I liked it fine. (Off-Topic)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Saturday, December 28, 2019, 08:51 (1581 days ago) @ Harmanimus
edited by Kermit, Saturday, December 28, 2019, 09:42

“One of the many brilliant things that Rian did in ‘The Last Jedi’ was give Luke an arc. He learned something. He got somewhere. So at the end of that film he recommitted to the thing at the very beginning of the film he was rejecting, so the idea that even Luke Skywalker can learn something,” Abrams said. “I think for a kid to hear Luke Skywalker say I was wrong, I think is a beautiful thing. And I think it’s something we could all probably do with, a little bit.”

Consider the source. I think JJ Abrams is talented but I wouldn't call anything he's done brilliant. But sure, let's give Rian a cookie for including an arc for Luke, something any decent writer should have done. That doesn't make it well executed. I don't want to rehash this, but I don't have a problem with Luke finding himself in a place where he wants to be a hermit and finding a reason to fight again. The way it was handled (especially the initiating event) was wrong-headed in my opinion, and incongruent with Luke's character in the previous films. (I think Hamill's initial negative reaction to this revision of Luke's character was on the money.) I submit that Rian was not someone who thoroughly understood the essence of Star Wars, but was someone who saw its parts as simply toys in a sandbox to play with as he saw fit, someone who misread archetype as stereotype and monomyth as hackneyed formula and therefore felt no need to respect the material. It appears to me that he was instead mainly motivated to subvert its foundations and insert topical issues into it. That's a fine approach artistically, but Star Wars was not the right vehicle for it. When Johnson does thoroughly understand his material he is indeed capable of brilliance--cf. his Breaking Bad episodes.