What is Your Opinion on The Last Jedi?

[Karha of Honor]

I read somewhere they wanted to more properly "reboot" the series, but George Lucas's contract insisted they keep his six movies canon and untouched. Sounds true.

i wish the contract covered more in that case.

[Worffan101]

I can take apart The Last Jedi in a single sentence and dare anyone to disagree.

"The Last Jedi's failure is that it's a sequel dedicated to talking about the dangers of nostalgia and looking back on the past in a sequel bought by a corporation hoping to capitalize on nostalgia as well as looking back on the past."

Nevermind that Star Wars, itself, was a genre throwback and nostalgia for WW2 movies as well as Flash Gordon.

Damn, that's a really good point! Especially since the audience was probably largely interested in nostalgia, themselves...

[Fixer]

But even with that Why does she Want to Redeem Ren? Rey has no personal connection to Ren other then the Horrible things he did to her in Awakens. With Luke and Vader, Luke learned that Vader and his father was one and the same and after being told what a good person his father was by Obi-Wan Luke wanted to redeem the good person his father was.

With Mara in TTT the reason she starts to change her opinion about Luke is because her views on him were forced upon her by the Emperor and he spends all of his time trying to befriend her. You could argue that the same thing is happening with Rey and Ren but, again, Ren was a twat in the first film who hurt or killed people she came to love, only for her to forgive him once he said that He was the victim. Also, it took Luke and Mara almost a Year in universe, to become friends while it took Rey less then 10 minutes to feel that Ren was worth risking torture and death for.

I'm not saying you're wrong this is just my opinion and the reason this bugs me is that Rey is given no Personal reason to want to redeem Ren while Luke in the Original Trilogy and Mara in TTT are given Very personal reasons to want to redeem others or themselves respectfully.

The problem with Rey is that she's a complete blank slate. Her motivation seems to be to do whatever is required of a Star Wars protagonist. She's fighting to topple the Empire because that's what the lead character in this type of scenario is supposed to do.

To compare with Luke, by the time he left Tatooine we knew the following:
He's a generally good person. He treats even the droids well and does what he can to help.
He wants to become a pilot.
He hates Tatooine and wants to get away from the planet.
He craves excitement and adventure but he was stuck doing wearisome farm work.
He hates the Empire, and it has robbed him of his loving family.
He's just learned of the force and that his father was a hero he wants to emulate.
He respects Obi-Wan who has demonstrated incredible abilities while saving his life and is eager to learn.

and these character traits continue to inform his actions until they change as he grows.

With Rey.
She's a generally good person and saves BB-8 when she sees him in trouble.
With a nice little scene, you see her look at an old lady cleaning scrap as she does the same and a ship flying off in the distance. Suggesting she's stuck on this planet and she fears she'll grow old cleaning up scrap for starvation level rations for the rest of her life.

Except she can apparently leave at any time she likes and she's just here waiting for her family. This suddenly becomes her sole real motivation until she discovers that she's universally beloved by anyone the writer personally likes and immediately noted as the most valuable person in the universe by the villains who discovered there's a girl with force powers. Thus she doesn't need to unrealistically delude herself that the people that abandoned her were coming back when she can get emotional validation from pretty much anyone.

Though she goes back to this motivation again immediately after the start of TLJ.

Honestly it feels like I'm watching a let's play of a BioWare game where someone has started a new game plus at max level, and is making a playthrough where their FemRey gets to own the Millenium Falcon, run the Jedi Order, get the romance with Kylo and Finn is dropped as a companion the moment the Chewbacca option comes up.
Roleplaying be damned, if I get the scenario where Luke dies I can use his saber components to craft a saberstaff with a green crystal and get the Grand Master title!

To compare a much, MUCH better female protagonist I picked up the latest Brandon Sanderson book: Skyward. Spensa is a young girl who has a dream of becoming a Starfighter pilot and because of the actions of her father and the prejudice against her family almost every possible obstacle is put in front of her to prevent her achieving her goal. Yet she has a personality, quirks, flaws, grows as a person. You cheer when she overcomes another challenge and can see why she would fight so hard to do so.

The same with other characters she interacts with, she learns about the flaws of her own preconceptions and everyone around her changes as they learn and overcome their own character flaws.

Without spoiling too much because it is a Brandon Sanderson book, you can relate to her and understand her perfectly. Her actions feel natural and like a human being and not just because the plot requires her to do this to advance to the next scene.

Honestly, pick up Skyward on Audible if you want some nice YA Sci-Fi. It's really good.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Where's that quote from?

It was repeated a lot on TVtropes.org's forums post movie launch. I agreed with the sentiment.

Ah. Well I feel like Disney is trying to entropically expand the universe, opposite to how Lucas established a universe with the prequels that was calculated to contract upon Anakin. So I feel like the message is kinda to more break away the chains in order to start something new.

Of course these are just kinda vague assertions of mine. I don't see necessarily too much in the way of the perils of nostalgia, or Disney walking into its own trap.

[Worffan101]

Don't spoil me for Skyward, I want to read it!

Sanderson's quite simply a better writer than anyone working on these movies, is the main problem. Vin, Shallan, Lift--all of them way better than Rey, just because they have more layers. Well, in Lift's case it's that she's got about two layers and the one on top is fucking WILD, but you get my point.

Hell, Sanderson's current epic series is basically "double-subverting high fantasy tropes*, facing down and dealing with your mental health issues gives you superpowers, also supportive friends are good, and also colonialism, oppression, is Fantasy America, But Evil, worth saving?, with a soupcon of Be Smart About Your Revolution for dessert". Rian Johnson couldn't even nail "subvert Star Wars tropes"!

*Double-subverting meaning if Game of Thrones subverts the tropes, Sanderson subverts Game of Thrones. The Evil Uncle scheming for the throne is doing so for legitimately good reasons and doesn't actually want the damn chair but his desperate attempts to centralize power and break the backs of the petty asshole high lords make him accidentally this; the Noble Prince, who's the Evil Uncle's son here, is a womanizing dandy on the surface but a genuinely good, honorable, and supportive person underneath; the Peasant Hero is an embittered, angry would-be revolutionary but it still a walking incarnation of altruism to make a BioWare RPG completionist blush; the Spunky Princess is a traumatized wreck with serious PTSD and DID, and approaches her problems with relentless optimism because if she slips she's going to collapse in an instant.

seriously, Sanderson is good at this writing thing.

[clearspira]

But even with that Why does she Want to Redeem Ren? Rey has no personal connection to Ren other then the Horrible things he did to her in Awakens. With Luke and Vader, Luke learned that Vader and his father was one and the same and after being told what a good person his father was by Obi-Wan Luke wanted to redeem the good person his father was.

With Mara in TTT the reason she starts to change her opinion about Luke is because her views on him were forced upon her by the Emperor and he spends all of his time trying to befriend her. You could argue that the same thing is happening with Rey and Ren but, again, Ren was a twat in the first film who hurt or killed people she came to love, only for her to forgive him once he said that He was the victim. Also, it took Luke and Mara almost a Year in universe, to become friends while it took Rey less then 10 minutes to feel that Ren was worth risking torture and death for.

I'm not saying you're wrong this is just my opinion and the reason this bugs me is that Rey is given no Personal reason to want to redeem Ren while Luke in the Original Trilogy and Mara in TTT are given Very personal reasons to want to redeem others or themselves respectfully.

The problem with Rey is that she's a complete blank slate. Her motivation seems to be to do whatever is required of a Star Wars protagonist. She's fighting to topple the Empire because that's what the lead character in this type of scenario is supposed to do.

To compare with Luke, by the time he left Tatooine we knew the following:
He's a generally good person. He treats even the droids well and does what he can to help.
He wants to become a pilot.
He hates Tatooine and wants to get away from the planet.
He craves excitement and adventure but he was stuck doing wearisome farm work.
He hates the Empire, and it has robbed him of his loving family.
He's just learned of the force and that his father was a hero he wants to emulate.
He respects Obi-Wan who has demonstrated incredible abilities while saving his life and is eager to learn.

and these character traits continue to inform his actions until they change as he grows.

With Rey.
She's a generally good person and saves BB-8 when she sees him in trouble.
With a nice little scene, you see her look at an old lady cleaning scrap as she does the same and a ship flying off in the distance. Suggesting she's stuck on this planet and she fears she'll grow old cleaning up scrap for starvation level rations for the rest of her life.

Except she can apparently leave at any time she likes and she's just here waiting for her family. This suddenly becomes her sole real motivation until she discovers that she's universally beloved by anyone the writer personally likes and immediately noted as the most valuable person in the universe by the villains who discovered there's a girl with force powers. Thus she doesn't need to unrealistically delude herself that the people that abandoned her were coming back when she can get emotional validation from pretty much anyone.

Though she goes back to this motivation again immediately after the start of TLJ.

Honestly it feels like I'm watching a let's play of a BioWare game where someone has started a new game plus at max level, and is making a playthrough where their FemRey gets to own the Millenium Falcon, run the Jedi Order, get the romance with Kylo and Finn is dropped as a companion the moment the Chewbacca option comes up.
Roleplaying be damned, if I get the scenario where Luke dies I can use his saber components to craft a saberstaff with a green crystal and get the Grand Master title!

Blank slate is a very good descriptor of Rey, and that also goes for the fact that she is a very gender neutral character. You could have cast a man in her place and changed VERY little. Heck, you could have made male Rey gay and you wouldn't even need to change the interactions with Finn and Ren. This is going to be a controversial statement I suspect but I maintain that most if not all of the most memorable female characters of all time are an example of the strong feminine and most if not all of the most memorable male characters of all time are an example of the strong masculine. Very few people take to characters that are a cross or nothing of the two as people find it much harder to relate.

Lets go through a few examples of the strong feminine to see what I mean:

Ellen Ripley. Hard as nails, takes no shit, is able to go one and one with the alien queen without hesitation... and her main motivator for doing most of this is her motherly streak for the crew and Newt.

Sarah Connor. Hard as nails, takes no shit, is able to go one on one with a Terminator without hesitation... starts out as a scared waitress who builds herself up to this point due to her maternal desire to protect her son.

Buffy Summers. Hard as nails, takes no shit, is able to go one and one with vampires and demons without a sweat... and her most memorable plot line is the extreme vulnerability she felt when her boyfriend (Angel) turned on her after taking her virginity. Also wants to be a cheerleader in her spare time.

Daenerys Targaryen. Hard as nails, takes no shit, is the leader of an army posed to crown her as queen of the lands... and starts off as a powerless woman sold off to a warlord to be raped daily. Uses this experience to build and to grow to reach who she is today.

And lets throw in a Star Wars example. Princess Leia. Hard as nails, takes no shit, is a high ranking member of the Rebels and leader of the Resistance. First reaction to being rescued from the Death Star is to grab a gun. Falls in love with the masculine Han Solo, shows a maternal love for her people, wears dresses and make-up (and combat gear when she needs to unlike Holdo).

Do you guys see what I mean? These are great examples of strong women who feel like women, not men or gender neutral archetypes. It seems as if a lot of writers forget women like these when trying craft ''badasses'' like Rey.

[Worffan101]

Except that many popular MALE characters are motivated by protective parental instincts too. The most popular comic-book women are also typically not motivated by maternal instincts (nor are the men, for that matter).

I also...question your analysis of Princess Leia.

[Yukaphile]

Leia had no maternal love for the Rebellion. She just seemed like a good leader to me, in the original trilogy.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Didn't James Cameron rip on Wonder Woman for not being feminine enough?

[Worffan101]

Didn't James Cameron rip on Wonder Woman for not being feminine enough?

Probably, but James Cameron is an idiot.