momentConclusions
Many people have argued that this is only a movie. The director can make changes to whatever he wants and it shouldn’t matter… after all, it’s just a movie.
I once had a seminary professor who said that if a preacher is going to take over a new church and then change everything, he should be man enough to start his own church.
To me, I have one real response to that which I will end with in a moment.
For the fans or not?
Here is what I am not sure of – did the director intend to offend the fans or not? With all due respect to all of the other critics who have noted this already… The evidence is that he warned us that “this is not going to go the way you think.”
We are going to burn the sacred texts, which weren’t exactly page-turners anyway, right?
However, could it be that he thought we would like it? There are a bunch of things that were thrown in that felt to me like they were for the fans –
Green milk – blue milk
Yoda as a puppet not just CGI
The waterlogged X-wing
Barely referencing plot about a “labor dispute” (an attack on Ep 1-3)
No Gungans
R2 scene
Han’s dice
Weren’t these for fans? There are many more, but this seems like enough to make me think that he was trying… but just failed.
And here is the final complaint:
Artistic Value
I have heard all of the mocking voices about looking for artistic value in a sci-fi movie. It’s just entertainment, right? Two and a half hours of cheap fun. Eye-candy, right?
Apparently so.
I should end the article there, but I want to make this point.
However, that is exactly a part of the issue. I am not sure if this issue or the deconstruction of Star Wars heroes is the worse aspect of this movie, but both are likely to be painful to the serious long-term fan.
I just recently watched “The Greatest Showman”. It wasn’t the kind of movie I usually like. I am not a huge fan of musicals. I want historical movies to be complex reality – not just a one-dimensional one. However, I loved how I felt when I left the movie. Why?
Because the makers of the movie know the power of movies and embraced the power and art of their movie. They humbly expressed appreciation for those in attendance! The defense remarked by so many “it’s just a movie” expresses exactly the base problem with The Last Jedi.
I will comment quickly on the difference, quickly, between enjoying a movie’s cheap entertainment value (of which The Last Jedi is pretty high) and the appreciation of a movie – its power, legacy, impact, etc.
I am thinking of any number of thousands of great movies that are really meant to be appreciated as eye-candy… there is no history of anything more, or even there is a clear history of pretty much nothing more (think James Bond, Pirates or Fast and Furious franchises – they are exactly what they are intended to be – just a movie… cheap entertainment… just fun).
However, however it was intended, Star Wars became much more.   It really defined a generation. Though not as political or intentionally cultural as Star Trek, it attempted to create a universe in which despite the time and distance, the heroes (who felt like real people) faced the challenges of good and evil and friendship and redemption (in ways that felt real) with the materials at hand (which were believable). This isn’t about being a child at the introduction of it either… it was every bit as amazing to our parents as to us!
Years later, when I took my father to see “Jurassic Park” (one of the few times that effects made something feel as real as they did in Ep 4-6 (Independence Day, The Abyss, Gladiator, Terminator 2, The Matrix and Interstellar were others)), when we walked out, all he said was “well, it wasn’t Star Wars”.
He was 30 when Star Wars came out, so don’t tell me it was for kids only or that people today are hoping to recapture something impossible to recapture.
In fact, read this response by one fan to the statement that what we like about the movie as kids was that it was for kids and what we don’t like about these is that they, too, are made for kids:
“Star Wars is just a kid’s movie” is the tiredest of all the dismissive catch-phrases. Empire was the first “adult” movie my folks ever took me to. I was 7 years old and my mom wondered for months if maybe it had been too soon. From the wompa cave scene for a solid 20 minutes I wouldnt watch the screen but instead watched the movie by looking at the reflection in the glass of the projection room – scared I wouldn’t turn around. And after the movie, Empire was all I would talk about for years until RotJ came out. Kids love(d) Star Wars because it wasn’t made for kids… They loved it because it was Star Wars, expansive, majestic, gritty, heroic, epic. None of which TLJ is.
Ditto.  One of the things we loved about Star Wars as kids was that it WASN’T just for kids, but we got to see it anyway.
I felt some level of it at each of the movies above. Wonder, greatness… art.
Ep 4 & 5, at least, considered themselves works of art, I believe. Some movies do, and fail, of course… but very few recent movies seem to make the effort. Most just think of themselves as “cheap (not to mean inexpensive) entertainment” or “just a movie” or probably “an easy way to make a few million dollars.”
I would blame this on Disney (and do) but I think that Lucas fell into that somehow during Ep 1-3. I legitimately think in Ep 1, he was making the movie he always wanted to make.
If you don’t believe me, go back and read the original script about trade federations and blockades. However, after the fans backlashed against it, I think 2 & 3 were more of him just creating cheap entertainment and determined to think of SW as something that was “just a movie”.
I will tell you, my only hope for Ep 9 is that Abrams is taking back over. 7 was no masterpiece, but it certainly intended to honor the originals. Abrams showed his genius as being able to honor fans and an original concept when he engaged in creating a new Star Trek with the original characters.
With reference to a great character dismissed. That was a trap.
But he pulled it off – twice.
Will he be able to bring the wonder, or art, or even heroes back to Ep 9? I cannot see how. In the year of “Solo”, (talk about a trap! One of the most loved characters from the original series) I think we may start seeing SW movies not be automatic #1 movies. Unfortunate.
I think this director didn’t start something new… but instead decided to take on something that wasn’t his and change it into something else with little or no respect for any of the previous story, impact, directors or fans.  To him, this was just a movie that he wanted to leave his fingerprints on.  It seems like his fingerprints were the most important part of that equation for him.
Help us Abrams, you really may be Star Wars’ only hope for this generation now.