Episode VIII : The Last Jedi - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD * — Page 38

Yes. Cassian’s character is well defined but he doesn’t go anywhere. There’s nothing wrong with a monolithic character, but when you set up questions about a characters ethics and create interesting conflicts for their way of doing things, you can’t just botch the landing by putting that all aside and not saying anything meaningful. He doesn’t have to change to be interesting, but resolving his arc with “I have to help you Jyn because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t” is just a short cut cop out of a more thought out resolution.

If you don’t understand or like Rey’s character, too bad for you. But her story is much more fully formed.

DominicCobb said:
If you don’t understand or like Rey’s character, too bad for you. But her story is much more fully formed.

Being a fan of the OT, I understand Rey’s character 😉

Her story isn’t “much more fully formed”, it’s just more explicit. In which grade that’s undoubtedly a better thing, I invite you to enlighten me.

To me, “Move, ball” will always be and say a lot more about Han Solo still being Han Solo than having 15 minutes wasted with the “guabian death gang”; but whatever.

Hasn’t it occured to you that perhaps the whole point of Cassian wasn’t to go somewhere? Maybe he was just all about showing the unavoidable fate of a soldier, and the shit that war is and how it hardens a human being.

I can understand that in the midst of this nineties youth, the idea that not everybody has the opportunity to choose in life doesn’t seem as appealing as all the free will stuff that sinks us today. But stories and characters that end up exactly where they started, (greek tragedies, death in samarra, etc.) are just an equally valid part of the spectrum.

Mithrandir said:

DominicCobb said:
If you don’t understand or like Rey’s character, too bad for you. But her story is much more fully formed.

Being a fan of the OT, I understand Rey’s character 😉

Her story isn’t “much more fully formed”, it’s just more explicit. In which grade that’s undoubtedly a better thing, I invite you to enlighten me.

Well I think we disagree that it isn’t more fully formed.

To me, “Move, ball” will always be and say a lot more about Han Solo still being Han Solo than having 15 minutes wasted with the “guabian death gang”; but whatever.

“Move, ball” says a lot about his personality but nothing about his current situation in life. “Being Han Solo” doesn’t tell the full story.

Hasn’t it occured to you that perhaps the whole point of Cassian wasn’t to go somewhere? Maybe he was just all about showing the unavoidable fate of a soldier, and the shit that war is and how it hardens a human being.

I can understand that in the midst of this nineties youth, the idea that not everybody has the opportunity to choose in life doesn’t seem as appealing as all the free will stuff that sinks us today. But stories and characters that end up exactly where they started, (greek tragedies, death in samarra, etc.) are just an equally valid part of the spectrum.

As I said, there is nothing wrong with a stagnant character. The problem is when I film sets up a character for change but then doesn’t resolve it. If they wanted to tell Cassian’s story as the “unavoidable fate of a soldier,” they should have told that story. Instead that gave him a moral quandary but didn’t go anywhere with it.

Mithrandir said:

Lord Haseo said:
Cassian was interesting and we got to know about his backstory and how he views the Rebellions more questionable actions but I felt there could have been more to him or that his moral ambiguity was made a larger focal point. If we compare him to Rey however he seems underdeveloped in comparison as we know certain things about Rey’s backstory, we have seen a myriad of emotional states from her, we have seen actions that show us what type of person she is […]

We may not agree on character development

We’ve seen Rey intensively cry, laugh, be amused by her abilities, be afraid, run away…all in one movie. You call this character development, I just think it’s an emotional rollercoaster where she reacts generically the way she’s supposed to. And just by the sheer quantity of emotional responses she gives, all I can think of is in an unstable character that doesn’t know or understand anything (but then magically knows how to do everything).

She has more to her than that. She has aspirations outside of the main plot, she has demons, she has a well defined moral compass though I would say Cassian’s is definitely more defined. Rey even has small litlle personality traits like being modest by shrugging off her saving Finn as mere luck

She’s not even forced by the circumstances to leave Jakku, not at least in the same way Luke was by the death of his uncles.

Why do all heroes need to choose to go on their journey?

Cassian, instead, we don’t see him change much in Rogue One (except when he doesn’t shoot Galen Erso, and then joins Jyn to get to Eadu), but just one thing explains all you say it isn’t explained (where he comes from, what are his expectations, what kind of person he is and his emotional state) which is the brief, tense, open, non exhaustive scene inside the ship after the death or Jyn’s dad.

Why is it infinitely better than anything in TFA? Because it’s all based in Diego Luna’s acting, and in a dialogue in which it is more important what is implied and not said: Cassian lost his family in a war situation, war and loss is all he knows, and he is willing to die for a cause basically because he is left with nothing to live for.

Yes, I have completed the meaning of the scene and resignified the character with my interpretation, but that’s the whole point of a well (or at least, better) written movie and true character development , not just having the movie start with a character not liking chocolate and end it with it liking it. That’s just a cheap interpretation of Joseph Campbell’s cheap interpretation of (mainly) medieval cycles.

In the end, Cassian might be a little monolithic but reminds me of Javert in Les Miserables, where only in one point and just in one point, he confesses he comes from the drains of society as well, and suddenly all his actions and feelings including his overly rigid moral compass are explained.

And yes, it’s a reveal moment, only that not so overly emphasized and underlined; just human scale, totally relatable. It explains the guy and his motivations from a human point of view.

Was more actually needed?

Dominic covered this.

DominicCobb said:
“Move, ball” says a lot about his personality but nothing about his current situation in life. “Being Han Solo” doesn’t tell the full story.

What do you need the full story for? Or better, what’s the point of telling the “full story” if the character didn’t change at all since last time you saw him in OT?

As I said, there is nothing wrong with a stagnant character. The problem is when I film sets up a character for change but then doesn’t resolve it. If they wanted to tell Cassian’s story as the “unavoidable fate of a soldier,” they should have told that story. Instead that gave him a moral quandary but didn’t go anywhere with it.

They told that story. He died. He made decissions that made it unfair that he died, but he did because that’s how war is. The whole point of the film was exactly that, good and mortal people that are not as lucky destiny-blessed Luke but turned out to be exactly as important as him.

She has more to her than that. She has aspirations outside of the main plot, she has demons, she has a well defined moral compass though I would say Cassian’s is definitely more defined. Rey even has small litlle personality traits like being modest by shrugging off her saving Finn as mere luck

Well, Cassian has a personality as well. He’s an intelligence officer, his job is to have no-man’s personality. He only reveals his emotions when he knows his fate is sealed.

Why do all heroes need to choose to go on their journey?

You got this exactly around.

Mithrandir said:

DominicCobb said:
“Move, ball” says a lot about his personality but nothing about his current situation in life. “Being Han Solo” doesn’t tell the full story.

What do you need the full story for? Or better, what’s the point of telling the “full story” if the character didn’t change at all since last time you saw him in OT?

Ah yes because when we meet him in TFA he is exactly where we last saw him in ROTJ, having has cast aside his smuggling ways to be with Leia and the cause.

As I said, there is nothing wrong with a stagnant character. The problem is when I film sets up a character for change but then doesn’t resolve it. If they wanted to tell Cassian’s story as the “unavoidable fate of a soldier,” they should have told that story. Instead that gave him a moral quandary but didn’t go anywhere with it.

They told that story. He died. He made decissions that made it unfair that he died, but he did because that’s how war is. The whole point of the film was exactly that, good and mortal people that are not as lucky destiny-blessed Luke but turned out to be exactly as important as him.

Just because that is the basic what happened, doesn’t mean they did any justice to telling that story.

I’m fairly certain aspects of the story were developed with the story group (and quite likely the TFA writing team), but there’s nothing wrong with Johnson going solo on writing duties. In fact, I think it will be interesting to see a singular vision in that regard.

I guess it’s possible, it would be interesting even if he just got to flesh out an existing plan for the narrative. But I’m just suspicious that this is all a Lucasfilm board room creation after the 2-3 named writers on TFA. It’s probably all just done with a committee.
“I am not a committee” - Rian Johnson, probably.

Mocata said:

To be honest both have the same amount of distracting fan service and poor writing. At this stage R1 bothers me more because retconning the exhaust port from a flaw to a feature is so lazy.

The R1 novelization shows that the exhaust port was rushed to approval, as a quick fix for the reactor overheating, because the project was behind schedule.

Mocata said:

I’m fairly certain aspects of the story were developed with the story group (and quite likely the TFA writing team), but there’s nothing wrong with Johnson going solo on writing duties. In fact, I think it will be interesting to see a singular vision in that regard.

I guess it’s possible, it would be interesting even if he just got to flesh out an existing plan for the narrative. But I’m just suspicious that this is all a Lucasfilm board room creation after the 2-3 named writers on TFA. It’s probably all just done with a committee.
“I am not a committee” - Rian Johnson, probably.

The story group is no committee. They’re just a group of people who love and know a lot of things about Star Wars and are trying to keep continuity within the universe.

I don’t think they were involved much beyond brainstorming and consultation. Even though JJ and co. set up an idea of where things would go, it seems like Johnson had a lot of freedom to decide what would happen (hence writing the treatment for IX and also giving small input on TFA).

And there’s nothing wrong with 2-3 credited writers on a film. Having a lot of people to bounce ideas around is a good thing. I get the fear of too many cooks but ultimately it came down to a team of just two writers calling the shots with JJ being the final arbiter. It’s clear how that situation broke down if you read the Art of TFA book or watch the interview they gave (at WGA I think). Basically Ardnt had been hired to write and they were developing with him, until it was decided JJ and Kasdan would write together. A completely organic creative process.

The idea people have in their mind of Disney execs focus grouping the most profitable ideas for the script and writing them down is just a complete fiction.

Mithrandir said:
Well, Cassian has a personality as well. He’s an intelligence officer, his job is to have no-man’s personality. He only reveals his emotions when he knows his fate is sealed.

And that’s why I called him a standout character in a group filled with underwritten ones. It’s a shame that we can only talk about Cassian in depth. You can’t do that with any of the other characters which is why the characters fail me so much in Rogue One. I have to know who these characters are before I can invest my emotions into them. We knew plenty about Luke, Han, Leia and that in conjunction with their chemistry makes them fun and interesting characters. We didn’t even get any chemistry from the Rogue One crew. Finn and Rey along with the Finn/Poe bromance shared the same spirit of comradery that was present in the OT but was strangely absent in Rogue One. I would have been perfectly content had Rogue One done one of these things right but how these characters are written doesn’t grab me like the OT and TFA’s characters do. And having sub-par characters in a Star Wars movie is wayyy worse than any amount of rehashing in my opinion.

Why do all heroes need to choose to go on their journey?

You got this exactly around.

What? lol

The exhaust port wasn’t retconned, but rather the reactor. Erso didn’t tell them to shoot a torpedo through the exhaust port, he told them to find a way to blow the reactor. They still needed to study the plans to find the way to the reactor.

Interesting, as I say I need to rewatch it.

The idea people have in their mind of Disney execs focus grouping the most profitable ideas for the script and writing them down is just a complete fiction.

Perhaps but TFA doesn’t feel like a human being’s creative vision. I hope you’re right, really. The next sequel will cement my feelings towards this all, and I don’t want JJTrek part 2 all over again.

Hahahaha.

Lord Haseo said:
What? lol

Haha, my english betraying me. I meant that you got that part diametrically wrong. I was saying that Luke didn’t choose to go on his journey. And that Rey, by basically being involved willingly, set up the tone of the rest of the movie as an adventure tale.

Mithrandir said:

Lord Haseo said:
What? lol

Haha, my english betraying me. I meant that you got that part diametrically wrong. I was saying that Luke didn’t choose to go on his journey. And that Rey, by basically being involved willingly, set up the tone of the rest of the movie as an adventure tale.

Lord Haseo said:
Why do all heroes need to choose to go on their journey?

is pretty much my response to that though something I’d like to add is that at the end she could have gone back to Jakku if she really wanted to but she chose to go to Ahch-To.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

bishabosha said:

Mocata said:

To be honest both have the same amount of distracting fan service and poor writing. At this stage R1 bothers me more because retconning the exhaust port from a flaw to a feature is so lazy.

The R1 novelization shows that the exhaust port was rushed to approval, as a quick fix for the reactor overheating, because the project was behind schedule.

The exhaust port wasn’t retconned, but rather the reactor. Erso didn’t tell them to shoot a torpedo through the exhaust port, he told them to find a way to blow the reactor. They still needed to study the plans to find the way to the reactor. If the exhaust port was a feature, as Mocata alleges, they wouldn’t have need to steal the plans, because erso could have just told them about it.

Disney Canon: The exhaust port was one of three solutions Galen proposed to the reactor problem, so he was responsible for it, but still didn’t tell anyone. (Source: R1 novel)

Wrong thread…I think.

As far as I know it’s a poster related to 8.

https://moviepilot.com/p/star-wars-8-the-last-jedi-poster/4209120?utm_content=inf_10_2509_2&utm_source=jabra&utm_medium=fb-cm&utm_campaign=cm_facebook&tse_id=INF_87b25a40f62e11e6a03c354c456e1db2

Yeah but you put up the wrong art and the one from 8 was already posted.

I put up the one from the article. But I guess it isn’t a real poster cause I don’t see a new article about it on IMDB.

That was at the top of the page for some reason but if you read the article they’re clearly talking about this one:

Oh, lol. So the other one must be a fan drawing. Good drawing.