I was watching Wayward Jedi’s latest video (meh) and saw this one in my Recommended Videos sidebar and checked it out. Makes the same points all of us have been making since December, but sometimes it’s nice to watch these things and know I’m not crazy. One thing he pointed out did kinda blow my mind, not because I didn’t know it, but because I hadn’t thought about it quite that way:: Rey’s backstory is typically that of a villain (born to lowlives and cast off like trash, left alone and vulnerable and was forced to do what she had to to survive) while Ben’s is typically that of a hero (born to revered persons and surrounded by people who loved him and wanted the best for him). It’s debatable, of course, but I thought it was an interesting statement. Oh, he also connected the famous line from Dark Knight (or at least that’s what I know it from) to Luke’s arc–you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. I can’t believe I didn’t make that connection a long time ago. Maybe I did and just forgot. Overall, the video made me realize that it isn’t just TLJ that’s subversive–the entire sequel trilogy is. It further convinces me that LucasFilm knows exactly what they’re doing.
I LOVED that video! Thank you for sharing. It perfectly expressed all the thoughts buzzing through my mind whenever people start moaning about how awful TLJ was. They completely missed the point of Canto Bight, of Poe’s arc, of Luke, of everything. Mistakes. Failure. Yoda literally gives us the whole point of the whole movie when he says “the greatest teacher, failure is.”
Rey is gonna have to figure out how to do things differently after failing to win Ben back. Ditto Ben on the reverse, and also on his failure against Luke. (Let’s face it, it was a huge fail. And Hux knows it. Ben screwed up. He let his emotions carry him down to a useless battle with a Force illusion, which allowed the Resistance to escape. Failure on a Supreme Leader level, and failure on a personal level, after a deeply intimate loss, after a deeply triumphant win. Poor guy. So many emotions in such a short time.)
The rebels will have to learn from their failures to strategize properly in their haste to heroic action. It’s LITERALLY EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (which is also all about mistakes and haste) but people can’t stop whining about it. It’s okay. My husband found an article talking about how divisive Empire was when it came out, and many of the fan criticisms back then are laughably identical to the criticisms about TLJ.
Also I loved his points about Rey and her backstory. The very moment I saw TFA, she became an instant favorite for me — once of my favorite female characters of all time. I tried to articulate why to a couple people who whined about her being a Mary Sue, because to me she feels more like a feminist icon embodying both strength and softness, ferocity/anger and a propensity to love everyone and everything. I think this video finally helped me crystalize why. She has every reason to not be those things, yet she still manages to be a child of hope and light. I dunno. I just really love her character, in all her imperfection and growth yet to come.
Also Ben, because Ben is deep and complex, half a protagonist, an anti-hero, doing completely villainous things. It kind of hurts a little bit every time I see posts or hear people talking about how irredeemably evil Kylo Ren is. I’m convinced we did not watch the same film.
I listen to these when I’m in the car and end up not remembering all of the good points once I’m somewhere where I might be able to write everything down. Related to Monica’s comment about TLJ’s complexity and Disney’s overall plan (of course the mouse has a plan) and related to the video she posted a while back (the music is growing on me) – there’s a section in that video that makes me wonder if the original motions by Daisy & Adam were guided or if it’s just a happy coincidence…the part where the video shows back to back the two of them being flung across the room by Snoke (Ren where he starts to stand up and defend himself and gets hit by Snoke’s “force lightening” and when Rey is thrown across the throne room)…they land in the exact same position just reversed. Right after that (in the video) is Rey clinching her fist when she’s in the cave (which, thinking about it, struck me as weird when I watched it the first time) and then Ren clinching his fist on Crait when all of the ATTs are firing on Luke. The movements are SO identical I find it hard to believe that it’s a “happy coincidence” but instead another piece of Rian Johnson’s genius in showing that they’re two halves of the same coin.
I ended up listening to another video talking about how “romantic” TLJ’s novelization is…when snippets are read like you might read a romance novel the scenes are surprisingly “romantic”. I’m going to have to go back and read again – I think the fact that Kylo Ren/Ben was written so wooden compared to Adam’s actual performance I might have glossed over some of this. The point the guy was making was that since Rian Johnson had “input” in the novel that it was his way of promoting Reylo with tidbits that couldn’t be included in the movie.
Sooo good. Thanks for sharing! I need to watch that a few times ’cause he covers a lot of ground, but, yeah, we’re not crazy, nor is Rian Johnson. There’s so much complexity woven into the fabric of TLJ. To say that LucasFilm and Disney don’t know what they’re doing and don’t have a plan is nonsense and idiocy. What company would invest $4 billion dollars in a franchise and not formulate a plan? Not Disney. It’s one of the oldest and most successful film studios in existence; the people running the company are certainly smarter than a bunch of yahoos sitting in their living rooms, chugging Fanta, and bitching about the new trilogy being bad or lame or unplanned. (Proof can be found in the box office. Disney has released nine of the top ten highest grossing films of all time: https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/all-time)
Star Wars has always been subversive, which is a large part of why it succeeded from the get-go and why I love it so much. (It came out on the heels of the Vietnam War and was, metaphorically, a commentary on America’s involvement in that war.) AMC has a show called The Story of Science Fiction that I caught a snippet of in which James Cameron is interviewing George Lucas. They’re discussing how anti-authoritarian SW is at its roots. That hasn’t changed with this new trilogy. It’s brief but worth checking out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv9Jq_mCJEo