John Williams was wasted on the ST.
John Williams was wasted on the ST.
It's incredibly funny listening to it and hearing the sheer frustration and anger from the commentator
But he does hit the mark where frankly, the music was used to milk nostalgic reactions from the audience.
You'll have to narrow it down, that describes all of Rise of Skywalker and at least half of Force Awakens.Originally Posted by LJ3
Are you suggesting there was no nostalgia pandering in TLJ? :^)
Honestly? Yes.
D'en you'd be wrong. :^)
Hm! Point me to specific examples, if you please.
Yoda rises from the grave, Luke in his Jedi Master cloak, the red sunset for Luke biting it to MP loss
tlj turning anakin's lightsaber into excalibur I mean come on
Oh, please. The only one of those who might be considered pandering is Yoda's appearance, and that's still a stretch compared to FA and RoS.
- The protagonist journeys to a remote planet to find a great Jedi master but is disappointed by what they find and initially the master refuses to train the protagonist but eventually gives in. The protagonist ventures into a dark side cave that leads to a confrontation with themselves. The protagonist realises their friends are in danger from the antagonists and abandons their training to go save them against the advice of their mentor. Now am I describing Empire or Last Jedi?
- When Leia and Kylo Ren sense the presence of each other during a space battle, an identical shot-reverse-shot crossfade sequence is used from when Luke and Vader sensed each other in Empire.
- The Tragedy of Luke Skywalker is a callback to Darth Plagueis just with the roles reversed as the master tries to kill the student in their sleep instead.
- The protagonist surrenders to Ren/Vader who decides to take them to face the Supreme Leader/Emperor. During the elevator ride there, the protagonist tries to remind Ren/Vader that there's still good in them - just like in Return of the Jedi. Hell, Snoke even uses the same "young fool" line that the Emperor used for good measure. Afterwards Kylo asks Rey to rule the galaxy with him whilst she tearfully pleads for him to turn away from the dark side whilst fire rains down in the background is deliberately invoking Revenge of the Sith with Padmé and Anakin.
- The Battle of Crait involves the First Order attacking the Resistance base using Walkers followed by a troop assault, while the rebels responded with trench fire and then speeder attacks...just like the Battle of Hoth in Empire. There's even a recreation of the overhead shot of Vader leading the snowtroopers into the base, but with Ren and his snowtroopers this time.
- In order to save the Resistance, a Jedi Master goes to face their former student turned Dark Side user and engages in a brief battle, says a "if you strike me down" line then proceeds to die.
- Outside of major plot points and cinematography, there's also smaller examples like Luke chastising R2D2 for his language in a callback to A New Hope where C3PO does the same as well as acknowledging the internet meme that the reason R2D2 speaks in beeps and boops is because he's the most foul-mouthed character. Leia whipping out a 30 year old gun to end Poe's mutiny that she originally used in A New Hope. Luke being a farmer again who drinks oddly coloured milk. People calling Lightsabers "Laser Swords" again etc etc...
I could really go on as there's many more unnecessary callbacks and allusions/parallels to previous films, but I believe I've proven my point. It just further proves Rian Johnson to be a hack when he publicly goes out and criticises Jar Jar Abrams for "fanservice" when his own film is chock full of it.
I mean there were definite and deliberate parallels sure, but in TLJ those were there to follow the theme of "Old Star Wars is dumb and you're dumb for liking it, why can't you understand my Genius?!?" which is a different kind of Shameless Hackery then TFA and the "Hey remember this cool thing you love? Also this other thing? Viva La Nostalgia!"
So yeah, I wouldn't say that TLJ relies on Nostalgia/Fanservice, because it's decries the old stuff rather than glorifies it.
Last edited by forumghost; May 6th, 2020 at 09:06 AM.
Indeed. Allusions are not the same thing as pandering.
I disagree. Whilst there are several instances where the director attempts to subvert expectations* after creating a parallel...there are far too many moments where a callback or allusion is inserted and no point is made other than "hey remember this, you like this right!?" The Last Jedi needs fanservice just as much as The Force Awakens because like it there's almost no original thought put into it and so they recycle material from better films in order to carry their own plots through.
* Putting aside the fact that for all its attempts at "deconstruction", the film ultimately undoes its own criticisms by the end of the film because it's the second in a trilogy and has to leave it open for the next director.
Not to mention, trying make billions of dollars through a star wars movie whilst criticising the very series as dumb and you for liking it smacks of the ol' policeman publicly beating the whore for illegal prostitution before later using her services himself.
It doesn't undo its criticism because the point was never to stop at just deconstructing tropes. The point isn't "Star Wars is dumb and you're dumb", it's "Star Wars as it used to be doesn't work anymore, let's take it somewhere new". It's not "heroism is stupid", it's "relying solely on 'heroes' to change things is stupid because for all their abilities they're still just people, meaningful change is only achieved through collective effort". And so on and so forth.
I'm not saying there weren't missteps in the service of its themes (for starters, the conflict between Holdo and Poe felt very artificial, even if it had a proper payoff), but it's an oversimplification to characterise the movie as just "SW bad, fans bad, I'm super smurt".
Hold your horses there Aunt Sally, I didn't say any nor none of that. "Star Wars is dumb as are you" was forumghost's argument which I pointed out was still flawed, with the rest of your examples being mere fabrications instead of any argument I actually made. I don't even understand what on earth you mean by "Star Wars doesn't work anymore" and "relying on heroes to change things". The first one being precisely because TLJ doesn't go anywhere new other than maybe Kanto-Bite and god knows everyone hated that illogical non-sequitur.
Also don't get me started on Poe vs Holdo as that plot thread was completely braindead with Poe being in the right the whole time.
My bad, I probably conflated your arguments!
That said, I'm even more dumbfounded that you somehow don't consider "no, you're NOT the Chosen One because Chosen Ones *don't exist*" (just for starters) going somewhere new in this franchise.
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Yeah, that subplot is a great example of people wanting to tell a story and not knowing how to get there naturally.
The question of whether the dark side or the light side is stronger can best be defined as whether fast food or super food is better, whether artificial sodas or raw water is better.
Were there any other Sith Lords, besides Vader, who were obsessed with getting rid of any association with their non-Sith name, or was that just made up in order to explain why no one knew that Vader is also Anakin? Obviously, after becoming Emperor, Sidious has no qualms about being called Palpatine, and Maul's Sith and non-Sith names are literally the same thing.
For all their obsession with Jedi and Sith, those are actually the series' weakest characters, in terms of depth. Who's better? These 2 fine gentlemen:
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...ism-DFSFTE.ogg
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