I assume you know of my version of ANH, which is a hybrid Special Edition conforming to several of your desired changes. 😉
Collipso said:
and you’re doing exactly what jay described. “as it is supposed to be interpreted”. great.Well there is an intended interpretation. Filmmakers don’t just throw stuff on the page and hope it all makes sense (ok some do). You can watch a scene and ask “What is the film TRYING to say here, what is the intent.” And it should be pretty clear.
You can make your own interpretations all you want, thats up to the viewer. If the film has a failing its that so many have taken the wrong ideas from it.
What you’re describing is appreciating a film for what it’s trying to do rather than what it does, which is completely fair. I appreciate Lynch’s Dune and the new Westworld show for their ambition, while still recognizing that what appears onscreen does not really live up to that ambition.
TLJ has great ambitions, and I don’t fault it for that. For example, it allows for sophisticated and mature interpretations on the nature of a worthy sacrifice (Finn/Poe), the correct attitude towards failure (Luke/Rey), and the importance of faith in those wiser than yourself (Poe/Rey). But these are all lessons given by those placed in the story to antagonize our heroes, so the task for a filmmaker is difficult: they must overcome the skepticism of the audience, who identifies with the heroes, and turn them in favor of the antagonists. There is a natural resistance to learning a lesson, for a character in a story but also for an audience member.
When given the choice between learning a hard lesson and choosing an interpretation which allows them to avoid the lesson, they’ll usually take the alternate interpretation. The job of the filmmaker is to make it clear to the audience that the ‘correct’ interpretation is the easiest to accept. The Last Jedi fails to do this, to which multitudes of reviewers can attest.
I’ve heard it said that a filmmaker has just one job to do in making a film - to craft an experience which forces the audience to feel precisely what they intend them to feel, whether that be awe or horror of happiness or sadness, or a combination of any other feelings that these sounds and images can convey. They have the length of the film in which do to this, with every filmmaking trick they can muster. Sure, there are always going to be those people who will find ways to disagree with anything and everything in a movie, but if by the end of the movie a significant portion of the audience (many of whom are devoted fans of the franchise) feel something quite different than the rest, I’m tempted to lay this at the filmmaker’s feet.
We never got the Maz Leia scene from TFA, did we? They’ll probably pull footage/dialogue from that.
Maybe. There’s also another deleted scene that was on the home release. The Oliver Reed in Gladiator treatment would be fine, depending on what they have to work with.
I saw on Twitter that there was also a scene filmed of Leia at the Republic asking for ressources.
Are you sure it’s not the included deleted scene where she sends Kor Sella to the Senate? Or maybe a scene of Kor Sella at the Senate, and not Leia?
Considering Kor Sella (and the Republic Senate) dies in TFA, I wouldn’t think any of that would work for IX.
I’m just wondering why, from what we know of the deleted scenes, Leia would have gone to the Senate.
We never got the Maz Leia scene from TFA, did we? They’ll probably pull footage/dialogue from that.
Maybe. There’s also another deleted scene that was on the home release. The Oliver Reed in Gladiator treatment would be fine, depending on what they have to work with.
I saw on Twitter that there was also a scene filmed of Leia at the Republic asking for ressources.
Are you sure it’s not the included deleted scene where she sends Kor Sella to the Senate? Or maybe a scene of Kor Sella at the Senate, and not Leia?
I think a lot of the disagreements over this movie have to do with situations in which a subtle shift in one’s interpretation lead to dramatically different readings of the movie at large. For example, when Finn is making his sacrificial run at the laser weapon and Rose saves him, there are two main ways to interpret the scene:
Finn had a shot at destroying the weapon, but Rose valued Finn’s life over the destruction of the weapon. Because of this, Rose’s actions were misguided and would have doomed the Resistance were it not for Luke’s intervention.
Finn had no chance of destroying the weapon, and his sacrifice, while a culmination of his character arc in the film, would have ultimately been a senseless waste. Rose acted rightly.
The trouble with these two interpretations is that they’re both equally valid in terms of what we see on screen. If Poe had said something along the lines of ‘Retreat, nothing can stop it now!’, then it would have been clear that Finn was acting out of pure unthinking hatred for the First Order. But he instead implied that it would take a suicide run to destroy the weapon, making Finn’s action heroic from the first interpretation.
This is just one example. This and others (such as Holdo’s leadership, Luke’s murderous moment, etc) rest on the shakiest ground for the audience to interpret in the way the filmmakers intend.
I would disagree. I think the the film has everything you need to interpret it the way it was intended. The problem is that sometimes it takes multiple viewings to get everything. On first viewing you might ignore the crumpling of Finn’s craft’s weapons, but on additional viewings it becomes clear that Finn stands no chance, at least not the way he is doing it. He is trying to fly down the barrel of the weapon, at the heart of the growing beam, and it will destroy him before he can damage it. To come to another conclusion requires ignoring information in the film. Most of the scenes being argued about have a lot of information if you pay attention and look. And I know many who didn’t like the film haven’t viewed it many times. Perhaps not enough to see the things that are quite clear to me and others. I get that TLJ was not to everyone’s taste, but some of the arguments put forth are really a stretch.
I assumed that since his weapons were rendered useless, he would have to ram the speeder into the barrel of the weapon to disable it, sacrificing himself in the process. This seems to be Finn’s thought process (who is actually the expert here), and it’s backed up by Poe who calls it a suicide mission. I don’t know where we’re supposed to get that it’s impossible for him to complete the mission.
If he is flying down the barrel of an active weapon and it has already started to crumple his craft - a craft already established a flimsy. Put the pieces together and there is no way this craft is massive enough to do any damage to the weapon before it is destroyed itself.
I would have thought that a hyperspace ramming maneuver wouldn’t have been supremely effective in this universe either based on the precisely zero times it has been considered before, but what do I know? I’d imagine that a twisted mass of metal jammed in the multitude of teeth of a rotating death ray might just do the trick, and as I’ve said before, Finn is the one who knows the most about First Order tech and its weaknesses.
He is flying down the beam so as he gets closer and the beam gets stronger the craft will be destroyed and never reach the target.
He was right in front of the opening when he was knocked off course, so his inertia alone would have been enough to do it.
Finn will die for nothing. Like I said, the pieces are there if you care to look. Saying it isn’t obvious is denying the pieces that are there in the images and dialog of the film. It was obvious to me on the first viewing that Finn didn’t stand a chance. The gun was too big and his little craft was too insignificant. And without weapons he won’t be able to do any damage.
I interpreted the crumpled weapons to mean that he couldn’t merely fire and escape the beam, but would have to crash his speeder into it. And even speeders can make big explosions when they crash.
If he was in an X-wing or a TESB speeder, I’d say he had a chance, but the pathetic craft he finds himself in doesn’t stand a chance. It is all there on screen.
The speeders are rickety, but still similar in mass and armament to a snowspeeder. If you say a snowspeeder would have a chance, then why not this one?
More than this quibbling over technical minutiae, this scene is clearly meant to thematically mirror the first scene of the movie where Poe’s reckless attack on the Dreadnought led to its destruction by a single flimsy bomber, at the cost of the bomber itself and most of the rest of the fleet. The audience is primed to expect a similar result in this case - a sacrificial act that destroys the target at too high a cost. If it is clear to you that his sacrifice will not even damage the weapon, then it must be especially clear to Finn. But after he has been knocked off course, he disbelievingly questions Rose about why she did that. She responds that the important thing is saving what you love, not destroying what you hate. How am I to interpret this other than Rose recognizing that he might have succeeded, but at the cost of what she loves?
And this is the major issue with many character moments in the film, and I think why people don’t buy it. There are reasonable interpretations on both sides for the rightness or wrongness of our hero’s actions, to the point where we can’t even be sure that our heroes (Poe, Finn, Rey) have made mistakes. Poe was justified in questioning authority and formulating his own plan. Finn was justified in wanting to save the Resistance at the cost of his own life. Rey was justified in attempting to turn Kylo to the light. This isn’t a case of Luke realizing the wrongness of abandoning his training to face Vader and suffering the consequences. This is a case of our heroes choosing the best of bad options and later being told they were wrong for choosing it, for no reason other than the movie decides it is so.
And guess what? Most people identify with the heroes, and don’t like being told they are wrong for no reason. And what lessons can our heroes hope to learn from this? Is it to blindly follow authority? Save a single person you love over many others? Don’t try to save a conflicted soul from the Dark Side? How can characters grow if their mistakes aren’t really mistakes?
I think a lot of the disagreements over this movie have to do with situations in which a subtle shift in one’s interpretation lead to dramatically different readings of the movie at large. For example, when Finn is making his sacrificial run at the laser weapon and Rose saves him, there are two main ways to interpret the scene:
Finn had a shot at destroying the weapon, but Rose valued Finn’s life over the destruction of the weapon. Because of this, Rose’s actions were misguided and would have doomed the Resistance were it not for Luke’s intervention.
Finn had no chance of destroying the weapon, and his sacrifice, while a culmination of his character arc in the film, would have ultimately been a senseless waste. Rose acted rightly.
The trouble with these two interpretations is that they’re both equally valid in terms of what we see on screen. If Poe had said something along the lines of ‘Retreat, nothing can stop it now!’, then it would have been clear that Finn was acting out of pure unthinking hatred for the First Order. But he instead implied that it would take a suicide run to destroy the weapon, making Finn’s action heroic from the first interpretation.
This is just one example. This and others (such as Holdo’s leadership, Luke’s murderous moment, etc) rest on the shakiest ground for the audience to interpret in the way the filmmakers intend.
I would disagree. I think the the film has everything you need to interpret it the way it was intended. The problem is that sometimes it takes multiple viewings to get everything. On first viewing you might ignore the crumpling of Finn’s craft’s weapons, but on additional viewings it becomes clear that Finn stands no chance, at least not the way he is doing it. He is trying to fly down the barrel of the weapon, at the heart of the growing beam, and it will destroy him before he can damage it. To come to another conclusion requires ignoring information in the film. Most of the scenes being argued about have a lot of information if you pay attention and look. And I know many who didn’t like the film haven’t viewed it many times. Perhaps not enough to see the things that are quite clear to me and others. I get that TLJ was not to everyone’s taste, but some of the arguments put forth are really a stretch.
I assumed that since his weapons were rendered useless, he would have to ram the speeder into the barrel of the weapon to disable it, sacrificing himself in the process. This seems to be Finn’s thought process (who is actually the expert here), and it’s backed up by Poe who calls it a suicide mission. I don’t know where we’re supposed to get that it’s impossible for him to complete the mission.
Since getting a clean ship isn’t an issue at any other time in the ST so far (at least I’d hope so or the entire Resistance is doomed), I’d get rid of those lines somehow.
Indeed. 😃
I’m planning on removing Han’s lines about tracking in any case, simply because it makes no sense to want a ‘clean ship’ and then turn around and take the trackable ship to the Resistance Base.
But the flashing light idea is a good one (is there no problem that can’t be solved by flashing lights?).
When Han and Chewie first come aboard the Falcon, there’s a slow zooming shot of the door, and a steady shot when the door opens. On the lower right there is a little box, on which I could animate a light. By reversing the shot of the door opening with the animated light and placing this shot in the place of Rey saying ‘I can do this’ right when she starts the Falcon’s engines, it would imply that the tracking broadcast began right at the start.
Next, when Han first comes aboard, he pokes his finger into some illuminated blue box on the wall across from the door. After this shot I could place the zoom of the door, and show the tracker is deactivated. That way it’s clear how Han found the Falcon and was given a reasonable amount of time to do it, and why the ship is now safe to travel to the Resistance base without fear of further tracking.
I think a lot of the disagreements over this movie have to do with situations in which a subtle shift in one’s interpretation lead to dramatically different readings of the movie at large. For example, when Finn is making his sacrificial run at the laser weapon and Rose saves him, there are two main ways to interpret the scene:
Finn had a shot at destroying the weapon, but Rose valued Finn’s life over the destruction of the weapon. Because of this, Rose’s actions were misguided and would have doomed the Resistance were it not for Luke’s intervention.
Finn had no chance of destroying the weapon, and his sacrifice, while a culmination of his character arc in the film, would have ultimately been a senseless waste. Rose acted rightly.
The trouble with these two interpretations is that they’re both equally valid in terms of what we see on screen. If Poe had said something along the lines of ‘Retreat, nothing can stop it now!’, then it would have been clear that Finn was acting out of pure unthinking hatred for the First Order. But he instead implied that it would take a suicide run to destroy the weapon, making Finn’s action heroic from the first interpretation.
This is just one example. This and others (such as Holdo’s leadership, Luke’s murderous moment, etc) rest on the shakiest ground for the audience to interpret in the way the filmmakers intend.
It’s located in Russia, so almost certainly from Russia with love.
WYSHS
I don’t remember anyone saying that girls couldn’t relate to Luke.
I do know my daughters identify much more strongly with Rey.
“I think there was an assumption being made for quite a while that girls didn’t care about Star Wars or that girls weren’t identifying with characters like Luke Skywalker or Han Solo; they were only identifying with Princess Leia or characters in other movies along those lines. And you know I think that it is not just Star Wars that is making this change, I think culturally, I want to believe that there is real movement and momentum beginning to happen where those kinds of lines are being blurred and people are recognizing in the creative community that um little girls, and little boys, for that matter are crossing over into identifying with lots of different characters and lots of different stories; And we as filmmakers should not be the ones providing those boundaries we should just tell the stories and they should be open a wide variety of not only gender but ethnicity. and that is another thing we are really working to do is to make the casting reflect society in a much more equal basis.”
- Kathleen Kennedy, President of Lucasfilm (2012 to Present),
Star Wars Celebration 2016
As I interpret Kennedy’s words she’s literally saying, that in the past filmmakers were providing boundaries by not casting women or people of different ethnicity in certain roles making it harder for women and people of different ethnicity to identify with these characters. She seems to thus imply that these past filmmakers (among them Lucas) were delibirately catering to boys, and white people, because they didn’t believe these stories would appeal to anybody else, and that only recently these lines are beginning to be blurred. Filmmakers should facilitate this movement by casting on an equal basis.
While it is true that men and women were not given equal opportunity in the film industry, I think it is faulty and inherently sexist to assume that a character’s gender is in any way important in the way men and women relate to these characters. As such, the fact that Rey and Jyn are female protagonists is important, because it reflects equality in casting, not because their gender makes these characters more relatable to women. If the inherent assumption is, that by casting female protagonists in Star Wars the franchise will become more appealing to women, then I would consider such a notion higly superficial and sexist.
It seems like you are suggesting that casting should go back to being less inclusive.
He obviously isn’t suggesting that. I don’t agree with his interpretation of Kennedy’s words. I actually think Kennedy was saying that girls and boys have more or less always been able to relate to all characters but now we don’t have to think of roles as being limited to one gender. But he obviously isn’t saying that he wants Star Wars to go back to the 70s and be all white again.
I care more that all children grow up seeing themselves represented in all types of roles, then I do about one or two casting decisions that I personally didn’t like. This is why Kelly Marie Tran is in my signature.
As someone who doesn’t care about Star Wars or children, I personally think that more inclusive casting is good, but I also hate how people are implying that it is something to consider when evaluating how relatable a character is. I don’t relate to any living person in real life and only relate to a few characters in film, and those few characters that I relate to are pretty diverse, and almost a 50/50 split in terms of male to female. I simply can’t relate to the notion that not sharing an arbitrary characteristic with a character makes him or her less relatable. I don’t get it, and probably never will. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want films to be inclusive to women and non-white actors. It also doesn’t mean that I don’t want people to go out of their way to make films reflect the diverse society that we live in. All it means is that I think it’s shallow to look at old characters and act like they’re less relatable because of their skin color or gender. One thing that I will admit to is that I actually am selfish enough to care a lot more about casting decisions that I like than I care about children seeing themselves represented, but my preferences in casting don’t have anything to do with race or gender so that shouldn’t conflict with your goal. Other than that, I pretty much agree with you.
Just want to chime in that the glaring part of your post is that you don’t care about SW. Not sure why you’re here then???
I cared when I first came here.
too much, probably.
It definitely looks more interesting. I wonder if it isn’t too short now, is there any more of the fight on the platform that could make it in?
It’s true, all of it.
I originally imagined that this planet would be in the same star system as Jakku, making their jump last no more than a minute and probably take less time than Kylo’s scene. But if they are doing this and not jumping to a more central system, the problem remains as to why Han and Chewie found them so quickly.
The problem really lies with the passage of time in this section of the movie. Each event leads immediately to another with no chance for downtime. I can’t imagine that more than ten minutes had elapsed between them leaving Jakku and being found by Han.
JEDIT: The only break point I can think of is sometime during Finn and Rey’s hallway conversation. After ‘I’m Rey’, cut to Kylo’s scene, then back to the Falcon falling out of hyperspace near Ponema Terminal. Cut to Rey in the midst of the pipes, as if they’ve had nothing but problems while in Hyperspace. That means the loss of Finn’s moment where he considers telling Rey the truth about himself, which is a shame. Maybe an even better break point in terms of flow would be after ‘he’s going to get you home. We both will’. Then there are no introductions at all, but it would allow Kylo to ask the question ‘what girl?’ for the audience, until she says her name later. Finn says ‘Rey’ in the next scene, but that could be edited out so that the first time we hear it is when Han asks her on Takodana.
Since I’m planning on removing the idea that the Falcon is easily trackable by anyone at anywhere in the galaxy, I think there should be a better reason for Han to find the Falcon as quickly as he does. The only way I can think to do that is if Rey intentionally travels to a major spaceport after escaping Jakku. So here’s the idea:
The Falcon jumps to Hyperspace after leaving Jakku, then immediately cut to Kylo being updated, in order to cover the trip through hyperspace. Kylo asks ‘What girl?’, and in answer to this we cut back to the Falcon leaving hyperspace and arriving near a new planet, followed by Rey and Finn’s introductions. It wouldn’t be too difficult to cobble together some imagery of this planet in the distance with lights moving here and there indicating that it is home to a busy spaceport. It could use my shot of the Falcon leaving hyperspace from Restructured as a base. After this, the previously bisected scene of the Falcon repairs would need to be joined back together, and Finn’s line ‘we need to get out of this system’ could be reinstated. Presumably this is Ponemah Terminal.
With those changes, I think it would make more sense why Han is able to find the ship so quickly, as well as the arrival of two separate gangs soon after.
I appreciate the effort to actually paint something instead of using a cookie-cutter photo collage, but those don’t even look remotely like Alden or Woody.
Edit: and Han’s chin is crooked.
Why does Han’s stare remind me of this?
Ladyhawke
A wonderful fantasy romance. It has plenty of fun moments, and even the 80’s synth soundtrack isn’t enough to diminish it.
Interesting interpretation, but is there anything that’s been said by the filmmakers that is along those lines?
I don’t think so. But this interpretation was around before TLJ’s release, and with TLJ I think the meta commentary has grown beyond these two characters, and audience expectation (or its subversion) now drives the story itself.
Edit: I just watched the scene again and I’m so annoyed at how Luke completely forgets everything he learned about internal conflict by saving his father and Rey spoon-feeds this wisdom to him like she’s the Jedi master. Ugh.
I’ve found it helpful to look at Kylo and Rey as being written to represent Star Wars fans. Rey represents those who are avid and hopeful fans of the franchise, who know everything about the Jedi and what the ‘real’ Luke would do. This is why she’s so disappointed in what he’s become.
Kylo represents the fan who is tired of the whole dichotomy between good and evil, rebels and Empire, and wants to make the franchise about something else.
This is a big reason why it’s so hard to take these movies seriously - the stories aren’t written as a natural progression of events but more as a meta commentary on Star Wars itself.
Yeah, but people say ‘Luke would never do that, the scene betrays his character!’ and I don’t agree with them.
I don’t disagree with the direction they took, but it could have been better handled.
What if Luke had looked into Kylo’s future and explicitly seen him kill Han? Then you have the man who couldn’t kill his evil father facing the man who will kill his heroic father (and led to the destruction of the Republic). If they had focused on that drama I think it would have improved both Han’s and Luke’s stories in this trilogy.
It’s a shame that they muddled that message by making Luke surprised that Han was gone.
I don’t think anyone’s criticizing Mark Hamill’s acting.
Also I can’t believe that Obi-Wan is friends with this… thing:
How very dare you.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/16/politics/donald-trump-putin-helsinki-summit/index.html
Thoughts:
Conservatives got mad at Obama for blaming America and being overly conciliatory to hostile nations (including Russia), so this reverse is darkly amusing.
But does it really even matter anymore?
Do we want more Cold War?
And I find it amusing how you’ve tied yourself in a rhetorical knot to avoid simply stating something to the effect of ‘liberals want more war’, since that would get you laughed out of the room.
