It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but I do remember all of those themes now that you mention it. That trilogy really suffered from having multiple directors, though, because it feels like Rian Johnson took some hard left turns that JJ Abrams felt the need to correct, which made the sequels feel extremely unplanned.
I think your comment on the casino planet sums up my thoughts on the movie: forced and inelegantly tacked on. Not that I had a miserable time with the film, but it felt like Luke’s character establishment was done a bit oddly, the Holdo secret plan was done a bit oddly, I guess the film was a bit odd for me. Luke especially. I’ve never taken Hamill as someone hard to work with from any of the BTS footage I’ve seen, so the fact that he also was struggling with Luke’s arc between 6-8 when the director was in front of him and could explain it leads me to believe that Johnson really cared about having certain things in his film and didn’t care much about how or why they’re in the film. But obviously I’m one of those fans that didn’t care much for it.
I just read a book called The He-Man Effect by Box Brown that centers on corporations preying on nostalgia for brand growth, and it touches on this. Most Star Wars fans have been pushed toward that when they were young. The Prequels and Sequels got so much backlash not because they didn’t live up to the Original Trilogy, but because they didn’t live up to the imaginary Star Wars in every fan’s head. The strategy of capturing fans as children really began with Star Wars, and no film camera is going to capture the full Star Wars that someone experienced as a child, because the brand supplemented itself with toys so the child’s mind would expand the universe itself and further engross itself until it’s inseperable. If the adult fan is racist, they’ve expanded on the property so much in their imagination that they likely view it as racist or sexist at this point. Which is why Daisy Ridley, Kelly Marie Tran, and John Boyega got death threats after 8. This is not just with Star Wars, but with all brands marketed toward children. I don’t feel that strongly in hatred toward the movie, but I must admit that my perception of the brand may be affecting my enjoyment of the plot points presented in the movie.
Except the Leia force ghost. I guess in-universe it’s kinda sweet but irl when I watched that movie, seeing Leia’s body fly through space with the Force right after Carrie Fisher actually died was just so offputting to me.
It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but I do remember all of those themes now that you mention it. That trilogy really suffered from having multiple directors, though, because it feels like Rian Johnson took some hard left turns that JJ Abrams felt the need to correct, which made the sequels feel extremely unplanned.
I think your comment on the casino planet sums up my thoughts on the movie: forced and inelegantly tacked on. Not that I had a miserable time with the film, but it felt like Luke’s character establishment was done a bit oddly, the Holdo secret plan was done a bit oddly, I guess the film was a bit odd for me. Luke especially. I’ve never taken Hamill as someone hard to work with from any of the BTS footage I’ve seen, so the fact that he also was struggling with Luke’s arc between 6-8 when the director was in front of him and could explain it leads me to believe that Johnson really cared about having certain things in his film and didn’t care much about how or why they’re in the film. But obviously I’m one of those fans that didn’t care much for it.
I just read a book called The He-Man Effect by Box Brown that centers on corporations preying on nostalgia for brand growth, and it touches on this. Most Star Wars fans have been pushed toward that when they were young. The Prequels and Sequels got so much backlash not because they didn’t live up to the Original Trilogy, but because they didn’t live up to the imaginary Star Wars in every fan’s head. The strategy of capturing fans as children really began with Star Wars, and no film camera is going to capture the full Star Wars that someone experienced as a child, because the brand supplemented itself with toys so the child’s mind would expand the universe itself and further engross itself until it’s inseperable. If the adult fan is racist, they’ve expanded on the property so much in their imagination that they likely view it as racist or sexist at this point. Which is why Daisy Ridley, Kelly Marie Tran, and John Boyega got death threats after 8. This is not just with Star Wars, but with all brands marketed toward children. I don’t feel that strongly in hatred toward the movie, but I must admit that my perception of the brand may be affecting my enjoyment of the plot points presented in the movie.
Except the Leia force ghost. I guess in-universe it’s kinda sweet but irl when I watched that movie, seeing Leia’s body fly through space with the Force right after Carrie Fisher actually died was just so offputting to me.