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Why the difference in opinion between critics and fans on TLJ


The Choc
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Ive never bet on sports in my life.

 

And again Im not saying I believe it, but it wouldnt surprise me if they went to extremely unethical methods to sway the critics once they realized what a turd TLJ was.

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Ive never bet on sports in my life.

 

And again Im not saying I believe it, but it wouldnt surprise me if they went to extremely unethical methods to sway the critics once they realized what a turd TLJ was.

So your thought process is Disney had seen the finished product of TLJ and decided they needed to bribe critics. Despite the fact that they hired Johnson to make another trilogy that will constitute another 700+ mil investment when you factor in production and promotion?

 

"We know this movie sucks so we better bribe some critics, while we are at it let's hire the guy who made this movie we know sucks for another 3 movies and give him hundreds of millions of dollars to do it."

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Well we’ll see how he does. Personally I think TLJ jumped the shark, and even though Solo appears to be a decent rental it tanked because of lingering TLJ disappointment.

 

I’ll be surprised if SW can recover. If Ep 9 underperforms Johnson’s trilogy likely will, too.

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There's pay or play PR between studios and press for pretty much every movie that gets a major release. That's not news. But Solo is the proof. If they had the power to change the narrative for TLJ they would have done it for Solo.

 

I get the attitude, to this day I cannot fathom how anyone could watch more than 30 seconds of any PT film and think it's any good.

 

I'd also like to add that comparing press-critics from the OT era to now is laughable. Back then movie critics were people who had an education, journalistic credibility, and/or an ounce of unbiased thought.

 

80% of movie critics today are nerds with their own blogs. And pretty much all of them have personal opinions about Star Wars.

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Critics probably aren't hard core SW fans. Therein lies the disconnect.

I understand that, I'm asking what they are seeing different in the movies.

Doesn't sound like you understand it but it's simple. A hard core fan is going to be more disappointed by:

 

Unresolved mysteries from TFA being laughed off in TLJ.

 

 

I think this is what I did not like, and to me, it highlights the massive disconnect between the movies and lack of a cohesive vision for the movies so far. I still would like to see Episode IX to see how they wrap it up. However, in regards to TFA and TLJ:

TFA: Who is Snoke? TLJ: Who cares? He's dead.

TFA: The Luke Skywalker lightsaber story is for another time. TLJ: Who cares? It's split in half now.

TFA: Mystery of Rey. Who is she? Why did her parents leave her? TLJ: Her parents were drunkards who sold her for beer money.

TFA: Where was Luke all this time? TLJ: He chickened out and did not want anyone to find him.

 

Furthermore, if Luke was really running away to end the Jedi, he didn't bother to tell anyone? Not tell Leia or Han? "Hey, don't come looking for me." Just he's up and gone?

 

It is like posters have said either in this thread or the other one, it is just like people doing improv.

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I just think it is odd to think that Disney did super sketchy things to get good reviews when it is not that uncommon at all for critics to either love a movie and general audiences don't like it and vice versa. Combine that with the general perfect-or-trash mentality of posting user reviews on websites and the extremes found in fandom I don't think we really have anything particularly crazy here. I'm not denying that it is a divisive movie—it clearly is—but it is a very well studied issue with self-submitted, user generated scores that people typically primarily rate something if they either are super supportive of it or against it. It is so well known that it is covered within the first two lectures of any even decent introductory statistics class. TLJ even came up this past semester when a student noted that what I was describing about internet user ratings is almost exactly what we see happening with TLJ. This issue with voluntary response sampling, as it is known, is why any reputable reports of these ratings should state clearly that they are either for entertainment purposes only or are not scientific surveys.

 

Combine that with the extremes of fandom and you often get rating distribution like what we see on IMDB for TLJ. The presence of so many 0 ratings that don't fit with the overall pattern of ratings denotes them as clear outliers. IF this data set were to be modeled statistically, it would be done using a mixture model. One option is a zero-inflated model, indicating that there is a mixture of two signals present: one signal is pissed off fans responding unreasonably to the movie by scoring it as a 0 and the other signal corresponding to the responding general public's rating. Another option would be to have one variable that follows a scaled Bernoulli distribution for fans to rate the movie as either 0 or 10 to take care of the extremes of fandom and again a second model that would describe the rest of the responding population. In general, I would prefer to use the second model type to account for extra 10s, but I am not so sure that would be necessary here. In either case, though, we would be able to get pretty good estimates of both underlying distributions that would allow us to essentially separate the nonsensical ratings from the rest of them using standard techniques, such as the EM algorithm.

 

Even aside from the more advanced statistical modeling aspects, looking at the user ratings on IMDB goes against the narrative people try to push about the movie being either completely loved or hated. Rather, it is clear that among the people who care enough to rate movies on IMDB that there is on segment of this group who hates it with a passion and that most other people tend to view it as a pretty good, but not great, movie.

 

Is that distribution different than what we get if we look at critic reviews? Compared to Metacritic's unhelpful graph, it seems so. However, if we plotted the actual scores as a histogram with scores rounded to the nearest 10s place, we'd get a figure that isn't that dissimilar to what we get with the IMDB ratings. The primary differences in overall pattern are that the critics have an inflated number of perfect scores and the user scores have an inflated number of 0s with slightly longer lower tail.

 

What does this say? Nothing definitive, of course, but if we use the admittedly problematic data available online through the rating sites, we can see that this data doesn't seem to agree with the narrative that has developed within fandom about the movie's reception.

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TFA: Where was Luke all this time? TLJ: He chickened out and did not want anyone to find him.

 

Furthermore, if Luke was really running away to end the Jedi, he didn't bother to tell anyone? Not tell Leia or Han? "Hey, don't come looking for me." Just he's up and gone?

 

It is like posters have said either in this thread or the other one, it is just like people doing improv.

 

This was established in TFA, not TLJ. Luke chickened out and f**ked off. TLJ just tried to give a legitimate reason as to why he did. People like to bitch at how Luke turned out, but the blame is squared on the wrong film.

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TFA: Where was Luke all this time? TLJ: He chickened out and did not want anyone to find him.

 

Furthermore, if Luke was really running away to end the Jedi, he didn't bother to tell anyone? Not tell Leia or Han? "Hey, don't come looking for me." Just he's up and gone?

 

It is like posters have said either in this thread or the other one, it is just like people doing improv.

 

This was established in TFA, not TLJ. Luke chickened out and f**ked off. TLJ just tried to give a legitimate reason as to why he did. People like to bitch at how Luke turned out, but the blame is squared on the wrong film.

 

In TFA, Han said that Luke was training new Jedi and one Jedi (Kylo Ren) turned against them. Then, Luke felt responsible and vanished. Han also said people who knew him best think he went looking for the first Jedi temple. Was there any other mention of Luke's motivation in TFA?

 

If not, I find it frustrating that Luke Skywalker would feel responsible and then just up and vanish leaving everyone else to deal with the problem he created. I could understand him drawing his lightsaber on Kylo Ren in that flashback scence. Luke has had moments of weakness before (Dagobah, Death Star II) but ultimately makes the right choice. I just don't know why he would run away without trying to fix this problem given:

1. He trained Kylo Ren, and Han said Luke felt responsible.

2. Kylo Ren was Leia and Han's son. He does not care enough about Leia and Han that he would at least try to bring their son back from the Dark Side?

 

It's just like Luke is saying, "Whoops!! My bad." and then just ducks out of sight when no one is looking.

 

Also, if he really wants to end the Jedi order, how come he hasn't destroyed the Jedi books already? He has had plenty of time on that island.

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It’s both. He went there, like Han said, looking for the first temple, to find guidance or answers. When he didn’t, he decided he, and the Jedi were doing more harm than good and either gave up, or removed himself from the equation, depending on your POV.

 

Narratively speaking, this is not a mistake. People try to disassemble TLJ by painting this as a mistake or out of character. But there is no story or character arc for somebody if they’ve already achieved their goal. The thing that most people don’t care about, and this is why the EU never appealed to me, is that Star Wars characters are myhtic. They aren’t like Indy, or Kirk, or Bond, where you can just say AND HERE’S ANOTHER ADVENTURE THEY HAD. Mythic characters are designed to tell stories with finality to some extent, and Luke was written to hit the end of ROTJ the way he did. Beyond that point, there’s very little to do with the character.

 

People like to say NOT MY LUKE and feels as though his portrayal is TLJ is out of character. It is, but it’s literally the only way you could tell a new story with him— you’d have to break the DNA. Otherwise, there’s nothing new to do with him.

 

If TLJ had started with Luke being the hero he is in the last 10 minutes of the movie you’d only have one place to go with him— kill him... which is why he dies after he makes that character turn.

 

TLJ’s mistake wasn’t the broken Luke narrative. TLJ’s mistake was either using Luke at all (this is exactly why he wasn’t in TFA), or not reaching that pivot point sooner. If broken luke had lasted maybe one act, at most the first half of the movie, and then became uber-Luke, I don’t think as many people would be mad. There’s a reason Obi-Wan peaces out of ANH well before the end.

 

Could they have found a middle ground where Luke is still a hero but not all powerful and more like he was in ROTJ? Yes, absolutely, and I am sure most people would have liked that... but it wouldn’t have rang true to the mythic building blocks of the OT. I think Rian Johnson was right to do what he did to Luke. His mistake was he only had an hour worth of story and he stretched it out with endless filler and zero evolution. TLJ is a structural mess that plays out the same 3 plot beats for it’s entire second act. Changing the DNA of Luke’s character was the one thing Johnson did right. He just played it for an entire movie, which is something no one wanted to see. Also, giving a character a turning point like that is generally reserved for the lead chracter. This is why Luke and Rey both levelling up at the same time doesn’t work, it feels like a double beat and we don’t know that Rey has earned it fully. Johnson forgot whose story he was telling.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Sorry Tank, while you have a well thought-out and well-written response, I really disagree with some of what you said, there. I want to say that I really do respect your opinion, and find your posts interesting, so this is not intended to be critical of you or say you are "wrong." Even when I disagree with your posts (rare, but it does happen), I do respect your opinion. But on this topic, I really think you are putting the emphasis on the wrong thing, here.

 

The real issue is that a large amount of people did NOT like TLJ, or how Luke was portrayed. I may be in the minority on THIS board, but I don't think I am alone in how I feel about Luke or TLJ. I fbelieve that people with similar points of view as I have about TLJ and how Luke was written are often mis-characterized as extremists or fan-babies. That is unfair and dismissive and I think it's grossly untrue. I don't feel I am extremist in my opinions, nor am I a rabid fan. I am just some guy who thinks TLJ was a terrible movie, and is very frustrated with Star Wars right now, perhaps not all that different about how you feel about the PT. Just because I am personally upset by TLJ doesn't make me an extremist or crazy fan.

 

I would like to also say that I recognize that you are speaking from the industry side, and I know someone like you is going to disagree with someone like me, but I hope to try to make you understand where I am coming from. I totally understand that the ST movies couldn't (and should't have) simply have adapted old EU novels, and maybe Luke's story and characterization should have been very different than how we knew him in the OT. But you know what, essentially RJ did adapt the EU story (in part and intentional or not) where Luke exiles himself after a student/nephew goes to the dark side. I don't care if you are talking EU or the movies, a LOT of people didn't really wants to see Luke like that. I don't buy the argument that Luke's sole purpose was to redeem Vader, and his story was done, so NOW we have to deconstruct Luke's character, and literally destroy everything that made him so awesome in the OT, just for the sake of doing something different, because we can't do anything else with Luke.

 

I remember "The ADVENTURES (plural) of Luke Skywalker" (and everything that inspired me to imagine)...meaning he had many adventures, so why CAN'T he be like Indy in that regard? I don't buy the idea that there was no where else the character could go, so the writers have to "break his DNA" and write him as a broken down hermit who wants to just die and run away from the universe. Luke didn't need to have ridiculous Goku-like power levels we saw in the EU novels, but making him nothing special is equally bad, and considering he is Anakin's son, doesn't even make sense narratively, nor does it jibe with what fans have come to expect for how Luke ought to be written. Luke at an Obi Wan or Yoda power level is about right (which was the one thing RJ at least DID get right about Luke), but his heroic nature was totally squandered. If you want to change Luke's character, or show he evolved (or devolved), then fine, but RJ did not execute that story very well.

 

Another thing I do not get is this idea of blaming the fans for not liking what was given to us. When nearly 50% of fans don't like the direction of Luke's arc, you can't just call those fans fringe and say that its their problem. When it is that many people, then it is intellectually dishonest to write the opinion off that it is just some extreme fan problem. When you have that many people saying that they don't like something, it is NOT the fans' fault. There is something more deeply wrong with the movie and its writing, there.

 

What I resent is people characterizing those who think the Luke we got from TLJ are crazy uber fans who should just need get over it and STFU. This is a character who has been around for 40 years, and with that, goes a responsibility to handle that character in a way people would like to see, not what is convenient, or what is trendy writing because "art demands no explanation," or some other nonsense.

 

It would be one thing if Lucas himself wrote Luke like the one we received in TLJ. I don't think it would have been popular, but I think it would have been easier to accept because we could say "well, that is how the man who created the character intended for him to turn out." But we didn't get that from Lucas. We got it from a guy who, in my mind anyway, wasn't ready for writing for a property like Star Wars. Add to the fact RJ has been on record saying he actually thinks it is desirable for half the audience to like his stuff, and the other half to hate it. What kind of twisted logic is that? People are right to question and criticize the direction RJ took Luke's arc in.

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They could have subverted the Luke character by making his relationship to the force not what we expected, rather than have him be Mr. Depressed and Suicidal.

 

Its alluded to in TLJ that Luke has flirted with the Dark Side in the time after ROTJ. What might have been interesting is if Luke had actually mastered both light and dark side of the force. So that instead of being in hiding as a misanthropic self-loathing hermit, he is more versed in the nuance and application of the force than any other force user we have seen. He is no longer Mr Holy Shining Light of Goodness, but hes not Dr Evil either. And he certainly isn't Mr Fear and Self-Loathing. Instead we could have got an overwhelmingly enigmatic Luke, who's very presence oozes esoteric knowledge. He's become a wise old wizard, but one who's motives are not entirely clear. He becomes like Takuan- the mysterious old monk archtype of Japanese Samurai legend. We sense his overwhelming goodness, but also a harshness, a strength and resolve. When Rey shows up to try and convince the Luke to join the resistance, she is surprised to find he isn't the man she thought he would be. Hes harsh. The training is hard. Sometimes (or even often) he's not particularly likable. But never do we get the feeling hes either broken or weak.. physically or spiritually. His lessons on the force come from a person now borne of mixed experience, nuance and overwhelming depth of empathy and understanding. WISDOM.

His depth of character, and knowledge would be immeasurable to a young Rey... incomprehensible. And all she does is want to get him to run off for another adventure... some damn fool idealistic crusade. We got hints of that depth in TLJ, but nothing satisfactory. But this way we would be in Reys shoes, eager to learn and find out..get to know this new Luke. This crazy old wizard who is both frightening and enigmatic and wise. He for all intents and purposes is now the Yoda to Rey. RJ wouldn't have to make his story the main focus, he can be the secondary character but all this stuff can be found out along the way. And because Disney wanted to wind his character down and pass the torch as it were, he could die in TLJ or in ep 9 after revealing something of mega importance.

 

 

Just my thoughts on the matter.

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What they did with Luke was the best thing for so many reasons. Mainly because it puts the story of THIS trilogy first. It makes the event that sent him on his downward spiral more tragic. It totally destroys Luke and it destroys Han and Leias marriage. If Luke had just been like "oh well my nephew turned on me and killed a bunch of students who I was responsible for and furthermore it's pretty much my own action and weakness which triggered it. Oh well, let me get my saber and save the day again.." YOu are just taking the teeth out of the event. You are basically saying "meeting peoples expectations based on the old movies is more important than the new movies". Which is just a backwards way to do it.

 

Luke is like that old man in an old Western sitting in a bar drinking whiskey, the young kid comes in and says "hey, weren't you the fastest gun in the West? I need your help, the bandits are back again!!!". The old gunslinger looks up from his whiskey and says "Ain't I done enough kid? I done my part. Leave me alone." Then orders another whiskey.

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Critics probably aren't hard core SW fans. Therein lies the disconnect.

I understand that, I'm asking what they are seeing different in the movies.

Doesn't sound like you understand it but it's simple. A hard core fan is going to be more disappointed by:

 

Unresolved mysteries from TFA being laughed off in TLJ.

 

 

I think this is what I did not like, and to me, it highlights the massive disconnect between the movies and lack of a cohesive vision for the movies so far. I still would like to see Episode IX to see how they wrap it up. However, in regards to TFA and TLJ:

TFA: Who is Snoke? TLJ: Who cares? He's dead.

TFA: The Luke Skywalker lightsaber story is for another time. TLJ: Who cares? It's split in half now.

TFA: Mystery of Rey. Who is she? Why did her parents leave her? TLJ: Her parents were drunkards who sold her for beer money.

TFA: Where was Luke all this time? TLJ: He chickened out and did not want anyone to find him.

 

Furthermore, if Luke was really running away to end the Jedi, he didn't bother to tell anyone? Not tell Leia or Han? "Hey, don't come looking for me." Just he's up and gone?

 

It is like posters have said either in this thread or the other one, it is just like people doing improv.

 

If you thought they were ever in a million years going to explain how an inanimate object ended up in the basement of a bar you were completely out of her mind. I know alot of people i guess did expect this, I remember telling people it would never be mentioned again several times in the wake of TFA.

 

The "mystery" of Rey. When is this a mystery? In TFA she is portrayed as an orphan girl and in fact Maz flat out tells her that the belonging she seeks is in front of her not behind her.

 

Why Luke is on the island is answered, maybe not how you'd like it to have been but its answered and is in fact a central part of TLJ.

 

As for Snoke I understand people wanting to know about him. I just never cared. Also it's never presented as a mystery in TFA, no character is going around saying "we need to know where Snoke came from, it's the key to defeating him."

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To clarify.. I wasn't saying Luke is to become the focus of the ST. Far from it. I was thinking of making him as a mentor. Just one we don't necessarily understand. I wasn't meaning that he is some Grey Jedi.... or that he even actively uses dark and light side powers. Just that he has been there done that. He has been through it all and come out the other side and come away with both perspectives and has a wider breadth of experience to teach from. Which would enable Rey to become a more powerful protagonist to face off against what was supposed to be this great and powerful threat of Snoke and Ren. But since TLJ neutered the threat of the first order by killing off Snoke and making Ren and Hux have some petty squabble (as highlighted by Poe) I guess that wasn't really necessary and we got what we got.

 

To further clarify.. I am somewhat playing devils advocate in that I am just throwing out ideas of how Luke could've been handled differently in response to Tank's point that Luke's ended in ROTJ, and the only way to continue was to reinvent him. I was trying to provide an alternate that didn't hinge on his story being integral to the plot of the ST.

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One thing I've learned recently is that I'm just alot different from many Star Wars fans. I love Star Wars, everyone on this board does. That's why we are here, right? And I'm sure if we had these same arguments sitting in a bar over some beers they would be alot more fun. I'm not trying to say anyone looks at Star Wars wrong of their opinions are invalid. I'm just saying that what I care about and like in Star Wars seems to be much, much different from what seems to be most of the hardcore fanbase.

 

With the prequels I got into arguments with people here and that was fun, I like the prequels. I still totally understood why people didn't. I agreed with 80% of what most fans hated.

 

These movies, for me, I just don't get it. I read posts and with TFA and TLJ I just don't get some of the things people care about. I actually don't understand why anyone would ever want an explanation for how that saber ended up with Maz. I'm not saying anyone is wrong for caring, I just couldn't care less. There are many, many examples of this.

 

I don't know why what I care about or what I like in Star Wars seems to be so different from others who love it just as much as I do. Maybe it's because I'm generally not involved in "fandom". This is my only outlet to talk about Star Wars. I've never read a comic book and in general I actually don't like sci-fi.

 

It just amazes me how often I read a post on here nowadays and I just think "I completely and utterly disagree with this person about this."

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These movies, for me, I just don't get it. I read posts and with TFA and TLJ I just don't get some of the things people care about. I actually don't understand why anyone would ever want an explanation for how that saber ended up with Maz. I'm not saying anyone is wrong for caring, I just couldn't care less. There are many, many examples of this.

 

It doesn't need to be a great lengthy explanation that takes up 30 minutes of screen time; however, just to accept that a lightsaber belonging to Anakin and then Luke who had his hand chopped off with the lightsaber which then fell down an incredibly deep hole presumably never to be seen again just winds up with someone who knowns Han Solo and gives it back to him and then it winds up with Rey who uses it in a lightsaber fight against Anakin's grandson who desperately wants said lightsaber and then Rey gives it back to Luke....seems to require an incredible amount of suspension of disbelief. It is the same thing with Darth Maul coming back. And if Disney is really going to go down this road, why can't other objects/characters come back?

 

Why not Han Solo coming back in Episode IX? After all, we did not really see him dead. He could have still been alive as he was falling and luckily landed in a bacta tank that was caught by a pair of mynocks who then transported Han Solo to a ship which took off before the entire planet exploded. He then recovered in a hospital until Lando was ready to pick him up to get ready for Episode IX. How about Jabba coming back? Boba Fett? Darth Vader? The Emperor? You could just go on and on, and characters and objects who we thought were long gone could just keep making appearances for the sake of it. To me, it seems like lazy writing not to at least offer some explanation. And I'm not talking about fans who theorize about it later. You think the lightsaber is no big deal? They made an incredible deal about it in TFA and even in TLJ with Rey and Kylo fighting over it like two children to the point that it breaks.

 

Same thing with Snoke. He seems really old, so what was he doing all that time while the Emperor was in power? I need to watch TLJ again, because I still have some questions about Luke that I can't remember the details of. I would like to know if Luke just walked away after Kylo turned to the Dark Side, or if he at least tried to do something about it. Not to do anything would seem really out of character for Luke, and I believe these things do matter especially when you are creating a story from a well established universe. If you want to say his character changed, then fine, I can accept that Luke ran away, but did he at least try to face Snoke and failed (like the way Yoda failed against the Emperor).

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The real issue is that a large amount of people did NOT like TLJ, or how Luke was portrayed. I may be in the minority on THIS board, but I don't think I am alone in how I feel about Luke or TLJ. I fbelieve that people with similar points of view as I have about TLJ and how Luke was written are often mis-characterized as extremists or fan-babies. That is unfair and dismissive and I think it's grossly untrue. I don't feel I am extremist in my opinions, nor am I a rabid fan. I am just some guy who thinks TLJ was a terrible movie, and is very frustrated with Star Wars right now, perhaps not all that different about how you feel about the PT. Just because I am personally upset by TLJ doesn't make me an extremist or crazy fan.

A few things... one, there is no concrete proof that "most" or even "half" of Star Wars fandom hated TLJ. This is rhetoric spewed out over and over by a subset of fans. It's these aggro fanbabies with YoutTube pages and an army of Twitter friends who are so excited they can be heard and have other people agree with them, that they have become the loudest voice. That doesn't mean they are the biggest voice.

 

I've poured over endless message boards and social media posts about my own work and there are two types of people who post comments. Fandom nerds and idiots. I don't mean that to be negative, I am a fandom nerd that has been posting on this site for 20 years. But most comments are negative and most are clearly semi-literate. Go to any youtube thread ever and read the comments.

 

The average movie goer does not go online to share their opinion. Cinephiles stick to their chosen message boards. Fandom goes wide. People who are angry and want to be heard go wide. So while it may seem like everywhere you go online people hate TLJ, that doesn't mean that's an overwhelming majority, it's just the loudest voice.

 

And sadly, the loudest voice tends to be the nastiest. So yes, most of the haters get labelled. But it's pretty easy to tell who is an MAGA/MRA fanbro who hates Mary Sue Rey from somebody who has legit criticisms of the movie. But if YOU aren't making claims like that, then you aren't the one being targeted with that shot. I have a crap ton of issues with TLJ, and I don't for a second come off like that. In fact, I'm a pinko commie libtard SJW homo, and yet I have all sorts of bad things to say about TLJ.

 

The criticism of Luke specifically though is a unique thing from the usual noise. It comes down to him being a different character, and people just can't get their heads around it. That doesn't make it wrong, but on the flip side that doesn't mean it was done well, which is my point.

 

 

I don't buy the argument that Luke's sole purpose was to redeem Vader, and his story was done, so NOW we have to deconstruct Luke's character, and literally destroy everything that made him so awesome in the OT, just for the sake of doing something different, because we can't do anything else with Luke.

I remember "The ADVENTURES (plural) of Luke Skywalker" (and everything that inspired me to imagine)...meaning he had many adventures, so why CAN'T he be like Indy in that regard? I don't buy the idea that there was no where else the character could go, so the writers have to "break his DNA" and write him as a broken down hermit who wants to just die and run away from the universe.

Obviously opinions will vary-- hence their being thousands upon thousands of EU fans who don't see it the way I do. Again, RJ took it too far and broke Luke too much for too long, and there could have easily been a happy medium, like I said. But a lot of the stuff I am talking about is only realized subconsciously. We could have been given a happy full of hope Luke, but I would bet dollars to donuts the movie wouldn't be as strong... and people might not even know why.

 

There's a reason Luke works as well as he does in the OT. It's not accidental, and it's also not super overt.

 

If you want to change Luke's character, or show he evolved (or devolved), then fine, but RJ did not execute that story very well.

 

No argument here on that one.

 

Another thing I do not get is this idea of blaming the fans for not liking what was given to us. When nearly 50% of fans don't like the direction of Luke's arc, you can't just call those fans fringe and say that its their problem. When it is that many people, then it is intellectually dishonest to write the opinion off that it is just some extreme fan problem. When you have that many people saying that they don't like something, it is NOT the fans' fault. There is something more deeply wrong with the movie and its writing, there.

Like I said above-- when the loudest voices happen to be the nastiest and/or the most prescriptive, it paints a specific picture. It's people who want it THEIR way, and they won't be happy with anything. These fans DO exist. WE'RE those fans given how we all have ideas of how it could have been done. But to hound filmmakers and actors on social media to berate them for not doing it the way you expected-- that's a bad fan. And again, obviously all fandom isn't like that-- but those aggro fans exist and are part of the group I am talking about. There is literally no way to make a movie that can solve that problem, especially not within Star Wars.

 

What I resent is people characterizing those who think the Luke we got from TLJ are crazy uber fans who should just need get over it and STFU. This is a character who has been around for 40 years, and with that, goes a responsibility to handle that character in a way people would like to see, not what is convenient, or what is trendy writing because "art demands no explanation," or some other nonsense.

All of that is subjective. There are people out there who love what went down with Luke. I get it, I've been on the other side of this argument on this website for 20 years. I think the PT is completely wrong and terrible. And after 20 years of yelling about, and now being on the other side of fan anger, I realize it was a lot of wasted time. I can't change the movies. I've made my points clearly. If I can't get over it and I am made about a movie from 20 years ago, that's kind of on me.

 

It would be one thing if Lucas himself wrote Luke like the one we received in TLJ. I don't think it would have been popular, but I think it would have been easier to accept because we could say "well, that is how the man who created the character intended for him to turn out."

100% disagree. One, Lucas was the one who had the idea of Luke being in exile. That's what he wanted in TFA. When JJ couldn't figure out how to solve it he pushed that beat back to the very end. Two, the PT is proof positive that in no will fandom universally agree that whatever he makes up has merit.

 

Add to the fact RJ has been on record saying he actually thinks it is desirable for half the audience to like his stuff, and the other half to hate it. What kind of twisted logic is that? People are right to question and criticize the direction RJ took Luke's arc in.

I see this all over the place online. First, it was taken from a video interview he gave in 2005. Second, as I said above, you cannot go into making a film trying to please everyone. If you play it safe, you'll have an empty hollow movie. You have to make bold decisions. People take this statement as him saying he intentionally WANTS to alienate half his audience. That's not what he is saying. He is saying he would rather illicit an emotional reaction than indifference. He'd rather have people hate the movie than not care.

 

That's filmmaking 101, you don't set out with the goal of not-moving people. That said I'm sure more than once he giggled over his keyboard saying "oh man, this will piss off the nerds," but to say he intentionally struck out to alienate fandom and dismantle Star Wars is silly.

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Tank, its funny to think this but you and I have been butting heads on these movies for like 18 years now under different names. And not once ever have I ever felt it was personal or that your complaints were wrongheaded or over the top. We've disagreed on alot, we've agreed on alot. In the end when I make a post I always look forward to your response even if I know you are going to disagree vehemently. I've always felt our disagreements fall into the category of "smart, thoughtful people can disagree." Although I freely admit maybe Im not that smart.

 

Even with this movie which I clearly like more than you, I;ve never felt any kind of disconnect with your thoughts. Even with your opinion of Luke in this thread which I guess is that he should have come to his sense sooner and given fans some time with him as his old self, I disagree with it but I get it and really what you say is what I expected before seeing the movie.

 

With this movie though there are certain things I can't wrap my mind around. Things that are so miniscule to me I find it impossible to think that some fans really care. I also think that there is an underlying respect for this movie that you can;t quite embrace yet but I think eventually will. Maybe not but I get that sense.

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It's very split with me. I have very big issues with the second act. But everything in act one and three is great. I also think that in terms of production design, visuals, and FX it's easily the most stunning film of the saga.

 

I DO feel like the ST can't be fully judged until IX comes out. TLJ changed a lot of my feelings about TFA. That's not a great thing, I agree that a lack of cohesive overall story for the ST was a huge mistake.

 

So I don't hate TLJ. There's complex stuff going on that I like, a lot of it didn't work, but some of it did. I think there could have been a version of Luke that wouldn't have divided people, but it's not a hill I would die on. In fact, I could live with the Luke stuff had he turned in the middle like I said, or if the middle was at least interesting.

 

And I won't lie, the part of me that dislikes fandom is happy to see a film that wasn't as precious with the franchise as they are.

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I have only skimmed through the last few posts after discussion resumed about how so many people hated TLJ and I just wanted to step back in and mention that I actually provided data from a source that, while unreliable for formal study, does tend to skew negative for fan overreactions to movies not being what they wanted, and there is definitely no evidence provided there that so large of a portion of the audience hated the movie. Admittedly, audience scores on Metacritic are terrible. They don't provide a nice, meaningful summary of ratings, though, so it is hard to get a really accurate picture of what people posted. However, I looked through many of the scores and there are tons of absurd 0s, which, like I mentioned in my previous post on this subject, should be taken with as fine of a grain of salt as an absurd number of perfect scores.

 

I realize that I mentioned a number of more advanced statistical ideas in the earlier post, but the main idea should be clear: there is no clear data that suggests that a majority or even half of film goers hated TLJ. While the IMDB data is not likely to be representative of the overall population, the same is also true about Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes, or whatever other audience rating aggregate site says.

 

I note that I focused on IMDB not because it most clearly went against the notion of so many people hating the movie, but because of the sites I am aware of, it is the only one that provided a clear picture of the data, including raw counts of how many people gave each rating. Unfortunately, Metacritic also only provides the average rating and not the median rating, which would be much more descriptive for a skewed distribution. Also, none of the sites includes a trimmed mean that would discard equal percentages of ratings from the top and bottom of the distribution, which would help us avoid problems with outliers at the extremes of the tails.

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