NFB is right in everything he says so this is completely unnecessary, but I thought I’d nitpick some of your points, Wanderer.
You have your relationship between the Emperor/Snoke and their puppet Kylo/Vader… except Kylo rebels against his master (subverted expectations)
Vader also does this. I think it would’ve subverted my expectations more if Kylo had actually beheaded Rey.
You have Luke skywalker, a proven hero from the OT, passed around like this fake Legend whose heroic acts never happened. This point comes across in that line where he says “do you expect me to face the entire First Order feel with a laser sword?” … yes dude, we do. Because thats what you did before! (subverted expectations)
Where’s the suggestions Luke’s heroic acts never happened? The point is he is that legend - and the movie ends with him renewing it - but more than that he’s fundamentally a human being. Rey wants just Luke the legend, but she gets Luke the human. That’s because it’s Luke the human who creates Luke the legend; the two can’t be separated.
Again, Luke, probably the most generous and kind hearted character in the OT. Becomes this bitter old man who left his friends to die after considering to murder his nephew in his sleep. (subverted expectations)
If, after Han told the audience in TFA that “Luke felt responsible. He just walked away from everything.”, you were still expecting Luke to be a cheerful chap who had just isolated himself on an island for a quick vacation, then I don’t know what to tell you. It’s certainly tough to see Luke struggling mentally like that, but it’s extremely human, and I think it’s very inspiring how he overcomes it by the end of the movie.
Lukes over the shoulders saber throw like a cheap comedy movie, instead of realizing how important the passage of that Saber is (subverted expectations)
I’ll concede that TLJ plays a lot of things for comedy at odd times (see also: Rose kisses Finn; base immediately gets shot) but the idea that that saber is important was one that was only really created by TFA in the first place. No one cared much about it when it’d just fallen into Bespin, never to be seen again, right? Luke just made his own new saber and carried on with his life.
Rey, whose past is unknown but she clearly has had training in the force before since she can do everything. No, she’s a nobody and her powers and skill are of unknown origin (Potential in the force without training is a blunt knife) (subverted expectations)
Yes, potential in the force without training is imprecise - a blunt instrument. Luke makes this exact point about how dangerous her raw strength is, and the movie demonstrates it visually when Rey accidentally chops the rock in half because she’s not controlled or disciplined in her usage of a lightsaber. Star Wars has, for better or worse, pretty solidly established at this point that some people are just randomly born with a whole load of midichlorians. The origin of her powers is that she’s very force sensitive.
Rey, this beacon of light. Unwavering and pure hearted starts falling in love with a man who murdered the closest thing to a father figure she ever had in front of her own eyes (subverted expectations)
Yes, she finds a connection with Ben. That’s the plot of the movie. Rey isn’t ‘unwavering and pure hearted’ - she’s a good person, but like all of us she craves human connection, a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose. Ben gives her that when Luke doesn’t. Calling this one “subverted expectations” is a bit of a stretch; because you’d need to have extremely rigid and cliched expectations to begin with - did you think she’d just kill him, because she’s a goodie and he’s a baddie? That’s not even what happens between Luke and Vader in the OT!
Continuity from The Force Awakens. No continuity, entire potential plot threads thrown out of the window. (subverted expectations)
There’s something of a thematic/tonal discontinuity, sure. You can tell they’re movies by different directors and writers. But the only ‘plot thread’ that’s explicitly thrown away is the Knights of Ren, and RJ confessed he just couldn’t work out what to do with them - TROS demonstrates that, actually, neither could JJ; they were just there to look cool. Kylo Ren ‘completing his training’ is not really explicitly followed up on, only sort-of alluded to, but again, like the KoR, there was no substance to that to really build upon to begin with.
Theres a lot more, but yeah, TLJ definitely does try too hard to subvert everyone’s expectations. In fact it sacrifices narrative and character development in order to do so.
I think most of your points are pretty questionable, and just writing “(subverted expectations)” after them doesn’t really explain what expectations you had or how they were subverted.
Here’s two times TLJ does subvert expectations that I would agree with though:
- Snoke is set up in TFA as a scheming, big-bad, final boss Palpatine knockoff (this is mostly just implied by him saying mysterious things and having a big hologram, though). TLJ kills him one movie earlier than Palpatine died in the OT, having had him come across as an angry and overconfident fool.
- TFA very loosely alludes to Rey being some kind of Chosen One or divinely-picked successor - not because of her force-sensitivity, but because 1) the lightsaber calls out to her in particular, 2) Obi-Wan speaks to her, and 3) Star Wars has a history with mInDbLoWiNg LiNeAgE tWiStS - but TLJ then reveals there really is no hidden secret to her backstory, and she is just an abandoned orphan.
In these cases, I think TLJ makes the more compelling calls, though. Getting rid of Snoke broke free from the OT template and opened up the playing field for Rey and Kylo’s story. TROS does ultimately make it somewhat pointless by bringing in a new big bad, but at least Palpatine is actually Palpatine and not discount Palpatine. A cheap lineage reveal for Rey would’ve been tired and overplayed, imo - having her be a random orphan makes her more of a wildcard since there’s no real expectation for her. As soon as TROS reveals her to be Palpatine’s descendant, her arc in the rest of the movie autocompletes in the viewers’ mind.