Episode 1681 Talkback - Star Wars: The Last Jedi Movie Review
Adam_Murdough
Posts: 506
The latest installment in the Star Wars sequel trilogy has thundered into theaters and divided fandom as sharply as a lightsaber through a torso. Now it's time for Shane, Chris, and Murd to have their spoiler-laden say on the matter. May the Force be with us all! (59:56)
Listen to the episode. Kill it if you have to.
Listen to the episode. Kill it if you have to.
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"Today (today, today, today), I consider myself (self, self, self) ..."
P.S. Murd made a horrible, Earth-shattering, unforgivable error by stating that Sebastian Coe played Anakin in ROTJ, when I'm sure he meant to say Sebastian Shaw.
P.P.S Speaking of Sebastian Shaw, I found these fun bits of trivia in his Wikipedia entry:
"When Shaw arrived at the set [of "Return of the Jedi"] for filming, he ran into his friend Ian McDiarmid, the actor playing Emperor Palpatine. When McDiarmid asked him what he was doing there, Shaw responded, 'I don't know, dear boy, I think it's something to do with science-fiction.'
Although his unmasking scene lasted only two minutes and seven seconds and required just 24 words of dialogue, Shaw received more fan mail and autograph requests from 'Return of the Jedi' than he had for any role in the rest of his career. He later reflected that he very much enjoyed his experience and expressed particular surprise that an action figure was made of him from the film."
Seems he never really grasped the significance of the role.
First, there was an article on Gawker about the Porgs. Apparently, the island they filmed at was, in real life, full of Puffin. Since they couldn't remove them, physically or digitally, they created the digital Porgs to mask their real life counter parts. So, I liked the discussion about them maybe being Force-masking fowl, but it seemed from the article like it was more of a band-aid than a plot device.
Also, I've seen a few mentions of the whole Finn-Rose plot line was a waste, and I read a comment about this movie being about the common man. So, when I watched it a second time, I paid attention to both of those notes and really saw a deeper movie.
To me, unlike Joseph Campbell's idea of the Hero's Journey, this movie was more like the Common Man's Journey. The Finn-Rose plotline - heck Rose herself - was a huge example of this. She was (I don't remember the exact quote) just working with pipes. Not the hero like she called Finn, but she came up with the idea on how they were being tracked, she talks the stable kids into helping and then rides the horse-like creatures, and she saves Finn on the salt planet. Even characters like Laura Dern and Benico Del Toro's character all affect the lives of the Heroes in significant ways throughout the story.
So, the Rose-Finn plot, I think, makes more sense when you look at how it failed. It was Poe and Finn, the Heroes, charging in with their "we must save the day" attitude that create the idea. Each Hero charges ahead assured of their plan and that it is everyone's only hope, until it fails. Instead, it is this background (literally she is in the background during Leia's speech) character, thrust into prominence, who comes up with the real plan that actually saves the day.
I don't really know if my read of it is what they were going for, but seeing it that way made me enjoy the second viewing even more.