The Last Jedi - How Comedy Can Kill A Movie

this essay is brought to you by Nord VPN got no DPN calm /the closer look for 77 percent off and stay tuned to find out why I take Internet security so seriously it goes without saying that the last Jedi has been a wildly controversial film many have praised its boldness to go somewhere new for the franchise whilst many others have criticized its inconsistent characters sloppy story structure and dry floor breaking but when I first saw this film it had one quality one quality that above all else stuck out to me like a sore thumb and to an extent ruined my initial viewing experience it is a flaw that nearly nobody has been talking about but in my opinion it is one of if not the greatest reason why many did not enjoy this film and that floor is this film's amateurish abundance of bathos and what is bathos well it's this bathos in layman's terms is when in an otherwise serious scene suddenly out of the blue and without warning there is an over-the-top joke now it is an objective fact that this film is plagued with pathos Johnson routinely whilst in the middle of a serious scene twist that serious scene on his head to create a cheap laugh for example at the very start there is a conversation where layer and pillar arguing over what they want to do next as they have a window where they can either evacuate everyone and not lose a single life or they can seize the opportunity to take out incredibly powerful warship but in doing so lose many ships and dozens of lives [Music] it is quite a serious dilemma and in the conversation they do a great job at making the audience feel the seriousness of that choice but three seconds after that incredibly bleak conversation ends this happens this joke is awful this is a terrible use of comedy the quality of this joke is not the reason this is terrible comedy but because this is the worst time you could have a moment of levity because that serious tone that the prior few lines of dialogue set up so well is almost immediately shattered by this humor now that is just one example in a film that has a serious bathos problem and I could list the examples all day long but this movie's comedy problem is far larger than just a few out of place jokes the last Jedi is a total Frankenstein of a movie and what do I mean by that well one of the key jobs of movies opening is to establish exactly what kind of story it is going to be and included in that is the tone the story is going for this movie starts with a great degree of levity PO prank calls the general and makes him look like an utter buffoon now there are many out there who think that this humor was not well done because it turned a previously menacing character into one that is almost a total joke but nevertheless this is a moment that is very clearly played for the laughs it suggests to the viewer that this is going to be a very light-hearted movie and there would have been nothing wrong with that if it decided to be so but then there is the fight scene where they destroy the Dreadnought and the tone of this scene is the polar opposite as to what they set up in the opening of the movie this scene has an incredibly dark tone life after life is lost over a sequence that is played to make the audience feel for the deaths of all of those characters and afterwards you have Leia looking at the death toll and grieving the loss of so many of her men it is a very somber scene and then after that you have Finn bumbling around with water spring out of him in a moment that is very clearly played to make the audience laugh those create two choices are odd to say the least the movie is simultaneously trying to build a strong dread whilst also trying to make us laugh again and again as if this film were a light-hearted comedy this back and forth from being serious to being jovial happens again and again throughout the entire runtime of this movie and it makes for a very jarring viewer experience if this movie went for a total gritty tone with scarce humor like Revenge of the Sith did that could have worked or if they went for a light-hearted wonder it didn't take itself too seriously and had comedic line after comedic line that could have worked too and both of those alternatives would have been preferable to what we got because the last Jedi is a film that tries to have its cake and eat it it tries to be both a funny comedy and a very dark film and it combines the two with the eloquent grace of a flying slug now I don't would suggest that comedy in an otherwise bleak film is a problem because sometimes when done right it genuinely can work and I think to find a good example of humor used in that way we need look no further than Saving Private Ryan there is a scene just before the big climactic fight where Ryan tells a funny story about his brothers and laughs while he does it and by doing so makes the audience laugh as well shirt over edge he starts coming after but it but at the same time Alice's over there unconscious he's gotta wake her now despite the fact this is a very dark film this funny moment works now from a technical standpoint this is not bathos because pathos is when the switch from funny to serious is instantaneous and this example is a lot more gradual it is a funny moment about five minutes before the horrific fight begins but it is a wonderful moment and I think studying this scene and why this is a good use of comedy is a great way to come to grips with how to use comedy in a non comedic film properly the reason this works is because this moment is real this is a film dedicated to capturing the brutal reality or what it's like to be in a war and in real life this is exactly what people do when facing truly terrifying situations it is normal and is a sign of a healthy human mind to use comedy as a coping mechanism to just for a few moments escape away from the brutal reality and into something as heartwarming and enjoyable as a funny story and then the audience is brought down and what smiles they may have Arctic lease nuff doubt as Ryan ends the story and the characters come plummeting back down to reality Ryan said that story for a very purposeful in character reason that fits in with the rest of the film and Leia said back wit to c-3po because the director wanted to cram in yet another funny one-liner now obviously this is not true for every use of comedy as there are some examples of comedy and even effective bathos used in non comedic films that do not adhere to this realism again going back to django unchained when he shoots that woman and she fries across the room in a ludicrously unrealistic fashion there is nothing real about that moment the reason this bathos in Django Unchained works is because from the very start the movie has been a very stylistically unrealistic one in traditional Tarantino fashion the entire movie has an almost jovial tone granted there are a few exceptions like when mr. Candie has his monologue but right from the word go the audience knows this is a film that does not take itself too seriously why do these two examples of comedy in a serious film work because in no way do they compromise the audience's investment in the movie and that is exactly what it comes down to the reason a bad moment of bathos is just that is because it breaks the audience's investment in the storytelling if pathos is used then it does not break the viewers investment that is quite arguably a good moment of bathos again while it is not bathos in Saving Private Ryan the funny story not only serves to provide comedy but also it makes us care about the two characters even more as it humanizes them thus making the next scene where their lives are in peril all the more gripping in Django the movie is / it's in its epilogue by this point the main villain is dead and the plot has been resolved the audience is leaning forward waiting for the credits to roll and for Django to get his final revenge the purpose of this scene is to provide that final catharsis where all the bad guys die so when miss Laura flies off in a unrealistic way it improves the scene as well it is unexpected it is also satisfying as in the very much hated characters final moments she is humiliated she loses her dignity whilst also losing her life and because there is no real tension or dramatic investment in the scene as we all know exactly how it's all going to end there is nothing for this bathos to compromise however these qualities of keeping in tone with the rest of the movie and not compromising the viewers investment in the narrative are not possessed by the overwhelming majority of bathos moments in the last Jedi now there are many examples of misplaced comedy in this film if you ask me the really unforgivable ones are towards the end when it is the final confrontation with Snoke so when Rey is captured and brought into Stokes chambers there is this palpable dread ominous music plays as the scene builds up and delivers on the culminated anticipation of the past movies and the viewer fears what is about to happen next and then this happens [Music] welcome this is a really odd editing choice it is a backwards way of trying to get your viewer to feel a sense of dread this is the climax the scene where the protagonist meets the villain this is the number-one scene you want your audience to really care about to feel invested in and in this very scene Johnson destroys that dread his work so hard to achieve destroys the authenticity of the moment Jesse can make a few people chuckle as the droid bumbles around the corner and crashes into the wall and this is not a one-off there are several moments in the middle of the scene where Johnson creates comedy in a place where quite simply comedy does not belong ray tries to grab a lightsaber it flings around and bunks her in the back of the head in an almost comedic fashion kylo stabs a guy he throws him to the side and he lands in the blender sending gore like cloth all over the place in a ludicrously over-the-top fashion I also wonder if that kind of bet though seems familiar to you guys where have we all seen that before I mean do you think that God came down from heaven and stopped this is a very Tarantino style death and in his films it is a style that works as as I said it is all a part of his consistent style he just doesn't go for a dark dreadful tone or even a true sense of realism that's just not his thing you know when I saw this joke for the first time in the cinema I remember quite vividly that there were two women sitting next to me and they both burst out laughing when they saw that Ludacris death this is the middle of the climactic fight scene why on earth does Johnson tried to create humor in this moment if in the middle of your otherwise very serious dread filled climax the audience begins to laugh you've failed as a storyteller Johnson really does not display a good understanding of how to use bathos properly and there are several rules - Beth owes some solid and unbreakable while others are just guidelines for example in an over-the-top comedy like thor ragnarok pathos is far less taboo what if you remember how in the climax when Bruce Banner has completes his character Rock and is about to show his true heroic colors by transforming into the Hulk to save the day the audience expects him to be triumphant except then his lifeless corpse Mack's down to the bridge and he seemingly dies instantly this while it makes for a funny moment severely compromises any kind of emotional resonance his cataract might have however this bathos in Thor 3 works a great deal better than the bath posters in the last Jedi because thor ragnarok is not a movie that takes itself seriously now there aren't many disappointed by the fact that Thor 3 was really just two hours of non-stop jokes because it was so different to the prior films but nonetheless when this film starts it is made incredibly clear that this film is an action comedy where the focus is on making you laugh rather than making you feel it does have a few attempts to every motion but 99% of this movie is wacky joke after wacky joke this is a film that does not take itself seriously so when this bathos happens when Bruce seemingly dies prematurely in his moment of triumph it works and is a good moment of comedy in my opinion bathos can be a fun device but never under any circumstances should it ever be used in a film that tries to make the audience genuinely care for its characters especially when those character critical moments are when the Baths loose is being used and fought and up as example Captain America to the Winter Soldier is a fine fit the directors knew this was going to be a dark film with very cynical themes and while there are occasional jokes they are certainly not pathos and it is more so the characters having like banter in their downtime it is a spy thriller so when there is that moment where Steve drops his shield and refuses to fight Bucky and chooses to die rather than kill his old friend I really felt that because this movie did a really good job at selling the authenticity of its narrative partially because they knew this was a film where comedy does not belong so they used humor very sparingly as the age old saying goes you try to please everyone you please no one Disney very clearly wanted this to be the dark low point of the trilogy so added in a lot of death and dark moments but also was to cater towards family audiences who added in an abundance of levity now it's possible to create a dark film with moments of humor but only when handled with extreme care and only done when that humor is a genuine benefit to the storytelling and not just in their four humors sake and then you have the scene transition where it builds up what looks to be a spaceship as ominous music plays to only reveal that it is a clothes iron now this is a funny moment but this is not just some in character witty dialogue this is parody irrefutable textbook parody this is a dark film this is not space Bulls or Deadpool stars is a series that has always gone for those dark undertones for example when Anakin kills the younglings or Luke finds his family murdered this series has always taken itself with at least an amount of seriousness this moment totally goes against everything the Star Wars series has been up to this point this film is actively poking fun at the fact that it is trying to be serious you cannot have your cake and eat it you cannot have a dark brooding drama like Revenge of the Sith and also at the same moment have a light-hearted comedy like Deadpool in short to summarize this essay into one sentence how can the audience take this film seriously when it refuses to take itself seriously so today I want to end this video when a note that hits quite close to home and that note is internet security there is a story that I've never told anyone where there was a quote-unquote fan of mine who enjoyed my content so much he tracked down who I was in real life including my name my date of birth and various schools I had been to as a child and thankfully the street address that he thought was mine was actually not which was a big relief but when I refused to reply to any of his emails and I cut off all communication with him he wasn't very civil about it in fact what he did was he found my IP address which is not your physical address but it's rather the virtual address of your internet router and he attacked it by overwhelming my IP with information which at the time I had no clue what it was but I quickly learned it as a form of attack called ddossing this disgruntled fan shut down my internet for two whole weeks which meant I couldn't play video games I couldn't watch YouTube and more importantly I couldn't do my job not to mention my provider was no help at all in the end it was at the point where I had to take the bus into town to go to Starbucks just so I could upload a video needless to say what I went through was a massive annoyance but after two weeks he finally got bored and gave up the attacks in the end the only thing it did was stress me out a lot and consumer a bunch of my time and it could have been so much worse than that but it got me thinking all he had was a number a single number which was my IP address which by the way if you don't use a VPN is incredibly easy for anyone to track down if with just one number he so easily compromised my internet and stopped me from doing my job for two weeks straight how secure is my banking information my you should become my facebook profile how easy would it be for some stranger in the future do not just shut down my internet but also help themselves to all of my private information my browser history my private conversations with my family members while their assets it was a worry that was constantly on the back of my mind and it is a matter that hits very close to 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Channel: The Closer Look

Views: 2,108,988

Keywords: star, wars, star wars, the last jedi, the last, jedi, last jedi, video essay, video, essay, the closer look, closer look, closer, Just Write, narrative drama, 7 basic questions, luke, rey, analysis, bathos, comedy, solo, forcing change, forcing, change, review, lessons, screenplay, lessons from the screenplay, story, funny, sherlock, tarantino

Id: CuuDTnMPMgc

Length: 20min 8sec (1208 seconds)

Published: Thu May 31 2018