Here’s a pretty good article about the film: https://www.avclub.com/part-kurosawa-part-wile-e-coyote-the-last-jedi-boldl-1821291545
RE: Ackbar vs. Holdo, the author of this piece has a good point in a response to a comment:
Lotta folks seem to think that her role should have gone to good ol’ Admiral Ackbar, but I get Johnson’s intention: Everybody likes Ackbar, and the audience needs to be fooled into Poe’s point-of-view.
Probably why she didn’t get a proper ‘hero’ introduction as well. It’s a trade-off, but one I liked given where and how it’s taken: this is all Poe’s point of view - to the very end, and that’s why his turn into a proper leader works in the finale.
The more I think about it, the more I appreciate how well-written this film is.
Poe got a bunch of people killed because he was reckless and disobeyed orders. But it’s cool because ‘Ah, that’s just how Poe is, the little scamp’.
It’s war, and that’s not his first, nor his only deed.
If he kept pulling stuff like that in an actual war, his superiors would have him shot in the head.
Thankfully, this is drama (with a slant towards action adventure). This is a character flaw, not a movie flaw - I really don’t get the complaints here. At worst, I’d put this in the same ballpark as Chewie being best friends with Lando at the end of ESB, even though he probably should’ve murdered that traitor the first chance he outgrew his usefulness (which would have been almost immediately).
Sorry, but the comparison doesn’t work at all. Lando has earned the forgiveness of the rest of the gang. That was on a personal level. On military level, if you are going to brush off a soldier acting like a complete psychotic, pointing guns at superiors and making decisions that result in people dying, with “oh, ain’t he a cute hothead”, you are seriously challenging the suspension of disbelief.
I guess my point was that it’s perfectly of a piece with what Star Wars is - to me, I guess, since some people tend to react to it as though it were an adaptation of an army field manual 😃
‘The Director and the Jedi - Documentary Review’… (by HelloGreedo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHH3InY8mFA
Much better than I expected - not as overwhelmingly corporate-fluffy. Or maybe it’s just the next level of comouflage for this sort of fare. Fun watch on the whole, though I’d prefer something meatier.
Looks really nice. One or two notches above the usual promotional/official graphic art.
Also:
