The Force Awakens vs The Last Jedi

[thwhtGuardian]

It's the same thing as a Marvel film vs a DC film.

TFA was very much a check all boxes, don't do anything controversial, please the crowd, and be very safe.

TLJ was more willing to take risks with the material and push the audience places they weren't comfortable with, some of the pacing was off, and 99% of your enjoyment depended on how well the risks paid off to you. So some people hated it and some people loved it. It's divisive.

I keep seeing this, "taking more risks" description of the Last Jedi...but I just don't see it. It seemed to be just as happy to follow Empire as TFA was to follow a New Hope.

[sunofdarkchild]

Agreed. To be honest, as much as I love TLJ, I still have conflicted feelings about the direction they took Luke. And I feel like if Lucasfilm could go back in time, they'd take a less divisive approach. Because no matter how one feels about TLJ, it's hard to deny that it damaged Star Wars' 'big tent' franchise appeal. There are fans of the OT that feel like they've been disregarded. That's not the best path forward.

They did that just by making these movies in the first place. It was the franchise's biggest fans who kept up with the timeline from the Thrawn trilogy through the New Jedi Order, not the casual movie-goer. And getting rid of all that already caused a big outcry. I get that a movie is a bigger deal than series of books here, but the safest movie possible (like TFA) was always going to piss off a large number of old fans.

[sunofdarkchild]

I keep seeing this, "taking more risks" description of the Last Jedi...but I just don't see it. It seemed to be just as happy to follow Empire as TFA was to follow a New Hope.

Questioning the need for the Jedi in the first place, making Rey an actual nobody, killing the emperor figure and making the darth vader stand-in the big bad of the entire trilogy, and making Luke a grumpy old man who's given up on life are all pretty big risks.

TLJ is basically a mashup of Empire and Jedi with the key scenes turned on their head.

[thwhtGuardian]

Questioning the need for the Jedi in the first place, making Rey an actual nobody, killing the emperor figure and making the darth vader stand-in the big bad of the entire trilogy, and making Luke a grumpy old man who's given up on life are all pretty big risks.

TLJ is basically a mashup of Empire and Jedi with the key scenes turned on their head.

Those aren't real risks. Rey always seemed like a nobody to start with, it was only a small portion of the fanbase that was conditioned to think every character had to be connected to some other character or have a grand destiny who thought she was more than just a girl stranded on a distant world who gets a shot at adventure. Luke being pessimistic was just him taking on the role of Yoda, so nothing new. Snoke was nothing more than a card board cut out so killing him off had no real impact because he had no real presence, and the Revenge of the Sith already trotted out the idea of questioning if the Jedi were really needed so again nothing new.

And the film didn't really turn scenes on their head or break expectations either, it was all played pretty straight out of the handbook being just as safe as TFA.

[sunofdarkchild]

Those aren't real risks. Rey always seemed like a nobody to start with, it was only a small portion of the fanbase that was conditioned to think every character had to be connected to some other character or have a grand destiny who thought she was more than just a girl stranded on a distant world who gets a shot at adventure. Luke being pessimistic was just him taking on the role of Yoda, so nothing new. Snoke was nothing more than a card board cut out so killing him off had no real impact because he had no real presence, and the Revenge of the Sith already trotted out the idea of questioning if the Jedi were really needed so again nothing new.

And the film didn't really turn scenes on their head or break expectations either, it was all played pretty straight out of the handbook being just as safe as TFA.

Most everyone would consider them risks. Especially what they did with Luke. This wasn't a character who was being introduced as a cranky old man, This was the young hero we last saw triumphant. And unlike Yoda, he had given up on everything. Yoda had hope and believed in the Jedi. Luke did not. This is a radical departure from what people were expecting.

Again, with Snoke, he had more of a presence in these 2 movies than Palpatine had in the first 2. Palpatine had no scenes in A New Hope, and 1 scene in Empire, and it wasn't even decided that he would be the big bad or a force user until well after A New Hope came out. Snoke was 'in your face' as the new emperor from the start, so killing him off at this point was a shock to just about everyone.

When building up mysteries, people tend to expect concrete answers. To then be told 'that mystery you've been wracking your brain over for the last 2 years doesn't matter' is a risk no matter how you spin it.

[David Walton]

Yeah, I'd say TLJ is the riskiest of all the SW films. Especially Luke's characterization.

When ESB came out, fans had three years of attachment to the character, versus nearly forty years of baggage (including over twenty-five years of Luke being depicted as a heroic Jedi Knight in the EU books.)

[Scott Taylor]

Luke had one solid heroic moment in the original movies - destroying the Death Star. Other than that he was a reluctant whiny lil twerp. Isolating himself from his friends, milking a space cow, pole-vault fishing, burning a tree, and whining "but I don't want to battle anyone and save the universe now" - all consistent with Luke's character from the original trilogy.

A risk with Luke, to me, would have been having him actually become a true heroic character. Instead they made him consistent with what went before with no character development. Boring!

[thwhtGuardian]

Most everyone would consider them risks. Especially what they did with Luke. This wasn't a character who was being introduced as a cranky old man, This was the young hero we last saw triumphant. And unlike Yoda, he had given up on everything. Yoda had hope and believed in the Jedi. Luke did not. This is a radical departure from what people were expecting.

Again, with Snoke, he had more of a presence in these 2 movies than Palpatine had in the first 2. Palpatine had no scenes in A New Hope, and 1 scene in Empire, and it wasn't even decided that he would be the big bad or a force user until well after A New Hope came out. Snoke was 'in your face' as the new emperor from the start, so killing him off at this point was a shock to just about everyone.

When building up mysteries, people tend to expect concrete answers. To then be told 'that mystery you've been wracking your brain over for the last 2 years doesn't matter' is a risk no matter how you spin it.

I think we have very different definitions of what shock and risk constitutes then. Han's death in the Force Awakens was shocking, he was a character with actual presence in the films, he had real character development and because of that the audience cared for him, so that when he died it had real emotional presence...which is what shock is, an emotional response. In contrast, Snoke was a very thinly veiled copy of the Emperor with no real character development so there was no real reason to care about him or his passing. And the same goes for the Emperor's own demise in Return of the Jedi; he was a character that had no connection with the audience, and that scene isn't powerful because Palpatine dies but rather because it's the culmination of the relationship between Luke and Vader which was something that the audience was invested in.

Now Luke's turn may be a bit riskier, in that it wasn't what the fans necessarily wanted but in the scope of the sequel trilogy aping the original it was a natural fit for him to be the disenchanted Jedi Master hiding out away from the galaxy, and thus predictable. And if you recall Yoda was equally cynical in Empire, it was only through Luke's presence and then with Ben's chiding that he began to see the light at the end of the film and it's the same with Luke, he begins to warm due to Rey's presence and then Yoda finally breaks him out of his funk at the end.

The concrete answer to Rey's parentage was that they were nobodies, it was presented in the Force Awakens and even Abrahms told the fans getting carried away with their own theories that who her parents were was clear in the film and required absolutely no knowledge of Star Wars...and yet even still fans speculated. It was only meant to be a mystery to Rey in her journey as an orphan, which is a classic literary trope. The Oprhan, hoping they are special only to find they are ordinary and then moving beyond it is as tried and true as the farm boy pulling out a mythical sword and leaving home on an epic adventure, so again not new or risky.

[Gray Lensman]

I keep seeing this, "taking more risks" description of the Last Jedi...but I just don't see it. It seemed to be just as happy to follow Empire as TFA was to follow a New Hope.

They took more risks in TLJ, but in the end it was just as much checking boxes as TFA. The difference is that in TLJ they were devoted to subverting the story beats of Empire. Once you figure that out, you can predict nearly every major event in the film.

[Serpico Jones]

The new Disney Star Wars movies feel like corporate fan fiction to me. I can picture Bob Iger screaming behind a giant desk "make these like the first three films since everyone likes those...just make them bigger, longer and more boring".

[Carabas]

The new Disney Star Wars movies feel like corporate fan fiction to me. I can picture Bob Iger screaming behind a giant desk "make these like the first three films since everyone likes those...just make them bigger, longer and more boring".

I can't picture Iger even being involved.

[Sacred Knight]

"Fan fiction" is a term that was run into the ground a long time ago. The term has been overused to the point that its lost all meaning beyond "I didn't like it". Calling disliked stories now fan fiction is tantamount now to calling a writer a hack just for not liking their work.

[WebLurker]

I don't even have a favorite. I like them both for very different reasons.

Fair enough.

I don't think TFA is a carbon copy of ANH by any stretch of the imagination, but tonally it's similar. It feels like a grand swashbuckling adventure with space pirates and wizards. I enjoy them both on that level.

I never got the "remake" argument, to be honest. While there are superficial similarities (like literally all the other movies), the characters' journey's are very different.

TLJ is more difficult to take in. And to a certain extent, it can't be fully taken in until Episode IX. People tend to forget just how ambivalent fans felt about ESB until ROTJ!

Interesting point. Personally, before learning of all the online hate, I was of the opinion that TLJ would be this generation's ESB. Maybe history will vindicate it?

TFA is more impressive as visual spectacle, but TLJ has richer visuals (by which I mean images that convey subtext). And again, I like both approaches!

I can understand that. Personally, I agree that Rian Johnson, like George Lucas, has a better eye for visual storytelling, while I think JJ Abrams is better at making the characters come to life. Now both directors did have good visuals and got good performances out of their casts, but that's what stands out to me.

When ESB came out, fans had three years of attachment to the character, versus nearly forty years of baggage (including over twenty-five years of Luke being depicted as a heroic Jedi Knight in the EU books.)

Funny, but Legends/EU Luke was actually something that made me more willing to embrace TLJ Luke; I knew the Legends version well, and he was the most boring of the major characters in those old novels, because he was the hero who lived up to the legend. In TLJ, seeing him as a man who had failed and has to overcome that, thus becoming worthy of the legend built around him, was a much more engaging story to me.

[SpiderClops]

"Fan fiction" is a term that was run into the ground a long time ago. The term has been overused to the point that its lost all meaning beyond "I didn't like it". Calling disliked stories now fan fiction is tantamount now to calling a writer a hack just for not liking their work.

[David Walton]

I never got the "remake" argument, to be honest. While there are superficial similarities (like literally all the other movies), the characters' journey's are very different.

Agreed.

Interesting point. Personally, before learning of all the online hate, I was of the opinion that TLJ would be this generation's ESB. Maybe history will vindicate it?

I really think TLJ will be vindicated, but I guess a lot of that will be dependent on Episode IX. People view ESB through the lens of the characters' completed journeys in ROTJ. But how would they feel about it if Luke had turned to the Dark Side in the Throne Room sequence? Or if Han had died? If Darth Vader had been lying about being Luke's father? And would audiences still be as impressed by ESB's darker tone if ROTJ's final battle had taken place with Wookies instead of Ewoks, as originally intended?

So the real question going forward is, would fans angry about Luke's character arc in TLJ respond differently to it if he's more like the character they perceive in Episode IX? (Albeit as a Force ghost...) Similar, say, to the way some fans were only okay with the Superior Spider-Man story arc after they knew Peter returned safe and sound.

I can understand that. Personally, I agree that Rian Johnson, like George Lucas, has a better eye for visual storytelling, while I think JJ Abrams is better at making the characters come to life. Now both directors did have good visuals and got good performances out of their casts, but that's what stands out to me.

Oh, I think Abrams is a fantastic visual storyteller. The Kylo/Finn/Rey sequence at the end of TFA is the most gorgeously shot lightsaber battle in the entire franchise IMO. And the way Kylo is slowly consumed by shadow before he kills Han is really well done.

Johnson excels at expressing big philosophical ideas visually, like when Rey reaches trying to understand the living Force or confronts the idea of her parentage in a mirror image. He's also really good at setting up payoffs with visual sleight-of-hand tricks, like the salt on Crait revealing that Luke doesn't have a physical presence. And he's no slouch at visual spectacle. The Throne Room sequence and the battle on Crait are beautiful.

But I do think Abrams gets the edge on plot and expressing characterization clearly. I think some of Johnson's ideas escaped the audience, like Luke actually wanting to get involved. You can read that in Hamill's performance, but some of the audience came away with the impression that Luke wasn't conflicted until later in the film. But Luke was actually torn up about not getting involved the entire time and felt like it took heroic restraint to stay out of the picture.

At any rate, I think both directors are great and a credit to the franchise.

Funny, but Legends/EU Luke was actually something that made me more willing to embrace TLJ Luke; I knew the Legends version well, and he was the most boring of the major characters in those old novels, because he was the hero who lived up to the legend. In TLJ, seeing him as a man who had failed and has to overcome that, thus becoming worthy of the legend built around him, was a much more engaging story to me.

In my head, I still kind of imagine some kind of middle ground between Luke as a superhero and a broken man. I can picture scenarios where he's jaded and cynical but not out of the game.

But it's not really fair to weigh films as they are against imaginary scenarios. TFA and TLJ are worthy additions to the franchise and I love them both, warts and all.