Star Wars: The Last Jedi *SPOILERS* (Off-Topic)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, December 17, 2017, 14:03 (2326 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

I'm not sure I can adequately, but I'll give it a shot. So... it's well established at this point that the structure of Starwars is the classic heroes journey. Thus it needs to be abundantly clear to the audience the W's (and how) of a before and after of the journey. While there is forgiveness in this, if there is not a direct focus on those aspects, and they are glazed over as some sort of side effect, then the Starwars story becomes watered down.

In this one, it felt particularly watered down, but not because necessarily it lacked the hero's journey, but because it rarely seemed to focus on it. This movie seems too into its blatant attempts of "Oh-Ha-HA! Got Cha!", and as a result the feel of the whole is disjointed. Yet I don't know if it's the edit or what, and thus I'm curious how it would feel if I edited it to minimize this effect, which ONLY TRULY WORKS ONCE, if it would improve how this movie feels to me.

The hero's journey is both not precisely defined, but also not the only way to tell stories. Who says Star Wars has to be that? I think this is the baggage that you are taking in to the experience. Not everything has to fit this mold that you lay down. Dude, Star Wars itself didn't fit the true hero's journey mold. Luke "refused the call" for all of 20 seconds of screen time.

The hero's journey is not a blueprint - it's just a simplification of dramatic structures that have been working in story since antiquity.

I think the film makes the before and after crystal clear for each character. The entire theme of the movie is contingent upon the notion that "Heroes" and "Legends" are misguided concepts. That a rebellion is built on normal folks. That the force is in everything. The fact that it's not a Hero's Journey is 100% the whole point of the film. Forget the past. Let it die. But move forward!

It feels like they should have cut short the Rose/Poe Storyline, which I should add seems to be an almost universal agreement among fan reviews, and elaborated more on what happened at Lukes School. We see only the results and why, but not how it got to such a point. Endings only earn their payoff, it is not given. Even then with what if given, the way it was presented felt muddy to me. Of course... I couldn't completely do it proper and fix it all with an edit. The little I could to would require to get clever and use footage from The Force Awakens, the relevant deleted scene(s) if any and have some voice in the background. If only they chose to take the time and SHOW not TELL. THAT should have been a MAIN story point. It's SO frustrating that the Director or whoever said "Let's focus on this new Rose character suddenly falling in love with Poe during a mostly pointless adventure and not LUKE SKYWALKER AND BEN SOLO! No one want's to hear THAT story and we hate money."

I'm not saying that subplot was handled perfectly, but it absolutely fits into the theme. The tweet I replied to Vortech with is so true. And the subplot shows you the nameless 'nobody's' that are casualties of this war, who have within them the goodness to make the world better. It's not just about Heroes! It's about us all. Working together.