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Viking ZX


Author of Science-Fiction and Fantasy novels! Oh, and some fanfiction from time to time.

More Blog Posts1452

Jul
13th
2018

Op-Ed – Giving Star Wars: The Last Jedi a Second Chance · 2:45pm Jul 13th, 2018

So about two weeks ago I wrote a post concerning some of The Last Jedi‘s flaws and how they could have been fixed.

Suffice it to say that some disagreed with my view on things. One reader, in particular, made a long, lengthy, passionate comment about how I was incorrect, and how they felt I needed to go back and give things a second look.

So you know what? I did. And I went all in.

First, I sat down and watched The Empire Strikes back. Oft regarded as the series’ best film, ESB is usually the golden standard of “Hey, this is a great Star Wars flick.” To the degree that the director of TLJ has stated many times that TLJ was to be compared to ESB, both in tone and in what it did for the series. Many have made the case that if one wanted to criticize TLJ, they needed to do so through the lens of ESB, based on the director’s comments.

So I did. I sat down and watched ESB, enjoying it, and then I switched to TLJ, coming at it anew with what I’d just seen and the admonition from said reader that it deserved a second chance. And, by the end, I’d reached a new conclusion.

The Last Jedi is even worse than I’d thought.

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Comments ( 6 )
D48

...Ouch. That's harsh, and thinking back 100% fair. The thing that makes it even worse is that as I pointed out in my comment on the last blog, it aborts the clean break it set up so it doesn't even hold up well if you ignore the Star Wars aspect entirely because it fails to follow through with being different too.

Disney ruined Star Wars.
Rogue one was alright but The force awakens had issues.

For some reason, they decided to fuss about bot rights and other stuff in the last Jedi.
I'm done with star wars.
I can refer you to three videos that showed me how Disney messed up the series.

D48

4900406
Because the prequel trilogy were clearly shining examples of filmmaking. :derpytongue2:

Frankly, the Star Wars franchise has been a mess for a long time, so I really wouldn't blame this on Disney. That's not to say there aren't problems because there very clearly are (and I have also stopped caring about the franchise enough to not watch any more movies), but the reason is almost certainly more complex. Considering my general issues with movies these days, the fact that the new Star Trek movies turned me off to that too, the way MLP went to shit, and the things I have heard about politics in Hollywood these days, I think the root of the problem is a much larger case of groupthink afflicting the industry as a whole and wrecking just about everything in entertainment. I think the only real exception at this point is Marvel, and that's probably because they're more or less just adapting old comics to the screen with input from years of fan criticism of those comics to help them do something legitimately good.

4900557
Someone should've slapped George Lucas upside the head when he thought about doing dialog.
Not going to debate about if the prequel were bad or not, I'm not sure.

I will agree with you about the change in moviemaking.

D48

4900583
Yeah, I think we're on the same page here. I really just wanted to remind you that this is a lot bigger than Disney.

Just saw this and the guy raised an interesting issue.

Screaming folks don't seem impressive and imposing.

What do you think?

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