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Theta9:
I'm curious as to how Yoda and the council were "toxic".

TheEvilDog:

--- Quote from: Theta9 on 03 Nov 2019, 10:29 ---I'm curious as to how Yoda and the council were "toxic".

--- End quote ---

Well maybe not toxic, but they definitely set themselves up to fail.
There are a couple of videos on Youtube that discuss how the Jedi mindset helped hasten their destruction and downfall.
Such as this video. And this video. And this.

But two more visual examples are when Yoda is training Luke on Dagobah, the "No. Try Not. Do or Do not. There is no try." which is actually a terrible thing to say when teaching someone, because it ignores the teaching value in failure. And then when Luke returns to confront Yoda about Vader being Anakin, you can see that Yoda doesn't want to discuss the emotional timebomb about to go off, in fact some people think that Yoda was willing himself to die to get out of that conversation.

The point is that the Jedi cut themselves off from emotions, thinking of as ways that someone might fall to the Dark Side, without realising that they were doing something just as bad themselves. Look at how Luke redeems Vader and how Vader defeats the Emperor, its love. Its a son's love for his father and a father's love for his son that allow them to do that respectively. And that's something that wouldn't have been possible using the teachings of the Jedi.

Tova:

--- Quote from: BenRG on 01 Nov 2019, 05:04 ---As for Leia...? Well, there's always: "Put that thing away, you're gonna get us all killed!" Han was never dominant in that relationship, which was always fully equal with both of them saving each other many times.

--- End quote ---

I might have believed your other examples without a thought if this weren't such a desperate reach.

I certainly don't think it's true that people hate the films because the formula stopped working. Rogue One was popular, and it is just as much of a retread of older films as any of the Star Wars films, the original included. The opening of Last Jedi certainly didn't follow the expected formula of Luke being a Yoda figure to Rey; and that was hated. And if you look at other bits of the film that were particularly hated, they were not the bits that were copied from Return of the Jedi.

Right now, I am watching hate brigading on the WoW new expansion cinematic that portrays another beloved lore figure being defeated by a female, and it's hard to tell myself that there isn't a pattern there.


--- Quote from: BenRG on 03 Nov 2019, 09:34 ---It's a nice snark but, to me, the 'Balance' was always an issue of the extreme nature of both side's views: Absolute Light vs Absolute Dark. There has to be some kind of third path. Some controversial Jedi, like Qui-Gon were trying to find it.

--- End quote ---

Here I agree, with one small quibble: I don't think it's so much, "Absolute light versus absolute dark" as it is, "Cutting off all emotions versus being ruled by them." The middle path being, "staying in touch with emotions without being ruled by them." Yeah, what Castlerook said.


--- Quote from: BenRG on 02 Nov 2019, 14:05 ---The problem is attempting to reuse the formula simply by plugging new characters into it instead of telling an organic next logical set of stories in the saga.

--- End quote ---

If there is one thing I've learned from watching the QC thread, and from studying film in general, is that one person's organic next logical step in storytelling is another's trash.

And for all of the people who like to copy and paste the phrase "Bad Storytelling" in their criticisms, that's really not telling us anything more than the bare fact that the writer didn't like it. Which is fine. If you didn't like it, that's valid. But you know, everyone else has an opinion, too. And anyone who wants to advance the idea that their opinion has greater objective validity needs to do better than that.

(click to show/hide)

JoeCovenant:

--- Quote from: Akima on 01 Nov 2019, 06:21 ---
--- Quote from: BenRG on 01 Nov 2019, 02:40 ---The worst aspect is that she has been presented as a fully-fledged perfect heroine with no obvious explanation of where these skills come from.
--- End quote ---
Luke Skywalker jumped from crop-dusting farm-boy to ace fighter-pilot in a couple of days, with no explanation of where those skills came from,

--- End quote ---

Sorry, but I disagree.
Luke's latent skills are hinted at a couple of times during IV.

"I understand you've become quite the pilot yourself"
"Who's gonna fly it kid? You?" "You bet I could. I'm not such a bad..."
"I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16"

Luke had a basically normal upbringing where flying certain vehicles was clearly *a thing*.
We are supposed to believe Rey was to all intents and purposes "marooned" on Tattoin Jakku as a toddler (more or less) so where is her life experience supposed to have come from?

And Luke at LEAST had the tiniest grounding in the force AND Obi-Wan holding his mental hand during the trench run.
That, of course AFTER he almost killed himself being too enthusiastic flying in in the first place.

(ETA)
And, of course, Luke's whole arc in the original saga was one of growth and learning.
He wasn't immediately able to read minds or (as some would have us believe) pull knowledge of the force from (arguably) the most powerful force user we've seen on screen. (Vader never stopped a laser bolt mid flight).
Even after some solo training (Empire) he couldn't sense a Wampa creeping up on him, nor react quickly enough to avoid its attack.
And after some training with Yoda he went to stand against Vader and got his arse kicked, and hand removed.
Even in the end, he only 'triumphed' because of Anakin's intervention.
Luke's arc was one of tentative steps, over reaching, failure, more attempts, more failure and eventual triumph after loss and a lot of time (and training) and... a little bit of luck. Despite Obi-Wan's protestations that there's no such thing! :)

The biggest problem (character-wise) with Rey is that she can't have that same arc because they totally overplayed her hand in Ep7.
And worse so in Ep8. (Flying rock anyone?)

But again, this is NOT Daisy's fault. Nor anything remotely to do with that fact that Rey is female.
It's bad writing, nothing more or less.

Tova:
So, I would tend to agree with your (and others') well-made points regarding Rey's character arc, at least to a degree. Probably it's my bias and affection towards Star Wars in general, but although TLJ has well-publicised flaws - just as many of the Star Wars films do, as you would well know - none of those flaws entirely detracted from my enjoyment of the film. Actually, people are surprised when they talk to me and I profess neither contempt nor love of the film. No-one likes people who refuse to take an extreme position these days, I guess.

Having said that, I would say that Rogue One is my favourite of the newer Star Wars films by a comfortable margin. The interesting thing about that is that the character arc of Jyn is also quite arguably not well written, in that she is for much of the film an entirely passive protagonist. She reacts to events rather than propelling them.

I've seen all-too-many passionate arguments in favour of why TLJ is awful, and equally impassioned arguments in favour of why it is a great film. All of these arguments have good points, which is why I feel comfortable sitting in the middle, seeing the film as one with strengths and weaknesses. And while I still think that sexism is a factor in some of the hate, I also recall being surprised by the level of hate against Jar-Jar back in the day. I didn't especially like him myself, but I didn't like ewoks either, and they didn't generate this much hate. Was it just the time? The dawn of internet culture where groupthink tends to amplify all positive and negative reactions in a strange kind of positive feedback loop?

I am endlessly fascinated to watch it all play out. Mark Hamill is right - Star Wars fans are UPFs.

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