Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi

[Silver Nemesis]

I agree 100% with the sentiments being expressed here.

I sometimes wonder if we're witnessed the beginning of the end of Hollywood as the centre of the US film industry. If we are, it won't happen overnight. It'll be a long, painful drawn-out process. But the signs are there that things are taking a downward turn for the big studios. Box office is continuing to drop. Theatres are losing more and more ground to online streaming services. China is poised to overtake the US as the largest global film market and Hong Kong studios have already begun poaching US talent to leave Hollywood for Asia. The entertainment industry's ideological insularity and increased emphasis on partisan politics are alienating large portions of their target audiences. Meanwhile the big studios are still riding on the coattails of the New Hollywood generation and rehashing every movie concept from the seventies and eighties instead of coming up with fresh ideas for the 21st century.

Movie stars are no longer the box office draw they once were and haven't been for over a decade now. The studios know this and have tried desperately to push certain young actors as the next generation of big stars. But star bankability isn't a reliable factor anymore. Put Robert Downey Jr. in an Iron Man film and it'll rake in the dough, but put him in something like The Judge (2014) and no one goes to see it. It's not the star that sells tickets anymore – it's the character and the universe they inhabit. I believe that's why studios are shifting their emphasis away from individual talent and towards cinematic brands. It's recognisable IPs that count, not original ideas. Hence the recent profusion of cinematic shared universes. Instead of promoting quality cuisine, studios are opting for a fast food business model: stick to a reliable formula and churn out the product as quickly as possible. If we're not careful, we're going to end up like the society depicted in Demolition Man. Only instead of Taco Bell owning all the restaurants, it'll be Disney owning all the film studios.

Sadly Star Wars is becoming a victim of this trend. I remember the good old days when we had to wait three years between Star Wars movies and at least a decade between each trilogy. If the latest Disney SW films are Big Macs, then Lucas' were home cooked meals. Admittedly he didn't always get the ingredients right (when the recipe said add half a teaspoon of Jar Jar, Lucas poured in the entire bottle), but they were his meals to ruin. I've reached the point now where I regard Star Wars as George Lucas' 6-film saga of Anakin Skywalker. Anything else is fan fiction.

There was a decent interval between the LOTR films and The Hobbit trilogy. Putting aside the value of The Hobbit, there wasn't a gigantic rush to make it happen. Now there's an Amazon show coming. But it's an LOTR prequel show of some kind. Nothing else is really on the horizon right now. And there may not be anything new for a while.

Now that the Tolkien estate has new management, it would be all too tempting to do rush jobs on Beren & Luthien, Quenta Silmarillion and all that rest. But it's not happening and there's no real indication that stuff is coming any time soon. I'm fuzzy about the need of even doing an LOTR prequel show, tbh. But that's the only thing on the horizon.

An important ingredient to any saga – and perhaps the most difficult part to execute – is the ending. Stories need closure. It's easy to begin a narrative, but it's much harder to conclude one satisfactorily. Tolkien understood this. Obviously he wrote a wealth of material set within his fictional universe, but he never protracted the timeline beyond its organic lifespan. At one point he started work on a story set during the Fourth Age, but quickly abandoned the concept when he realised it was cynical and unnecessary. He knew the story should end with the conclusion of the Third Age. It's for this reason I respect Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis for the way they handled the Back to the Future series. They toyed with the idea of a fourth film, but ultimately decided against it. They then entangled the rights to the property to make sure no one else could remake or reboot the films without their permission.

Sometimes it is justifiable to revisit old properties. Rocky Balboa (2006) is a good example of this. Sly screwed up Rocky V, so he went back to correct his mistakes and give the series the proper ending it deserved (or so we thought). It was a film worth making. Likewise the recent revival of Twin Peaks felt necessary, since the original show ended on an unresolved cliff-hanger. And of course I'm stoked about the new Cobra Kai series. But these are exceptions to the rule. Most film and TV franchises should be allowed to die once they've run their course. Just look at The Terminator franchise to see what happens when a studio continues milking an IP's cadaver long after its natural death has occurred.

I fear Star Wars is heading for a similar fate. In the next few years we're getting Solo, Abrams' Episode IX, rumoured Obi-Wan and Boba Fett spin offs, Rian Johnson's new trilogy, another series of films from David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, and Jon Favreau's live action TV series. With this in mind, I find myself recalling a comment I saw in December regarding the cynical turn the Star Wars franchise is taking:

"This is what happens when you continue a fairy tale beyond 'And they lived happily ever after...'"

The trailer for the new JP film speaks for itself. An abundance of CGI and no sense of threat. The original film's dinosaurs still look better and the atmosphere is still better. They're just satisfying the need for a new sequel, and eventual trilogy, not that they genuinely have an interesting and bold new story to tell.

Tyrannosaurus rex in 1993:

Tyrannosaurus rex in 2018:

You'd think special effects would improve over a quarter of a century, but somehow they've gotten worse. And you're right about the lack of a new story. Nothing about the trailer indicates a sense of mystery, intrigue or an original plot worth telling. It just looks like more of what we've already seen. Which begs the question, what's the point?

[The Dark Knight]

Bravo, Silver. You've explained the situation perfectly. And that GIF is hilarious.

[thecolorsblend]

I sometimes wonder if we're witnessed the beginning of the end of Hollywood as the centre of the US film industry.

Hollywood's implosion could be a boon. It's strange to consider now but there was a point when Hollywood didn't have a practical regional monopoly on cinema. The rise of Hollywood eliminated other would-be filmmaking communities. Perhaps we'll see challengers rise up?

Lucas himself tried that very thing back in the 80's with his Star Wars bucks. Hollywood was able to shut him out. But I have to wonder what, say, a Chris Nolan or a Robert Rodriguez could achieve if they tried.

Hollywood won't change their ways. Hollywood will always insert certain things into movies and China wants nothing to do with that stuff. You're smart, you know what I'm talking around here. Hollywood will destroy themselves before they change their ways. Maybe some domestic filmmakers can give them a push over the edge?

I've reached the point now where I regard Star Wars as George Lucas' 6-film saga of Anakin Skywalker. Anything else is fan fiction.

I'm past that, myself. "Star Wars" to me means Star Wars '77, Empire and Jedi (as they were seen and heard originally in theaters). If I'm feeling charitable, I might allow both Episode I trailers as well. But that's really it for me.

I read a lot of fan conjecture after Revenge Of The Sith that maybe, just maybe, we don't really need Empire and Jedi. That maybe Star Wars '77 is enough by itself and who needs sequels? I'm not to that point yet. And probably never will be. But I see more people express that view today than ever before.

Fandom shouldn't be an act of self-flagellation. But that's where more and more Star Wars fans are finding themselves these days.

[The Dark Knight]

Ready Player One's trailer gave me the same kind of feeling. I see all these CGI cars zooming around and crashing...and I think to myself, from the days of Raiders of the Lost Ark to this. The film dredges up past glories with tons of cameos and doesn't seem like it has much to offer for the future. It can't help but feel like a huge regression to me, even though the technology they're using in new. It all feels hollow to me, and that's what I find sad. But...SCREW EM.

[The Laughing Fish]

Here are a couple of videos defending Last Jedi. The first talking about the supposed desires of the characters and what they need to do, and the second is, quite frankly, a cop out by using subjectivity as an argument to defend the flaws of the film. I thought I'd share these anyway just in case somebody wants to express their opinion why this analysis has some merit.

He was already losing me when he was trying to justify the pointless Canto Bight subplot. Honestly, Finn's need to become a Rebel already happened in TFA, and here it's just a repetition. And honestly, I can't take anybody seriously if they admire a critic who uses a pseudonym by the name of Film Crit Hulk, who intentionally writes in broken English and cap locks.

[Silver Nemesis]

[The Laughing Fish]

I found this response video dismissing the points made in Just Write's lazy defense over interpreting TLJ. Contains some foul language.

[The Laughing Fish]

Tim Rose, who played Admiral Ackbar, spoke in an interview about his career in the entire Star Wars saga. Not only did he express his disappointment when he discovered his character would be immediately killed off without much fuss, he revealed he was in tears when he was invited to come back to the set for a cheap joke. Suffice to say, he felt very disrespected.

Anyway, I saw this video paying "tribute" to this disappointment of a movie on its one year anniversary.

https://twitter.com/Dataracer117/status/1073871293110312961

[thecolorsblend]

Some days, I wake up and think to myself "This is it. I can't possibly hate Disney Star Wars any more than I possibly do."

Then Fish goes and posts a video of Ackbar recounting the time he was humiliated and insulted on the set of that farce of a movie.

[Catwoman]

More and more, Rian Johnson's "vision" for Star Wars seems less like an actual movie and more like glorified edgelord fan fiction.