Tag: rian johnson

jewishcomeradebot:

lj-writes:

I started writing an au headcanon about how Poe’s story in TLJ would have been so much better if it had been in keeping with his established character, and he had started taking on extravagant risks alone in response from his trauma from TFA, unconsciously seeking suicide by enemy. Leia, who has been where he is, tries to help him but is dealing with her own grief.

Then it expanded to Holdo, herself haunted by the destruction of the Hosnia system, putting children kidnapped for the Stormtrooper program at risk to stop the First Order main fleet. Finn leaves the Resistance with Paige and Rose to rescue the children.

Rose in this reimagining intervenes with her sister to defend Finn and Poe from Republic officers who were harrassing Finn. She tases a Republic officer who was about to hurt Finn, and that’s how they accidentally discover Holdo’s plans. She and Paige join Finn on his mission because children were kidnapped from their home planet, too. Their parents settled on a mining colony but were originally from Jedha, whose refugees the New Republic did fuck-all for, and Holdo’s plan only confirms their conviction that the Republic doesn’t care.

Leia uses the Force at a pivotal moment when Kylo Ren is about to attack the bridge and Poe is about to stop him at the cost of his own life, moving the fighters in space to save her ship and Poe. When he returns she slaps him, overcome with her fear of losing him. He admits in tears that he is having nightmares and wanted it all to end. He promises to get help. She apologizes for slapping him, then for the pain he had to endure, and for Kylo Ren, for her life, for all the people she couldn’t save… they cry together, the first time they allowed themselves to.

I just… I want to read the story, but at the same time I can’t believe the movie didn’t go along these lines. Just how obstinately do you have to ignore the prior story, the established universe, and the characters to so completely refuse to deal with their trauma and pain? How broken does your empathy have to be to refuse to identify with people who are tortured, who were kidnapped and abused, who lost loved ones, who were forced to watch innocent people be destroyed? It’s a failure of craft, to be sure, but I can’t help but think it’s also a failure of humanity on some level.

I’ve been thinking about this post in the last couple of days and when I flipped through the Visual Dictionary for TLJ something struck me. That book has half it pages taken up by ships, vehicles and weapons, something no other Visual Dictionary has. That’s what the Incredible Cross Section books are for.

I don’t mean that tech doesn’t appear at all, I think Black One is shown in the TFA Visual Dictionary, but it’s as a small picture in Poe’s section. The Visual Dictionaries have always, always, been mostly about the characters in the stories – even the minor ones – and the places. Never the tech.

And yet here we have a Visual Dictionary that’s half composed of tech.

Why?

That was when it hit me. Rian is one of those fake WWII “fanboys” who know all about how WWII was fought, knows everything about the weapons and vehicles and planes, but nothing about why. Ask them anything about why the war was fought and they’ll look at you with great puzzlement and have no idea how to answer your question.

But Star Wars has never been about how, it’s always been about why? Why people do as they do, why people fight, why people fall.

Some fans have been mocking that damn exhaust vent in the first Death Star for 40 years, claiming that it’s unrealistic, never once realizing that it’s beside the point. ANH isn’t about how the first Death Star was brought down, it was about why it was.

And yet in TLJ we get a lot of fancy tech and technobabble. A lot about the how, but nothing at all about why. The only character that has an even remotely clear reason for acting as he does is Finn. Everyone else? Beats me, the movie never tells us because Rian has no freaking clue.

So yes, Rian fails completely at a human level, he fails at a Star Wars level. Because he’s more obsessed with how and doesn’t care about why.

Possibly another reason why Solo for all its ton of flaws still is a better movie than TLJ and feels more like Star Wars, it have at least half a care as to the why of it.

That explains a lot about Rian Johnson as a filmmaker, too, because it’s a pattern across his works. Looper, for instance, has clever time travel mechanics and “oh wow!” moments (which actually fall apart on closer scrutiny) but fails on a human level. It asks us to identify with a repulsive character who has no redeeming characteristics and root for stakes that don’t matter, or where the protagonist is in the wrong. It may have a convoluted time-travel plot and twists and turns, but ultimately it’s hollow, all for nothing. The fact that this movie is so well-reviewed is a symptom of the culture, as is Rian Johnson’s rise.

captainsaltymuyfancy:

lj-writes:

thehungryvortigaunt:

lj-writes:

thehungryvortigaunt:

lj-writes:

I started writing an au headcanon about how Poe’s story in TLJ would have been so much better if it had been in keeping with his established character, and he had started taking on extravagant risks alone in response from his trauma from TFA, unconsciously seeking suicide by enemy. Leia, who has been where he is, tries to help him but is dealing with her own grief.

Then it expanded to Holdo, herself haunted by the destruction of the Hosnia system, putting children kidnapped for the Stormtrooper program at risk to stop the First Order main fleet. Finn leaves the Resistance with Paige and Rose to rescue the children.

Rose in this reimagining intervenes with her sister to defend Finn and Poe from Republic officers who were harrassing Finn. She tases a Republic officer who was about to hurt Finn, and that’s how they accidentally discover Holdo’s plans. She and Paige join Finn on his mission because children were kidnapped from their home planet, too. Their parents settled on a mining colony but were originally from Jedha, whose refugees the New Republic did fuck-all for, and Holdo’s plan only confirms their conviction that the Republic doesn’t care.

Leia uses the Force at a pivotal moment when Kylo Ren is about to attack the bridge and Poe is about to stop him at the cost of his own life, moving the fighters in space to save her ship and Poe. When he returns she slaps him, overcome with her fear of losing him. He admits in tears that he is having nightmares and wanted it all to end. He promises to get help. She apologizes for slapping him, then for the pain he had to endure, and for Kylo Ren, for her life, for all the people she couldn’t save… they cry together, the first time they allowed themselves to.

I just… I want to read the story, but at the same time I can’t believe the movie didn’t go along these lines. Just how obstinately do you have to ignore the prior story, the established universe, and the characters to so completely refuse to deal with their trauma and pain? How broken does your empathy have to be to refuse to identify with people who are tortured, who were kidnapped and abused, who lost loved ones, who were forced to watch innocent people be destroyed? It’s a failure of craft, to be sure, but I can’t help but think it’s also a failure of humanity on some level.

I actually saw Poe’s behavior in TLJ as motivated by his very recent traumas from the previous film (witnessing the slaughter of an innocent village, being tortured, and of course the genocide of the Not-Coruscant system). Pretty telling that this behavior is dismissed as something intrinsic to his ethnicity or gender and worth humbling, while Kylo’s behavior is treated as something more individualistic and requiring of accomodation.

White man commits mass murder, torture, and other war crimes: The poor dear must be endlessly coddled, his inner life centered throughout the movie, and he deserves forgiveness and infinite chances to reform

Brown man reacts badly to the trauma of witnessing and experiencing mass murder and torture: He is a hothead and misogynist who must be slapped, shot, and humiliated at every turn

Poe suffering PTSD is a valid reading of TLJ, except–as with most of the more reasonable readings of RJ’s opus–it makes things worse rather than better.

Same thing goes for taking seriously the idea of putting a (false) moral equivalence between the authoritarianism of the so-called #Resistance and the fascism of the First Order, by seeing parallels in how Finn and Poe are treated with how the FO treats its underlings (and citizens, but we’ve yet to see any). If we actually were to take this seriously, we’d have to confront the fact that the film implicitly treats the Resistance as “““good”““ not by their actions or ideology but by mere authoral fiat.

I doubt it’s even Johnson’s own authorial fiat, but rather the constraints of the franchise he was working with.

There was a scene cut where Poe is on the Raddus and he’s talking to Connix, who’s still on the ground, and asks her if they are evacuated yet. She says no and they need more time. It’s implied that this is where Poe decides to take on the dreadnaught, meaning he probably intended to sacrifice himself. This would have added some dimension to his character and explained Poe’s decision to take on the dreadnaught but, you know, Rian Johnson was in control so it got deleted.

Wow, much as with Finn, Johnson cut a scene that actually makes sense for Poe and gives him depth. I wonder why he felt the need to do that.

thehungryvortigaunt:

lj-writes:

thehungryvortigaunt:

lj-writes:

I started writing an au headcanon about how Poe’s story in TLJ would have been so much better if it had been in keeping with his established character, and he had started taking on extravagant risks alone in response from his trauma from TFA, unconsciously seeking suicide by enemy. Leia, who has been where he is, tries to help him but is dealing with her own grief.

Then it expanded to Holdo, herself haunted by the destruction of the Hosnia system, putting children kidnapped for the Stormtrooper program at risk to stop the First Order main fleet. Finn leaves the Resistance with Paige and Rose to rescue the children.

Rose in this reimagining intervenes with her sister to defend Finn and Poe from Republic officers who were harrassing Finn. She tases a Republic officer who was about to hurt Finn, and that’s how they accidentally discover Holdo’s plans. She and Paige join Finn on his mission because children were kidnapped from their home planet, too. Their parents settled on a mining colony but were originally from Jedha, whose refugees the New Republic did fuck-all for, and Holdo’s plan only confirms their conviction that the Republic doesn’t care.

Leia uses the Force at a pivotal moment when Kylo Ren is about to attack the bridge and Poe is about to stop him at the cost of his own life, moving the fighters in space to save her ship and Poe. When he returns she slaps him, overcome with her fear of losing him. He admits in tears that he is having nightmares and wanted it all to end. He promises to get help. She apologizes for slapping him, then for the pain he had to endure, and for Kylo Ren, for her life, for all the people she couldn’t save… they cry together, the first time they allowed themselves to.

I just… I want to read the story, but at the same time I can’t believe the movie didn’t go along these lines. Just how obstinately do you have to ignore the prior story, the established universe, and the characters to so completely refuse to deal with their trauma and pain? How broken does your empathy have to be to refuse to identify with people who are tortured, who were kidnapped and abused, who lost loved ones, who were forced to watch innocent people be destroyed? It’s a failure of craft, to be sure, but I can’t help but think it’s also a failure of humanity on some level.

I actually saw Poe’s behavior in TLJ as motivated by his very recent traumas from the previous film (witnessing the slaughter of an innocent village, being tortured, and of course the genocide of the Not-Coruscant system). Pretty telling that this behavior is dismissed as something intrinsic to his ethnicity or gender and worth humbling, while Kylo’s behavior is treated as something more individualistic and requiring of accomodation.

White man commits mass murder, torture, and other war crimes: The poor dear must be endlessly coddled, his inner life centered throughout the movie, and he deserves forgiveness and infinite chances to reform

Brown man reacts badly to the trauma of witnessing and experiencing mass murder and torture: He is a hothead and misogynist who must be slapped, shot, and humiliated at every turn

Poe suffering PTSD is a valid reading of TLJ, except–as with most of the more reasonable readings of RJ’s opus–it makes things worse rather than better.

Same thing goes for taking seriously the idea of putting a (false) moral equivalence between the authoritarianism of the so-called #Resistance and the fascism of the First Order, by seeing parallels in how Finn and Poe are treated with how the FO treats its underlings (and citizens, but we’ve yet to see any). If we actually were to take this seriously, we’d have to confront the fact that the film implicitly treats the Resistance as “““good”““ not by their actions or ideology but by mere authoral fiat.

I doubt it’s even Johnson’s own authorial fiat, but rather the constraints of the franchise he was working with.

mantisandthemoondragon:

devillikeme:

thelastjedicritical:

There are two kinds of people … 😫😫😫

Theory: those who claim everybody loving their movie is boring in fact constantly produce movies that people either like or freaking hate … they wish everybody would love them but since it’s not the case they pretend they wanted nothing else in the first place …

Lucas wanted to give people hope and something they could enjoy. Yes it was his story and he did it his way but his goal was always to give people something. Wanted to make them feel something. Creating emotion is the core of any kind of storytelling.

If you want to piss off people with your “art” for nothing but your own entertainment you are not a storyteller or artist and you can go fuck yourself.

Oh look, Rian Johnson trying to romanticize his mediocre work and the fact that he’s a overly- confident yet talentless asshole again.

lj-writes:

lj-writes:

Leia slapping Poe is so unprofessional, inappropriate, and hypocritical. As I detailed before in a previous attempted viewing, Leia fucking SIGNED OFF on the plan to destroy the dreadnought, barring some dumbfuck technical limitation that prevented her from overruling Poe and contacting the bombers directly to pull out. This attack is on her as the superior officer who had every chance to call off the mission and have Poe hauled to the brig for disobeying a direct order.

Not only is it shitty as hell for her to lay hands on an officer, she’s blaming him for the cost of an attack that she allowed to go through and that just makes her look like an irresponsible, incompetent ninny. This isn’t Carrie’s fault, obviously, it’s Johnson’s and also Kennedy’s for leaving the movie and Leia’s character in the hands of a man who doesn’t have any concept of logic or the basic workings of society.

Also like why are the stakes so boring? Why is the might of the First Order, which evidently gives zero fucks about losing an entire planetary superweapon, so focused on this one tiny fleet? Don’t these fucksticks have a galaxy to rule or something? And the vehicle they give us for this incomprehensible situation is a movie-length low-speed chase? I’m so excited, I’m snoring.

Leia flying through space is… not as bad as I feared, but mostly my thought is, so what. This is Star Wars. I’m supposed to be excited that a character, particularly a known Force sensitive, is able to move things with her mind? Especially when it’s going to be a prelude to putting her in a coma for most of the movie?

Just eat the obvious prop porg, Chewie. I don’t give a shit anymore.

Due to the obvious wrongness of Leia blaming Poe, her subordinate officer, for an attack she allowed him to make, Holdo’s treatment of Poe is similarly tainted. She comes across as high-handed as off-putting instead of the capable woman putting the mansplainer in his place that reviewers have crowed about.

And Rose tasing Finn… just… ugh. So let me get this straight: Finn is sliced with a lightsaber across the spine, and his wound and recovery are played for a cheap slapstick and visual gag. Having just recovered from a serious and life-threatening wound, he is shot with a force so strong he goes flying across a room and hits his back. He is temporarily paralyzed as a result. But we’re not supposed to take this physical trauma seriously at all, it’s just what he gets for being a cowardly deserter (which he isn’t) while Rose gets to use her trauma of losing Paige to justify her treatment of him?

I now see why Rose stans keep bringing up Paige to justify Rose in this scene. In addition to their own latent racism that’s the way the scene has been framed, as Finn owing something to Rose, not for anything he did wrong but because she happened to idealize him, and deserving to be hurt for a crime he did not commit. This movie is such a mess and so upsetting, I can’t even.

Also Johnson seriously can’t write a character with any depth to save his life, can he? Poe’s every other sentence is wanting to blow shit up? Really?

I have so many questions about Poe, Finn, and Rose hatching their plan. So if Finn’s arc in this movie is about learning how to stop being a selfish POS or some shit (FUCK YOU JOHNSON), it looks like this growth has already been established in like, 2 scenes? First he’s going to run away, but has a change of heart because Rose was sad and also put a million volts through him? (Seriously, can he get the agency and dignity to change his own mind without being beaten into it? Too much to ask?) So that’s like… character development accomplished? He’s already seen the bigger picture and went from “this fleet is doomed” to deciding to save the fleet. He already sees his and Rey’s fate in the context of the survival of the Resistance rather than just their own individual survival.

This was a choice that he already made at the end of TFA, btw, so I’m not sure why it had to be retread at all because RJ is a talentless hack who just wants to copy JJ’s greatest hits. It’s also just a really poor and abrupt way to do character arcs. Just say you don’t give a shit about Finn’s character, RJ, it saves time.

A more sinister reading is also possible, too: the implication is strong in this scene that Finn is being coerced with the threat of jail time for his supposed desertion, or at least Poe’s disappointment if Rose tells on him. Under this reading Finn’s talk of saving the fleet and the heartfelt gesture of giving the tracking bracelet to Poe are empty, the product of Rose’s blackmail. Yet again, it does neither Finn’s nor Rose’s character any favors.

And Poe? We’re supposed to believe that a career military officer who left the Republic military to serve with Leia is a macho he-man who disrespects women, has no concept of the military chain of command, and would undermine it for his own petty grudge. The multitalented pilot/intelligence officer who conducted sensitive espionage operations as Leia’s right-hand man, who left his former post due to the dictates of his courage, conscience, and intelligence, is a meathead who can’t understand technical details and has nothing but explosions on his mind. Mmkay. We’ve estabilshed that this is RJ’s character assassination version of Poe. But.

Why are Finn and Rose going along with him? I’m guessing they haven’t met Holdo and possibly don’t know at the start of the scene that she commands the fleet now. But once C-3PO tells them, they can’t claim ignorance of the fact that Poe is greenlighting their plan against Holdo’s knowledge. Why isn’t Finn questioning the wisdom, or at least the very real difficulties, of going over a Vice-Admiral’s head? Why are both he and Rose entirely willing to accept, without argument, 3PO’s argument that Holdo would never agree to this plan?

If anything this scene leads me to believe discontent with Holdo was widespread long before the mutiny. (And it wasn’t even that long, given the short time frame we’re working with.) It’s not just Poe who thinks Holdo is an autocratic leader who ignores ideas and input from others. C-3PO, who has decades of military and negotiating experience, Finn, a newcomer to this organization who has some experience with authoritarian leaders, and Rose, a rank-and-file mechanic, all reached the same conclusion independently within hours of Holdo coming on board.

This is where you can see RJ’s sloppiness as a writer, where his writing shows the exact opposite of what he means to establish. Alternately, if he meant to establish Holdo’s failure of leadership, he contradicts himself there as well by portraying Poe as this simple-minded caveman character and Leia firmly on Holdo’s side. The result is an incoherent mess.

This scene is also where all the leads of color are swept into a meaningless side plot where they were all wrong for not listening to the white woman and do a great deal of harm, so again… fuck you, Johnson.

lj-writes:

Leia slapping Poe is so unprofessional, inappropriate, and hypocritical. As I detailed before in a previous attempted viewing, Leia fucking SIGNED OFF on the plan to destroy the dreadnought, barring some dumbfuck technical limitation that prevented her from overruling Poe and contacting the bombers directly to pull out. This attack is on her as the superior officer who had every chance to call off the mission and have Poe hauled to the brig for disobeying a direct order.

Not only is it shitty as hell for her to lay hands on an officer, she’s blaming him for the cost of an attack that she allowed to go through and that just makes her look like an irresponsible, incompetent ninny. This isn’t Carrie’s fault, obviously, it’s Johnson’s and also Kennedy’s for leaving the movie and Leia’s character in the hands of a man who doesn’t have any concept of logic or the basic workings of society.

Also like why are the stakes so boring? Why is the might of the First Order, which evidently gives zero fucks about losing an entire planetary superweapon, so focused on this one tiny fleet? Don’t these fucksticks have a galaxy to rule or something? And the vehicle they give us for this incomprehensible situation is a movie-length low-speed chase? I’m so excited, I’m snoring.

Leia flying through space is… not as bad as I feared, but mostly my thought is, so what. This is Star Wars. I’m supposed to be excited that a character, particularly a known Force sensitive, is able to move things with her mind? Especially when it’s going to be a prelude to putting her in a coma for most of the movie?

Just eat the obvious prop porg, Chewie. I don’t give a shit anymore.

Due to the obvious wrongness of Leia blaming Poe, her subordinate officer, for an attack she allowed him to make, Holdo’s treatment of Poe is similarly tainted. She comes across as high-handed as off-putting instead of the capable woman putting the mansplainer in his place that reviewers have crowed about.

And Rose tasing Finn… just… ugh. So let me get this straight: Finn is sliced with a lightsaber across the spine, and his wound and recovery are played for a cheap slapstick and visual gag. Having just recovered from a serious and life-threatening wound, he is shot with a force so strong he goes flying across a room and hits his back. He is temporarily paralyzed as a result. But we’re not supposed to take this physical trauma seriously at all, it’s just what he gets for being a cowardly deserter (which he isn’t) while Rose gets to use her trauma of losing Paige to justify her treatment of him?

I now see why Rose stans keep bringing up Paige to justify Rose in this scene. In addition to their own latent racism that’s the way the scene has been framed, as Finn owing something to Rose, not for anything he did wrong but because she happened to idealize him, and deserving to be hurt for a crime he did not commit. This movie is such a mess and so upsetting, I can’t even.

Also Johnson seriously can’t write a character with any depth to save his life, can he? Poe’s every other sentence is wanting to blow shit up? Really?

hansolosrebound:

Y’all remember when Rey was ready to die with Finn after he got knocked out on Starkiller Base as it was blowing up in TFA but got the fuck off of the Supremacy as soon as Kylo got knocked out as it was blowing up in TLJ??? Iconique moments in sw history

TLJ marks the second time she left Kylo’s ass to disintegrate while choosing death alongside Finn lmao. Death with Finn >>>>>>>>>>>>> Life with Kylo and that’s the real Theme™ of the sequel trilogy.