#but ill summarize the plot of this movie so that none of you out there have to watch this shit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

waywardavatarenthusiast · 3 years

Text

Azula Will Never Be Redeemed-at the hands of Bryke or the writers

It’s as simple as this. Take a look at this post. To summarize it, the writers hate Azula. But it runs deeper than that. Look at the writers whom we have evidence from. What do we notice? First of all, they’re all well into adulthood. Second of all, none of them are both POC and a female. Let’s take a look at the person who is by far the most ableist, misogynistic, entitled, and rude writer to work in that franchise. No, it’s not Bryke.

Gene Yang no longer works on the avatar comics, thankfully. But let’s take a look at his track record while he was there.

He is a huge Zuko fan. So? It’s important that the writer likes their characters. But I’ll tell you why Gene’s interpretation of Zuko is so incredibly problematic.

Zuko appears in every. single. comic. All the ones that Yang wrote. The gaang doesn’t show up in Smoke and Shadow. Toph doesn’t show up in the Search. His favorite character to use is obviously Zuko because I can’t tell you the amount of times he has unnecessarily been included in scenes.

He gave Zuko everything. If you asked Zuko what he wanted at the end of the series, it would be his mother and a relationship with his sister. Yang? He’s pulls Ursa from the ground below and gives Zuko a brand new perfect and angelic sister. But more on her later. He even gives him dragon fire which is just dumb because it doesn’t actually do anything but look cool unlike Azula’s fire. Which is why he did it, to level Zuko up with Azula.

There can(’t) be Zuko with Azula. Every single time Azula showed up in those comics was to serve Zuko’s goals literally or in terms of plot. Yang has explicitly stated that it isn't possible for Azula to find happy closure and the dynamic of Zuko and Azula was explicitly intended to be like that of a severely mentally ill person and caretaker. He exacerbated her mental illness for Zuko's narrative. The whole thing horrified me because it was like one of those movie scenes where hero says the villain can’t get away with his actions but the villain smirks and says, “I already have.”

He goes out of his way to demonize Azula. He makes Zuko have nightmares of his three year old sister and makes her seem awful for stealing food at a sleepover. He makes her kidnap children to help Azula’s agenda. Honestly, it’s just stupid writing.

Bryke

They simply don’t understand Azula. They call her a soulless crazy mess and someone commends Azula’s sympathy and complexity they take credit.

Honestly, the others are minimal and sound like antis I could find on tumblr.

So what then? Is this the end for Azula? Not quite. Avatar Studios is Azula’s last chance at canon redemption. But the only way it will happen properly is simple. Female writers, people. Several of them. Tired of watching female characters be mauled by the plot and narrative while they’re male counterparts are glorified.

#Azula #azula avatar #Azula deserved better #azula redemption arc #atla azula #azula and zuko #zuko avatar #atla zuko #atla comics #avatar the last airbender #anti bryke

129 notes · View notes

fluffymokeytalksmovies · 4 years

Text

All The Bright Places [Netflix]

*There might be some spoilers included in here*

Hello everyone. Me again. lol. It’s been a year since I last posted on here and my last post was You season 1. Now there is season 2 but I’m not posting about that (because I haven’t watched it). Let me put a bit of excuse here before I start my thoughts on the recent thing I’ve watched. This is an honest truth. I haven’t really watched anything. I keep up with most movies via Dylan Is In Trouble . But now. Today. In the present. I have just watched All The Bright Places. I’ve watched it. I sat down and watched the whole thing.

This is a novel adaptation and again, I have never read the novel version of it. I have rarely read anything and that’s sad. So, just to be clear here; this will be thoughts/ opinions/ perspective of someone who has never read the book version before. Everything will solely base on the movie (and a bit of google search).

I don’t even know how to summarize this movie. Let’s just say; two people meet and try to save one another.

The Story / The Everything About Story and Filming. (Might include some spoilers)

I feel like I need to say it again that I never read the book version. As for I can see from the film, I enjoy the storyline a lot (but there is something I feel missing and I’ll talk about that later). There ain’t any boring parts in the movie for me. As the story went on, I feel like my emotion had been intensified deeper and deeper. I can feel how my heart sank towards the end and I actually felt like that for roughly a day.

I also like the colors and cinematic thingy. The colors were so warm and soothing to me at some certain points. They actually made regular places look beautiful (which is the main point and that’s great). I mean a freaking wall looked amazing. Also, the transitions at some scenes were so smooth and cool.

The thing I hate in this adaptation is the part towards the end. If I hadn’t googled the plot summary and ending spoiler first, I wouldn’t have really understood what happened (also maybe because I’m stupid). I mean that part needed deept. I know that there are elements suggesting of what could happen but I just feel like this scene could have been made better. I feel like it was just Violet’s assumption. Considering what happened when they were at the lake together eariler, Finch could just dive in? Why did she just assume immediately like that? What I am trying to say is the scene could have been made better, deeper more delicate and more considerate.

The Cast/ Characters

Elle Fanning; I should take about Justice Smith first but we all know I’m a bias asshole and Elle is beautiful so I’ll take about Elle first. I like Elle’s eyes. I feel a lot of things through that. When she broke into a smile, oh my, I understand exactly why Finch had to write down ‘she smiled at me’ thing. I would do that too. I think she delivered such a great performance. I feel with her; sadness, happiness, frustration. what a freaking strong character.

Now, Justice. It’s a freaking difficult role. Almost everyting that happened to Finch is internalized. Also, he had been trying to hide it. It’s just hard to portray that out for us to see. But I think he had done his part as perfect as he could. I can feel the huge diffeneces of emotions happening to him. When he is on the positive notes, I can still feel that he is hiding something. His happiness covers it but it’s not entirely. It’s a superb performance. I can perceive how Finch was trying so hard.

Putting Elle and Justice together is a good call. They have chemistry. So good.

overall, I like the movie version. It stuck with me for a day or two. I like the movie that stuck with me. I mean this is real life, isn’t it? Sometimes love can’t save us and sometimes with a heart full of love, you still feel empty. I’m not romanticized mental illness and none of us should. It’s a real struggle that should not be overlooked.

This movie might be triggered so please be advised if you want to watch it. It is not a typical teenage love story.

I’ll try to post more. Also I’m thinking about moving this blog somewhere else but probably still keep posting here as well. If you have any suggestiongs of where I can do this type of blog, please feel free to let me know.

Photo credit : Wikipedia.

#all the bright places #netflix #elle fanning #justice smith #violet markey #theodore finch #fluffymonkeytalksmovies #fluffytalksmovies #Thoughts #opinions

6 notes · View notes

thesydneyfeminists · 6 years

Text

The Crimes of JK Rowling

CW: racism, homophobia, mentions of abuse and drugs.

The cool thing about growing up and expanding your world view is that you eventually see your childhood heroes for what they are. Flawed humans (and maybe, just plain assholes). First Joss Whedon and now JK Rowling. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe.

I loved the Harry Potter series (the original seven books, I refuse to accept any of the latest garbage she’s put out/had her name attached to – within the HP universe) and I still count Prisoner of Azkaban as one of my favourite books, but even fondness and nostalgia can’t shield JK Rowling from some of the problems with the world she has created, the way she explains/defends it, and her quarter assed (not even half) and damaging attempts to rectify that now in 2018.

Note: Simply for length reasons, these are all related to the Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts franchises.

Crime One: Racism

It’s no great secret that there are very few characters of colour in the Harry Potter universe. Apparently, while it’s plausible that there’s a whole (not so) secret world of magic, it’s just too unbelievable for there to be many witches or wizards of colour. Before you come at me with “but Vee, mudbloods and Voldemort only wanting pureblood wizards is a metaphor for racism!” you can stop that right now. Because you know what’s also a great metaphor for racism? Actual racism. How about how people of colour are literally discriminated against every single day. They get passed over for jobs, they’re spat at in the streets, they’re being killed by police. Metaphors for racism? Not good enough.

I’m in the camp that think white writers shouldn’t write their main character as anything other than white, for a whole host of reasons, but if I had to summarize it, I think stories of colour should be told by authors of colour, we should be opening the doors for more authors of colour, we should listen to their voices, their stories, their experiences. I think white authors can’t know the exact nuances of what it’s like to be a person of colour, how the world treats us, the experience of living in diaspora, the disconnect between first gen, second gen and third gen family members, and so much more. It’s something that sure, you can read about it, you can do your research, but you’ll never quite understand it unless you’ve lived it. All of that being said, I do believe that white authors can include characters of colour in a meaningful way, that is, not for decoration, not as a handy plot device to move your story along, and not as a harmful, disgusting stereotype. But let’s stop for a second and count the number of background characters of colour that have been more or less confirmed (note that Hermione could easily be coded black, the only hint we get is in PoA, she’s described as “very brown”, but it’s not until the older Hermione was cast with a black actress in The Cursed Child did JK pop up and say “of course she could be black!”). So, we have Lee Jordan (maybe unfairly assumed, as he’s only described as having dreadlocks but he was cast with a POC), Dean Thomas (who was very good at drawing – also maybe unfairly listed, was cast with a POC), Parvati and Padma Patil (possibly unfairly listed, described as having long black hair, and cast with POC), Cho Chang (quickly, can I point out that a character of Asian descent being sorted into Ravenclaw the “smart house” plays into so many racist stereotypes that I can barely breathe), Kingsley Shacklebolt, Blaise Zambini. And then, well, there’s Nagini.

Tweet reads: “The Naga are snake-like mythical creatures of Indonesian mythology, hence the name ‘Nagini.’ They are sometimes depicted as winged, sometimes as half-human, half-snake. Indonesia comprises a few hundred ethnic groups, including Javanese, Chinese and Betawi. Have a lovely day.”

About a week ago, the trailer for Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes of Grindelwald was dropped to mixed reactions. The trailer revealed a snippet that reveals that Voldemort’s pet snake was once a shapeshifting woman, cursed to become trapped in a snake’s body. An Asian shapeshifting woman. Reduced to becoming (a white supremacist but metaphorically) a white man’s pet. Cool. Naturally, there was some backlash about this turn of events, and so JK tried to tweet out the reasoning and explanation (while also saying she’d been keeping this racist secret for 20 years) that obviously Nagini had to be an Asian woman because it was based on a creature from Indonesian mythology, and that Indonesia comprised a “few hundred ethnic groups, including Javanese, Chinese and Betawi”. Cool, JK, but the actress cast is Korean, and you saying all of this kind of reinforces the idea that all Asian ethnicities are interchangeable. Let’s not even get into a white woman explaining Indonesian mythology or ethnicity, or the fact that it’s also an Indian mythology, the Naga. I don’t want to split hairs here, there are other examples of mythology that are similar but have key differences across other cultures (the kitsune/kumiho/huli jing fox spirit, for one). So it’s possible she only read up on the Indonesian myth and took her inspiration from there. But the way she “explained” the debacle sits uneasily with me. She brushes over any concerns that come from people of colour – valid concerns and questions, and instead chooses to ignore the real issue, which is that by playing into the harmful stereotype that Asian women are subservient, and that all of the different Asian ethnicities are interchangeable, she does more harm than good for inclusivity and that she is doing it for show. She doesn’t give a shit if her work includes characters of colour, and if it does, she doesn’t give a shit that they’re shitty stereotypes, 2D characters that are nothing more than the colour of their skin, just there to boost the POC count in her works.

Thinly veiled racism? Guilty.

Crime Two: Poor Handling of LGBT+ Issues/People

Back in 2007, speaking to a crowd of fans at an event at Carnegie Hall, JK Rowling revealed that she “always thought of Dumbledore as gay” to wild applause. Finally, a canon character was more or less confirmed as LGBT+ (sorry to the Dracarry shippers, that still just lives in our hearts). Great, right? Except, why did she wait until the book series was completed to come out with this revelation? Why didn’t she include it in the books? Sure, you might say “well, Vee, it’s a kids book, you’re expecting far too much” except it’s not a “kids book”, it’s always very clearly been in the young adult category (certainly after the third book, at least) and readership has always been split between adults and younger people. The series came out when I was a teenager, finishing when I was 21, and I definitely would have appreciated some LGBT+ representation in a book that meant so much to so many people. I’m not saying she needed to include a sex scene in there (she could’ve faded to black, like Stephenie Meyer did in Breaking Dawn) but to go back and retcon that Dumbledore was gay and that she’d always thought that, for it to ring true, she needed to leave us hints in the original series. She “always thought of Dumbledore as gay” but “didn’t feel the need to spell it out”. Maybe she didn’t see the point of it, maybe she didn’t want to spoil her “big reveal” (note that some fans had always suspected that Dumbledore had been in love with Grindelwald), but by not mentioning it until after the fact? It comes off as lazy, or as wanting to appeal to the LGBT+ community, by trying to earn an ally card by doing very little at all.

Tweet reads: “I was asked whether Lupin’s treatment by others could be seen as a metaphor for (then) stigmatised conditions. I agreed that it could. 2/4” J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling)

Then there’s the Lupin issue. Supposedly, at some point in 1999, JK was asked whether or not Lupin’s “condition could be seen as a metaphor for (then) stigmatised conditions” and she said it could. Basically, lycanthropy is meant to be a metaphor for HIV/AIDS in the HP universe. In Short Stories From Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship, and Dangerous Hobbies (released 2016, mind you), JK writes “Lupin’s condition of lycanthropy was a metaphor for those illnesses that carry a stigma, like HIV and AIDS. All kinds of superstitions seem to surround blood-borne conditions, probably due to taboos surrounding blood itself. The wizarding community is as prone to hysteria and prejudice as the Muggle one, and the character of Lupin gave me a chance to examine those attitudes”. Maybe she had the best intentions in mind when she came up with that idea, and true enough, blood and blood purity does matter to an extent in the wizarding world, but something about it feels hollow and gross. I’d like to note here that we only meet three werewolves in the series (Lupin, Greyback and an unnamed man who was bitten) and none of them were female. Take that how you will, but a few fans came to the conclusion that her “metaphor for HIV/AIDS” also includes the harmful stereotype that gay men were going out and maliciously infecting over men with HIV.

Retconning the source material to make herself seem LGBT+ inclusive but handling it terribly? Guilty.

Crime Three: White Feminism

Maybe this crime really explains the others. It explains her support of the decision to cast Johnny Depp in the Fantastic Beasts film series. Yep, Johnny Depp, you know, the guy who physically abused (then-wife) Amber Heard. Sure, he’d been cast before we knew about that. He’d appeared, for five whole minutes in the end of the first Fantastic Beasts film, so he’d already signed on. Surely, he couldn’t be fired when his contract was signed. Except, we’ve seen examples of men accused of abuse being let go from their jobs (not often, but it happens sometimes). Kevin Spacey, for one. So, why couldn’t Grindelwald be recast? Especially after a five minute cameo at the end of a movie? JK Rowling released a statement where she acknowledges that around the time of filming the first movie in the new franchise, stories involving Depp’s abuse of Heard started to appear in the press, and “based on our understanding of the circumstances, the filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies.” Comfortable and genuinely happy to have a known abuser affiliated with your work, based on our understanding of the circumstances, the circumstances being that Depp physically abused Amber Heard, who provided photo and video evidence. Even Daniel Radcliffe has spoken out about the decision to let Depp remain on cast, given the decision to fire a lesser known actor (Jamie Waylett) from HP: Deathly Hallows pt 2 after his arrest for growing 10 marijuana plants (he was later arrested for a more serious crime, but that was well after his firing from Harry Potter). DanRad mentioned how he was, of course, thankful for the opportunities provided to him from being cast as Harry Potter, but that “I suppose the thing I was struck by was, we did have a guy who was reprimanded for weed on the (original Potter) film, essentially, so obviously what Johnny has been accused of is much greater than that.”

Tweet reads: “Just unfollowed a man whom I thought was smart and funny, because he called Theresa May a whore. 1/14” J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling)

Of course, supporting the casting of an abusive man doesn’t make her a white feminist, nor does tweeting about unfollowing a man for calling Theresa May a whore. What does, in my honest opinion, is her handling of any criticism she receives, and the bullshit way in which she tries to earn her ally card, but only when it suits her. If all of this mattered so much, she would’ve included it the first time around. Retconning her source material in an effort to appear more diverse isn’t true diversity. It’s literally a made up world, she could’ve made it more diverse from the start. She needed to explicitly state things, because marginalised groups need to see representation. Good, strong, representation. Not weak and harmful versions. By being properly inclusive in her material, as a middle class white woman, she could’ve set an example of how things should be. If she’d spoken to any marginalised group, heard their stories, about their lives, gained an insight in how to write about them, her POC, LGBTQIA+, lower class, etc audiences would’ve come away with the message that she cared and wanted them included in her stories. In her world.

The bottom line is, JK Rowling does not care enough to follow through, and well, when you’ve made as much money as she has, why should she? She bangs on about how truly diverse the wizarding world was and gives examples to back it up, but she does so way too late, and without any real proof, just her word. Sure, she created this universe, maybe she did believe Dumbledore was gay, or Hermione could be black, but she needed to say it back then, not ten years later when people are critical of the cis-het white world she’d created. She rants about men immediately calling women names when they disagree with them, prides herself on blocking and unfollowing these men, but when called out about supporting the casting of a known abuser? She suddenly no longer cares about supporting another woman. One who was arguably, treated a little worse than just name calling. Her idea of feminism is clouded by her life experience, which would be fine if she took the time to listen to the people around her, from different backgrounds, and try to understand why they feel what she says and does is offensive, clumsy, and lazy. But when her opinion and her views challenged, she comes out swinging, blocking people, throwing around statements like “Dumbledore is gay!” or “Hermione is black!” as a clumsy attempt to appease the very people she does not give a shit about. The solution is laughably simple, all she would have to do is just listen to marginalised voices. Hear their stories and educate herself. And if she truly wanted to be a true intersectional feminist, she would do it. Understanding her privilege would cost her nothing. In fact, it would garner her more respect, something she’s lost a lot of in the last few years.

Just say you don’t care, JK, it’s more honest. Guilty, guilty, guilty.

By: Vee H

Sources:

Twitter

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/09/08/jk-rowling-reveals-remus-lupins-werewolf-condition-metaphor-for-hiv/

https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/grindelwald-casting/

https://ew.com/movies/2018/01/12/daniel-radcliffe-johnny-depp-fantastic-beasts/

#jk rowling #Harry Potter #Fantastic beasts #feminist review #feminist #Nagini #racism #white feminism #JK rowling's racism

31 notes · View notes

theradioghost · 6 years

Text

hey my dudes. I know a lot of you followed me for things like TAZ, or, back in the day, Undertale. I know lots of you like movies like Thor: Ragnarok and Pacific Rim and Mad Max: Fury Road. So u know I’m a big fan of media that’s going to deliver color and humor and good writing and defy genre expectations and make me feel a little better about the world I live in and the people I share it with. Consequently, im gonna talk for a minute about Pushing Daisies.

if you’re not familiar with Pushing Daisies, I’d summarize the plot like this:

As a boy, Ned discovers that he has the power to bring the dead back to life. This power comes with two caveats: if he touches them again, they are dead forever; and if he leaves a dead thing alive for more than one minute, something else nearby will die. As an adult and the proprietor of a pie shop, Ned makes spare cash on the side through a bargain with the only person to know his secret, a private eye who has him ask the dead who killed them to collect rewards. It’s through this arrangement that Ned discovers that Charlotte “Chuck” Charles, his childhood love whose father he accidentally killed in the accident where he discovered the consequences of his powers, has been murdered.

The result is almost impossible to categorize. Pushing Daisies is a murder mystery show. It’s a comedy. It’s a fairy tale. It’s a love story. It’s the best goddamn piece of television I’ve ever seen.

First off, it’s by Bryan Fuller. Yes, that Bryan Fuller, who somehow turned viscerally horrifying gore into visual art in Hannibal. Pushing Daisies has the same amazing cinematography, but in vivid colors and whimsical designs. Looking at this show feels like eating candy, I fucking love it.

The whole thing is narrated by none other than Jim Dale, with the dry humor and warmth that makes the whole thing feel like a fairy tale. It’s a world of knitting detectives, candy-shop entrepreneurs, windmill keepers, friends-for-hire, reclusive beekeepers, and competitive synchronized mermaid swimmers, and all of them are out to murder each other brutally, and yet somehow those two things never clash. There are puns. There are absurdly named businesses and characters. It’s got the whole shebang.

The characters are just as good as the world, and just like it, they have a lot of hidden depths. There are some genuinely traumatized people in this cast, dealing with heartbreak, abandonment, isolation, abuse, past mistakes, mental illness. The show treats all of that seriously and sensitively without ever becoming grim or dark. Olive Snook is madly in unrequited love with Ned, but her feelings aren’t a joke, and she’s more than that. Chuck’s agoraphobic aunts Vivian and Lily have a compelling storyline all their own about secrets and loss and mental illness. Ned deals with losing his mother, with being abandoned by his father, with a lifetime of guilt and secrets; Chuck is trying to find a way to make up for a first life spent in isolation and unfulfillment. Emerson Cod, PI, is tough, witty, and primarily motivated by money; he also knits when he’s stressed and discovers a passion for designing pop-up books midway through the show. But all of them are funny, all of them are endearing, and above all, all of them are healing. (And if you’re into that found family shit, this is the good stuff, guys.)

The show’s main focus is on Ned and Chuck’s relationship, and honestly the fact that this romance existed in 2007 just eliminates any excuse for the general inability of TV writers to make me care about straight couples. There’s no will-they-won’t-they; it’s pretty obvious from episode one that Ned and Chuck are an item instantly, and they genuinely love one another. What provides the narrative tension is the two of them working through their problems, absurd as they might be: abandonment issues, accidentally murdering someone’s dad, having to hide your identity because you’re legally dead, never being able to touch the person you love most. It’s about both of them working to become better people because they are the most important people in each other’s lives. And it’s so healthy, yall. They talk about things. There’s a whole bit where they talk about space and Chuck decides to move out of their apartment to try independence for the first time and just, in general, everything these two do makes me melt. You will be emotional about plastic wrap, guys. You will cry about gloves.

And what you get is a show about love, and friendship, and family, and healing, about life and death and what they are and why they matter. Above all, it’s kind, and it treats the dark things in the world with hope. Time after time, it’s the thing I come back to to laugh, to feel good, to watch something colorful and joyful and fun. Do yourself a favor and go watch both seasons right now.

#my posts #pushing daisies #long post #LONG ASS POST YEAH sorry.#i just love this show so much you guys.#plastic wrap kisses #bobbie recommends things

65 notes · View notes

xboxmovieguy · 6 years

Text

What happened to The Last Jedi?

Okay so I know that people have said a lot about this film and most of it is very over the top and melodramatic like this movie made them feel physically ill or that this is the most egregious thing they’ve ever seen. I’m aware many of the over the top sound bites that have been collected have been from Star Wars fans that have just left the theater and are probably pissed that the movie they were waiting for sucked, but really it is just a movie remember that. For those people that think that’s me not respecting the material or not being a Star Wars fan and understanding their plight, I have seen all the films and I am familiar with the lore and plot of Star Wars, but I treat it like I do any other form of entertainment, if I don’t like it I just ignore it and focus on things I do like, for instance the original trilogy of Star Wars films, along with Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One. In saying all that The Last Jedi is a terrible film for many reasons, but the funny thing is almost none of those reasons are reliant on it being a Star Wars movie. Sometimes a movie is just bad because things during its production were done poorly. This is a different argument than my previous one for why I didn’t care for The Force Awakens. That film was bad because it ripped off whole plot lines from A New Hope and because it ignored the lore of Star Wars for the sake of having an ending where the good character beat the bad character despite everything saying they shouldn’t. The Force Awakens is a bad Star Wars movie, but The Last Jedi is just a bad movie. Lets break it down bit by bit and see exactly what I’m getting at here. Lets start with writing, something that if done correctly can truly make a films great and if done poorly like in The Last Jedi can make the scenes unnecessarily funny or cringe worthy. This lack of writing skill is most evident with the plot of the film, there are many plot threads that literally go nowhere. Now there will be SPOILERS for the film here so if you don’t want to know what happens then stop reading. So at the very beginning of the movie Finn who has recovered from his lightsaber wound and a new character named Rose leave the Resistance flotilla that is under attack by the First Order to find a hacker to help them break into Supreme Leader Snoke’s flagship and shut down a device they are using to track the Resistance through hyperspace. This plot line which takes up probably half an hour of screen time leads to Finn and Rose getting caught on board the flag ship and trying to disable the tracking device is never brought up again. A second plot line revolves around Poe the ace Resistance X-Wing pilot from the previous film. After many of the Resistance leadership are killed during an attack on the bridge of the command ship except princess Leia who is badly injured, and unconscious but alive. This puts Admiral Holdo in charge of the fleet. Holdo refuses to explain any of her command orders to her senior staff and even when faced with being held at gunpoint refuses to explain her plan. This leads to Poe starting a mutiny that ultimately leads to him being knocked out by Leia as he attempts to take command of the ship from the bridge. It is only then that it is revealed that Holdo was bringing the ship to an old Rebel base that only herself and Leia knew about from the Galactic Civil war thirty years prior. This entire thread was completely useless and the film painting Holdo as an incompetent and hopeless leader even more confusing. Honestly it seems more likely that the writers were trying to think of some way to use Poe and they created this plot line for him to pad the movies run time and give him something to do so fans wouldn’t forget about him. There are other stunted plot lines that are a result of character deaths like Supreme Leader Snoke. To be honest I actually liked the death scene and felt it was an original way to kill off a character, but the problem is that Snoke was set up as this big mysterious character in the previous movie and they do nothing here to explain where he came from or how he has risen to the seat of power that he has? Another strange character death is Captain Phasma, who is presumably killed when she falls into a flaming pit after an anticlimactic battle with Finn. She’s almost like the Boba Fett of this series where she looks really cool and everyone seems to acknowledge how bad ass she is, but ultimately she doesn’t do much and winds up dead without much of a hint at who she is and why she’s there. Some of the dialogue is also quite cringe worthy, especially from the new character Rose, a great example is her calling Benicio Del Toro’s character a “lying snake” after he betrays them to the First Order. The romance and I use the term romance in the loosest form possible here, between her and Finn is by far the most forced thing in the entire film and really just seems to take the audiences attention away from the main plot following Leia, Luke, and Rey. Now outside of the writing there was a particular cinematography choice that really bugged me and that was the handling of the scenes where Kylo Ren and Rey are speaking to each other over some sort of mental link using the force. During these scenes the camera only shows one character or the other in the locations they are at. For instance the scene starts with Rey on the planet training with Luke and then the camera switches to Kylo on board Snoke’s ship and switches between the two depending on who’s talking, but despite the fact they mention they can see each other in their own environments Rain Johnson decided to make it so we don’t see them both in the same location until the last shot where they touch hands. It mainly bothers me because this seems kind of strange when you could show Rey on the ship talking with Kylo and then change and show Kylo talking with Rey on the planet, the way they did it just feels sort of cheap to me. Another strange plot line that was sort of explained was the thread from the last movie about who Rey’s parents were. Kylo explains to Rey that her parents were nobodies and sold her on Jakku for “booze money”, so the only question I have is why even bother with the plot line if her parents were really nobodies, it would have been easier to just say she was an orphan and make her parents just a foot note without taking the audience for a one and a half movie ride just to tell them that. Then we reach the acting in this film, most of the actors do their roles fine, but there are two that stand out to me. First is Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, he doesn’t really act so much as just says all of his lines like he’s angry or constipated or a mixture of the two, either way he just seems very uncomfortable throughout the entire film. The other culprit is Kelly Marie Tran as Rose, she can not deliver a good line in this film without coming off as annoying or naive, I mean there are lines about her feeling sorry for giant horse rabbits, while presumably her friends are being blown to bits by the First Order. Then at the end she may steal the only meaningful character death in the entire film by saving Finn’s life while he;s attempting to make a heroic sacrifice to save the remaining Resistance forces from being exposed by a giant laser cannon blowing a hole in their base. Rose knocks his ship out of the way while he’s trying to ram his sand speeder into the mouth of the weapon and says that they’ll win by saving each other, but wasn’t that what he was trying to do save everyone else by just sacrificing himself? Anyway her character and her plot line are useless to the overall plot of the film and does nothing to develop the character of Finn other than to give him something to do. I’m not even going to mention the whole Leia using the force part of the film or Yoda’s force ghost summoning a bolt of lightning, but both of those instances were a bit out of left field for me. There’s also the problem that Leia survived the movie which makes no sense considering Carrie Fisher passed away earlier this year meaning now they have to kill her character off in between movies. One other thing that I’ve seen that hasn’t been addressed was if the middle of this movie was cut and re-shot. People have pointed out behind the scenes photo’s of Daisy Ridley as Rey fighting at night with a lightsaber on the island where she trains with Luke, but that was never in the film. Along with supposed scenes involving Rey battling a sea monster and talking to Anakin Skywalkers force ghost (Reports also said that Hayden Christensen the actor who played older Anakin in the prequels was on set at some point) it appears that many of these scenes were either cut out or edited and replaced with other scenes. Of course right now most of this has been taken from fan speculation and theories on why the movie seems to have such a messy plot line. So to summarize The Last Jedi is a complete mess of plot holes and stunted or just wasted storylines that just go towards padding the movies run time. So what did you think of The Last Jedi and do you have any faith towards Episode IX?

0 notes