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I'm still not sure how I feel about this, tbh. It didn't entirely feel like a SW movie, but it had a lot of really good points, themes, and moments.
Things I did like?
Well, I liked that it wasn't just 'heroism'. It was tough choices - a lot of them. The nitty gritty of existence and life and living and living with people who are likewise messy and gritty and nit-like in that you just want to scratch them.
I like that we unpacked a lot more of the younger characters this time - Rey and the darkness in her (which still needs to be explored, I think), Kylo Ren and what turned him, Finn and the heroism (occasionally quite reckless) that he has within him, Poe and his 'flyboy loyalty', and Rose and the reasons people fight, as well as the bitter social strata of the universe (not just the Empire, the universe).
I liked that the cast was so diverse - not just Rey and Rose and Finn and Poe - but the pilots, the officers, the techs, the security - and aliens, too. Like an urban reality, with people of all types and kinds, and the mixes in between.
Suck it, whitebois and anti-SJW.
I liked that there was difficulty and strife in the rebel ranks. That Poe disagreed with his superiors, and they shot him down (metaphorically) for it. That it's clear that Leia loves Poe very much (doesn't have to be sexual, although I can see the interpretation) but that she understands the way command works - has to work.
(Okay, this 'things I like' is actually getting easier as I go along, but mostly because it's making me think.)
I liked the twists and turns of the story - that tropes were flipped about and flipped about again. Luke takes the lightsaber...and throws it away. He won't teach Rey, and then when he does and she promptly reaches for the dark side, he freaks out. He wants to burn the Jedi tree, but when Yoda does, he tries to run in to save stuff. (Oh, and I just-as-i-am-typing-this realised the significance of the scene in the Millenium Falcon where someone's hand drifts across the Jedi texts. AHA!)
Also, I liked the 'how Ben turned into Kylo' story - it's not just Luke, it's Ben as well. Luke gave in to his fear and thought he could deal with Ben, and Ben reacted with fear and wouldn't listen. Plus, the massacre of the students? That's all on Kylo. He could have just cut and run from Luke; but, no, he stopped to kill and burn everything Luke had created. It's equivalent to the argument made against Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption
Admiral Holdo: firstly, an older woman. HALLELUJAH! And then one who is focused on preservation. One whose history we are told but don't have to see and everyone (except the hotshot younger male pilot and his cohorts) respects that (well, he respects it at first). My only issue with her was that I wish they'd dressed her military rather than 'elegant'. And she did get a killer last line before she suicide-hyperspaced straight through Snoke's mothership.
I liked Rose. Even though she made me grimace with the initial fangirly angle. And yes, I struggled with a female character who isn't reed slim with a sharply-defined, all-cheekbones and jaw model-like look. But I loved her pluck, the experience she brought to the table - her knowledge of how it is down at the ground, and that family connection she had with her sister.
I even liked Benicio del Toro's character, and that he wasn't a Han Solo type character. He really was in it for the money, and both sides are the same. (Oh, man, I just realised how that call hearkens to the "indifferents" of American politics: Dems and Republicans are the same, and he's portrayed as a traitor and a bad guy.)
There's a lot more: Luke and Leia's 'reunion', Rose and her 'saving what we love' line, oh and Poe and Rey finally meeting. :D
--
Things I struggled with:
The pacing seemed off. Nothing happened the way I expected. It had all the quirks of Thor: Ragnarok, without the gaudy flash-and-twinkle which allowed me to just ride with it.
That's not unforgivable, given my enjoyment of the rest of it, but I can see how it would be.
--
In short, I think it can be summed up that I loved the themes, the characters, the story we were given, the building of the world (including the darker underbelly of it), but the framework and execution of it were not what I was expecting and that made me come out of it feeling...weirdly dissatisfied.
Things I did like?
Well, I liked that it wasn't just 'heroism'. It was tough choices - a lot of them. The nitty gritty of existence and life and living and living with people who are likewise messy and gritty and nit-like in that you just want to scratch them.
I like that we unpacked a lot more of the younger characters this time - Rey and the darkness in her (which still needs to be explored, I think), Kylo Ren and what turned him, Finn and the heroism (occasionally quite reckless) that he has within him, Poe and his 'flyboy loyalty', and Rose and the reasons people fight, as well as the bitter social strata of the universe (not just the Empire, the universe).
I liked that the cast was so diverse - not just Rey and Rose and Finn and Poe - but the pilots, the officers, the techs, the security - and aliens, too. Like an urban reality, with people of all types and kinds, and the mixes in between.
Suck it, whitebois and anti-SJW.
I liked that there was difficulty and strife in the rebel ranks. That Poe disagreed with his superiors, and they shot him down (metaphorically) for it. That it's clear that Leia loves Poe very much (doesn't have to be sexual, although I can see the interpretation) but that she understands the way command works - has to work.
(Okay, this 'things I like' is actually getting easier as I go along, but mostly because it's making me think.)
I liked the twists and turns of the story - that tropes were flipped about and flipped about again. Luke takes the lightsaber...and throws it away. He won't teach Rey, and then when he does and she promptly reaches for the dark side, he freaks out. He wants to burn the Jedi tree, but when Yoda does, he tries to run in to save stuff. (Oh, and I just-as-i-am-typing-this realised the significance of the scene in the Millenium Falcon where someone's hand drifts across the Jedi texts. AHA!)
Also, I liked the 'how Ben turned into Kylo' story - it's not just Luke, it's Ben as well. Luke gave in to his fear and thought he could deal with Ben, and Ben reacted with fear and wouldn't listen. Plus, the massacre of the students? That's all on Kylo. He could have just cut and run from Luke; but, no, he stopped to kill and burn everything Luke had created. It's equivalent to the argument made against Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption
"A revolver holds six bullets, not eight. I submit that this was not a hot-blooded crime of passion. That, at least, could be understood if not condoned. No - this was revenge of a much more brutal and cold blooded nature. Consider this. Four bullets per victim. Not six shots fired but eight. That means he fired the gun empty...and then stopped to reload so he could shoot each of them again! An extra bullet per lover…right in the head."Sorry, Kylo fans. But I got a whole bucket of NOPE right here.
Admiral Holdo: firstly, an older woman. HALLELUJAH! And then one who is focused on preservation. One whose history we are told but don't have to see and everyone (except the hotshot younger male pilot and his cohorts) respects that (well, he respects it at first). My only issue with her was that I wish they'd dressed her military rather than 'elegant'. And she did get a killer last line before she suicide-hyperspaced straight through Snoke's mothership.
I liked Rose. Even though she made me grimace with the initial fangirly angle. And yes, I struggled with a female character who isn't reed slim with a sharply-defined, all-cheekbones and jaw model-like look. But I loved her pluck, the experience she brought to the table - her knowledge of how it is down at the ground, and that family connection she had with her sister.
I even liked Benicio del Toro's character, and that he wasn't a Han Solo type character. He really was in it for the money, and both sides are the same. (Oh, man, I just realised how that call hearkens to the "indifferents" of American politics: Dems and Republicans are the same, and he's portrayed as a traitor and a bad guy.)
There's a lot more: Luke and Leia's 'reunion', Rose and her 'saving what we love' line, oh and Poe and Rey finally meeting. :D
--
Things I struggled with:
The pacing seemed off. Nothing happened the way I expected. It had all the quirks of Thor: Ragnarok, without the gaudy flash-and-twinkle which allowed me to just ride with it.
That's not unforgivable, given my enjoyment of the rest of it, but I can see how it would be.
--
In short, I think it can be summed up that I loved the themes, the characters, the story we were given, the building of the world (including the darker underbelly of it), but the framework and execution of it were not what I was expecting and that made me come out of it feeling...weirdly dissatisfied.
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I don't think TLJ is going to be a comfort movie (honestly, I'd go back to Justice League for the happy feels), which is possibly why a bunch of people are up in arms about it, but I do like the stories it told about the people in it, even if I'm not sold on the way in which they were told...
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And this movie is overturning expectations for an internationally beloved (or tolerated hah) franchise, I think that's why it's so divisive. -- Altho I never want to hear another word about fangirls who throw tantrums because they "expect" their favourites to kiss, because OH MY GOD the manbaby fanboiz throwing actual tantrums in the io9 comments over "But who was Snoke?" and "Who were Rey's parents?" and "WHY DIDN'T LUKE GET TO FIGHT EVERYBODY WITH THE LIGHTSABRE" are really something.
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Oh, absolutely. ABSOLUTELY!
I haven't actually looked at any of the comments/responses, although I've been able to guess at them from retweets I've encountered on Twitter...
And, yeah, there's just too much weight behind SW - the original trilogy was produced over six years and was a cult classic by RotJ. Then it was fifteen years before the next SW movie was produced and, well, the visuals were great and the framing/storytiming was perfectly executed, but the characters and story was flat flat flat. And that in and of itself set the stage for the current crop of movies, which are bearing a great deal of emotive and obsessive history upon them.
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And LOTS of people who were heavily into the EU are upset that a lot of non-movies backstory got tossed. I never read those books/comics, but I think a lot of people clung to them when there was no new canon coming out. But with the frothing fanboiz even that's suspect to me -- some of them keep saying Ackbar should have had Holdo's role, and that has absolutely nothing to do with Holdo being a woman who schools a scrappy popular heroic pilot, right? Right.
I mean, hell, you'd never know the Emperor's name in the OT was "Palpatine" if you hadn't read the tie-in books, and a lot of people didn't. Who was he? Some Evil Dude who showed up to out-Evil Darth Vader so Luke could redeem his father. If some part of the next movie is not Kylo Ren recovering in some part from Snoke doing the whammy on him, I will eat a helmet. (Ren could still either be barely redeemed or a heroic sacrifice, who knows. If he's a heroic sacrifice the fallout on the internet will be EPIC.)
But really, yeah, the main thing is this is a huge cultural thing and having new installments in it BUT with the old characters/actors is tripping people out, especially now that it's late enough the stars are in their late sixties. It's obviously the last time we're going to get to see them and that also ups everything exponentially.
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Seriously.
I would have liked to see Ackbar again, but not in Holdo's position. (And, what, it's been a long time, maybe Ackbar is spending his years somewhere comfortable and moist and teaching little Mon Cals how to rebel - and how to deal with humans? Yes. Yes, I think he totally is. But he couldn't scramble a cruiser fast enough to come to the rebel's aid.)
Eh. Honestly, there was always going to be frothing. And right now, anything that doesn't uphold the traditional whiteboi status quo is going to get pushback from the oldskool rundown whiteboi fans and their tiki-torch-waving spiritual descendants.
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It's amazing, these people bitching about how Rey is the best with no training -- I'm like, did you SEE Luke in the original trilogy? WTF
But from what I can tell is if you look at a lot of the fanboi complaints closely enough they boil down to "Kylo wasn't the hero." Heh.
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And, yeah, Rey is totally the Luke of the new series. It just so happens that the 'Darth Vader' character is her own age and not related to her by blood.
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SRSLY the fanboiz either want Luke or Kylo to be the hero. (I'm talking about the dudez who are frothing, not the people who didn't like it.) And despite REY being the focus of TFA, despite JYN being the focus of R1, it's like they're kicking their feet and screaming because the guy they've built up in their minds as the Big Damn Hero -- or the other bepenised person they would accept as the new Big Damn (Anti)Hero -- aren't the center.
Altho in Equal and Opposite Reaction news, Marvel announced the cancellation of a whole lot of diverse comics, including Iceman, America, Hawkeye (Kate), Luke Cage, &c &c. SIGH
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See, I actually really liked that. It's so rare to see an older woman in a position like hers who's allowed to be feminine. Most of the time, they're specifically dressed 'military' rather than 'elegant' because it makes it less threatening to men to see the person in charge dressed in a more masculine way.
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I've heard how its not a Star Wars movie but that can only be a good thing. There's so much weight and expectation when it comes to the franchise but it SW world can be vast and open to so much more.