You betrayed me! You’re not good. You-you’re just a chicken. Chip-chip-chip-chip-cheep-cheep.
Put that cookie down. Now!
How is this “popular”?
You’d be surprised how often I manage to find applicable context to use this in real life.
Here are two links from the same critic. The first discusses weaknesses in RJ’s story, and argues that TLJ’s biggest weakness is, that the story doesn’t go anywhere. There are no consequences.
Short summary:
"In The Last Jedi, a lot happens. But not a lot happens for long. Leia’s sudden and unexpected death only proceeds her jarring return to life.
Kylo Ren’s betrayal of Snoke, which leads to a team-up with Rey and himself against Snoke’s guards, implies his redemption… But it isn’t long lasting as his actions hardly reflect his intentions. After the fight, he has to explain himself to Rey, and how they still aren’t on the same side.
This is a classic break from “show, don’t tell.” Kylo has to tell us his motives for the scene to make sense. He essentially retcons the entire sequence, because it might as well not have happened. The scene ends up telling us nothing new. Kylo Ren is a bad guy. But we were already aware of that. Actions should speak for a character, but in the most powerful scene of the film, they don’t.
Lastly, when Luke finally faces Kylo, there’s a moment where we’re meant to believe this is the end for the Jedi Master. It seems as if Luke has accepted his fate as Kylo runs toward him with his blade drawn. Luke literally tells him something similar to what Ben Kenobi tells Darth Vader: “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
Luke seems fearless. But then, we realize Luke has nothing to fear after all. He’s not even actually there. This scene is meant for us to anticipate Luke’s death, only for it to be revealed he’s fine… Only for it to be revealed a moment later that he dies anyway."
Both these points seem incredibly pedantic and overinflated to me.
In the first instance, “show don’t tell” does not mean either that dialogue is redundant in cinema, or that actions and dialogue always have to be in perfect concert, especially regarding villains (who are often by nature duplicitous or unstable). The entire point of the throne room sequence is to set up an expectation (Kylo will side with Rey) that is then upended; in much the same way as the action at the end of ESB sets up an expectation (Vader wants to kill Luke) that is then contradicted by dialogue (“I am your father”) rather than action.
On the second point, he’s just being incredibly literal. The entire subtext of the dialogue is not that whether Luke will literally be struck down - Luke has already made it clear throughout the film that he does not fear death - but that in opposing him, Kylo ensures Luke’s reputation will echo throughout the galaxy and that thousands will be inspired by his example, which we see happen in the final scene.
To say there are no consequences to the events in the film is absurdly reductive, and frankly typical of the wilfully and uncharitably misreading “criticism” I’ve seen so much of about this film.
I think what the critic was trying to get at is that the story does its best to deflate its own most interesting ideas. There are obviously consequences and character progression, it’s just that these moments are ultimately not as consequential as we are first led to believe.
Leia is blown out into space, presumably to her death! But wait, she’s using the Force in a way we’ve never seen from her before! Has she had substantial training in those thirty years? Has the Force suddenly ‘awakened’ in her as well, making her the ‘new hope’ for the galaxy that Luke suggested in ROTJ?
No, sorry. It was just an instinctual reaction to her impending death and her Force powers will not be a big factor in the rest of the movie.
Kylo kills Snoke! Now he’s teaming up with Rey against the goofy red guards! Will he really turn to Rey’s side and will they strike out together in a new direction in order to prevent a repeat of Rebels vs Empire that we got in the previous trilogy?
No, sorry. Kylo’s still a bad egg and Rey still has a deep loyalty to the Jedi ideals (despite her teachers hating them) and the Resistance (despite knowing them for maybe a day at most). And it will be a Rebels vs Empire situation quite explicitly until the end of the movie.
You get the idea. The movie goes in some interesting directions, but it seems to make a point of teasing these truly interesting directions and pulling it back to something much more tame.
No, one of the points of this film is that anyone can use the force. Not everyone is powerful enough, but people who are powerful enough can come from anywhere. This is implicit in the PT Jedi code - attachment is forbidden and by extrapolations, so is procreation. That means that none of the powerful Jedi we see came from a long line of Jedi in the family. So if being powerful only runs in the blood, where did all the PT Jedi come from?
I don’t see what this has to do with my point. I don’t really care about Leia’s Force powers, since they don’t really affect the story, but the movie spends its time showing this impressive feat with sweeping wide shots and powerful music as if it has totally changed the game in terms of Leia’s role in the story, only to drop that and have nobody speak of it again. Cut from the bridge explosion to Leia unconscious and nothing is lost from a story perspective.
The movie does go in many interesting directions, but this is the middle chapter and we did not see a resolution to any of them. This lack of resolution leads to this erroneous conclusion that this movie did not further the story. It furthered the characters and changed them. It tackled grander things than the Resistance/Republic/First Order conflict, which it left mostly in limbo.
Are you mistakenly talking about ESB, where the larger war was in limbo? Because in TFA, the First Order was treated as a sort of terrorist fringe organization, whereas in TLJ it all-but rules the galaxy.
Besides, this is again missing the point. The critic is saying that we are first given a very interesting direction which is quickly undermined in favor of a far less interesting direction. It would be like Vader saying ‘I am your father!’ and Yoda later saying ‘Messing with you, Vader was. Your father, he definitely isn’t’ and that being that.
And we know from ROTJ that Leia is strong in the force and like her brother in TESB (who grabbed his light saber with no known training of doing that) she grabbed a ship and in keeping with the laws of physics, she moved not the ship. Rey, Leia, and the boy at the end show us that anyone can use the force, from a Skywalker to a stable boy.
That’s all very nice, but again, what does it have to do with anything? We already assumed that Leia had the capability of doing what Luke could do (even if it was left undeveloped). Why would Rian bother to show us what we already assume unless these powers are called upon later in the movie? Luke and his lightsaber is a set up for the duel with Vader, where he is now able to pull himself up out of the Carbonite pit. It shows the progression of his skills. Leia’s ability is one-and-done.
He might be okay.
Here are two links from the same critic. The first discusses weaknesses in RJ’s story, and argues that TLJ’s biggest weakness is, that the story doesn’t go anywhere. There are no consequences.
Short summary:
"In The Last Jedi, a lot happens. But not a lot happens for long. Leia’s sudden and unexpected death only proceeds her jarring return to life.
Kylo Ren’s betrayal of Snoke, which leads to a team-up with Rey and himself against Snoke’s guards, implies his redemption… But it isn’t long lasting as his actions hardly reflect his intentions. After the fight, he has to explain himself to Rey, and how they still aren’t on the same side.
This is a classic break from “show, don’t tell.” Kylo has to tell us his motives for the scene to make sense. He essentially retcons the entire sequence, because it might as well not have happened. The scene ends up telling us nothing new. Kylo Ren is a bad guy. But we were already aware of that. Actions should speak for a character, but in the most powerful scene of the film, they don’t.
Lastly, when Luke finally faces Kylo, there’s a moment where we’re meant to believe this is the end for the Jedi Master. It seems as if Luke has accepted his fate as Kylo runs toward him with his blade drawn. Luke literally tells him something similar to what Ben Kenobi tells Darth Vader: “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
Luke seems fearless. But then, we realize Luke has nothing to fear after all. He’s not even actually there. This scene is meant for us to anticipate Luke’s death, only for it to be revealed he’s fine… Only for it to be revealed a moment later that he dies anyway."
Both these points seem incredibly pedantic and overinflated to me.
In the first instance, “show don’t tell” does not mean either that dialogue is redundant in cinema, or that actions and dialogue always have to be in perfect concert, especially regarding villains (who are often by nature duplicitous or unstable). The entire point of the throne room sequence is to set up an expectation (Kylo will side with Rey) that is then upended; in much the same way as the action at the end of ESB sets up an expectation (Vader wants to kill Luke) that is then contradicted by dialogue (“I am your father”) rather than action.
On the second point, he’s just being incredibly literal. The entire subtext of the dialogue is not that whether Luke will literally be struck down - Luke has already made it clear throughout the film that he does not fear death - but that in opposing him, Kylo ensures Luke’s reputation will echo throughout the galaxy and that thousands will be inspired by his example, which we see happen in the final scene.
To say there are no consequences to the events in the film is absurdly reductive, and frankly typical of the wilfully and uncharitably misreading “criticism” I’ve seen so much of about this film.
I think what the critic was trying to get at is that the story does its best to deflate its own most interesting ideas. There are obviously consequences and character progression, it’s just that these moments are ultimately not as consequential as we are first led to believe.
Leia is blown out into space, presumably to her death! But wait, she’s using the Force in a way we’ve never seen from her before! Has she had substantial training in those thirty years? Has the Force suddenly ‘awakened’ in her as well, making her the ‘new hope’ for the galaxy that Luke suggested in ROTJ?
No, sorry. It was just an instinctual reaction to her impending death and her Force powers will not be a big factor in the rest of the movie.
Kylo kills Snoke! Now he’s teaming up with Rey against the goofy red guards! Will he really turn to Rey’s side and will they strike out together in a new direction in order to prevent a repeat of Rebels vs Empire that we got in the previous trilogy?
No, sorry. Kylo’s still a bad egg and Rey still has a deep loyalty to the Jedi ideals (despite her teachers hating them) and the Resistance (despite knowing them for maybe a day at most). And it will be a Rebels vs Empire situation quite explicitly until the end of the movie.
You get the idea. The movie goes in some interesting directions, but it seems to make a point of teasing these truly interesting directions and pulling it back to something much more tame.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
No good! I’ve known too many Spaniards.
EXPECTO PATRONUM!
I find TFA to be the odd movie.
Episode 7 was always going to be odd.
Get to the CHOPPA
Almost anything Trump or his administration says comes pre-slanted or is an outright lie. So when the media simply repeats these things without immediately fact-checking them, they are perpetuating the lie.
Nemoidians
Exar Kun
Nemoidians
I don’t even know what game we’re playing anymore. Hungry Hungry Hippos?
Owen Lars
The idea that civil society is done and there’s a whole bunch of Hitlerites running around that need punching is not supported by the facts.
It’s really just an extension of how divisive and polarized American society has become. Both the left and the right so demonize each other, that to the right the left are filled with crazy oversensitive hippy tree-hugging [gay expletive]s; and to the left the right is filled with hate-mongering flag-worshiping gun-toting racist misogynist ignorant hillbillies.
One of those is significantly worse than the other.
A more up-to-date vision of the left from the right is that of violent masked members of Antifa roving the country, supported by the sinister Hollywood elite and SJWs. But yes, caricatures all around.
That’s vile. But it’s unfortunately the case now that this sort of toxicity has been emboldened, online and off. From personal experience, they seem to be hyper-focused on denigrating people’s masculinity (or sexuality in general).
I liked Insurrection…
Me too. It feels like a long TNG episode, which for many people is a problem, and it contradicts an episode of TNG, but compared to Nemesis it’s a masterpiece.
Which episode did Insurrection contradict?
I don’t remember the English titles of the episodes, but there was the last episode with Wesley, I think season 7 - the situation was similar - the Federation has decided to forcefully remove a colony of American Indians because somebody else wanted it. Picard’s attitude was “I don’t like it, but it’s an order”. In Insurrection the situation is very similar, but now for some reason Picard decides to do a small insurrection to defend them.
Wil Wheaton has a cameo at Troi and Riker’s wedding, in a starfleet dress uniform. It contradicts Wesley leaving Starfleet to follow the Traveler. (The episode is called Journey’s End.)
Insurrection doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, especially considering that the people living on the planet were not originally from there. And this is not even the second time the Enterprise has been told to move colonists. The colonists in Journey’s End are among those who form the Maquis, due to the borders between the Federation and Cardassian territories being redrawn—but also there was The Ensigns of Command, where Data alone has to convince a large colony to move rather than be exterminated by the Sheliak.
So Picard’s decision to defy Starfleet in Insurrection does indeed seem really arbitrary.
In both Ensigns of Command and Journey’s End, the situation is of a Federation species in Non-Federation space, which in both cases may be destroyed if they are not evacuated. The situation in Insurrection is very different, since the colony is not under imminent threat of destruction from a non-Federation force.
The argument that the colonists aren’t originally from that planet is sort of a non-sequitur, since the same situation applies in Journey’s End and Picard recognizes that their new home is just as legitimate as Earth.
The Borg have been retconned from the beginning. Originally they were meant to be insectoid aliens, but then that was changed due to budgetary restraints to humanoids with cybernetic enhancements. In the episode where the Enterprise first encounters the Borg they do not attempt any assimilation of humans, and that attribute is only added in later episodes. So the Borg have assimilated new attributes throughout history, with First Contact continuing that noble tradition.
As for time travel, there is almost no story where it makes sense so it’s not a big deal to me. I imagine that the Borg would rather not resort to time travel themselves for just these paradoxical reasons, but when they are at risk of being destroyed why not?
Picard’s strange characterization is probably the worst part of the movie from a continuity perspective, but you’re going to set yourself up for disappointment if you expect any of the Star Trek movies to be particularly true to the TV shows. I view First Contact largely in isolation, and in that way it succeeds brilliantly. Kind of like TLJ actually. It’s when you try and reconcile it with the larger story that the issues appear.
Needa
Aldansiab
Closest match in Wookieepedia: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aldanna
(So it’s still on ‘a’)
Midichlorians
I don’t know what it is about the original troll scene but it’s a total black hole of humor for me, and I even laugh at the Goblin King and the barrel chase antics.
Maybe it’s my preconceptions of how trolls have been portrayed in the Lord of the Rings - could you imagine the cave troll in Fellowship making quippy smalltalk, or gushing about a soup’s boquet? I imagined that they would think and talk slowly, almost Entlike, which is why they were still arguing about dinner when the sun came up. As it is they are just embarrassingly stupid.
If only there was a way to cut the whole thing…
Naboo
I liked Insurrection…
Me too. It feels like a long TNG episode, which for many people is a problem, and it contradicts an episode of TNG, but compared to Nemesis it’s a masterpiece.
Which episode did Insurrection contradict?
I don’t remember the English titles of the episodes, but there was the last episode with Wesley, I think season 7 - the situation was similar - the Federation has decided to forcefully remove a colony of American Indians because somebody else wanted it. Picard’s attitude was “I don’t like it, but it’s an order”. In Insurrection the situation is very similar, but now for some reason Picard decides to do a small insurrection to defend them.
Although the situation is similar in these respects, there is one major difference - in Journey’s End the colony has been recently reclassified as being in Cardassian space and may be wiped out if not relocated, whereas the colony in Insurrection is still in Federation space and under no existential threat.
It can also be argued that the situation Journey’s End did not constitute a violation of the prime directive where as the situation in Insurrection did.
But since it’s later established that the colony in Insurrection has advanced knowledge of warp drive, the Prime Directive doesn’t apply in this case.
In the movie, they sure talk like it does apply.
That’s because they were operating under the assumption that it was a low-technology species until midway through the movie, when they realized that the aliens had the knowledge but simply decided not to use it in their lives.
I liked Insurrection…
Me too. It feels like a long TNG episode, which for many people is a problem, and it contradicts an episode of TNG, but compared to Nemesis it’s a masterpiece.
Which episode did Insurrection contradict?
I don’t remember the English titles of the episodes, but there was the last episode with Wesley, I think season 7 - the situation was similar - the Federation has decided to forcefully remove a colony of American Indians because somebody else wanted it. Picard’s attitude was “I don’t like it, but it’s an order”. In Insurrection the situation is very similar, but now for some reason Picard decides to do a small insurrection to defend them.
Although the situation is similar in these respects, there is one major difference - in Journey’s End the colony has been recently reclassified as being in Cardassian space and may be wiped out if not relocated, whereas the colony in Insurrection is still in Federation space and under no existential threat.
It can also be argued that the situation Journey’s End did not constitute a violation of the prime directive where as the situation in Insurrection did.
But since it’s later established that the colony in Insurrection has advanced knowledge of warp drive, the Prime Directive doesn’t apply in this case.
I liked Insurrection…
Me too. It feels like a long TNG episode, which for many people is a problem, and it contradicts an episode of TNG, but compared to Nemesis it’s a masterpiece.
Which episode did Insurrection contradict?
I don’t remember the English titles of the episodes, but there was the last episode with Wesley, I think season 7 - the situation was similar - the Federation has decided to forcefully remove a colony of American Indians because somebody else wanted it. Picard’s attitude was “I don’t like it, but it’s an order”. In Insurrection the situation is very similar, but now for some reason Picard decides to do a small insurrection to defend them.
Although the situation is similar in these respects, there is one major difference - in Journey’s End the colony has been recently reclassified as being in Cardassian space and may be wiped out if not relocated, whereas the colony in Insurrection is still in Federation space and under no existential threat.
First Contact is great and I will fight anyone who dares say otherwise.
*puts on boxing gloves*
It’s not great.
Well this isn’t an argument, it’s just contradiction!