But it’s just so fun to whine about.
It sounds absolutely miserable for the people who don’t like the movies. What’s wrong with just ignoring media you dislike, just pretending it never happened? Hell, Legends is right there as a different canon to follow.
Shrug. It’s just an aspect of certain human personalities. Some people, myself included, just enjoy exploring and discussing the various reasons that explain why some piece of media sucks. The Prequels used to be one of the primary targets for discussions like these, but that honor has now been passed along to the Sequels.
Of course, like 95% of everything sucks. Most things that suck are not worth discussing. But some things that suck are more interesting to talk about, because they’re connected to things that don’t suck - which evokes a sense of lost opportunity. This is why the suckiness of the Prequels and Sequels is fascinating to me.
I find it hilarious and highly fallacious how people think the message of this film is “let the past die,” as if that was some deep revelatory insight, when Kylo was LITERALLY referring to murdering his own father. Because that was his response to Rey when she asked why he killed his father. So for people to think this kill the past nonsense is great are literally advocating for murdering your parents. Very disturbing.
I think “let the past die” actually IS a message or theme of the film. Yes, Kylo - the villain of the film - says this line, and yes, in context, Kylo is making a point building upon the fact that he recently killed his own father. But a similar message is also expressed by the “good guy” character of Yoda. Yoda capriciously burns down the Jedi library - a repository of past knowledge - and tells Luke that Rey must move beyond the past Jedi masters by learning from their mistakes. Moving on from the past is certainly a theme of the movie, and the meta-commentary woven into the script suggests the message is something like “we need to move beyond the tropes of old Star Wars movies and embrace something new”. This message is also consistent with the actual events of the film, wherein Rey learns almost nothing from Luke (who represents “the past”) except what NOT to do - i.e. learning from past mistakes or failures.
The fact that Kylo Ren (a bad guy) and Yoda (a good guy) preach equivalent or thematically congruent messages is simply another result of the thematic dissonance in TLJ. (At best, and giving TONS of benefit of the doubt to this stupid film, perhaps Rian was trying to juxtapose “healthy” ways of moving on from the past with “unhealthy” ways of doing so.) Also, Kylo’s line “let the past die” is not necessarily ONLY referring to the murder of Han Solo, but in context, it refers also to Rey’s need to let go of past expectations built on false beliefs about her parents. So there is clearly at least SOME wisdom in what Kylo tells her. But the whole thing is a thematic mess that needed several additional rewrites.