Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi

Finn should have died. I think it would have been a really noble and brave way for him to go out, as I think his character really has nowhere to go at this point, and perhaps had nowhere to go before this film started. Instead, he gets hip checked out of his heroic sacrifice by a character that is basically a social justice warrior that had spent earlier parts of the film preaching about animal cruelty and how rich people are the worst people ever, you know, worse than the genocidal psychopaths that just blew up 5 planets in the previous film. After she "saves" Finn, spouts some nebulous stuff about living to fight another day, then keels over dead...or not. Later we see that she is just hurt. Sadly, she will probably return for the next film, which will raise the number of characters with not much to do in the grand arc of the story by one.

The Yoda stuff irritates me. The image of Yoda and Luke sitting in front of the fire near the end of the sequence, now that I have had time to think about it, seems like it was a cheap shot at sentimentality - a sort of spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. The medicine being the he stuff before that basically shredded a ton of classic Star Wars mythology. When I attempt to examine the subtext behind this, I can't help but wonder if Disney is attempting to deconstruct all the classic mythology of the series in order to install some sort of post-modernist collectivist nonsense. Combined with Kylo's comments about letting the old ways go, it sure seems like it.

I dunno, thinking about this film too much kind of bums me out - not a very fun flick. Star Wars was always great for me because it drew on classic themes of heroism and wonder, without all the janky SJW politics and deconstructionism.

The crew of Rogue one, however - true heroes!

Finn should have died. I think it would have been a really noble and brave way for him to go out, as I think his character really has nowhere to go at this point, and perhaps had nowhere to go before this film started. Instead, he gets hip checked out of his heroic sacrifice by a character that is basically a social justice warrior that had spent earlier parts of the film preaching about animal cruelty and how rich people are the worst people ever, you know, worse than the genocidal psychopaths that just blew up 5 planets in the previous film. After she "saves" Finn, spouts some nebulous stuff about living to fight another day, then keels over dead...or not. Later we see that she is just hurt. Sadly, she will probably return for the next film, which will raise the number of characters with not much to do in the grand arc of the story by one.

The Yoda stuff irritates me. The image of Yoda and Luke sitting in front of the fire near the end of the sequence, now that I have had time to think about it, seems like it was a cheap shot at sentimentality - a sort of spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. The medicine being the he stuff before that basically shredded a ton of classic Star Wars mythology. When I attempt to examine the subtext behind this, I can't help but wonder if Disney is attempting to deconstruct all the classic mythology of the series in order to install some sort of post-modernist collectivist nonsense. Combined with Kylo's comments about letting the old ways go, it sure seems like it.

I dunno, thinking about this film too much kind of bums me out - not a very fun flick. Star Wars was always great for me because it drew on classic themes of heroism and wonder, without all the janky SJW politics and deconstructionism.

The crew of Rogue one, however - true heroes!

Where exactly do you think the First Order got the money and resources to build a weapon capable of blowing up five planets, though? We're meant to think it's messed up that we spend all our time in the company of these heroes who are struggling just to stay alive against a well-stocked army of genocidal psychopaths only to find out that there's a whole class of people who are able to sit out this entire war in comfort and luxury while child slaves and racing animals suffer underneath them (this is all summarised by del Toro's character selling out Finn and Rose to the Order because he only cares about which side pays more instead of good-versus-evil and even tries to play the both-sides-are-equally-bad card even though we the audience know the difference between the two).

Speaking of Finn and Rose, it's well-established that his sacrifice of flying into a cannon would not have made a significant difference to the rest of the Resistance's chances and Rose saving him is meant to reflect that it's less about dying for nothing than living for something (as is Luke Force-projecting into the battle to serve as a diversion).

Where exactly do you think the First Order got the money and resources to build a weapon capable of blowing up five planets, though? We're meant to think it's messed up that we spend all our time in the company of these heroes who are struggling just to stay alive against a well-stocked army of genocidal psychopaths only to find out that there's a whole class of people who are able to sit out this entire war in comfort and luxury while child slaves and racing animals suffer underneath them (this is all summarised by del Toro's character selling out Finn and Rose to the Order because he only cares about which side pays more instead of good-versus-evil and even tries to play the both-sides-are-equally-bad card even though we the audience know the difference between the two).

Speaking of Finn and Rose, it's well-established that his sacrifice of flying into a cannon would not have made a significant difference to the rest of the Resistance's chances and Rose saving him is meant to reflect that it's less about dying for nothing than living for something (as is Luke Force-projecting into the battle to serve as a diversion).

The seeds of deconstructing the Jedi mythology have been there since the OT, though - at least since Return (wherein Luke rejects Yoda/Obi-Wan telling him to kill Vader in favour of trying to redeem him) and possibly even Empire. The prequels also attempted to expand upon that by having flaws in the Jedi's dogma play a party in Anakin's turning to the Dark Side - while you could definitely debate/question their effectiveness in that regard, it's not like this particular criticism of the Jedi is all part of some Disney conspiracy or whatever. It's been an established part of the canon for the bulk of the series so there's no need to be so surprised when TLJ ends up taking it to a more direct level.

The seeds of deconstructing the Jedi mythology have been there since the OT, though - at least since Return (wherein Luke rejects Yoda/Obi-Wan telling him to kill Vader in favour of trying to redeem him) and possibly even Empire. The prequels also attempted to expand upon that by having flaws in the Jedi's dogma play a party in Anakin's turning to the Dark Side - while you could definitely debate/question their effectiveness in that regard, it's not like this particular criticism of the Jedi is all part of some Disney conspiracy or whatever. It's been an established part of the canon for the bulk of the series so there's no need to be so surprised when TLJ ends up taking it to a more direct level.

You want to talk about janky deconstructionism replacing the heroism and wonder and fun associated with a popular franchise and bumming out the fans, you should hear about this other little movie called Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

But seriously, I reckon The Last Jedi is all the better for how it subverts and deconstructs conventional concepts of heroism, most notably through Poe's attempts to be an individualistic hero causing even more damage to the Resistance (as well as the aforementioned Finn sacrifice attempt). That's why I brought up Blade Runner a few pages back - it's only a disappointing film if you go in expecting it to be about a good human who is good at killing bad robots, but what makes it a great film is the way in which it actively defies those expectations to be about something more than just the same old hero-villain conflict. TLJ being a Star Wars film is irrelevant - the series has been toying with heroism since the OT (the main hero doesn't even kill the main villains in the end) so I'd ultimately be a little disappointed if TLJ just went through the motions instead of actively challenging the concept of what it means to be a hero (especially compared to the stock-standard narratives of TFA and R1).

You want to talk about janky deconstructionism replacing the heroism and wonder and fun associated with a popular franchise and bumming out the fans, you should hear about this other little movie called Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

But seriously, I reckon The Last Jedi is all the better for how it subverts and deconstructs conventional concepts of heroism, most notably through Poe's attempts to be an individualistic hero causing even more damage to the Resistance (as well as the aforementioned Finn sacrifice attempt). That's why I brought up Blade Runner a few pages back - it's only a disappointing film if you go in expecting it to be about a good human who is good at killing bad robots, but what makes it a great film is the way in which it actively defies those expectations to be about something more than just the same old hero-villain conflict. TLJ being a Star Wars film is irrelevant - the series has been toying with heroism since the OT (the main hero doesn't even kill the main villains in the end) so I'd ultimately be a little disappointed if TLJ just went through the motions instead of actively challenging the concept of what it means to be a hero (especially compared to the stock-standard narratives of TFA and R1).