• metaStatic@kbin.earth
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    17 hours ago

    The Last Jedi was an amazing deconstruction of Star Wars. I don’t think better execution would have helped it with a fan base that wants to be stuck in the past reliving the hero’s journey ad nauseam but it had a lot more potential than you see on screen.

    • folaht@lemmy.ml
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      16 hours ago

      Disagree. The first two sequels kept making a defeated bad empire stronger and stronger without any explanation. The rebels then suddenly became just 400 to 20 people. A different type of journey would have been welcomed with open arms if clever enough.
      And I think embracing the jedi, but killing the wars aspect, rather than trying to destroy the jedi but keeping the wars it would have been a much better answer to the franchise.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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      11 hours ago

      How Ben and Luke tell the story of how the latter nearly killed his nephew could’ve used better execution/storytelling, that alone would significantly reduce the amount of discussion on how the movie “killed his character”

    • I think I’m really unusual in that I dislike almost everything after IV. I think the first film was brilliant, back when Lucas was fighting for money and had to rely on vision and didn’t have Campbell to advise with. Introducing cutesy characters strictly for marketing, they all lacked the charm of the original.

      I know I’m an exception. Nearly everyone liked V and/or VI more. Everyone dunks on Jar Jar, but I could not stand the Ewoks. It was so disgustingly blatant.

      At the time I was dying for sequels, and when they finally came I was so disappointed. You know, I think I just realized that it was the Vader/Luke connection that sunk it for me. That all of the major characters had to be related somehow made the universe smaller, and more petty. They only got worse after that; I think I watched all of I-III, but I actively hated those.

      Anyway, I think there might have been a path, and I’m no story teller so I couldn’t fix it, but I think the while thing went off the rails after IV.

      Good friends have told me the Mandelorian was good, but “Baby Yoda” represents everything I loathed about the series and I refuse to watch it.

      Anyway, what were you saying about the Hero’s Journey? Maybe I should watch The Last Jedi, because while the Campbell formula worked for the first film, it didn’t improve any of the sequels, so maybe I’d like it. As long as there are no obviously pandering character designs that exist clearly because they can easily be marketed as toys. Looking at you, BB-8.

      • Stepos Venzny@beehaw.org
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        14 hours ago

        There are a bunch of adorable space critters that you’ll think are that when you’re watching the movie, and they certainly were marketed and merchandised like crazy, but they’re actually there due to the unwanted presence of adorable Earth critters during filming. They couldn’t shoot the scenes without including these birds that lived where they were shooting so the solution they came up with was CGI-ing weird faces on them and including some close-ups to make them look deliberate.

    • Skua@kbin.earth
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      17 hours ago

      I’m also pro-TLJ, but I do think it could have done with a few tweaks to the script to catch some stuff. In terms of how it looked and was acted on the moment-to-moment scale they nailed it though, so I’m not sure if that falls under “better execution”

        • Skua@kbin.earth
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          16 hours ago

          True, but I would argue that TLJ actually did substantially better than the Disney and Star Wars averages on the visual front. Not necessarily in terms of the technical execution of the effects since they’re always basically as good as they get for the time in both Disney and Star Wars stuff, but in terms of the composition of shots

      • metaStatic@kbin.earth
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        17 hours ago

        Rian Johnson is a master of deconstructing genres.

        if you went this long without watching it I won’t spoil it but to say the themes are not typical of the rest of the franchise and the fans hated it for that.