frumfrumfroo

[frumfrumfroo]

Why do you dislike Thor: Ragnarok? I didn’t like it too but I would like to hear your thoughts about it because you are always so insightful

Thank-you, anon! <3

I posted a quick summary here and more on my main. And this is quick rundown of why it bothers me so much.

[frumfrumfroo]

Seeing snippets of those “Legacy of Vader” comics is a very puzzling experience for me. Mainly because they remind me of just how much DLF limited themselves when it came to a story as rich with potential as Ben’s.

You can only take so many pages of Ben struggling and torturing himself before you start to wonder why the empire of spin-offs and rehashing didn’t think to keep him alive and reap the rewards that would come from new stories and adventures. It just seems like the money-obsessed machine left a huge wad of cash on the table with the terrible decision to kill him off and waste that enormous potential. It wouldn’t have been hard to create a story or series about Ben and Rey’s adventures post-TROS or the goldmine that would’ve been their children. It doesn’t make any sense to me.

The correct ending would have left them with absolutely enormous amounts of EU material for all the characters. I used to talk about this a lot, but there was SO MUCH that would have been left to explore in smaller stories and people would have felt positive and excited for those stories instead of miserable and hopeless, ready to never hear about the ST again. It would have opened up the universe instead of sealing it off into a tiny, doomed, incestuous bubble.

Honestly, the main reason I was so confident they wouldn't flush good storytelling and fulfilling narrative promises down the toilet along with the themes of SW was because I thought greed would protect us. Greed was on our side. Even a mediocre version of the SW-appropriate ep IX would have been way, way more profitable than the a-tros-ity.

But I guess my mistake was in assuming anyone competent enough to understand what the themes of SW and the narrative promises were had power at DLF. Or that Iger would listen to anyone once he decided getting the movie out on his schedule was more important than the content of the movie. Because the next quarterly report is the only thing that matters, not the legacy or longevity of the IP or LF's integrity or Disney's reputation.

I suppose the lesson here is that I need to assume CEOs are too stupid to even be greedy effectively until proven otherwise.

[frumfrumfroo]

All my existence, my heart yearned for something couldn't name... Until found you.

[frumfrumfroo]

The Rey movie keeps getting placed on hold so many times that at this point. I won’t be surprised if they end up recycling Scarlet Witch’s storyline and have Rey go to the dark side, rip a hole in the multiverse, and try snatching up an alternate universe Ben. Killing her in the process. At least the dudebros would love it. Probably.

I fear even that is a wildly optimistic suggestion for a plot. It would require them completely walking back the cinematic universe avatar Rey Star Wars™ characterisation (using the word 'characterisation' loosely).

A Rey who goes nuclear to bring Ben back is a Rey who has flaws and human desires and actually wants Ben for herself, and DLF buried that Rey in 3 metres of concrete with a stake through her heart.

[frumfrumfroo]

The Love Hypothesis is officially about to begin shooting in Canada. Complete with a director, producer, a script and Lili Reinhart as the lead. Yet Disney can’t get one project out of pre pre production hell. This is poetic justice.

It is objectively hilarious and we all deserve to point and laugh.

[frumfrumfroo]

Where division is concerned, I’ve seen a few people refer to Ben as “The son of Luke’s best friend” which struck me as bizarre. A very roundabout way of describing his relationship to Luke that puts a good deal of distance between them (while also erasing Leia from the equation entirely). It’s like…that is is nephew plain and simple, literally what else could he be? He’s family!

Anyways, the salt is eternal.

Yeah, that is so ass-backward, I would assume the person saying it has either a total disconnect in their own mind or a rhetorical agenda.

Because, yeah, sure, he is the son of Luke's best friend, but mentioning that can only be trying to manufacture steps of removal when the far more relevant thing to say is that he is Luke's nephew. We don't need a third person at stake to define their relationship, we have a word for what it is.

Ben is his literal blood family as well as being a child who was directly in his care for half his life.

[frumfrumfroo]

Does it ever feel like Ben is singled out as the lone “bad apple” of the Skywalker family to exonerate the three original heroes of Star Wars?

No, because Ben is always in Anakin's shadow and both his arc and the arcs of Luke and Leia in the ST are precipitated by that shadow. Anakin's legacy as the Skywalker gone wrong defines the entire plot and dominates Ben's entire life, so to say he's singled out as the only problem Skywalker just couldn't really be farther from the truth. He was targetted by Snoke because of Anakin, Leia failed him as a parent because she never reconciled with Anakin, Han was afraid of him because of Anakin, Luke's catastrophic moment of weakness/betrayal was because of fear of Vader, Ben's own fatalism is because of finding out the truth about Anakin, etc.

The real problem is the way he is divided from his family and his plot is kept fully sequestered from everything else as if it's separate, making it seem like he is not, in fact, the last Skywalker and the emotional centre of the narrative, which might be the feeling you're trying to describe here. Like he is a 'fanboy' and not literally Anakin's grandson and, especially, Luke's nephew, for whom Luke is responsible.

[frumfrumfroo]

I don't know about that specific person, anon, but definitely it's a general issue. I've seen some real breathtaking shit here and there.

[frumfrumfroo]

So a couple of days ago an interview with J*hn B*y*ga was released and he was asked how he felt about Reylo. You would think after almost 6 years he’d be over it by now, but NOPE!

He still thinks Rey should have got with Finn and claimed that Kylo chased Rey around the galaxy with the intention to, get this… kill her. 🤣😂

Some have argued that he doesn’t understand the themes or story of the sequel trilogy, but personally I think he does. Shitting on Reylo is just a sure fire way for him to get attention. He also thinks that all Reylos are straight and female. 🙃

Just when I thought that he had done some growing up and soul searching. Turns out he just got even more immature and misogynistic. Because he would never in a million years say any of this to AD’s face. In fact he’d scurry away the moment AD looked in his direction if he had an inkling that a confrontation was afoot.

I could not possibly care less about that man's opinion. He's a misogynist manchild and I don't want to hear him speak on anything, never mind reylo or Rey.

It's ironic he doesn't realise that JJ is the one who treated him and his character like shit, but I struggle to have a lot of sympathy for him when he's been nothing but unprofessional and lashing out at either the wrong people or people who have no power (the fans).

[frumfrumfroo]

that's so funny... I always read Kylo Ren's line as his saying that where Rey comes from doesn't matter to him at all, which is a line that has extra metatextual meaning that to him she doesn't need to be a Skywalker to be important in this story. It's a very on the nose line that way. "They threw you away like garbage" is important and gets left out of this discussion all the time; he doesn't agree with her parents' assessment, and it's really important for her to know, that to him, her parents were wrong about her, the same as his were about him (that there's still light in him), that it was right for him to strike his dad down, so it's doing a lot of important character work; like earlier we already had Rey jealous of Kylo's relationship with Han, now we have Kylo trying to soothe her in the reverse, and also self-soothe by extension.

It also tickles me because Rey is a scavenger, so he's speaking her language. He's found treasure. And she's found a treasure in Kylo that has been abandoned and besmirched. It feels oddly cute to me. And all of this dialogue is special because it is setting up earnest understanding, but also still expounding upon Kylo's self-wounding villainy here, like you point out in the linked post, he still doesn't think that he alone could be worth the commitment. And Rey can't go with him.

The weirdest thing about the Reylo romance is he's bare-faced and honest. There's not any duplicity. We get closest to him as a real character through her and vice versa. They expect it to be a dark villainous liar-liar-pants-on-fire romance with the expectation that the truth-telling only happens later. Personally I think it's far more interesting and exciting for it.

I do get anon was trying to say! But I think the Austenian comedy-of-manners doesn't quite fit here! Mr. Darcy is proposing to her and insulting her rank - how could he (of higher birth) want to marry a woman beneath him? And then Elizabeth rejects him! It's tangled up in Austen's social context, whereas SW has the magic-mythic stuff; Rey's perfectly spiritually equal to Kylo. Actually, Kylo thinks they were in exactly the same situation. He's also rejected Snoke desiring to kill the one who was rising in the light side of the Force. Kylo is practically egalitarian by comparison. Remember, evil space wizards, people.

I actually find 'you have no place in this story' too meta and therefore awkward (said this at the time, but I don't know how to find that post lol), but the idea being expressed is very important. Ben is acknowledging that she is not Destined, not a chosen one, not a legacy, but that that isn't important. Her choices define her, her power is her own, her future is unwritten. He wants her to understand that the infinite value she has doesn't come from anyone else.

He knows what he's talking about because he is the last Skywalker, the scion, the legacy, and he was trapped in a prison of fatalism by everyone around him from the moment he was conceived. His family feared and mistrusted him because of the blood in his veins, they failed to protect him, they abandoned him. He was hounded into an acceptance rooted in despair, that there was no possible escape for him from the shadow of Vader and he could not avoid his destiny. He wants the pain to stop, so he stopped fighting this 'inevitability'.

But Ben is a deeply loving, compassionate person who has no conviction in the dark side, so it is a constant struggle for him. He prays to Vader for help, he needs Han's assistance to sever the lifeline of Han's call to come home. Trying to be something he is not weakens him. We see, when he acts from conviction to save Rey and kill Snoke, how powerful he actually is when he is not conflicted. He is strengthened immeasurably by doing the right thing, as is his natural inclination.

The weirdest thing about the Reylo romance is he's bare-faced and honest. There's not any duplicity.

Yes, exactly! This is absolutely crucial to their dynamic. Ben is never intentionally trying to seduce her and he is never lying to her. There is no manipulation coming from him, ever. He is sincerely and earnestly seeking connection with her, trying to help her. He is her foil and her mirror. He is the only character in the story who is confronting her with the truth about herself, he is the only one challenging her and he is challenging her from a place of empathy. That's why their relationship is the central crux of her arc. He is right about her and wrong about himself.

Ben has the opposite problem that Darcy has. If Ben believed in his own inherent value and had self-worth, he would not be trapped by his maladaptive world-view and would be able to offer Rey strictly himself, which she would have accepted. The entire temptation for Rey in this scene is to be selfish and accept him anyway even though it would hurt him.

[frumfrumfroo]

'Old times'

May the 4th Be With You!

Thank you so much for your coffees!

[frumfrumfroo]

I hadn’t finished reading that!

[frumfrumfroo]

The line “You’re nothing, but not to me” is unfortunately one of the most misunderstood lines in The Last Jedi, and reading Pride and Prejudice has strengthened that perspective for me. The comparisons people made between Mr. Darcy and Kylo’s botched proposals were not unwarranted. They fail to win over the heroine in a similar way, and both insult her lower status with a combination of arrogance and awkwardness.

People are entitled to their interpretations of that scene, but it’s my view that calling Kylo’s proposal “negging” or “manipulative” is a bit surface-level. It’s missing the context of his prideful attitude and attributing to him a level of deceit that I don’t think is substantiated by the film. Yes, he’s insulting her humble beginnings, but he’s also being sincere about how he cares for Rey (even if he’s communicating it poorly). The word “nobody” and “nothing” pertain more to her status as a non-legacy character/peasant as opposed her worth as a person.

Apologies for the rambling! I love your posts and I just wanted to shout into the void.

He's not being prideful or arrogant or manipulative at all, he is earnestly and sincerely trying to express to her that where she came from doesn't matter, her family abandoning her etc. doesn't matter, he values her entirely for her own sake.

Ben is terrible at communicating, so he fucks this up, but what he is trying to tell her is beautiful, romantic, and exactly what she needs to hear. He is being incredibly honest, calling for her to realise that she's lying to herself about her family, telling her she is not anyone's legacy, but she doesn't need to be and he loves her anyway. He wants her to see the truth and be free, he is not negging her. This is a gorgeous sentiment being expressed by a damaged person doing his best.

[frumfrumfroo]

On the subject of Ben’s redemption, I find it genuinely baffling that anyone ever thought that his arc would end in villainy and darkness. Even before TROS, I saw commentators that I generally agreed with predicting that Ben would reject the light and embrace the dark side once and for all. Their evidence? The fact that he “rejected redemption” twice before. I’m paraphrasing a bit, but you’d think that these people had never seen a single redemption arc in their entire lives. I think the notion that he would become the ultimate villain, (despite the specific framing of his story that pushes him towards the light) reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of Star Wars’s themes.

His redemption is very important to the themes of love and compassion that define Star Wars. Returning to the light would validate the sacrifices that his family made to push him towards that point. Rejecting redemption and doing a retread of Anakin’s arc would render those sacrifices meaningless and be uncharacteristically depressing for a Star Wars film. There is a time and place for the “subversion” of redemption arcs (even though they aren’t nearly common enough in Western media to warrant them) and Star Wars is really not the franchise to try it out.

It’s just so confusing to me that people could miss something so fundamental of the story and misunderstand a core feature of a franchise they supposedly love.

People who thought he wasn't going to be redeemed don't understand Star Wars at all. I'm not going to hedge, because it's just a fact. I've written four billion rants about this topic, so I won't go off, but like, this was the most obvious thing in the universe. Even a writer as shallow and vacuous as JJ Abrams understood this was totally non-negotiable. Ben Solo was always going to come home.

The fact that he “rejected redemption” twice before.

What they're missing here is that he doesn't reject it, his problem is that he doesn't believe it's possible. There is a reason both he and Anakin say ‘it’s too late’ when confronted by a loved one who is trying to save them and not ‘I don’t want to be saved’.

Hot take, but imo there is no time and place for subversion of a redemption arc because redemption itself is a narrative irruption and not having one happen is simply maintaining the status quo. That's not a subversion. Even in the case where it is a subversion, even if it's as well executed as it can be, it's always the most boring option.

[frumfrumfroo]

The Silence Of The Lambs, 1991

[frumfrumfroo]

Clarifying addendum to the Finn ask: I agree that Rian gets made a scapegoat for things that are not his fault when it's clear that he tried to do right by the character within the constraints he had. Although I think he should have used the alternate version of the Finn v Phasma fight. It's much stronger and does more for Finn's arc. He could have cut something else.

Totally fair. TLJ definitely has some pacing problems and things could have been trimmed to make room for more punch on the substance.

[frumfrumfroo]

TFA marketing is the reason why so many (including me) are hung up on the Jedi Finn thing. It is beyond callous and tonedeaf to tease a black central protagonist in a franchise that has never had one, only for it to be a bait and switch. I will never forgive JJ for this. Rian giving Finn his own arc was a needed corrective but for better or worse the Jedi/Force are the center of Star Wars so it still feels like a downgrade compared to what could have been. And then JJ blew it again and destroyed the consolation prize arc too, because his nostalgia boner is the root of every problem in the ST. Finn often gets used as a shield by reactionaries/grifters and there's a lot of disingenuous concern trolling going on. But between the botching of Finn's character and the Acolyte being canceled, black fans have real reasons to be bitter at Disney Star Wars. And until they produce a black protagonist that they don't muck up, it'll stay that way. For all its faults, the MCU is miles better than SW in this singular regard.

I do not mean to suggest for one moment people shouldn't be pissed at DLF, because they absolutely should. TFA had weak characterisation in general and was particularly piecemeal and poorly thought out for Finn, who was obviously some kind of composite of two ideas or two characters from previous drafts which were mutually exclusive. The Everyman and the ex-Stormtrooper are two things that can't be the same person unless you really put in the work. Which they didn't.

And then, of course, tros completely ruined and shit on both Finn's arc from the first two films and the qualities which had made him heroic and admirable by making him FS and using that to explain why he could break free of the FO indoctrination. Because why would compassion be important for a main character in a Star War?

It's just very frustrating that so much anger is misdirected at TLJ/Rian when the things people have a problem with are from TFA or, indeed, the marketing for TFA.