fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4512 ]

[ SECRET POST #4512 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4512 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 27 secrets from Secret Submission Post #646.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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07. https://i.imgur.com/MqgrbSR.png

Same.

I agree, OP. ESB was not well-received when it was released either, and it's pretty widely regarded as one of the best now.

Eh, I think it will depend on what Rise of Skywalker does.

I also think that it might be one of those things that doesn't age well. So much of it seemed to depend on subverting expectations, but the expectations of today aren't going to be the same ones a decade from now. It will need to be put in its own timeperiod to be truly appreciated, and I don't think those kinds of movies are ever as appreciated as timeless movies. /2 cents

I don't think it relies on subverting expectations at all

DA

Agreed. TFA was doubly unlucky to be both a SW movie and a JJ Abrams film, so everyone and their mother was thinking up the wildest theories they could. But if you watch TFA with the information from TLJ in mind, nothing was subverted. Rey's parents weren't coming back for her, Luke really did want to hide from the galaxy, etc.

I love that Rey's parents never came back for her, honestly. It would have been far too cliche if they had.

I really hope you're right. It makes me sad that I disliked TLJ because Star Wars is my happy place. I like all the movies, including the prequels. I'm hoping I'll like it more once I see it as part of the whole trilogy.

Eh. Movies don't usually end up getting "vindicated" unless no one saw them the first time around and they're rediscovered later (not remotely possible in one of the most anticipated movies at the time) or does something unique or groundbreaking (eh, not really.) Last Jedi will live in the same place as the Prequels, where most people stick it in the "it wasn't that bad and it meant well" category and fandom showers it with warm fuzzies for the things it did right while handwaving around the stupid parts. That's not a bad place to be, but not nearly as triumphant as vindication.

The prequels get plenty of revisionist defenders

A lot of people hated ESB, too. Ten years later it was "the best Star Wars ever."

Earlier than that, even. By the time RotJ's end credits finished rolling, the nerds had all moved on to loving ESB and hating on Ewoks. But unless you're banking on another 40 years of progressively less impressive Star Wars movies, TLJ's probably not going to be retroactively declared a masterpiece anytime soon.

But people also generally say that ESB was better than A New Hope. So ESB's reputation can't be entirely explained by reference to later movies being worse.

Ayy someone made my comment a secret.

It's mostly 'triggered' nerds throwing a tantrum. They will eventually move on.

probably. i found it made by someone who wanted to be ~edgy in a very high school film student way, so I can definitely see people later on loving that.

What's edgy about it, and what precisely about it is "high school"

1) complicating Luke is a perfectly fine impulse. complicating Luke without doing the film work to get knowledgable audience from "there is good in him i know it" to "maybe i should kill him?" and then killing Luke speaks to someone tried to fit Luke into an arc of someone else without doing justice to the characters people know. Since luke is SO beloved, not only for being a great character but for being a moral character? That's about edgyness. And it's the sort of edgyness a filmmaker with one film does.

2) Poe can def be a impulsive and a hothead, but there's no reason to make capable generals be completely ridiculous about how they manage their armies to get Poe to behave like an idiot. Again, this speaks to wanting to complicated characters by diminishing others.

3)I don't mind Rey's arc at all, and but I do mind Kylo's. I think it's plenty believable that Rey would take Luke's distance and meanness and be drawn to Kylo, even though he tortured her. I think it's completely understandable for Kylo to be drawn to the only other person who seems to have his type of power, and to justify his own darkness by trying to diminish Rey.

I think it's completely about audience subversion to make Snoke/Kylo into nothing. If you're going to make a fantasy film and then go "you thought!" to wanting to learn more about a character or a character's relationship you have to know you're going to alienate your audience. it's not crazy for them to read the genre's language and expect certain things from it. Kylo killing Snoke doesn't tell me anything useful about Kylo and it just makes the whole "Snoke was very ~persusive~ when Kylo was a kid" annoying as hell. If they had a relationship that RUINED AN ENTIRE FAMILY, then i need more of it. I don't understand Snoke's draw, and I don't understand how Kylo went from yea or nay on him or nay to yea on having power for himself, and I don't see how Rey matters to that at all. And why? Because nothing about any of these has told me shit about Kylo as a character. I can handle that in the first film, because shadowy villain who's going to keep showing up in two other films? Fine. But this film should have given me SOMETHING. I should know about Kylo and his motivations more than "struggles with darkness" and "wants power and a sympathetic ear." I knew that before. At least with Rey "i want a family" has been clarified through her relationships with Luke and Kylo. She wants it enough to seek it out, but not enough to change who she it for either of those people. But killing off a major influence on Kylo to like subvert shit? Edgy. It's high school to not deepen the character in process of making something edgy.

HTH.

1 - that Luke would struggle with precisely the same kind of temptation that his father struggled with is completely unsurprising. And I fail to see how Luke struggling with similar issues to his father, but dealing with them in a better and more morally upright way than his father, is "edgy" or "high school". And Luke then overcomes those doubts and has an ending that I, personally, found really satisfying. If you didn't like it because it didn't match your vision for the character, OK! But that's not the same thing as it being objectively shitty!

2 - I think pretty much all of the problems with the Poe storyline were down to bad pacing and the decision to have the low-speed chase. I agree that these are flaws with the movie, but I dont think they're edgy. And even if you don't attribute the issues to the pacing, it's not like there's not lots of movies with character motivation problems and Idiot Ball plots.

3 - I agree that the Snoke stuff was a subversion. I don't think that the movie relied on the subversive-ness of it, though. The point is that Snoke was not a major character, ever. You may not find that satisfying, and that's your right - I think the sequels as a whole would have benefited from providing more background on Kylo's dark side turn (i think it's actually more of a TFA problem than a TLJ problem but it's certainly an issue for both films).

But it's not a twist that Kylo's character turns on, and it's not a twist that the movie relies on. The point is that Kylo has gotten to a place where he's trapped himself on the dark side, where he can't see a way out of it, where he's committed to it himself, not just because Snoke is tricking him into it. And, presumably, the next movie is where he's going to get his way out of it. That absolutely does deepen the character and complocate what's going on with him, because how he initially fell to the dark side is not the only significant or interesting thing about his character. Where he is now, and why he's on the Dark Side now, is also important. And the Rey and Snoke scenes, I think, do a good job of getting at those elements.

In conclusion, I don't think you have to like any of those things, but I don't think any of them are edgy or high school, and the idea that people only like them because they have bad, simplistic taste is stupid.

(no subject)

meadowphoenix - 2019-05-15 22:05 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2019-05-15 22:32 (UTC) - Expand

Yeppp. Agreed.

That part where we’re supposed to be happy that they freed all the space horses because *statement* and ignore that they left all the slave kids who work in the stables behind to face the consequences will probably not improve with age. Although I suppose if it turns out that the slave kids are evil, that scene will be vindicated.

The children chose to release the fathiers in order to help Rose and Finn. The point of the scenes with the kids was about giving agency and hope to the downtrodden.

Do you also blame Qui-Gon Jinn for not ending slavery on Tatooine?

Nothing says “hope and agency” like being starved and beaten by your owners because the offworlders decided the freedom of space ponies was more important than helping brutalized children!

Yes, well done on answering the question (you didn't)

Star Wars has never been, in any way, about material realities. TLJ is probably the most that the series has really even cared about material economic realities. To criticize it for not caring about them enough is dumb.

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