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I wasn’t talking about you.
But I’m questioning why it matters that other people think these things about it.
not a Jedi apologist or a Jedi hater but a secret third thing
What do you think of The Prequel Trilogy? A general discussion. — Page 25
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I wasn’t talking about you.
But I’m questioning why it matters that other people think these things about it.
Because it shows how the prequels failed to communicate the story, and why their legacy continues to make the setting worse. This mainstream interpretation of events is directly responsible for The Last Jedi and The Acolyte and lots of other bad EU stories, and like I’ve been saying, retroactively damages the original trilogy. I think it has some real life consequences as well but I won’t get into that.
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Because it shows how the prequels failed to communicate the story, and why their legacy continues to make the setting worse. This mainstream interpretation of events is directly responsible for The Last Jedi and The Acolyte and lots of other bad EU stories, and like I’ve been saying, retroactively damages the original trilogy. I think it has some real life consequences as well but I won’t get into that.
I don’t think that connects. People come out of movies all the time with different ideas. And when the movies basically put out the opposite of this for the most part, I think that’s the issue with those that interpret it that way.
A. I think TLJ had almost nothing to say about the Jedi as a whole, and just had Luke whine about how they failed mostly. Even the Acolyte’s writing is thin, to me, and it only actually directly says that a few Jedi were corrupt or messed up. Which changes nothing about the Jedi as a whole. Again, I think the responsibility of those who wrote it that way. Why would the PT be at fault for the decisions of others? Criticize the movies all you want, but the jedi’s worst trait, that I see, in the movies, at worst, is a couple having arrogance issues or apathy or lacking awareness, in regards to personality. Yeah, there’s the idea of them being lacking in competence from some (which I don’t entirely agree with), but nothing that would lend itself to anything TLJ or Acolyte may be trying to do with them (I say try because I think they’re so weak or thin they say fairly little, beyond what I said above).
B. Why does it matter that other people saw it this way to the point where they’d do these things? Why would it change the views or emotions of someone who doesn’t think that?
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Vladius said:
I think it has some real life consequences as well but I won’t get into that.
Always amused by the chip on your shoulder about this topic, but I do think this would be interesting to hear!
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Vladius said:
I think it has some real life consequences as well but I won’t get into that.Always amused by the chip on your shoulder about this topic, but I do think this would be interesting to hear!
That’s why I won’t talk about it. You can probably infer if you’ve already read all my other posts for your amusement.
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I wasn’t talking about you.
But I’m questioning why it matters that other people think these things about it.
Because it shows how the prequels failed to communicate the story, and why their legacy continues to make the setting worse. This mainstream interpretation of events is directly responsible for The Last Jedi and The Acolyte and lots of other bad EU stories, and like I’ve been saying, retroactively damages the original trilogy. I think it has some real life consequences as well but I won’t get into that.
Actually, the core message of The Last Jedi is that all of Luke’s criticisms of the Jedi were wrong. Luke is supposed to go through a redemption arc in the film. He eventually realizes that hiding was a mistake, that not confronting Kylo was a mistake, and that everything he said about the Jedi was nonsense. By the end, he even says he won’t be the last Jedi, which implies that he has realized he was mistaken about the Jedi. The problem is that the movie is so poorly written, and Rian Johnson did such a bad job, that Luke’s entire redemption arc barely comes across.
As for the old EU, most of the stories set in the Prequel era portray the Jedi as heroic and noble. At worst, you might find the occasional criticism of the no-marriage rule, but overall the picture you get is of the Jedi being selfless and admirable, even during the Prequel era. In fact, the EU fandom is full of people who share that view of the Jedi, precisely because most of the stories from that period tend to present them as fundamentally good people. The only real exception would be the Republic Commando novels, but those books were never particularly popular outside of hardcore Mandalorian fans.
“I know that all of you like to dream about space and are a little bit of envious of us. But you know what? We’re also envious of you. We are exploring space, but it’s only the beginning. Planets and unknown worlds are awaiting you. You will continue to storm the Universe.”
— Yuri Gagarin
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I wasn’t talking about you.
But I’m questioning why it matters that other people think these things about it.
Because it shows how the prequels failed to communicate the story, and why their legacy continues to make the setting worse. This mainstream interpretation of events is directly responsible for The Last Jedi and The Acolyte and lots of other bad EU stories, and like I’ve been saying, retroactively damages the original trilogy. I think it has some real life consequences as well but I won’t get into that.
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Vladius said:
I think it has some real life consequences as well but I won’t get into that.Always amused by the chip on your shoulder about this topic, but I do think this would be interesting to hear!
That’s why I won’t talk about it. You can probably infer if you’ve already read all my other posts for your amusement.
I mean, I am being sincere here. I think if there’s something genuinely important to you here and not just kind of an annoyance with people you could just ignore, that’s a real discussion worth starting IMO
not a Jedi apologist or a Jedi hater but a secret third thing
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I wasn’t talking about you.
But I’m questioning why it matters that other people think these things about it.
Because it shows how the prequels failed to communicate the story, and why their legacy continues to make the setting worse. This mainstream interpretation of events is directly responsible for The Last Jedi and The Acolyte and lots of other bad EU stories, and like I’ve been saying, retroactively damages the original trilogy. I think it has some real life consequences as well but I won’t get into that.
Actually, the core message of The Last Jedi is that all of Luke’s criticisms of the Jedi were wrong. Luke is supposed to go through a redemption arc in the film. He eventually realizes that hiding was a mistake, that not confronting Kylo was a mistake, and that everything he said about the Jedi was nonsense. By the end, he even says he won’t be the last Jedi, which implies that he has realized he was mistaken about the Jedi. The problem is that the movie is so poorly written, and Rian Johnson did such a bad job, that Luke’s entire redemption arc barely comes across.
As for the old EU, most of the stories set in the Prequel era portray the Jedi as heroic and noble. At worst, you might find the occasional criticism of the no-marriage rule, but overall the picture you get is of the Jedi being selfless and admirable, even during the Prequel era. In fact, the EU fandom is full of people who share that view of the Jedi, precisely because most of the stories from that period tend to present them as fundamentally good people. The only real exception would be the Republic Commando novels, but those books were never particularly popular outside of hardcore Mandalorian fans.
You’re right that it tries to have its cake and eat it too because the movie refuses to commit to anything, but most of the messaging is never actually refuted. Luke’s role is reinterpreted as being about how important the Jedi were as a symbol or a noble lie, which is why he helps through a projected image instead of actually fighting. Oh sure, they never were the real heroes… but people thought they were, and it’s really the thought that counts. Even if they suck, at the end of the day, they’re helpful for inspiring the proles to become Rebels and inspiring kids with brooms.
To bring in a little more controversy (since apparently my posts rile people up for entertainment value and generate performative “who cares” posts from people who clearly care), Luke is the “Ghost of Kyiv” from early 2022.
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To bring in a little more controversy (since apparently my posts rile people up for entertainment value and generate performative “who cares” posts from people who clearly care), Luke is the “Ghost of Kyiv” from early 2022.
Eh, I really don’t care and I find it amusing that you put so much effort into this.
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I think the Last Jedi communicated its main ideas pretty effectively, I also think at this point the whole conversation about the film and what it did/didn’t do, and the metatextual aspect of discussion the discussions, has so thoroughly overwhelmed it, to where anything about the film is destined to get sucked into a timelocked field of battle that starts around January 2018 and encompasses the rest of that year.
It’s literally like when The Doctor trapped Gallifrey in a 3D painting - that’s The Last Jedi at this point. It’s a very well made movie, easily the closest thing IN the sequel trilogy to a Lucasian story, (and people keep sidestepping/avoiding this aspect - Last Jedi the only story Lucas actually liked and spoke well of - not just in the prequel trilogy, but really across the whole of the output post-sale) and you basically cannot engage with it past a certain point or you get hauled into a timeloop where it never stopped being 2018 and everyone’s basically waiting to indulge the ritual exercise and call-and-response prompts they all know by heart now.
The Acolyte, however - I kinda tried to address/rectify this to some degree in my own edit: My belief is that show ended up getting compromised on the way from pitch to realized show mostly BECAUSE the idea that there was going to be a dark-side focused show that unambiguously shone a light on the Jedi as “not all that good, honestly” got kiboshed. So the show got watered down, and watered down, and the idea of a revenge story against Jedi who overstepped and deserved what they got in return… turned into a weird wishy-washy, mealy-mouth “mystery” whose POV got so muddied it basically became a mild sort of paean to “fence-straddling” as a valid lens to look through.
They HAD a show about intolerant cops covering up their own crime and the victims of that crime getting their payback. And instead they tried to make it weird apologia for the intolerant cops and their system of policing as a whole. Which was weird, because it’s not like this was a real-world institution. The Jedi don’t exist, and huge parts of the fictional universe literally DEPEND on that fake institution collapsing on itself due to corruption/hubris/disconnection from humanity. It made the show severely compromised as dramatic storytelling. Like the people making it were TOLD at some point that what’s important wasn’t even really the story, it was the sanctity of the not-real institution at its center. It wound up being a show without a country, for lack of a better term.
But then again - I think a lot of conversations about these shows/movies would be a lot less fraught in general if the underlying implication WASN’T that Star Wars is more good than bad (it isn’t) and that the stakes for each new entry WEREN’T sky high box-office/ratings/critical triumphs in the top 5% of anything else that’s ever been made, because I honestly think that’s beyond silly at this point. It’s just making it hard to actually enjoy and appreciate these stories for what they are when we’re constantly holding an artificial (and honestly incorrect) standard for minimm quality up as baseline.
It’s okay that about half of all Star Wars is frankly, not good. It’s fine. It’s not a massive insult, and it’s also not a new thing, either. It’s always been like this, and so many of the arguments that break out tend to break out because the people having them refuse to engage with it on anything other than All Or Nothing stakes.
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To bring in a little more controversy (since apparently my posts rile people up for entertainment value and generate performative “who cares” posts from people who clearly care), Luke is the “Ghost of Kyiv” from early 2022.
Eh, I really don’t care and I find it amusing that you put so much effort into this.
No need to be a dick about it though
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To bring in a little more controversy (since apparently my posts rile people up for entertainment value and generate performative “who cares” posts from people who clearly care), Luke is the “Ghost of Kyiv” from early 2022.
Eh, I really don’t care and I find it amusing that you put so much effort into this.
What kind of insane freak would talk about Star Wars on a Star Wars forum? In a thread asking for thoughts about Star Wars no less. Wild stuff. Better make a snarky comment that adds nothing like a redditor
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I think the Last Jedi communicated its main ideas pretty effectively, I also think at this point the whole conversation about the film and what it did/didn’t do, and the metatextual aspect of discussion the discussions, has so thoroughly overwhelmed it, to where anything about the film is destined to get sucked into a timelocked field of battle that starts around January 2018 and encompasses the rest of that year.
It’s literally like when The Doctor trapped Gallifrey in a 3D painting - that’s The Last Jedi at this point. It’s a very well made movie, easily the closest thing IN the sequel trilogy to a Lucasian story, (and people keep sidestepping/avoiding this aspect - Last Jedi the only story Lucas actually liked and spoke well of - not just in the prequel trilogy, but really across the whole of the output post-sale) and you basically cannot engage with it past a certain point or you get hauled into a timeloop where it never stopped being 2018 and everyone’s basically waiting to indulge the ritual exercise and call-and-response prompts they all know by heart now.
The Acolyte, however - I kinda tried to address/rectify this to some degree in my own edit: My belief is that show ended up getting compromised on the way from pitch to realized show mostly BECAUSE the idea that there was going to be a dark-side focused show that unambiguously shone a light on the Jedi as “not all that good, honestly” got kiboshed. So the show got watered down, and watered down, and the idea of a revenge story against Jedi who overstepped and deserved what they got in return… turned into a weird wishy-washy, mealy-mouth “mystery” whose POV got so muddied it basically became a mild sort of paean to “fence-straddling” as a valid lens to look through.
They HAD a show about intolerant cops covering up their own crime and the victims of that crime getting their payback. And instead they tried to make it weird apologia for the intolerant cops and their system of policing as a whole. Which was weird, because it’s not like this was a real-world institution. The Jedi don’t exist, and huge parts of the fictional universe literally DEPEND on that fake institution collapsing on itself due to corruption/hubris/disconnection from humanity. It made the show severely compromised as dramatic storytelling. Like the people making it were TOLD at some point that what’s important wasn’t even really the story, it was the sanctity of the not-real institution at its center. It wound up being a show without a country, for lack of a better term.
But then again - I think a lot of conversations about these shows/movies would be a lot less fraught in general if the underlying implication WASN’T that Star Wars is more good than bad (it isn’t) and that the stakes for each new entry WEREN’T sky high box-office/ratings/critical triumphs in the top 5% of anything else that’s ever been made, because I honestly think that’s beyond silly at this point. It’s just making it hard to actually enjoy and appreciate these stories for what they are when we’re constantly holding an artificial (and honestly incorrect) standard for minimm quality up as baseline.
It’s okay that about half of all Star Wars is frankly, not good. It’s fine. It’s not a massive insult, and it’s also not a new thing, either. It’s always been like this, and so many of the arguments that break out tend to break out because the people having them refuse to engage with it on anything other than All Or Nothing stakes.
Even if you hypothetically take TLJ out of 2018 and put it in a vacuum with no culture war politics and no preconceived notions about Disney, The Force Awakens, etc. it’s not good. It’s technically nice and has some neat cinematography and visuals, and Mark Hamill and Adam Driver put in some decent performances, but that’s about all. Certain segments like Canto Bight are downright ugly. Subplots go nowhere. Character actions don’t make sense or seem designed to be unsatisfying (I don’t just mean Luke.) Hypothetically if it wasn’t a Star Wars movie I don’t know how good it would be considered, but it also depends a lot on the Star Wars branding to give weight to what happens in it (Yoda showing up for example.) I don’t want to re-litigate all of this right now though. You’ve heard it all before.
I haven’t watched The Acolyte but based on everything I’ve heard about it, the message was picked up by the audience just fine and it wasn’t really messed with at all. The Jedi weren’t meant to be complete bad guys, just “bad guys to the bad guys” and antagonists, as well as authority figures, with the understanding that Star Wars is about fighting authority figures. The Media Literate people flexed their Media Literacy and figured it out pretty easily.
I think the issue people have with more than half of Star Wars not being good is that it could have been left alone and stayed good. Even if you don’t like Return of the Jedi like a lot of people, 2/3 great movies is an extremely good rate, and for most people it’s 2.5/3 or 3/3. Then if you weren’t interested in EU books or video games or comics, you just didn’t bother, and it was out of sight, out of mind. Now we get major movies and TV shows with budgets in the high millions pushed in our faces regularly as the biggest thing on the planet, overpriced theme parks, and constant churn that you’re expected to keep up with. Yes, that’s “okay”. It’s not illegal or anything. It’s not going to kill anyone. You can just walk away. But it makes sense to think fondly of a simpler time when it was 2/3, 2.5/3, 3/3, plus maybe bonus extras, vs. 1753/5000 or whatever.
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To bring in a little more controversy (since apparently my posts rile people up for entertainment value and generate performative “who cares” posts from people who clearly care), Luke is the “Ghost of Kyiv” from early 2022.
Eh, I really don’t care and I find it amusing that you put so much effort into this.
What kind of insane freak would talk about Star Wars on a Star Wars forum? In a thread asking for thoughts about Star Wars no less. Wild stuff. Better make a snarky comment that adds nothing like a redditor
I’m more just poking fun at your arguments and demeanor, because you seem to take yourself way too seriously. As Lucas himself said, these are movies for 12 year old boys and aren’t that serious.
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To bring in a little more controversy (since apparently my posts rile people up for entertainment value and generate performative “who cares” posts from people who clearly care), Luke is the “Ghost of Kyiv” from early 2022.
Eh, I really don’t care and I find it amusing that you put so much effort into this.
What kind of insane freak would talk about Star Wars on a Star Wars forum? In a thread asking for thoughts about Star Wars no less. Wild stuff. Better make a snarky comment that adds nothing like a redditor
I’m more just poking fun at your arguments and demeanor, because you seem to take yourself way too seriously. As Lucas himself said, these are movies for 12 year old boys and aren’t that serious.
If you have nothing to contribute to the conversation please refrain from inserting yourself into it.
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OK, I’ll back off.
Back to the PT - I find that II and III look much better after a regrade.
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Vladius said:
Hypothetically if it wasn’t a Star Wars movie I don’t know how good it would be considered,
It probably would have got noms. The brand cuts both ways on this.
I haven’t watched The Acolyte but based on everything I’ve heard about it
Bro. You’re speaking on it to this extent and you haven’t even watched it? You’re just cherrypicking comments on it from people and calling that good so far as analysis of theme goes?
I think the issue people have with more than half of Star Wars not being good is that it could have been left alone and stayed good.
This was never going to happen. Was already not happening. The very first thing that gets produced after Star Wars is The Star Wars Holiday Special, LOL.
if you weren’t interested in EU books or video games or comics, you just didn’t bother, and it was out of sight, out of mind. Now we get major movies and TV shows with budgets in the high millions pushed in our faces
It’s not “pushed in your faces” anymore than the nonstop onslaught of books, games, comics, cartoons, and TV shows from 1984-2015. If you can “just not bother” with that, you can “just not bother” with this too, you know? Just skip a cartoon. Just pass on a TV show. Just don’t watch a prequel movie. It’s not hard to do this, as you’ve shown.
This is partially what I was talking about in the post! People take all of this so seriously, so deathly seriously, as if the stakes are really that high and they’re not, as evidenced by the fact you just said you can not bother and leave things out of sight and out of mind. Just keep doing that! The idea that you have to get mad because more than half of Star Wars isn’t good doesn’t make any sense to me. So what? Nothing that goes for this long, across this many different media, maintains a batting average better than .500 at the absolute best. Other Fandoms don’t do this to themselves when it comes to the fact their long running series has a bunch of stinkers in it.
it’s a lot easier (and more fun) to discuss this stuff when folks aren’t artificially placing life-or-death weight-of-the-world stakes on the media in questions. Star Wars isn’t so precious and breakable that Attack of the Clones or Rise of Skywalker or Book of Boba Fett is going to kill it.