The Last Jedi Didn't Break Star Wars. It Broke the Fans

"You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view"  -Obi-Wan Kenobi 

Concerning Lightsabers, part 2: Style and Design

As I was playing around with my Kyberlight saber, trying to find the ideal design for dueling, I came to a horrifying realization. All the possible combos follow the same general principles and are essentially different "skins" of the same weapon. Furthermore, that weapon doesn't match the sword style I was trained in. In other words, I had the wrong tool for the job.

I had noticed a varying degree of hilt design when I was shopping for a lightsaber, but I hadn't realized how important those differences are to sword style. My own indecision is what attracted me to Kyberlight in the first place, but those sabers follow a single hilt pattern, with mostly superficial differences with the various parts. Let's take a look at the structure behind Kyberlight's design.

No matter which configuration you make, every Kyberlight saber has an a handgrip located evenly between both ends, an activation switch in the upper half, and a big pommel.

Nitpicky Details in The Last Jedi

This is the second part of my review of The Last Jedi. This focuses on really nitpicky details that kinda bring things down for me. Now you might be rolling your eyes and asking "why can't you just relax and enjoy the film." Well, other movies have not gotten any slack for similar issues. Everyone gave Prometheus crap because the map guy got lost. No one gave Jurassic World a pass when Bryce Dallas Howard ran away from a T-Rex in high heels. Even the iconic A New Hope has never lived down the 12 parsecs line. I do have a certain tolerance for these things. Sometimes you can let them slide, sometimes they bring down the film. In my opinion, both as a Star Wars fan and a storyteller, I can't let them all go. Not only are they numerous, but they make it seem like everyone in the film is an idiot and the only reason the plot moves at all is because someone does something stupid. Anyway, you can decide how much these things bother you. I can't most of them go because they're so inexorably linked to the plot.

The Last Jedi Is Too Terrible to be Good and Too Well Done to Be Awful

The latest installment of Star Wars juggles many themes, such as sacrifice, trust, legacy, inner turmoil, letting go of the past, and hope for the future, but I think the grander lesson can be summed up as this: screwing up someone's plan will have short term consequences, but everything will turn out alright in the end. This is reflected both in the characters' actions, and by Writer/Director Rian Johnson's decision to apparently throw out whatever plan, if any, was in place from The Force Awakens.

Many of the film's defenders describe it as bold and/or ballsy for digging into the characters' consistent failures and for scrapping any respect for their expectations. And they're right. It is bold for telling the audiences that what they were expecting to see doesn't matter to him, but those defenders don't get to take umbrage when some interpret that as a giant middle finger. The films succeeds in doing the unexpected in a familiar way, but I hesitate to give it credit for choices that weaken the narrative. For simplicity's sake, I'm saving my nitpicky Star Wars Fan criticisms for another post.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Concerning Lightsabers, Part 1: Kyberlight

About a month ago, I went with my sensei and a couple other students from my dojo to a lightsaber fight in Washington Square Park. I borrowed someone's saber and we did some lightsaber kendo for everyone. It was a good time, and despite my rather rough technique, I managed to win a bout.

Anyway, afterwards I decided to take the plunge and purchase my own dueling lightsaber. I'd been thinking about it for a while and thought, 'why not?'

An Objective Look at Star Wars - Ep. 6

As I said before, I didn't catch my cousins' reactions to the cliffhanger close of Empire, but they were very eager to move onto Return of the Jedi.  They had been given enough time to get invested in the new characters and the story lines from the prequel trilogy were coming back into a smoother whole narrative.  Episode VI has suffered the least in the new viewing order.  It maintains a strong position as the epic conclusion of the saga for either six movies or three.  

Surprisingly, they didn't have much to say on Jabba's palace.  They liked the cool creature effects of the alien band, and of course thought Jabba was pretty nasty, but other than that, not much to say.  Boba Fett didn't really add much to the scenes.  He had much more gravitas in just the original trilogy when he was a mysterious, yet cool bounty hunter.  Now, knowing his origin story and his traumatic childhood, the audience feels a little cheated that he is just a hired thug with little importance.  

Yoda's death was very emotional and got a good reaction.  Some people say that seeing Yoda use a lightsaber and fight in the prequels ruined his character, and I understand the argument they're making, but I feel his death is made all the more powerful and sad by our knowing what a great fighter he was.  That after all the wars, the combat, and the epic use of the Force, age has finally caught up with him.  This is one of only a handful of scenes from the originals that is actually enhanced by the back story provided by the prequels. 
I wasn't at all surprised that the Ewoks were a big hit.  Everyone loved them for being cute and funny.  Even some of the harshest critics of Star Wars I've met have softened up for the overtly kid friendly creatures, which are far superior to the Gungans for enjoyment, despite similar functions.

The conclusion of Vader's arc was also well received.  They all cried out "Look, it's Anakin!" when Hayden Christensen appeared at the end, while I could only sigh in dismay.  I understood why they felt that way, but it made me truly regret showing the film in this order.

Final Thoughts
I asked my cousins what they thought of the films.  Sadly, all said that Episode III was their favorite.  Kat said that Episode V would have been her favorite if the effects had been better (and this included all the Special Edition stuff).  This is very telling about the shift in priorities for new Star Wars audiences.  They now expect and favor great visual effects spectacles over deeper storytelling.  Berri even commented that the films would look great in 3D, to which I smiled and told her what was coming next year.  I can't say for certain anymore if the SW franchise has truly lost its way, or if it is simply changing with the times.  After all, Avatar was a smash hit despite having a recycled and predictable story.  Time will tell on the direction of the franchise.  In addition to the 3D conversion, more sequels have been announced, though I don't know what other stories there are to tell.  If Lucas is picking up James Cameron's proverbial gauntlet, then there's no hope for old school fans like myself.  I can only quote Mrs. Constanza from Seinfeld, "Why, Georgie, why?" 

An Objective Look at Star Wars - Ep. 5 (sorta)

A New Hope really seemed to  throw my cousins.  Not only was the cinematic style completely different from the preceding films, but the story did not conform to any of their expectations (and I don't mean because it was actually good).  The story arcs of Revenge of the Sith were not resolved and were barely touched upon, which proved to be very distracting.  Berri declared her dislike for A New Hope because, (in a high screech that would have given Crying Wife a run for her money) "It's just that Episode III was so sad because Padme died, and Anakin turned evil and then the twins were separated, AND NOW THEY'RE FALLING IN LOVE!!"  She has a point about a clear flaw in our viewing order.  Anyone on their 2nd+ viewing of the originals will know that Luke and Leia are siblings and either laugh or grimace at the potential, but averted romance.  First timers used to be oblivious and would probably keep guessing as they watched IV and V on who would get Leia .  Berri made me wonder if, during the years of '77-'83, there was a "Team Luke" and "Team Han" thing going on.  Alas, that wonderful surprise for Star Wars newcomers is now gone.

Now, unfortunately, I was only present for the first hour of the Empire Strikes Back screening, so I have less of their reactions to it that film, but here it is.  For once, there was little confusion about the film's story.  They were all completely clear about where the characters were and why.  The narrative had a very strong hook and kept their attention for the first half hour without too many questions.  Valise was even kind enough to recant her statement that "Star Wars sucks."  We did hit a bump in the road when Yoda appeared.  Again, the prequels had spoiled the surprise that the quirky little bat creature was in fact a Jedi Master.  They had no idea what to make of him because he seemed to be acting completely out of character until he finally revealed his identity.  Eventually, they just decided he'd gone crazy living in the wilderness.  I think Lucas just failed to capture Yoda's quirky humor in the prequels and focused too much on the backwards platitudes.  

Many fans have debated the mechanics of the cave scene where Luke fights a replica of Vader, mostly because it's an extremely deep scene of subtle and philosophical foreshadowing.  The girls had an even harder time with it because they were not used to actually thinking when watching the films.  Episodes I-III were very blunt films of mostly meaningless CGI action and any foreshadowing like this was spoon fed to the audience.  Episode IV dialed back the CGI, but was filled with mostly basic exposition, with a bit of subtlety and vague detail.  So, with their brains wired to just accept the facts as presented without much thought, I had to pause the film and explain. 

The lesson Luke is taught regards fear.  Yoda tells him that the only thing in the cave is what he brings with him.  Luke brings his weapons, expecting something dangerous, something he should be afraid of.  Inside the cave, he finds the one thing he is most afraid of: Darth Vader, and immediately kills him without hesitation.  He then sees his action reflected in the face under Vader's mask.  Luke went in expecting a fight and that's exactly what he found.  Yoda was trying to tell him that listening to your fear will lead to anger and aggression, especially in the face of the unknown, and a Jedi has to be better than that, or risk ending up like Vader.  In addition, there is the foreshadowing that Vader is Luke's father, and the audience, unknowing or not, gets a glimpse into how Vader turned evil. 

Final Thoughts
I had to leave at this point, so I didn't catch the rest of their reactions to the film, but I know they liked it.  For my own impressions, I finally concede that this truly the best film of the set.  The universe is established enough for the audience to stay grounded, and the narrative is straight forward, yet exciting.  The "new" characters have grown beyond their archetypes into more unique personalities with their own arcs.  Lastly, the special effects are strong enough not to be distracting.  I feel I should point out that Lucas had the greatest distance from this one.  He wrote a rough outline of the story and passed it on to an experienced screenwriter and director to take over.  He was rarely on set because the film was having financial difficulties which he had to deal with, which is what he's good at.  Under these circumstances, the creativity of the cast and crew had a chance to shine through and create a compelling feature.  It even fits pretty well into the prequel narrative as the story returns to the threads left by Revenge of the Sith.  Luke finds out Vader is his father, the Emperor and Yoda are back, along with Boba Fett (although my cousins completely missed him until I pointed him out).  A fine piece of cinema, no doubt. 

An Objective Look at Star Wars - Ep. 4

So, after my talking up the original trilogy for days, and the girls thoroughly depressed at the last film, we pressed on.  The film begins at a very weird spot compared to the last ones.  The girls were really eager to find out what happens with Anakin, Obi-wan and the twins, but A New Hope started off with... C-3PO and R2-D2.  When someone watches the originals first, starting with these two makes more sense.  They have a little comic relief to them, but they also provide a helpless observer point of view for the audience to connect with in this strange universe they've just been thrust into.  We stick with them for a good fifteen minutes as information is gradually and slowly presented to the audience, then we spend another 15 minutes with Luke on Tatooine before he finally gets involved with the galactic plot.   Now, as we were coming off the prequels, we had a lot of information on the universe already, all we needed was the details of what happened in between films (revealed in the opening crawl) and then we were good to go. By the time we got to the scene of Obi-wan FINALLY explaining what The Force was and how it worked, Berri declared, rather matter of factly, "This movie is boring."  To my horror, I realized I agreed with her.  The spectacular display of special effects, and the high stakes galactic intrigue of the prequels were what they had gotten invested in, and now they were very impatient as Luke wandered around the desert waiting for things to be slowly explained to him.  

The B story of the film of Leia aboard the Death Star was of greater interest to them, as it involved the galactic plot line established from the previous films, but they were often distracted during the scenes with Vader and Leia.  The question, "Does he know that's his daughter?" came up several times, along with, "Are those clones or people?" in regard to the stormtroopers.  I didn't really have a verifiable answer to the latter.  

About halfway through the film, the two stories converged and it felt more "like a Star Wars film" again, and it held their interest until the duel between Obi-wan and Vader.  Originally, this was a magnificent scene that set the baseline for future duels as well as great drama,  Now it's been reduced to an old man fighting a cylon with a glow stick.  Kat immediately commented how "unepic" this duel was.  The scene was completely destroyed by the over-the-top the episode III duel.   Fortunately, the shock of Obi-wan's defeat remained intact. 

My final note for this film is on the battle over the Death Star.  It's the one scene that, despite the weaker special effects, outdoes similar scenes in Episode III when watched back-to-back.  Remember in the last post, I said the opening battle of III was very confusing.  The ships were unidentifiable and there was no emotional investment in either the clones or droids.  The Death Star battle literally does the exact opposite, making it the stronger scene.  The audience is clearly shown which ships are "good" versus "bad"; the pilots are actual characters with their own personalities and reactions to the battle that we care about; and there is a very clear objective that everyone is working toward.  Granted, everyone usually snickers when "the fat guy" (i.e. Pork-ins) dies, but after that, every time a pilot died, I heard an "Oh no!" or a gasp or some reaction from the girls.  They cared about what was happening to everyone and not just the central characters.  An interesting lesson that was forgotten in the prequels. 

Since this post is so long, I'll save my final thoughts for next time in order to have a complete discussion on George Lucas, Rick McCallum, and Gary Kurtz. 

An Objective Look at Star Wars - Ep. 3

It's over, Lucas has the high ground
I mentioned that my cousins had no idea why the Clone War was being fought.  There was no real buildup, no reason, or anything.  It just happened because Sidious wanted it to.  So with nothing for the audience to relate to, the battles are just a kaleidoscope of special effects and nothing more.  Which is exactly how Episode III started.  The space battle began and Berri said, "I have no idea who's fighting."  And it's true, without identification, the battle just looks like hot dogs shooting at triangles with a bunch of little ships zipping about.  Once again, I had to point out who was whom and what was trying to be achieved, and they caught on pretty quickly; then General Grievous showed up.  The questions about him continued all the way to his death: "Who is that guy, is he bad?  Why is he coughing?  Is he a robot?  Is he a dog?  Is he a robot dog?  etc."  Grievous has the unique honor of being the only villain in the films who has absolutely no back story whatsoever, and I mean none.  Maybe it's explained in the Clone Wars cartoon, but I can't bring myself to watch that and the information belongs in the film anyway.  Another who wasn't given much intro was Bail Organa, and he was a far more important character.  They also didn't seem that impressed with Chewbacca.  (They knew about him because my dad had mentioned a certain encounter I had with him at DisneyWorld, long story).  Anyway, he doesn't really do much in the movie and is thus a disappointing cameo to old and new fans alike.  It was about this time, that I think my cousins really gave up on the films' writing.  Some new creatures/special effects show up for no reason and eventually die/disappear, and they just had to roll with it.  This is unfortunate because the expectation of watching mindless action would make it harder to watch the later films.

On the flip side, they also started to get into Anakin's story.  Don't get me wrong, there was still a bit of snickers and scoffs with the dialogue, but they definitely became emotionally invested when Anakin began to turn to the dark side.  I could see them all literally on the edge of their seats during Windu's duel with Palpatine, so praise to Lucas there.  The climax was the strongest of the prequels and they noticed.  Though the dialogue was bad and they shared my outrage at Yoda taking a facefull of force lighting, they really seemed to get into it.  There was again a stunned disbelief when Obi-wan dismembered Anakin, and Berri was noticing an alarming pattern with the characters' limbs.  I would call the film's ending a success because the audience came away with the intended feeling; the bad guys have won, a hero falls from grace, but there is a glimmer of hope.  Once again, the Death Star was glazed over, no one asked about it. 

Final Thoughts
So it wasn't until this one this one that I think the series started to hook the audience, though with a rather bitter bait.  Indeed, my cousins were so heartbroken about the ending that they weren't sure they wanted to continue.  Upon learning the next film was called A New Hope, they agreed to proceed.  There was one catch that I didn't see coming, Lucas was so caught up in being as grand as possible in this film that the transition to the original trilogy was very rough indeed. 

Next...
We'll call them George, Rick, and Gary...

An Objective Look at Star Wars - Ep. 2

Episode II: Why Are They Fighting?
So, with everyone safely assured that the films would get better, we pressed on.  The opening text of this film was not encouraging and Cat asked me to pause and rewind it so she could read it again.  They were mostly confused about Amidala's sudden demotion from Queen to Senator, but also asked about Count Dooku, "Was he the guy in the cloak?"  I noticed they completely glazed over the bit about the Separatists as they had no visual to go with it and there's no real explanation for them in the text or otherwise.  Anyway, so Padme's decoy gets blown up ("That's not Keira Knightly!") and when Obi-wan and Anakin enter the scene, I heard, "Wait, who's that?"  Neither myself or Lucas bothered to tell them this film takes place ten years after its predecessor, so Hayden Christensen threw them a bit (he does that).  Surprisingly, once they got over this, they actually seemed to enjoy the dynamic between the two characters.  I guess without Alec Guiness's description to fall back on, the rebellious Anakin and the controlling Obi-wan were much funnier. Of course, once Anakin started talking to Padme, the snickering never stopped (so awkward).  Indeed, all the romantic scenes seemed to be good for were cheap laughs.  When I told them that my screenwriting professor showed me the water kissing scene as an example of terrible dialogue, they had no trouble believing it.  As for the Obi-wan mystery story, they had some trouble keeping up with the weird twists and turns.  They understood that someone was building a clone army for the Republic, but didn't connect that as a prelude to war, since the motivations for the conflict were never explained.  They also had a lot of trouble identifying the villains.  I had to point out Count Dooku to them because he's nearly unidentifiable during the meeting of the Separatist leaders.  As for Jango Fett, all they could really tell was that he was a bad guy, but his place in the grand scheme wasn't really established.  (For instance, after giving his DNA for cloning and receiving payment, there's no real reason why he sticks around).  Anyway, we get to the thrilling climax, Anakin and Padme profess their love ("Say what?") and everyone and their mother's clone shows up at the arena to fight.  Berri immediately asked, "How did this turn into a battle?"  How indeed?  As I said, there's no explanation for the Separatist movement, and as such, the battle is just a rescue mission that gets way out of hand.  Curiously, no one asked about the Death Star which was shoehorned in there, again with no explanation or foreshadowing.  Anyway, Anakin must have done something right to get the girls on his side, because when he loses his arm, there was just a stunned silence.  "Did his arm really just get cut off?" asked Cat.  Anyway, the effect lasted for a moment, then Yoda showed up and, of course, was a big hit.  Bear in mind, at this point, he was just a minor supporting character that talked funny.  His pulling out a lightsaber and going all Mexican Jumping bean was a huge surprise.  When the movie closed, there was supposed to be a sense of coming dark times as the war begun, but instead the girls were confused.  They didn't quite understand what had just happened, what the stakes were, or what was supposed to happen next.  Berri didn't understand why Anakin and Padme were getting married and the film ended with very mixed feelings.

Final Thoughts
After this one, I think it finally sank in that the films were more about special effects that anything else.  And, after a fashion, that holds true for most of the series.  As the real story arc of the prequel trilogy begins here, the girls didn't have a certain anticipation about how things were going to play out, but I think after this film, they started to turn their brains off and just watch the mindless action.  Regardless, the feeble attempt at romance and the ill directed mystery were enough to keep them interested as we proceeded onto the next film.

Next
"I don't know if I can watch anymore."

An Objective Look at Star Wars - Ep. 1

Intro
While visiting my family over Christmas, I discovered a few of my little cousins, hereby known as Cat (17), Berri (15), and Valise (11), had never ever seen a Star Wars movie.  I resolved to rectify that.  As I reached for my dad's Episode IV DVD, I remembered something Lucas had done.  The general release DVDs had the special edition on them which included material from the prequels (*cough *cough, Hayden Christensen).  I would have to show them the whole series chronologically in order for it to make the most sense.  Kicking myself for not bringing my Limited Edition Theatrical Cut DVDs, I showed them the entire series, front to back.  It was difficult working around family activities and healthy outdoor activity, but we finally finished just six hours before they were scheduled to leave.  Here's what they thought.  

Episode I: What's the Name of This One Again?
I warned them before we even started that the first three were the bad ones that we just had to get through before we got to the original trilogy, and this film proved me right very quickly.  As we watched, I was asked to pause the movie every ten minutes or so to explain what was going on.  The film failed to properly ground them in the new and exotic universe and the story seemed to simply involve the characters dashing from one action sequence to the next.  Cat noticed very quickly how ineffective the battle droids were and seemed to get bored of them fighting the Jedi.  Scenes like the bongo trip and the pod race were more interesting to them.  Surprisingly (or not) Jar Jar got very few laughs, except out of my dad.  I didn't sense that they found him annoying, they just noticed that there wasn't much to him.  One thing I did to make the screening more interesting was to tell them that "The Queen" was played by Keira Knightly and "Padme" was played by Natalie Portman, leaving them to debate who was actually on screen at any given time.  Berri wasn't fooled and when the Queen revealed herself, she declared "I told you!" to everyone who believed me.  Throughout the film, I got several questions along the lines of, "What is the Force?  What exactly do the Jedi do?  What are Hutts?  Are they bad?"  Fair questions which are completely glossed over in this film and and aren't even touched upon until the Original Trilogy.  They were forced to take the mishmash of it in stride and put the confusion to the back of their minds.  I tried not to fill in too many gaps because I wanted to see how much information the film gave.

Final Thoughts
Their journey into the Star Wars universe almost ended right after starting.  Valise declared that "Star Wars is stupid" and only agreed to keep watching when my little sister, who had seen them all, talked her into it.  Berri astutely asked why "that guy with the beard" (i.e. Qui-Gon) was in the story so much when all he did was die at the end.  Why indeed?  It's been said before, but I say it again.  This film failed on all counts.  It failed to properly introduce new viewers to Star Wars, it failed to tell a good SW story (or a good regular story for that matter), and it failed to be an effective start to the prequel trilogy.  All in all, FAIL.

Next
Awkward dialogue and a lot of "Wait, what?"