A Brief Rant on Star Wars · 11:56pm Nov 10th, 2019
Howdy, folks! First and foremost, as always, Adorable Applejack:
I can buck all th' apples in th' south fields in twelve parsecs, sugar cube!
Now then, a brief update on actual things that matter: I have finally finished the outline for my story! It's sitting at about 17K words. Now, before you get nervous, all that includes rough cuts of chapters and dialogue and stuff. Also, I have (basically) finished the first five chapters! Yay! Only seventeen to go! Boo...
Okay! As most of you know, unless you have a nice shady spot under a rock, the new Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker, is set to come out next month. This is the end of the so-called "Skywalker Saga," as in the end of stories involving characters from the original trilogy. However, because the Mouse Must Feed, there will be many more films in the franchise.
For the past several months, rumors have been flying around about a supposed "troubled production" of Episode IX. That it was shot in a way that would allow for six different endings, that there were massive reshoots underway less than two months prior to release, that the higher-ups at Disney were unhappy with the story, etc. I generally haven't paid too much attention to these for the simple reason... I don;t really care.
Don't get me wrong! I like Star Wars! A lot! But I never really formed that special... "bond" with it, I guess you could say. I actually didn't see Star Wars until I was about 13. Actually, it was about six months before The Phantom Menace, came out I think. So, I was past the age where I could really latch onto it. BY that time, my childhood obsessions were already taken by Star Trek, Ghostbusters, and Power Rangers.
Still, I really, really liked the original trilogy. I actually just rewatched them a few weeks ago, and was reminded how great they were! I even liked the prequels. Yeah, they were cheesy, dumb, and the dialogue was the stuff of fan fiction nightmares, but they were entertaining and had good action scenes. And I really liked The Force Awakens, too. Yeah, like everyone and their mother knows, it was just a "soft reboot" of the original, but it was really entertaining. It was great to see these characters again, and I liked the new ones they introduced.
Finn is a very interesting character in particular. A former Storm Trooper who rebelled is an incredibly unique story line, though they didn't really do much with it. I don't think they used Poe very well, either. I mean, he's fun, but he didn't get as much to do in TFA. Like, by the middle of A New Hope, we had a good, solid hold on who all the principle characters were, and with Poe, we just... didn't, really. And as for Rey... I liked her. She was fun enough, though by the end of TFA, I was really eager to see her explored further, seeing her stumble and fall, like Luke did in the original trilogy. As for the movie itself, it did a great job of leaving me wanting more. There were dangling plot threads, mysteries to unravel, and a general sense of, "Ooo, I wonder what happens next!" Especially Rey finding Luke Skywalker! Like, here's this character who is incredibly Force gifted, but needs guidance, and here is the character who became the Jedi Master! What's gonna happen?!
Then... we got The Last Jedi.
Okay, let me make this clear. I did not HATE The Last Jedi. As previously stated, I never really cared enough about the franchise to hate it. But as I watched it, I was just... bored. Like, it was two and a half hours of them spinning their wheels. They basically ended up exactly where they started, on the run from the First Order. Finn and Rose's little extracurricular activity accomplished nothing, as they ended up, once again, back where they started. Benicio del Torro's character was more annoying than clever, and that general woman was insufferable. She literally could have solved several problems by simply telling Poe what the plan was. There was no reason not to.
The only thing about the movie that came close to "making me angry," was I felt they kinda shit on Luke a bit. Like, here's Luke Fucking Skywalker, one of, if not the most recognizable protagonists in film history, a guy who nearly everyone can relate to and identify with, the literal example given when mentioning "The Hero's Journey" character arc... and he's just some grumpy old man who drinks green milk from a space walrus' tits. He never got his "badass moment" where we can see him using the Jedi skills and Force mastery we saw him gain in the original movies. We never got to see him redeem himself. And they teased us with it when he showed up at the end! But, no. He just grumbles, complains, then... dies.
Well, there's one more thing that irked me, but that's no so much a plot thing as a military thing. The idea of "slow moving bombers with fighter escorts" in a space battle was... fucking stupid. Like, I get they were trying to evoke old-school WWII aerial battles like the other trilogies, but like... haven't they ever heard of, I don't know a missile?
Anywho, the reason I bring all this up is that the rumors are still flying, even this close to the release of Episode IX. But, as like with most things involving rumors, you can't fully trust them. I mean, several outlets are all reporting on a thing... but they all come from one guy. Now, that doesn't mean it's not true. I mean, Reddit posts about leaks from Hollywood have panned out in the past, so who knows? It just means you have to take the whole thing with a huge, Tom-sized grain of salt, you know?
I'm actually not going to go into the rumors too much. What I will say is that there was supposedly a test screening with three separate cuts of the film: one from Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams, one from Disney CEO Bob Iger, and one that was heavily influenced by George Lucas himself. You can look it all up if you want. The only thing I'll says is that if it is true, the supposed ending of the Kennedy/Abrams cut... well, again, it wouldn't make me mad. It would just make me laugh. Hysterically. The reason I bring all this up is to point out the biggest problem:
I just don't care anymore.
That was the biggest sin of The Last Jedi: it didn't get me excited about the next film in the series. Think back to The Empire Strikes Back, and Attack of the Clones. Both of those movies were the second film in a trilogy, and they left you wanting more. I was engaged. "Wow, what's going to happen next?!" We were left with questions that we needed answering. The heroes were at their lowest point. But The Last Jedi? Nope. The film then ended with almost none of those "dangling plot threads" I mentioned earlier. There's nothing really to be resolved, save for the Kylo Ren/Rey rivalry, and the extremely general "defeat the bad guys" plot. The only thing it succeeded in was following the general arc of having it be the "low point" of the story. But other than that? What do we have to look forward to? Where's the hook?
Look, I have no doubt that the movie is going to make money. Like... a lot of money. I heard somewhere that based on pre-sales alone, the movie could break Avengers: Endgame's record-breaking... well, record-breaking box office draw. I also have no doubt that the movie will be reviewed very favorably by critics. Speaking as someone who has worked in the news industry and dabbled in the entertainment branch thereof, that whole world is a massive circle-jerking echo chamber. They like the movies they are supposed to like, and don't like the ones they aren't. This isn't an opinion of mine. You can read news stories about the growing disconnect between critics and audiences. So, yeah. Critics will love Episode IX, and it will be a very profitable movie.
But I just don't care. Again, for the bajillionth time, this isn't anger talking. This isn't, "NO! I'm DONE with Star Wars! They RUINED it!" It's more just... I can;t be assed to give a shit, and I think that speaks volumes to how Disney is handling the franchise. Say what you will about George Lucas, but with the original movies, and even the prequels, you always had the sense that there was someone at the wheel. Lucas had a vision, he knew where he wanted the story to go and what he wanted to do, and he did it. But with the new films, I just don't get that feeling. Like, it seemed like that started out that way with TFA, but with TLJ, I get the sense that they gave way too much creative freedom to Rian Johnson, and he was so focused on "subverting expectations," that he kinda... went off the rails. That's not a slight against him, really. I mean, I liked Looper, and I'm excited for his new movie Knives Out.
But I just don't feel like there is a cohesive narrative vision, and I have no idea why. I don't know if this is a Lucasfilm/Kennedy thing, or a Disney/Iger thing, but there doesn't seem to be a central story they're trying to tell. Look at what Disney did with the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Kevin Fiege had a vision. He knew what he wanted to do with the universe, and in that series, Disney basically said, "Hey, as long as you keep making money, fucking go for it!" And it did gangbusters! BY nearly metric, it;s one of the biggest successes in movie history! Why wouldn't Disney do the same thing with, you know, the single most recognizable and bankable film franchise in history? Hell, maybe that's it. Maybe they just felt that, "Hey, nerds will see anything with the Star Wars brand attached, so fuck it!"
Now, I must confess that I'm not totally "done" with Star Wars. I'm curious to see what they can do with The Mandolorian, and I am really excited to see the Ewan McGregor Obi-Wan series. But as far as the movies? They kinda just... lost me. I mean, going back to the MCU, I was there every opening day! I was jazzed to see the next entries. The same goes with The Force Awakens, and even The Last Jedi! But now? Episode IX is now just another movie where, if someone I trust says it's good, I might see it.
What do you think? Are you excited for The Rise of Skywalker? What do you think about the future of the brand? Let me know!
I fucking love you all. Til next we meet, stay safe, stay free, and stay metal! Jake The Army Guy out!
I'm glad that this is the end of the Skywalker Saga. After this, I might jump off the Star Wars bandwagon for good. Find something else to nerd over. I just hope that this saga ends with a roar, not a whimper.
I'll be going to see Episode IX. I've seen the others so may as well finish it off. But after that, unless the next set of movies are advertised in a way that will make them really creative and interesting watches, Imma be done with Star Wars.
Unlike you, I did watch Star Wars at an early age, and have loved the original trilogy ever since. However, just like you, I'm kinda done with it. Not out of anger, but apathy. I just don't get jazzed about it anymore. So, funnily enough, we started at different points on the map but ended up in the same hive of scum and villainy.
I don't plan on getting Disney+, so no Mandolorian for me. Although, that show has interested me more so than the movies, so maybe I'll check it out if it ever becomes available through a free preview or something.
Probably the most damning indictment of the new series for me is that I still struggle to remember who exactly Poe is
I'm sort of in the same apathetic camp that you're in, though I must admit I've been gleaming some trollish entertainment from seeing the franchise burn.
To this day, Force Awakens is the only one of the new Star Wars movies I've seen. I remember mildly liking it, but the fact that it ripped off so much from A New Hope made me really skeptical about where the next movies were heading.
So when Last Jedi came out I decided to wait around a bit and see reviews before going to see it, and by almost all accounts, boy did I dodge a bullet on that call.
At this point I'm pretty sure I've spent more time watching videos of people rip apart Star Wars movies than I have actually watching the movies. Sad state of affairs for the franchise, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't getting some amount of enjoyment out of it.
Disney Star Wars sucks. Solo was the first Star Wars movie to lose money. Galaxy’s Edge is severely underperforming . Star Wars merchandise pretty much sunk the United States branch of Toys ‘R Us with a deluge of shitty, unsellable toys. Rey is a bland, charisma-free protagonist, easily outshone by Finn and Poe even if the movies shit on them too. Kylo Ren is a terrible villain/anti-hero/whatever. Snoke was pathetic, so pathetic that they need Palpatine back for the third one. Vice Admiral Gender Studies was shit. Rose Tico was terrible. The way they keep trying insert Leia into the movies is outright disgraceful. The actress is dead, Disney, for fuck’s sake.
Star Wars is unsalvageable. Let it burn. Maybe the next space saga franchise thing will be better. Long ago, I thought it would be Mass Effect, but Andromeda squashed that. A good WH40k series/movie would be a treat.
Don’t get excited about Knives Out, Jake. You’re a white dude. It’s going to shit all over you from what I’m hearing.
Likewise for the MCU. They may have been able to keep Tony Stark Jr, I mean Spider-Man, but he’s going to play second fiddle to the likes of Captain Marvel, femThor, and Miss Marvel. The MCU ship is heading straight for that iceberg.
The Last Jedi definitely gave me no hope for Episode IX. I am going to see it, if only to get some closure. But goodness knows I have some issues with this trilogy. Putting aside several points you already mentioned, the entire Resistance could fit in the Millennium Falcon. You don't get a win from there without an entire pantheon of dei ex machinae. And before that, the Empire 2: Empire Harder was able to flit around in the shadows and turn a planet into a Super Death Star with no one noticing. And at the end of the day, who the actual hell was Snoke?
But the thing that makes me the angriest? The plasma trebuchets with arcing shots in space. Yes, I know, this is Star Wars, where the ability to flaunt the laws of physics is a key plot point/religion/superpower. But you do not get to turn space combat into a freaking medieval siege.
So yeah. Pretty done with Star Wars after this.
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Oh, I'm not paying for Disney+, either. Imma bootleg the shit out of it, though!
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Yeah, there is a certain pathos and schadenfreude in seeing something so massive sort of crash and burn. You should check out the YouTube channel Midnight's Edge. They cover a lot of entertainment/nerdy stuff, and they've been particularly brutal to Star Wars.
As GKC quipped: "The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.". It felt like Rian wanted to "subvert expectations" and declare that you are really no better than the dragon and that St. George lacks to fortitude and courage to anything but flail and flounder around impotently before resigning with a grumpy huff to the overwhelming ennui of existence
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Even worse: Remember that desperate SOS message they sent? The one everyone ignored? Even in universe, no one cares.
One thing's for sure: literally everyone who was shit on for liking the Prequels has basically been given a reason to gloat by Disney with the simple phrase of "they ain't so bad now, are they??"
Sucks, though, because I liked Star Wars. Hell, I loved it.
But now? Now it's just... Meh. Not good, not bad (but getting there), just... Meh.
Should have listened to my own misgivings when they basically de-canon'd the EU books.
~Skeeter The Lurker
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Leia, chief.
But Star Wars isn't unsalvageable just yet. All they really need to do is... Kill off Rey and focus on Finn, Poe, and yes, possibly even Kylo. They are the only ones who are at least memorable in them and stand a partial chance of having a decent, if lukewarm, story.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Yeah, to be honest... Yeah, I've sorta last interest in Star Wars as well. I'll watch the final movie, just to see how it ends, but it's not a childhood love for me, given I was a late 90s kid. Power Rangers and Godzilla the Series were my jam.
Now Godzilla Vs Kong 2020, count me in.
But Obi-Wan and Mandalorian... yeah... uh... not going to get another streaming service just for those.
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Dude, I always wanted to be the dragon in fairy tales. That's why I loved Spyro and Saphira so much.
But full seriousness, you're trying to joke with "no better than the dragon," but the entire points of the hero's journey in Star Wars is about looking at your own inner darkness and being tempted to join the Dark Side.
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I had assumed that you were here, so you must nerd out over ponies.
5153402 And he's the more memorable character.
5153409 I may rent Knives Out just to see what all the squabble was about.
5153411 Ok, the arching shots... Just killed any entrancing effect.
Look, the last few Jedi movies have been... erratic. Individual scenes, fantastic. Gunfights and space lasers, wow. Then you zoom out just a little and all of the Frankenstein seams show up in graphic detail. Zoom all the way out to look at the movie at arm's length, and you start looking for the strings that hold it together. Look at The Force Awakens/The Last Jedi. Rian Johnson needs to be flayed. He wouldn't have twelve followers on FimFiction. Subverting expectations once or twice, good. Subverting expectations *every* time they come up, and it gets cold. Make it so women made good decisions in the movie, good. Make it so absolutely no bad decisions are ever made by women, bad. Sneak away from the fleet to retrieve a special codebreaker, good. Doing it in the middle of a high-speed chase, are you kidding!! It can make sense to write two stories interleafed, if you do it right. They do it so wrong, screw up the pacing, and leave so many wild jumps of logic.
My favorite criticism video:
Found this shortly after. It is amazing.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Bless you Jake. So good to see regular posts from you again. Thought I'd share that I got my deployment orders recently, very excited.
My dad showed me the original trilogy when I came up to his thighs, I watched Phantom Menace and attack of the Clones on DVD, and Revenge of the Sith in the theaters. This prequel trilogy has a place in my heart, but around Middle School it was brutal for me to realize just how s*** they objectively are. With the new Star Wars I had the complete opposite reaction to everyone here. Force awakens was boring to me, and it wasn't until Han got stabbed in the chest that I was on the edge of my seat; just because I was so excited something interesting was happening, and there was now more room for the new characters to develop. But I still left the theater deciding that I may not see any more Star Wars movies.
Then Rogue One came out, which already looked more intense than the other Star Wars movies, and most critics loved it. I saw it, and not only do I love it, I got the urge to see more Star Wars movies again.
I was still concerned for The Last Jedi, because I thought they would be a lot less experimental with the mainline numbered movies. I thought it would be as slavishly devoted as Force Awakens, and just try to squeeze in all the beats from it's respective section in the orig-trig. Even if it had any twists or big reveals, it still might have felt derivative because Empire Strikes Back is renowned for its huge shifts in story and tone. If a twist is copied, it's not a twist anymore. But I thought it kicked ass!
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I do not get why people were depending on Snoke's backstory. We know as much about him from these last two movies as we knew about Emperor Palpatine from the original trilogy. The prequel trilogy and other supplements gave Palpatine a long-term plan that made him interesting, but when he first hit the big screen, he's not really a character, or has anything explained about him.
I assume the Resistance will find more people to fight for them in the same place the Rebel Alliance found a whole battlefleet in time for Return of the Jedi.
5153474
Christ in shit Georg, he made a movie you don't like, that doesn't let you talk about physical harm, even jokingly. Also, what did he have to do with Force Awakens?
5153480
Oh, shit?! Where you headed, mang? Wherever it is, feet wet, powder dry and all that. Watch your six, battle!
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USS RONALD REAGAN
USN Chaplain Core
Thanks brother
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Good luck out there!
5153498
Thank you
5153497
Oh, you're a Chaplain's assistant? Very noble. All the God, double the workload!
Best of luck, duder!
5153505
I will be a USN Chaplain, O2 LTJG.
I will give my utmost. Thank you!
5153507 God be with you. My niece is in the Navy, but I don't think she's deployed right now. In San Diego, I think. My oldest son's in the Army in Germany.
5153509
Thank you. And God be with you and your family for their service!
5153507
Oh, wow! An actual Man of the Cloth. I had many a good friends in the Chaplain Corps in my time. You have the responsibility to attend to the spiritual needs of a lot of young men and women. I have the utmost faith in you.
Pro Deo et Patria, my dude!
–An old song that's actually a pretty accurate representation of my thoughts regarding Disney-era Star Wars.
5153471
"Dude" Heh heh...
Errr.... I think you may have misunderstood what I was going for (or maybe I am misunderstanding you in turn?)
THe full context of GKC's quote is that "we" do not read fairy tales to find out that darkness and evil ("dragons") exist in the world; that much is self-evident. Rather we read fairy tales to inspire us to know that the evil and darkness can be beaten. Rian on the other hand is like condescendingly sneering at us, telling how foolishly naïve we are to ever hope in such a thing as a hero; they are all impotent and meaningless and in the end and good and bad are just different shades of dark-grey and black, with both sides paying the same people who otherwise would not give a solitary toss about either of them...
And yes as you mentioned "the hero's journey in Star Wars is about looking at your own inner darkness and being tempted to join the Dark Side", but I would say that is incomplete. I would add to the end "tempted to join the Dark side, resist it, prevail and fight back, and ultimately overcome it" . It feels like the journey in TLJ never got to that last part, being side-tracked by the nihilistic iconoclasm.
At the risk of opening a nasty can of internet worms, with all the talk about "strong female roles" I would be interested in seeing a Rogue ONe style "behind the scenes" film about Mon Mothma.
Done right, I think she could be a pretty good model to aspire to. I mean just in canon films we have seen her do all sorts of things. Shem along with Organa, took the hard stance as the minority speaking out against tyranny. She has had to make (and live with the consequences) tough decisions as a competent military commander, strategically sacrificing (but never squandering) Bothan intelligence assets to retrieve vital intelligence on the Death Star and soldiers to rear-guard the evacuation of Echo Base. She, through her leadership and the trust and respect she engendered with her subordinates, managed to hold the Alliance together after the destruction of Alderaan and the uncertain fate of Leia, the destruction and evacuations of Yavin and Echo bases...
Sure she may not wield a light-sabre or pilot a fighter and make all the snarky one-liners, but she practically held the Alliance together and saw it through its darkest times to victory through competent subordinates whom she did not brow-beat because they were drooling, impotent ignoramuses who were brought low so she could be "strong" at their expense...
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The only expectation Ruin Johnson the roundheaded buffoon subverted for me is my expectation of a good movie.
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Eh... Name-calling aside, I certainly agree with you there (although in my case the damage was already done in TFA). Like Jake, I just cannot bring myself to care about it.
As Richard Thompson sings in My Enemy
As I see your life fall apart
I should smile but I don't have the heart
At the end of the day, it's still too much effort to hate
(Still would like to see that Mon Mothma film though...)
I stopped really enjoying Star Wars after Knights of the Old Republic 2, honestly. Yeah, the prequels are "better" than the new trilogy, but I'm not going to give them an award for stepping over a limbo bar on the floor. KOTOR 2 was such an insightful look into not only the nature of the fictional universe, but storytelling in general, and how a hamfisted, simplistic worldview can cause untold suffering when applied to anything approaching a real person. It was brilliant, and the last time a truly great story was told in Star Wars, incomplete and buggy though it was.
The horror of it all is that Kreia was proven absolutely right. It wasn't just the Force that should die, it was the narrative arc of Star Wars itself. She was correct in a meta sense that all the Star Wars universe can do is spin on and on through an endless rinse cycle of the same stories playing out the same way, over and over, forever, and that's literally what happened in real life. They can't let any one part of the universe change, because if there's a single Star Wars product without at least one lightsaber, without at least one TIE fighter screech or some old dude mumbling about how the Force guides us, then to many people, they will rebel and say "that's not Star Wars!" But maybe it is time to just let go of it. To take what we learned and make something better rather than spin our wheels in well-churned mud.
I will always find dark humor in the irony of Rian Johnson's twisted vision. He also wanted so much for us to believe that the stories we used to love should "die" or "be killed," but he's no Kreia. He had no wisdom behind his iconoclastic mediocrity. All he did was assault the old stories without really changing them. He offered nothing interesting. Nothing new or unique. He seems to believe he painted over the old masterpieces and replaced them with something great, but actually he just committed vandalism. He tried to burn it all down, then gave a middle finger to everyone who said "Why have you done this?"
And then, incredibly, he still ended his movie with references to the old trilogy and set up things for the inevitable sequel. Not a good look, dude. If you want your story to be about "killing the past," try not signing on for the second movie in a trilogy.
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Pro Deo et Patria. Thank you Jake.
And happy Veterans Day to you! Thank you for your service.
I just asked ONE thing from the Disney movies, the chance to see the original trio of Luke, Leia and Han together having adventures...
And they took that away.
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Personally, I wouldn't mind if they only had decanonized the books after the hand of thrawn duology, or at least put their foot down and stop the author wars.
Fuck, I'm old.
Really, I heard the opposite. That of this new trilogy it's the lowest performing in presales, and it's probably not going to make a billion dollars.
It's my understanding as well that they've put all their future movie plans on the backburner, rendering them effectively canceled.
I'm kind of with you there. I first saw Star Wars when I was 18 during my first winter break from college so I also don't have that level of attachment. But I still have a great deal of respect for it.
It was around when The Last Jedi and Solo came out that I started hearing people talk about "Star Wars fatigue". People were getting really tired of seeing all this Star Wars. Even Disney has apparently admitted they rushed things when it came to Star Wars. I hope The Rise of Skywalker is at least good, but I think we'll better off not seeing anymore Star Wars films for awhile. If The Mandalorian is as good as it looks like it's going to be, perhaps the small screen is where their focus should remain.
5154013
Eh... to me, the idea of "franchise fatigue" was always just an pitiful excuse from Bob Iger and Kathleen Kennedy to distract us. Like, MCU movies came out multiple times a year for over ten years! ANd yet we still came out to see them! The real issue, one that the higher-ups at Disney/Lucasfilms are trying desperately to make you not think about, is that all the lagging toy sales and low visitors to Galaxy's Edge and diminishing ticket sales are because of a genuine drop in quality and an ever-growing apathy for the social agendas that they have injected into the franchise.
5154019
Well, that is true. There is an apathy towards agendas that have been injected into the franchise. It's not like the MCU isn't guilty of that either. Still, comparing Star Wars and the MCU is kind of apples and pears you know. The MCU has the advantage of its various installments differing from each other significantly from sets of characters, tone, and even genre (i.e. Guardians of the Galaxy's space opera vs Captain America: The Winter Soldier's 70s style political thriller).
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I guess that's true. The MCU has benefited from a diverse genre set. However, they still all told the same basic story, using the same characters in an interconnected plot, and dealt with similar themes. Of the twenty-two current MCU films, Robert Downey Jr. alone appeared in ten, and Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Evans in nine, at least in cameo form. That is enough to say that the characters were still fresh, engaging, and more than anything, interesting. Seriously, all it took was a forty second scene after the credits of Iron Man for us to be engaged and invested in Nick Fury way more than Rey or Finn have done in two feature length films.
It once again speaks to how poorly Disney have handled the new Star Wars films. Because there was no cohesive narrative or overall plan or arc for the characters, we just don't care as much about them as we do even ancillary characters in the MCU. Hawkeye and Black Widow have yet to have their own standalone movies, and yet I care more about them than I do Rey, which the new Star Wars have bent over backwards to try and make me care about.
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The one who talks about "destroying the past" is Kylo Ren. The mentally unbalanced bad guy. To say that's the message of The Last Jedi is like saying the story of the originals is "abandon your friends for power." Or that the lesson of the prequels is "kill other children to save your own."
shrug
I like the new movies. Quite a lot actually but hey to eaches own.
I liked KOTOR and its sequel better. Especially the sequel since it actually delved into the lore of the verse then just jerked off George for 20 hours. Or more like it was less about being a space opera then it was being about actual people dealing with war rather then Jedi rulez Sith droolz
I was thinking back to this blog, with the new movie, and thought I'd bring this up:
The most modern dog fight we've ever gotten in a Star Wars movie was actually back in Attack of the Clones. Instead of just two ships "dumb firing" at each other like it's WW2, Fett actually has "fire and forget" missiles. The climax is just Obi-Wan being chased by an impersonal missile and trying to break target lock.
Star Wars, or rather, fiction itself, never wants to move past World War 2 style tactics in the air (or space) or on the ground. Partly it's so that films and games (and fan fiction) can rip off imagery from the greatest generation to frame their own characters. Partly because it enables a smaller space that studios don't have to pay as much to film/render. But it's also because the audience fears how logical tactics and technology undoes what they think about heroism.
People who don't put their asses on the line don't like to learn about how much of being a soldier means being completely reliant on other people. First off is whether you have a team of people working beside you in the field covering each others ass. But that team also goes into their job assuming that command told them to be in the right place, and told them the right info like who they would be facing, in what direction, etc. THEN, soldiers go into the field putting their trust in their gear. They have to assume that whoever developed the stuff knew what they were doing, that someone tested the equipment, whoever sold it to them wasn't making bullshit promises, that whoever manufactured it didn't screw up the steps, and what their instruction they got to use it holds up. This one paragraph probably doesn't do the scale of the whole thing justice. With so much not being in your control, where's the power fantasy in that?
That's why people feel comfortable with anachronistic battle scenes where technology and military strategy has spontaneously regressed. Because then when the hero accomplishes what they set out for with all these unnecessary barriers, the audience can feel ultra-super-reassured that they won because they're just that good. That's why super hero movies, the biggest force in media right now, usually end with the characters saying "fuck technology" and running up to each other to get in punching range.
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That said I am NOT a veteran. This is just a subject that I like to look at, and compare to what entertainerment tries to serve us. So if I’m sounding off a bunch of crap, someone please let me know.