#i am one thing and it is a lando apologist

[alxclaremont]

anyway so that’s what i like to call a nice dose of karma

[fabbyf1]

I am a Lando Norris Facial Hair apologist. If they have one fan, it is me. They are the best thing to happen in 2023. I'm here for their rights, but more importantly, their wrongs. I love those little scraggly chin hairs with my entire heart and soul. I would die for those little chain hairs. When they leave, so will I.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

I will not be explaining any further. You all can stay mad about them.

🙂

[myimaginarywonderland]

Not to be mean but why are there suddenly so many C*rlos apologists?

Why are you still here? Arguing with me about how he made a mistake? How he could grow and change? Saying how Lando wouldn't be friends with him if he is racist? Saying how everyone has a choice in kneeling?

First off, he didn't made a mistake. He made a racist statement which is even worse when you listen to it because it comes from a colonizers point of view (I am including myself in this because our ancestors were colonizers and that was not long ago.) He literally said the restaurant wasn't a European Chinese restaurant? The fuck? That implies that everyone needs to be westernized as if other cultures don't have a right to just have a restaurant that represents their culture?

Where is that growth? Where is that change? Don't tell me things like "he could have changed in private." He needs to change publicly. He doesn't need to be sugarcoated by you. He needs to acknowledge his mistakes. He doesn't even get away with an apology because frankly with his statement he talked down an entire culture and it is not in white people's right to accept an apology or say it's enough. He is part of the problem and if he doesn't want to be publicly at least taking a step forward would be a little something. We are all part of the problem as racism was build on white supremacy, colonialism. But we can start to support black people, give them room for their voices and start unlearning daily racist behaviors and beliefs.

When I read stuff like "He was right, Asians eat cats" I can't help rolling my eyes. So most of white people eat cows and chicken, pigs and that isn't a problem? What makes you think eating one animal is better than the other? Also, by spreading generalizations which is rooted in racist stereotypes you are exactly like him.

The Lando argument is the weakest. Literally more than probably half of the grid have rightist beliefs. It's just a fact. And all of them probably have friends and family with rightists beliefs. There are so many ways rightists belief can you look from sexism to misogyny to believing that people of a certain religion are all the same. I have family with rightist beliefs. Also friends or rather former friends. You don't automatically realize that. You grow up thinking it's normal. What you can do, is realize that it isn't. You can choose to cut those people out of your life as you grow older.

Why are you putting Lando so high? Literally, don't use him as a shield. He is just growing himself. He is not immune to having rightist friends or rightists beliefs. Maybe he has some himself, he is literally a white and rich boy. He grew up with so many privileges, he probably had a really sheltered life. I am not saying he is bad but don't idolize him. He could be the most homophobic person in private, we will never know as we can only judge them or their personas in public.

And yes, if someone likes Trump tweets I can't support them as they seemingly support a pedophil, racist, homophobic, colonists president. Some of those beliefs directly affect me. Don't tell me to take this lightly when someone like him means fear, danger and death as well as physical assaults for so many people.

And he has a choice in kneeling. I am not saying he doesn't. But his choices also means I have to choice to criticize his choice. I have the right to call him out on this. I have to right to be mad. Just because he choose one way doesn't mean it's right.

And then all these black and white arguments. Fuck off. Sometimes, the word is black and white, sometimes it isn't. There are layers to racism but everyone that is white is racist. That's just a fact. We all grow up with white privilege and we all grow up with a certain level of racism because that's just how society is. Society is racist, politics are racist and so one. This is why we need to change the system fundamentally because a small change won't fix anything.

But a simple action like kneeling can go a thousand ways and might be the reason why someone learns. So be cautious of what you do because every action has an impact.

I am still not saying that you are wrong to be a fan of his but the level of ignorance I have seen in the tags today is frustrating and frankly dangerous because it discredits what he has done.

If you are a fan be aware of who you are supporting. Also, don't expect everyone to be a saint. Especially the drivers will all have various degrees of problematic behaviours and beliefs as they grew up in a sheltered environment without any real exposure to something that might challenge their world view. But some of them are young, still have time to learn and grow as well as the will to educate themselves. They are also seeing change, witnessing the violence of beliefs. They are on social media and have the internet as a resource which provides them with easy ways to educate themself. The difference between them and other's is the will to be ignorant and the choice to be.

And don't compare what he is doing right now to an ignorant comment someone like Lewis might have made in the past about gender norms. Lewis unlike this man choose to listen and educate himself and consider something outside of the beliefs he had and be open-minded, ultimately ending in a personal change within him. And he realized his mistakes and is now openly supporting the very thing he found weird.

That is not like C*rlos. Never ever say that.

[god-awfulcharleslechair]

☕️ whats your take on carlos sainz?

(This has been sitting in my drafts for SO FUCKING LONG, I am so sorry.)

Ah, yes. So I’ve definitely written a lot about Carlos before towards the beginning, some very lengthy or very angry posts, and this blog isn’t that old so I’d say my opinions haven’t changed that much.

There are three main things F1blr dislike him for, currently:

1. That sponsored, official Estrella Galicia post where he said some pretty ignorant things about Chinese people/food.

2. His conservative & nationalistic (a lot of people say even fascist-apologist) leaning values/political beliefs.

3. His recent actions of not kneeling.

To me, a lot of what is upsetting is the sheer amount of people who have messaged me telling me how to be/not be offended by his actions.

I’m of East Asian descent, Korean specifically, and stuff like the statement Carlos has made are an regular occurence. Ignorant “practical jokes” made to be funny. But no one has a right to tell me how to feel towards it. Just like I have no right to tell black individuals how to feel about Drivers kneeling or not kneeling.

Other than that, his conservative tendencies are annoying. Personally, I think all the Drivers should have knelt—and if they didn’t kneel then at least speak up against all the racist dogshit slinging fans they inspired to be even more racist, but that’s just me.

I don’t hate Carlos. I acknowledge his skill, entertaining qualities, charm, and the fact that I can’t reblog any Lando content without him in it. I do feel very strongly towards him, positively and negatively. I was very happy when it got announced he was going to Ferrari but over time I think I can’t ignore the feelings that come up whenever I see content about him. So now I’m just not interested in him like I was before. But I also don’t think he’ll ever apologize. So I recognize he’s there, and that I think he’s funny.

Unless you’re a dick, I’m not going to fight with you over messages, so I definitely have responded to all of those messages I got very passively. That doesn’t mean it’s any less annoying to see people excuse his actions because he’s hot, or you’ve somehow deemed it okay on behalf of the Chinese (& East Asian) community that he didn’t mean it so he should be forgiven. I still objectify him, he’s obviously not ugly, but that doesn’t mean I like him.

Lewis champions against ignorance everyday. He’s come out and apologized when he has been ignorant. Carlos straight up hasn’t spoken a word about what happened—and Lewis’ mistake of being intolerant was on a personal account—Carlos made a sponsored post and not a single person thought along the way that what he said wasn’t okay.

Even if he did apologize, I wouldn’t believe it or accept it. It’s not my job to either.

A twenty-five year old grown man made those remarks, on a video he knew would be uploaded officially and at the center-platform of one of the biggest sponsors of his career.

There is something incredibly wrong with that.

Why is no one acknowledging that?

[scripttorture]

Torture in Fiction: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

I really love Star Wars; the recent movies have only cemented that. These are all time classic sci fis and probably some of the most popular movies around. And I really could go on about the stories and setting all day.

 So for everyone’s sanity I’m going to try and limit myself.

 For my thoughts on Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope please take a look over here.

 Once again I’m rating the depiction and use of torture, not the movie itself. I’m trying to take into account realism (regardless of fantasy or sci fi elements), presence of any apologist arguments, stereotypes and the narrative treatment of victims and torturers.

 Which means that for this movie I’m very much sticking to the last few scenes.

 Han Solo, Chewbacca and Princess Leia arrive at Lando’s -, not realising that Darth Vader and the Empire are already there waiting.

 Lando allows them to be captured and Vader tortures Han repeatedly. Vader then forces Han through a ‘freezing’ process that is apparently both painful and possibly lethal while his friends are forced to watch.

 I’m giving it 9/10

 The Good

 1)      Han, a character who is established as tough and brave, screams. And the movie doesn’t judge him as ‘weaker’ or ‘broken’ for it. I think this is especially important in a male character and even more important when contrast with Leia’s torture scene in the previous movie. Because Leia doesn’t scream. Conscious or not this is a nice break from common gendered portrayals and a nice way of showing different responses in victims.

 2)      Immediately after torture Han is completely unable to walk. He’s half carried and half dragged back to his cell by stormtroopers. He then spends the rest of the scene unable to stand unaided. His movements are clumsy and he seems to have lost fine motor control. This is a brilliant and highly effective way of showing just how physically effected by torture he is.

 3)      Han doesn't have any physical marks or scars. Now I mention this again as a negative point because that isn't realistic with some of the tortures Han is shown going through. But I think it's incredibly important because it is so rare in fiction and so common in reality. When so many real life torture survivors are told to 'prove' they experienced something awful with scars they just don't have it's really nice to see Han, obviously physically effected by torture and yet lacking obvious marks.

 4)      When Lando comes to talk to Han, Han tries to attack Lando. He barely makes it up to his knees and then he's beaten down by baton wielding stormtroopers. The beating itself is incredibly realistic and horribly reminiscent of police brutality cases. It looks like a real attack on a helpless prisoner in a cell.

  5)      Han and Lando's interaction here also feels incredibly real. Lando is clearly uncomfortable with what's happening to Han and he tries to 'make up for it' by promising Leia and Chewie will be safe. Han's sudden burst of aggression, aimed at one of the people who enabled his torture, is consistent with typical victim responses. Once again it feels real. The scene could be taken out of its sci fi trappings and dropped almost anywhere in the world and it would still work.

 6)      The way Lando flinches back as the guards beat Han to the floor is really well handled. It conveys a sense that Lando might be able to rationalise what he's done when he knows Han is being tortured, but witnessing that torture, being confronted with the evidence of it instead of just the idea, is affecting. That's both realistic and an excellent way of using torture to tell the audience something about the character. Billy Dee Williams phenomenal acting gives the moment real power.

 7)      While the responses are different we see the same effect when Leia and Chewie are forced to witness Han being encased in carbonite. Chewie attempts violence. Leia seems torn between fear for the man she loves and hatred for the people doing this to him. The visceral effect torture has on witnesses is portrayed consistently.

 8)      It’s a minor point but the way Han is restrained and the way he’s handled while restrained seems very true to life.

 9)      The idea of using carbonite itself is incredibly well done. Because Vader doesn’t actually care whether Han lives or dies. This is cruelty for its own sake.

 10)  Han isn’t tortured for information or to try and make him betray his friends. He says they ‘Never even asked any questions’. It leaves the impression that Han is tortured simply because that’s what the Empire does to prisoners.

 11)  Watching Han repeatedly tortured and knowing that the same fate awaits Leia and Chewie triggers Lando to betray Vader. This is pretty damn consistent with the effect witnessing or experiencing torture has on real people. It encourages and catalyses resistance.

  The Bad

 1)      The torture in this film is still, at least partly, high tech- using droids, sci fi machines and the carbonite itself. As a general rule torture is not high tech: the more complicated a technique or piece of equipment the less likely it is to be used for torture.

 2)      As much as I appreciate the fact Han isn’t obviously bruised or scarred that isn’t consistent with the beating he’s shown surviving. There are good reasons for the lack of filth: this film needed to stick to a particular rating. But I can’t help feeling that blood, bruises and vomit would have been more consistent with at least one of the attacks that are shown.

 Miscellaneous

 1)      I still don’t know how to categorise the droids in this canon. They are clearly sentient but actions which would be lethal or torturous to a human character aren’t necessarily the same for them. In this movie C3P0 is dismembered and while he seems to be mildly distressed by this he doesn’t show signs of pain.

 Overall

 I was really tempted to give this a 10, in the end I felt like that was as much influenced by loving the movie as it was loving how they handled torture.

 One of the things I like most about this movie is the way it handles Lando and his response to torture. It’s not only incredibly realistic but also fantastically portrayed. We watch the character go from being relatively OK with the idea of handing his friend off to people Lando knows will hurt him to throwing away his entire life in order to try and save Han, Leia and Chewie.

 It's a powerful portrayal of the radicalising effect torture has: encouraging resistance in people who were previously willing to compromise.

 I also adore how the movie handles Han. It seems to deliberately subvert all the tropes that are usually applied to 'tough', action-based male heroes. Han's bravery isn't doubted because he screams. His abilities aren't called into question because he needs to be carried out of the torture chamber. Most of all his response is different to Leia's and yet neither is shown as 'wrong'.

 The fact that this is an uncommon example of torture divorced from interrogation makes it all the more fantastic. It isn't about information. It isn't about politics. It's about hate and cruelty and how systems can be built to foster them.

 Torture in this movie is pointless. And even within that context, with no specific aims, it fails: backfiring disastrously when it triggers Lando's turn on the Empire. Which results in the loss of Leia and Chewie who ultimately (along with Lando) play an essential role in the downfall of the Empire.

 This is a damn good portrayal of torture. Remarkably true to life, moving, well scripted and well performed, with so many little details that buck the normal, unhealthy trends.

Edit: I’m seeing a lot of misunderstanding in the comments about what high tech torture means. 

We live in a world with LCD screens, incredible levels of chemical engineering and easily accessible power tools. Yet torture implements are generally no more advanced than the average bucket and almost nothing is created specifically for torture.

Showing torture as high tech is a trope that’s completely divorced from reality. It’s one I clamp down on because it encourages the idea that torture can be ‘scientific’ or that it can be ‘advanced’. Both of which are ideas common to torture apologia. 

I am reviewing these pieces of fiction in part for the presence of apologist ideas or ideas that support torture apologia. High tech torture will always be marked down for this reason. 

Disclaimer

[callioope]

WEELLLLL that went about as expected. I’m glad I set the bar real low. 

We’ll start with Good Things cuz the list will be shorter

Luke throwing his lightsaber off the cliff. LOL. unexpected. i still love Luke. will always love Luke. Even after the horrible character assassination this movie committed against him.

Oh right good things

hmm

Paige Tico

Rose Tico

Finn and Rey just wanting to reunite

Poe Dameron and everything he says and everything he does. I mean he makes mistakes but that’s great! Mistakes are okay! Mistakes are character development! He learns from them. I love Poe. I love Oscar Isaac.

LUKE’S REUNION WITH ARTOO!!!! OMGSJFKSJDFKAJDFKSJDF 

Luke: you can’t convince me 

Artoo: *shows projection of Leia asking for Obi-Wan’s help from ANH* 

I died in that theater right at that moment I am now a ghost, a ghost haunting this planet after being haunted by the rest of that fucking plot shitshow of a movie

YODA!!! Look call me a Yoda apologist, hate me for liking Yoda, FINE WHATEVER but I still love Yoda. And like, I don’t disagree with the discourse about him being like a major failure of the Jedi. (I mean, I think that was kind of… the point??) But like. I was a big fan of him before the prequels came out and the prequels aren’t going to take that away from me. And I always like big lightsabers duels so idc what you say about the lightsaber duel between him and Sidious I fucking loved it so. Whatever. OH and another thing. Like yes, the big point in the OT is that like Luke DOESN’T listen to Yoda’s ultimate lesson of “don’t go save your friends it’s a trap” but like don’t fucking tell me that Luke didn’t benefit at all from Yoda’s lessons. Is Yoda a good teacher? No. But did he have information that Luke benefited from learning? Yes.

Why the fuck am I ranting about Yoda in the good things section

Luke brushing his shoulder after Kylo Ren’s temper tantrum #2342387498 calling for all his fucking troops to shoot at one man (lol ok) failed

Are there that few good things?

Okay let’s see what else

Rose and Finn’s scenes were pretty damn good. Not sure how I feel about her kissing him and him not kissing back. The main reason I’m not fan of this is because it creates a Love Triangle and Love Triangles are the dumbest fucking plot I ever don’t want to read.

Every badass thing Luke does. Um like that pole swinging thing. And just. Luke ness. When he’s not moping and when he was actually joking around. like. Mark Hamill did an amazing job. An amazing job. They gave him shit for Luke’s story but Mark did all that he could with it and I love him.

Um is it weird that i fucking thought Luke was hot when he showed up on the salt planet???? gooooddd i fucking love luke skywalker he is the best

 Bad things:

I really hated the opening shot. Like I don’t remember what it even was, but I remember really hating it.

Lol what is military strategy

Lol what is politics

Lol what is running an organization (um both sides)

Lol what is the point of creating characters if you’re not really going to EXPLORE THEM. Main point: PHASMA. FUCKING PHASMA. THERE IS NO POINT TO HER CHARACTER AND I LOVE GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE AND WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU WASTE HER LIKE THAT. Does she not get backstory? Speaking of backstory: amilyn holdo. ALSO SNOKE! he’s your main fucking villain and you kill him off??? like where you do go from here? I DON”T KNOW HIS MOTIVATION like why does he want to rule the galaxy and cause chaos? like. i need an answer to that. who the fuck is he? I know that about Palpatine. Maybe we didn’t for the OT but like I do think Ian McDiarmid did a really good job being sinister and malicious and sneaking and conniving. idk i’m just not feeling there’s much interesting behind Snoke. He’s supposed to be this great villain that swayed Ben but he’s that easily defeated? idk man idk

LOL WHAT IS PLOT

Okay we got Yoda Force Ghost WHERE THE FUCK IS ANAKIN SKYWALKER

Look, this the problem with movies. This is why I just don’t like movies as a medium anymore: they overcomplicate them. They cram too much fucking shit into it. Look. A short story = a movie. A long book/series = a tv series. You can do ensemble casts but like it’s really hard to pull off. Love Actually does it well. In general I think action movies do it horribly – and it’s because they have so much other things they need to pull off as well. Love Actually is a bunch of short stories vaguely connected and cut/interspersed with one another. But blockbuster action movies have to juggle all these characters, interconnect them, create plot, build worlds, and have action sequences and it’s just a lot to juggle. I can’t think of a movie that does this well. I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this. Probably I just don’t like the genre. I mean I generally do hate action scenes. But lightsaber duels are awesome and Poe kicking as in his X-Wing are awesome, so I’ll make an exception for those.

What the fuck was up with all the death fake outs?

Leia’s dead! Oh no wait she’s living in space because the Force? But she’s in a coma. Okay. That makes sense. Sideline an OT character.

Luke’s dead! Oh no wait he’s living he was just astral projecting??? (that’s not how the Force works) (especially after he didn’t fucking use it for all that time he was away?) (okay but don’t try to tell me he wasn’t using the Force at least a little when he did that pole swinging trick and harpooned the fish sooo….) OH WAIT he’s collapsing… he’s prone.. oh his hand moved. PHEW. Okay. Not dead. NOPE JK HE’S DEAD FOLKS.

Luke Skywalker is fucking gone, so, like, this movie is dead to me. Yep.

Like shouldn’t I be bawling my fucking eyes out? No. I’m just like. Calm angry. Like. What a dumb fucking choice.

Don’t fucking tell me there was no place for Lando Calrissian at a fucking casino. just. dont.

[atarimcgregor]

Thoughts on The Last Jedi

I‘ve written something like this about the last two Star Wars movies, and The Last Jedi is just about the most talked about, controversial one yet, so, of course I‘m going to have some thoughts on it. (And there are spoilers).

The good

While I didn‘t completely hate the „remake-ness“ of TFA, I‘m very happy that it didn‘t continue with this one. The Last Jedi has a lot of elements based on ESB and RotJ but it‘s more like echoes than repetition – there are always twists to it. I think The Last Jedi actually even strengthens TFA through this. It’s a natural evolution of the series’ themes. TFA was all about the new standing in the shadow of the (glorious) old – and the repetition and nostalgia worked in service of that. And The Last Jedi is all about rising out of that shadow – and the twists on the familiar there are similarly in service of that. It‘s very meta. And pretty smart. Thematically speaking, The Last Jedi is probably the strongest movie of the franchise – though it isn‘t flawless in that regard (it has some mixed messages).

Some characters were notably improved. With introductions out of the way, they were able to dive deeper into some of them. Luke was a standout. Mark Hamill finally got to really prove himself as an actor. Leia was a badass… even though that space scene could have been done better. Poe was improved and got nice flaws and character growth. With Rey, I actually did kind of buy that Mary Sue argument in TFA but thought she was much better in this one. She didn‘t really have any real flaws in TFA but The Last Jedi revealed a depth to her that I now see in retrospect was already there in TFA. And I love her origin. I completely disagree with anyone who’s upset about it. It makes her character better and it makes the universe better.

I loved the use of color. That salt planet was probably the most beautiful location in the series’ history.

I didn’t mind the humor. I actually thought it worked better than it did in TFA.

The bad

The Finn story was definitely the weakest one. I don‘t agree that it was pointless, though. It had character development and fit in with the themes. But it definitely dragged. Had some corny parts as well.

The Yoda part had me thinking: „Am I watching fan-fiction right now?“

What I probably disliked the most was Snoke. I thought Snoke was a bad character in TFA because he was too much like the Emperor, but I was very open to the idea that they’d redeem him through something interesting they had planned for the next movies. But now it’s obvious that he was never anything more than a plot device. They just needed an “Emperor 2” to throw out the window. And I think it’s frankly inexcusable that they didn’t give any explanation for him. I’ve seen a lot of people justifying it with “Hey, we didn’t know anything about the Emperor either” and that’s… bullshit. Star Wars was largely a blank slate then. Since then, the world’s been pretty well fleshed out. We now know there were a thousand years of peace before the movies and that the Sith (which we can assume are the only skilled dark side users) were only ever two at a time. The Sith got wiped out and then this ancient, powerful, evil force user shows up and it’s not clear who he is, where he comes from or why he’s showing up now. And then, poof, he’s gone forever. It seems completely obvious to me that this character demands an explanation. This is a gigantic, unignorable plot hole, as far as I’m concerned.

Continuing from Snoke: The same basically goes for the First Order. It’s very unbelievable, even by Star Wars standards, that this terrorist cell would have the resources they do. I let it go in the last one because I was hoping there’d be some explanation for it in the sequels, but no. The government has at least thousands of planets worth of tax money and are still easily crushed by them. This does actually take me somewhat out of these movies. A few lines of explanation would have done wonders.

Perhaps the most important negative aspect I can think of, though, which I’m seriously grappling with right now, is that I’m not sure this movie should exist. The Last Jedi is such a viciously iconoclastic movie. A kick in the gut of the fans of the original ones. It’s the most downer epilogue possible for what is probably the most beloved film franchise of all time. Why do it? I know it works thematically, but I’m still not sure those artistic reasons are sufficient enough. Why does the past actually need to be killed? If it was so important to raise the new Star Wars out of the shadow of the originals, another way to do it would have been to just tell a completely unrelated story. Have it take place 100 years after RotJ, for example. But, of course, people want to see the original characters returning. And if that’s the decision they went with, can they allow themselves to treat them this way? A lot of this seems needlessly cruel. I’m very unsure whether the existence of these new movies is - as overly dramatic as it sounds - morally defensible.

Other thoughts

I somehow managed to completely avoid anything about the movie until the screening. I mean I literally didn’t see a single trailer or TV spot, promotional pictures or anything. I saw like five stills online which told me nothing. It was hard work and I doubt I’ll be able to repeat it for the next one. In the days before seeing the movie I tried to think of what I could reasonably expect to happen in it based on what I knew and all I got was “Rey and Luke will be on that island for probably at least the first third and she’ll probably get trained by him.”

I‘m sort of a prequel apologist and genuinely like the expansion of the universe the prequels brought with them. When watching the sequels, knowing the filmmakers are likely only basing them on the original trilogy, I‘m always looking to see if there’s also something there from the prequels. So far it’s been very, very little. In The Last Jedi, it’s mostly tiny things, such as Luke referring to the Emperor as „Darth Sidious.“ The biggest thing that might be inspired by the prequels is the idea of the Jedi being worthless failures. That seems like a logical continuation of ideas introduced in the prequels.

A horrifying thought that went through my mind while watching the movie was: “Oh, my god. Is… is Reylo canon?” I’ve been pretty vocal with my dislike of that ship, but now I almost feel like apologizing. I didn’t think in a million years there was anything actually to it.

Elaborating on my Reylo hate: I feel like a lot of people, both in real life and the characters in the movies, fail to recognize just how bad Kylo Ren is. He’s basically a genocidal mass murderer. He’s responsible for at least millions of deaths, possibly billions. He might be worse than any people in our actual history. I think it’s actually kind of hilarious that the characters in the movies are always trying to “save him” or believe he can be “redeemed.” If there was any logic to it, then even if he went over to the good side, he’d rightfully be tried in the Star Wars equivalent of the Hague court for crimes against humanity (for lack of a better word) and given just about the maximum sentence.

A lot of people have been complaining about the force being too powerful in this one, and not in line with what we’ve seen before. That’s probably correct, but it didn’t bother me at all for a specific reason. I’m likely completely wrong about it, because no one else seems to have understood it that way, but while watching it I thought the island was a force enhancing location. I figured the Jedi chose it for their temple because it… amplified things. And that was also the reason that dark hole was there. I thought Luke had Rey sit on that rock because it was a particularly force sensitive spot. It’s at least a nice way to ignore a plot hole.

Any fan theories about the kid at the end are dumb. It‘s just a thematic thing.

On that note: I‘m pretty sure J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson have very different ideas about storytelling which probably don‘t mesh all that well together. Abrams seems to be all about the big questions and mysteries. Johnson seems much more focused on the actual closed work and the emotion within it. That seems to have created some plot discrepancy which will hopefully somehow come together in a satisfying way in Episode IX.

Characters I’d like to see show up in the next one: 1) Lando. But I don’t see it happening. Why would he wait so long to join the Resistence? He could probably only logically have appeared in the first two movies. Though I completely understand why that didn’t happen, it would have been too many characters demanding attention. 2) Phasma. Just because of how ridiculous it would be. 3) The Raid guys from TFA. Because they were criminally underused. And I think we didn’t actually see most of them getting killed, sooo…