Did Abrams and Disney Just Toss The Last Jedi And Rian Under The Bus?

[Ilan Preskovsky]

Actually there was a plan, Rian Johnson just threw it out which made everything look like there wasn't a plan.

There were a lot of convincing theories out there after Force Awakens that Rey was Palpatines Granddaughter. There were some very obvious visual clues like her fighting style that was lifted straight from Palpatine in the prequels.

Hard to dig up old articles about this since searches tend to grab all the stuff written currently but here is a post on reddit where someone lays out the case for Rey being descended from Palpatine back in 2015. This theory was prominent back then with lots of posts and articles written about it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starwarsspe...ror_palpatine/

Except, and this is important, it's not Johnson's fault that the folks at Lucasfilm cared so little about their alleged plan that they allowed him to do whatever he wanted - or at least looks that way, which in this case is pretty much the same thing. On a film as huge as Last Jedi, there's no way the writers and/ or directors can do anything without the approval of the film's producers and money men.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

That scene with Rey throwing the lightsaber and Luke catching it was a direct "screw you" to Johnson. There is no other way to see it.

Or it's Luke, having learned from his mistakes in the Last Jedi stopping his protege from making the same mistake. Depends on how you look at it, I guess.

[AnakinFlair]

Ironically, The infinity War Move has better positive "subvert your expectations" moments. I don't think that subverting expectations is a bad thing it has been going on in storytelling for ever. The "No I am your father" from Vader was an subversion of the audience's expectation and became one of the most iconic scenes in movie history (even if it is misquoted all the time). The problem is doing it for the sake of doing it that is when it becomes an issue. If you sacrifice the story just to have at "twist" then that is just bad story telling... Ryan Johnson is a bad at it.. I've not seen Knives Out but every thing else I've seen that he has done sup par story telling.

First, let me say this- Knives Out was the best movie I've seen all year, and that includes 'Joker' and 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood'. It was a spectacularly fun movie and proved that Rian Johnson should focus more on making those kind of movies rather than Star Wars movies.

And yes, everyone is throwing him under the bus. And it was made explicit in the TROS when Luke caught that lightsaber. JJ obviously hated what Rian did in TLJ and did a hard course correction. That being said, while some of the blame goes to Rian, I would put the bulk of the blame on both JJ and Disney. JJ apparently left no notes and left his story open for the next guy to do whatever he wanted to do, so he really has no right to feel upset by what Rian did. And Disney never thought to put some kind of outline in place to make sure that the (at the time) three directors were able to tell a coherent story.

[Powerboy]

Interesting quotes from a New York Times article, link below. Disney must have nerves off steel to stick by Rian after the beating he takes in this article.

Abrams praised “The Last Jedi” for being “full of surprises and subversion and all sorts of bold choices.”

“On the other hand,” he added, “it’s a bit of a meta approach to the story. I don’t think that people go to ‘Star Wars’ to be told, ‘This doesn’t matter.’”

Even so, Abrams said “The Last Jedi” laid the groundwork for “The Rise of Skywalker” and “a story that I think needed a pendulum swing in one direction in order to swing in the other.”

Yikes. what about Daisy Ridley?

"But when it was announced that Abrams was indeed returning, his actors breathed sighs of relief. “I cried,” Ridley said, explaining that the director brought a comforting sense of structure and security. "

Ouch.

What about Boyega?

Boyega said he was glad that Abrams would get to finish the tale he’d begun in Episode VII. “Even as a normal person in the audience, I wanted to see where that story was going,” Boyega said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/m...jj-abrams.html

It's debatable. He quotes Daisy Ridley. It may be she really liked Abrams and was glad he was returning. But the remark about how she breathed a sigh of relief is the writer of the article interjecting his opinion of what she felt to influence the reader's opinion. It is independent of what she actually said.

What Boyega said is a little more telling because it amounts to him implying that TLJ kind of deviated into a different story and ROS was letting us see more the story Abrams started in TFA.

[Moon Ronin]

First, let me say this- Knives Out was the best movie I've seen all year.

Wouldn't call it the best movie of the year but I've finally seen a Ryan Johnson movie that I like.

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

Except, and this is important, it's not Johnson's fault that the folks at Lucasfilm cared so little about their alleged plan that they allowed him to do whatever he wanted - or at least looks that way, which in this case is pretty much the same thing. On a film as huge as Last Jedi, there's no way the writers and/ or directors can do anything without the approval of the film's producers and money men.

I would say everyone in the production has some blame. J.J. Was executive producer of The Last Jedi and I do think he could've laid a veto for anything he didn't like.

[motherofpearl1]

If there's one thing I find disturbing about this film, it's that it has a subtext that a lot of people won't notice, but will be distressing for a particular part of the audience.

Snoke's relationship with Ben Solo was the closest to child abuse Star Wars could ever get. This is repeatedly pointed out in the comics, and tie in novels. Andy Serkis himself called the character a predator. Ben Solo was also coded as mentally ill in TFA.

As a result a lot of people, real life abuse victims, identified with him. This was why they desperately wanted him saved, and redeemed, whether he ended up with Rey or not.
In The Rise of Skywalker it looks for all the world that Luke and Leia have essentially replaced Ben with Rey, and to a lesser extent Poe. Poe gets to hold vigil with Leia's body, he gets to fly the Falcon.
Meanwhile, Rey gets Anakin and Leia's lightsabres. She gets Anakin's help when she's fighting Palpatine - he never bothered to help his grandson did he?

She inherits the Skywalker name, what's left of Luke's home on Tattooine ( not that it's much of a catch), and the blessings of the Skywalker twins. She even gets Ben's life energy! Yet he isn't mentioned once.
Rey becomes Ben Solo's replacement.
It shows his mother and uncle as uncaring and heartless, willing to forget their broken heir and bestow the name Skywalker on someone more perfect, and therefore worthy.

This is not the message of hope Star Wars was about. Even Darth Vader got a funeral pyre and was mourned by his son.

Ben Solo was completely forgotten.
Rey cried more for his father, whom she knew five minutes, than she did for him.

[ChrisIII]

Yeah, maybe he should've gotten a force ghost along with Luke & Leia...since they were going for a ROTJ thing anyway with that scene, maybe have Ben pop up right after the others with a slight delay like Anakin did.

[Anthony W]

Yeah, maybe he should've gotten a force ghost along with Luke & Leia...since they were going for a ROTJ thing anyway with that scene, maybe have Ben pop up right after the others with a slight delay like Anakin did.

But that would mean he was dead, better leave that door open just in case. You really think Disney is going to kill their most popular character?

[motherofpearl1]

But that would mean he was dead, better leave that door open just in case. You really think Disney is going to kill their most popular character?

They already have.
If they wanted Ben Solo alive they should have put it up there on the screen.

[ChrisIII]

He did the vanishing death, which pretty much equals force ghost. Unless he used some new power called "Force Invisible."

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

He did the vanishing death, which pretty much equals force ghost. Unless he used some new power called "Force Invisible."

Eh I wouldn't put it past them to do that.

[anyajenkins]

If there's one thing I find disturbing about this film, it's that it has a subtext that a lot of people won't notice, but will be distressing for a particular part of the audience.

Snoke's relationship with Ben Solo was the closest to child abuse Star Wars could ever get. This is repeatedly pointed out in the comics, and tie in novels. Andy Serkis himself called the character a predator. Ben Solo was also coded as mentally ill in TFA.

As a result a lot of people, real life abuse victims, identified with him. This was why they desperately wanted him saved, and redeemed, whether he ended up with Rey or not.
In The Rise of Skywalker it looks for all the world that Luke and Leia have essentially replaced Ben with Rey, and to a lesser extent Poe. Poe gets to hold vigil with Leia's body, he gets to fly the Falcon.
Meanwhile, Rey gets Anakin and Leia's lightsabres. She gets Anakin's help when she's fighting Palpatine - he never bothered to help his grandson did he?

She inherits the Skywalker name, what's left of Luke's home on Tattooine ( not that it's much of a catch), and the blessings of the Skywalker twins. She even gets Ben's life energy! Yet he isn't mentioned once.
Rey becomes Ben Solo's replacement.
It shows his mother and uncle as uncaring and heartless, willing to forget their broken heir and bestow the name Skywalker on someone more perfect, and therefore worthy.

This is not the message of hope Star Wars was about. Even Darth Vader got a funeral pyre and was mourned by his son.

Ben Solo was completely forgotten.
Rey cried more for his father, whom she knew five minutes, than she did for him.

I know you didn’t like the movie, but this movie actually made me ‘like’ Ben and believe/want to see him saved. And he was ‘saved’ at the end even if he did ‘die’. After the first two movies, I thought he was just a jerk and didn’t want to see a ‘redemption arc’ of any kind. This movie sold me on it and I wouldn’t even mind if they ended up bringing him back somehow, something I never would have said after last Jedi.

[WebLurker]

I know you didn’t like the movie, but this movie actually made me ‘like’ Ben and believe/want to see him saved. And he was ‘saved’ at the end even if he did ‘die’. After the first two movies, I thought he was just a jerk and didn’t want to see a ‘redemption arc’ of any kind. This movie sold me on it and I wouldn’t even mind if they ended up bringing him back somehow, something I never would have said after last Jedi.

Fair enough. For me, it was well-acted, but I was reminded just how unearned his redemption was in the context of the first two movies, if that makes any sense. (Long story short, I think the first two movies set him up to be irredeemable and TROS just ignored that to have a redemption story for reasons.)

[anyajenkins]

Fair enough. For me, it was well-acted, but I was reminded just how unearned his redemption was in the context of the first two movies, if that makes any sense. (Long story short, I think the first two movies set him up to be irredeemable and TROS just ignored that to have a redemption story for reasons.)

In the context of the first two movies, I would agree, he did seem irredeemable. In the this, the extra fact that the emperor was a ‘voice in his head’ for literally years, added considerable extenuating circumstances. Like Sith induced schizophrenia, lol. That could also explain why ben’s ‘dark side’ freaked out Luke so much, because it was actually palpitine.