SPOILER-ISH.
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No one reading this needs to be told there is a new “Star Wars” film out. That it deals with Luke and Leia and Rey and Ren and Poe and Finn. In my humble opinion it rocks. It has also been more divisive than any SW movie I can think of. The prequels were almost universally panned. People weren’t split. Here, they are. Well, there are always reasons to love or hate anything. Rather than just review the film (go see it!) I thought I’d offer some thoughts on some of the complaints. Might be more entertaining.
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There is a certain scene in TLJ where people ask: “well, why didn’t anyone do that before?” You know, I view that scene much like bin Laden’s move on 9-11. No one had ever hijacked a commercial flight and rammed it into a building before. I find it perfectly reasonable that anything that has never been done before would succeed–once. We have perceptual loopholes. We can’t think of everything, and don’t tend to rank the things that have never happened as highly as those we’ve seen before.
I’m sure that someone, somewhere, must have written about such a scene in a short story or novel SOMEWHERE. Surely. But I’ve seen and read about thousands of space battles in dozens of different universes, many of whom with similar technology, and never, ever seen “THAT” done. So the simplest answer is also incredibly satisfying: no one had thought of it. It was an example of Kamakazi lateral thinking, really one of the best I’ve ever seen, and stunningly simple ONCE YOU THINK OF IT. In RETROSPECT it is obvious. But unless you can show me a few, or even one, example of such a scene in a movie or in a television show, I’m afraid it was the very definition of creativity.
Now of course, they’ll have to “upgrade their shields” or something to keep it from being done again, but right now, I have to give serious props to Rian Johnson. Until further notice, I’m assuming he came up with that move, and it was SWEET, one of the very best moments in the entire saga, one of the most stunning I’ve ever seen in an otherwise fluffy space opera.
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There is no such thing as a movie without flaws. Without things to pick at. I thought the entire “casino planet” sequence went no where, had no relevance to anything beyond giving characters something to do. You could lift the entire thing out and it wouldn’t matter very much, if at all. The idea that the theme of the movie is, partially, that direct action doesn’t always work, then they didn’t think it through enough.
You have a responsibility to have every scene and sequence contribute to the overall structure of a story. If the end of the scene has the same “charge” as the beginning of that scene, you have wasted the audience’s time. It is also dishonest: in real life, things are always changing, always getting better or worse. In the contracted time of a story, this is exaggerated so we can feel it more directly. While it can SEEM that nothing has changed in Gramma’s house since last Thanksgiving, that is not true, is not and can never be true.
So if you want the characters to learn something, or for the audience to learn something about characters who refuse to learn, you have a sequence of “nothing happening” entwined with “something happening” on another level. And I just don’t see it. That is a flaw.
I’m also still not happy with the amount of “Jar Jar” DNA in Finn. It is noticeable on a couple of levels, although they did allow his character to expand and grow some. When the very first thing we see with him is him falling out of bed, the first “buffoon laugh” of the film, you have a hill to climb, and they didn’t quite climb it. Finn’s treatment was an “othering” I didn’t appreciate. And if you defend it, you are, frankly, the reason I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized Marvel was seeking a black director for T’Challa’s saga.
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Those things said, Star Wars movies, like the Bond films, or Superhero movies or franchises of any kind, can only tangentially be compared to films outside their own continuity. They are all flawed, and exist in a universe of their own. I love that universe, but ALL the movies are hinky…except for a thread of heart, of feeling, a sense that you are experiencing another chapter of a beloved bedtime story. For some, the absence of bloodline characters from the original film will eventually break their connection, like having a Bond movie without Bond. For others, if their view of the Jedi is violated, that will break their connection. Those who think that only the Jedi can use the Force are welcome to feel their trust has been violated. They are establishing a rule that isn’t even kept within the formal continuity: there are the Sith. If there are two groups, using a natural force, and you don’t think that in a galaxy with billions of planets and countless trillions of beings there would be more…that’s your business.
I have no problem rolling with that. The fact that the Jedi said that they were the only ones? Wow. THAT’S definitive. Right along with Christians having the only route to Salvation, Conservatives being the only ones who love America, Liberals being the only ones who care about other human beings, Shotokan being the only “real” karate, and Corporations being more moral than governments.
ALWAYS trust what people say about themselves. And what they say about their enemies. You can 100% count on that. As Obi-Wan said, nailing down the fact that every word a Jedi speaks can be trusted: “what I told you was true…from a certain point of view.”
Sigh.
Anyway, what you have in “The Last Jedi” is, as far as I can see, a respectful but not slavish evolution of the original ideas, allowing the characters to be human, not merely archetypes. No, Leia wouldn’t have exploded in vacuum. Humans can survive a minute or two. FORCE enabled humans? Who can say? And if you can use a fire extinguisher for propulsion in zero gravity, you think that a power that can lift boulders and spaceships couldn’t propel 130 pounds of human being? Really? Almost every damned Star Wars movie has shown a different aspect of The Force. You think that Luke projecting his spirit force billions of miles is less unlikely than Leia doing something that is actually physically possible by pissing in the opposite direction? Really?
Frankly, I suspect that if Luke had done that exact same thing, many of the nay-sayers would say “oooh! Badass!”
But…I can’t prove that. It’s just a suspicion, based on the fact that when there is something about a movie we don’t’ want to deal with, we search for ways to say “its only a movie” and pop out of the narrative. All that invites speculation about what aspects of TLJ might have triggered such a response. Later on that.
For now, I’ll say that it was the first SW movie since “Empire” that struck me as seeking to really ask questions about that universe, those characters, the implications of the ideas. The first to actually extrapolate, while respecting the emotional integrity of the concept. I’ll be damned if Rian Johnson didn’t actually try to make a movie, rather than just a “Star Wars” movie, and there were scenes that were stirring, powerful, really kickass after what, 40 years?
While flawed, TLJ was like SKYFALL was to the Bond movies–asked us to ask questions about these characters we love, and this world we’ve adored most of our lives. I think that is something startling, requiring courage and creativity and real love of the material.
And the fact that a certain segment of the fans attacked it so rapidly, tried to say that the second-largest opening weekend in cinematic history is some kind of failure is fascinating. Makes me wonder what they are so pissed about. We’ll see what happens in the coming weeks, but frankly, I think it will do fine.
I don’t know about them…but it is certainly STAR WARS. It is not just the STAR WARS of the past, however, it is moving toward being a STAR WARS for the 21st Century, which makes it a living, breathing thing. Lucas himself was said to have “really liked it” and thought “it was beautifully made.” Consider that he criticized “The Force Awakens” as too “retro. I don’t like that. I like — every movie, I worked very hard to make them completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships — you know, to make it new.”
Man seems to speak his mind. People will discount this, say that he was forced to say this, or that his opinion is irrelevant for X or Y reasons. So this won’t change anyone’s mind. Fair enough. Art belongs to the audience as well as the artist. People are entitled to their feelings. But if EMPIRE had never been made, and they made it today, do you really think there wouldn’t be valid criticisms?
But ah…(and here it comes): there is that other dimension. It is impossible not to read the fan threads of criticism and see how often they complain about SJWs and Forced Diversity and Liberal Agendas so forth. That one wonders what the demographic composition of the most rabid objectors might be, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
The fact that on those threads I’ve not seen a single complainer “call out” one of the people complaining about SJWs: “no, that wasn’t a problem, but I didn’t enjoy…”
Haven’t seen that once. It is…suggestive to me. Not definitive. There is ALWAYS room for valid complaints. But man oh man, would I ever like to know how many of them were the same people, or the same TYPE of people who excoriated Samuel Delaney for complaining about the tiny range of humanity displayed in “A New Hope.” And suspect there is a LOT of overlap.
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My opinion is that this is REAL Star Wars, a Star Wars for its time as “A New Hope” was for 1977. Flawed, clunky, but with real imagination and wonder and something to say about friendship, love, sacrifice, heroism, and the complexity of the human heart. About myth and reality and how we confuse them. And opens the door to a thousand new stories set in a universe long ago and far away.
We need our fantasy and science fiction. They speak to what we are as individuals, as a species. Express the past, contextualize the present and point the way a shared future.
I’m sorry for the people who could not embrace THE LAST JEDI, but respect them. Even the ones who were primarily offended by the notion that non-white human beings are less alien than Bothans. Fine. You’re people too, even if you can’t extend that respect to me.
It’s cool
But for those who disliked it for OTHER reasons, I’m sorry. Better luck next time.
And for those like me, who loved it…
Wasn’t it @#$$% COOL!!!! I put it right after “Empire” and “A New Hope”. And ahead of all the rest.
May the Force Be With You…
Steve
(Don’t miss the Holiday sale! www.afrofuturismwebinar.com)
Steven Barnes 