nerdonymous-blog

[nerdonymous-blog]

Do not try to like the Sequel Trilogy.  That's impossible.  Instead, only try to realize the truth:  There is no Sequel Trilogy.

Enlightened One

[nerdonymous-blog]

Refuting Mr. Plinkett

Part 2:  The Prequel Reviews

In essence, refuting Mr. Plinkett amounts to nothing more than explaining the plots of films to people who are too dumb to understand them, or too stubborn to ever admit that your explanation makes sense.  So, instead of a point for point rebuttal, what I’d like to do is a brief overview that focuses on how grossly Plinkett had to misrepresent the Prequels in order to do his reviews…

(Note:  Some major criticisms, that would otherwise have been addressed in the following overview, have been omitted, because they have been, or will be, dealt with elsewhere.)

The Phantom Menace

Plinkett claims he could tell “something was really wrong” because the film opens with a “boring pilot” and a ship that looks like a doughnut … instead of an exciting pilot and a ship that looks like a slice of pie…

He points it out as a major flaw, and complains at great length, that the movie doesn’t provide all the details of the tax dispute and the blockade, despite the fact that it was merely a smoke screen for the Trade Federation to get into position to invade Naboo, and has virtually nothing to do with the plot.  (Boy, when Plinkett first watched the original Star Wars, the lack of information about moisture farming must have driven him nuts!)

When the Neimoidians try to kill the Jedi with “dioxis” gas, Plinkett goes on this incredibly long, rambling thing that makes no sense, and has no discernable point…  

“How does Qui-Gon know what kind of gas it is, before he smells it?  Isn’t that, like, a contradiction?”  

Like, no, it’s not.  Some toxic gases are identifiable by both their color and distinctive odor (e.g. chlorine, fluorine, nitrogen dioxide).  And Qui-Gon could have smelled the gas, without it doing him serious harm – it depends on the concentration and toxicity…

In the end, it seems that Plinkett just doesn’t believe that the Jedi could’ve known the droids were going to open the doors “in a very short time” – even though Jedi “can see things before they happen”.

He thinks the Neimoidians should have destroyed the Republic cruiser while it was in outer space (so the resulting debris would’ve been scattered in all directions, I guess…), instead of destroying it inside their own docking bay, because … it will allow them to dispose of all the evidence of their crime.  (…uh … yeah … what fools…)  And Plinkett apparently believes that the Neimoidians build their docking bays out of flammable and combustible materials.  He doesn’t explain why.

Strangely, he thinks it would be in the bad guys’ interest to get word to the senate as soon as possible that they plan to invade Naboo, and maximize the chance that they’ll get busted before the Queen signs the treaty to make the invasion legal – in effect, foiling their own plan.  I don’t follow his “logic”.

Plinkett claims that there’s no reason to Qui-Gon’s plan that he and Obi-Wan should stow aboard separate ships (as opposed to stowing aboard the same ship).  Because, if they do, one of them could end up landing “hundreds if not thousands of miles” closer than the other to their intended destination … increasing the likelihood that at least one of them will be able to reach the Queen in time…  And that’s bad … because … well … he doesn’t say.

Plinkett thinks it’s too late for the Jedi to try to warn the Naboo about the army, if they’re going down with the army…  (If two guys with guns were coming to kill you, would you prefer an advance warning of one minute, or none at all?  Just ask Hank Schrader.)

He doesn’t understand how Qui-Gon intended to get ahead of the invasion army, to warn the Naboo, without a transport.  And he doesn’t understand why Qui-Gon would follow Jar Jar to a city, where he could acquire a transport.  Plinkett apparently believes the two things are unrelated.  

Plinkett has “analyzed” less than 15 minutes worth of plot, when he makes this absurd statement:  

“The Star Wars saga is now damaged totally beyond repair.  The lapses in common sense and logic begin to compound on the movie, and now it is broken.  I could end this review here … but, I’m really just getting started…”

He says it like he’s ruefully declaring some kind of far-too-easily-won victory.  The guy’s so deluded, he thinks all he has to do is scornfully offer a few of his inane half-baked “logical” criticisms, and we’ll all be convinced that he’s running intellectual circles around the movie, and all of us.  How embarrassing.

The Neimoidians invade Naboo, place all the people in prison camps, and starve them.  Yet, Plinkett somehow remains convinced that their plight is a consequence of the trade embargo.  He brings it up repeatedly throughout his review:

“Did they not have the capacity to survive on such a lush planet, with a huge power reactor, for one day without space trade?”  

What exactly does the lushness of their planet, or the size of their “reactor”, have to do with being denied food in a prison camp…?

“So, the Queen waits around for some kind of approval for something, to stop her people from dying.  Why are they dying?”  

They’re not.  The Neimoidians used Sio Bibble to send a transmission to the Queen, in order to track her down, and they made him say that the people were dying, that “the death toll is catastrophic”.  

In a following scene, Gunray says to Bibble...

Nute Gunray:  Your queen is lost, your people are starving, and you, Governor, are going to die much sooner than your people, I’m afraid.  

It’s amazing what you can learn, when you pay attention…

“So, you’re expecting me to believe that the people [who] built this technological wonder were dying without space supplies for two days?”  

…groan…

Evidently, continually displaying that he has zero understanding of the children’s film he’s reviewing, which he had ten years to reflect on, was impressive to a lot of morons.

Plinkett’s ability to consistently miss the point is amazing, but what’s truly astounding is his talent for missing his own point:  Essentially, he says that the Neimoidians were morons for not forcing Amidala to sign the treaty right away…  And then, he says that they’re morons because Amidala might have signed the treaty right away … you know, because if she had, there’d be no need for a vote of no conf--  Well, I covered this stupid shit in Part 1.  

The Jedi rescue the Queen, and they run the blockade – Plinkett thinks they shouldn’t have taken the risk, and just stayed on the planet … where it was safe…????????????

Despite the fact that he’s a fan of both Star Wars and Star Trek, Plinkett tries to convince the viewer that he’s baffled about how spaceship shields are supposed to work.  (It’s really quite pathetic.)

R2 saves the ship – Plinkett says he didn’t…  And don’t you dare believe what you can plainly see for yourself in the movie!  Just take Plinkett’s word for it!

“They inexplicably send R2 up to the Queen to get a pat on the head, I guess.  She thanks the little piece of equipment, like it’s a person.”  

He claims that this was ridiculous, that the Original Trilogy characters, “even the kind-hearted Luke Skywalker”, didn’t care about droids or their feelings…  

The Empire Strikes Back  0:16:50

Luke: Thanks, Threepio.  (What?!  He thanked a droid?!!)

Return of the Jedi  1:15:47

Luke: Thanks, Threepio.  (What?!  He thanked a droid … again?!!!)

Here are a few other examples, if you want to check ‘em out;  A New Hope  0:28:25,  0:30:09,  0:32:20,  0:45:45,  1:24:50,  1:27:05,  1:43:45,  1:58:07.  The Empire Strikes Back  0:42:15,  0:43:40,  1:26:45.  Return of the Jedi  0:36:30,  1:43:00,  2:07:26.

Plinkett is absolutely baffled by the idea that the Queen’s decoy would be acting as the Queen’s decoy (Yeah!!!  What’s that about?!), and that the Queen would want to keep her identity a secret (even from the Jedi – both as a need-to-know-basis type security measure, and so she’ll have more freedom of movement) for her own protection, while her enemies are trying to track her down and capture her … you know, in case someone comes after her … like Darth Maul, for example.  But, naaahh – that would never happen.  It’s just plain baffling.

“You’d think the real Queen would want to hang out in the throne room area, to stay current on any updates about what’s going on.”  

Hey, yeah – I mean, with five handmaidens, how could she possibly receive updates, unless she’s in the throne room?  And, of course, it’s critically important for her to receive these updates immediately … while she’s stranded on a desert planet, and can’t do shit about any of it anyway.

He hates Qui-Gon Jinn for various reasons that make no sense…

Plinkett pointlessly offers a number of alternative solutions to the heroes’ problem of being stranded on Tatooine.  This is my favorite:

“Trade the Naboo cruiser for a less fancy, but functional ship”.  

In the highly unlikely scenario that it were not seen as a potential threat to the Queen’s security to even attempt to trade the ship, and proceeding from the extremely dubious assumption that there were no other sensitive issues related to allowing it to pass into the hands of whomever, the ship still didn’t have a working hyperdrive generator – a part that was so expensive that Qui-Gon “might as well buy a new ship”.  Do you think “fancy” had that much trade-in value on Tatooine…?  Like people would line up to trade their means of getting off of the desert wasteland planet for a giant sand-dune-ornament.  Right…

In reference to Anakin having built C-3PO:

“If you’re a little boy with a knack for building things … why would you build the exact same droid that seems to have been mass produced by a manufacturing plant somewhere?  Wouldn’t you build some kind of unique robot from your own imagination?”  

Plinkett apparently believes that eight-year-old Anakin was an engineer who designed C-3PO and fabricated him from the ground up, rather than acquired 3PO piece by piece, and simply assembled him, the way a kid would build a model airplane … ‘cause, you know … logic…  

“Then George Lucas completely and utterly finally ruins Star Wars forever, by having Qui-Gon explain that the Force is microscopic organisms.”  

Which, of course, is not even close to what Qui-Gon said.  Midi-chlorians are not the Force.  You know how they have blasters instead of guns, lightsabers instead of swords, speeders instead of cars, Tauntauns and Dewbacks instead of horses and camels…?  Midi-chlorians are (sort of) the Star Wars equivalent of DNA – the Force-sensitive gene.

“This entire idea, and why this is in the movie, is so baffling to me that I cannot even wrap my mind around it.”  

Oh – is that because you’re so intelligent and insightful?  

“It was never even explored, or mentioned, in the following two films.”  

Yes, it was.  In Revenge of the Sith.  You should pay more attention to the movies you review.  Maybe, if you did, you wouldn’t be so baffled all the time, and you could wrap your mind…

“Everyone waits until they arrive at Naboo to start discussing how they have no plans at all, and no idea what they’re doing.”  

Oh, everyone waits that long do they?  Okay, time to test your knowledge of Special Relativity.  

Question #1: How long does it take to travel five light-years at lightspeed?  

Question #2: How long does it take to travel fifty light-years at lightspeed?  

Question #3: How long does it take to travel five hundred light-years at lightspeed?  

The answer to all three questions is the same: it takes no time at all – the trip is instantaneous.  That is, it’s instantaneous from the traveler point of view.  From an observer point of view, the trip takes five, fifty, and five hundred years, respectively.  Meaning, traveling at lightspeed is effectively the same thing as time-traveling into the future…  

Which leads me to the first of two genre conceits that modify the concept of speed-of-light travel in Star Wars: hyperspace.  Traveling through hyperspace allows the characters to avoid the time distortion effect (i.e. they don’t time-travel into the future).  The second conceit is that characters do experience the passage of time while traveling at lightspeed, through hyperspace.  How much time is unclear.  So, how long did they actually wait “to start discussing”...?  We don’t know.  It might have been five minutes.  

As for the second part of Plinkett’s stupid and pointless criticism, that the characters are “discussing how they have no plans at all, and no idea what they’re doing” – that’s simply not what’s happening in the scene (and you don’t have to take my word for it): the Queen has just revealed to the Jedi, and Captain Panaka, that she intends to go to war with the Trade Federation.  She has a plan, but she hasn’t yet told them what it is…

When Amidala reveals her plan:

“Why are we all listening to this fourteen-year-old girl…?”

Then, Plinkett demonstrates his prowess as a military strategist (or, is it tactician?) with a brilliant alternative suggestion for the final battle.  He says they should focus on “taking out the droid control ship first”, and if that were successful, they could “skip the other two dangerous parts”.  (Those other “parts” being; attempting to capture the Viceroy, and drawing the droid army away from the city, with the Gungan army.)  

Yeah, sounds good.  Let’s do it Plinkett’s way…

First, you’ve got to get the pilots to their fighters.  Do you send them into the city alone?  Remember, you didn’t do the “dangerous part” of drawing out the droid army, so opposition is much heavier this way.  If you send the pilots alone, they almost certainly won’t even make it to their planes.  So, you send soldiers to protect the pilots.  Say that after the pilots take off, some of your soldiers are still alive: what do they do?  Do they stay in the city and get captured or killed, or return and reveal the location of your camp to the enemy...?  

Say the location of your camp somehow remains a secret (for the time being): how do the Viceroy and his droid army on surface react, once the space battle has begun…?  …while you’re doing nothing, except sitting there, waiting to learn the outcome…?  

And, what if the space battle is lost?  (And it would have been...)  What would your chances be then of succeeding at “the other two dangerous parts”?  Do you send in the Gungan army, now?  Of course, since the vulture droids have already shot down all your fighters, and killed all your pilots, there’s nothing to stop them from flying to the surface, and blasting the Gungan army into oblivion…  What then?  Do you think you’d have a very good chance of capturing the Viceroy?  And, of course, that was the crucial thing – not the space battle…

No … on second thought, I think I’d rather listen to the fourteen-year-old girl.

“How about a bad guy in the movie whose motivation is clear?”  

Palpatine was trying to gain political power.  Darth Maul wanted to kill Jedi, for revenge.  This was somehow unclear…?

Attack of the Clones

Plinkett criticizes the portrayal of Obi-Wan and Anakin’s relationship:  

“So, then we’re given sixty seconds in an elevator to establish that Obi-Wan and Anakin are friends.  And, please notice how this is … accomplished … by them recounting things that happened in the past, things we never see.” 

What did Plinkett want?  A flashback?  They don’t really do those in Star Wars.  (This was written prior to the release of The Last Jedi.)  Or, should they just not allude to events of the past, ‘cause friends don’t do that in real life…?  

Plinkett then compares this “sixty seconds in an elevator” (more like thirty seconds – but, who’s counting) to Luke and Han’s relationship over the course of the three films of the Original Trilogy:  

“We see their friendship grow.”  

Oh, now I understand … we don’t see Obi-Wan and Anakin’s friendship grow during those thirty seconds in the elevator.  Point well made, sir!

Ignoring context and subtext, Plinkett cherry picks the bits that display friction and tension in Obi-Wan and Anakin’s relationship:

“And this is the height of their friendship?!”  

No, they reach the height of their friendship in the first half of Sith … but there’s an abiding brotherly love between them throughout Clones, as well.

Plinkett starts in on the sequence that begins with an assassination attempt on Padme, leads to the speeder chase, and ends with Zam Wessel’s death:

“You know, I could spend ten hours talking about just how incredibly dumb this entire sequence is.”  

Oh, good…

Plinkett’s criticisms of the sequence all make perfect sense, provided; that you ignore, or forget, or refrain from thinking about Padme’s line, “I don’t need more security”, and Anakin describing the assignment to protect her as “overkill” … that you assume the surveillance cameras in Padme’s bedroom were the only cameras anywhere on Coruscant … that you disregard the distinct possibility that in their attempt to assassinate Padme, Jango and Zam might have had the additional motivation to not get caught … that you accept Plinkett’s assertion that he knows more about droids in Star Wars galaxy than Obi-Wan Kenobi does … that you forget that Obi-Wan is a Jedi, and what his abilities allow him to do … that you refrain from thinking about how Zam Wessel’s shapeshifting ability actually works … that you disregard what character motivations actually make sense in context … and that you ignore pretty much everything that basic common sense would tell you.  So, it shouldn’t be too hard for Plinkett fans.

“This movie operates under the logic that assassinations only take place at night.”  

Right.  Except for the one other assassination attempt, which took place during the day, and was basically the first thing that happened in the movie.  

Loaded question:

“What makes ‘em so sure that the assassin’s gonna try and kill her tonight?”

Nothing.  What makes you so sure that they’re so sure?  Because if they weren’t, they’d ignore their assignment from the Jedi council, shirk their duties, and go barhopping?

Anakin:  She covered the cameras.  I don’t think she liked me watching her.

“She turns off any kind of camera surveillance … at the very least, aim the cameras at the windows …  You see, surveillance cameras are only really useful for some kind of slow attack, that you could run in and stop.  They won’t do any good if someone, like, launched a missile at the building…”

According to Plinkett, Padme didn’t cover the cameras that were in her bedroom – she turned off “any kind of camera surveillance”.  He seems to think that her extraneous security, in the persons of Obi-Wan and Anakin, are the only ones responsible for her safety, and that the security cameras in her bedroom must have been the only security measures in place.  Makes me wonder what Plinkett thinks the Naboo security officers, and Captain Typho, do to earn their paychecks…

He suggests that Zam could’ve used the assassin droid as bait, and that after the Jedi were gone, just floated her speeder up to the window and shot Padme.  Right.  Because after Obi-Wan jumped out the window, and Anakin went after him, Typho, his security officers, and Dorme promptly left the room, and Padme just went right back to sleep.  Yeah, that’s probably what happened.  Makes sense.

When Zam’s shapeshifting ability is revealed, Plinkett describes it as:

“The most advantageous attribute that an assassin could possibly have”.  

Could be…

“This also leads me to wonder why someone who could disguise their face, by changing it, would need to wear a disguise.”  

Keep that in mind…

In the nightclub:

“The assassin does something out-of-character: he attempts to kill one of the Jedi.  This guy’s mission was to kill Padme.  If he’s in a position to where he could sneak up on a Jedi, then why isn’t he using this opportunity to escape?  Especially when he’s not sure where the other Jedi is.  These are, like, amateur mistakes.”  

Funny, I didn’t see Zam attempt to kill Obi-Wan.  This scene is shot and edited in such a way as to mislead the audience:  It looks as though Zam spots Obi-Wan at the bar, then turns and stalks Anakin.  But, it’s revealed that she was watching Anakin heading away from her, and then she approached Obi-Wan from behind with her gun drawn.  So, what was her motivation?  Plinkett thinks she intended to shoot Obi-Wan in the back, in front of dozens of witnesses…

Zam’s chameleonic ability is that she can take someone else’s form by making physical contact with them, and then she assumes their identity.  This isn’t explained in the film, but Plinkett’s interpretation makes no sense given what we do know.  That is, if Zam were capable of morphing into anyone or anything at any time, why would she not have changed her appearance once she entered the club, so the Jedi wouldn’t recognize her…?  And remember, her motivations are to assassinate Padme, and to not get caught…  

Do you see what I’m getting at…?

She sticks her gun in Obi-Wan’s back, marches him to someplace with no witnesses, murders him, assumes his identity, goes back to Padme’s apartment with Anakin, waits for the right moment … and kills Padme.  Make more sense?  Yes, it’s “just my interpretation”, but it’s based on what’s conveyed in the film.  Plinkett’s interpretation is based on nothing more than the thoughtless and arrogant assumption that he understands the Prequels better than George Lucas, who devoted a decade of his life to making them…

“The audience is expected to accept too many things we are and are not told … [about] intergalactic space politics, and the Jedi.”

“If the Galactic Republic is made up of a thousand worlds, then why can’t they scrounge up a volunteer army…?”  

No one said they couldn’t.  They would hardly be voting on whether or not to do a thing that they’re not capable of doing.  Hey, Plinkett – maybe now would be a good time to say “common sense”.

“What is this prophecy about?  What does it say?  Who wrote it?  When?  What does bringing balance to the Force mean exactly?”  

It’s about the chosen one bringing balance to the Force.  It says that the chosen one will bring balance to the Force.  We don’t know who wrote it. (Why?  Do you think you might know the guy?)  We don’t know when it was written. (Are you skeptical about a certain period of ancient Jedi prophecy?)  It means destroying the Sith.

“So, when they find out that you got a high midi-chlorian count in your bloodstream, I guess your parents give you to the Jedi as a baby to be trained in this creepy cult-like environment and you lose all your free will …  See, none of those kids made a personal commitment to follow this rigid lifestyle.  You can’t make those kind of decisions when you’re two.”  

Those poor kids.  Being taught how to use the Force, and build a lightsaber, by wise, compassionate Jedi must have been just awful for them.  They didn’t get to choose their lifestyle at two-years-old, like the rest of us did.  And once the Jedi Order has you, they won’t allow you to leave.  Unless you’re Count Dooku.  Or, Ahsoka Tano.  Or, any other Jedi who wants to leave the Order.  What a nightmare!

Plinkett says that romance is forbidden to Padme:

“For no reason, she’s not allowed to love, either.”  

I don’t have any idea what he’s talking about, and neither does he.  

He claims that Anakin and Padme have no reason to love each other, except they’re good looking.  I would argue that their love is based on the bond they formed years earlier, when Anakin was just a child, but … who’d buy that in a movie romance?

Tristan and Isabel Two  (Legends of the Fall)

William Wallace and Murron  (Braveheart)

Sayuri and The Chairman  (Memoirs of a Geisha)

Forrest and Jenny  (Forrest Gump)

Plinkett claims it’s obvious that “Palpatine’s behind it all!”  This is something he brings up again in his Revenge of the Sith review – that everyone’s stupid for not realizing that Palpatine is secretly a Sith Lord who’s manipulating galactic events…

“So, Obi-Wan finds the planet where the dart came from, and it belongs to a bounty hunter named Boba Fett who’s hanging out there.”  

(He meant to say, “Jango Fett”.  And he meant that the dart belongs to Jango.)

“He’s the guy who’s trying to kill Pad-a-me.  Pad-a-me is the chief senator opposed to the military creation act.  Drawing any connections yet?”  

Do you mean any connections to Palpatine?  No.  Because there is no connection to Palpatine.  Ostensibly, Palpatine is not in favor of the military creation act.

“Then Obi-Wan sees all the clones, and discovers that the order to make them was placed under suspicious circumstances.  This was like ten years ago, and the exact same time that Palpatine was elected Chancellor.  Palpatine’s behind it all!”  

So, the order was placed at the same time Palpatine was elected…  I would say that this is just circumstantial evidence … but, it’s not.  It’s just circumstantial.  It’s not evidence of any kind…  

If you found out that some Australian scientists were making an army of Maori warrior clones, somewhere on the other side of the planet, and that they started the project in November of 2008 … you would assume that Barack Obama was responsible, because he was elected President of the United States at approximately the same time?  By that reasoning, Obama could be held personally responsible for anything (and everything) that happened anywhere (and everywhere) in the world on the day of his election.  That makes sense to you?  Quick, Plinkett – say “logic”!

“So, Obi-Wan sends ‘em a message, and tells ‘em about the clones.  But, Mace Idiot still thinks they’re looking for Pad-a-me’s assassin.”  

Uh … they are still looking for Padme’s assassin.  

“If you think that a Sith is pulling strings in the senate, just order blood tests done on everyone.”  

Well, shit.  That’s simple.  Where were you when they needed you?

“George Lucas ruins the lightsaber, and the Force, all in one scene.”  

In reference to the lightsaber duel between Yoda and Dooku, Plinkett makes a few points;

1. Lightsabers are overused in the Prequels.  2. The lightsaber is an impractical weapon for certain Jedi, including Yoda.  3. Some verbose, awkwardly expressed, nearly incomprehensible thing about how Yoda fighting with a lightsaber ruins the concept of the Force.

“Like anything that’s cool, if it’s used too much, it becomes boring.”  

1.  That depends on how it’s used.  Every Star Wars saga film (unless you count the Sequel Trilogy) features at least one lightsaber duel that ends in death and/or dismemberment.  It keeps the threat alive.  It’s not using lightsabers sparingly that makes them exciting.  If, in future films, opponents clash swords for a while, then say, “We’ll meet again!” and everyone walks away unscathed – that’s how lightsabers will become boring.

2.  They come in all shapes and sizes in Star Wars.  Some characters are very tall, some are very short.  Suppose Obi-Wan were to be attacked by a twelve foot tall Sith Lord, with a seven foot lightsaber…  Should he not use his lightsaber to defend himself … or, should he modify the way he fights...?  And a duel is a relatively rare occurrence: a sword is impractical against ranged attacks as well (knife to a gunfight?), but the Jedi compensate with skill, and by the way they use their weapons.  The point is that Plinkett’s notion that a lightsaber is impractical only for certain Jedi is moronic - the Jedi don’t use lightsabers because they’re practical, they use them because they’re traditional.

“Yoda has a handicap, based on his physical limitations, when his character should be above that sort of thing.”

3.  Believe it or not, to a certain degree, I sympathize with this.  Yoda’s duel with Dooku confronts us with a kind of idea that we don’t like to be confronted with…  Just as we would prefer not to think that the ones we love are vulnerable to the very same physical phenomena that destroy all “lower” life-forms, we would prefer not to think that the green, pointy-eared, transcendent character who is the living embodiment of centuries of wisdom could also be punted like a football.  It’s undignified to the point of seeming an injustice that nature would permit it.  

There was a kind of majesty in Yoda’s power and placidity as he was portrayed in the Original Trilogy … and seeing him frantically leap around to defend himself from Dooku’s saber attacks seemingly undermined that.  It did, at first, seem somehow beneath him.  (But then, when I heard that Yoda was going to duel the Emperor in Episode III, I had a total nerdgasm.)

If Plinkett had simply said, “I didn’t care for Yoda’s duel with Dooku, and I would prefer that they didn’t show Yoda fight with a lightsaber,” and left it at that, I wouldn’t have had any problem with it.  (Once upon a time, I might’ve even agreed with him.)  But, of course, Plinkett can’t just leave it at that.  He has to bring it to the place of George Lucas ruined Star Wars…  

Plinkett objects to the idea of Yoda facing an enemy who can nullify his command of the Force, by being equally powerful, and put him in the position of having to defend himself with physical strength and agility:

“If you can match your opponent’s skills with the Force, you then better also be physically strong, too.  And this goes against everything that the Force is about …  By making Yoda a little guy, they were illustrating that the Force is something beyond the physical.  But, by showing Yoda fight with a lightsaber, it ruins all that, because it takes that concept and those rules and throws it in the dumpster.”

Notice how Plinkett expresses his objection as though “Yoda” and “the Force” are interchangeable (i.e. if the Force is “beyond the physical”, Yoda is as well, therefore putting him in physical jeopardy contradicts the concept of the Force and breaks the rules).  It’s as if he thinks that Yoda facing an enemy who is equally strong in the Force negates the idea that Yoda is strong in the Force – which it doesn’t.  He’s confusing an idea conveyed via the character with the character – it’s the notion that Yoda is not limited by his physicality, in the Force, being extended to the physical itself, and made absolute.  The only way Plinkett’s “concept and those rules” could be preserved would be if Yoda were all-powerful.  This is not a rational criticism – it’s an ought-is fallacy:

No one should punt Yoda like a football, therefore no one can punt Yoda like a football.

But, Yoda is not the Force.  He’s not all-powerful, or “beyond the physical”, or invincible, or invulnerable.  He never was.  My point is that Plinkett’s criticism is implicitly self-contradictory.  That is, if Yoda were not limited by his physicality in the physical, his not being limited by his physicality in the Force wouldn’t mean anything.  And it is this very meaning that Plinkett claims to value…  

“Nothing much happens at all, except … they get the clones, I guess.  It’s a colorful mish-mash of stuff that happens that bridges the gap between Episode I and Episode III.”

…

How insightful!

Revenge of the Sith

“So the very first thing we gotta sit through is a pointless and unexciting sequence where Anakin and Obi-Wan fight off robot things on their ships, only to eventually make it to where they were going to get to anyways.”  

If action sequences are pointless because the characters in them “eventually make it to where they were going to get to anyways,” wouldn’t that make every action sequence, in every movie, pointless…?  

Plinkett gives two examples of what he calls “backtracking” (like retconning) in the opening space battle scene; 1. Anakin was a great pilot, and 2. Anakin’s a “good guy” (for wanting to help a clone trooper pilot).  But, what Plinkett calls “backtracking” I call establishing, or re-establishing, something that’s extremely common in television series and film franchises, including the Original Trilogy of Star Wars (e.g. nearly everything that happens in the first twenty minutes of The Empire Strikes Back).  

He then misrepresents the previous films in his attempt to convince you that he’s making some kind of legitimate point, hoping you’ll forget, or disregard, that;  1. Anakin’s piloting skills were initially established in the Phantom Menace podrace, and  2. Whether they ever regarded the clone troopers as “disposable people”, in the two years of fighting side by side, the Jedi came to think of them as brothers-in-arms – which is further established by Obi-Wan’s interaction with Commander Cody…

In reference to the sequence involving the rescue of Chancellor Palpatine, the defeat of Dooku, and the confrontation with General Grievous, Plinkett asks approximately two dozen rhetorical questions in a row, to demonstrate how confusing it all is, and that it makes no sense.  Nearly every question he asks is predicated on whichever counterintuitive presupposition is required as a condition for his (feigned?) confusion.  That is, Plinkett only succeeds in demonstrating that he doesn’t understand things that, while not explicit, are, nevertheless, obvious.  For example, that Sidious’s fellow conspirators (Dooku, Grievous, et al.) know only as much about his plan as Sidious wants them to know, and that they are being manipulated by him…  

And Plinkett clearly seems to think that Palpatine’s plan can only make sense if it’s absolutely guaranteed to be successful.  It’s like he’s never heard of a calculated risk…

“What if Dooku just happened to spill the beans about Palpatine being Sidious, when he realized he was betrayed?”  

It would have been like asking someone to believe that Winston Churchill was in cahoots with Adolf Hitler.  No one would believe it in a million years.  Anakin would have seen it as Dooku making a pathetic, desperate attempt to save his own life – which is, essentially, what it would have been.

“What if Anakin didn’t kill Dooku after Palpatine said to kill him?”  

Depending on where he was exactly, when the ship went down, Dooku would’ve died, or he would’ve become a prisoner of war … and then died, probably…

When Grievous bows to the hologram of Sidious, on Utapau, Plinkett says, 

“Oh!  Grievous doesn’t know…?!” 

as if it’s some sort of stunning revelation.  Three years before this film was released, in Attack of the Clones, it was established that the Sith Lords, Sidious and Tyranus, had created the Separatist movement, commissioned the clone army, and started the Clone War, which they had been planning for years, while their public personas, Palpatine and Dooku, were the leaders of the opposing sides – that they were manipulating the entire galaxy.  So, why the fuck would Grievous know that Sidious was Palpatine…?  

“Did Sidious tell [Grievous] to capture Palpatine so that he could lure the Jedis on board only to kill Dooku?”

Grievous:  But, the loss of Count Dooku…

“Wait – I guess not.”  

As if killing Dooku could not have been Palpatine’s plan, unless Grievous was in on it.  Bitch, please.

Palpatine:  Get help.  You’re no match for him.  He’s a Sith Lord.

“Obi-Wan then turns, and says something incredibly stupid:”

Obi-Wan:  Chancellor Palpatine, Sith Lords are our specialty.

Why exactly was that an “incredibly stupid” thing to say…?  Because Obi-Wan was the first Jedi in a thousand years to defeat a Sith Lord…?

 ...or, because two minutes after he said it, Anakin became the second?

“His real response should have been, ‘Wait – Get help from where?  From who?  Who on this ship could help us?’”  

Evidently, Plinkett thinks it’s unreasonable of Palpatine, Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, to consider that the two Jedi who came to rescue him might have brought some clone troopers with them…  

“Then, after Dooku’s dead, there’s a sudden urgency to get off the ship, when before there was no urgency at all.”  

Actually, before Dooku was dead, there was a lightsaber duel happening.  And before the duel, Anakin and Obi-Wan sensed “Count Dooku” and “a trap”, respectively.  They mentioned that in the hangar … remember?  They were anticipating the confrontation.  You get it?  So, what’s the criticism…?  The lightsaber duel had no sense of urgency?  And, wait – don’t tell me – it also lacked humanity and emotion, right?

Based on Palpatine’s urging Anakin to leave Obi-Wan behind…

Palpatine:  Leave him, or we’ll never make it!  

Plinkett believes Anakin should have concluded that Palpatine was a Sith Lord.  I guess it’s extremely suspicious that Palpatine wouldn’t want his only protector, on board an enemy ship, in the middle of a giant space battle, to be hampered by carrying an unconscious man on his back…  

It wouldn’t be perceived by Anakin as Palpatine being panicky, or fearful for his own safety … no, he’s a Sith Lord – it’s the only reasonable explanation.  I know that whenever I see someone acting in a cowardly fashion, I always assume they must be an evil mastermind who’s manipulating the entire universe...

  “The terrible result of the limited script focus is the lost opportunities of all the other elements at play.  Basically, the point of all three films is just to get Anakin into the Darth Vader suit…  The ironic part is at the center of all this is the largest galactic war ever…”  

So, here Plinkett complains that he doesn’t get to see Clone War adventure that’s not strictly relevant to Anakin’s fall to the dark side…  Does he mean something like that space battle, at the beginning, that he said was “pointless and unexciting”?  Or, does he mean…

“Obi-Wan goes off on a mission by himself that’s pointless to the ultimate conclusion of the story.  This is what they call filler.”  

Oh.  So, now he doesn’t want to see anything that’s even slightly tangential to “the ultimate conclusion of the story”.  ‘Cause it’s “filler”.  But, if it hadn’t been in the movie, would he have called it a “lost opportunity”?  

“So, again in this film we’re told about those wacky fun adventures that Anakin and Obi-Wan have that we don’t get to see.”  

Contradict yourself much?  Plinkett’s complaining about not getting to see “those wacky fun adventures” that he calls “filler”, and that he clearly wouldn’t bother to watch if they made a whole TV series about it.  Which they did.

Plinkett claims that the fact that Coruscant was visibly unaffected by the Clone Wars makes “the sacrifice and risk of the rebellion utterly pointless”.  (Imagine how disappointed he’s going to be when he sees the Sequel Trilogy.)  For some reason I can’t fathom, he thinks that of the billions and billions of people, living on tens of thousands of worlds, only those who live on Coruscant matter.

“Instead of waiting three minutes for the clone troopers to arrive, and using his surprise advantage to kill Grievous and end the war, [Obi-Wan] foolishly jumps into the middle of a bunch of bad robots, to apparently challenge Grievous to a duel, or something.  All them robots could’ve just started shooting him to death!”

Here’s my interpretation:  Obi-Wan knew that Grievous fancied himself a match for a Jedi, and that he would want to defeat Obi-Wan in single combat.  That’s how he knew “all them robots” wouldn’t start shooting him to death.  (Plus, he’s got that Jedi ability to look into the future…)  And by drawing the droids’ attention to the duel, Obi-Wan provided the clone troopers with a surprise advantage against “all them robots”.  

My interpretation is based on what we know about Grievous, Obi-Wan, the Jedi and the Force, and how events play out, from watching the film.  Here’s what Plinkett’s interpretation is based on:

“Obi-Wan Kenobi is a stupid asshole idiot head.”

Plinkett keeps insisting that killing Grievous will end the war.

“Remember, killing this guy will end the war!”  

This is, of course, based on Palpatine’s line to Mace Windu that the senate will vote to continue the war as long as Grievous is alive.  Palpatine’s motivation was to get the Jedi to eliminate Grievous for him, but … Plinkett doesn’t really get subtext.  And, no, the war will continue if Grievous is alive does not mean the same thing as the war will end if Grievous is dead.

“When Obi-Wan finally kills Grievous, Palpatine then springs his trap to have all the clone troopers kill the Jedis, and then he blames the Jedis for trying to take over.  Why didn’t he just do that before?!”  

You mean before he had converted Anakin (the fatherless boy Palpatine himself had created with evil magic for the sole purpose of making him his apprentice) to the dark side?  Or, do you mean before he had become the beloved leader who had seen the Republic through the darkest times, been voted all his emergency powers, eliminated Dooku, set up the Separatist leaders to be slaughtered, and had the individual Jedi Masters all spread out on different worlds, each surrounded by clone troopers?  Gee, I don’t know.  I can’t think of a single reason.  It doesn’t seem like timing was a factor at all…

“So, what motivation, now that the war is over, would the Jedis have to try and take over?”  

Much like Palpatine, the Jedi were about to lose their own emergency powers: the Jedi had become military leaders because of the Clone War.  

Palpatine:  All who gain power are afraid to lose it.  

Could it have been any more clearly spelled out?

“And, it’s really apparent by his actions that Palpatine is the one who’s trying to take over.  I mean, he is trying to be the Supreme Chancellor forever.”  

It’s really apparent to the movie audience.  As far as the characters are concerned, Palpatine never sought power – he’s had all his power thrust upon him – from his nomination and election to his emergency powers and extended term of office…  

“The opportunities to stop Palpatine’s plan and prevent Anakin from becoming evil were so numerous and obvious that they could be put in a giant list.  Let’s do that, shall we;”

“1. Tell Palpatine that his term is up.  If he changed the law, argue to make a new law to change it back.  Then ask him to state his reasons why it shouldn’t be changed back.  Ask him to explain why he in particular is so qualified to conduct a war.”

Okay … so, I guess the Jedi are now lobbyists, or legislators … who are attempting a coup that would, most bizarrely, take the form of an impromptu debate / job interview / competency hearing … thing…  Honestly, if you’re not just laughing (or weeping) at the idiocy…

“2. Use the process against him.  Have Jimmy Smits call for a vote of no confidence in Palpatine, if Step 1 doesn’t work.”

If Step 1 doesn’t work … ????????????  Call for a vote of no confidence on what basis?  Vague suspicion?  And Palpatine is going to be voted out by the same senators who applaud when he declares himself Emperor…?  Right.

“3. Find out facts about the Clone Army.  Look into where the clones came from a little more thoroughly than not at all.”  

They did, in the Clone Wars series.  

“4. Look into his heart.  If you suspect Palpatine is up to no good, try to sense his emotions.  If he’s able to block you, he just might know the ways of the Force, specifically the dark side.”

The Jedi sense his emotions, and discover that he’s feeling stressed out…  And…?  Seriously, what difference would it make how Palpatine was feeling, if you don’t know what those feelings are about.  As far as I’m aware, the Jedi can’t read minds.

“5. Midi-chlorian count.  Check his midi-chlorian count.  Get some blood from his stool.”

Sure, just get some of his blood.  ‘Cause that wouldn’t be impossible…  

The Jedi suspected that Palpatine was “up to no good”, not that he was a Sith Lord.  And even if they had suspected he was a Sith Lord, and they were somehow able to confirm that he had a high midi-chlorian count – it would be useless circumstantial evidence.  What would be the point…?

“6. Physically confront Palpatine.  Instead of confronting Palpatine inside his private cramped office hallway, wait until he’s in public to arrest him.  Eventually, he’ll try to escape, or attack you, and then he’ll be exposed in front of everyone.  If he doesn’t, then you can actually arrest him like planned, and elect a new leader in his place.”

Mace:  He has control of the senate, and the courts!  He’s too dangerous to be left alive!  

Arresting Palpatine in public would very, very likely have backfired.  And waiting to arrest him most certainly would have.

“7. Use blatantly obvious evidence to your advantage.  Before confronting Palpatine with a lightsaber, again in private with no witnesses, show the damning security tape footage to the senate, which is actually in session at the time you find it.  Or, take it to someplace and broadcast it over the news.”

You mean the “damning security tape footage” that, by itself, does nothing but corroborate Palpatine’s story?  And I’m sure the local news would be only too eager to run some footage brought to them by public enemy #1.

“8. Team up together and murder him!  Instead of splitting up, Obi-Wan and Yoda should have first attacked Palpatine, and then went and killed Anakin.”

Why do you think no one came to Palpatine’s aid when Yoda showed up in his office…?  

Palpatine:  I have waited a long time for this moment, my little green friend.  

If both Yoda and Obi-Wan had shown up, and Palpatine had thought there was a chance he would lose, I think it’s very likely the clone troopers from the Jedi temple massacre would’ve popped over for a visit.  Also, think about how Yoda exited the senate building…  

Wouldn’t have worked for Obi-Wan, would it?

Plinkett offers an alternative to the Jedi Council assigning Anakin to spy on Palpatine:

“Why don’t you spy on him by watching the security holograms that records what’s going on in his office?”

This suggestion accompanies a clip of Obi-Wan watching a security recording from the Jedi temple.  (Pssst.  Hey, Plinkett – Palpatine’s office is not in the Jedi temple.  Sorry…)

Plinkett claims that Anakin is dumb for not knowing that Palpatine is a Sith, simply because Palpatine knows about the Sith.  In reference to the scene in which Palpatine tells the story of Darth Plagueis:  

“It’s like being in a casual conversation with someone that you’ve known, and then they start talking about how they’re currently reading Mein Kampf.”

Actually, it’s a lot more like being in a conversation that’s not casual at all, and he references Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.  And it’s even more like Palpatine just received a liberal education (whereas Anakin did not).  It makes sense that, during the Empire’s reign, information about the Jedi and the Force would’ve been suppressed (Luke had never heard of the Force, and Han didn’t believe in it).  But, in the days of the Old Republic…?  The existence of the Sith would hardly have been esoteric knowledge, considering that they used to rule the galaxy.  

Plinkett says that Palpatine “seems to despise the Jedi, and keeps talking about the advantages of being a Sith Lord”.  Consider what’s actually happening in the scene: Palpatine is talking about the Jedi plotting against him – to the Jedi who the Council just sent to commit treason by spying on him.  From Anakin’s point of view, what Palpatine was doing was disparaging the Jedi by likening them to the Sith – and not without reason, as far as either one of them were concerned.  On the surface, the Plagueis story was simply meant to illustrate Palpatine’s point about the Jedi’s fear of losing their power.  The “advantages of being a Sith Lord” was something that Anakin just happened to pick up on…

When Anakin becomes Darth Vader:

“Dumbass agrees to just go off and kill everyone to neatly tie everything up, even though to him none of it would actually make sense.”  

Why not?  Obi-Wan put 2 and 2 together:

Obi-Wan:  The Chancellor is behind everything, including the war.  

Plinkett on Anakin’s motivation in the climactic lightsaber duel:

“Anakin is mad at Obi-Wan, ‘cause Obi-Wan’s a meanie-head.”  

Wow.  What an incisive observation…

“This entire sequence is the film version of compensating for lack of a story and ability to connect with the audience on an emotional level …  There are two types of people in this world; people that understand what I’m saying, and people that like the Star Wars prequels.”  

Wow.  What an arrogant jackass.

Plinkett complains about Vader’s “overblown importance” in the Prequels, that in the OT... 

“He was not Space Jesus”.  

Of course, the one and only thing that’s referred to as turning Vader into a Christ-figure is the “virgin birth”.  (Slightly off the subject, but – who ever said Shmi was a virgin?  Maybe she just did the math, and realized she couldn’t have been pregnant for 18 months…)  Personally, I think it works well for the story, and makes sense in that Star Wars has always been a synthesis of mythological archetypes.  And, of course, the symbol of the virgin birth is not exclusive to, nor did it originate with, the story of Christ:

“The virgin birth comes into Christianity by way of the Greek tradition.  When you read the four gospels, for example, the only one in which the virgin birth appears is the Gospel According to Luke, and Luke was a Greek.”  - Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“[Darth Vader] was way overemphasized in these films … for no reason other than he’s Darth Vader, and that he’s famous to us …  Lucas allowed the outside world to seep into the storyline, when it really shouldn’t have …  But, if you look back at it from a story perspective, in A New Hope, he was just a weirdo in a suit – he was a part of a bigger story … he just seemed like one of the bad guys that carried out the business of the Empire …  Vader was just some kind of asshole in a robot suit…”  

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…

Stoklasa is looking at this “problem” from exactly the wrong angle.  Whatever Vader seemed to be in A New Hope is irrelevant.  What matters is what Vader became by the end of Return of the Jedi.  And with all of Stoklasa’s referencing “Screenwriting 101” in relation to the Prequels, you’d think he might have done so here.  That is, the beginning and ending of a story are connected in that they are the opposite ends of the story’s “spine” – the one thing that the story is all about.  Beginnings foreshadow endings.  And so, in the case of the Star Wars saga, the beginning is determined by the ending.  Because, in a story’s end, in its climactic action, the ultimate meaning of the story is expressed…

The climax of the Star Wars saga is Darth Vader’s redemption.  Vader and Luke resolve their internal conflicts, one right after the other (Luke rejects the dark side and Vader turns back to the light), Vader kills the Emperor, at the cost of his own life, effectively destroying the Sith…  The Prequels were the set-up for this payoff.  That is, the Prequel Trilogy was primarily about Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the dark side, not because “Lucas allowed the outside world to seep into the storyline”, but because that’s what the story needed to be about – what it was already about.  

It’s called “basic story structure”.

How’s that for “Screenwriting 101”, asshole?

“How Vader became Vader is not as interesting as his redemption.  How he became Vader really didn’t matter.”  

Well … that’s an opinion.  So, what exactly makes this fucktard, who simply didn’t care about (or understand) the story being told, suited to judge the value of that story…?  

Of course, there are a godzillian more criticisms I could refute, but I think I’ve pretty effectively demonstrated that Plinkett’s reviews are pure bullshit.  How about you?  What do you think of Plinkett’s reviews, now?  Let’s be masochistic and check the comments section:

“It’s by far the greatest film essay ever made.  And hilarious too.”  

“One of the best ‘documentary’ movies ever made and should have won awards.”  

“The amazing thing about it is that it’s so astute.  Like when he asks his friends to describe any character from The Phantom Menace without describing their physical appearance or costume, and they can’t.”  

Oh, that.  

Impressed by that, were you?  Okay, here we go…

“The biggest and most glaring problem with The Phantom Menace is the characters.  This is, like, the most obvious part of moviemaking, but I guess I gotta explain it when talking about this turd.  Let’s start at Moviemaking 101, shall we?”  

Plinkett helpfully, or condescendingly, explains to us what a protagonist is:  

“The protagonist is someone that’s down on their luck, in a bad place in their lives, or someone where everything just doesn’t always go perfectly for them.  Eventually, they’ll be confronted with some kind of obstacle or struggle that they’ve got to deal with … eventually, our [protagonist] will find themselves in the lowest point, where it seems like all is lost.  But, eventually they’ll pull through, and conquer whatever force opposes them.  It’s satisfying when our hero gets ahead from where they started off at.  They make, like, a change.  This is called an arc.”  

Plinkett simply ignores the fact that his description of a protagonist fits multiple Prequel characters like a glove, and then, poses a question:  Who’s the main character?  One by one, he rules them all out for brief, reductive, glossed over, stupid reasons, and concludes:

“There isn’t one.”  

This is Plinkett’s first major criticism of the characters in The Phantom Menace: there isn’t a protagonist among them, and there isn’t a “main character”.  

But, what Plinkett offered as a definition of “protagonist” is rather a description of how a protagonist would typically be presented in a movie.  That is, a protagonist may or may not be down on his luck, may or may not be sympathetic, and may or may not “pull through, and conquer whatever force opposes them.”  A protagonist may experience internal conflict, leading to character growth, creating an arc – but not necessarily.  All that’s really required to be a protagonist is that the character has an outer motivation; a desire, or a goal.  And a story may contain multiple protagonists.  “It is known”.  ( …that was a Game of Thrones reference… )

Technically, the “main character” is the character whose outer motivation is the spine of the story.  (i.e. The main conflict centers around this character’s goal.)  In The Phantom Menace, that character is Queen Amidala.  As Lucas stated, in the Episode I commentary, it’s the Queen’s story, told from the point of view of the Jedi.  

By the way, this is the reason Plinkett gives that Queen Amidala can’t be the main character of Episode I:

“‘Cause she was some foreign queen”.  

Seriously.  That’s it.  And you don’t have to take my word for it…

Of course, Plinkett’s intention here is to give the impression that Lucas is such a dolt, such a complete hack, that he oops, forgot to include a protagonist.  But, it’s absurd.  You can’t have a story without a protagonist.  It doesn’t make any sense.

Plinkett’s second, or other, major criticism is that the characters are weak.  To demonstrate his point, he asks four or five people (friends?), to describe a couple characters from the Original Trilogy, and a couple from The Phantom Menace, without referencing their appearance or their vocation/“role”.  When asked to describe Han Solo, Plinkett’s little panel of experts comes up with “roguish” and “dashing” and “charming”, etc.  C-3PO: “prissy” and “bumbling” and “comic-relief”.  But, when they’re asked to describe the characters from The Phantom Menace, we briefly see them each struggle and stammer…  Qui-Gon Jinn: a couple of people mention that he has a beard…  Queen Amidala: one man immediately throws in the towel, and claims that describing her is “impossible” because “she doesn’t have a character”.

Do you see the little flaw with Plinkett’s method?  

“The more descriptive they could get, the stronger the character.”  

This is a fallacy: Argument from silence (argumentum ex silentio) – the conclusion is based on the absence of evidence, rather than the existence of evidence.  It’s the these-characters-are-weak-because-my-friends-are-inarticulate “argument”.  That is, if I ask you to describe a person or a thing, and you are unable to do so, it could mean that the person or thing is non-descript.  But, it could also simply mean that you are dumb.  So, which is it…?

It’s been pointed out many times, by many people, that the characters of the Original Trilogy are not complex and nuanced so much as they are types, or, put another way (with a slightly negative slant), clichéd.  Consider Plinkett’s own description of the OT characters:

“…the classic hero on a journey, the adventurous rogue, a damsel in distress, the wise old sage…”  

Does it get any more cliché than that?  

Clichés, of course, by virtue of being clichés, come quite readily to mind.  You don’t really have to think too hard about them.  That is, describing characters that are archetypal is possibly the easiest thing in the world to do…  

And are “strong” characters, and characters that can be easily and neatly summed up in a few words, really the same thing…?

In addition, the principal characters of the Original Trilogy are quite in-your-face (and in each other’s faces), whereas those of The Phantom Menace (the Queen and the Jedi) are relatively disciplined and restrained, which makes sense given their circumstances and vocations.  And this restraint is accentuated by those characters’ juxtaposition with the most over the top, in-your-face, silly character to ever appear in Star Wars.  

In Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia you had a farmboy, a space pirate, and a leader of a small band of rebel fighters (Yes, she was a princess, and “a member of the Imperial senate”, but she was pretty far removed from her status as royalty, and her position of influence within the galactic government, even before her planet was destroyed, and the Emperor dissolved the senate).  In the grand scheme, they started out as three nobodies who were in desperate danger up to their necks.  So, they held nothing back.  They argued, they shouted, they bickered, they called each other names…

Can you imagine the Episode I characters, the Queen and the Jedi, acting like that?  The audience would’ve criticized the film on that basis.  They would’ve wondered, why don’t they act more disciplined and restrained … like they did … in the film…?

It may be that Stoklasa and friends just don’t pick up on subtlety and nuance.  Remember, we’re talking about a guy whose idea of a subtle and nuanced character is a serial killer who constantly slurs his speech, only ever eats pizza rolls, and fucks his cat.

If you think about it, how difficult is it really to come up with a character description, to rival “roguish, dashing, and charming”, for Queen Amidala?  A character who was elected ruler of her people at fourteen-years-old ... who is so compassionate, and has such integrity, that she is opposed to putting even one anonymous boy, on some backwater planet, in harm’s way, when it would be expedient ... who, strictly speaking, is not a pacifist, but clearly committed to non-violence (until all other alternatives are exhausted) ... and who then bravely leads the charge to take back her world...  It’s not all that subtle, is it?

The point is that Stoklasa doesn’t explain why the characters are weak, he just shows footage of his friends saying nothing about them … until he gets to the review of the plot:  

Plinkett expresses a particular hatred for Qui-Gon Jinn.  His reasons…?  He says that Qui-Gon’s character is “totally baffling … and I do not know why he’s in this movie”, and refers to Qui-Gon as “a drunk”, and “Qui-Gon Booze”.  He says, “We constantly have to question every single action that’s taken by Qui-Gon”, and adds, sardonically, “the wise Jedi.”  

He impugns Qui-Gon’s judgment in stowing aboard the ships to reach Naboo, and in running the Trade Federation blockade:  

“Qui-Gon Jinn could’ve very easily gotten everyone killed!”  

He claims that Qui-Gon has “very questionable moral values”, pointing out that he’s dishonest, and…

“…repeatedly uses his Jedi mind trick to his advantage, whether it’s … to use worthless money to scam Watto out of his ship parts, or to fix a legitimate bet to his advantage.  It’s generally wrong to do these things, wouldn’t you say?”  

Well, gee, gosh, golly, Plinkett, you’re right – it is wrong to do those things…  Are you familiar with the term “dilemma”?  Morality aside – you’re clearly an expert on screenwriting (knowing what a protagonist is, and all), so you know that when a character faces a dilemma, he or she makes a choice between two irreconcilable goods, or the lesser of two evils.  And that this implies the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on context.  Yes, Qui-Gon did fix a legitimate bet – in order to cheat a slave master out of owning a human being.  To you, this is “wrong”?  But, it’s Qui-Gon Jinn’s moral values that are “very questionable”…?  In fact, Qui-Gon never uses the Jedi mind trick to his own advantage.  He uses it to help save people’s lives, and free them from slavery and oppression.

Plinkett asks, if the ends justify the means, why didn’t Qui-Gon just steal the part from Watto?  He suggests Qui-Gon could have taken the hyperdrive by force – by choking Watto, “while Pad-a-me grabs the part, and they run out of the shop”.  If we ignore the fact that “the part” was not something Padme could’ve grabbed and run out of the shop with (as it looked like it probably weighed about a thousand pounds), while it may have been a solution to Qui-Gon’s problem, how would this have played to an audience?  Seriously, a Jedi hero physically attacking a character who had not attacked him?  How would this have played to children…?  Scratch that.  How would this have played to Plinkett?  You don’t think he would have criticized it as being ridiculously out-of-character for a Jedi?

“This also leads me to believe that Qui-Gon Jinn is incredibly stupid.”  

In addition to the seeming implication that Qui-Gon is gullible (“Watto tells him he’s the only guy in town who’s got the part … Watto is using an older-than-dirt sales tactic…”), Plinkett asserts that there were a number of obvious simple solutions to Qui-Gon’s problem (simpler than the one he chose); Qui-Gon could’ve sneaked into Watto’s shop, in the middle of the night, and stolen the hyperdrive … “Trade the Naboo cruiser for a less fancy, but functional ship” … hire a transport … go to another junk dealer, and use the mind trick to swap the republic credits for money that Watto would take…

The practical difficulties, security risks, and potential negative consequences of these alternative solutions aside, consider what actually happens in the film:  The first thing Qui-Gon does after he leaves Watto’s shop is check with Obi-Wan to see if there’s anything aboard the ship with which to barter (seems perfectly reasonable).  Then, he and his group start walking to we-don’t-know-where, to attempt we-don’t-know-what…  We don’t know because the sandstorm hits, and they have to take shelter.  And before the storm is over, Qui-Gon has discovered that Anakin is strong with the Force…  That is, these alternative solutions are out of context.  They’re moot points.  We don’t know that these and/or other options were not, or would not have been, considered or attempted by Qui-Gon.  Not every thought that goes through a person’s head immediately and automatically flies out their mouth … unless they’re Plinkett, I guess.  

And Plinkett has criticized many scenes and sequences of the Prequels as being “boring”, and “stupid and pointless”, and as irrelevant “to the ultimate conclusion of the story”.  So, you’d think that the last thing he would want is the films to contain more such scenes…  

Suppose Episode I had included scenes of Qui-Gon going from junk dealer to junk dealer to confirm that Watto was indeed the only guy in town who had the part he needed.  And scenes of; him attempting to swap his republic credits for “something more real”, and to hire a transport, and to trade the Naboo ship for a functional one, and/or explanations as to why these were not viable, or desirable, options.  All in order to clearly demonstrate to the audience that Qui-Gon Jinn was not “incredibly stupid”.  The inclusion of these scenes certainly would have made the movie longer, but would they have made it better?  Would the movie have made more sense?  What do you think Plinkett would have thought of these scenes…?  Yeah.  Exactly.

“Instead of using, like, the most common sense approach to everything, Qui-Gon concocts some kind of convoluted scheme…”  

Plinkett then spends nearly two minutes pretending to be confused by the betting.  I’m not going to jump through this particular hoop.  The betting is not at all difficult to understand, and if you don’t get it from watching the movie, an explanation from me isn’t going to do you any good.

At one point, Plinkett seems to be speaking directly, and scornfully, to Qui-Gon himself:  

“You say you took R2-D2 because he has the specs on the type of part you need, but yet Watto seems to know what you’re talking about, and you have a thingy that shows it.”  

Actually, the “thingy” shows an image of the ship, not the part.  And although Plinkett repeatedly implies that he finds it implausible when Qui-Gon is seemingly guided by the Force, he now, paradoxically, thinks it’s absurd that Qui-Gon didn’t have a premonition about Watto’s ship-parts knowledge…

Have you ever seen anyone work this hard to invent reasons to hate a fictional character?  Have you ever heard anyone, other than Plinkett, say that they didn’t like Episode I, because Qui-Gon Jinn was stupid, and had questionable moral values?  No, I didn’t think so.  So, what’s the real reason that Plinkett hates Qui-Gon Jinn…?

“The older, wiser Jedi is the opposite of what he should be.”  

I think that pretty much sums it up.  Qui-Gon doesn’t conform to the expected cliché.  And we know how Plinkett loves his clichés.

And after all Plinkett’s yammering about Qui-Gon, we run into this glaring contradiction:

“The more descriptive they could get, the stronger the character.”  

“An incredibly stupid drunk, with poor judgment, and very questionable moral values.”  

I’d say that’s at least as descriptive as “roguish, dashing, and charming”, wouldn’t you?  I mean, I’m not saying that I agree with the description, but for a character he initially claimed was non-descript, Plinkett sure found a hell of a lot to say about him.  

But, the most telling moment isn’t even in Plinkett’s Phantom Menace review.  It’s in the Phantom Menace Review Interview Outtakes:  Stoklasa asks one of his friends, “Can you explain the difference between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn … in Phantom Menace?”  After a pause of about three seconds, “No.”  And they laugh.  Fade out.  

Taking into account that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are both “good guys”, and both Jedi, the distinction between the two couldn’t have been more sharply drawn.  Their characters are contrasted throughout the entire film;  Qui-Gon is serious, Obi-Wan is flippant.  Qui-Gon is warm, Obi-Wan is aloof.  Qui-Gon is serene, Obi-Wan is anxious.  Qui-Gon is unconventional, Obi-Wan is by-the-book.  Obi-Wan is reverent of authority and tradition.  Qui-Gon is a maverick who trusts his own instincts and judgment above all.  Obi-Wan is the skeptic.  Qui-Gon is the true believer.  Obi-Wan is clearly frustrated with his Master’s seemingly reckless and rebellious nature.  Qui-Gon grows impatient with having his judgment questioned by his Apprentice.  As much as it’s possible for two good Jedi to be opposites, these two are opposites.  Even when it comes to the lightsaber duel, when they’re separated by the ray shield doors... 

Obi-Wan is on his feet, ready for the fight... 

...and Qui-Gon has entered a meditative state – and looks as though he may have fallen asleep.  

And Stoklasa and his toadies didn’t notice any of this…?  

Stoklasa asks his friend if he can tell the difference between the two characters, and all the genius can say is “no”.  And then, they laugh.  That’s the point.  It’s a small group of friends who didn’t like The Phantom Menace, haven’t wasted a single thought on it, and find it funny that Stoklasa’s tearing it down.  There’s nothing more to it than that.  And Stoklasa’s little demonstration “proves” exactly nothing.

Concluded in Part 3…

[nerdonymous-blog]

Refuting Mr. Plinkett

Part 1:  The Do-It-Yourself Guide 

I’ve often made the mistake of looking at comments sections when reading articles online … and I kept finding the same (or similar) comment: that the Star Wars prequels are “objectively bad films” (oxymoron), followed by the advisement that I, or whomever, should “Google Mr. Plinkett + (any of the prequel titles)”.  Eventually, I did just that.  And I wound up watching all three of Plinkett’s Prequel reviews beginning to end.  

Did they convince me that the Prequels are “objectively bad films”?  Nope.  And I doubt they’ve convinced anyone.  I imagine that anyone who has made it through even one of the Plinkett reviews has strong feelings about the films one way and/or the other, and that those feelings were unchanged by the reviews (i.e. those who liked the films before liked them after, and for the same reasons, and those who disliked them before disliked them after, and for the same reasons).  I suppose the reviews might have had the effect of making some who disliked the films feel more “correct” (having been provided with so much ammunition), and some who liked them feel stupid, embarrassed and ashamed for liking them…

Regardless, if you think that what you’re hearing, when you listen to a Plinkett Star Wars review, is a humorous presentation of a serious in-depth analysis, you’ve been bamboozled.  What you’re actually hearing is a humorous presentation of a pseudo-intellectualized temper tantrum, the motivation for which has little to do with the quality of the films being reviewed.  

I’m disinclined to write a point for point rebuttal of Plinkett’s reviews, because I’m a slow typist, and I have a few other things I’d like to do before I die.  Plus, someone’s already done it.  There’s a 108 page rebuttal of Plinkett’s Phantom Menace review, written by (the likely pseudonymous) Jim Raynor.  And I made the mistake of reading comments about it…

In his Phantom Menace review, in reference to the scene in which the Queen’s ship runs the Trade Federation blockade, Plinkett says:

“After the shields are back up … they don’t get hit again.  So, really, R2 fixing the shield generator did nothing at all.”  

Actually, after R2 fixes the generator, there’s a series of seven shots, during which the Queen’s ship is continuously fired upon, before we see it pass the blockade.  In the shot that begins 0:26:28, they very obviously get hit, at least twice.  Of course, Raynor rightly points this out…

And then I read a comment from some guy who said, in so many words, that Plinkett’s criticism was still valid, because he didn’t notice (or remember) that the ship got hit, and he took Plinkett’s word for it … and then he blamed the editing in the film…  

Right.  

Refuting Plinkett is easy … in your head.  Refuting Plinkett to Plinkett fans … probably impossible.  They simply won’t allow it.  I mean, what hope is there for refuting his bullshit with reason, if you can’t even refute it with fact…?  

Plinkett likes to throw the word “logic” around, presumably to give himself an air of authority, but there’s a fallacy underlying virtually all of his criticism: the assumption that whatever he claims is true, unless it can be proved false (and sometimes - apparently - even if it can be proved false).  Logically, no assumption should be made either way.  That is, Plinkett makes claims, but he offers no support for his claims.  Plinkett fans simply accept them as true, without reason, and then inappropriately put the onus on anyone who tries to refute them.  It’s absurd.  

This is how it works:  Plinkett claims the plot of a film is nonsensical.  In an attempt to refute his claim, you explain how the plot does make sense.  But, comprehending the plot of a film requires you to make inferences.  Plinkett Fan considers inferences to be inherently arguable.  Rather than fairly evaluate your inferences, Plinkett Fan simply concludes that anything arguable is not “proof”, and dismisses your explanation as being “just your interpretation”.  But, by that reasoning, Plinkett’s claim that the plot is nonsensical is just his interpretation.  So, what makes his interpretation superior to yours?  The assumption that whatever Plinkett claims is true, unless it can be proved false.  

If your “interpretation” makes sense of the plot that Plinkett claimed was nonsensical, and this is not considered a refutation of his claim … what would be...?  Exactly: nothing.  This is what they call a Catch-22.  The only means available to refute Plinkett is judged insufficient to refute him, making the task of refuting him impossible.

This is how it should work:  When Plinkett claims the plot of a film is nonsensical, it is not simply assumed that his claim is true.  When you offer your “interpretation”, it is fairly evaluated: if your inferences are logical, and your reasoning is sound, it is accepted as proof that the plot makes sense, and as a refutation of Plinkett’s claim.  Because it is only by making inferences, and reasoning – by “interpretation” – that we make sense of movie plots, or anything else for that matter.  It is the way that movie plots make sense – it’s the only way that movie plots ever make sense.  

Or, put another way:  If you can make sense of the plot, the plot makes sense.   Period.

Here’s a specific example from Plinkett’s Phantom Menace review:

Plinkett claims that nothing in the movie “makes any sense at all”, that “it comes off like a script written by an eight-year-old”, and was “a stupid incoherent mess”.  

He hits us with the hypothetical, What if Amidala had signed the treaty right away?  

“The crisis would be over, and there’d be no need for a vote of no confidence.”  

“The crisis would be over”?  According to whom…?  Do you think the Naboo would have thought the crisis was over?  Do you think the Jedi would’ve thought the crisis was over?  Do you think the Supreme Chancellor would have thought the crisis was over?  More like the crisis would have gotten much worse.  And, “there’d be no need for a vote of no confidence”?  Because…?

It’s established, at the beginning of the film, that Palpatine/Sidious is willing and able to modify his evil plans in response to changing circumstances.  When the Jedi arrive at the Trade Federation blockade:

Sidious:  This turn of events is unfortunate.  We must accelerate our plans.  Begin landing your troops.

As Amidala escaping Naboo and making it to Coruscant was not part of Palpatine’s plan, we can infer that he originally intended that someone (probably not Amidala, and almost certainly not himself) would call for the vote of no confidence, at a later time – after the Queen had signed a treaty, under duress, indemnifying the Trade Federation, and tying Valorum’s hands in bureaucratic red tape, making him look like an ineffective leader.  

Amidala didn’t call for the vote because her people weren’t receiving “space supplies” – she did it because her planet was occupied, her people were imprisoned, suffering, and (she was led to believe) dying, and Valorum couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take swift action to resolve the matter … and Amidala was impatient…

So, in Palpatine’s original plan, the occupation would’ve needed to go on longer, and the Naboo would’ve needed to suffer more.  That was, in part, what the treaty was for: to make it damn near impossible for Valorum to (relatively quickly) put an end to the Trade Federation’s occupation of Naboo.  

Palpatine was relying on two things to succeed in his attempt to supplant Valorum; a successful vote of no confidence, and the sympathy vote for him.  Ousting Valorum was accomplished sooner, and, apparently, more easily than Palpatine had originally anticipated.  

In regard to Palpatine’s election, which scenario do you think would most reliably “create a strong sympathy vote” for him;  

A. The people of his world were inconvenienced by a blockade.  

B. The Queen of his world was coerced into signing a treaty.  

C. The people of his world were oppressed and slaughtered.  

(The answer is C.)  Palpatine wanted an atrocity, which would all but guarantee that he would be elected Supreme Chancellor.  

This is all based on information conveyed in the film.  My inferences are logical.  My reasoning is sound.  And it makes perfect sense.  So, of course, it will be dismissed as being “just my interpretation”…

…and Plinkett’s interpretation will be accepted as true, because … uh … he speaks with confidence … and says things like “common sense” and “logic” and “coherent”…

He claims that if the Queen had signed the treaty right away, “the crisis would be over, and there’d be no need for a vote of no confidence”.  

And here’s Plinkett’s support for his claim:

(…the sound of crickets chirping…)

No, wait, here’s what it was:  

“See what I mean, this sounding like an eight-year-old wrote it?”  

A childish insult.

In Plinkett’s interpretation, if Amidala had signed the treaty, Supreme Chancellor Valorum, the senators, the Jedi, and the Naboo would’ve shrugged, “Problem solved”.

Hey, Plinkett fans.  Be honest.  (Relax – I mean: be honest with yourself.  I’d never expect you to admit anything.)  Does Plinkett’s interpretation actually make sense to you…?  Or, does it just sound incredibly stupid?

Let’s do one more from Plinkett’s Phantom Menace review (a quick one):

When Amidala returns to Naboo, Plinkett says,

“All of a sudden, the whole blockade is gone, too.  And there’s just one ship.  Where’d they go?  That’s convenient.”  

Is it convenient … or, does it just make sense?  Remember how the Trade Federation invaded the planet?  And remember how they imprisoned all its citizens?  And do you remember when Nute Gunray reported to Sidious...

Nute Gunray:  We are in complete control of the planet, now.  

Why would the Trade Federation continue to blockade a planet, if they’re in “complete control” of it, on the surface?

My “interpretation” is that the ships are gone because there’s no longer any need for them to be there.  It’s supported by information conveyed in the film, and it makes perfect sense.

Plinkett claims the ships are gone simply for plot convenience.

And here’s his support for his claim:

Oh.  Nothing.  Again.

Nearly every single criticism, in all three of Plinkett’s Prequel reviews, is just as idiotic as the above two examples (and the rest of them are even more idiotic).  And so, of course, people respond exactly the way you’d expect them to.  Just look at the comments section:

“It’s been a while since I have watched this, but I remember being amazed at how much insight this guy had.”

“This is all you need to know.  Seriously.  It’s genius.”

“Fucking genius.”

I didn’t make those up.  Real people actually said those things.

As I said, refuting Plinkett is easy.  It’s a two step process;  

First, comprehend the films.  

Second, actually think about what Plinkett says, instead of just listening, and mindlessly accepting it.  

In rare cases, there may be a third step: fact checking – to find out if Plinkett’s lying (fact: yes, he’s lying).

But, arguing with Plinkett fans … forget it.  Plinkett is immune to criticism.  His reviews are unassailable.  People who want to believe what he says will find a way to believe it (or “believe” it), no matter what they’re faced with … which, more or less, makes Plinkett a cult leader…

So, rather than refuting everything the leader says point for point, I’d just like to talk about his reviews in a more general way – a sort of review of his reviews.  Of course, I will be giving examples, and refuting some of Plinkett’s criticisms … and I know that what I have to say would be dismissed, by Plinkett fans, as being “just my interpretation”.  But, there’s a distinction between interpretation and comprehension, and (as it applies here) it’s this:

Plinkett’s interpretation requires him to make baseless assumptions, play dumb, use illogic logic, contradict himself, ignore facts, distort facts, take things out of context, exaggerate, and make wildly inconsistent comparisons.  My “interpretation” requires me to do none of those things.

Plinkett’s approach to reviewing the Prequels is a lot like Tyler Durden’s approach to recruiting “space monkeys” for Project Mayhem…

Tyler:  If the applicant is young, tell him he’s too young.  Old, too old.  Fat, too fat…

Find fault with everything, using whatever is available as a basis.  If nothing is available, make something up…  

If a character’s motivation is implied, rather than stated explicitly, whatever the character does is “for no reason”, and “baffling”…  If a character acts on knowledge he has but the audience lacks, the character is foolish, or reckless.  If a character doesn’t know something that’s been revealed to the audience, the character is “blind and stupid”…  If a character struggles with a problem that’s presented as complex and difficult, the solution is simple and obvious.  If a character sees anything as being obvious, he’s “jumping to conclusions”…  If a character goes right, he should have gone left.  If he goes left, he should have gone right…  

Break up the tedium with low-brow shock value humor…  

If there’s more than one possible explanation for something that happens, the explanation that makes the least sense is the one that was intended by George Lucas…  If something is different from the Original Trilogy, it’s wrong.  If it’s the same, or similar, it’s a rip-off…  Action sequences that are included in the film are “pointless and boring”.  Action sequences that are not included in the film are “lost opportunities”…  

Criticize Lucas’s use of scatological humor, then follow with a bit about your spastic colon…

If something is explained in the film, it’s boring and/or nonsensical.  If something is not explained in the film, it was crucial information, and we can’t follow the plot without it...  

For example, in his Phantom Menace review, Plinkett goes on and on about how important it was to know what kind of “space supplies” the Naboo were prevented from receiving by the blockade, when in fact, this information is simply irrelevant…  

Be honest: when you were watching The Phantom Menace for the first time, were you thinking to yourself, I can’t follow the plot, because I don’t know what supplies the Naboo aren’t receiving…?  No.  No one was.  Not even Plinkett.  He points it out as a flaw for no other reason than it was his agenda to point out everything as a flaw.  If it had been revealed what the Naboo weren’t receiving, Plinkett would have misrepresented it, then claimed it didn’t make any sense and/or was boring, and a waste of his time.  And that’s Plinkett, in a nutshell.  

So, if you’re one of those people who marvel at Plinkett’s “intelligent” and “insightful” reviews, and you wonder how he comes up with all his “brilliant observations”, I promise you, this is how.

(If you want to see just how easy it is to do what Plinkett does, check out my Mr. Plinkett-esque The Empire Strikes Back review.)

The paradoxical nature of his reviews is that while Plinkett criticizes the Prequels on the basis that they are illogical, his criticisms are the product of fallacious reasoning.  (i.e. The plots make sense.  His criticisms don’t.)

He gets much of his material from misrepresenting the plots, by asking loaded questions.

In The Phantom Menace, it’s spelled out for the audience why the Jedi are sent to meet with the Neimoidians; the crawl text stating they were “secretly dispatched”, Obi-Wan’s line about “the Chancellor’s demands”, Dofine’s line about the Jedi being there “to force a settlement”, Amidala’s line to Nute Gunray, “…you have been commanded to reach a settlement”…  

Somehow, Plinkett missed all this, and he asks, 

“What makes the Jedi Knights experts in intergalactic trade laws?” 

when there’s nothing in the film to suggest that they are, or would need to be.

When the Neimoidians begin their invasion of Naboo, Plinkett asks,

“How does killing the Jedi or creating a communications blackout on the planet even get word back to the senate that there’s a crisis?!”  

You’re meant to think, Hey, yeah!  Neither of those things would get word back to the senate!  – and that’s all you’re meant to think.  This is one of those instances where I honestly don’t know whether Stoklasa is just playing dumb, or if he actually is dumb…    

The senate already knows there’s a crisis.  What they don’t know is that the Trade Federation is planning to invade the planet.  The Neimoidians disrupted the Naboo’s communications and attempted to kill the Jedi for exactly the opposite reason: they don’t want word getting back to the senate … until after Amidala signs the treaty.  If you saw The Phantom Menace, and you didn’t understand that – forgive me, but – you’re dumber than a box of rocks.

Many of Plinkett’s criticisms are (and/or are based on) non-sequiturs.

When the Neimoidians attempt to kill the Jedi with “dioxis” gas, Plinkett says,

“The Jedi hold their breath, which implies there’s some kind of danger of them running out of breath, right?”  

No, Mr. Logic, it implies that they don’t want to be poisoned to death.  

“Maybe they could hold their breath for, like, two hours, ‘cause they’re Jedis.  Well, no, that’s not true, ‘cause later in the film, we see they need to use them breathing things underwater, for that short swim to the gunga sea world.”  

Leaving aside that we don’t know that it was a “short swim”, as movies usually don’t take place in real-time – the “logic” is: if they didn’t absolutely need to use “them breathing things”, they wouldn’t have used them?  You think that if the Jedi were capable of holding their breath for the duration of the swim, they would have, even if they didn’t need to?  That’s what you’re saying…?  Why would they do that?  For fun?  

Something you discover when listening to Plinkett’s reviews is that he has no appreciation for the distinction between “inexplicable” and “unexplained”.  He just assumes that anything that’s not made explicit must be illogical.  If he doesn’t get it, it doesn’t make sense.

Plinkett claims that it makes no sense that the Neimoidians would do Palpatine’s bidding because there’s nothing he could offer them to gain their cooperation…  

“Why are the [Neimoidians] taking orders from this mystery hologram, again?  What did he promise them…?  Seriously, what was it?  Oh.  We’re never told, are we?”  

Ever consider that you weren’t told because the answer was literally right in front of your face?

Plinkett frequently offers alternative solutions and explanations that are stunningly moronic.

When they reach the hangar bay, and discover the invasion army, Plinkett suggests that the two Jedi should fight the entire army, steal a ship, and head back to Coruscant.  

Do I need to say anything here?  

The two Jedi should fight all of the droids on the control ship, including however many destroyers (despite the fact that facing two destroyers resulted in a stand-off), in a hangar (which includes a giant laser turret that comes down from the ceiling), where they can’t effectively take cover, on a ship that’s controlled by the enemy…?  Not a smart plan.

Plinkett says that Qui-Gon is “jumping to conclusions” when he tells Boss Nass that the droid army is going to attack the Naboo.  Then, he starts speculating as to what alternative purpose the Trade Federation’s planetary invasion could possibly have, and comes up with a whopping two “plausible” scenarios, neither of which have any basis in fact, or anything resembling rational thought;

1. “Maybe they just want to steal some kind of priceless artifact from the Naboo.”  

????????????  …and forcibly taking this hypothetical “artifact”, with the insane overkill of an invading army … wouldn’t be described as an attack?  

2. “Maybe the Naboo did some kind of horrific act against the Trade Federation, and they’re just getting some revenge.”  

Okay, what…? the fuck are you talking about?  The Naboo “did some kind of horrific act”?  And the Federation is “just getting some revenge” … by not attacking…?  

Plinkett tries to create false impressions by making incomplete and inconsistent comparisons.

Because Plinkett has to find reasons to hate absolutely everything, including the kick-ass lightsaber duel at the end of Phantom Menace…

“Their flawless choreography lacks all humanity and emotion.”  

…groan…  

Have you ever heard of a martial artist having his fighting technique criticized on the basis that it lacked emotion?

Plinkett references the lightsaber duel from Return of the Jedi:  

“Hey, remember when Luke Skywalker got really pissed, and snapped, when Vader was taunting him?  Remember how worked up and emotional he got?”

Yes, I remember that.  Hey, remember Mask of Zorro?  When Anthony Hopkins stopped Antonio Banderas from attacking while worked up and emotional, and told him that he “would have fought very bravely, and died very quickly”?  How he told him to “never attack in anger”?

Plinkett continues:

“When you’re worked up with emotion, you begin to lose your composure and control…”  

Exactly my point.  The difference in context of the Episode I duel and the Episode VI duel is as night and day.  Vader didn’t really want to kill Luke.  Darth Maul really did want to kill Obi-Wan.  Luke could get away with becoming overwhelmed by emotion, and spazzing out.  If Obi-Wan had done the same, lost his composure and control to that degree … he would have fought very bravely, and died very quickly.

“…you expose your humanity a little.  Obi-Wan should have done that just a bit.”

Obi-Wan should have done that just a bit?

Uh … he didn’t?  What the fuck movie were you watching?

In any case, this comparison (as Plinkett’s comparisons typically are) is ridiculous.  In addition to the differences in context, he’s comparing the fight that essentially introduces the threat of the Sith, at the beginning of the story, to the emotional climax of the entire Saga.  And then, in the most condescending manner possible, he goes on and on comparing the emotional content of the Original Trilogy duels to the choreography of the Prequel Trilogy duels … and conveniently ignores the emotion evoked by Qui-Gon’s death, and Obi-Wan’s loss…

“You see, we need a deeper meaning to things.  Without it, none of it really matters, does it?”  

Blah, blah, blah…  A Jedi in his prime, fighting in the prime of the Jedi, had better technique, more composure, and greater control than Luke Skywalker, who trained with Yoda for three days.  That just makes sense.  

And I would wager vital organs that if the choreography of the Prequel duels had not been faster and more sophisticated than that of the Original Trilogy duels, we’d be listening to Plinkett bitch about that…

Plinkett’s criticisms are often self-contradictory.

Despite the fact that Yoda senses grave danger in Anakin’s training, the Jedi council

“reluctantly agrees to let Obi-Wan train the boy, for no real reason … for no reason at all, they allow the training.”  

Wait for it…

“These are Jedi Masters, whose entire existence is solely based on the Force, feelings, premonition, and prophecy.”  

And there it is: prophecy.  Initially, the Jedi were skeptical that the Sith had returned, and that Anakin was “the chosen one” – and, of course, the two things are related.  By the end of the film, the Jedi were convinced that the Sith had returned.  And so, it’s clear their reason for allowing the training was their feelings that “the chosen one the boy may be”, and that if he was, they would need him.

In Plinkett’s Attack of the Clones review, he claims that Obi-Wan is not relatable, because he’s 

“very distant, ‘cause he’s like a weird monk, without any personality”.  

Later, when he’s making a different point, he says,

“Obi-Wan, you know, he smiles, he laughs, he gets annoyed, he enjoys a good sarcastic quip, sometimes he gets really, really pissed off…  So, really, the only thing that made Obi-Wan different from, like, a normal person was that he didn’t express any interest in chicks.”  

Have fun making inferences from those two statements.  (Normal people don’t have personalities…?)    

Sometimes, a single criticism from Plinkett can be overwhelming, because it’s the result of a confluence of so many stupid errors (or on-purposes) on his part.  And the task of refuting it (in writing) becomes enormous, relative to the “size” of the criticism.  

Here’s an example of what I mean:

In The Phantom Menace, based on the fact that Boss Nass told the Jedi that the quickest way to reach the Naboo was through the planet core, Plinkett claims it’s nonsensical that the droid army landed on “the other side of the planet” (the opposite side from Theed Palace).  Simple, right?

And here’s a list of errors in Plinkett’s (implied) reasoning;  

1. The unsupported belief that the Jedi necessarily travel the full diameter of the planet, through the mathematical point that is the exact center of the planet, to the antipode of their point of departure.  Why does their trip to the planet core and back to the surface have to have been a straight line?  Why couldn’t it have been at a 90 degree angle?  Or, a 45 degree angle?

2. The baseless assumption that the planet core is small, and deep beneath the surface.  A planet core is not just a mathematical point – it’s a large area, and larger in some planets than in others.  (In our solar system alone, core size ranges from 20% to 85% of a planet’s radius.)  

3. The baseless assumption that the term “planet core” means the same thing on Naboo, and to the Gungans, as it means on Earth, and to us.  A planet core can be entirely liquid, and there is nothing more specific mentioned in the film (planet crust, upper mantle, lower mantle, outer core, inner core).  In addition to the possibility that the term “planet core” is used colloquially in this context, we have no reason to believe that traveling through the planet core means anything more specific than traveling beneath the continent upon which the city of Theed is built.

4. Ignores the significance of traveling by sea, rather than by land.  The “bongo”, the transport the Jedi acquired from the Gungans, does not travel on land.  Traveling by land would have undoubtedly provided a more direct path than traveling by sea at the water’s surface: traveling along the coastline would have required the Jedi to circumnavigate the continent until reaching an inlet to the city.  (i.e. Theed could have been 200 miles away by land, but 4,000 miles away by sea – at the water’s surface.)  That is, the route the Jedi took was the shortest distance by sea – it doesn’t follow that it was shorter than the shortest distance by land.  Therefore, it does not require the droid army to have landed on “the other side of the planet”.

5. Takes the invasion of Theed out of context.  Plinkett asks why the Federation army landed any distance from the city.  “Why not just land right outside the city?  Or in the city?”  In addition to the glaringly obvious (that the enemy forces would have been vulnerable to a potential Naboo attack, before having had the opportunity to deploy troops and tanks), the Federation wasn’t invading a city – they were taking over a planet.  Don’t you think it’s just possible that there was more than one Naboo city on the entire planet…?

That is, the Trade Federation landed ships, as you can plainly see in the film, and as Plinkett himself says, “hundreds if not thousands of miles” from each other, because they landed ships all over the planet.  Yet, Plinkett (self-contradictorily) expects you to believe that they landed in one spot, on one side of the planet, and then moved all their vehicles, along the surface, to the opposite side, in order to invade Theed.  This is what Plinkett fans call “genius”…?  Just how dumb do you have to be…?

Plinkett “proves” that dialogue, actions and events are nonsensical by taking them out of context.

“The senate wanted to send an independent team to investigate whether or not the invasion was real.  I guess the testimony of two Jedi Knights wasn’t good enough.  Those were the guys that Valorum trusted enough to settle the whole dispute in the first place?  That don’t make sense.”  

Don’t it?  Valorum sending the Jedi in secret (without the knowledge or support of the senate), his being “mired by baseless accusations of corruption”, and the assertion that “the bureaucrats are in charge now” strongly implies that regardless that their testimony may be “good enough” for him, personally (i.e. he believes them), he can’t use it in an official capacity.  And, yes, it do make sense that Valorum trusted the Jedi to settle the dispute, considering that he could not have anticipated that it would involve; a Sith Lord, a conspiracy, murder, attempted murder, and planetary invasion.

Plinkett makes claims that are patently false.

In Attack of the Clones, when Anakin lands on top of Zam Wessel’s speeder, Plinkett says,

“Despite having almost no information at all, Anakin … attempts to murder her, with his lightsaber.”  

Oh … is that what happened?  That’s why Anakin said he took his “short cut” to avoid the assassin being killed before he could get information from her?  

And that’s why he stabbed his lightsaber through the canopy on the right side, instead of the left, where she was sitting?  He just happened to miss her by a few feet, despite the fact that she was sitting perfectly still?  I’m convinced.

He makes claims that are outrageously stupid.

“Why aren’t the Jedis allowed to love? …  It’s never really explained.”  

It’s not only explained, it’s also dramatized over the course of three films.  You could say that it’s the over-arcing story of the Prequel Trilogy.  How do you think Plinkett managed to miss that…?  

Must be because he’s so insightful, right?

Whether intentional or unintentional, he bases criticisms on misinterpretation.

Plinkett is, of course, highly critical of Amidala’s plan, in Phantom Menace, to take back her planet.  And of one line of dialogue in particular:

Amidala:  Without the Viceroy, they will be lost and confused.  

“How do you know for sure that the robots will be lost and confused, without the Viceroy?  …it just kind of seems like you’re making up a bunch of b.s. right now.  Hey, maybe they’re programmed to just keep doing what they’re doing, regardless, until they receive more orders.”  

Yeah, that’s probably true.  Hey Plinkett, she didn’t say that the droids would be lost and confused.  She was referring to the other Neimoidians.  You know, the what’s-wrong-with-your-face people.  The ones who give the droids their orders.

Many of his criticisms are highly subjective and/or hyperbolic.

Plinkett says that the duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith goes on 

“so long that it actually becomes boring”.  

He claims it lasts 45 minutes.  Then, he claims it lasts 2 hours.

If you were to edit the footage of each lightsaber duel into a continuous sequence, and then time them from the instant the first lightsaber is ignited to the final strike that ends the fight, you’d find that the one in The Empire Strikes Back lasts 4 minutes 55 seconds.  The Sith duel clocks in at 6:24 – 1 minute 29 seconds longer than the Empire duel.  

Maybe Plinkett wouldn’t have found it boring if he hadn’t known the outcome ahead of time…

Plinkett’s reviews are such an incredibly convoluted mess of so many varieties of bullshit that it would literally take me months (if not years) to unravel it all and refute everything in writing.  (As Plinkett says, “It’s almost mind-boggling how complex the awfulness is.”)  

And what would be the point?  In essence, refuting Mr. Plinkett amounts to nothing more than explaining the plots of films to people who are too dumb to understand them, or too stubborn to ever admit that your explanation makes sense.  So, what I’d like to do instead is a brief overview that focuses on how grossly Plinkett has to misrepresent the Prequels in order to do his reviews…

Continued in Part 2…

[nerdonymous-blog]

Why Rey is a Solo

(and why you probably shouldn’t care anymore)

***This post is made from 95% recycled material!***

Back in December 2015, when I saw The Force Awakens, and it came to the end, in addition to a thousand other negative things I was thinking, I thought, Really, J. J.?  You’re going to make us wait two years to confirm what everyone already knows?  As far as I was concerned, it was perfectly obvious that Rey was the daughter of Han and Leia, and it was completely ridiculous that Abrams would believe it was a strong enough mystery to keep us in suspense for two hours, let alone two years…

So, imagine my surprise (more like shock and horror) when I started hearing the speculation; that Rey must be a descendent of Palpatine, because she did a thrust with her lightsaber, just like Palpatine did in Episode III … that she is a Kenobi, because she has a British accent … that she must be Luke’s daughter, because her name has to be “Skywalker” … I guess…

While these “theories” might have been convincing to some, to me they were about as compelling as; Rey is a desert scavenger, so she must be a Jawa … she fights with a staff, so she must be Darth Maul’s daughter … she understands many languages, droids and Wookiees, so she must be related to C-3PO … Rey has two eyes and one nose, so she must be the daughter of Qui-Gon Jinn…

After I saw TFA, I expected that the whole world would be rolling their eyes with me … instead, I found that the whole world was enthralled by the wonderful mystery…  To this day, it boggles my mind…  Because there is something like a mountain of reasons to believe that Rey is Han and Leia’s daughter, and there really is no reason to believe that she’s the daughter of anyone other…  

And then, I went to see The Last Jedi, thinking, Finally, this stupid mystery-box crap will be over! because, at the time, it was unimaginable to me that the storytelling could actually sink so low as to treat a Star Wars saga film like it was a filler episode of some shitty TV show.  

So, what is this Rey’s-parents-are-drunks-who-sold-her-for-beer-money “revelation” in TLJ?  It’s a one-movie-too-late pathetically transparent attempt at misdirection.  

In the OT, the revelation that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father was a genuine surprise, because Lucas didn’t give away that a revelation was coming – by telling us that Luke’s father was alive out there somewhere, and that “Darth Vader” wasn’t Darth Vader’s real name.  And we believed Obi-Wan when he said that Vader had killed Luke’s father – the misdirection was effective, because it made us anticipate that Luke would avenge his father’s murder…  It gave the audience something to invest in emotionally – to root for.

Abrams’s set-up in the ST is precisely the opposite: he essentially announced to the audience that a revelation was coming, by the conspicuous absence of Rey’s surname, and her longing for her family to return…  And the misdirection in TLJ is completely ineffective – or should be – because it makes us anticipate … nothing in particular…  

So, why are people falling for it…?  If Rey’s parents really were a couple of nobodies, then there was no reason to set up their identities as a mystery in the first place…  And if the point was to make the eventual reveal of her true parentage a surprise, why didn’t they just establish that her parents were nobodies right from the beginning (in TFA)…?  

From Brian Hiatt’s Nov. 29 2017 Rolling Stone article, “Jedi Confidential”:

Unlike almost everyone else in the world, [Daisy] Ridley has known for years who Rey’s parents are, since Abrams told her on the set of The Force Awakens.  Ridley believes that nothing ever changed: “I thought what I was told in the beginning is what it is.”  Which is odd, because Johnson insists he had free rein to come up with any answer he wanted to the question.  “I wasn’t given any directive as to what that had to be,” he says.  “I was never given the information that she is this or she is that.”

The idea that Johnson and Abrams somehow landed on the same answer does seem to suggest that Rey’s parents aren’t some random, never-before-seen characters.  All that said, Abrams cryptically hints there may have been more coordination between him and Johnson than the latter director has let on, so who knows what's going on here – they may be messing with us to preserve one of Abrams’ precious mystery boxes.  In any case, Ridley loves the speculation: Her favorite fan theories involve immaculate conception and time travel.  It seems more likely that she’s either Luke’s daughter or his niece, but again, who knows.  

If Abrams told Daisy Ridley, on the set of TFA, who Rey’s parents were, then it was clearly not Rian Johnson’s decision.  And if it’s true that Johnson wasn’t instructed what the revelation in TLJ had to be, then it must be because he was instructed to not reveal the truth.  The Rey’s-parents-are-nobodies thing is just the pointless perpetuation of Abrams’s “mystery box”.

I’m sure you’ve heard the story of how Mark Hamill found out that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father – that he was told on the set of The Empire Strikes Back, on the day they shot the revelation scene.  And how the secret was kept from nearly everyone else who worked on the film, cast and crew, and that they found out the same way we did.  Even David Prowse wasn’t told – he delivered phony dialogue when they shot the scene…

The point is that these kinds of secrets, which are meant to be kept for years, tend to be shared on a need-to-know basis.  So, why do you think Daisy Ridley needed to know who Rey’s parents were, when filming The Force Awakens…?  Because Rey’s parents were a couple of never-to-be-seen nobodies…?  Or, do you think maybe it was because she was shooting scenes with Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, who play Han and Leia – Rey’s parents…?  

Oooooh … it’s so mysterious…

I know that there are people who like the idea of Rey being unrelated to the Skywalkers…  They complain Why do the main characters of Star Wars always have to be members of the Skywalker family?  Well, it’s because, as we all know, a “saga” is a story about multiple generations of a family.  That is, the reason the main characters of the Star Wars saga are always members of the Skywalker family is because the Star Wars saga is about the Skywalker family.  It wouldn’t make a ton of sense for the lead character of the Sequel Trilogy to be unrelated…  And while these people think that making Rey a member of the family would be a mistake, I think the mistake was making Rey’s parentage a mystery in the first place…

And, as of now, Disney/Lucasfilm plan to make three saga films (two down, one to go), and nine hundred quadrillion non-saga films.  Why would you wish for the hero(ine) of the Skywalker saga to be a non-Skywalker, when that wish is going to be fulfilled in all of the other nine hundred quadrillion Star Wars films…?  It makes absolutely no sense to me…

“Rey Solo” is/was pretty close to the least popular theory out there, but I’ve never doubted it…  Dramatically, it’s the only answer that makes sense.  That’s (one of the reasons) why it’s such a weak mystery…  In fact, the mystery is so weak that you knew the answer before they even asked the question…

If, in The Empire Strikes Back, they had revealed that Luke Skywalker had a sister, but made her identity a mystery, everyone’s first thought would’ve been that it’s Leia (because she was basically the only girl in Star Wars).  But, after a while, fans would’ve rejected the idea as being way too obvious to leave the audience in suspense for three years.  This would’ve been followed by ever-increasingly ridiculous speculation…

Essentially, that’s what happened for two years, between TFA and TLJ.  I call it “The Mystery Box Paradox”:  The reason it isn’t obvious who Rey’s parents are is because it’s way too obvious who Rey’s parents are.  

This…

Rey’s brother killed her father – right in front of her!

…is stronger than this…

Rey’s cousin killed her … uncle-by-marriage (or … uh, some guy whose ship she stole from another guy who stole it from some other guys who stole it from the guy who stole it from the guy her cousin killed right in front of her) right in front of her…

…in the same way that this…

“I am your father.”

…is stronger than this…

“I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate!”

That is, “Rey Skywalker” makes no sense, because it’s nothing but a watered-down “Rey Solo”.  

And every other possible revelation would be utterly pointless…

For example: “Rey Kenobi”.  What impact would this revelation have on the characters and their relationships?  Basically … none whatsoever.  If it affected Rey’s motivations at all, it would probably make her want to learn about the Kenobi family line.  And what does the Kenobi family currently have to do with the story being told…?  

Some people like(d) the Skywalker/Kenobi - master/apprentice reversal creating a sort of mirror symmetry, or inverted parallelism (Thanks Mike Klimo!), with the earlier films, and the consistency of the relationship between the two family lines.  I like it too, but it’s just an aesthetic value – it’s not a story. 

Everything that was done in TLJ, in regard to Rey’s parentage, from the meaningless hall-of-mirrors fake-out Force vision tease to Rey and Kylo’s awkwardly forced relationship, was in service of perpetuating the “mystery box”, and setting up the “surprising” reveal in Episode IX…

…which brings us to Reylo…  I don’t consider myself an “anti-Reylo”.  I’m much more of an “absolutely-baffled-by-Reylo”.  Do they really think the filmmakers are going to throw away all the drama and pathos of Rey discovering that her father was murdered right in front of her – by her brother…?  Why would they do that?  For what…?  So Rey and Kylo can make out…?  I mean, what is Reylo based on?  That they think Adam Driver’s cute…?  Patricide is hot…?  The wish that Star Wars were more like Twilight?  I’m completely serious – I do not get it.  If it’s based on something more substantive, I would love to know what it is…  Is it just yet another misinterpretation of what “balance to the Force” means…?

I’ve noticed some “Reylos” are celebrating that TLJ “made Reylo canon”.  They must have seen a different movie than the one I did.  The portrayal of Rey and Kylo’s relationship was non-committal and perfectly ambiguous.  What actually happened in the film was that they moved Rey and Kylo (unconvincingly) to the same place as Luke and Vader in the Original Trilogy.  (Join me, and we’ll rule the galaxy together … Don’t do this, Ben…  Yeah, don’t do this, Ben.  This isn’t you – you’re such a good guy.  Apart from being a cold-blooded murderer of defenseless old men, and stuff.)  It’s the same thing, just in reverse order:  In the OT, they revealed the blood relation, followed by internal conflict.  In the ST, they established the internal conflict first … which doesn’t really work, but…

And Reylo is a good example of (one of the reasons) why making Rey’s parentage a mystery was a very stupid thing to do: because it allows people to grow so attached to their own idea of what it ought to be that the inevitable consequence is guaranteed disappointment.

In the two years between TFA and TLJ, in all the endless speculation, I never heard a single argument that was even remotely persuasive that Rey was the daughter or descendent of Palpatine, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, or whomever.  The “theories” started out dumb, and just got dumber.  Any human character, that could potentially have procreated, was put forth as possibly being one of Rey’s parents; Jyn Erso, Ezra Bridger, Emilia Clarke’s character from the upcoming Han Solo movie, a couple of video game characters from Battlefront II…  It was like speculating about Rey’s parentage became an activity that people just mindlessly engaged in for its own sake … a little game they played, out of sheer boredom…  Who can come up with the most baseless, sensationalistic, pointless Wouldn’t it be shocking if--?! idea…?  This sort of wild speculation only nurtures the illusion that the answer could be so mind-blowing that it will have been worth two four years of waiting.  It’s a form of denial.  And it’s all just a distraction from the glaringly obvious…

If you employ a little common sense, you’ll realize a few things;  

1.  The story is going to be self-contained.  That is, Rey’s parents are not going to be revealed in a video game that the vast majority of the audience haven’t played, nor in an animated kids’ show that the vast majority of the audience haven’t watched.  The possibilities for Rey’s parents are limited to characters we’ve met in the saga films.

2.  Rey’s parents are clearly not nobodies, because that makes the set-up in TFA a false mystery.  That is, if they really were nobodies, the filmmakers could have given Rey a surname, had her remember her parents names and/or faces, and still had her remain on Jakku because she believed her parents would return … because they moved around, and if she went looking for them, she’d never find them … because she didn’t have access to a spaceship … because she’s afraid to leave Jakku, since it’s all she’s ever known … or, for any of a thousand other reasons…  Yes, I know Rey was the one who said that her parents were nobodies, in TLJ.  That was the only way the misdirection stood a snowball’s chance in hell of convincing anyone.  But, if Rey couldn’t conjure their faces (or names) in the “hall-of-mirrors”, then what she said isn’t based on what she knows – it’s based on what she fears.

3.  The “shocking” revelation of Rey’s parentage is beside the point.  Because the revelation gets you about two seconds of screen time.  The impact of that revelation on the characters gets you the rest of the story.  And the rest of the story is far, far more important than two seconds of non-surprise.  That is, the value of the revelation is not going to be in how surprising it is to the audience (at this point – considering how poorly the mystery was set up, and after all the exhaustive speculation – it’s not even possible that it will be surprising).  The value of the revelation is in how it affects Rey – how it changes her perceptions and motivations – how it plays into the main conflict, turns the plot, and determines the outcome of the story…  

When these things are taken into account, it becomes crystal clear that the possibilities are extremely limited.  As Brian Hiatt said, “she’s either Luke’s daughter or his niece”.  And, as I’ve already pointed out…

Of course, lots of people claim that “Rey Solo” has been debunked – people who should consult a dictionary and find out what “debunk” actually means.  And notice that, typically, people who say it’s been debunked, or who “debunk” it themselves, don’t back it up by telling you who Rey’s parents are and why, they only tell you who her parents can’t be…

Essentially, there are two bases for claiming that “Rey Solo” has been debunked;  1. Things that J. J. Abrams, Daisy Ridley, et al. have said.  2. Within the context of the story (including “canon” novels, etc.), it doesn’t make sense that Han and Leia wouldn’t recognize, or remember, their own daughter.

1.  There’s no need to go into detail on this.  The question is:  Would J. J. Abrams, Daisy Ridley, Rian Johnson, and people in general intentionally lie to, or mislead, an audience in order to keep a secret (that they’re contractually obligated to keep) that is to be revealed in a film or TV show?  Yes, I think so.  And so do you.  Moving on…

2.  Before TLJ opened, I watched a YouTube video in which some smartass chick smugly “debunks” Rey Solo, simply by saying that the notion that characters (who would formerly have known Rey) have suppressed memories is implausible.  That’s it.  

Let’s think about this just a second.  Star Wars is full of dishonest, manipulative space wizards with mind affecting powers, remember?  They’re telepathic, telekinetic, and clairvoyant.  They can read minds, compel minds … they become immortal ghosts that are “more powerful than you can possibly imagine”, ghosts that can basically teleport to any planet in the galaxy…  

So, the Jedi can remote view, look into the future, control people’s thoughts, become immortal … Rey and Kylo can communicate mind to mind across light-years, and Luke can astral project to a distant planet…  That’s all totally believable … but, in that context, the idea of suppressed memories is implausible...?  Give me a fucking break.  Is this what people think “debunk” means?  Pathetic.

Here’s how easy it is to explain “Rey Solo”:  The Jedi (Force ghosts) foresaw the threat of Snoke, and the potential extinction of the Jedi Order.  So, they compelled some minds to hide Rey on Jakku (isolated her to keep her from forming attachments) for her own protection, and to insure the future of the Jedi.  Of course, if the other characters still remembered who, what, and where she was, Rey would have been just as vulnerable as she would had they done nothing.  In fact, with her own memories (and training) suppressed, she’d be even more vulnerable…  So, the other characters’ memories were suppressed to shield Rey from being discovered by that dark side memory extracting power we’ve seen Vader and Kylo use (presumably, Snoke had/has that power, too).  

Make sense?

It’s entirely possible that what I’ve said hasn’t been convincing to you.  You may even think I’m an idiot.  If so, please consider this:  If you’re wrong, it means that you got mind-tricked by J. J. Abrams.  So … who’s the idiot?

And you probably think that I’m writing this because I care who Rey’s parents are.  Nope.  Not anymore.  I hated The Force Awakens, I hated The Last Jedi, and at this point, I don’t care what they do with Episode IX.  I’m writing this because I’m trying to get people to realize something…

Lots and lots of people hated The Last Jedi.  And lots and lots of those people seem to think that J. J. Abrams is going to “save” the Sequel Trilogy, or “fix” it, or “course correct” it, or something…  But, J. J. Abrams isn’t the solution, J. J. Abrams is the problem.  The primary reason that TLJ wasn’t the much, much, much better film that it could have been is because the quality of the storytelling was sacrificed to a bad gimmick – Abrams’s gimmick: the “mystery box”.  Simply put, TLJ was the filler/misdirection Episode of the Sequel Trilogy, and I promise you – it wasn’t Rian Johnson’s idea.  

J. J. Abrams isn’t going to save shit.  His creative contributions are limited to things like sticking R2-D2’s head on a beach ball … lopping off Yoda’s ears and his nuts, painting him orange, and calling him “Maz Kanata”…  What has J. J. Abrams presented us with, other than recycled material and re-used plot?  He hasn’t presented us with any great ideas – he’s presented us with a box, and told us that there are great ideas inside.  And if you’re expecting that it’s going to contain anything more exciting than Starkiller Base 2, you’re in for a colossal disappointment.  

(I mean, yes, it’s possible that Episode IX will have some cool new ideas in it…  But, if it does, they won’t be J. J. Abrams’s ideas.)

As I understand it, Lucas’s idea was to have Han and Leia’s son and daughter be the protagonists of the Sequel Trilogy.  Abrams turned the son into a Vader knock-off, and the daughter into a mystery-box – in the interest of soft-rebooting; kid from a desert planet with long lost parents … hidden for protection from crusty, pasty-faced bad guy … last hope for the Jedi, and to restore peace and justice in the galaxy … hero(ine) and villain are blood related … siblings who don’t know they’re siblings…  Sound way, way, way too familiar?  The Sequel Trilogy is nothing but a minor variation on the Original Trilogy.  It really is just as simple-stupid as that.  And I can not, for the life of me, understand why everyone doesn’t just see right through it.

It’s like we’re all watching Star Trek Into Darkness, and, in two years, Benedict Cumberbatch is going to finally deliver the line, “My name is Khan!” and confirm that Yes, this really is just a retelling of Star Trek II – that nobody wanted to see…

You may think that TLJ took the Saga in a new direction … but, I’m not talking about the distractions that were the big fat bloated pointless filler dead-end subplots that dominated TLJ’s running time (necessitated by the mandate to preserve the “mystery box”) – I’m talking about the main story:  The outnumbered rebels (Resistance) are on the run from the evil Empire (FO), and the hero(ine) sees good in the villain and wants to save him…  Sound familiar?  That’s what carries over into the next film.  As I said, the ST is just an inferior version of the OT, and the only thing preventing everyone from seeing it is Abrams’s “mystery box”.  (It’s driving me batshit crazy!)  And by the time the box is opened, and the truth is known, you’ll have already paid to see all three films.  Sucker!

And because they held on to the secrets too long, the reveal of Rey’s parentage isn’t likely to play out in a satisfying way.  The relationship between Rey and Leia has barely been touched on, and Carrie Fisher is unfortunately no longer with us…  I suppose they might pay Harrison Ford tens of millions to appear briefly as a Force ghost…  And I guess it is still possible that Kylo Ren is a double-agent, but…  

The decision to hang on to secrets as long as possible didn’t result in better storytelling – it ruined Episode VIII, and as for Episode IX, it likely just means there won’t be sufficient screen time to build on the revelations.  So, regardless of how it’s going to play out, I doubt very much that it’s going to compensate for the two preceding films, or will have been worth four years of waiting.  

One last thing:  There is a tendency, on the part of some, to blame George Lucas for absolutely anything and everything, and so, whatever may go wrong with the ST, whatever may displease fans, is likely to be blamed on Lucas.  

It’s already started.  

I recently read an article that quite strongly implied that the portrayal of Luke Skywalker in TLJ was Lucas’s fault, because it was based on his idea for Episode VII.  That is, in Lucas’s version of the ST, Luke was going to be isolated on a remote planet, in an ancient Jedi temple … and you’re meant to draw the conclusion that therefore everything that followed would have been basically the same as it was in Rian Johnson’s Episode VIII.

Do not buy into this horseshit.

If I trust anyone to tell the plain truth about what happens/has happened behind the scenes, I trust Mark Hamill, who was quite vocally just as unhappy with the portrayal of Luke Skywalker in VIII as anyone – and Mark Hamill had this to say:

“[George Lucas] had an outline for [Episodes] seven, eight, and nine. And it is vastly different to what they have done.”

“Vastly different” and “basically the same” don’t live anywhere near each other.

[nerdonymous-blog]

The End of Prequel Hate

I don’t care whether or not you like the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.  I am not going to attempt to persuade you to like films that you don’t (and wouldn’t, even if I believed it were possible for me to do so).  Based on the above title, it may seem that precisely the opposite is true.  But, while what follows does constitute a defense of the Prequels, that defense is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself…

Because there are a couple of things I do care about (which will become crystal clear before the end, I promise), and in order for me to effectively make my points, I need to attempt to cut through the bullshit of nearly two decades of Prequel hate and Lucas-bashing.  So, I will be addressing some common criticisms of the Prequels, and referencing the Mr. Plinkett reviews…

(For anyone who is unfamiliar with Mr. Plinkett’s Star Wars Prequel reviews:  They are feature-length YouTube videos, in which Mike Stoklasa, as deranged serial killer Harry S. Plinkett, explains in excruciating detail what’s wrong with the Star Wars Prequels, which, according to him, is everything.)

The “Secret” Source of Prequel Hate

One major criticism, which is also a very common criticism, is that the Prequels were unexciting.  The question is, if they were unexciting, why were they unexciting…?

In his Episode II - Attack of the Clones review, in a segment called “the dissolution of tension”, it seems like Mr. Plinkett (Mike Stoklasa) is making an earnest attempt to answer this question.  Of course, it turns out to be a lead-in to the next item on his reasons-why-George-Lucas-is-an-idiot list.  But, let’s consider what he says…

“It’s because any time there’s a scene that could possibly have some tension and excitement in it, it’s dissolved away by its own internal contradictions.”  

Plinkett then offers three examples from Attack of the Clones, to clarify his point;

First, he cites the incredible aerobatics performed by Obi-Wan and Anakin in the speeder chase, at the beginning of the film.  

“The movie creates a dazzling environment of dangerous heights, nauseating speeds, and millions of things you can crash into.  Then, it totally ruins all of this by turning the rules of reality into a cartoony farce.  Thus dissolving all the tension away.”

Next, he points out the improbability of Padme surviving the perils of the droid factory.  

“I can guarantee you that if you threw a real person onto that assembly line, they’d get fucking killed, in, like, two seconds.”  

His third and final example is the low LDQ (laser deadliness quotient) of Jango Fett’s attempt to shoot down Obi-Wan in the rings of Geonosis.  

“Why can’t he hit Obi-Wan’s ship?!  He hits every single molecule around his ship but his ship!  Instantly, all the tension evaporates.”  

Obviously, this reasoning could be applied equally to the Original Trilogy.  One could offer innumerable examples of OT characters doing impossible things, surviving situations where a real person would almost certainly have been killed, and the low LDQ of stormtroopers, TIE fighters, and Star Destroyers…  But, Plinkett goes on…

“So much happens so fast that you can’t even process it with your brain.  You see, you just can’t start throwing tons of things on the screen because you can, and then make it go real fast, and expect your audience to feel tension.  Too much too fast will disconnect the audience from reality, and cancel out the excitement.  Because, they gotta project themselves into the scene.  We all understand the rules of physics in real life, and if you bend it too far, you sever the connection of the audience.”

So, anyone convinced…?

This “dissolution of tension” theory, like nearly everything Plinkett says, is wrong.  I’ll give him an E for effort, but in fact, the lack of tension in the Prequels has nothing to do with any of this stuff that Plinkett’s talking about.  Tension doesn’t come from not-too-much not-too-fast.  And tension doesn’t come from “the rules of reality”.  It doesn’t matter if those rules are bent, or broken.  It doesn’t matter if the characters have uncommon skill, or superpowers.  

Consider Superman.  If you want there to be tension in a Superman story, you’ve got to threaten someone Superman cares about (who he might not be able to save), or pit him against a villain who can match his power (another Kryptonian, Doomsday, etc.), or bring in the Kryptonite.  Because if you don’t do any of those things, the guy is invulnerable.  He can’t be hurt in any way, and he can’t be killed.

It’s true that in order for there to be excitement, there has to be tension.  And in order for there to be tension, the characters have to be vulnerable.  Tension comes from the vulnerability of the characters.  

That’s why, in the Original Trilogy, Luke Skywalker could move stuff with his mind, jump twenty-five feet in the air, deflect blaster bolts with his lightsaber, use the Jedi mind trick, and do a back-flip onto a catwalk that’s above his head, and we could still feel tension: because regardless of his fantastical abilities, he was still vulnerable.  He could still be shot, stabbed, chopped up, blown up, or lose someone he cares about.  The “rules of reality” don’t matter – only the rules of fantasy.  

So, regardless that, in the Prequel Trilogy, Obi-Wan and Anakin can perform impossible acrobatic stunts, they can still be wounded or killed.  Regardless that a dogfight in space may have a low LDQ, Obi-Wan’s ship can still be blown up.  Regardless that Padme has an uncanny knack for dodging stamping machines on the droid factory conveyer belt, she can still be squashed.  The characters are still vulnerable…  

Aren’t they…?

The extreme negative reaction to the Prequels, exemplified by Stoklasa’s reviews, is peculiar to the generation of people who saw the Original Trilogy for the first time as children, and the Prequel Trilogy for the first time as adults.  And it’s not a coincidence.  

First generation Star Wars fans, those who grew up with the Original Trilogy, are true fans.  To be clear, I don’t mean “true fan” in the sense of “one who is steadfast and loyal in appreciation”, but rather in the sense of “one who is authentically fanatical”.  And “fanatical” as in “unreasonably enthusiastic”, with extremely heavy emphasis on “unreasonably”.  

First generation fans have a quasi-religious devotion to the films of the Original Trilogy.  When they heard Ewan McGregor say, “They’re more than just movies to me”, no explanation was required.  The last thing the first gen fans wanted was to grow up to discover that Star Wars movies were, in fact, just movies…

It may seem like what I’m getting at is that Stoklasa, and other first generation fans, were disappointed in the Prequels because their expectations were too high.  Not precisely…

When people see a movie they absolutely love (especially when it’s also incredibly popular), there’s a strange tendency to look for the “magic ingredient” – that one thing that made the film so wonderful.  But, when we completely love a movie, it’s not because one thing worked – it’s because everything worked; the story, the characters, the acting, the direction, the editing, the effects, the music – everything.  

Typically, we don’t either completely love or absolutely hate a given movie (even a Star Wars movie), but rather, we like or dislike by a matter of degrees, for a wide variety of reasons.  If we accept that, it shouldn’t be too difficult to see that first gen fans’ disappointment in the Prequels had more than one cause – it wasn’t one thing.  

It’s been speculated … that fans’ expectations were so impossibly high that nothing could have lived up to them … that adult fans, who saw the Original Trilogy as children, didn’t make allowances for their own changed perceptions, nor take into account the effect of “nostalgia goggles” … that fans didn’t like the downbeat tone of the Prequel Trilogy because it wasn’t fun like the upbeat Original Trilogy … that fans simply weren’t interested in anything new, but rather, they just wanted to relive their childhoods – the way they might through a soft-reboot, like The Force Awakens…

I don’t doubt that all of these were contributing factors, but none of them were the reason for the disappointment.  None of them were even the primary reason…  

The primary reason was something so simple, and so painfully obvious, that, apparently, no one noticed it.  In the nearly two decades since The Phantom Menace, I’ve never seen or heard anyone mention it once…  

The Empire Strikes Back is exciting!  It’s widely considered one of the best Star Wars films, if not the best, ever made.  Imagine watching Empire for the first time … but imagine seeing it only after you’d already watched Return of the Jedi, and The Force Awakens.  That is, imagine beginning the movie already knowing; that all of the main characters were going to survive … that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father, and that Luke would eventually redeem Vader to the light side … that Luke was going to lose a hand, and have it replaced by a robotic one … that Luke was going to be trained by Yoda, that he would not turn to the dark side, and that he would fulfill his promise and return to Dagobah to complete his training…

…that Luke and Leia were (unbeknownst to them) brother and sister, and that this would be revealed to Luke by Obi-Wan, and revealed to Leia by Luke … that Han Solo and Princess Leia were going to fall in love and have kids, and that eventually Han would be killed by his son … that Han was going to be frozen in a block of carbonite, and that he would be rescued by his friends … that Lando Calrissian would help free Han, and then go on to destroy Death Star 2…

If you had watched Empire for the first time, knowing all this stuff, how would the film have played…?  How might it have seemed different…?  

And where exactly would the tension have come from?  

Certainly not from the heroes being put in jeopardy.  

Not from the potential that Luke might fail in his Jedi training.  

Not from Han and Leia’s romance.  

Not from the anticipation of seeing Vader unmasked.  

Not from Luke’s mysterious vision in the cave on Dagobah.  

Not from Yoda’s cryptic statement, “There is another.”

Not from Han being frozen in carbonite, and shipped off to Jabba the Hutt.

Not from Vader cutting Luke’s hand off, and then revealing that he was Luke’s father.

Not from the possible significance or potential consequence of Obi-Wan having lied to Luke, and Yoda having withheld the truth…

And not from the danger that Luke might turn to the dark side and join Darth Vader … or the Emperor.

It seems that if you’d watched the films out of order (Episodes VI and VII before Episode V), there would have been no tension in The Empire Strikes Back.  (No tension = no excitement.)  The whole thing would’ve just fallen completely flat.  The movie would have been … what’s the word…?

Spoiled.

Fortunately, you and I have absolutely no idea what that’s like, because we watched the films in their proper order.  We perceive Empire as we always have – as it truly is – a very exciting film…

Think of the six Episodes that constitute the complete Star Wars saga as analogous to the six reels that constitute the original Star Wars film (each reel being approximately twenty minutes of screen time).  

Hypothetical scenario:  Imagine that as a child, beginning in 1977, you had watched the second half of the original Star Wars film (Reels 4, 5 and 6).  You loved it, became a big fan, and watched that second half over and over until you knew it by heart.  Then, about sixteen years later, now (the Star Wars-nerd version of) an adult, you sat down to watch the first 20 minutes (Reel 1) of that same film for the first time - with the expectation that those 20 minutes were going to be the coolest thing you’d ever seen, blow your mind like nothing had before, and make you feel like a wide-eyed awestruck child again…  

Evidence supports that had you viewed the reels of the original Star Wars thusly, not only would you have been disappointed in Reel 1, but you would have spent many following years bitterly complaining about cutesy droid comedy and slow pacing, and that you would have developed an intensely passionate hatred for Jawas…

…and simple common sense should tell you that you would have found Reel 1 to be lacking in excitement, not because George Lucas royally screwed up the first 20 minutes of the movie, but because you severely underestimated the damaging effect of spoilers … or, had not considered it at all…

In order for excitement to be possible, a sense of immediacy is necessary.  In fact, the very reason that people hate spoilers is because they rob the spoiled film or show of this required sense of immediacy.  In case it’s unclear, immediacy is the feeling that what’s happening in the film you’re watching is happening right now (regardless that the film may take place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away).  It’s the sense that the characters are heading into an unknown future … that anything could happen…

And for those who viewed the Original Trilogy before the Prequel Trilogy, the Prequels had no sense of immediacy … because they’re prequels.  Turns out, they were completely spoiled decades before they were released…  

Spoilers handicap a film, of course.  It’s not the same handicap as predictability – it’s far, far worse.  When a film is predictable, you suspect, you think you probably got it figured out – when a film is spoiled, you just know for a fact.  You know for a fact what will or won’t happen, what can or can’t happen.  (Someone who clearly understands how much more damaging spoilers are than predictability is J.J. Abrams, considering how closely he guarded the “secrets” of the most predictable film ever made.)

The three enormous spoilers we call Episodes IV, V, and VI handicapped every action sequence in the Prequel Trilogy.  For example, when Anakin entered the podrace in Episode I, we knew that, regardless of the outcome, he wasn’t going to crash and die, and that he was going to leave Tatooine and become Obi-Wan’s apprentice … and fight in the Clone Wars, father a couple kids, fall to the dark side, kill Obi-Wan … and turn back to the light side shortly before his death…  So, all the while the podrace was happening on screen, however cool it looked, we were really just waiting…  

When Obi-Wan dueled Darth Maul, we knew he was going to win (or, at least, survive).  

When bounty hunters attempted to assassinate Padme, we knew they were going to fail.  

When Jango Fett chased Obi-Wan through the rings of Geonosis, we knew Obi-Wan was going to be fine.  

When Palpatine tried to lure Anakin to the dark side, we knew Anakin was going to succumb…  

These sequences were not undramatic and unexciting because they were poorly executed by George Lucas, it’s because it was impossible for them to be dramatic and exciting.  They needed a sense of immediacy that they did not, and could not, have.  We needed to believe in the vulnerability of the characters … but, because we knew exactly where the story was going, and where all the characters had to end up, they all may as well have been Superman … with no one to match their power, no Kryptonite, and no threat whose outcome wasn’t already determined…

It would be very easy to underestimate the extent to which spoilers influenced our perception of the Prequels, but it’s also virtually impossible to overestimate.  Because it wasn’t just as simple as knowing the outcome of action sequences.  The spoiler effect had a multitude of negative consequences, which resulted in a number of major criticisms…

The podrace in Episode I wasn’t just unexciting, it was also, in a way, irrelevant.  That is, in the audience’s present tense of the storytelling, this kid, Anakin, was already dead.  And so was every other character in the film.  This made it rather difficult to invest emotionally in their struggles … which led inevitably to the related criticism that George Lucas failed to create characters the audience cared about, regardless of the fact that everything necessary to make the characters sympathetic is present (i.e. the characters are; 1. good, kind people  2. courageous  3. good at what they do  4. in jeopardy  5. suffering undeserved misfortune, etc.).  

In order to have an emotional connection to the characters, the audience needs to hope and fear for them.  But, you can’t hope that Anakin will be trained as a Jedi, when from your perspective, he already has been …You can’t fear that Obi-Wan will be killed by Darth Maul, when you know for a fact that he won’t be … You can’t hope that Anakin and Padme will give in to their feelings of love for each other, when it’s inevitable … You can’t fear that Padme will be killed, when she can’t be, because she hasn’t yet given birth to Luke and Leia … You can’t hope that Anakin will resist the temptation of the dark side, when his destiny has already been written … You can’t fear that Palpatine will succeed in his evil plan to destroy the Jedi…

Further, our understanding of the need for the events of the story to play out in such a way that the Prequel Trilogy would leave off, narratively, more or less where the Original Trilogy begins made characters, their relationships, choices and actions seem mechanistic, or “forced”.  This compounded the problem of the characters seeming unsympathetic, and vice versa.

One way that we might have briefly felt an emotional connection to the characters would have been a vicarious experience of joy at the resolution to the conflict – you know, the happy ending.  But, there we ran into that little problem of having known from the beginning how it had to end … and “happy” wasn’t in it.

Even the pleasurable emotion we might have felt at the minor victories throughout the Prequel Trilogy was negated by our ever-present awareness of impending doom…

If you really want to know whether or not Lucas succeeded in creating exciting action sequences and sympathetic characters, you have to ask people who grew up with the films – people who saw the Prequels before they saw the Original Trilogy … if you can find any.  (I’ll come back to this.)  

The last person who could speak with any authority on whether the characters were sympathetic, or the action sequences exciting, would be someone like … well, Mike Stoklasa.

In addition to making the films seem unexciting, and making it difficult to connect emotionally with the characters, the audiences’ foreknowledge made the action of the Prequels play rather like exposition.  Excruciatingly detailed dry exposition … that, in a most protracted manner, was telling us things we already knew … or, didn’t care to know.  

Even the actual exposition in the Prequels was, in essence, telling us things we already knew (insofar as we had foreknowledge of the end it was meant to serve) … leading to the absurdly exaggerated criticism that there was too much “boring political dialogue”.  Audiences are impatient with being told what they already know.  They’re bored by it, and dismissive of its importance (and how it would play to an audience who didn’t already know) … which leads inevitably to the related criticism that the Prequels were “light on plot”, when in fact, relative to the Original Trilogy, the Prequels were plot-heavy…

Sadly, I could go on and on, because fans and critics have for years been grasping for an explanation, floundering in their attempts to explain why the Prequels were not exciting to them, when it seemed like they should have been.  (I know it sounds supercilious – but it just happens to be true.)  That’s exactly how we got Stoklasa’s brilliant “dissolution of tension” theory.

In a nutshell:  When you watched the scene, in Episode II, of Jango Fett trying to shoot down Obi-Wan in the rings of Geonosis, you were acutely aware of two things;  1. Obi-Wan can’t die, and 2. Obi-Wan is already dead.  If you honestly believe that this awareness didn’t profoundly affect how it felt to watch the scene … then, all I can say is…  

Congratulations.  You are invincibly stupid.  And you may as well stop reading now.

You would think that the spoiler effect would have been so obvious that everyone would have had it clearly in mind before seeing The Phantom Menace for the first time, but twelve years after Revenge of the Sith, it seems that critics and fans still don’t understand it: In the first Episode VII review I read, the critic claimed that there was more excitement in The Force Awakens than in the three Prequel films combined.  (No IQ prerequisite to be a film critic.)

The truth is that the Prequels were very exciting films, even if for many it was in a the-tree-that-fell-in-the-woods-did-make-a-sound-you-just-didn’t-hear-it kind of way.  (If you think I’ve over-explained and over-emphasized the point, just imagine that you were going to receive a dollar for every time someone has complained that the Prequels were “boring”...  It would be like winning the lottery, wouldn’t it?)  

This is a major advantage The Force Awakens had over the films of the Prequel Trilogy, the same advantage that The Last Jedi had/has, and the forthcoming Episode IX will have: the sense of immediacy that had been missing from Star Wars for thirty-two years … the sense that the characters are heading into an unknown future … that anything could happen…  This (plus the fact that the Prequels were framed by the perceived greatness of the Original Trilogy, while The Force Awakens was framed by the perceived suckiness of the Prequels) is one reason why the Prequels are hugely underrated, and The Force Awakens was so enormously overrated.

You could argue that we didn’t know everything that was going to happen in the Prequels…  That’s true.  We just knew all the things that it was crucial that we not know.  Even when it came to characters we had never met or even heard of before, it was all too easy to figure out what had to happen…  Be honest: Were you surprised when Qui-Gon Jinn was killed…?

You could argue that it’s possible to do a prequel that is exciting, that does have tension.  And I would absolutely agree with you.  It depends on what’s been spoiled, and what’s at stake.  

Take Rogue One, for example: we knew going in that the attempt to steal the Death Star plans would be successful, but the movie succeeds in creating tension by putting the characters (whose fates were unknown) in jeopardy. 

Just as, in The Clone Wars, the character Ahsoka Tano may be the most compelling, simply because we don’t know what happens to her.

Another successful prequel, so far, is the Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul.  (I know – it’s not Star Wars – but, it’s a really good example.)  What’s at stake in that show is Jimmy McGill’s relationships, to his brother, Chuck, and Kim Wexler – two characters not featured in Breaking Bad.  If Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould tried to create tension, week after week, by threatening Jimmy’s and Mike Ehrmantraut’s lives, the show wouldn’t work…

Of course, although Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are related, they are separate stories (unlike the Original and Prequel Star Wars Trilogies).  And it may turn out that the better, or more recommendable, viewing order for avoiding spoilers will be the order in which the series were produced, rather than the order in which they take place…

So, why was the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy done differently?  Did George Lucas not realize that he couldn’t create tension by putting characters in jeopardy who we knew couldn’t be killed…?  Consider this criticism from Plinkett’s Revenge of the Sith review:

“Lucas prematurely tries to create a thematic bridge between Jedi and Sith, by having a set that looks like the throne room of the Emperor.  In Return of the Jedi, everything built up to that showdown.  There’s a certain tension in the air.  You can’t use that imagery here and now at the beginning!  It makes no sense, and it’s confusing to us.”

It’s as if Stoklasa actually believes that the Episode III set is meant to function as a callback to the Emperor’s throne room in Episode VI, rather than the other way around.  

And then, referring to Anakin decapitating Dooku, Plinkett says:

“So, basically, as far as I’m concerned, at this point, Anakin is Darth Vader.” 

Exactly.  That’s how the callback is supposed to work.  The viewer will be reminded of when Anakin “basically” fell to the dark side in Episode III, and it will greatly accentuate that “certain tension in the air” when Luke is brought before the Emperor in Episode VI.  The parallels will lead the audience to believe that Luke will kill Vader, just as Anakin killed Dooku…  It does make sense, and it’s not at all “confusing to us”.

This is one of the most frustrating things about listening to the Plinkett reviews:  As wholly disingenuous and dishonest as he is, with certain criticisms, I can’t tell whether Stoklasa actually believes what he’s saying, or is just assuming that his audience isn’t intelligent enough to understand it…  And I can’t decide which makes him look more foolish…

Regardless, it’s apparent that Stoklasa suffers from that ridiculously self-centered Star-Wars-is-for-me delusion that plagues first generation Star Wars fans … adults, who became Star Wars fans when they were little kids, claiming that Star Wars isn’t for kids…  And somehow, incredibly, the irony is lost on them.  The utter lack of self-awareness is astounding.  It’s as tragically absurd as people describing the Plinkett reviews as “insightful”.

Something that George Lucas has stated repeatedly, and that has apparently fallen on deaf ears, is that Star Wars is meant to be seen as one film, one story, in six parts…  That is, when Lucas made the Prequels, he had to make a choice between two audiences; the audience comprised of adults who grew up with the Original Trilogy, or the audience comprised of every child, every person, who would ever have the opportunity to watch the Star Wars saga in its proper story order, from the completion of the Prequels until the end of time.  Obviously, he chose the latter.

Was it the wrong choice?  

Artistically, no.  

But, I honestly don’t think Lucas anticipated that the audience comprised of (ahem) mature adults would be so thoughtless that they wouldn’t understand what he was doing, so infantile that they couldn’t accept it, and such shamelessly hateful pricks that they would spend so many following years publicly trashing him for it.

And this is the source of Prequel hate – the simple truth that first generation fans didn’t understand, don’t believe, and still can’t accept:

Star Wars is not for you.  

Continued in Part 2...

[nerdonymous-blog]

Mr. Plinkett-esque The Empire Strikes Back Review (Part 2)

(minus the pizza rolls, bestiality, and uxoricide, etc.)

Luke has dinner at Yoda’s house, and Yoda reveals his true identity.  He says he can’t train Luke, because “the boy has no patience”.  Luke, Obi-Wan and Yoda argue about it…

But, what is there to argue about?  The message that Obi-Wan gave to Luke, on Hoth, was that Luke will learn from Yoda.  If Obi-Wan knows that Luke will learn from Yoda, there are two possibilities; One is that Obi-Wan looked into the future, and he knows that Yoda’s going to end up training Luke – in which case, why wouldn’t he just tell Yoda that?  The other possibility is that Yoda had already agreed to train Luke, before he came to Dagobah.  So, I guess … Yoda just changed his mind…?

Yoda:  This one, a long time have I watched.  All his life has he--

Wait a minute – what?  Yoda has been watching Luke his whole life?  Then, why did he have to do that testing-him-to-see-if-he-had-patience thing?

TIE bombers fly over the big asteroid, dropping these flash-bang bombs that don’t actually do any damage.  I guess because Vader wanted “every ship available to sweep the asteroid field until they are found”.  But, if the Imperials didn’t know that the Falcon was inside the big asteroid, what possible reason could they have for dropping the flash-bang things on it?  So, if they found the Falcon, they have to fly into the asteroid to capture the crew, don’t they?  Dropping the flash-bang things just lets them know that the Empire’s waiting for them, and it isn’t safe to come out yet.  It accomplishes nothing…  It just extends the time the Imperials have to remain in the asteroid field, taking damage to their fleet...

From inside the Falcon’s cockpit, Leia sees some kind of flying monster thing called a “mynock”.  So, they go outside to “check it out”.  

They take breath masks, but not pressurized spacesuits, even though, in the vacuum of space, their blood vessels would have burst.  They exit via the main ramp, which would have decompressed the Falcon and caused all the oxygen in the ship to escape.  And they walk around like the gravity is Earth-normal, even though it would have been close to zero, and they would have been floating all over the place…

Han “checks out” a mynock that was “chewing on the power cables”.  Why are the Falcon’s power cables on the outside of the hull of the ship…?  Wait – chewing on the power cables…?  With what?  

Mynocks don’t have any teeth.  Their mouths are just slimey little sucker holes.  We just saw that, like, ten seconds ago…

When Han and Chewie fire their blasters inside the cave, it goes earthquakey, and Han figures out that he accidentally parked the Falcon inside a giant space slug…

Han is in a complete panic …  like they have to fly out of there, immediately.  But, why?  Is he afraid the giant space slug is going to eat them?  Weren’t they just parked in its stomach?  So, hadn’t it basically already eaten them?  There wasn’t really a problem until they started shooting it in the stomach lining.  Here’s an idea: just don’t shoot it in the stomach lining.  Anyway…

The tiny Falcon flies out of the hand puppet-- giant space slug.  And the space slug chomps at the Falcon…  Is that what the slug eats – spaceships?  Relative to the slug, the Falcon was like a crumb.  This thing would probably have to eat about fifty thousand spaceships a day…  But, I thought the odds of navigating the asteroid field were 3,720 to 1.  Given that, plus the fact that the only reason for going into the asteroid field was a desperate attempt to escape from the Imperial fleet, how often would any spaceship wind up in, on, or anywhere near the space slug’s giant asteroid?  Basically … never.  So, it doesn’t have anything to eat … or breathe.  How could this thing even be alive?  How did it end up in this giant asteroid in the middle of an asteroid field in the first place…?  I could accept the idea of a giant space monster, if there were any reason at all to think that it could possibly exist.  

The whole reason for the giant space slug is just a way to get the Falcon crew to leave the asteroid without being captured by the Empire.  ‘Cause if they get captured now, they can’t make it to Cloud City…  It’s the worst plot device ever shoved into a movie for convenience.  This entire sequence with the mynocks and the space slug makes absolutely no sense at all, and like almost every other sequence in the movie, it’s pointless to the ultimate conclusion of the story.  

On Dagobah, Luke is Jedi training.  He swings from a vine.  He does a flip.  He runs.  Yoda tells him basic stuff about the Force, but Luke’s not getting it … so, Yoda gets fed up and decides they should quit for the day.  

Then, Luke has a vision of Darth Vader inside the dark side cave.  He sees his own face inside Vader’s helmet.  Of course, this is foreshadowing that Darth Vader is his father, and a symbol that Luke could be his own worst enemy, and that he has the potential to turn evil.  But, Luke doesn’t know that…  

The most frustrating thing about watching Luke’s Jedi training is that whenever Yoda says some cryptic shit, or Luke has a strange vision, he never says anything, or asks any questions about it.  Wouldn’t Luke want to know what the vision means…?

Vader has lost all confidence in his officers’ ability to track down the Falcon, so he’s hired a bunch of bounty hunters … all of whom, apparently, came immediately, and arrived all at the same time … in the middle of an asteroid field…  What are the odds…?  Well … like, 3,720 to 1, I guess.  

Vader:  I want them alive.  No disintegrations!

Very next scene: Star Destroyer trying to disintegrate the Falcon.  What the hell is wrong with these people?  Stop shooting at it, and use the tractor beam.

The Falcon takes a critical hit…

C-3PO:  We’ve lost the rear deflector shield.  One more direct hit on the back quarter, and we’re done for!

“Done for” is a technical term that droids use that means the ship will blow up and they will all die.  

Use the fucking tractor beam!

Even though Han and Chewie repaired the Falcon, for some inexplicable reason, they still can’t go to lightspeed.  So, Han turns the Falcon around, flies at the Star Destroyer, and then they magically vanish from the Imperials’ scopes…

Meanwhile, Yoda has Luke practicing handstands.  Is this really important Jedi training?  I mean, the whole reason that Obi-Wan and Yoda want Luke to be a Jedi is so he can defeat the Sith, right?  Hey, do you think, at the end of the movie, if Luke had done a handstand, he would’ve won that fight against Vader?

Luke tries to lift his X-wing out of the swamp, with the Force, but I guess “there is no try”, so Luke does not.  Yoda spends the next ten minutes telling Luke the same crap about the Force that took Obi-Wan only ten seconds to tell him, in the first movie.  Then, Luke goes off and pouts, like a whiny little bitch.  Day 2 of Jedi training, and he’s ready to give up…

We find out that Han has parked the Falcon on the back of the bridge of Captain Needa’s Star Destroyer, and for some convenient but not believable reason, the Imperials have no way of detecting it.  And, apparently, no one on that bridge looked out a window and wondered why the hull of another ship was blocking their view.  

And, apparently, no one on any of the other six Star Destroyers in close proximity has any idea the Falcon’s there, even though it’s in plain view of all of them … uh, okay … if you say so…  

Earlier, when the Falcon was hiding in the asteroid field, and one of the Star Destroyer Captains said that “they must have been destroyed”, Vader just said, “No, Captain.  They’re alive.”  ‘Cause Vader could sense them through the Force.  Now that the Falcon’s much closer, Vader thinks they went to lightspeed…  

Um … what’s happening in this movie?

Han’s brilliant plan to evade capture is to wait until the Imperials dump their garbage, and then detach from the Star Destroyer and float away with the garbage…  It doesn’t seem like this should work.  I mean, you’d think the Falcon would look kind of conspicuous, floating amongst hundreds of Hefty bag cinch-sacks…  

But, luckily for Han and Leia, it turns out the Empire likes to hang on to all of their piss and shit, and half-eaten sandwiches, and banana peels, and coffee grounds, and used tissues and intergalactic prophylactics… 

...and what they throw away is broken spaceships, and big chunks of spaceships, and huge metal things that look like they could possibly be derelict spaceships.  You know, exactly the kind of stuff they would want to keep (if this movie made any sense at all), because they could recycle it and use it to build things, like more TIE fighters…  Well, it sure is convenient for the plot…  Why didn’t the writers just have the Empire throw away a dozen Millennium Falcons?  It wouldn’t have been any more stupid.  

The Star Destroyers go to lightspeed, and the Falcon flies off in the opposite direction...  

But, then it’s revealed that the Falcon is being tracked by Boba Fett.  Wait – that means Boba Fett knew that Han had parked the Falcon on the Star Destroyer.  If he knew, why didn’t he tell the Imperials?  Then, after they dumped their garbage, instead of going to lightspeed, they could’ve just grabbed the Falcon – with a tractor beam.  

Instead, Boba Fett followed the Falcon, until he was certain they were heading for Bespin.  Then, he turned around, went to lightspeed, and caught up with the Imperial Fleet (I guess they must have told him where they were going).  

He informed the Imperials where the Falcon was headed, and then he and the Imperials turned around and went to Bespin together, arrived at Cloud City before the Falcon, Vader disembarked from the Star Destroyer with troops, quickly made a deal with Lando Calrissian, sent the Star Destroyers off so they wouldn’t be detected by the Falcon when it entered the system, hid in the city and waited … phew!  You know what would’ve been a lot easier?  Using a fucking TRACTOR BEAM!

In fact, if they were able to arrive so far ahead of the Falcon that they had enough time to make a deal with Lando, and hide their ships from detection, why bother with the deal?  Don’t even let the Falcon make it to the city.  Just wait until it’s close, and then jump out and grab it with a tract--  

…never mind…

Luke has a vision of his friends being tortured in Cloud City.  Yoda tells him it’s a vision of the future (or at least, a possible future).  Luke wants to go to his friends, but Yoda says, “If you leave now, help them you could, but … you would destroy all for which they have fought and suffered.”  And Luke just nods, like this makes sense to him.  I would have found it more believable if Luke had said, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

The Falcon arrives at Cloud City, the city made of crappy matte paintings, and boring white corridors.  They’ve been there about 30 seconds before C-3PO gets blasted into pieces by someone off-screen … someone who sounds like he could be Yoda’s cousin, but who we later find out is a stormtrooper…?  

Against the advice of the Jedi, Luke leaves Dagobah to go help Han and Leia.  Since this is the end of Luke’s Jedi training in the Saga, now would probably be a good time to talk about what doesn’t make sense where the Jedi, and Luke’s training, are concerned – which is basically everything.

The first, and biggest, mistake the filmmakers made was giving Oscar-winning actor Sir Alec Guinness (and Oscar-nominated in his role as Obi-Wan) a supporting role to a Muppet.  There’s no reason Obi-Wan couldn’t have continued to teach Luke in this movie.  So, why does the character of Yoda even exist?  All Yoda did was tell Luke stuff that Obi-Wan had already told him, and stuff Obi-Wan could’ve told him.  

Obi-Wan:  There is no why.  There is no try.  Do a handstand.  Lift shit with your mind.  

Obi-Wan couldn’t have handled that?  Why not?

Second, there was a promise made in the original Star Wars that was not fulfilled in this movie (or in the next one):  Obi-Wan said that if Vader struck him down, he would “become more powerful than you can possibly imagine”.  

But, for the rest of the Saga, Obi-Wan seems incapable of doing much of anything, including completing Luke’s training…

Even if, for some reason I don’t understand ‘cause it’s never explained, Luke needed Yoda’s guidance specifically … the trip to Dagobah was unnecessary.  Yoda can observe Luke wherever he is – he said he’s been doing it Luke’s whole life.  And Obi-Wan can communicate with both Yoda and Luke through the Force, no matter where they are.  So, Yoda could’ve just told Obi-Wan what to tell Luke, and Obi-Wan could’ve said it … forward.  There was no need to inconvenience Luke by making him go AWOL, and getting his X-wing stuck in a swamp on Yoda’s shitty backwater planet.

Third, Luke was on Dagobah for what … three days, max?  And what exactly did Yoda teach him…?

Luke swings from a vine with Yoda on his back.

He did a much more impressive, death-defying swing, carrying a much heavier person in A New Hope.

Yoda tells Luke stuff about the Force, and the dark side, and Vader…

…which Obi-Wan already told Luke in the first movie.

Luke has a vision meant to teach him two things; 1. Darth Vader’s his father, and 2. Luke could turn to the dark side.  

Luke actually learns these things because; 1. Darth Vader tells him, and 2. the Jedi tell him.  So, the vision was pretty much pointless…

Yoda teaches Luke to “see” through the Force…

…which Obi-Wan was already teaching him in the first movie.

He moves stuff with his mind while upside-down…

…which he already did, before he went to Dagobah.

And what did Luke actually succeed at, while on Dagobah…?

Luke:  I won’t fail you.

Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Training Report Card

Show the patience of a Jedi: FAIL.

Understand the basic concepts of the Force: FAIL.

Trust the wisdom of your Jedi Master: FAIL.

Remain peaceful when confronted by the dark side: FAIL.

Lift stuff with your mind while doing a handstand (without falling over and letting the stuff crash to the ground): FAIL.

Maintain focus and concentration: FAIL. TWICE.

Lift the X-wing out of the swamp: FAIL.

Believe that anything’s possible with the Force: FAIL.

Don’t impulsively rush into conflict unprepared: FAIL.

Heed the warnings of the wise Jedi Masters: FAIL.

So, how exactly did Luke’s weekend retreat on Dagobah, where he doesn’t really learn much of anything, result in him becoming a Jedi?  Which leads me to…

Fourth, the way Luke becomes a Jedi makes no sense.  At this point, in Empire, Yoda and Obi-Wan are desperate to keep Luke from leaving, because he needs to complete his training.  But, in the next movie, Return of the Jedi, when Luke does come back to complete his training…

Yoda:  No more training do you require.  Already know you that which you need.

So, returning to Dagobah to complete his training … is the thing that completes his training…?  That means that if Yoda and Obi-Wan had been successful in talking Luke into staying on Dagobah to complete his training, Luke would never have completed his training, because he wouldn’t have been able to return … to complete his training…

Then, after Luke returns, Yoda tells him that to become a Jedi, only one thing remains:

Yoda:  You must confront Vader.  Then, only then, a Jedi will you be.  

So, let me get this straight…  Yoda and Obi-Wan want to keep Luke from leaving Dagobah, and going to confront Vader.  But, if Luke had got halfway to Cloud City, and then changed his mind and gone back to Dagobah, then his training would have been complete, and now they would want him to go confront Vader…?  

So, Luke could’ve left Dagobah, turned right around and gone back to Dagobah, and then immediately left Dagobah again … and then, confronting Vader at the end of Empire would have made him a Jedi?  

It seems like confronting Vader was Luke’s final test, like he had to resist turning to the dark side… 

...which he does at the end of Return of the Jedi.  But… 

...he also does it at the end of Empire.  So, why does Luke have to pass this final test in Jedi that he already passed in Empire?  

Finally, if Yoda and Obi-Wan wanted to stop Luke from confronting Vader before he was ready, they could’ve done it, easily.  When Luke has his vision of his friends being tortured, they haven’t yet even arrived in Cloud City, and as Yoda said, “always in motion is the future”…  

Luke is capable of communicating with Leia through the Force, which he does at the end of the movie (without even being trained to do so), giving Leia his precise location so she can come and rescue him…  Yoda and Obi-Wan must know that Luke is capable of communicating with Leia in this way (or, if they don’t, they have no business being Jedi Masters)…  

So, when Luke had his vision, Yoda could’ve instructed him to contact Leia telepathically, warn her to not go to Cloud City, and get the Falcon’s location from her.  Then, Luke could’ve rendezvoused with the rebel fleet (his X-wing is obviously capable of lightspeed, or he couldn’t possibly have made it to Cloud City so quickly).  Luke could’ve given the Falcon’s location to the rebels, and the rebels could’ve picked up the Falcon, and brought them back to the rendezvous point.  Then, Han and Leia wouldn’t have fallen into the Empire’s trap, and Luke could’ve just gone back to Dagobah and finished his training…

See what I mean, this sounding like a couple eight-year-olds wrote it?  Our lead characters can’t form coherent thoughts, and they’re not intelligent enough to realize basic things like this.  And then, we as the audience, are sitting there constantly asking ourselves questions about motivations and logic the entire film, because the script is a rushed sloppy mess that was written in a week.

Obi-Wan:  If you choose to face Vader, you will do it alone.  I cannot interfere.

Why can’t Obi-Wan interfere?  Is it because he’s more powerful than I can possibly imagine?  

In Cloud City, Leia thinks that “something’s wrong here”, because 3PO has been missing “too long to have gotten lost”.  

But, once Chewbacca shows up, having retrieved 3PO from a junk pile, all her suspicion seems to go away…  All she seems to care about is whether Chewie can repair 3PO, and she doesn’t say a word about how 3PO ended up like this.  Nobody does.  And nobody notices the giant burn mark from a blaster bolt that’s covering 3PO’s chest.  I’ve never seen a group of people fail quite this miserably to put 2 and 2 together.  Why would anyone want to shoot a harmless protocol droid, and then dispose of him, unless he had seen something he wasn’t supposed to…?  

In fact, it was such an obvious clue, the stormtroopers may as well have just let 3PO go tell the others that the Empire had infiltrated the city…  If the stormtroopers really wanted to keep their presence a secret, they would’ve erased 3PO’s memory of having seen them.  That would’ve made a little more sense.  But, actually, that wouldn’t have made much sense either – which leads me to my next point…

Why did the Empire try to keep their presence a secret at all?  Why did they wait until the Falcon was repaired, and then invite the crew to a banquet hall in order to spring their trap?  Why didn’t the Imperials just ambush them the minute they entered the city?  They gained nothing by waiting…  You don’t suppose they waited just for dramatic effect, do you?

The Imperials capture and torture Han, Leia and Chewie…  Lando visits them in their cell.  He tells them that Vader set a trap for Luke, and that Luke’s on his way.  So, Vader told Lando his plan…?!  And, there is no way that Lando could possibly know that Luke’s on his way.  Vader doesn’t even know that until the next scene, when an Imperial officer informs him that an X-wing’s approaching.  So, how does Lando know?  Is it because he read the script?  Hey - what’s that guy holding?  Is that Lando’s script?

Vader plans to freeze Luke in carbonite to bring him to the Emperor, but he doesn’t know if Luke would survive the freezing process.  So, he decides to test it by freezing Han … which is not a very scientific test…  Plus, Vader doesn’t know that Han’s impervious to being frozen.  

When Chewie flips out, and starts throwing stormtroopers around, Vader stops Boba Fett from shooting Chewie.  And afterward, he tells Lando to bring Leia and Chewie to his ship.  Why does Vader want a Wookiee…?  

Finally, we come to the stupid ending, where again, nothing makes sense.  

Vader’s informed that Luke has arrived, and says, “see to it that he finds his way in here.”  So, they use Leia and Chewie to lure Luke to the carbon freezing chamber.  But, instead of gagging Leia, they allow her to warn Luke.  Very loudly.  Twice.

Leia:  Luke!  Luke, don’t!  It’s a trap! (once)  It’s a trap!!! (twice)

Luke is lifted on a platform into the carbon freezing chamber, and the platform door thingy locks behind him.  There’s no one there … except Darth Vader…  I wonder if this is what Leia meant by “trap”…

Vader:  The Force is with you, young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi yet!

How does Vader know that Luke isn’t a Jedi?  Did he read the script?  What’s that next to him, on the floor?  Is that the script?

Because it’s the end of the movie, and it’s time for a lightsaber duel, Luke conveniently forgets that the whole reason he came here was to save his friends.  For all he knows, they could be lined up against a wall, about to be shot by stormtroopers right now, and he’s completely forgotten all about them. 

He just slowly climbs the steps, faces Vader, and ignites his lightsaber.  I understand that he wants to avenge the father he never knew, but is he too stupid to realize that he has a much better chance of getting a shot at that in the future than of bringing his friends back to life…?

Lando and Captain Picard free Leia and Chewie, and they go to the east platform, to try to rescue Han.  

But, when they get there, Slave 1 is already taking off.  So, Chewie does the most idiotic thing he could possibly do: he repeatedly shoots at Slave 1, like he’s trying to shoot the ship down.  Nobody ever said the Wookiee was particularly smart, but is he so stupid that he doesn’t realize that shooting the ship down would most likely kill Han?

Vader disarms Luke, knocks him into the carbon freezing pit, and activates the machine…  And, just when you think Luke’s in an inescapable situation, he suddenly turns into Superman, and flies out of the pit.  In a split-second, he jumps 25 feet in the air, to the ceiling…

This is another huge problem with The Empire Strikes Back: Any time there’s a scene that could possibly have some tension and excitement in it, it’s dissolved away by its own internal contradictions … like in the Hoth battle … or, like in all the Empire’s pathetic attempts to capture the Falcon…  In this final fight between Luke and Vader, there should be tension, because Luke is outmatched, and he’s fallen into Vader’s trap.  But, the movie totally ruins this by turning the rules of reality into a cartoony farce, thus dissolving all the tension away.  Any time Luke is in a bad spot, he magically pulls out some new special ability that we never knew he had, like jumping 25 feet in the air, or back-flipping out a window, falling 20 feet and grabbing onto a ledge with his fingertips.  

Or, he’s saved by a deus ex machina, like when he’s sucked into the vacuum tube, after he falls into the bottomless painting…  The implausibility of things that happen in Empire are so astounding that it makes me laugh out loud.  

The duel between Luke and Vader goes on (and on), and Vader uses the Force to throw a bunch of crap at Luke.  Luke’s extremely un-Jedi-like attempts to defend himself are pathetic – 3PO could’ve done better – he actually swings his lightsaber in the opposite direction from which the crap flies.  Then, he gets blown out a window, and nearly falls into a bottomless painting—I mean, pit.

So, they’ve gone from the carbon freezing chamber to this giant bottomless-pit shaft thing.  What is this shaft thing?  Is this in Cloud City?  How can it be wider than the city it’s contained in?  I mean, I know George wanted Luke and Vader to fight in a cool place, that’s really Star Warsy…  So, what, this is, like, a giant garbage chute, or something?  But, if those waste-tube-things at the bottom of the shaft, like the one that vacuums up Luke, are six feet across, why does the shaft need to be ten miles across?  Anyway…

Lando:  The Empire has taken control of the city.  

The Empire’s “control” of the city doesn’t seem to include much.  They can’t keep R2 from accessing the city’s central computer, or from opening security doors … they apparently can’t even shut down the elevator that Lando, Leia and Chewie escape into…

At one point, R2’s dome gets overloaded … but this turns out not to be an Imperial defense mechanism.

C-3PO:  Don’t blame me.  I’m an interpreter.  I’m not supposed to know a power socket from a computer terminal.

The droids don’t know what power outlets look like?    

Lando, Leia, Chewie, and the droids make it to the Falcon, and when Chewie tries to board, he repeatedly bumps C-3PO’s head against the ship.  And 3PO repeatedly says “ow”.  “Ow”?  Now you’re telling us that 3PO has nerve endings?  It’s hard to stomach any more of this shit.  If 3PO could feel pain, then wouldn’t getting blasted into pieces hurt a lot more than bumping his head?  He should’ve been screaming in agony through the entire last half-hour of the movie.

Although they’re still being shot at by stormtroopers, instead of boarding the Falcon, Leia and Lando “take cover”, by leaning close to the ship – but, they’re not actually behind anything.  In other words, they’re sitting ducks.  Fortunately for them, stormtroopers can’t aim for shit.  They’ve been shooting at the heroes for two movies, and haven’t yet so much as grazed one of them.  And, evidently, their armor provides no protection against blasters…  So, Leia and Lando pick off a few more … then, they escape in the Falcon.  

And, apparently, they forget all about Luke…

Meanwhile, back in the painting-- giant Cloud City shaft-thing that exists for no discernable reason, Luke is looking for Vader…  Suddenly, Vader lunges out from around a corner--

Wait…  Vader was holding his breath?  That doesn’t make sense.  He said he didn’t “want the Emperor’s prize damaged”, and that he wanted to turn Luke to the dark side…  If Luke hadn’t dodged, Vader would’ve cleaved him in two.  If he wants Luke alive, why would Vader surprise-attack him?  You don’t suppose he did it just to scare the audience, do you?

Then, Vader damages “the Emperor’s prize” by cutting its hand off.  Vader reveals that he’s Luke’s father, and says the two of them could rule the galaxy together.  

Luke declines the offer, and falls into the bottomless painting… 

...then, he falls through another painting… 

...he gets vacuumed up by the tube-thing … gets dumped into another tube-thing … and then, he gets dumped out the bottom of the city…

Luke tries to talk to Obi-Wan through the Force, but Obi-Wan won’t talk to him.  ‘Cause he’s a dick.  Or, maybe he can’t talk to him.  I’m not sure why … probably because Obi-Wan is more powerful than I can possibly imagine.

So, Luke communicates telepathically with Leia, and “tells her” where he is, so the Falcon crew can return to rescue him.  When they do, and Lando opens the top hatch, Luke turns back into claymation, and blinding white light pours into, and out of, the Falcon, for no reason at all…

But, the real problem with Luke’s rescue is Vader’s inexplicably stupid and self-contradictory behavior.  See, we know that Vader knows that Luke’s not dead, because later he talks to Luke through the Force, and is still trying to convince Luke to join him.  So, why did Vader return to his Star Destroyer, instead of going to get Luke himself?  He was a lot closer to Luke than the Falcon...  

Did Vader know that the Falcon crew had escaped, and that they were going to rescue Luke?  If he didn’t know, then leaving Luke hanging under Cloud City was tantamount to leaving him for dead, which is contradicted a moment later by his effort to convert Luke to the dark side.  If he did know the Falcon crew had escaped, and that they were going to rescue Luke, then you would think he’d want to reach Luke first.  Because if he doesn’t, then it requires him to capture the Falcon, which he’s been trying, and failing, to do throughout this entire movie.  And if capturing the Falcon was the plan, wouldn’t he have taken into account that he allowed the Falcon’s hyperdrive to be repaired, which is ultimately how the Falcon escapes, and Vader’s plan fails…?  It makes no fucking sense…!

The Falcon leaves Bespin, again pursued by TIE fighters that again fire incessantly on the ship, despite the fact that the Falcon is not returning fire, and despite the fact that they want to capture the ship, not destroy it…  No ship in Star Wars has ever been shot this much without blowing up.  The Falcon should’ve blown up fourteen times by now.

Leia points at the Super Star Destroyer and says, “Star Destroyer”.  Take note of that.  It’s important information: Leia knows what a Star Destroyer looks like.

Admiral Piett:  They’ll be in range of our tractor beam in moments, Lord.

Vader:  Did your men deactivate the hyperdrive on the Millenium Falcon?

Admiral Piett:  Yes, my Lord.

Vader:  Good.  Prepare the boarding party, and set your weapons for stun.

Now?  They’ve been trying to capture the ship throughout this whole movie, and now, in the last few minutes, it’s finally occurred to them to use the tractor beam?  

Then the absolute dumbestest thing to ever happen in a movie happens:  The Falcon will be in range of the Imperials’ tractor beam … as long as it doesn’t alter course and actually fly away from the Star Destroyer … which it doesn’t.  It inexplicably keeps flying closer and closer … which is especially strange and dumb, because it was clearly established two seconds ago that Leia knows what a Star Destroyer looks like.

How about now?  Are they in range of the tractor beam yet…?

So, let’s be clear:  In Cloud City, the Imperials could have impounded the Falcon.  They could have disabled it, so it couldn’t take off, much less go to lightspeed.  They could have smashed the hyperdrive to bits, or simply removed the hyperdrive generator.  Instead, they left the ship unguarded and unoccupied, allowed the hyperdrive to be repaired, and flipped the hyperdrive on/off switch to “off”…

This is their idea of sabotage?!  This is their foolproof plan to capture the ship?!  The Empire has spent the entire movie trying to capture, and simultaneously and contradictorily, trying to destroy, one tiny rebel ship, and despite the fact that the Falcon never fires a single shot, they fail through their own ridiculous incompetence and unfathomable stupidity…  Even after Boba Fett handed them the Falcon and her crew on a silver platter, the Empire couldn’t hold them.  You know, it really adds a lot of tension in the movie, when the main enemy forces are totally ineffective.

I mean, does the Empire really “strike back” in this movie?  Yeah, they shot down some rebel pilots at the beginning, but they killed more people in the first movie – even if you don’t count the planet they blew up.  And yeah, Luke lost his hand in a lightsaber duel, but that hardly compares to Obi-Wan losing his life.  And yeah, Han Solo gets abducted, but that wasn’t really the Empire’s doing.  Mostly, the Imperials are just made to look like fools while they’re chasing the Falcon around…  I don’t think “The Empire Strikes Back” was the right title.  It probably should have been “The Empire Tries to Strike Back and Fails Miserably, but With The Help of Boba Fett, It Kind of Looks Like They Sort of Strike Back, but Not Very Hard”.  

Chewbacca goes into the pit, to try to repair the hyperdrive … which has already been repaired…  So … what exactly is Chewie doing down there?  What does he think he’s doing down there…?  

R2-D2 knows that the hyperdrive has been deactivated, ‘cause Cloud City’s central computer told him.

C-3PO:  R2-D2, you know better than to trust a strange computer!

Whoa, look out, 3PO’s being logical again.  What possible reason could the city’s central computer have had for lying to R2-D2?  As a practical joke?  Like the computer’s thinking, I wish I could see their faces when they go to flip the on/off switch to “on”, and they find out it’s already on!!!  Ha ha ha ha ha!!!  What possible harm could it do to trust the computer about something as simple as this?  

C-3PO apparently doesn’t think it’s even worth checking to see if the hyperdrive is switched off.  And what the fuck does it matter what 3PO thinks anyway?  They’re being attacked by Imperial ships right now, and instead of just turning the hyperdrive on, R2 is casually chatting with 3PO about it, while repairing his leg…  What’s so urgent about repairing 3PO’s leg…?

So, the Falcon flies right up to the Star Destroyer, so close the two ships are practically kissing … then, flies the length of the ship … then, flies out in front…

Admiral Piett:  Ready for the tractor beam.

Ooooh…  Now, I’m really on the edge of my seat.  I wonder what’s going to happen next...

R2 turns on the hyperdrive. 

They go to lightspeed, and escape … big surprise…

Luke gets a new robot hand, and the good guys plan to go rescue Han Solo … and then, the movie ends … or, just sort of leaves off…

The sequel to Star Wars, the most successful and beloved sci-fi movie ever made…  Never again will anything be more wildly anticipated, or a bigger disappointment.  I’m not sure why The Empire Strikes Back was even made…  

The original Star Wars was George Lucas’s vision.  He wrote and directed it himself.  But, with Empire, he didn’t even seem to care about anything.  I mean, yeah, Lucas provided the completely and utterly implausible and stupid plot of the movie, but he let it be written and directed by a couple of nobodies named Larry and Irv.  

Lucas earned his independence from Hollywood, and gained total control on every aspect of the film, and this was the result?!  

So, how did it all go so terribly wrong, and what are the key idiotic decisions you’d have to make for a movie to suck as bad as The Empire Strikes Back…?

Overreliance on special effects.  With Empire, it just seemed like they were trying too hard to top the previous movie … by showing us new creatures and aliens, and vehicles, and exotic worlds … but, the result is that the movie is filled with (unconvincing) claymation, and (what are obviously) hand puppets, and paintings, paintings, and more paintings…

In the original Star Wars, a creature like a Bantha was created by dressing an elephant – an actual living animal on an actual location...  

In Empire, the tauntaun is alternately an inexpressive puppet with no real freedom of movement, and a miniature claymation model on a miniature set.  

In Star Wars, the wise Jedi Master was played by Sir Alec Guinness.  In Empire, the wise Jedi Master is played by a Muppet.

And if you compare the original Star Wars with Empire, you can see a vast difference from the realism of actual locations and sets...

...to the phony, static, unrealistic, illustrated environments…  

The human eye can detect fakeness really well.  And when you’ve got a major environment, like Cloud City, created almost exclusively by a series of paintings, well ... it just sucks.

It severs the connection with the audience.  It just doesn’t feel right, and it shatters my suspension of disbelief constantly, ‘cause it doesn’t look real.

Lack of character development and character relationships.  The human characters we identified with, and cared about, in the first movie (Luke, Han and Leia) aren’t so identifiable in this movie.  They don’t grow, or change, or even relate to each other in a believable way…  After the first movie, we wanted to learn more about them, and we wanted to see their relationships develop.  But, in Empire, we get nothing…

Luke is essentially isolated from the other two characters for the entire movie.  He only has a few brief scenes with Han and Leia, and even in those scenes, Luke barely interacts with them.  I can count the lines of dialogue Luke has with them on one hand…  

So, the only human relationship that even has a chance of developing is the relationship between Han and Leia.  But, Han and Leia just spend the whole movie fighting like bratty little kids, and then, they eventually acknowledge, each in their own way, that they are attracted to each other … which the audience knew right from the beginning.  But, that’s all they really are: attracted to each other.  The movie doesn’t give us any reason to believe that they’re actually in love.

We don’t learn anything new about the characters, and there’s no real depth or meaning to their relationships…  So, why in fuck’s name should we care?  

The non-story.  But, the biggest and most glaring problem in The Empire Strikes Back is that the story doesn’t contain turning points.  This is, like, the most obvious part of storytelling, but I guess I gotta explain it when talking about this turd.  Let’s go back to Screenwriting 101, shall we...?

A “turning point” is when something changes in relation to the main conflict that has lasting consequence.  When a scene doesn’t contain a turning point, it means that nothing happened in the scene that’s relevant to the plot … so the scene doesn’t really have a purpose, and it doesn’t belong in the movie.  Scenes need to contain turning points, and at least some of them need to be points of no return.  

A “point of no return” is when a decision is made, an action is taken, or a piece of information is revealed that changes the nature of the main conflict irrevocably (i.e. in such a way that things can never go back to the way they were).  

Since Empire contains virtually no turning points, and there’s no lasting consequence to anything, almost nothing of any real importance happens in the entire movie…  It’s essentially the same at the end as it is at the beginning…    

At the beginning of the movie, the rebels are running and hiding from the Empire.  At the end of the movie, the rebels are running and hiding from the Empire.  Luke goes into the Wampa cave.  Luke comes out of the Wampa cave.  Luke gets shot down in a spaceship.  Luke takes off in another spaceship.  The Falcon flies into an asteroid field.  The Falcon flies out of an asteroid field.  Luke’s X-wing goes into a swamp.  Luke’s X-wing comes out of the swamp.  Luke goes to Dagobah to become a Jedi.  Luke leaves Dagobah, and he’s not a Jedi.  The Falcon gets chased by the Imperial fleet.  The Falcon gets away from the Imperial fleet.  The Falcon crew gets captured by the Empire.  The Falcon crew gets away from the Empire.  C-3PO gets blasted into pieces.  C-3PO gets put back together.  The Falcon gets chased by the Imperial fleet.  The Falcon gets away from the Imperial fleet…  

So, in the whole movie, what has changed, or progressed, or had any lasting consequence?  You could say that Luke and Han became good friends.  But, no… 

...they were already good friends.  This was re-established right at the beginning.  In the first line of dialogue, Luke calls Han “old buddy”, and Han refers to Luke as “my friend” when he leaves the Hoth base to look for him.  

You could say that Han and Leia became attracted to each other.  But, no… 

...they were already attracted to each other, which was also re-established right at the beginning of the movie.  

You might say that Han Solo being frozen in carbonite had lasting consequence.  But, no… 

...not really.  His friends rescue him at the beginning of the next movie, and in spite of temporary blindness, Han goes right back to being his old self.  

And you might say that Luke getting his hand cut off had lasting consequence. 

No.  He immediately gets a new hand that, for all intents and purposes, is exactly like the hand he lost.  

Nothing changes, or progresses, in The Empire Strikes Back.  There’s no lasting consequence to anything, except for this one thing:  Luke finds out Darth Vader’s his father.  That’s it.  One line of dialogue…  This is a turning point that is also a point of no return, but it’s the only one in the movie.  Which means, there’s no reason for this movie to exist, except to provide Luke with the motivation to save Darth Vader in the next movie.  They could’ve just skipped over all the events of Empire, opened the Star Wars sequel with Luke completing his training, revealed Darth Vader was his father, and then just continued with the events of Return of the Jedi, and the audience wouldn’t have missed a thing…

Of course, you can pick Empire apart on the phony visual effects, the nonsensical plot, and the lousy dialogue, but in the end, the main problem was that it failed to create a fantasy world we could believe in, characters we could care about, and a mythic adventure story that was satisfying.  Basically, it just failed to recapture the magic of the original Star Wars.

All too easy...

[nerdonymous-blog]

The Last Jedi Review: After

“Before” was a list of things I was hoping to see/hear in TLJ.  

“After” is my reaction to the movie, based on the same list.

(SPOILERS)

Initial Reaction

“What I wish is that [Disney] had been more accepting of [George Lucas’s] guidance and advice.”  – Mark Hamill

So do I, Mark.

Back when I first heard that there was going to be a Sequel Trilogy, I was excited, but just a little bit worried (for reasons I’ll get into below).  Then, when I heard that Disney had decided to discard George Lucas’s stories for the films, I absolutely cringed…

Worst.  Idea.  Ever.  

Don’t like George’s dialogue?  Fair enough.  As far as I’m aware, he had no intention of writing any dialogue for the Sequel Trilogy.  Don’t like his directing?  He wasn’t planning on doing that either…  It’s Lucas’s stories and characters that make Star Wars Star Wars.  That’s what Disney threw away – not his dialogue, not his directing – they threw away Star Wars.

I told myself that there was nothing I could do about it, and I tried to be optimistic about Disney’s version of the Sequel Trilogy.  But, when I saw J.J. Abrams’s mystery-boxed soft-rebooted imitation-Star Wars fan film bullshit, I was so outraged (not in a real life kind of way – I’m talking about fan outrage) that I actually started a petition to have Lucas’s Sequel Trilogy produced into animated films (like Clone Wars).  I tried whatever I could think of to get people to sign it, but, generally, they seemed pretty idiotically happy with corporate Star Wars … and the petition has long since closed…

So, I just tried to be optimistic about Episode VIII.  And I was pretty successful (with help, and considerable effort) at convincing myself that The Last Jedi could save the Sequel Trilogy…  

I finished watching TLJ a few hours ago (opening night, December 15th, 2017).

So, what did I think?  As far as I’m concerned, unless and until George Lucas’s Sequel Trilogy becomes available in some form, the story of Star Wars ended with an Ewok party.  (I’ll provide a detailed reaction to the film, after I do the list.)

“[George Lucas] had an outline for [Episodes] seven, eight, and nine. And it is vastly different to what they have done.”  – Mark Hamill

No kidding.

The Obvious Things

From “Before”:

Good acting, cool effects, great John Williams score, etc.  

After:

The obvious things were fine … for the most part … I guess.

Leia Using the Force

From “Before”:

Ever since Luke said, “In time, you’ll learn to use [the Force], as I have,” in ROTJ…  

If she could mind-trick someone, or move something with the Force, that would be great.  If she could do both, that would be better.  And, if she could do more, maybe even kick a little ass, that would be best.

After:

Well … she used the Force … in a kind of goofy, not-particularly-Star-Warsy way…  

Not at all what I was hoping for.

A Fitting End for Leia

From “Before”:

I understand that Carrie Fisher’s role in TLJ has not been altered as a consequence of her untimely passing.  But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Leia’s fate won’t be revealed in the film.  I think I would prefer that it not be…

But, if it isn’t, it will have to be explained in the crawl for IX, or…  

There doesn’t seem to be a good way of dealing with it, just a way that’s least objectionable, and what that is depends on who you ask…

After:

I’m not convinced that there won’t be a recast / digital Leia (in a diminished role) in Episode IX…  

In January, amidst conflicting reports, Lucasfilm released a statement, that read, in part, “We want to assure our fans that Lucasfilm has no plans to digitally recreate Carrie Fisher’s performance as Princess or General Leia Organa.”  It’s the wording of the statement…  Saying that you have no plans to do something is not the same as saying that you plan not to do it.  And “digitally recreate … performance”?  It’s not the performance you recreate – it’s the face.  The performance is created by another actor…  

Then, in April, Kathleen Kennedy announced that “Carrie will not be in [Episode] IX”.  Well, of course Carrie won’t be in it…  What about Leia…?

I mean, the character clearly has unfinished business…

Luke Skywalker Being Awesome

From “Before” (truncated):

Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker is at least 90% of the reason I’m excited to see this film.  I’m hoping his character won’t be portrayed as TFA and the TLJ promotional materials have made him seem (sort of, maybe).  That is, Luke should not be less than noble and heroic…

He’d better have a very good reason for hiding out on Ach-Too (bless you).  He got alotta ‘splaining to do!

(DO NOT kill Luke Skywalker!!!  DO NOT kill Luke Skywalker!!!  DO NOT kill Luke Skywalker!!!  DO NOT kill Luke Skywalker!!!  Thank you.)

After:

It’s hard to imagine how the character of Luke Skywalker could possibly have been more poorly handled.  When Mark Hamill said that he had told Rian Johnson, “I fundamentally disagree with virtually every decision you’ve made about my character”, I thought hoped that he was just being mischievous – toying with the fans – tempering expectations, or something.  But, no.  It’s clear to me now that he was absolutely sincere.  

“Disappointment” doesn’t cover it.

You know what would have been better than what we got?

Anything.

More specifically, if it had turned out that things were not as they seemed, and Luke had gone to Atchoo in search of some arcane wisdom of the ancient Jedi to help defeat Snoke…  

As it was, Luke really had just gone off to pout … and then to die.  Could there possibly have been a less satisfying answer to why he was there?  Or a more nonsensical one?  Why would he need to seek out the first Jedi temple if all he wanted to do was hide from everything and everyone…?  He might as well have just gone to Dagobah … or any other remote planet…  

I mean, did Luke discover those ancient Jedi texts just so sort-of-Yoda could make a lame joke about them not being “page-turners”?!  And why would there have been that map leading to him if--?  You know what – forget it.  I might as well try to make sense of a David Lynch movie…

The Last Jedi absolutely destroyed Luke’s character, and then, killed him off…

(Actually, I have a theory about why Rian Johnson did what he did, which I’ll talk about below, in “Detailed Reaction”.)

Lightsabers and Jedi Action

From “Before”:

I’d like to see both Rey and Luke fight multiple opponents.

Luke has to use his green saber from ROTJ.  And be awesome with it.

Rey is going to have to construct her own lightsaber – before the end of this Episode would be nice.  (Maybe Kylo Ren could take the Anakin one.)  I’d like to see Rey wield a double-bladed blue…

After:

Well … Rey fought multiple opponents … those red guards we knew nothing about who, oddly, decide to fight Rey and Kylo to the death – after the guy they were supposed to be protecting got killed.  Wouldn’t it have made a lot more sense if they had either sworn allegiance to Kylo, or … I don’t know … started job hunting?  Seriously, what was the point?  Were those the Knights of Ren?  If not, where the hell were these “Knights of Ren” we’ve heard so little about…?

Luke Skywalker was about as far from awesome with a green lightsaber as he could possibly have been.  (Certainly not Mark Hamill’s fault.)  He did briefly use his green saber … in a flashback to when he tried to murder his nephew in his sleep…  Jesus H. Christ … where do I start…?  First – There are no flashbacks in Star Wars.  There are no flashbacks in Star Wars!  Certainly not non-Force-vision ones with fucking voice-over narration!  Second, the flashbacks looked like something out of a really bad Star Wars spin-off TV show, or something.  Third, and most importantly, Luke Skywalker tried to murder his nephew in his sleep???!!!!!  WHAT THE FUCK???!??!!!?!!!!

And there wasn’t even a lightsaber duel in this movie.  There wasn’t a single lightsaber duel in this movie!  Every Saga film has to have a lightsaber duel!!  IT’S THE LAW!!!

And Rey didn’t build a lightsaber – she and Kylo Ren broke one in half.  Why?  ‘Cause symbolism?  Spare me.  

Hey – maybe they could each wear a half around their necks.  It wouldn’t be any more lame than anything else in the Sequel Trilogy…

Character Depth/Detail

From “Before”:

The new characters in TFA were underdeveloped.  Poe and Phasma, especially, were absolute non-characters.  I’m hoping they get a lot of help from TLJ.  

Establish a relationship between Rey and Poe.  Maybe plant the seeds of a future romance…?

I’d also like some justification for Finn’s specialness among Stormtrooper “recruits”: maybe Force-sensitivity, making him more compassionate than your average minion.  This would also retroactively help (somewhat) with the Finn-using-a-lightsaber-undermines-Jedi-awesomeness thing.  Either that, or don’t have Finn use a lightsaber again.

After:

Poe became something of a character … in his own perfectly extraneous subplot that would’ve felt right at home on an episode of some sci-fi TV drama, like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica.  (No, it’s not a good thing.)

Phasma got to come back briefly to be, stunningly, even more useless than she was in the last movie.  I really didn’t see the point.  Will she be coming back in IX – like Kenny from South Park?  

Rey and Poe met … woo-hoo…

Instead of revealing Finn as Force-sensitive … it was that stable boy with the broom … uh, okay…  

Finn was given stuff to do in a needlessly complicated, unnecessarily long, and fantastically unexciting subplot that made his character no more explicable, and somehow, incredibly, seem even less essential, than he was before.  

All Force Ghosts

From “Before”:

Anakin, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon.  Get ‘em all in there!

After:

By this point in the story, Force ghosts should have become extremely significant, especially Anakin…

Instead, we only got pseudo-Yoda, who inexplicably seemed to be doing his role-playing-patience-testing persona from The Empire Strikes Back, having an embarrassingly clichéd After School Special “good talk” with Luke to pull him out of his funk, and give him his “arc”…  If that’s all it took, why didn’t Yoda just do that years ago…?

Oh, why do I even…

Minimize TFA Lameness

From “Before” (truncated):

Smashing Kylo Ren’s pointless voice-changing-Vader-wannabe helmet is a good start…

Basically, TLJ should not suck beyond the extent to which it must necessarily suck for having continuity with TFA.

After:

The irony of this category heading is not lost on me.  Before I saw the movie, I did not imagine that The Last Jedi could actually be worse than The Force Awakens.  

The movie was so bad that none of this stuff matters anymore…

Acceptable Rehash-to-Newness Ratio

From “Before” (truncated):

Walkers.  Jedi training on a remote planet.  The possibility that Canto Bight will be vaguely reminiscent of Cloud City.  The rumor that Rey is going to lose a hand/arm.  That’s more than enough.  That’s plenty.  The rest should be amazing newness…

I do get the impression that the plot of TLJ will be much more dissimilar to ESB than TFA was to ANH.  Fingers crossed…

Before TFA, I had hoped that the Sequel Trilogy would have its own identity (incl. design-wise), distinct from the OT, like the Prequels did…  

After:

Well … the plot certainly wasn’t a rehash (except for the bits that were), which would have been very pleasing to me, if what was new had been any good.

It’s amazing that Johnson managed to get the ratio just right, yet still get the content exactly wrong, especially when it mattered most; what was old should have been new (the conflict between Rey and Ren), and what was new should have been old (the character “Luke Skywalker”, or whoever that impostor was). 

Rey Solo

From “Before” (truncated):

If you’re about to tell me that “Rey Solo” has been debunked, please don’t.  I’ve already been told, and I don’t buy it.  When someone (especially J.J. Abrams) tells you something, and you just believe it, despite the fact that the person (J.J. Abrams) has every reason to lie, that’s not called “debunking”.  That’s called … “shame on me” (if you know what I’m saying).

People have pointed out all the problems with “Rey Solo” to me (timeline, abandonment, characters not recognizing her, etc.), conveniently ignoring the fact that the exact same kinds of problems apply to every theory about Rey’s parentage…  

The argument against “Rey Solo” is essentially this:  Despite the likelihood that “Rey” is not Rey’s real name, and that Han and Leia wouldn’t have seen her since she was a toddler, the idea that they wouldn’t recognize (or remember) their own daughter is implausible.

But, plausibility in Star Wars and plausibility in the real world are two very different things.  Star Wars is full of dishonest, manipulative space wizards with mind-affecting powers…  …somebody must have Force-fiddled with Rey’s brain to keep her from leaving Jakku…  So, if Rey can have suppressed memories (and training), which she very, very obviously does, why can’t other characters?  

Here’s how easy it is to make sense of “Rey Solo”:  The Jedi … foresaw the threat of Snoke…  So, they … decided to hide Ben’s (extremely powerful) younger sister – for her own protection, and to insure the future of the Jedi.  She was not simply abandoned, but purposefully isolated (maybe to keep her from forming attachments?).  …there wouldn’t be any point in trying to protect Rey by suppressing her memories … if the other characters still remembered who, what, and where she was - because of that dark side memory extracting power we’ve seen Vader and Kylo use…  With the others’ memories of her intact, Rey would have been just as vulnerable as she would had they done nothing.  In fact, with her own memories (and training) suppressed, she’d be even more vulnerable…

I know that “Rey Solo” is pretty close to the least popular theory out there, and a lot of people think I’m an idiot for still believing, but I’ve never doubted that Rey is the daughter of Han and Leia.  Dramatically, it’s the only answer that makes sense.  That’s (one of the reasons) why it’s such a weak mystery…

If, in The Empire Strikes Back, they had revealed that Luke Skywalker had a sister, but made her identity a mystery, everyone’s first thought would’ve been that it’s Leia (because she was basically the only girl in Star Wars).  But, after a while, fans would’ve rejected the idea as being way too obvious to leave the audience in suspense for three years.  This would’ve been followed by ever-increasingly ridiculous speculation…

Essentially, this is what has been happening for the past two years.  I call it “The Mystery Box Paradox”:  The reason it isn’t obvious who Rey’s parents are is because it’s way too obvious who Rey’s parents are.  It’s a mystery … that isn’t strong enough to keep the audience in suspense for two hours, let alone two years…  In fact, the mystery is so weak that you knew the answer before they even asked the question.

I’m not meaning to imply that I want the reveal to be a surprise.  I wouldn’t want Rey’s parents to be anyone other than Han and Leia.  And I’m way past ready for the mystery (box) to be over…  

After:

Before TLJ opened, Rian Johnson said, in an interview, that Rey’s parentage would be “addressed” in the film.  Not answered – addressed.  When the interviewer pressed him, asking if we’d get “confirmation”, Johnson said, “That depends if you--” and cut himself off, as he nearly let something slip.  “You almost got me!”  Undoubtedly, the thought he was about to express was:  It depends on whether or not you believe what Kylo Ren tells Rey.

There are two possibilities;

The first is that, for some reason I can’t fathom, they decided that the reveal of Rey’s parentage should be the absolutely most unsatisfying, undramatic, anti-climactic, un-Star-Warsian, pointless false-mystery bullshit that it could possibly be.  

The second (and far, far, far more likely) is that the “brilliant” and “talented” Sequel Trilogy Producer J.J. Abrams decided that the “mystery box” should be perpetuated, and the audience should be kept in suspense for another two years.  And I thought making us wait two years the first time was pushing it…

Whenever I hear, or read, or say, or write, or type, or even think the term “mystery box”, it makes me want to punch J.J. Abrams right in the brain.  

Hey, J.J., speculate about this for four years:

Let’s call a spade a spade: the “mystery box” is nothing more than a cheap trick, used routinely on crappy TV shows, that simply postpones the actual telling of the story, and keeps the audience in suspense, for no other purpose than to keep them watching week after week.  So, why the fuck is it being used in Star Wars…?  

Because J.J. Abrams is a bad robot.  Even moreso than I already thought he was: does he actually believe the obvious reveal is going to be more satisfying the longer the audience has to wait for it…?  Something that Abrams desperately needs to learn is that merely holding your audience’s attention by keeping them in suspense and entertaining your audience by telling a good story are two very different things.

Nothing much has changed.  Everything I said in “Before” (with a few minor adjustments) still applies.

This…

Rey’s brother killed her father – right in front of her!

…is stronger than this…

Rey’s cousin killed her … uncle-by-marriage (or … uh, some guy whose ship she stole from another guy who stole it from some other guys who stole it from the guy who stole it from the guy her cousin killed right in front of her) right in front of her…

…in the same way that this…

“I am your father.”

…is stronger than this…

“I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate!”

That is, “Rey Skywalker” makes no sense, because it’s nothing but a watered-down “Rey Solo”.  And every other possible revelation would be utterly pointless…

For example: “Rey Kenobi”.  What impact would this revelation have on the characters and their relationships?  Basically … none whatsoever.  If it affected Rey’s motivations at all, it would probably make her want to learn about the Kenobi family line.  And what does the Kenobi family currently have to do with the story being told…?  

Everything that was done in TLJ, in regard to Rey’s parentage, from the meaningless (fucking voice-over narrated) fake-out Force vision tease to Rey and Kylo’s implausible relationship, was in service of perpetuating the “mystery box”, and setting up the “surprising” reveal in Episode IX…

The intimacy that was established between Rey and Kylo felt completely forced (no pun) and artificial, and, as you may have noticed, non-committal and perfectly ambiguous.  We didn’t get “Reylo” (though I’m sure there are “Reylo shippers” who think otherwise) – just the eye-roll eliciting Join me, and we’ll rule the galaxy together … Don’t do this, Ben…  Yeah, don’t do this, Ben.  This isn’t you – you’re such a good guy.  Apart from being a cold-blooded murderer of defenseless old men, and stuff…

So, what is this Rey’s-parents-are-nobodies “revelation” in TLJ?  It’s a one-movie-too-late attempt at misdirection.  And a piss-poor attempt at that.

The revelation, in The Empire Strikes Back, that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father was a genuine surprise, largely because of our contradictory belief that Vader had killed Luke’s father.  The misdirection was effective, because it made us anticipate that Luke would avenge his father’s murder…  It gave the audience something to invest in emotionally – to root for.

The misdirection in TLJ is completely ineffective, because it makes us anticipate … nothing in particular…  

So, why would anybody fall for it?  If Rey’s parents really were a couple of nobodies, then there was no reason to get the audience worked up over the mystery of their identities in the first place…  

And if the point was to make the eventual reveal of her true parentage a surprise, why didn’t they just establish that her parents were nobodies right from the beginning (in TFA) – that might have actually worked.  For a guy who’s so obsessed with mysteries and surprising revelations, Abrams is amazingly bad at it.  He did it exactly wrong.

And Abrams has pushed this way, way, way, way too far.  That is, I haven’t stopped believing that Rey is a Solo – I’m as convinced as ever, I’ve simply stopped caring…

For those who complain Why do the main characters of Star Wars always have to be members of the Skywalker family? – This is where a dictionary comes in handy.  Under the entry for saga: “a … story of battles, customs, and legends … telling the … history of an important … family.”  Under saga novel:  “a long … chronicle novel telling the story of several generations of a family.”  The reason the main characters of the Star Wars saga are always members of the Skywalker family is because the Star Wars saga is about the Skywalker family.  It’s nothing to get gloomy about.  If Disney has their way, before too long, the non-Skywalker Star Wars films will vastly outnumber the saga films…

Kylo Ren is a Double-Agent

From “Before” (truncated):

Not too long after I saw The Force Awakens, someone told me that Kylo Ren killing Han Solo reminded “us” of Snape killing Dumbledore… which meant nothing to me, because I didn’t know anything about Harry Potter…  

I had taken Kylo Ren at face value, because the lameness of his character seemed to be on a par with everything else in TFA.  But, the double-agent theory instantly made sense to me;  When Ren talks to Vader’s helmet, he’s really using it as a conduit to Anakin’s Force ghost (‘cause they’re in cahoots).  His line “I will finish what you started” really means destroying the Sith.  Kylo has to actually be dark side (as opposed to just faking it) because Snoke can sense his alignment.  Rey’s line “You’re afraid … that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader!” really/also means that Kylo fears that (by the time his mission is accomplished) he will not have the strength to turn back to the light, as Vader did.  Killing Han Solo was a rock-and-a-hard-place decision (the life of his father vs the fate of the galaxy).  And his loss to Rey, in the lightsaber duel, was not entirely due to Rey’s skill…

Since then, I’ve heard the double-agent theory from multiple sources, and it makes so much sense that I’m surprised it’s not more popular.  By “more popular” I mean “universally accepted”.

I don’t know if he actually is a double-agent, but I really, really, really hope he is … if Kylo’s not a double-agent (or didn’t at least start out that way), then his character really is just the pathetic, Vader wannabe, tantrum-throwing, my-parents-didn’t-pay-enough-attention-to-me-so-I’m-gonna-destroy-the-universe whining, patricidal, irredeemable, and f*cking ridiculous talks-to-helmets nutjob douche bag that he appears to be, and the filmmakers are just (very badly) retreading the Skywalker-family-member-falls-to-the-dark-side-redemption-arc thing…

And they wouldn’t do that, would they?  That would be like doing a Death Star plot rehash, with some kind of Mel-Brooks-Spaceballs 2-reject – like a planet that swallows a star, and then spits it out at other planets.  How lame would that be, huh?

After:

It seems that a lot of critics are praising Kylo Ren as being a fascinating and complex villain.  

Nope.  

There was an opportunity (HP rip-off or not) to make him a fascinating and compelling character, as a tragic hero.  

But, what they very stupidly did instead was take lame-as-hell face-value Kylo Ren, and with his embarrassingly weak, thin, ridiculous, and offensive backstory, made him even more lame than he already was.  I wouldn’t have thought that was even possible…

Far from being fascinating and complex, the “character” of Kylo Ren can be understood as being perfectly analogous to his own TFA mask/helmet: a greatly inferior version of Anakin/Vader, whose existence (within the context of the story) has no believable justification.  That is, he’s just a cheap knock-off, who exists for no other reason than to be a cheap knock-off…

Think I’m wrong?  Watch the behind-the-scenes of The Force Awakens, when after having decided on a Vader-like mask/helmet for Ren, they sit around trying to rationalize it:  Kathleen Kennedy suggests, “Maybe putting on the mask makes him feel more powerful.”  It’s almost as embarrassing as the post-hoc explanation for Kylo turning against Luke and slaughtering his students – ‘cause his creepy uncle stood over him while he slept, thinking about murdering him.  This is really the best they can do?  Fucking pathetic.

Still think I’m wrong?  Consider where we are now in the story:  Ren wants Rey to join him so they can rule the galaxy together, and Rey senses that there’s still good in him, and wants to turn him back to the light.  And – as far as I’m concerned – they are blood related.  Sound way, way, way too familiar?  

The fact that Kylo Ren is a fourth-rate Anakin and Vader simultaneously, rather than by turns, doesn’t make him something new…  There is zero depth to the character – he merely has the illusion of depth, because he is an enigma – and he is an enigma simply because he’s ill-conceived and nonsensical.  

Fascinating and complex?  The critics were either paid off by Disney, or they are absolutely clueless.  Or both.

OR 

The whole thing’s just a fake-out.  (Again, I have a theory that I’ll talk about below, in “Detailed Reaction”.)

Han Solo Lives!

From “Before” (truncated):

…I would like it if Han Solo could return as a Force ghost.  Not hanging out with the Jedi Force ghosts … but, maybe he could appear to Rey (or Luke/Leia), at some point.  

I know that non-Jedi don’t become Force ghosts, but the Jedi’s power has been evolving throughout the Saga, and lots of things that once were impossible have become possible…  

…if the Jedi are capable not only of becoming immortal themselves, but also of granting immortality to others … and they were keeping an eye on Ben Solo…

After:

In “Before”, I gave a detailed explanation as to why I think non-Jedi Force ghosts are possible, and touched on how the idea could benefit the story.  I’ll address this further, below…

Make Snoke a Worthy (Final/Arch) Nemesis

From “Before” (truncated):

I should note that I’m proceeding from the assumption that the Sequel Trilogy will constitute the end of the Saga (but, who knows what Disney/Lucasfilm will do).

Snoke needs to be not only more powerful than Palpatine was, but very, very much more importantly, he needs to be powerful in a different way than Palpatine was.  Because if Snoke represents the very same threat that Palpatine did, and his defeat has/would have the very same significance that Palpatine’s did, then he’s redundant and pointless … and what we’re getting in the Sequel Trilogy is just more … with no added meaning.

…with the defeat of Snoke, something has to be achieved beyond what was achieved with the defeat of Palpatine.  And I’ll talk about what that is, below…

After:

Both J. J. Abrams and Rian Johnson have, apparently, made major story decisions based on bad gimmicks…  

Abrams’s gimmick is, of course, his seemingly mindless adherence to his almighty “mystery box” approach, which isn’t about creating a compelling mystery (I don’t think he knows how) with an actual storytelling purpose, but rather, consists of nothing more than simply withholding any information that would provide the audience with the context they require to know what to think, and how to feel, about what’s happening in the story.  

Johnson’s bad gimmick appears to be the cheap surprise.  For example, the Leia’s-death-fake-out.  (Didn’t see that comin’ didya?)  Or, the Snoke-goes-out-like-a-total-punk letdown.  (Didn’t see that comin’ didya?)  No, didn’t see it comin’.  But, why would we, and how could we see it coming when it’s so utterly pointless and nonsensical?

It reminds me of how Ronald D. Moore ended Battlestar Galactica (badly).  There was a way that the series could have made perfect sense in the end, but it was as if Moore thought that a reasonable end is an end that could potentially be reasoned out by fans – and is therefore predictable.  (And, of course, there’s nothing worse than predictability.)  But, once you rule out the reasonable, what are you left with…?  Nonsense.  Which is exactly what the end of Battlestar Galactica turned out to be…

There’s a screenwriting axiom:  Give the audience what they want, but not the way they expect.  Moore and Johnson seem to think it’s:  Don’t give the audience what they want, ‘cause they might be expecting it.  There are things far worse than predictability…

And if there’s a worse combination of bad storytelling ideas than pointlessly withheld information (mystery box) and cheap surprise, I don’t know what it is.  Snoke’s death is a perfect example: Apart from its unexpectedness, it has virtually no impact.  Because, who the hell was that guy anyway…?  There’s nothing but a vague sense of disappointment…

Some people argue that Snoke’s role in the story, and his being killed off without us learning anything about him, is no different from Emperor Palpatine in the Original Trilogy.  I disagree – it’s completely different:  Although we didn’t see him right away, Palpatine was present in the story from the very beginning.  And his purpose in the story was crystal clear.  Snoke, on the other hand, appears out of nowhere two-thirds of the way through.  And his purpose in the story was nebulous.  The point is that Snoke’s inclusion in the story raises a lot of very important questions that Palpatine’s did not…  

Where did Snoke come from all of a sudden?  Why have we never heard of him before?  Is he nothing more than he seems to be: a convenient replacement-Emperor?  How did he go from total obscurity to one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy so quickly?  How did he get all those people to follow him?  What did he want?  Why?  Was he a Sith?  If so, why is he not a “Darth”?  Why does he have “Knights of Ren”?  What does that mean?  Where did he get the resources to do the things he’s done, and build the things he’s built?  If the other characters knew about him, and knew what a terrible threat he was – both to Luke’s New Jedi Order, and to the Republic – why didn’t any of them do anything about it?  Is it because Snoke has special powers that make him invincible, or something?  If so, what are those powers?  And if he’s so powerful, why was it so easy to slice him in half with a lightsaber, just because he got distracted by a pretty girl?  What is, or was, his purpose in the story…?  What the fuck is going on…?

I haven’t discounted the possibility that Snoke will return in Episode IX … in an even more zombified state than we’ve seen him already, which would make a kind of sense, given the fact of – you know – what his face looked like…

If Snoke is not coming back – if he really is just dead and gone – then, by killing him off, the filmmakers have announced to the audience that he was just a superfluous character, a catalyst for Ben Solo’s fall, absolutely nothing more than a pointless fifth-rate Palpatine knock-off, and that the central conflict is really all about redeeming Ben Solo … which reveals the Sequel Trilogy to be, in essence, a rehash (no matter how much Episode VIII tried to disguise it).  A minor variation on the Original Trilogy, a pale imitation that, in the process of imitating, has gutted the OT, and destroyed its beloved characters.  They’ve traded their opportunity to justify the Sequel Trilogy’s existence, all their storytelling potential, and the integrity of the Saga, for a cheap surprise…  

Bad trade.  

If Snoke is coming back – if he is meant to be the arch-nemesis whose defeat will make the annihilation of the Original Trilogy (probably not) worth it – then, with their pointless cheap surprise, they have stupidly, and immeasurably, weakened the threat he should represent, by having him let himself be chopped in half like a fucking dumbshit.  I mean, is he Darth Plagueis the Wise, or Darth Plagueis the Oblivious?  (If they wanted to establish that Snoke has the ability to regenerate from wounds, there was a much, much, much, much, much better way to do it – which I’ll talk about, below.)  And if Snoke really is the ultimate threat, and the stakes really are what they need to be…

WE SHOULD KNOW IT BY NOW.

The Sequel Trilogy Made Integral to the Saga

From “Before” (truncated):

These last two (this, and the above) are crucial, and will make or break the Sequel Trilogy, for me.  And, they are related to the evolution of Jedi power…

In a nutshell, the problem is this: Episodes I through VI constitute a complete story – there was (seemingly) no need for Episodes VII, VIII, and IX.  So, the third trilogy must make itself necessary – it must make itself integral to, and inextricable from, the previous Episodes.  It can only do this by resolving what was (or could be seen as) left unresolved in the previous Episodes (I – VI), by achieving something beyond what was achieved at the end of ROTJ, and by giving the whole Saga a new and greater finality…  

In a sense, the introduction of Snoke, in this flying-by-the-seat-of-their-pants afterthought that is the Sequel Trilogy, has retconned the entire Saga.  From the time George Lucas completed his magnum opus in 2005, until it was decided to tack on another trilogy, the conclusion of the story was the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Chosen One: Anakin brought balance to the Force by destroying the Sith.  By introducing the Sith No One Knew Existed, in Episode VII, the ST could potentially make complete nonsense of Lucas’s six-part Saga…  

I’ve come across a lot of misinterpretation of the prophecy of the Chosen One…  

According to George Lucas (not sure how much this matters to people anymore), Anakin is the Chosen One, the prophecy is true, and was fulfilled (the Force brought into balance) at the end of ROTJ, when Vader destroyed the Sith (the Emperor and himself).  When, in the prequels, the Force was referred to as being “out of balance”, it was not because there were unequal numbers of Jedi and Sith – it was because there were Sith.  It is the existence of Sith/Dark Side Force users that creates the imbalance…

So, what kind of crap ancient prophecy says “The Chosen One will bring balance to the Force … for thirty years.  Then, the Force will just go right out of balance again.”  I’m kidding.  Sort of.  Episode VII has negated the fitting conclusion to the Saga’s central conflict (along with pretty much everything that made ROTJ a happy ending, and the events of the OT meaningful).  This is a huge problem.  And simply blowing up yet another Death Star, and getting rid of yet another Sith Lord, doesn’t fix it.  In fact, it only compounds it…

There are things they could do to make the Sequel Trilogy seem as though it’s not extraneous, and feel less like an afterthought, by creating links with the earlier Episodes…  But, these sorts of things won’t fix the problem.  Even if the truth of the prophecy is maintained, and Anakin is the one who destroys Snoke, the ST is still redundant … like so many other Hollywood sequels.

As I see it, the only thing that could be seen as being left unresolved (from the central conflict of Episodes I – VI) is the persistent problem of the Dark Side: that there is always the possibility that Jedi can fall, that the Sith (or somesuch Dark Siders) can rise again, that history can and does repeat itself.  We could see the Jedi victory over the Sith, in Episode VI, as being temporary, and therefore incomplete.  So, the only way the ST can justify its existence, maintain the integrity of the Saga, and fix the problem is by having the Jedi achieve a victory over the Sith (or Light Side over Dark) that is permanent, that ensures that history can’t and won’t repeat itself.  And this would be the total fulfillment of the prophecy of the Chosen One.

So, if there can be no light without dark, how do you bring permanent balance to the Force?  Someone might think that the way is to get rid of the Sith and the Jedi – all Force sensitives – as in “it’s time for the Jedi to end”.  But … If life can not exist without midi-chlorians, and midi-chlorians are what make people Force-sensitive, and the Force is created by all living things … the Force, and Force-sensitivity, are not going to just go away.  So, this is, again, a temporary solution.

And, if the Dark Side is an eternal and necessary aspect of the Force, you can’t just get rid of that either…

It is apparent that Force energy itself can become corrupted, as in the cave on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back…  

So, the solution to the persistent problem of the Dark Side, the next evolution of Jedi power, may be (and really needs to be) an extension of what Anakin/Vader achieved in ROTJ: after falling to the Dark Side, he turned back to the Light – as far as I know, he’s the only guy who ever did that.  In terms of Jedi power: the ability to cleanse Force energy of Dark Side corruption…

This power could take different forms;  The ability to drain (and cleanse) Force energy from a Sith/Ren/Dark Sider to the point of loss of Force-sensitivity (ability to use/corrupt the Force), or even to the point of death;  The ability to convert a Dark Sider to the Light against his/her will;  And/or, the ultimate (most permanent) form – through the Force make it impossible for the Dark Side to be used – by anyone ever again.  I know it sounds a little crazy…  

I think that in order for this to play out in the right way, dramatically, means that Snoke has to be the living embodiment of the Dark Side – literally – the source of all Dark Side corruption, whose existence makes it possible for the Dark Side to be used at all…  

I have hope that this is how it’s going to go, because of that rumor that Force ghosts can be killed.  Clearly, the reason for introducing this idea would be to create tension in conflicts involving Force ghosts – specifically, Anakin vs Snoke.  This has to be the final battle (in Episode IX, of course), if the Sequel Trilogy is going to accomplish what it needs to accomplish…  

After:

Based on what I saw in Episode VIII, I would say that not only has the Sequel Trilogy not taken a single step toward fixing the problem, but, quite the reverse, they seem firmly committed to pointless redundancy – which not only ruins the ST itself, but retroactively destroys the entire Saga…  

I’m not saying that you absolutely can not undo the Original Trilogy’s happy ending, or kill off its characters, but there is an element of you-broke-it-so-now-you-gotta-pay-for-it.  What we’ve gotten from the ST (so far) has not been worth the cost – not even close.  And I think it’s extremely doubtful that Episode IX is going to make up the difference.  They’re one movie away from officially making complete nonsense of the story of Star Wars…

This is what I was worried about from the beginning.  Even before I heard that Disney had discarded Lucas’s stories – because I considered the possibility that, as a consequence of all the hate he received after the Prequel Trilogy, Lucas had stopped caring…  However, based on what he’s said since the “breakup”, I think this is highly unlikely.  If anyone would care about maintaining the integrity of the Star Wars saga, it would be George Lucas.

Not only did Episode VIII not establish the stakes, nor in any way set up a final conflict, that would be required to give the Saga its “new and greater finality”, but the content of the film seems to preclude even the possibility of it…

As I see it, The Last Jedi made three crucial mistakes;

First, Luke Skywalker’s idea that the Jedi should end is nonsensical.  As I pointed out in “Before”, it is in the nature of life in Star Wars galaxy that Force-sensitivity can’t just go away.  That is, even if the Jedi go extinct, in some form or another, they will return.  It’s inevitable.  Luke would know this.  And he would know that these new Jedi would not have the benefit of learning from the old Jedi’s mistakes.  So, his perspective not only makes no sense for the character – it makes no sense period.  (Alternative theory below, in “Detailed Reaction”.)

Second, the significance of Force ghosts was ignored.  Apart from not-really-Yoda, none of them appear.  (What exactly were they doing while Snoke was rising in power, and everything in the galaxy was going to shit?)  There was a progression, an evolution of Jedi power, in the Saga that has, apparently, simply been dropped – with no explanation.  It doesn’t make sense.  And the Force ghosts, especially Anakin, needed to play a role in the conclusion of the story…

Third, killing off Snoke (whether or not he’s going to return in IX) was idiotic.  If they wanted to surprise the audience in some way, they could’ve done it by revealing Snoke to be far more significant, powerful, threatening, and terrifying than we previously imagined – instead of far less…  

Detailed Reaction

Rian Johnson said that there was nearly an hour of footage cut from The Last Jedi.  But, the Luke milks an alien tit scene stayed in…

…fuckin’ hell…

I could criticize The Last Jedi on the basis that it is not “brand” – I could say that a Star Wars film has to be done a certain way, and that TLJ is bad because it’s tonally and stylistically inconsistent with the previous films…  But then, of course, some idiot would explain to me what my poor little inferior brain doesn’t understand:  This is actually a good thing, because it expands the definition of what a Star Wars movie can be!

Oh.  Is that right…?

As of now, this is what Disney/Lucasfilm have planned for Star Wars; a whopping three Saga films (two down, one to go), and an indefinite number of other Star Wars films, the anthology stand-alones, a new trilogy (unrelated to the Saga), and whatever the hell else they might want to do…  The point is that if Disney/Lucasfilm wants to “expand the definition of what a Star Wars movie can be”, they have absolutely unlimited opportunities, from now until the end of time, to do so – outside of the Saga films, where it would actually make sense to do it.

Does anyone remember Phil Lord and Chris Miller?  They were trying to expand the definition of what a Star Wars movie could be by bringing their own improvisational directorial style to the Han Solo anthology film.  What happened to them, you ask?  Why, they were fired, and replaced by Ron Howard.  And the reason given for their firing?  Well, it was because they didn’t understand that a Star Wars film has to be brand – it has to be done a certain way – it has to be tonally and stylistically consistent with the previous Star Wars films.  You see, you just can’t fuck around with that…

Excuse me, but … isn’t this backward?  Isn’t this 100% exactly wrong?  Lord and Miller tried to push the boundaries, when the trade-off, the sacrifice, was … nothing at all.  (Because the Han Solo film is not an essential part of the Star Wars chronology.)  Johnson pushes the boundaries, and the trade-off, the sacrifice is the integrity of the Saga, and the character of Luke Skywalker.  Lord and Miller get canned.  Johnson gets praised.  Could someone explain to me how this makes any fucking sense at all?  If you want to “expand the definition…”, a Saga film is not the place to do it.  I think the people making the big decisions at Disney/Lucasfilm need to pull their heads out of their asses.

But, no, you don’t understand, the idiot explains to me, The Last Jedi is good because it’s so much more sophisticated and adult-oriented than the previous Star Wars films.

Oh.  Is that right…?

Suppose Steven Spielberg decided that he didn’t want to direct Indiana Jones 5, after all.  So, Disney hires a young, talented, up-and-coming writer/director to helm the project.  The new boy isn’t as excited about following the prescribed Indiana Jones formula as he is about exploring ideas and themes that interest him, personally.  And he wants to distinguish himself by putting his own stamp on Indiana Jones…  

He decides that, realistically, Indy is just too old to do that globetrotting-adventuring-searching-for-mystical-artifacts thing … and that Indy has become a father for a second time … to a special needs kid – yeah, yeah … and the movie would be a family drama that focuses on the strain put on Indy and Marion Ravenwood’s marriage, from trying to care for their new child … and also from Indy, having been an absentee father, trying to repair his damaged relationship with his elder son, Mutt…

Would this necessarily be a bad film?  No.  It might even be an excellent film.  But, it would necessarily be a bad Indiana Jones film, as far as a lot of Indiana Jones fans were concerned.  And when these fans expressed their displeasure, they would likely be confronted with stupid crap like this;

This is actually a good thing, because it expands the definition of what an Indiana Jones movie can be.

What do you have against special needs kids?

You don’t understand, Indiana Jones 5 is good because it’s so much more sophisticated and adult-oriented than the previous Indiana Jones films.

It may be more sophisticated and adult-oriented…  Why does that matter…?

Ever heard “a story that’s about everything is a story that’s about nothing”?  Stories, series, and franchises are defined by their limitations.  “Expands the definition��� may sound good – at first.  But, the ultimate end of an ever-expanding definition is meaninglessness…  

The (rhetorical) question is: In distinguishing himself by putting his stamp on it, would this hypothetical writer/director be serving the Indiana Jones franchise – or exploiting it?  That is, if he wanted to make an in-name-only Indiana Jones film, why make an Indiana Jones film at all?  He could have done the very same family drama outside of the Indy franchise … it just likely wouldn’t have got nearly as much attention…

If Disney/Lucasfilm, and the filmmakers they hire, want to make Star Wars films that are tonally and/or stylistically, logically, narratively, almost-everything-ly inconsistent with the previous films – why make Saga films at all…?  

Because, if they weren’t advertised as the continuation of the Saga, and they didn’t include the OT characters, there would probably be less interest, and the films would make less money.  The Original Trilogy, its distinctive elements, and its beloved characters have not been honored or well-served in the Sequel Trilogy.  They have been exploited.  

In reference to the tonal and stylistic shift that Episode VIII represents, writer/director Rian Johnson said, “…I do think the conversations that are happening were going to have to happen at some point if [Star Wars] is going to grow, move forward and stay vital.”  Yes, I was very concerned about Star Wars’ ability to grow, move forward and stay vital throughout the films remaining in the Saga – all one of them.  (Because, clearly, interest is on the wane.)  Why is Johnson’s “at some point” most appropriately now, and in response to his film, when there’s only one movie to go…?  Interesting timing…

So, is The Last Jedi a good film?  It may be, but it doesn’t matter – it’s a horrible Star Wars film.  Star Wars saga films have to be brand.  They have to be done a certain way…  Most importantly, they have to make sense with everything that came before…

The Last Jedi does not make sense with what came before.  And not only does the Sequel Trilogy not “agree” with the two previous trilogies, but the two films of the ST don’t even “agree” with each other.  TLJ is a mess, and the ST is an absolute disaster…  

For most of TLJ, it seems that Johnson isn’t even working in the right genre.  He’s doing sci-fi drama, when he’s supposed to be doing space-fantasy adventure.  On the rare occasions that something that looks and feels authentically Star Wars appears, it’s almost jarring.  

Although the separate plotlines of the film are (tenuously) connected, they’re not integrated in a meaningful way.  For most of the movie, I felt like I was channel-flipping between three different mediocre sci-fi shows…

Johnson seems to be much more interested in exploring his own ideas and creations than he is in advancing the main plot.  (I’m not convinced that this is entirely his fault – I’ll address this, below.)  Far too much of the material is tangential to the story … lots of seemingly unrelated ideas … lots of stuck-in bits of writing, with Johnson commenting on everything from war profiteering to the virtues of a vegan lifestyle…  I would say that it feels like the focus is off … but actually, it’s more like the film has no focus.

Based on the first few scenes of the movie (although they didn’t feel quite right), I thought TLJ might be okay … but then, Luke Skywalker tossed that lightsaber over his shoulder (which could be taken as a visual metaphor for the entire film), and from that point on, it seemed that Johnson had intentionally set out to do to TFA what J. J. Abrams inadvertently did to the OT – render it meaningless…  

It was as if Abrams had taken a wrecking ball to the Original Trilogy, in order to try and build something out of the rubble.  And rather than use that foundation to restore some meaning, Johnson took a wrecking ball to The Force Awakens, and left us with nothing but rubble…  On the face of it, Johnson took everything that might have been used to repair the damage done by TFA, and just destroyed its potential.  (Again, I’m not convinced that this is entirely Johnson’s fault – and, again, I’ll address this, below.)

TLJ didn’t do any of the characters or character relationships any favors, and, to a great extent, was actually damaging.  But, worst of all, seeing Luke Skywalker sacrificed to a bad conceit, a clichéd and poorly executed arc, that destroyed his character, was so painful that I doubt I’ll ever be able to look at this movie again…

I could go on and on listing all the details that are horrible about the movie - from tossing the lightsaber over the shoulder to Luke and Leia’s reunion cheapened by a wink-at-the-audience groaner about Leia’s hairstyle - all the things that other people are already talking about, and will continue to talk about – everything from “Leia Poppins” to the weaponization of lightspeed – but what would be the point…?  Let’s just say that where J. J. Abrams made imitation-Star Wars, Rian Johnson made pseudo-Star Wars, I hated almost every single thing about it, and leave it at that.

Of course, critics have praised the shit out of TLJ, with one going so far as to call it “shockingly good”.  But, I can’t help but think that if we were to transplant two of the three major plotlines into Star Trek (no, not Abrams Trek – actual Star Trek), they wouldn’t be considered “shockingly good”, but rather, pretty standard stuff.  That is, so much of what critics have praised about TLJ are the things one wouldn’t expect to find in a Star Wars film – and I tend to think they’re being praised precisely for that reason (and/or because Disney paid them to).  So, it’s really form over content…

And the critics have praised Johnson himself for providing surprises and taking risks … with, apparently, no qualifications for whether or not those surprises were in any way meaningful, nor for whether the risks yielded anything positive, or were even worth taking in the first place.  Again, form over content…  

Killing off Snoke:  Surprising?  Check.  Risky?  Check.  I guess it was a great idea then, right…?

Hey, I got an idea: Halfway through the movie, Rey catches a stray blaster bolt in the head, and dies!  Let’s see how I did.  Surprising?  As hell.  Risky?  As fuck.  Well, clearly, I’ve come up with the best story idea possible.  Where’s my paycheck, Disney?!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  If you come up with an idea that defies audience expectations, and the fact that it defies audience expectations is all the idea has going for it, it’s probably not a good idea.

Generally speaking, audiences don’t like The Last Jedi nearly as much as the critics were paid to-- er, as the critics did.  Some people have tried to “explain” (i.e. invalidate) the backlash against TLJ by saying that it’s not because it’s a bad movie, but rather because some fans got answers other than the ones they were hoping for…  What answers?!  What do you know for sure, after watching TLJ, that you didn’t know before?  Virtually nothing.  

When it comes to audience dissatisfaction, according to Rian Johnson:

“…every fan has a list of stuff they want a Star Wars movie to be and they don’t want a Star Wars movie to be.  You’re going to find very few fans out there whose lists line up.”  

Really?  Because I’ve seen a fair amount of evidence that there are a great number of fans whose lists line up about some pretty basic things.  For example, how many fans do you think have this item on their list: I don’t need to see a lightsaber duel in this movie, but they damn well better have some stuff to say about income equality, and animal rights! …?  Evidence suggests … very few.  Or, how about this item:  I’d like to see Luke Skywalker portrayed as a lightsaber-over-the-shoulder-tossing, alien-titty-milking, creepy, nepoticidal, cowardly, self-pitying, nihilistic, wisdom-of-the-ancient-Jedi-burning, pointless-and-unconvincing-character-arc-having, phone-it-in-hero-ing, non-dueling asshole ...?  Again, very few.  In fact, I’d be willing to bet that it’s none of them.  None at all.

So, the interesting question is: Why exactly was it on Rian Johnson’s list…?

“Lucas never made a Star Wars movie by sitting down and thinking ‘What do the fans want to see?’  And I knew if I wrote wondering what the fans would want, as tempting as that is, it wouldn’t work…”  

(…it wouldn’t work … as well as the approach you took…?)

This tells us what Johnson’s approach wasn’t, but it doesn’t tell us what it was.  If he didn’t sit down and think “What do the fans want to see?” what did he think…?  “What would really piss the fans off…?”???  

I think it must have been something along the lines of “What do I, as a writer/director, want to make?” when the better approach, the right approach, would have been “What would I, as a Star Wars fan, like to see?”  Or, more to the point, “What would I have liked to have seen?”  That is, if this very same Sequel Trilogy had been made when Johnson was a boy, and a fan of the Original Trilogy, do you think he would have cared much for Episode VIII, and, more specifically, the portrayal of Luke Skywalker in it?  I very seriously doubt it.

And now we come to the question of why there’s so much filler in TLJ, why the main plot advanced hardly an inch, and why we didn’t learn any of the things we expected to learn…  I know there are people who would argue with me, and throw out examples of important plot developments…  

“Snoke got killed!”  Which turns the plot how, exactly…?  Since we know nothing about Snoke (not even if his death is permanent), the act didn’t signify a change in the nature of the conflict, and the fact of his death didn’t appear to affect any of the characters’ motivations, killing Snoke was meaningless.  It was about as significant as killing a “red shirt” on Star Trek.  

“Luke died!”  Well, he became a Force ghost – but, if you recall the one not-really-heroic thing he did in the movie, for all intents and purposes…

If we boil it down, the Resistance took extremely heavy losses, and they moved Rey and Kylo (unconvincingly) to the same place as Luke and Vader in the OT – Join me, and we’ll rule the galaxy … I know there’s still good in him … blah, blah, blah…  The rest is filler…

So, if we step back and look at the story of TLJ, or, more to the point, the story of the ST so far, what do we see?  …badly recycled ideas, and rip-offs … re-used plots … story artificially extended with no substance behind it … major characters with incoherent motivations, and/or wildly inconsistent behavior, and/or who make forced and mechanistic choices … plot holes … unbelievable coincidences … special guest stars! … nonsensical post-hoc explanations, contradictions, and reversals that make it appear that the writers are making this up as they go along … set-ups with no pay-offs … plot threads dropped, and left dangling … sudden, inappropriate shifts in style, tone, genre, etc. … audience pointlessly kept in suspense as long as possible … scenes with no purpose other than to tease the audience – ooooh, answers are coming … eventual revelations that will inevitably be disappointing, because they’ll either be too obvious, or they’ll make no sense … filler; extraneous characters, scenes, and subplots … cheap surprises, and fake-outs…

What does that description remind you of?  I’ll tell you what it reminds me of: every crappy TV show ever made...  

From Brian Hiatt’s Nov. 29 2017 Rolling Stone article, “Jedi Confidential”:

“[Rian Johnson is] baffled by fans who are concerned by the idea that they're ‘making it up as we go along’:  ‘The truth is, stories are made up!  Whether somebody made this whole thing up 10 years ago and put it on a whiteboard and we all have to stick to that, or whether we’re organically finding it as we move forward, it doesn't mean that any less thought is being put into it.’”  

How in the world could Johnson be baffled by that concern?  The amount of thought being put into the story is beside the point.  We’ve all seen the negative effects of writers making a story up as they go along – on crappy TV shows.  The writers raise questions without knowing the answers, introduce plotlines without knowing how, or if, they’re going to resolve them, etc. … and in the end the story winds up being a big nonsensical mess.

So, why is the Sequel Trilogy being done like a crappy TV show?  As far as I’m concerned, there can be only one answer:  J. J. Abrams.  I mean, I don’t know for certain, but I would wager vital organs that the reason we didn’t get any answers from Episode VIII is not because Rian Johnson thought that withholding them would make TLJ a better movie, but because J. J. Abrams wouldn’t allow it.  You see, it’s all part of his brilliant masterplan…

I can almost hear Michael Caine doing a variation of his voice-over from The Prestige:

Every “Mystery Box” has three parts, or Episodes.  Episode VII is “the set-up”:  Raise as many questions as possible.  Don’t answer them.  Leave the audience feeling irritated with you, because you didn’t tell them what the fuck is going on.  Episode VIII is “the misdirection”:  Offer one or two bullshit answers that no one would believe.  Other than that, just tease the audience, and continue to keep them in suspense.  Leave them feeling pissed-off at you --er, the other guy, for wasting their time.  And Episode IX is “the surprise”:  Reveal the answers, now that you’ve made everyone wait so long that they either just don’t care anymore, or they’ve had so much time to think about it that they’ve figured everything out – and so they don’t care anymore.  Leave the audience thinking you’re a moron, because if you’d revealed the answers sooner, you would have had the opportunity to play the drama inherent in them, and you would have told a much, much, much better story.

Episode VIII was the right time to find out who Rey’s parents really are, so she (and we) could start dealing with the emotional significance of the truth.  It was the right time to find out why Rey was left on Jakku, so we would understand what’s really going on, could put everything in its proper context, and know how to feel about it.  VIII was the right time to find out about Snoke, so we would understand what’s really at stake, and we could anticipate the final conflict…  So, why, instead, did we get bullshit and nothing?  Why were we left in the dark … again…?

From Brian Hiatt’s “Jedi Confidential”:

“Overall, Johnson enjoyed what seems like an almost unfathomable level of autonomy in shaping The Last Jedi’s story. He says no one dictated a single plot point, that he simply decided what happens next.”  

I have no trouble believing that Rian Johnson wasn’t told what to write – because I believe he was told what not to write.  That is, I believe Abrams let Johnson in on all the secrets, regarding Rey (parentage, and “abandonment” on Jakku), Kylo (past, and true motivations), Snoke (regenerative powers, and secret identity), and Luke (real reason for being on Atchoo, and knows more than he lets on), etc. – and then Abrams told Johnson that he wasn’t allowed to reveal any of it.  That’s where Johnson’s “unfathomable level of autonomy” comes from.  That’s why he could simply decide what happens in Episode VIII – because what happens in Episode VIII doesn’t really matter.  Johnson was tasked with writing filler.

It’s not unlike asking someone to write The Empire Strikes Back, and then telling them that they couldn’t reveal that the little green pointy-eared guy was Yoda, couldn’t have Han and Leia fall in love, couldn’t freeze Han in carbonite, and couldn’t reveal that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father…

Imagine being Rian Johnson under these circumstances, realizing that you can’t significantly advance the story without either revealing secrets, or contradicting them … neither of which you’re allowed to do.  How do you write filler without looking like you’re writing filler…?  Well … you could develop a couple of big, bloated subplots … and you could give dramatic arcs to supporting characters and new characters that probably shouldn’t have arcs at all … throw in some fake-outs, cheap surprises, and misdirection to fool the audience into thinking that the story really has advanced…

It may be that Luke Skywalker’s arc in TLJ – both what the arc was and the fact that he has an arc at all – is just an extremely unfortunate side-effect of the pointless restrictions that Abrams placed on Johnson.  That is, what if Luke really was on Atchoo to discover wisdom of the ancient Jedi to help defeat Snoke, he knew who Rey was, who her parents were, and why she was left on Jakku … and Johnson was not allowed to reveal these things…  So, he gives Luke an arc because he can’t do enough with the main characters, especially Rey … and the arc he gives Luke has to be phony…

The point is that if The Last Jedi sucks (and it does), it’s really Abrams’s fault.  And, if you’re thinking that this is all wild speculation, based on nothing, consider this from Brian Hiatt’s “Jedi Confidential”:

“Unlike almost everyone else in the world, Ridley has known for years who Rey’s parents are, since Abrams told her on the set of The Force Awakens.  Ridley believes that nothing ever changed: ‘I thought what I was told in the beginning is what it is.’  Which is odd, because Johnson insists he had free rein to come up with any answer he wanted to the question.  ‘I wasn’t given any directive as to what that had to be,’ he says.  ‘I was never given the information that she is this or she is that.’

“The idea that Johnson and Abrams somehow landed on the same answer does seem to suggest that Rey’s parents aren’t some random, never-before-seen characters.  All that said, Abrams cryptically hints there may have been more coordination between him and Johnson than the latter director has let on, so who knows what's going on here – they may be messing with us to preserve one of Abrams’ precious mystery boxes.  In any case, Ridley loves the speculation: Her favorite fan theories involve immaculate conception and time travel.  It seems more likely that she’s either Luke’s daughter or his niece, but again, who knows.”  

If Abrams told Daisy Ridley, on TFA, who Rey’s parents were, then it was clearly not Rian Johnson’s decision.  And if it’s true that Rian Johnson wasn’t instructed what the reveal in TLJ had to be, then it must be because he was instructed to not reveal it.  The Rey’s-parents-are-nobodies thing is an attempt at misdirection – obviously.

(By the way…  I’m sure you’ve heard the story of how Mark Hamill found out that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father, how the secret was kept from nearly everyone else who worked on the film – cast and crew – and that they found out the same way we did.  Point being that these kinds of secrets, which are meant to be kept for years, tend to be shared on a need-to-know basis.  So, why did Daisy Ridley need to know who Rey’s parents were when filming The Force Awakens…?  Because she was shooting scenes with Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, who play Han and Leia, Rey’s parents – obviously.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Rian Johnson doesn’t have horrible ideas of his own – just that he wouldn’t have had to put nearly so many of them in his movie if he had been allowed to tell the story, instead of merely postpone it … if he hadn’t been tasked with writing filler and “misdirection” ... if Episode VIII had not been needlessly and foolishly sacrificed on the altar of Abrams’s almighty MYSTERY BOX.

The most important thing in storytelling is not mystery, or unpredictability, or shocking surprises, or any of that gimmicky crap.  The most important thing in storytelling is emotion – feeling for and with the characters.  We can’t do that if we (and/or the characters) don’t know what’s going on or why.  For example, imagine that, in the OT, they had saved the revelation that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father until the end of ROTJ, instead of revealing it in Empire.  Would hanging on to the secret longer have made the story better?  No!  It would have ruined it, because they would have sacrificed the opportunity for the whole thing to play out dramatically and emotionally the way it needed to.  

I honestly believe that J. J. Abrams would sacrifice anything, any dramatic scene, any moment of genuine emotional connection, character consistency, overall story quality, plot coherence – anything, if it meant that he could keep the audience in suspense for one minute longer.

And if we were to ask Abrams why his “mystery box” approach is superior to a more straightforward one, and we restricted him from responding with any phrasing of the idea that It holds the audience’s attention by keeping them in suspense, I would bet my life, and yours, that he would not be able to answer.  It’s just his default setting.  He makes storytelling decisions like a mindless fucking automaton.  He’s the brainwashed product of shitty television.

It may be that Abrams is planning on opening his “mystery box” in Episode IX and BLOWING EVERYONE’S FRIGGIN’ MINDS!!!  He could reverse everything; the Rey’s-parents-are-nobodies thing was a lie … Snoke comes back to life, and is the ultimate threat … Kylo really was a double-agent, and was only actually consumed by the dark side at the moment he killed Snoke – or, he was just tempting Rey to test her … Luke never really did attempt to murder Ben Solo, or even consider it – they both lied to Rey to keep her from learning the truth of their plan to destroy Snoke, the Knights of Ren, and the First Order from the inside … everything Rey witnessed on the island was a charade, and Luke is still totally awesome … the final confrontation between Kylo and Luke was a fake-out fake-out – Kylo knew Luke was only a projection, and allowed the rebels to escape…

But, even if Abrams does intend to “fix” any of it, or all of it, in Episode IX, it won’t matter – it’s not fixable.  Because people don’t enjoy movies in retrospect – they enjoy them (or not) at the time they see them.  For example, X-Men: Days of Future Past does not retroactively make X-Men: The Last Stand a good movie.  DOFP simply gives fans a sense of satisfaction from knowing that the events of TLS have been negated.  Similarly, if it were to be revealed in IX that Luke never really did even consider murdering his nephew in his sleep, it wouldn’t make those shitty flashbacks in TLJ any more fun to watch.

And finally, the point of all this is that there is nothing even remotely Star Warsian about any of this un-fucking-believably annoying “mystery box” bullshit.  Star Wars (no, not Abrams Wars, not Disney Wars – actual Star Wars) is much, much, much, much, much, much more straightforward than that.

The Sequel Trilogy is just layer upon layer upon layer of wrongness.  Throwing away George Lucas’s stories was wrong.  Soft-rebooting was wrong.  Rehashing is wrong.  Mystery boxing is wrong.  Changing the style is wrong.  “They’re tracking us through lightspeed” is wrong.  And they kept saying it, over and over.  You don’t travel through lightspeed, you travel at lightspeed.  You travel through hyperspace.  It’s: “They’re tracking us through hyperspace.”  Voice-over narrated alternate-subjective flashbacks are wrong.  Gutting the Original Trilogy was wrong.  Turning the OT heroes into the biggest losers in the galaxy was wrong.  

The trouble with post-Lucas Star Wars is that it’s being made by people who simply do not get it (Kennedy, Abrams, and Johnson), who are working for people who simply do not care (Bob Iger, Disney execs).  

Kathleen Kennedy should resign.  J. J. Abrams should shove his “mystery box” up his ass, and go make a crappy TV show.  Rian Johnson should continue writing and directing films (just not Star Wars).  Iger, and the Disney execs should apologize to George Lucas, and his fans.  And I would say that they should get down on their knees and beg Lucas to come back and fix their broken shit, but, at this point, it’s just too goddamn late.

Hey, Disney:  The absolute least you can do is take the roman numerals off the Sequel Trilogy films, rebrand them “Legends”, and do not ever, ever, ever package them with Lucas’s Saga.  You’ve pissed on his legacy enough.  Do not insult the man further.

A Better Episode VIII

Here’s a version of VIII that could’ve saved the Sequel Trilogy for me (I’ll try to be as brief as I can):

Opens with Kylo Ren (sans helmet – ‘cause it was lost in Starkiller Base) returning to Snoke.  Because he has failed to recover the map to Skywalker, and was bested by an untrained girl, Snoke deems Kylo unworthy of being his apprentice…

Meanwhile, the First Order attack on the Resistance base is underway.  There’s no Rose Tico.  There’s no Amilyn Holdo.  The fight against the FO is much more action-oriented and Star Wars-like, and Poe and Finn are together, earning the friendship that was established in Episode VII.  The FO attack begins on the surface … the fight moves intra-atmosphere … and into outer space, as the Resistance forces retreat…  (During the surface attack might be a good time to intro the Knights of Ren.)

On Atchoo, Luke is welcoming to Rey, but seems to not know who she is or why she’s there…  

Luke has a brief reunion with Chewbacca, after which Rey sees the Millennium Falcon departing.  Luke tells Rey that this is her home now.  

Luke doesn’t think the Jedi should end (‘cause that’s fucking stupid), is not afraid of Rey’s power, never considered murdering Ben Solo in his sleep, and he doesn’t milk any alien tits … however, he doesn’t believe the time is right for him to return, and he has no intention of training Rey…

The Resistance fighters hold off the FO, as their cruisers jump into hyperspace…  The Falcon returns, and joins the fight.  Snoke’s ship overtakes Leia’s cruiser (with BB-8 on board).  

Rey discovers that the reason Luke sought out the first Jedi temple was to find a way to defeat Snoke, who is an ancient being of immense power – the living embodiment of the dark side of the Force.  His very existence corrupts the Force itself, and it is only because he exists that the dark side can be used by others…

The FO takes a number of prisoners from Leia’s ship, including Leia herself.  BB-8 manages to avoid capture, and hide…

When the Resistance fleet rendezvous, Poe argues that they should go back – not only because of his devotion to Leia, but because BB-8 still has the missing piece of the “map to Skywalker”…  (Poe has a tracking beacon inside BB-8 that will allow him to locate the ship.)

Against orders, Poe and Finn, along with Chewbacca and a small group of Resistance soldiers, begin plotting a stealth rescue mission…  

Rey has a Force vision she doesn’t completely understand that seems to reveal that Han and Leia are her parents…  She questions Luke, and though he is conflicted, he waves a hand over her head, “unlocking” her memories…  

Luke explains that he (and his Force ghost Jedi Council) foresaw the threat of Snoke, and the extinction of the Jedi, and that Rey was hidden to be the hope for the future, in case the rest of the Jedi were wiped out…  Han’s (and others’) memories of Rey were suppressed, just as Rey’s own memories were suppressed – she has already been trained (takes care of the Mary Sue thing), and all the knowledge and wisdom of the Jedi was locked away in her mind…

While Rey begins dealing with her internal conflict about what’s been done to her and her family, and about Kylo Ren/Ben Solo … it’s revealed that Luke and Rey are not alone on the island – the Force ghosts appear; Obi-Wan, Yoda, Qui-Gon, Anakin, and others who have died in the intervening years.  They tell Rey that while they have the power to grant immortality (as it was granted to Anakin), they do not have the power to defeat Snoke.  If the galaxy is to be saved, and the Force is to be brought into balance, Snoke must be destroyed.  And if Snoke is to be destroyed, the Jedi must survive…

Snoke commands Kylo to extract the location of Skywalker from Leia’s mind, and then kill her.  

Poe and Finn’s stealth mission begins, and they infiltrate Snoke’s ship.

Luke begins to train Rey in some advanced techniques; how to hide her presence from being sensed through the Force, and how to shield her mind, so Dark Siders (Kylo and Snoke) can’t see her thoughts and memories.  

In a scene reminiscent of his interrogation of Rey (in TFA), but emotionally charged by the murder of Han Solo, and his own internal conflict, Kylo attempts to extract the location of Luke from his mother’s mind.  Leia resists him, just as Rey did…  When she discovers a truth buried deep in his mind, he recoils…  

BB-8 is discovered, captured, and “interrogated” by some “evil” droids…

When Snoke learns of Kylo’s failure, he is enraged, and declares that he will do the job himself.  

Poe, Finn, and their group locate and free all the prisoners (and yes, when they came in there, they did have a plan for getting out), however, their cover is blown, and it looks like they’re going to have to fight their way out.  (In their attempt to escape we see Leia use Force powers, like mind-trick, Force push, etc.)

Poe, Finn, Leia, and the others are captured (after their group takes casualties), and they are confronted by Snoke himself.  His identity as a Sith is revealed, and his Sith name (Darth Plagueis, or Darth whatever…), and then, we find out that Snoke is a Force-vampire.  (No, he doesn’t actually bite people.)  He drains Force energy from a person’s body, killing the victim, and regenerating himself.  That is, with each life he takes, each soul he destroys, his physical self is renewed a little…  After Snoke does this a couple times, Leia can’t restrain herself anymore, and she uses the Force to resist Snoke’s attempt to kill a third victim (maybe Poe).  Snoke seizes Leia (with the Force) and he looks into her mind … and sees something he did not expect…  

Just then, a FO officer (Hux?) informs Snoke that they have extracted the holographic map to Skywalker from BB-8.  Snoke tells his men to kill all the prisoners.  And here’s where we need a big distraction…  How about BB-8 is a bomb?  He suddenly rolls at the FO troops, as they’re taking aim to execute everyone, and he blows up.  (If you really like BB-8, I guess his head could detach, and they could just get him a new ball, later.)  Leia gives Snoke a mighty Force push, and she and the others make a break for the hangar bay…  They take heavy casualties, but they make it…

Poe calls in the Falcon, and Chewie picks up the survivors.  The Falcon is badly damaged in the process, and can’t jump to lightspeed.  The FO pursues…

Snoke tasks Kylo Ren, and a number (fewer than half) of the other Knights of Ren, with going to Atchoo and killing Luke…

Luke senses that Kylo and the Knights of Ren are coming.  He tells Rey to hide (both physically and in the sense of using the Force so they will not feel her presence).

Kylo pilots his own ship, while the other Knights of Ren travel in two somewhat larger ships.  They arrive on Luke’s island at night (it may or may not be raining).  Luke confronts them, alone.  As they ignite their lightsabers, Rey appears, having disobeyed Luke, and, with the Anakin lightsaber, she confronts Kylo – she is determined to avenge her father’s murder…

The most epic lightsaber battle of all time:  Luke and Rey versus six Knights of Ren (including Kylo).  We begin to see how much Luke’s power and skill have grown since ROTJ.  Luke and Rey take out two of the KoR.  Rey is disarmed and/or wounded, and she’s about to be killed … when Kylo’s saber busts through her attacker’s chest.  Rey is astonished as Kylo then turns on his “allies”.  Now, it’s Luke, Rey and Kylo versus the remaining three Knights of Ren…  

After the other three Knights of Ren have been defeated, Rey, not understanding, attempts to kill Kylo.  Luke stops her, and reveals that while he went looking for the key to defeating Snoke in the wisdom of the ancient Jedi, Ben Solo was attempting to discover the secret from Snoke himself, by turning to the dark side and becoming his apprentice…  Rey begins to understand the terrible sacrifice her brother has made, and how important it is that Snoke should never discover (by extracting the information from her mind) Ben’s true intentions…

The Force ghosts appear, and cleanse the corrupted energy from the fallen Knights of Ren.  Kylo and Anakin speak briefly (so we understand that they were communicating through the Vader helmet in TFA).  

Then, a slight distance away, more faintly, the Force ghost of Han Solo appears.  Kylo falls to his knees.  There wouldn’t necessarily be dialogue here, but we should see that between Han, Ben and Rey there is understanding and forgiveness…

Luke gives Kylo the Anakin saber, and then Kylo departs…

The Millennium Falcon gets shot down and crash lands on a nearby planet.  The First Order sends forces to the planet’s surface to finish them off…

Kylo returns to Snoke with Luke’s (Anakin’s) saber, and he presents it to him as proof that Skywalker has been defeated.  Snoke makes Kylo his apprentice, and gives him a Sith (Darth) name.  

The Falcon is damaged beyond repair, and Poe, Finn, Leia, Chewie, and a few other survivors are pinned down by the First Order.  It looks like their last stand…  

Two FO ships land, flanking them … and Luke and Rey (with a newly constructed lightsaber) emerge.  The Jedi turn the tide.  We see the full extent of Luke’s power – and he’s freaking awesome.  One of the two FO (Knights of Ren) ships is destroyed in the fighting, and the heroes all escape in the other…

Luke and Leia are reunited (and no one says a word about her hairstyle).  Rey is reunited with Finn, and meets Poe, who is impressed by her skill as a Jedi, and her beauty.  And Rey is grateful to him for rescuing her mother…  And, finally, Leia and Rey reunite as mother and daughter…

Instead of ending the film with a shot of some random stable boy who has absolutely not shit to do with anything, the movie could close with a shot of Kylo, so that what we’re left with is the idea that (in addition to the fate of the galaxy) it’s Ben Solo’s immortal soul that’s at stake.  

I think I would have been pleased with something like that.  

Then, in Episode IX, there could be a final battle involving Snoke, the remaining Knights of Ren, the Jedi, and the Force ghosts.  The ST heroes, Rey and Ben, defeat Snoke physically, and then Anakin absorbs the Force energy that is cast out, cleansing it of dark side corruption, and bringing permanent balance to the Force.

From that time forward, the Dark Side remains balanced with the Light within every individual, and never again consumes a Force-sensitive, causing him or her to become “an agent of evil”.  And the Dark Side of the Force is never again used to harm so much as a single hair on an Ewok’s head.  Happily ever after.  The end.

An Even Better Episode VIII

The version of Episode VIII I really would have liked to have seen would have been a version that didn’t need to save the Sequel Trilogy.  That is, the whole set-up in Episode VII was wrong.  The ST should have been entirely different.  Very, very briefly, here’s what I think the premise ought to have been:

The Republic has been re-established, but is a fraction of the size it once was.  There is lots of strife and conflict in the star systems outside Republic space.  The people of the galaxy generally blame the Jedi for the galactic civil war (making no distinction between Jedi and Sith, and as a result of the misinformation propagated by the Empire).  So, the Jedi are outcasts…

Leia is in government, fighting to restore the Republic to its former glory, for the sake of the suffering peoples of the outlying worlds.  Han Solo works as a humanitarian, smuggling much needed supplies to those worlds.  Han and Leia’s non-Force-sensitive son “leaves home” and joins the military, in the hopes of protecting the innocent, and bringing new worlds into the Republic…  

Luke Skywalker is the Master of the New Jedi Order, on a remote planet (Dagobah?) in an ancient stone temple peppered with “modern” tech, and with numerous single-man fighters.  Among others, Luke trains Han and Leia’s very powerful Force-sensitive daughter (who’s close to receiving her Knighthood – like Obi-Wan in TPM).  She and her brother are the main protagonists of the ST…  

There is a schism in the New Jedi Order, and we see the schism happen.  (This way, there is an element of history repeating itself – but it’s history that we haven’t already seen.)  The split gives rise to a New Dark Side/Sith Order (with no “rule of two”).  These New Sith become conquerors and leaders of outlying worlds, and they create a unified military against the Republic.  (Bad guy minions are scary, monstrous aliens this time – instead of just stormtroopers again.) 

So, the set-up is; The members of the Solo (Skywalker) family are scattered, and lots of seemingly insurmountable obstacles come between them.  The Republic has to save the outlying worlds (and itself) from the army of scary aliens, thereby bringing those worlds into the Republic.  And the Jedi have to defeat the Sith/Dark-Siders once and for all, thereby regaining the trust of the galaxy.  

What follows would be a straightforward, fun, exciting space-fantasy adventure.  

By the end, we’d have come full circle;  The Republic would be restored – and stronger than ever.  The New (reformed) Jedi Order would have defeated the Sith, brought permanent balance to the Force (in much the same manner as discussed above), and once again taken their rightful place as the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy.  And the Skywalker-Solo family would be reunited.  

The Best Episode VIII

Undoubtedly, whatever George Lucas had planned.

“What I wish is that [Disney] had been more accepting of [George Lucas’s] guidance and advice.”  

So do I, Mark.

[nerdonymous-blog]

The Last Jedi: The Abrams Effect Theory

This is just a presentation of a theory taken from my forthcoming Last Jedi review.

(The Last Jedi SPOILERS)

I believe that J. J. Abrams’s influence over Episode VIII, as the Sequel Trilogy producer, has (at least somewhat) unfairly cast writer/director Rian Johnson in a bad light.

I’m open to the possibility that, as low as my opinion is of him, I may be overestimating J. J. Abrams.  That said, I find it virtually impossible to believe that, in developing Episode VII, Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan would’ve raised questions about Rey’s parentage, and her abandonment on Jakku, without knowing the answers – that they would have introduced Snoke (the Sith No One Knew Existed), in a film once rumored to be called An Ancient Evil, with no plans to reveal that he is a Sith, his Sith name (Darth …?), and why he looks the way he does – that they would have had Luke Skywalker seek out the first Jedi temple with no story purpose behind that search – etc., etc.  

Nowadays, to hear Abrams and Rian Johnson tell it, there was a simple “baton hand-off”: that Johnson had complete freedom to do absolutely anything he wanted with Episode VIII.

I don’t buy it.

And lots of people seem to think that what Johnson did, with TLJ, was take everything that Abrams had established as being important, in TFA, and just tossed it in the dumpster.  I don’t think that’s what happened at all…

From Slashfilm, posted December 15th, 2015 by Peter Sciretta:

Peter:  …how do you balance developing this one movie versus planting the seeds for the rest of the new trilogy of films that have [been] announced?  [Did] you end up writing a treatment for the three films?

J. J. Abrams:  We didn’t write a treatment but there are countless times we came up with something and said “oh, this would be so great for Episode VIII!” or “That’s what we could get to in IX!”  It was just that kind of forward moving story. …  When Rian [Johnson] … came on board, we met and talked with him about all the things we were working on and playing with, and he … has taken those things and has written an amazing script that I think will be an incredible next chapter…

Let’s think about this just a second…  If Abrams and Kasdan met with Rian Johnson, shared all their ideas about the over-arcing story of the Sequel Trilogy, and in the interest of serving that larger story, Johnson wrote a script that was pleasing to Abrams…  Why would the truth about Rey’s parents reveal Abrams’s set-up in TFA to be a false mystery?  Why would Snoke be killed off, without us learning a single thing about him?  Why would Luke’s reason for seeking out the first Jedi temple be that he just needed a place to pout?  Why would the main story have advanced so little, and so much screen time have been devoted to subplots and supporting characters (not to mention the cheap surprises and fake-outs)?  Why would it seem that virtually everything that TFA made us anticipate has been subverted, contradicted, or forgotten about…?  

As I’m sure you’re probably aware, J. J. Abrams is obsessed with what he calls “mystery box”.  (It’s what everyone else in the English-speaking world calls “mystery”.)  The “mystery box” is nothing more than a cheap trick, a gimmick used routinely on crappy TV shows, to keep the audience in suspense as long as possible, for no other purpose than to keep them watching week after week – or, episode after episode.  Raise the audience’s curiosity, then continually tease them that answers are coming…  Well, I’m sure you’ve had experience with this – we’ve all seen crappy TV shows.

Unaccountably, Abrams seems to believe that the “mystery box” is somehow a magic key to good storytelling, when, as far as I’m concerned, nothing could be further from the truth.  Keeping secrets longer does not necessarily make a story better – and keeping secrets too long could potentially ruin a story, if for no other reason than the audience gets fed up with being strung along, and loses interest…  

Imagine that, in the Original Trilogy, they had saved the revelation that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father until the end of ROTJ, instead of revealing it in Empire.  Would hanging on to the secret longer have made the story better?  No!  It would have ruined it, because they would have sacrificed the dramatic impact of Empire, and the opportunity for Luke’s and Vader’s character arcs to play out the way they needed to in Jedi.  And for what…?

In effect, the “mystery box” just needlessly postpones the actual telling of the story, or pointlessly withholds information that would provide the audience with the context they require to know what to think, and how to feel, about what is happening in the story.  

What Abrams seems not to understand is that merely holding your audience’s attention by keeping them in suspense and entertaining your audience by telling a good story are two very different things.

Of course, I don’t know for certain, and no one who does know for certain would ever confirm it, but I would wager vital organs that the reason we didn’t get any answers from Episode VIII is not because Rian Johnson thought that withholding them would make TLJ a better movie, but because J. J. Abrams wouldn’t allow it.  

From Brian Hiatt’s Nov. 29 2017 Rolling Stone article, “Jedi Confidential”:

Overall, Johnson enjoyed what seems like an almost unfathomable level of autonomy in shaping The Last Jedi’s story. He says no one dictated a single plot point, that he simply decided what happens next.

I have no trouble believing that Rian Johnson wasn’t told what to write – because I believe he was told what not to write.  That is, I believe the Sequel Trilogy is being worked to a very, very simple-stupid plan – Abrams’s plan.  Episode VII was the set-up, in which all the questions were raised … Episode VIII was the misdirection, in which the audience was strung along… (I mean, why reveal in VIII what you can save for IX, am I right…?) …and Episode IX will be the “surprise”, in which Abrams will open the mystery box, and “blow our minds”...  

That’s what I think happened: Abrams let Johnson in on all the secrets, regarding Rey, Snoke, Luke, etc., and then told him that he wasn’t allowed to reveal any of it.  That’s where Johnson’s “unfathomable level of autonomy” comes from.  That’s why he could “simply decide” what happens in Episode VIII – because what happens in Episode VIII doesn’t really matter.  In other words: Johnson was tasked with writing filler.

It’s not unlike asking someone to write The Empire Strikes Back, and then telling them that they couldn’t reveal that the little green pointy-eared guy was Yoda, couldn’t have Han and Leia fall in love, couldn’t freeze Han in carbonite, and couldn’t reveal that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father…

Imagine being Rian Johnson under these circumstances, realizing that you can’t significantly advance the story without either revealing secrets, or contradicting them … neither of which you’re allowed to do.  How do you write filler without looking like you’re writing filler…?  Well … you could develop a couple of big, bloated subplots … and you could give dramatic arcs to supporting characters and/or new characters that probably shouldn’t have arcs at all … throw in some fake-outs, cheap surprises, and misdirection to fool the audience into thinking that the story really has advanced…

Without a doubt, the biggest and most dramatic character arc in The Last Jedi is Luke Skywalker’s.  If you think about it (or, even if you don’t), this isn’t really appropriate, as Luke Skywalker is supposed to be a supporting character at this point in the story.  I think it’s very likely that Luke’s arc in TLJ – both what the arc was and the fact that he has an arc at all – is just an extremely unfortunate side-effect of the pointless restrictions that Abrams placed on Johnson…  

That is, suppose Luke really sought out the first Jedi temple in order to discover wisdom of the ancient Jedi to help defeat Snoke – and he did discover it … but Johnson was not allowed to reveal this…  And suppose Luke knew who Rey was, who her parents were, and why she was left on Jakku … and Johnson was not allowed to reveal these things, either…  

And, because he couldn’t do enough with the main characters, especially Rey (which becomes embarrassingly clear while you’re watching the pointless hall-of-mirrors Force-vision parentage-reveal fake-out tease – which is exactly the kind of thing you’d see on a crappy TV show), in order to get some drama into the “A” story, Johnson was more or less forced to give Luke an arc … but, because he couldn’t reveal the truth of anything, the arc he gave Luke had to be phony…  And, so, Luke’s arc brings him to the point that he should have been from the very beginning of the movie.  

In other words: bad filler.

I doubt we’ve seen the last of Snoke.  If he looked like an ancient being who had suffered many grievous, even “mortal”, wounds in his past, I tend to think that’s because he’s an ancient being who has suffered many grievous, even “mortal”, wounds in his past.  That is, I think Snoke’s “death” is one-half of a piece of poorly handled “mystery-boxed” exposition: that Snoke has regenerative powers that make him virtually immortal…

If Snoke’s role in the story really is over, then you’d think they would have wanted to at least reveal what little there must have been to reveal about him.  And if his role in the story isn’t over, you’d think they would have wanted to do the same – so the audience would be convinced that his role in the story really is over.  

And, if the point of his “death” was to establish his regenerative powers, you’d think they would have wanted to establish that fully, so the audience would spend the next two years anticipating the final conflict with the absolutely terrifying, seemingly invincible Snoke … instead of spending those two years reflecting on how he just went out like a total punk…

But, no … everything has to be withheld as long as possible, everything has to be mystery-boxed, because … well, it just does, okay?!

And then there’s the mystery of Rey’s parentage … groan…  

I should say that, for the purpose of presenting this theory, the specificity of who I believe Rey’s parents to be is beside the point.  That is, if you don’t agree with me about who Rey’s parents are, it doesn’t mean necessarily that you’ll disagree with me about who they aren’t, or, more to the point, why they aren’t Rey’s parents…

First off, I know that there are people who like the idea of Rey being unrelated to the Skywalkers…  They complain Why do the main characters of Star Wars always have to be members of the Skywalker family?  Well, it’s because, as we all know, a “saga” is a story about multiple generations of a family.  That is, the reason the main characters of the Star Wars saga are always members of the Skywalker family is because the Star Wars saga is about the Skywalker family.  And while these people think that making Rey a member of the family would be a mistake, I think the mistake was making Rey’s parentage a mystery in the first place…

When I saw TFA in the theater, and it came to the end, in addition to a thousand other negative things I was thinking, I thought, Really, J. J.?  You’re going to make us wait two years to confirm what everyone already knows?  As far as I was concerned, it was perfectly obvious that Rey was the daughter of Han and Leia, and it was completely ridiculous that Abrams would believe it was a strong enough mystery to keep us in suspense for two hours, let alone two years…

So, imagine my surprise (more like shock and horror) when I started hearing the speculation; that Rey must be a descendent of Palpatine, because she did a thrust with her lightsaber, like Palpatine did in Episode III … that she is a Kenobi, because she has a British accent … that she must be Luke’s daughter, because her name has to be “Skywalker” … I guess…

While these “theories” might have been convincing to some, to me they were about as compelling as; Rey is a desert scavenger, so she must be a Jawa … she fights with a staff, so she must be Darth Maul’s daughter … she understands many languages, droids and Wookiees, so she must be related to C-3PO … Rey has two eyes and one nose, so she must be the daughter of Qui-Gon Jinn…

When I saw TFA, I expected that the whole world would be rolling their eyes with me … instead, I found that the whole world was enthralled by the wonderful mystery…  To this day, it boggles my mind … and kind of makes me want to puke…  There is something like a mountain of reasons to believe that Rey is Han and Leia’s daughter (some of which I went over in my TLJ review), and there really is no reason to believe that she’s the daughter of anyone other…  

As I understand it, Lucas’s idea was to have Han and Leia’s son and daughter be the protagonists of the Sequel Trilogy.  Abrams turned the son into a Vader knock-off, and the daughter into a mystery-box – in the interest of soft-rebooting, you understand; hero(ine) and villain are blood related … siblings who don’t know they’re siblings…  It’s a minor variation on the OT.  It really is just as simple-stupid as that.  And I can not, for the life of me, understand why everyone doesn’t just see right through it.

And then, I went to see TLJ, thinking, Finally, this stupid mystery-box crap will be over! because, at the time, it was unimaginable to me that the storytelling could sink so low as to treat a Star Wars saga film like it was a filler episode of some crappy TV show.  

So, what is this Rey’s-parents-are-drunks-who-sold-her-for-beer-money “revelation” in TLJ?  It’s a one-movie-too-late pathetically transparent attempt at misdirection.  

In the OT, the revelation that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father was a genuine surprise, because Lucas didn’t give it away by announcing to the audience that a revelation was coming – by telling us that Luke’s father was alive out there somewhere, and that Darth Vader had a secret name.  And we believed Obi-Wan when he said that Vader had killed Luke’s father – the misdirection was effective, because it made us anticipate that Luke would avenge his father’s murder…  It gave the audience something to invest in emotionally – to root for.

Abrams’s set-up in the ST is precisely the opposite: he essentially announced to the audience that a revelation was coming by the conspicuous absence of Rey’s surname, and her longing for her family to return…  And the misdirection in TLJ is completely ineffective, because it makes us anticipate … nothing in particular…  

So, why would anybody fall for it?  If Rey’s parents really were a couple of nobodies, then there was no reason to get the audience worked up over the mystery of their identities in the first place…  And if the point was to make the eventual reveal of her true parentage a surprise, why didn’t they just establish that her parents were nobodies right from the beginning (in TFA) – that might have actually worked.  For a guy who’s so obsessed with mysteries and surprising revelations, Abrams is amazingly bad at it.  He did it exactly wrong.

From Brian Hiatt’s “Jedi Confidential”:

Unlike almost everyone else in the world, [Daisy] Ridley has known for years who Rey’s parents are, since Abrams told her on the set of The Force Awakens.  Ridley believes that nothing ever changed: “I thought what I was told in the beginning is what it is.”  Which is odd, because Johnson insists he had free rein to come up with any answer he wanted to the question.  “I wasn’t given any directive as to what that had to be,” he says.  “I was never given the information that she is this or she is that.”

The idea that Johnson and Abrams somehow landed on the same answer does seem to suggest that Rey’s parents aren’t some random, never-before-seen characters.  All that said, Abrams cryptically hints there may have been more coordination between him and Johnson than the latter director has let on, so who knows what's going on here – they may be messing with us to preserve one of Abrams’ precious mystery boxes.  In any case, Ridley loves the speculation: Her favorite fan theories involve immaculate conception and time travel.  It seems more likely that she’s either Luke’s daughter or his niece, but again, who knows.  

If Abrams told Daisy Ridley, on TFA, who Rey’s parents were, then it was clearly not Rian Johnson’s decision.  And if it’s true that Rian Johnson wasn’t instructed what the reveal in TLJ had to be, then it must be because he was instructed to not reveal it.  The Rey’s-parents-are-nobodies thing is just the pointless perpetuation of Abrams’s mystery box for morons.

By the way…  I’m sure you’ve heard the story of how Mark Hamill found out that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father, how the secret was kept from nearly everyone else who worked on the film – cast and crew – and that they found out the same way we did.  Point being that these kinds of secrets, which are meant to be kept for years, tend to be shared on a need-to-know basis.  So, why did Daisy Ridley need to know who Rey’s parents were, when filming The Force Awakens…?  Because Rey’s parents were a couple of never-to-be-seen nobodies … or, because she was shooting scenes with Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, who play Han and Leia – Rey’s parents…?  

Oooooh … it’s so mysterious…

This is how much I think the story actually advanced in The Last Jedi: the Resistance took extremely heavy losses, and Rey sees some good in Kylo.  Other than that, virtually everything in the movie was filler or misdirection.

I expect that Episode IX will reveal many secrets; certainly about Rey (her true parentage, and the reason for her “abandonment” on Jakku) … about Snoke (his secret identity, and special powers) … probably about Luke (his real reason for being on Atchoo, and the fact that he knows more than he has let on) … possibly about Kylo (his past, and his true motivations) … we might even finally get a glimpse of the “Knights of Ren”, etc., etc.

And I think that what we’re going to discover, two years from now, is that if these secrets had been revealed in VIII, instead of saved for IX, the ST would have been better overall, and The Last Jedi, especially, would have been a much, much, much better film.  That is, if you were disappointed in TLJ, and it seems that there is approximately a 50% chance that you were, it’s really J. J. Abrams’s fault.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Rian Johnson doesn’t have horrible ideas of his own – just that he wouldn’t have had to put nearly so many of them in his movie if he had been allowed to tell the story, instead of merely postpone it … if he hadn’t been tasked with writing filler and misdirection … if Episode VIII had not been needlessly and foolishly sacrificed on the altar of Abrams’s almighty “mystery box”.

The most important thing in storytelling is not mystery, or unpredictability, or shocking surprises, or any of that gimmicky crap.  The most important thing in storytelling is emotion – feeling for and with the characters.  We can’t do that if we (and/or the characters) don’t know what’s going on or why…  

I honestly believe that J. J. Abrams would sacrifice anything, any dramatic scene, any moment of genuine emotional connection, character consistency, overall story quality, plot coherence – anything, if it meant that he could keep the audience in suspense for one minute longer.

And if we were to ask Abrams why his “mystery box” approach is superior to a more straightforward one, and we restricted him from responding with any phrasing of the idea that It holds the audience’s attention by keeping them in suspense, I would bet my life, and yours, that he would not be able to answer.  It’s just his default setting.  

It may be that Abrams is planning on opening his “mystery box” in Episode IX, and reversing everything; the Rey’s-parents-are-nobodies thing was a lie … Snoke comes back to life, and is the ultimate threat … Kylo really was a double-agent, and was only actually consumed by the dark side at the moment he killed Snoke – or, he was just tempting Rey to test her … Luke never really did attempt to murder Ben Solo, or even consider it – they both lied to Rey to keep her from learning the truth of their plan to destroy Snoke, the Knights of Ren, and the First Order from the inside … everything Rey witnessed on the island was a charade, Luke was just Dagobah-Yoda-ing her (and us), and he’s still totally awesome … the final confrontation between Kylo and Luke was a fake-out fake-out – Kylo knew Luke was only a projection, and allowed the rebels to escape…

And, it may be that Abrams thinks these revelations will fix all the objectionable bits of TLJ.  But, what I think he doesn’t understand is that even if he does intend to “fix” any of it, or all of it, in Episode IX, it won’t matter – it’s not fixable.  Because people don’t enjoy movies in retrospect – they enjoy them (or not) at the time they see them.  For example, X-Men: Days of Future Past does not retroactively make X-Men: The Last Stand a good movie.  DOFP simply gives fans a sense of satisfaction from knowing that the events of TLS have been negated.  Similarly, if it were to be revealed in IX that Luke never really did even consider murdering his nephew in his sleep, it wouldn’t make those shitty flashbacks in TLJ any more fun to watch.

And finally, the point of all this is that there is nothing even remotely Star Warsian about any of this “mystery box” bullshit.  Star Wars (no, not Abrams Wars, not Disney Wars – actual Star Wars) is much, much, much, much, much, much more straightforward than that.

As far as I’m concerned, J. J. Abrams has ruined Star Wars three-fold; he gutted the Original Trilogy with his replacement-Empire, replacement-Emperor, and replacement-Vader, and by turning the OT heroes into the biggest losers in the galaxy – he ruined the Sequel Trilogy by soft-rebooting and rehashing, instead of progressing the story – and he ruined the ST again, by mystery-boxing it.

Abrams is playing us all for fools.  I mean, if you’re a fan of the Sequel Trilogy, I ask you, what has J. J. Abrams presented us with, other than recycled material and re-used plot?  He hasn’t presented us with any great ideas – he’s presented us with a box, and told us that there are great ideas inside.  So, if you’re captivated by his “mystery box”, please realize that you’re not inspired by J. J. Abrams’s imagination – you’re just caught up in your own.  And, while I wouldn’t put it past him to just leave the box closed forever, if and when he opens it in Episode IX, it’s going to bring a profound disillusionment:  All doubt will finally be removed that the Sequel Trilogy is nothing but a vastly inferior version of the Original Trilogy.  And, if there are any great ideas in the box, they won’t be Abrams’s ideas – they’ll be George Lucas’s ideas, guaranteed.  

[nerdonymous-blog]

In A New Hope...

Luke:  Ben … what happened to my father?

Obi-Wan:  Oh, he just vanished.  He must be out there, somewhere … but, no one knows where.  It’s a mystery…  And right around the same time your father disappeared, this other guy, called Darth Vader, just showed up out of nowhere, and killed all the Jedi.  “Darth Vader” isn’t his real name, by the way – that’s just, like, a Sith name.  I mean, he has a real name, but no one knows what it is.  You see, it’s a mystery…  

Audience:  Gee, I wonder who Luke’s father is gonna turn out to be…

Three Years Later…

Halfway through The Empire Strikes Back…

…the Emperor accidentally trips and falls down an elevator shaft, and dies.

Then, at the end of the movie…

Vader:  Luke, I know who your father was.  He was … just some guy.  Yeah, he wasn’t cut out for family life, so he went off to some other planet … and I heard that he died.  So, you know … nothing to do with me, or the story being told … and there was absolutely no reason for it to be set up as a mystery in the first movie.  No reason at all.  So … yeah.  There you go.

Luke:  ...

Audience:  …are they fuckin’ serious with this … ???

Three Years Later…

The final confrontation in Return of the Jedi…

Vader:  Luke, don’t kill me!  Because … I am your father!

Audience:  …how shocking … didn’t see that comin’ – six years ago…

Yoda:  And your sister Princess Leia is.

Obi-Wan:  Let’s start from the beginning.  Your father, Anakin – that’s his real name – was a pupil of mine, before he turned to evil.  He was seduced by the dark side of the Force…

The climax of the Trilogy is a twenty-minute voice-over narrated flashback-montage sequence, which reveals to the audience all the information that has been pointlessly withheld from them over the course of the three films…  

This is intercut with Luke Skywalker’s rapidly changing facial expression; shock and horror, despair, anger, sorrow, regret, resentment, incredulity, insight, curiosity, realization and understanding, solemnity, internal conflict, hope, determination, pity, fear and doubt, frustration, rage, enlightenment, dread, profound courage, and deeply-held conviction…  (Basically, Luke does his entire character arc at lightning speed.)

Luke tells Vader that he knows there’s still good in him.  So, Vader promptly turns back to the light side, and then dies.  

The End.

Audience:  …wow … how could this story possibly have been told any better…

A Behind-the-scenes Interview with J. J. Abrams

Nerdonymous: Hey, J. J. – did you ever consider pacing the exposition, in order to play the drama of the story, rather than just attempting to keep the audience in the dark the whole way through?

Abrams: Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  

Nerdonymous: Uh, okay...  Why are you posing like that, with your fingers at your temple...?  It looks really fucking pretentious.

Nerdonymous: Oh ... yeah.  That’s much better.  So natural.

Abrams: Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!   

Nerdonymous: Right.  Um ... my question is: don’t you think that if you’d revealed that Darth Vader was Luke’s father earlier, say, in The Empire Strikes Back, that the story would have been better?  That way, Empire would have had real dramatic impact, and there would have been time for Luke and Vader to play their character arcs in a believable way, instead of rushing through them in the last few minutes of the third film...

Abrams: Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  

Nerdonymous: Can you ... understand anything I’m saying, or...?  I’m just not sure why you think keeping the audience in suspense longer is necessarily better ... why mystery box is more important than drama box--   Oh, Christ!  Now you’ve got me doing it.  

Abrams: Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  

Nerdonymous: Uh ... the other thing is - in the first film, you essentially just announced to the audience that there was going to be a revelation - you made everyone anticipate it by telling them that Luke’s father was alive out there somewhere.  And by telling them that Darth Vader had a secret name, you made it kind of obvi-- I mean, people kind of put 2 and 2...  Don’t you think it would have been surpris-- er, more surprising if you hadn’t done that?

Abrams: Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  

Nerdonymous: And then, in the second film, you attempt to misdirect the audience by telling them that Luke’s father was just some guy, and that he was dead.  But, based on the set-up in the first movie, this makes no sense structurally, or dramatically.  So, why would anyone fall for it?  I mean, why didn’t you just do the misdirection from the beginning ... maybe by ... having Obi-Wan tell Luke his father was dead?  Hey, that might have actually worked!

Abrams: Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  

Nerdonymous: Okay ... thanks for your time, J. J.  You are truly a master storyteller.

Abrams: Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  Mystery box!  

[nerdonymous-blog]

[nerdonymous-blog]

Mr. Plinkett-esque The Empire Strikes Back Review (Part 1)

(minus the pizza rolls, bestiality, and uxoricide, etc.)

For anyone who is unfamiliar with Mr. Plinkett’s Star Wars Prequel reviews:  They are feature-length YouTube videos, in which Mike Stoklasa, as deranged serial killer Harry S. Plinkett, explains in excruciating detail what’s wrong with the Star Wars Prequels, which, according to him, is everything.

The Plinkett reviews are devastating (unless you actually think about what Stoklasa is saying).  After watching the videos, I wondered if the same approach to “reviewing” could be applied, just as effectively, to the Star Wars movies that Stoklasa actually likes – specifically, his favorite, The Empire Strikes Back.  So, I wrote this review to find out.  

(Some of what follows may be offensive to you.  Please, understand that I don’t really mean any of it – this review is imitative of the style and crude humor of the character, Mr. Plinkett.)

The Empire Strikes Back is the worst thing ever created by gods or men.  Worse than the bubonic plague.  Worse than the atomic bomb.  Worse than horseradish.  I mean, how much more could you possibly fuck up the sequel to Star Wars?  So, where do I possibly start…?  

Nothing in The Empire Strikes Back makes any sense at all.  It comes off like a script written by a couple of eight-year-olds.  It’s like George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan finished the script in one draft, and they decided to go with it, without anyone saying that it made no sense at all, or was a stupid incoherent mess.  

I mean, who was going to question George, or tell him what to do?  He made so much money off the original Star Wars movie-- er, merchandise that he paid for the sequels out of his pocket.  So, he controlled every aspect of the movies.  He probably got rid of all the people who questioned him creatively…  I also think that everyone just assumed that the sequel to Star Wars would be an instant hit, regardless of what the plot was.  Really, how hard could it be to screw up...?  

The biggest problem with Episode V is the whole story, and the way it was told.  It’s almost mind-boggling how complex the awfulness is…  

From the very start of this movie, I could tell something was really wrong.  It opens with a ship that looks like a slice of pie just dropping boring little crumbs into outer space that float off in different directions…  

Compare this fetid excrement to the opening of the original Star Wars, which is an exciting sequence of a battle between the rebellion and the evil Empire, and from the first shot, we know everything we need to know just by the visuals… 

In The Empire Strikes Back, we need to be told what’s happening, in the crawl, and even then, it doesn’t make any sense…  

In the crawl, it says that the Empire sent out thousands of probes to look for the rebels, which means there are literally thousands of planets remote enough that the Empire would have no way of locating a hidden rebel base, without sending probes to search the surface of those planets.  So, out of thousands of possibilities, the wise leaders of the rebel alliance decided that their best option was an ice planet?  Well, I guess it has some appealing features, like … uh, extreme cold…?

So, we follow this one probe droid down to the surface of the ice planet Hoth, where it apparently just starts wandering around aimlessly, looking for rebels who might be anywhere, or nowhere, on the entire planet…  

Wouldn’t it have made a lot more sense if the Empire had launched a satellite that could scan the planet’s surface from orbit?  Oh well, I guess they didn’t think of that…

After three years of waiting, we’re finally reintroduced to Luke Skywalker – and the first time we see him, he’s claymation, and he’s riding a small, furry, claymation dinosaur-horse thing, called a “tauntaun”…  

However, there’s no sign of Yukon Cornelius, or Harvey the Elf, or the Abominable Snow Monster of the North, so I guess we’re supposed to take this seriously...

Claymation Luke turns into real-live Mark Hamill, who’s sitting on a big puppet version of the tauntaun.  Luke calls up Han, and subtly indicates with body language that he may be gay for him…

We find out the reason they’re outside riding tauntauns is that they’re scanning for life signs … because their mission is to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life, and new civilizations, to bol-- no, wait, that’s Star Trek…  So, why the fuck are they scanning for life signs?  If they wanted to know if there was life on the planet, why didn’t they just scan it from orbit?  You know, like Luke does later, when he goes to Dagobah.  And I thought the idea was they were supposed to be hiding - kind of the opposite of trying to make contact…  

But then something makes contact with Luke’s face!  

I guess Luke’s life form scanner doesn’t work very well, because it didn’t detect the Wampa hand puppet that was hiding in the snow right next to him.  So, the Abominable Snow Monster knocks Luke out, and snaps his tauntaun’s neck, and drags them both to his cave to eat them…  

Then, we see claymation Han Solo ride his claymation dinosaur-horse into the rebel painting – er, I mean, rebel base.  Han stops by the Falcon, and bickers with Chewbacca, on his way to the command center to bicker with Princess Leia.

Han checks in with General Reiken, and tells him that Luke’s investigating a meteorite…  

General Reiken:  With all the meteor activity in this system, it’s going to be difficult to spot approaching ships.

Oh …  so, they won’t be able to see Imperial ships coming.  I guess that’s another good reason they should have picked a different planet for their secret base.  (Maybe the planets without the meteor activity didn’t have enough snow, and man-eating monsters.)

We find out that Han Solo is leaving the rebellion for good, because he owes money to Jabba the Hutt, and he has to go pay him…  So, wait, I don’t understand … he can’t just go pay Jabba, and then come back to the rebellion?  Why not…?  And why hasn’t Han already paid Jabba?  At the end of the first movie, Han had more than enough money to pay off his debt, and he’s had two years to do it.  And why does Han have to leave right now?  The evil Empire is using all their resources to search the entire galaxy for the rebels, and Han is worried about being found, in the middle of the rebel base, hidden on an ice planet – by a bounty hunter?  

Even if a bounty hunter were capable of finding the rebels, don’t you think he’d be a lot more interested in the reward he could get from the Empire for simply giving them the location of the base, than the one he could get from Jabba the Hutt by secretly landing on the ice planet, somehow infiltrating the rebel base, locating Han Solo, subduing him, and getting out of the base, with Han as his captive, all without being discovered and having to fight off an army…?  

Leia’s not happy that Han’s leaving, so the two of them have a stupid, embarrassing, overly dramatic, childish fight in the corridor, in front of the other rebels, thereby losing the respect of the entire rebel alliance…  Sloppy direction in this scene: Leia follows Han as he turns right into an adjacent corridor.  When we cut to a new angle, although the action’s meant to be continuous, they’re now seen turning left.

C-3PO bickers with R2-D2, while Han Solo bickers some more with Chewbacca.  Then, Han bickers with 3PO about why he’s not still bickering with Princess Leia:  Han refuses to speak to Leia, because she won’t admit that she wants to make out with him, so he turned off his communicator, even though that means he can’t be informed of important rebel stuff, and emergencies – like the fact that Luke is missing.  

Han talks to a rebel guy about Luke, but 3PO won’t shut up, so Han covers his mouth, which somehow, inexplicably, keeps 3PO from talking, even though 3PO’s voice just comes from a speaker inside his head, and covering his mouth wouldn’t make any difference at all…

The rebel guy tells Han that Luke didn’t come through the south entrance, but speculates that maybe he forgot to check in.  Han just says, “Not likely”, and without making any effort at all to confirm it one way or the other, he decides to head out into life-threatening conditions to look for Luke.  Exactly how stupid is Han Solo?  For all he knows, Luke could be in his quarters, spankin’ it to a Princess Leia hologram...

Another rebel guy tells Han they can’t use speeders to go looking for Luke, because they’re “having some trouble adapting them to the cold.”  Let me get this straight: the speeders, which are “Snow Speeders” – vehicles built specifically for cold weather – don’t work in the cold and need to be adapted because it’s that fucking cold.  So, if the machines they built specifically for this environment don’t work, how did they even build their secret base here in the first place?  

More importantly, why did they build it here?  What exactly was the selling point?  There’s almost no life, there’s no vegetation, and there’s no arable land, which means there’s no food supply.  Which means they’d have to receive shipments of food from off-world.  Don’t you think regular shipments of food, large enough to feed an army, to a supposed lifeless planet might look kind of suspicious...?  

Their vehicles and equipment don’t work, because it’s so cold.  There are man-eating monsters outside that apparently can’t be detected by scanners, and can appear without warning and kill you in an instant.  If the monsters don’t get you, you’ll die anyway, if you happen to be stuck outside for a couple of hours.  And meteor activity makes it almost impossible to detect an impending enemy attack…  Out of thousands of remote planets, they didn’t have even one single better option than this complete shithole?  It makes absolutely no sense at all…  

See, the whole point of building a base on a planet is that you get some kind of benefit from it.  All they get from Hoth is hazards.  They’d be better off with their fleet just floating in space.  That way, if the Empire found them, they could just go to lightspeed, instead of having to deal with a complicated and dangerous evacuation that costs lives.  What, did they need oxygen?  So, scoop some up, idiots.  This planet was a pit stop – at best.

When Han decides to ride out on a tauntaun, a rebel guy says, “Your tauntaun will freeze before you reach the first marker!”  If the rebels knew that the speeders weren’t working, and that the tauntauns would freeze, then they knew they had no reliable way to rescue anyone if they got lost outside…  Then, why did they send them out to look for life signs in the first place?!  What was so urgent that they couldn’t have waited one day?  I don’t know … maybe they just didn’t know it was going to get that cold…  

So, this advanced civilization has anti-gravity vehicles, faster-than-light travel, world-destroying super-weapons, and laser swords, but they don’t have fucking weather reports?  

Even if they absolutely had to send people out, for some reason – what, they never heard of “the buddy system”?

Luke wakes up in the Wampa’s cave, hanging upside-down by his feet, and th-- wait, how’d he get like that…?  Did the Wampa melt some snow, and then hold Luke upside-down with one claw, and somehow hold the water up by Luke’s feet with his other claw, until it froze … or, maybe he heated up Luke’s feet, and … no…  

Why didn’t the Wampa just freeze Luke to the floor?  Seems like it would’ve been a lot easier.  Or, just sit on him.  Or, here’s an idea: snap his neck, like he did with the tauntaun. 

Anyway, Luke gets his lightsaber with the Force, frees himself, and then cuts the Wampa’s arm off.  But then, instead of doing the obvious logical thing (kill the Wampa and take shelter in the cave until he could use the gear from his tauntaun to signal for rescue), Idiot Skywalker runs out of the cave…  Where does he think he’s going?  He was unconscious just a moment ago, so he had to have lost his bearings in relation to where the rebel base is…  

So, now he’s aimlessly wandering in a white-out.  There’s not a single visible landmark, and for all he knows, he’s getting farther away from the base with every step he takes.  And he seems to have forgotten that the pissed-off one-armed Wampa could easily follow and kill him, or another Wampa could pop out of the snow and kill him.  And if neither of those things happen, he’ll just die from exposure to the cold…

Back in the rebel base, Cliff Clavin tells Leia that they have to close the shield doors for the night.  Leia looks distressed, so to comfort her, C-3PO says, “R2 says the chances of survival are 725 to 1”.  And this is the droid that’s supposed to be programmed for etiquette?  

And then, 3PO says something to R2 (some version of which he probably should’ve said to Leia) that’s likewise inexplicably stupid, and that paradoxically compounds and also contradicts the stupid thing he said to Leia: “Don’t worry about Master Luke.  I’m sure he’ll be all right.  He’s quite clever, you know…”  Right…  because clever people can’t freeze to death…  I thought droids were supposed to be logical.

Shhh - Obi-Wan’s Force ghost is appearing to Luke, ‘cause he has something important to say…

Obi-Wan:  Luke, you will go to the Dagobah system.  There you will learn from Yoda, the Jedi Master who instructed me.

That’s it?  Couldn’t he have said something useful, like maybe, “Luke, your friend Han Solo is looking for you.  He’s that way”, and then point?  Come to think of it, if Obi-Wan can just appear to Luke anywhere at any time to tell him stuff, why didn’t he show up earlier?  

Obi-Wan:  Luke, don’t be stupid.  Kill the Wampa, and stay in the cave.

Or, much earlier?  

Obi-Wan:  Luke, don’t go out scanning for life forms.  It’s totally not worth it.  

Instead, he waits until Luke is freezing to death, and then he just casually pops by with an update to Luke’s training schedule.  What a dick.

Han Solo finds Luke, and then his tauntaun is badly animated to death.  So, Han cuts the tauntaun open and stuffs Luke inside it, to keep him warm…

The next morning, the Snow Speeders are working, and the rebels find Han and Luke, and bring them back to the base … and despite the fact that Han Solo’s tauntaun, a creature indigenous to this planet, froze to death eight hours earlier, Han Solo is perfectly fine … being stuck outside all night had absolutely no effect on him whatsoever.  He didn’t freeze to death, or get hypothermia, or even frostbite, and need to have his fingers and toes amputated…  He didn’t get so much as a runny nose.  Why is Han Solo impervious to cold?  I don’t know, maybe it’s because he’s so clever…

This whole opening sequence with Luke and Han, and the Wampa, is just the first example of one of the biggest problems with Empire: almost nothing that happens in the entire movie has any lasting consequence, or even any relevance to the story that’s being told.  At the beginning of the sequence, Luke and Han are with the rebels on the ice planet, and they’re fine.  And at the end of the sequence, Luke and Han are with the rebels on the ice planet, and they’re fine.  Nothing has changed, so none of it really mattered.  So, there’s no reason for any of it to be in the movie.  This is what we call “filler”.  And when the very first sequence in a movie is filler, that’s not a good sign…

Luke recovers from the Wampa attack, and Han, Chewie, Leia and the droids visit him in the med bay.  But, the scene isn’t really about Luke – it’s really about Han and Leia’s “love story”.  (I can’t put enough quotation marks around “love story”, so I won’t try.)  It’s about giving Han and Leia another opportunity to have a stupid, embarrassing, overly dramatic, childish fight.  What are they even fighting about?  From the beginning of the movie, we know that they both know that they both know that they’re both attracted to each other.  So, what’s keeping them apart?  What’s the problem?  There is no problem … and that’s the problem.  See, usually in a movie romance, the writers need some kind of obstacle or conflict, something that keeps the two lovers from being together.  Because if there’s nothing keeping them apart, there’s no story.  

In the Star Wars prequels, Anakin and Padme initially decided they couldn’t be together because it could jeopardize Anakin’s future with the Jedi Order, and potentially be a political scandal for Padme.  In Empire, it’s like the writers couldn’t come up with any believable reason that Han and Leia couldn’t be together, so their solution was to just give the characters the emotional maturity of five and six-year-old retards.  Oops-- I meant the emotional maturity of my grandkids.    

To illustrate this point, I’ve rewritten the first two scenes in Han and Leia’s “love story”.  But, I’ve only slightly changed the wording – I haven’t changed the meaning of any of the dialogue.

Han:  I’m leaving forever, so you’ll never see me again.  Bye...!

Leia:  Han, I want you to stay – but only because you can help the rebellion.

Han:  Nah-ah.  That’s not why.  You want me to stay, ‘cause you totally want to make out with me.

Leia:  I’d rather make out with a disgusting dog-monkey!

Han:  Then, go do it!  I’m never talking to you again!

(Later, around friends…)

Han:  Leia totally wants to make out with me.  

Leia:  Nah-ah.

Han:  She wants me so bad.

Leia:  You wish!

Han:  She tried to make out with me before.

Leia:  You think you’re so great, but you’re just a dumb, ugly, poop-face!

(Leia kicks Han in the shin.)

Han:  (to Leia) You’re the one who’s ugly!  (to friend) She’s only mad ‘cause she knows what I’m saying is true.

Leia:  Oh yeah?  That’s what you think.

(Leia makes out with her brother in front of Han…)

Anakin and Padme were younger than these characters, and at least they had the maturity to acknowledge their feelings for each other…

This is another one of the biggest problems with The Empire Strikes Back: the character relationships.  With the sequel to Star Wars, there was an opportunity to make the relationships between the characters we met in the first film deeper and more complex.  But, that opportunity was completely and utterly wasted.  We don’t find out anything new about any of the characters, and their relationships don’t develop at all.  Luke has, like, three or four lines of dialogue with Han at the beginning (lines that change nothing, reveal nothing and accomplish nothing), and then Luke spends the rest of the movie talking to a Muppet.  

And all the other characters do is bicker with each other like bratty little kids, make fun of each other, and call each other names.  Stupid, childish names…

Han calls Chewbacca “fuzz-ball”.  C-3PO calls Chewie “overgrown mop-head”, and “flea-bitten furball”.  Han calls C-3PO “professor”, and “goldenrod”.  C-3PO calls R2-D2 “stupid little short circuit” and “stupid lump”.  Han calls Leia “your highnessness”, and “your worship”.  Lando calls Han “slimy, double-crossing, no good swindler”.  Chewbacca calls everybody “Rraaawwr”.  Leia calls Han “scoundrel”, and “laser-brain”, and “stuck up, half-witted, scruffy looking nerf herder”…  

“Nerf herder”?  What exactly was that meant to imply…?  And what kind of crappy dialogue is that?

In the original Star Wars, the characters argued with each other, but they were arguing about things, things that they legitimately disagreed on, things that actually mattered.  In Empire, they just argue about nothing for no real reason…

In the next scene, rebel scanners have detected a thing.  The rebel scanner-reader guy says, “It’s metal.”  Then, Leia and Han take turns saying things that are incredibly stupid;  

Leia:  Then, it couldn’t be one of those creatures…?  

No, Leia, you idiot, it’s probably not a metal Wampa.  

Han:  Could be a speeder, one of ours.  

Yes, Han, because the rebels set up the base so they have no way of telling friendlies from hostiles, you moron.

Han and Chewie go to “check it out”, which you might think means “positively identify”, but it really means “shoot it”.

Leia:  What was it?  

Han:  Droid of some kind.  I didn’t hit it that hard.  It must have had a self-destruct.  

Leia:  An Imperial probe droid.

Han:  It’s a good bet the Empire knows we’re here.

General Reiken:  We’d better start the evacuation.  

Whoa, wait – what just happened?  Han identified the thing as a “droid of some kind”, which they basically already knew before he went to “check it out”.  He concludes that it self-destructed (clearly, Han has a comprehensive knowledge of droids of some kind), because he “didn’t hit it that hard”.  What the fuck does that mean?  He shot it softly and gently…?  

Based on Han’s report, which essentially contains no information whatsoever, Leia somehow knows it was an Imperial droid…?  Did I miss something?  Are Imperial probe droids the only droids in existence that could be described as “droid of some kind” and possibly contain a self-destruct?  

And then, based on nothing more than Han and Leia’s wild guesses, General Reiken makes the decision to evacuate the base.  It seems like the characters somehow know where the story is headed.  It’s like they read the script, or something…

Darth Vader on the bridge of the matte painting—er, painting of the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer.  Imperial officers show Vader a picture of the power generator on Hoth…

Vader:  That’s it!  The rebels are there!  That is the system!  And I’m sure Skywalker is with them!

Why is Vader so absolutely certain they’ve found the rebels?  There are three possibilities, and they’re all stupid;

1. He’s making a wild guess that just happens to be correct.  

2. He read the script.  

3. He can sense Luke Skywalker’s presence over great distances.  (But, if he can do that, why did they need to use the probe droids…?)

Meanwhile, back in the rebel painting, Joe Johnston and a few other guys from the art department have a short, pointless, badly-acted non-scene … this is followed by a short, pointless non-scene of Han and Chewie displaying their complete ineptitude at repairing the Falcon … which is followed by a short, pointless non-scene of Luke talking to a droid about things we don’t understand or care about … and this is followed by a short, redundant non-scene that establishes that Luke and Han are friends ... who may or may not be gay for each other…

The rebels detect the fleet of Star Destroyers entering the Hoth system …  Huh, I guess the meteor activity wasn’t a problem, after all…

Vader:  Admiral Ozzel came out of lightspeed too close to the system.

General Veers:  He felt surprise was wiser--

I guess it’s a good thing that Veers gets interrupted here, because there’s no way he could’ve finished that sentence that would’ve made any sense at all.  What, Admiral Ozzel felt it was wiser to surprise the rebels by announcing the impending attack, than to surprise them with the attack…?

Vader:  He’s as clumsy as he is stupid.  

That’s Vader’s opinion of Admiral Ozzel – “clumsy” and “stupid”?  Then, why is he an admiral?  This was the Empire’s chance to catch the rebels by surprise and wipe them out – Hey, put the clumsy, stupid guy in charge.  

So, Vader makes a call, Force-chokes Ozzel to death, and promotes Captain Piett … who just happened to be standing right next to Ozzel.  Is that why Piett got promoted – ‘cause he was standing there?  I get the feeling that Ozzel got the admiralty the same way.  Doesn’t that kind of make Vader the clumsy, stupid one…?  

Vader tells Piett to “deploy the fleet so that nothing gets off the system”.  (I guess that’s a combination of “off the planet” and “out of the system”.)

The next thing we see is the first rebel transport get off the planet, and out of the system…  It turns out the rebels have this incredibly powerful weapon, called an Ion cannon.  With just a few shots, fired from the surface of the planet into outer space, it completely disables an entire Star Destroyer.  

If the rebels can build weapons like this, why did they build one, fixed to the surface of the planet, that they now have to abandon?  Why didn’t they build a hundred, and mount them on their ships…?

The Empire attack the rebels with stop-motion animated models—

--er, giant walking machines called AT-ATs, “all-terrain armored transports”, which look like they could handle any terrain … as long as it’s a completely flat, smooth, level surface.  And the rebels send their pilots to defend the base…

Luke:  That armor’s too strong for blasters!  

Why don’t they just shoot the Walkers with the Ion cannon?  If it can take out an entire Star Destroyer in a few shots, it could end the Hoth battle in five shots – one for each Walker.  Maybe then all these rebel pilots wouldn’t have to die for no reason at all.  

Or, how about this: shoot all the Star Destroyers as soon as they came out of hyperspace.  Then, the Empire wouldn’t have been able to attack them on the planet’s surface, and while the Star Destroyers were helpless, the rebels could’ve sent fighters to finish them off.  Oh well, I guess they didn’t think of that…

Luke comes up with a good idea, and Ewan McDonald’s uncle trips a Walker with a bit of fishing line.  (Why would the Empire attack the rebels with giant top-heavy walking machines anyway?  Why wouldn’t they use anti-gravity tanks?  You can’t trip a floating tank…)  

Then, the dumbest thing to ever happen in a movie happens:  Remember how Luke just said that the Walker’s armor is too strong for blasters…?  After the Walker falls over, they shoot its armor - with blasters…  and it instantly explodes into a gazillion bajillion pieces. 

Luke gets shot down, but luckily for him, his speeder, quite conveniently, doesn’t explode like every other speeder that gets shot down, and he’s able to stop another Walker by throwing a something inside its belly that somehow makes its head explode, and then it tips over…

Now, here’s where it gets a bit complicated.  The Empire seemingly achieves their goal: they blow up the rebels’ main generator.  They had to destroy the generator in order to drop the shield that was protecting the rebel base – the shield that was “strong enough to deflect any bombardment”.  That means they would’ve just bombed the rebels from orbit, but they couldn’t.  The whole point of the surface attack was to make it possible for the Imperial fleet to destroy the rebel base.  And once the shield is down … they don’t destroy the rebel base.  Instead, they send troops into the base to do … nothing.  They just sort of run around.  We don’t see them capture or kill even one rebel.  They don’t acquire anything, and they don’t destroy anything.  So, what are they doing in there…?  Nothing that bombs couldn’t do much more effectively and efficiently, with fewer casualties…  

Hey – if the rebels could create a shield that was strong enough to deflect any bombardment, why wouldn’t they use that shield to protect the shield generator…?  With an impregnable shield and an Ion cannon, you kind of have to wonder why the rebels even needed to evacuate.  Seems like they could’ve made their stand here, and maybe won the war…

Darth Vader enters the base … so he can personally lead his men in the doing of nothing … except marching through the corridors to his own theme tune.  He just strides around at a medium pace – I guess ‘cause it makes his cape look cool flowing behind him – and he seems like he has no idea where he’s going, or what he’s even doing there…  

There’s only one reason that Vader would’ve entered the base, instead of just blowing it up: because he’s looking for Luke Skywalker.  So, why, if Vader could sense him from halfway across the galaxy, now that they’re on the same planet, does he have no idea where Luke is?  Even if he couldn’t sense Luke’s precise location through the Force, the one thing he knows about him (apart from the fact that he’s Anakin Skywalker’s son) is that Luke is a pilot.  

That pilot.

The last place Luke would be, at this point, is inside the rebel base.  So, in his attempt to capture Luke alive, Vader decides not to destroy the base, but orders the Walkers to shoot down the rebel pilots who are defending the base?  Is this Vader guy a fucking retard?  

Vader sees Luke’s friends escape in the Millennium Falcon, and gets the idea into his helmet that he could capture the Falcon, and use his friends as bait … despite the fact that Luke is about fifty feet away from him at this point – he’s literally right outside the hangar in which Vader is standing…  

This is the moment when the movie officially begins to fall apart.  This is the moment that the Star Wars saga is now damaged totally beyond repair.  The lapses in common sense and logic begin to compound on the movie, and now it is broken.  I could end this review here … but I’m really just getting started… 

Then, we see Luke’s inexplicably lackadaisical departure from Hoth.  The rebels’ shield is down, there are Imperial troops everywhere, and there are still three Walkers attacking, and Luke and the other rebels seem totally relaxed, like there’s nothing going on…  One rebel is just sitting in the snow, polishing some piece of equipment.  I’m surprised they didn’t stop to sign each other’s yearbooks … or make snow angels…

Remember when Vader said, “Deploy the fleet so that nothing gets off the system”?  We never see the Empire capture, or destroy, one single rebel ship that’s attempting to leave the system, and when Luke takes off in his X-wing, there is no sign of any Imperial ship anywhere.  That’s convenient…

The Falcon is pursued by TIE fighters, and a Star Destroyer, that fire on the Falcon incessantly, despite the fact that Vader wants the ship captured and the crew taken alive.  The Falcon is not even returning fire, so why don’t the Imperials stop shooting and just use the tractor beam?  They’re doing the exact opposite of what would accomplish their goal.  Did these guys all make a suicide-by-Vader pact?  Do they want to get choked out?  

Two more Star Destroyers, at 12 o’clock, are headed straight for them, so Han takes the Falcon into a nosedive.  

And then, the possibly even more dumberest thing to ever happen in a movie happens: The Star Destroyers that were closing in on the Falcon, from opposite sides, nearly crash into each other.  Like the captains of the Star Destroyers didn’t even know they were on a collision course with the other ship…

Cut to: Inside one of the Star Destroyers, the collision alarm is blaring, and then some total fucking idiot says possibly the dumbest thing anyone has ever said in a movie:

Some Total Fucking Idiot:  Take evasive action!  

Evasive action?!  Does he not even realize that the other ship is another Star Destroyer… ???????????  You’re not under attack, Fucking Idiot!  There’s nothing to evade!  He should have said “Two degrees starboard!” or “Steer the fuckin’ ship away from the other fuckin’ ship!” or something…

Anyway, the Star Destroyers are all fucked up because of the totally incompetent retarded captains, so they’re no longer pursuing.  But, the Falcon is still being fired upon by four TIE fighters.  Remember what they did in the original Star Wars, when the Falcon was attacked by four TIE fighters?  

They manned the gun turrets, and blasted ‘em out of the sky.  This time, instead, Han tries spinning … ‘cause that’s a good trick … I guess…  If they don’t want to man the turrets, ‘cause they’d have to put the ship on autopilot, then what about that cannon they used in the Hoth base?  Han activated it from the cockpit, and it automatically took out a bunch of snowtroopers.  Couldn’t they at least use th-- aw, fuck it.

So, then they try to go to lightspeed, but they can’t, because…

C-3PO:  The hyperdrive motivator has been damaged!  It’s impossible to go to lightspeed!

Wait-- when exactly did the hyperdrive motivator get damaged?  I mean, if Han didn’t know it was damaged, then it must have happened after the Falcon arrived on the ice planet.  But, 3PO noticed the damage before they took off from the ice planet.  Which means it somehow got damaged while the ship was sitting in the hangar of the rebel base…  Whatever.

So now, you think, they’re going to shoot down the ships…  but, instead, Han and Chewie put the Falcon on autopilot (…sigh…), and they start trying to do repairs – while they’re being attacked.  Hey, complete morons, why don’t you shoot down the TIEs first, and then do the repairs?  ‘Cause considering how much success you had with your previous attempts…

…it might take a while.

Something collides with the Falcon, and Leia calls Han back up to the cockpit.  Turns out the Falcon’s navicomputer has steered the ship into an asteroid field.  

If you don’t remember from the first Star Wars, the Millennium Falcon has the best navicomputer in the galaxy – that’s why it could do the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.  (A parsec is a measure of distance, not time.  It means that the Falcon’s navicomputer is the best at plotting the most efficient course around all the solid objects in space that the Falcon could potentially crash into when travelling faster than light.  Solid objects … like asteroids, for example.)  But, if the Falcon’s navicomputer is the best, why did the ship just collide with an asteroid…?  

Han idiotically decides the best way to destroy the pursuing TIE fighters is to manually fly the Falcon through the asteroid field…

C-3PO:  The probability of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!

So, wait, the protocol droid knows the probability of surviving the asteroid field, but the best navicomputer in the galaxy doesn’t?  That don’t make sense.  Why would the Falcon’s navicomputer steer the ship into an asteroid field in the first place?  Is it trying to get them killed?  Has the navicomputer turned evil?  Has it been seduced by the dark side?

Maybe 3PO should’ve told Han how much better the odds are of shooting down a few TIE fighters…  Anyway, Han is a much better pilot than the TIE fighter pilots, so when they chase him, they all crash into asteroids and die…  

Then, Han decides to park the Falcon inside a big asteroid.  Not on it.  Inside it – just in case the Empire decides to send Star Destroyers through to disintegrate every asteroid in their path, so they’ll have no hope of escaping in time, and will all certainly die.

Then, the Empire decides to send Star Destroyers through to disintegrate every asteroid in their path…

Meanwhile, Luke arrives at Dagobah, and does something that, apparently, no one else in Star Wars knows how to do: he scans the planet from orbit, and he picks up “massive life-form readings”.  Then, Luke tries to land, but Dagobah’s atmosphere blinds all his ship’s sensors.  Wait … if Dagobah’s atmosphere blinds his sensors, how did he pick up those “massive life-form readings”…?  

Anyway, Luke crashes his X-wing into a swamp on the planet of matte painting extensions and claymation bird-bat things.  

R2 gets eaten by a swamp creature, and then spat out.  There’s no lasting consequence to R2, so I have to wonder why this scene is even in the movie…

This is followed by a pointless non-scene where Vader and Admiral Piett tell us things we already know; the Falcon entered an asteroid field, and Vader wants that ship…  

It’s obvious the only reason this scene exists is to show the back of Vader’s unhelmeted head, which tells the audience that Vader is a human, and not a robot.  But, why would we think Vader was a robot?  In addition to that constant breathing noise, Vader used to be Obi-Wan’s pupil and friend, and a Jedi Knight, and he uses the Force.  How could he be a robot?  Do the screenwriters think that the audience is as dumb as they are?  Even if they had to explicitly show the idiots in the audience that Vader’s a human, it probably would’ve been better to do it in a scene that was otherwise necessary to the plot.

Then, there’s a short, pointless non-scene where the Falcon crew finds out that the asteroid they parked in is a little bit earthquakey.  Sloppy direction in this scene: When Carrie Fisher delivers the line, “Captain, being held by you isn’t quite enough to get me excited”, Harrison Ford mouths the line along with her...

On Dagobah, Luke is having doubts about coming there, and wonders if Yoda even exists, ‘cause when he had that vision of Obi-Wan on Hoth, he was kind of delirious, and he thinks maybe he just hallucinated it.  So, why hasn’t Obi-Wan appeared to Luke since then?  If he can talk to Luke anywhere at any time, why didn’t he tell Luke where to land on the planet?  Why didn’t he warn Luke that Dagobah’s atmosphere was going to blind his X-wing’s scopes?  Why doesn’t he tell Luke what Yoda looks like, and the way to his house…?  Why is Obi-Wan such a dick?

Then, Yoda just appears.  It turns out that out of all the places Luke could’ve landed on the entire planet, somehow he just happened to crash into a swamp less than a hundred yards from Yoda’s house.  Luke doesn’t realize who he’s talking to, so Yoda tests his patience by being as much of a pain in Luke’s ass as he can possibly be.  Sloppy direction in this scene: The same exact shot is used twice, when Luke says, “Don’t do that”, and again when he says, “You’re making a mess”.

While they’re doing repairs to the Falcon, Han Solo sexually harasses Princess Leia.  He starts touching her, and she tells him to stop, but he won’t.  Leia’s afraid and trembling, and despite her protests, Han kisses her.  Then, we find out that the “C” in C-3PO stands for “Cockblock”.  

Vader has a brief conversation with the Emperor that makes it very clear that the Emperor does not stay informed on current events.  He doesn’t say a word about the fact that Vader just allowed the entire rebel fleet to escape from Hoth.  And he doesn’t ask why Vader is currently fucking up the Imperial fleet in an asteroid field, looking for a single solitary freighter ship with a grand total of four rebels on board…  (Or, two rebels, one dog-monkey, and a gay robot.)

All the Emperor wants to talk about is Luke Skywalker, who he refers to as “a new enemy”, despite the fact that Luke destroyed the Death Star two years earlier.  Now, if you remember, in the crawl, it said that Vader was “obsessed with finding young Skywalker”.  And, in Vader’s first scene, in a conversation with high-ranking Imperial officers, Vader specifically refers to Luke (“And I’m sure Skywalker is with them!”), as if the officers would know who he’s talking about.  And the Emperor is clearly under the impression that he’s informing Vader of Luke’s existence for the first time.  And despite the fact that the Emperor fears that Luke could destroy them, when Vader tells him, “he will join us or die”, the Emperor doesn’t even bother to discuss how they’re going to accomplish this…

In the original Star Wars, we heard about the Emperor, and imagined him as an all-powerful overlord of the galaxy.  And in one short scene, the ominous quality of his presence is completely dissolved away by the portrayal of him as a pathetic old fuck who doesn’t have the foggiest clue what’s going on.

Continued in Part 2...

[nerdonymous-blog]

The Last Jedi Review: Before

“Before” is a list of things I’m hoping to see/hear in TLJ.  

“After” will be my reaction to the movie, based on the same list.

The Obvious Things

Good acting, cool effects, great John Williams score, etc.

Leia Using the Force

Ever since Luke said, “In time, you’ll learn to use [the Force], as I have,” in ROTJ…  

If she could mind-trick someone, or move something with the Force, that would be great.  If she could do both, that would be better.  And, if she could do more, maybe even kick a little ass, that would be best.

A Fitting End for Leia

I understand that Carrie Fisher’s role in TLJ has not been altered as a consequence of her untimely passing.  But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Leia’s fate won’t be revealed in the film.  I think I would prefer that it not be…

But, if it isn’t, it will have to be explained in the crawl for IX, or…  

There doesn’t seem to be a good way of dealing with it, just a way that’s least objectionable, and what that is depends on who you ask…

Luke Skywalker Being Awesome

Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker is at least 90% of the reason I’m excited to see this film.  I’m hoping his character won’t be portrayed as TFA and the TLJ promotional materials have made him seem (sort of, maybe).  That is, Luke should not be less than noble and heroic…  Maybe “it’s time for the Jedi to end” doesn’t mean he thinks they ought to, but that they are destined to…?  And maybe he’s just pulling a Dagobah-Yoda on Rey – and us.

He’d better have a very good reason for hiding out on Ach-Too (bless you).  He got alotta ‘splaining to do!

(DO NOT kill Luke Skywalker!!!  DO NOT kill Luke Skywalker!!!  DO NOT kill Luke Skywalker!!!  DO NOT kill Luke Skywalker!!!  Thank you.)

Lightsabers and Jedi Action

I’d like to see both Rey and Luke fight multiple opponents.

Luke has to use his green saber from ROTJ.  And be awesome with it.

Rey is going to have to construct her own lightsaber – before the end of this Episode would be nice.  (Maybe Kylo Ren could take the Anakin one.)  I’d like to see Rey wield a double-bladed blue…

Character Depth/Detail

The new characters in TFA were underdeveloped.  Poe and Phasma, especially, were absolute non-characters.  I’m hoping they get a lot of help from TLJ.  

Establish a relationship between Rey and Poe.  Maybe plant the seeds of a future romance…?

I’d also like some justification for Finn’s specialness among Stormtrooper “recruits”: maybe Force-sensitivity, making him more compassionate than your average minion.  This would also retroactively help (somewhat) with the Finn-using-a-lightsaber-undermines-Jedi-awesomeness thing.  Either that, or don’t have Finn use a lightsaber again.

All Force Ghosts

Anakin, Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon.  Get ‘em all in there!

Minimize TFA Lameness

Smashing Kylo Ren’s pointless voice-changing-Vader-wannabe helmet is a good start.  And the sooner the better.  I would have preferred it just wasn’t in the movie at all.  (The strange thing is that Kylo dropped his helmet on that walkway over the ginormous Han-Solo-death-pit, where it would have fallen if the planet had got trembly – which it did.  And, when Hux went to pick him up, as the planet was breaking apart, did Kylo say, “Wait – I have to go get my pointless helmet…”, just so he could smash it in the next movie?  Doesn’t make a ton of sense.)

If they could refrain from mentioning Starkiller Base, that would be great.  I’m trying to pretend that it didn’t happen.

The TFA character names were/are lame; “Kylo” from sKYwalker and soLO, “Phasma” – a semi-anagrammatic syncope of Phantasm (‘cause she’s silvery, like that silvery death-ball), “Snoke” – an acronym for Sith No One Knew Existed…  Lazy, uninspired, and they just don’t sound right.  But, the worst is “Ren”.  I still can’t hear “Kylo Ren” or “Knights of Ren” without thinking of Ren and Stimpy.  So, if Snoke is a Sith, stop mystery-boxing everything, and just let him be a Sith.  “Darth” is cool.  “Ren” is lame.  Phase out “Snoke” and “Ren” as much as possible, and make ‘em Darths!  Please.  (Non-Sith dark-siders could be called by their proper names.)

As little talking to Vader’s helmet as possible.  

No more hey-remember-this-from-Star-Wars moments.

De-emphasize BB-8.  3PO and R2 were always meant to be the Saga’s droid duo.  (It’s not that I dislike BB-8, he’s just in the wrong movie.  He’s redundant.)

I’d love it if the First-Order-replacement-Empire-OT’s-impact-diluting crap would just go away, but I know that ain’t gonna happen.

Basically, TLJ should not suck beyond the extent to which it must necessarily suck for having continuity with TFA.

Acceptable Rehash-to-Newness Ratio

Walkers.  Jedi training on a remote planet.  The possibility that Canto Bight will be vaguely reminiscent of Cloud City.  The rumor that Rey is going to lose a hand/arm.  That’s more than enough.  That’s plenty.  The rest should be amazing newness…

I do get the impression that the plot of TLJ will be much more dissimilar to ESB than TFA was to ANH.  Fingers crossed…

Before TFA, I had hoped that the Sequel Trilogy would have its own identity (incl. design-wise), distinct from the OT, like the Prequels did…  TLJ seems to be taking some steps in the right direction, with new worlds, and creatures, and spaceships…  And the welcome inclusion of A-Wings, one of the fighters introduced most recently in the Saga’s chronology (along with B-Wings, and TIE Interceptors – both of which were awesome).

Rey Solo

If you’re about to tell me that “Rey Solo” has been debunked, please don’t.  I’ve already been told, and I don’t buy it.  When someone (especially J.J. Abrams) tells you something, and you just believe it, despite the fact that the person (J.J. Abrams) has every reason to lie, that’s not called “debunking”.  That’s called … “shame on me” (if you know what I’m saying).

People have pointed out all the problems with “Rey Solo” to me (timeline, abandonment, characters not recognizing her, etc.), conveniently ignoring the fact that the exact same kinds of problems apply to every theory about Rey’s parentage…  

The argument against “Rey Solo” is essentially this:  Despite the likelihood that “Rey” is not Rey’s real name, and that Han and Leia wouldn’t have seen her since she was a toddler, the idea that they wouldn’t recognize (or remember) their own daughter is implausible.

But, plausibility in Star Wars and plausibility in the real world are two very different things.  Star Wars is full of dishonest, manipulative space wizards with mind-affecting powers, remember?  Did it not seem to you like somebody must have Force-fiddled with Rey’s brain to keep her from leaving Jakku (gesund heit)…?  So, if Rey can have suppressed memories (and training), which she very, very obviously does, why can’t other characters?  

Here’s how easy it is to make sense of “Rey Solo”:  The Jedi, Luke and the Force ghosts, foresaw the threat of Snoke (Jedi can look into the future), which would imperil the new Jedi Order.  So, they made a plan that involved putting Ben Solo at risk of being killed, or consumed by the Dark Side.  And they decided to hide Ben’s (extremely powerful) younger sister – for her own protection, and to insure the future of the Jedi.  She was not simply abandoned, but purposefully isolated (maybe to keep her from forming attachments?).  Of course, there wouldn’t be any point in trying to protect Rey by suppressing her memories, and hiding her, if the other characters still remembered who, what, and where she was - because of that dark side memory extracting power we’ve seen Vader and Kylo use (presumably, Snoke has that power, too).  With the others’ memories of her intact, Rey would have been just as vulnerable as she would had they done nothing.  In fact, with her own memories (and training) suppressed, she’d be even more vulnerable…

If you find it hard to believe that they would’ve left a little girl all alone in the desert, with no one to look after her, I got two words:  Force ghosts.

I know that “Rey Solo” is pretty close to the least popular theory out there, and a lot of people think I’m an idiot for still believing, but I’ve never doubted that Rey is the daughter of Han and Leia.  Dramatically, it’s the only answer that makes sense.  That’s (one of the reasons) why it’s such a weak mystery…

If, in The Empire Strikes Back, they had revealed that Luke Skywalker had a sister, but made her identity a mystery, everyone’s first thought would’ve been that it’s Leia (because she was basically the only girl in Star Wars).  But, after a while, fans would’ve rejected the idea as being way too obvious to leave the audience in suspense for three years.  This would’ve been followed by ever-increasingly ridiculous speculation…

Essentially, this is what has been happening for the past two years.  I call it “The Mystery Box Paradox”:  The reason it isn’t obvious who Rey’s parents are is because it’s way too obvious who Rey’s parents are.  It’s a mystery … uh, box … that isn’t strong enough to keep the audience in suspense for two hours, let alone two years…  In fact, the mystery is so weak that you knew the answer before they even asked the question.

I’m not meaning to imply that I want the reveal to be a surprise.  I wouldn’t want Rey’s parents to be anyone other than Han and Leia.  And I’m way past ready for the mystery (box) to be over…  

The revelation of Rey’s parents is bound to be a disappointment to some.  But, I think it will be a relief to everyone – with the possible exception of J.J. Abrams.  

Kylo Ren is a Double-Agent

Not too long after I saw The Force Awakens, someone told me that Kylo Ren killing Han Solo reminded “us” of Snape killing Dumbledore … which meant nothing to me, because I didn’t know anything about Harry Potter.  He (or she) explained that Snape was portrayed as a villain … HP fans hated him for killing Dumbledore … then, it was revealed that things were not as they appeared, and Snape was a good guy all along…  

I had taken Kylo Ren at face value, because the lameness of his character seemed to be on a par with everything else in TFA.  But, the double-agent theory instantly made sense to me;  When Ren talks to Vader’s helmet, he’s really using it as a conduit to Anakin’s Force ghost (‘cause they’re in cahoots).  His line “I will finish what you started” really means destroying the Sith.  Kylo has to actually be dark side (as opposed to just faking it) because Snoke can sense his alignment.  Rey’s line “You’re afraid … that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader!” really/also means that Kylo fears that (by the time his mission is accomplished) he will not have the strength to turn back to the light, as Vader did.  Killing Han Solo was a rock-and-a-hard-place decision (the life of his father vs the fate of the galaxy).  And his loss to Rey, in the lightsaber duel, was not entirely due to Rey’s skill…

Since then, I’ve heard the double-agent theory from multiple sources, and it makes so much sense that I’m surprised it’s not more popular.  By “more popular” I mean “universally accepted”.

How exactly it’s going to be revealed, and how it’s all going to play out, I don’t know…  Seems to me, the way to do it would be: reveal Rey’s parentage first, and then after she attempts to avenge their father, reveal the Kylo Ren is a double-agent twist.  (I would absolutely love it if the reveal happened in combat, with Kylo suddenly turning on his “allies”, the Knights of Ren – Rey looking on, astonished.  That would be sweet!)  I mean, I don’t know if he actually is a double-agent, but I really, really, really hope he is, because it would mean that Abrams and Kasdan didn’t just rip off everything from the Original Trilogy – they also stole a little bit from Harry Potter.  And that’s a comforting thought, isn’t it?

Plus, if Kylo’s not a double-agent (or didn’t at least start out that way), then his character really is just the pathetic, Vader wannabe, tantrum-throwing, my-parents-didn’t-pay-enough-attention-to-me-so-I’m-gonna-destroy-the-universe whining, patricidal, irredeemable, and f*cking ridiculous talks-to-helmets nutjob douche bag that he appears to be, and the filmmakers are just (very badly) retreading the Skywalker-family-member-falls-to-the-dark-side-redemption-arc thing…

And they wouldn’t do that, would they?  That would be like doing a Death Star plot rehash, with some kind of Mel-Brooks-Spaceballs 2-reject – like a planet that swallows a star, and then spits it out at other planets.  How lame would that be, huh?

Han Solo Lives!

Not really, but I would like it if Han Solo could return as a Force ghost.  Not hanging out with the Jedi Force ghosts … but, maybe he could appear to Rey (or Luke/Leia), at some point.  Maybe his appearance could also be the reveal of Rey’s parentage…!

I know that non-Jedi don’t become Force ghosts, but the Jedi’s power has been evolving throughout the Saga, and lots of things that once were impossible have become possible…  

The evolution of Jedi power in Episodes I through VI is:  

Qui-Gon Jinn first discovered how to retain his identity in the Force – how to become (a kind of) immortal.  He taught Yoda and Obi-Wan, who learned how to become one with the Force at will – fade away, rather than leave behind a corpse, as Qui-Gon did…  

Yoda and Qui-Gon learned how to communicate with each other – how the living can talk to the dead.  Then, how the dead may talk to the living (as Obi-Wan started talking to Luke seconds after his own death), without the living requiring any training in how to talk to the dead (as Obi-Wan required training to talk to Qui-Gon).  And, how the dead may appear to the living, as Obi-Wan appeared to Luke as glowy blue Force energy in the form of the man he used to be…  

And finally, they discovered how to do something that I believe is the meaning of Obi-Wan’s line to Vader, “I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine”, and was revealed at the end of Return of the Jedi…  In order to retain your identity in the Force, you need to learn Qui-Gon’s immortality trick – that is, it doesn’t just happen automatically – you have to learn how…  

When Vader threw the Emperor down a shaft on Death Star 2 in ROTJ, his death was indicated by / followed by a tornado of glowy blue energy, which I take to be the Emperor’s Force energy being released / dispersed.  Meaning, the Emperor did not retain his identity in the Force.  It seems that being Dark Side and becoming immortal are mutually exclusive.  Regardless, whether there can’t be a Sith version of the immortality trick, or the Emperor just didn’t know one, it is extremely unlikely that Anakin would have known a Dark or Light Side version of the trick…  

And yet, after he dies, he shows up as a Force ghost.  As I see it, the inescapable conclusion is that the Jedi saved him from death.  They granted him immortality.  That’s some pretty heavy irony for Anakin: his former Jedi Masters saved him with the very power the desire for which he turned against them in the first place.  From a certain point of view.  The purpose of this evolution of Jedi power?  Happy ending.  Everyone gets to go to the Ewok party…  

If the Jedi are capable not only of becoming immortal themselves, but also of granting immortality to others … and they were keeping an eye on Ben Solo…

It’s possible.

Make Snoke a Worthy (Final/Arch) Nemesis

I should note that I’m proceeding from the assumption that the Sequel Trilogy will constitute the end of the Saga (but, who knows what Disney/Lucasfilm will do).

Snoke needs to be not only more powerful than Palpatine was, but very, very much more importantly, he needs to be powerful in a different way than Palpatine was.  Because if Snoke represents the very same threat that Palpatine did, and his defeat has/would have the very same significance that Palpatine’s did, then he’s redundant and pointless … and what we’re getting in the Sequel Trilogy is just more … with no added meaning.

I’ve heard rumors that give me some hope;  I’ve heard Snoke might be a sort of body snatcher (like Flemeth in Dragon Age, or an evil Time Lord), possessing and inhabiting successive hosts, making him virtually immortal.  I’ve also heard that TLJ may introduce a sort of Averroism: mortality of the soul.  (I’ve liked this idea for a long time.  Every time I think Hey, that would be cool in a movie! somebody puts it in a movie.  It’s really kind of frustrating.)  The idea is that Force ghosts can be “killed”.  But, this worries me slightly: which Force ghost are they/is Snoke going to kill?  I can’t think of one that would be okay with me.  Maybe a Force ghost “red shirt”…

While these rumors make me hopeful, these new powers would not necessarily address the problem…

The point is that if the story of the Saga goes Sith #1 (Palpatine) takes over the galaxy, and the good guys get rid of him, and then Sith #2 (Snoke) takes over the galaxy, and the good guys get rid of him, too, it doesn’t matter what kind of nifty new powers Sith #2 had, they still just did the same thing twice.

So, with the defeat of Snoke, something has to be achieved beyond what was achieved with the defeat of Palpatine.  And I’ll talk about what that is, below…

The Sequel Trilogy Made Integral to the Saga

These last two (this, and the above) are crucial, and will make or break the Sequel Trilogy, for me.  And, they are related to the evolution of Jedi power (mentioned above, in “Han Solo Lives!”).

In a nutshell, the problem is this: Episodes I through VI constitute a complete story – there was (seemingly) no need for Episodes VII, VIII, and IX.  So, the third trilogy must make itself necessary – it must make itself integral to, and inextricable from, the previous Episodes.  It can only do this by resolving what was (or could be seen as) left unresolved in the previous Episodes (I – VI), by achieving something beyond what was achieved at the end of ROTJ, and by giving the whole Saga a new and greater finality…  

At the end of Return of the Jedi, I think the audience assumed that the Republic would be restored, and the Jedi Order would be rebuilt … but these things did not need to be dramatized, because they were assumed, and obvious, and the conflict that was central to the story was over.  So, in the Sequel Trilogy, whether or not these things are considered necessary, they are certainly not sufficient.  (And it’s extremely doubtful that they will be [credibly] achieved by Saga’s end, anyway, as J.J. Abrams has taken us an irrecoverably giant step in the wrong direction.)  

In a sense, the introduction of Snoke, in this flying-by-the-seat-of-their-pants afterthought that is the Sequel Trilogy, has retconned the entire Saga.  From the time George Lucas completed his magnum opus in 2005, until it was decided to tack on another trilogy, the conclusion of the story was the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Chosen One: Anakin brought balance to the Force by destroying the Sith.  By introducing the Sith No One Knew Existed, in Episode VII, the ST could potentially make complete nonsense of Lucas’s six-part Saga…  

I’ve come across a lot of misinterpretation of the prophecy of the Chosen One, including that Anakin wasn’t really the Chosen One, and also that the prophecy was fulfilled somewhere between Episodes III and IV: that the eventual consequence of Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side was that the galaxy was left with two Jedi (Yoda and Obi-Wan), and two Sith (Sidious and Vader)…  

According to George Lucas (not sure how much this matters to people anymore), Anakin is the Chosen One, the prophecy is true, and was fulfilled (the Force brought into balance) at the end of ROTJ, when Vader destroyed the Sith (the Emperor and himself).  When, in the prequels, the Force was referred to as being “out of balance”, it was not because there were unequal numbers of Jedi and Sith – it was because there were Sith.  It is the existence of Sith/Dark Side Force users that creates the imbalance…

So, what kind of crap ancient prophecy says “The Chosen One will bring balance to the Force … for thirty years.  Then, the Force will just go right out of balance again.”  I’m kidding.  Sort of.  Episode VII has negated the fitting conclusion to the Saga’s central conflict (along with nearly everything that made ROTJ a happy ending, and the events of the OT meaningful).  This is a huge problem.  And simply blowing up yet another Death Star, and getting rid of yet another Sith Lord, doesn’t fix it.  In fact, it only compounds it…

There are things they could do to make the Sequel Trilogy seem as though it’s not extraneous, and feel less like an afterthought, by creating as many links as possible with the earlier Episodes;  Having “The First Order” refer to a directive from the Emperor (as in “Order 66”).  Revealing that Snoke is Darth Plagueis, and Anakin’s creator.  Rey being of the Skywalker line.  But, these sorts of things won’t fix the problem.  Even if the truth of the prophecy is maintained, and Anakin is the one who destroys Snoke, the ST is still redundant … like so many other Hollywood sequels.

As I see it, the only thing that could be seen as being left unresolved (from the central conflict of Episodes I – VI) is the persistent problem of the Dark Side: that there is always the possibility that Jedi can fall, that the Sith (or somesuch Dark Siders) can rise again, that history can and does repeat itself.  We could see the Jedi victory over the Sith, in Episode VI, as being temporary, and therefore incomplete.  So, the only way the ST can justify its existence, maintain the integrity of the Saga, and fix the problem is by having the Jedi achieve a victory over the Sith (or Light Side over Dark) that is permanent, that ensures that history can’t and won’t repeat itself.  And this would be the total fulfillment of the prophecy of the Chosen One.

So, if there can be no light without dark, how do you bring permanent balance to the Force?  Someone might think that the way is to get rid of the Sith and the Jedi – all Force sensitives – as in “it’s time for the Jedi to end”.  But, I see three problems with this solution;

1.  I don’t like it.

2.  If life can not exist without midi-chlorians, and midi-chlorians are what make people Force-sensitive, and the Force is created by all living things … the Force, and Force-sensitivity, are not going to just go away.  So, this is, again, a temporary solution.

3.  I don’t like it.

And, if the Dark Side is an eternal and necessary aspect of the Force, you can’t just get rid of that either…

Someone might think that the way is a sort of magical union of opposites, so there is no longer a Light Side and a Dark Side, but only the Force.  But, as I just pointed out, Force-sensitivity is not going to go away.  And if Force-sensitives can’t use the Force for anything that would formerly have been thought of as a Light Side action or a Dark Side action, what can they do with it?  Household chores?  Hooray for Gray…?  So, if a Force-sensitive can still use the Force for selfish or destructive ends, what exactly has been achieved?  Nonsense.  That’s what.

It is apparent that Force energy itself can become corrupted, as in the cave on Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back, which was “strong with the Dark Side of the Force.  A domain of evil it is.”  How does Force energy become corrupted, and what is its effect/significance?  According to Obi-Wan, the Force “controls your actions”, but “it also obeys your commands”.  If this likewise applies to the Dark Side, using the Dark Side against the Light may corrupt Force energy (the “obeys your commands” part), and encountering corrupted energy may incite and/or exacerbate Dark Side tendencies (the “controls your actions” part)…  

So, the solution to the persistent problem of the Dark Side, the next evolution of Jedi power, may be (and really needs to be) an extension of what Anakin/Vader achieved in ROTJ: after falling to the Dark Side, he turned back to the Light – as far as I know, he’s the only guy who ever did that.  In terms of Jedi power: the ability to cleanse Force energy of Dark Side corruption…

This power could take different forms;  The ability to drain (and cleanse) Force energy from a Sith/Ren/Dark Sider to the point of loss of Force-sensitivity (ability to use/corrupt the Force), or even to the point of death;  The ability to convert a Dark Sider to the Light against his/her will;  And/or, the ultimate (most permanent) form – through the Force make it impossible for the Dark Side to be used – by anyone ever again.  I know it sounds a little crazy…  

I think that in order for this to play out in the right way, dramatically, means that Snoke has to be the living embodiment of the Dark Side – literally – the source of all Dark Side corruption, whose existence makes it possible for the Dark Side to be used at all…  

I have hope that this is how it’s going to go, because of that rumor that Force ghosts can be killed.  Clearly, the reason for introducing this idea would be to create tension in conflicts involving Force ghosts – specifically, Anakin vs Snoke.  This has to be the final battle (in Episode IX, of course), if the Sequel Trilogy is going to accomplish what it needs to accomplish…  

Anakin defeats Snoke, and Snoke ceases to exist.  From that time forward, the Dark Side remains balanced with the Light within every individual, and never again consumes a Force-sensitive, causing him or her to become “an agent of evil”.  And the Dark Side of the Force is never again used to harm so much as a single hair on an Ewok’s head.  Happily ever after.  The end.

OR

Episodes VII, VIII, and IX will become the Jaws 2, Jaws 3-D, and Jaws 4: The Revenge (This time, it’s personal) of Star Wars.