What's wrong with:
STAR WARS
The Last Jedi
I read a review of The Last Jedi a couple weeks ago that was pretty in line with my overall thoughts. So much so, that I complemented the writer (Todd VanDerWerff of Vox.com), telling him that his was so good, and I was so amenable to the verdict, he had saved me from wasting the time. After stewing about the treatment of the movie for a week and a half, I decided not to abstain; so here is yet another critique, for no one’s edification but mine.
“The ‘backlash’ against Star Wars: The
Last Jedi, explained”
Todd VanDerWerff, Dec. 19, 2017
VanDerWerff starts by highlighting the
general differences between fan and critic scores of other movies according to
Rotten Tomatoes; he alludes to box office numbers, as a way of communicating
The Last Jedi’s mass appeal as compared to movies that preceded it in the
franchise, or movies released at this point in the year, and narrows the focus,
first to the difference in Rotten Tomatoes scores for The Last Jedi (TLJ)
between fans and critics, and narrows it still more to the reasons why there is
some pointed criticism, by fans, about the contents of TLJ.
VanDerWerff’s jumping off point was
derived from scores of twitter-active fans (think radioactive) whose opinions
about the movie’s content and treatment differed considerably from those of
film critics. He moved on to theories
about what has shaped the disappointment, and how he prefixed that exploration is
wonderful- that “it’s impossible and irresponsible to boil down their anger to
any one cause.” I would only replace the
word ‘anger’ with the word ‘disappointment.’ To be clear- my “disappointment”,
which I know I share with some friends and acquaintances, and apparently tens
of millions of fans, is not that the movie was terrible- far from it.
Despite the length of the protest below- they
made a very good movie, but were close to making a great one. Yep, someone might logically ask- “so what
did you like about the movie?” seeing the volume of demerits below- and my
answer is going to be much shorter. That
is the way of the world. People can
agree on 90% of things, but spend two hours debating about the 10% of things on which they
disagree.
I’ll summarize the writer’s call-outs
and then expand on things with my own thoughts as a quality assurance
specialist. Consider each letter under
“Me” as a defect, a bug that someone in story development, writing, producing
or directing should fix so that the story/functionality can be more successfully released.
A “release”, in software/website development
parlance, is what the introduction of lower environment functionality is called
when it is graduated to an environment where customers would interact with it
(click on links, dropdowns, radio buttons, navigating through various screens,
running searches, etc.). If the software
or website testing reveals too many defects/bugs that are determined to be
high, and would negatively impact the release, the release is delayed until
they are fixed. Next to each letter
below is the severity of the defect that would negatively impact the release
(low, medium, high, severe, critical). Sometimes
the defects are known before the release, and sometimes the project team doesn’t
know about the defects until after the release, when the customers are complaining about the issues. If a critical defect is uncovered, and not fixed, before the release, there isn’t a
release. Releases can be delayed for days, sometimes months, even years. Based on the
defect severities below, maybe Disney should have decided to release the movie
in May of 2018. If they had hired a Quality Assurance Analyst, it certainly would have been delayed until these issues were fixed.
1) Too much progressivism:
VanDerWerff-
a.
Refers to the
all-female Ghostbusters remake;
b.
Comments on
prevalent tweets and user reviews that complain about too many female
characters- “while its most evil characters are white men with complexes about
being given what they think they deserve.”
c.
this movie being
a hand-off from baby boomers to millenials- with their racial diversity (this
movie stars a young white woman, a black man, Latino man and woman of Asian
descent). Two main bad guys are white.
Me-
a.
(medium) Don’t mind at all that there are
female characters as long as more of
them are strong. Fisher’s Princess Leia
is iconically strong-spirited. One of my
major complaints about The Force Awakens (TFA) was that they portrayed her as weak; they left her to fret over the loss of her son (Kylo Ren) to the dark
side. She stayed back so that a white male (Han Solo) could take action.
- Revisionist criticism of Cowboy and
Indian movies has focused on the demonizing of Native Americans. While Dances with Wolves was lauded
for softening the touch of one Native American tribe (the Sioux) it was knocked
for still treating the other (the Pawnee) as savages. In TFA, you introduced Rey, a powerful woman,
and retained a weak one- a doddering Leia. At
least in TLJ, Leia fires a weapon, uses the force to rescue herself from the
vacuum of space (I’ll get back to this below), and delivers lines right up
there with any of those from the first trilogy- “walking carpet”,
“nerf-herder”, etc.
b.
(high) Rose-
I want to treat this one here and recognize her as a woman first, rather than
as a minority. Needing to qualify that seems inappropriate.
I don’t
like the Rose character because an inclusion of an Asian woman seems forced,
not by itself of course, but when you consider all of the progressive influx (in c. above). She didn’t act the part well; she isn’t
dynamic, memorable, or intriguing. And
she isn’t those things as a character, not as a woman, and not as a minority
woman. I have the same criticism of the
boy who played Anakin in The Phantom Menace (TPM). He, as a young white male- was no Haley Joel
Osment (from The Sixth Sense). Yeah, I get that my
justification sounds a bit like- I have black friends- I’m no racist, when I
cut on a white person; I'm anticipating that response, not afraid of it. Doubling
down- Hayden Christiansen wasn’t much better in Attack of the Clones
(AOTC)- psst. Also a white guy.
Note: I plan on writing a more far-reaching
criticism of this point when I write a piece on my issues with all things Star
Wars. Several references to that
threat/promise below. If you hated the thoroughness,
length and diligence of this one, don’t bother with that one.
c.
(severe) Laura Dern- she’s white. I don’t like
her in this movie either. She delivers
her lines, much like most of the cast in the first 2 installments of the second
trilogy (including Samuel L. Jackson and Natalie Portman) as if she had a
paralyzed larynx). Having someone that
familiar show up in that role in the middle of a Star Wars movie is like
putting Sam Malone, from Cheers, in the middle of a WW II battlefield, which is
what Spielberg did in Saving Private Ryan. I blame whoever made the decision to cast
Dern.
Note: Moana,
Mulan, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Tiana, Merida are all minority princesses to grace
the Disney screen, replacing the white ones we’d seen dating back to Snow
White. The precedent to branch out is
just fine, but much like criticisms below and in the Star Wars companion piece
I’ll get to (the writers and directors of these last two movies in this, the third trilogy, are woefully inadequate in the self-awareness department) . . . my next point-
d.
(high) Underrepresentation of inter-galactic aliens in
positions of power- aside from Ackbar, Yoda and Jabba, what aliens have ever been in power in the Star Wars universe? And Yoda and Jabba were only either informally (Yoda- Jedi master) or regionally (Jabba a scummy power-broker). They weren't sanctioned, reputable generals, captains, commodores, lords or admirals.
The Disney executives did a lot of hand-wringing to make sure that more women and
minorities were included in these movies, and after 30 years in real, and
galaxy, life, you didn’t think to put a character that could resemble Bossk in
Captain Phasma’s role, no one like Hammerhead as General Hux, and no female
version of a Bib Fortuna-like creature rather than Dern? That would have been much more interesting,
more compelling, would have employed dozens of creative staff making masks and
costumes, and would have sold more toys. Instead, you gave the job to a giant white woman dressed up in sci-fi
goth/mirror-like armor (Phasma), a tightly-wound pasty red-head (Hux) and a
second-generation white actress from the Dern family.
Note: it
would have cost them much more to produce a movie with all of those roles
changed to aliens, but it isn’t like Disney is hurting for money.
Note II: I
read another column somewhere about there being another Ackbar-like general in
a position of power who was killed in TLJ. The increase by 1, the number of aliens in positions of power on either
side of the war, doesn’t disprove my point when the score is Humans 45, Aliens 3.
2) Jokes and
contemporaneous material:
VanDerWerff-
a.
Identifies
excessive, and sometimes unsuccessful, attempts at levity as a “nitpicky”
complaint- provides some examples
b.
The jokes are too
modern and were unfavorably compared to joke attempts in the prequel trilogies.
Me-
a.
(medium) You can’t have Finn fall off of a lab table. We don’t come
to a Star Wars movie hoping to find Kramer from Seinfeld bounding into Jerry's apartment, Dick Van Dyke
tripping over an ottoman, Roscoe P. Coltrane crashing into a bale of hay, or
Chevy Chase falling onto a christmas tree.
b.
(severe) Modern jokes- If you’re going to TPM and AOTC (Jar Jar Binks,
etc.) to justify how some of that humor didn’t play well, you’re cherry
picking.
I don’t go to a movie,
set in a galaxy far-far away in order to escape so that I can catch a not-ha-ha funny reference to something best left to trashy cartoons
like South Park, or overrated ones like Family Guy. Unless the final act of this series, that may
be fifty years from now, considering all the material they could cull, is that
we find out all of the planets in the Star Wars universe were created from
Earth’s explosion, and the Statue of Liberty, or Lincoln Memorial, are
half-buried or bastardized by time or gorillas, (I’m alluding to Planet of
the Apes) there is no reason to force comedy into a film. Let’s leave this as a
relished fictional world and not something degraded to the point that you
consider casting Taylor Swift as the love interest to a bounty hunter, in “Boba
Fett, a Star Wars Story”. Leave that
tripe to the youtube generation.
c.
(low) My favorite novelist is Charles Dickens. He wrote 800
page novels in the center of dismal Victorian times- dismal, at least for the
working class. He made the conscious
decision to interject a multitude of comic relief characters, I think, to the
detriment of the subject matter, and tone of the novels. Thinking the treatment of the subject matter
in a still well-respected epic (novel or film) is “nitpicky” borders on irresponsible.
d.
(critical) Here's an understatement- DNA is unique, so too are
people’s senses of humor, and their respect for their sense of humor, and right
to an opinion. Kids are going to like the comedy in TLJ more than adults. My 12-year-old liked the movie more than I did, and liked Rogue One less than I did. It takes someone with
Star Wars DNA to tell you what kind of jokes work, and what kind don’t,
especially in a middle installment, intended to veer darker and more complex.
When my son gets older, he'll probably like Rogue One more because it is a more adult movie. I do not have the confidence VanDerWerff does that in time we will soften toward TLJ as we did for The Empire Strikes Back; ESB is not juvenile, but TLJ definitely trends that way.
- “I know it when I see it”, and “doing
the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” are the
accepted, but not dictionary definitions, of obscenity and insanity,
respectively. The former is from the
Supreme Court (Miller v. California from 1973) and the latter is from
Einstein. Both are well overused, so I
might as well join the party.
Given my life-long
passion for the Star Wars franchise, I feel entitled to protect it from people
who don’t know what the hell they’re doing, even if that includes its creator,
George Lucas. What those heavily
involved in the franchise have been doing now, since the Ewok-invasion second
half of ROTJ, is use horrific judgment to decide on things vital to this
franchise’s existence. With my Star Wars
DNA, and the brain of a quality assurance specialist, I am uniquely qualified
to question the decision-making of creative types with input on decisions where
this franchise is concerned. I have
appreciated a great many scenes, characters, words and actions I have seen
transpire on film, but those people keep making the same mistakes. To borrow a line from Yoda- “that is why, you
fail.” Ok, so not so much fail, as you could have had a more successful, less defect-intense release, according to those with Star Wars DNA.
I’ll get to more of this in the larger critique of all things Star
Wars, but in the meantime, let’s move onto #3 from DerWerff.
3) TLJ isn’t interested in fan theories:
VanDerWerff-
a.
Canon and
non-canon characters, events, histories and goings on
b.
Force Awakens
set-ups are treated as very unimportant in TLJ
- Who is Snoke
- Rey’s parents
Me-
a.
(low) I don’t care about fan theories. I just watched a
video from a guy who said Snoke isn’t dead, but is just force-ghost projecting
(like Luke did) himself into those scenes. There was quite a bit more to his theory than that, and that
presenter alludes to having inside information that may be less of a theory
than most of the speculation out there. I do have one thing to say about that theory- it better flipping be
true; because that would be way cool.
There are
so many books, comics, cartoons, shows, sites, magazines, media, dorks, bloggers
and losers speculating on what might happen here and there and tie this
artifact to that symbol that no movie franchise, let alone a single movie,
could ever deliver on.
I watched
a ten minute video on the history of Darth Maul- from his childhood, to his
padawanship with Palpatine, to his resurrection from being cut in half in TPM
and so on. He was left for dead,
escaped, recovered, reborn, deceived, double-crossed and partnered with so many
different characters (some of which have never, and may never, appear in a Star
Wars film) it was dizzying. Keeping all
the people happy who have nothing better to do than watch and re-watch and link
to those videos, and create some of their own, is impossible. The youtuber
chronicling Maul’s history went from comic to movie to cartoon to comic to
cartoon to comic to cartoon. Some people
might want to hold those who assume control of delivering on the Star Wars
cannon, even if we agree on what that is, accountable for all of their
missteps; I just want to hold them accountable on the most egregious of them;
given my passion for Star Wars, tactical spirit and reasonable perspective, I
know I am uniquely qualified.
b.
(critical) Snoke I- the video I watched on him was fascinating, but we may only be
waiting 2 years to be disappointed. This
(the Snoke background) is the biggest thing Johnson, as writer and director,
simply has to start to deliver on. You
cannot introduce a character of that magnitude, both physically and
spiritually, and not invest some movie minutes on it.
- If he’s so ancient, majestic and powerful, where was
he during the events in the original trilogy- only 30-40 years previous, where
was he during the events in the prequel trilogy, only 60-70 years
previous? Tell me you haven’t learned
your lesson from creating a powerful and intriguing character only to dispatch him in less
than 20 minutes of screen time. Think of
Darth Maul here, and for that matter- Boba Fett and General Grievous.
- Tell me you didn’t spend 20 minutes filming the sequel
to the pod race from TPM by trolling rich people in a casino, forsaking the
time you could have spent treating the subject with a seriousness it deserved.
Snoke II- my
idea, and this is why they need to hire me as their QA, is even more way cooler
than the theory presented in the Snoke video I watched. What if Snoke is the character Palpatine
tells Anakin the story about in Revenge of the Sith (ROTS)? What if Darth Plagueis abdicated some of his power to the Emperor . . . what if the Emperor was
Darth Plagueis’ apprentice, the apprentice who killed Plagueis in his sleep
after being taught everything Plagueis knew?
- What is more preferable- that Snoke, this giant, enigmatic, all-knowing Sith lord, was
killed by his apprentice (Ren) after the former had said he could surmise (revealing that as yet another plot hole or self-awareness violation on the part of the writer/director) all
of Ren’s intentions or that he (Snoke) unifies, potentially, all three trilogies?
Rey’s origin- sure, it would have been great if Rey were Obi Wan’s
granddaughter, but the idea that she is a nobody works for me. The notion there are others, like stable-boys
looking into the stars, or could be others we haven’t met yet, is actually
smart; eff mytachlorians right- anyone have a problem with that? At least they were consistent
about this in the movie, as has been pointed out by plenty of youtube posts highlighting
all of the little destructions Johnson and all the minions of those with a say,
(albeit too often speaking in a language I can’t understand as this whole
column I’m writing is meant to specifically call out) have been clear they’re
weeding out- “time for the Jedi to die”, Yoda appearing and telling Luke to let
the past go (hint to those uber-fans out there), Ren’s comments to Rey about
ditching the Sith and Jedi, killing the past, etc. Plenty of self-awareness, but not enough.
The theme of this movie, as rendered against all of
the expectations, comparing TLJ to all that came before it, and hopes of those
plopping $8-$20 (often more than once) to see it, is nihilism. Be nihilistic, forsake the fans, turn our expectations around, but hire
someone with the perspective, the Star Wars DNA, to truly sanction the decisions you’re
making.
You just can’t get that many things wrong (per above)
and expect your rational customers to ignore the defects, to overlook the quality of the product being delivered.
Note: Rogue One (RO)
was a GREAT movie! and Revenge of the Sith was a little better than TLJ. TFA was pretty much Star Wars redux, and TLJ has a
subtle number of nods to TESB- think of the battle on the salt planet, with the
Rebels poised amid canons, fighting from trenches, on white footing, against
AT-ATs as a distraction so the good guys can evacuate.
Note: as a fan, I don’t want to know, or determine, what
goes into a Star Wars movie, because I want to be surprised. But being surprised and being consistently
disappointed are different emotions, just as Hoth and Tatooine are different
biomes.
4) Individual plot lines don’t make sense:
VanDerWerff-
a.
Benicio Del Toro
b.
Rey’s training-
the film’s pacing (days and hours)
c.
The Casino
scene(s)
d.
Plot holes and
storytelling choices- pieces that don’t fit
Me-
a.
(medium) They completely wasted Del Toro. Not a
terrible character, but I have a feeling they left entire scenes of his out of
the movie. This subplot was a failure,
and rushed. It would have been appropriate if Lando had come out of
the prison shadows to be the code breaker. I read something about how that idea
was entertained. But if your attention
is divided among too many things- keeping continuity issues out of the movie,
jamming pratfalls and jokes into it, casting globally appealing characters, not
saving screen time for stellar character explorations or the inclusion of revered
throwbacks, you can't develop a character like Del Toro. We, like Yoda, want the impossible.
b.
(critical) Timeline. This has been going on since
at least The Empire Strikes Back.
RO cured the “why would a planet killer have a communicable
self-destruct mechanism” problem, but there is an awful lot of work to do here.
Luke goes
to Dagobah and learns to become a Jedi, but that isn’t going to happen in a
half day. Han, Leia and company go to
Cloud City for what seems like a few hours. The feel is that they had enough time to
change clothes, slam a Manhattan (or a Bespin), and talk about the weather
stored inside all of those cumulus clouds, before they are greeted by Vader. The timeline doesn’t work. These days, that is referred to as a
continuity problem.
Unless a future movie in the franchise turns Jedi time into a thing that transcends actual time and 1 hour = 2 days on Dagobah, you can't take Luke's training seriously.
I didn’t realize it
when I was 10 watching ESB, but my fandom doesn’t preclude me from revisiting
my former appreciation of the film and reevaluating. I’m not one to ignore faults in people,
myself, movies, books, political parties, facts, etc., just because something’s
long-standing, and overall mythic score, is high.
c.
(severe) Just as in real life- time spent in a casino
is a complete waste of time . . . and money. If there’s one thing I can say
about the events filmed in the casino- at least it isn’t the pod race
from TPM. High praise. All of the social injustice
and class struggle commentary is forced, unless the next director picks it up
(think continuity) doesn’t start writing the next movie before the previous one
is released (see below) and actually skillfully delivers on that story point.
Addressing class struggle in a Star Wars movie is probably not a good idea,
unless you can do it more meaningfully than having space camels run through a
set of obnoxiously rich gamblers.
Considering all of the other struggles you’re having as writers,
directors, casting directors, executive producers, and story developers,
introducing a class struggle is well out of your league.
d.
(severe) Storytelling choices- If you’ve missed all of my other mentions of a
column I haven’t written yet, this will be the most obvious one- there is
nothing in this movie that compares to the deficiency in TPM or AOTC . . . and I already mentioned the midgets in bear
costumes from the original trilogy right?
VanDerWerff
thinks it rare in this film that a plot hole or storytelling choice doesn’t
have a payoff . . . if I only have to wait two years to be proven wrong- I’m
your man. I’m assuming he’s referring to
Dern’s character running into the enemy ship at light speed when she could have
done it much earlier; Leia cascading through space and back to the safety of a ship; bombs dropping, via gravity, from one ship onto another in space,
or ships running out of gas, which if they were made to move faster by the
First Order would have burned more gas, and the First Order in “hot pursuit”,
(another nod to Roscoe P. Coltrane) would have been rid of the Resistance
sooner.
5) Character journeys aren’t as expected:
VanDerWerff-
Most of his in-depth and
conciliatory review is tied directly to points 2-4 directly above. With that, so is mine.
(high) His
summary in this section- that ESB in 1980 wasn’t compared favorably to Star
Wars, that ROTJ was initially celebrated, and that “The Force Awakens was
attacked for being too slavish to the old Star Wars movies; The Last Jedi is
being attacked for not being slavish enough.” Yes, and like the force, something must bring that imbalance into
perspective so they don’t make both types (or either type) of mistake in the
next installment, so that they make a great movie instead of just a very good
one.
Other than the casino, the
wasted use of Del Toro, and ridiculous sentimentality as played out between
Rose and Finn, Leia has the most interesting journey- back into the safety of a
ship after having been sucked out of another one. Look, that scene is probably going to feel a
little goofy regardless, but this is a big problem. Who in the creative group that gets along so well- (see snippets of an interview with TLJ director) didn’t shoot
that idea down? And who failed to come
up with the idea that in order for Leia to solve that big of a problem (certain
death) we had to at least have hints she could use the force? Filmmakers learn to use foreshadowing,
flashback, different viewpoints, hell . . . TECHNIQUES to tell stories. We have traditionally had very little of that in any of these films; ironically, this movie
actually does do that- to very good effect (Luke and Ren’s conflicting stories
about the latter’s training). It is time
for those at Disney to start hiring people capable of doing more of these things. Lucas wasn’t capable of using any techniques
of storytelling at a director’s disposal besides the screen wipe, and so far
only one of his incumbents has been able to break from stories told in linear
time.
Software is developed for users, for
customers. The Star Wars franchise is
likely to not have to worry about having enough customers. Normally, however, you deliver functionality desired
by customers, functionality that meets the needs of those who pay for it. An
e-commerce, or health care customer, expects a certain level of quality; the
company releasing something should take pride in delivering as good a product
as possible. Given the 3 critical and 4 severe defects, this release should have been delayed by five months. In the quality assurance business, the sooner
a defect is uncovered, the less costly it is to fix. Next time, Disney, director Johnson, Mr.
Director Abrams, run some of your ideas by a QA with Star Wars DNA, and deliver the great movie
you’re so close to releasing.
Appendix-
An interview of Rian Johnson,
writer-director of The Last Jedi, from Alissa Wilkinson (December 18, 2017)
Rian Johnson
Well, it is, but it
isn’t. We were working off of The Force Awakens, but it’s not like
there was a blueprint for what happens after The Force Awakens.
There wasn’t at all. It was literally just me reading the script, and then
thinking, what happens next?
I moved to San
Francisco when I was breaking the story so I could come in twice a week and
just run all my ideas by the folks at Lucasfilm. They have a group of really
cool folks that they call the “story group,” kind of a creative development
group of folks.
But their role was not really to police me or to guide me into anything. They were a sounding board. If I had come to something that I thought was kind of out there, or the question was, “Can I do this in Star Wars?” I would put those doubts in front of them, and nine times out of 10 their response would be, “Wow, that is really different and weird. Go for it. Do that.” They were there to protect me from self-editing more than to edit me.
Rebuttal-
There should have been a
blueprint- not in the way Abrams used Star Wars as a blueprint of how to make a
21st century version of the original, but a blueprint, a treatment,
a jumping off point, so that someone in that “creative” group could have called
out to you- “nooooo” like Luke did when he found out his father was Darth
Vader, when you made some of the decisions you did about comedy, plot lines,
ignoring story arcs, casting decisions.
Alissa Wilkinson
There has to be a
lot of expectations you come in with when you’re a fan yourself.
Rian Johnson
Yeah, absolutely.
Especially when your job is to make a good movie, and making a good movie means
drama, and drama means throwing roadblocks in the way of the easy answers and
the expectations. That means in some ways you're going to be butting up against
your own instincts as to what you as a fan want. You have to defy wish
fulfillment in order to tell a good story — especially to tell a good second
act of a story, which is what the middle chapter basically is. It was absolutely
something we had to keep in mind.
Rebuttal
Had he just watched The Phantom Menace and wanted to one-up the pod race? That isn’t dramatic. His goal should have been to make a great
movie- then imagine all the criticisms he could have anticipated and self-corrected
without a QA guy. That creative folks
group- they have a project manager?
This isn’t about wish
fulfillment- I probably wouldn’t have thought about crashing one ship into
another at light speed- brilliant- and the lightsaber Snoke “killing” awesome. Thing is, you can have some wish fulfillment
and tell a great story.
. . .
Alissa Wilkinson
Did you find
yourself delving into fan theories?
Rian Johnson
Well, I find I was
kind of lucky: I wrote the script while J.J. [Abrams] was shooting The
Force Awakens. I wrote it before the movie was out there. I didn’t really
have any fan theories in my head while writing it, which I think was ultimately
a healthy thing.
Rebuttal-
No, it wasn’t.
Alissa Wilkinson
I can imagine you
might be tempted to change things if you were reading them.
Rian Johnson
Yeah. Who knows.
Rebuttal-
You have to know things, have to
know what not to do. My feeling on these
creative folks is basically how I think of the NCAA tournament selection committee. People who shouldn’t have the
power to decide what teams get into the postseason tournament, and which
don’t. The creative folks shouldn’t
determine what gets into the movie (sentimentality, juvenile humor, plot holes, rushed multi-culturalism, pod races) and what does not (important character backgrounds, self-awareness) when they continually make such critical mistakes.
Above, I stopped short of writing that hundreds of thousands of fans are complete nutbags; in defense of Johnson, or others who might sign up to write or direct a Star Wars movie, why would they do so if they were beholden to fulfilling every fan's wish posted on the internet. I'm a fan, but a realistic one. My complaints are presented with perspective, with references and concessions. Your Star Wars die-hard wants to treat the franchise like Darth Vader treated the rest of the galaxy, as a vicious emissary for an evil dictator. I'd rather partner with creative types and not be associated with losers whose life's work revolves around tearing other people down; I would rather not be connected to a radical arm of a legitimate branch of criticism. William Penn wrote: "Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than the arguments of its opposers."
I am opposing the track that Abrams and Johnson (and the yes men they appealed to) are on; but the defense the uber-fan mounts on social media has well more heat than is required. That said, your answer, as the director of basically any film to a question about the greater direction- cannot flipping be- "who knows."
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