Controversial Opinions (For Everything Other Than DC Comics)

[Joker]

That's fair, they're wildly different stories.

I just never could get in to the way Dick wrote. I like his ideas, but I don't really enjoy reading his books.

[godisawesome]

Alright, here’s one I’m going to intentionally load with some provacative statements to see what reaction it gets.

In spite of Lucasfilm’s marketing campaign, post-release defense, and Rian Johnson’s intentions and commentary...

...The Last Jedi is easily the least progressive, most regressive, and unintentionally racist and sexist Star Wars movie, and a definitive example of how a great writer and director can talk himself into the worst possible storytelling philosophy and decision-making process for a sequel or entry in another franchise.

And to be honest, a lot of that has to do with just ignoring the substance and strengths of The Force Awakens, and ignorantly waltzing into very bad story decisions in a way that epitomizes the unfortunate effects of white male privilege even on well-intentioned creatives. It also wound up being maybe the worst timed of the Sequel Trilogy, especially in regards to the politics around its release and TFA’s release,

The Force Awakens constructed a framework for the story based around Rey as the female action hero and main protagonist, leaving her highly motivated to stand up and fight against the fascist First Order and especially the entitled brat and elitist Kylo Ren after he murdered and maimed her friends and found family after violating her mind in a scene that contains applicability for sexual assault, while her main co-star and male lead was Finn, a black child slave soldier who overcame brainwashing and indoctrination to stand up and fight against oppression based off his discovery of his humanity.

All of that is the strengths of both TFA and the Sequel a Trilogy when first released; and given the 2016 election, a bunch of it seems downright prescient. Kylo Ren is basically the pitch perfect villain for a progressive film series in the time of the Trump presidency and the Me Too movement; he’s basically Stephen Miller on steroids and dark side powers, and the perfect contrast to a pair of great heroes from traditionally disparaged and disenfranchised demographics who we’re experiencing a backlash in a post-2016 world. Finn was an original character concept for the films full of potential, teased the possibility of an interracial relationship where the woman was white for once with Rey, and Rey herself was set-up perfectly to be a female empowerment figure and heir to Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker, regardless of her parentage as long as Luke’s screentime in the next film was about her story, and especially of they gave fans a female Skywalker Jedi as promised by ROTJ almost 30 years ago.

And then TLJ walked in with a crush on Kylo Ren and a pretentious bit of critic-bait writing for Luke that would do nothing but harm Rey’s story and purpose in an almost certainly fatal way, while apathy and disinterest in Finn relegated him to some almost Uncle Tom Foolery levels of condescending writing in a busy work storyline, all while a story with the best intentions involving Poe and a new character named Holdo managed to accidentally insult both Latinos and women by botching its meaning for cheap twists and swerves.

The Last Jedi took the characters from TFA, and decided Rey should start crushing on the Neo-Nazi School Shooter who tried to rape her mind, murdered her father figure and maimed her best friend/found family, decided to mock Finn and laugh at the life threatening injuries of the child slave soldier before portraying him as a small minded coward and having a new character lecture him on child slavery while desperately trying to shove him into a relationship with a non-white girl, because it wanted to move Kylo’s scar and treat his inner turmoil at not being happy as a Neo-Nazi School Shooter as sympathetic and understandable enough that his victim would place her personal safety and hope for the future in his hands, wrote his military leader Holdo as an incompetent commander schizophrenically changing opinions and command decisions depending on what would most surprise the audience instead fo being consistent... and decided a shadow puppet show from a sad old white man would have more positive impact than all the adventures of TFA in inspiring the Galaxy, while acting as though Luke’s man-pain was more dramatically important than billions of dead people.

Now, Johnson is still good enough that people can miss those points in his brilliant direction of a the brilliant Mark Hamill... but the substance of his plot decisions adds up too devaluing Rey and Finn while fawning on Kylo and focusing on Luke at their expense.

TLJ basically had a scorched Earth policy towards Rey and Finn being the leads, and accidentally salted the Earth for its own progressive messages and those of TFA. The Rise of Skywalker didn’t screw up by turning away from some of The Last Jedi’s decisions; it screwed up by honoring the wrong decisions about Kylo, Rey, and Finn, which never really had the potential for the kind of ending LFL wanted after TLJ... which was why they’d brought back Abrams *before* TLJ released when Colin Trevorrow wrote a script that honored TLJ as much as it could while remembering what Kylo was and they fired him for it.

LFL fell in love with a shallow Neo-Nazi villain, in part because Rian Johnson metaphorically neutered the real leads and lavished praise and unearned sympathy upon him.

[batnbreakfast]

Star Wars died for me when I walked out of theatres after Force Awakens. I enjoyed Rogue One as porn that gives me images I like while having a story that doesn't make sense and no characters but I enjoyed it and I am happy for getting Solo. Please Disney stop making theese creatively stillborn trilogies trying too hard to be liked by everyone and give me a cool one and done movie set in Lucas original universe again.

[ed2962]

The Last Jedi was an entertaining movie, but people who want to pretend it's feminist propaganda are fooling themselves ( or rather their audiences).

[jetengine]

Miniature wargaming is superior to Video Gaming in every way.

[Jack Dracula]

Alright, here’s one I’m going to intentionally load with some provacative statements to see what reaction it gets.

In spite of Lucasfilm’s marketing campaign, post-release defense, and Rian Johnson’s intentions and commentary...

...The Last Jedi is easily the least progressive, most regressive, and unintentionally racist and sexist Star Wars movie, and a definitive example of how a great writer and director can talk himself into the worst possible storytelling philosophy and decision-making process for a sequel or entry in another franchise.

And to be honest, a lot of that has to do with just ignoring the substance and strengths of The Force Awakens, and ignorantly waltzing into very bad story decisions in a way that epitomizes the unfortunate effects of white male privilege even on well-intentioned creatives. It also wound up being maybe the worst timed of the Sequel Trilogy, especially in regards to the politics around its release and TFA’s release,

The Force Awakens constructed a framework for the story based around Rey as the female action hero and main protagonist, leaving her highly motivated to stand up and fight against the fascist First Order and especially the entitled brat and elitist Kylo Ren after he murdered and maimed her friends and found family after violating her mind in a scene that contains applicability for sexual assault, while her main co-star and male lead was Finn, a black child slave soldier who overcame brainwashing and indoctrination to stand up and fight against oppression based off his discovery of his humanity.

All of that is the strengths of both TFA and the Sequel a Trilogy when first released; and given the 2016 election, a bunch of it seems downright prescient. Kylo Ren is basically the pitch perfect villain for a progressive film series in the time of the Trump presidency and the Me Too movement; he’s basically Stephen Miller on steroids and dark side powers, and the perfect contrast to a pair of great heroes from traditionally disparaged and disenfranchised demographics who we’re experiencing a backlash in a post-2016 world. Finn was an original character concept for the films full of potential, teased the possibility of an interracial relationship where the woman was white for once with Rey, and Rey herself was set-up perfectly to be a female empowerment figure and heir to Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker, regardless of her parentage as long as Luke’s screentime in the next film was about her story, and especially of they gave fans a female Skywalker Jedi as promised by ROTJ almost 30 years ago.

And then TLJ walked in with a crush on Kylo Ren and a pretentious bit of critic-bait writing for Luke that would do nothing but harm Rey’s story and purpose in an almost certainly fatal way, while apathy and disinterest in Finn relegated him to some almost Uncle Tom Foolery levels of condescending writing in a busy work storyline, all while a story with the best intentions involving Poe and a new character named Holdo managed to accidentally insult both Latinos and women by botching its meaning for cheap twists and swerves.

The Last Jedi took the characters from TFA, and decided Rey should start crushing on the Neo-Nazi School Shooter who tried to rape her mind, murdered her father figure and maimed her best friend/found family, decided to mock Finn and laugh at the life threatening injuries of the child slave soldier before portraying him as a small minded coward and having a new character lecture him on child slavery while desperately trying to shove him into a relationship with a non-white girl, because it wanted to move Kylo’s scar and treat his inner turmoil at not being happy as a Neo-Nazi School Shooter as sympathetic and understandable enough that his victim would place her personal safety and hope for the future in his hands, wrote his military leader Holdo as an incompetent commander schizophrenically changing opinions and command decisions depending on what would most surprise the audience instead fo being consistent... and decided a shadow puppet show from a sad old white man would have more positive impact than all the adventures of TFA in inspiring the Galaxy, while acting as though Luke’s man-pain was more dramatically important than billions of dead people.

Now, Johnson is still good enough that people can miss those points in his brilliant direction of a the brilliant Mark Hamill... but the substance of his plot decisions adds up too devaluing Rey and Finn while fawning on Kylo and focusing on Luke at their expense.

TLJ basically had a scorched Earth policy towards Rey and Finn being the leads, and accidentally salted the Earth for its own progressive messages and those of TFA. The Rise of Skywalker didn’t screw up by turning away from some of The Last Jedi’s decisions; it screwed up by honoring the wrong decisions about Kylo, Rey, and Finn, which never really had the potential for the kind of ending LFL wanted after TLJ... which was why they’d brought back Abrams *before* TLJ released when Colin Trevorrow wrote a script that honored TLJ as much as it could while remembering what Kylo was and they fired him for it.

LFL fell in love with a shallow Neo-Nazi villain, in part because Rian Johnson metaphorically neutered the real leads and lavished praise and unearned sympathy upon him.

I disagree.

[Kuro no Shinigami]

The Last Jedi was the biggest letdown since the Phantom Menace.

[Kirby101]

The Last Jedi was the biggest letdown since the Phantom Menace.

I was much more let down by TROS.

[CaptCleghorn]

Star Wars fans who have never had to deal with anything like the Shatner directed Star Trek V:The Final Frontier are far too spoiled.

[Kirby101]

Star Wars fans who have never had to deal with anything like the Shatner directed Star Trek V:The Final Frontier are far too spoiled.

I recently watched the last hour of this. It actually is not a bad story. It is just terribly directed by Shatner and has the worse FX of any of the ST movies. Thankfully they ended with a high note with VI.

[Joker]

Here's a controversial opinion: Nothing Star Wars related ever made has been worthy of the amount of conversation it has caused.

The one exception is the effects in the original three movies, because those were truly game changing and literally awesome.

[JamesonAnders]

The Last Jedi was the biggest letdown since the Phantom Menace.

There is no real comparison. TLJ was a ridiculous letdown, while TPM fit the universe almost perfectly.

[Kirby101]

There is no real comparison. TLJ was a ridiculous letdown, while TPM fit the universe almost perfectly.

You could write a book (somebody probably has) about all the contradiction the prequels has with the original trilogy. It's like the writer was unfamiliar with the source material. (Yeah I know both are Lucas)

[Joker]

I remember that Lucas pronounced Naboo differently when saying it than it was pronounced in the films. So he might have been unfamiliar with the material.

[JamesonAnders]

You could write a book (somebody probably has) about all the contradiction the prequels has with the original trilogy. It's like the writer was unfamiliar with the source material. (Yeah I know both are Lucas)

The originals were not written with the prequels in mind. That being said, there are no significant contradictions between the two trilogies