eot Posted December 27, 2017 Maybe I'll go and see it a second time then. Not sure though how I'll get past things like Reveal hidden contents How the main characters don't really have any interaction with each other, they don't develop their relationships at all, which makes me question why they even have Finn and Poe in these movies. Two movies in Rey said "hi" to Poe, which is about as much as she said to Finn in this one as well. Poe and Finn, who had good chemistry in the last movie, also barely have any time on screen together, and what little time they do have isn't well spent. People complained about the characters in Rogue One, but I think this movie is worse in that regard. The only good stuff is with Rey/Luke/Kylo Ren, but Luke is dead, Kylo Ren seems as conflicted as he did in the last movie and Rey had her two main motivations ("my parents!" and "teach me this force stuff") resolved with wet farts and replaced with nothing. What is her character now? I guess she will read the Jedi texts off screen and come back as a completely different character that we didn't get to see grow on screen. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TychoCelchuuu Posted December 27, 2017 On 12/27/2017 at 6:39 PM, eot said: Maybe I'll go and see it a second time then. Not sure though how I'll get past things like Reveal hidden contents How the main characters don't really have any interaction with each other, they don't develop their relationships at all, which makes me question why they even have Finn and Poe in these movies. Two movies in Rey said "hi" to Poe, which is about as much as she said to Finn in this one as well. Poe and Finn, who had good chemistry in the last movie, also barely have any time on screen together, and what little time they do have isn't well spent. Reveal hidden contents I'm curious if you have the same criticisms of the other Star Wars films. Did it annoy you that Leia and to a lesser extent Han never really interacted with Obi-Wan Kenobi, or that Luke never really interacted with Lando, or that Han didn't interact with Vader, or the Luke and Han never interacted with Tarkin, and so on? In The Empire Strikes Back Luke and Leia barely even talk! I think they have a single conversation. And Luke and Han have even less interaction in that movie! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
eot Posted December 27, 2017 On 12/27/2017 at 8:46 PM, TychoCelchuuu said: Reveal hidden contents I'm curious if you have the same criticisms of the other Star Wars films. Did it annoy you that Leia and to a lesser extent Han never really interacted with Obi-Wan Kenobi, or that Luke never really interacted with Lando, or that Han didn't interact with Vader, or the Luke and Han never interacted with Tarkin, and so on? In The Empire Strikes Back Luke and Leia barely even talk! I think they have a single conversation. And Luke and Han have even less interaction in that movie! Reveal hidden contents I think ESB is quite different actually, but maybe my criticism of TLJ wasn't expressed properly. See, ESB is a super character driven story. One of the first things that happens is Han going out to find Luke and the key to Luke's journey in the movie is his desire to save his friends. It doesn't matter that they're not on screen together much, because the movie still manages to strengthen and develop their relationships. With Han and Leia there is obviously a lot of shared screen time. Anyway, I think the Hoth part of the movie does a good job establishing all three of them together. Now, it might be wrong to say that the lack of connection between Finn / Rey / Poe is inherently a bad thing, and it might just be based in my expectations of the movie. However, I don't think Finn is interesting outside his relationship with Rey and the movie does a great job demonstrating that, because you could cut everything he does in the movie and it'd be better for it. The story (I presume) is fundamentally about Rey and Kylo Ren, so if Finn / Poe don't have anything to do with that, then why are they on screen so much? Rey doesn't even know what's going on with the fleet, her coming back has nothing to do with them. I don't like that we're two movies in and have a supporting cast that's still throwaway. If they mattered to Rey's story they'd feel less so. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TychoCelchuuu Posted December 27, 2017 I didn't feel like Finn and Poe had nothing to do at all. I didn't feel like that the first time watching, but the second time watching really cemented how central they are to the movie's central theme: Reveal hidden contents The movie's central theme is failure. It's best expressed in Yoda's speech to Luke, in which he says that failure is the best teacher. The movie is a long meditation on what it means to fail and what it means to move past failure. Poe's arc is one that beings with him winning a Pyrrhic victory, which Leia points out is just another way of failing. Poe doesn't understand this and thus spends much of the movie fighting with Holdo. Finally, he learns that sometimes being a leader means being able to admit that you've failed, so he calls off the attack on the battering ram and is able to figure out that Luke's plan is to make a futile last stand while the rest of the Resistance escapes. In other words, Poe in quick succession is able to accept two failures that lead to great success, whereas at the start of the movie he was gunning for success at all costs, even if this led to failure. Finn's story is also one of failure, plot-wise. (There's more going on with Finn, namely his rather massive character development from a guy who's just interested in running and in keeping Rey safe, which is a lot more comprehensible if you keep in mind the previous movie, to his contemplation of Benicio del Toro's character and his realization that he doesn't like it, to his acceptance of a suicidal attack and then his about-face when Rose saves him and so on... there's so much there! But not in terms of plot, which is I think one thing that lots of people don't like. Lots of people are very obsessed with everything in a movie having something to do with the plot, and it's true that Finn and Rose don't really have much impact on the overall plot.) His quest is basically a few big failures (didn't find the master hacker, didn't disable the tracker, got more or less the entire Resistance killed). These failures serve as a counterpoint to the Rey plot, which has very few contemporary failures (it's mostly about Luke's failure in the past, and his response to it). In the Rey plot, she is trying to get Luke to get over his failures and come back and fix everything, whereas Luke is clinging to those failures. In the Finn plot, he keeps pressing through the failures, seemingly in order to triumph, but the actual result is kind of just a disaster in every way. So you've got this interesting tension, which is that all along it seems like Luke is the one letting people down and Finn is the one who is going to save the Resistance, but ultimately it's Luke's willingness to confront his failure and deal with it that saves everyone, whereas the traditional "let's just go on an adventure without really thinking it through and that will sort things out" approach makes everything much much worse. Failure is a teacher, and Finn hasn't had any failures to learn from. Now he has had some, so perhaps that will play into his arc in the next movie. As for the idea that "Rey doesn't even know what's going on with the fleet, her coming back has nothing to do with them," do you have the same issue with other Star Wars movies? So for instance nobody in The Return of the Jedi know what's going on with Luke, Vader, and the Emperor. Luke coming back has nothing to do with them - he basically just walks in from out of the frame and starts dancing with the Ewoks. Nobody in The Empire Strikes Back knows what's going on with Luke and Yoda. He lands and Cloud City and Leia yells like two sentences at him. Nobody in A New Hope knows what's going on with Leia, Vader, and Tarkin beyond what little Luke learns from R2's message. Once they break Leia out of prison her role in the movie is basically over. Did these also bother you? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Erkki Posted December 27, 2017 I'm actually still pondering seeing it a second time at IMAX. Hell, it even brought Mr. Hoatzin back to post in the forums, so must be something good in it! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gormongous Posted December 28, 2017 On 12/27/2017 at 11:24 PM, Erkki said: I'm actually still pondering seeing it a second time at IMAX. Hell, it even brought Mr. Hoatzin back to post in the forums, so must be something good in it! And Gwardinen! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
plasticflesh Posted December 28, 2017 I have high expectations for episode IX to involve Reveal hidden contents massive amounts of force-ghosts. Basically the Ghost Army from Lord of the Rings. Or a ghostly re-enactment of Jedi council chatter from the prequels. I have to say I'm appreciating the prequels more at this point. The new trilogy is shaping up to be a big rehash of classic battles. At least the Prequels had lots of interesting new stuff, pod races, slaver kids, the city-planet, flash gordon jets. Despite being totally silly. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gwardinen Posted December 28, 2017 On 12/28/2017 at 1:34 AM, Gormongous said: And Gwardinen! I'm not nearly as dormant! I post at least once a month, and I continue to read the forums almost every day because this is my favourite community on the internet by a long stretch. I think I'm re-evaluating my thoughts on Finn in this film a bit based on some of the talk in this thread. I suspect some of you are being somewhat charitable, but there is definitely an argument that he does have a character arc. Unfortunately (and it genuinely is unfortunately because I really like John Boyega) it's not one I have any investment in. I'm not sure there's a single definitive reason why, but I simply have no investment in Finn as a character. In contrast, like many of you I quite enjoyed the Rey/Ren interactions and ended up more interested in Kylo Ren than I was in the first film. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
unimural Posted December 28, 2017 (edited) On 12/27/2017 at 10:46 PM, TychoCelchuuu said: I didn't feel like Finn and Poe had nothing to do at all. I didn't feel like that the first time watching, but the second time watching really cemented how central they are to the movie's central theme: Reveal hidden contents The movie's central theme is failure. It's best expressed in Yoda's speech to Luke, in which he says that failure is the best teacher. The movie is a long meditation on what it means to fail and what it means to move past failure. Reveal hidden contents I have trouble seeing this view of failure as a central theme. A big part of it is the fact that the plot and the events are so artificial. Most of the failures are there because they need to be, not because the events dictate them. I do understand a lot of people just don't mind that stuff, but I really view that as a fundamental failure of the movie. Star Wars has never been about plot, and this movie isn't either. The reason why this, for me, hasn't been an issue with the original trilogy is because the original trilogy is about family and friendship. It is fundamentally about relationships, even more than it is about characters. Almost all the actions in the movies are motivated by something happening to family or friends. They save the galaxy, but that's almost incidental. That's why it's ok to merely imply a world behind the events. Somehow, this movie says we should care about the Resistance and the world they live in. The events in it. But the movie itself treats the world and plot as disposably as Star Wars always has. You can't go and say "Hey gun dealers sell to all parties so we're all complicit" and have that mean something, when so much of the movie and its history is about Bad Guys. The world at large is a backdrop, and trying to claim it is not a mirage breaks everything down. You can't make good guys do ends justify means without making all war horrible. Yet somehow this movie still tries to claim it's cool to kill fleets of people, and yet have shades of grey. All these attempts just detach me from the movie, and make the writing seem lazy. To achieve this the movie sacrifices on the relationships between the characters. Rey, as I've said earlier, is the part of the movie that I really like. She has her things with Luke and Ren. Poe only has a relationship with himself. I do understand that it's a big part of the movie, and a big part on selling this whole failure things. It's the bookends of the movie. Start with a phyrric victory, and end with a victorious defeat. It's a nice idea. I just don't buy a second of it. The twists and turns of Poe's plot take me out of the movie, while having no characterization that I can see. Finn, for me, is the weakest of the three. I've read your paragraph on Finn three times now and I just can't fit that with my memories of watching the movie. None of it happens on the screen for me. I think Finn's story is where the pacing of the movie suffers the most. I simply see a zany adventure without anything actually happening on screen. Funnily enough, I do think Tran does good work with Rose. There's just very little to work with. And theoretically the Finn/Rose is closest to original trilogy's friends fighting together mentality. The execution is pure prequel, though. Also, Ren is at this point the most character-like of any Star Wars villain, I think. The least caricature. I hope Abrams won't throw it all away. Perhaps I've cut myself off from the Force, but I really can't see the movie for all the clumsiness. Reading people's takes on the themes on the Last Jedi feels like reading on the Matrix trilogy. I just don't see them myself for the whole thing is so convoluted and awkward. I do like the fact that there is this kind of discussion about The Last Jedi. And I've enjoyed reading this thread especially. It's been a long time since I've had the opportunity to question or challenge my relatively negative reaction to a movie with many well thought different views. Edited December 28, 2017 by unimural Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TychoCelchuuu Posted December 28, 2017 On 12/28/2017 at 11:43 AM, unimural said: Reveal hidden contents Star Wars has never been about plot, and this movie isn't either. The reason why this, for me, hasn't been an issue with the original trilogy is because the original trilogy is about family and friendship. It is fundamentally about relationships, even more than it is about characters. Almost all the actions in the movies are motivated by something happening to family or friends. They save the galaxy, but that's almost incidental. That's why it's ok to merely imply a world behind the events. Somehow, this movie says we should care about the Resistance and the world they live in. The events in it. But the movie itself treats the world and plot as disposably as Star Wars always has. You can't go and say "Hey gun dealers sell to all parties so we're all complicit" and have that mean something, when so much of the movie and its history is about Bad Guys. The world at large is a backdrop, and trying to claim it is not a mirage breaks everything down. You can't make good guys do ends justify means without making all war horrible. Yet somehow this movie still tries to claim it's cool to kill fleets of people, and yet have shades of grey. All these attempts just detach me from the movie, and make the writing seem lazy. Reveal hidden contents I'm having a little trouble seeing how anything in A New Hope is about "family and friendship" any more than The Last Jedi. Luke's only remaining family (as far as he knows) gets turned into skeletons 30 minutes in and it's not like he's better friends with Leia or Han than Rey is friends with Finn. Of course, it does turn out that Luke has family in the game, late in The Empire Strikes Back, but it also turns out that Han and Leia (and Luke) have family in the game, because Ren is their son (nephew). Maybe the idea is that the original trilogy is about family because Luke turns out to be searching for his family, but I think you'd have to have slept through The Last Jedi to miss the part where Rey's entire character arc is her looking for replacement family, because her original family deserted her and Han got killed in the last movie. I don't think the movie was saying "hey gun dealers sell to all parties so we're all complicit" - the guy who said that is obviously kind of an asshole, and it's Finn's rejection of that neutrality (a neutrality he embraced at the beginning of the film, when he was willing to abandon the Resistance to save himself and Rey) and his decision to commit to a suicide assault on the battering ram that represents the climax of his character arc. The movie is pretty clearly saying that the rich people on Canto Bight are the bad people, and the First Order are the bad people, and the Resistance (including those kids at the end) are the good people. I don't really know why you think the movie is saying there are any shades of grey. Everyone in the First Order is clearly super duper 100% evil with the exception of Ren, who is in the classic Darth Vader position of having done six billion terrible things but he is still potentially redeemable. Or, to put the point in another way: what stuff in the movie made you think it was trying to do the whole "shades of grey" thing? Was it just that hacker's claim that it's all the same (a claim that is obviously self-serving because it justifies his later betrayal, which is what gets most of the Resistance blown up)? Or was there anything else in the movie that made you think that? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kyir Posted December 29, 2017 Reveal hidden contents This movie really cemented my disinterest in all the new trilogy's characters. They just feel so incredibly inconsistent to me and I'm not sure how to get over that when characters are one of the only things I actually care about in fiction. There were some moments where I appreciated them, but those were always undercut by the next thing happening that felt wildly divergent from the thing before it. There's character turns without the necessary buildup for them to feel significant, and when they do build it up it's always in a really fluffy, unmeaningful way. There's new characters that barely have time to be built up before they have some kind of supposedly-poignant death. I think it might be telling that Captain Phasma is my favorite new-trilogy character just by merit of being consistently an awful person? Even with only like 5 minutes of screen time in this movie? I know I'm basically whining about it at this point, but I found the entire thing to be incredibly disappointing on a bunch of different axes. I would have been willing to look past POV pinballing and plotline knots if I cared about the characters at all. (Also on an extremely trivial note, the use of vertical/gravity/whatever bombers in space is a stupid idea. I'm usually more than willing to overlook that kind of thing, but really?) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nappi Posted January 1, 2018 I saw it. It was fun. The story was occasionally a bit poor, and I would have preferred a shorter film, but I was still entertained. The worst part of the film for me was how Laura Dern's character was treated in the first half of the film. Reveal hidden contents The way in which she was made to look as an incompetent leader was really poor. I wish they had found a convincing way to show how Poe was blinded by his desire to play to hero, instead of making her be the most arrogant / the least competent person when it comes to explaining a plan. The best part was some of the visuals. I really liked some of the shots of the bomber ship slowly creeping over the whatever big ship that was (despite the bomber itself not making much sense), and the light speed ramming maneuver was visually very interesting. I have never cared about action sequences inside exploding ships and this movie was no exception. On 12/26/2017 at 6:15 PM, jennegatron said: the iron visual joke made me laugh really hard. Yes! It was a great admission that their vehicle and droid designs are super stupid. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Patrick R Posted January 1, 2018 Apparently that iron joke was a true blue reference to Hardware Wars(?!?!?), which is maybe the purest distillation of Johnson's approach I can think of. Dude snuck a Hardware Wars reference into a real life main-line Star Wars movie. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
plasticflesh Posted January 1, 2018 Oh wow I never knew about this Hardware Wars thing. It is such a specific style of 70s schlock. Fabulous. I'm feeling the criticism here about the original trilogy being about interesting character interactions and themes of friendship. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TychoCelchuuu Posted January 1, 2018 On 1/1/2018 at 3:17 PM, Nappi said: The worst part of the film for me was how Laura Dern's character was treated in the first half of the film. Reveal hidden contents The way in which she was made to look as an incompetent leader was really poor. I wish they had found a convincing way to show how Poe was blinded by his desire to play to hero, instead of making be the most arrogant / the least competent person when it comes to explaining a plan. Even the first time I watched it, I didn't get that impression at all. I thought it was pretty obvious that: Reveal hidden contents Poe is way too arrogant. Leia is telling him that, Holdo is telling him that, even C-3PO can't condone his actions. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nappi Posted January 1, 2018 On 1/1/2018 at 5:34 PM, TychoCelchuuu said: Even the first time I watched it, I didn't get that impression at all. I thought it was pretty obvious that: Reveal hidden contents Poe is way too arrogant. Leia is telling him that, Holdo is telling him that, even C-3PO can't condone his actions. Reveal hidden contents Yes, Poe is definitely arrogant, but the way Holdo communicated her plan the first time made it sound like a suicide, which made me afraid that Poe would end up being a total dick.. and right. When Leia revealed their actual plan to Poe way later and he was like "Yeah, that could work," I groaned. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SuperBiasedMan Posted January 1, 2018 On 1/1/2018 at 5:51 PM, Nappi said: Reveal hidden contents Yes, Poe is definitely arrogant, but the way Holdo communicated her plan the first time made it sound like a suicide, which made me afraid that Poe would end up being a total dick.. and right. When Leia revealed their actual plan to Poe way later and he was like "Yeah, that could work," I groaned. Reveal hidden contents Yeah, considering what result not telling Poe had, I can't think of a reasonable excuse for why she didn't try communicate the plan or even that she had one. Even just a line to put Poe in his place and assure him that she's doing something. Poe can still be antsy enough that he can't bring himself to sit still, and ruin her plan by taking action secretly. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TychoCelchuuu Posted January 1, 2018 Reveal hidden contents I think she had like six good reasons for not telling Poe. The guy is obviously an arrogant blockhead, you don't really want to trust him with the info. He's just been demoted by Leia, you don't want to sort of contravene Leia's last order before ending up in a hospital bed by immediately giving him more information than you give to someone in his position. They have no idea how they're being tracked through hyperspace so they want to keep the plan on a need to know basis in case there's some sort of leak or mole or whatever. Time is short and she doesn't need Poe constantly interfering, which is what he is OBVIOUSLY going to do if she keeps him in the loop rather than telling him to go suck a dick. Poe clearly doesn't respect her or her ideas and there's no reason to think he's going to go along with the plan if he hears it. She's in a precarious position, having just been put in charge of the entire Resistance, and it would be a bad idea to let her authority slip by giving in and buckling under to this hotshot pilot who Leia as just specifically demoted and who clearly is a popular guy (popular enough to mutiny later on). And @SuperBiasedMan, I'm pretty sure she DID tell Poe she had a plan. She said something like "I've got it under control" or whatever. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ben X Posted January 1, 2018 Wait, what was this iron joke? edit: n/m, I managed to find a description. I don't remember if I realised Reveal hidden contents it was supposed to look like a ship coming in. I definitely found the Reveal hidden contents 'steam-ironing a uniform' thing rather incongruous, though. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
plasticflesh Posted January 2, 2018 This is probably a well tread line of thought be here I go. The strength of Star Wars IV was definitely how it had a strong meme-pool, taking Kurosawa films and WW2 films and mixing them with Flash Gordon films. The films after the original trilogy are suffering recurring generations of memetic inbreeding, the result of which being the contagions of goofy in jokes and stale retellings. Perhaps this is what's going on with mainstream cinema, lots of cultural memetic inbreeding without a diverse meme pool. How could star wars benefit from a more diverse meme pool? This almost happened with Rogue One and bringing in Donny Yen. There is a dazzling and brilliant world of Chinese and Korean martial arts cinema that make laser sword battles look dim by comparison. But Donny Yen was just one fun cameo and the wuxia themes have not been integrated into Star Wars. Maybe a less creepy thought is to look at it from Hegelian terms of the dialectic. The interesting thesis and antithesis of the original films was blending of different film genres between eastern feudal period pieces and western . But there's no more dialectic inside the Star Wars movies, it's become only within itself, which has become. A McLuhan-like media analysis perspective is also interest, to examine the way media trends influence Star Wars movies between the 60s 70s and the 2000s. Films used to be in the cinema, and a film goer would be exposed at least to the existence of the many options. With TV and internet, and the huge amounts of media to consume in the world, the selection process has become more specific. So there's less impetus to draw inspiration from outside a genre or market place, of the Hollywood blockbuster Marvel cinematic universe sphere. So my question is, what are the modern meme pools to pull the new dialectic from? What is the larger ecosystem of other non-Star Wars sci fi that are doing interesting things with genre mashing. The ones that come to mind to me are Her, which couid be a melding of 2000s proto-mumble-core with Wes Anderson style 70s new wave revitalism. Ex Machina, what did something. Black Mirror, that mixes twilight zone with social media. Video game narratives like Tacoma and SOMA or Talos Principle, that use epistolary format to submerge the reader into the the space world. It might be asking a lot for a big cash cow religiously devoted franchise to reference, pastiche, or rip off something interesting, like A New Hope did that to breath life into the Flash Gordon genre. But the current trajectory, of the franchise referencing literally its own parodies like Hardware Wars, is foreboding. Edit: Reveal hidden contents Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BigJKO Posted January 2, 2018 I like this article on the influences The Last Jedi draws from and how they differ from Lucas' original trilogy inspirations. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
plasticflesh Posted January 5, 2018 On 1/2/2018 at 5:29 PM, BigJKO said: I like this article on the influences The Last Jedi draws from and how they differ from Lucas' original trilogy inspirations. This is an excellent article. I did enjoy the Rashomon style flashbacks and it does reinforce this article's thesis, and the general reception of the film, as a film about unreliable narrators and the general battle over narrative itself, such as is it Rey's story or Poe's story or Rose's story or Kylo Ben's story & etc. The AV Club article does well to enumerate some other Japanese films that TLJ draws from, only glancing off of the topic of wuxia which I'm still amazed isn't touch on more directly. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Merus Posted January 5, 2018 God, imagine if it was still Colin Trevorrow who was following this up. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BigJKO Posted January 5, 2018 The most hilarious backlash are the people trying to start the conspiracy theory that Colin Trevorrow was some principled auteur director who refused to direct the follow-up to The Last Jedi because it mishandled Luke's character. And not.. just a bad director who got fired when Kathleen Kennedy saw Book of Henry.. I'm still not super confident in Episode 9 being written by the guy who wrote Batman vs. Superman and Justice League. Although, with all the rewrites on those, who knows what he actually did.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
clyde Posted January 5, 2018 On 1/2/2018 at 4:35 AM, plasticflesh said: This is probably a well tread line of thought be here I go. The strength of Star Wars IV was definitely how it had a strong meme-pool, taking Kurosawa films and WW2 films and mixing them with Flash Gordon films. The films after the original trilogy are suffering recurring generations of memetic inbreeding, the result of which being the contagions of goofy in jokes and stale retellings. Perhaps this is what's going on with mainstream cinema, lots of cultural memetic inbreeding without a diverse meme pool. How could star wars benefit from a more diverse meme pool? This almost happened with Rogue One and bringing in Donny Yen. There is a dazzling and brilliant world of Chinese and Korean martial arts cinema that make laser sword battles look dim by comparison. But Donny Yen was just one fun cameo and the wuxia themes have not been integrated into Star Wars. Maybe a less creepy thought is to look at it from Hegelian terms of the dialectic. The interesting thesis and antithesis of the original films was blending of different film genres between eastern feudal period pieces and western . But there's no more dialectic inside the Star Wars movies, it's become only within itself, which has become. A McLuhan-like media analysis perspective is also interest, to examine the way media trends influence Star Wars movies between the 60s 70s and the 2000s. Films used to be in the cinema, and a film goer would be exposed at least to the existence of the many options. With TV and internet, and the huge amounts of media to consume in the world, the selection process has become more specific. So there's less impetus to draw inspiration from outside a genre or market place, of the Hollywood blockbuster Marvel cinematic universe sphere. So my question is, what are the modern meme pools to pull the new dialectic from? What is the larger ecosystem of other non-Star Wars sci fi that are doing interesting things with genre mashing. The ones that come to mind to me are Her, which couid be a melding of 2000s proto-mumble-core with Wes Anderson style 70s new wave revitalism. Ex Machina, what did something. Black Mirror, that mixes twilight zone with social media. Video game narratives like Tacoma and SOMA or Talos Principle, that use epistolary format to submerge the reader into the the space world. It might be asking a lot for a big cash cow religiously devoted franchise to reference, pastiche, or rip off something interesting, like A New Hope did that to breath life into the Flash Gordon genre. But the current trajectory, of the franchise referencing literally its own parodies like Hardware Wars, is foreboding. Edit: Reveal hidden contents This makes me want to look through fan-edits and mashups of the Star Wars films (that hopefully include material from other stuff) until I find something that continues to use the characters, aesthetics, and political fantasies of the series, but doesn't feel like Star Wars anymore. It would be interesting to find the limit in order to see what I think the essence of Star Wars is. Lately I've been thinking a lot about Dracula and Nosferatu and examining how that aesthetic was formed and what its purpose has been. After watching The Last Jedi, I'm starting to wonder about how those thoughts can apply to it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
