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Episode 9 · 2 years ago
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Episode 9 · 2 years ago
Episode 9 - We Actually Had A Debate
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
That will always start a fight. Guys want to fight. Welcome to a special episode of dearly debated, where you're entitled to your opinion, even if it's wrong. It's a day we will actually be having a formal debate, as we have mentioned multiple times. Really, I think we're all debate. Well, okay, formal ish debate. I'll I'll explain how it's going to work in a step. Both wearing basketball shorts. I mean no, you're both wearing suit. You're both wearing Tuxedos with top hats. The big thing no one can prove that it's not work. That's that's not true. So we've mentioned many times. Greg and I on the podcasts are disdaining for the last Jedi, which was a divisive film. And obviously, you know, if you like the last Jedi, that's not a bad thing, but you know, other people don't have to like it. So we may end up, you know, we may have this debate and neither of US change our opinion. You know what? That's okay. Movies are subjective. Art is subjective. So you take one, you have your take. Someone else is there. Take respect their respect their opinion, even if you disagree with how they perceived it. Perception is different from different people. So, but we don't like the last Jedi. Ashtley loves the last Jedi. I do love the last so so we're going to hash it out a little bit today. And just to clarify, I mean the debate. I mean it's obviously not going to be on like whether we like a film or not. It should. It is really pointy, like miner points of God, the the objective values on like critiquing a film. Therefore, so it's so it's like the in conclusion, not being like, oh no, we're not, we're not like you don't like it, and that's not where we're arguing. Okay, okay, we're arguing about like what? What? What did Ashley like that we didn't like? Okay, you know, those are those will be individual topics, part objective parts of the movie that we have different takes on, assuming I see I haven't actually hatched this out with you. That's okay, you and greg have. So it was also a long time ago, really remember it was a little bit broken, like it was kind of like there's also more to light now that there's another movie to talk like. True is it would be a good for us to like. Yeah, good, a good rehab and in a kitchen. It wasn't very formal. There was food being eaten between me, Greg, you were wearing jed I I was also well. I think that means he automatically wins the debate. Eleven from strangers says she definitely deserves some heat it for this, all right. But before we get started, as always, this week in history, maybe for July thirteen and nineteen thirty, the first World Cup takes place in Uruguay. Uruguay beat Argentina to one in the final. FEVILLE was forced to for track the prize and later issue an apology and a real trophy after it turned out the initial prize was a Red Solo Cup filled with molt liquor. One thousand nine hundred and eighty five new coke debuts to great public outcry. The FDC and the FDA issued a joint statement condemning the product, stating coke is Damn Lucky The Hague is busy or we bust their ass for crimes against humanity. COCACOLA withdrew the product in the FDC and FDA retracted their comments in favor of a less profane statement, and happy birthday to Sir Patrick Stewart, best known for traveling back in time for the twenty four century and using his telekinetic powers to help people around the world. I'm pretty sure that's what happened. His favorite beverage is earl great tea, piping hot, and he regularly shaves his head, otherwise he would grow, in the words of Ian mcillan, a truly astounding Afro. So Happy Birthday, pets do I love you birthday, please, please at me. I love you. Pet Patrick stears like a great guy, cool guy, Picard, pretty good, pretty good. Turned eighty today. Yeah, which is did yes, remember when the ice bucket challenge is happening and he and mcguellen range and he sits back in his chair, leans forward, writes a check, puts it down and takes a sip of Scotch because, like, because, like, the whole thing is like, Oh, you have to donate or dump the bucket of ice, and so he's sitting there with a bucket of ice next to me. A kind of looks at it. He just writes a check, takes a sip of Scotch. It's like you're the man yeah, it's fun. All right. So before we jump into our debate, Ash I'm going to ask you the the the two kind of opening questions that we talked about in the very first episode. Go listen to it if you haven't. Just what was your first introduction to Star Wars? And let's try to keep this briefs we can jump into the sure to the debate. But okay, first controduction to Star Wars. I was maybe eight years old. I rented Star Wars from the Public Library and because I come from a I'm the low nerd in a family of rednecks. So neither of my parents are into Star Wars. My sister is not...
...into Star Wars. So I had some friends that were all like star wars was awesome. So I wanted to know what they were talking about. So I borrowed the VHS take from the library and I was are you didn't point to Hans Sol and be like look, he's one of you. No, I did not. I did not. That was lost on me at age eight, very but but now I after that I just plowed through all the available movies, which were just the original trilogy at that time. Okay, and what were your first impressions of the sequels, of the sequels people children. So starting with force awakens. Okay, rogue one and Solo are kind of their own thing. We we're not going to talk about this today? Are we not gonna touch on prequels at all, or we just just pan? But we're focusing on because our debate is focused around the last Jedi. Okay, so sequel trilogy. I was really fortunate when the Force Awakens came out. I was in Grad school at the time. For those of you who don't know, I am a graduate of Signal University, which is a place where you can get it's completely online. You can get a masters in literature and language and there's a several different concentrations, but I chose the imaginative fiction program, which is effectively a masters in science fiction and fantasy. I got to take the very first offering of the force of Star Wars, taught by my professor, Dr Am h Sturgis, who's us. She's been teaching about Star Wars for a quite a while. So amping up to the force awakens, first of all, I would have been completely happy if we never had any more star wars movies. I felt like we had a complete story. But I mean, obviously I'm not upset that we got Horse Star Wars content. Obviously, yeah, I honestly, yeah, I was excited, but I I hadn't been in this boat of like when are they're going to make New Star Wars? Right, right, I was not expecting it to happen at all. So, leading up to the release of the Force Awakens, I got to take an entire master's class, a literal master's class, on Star Wars, which is I think is pretty cool. So we read a lot about the history of the film's we read about how they influence the genre. We also read some of the now D canonized novels. We read the time. There's one of those were really good. They I think there's some interesting theories about why those word canonized. In the main one is that it removes the barrier to entry. Also, there's like the very technical thing of like getting licensing for every sure I understand that, but what if you talked about barrier to entry was there? I mean if you never read the books, it doesn't matter, right. It's just like here's more star wars, the theoretically, but especially with like the air to the empire, which we read the first one in that trilogy, are to the Empire, was for the longest time considered the unofficial, official sequel to the original trilogy. Sure, so there's that and it was we read that. We also read the book that led into the last Jedi, which was the first official Canon novel. It's by Chuck Win Dig and I am blanking on the title, but we all hated it. Yeah, perfectly fair. Sorry, check when I have had the title right here. I can remember. I have. I found the title. Yeah, what is it? Rock, peace, peace, security, justice, great peace and Great Sam my new empire. Anyway, it was this one. That's not the Jedi way. There we go. I don't think that was it. Stall here. Can keep going, keep going, civilized. I remember the name of the aftermath. That was the name of it. Aftermath. I was that meant? Was that meant to bridge from the JEDI AND FORCE AWAKENS? Yes, I forget exactly where it occurs in within the timeline. It says set soon after the events of the return of the Jedi. So set not long after that. But it was not very good and to be fair, to completely, be completely fair to Chuck Whin dig, I read later that the man was given about a month to write the book, which nobody's going to write a good novel if you only give them a month. Sure, way it's going to be bad in that one, right, right, I mean, but apparently the other there was a it was a trilogy of books that he wrote and the other two were better. So, but anyway. So, all that to say, I felt like I got a really cool deep dive into Star Wars before watching the force awakens, and I think that may have influenced my interpretation of the Force Awakens. I think you know something that to kind of counter what you guys said in the in that initial podcast. I think you have to think of the force awakens as both a reboot and a sequel and you have to think about them in that context together. You can't separate it as this is just a sequel or this is just a reboot, because I think you're not going to be happy with either one. I understand why they did what they did and I wasn't too unhappy with with that, although I again, I really think they could have done a little bit of a little more creative than just it's a death star again, right. But really, the what and again I don't hate the force awakens, but I hate that the characters that they set up, which I was like, Oh, I'm excited to see what characters do, had ultimately, now that we're done, had no payoff. No, no, and I totally agree. I totally agree, and I'll touch on that whenever we get to talking about the rise of skywalker. Ultimately, I really loved the Force Awakens. I didn't think I...
...would ever like another star wars movie as much as I liked anything in the original trilogy and I actually really loved the Force Awakens that much. So that was kind of surprising to me. All right, well, let's jump into this debate last Jedi. So here's how it's going to work. You both going to give an opening statement. Obviously that just iterates your stance. So, for instance, if we were talking about cabbage, Ashley would say cabbage is an abomination and should be destroyed and and greig would say bitch is the best food stuff that has ever been made. Really, and and I love it around and being facetious to explain how this works. And so just keep it to one two sentences and then we'll start by one person will make a point than the other person will make a counterpoint. You look, two minutes each, okay, and I will be keeping time and between points I might throw in something or clarification, okay, but we'll try to keep it point counterpoint, and we'll start with Ashley giving a point, Greag giving a counterpoint. Then Greg you'll give a point and actually you'll give a counterpoint, and I have a couple points here for you guys. Just think about. You know, whatever points you guys want to bring up. So just the plot in general, the idea of it as a deconstruction. Hold those plan casino world, I remember the actual name, and to bite rays, training, Luke's thing, snokes thing, the whole relo thing. So any of those major plot points that were really divisive or, you know, even if it wasn't device of any want to bring it up. So just like something that informs why you like it and why you don't like it. And so we do point counterpoint. So let's start with opening statement, Ashley. Okay, so opening statement about the last Jedi. Two main things. I think it is structurally different than any other star wars film to day and I think I think of it as both a deconstruction of star wars and an inversion of the empire strikes back. I also think there are two phrases you can kind of focus on when you think about the last Jedi. One is in terms of deconstruction. This is not going to go the way you think. To the entire film, I think, is themed and Sin Shared on. It's not fighting what we hate, it's saving what we love. Right opening statements on the last general, last Jedi. I think the last Jedi tempted to do a lot of subversion and probably attempted to be a deconstruction of Star Wars, but in my opinion, well, not in my opinion. I think, objectively, did a really, really poor job at trying to accomplish those things and left way too much to the audience to write in those gaps and also failed to exist in an established world that's already there because, like you said, on top of being a reboot, it is in fact a sequel of not just one movie, but exists in the line of several movies that have existed for a long time and has to operate within these boundaries that have been created, and it fails to do that in many ways. All right, so, with the cards on the table. Ashley, your first point. You have two minutes begin. Okay, so I effectively as I watched the last Jedi again this afternoon and I sat down and I basically because I was just so struck and I'm personally moved by the line. That's not fighting what we hate, it stating what we love. I think you can break down, from the beginning of the film to the end of the film, in the in the ways characters try to fight what they hate and then they learn from that and then how certain characters also safe what they love. Like it's this dichotomy of love versus hate. Are you acting in anger versus are you acting in love and out of care and protection for other people? Can you give a specific example in the movie? So to take one from the very beginning, Poe is all about attacking, attacking, attacking. We've got a we got a defeat the first order. He's all about fighting what we hate. He's like, we have this opportunity to to take out a dreadnought in the very first scene and it caught. This desire to fight what he hates causes him to be a bad soldier. If you are in a military setting, you follow orders and that's what you're supposed to do. End of line. And he effectively becomes a bad soldier because he is all about fighting what he hates. I think whole do Oh is a neat counter to that because she and we can discuss the semantics of was hold those sacrifice ultimately necessary, but within the context of the film we are given the impression that this is the only option. So she chooses to sacrifice herself to give the resistance a chance to escape. So for her her intention, even though, yeah, she's taking out a huge ship, it's not about fighting what she hates, it is saving what she loves. She is giving herself in order to create opportunity for the resistance to escape. Great counterpoint. I think it's a really interesting point and obviously hinges on the line given by rows at the end of the movie. Right she says it's not ifidingn't we hate, it's saving what we love. This is really interesting to me just because at the beginning of the movie you have roses sister doing that exact thing, right like she is called out to go and fight and there's this emotional connection that she has with her sister. A little the writing doesn't really give the audience a chance to get in involved with that, because we haven't met either at the characters. But right after that we all will see rose, you know, telling Finn that he's not allowed to leave into the point of shooting him. Right she...
...shoots him and says you're a coward if you're going to try to leave, and this is a resistance, by the way, like like, I'm not sure if this works like normal army, like you're going to be killed if you leave, but it's kind of the theme I'm giving, like I don't know if she's been giving those orders or not, but she kind of plays this role of like no, I'm a soldier and I'm here to fight these people. My sister fought and died for arguably what is good. And then, to counteract your point about Po essentially, although we are made to believe as the audience that what poted was kind of arrogant, he saved everybody because if the dreadnought was there, what do they do? They'd be blasted in a light speed, they get tracked and then the dreadnought destroys all of them. This is the end result. And instead Poe goes out and he drops the dreadnought. He comes back to the ship and is ridiculed for it, and then they're in this high speed chase to which none of these ships now that high speed the yeah, well, that this space is chase right. So obviously like the term that that that rose kind of coins there at the end is definitely interesting. It provokes a lot of thought. I just don't know where it lands. While, I mean even when it was given, I almost felt like I was being trolled because in the background, mean you see them blowing up, presumably all of other friends. We were not know. We doesn't known that people are dead. But you can assume that people died when, like the ship, when the walls behind him explode, when Finn was trying to do what her sister did, which was sacrifice herself to save what she loves, you saving what she loves through self sacrifice, and here isn't in attempting to go and do this and he stopped and therefore people are destroyed and we have RAC men and save the day, like normally happens. But yeah, I don't necessarily think that that translated to a lot of the audience because of the writing. All Right Greg Point. All right, we'll get a lot of points to make. I'll start with one, just because it's very big. It's Luke's assassination just as a character. And what I want to start to say is, let's say, before this whole movie started, if you were just like hey, luke's character just gets assassinated. He's not a cool dude by the end of the movie, people would be upset, obviously, but if you do a good job writing this, you can be upset and say, well, I didn't like it because I really like Luke, but they did a good job telling the story. But instead we get this kind of thrown on us with very, very little like like. So you've gone from Luke Skywalker, who the last time we see him is this episode six. Right, he's one of the biggest examples of hope and cinema history because he takes on one of the greatest villains, the most psychotic, destructive people ever to exist, as Darth vader. He embodies evil and luke doesn't beat him because he's stronger. Look doesn't beat him because he's faster, he's not a better Jedi with a lightsaber. He beats him because he looks at me, says, I have got hope in you, I've got hope that there can be changed. I know you're better than this. And he throws his lightsaber down to the point of self sacrifice and he starts to be killed and it works. Darth vader picks up the emperor and kills him, or so we thought. And suddenly, and and then. So now we've arrived at this Luke Skywalker, who is a hermit. Right, he's not the one who's recklessly helping his friends and ready to self sacrifice for his friends, ready to help the people he loves, even when they're doing evil, like darth vader. And he is hiding. Now we need to know why this is right, like, as an audience, you like? Well, I'm really upset this is happening. Please do a good job at writing out why this happened. And we find out from him that he was training Jedi and he had a dream that his nephew cause some pain and destruction. So for a second he thought about killing him in his sleep. So this is a really extreme position to take for a writer and again, it's not something that I would like as a fan. But if you do a really, really good job, and I mean you got to do a Trere intial job, to make Luke Skywalker the pinnacle of hope, to turn into that and in my opinion, will not. In my opinion, but objectively, they did a really, really poor job developing that character change because it's such a huge change. At all of a sudden he's just bad. It kind of felt like they just needed him to be that way in the movie and so therefore they had to create something in like maybe two minutes of screen time. counterpoint. Okay, so, while I can certainly see how you arrived at that conclusion, I would also ultimately argue that that line of thinking allows no room for Luke to make mistakes. He's still human, he's not Jesus, she's he's going to still make mistakes and there and ultimately make these poor decisions. Now, I think also one of the problems that I think Disney leaned on or or created with the the sequel trilogy, and we've talked about this a little bit, that the there wasn't enough done on the back end for all three films to make a fully cohesive story, and I think they've also leaned on the secondary media to kind of fill in the gaps. And so if you've only watched the film's then yeah, you're there are there are some holes in that story. But if you now, to be fair, I've not read it a lot of the secondary material, like the the novels or comics or anything like that, but those do dive into a little more why Luke is very, very jaded from what I understand. So I think the biggest thing, though, is that your interpretation of Luke does not allow him to grow or change. If I can just interject a comment on...
...that. Sure your comment on secondary material. So I had that feeling between two and three. I feel like Lucas didn't develop darth vader from in from attack of the clones to revenge of the SCITH. Well enough, he has that one moment where he kills all the sand people. That's like the one moment you get of him getting, you know, dark side about it. But then you know, I'm watching clone wars and even in season two you're saying, okay, yeah, he's really struggling with a dark side. That doesn't excuse this, because that was a after the fact and be seven seasons of an eggs of ancilliary TV show which is good, but not acceptable for characterization. Really the only people have kind of gone away with that as marvel right. But even then the stories are selfcontained enough, with the exception of you have to watch if any where before endgame. The stories are selfcontained enough that you can kind of watch one and and enjoy it. But PALPATINE's reveal being in fortnight, what was that about? It's so strange that. Yeah, yeah, I have a I'm running down some questions I'm going to to ask you both at the end. Let me just say that I think I'm on Greg's point. I I didn't actually have too much of a problem with luke being sour. That wasn't I mean, I thought his scenes were not well written, like I didn't like his if the milk thing and the like. What he's even happening? It felt like a lot of time being wasted. But I didn't actually have too much of a problem with character progression. But again, I feel like they didn't didn't actually set it up well enough. All right, so actually point go ahead. All Right, see, I've mostly just written a lot about is not fighting what we hated, Saving Oi love, just because I am personally just really in trance by that line. If I ever get I'm going to get a tattoo of Brill Brienne of tars sword on my left arm. But if I ever, if I, you know, muscle through that one, decide I want another one. It's not fighting what we hate to saving what we love. Is going on the other arm. But if we want to stay with with Luke on that same point, Luke reveals his mistake about he about been Solo, fully admitting, yeah, I screwed up here, but that was it was. It was impulsive. It was an act of being being afraid of what the dark side could be, being afraid of having another darth vader and how horrible that would be if there was another darth vader. So he reacted out of hate and out of fear. And then you know what's the line from Yoda? You know, hate leads to fear or angry. I can't remember what order of operations the time, but it's a great lie. Yeah, hate leads to suffering. So, yeah, Luke created suffering. He admit, fully admits he messed up and because of that mistake he believes that the jed I should end, because he doesn't believe himself to be capable of training up any good Jedi. Ray, on the other hand, chooses to see the light side in been and she pushes him to be better. You know, even you know, you can see them working together in their duel, which is arguably the coolest fight scene in the sequel trilogy, with the Praetorian Guards, and that argument they have afterwards. She's like, you know, joined me, come with me, and he's not willing to do so, but she still she still pushes at him and and believes that he can be better, which are arguably not a lot of other folks have. So counterpoint. Yeah, I guess just that to bounce back on. We're going to stay on the topic of Luke. I think Luke's got plenty of plenty of rooms to make mistakes. But again we're dealing in a movie that is that isn't his movie, right, it's raised movie. I mean this is this is a whole bunch of other people's movie. That, arguably, and again this will be another topic I'm sure we'll get into, don't have much character development or mistakes made at all, and so we have this character has gone through three movies of making mistakes. I mean, I love Luke when he's at his worst, making mistakes in the in the Ot and it seems like he's growing from these things and ultimately he's reached his climax, you know, in in episode six, where he has learned so much that he is now wise and he's doing exactly what rays doing to his father. And so his hold of his whole opinion on Darth vader is now change right, because he had this fear of Darth vader and his changing of his view of being afraid of him and saying you're not evil, I know they're still good in you, and he saves him. The fact that he's like, Oh, I didn't want another darth vader. He defeated Darth vader through his love, and so that just doesn't make a lot of sense to me as a writer. If you're going to make that be you're hinging point on why a character as spiraled into a complete counter character from what he was. I mean, it's not just like a little bit, and I mean and even to think, let's say he made that mistake. I mean what six months, a year later and he goes, you know what, this is something I need to work on. He's already made this character development. We've seen him for three movies, and so now he's made this catastrophic one into which there is no return. Seemingly, if ray had never showed up and been essentially Jesus to him and, you know, not made any mistakes and just said Hey, you know, like these are all the things you're doing wrong, and taught him, it's like, all right, well, we've gotten a lot of Luke being taught. Luke went through all this development. Why is Ray? But well, it shouldn't ray be getting getting developed as a character like I can't latch on to her because I'm not familiar with with people that don't make a whole lot of mistakes like that. I don't resignate with that as much, and I don't think the audience at large resisonates with a character like a Mary sue that doesn't make a whole lot of mistakes. Where you got luke, who is getting redeveloped in the same exact ways. It's not even like they're choosing new...
...topics for him to fail at. Maybe he's a master now and we haven't seen him train people and he fails in a few a training people, but instead it's like, Oh yeah, seven million years ago, I trained somebody and I screwed up and then I gave up on everything, and that just seems to be a really poor way to write the hope most hopeful character ever into the worst, least hopeful character ever. All right, we're in a posse for a second. I have a question for you guys to ponder. I'm going to take we're going to take two minutes to just openly discuss this. Okay, so the very beginning of the movie, right they're attacking the base, they're evacuating and like three star destroyers pop in and they're about to open fire. And what's his bucket? The the guy owned being the traitor in the yest hucks huckst fucks, he's a huckster. Ha hucks Huck, says huckster. Hucks huck. I think it's touch you X. okay, I think it's huts. Huck says, don't fire, wait for the dreadnought. Why would he not? And they never in that entire scene. They never open fire, even when the bombers are coming in, even when the dreadnoughts been blown up. Why does that? Two minutes discuss. Why does that is? Why does Huck's Star Destroyers Never Usen to me? I'm with you. I'm confused as to why they think about that. Bothered me. I never thought about that before. But I also kind of think we have us, don't we have a similar situation with Peter Cushing, forget his character's name, in in the first star wars film episode, for not firing at the escape pod. Oh yeah, that that was a dumb thing too. Also, like we're right before luke blows up the death star, like it's just like one xwing or whatever is, isn't it like kind of dismissive, like in the very same way? And I mean it only means just because I think that entire attack pattern was was talked about at large portions in the movie at strategically why they're going to do it, and there was a whole movie created as to how they even got the plans order to make this plan. Well, are you talking about the trench run, like why they're not firing at the xwings in the trench? Yes, I'm I'm I'm may be conflating. That was something from rogue one. I don't remember it. So so there is there effectively, somebody in in the rebel alliance gets ignored. The Empire makes a poor strategic move. But I kind of think as hucks as the new Peter Cushing. I'm so blanking on his character's name, grandmoff Tarkin. Thank you, sorry, grandma car can never chooses to not fire on on someone so target. Yeah, Tarken's only around for one movie. He's ruth less. There's even a comparison made to wear. If tarkened was hucks and that situation the rebel, how they would have just been annihilated. Thinking, I don't know. So. So in a new hope. The reason that that the x wings can do the trench run is because the they explain it. They say, well, the defense perimeter is designed from larger ships, so smaller ships can sneak in under their giant laser batteries and that's why they have to scramble fighters to take him out. So that they actually did explain that. Yeah, go down, but yeah, that I mean when the when the Escape Pot of Jack's like I hold your fire, there's no one on it, and I think the family guy parody means that, like shouldn't you Wa what do you mean? By the laser. Yeah, exactly, and that's all I could think of. For the hucks thing was okay, you know, you know what the Umpires of Bureau really it's surely terrible. Out The paper in triplicate. He's not allowed to fire his lasers. All right, whose point is it? I think it's Greg's point. Great, fair away. Okay, well, let's change topics here to Ray, who's kind of like the central character in this movie. This like this amongst all the movies, I think all the sequel's aim to do one thing, to aim for visuals. I think Jaj Abrams says it's a lot, but Ryan Johnson to the same thing, where it was mainly about the visual point and like what he wanted to accomplish at the sacrifice of story. And so you have somebody like Ray who, in the beginning in the first movie, We have we have a force awakens. These are the questions that everybody's asking right like it's probably the most talked about things, like how is ray able to do all these things? And again, I was I was amongst that crowd that was like, okay, you know, I like this character, though, like she's got potential, she's kind of cool and they do some really cool things in the last Jedi, like there's a really subtle scene where she's on the planet where Luke is hiding out and she's like touching the rain like she's never seen it, and that's such a cool character development moment because you get the picture that she's grown up on this planet, never been anywhere else. But unfortunately there's hardly anything else done. I mean she goes to this planet where she's supposed to be trained and in in in turn kind of trains herself. We don't really get that explained to us a whole lot. A lot of it is just covered with the force are quotes and it just fills in a lot of the gaps. But we see her time and time again have the opportunity to make mistakes and end up not making them, and really it hinges on her biggest mistake being wanting to find her identity, which is strange to think of as a mistake, like it's not. It's not a character defect. Right. She's trying to find her identity and things and she get kind of gets told like what her identity isn't that weird room of mirrors, which is again also just the force are quotes and ultimately she's like, show me who my parents are, and somehow this force thing tells her pointer to herself, which is an interesting thing at the very least, like a maybe you shouldn't be finding your did any in your parents, but...
...finding you're dating yourself. But it's never really touched on anymore and it gets completely blurred for the next few movies. But I mean second in every single phase of it. I mean I could go on forever, but to touch on one thing, she gets to the battle of the salt planet, she gets in the Millennium Falcon, her first shot ever fired from a ship. I don't know if you guys e we caught this. You know how many tie fighters she yeah, it's the triple shot. She killed three tie fighters with her her first ever shot from it's like, when you create a character like that, you're not worried that she's ever going to get hurt, you're not worried about anything. You can't connect to her because she's not making mistakes and and therefore it's a character this kind of boring, like like there's nothing to connect to, not even just personally, but you're not doing a good enough job writing this character. counterpoint. Okay, so again I think I'll agree with some of what you've said, but I think the ultimate point of Ray's character is to show that the force is for everyone, and Luke actually legitimately says the force is in everything and everyone. You have like in the in the prequel trilogy. You you get the establishment of Midichlorians, which are not mentioned previously in any other context. Ever, how the force works. I hope that is directed towards Medicalloria. It does. Thank you. So you've got I love the the scene at the end of the last Jedi where you've got the the one guy of the little kid who just moves the room into his hand and starts sweeping. It's just one subtle little little thing and it shows that you don't have to be descended from some mystical Midichlorian dynasty in order to be able to use the force. And ultimately, for Ray, I was thinking about the the scene in the cave where you've got the yeah, the snap and the the mirror, where you know she thinks her parents are walking towards her and she ultimately sees run her own reflection. I think the the last Jedi is a great example of show, don't tell in a film because so much of the story is yes, it. It's not as explicit as a lot of other star wars films have been and in what it's trying to do, but I think you get the idea of identity defined by your actions versus your genealogy, and I think that's ultimately where Ray's character lands, except for her daddy is Lord bomber bomber. that as I kind of race that. They don't. Yeah, they don't explain that at all. So, writers, if you ever stopped, just say and suddenly palpatine returned and you get to do whatever the hell you want. Yeah. So, if I can just interject before before you jump on your next point, I actually did think that that theme of the Forces for everyone, I kind of moving away from. You know, it's been this lineage of Anakin and Luke primarily, although you know in the prequels we see all these Jedi and that they just are they kidnapping children like okay, jeer order, the old ordered little sketch. But yeah, right, you ever played Jedich on the Refield Day? No, don't think so. And and that and you know that scene at the very end where the little kids just like, Oh yeah, look me. I used the force to I thought that was a good moment. But the thing is I think that gets if that was Ryan Johnson's main point. He made that point twice in the whole movie. The whole mirror scene was just like it was too could it was too abstract. Right. He need to be a little more obvious about it. But that Harry's it's abstract. First Star Wars film, First Star Wars. We well that that mirror scene is but you know, they the whole your parents are nobody, and the little kid. I was okay with that. I just think Brian Johnson should have leaned on that more and made that the central focus of the story rather than all these little, you know, almost like an anthology of disconnected bits and pieces. That really didn't work. I thought the most the most solid part of the story, even though I have problems with it, was Kylo and raised mirroring of each other and growing closer and I honestly think Ryan didn't go far enough. I'm going to get my opinion on what I think should have happened afterwards. But Ashley Point, okay, I think something that we've kind of danced around in our discussion is what is the nature of how cannon is created in the Star Wars Universe? I think one of what I remember reading after the last Jedi came out was there were a lot of folks that were really upset with Leia suddenly moving herself back into the ship after she's forced out, you know, busted out into space. And and we obviously we can watch the original trilogy and see, yes, Leia is for sensitive and there's you know, we've made the distinction before. Of there's difference between being for sensitive and also being a Jedi. To our knowledge at that point, if we're looking only at that movie, we don't know that late Leiah actually did Jedi training. My thought is this is the nature of the beast. Ultimately, Star Wars has centered around films. You've got the secondary material that expands the universe, adds, you know, basically like fills in the details, whereas the film's give you the broad spectrum. I thought it was completely within reason for Leia to be able to do that, and that's just one example. But I think some people get upset. Well, this not how the forest works. Take your soundboard. Fred, I'm sorry run...
...one. I just wanted to get get y'all thoughts about what what do you think is in the way that new cannon is created? My personal take on it is they have the right to do whatever the hell they want. It does have to make sense. I just think that particular point was was a sticking point for a lot of a lot of guys that Leah could do that and they didn't like it. You say guys is in males. To be perfectly frank, all the people I saw objecting to it on the Internet were dudes. Well, you shouldn't read objections on the Internet that they're being stupid. I know I have I have another. I'll share a story after great kind a point and then I have my two bits to throw in. Okay, so I think you should want your film to make sense, definitely, because otherwise your audience can't connect to it or relate to it, and I think that's probably why you got objections from a whole lot of people on that scene. The fact that lay us for sensitive is definitely something that's that's into day. I mean you have luke literally telling her he's like that power is in you, like straight up, and so it is to be assumed that she might have even done some training, like a hundred percent. And and my qualm with that wasn't that I wasn't excited to see Leah use the force at all. I mean I would have loved to have a powerful scene where something is about to happen and she throws a book with somebody or knocks, like what, uses the force to pull something to her hand or close a door or something pretty extreme to somebody that you to this point, no audience member has any connection with the fact that she can use the force, though. Instead you have her I don't even know what to call it. mean she's covered an ice so clearly she didn't create a force force field. She just used force survive in space, which is pretty is like if Yoda did this. I think you'd have tons of guys and girls saying this is ridiculous, like you can't just create no limits, because then, because there's no point to watching at that point. Then and then you just have to tell yourself you can just you can just say anything at this point is reasonable and you can make anything happen. Right. I think there are really, really cool elements to adding things right. We KYLO REN stopping a bullet. This is something we've never seen. But this is interesting. You know, to lay had pulled this off would have been like this is kind of an interesting new thing that the force can do. It's kind of in that realm I can wrap my head around it. As a fan. We can all watch and be like we've got enough knowledge to this point where we can enjoy this and feel like we know what we're looking at. Surviving in the vacuum of space, in freezing temperature, pulling yourself back, the door opening and everybody not getting sucked out and then you all of a sudden just appearing just because, clearly, Ryan Johnson was like we wanted to get back in the ship. We don't really know how to explain it, but she's back in the ship. Is just lazy writing and it distracts when you're actually watching. I mean everybody in my row of watching this movie, which were guys and girls, were like like, like, like, so confused in the problem with bad movie writing is that when you watch the movies over and over again, these things stick out more and more and you find more things to be like you just didn't you just expected me to just skim right over that and that's just that's lazy writing on their part, but also not not really caring about your viewer at all and just like kind of wanting to get your little subversion and shock people in the moment when it really doesn't stand tall. So I'll just throw in two things. First, I had no problem with Laya being a Jedi because in all in the extended Canon that's no longer cannon. Her kids are Jedis. I II know problem with laying Bey and Jedi. I think the way to reveal that is to just have a poll a Lightsaber, because a lightsaber we know. If you have a lightsaber you're a Jedi, right. So that tells us right away. Oh, she became a Jedi in between then and now. I think that's a you know, using the force could be one thing, but that scene was just so ridiculous, just like, regardless of which character it was, it didn't matter who it was that that and I and the thing is it reversed what could have been a really touching scene with with kylo killing his mom, and I was like, Oh, and that's how the writing carry Fisher up, because she had died before this movie came out, and so then she just floats back to space station, like why would you do that? You had it, you had it out and in like a nice, a touching and and I think that could have been a moment for Kylo to like maybe fly by the body and see her dying and have a change of heart or so you know, you could have turned that into really parallel for character moment, but instead you just kind of Oh, she's out and she's back, and to me it just didn't make sense for them to do that. Yeah, so, so I thought that was a very silly moment that I don't understand. Why it didn't make sense in the context of the whole story. Why that happened made no sense, because she doesn't do anything for Thir. I don't think the problem was the fact that she was the Jedi are for sensitive, or use the force or even did something really, really amazing. I think it's the fact that that just breaks so many established barriers in a universe it's been created and it breaks them in a way that's kind of fundamentally toss your hands up, like okay, but even within the context of the story that Ryan was telling, that moment meant nothing. She comes back and then she's in a coma for the rest of the movie. So she doesn't do anything. So So, other than keeping her alive for the next movie, that's the only purpose of that moment. Anyways, I believe, Greg it's your point. Okay, did you say the whole low thing was going to be touched on, and should we just go for it? Okay, let's just talk about the hold up thing. I know that's another like a hot topic, if you will. Real briefly, when it's to say what I stated before, when...
...you're writing a movie, regardless of whether you like the directions, something is going and you like something you don't like it, you have to do a good job at getting from point a to point B. So we have Admiral Holdo enter this movie as somebody that none of the audience knows. So as an audience member, you're like, Oh, this is an interesting new character, and she's depicted in every single way as as kind of like a like, like, like a bad person, right, like. So she starts in a really immature way, kind of like calling out Finn. She's like, I know who you are here. Were just demoted right, and kind of like walks off and and there's kind of like all this pressure put on Finn, who's are sorry, poem cursion, and Poe is repeatedly not, not trying to take control. He's just saying, and he literally says this, he's like, just tell me we have hope. Just say we have a plan. You don't have to share it with me if you think that I'm a mole, which is a popular theory which fans are writing in for Ryan Johnson, which is silly that it should be evident to a viewer and the audience. This doesn't make any sense, because he's just saying, just tell me that there is a plan, that there is something. And she repeatedly, and the end the movie continues to make her seem more and more like an enemy. So you're perfect. You are pose interacting as the audience, saying Hey, I care about all these people. I just kind of saved everybody a second ago. I know it was reckless. I got demoted for it, but I will do that at the like. I'll sacrifice my position to save people, like can you just tell me what's going on? And repeatedly doesn't, and so he says, okay, this is my plan. He gives her the plan and she says, well, you've bet the odds of the resistance, like you've bet all of our lives on bad odds. Then we find that a little later after she shoots him and says I kind of like that guy, so we know that she also likes him after not sharing anything with him. Takes the ship, turns it around and we have two guests and seconds we have to guess this is really bad odds that she could hit all of these one in a million, one amillion, according to cannon. Now it was a one in amillion chance. So she bet the resistance on bad odds that she could turn around and hit these guys at a one in amillion chance and get everybody out on spaceships. It makes no since at all to leave the audience in the dark and have them really hate this character who turns around. It does something, because you have no emotional connection with that character. It could have been Adam Lac bar and people would have had more emotional connection, because you have to understand your existing in a universe that has established characters, and you've established a character that has now been hated that you don't like as an audience member. No matter what way you cut it, there's no opportunity to like her think her deeds are good until the very end, and then she does something heroic and it's like, even if at that point you can respect it and somehow curve it to where like I was a good idea, you've left the audience no way to enjoy that or interact with that or say, man, that was really beautiful, that was really amazing. You're still kind of like, was I supposed to like that person? Sorry, whatever. Two minutes is quick, man. Yeah, I know, that's the point. Okay, bottle, it's good. Hull. Okay. So a couple of things about hold Oh. Yes, this is our introduction to her. There was also a whole noebook. I have not said so, I know, and this nay, this is stupid. What I find very frustrating because I personally have not read the whole loo book. One of my bodies has and she told me whold Oh is the Luna lovegood of the Star Wars Universe, and that description alone makes me love her too. But Luna lovegood is not a person you want to command, perhaps not, but it doesn't mean that she's not smart and I think you know we are having the the the the question of what does it mean to be a good soldier? She doesn't have to tell Poe a damn thing. Sorry, she doesn't. He's effectively a private at this point. He's been demoted. He doesn't have to know everything. He needs to get back in line and he doesn't understand that. And that doesn't mean that she doesn't like him or that he's not eventually going to be put back, reinstated into his position, but pot hasn't figured out how to be a good soldier. He's effectively figured out how to, you know, do whatever the hell he wants, and it doesn't necessarily add up to making the right call. I think your point about the dreadnought earlier was interesting. I hadn't thought considered it that. You know, yeah, them take. I mean obviously taking out the dreadnought was a good thing, but he was at the same time. He was not following orders, and so you've and I think Leah recognize that. So the point of demoting him was like, Dude, you've got to learn how to follow orders. To this is not going to work. But also, you know he has the line permission to get in a get in an xwing and blow up something and she's like granted, and you know. So obviously she's still likes him. She's not angry at him for destroying the dreadnought. She's up, she is she's being his commands officer and he's not respecting that. If anybody has read the whole doughbook has other background information about hold Oh, please feel free to interject, because I too would like more clarification on her character as well, and I think that was a waste of Laura Dern, Laura dern's amazing yeah, so couple things about hold the maneuver. First of all, while you're right, you're absolutely right, and that she doesn't have to tell Poe her plan, she doesn't tell anyone her plan and I don't understand why there's no reason not to tell people we are going to deposit the ships and then I'm going to turn around and I'm going to do something crazy. Well, or at least hint or lease, say I have a plan. Just trust me. I'm in command. You need to trust me, like I think this is you know, if she tells anyone her...
...play, they're like no, you can't. Yeah, and and button. But again, she's, as you just said, to avoid this. You need to trust me, right, and I understand. Okay, but well here. So I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. If she told Poe, poet say, I have to do because I'm the best pilot, right. So, fine, she doesn't tell Poe, she should have told someone or at least said I have a plan, this is our only shot. You need to trust me and just do what I say. But okay, I'm in command, I'm calling the shots. Do what I say, because you need to put your faith in me. But she just kind of dismisses Poe out of hand, which I think was too strong. The second, the second Poe heard the plan, he said this is this might actually work. And and so it's a really I mean it. Well, it's a horrible call on her side, Rick, no matter what way you cut it, because she at least had enough people that she was commanding that thought she was crazy where they created a mutiny. I mean, that's not very good leading to be like I'm not going to tell anybody, just follow orders, because I told you too. Like that shouldn't be the message. It shouldn't be like look, this is what you should ultimately. Yeah, but, yeah, yeah, the message is blindly fall orders. Even in the military. That's not a great well in the mess. It's in the light of an example where Poe didn't blindly follow orders and he saved everyone. Yeah, but the second thing is, so, why did hold at herself have to be the one doing the maneuver? You would think that makes though. She's like she's yes, commander, like, if I were in her shoes, I would have made it. I get behind that. Okay, here's the biggest problem I have with that maneuver. I think I have talked about this. Where the hell did autopilot go? Well, where the droids? where? Yeah, where are your droids? Why does it you? And this is not this is not a problem with hold on herself. This is a problem with the the entire concept of the hold the maneuver is. Do you not have you? We know they have target computers and autopilots and droids that can fought. Hell, in the prequels you have droid ships, right, so droids can do these sorts of things and if you think about like a flight could be like an actual computer that they have on a real airplane. You can program it to do thing. Like we're talking about more advanced technology, so you should be able to program a computer to do a certain hyperspace jump right and really cool shot. And it really feels like that was set up because they were. It really feels like the visual was that was vitalized and then they put the plot in place to get to execute that. And I feel like they could still have that visual and just have like maybe hold a hits the button in the Gemmisus the version. He's on a pod to you, but develop more about this character instead of introducing her and killing yeah, so that frustrated me because they're like here's this new character and she's interacting with the main cast and then she oh, sorry, she's dead by I think there's also there is a very big discussion within star wars scholarship at large how, like any star Trek has the same discussion around data, like our droids sentient? Do they think? Do they feel that sort of thing? Except for Star Wars has said, and there are multiple lines and across multiple star wars, is that droids do not are not sentient, but than except for Solo it. Then you had, yeah, you have the the bought from Solo. But then that's I would even argue are to bebate and see three peo or all, but they're not considered. They're not considered, and well, that's the right of skywalker. Thing is see Phebius being all emotional. Literally none of the cast responds emotionally to him because they all treat him as though he is just a favorite MC computer. Well, they've also been on like and they're also in total of like one and a half. Yeah, that was weird that it wasn't his actual friends, my friend, and they're like who, sorry, who are you? I've seen you once anyway, you know, with life. So I just wanted that was the point that I meant to make previously about cannon. It canonicity versus continuity. Right, yeah, they can declare whatever can they want because they're in charge house. Some mouse declares it cannon. So if it's cannon, it's cannon, right, but that doesn't mean it is good. It's good for continuity and I think the the the hold of maneuver is Canon. But well, I think ay the whole them. That was a bad example, but you know, some of the stuff is Canon, like, oh, like raping a Palpatine is cannon. But was that good for the continuity? I don't think so. I think that was snoke being a clone of PALP. was everything being controlled by Palpapatine good for the continuity? I don't think so. That's a subject we all agree on. Yeah, the rise of Skywalk. Yeah, so I think it is Ashley's point. Okay, begin. Okay, so some of the stuff that we keep kind of dancing around as well, and I think this is this is going to be a question to think about within the context of the entirety of the star wars films. How Science Fiction E. Like, how hard is the science supposed to be in Star Wars? Because man chlorean's and mean final answer. No, but I'm thinking that this is something that never would have occurred to me because I'm not a science person. I have a master's degree in science fiction, not in that it doesn't work, but when I was an Undergrad, what am my lip professors, we were talking about whether or not star war it was his science fiction fantasy lip class and he was talking about whether or not star wars was as science fiction film or a fantasy film. I had never I was like, obviously it's a science fiction film. It happens in space and but he's like, but we you know, in the very first moment of Star Wars...
...we get a ship and it is making Pew Pew sounds and you can hear it and you can't hear anything in space. There's no air. So some of the the points we were talking about earlier about you know whether or not. Yeah, they open the airlock and obviously people don't go rushing out into space when they do that, except they did initially. So that's the thing. It's a yes, it is. Is You can have the soft side. I'm sorry, I should are a little but but basically, I guess a kind of a question is, how seriously do we really need to take the science in Star Wars versus we take the science pretty seriously in Star Trek at. Star Star Wars, I think, is a different animal because ultimately it is a it's a space opera, it's a fantasy. Yes, there are sciency things, but I mean in within the first three seconds of the film, of the original of the original star wars film, we completely toss all science out the door. When we have pe Pew sounds in space, fair enough, and also gravity on the bombs? Yep, yeah, no, I think that's definitely something that's always it's kind of a point of argument. I think the main answer is it's it. It needs to stay established, like within the university existence. So, for example, we know that in star wars things blow up. That's that's probably not though. It's like, well, it's definitely not the way they happen in space. There's not big explosions like heat and fire can't exist without oxygen. Right now, if, all of the sudden in episode eight, they're like hey, we could shoot this one bomber, it'll blow up and blow up all the other probbers and they said well, no, because there's no explosions in space, this would obviously be a problem because you'd go wait, all of the other star wars that it's not been watching if we blow's and so I would say that the main qualms people have with with science problems and things like that mainly come from, well, this is either been established or at least you're going to have to now explain why. All of these questions, and I think a lot of them like yeah, like the bomb thing at the beginning is kind of comical because she's like sitting in there. There's doesn't look like there's any force feel underneath her. If there is, they didn't explain that. The bombs drop question mark and but that's not a big deal because, I mean you could just say there's some kind of gravitational pull me, they're magnetized and they got pulled down. But there are science questions like like we've never had movement in space be a big question, but now all of a sudden they're like once we run out of gas, we just stopped an idol and it's kind of like all right, like you're you're kind of throwing another wrench in it and there and then now we have bullet drop that we're seeing from the lasers drop in space, which is another thing we haven't really seen. And again I think it's they're sacrificing story for visuals, because it looks very cool to see these long distance shots of lasers drop just behind all these running away ships. But in reality we know that that's not a big thing. And and in the whole, I think one of the biggest problems in why Tlj has such a problem with his dam and get so much backlashes because almost the whole entire story was based off of these scientific premises that they're lighter and faster than we are and therefore we cannot catch them. And you're like, man, that's a pretty weak outline. Like, couldn't you have a million things you could do to fix that? Could you have people lightspeed in front of them? Couldn't you call ships in from the other side? Couldn't you just shoot a laser and it continue forever? Once they run out of gas, why do they stop? There's a huge plot hole. What they've been talking about? Gas when they send Finn to the planet, which I'll get into later, maybe. Yeah, so I think it's definitely soft sci fi and I would argue it's so softly you could spread on your Bagel. But but the thing is. The thing is it doesn't matter how soft the sciences as long as you're internally consistent. And Star Wars it has not been completely self consistent. No, so that and and and some of it led to in the prequels. I think. I think each trick, I think the the the original trilogy and the Prequel trilogy work self consistent within themselves. So the prequel trilogy was consistent with the stuff that the prequel trilogy set up which I think Lucas went a little too far trying to explain everything in his in his goal to expand his universe. Did I think he he over explained things that didn't necessarily need explaining, like Medicalorean's writer and the idea that Anakin is Jesus because he's supposedly I spawned by the many chlorians be the first. I was like Virgin Birth, what Jesus? Why? Really, weird are yeah, yeah, it's so. I think ultimately, many Koreans and people get married. But I think ultimately the Star Wars Universe has not been consistent in its treatment of science. It's yeah, yeah, that creates different problems within the story. Sure, sure, and but I think for the most part star wars is just kind of like stuff works, it breaks, we fix it. It just it kind of you know, all the ancillary stuff goes like way. And she's like well, its was a t onezero fusion generator to use anti amount of particles to who would do? Would do boo anytime you say t onezero automatically terminator and that it's Arnold, Arnold particles. But, but, but, within the movies there's stuff that has, you're not like, wait a minut that's not how any of that works. Until the last Jedi were like that's not how that should work. So I think, and uniquely, the last Jedi has some some selfconsistency issues that that are problematic.
I agree with you. Those were like the only problems, I wouldn't yeah, those I didn't even notice the bullets dropping off over the place. And, like I said, I think it's accented a little more because the kind of like the entire chasing is based around it, and so you kind of have to be like why are we doing this again, and you're like all right, but again, if those are the only problems, I you know, I think I'd be there with you and being like yeah, it's are wars. Okay, we're at an hour. So how many more points you got? I think I only had one other thing. I I think that we should touch on my little one more point each. Yeah, so you're great. One's your point. I guess I'll just I'll touch on a couple of my plate favorite plot holes. There are quite a billion, a lot of them, but we'll get touch on a couple. So thin is shocked to find out, as the audiences and he's acting as the audience here to be to realize that you can be tracked through hyperspace. So they have a hyperspace tracker. He is shocked by this. He says he has a line where he's like, you can track through hyperspace. Moments later he informs Ma all that he mocked the room with the hyperspace tracker and therefore he knows what room to find and locate. This is kind of a big problem either. This is one that I actually caught while I was watching the movie and I was like, this just pulls me so quickly out of the movie. It's obviously a problem, like if you were like a Ryan Johnson, like he didn't have any writers. I feel like this is a big problem and so it's kind of silly to see come through on a huge motion picture. It's upsetting. I think a lot of the fans were upset by that, just because there's continuity errors. Another big one, which takes a little longer to explain, is so they're running from these people and the whole point is that, hey, we can't jump to lightspeed. This is the line that's used. We can't jump to lightspeed because then we'll be out of gas and they can track us and the LEA sitting ducks. Those of its kind of exact line. And so the plan now is to go down to this planet, find this thing, come back, put the macguffin in the whatever, stop the tracking, then go to hyperspace. At the end of the movie, they keep getting updates on the gas and at the end they're like, we're running on fumes. How are you supposed to jump into hyperspace at the end? How is Holdo able to turn around and accelerate into hyper space if you needed if you needed fuel to activate hyperspace, in which you would be a sitting duck, then how are you able to Chug along the whole movie, be running on fumes by the end of the movie, turn around and then use said hyperspace that you've informed the audience takes up the rest of your gas. Now gas is a thing that they chose to establish. I mean, I'm fine with never even hear hearing the word fuel and all of Star Wars, but if you want to establish it to me and say this is a big problem, it's what the whole movie hinges on, and then kind of break the laws of your own creation. It was. It was distracting for me and I think, a lot of fans, where you're like, okay, again, what's the main point of this movie? What's the conflict? Why is it there? The conflict is only there to show these visuals and it's as if there were just not a whole lot of care given and therefore it was just a movie that there wasn't a lot of tension given to the movie in that area, and I don't think attract well, a lot of people counterpoint. Those are things I never considered and I think part of that is because of the point I actually wanted to make is that I think the last Jedi tells an emotional star wars story and for me, whenever I watch any film or read a book or a comic or TV show or whatever, what I focus on is what is this story, what emotions and what thoughts are is this is this story trying to evoke for me? And for me again, I because I am so enamored with the it's not fighting what we hated, saving what we love. And how, even though, yeah, you've got the plot holes that you've mentioned, ultimately you have dicot dichotomies between characters. Some of them are showing this is what happens when you act based on fear or anger or hate, and this is this is what happens when you act on love. Whether or not you like the Indeagram, that's fine, but I'm an eight and don't know what that means. Okay, so one of the characteristics of an eight is that an eight is very protective of their people. So y'all are my brothers. If people mess with you, I'm going to go punch them. Great, was messing with me. Oh well, this is this is going to be a problem. But but I also know in my worst moments I am inclined to act in anger. In that I it's it makes me angry when somebody messes with somebody I love or somebody I love gets hurt, and my knee jerk reaction is, I'm going to go punch you offending party. But on second ultimately I love that line because of what it reminds me to do is that I don't need to act in anger. I need to do I need, I need to act in love, and that means caring for the people in my circle, and I think ultimately that's what the last Jedi does. So Ashley's response whenever someone steps out of line. I think your point was that you shouldn't do that. Right, right, yeah, gonna try not to do that. That was kind of creating a new point. Do I report to that? You want to give her now? Do you want to? Do you want to? I mean you can just take two two more, minister, to exp bound on that point. Yeah, it's your point. Yeah, it was. So, I mean effectively what I was saying. I did not notice those plot holes that you mentioned. And this the science he stuff. Star Star...
Wars is fuzzy on science. I don't care. I think ultimately it doesn't matter that much. But the I think you could really, in a lot of ways, sum up a lot of star wars in with it, with that line too, especially the yodeline from I believe that's empire or it. Don't know. Is that? where? Is that pretty? No, that's that's episode three. Episode Three. Yeah, clearly's the anger anguish that hey for something. Yeah, so at least the suffering, but then again, what else is there? Break into her time. Go ahead. Ultimately you've got you've got that line. That that kind of that line of thinking throughout the whole thread. You know, whether you start with original trilogy or Prequel Trilogy, that that same idea is is still put to the forefront and I think the last Jedi psalms that idea up very, very well. And in the it's not fighting what we hate, it's saving what we love. PUNTERPOINT, yeah, no, honestly, like I love I love that, like I've got a nephew. He's been introduced to Star Wars. It's the greatest thing ever watching with him and he doesn't love the last Jedi. That like what he's likes all of them, but like, like, I think episode like seven is like his favorite. Or No, sorry, episode seven seconds third favorite. He's these rankings all the time. The rent now like like just because I don't think they're great movies. You know, I think in this subjective the fact that I don't like them and somebody else does it still makes me happy. You like that. You can get those things out of it. You know, it makes me. It makes me happy, like I'm so glad that you like that. On the on the objective side of how that story is told within the movie, I obviously I have objections specifically with this one because unfortunately, I think they do a poor job of even that, because you have the character rose, which is, I guess, supposed to be the embodiment of this right, because she brings it to the forefront of saying hey, this is not how we do things. And again I pointed out the beginning at ways that she kind of didn't really district demonstrate that. But she also have this really personal one where she goes back to the planet where she was enslaved at and she destroys everything. I think there is a difference between dismantling slavery versus did she just mental slavery? Anyway? I mean she he certainly mess stuff up for a little bit. I think she probably heard a lot of people, maybe killed some people. I think she released a lot of animals and then there as a bunch of slaves still enslaved, and we got to see that still at the end of the movie and it was confusing just because that was her main purpose. She even said, or it was fin that was like, but that was good, it was good to make him hurt and I was like how is this thematically accurate to what these characters are going through in any way? And she's like it was worth it. So literally getting captured the mission saving people you love, it was worth it just to go out and hurt these people and like. And so it confuses me for me myself lashing onto themes like that to where it's like to hearing somebody that watch that movie and got such good things. It's like, I'm happy and I think that that's great, but I think objectively, as a movie it's not whether like, I like it or I dislike it and you like it. It's like, was it good? I don't think it was very good, just because I don't think it hit home for enough people in that area, for kind of confusing reasons like that, where you're like, well then, what are they doing over there? They could just I don't know, like I think Canto Bite isn't is it's sorry, it's yeah, we didn't really get all right, yeah, okay, Canto Bite. I think it's interesting because without Canto Bite you don't have fin truly joining the resistance because Finn Seas. Yeah, this is actually what we're fighting against. But I think also again, this is you get this deconstruction of Star Wars where Dj all right, it's like pausing the deconstruction, because I actually want you to start from the beginning. Okay, explain how the last Jedi is a deconstruction of Star Wars. Just take look. We'll take five minutes and explain, because I'm not seeing it. This is an open discuss this is like I open it. I just want you, because we're all rights. Debate is over. We'll talk closing statements. Just go through how is. How is the last Jedi deconstruction of Star Wars, because you said that. Okay. So, just from a purely structural standpoint, it's empire in reverse. Okay, you know, they start out they are on the run and at the end of empire they're on the run. You've got big battle in the middle. You've got re trying to figure out her identity mirrors with, you know, Luke Finding out darth vader's is father. You've also got and then, I think you're a big one this. I'm totally blinking on the name of the Salt Planet in not Hof yeah, but but but basically, visually you can conjure up images of Hof well, that was very deliberate. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And so so you've got salt planet versus Ice Planet. So, just from a purely structural standpoint, that was one thing. I mean because when I watch the last Jedi for the first time, it's like it's been a while since I've seen empire. But I think it's empire reverse and and I think you could, you could make that argument pretty well. So, just from a purely structural standpoint, it's empire in reverse. You've got you hit a lot of those same points as well, especially with ray wanting to know where she comes from, Luke Finding out where he comes from, that sort of thing. So I think just structurally it's empire reverse deconstruction. You have the line. This is not going to go the way you think, because, I mean, what is what is? This entire discussion has been you, you guys arguing, well, this isn't how a star wars film works, and I'm arguing it...
...doesn't have to be that way. That's exactly yeah, I don't I don't think that's my argument at all. I don't think my argument is like this isn't this. You shouldn't do such a thing in a star wars film. I would say, but I heard you, sorry, I've heard you repeatedly say Ryan Johnson doesn't know anything about Star Wars? Yes, and I would like like did he has? He explicitly said he doesn't know about he explicitly says I know that. I did not know that. Okay, yeah, so, so I. So I say that not because I looking at this movie saying he knows nothing about star wars, but when you think about it. So here's my here let me give you my hot take, my big hot take. Come on this mom because clearly everything I've said is so. I think. I think Ryan was trying to do a subversion and he very clearly stated I wanted to support people's expectations. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But the thing is, when I look at how he executed them, the execution is just none of them hit for me. None of the hit for me. I think some places, I think a lot for a lot of a lot of them. He didn't go far enough and I think he couldn't go as far as you need it to to make a really, actually good, subversive star wars movie because he had such a surface level knowledge of star wars the whole you know, laser swords and space wizards. That's what a lay person thinks about star wars. That's like, Oh, what is Batman? Batman just a guy. He's a guy who fights crime in his pajamas. Is some rich guy fights crime in his pajamas? Right? So a person who only knows that much about Batman I would not trust to write a subversive Batman Story. So to me, last Jedi here. Let me give you a hot some hot takes about what I think should have happened in last Jedi. There we go. I think first and start that I think you keep a lot of the stuff right. I think the theme of the themes that you've been touching on, I think those are all great. I think the you know, okay, so luke saying this is not going to go the way you think it is, but it's just it's just again, if it's just empire in reverse, that's not actually that's subversive to take an existing moving just flip it. Right, he should in something completely new. Really, what should have happened is again throwing away all the stuff, that all the wasted character potential of Poe not really accomplishing anything. Fin Not really accomplishing anything. You know, very they had. The each had like one minor character moment of growth where they could have had a lot more, ignoring them for now. I think Ryan Kilo actually showed a lot, which of course, was completely raced by rise of Skywalker, which was frustrating. But here's what would have made it truly subversive. Kylo comes back to the light side and ray goes to the dark side. That would have been subversive. But I think the turning point for that I have been subversive because everybody was saying that well, but he didn't do it right, and so so ray. And put this if is ray and Kyla both come really, really close to the center, or maybe they both just say pull a Luke and say we're bandoning all of this, we're throwing it all away and we're going on our journey. But but they never that. Kylo and ray comes so close and then they just snap back at the end, and so all their whole arc ends up resulting in not a whole lot, because kyle like it's really close to light side, really close to lifeside, and they just like all right, we're going to blow up the whole base. And Ray comes really close to dark side, really close to the dark side, and then she's like I'm the last Jedi Woohoo. So I think Ryan builds up a lot of stuff but then just never pays anything off in any meaningful way. So I did you talk about a deconstruction or subversion, but none of the stuff he did was satisfactory in terms of character film and now, of course, right a skywalker again erased all that. Yeah, but I think, I think, I mean you haven't talked a whole lot about the subversion thing, which you know. I don't know if you're intentionally doing that or not, but I'm glad it's because he subverting our expectations about time, a messagers. I think subversion in itself, as as a form of like writing and just telling a story period. It makes no sense. Like like, I think the guy who wrote game of thrones, I'm blanking on his name. To Guys Adie. Are you talking about these books? The books? Yeah, George rr Martin. Yeah, so he has there. It is interview where he somebody asked him a question and about subversion, about something being kind of like like you kind of expect that to happen, and he's like, well, I could also have like aliens come down in the middle of my my story, and that would subvert all of you. But that wouldn't make any sense and it would be it would be like disingenuine to you as a reader, to like you would have had no way to know that. There's no hints to be like Oh, in like like, there's like small, little like they ever seen the book of You lie? I like that. So it's not like that. So about the ending. Want to spoil it now. There's a big character moment at the very very end that completely cast a new light on the entire film and it's really good. But but my whole point in that movie is that there are there are subtle things throughout the whole movie, intentionally done by the director, yeah, to allow the audience a little bit of time to go maybe maybe it's this, maybe it's this, maybe it's this, maybe it's this, and maybe have a few of them that caught on. But either way, by the end you can look back and go, oh, that made so much sense, whereas subversion for the point of subversion doesn't make a whole lot of sense. When you choose to not explain things and in some cases just saying it's Star Wars, anything can happen, because that's actually not how like star wars and operates within its own star wars rules and to throw everything out doesn't give the audience a chance to enjoy anything. Yeah, and I think I think it's unfair to say the people who didn't like it just didn't like the fact that there's expectations were subverted. I'm fine with it again, right, I think. I think, when I mean a lot of the stuff he did could have worked if it had been executed better. Anything I can if you can get it, I think. I mean, I think. I think some of the...
...complaints we've had were like, well, that was just sleeve the lazy writing or or bad storytelling. But I think a lot of the big character moments, all of the stuff that you loved, I think there's their stuff. There's good stuff in the last Jedi, but it just wasn't done by someone who really loved just we talked about Lord of the Rings being a lay of love and I don't think this is true for jj either. I think this is you can see the whole Disney thing, prequels, as flawed as they are. Clearly George Lucas loved what he was doing. Right. You just don't feel that with with with the a sequel children. The theme like so the theme you talk about, which is not not destroying what you hate, but but it's not finding what you hate, it saying what you love. Wouldn't you say that's most embodying episode six, when Luke throws his lightsaber down with a chance to kill the most evil, menacing character ever and it's just love that ultimately saves him? And in which case you look at the last Jedi and you'd say, what is the moment that embodies that? Because would you call it rose knocking fin out of the air? Because I think, I think you have individual moments throughout the film versus one big moment like in the rich return of Jedi? We were some of those individual moments. I think you may have touched on him. I'm sorry for making you repeat. You you're fine. Oh, you know, you want to know something. We haven't talked about snoke. Let's let her talk to her last. That's not good. There are things that I think. Let's get the voice. Think. There are so many things that I think. So I think. Let's see. I think if you want to talk a big moment in which we see in action fighting what we hate versus saving what we love. Kylo wren, blinded by anger and just utter fury at Luke even showing up on the salt planet, is like fire every gun on that man, which is, I mean it is the very definition of over kill. You know, you're blessed. You're taking all of your things that are not eights, that the gorilla walkers and we can call a yeah, can call that ATS. Yeah, M it's called whatever, your walkers. Yeah, all you've got all of these weapons firing on one man, and and even boxes, like don't you think that's a bit excessive? They're like yes, and then the of course, you got Kylo Ren, he's super grumpy, is like yeah, just do it whatever. And so that is the very definition of hate. Fighting with within intent of hatred, versus Luke who, ultimately, his diversion, gives the resistance time to escape. You know, he's a force projection, rushes the shoulder off his his act and even even in every single fight, when when Kilo comes down to fight him one to one, all of his moves are defensive moves. He's dodging, he's moving out of the way, he's not even like raising the lightsaber to hit him. That's saving what we love. I mean, and it's that same principle that you get at the end of the return of the Jedi, where he he turns off his Lightsaberis is, I'm not going to fight you, Father Right. But also, but also the end of episode six. He didn't like dance around around Darth Vader and then kind of wink at him and say well, see you later, man, and then brush your shoulder off and kind of insult him. He was super humble and changed him through his love, whereas him reapproaching Ben who is somebody that he admittedly try down, he gets out there and he is completely arrogant. He's doing this like for the purpose of, I think, for the purpose of making the crowd laugh, because he has a couple moments where he comically swipes his sleeve off right and then dodges him a bunch and then kind of like snickers at him and you're kind of like you're kind of a jerk, like like what is like, yeah, I know what he was doing, right, and for the story it I'd said that's the layer of this is also a diversion for the resistance. Yes, well, that made sense and but my opinion is, like was like it didn't seem like like love right, like he already gave an example of this where he did show love, and a really real way to me, love would have been I'm going to go out there as my actual body form, distract him and then die. I think logistically, there's no way for him to get there at that point. He had a sexwing. True, oh well, it's but yeah, we don't need to worry about no. Did He have gotten there? Yeah, I was just saying thematically it to follow that theme. It just seems like that didn't even hit hit as hard as themes that have already been hit on in Star Wars in the past, that that have that exact same element where it's like, I mean, I didn't necessarily connected to that moment what you're saying. I don't know if a lot of people did. I'm obviously happy that you did. Objectively, though, as a movie, did it good to do a good job explaining that? I'm not too sure. Like he kind of seemed like snickery and and yeah, Dude, she the whole time, but he did allow them to escape. So ultimately, I mean you're right, like it was he ultimately saved what he loved. Although the person that said we're going to save what we love had no idea that they were going to be saved. Presumably they would have all been destroyed behind her. And then she kissed Finn, which makes no sense considering that they did a whole entire movie kind of building tension between him and Ray and him and poem, and who hated Kylo Ren for killing Hans Solo is now kind of feeling hellow wren again. Yeah, Railo was that's a right ship it and you know, different strokes for different folks, but I I don't see it and honestly, and I think part of it...
...is it didn't. Didn't he even say like the the kiss at the end of rise of Skywalker was like friendship kids. Inspector, who is who is physically affectionate? I hug and kiss everybody, but not like that, Mimi. We kiss on the cheek when we say hello and goodbye people. That was not also, I just I think it would have been hilarious. Right he he brings her back to life and then thighs and she brings it and it just goes back and forth. She kisses him back this I have them written in my notes. While watching the first time. I go, I go dot, dot dot, waiting for her to bring him back to life, for him to bring her back to life. Oh, he disappeared, never mind everybody, and then doesn't come back to the force ghost, which boggled my mind anyway, on the sie we even get into force. Now that's something that is really only get details about how that works within the clone wars animated series. Like you get up, you get like touches of it and hints at it. But Yo dimensions at the very end of episode three that Qui Gon found a way to come back as a force ghost. Actually, it's just like you're overexplaining, man. That's that. But snoke, so snoke. I didn't need a lot of backstory from snoke. Well, but here's here's the line. Here's the line that made me angry that he killed him off so quickly. When he has the flashback and Luke explains why he tried to attack, try to detect been, he says, I knew snoke had gotten to him. Mike, okay, now you have to explain snow, because they clearly have been fighting snoke for a long time. He just popped. As far as we know, Force Awakens, is the first time the resistance is ever encountered him. But now you're telling me they've been dealing with this guy for a long time. You got to give me some of a little something about within the realm of okay, yeah, ignoring, ignoring rice, hard to do that. Yeah, ignoring rise of Skywalker, explaining that away, which obviously was not. We're thinking about last yet this is hard to do. Now that rise of star that's what I'm saying. But within the last Jedi, Ryan had no plan for Palpatine come back and stake to me right and publicasing the whole discussion of there was clearly not enough work done on the second behind this trilogy. Like till we can all agree. Yeah, all agree, and and and here's what frustrates me so much about last Jedi is knives out was brilliant. Was a subversion of right. Does I think I could move like Bryan Johnson is a damn good director. So why did last Jedi not work? I think there're a couple reasons. I don't think it's I don't think. I'm not going to say Ryan Johnson couple was complete. The problem a, why would you hire one director to direct Middle Sequel of a movie, of a trilogy, and not the other two be they clearly had no plan of what was happening. They just said you're directing it, you're you're in control and there's no obviously, JJ and Brian had no talk between them. With a blot. Here's what we're planning for the trilogy. Again, this is going to get us into talking about other movies. I'M gonna try to keep it as considering. And and three, Disney really should have hired people who were passionate about Star Wars. Well, again, I don't mind and even somebody coming in and writing something that's very different from the other stars, but they should at least know. I think my Glaurian is very different from other Star Wars and mental wearing his brilliant. And the Mandalorian is the great equalizer. Everybody was exactly because, because that see, that's what you did when you when you take and I think Mandalorian is a great example of being in the universe but doing your own thing. Like it's all star wars stuff that you recognize. And so I'm a little nervous about season two because of saying, well, so Katano's coming in and captain rex is coming in and all these other things from other series. I don't, don't poison the Mandalorian the MANDALORIAN. Let it be its own thing. That's just set in the Star Wars Universe. Trying not to get too off topic. Let's just try to talk about snoke within Tlj. That, within Tlj he did something. It's a bit confusing for a lot of reasons. First, because, and I don't disagree, yeah, and I think it's again, it's hard to talk about Him in light of, like the fact that he was palpatine the whole time, like but anyways, not knowing that at that point, knowing that he is the menacing evil even only got a limited number of antagonists in a world that hasn't been built very well. I mean, I didn't even get into a lot of the where are we at in the universe, like, who is the superpower? You destroyed a few planets. Is The republic completely dead? If the republic's dead, what are the other planets doing? If, right after you made this crazy gesture to blow up innocent planets, your big gun was destroyed, you're telling me all the other star systems aren't? Like, what's going on Tlj just starts off and it's like the resistance rule or like, or the first order don't like rules, I think, is the first like line of it. And you're like how like world building. You got to do all the better job, because now I have no idea. Like who? And again I think this is a situation where Disney is leaning, trying to push people towards a secondary material, and that's it's clearly not worth yeah, it will, but it's not fair to the reviewer. Who is he's just tuning in and going, how do we get? Like you're clearly just kind of wanted to sloping more mining like like. And again that's done to change the movies too much. But like like, episode seven was comically episode four, regardless of whether episode eight was reverse episode five or not. It was. It mirrored episode five in a lot of ways. And then and then then I was episode six. But work and instead of doing the work to write your and in do in doing your own in terms of quality note and in doing in order to do that, you have to do the work of writing yourself to get into the back into those positions, because that's not how you left that fair episode six. The whole universe was different, and instead they're just like...
...things are back to the way they were. Because, and you're like, well, why, like just because, and now. So now we're still in Tlj. Nothing's been solved. You're like, why are they still the superpower? The death star has been destroyed, and then you have snoke, who's the ruler, but he's not like like it. Regardless of whether you hate the prequels, are not, they did flesh out one of the most interesting characters in Star Wars, which is, in for a Palpatine, and you really get a deep dive into how he came into power, because it's such an extreme thing. And instead now we have snow, coup is in power. Question Mark, I guess. And then and also a sith Lord. Question. And he's the one that's doing the force skype calls between the two of them. Yeah, that didn't make any sense. Miss to he he admits to that at the end. So then raised like and then it will end. Then you have a question. It's snow even a reliable narrator. Yeah, and I had was like question about Kylo. Written to. Yeah, was snoke trying? Was snoke just snow quant Kylo or did he want ray? which was it? He it's totally unclear. So did he did he just flip? Thought was like, Oh damn, reight, got it going on. I want her see Kylo Nerdy as white boy, get out of here. Snoke is very Sassy in my mind because, hey, that's the only characterization I got, because he didn't get any. Also, I just had an epiphany, guys. I just realized what happened. The sequel trilogy is Disney's live action remakes of the original trilogy. It all blinds up. What if this was true? They all did. It's just this is this huge allegory of the original. But something that I find to be hilarious is that is that Kylo Ren is idolizing darth vader this whole time. Right, I never understood that, because who quainted? At the end, the emperor came back as a forced ghost of himself. Where is his force? Ghost popping up me, like, dude, that's no right. Why is his force? Well, maybe it's because you started, grandfather. Wait, you mean to join the empires old, but he says, I finish what you started, grandfather. What you mean just dismantling the empire like so continuing to kill people like like and then finish what you then remind I guess it's because the to one. The reason is keeping. If he if he emilates darth vader, he gets a cool helmet. If you ever emulates emperor palpatine's gotta put old person makeup on it. It was it. Yeah, I mean it's no, I think we can, or slightly some. Yeah, it was so Hich, letting some wrinkles into his face. Yeah, but yeah, I don't think we can go any further out getting into that. It's yeah, so we let's let's wrap this up and we will continue, maybe not next week, but on a later day. Will jump into rise of skywalker and look, look at rise of Skywalkery, and we'll all agree that they're dead us of the merits of the individual films, that the trilogy as a whole is just a mess, a hot mess or a hot mess. BRACKLE, you've got nothing to lose, but I've already lost my temper. Sorry, don't Romeo, Chromeo, I'M gonna play us out with that. Okay, that's good, because I don't know what that is. Chromeos like a techno punk, technopop band, actually really really good. I figured that sounded so let's do real quick closing statement and we'll start. Since we start with Ashley, I'll start with Greg rosing. Stay. Closing Statement on the last Jedi. Yeah, on a subjective personal level, I obviously don't like the last Jedi. On a subjective level I like that people can like it and find really, really interesting and cool and fun themes that the movie was clearly trying to do. On an objective level, I can't get back behind the fact that it's a good movie. I think it's a very bad movie for the reasons that I said in this debate. But again, I enjoy talking about it on both levels. I enjoy having a conversation with somebody where it's I like this movie, I don't like this movie. Let's talk about why we like it might we don't like it, as opposed to I think this is a good movie, I don't think this is a good movie. Let's have like a formal debate up. I like on both of those fronts and I think that we land on different sides of this. But I really enjoyed hearing why you liked the Tlj as well as some of the defenses on on the objective value of the movie. So yeah, and I think I'm going to say something similar. I will make the very hot take statement of this is my favorite star wars movie, and I think it is my favorite star wars movie because of how it makes me feel and how it makes me react on an emotional level. While I you know, obviously I have wonderful nostalgic memories of running around with a rat wrapping paper Tube and bonking my sister on the head because that was that was my lightsaber as a child, a lightsabers, right. Yeah, absolutely. You always had to bit like we need Rapp as many presents as possible, right. So, so, while I have nostalgic memories of the original trilogy, I have nostalgic memories even of the Prequel trilogy, because I was thirteen when the episode one came out. Yes, so I was still pretty young when those came out and had and watched a lot of movies at that point. So, you know, I didn't recognize the problems. I was just like, Oh yeah, more star Wars Halla for me, I think the emotional impact that I get from the last Jedi is greater than any of the other star wars films and that's why it's my favorite. I'll also kind of echo what Greg said. This is this particular film is my star wars and but it's not somebody else's...
...star wars, and that's fine. I think he can make the same argument with a lot of these other big franchises that have had generational gaps in their content, like star Trek. I think a particularly about my friend's daughter WHO's about five or six and she watches star wars and she's like I love way she is so brave and beautiful and and like, I think one that's adorable too. I remember being a little girl and being in feeling really lonely because I knew no other girls that loved Star Wars at all. It was I was twelve when I made a friend that was a girl that like star wars too and liked it as much as I did. For me, like I my favorite thing about this sequel trilogy is Halloween Two Thousand and fifteen. All of my friends little girls are they're all general Leia, their Princess Leia, their ray there, you know, all of these new star wars ladies. I was like wow, like if I ever have a little girl she's never going to know what it's like to grow up and be the only girl in the room when it comes to nerd stuff, and I that makes me incredibly happy. And so I think we wouldn't have that without the last Jedi is the world story. So I again one of the most biggest frustrations, which continued into raises Skywalker, which will definitely talk about when we get that discussion. Was that the last? Yet I just didn't pay off any of the character stuff that I was hoping would happen from force awakens. I was like, here, you just use all these interesting characters. You Got Ray, you got finn, you got Poe. I really want to see how these characters developed and like take on their own thing, and that I just feel like that just didn't get paid off, especially especially Finn and Poe, especially Finn and Poe. I think there was some interesting stuff that just really fell flat for me. And again, where it comes in this trilogy, this whole children that's just fleet and incoherent mess, makes it worse for me. It was when I saw it, I enjoyed it and the more I thought about it the more I was like weak, that didn't make sense. Wait, that didn't make sense. Wait, why did this happen? Why would you do that? And so I just got anger and angry until I was like, okay, I don't I I've officially moved from I enjoyed that movie too. I actually don't enjoy this movie anymore, even though it had some really cool moments, even though it has some really interesting things, but I think that the idea that, hey, even if you could, okay, let's let's just say, for for sake of argument, that last Jedi is objectively the worst star wars movie ever. The fact that you have that emotional attachment to it makes it the best star wars movie ever, and I think that's one of the wonderful things about film art in general, I mean, yeah, are in general, is that art can move you emotionally, so, even if so so when you're talking to someone like I don't understand how they could like something that's so bad. Listen, Buddy, get over yourself. But I do think there's one thing that happened last Jedi that you can't defend. Okay, Ryan Straight ICED PHASMA. She didn't get to do anything. I was so disappointed. Well, you know what. To be fair, JJ I didn't give her a fair shake. U No JJ didn't either. Know Phasma Got Boba Fett. It's so hard and I was so excited for her. It why, I don't understand why. You write Gwendolyn F and Christie a check. Who is your has a pay this? Yeah, to do nothing, literally nothing. Part is it could have I don't want to break anything. It could have not even been gwendoline Christie will never know because it was originally supposed to been in a commerbatch, like dude sausage best. We need more ladies and so let's add fastma and then they had her do nothing, like actress. Really guys, really cool potential character. Let's just hope that we get a fast of the series, because I had Alorian's paying off all our all our buzz novel is really, really good. It's a it's a you find out how fast became fast move, which is which is really cool. That's it's like Star Wars Meets Mad Max Fury Road, which is awesome. So I won't watch that movie. It's I know it'd be a really cool movie. The Kelly Thompson's Phasma short series in the comics is pretty good. I've read that to you. Get you, you find out how fast my got out of the trash comes actor, basically the Dec I've killed them the screening in pace. Yeah, but but, yeah, and that's like. That's not just this movie or the ging movie. Ours has a habit of building up some really cool characters and then just being like doing, we don't have time for them. Yeah, it's over fat, it's frustrated asthma, but but hey, Botha it might actually get his chance now in Mando season two, and will fast we get her chance again the ancilarious stuff. I'm not counting that, although a mandalorian and silly hard to take that Mandalorian's gonna start going down. How No, I'm I don't want it to. Here's why I'm hopefully, because I'm hopeful for Mando. It's because it's in the hands of people who love Star Wars Right, true, it did, and who have said we're open to what fans are saying, like we're open to feedback from fans. Well, I guess. I think it would say you need to be open to feed yeah, but you didn't say it, and your absolutely the right, skywalker. It was a laundry list of here all the things family was got grumpy about. I don't think any fan boys wanted palpatine to come back. I don't know, I don't.
I don't know if you you think that people were very happy about it, but nobody like that. And that's the point. Is like here all the things you're grumpy about, we're going to give them to you. Yeah, actually, that sucked, so let's do something different again. If yeah, well, family don't know what they want until until you get it. Yeah, yeah, and they're like no, I had that's not what I wanted. As like no, that's exactly didn't want them to have happened in the first place, just fixing them the way he did. At the end of the day, what we want is a good story well told right, and I don't think any of the sequel movies ultimately hit really truly hit that mark of a good story well told. I think they're they're all, they're all. It's funny, it's all uniquely flawed in their own way. The men had wished that they just weren't star wars movies, like if it was just like a story about space travel like Tlj, could have been really interesting and evoked all those emotions and I probably could have enjoyed it in but the fact that it was like you're kind of crossing all these lines that have already been drawn, like you've got it. You got to operate within that. You've got to hopefully tell this coherent story across several movies to our characters arcs makes sense and like you're you're using characters that we can relate to over several movies, as opposed to like introduce a character, kill them off and it like he almost like he just wanted his own stuff, like he introduces rose, he introduces whole though, and it's like nobody knows these characters. Like it's hard to connect to, not because I'm a guy in there girl, but it's hard to connect all through. The straight up killed hold oh so right and again and always got sidelined in right rose, you real rose gut killed. How much do it? And that's the thing that's like we don't know. I mean, obviously there was clearly not enough done on the back end for this entire trilogy of movies, but how much of this is the directors kind of pushing these different characters or writing these different characters? Like I mean what's kind of the writers. So I don't know about I don't know about the JJ ones, but I know that Ryan was very hands on for the writing of last Jedi. But so and then they're like what, didn't know what did make sense to me. Now this is this is going to be a backhanded compliment. I don't understand why. After the backlash that led last Jedi, I got didney was like, okay, he's getting his own trilogy. However, I will say after I watching knives out, I'm actually kind of excited for Ryan to do is on trilogy where I he there's nothing for him to spoil. There really just yeahs like the coherent. Yeah, and I think the other challenge that you're running into is, like you are you, you are writing within the skywalker saga. Yeah, now I'm glad that that's over. Yes, yes, I like. There's there's a certain amount where there's certain degree to where nothing is going to make one hundred percent of people happy at any Poh, I agree, I agree. I just I think JJ stayed way too safe and Ryan, Ryan tried to support something he didn't understand. I think those, ultimately, those are the big flaws of the big pitfalls for both of those directors is that Ryan didn't have a good enough grasp on our wars, the the Star Wars Universe to make a completely coherent film, and Jj tried to pander too much, and so and they both fall flat on different for different reasons, even though I think there's a lot of good stuff in them. I think there's a lot of interesting character moments and interesting things that happen. It's just realistically I think they even if you're going to switch to Ryan as the second director, you should have had them sit down and say here's what here's what we're here's our arc, this is what we want to happen. How it happens maybe doesn't matter so much, but at the end of the day characters start here and and here, and then you can go while and I think that would have saved the franchise. But I'm excited to see where star wars goes next because if we's, as we've seen, when you get out of the Skywalker Saga, you get good stuff. So let's let's let's end it's because we're going to run over. Yeah, that was our takes on the last Jedi. Remember, if you like, the movie, then it's a good movie. If you don't like the movie, then it's a bad movie. No one can tell you otherwise. So you talked about the the throne room scene. Right, if you like freeze, frame it and break it down, it's like a terribly choreographed fight scene. But I would say it's still fun to watch visually. So you can enjoy it and you can hate it for two different reasons. Yeah, so move the art is subjective at the end of the day. I think it's the main point. Artist objective and it's fine to like a movie. It's fine to not like a movie. I do think you should be able to explain why you like a movie why you don't like a movie, right. So, yeah, let's just wrap up, Ashley. Where can people find you? All right, you can follow me on Facebook, facebookcom the nerdy blogger. You can tweet me at the nerdy blogger. You you can read my column on Fan girlishcom each Wednesday called Hashtag way back Wednesday, and you can read my blog, nerdy blogging dot wordpresscom. Have you done demolition man yet? I haven't done to watch demolish man. Now that's a movie. That's bad. That I love. Yeah, and you can find me on facebook at chapter one films. That's one O ine, not the number. You can email me Greg at chapter one films Dot Biz. Check out my website, chapter one films Dot Biz. You can find me on Youtube, just Greg Prinds, or me and nathaniel's cooking show, which is the kitchen chemist, which has a new episode coming out later this week. It's real going to be really good taste testing serials. You can also find me on Instagram at chapter underscore. Oh, any underscore films,...
...and I am my personal twitter is at Holy Golem, like the POKEMON. Not. Not why I picked holy Golem. It's a it's a complex reference that nobody gets. I was going to say. I thought about it. I say, are you talking about like a biblical it's like no, it's like it's like a Jewish mysticism thing. There's a set of gargoyles about that. Fine, it is. So, yes, the the, the, the Golemn was like these clay monsters people like a scroll in the mouth right, right Emmth on the it's actually deepler that I see. You know where? I see that pop up a lot. Japanese Manga. Yeah, interesting like a lot of Manga, there's a reference to golems in the very in the Jewish mysticism sense. anyways, yeah, if you want to tell us your thoughts on the last Jedi, obviously just saying rude, bad movie. I heard it and it's not good enough for saying there are women in Oh I get can get out of here. We don't. We don't. We don't like your kind, we don't like your kind of we don't serve your kind in here. Your droids, droids, I'll wait outside. Wait outside, which I did make it like, I'm sorry, with the droids ordering drinks. The droids keep getting wasted wrecking the bar. Dang, but you can. You can tweet us at dearly debated or shoot us an email deally debated at gmailcom. So until next time, may the force be with you, for with you and also with you. You, you luck, nothing to do, but I've already lost my campas.
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