Let me start by saying that while I love the Force Awakens I was eventually in the camp that it didn't do anything new with many of its plot points. A New Hope comparisons are very accurate. The things that that were the worst part of it, were traditions of J.J. Abrams' idea of a Mystery Box. Mystery Box storytelling is basically making audiences beg the question, a lot. It sets up a lot of mystery and it makes the audience hope that itll pay off. Personally I think this is a lazy form of storytelling, especially in a franchise.
The Last Jedi is in my top 5 films of 2017.
It's not without its flaws, and plot holes, though some plot holes are reaching too much and others can sort of be explained but not to cover up the whole hole. I will offer some of my own gripes, and that is mainly only with the Casino sequence, it was very skimmed over and sped up as compared to other sections of the movie. Its role in the narrative is fine, I just think they could have done more with it to make it more engaging and less meh. Also I'm a fan of the milking of the alien, it adds a quirk, and makes the world feel lived in, and a more real place, and also just makes Luke look even more crazy.
Major Spoilers Ahead for the Last Jedi.
These are things I noticed after watching it a few times, not any of the now released reveals by Rian Johnson. Also not focusing on easter eggs and references to other movies.
BEGINNINGS & ENDINGS:
for this one I'm going to focus more on each characters introductory moment and ending big moment.
Poe.
START: arrogant pilot. won't listen to reason and call off attack. urges last bomber to continue on its trajectory. Ready to run into a fight.
END: rational leader. calls off sucide attack. urges Finn to stop his trajectory. Leads everyone to escape.
Finn.
START: eyes closed laying in a watery tank. he is not an active participant in the plot. his only worry is about Rey.
END: eyes closed getting burned by powering up laser. he is an active participant in his action. he is worried about the resistance.
Kylo.
START: subordinate to Snoke, allusions about him being a new Vader. kneels to him. angry, and throws a fit.
END: he is the leader. his shot into the cave is verbatim the same kind of shot that shows Anakin walking into the jedi temple when he becomes darth vader. he is kneeling again, but afterwards, even though he just lost the resistance and rey he appears to have calmed.
Rey.
START: her first shot is her giving all the power to Luke (represented by the lightsaber). pleaing with Luke to come back, so Luke can fight. unsure of her point in the story.
END: Rey is reaching out to lift the rocks, using her own power (again a hand image). she has taken on the hero role.
The Battle.
START: Poe takes out the cannons to clear the way for the bombers
END: Rey and Chewbacca clear out Tie fighters to make way for the speeders
START: one sole person is prepared to sacrifice themselves for the cause (Rose's sister)
END: one sole person is prepared to sacrifice themselves for the cause (Finn)
START: Giant cannon is going to shoot out of the dreadnought and destory the resistances' cruiser
END: Giant cannon is about to blow open the gate leading to the destruction of the resistance
START: a one manned fighter approaches the first order fleet and then proceeds to lead an assault that destroys its biggest ship
END: one man approaches the first order walker brigade and proceeds to inspire the galaxy
HERO WORSHIP and DISILLUSIONMENT:
Rose and Finn:
The first time Rose meets Finn she is a fangirl about it. He is THE Finn but then she realizes he's dishonest and kind of a coward and she doesn't worship him that way again.
Rey and Luke:
Rey looks up to Luke as a hero and teacher, but quickly realizes that he is a broken man, and that he can't help her in the ways she wanted.
Kylo and Snoke:
Kylo reveres Snoke until he learns that his sacrifices aren't amounting to much, and when he learns that Snoke manipulated him
ROSE AND FINN
Rose zaps Finn with her taser and sends him flying against the wall out of disgust.
in the following scene Finn wakes up and proceeds to kind of yell at her until they both work out that they have information that is beneficial for both of them
Rose crashes into Finn with her speeder out of love
in the following scene Finn kind of yells at her demanding an explanation and then Rose proceeds to reveal her love for him which may or may not be mutual, and then she passes out (opposite of Finn waking up)
TRIOS
Rose and Finn are betrayed by DJ and multiple ships get blown up
Snoke is betrayed by Kylo and then Rey and him kill the guards
FAILURE/PERSPECTIVE AS A THEME.
Poe succeeds in destroying the dreadnought but fails in securing the safety of his fighters.
Luke failed Kylo.
Rose and Finn fail in disabling the tracker and are directly responsible for death of resistance members. (a lot of them)
Holdo's plan of evacuation fails.
Rose and Finn also fail at locating master code breaker.
Poe's little coup fails
HINTS AT MAJOR MOMENTS:
Death of Snoke.
this one is easy but we see Kylo move to attack Snoke before promptly launched away by an electric attack. Snokes guards respond by drawing their weapons. Kylo cannot kill Snoke alone.
(let's be honest, if he can kill his own father, he can sure as hell kill some douche bag who's treating him like garbage, especially when he's reminded about how much like vader he could be)
Luke's Illusion.
this one is easy to catch too after you've seen it once. the ash doesn't fall on him. he looks younger. poe's line about "how did he get in here." he leaves no footprints. (also side note as pointed out by IGN I think, Luke would be no good in a real fight, he essentially loses to Rey, and he's out of practice, he would have lost a straight up lightsaber duel)
Reys Parentage.
In the cave scene, she sees herself when she asks, "show me my parents" hinting that she raised herself.
I for one am one of the people who buys Kylo's story, I mean yes he is trying to manipulate her to his side, but it works, and even his constant reminder that, "this is not your story."
Lukes Death.
"The amount of power required would kill you," line when Kylo realizes Rey can't be projecting herself. This foreshadows Luke dying from projecting himself across the galaxy.
Luke Cut off from Force.
"Falcon? Where's Han?" line foreshadows reveal of Luke closing himself off from the force and being absent fromt he Starkiller base fight.
Jedi Books.
Yoda's line about the tree not offering Rey anything that she doesn't already possess' is Yoda's last joke since it means there's nothing new for her to learn from the tree, and also that she literally has the books.
The Dice.
Rey and Kylo touch hands, and Kylo's face is wet from the rain, shows that things can be tangible as a projector just like the dice.
Light Speed Attack (as pointed out by a friend)
Leia flies in through a hologram of Snokes ship in the same place Holdo launches the Cruiser.
LITTLE THINGS:
Luke has that blade of grass in his hand the entire walk up to the rock. Which means he hoped or knew that Rey would reach out with her hand, which is hilarious.
The shot of the x-wing is to fool us. Sure yoda got his x-wing out of the swamp in empire, but who knows how long that x-wing has been laying there.
There is total destruction on both sides of the fight, which means, there is a freedom to move on in technology and design new ships. We lose old fashioned rebel fleet stuff, and Holdo's move obliterates multiple star destroyers.
Why don't the dice disappear when Luke dies? Because he is one with the force now in spirit. He also will most likely be back because he only taught Rey 2 out of the 3 lessons
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
I Dream of Ryan Gosling - an observation of Blade Runner 2049
Blade Runner 2049 is easily my favorite film of 2017. (that I've seen, though I hardly think it can be beatin) Let me say up front that I'm an adventure/sci-fi film nerd. If you give me a superbly made adventure story and put it next to a really good drama (or insert own genre) I am going to gravitate toward the adventure story. That being said my two favorite films of all time - Magnolia and The Aviator - are dramas. I like all genres I just have a soft spot for the aforementioned types. I should also acknowledge that I am in the beginnings of my film study classes, so a lot of these observations are motivated by what I've been learning.
This is very spoiler heavy so you have been warned:
Reading of Blade Runner
OPENINGS AND ENDINGS
Opening:
We open on an unidentified eye.
We are introduced to K. He is reclined and sleeping in his car/ship.
We then move into a scene that devolves into a fight.
Up to this point the only knowledge we have is:
A. Previous knowledge brought in from Blade Runner, which starred an assumed human as a Blade Runner.
B. That Blade Runners hunt down replicants as provided by the opening text.
based on this previous knowledge we are left to assume that K is a human being.
The character he is meeting is a huge towering bulky figure named Sapper - an effectively cast Dave Bautista who comes with his own frame of reference as an actor, and former wrestler. He's a brute.
K is Ryan Gosling. Small.
They fight.
This is where we learn that K is a replicant. Sapper attempts to stab him with a scalpel, K stops it easily.
Sapper attempts to smash him into a wall - quite a few times - until he breaks through it. K is unphased, though he is knocked down.
Sapper straddles him, K knocks him off with a simple punch and overpowers him.
Sapper stabs brutally into K's arm, K barely flinches and non-chalantly knocks it away.
Based on those cues, we should know K is not human. If you bring in prior knowledge from Blade Runner you know that in addition to Sapper's build replicants are extremely strong. If you do not bring in prior knowledge, you may not know that, hence the casting of a much bigger actor for K to fight against. At this point if you have prior knowledge your assumption is, he is a replicant, if you do not have prior knowledge, your assumption is he can't be a normal human.
We are not informed for sure that K is a replicant until Sapper's dialogue that says: "...killing your own kind."
Perfect example of show don't tell.
Sapper then goes on to tell K essentially that he is just a drone because "he's never seen a miracle."
K shoots Sapper unflinchingly, coldly.
Ending:
Another fight with a replicant, this one is Luv. Luv is in a similar mindset to K at the start. She is following her orders. They initially shoot each other, and deliver blows. Luv is stronger than K. She stabs him, similar to the way Sapper did - at least as it was shot. This time he reacts to the stab with a noticeable jerk and seemingly loses the fight.
After Luv thinks she has won K comes back (similar to the way he overpowers what appears at first to be a losing fight with Sapper) and he chokes her (he punched Sapper in the throat, at first just once) and then he drowns her (he punched Sapper a lot in the throat). Luv dies by K's bare hands (opposite using a gun).
He saves Deckard. He does not blindly follow orders like he did in the opening.
After bringing Deckard to his real child K lays back on the steps and dies. (opposite of him reclining and being woken at the beginning)
We leave the film on the daughter. (does she belong to the eye?)
LUV:
show don't tell:
we don't know for sure she's a replicant until: she has to open the really heavy archive door.
Luv hates but worships Wallace:
hence her crying when he kills one of her kind. her motivations seem to be just following orders, but Wallace holds the key to trying to figure out how to make her kind be able reproduce, so thus, her motivations are not just following orders.
Luv is also a unique antagonist:
We see the film through two perspectives K's and Luv's. Both are replicants.
Luv helps K during a couple pieces of his journey: helps him go deeper into Wallace's archives, and saves him from the scavengers near the orphanage. She is active in his quest.
Meaning of her name(these might be more of a reach):
Luv helps K.
Luv hinders K.
Luv kills joi.
Luv dies.
I haven't exactly read into these but Luv, like love, is a spectrum of things that may be in fact connected to that deeper meaning of the word. In a poetic, "my heart will go on" sense.
Especially with names like Luv and Joi there is a deliberate reason for them existing in a narrative.
Maybe with her following of Wallace you could say......Luv is blind.
JOI:
The first time we meet Joi, she is a voice somewhere in the apartment. First time viewer assumes she is in the other room, but in fact we are staring right at her for her entire introduction. The camera lingers on the box her program exists in in a close up.
Joi drives K to do most of what he does. Why? Does she really love him, or is it just because she tells him all he wants to hear like her advertisement suggests? Joi is speaking for the audience, we want K to be important in this narrative. We are following him, we want all the pieces to be important for him. In that way Joi isn't just manipulating K, she is manipulating us.
Is she more than her programming? Maybe? Does it matter? She is more warm, and caring than any of the human characters we meet. Joshi (Robin Wright) is a shell, she's uniformed, slicked back, stiff, uncaring, emotionless. Wallace (Jared Leto) is basically part robot and talks mechanically and has no trouble killing his children. It isn't hard to see K's connection to Joi.
Joi makes K important. She helps drive the story, by making him a key piece of the puzzle for K and us.
Joi "dies." It is true Joi as K knew won't exist in the same exact way, and that Joi is programmed to love him. But the scene is heartbreaking. The later scene when her giant nude advertisement speaks to him, he realizes both that she is a program, but that she was also his unique program. Like all the other versions, but not. This thought pattern might motivate his absolution to kill Luv who took away his Joi - apart from the fact that Luv is always in his way. (not exactly though as pointed out above)
JOSHI & WALLACE:
Humanity wants to protect itself & a human wants to play god at the expense of all other creation
(there's probably more here, but these are based off of first three viewings)
MEMORY CREATOR AND K - DECKARDS CHILDREN:
K's memory of the wood horse drive a big chunk of the plot. We learn eventually that this was a real memory implant from the creator of memories who turns out to be Deckards real daughter. We also know based on Mariette the prostitute (Mackenzie Davis) that this particular memory is not apparently unique to just K by the way that she picks it up and seemingly recognizes it.
K goes to the memory creator.
During this scene, especially toward the end of it K and the creator's reflections overlap one another. We are given visual cues that they are one in the same. (for K this is obviously not literal). This overlapping of reflections also immediately mirrors the next scene involving Mariette and Joi overlapping eachother for K.
What is the point of the Mariette/Joi scene? Joi wants to be "real" for K. So basically the two women become one person.
Now, going back to the previous scene with memory creator, K is the fake one, she is real. There overlapping reflections communicate K's reality that since he possesses her memories, he is in part, not wholly (like Joi) also the memory creator.
This reinforces the ending.
Up until the reveal by the underground that K is not the child he believes he is - He hunts down Deckard, asks him questions as though Deckard is his father, he develops an emotional bond, and learns how Deckard could have abandoned him, etc. etc. The point being Deckard to K, up until that point, is his father. He has the memories, and now the emotional connection to prove it.
When the leader of the underground orders him to kill Deckard we know a few things. First, we know K no longer follows orders. We know K has no connection with the underground (except that he's a replicant too) and that he has formed an emotional bond to Deckard, who for all intents and purposes is his father.
At least for me, by the end when Deckard essentially asks K why he saved him I half expected K to say, "because you're my dad." Now though, like Joi, the artificial child has to die.
THE BEES:
During the first viewing I had a hard time seeing the point of the bees.
Yes, on a surface level Deckard is farming them. (image of a farm reinforces image of farms and Sapper at the beginning.)
But, what struck me was the way its shot. The first image looks like a skyline image of a city, not unlike a New York. Then K moves through it in a couple different shots that remind the viewer of aerial shots of Los Angeles earlier in the film or just in film in general.
Now:
What are most Bees? Workers.
What are replicants built for? To be slave workers.
K towers over all the other workers.
In that moment: he is the child - the best, next greatest, god.
But,
what towers over K: statues of women.
Which women: Joi and Memory Creator. This infers what: the foreshadowing of giant advertisement naked Joi and that K is not the biggest - the best, next greatest, god.
Also,
What towers over everyone in the real city: Advertisements - fake and Artificial
What is K revealed to be: just another replicant - fake and artificial human.
This is very spoiler heavy so you have been warned:
Reading of Blade Runner
OPENINGS AND ENDINGS
Opening:
We open on an unidentified eye.
We are introduced to K. He is reclined and sleeping in his car/ship.
We then move into a scene that devolves into a fight.
Up to this point the only knowledge we have is:
A. Previous knowledge brought in from Blade Runner, which starred an assumed human as a Blade Runner.
B. That Blade Runners hunt down replicants as provided by the opening text.
based on this previous knowledge we are left to assume that K is a human being.
The character he is meeting is a huge towering bulky figure named Sapper - an effectively cast Dave Bautista who comes with his own frame of reference as an actor, and former wrestler. He's a brute.
K is Ryan Gosling. Small.
They fight.
This is where we learn that K is a replicant. Sapper attempts to stab him with a scalpel, K stops it easily.
Sapper attempts to smash him into a wall - quite a few times - until he breaks through it. K is unphased, though he is knocked down.
Sapper straddles him, K knocks him off with a simple punch and overpowers him.
Sapper stabs brutally into K's arm, K barely flinches and non-chalantly knocks it away.
Based on those cues, we should know K is not human. If you bring in prior knowledge from Blade Runner you know that in addition to Sapper's build replicants are extremely strong. If you do not bring in prior knowledge, you may not know that, hence the casting of a much bigger actor for K to fight against. At this point if you have prior knowledge your assumption is, he is a replicant, if you do not have prior knowledge, your assumption is he can't be a normal human.
We are not informed for sure that K is a replicant until Sapper's dialogue that says: "...killing your own kind."
Perfect example of show don't tell.
Sapper then goes on to tell K essentially that he is just a drone because "he's never seen a miracle."
K shoots Sapper unflinchingly, coldly.
Ending:
Another fight with a replicant, this one is Luv. Luv is in a similar mindset to K at the start. She is following her orders. They initially shoot each other, and deliver blows. Luv is stronger than K. She stabs him, similar to the way Sapper did - at least as it was shot. This time he reacts to the stab with a noticeable jerk and seemingly loses the fight.
After Luv thinks she has won K comes back (similar to the way he overpowers what appears at first to be a losing fight with Sapper) and he chokes her (he punched Sapper in the throat, at first just once) and then he drowns her (he punched Sapper a lot in the throat). Luv dies by K's bare hands (opposite using a gun).
He saves Deckard. He does not blindly follow orders like he did in the opening.
After bringing Deckard to his real child K lays back on the steps and dies. (opposite of him reclining and being woken at the beginning)
We leave the film on the daughter. (does she belong to the eye?)
LUV:
show don't tell:
we don't know for sure she's a replicant until: she has to open the really heavy archive door.
Luv hates but worships Wallace:
hence her crying when he kills one of her kind. her motivations seem to be just following orders, but Wallace holds the key to trying to figure out how to make her kind be able reproduce, so thus, her motivations are not just following orders.
Luv is also a unique antagonist:
We see the film through two perspectives K's and Luv's. Both are replicants.
Luv helps K during a couple pieces of his journey: helps him go deeper into Wallace's archives, and saves him from the scavengers near the orphanage. She is active in his quest.
Meaning of her name(these might be more of a reach):
Luv helps K.
Luv hinders K.
Luv kills joi.
Luv dies.
I haven't exactly read into these but Luv, like love, is a spectrum of things that may be in fact connected to that deeper meaning of the word. In a poetic, "my heart will go on" sense.
Especially with names like Luv and Joi there is a deliberate reason for them existing in a narrative.
Maybe with her following of Wallace you could say......Luv is blind.
JOI:
The first time we meet Joi, she is a voice somewhere in the apartment. First time viewer assumes she is in the other room, but in fact we are staring right at her for her entire introduction. The camera lingers on the box her program exists in in a close up.
Joi drives K to do most of what he does. Why? Does she really love him, or is it just because she tells him all he wants to hear like her advertisement suggests? Joi is speaking for the audience, we want K to be important in this narrative. We are following him, we want all the pieces to be important for him. In that way Joi isn't just manipulating K, she is manipulating us.
Is she more than her programming? Maybe? Does it matter? She is more warm, and caring than any of the human characters we meet. Joshi (Robin Wright) is a shell, she's uniformed, slicked back, stiff, uncaring, emotionless. Wallace (Jared Leto) is basically part robot and talks mechanically and has no trouble killing his children. It isn't hard to see K's connection to Joi.
Joi makes K important. She helps drive the story, by making him a key piece of the puzzle for K and us.
Joi "dies." It is true Joi as K knew won't exist in the same exact way, and that Joi is programmed to love him. But the scene is heartbreaking. The later scene when her giant nude advertisement speaks to him, he realizes both that she is a program, but that she was also his unique program. Like all the other versions, but not. This thought pattern might motivate his absolution to kill Luv who took away his Joi - apart from the fact that Luv is always in his way. (not exactly though as pointed out above)
JOSHI & WALLACE:
Humanity wants to protect itself & a human wants to play god at the expense of all other creation
(there's probably more here, but these are based off of first three viewings)
MEMORY CREATOR AND K - DECKARDS CHILDREN:
K's memory of the wood horse drive a big chunk of the plot. We learn eventually that this was a real memory implant from the creator of memories who turns out to be Deckards real daughter. We also know based on Mariette the prostitute (Mackenzie Davis) that this particular memory is not apparently unique to just K by the way that she picks it up and seemingly recognizes it.
K goes to the memory creator.
During this scene, especially toward the end of it K and the creator's reflections overlap one another. We are given visual cues that they are one in the same. (for K this is obviously not literal). This overlapping of reflections also immediately mirrors the next scene involving Mariette and Joi overlapping eachother for K.
What is the point of the Mariette/Joi scene? Joi wants to be "real" for K. So basically the two women become one person.
Now, going back to the previous scene with memory creator, K is the fake one, she is real. There overlapping reflections communicate K's reality that since he possesses her memories, he is in part, not wholly (like Joi) also the memory creator.
This reinforces the ending.
Up until the reveal by the underground that K is not the child he believes he is - He hunts down Deckard, asks him questions as though Deckard is his father, he develops an emotional bond, and learns how Deckard could have abandoned him, etc. etc. The point being Deckard to K, up until that point, is his father. He has the memories, and now the emotional connection to prove it.
When the leader of the underground orders him to kill Deckard we know a few things. First, we know K no longer follows orders. We know K has no connection with the underground (except that he's a replicant too) and that he has formed an emotional bond to Deckard, who for all intents and purposes is his father.
At least for me, by the end when Deckard essentially asks K why he saved him I half expected K to say, "because you're my dad." Now though, like Joi, the artificial child has to die.
THE BEES:
During the first viewing I had a hard time seeing the point of the bees.
Yes, on a surface level Deckard is farming them. (image of a farm reinforces image of farms and Sapper at the beginning.)
But, what struck me was the way its shot. The first image looks like a skyline image of a city, not unlike a New York. Then K moves through it in a couple different shots that remind the viewer of aerial shots of Los Angeles earlier in the film or just in film in general.
Now:
What are most Bees? Workers.
What are replicants built for? To be slave workers.
K towers over all the other workers.
In that moment: he is the child - the best, next greatest, god.
But,
what towers over K: statues of women.
Which women: Joi and Memory Creator. This infers what: the foreshadowing of giant advertisement naked Joi and that K is not the biggest - the best, next greatest, god.
Also,
What towers over everyone in the real city: Advertisements - fake and Artificial
What is K revealed to be: just another replicant - fake and artificial human.
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