Star Wars: The Last Jedi [SPOILERS]

[GandALF]

What kind of film have you people been watching? It's not a deconstruction! Johnson put things back on track!

He couldn't do anything about Abrams' world building, that's probably why he's going to do his own trilogy, but in terms of themes he did a much better job.

Luke's arc is not a deconstruction, the Jedi were NEVER infallible superheroes their ideals are supposed to be difficult to live up to and even the best Jedi fell short sometimes. The clone wars makes this abundantly clear. Maybe if you haven't seen the Yoda arc Luke's scenes seem different, but with the context of that arc Yoda is basically saying "we also made mistakes back in my day but we didn't start burning books and we still managed to train you". That's what elevates the film above TFA, it's developing those themes rather than ignoring them because the prequels were unpopular.

And BTW the battle of Crait is far more like the battle of Helm's Deep rather than the battle of Hoth. They even had a battering ram.

[PerrySimm]

What kind of film have you people been watching? It's not a deconstruction! Johnson put things back on track!

"On track" is too strong a phrase. "Focused" might be a better way to describe the state of the sequel hook. Yet it's still not a unified effort, especially now that someone other than Johnson is writing Episode IX.

If the film is indeed a "deconstruction" - then that is a complement that speaks to a deeper level of effort! Perhaps in such a case, the film intended to toss the fans into a fractured and divided state, just like the scattered remains of the Resistance. One half clings to the old and one half accepts that everything can burn.

Still, this would be against the grain of Occam's Razor - the simplest analysis is typically right. Were the notable missteps in the film intended to fuel this controversy, or were they normal mistakes you'd see in any major motion picture rushed out on a fixed schedule?

And BTW the battle of Crait is far more like the battle of Helm's Deep rather than the battle of Hoth. They even had a battering ram.

It was bothersome to notice how Luke's self-sacrifice occupied the same place and tone for the film as Gandalf's stand at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm in the first LotR film.

[GloatingSwine]

It was bothersome to notice how Luke's self-sacrifice occupied the same place and tone for the film as Gandalf's stand at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm in the first LotR film.

Not really.

Luke's sacrifice in this film is also driven by his personal character journey. He's standing up to a mistake he made and redeeming it, and relying on the personal connection between him and Kylo Ren to actually make his stand effective.

That's why when he appears on Crait he looks exactly like he did on the night he drove Ren to the dark side. He deliberately makes his projection look like the version of him that will be maximally personally impactful on Ren in order to provoke the overreaction he gets.

Gandalf's stand on the bridge is him doing what only he can do because none of the others have the personal power to stand up to a Balrog. It's not personal and not driven by the character. Luke's stand at Crait is him doing what only he can do because Ren hates him above all else. It's very personal and driven by the character.

If the film is indeed a "deconstruction" - then that is a complement that speaks to a deeper level of effort!

Poe's part of the story is definitely a deconstruction. The idea that a heroic million to one shot doesn't work in a Star Wars movie, and that it actually turns out to be a destructive act that gets everyone else killed? That's exactly the kind of reversal of expectations that makes for deconstruction. (Remember that the core element of deconstruction is to show that there isn't only one true interpretation of something, in the case of deconstructive media to show that there isn't only one way a story turns out because of its genre.)

[SabreMau]

Another thing to nitpick. After the hangar bay is blown up, Poe says they have to get away from those Star Destroyers, followed by Leia yelling that all they need to do is get out of range of the Star Destroyers and those fighters will have to fall back.

But why would the fighters have to fall back if they got too far away? It shouldn't be a fuel issue, as they're zipping around a relatively small engagement area. And they're doing a ton of damage while they're in close, first obliterating the (only?) hangar bay, then torpedoing the command bridge, and then that's the last you see of them. Everyone's distracted by Leia flying in and being carted away to the med bay, but in that moment of distraction, Kylo and his TIE escorts apparently decide the job's done and go home. He's not seen again until it's time for him to Force-chat with Rey. I mean, you're already within the shield bubble, you're not facing any fighter defenses, is there a reason they don't loop around and take out the engines, next aside from needing the movie to last two more hours?

[GloatingSwine]

From Hux' perspective they've basically already won. They know the Resistance can't run forever because they have no logistic support (so whatever their current fuel levels they will run out), they know they can't escape through hyperspace because tracking, they can just wait them out and he's sadistic enough to enjoy giving them a slow lingering death as they run out of fuel.

Hux is not very clever, but that's a core part of his character since TFA, he's in his position due to ideological fanaticism making him easy to manipulate not because Snoke wants an actually competent overall commander (who might decide he doesn't need a Supreme Leader).

[MissKittyFantastico]

I don't recall the exact lines, but I'm sure the fighters being recalled was something to do with the range being too great for the Star Destroyers to 'support' them; for what it's worth I remember one (maybe both?) of Kylo's escort fighters being blown up in pretty much the same moment that was said. I'm not sure why the fighters were suddenly that much more vulnerable just because the Star Destroyers' shots were weaker - unless the Resistance gunners were returning fire at the SDs while they were close enough, and when they pulled away they all started targeting the TIEs (you'd have thought given the chaos they caused, and what I imagine would be the long odds of inflicting significant damage on SDs, the TIEs would have been the priority target anyway - I mean, maybe Kylo's inside run on the hangar was your usual Player Character crazy move nobody could've anticipated, but his wingman Darth Goose took out the bridge just with your standard 'aim at bridge, shoot bridge' manoeuvre) - but whatever, the range opened up and they showed TIEs getting wasted, apparently (somehow) fighters are dead meat without suppressing fire from their mommies.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

What kind of film have you people been watching? It's not a deconstruction! Johnson put things back on track!

He couldn't do anything about Abrams' world building, that's probably why he's going to do his own trilogy, but in terms of themes he did a much better job.

Luke's arc is not a deconstruction, the Jedi were NEVER infallible superheroes their ideals are supposed to be difficult to live up to and even the best Jedi fell short sometimes. The clone wars makes this abundantly clear. Maybe if you haven't seen the Yoda arc Luke's scenes seem different, but with the context of that arc Yoda is basically saying "we also made mistakes back in my day but we didn't start burning books and we still managed to train you". That's what elevates the film above TFA, it's developing those themes rather than ignoring them because the prequels were unpopular.

And BTW the battle of Crait is far more like the battle of Helm's Deep rather than the battle of Hoth. They even had a battering ram.

Maybe deconstruction isn't exactly the right word, but it's pretty darn close imo. Every single plot thread is a subversion of well-used tropes in Star Wars, from the wise Jedi master passing down his knowledge to the sneaking on board an enemy stronghold/ship to disable something to the hotshot rebel disregarding his superiors.

Luke throwing away the lightsaber that Rey was handing to him is a prime example. I've seen people arguing about whether the scene should be taken as humorous, a sad demonstration of Luke's state of mind, or both. To me, the most important reading of that scene is the metatextual one. Rian Johnson was fully aware that that lightsaber in particular is as iconic an artifact as Star Wars has to offer. Luke throwing it away was deliberate. You even have Luke mocking the idea of going out and taking on the First Order with a "laser sword."
The lines "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to" and "This is not going to go the way you think" were directed squarely at the audience.

Despite my negative feelings toward the film, I'll be fair and admit that Johnson doesn't leave it as a "Screw the OT" message or anything, which is how a lot of people have taken it. Luke and Kylo were both wrong, and Luke does indeed go out there and take on the whole First Order. Yoda doesn't actually burn the sacred Jedi texts.

I read the meta-message of the movie as this- the old movies weren't perfect, and if Star Wars is going to continue, it can't rely of recycling the old tropes over and over again. The way forward is to take the spirit of Star Wars and continue in a bold new direction unfettered by the mistakes of the past. Star Wars needs the spirit of the Skywalkers, but it doesn't need the Skywalkers.

It's audacious writing, but I do feel that the message should have been saved for a movie unconnected to the nine-episode saga. This movie had responsibilities as part of a nine-movie set and as the middle part of a trilogy, and it didn't fulfill those responsibilities.

[ORCACommander]

i still find it perplexing no one in starwars has heard of CIWS

[PerrySimm]

I don't recall the exact lines, but I'm sure the fighters being recalled was something to do with the range being too great for the Star Destroyers to 'support' them; for what it's worth I remember one (maybe both?) of Kylo's escort fighters being blown up in pretty much the same moment that was said. I'm not sure why the fighters were suddenly that much more vulnerable just because the Star Destroyers' shots were weaker - unless the Resistance gunners were returning fire at the SDs while they were close enough, and when they pulled away they all started targeting the TIEs (you'd have thought given the chaos they caused, and what I imagine would be the long odds of inflicting significant damage on SDs, the TIEs would have been the priority target anyway - I mean, maybe Kylo's inside run on the hangar was your usual Player Character crazy move nobody could've anticipated, but his wingman Darth Goose took out the bridge just with your standard 'aim at bridge, shoot bridge' manoeuvre) - but whatever, the range opened up and they showed TIEs getting wasted, apparently (somehow) fighters are dead meat without suppressing fire from their mommies.

In the real world, the reason why cruisers and battleships are obsolete is because fighters have a much longer range than cannon shots. In the future with laser-cannons, it might make some sense to swap this back around at huge distances. But the film did not clearly depict the fleets as hundreds of thousands of km apart.

Kylo's hangar run was a classic Star Wars: Battlefront move, though.

i still find it perplexing no one in starwars has heard of CIWS

Weren't those the ones Poe was taking out right at the start? The turbo-lasers in the Death Star trench were maybe too slow to count.

[ORCACommander]

those canons poe took out where anti ship, not point defense. they looked like copy paste ones from the ds trench but just watching them in action their rate of turn was too sluggish to effectively engage strike craft