The Last Jedi Revisited (Why It's Still Terrible)

so my old nemesis i can already tell there's gonna be people finding out about this video and their knee-jerk reaction is just gonna be why are you talking about this movie again it happened three years ago stop reigniting your hate for a movie you personally didn't like and move on well for a couple of reasons one this movie has a tendency to appear as a trending subject on twitter and has been doing so for years since it first came out so don't try to tell me this topic isn't relevant anymore the last jedi regardless of how you feel about it has always been a highly topical film given the subject matter it doesn't really matter how long ago it came out because that's not an actual limit to what can and cannot be discussed in terms of media and two this is star wars we're talking about star wars will always be a relevant topic of discussion until the planet explodes because it's only the biggest franchise in the history of western media for those who may not know i previously talked about this movie when it was sort of new i guess it recently came out on blu-ray and dvd and it was terrible back then well guess what three years have gone by and it's still terrible there is literally no excuse for this movie turning out as horribly as it did even now it still baffles me how it was even possible for this movie to [ __ ] up as colossally as it did but on the other hand this is something that i talked about in detail before so i'm gonna try and do my best to bring up arguments that i didn't use the first time because there is actually very little to like about this movie from its story to its writing to its characters to its themes to its awful continuity to its production it's not like i actively wanted the sequel trilogy to fail i wanted these movies to be good i'll openly admit that i was one of the people who felt optimistic about the force awakens when it first came out it was a very flawed experience but it still had some good stuff in it and left open a lot of possible directions for the story to go but now because of the last jedi and rise of skywalker the force awakens is a movie that has only gotten more sour and aged more poorly with the passage of time because it ended up going nowhere and now it means nothing but perhaps that's a story for another time because this isn't about the force awakens this is about the last jedi and i eagerly await the people on twitter or elsewhere complaining about the news that i'm talking about this movie for the billionth time but like i said before i really don't care at this point because even to this day i'm still trying to figure out how this could have happened how was it possible for this movie to go so wrong even with everything that's come out about this mess of a sequel trilogy since the rise of skywalker it still feels like we missed something because it just gets worse and worse as time goes on but as horrible as the rise of skywalker is it wasn't necessarily the movie that started the avalanche that honor goes to this movie in which there were many many think pieces about it about how it was either the best star wars film since the empire strikes back [Laughter] no or one of the worst things to ever happen in the history of cinema and while i wouldn't say this about the last jedi at least not on its own it's definitely understandable why people felt that way one way or another this was pretty much the star wars movie that started the great divide between people who like the star wars sequel trilogy and people who like good movies and i suppose there's really no harm in revisiting the reasons why to see just how bad or just how bad this movie has aged in the last three years especially since the rise of skywalker came out and just to let people know before we move forward no matter what you see and no matter what happens in this video just try to bear with me because trust me it gets worse it gets way [ __ ] worse but we all gotta start somewhere and this movie is already pretty damn bad so let's go and what better way to start this off by doing what we did last time starting off with the opening crawl i know it may come across as a little bit mundane but i'm sorry this is simply not excusable when the movie manages to screw up with the first three words literally the first three words it's just not painting a good sign i talked before about how ridiculous it is that the order was somehow raining when the previous film ended with them losing a shitload of resources and taking a huge defeat after the starkiller was destroyed but after putting more time into thinking about it i started to realize that this isn't the problem it's a symptom of the problem the actual problem is that this plot point has no buildup you might have heard a common complaint with the force awakens and that the first order just showed up out of nowhere from the ashes of the old empire we're just supposed to accept that this order suddenly rose to power and that the republic was incompetent to stop it there's no explanation for how this happened and you can't just hand wave it away with one sentence of information the purpose of the prequel trilogy was to detail what led to palpatine's rise to power in the ot how he took advantage of the jedi order's flawed ideology and exploited the republic's weaknesses nothing like that is given here it's just these guys took the old empire's place and we're back to square one now it might have been one thing if they gave us a legitimate explanation for how they rose to power in the next two movies but the answers we ended up getting turned out to be blatant [ __ ] this opening crawl has the exact same problem they don't take the time to establish or elaborate anything that's going on here we have no picture of how far reaching the villains are how powerful they are or how they recovered so quickly even if we're to assume that it's because the order had more stations or the republic's planets that got blown up dealt a crucial blow to the resistance it still comes across as jarring because the force awakens treated the destruction of the starkiller as a strong wind for the good guys and even the playing field the movie ended on an optimistic note that the good guys were fighting back so why are they suddenly losing why is the republic suddenly just gone why is only one side winning when both sides faced huge losses at the end of the last film it raises a whole bunch of questions that are never answered which drags you out of the experience and it heavily reduces the sense of tension because the stakes aren't properly established creating a lack of investment it feels like an entire other movie just happened off screen and all this stuff with leia and the gang being chased by hux and the first order has no context behind it they're not choosing to stay consistent with the world building here it's just this happened because that happened with no explanation for how and why leia's crew got back to the fleet fled to some random planet and are now being chased by the entire first order and there's just too many holes in how it's presented we haven't gotten to the actual movie yet and the story is already showing a number of cracks maybe i would have been more forgiving of this sloppy intro if the rest of the movie was more steady and it's not and the first sign of trouble comes from the iconic yet infamous prank call between poe and hux introducing us to the film's terrible sense of humor and this is where things are going to differentiate from last time because instead of going through the movie scene by scene i'm gonna talk about all the movies comedy all at once i'll be doing the same thing for other topics as we move forward to maintain a sense of focus and to better organize this critique so it's no secret at this point that the last jedi has a comedy problem it's one of the things that a lot of people talk about when it comes to this movie and while people really like to make the argument that comedy is subjective the problem comes into play when you start to really break it down and put it in context because for a lot of reasons we're gonna go into the comedy in this movie does not work and not because i personally don't find it funny it actually fails on a fundamental level and the main reason why is because the style of humor they go for is not appropriate for star wars i'm not saying that star wars can't have comedic moments or do it well but the last jedi is a textbook example of how not to do it there's no subtlety to how any of it is delivered what do i mean by that well you've probably heard of something called mood whiplash when a story tends to go back and forth between being upbeat and lighthearted and having a dark and serious tone the last jedi is the epiphany of this and not in a good way there are so many moments throughout the movie where an otherwise serious moment is being interrupted by some kind of joke hawks trying to pose a threat before getting dumbfounded by a prank call hawks claiming they have the resistance tied at the end of a string before finn recovers from his injury and starts fumbling around in a suit leaking water everywhere rey facing her arch enemy but getting awkwardly stunned by his physical features kylo telling his forces to fire on the speeders before getting interrupted by hux who just says the same thing and kylo just gives him an annoyed look chewbacca being pestered by the porgs and between more serious scenes leia arguing with poe over destroying the dreadnought followed by leia telling c-3po to get rid of that look on his face and many many other examples that i don't have time to go over how is this a problem well if i could sum it up in two words it would be this inconsistent tone the beginning of the movie sets itself up as a dramatic war film and it features many intense action scenes with a lot of harsh deaths and dark scenes but then you have those scenes played back to back with scenes that are clearly being played for laughs and they're in the movie for no reason other than they just wanted to do something funny i can only assume that they were going for the dramatic moments followed by jokes formula which is something you would see in a lot of marvel movies but unlike the marvel movies that are more lighthearted in nature given their source material star wars is meant to be viewed more seriously it's supposed to be a serious space opera it's what star wars always was which is why the constant jokes following dramatic scenes don't work here because it treats star wars like a lighthearted comedy it might have been one thing if they did these jokes every once in a while but the last jedi is completely oversaturated with these types of jokes constantly dumbing down the mood it's constantly going back and forth between dramatic and silly and it doesn't register when you're trying to be momentous you're creating a scenario where we're supposed to be making a personal connection with these characters and their struggles to come to term with the losses and sacrifices being made you can't do that when you're constantly bringing the movie to a screeching halt every two minutes just to go haha look at us we're being goofy and doing silly things with awkward pauses it makes the film come across as a parody of star wars more than anything else like the family guy version of the ot and even that managed to stay consistent for more than five minutes i can see they were trying to make this movie more light-hearted and kid-friendly compared to other star wars movies because you know it was bought by disney and disney likes pandering to kids and that would be fine if it was more scarce with genuine build-up to the more lighthearted stuff but that's not what the last jedi does the humor never takes a second to breathe when it needs to interrupting and weakening scenes that are supposed to be grave and solemn they're horribly timed and misplaced constantly showing up in moments that don't call for them they don't allow dramatic scenes to play out naturally constantly dragging you out of the experience and breaking your investment in the story there's no sense of balance between these two elements i mean really compare the humor from the last jedi to the humor that can be found in the ot yes they have comedic moments like yoda's antics or han solo's quibs but they're not a detriment because the balance is maintained they're brief more scarce not interrupting the story and they're also more natural to the world they're in additionally these jokes help to establish and humanize the characters giving us insight into their personalities and how they interact with each other now tell me what was the purpose of racing kylo ren with his shirt off and having a dumb reaction like a teenage girl with a crush i mean besides feeding into the sick freaks who think romanticizing abusive relationships is an okay thing to do this doesn't give insight into rey's character or her relationship with kylo it's just there for the sake of having something awkward it turns this dramatic and serious war story into a stupid teen movie it's incessant forced and childish and the rest of the jokes in the movie are like this the comedy is constantly face planning miserably and it paints a really bad image for the last jedi because this tone is not the fitting to star wars it wants to be this really big and grand epic story that changes and questions the way we previously viewed star wars but it also wants to be a lighthearted kids adventure with all sorts of wacky antics and characters doing silly things for no reason and now you have a bunch of scatterbrained comedy featuring luke drinking tit milk from a rejected dr seuss alien hux being reduced to an incompetent butt monkey awkwardly riding space horses through a casino a drunken alien [ __ ] trying to hump bb-8 rey awkwardly destroying private property of the island natives chewbacca being annoyed by the porgs finn awkwardly fumbling around in a suit spraying water a resistant sniper tasting space rocks and a security guard being easily defeated by a tiny robot shooting casino tokens and a mugger hitting him in the head with a boot despite that he was wearing a [ __ ] helmet in a film that we're supposed to be taking relatively seriously it's like doc walker somehow got a hold of the writing process and started going hog wild with all of his terrible ideas and it just won't stop it's bad enough that the jokes are constantly failing to be funny while breaking the tone but it follows you constantly throughout the entire film it's so painfully desperate to get even the tiniest chuckle out of you that it will hammer the comedy incessantly into your head like they're actually in the background shouting please find us funny and when you put it all together the comedy in the last jedi is cringe it is so cringe it's the kind of cringe that makes you wish for the ability to erase stuff from your memory so you can immediately wipe it out of your mind it's not that it has any gross out like saliva or boogers or snot or flatulence or any of that kind of stuff rather it is so obnoxious so insufferable and so aggravating that it makes you want to rip your brain out and throw it into the nearest blender in fact the comedy of the last jedi is so horrible that i actually put together a list of things that i would rather watch than ever subject myself to a single joke in this movie ever again i would rather watch the episode of the simpsons where homer gets raped by a panda i would rather watch a collection of cutaway gags from modern family guy i would rather watch a collection of episodes from the dark age of spongebob squarepants i would rather binge watch the 20th season of south park i would rather watch beast boy and cyborg yelling waffles for 10 minutes straight i would rather watch adam sandler's eight crazy knights and jack and jill back to back i would rather watch son of the mask i would rather watch that shitty olaf origin story i would rather binge watch the home alone movies that don't have macaulay culkin in them i would even rather watch the star wars holiday special on continuous loop in slow motion the comedy in this movie is that [ __ ] bad it's a constant burden on the entire film that makes it so jarring and difficult to watch i've been to trips to the dmv with a better sense of humor than this movie and i really wish that the comedy and constant shift in tone was the main problem but this is only the cherry on top of the sunday with how horrible the last jedi is because now we have to talk about the characters and the characters in this movie range from bland to annoying to insulting to oh my god will you please get off the screen everyone in this movie except maybe finn and poe is just an incompetent buffoon and they make up some of the most irritating people that i've ever had the misfortune of spending my time with let's talk about finn and rose first since i guess it would be easier to start with them i might get people disagreeing with me on this but finn in the force awakens was a good character i keep seeing people saying that he should have been the protagonist and i can see why they would say that he was more developed and had a much more interesting setup than rey a stormtrooper who has second thoughts about the empire and questions his allegiance tries to run away from the war afraid of the order's power but through the friendships he makes along his travels he starts to understand the weight of what's at stake he finally works up the courage to join the war effort stand up to his former superiors and is willing to lay down his life fighting kylo ren to protect rey he goes through a legitimate character arc about overcoming his fears and finding the courage to stand against the enemy and it was also a setup being given to a stormtrooper who are normally just seen as background fodder for the good guys to beat up on this was a pretty unique concept for star wars at least for the main movies and there was a genuine sense of effort being put into establishing his character it made us want to see what they were going to do with him and upon seeing the next two movies we immediately regret putting so much investment into him the first problem comes from how it feels like his character is just regressing into being a coward who runs away from the war even with the setup that they were down to their last legs the finn who developed the courage to fight back wouldn't just abandon everyone like this he would have stayed and gone down with the ship staying loyal to the end in some way he kind of just goes through the same thing that he did last time he starts off trying to run away from the war and at the end he's willing to sacrifice himself to save others it's a blatant rehash of his character arc from the first film and it's made worse here because they don't put any time into properly developing his arc if anything he ends up taking a back seat while rose is made into the more central character for the subplot finn doesn't do anything significant in the entire film like you could have easily left him in the hospital bed and have rose go on her quest with some random resistance fighter you get the exact same thing even his conflict with phasma is so rushed and so haphazardly added in the middle of the second act that it feels like they just did not give a [ __ ] finn coming face to face with phasma was supposed to be the culmination of his character arc his shining moment in the trilogy and they just go through it in the blink of an eye in a really half-assed way like they just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible because they already have a bunch of stuff going on with rey luke and kylo it's just hand waved away when it should have been a much bigger moment in the trilogy and on that note i really hope gwendoline christy was happy with her three minutes of screen time as her character got no development across two movies we relate to her due to her actions and her character what a [ __ ] waste i remember sam wessel more than i do this waste of a boba fett clone she had a bigger effect on the story than phasma did the battle on crate was the closest that they came to do anything meaningful with him and even that ends up meaning nothing because they just have rose robbing us of a meaningful heroic sacrifice if they actually had the balls to go through with this it would have given the climax a sense of meaning creating actual stakes and raising the tension and it would have given ray something to work with because now she lost two close friends her struggle with not falling to the dark side would have been given nuance and provide us with a great cliffhanger will she find a way to overcome the dark side or succumb to it in her grief it would have been a kill two bursts with one stone move giving finn a meaningful send-off as well as providing rey with an actual dilemma to deal with instead of just being a mary sue but no because ryan johnson was so obsessed with shoving rose in your face we have to cheat finn out of a legitimately heroic sacrifice and then when the rise of skywalker came out his entire character is nothing but background noise it's practically a meme that all he does in that movie is shout rey he does nothing in the last jedi and he does nothing in the rise of skywalker at this point you might as well have just had him die in his fight against kylo because he serves absolutely no purpose after that scene he goes through no meaningful growth or change after episode 7 so his presence on screen is just a waste of time and then you have rose she is the worst there's no two ways about it she is the absolute worst maybe not the worst character in the trilogy that would be this guy but she's definitely the worst character in this movie you thought jar jar binks was insufferable jar jar binks is merciful compared to rose tico at least with jar jar there's the sense that he was made with the intent of being hated for how much he annoys the other characters and the audience and mission accomplished there because this turd was absolutely grating in both the verbal and visual sense but rose is made with the sense that we're supposed to like this character we're supposed to relate to and sympathize with her and they fail so badly at doing this every scene with this character is just a headache to get through she is just an annoying airhead imagine if the movie's uneven tone with its mood whiplash between trying to be serious and constantly relapsing in a juvenile humor was concentrated into an actual character in the film now you have rose tico our introduction to this character is seeing her mourning the loss of her sister then suddenly getting excited and enthusiastic about meeting finn she tries to be all brooding and serious when talking about the corruption in cantobite and then she's all giggly and bubbly while interacting with space horses and even without that inconsistency she is just so aggravating the appeal to her character is supposed to be that she's a resistance fighter grieving over the loss of her sister who sacrificed herself during the bombing run but with the way she behaves throughout the film it feels like she's not taking the death of her sister as seriously as she should be and if that wasn't bad enough you also have the scene where she prevents finn from sacrificing himself to save the resistance there is so much wrong with this scene that it's not even something to joke about so you prevented finn from sacrificing himself because it's about not fighting what we hate but saving what we love despite that he was just trying to save the people he loves oh and she also happens to be saying this while the resistance base is being blown up as a result of her selfish actions the resistance that was also fighting to protect the people they love and then you can top it off with the horrible decision to make rose kiss him confirming that this entire waste of a subplot was just an excuse to throw shipping fuel into the movie just what the [ __ ] there was no hint of romantic chemistry between these two throughout the entire movie none of the dialogue between them implied an intimate relationship even in hindsight and even then their characters are so badly underdeveloped that you don't even feel investment in their relationship and they only knew each other for maybe two days so you're telling me that rose was about to let the resistance get slaughtered and have the first order enslave the entire galaxy for a guy she only knew for two days it might have been one thing if rose had some kind of epiphany that luke was coming to save them but she didn't no one did if you take out the knowledge that luke was going to show up a few minutes later rose just doomed the entire galaxy she was going to waste her sister's sacrifice for her own personal desires that is not sympathetic in the slightest oh and how about the hypocrisy and that it's not about fighting what we hate lying when just a few hours earlier you gleefully destroyed that casino you oh so hated because you hated the whole profiting from war thing i still remember my first time watching this scene and when she closed her eyes i thought to myself god i hope she's dead rose is that special kind of character who goes out of her way to ruin the entire experience with their mere presence she's the ashley from resident evil 4 of star wars and even with all that aside it's not just that she's an annoying character it's that she's a poorly established one who has no purpose in the story even jar jar did things that served a purpose in the story and not just his [ __ ] up that put palpatine into power rose's sister served a higher purpose in the story and she was in the film for like three minutes what does rose actually do plot-wise besides screwing finn out of his heroic sacrifice just some dumb in-your-face speech about the evils of capitalism and rich people and for that matter they don't even take the time to really delve into the connection between these two when rowe starts discussing the corruption of cantobite why wasn't there a follow-up talk between her and finn finn was also kidnapped from his family and forced to serve under the first order as a child the two might have had something to relate to here they were both forced into hardship as children and they both experienced bad things from it but instead of giving the two a chance to actually communicate and develop their relationship they immediately skip over to the part where they find the code breaker and then get arrested instead of the two being treated as equals finn is just set up as a comedic dumb character that serves as a way for rose to explain pointless [ __ ] there's never a moment where the two actually relate to each other or form some kind of bond so finn's presence just feels force while they shove rose in your face and when you really think about it what purpose did this even serve because the finnen rosa plot is unnecessary filler in every single way nothing they do has any effect on the actual story going on not rey and luke not kylo and snoke not holdu and poe nothing the trip to cantobyte what did this add to the plot oh we find out a bunch of rich people are selling weapons to both sides and using the war for profit um okay that adds nothing we gave some random kids a resistance ring they never have an impact on the story so it's just a meaningless scene with no weight to it we never see them again so what's the point and then it's revealed that finn and rose's mission was pointless because haldo actually had a plan the whole time they needed to find the codebreaker to disable the device that allows the first order to track the resistance through light speed but then the guy ends up selling out their plan which makes haldo look even worse for simply not explaining anything which would have prevented all these people from getting killed you could have just made it so that the order was anticipating holdo's plan to attack them by surprise which would allow them to be intimidating instead of incompetent so this entire side quest just becomes completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things everything about the subplot with finn and rose is just a waste of screen time they have no influence on the actual plot whatsoever all we get is some meaningless world building that doesn't influence anything that happens in the rise of skywalker and the most damaging thing about this subplot is that maybe if you cut it out of the movie all the time spent on it could have been contributed to the other storylines stuff that's actually important the stuff with finn and rose is so inconsequential that it plays out as a completely different movie like a spin-off or a side story and the movie spends over 40 minutes of his run time on this [ __ ] all those minutes that could have been given to rey's training luke coming to terms with his past poe and his scuffle with haldo kylo planning to overthrow snoke all the time wasted on these two would have been better spent elsewhere you could easily cut out this entire subplot and you would lose nothing and knowing that so much time is wasted on this subplot makes the overall pacing even more horrible it really feels like all the stuff with rey lou kylo and holdo is completely rushed and not given proper development because they wasted so much time on this stupid shipping fuel and the broken comedy on top of that makes the pacing even worse both of these things are constantly breaking up the story at inconvenient times needlessly dragging out scenes and causing a lot of stuff to be underdeveloped it makes the movie as a whole so jagged and sluggish it's two and a half hours long but it feels so much longer because of how badly it's paced all this force comedy in the fin and rosa plot is nothing but a great big compiled distraction and everything else in the movie suffers as a result such as the holdo subplot if there was any proof that the sequel trilogy was used as a mouthpiece for kathleen kennedy's feminist driven politics this would have to be it though derailing the entire lore for the sake of making ray the most special person in the entire galaxy can count as a close second so throughout this movie we're led to believe that holdo the woman is an irresponsible leader not doing anything about the impending doom of the resistance while poe the man puts together a plan to save everyone but then it's revealed that haldo had a plan all along and poe was a reckless idiot for taking matters into his own hands now this might not have been a problem or felt incredibly sexist if it was a well-written subplot but it's not a well-written subplot and the way they demonstrate haldo's interactions with poe are so blatantly one-sided that it feels like something anita sarkeesian would write she just comes across as needlessly condescending when addressing his recklessness aldo is being incredibly disrespectful to someone who's supposed to be the highest ranking pilot in the resistance paul might have went against leia's wishes but given the context of what was happening at the time poe kind of made the right call that dreadnoughts are regarded as fleet killers meaning that they absolutely would have destroyed what's left of the resistance given the chance and they were tracking them through light speed anyway if they didn't destroy it the order would have obliterated their ship there would have been no time for holdo's evacuation plan or even post plan to disable the tracker poe is supposed to be seen as in the wrong but he actually saved the resistance not telling him the plan because he's a hothead is a stupid justification and it's also a really dangerous thing to do if you have a hot head in your ranks then keeping him in the dark about a plan he might agree with is the stupidest thing you can do and he ends up agreeing with the plan anyway they didn't tell him the plan just for the sake of artificial suspense why because leia demoted him five minutes ago now aside from that playing into a really big running problem with the movie that being it was written by people who have really shitty ideas for how the military operates it makes no sense that halda wouldn't tell poe or anyone else about the plan even if he was being reckless or was rightfully demoted that literally has nothing to do with anything neither of those things have anything to do with whether or not he was privy to a plan there was no reason to leave anybody in the dark maybe if there were concerns for a spy within the ship but this was never brought up at any point as an issue it would have been far more sensible to give him evidence that she knew what she was doing instead of making him believe in her out of blind faith while it's true that the chain of command should be respected it's also tangible to explain your plans to your teammates to maintain people's trust in you and when you're in a dire situation respect should work both ways there was no reason for haldo to disrespect poe like this because in the beginning poe was willing to respect holdo he was just showing a few concerns regarding a plan she refused to tell him a plan that would have taken three sentences and half a minute to explain even during the mutiny she still doesn't bother to explain anything to him it might have been one thing if the situation wasn't so dire and poe was just some random private at the bottom of the chain with haldo being so far up but poe isn't just some random private he's regarded by kylo ren himself as the best pilot in the resistance i had no idea we had the best pilot in the resistance on board and he's also very respected as a fleet commander and the situation was incredibly dire it was a life-or-death situation to save what was left of the resistance why would you not tell a hothead about the plan if you know they're most likely gonna act on their own since they don't know what's going on i just find it really ironic that poe is portrayed as a reckless idiot for risking the lives of the resistance on his fin and rose plan but then huldo and leia do the exact same thing risking the survival of the resistance on an attempt to land on some nearby planet without being noticed and that's kind of the issue that i have with haldo and leia's plan it relies entirely on the incompetence of the first order paul rightfully points out that transports are completely defenseless and they'll be done for if they get spotted haldo and leia claimed that the order wouldn't be tracking smaller ships but why the [ __ ] wouldn't they they don't lack the capacity to do so when it's a really easy advantage to pick off smaller ships whenever they emerge it's only when finn and rose get caught that they get the idea that maybe they should be looking out for smaller ships so i can only assume that the reason the plan would have worked was because the first order is made up of complete idiots which heavily undermines how they're supposed to be a great threat oh and wouldn't you know it aldo not telling poe about the plan ends up blowing up in her face because that's exactly what gets them caught finn and poe wouldn't have gone on the side quest which led to the code breaker informing the order about holdo's plan if holdo simply told ho about the plan why did she simply not tell poe about the plan she told that random blonde lady about the plan so why not anybody else and what ends up happening is exactly what poe predicted massive casualties and the resistance getting blasted to oblivion and even when that starts happening haldo is just staring at their destruction like she's dumbfounded instead of immediately taking action while the order is firing on them both before and after kylo kills snoke she just watches on she literally just sits there for minutes on end looking at them getting blown up before finally going hey i should probably do something in case you haven't figured it out by now holdo is a [ __ ] idiot who has no business being an admiral and yet we're supposed to view her as a heroic and noble character who's willing to sacrifice herself so that the others can escape and now all of her poor decision-making is supposed to make sense because leia told poe about the plan well after it was too late no just no aside from being a toxic mouthpiece for kathleen kennedy's female-driven politics which i'm gonna get into later she's simply a garbage leader she acts like an immature child instead of an experienced commander being disrespectful to her subordinates for just asking a reasonable question instead of communicating with poe like they're both high-ranking individuals in the military she instead treats him with a smug condescending demeanor which results in them communicating like a bickering married couple everything about the way she acts makes her completely unsuitable for the task of leading people in a dangerous situation it makes you wonder how she even became an admiral to begin with her role in the film is just as forced as rose as she basically does nothing except stall the plot and her stupid-ass strategy only had the possibility of working because the first order is artificially stupid she just assumes that the enemy is going to be incompetent enough to not notice the smaller ships escaping to the nearby planet and even if the enemy is incompetent it's completely irresponsible to just assume that they are realistically the order should have won by now and they're constantly portrayed as incompetent and failing to eliminate the resistance every chance they get for the sake of plot convenience and even after that the way she acts and the way she communicates with poe shows how she's unsuitable for the task of leading people in the middle of a war if she couldn't even handle a single subordinate properly what makes you think she can organize an entire military power in leia's absence my guess is not very well since she basically team killed the resistance as a result of not telling poe the plan i don't want to hear any argument about how poe should have just had better trust in holdo and be patient with her and not act behind her back they're in a war man when you're in a war you can't just expect people to follow you in blind faith you have to give them a reason to believe that you're a suitable leader and holdo did nothing of the sort none of her actions beforehand indicated she had the smallest clue what she was doing she did absolutely nothing to inspire confidence in her authority why did leia even have to be removed for the sake of shoving in holdo why did they kill off admiral ackbar so carelessly just to introduce her when you really think about it holdo is a completely pointless addition to the movie because she's a useless character who does nothing to contribute to the franchise it might have been one thing if she actually did something to have an effect on the story but she just spends her screen time standing around doing nothing if you cut haldo out and just put admiral ackbar or leia in her place the story would play out exactly as it did before the inclusion of haldo changes nothing actually scratch that it does change one thing our understanding of light speed travel that completely destroys and derails the entire lore by abruptly weaponizing it eight movies into the franchise with no explanation and no regard for how many plot holes it would open in the previous films in spite of people shrugging it off by saying oh it's a really stunning visual that shows how amazing the special effects in this new trilogy are no it looks cool is not an excuse for retconning the lore like this you cannot introduce something like this this far into the franchise it's the equivalent of introducing kai leng in mass effect 3. not only does it make no sense here but it makes no sense that the elusive man would never think to use him at any point in the previous two games why did no one else in star wars ever think about doing this before why didn't they use it against the death star to prevent alderaan from being destroyed and if someone tries to use the novel version to explain this away with something like oh the damage was caused by the experimental shields on the radius that's not an excuse this is basically saying that this plot crucial information was something that should have been put in the movie and they were too lazy to take the time to include it it's a cheap method for trying to fix a plot hole months after the film was released i think the fort snake put it best in his video about devorah and mk10 refusing to explain plot crucial detail to the audience unless they're willing to purchase additional supplementary material is terrible storytelling and if anything this just makes it even worse they know they broke the universe with this stupid idea so they just made up the excuse that some ships are special i mean experimental shields really what do they do just make the ship susceptible to hyperspace ramming that's a pretty big leap in shield technology they never bother to explain and it also adds salt in the wound that these new films are just doing whatever they want with lightspeed travel regardless of how much sense it makes hyperspace out of a hangar that's cool hyperspace into the gravity well of a planet it's cool hyperspace has a weapon let's do it they're not taking any sort of internal consistency into account it doesn't matter what excuse you come up with this writing decision completely nullifies every single previous movie by ruining the spaceship battles you might remember in my original review that i use medicalloreans as an example for disrupting the consistency in star wars pointing out how they have the same problem as the holdo maneuver but you know what i don't think that was a fair comparison because i can at least see the possibility of some kind of explanation to justify the midichlorians like limiting the power level of the character so everyone isn't just freely demolishing everything like anakin this is completely indefensible because it brings absolutely everything into question why hasn't anyone done this before why hasn't anyone attempted to weaponize hyperspace why hasn't anyone made vulture droids for the purpose of hyperspace ramming droids that have no thinking or consciousness they just abruptly introduced the most cost-effective way to blow [ __ ] up and could simply just have droids to it instead of human pilots this one scene that was made for the sake of a cool visual has now raised far too many questions with no answers being provided to them and when you look more into it this concept of weaponizing hyperspace doesn't even know how hyperspace works hyperspace and normal space are not the same thing hyperspace isn't simply going very very fast it's entering another dimension where spacetime makes travel distance shorter aldo's ramming plan should not work because you're supposed to be immaterial when going through hyperspace but now that it's not immaterial it completely destroys the concept of hyperspace travel if you hit even a single spec of dust your ship is going to explode it's only by sheer luck that no one has blown up in the middle of a light speed travel by this point every time they jump to light speed they are now at the risk of crashing into a gas cloud planet asteroid sun or another ship on their way to their destination what kind of science fiction film doesn't even know how hyperspace works but you know what let's put aside all that technobabble for a moment let's just pretend that there was some sort of actual reason why no one thought of weaponizing hyperspace before or that it's completely safe to use for travel even with those two things aside weaponizing hyper speed still destroys star wars completely because of one solitary fact introducing hyperspace as a weapon is a completely self-defeating concept how are we supposed to respect any kind of laser weaponry now they just created a world where the only real firepower is hyperspace missiles now fleets can just attack each other from miles away without even seeing each other battles can suddenly end in minutes big battleships are now just giant bullseyes asking to be blown up i mean try to consider this why do you think we never saw lst as a weapon in any sci-fi story before now whether it's a movie tv show book or video game that's because not weaponizing lst is an unspoken rule of sci-fi from a writing perspective the second you introduce hyperspace ramming you introduce a completely op weapon that can't be countered something that has infinite destructive potential that solves all possible combat scenarios and now that you've introduced it everyone is going to start threatening to use it and now you destroyed the concept of spaceships fighting each other it's the sci-fi equivalent of a nuclear warhead every military is now building these things and pointing them at each other's planets making it completely impossible to write any plausible conventional fleet battle the reason why no one ever came up with hyperspeed as a weapon before is because it's a completely stupid idea other sci-fi stories considered the world-building ramifications of this idea and realized it would unbalance everything they kept things consistent to maintain some sort of believability to the world they created the only reason i can think of for why this was allowed to happen is because ryan johnson is a [ __ ] idiot who doesn't know anything about sci-fi and that stupid bimbo was too [ __ ] lazy to proofread his storytelling before sending it off and it would have been bad enough if the hyperspace thing was the only world-shattering inconsistency in this movie but unfortunately it's only one of many many blunders making the world building completely sloppy and careless for example the bomb running scene it makes no goddamn sense that the republic or the resistance abandoned y-wings in favor of these completely useless contraptions i don't care how much explosive power those things have they are objectively inferior their armor and shields are garbage they travel extremely slowly it's incredibly easy for an enemy ship to blow them up before they get within a mile of their target they can easily end up team killing the ships assigned to protect them because the range of the debris from their death is way too massive their whole integrity is so horrible that they can easily be set off by the tiniest debris coming in contact with them they're completely counterproductive in these types of combat scenarios they're made of paper they're incredibly easy to hit given how slow they are and the extremely high odds of friendly fire when they're destroyed are too much of a risk to just keep using the only reason why that dreadnought was destroyed was because the tie fighters were somehow too incompetent to get that one bomber they missed oh and also because they completely forgot how gravity works i just love how there are people making excuses for this abortion of a movie by saying oh the bombs are just magnetized really then how do they not get pulled straight into the side of the bombership when released these things are ineffective in every logical capacity why is the resistance wasting resources on them because ryan johnson wanted to reference world war ii and for someone who wanted to reference world war ii he seems to have a pretty awful idea for how the military actually functions i mean we already went over the stupidity of haldo not cooperating with poe and not debriefing anyone about her plan while also being the worst leader ever but then you have [ __ ] like rose heroically stopping finn from sacrificing himself she would have doomed the entire galaxy had luke not shown up in real life she would have been labeled a traitor and sent to the brig there's also the [ __ ] with hux not immediately destroying the resistance because he wants to toy with them before their ultimate annihilation that does not make sense i can understand this coming from someone like the joker but not a military leader whose priority is to destroy the enemy as soon as possible they wouldn't simply toy with their enemy giving them time to come up with a plan for escape if this was supposed to show his arrogance and stupid pride it doesn't work because it actively retcons his character from the force awakens in that film hux was a legitimately terrifying general there was a strong veracity to his presence on screen he was a villain that you could take seriously because his demeanor was that menacing in this movie he's treated like a joke he's the butt of everyone else's antics he's portrayed as incompetent and his demeanor from the previous movie isn't present and he doesn't really do anything except yell and point it's like ryan johnson didn't know what to do with him so he just used him as a framework for the film's terrible comedy and when we get to the rise of skywalker i'm the spy you know what i don't think either of these idiots knew what to do with hux but the lack of military understanding goes beyond just character portrayals and interactions it also relates to the terrible tactics of the military powers if you want a thorough breakdown of this i recommend checking out these videos they go into far more detail on the subject than i can possibly hope to to put it simply the way the military is portrayed here is really childish and absent-minded it's actually about as childish as the way the sequel trilogy portrays the force they took away all the deep philosophy behind it and just turn it into a superpower the way the force was described in the ot made it into something much more important than that even the prequels in spite of their problems took the time to show the intrinsic and delicate nature of the force so much careful thinking and wisdom went into establishing it and it's been further expanded in things like the kotor games and the animated television shows the sequel trilogy takes all of that crumbles it into a ball and throws it out the window in favor of portraying it as a generic dragon ball power scaling system with random special abilities they just pull out of their ass and the last jedi has more than a few infamous examples probably the most infamous and laughed at example is how it apparently gives you immunity to the vacuum of space yep the classic for all the wrong reasons leia pop insane when was it even established that leia was this powerful with the force i'm not saying that she can't use it but she never used it for anything drastic she was never shown to use it for combat or dire situations if she was supposed to have gotten stronger in the last 30 years you think they would have expanded on that a little more at least in a way that makes sense but no this is how we're introduced to leia's ability to use the force flying back to the ship like she's goddamn superman completely immune to the elements of space and somehow quite [ __ ] miraculously suffering no long-term damage from this predicament i'm sorry but the force does not work as a barrier to the vacuum of space not even the most powerful force user would survive the vacuum unprotected temperature and a lack of oxygen is one thing but the absence of pressure would absolutely kill you your blood would boil and you would be dead in seconds you can't just dismiss it by saying it's science fiction so it's obviously not a realistic portrayal of scientific stuff there's a limit to how far you can stretch that all science fiction is based on real life science in some way it helps establish the rules of your science fiction world pulling off [ __ ] like this goes against the concept of having rules and it also results in other types of [ __ ] how the hell did they open the door to let leia back in without decompressing the rest of the ship how did the group get her back in without getting sucked into space what am i even looking at here a power rangers movie it's not even a deus ex machina it's not even a middle finger this is taking a giant [ __ ] in the audience's mouth before pissing in their eye sockets it's that pathetic then you have luke somehow projecting himself across millions of light years in his confrontation with kylo are you really that dense if luke was supposed to be this powerful the whole time why in the almighty hell did he not help fight the first order instead of using his x-wing to fly over there he just stays on the island like an idiot the purpose of this scene was for luke to sacrifice himself to buy time for the others to escape but this is the most ridiculous way they could have done it maybe this might not have been so bad if it was something just by itself but when you combine it with the leia poppins scene and all the other stupid stuff they do with the force in this movie it comes across as an extreme interpretation when he asks rey if we were expecting him to take his lightsaber and go against the entire first order this is proof that he could have done that it's not like he got weaker in his old age at least we could have gotten a proper lightsaber duel and that's not even including the [ __ ] interacting with the living world after you die why is yoda able to summon lightning as a force ghost if force users can interact with the physical world after they die why didn't the jedi of the past do anything against the first order why didn't they help luke and leia stop them can the sith do it too can they interact with the living like the jedi can why aren't they helping kylo and snoke conquering the galaxy why aren't we seeing sith and jedi ghosts fighting each other you see this is why you can't just make [ __ ] up as you go along you have to carefully consider how this stuff fits into the story or else you end up with questions like this now you have too much contrivance and it ruins the cohesion it destroys the internal consistency of star wars i brought this up in my original review and it bears repeating when you're making a story of any kind whether it's star wars lord of the rings the mcu or even my little pony internal consistency is extremely important you introduce rules to how your world works and you have to follow those rules nothing in the last jedi let alone the rest of the sequel trilogy properly fits with anything that happened in the original six movies hyperspace ramming the bombers the backwards development of military tactics force ghosts interacting with the physical world the aspold force powers portraying the force as a power race the first order rising out of nowhere the portrayal of several characters and that's just the worst of it the things done in the sequel trilogy let alone the last jedi make the meaning behind the world building and mythology weaker and less compelling things that were established in the ot and the prequels no longer hold any weight and it also makes the ot pointless since luke hun and leia went through all that crap to defeat the empire just for them to come back you can't even make the argument that the first order is a completely different threat because according to the rise of skywalker it was all part of palpatine's plan and he was alive the whole time it's objectively bad storytelling and for anyone who tries to say something like well if you view the sequel trilogy as a standalone trilogy or any of the three movies on their own maybe they get better no they don't even without the continuity and world building of the original six movies these three are still lackluster and aside from that it's a self-defeating way to view the sequel trilogy you can't just say view these movies as their own thing because they're not supposed to be seen as their own thing it's called the sequel trilogy for a reason the force awakens the last jedi and the rise of skywalker all of them are supposed to be smaller parts of a greater whole star wars isn't just some franchise it's the biggest and most important franchise in all of media its massive scope is still being discussed across the board because it is the staple of western media it invented every trick in the book in terms of world building lore big scale storytelling character deconstruction there are millions of parodies and spoofs of it specifically because of how great an influence it had in the 70s and 80s alone it revolutionized so many storytelling tools and techniques we still use today it's the golden example for why the it's just a movie or it's just a video game or it's just a cartoon or it's a work of fiction that isn't real so it's not worth getting upset and angry over excuse is a terrible dismissal of criticism it changed the very foundation of filmmaking and inspired millions of people worldwide no other franchise in the history of media can ever hope to wield even a candle to it it was ahead of its time in so many ways and the sequel trilogy completely disregards that entirely in favor of empowering women intersectional politics and horribly thought out plot twists that amount to nothing but lazy shock value it's completely disrespectful to such an important legacy and that's not even including the plot holes just so many plot holes the last jedi alone is a treasure trove of things that just don't make sense as a standalone film and especially when you put it next to the other movies why did phasma cooperate with han and finn to lower the starkiller shield if her armor was blaster proof where is the galaxy wide rage at the first order destroying five planets do they not give a [ __ ] that they committed mass murder why didn't the order immediately target leia's cruise ship to prevent the resistance from escaping why did kylo just assume that he killed luke instead of making sure he was dead why did finn and rose not take the slave children with them and not drop them off at a safe location before returning to the ship you realize that by destroying the casino you're subjecting them to more hard labor and torture right if holdo had a gun the whole time why did she allow poe to continue his mutiny why didn't they take the gun away from her if she's more than likely to use it against you why is finn suddenly able to pilot a ship when it was a main plot point in the previous film that he needed a pilot because he was inexperienced in flying a ship by himself when the first order has the resistance trapped on crait why didn't they call another one of those dreadnoughts to fire on them it's not like they were in short supply with all the talk about tracking them through light speed why didn't they track the millennium falcon at the end of the film why didn't leia use her force powers to get them out of the cave how did finn drag rose across the battlefield and back to the cave so quickly if i really wanted to i could make a whole separate video just laying out plot holes in this film that either don't make sense or create inconsistencies with what we've seen before but this is already pretty lengthy and i want to try and keep things shorter this time around much less i get complaints from idiots trying to dismiss my critiques by saying that my video's length is too long for them and while we're on the subject i want to take a moment to apologize for something because it was really dumb of me to do i just want to say i sincerely apologize for that stab i took at muller in my original review i don't know what made me feel the need to make that comment but it was a really juvenile and childish way to dismiss the time and work he put into his review i don't know maybe it's because i was cynical at the time and i was prejudiced to the idea of a review of something being longer than the thing itself which just made me look really hypocritical since i ended up making my own review being longer than the thing itself it was a really jerk ass thing to do and i was being dismissive of him for no good reason it was really unfair and i could have handled it a lot better so muller if by some chance you find this i really am sorry about what i said hopefully we can let bygones be bygones and try to move forward from there so with all that stuff out of the way let's talk about the big three kylo ren little miss perfect and luke skywalker might as well start with kylo since it's easy to [ __ ] on emos now kylo ren is what would happen if you took anakin from episode two extracted his whiny attitude combine it with the essence of a potential school shooter and place it into a vial before injecting it into adam driver a petulant overly angry unstable deranged sociopathic nutcase who's prone to adolescent tantrums and psychotic tendencies now at first i was willing to hesitate on that description of his character because after the scene where he destroys his helmet symbolizing how he's going out of his vader warship he started developing into a more common collective character and for the time it seemed like an interesting direction for his character to go actually taking the time to develop your antagonist and making him more than a one-dimensional angsty edgelord that's great but then he kills snoke and just reverts to being a cold-blooded killer for no reason it literally comes out of nowhere i swear his character flip-flops just as badly as rose where he tries to be reserved and focused just to go back to being a thoroughly violent nut job all over again and it actually gets really disturbing at times remember this scene i want every gun we have to fire on that man jesus christ anakin skywalker at his most furious was never this unhinged ordering all those walkers to just repeatedly shoot luke over and over and over while watching the whole thing with so much wrath and murderous intent to the point where even his own soldiers are unnerved by it this is the kind of thing you do when you hate a person beyond any sense of logic not only is this uncomfortable but they try so desperately to get you to take it seriously to the point that in a strange way it's actually kind of laughable people have literally made memes out of this moment [Music] [Music] [Music] and when people find the memes more entertaining than the writing quality that went into the scene itself that's not a good sign what was even the point of this you were setting up something interesting with kylo by giving him a more calm demeanor and then you just decide to do nothing with it it just results in a huge chunk of the movie being a complete waste of time because his character just goes back to square one imagine if tony stark was going through his arc about learning to be a more responsible person who uses his wealth to help people and not waste his life just to go back to being a self-centered playboy that is the kind of backwards writing that star wars has fallen to why are we supposed to care about this sleaze bag why are we supposed to find kylo's character endearing or complex or well written when he's none of those things i mean he might have been if they stuck with that calm demeanor but now he's just angry that's it he's angry i have described his entire character to you there is nothing else to say about this man he's just kratos without the complexities that made him an endearing anti-hero i mean what about his backstory are we supposed to find compelling do we even need to draw any comparisons actually i got the perfect comparison anakin skywalker he was born into slavery grew up without a father 90 of his childhood was [ __ ] he was disrespected by everyone manipulated by both the jedi and the emperor he watched his mother die a horrible death lost the love of his life and his best friend separated from his children lost everything and everyone he tried so hard to protect and to top it all off he had to spend the rest of his life in a robotic suit after being nearly burned to death but the backstory is only part of it the real complexity comes from how anakin is written and how his character arc is developed over the course of the series now the prequels have problems like a pretty good amount of problems but i always found anakin to have a more compelling character arc than people give him credit for we've all made fun of how whiny he is in episode 2 or how annoying he is in episode one but when you look more into it there's actually not a bad character arc lying beneath the cracks his story is a cautionary tale of how a hopeful and idealistic person was twisted and manipulated by both sides of a political military conflict setting off a series of events that gradually transform him into the galaxy's most feared tyrant it's done in a way where it's hard to blame him for becoming a villain because so many of the things that contributed to his downfall were completely out of his control one of the most notable things about anakin in the prequels was how he was a jedi going against the philosophies of the jedi order by forming a forbidden love with padme and developing attachments with friends and other people he wished to protect one of the fundamental teachings of the jedi is to not let yourself become attached to anything because they lead into things like fear hate temptation and other stuff they view as bad it's the reason why they never made anakin a master in spite of his hard work they already sensed his inability to let go of things he was afraid to lose and became too attached to them their teachings weren't necessarily bad but they weren't perfect enough to the point that it resulted in terrible mistakes and anakin's fall to the dark side was one of them for example let's look at the scene where yoda tries to help anakin cope with the inevitable possibility of losing padme his words are indeed wise and they can help people who are going through the grief of losing a loved one but in anakin's case they don't do anything to help his situation anakin grew to care for something bigger than himself he truly valued his friendship with obi-wan and ahsoka it was more than just comrades in arms they were genuine connections he risked his life for and padme was someone he wanted to share his life with someone he loved and wanted to keep safe he was afraid of losing her and he's not wrong for feeling those emotions it makes him human something that the audience can relate to the problem stems from how the jedi are stuck in their hubris and too ignorant to change their world view their ideology was too rational which prevented them from making a better future for everyone they viewed any sort of attachment as unhealthy and sidelining that made them vulnerable what they failed to understand was how those attachments things like friends love marriage and family can actually make you stronger and denying people those attachments can end up turning someone to the dark side and the jedi teachings were further proven to be faulty by how luke helped anakin defeat palpatine in the end it was those same attachments they spoke against the kind that luke was willing to have with his father after learning the truth that ultimately brought balance to the force at least until kathleen kennedy bob iger ryan johnson and jj abrams came along and took a massive [ __ ] all over that what i'm saying is the wayana connected out in the prequels though understandably cringy at times was completely understandable i personally see his story as a much better version of obito uchiha from naruto he doesn't become evil because a loved one died he becomes evil because he was afraid of losing people he cared about and was carefully manipulated into allowing that fear to consume him there's a sense of tragedy to the whole thing seeing a person who is actually really kind-hearted showing compassion for others doing everything he could to do the right thing slowly sink into madness and lose everything that climactic battle between anakin and obi-wan still gets to me years later not because of the intense choreography or epic music but because of the story behind the fight seeing these two lifelong friends who had a genuine friendship over the years who became brothers to each other have now been torn apart and are fighting each other to the bitter death the juxtaposition of their last words to each other are really heavy when you consider everything they went through and just how thoroughly they ended up being pawns in palpatine's game which brings us to one more thing does all this make anakin sympathetic now this is something that i've always found to be extremely debatable he's still complacent in the deaths of billions of innocent people and he actively slaughtered a group of children he allowed his anger to get the better of him which resulted in the death of his wife and that's only if you're counting the movies but here's the thing regardless if you find anakin sympathetic that's not what makes his character what makes his character is the tragedy surrounding his life when luke confronts him throughout episode 6 challenging him to find the goodness that's still in him it amounts to more than just trying to give anakin sympathy darth vader tried really hard to bury his past life as anakin to cope with all his losses and now his son is trying to help him dig up that past life to turn things around and it feels genuine because there was good in anakin good that ended up getting twisted and manipulated into something sinister for someone else's personal gain anakin is a character who whether you sympathize with him or not is still interesting and any character can be as moral or immoral as the writer wants them to be as long as they manage to be well written and interesting in the same way the joker is an interesting character in spite of being the biggest mass murderer in the world now let's compare that to kylo ren whose fall to the dark side we're supposed to find compelling because his uncle tried to kill him in his sleep and he's angry about it that's it you're not gonna expand on this in any way even if kylo is right to feel that way just saying that is not compelling you need to expand on this in some way or it's just a weak piece of his backstory you didn't bother to go into do we see how kylo was feeling after this event do we follow him in the days after this do we see the conflicting emotions he went through as he left his family behind his training with snoke anything that happened after this at all nothing we only see this moment for a couple of seconds through two perspectives and yet the film treats it like a major event in the story i guess this could have been explored more if they dedicated more time to the final confrontation between kylo and luke but the scene is just used as a ray of hope moment that foreshadows rey as the new face of the resistance the jedi and newfound hope in the galaxy there's no meaningful dialogue between the two nothing that delves into their past relationship as master and student they just have two extremely brief exchanges that only slightly reference their past together that's it there's no further development of the connection between these two beyond that the scene feels too rushed like they didn't have enough time to go more into it which they might have been able to do if they didn't waste a third of the film on that [ __ ] with finn and rose it's sort of like the scene in the throne room where kylo tries to get ready to join him telling her that she needs to let the past die or kill it if she has to it should leave a strong impact but because of the execution it just feels empty the basic idea is that you shouldn't stay mired in the past or become obsessed with it and you have to move forward to grow and become stronger now the idea itself is not bad but the presentation is problematic the issue comes from how the line is phrased describing the past as something that should be killed or left to die which is totally different from simply leaving it behind and moving forward i think there's a reason why timon said you gotta put the past behind you instead of you gotta kill the past or leave it to die remember this is being said by kylo ren who's a homicidal maniac who will backstab anyone to get what he wants i don't think taking any life lesson from him to heart is exactly a good idea and this advice is not just unhealthy it's also hypocritical his exact words are to let the past die and yet he refers to his past behavior of being a cold-blooded killer i get the notion that we're not supposed to take this with any sincerity because kylo is the villain trying to gaslight rey but it's such a forced and poorly delivered line that it makes you wonder why it's even in the film in the first place people have taken this as ryan johnson telling people to abandon everything they knew about star wars and to accept this new trilogy as the norm and i would totally believe that because everything about this new trilogy is kathleen kennedy bob iger ryan johnson and jj abrams murdering the legacy of star wars and destroying its reputation people who have no knowledge or respect for the franchise and have no idea how to properly represent it outside of cheap nostalgia baiting i also love the irony that disney allowed this line to slip into the film despite that they're constantly milking their past bone dry with those god-awful remix it's almost as ironic as them allowing that subplot about how rich people are bad as they continue to buy out every single property that's still hiding from their greedy claws bottom line kylo ren is simply pathetic he tries to act cool but he's simply just a whiny [ __ ] he's not sympathetic in any capacity and they don't delve into his backstory in any meaningful way and yet we're supposed to take him seriously because he ends up pulling off a shocking plot twist by killing snoke and becoming the new supreme ruler before even bothering to do anything compelling with snoke and even that doesn't mean anything because palpatine was the mastermind behind everything anyway he might have been intimidating at first but now he's just become pathetic by the end of the movie i mean consider this kylo ordered that barrage of laser fire on luke and didn't intend on letting it stop until hux intervened he clearly hates him with a fiery undying passion over the incident at the temple and you might say he's justified in feeling that way because he was thinking about attacking him but in a way that just makes it even worse luke's actions don't warrant that kind of extreme response remember when obi-wan betrayed anakin when he thought he turned padme against him when he cut off his limbs and left him to die after being set on fire yeah that was some really messed up [ __ ] and yet when anakin came across obi-wan on the death star he wasn't nearly as unhinged as kylo was with luke he didn't force choke him he didn't try to crush his body he didn't try to repeatedly blast him it was a simple lightsaber duel in spite of what obi-wan did anakin as darth vader was reserved and cautious he wasn't screaming in anger or charging in blind rage he meticulously battled him with a sense of stability in comparison yes luke had his lightsaber ignited with thoughts of killing kylo but he wasn't going to dismember him and have him set on fire kylo was so blinded by bloodlust and hatred when what luke did was actually small potatoes compared to what obi-wan did to anakin and in spite of that he ordered that endless barrage of lasers and demanded more of it he attacks luke in blind rage screaming in unbridled anger kylo is clearly the unhinged one when you put him back to back with darth vader you want a different example okay how about this scene from episode 5 when our heroes escaped from cloud city and vader was there to see it happen remember the tension when the bridge crew was silent waiting for vader to do something you would expect him to lash out in anger right killing one of the stormtroopers for failing him and you know what he does he simply walks away no cry of anger no hint of violence no hint that he was upset with the stormtroopers nothing if this was kylo he would have taken out his saber and started destroying the nearest piece of machinery in a fit of rage but vader doesn't do that and oddly enough that just makes him so much more intimidating vader demonstrating his ability to restrain himself even when he ends up going through a defeat is really chilling he managed to be terrifying by behaving in the exact opposite manner you would expect a terrifying villain to act in this kind of situation that [ __ ] is [ __ ] brilliant nothing jj abrams or rian johnson did with kylo throughout these three movies ever comes close to this one scene in the empire strikes back and even when you take out the fits of rage and unbridled tendencies he's not even an interesting antagonist because he's far less motivated than anakin in the prequels or even palpatine and he was basically just space hitler and not only is kylo less motivated his actual motivations are just baffling his only sympathetic motivation for turning to the dark side was because luke thought about killing him but that motivation doesn't sit right when you consider how he killed his father in the last film he demonizes luke for thinking about killing his nephew but doesn't hesitate to kill his own father this just makes him nothing short of a hypocrite his backstory is hardly explored and rushed as hell it's completely lazy to just say oh well luke tried to kill him okay so if he demonizes killing family then why would he kill his own father because an ugly testicle-faced sith lord told him to that wasn't even snoke he killed han solo of his own volition the way anakin was written in the prequels wasn't always on point but his motivations were far more genuine and he has a more compelling character arc as a result in the phantom menace he's taken from his mother and succumbs to the fear of being separated from her this is carried over to episode 2 where he ultimately fails to save her watching her dying in his arms the same fear drives him to the breaking point when he begins to see visions of his wife suffering a similar fate and this overwhelming fear of loss drives him completely into palpatine's foals causing him to turn on the jedi in an effort to gain the power to save padme which by the way the rise of retcons introduces force healing and resurrection which completely destroys anakin's whole motivation for turning to the dark side in the first place then it all comes full circle in return of the jedi where the emperor's threats of destroying his son breaks the dark side's hold on him and he sacrifices himself to save luke that is a three-dimensional character with a three-dimensional character arc with kylo nobody seemed to be bothered with giving in the most basic amount of death with his reasons for being bad because palpatine was whispering funny voices in his head which he seems to have no reaction to when it's revealed kylo as a character is bland and sulky at best and petulant and laughably bipolar at worst it certainly doesn't help that he got his ass handed to him in the first film and yet he still tries to act like this unstoppable badass war machine he's basically a child in a grown-up body with no effort being put into his backstory he lacks both consistency and character growth he has a completely different personality in each film making his motivations and decisions confusing in fact how did muller describe him in his rise of skywalker video this character is so utterly inconsistent that he's become the personification of tangled up christmas tree lights drenched in yogurt and acid i'm not even gonna pretend that he has some semblance of a through line in these films be good be bad i don't give a [ __ ] anymore just commit you greased weasel yeah that's exactly what he is kylo ren is inconsistent and his arc is filled with giant holes like how they completely neglect the fact that he became supreme leader and nothing changes no one comments on it there's no conflict with snoke's allies no one complains except for hux who immediately gets force choked for speaking out of term and he still acts like an edgy teenager even that let the past dice scene is ultimately meaningless as it doesn't change his character in any way he just goes back to being angry when rey rejects him was it because he was caught between legacies and wanted to take things in his own direction he just ends up taking orders from palpatine so his epiphany ultimately means nothing and you know another reason that line means nothing because we never actually see kylo's past all we know is that he used to be an apprentice to luke and he betrayed him what about his early life with his parents his life on the island his relationship with the other students the lessons he learned about the jedi and sith not even his years working under snoke why didn't we get to actually see his past why is it that the only thing we get from him is two or three flashbacks that show the exact same thing it would have helped to resonate his actions there's so much context regarding kylo's character that's completely absent from the story you want to compare this guy to darth vader or anakin from the prequels fine because when you compare this guy to darth vader or anakin from the prequels kylo ren is [ __ ] pathetic he's a garbage character with no depth he's a garbage villain with no intimidating features and he's a garbage wubby because he's so despicable and nasty and his personality is nothing but having an angry temper tantrum every 10 minutes yet the sequel trilogy is begging the viewer to have pity for him i honestly feel really bad for adam driver knowing he has to be associated with one of the most if not the most poorly established poorly conveyed repulsive and trashy character in all of star wars oh almost forgot to talk about how kylo killing snoke was a terrible writing decision they kill him in the most arbitrary way possible and they didn't bother to explain anything about his background his motivations how long he's been around his rise to power anything this isn't like the briefcase in pulp fiction that's supposed to remain a mystery snoke was the main villain and a major character his presence raises a lot of questions relating directly to the story that demand being answered and they're never given any satisfying answers i mean satisfying answers we were being led to believe that he was somewhat important but now it turns out he's no one just a pun in palpatine's game that was expendable so it's just another huge waste of time you can't just build up the main villain like this and then suddenly go yoink that's not good writing it wasn't okay when naruto did it and it's definitely not better here in spite of the faults of the prequels they did an excellent job with the slow and gradual reveal of the emperor over the course of three movies they take the time to establish his goals his motivations his personality his schemes and when we see him for what he truly is we know a lot about him they might not have revealed everything but they revealed what we needed to be invested in the character with snoke they reveal nothing they did nothing of value with him he just sits in his throne room toys around with ray for a bit and then gets killed by kylo there's no payoff in this and a plot twist is supposed to have a meaningful payoff this is just a meaningless aversion of our expectations something you can tell ryan johnson likes to do way too much there are people who actually think this is a good twist for absolutely no reason other than it caught them off guard and they didn't see it coming like that's supposed to automatically equate to good writing if you actually think kylo killing snoke is a good twist just because it caught you off guard and you didn't see it coming you're an idiot a twist is not good just because it catches you by surprise i previously made a video explaining that two if you want to count this one in order for a plot twist to work it needs to properly align with what was established beforehand something that helps the story make more sense upon a second or third viewing there has to be some kind of buildup to it and it needs to fit with the way the characters were portrayed beforehand you can't just say x was y the whole time and expect us to buy it a twist needs to make sense upon reflection and surf the story in a positive manner and it needs to add to the story in a way that couldn't be done otherwise simply tricking the audience is not the reason why a twist works if you go by that logic your twist will have no subtlety if you're making a twist just for the sake of tricking the audience it's not a good twist and you failed at building suspension to get what i mean let's take a look at what is considered one of the biggest plot twists in history the revealed that snape was protecting harry all along and that he was a triple agent for dumbledore the reason why this plot twist works is because it does everything properly it enhances the narrative upon multiple viewings it's gradually set up instead of coming out of nowhere and they spent seven books or eight films developing snape as a character and his relationship with the other characters a lot was revealed about the character to establish investment in him so the twist has a stronger impact his actions make sense upon revisiting certain parts of the story and it paints his character in a new positive light without contradicting anything that came before this is a subversion of our expectations done properly because it provides the audience with a meaningful payoff in comparison snoke's death is done specifically for cheap shock value instead of fueling the strength of the story and it amounts to nothing kylo killing snoke doesn't change the story because it's still the same generic good versus evil formula we've already seen in the previous films it just rushes his status as the new villain in such a horrible way and it makes no sense for snoke to be killed like this snoke was the most powerful character up to this point he can sense everything and directly says he can see into kylo's mind why didn't he sense the to cut him in half why didn't he sense kylo planning to kill him kylo is presented in the rest of the trilogy to be a pathetic and incompetent fool and yet he's the one who ends up killing snoke and he does it so effortlessly like he was just a random character it makes no sense to build him up as an all-powerful entity just to kill him off in the most anticlimactic way you can imagine he just amounts to a lazy generic palpatine ripoff and there's no gratification to his death it has no weight because we didn't know anything about him they put so much time into building him up and now he's just gone he was killed halfway through the second movie in the trilogy making his presence in episode 7 completely pointless but i think the most offensive thing about this twist is the missed opportunity ryan johnson went out of his way to subvert expectations left and right but at the one moment where he could have truly done something impressive he doesn't even take advantage of it imagine if in that moment rey and kylo completely changed sides ray falls to the dark side and kylo comes to see the error of his ways it would have made sense with rey growing angrier over the course of the movie and kylo learning to harness his emotions ray becoming a villain would have sent shockwaves throughout the entire trilogy imagine finn luke and leia reacting to rey falling to the dark side we could see kylo trying to atone for his crimes asking his mother and uncle for forgiveness as the order is completely turned on its head the possibilities were just so intriguing but johnson just decided to stick to the status quo if your argument is that snoke never mattered and was unimportant because the story is about rey and kylo that's [ __ ] by saying that you're confirming he was a waste of a character who served no purpose in the story if he really was unimportant they should have just cut him out this is why you have to carefully consider a plot twist in your work because if the twist makes the story weaker it just means you are relying on cheap shock value as a shortcut to get a reaction from the audience the same thing happened with the 2017 wonder woman movie during the third act it looks like wonder woman killed aries and ended the war but the men are still fighting and the guy she killed was just some general she's then confronted with a duality of human nature leaving her conflicted about what to do next and then it's revealed that ares was actually david the whole time you know that guy that you barely saw during the first act he's the bad guy now and then he reveals his convoluted plan to restore nature by getting rid of humanity this makes no goddamn sense you are the god of war if war stopped happening you wouldn't be a god of anything your purpose in life would be null and void how is exterminating humanity going to increase the rate of war you're an entity of conflict you dumbass deity the last thing you would want is any sort of peace and prosperity on earth and what about that speech from steve how all the death in this movie wasn't the result of one man but humanity's sense of superiority over others well it turns out a lot of the death in this movie was the result of one man he influenced the germans to keep making those chemical weapons that slaughtered all the people in that village but then he contradicts himself by saying it was inside them the whole time but he still instigated the conflict as part of his plan so i don't get what ares is trying to tell us are you saying they would have done it anyway even if you didn't intervene then why did you intervene they're trying to have it both ways and it doesn't work with what was set up during the first two acts diana went through an internal conflict involving her naive understanding of human nature and inevitably has to confront the reality that there's no true answer involving humanity's capacity for good and evil and accept the world for what it is but then neres comes along and goes you fool it was me the whole time and we get a generic cgi battle so what the heck is going on is aries really behind it or not even if you want to argue that the war ended because germany was losing and had to surrender to the allied forces and not because aries was killed it still muddies the message and what the movie was trying to say it uproots the narrative and weakens the theme they were going for because the writers wanted to have a shocking twist you see the villain of the movie wasn't humanity's internal struggle as a result of their ignorance and stupidity it was just some deceitful god's ploy that's not compelling there's no meaningful payoff to that and that's what happens with kylo killing snoke they relied on shock value instead of coming up with a twist that served a purpose in the plot and the payoff we get is a terrible writing decision like telling us how rey came from nothing and she's just some random character who's given all the power in the universe for no reason and speaking of which it's time to talk about rey palpatine she's a mary sue yep that's pretty much it she's just a mary sue in the force awakens her capabilities were definitely trending on thin ice piloting the falcon with no flight practice learning mind tricks out of nowhere beating kylo despite never wielding a lightsaber before but there was a sense they were going to reveal some sort of reason for her power and expand upon it something that would give her character something to struggle with maybe she finds out she's a lost relative of a jedi and their power passed on to her and now she has the responsibility of living up to other people's expectations which puts pressure on her she has a hard time controlling her powers and luke offers to help her harness it maybe delve more into her temptation with the dark side instead of just teasing it for one or two scenes gradually build her vengeful feelings towards kylo causing her to stray from the light which would put luke in a better position to confront his past it didn't even have to be either of those things just show us scenes of luke actually training rey instead of just watching her swinging a lightsaber from afar or giving her a pep talk about the prequels that goes nowhere or that one lesson about connecting to the force that ended abruptly because he didn't want to be reminded of kylo showray going through actual training and gaining experience for her status as a jedi to be properly earned i've seen more footage of daisy ridley training to become rey then rey training to become a jedi and in spite of having no training no proper understanding of the force no meaningful lessons with luke and not struggling with anything outside of her identity issues regarding who her parents might have been which doesn't mean [ __ ] now that rise of skywalker is a thing she's become a more powerful force user than either luke or kylo and at this point it's become so tiring seeing completely stupid and abject morons to this day still trying to deny the fact that she's a mary sue when all the evidence that she is one is blatantly obvious and staring you right in the face also what is with this hashtag like really make star wars fans great again are you really so insecure and overly sensitive towards people criticizing the sequel trilogy that you had to make a hashtag that somehow manages to be more cringe-inducing than anything trunk came up with in his four years as president that's just so pathetic anyone who says rey is not a mary sue is basically just saying i'm okay with female characters being terribly written for political and social reasons there is literally so much irrefutable proof that rey is a mary sue that you could actually build an entire fort with it as a matter of fact she is such a mary sue that we should just rename the term to rey michelle burnham from star trek is array the female doctor who is a rey and rey is in fact a ray but in all seriousness you cannot make the argument that rey is not a mary sue when it's an undeniable fact that she is one i have no idea how this is still even debatable at this point because i've seen mary sues who are less of a mary sue than rey she might as well have her picture plastered on the mary sue tv tropes page don't believe me well let's take a look at the list shall we we already went over stuff in the force awakens but she somehow manages to get even worse from there she's a perfect swimmer despite never leaving her desert planet like seriously she might as well be an olympic swimmer for getting it down so perfectly with absolutely no knowledge of swimming she's able to perfectly pilot snoke's escape pod and escape the first order fleet in mere minutes off screen she manages to destroy not one not two but three tie fighters with one shot on her very first try mounting the millennium falcon's turrets something that han solo himself was never able to do in his prime she defeats kylo ren on her very first try despite having no training with a lightsaber or the force while luke got his ass kicked by darth vader and the empire strikes back after getting some training from yoda she's shown to be a sequel in raw power despite receiving no proper training from luke despite that kylo did receive proper training from both luke and snoke she pulls off all sorts of force-related feats in the force awakens despite not even knowing she was force sensitive she was able to pull a lightsaber towards her at great speed and against kylo's own grip without any kind of instruction in mere moments after learning the force existed the last jedi takes place only a few moments after the force awakens and with only two very basic lessons she's capable of moving apart dozens of heavy boulders without any struggle whereas luke was incapable of doing that after weeks of training and two years of knowing he was force sensitive luke had far more training in the empire strikes back and he doesn't even come close to the feats that rey pulls off not even characters like yoda mace windu or count dooku were capable of pulling this off without decades of training both the ot and the prequels gave us clear ideas and rules for how jedi and sith are trained and yet rey is able to excel in these fields a hundred times over despite having no instruction she actively breaks rules set in universe to achieve feats that weren't properly earned and that part about her by passing the compressor was clearly written by a jarhead who has no idea how disassembly and reassembly works even if she had experience working with the ship she should not be able to override something that's about to make the starship explode by pulling out some circuit parts leia in spite of being anakin's daughter can hardly use the force like lou can while rey is a hundred times more talented than either of them and finn was trained in weaponry since he was a child he has more objective experience than rey and yet she's shown to have more skill than him at close quarters weapons combat and the list just goes on and on and on and it's not just a matter of how much power she has or how much skill she has with the force it's also a matter that she has no personality flaws to be worked on she's not greedy selfish egotistical emotionally unstable reckless overconfident oblivious naive lacking intelligence narcissistic pessimistic narrow-headed arrogant jealous and she doesn't have any real lust for power like kylo or anakin aside from being flawless in every activity she participates and engages in she has no characteristics that have to be improved upon over the course of the story and before you try to defend her by saying oh well snoke was more powerful than her and she failed to turn kylo from the dark side and her subplot is about wanting to know who her parents are and gets upset when she's told she's just a random nobody those aren't character flaws the story was just written to be that way those things don't have an effect on her personality her power level or how the story treats her and speaking of which the way the story treats her in all three movies is the kind of treatment you would expect mary sue to be given she doesn't suffer any fatal injuries she's more gifted in the force than almost any other character despite barely knowing anything about it she's defeated multiple characters with far more experience and years of training than herself they introduce [ __ ] abilities in the rise of skywalker specifically so she can defeat palpatine at the very end and so kylo can save her from not dying there's no explanation for her powers except she's palpatine's granddaughter which they never expand upon she's instantly liked by all the morally good characters she's perfectly nice and she never fails at anything or goes through any sort of embarrassing defeat she never has to learn anything she never has to struggle she never loses and she's magically the most powerful jedi ever there's no way you can defend rey from the claim that she's a mary sue because it's an element of her character that is completely indefensible she has the same traits as a mary sue she has the same attributes as a mary sue she has the same personality as a mary sue she has all the ridiculous feats unaccomplished by any of the other characters that a mary sue would have she is a mary sue to a t her power level and lack of imperfections are being artificially inflated to make the story go exactly where they want it to go it's a blatant contrivance and you have to be a complete idiot to not notice this even in this movie they do nothing interesting or unique with her that would do anything to reconsider the concept that her personality is flatter than a sheet of paper and that she's overpowered to the 11th degree that stupid scene with the mirrors goes nowhere especially with rise of skywalker her relationships with luke and kylo are very badly underdeveloped and she's never challenged by anything at any point in the movie her character doesn't grow or develop she never faces any negative consequences for any of her actions and she's completely overpowered in the most asinine ways you could enable all the cheats in a video game giving yourself unlimited health unlimited magic unlimited stamina unlimited ability bars unlimited air time unlimited chain combos unlimited ammo unlimited transformation time invincibility from all enemy attacks one hit kills and you would still be less overpowered than rey is in these movies and of course if you say anything bad about rey or criticize her by saying she's a mary sue or really anything about kathleen kennedy's female empowerment crap short-sighted [ __ ] on twitter will say you're a sexist misogynist who hates strong women yeah i'm just a sexist who hates strong female characters because i think rey is a mary sue you know despite that i'm a fan of mulan wonder woman batgirl catwoman supergirl katara korra femshep laura croft hermione granger gwen stacy black widow toff sailor moon sonia blade tifa lockhart hinata hugo the cast of my little pony friendship is magic ahsoka tano who's a star wars character by the way jean grey kim possible scarlet witch sandy cheeks judy hopps elastigirl raven starfire xj9 the powerpuff girls garnet from steven universe samosaran bayonetta and many others that i don't have time to mention clearly it's because i'm some sort of misogynist oh wait there is one explanation for how ray gets all her powers and if you want to know what it is you have to pay an additional 20 for the novel version and apparently the explanation for her powers goes like this she has the ability to gain immediate and expert force powers just by touching other force users oh hell no how in the flying [ __ ] does that even work she gains knowledge and power just by touching people what is her brain a super computer does it copy and download info from another person's brain does touching them increase her midichlorian count does she just multiply the midichlorian cells in her body and give herself more force powers i am absolutely stunned that there are still stupid people on the internet trying to deflect how rey is a mary sue when this is literally a mary sue quality the ability to acquire decades of knowledge and experience available only to a master just by touching them making all of it accessible to her with no effort or struggle an ability that from what i've looked up appears to be exclusive to only her no one else in the star wars universe has ever done something as ridiculous as increasing their force knowledge and power by physically touching someone and even if by some chance there was another character besides rey who did this it's still a stupid idea because it fundamentally breaks so many rules regarding how force users are trained and how they gain experience now this knowledge and power is accessible to anyone who has this ray ability and they don't have to work for their status as a skilled warrior with knowledge of the force now it's just handed to them like candy ray just gets everything handed to her on a silver platter for no reason other than she has this new ability exclusive to her that was just introduced for this storyline go on go into the comments section whoever you are that's actually stupid enough to buy this whoever you are that's actually [ __ ] stupid enough to still believe that rey is not a mary sue go into the comment section and type an excuse for this [ __ ] i dare you yeah rey is basically mulan from that shitty live-action remake a character who goes through no real struggle or training because they were born with a natural gift so they don't need to develop because they're already at their maximum potential that's not relatable no one can relate to rey because no one can relate to being flawless at everything getting everything perfectly right on their first try and having no personality flaws she doesn't even go through a compelling arc it's just a shallow imitation of luke's journey with none of the intrigue that made it interesting even that dumb mystery regarding her heritage doesn't mean anything because it's constantly getting yanked left and right by johnson and abrams maybe johnson originally meant to teach the lesson that you don't have to be special and you can still do great things without having an important heritage but it doesn't work that way when you put so much investment into the mystery it's anti-climactic if you really wanted to use ray to teach that lesson then what was the point of that mystery surrounding her parents or where she came from it's just pointless teasing that goes nowhere well actually it does go somewhere by revealing she's palpatine's granddaughter which somehow manages to be even worse than what johnson came up with good job jj good job you [ __ ] [ __ ] there's actually an interview that daisy ridley had with someone where she reveals that rey was originally supposed to be a long lost relative to obi-wan and from there it just kept going back and forth between rey being someone and ray being no one until finally deciding to make the last minute decision that she's a palpatine the fact that they flip-flop so badly with rey like this is just proof they had no idea what to even do with her they just decided to present her as this perfect being who can literally do anything on some level i can understand someone being naturally gifted with the force if it's done properly like they have a hard time controlling it or they fluke it up several times before getting it right but what i've seen from these movies goes beyond stretching my suspension of disbelief you can't just become a master force user let alone jedi master in the small amount of time that rey does that's not how the force works buddy the message of the movie is supposed to be how failure is the greatest teacher but rey never fails at anything there's nothing for rey to learn she's already perfect she can do anything successful the first time she's one of the most overpowered characters in history and obtaining force abilities by touching people is [ __ ] the force is not a superpower it's not something you can just transfer into another person using the force is about knowledge including self-knowledge which rey consistently shows she has none of hell the movie itself says that the force isn't just a power that you have how can they get that part right and yet completely ignore it in order to prop up rey the least you could have done was give her a backstory an actual backstory that establishes her character harry potter for example he's an orphan placed in an abusive household for 11 years who finds out he's a wizard he gradually discovers that he's famous throughout the magical community and that his fate is tied to lord voldemort the internationally feared dark wizard and the killer of his parents voldemort tried to kill him but the curse didn't work so he's left with a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead that contains some of his power that's a backstory one that forms the character's persona motives connection with the story helps the audience to understand him relate to him and so on now compare that to rey who the hell is rey what does she have to do with anything she's an empty character the problem isn't that her parents are nobody at least until this happened the problem is that she has no backstory connecting her with anything to do with the original six movies nothing zero zip nada making her palpatine's granddaughter was just jj abrams attempt at a saving throw she's just some rando wandering around for no reason with no motivation even a custom video game character has more backstory what am i even supposed to say about rey at this point other than she's a mary sue also don't try to excuse this by saying that luke was as ops rey so that would make him a mary sue too you're a [ __ ] idiot if you actually believe that if you seriously have to resort to saying luke was just as op as her you're not defending rey as a well-written character you're saying that luke was just as badly written as she was if luke was anything like rey he would have defeated anakin on his first try and he would also be more powerful than palpatine despite his training being incomplete and he would have become the greatest jedi in history after only a few weeks as opposed to years of experience rey isn't just a mary sue she redefines the meaning of the trope she's a classic example of it in universe she's the most powerful most talented most beloved character by the good guys despite not doing anything to properly earn it with no personality flaws to improve on if anything it's the other characters who learn from her finn luke kylo leia han solo etc everything in the story bends around her constantly being warped and twisted so that she always comes out on top while making the other characters inferior to her other characters had to train and learn things to become as powerful as they are while rey is the most powerful character despite learning nothing having no required training and just getting everything handed to her on a silver platter i'm sorry but if you still think rey is not a mary sue especially since rise of skywalker came out you are nothing short of a [ __ ] it honestly wouldn't surprise me at this point if it turns out these stupid idiots were actually praying to rey every night we're just gonna start an entire religion around this perfect being okay so recently there's been a couple of things being brought up in the supposed scandal that reyes and mary sue and i think it's only fair to address them here at first i thought it could easily be ignored but i ultimately decided that it's best to address them here to help present clarity on her status there's some people who are making the argument that rey is into mary sue because she was struggling with one of snoke's guards and that if rey is a mary sue then so are luke and anakin because luke was able to destroy the death star without using the schematic and because anakin had a high midichlorian count and was an expert pod racer no no you're just brain dead for believing any of that rey having a little trouble with one of snoke's guards doesn't invalidate her status as a mary sue she still defeats kylo without any lightsaber training she still became a vastly powerful force user despite knowing very little about it in the very short amount of time she was tutored by luke she still has no personality flaws she's still treated like royalty by the narrative she still accomplishes ridiculous feats that no other character has pulled off she still has that stupid ability to increase her midichlorian count and transmit other people's knowledge of the force and how to use force abilities into her brain just by touching people she still defeats multiple characters with decades of experience over her she still bypasses a lot of rules in terms of how jedi and sith are trained and she still defeats palpatine in the stupidest way possible when nobody else was a match for him and in that same fight with snoke's guards she still overpowers them in implausible ways she kicks one of them which somehow makes three of them fall over in this exact shot the guards are attacking her more aggressively than kylo yet she's able to defend him while being ganged up on while he isn't doing anything to protect her oh and about that one guard she was struggling with she quickly defeats him anyway and she has to save kylo again when he's the menacing antagonist that's supposed to be challenging her yeah no need for her to be safe by kylo she has to do the rescuing in this fight twice but let's move on from that [ __ ] excuse and focus on luke and anakin alright so luke is supposed to be a mary sue because he pulled off that shot on the death star without using the schematic let's look into that a little more luke in spite of his experience as a pilot was still getting overwhelmed by vader and was about to get shot down the only reason he survived was because of a surprise attack luke had to be rescued by han who was already one of the best pilots in the galaxy now compare this to ray's first time flying the millennium falcon in spite of having no prior knowledge on how to fly it she's still pulling off all sorts of ridiculous stunts on her first try she's practically an ace pilot she's flying through an abandoned star destroyer with little problem while the tie fighters with years of piloting training are struggling to maneuver in it and don't deflect this by saying she had previous experience flying other ships because other ships are not the same as the millennium falcon even if she gets grazed a few times she still gets through it in high speed and pulls off drastic maneuvers you would expect to see from han solo in his prime luke might have pulled off some maneuvers on the death star but nothing as drastic as what rey is doing here and as for getting the death star shot without using the schematics while using the force he was being instructed by obi-wan he had to coach him through the situation in order to make the shot and even then his concentration is still being broken up by vader luke needed help from both han and obi-wan to destroy the death star it wasn't something that he did on his own and even without the death star feat in mind there's still plenty of other times in the ot where he gets duped he was thrown around by some guy in the cantina he got jumped by a wompa and barely escapes while nearly freezing to death before han saves him again and he barely survives his fight with the rancor there are numerous times where he's in danger of physical harm or death and he suffers defeat consistently in the ot any victories he got were few in numbers and a result of personal growth rey doesn't go through any growth because she has no flaws to overcome and she just gets her prowess as a force user gift wrapped for her the closest she came to any sort of physical harm was being thrown into a tree which she recovered from after three minutes and as for anakin having a high midichlorian count and winning that pod race those aren't evidence that he's a mary sue those feats don't make him a mary sue because he either had help or still ended up losing yes he has a high metachlorian count and in spite of that high medicalrian count he still got his hand cut off by count dooku and would have died if yoda didn't come to the rescue anakin didn't become the warrior he's known as just because he had a high midichlorian count having a high medicalorian count doesn't equate to being all-powerful or being a skilled warrior by that logic he became a master warrior while he was a child without even knowing it in spite of his highmanichlorian count he still went through decades of training from multiple mentors and tutors he went through dozens maybe hundreds of trials and lessons about the force and the ways of the jedi to harness his powers and gain his skills in lightsaber combat and even with all that experience he still went through several defeats due to his rash thinking and lack of self-control or underestimating his opponent and he had personality flaws that put him on a dark path from the beginning anakin had problems with his emotions out of fear of losing his loved ones a problem that was made worse because the jedi council didn't bother to give him the right guidance which resulted in him not being able to process the stuff that happens to him as his fierce became more overwhelming it was easier for palpatine to manipulate him this is the key to what makes anakin not a mary sue his fall to the dark side he was tricked into serving the empire as a result of not being able to manage his emotions and if you really think anakin is a murray sue because of his high midichlorian count you should also think that rey is a mary sue because her midichlorian count has to be like 10 million and as for that pod race or the incident with the trade federation anakin didn't do that on his own he had illegal help in the pod race so he technically cheated in some aspects in order to win on top of that anakin was established to be skilled in mechanics and machinery at a young age and that's because he was an inventor in his time as a slave he had to build machines and other contraptions at work so there's a legitimate explanation for how he won the race and in the battle with the trait federation anakin wasn't piling that ship on his own he was getting help from r2d2 if it wasn't for r2 anakin would have been killed he didn't accomplish any of these things by himself so using them as proof he's a mary sue is null and void if he was a mary sue his skills in these situations would have been unrealistic but his skill set was reasonable because of his job repairing and fixing ships additionally anakin wasn't liked by everyone instantly qui-gon only helped him because he thought he was the chosen one and an asset for the jedi to use obi-wan saw him as a liability and throughout the prequels he's treated poorly by the council not to mention he had to grow up as a slave anakin is never treated like royalty by the narrative and even has to be rescued by other characters at certain points the prequel trilogy literally ended with him losing all of his limbs and getting set on fire anakin is the furthest thing that you can possibly get from a mary sue because he suffered losses had consistent personality flaws had to get his skills and abilities through decades of practice ends up becoming the villain as a result of his personality flaws is constantly getting [ __ ] on by the world around him and his ultimate victory over palpatine was done at the cost of his life nobody who has properly watched the prequels would even think about calling anakin mary sue if they actually knew what the term means every time a sequel trilogy fan does this claiming luke and anakin are mary sues it's always because they're extremely oversensitive and just want to defend rey by protecting an insult on the people criticizing her character anakin is literally the antithesis to rey a flawed man whose life was ruined tricked into serving evil for decades reyes hardly faced anything that affected her long term she's never disliked by anyone except the villains she didn't go through decades of training she doesn't know anything about the force except for a one-minute meditation session she's not consumed with fear and she's never in danger of dying or suffering from a long-term injury the main difference between defending luke and anakin and defending rey is that when people defend luke and anakin they're actually defending luke and anakin when people defend rey they're not defending rey they're only defending some made up ideology or victimhood they think they're arguing for it's why one of the responses to calling her a mary sue is to claim you're being sexist but after putting more thought into it the main reason why rey is a marry sue is because of her gender really think about it luke was constantly under threat of physical harm and death and he gets his ass kicked consistently throughout the ot you related to him and you feared for him because the movie showed you that his natural connection to the force didn't make him immune to danger but as a result of kathleen kennedy demanding that women be as superior and unstoppable as possible rey being female directly impacts her negativity as a character kennedy isn't going to allow a movie where the female protagonist gets beaten and brutalized like luke and anakin were she never loses a limb she's never force-choked and while she was restrained by kylo she's never assaulted and never suffers any lasting wounds in the same vein as kylo getting a scar on his face the only other instance you can argue with is when she's being subdued by snoke and even then she quickly recovers from it if the protagonist is never in any true danger you can't fear for them and rey is never in any true danger because kennedy wants her to be protected at any cost kennedy views rey as a means to promote feminism while not caring about her development as a character so she can't fall into any harm because that would make women and girls look weak and vulnerable she's made too powerful after very little experience and because her character is never in danger of serious injury or death there is no tension kennedy has this really screwed up idea that feminism automatically equals equality but the way she uses rate to promote it isn't even close to what can be considered equality this is an equality it's pandering she's using rey specifically to get brownie points from female audiences by making her into a blank slate for women and girls to project themselves onto to make them feel powerful and capable because they saw rey doing all of this ridiculous nonsense and when you think about it it's actually pretty toxic i don't particularly think telling young girls that they can be awesome powerful beloved and successful with little effort just because they're female is exactly a healthy message to send characters like goku and superman work their asses off to perfect new techniques and learn new abilities to become better fighters they had to train long and hard in order to be strong enough to fight villains like frieza and darkseid rey doesn't train long and hard she just downloads it from other people's brains some people have argued that the reason for ray's power is because she's a diet in the force made to counter kylo and balance things out which is a stupid excuse first of all i don't recall luke being a diet and the force to counter anakin and second that's just a cop-out that was never explained in the films themselves it wasn't even a thing until the rise of skywalker where it's only briefly mentioned as part of damage control rey is not a character you can relate to because there's nothing about her that's believable the only thing that can even be considered something she struggles with is seeking a parental figure in her life which is why she's trying to find her parents but when she's told by kylo that she's a random nobody who was abandoned for drinking money she goes back to being cheerful and bubbly in the next scene she appears in she has an upset look on her face for about 20 seconds and that's precisely it that's not struggling with your emotions that's dropping your ice cream on the floor and just going to buy a new one and even if this was supposed to affect her character in some way the argument is rendered invalid when the next film comes along and retcons her backstory and aside from her power level and bland personality she doesn't bring anything new to the table she goes to the same journey that luke went through and there's no major difference in what happens between them growing up on a desert planet becoming a pilot seeking adventure out in the galaxy discovering she has long lost family offering herself to the villain to try and redeem them training under a legendary warrior and self-opposed exile being offered to rule the galaxy alongside the dark apprentice after killing the main antagonist i got pages of these i can go on characters need flaws development and interesting personality to make them compelling rey doesn't have any of these things no matter how you slice it remember the mirror scene that scene is actually the biggest evidence that she's a mary sue i looked it up it's actually based on the trial luke had in episode 5 the trainee enters a place strong with the dark side and the force manifests a vision of their fear and weakness for luke it was his desire to defeat darth vader leading him to becoming like him creating a path of self-destruction for anakin it's his lust for power that will consume everyone he loves and eventually himself for ray it seems to be seeing herself as she is which i guess ties into her fear of not having a family which means nothing since it doesn't affect her after finding out the truth being told she's a random nobody whose parents abandoned her doesn't faze her at all the one thing that's supposed to be her greatest weakness according to this trial was completely forgotten about as soon as she was confronted with it she overcomes it at the snap of her fingers not like anakin and luke who are actually affected by what was foreshadowed in their own trials she just shrugs off how her parents sold her offer drinking money and is a jittery happy-go-lucky millennium falcon gunner in her next on-screen appearance kathleen kennedy was so obsessed with showcasing a strong independent woman in star wars as if there wasn't any already that she completely forgot how they're supposed to tell a convincing story there's nothing convincing about rey she overcomes any and all adversity that's thrown at her with no real danger to her life she has no struggle she gets all of her powers skills and abilities for no reason other than she just gets them she gets out of every major battle unfazed kylo in spite of being a pathetic character was immensely powerful due to his training with both luke and snoke he dominated everything he's ever faced including multiple jedi knights he literally took down the zillow beast single-handedly which is a creature that's been worshipped as a god and yet rey is supposed to be too much for him and she defeats him multiple times throughout the trilogy that is [ __ ] anyone who calls luke and anakin and mary sue in a desperate attempt to defend rey has no idea what one actually is this is not an opinion it's an irrefutable fact that rey is a mary sue she is the mary sue to end all mary sues the president of mary sue's the queen the empress the goddess the ruler of all mary sudam if i ever find a character that manages to be more of a mary sue than her i will actually [ __ ] myself because i don't want to believe that it can possibly get worse than this oh and for all the idiots saying she can use a lightsaber because she trained with a stick no that puny staff is not the same thing as a lightsaber a lightsaber is not a weapon that you can just pick up and start using like it's a random sword you have to actually train with a lightsaber for a very long time before you can start using it rey shouldn't be able to freely use a lightsaber just because she was trained with that stupid staff that's the same thing as saying you can use an fgm 148 javelin anti-tank missile because you have experience in shooting a pistol alright i've been stuck on this topic for a very long time now so let's just move on to the next segment and now it's time to talk about the man of the hour himself luke skywalker and i think the nicest way to start this off is to say that ryan johnson clearly had no idea what he was doing here but we need to take a moment to get a more clear idea for how this element of the film failed it's not just a matter of how ryan wrote luke in this movie it's also a matter of how ryan doesn't seem to understand or know anything about him in the slightest he had no understanding of what it was that made him such a beloved character amongst fans of the series there's this recent treat where he was asked if he was considering anakin's ghost showing up to talk to luke at the burning of the tree and this was how he responded briefly during the tree burning scene but luke's relationship was with vader not really anakin which seemed like it would complicate things more than the moment allowed yoda felt like the more impactful teacher for that moment holy [ __ ] you're stupid you're such a [ __ ] idiot jesus christ you're dumb dumb dumb [ __ ] and it's at this moment that i'm fully convinced that he did not bother to watch any of the previous movies before working on this one seriously imagine being this stupid that you don't understand even the most fundamental basics of the character you were representing here there are just so many things wrong with this tweet that to thoroughly explain every single contradiction would require its own video the only thing i can think of that would be equally stupid would be to like this tweet unironically i can understand going with yoda as the more wise and experienced character to talk to luke that's not the problem what is the problem is that the relationship between luke skywalker and his father anakin one of the most widely known elements of the entire franchise completely went over this guy's head i swear to god this is one of those movies where the more you look into it the more and more things that you find that are wrong even if you're one of those people who wants to make the argument that vader and anakin are two separate characters vader wasn't the one that luke was trying to get through luke stated very clearly that it was anakin he was trying to bring back to the light because at this point he knew who vader really was but why must you confront him because there is good in him i felt it he won't turn me over to the emperor i can save him i can turn him back to the good side and if your argument is that they're two separate characters that just makes this tweet even worse if anakin and vader are two separate characters then what was the point of luke trying to prove there was still good in him when everyone else was telling him he was a lost cause the whole point of the relationship is that luke was the only one left to see anakin invader he didn't see vader as his own person he was very emotional and left heavily conflicted about it but he was still willing to see the light in him which is why he became the greatest jedi of all time he found the perfect balance between the teachings of the jedi and drawing a connection with other people it was a great father and son storyline luke didn't have a relationship with vader because he could see through the metal suit and see the person within the suit that's what spoke to anakin the most a power with more weight than the force itself and johnson in his infinite wisdom is saying it didn't really matter all that much this is what happens when you don't research the lore of a heavily established story i could dedicate this entire segment to just pointing out every single reason why this tweet is so nonsensical how it perfectly represents how awful his knowledge of the source material is but we have other matters to attend to so let's move on to put it simply luke's characterization in this movie really doesn't work and the truth is it actually could have worked on paper it's not really a bad concept if anything i really like the idea need to emphasize the idea of luke having certain kinds of flaws even in his old age an experienced jedi who knows a lot and holds valuable wisdom but is still prone to making mistakes and errors of judgment something that shows that he's not a perfect character something that would keep him from being a mary sue like rey or gary stew for the mail term the pieces are actually there to make it work luke was trusted with training kylo ren and straying him away from the dark side but in his own ignorance ends up making a mistake that ends up turning him away it's this mistake that ultimately turns kylo to the dark side and luke is overwhelmed with guilt over it he caused his own nephew the son of his sister and his best friend to become the most feared tyrant in the galaxy and he loathes himself for it overcome with these emotions he isolates himself from the galaxy when rey shows up to bring him back he's overwhelmed by the memories of that horrible event afraid that he's not able to undo the mistake he made but over time he begins to admire ray's determination to succeed where he failed and after a talk with yoda he finds the courage to return to the galaxy and face kylo to rescue his sister save the galaxy and deface his dreaded past in the form of the pupil that he failed all those years ago it actually sounds like a really good idea but the problem is how the idea was executed you can come up with whatever idea you want but you need to have the proper execution to make that idea work it takes time planning a lot of consideration sometimes multiple rewrites even luke's character arc doesn't feel like it had any of those things put into it the idea was badly executed it could have worked but the way it was handled was very careless and it caused more harm than good it's the same problem with the last of us part two ellie learns the truth about joel lying to her for years about curing the infection and what happened with the fireflies her journey is one of reconciliation trying to find it in herself to forgive him because she knows despite how messed up his morals are he still cares about her he wanted her to have a meaningful life that he failed to give sarah and she realizes that her quest for revenge is endangering herself and disrespecting his sacrifice she remembers her promise to try and forgive him and lets go of her obsession steering herself to a path of recovery and self-healing it sounds like an idea that could work but if you remember what smart people have been saying about the story since the leaks came out you also know that it didn't really go so well the problem with the last of us part 2 story wasn't the idea itself the problem was the patient zero for all the other reasons why that game's story sucks [ __ ] out of a horse's ass you might remember what it was it was the running theme of my review from last year it's that mainly the person who executed the idea is a [ __ ] [ __ ] and this is why the people claiming this was an interesting direction to take luke's character are just viewing [ __ ] from their collective mouths they're not focusing on the writing quality because they're too fixated on the idea just the idea of luke having a dynamic character change where he's not the same person we knew from before where ryan johnson dare i say subverted our expectations that he was going to be a mythical all-knowing master instead of a reclused hermit you can't just say it's a good idea and stop thinking about it from there you need to consider how that idea is being placed into the plot because that's not what rian johnson did here and as a result there's a ton of holes in how luke is portrayed here one of the more infamous examples is when he tosses the lightsaber over his shoulder what the hell is that now aside from this being another example of the movie's horrible sense of humor this part is actually quite offensive on a storytelling level and an understanding of star wars lore i previously talked about how this was a really shitty payoff for all the build-up that this was given in the time between the force awakens and the last jedi but the problems with this scene go deeper than that by treating the scene where luke rejects his lightsaber like this you're [ __ ] on the importance of a jedi's connection with their lightsaber it might have been one thing if luke simply dropped the lightsaber onto the ground or just let it roll out of his hands he would get the point across that he's trying to severe his ties with the ways of the jedi without trying to force more horribly placed comedy into the movie by going with this over the top throwing the lightsaber behind him over his shoulder you're treating this moment that's supposed to have a dramatic sense of weight to it like a joke and you're also treating a jedi's connection with their lightsaber as a prop for this ill-thought-out joke throughout the lore a lightsaber has been described as more than just a weapon it represents a very special bond between a relic and its owner think of it like the ones choosing their wielders from harry potter whether you're a jedi or a sith the lightsaber is an item that adds to the mystique of the star wars universe with a lot of lore and meaning behind their presence they have an important link to the force and building your own lightsaber is supposed to be a crucial step in one's training a lightsaber and its wielder develop a really huge bun with each other like they're actually becoming a part of each other's soul it's even been said that a lightsaber is a jedi's life spiritually they forever remain with the person who made them the lightsaber by and large belongs to anakin yes it was passed on to luke but the lightsaber will always belong to anakin it belongs to luke's father it's a family treasure an heirloom from the man that he helped so many years ago and he just tosses it like a piece of garbage the luke skywalker that george lucas created would not do that luke would not treat his father's lightsaber like a crumbled piece of paper under any circumstances this is not in character for him at all on top of that each lightsaber color had a unique meaning to it they represent the personality of the wielder based on the color the blue one represents protection and guardianship the wielders of a blue lightsaber are more skilled in sword combat and they're more aggressive against dark side users the green one represents thoughtfulness in the wielder it can symbolize how wise they are it's why yoda's saber is a green one it also represents warriors who specialize in force abilities instead of sword techniques and they represent jedi who seek a peaceful solution through negotiation and meditation it makes the green saber more associated with peace than any other color and the red saber is a true symbol of those who fight on the dark side of the force representing corruption within the wielder all of their anger hate and lust for power are concentrated into the crystal making them a deadly variation of the saber capable of having their own living presence and consciousness and even breaking other lightsabers the lightsaber is not just a weapon it's a construct of the force and those who wield the crystals within them it's a sacred relic one of the most important elements of the star wars universe you can't just take something like that and use it as a prop for a gag it dilutes the importance of the saber if you wanted to show luke rejecting the saber to distance himself from his past there were less insulting ways you could have done it there was no reason for this comedic tossing over the shoulder gag especially when you're asking to be taken more seriously than other movies in the franchise there's also the matter of luke having practically no reaction to han's death the most we get is him having a wide-eyed blank stare when asking where he is and that's it the guy was his best friend his brother-in-arms in so many battles you'd think that he would have a stronger and more broken up reaction to finding out that he was murdered in cold blood by his son but we never see that the next time we cut to him he's just sitting there trying to ignore ray's pleas to come back with her and then he just goes on his merry way doing daily activities like drinking tit milk out of an alien dr seuss creature fishing or just going through a stroll around the fog and he does all this with no sign of distress and a not giving a [ __ ] look on his face oh yeah because that's the reaction that i would have if i just found out my best friend died seriously where is the emotional impact of finding out that han solo was killed why doesn't luke have a strong reaction to this he knew the guy for what i can assume is the better half of 30 years and he just looks content with the situation rey knew the guy for only a couple of hours and she's mourning him more than the guy who should actually be mourning for him i'm like what is this are you some kind of chiari moondi clone if your argument is that luke reacted to his death off-screen that's just a fancy way of saying it didn't actually happen what are we using steven universe logic now and it definitely doesn't help us get attached to the characters by immediately cutting away from luke as soon as he asks the question why would you cut away from luke finding out about han's death so arbitrarily before we actually see him trying to absorb this shocking information that's not just bad writing that's bad editing you also have his outlook on the jedi ending which is really hypocritical considering later scenes i've actually been told that the it's time for the jedi to end line was something that they made up for the trailer and didn't actually think about how it fit into the story and i'm willing to believe that because it really doesn't make sense in context so he hates the jedi because they allowed the sith to rise okay that's understandable but now he wants the jedi to end which would allow the sith to rise the motivation makes no sense it's like hating the police because they failed to stop a bank robbery so you want them disbanded which would increase the rate of bank robberies and other serious crimes and speaking of motivation that makes no sense why did you leave us that map leading to your location if you didn't want to be found he came to this island to die alone didn't he what about the scene where he asked how did you find me oh i don't know maybe it had something to do with that map you left behind giving instructions on how to find you and it still doesn't make any sense that he's so fixated on hating the jedi of the past when they had nothing to do with the current situation why is he blaming the jedi when it was his own fault that kylo ended up the way he did yes the jedi were not even flawed but they weren't inherently bad wanting their teachings forgotten and erased from existence would only cause more problems luke should be smart enough to know this he's not the kind of person who would want to genocide an entire culture at least when he's being written by someone who actually has a clue of what he's doing when he threatens to burn the tree he's directly playing into the dark side's hands yes he stops himself from doing it but it shouldn't have happened to begin with luke throughout the first and second act of the movie is being irrational and thoughtless in a way that makes no sense for his character in ways that are done for no reason other than to serve the plot that ryan johnson thought up in his head i'm not saying that luke can't have these traits but it has to be in character this is not in character the luke who matured and grew by the end of the ot would not be this stupid and careless removing the sight that's viewed as the good side would allow the evil side to thrive which really isn't a good idea when you have mass killing nut cases like kylo in the first order conquering the galaxy there's this one scene where luke talks to rey about the old jedi and how they failed but instead of focusing on that they are roughly shipped to talking about how luke failed to keep kylo from the dark side i'm really not kidding here they referenced the old jedi for a total of 20 seconds just 20 seconds fans of the movie praised this scene as the moment that finally called out the jedi order for their hypocrisy and [ __ ] and whenever i see someone doing that i just think to myself where the hell have you been what did you think the prequel trilogy was about were you actually paying attention to what was going on this 20-second reference by luke does nothing to explain how they were flawed what those flaws were or how they led to palpatine's rise to power he just briefly mentions it as a past thing without any context if you want to say that it's appreciated to see a character within the canon acknowledge something that fans have been saying for years that's not good enough if you want to have a scene of luke educating ray about the failures of the jedi then have a scene of luke educating rey about the failures of the jedi what was the purpose of this 20-second reference if they do nothing with it if it does nothing to fuel the story it's nothing but cheap nostalgia baiting which is one of the main problems with the sequel trilogy as a whole but let's move on to other issues because now we're gonna talk about what i can already tell is a fun topic for people to revisit luke considering murdering kylo in his sleep the guy who was willing to redeem the biggest mass murderer and most feared tyrant in the galaxy was about to murder someone in their sleep who did absolutely nothing wrong yet just because snoke was already influencing him never mind the fact that this is his sister's son his best friend's son his freaking nephew we're talking about here how and why did you come to the conclusion that this is a fitting portrayal of luke skywalker a nutcase who was actually thinking about killing someone in their sleep with the kind of expression you would put on the poster for a horror movie and this was from before luke started to hate the jedi and want to isolate himself and don't say he was preemptively trying to protect his family and the galaxy kylo was not a threat at this point he didn't bother to explore any other options at all remember this was also taking place from before he cut himself from the force why didn't he consult with obi-wan or yoda about what to do why didn't he try talking to kylo himself this goes beyond a lapse in judgment the guy who was willing to talk to vader and resist palpatine telling him to kill vader wouldn't have a problem talking with his nephew but no instead he decided to go maybe if i kill him now it'll save me the trouble what kind of [ __ ] is that i could understand this reaction if say kylo was planning to kill luke and destroy the temple and the other students beforehand but we never see anything like that so i can only assume that luke led him to do this out of desperation and betrayal but wait you might add what about when he gave into his anger and tried to kill vader in return of the jedi well that's not the comparison you're looking for because the darkness of that situation was extremely different it was the final battle that would determine the outcome of the war and the fate of the galaxy luke's friends and allies are either dying or in immediate danger he's being cornered by two of the most evil people in the galaxy vader was threatening his sister and on top of that his training at the time was still limited which is why he gave in to his anger the situation is set up in a way that luke attacking vader and anger is both in character and makes sense for the plot now let's compare that to this situation the republic is in power and the galaxy is stable luke is living a peaceful life at the academy nobody was in danger he was alone in the hut with his sleeping nephew and he had 30 years to mature grow wise and practice restrained discipline and self-control there were dozens of other methods he could have gone with the situation was far less dire and he learned to approach certain situations with better clarity there was no reason for him to come to the conclusion that killing kylo was the only viable option and what makes it even stupider is that luke gives up on the jedi after kylo became evil despite knowing that obi-wan remained hopeful after anakin became evil luke was more optimistic than ob1 and had better faith than others and yet he's the one who gives up more easily this isn't even the worst thing that's ever happened to him his aunt and uncle getting burned to a crisp watching his friends and allies getting blown up by palpatine this is supposed to be the worst thing that's ever happened to him that makes him give up all hope i guess the fact that it was his own fault in the guild fueling from it is supposed to be an edge but it's built on his character being written stupidly for the sake of the plot it's a cheap method for building drama and you'd think it would be bad enough that luke would disrespect his father's saber not give a [ __ ] about han's death blame the old jedi order for something that was his own fault and psychologically consider killing someone in their sleep but on top of that he's also portrayed as a coward isolating himself from the galaxy could have worked if the circumstances surrounding it weren't convoluted beyond belief but his reason for isolating himself is because he stupidly decided to kill kylo maybe i can understand the guilt and shame but giving up outright and not bothering to come back and set things right that is [ __ ] oh and he also cuts himself from the four so he can't keep taps on his sister or his best friend or any of his friends and family or the galaxy he swore to protect he's just gonna spend the rest of his life drinking green tit milk and not thinking about the galaxy that's probably being blown to smithereens and this is what upsets me most about luke's characterization tossing the lightsaber not reacting to han's death contemplating killing someone in their sleep all of those things are small potatoes compared to luke abandoning everything and everyone he swore to protect over a mistake that he made that he refuses to take responsibility for nothing about luke's choice to isolate himself and abandon everything and leave everyone to clean up his mess makes any sense whatsoever like he's not even gonna try to make an attempt to stop kylo and snoke out of all the choices that ryan made for luke's character this is ultimately the worst of them all the fact that he just gives up and abandons leia and the other characters to clean up his mess and not bother to think about the consequences of his actions do you want to know who else abandoned everyone to clean up their mess while not considering the consequences of their actions pink diamond from steven universe and the last thing you want is people comparing luke skywalker to pink diamond from steven universe this is not something that luke would do he would not give up he would not lose all hope he would not cut himself from the force because he feels sorry for himself he would not avoid responsibility for his mistakes he would not leave his family and friends to deal with his problems this is where i'm convinced that he is not luke skywalker he is truly jake skywalker the luke skywalker we grew up with would have gotten off of his ass hunted down kylo himself across the galaxy and bring him back even if it meant dragging him by his feet kicking and screaming yes he can take some time to grieve but he would put himself back together to set things right he wouldn't sulk about it for years on end leaving everyone to suffer for his slip up this is uncharacteristically selfish of him to do this is something a coward would do and luke skywalker is not a coward this is not the childhood hero millions of people grew up with this is a completely different character an imposter someone who doesn't deserve the title of luke skywalker you'll want to make the argument that this is similar to what obi-wan and yoda did in episode 3 when they went into hiding ok let's draw the parallels the empire had just committed genocide against the jedi while hunting and exterminating any survivors they have no allies to help them in the open they knew there was nothing they could do after the order was destroyed and agreed to go into hiding until a new hope presented itself they didn't isolate themselves out of self-pity or cowardice the empire was too powerful for them to defeat by themselves and even during their exile they still served a purpose to watch over luke and leia and prepare them for the fight against the empire and on top of that they still answered the call when their help was needed obi-wan was ready to fly alderaan the instant he saw leia's message and asked luke to come with him and when luke found yoda he was eager and willing to train him to see if he had the patience to be a jedi now let's look at luke's situation the republic that he helped establish was evenly matched with the first order it wasn't a losing battle yet all of his friends and allies were still alive and willing to help unlike obi-wan and yoda he just leaves himself to wallow in self-pity he put forth no effort to make amends for his mistake before exiling himself and when he was found he refused to help even when being asked by chewie his friend over the last 30 years luke just ignores how billions are being slaughtered and didn't even give enough of a [ __ ] to check on the well-being of his sister apparently there's another factor that feeds into his loathing in that he built into the legend that was built around him but that's not in character for him either yes he was reckless and pushed above his weight a few times in the ot but he was also humbled by his experiences he wouldn't develop an ego and think of himself as the legendary luke skywalker i'm pretty sure after losing his aunt and uncle losing obi-wan losing his hand and palpatine turning the tables on him in the throne room he wouldn't be seeing himself as such a legend luke became the greatest jedi specifically because he didn't buy into his own hype like the others did it's what made him special it's pretty clear that ryan wanted to use luke to tell a story about a fallen hero but because of how horribly the film is paced and how so much of its runtime is wasted on pointless stuff he doesn't properly develop this fallen hero storyline a story about a fallen hero needs more focus than what we got here you can flesh out something so complicated in a movie that's already needlessly complicated with the abundance of subplots when the run time is only two and a half hours ryan doesn't take the time to properly make the movie about luke's fall from grace so much of it is wasted on that stupid finn and rosa plot the pointless casino side quest poem holdo stick measuring contest hijinks with chewbacca and the porks and all those terrible moments where they try to force-feed horrible comedy into the script luke's story isn't given the time needed to properly develop so it ends up being rushed and when you combine all these things together the rushed pacing lightsaber throw contemplating murdering someone in their sleep blaming the jedi for something that was his own fault abandoning his responsibilities and hiding like a coward not reacting to han's death this is a thoroughly terrible portrayal of who luke skywalker is supposed to be nothing that made his character the childhood icon that millions looked up to is present in this movie except in the last 20 minutes where they abruptly kill him anyway on some level i can understand if at some point luke had to die but the fact that luke dies before doing anything meaningful to contribute to the story or advance the plot is a shameful way to send him off the optimism determination hopefulness loyalty strive to not give up no matter how hard things got sense of responsibility the will to fight and protect those he cares about all of these things are dashed to serve a story where he isolates himself over a mistake he made and doesn't make an effort to fix it with no rhyme or reason behind the chain of events this is by and large a form of character assassination you remember my review of the mlp finale where i explained how discord was gutted and removed of the character growth he received since the end of season 4 throwing away his protective nature over fluttershy his intellect as a trickster the main six is trust in him his developed relationship with multiple characters just because he wanted to boost his ego by giving twilight the confidence she needed to be a good ruler by breaking out criminals who are no longer a threat in uniting them while arming them with a bell of infinite dark magic with no regard for the consequences if his plan backfired this is basically the same thing this is what happens when you don't understand the difference between a dynamic character change and warping them to the point of being unrecognizable from how they were portrayed in previous stories they took a classic heroic character and messed up his personality so badly that you'd think he used to be an anti-hero or a villain people change over time is not an excuse for such a stupid understanding for one of the most classic characters in the history of fiction if you want to characterize luke as a broken man that's one thing but it would never play out the way it does in the last jedi a better way to do it would be if he tried to save kylo like he did vader but failed resulting in the death of his pupils that would damage his world view there's no scene showing that he tried to kill him and instead is replaced by scenes of him trying to persuade him and even after he fails he wouldn't turn into an [ __ ] maybe he'd be depressed but he wouldn't turn into an [ __ ] you can't just take a heavily established character like luke and change him to whatever the hell you want and say that it's because of a tragedy that's cheating the problem isn't so much that luke is grumpy and pessimistic the problem is the reasons that we're told why he's grumpy and pessimistic his entire personality did a 180 because he almost killed kylo in his sleep which is something that luke would never do under any circumstances if you want to make the argument that this was done to show how luke is a flawed character who makes mistakes he was already a flawed character who made mistakes in the ot and not only was this already covered in the ot but it was executed to better writing and received results he convinced uncle owen to buy the droids that led the empire to his house resulting in his family's death even if he was there he wouldn't have made a difference as deducted by obi-wan and while he does contribute to leia's rescue he's also saved several times by leia han and even r2d2 it's blatantly obvious that he's much less experienced under life-or-death pressure than his comrades he was barely able to survive the attack on the death star before hun helped create an opening for him to make a miraculous shot that obi-wan particularly coached him through he was wounded captured and barely escaped awampa on hoth before being saved by han again he achieved one victory in the barely successful rebel evacuation where a lot of people died he didn't save his friends at cloud city and was toyed around with vader throughout their duel before being soundly defeated after one lucky shot his friends escaped on their own and he had to be saved after his reckless rescue attempt even after becoming a competent jedi he's covered by his friends from attacks by jabba's minions and saved yet again by han through his defeat of boba fett in the final battle he was tempted by the dark side through vader's emotional manipulation was helpless against palpatine's sith lightning and was saved by his father whose redemption was his greatest victory when you count the conflicts in luke's development he actually loses most of these fights or isn't strong enough to affect the outcome alone this was a way of showing how he was properly flawed because he wasn't able to do everything by himself which taught him humility and discipline something that the sequel trilogy completely forgets about it's one thing to commit an action that negatively affects you and others but another thing entirely to betray core values including ones outside of the jedi philosophy painstakingly forged through decades of struggle this ultimately results in luke essentially relearning the same stuff he learned in the ot but a hundred times weaker if 35 years of experience drove the message in so poorly that he'd sink this low it's twice as frustrating that yoda's pep talk was all it took to set him straight again luke's journey in the ot involved learning and improving from failure which renders his quickness to consider killing kylo and his inability to learn from failing his new students insulting to how little he retained from these lessons obviously people can repeat a mistake after learning from it but this wasn't just a mistake this was a departure from the accumulation of everything that defines him after three films and nearly 20 years of experience prior to the force awakens it portrays luke as not having matured at all and he's painted us so emotionally fragile despite being older and wiser than he and anakin were the last time either of their feelings blinded them that he forgets even for a second of instinct to weigh the consequences and what makes this so particularly nasty is that he was clearly written this way to put rey on a pedestal to make her appear superior to him as the new protagonist you gotta kill him so she can take both his and anakin's place as the one who ultimately defeats palpatine because kathleen kennedy wants a woman to be the ultimate hero and not a man in the words of angry joe in his right to hell retribution video see you guys on the next [ __ ] that rey palpatine who did nothing but ponder about her parents for two films and went to face kylo with misplaced hope whose character is more thin than graphene and more unfairly overpowered than bayonetta from smash 4 is not worthy of replacing luke she has done absolutely nothing to earn it no training no struggle no key development no real test of her worth no victory without pulling a special talent out of her ass i'm supposed to think rey is a worthy successor to luke for no reason other than kathleen kennedy demands it and throughout this entire charade he doesn't even have a meaningful relationship with her in this movie you expected something on par with the relationship between luke and yoda in episode five well here's an entire throat of the movie dedicated to finn and rose running around in circles and poe and holdo are going over an escape plan the relationship between luke and rey isn't important enough for that leftover screen time why was that so hard why didn't they give us actual scenes of the two training together and developing an authentic student and teacher relationship we could have gotten something like the one between miles and peter from into the spiderverse i'd even say that miles and peter ray and luke done properly miles didn't immediately master his powers because he was still learning about being a spider person he needed peter to teach him and went through an arc about not only harnessing his powers but to understand himself better as a person meanwhile peter was going through disillusion since his life ended up going through a downward spiral but his iconic personality is still there for those who are familiar with the character he humbly takes miles under his wing and shows how he has 20 years of experience but also goes through an arc about trying to turn his life around and take his own leap of faith in starting over both miles and peter end up learning from each other throughout the course of the movie so there's a real sense of student and teacher chemistry between them point to me at the moment where anything like what happened in that movie happened here you can't because nothing like that happens between luke and rey yes they have conversations but rey isn't learning anything and they're not developing a relationship on top of those conversations ninety percent of the dialogue between these two is empty exposition here's a small recap of what happened in the last movie here's an explanation of what's left of the jedi here's a small reminder that the jedi were idiots here's a reminder that you used to be cool here's a flashback i had about kylo becoming a bad guy here's me demanding the truth here's an alternate flashback explaining my dumbass decision to kill kylo here's me telling you i can save him even though i have no reason to want to save him after he murdered his father and my surrogate dad in cold blood in front of me the closest thing i can think of to a genuine moment of connection between them is that one scene of luke teaching rey about the force but the moment is cut short just to introduce that dark hole of temptation that amounts to nothing and this line of dialogue that makes no sense i've seen this raw strength only once before and then solo it didn't scare me enough then it does now i just love that luke is saying kylo's power didn't scare him back then despite that he immediately considered and even almost went through killing him but now that it does scare him he's gonna want to keep rey under his wing and offer her some more lessons without wanting to force choke her rewrites rereads proof checking the script what are those mr johnson when there are fan fictions with more consistent writing than this all i'm left wondering is where did a good chunk of those three million dollars go the visuals and special effects i can understand but let's be real it sure as [ __ ] was not spent on this script changing luke's character so drastically requires further depth and context something this movie severely lacks what was even the purpose of this why would you take one of the most iconic heroes in the history of film and turn him into a depressed hermit to the point where even mark hamill is admitting to it i got a phone call you're not on the poster is it fine it's just another series of humiliations there's so much unsaid about where he's been and what he's done and actors like to write their own back stories you know you want to figure out what you've done and where you've been and but i realized that wasn't really important to the story of force awakens i still made it up myself and you know i tried to show it to jj and he you know was accommodating but basically batted me on the head gave me a cookie and maybe go away he is so significantly important to the this next film well that's good to hear back in action well certainly back in a role that affects the overall story line the biggest difference from when we last saw luke in the undertone of the jedi when we meet him now in the last jedi that's the mystery of the ages and since it's no longer my story and there's a new protagonist i had to try and fill in that for myself it's not important to the story but it is for the actor to try and figure out who is this guy how did the most optimistic hopeful character in the galaxy turn into this hermit who says it's time for the jedi to end i read that and i said what i mean that's not what a jedi does i mean a jedi is optimistic has tenacity he never gives up he doesn't secrete himself on an island but you'll you'll see i mean the wait for rate is nearly over i didn't know it was going to be bought by disney because this was summer of 2012 then they announced that disney had bought lucasfilm around halloween which would be october 30th uh it was announced and uh you know we didn't know the director was going to be and then they announced j.j abrams and it all came out it was all all very very exciting and uh um i hope people are happy it seems like because in hollywood remember kids it's not important if it's of high quality only if it makes money hopefully i mean it's easy to assume that it's got a little more to do this time around in this movie i always say i can promise you it's twice as big as my force awakens wow can you even imagine can you even imagine a part that long of that magnitude uh is there anything that you want us to know going into the last jedi anything you wanted to tell the audience or the world about this one in comparison to the other ones it's the longest one i think being pushed out of your comfort zone in this case was a good thing although i still stay a jedi would never give up but that's old school this is the new generation said to ryan i said jedi's don't give up i mean even if he had a problem he would maybe take a year to try and regroup but if he made a mistake he would try and write that wrong so right there we had a fundamental difference but it's not my story anymore it's somebody else's story and ryan needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective that's the crux of my problem luke would never say that i'm sorry well in this version see i'm talking about this the george lucas star wars this is the next generation of star wars so i almost had to think of luke as another character maybe he's jake skywalker he's not my luke skywalker but i had to do what ryan wanted me to do because it serves the story well but listen i still haven't accepted it completely but it's only a movie i hope people like it i hope they don't get upset and i came to really believe that ryan was the exact man that they needed for this job in the forest when the lightsaber was like this and flies off i said oh what a great entrance ah ray call it she hasn't even been to take above her training a jedi doesn't give up i remember you know a jedi if he does something wrong he makes it right you know even if he's traumatized and goes away he would regroup within i don't know six months but 20 30 years a month it's a little bit over indulgence what mark is left for a guy who's been through what luke skywalker's been through i don't think any line in the script epitomized my reaction more than this is not going to go the way you think and uh ryan pushed me out of my comfort zone as if i weren't as intimidated and terrified to begin with did your vision in ryan's vision did it coincide with the way that luke ends up in this film that you thought it would all be years later no what i want to know is how is it for you how is it different than any of the other movies it's longer i've got to stop thinking old school because this is the new generation in this generation not only they give up but they moved to an island for 20 years well it's going to be a great story for sure and i hope to see you in the next one i hope you don't die like i can't see all the last time i just hope for that i'll pray for that star wars is a lot about family dysfunctional family dysfunctional family and as the godfather of star wars how protective did you feel about the newer cast members and particularly daisy sitting next to you and also how protective did you feel about the character of luke skywalker when you saw what ryan had written in the screenplay when he first read it so you say i only know one truth it's time for the jedi to end you said that that was a very important line yeah because it's not i mean when i read it didn't go the way i thought because he finally learned some of yoda's lessons now that he's the teacher well you're assuming that i train ray exactly sneaky i know i have to be really careful people say was it difficult to pick up and wield a lightsaber again i go do i it was a shocking to me to read what ryan had written as i'm sure it will be for the audience when i read eight i told ryan i fundamentally disagree with virtually everything you've decided about my character i said to ryan i'm so surprised how you see you bummed that luke didn't get to whatever you mean absolutely in fact when i was reading it i thought if leia's trying to mentally contact me and she's not successful she'll rush to his aid she'll get close to him and then get into some dire situation and that's when i show up for the yeah save her life then we rushed on and are in the same position that rey and finn and chewie are too late to save him but witnesses and i say because we carry so much emotional resonance into the next film for us his wife his best friend to witness instead of two characters 20 minutes you have to imagine what kind of trauma has he experienced that he would become this embittered hermit oh you know i mean it might everyone's expecting my first line to be i told you to get off my island mark hamill thank you so much i do more than rotate and remove my foot that's a promise uh it's really about uh the new characters and we're just there they've got the keys to the kingdom we're just got visitors passes okay let's all repeat the mantra it's only a movie and if you think you're going to go into the movie and recapture your childhood you're setting yourself up for disappointment i said you guys have a very bad feeling about this maybe we should have just left uh well enough alone i'm in awe of the entire cast and aside from days i look forward to working with them one day and we can't end on that note can't we i'm afraid we have to because that is all we've got time for um we're never going to get slagging in a bottle again we had a beginning the middle and end let's let the memories suffice uh but i said you know what my out is that harrison's never gonna do that i have to say george lucas because he gave me everything and he's a wonderful person and we all miss him once uh i saw fortunately the first time i just bring him he was at and when i saw him i gave him was there any of the criticisms that you read that you may feel is now kind of fair no no but i'm happy to ruin people's childhoods the thing is though especially with a star wars movie having grown up as a star wars fan is this really really really really going to be your last star wars appearance i sure hope so now in my original review i brought up one of the interviews where mark hamill shows his dismay towards how luke was treated in the movie but apparently since that wasn't enough to get the point across i thought it would be necessary to show you this string of interviews back to back and i gotta say seeing all those interviews back to back that is genuinely sad in every one of these appearances mark is expressing a lot of frustration devastation anxiety disappointment despair and stress like he's still emotionally recovering from putting a pet down you remember that infamous clip of him just looking shocked and appalled while standing next to ryan at the premiere that's because that was the first time he learned about luke dying in the film he didn't even know about it until he saw it alongside everyone else just that expression that mark had from seeing a character he played that brought joy and hope to so many people being mishandled and mischaracterized so badly and then he died i actually felt that that look on his face says everything you need to know of all the damage that's been caused by this trilogy i wholeheartedly believe that the emotional distress its cause to mark is ultimately the worst of it i know there's a lot of people who have talked about the scummy practices that lucasfilm has been involved in since kathleen kennedy took charge the sexism calling out racism while simultaneously being disrespectful to john boyega pablo hidalgo being a piece of [ __ ] to star wars theory for having an emotional reaction to luke's appearance in the mandalorian but seeing what this trilogy did to mark all of that emotional turmoil and grief watching something he was a part of for over 30 years being disrespected so thoroughly that breaks my heart in a way that i can't describe with words and to see that followed up by johnson abrams and kennedy patting themselves on the back like they created the star wars equivalent to citizen kane with this awful trilogy and having it followed up by roaring applause by a bunch of stupid [ __ ] shit-eating morons with no common sense that's disgusting what a shitty way to treat a genuinely good person like mark hamill he wasn't in it for the money or the fame he really cared about the difference he was making in the world by playing the role of luke skywalker years later people are still talking about how inspired they were by his character and his performance the topic is practically being rejuvenated because of the mandalorian even mark himself couldn't possibly anticipate something like that being celebrated decades later and he's really proud of that now there have been a lot of instances in the past where actors show dislike or disdain for the projects they were involved in but mark's disdain doesn't come from just not liking the movie he genuinely cares about the wonder and hope that luke brought to people and is deeply upset that the character was portrayed as the opposite of everything he stood for the original trilogy created something truly beautiful and this sequel trilogy took a giant [ __ ] on that and nowhere is that more apparent than mark's reaction to these movies this is someone going through the five stages of grief except acceptance and he's right to be upset about it because the way luke was treated was thoroughly disrespectful and what did you have to gain from this a stupid theme about failure being the greatest teacher we did not wait 30 years to see a luke skywalker who just gave up [ __ ] you but since i brought up themes let's talk about those for a moment themes in terms of media are described as the poetic meaning behind the story being told it's the subject that's explored throughout the narrative usually done as a means to teach a life lesson to the audience the reasoning behind luke's character arc in the last jedi was to teach people about how failure is a great teacher and something for us to learn from it's been referred to by many as the theme of the movie and why it's such a great film but the problem starts to rise when the theme is being prioritized and glorified at the expense of writing quality what do i mean by this well remember how i said earlier that people weren't focusing on the writing quality of luke's character arc in the film because they're too fixated on the idea of him being a more deeply flawed character who's different from the hero he was built up to be in previous films that's the same problem with themes it happens when people are over fixated on the topic being explored in the story because they see it as something they relate to but don't take the time to actually think about how the story represents that topic let's use steven universe future as an example where the show suddenly decided that it wanted to explore serious topics like ptsd and mental illness now i would personally argue that this is an important topic to teach children but steven universe future has a very poor understanding of how mental illness and ptsd works and cheapens it for the sake of drama now i don't think i have to explain why it's a bad idea to represent ptsd by making the character suffering from it out to be a homicidal maniac it's really not an accurate reflection of ptsd there's actually a lot of people with ptsd who say the way it was portrayed here wasn't honest and respectful and even if you want to make the argument that ptsd affects different people in different ways it still doesn't work here because steven's ptsd is never actually explored instead it's used as a plot device for him to get angry at the other characters and stir up the conflict and instead of actually exploring his ptsd by having a scene where he talks to a therapist they just say that he got a therapist off screen during the final episode and didn't even bother to have the therapist make a physical appearance rebecca stated that she didn't have steven's therapy on screen because it would invade his privacy but it's pretty obvious that she was just too lazy to write it and stephen faces no consequences for any of his actions during his pink outbursts even red conning the dramatic weight of gems being shattered by immediately bringing jasper back to life the show does very little to address the problems he was suffering from which is unacceptable since they chose to cover a very serious subject matter it could have led to interesting development for steven's character who is trying to adjust to changes in his life but the idea is never used to its fullest extent it also doesn't help that his ptsd is being treated with a group hug which is like trying to put a band-aid on a gunshot wound people try to defend this by saying that the hug itself isn't what heals steven's trauma it's meant to represent how he doesn't have to deal with this by himself because he has friends and family to support him it sounds like a nice sentiment but having friends and family to support you isn't what heals trauma healing trauma requires effort from the person suffering from it looking for a solution that's healthy for themselves and others like talking to a therapist or getting proper medication stephen only does one of these two things after he killed someone and nearly destroyed the town and because the therapist thing happens off screen it doesn't actually take part in the story steven doesn't take the time to recognize the problem himself and other characters are handling it for him recovering from ptsd requires the patient to feel comfortable with themselves having friends and family to tell them they care about them doesn't equate to the patient feeling comfortable with themselves ptsd is a very complicated issue to talk about especially if you're gonna do it in a kid's show and steven universe future didn't have the experience nor the knowledge on the subject to properly discuss it the last jedi suffers from a similar problem not that it's covering a serious and touchy topic but rather it's trying to use a certain subject as the driving force for the narrative it tries to use the theme of failure being a teacher we have to learn from as a means to hand wave away the incohesive writing involved in how that theme is being presented i understand the notion of teaching people to learn from failure in order to engage in self-improvement but the situation surrounding luke's failure was a result of him being stupidly out of character there's a right way and a wrong way to do this and johnson did it the wrong way remember the stuff i went over regarding all the times luke messed up in the ot those were already great examples of learning from failure to engage in self-improvement and during the ot his character wasn't fully established yet by the events of this movie luke was already involved in a journey about learning and improving from failure and is now an established character now he's basically going through the same thing but because the circumstances are shallow and derivative it just feels like his character is retranding old ground and he didn't actually learn anything in the ot the difference between the ot and the st is that one of the situations for why he went through these emotions had a better setup and even if this is the one you want to go with you can keep the learning from failure bit without being offensive you can have luke go through the guilt of failing to help kylo and isolate himself out of shame without the part where he thinks about killing him in his sleep or not caring about the safety of his friends and family when he's called into action rework this in a way that doesn't assassinate his character the scene where he attacked vader and anger was a better example of him learning from failure he came to his senses and realized he was doing what palpatine wanted and when he was told to finish the job he threw down his saber in protest he almost fell to the dark side and stopped himself clearly recognizing his mistake so why is luke making the same mistake when kylo was less of a threat a brief flashback and exposition plus the persisting cop-out that people change is not enough to substantiate that drastic of a character change 30 years have passed or people change over time is a lazy excuse if you don't show the change on screen this is why the theme of failure being a teacher you have to learn from feels so badly he's learning from a mistake he never should have made it's not just unpleasant to watch because we're seeing such an inspiring character go against everything that made them an iconic hero but it makes absolutely no sense in terms of the narrative this was a misunderstanding that could have easily been avoided had he not been an idiot for more than five seconds he should have explored other options instead of just deciding to kill kylo it just reduces luke's character development in order to redo it let's put it this way captain america jumps off a cliff trying to fly but he obviously can't and falls to his death he knows he can't fly so it makes no sense for him to do that you can't simply justify this by saying characters make mistakes they need to be mistakes that make sense for the character captain america trying to fly when he knows he can't do it makes no sense luke giving in to fear when he already had an arc about learning to not do that makes no sense either it makes no sense for him to forget about it just for plot convenience it makes no sense for him to blame the jedi over what happened with kylo when he broke the code and it makes no sense for his opinion to change just because the temple was destroyed and a couple of pupils were killed he already knew about the flaws of the order before this happened rey was even able to stump him by reminding him he saved vader by being different from other jedi luke has no response to this because he knows it's true it's just because of plot convenience he decides to remain stupid about it the theme of failure being a teacher for luke to learn from falls flat because he's not in character at any point in this whole situation so the excuse that this movie has an important theme to discuss doesn't work because it's not being supported by a good story a theme is not some sort of get out of jail free card for derivative and incohesive writing themes are like the sprinkles that you use to decorate a cake it's not supposed to be the cake itself those sprinkles could be sent to your bakery straight from god but it's not going to matter if the cake tastes like [ __ ] whatever thing you're trying to get across with your story doesn't matter if it's executed in the worst way possible themes by themselves are not good enough they need to be supported by a story that properly represents the message it's trying to send you can have a theme as complicated as religion being corrupted by individuals who want to exploit it for personal gain or a theme as simple as spending time with your loved ones and valuing the time you have with them but if you can't write a cohesive story that isn't riddled with giant plot holes and horrible characters to save your ass then you might as well throw your theme into the trash bin because it's not gonna be worth jack for those who don't know i made a video last year discussing their repulsive netflix movie cuties and all the ways it makes me want the virus to kill us off so a more deserving species can inhabit this planet one common defense that people were actually stupid enough to use to justify this movie's existence was that the film doesn't actually support the exploitation of miners and that the message of the film is supposed to be against it the theme of the movie is about how kids in our society are being sexualized and how we need to be made aware of it exploring how media can influence children in a negative way how parents need to pay better attention to their kids and a sub theme about forging our own identities the thing is none of that matters because of how horrifying the movie is aside from having a terrible story with terrible characters the movie is actively engaging in the very thing that it's supposed to be against it tries to send a message about how it's bad to exploit kids but that doesn't change the fact that the movie itself is exploiting kids in the process of sending its message this was a very delicate topic that needed to be handled as responsibly as possible cuties didn't do that and accomplish the exact opposite more than anything and then the defenders will say oh but we need to show them the truth and how uncomfortable it is because the message it's trying to send is important did i ever say that it's not an important message no i didn't it is an important message but there's a right way to do it and this movie is not the right way to do it the solution is very simple if you want to raise awareness on society trying to exploit underage kids don't make a movie with close-ups of underage kids rear ends while directing them to dance like strippers while dressed as prostitutes it's really not that hard it's like maine monado kuwait was given a list of things to not do to make sure this movie wouldn't be gross and horrifying beyond human comprehension and just thought to herself how can i [ __ ] up every single one of these i saw so many injustices around me that women were experiencing and i kept all of that anger inside me i was police when i was a child today i can use my voice my arts to share my vision of femininity [Music] themes don't work without proper execution and the last jedi fails at this drastically praising a movie for its themes when the movie ends up being terrible is the equivalent of saying sure he messed up but at least he meant well it's nothing but a lazy buzzword at this point i don't even know where the hell this even came from but this whole obsession with themes has become such a poisonous mentality as it represents a complete disregard for writing quality it's the same problem as style over substance remember when james cameron's avatar came out and people obsessed over how visually stunning it was then a few years later they realized they forgot the movie even existed because it was actually a boring slog to sit through and the visuals were just a distraction from how sloppily written it was well let's take that situation and apply it to the last jedi only instead of obsessing over the visuals people are obsessing over its theme prioritizing the theme over everything else is rule number one of how to not critique movies tv shows or any sort of media if anything it's turned into a pathetic excuse to justify a story's poor quality a quick and easy way people try to make themselves look more intelligent and insightful than they actually are like they're trying to say you just missed the point of the story because uh reasons i don't know how this is a hard thing for people to grasp themes should always take a backseat to the story and characters brandon sanders once said ideas are cheap an expert writer can write a new york times bestseller with a terrible idea a novice writer can write a piece of trash with the best idea in the world media is not about the novelty or juxtaposition of themes no matter how poignant they may sound it's about creating good stories and bringing those stories to life to get you invested in the worlds they create it's why franchises like the original star wars movies and lord of the rings are still celebrated even decades after their release they created something very special and they were created by people who care deeply about storytelling as an art form instead of just using it as a mouthpiece for their world views the themes were secondary nature to what was truly important the story characters and world building if you want another example there's also the dark knight you can argue that the movie has a theme about believing in yourself and going out to make a difference in the world in spite of authorities going against you and saying that one man is nothing compared to the system but what makes the dark knight a truly good film is its story characters and world building when you remove the theme it's still a well-written detective story with intriguing characters and organic motivations and reasons for why the characters behave the way they do the dark knight is the kind of movie the last jedi tried to be and failed because it doesn't allow its themes to overshadow and dictate the story the last jedi desperately tries to use its theme to make itself look more masterful than it actually is an idea is only as good as its execution and the execution of luke's story in this movie is poorly put together and lazy even if the theme is important it needs to be communicated in a compelling manner the work has to do something substantial with it otherwise you might as well just be writing a great school play and not a multi-billion dollar blockbuster themes aren't even this new revolutionary thing they're old as dirt every story told since the dawn of time has had themes in it with things as simple as do not lie or don't judge someone for their appearance anyone who argues that a movie is awesome because it has themes might as well say that it's awesome because it has sound it's like saying a pizza was good because it had good toppings even though the actual pizza was garbage you could just apply that themes excuse to any piece of media and it would be just as valid i'm not giving you a pass for trying to send a life lesson to people if the method you use to send it is terrible if the rose was pink diamond twist was supposed to be a metaphor for something like don't succumb to hero warship it was a pretty shitty way to get that metaphor across for all the plot holes and character derailment rebecca sugar cost with one ill-thought-out writing decision this failure is a teacher we have to learn from message has been done better in countless other movies and if this is your first time seeing it it's not a good introduction to the subject you can say whatever you want about the theme or the message or how it symbolizes luke's character arc the simple fact is they messed it up royally but what about the originality you might ask what about all the ways that this star wars movie is different from every other star wars movie no you're full of [ __ ] the last jedi is not original not nearly as much as people have been saying it is a lot of it is a retrend of the empire strikes back and return of the jedi while also taking elements from other star wars properties the rich people trading weapons to both sides of the war is the trait federation from the prequels luke being an old hermit who hates the force and the ways of the old jedi was already done by crea in kotor and done massively better kylo ren being the child of han and leia who ends up becoming evil is just a dollar store version of jake and solo the theme about learning from failure was already done in hundreds of other movies including within this same franchise rey coming to the rescue in the millennium falcon is the same as han solo rescuing luke in episode four but made worse by dialing up her mary sue status by killing three tie fighters in one shot snoke showing ray the destruction of the good guys a copy of palpatine showing luke the destruction of the good guys luke training rey a retrend of yoda training luke except the training doesn't actually happen the scene where the hero enters a place that's strong with the dark side that's meant to be a reflection on themselves same as episode 5. you also have one of the stupider moments from the movie where rey gives herself up to the first order so she can sway kylo to the light side which is a retrend of luke giving himself to the empire to sway anakin except then it made sense luke was anakin's son he had a connection with him a bond that held the key to helping him kylo was nothing to rey he has no special connection with her and she called him a monster after killing han solo she spent the entire first half of the movie hating his guts and now all of a sudden she sees good in him just because she got the full context of luke's flashback or that trip in the dark hole that told nothing about her parents it might have been more plausible if kylo was her brother or something but he's just some guy they have no relationship that warrants this kind of blind faith you know what actually would have been better if luke gave himself up to kylo they have a more distinct relationship and it would have been a great way for him to take responsibility for his actions but no everything has to be about rey so she gets to be the hero a character while lou keeps getting written off as a coward who wants to stay on the island a lot of people tried to defend the last jedi for being the most original in the sequel trilogy when in reality it just falls into the same nostalgia baiting [ __ ] as episodes 7 and 9. they even rip off elements from spaceballs a movie that somehow manages to be less of a parody of star wars than the actual star wars movie the resistance fleet escapes the first order with a hyperspace jump before running out of fuel eagle 5 escapes baseball one with a hyperspace jump then runs out of fuel the first order uses advanced technology to track the resistance colonel sanders uses advanced instant cassettes to track lone star and princess vespa snoke tells kylo to take off his mask president's group tells helmet not to have his visor down while he's nearby finn and rose get arrested for a parking violation spaceball troops try to arrest lone star for a parking violation but the worst thing about it is how the overall story ends up amounting to the exact same generic good versus evil scenario that we've already seen in every other star wars story remember what i said earlier how ryan could have done something brilliant how he could have taken the story in a really interesting direction by making ray the villain and kylo turning back to the light and seeking redemption for his past crimes well he doesn't do that he just keeps rey the good guy and makes kylo the new villain in snoke's place and as a result the story ends up following the exact same beat as every other star war story we've seen before a problem that's made even worse when it's revealed that palpatine was alive the entire time and was behind everything when you remove all the nuance that the last jedi and the rest of the sequel trilogy pretends to have you see that they end up doing the exact same thing that star wars has been doing for literally decades a group of underdogs and every men working together to battle an evil power hungry government which i might have been okay with if this was the second time they did it but now when this is like the seventh time they've done this it's just so boring for a movie that was overhyped to the moon and back for how oh so original it was there is nothing original about this film at all even the title is a recycled element that was already used twice this movie has no redeeming values in it because even if you ignore the bad storytelling or the butchering of the lore and classic characters it does nothing new or substantial and what makes it so frustrating is the fact that they're just doing all this [ __ ] again why are we doing the underdog rebels versus the space totalitarians again what was the point of setting this [ __ ] sequel trilogy 30 years into the future if you're just going to tell the exact same story nothing about the sequel trilogy let alone the last jedi does anything to shake up the status quo of the franchise everything it does is either borrowed recycled brought back reused repurposed or repeated with none of the interesting story development or character growth to back it up and the original trilogy was simply not like this it was the staple of western media that redefined every single aspect of film the timeless cast great character growth properly executed themes about harnessing your emotions the philosophy of all the mystical elements that inhabited its world the scale of its production the wonder and imagination that went into its design to this day no other franchise can even hold a candle to the monolithic legacy it left in its wake the original trilogy was legendary over 40 years later it hasn't aged at all and for all the fact that people give the prequels they actually help to add more meaning to the story of the ot making it so much better and more important than it was on its own it was a tremendous love letter to science fiction with enriching characters a simple yet exceptionally well told story set in a world with so much brilliant thought put into its lore that made exploring this galaxy and experience all its own this trilogy can't even hold the ot's jock and the last jedi is a standalone example of why you don't need to be a film student to understand how this movie fails as both a standalone film and as a sequel to one of the most beloved film franchises of all time it tries so hard to be relevant by throwing all this stuff together in a jumbled way and it doesn't hold up the constant nostalgia baiting and reverting the story to the same good versus evil story we saw in the ot doesn't allow it to develop an identity of its own none of the locations they go to are interesting or memorable in a way that makes revisiting this movie a chore like it's just a bunch of homework i had to suffer through to see how badly its age since the rise of skywalker came out the tone is constantly getting yanked around to the point that it doesn't know what it wants to be it doesn't know if it wants to be a lighthearted adventure or a dark and serious deconstruction of the star wars mythos or a shitty comedy it doesn't have the brilliant storytelling that sparked people's imagination it has absolutely zero regard for any sort of continuity from the original six movies like it was written by someone who's never seen any of the previous star wars films oh wait the characters are half-baked annoying shallow underdeveloped and go through no meaningful resolution by the time the credits start to roll it's obsessed with subverting expectations and shocking plot twists to the point of not bothering to think about how those subversions and plot twists fit into the narrative and it's made even more unfocused by all the horribly timed forced intrusive and badly translated comedy the ot hasn't aged a day but this movie is so painfully dated this movie is only three years old and it already feels dated and having to say that about a star wars movie just makes it even more painful it's nothing but a compilation of blatant corporate schlock with no understanding of what made the ot work so well it's uninspired unprofessional and very out of touch with the ip it's trying to represent it fails to properly send its message by making the characters into tools instead of actual characters instruments with no organic progress the sequel trilogy as a whole just feels extremely lacking in so many areas compared to other star wars stories and it's made even worse by demanding that it be taken as seriously as the ot even the prequel trilogy was more competent and had more memorable and worthwhile moments between the i am your father scene and the battle on mustafar you're not going to stand out unless you really know what you're doing and even outside of the main movies there are so many other star wars properties that are more worthy of your time the 2003 clone wars cartoon the 2008 clone wars cartoon the original battlefront games knights of the old republic the comics stuff like the friendship between anakin and ahsoka delving into the philosophy of light-sided sith and dark-sided jedi korea's words of wisdom on both sides of the force the emotional confrontation between ahsoka and darth vader exploring the humanity of the clone troopers delving into palpatine's rise to power and what made him such a scary manipulator expanding on darth maul these are all well-written stories that pay respect to the unmatched legacy george lucas created and you think anything in this sequel trilogy let alone this movie can compete with them that they can hold a candle to them this trilogy is not worthy of standing with these other stories because it's just so removed from them but how exactly did it go so wrong the pieces were there to tell a potentially good story that could have served as a proper expansion on the star wars universe so what was the problem well the answer is actually pretty obvious but the exact details are a bit more complicated for those who don't know i made a video explaining why i didn't see the motivation to see rise of skywalker when it first came out and in that video i brought up some detail regarding the faulty production of the sequel trilogy as a whole unlike marvel lucasfilm didn't have any major projects being worked on when disney bought them so they had to build something from the ground up to get something out of the deal they needed new leadership to oversee new projects and this is where kathleen kennedy came in she was placed in charge by george not knowing the horror she was about to unleash because he wanted someone he knew to be the head of the company instead of taking the risk of disney giving his business to someone he wasn't familiar with to make sure his vision would be protected when bob iger was presented his original idea for a sequel trilogy he turned it down and kennedy back eiger's decision and suggested it be something different but here's where the core of the issue comes in jj abrams and ryan johnson were tasked with directing and writing the new trilogy but instead of collaborating on how the story would go they took turns directing the movies with completely different visions for how the story would play out and there's the rub the story was not planned out at all or at least there was no agreement to how it would play out instead kennedy abrams and johnson were just going by the seat of their pants which made the project as a whole suffer immensely this is another thing i already talked about in my initial review but it bears repeating when you're making a plan series of movies the story for those movies has to be planned out too it's not as simple as saying i'm going to make a five part movie franchise you have to think about how that franchise is going to play out it's called story layout anyone who's taken even a basic writing course will tell you that planning out your story is crucial especially if you're making it a multi-part franchise you know that criticism people tend to give sequels where it feels like they just made up a new story instead of continuing the story of the original or rehash what the original did because they couldn't think of anything different because it's something that was common with a lot of sequels they just made up stories that weren't planned out because the originals were financially successful and hollywood just wants to milk money off of anything that worked out the first time why do you think we have so many reboots these days they ran out of ideas for fresh new shows so hollywood did the only thing it knows and that's pretty much what happened here the sequel trilogy ended up being a repeat of what we saw in the ot and the story they went with wasn't planned out in the slightest ryan johnson didn't follow through with what jj abrams set up in the force awakens and instead of sucking up his pride and trying to salvage the trilogy by making a consistent story with what johnson set up jj abrams just decided to go [ __ ] ryan johnson subversive masterpiece here's my subversive masterpiece you can't just make this [ __ ] up as you go along if you're making a trilogy of any kind you need to have the story for all three movies planned out before you even begin production on the first entry in comparison the prequel trilogy was more consistent because george lucas was in charge of all three keeping it under a single vision and he had plans for a prequel trilogy from the start that's why the empire strikes back was called episode 5 when it first came out and not episode 2. some of the greatest literary and cinematic works of all time like this movie is trying to present itself as were a result of the writers putting a lot of time into meticulously planning out their stories maybe if you're working on something on a small scale you can get away with not coming up with a grand plan but when you're making a continuation to star wars the most expensive and gigantic franchise in the history of storytelling with decades worth of established lore and iconic characters you need to come up with a plan they didn't do that they just started producing episode 7 with no layout for how the other two movies were going to go nothing about the characters plot pacing or even the way the trilogy was going to be marketed was planned at any point and the result was a colossal mess you can simply turn your brain off to this stuff when the problems are so adamant that it's impossible to ignore them why didn't johnson and abrams work as a team why didn't they just pick one idea and roll with it instead of trying to one-up each other because this trilogy really couldn't decide on anything ray could have a super duper secret connection with one of the old characters no she's actually a random nobody oh wait she's actually palpatine's granddaughter snoke in the first order are an entirely new threat the heroes have never faced before no he's actually just another one of palpatine's puppets and the first order is just a rebrand of the old empire hux is a terrifying general no he's an incompetent buffoon no he's actually the spy the force doesn't work that way says han solo no it's actually a super power with no set of rules and force users can just do whatever the [ __ ] they want with it i've heard people describe this trilogy as a pair of divorced parents fighting over custody of their kid but this is just ridiculous it's almost as ridiculous as ryan johnson thinking the formula for making a good movie is to deliberately create a huge controversy and polarize your audience um i would be worried if everybody across the board was like yeah that was a good movie it's much more exciting to me when you get you know a group of people who are like coming up to you and and really really excited about it and you know it's going to be something that they're having their dvd collection watch you over and the way that i got into like you know miller's crossing maybe i don't know but uh and then there are other people who walk out just i mean literally saying that was the worst movie i've ever seen having those two extremes to me is you know is the mark of the type of movie that i want to make so um no you idiot polarizing writing decisions and divisive storytelling is not what makes a good movie good writing is what makes a good movie this is literally ryan's entire thought process when it comes to the last jedi he seems to think that just pulling off a subversion equates to good storytelling and that dividing the audience is a fascinating result that more people should try doing which is simply just horrible advice who in their right mind thinks that's actually a good idea actively wanting to piss off 50 of your audience is not logical at all it's not good for your story and it's not even good from a business standpoint if you want a product to be successful you would want as many people as possible to like it this divide the audience mentality is literally self-defeating because it actively reduces the appeal of the product for the sake of taking risks and for those who try to say oh well he said that years ago it's not like it holds up today actually yes it does it doesn't matter how long ago this was recorded because he clearly stuck to his guns with what he did with the last jedi and it would be bad enough if it just ended there but in every single interview he appears in he acts so proud of himself like he thinks he made the schindler's list of star wars going on and on about how he brought something new and revolutionary to the series you might say he deserves credit for being upfront and honest about it but i have never seen a person as prideful of a movie they made as much as rian johnson is with the last jedi even the most full of themselves movie makers that i've seen have never been as prideful as ryan johnson has been and this is what just makes his attitude so annoying he's completely oblivious to the damage that was caused to the brand the fire spreading behind him as he just indulges in how this movie boosted his status as a big shot writer in hollywood he is so blind to the reality of the situation that i would describe it as tone death it's like he's some sort of professional troll and this whole thing was just an elaborate act to test the minds of the people who went to see these movies and see if they'll actually be stupid enough to be distracted by pretty visuals and dramatic themes to not pay attention to the massive holes in this story it'd be one thing if there was a hint of self-awareness but he actually believes his own hype he's just really proud of how he created something so harmful to the star wars name the aftermath of this is just a hundred times worse than the phantom menace really look at it people were acting like it was the worst thing ever and yet it was still selling all sorts of merchandise toy sales dozens of video games collectibles and it led to a cult following by allowing the series to branch out to other things in comparison the last jedi seriously backfired the toy sales the solo movie and galaxy's edge tanked horribly even the last jedi saw a huge decline in ticket sales following its opening weekend it doesn't matter what your personal opinion on this movie is because the facts behind it aren't going to change he made a bad movie that's supposed to be part of a very important franchise with a very carefully constructed lore that deliberately and purposefully failed to be consistent with the previous films and there's no excuse for that it's literally modern family guy levels of bad writing turning the characters into unrecognizable caricatures of their past selves while completely disregarding the continuity of previous episodes while also telling the story at such an awfully sluggish pace and throwing in a bunch of random stuff at random times that has nothing to do with anything because the [ __ ] morons who put this thing together think random [ __ ] equals funny johnson only saw star wars as a prop for forwarding his career as an artist nothing more and nothing less maybe he meant to elevate the universe and cosmology beyond the light and dark aspects but he didn't succeed by the end of the movie kylo is characterized as bloodthirsty and evil and the characters he's fighting against are presented as completely in the right and even then the bulk of the plot relies on the characters doing stupid things for stupid reasons whether it's roe stopping finn's sacrifice haldo not telling poe about the plan kylo killing snoke to take over the order rey wanting to bring kylo back to the light out of blind faith or luke being out of character in the worst ways possible even if you've never seen any of the previous star wars films this one makes no sense and don't try to deflect this by saying oh well just don't think of it as a star wars movie that is the stupidest thing i've ever heard if you don't want to think of it as a star wars movie then don't slap the star wars name on it that's like saying don't think of call of duty infinite warfare as a call of duty game just make a new ip if that's the excuse you want to go with it's really telling that he wanted to make a standalone movie instead of a sequel which defeats the entire purpose of the movie because it's supposed to be a sequel this is not a matter of opinion these are some of the most basic and fundamental storytelling rules that even a novice writer should understand planning out your story staying consistent with an established lore continuity double checking your script maintaining a consistent tone it actually feels like this movie was written by a child as opposed to a professional adult a fan fiction writer would have come up with something better planned out and more consistent and less filled to the brim with left-wing pandering [ __ ] and speaking of left-wing pandering [ __ ] it's time to talk about the melting pot of disaster disguised as progressivism kathleen kennedy we are women and we are free we're bringing into the patriarchy we are women here are pain shut the [ __ ] up thank you kathleen kennedy is not a good president like at all she is [ __ ] awful at running lucasfilm just a quick search or some research into the topic will provide you with mountains of information regarding her clownery as head of the company i previously brought up how she didn't stand by george lucas's original plan for a sequel trilogy when bob biger rejected it but her problems as head of the company go far beyond this she has absolutely no clue what people liked about star wars and only sees it as a mouthpiece for her intersectional politics as opposed to a creative piece of art and because of how popular the ip is it makes it easier for her to exploit her grand plan was to make star wars more appealing to women but she just ended up making it less appealing for pretty much everyone except for the idiots who agree with her political ideology she wasn't concerned with telling a good story she was only concerned with implementing female empowerment into the franchise because she wanted to make it more accessible for females and what was her plan for accomplishing this by downplaying the male characters of course i think there was an assumption being made for quite a while that girls didn't care about star wars or that girls weren't identifying with characters like luke skywalker or han solo they were only identifying with princess leia or characters in other movies along those lines and i think you know it's not just star wars that's making this change i think culturally and i i want to believe that there is real movement and momentum beginning to happen where those kind of lines are being blurred what this woman is a toxic feminist of the highest regard all she cares about is filling everything she's involved in with as many women as possible because she thinks women aren't given enough attention in movies it would be one thing if she just wanted more female representation but doing so by actively dumbing down the male characters in the process is nothing short of disgusting why do i say that well let's take a look at the stuff that happens in this movie remember the huldo and po subplot it had no purpose in the story as it was incredibly easy to resolve and artificially dragged out the plot by having haldobiologically stubborn what was the point of this subplot if it does nothing to advance the story if it does nothing to advance poe's character if it has absolutely nothing to do with rey kylo or luke's storylines easy kennedy used it to introduce mansplaining to the franchise throughout this subplot poe is portrayed as in the wrong for showing concern towards holdo's lack of urgency in a dire situation and they also have a scene of him explaining the downside to her initial plan to escape using the podships but then it's revealed that holdo had a plan all along and poe is just stupid and incompetent for not trusting her and staging the mutiny haldo the woman is portrayed as completely in the right while poe the man is portrayed as in the wrong and scolded for it but holdo as we went over earlier was absolutely in the wrong regardless of how rash poe reacted she's portrayed as the hero a character who knew better than poe despite the fact that her lack of action and not bothering to explain her escape plan from the beginning got a shitload of rebels killed and this fact is never acknowledged in universe the female character in this subplot is being artificially inflated to make the male character inferior to her and they literally killed off akbar just to replace him with a female version of what is essentially the same character she speaks to him in a condescending tone and berates him repeatedly throughout the subplot thinking she knows better than him and the subplot ends with him being talked down by leia also a woman and that's not the only subplot this stuff happens in you know how rey is the most special character in the entire series for no other reason other than she just is that's because kathleen kennedy wanted her to be written as a role model for a female audience kennedy like a lot of feminists seems to have this messed up mentality that women are perfect and should be portrayed as perfect and flawless needing no man to help them and wanted that mentality for rey as a character but her character ends up suffering as a result of this she doesn't have any flaws like luke she doesn't suffer consequences from any bad decisions like luke she overcomes every challenge presented to her by herself without ever being backed into a corner and she doesn't have a single personality trait that needs to be improved upon over the course of the story she's emotionally stable unlike kylo who's written to behave like a potential school shooter and rey is shown to be superior to luke in both ability and mind but luke's mind is constantly being tampered with making a macdon characteristically for the sake of the plot he was ready to set fire and basically commit genocide on the remnants of an entire culture while rey saves the jedi text because she sees value in them the male character was going to destroy them while the female character saves and reserves their knowledge luke is unwilling to help the galaxy as it's being burned to a crisp while rey is determined to stand and fight yes luke saves them at the end but he doesn't leave the island he just sends a projection of himself to distract kylo and his contribution amounted to nothing anyway even if he didn't show up those crystal dogs would have still let them to the other side of the cave where rey was waiting to let them out at most he bought them an extra three minutes and he ends up dying leaving rey to be the new face of the rebellion rey the woman is shown to be more competent than both luke and kylo the men and she becomes the face of the rebellion despite doing nothing to earn it in the finn and rosa plot finn is initially portrayed as a coward running from the fight while rose catches him and berates him for being a traitor and throughout the rest of this portion of the movie rose is seen as the character who knows better and finn is just more or less tagging along while they're on their mission and at the end he doesn't get to sacrifice himself with ro stopping him from doing the very thing they were sent out to do in the first place because finn doesn't understand that it's not about fighting what they hate but saving what they love despite that rose saved absolutely nothing by stopping finn from saving the resistance i know this sounds like a stretch but in every one of these subplots the female characters are treated as superior to every male character surrounding them and the male characters are portrayed as inferior and incompetent for no reason other than they just are actually it's because kennedy is having the female characters look capable and awesome while the male characters are idiots who are constantly messing stuff up this movie is not only bad but it's also extremely sexist and it's sexist towards both men and women with kennedy assuming that women and girls only identify with characters who have the same gender as them that's like saying men can't relate to characters like mrs brisby or belle or clementine or moana because they're not male kennedy thinks that girls and women should relate to rae for no reason other than she's female but there's nothing about her character to relate to how can anyone let alone a woman relate to someone who gets everything handed to them and never have to face any trial and tribulation i don't even get where kennedy is coming from by making this her top priority she's acting like a strong female character regardless if they're the main character or a supporting character has never been done before strong independent female characters have been around for decades it's nothing new and the fact that she refuses to acknowledge this in spite of being as pro-woman as she is kind of strikes a chord with me as if to say all those strong independent female characters you grew up with aren't really strong and independent they still needed a man to help them out or didn't do enough by themselves to truly represent what it means to be a strong woman i guess helen ripley sarah connor katniss everteen motoko kusanagi tigers and fiona just didn't count in kathleen kennedy's book even if she was looking to add female empowerment to star wars exclusively it still doesn't work because of one very simple example dismantling her argument princess leia even when the film premiered in 1977 she had always been a fan favorite amongst both male and female audiences she came in a cultural relevance when other female characters were also getting more recognition leia wasn't accepted because of her gender but because she was a fun character and carrie fisher's performance helped bring more charm to the role she was quick-witted snarky brave determined defiant and she had a good sense of leadership her fearlessness is versatile in her confrontations with vader and she stands by that fearlessness even knowing what he's capable of but she also had a lot of confidence in others casting aside her pride and calling for help when she needed it she also had a flaw her stubborn need to be in charge which she learned to grow out of through her relationship with han and luke it's almost as if kennedy never saw the ot and just perceived leah's character as a generic rebel fighter or political matriarch or worse chose to ignore her role in those movies just so she can imagine herself taking responsibility for making leia a more active than action-packed character like she wants to imagine that she's the reason she's an iconic character instead of george lucas i'm not the only one who finds this scummy am i i hope not because anyone who cares even remotely about leia should find this scummy the reason people don't like them is because they were clearly written as caricatures meant to serve as ideological self-inserts for female and asian audiences to project themselves onto instead of fully fleshed out characters with personalities remember haldo's refusal to explain her escape plan to poe this was done in the empire strikes back except in a way that makes leia a more competent leader during the assault on hoth she explains to a group of pilots how to facilitate their escape route and when one of the pilots asks for clarification she willingly provides the information to him there's no hint of distrust amongst the pilots because she's cooperative and knows how to communicate during these types of situations because she understands that in order to save life she has to be forthcoming as a matter of principle these three characters are not good they're just a means for kathleen kennedy to project female empowerment and intersectional politics on people she is so obsessed with injecting female empowerment into star wars that she went so far as to push that forces female [ __ ] throughout the movie's marketing since my initial review i've been told that kennedy herself wasn't the one who actually came up with that tagline it was actually done by nike but the fact that she promoted that stupidity at all is blatant proof of where her awful priorities lie she is actively trying to turn star wars into a world that's believed to be better for being driven by women despite the fact that star wars was never about gender politics saying star wars needs more female empowerment is like saying terminator needs more female empowerment with a dash of hispanic representation and look at how [ __ ] well that turned out i really didn't think i'd have to stress this out more than i should have to but there's a clear difference between having a strong female in your work and shoving female empowerment down people's throats until they choke on it the ot went through great lengths to enrich leia and in the process made her just as important of a character as luke and ha the sequel trilogy doesn't do anything to enrich these three one is a horrible leader one is a tokenized asian character and one is a mary sue they were just placed at the forefront because kathleen kennedy wants women and girls to feel special about themselves it might have been one thing if these movies were made in a time where women were actually being oppressed like the 1800s or early 1900s but this is the 21st century where women have a more active role in the military and sports events the fact that terry fisher was has to be part of star wars at all is all the evidence you need that kennedy's ideology is bloated nonsense and even beyond her blatant sexism she simply has no knowledge of star wars to the point that she's clearly not cut for the job take this interview she has with george lucas where she says things like we had no source material to work with or that we need to protect and reserve these characters [Music] oh christ i'm sorry i can barely say it so let me get this straight you're telling me that you had no source material to work with for star wars [ __ ] star wars really you had a ton of source material to work with george's original draft for a sequel which you carelessly dismissed the comics the cartoons the video games the legends series and the extended universe you decided to make none canon yes not all of them were good but there was still a ton of possibilities instead you decided that just rehashing the original trilogy but with more women was the most viable option and that part where she says she wants to protect these characters and preserve the way the fandom sees them that is a bold-faced [ __ ] lie not only did you have these characters killed off one by one by the raging school shooter pretending to be a star wars character but you also destroyed their personalities and watered down their importance by making them a springboard for the new characters to jump off of and then you proceeded to do nothing interesting with them anyway not to mention completely destroying anakin's character arc by bringing palpatine back to life out of nowhere just to kill him again why because palpatine had to be killed by a woman and not a man and the way she speaks throughout this entire interview with the knowledge we have now paints this whole thing in a very new light she didn't care about star wars she didn't care about its fans she didn't care about george lucas or the legacy he built with this franchise all she cared about was pushing her female empowerment agenda by any means necessary even if it meant destroying one of the biggest cultural phenomenon in human history people tend to say george lucas destroyed his own creation with the prequels but the prequels didn't cause nearly half as much damage as this new trilogy at their worst they were just a collection of badly directed stories they still expanded the franchise with worthwhile content and contained elements that helped make the ot more meaningful the sequel trilogy did nothing to make the ot more meaningful or expand the series with worthwhile content and the damage it caused is irrefutable considering all the money disney and lucasfilm lost as a result at this point i'm pretty sure that george wasn't just talking about the plots of his movies when referring to greedy selfish people he was also referring to people like kathleen kennedy who took his series and twisted it into something that it wasn't supposed to be protect and reserve these characters you certainly didn't care about that when you had leia poppins flying through space she is a lying traitorous nasty sinister snake who took something truly beautiful and sabotaged it for the sake of female empowerment betraying a man who gave all his trust to her which is nothing short of despicable star wars had a female fan base all the way back to 1977 long before kathleen kennedy even touched it she didn't need to add female empowerment to get more women to watch it she claims she has a lot to learn from george yet did nothing to follow his example she literally did everything that he stood against just for the sake of female empowerment and representation and i think i need to make this clear before someone accuses me of being racist or homophobic or transphobic or whatever representation in and of itself is not a bad thing the problem lies in the representation the story is tied to for example static shock was a show that boosted representation for black heroes but static shock was a fun and well-written show obsidian a spin-off of adventure time is a show where the two main characters are homosexual but it's a nice show that serves as a nice follow-up to the original these are shows that have some sort of representation in them but the story following the characters are well told which shows that they wanted to tell a story with this material rather than force it for the sake of diversity in comparison the representation and diversity quoted by kathleen kennedy and others from lucasfilm is obviously more of a gimmick than anything else remember how i described rose tico as a tokenized character well that's because they wanted to cast kelly mary tren in the film to get attention from asians a move that they clearly made to get extra money from china which really didn't go so well so what's the point of all this representation if it just amounts to being a gimmick simple not only is kathleen kennedy a horrible feminist she's also a social justice warrior the kind of people who think up who needed to be removed from the simpsons after 30 years because they suddenly found him offensive or that you can only voice act a cartoon character if you share the same skin color twitter is going to get so angry when they find this oh my god you know that phrase i've been saying throughout the video intersectional politics well intersectional politics refers to not just gender but race class and sexuality as well you might have heard from a lot of people by now that there's been a huge push for diversity in our media these days to provide representation for pretty much anything that isn't white or male or heterosexual or people who prefer certain pronouns particularly in the comic book industry that's let's just put it nicely and say that it's going out of its way to flush itself down the toilet there's a reason why this is becoming a problem the diversity in these properties is completely forced into the product just for the sake of having diversity it serves no purpose other than to pander to certain groups it's another scenario where the priorities are put in something tertiary which results in the story and characters being bad am i saying story shouldn't have inclusion in them at all of course not but the star wars sequel trilogy or if we're being honest here a lot of disney star wars properties are a textbook example of how to do this badly this is another thing that should go without saying but should probably be said for the people who don't understand people do not want diversity over good storytelling if you're going to have representation in your work you need to have writing quality that complements it otherwise it just comes across as you seeking attention you weren't focused on telling a story you were only focused on getting bounty points by trying to appease to certain groups and pandering to what's considered the current political climate which is not only pompous but also a disservice to what you're trying to accomplish if your story ends up being horrible then people aren't going to care about the representation you put in it you can't just say i put a female black asian homosexual transgender non-binary hispanic indian or fat character in here to represent their people therefore people should like it but that's what lucasfilm is doing and it might not be so bad if it wasn't for how the people at lucasfilm are acting so proud of themselves over it like they think they actually accomplished something i mean why are you making a comic series for the high republic why make a new series that's only appearing in magazines and comic books both of these markets are going out the door fast it's just wasting resources and money it's not even a good trailer it's just concept art of concept art of a trailer of another trailer also the jedi wouldn't be fighting for control of the force itself that's just another example of how disney and the morons currently running lucasfilm have no idea what star wars actually is the force is what guides the jedi and sith it's an omnipresent element in the universe it's not something that can just be taken over what are you saying if they lose there will be no more force that someone's gonna absorb all of it and become a god i mean yes it's a trailer but trailers are meant to be an impression of the product and this impression just makes no sense we're supposed to be excited for this just because you have inclusion and diversity and representation in it aside from that stupid control over the force line that's the only other takeaway i'm seeing from this just because you have representation in your work doesn't mean that you accomplished anything and acting like you deserve recognition for it when you fail to make a good story just makes your work come across as pretentious the last of us part two had representation in it and that game was desperately trying to make you feel sorry for the homicidal pregnant woman throat slitter i get that you're angry because nobody liked your shitty ghostbusters remake and your revenge plan is to inject your political ideologies into our movies tv shows cartoons toys and video games for the rest of eternity but news flash you're not gonna make any of these problems go away by force-feeding left-wing politics through our media it's not going to end racism or any sort of phobias and if anything make it worse because you're just making the left look like self-entitled idiots kathleen kennedy really likes the idea that she's making star wars more progressive but what she really did was take so much away from what drew people to star wars in the first place george explained the mythological basis for his franchise and the reason why people like it so much and she decided to just ignore it this is how you end up with a film like the last jedi which breaks the lore of the previous films and doesn't even make sense on its own saying these movies are supposed to be progressive is an insult to progressivism this isn't progressive it's pretentious and pandering kennedy used the fact that she was a high-profile female staffer to effectively push her politics to the mainstream so she can try to push her [ __ ] into the public consciousness and i know there are people who are watching this who might go oh star wars has always been political you're just being a bigot because she has politics you disagree with you think i don't know that numbskull of course the original six movies were political they were literally about the rise and fall of a fascist empire the problem is in star wars movies having politics in them the problem is that kathleen kennedy's politics have done nothing but cause harm to the brand her feminist driven ideology and need to add representation overtook any sort of good storytelling as the priority not only is she a terrible feminist who stabbed lucas in the back she's also a terrible businesswoman because she's an idiot who's made bad decision after bad decision that has continuously affected the star wars ip in negative ways it's gotten to the point where disney is actually crazy for keeping her around why the hell do you still have this [ __ ] with all the money you lost as a result of her terrible business decisions you can say they can't fire her now because doing so would cause bad press for them but at this point it would be worth it the press isn't going to matter if you keep losing money in terms of star wars effectively making the brand less and less valuable with each passing second she's in charge the prequels may be bad but at least they didn't sabotage the reputation of the series like these movies have if anything i would say the one thing the sequel trilogy did right was that it made people hate the prequels less severely and realized that maybe they're not as horrifying as people pretended they were back in the early 2000s this is why there's a lot of people who want star wars to be given back to george lucas in spite of his flaws because in some ways he understood star wars better than any of us kennedy may be the one calling the shots but she's not the reason that star wars is a world-renowned name she never was and she never will be because in the end george lucas still has something she doesn't a legacy worth celebrating a legacy as the man who created star wars the one who brought joy to millions around the world with a franchise unlike any that's come before or since a franchise that brought us a timeless story with timeless characters that could be appreciated on a universal level by a man who was ahead of his time who valued his craft and understood the importance of art a legacy that's truly something to be proud of that's what people loved about star wars not this horribly written nostalgia baiting agenda-infested [ __ ] that exists in its own fictionalized version of reality a series of movies that was made with no desire to tell a good story that exists specifically to line your shit-filled pockets with money a series of movies that divided the fandom beyond repair so that you could have your moment as the woman who brought female empowerment to something that didn't need it and breaking the spirit of one of the most beloved actors in the history of cinema that is the legacy of kathleen kennedy the bimbo [ __ ] who took something timeless and special and took a giant [ __ ] on it for the cause of girl power and representation i really hope it was worth it for you for something that's been here for 40 years entertaining audiences and something that george initially set out to do was a kind of three act saga with these three trilogies and i think we felt that we should honor and respect that and we're taking the time to really look at where this is going from the standpoint of a saga not just looking at what the next three movies might be or talking about this in terms of trilogy we're really looking at what is what is the next decade of storytelling so that we can actually build the mythology and i just i feel really fortunate that i've got the level of talent invested in wanting to figure that out with us what i remember is sitting up on that panel when jj turned to me and he just was so delighted in saying the audience is so smart and it's true they are they get everything sister you are a colossal [ __ ] which brings me to one more topic i want to cover i decided that i wanted to save this one for less since it's the one that my thoughts have changed on most since my original review do i still think disney isn't at fault for what happened with the sequel trilogy well after doing more research and looking more into stuff that happened behind the scenes my answer to that is no a very strong no while disney isn't the biggest reason for why it failed their inputs certainly didn't help i think it goes without saying that bob iger really doesn't have walt disney's best interests at heart if he came back to life and saw what's been done to his company i'm pretty sure he would have a stroke and die again just trying to turn everything into a monopoly so they can be at the top of the game regardless of what it means for media in the future and now they got star wars in their clutches using it to milk money out of a popular ip to increase their reach their empire grows strong it was humorous at first but now it's gotten long past the point of being funny disney doesn't think they have to try anymore because now they're too big to suffer long-term consequences for a failed product it doesn't seem to matter if they lose money from star wars because they're still making money off of other things and they're blissfully unaware of the long-term damage being caused to the ip because they only seem to care about profit remember the disney that actually cared about artistic integrity the one that brought us all those hand-drawn 2d animated classics that we loved as kids then rediscovered as adults and loved even more that disney no longer exists because today's disney doesn't concern itself with a movie's quality only if it makes money the thing is they seem to view star wars as the big one the one that'll guarantee them big bucks since it was the biggest ip in entertainment when they bought it from george lucas but in their carelessness they underestimated the importance of that name and mistreating it for profit resulted in a total disaster and now they're in too deep to pedal back they practically went in a panic mode during production of episode 9 because they knew people weren't exactly happy with episode 8. they actually believed that just retconning the last jedi would magically fix everything and instead it just made everything worse this is the problem with disney's ownership of star wars just like kathleen kennedy they don't understand it in the slightest only seeing it as a means to boost profits they seem to think that star wars is just like any other franchise undermining the significance it had on pop culture and how important it actually is they bought it for four billion dollars and then proceeded to desecrate everything that made it worth four billion dollars in the first place oh and here's a little bit of trivia iger was originally going to give george less than four billion dollars for star wars and only went with 4 billion because george didn't like the idea of star wars being less valuable than marvel there's actually a lot to go into in order to fully understand how little disney thinks of star wars but the best way to put it is that they've done a bad job managing it over saturating it with far too much content at once making the ip less special and more generic overwhelming the merchandise by trying to force the toys down your throat trying to turn it into the next marvel cinematic universe with side movies and sight series that no one except people who are slaves to their obsession with star wars are gonna give a [ __ ] about disney does not value star wars as a creative work of art it only thinks of star wars as a cash cow and they're hell bent on milking it for all it's worth to satisfy their unsatisfiable greed and in general it's become very tiring to see disney like this disney is not disney anymore yes you can make the argument that they're still making good movies but just the name disney leaves a bitter taste in my mouth these days because it no longer represents the magic of great storytelling through animation or the handful of well-made live-action movies during the 1990s and early 2000s now it represents the face of a company that will stop at nothing until it buys out everything everywhere trying to take over the world of media one step at a time and the most egregious example of how greedy they've become can be summed up with one word nostalgia here's a little fun fact for you there's actually been a lot of people who've been wanting me to talk about the mulan live action remake they really seem to want me to review it and see what i have to say about it but in spite of actually having seen the movie it was on a fire stick with my dad i just couldn't build up the motivation to talk about it even if i just wanted to make some money off the topic with ad revenue it just wouldn't be worth it because i just can't bring myself to care anymore after the lion king 2019 i have become so [ __ ] sick of disney just exploiting people's nostalgia for money and milking the legacy of their animated films with the shitty live-action remix and it's very depressing to see them treating star wars in the exact same way exploiting people's nostalgia for it to keep milking money off a popular ip we all know rise of skywalker is a shameless rehash of return of the jedi but here's something else one of the trailers for episode nine is just a clip show of all the original movies and uh it's all been leading up to this kind of way like people were actually excited to see the conclusion to this train wreck they practically know they're mostly creatively bankrupt at this point and are now on a never-ending cake of recycling stuff they've already done hoping there's enough people who are actually desperate and stupid enough to pay money to see a watered-down version of something they grew up with as a kid because they're nothing but slaves to their nostalgia and through this exploitation of nostalgia disney has taken what was once the grandest ip on the face of the earth and turned it into just another generic sci-fi series there's hardly anything truly unique coming out of disney star wars and now that the sequel trilogy is done their hands are tied on what to do now that they butchered the skywalker saga they have no idea what they're doing how to pay proper respect to the ip and now they're stuck with this cash cow that was once a respected name in the realm of film and even beyond that the company has recently gone out of its way to show off its true colors in terms of what it's willing to do just for some extra cash not only are they greedy they're also pretty morally corrupt to the point that i no longer feel comfortable with the prospect of giving them financial support between throwing johnny depp under the bus after the [ __ ] amber heart put him through the way they [ __ ] over that kid who was a big fan of spider-man as he was dying from a terminal illness swindling star wars theory for all the hard work he put into his vader project and actually sending a literal thank you to concentration camps in china i legitimately do not want a disney plus subscription in my possession if you want more information on this and other stuff that's very wrong with disney i highly recommend this video by just stop as he goes into far more detail about this than i have time to bottom line the last jedi is not a masterpiece it's not the best star wars movie it's not one of the best star wars movies it's not the best star wars movie since the empire strikes back it's not great it's not good it's not an affront to good filmmaking it's not subjective because there's far too many objective continuity errors plot holes incohesive writing decisions bad pacing terrible derailment of the lore mishandled and underdeveloped characters and wasted pieces of potential to tell a better story that went nowhere it's not overheated because every single piece of negative criticism it's received is completely deserved for how incompetently it was written directed and produced and anyone who says any of those things on ironically is a [ __ ] liar at best it was made by a well-meaning idiot who simply didn't understand the source material he was given to work with at worst it was made by a massive [ __ ] who went out of his way to sabotage a beloved multi-billion dollar franchise and throw mark hamill into a downward spiral of depression just to boost his career as a big shot hollywood writer it was made by people who don't understand star wars in the slightest let alone more than the people who were actually a part of it for 35 years before disney bought them out lucas turned into a depressed hermit who quit his entire ideology because he thought about killing kylo over some bad thoughts and instead of facing responsibility for his mistakes he abandons his sister and everyone else he swore to protect finn and rose are irrelevant background characters who are made even more irrelevant given what happens to them in rise of skywalker rey is the mary sue to end all mary sues poe is made out to be an irresponsible hothead in spite of his actions making sense so kathleen kennedy can use haldo as a mouthpiece for strong women there is such an egregious undermining of the lore from the bombing scene to the haldom maneuver to turning the force into a generic superpower there are so many plot holes to go over that to actually do so would require its own video kylo is an unhinged psycho we're supposed to take seriously because they decided to randomly kill snoke with no proper mechanics to how his death came to be the pacing is unbelievably choppy and it's made worse by the horrible comedy they try to force feed you every five minutes and the dialogue is so out of place and badly written that it feels like a saturday morning cartoon which is actually a disservice to saturday morning cartoons because they have better writing than this film at this point my little pony is a step up from this movie and the entire sequel trilogy put together because it actually has an ensemble cast of well-written characters compelling stories a more consistent world and an ending that didn't obliterate everything into a flaming pile of rubble if i were kathleen kennedy jj abrams or ryan johnson i would be embarrassed that i got upstaged by a children's cartoon that was originally made to advertise a toy brand to little girls i've seen episodes of modern family guy with a better grasp of storytelling than anything that happened in this movie and that's not an exaggeration and the fact that the rise of skywalker somehow managed to be even worse than that is irrefutable proof that disney buying lucasfilm was a mistake on every single level and what makes it so painful is that it didn't have to be this way this trilogy didn't need to turn out as horribly as it did all they had to do was take a moment to stop and think to come up with a plan this trilogy will forever be remembered as the biggest missed opportunity in the history of cinema because there were so many ways you could have continued this story and you just decided to fill it with nothing you had the mark hamill the harrison ford the carrie fisher the billy d williams the iron macdyer mid and this was the best you could come up with you blew it [Applause] this could have been a respectful continuation of the story of luke skywalker and his father anakin it could have been so much more and you just wasted it and at the end of it all that's what hurts most the wasted potential the sequel trilogy could have been something very special and it was squandered a cautionary tale of how corporate interest diversity representation and female empowerment were more important than a man's creative vision more important than the legacy of george lucas an artist who was deceived into giving his work to people who twisted and manipulated it to serve their own selfish desires his execution wasn't always perfect but he put his heart and passion into his work he didn't care about awards he just wanted to share his vision for better or worse that's what makes him a true artist something that kennedy will never have a tragic story of how the greatest tale in american history in terms of film was sabotaged a great gift being placed in the wrong hands a corporate mouse and a feminist dictator who thought profit was more important than the creative vision of a man who wanted to bring joy and wonder to the world by helping them escape to that wonderful place set in a galaxy far far away and now i'm off to review the rise of skywalker where disney's failure will be complete you

Channel: MisAnthro Pony

Views: 597,623

Keywords: star wars, the last jedi, review, analysis, video essay, disney, lucasfilm, kathleen kennedy, rian johnson, j j abrams, george lucas, mark hamill, carrie fisher, harrison ford, daisy ridley, adam driver, john boyega, kelly marie tran, oscar isaac, luke, skywalker, leia, rey, finn, rose, poe, holdo, snoke, hux, plapatine, porgs, chewbacca, misanthropony, misanthro pony, mauler

Id: zwhEOq_KmGU

Length: 214min 7sec (12847 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Dumoney]

MisAnthro Pony? Thats a name I havent heard in some time

[u/JoaoWillerding]

Redemption? What did they do? All the videos i see of him were preaty tame.

[u/MikeTumbi]

MAP apologised to MauLer?!

"A Surprise To Be Sure, But A Welcome One!”

[u/helloallmynwords]

I watched the first 10 min, his voice is annoying and he is a bronie so thats already 2 points removed. Nice apology to Mauler so thats nice. Ill watch it when i have time

[u/AlteredMiles]

After watching the first 3 minutes and hearing him repeat a point 3 times and realize he’s not going to drop the stupid voice, I’m giving up. You got a time stamp for the Mauler part?

[u/darmodyjimguy]

This guy uses dubious English. Like maybe he's not fully fluent. Which is okay, but I can't tell for sure and that bothers me.

On top of that, he's repetitive.

[u/Deus_Vult9161]

Who? The name is familiar but what video of his did they cover? (And what did he do to have to apologise?)