By request of my Patrons, I have responded to comments of this video in a bonus video: www.patreon.com/posts/comment-response-79094119?Link& Topics covered: What if they had changed Leia's character, and not Luke? But critics can be wrong! Do I really believe the discourse will have moved on? What about the prequels? Is Naivity really a character flaw? This is not an objective assessment. Why do I have to be so insufferably special?

I remember a fantastic line from Princess Leia in the first trilogy, “I am not a committee.” And that’s exactly what the last trilogy suffered from, designed by a committee.

I think the trick with “needing a plan” is, like you alluded to, that it doesn’t need to be comprehensive. Just having a rough idea of where they would go with all the characters and plot threads they set up would have done wonders for the trilogy

there can be more than one evil guy in the galaxy. oh my god. oh my god. it doesn't have to be palpatine AGAIN. thank you for bringing this up sdhfjbkn

I didn't like Leia's space flight scene because I thought that would have been the perfect spot for her character to die (considering the actress had died). If Leia had died then, it would have felt like very poetic? irony to me, because Kylo knew she was on board, was about to pull his gun trigger, but then decided not to, only for another one of his army to pull their trigger and cause the explosion. It was as if Kylo had decided that the monster he had created was no longer right, only for the monster to do what it was trained to anyways. He's the one who started all this, but when he has a moment of reflection and decides 'No', it's too late, and what he has started is continuing with or without him. Even though he personally did not kill his mother, what he created did. I don't even remember why she died when she eventually did. But a scene like I described would have had a much more emotional impact, and might have solidified Kylo's resolve to turn away from the dark side

The algorithm recommended the devil wears prada video and have now watched all 3 of your videos and subscribed! Keep up the amazing work! Your reviews are fantastic and well thought out. I have to say I am surprised you never mentioned Kylo Ren as a character because he is the thing that sours this trilogy the most for me. When I look at other media with redemption arc characters in them like Zuko from Avatar The Last Airbender, Kylo does things so much worse and he really only struggles with killing his own family. Sure this tugs at nostalgic heart strings for fans of the originals, but he never truly redeems himself. He fails to take responsibility for his actions entirely, but the films really want us to redeem him anyways. This is all without discussing his "romance" with Rey.

I feel like the Chewie Medal scene is blown so out of proportion. That medal was Han’s that Leia used to reach out to Ben. Maz just gave it to him at the end as a memento. But I can see how this has been made into the “Chewie gets his medal!!” scene by fans

8:08 Thank you so much for this Carrie Fisher segment. I relate to essentially everything you had to say about it. It was so hard watching those scenes in TLJ knowing what had happened to Carrie. Before then I was so hoping that IX would be her movie, and I'm so sad that never got to happen, both for us as viewer and for Carrie herself.

For me it was that they failed to make me care about the new characters and then immediately started taking away the old ones. They wanted me to get invested in all these little mysteries that I could barely be bothered to pay attention to and then would try to "subvert" my expectations about something that again, I didn't really care about to begin with. This ended up making me feel like the filmmakers we're just trying to play a trick on me. Rey's origins are mysterious? Fine whatever. Now turns out her origins don't matter. Ok than why were you making such a big deal about it and wasting precious time that you could have spent developing real relationships between the new heroes? Oh now she's a palpatine? Fine! Just commit to it then. Rey "Skywalker"? Kiss my a$$ Disney! Don't get me started on Kylo's completely unconvincing motivations for being evil...

It's outrageous that this is your first video (if indeed it is). Perfect editing, great visuals, stellar writing, outstanding (and I mean OUTSTANDING) audio choices (musical and otherwise).

I think you're overall right and I do have to agree with your clarification about the "not having a plan" and how that is not necessarily a setback - also of note, i do think sticking to a plan can hold a story back because I've seen shows and such where i thought the ending was not great and the people behind it went "oh, the ending was what we had in mind from the start" and if i take that at face value and assume it is truthful, that suggests to me that things in the story changed as it progressed from what they had expected, so the ending no longer felt as satisfying as what they imagined. for the lack of a plan to not be a setback, though, you have to care about where the story is going organically. and rise of skywalker wasn't that, it wasn't a movie made by someone genuinely trying to tell a satisfying story. any semblance at doing that is clearly buried beneath studio demands and trying to meet the imagined audience's expectations. which i think is disney's TRUE mistake with the trilogy: it was always about making money first, and telling a story second. yes, the real villain was greed all along. that is where a lot of the other problems come in, such as the near-simultaneous production of the first and second movies together and disney refusing to give the original screenwriter for force awakens the time he wanted to flesh the screenplay out. also, i would argue the "disney is trying to please the crowd" problem goes even back to the Force Awakens, because why is it so like a New Hope? Because I think Disney was trying to distance themselves from the backlash against the prequel trilogy by making their new trilogy EXPLICITLY like the one that everyone loves. nevermind that this kind of hampers the story because when the 1/3 of your trilogy is pretty much like the 1/3 of a companion trilogy, there is only so much of a different story you can tell. that is my main problem with the sequel trilogy as a TRILOGY and not merely movies- i argue it is a bad trilogy because every installment tries to apologize for what came before. force awakens is an apology for the prequels not being like the OT, the last jedi is an apology for the force awakens being too much like the OT, and the rise of skywalker is an apology for everything controversial about the last jedi. when every part of a trilogy is at war with itself like this, cohesion is impossible and it falls apart.

"Accusations that Disney had no plan first emerged after The Last Jedi". No, they emerged the moment they hired J. J. Abrams, who had no business headlining a serial after what he did with Lost.

Great video! It hits all of the points I feel towards what's become of the franchise/sequel trilogy in a detailed yet fair and succinct way. Amazing editing as well! Loving your work so far (found you through The Devil Wears Prada video), this is a supremely underrated channel.

I understand how you loved the Carrie Fisher moment in TLJ. However, it did feel jarringly comedic. It would have been a really beautiful moment if she embraced her Force power to save those that were blown out with her, as a counterpoint to A New Hope where Luke uses the Force to destroy the Death Star.

Great analysis and explanation, I was able to better understand why people enjoyed TLJ, which I did not. The Leia scene lost me and failed to regain me, I had not been following the production in any way, I don’t think I even knew Carrie was dead and I actually had a swelling, surging respect for the decision to kill off her character...and then the rest of the scene happened. It completely broke my immersion, and I felt they were trying to cheaply manipulate my feelings, to get payoffs they hadn’t earned. The Chewbacca scene in ROS felt the same to me.

There are some great points here. However, The Last Jedi was a terrible film, but because they didn't explain Luke's transformation at all. A 15 second flashback is not adequate to change the direction and drive of a character we've spent 3 films with. Obi-Wan and Yoda isolated themselves because they were beaten and they had to hide for their lives until they felt the time was right to come out of hiding, but there's absolutely not enough in the film to show Luke was similarly hunted, in fact isn't not even implied. You can't just make an entire film about subverting expectations and then not explain anything.

I agree with a lot of your points, and I quite like TLJ too, but I have to disagree about Rey. She is still a full-on Mary Sue in my eyes, being naive is hardly a flaw - and you only point this "flaw" in TLJ, when her character actually has a development. I like Rey's opening scene, but I still don't understand how she become the most important character and somehow gain trust from everyone. For me personally, there's a foreshadowing moment in TFA after Han died, when Leia console Rey - who literally just know them for a while - rather than Chewie, their lifelong best friend. If it were my choice, I'd take a slow burn (or milking it more, depends on the angle) on the trilogy. I rather watch story about the time Luke lost his faith, Poe's stormtrooper days, or even Ben turning into Kylo Ren. Rey could be a great character, but for me she hasn't earned it. You would take the Force out of Luke, but you could still have an interesting character in him. Do the same with Rey, and you basically create a faceless nameless extra.

The problem with Rey is not that she's a Mary Sue (Because she clearly has flaws)... The issue is that she does not suffer any real tangible consequences for her actions, which makes her flaws not matter all that much (hence why people mistake her for a Mary Sue).

Lol, I love this. As someone who loosely pays attention to these through the years, I found this latest movie to be disjointed. I'm glad you worked out the flaws in the system and presented them here. The movie plays like the ultimate Marketing scheme to create profit. Nostalgia force-fed.

I liked it in the theater. But it was incredibly forgettable and completely betrayed All set ups from the first and the third movie got rid of everything from the second.

Ooooh yes. As a film fan before a Star Wars fan, it hurts to admit it, me and my friends were all unanimous in lacking just a good movie. Who the eff cares if it's a carbon copy of A New Hope as long as it's following storytelling rules and genre? And it was about the trio. The other two movies lost me completely when they dropped the story of the three friends. Just out of nowhere dropping Finn? Out of nowhere rebuilding the entire character of Poe? And just dropping everything about Rey actually making friends for the first time, as in found family? I just wanted a cool Star Wars movie. Lightsabers, cool Jedi, friends, pew pew noises, explosions and running. Don't complicate things. They work for a reason.

I really appreciate you arguing from the side of an opinion you disagree with. debate vibes are immaculate. there's a nice video by doctor wigs that talks about how in tfa a lot of the camera work around rey then cuts to a reaction shot of men acting amazed by her for simply doing things. I think it's a good point and sort of explains a lot of my issues with the character. not only that, but the shot you show of luke is an important spiritual moment and climax of anh. rey pulling out the drive exists simply so han can be impressed by her knowledge. not sure it's comparable. I also feel her flaws and motivations don't synergize well with her backstory. she's a lonely salvager; she shouldn't be as sociable with others as she is. I don't like tlj that much but a lot of my issues stem from the terrible foundation established by tfa. dunno if they needed everything planned out, per se, but it would've probably been wise to having the overarching plot and character arcs conceptualized. finn will always be my biggest disappointment since he was the most interesting character introduced in the entire sequel trilogy and they just wasted it.

Great first vid! The underlying answer to all three of the ones you gave is that Disney did not trust their audience. And the audience resented them for it.

This video was excellent, and I'm very appreciative of how nuanced it is. That being said, I'm still pretty... frustrated with the conversation around Luke. I like Rey, a lot, but my favorite part about narratives is their characters, and how those characters are shaped by and respond to the story. My least favorite parts of storytelling are when characters make decisions solely because they are necessitated by the story itself. That's all to say that if the only defense of Luke's status in the Last Jedi is because he couldn't have worked in Rey's story otherwise then maybe he shouldn't have been in Rey's story? And like I get it, they needed Luke to sell tickets and to get people excited, but if that was the plan, then it's no wonder people were and are upset. If the goal was to disappoint people with his appearance, then don't use him to sell the film. That or don't use him in the film. I'm still not sold on the fact that he couldn't have been different and still worked, but it's clear there's a disconnect there right? I really struggle with a story that makes me feel alienated for caring about it. Stories that change characters for the shock value because they know we love them, or refuse to give time to past installments because they are easier to leave behind are hard when you care. Seeing Luke in the Last Jedi felt like the film was making fun of us for caring. Luke's refusal to give up on his family no matter the cost or consequence in earlier films meant more to me than anything else in Star Wars. I would have prefered he be dead in the sequels over what we got.

The Holdo Manoeuvre IS a terrible part of the film. It is indeed a fantastic piece of cinematography but it breaks my suspension of disbelief. It invalidates every single space battle that happened previously in the trilogy. And even if you can come up with an "in universe" reason why it couldn't be used in ANY of the previous battles, I don't care. It's not your job to explain that part of the film to me. It's the film-maker's job. And it wasn't done at all (at least in this film). This isn't an "ooh, we get to discuss an important part of the film after it's finished" cool idea or subtle plot point. It is SO jarring that thinking about it just makes it worse! If the rest of the film had been great, I would still have hated this moment.

I may be the one person in the world who earnestly wanted to see that midichlorian trilogy.

Bob Iger f*cked it up from the beginning with his command that it all be reset to ANH. They could have done that successfully though, except they wanted the old stars involved and this meant nerfing their characters' achievements and struggles in the original trilogy. Thing is, although those films are old, they're still the core of the franchise. Now they're rendered pointless and sad and Disney wonders why people aren't as engaged as they'd hoped. All Disney had to do was set the new films 100 years after ROTJ, have a couple of flashbacks to show Luke, Leia and Han had the kind of lives they deserved (total fan service but no-one would care), and now on with the rise of evil (again), but with new characters.

The problems with the sequel trilogy originate in TFA for me. It sets up a world that shouldn't exist. The sequels should never have been "The OT again". They should have been wildly different and about progressing the universe. I like the PT and OT as a pair *because* they're so different.

As someone who didn't hate TLJ but thought it uninteresting enough to not bother seeing RoS until it was on cable at my parents house: I think you hit my complaints straight on. All three of the new trilogy feel like they are more interested in being "about" Star Wars than in being Star Wars. FA cares chiefly about assuaging complaints about the prequels and highlighting recognizable characters. TLJ cares chiefly about upending the status quo and deconstructing Star Wars tropes but not building something new in their place. RoS cares chiefly about undoing TLJ and bending to backlash.

I am here to say I 100% had the same reaction to the Leia "Death on the Bridge" scene as you. I watched all three movies on release night as was bawling most of this movie BECAUSE of Carrie Fisher, just like you. And as far as the Easy Answer goes, I love dissecting movies so I can 100% see where people have problems with this series, but I CHOOSE to suspend my disbelief because I CHOOSE to love these movies. Your comedic timing is perfect and I was 100% cackling along with Palpatine in your CC. I need more Star Wars fans like you, everyone I know is just so angry about it and don't want to have a conversation on it.

The fundamental problem I see with defenses of The Last Jedi, especially from people claiming to make an objective assessment of the film, is that it almost always boils down to how the movie made them feel, rather than how it was written, shot, edited, and otherwise made. The fact that a person likes a film has zero bearing on whether it has objective quality. It's the definition of subjective assessment, and any person attempting to assess a work objectively pretty much fails in the attempt the moment they associate the film's quality with whether they like it, or how it made them feel. With all due respect to the video author, every defense of the strengths of the movie is based on his feelings and opinions, and every time he talks about the facts he acknowledges the very real flaws while also downplaying them as 'not having negatively impacted his enjoyment.' Whether they negatively impact one's enjoyment or not, they're flaws. Character arcs are rehashed from the first movie, with any growth being reset. There are too many subplots, at least one of which has absolutely zero impact on the how the plot plays out, and it grossly impacts the pacing. The tone is all over the place. It has plot holes everywhere, and the fact that it attempts to excuse them is more of a lampshade than an actual fix. Ultimately it's a bad film; a sequel that outright ignores any opportunity to build on its predecessor in favor of pursuing its own self-aggrandizing, yet poorly executed narrative. Everyone acknowledges that The Rise of Skywalker is bad, but it never could have been anything else. The Last Jedi did everything in its power to leave whatever came next no room to make sense, which is how we got 'somehow Palpatine returned.' Killing Snoke wasn't a brilliant subversion; it was blatantly obvious it was going to happen as he narrated his own execution, and it forced Abrams to do a hard pivot. That's only one example of many when it comes to how The Last Jedi is a major contributor to why The Rise of Skywalker is so atrocious. The obsession with subverting expectations is condescending to the audience, especially when the subversions are so heavy handed and contrived. Worse, they're often included despite adding nothing to any character's arc, or to the plot as a whole, as in Canto Bight. Finn and Rose's entire arc makes zero impact on the film's plot, and certainly doesn't matter for the characters involved. The tricky thing is that The Last Jedi has every flaw that the Rise of Skywalker does. Defenders of The Last Jedi wouldn't even think The Rise of Skywalker was bad if it hadn't been so intent on trashing every element of TLJ that went out of its way to subvert JJ Abrams' initial vision. They're both terrible, and for many of the same reasons. Neither is half as smart as it presents itself to be, both are riddled with plot holes, both have terrible, contrived plots with weak characterization and character development, and not one of the trilogy films can let one of the previous generation of characters be present without having someone from the new generation show them up, with their deaths both proving unceremonious and accomplishing nothing. Both films are shallow, cynical about their audience's intelligence, and their immediate response to criticism is to berate and defame anyone who isn't gobbling the flicks up like candy. For anyone who likes these movies, all the more power to you. Love them to bits. Feel whatever it is they make you feel. But understand that neither liking nor despising a movie is an indicator of its objective quality. Positive critical reception doesn't make it good. Audience ratings don't make it good. If you want to be able to say a movie is objectively good, you need to be able to break it down, objectively recognize and acknowledge its flaws without making excuses for them, and figure out whether, on balance, the flaws detract from the plot, characters, and film as a whole. Acknowledging that a movie is bad doesn't mean that, as someone who likes it, you're wrong. It just means you like a bad movie, and that's okay. Lots of people love The Fast and the Furious franchise, but you won't catch many folks arguing that they're shining examples of cinematic craft.

Rather than Lucas, there's one guy who has proven track record of lore to have plan it and Disney wasted it at that time: Dave Filoni. This guy redeemed the prequel trilogy with the Clone Wars and is now the mastermind behind the Mandolorian.

My hatred of the sequels is 100% based in the horrifically negligible world building.

I did appreciate TLJ exploring the force as more than just levitating rocks, while also using that point about the mythology of rock throwers as foreshadowing to how the heroes eventually escape. It's a film with something to say about its own franchise while still wearing the Star Wars badge with pride despite its criticism.

Your point about Leia's scene in the beginning of The Last Jedi was the perfect summary as to why that scene and everything after hit for me. Thanks for this -- I'm way more interested in the nuances rather than the vitriol most of "Disney Star Wars Sucks" videos lead with and revel in.

I really enjoyed this video; a thoughtful analysis of some of the problems with the new trilogy. I personally enjoyed TFA for its obvious parallels to ANH, but I concur that it was clearly Disney saying "hey look, this isn't like the prequels, you'll like this, we promise!". I loved TLJ for the refusal to redeem Kylo (despite extensive and sympathetic exploration of his character), for Rey's parents being nobody (going against the consensus that they had to be Somebody Important, because jedi), and for Leia's everything. I do agree that TLJ didn't really build on anything we saw in TFA, though I think as I only watched them when they came out I'd managed to overlook that. It's something that would probably be more obvious if watching them back-to-back. Your point about Rey's big flaw being naivety was brilliant; I hadn't thought of that being her major downfall, but it's a thread throughout the first two of her films for sure, and played heavily into the emotional climax of TLJ with Kylo. It would have been interesting if Rey's journey through Rise had included coming to grips with her own poor judgement and ending with her standing strong as just "Rey", no last name. For me, Rise had its enjoyable moments, and I certainly managed to switch my brain off while watching, but I did feel in retrospect that it ruined what they'd done so cleverly in TLJ - not redeeming Kylo even though they devoted a lot of screen time to exploring his and Rey's relationship, and not excusing his flaws on screen just because he felt bad sometimes... that was a big deal to me, as redemption arcs are so common in modern media and I felt that they had managed to be incredibly sympathetic to Kylo's perspective throughout the film without outright excusing his actions. That Rise tried to redeem him without actually addressing any of his crimes was a disappointment. Note to self: if writing a trilogy, have a plan.

15:56 - But it IS a flaw. Being naive without being hurt or suffer as a result is unnatural. She has no arc - everything she does turns well& there's no price to pay. No learning so no need NOT to be naive...

I’m not really a Star Wars fan but I was never sold on Luke’s character shift. I don’t know why, I usually like stories which subvert classical happy endings, and I like grumpy, broken people. I think I was just too captured by his original arc. I couldn’t accept that he’d ever do that to Ben Solo. I still can’t. It just doesn’t make sense. So even though the conceit is interesting, it’s too much of a betrayal for me to want to go along with. Also, I felt that the Last Jedi, by splitting up the trio, kept them from becoming family the way other iconic trios are.

Dude, this is a stupendously thoughtful video! Loved it and not just cuz I did a voice :) subscribed. More please.

James -- these videos are gems. One correction, Disney and Lucasfilm (and George Lucas himself) said the original Nonilogy was about the Skywalker family.

Yes of course they should have had a plan. Long gone are the days where the next film in a trilogy is dependent on box offices and audience responses. Disney has the money to finance three movies all at once, so they shouldn't have gone for the approach used in the original trilogy, because it doesn't make sense and they dont need to.

Disney rushed these films into production without having a cohesive plan. The tone and plot of the Force Awakens does not match The Last Jedi. I admire Ryan Johnson for taking risks but this is Star Wars not some indie film. For a better example look at the Mandalorian. Disney actually moved the release of an episode of the Mandalorian as to not conflict with The Rise of Skywalker. They knew fans were more invested in a TV show vs a major motion picture. The Mandalorian is type of Story we missed out on in the films. It was the result of bring together a talented and diverse group and actors and directors who understood the Star Wars universe. Who respected the past but took the saga into the future. Dave Faloni and Jon Favreau have crafted an amazing series and taken Star Wars to new heights. They have shown what could have been done if the right people had been left in charge!!! Like Kevin Feige who shepherds the MCU, Disney knows not to mess with that guy. They need to do the same with Star Wars and leave Dave Faloni and Jon Favreau in charge!!!

Another thing about old Star Wars is that old Star Wars subverted our expectations all the time, but people have forgotten that because by now everyone knows the plot and none of it seems surprising 40 years after the fact. But when you watch it as a kid, with the exception of the Battle of Yavin, very little in Star Wars goes the way you expect. But here‘s the thing: there‘s a fine line to walk here. Telling us in every conceivable way that Darth Vader is going to kick Luke‘s ass but knowing that we expect Luke to win because he‘s the hero, that‘s subverting our expectations. Having Luke drop out of the crucial Mission half-way through the final movie to surrender to the bad guys is subverting our expectations. Setting up a whole plotline of a film only to tell us it was all pointless is not „subverting expectations“, it‘s just jerking us around. Same goes for telling us basically everything Luke does in Eps IV-VI was completely pointless and he‘s now the opposite of that guy FOR NO REASON. Same goes for setting up (this is a minor gripe) Phasma as a big villain and then killing her off immediately*. And doing the same with Snoke. Like I seriously don‘t get how people think all these moves are smart and surprising when actually they are just blunt and clumsy. Actual great movies that have surprised audiences have always been quite a bit more subtle. Anyway, however brilliant you personally regard this approach, to me it was just jarring and immersion-breaking. Tarantino once remarked that if you seriously disorient the audience then you loose them, and that‘s arguably exactly what TLJ does. *yes Episode VI does a similar thing with Boba Fett, but that‘s only after he plays a small but crucial role in Episode V: the Empire wouldn‘t have caught up with the Millenium Falcon without him.

I think starting the story with a character (Rey) wanting to know "where is Luke Skywalker" isn't the problem. I think the problem started when they decided to basically re-do the original, because the only way they could do that would mean every single character from the original trilogy had to be failures. Digging out from that deficit was never going to work. Especially when certain parts make no sense. Like, if General Leia is actually part of the actual Republic's military, why do they call themselves "the Rebellion". That's over. They won. The Republic was up and running (until that bigger Death Star came along...) They aren't rebels. They're the legitamet. The First Order are *invaders* not rulers. But I do agree with everything pointed out about Rise of Skywalker. And yeah, they should have had a plan. IMO, the most important line from the original trilogy was when when Darth Vader told the Admirals that compared to the power of the Force their technological terrors were nothing. And I think the First Order took heed and Finn, along with a LOT of the other Storm Troopers that had been kidnapped and forced to be Stormtroopers were actually Force sensitive and Rey was just one of the kids the FO tried to take but her parents were able to hide her from them. So at the end, Finn would have something more important to do, since he would basically have to get other conscripted kids to turn on the FO for the final battle. And Luke could have been gone not just because he failed Kylo but because he was trying to find out why suddenly he couldn't find more kids to train.

It's one thing to not have an utterly strict plan nailing down every detail and having no outline whatsoever. It's like nobody had taken even a grade 10 creative writing course.

I'm going to disagree with your assessment on the passing of the torch being a core problem, and I'm going to draw a comparison to Avatar and Korra. While Kora's seasons were pretty polarizing for many reasons, one thing that the fans all agree on was how they actually handled the returning, now elderly cast, REALLY WELL. Katara, Toph and Zuko all act as mentors and guiding figures to the world at large, while still leaving room for Korra and compony to effect the change and be the hero of the story. They could easily have done the same here. "Where is Luke?" with many other plot directions, so long as they preserved the integrity of his character. Maybe he fails to meet Rey's expectations, or fails to save her when she was in trouble, on purpose to force her to grow. We see Obi Wan and Yoda using deception as a means of education enough, it would make sense for his character to grow into similar behaviors as his masters. Maybe his absence is because he was deeply injured and unable to fight, maybe he set off on a journey chasing secret Jedi knowledge and got caught up in a different threat that he couldn't beat alone. They could have pulled a Revan, and had him spending decades locked in mind battle stasis trying to keep an ancient evil in check. He could have been the one to disfigure Snoke in battle, and had been left similarly injured in turn. They Rey comes in, and someone needs to go on, to carry on what Luke cannot, either because its too big or he's too old, too injured, to worn down. They could have done SO MANY OTHER THINGS with him other than make him into a disappointment, other than throwing to the wayside his entire story arc. I've always maintained that a disgruntled Jedi, ashamed of his actions and hiding away on an empty planet, of Rey idealizing someone only to have that thrown in her face, would have been an excellent plotline if it was anyone other than Luke that it centered on. Alternatively, they could have kept his hiding in secret thing, but the explanation we got for WHY he abandoned the galaxy to go to hell and hide on a rock was NOT sufficient. The core problem was that Rey's rise should never have come from brining Luke down. You don't need to break a person's knees, just so you can stand above them. I have other complaints, but I feel like this addresses your core argument for point number two. The rest I thought was a fantastic analysis, and you brought up a lot of points I hadn't thought of.

Everything you questioned like “how can you write a story with Luke in it where he isn’t the point” can be answered in the books and comics. I know it’s cliche to say it at this point, but they had all the inspiration and source material they could ever need to make something good. One of those things was someone whose job it was to keep track of the overall story between media and to oversee the overarching plan. Instead they dumped the EU (probably because of money) saying it was all wrong, but then are using bits and pieces of it throughout. As for “you have to adjust as you go along” Babylon 5 had one man with one plan and oversight and all the problems with it are to do with studios meddling. Planning and preparation prevent piss poor performance as they say.

TLJ and TRoS were failures mainly because TFA's script was garbage. You cannot build a house on a bad foundation and expect things to go well. TFA was obviously a focus-group concoction designed to sell tickets and merch, there wasn't an honest attempt to tell a story. Everything that followed was just patchwork on a crumbling foundation. I find it very ironic that you say TRoS was pandering to racists and misogynist fans when TFA's script was edited, BY DISNEY et al, to exclude a relationship between Rey and Finn before it was even released. Let's also not forget the poster fiasco where they removed and/or reduced Finn's prominence to get on China's good side and push into their film markets, not because of the actual fans. (I'd go as far as saying that the writers' insistence to keep Rey and Finn out of a meaningful relationship, romantic or not, is what destroyed much of the storytelling.) The sequel trilogies don't show women or POC in a positive light. How did the writers "empower women" by showing Rey constantly getting abused by and eventually pushed into a relationship with an murderous sociopath? Why was Poe a former drug dealer? Why is Finn a janitor when cleaning droids exist? Why was he either being insulted all the time or the butt of all the jokes? Why did he need to have a scene discussing slavery with a black woman? I could go on... Of course you don't care about any of the countless problems with the sequels, as you stated, because you don't want to see them and take them seriously.

I feel like the kind of people who liked The Last Jedi are also people who will never dance at parties. For me, watching TLJ felt like this: Imagine you’re at a club opening night. You’re a bit tipsy and all your friends are with you too. You’re ready to dance. The DJ starts the party with ABBA’s greatest hits. A bit cheesy and overplayed yes but soon enough the dance floor is full and everyone is excited. Then the next set starts. It seems like it should be fun SHIT the music stops. Everyone laughs because it’s funny. The DJ laughs too and fixes the broken speaker and starts the music up again. Not his fault it’s the venue’s problem but oh well and soon enough most people are dancing! Then it happens again. And again. And again. People aren’t laughing anymore. They were there for that ecstatic feeling you only get from dancing or singing or listening to one of those old transcendent stories with hundreds of other people. That feeling is gone now. Meanwhile, the club has another room for the kind of people who hate dancing. The food and booze is great and they have some great conversations. They think this venue is awesome. And that’s why I don’t think anyone can quite pin down what pisses people off about TLJ. It’s not logical or about quality or consistency. They got everyone dancing and then the music stopped.

I'm not someone who needs retcons of bad endings (i can still watch the first four seasons of got and enjoy it) but damn i think they should let rian johnson direct his own finale to tlj.

Their biggest mistake was putting the older characters into the sequels. They should have set it 100 years into the future where those characters are only legend. A time where there are many factions vying for power-that way you don't require one big bad that replicates the previous movies. Not to mention it would just be a more dynamic universe. Like a Star Wars Game of Thrones....

I think the problem is that this trilogy was supposed to be an ending, a conclusion to the sage. You can't not plan an ending, or have a conclusion ignore everything that has come so far. That's not even about film--it's basic English. The concluding sentence, the concluding paragraph, they need to address everything that comes before. You need a plan for that--you can make things up while you're writing the story, but there's a point where you need to go back, fire any Chekov's guns and tie together any messy lines. You can't introduce so many new things in a conclusion. Personally, if Star Wars had to address any fan controversy, I wanted them to address the Jedi. I think the Jedi Order is misunderstood by a good deal of the fandom and gets a ton of backlash, and I wanted them to be redeemed. Episode 6 was about the Return of the Jedi, and maybe it's a bit stupid of me, but I wanted the next three movies to be about restoration of the Jedi Order after the cultural genocide inflicted on them and a rebuilding of a better Republic. I understand why people didn't like the prequels as movies, but they were good at world-building, at expanding on the galaxy far, far away. Maybe it's lame of me to not care about something being a good movie? But I like the Hobbit, I like the Lord of the Rings, and I like the Silmarillion, and those probably aren't winning any awards anytime soon. But I would argue that they are good and effective because they give the fanbase this massive world to play around in. The same is true for Harry Potter--arguably, the writing is terrible. Personally, I cannot reread the first books because it's just that bad. The characters are annoying, the fact it succeeded was more because it was the right thing at the right time... but the world was compelling and it enticed fans in. I don't think Star Wars should have ever been considered a cinematic masterpiece or anything. We've got art films and stuff if people are really that picky about "good films". But Star Wars was more than its movies, it was a world, a galaxy. It inspired so much content? [gestures furiously at Legends] And Disney tried to throw most of that away. And maybe that could have been fine. But even then... just from their backstories Rey and Finn had so much potential as characters? And the films just... ignored it. There are a few good videos by a KZfaq channel called Darth'd that addresses them. And it's just... really disappointing. Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise, though--this entire trilogy felt similar to all the Disney live-action remakes going on. :/ [I also came here through your video on the Devil Wears Prada. I would like to argue, though, that Rey feels weirdly overpowered and people might argue that she's a Mary Sue for the very important reason that her powers are too convenient. It's not that she has all of these super-powers, it's that they sprung into being when she or the plot needed it. Also, staffs and swords are really different? If she'd had a sword early on or had a saber-staff, I've have bought it more. But for example, it would have been amazing if instead of Force powers, Rey just... carried a massive jar of bacta around. Because that's in-character (she's a scavenger who's suddenly got access to resources) and could have survived without foreshadowing, even, just making sense because of the fact that yeah, she was with the Resistance, of course they'd have had medical stuff and of course, given Rey's background, she'd have brought some), and it would have carried them through the plot points without just adding something new (on top of everything else that was new) in the CONCLUDING trilogy.]

So the best solution would have been to ignore all criticism. Isnt it always. See you at a new hope 3 in 2025.

My only issue with the sequel trilogy is how much of a tease it is, specially regarding Finn. There's not a single resistance war crime addressed in the movies, considering all the stormtroopers in those movies are brainwashed kidnap victims, rather than legit Supreme power lovers. The fight with Phasma, the closest thing he has to a parent, lasts 40 seconds. Finn doesn't get a second to mourn the possible millions of his peers who died in the Starkiller explosion. And the deal with Rey isn't that she's too powerful, it's that the universe seems to adjust to the need for her to show off... such as placing a stupid device in the millennium falcon so she can remove it. It's like sending Medusa to fight Toph.

I nearly lost my mind at the mentality that you need to be a Skywalker to be force sensitive in this series. The issue is decades of harping on this family and I was SO excited that the last Jedi threw it out. That ending with the force sensitive child looking out into the night sky was the most hopeful I’ve ever felt watching any Star Wars media. I wished they had kept that theme up and not made things worse by back tracking

This needs so many more views. Thank you for putting into words what many of us, tired from the pointless backlash, have been unable to say.

I know what the problem is: the films sucked past the Force Awakens because it tried too hard to please everyone and failed. You have the fanbase who *militantly* adheres to the OT arguing over the people who wanted something different. Both crashed and burnt and now Disney is stuck in an endless loop of rehashing the Original Trilogy in varying ways.

The Holdo Maneuver and Holdo not tell Poe that she even has a plan are my biggest complaints about the movie overall & really take me out of it. I mean, if such a move is possible, why not have specially designed ships piloted by droids to preform it. 👀 Her not telling Poe her plan was just dumb, part of the job of the commanding officer is to reassure the crew to prevent a mutiny, plus if no one knows the plan, how are they going to perform their part in it? Also, her plant resulted in a lot of people dying. Since it directly resulted in Rose & Finn's little side quest, which resulted in her plan getting leaked to the enemy.

I liked the Last Jedi in theater, for Rain Johnson can effectively play on the emotions of the audience. But something was there, inside, never letting me lose myself in the film fully and the very second I left the theater, the enjoyment disappeared. Not only because I found that it made no sense lore wise or character wise. No, something was fundamentally wrong with the movie on the thematical level. And then it clicked... You are right: this film, this whole trilogy is about Ray. For the creators of the movies at least. Others are secondary or even extras. But for the biggest chunk of the audience the opposite is true. Be it screenplay, the directing, the acting or something other than that I wouldn't say, but the character of Ray failed to capture people's hearts. And so her very presence became jarring. She was stealing spotlight from the things we actually wanted to see and wasn't even interesting in the first place. And then, the things we liked kept on being either dismissed or destroyed in favor of Ray's story and our appreciation followed suit.

I loved the Last Jedi.

The problem isn't that Holdo is "unlikeable", the problem is that she's *a bad leader.* People like to say that soldiers follow orders, without questioning their Staff NCOs or Officers, so actually it's Poe who is in the wrong, and it's Poe we should find unlikeable. But, while of course it's very hard to disobey orders due to the nature of the military structure, you are *required* to disobey unlawful orders; it's not unreasonable to expect Holdo to command obedience through competence, rather than demanding obedience and expecting it because military. In Band of Brothers, all the NCOs stood up to say they wouldn't let Ross from Friends lead them, even knowing they might be shot for refusing his command, because they thought he'd get them all killed. And that was soldiers fighting during World War 2, not a group of people LITERALLY called "Rebels". You think "rebels" are likely to unquestioningly follow orders? The only reason she was unwilling to demonstrate her competence, that she had a plan, was because movie; the director wanted to spring a last minute Hail Mary on the audience, so much so that he was more than willing to sacrifice character and plot to do that. Bad choice. Also: running out of fuel in space seems misguided. And I've heard people try to push back against nit-picking, but the thing is: tell a great story and we won't nit-pick. Tell a bad story and suddenly all the little problems in your movie start to become larger problems, we'll start seeing them because we aren't distracted by a great story or great characters. We are much less likely to excuse one problem among many than we are one singular problem. Make a great movie with one or two problems and we'll be willing to overlook it, even assume that there's a reasonable explanation that we, the audience, simply missed. But make lots of obvious problems that can't be hand-waved away and suddenly your audience starts getting more nit-picking, because you've shown that you don't care about details, so we no longer extend to you the benefit of the doubt.

My unique gripe is Ray’s accent; sort of posh British. She sounds like a well educated Londoner, not a street orphan in a galaxy far far away. It really pulled me out of the movie, I never believed she had a hard life, she sounded like a BBC presenter acting in somebody’s poorly written fan fiction.

I remember watching this video AGES ago, and kept thinking about it, but I had forgotten the channel's name! Finally found you again thanks to your video about comedians! lol I think I know what could have saved this mess of a trilogy and it wasn't necesarily a plan. They needed to know what they wanted to say. Every time they had 2 options, every time something unexpected happened and they needed to add a change... everytime they just needed to ask themselves "what do I want to say and what choice could help me say that?" It is clear this trilogy had nothing to say...

4:37 really nails my opinion of The Last Jedi. I enjoyed it, but it seemed to paint the writers of the next movie into a corner. I remember talking about that with some other fanfiction- inclined friends of mine (older fanfiction writers are all about breaking down plots and stories like these video essays do) and we came to the conclusion that they had somehow fallen into the sort of trap many "publish as you go with little planning ahead" serialized stories do. The twists and subversion were interesting in the moment, but now what? The big bad is dead, so much of the heavy lifting exposition done by the earlier films was discarded, and the plot threads felt very seperate and difficult to weave back together.8 absolutely lost me at Leia's fake-out death and the point about how that rude (in my opinion) scene that played with our emotions so soon after Carrie's passing may have made the other twists hit badly is really insightful. I probably was primed to dislike later scenes and had a harder time getting immersed, but the absolutely amazing visuals did pull me back in. The movie was gorgeous, I'll give it that. 29:32 Comes back to these points because that difficult task of having new exposition in the final stage of the trilogy, weaving the remaining disparate plotlines together, and trying to gain back goodwill just did not go well. The retcon just made 8 feel even worse. You can change things as you go. You can trash ideas and add new ones. You can take huge or minor sections of whatever prewriting you've done and remix, reorder, transform them, or light them on fire to dance on their ashes. But any writer will tell you that you need a plan. Even just a single paragraph about where the end of the story should be. You can wind up in a vastly different place, but you need to know what direction to take.

I would love to see you have a debate with the EGAP crew. You very clearly disagree with them on almost everything about this trilogy, and yet you're very clearly open enough to try to see the other side. And since EFAP I always willing to have a polite conversation with people they disagree with, I feel like something actually interesting would come out of it.

I’m also here from the Devil Wears Prada video, but an avid Star Wars fan. I’ve long said (mostly to my husband) that it felt like they got half way through the Last Jedi and realized Rey and Kylo had interesting chemistry. So they said “f it, let’s run with that” and put way less effort into everything else. If they had a plan, it got scrapped. I hadn’t made the link to Disney’s general “people pleasing” tendency as opposed to telling a story for the sake of the story. I really appreciate your detailed take on this. Need to rewatch the films again now 👍🏻

Rey is such a likeable character, it's so terribly sad that she is so strongly hated simply because star wars fans can't handle the idea of a new protagonist. A whole generation of young girls could've loved this.

My problem with tlj is rey being a nobody is answer in tfa when maz say her parents not coming back so why bring it back. But you have a point about if luke in it people won’t care as much for the new character,

I still say their main problem was NOT outlining the entire trilogy. Not a solid plan with them fully written out, but at least having the arcs for each of the main characters sorted before starting. Abrams' "mystery box" style of writing is bullshit unless you're supremely talented enough to tie things together by the seat of your pants. Johnson's approach to all the set ups was way too metatextual and instead of seeing a story all I could see was two directors playing tug of war.

10:02 my reason is simple. I did not know her work outside of starwars and did not know she had died

I cannot agree. Almost everything in a movie is disputable - jokes, acting, plot holes, cinematography, music... I was cringing throughout the whole movie, not a single joke landed. I was never, ever this embarassed to be watching a movie. Just... the sole memory of it is making me cringe. But I enjoyed the plot itself - Rey's parentage, Snoke's death and all of that. So - good movie in theory, bad in execution in my opinion. But one thing is indesputable - this movie irreparably ruined the universe rules. I am never coming back to the Star Wars fandom unless they decanonize the whole thing. (Great channel overall though, YT recommended me your Devil Wears Prada video and here I am.)

This trilogy was supposed to be a love letter to the fans. Instead it became a subject of cultural debate. The constant back and forth and twisting and pulling between those who would've rather seen it take a more progressive route, and those that would have liked to see it set a new stage for the new generation while respecting the last. It became what it is. Frankly, the fact that this shit show happened at all shows that we as a people are impatient and selfish. It's a shame.

I loathe The Last Jedi - yet I sincerely believe the snoke death scene and the holdo maneuver are in the top 10 scenes of Star Wars. However these little moments of greatness do not make up for the inconsistent story. Both in terms of character and pacing. It's a shame Rian Johnson ruined this film and it's a reminder that if you don't get the characters right in your second film you will ruin your franchise. In my opinion Rey didn't even do enough to be a Mary Sue. There were no stakes, minimal motivations, and no real growth to her character. She was just there. Still - I WANTED to like her. Poe and Finn had sparks of brilliance but were ultimately underutilized (btw BLESS YOU OSCAR FOR AKNOWLEDGING) . Same with Ben. I think the most telling thing about this for me was when Rey and Ben were with Snoke and Ben is trying to get her to go to the dark side independent of snoke - and I wanted her to do it! I wanted the growth from both of them! It's just a shame they never took what they had in the first movie and bothered to actually plot out the character growth to the end :/ People seem to forget that at the heart of it all, Star Wars was an opera about the Skywalker family. If Luke comes into the story, 'him taking over the story' is completely fine because he SHOULD be a big part of the story. Otherwise they should never have brought him back in the first place. What they ended up doing was this weird non-committal middle thing where he's not in it enough to be fleshed out as a character. The ending of the first film gave more than enough space to have Rey AND Luke both in the story in my opinion - especially with Rey's incredibly strong connection to the dark side. For example, the balance between light and dark could have been explored through Rey, with Luke learning from her that maybe the dark side can exist in balance with the light (something his old Jedi masters would have balked at). This would have been interesting and resulted in a journey of growth for both of them without them overshadowing each other. There are many other possible stories, but in the end the most simple answer is the writing and directing were just not at the level they needed to be for this franchise to succeed.

Im only four minutes into this and i already love it. Maybe it's your intelligent sounding accent, but i am here for the breakdown and i think we will agree so much and im so sick of the dichotomous treatment of the 2nd and 3rd movies (and Rey and Kylo's relationship) as all good or just rubbish. There can be more nuances in life and looking for a simple answer/solution doesn't really help anyone. Ps. I love Adam Driver and all he brought to the role and am not ashamed to say it. Ok, now to finish your video.

I remember finishing the last Jedi and crying hysterically over Carrie fisher for 3 hours. There was an empty seat next to me and I’m not religious but I am spiritual. I felt Carrie’s presence the whole movie. She was there with me. She’s been my 2nd biggest inspiration in my fucking life. She’s a force of nature. I don’t understand what happened, but it did. And I’m thankful for it

Personally in my own experience as a writer, the answer regarding having a plan or not is an in-between: you *should* leave some breathing room for flexibility and improvisation, be willing to drop or change parts here and here as you progress on the writing, but it's also important to have at least a base structure, a "skeleton" as I like to call it, to act as a guideline for the plan. Basic steps or key elements (usually the beginning, middle and end) that you try to deviate as little as possible from. They didn't need to plan *everything*, but they should have know some key parts from day 1.

For the record having one flaw is a common way people who realized they just wrote a Mary sue, try to fix their sue with it, it does not work, and anyone who says otherwise needs to read an actually good book. The bigger kicker is that one flaw stops mattering real soon. If you want one flaw to work for a character you need to make that choice at the beginning, make it an intrinsic part of the character that they will have to deal for the majority of the story, something that specifically holds them back from their goals. Or as others say, character writing. As for subversion, subversion only works if it: does not ruin a more interesting plot point and what you are subverting is not already subverted, and even then subversion is hard to do right and will often frustrate your audience if done poorly. The sequel trilogy loves to kill the more interesting plot points for subversion and the audience will grow to hate it real fast. I can appreciate how generous you are with the criticisms, but I cannot agree with all your points.

'I fundamentally disagree with every choice you've made for this character' - Mark Hamill 2017

gosh this video is incredible, i'm genuinely mad at myself that it took me so long to actually click on it It feels like the first time i've actually had a chance to understand my reaction to TLJ specifically, the bit about his reaction to leia's death, and subsequent resurrection, and how *for those two minutes* the film had lost james or like, specifically that suddenly the film had incurred a debt that needed to be paid back in order to win back james'... immersion? suspension of disbelief? or maybe it's closer to, make james willing to be a voluntary participant in the story process when you approach a story from the perspective of *wanting to consume it* versus being skeptical of it, and this implies not just that you'll suspend your disbelief but a whole other grab-bag of smaller behaviors as well; you'll spend your attention on the story itself, and not on imagining what was happening inside the mind of the writer. you'll try to empathize with the characters, instead of thinking about narrative structure and whether their arcs are coherent. and for those 2 minutes that leia was floating in space, james was no longer inhabiting that mindset, until they won him back with leia's force float well, for me, i dropped into skepticism mode as soon as luke threw his lightsaber in the very first scene. perhaps i would have been receptive to some of the stuff that happened later on, if i was still a willing participant, but i wasn't. in the same way james was 'won back' by leia's force maneuver, i think I could have been won back if the next few scenes had explained luke's action in a way that didn't degrade his character. instead, they doubled down hard, and they lost me completely; from that moment, my only emotional connection to the movie was being flabberghasted at what on earth had happened in the writer's room. i've watched a lot of the negative TLJ reviews, and when they talk about individual scenes and point out every problem, I always have a nagging suspicion that *this isn't it*. whatever they're talking about, it's not the true cause of our discontent. You could make a mauler-style review of every single scene in a new hope and probably do the same thing, and make it seem really really bad, and yet I believe that ANH was good. So why?! and i finally have an answer. i had no hope of liking TLJ once i slipped into 'bemused skepticism' mode after that very first scene. afterward, I was seeing it through "angry 10 hour youtube video essay" eyes, eyes through which even ANH would come out looking quite bad. but the thing is... i feel totally justified in doing that? Like, I legitimately do not believe that TLJ was worth trying to truly engage with. Things like "your snoke theory sucks", or the hilarious heavy-handedness of the canto bite sequence, or the ridiculous cowardice of TROS... these things make it seem like the writers *wanted* us to engage with the film with our skeptical eyes. I'm not even sure that the *writers* were capable of engaging with their own film on that naive emotional level. The fact that James' emotional reaction to Leai's death and resurrection was an *accident*, derived from real-world circumstances that had nothing to do with the writers' intentions, makes me doubt it was deliberate. sorry for writing another long-winded essay comment on here but i felt the need to do so

The biggest tragedy of Carrie Fischer's death is I genuinely don't think it would have happened so soon if she wasn't forced to lose weight to reprise the role. What, were they gonna have her wear the gold bikini again?

I find it very aggravating that they never knew who her parentage was- mostly in connection to Kylo. I remember the inc*st panic online about it. I also do think it felt like Finn was set up to be more important outside of the trailers too

Personally, I think the Last Jedi's biggest flaw was the ending. A very easy fix which would have made the film infinitely better (though of course not perfect) in my opinion would have been this: You know that scene where Kylo holds out his hand and asks to join forces with Rey? Yeah, cut to credits before she gives her answer. Boom. Way better, imo. Obviously a few earlier scenes might need to be tweaked, removed, or replaced to make it work. But that change alone would solve a lot singlehandedly. Suddenly, we have a cliffhanger driving people to see the next film. Will she join him or not? And now, the next film's director can have a chance to ACTUALLY subvert expectations and have Rey become a villain if they want. Which would set up some really juicy twists and turns and drama. And like you said, her naivete, coupled with her disappointment about her family and her disappointment with Luke, it seems plausible she would be convinced to work with Kylo. Plus, it fixes Snoke's death. The reason why his death was such a stupid idea is because there wasn't a good replacement for him. In a series, you can't just kill your big baddie in the middle of the story! That's like if they killed the Firelord at the end of Avatar season 2. Terrible idea. BUT. If there's already a bigger baddie set up and ready to take his place, then it's fine. (Palpatine doesn't count. They had never actually planned to bring him back to life to be the big baddie, and it really shows. To use him, they would've had to plant clues to it early on, and they didn't). Rey joining forces with Kylo would have been a great idea to replace Snoke. It would be surprising, it's pretty well set up, and so far Rey has been so OP that it would make her a VERY intimidating final baddie. With a LOT more personal ties to our good guys than Snoke or Palpatine had, so would have been much more of an emotional finale. So yeah, creating the cliffhanger and having Rey/Kylo duo ultimately replace Snoke as the big baddie would solve the major issues, in my opinion.

The reason the Leia-in-space thing probably didn‘t land with audiences is probably not because of the scene itself, but more that the whole film is un-immersive and jarring and due to it‘s tone-deafness genuine moments feel forced.

Star Wars suffers from ''Small Universe Syndrome'' ... in a complete lack of imagination they show the same places and things over and over again. That's the quickest way to get criticised by forcing comparison with what has gone before. They should have been bolder and done different things and places, with cheeky glimpses at the familiar.

Critics can be wrong. Critics hated Black Sabbath when it came out. There‘s an entire genre of films intended to convince critics that they‘re the shit: Oscar-bait. And while I think that‘s not the only thing that‘s going on, Rian Johnson definitely strikes me as the kind of guy who wants the critics to like his work and puts in stuff that he thinks will impress them disproportionally.

This video deserves 50x the amount of views it currently has (some 5204 at the time of this writing). It helps me to digest the disappointments I had with episodes 7 & 9, and cements why I think 8 is my 3rd favorite (behind 2 and R1, respectively).

at 9:16 talking about bringing the character back to life. the scene that sold the movie to James is the seen that made me swear off Disney. the vast difference in our views amazes me. All I saw was a mega corporation buy a mega IP, then when loss of life seemed to endanger one of the IP's central characters. they just said, we have already used deep fakes, so the actress is dead, we will keep the character alive and on top of that we will include a nice send off then just cancel it. remember that her death seen could have happened any where and in any way. to me this was a startling proof of absolute moral deficiency.

I think people’s contention ultimately with the sequel trilogy is that it is a story that did not need to be told. Rather than being even just a new star wars story, it must carve up the old stories to exist as is. Yes, the changes made to the way things work or to old characters do support the story being told but that story itself is the issue. Plus the lack of characterization, retcons, etc

I think (and this is coming from someone who honestly can't remember a ton that happened in this movie) that the biggest problem I had in this movie was how entirely predictable it was for me, and not in a way that was entertaining. I could find myself predicting every action/reveal they led up to for the characters. A lot of it felt cliche, and not in a good way. Finding out Rey's parents, the death of Snoke, even tiny choices they made in the moment, I could see all of them coming from a mile away. Even the choices I couldn't predict, they were so cliche in the end that I found myself disappointed. There were certain scenes I genuinely loved, and the idea overall, I also loved. But overall, it felt very....safe. It felt like Disney didn't want to do anything TOO out there, for fear of fans disliking it, and in the end, that made them stick with several very safe plots that had worked in the past. They just...didn't quite do it this time. Idk, that's my opinion haha

Naivety that never cost her wow such a flaw.

I subscribed for your Steven Universe video and I'm having a blast watching your older video archive now. It's so fun :)

It’s frustrating someone as apparently intelligent as yourself had to see all three films before realising ‘they didn’t have a plan’. Having a plan isn’t about having all the details done beforehand, just a vision and outline for the major character arcs and events of the trilogy. I’m baffled you dismissed the need for a plan, this is a billion dollar trilogy. A New Hope was only planned to be one movie, it was hoped it could be more, but was planed to stand alone. They started the trilogy without a plan, nor a good story they wanted to tell; they wanted to sell a series of cool action scenes with a politically correct cast. There were plenty of good stories they could have told, and they chose a bit of all of them.

So I agree with so much of what you say here. I agree with all of these good things you say about The Last Jedi. I wasn't lost with the Leia twist, with the Snoke twist, or even that dumb Maneuver. I don't need Star Wars to have the strongest sci-fi logic; for me it's a Fantasy story. But what I couldn't forgive that film for was the way they portrayed Luke Skywalker. Maybe it's just because the character is so close to my childhood, but I just couldn't buy that the guy on screen who was supposed to be Luke was actually Luke. Maybe Luke has always been one of the weakest characters in Star Wars, but I think that isn't a big problem because he's the character the audience is most easily supposed to be able to identify themselves with: he's the miquetoast main character and the supporting cast is so strong they more than make up for him. But in The Last Jedi I just don't see Luke; they got Han and Leia and I really respect what they did with their characters but I couldn't stand what they did to Luke

My brother in Christ: striking down Darth Vader in anger for directly and openly threatening your only remaining family and plotting to murder a child are not the same thing and if you can‘t see that, I really can‘t help you. Luke isn‘t „not-in-character“ because he exiled himself, but because of his specific actions and his specific stances. Luke Skywalker was always characterized by extreme and naive loyalty; and also extreme and naive straightforwardness; like Luke was the guy who thought you can talk everything out. Then later he became convinced that the archvillain Darth Vader could be redeemed, why, because they were related. And he literally banked everything on that being true. Which it was. So when Luke has some nightmares about a literal child in his family potentially becoming bad one day, I‘m supposed to believe it‘s conceivable he would turn to killing him. Before doing or attempting anything else. Of course this is not even slightly in character for Luke. It would be super-in-character for the unstable and rash Anakin. But Luke is clearly a very different sort of guy and the movies make this as obvious as it could be. And can I just say that you do a phenomenal job of near-miss dealing with people‘s critiques of TLJ while consistently missing the actual point of them. Also Luke‘s failure as a teacher is actually a problem for the narrative, unlike Yoda and Obi-Wan. Films I-VI show us how Yoda and Obi-Wan failed and then thanks to that, Palpatine comes to power. But they also show us Luke, who is very different to the other Jeni and Luke manages to break the cycle, redeem Anakin (emotionally and story-beat wise) and dethrone Palpatine. Having Luke fail in the exact same way, by having his apprentice turn evil and having it be Luke‘s fault, every single thing that happened before is made narratively futile. It turns out Luke didn‘t know better, redeeming Anakin and killing Palpatine was pointless, as was defeating the Empire. And it‘s not like there weren‘t other, much better ways to do this. His apprentice could have gotten killed, or kidnapped and brainwashed, OR Luke‘s optimism could have blinded him to the boy‘s flaws (in-character). Star Wars Expanded Universe also turns one of Luke‘s nephews into a Sith Lord, but it does so much, much more effectively and believably than TLJ does it.

Your problem is you're coming at this as a movie fan, not as a Star Wars fan. Many of us have spent untold hours reading hundreds of EU novels. The SW universe means something to us, we have a deep emotional connection to it. It hurts seeing these movies made for YOU and not for US. I understand why Disney did it, there are way more of you than there are of us. But it still hurts. I don't consider the sequels to be Star Wars at all. They are just regular action flicks. Apparently good ones, according to you. But that's why you don't understand the criticism.

"The whole discourse about these films -- t he reviews, the backlash, the memes -- will have moved on" * looks at the prequels * Uh... are you sure about that?

At 6:40, just going through my thoughts on the remaining bullet points. Luke: I *loved* how he was portrayed in this film. It seemed a completely natural extension of his character, given what he went through. I find the claims that it's inauthentic utterly baffling. We saw three tiny slices of his character up until this point, the idea he was firmly established as someone who would never in any way fail is just childish. Rey: in retrospect, yeah maybe. It didn't bother me at the time, and I think a sizeable amount of the criticism comes down to sexism, but she probably did still gain too much power without narrative justification. Rose: yeah this comes _entirely_ down to sexism & racism. Kylo: I really liked him in this film. It was some really interesting and different characterisation. Something we've never before seen in Star Wars. Snoke: yes it was, but at the time I was willing to overlook this because I _thought_ it was going to be the set up for something even cooler in episode IX. It only became bad _because IX was so terrible._ Rey's parents: in the cinema, I genuinely thought Kylo was lying about this. Not that I thought "ah ha! he must be lying, aren't I clever!" But that it actually never even occurred to me that he might be doing anything _but_ lying. Why would he even _know?_ It's dismissive: lolwut? No. It builds on them in really interesting ways (if you, like I, assume that Kylo was lying). What's _dismissive_ is episode IX, of the interesting things done in episode XIII.

Dude the intro music scared the shit out of me

I personally loved the Princess Leia Force-flying-through-space moment very much. I also thought the new take on Luke was creative and original, though perhaps slightly clumsily handled. I also very much liked the message conveyed by the revelation in "The Last Jedi" (reversed in the sequel) that Rey does not come from an august bloodline, though I also agree that the shift in stories and tone between "The Force Awakens" and "The Last Jedi" was jarring and clumsy, and that they should have planned at least a bare-bones outline to harmonize the movies. I do think that with some creative editing, reshuffling of scenes, and maybe some minimal redubbing of lines, the first two films could be made to fit together much better (e.g. removing the entire scene from "The Force Awakens" where Rey discovers Luke's lightsaber). It's really a shame because there are a lot of good ideas strewn throughout the first two movies in this latest trilogy that were just mishandled and ended up in the steaming refuse heap that was "The Rise of Skywalker"

the problem with Nostalgia always comes back to Old World Blues