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commissioooooon! :O  for @agamemgoth :3

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Sequel Trilogy Post Mortem part 2: Rey Nobody and the problem of meta story-telling

TFA clearly set up Rey as someone with special heritage. Her visions, her connection to Anakin’s lightsaber, her unique powers and even the way they seem to manifest, not out of nowhere but as if they had always been there but only laying dormant, all make it clear. I have no doubts that she was always planned to have “special origin” and that was where Abrams wanted to take it (whether he originally planned to make her Palpatine is another story).

The revelation at the end of TLJ that her parents were nobodies, is problematic for two reasons. First, because it leaves the foreshadowing in TFA as plot holes. Second - and much more important - it’s a twist that only makes sense on meta level.

By this I mean that the twist at the end of TLJ is only a twist if the viewer is aware of the history of SW. A viewer who knew nothing of the franchise, would not know that SW has always revolved around the Skywalker linage, and thus would not assume that Rey must be related to Luke or anyone else special. After all, you don’t normally treat the fact that a character isn’t secretly related to another character as a twist. Absence of family relations is the default - but not for a Star Wars protagonist.

Therefore, this twist only makes sense and works on a meta level. And TLJ very much treats it as a meta-commentary: “You had no place in this story”, Kylo tells her. But the problem with meta-story telling is that it feels inorganic and hollow. While Kylo knows the weight of being born a Skywalker, Rey is not supposed to be aware of the fact that she’s a protagonist in a SW movie. And while I’ve argued that this moment is more about Kylo projecting his own issues about heritage onto Rey, nonetheless Rey’s two movie long story arc ends with an answer that feels meaningless to her and to the bigger narrative. Her being a nobody simply has no meaning to anyone other than Kylo  - and the Star Wars fans in the audience. It doesn’t matter to her, and it doesn’t really connect in meaningful way to the story we’ve been presented so far. The result is just a character, whose screen time feels wasted on teasing her parentage and once the answer turns out to be “didn’t ever matter”, there just isn’t enough there to keep her interesting.

I want to make it clear that I am not against Rey Nobody, I simply believe that it’s something that should’ve been set up from the start, gradually building up to the theme of somebody vs nobody. In fact, there is plenty of potential for this theme. The special Skywalker and son of beloved heroes vs the scavenger nobody who has no connection to the canon. On narrative level, it’s a story about how what you do matters more than who you are born as. On meta level, it would present the new canon as worthy successor to the old one. Had it been done from the start, and done well, it could’ve worked on both levels, unfortunately that was not the case.

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Sequel Trilogy Post Mortem part 1: What went so wrong?

Long time no post, but I saw TROS recently for the first time since cinema, and it reminded me again of how utterly that movie managed to destroy my interest in the ST and the entire era. I wanted to look back at the ST and try to analyze what went so wrong. This is my opinions listed, and I’ll write in more detail in separate posts about some of these points.

1. The Force Awakens. Solid movie, presents characters and plot that has potential for a fun story. However, the set up for the new canon is already very limiting, basically undoing the progress of the previous movies both in the story sense (another Republic vs Empire conflict, another “last Jedi” etc) and in the creative sense (the PT significantly expanded the world, themes and aesthetics of SW and this is discarded). In hindsight (and as someone whose first movie TFA was), it’s obvious from the start here that Disney’s take on SW canon is already problematic and bound to cause trouble.

2. The Last Jedi. This is where the trilogy gets derailed. TLJ split the fanbase and it’s easy to see how many people enjoy it. If you look at it as just an isolated piece of cinema, it’s a perfectly adequate movie. But as a middle part of a trilogy, TLJ is a disaster. The only character whose story is advanced in a meaningful way is Kylo. The plot is just one long chase scene. Rey’s character arc, which for two movies has focused on her quest for finding her parent’s, end in a meta-twist that feels hollow and pointless. Finn gets no development, just repeating the same arc he already had in the last movie, Poe gets development but it isn’t very good, Rose is okay but feels unnecessary, Snoke is killed without telling us anything about him, Phasma is killed, Hux becomes a walking slapstick joke, and oh, Luke Skywalker dies after pretty unsatisfying end to his story. TLJ ends so many plot thread, eliminates so many characters (including killing/neutering all but one villain!) and fails so utterly to move the trilogy forward,that it essentially writes the story into a corner.

3. The Rise of Skywalker. TROS is “objectively” a terrible movie, a long series of visually impressive and even superficially entertaining scenes that nonetheless feel completely disconnected and empty. It’s hard to comment about TROS because I walked out of the theater feeling just apathy. No matter how problematic TLJ was, the last movie should’ve continued it’s developments for the sake of coherence. Especially Kylo at the end of TLJ is perfectly set up as the main villain for the last movie, and dismissing that undoes the biggest positive of TLJ. Instead, TROS feels like it has even less to do with the previous story than TLJ did, completing the total disintegration of the Sequel Trilogy.

So, why did ST fail so badly? Mostly I think it comes down to Disney's lack of understanding of SW and vision of where to take it.

* Disney treated SW like another “nostalgia franchise”, a dead property to be resurrected for cheap nostalgia appeal, which simply isn’t what SW is. Good example is the dismissal of PT.

* Disney’s take on SW suffers greatly from excessive risk-aversion, which has caused the franchise to feel less imaginative and unique, while those are the qualities that the fans want from a franchise like this. Good example is the lack of (interesting) aliens and exotic planets in the new canon.

* Neither J.J. Abrams nor Rian Johnson were good choices for the ST. Abrams is Hollywood’s most famous “concept guy” who has become (in)famous for coming up with cool ideas and set ups  - and failing to follow up on them. Johnson's only experience with serialized story telling was directing (not writing) three (not successive) episodes of Breaking Bad, which is hardly proof that he is capable of writing the middle part of a trilogy with epic scale and complex canon. Both of their weaknesses are extremely apparent in their approach to the ST, as neither of them was capable of creating a satisfying and coherent story arc, and neither did Disney have any Lucas-figure doing it for them.

* The ultimate problem is Disney’s lack of vision and creative ambition. ST should’ve been a new era equal to the OT and PT. An epic story full of memorable characters, setting up a new perspective to the world that fans would love to get lost into. But nobody seems to have thought about it much beyond “how many OT references can we stick here”. The lack of big picture is frankly astonishing when you consider how much money Disney invested into buying and developing this franchise.

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Saturday Night Live | Undercover Boss: Where Are They Now

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When they showed in JFO Cal’s vision with him as Inquisitor I had to pause the game cause I forgot how to breath

Inspiration:

Czytaj dalej

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ReverseAu based on @calkestisisbaby headcanons (I love them I hope you don’t mind me drawing them!)

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Jupiter Ascending (2015)

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Some sort of Korriban/moraband redesign sketches I guess ??

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OK so I don’t even have Switch but what is going on with this gen of Pokemon??? I literally lol’d when I saw this thing wtf... It’s like some bizarre parody of Pokemon. I don’t know if this is the funniest thing to have come out of this franchise or the creepiest...

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The Chamber of Cleansing, Voss

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Commission for https://twitter.com/DaneeIOIivaw I love this art so much, because somehow miraculously everything went as it should from the first sketch, the process itself evoked only positive emotions, the result more than suits me (even at the color stage) and is it SO SUPRISING, can drawing really bring pleasure? ))) Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddEjVw8oz50

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lacroix fuckers come get y’alls juice

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BD-1 cute dance and butt wiggle appreciation post.

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Lil late, but happy New Year everyone! ^_^

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this is the way.