#but with the canon version. I just frikkin love that trope.

[greekceltic]

Drawing Mossy's guy got me wanting to draw Jacky as a sphinx. Finally gave me an excuse to explore the leather strip baubles again.

She is ready for the coliseum baybee.

[megabadbunny]

it’s fuck-all-o’clock in the morning and that means time for a star wars rant right???

Btw any darlings who may be reading this: if you like The Last Jedi and reading criticism about it upsets you, or if you haven’t yet seen the movie and would like to avoid spoilers, I would highly encourage you to turn back now! <3 <3 <3

So here’s the thing: Rian Johnson made TLJ the way he did for the sake of something “new” and “different”, right? Like he wanted to subvert audience expectations, take Star Wars in a new direction, out with the old, in with the new, no more fancy remakes/clusters-of-parallels-dressed-up-with-new-characters-and-special-effects, yes?

Okay but STAR WARS HAS ALREADY FUCKING DONE THIS BEFORE. This isn’t new. It isn’t! All of his bullshit “fresh” perspective? IT’S NOT FRESH BECAUSE STAR WARS HAS ALREADY DONE IT.

You want a darker take on the Star Wars story? Look at The Empire Strikes Back. Of course, now we all know the twist about Luke Skywalker’s true parentage; the movie’s been out for nearly 40 frikkin’ years. Even if you’ve never watched the movie, there’s a pretty damn healthy chance you’re familiar with the infamous “No--I am your father.” But this is 40 years later. In 1980, when the film first screened--no one fucking expected that! Audiences were shocked! Folks were certain Vader was lying, that’s how shocked they were. Not to mention, the hero’s hand gets chopped off--what the fuck, man??? His hand gets chopped off by the biggest baddest worst man in the galaxy, who also happens to be his father? That is some fucked-up shit! Then Luke decides he would rather die than subject himself to the presence of his father for even one more minute, so he just lets himself fucking fall, ostensibly to his death.

You want to see a story about a hero who runs headlong into danger without any regard for the consequences and then suffer the repercussions? Long before Poe ran disastrous suicide missions in space, we had Luke Skywalker freaking out on Dagobah and deciding to forsake his training despite Yoda and Obi-Wan basically telling him flat-out that it’s a frikkin’ trap. He was so certain that he was the only one who could save his friends and runs blindly into the situation despite the obvious danger. And you know what? He loses his hand because of it. (In real-life terms, of course you couldn’t blame someone like Luke for the loss of his hand, but in storytelling terms, the narrative is clearly punishing Luke for his thoughtlessness.) 

By the end of the movie, none of our heroes have successfully completed their objectives. Leia couldn’t save Han; he’s been captured and spirited away to god-knows-where (and for all audiences knew back in 1980, he wouldn’t survive). And of course Han did not get any sort of happy ending with Leia--barely managed to coax her into so much as admitting her feelings before he got turned into a Han-sicle. Lando couldn’t protect Cloud City; despite his best efforts under a series of worsening circumstances, it’s now under Imperial Control. And Luke doesn’t actually contribute, at all, in any way whatsoever, to the aid or protection of his friends. He doesn’t contribute to the rescue effort for Han at all, and if Luke had never come to Cloud City, Leia and Lando and Chewie still would have escaped. Luke turned his back on Yoda and Obi-Wan, forsook his training, lost his fucking hand, for nothing.

Which brings me to my next point: you want to see a story about a hero who, despite their best efforts, doesn’t actually end up helping at all? See above, re: Luke forsakes his training to help save his friends and doesn’t even end up making a damn bit of difference. For goodness’ sake, Leia has to turn right back around and fly back to Cloud City to save him! He actually hampers their escape! Long before Finn and Rose disobeyed orders to take a pointless detour to a pointless casino planet full of pointless half-arsed social commentary bullshit and other pointless garbage that basically just existed for the sake of giving their characters something to do (and we didn’t even get to see Lando, what the ever-loving fuck, are you kidding me, a casino planet would have been the perfect place to find him????), Luke disobeyed orders only to end up with no helpful contributions, making things worse for himself in the end. But at least The Empire Strikes Back has the decency to show you how crushed Luke is by the whole thing.

It’s easy not to think about it in these terms because those of us who love the story have probably watched it so many times that its impact has now diminished into something comfortable--especially knowing how things wrap up in Return of the Jedi--but face it: The Empire Strikes Back is a dark movie, kids. For those of us who weren’t around at that time, can you imagine waiting three fucking years to find out what happened next???

Also, are you interested in a story about a once-noble warrior who is now a grumpy and curmudgeonly hermit reluctant to take on impulsive new trainees? Long before we had Luke deciding that “the Jedi need to end”--for no real reason, if you really think about it...? Like, what have we actually seen in the movies that demonstrates that the Jedi shouldn’t exist anymore? It makes sense for Luke to feel guilty about his personal actions, and I could buy Luke making this argument just because he’s so tired of the fighting and bloodshed and heartbreak, but instead the screenplay is written like a stoner’s “Hey man, like, what if the Jedi were actually not all that perfect?” thread on a subreddit and we’re just supposed to accept that this bullshit meta-discussion-telling-instead-of-showing is good enough motivation for Luke to let the Jedi die out, but ANYWAY I DIGRESS--long before that useless horse-turd of a motivation, we had Yoda, aka a once-noble warrior who is now a grumpy and curmudgeonly hermit reluctant to take on impulsive new trainees.

And the parallels/ripoffs don’t end there: in both ESB and TLJ you’ve got half of our heroes stuck in a crippled ship being chased by the baddies across space, you’ve got a big baddie trying to manipulate our main hero (via revelations about familial connections or lack thereof) into joining his side while his puppet-strings are being pulled by yet another bigger badder baddie, Crait might as well be Hoth (except wait that one dude ate some dirt and said “Salt!” so I guess we’re good...?) and of course we can’t forget that the dark-side cave on Dagobah is paralleled by Ahch-To’s dark-side seaweed anus. 

Oh yeah, and if you’ll allow me to divert from The Empire Strikes Back for a moment: if you’re interested in a story about a literal nobody rising to glorious heights, guess what? We’ve already got that--the deeply-flawed-but-still-canonical Phantom Menace gave us a slave boy who was the literal Chosen One. The only reason we don’t think of Anakin Skywalker as a nobody is because TPM is a prequel and we already know the ending. But chronologically, his character, the venerable Darth Vader, one of the most feared men in the Star Wars galaxy and one of the most well-known characters in all of movie history, starts out as a nobody. So no, Rey Random is not some revelation; it’s just the same story, repackaged.

But hey, don’t ever forget that The Last Jedi is new and bold and refreshing! Don’t forget how fresh and subversive it is! In no way does it mirror its predecessors every bit as much as TFA did. In no way did TFA actually manage to subvert tropes in giving a face and name and voice and conscience to a Stormtrooper, who, historically, belongs to a group of nameless faceless blank-slated nobodies. In no way did TLJ spend half its runtime retconning or disregarding half the shit set up in TFA for no other reason that the director’s own pretentiousness (for all his discussion of “oh my twists aren’t twists, they’re just the most dramatic versions of honest* moments”, you’d think he would have, oh, I don’t know, maybe gone the route of natural storytelling instead of forcing his own half-cooked thoughts into the mix, or maybe found his honesty from shit that actually happened in the first movie in the trilogy instead of manufacturing his own), and certainly, TLJ is not riddled with incomprehensible plotholes. 

(And, sidenote: TLJ doesn’t even maintain consistency with its own messages. For all the talk of “killing the past” and letting go of the old to pave way for the new, it also seems to talk a great deal about learning from your failures, but how the fuck are you supposed to learn from or cope with your past if, y’know, you sever all ties with it? (Did we learn nothing from The Lion King???) I understand the message that being bogged down by the past, for any reason, ultimately isn’t good for you. But saying “let the past go” and “learn from your past mistakes” feels messy at best and antithetical at worst.)

I’m not saying that there’s nothing good about TLJ--hell, there were plenty of moments I enjoyed. The lightsaber battles were great, the space-battles were fun, the theme of action-and-consequence was good, I liked the whole learn-from-your-failures bit even if it was messily incorporated, I thought Kylo Ren’s arc was well-developed, I loved seeing Leia with a blaster again, and yeah, I got a kick out of the Porgs. And I’m not saying people shouldn’t like the movie! Like what you want, I’m not your mom. I’m just saying that the movie isn’t nearly as “fresh” or subversive as its director or super staunch supporters seem to think it is, and I’m a little frustrated by the criticism aimed at Star Wars fans who didn’t care for the movie. Specifically, I’m frustrated by the accusation that we’re all mindless sheep who are just upset that they weren’t spoonfed the same stories and themes as every other Star Wars movie. Oh, I’m sure there are some fans who are irritated that the status quo wasn’t filled, but for a lot of us, that isn’t the problem.

The problems with TLJ boil down to the following: 1) the movie seems more interested in making “the most dramatic choice” for every moment instead of the most honest, natural, or true-to-the-story choice (i.e., it seems more interested in manipulating the story for the sake of shock value instead of letting the story unfold naturally in any way), and 2) it’s just not a great movie. At the end of the day, it sets out to accomplish too many things, and present too many plot points, with too many characters, and ultimately can’t dedicate enough time to do justice to any of it, so all of it suffers. The original Star Wars movies are simple enough, sure, but rather than commit the mistake of doing a bunch of things poorly, they do a small number of things pretty darn well. And I would argue that that, rather than the decision to do things “differently” than Star Wars movies in the past, is the major flaw inherent in The Last Jedi.

* While we’re discussing “honest” moments--where is the honesty in having Rose talk about love right before planting a big ol’ smooch right on Finn’s mouth when they’ve known each other for like 18 hours??? And unless she’s secretly some kind of idiot, why would Holdo--aka admiral-battle-genius or whatever--withhold valuable information from Poe on a “need to know basis” when he’s in a position that needs to know? Why did Luke leave a piece of his map in Artoo if he absolutely never ever ever wanted to ever be found, if he came to “the most unfindable” place in the galaxy to die? How is it an “honest choice” to bring Phasma back for two minutes for no real purpose??? Why did the story completely omit any mention or sight of the Knights of Ren during Luke and Ren’s flashbacks? Why did the story utterly disregard shit like 1) when Rey touches Luke’s lightsaber in TFA, she not only sees visions of her family leaving her interspersed with images from Luke’s past including Kylo Ren’s attack on the temple, but she also sees events that the lightsaber wasn’t even present for, 2) Maz recognizing Rey’s eyes despite the fact that they’ve never met, 3) “The lightsaber was Luke’s, and his father’s before his, and now it calls to you”? 4) “The Force runs strong in my family. I have it. My father has it. My sister has it. You have that power, too” and 5) the fact that Leia specifically sent Rey to go find Luke? (Why the hell would Leia choose to send some random nobody to track down her long-lost brother???) How is Rey Random the most honest choice given these points and so many other things shown in TFA??? TFA isn’t perfect but it tells a story that has a natural and honest progression--or at least that’s the case until TLJ came along and, through the power of retcon, made it a dirty rotten liar. :D

** OH MY GOD if you want to explore the concept of a nobody having just as much potential to rise to Force-sensitive-greatness as someone with a special lineage THEN WHY NOT DO THAT WITH FINN??? Then you could make it so that the title “The Last Jedi” doesn’t refer to any single person--it refers to Jedi in the plural, being Luke and Rey AND FINN!!! And you could even see how different things are for both of them--Rey’s over here learning about her family lineage, being reunited with family, having this huge family history that represents the very pinnacle of the struggle between good and evil, and Finn is struggling because he feels like he comes from nothing, and because the likelihood of ever finding out his family’s identity is basically nil, he secretly worries that that’s all he really is: nothing. So then you would have the two of them helping each other work through their shit--Finn helps Rey deal with this newfound fame and attention and overwhelming sense of duty, and Rey helps Finn realize he’s not a nobody, he’s just as special as she is, and even if they don’t ever manage to find his family, he’s got her, and Poe, and everyone else; they’re his family, no matter what. OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDD ASLDKFJSOIEJWAOIRSDLFJWSOERIJEROIJ

/rant