

I noticed that too. :) I love that Rian seems to have such a healthy amount of intellectual curiosity and varied literary and film interests.

@MyOnlyHope - thanks for posting that Twitter exchange. I am so encouraged that the LF story group seems to be adopting the mindset of not giving into pressure from external fans/critics. That kind of thing kills creativity.  It also begs the question: what external feedback/criticisms is deemed worthy of heeding? it’s a very slippery slope since you can never please everyone. It comes off as especially problematic when a lot of the criticism revolves around very personal preferences, which differ from person to person.

I’m glad Rian is taking the critics in stride and not apologizing for being true to his creative vision. I hope JJ has the fortitude to do the same.

@Kessel

For all our "he must lurk here" jokes, it's more likely he's the type of nerd the way a lot of us are. People who enjoy reading and have a wide range of interests besides just Space Wizards and laser swords. Also likely a fairly highbrow, but very dirty sense of humor. We're all collectively jealous about the amount of time he must have spent hanging out with Carrie Fisher and listening to her sex jokes.

@MyOnlyHope - In some ways JJ can't win because of that quality. Plus he's become a thing in pop culture as a target for nerd rage. He has at least openly discussed things he's probably overused, like Lens Flare and the Mystery Box. But yeah, if LF were the type of group swayed by the fandom/critic hivemind, this board wouldn't exist because it'd be the Adventures of Rey Solo and the Beautiful Friendship Gang where her awesome Uncle Luke helps her take on and kill her awful ex-classmate Kyle Ron.

@MyOnlyHope wow I like What you write <3

MyOnlyHope wrote:Bittersweet realization of the day.

If Ben Solo had never fallen to the dark side, Rey would've died alone on Jakku.

If he'd grown up happily, if his family had been there for him, if Snoke had never poisoned his mind, if Luke had never betrayed him, then he never would've destroyed the temple. If he'd never destroyed the temple, Luke never would've gone into exile. If Luke had never gone into exile, the map to Ahch-To never would've been sought after. If nobody cared about finding the map, then the events of TFA never would've occurred. Rey's light never would've risen to meet Kylo's darkness. She would've died alone on Jakku waiting for her parents to come back until the very end.

In a way Kylo needed to be abused and betrayed in order to set off the chain of events that eventually led Rey off Jakku, led to her becoming his equal in the light, and led to them meeting and bonding in the Force.

@MyOnlyHope

:' (. For all of his goofiness otherwise, JJ's been pretty consistent in using words like "sad" and "grim" for Rey's life on Jakku after her parents left her there/sold her to Plutt.

On the back of Rian’s Jedi Path tweet I saw his reply to someone who was curious about Leia Mary Poppins. It’s great he has time to give responses .

Kessel wrote:

Kylo Rey wrote:

snufkin wrote:He has such a good attitude towards this type of sh*t, versus other authors/filmmakers who can have freak outs or be thin skinned from social media criticisms. Otherwise - digging the palm tree wallpaper motif and look all the way over there on the left, a Roald Dahl anthology. Which brings to mind the low key comparisons Daisy Ridley's been making between Matilda and Rey for 2 years now.

@snufkin

He's so good at it. JJ would have issued an apology by now and been backtracking all over the place

I noticed he has a copy of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, heh. Nice to know he reads him.

@Kylo Rey

I noticed that too. I love that Rian seems to have such a healthy amount of intellectual curiosity and varied literary and film interests.

@MyOnlyHope - thanks for posting that Twitter exchange. I am so encouraged that the LF story group seems to be adopting the mindset of not giving into pressure from external fans/critics. That kind of thing kills creativity.  It also begs the question: what external feedback/criticisms is deemed worthy of heeding? it’s a very slippery slope since you can never please everyone. It comes off as especially problematic when a lot of the criticism revolves around very personal preferences, which differ from person to person.

I’m glad Rian is taking the critics in stride and not apologizing for being true to his creative vision. I hope JJ has the fortitude to do the same.

@Kessel

He's a nerd and I love it. One of the reasons why I love reading/watching his interviews. Even if I find myself disagreeing with his choices or what he says, he always has something insightful/interesting to say.

Kylo Rey wrote:






How to destroy your haters without a single word: A Thread by Rian Johnson.

@Kylo Rey

thanks for sharing Kylo Rey!
I'm really surprised fans are questioning new force abilities being show.. Aie..
Though lol. Luke projected not exactly a 'duplicate' of himself.. it was a specifically chosen version of himself.. very interesting!

Kessel wrote:

Kylo Rey wrote:

snufkin wrote:He has such a good attitude towards this type of sh*t, versus other authors/filmmakers who can have freak outs or be thin skinned from social media criticisms. Otherwise - digging the palm tree wallpaper motif and look all the way over there on the left, a Roald Dahl anthology. Which brings to mind the low key comparisons Daisy Ridley's been making between Matilda and Rey for 2 years now.

@snufkin

He's so good at it. JJ would have issued an apology by now and been backtracking all over the place

I noticed he has a copy of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, heh. Nice to know he reads him.

@Kylo Rey

I noticed that too. I love that Rian seems to have such a healthy amount of intellectual curiosity and varied literary and film interests.

@MyOnlyHope - thanks for posting that Twitter exchange. I am so encouraged that the LF story group seems to be adopting the mindset of not giving into pressure from external fans/critics. That kind of thing kills creativity.  It also begs the question: what external feedback/criticisms is deemed worthy of heeding? it’s a very slippery slope since you can never please everyone. It comes off as especially problematic when a lot of the criticism revolves around very personal preferences, which differ from person to person.

I’m glad Rian is taking the critics in stride and not apologizing for being true to his creative vision. I hope JJ has the fortitude to do the same.

@Kessel
This is such a crucial point. Thank you. I've seen quite a few complainers on Twitter use "Lucasfilm should listen to fans" as the absolute crux of their argument, a statement that obviously begs the question... "umm which fans...?" Are you talking Reylos? Luke fanboys? EU fanboys? Prequel lovers? Prequel haters? "Finn is the main character" believers? Devotees of any one of the multitude of Rey's parentage theories? "Keep things the same" fans? "Do something different" fans? Asserting that Lucasfilm should take advice from fans is probably the most meaningless, ignorant bit of guidance I've heard in a long time. The best part is that the people giving this advice don't even realize that not everyone wants the same things they do from Star Wars. They don't get that their preferences and opinions aren't universally shared across the fandom. They don't see that they're just falling victim to a false consensus bias.

What Matt says in that Twitter exchange is so encouraging. As a filmmaker/writer/creative mind in general, you can't please everyone. All you can do is look at what came before, bring your own vision to life, and hope that it reaches others in the way you want it to. Rian did exactly that. It's just great to hear that the storygroup/LF isn't out to squash creativity.

MyOnlyHope wrote:Bittersweet realization of the day.

If Ben Solo had never fallen to the dark side, Rey would've died alone on Jakku.

If he'd grown up happily, if his family had been there for him, if Snoke had never poisoned his mind, if Luke had never betrayed him, then he never would've destroyed the temple. If he'd never destroyed the temple, Luke never would've gone into exile. If Luke had never gone into exile, the map to Ahch-To never would've been sought after. If nobody cared about finding the map, then the events of TFA never would've occurred. Rey's light never would've risen to meet Kylo's darkness. She would've died alone on Jakku waiting for her parents to come back until the very end.

In a way Kylo needed to be abused and betrayed in order to set off the chain of events that eventually led Rey off Jakku, led to her becoming his equal in the light, and led to them meeting and bonding in the Force.

@MyOnlyHope

So it kind of hardens back to when Rey was feeling the Force and said "death giving birth to new life." Something bad happens but it paved the way for something new to spring from its ashes. And when Rey helps Ben come back from the dark and deal with the abuse and hardships, you wrote about it will come full circle...balance.

When Luke first attempts to teach Rey a lesson about the Force, she is instinctively dragged into the dark side’s pit. “You didn’t even it fight it,” Luke shivers. That is because both she and Kylo are naturally drawn to the other’s allure, and their fates are entwined. This is not to say there is a romantic connection between the two... but the attraction of it exists for both parties.

I took this quote from an article and there are some things I’d like to comment about it.


In this article the author shows he is well-read and understands the movie quite well, but despite this he doesn’t get the romance that is the cornerstone for the whole ST. Why this is so mystifies me although we have seen this for two years now, over and over. Why do so many people feel the need to state they think these two people’s dynamic is NOT romantic when it IS romantic. At this point everything points in that direction and not only in a potential future, it’s already happened in TLJ.

I’d understand this coming from people who take everything at face value or casual viewers but not from someone who shows he’s read Greek tragedies and tries to see parallels between TLJ and literary precedents.

There are two reasons that may explain this:
1. People see romance as a minor genre and something frown upon on the grounds that it’s mushy, sappy, fangirlish, only for women, superficial, not about really serious things like war, powah, politics, etc.

2. Most of us unconsciously tend to read/ interpret stories accordind to our literary and film background, the books we’ve read and the films we’ve seen. The fact is women usually have a  wider storytelling knowledge than men because we have been  exposed to different kinds of narrative in movies and books since we were children.

We read romace, but also adventure, and many other things. It’s not the same with men. It’s rare to find a man who’s read Little Women or Heidi, or Pride and Prejudiceor Jane Eyre, but many women have read Julius Verne, Emilio Salgari or GRRM, just to name some examples usually seen as written with male audiences in mind.

This may be the reason we see it and they don’t. We understand different types of narrative and are not stubbornly trying to abscribe SW to narratives we are familiar with and keep denying others that are obviously there but feel alien to us because we aren’t familiar with them or because we aren’t comfortable with them because romace is not for dudes, its for women.

Their headcanons, gender expectatios and background in stories prevent them from getting what is really going on on screen.


The guy in the article can see Ben and Rey are attracted to each other like moth to flame and that theirs a connection they can’t have with anyone else, that they complement each other and each has what the other lacks. On the other hand, he fails to accept romance  is in the charts for these same reasons.

He can only see a tragic ending because these two need each other to be complete. He can see that they can do wonderful thigs together when they have a common purpose but the only way to reach balance in his opinion is death and the end of the Skywalker lineage. In his eyes the sins of the Grandfather, Vader, led to chaos and the only solution is the end of his lineage. But this is because this guy is trying to fit a square into a circle, a fairy tale into a tragedy and not any tragedy but the one he uses as a parallel ( Orestiada) when others are much more in consonance with ST. He also rejects the obvious romantic dynamic.

This may be why he is blind to an integral part of the story. If he got the romace he’d see this is not what he thinks, that he’s chosen the wrong genre to classify this story even though genres aren’t always as clear cut as some tend to think. Among other things ST is also a romace. It’s also a heroine’s coming of age journey and a beloved saga of mythical proportions. In this scenario, Ben Solo must be redeemed, for the heroine to get her dearest dream (her heart’s desire: family, belonging.)and for our beloved family saga to still have hope.

LUKE: Lies to Rey about what went down with Ben Solo that night at the Jedi Temple.

REY: Is done with all of this and essentially beats the truth out of him.

Pity Han didn't share that bit of wisdom about 'women always figuring out the truth' with his ol' buddy Luke

Armadeus wrote:LUKE: Lies to Rey about what went down with Ben Solo that night at the Jedi Temple.

REY: Is done with all of this and essentially beats the truth out of him.

Pity Han didn't share that bit of wisdom about 'women always figuring out the truth' with his ol' buddy Luke

@Armadeus

I have always wondered if the Women Always Figure Out The Truth line was directed at the future Reylos that would be born from TFA. Not to say we don’t have some wonderful men in our community such as yourself, but we still are a predominately female bunch, and women pick up on romantic or subtextual cues far more than men, generally speaking. I always liked that line as it made me wonder if that was purposeful.

I hope someone asks JJ when all is said and done.

@Reynak
What I call genre confusion or what @nickandnora described as being "unable to whip out the right manual when you need it as a result of lack of exposure to said manual" is and always has been at the heart of all the most perplexing reactions to both Reylo and the ST as a whole. 

Star Wars has always followed very male-centric storylines, even when romantic love was featured as a plot point. Luke's journey in the OT is constantly used as a modern staple of Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces and while Anakin's story is certainly one part star-crossed lovers tragedy, the romance is told very much from the male gaze (and was poorly received overall, which only added to many fans's skepticism surrounding romance in their Star Wars). They understood and connected with the OT in particular because it's a classic zero to hero coming-of-age story. To generations of men who grew up being exposed to Lord of the Rings, Dune, Flash Gordon and Harry Potter the ST is kind of an anomaly. It isn't a zero-to-hero story and it doesn't fit so neatly into the package of the Hero's Journey because it's not just a male-centric story fitted with a window-dressings female protagonist. 

It's not something I ever really thought about before but women tend have a leg up on men when it comes to the fiction they're exposed to. Maybe it'll start with some simple Anderson fairy tale like Thumbelina or The Snow Queen. We probably all grew up with shelves of animated kids' movies, but our mothers and fathers would have had no qualms with putting in Beauty and the Beast or The Land Before Time. Growing up we're equally likely to be handed Anne of Green Gables or Harry Potter. As older kids or teenagers we'll probably read The Catcher in the Rye or watch Lord of the Rings just as we'll be exposed to Jane Eyre or Gone With the Wind.

We were provided with the "manuals" for both the OT and the ST simultaneously. We experienced incarnations of both female-gaze narratives and male-gaze narratives all our lives and so as soon as Kylo swept Rey up in his arms, watched her sleep, became fascinated by her and she swiftly rose to become his equal in the Force through several intimately filmed and plotted film sequences a switch went off in our minds. We rushed to put that male-centric storyline manual back and took out the one we actually needed. Thus came the simultaneous realizations that "Guys, this is totally Thumbelina, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Beauty and the Beast, Anne of Green Gables, Howl's Moving Castle, etc." 

Even many intelligent people who see the romantic angle feel it can only end in tragedy because they're looking at it like friggin' Romeo and Juliet/the PT, both male-centric romantic tragedies. They try to analyze the story from the wrong perspectives and come up short as a result. You need that female-centric narrative manual, you need the coming-of-age manual, you need the optimistic modern fairytale/myth manual. You can't just shove that square into that circular box because no matter what you do it will never, ever fit.

It's so frustrating because being underexposed to different kinds of stories has led to some serious confusion and disappointment from some corners. I just wish people would be more willing to admit that they might be lacking in this department rather than immediately say anybody who believed in the Reylo narrative direction was a rabid fangirl. It's one thing to be underexposed as a result of a gender divide, it's another to purposefully remain ignorant and slam others who have had different upbringings and perspectives.