Star Wars: The Last Jedi, And The Problem With The Sequel Trilogy
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- Опубліковано 22 гру 2017
- A review/analysis of The Last Jedi and how it illuminates the narrative issues of the sequel trilogy as well as the lack of reason behind its existence, and what that says about Disney and the direction the company is taking the Star Wars franchise.
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Footage used:
Star Wars (1977)
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Tracks used:
Retro Dreamscape by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Source: www.twinmusicom.org/song/283/r...
Artist: www.twinmusicom.org
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The issue is whenever it comes to the lack of world building someone always goes “Read this novel, play this game, etc.” And I find it insulting because it makes it easy for the films to be so safe and lazy.
Finally, someone actually points the actual problem of Sequal Trilogy, it's not about how it breaking Star Wars lore, it's about how the world-building, the plot, and set-up, everything in ST felt so hallow, they only rely on selling the nostalgia for box office. That's sad, it could have so much potential.
This is by FAR the best video critique of the sequel trilogy i have seen so far and yet precious few have seem it at this point while nonsensical ramblings of fanboys glorifying the film or shortsighted haters yelling how the movie didn't have enough cool lightsaber battles are getting hundreds of thousands of views.
Such a shame.
Keep up the good work man.
You have earned yourself a new subscriber!
Thank you for the kind words, and thank you for subscribing!
This new trilogy to me now is flawed at its very basis for trying to do a hard reset on all of Star Wars to get back to the original status quo back in a New Hope instead of moving the story of original trilogy forward in a logical way. Having there just be another tyrannical empire, led by another evil emperor, fighting against another underdog resistance group is not only redundant but makes everything that happened in the original trilogy feel pointless because it now feels like nothing was accomplished. Especially when the history and politics of these new groups are so poorly explained and fleshed out to differentiate them from their precursors. Why couldn't we of had a new story focused on the New Republic? Flip the dynamic so the ones who were once trying to bring down the established order now trying to uphold a new young one, against terrorist cells created out of the remnants of the old empire. You could keep new characters like Ren, Rey, Finn, and not even have to change them THAT much but put them in a story that actually pushes things forward. Because for all of TLJ extraordinary amount of flaws, the fact that by the end nothing feels like anything really happened is one of my biggest. It's a like reboot of a reboot in the middle of a trilogy because Rian Johnson didn't want to build on anything JJ so poorly set up so he just threw it all away and started fresh. That's just not something you can do with how these movies are set up. Especially when Johnson is now leaving and JJ is coming back. How is that not going to be a giant mess? It's amazing to me how poorly planned out this whole thing feels.
Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more. The Star Wars saga is the story of the Skywalker family, and more specifically how that family's story dovetails with the Force. The Force exists in the Star Wars saga primarily as a classic narrative conceit, not just as a rhetorical structure, but as an organizational principle not unlike the Prime Directive in Star Trek or the sequential manifestation of Doctors in Doctor Who. This essentially means that the Force acts as a catalyst for the protagonists and the antagonists to repeat the same plotlines in perpetuity, because only by repeating history can the Force ensure that neither good nor evil permanently gain dominance. Long story short, The Force Awakens was meant to parallel various aspects of A New Hope and of the original trilogy in general. From its narrative drive to its characters to its subtext, such as the sequence where the Millennium Falcon evades TIE Fighters... on a desert planet... amongst the ruins of a Star Destroyer: The Force Awakens is meant to evoke the past while signifying the break from the past, the start of the next phase of the saga. History perpetually repeats itself in reality. Why many people seemingly can't accept it doing so in fiction is beyond me.
The bottom line here: it would have been inappropriate and stupid to not continue the saga as J.J. Abrams did, by naturally resolving the Skywalker family story. The real problem with the sequel trilogy doesn't lie with The Force Awakens, but with The Last Jedi and how it utterly failed to uphold this mandate.
If the nature of force is to just rehash the same storyline perpetually then we might as well not have any new movies at all because that's boring as sin and makes Star Wars feel like the most narrative limiting thing imaginable. I don't disagree that Star Wars is mainly about the Skywalker family and the force constantly in a state of rebalancing but that doesn't mean it has to take the form of the exact same narrative structure to explore these things. You can tell a new story that isn't evil empire vs heroic rebellion while doing the exact things you talked about. History usually doesn't really repeat itself, in reality events that seem similar on the surface are in reality vastly different than what happened in the past. Fiction should reflect this because otherwise it, like life, it'd be dreadfully boring.
I'm not sure if you've ever taken a history course of any kind, but what you just about the past not really repeating itself is preposterous. Life isn't inherently boring, only our perception of it may be. The same goes for fiction. So, yes, in this way it does reflect reality. Rhythms and patters repeated in perpetuity.
And no, it's not the "exact" same narrative structure. Did you actually watch A New Hope? You did? Great. I just wanted to make sure. Because that means you know it doesn't begin with the massacre of a small village, doesn't end with the surprise discovery of a reclusive Jedi Knight, doesn't have a vision sparked by a lightsaber at its exact center point, right? I'm wondering in what way you see those plot-crucial moments existing in A New Hope.
Did we follow the daring escape of a random Stormtrooper in Darth Vader's legions? Because I don't remember that, either. Nor do I remember a woman in virtual serfdom being the main protagonist and focus of the Force. I do recall the bartender at the Mos Eisley Cantina being a thousand-year-old mystic who can see into your soul and drives the plot forward in important... oh... no, wait, he was a surly dude who was racist about droids.
So as you can see: similar, but not exactly so. Just like real life.
Uh yeah, I have taken a history course and watched a New Hope thank you. If you want to continue this conversation can you come off maybe a tad less smug and condescending? I enjoy discussion but only if it's respectful and we're allow to agree to disagree on things otherwise don't have much interest continuing this. Everything you mention basically happened in a New Hope, Force Awakens just slightly tweaks it to give the illusion of change when in reality it's exactly following the same structure. That isn't to say there's absolutely nothing new but it's mostly the same. The movie starts with a serect file being hidden in a droid, we do have a surprise discovery of a reclusive jedi knight, it just happens later instead of early in the film, etc. But these are all incidental plot points when what I'm talking about the overall structure of rebellion vs evil empire anyways.
No. Everything I mentioned did not basically happen in A New Hope. Which is why I questioned whether you actually watched A New Hope. But anyway, we're well past diminished returns here.
It felt like a filler episode of a tv show rather than the middle part of a trilogy story. Other than ruining Luke Skywalker it really did little of significance. Disney just want to drag this out so they can make as many films and as much money as possible. There is no end game to work towards.
Great job with the video! As someone who actually enjoys these movies, I think the faults you pointed out are valid and the overall video didn't disolve into just saying "The Original Trilogy is better" or "Better than the prequels".
So now that you see the plain and awful truth, which is that the storytelling of these movies is completely flawed and beyond repair, do you still consider them as worthy Star Wars movies?
i had a idea about kylo ren too. its that he takes up residence at Vader's old castle domain on mustafar and discovers a ancient sith artefact that Vader once found and always intended to unlock it's powerful knowledge to help make himself powerful enough to defeat sideous, but he never got the chance so he hid it away and never let on about it to the emperor.
Kylo is drawn to it in a similar way to how rey was drawn to luke's lightsaber, so theres this nice dynamic of kylo drawn to a piece of vader's past which he never got to fullfill; and rey who is drawn to little piece of luke's past which he never got to fullfill, or shall i say complete (although he did redeem his father at the end).
Kylo learns knowledge from this artefact, making himself so powerful in the force, he manages to get close to achieving immortality through the darkside of the force, something Vader always hope to achieve. So here we have kylo basically finishing what vader set out to do, what he says in TFA.
This happens at the same time as Rey learning ancient jedi knowledge from those books, and she manages to achieve a new ability, a powerful ability called force meditation, which she uses to enpower many force sensitives throughout the galaxy, like a kind of awakening in them, as well as helps kind of signal herself to them so they sense her.
With kylo achieving this new power, he is almost unstoppable, and plans to use the force abilities of others in the galaxy to become non-corporeal but can still interact with everything in the living physical world. Rey re-establishes a new jedi order and trains many of the force sensitives that seek her out, and after some years it all culminates in a showdown between rey and her followers, and kylo and his knights of ren, who btw are all descendants of ancient sith lords (revan, bane, malak) with kylo himself the last of these, descended from darth vader.
I would end it where the light and dark come together, kylo and rey have a epic battle that eventually goes beyond their lightsaber ability and into immense powers in the force, and they are both equal in that power and their ability. they eventually de-materialize into the ether of the force, the darkside energy off kylo and the lightside energy off rey morphing through the force which rips the planet apart and leaves a energy form all of its own which is combined of both light and darkside energy of the force.
the knights of ren all but one dies and escapes and the rest of the surviving force sensitive followers leave but plan to return to the place where this energy dwells to study it as a focal point of both light and dark of the force as grey jedi.
Totally agree about the world-building. One of the things I look forward to the most in a Star Wars movie or TV show is the new worlds and societies we might see. But the planets in these new movies are completely unoriginal and just boring.
Jaaku is just Tatooine. If they never mentioned the name Jaaku, you would just assume it is Tatooine yet again. Okay, so maybe they want to just make that connection for this new trilogy too, even though it's a bit tired at this point. Maybe there'll be other planets to make up for that, new and exciting ones.
Maz's planet? Green forests. Okay, we've seen that in Star Wars before too, but I get that they're trying to emphasize how colorless Rey's life on Jaaku was by having her see a very green planet. Maybe when they get to the Rebel, er, Resistance base, it'll be on a cool new planet. In a huge galaxy, there must be all kinds of cool, interesting places to hide a secret base. So we get there and it's... just another jungle planet, just like Yavin 4? I think so, they barely showed any of the planet. You saw it once from space and a bit in the background when they land. Now the secret base is in a temple looking for all the world EXACTLY like the one in ANH.
Starkiller Base must surely be interesting, as it's a planet made into a weapon. How cool, maybe the landscape will be some weird mesh of organic and mechanical or something. No, it's just another forested planet, this time with some snow.
And that's it.
Imagine if The Empire Strikes Back revealed that the new Rebel base was established on another jungle planet in another temple. That would have been such a gyp. Hoth was so different and more interesting.
Even in the anthology movies, the worlds have been far more interesting and original. This new trilogy seems more concerned with making us remember the original trilogy to make up for Lucas's "offensive" prequels than with advancing the story in new directions.
great opinions man, I was trying to put it together inside my head but I never really figure out what was so wonky about that movies... thanks for great reviews
Pretty interesting video and I love how you had the courage of finally explaining the issues with Disney's star wars by making logical criticisms and understanding the real issues of the movie. Unfortunately there are so many videos out there that cover stupid shit like sjw or feminism or Disney ruined our childhood or Kathleen Kennedy, JJ and rian Johnson ruined star wars. Those people dont have stable minds and lack the ability to properly and civility to discuss star wars and debate about what's wrong with it. It's good to see someone who doenst resort to fanboying the movie or hating it for dumb reasons and is courageous enough to explain the issues with constructive criticism. Great video and I agree with alot of what you said.
seen a couple of your videos and you clearly pick up and put to words one of the best observations about these films and series! i don't agree with every opinion you have about these films but i really enjoy your remarks
The Last Jedi is far too problematic to either love outright or completely hate. Structurally, this film is a complete mess and doesn't work. There is virtually no character development in the major players. And the less said about the completely inappropriate and tone deaf humor, the better. But there are still so many things to appreciate about it, and it even reaches one or two moments of absolute cinematic brilliance. While the film demonstrably suffers from the absence of the experienced confidence J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan brought to the table, it's still a decent/good Star Wars movie, and is certainly undeserving of the reactionary pasting it's been receiving from fans.
Mark Spada I agree. It probably sounds like I hated, but Disney's Star Wars are decent movies. TLJ is a movie with alot of good and bad in it.
I'm a big fan of The Force Awakens, and primarily because I appreciated Abrams' deliberate use of subtext and parallels. Honestly, I was excited by the promise of The Last Jedi, hoping that it might prove to be as profound an artistic statement( in regards to building something beautiful and fresh ) as The Empire Strikes Back was, painting that galaxy far, far away with brand new colors. But The Last Jedi demonstrably lacks confidence in itself, as though it forgets its formidably epic pedigree. The core of the problem is the structure: Rian Johnson doesn’t intermesh plot threads, but rather has them simply coincide. He doesn’t actually build the story in a cohesive way. Instead he relies on cross-cutting, piling on a half dozen different plots to the extent that what little dramatic tension is ever present quickly becomes deflated. It escalates, then sags. All the characters spend huge portions of the film spinning their wheels and accomplishing very little; their failure to gain traction and move forward is the inertia of the narrative. Worse, by forcing the audience to invest in too much too quickly, Johnson cops out of focusing on a main protagonist, which really should have been Rey, seeing as how she was the center of the story in the previous episode.
You're doing great work with these reviews, by the way. Please keep it up!
Thanks, appreciate the words of encouragement!
If you want an actual bad movie with a lot of the same problems as Last Jedi but is actually deserving of all the hatred, go watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
At this point they just need to retcon those movies and restart over the sequels with a new story. A real good one this time...
Yes 100% agreed!
The one thing everybody lost sight of: Sometimes we just don’t want to follow the new generation having made peace with the end enjoying that walk in the dusk night sky.
I agree 100% with everything you said in this video. This is such a great channel! =D
Imedias Rez, I think at 2:37 when you were comparing the sequel trilogy's Force Awakens to a New Hope, you should have instead compared it to Empire Strikes Back, as a new hope has all these acceptable things as it is the world builder and founder of all the films thereafter. It is allowed to be wacky and zany without disappointing anyone with the plot or characters because there was no film before it therefore no precedent was set with heightening or lowering people's expectations. The Empire Strikes Back then follows the story of a New Hope, so the precedent has been set and there are many things for the second film to fuck up on. It doesn't.
So, by the time the Force Awakens is introduced, it is indeed a 'sequel trilogy' just like the Empire Strikes Back is a sequel to a New Hope. Both have to live up to their predecessor(s). This has us teeming with expectation for both of these films as we are beset with the idea of living up to the prior film / films.
In theory, The Phantom Menace might have been a better example because like The Force Awakens, it is an introductory film with expectations to live up to. But I chose Empire Strikes Back because you were illustrating a good and old film from the original trilogy's successes, and The Phantom Menace would not be a good comparison because it had very little in the way of success.
Space Leia.
Luke trying to kill Ben Solo due to sensing the dark side in him.
Rey being turned more and more into a bigger Mary Sue.
Great vid
Well said. They really stuffed up from the get go with mysteries that they didn't plan out and a over reliance and indulgence in using the original trilogy to draw the audience in. I think if they really wanted to do star wars in actuality for the next generation they needed it to be a completely new story, with new characters in a new galaxy they has nothing to do with the skywalkers. Then you truly have a blank slate to work off and get away from the good vs bad dichotomy. Moreover, I think that they shouldn't have had different directors because its pretty clear the Rian Johnson was confined by the Force Awakens and didn't care much for most of the set ups. I didn't mind how they handled Snoke though and Rey's parents. I think the problem with Snoke is that his death should have given way to something more interesting by collapsing the good vs evil dynamic and making something new but the film just returns to it anyway. Rey's parents I liked because at least it fed into the main controlling idea of the film and I really can't see how else you could write it and not be completely predictable or non senscial. The film is let down by tacked on and tone deaf comedy, plot holes, blotation, pacing but most of all there's no magic, there's no wonderment at this once massive universe it just feels small and ultimately creatively bankrupt.
Omega Reviews When Kylo offered to join forces with Rey there was a chance to do something really different, I think that would have been interesting, and so I was disappointed it just reverted to good vs bad. The movie tries to have it both ways.
Yeah that was probably one of the more frustrating moments.
Awesome video! One thing I disagree with--both trilogies were not written on on a whim--only the sequel trilogy. The original trilogy was all written as one grand story and then spliced into three movies; that's how it should be done.
I’ve heard you don’t like human scenes in Godzilla movies. Just watch it in Japanese with English subtitles, fixes my problem because I myself don’t like English dub for Godzilla movies that were made in Japan
There is also misconceptions within the English dub of Godzilla so that’s also why I watch Japanese dub
The force awakens shouldve opened with the demise of Lukes jedi academy and showed in like a 10-minute flashback scene, how the events of the og transpired into this, maybe not show everything and cut to black, once it all goes to shit, then open with the traditional star wars crawl, that would've been ballsy, but it wouldve given us better context, instead of watching ROTJ seeing the galaxy won and then putting 7 on and seeing thats its back to the way it was in a new hope, thats like episode 4 opening with the good guys having won the battle with the rise of the empire from Revenge of the sith!
Here's how I think the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy could be better. After the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983, people knew there would be a one, two, and three, but Lucas wanted to wait a long time for the prequels to be released because of future visual effects, and to make Star Wars more enjoyable knowing that people would get bored very easily if he kept on making them every few years. Plus he probably wanted to work on other projects. So during those years there were some authors that decided to write books that continued the story of Return of the Jedi because I’m sure everyone who absolutely loved Star Wars was curious about Luke, Leia, and Han’s future. I’ve never read any of these books, but I’ve seen them at libraries and looked them up on a Star Wars website called Wookiepedia, which is a Wikipedia for Star Wars. Well in these books a new republic is formed and they’re still dealing with loyalists of the Empire. Han and Leia get married and have three children. Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin Solo. That’s right Kylo Ren was not mentioned at all. One of these children turns into a Sith Lord. Luke stars a new Jedi Order and begins training students. The Emperor comes back in a clone body and lures Luke in to the Dark Side, but it doesn’t last very long. Leia finds out that her brother is a sith and forces him back into the Light Side. Luke has a lightsaber duel with the emperor and beats him. Palpatine eventually dies and doesn’t resurrect ever again. Luke meets this woman named Mara Jade who use to work for the Emperor. They fall in love, get married and have a baby boy named Ben. She does eventually die off. All of that is non-cannon. Disney decided not to include any of it. I’m sure there are lots of fans that have heard of those books and were hoping to see all of that in the sequel trilogy. I was expecting to see all of this when the word was spread that they were making episode VII. After seeing the film, I definitely thought it would’ve been a lot better if it was based off those books. Now would it have to follow those books 100% accurately? No, but it would’ve been praised more if those storylines and characters were included as well as having just Lucasfilm involved. The Sequel Trilogy would be more enjoyable that way.
George Lucas gave them a story he had for the sequels, but they didn't take it.
Who was snoke?!? we may never know...
Darth plagueis
Darth Plagueis is complete nonsense.
People keep telling me the new generation of Star Wars fans will like it. The Force Awakens was the first Star Wars movie I watched. I had little knowledge about the previous movies but I knew the basics like for example, Darth Vader and Stoormtroopers = bad and Jedi = good. This move was very confusing for me. I did think it was... bad but okey before I had watched the original trioligy and prequels. Rey was super boring as she was way too OP, I was super hyped for Captain Phasma but all she did was be there, be baddass and die for no reason. Felt like she only was there to have more females in the movie. Finn confused me on why they sent someone who clearly was more problems than usefull into war. I never understood wtf Snoke was or why he existed or what is goal was. And wtf was up with Luke? How was this a main character everyone loved? I never understood wtf was up with Kylo and why he was so obsessef with Darth Vader. Now that I have watched the original triology, prequels, 2003 clone wars, clone wars, mandalorian, rouge one and so on, I hate the sequels. I hate them so much. I am so sad they exist. They suck so much. And even before I became a Star Wars fan I didnt like them much! Really hope they slowly dies and everyone forgets about them and then those who made the Mandalorian and Lucas him self makes new sequels. Ughhhh the sequels annoys me so much! I just choose to pretend they dont exist!!!! UGH.
It is already not profitable.
UNTIL IT STOPS BEING PROFITABLE. words wise you said.
The Originals are the best. The prequels are really good(dialogue and cgi over reliance being major problems, also deleted scenes in attack of the clones would have made padme/anakin romance believable). The anthology films look to be promising with rogue one being good and solo hopefully just as good. For some reason these sequel trilogies don’t seem as developed, creative, or a forseen vision because director changes in between each movies. The old eu was built for a long time and had much lore(I know others complain about this and I for one have not read all books and I have not played all games) and these movies effectively dismissed all of this. They should have taken away only eu content past return of the jedi and then make a live action adaptation of the most popular storylines in legends with creative changes that Disney would want to make.
Sheesh.
Episode nighn Fix the 1st trillogy ROTJ Marry Han and luke i mean leah Fix all klunky cg die nostalgia DIE. In this Jar an Emerald who feels sorry for a girl ah.. p u due. Then she gets saddly turn down fkr narriage BUT. d d cha! The new vaxinatiin. might then well we'll c poor poor Mark Disney. Writing is not for folks whom hate actual HEART WORK
The sequels are worse than the prequels and that's a fact
finally a video that explains why the this trilogy sucked solely based on it being a movie
Wrong.
Everyone is mad at Rian Johnson but the true enemy is Gareth Edwards who ruined Rogue One just like he ruined Godzilla.
Lol how was Rogue One ruined
And Godzilla. Both rogue 1 and G14 were good movies that were made by a director who has a vision and clear passion for what he's doing. Plus, he never attacked anyone who disliked his films.
Snoke was a red herring. That’s the point
HAHA no. And episode 9 looks like clumsy backtracking.
*_"Yes, Snoke was an original carbon-copy of Emperor Palpatine, there is no denying that, and that was one of the many sins of The Force Awakens."_*
LOL WHAT? Yes there is, and no it's not. The portrayal of Snoke's character was a prime contrast to who Emperor Palpatine was, and his motivations, as vague as they were, seemed completely different from what was going on in Palpatine's mind. Not everyone who sits on a throne chair and looks menacing are automatically clones of one another.
+NORMAH BTE RAUF (KB) Your first three points don't hold up to anything I said; only the last one makes sense. My comment was about the differing purposes and motivations of the characters, not their superficial similarities.
" and his motivations, as vague as they were, seemed completely different from what was going on in Palpatine's mind."
Well I guess we'll never know now what were his motivations.
And who cares after all?
The people who loves this trilogy don't need any kind of explanation about whats going on to like these movies, and the people who hates it just will never watch them again...
The Last Jedi rocks
It sucks
star wars is 'being ruined' since the empire strikes back. Problem is, fake sw fans are so in denial that they don't even remember this. After ep. 5 people were bashing because "they ruined obi-wan's character by making him lie to luke about his father", "you turned sw into a soap opera by making vader luke's father". And not to talk about ep. 6, "you ruined sw by making the empire being defeated by ewoks", "you ruined vader's character by turning himself to the good side" and sooo on. Fake sw fans are soooo blind.
"fake fans" are the ones pretending that the new movies are good.
Still better than the prequels.
Hell no. The prequels are overall better than this new garbage.
Well then you are lost.
I respectfully disagree, I would rather watch the prequels than TLJ crap.
The prequels told a story which makes it good.
Better than attack of the clones and the phantom menace, but tied with revenge of the sith