okay: first up is star wars
it should go without saying that this is going to have spoilers for sw:tlj, but also I’ve only watched the movie the once, so...? idk how much I’ve retained & my notes (that took me 8500 years to dig out of my drafts) aren’t super detailed or involved, bc I was just tired or off my game or sth that night, I don’t recall.
VERY long post under the cut!
I'll get this out of the way first: I thought tlj felt like a really mishandled neo-noir film. like if the order is neo-naziism to the ot’s imperial fascists, it almost hits neo-noir/wartime spy narratives beat for beat, just clumsily as all hell.
snoke vs kylo ren felt v. much like old guard holdover nazis/white supremacists vs. nouveau “alt-right” neonazis, down to luke making a point that the new wave of resistance cannot & should not call on or depend on heroes of the past (if those people are even alive or inclined to answer the call) bc you can’t fight the same war twice— certainly not do so & expect to win the same way…
like the last jedi seems one third against-all-odds tactical war film (poe & leia), one third ww2-informed heist film (rose & finn), and one third allied spy girl vs. a nazi— who she ofc wants to turn to her side so she can infiltrate and topple a cell of his fellow soldiers by convincing them of What Is Right, mentored by an old jaded soldier who’s bitter & knows she’s naïve but at v. least responds to and recognizes her passion & drive. which, like justice & morality, like the force, are not things that “belong to you.” it is what you can channel for balance & the greater good. they are not personality traits, they are not a thing you can convert someone else to.
so as a small segue wrt rey & kylo, tbh the message that like… you can’t heal ppl who don’t want to be healed, or people want to revel in hatred— that you can’t even sexually or romantically like fuck or love somebody into being better if they don’t choose to fight that battle themselves (should you interpret their scenes as canon reylo, which… I don't, but whatever, rian johnson)— it's important, and an interesting note that I think has gone over a lot of people's heads in all the discourse?
not that it's anyone's fault, just that like… once we get past all our ship-related biases and things (I do think there's canon support for finnrey as endgame, full disclosure), I think there's people so hungry for romantic scraps that they miss the potential for romantic subplots to have a purpose to serve for the plot… and I think reylo being "teased" in a certain kind of way suits the noir elements of the story (which I'll get back to in a second), even with it not being a "real" endgame ship? like they're narratively still in an important dynamic.
because this also highlights where anakin/vader differs from ben/kylo. anakin became vader out of pain & stopped out of choice (not redeeming, but still of value), where ben did canonically choose to become kylo out of a hunger for power & a certain sense of entitlement and "bloodright" to a "legacy" of conquest. which also stemmed from a desire to destroy his family, which is pretty standard-issue white boy mass-killer stuff… not that I think he's specifically mass-shooter anglo-coded or whatever. but the parallels are there, and it's part of why a lot of people find kylo both boring & personally terrifying/discomfiting as a villain. between his tantrums and his ~greater plan, he's the spirit & image of domestic violence and the kid you knew in school who was just unassuming enough to feel almost tangibly like a ticking time bomb.
if that's deliberate, it's almost fucking smart. if not, it's bland villain writing that coincidentally (whether that's because of adam driver or just that sort of— intimate familiarity with the kind of fear That Guy can cause) stumbled close enough to realism to toe the line between farcical and genuinely troubling. like all jokes aside, it's a very /r/incels vibe, where, sure, it feels very funny to put a spotlight on something so unironically & unreservedly ridiculous… but it's still people who potentially present a very real threat, which they will go into graphic detail over relishing.
and kylo is specifically not trying to “heal” or find fulfillment from sth else, which further distances him from his grandfather. like kylo’s emotionally torn about his violence, but still wants to be able to be untouchable & unreachable & ultimately, iredeemable… he craves bloodthirstiness & infamy & visibility, even while he struggles with wanting to have his cake (parents) and eat it (kill them), too. where vader suppressed pain from his emotional losses, with empathy almost seeming like it fell by the wayside to his single-minded hatred & grief, kylo tries to suppress “weakness” in the form of empathy itself; and kylo still wants something that can’t be given or delivered by anything except violence & bloodshed, because the glory in that power is the taking more than the having.
tbh the way kylo’s radicalization tore his family & the people they loved apart is also a very different energy than the padme-obi wan-anakin dynamic when ani turned to the dark side… like bad shit comes from “good” places & “good” kids & “good” families, not just traumatized kids from the “wrong side of the tracks,” and it can come whether or not support is there, because the issue was never “damaged” kids or “hurt” people hurting people, despite the popular rhetoric otherwise.
wgere anakin was a story of how abuses & pain & isolation coming from a place of trauma makes people who can be preyed upon by fascists and are fodder ripe for radicalizing in a dangerous way, kylo is about the wake of trauma & desolation it leaves behind when people actively and deliberately choose that life, rather than who are in a position where they feel they have no other choice but to turn to that path. which, again, echoes how vader & kylo’s internal conflicts fuckin’ differ; not to excuse vader from anything, or kylo ren's fanboy ass, for that matter, but at this point, when we're talking about character motivations & internal conflict, it's worth pointing out.
but back to the neo-noir thing— the nazi creep in this sort of ingenue femme fatale's story turns out to just be a nazi creep, hence kylo not actually budging on his stances at all… except unlike typical weird-ass gentile ww2 fiction where there’s a budding romance between an ss soldier & a jewish girl or spy or something, rey, somewhat unintentionally hilariously, is like “EW GROSS!!!” à la inglorious basterds (even tho she doesn’t successfully blow everything up, and throws in a “DON’T FUCKIN FACETIME ME WITHOUT A SHIRT ON!!! ALSO FUCK YOU YOU KILLED YOUR DAD!!!” for good measure), followed by the typical “join me”/“LMAO FUCK NO” ending, sans the nazi getting shivved.
except since it’s a scifi sorta meta commentary on NEO naziism with these noir plot elements, the og hitler fanboy (snoke) dies but the new fascist & his new, self-glorifying ideology (kylo & co.) live on. this proxy neo-imperial (truly neo-imperial, since the order is the successor to the empire— who believe they will succeed where the empire failed) white supremacy is thus a sort of ouroboros devouring itself & repeating itself cyclically. only instead of dying… or maybe even if you assume it WILL destroy itself, though there's no indication that it will besides kylo's personal instability (which just indicates that whatever or whoever comes next will do to him what he did to snoke)… it continues to thrive, changing names & jargon to continue targeting people who can't fight back, or targeting people who others won't stand up to defend, racking up a bodycount along the way.
I really wish it was better, because that sounds really cool! but the execution was just not… there, even though it feels like the germ of a good idea was simmering under the surface.
anyway, rey & finn (and also rose!), in contrast to kylo's canon family background (along with hux's, I guess?), continue to be examples of how they got fucked up backstories, but DON’T choose genocide lmao. at the time this was topical instead of a blip on our "2018 is fucked up and january was 3 years ago" radar, but remember how erykah badu was talking about how hitler was a ~wonderful artist~ with a bad childhood or w/e, how he was just misunderstood?? like do you know how many art school rejects & dropouts with fucked up dads DON’T become fuckin fascists?? kylo ren sympathizers are wild and like without a shred of hyperbole or humor, that’s deadass how some of y'all sound, even with his fanon background of being abused, which isn't even true (and likewise, the same goes for hux's canon background).
and tbh even in terms of background, just contrasting rey yelling at kylo that “you had a father who gave a damn!” vs. kylo's “rey… I saw who your parents are”/“you're nobody, you're nothing, but not to ME” manipulations (I wrote down "HE’S A LIAAAAAAARRRRR!!!.mp4" lollll), despite rey's trauma, she still sees value in what and who han was, and kylo seeks to deepen rey's trauma. they both try to use each other's parents against the other, but where rey tries to tell kylo it's not too late to change, and tries to understand him, he tries to use (imo fake, but ig we'll find out) narratives about rey's parents to say, "they turned your back on you, you turn your back on the world."
which maybe sounds like a line from the lion king, because it is! but instead of hakuna matata attitudes of turning a blind eye to the suffering of others out of self-interest (which is worth pointing out: is shown as a bad thing in the lion king), kylo is advocating for rey to actively fucking do harm in the world & murder people as an outlet for feeling unwanted or unseen, I guess? while also tying her sense of self-worth to him & his esteem.
all of which is textbook manipulation, and like, I personally dislike it, but whatever floats your boat in fanmade media, just. this is objectively not going to be canon. like disney & lucasfilm are not going to cosign something this blatantly villainous. scar is not the hero of the lion king. there's a lot of big-ass reasons for that.
including rey going to kylo rey going to kylo despite luke trying to prevent all of that, and kylo of course immediately having her arrested… and rey talking to kylo about himself as echoes of luke talking about vader to vader and to palpatine… like there's a reason for all of these parallels! though I wonder Why rey wasn't allowed to cut off kylo’s Fucking Hand & complete the Fucking Chain, to let him be the skywalker who loses a Fucking Limb!!! unless that's a third/final act thing for him, I guess. or he'd be too into it.
anyway. I also made a note saying, "this scoring is… not good," so, mood, I suppose, because I really don't even remember the background music for this. I also made a note about the dialogue (which I DO remember being bad) & the costumes (which I don't particularly remember besides not liking a lot of the costume and set work on leia's ship), but I'm not super-committed to those as moods.
moving onto luke “there is literally nothing to gain from talking/listening to nazis” “#1 anti-reylo” skywalker, him talking abt how reacting with violence against a scared child on a bad path was Wrong, but rejecting ppl for racist fascist ideology even “before” nazis have done anything “wrong” except for believing & saying the wrong things is NOT Wrong… is, in contrast, a very nice, choice mood.
so is puppet yoda being a mean old man & fake ass hypocrite even in death while bein like “burn it all down then lmao I look like I give a fuck,” like him laughing at luke yelling “THE SACRED JEDI TEXTS!!!!” is a highhhhhkey mood… like I wanna hit ppl with a cane when I’m a ghost, damn, same.
I'm actually not mad at luke's narrative at all, or his dynamic with yoda or with rey; I think the time he had onscreen was allocated poorly, for the most part. but I understand why he'd get to the point he was at, in particular the generational disillusionment & jaded trauma, and I get him wanting to say his bittersweet farewell to leia after isolating himself, before positioning himself to be another person who loves ben but can't or won't actually fight & kill kylo, despite the danger he presents. it's a character weakness, though not technically a flaw; the same way as I said earlier vader had to want to change where kylo didn't want to when luke & rey offered them opportunities to turn away from the dark side, luke (and han, and presumably leia) represent(s) the choice to keep offering when the more effective choice for the safety of the world-- the less selfish choice-- would be to choose to disarm, disable, or kill kylo ren to stop him from hurting others.
in the same way as anakin couldn't accept padmé dying and it paved his path to the dark side, luke, leia, and han's refusal to accept kylo needing to die or be forcibly stopped (not convinced or loved into change) paves the path to his continued empowerment with the dark side. all these skywalker-solos' refusal to accept death of one kind or another has blocked their own freedom to find justice and peace. that's just my onion, though, because I'm sure the movies will find some bs third option or kylo will end up dying as a result of his or the order's own actions... it's not very disney to philosophically land on "Sometimes Murder IS The Answer," particularly when they're known for villains' offscreen karmic deaths and, like, atla and the kung fu panda films did a really fantastic job already of that kind of "third option" heroic victories. but it's how I fucking FEEL.
as a completely unrelated note, rose’s necklace as a conductor makes me think of something, too, but I can’t remember what; a children's movie I saw years and years ago with some large piece of clockwork machinery having a broken gear, and a girl protagonist's necklace jammed into the space of the gear's broken tooth to keep it moving. not that it's such an original premise, but it's definitely something I remember, very specifically and vividly. iirc, a gold heart-shaped necklace jammed into some kind of clockwork, and it was a perfect fit, but it wasn't retrieved— I think it just became a piece of these gears for the rest of the movie.
if anybody knows what fucking movie I mean, please hit me up, because this is haunting me lol.
the less said about the shitty military logistics in this film, the better, so I won't say much except to say that they're all stupid and pretty much hypocritical; none of the characters' military actions make a lick of sense except for maybe paige tico's, and the salt fields gimmick is just tactically bad + bad worldbuilding. I don't understand why the layer of salt on that red dirt was so thin except to be dramatic as all hell, and while I can appreciate that, if two index fingers touched to this dirt can lift all the salt off, and no one notices luke not leaving footsteps behind, I'm not going to believe anyone involved is remotely intelligent or observant. stop shooting at a ghost??? y'all know magic force skype is a thing??? ugh. likewise, this means characters like amilyn holdo trying to position themselves as in the right for calling out other people's shitty military tactics before making shitty moves themselves just makes said characters look mad hypocritical.
but real talk, rogue one felt like a war movie made by someone who had never seen a war movie before ever in life & kind of hated war movies, so this is like. not as bad as I've come to expect from star wars on that front.
we're not talking about the fight choreo with the praetorian guard, either, but their chain whip three-segment staff things were cool, I guess. that scene was honestly not shot well, which imo is where you start seeing the seams of the fight choreo, but that's the most generous thing I can say about it.
on the plus side... I don't think rose pushing finn in the beginning of the film is as big a deal as a lot of people have made it out to be. I think it was rian johnson using a cinematography framing gimmick without giving things much thought, because it's a literally textbook basic cinematography trick, and that's the level he's working on. no shade, everyone has to start somewhere, and it's not like I'm such an accomplished director. he just might not have been the right choice for this story & this kind of attention to detail necessary.
and tbh the pacing of the movie is just entirely fucked (rose and finn felt unnecessarily rushed, leia's subplot understandably is a struggle to piece toghether appropriately, and rey imo needed more time hitting different plot points with luke than she did with kylo-- especially I think with the huge potential to touch on more visual callbacks to dagobah before yoda made his reappearance), but if you watch the poe & leia story, finn & rose story, and rey & luke story all separately, they're coherent! they are coherent. they don't fucking gel, because the movie would need more time & a more deft hand at the helm than johnson to weave them all together (and I know I mentioned inglorious basterds earlier, but I feel like THAT movie needed a firm editing hand & could've been 45 minutes shorter even with ITS multiple wartime plots; and that was still cleaner than this), but if you squint at it, you can almost see where those stories could've aligned with someone else running things.
anyway uhhhhhh that's all my notes and then some, and I can't think of anything else to add, and I feel tired of talking about this movie.
like there are a LOT of issues I have with the film's visuals/choreo & its rush to shove characters into new shoes for sake of plot expedience, particularly with the moralizing it does to get there (and who catches flak in turn; poe gets a weird amount of heat in-story, rose gets a lot in fan spaces, I think?) + the poor military strategizing and like. Staging of the Chekov’s gun/deus ex machina beats of the story, like I mentioned with the salt fields & with the potential for more dagobah aesthetics pre-yoda. but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, tbh.
which is partly because so many responses were so polarized! like so many people hated it so much & said so before I saw tlj, and I personally really disliked rogue one enough (it had potential, but was executed horrendously!!), that the combined effect was a bar just low enough to nod to the reality of tlj in passing as they walked past each other on the sidewalk. like about on the level of my expectations, but not actually there, and not as bad as it could have been.
rian johnson def shoehorned some chars into roles that are kind of ill-fitting since he took a hard left turn away from tfa’s characterization beats (unnecessarily, ofc, but once that was on the table, I didn't expect otherwise), and it feels like inexperienced direction and SLOPPY editing. but for as much as it's not a film I enjoyed, it's not a film I actively loathed so much as just MOSTLY disliked, but am also just disappointed in the crappiness of.
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