Star Wars VIII : The Last Jedi [WARNING: SPOILERS]

jonneymendoza · 19 Jan 2018 at 17:59

Raymond Lin said:
You got it backwards.

I never said gamer designers aren’t gamers.

I am saying ask gamers, as in people sitting at home that play computer games, ask them to design a game, they’ll do what I said above, which is making a game what I like in the past.

Quality

TallPaul1878 · 19 Jan 2018 at 19:01

Usually when you start asking a committee for opinions on a movie, a video game or any other form of entertainment you end up getting too many variables. You can be all things for all people.

Star Wars was originally the work of George Lucas, one man really, who had a pretty clear vision of what he wanted.

Harry Potter is the creation of JK Rowling and that's a huge success.

Once you start polling for opinions and involving focus groups it just muddies the water and you become obsessed with ticking boxes rather than making a good story.

I don't believe that anyone has a clear idea of where they want the story to go since Disney bought them out. They don't appear to have someone in overall control of it.

VincentHanna · 19 Jan 2018 at 19:12

Rian Johnson had 100% complete control over the script and direction

How is is a movie by committee?

v0n · 19 Jan 2018 at 20:37

JediFragger said:
Does anyone else think it's pretty crazy to not have one major over-arching writer to steer the story (and provide script outlines at least)?

VincentHanna said:
Rian Johnson had 100% complete control over the script and direction

I don't believe for a second that they don't have over-arcing story and that each director has free reign. Of course they don't - even the fact than Johnson had to grab all the plot lines by Abrams and smash them to bits and throw them all away in next instalment shows you they are reliant on each others scripts, and there is very close cooperation - they follow everything the other one does.
I will also not believe that TLJ was a surprise and the next movie will have to "somehow" patch up whatever is left of the TFA storyline and improvise - that's long done, not only outline but a full script must be available as production is already running in the background.

I personally think the inconvenient truth that no one will admit out loud is that this IS a disguised soft reboot, and script writers and directors were told to follow ANH and TESB (and ROTJ next time) storyline bullet points in the most disguised way possible and nothing, at all is accidental or left to random choices by random people. They are killing off old characters as the old fan service, and introduce new generation to new merchandise. Whatever doesn't sell as toys (Snoke), gets written off, whatever doesn't fit that specific modern character bias, where all the good girls are running Mary Sue appreciation society at the Resistance and all the bad boys are running crazy evil circus full of tantrums and rage guy memes, gets corrected - which is why the only girl among baddies was corrected this turn.

But I refuse to believe that someone like Rian Johnson was just allowed to run free and destroy whatever JJ Abrams set up in a billion dollar franchise without any supervision or specific story arc or agendas. Even the cheapest telenovelas have long story arcs and proof readers to keep track of all the events. Come on.

b0rn2sk8 · 19 Jan 2018 at 20:44

v0n said:
But I refuse to believe that someone like Rian Johnson was just allowed to run free and destroy whatever JJ Abrams set up in a billion dollar franchise without any supervision or specific story arc or agendas. Even the cheapest telenovelas have long story arcs and proof readers to keep track of all the events. Come on.

This, the script for the next move was already drafted before this even hit post production. The lead in time for stuff props and merchandise is just too long for it not to be.

NewGamer11 · 19 Jan 2018 at 20:57

VincentHanna said:
Rian Johnson had 100% complete control over the script and direction

Apart from when he had to get approval from Kathleen Kennedy and Disney.

v0n · 19 Jan 2018 at 22:04

I think his directive from Kennedy and Disney was to make it "unpredictable" and he went out of his way to make it indeed unpredictable, JJ has a long history of making unpredictable happen, so his plot decisions were often weird, but anchored somewhere in vicinity of believable, whereas Johnson's plot decisions were so far removed from any predictability, so far "the last possible option anyone would come up with" that you can almost hear director screaming "Bazinga!" in the background every time "twist" comes up, which in turn makes it very "carpet toy game". "You thought she was dead, cause she's like - dead - right? Na-a - Poppins Leia fluhing back to the ship, open the doors! BAZINGA!". "All lasers on Luke! Kaboom, kaboom, you thought Luke is dead fo' sure, na-a - it was holo-Luke. BAZINGA!" - that kind of thing.

VincentHanna · 19 Jan 2018 at 22:09

I recommend you listen to the 2 hour Empire spoiler special, and not just because the 25 minute Rian Johnson interview.

https://soundcloud.com/empiremagazine/star-wars-the-last-jedi-spoiler-special

Moothead2 · 19 Jan 2018 at 22:24

VincentHanna said:
I recommend you listen to the 2 hour Empire spoiler special, and not just because the 25 minute Rian Johnson interview.

https://soundcloud.com/empiremagazine/star-wars-the-last-jedi-spoiler-special

"The shark in Jaws didn't have a back story." Brilliant!

The first comment I saw on that, I'm assuming this is referring to Snoke. Think I'll pass...

TomHark · 20 Jan 2018 at 08:43

b0rn2sk8 said:
This, the script for the next move was already drafted before this even hit post production. The lead in time for stuff props and merchandise is just too long for it not to be.

You would think so, but that's not the case. The following is from a Slashfilm article from 15th December (it has swearing in it, so can't be linked in full):

The Last Jedi isn’t even 24-hours-old yet, but director J.J. Abrams is wasting no time getting started on the next Star Wars film. Laughing Place confirms that during a big press conference that covered both the release of The Last Jedi and the historic Disney-Fox deal, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that J.J. Abrams would be pitching the Star Wars: Episode IX story to him today (December 15, 2017).

dannyjo22 · 20 Jan 2018 at 11:58

v0n said:
They are killing off old characters as the old fan service, and introduce new generation to new merchandise. Whatever doesn't sell as toys (Snoke), gets written off, whatever doesn't fit that specific modern character bias, where all the good girls are running Mary Sue appreciation society at the Resistance and all the bad boys are running crazy evil circus full of tantrums and rage guy memes, gets corrected - which is why the only girl among baddies was corrected this turn.

Although I agree with some of what you say I think you are so wide of the mark on the toy thing. What Snoke toys didn't sell well? There wasn't any prior to this film. There was no Lego with him in, no figures or toys that I can think of or ever see despite spending half my life in toy and comic book stores. They can hardly have killed him off due to lack of interest in toys. They didn't kill Rey off or finn and that stuff doesn't seem to have much interest from kids. In fact none of the kids I know are remotely interested in any of these characters. Rogue one stuff, again most kids can't name those characters but the film was still half interesting.

Anyway, Snoke isn't dead. The Jedi and the Sith are dead and they are going a whole different route with force users, hence Snoke and then Bendu in the Rebels.

NewGamer11 · 20 Jan 2018 at 16:19

dannyjo22 said:
Anyway, Snoke isn't dead.

I was just thinking last night if you were in a lightsaber duel and were aware of Maul and Vader you would cut off your opponent’s head and destroy their brain if you could to prevent any ‘resurrection’.

Unless you’re suggesting Snoke in TLJ was just a Force projection. I thought Johnson’s interview from a few pages back indicated Snoke really is dead though.

dannyjo22 · 20 Jan 2018 at 17:42

Force projection, I don’t believe anyone that powerful was showing their real form.

Mak3R · 22 Jan 2018 at 11:35

Wouldn't be surprised if the Ep9 opening text crawl reads like "5 years after Lukes heroic sacrifice, word spread across the galaxy and more and more rallied to the resistances cause". This will be how they get around having to show building up an actual, threatening rival to the FO. We won't learn how many or how they all learned about Lukes death (since nobody actually witnessed it and there's was like 20 people left). But they'll just be a large force and we have to accept it.

adam cool dude · 22 Jan 2018 at 13:22

dannyjo22 said:
Force projection, I don’t believe anyone that powerful was showing their real form.

If it was a force projection why was he in shock when he was cut in half! That was for real. Everything is just so messed up now people are looking for a way out to explain everything.

How the hell are half a dozen people on the millennium falcon going to defeat an empire with kylo ren at the helm. Maybe Rey is going to connect with the matrix and blow everyone up!

aardvark · 23 Jan 2018 at 12:32

VincentHanna said:
I disagree, nobody even gave it a chance hence the trailer being the most downvoted trailer in history and the actors getting abuse well before the movie even made it to cinemas.

The movie isn't even that bad. It's not really stayed in my brain but it passed the 6 laugh test at the cinema.

i disagree - ghostbusters was terrible and it had nothing to do with the leads being women.

VincentHanna · 23 Jan 2018 at 12:40

Maybe i'm a lone voice then, I'm really not precious about the original Ghostbusters as I never thought it was particularly funny anyway.

eggyoke · 23 Jan 2018 at 16:04

Mak3R said:
Wouldn't be surprised if the Ep9 opening text crawl reads like "5 years after Lukes heroic sacrifice, word spread across the galaxy and more and more rallied to the resistances cause". This will be how they get around having to show building up an actual, threatening rival to the FO. We won't learn how many or how they all learned about Lukes death (since nobody actually witnessed it and there's was like 20 people left). But they'll just be a large force and we have to accept it.

That's exactly going to be the case. We'll also get a line like: "As Rey completes her training." Despite her never being trained in the first place.

I also expect Kylo to become a completely different character. He'll suddenly be patient, insightful, rational, focussed and capable with no reason behind it. It would have made sense if he overcame Snoke by pushing past his boundaries, breaking through what was holding him back, but he didn't. He tricked him and the movie then pointedly shows him being exactly the same as he was in Force Awakens, infact he was move Kylo after killing Snoke than ever. There's no evidence for his growth, we see nothing whatsoever.

It's Marvel type stuff. They've simplified it by cutting out the rules and history of the franchise in order to get to the flashy on-screen spectacle. That's it. Disney have a plan for their most valuable asset and Star Wars as we know it is over 100%.

DrToffnar · 23 Jan 2018 at 16:11

VincentHanna said:
Maybe i'm a lone voice then, I'm really not precious about the original Ghostbusters as I never thought it was particularly funny anyway.

You're not. I never got it either and I was the perfect age for it when it came out.

VincentHanna · 23 Jan 2018 at 16:14

eggyoke said:
That's exactly going to be the case. We'll also get a line like: "As Rey completes her training." Despite her never being trained in the first place.

It's Marvel type stuff. They've simplified it by cutting out the rules and history of the franchise in order to get to the flashy on-screen spectacle. That's it. Disney have a plan for their most valuable asset and Star Wars as we know it is over 100%.

You know Luke got about 10 minutes training from Obi-Wan and about a week from Yoda, right? Yet he's a Jedi Master by the end of ROTJ.

Rey could already fight/handle herself in Force Awakens (we see this on Jakku) and Luke was just a Farmer who was a good pilot. For all we know he never had a fight in his life before meeting Obi-wan.

Also Star Wars was literally the movie that sold toys. George Lucas whole deal was profits on merchandise rather than box office, so it's funny that people think Disney made the director add Porgs and stuff to sell toys...