Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson)

[Skitch]

Being sexist is one thing, but calling the best scene in the movie dumb? They can fight me.

I don't understand why males think less females makes it "manlier". It certainly makes it gayer which is usually not the goal of these dummies.

The prequel fights were all flash and zero substance. I know it's fantasy, but the fact is that nobody actually sword-fights like that. The analogy would be pro wrestling vs. MMA. Pro wrestling is a ton of fun and when done right can mix the drama of real fighting with the narrative drive of the best storytelling. MMA is dirty, ugly, and can bring out some really primitive responses from the audience.

Luke vs Kylo was more MMA than pro wrestling. It was akin to bushido, quite deliberately. The emphasis on footwork, stance. Quick, sudden bursts of violence based on reading your opponent. Ever played Bushido Blade? The strikes are tactical. The fight is over before it begins—as was this one. Luke won before Kylo made a move, actually he won as soon as Kylo made a move.

That's what this was and that's why I loved it. Of course, Kylo thought he could read his old Master but Luke was playing the ultimate bluff—and Kylo took the bait. It was as much a mental fight as it was physical, and it was fucking perfect. It was also shot so beautifully.

Again the more I think about this film, the more I love it, warts and all.

Great post. (I fixed one bit though ).

To your point of it being a mental fight over physical, Luke also wielded Vader's lightsaber instead of his own to further piss off Kylo.

[Milky Joe]

Also, it was literally a mental fight on the part of Luke, who was projecting the whole thing. He gave it literally everything he had. I cheered and clapped and laughed when they revealed him back on the island—there has never been a more awesome Jedi moment than that. Rian Johnson achieved exactly what he set out to do, to make Luke Skywalker into the legend everybody wanted him to be.

[Skitch]

I had to think it over a bit (because my gut reaction like every other SW nerd was "why couldn't he be there??"), but by the time I got home from the theater I landed on "thats the only way I wanted it and I didn't even know it". I did NOT want Kylo the satisfaction of killing him the way Vader killed Obi Wan. They had an entirely different dynamic that made that okay. Obi Wan was playing the long game in getting Vader to be conflicted to the light again. That would not have worked on Kylo. It would've only pushed him further to the dark.

[Dead & Messed Up]

That reveal is maybe the best reveal of the saga since "I am your father." I thought it was fucking ingenious.

And him actually going there wouldn't've worked, because his entire goal there was to distract and give the Resistance time. If he was actually there, he would've lasted 12 seconds before the Walkers fried him.

[Skitch]

Yep, exactly.

[amberlita]

Sorry if this is a naive question, but why did astral projecting cause Luke to die? Or did he choose to die? Is there something in SW history that explains that?

[Milky Joe]

“The galaxy needs legends,” Johnson explained. “I think about the look in Rey’s eyes in ‘The Force Awakens,’ when she says, ‘Luke Skywalker, I thought he was a myth,’ and that gleam in her eyes. And I think about how I felt when I showed up to work the first day to meet with Mark Hamill, and I sat down and started talking to him, and I could only see Luke Skywalker. He made it very hard to talk, and [it’s] the idea that there’s value in that, in terms of inspiring us to fight the good fight and to be our best.”
...
“It does go back a little bit to what he said at the beginning [of ‘The Last Jedi’]. ‘What do you think one guy walking out there with a lightsaber [can do]?’ … The answer is: Create a legend that will spread hope. And once he’s done that, combined with the physical toll it’s taken on him, you can make the case that then there’s nothing more powerful that he could accomplish.”

Johnson's insistence on not providing easy answers and leaving things open to interpretation is another of the film's saving graces. It's not about providing answers to facile questions left hanging; it's about forcing the audience to use our imaginations to fill in the blanks of what we just witnessed.

[Skitch]

Sorry if this is a naive question, but why did astral projecting cause Luke to die? Or did he choose to die? Is there something in SW history that explains that?

The series has hinted that it takes great effort to communicate through the force (Luke screaming out to Leia in Empire to come pick him up from under Cloud City and she barely felt it). Also in TLJ Ren asks Rey how she's contacting him because "she's just a beginner, the effort should tear her apart". So if just contacting a person is a great effort, projecting yourself would take a master and possibly cost you your life.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Yeah, just given the exertion he seemed to be giving off (meditating a foot off his pedestal, shivering, sweating, collapsing) and the previous dialogue from Kylo, and how he collapses afterward - and the fact that he was doing it so intensely that he was able to apparate physically enough to kiss his sister's forehead and conjure those dice.

I mean, the whole Force-skype thing is brand-new (if based off the end of Empire), so it's really all about whether or not this film sells it. Which it does.

[Kirby Avondale]

That reveal is maybe the best reveal of the saga since "I am your father." I thought it was fucking ingenious.

And him actually going there wouldn't've worked, because his entire goal there was to distract and give the Resistance time. If he was actually there, he would've lasted 12 seconds before the Walkers fried him.

I understand his choice of Luke timeslice for his showdown, but with force-projection being a thing, you'd think he might project himself sometimes back before Luke ran his BMW into a wampa.

[number8]

I've always liked when fictional characters' bodies just physically behave the way they are metaphorically. Like, "she died of a broken heart," or whatever. Or like the victims in the original Ring when people are literally just scared to death by Sadako appearing (of course the American remake had to show deformed corpses to add some physical toll). I think it's cool that Luke expired because he's just done.

[Kirby Avondale]

I've always liked when fictional characters' bodies just physically behave the way they are metaphorically. Like, "she died of a broken heart," or whatever. Or like the victims in the original Ring when people are literally just scared to death by Sadako appearing (of course the American remake had to show deformed corpses to add some physical toll). I think it's cool that Luke expired because he's just done.

This remains one of my favorite movie moments...

"Cause of death?"

::flashback to police finding corpse of a girl, obviously drowned, in a closet::

"Suicide."

[Izzy Black]

I could not disagree more, I thought the Luke/Kylo showdown was the finest lightsaber duel since the OT, without question. The prequel fights were all flash and zero substance. I know it's fantasy, but the fact is that nobody actually sword-fights like that. The analogy would be pro wrestling vs. MMA. Pro wrestling is a ton of fun and when done right can mix the drama of real fighting with the narrative drive of the best storytelling. MMA is dirty, ugly, and can bring out some really primitive responses from the audience.

Luke vs Kylo was more MMA than pro wrestling. It was akin to bushido, quite deliberately. The emphasis on footwork, stance. Quick, sudden bursts of violence based on reading your opponent. Ever played Bushido Blade? The strikes are tactical. The fight is over before it begins—as was this one. Luke won before Kylo made a move, actually he won as soon as Kylo made a move.

That's what this was and that's why I loved it. Of course, Kylo thought he could read his old Master but Luke was playing the ultimate bluff—and Kylo took the bait. It was as much a mental fight as it was physical, and it was fucking perfect. It was also shot so beautifully.

It's a cool scene, but it's way too short. Most of it is dialogue. There's maybe 30 seconds of actual combat. Kylo swings a couple of times and whiffs as Luke dodges, then they start talking for a while. Kylo delivers a finishing blow by cutting through some more air.

I appreciate tactical and methodical melee combat. One of my favorite more recent movie sword fights is Beatrix Kiddo vs O-Ren Ishii. Stunning scene. Even that scene is on the short side, but there's much more combat and skill on display there than there is here. It's a very careful, well laid out scene.

It's true that a Bushido sword fight or MMA match can last a few seconds, and those fights can be thrilling, sure, but I personally don't think this fight is particularly good even by those standards. The fight is mostly dialogue. And I'd say that in most cases a fight that ends very early in, say, MMA, is due to lopsided competition. Most of the best matches go the distance.

The scene also obviously recalls Obi Wan and Darth Vader's fight from Episode IV. Luke even regurgitates roughly the same speech. The difference is that the EIV fight is a full blown light saber battle (and has greater emotional significance imo). It has its critics, but I still love that fight. It has a lot of the Bushido characteristics you're talking about, but it's still a fairly protracted scene. I like Kylo and Luke's fight because of the reveal, but I still like to see a fight that has not just a couple of moves, but many competitive moves that display skill and is well choreographed.

[Skitch]

The first thing that sprung to mind for me when watching Luke v Kylo was a showdown between (forgive me if I'm misremembering it's been a while since I've watched it) between Kyuzo and a challenger in Seven Samurai. There was two maybe three exchanges and it was OVER. The way it was designed and shot was maximum intense, with both combatants eyeballing each other for a while before engaging each round. It was more verbal in TLJ, but it was still the very first thing I thought of.

An excuse to rewatch Seven Samurai is like a friend asking for forgiveness for being bothersome for inviting you to a sushi party.

[Izzy Black]

The first thing that sprung to mind for me when watching Luke v Kylo was a showdown between (forgive me if I'm misremembering it's been a while since I've watched it) between Kyuzo and a challenger in Seven Samurai. There was two maybe three exchanges and it was OVER. The way it was designed and shot was maximum intense, with both combatants eyeballing each other for a while before engaging each round. It was more verbal in TLJ, but it was still the very first thing I thought of.

An excuse to rewatch Seven Samurai is like a friend asking for forgiveness for being bothersome for inviting you to a sushi party.

It's pretty obvious that this fight was designed to be like a Samurai sword fight. That's partly why it's a cool scene (though I wasn't crazy about the matrix effects). But still, it's 20 seconds of combat and it's a 2 hour film. I just wish there were a longer duel at some point in the movie and with evenly matched opponents. Haven't seen a compelling scene like that in over two decades it seems like.

But hey, maybe I'm just an oddball with whacky preferences. As I said, it's probably the most idiosyncratic criticism I had in my post, which is I why I flagged it.

[number8]

Hahaha I imagine Rian Johnson sitting down and sipping tea after posting this series of tweets.

https://twitter.com/rianjohnson/stat...98041598918656

[Skitch]

Perfect.

[Peng]

That's hilarious.

Hahaha I imagine Rian Johnson sitting down and sipping tea after posting this series of tweets.

Alternately...

[Dukefrukem]

That is glorious.

[Milky Joe]

I came here to post that. GLORIOUS.

[DavidSeven]

The shoulder dust-off was so cringy.

[Grouchy]

Hahah so awesome.

[number8]

The shoulder dust-off was so cringy.

I thought it was just a cute crowd-pleasing (based on audience reaction) button at first, but I straight up love it after the reveal that he's a projection, because somehow it's funnier knowing he's not dusting anything and it's just Luke thousands of lightyears away telling his astral form "OK, now do something swag."

[Skitch]

Its the gigantic fuck you middle finger move that pushes Kylo over the edge and draws him out. Totally boss.

[Milky Joe]

+1 for "totally boss."