Quote:
Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger
The story didn’t advance a ton but the characters did. Rey, Kylo, Finn, Poe, Luke and Leia were all progressed as characters.
The story on the other hand lacked any discernible forward motion, literally. It was a slow motion spaceship chase.
ESB was somewhat similar in this way. Both ANH and ROTJ relied upon imminent destruction and a big bad to move the story forward. ESB was far more character driven with most of the movie relying on the character struggles and development being the story.
The problem with TLJ is that some people didn’t like the Rey/Luke story because it wasn’t what they expected and the Rose/Finn/Poe/Leia story just wasn’t as engaging as the Han/Lando/Leia story in ESB.
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Agree.
The characters development is really what drove TLJ. And Empire was similar in that way, it was more about understanding the character motives instead of the story.
To your point there were three clear character arcs in TLJ and depending on your feeling on certain points it changes the movie ALOT.
Luke/Rey/Kylo: Lots of introspective about what happened between Kylo and Luke to shape their current characters (Rey actually takes a backseat here) and It really does grow those characters. BUT if you don’t like the reclusive flawed Luke storyline, and if you wanted Snoke/Rey to have some connection to the OT then you really aren’t going to like this.
Poe/Leia: Poe’s character development is interesting because everyone kind of thought he was supposed to be the “new” impulsive Han Solo character, and instead he’s becoming more of the general that Leia is. I personally like this arc but others don’t seem too.
Finn/Rose: I think it does kind of serve to expand Finn as growing to actually having a cause now. He started off as the guy just trying to escape the First order, then it seemed like his only real objective was to save the girl he had a crush on (Rey), but by the end he was willing to make the sacrifice play because he actually believed in the cause of the rebellion. Really it’s Finn that’s following the Hans arc in this one.
The 4 main character arcs are still very similar to the OT overall IMO
Rey = Luke
Poe = Leia
Finn = Han
Kylo = Vader
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger
Luke didn’t try and kill Kylo. I’m surprised at how many people didn’t get that whole backstory. We saw that scene from two perspectives and according to Luke he considered it for a nanosecond. Then Kylo was just a victim in Luke’s eyes and he felt he’d failed as a master. Then Kylo attacked Luke. It was only in Kylo’s (presumably false) version did Luke try and kill him.
You may not have liked why he was a deranged hobo but it’s not like it came out of left field. Did people really think he was exiled because he wanted a 20 year vacation on the other side of the galaxy? It was hinted at strongly in TFA and clearly explained in TLJ.
Also the throne room fight scene has been hailed as one of the best battles of any Star Wars film.
We still don’t know Rey’s lineage. Just because her enemy Kylo said it, doesn’t make it true. He has motive to try and make her lose hope. He already lied to her about a Luke trying to assassinate him. I’ve never understood why a known liar and bad guy was just taken at face value by fans.
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This x100.
It was actually 3 perspectives. The first Luke story where he kind of lies about what happened, then we see it from Kylo’s eyes, and then we see the true story where Luke opens up to Rey about what actually happened. And he does that after being put in Kylo’s shoes after the angry looking Rey is standing over him prone with her lightsaber drawn.
People really seem to gloss over just how well they explain Luke’s motives for doing what he did, just because they don’t like how he ended up.
And even if people don’t like the storyline, Rian and TLJ get too much crap for this when it was actually JJ that made the decisions about the OT characters.
Luke being a reclusive hermit, Han going back to his days as a scoundrel with no cause to fight for, and Leia and Han being bad parents that were divorced were all set up by JJ with very little backstory at all. Then he kind of left Rian to have to pick up the pieces on that and explain the motives for those characters.