Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

There is always a trade-off between smaller, character focused stories and grand, sweeping epics. World Building gets lost in the character stories, characters get lost in the epics. But if you frame every scene from the perspective of a main character it becomes difficult to tell a story about the lives that are at stake, all that matters is if it makes the named character sad. I think about Dak in TESB, where in just three lines of dialogue he comes across as a fully fledged character who dominates his conversation with Luke. Compare that to the alien pilot hanging around Poe in TLJ, looks kind of cool and Poe seems to like him but is functionally a non-entity. Or Rose's sister, her significance is only revealed after her death.

One of the key problems is that TLJ and TFA were functionally in production at the same time, which implies that the basic script, character beats and action sequences were in place for TLJ before TFA was even released. That is just a dangerous path to take, especially if there are different creative teams involved. It means that they were not able to observe the movie objectively and develop the sequel according to what obviously worked. It doesn't help either that it was revealed Abrams set up a bunch of mysteries like the Knights of Ren, Rey's parents and Luke's disappearance with no actual guideline to the others about what the resolution is, the logic being "Let the other guys figure that out." A mystery doesn't pique interest because of the lack of information, it's because the story/setting surrounding it is already engaging (otherwise might as well name someone "Mysterious Figure"). None of the mysteries were properly set up or properly resolved. TLJ didn't bother even bringing up the Knights of Ren, revealed Rey's parents were nobody when there was no indication she didn't know who they were and never explained why Luke went to the Jedi homeworld if he wasn't going to actually learn anything. You can't help but wonder if Rian Johnson didn't really care for those mysteries either.

I mean, now JJ Abrams is the "other guy," so I'm not really worried about the resolutions to those mysteries. See, this is why I like TLJ better than TFA — because TFA had too many of those "mystery box" moments, stuff that was just pure setup or vague hints or whatever. TLJ took only one of those vague mysteries — Rey's parentage — and blew it to smithereens, which I enjoyed greatly.

The Rey's parents thing is especially egregious because the plot of TFA itself already well establishes that the answer to the question doesn't actually matter, which makes it all the blatant that Abrams had no intention of ever actually answering it in the first place.

In fact, I doubt it was ever even intended to be a question in the first place. Abrams had the lightsaber call to our heroine because it's narratively convenient for the sword to be freaking Excalibur all of a sudden and choose the new chosen one, then almost immediately after sums up her entire character point blank by having someone explicitly tell her parents don't matter and her fruitless search is only holding her back. It seems more tone deaf than intentional that nobody thought "hey, won't the fans leap at the idea that the Skywalker family sword calling Rey means she's a Skywalker?" and instead thought "this is the most famous sword in the series, held by all the former heroes, so it calling to Rey will totally mean something!"

It's on Lucasfilm for subsequently being evasive and coy about it as if it was something important, though. There was a lot of that: "lets be secretive even when there's no secrets! That'll build hype!" Lucasfilm is hardly the only company to do it (around the same time we also got the Homecoming "Mary Jane but not really" thing, for example), but it still their own fault past that point that it hit them in the butt.

Personally, I also cheered when it was made explicit that Rey's parents weren't anyone special. Likewise, I cheered when the Skywalker lightsaber got destroyed. Because screw defining Rey simply by being related to someone else.

I also blame Abrams far more for Snoke than I do Johnson, because if there was any point in the saga where that character should have been established (given that the plan seems to have been Kylo for overall big bad), it was in the movie in which he first appeared, but TFA chose not to do that because "well, the Emperor only showed up as a minor hologram in his first appearance - we all remember that, right?"

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 31st 2019 at 1:07:10 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

My issue with Rey not related to someone is that at the same time she have not personal stake on the issue, which in way it look she have to fixed the mess between the space hobo and the space edgelord because none of them can actually do it.

And I blame Snoke on Johnson more tha Abraham because the change between kylo is stagging: from "grampa is the best" to "let the past die" in the spawn of what....one defeat and then mockery from snoke? which is more weird considering Snoke said is traing need to be complete, only for him to mock kylo and....die.

You can see Johnson want to explore kylo chararter and to see he was is fault, which mean he have to remove snoke on the equation.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

Of course she has a personal stake in things. For one thing, even though she didn't know him long, Han Solo had become something of a mentor for her. He even offered her a job. For another thing, the First Order is a threat to the galaxy and she's one of the people who lives in the galaxy (as Star-Lord so aptly put it), so yeah, she definitely has a personal stake in how things shake out.

Edited by alliterator on Jan 31st 2019 at 8:59:56 AM

I severely doubt Snoke's removal was solely on Johnson. You can tell as early as TFA that the narrative focus of the story is going to be on Kylo, and if Kylo is going to be main antagonistic focus of the series. And if it wasn't, and Abrams legit wanted to just do Palpatine again as Big Bad, that's still awful (arguably even worse) and left his successor with a really bad spot to work from.

That ended up being the big problem with Snoke. If the plan all along was for Kylo to grow as a villain and usurp Snoke to make way for movie #3, then the movie he's introduced has more impetus on defining what he is as a character rather than the movie where he's usurped. The "repeating Palpatine" thing only works if he's either going to be a minor antagonist or a the Big Bad, but absolutely not if all he's supposed to be is a transitional villain.

Consider, on the heroic side, Yoda. Just like Kylo, Yoda is introduced in one movie, then has to die in the next so Luke move into his big hero spot. He gets a single scene in ROTJ to do that (like Snoke), but on the flipside gets a lot of screentime in development in the movie that introduces him to make that eventual transition work emotionally. Abrams, on the other hand, left Johnson with nothing to work with.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 31st 2019 at 9:11:47 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

TFA really had to juggle a lot of things and some of them, it dropped. I still think it works overall, because it managed to introduce an entirely new era of heroes, while still bringing back the old heroes, and also re-adjusting Star Wars back to the "used future" aesthetic of the OT, rather than the prequels.

And in doing all of that, it had to, let's say, make some shortcuts. One of those shortcuts ended up being Snoke, whose characterization was "Palpatine 2.0."

Edited by alliterator on Jan 31st 2019 at 9:08:10 AM

I mean, they didn't have to use that shortcut. It's not even really a shortcut: Snoke's presence adds additional layers to the plot that neither it nor its successor had much interest in following up. Simply having Kylo as Big Bad would have changed little, but ultimately made the plot less muddled.

Not that Johnson didn't himself make mistakes. My biggest problem with Rey is that she has the exact same character arc in TLJ that she did in TFA, and so hasn't actually grown as a character in two movies. Johnson did the same thing with Kylo and Finn, too, and of the three protagonists Kylo is the only one who ended up someplace different for it.

Finn got a new love interest, I guess. Because Love Triangles are the best.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 31st 2019 at 9:14:34 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

If Snoke was really that pointless then he should have never been put in.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Gotta have a big bad manipulating the fallen hero who is actually related to the Hero in same way

It's Star Wars after all,there are some tropes they can't let of

New theme music also a box

Snoke was there for Kylo to kill and usurp. He was there so that we could actually see the Sith's Rule of Two in action. If Kylo just started out as the Big Bad, he wouldn't have had a storyarc — we had to see him choose to become the Big Bad and kill Snoke.

As for Rey having the same storyarc in TFA and TLJ — I disagree. They are similar, certainly, but in TFA, she was objected completely to even leaving Jakku, insisting that she had to go back and wait for her parents, while in TLJ, she wants to learn more about herself and her connection to the Force. Kylo uses her parents as a way to manipulate her, but it doesn't work, because she's changed since the first film.

Why? Like, why was that essential to the plot, beyond the fact that it's something the series did previously and thus the sequel trilogy wants to repeat it?

It certainly isn't essential to TFA, which has a minimum of Snoke, literally only mentions there being a Supreme Leader to pepper dialogue without any structure to it (as the film has Kylo as practically leader of the First Order anyway, and doesn't imply a chain of command in regards to leading the Order in the way the OT did). Likewise, Kylo's arc with Han and Leia is ultimately about his choices, not the choices someone forced upon him, with Snoke's presence only being lip serviced through backstory.

And it's only essential to TLJ because that lip service left that plot thread hanging there and someone had to follow up on it. But that just exposes how unnecessary adding that to the story was: it adds little to the plot, but once it's there it has to be dealt with. It's the definition of a Plot Tumor.

I mean, I usually hate gotchas, but I actually would've liked a gotcha in that situation. Han and Leia spend the movie talking about how someone must have manipulated Ben into becoming Kylo, only for him to reveal at the end that no: he is who he chooses to be. It's basically what TFA did anyway, with Snoke being overall superfluous to that character arc.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 31st 2019 at 9:25:59 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

It's not something from the original or prequel trilogies. We never see one Sith usurp another. Not even Darth Vader does it — he kills the Emperor not for his own gain, but to save his son and then dies immediately afterwards. No, Kylo Ren is the first Sith we see on screen kill and usurp his master.

And we have to see it because it's Kylo Ren's storyarc. It's the same reason that we had to see Rey meeting Luke or Finn meeting Rose — because they all have different storylines which eventually intersect with one another.

You are still thinking of Kylo Ren as the mysterious bad guy — the Darth Vader of the ST. He isn't. He is one of the protagonists, but just on the other side. That's why we follow him more than we ever followed Vader.

Oh, forgot to mention. Kylo isn’t actually a Sith, and isn’t beholden to the Rule of Two.

Kylo’s arc is ultimately and very obviously a subversion of Vader’s arc. That the specifics of it aren’t identical don’t change the fact that it clearly relies on the audience recognizing the plot beats and execution the latter for its payoff.

None of which changes the fact that it’s still superfluous to the rest of the story.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 31st 2019 at 9:32:43 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Why not? He was trained by Snoke, who appears to be a Sith himself, so why wouldn't he be a Sith?

And yes, he is a subversion of Darth Vader...which is why making the audience sympathize with him before immediately turning against him was so great. We think he's going to pull a Vader, but he actually stays a bad guy. I thought it was a great twist in TLJ.

Snoke never refers to himself as a Sith.

All we know is that he is a Darksider but that can mean anything.

I mean wasn't unknown TLJ was getting & with Snoke dead obviously someone's gotta take the villain role.

Its not that surprising really, especially for a violent maniac.

Edited by slimcoder on Jan 31st 2019 at 9:37:50 AM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Because he explicitly isn’t. He’s a Knight of Ren: they’re a different thing. Functionally similar (because of course it is, sequel trilogy and all), but still distinct - in the same way the First Order isn’t actually the Empire. Abrams himself confirmed this ages ago.

That he has a ton of acolytes who openly call him master already shows that he’s not following the Rule of Two.

Imo, it would’ve hit harder if TFA hadn’t already done the same twist with him. We already knew Kylo would decide to double down on the dark side, because when given the choice the first time that’s what he did then too.

That one time Snoke was there and one time Snoke wasn’t just goes to show how inessential Snoke is to the whole arc.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 31st 2019 at 9:46:38 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

"For one thing, even though she didn't know him long, Han Solo had become something of a mentor for her. He even offered her a job. For another thing, the First Order is a threat to the galaxy and she's one of the people who lives in the galaxy (as Star-Lord so aptly put it), so yeah, she definitely has a personal stake in how things shake out"

a brief conexion with han barely counts, and the other is not a personal stake, is a heroic one and sort of expected.

"so why wouldn't he be a Sith?"

Abrham and other said snoke and kylo arent sith, they are dark siders but not sith.....but is understable.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

Rey doesn’t have to be related to anyone to have a personal stake in what’s going on. I thought one of the things TFA did very well was establish how Finn and Rey have a strong investment in what’s going on around them simply by being everyday people in a terrible world. And it works: despite its many flaws, those two absolutely carry that movie.

I mean, I rag on both films sometimes, but “everyone needs to be related to everyone else for this to be important” is the kind of logic you get in bad sequels and fan fiction, and I’ve always been proud of the sequel trilogy for not falling into the trap.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 31st 2019 at 10:03:42 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I don't accept Word of God on things like that, because Abrams himself doesn't control everything about the universe and, in fact, has been known to both lie and change his mind. He could decide that "Knights of Ren" are the same thing as Sith at any point, it doesn't matter. What matters is that they are pretty much the same thing and so we saw a Sith-equivilent kill and usurp his master. The rest is just arguing over semantics.

Hux could have taken the villain role and Kylo could have been redeemed or at least on the road to redemption.

Except Kylo isn't a violent maniac. That's why Rey was able to feel sympathy for him and connect with him.

Killing Han and killing Snoke, I believe, are two entirely different twists. One is obvious (I knew Han was going to die the minute he stepped out on that platform) and one wasn't.

Edited by alliterator on Jan 31st 2019 at 10:08:41 AM

I mean fighting against a tryranical empire that seeks to enslave the entire galaxy is good enough to fight all the time.

Why would you need a personal reason? You already have one, making sure those bastards don’t fuck up your life.

Eh he’s still violent & prone to psychotic tantrums. Few moments of decency doesn’t not make him a prick.

Also right like Hux can ever be a major threat to Kylo or anyone else. He’s not main villain material.

Edited by slimcoder on Jan 31st 2019 at 10:10:22 AM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

It’s not pedantics if your claim was that Snoke needs to be there to show Kylo overcoming the Rule of Two. Because if he’s not a Sith, he’s not overcoming the Rule of Two, and that claim is incorrect.

And if that claim doesn’t matter and is just superfluous pedantry, well, that’s kind of my point.

Whether you saw the payoff coming and whether the plot lines are or aren’t recycled are not the same thing. The arc in TLJ does have meat to it (which imo is why it still works out in the way Rey’s and Finn’s - which we’re similarly recycled - didn’t) but it’s still the same set up and execution with Rey in Leia and Han’s place, and most importantly and relevantly to the conversation still says the exact same things about Kylo’s character that the first twist already established.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 31st 2019 at 10:12:08 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

1) I meant "semantics" not pedantics, but whatever. 2) We needed to see Kylo Ren kill and usurp Snoke, because that was his story arc. Just like Rey's story was rejecting Kylo's offer and Finn's story was becoming a genuine part of the Resistance, Kylo's story was turning on Snoke and killing him in order to become ruler.

By the way, I never said he was "overcoming" the Rule of Two, he was fulfilling it; the Rule of Two was almost always ends with the student killing the master.

Edited by alliterator on Jan 31st 2019 at 10:13:36 AM

2. And as I noted, it only “needs” to be there in the sense that Snoke is already in the narrative and something had so he done to deal with him. It doesn’t justify Snoke’s presence in the first place, as Kylo’s arc toward villainy didn’t especially need him in TFA or in an overall sense.

3. And again, that’s incorrect, as he’s not a Sith and doesn’t follow the Rule of Two in the first place. Kylo kills Snoke because he wants to, not because he’s following Sith indoctrination.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 31st 2019 at 10:20:58 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I mean, if he wasn't in the narrative, there would have been nothing for Kylo to overcome. So yes, we needed Snoke or something else in Snoke's place. Or else Kylo Ren's story would have been completely and utterly different.

I mean, I understand certain complaints. But once you start saying "I don't like his story, I wish it had been a completely different story" is when I start tuning out fans. Kylo's story is the one the writers and directors wanted to tell and I really enjoyed it. Removing Snoke or a Snoke-like character from the story would have completely and utterly changed it.

I agree that Snoke needs more characterization. I disagree that he needed to be removed completely.

I never said he was indoctrinated to follow the Rule of Two (even though Snoke could definitely have done that), but he ended up following it anyway. You keep saying that he couldn't have done something because he wasn't Sith, but, again, I'm not even arguing that he is Sith, I'm arguing that he killed and usurped Snoke and we needed to see him do that, because that's his story.

Edited by alliterator on Jan 31st 2019 at 10:24:44 AM