Star Wars: Solo is doing really badly (and further analysis of Last Jedi)

[Justin Alexander]

The idea of a slippery slope leading to darker and darker acts is a good one. It's just that when you have one of the characters first steps on that path be cutting up a room full of children with a light saber with little hesitation, it's pretty hard to see that there was anything good in there to begin with.

I'd argue that Anakin's first step to the dark side was way back in Attack of the Clones when he slaughtered the sand people. By the beginning of RotS, Palpatine has him in a place where he can be manipulated into killing prisoners in cold blood. He goes downhill from there.

It also helps to remember in these scenes (both RotS and RotJ) that it's not just Palpatine's words or the situation. Palpatine is pushing with the Force itself -- both reading his subject to know where to push; and also just directly pushing through the same form of telepathy that Obi-Wan uses to gently convince some Stormtroopers that these aren't the droids they're looking for.

Also, they had no idea that a Sith Lord was in their presence.

By the end of TPM they suspected. By no later than AotC they knew.

I think the Jedi, from the films as I haven't read the books or EU, suffered from a combination of "That's the way we have always done this" and "I'm not listening". They knew that Anakin was going to Balance the Force somehow, but didn't know how. The fact that he would do so by killing off the Jedi and then killing the Emperor was, reasonably, quite a shock to them.

The Jedi Order is what you get when you spend a thousand years ripping kids away from their parents and raising them to believe that if they ever feel an emotion it means that they're irredeemably sinful. When they end up with a kid who's capable of actually feeling love, it's not just that they think it's wrong. It's that they have literally no idea what he's talking about. There's a scene in AotC where Yoda and Mace Windu are feeling Anakin's incredible pain at the loss of his mother. Mace walks into the room and says, "What is it?" Not, "Who is it?" Not, "Who has suffered this loss?" But literally, "What is this? Because I have never felt anything like this disturb the Force before. No Force user in generations has ever felt his, because no Force user in generations has had an emotional attachment to another human being."

Re: Balancing the Force. Something that's briefly touched on in TPM and was then, unfortunately, dropped because Lucas was responding to criticism that the movie spent too much time discussing the Force, is that the Jedi of the late Republic felt that the balance between the Living Force and the Unifying Force had been disrupted. If you read between the lines of their later discussions regarding the Sith Lord, it's clear that they think the Sith are responsible for this. (That's possibly true; although I think it's more probable that the imbalance was due to the degeneracy of the Jedi Order itself, and Palpatine merely took advantage of it like he took advantage of the Jedi's other failings.)

So they thought the prophecy was about bringing balance between the Living and Unifying Force. (Which may even be accurate. I also tend to argue that Anakin was NOT the Chosen One; he could have been, but it didn't work out. Luke ended up inheriting what Campbell calls the "hero-seed" and fulfilling the prophecy. There's a quote from Lucas which says much the same thing, although it's frequently misinterpreted.)

If not for Jinn, they'd not even have to worry about Anakin betraying them.

Sure. He wouldn't have "betrayed" them. He would have been scooped up by Palpatine immediately after the Jedi rejected him and trained in the Sith arts from the age of six. Instead of Dooku and Grievous, the Separatists would have been led by an Anakin Skywalker near the height of his powers and with complete mastery of the Dark Side in an undamaged body.

 

[Ras Algethi]

Sure. He wouldn't have "betrayed" them. He would have been scooped up by Palpatine immediately after the Jedi rejected him and trained in the Sith arts from the age of six. Instead of Dooku and Grievous, the Separatists would have been led by an Anakin Skywalker near the height of his powers and with complete mastery of the Dark Side in an undamaged body.

But there would be no betrayal and no secrets that he was a double-agent for the other side. I am not sure that Anakin was the strategist that Dooku and Grievous were so other than being an individual power-house I'd need convincing the outcome would have been all that different.

Without Anakain's betrayal there is no Empire formed.

And while this is all our own opinions on what would happen, I would point out that wether it was Grievous or Anakin leading the Separatists, there was one Jedi who beat them both one-on-one. Just saying.

 

[Spinachcat]

Talking Star Wars...where plugging one plot hole causes two more to pop open!

 

[TristramEvans]

what exactly WAS the prophecy in Star Wars though? All I recall was "bring balance to The Force". It seems an odd concept for a religion based along a strict dichotomy (dark side/light side).

 

[Tommy Brownell]

In my opinion, the idea that there was any good in Vader was invalidated in the prequels when he murdered all those little kids simply because... well, I don't think any solid reason was given for it.

I don't think anything in the original movies hints at Vader having some ambiguity in his goals aside from wanting to murder the Emperor and replace him.

It was so they couldn't grow up and be evil Jedi. Duh.

The Last Jedi is still the only work in the entire franchise that elicits any kind of emotional response in me. The rest are fun if you don't think about them too hard.

 

[Krimson]

what exactly WAS the prophecy in Star Wars though? All I recall was "bring balance to The Force". It seems an odd concept for a religion based along a strict dichotomy (dark side/light side).

There were too many Jedi, so Anakin became Vader and remedied the situation.

 

[Endless Flight]

It was so they couldn't grow up and be evil Jedi. Duh.

The Last Jedi is still the only work in the entire franchise that elicits any kind of emotional response in me. The rest are fun if you don't think about them too hard.

The Last Jedi’s esteem will only grow in the future.

 

[Justin Alexander]

what exactly WAS the prophecy in Star Wars though? All I recall was "bring balance to The Force". It seems an odd concept for a religion based along a strict dichotomy (dark side/light side).

For the Jedi, there is no "balance" between the Light and Dark Side. The Dark Side is a disturbance; a corruption; and poison. Your body isn't healthy when you have a "balance" between poisoned and non-poisoned food; it's healthy when you don't have poisoned food.

The "balance" the Jedi talked about was between the Living Force (sensitivity to the moment arising from the interconnection of all things) and the Unified Force (the binding nature of the Force which results in destiny and shapes the future).

The Jedi Order had become massively dependent on the Unified Force and their ability to predict the future. (I suspect that Lucas was being influenced by Dune's Bene Gesserit and the "shackles" in which Paul Atreides found himself once he could see the future.) When Palpatine showed up, he disrupted the Jedi's ability to see the future, crippling them on a very deep level.

(I draw a comparison to a generally under-appreciated moment in X-Men: First Class: Xavier tries to convince Magneto, a Holocaust survivor, that he could spare soldiers because they are "only following orders". What a moron, right? Well... sort of. See, Magneto has just put on his telepathy-blocking helmet. Xavier has spent his entire life being able to say exactly the right thing because he's reading the mind of the person he's talking to. For the first time in his life, he's now unable to read someone's mind and he has absolutely no idea how to have a conversation like that. Same thing with the Jedi: They've spent their entire lives able to see the future and deriving their power from having near-perfect or perfect predictive abilities... and now they don't.)

Reading between the lines, one would conclude that the Jedi wanted to restore balance to the Force specifically because the Sith Lord was crippling their use of the Unified Force. (It also helps explain some of their confusion and leniency when it comes to Anakin: They expect him to be more impulsive and rash, because he's supposed to be restoring that "living in the moment" relationship with the Force. And because they're largely indoctrinated in the Unified Force, they lack familiarity with such behavior and have difficulty distinguishing between healthy "living in the moment" from "this kid's a time bomb".)

This analysis is based on something like 5-6 lines of dialogue throughout the trilogy; most of them in TPM. Lucas' response to "MIDICHLORIANS SUCK!" was, unfortunately, to virtually eliminate any discussion of metaphysics for the second and third prequels, leaving the entire arc of the Prophecy woefully underdeveloped.

 

[Justin Alexander]

The Last Jedi’s esteem will only grow in the future.

Possibly. If the box office keeps collapsing, Disney will temporarily shelve the IP. It's quite likely that a few years later, someone will come along and reboot the canon using only the original three or original six movies. If that happens, the sequel trilogy and these other films will likely fade away like Timothy Dalton's Bond.

But there would be no betrayal and no secrets that he was a double-agent for the other side. I am not sure that Anakin was the strategist that Dooku and Grievous were so other than being an individual power-house I'd need convincing the outcome would have been all that different.

Without Anakain's betrayal there is no Empire formed.

I see that, like the Jedi, Sidious has completely bamboozled you. He's got you so focused on a bunch of front men that you've completely forgotten who the actual strategist was.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

The Last Jedi’s esteem will only grow in the future.

If that happens, the sequel trilogy and these other films will likely fade away like Timothy Dalton's Bond.

Harsh. Living Daylights is my favorite, but I can't deny reality.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

How about some data regarding Last Jedi's post-theater performance so far?

http://www.jeditemplearchives.com/2018-06-08-early-look-at-the-last-jedi-blu-ray-sales/

Key quote from that:

So, to sum it all up: the early numbers for The Last Jedi indicate that the movie will underperform on the home media market, when compared to Rogue One. The Last Jedi will have similar numbers to Rogue One, when digital sales and streaming are accounted for, but 14% more people saw The Last Jedi in theaters.

This is based on the assumption that a higher box office usually leads to higher revenue on the home video market. Financially successful and popular movies have higher home video revenue than flops or unpopular movies. It’s beyond the scope of this article to look at this in detail but a quick look at the yearly sales charts for disc releases will tell you that this assumption is correct.

It can be argued that effects from the much discussed The Last Jedi backlash can also be seen on the home video market.

 

[Endless Flight]

Sidious also got the Jedi involved directly in a war and that is not a position of strength for them to combat the Dark Side from.

 

[Baulderstone]

My basic problem with the prequels is that Sidious controlled everything all the time. He controlled the Separatists. He had the clone army created. He controlled the Senate. It wasn't a trilogy about his rise to power. It was a trilogy about a guy who already ruled everything just dicking around with over-elaborate plans for little reason.

It's part of why the thing feels so flat. We know how everything turns out, but a good movie would have given us moments were Palpatine might have genuinely failed, when the good guys really came close to winning. That would have made it sting more that they didn't succeed. Palpatine had such an easy glide to power that there was no drama in it.

It would have been a better use for Padme in the last movie if there had been real political opposition in the Senate as well, instead of one deleted scene where they kind of talk and do nothing.

 

[Armchair Gamer]

Mace walks into the room and says, "What is it?" Not, "Who is it?" Not, "Who has suffered this loss?" But literally, "What is this? Because I have never felt anything like this disturb the Force before. No Force user in generations has ever felt his, because no Force user in generations has had an emotional attachment to another human being."

I think you are overstating the matter a bit, but the core argument is supported by the way no one gets the difference between Anakin's selfish love for Padme and Luke's selfless love for his father.

That's possibly true; although I think it's more probable that the imbalance was due to the degeneracy of the Jedi Order itself, and Palpatine merely took advantage of it like he took advantage of the Jedi's other failings.

I'd say the Jedi focused on stability rather than 'health' proper, which gave the Sith, especially Plagueis and Sidious, a natural vector to introduce corruption.

I was really hoping that Episode VIII would salvage Luke's disappearance and the underlying cynicism of TFA by revealing that those two had done something to the Force itself that went beyond the Empire or the Sith Order, and Luke was trying to find some way to heal the Force. Instead, TLJ doubled down on the nihilism.

 

[Baeraad]

I have finally watched TLJ. I can report that I liked it quite well, and had more of an emotional reaction to it than I had to any of the previous films.

I will admit that this may possibly have something to do with me being unusually receptive to its themes, though. "When we were young, we had all these brilliant ideals and plans. And then we tried to put them into practice, and... it was a complete disaster, because apparently the world doesn't work anything like we assumed it did. Now we're old and tired, and everything's still a mess, and just what the fuck are we going to do now?!" is a story I consider uniquely affecting and relevant.

 

[Templum Domini]

I have finally watched TLJ. I can report that I liked it quite well, and had more of an emotional reaction to it than I had to any of the previous films.

I will admit that this may possibly have something to do with me being unusually receptive to its themes, though. "When we were young, we had all these brilliant ideals and plans. And then we tried to put them into practice, and... it was a complete disaster, because apparently the world doesn't work anything like we assumed it did. Now we're old and tired, and everything's still a mess, and just what the fuck are we going to do now?!" is a story I consider uniquely affecting and relevant.

No one wants that story, apparently. Which is why I prefer Star Wars: Rebels.

 

[Endless Flight]

Rebels is good. I just don't prefer it to the movies. None of the characters in that cartoon are going to stir me like seeing scenes like this...

 

[Shipyard Locked]

Now we're old and tired, and everything's still a mess, and just what the fuck are we going to do now?!"

Fail, retreat, whinge and die, apparently.

Then the next generations can also spin their wheels in the futile cycle until nihilistic entropy wins. Guess it really is a movie for the current gestalt.

 

[Voros]

No one wants that story, apparently. Which is why I prefer Star Wars: Rebels.

No offense but that seems like a huge exaggeration. ‘No one’ except the millions of people, and most importantly kids, who saw and loved TLJ. Only a small minority of aged SW fans on the net disliked it.

 

[Voros]

Fail, retreat, whinge and die, apparently.

Then the next generations can also spin their wheels in the futile cycle until nihilistic entropy wins. Guess it really is a movie for the current gestalt.

To me this is such a bizarre view of the film which ends on such a clear note of hope, sacrifice and heroism. I think that the older fanbase that is so disenchanted really need to let it go and let the kids have SW back.

It is strange that I, someone who beyond Empire and the old SW comics would hardly describe myself as a SW ‘fan,’ is now defending these films. It is odd to see more bile spilled over these films than the dreadful prequels.

 

[Endless Flight]

Luke died about as heroically as a Jedi could go. I actually think the Force itself was helping him keep up his projection. He was using the Force but I think it was using him as well.

 

[Templum Domini]

No offense but that seems like a huge exaggeration. ‘No one’ except the millions of people, and most importantly kids, who saw and loved TLJ. Only a small minority of aged SW fans on the net disliked it.

Their opinions matter more.

 

[Templum Domini]

To me this is such a bizarre view of the film which ends on such a clear note of hope, sacrifice and heroism. I think that the older fanbase that is so disenchanted really need to let it go and let the kids have SW back.

It is strange that I, someone who beyond Empire and the old SW comics would hardly describe myself as a SW ‘fan’ now defends these films. It is odd to see more bile spilled over these films than the dreadful prequels.

Nope. There is no hope, no sacrifice, and no heroism. And if there is, then Star Wars: Rebels did those themes better. We don't want TLJ's story, and by 'we', I mean the people who literally bled money for Star Wars products and find the elites controlling Star Wars now to be blind to any criticism or dissent and who play only to the lowest common denominator.

Well, aside from Dave Filloni, of course.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

This is such a bizarre view of the film which ends on such a clear note of hope, sacrifice and heroism.

Kind of the way Return of the Jedi did. Again, futility is the theme now. It wasn't before.

‘No one’ except the millions of people, and most importantly kids, who saw and loved TLJ. Only a small minority of aged SW fans on the net disliked it.

"The kids love it"? I heard that defense when Phantom Menace came out.

But sure, I'm perfectly willing to let the kids pay for this franchise instead of me going forward. Only, judging by the numbers, it doesn't look like they're quite as willing to do that as Disney believed.

By the way Voros, I like and respect you, but I LOVE how you keep dodging my data. Check out post #411 again, or all the other indicators of the franchise's trouble from Solo to toy sales and tell me a 'small minority of aged fans' is solely responsible for what's going on.

 

[Templum Domini]

Kind of the way Return of the Jedi did. Again, futility is the theme now. It wasn't before.



"The kids love it"? I heard that defense when Phantom Menace came out.

But sure, I'm perfectly willing to let the kids pay for this franchise instead of me going forward. Only, judging by the numbers, it doesn't look like they're quite as willing to do that as Disney believed.

By the way Voros, I like and respect you, but I LOVE how you keep dodging my data. Check out post #411 again, or all the other indicators of the franchise's trouble from Solo to toy sales and tell me a 'small minority of aged fans' is solely responsible for what's going on.

I want to like and respect Voros as well, but he should not dodge actual and quantifiable data.

 

[Templum Domini]

No. Enough of this. Star Wars is ours. Star Wars does not belong to the elites. We should make them apologize and we should make the fans who liked TLJ but not Rebels or The Clone Wars apologize.

 

[Baulderstone]

No. Enough of this. Star Wars is ours. Star Wars does not belong to the elites. We should make them apologize and we should make the fans who liked TLJ apologize.

I have no idea what you are saying here.

Is there any billion dollar entertainment franchise that doesn't belong to the "elites"? The two kind of go hand-in-hand.

 

[Templum Domini]

And yes, I am well aware that this is now a complete volte-face than a few days ago. But I am tired of corporate elites casting dedicated fans as entitled bastards even as they continue to miseducate people.

 

[Templum Domini]

I have no idea what you are saying here.

Is there any billion dollar entertainment franchise that doesn't belong to the "elites"? The two kind of go hand-in-hand.

Of course, they do. But the elites are no longer listening to the common people. We need to make them listen.

Sorry for almost verging into politics, but I am tired of the fact that my views (that Disney's New EU are good, but the Sequels are now) are regarded as a minority of a minority even though they are factually right.

 

[Baulderstone]

I think these discussion go better when we just talk to each other rather than address our comments to some abstract others. If you feel you have something important to tell the Elites, Templum Domini, you aren't going to get your message to them by posting it here.

 

[Templum Domini]

I think these discussion go better when we just talk to each other rather than address our comments to some abstract others. If you feel you have something important to tell the Elites, Templum Domini, you aren't going to get your message to them by posting it here.

Okay, well, I don't like the fact that my views are a minority of a minority and that no one here, from Ghost Whistler to Voros, respects them!

 

[Endless Flight]

I don't think anyone said they don't respect your views.

 

[Templum Domini]

I don't think anyone said they don't respect your views.

Maybe. But that still does not explain how people can't hold to the factual truth that Star Wars Rebels is good, yet the Sequels are not.

 

[Baeraad]

No one wants that story, apparently.

Ahem! I do, thank you very much!

Which may mean that they made a zillion-dollar movie just for me. Which was very nice of them.

Kind of the way Return of the Jedi did. Again, futility is the theme now. It wasn't before.

Doing the right thing frequently seems futile. Stories that don't acknowledge that ring hollow to me, these days.

 

[Endless Flight]

I said that Rebels was good!

You are stating that it is fact that the sequels are bad and I'm saying that it is subjective. There are Star Wars fans out there who think the Clone Wars is crap. I disagree but that is their opinion!

We are all friends here.

 

[Templum Domini]

Doing the right thing frequently seems futile. Stories that don't acknowledge that ring hollow to me, these days.

And now I get what you mean; that does make some sense.

 

[Templum Domini]

I said that Rebels was good!

You are stating that it is fact that the sequels are bad and I'm saying that it is subjective. There are Star Wars fans out there who think the Clone Wars is crap. I disagree but that is their opinion!

We are all friends here.

We should be. I'm just dogmatic.

 

[Baulderstone]

Maybe. But that still does not explain how people can't hold to the factual truth that Star Wars Rebels is good, yet the Sequels are not.

See, now you are being completely disrespectful of others beliefs. I like Rebels, but I know people that don't, and I don't think it is fair to suggest that there is something wrong with their opinion. My enjoyment of Rebels partly comes from the fact that its creator was a D6 Star Wars gamer, a game I ran back in the day, and the show drips with the flavor of that game.

That's something that means nothing to most people that look at the show, so its reasonable they don't share my enjoyment. I don't need to look for a malign motive in their dislike.

 

[Templum Domini]

See, now you are being completely disrespectful of others beliefs. I like Rebels, but I know people that don't, and I don't think it is fair to suggest that there is something wrong with their opinion. My enjoyment of Rebels partly comes from the fact that its creator was a D6 Star Wars gamer, a game I ran back in the day, and the show drips with the flavor of that game.

That's something that means nothing to most people that look at the show, so its reasonable they don't share my enjoyment. I don't need to look for a malign motive in their dislike.

Well, the fact of the matter is that I am torn between Shipyard Locked and Voros' beliefs, unable to fully fit in either. It also doesn't help that there is a greater malaise in which everyone from Bethesda (current owners of the Fallout video game franchise) to EA to Blizzard Entertainment to Cartoon Network refuse to listen to their fans anymore, and I feel as though Star Wars has been infected with said malaise.

 

[Templum Domini]

And yes, I know that the 'Running the Asylum' trope exists, in which people listen only to the looniest of fans and thus make stuff that alienates the common people. I don't want that either (as that caused the Old Star Wars EU and its own crimes against characterization), but I feel as though we are having the opposite problem, where, according to Shipyard Locked's stats, fans are causing a perfectly good movie (Solo) to suffer in the box office due to hatred of a previous one.