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

[Anthony W]

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

[Sacred Knight]

Its hard to take it any other way. I mean, they try and be nice about it but the message is the same.

[Anthony W]

Its hard to take it any other way. I mean, they try and be nice about it but the message is the same.

How many years will need to pass before people can use the phrase "subvert your expectations" when discussing movies?

[Moon Ronin]

How many years will need to pass before people can use the phrase "subvert your expectations" when discussing movies?

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.

[AJBopp]

Interesting. Makes my think twice about Buried Alien's suggestion in another thread that there's a threat to to the box office take. I'm not convinced that's the case, but it makes me wonder if Disney might be worried it's the case.

This seems coordinated and well-timed - as in, a PR response to TLJ backlash - limited though it was.

However, it also strikes me that these sorts of comments will only really matter to the relative few that were upset about TLJ to begin with. So there's probably little risk to get marginal gain, so why not?

[BeastieRunner]

I don't really see it that way ... but okay.

It's more of a cushioned carry down to a bed in front a slow-moving bus then.

[Moon Ronin]

I think that Abrams may have been a little upset that Johnson basically made a movie that told people that every thing that was in The Force Awakens "doesn't matter". To me the kicker was with Johnson posted the "Your Snoke theory sucks" and then killed him off with out any to-due.
People went into the last Jedi with everything that Abrams set up in TFA, Who Rey was, Who Snoke was, What was Luke doing all this time? And the answer to each of every single question that we (or at lest I did) went in to TLJ with was literally nothing. Who is Rey? Nobody. Who is Snoke? Don't matter he is dead. What was Luke doing? Nothing. Who are the Knights of Ren? In the longest running Star Wars movie to-date there was no room to put them in.
Yeah If I were Abrams I'd not care to much for a lot of Johnson's choices either.

[Mia]

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

I just saw the film and don't see it that way. For John and Daisy's reactions I think they just like working better with Abrams. I also think they like the fact that they will be working together again. Abrams took concepts that Johnson laid down and fleshed them out or added to them, or briefly explained it. To me throwing Johnson under the bus would just be to totally ignore what happened in the last film.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

So I went and saw the movie today. I had read all the spoilers and was wondering if I should go or not, but then a bunch of friends made the decision for me so we went.

To be honest, I actually enjoyed the movie a great deal. Quite unexpectedly. I'd go so far as to say that this is a movie that works best if you go in knowing the spoilers, because then you can take it for what it is and you can appreciate what it does for the characters. Abrams announcing Palpatine's return way back was a genius stroke since the whole out-of-nowhere-ness of Palps is rubbed out because audiences knew well in advance and they can just accept it on face value when the movie starts.

spoilers:

- To begin with, I don't quite think TROS is a total negation/reversal of TLJ. It is up to a point but the movie does build off some stuff that Rian Johnson did, such as Ben Solo and Rey's force bond and connection, which JJ Abrams uses to a lot of creative ends in terms of translocation of objects and elements from one space to another, and also as a set up for the end-game lightsaber switcheroo. That kind of stuff is a lot of fun to see on a purely conceptual level and visually it's quite a surprise to see fruit and stuff go from a market in Kijima appear in Kylo Ren's personal closet, and Vader's mangled helmet then appear in the market and so on. Luke going to hide in Aach-To and him getting stuck there, and Rey trying to imitate him and so on, is acknowledged and given a pay-off. We even see the porgs. Force Ghosts having powers and so on, also shows up here. - The stuff with Carrie Fisher worked better than expected. I mean obviously some of the seams show. But it's better than otherwise, and thanks to what Abrams did, TROS really does become Leia's movie the way TLJ was Luke's and TFA was Han's. I didn't think it was possible, but that's how it happened. The scene with her funeral is really devastating since you know it's really about Carrie Fisher's death and funeral. - As for Rey Palpatine (which for Spanish speakers, translates as King Palpatine)...thematically this simply works better overall than simply Rey being nobody. It makes Rey into a Star Wars protagonist in the same way that Luke and Anakin were. It makes the story about her, rather than about Kylo. I mean until TRoS, there was an argument that Kylo was the protagonist of the ST...but this movie makes Rey the actual protagonist of her story. Making Rey into a nobody from nowhere was one of those good-ideas-in-theory that simply falls apart when you realize that this deprives Rey from having a real edge and drive in the story, it doesn't allow her to have the special grand context with Anakin and Luke. Rey-the-nobody leaves Kylo as the protagonist of the Skywalker Saga and it deprives the first female trilogy heroine her place at the center of her own goddamn story. - As for the new characters, I have to say Richard E. Grant looks astonishingly like Peter Cushing's Tarkin, far moreso than the CGI Cushing in Rogue One, and I don't know why Abrams simply didn't make him Tarkin's kid. This character is so compelling that it's a damn shame that he didn't show up in the earlier films. Grant oozes the same sinister sociopathic bureaucracy that Tarkin did, but combined here with a personal zealotry to Palpatine. While I don't know if it worked out well for Poe Dameron as a character, I did like Zorii Bliss by Keri Russell, not so much for the character but for her costume design. The costume is really Star Wars-y with a helmet with a Daft-Punk visor, a weird red-pink jacket that's almost Powers Ranges-esque but not quite, and a touch of Captain Cody B-Serials. - What can one say about Ian McDiarmid's Palpatine. This movie cements him as the greatest villain in the Star Wars, and him becoming a Sith God is great. That bit where he unleashes galactic-level Sith Lightning...yeah it's a little more anime and not quite Star Wars but on the other hand it's one of the few times the actual Force abilities affect the battle scenes which otherwise are separate. Palpatine being a total bastard who murders his own children and parasitically leeches off his own grandchild is just a perfect metaphor for patriarchy. Palpatine is truly bottomless as evil. The entire Exegol setting is quite evocative of the rejected plans that Lucas and Kasdan knocked over for Had Abbadon, which was the Fortress World of the Emperor that was going to be the final dungeon of ROTJ but Lucas felt it was too complex and not quite what he wanted. The entire Sith chamber and the scene where Rey almost succumbs to Palpatine to save her friends has a creepy Eyes Wide Shut like cult atmosphere and it's more Lovecraftian and/or Darkseid's Apokolips in atmospherics. - I will agree that Kelly Marie Tran's character was unfairly sidelined. I see no reason why she couldn't have taken Jannah's place in the story. It could well have been her on Endor on a secret mission by the Rebellion and so on. As it is she's fighting by Finn's side alongside Jannah at the end. Anyway, I am happy that JJ had the grace not to kill her at least. - I am glad that Billy Dee Williams' Lando Calrissian shows up as the character he was in ROTJ. He absolutely should have been earlier.

end of spoilers

So mostly I think JJ did bring things home with this. As a third part to a trilogy, it's maybe a better conclusion to its trilogy than ROTJ was to the OT (which is not to say it's better than ROTJ, just that relatively speaking it might be a better conclusion to a trilogy). It's better than The Dark Knight Rises.

As for where it ranks and so on in the Star Wars best-of list, I am not sure yet.

[Agent Z]

spoilers:

- As for Rey Palpatine (which for Spanish speakers, translates as King Palpatine)...thematically this simply works better overall than simply Rey being nobody. It makes Rey into a Star Wars protagonist in the same way that Luke and Anakin were. It makes the story about her, rather than about Kylo. I mean until TRoS, there was an argument that Kylo was the protagonist of the ST...but this movie makes Rey the actual protagonist of her story. Making Rey into a nobody from nowhere was one of those good-ideas-in-theory that simply falls apart when you realize that this deprives Rey from having a real edge and drive in the story, it doesn't allow her to have the special grand context with Anakin and Luke. Rey-the-nobody leaves Kylo as the protagonist of the Skywalker Saga and it deprives the first female trilogy heroine her place at the center of her own goddamn story.

end of spoilers

A counterargument. Not by me but I agree with it strongly. And warning for spoilers.


https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/...9-reys-parents

spoilers:

And frankly, I don't see why Rey has to be like Luke and Anakin. The latter betrayed the Jedi and helped facilitate the rise of the Empire and the former didn't even actually defeat the Emperor. Rey not being related to anyone special meant she was given the opportunity to be a hero on her own terms not because of who she was related to. The idea that Ren was the true protagonist is absurd and only makes sense if you think his blood relation to the Skywalkers makes him important. Something TLJ was deconstructing

end of spoilers

[Revolutionary_Jack]

A counterargument. Not by me but I agree with it strongly. And warning for spoilers.


https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/...9-reys-parents

A nice article. I just think that Star Wars isn't really the place to bring those ideas, make it work, and still be Star Wars, or at least a Star Wars story about the Sith, Jedi and the Skywalkers.

A story about "nobodies being heroes" is better suited to ROGUE ONE. Rogue One is the most democratic of the Star Wars movies. But the major trilogies can't really go there.

If they wanted to make a story about Rey being nobody and so on...they should have set the story about 200 years after ROTJ, feature practically none of the OT outside of holocron recordings and Force Ghosts, and have a conflict that doesn't deal with the Sith or Vader's legacy.

And frankly, I don't see why Rey has to be like Luke and Anakin.

So that she gets to be a major hero with baggage and a dramatic arc.

For a major trilogy dealing with legacy and issues, Rey being an orphan who has a fantasy about being someone important only for that to be something she made up, leaves the following holes:
-- Why does she want to become the Jedi?
-- Why does she want to fight the First Order?
-- Why would she be so insistent on saving Ben Solo, (outside of his awesome swole bod that is)?

Rey is just a cipher in TFA and TLJ. TROS ensures she's not a cipher.

spoilers:

Now Rey has a real reason for wanting to be the Jedi and opposing the First Order. Her reasons for saving Ben Solo also have a more personal dimension in that by saving him she's hoping she doesn't go dark and creates hope that she doesn't fall astray too. Rey becoming a Jedi and so on, is a way for her to cleanse Palpatine's legacy of evil and family shame. I mean this is Greek and Norse stuff. Go back to Oresteia or the Saga of the Volsungs. This is as mythological as it gets.

end of spoilers

The latter betrayed the Jedi and helped facilitate the rise of the Empire and the former didn't even actually defeat the Emperor.

Luke defeated the Emperor by resisting the dark side and refusing to corrupt himself into hatred, even at the risk and price of his own life.

The idea that Ren was the true protagonist is absurd and only makes sense if you think his blood relation to the Skywalkers makes him important.

If you see the ST as the continuation of the OT and the PT which it is...then Kylo would have been the protagonist at the end of TLJ since he was the one driving the story and plot, and it all revolved around the legacy of Darth Vader who George Lucas himself said was the overall series protagonist of the first 6 Star Wars movies.

IF the story was going to have any emotional payoff about that, then it would have had to be Kylo's story at the end of TLJ.

So Abrams pivoted around that and made it about Rey instead.

spoilers:

And the finale where Rey says she is all the Jedi with the voices of all the Jedi including not just Anakin, Obi-Wan and Yoda, but also Mace Windu, Alura, Ahsoka Tano and many others, actually does say that anyone can be a Jedi and that all Jedis are equal. And so on, So it confirms and double downs on the idea of Jedi coming from everywhere. It confirms Anakin's redemption since he doesn't appear as "Force Ghost" or any such thing, but as simply one voice of support among other Jedi

end of spoilers.

[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.