Great job with that time code removal! However, you can still see a faint outline of her braid so perhaps you need to adjust the mask a bit.
That’s what I get for putting the video at 50% opacity. 😛
https://mega.nz/#!bdlQ1L4D!y-lHaQIpMNSPOusEacAigT4to_Mkjq5_mg6IS4ULrJg
The more I think about it, the more I appreciate what RJ did with this.
By amplifying the idea of the Jedi as a fatally flawed dogma, it turns the triumphant finale of the Original Trilogy into a threat. With The Return of the Jedi, the galaxy is forced to endure yet another war caused by this religion.
And so The Return of the Jedi becomes the giant looming question, the impossible task, the paradox that the final trilogy must solve.
Is this why so many people disliked TLJ, because it confirms what George was trying to say throughout the prequels?
Sorry to have to tell you this, but that stuff’s technically canon.
Luke’s entire reason for being a Jedi was because his father did it and it seemed like a good career path after his future in moisture farming went up in flames. It seems harsh, but there it is. In Empire, he realizes that his father actually wasn’t this great hero but a massive jerk who ruined Star Wars for everyone thirty years ago. By the end of the trilogy, Luke finally makes some peace with that. He boldly proclaims that he is not just a Jedi, but specifically ‘a Jedi like my father’. Basically, he sees in himself the same potential for failure and may even realize how the Jedi religion sets people up to fail, and he is okay with that. The trilogy ends with him being torn between two worlds - the world of his friends, and the world of his Jedi teachers who want him to spread their failed teachings throughout the universe. He tries to be the Jedi sage, and it predictably fails, to the ruin of both his friends and the Jedi. Now he’s master of exactly zero worlds, so I can totally see why he’d try to hunt down the Jedi texts and burn them. After all, in some ways this is ultimately the fault of the religion.
None of this is true at all, especially the part where you say he realizes the Jedi religion sets people up to fail. Luke was proud of becoming a Jedi by the end of the original trilogy. It was his character arc that he had been striving for over the course of three movies. Even by Return of the Jedi, when he had become exceedingly powerful, Yoda told him he was not a Jedi yet. He had one more task to finish. He confronted his father, and did not turn.
Luke was proud to become a Jedi. Good defeated evil.
All of this nonsense about the Jedi being bad is nonsense being created by people who don’t understand Star Wars and are just trying to do a money grab. It is heretical.
I’m not saying that he wasn’t proud to become a Jedi, but I’d say he was more defiant in the face of evil than proud of his accomplishment. Good does defeat evil, but it’s not the good of the Jedi religion, rather it’s the human decency in Luke and Vader that makes both of them realize that there are more powerful things in the universe besides the Jedi and the Sith. Because make no mistake; according to Yoda, Luke should have turned to the Dark Side when he attacked Vader in a rage. It wasn’t the Jedi teachings that saved Luke in that moment.
I’ve been thinking a bit about why I think Luke’s character is wrong to me, and why RJ’s explanation is insufficient.
The way I view Luke in this film is:
Luke has done something against his values driven by fear, and his actions have made things worse. He feels ashamed about what he has done. His reaction to this is, that he gives up on all of his values, and everyone who shares most of those same values.
I have problem with the first part, because one of the main values of Jediism is to control your fears. To be a Jedi is to be level headed, to not be impulsive. This also goes back to what Mark Hamill has said: “A Jedi wouldn’t do that”. Luke is a Jedi, that was one of the outcomes of his arc in the OT, and TLJ now wants us to accept, that Luke acted against those values impulsively. Of course we’ve seen Jedi act against their values before, most famously Anakin. However, with Anakin it was a process that was developed over the process over three films, and I think it can actually be argued, that Anakin never really accepted many of the values of the Jedi in the first place. Then there’s Mace Windu, who at the end of ROTS wanted to execute a seemingly defeated Darth Sidious. Here again we’ve seen the buildup of the conflict, and the effect that has had on the Jedi. They’re starting to come apart. What’s happening in ROTS is not a vision of evil, it’s real evil. RJ spents next to no time building up Luke’s sudden impulsive act, an act we may understand from a human perspective, but not from a Jedi’s perspective, and that’s where this movie really drops the ball in my view.
I have an even bigger problem with the second part, namely that Luke’s mistake causes him to give up on all his values instantly. After spending an entire trilogy returning the Jedi values back to the galaxy, he gives up on them completely, and in this film is actively campaigning against them. The Jedi are somehow wrong for attempting to channel the Force in a way, that for a thousand generations has prevented evil from spreading throughout the galaxy. The Jedi made mistakes in the final days of the Galactic Republic, but surely that can’t be atributed to their core values. Those core values are likely reflected in those old books Luke found in the Jedi tree, the books that Yoda jokingly says, aren’t page turners. In my view there’s something really wrong with a film, that argues these books with these core values should go up in flames. It’s reasonable to argue, that they should evolve, but kill the past? I feel this movie and it’s creator really don’t understand the themes and values represented by George Lucas’ original six film saga.
Luke’s entire reason for being a Jedi was because his father did it and it seemed like a good career path after his future in moisture farming went up in flames. It seems harsh, but there it is. In Empire, he realizes that his father actually wasn’t this great hero but a massive jerk who ruined Star Wars for everyone thirty years ago. By the end of the trilogy, Luke finally makes some peace with that. He boldly proclaims that he is not just a Jedi, but specifically ‘a Jedi like my father’. Basically, he sees in himself the same potential for failure and may even realize how the Jedi religion sets people up to fail, and he is okay with that. The trilogy ends with him being torn between two worlds - the world of his friends, and the world of his Jedi teachers who want him to spread their failed teachings throughout the universe. He tries to be the Jedi sage, and it predictably fails, to the ruin of both his friends and the Jedi. Now he’s master of exactly zero worlds, so I can totally see why he’d try to hunt down the Jedi texts and burn them. After all, in some ways this is ultimately the fault of the religion.
😃
Oh carp, there’s supposed to be a LUT applied to this.
I’ll have the fixed scene uploaded momentarily, and with some slightly better grain on that one shot as well.
I hope you haven’t started the video rendering yet!
JEDIT: This is the file you’re looking for -
https://mega.nz/#!zd1GQYZQ!wLeOb7EQQDFAIiwTdKr8iiQnY4C1EJ-z1qoxvD-23pQ
Here’s the CC’d Leia scene:
https://mega.nz/#!iANlxBYS!5Usv4CQedVkYYG8N6KmBdAR-7Xcq2nZWKx8u5Ap2TFs
I took the liberty of removing the final timecode and uncropping the shot, so here’s a version with more consistent grain:
https://mega.nz/#!OUMUHSwZ!BpWP8KdmsZIAZZuwuzEdoKygynGgT7yDJW7rEKVhpTg
i had some thoughts this morning about how the ST seems to be inverting the traditional structure for Star Wars trilogies. Rather than rewriting them here, here’s a link to my tweet storm on the subject.
Good thoughts, I’m also intrigued by the possibilities here.
I always liked this artwork, I don’t know if it’s been used for a release before.
If you want something hand-painted, I’ve been working on a poster for my Tech Recreation project but would be happy to let you use it for 4K77 as well.
Here’s the Leia scene without regrading. One shot is still graded (the one where Korr Sella looks up and Leia enters the frame). I did the braid removal on that shot on top of the color grade so it can’t be removed, so keep that in mind.
https://mega.nz/#!zElyiSYY!EnuPRDufn5ys1vWMnyFNWL5Y51CNH2QQEgkGte7uOgsAnd here’s the leg shot, I went for a new crop instead.
https://mega.nz/#!mM0hyK7L!2Z9Wo7GC5DWRa35mNFmlBhr6beVfFPnYuwqdQE91OaY😃
I’ve got it, thank you!
The Phantom Menace
This John Berkeley poster:
The original Flash Gordon serials (Obi-wan is Hans Zarkov, Anakin’s wife is Dale Arden).
The hyper-detailed machinery of Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Magnetic Rose (This is what I imagine the wreckage of the Empire would look like)
True.
For the scene where the Raddus and the remainder of the resistance are being chased by the 1st order (when they are ultimately headed to Crait,) we as an audience need a reason why the 1st order doesn’t just send out ties to kill everyone, or jump to light speed themselves to get ahead of the resistance and kill them off. We also need more of a reason for Poe to be pissed at Holdo
I was thinking that the flight path of the ships needs to be encumbered by something truly dangerous. It cant be asteroids, (to similar Empire Strikes Back,) but perhaps black holes? If the region is kind of a dangerous black hole ridden briar patch with Crait hidden within, this would genuinely make their plan to “just” stay ahead of the 1st order make sense.
It might also make Leia receiving Han’s dice more poignant, because he won the Falcon, and also the Kessel Run.
My current solution would be to change the crawl so that Snoke wants Leia alive. That way the safest route to capturing her would be to run the ship out of fuel.
Quality of Life (The Next Generation):
Excellent episode, and surprisingly moving.
Just one change to the Luke projection sequence make Luke’s lightsaber green instead of blue throw the audience off
You’d need to change the hilt to the ROTJ one too, then. I’m actually not against the idea if it can be done, but the hilt definitely needs to change if the blade color is changed.
The legend of Luke Skywalker, as he wanted to appear, used the blue lightsaber. The green one was only known by his Jedi apprentices, Kylo, Vader, Ben, Yoda and the Emperor.
At least that’s how I interpreted it. To that specific moment, the blue lightsaber had more weight.
That doesn’t make much sense, since the green one is presumably the one he used throughout the years after ROTJ, when his legend grew.
I could see him using the blue one because it is a reminder to Ren that he’s unworthy of his grandfather’s blade, but that’s about it.
I’m pretty sure TFA and TLJ (very select parts of it) can be edited into one movie…
Frink would be remiss if he didn’t edit the lightsaber toss as the last shot of The Force Awakens.
Beru.
The Last Jedi was the worst Star Wars movie ever.
The only good part was when Yoda burned all the Jedi books. It brings back good memories and sets a proper example for the new generation of fans.
I see the trolls remain in force.
This stuff about Yoda and the founding documents of the Jedi religion puts me in mind of something from the Prequels, namely, the dreaded Chosen One nonsense.
I wouldn’t consider this at all except that Rian somewhat of a prequel apologist from what I’ve heard. But when seen with that lens, the Last Jedi actually puts forward a good argument for why Rey might just be this Chosen One.
(And lest we forget, the first line of the ST is about how there’s no balance in the Force.)
Rey’s parents are ‘nobody’, in that she was intentionally conceived as a Force sensitive individual by the Force itself and not by any special lineage. In essence, everyone who is Force sensitive has been ‘chosen’ by the Force. Furthermore, she is the first person in this universe emphasizing the balance of the Force as opposed to adhering to one aspect over another. She takes death and violence as a fact of life just as much as peace and benevolence.
The biggest piece of evidence for me, however, is that Yoda implies that he has read the first Jedi books, and this may be where the prophecy originated.
“A prophecy…that misread, could have been.”
Since these are the only Jedi texts that we know of, this is the only writing established in this universe to be misread. And what better medium for a long-forgotten bit of lore than the original Jedi books.
One could make the argument that Kylo Ren is the subject of the prophecy, but he is in no way balanced, having learned all the wrong lessons from Luke’s school. In fact, he’s probably more Sith-like than many Sith with his obsession with power and murdering his master. So if Rey ends up destroying him in Episode 9, we may have the answer to the most perplexing question in the prequels.
Just like poetry. 😉
My early experience with The Force Awakens was somewhat disappointing, as what I was really hoping for was Luke. The film did well capturing the tone and atmosphere of the original trilogy, though without a great deal of mythical substance. However, the film was a fun ride, if not wholly original, and it ended with the promise of a whole lotta Luke in the next movie.
Now that The Last Jedi has come out, after effectively four years or so of building up Luke Skywalker for me, this new film feels like a slap in the face. I do not mean in terms of the film’s quality, but as a deliberate thematic gesture. I question whether this was the right move to make, as it seems obvious Mark Hamill has, though the film is more or less successful in what it seeks to do in this regard. However, it comes across as deeply incongruous with the films that came before, most strikingly with The Force Awakens itself. It is baffling to me, and seems to betray the story that film was trying to set up. I don’t care about Rey’s parents being nobodies; I rather like that decision. I would have liked to see Snoke be tied into the saga at large in some way, but I don’t really have a problem with him being axed, aside from the incongruity with the storytelling of TFA.
Basically, the Luke stuff is very hard to swallow and feels very wrong for a variety of reasons. And the rest of the movie is dominated by SNL-level humor and ‘Droids’ cartoony silliness. Finn and Rose are grating, and BB8 commandeering an AT-ST is almost on the level of C-3PO in the Geonosian droid factory. The pacing and plot structure is all over the place. If I could edit apart the film into Rey’s story and everyone else’s story, I might be able to digest it a little easier. As much as I dislike Yoda’s visuals, his scene is touching, and goes the furthest to help Luke grow in this film. I still do not really understand how the lesson about accepting and learning from failure leads to Luke’s confrontation at the end. Does anyone else? It seems like he is sacrificing himself so the Resistance can escape, but I am straining to connect the dots to form a throughline with Luke.Also, this movie suffers greatly in my mind by having several too many fakeouts or misdirections. Having what looks like a spaceship turn out to be an iron in the laundry room is one thing, but the movie contains so many of these that it honestly made me feel like a fucking idiot by the end, and left me almost giving up on trying to understand it. After Kylo Ren’s dialogue about letting the past die and the ship being rammed, the clear implication seemed to be that all the main characters aboard were killed in a stunning narrative mood. (Just kidding; here’s BB8 in an AT-ST.) Finn is about to sacrifice himself to save the Resistance. (Just kidding, you silly goose.) Rose dies. (Just kidding, I guess… I honestly forgot she didn’t die until I saw it again because there’s too much of this going on!)
There’s several of these even in the Yoda scene alone: Luke says he’s going to burn the tree down, then hesitates and seems to feel remorse about having wanted to. Then Yoda blows it up and laughs, confirming to Luke that, no, he was actually right in the first place to burn it down. Luke appears to accept this from Yoda, then becomes very defensive for a second about the Jedi texts. Yoda seems to tell Luke that the texts are better off gone, implying Rey already has what she needs without them. (JUST KIDDING; the Jedi texts are aboard the Falcon at the end in a shot I completely missed after seeing the film twice. What does this shot suggest about the Yoda scene, and Luke’s dialogue ABOUT Rey becoming a Jedi??? Does Luke KNOW she has the texts? Does Yoda?)
This movie makes me feel like I am locked in the house of mirrors and the Joker is laughing at me. They won’t even let me read the novelization until late March. Even if someone explains all these things to me in as best a way as can be done, this movie will always be a problem.
I agree with a lot of this, especially the scatterbrained tone. Star Wars has always had a very specific tone and editorial style, and TLJ is definitely the furthest removed from this style. All of the films have a noticeably passive, even documentary style at times. Abram’s filmmaking is somewhat removed from this in his use of quick cuts, closeups and dynamic camera movement, but TFA is still quite restrained in this regard. The Last Jedi by comparison is frenetic in how it slices up scenes to ratchet up the tension, and it breaks the illusion of watching events in a faraway galaxy and instead forces the viewer to confront the film as merely an assemblage of shots intended to show (or even worse, tell) the audience what to feel.
Canto Bight is the most egregious example of this style. I remember during filming how leaked photos showed elaborate streets built on location and a vast game floor filled with a breathtaking array of stunning aliens. I had an immediate sense of place with these photos, a location that promised to linger in the mind just as Cloud City, Dagobah, or even Coruscant lingered long after the movie ended. However, when I saw the finished product I had forgotten this lush environment the moment our heroes left. This is entirely a problem with the style of filming and editing these sequences.
The Luke stuff on the other hand I appreciate. Luke is a disillusioned old man who was failed by the dogmatic Jedi religion and held up as an impossibly godlike figure by the rest of the galaxy; no wonder he left. The beautiful thing about his disillusionment is that it both humanizes him and makes him more like a Zen spiritual guru. His ‘reach out’ joke might have been motivated by a cynicism of everything Jedi, but it also functions as a genuine lesson on not taking one’s teachers too seriously.
I for one am moderately intrigued.
I do like how the prequels’ themes tied into TLJ somewhat. It does a good job of making them feel worthwhile without referencing them specifically, namedrop of Darth Sidious being the sole exception.
I think this is why Luke’s story is so polarizing - his Jedi school devolved into an institution similar to the old Jedi Order, with Luke becoming a metaphorical Abraham who for a brief moment was willing to sacrifice his own family for this dogma. For those who think the ideas underlying the prequels had merit, this is a strong theme. For those who discard these ideas and think the Jedi are the only guardians of light full stop, I can see how this version of Luke would disappoint them.
More like an incomprehensible hatchet job, but I guess if it floats your boat…
(literally) nothing happens in the Space Chase storyline.
A movie made of only the Rey/Luke/Kylo scenes would probably work just fine.
Except that you rob their actions of any wider context.
Usually I’d let this stuff slide, but it’s hard to ignore since this movie goes into so much more detail about the fuel calculations and the strategy of the whole thing. Like, give me ships going ‘pew pew’ at each other with space fairy tale logic or give me Timothy Zahn-style military sci-fi with a consistent set of rules, but don’t give me the military sci-fi with fairy tale logic.
