Red Letter Media doesn't hate everything for the sake of it. Lots of their critiques are good. Just because your opinion doesn't line up with theirs doesn't mean you should discredit their intentions. Lots of people are just far too sensitive to criticism.

What Rian Johnson did in The Last Jedi is not equivalent to what Lucas did with The Empire Strikes Back. People assume "subverting expectations"—a now meaningless buzz term—is always positive. It's not. Nolan can subvert expectations by featuring a nature documentary in lieu of the second half of Tenet, but that would be stupid. So is killing off Snoke or revealing Rey's parents to be nobodies in the middle of the trilogy when both had received undue hype and time dedicated to them. (If Snoke could be so easily killed, what was the point of even having him in the first place? Kylo could have usurped him at any point.)

Return of the Jedi isn't innocent itself. It's a lazy retread of A New Hope and the twist regarding Leia's siblinghood is goofy. Red Letter Media is right though, this new trilogy is a jumbled mess. Nothing has any consequence: Luke's lightsaber is broken then fixed, Kylo's helmet is broken then fixed, Starkiller Base is destroyed but the power dynamic remains exactly the same, Kylo kills Snoke but suffers no consequences, Rey finds Luke and trains until she can finally lift a couple rocks(?), Leia gets exploded into space and should die but doesn't, Rose directly crashes into Finn to "save" him and neither are harmed. Then you have villains who lose every step of the way like General Hux and Captain Phasma. This is barely a summary of all the ways the new trilogy horridly fails in its story.

It will be an unlikely occurence if The Rise of Skywalker is good and a miracle if it in anyway rectifies its predecessors' missteps.

^ I don’t think these issues are as problematic as you or some not at all but I worry things may become much worse with Terrio co-writing. I still can’t convince myself of that choice.

Lol, Rey's parents are only relevant because people started speculating about them, not because Abrams had any intention of going too much into that aspect of Rey's life. Rian Johnson then decided that they weren't important people at all and the part of the Internet that had been interested in finding out about them lost their minds.

Same thing with Snoke. We've had plenty of one-dimensional villains in Star Wars with little to no depth (Jabba, Boba Fett, Darth Maul, the Trade Federation/Separatists anyone?) if that was their purpose in the story so why was this now all of a sudden a big deal? Because fans are constantly overanalysing, overthinking and theorizing about stuff that is utterly meaningless and that in itself builds up expectations for the film that are so high that the final product could not possibly hope to live up to those expectations. If your anticipations are unrealistically high that is not fair towards the film itself and what it's trying to be and you need to look at the film for what it is rather than what you wished it were inside your own head. That applies to literally anything in this new trilogy of films: from the importance of Phasma to the ramifications of the destruction of Starkiller Base. It's Star Wars, not Berserk.

I don't particularly like or dislike TLJ. It's a mediocre, forgettable corporate product that does B instead of A on a number of occasions and that itself is neither bold nor sacrilegious. At best, my response to that can be summed up as a shrug. I can tell you what I do dislike: when "fans" are lashing out against the very people who gave them something they enjoyed for a very long time because they don't like their creative decisions and are harassing the people who worked on the artistic work. It's just a movie so get over it already.

Batfan175 wrote: ↑

July 16th, 2019, 3:51 am

Lol, Rey's parents are only relevant because people started speculating about them, not because Abrams had any intention of going too much into that aspect of Rey's life. Rian Johnson then decided that they weren't important people at all and the part of the Internet that had been interested in finding out about them lost their minds.

Same thing with Snoke. We've had plenty of one-dimensional villains in Star Wars with little to no depth (Jabba, Boba Fett, Darth Maul, the Trade Federation/Separatists anyone?) if that was their purpose in the story so why was this now all of a sudden a big deal? Because fans are constantly overanalysing, overthinking and theorizing about stuff that is utterly meaningless and that in itself builds up expectations for the film that are so high that the final product could not possibly hope to live up to those expectations. If your anticipations are unrealistically high that is not fair towards the film itself and what it's trying to be and you need to look at the film for what it is rather than what you wished it were inside your own head. That applies to literally anything in this new trilogy of films: from the importance of Phasma to the ramifications of the destruction of Starkiller Base. It's Star Wars, not Berserk.

I don't particularly like or dislike TLJ. It's a mediocre, forgettable corporate product that does B instead of A on a number of occasions and that itself is neither bold nor sacrilegious. At best, my response to that can be summed up as a shrug. I can tell you what I do dislike: when "fans" are lashing out against the very people who gave them something they enjoyed for a very long time because they don't like their creative decisions and are harassing the people who worked on the artistic work. It's just a movie so get over it already.

Why is your opinion about everything always bad?

anikom15 wrote: ↑

July 16th, 2019, 2:56 pm

Batfan175 wrote: ↑

July 16th, 2019, 3:51 am

Lol, Rey's parents are only relevant because people started speculating about them, not because Abrams had any intention of going too much into that aspect of Rey's life. Rian Johnson then decided that they weren't important people at all and the part of the Internet that had been interested in finding out about them lost their minds.

Same thing with Snoke. We've had plenty of one-dimensional villains in Star Wars with little to no depth (Jabba, Boba Fett, Darth Maul, the Trade Federation/Separatists anyone?) if that was their purpose in the story so why was this now all of a sudden a big deal? Because fans are constantly overanalysing, overthinking and theorizing about stuff that is utterly meaningless and that in itself builds up expectations for the film that are so high that the final product could not possibly hope to live up to those expectations. If your anticipations are unrealistically high that is not fair towards the film itself and what it's trying to be and you need to look at the film for what it is rather than what you wished it were inside your own head. That applies to literally anything in this new trilogy of films: from the importance of Phasma to the ramifications of the destruction of Starkiller Base. It's Star Wars, not Berserk.

I don't particularly like or dislike TLJ. It's a mediocre, forgettable corporate product that does B instead of A on a number of occasions and that itself is neither bold nor sacrilegious. At best, my response to that can be summed up as a shrug. I can tell you what I do dislike: when "fans" are lashing out against the very people who gave them something they enjoyed for a very long time because they don't like their creative decisions and are harassing the people who worked on the artistic work. It's just a movie so get over it already.

Why is your opinion about everything always bad?

Pot meet kettle.

anikom15 wrote: ↑

July 16th, 2019, 2:56 pm

Batfan175 wrote: ↑

July 16th, 2019, 3:51 am

Lol, Rey's parents are only relevant because people started speculating about them, not because Abrams had any intention of going too much into that aspect of Rey's life. Rian Johnson then decided that they weren't important people at all and the part of the Internet that had been interested in finding out about them lost their minds.

Same thing with Snoke. We've had plenty of one-dimensional villains in Star Wars with little to no depth (Jabba, Boba Fett, Darth Maul, the Trade Federation/Separatists anyone?) if that was their purpose in the story so why was this now all of a sudden a big deal? Because fans are constantly overanalysing, overthinking and theorizing about stuff that is utterly meaningless and that in itself builds up expectations for the film that are so high that the final product could not possibly hope to live up to those expectations. If your anticipations are unrealistically high that is not fair towards the film itself and what it's trying to be and you need to look at the film for what it is rather than what you wished it were inside your own head. That applies to literally anything in this new trilogy of films: from the importance of Phasma to the ramifications of the destruction of Starkiller Base. It's Star Wars, not Berserk.

I don't particularly like or dislike TLJ. It's a mediocre, forgettable corporate product that does B instead of A on a number of occasions and that itself is neither bold nor sacrilegious. At best, my response to that can be summed up as a shrug. I can tell you what I do dislike: when "fans" are lashing out against the very people who gave them something they enjoyed for a very long time because they don't like their creative decisions and are harassing the people who worked on the artistic work. It's just a movie so get over it already.

Why is your opinion about everything always bad?

This was meant as a defense of both TFA's and TLJ's creative choices. My problem is that the discourse got so out of hand because fanboys got too much time on their hands to make up scenarios about the story in their heads and when they don't get what they want, they throw temper tantrums and try to justify it by saying the writing's bad. I got no problem with Snoke being a mostly useless, flat character because I can recognize that he fulfills a thematic function. I got no problem with Rey's parents being nobodies because it's not what you usually get with orphaned protagonists, since they often are Chosen Ones of some kind due to their lineage or whatever and I'm glad the film made that decision to distinguish itself from the original trilogy. There are a lot of other decisions that didn't work for me though. Sorry if it came across as overly negative.

Ironically, the idea that Star Wars fans have nothing better to do than complain because fan fiction they imagine is better, is imaginary itself. Fans of Star Wars are, believe it or not, not that hard to please; they're the same as any other franchise fans à la those of Marvel who love most of what is put out. But because mainstream critics happen to like the new trilogy, suddenly all fan criticism is somehow irrelevant. Fans of Terminator, Star Wars before the sequels, Alien, Predator, they're all justified in their criticism—oh, but sequel critics must either have a political agenda or making it up. That's totally wrong.

There's a dumptruck worth of garbage in the sequels that doesn't work. It's not just General Hux or Captain Phasma, it's also Kylo Ren, who hasn't won a single fight and only throws tantrums. People like to give shit to Bane for how he dies, saying he's a weak-ish villain, but compared to Kylo Ren, he's unbelievably strong. Because every single new villain failed, they're bringing back Darth Sidious. I could go on a three-hour-long monlogus about the problems—they exist. This trilogy isn't some flawless, contemporary masterpiece. There's a reason that Rogue One is commonly cited to the best of the new entries, it's because it had a solid story to work from. The opposite is also why Solo doesn't work. It's barely has a reason to exist and it has a predictable, pointless story.

All right can we all just chill the fuck out for a minute? There’s a lot of vitriol going around about Star Wars and it’s retarded. It’s fucking retarded. Let’s just go back to the very beginning and talk about one thing: Why Star Wars even exists.

George Lucas made a movie that was the exact opposite in character of just about every other movie in 1977. It wasn’t cerebral. It wasn’t political (overtones do not count!) It wasn’t atheistic. It had a traditional sounding score. It opened up with crawling text straight out of a 1950s serial. THAT IS, it was a throwback, an appeal for an older form of cinema making. George Lucas wanted to make a movie that was fun and action-packed. It has a scene with a gap jump for God’s sake. And what happened? It was a huge success because it had incredible special effects, and it let you enjoy them with fun action and characters and a simple story. It let audiences enjoy the world it created instead of distracting them with complex themes and on-the-nose political statements.

The other five GL movies are exactly the same. Anyone who analyzes these movies and talks about ‘themes’ and what not is missing the point. Yes, the movies are definitely good films in the crafting sense, with themes and what not, but that’s not what made them popular. What made them popular are these things:

1. Good music
2. Lightsabers
3. Force Powers
4. Cool looking characters
5. Memorable sounds
6. Memorable action moments

Maybe there’s other stuff, but that’s the gist, and it shows. When people are saying they don’t like the sequels (particularly TLJ), it’s because they feel it doesn’t match up with the originals in those six points. You can talk all day about subversion and structure and set design and all kinds of things, but that’s missing the point. People don’t go to see Star Wars for provocative social commentary. They go to see cool stuff. TFA was already on shaky ground by borrowing too much off the OT. With TLJ we got even worse designs and heavy-handed social commentary that distracted us from enjoying anything that was good (of which there was nothing).

So when you see someone say TLJ sucked, it’s not because they’re a fucking right-wing moron who can’t understand the beauty of subtle art, but rather it’s simply because they would rather watch literally any other Star Wars movie because they are more entertaining.

nah, it’s cuz they’re a right wing moron

Michaelf2225 wrote: ↑

July 16th, 2019, 8:02 pm

nah, it’s cuz they’re a right wing moron

Lots of people, who dislike The Last Jedi, like The Force Awakens. There's a very small minority on the extreme Right that dislike the new films because they're misogynistic, but that doesn't account for the discrepancies of backlash between each film. Angry Joe is a horrible film critic but is a great example of a casual moviegoer who was disappointed in The Last Jedi. A film with which he had "mixed feelings", unlike with The Force Awakens. He's Puerto Rican and hates Donald Trump, but he must be a "right-wing moron", right?