Last Jedi or Not?!?!?

The Last Jedi has been out for a while now so I don't feel bad commenting on it.  I am doing this because as I have been reading and writing more, I can see how it has effected my viewing of movies!

Recently I went with my 19 year old son to see "The Last Jedi". We are old movie buffs and have all the VHS Star Wars Tapes.  Of course my son is too young to have been there for the originals or for the interviews and ideas behind the Star Wars movies however anyone who is a sci-fi buff has to admit at least two of the movies are really good. 

I managed to start reading a book I thought was on writing however was on writing good scenes for movies! Some of it stuck I think because all the way through this movie my mind was enjoying and critiquing.  A drag but such is life. 

At any rate, I have been mulling over what my editor was talking about before going back into my second and third edit of my manuscript.  I found this movie very helpful since it showed me what I was doing wrong which hopefully I can fix.

I found there was a lot of action in this movie but real weak points in the plot line.  For instance, the entire second half of the movie would not have even been needed if the commander who took over for the Princess had just shared her plan.  A few words to put her crew at ease.  Not a big deal.  All she had to say was "we are putting the remaining fuel into the small shuttles that won't be detected by the enemy and going do to that old planet which is an abandoned Rebel base."  If she had said that, boom, no need to seek alternatives, no need to go seeking a code cracker or anything else.  Seems a very weak and barely plausible reason.  I have to make sure my reasoning and sequence of events is stronger than that!

I have been reading other mystery writers to see how they make transitions from one scene to the next. I mean not just the description of the scene but how much work goes into the meeting of one scene and having it go into the next.

With this movie, I found there was so many sub stories going on and so much "pretty" scenery, yet I found the transitions weak.  One minute a ship is being cut in two because it is being rammed, and the next minute the main protagonist is in another ship.  One minute the little Rollie pollie robot is having a chat with the black Rollie pollie on the enemy ship (never do know what that is about!) and the next minute it is piloting a craft ready to rescue everyone.  I am amazed at how that little thing can get around!

And what's up with someone who shows no visible force ability and next thing this same princess is out in space directing herself back to the shuttle.  Nothing plausible in that other than many Jedi abilities seem to be growing randomly based on the need of the writers!  This is one thing my son hates.  He learned in school about "plot amour" which means answers to problems and fixes to situations just pop up without any background or plausible support.  I found that movie full of it because it was like the writer kept writing himself into a corner and needing to fix it somehow.  I soo can relate to this however even though my book has some reference to psychic ability, I do NOT use it to get myself out of a corner!

The next issue I am interested in because I have an outline started for my next book with the same characters more or less.  I noticed just a random comment in passing from another character does not feel like it is enough to give anyone watching only this movie enough to give a proper back drop for the main characters from the previous movie.  I for one,found only the two major old characters and dear Rose really people I could relate or attach myself to.  At least with Rose you could understand where she was coming from because of the heroic loss of her sister.  A totally ridiculous loss due to a hot shot who listened to no one throughout the entire movie until the very end.  Character Arc seriously?  The guy is a total ass and hotshot one minute and then all serious and ready to lead the next?  Hardly any change in his behaviour at all but hey, he grew!  And he was about the only one who did!

And lets look at the characters in general.  They had hardly any real depth.  The actors should get awards for trying however the dialogue was stiff and there was no fun.  No character who was really meaty who could pull off depth and bravado.  If you took these actors and put them in ordinary clothes I couldn't help but feel you would have the older characters all suffering from PTSD and the younger being rebellious teenagers! There was a few little rudimentary connections to Buddhist teachings but none of Joseph Campbell's myths at all.  No archetypes and nothing really deep about the entire thing.  It was just another action movie trying to reclaim what went before it!  A soap opera in a fancy setting!  

I watch many movies over and over while I paint and I pick up lines.  And I swear, at one point a line came up in this movie that was a flashback to a Pirates of the Caribbean movie!  I said so to my son, and I never checked but he said the same writer was in that movie also!  This explains alot! 

To be fair, the other Star Wars movies had a history and was at a time when everything in animation and special effects was just starting to take off.  Now many of us have seen so many over the top movie effects that all our greatest wishes have come true.  Look at National Treasure.  Hasn't everyone wanted to go on a treasure hunt and find treasure like that?  The days of digging up one pirate chest full of jewels is over! Now you get an entire cavern of treasure that would do any pirate proud! The imagination is left to have nothing to fill in;it can all be done for you!  The old saying about "showing" something has been taken to the max.  Only a hand-full of brilliant writers and directors still know the power of leaving things to be interpreted....and usually in horror movies!

I don't know if it is because my brain has gone into writing and words mode, or if it was all about the movie being disappointing however I have noticed now I see things with new eyes.  I cannot say I so much SEE where I need to work on my novel as much as I FEEL what I need to do, however this movie has taught me a few valuable lessons on what I want to NOT do and so have to go in and fix things.  Perhaps this is a good thing, perhaps not so much.  I have been watching and figuring out plot lines in the first quarter of the movie from the time I was a little girl and TV came out.  I remember one of my things to say was "I saw it before".  And somehow with this movie, yup, it feels the same.  It is just a filler movie to kill off the old to make way for the new which I can't help will play out more like "Dynasty" than a series of iconic action Sci-fi movies which with each one I will feel like I saw it before!  For me, mocking one of the iconic features of the old moves ( the mask), having the new villain smashing it against the wall, was scra-ligious!  For an old Star war fan, that was just too much.  Talk about killing off the old!  Why?  For effect!?!  Seriously, again, over the top! There was a reason for the mask Darth Vader wore, so what reasoning for much of anything in this new series?  My point exactly!  No depth.   The writers know how to create action, maybe even a little tension however they don't get the depth aspect everyone was so desperately hoping for.  I can only hope with my book there will be no plot armour yet at the same time lead to a conclusion you will not see coming Plus have a theme that is real, deep and worth writing about.  I think for me, that is the fun part!  Time will tell!