Collipso said:
and you’re doing exactly what jay described. “as it is supposed to be interpreted”. great.Well there is an intended interpretation. Filmmakers don’t just throw stuff on the page and hope it all makes sense (ok some do). You can watch a scene and ask “What is the film TRYING to say here, what is the intent.” And it should be pretty clear.
You can make your own interpretations all you want, thats up to the viewer. If the film has a failing its that so many have taken the wrong ideas from it.
What you’re describing is appreciating a film for what it’s trying to do rather than what it does, which is completely fair. I appreciate Lynch’s Dune and the new Westworld show for their ambition, while still recognizing that what appears onscreen does not really live up to that ambition.
TLJ has great ambitions, and I don’t fault it for that. For example, it allows for sophisticated and mature interpretations on the nature of a worthy sacrifice (Finn/Poe), the correct attitude towards failure (Luke/Rey), and the importance of faith in those wiser than yourself (Poe/Rey). But these are all lessons given by those placed in the story to antagonize our heroes, so the task for a filmmaker is difficult: they must overcome the skepticism of the audience, who identifies with the heroes, and turn them in favor of the antagonists. There is a natural resistance to learning a lesson, for a character in a story but also for an audience member.
When given the choice between learning a hard lesson and choosing an interpretation which allows them to avoid the lesson, they’ll usually take the alternate interpretation. The job of the filmmaker is to make it clear to the audience that the ‘correct’ interpretation is the easiest to accept. The Last Jedi fails to do this, to which multitudes of reviewers can attest.
I’ve heard it said that a filmmaker has just one job to do in making a film - to craft an experience which forces the audience to feel precisely what they intend them to feel, whether that be awe or horror of happiness or sadness, or a combination of any other feelings that these sounds and images can convey. They have the length of the film in which do to this, with every filmmaking trick they can muster. Sure, there are always going to be those people who will find ways to disagree with anything and everything in a movie, but if by the end of the movie a significant portion of the audience (many of whom are devoted fans of the franchise) feel something quite different than the rest, I’m tempted to lay this at the filmmaker’s feet.