What’s something that you feel like you should like, but for some reason can’t get into, no matter how many chances you give it?
For me, it’s The Three Body Problem. It should be right up my alley from everything I’ve heard about it (especially the second book, which looks at the Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter!), but for the life of me, I can’t get past the first chapter at all. I even tried reading it in another language to see if it was the translation that kept me from getting into it, and nope.
Star wars fans hate TFA for reasons that elude me.
I’m with you, TFA was cool. I wanted to know more about the knights of Ren. Kylo was interesting, here is a villain who is struggling with using the dark side, but is trying to commit to it. That’s something we don’t see ever. Finn was a neat character, and another new perspective.
I think the Rey hatred is actually misogyny. People don’t lose their minds that Luke is best fighter pilot in the rebellion, but Rey uses the force in the “wrong” way and she’s an unredeemable Mary Sue. I’m not one to cry discrimination, but the amount of venom targeted at the character implies something deeper.
I too gave up after TLJ, it seemed designed to make me stop caring about star wars.
They set up so much in TFA that was just dropped in TLJ, like how they set Finn up to be someone who could use the Force. He quickly got relegated to side character, and there was just so much potential with him that they just abandoned.
And I completely agree that a lot of the Rey hate was misogyny, like how so much of the Rose hate was misogyny and racism. It was honestly just depressing to see happening.
I will give TLJ credit; that scene where the general rammed her ship into the enemy was breathtaking. The hairs on my arms stood up at it, and to this day, it’s still the image that sticks with me from the movie.
One of my biggest complaints about TLJ was how poor the plot was. It’s surprising because Rian Johnson has some of the best thought out plots in his other movies.
The slow speed chase didn’t make sense, the
empirefirst order could see they were heading to a planet. Finn and Rose had time to leave, go to another planet and come back without issue, why weren’t they scattering parts of the fleet and people the whole time?Worst, the entirety of the movie didn’t move the plot forward. At the end of TFA Rey is a nascent Jedi searching for a place to fit in, Kylo is struggling with his path trying, Finn is trying to fit in and Poe is a hotshot pilot. At the end of TLJ no character advanced, they are all in the same spot.
I would have preferred if they did some really weird stuff, like Rey becomes Kylo’s student to save everyone else. Will she redeem him or be corrupted? Will she be a double agent? What exactly are the goals of the first order? Can they be subverted into something good?
After TLJ I didn’t care what was going to happen to anyone, and still don’t.
The pacing was also a nightmare. Everything at the casino took up far, far too much screen time and just dragged.
Agreed. The whole thing was just a waste. It felt like they were trying to create a desperate situation similar to the Empire Strikes Back, but to do so they made the Resistance have the worst planning and resources and strategy. They made the plucky heroes stupid in order to make the stakes higher. It only built on the unbelievability of the setup for TFA that after the fall of the Empire, the New Republic would just give up any memory of having very recently recovered from galactic fascism and immediately become weak and useless.
The slow speed chase and multiple ships just getting picked off felt like a horror movie where characters are getting picked off by the serial killer over the course of a few hours instead of an adventure movie you want to rewatch.
I get what your saying about misogyny, certainly noticed it myself. For me, conversations i tried to have were mine “I feel her characterization was lacking depth” (most of the movie was like… that scene on the falcon, where they were repairing it or with solo.) followed with an asshole agreeing with me and going off on angry tangents…. So I stopped mentioning it.
Rey was the least annoying problem in the movie though. I like my Star Wars villains to be like tarkin or the OG Vader. I don’t like them to be screaming tantrum-tossing toddlers.
And the resistance was totally incompetent. Luke was totally incompetent. Everyone was totally incompetent. Frustrating.