Complete disregard of Vader as a character after he had already been set up in TFA as a major influencer and inspiration to Kylo. After a few mean words from Snoke, Kylo smashes his helmet to pieces, symbolically smashing his obsessed Vader-like aspirations and everything that had been set up in the previous movie. Trying to delete Vader from a Skywalker-saga SW movie is like trying to delete Hitler from a WWII documentary. Can’t you wait until you get you start your own non-Skywalker SW trilogy, Rian?
General Hux was set up, almost literally, as a young ascendant Hitler in TFA. Now he is the butt of silly tone-deaf jokes? I thought Kathleen Kennedy was supposed to be supervising Rian?
Snoke’s comment about the Dark in Rey and the Light
Kylo, Yoda, and Luke all talked about destroying the past. I didn’t really mind this at all until I realized the second, much deeper meaning of this dialog was that Rian Johnson was ACTUALLY COMMENTING ABOUT THE PAST STAR WARS MOVIES THEMSELVES WITHIN THE MOVIE HE WAS COMMISSIONED TO DIRECT! He was literally talking about destroying all the Star Wars tropes that came before HIS movie.
The movie almost feels like Rian Johnson hates J.J. Abrams. “Oh you created Poe to be a hero, you think Snoke should be an important character, you want Rey’s bloodlines to be important, you probably wanted Luke to be a more heroic character, you wanted Vader’s presence to be felt through his inspiration of Kylo? Well I am going to kill the past because this is MY movie! Oh… And I bet you thought the Knights of Ren was a cool idea too. Well, fuck you about that too.”I do think there is a good Star Wars movie in there somewhere utilizing TLJ footage as a rough cut.
I agree with your long post and these couple paragraphs nail it
Thanks! I probably should have made the post a little briefer, but thanks for reading!
How about Poe’s character though? It feels like they took a hero from TFA and turned him into one of those commercials you see every day on TV where the wife is the clever one and the husband is barely smart enough to chew his food and would be lost without her. (Because of course, it would be highly offensive if the wife was made stupid.) Disclaimer: I am HUGELY in favor of women and diversity in SW–as stated in my post, but don’t take a character who has already been established as a competent heroic leader make him a moron simply to fulfill a feminist agenda.
Yeah, I felt Oscar Isacc has been wasted so far. Probably the most talented of the new cast, along with Adam Driver, but his character is almost non-existent as far as how much he moves the plot forward.
Poe has a pretty big part in TLJ. Characters aren’t just important insofar as how they relate to the plot (and he still plays a part in that too).
- Only because I’d already be editing the film at this point and not because this is in any way called for, try to have the first scene with Luke appear overcast as TFA was. Whatever filter used to achieve this could be gradually faded out over the course of the sequence.
This is something I want to do too. It’s obviously a clear indication of ‘it’s a different film, so it’s stylistically different,’ but it still kinda nags at me.
- If deleted scenes make this possible, give Rey her promised third lesson from Luke.
One change that might be cool (no idea if possible) is to have Luke say something like “ten lessons,” instead of three. Then change his second lesson to his fourth or something. Just to make it seem like there’s more happening off screen.
- Possibly remove the dice from the end. I guess it’s there to make you think Luke is physically present, then Leia leaves them behind, and then they disappear? I don’t know. It was one last thing to not understand in the movie. (Just kidding; the Jedi texts make a split second cameo after this point. Speaking of them, I won’t remove them because I’m sure they’ll play a role in XI, and people will ask how Rey has them just like people ask where 3PO’s red arm went in VIII.)
I guess Leia knows it’s not actually him, that’s why she leaves the dice. When Kylo picks them up, it’s like with Rey closing the door on him. It’s a little ambiguous of course, but my take is that Rey and Luke know that deep down Kylo still has Ben in him and he yearns for the connection with her and his parents (despite what he says), but they can’t keep trying to turn him if he isn’t going to put the effort in. So they close the door, they rob him of the memento; he has to decide for himself if he wants to hold on or not.
As for the books, I think I’ll shut up about those. I’m really hoping someone can work magic and make C-3PO’s arm red throughout the trilogy (apparently JJ made it gold again because Anthony Daniels hated it).