Broom Kid

Where are you getting that “Mandate from Disney” noise from? That flat out doesn’t make any sense.

Also, they didn’t “can” George Lucas’ scripts because George never turned in scripts. He had notes that he didn’t want to hand over as part of the sale, but then he did anyway. And apparently they were really weird and Osmosis-Jones-y stories about the Midichlorians - and even that we only know because HE said so in an interview with James Cameron. There were never “scripts” of the sequel trilogy for Disney to “can”

These sound like YouTube talking points, which are very often designed to infuriate you so you’ll keep watching because that’s how their algorithm works. Factual accuracy is - if you’re LUCKY - a secondary concern.

I think the problem w/ Vader’s redemption is in trying to unpack it from Vader’s POV, which is damn near impossible because Vader isn’t really a character RIGHT UP UNTIL Lucas pulls out “I am your father” from out of nowhere late in the script game around 1978. For the sake of having a big twist to carry Empire into Jedi, Lucas almost ACCIDENTALLY gives Vader a completely different dimension.

But that’s still secondary to how it affects Luke. Vader’s status as Luke’s dad – again, one of those things that was made up as it went – is there mostly for LUKE’S benefit as a character, to complicate him that much more. It’s not really about making Vader a more well-rounded character at all, though that does (sort of) happen in Return of the Jedi.

So when Luke succeeds in his mission, does what Yoda and Ben think impossible, and becomes a TRUE Jedi against all the odds, getting his dad on his side IS THE REWARD. It’s for Luke’s benefit as a character, not for Vader’s. Vader turns because Luke is so good he has no choice BUT to turn. It’s the perfect fairy tale ending… for LUKE’S character, in LUKE’S story. I like that it’s there, and I like the way it happens in that movie.

All of “Anakin’s” importance as a character, independent of his utility to Luke’s characterization, was essentially retconned into the OT metatextually via a crush of self-congratulatory interviews with Lucas between 1983 and 1997, and then the Prequels cemented that (unearned) importance into canon. You repeat a thing enough times, even people who aren’t inclined to listen will start hearing it. Lucas’ choice to redeem Vader made sense for Return of the Jedi. His choice to then make that redemption the central point of ALL Star Wars was one of the most tedious and unfulfilling acts of retconning he ever visited on his own story.

Space Hunter M said:

I also second the notion that a fully 35mm sourced version of it is one of the last “holy grails” of the OT for me. The Belcubus and Puggo/Jaxxon presentations are nice, but both have their limitations (being sourced from TV airings and 16mm optical, respectively).

I do wonder if the original recordings of those sources could be dug up. If I’m following the chain correctly, the mono audio on these restoration projects is all processed to some degree - it sounds very much to me the “35mm Mono Mix” that’s on both 4K77 and Despecialized has audio artifacting, and it also sounds like a faint reverb effect was applied to attempt masking those artifacts. The software used at the time that track was created (am I right that those specific finished Mono tracks are now about 10 years old?) would be pretty out of date now, and 10 years is a very, very long time in terms of what audio programs can do so far as cleaning and restoring audio.

re-capturing the VHS mono audio (or even the 16mm audio) might be worthwhile too, if that’s possible. I’m coming very late to this, and I’m not trying to cast aspersions on the work that was done all that time ago. But I do think if it’s possible to re-capture that audio source, it might be worth trying, to see if that mono audio could be given a slightly better once-over.

Well, I don’t think ROTJ makes a great argument for Vader’s redemption, either (and that’s partially why the Prequels are so hamstrung, because they’re primarily interested in retroactively centering Anakin so as to make that by-that-point foregone ROTJ victory HIS, and not Luke’s.) but Vader’s “redemption” isn’t really about Vader at all - it’s Luke’s reward, not Anakin’s. Vader’s redemption is representative of Luke’s faith in himself, and in the Force. Knowledge and defense. Love and compassion. Those are the things he believed in, and his reward for that belief was finally getting to REALLY meet his father for the first (and last) time. The redemption’s purpose isn’t to reward Anakin’s character. It’s to reward LUKE’S. It’s an affirmation of the Jedi way. Basically, Vader’s redemption is a byproduct of Luke’s arc completing successfully, and that moment’s resonance hits so hard because it’s a reflection of how well Luke’s story concluded.

Reframing that moment so that it’s a referendum on Anakin, and then going back to tell Anakin’s story as a means to justify that reframing is basically the exact place that Lucas lost control of Star Wars from a storytelling perspective, and it’s arguable that he never really got it back, either.

(that his attempt to re-frame it was as confused and awkward as it ended up being didn’t help, either).

“You still haven’t explained how Kylo being redeemed comes at the expense of Rey and Finn’s stories.”

Because time is finite and spending time, energy, and effort on focusing both Rey and Kylo’s arcs on “Saving Kylo” as the primary goal takes time away from better, more interesting, more worthwhile storytelling endeavors for both of those characters. I don’t think my argument above is in any way “antithetical” to “what Star Wars has built up” because I’m not arguing that Star Wars can’t ever be what you’re arguing for. I’m simply saying it would have been worthwhile to pursue something else BESIDE that, too, and suggesting that Star Wars can’t do that is limiting and somewhat shortsighted. It also isn’t borne out by the history of multiple artistically successful Star Wars stories, the majority of which don’t take as read the idea that the bad guy is going to be redeemed somehow in the end.

I’m also not misunderstanding your point. I’m not saying Kylo isn’t redeemable. He CAN be redeemed. He DOESN’T WANT TO BE, though. And that’s where the compelling aspect of his character really kicks in, and where the tragedy of him is most resonant. And that’s the story of the first two movies. That’s different. That’s the point at which a lesson can be learned, and lessons in fiction can (and have been and will be) learned by taking relatable aspects and showing what happens when you behave in a certain way. You say it’s boring to follow that to a different conclusion, I say rejecting all other storytelling possibilities for the sake of ensuring some kids projecting themselves into him to the point where they’re not paying attention to THE REST OF THE STORY or its context AT ALL is shortsighted and limited. There are other ways to speak to those kids, and I think there’s worth in considering those options. You don’t have to “abandon” themes in order to play with them differently. All of that just reinforces the idea that there’s some weird dogmatic adherence to “the rules of Star Wars” that I don’t necessarily agree with very much, if at all.

I understand that you and I have fundamental disagreements on this specific issue, and despite the fact that we’re probably not going to bridge that divide ever because of the way we look at the story, the story’s possibilities, and other key factors, I do want to say that while I disagree, I DO understand where you’re coming from, and I appreciate the level of thought and time you put into the conversation, and that you’ve never gotten angry, impatient, or mean-spirited about that disagreement. It’s very much appreciated.

There was only one conclusion

I don’t agree with this. Never have. There isn’t only one way to tell a Star Wars story.

Making Kylo Ren understandable doesn’t mean you NEED to make him forgiveable, or further, make him a good guy. You don’t HAVE to do that. And especially not at the expense of Finn and Rey’s character arcs. You can engender sympathy with the devil, you can highlight the parts of a villains personality and characterization that are relatable, but you don’t HAVE to reward that character with a victory either. That character can pack just as much punch by being a negative example, an object lesson of what will happen if you refuse the opportunities provided you time and time again. I never argued for him to stay bad “just because it’s new” or for him to be flatly characterized as one-dimensional evil, either. But there are ways to have his arc track in a different, more villainous route that doesn’t include redemption, and tackling the story as if it’s a fait accompli that he’ll be redeemed is short-circuiting so many good dramatic possibilities. That’s not to say there isn’t a way to have redeemed him that could be satisfying. Just that nobody seemed to have figured it out when the saga ended. Although that one story group idea that he take Luke’s place and exile himself to Ahch-To was a good option that… nobody pursued.

further, there’s something very, very useful to addressing the notion, especially in children’s entertainment, ESPECIALLY NOW, that sometimes you can’t make friends with the bully, that sometimes the bad guy won’t become the good guy, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO OR HOW HARD YOU TRY. That you wanting someone to change really, really hard doesn’t mean they’re going to, especially if they don’t want to do their part to make that happen. That doesn’t mean that bad guy doesn’t have humanity, or has their dimensionality removed. But it also lets kids know that you don’t have to stop everything you’re doing and give up on the things that are important to you in order to cater to THAT ONE GUY, either.

The argument that it had to happen this way because “It’s Star Wars” and “It’s for kids” just rings false. It’s pop-culture dogma and it doesn’t carry weight with me. There were other options, and they were rejected out of hand, it sounds like, for the sake of “doing the Star Wars thing” and I disagree with that decison, and with the reasoning behind it, because it’s limited and circular. “The Star Wars thing” is pretty nebulous, especially since “Star Wars” is basically a mixtape of pop myths with great production and sound design and that’s about it. It can be a lot of things. It can be more than it is now, and a lot of what it IS now, it only is because someone years ago decided it needed to be different from what it was.

I also think whether he was intended to represent modern-day fascism or not doesn’t really matter. He does. He is. He’s Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk and all the young self-righteous super-angry and combative people who learned the absolute wrong lessons from the destructive forces who came before them. And I think there’s something not only shortsighted in making sure the entire story of Star Wars in the 21st century is about REDEEMING that guy, but slightly dangerous as well, because if we’re going to talk about kids movies, we need to talk about teaching children that the most important things are making sure that Kylos are heard, Kylos are listened to, Kylos are catered to, and Kylos are CENTERED in EVERYONE ELSE’S stories.

Everyone worries about the kids who project onto the bad guy and whether or not they’re going to give up - nobody seems to worry about whether or not the kids projecting onto Rey and Finn are being told that their desires, their hopes, and their dreams need to be sidelined or ultimately sublimated to ensure Kylo’s redemption occurs. And I don’t find that particularly fair, either. This was an opportunity for Star Wars to be about new people, and instead it’s about Kylo, and making sure he died with the light in his eyes.

The idea that a villain in Star Wars can’t stay the villain because it’s letting down “bad kids” seems like a particularly empty strawman, to me. Bad guys can (and should) just as often be object examples of what happens when you keep making awful choices no matter how “right” or “justified” you think you are to be making them.

How does it make Leia look like an idiot? Why WOULDN’T you want to run as fast as you could from the thing that your captain just called “a Fleet Killer”

Nobody knows about hyperspace tracking, so him getting back to the ship ASAP while they jump makes perfect sense to her. It makes perfect sense, period, especially considering how little they know about what the First Order can do at that moment. If they can get away, they should get away, because they’re not really in a great position to take it out right there. As proved by how sideways everything goes even WITH Poe’s plan (which he had ready to go without her knowledge, which is some pre-meditated insubordination, really).

She’s not wrong to want to run. He’s not wrong to want to seize the opportunity. They can both be right, but it’s not always about being right, either. Life isn’t a point-scoring exercise, and The Last Jedi is a story that speaks to that quite a lot.

Leia doesn’t “look like an idiot” there, though.

My understanding was the bombers were only deployed because Poe himself deployed them. They weren’t part of the original mission and only came in when Poe audibled after succeeding with the first part (which Leia had believed was the ONLY part right up until he kept going)

I think a lot of Last Jedi arguments tend to snag up and break down along the basic right/wrong questions, when the movie is interested frequently in acknowledging the motivations behind why people are doing the things they’re doing, but not always justifying those motivations, either. That’s a huge part of the engine that fuels The Last Jedi - understanding isn’t the same as acceptance or agreement. “Poe was right” isn’t even really the point, and it’s why discussions tend to break down along the lines of people trying to prove he was “wrong” as a counter, and people reinforcing their belief that he was “right.” and round and round from there. You can be “right” and still make the wrong call, and that’s hard. But it’s also true. And learning from THOSE experiences are vital. The Last Jedi is a movie all about those moments, and a lot of what it’s saying and doing just blows right by if ultimately all you’re talking about once it’s over is whether or not the justifications for their actions are sound.

It’s partially why Rose/Finn and the speeder KEEPS coming up, because people are approaching the scene from the POV that “Finn was right to do what he did.” and the question isn’t even so much whether he had the justification, and whether he was right to make that call (and whether Rose was wrong to stop him). The question is precisely along the lines NFB very clearly laid out in their excellent posts above.

The Last Jedi is a movie that very often puts its characters in situations where they honestly believe they’re doing the right thing, and most of the time they are. Their reasoning is understandable and their intentions are good. But it still goes wrong. That’s frustrating and complicated and annoying. But it’s also NECESSARY in a lot of ways, and for me, hugely relatable. Especially when it comes to Poe and Finn’s behaviors in this movie. Often they’re just as interested in doing the big thing as they are doing the right thing, and they think a lot about how to make the big thing as right as it can be, and that’s why they miss out on doing THE BEST THING. They’re more concerned with doing THE MOST instead of figuring out what will allow them the biggest chance to do THE BEST. That’s not easy, and it doesn’t get any easier if you spend even more energy retroactively justifying why you made the one choice instead of refocusing and learning why that choice didn’t work.

The Last Jedi is a movie that ultimately says “you can do what you’ve always done and get mad when it doesn’t work like it always worked, or you can acknowledge that things keep changing and you have to change to get ahead of it.” I think it does this well, but I also understand when people get caught up in the minutia of why things aren’t working the way they always worked.

Here’s my problem with Kylo’s redemption - it re-centers the entirety of the trilogy on him and shifts focus from Rey/Finn. Now that it’s all done, Finn is obviously the biggest missed opportunity of the entire trilogy, and I think a lot of his story got subsumed by the level of importance Kylo’s potential redemption took up. Basically - starting the story one way, and then shifting to make it all about Kylo (which it ultimately ended up being) sucked a ton of air out of the story.

I think that maybe there was a way to achieve a redemption (or at least a measure of it) for the character without doing that, but I also think that the entire prospect of a shitty Skywalker son figuring out that he doesn’t need to be a genocidal maniac was only barely pulled off in the OT, and for a sequel trilogy so concerned with the weight and meaning of legacy, having a huge part of the story hinge on more or less the exact same dilemma felt counterproductive at its core. If this story was largely about how the next generation found their own way to move forward from both the victories AND the mistakes of the previous generation’s, then Kylo’s “arc” as it were shouldn’t have simply traced Anakin’s. He should have been the personification of the worst aspects of that previous generation’s failures. His should have traveled in a different villainous direction, much like Rey’s trajectory on the hero path didn’t go where Luke’s went. And like Finn’s probably would have gone, if not for the shift in storytelling focus away from him in the third movie and towards making Kylo a good guy and doing all the heavy lifting needed to not just refocus his arc, but center him as the most important character in the sequel trilogy - which he ultimately became. The Last Jedi did a great job in explaining how someone could believably and understandably corrupt themselves to that degree, The Rise of Skywalker then made the decision to forgive him for it, and I honestly think that was a mistake, and even worse, a mistake made for not much more reason than “That’s how Star Wars works.” It’s a mistake rooted in bad conventional wisdom and unexamined storytelling dogma.

I think TFA set up some amazing arcs, and TLJ complicated and enriched them. But the third movie needed to pay them off, and Trevorrow only got partway there (at least he managed to give Finn something great that realized the potential he was given in TFA) and Abrams fumbled almost everything that wasn’t named See Threepio or Babu Frik. Ultimately deciding Star Wars’ quality as a story would live or die on the successful redemption of this galaxy’s equivalent to Stephen Miller or Ben Shapiro was the wrong decision at PRECISELY the wrong time, and if people at Lucasfilm were adamant that decision NEEDED to be applied to this story or else it “wouldn’t be Star Wars” then they hobbled their own storytelling potential for no good reason.

Reading the script I do believe you could probably have accounted for Fisher’s absence by using the film’s time jump to have her die between movies, and then split her storytelling duties here between other characters. Have her military duties handled by Connix, and then have the familial/Force duties handled by… Anakin. Honestly, his effect on Kylo probably would be more meaningful as he’s written than Leia’s since Anakin is who he looks up to, Anakin’s the only person in the world who has ever been where he is, and Anakin’s the only person who can explain to him why it’s better to do good while you can before you go.

Plus, having the film stop for a second after the first act to recognize Leia’s absence through a resistance memorial somewhere on the compound that the characters meet at would have been a much better tribute to the character than the weird semi-resurrection they gave her in TROS. Plus having Fisher’s real-life daughter assume the duties of Fisher’s best known character, but with Lourde’s character instead, seems more in keeping with how this trilogy works.

Alternatively, you could have ROSE be the new Resistance leader in that case, but I feel that probably takes her out of the action too much and I like the way she’s used here.

To the idea that they should have pushed this back a year - they probably could have developed this in the time they gave it just fine, if they hadn’t been so insistent on specific beats being hit. If they were actually going to push it back a year, my feeling is they’d have done that, and then just gotten Rian Johnson back. But then again - who’s to say they wouldn’t have tried the same thing with him that they did with Trevorrow, now that they’re developing THE END instead of just a Part 2.

MAH BOYYYYY

This is real.

The pre-existing details you’re talking about came from this .pdf in the first place.

What’s more interesting to me is whether Connolly/Trevorrow are the ones who leaked it to Meyer-Burnett in the first place a couple months ago.

Broom Kid said:

I gotta imagine if random reylo-user 583 on twitter’s got the pages, the full script isn’t too far from leaking in its entirety very, very soon.

FIVE DAYS!

I’m feeling good about this getting turned into a fan-made comic before long.

I’ve seen a shirt that has Han’s blaster and over the gun it says “Han Shot” and underneath the gun it says “The End.”

Wish I knew where that guy got it.

Rodney-2187 said:

Since I highly doubt the unaltered Originals are anywhere on those discs, and I already own Solo and TLJ on UHD, I’m going to skip this boxed set and just buy TRoS and the Originals on UHD separately. I might add R1 and TFA on UHD later.

Also, am I the only person who hates the idea of sliding my discs in and out of cardboard? I hate sets like that.

It depends on how well constructed the set is. I normally would prefer a regular case, but my Alien Anthology and Criterion Godzilla cases are very good. It’s pretty hard to scratch a blu-ray, so I’m not really worried about the discs coming into contact with the waxed/treated surface of the case. But the Bond 50 box-set is sort of annoying because it’s just hard to get the discs in and out.

I also doubt the originals are on those bonus discs, but I’m also wondering about how big those bonus BDs are - if they’re BD-25s or BD-50s. And either way - the bonus discs aren’t exclusive to this set, apparently. So if the originals ARE on those bonus discs, they’d be on the individual releases as well, albeit locked to 1080p.

But then again, you could probably fit a really nice-sized 1080p encode of the originals on a BD-50 with space leftover for a lot of bonus features per-movie. I guess the best-case scenario is that some of these bonus discs haves an alternate 1080p cut of the movie on it. Originals for the OT, Theatrical for TPM, IMAX for AOTC, etc etc. Again, best-case scenario isn’t the same as an at-all LIKELY scenario, but it could still be done.

What if in a year or so they release another boxed set that DOES contain the unaltered versions, and they aren’t available any other way?

Then I guess it’d be back to business as usual in that case? Although come to think of it, the last time Lucasfilm released unaltered versions, they didn’t do that. They stuck them on a bonus disc and made each individual title available without having to buy them all in a set.

Here’s a HD picture where you can definitely make out what the discs are, and even what the letter from Mark Hamill says. (You guessed 100% correctly as to what they were)

https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/6393/6393929_sa.jpg

So, that’s one mystery down: It’s absolutely one bonus disc per movie, like many expected.

I get that. EVERYBODY here wants the original movies. That’s an automatic. So, with that taken for granted… I don’t get the drive behind entering a thread specifically about the thing you “don’t care” about to tell us you don’t want it, even though you don’t actually know what’s on it, because nobody does.

That I don’t get. There’s a ton of stuff on these boards I also don’t care about. I don’t make a point of going into those threads specifically to tell anyone who might be looking at me that I don’t care, either. It doesn’t make any sense.

Anyway: I was hoping Iger might mention this set or the upcoming releases during the investor call yesterday, but he did not. However, with this set dropping at the end of March, the details of what’s on each set have to be coming pretty soon.

…okay?

Nobody even knows what the “goodies” are yet.

According to this poster at blu-ray.com, Target’s already got individual 4K titles in their system already, and they’re dated for release simultaneous with the box-set (March 31st), which appears to still be a Best Buy exclusive.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=17314051&postcount=2453

According to another poster, the individual 4K titles are 3-discs each (4K/Blu/Bonus), at least in Germany and Australia. That might hold true for every other region too, although people are still worrying/“hearing” that individual titles in NA won’t have the bonus discs, and the only way to get them would be through the box-set.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=17315086&postcount=2476

it’s appearing as if the only upside to getting the box-set is cosmetic, as none of the on-disc content will be exclusive to it, so if you don’t care about the box, the letter, and the special book/artwork, you’re probably okay simply buying the movies you want individually. I believe this is the first time in quite awhile that Lucasfilm is allowing you to essentially part out a brand new set at retail. In 2004 you couldn’t just buy individual DVD titles in the OT, you had to get the full set or nothing. Same with the 2011 BD set (although I believe shortly afterwards they let you buy either trilogy in a separate set, sans bonus discs). But for 4K, it looks like they’re saying “you don’t HAVE to buy a box to get all the goodies. Just pick the movies you want.”

I gotta imagine if random reylo-user 583 on twitter’s got the pages, the full script isn’t too far from leaking in its entirety very, very soon.

The question is how long before someone either makes a fan-comic out of it, or tries to actually animate everything using Battlefront II or Fallen Order or something like that.

Absolutely. I appreciate that there was a Coruscant uprising in Trevorrow’s script, but even if that had been cut, the presence in the script of the ONE scene where Finn essentially helps free a First Order trooper both physically AND mentally (“Get yourself a name. That’s the first step.”) makes it something I really wish we’d gotten to see.

yotsuya said:

I totally agree that the stormtrooper rebellion is a great idea, but it isn’t one that works very well in the context of a typical Star Wars film.

1. I think “typical” Star Wars films shouldn’t be the only Star Wars films we get anymore, and adhering solely to what’s “typical” in a Star Wars movie is probably a bad call.
2. I don’t agree with the idea that it wouldn’t work very well since we’ve never seen one before to know whether it would or wouldn’t.

instead they are having the time of their lives gunning down their former comrades.

No they aren’t. There really isn’t any use or purpose to hyperbolically reinventing what they’re doing in the film (and how they’re doing it) for the sake of criticism. You can criticize the direction and the writing and the execution without having to use inaccurate descriptors like “mindlessly” or “Having the time of their lives” as if they’re ecstatic and joyful about killing stormtroopers. It’s not played that way. They’re ecstatic that they’re going to prevent Palpatines victory, and they’re happy they’re still ALIVE despite being directly in the line of enemy fire - that’s different than being ecstatic about killing people.

I don’t think they “mindlessly” did anything. They were trying to save the galaxy from Palpatine’s New Order. That’s pretty mindful. There’s only so far you can go in the middle of a war to save as many people as you can from the opposite side during the fighting. That’s part of why war is such an inherently tragic setting. And there are ways to amplify that feeling, or mute it. Star Wars has mostly always chosen to mute it, save for very specific instances, which don’t happen very frequently in the movies themselves (they happen a little more frequently in the Clone Wars show).

My problem isn’t with the characters so much as with the conceptualizing of their behavior and the situations they’re dropped in by the writers. Abrams set up a scenario where Finn defected from the First Order because he’s a good man, and then he just… never followed up on it. Johnson DID follow up on it, and then cut it out of The Last Jedi for the sake of time (I think the minute or two he saved by doing that was ultimately not worth it, and he should have left those beats in). Had he left it in, maybe it would have been so clearly described in the minds of the general audience that Abrams felt he would have HAD to address Finn’s status as a symbol to other troopers that they don’t HAVE to keep working for Kylo and Hux.

Instead he invented Jannah and her team of defectors and… didn’t do anything with them, really. And even then, Jannah’s defection is more character shading than anything else, because the purpose of her was primarily to connect to Lando more than anything else. And even THAT got cut.

Trevorrow’s script (and his ensuing direction) probably would have had their own set of very big and dumb problems, but I think people are reacting as positively as they are not only because it’s forever a hypothetical and the grass stays greener on that side, but because he was actively engaging with those sorts of ideas. Finn’s major purpose isn’t to help Rey find a thing which leads to a thing and then he has to help shut off a thing. Finn’s major purpose is to inspire a rebellion within the First Order. I wish I’d gotten to see that.

I think the Stormtrooper rebellion should have been a huge part of the 3rd film. The primary B-plot, really. If the A-plot is Rey vs. Kylo/Palpatine (Religion) then the B-plot should have been Poe/Finn vs. Hux/First Order (military) and the best possible way to have pulled that off would be through the Stormtrooper rebellion.

The First Order should have been seen as untenable considering how rabid and power-hungry it’s two leaders were. That power structure eating itself alive and the Resistance using that opportunity to turn its numbers to their side to help bring the First Order down could (and should) have been a major plot point, especially considering Finn’s status as an ex-trooper.

Honestly, the fact nothing ultimately ever came of Finn’s defection is sort of like the giant missed opportunity in the Prequel trilogy where slavery is introduced as a concept and then the Jedi and the Republic literally never bring it up again, much less attempt to do anything about it. Especially in a story as inherently moralistic as Star Wars is.

Broom Kid said:

I think the majority of normal people don’t have a side at all, and aren’t really engaged in this conversation, because they honestly don’t think about it to that extent once they’re done watching it. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that either. They watch the thing, they like parts of it, dislike others, and either they’re happy with their experience or they’re not. The majority of normal people just move onto the next thing at that point. They never join a side.

OutboundFlight said:

I disagree. Most people see a movie and then either had a good time or a bad time. Yes, they’ll probably stop thinking about it once they get to their cars unless they really liked it, but they still had an opinion. You don’t have to argue online to have an opinion about something.

I’m confused with what you’re disagreeing with, then. I never said they didn’t have an opinion. I specifically said they’re going to form opinions as they watch it, and then… not care enough about sharing those opinions with strangers on the internet to be part of the conversation. They’re not picking a side. That’s most people.

Most people having the conversation on the internet though, aren’t the majority of people who watched the movie. And of the people who ARE making sure to turn their feelings on the movie into long, extended conversations (or even content, which then spurs its own content-focused conversations nested within) the idea that argumentative loudmouths are a small minority doesn’t hold weight, in my experience. Maybe they’re not the majority, but it’s a lot closer to 50/50, and again, more often than not the loudmouth brigade being the “minority” doesn’t matter because they’re the ones steering the conversation anyway.