#give donnie yen his lightsaber!!

[andi-o-geyser]

@pretypidge here’s your guy :)

The Cast of Rogue One, ladies and gents

[isagrimorie]

One thing I keep thinking about while I watch Ahsoka train Sabine -- is that she's learned what not to do training another person from Anakin.

Anakin's training for Ahsoka as shown in Tales of the Jedi was brutal and effective and helped save her life but I love that Ahsoka recognized, that it's not always an ideal way to train someone else.

But also I think Sabine's form is really good (which tbf when she has the helmet on, is actually the stunt performer).

I want to acknowledge to the various ways Star Wars Ahsoka is influenced by Samurai movies, just the way the Jedi were influenced by Samurai movies with George Lucas.

I also love that they named the no sight bokken training after Zaitochi the blind Samurai (who, Donnie Yen, apparently modeled Chirrut Imwe from).

I also love how much this looks like a dojo -- plus the circular thing on the floor was also part of the Jedi training room.

I appreciate the consistency in the design.

But also with Sabine using the wooden bokken for training I keep thinking of that guy who comments on movie/TV swordfighting who I really like. He would appreciate them using practice swords instead of the ultra dangerous lightsabers for training.

It's like the medieval battle expert who keeps begging historical movies and TV shows to dig trenches around castles/keeps so the castles won't get swarmed.

But also it won't stop being funny to me that Ahsoka knows Luke is building his own Jedi academy and she has a whole ass Jedi learning tools, dojo and droid in her ship.

Would it be helpful for Luke to have Huyang while he's building his academy?

Sure.

But also, I know his school will be razed to the ground, so maybe not. I want to keep Huyang operational until the end of time, thank you very much.

Also, these Jedi things are her culture and what she grew-up on, she's preserving it. I'm not opposed to Ahsoka giving some things to Luke but also I am more for Ahsoka keeping some things for herself.

BUT ALSO

It's funnier that Ahsoka has all these things and Luke has books.

[elijahmiles]

hi ... i have a saber ask! what saber colors would you give chirrut and baze? i get why neither of them had sabers for the storytelling reasons but they would kick so much ass

oh gosh okay this one is tough. 

baze: violet. he is dedicated first and foremost to chirrut. he is fiercely protective of that and doesn’t often show he is true feelings except to those he is closest with, but still is spiritual and a natural leader

chirrut: white. donnie yen said that he personally would like a rainbow lightsaber and white light IS all the other colors of light...anyways!! he is extremely faithful and also willing to take direct action. after his home was overrun and his sacred artifacts stolen, the white saber honors his dedication to his faith and will to help determine the future. 

[chirrutbaze]

The Postmodern Jedi

As of January 7, 2018. Written after two viewings of The Last Jedi.

(word count: 2700 words)

PART I. What Does "Postmodern” Even Mean?

Simply put, post-modernism is a formal way of saying “edginess”. This Reddit post does a fair job of explaining the movement, but it’s pretty long. To summarize, post-modern authors and artists maintain that morality is entirely relative and grey, and that post-modernism is about defying expectations and tropes and playing beyond the standard ball court.

For example, A Song of Ice And Fire (Game of Thrones), with its extreme violence, squiggly morality, and unhappy endings, is post-modern fantasy when compared to The Lord of the Rings, which represents traditional fantasy with its happy endings and clearly defined morality.

Or: That guy over there in the fedora, scrolling through Reddit in front of his shelf of Alan Moore comics, fancy bongs, and vinyl discs? He probably thinks he’s better than you because he’s been enlightened by post-modernism.

But post-modernism can also be fun, tongue-in-cheek stuff -- like Shrek, which mocks its genre and defies expectations at every turn. So it’s not all dark, gritty, angsty dudebro-fodder.

PART II. Rian Johnson Killed Star Wars and Lucasfilm is Rewarding Him For It

(Continued below the cut.)

“Where does Star Wars fit into all of this?” is a great question, but I’d first like to give a couple more examples of post-modernism.

Remember when Batman got a makeover and the critics and audience went gaga for it?

And then we got a major influx of this...

...until the final, crown jewel,

(No offense, BvS. You were a fun movie. :))

Alan Moore (and Dave Gibbons) had started it with Watchmen, a graphic novel that presents superheroes as flawed, broken people with overblown egos. The comic takes the medium’s traditional bright colors and warps them into extreme violence and disturbing imagery. The ending (spoiler alert) is not a happy one, leaving the reader with a moral dilemma and a headache. It is all VERY postmodern.

Unfortunately, a lot of the above nuances disappear in “gritty reboots” and become more like White Murder Boy Is Now Sympathetic or How Many People To Dress In Black Until Edgy?? These movies are watered down versions of postmodernism.

Still, it had all eventually become too exhausting for the casual movie-goer, and now the film subgenre of “gritty reboot” is mocked to no end. (Ex: “WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME??”) People would rather play it safe with Marvel’s recycled storyline and Wonder Woman’s bright colors and cheerful message.

But back to Star Wars.

Star Wars has always fallen in The Lord of the Rings’ nook as traditional fantasy. Luke Skywalker, the Good Guy, needs to save the galaxy from Darth Vader, the Bad Guy. There's no blurred lines. Luke may be tempted by the Dark, and Darth Vader may be brought to the Light, but in the end there's only a Good-Evil binary.

The prequels -- though “grittier” in the sense that the protagonist, Anakin, turns evil -- are restricted to the same binary. Obi Wan is Good, Palpatine is Bad, and Anakin goes from Good to Bad. Anakin’s motive may have started as well-meant (wanting to save his loved ones), but even that gets twisted into, “From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!” He isn’t afforded any greyspace. As soon as he chooses Bad, he commits atrocities (killing the younglings and murdering the Separatist leaders) and loses trust in Padmé and Obi Wan, his concrete links to the Light side. The audience can no longer afford him any sympathy.

Star Wars has always maintained that there can only be Good or Bad, and that there is no in between. The Force Awakens continued this trend: the First Order has very clear fascist parallels, and Han Solo and the Resistance are seen as heroic forces.

Rian Johnson wanted to break free of this constrained morality. He gives the heroes obvious flaws to the point that they have disastrous consequences. He acts sympathetically toward the villains. He shatters the audience’s rose-tinted glasses.

But he did it without the gritty, grey filter or gore or ‘moral dilemma’ that characterize films like Snow White and the Huntsman and Batman v Superman. There’s a sense of edginess without any of the background recycled gloominess. Johnson even ends his story on a high, hopeful note -- “That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”

So, in the end, Lucasfilm and Disney got an edgy, “refreshing” blockbuster that’s guaranteed to bring in box office sales and excellent critic reception, because all good critics love an edgy story. It’s a win-win situation for them.

PART III. What Exactly Did Rian Johnson Do?

Listicle time!

1. Johnson made a Marvel movie disguised as a Star Wars episode.

This isn’t really evident of postmodernism, but it’s something that adds to TLJ’s “sell-able” nature. The quips left and right, the over the top action scenes, the bright colors, the quick pace, a villain that’s essentially just the evil version of the protagonist -- welcome to the MCU. And The Last Jedi.

The jokes were fun at first, but Star Wars has never been one for throwaway humor. Yet the movie is chock-full of jokes that more take the audience out of the “zone” than add to the film. Weird moments like Shirtless Kylo Ren and Luke’s Green Milk have become memes, Luke and Rey’s serious exchange was severely reduced by the Jakku joke, and Luke tickles Rey with the grass when she’s supposed to be training. Compared to the previous films, none of it feels organic.

The action scenes, too, have changed. The original series with Luke and Vader was very limited by the effects of its times, and then the prequels overcompensated. The sequel trilogy promised to be better than its predecessors, with an amazing fight scene between Rey and Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base that looked like it could’ve been choreographed by Donnie Yen himself. But The Last Jedi’s fight between Luke and Kylo Ren regresses back to something out of the prequel trilogy. Was the slow-motion really necessary, Rian Johnson? And Kylo Ren and Rey’s fight in the throne room is over the top and busy, simply showing off how many “cool moves” Lucasfilm could think of to stuff in one scene.

The cluttered action clashes with movie's bright colors and quick pacing. Still, the latter characteristics are not so much of a problem with Johnson’s Star Wars as they are characteristics of most blockbusters these days. It’s forgivable.

But Johnson does have a problem in that he simply reduces his villain to the evil version of his protagonist. He kills off Snoke and establishes “Supreme Leader Ren” as the new big antagonist. Kylo Ren, however, is just what Rey would be if she goes dark. This is evidenced when Luke comments, “I’ve seen this raw strength only once before. It didn’t scare me enough then, but it does now.” He’s talking about Kylo Ren (Ben Solo). 

Kylo Ren rejects the idea of family while Rey craves it. Kylo Ren is tempted by the Dark side and is absorbed into it while Rey is tempted and rejects it. Kylo Ren wants to destroy his past while Rey chases after hers. They’re explicit inverses, seen especially when Rey calls his lightsaber to her in Snoke’s throne room and then the two fight back to back. Even on the movie poster, they're in ying-yang positions.

Of course, this Marvel-esque approach is great for Disney. It works for the MCU, after all. All of their films have been box office successes, and the hype for Infinity War is massive.

2. Johnson gave his heroes flaws and his villains reasons.

This is the postmodern (“edgy”, “gritty reboot”) aspect of TLJ: Johnson introduces grey morality into the Star Wars universe not by proposing a moral dilemma (hello, Joker from The Dark Knight) but by giving his characters crippling flaws.

→ Finn’s flaws were explored in the first movie -- he prefers running away from his problems instead of facing them, and his compassion for his friends (Rey, Poe) outweighs his loyalty to a cause (prioritizing saving Rey over a real plan to take down Starkiller). This is not a bad thing. And it’s only been a couple of days (or hours?) since the fall of Starkiller Base; Finn can’t be expected to overcome his previous motivations in that time. Johnson was not out of line for continuing Finn’s moral arc (trying to leave the Resistance to look for Rey at the start of TLJ).

However, he also adds a strange element of aggression to Finn’s character. Suddenly, he’s done with trying to run away and throws himself into sudden action when he tries to take out the First Order’s battering cannon. It’s never really explained (with all the Canto Bight sequences mostly focusing on Rose’s reactions) but it’s the only true action with impact on the narrative that Finn takes.

→ Rey’s TFA flaws are also taken into TLJ. She’s very trusting -- too trusting. Rey waits for her parents to return to Jakku, even though they likely never will; she immediately takes to Finn when he fibs that he’s in the Resistance; and she immediately warms up to Han Solo, a known smuggler. (Admittedly, it’s a strange characteristic for a scavenger living on the unforgiving Jakku, but that’s another argument entirely.) Her naivety has no consequences in TFA, but it does in TLJ.

By trusting too easily and going to Kylo Ren, she's played into exactly what he wants. He uses her to defeat Snoke and the Praetorian Guards so that he can instate himself as the new Supreme Leader. Her going to Kylo Ren does more bad than good.

→ Poe is a small character in TFA, but he’s given more personality in TLJ. We now see him as a brash pilot who, although intelligent and capable, is too quick to take action.

Ultimately, his unwillingness to step in line with his superiors -- who are also at fault for withholding vital information -- leads to the crumbling of the Resistance.

→ Luke Skywalker’s flaws were the most difficult for the fanbase to accept. It’s not like he’s ever been perfect -- his entire journey in the original series is his bildungsroman, or his coming of age. He matures from an impatient farmboy to a competent Jedi knight, though he still maintains his compassion and will to do good from the start. But Johnson introduces a new Achilles heel: Luke is like Finn in that he wants to avoid rather than confront.

Luke’s absence allows the First Order to rise to power more easily. Instead of trying to make amends with Kylo Ren, he retreats to a remote island planet. Luke recognizes the problem -- his own hubris, another main fault of his -- but he doesn't try to make reparations. He's chosen the easy route instead of the right one.

→ Kylo Ren was the character who got the most attention this film. While he’s a pretty flat character in TFA -- his main actions include killing people and looking scary -- he also appears to be torn between the Light side and the Dark side. Until he commits patricide, that is.

Johnson takes this dark, helmeted figure and gives him a 'tragic backstory’. We know that Snoke has been messing with him since a young age in TFA, but now we see Snoke use abusive, humiliating language against him in TLJ. (This ultimately turns Kylo Ren against Snoke instead of keeping him under his heel.) However, it seems that Luke briefly considering killing Ben Solo was the cataclysm for Kylo Ren’s existence. All of this works to explain Kylo Ren’s actions -- and it allows the audience some sympathy.

3. Johnson created DJ the Codebreaker. Oh, yeah, and Canto Bight.

Remember Benicio del Toro's character? His name's DJ. Do you know what DJ stands for?

Don't Join.

Rian Johnson couldn't be more obvious if he put up a billboard with neon lights and a stereo blaring “The Imperial March”. He wants the audience to get his “edgy” message -- that maybe the good guys and bad guys are both the problem.

DJ works for neither the Resistance nor the First Order. He’s found on Canto Bight, a place that fuels the intergalactic war (Star Wars) by continuously selling weapons to both sides. Furthermore, DJ first promises to help the Resistance (Rose and Finn) before betraying them to the First Order to save himself. He plays both sides of the field and therefore neither.

Johnson also hints at his “grey” view of the Star Wars universe through Luke, who declares that “the Jedi must come to an end”. Luke acknowledges the arrogance of the Jedi Council (which is better explored in Dave Filoni’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars series than in the prequel trilogy) and of himself, lamenting how it'd blinded him and his forefathers.

Frankly put, Johnson had a goal -- to show that Star Wars’ heroes are no longer infallible, and that their universe (and the Force) isn't black and white.

PART IV. Why Fandom Refuses to Accept TLJ

I’ll be brief: Rian Johnson is not a good writer.

For example, let's go back to Kylo Ren. He's not really supposed to be a Sympathetic White Murder Boy. By the end of the film, it’s explicit that he's more unstable and irredeemable than ever. And yet there's still this prevalent delusion that he's going to pull a Darth Vader and/or end up with Rey, returning to “Ben Solo”. His terrible actions towards Rey are completely ignored. If you take a look at that linked post, all of the bullet points listed should have been concretely evident in the film, but weren’t. It took an analytical post on the Internet to get there.

Was that weird enough? Nope. Let’s go weirder.

There were, strangely enough, two articles released about how terrible of a character Poe was by Buzzfeed and Vanity Fair because he was a “mansplainer” who refused to listen to a woman in command. For this, TLJ was praised as a “feminist” film.

However, the woman in command should be held at fault. Vice Admiral Holdo purposely withholds critical information from the other Resistance fighters, expecting blind faith in her desperate gamble of a plan. Kaydel Ko Connix (portrayed by Billie Lourd) is seen to be working on the bridge with Holdo, yet she joins Poe’s mutiny because even she, working right there with Holdo, has no idea of what’s to come.

So why is only Poe being held accountable for the fall of the Resistance? Because he never gets a redemptive moment. Sure, he calls his fighters back on Crait, but it’s so small and almost seems to carry a sense of regret. Finn and Rose’s moment, only seconds later, easily outweighs it. On the other hand, Holdo lightspeeds straight through Snoke’s flagship in some of the best special effects to grace the big screen.

Let’s talk about Rose Tico, too. A lot of fans were really excited about her character, especially Kelly Marie Tran, the actress herself. But her role in Canto Bight was originally supposed to be that of Poe Dameron’s. It would’ve been more in line with what we’ve seen so far of Poe Dameron. Even though he had a small role in TFA, his character is much more fleshed out in the comics. This small excerpt already proves him to not be the hot-headed pilot Rian Johnson has made him out to be. Having Poe expose Finn to Canto Bight would’ve been a great way to rectify Poe’s character, in a sense.

Rose herself comes off as flat. The film claims that she has a deep bond with her sister, but they never interact and it’s not concretely shown, just assumed. Rose has no development over the course of the film. She just exists to better Finn (as evidenced by the comicbook article) -- and while Finn is a fantastic character who was severely undervalued in TLJ, that’s still a dangerous position for a female character to be allocated to.

This is all evidence of not-that-great writing. There’s a reason why the audience’s Rotten Tomatoes score is at 50% and the critics’ score is at 90%. I doubt the bots were the only reason why the audience score is pulled so low.

In addition, grey morality within the Star Wars universe has been explored before in their television shows (Dave Filoni’s The Clone Wars and Rebels) and in Rogue One (“We’ve all done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion”), so it’s actually… not revolutionary. 

And these works have still stayed true to Star Wars in a way that The Last Jedi falls short of.

[hubskitchen]

Hub’s Kitchen Entry 1: Star Wars: The Last Jedi Review: Move on from the past and learn from failure

Man oh man, this is going to be a fun movie to talk about. If this were a voiced review, the sarcasm would be huge. Anyway, hi guys, the name’s Hub Pie, but you can just call me Hub, and welcome to the first entry of Hub’s Kitchen, a blog where I talk about all kinds of stuff. If you’ve read my introduction post, you would know that my first real post will be on Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the most recent movie in the Star Wars franchise, and Disney’s third Star Wars film that they put out. I should get this out of the way now, but there will be MAJOR SPOILERS for this movie, The Force Awakens, and Rogue One. I think The Last Jedi is a movie that you can’t really talk about without getting into spoiler territory. Talking about this movie without spoilers wouldn’t do this film justice.

I’ll just say right off the bat that I liked this movie, like a lot. I’d say this is my favorite Star Wars movie Disney’s put out, with The Force Awakens being the middle child and Rogue One being my least favorite. Rogue One wasn’t bad, but that’s only because the third act of the movie saved the entire movie for me. Yeah, that end sequence with Vader killing the Rebels was awesome, but that does not single-handedly save a movie. Rogue One was brought down by an incredibly slow pace, and outside of K2-SO and Donnie Yen’s character, I didn’t like any of the characters in the movie, not even Jyn Erso, who’s easily the most boring Star Wars protagonist in my opinion. The Force Awakens was pretty good. I didn’t mind that the movie took a lot of inspiration from A New Hope other than the Starkiller Base, because the characters were really likable and the movie actually felt like Star Wars, unlike the prequels. I’ll talk about those movies in a different Hub’s Kitchen entry. The Last Jedi is an odd film if you ask me. As an overall package, I’d say The Force Awakens is superior to TLJ, and at its worst, this movie reaches Rogue One levels: Not bad, but nothing that good either. At its best however, this movie is excellent. So now that I’ve said my overall general opinion of The Last Jedi and my thoughts on Disney’s previous Star Wars films, let’s dive deeper into this movie.

The Last Jedi is about failure. Every character’s arc in this movie connects to this theme. A good example of this is Finn and Rose Tico’s subplot, which has been heavily criticized amongst the detractors on this movie. I have mixed feelings on this subplot. On one hand it does connect to the theme of the movie, as Finn and Rose fail to destroy the First Order’s tracking device, the crucial element that prevents the Resistance from escaping the First Order. On the other hand, this subplot feels like a drag compared to the rest of the movie and the subplot is always cut back to when I was getting more invested in the other better parts of the movie. I guess I should talk about Rose now. She’s okay. I won’t be getting into the whole race thing about Kelly Marie Tran because I don’t care about that kind of stuff. When we first see her, we know that she’s a maintenance worker for the Resistance and because of that necklace she has, we learn that her sister was killed when Poe decided to destroy the First Order’s Dreadnought ship (more on Poe in a bit). My issue with Rose is that she doesn’t really have any sort of development throughout the story. I was reminded of Mace Windu with Rose, and that is not a good thing in my opinion. Rose is still pretty likable though, so it didn’t ruin the character for me. The other problem I have with Rose is the forced romance with Finn after he was going to sacrifice himself to stop the First Order’s battering ram cannon. It just showed up out of nowhere and wasn’t really hinted or implied throughout the movie. Speaking of Finn, he easily had the worst treatment out of the new characters from Force Awakens in my opinion. Not only is he treated to the worst subplot of the movie, but Finn felt stoic this time around to me, whereas he felt more like a fleshed out character from the last movie. Maybe that’s just me, though. Finn’s still cool, but he didn’t really get a whole lot to do in this movie. I honestly would have preferred if he weren’t in the movie, at least not much, but eh, whatever. So yeah, not the best part of the movie, I can tell you that. Though, seeing a casino in Star Wars was pretty cool, I guess. I mean, it’s still kinda weird to see a casino in Star Wars, though it’s not as weird as the Ewoks defeating the Empire in Return of the Jedi if you ask me.

Next up is Poe Dameron, General Leia and the Resistance. Like Finn, I don’t like Poe as much as I did in Force Awakens, and that has to do with his arc of the movie. So at the beginning of the movie, Poe leads the Resistance to take down a First Order Dreadnought, but despite General Leia telling Poe to fall back, he says “fuck that,” and ends up destroying the Dreadnought, but at the cost of the entire bombing unit of the Resistance being destroyed. This is Poe’s failure: His recklessness got the entire bombing unit destroyed. I know he was trying to take down a big First Order ship, but at what cost? It’s a net negative than a net positive and Poe gets demoted because of that. Recklessness doesn’t always win the battle. Then the First Order catch up to the Resistance after they went into hyperspace thanks to their tracking device. In the midst of this, we see Kylo Ren again (and I’ll talk about him when I talk about Rey and Luke), but he hesitates to shoot his mother down (again, more on that later). A couple of TIE Fighters don’t get the memo and blast Leia’s portion of the ship and we think she’s dead, but Leia ends up using the Force to bring herself back to the ship, but she needs to recover. This scene has been one of the most controversial moments on the film, and like the Finn and Rose subplot, I have mixed feelings on it. It is really silly and is a little hard to take seriously, but in the original trilogy, particularly with The Empire Strikes Back, we know that Leia is Force-sensitive. How else would they have found Luke hanging from that pole after his fight with Vader? So it makes some amount of sense that Leia would be able to do this. Who knows? During the period of time between the original trilogy and now, she could have been more attuned with the Force, only not in a Jedi kind of way. Given Carrie Fisher’s death from last year, I feel like the movie was in a tight spot with her. Giving Leia a death so quick in the movie might have been disrespectful to Carrie Fisher, but on the other hand, that “Leia Poppins” scene as people are calling it is a bit odd. Carrie Fisher was great in this movie, in fact, all the cast was great in this movie, especially Mark Hamill, but we’ll get to him later. Rest in peace, Carrie Fisher.

Back onto the Resistance subplot, once Leia is in recovery, we get Vice Admiral Holdo in command (the woman with the purple hair). Not much of this subplot is really explored until later when Poe sees Holdo’s plan to evacuate the Resistance into small pods as cowardly so he starts a mutiny which ends with Leia coming in and stunning him. Then Vice Admiral Holdo decides to buy the Resistance time by ramming the ship into the First Order battlefleet which gives us the most gorgeous moment of the movie. That shot was amazing. Though, if we want to talk about Leia having a good send-off, I think that would have been. Imagine Leia ramming the ship into the First Order battlefleet. Would have circumvented the “Leia Poppins” thing.

Finally, let’s talk about the BIG subplot of this movie: Rey, Kylo Ren, and Luke. This is easily the “make it or break it” section of the movie, and for me, it made the Last Jedi. Let’s start with Luke. The theme of failure symbolizes Luke as a character. 30 years after that happy ending of Return of the Jedi, and here he is, a broken man after seeing darkness in Kylo Ren, to which Luke thought of killing him, but hesitates and ends up losing all his students in the process. Luke brings up that the Jedi are failures, which is an interesting point. In the prequels, the Jedi deemed Anakin Skywalker as the “chosen one,” but that resulted to him turning to the Dark Side and Order 66, which killed the majority of the Jedi, leaving Obi-Wan and Yoda left. By the time of the original trilogy, the Jedi were romanticized and thought of as legends. Then we get to the sequel trilogy and Luke is deemed a legend, and he decided to pass the Jedi teachings down to future generations. Luke wasn’t really a Jedi Master in the way the prequels contextualized them. The prequels defined a Jedi Master as having really excellent Lightsaber skills and being stoic, not falling into extreme feelings. Keep in mind that I haven’t seen the Clone Wars TV series so I don’t know if this is expanded upon in that show. I’m only going off the movies, and the prequels and the original trilogy’s definition of a Jedi differed greatly. Putting all the movies into context and given what we know, Luke was never a Jedi Master. He had a good understanding of the Force, but never did all the amazing stuff the Jedi in the prequels did. And given that one mistake he made cost him the death of his students, I’d be a broken man too. Though I did love the callback that R2 made with Leia’s original message to Obi-Wan. That was great.

The way the movie portrays Rey and Kylo Ren as characters is interesting. Throughout the movie, Rey and Kylo talk by using the Force, though we later find out that this was a plan from Snoke (more on him in a bit). We see that these two are conflicted about their sides and both try to convert the other. There’s a bit of darkness in Rey, so Kylo tries to convert her to the dark, and vice versa. Hell, we see early in the movie that Kylo does not shoot Leia, his mother, down. He hesitates, symbolizing the conflict within him. Rey meanwhile wants someone to show her her place in the world, given how part of her huge character flaw is not letting go of her past with her parents. That’s why she was attached to Han in TFA and why she’s attached to Luke in this movie. Now, we have to talk about those things about the movie now: The big stuff.

So, The Force Awakens left a lot of questions for the audience when the movie ended, starting with: How will Luke react to seeing his father’s old lightsaber again when Rey gives it to him? The Last Jedi says: Luke chucks it over his shoulder. A lot of people saw this as a cheap gag, and with the way it was shot, yeah, it kinda was, but it makes sense given what Luke has been through. To him, that lightsaber means nothing because of what he went through. While to us, the audience, it’s a huge deal because it was Anakin’s lightsaber in the prequels, Luke’s lightsaber in The Empire Strikes Back, and that was somehow in The Force Awakens, to Luke, it’s nothing more than a tool, a reminder of a past he wants to forget about.

What about Snoke? He was built up to be the new big bad guy for this new trilogy, the new Palpatine, if you will. What happens in The Last Jedi: Kylo proceeds to “Darth Maul” him. What I mean by that is that just when Snoke was going to be really interesting, he gets killed off. I hear Darth Maul is in the Clone Wars TV show, but I’m talking about movies exclusively here. Personally, I felt that the movie knew that Snoke was a lame character, and decided to kill him off. I’m a little disappointed that Snoke didn’t have the same level of presence Palpatine did in the original trilogy and even the prequel trilogy. I didn’t really care about his backstory being fleshed out that much, because that’s not really important. It’s why the Palpatine’s backstory was never mentioned in the original trilogy. All we needed to know was that he seduced Anakin to the Dark Side of the Force and became Darth Vader from that. The prequels built upon this backstory, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make.

Rey’s lineage? She was the daughter of junk dealers on Jakku, who traded her away for drinking money. This is something that I love. A lot of people were hoping for Rey to be Luke’s daughter or Obi-Wan’s daughter or something, but nope. I love this because not only does it not pointlessly make Rey a part of the bigger Skywalker conflict by making her a family member, but it also states that greatness can come from anywhere (which is also signified in the last scene of the movie). It just felt fresh to me. If Rey were were part of a great Jedi lineage, I would have been pissed, personally.

I know I said The Last Jedi was about failure, but it’s also about letting go of the past. This is symbolized with Luke, Rey, and Kylo Ren. Luke’s past events haunt him, and at one point, he decided to burn the tree that had the ancient Jedi, but not before ghost puppet Yoda did it for him. Yoda basically tells Luke to let the past go, which I think is a good message, especially to a man who’s as broken as Luke is in this movie. Rey has to eventually accept her lineage and move on from that. Both Luke and Rey come to accept their fates in this movie. Kylo Ren, however, doesn’t, and what’s funny is that he’s telling Rey to “bury the past,” yet he’s obsessed with wanting to get revenge on Luke and kill him. We see this on the entire scene on Crait. Kylo furiously tells the First Order to fire on Luke. Doesn’t work (along with Luke’s badass shoulder rub). He rushes to Luke with his lightsaber, but sees that Luke is using the Force to project himself on Crait. “See you around, kid,” was a badass line from Luke. So was his death. Oh yeah, it’s time to talk about Luke’s death.

Luke’s death was really well handled in my opinion. A lot of people criticized that he didn’t make his way to Crait, but early on in the movie, we see his old X-Wing in the water. It’s likely that it’s out of power and won’t work. So we see Luke project himself using the Force. I don’t know if the Force can allow people to do this, then again, Force lightning exists, so I guess it makes sense. Because Luke puts so much energy into this technique, he ends up dying as a result. He looks to the distance where he sees two suns, very much like he did in A New Hope, and accepts his fate. As Rey says “He didn’t die with anger or sadness, but acceptance.” Besides, he gave the Resistance time to escape and had a heartfelt goodbye with Leia, which was a great scene. He even gave her the dice from the Millenium Falcon, sort of. So yeah, really good moment in my opinion.

Now we have an awkward spot where there’s other things to talk about the movie that don’t have a major role sooooooo…

Captain Phasma: Man, what a disappointment. She’s essentially Boba Fett all over again. If she is confirmed for Episode 9, I hope she gets a good fucking send off.

Porgs: Eh, they were cute but that’s about it. Yeah, it’s obvious the Porgs were made to sell toys but so were the Ewoks. To give credit to the Porgs, they weren’t huge players like the Ewoks were.

The Codebreaker: He was an oddball character. Benicio Del Toro was good in the role, but he wasn’t too memorable.

Vulptexs: These things (the crystal wolves) were awesome. I definitely want a plush of that. What? I like plushies. Sue me.

This is where I’d give my final thoughts, but I want to talk about how the audience reactions to this movie have gone down. The Last Jedi, while a hit with critics and general audiences going off of the A score from Cinemascore, with Star Wars fans, it’s more divisive. I’ve taken the time to watch some YouTube videos about The Last Jedi, both positive and negative reviews (which the majority are negative) and went to the Star Wars subreddit, and I have to say: I’m not surprised by the behavior that some of these fans have displayed. I mean, disagreeing with people is one thing, but making accusations and hating others for their viewpoints is pretty fucking dumb, even if I find some of them to be ridiculous. It’s just a movie guys, and no, I’m not saying that as a way to undermine your anger. I’m saying that because a movie is only a movie. It’s not something super serious like education or your financial state. I’m not saying you can’t be mad at this movie, but think about how much energy you can give it. You can be angry for so long before you come off as obnoxious. Whether you liked The Last Jedi or not, just let other people be. They’re not right or wrong for what they think. Trust me, you’ll be a lot happier.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a complicated film. It has a lot of deep themes and is a pretty challenging movie on a thematic perspective. It’s also incredibly bold by taking the Star Wars franchise in a new direction, a direction that it should be taking if you ask me. It’s not flawless, however. Finn and Rose’s subplot drags down the pacing, there are some comedy bits I didn’t mention that didn’t land, and as an overall package, The Last Jedi is inconsistent, ranging from being amazing to being just okay. Like I said, I liked the movie, and consider it to be my favorite Star Wars movie that Disney has released so far. I know I’m going to get some shit from people, especially diehard Star Wars fans, and hey, that’s cool, whatever gets me more attention. I’m just being honest, something that I take very seriously. I don’t give ratings to things because I think that’s pointless. Just know that I think The Last Jedi is a good movie despite its faults. Anyway, my name is Hub Pie, and thank you for reading.

[chirrutimwe-rogueone-blog]

Why lightsabers wouldn’t make sense in Rogue One? Two words: Donnie Yen.

“Now the movie is done, I think it would be cooler if they gave me a lightsaber. Based on previous Star Wars movies, come on … me swinging one compared to all the actors … I don’t think you would ever let anybody else swing a lightsaber in the future. I’d set the standard so high. I’d drop the mic.” (laughs)

Could Donnie Yen defeat Darth Vader, then? 

“Absolutely! (laughs) Maybe that’s why they didn’t give me one. Give me a lightsaber, you wouldn’t have two hours of storytelling. Give Chirrut a lightsaber, he could take the Empire.”

In a movie where the heroes are supposed to be relatively weak, and must fail at stopping the Death Star altogether (see Star Wars Episode IV), an armed and fully operational Donnie Yen would be something of a handicap.

No wonder they tried to stick his hands in concrete.

(с)

[techsoftware-blog]

There's another Rogue One: A Star Wars Story trailer, and it's wonderful Things are solid for the main Star Wars spinoff movie.

Are you getting amped up for December? We are—and not in view of the presents. Disney just dropped the official trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which hits theaters December sixteenth. The film is the studio's first attack outside the undertakings of the characters we've grown up with, occurring without further ado before the occasions portrayed in Episode IV. The Empire is finishing chip away at the Death Star, and the Rebellion needs to discover its shortcoming; it initiates Jyn Erso (played by Felicity Jones) to do as such.

This isn't our first take a gander at Rogue One. Disney discharged a trailer ahead of schedule in April packed with visuals of AT-ATs raging tropical shorelines set to a despairing piano riff of John Williams' "Constrain topic" punctuated by a howling siren riff ensured to illuminate anybody's optional somatosensory cortex. Be that as it may, this new trailer takes a somewhat extraordinary tone, maybe the consequence of studio dismay which prompted half a month of reshoots prior this summer.It gives us a superior take a gander at a few characters, however. There's Chirrut Imwe (played by Donnie Yen), a visually impaired warrior living on Jedha—a planet that is the wellspring of those little gems that make lightsabers work. What's more, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a chief in the Rebellion working with Erso to take the arrangements to the Death Star, joined by a short droid, K2SO (Alan Tudyk). Goodness, and we likewise get another look at Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) looking a considerable measure like a privateer in power reinforcement.

Something else, the trailer is pressed brimming with visuals that Star Wars fans will perceive and cherish—Imperial Star Destroyers circling the nearly assembled Death Star or drifting in the air over a rough plateau, cockpit shots of boats entering hyperspace—you know the penetrate. Two minutes isn't especially to go on, yet it seems enough to realize that the primary real life takeoff from Luke Skywalker and his pals since Ewoks: The Battle for Endor won't endure an indistinguishable destiny from that film or the additionally vile Caravan of Courage.

[marcuserrico]

'Rogue One's' Galen Erso — With a Mouse Droid! — Finally Gets the 'Star Wars' Action-Figure Treatment

When we hauled a backpack full of action figures with us to San Francisco for the Rogue One junket in December, there was one notable character missing in action. So while Felicity Jones undressed her Jyn Erso, Diego Luna admired his Cassian Andor, Donnie Yen showed off the moves of Chirrut Îmwe, Alan Tudyk and Riz Ahmed battled their K-2SO and Bodhi Rook mini-mes (watch above), and even Ben Mendelsohn took stock of his Orson Krennic likeness, poor Mads Mikkelsen didn’t have a doll to play with. That injustice has been remedied: Hasbro on Friday unveiled its Galen Erso 3.75-inch action figure and it comes with an added bonus for Star Wars fans.

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

The Erso figure comes with an MSE-6 Imperial repair droid, a.k.a. the mouse droid, a diminutive droid that appeared throughout the original trilogy, beginning with A New Hope in 1977, as well as Rogue One and The Force Awakens. This is the first time a 3.75-inch-scale mouse droid has been released by Hasbro since 1999.

The toy company also showed off several other Rogue One figures, including individual figures of the blue Mon Calamari fleet commendar Admiral Raddus and Lieutenant Sefla (one of the Rebel Alliance soldiers involved in the climactic ground battle; in the Rogue One novelization we learn he gives Jyn Erso the rank of sergeant during the flight from Yavin to Scarif), as well as a two-pack containing Bistan (the character director Gareth Edwards’s referred to as his “space monkey”) and a Scarif shoretrooper.

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

Also among the figures, which are being revealed ahead of New York Toy Fair, is Fenn Rau, a Mandalorian warrior from the animated TV series Star Wars Rebels. All the 3.75-inch figures will be available this spring; the individual figures will retail for $7.99, with the Bistan-shoretrooper two-fer will be $14.99.

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

There is also a 12-inch Electronic Duel Death Trooper that makes sounds and fires its blaster when you squeeze its legs. It will be available this fall for $19.99.

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

Finally, Hasbro also announced the Star Wars Bladebuilders Jedi Knight Lightsaber, which allows Padawans to assemble their own custom weapon, will be coming this spring for $29.99.

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)

(Photo courtesy of Hasbro)