The Ringer-Verse - 'The Last Jedi' Debate

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Van and Jo sit down to discuss and debate one of the most divisive films in 'Star Wars' canon! They break down key story decisions and settle the debate of whether or not 'The Last Jedi' is a good movie! Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Van Lathan Production: Arjuna Ramgopal, John Richter, Jonathan Frias, Cory McConnell Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Welcome to the Ring Reverse YouTube channel. A special lunchtime debate. Where's my mic going? Between Van Lathen and Joanna Robinson.

Van is sharing this link right now. He's not just like checking his mentions. He is here. He is ready to debate. We're going to debate the last Jedi. A totally calm, cool, chill, you know, thing that people don't get overly excited about. Yeah, it's not like it caused major controversy

rippling throughout the waves of Star Wars fandom. Right, right. It's not like the entire company had a huge reaction to. it, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a really common chill sort of thing that we want to discuss. This is going to be,

this is on live on YouTube, so you're either watching it live right now or you're watching it on YouTube later, and then it will also be in podcast form on the Ring of Verse Feed. A lot of people were upset about that. But it will be a podcast. A lot of people were like,

yeah, you guys are doing it and it's great that you guys are doing it, but I got work and I'm not going to be able to listen to it because my boss is an asshole. Well, you can listen to it later as a podcast. There you go. We're calling this a good faith,

debate about Star Wars because here's the deal. Van doesn't think that like women shouldn't be Jedi and I don't think that Finn shouldn't be a Jedi. Like right? We're here for a good faith conversation about this. I love The Last Jedi. Van, how would you qualify your feelings about it? Dislike. Dislike. Not hate. Right. Dislikes it. So we're just going to discuss that. We're going to start by talking about like our relationship. to Star Wars, we're about the same age. Yeah. Growing up with Star Wars and then like sort of this sequel trilogy,

how do you feel about? Yeah. All that. So Star Wars was one of the ways that I found myself into this life. It was one of the things that expanded my mind. I started to think bigger. I started to, it was one of the first non-cartoon things that I got into. Superman was a comic book.

Batman was a comic book. All those things were, I mean, they had movies, but all of those things, I looked at them in. cartoony form whenever I would see them. But Star Wars was something that peaked my interest and intrigued me that dealt with sort of situation. Like, I never knew that you could be like friends and on the same side with your sister. You know what I mean?

It was one of those things that it grew me up and initiated me into this whole life. Kiss them sometimes. Yeah, exactly, right? You never know. But what about you? Yeah. For me, what was so interesting to me is like a couple years ago, someone was asking me sort of like what I believe

religiously because I always thought I was like kind of an atheist kind of agnostic and I explained it and they're like oh yeah that's just the force and I'm like oh yeah the force and the way I believe in an energy in the universe that

binds us, connects us, surrounds us I got I think my foundational faith belief from Star Wars not to make it too huge so I think it and like growing up when we did it was just sort of

all around us all the time and still knew enough that and just sort of its own contained thing I mean we had like the novels I know you read like the expanded universe novels and stuff growing up but like it was small enough that like

if you just watch those three movies like you knew the story of Star Wars and it's so much of like a sprawling thing now but growing up those three movies. For many people that was the beginning and end of it like my

father who was the person who introduced me into it, for him it's not lore. It's just a good movie. Yeah. Yeah. It's just something that he didn't think that they could possibly do. Right. When he saw the space battles and when he saw the special effects and Yoda and the creatures and all of this, it blew their minds. But when he, by the time he had given it to me, I was still in the, at the point of my life where my brain was forming. So I learned in Star Wars lore. Like my expectations of other things that I would watch. watch and how I expected story to go, they were kind of formed by kind of how things happened in Star Wars. Yeah, and like Lucas, because he drew from all these, like, older myths and stuff

like that, like, basically gave us this mythology that was so important to our childhood growing up. And I think what's interesting is, like, when we talk about Star Wars now, when we talk about the Mandalorian or Andor or, or the Acolyte, or these movies, we're talking about movies made by people who are, like, a little older than us, but, like, grew up as Star Wars fans. And so we received the sacred text from George Lucas And now we're watching these stories as interpreted by people who grew up with Star Wars like us And that's where you get into some of this like diciness where people are like,

Well, I don't think you read it correctly. I don't think you understand what Star Wars is. I don't think you understand who Luke Skywalker is, which is like a big bone of contention for this particular story. Before we get into, I kind of want to start with Luke because I know there's like a big thing for you. Before we get into that, we're going to do one quick exercise. Okay. Which is Van's going to say something.

something nice about The Last Jedi, and I'm going to say something critical about The Last Jedi. The movie looks beautiful. Like, I've watched it three times over the past week. Yeah. And it's really well made. Like, it's shiny yet dirty. It's gorgeous yet a little gritty at times. It looks like the most elevated version of the Ryan Johnson.

that you get from Looper and Brick and all of those movies, right? Where he has this sort of, you can almost, this sticky sci-fi avant-garde, like a film noir sort of aesthetic. It's there in this, but it's as elevated as it could possibly be in a movie. Visually it's great storytelling. That's because he's used the same, I'm partially because he's used the same cinematographer, like, since Brick. I agree. Okay, so, yes, I agree. And my critique would be.

The B and C plots of this movie, which is like Po and Holdo and all of that, and then Finn and Rose and Canto Bite are weak from time to time. And this movie for me relies so much on how high I think the highs are in the A plot that I understand a lot of the critiques of the B and C plot. That's very fair. Yeah. Now let's get unfair. Let's do it. Luke Skywalker. I've heard you over the years of our friendship

talk about Luke Skywalker and how much he means to you. Sure. Tell me how much he meets to you. And then what do you feel like this movie gets him wrong? Is that your feeling on it? Yeah. So the thing with me is, so Skywalker was the way that I saw this new world.

So he was both a main character, but also an ambassador, right? So you learn what to expect from his interactions with characters. You learn what to fear through his interactions with characters. And you learn what to overcome through his interactions with characters. As we were getting all the world, the whole world, Obi-Wan uses the Jedi mind trick and Obi-Wan does it. And Skywalkers like, what the fuck did he just do?

You know what I mean? And so everything is being the moment that he learns his true parentage, which is slightly popular in film history. is like the weight of the world doesn't just drop on your shoulders. It drops on his shoulders as it drops on yours. You're like, my God. Yeah. How can he continue?

Like what happens now? And so my latching on to the character is I became sort of energetically and culturally connected to Luke like a sibling. Like I read those books. Yeah. to see Luke get to his lukeness. I read those books to make sure Luke was okay. Because I wanted to know what was going to happen with Skywalker because I realized as I got older,

hey, you know, they beat the emperor and they killed him, but the galaxy is still not in a functional place. Then what? Like, what's going to happen to my friend? So one of the most connected that I am to any character and any lore or fandom is to Skywalker, yeah. Do you think you reading those EU books where a story plays out about what happens to Luke Skywalker afterwards?

Do you think that impacts your ability to be like, because they decanonize those books? Yeah. And they're like, this is actually the story instead. Yeah. Do you think you having that other story version in your mind is that make it hard for you to get into this version of that story? 100%. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you watch Luke and you see Luke find someone that he falls in love with.

You see Luke find a different, you know, at one point Luke is stranded in his ship, just floating around in space. Him and Art2 are trying to figure out how to power the ship. You're seeing him go through new trials and tribulations, and it just creates, he has a dayling. It just creates a different character, a different character. And there is a part of me that I will admit, if I'm being honest about biases, that I'll admit that my expectation of seeing a new iteration of Luke Skywalker or an older Lou Skywalker was already colored by some stuff that I read.

And that makes sense. That makes a ton of sense to me. And I didn't read those books. And so I didn't have, I've read some of them, but I didn't, like, read them as a kid and have that in my mind. I think what's interesting, it was important to remember if we want to, like, throw blame around, which is not really what we're here to do. But, like, I think what's interesting to know is that

it was George Lucas's idea when, before the Disney deal, essentially he was going to like make this sequel trilogy and it was his idea that Luke had become a hermit gone to a dark place and was isolated from the world and had lost his faith and he found a new hope in a young girl named Kira was like going to like sort of awaken his belief in the force again so that basic bare bones of the story was something that like Lucas came up with that JJ and Ryan are like okay like let's let's run with it I think the main critique I've seen and I love this Luke Skywalker this is my favorite version of Luke Skywalker we've ever gotten.

Interesting. Because, I mean, first of all, I think Mark Hamill's doing the best acting he's ever done in his lifetime by like leaps and bounds, which is why it sort of breaks my heart that like before the movie came out, he was like disavowing this Luke. Right. Because I was like, you're so good in this movie. You're tremendous with this. I think this idea, we got a taste of it in The Force Awakens when we find out that like

Han and Leah did not live happily ever after. Right. You know? And we're like, oh, no. the credits rolled and it's not happily ever after a trajectory up and up and up for these characters. So Han and Leah's marriage didn't like survive what happens after all of this. And Luke as this big mythological figure didn't survive all that came after this. And something that Ryan Johnson has said that I really respond to is this idea of like a character,

let's make it mythological and it makes it really personal. A character like King Arthur of Arthurian legend. young, optimistic, found Camelot, everything's great. In his older years, things get darker. His wife cheats on him, like all this shit happens and more dejected and more cynical. So that's like on a myth level he's thinking of Luke as this sort of like King Arthur figure, to take it to like us. And it's interesting we're having this conversation in sort of a presidential election year

because I always think about this when it comes to the election every year that I'm four years older. And I look at the kids who are like voting. voting for the first time, and they're so optimistic or so big in their feelings, and I increasingly am more cynical. Yeah. And I think that's just true as we age. We get more fearful and more cynical. And so to watch that happen to Luke Skywalker, for him to go through this thing that he,

horrible thing that he does, and the shame that racks him, and then watch him push through that to do something so heroic at the end of this movie anyway. Right. Means a lot to me. So it's funny that you, that you use the word cynical. Like, I literally have written down here. My main problem with this movie is I find it to be hyper-synical and very insincere, which are two of the things that I love the most about Star Wars.

Star Wars is uncenical, and it's very sincere. I think my problem with this Luke Skywalker is I get that the old we get, we change in terms of the way that we view the world. Right. Like a couple of years ago, I remember having a conversation with my mom and I was like, I just had this weird epiphany. She was like, what? It's like, I'm not going to change the world.

Right. Like I thought at 19, 20, 21 that it would be my singular voice that would change the world. The different thing about, the different thing about Lou Skywalker is that he did change the world when he was 19 or 20 and 21. He did change it. He changed everything very fundamentally. And the world that he changed, he abandoned. They took that character that works for three movies to find his courage, and they made him a coward.

And to me, it's like if you're in a movie and Dominic Toreto is sitting down and someone says, it's about family. And Dom says, no, it's not. I'm like, what the fuck movie are we watching? And that's not what – like that's not – But what happens – what happened between when he says family, family, family, and it's not about family. You know what I mean? Like what – it depends on the road that it takes to get there.

You know what I mean? Like if after we lose Brian and he's like, I'm not sure that I understand what family even means anymore, you know, I mean, if there's something like hugely impactful, it happens that changes that worldview, what we see in Luke here is – like, I agree with you that there's a lot of cynicism in this movie, but it's up against –

the hope that is, that, that Ray presents, or that Rose, who's, I think, a less successful character, but, like, that Rose presents that there is sincere hope in this movie, that Ray is playing the Luke role in terms of, like, I still see good in him, I can fix him, I can save him about Kylo. And Luke is forced to play the role of Obi-Wan and Yoda, who are like, don't leave Daegobah and go rescue your friends, or there's no redeeming Darth Vader he's done. And it's just, it's what George Lucas says about Star Wars, which is like, it's just, about generations, right? Luke has gone from the optimistic I can save, I can see the good in him, I can see the good in everyone, to an older, more fearful, I see a flash of darkness in my nephew,

and for a brief moment, I pull my saber, and it's the most shameful thing I've ever done. Not for a brief moment, forever. Because, like, so the decision to, for a brief moment, he flashes, he's going to kill Kylo. Kalo was, what the fuck is up? Boom, right? So, but the way Skywalker chooses to deal with his nephew, even after he realizes

Han has died, which he just doesn't give a shit about, right? Like, he just doesn't care that Han died in the movie. He goes... I don't think that's true. Literally, like, to me, there's another problem I have with the movie. So where's Han?

He gets sad. Then you see a sad scene. on Maloon Falk and he grabs the dice. Like, his best friend died. Now, I know he hasn't seen a guy in a long time, but these were the people that he literally put the galaxy in harm's way for. And Luke doesn't drop to, he's that far gone.

And by the way, when I watched this movie, the couple of times I watched it, I never saw Skywalker try to reconcile what happened with Kylo, with Ben with him. I never saw him. the Skywalker that we lose, we never get them back.

At the end of the movie, he helps them escape. But the young man that he failed is still standing right in front of him, and it seems as if he still views him as purely an adversary and not as his nephew. I don't think that's true. I think he's teaching him a lesson.

I think he shows up, he shows up as what I love about the way that Luke shows up at the end of this movie is throughout the whole whole whole thing. Or doesn't show up. Or doesn't show up. Because he still doesn't, you know what I mean? But what I'm saying is like the whole movie, he's like, I bought into the myth, the legend, the mighty Skywalker blood. It was bullshit.

I was a frail human when it came down to it. You need me to be the legend. I can't be that. Leia needs me to be the legend. I can't be that. At the end of the movie, he's like, okay, it's not real, but I'll show up and be the legend, the Luke Skywalker. I will stare down, you know, all the ships. with the laser sword, like, you know, like he jeeringly said earlier.

And he does it in this sort of Force Halo younger version of himself. He's like, I'll give you the myth. Right. I'll give you the myth at the sacrifice of the man. I, this will kill me. I will do this to save the small little shards of the resistance that are left. And I really do think to teach Kylo a lesson that he is, Kylo is like slowly learning from Ray, from Luke.

But when he shows up and he's like, you're fighting a ghost, you're fighting nothing, all of your rage is directed towards nothing, I think that's a lesson. Perhaps. But so, and it's kind of a different way to view the movie, right? So it used to be, Yoda tells Luke in order for you to become who you are, you have to confront Vader. and Luke has to go stand in front of Vader and the emperor and he has to connect with them.

The first three movies are about connections. They're about, you can feel the force in the movie because you can feel the connection between the characters. You can feel that there's something between these characters, right? Even between Palpatine and Vader, like, why is this guy who is so powerful? Why is he his lap dog, right? Right.

Like, you can feel something binding, like, like, jelling all of these people together. That's completely absent in The Last Jedi to me. Oh, wait. Okay. So to me, in The Last Jedi, what you have is, like, Po, who is, like, willing for anybody to die, for him to get some sort of glory. Like, for him to, he is, he doesn't seem to be, all of these characters, to me, seem to be operating on various side missions, with nothing really bringing them together except, in my opinion, the essence of Star Wars that we remember.

Like, it doesn't, all of the stuff that's happening between them, so Luke's going to kill his nephew, cool. All right. Then Luke and Ray come around. Luke and Ray go through a half training where he doesn't, he doesn't question her at every moment. He questions himself at every moment. He's questioning everything.

he's hyper-synical about everything around him. He's disconnected. Everyone's disconnected. The only two characters in the movie that seemed like they were joined or that they had some sort of shared arc or shared journey were Kylo and Ray, right? I don't agree with that, but I do agree that they are deeply connected. Right. That part of the movie works.

Everything else is kind of just stuff happening? I agree that that story, Kylo and Ray, is the story that, Ryan is most interested in. That I definitely agree with. And I agree that like some things get short shrift because he's most interested in that. But I don't agree. I think the thing that binds Finn and Rose and Poe

and and Ray and Luke and Kylo is the theme that ties back to my favorite line of this or any Star War, which is a perfect sentiment for the second in a trilogy. The

greatest teacher failure is. You have to fail in the middle of your story in order to fully win in Act 3. Rise of Skymarker Act 3 is a terrible movie and that's like a discussion for another day and it's too bad that that's like what follows us up. But, you know, at the end of Empire, our heroes have failed, right? We're at the lowest of the low and we have to come back and return of the Jedi. And so like the failure that so many of these characters experience in this movie is what you. teaches them a valuable lesson going into, unfortunately, a bad third act of this story. But I love watching characters fail so that they can win later because they're learning something.

I find Luke and Yoda that connection to be very important. I find I think it's important that Ray and Kylo are the most connected because it's their story. You're looking for this, I think, still to be Luke's story. Not necessarily. Ray is our source of optimism. Ray is our entry point into

what's going on and Ray is the source of the most connection. I hate that Finn and Ray are separated for the whole movie, though they are constantly trying to get worried about each other. Check in how's Finn doing, where's Ray, that sort of stuff. So I feel that connection stretched thin, but that connection

is there. And then Luke and Leah at end. I feel that very potently. So, they're only, I mean, those two characters, they only share one scene together, but so I'm saying that it might exist in a little bit. You know who I think the character who the mascot

of this movie is? It's, uh, Benicia Del Toro's. Benicia Del Toro's character. That's the mascot of this movie. I don't agree, but I see what you're saying. Like, the mascot of this movie is in my opinion, hey,

we can find wrong. We can find, uh, and perfection we can find fuck it's none of this really matters you blow them up one day I'll blow you up the next day hybrid he said the he says

the way that you free yourself is to remove yourself from this entire thing don't join don't join right I kind of feel like that's the ethos of this movie I think the movie is asking you to let go of Star Wars it's not asking you to invest into it it's saying hey this is what we're gonna do

we're gonna take all of these things Luke's arc in the first three movies just done. We're going to take all these things. We're going to subvert them, and we're going to dare you to let go of it all. And if you can let go of it all, you can enjoy it. I can't.

No, no. I hear what you're saying. I think it's almost that. And I think there's an added layer. I don't think it's like, let the past die that Kylo says. I don't think... Same thing he says.

I don't think Ryan agrees with that. I don't think Ryan's like, yes, the villain has the right point. I don't think that's what he's saying. I think he's saying, Burn down the tree. Sure. Burn down that special tree in Octo. Save the books that are inside of it. They already took the books out of the tree. You can burn the tree the books are already out of it. It's not burn everything, let go of everything. It's let's try to break ourselves out of this idea that we can only have one version of this story and try something new and build something new from it. I don't want to be forever cycling Anakin Skywalker over and over and over again. I want to show you Canto Bight, something you've never seen now. again, the story online on Canto Bight is not the best part of this movie. But the fact that he wants to show us, like,

how do the rich fucks of the galaxy do, you know? And that isn't, that's something that's very important. I think the lovers of the Last Jedi, and I don't want to paint everybody with a bra-bruss, I think you guys appreciate the effort. I think you guys appreciate the fact that they were trying to, because we start talking about, okay, I'm glad that they showed us Cantoblight. It doesn't really work.

It's not really that cool. It's like, it doesn't feel. like anything. Like, it doesn't, if you're talking about all of the things, all of the other places that we ventured off to in Star Wars Land, you wouldn't think about Canto Blight. I guess it's cool that, it's cool to see. It's emblematic. It's emblematic of like, we're not on tattooing over and over again, but it's emblematic of like, I'm not just going to do The Force Awakens, which we all agree was just a new hope remixed. I was so lost in the sauce. I didn't, I couldn't tell, I couldn't tell until like three days after. I was like, I loved the Force Awakens. I loved it two, three days after I was

like, oh shit. Yeah. They just ran it back. Right. Okay. So that's what JJ did. I'll see that bitch again. Yeah. I love Force Making's I've seen it a million times. I think it's a great movie, but all JJ was interested in doing is playing the hits. Sure. And Ryan's like, I'm going to give you a cover of that hit song you like. And I want to see if you think we can change the key a little bit, change the tempo and give you something a little bit different. And yeah, can you handle your hero having fallen? But then rising?

again. And I think, I don't think he wants, Ryan Johnson love Star Wars. He's not like, let's blow up the original trilogy, let's blow up Luke Skywalker. You know what I mean? He's like, he's like, let's break the mold a little bit, but keep the core Star Wars, keep the core lore alive. Keep the books alive, burn the tree down, I think is the real symbol of all of that. So this is my thing.

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Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. You deconstruct Star Wars, you do all of that stuff. My thing is I don't think the movie builds very much. I do think that part of that is because they freaked out, right? And because they freaked out, they didn't continue some of the stuff that Ryan Johnson did, right? And so that actually is, I'll give another thing to, I'll give another, I'll say something else positive about The Last Jedi is the fact that they veered so hard

in the third movie, I think it hurts it. It hurts the Last Jedi a little bit, right? Because they made the movie seem less important than what it probably, they dinged it a little bit. Absolutely. When Ray's like, you know, I'm nobody from nowhere, which is this huge, like, really, I think, interesting, cool story. Like, she doesn't have to have Skywalker blood. She doesn't have to have Palpatine blood. That's the way in which Ryan's like, let's break this story open outside of the Skywalker saga and, like, give you a broomboy, like, sort of moment.

Like, anyone can have, like, be powerful in the force. That's what Ryan's interested in. Hey, broom boy. Okay. We'll get back to Brumboi. And then Jay just like, just kidding. She's a Palpatine. Terrible.

So what I'm saying is, I think the movie doesn't build very much. And this is what I'm saying, even about the Skywalker. Look, the reason why the Skywalker's are, the reason why we're so enamored with them or we're so invested into the Skywalker family is not because they're the Skywalker family. It's because it's not the Skywalker, it's the family. Right. It's like the thing that binds a family is sometimes your last name. Sometimes it's this.

Sometimes it's where you're from. But the thing that binds. them is the fact that they're all born kind of with this curse, right? And they're born. There's never any structure because this thing, the force that's so beautiful, rips them apart. Like they all end up fucking with the dark side for like one second. They get thrown to other parts of the galaxy.

But then the fate of the galaxy being dependent on a family finding their way back together again is so inherently human. Right? Yeah. It's so unbelievably human. Like if I could convince, like when my parents got divorced and all that, if I could convince them that the fate of the world depended on us figuring out how to reconnect, the journey towards that anybody would be able to relate to.

So I think that's what the Skywalker's, to me, like, that's what they mean in Star Wars. They mean that these people that are all together are having this schism. And around them are all of these huge stakes. I know that the Skywalker's are pretty much gone in here. If they're gone, you have to do character work, real character work, around the characters that we get and why they're together in order to make me buy that they're taking the chances and doing the things that they're doing for each other. And the whole sequel trilogy, period, never gets there for me.

For me, I hear what you're saying. I like what you're saying. For me, that is replaced in this movie with Kylo and Ray. Their connection as two people who are strong in the force have this really lonely, isolated existence, Ray because she grew up alone, you know, on a junk planet. And Kylo, because he felt rejected by his own family, distressed and rejected by his own family.

So the way in which they, like, force Skype Connect throughout the movie. And, like, he's pulling her towards the dark. She's pulling him towards the light. That really intensive connection is not only, I think, because she's the clear Luke comp and he's the clear Vader comp in this movie. And so that connection between father and son becomes a connection between two lost and lonely young people in a universe. And I think in our modern telling, like our modern world in which we were watching this movie, where we all feel so scattered and disconnected.

and a lot of people like connect over the internet and find common cause and community that way, I feel like that story, that sort of found family story is a really interesting one. And I think when it's most successful, which isn't always, that found family idea of Finn and Ray in the Force Awakens, Finn and Poe in the Force Awakens. Finn is a stalker. So, I mean, like, Finn don't get, Finn ain't getting nothing back from where they're going to do Finn baby reindeer. Like a Star Wars movie coming up. I feel like Finn got his backslashed up and wakes up wearing a rubber medical uniform. And the first thing he's talking about where's Ray?

Where's Ray? Yeah. If you don't go get yourself a twinkie and lie down, like you've got a long road to recover ahead of you, brother. That's like Jomey. Just feeding for some milk. How dare you? You can't throw Jomey out of the bus in every podcast you do. That's not allowed.

It's illegal. Okay, let me get back to this. All right. Do you think Star Wars should be horny? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Do you think Kylo and Ray sort of like panting over each other in this movie?

Either do it or don't. They never get there, though. So that's my thing. And so that would have been either do it. And so that's another thing. They never get there, though, either do it or don't. Like by a time when he kissed her and- Oh, I hate that movie.

When he kissed her in Ross and Scott, I was about, I looked at Calica. I was like, man, let's go. She was like, what? I'm like, I can't fucking do it. She was like, it's fine. I'm like, I'm leaving. We got into it. I left the theater.

She was in the theater. I came back. Anyway, but what I'm saying is they play with it. Either do it or don't. And it gets to the point to where. You don't like anticipation? I do, but it feels like even, even Finn, even Kylo and Ray's thing, it eventually feels low stakes.

To me it does. It eventually feels low stakes. The one thing that did work was this. The development of their connection to where she would snarl when she first saw him and throughout this connection in the force, they continue to understand that there's something that they see in each other and it's not as clear. That worked for me. Yeah.

But I never got to a point to where I really. understood or really had anything invested into what their relationship was. And I don't want to compare it to the old trilogy. But in A New Hope, there isn't much hinted at the fact that like Solo and Leia are feeling each other. There's a little bit in there, right? Yeah. But in one scene in the movie, so well-written with so much charisma, you see her, like,

literally looking at him going, like, I don't care about you, I don't like you, I don't feel anything. And him going, yes, you do. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. And all of this stuff is happening around him. It feels like it matters.

It feels like she, he needs her in this moment to be like, you don't want me to leave. I might go die. You must, like, you weird. This is the thing. It feels like it matters. And in this movie, it kind of feels like they, the way you feel about that is the way I feel about when Kylo says he's like,

she says to him via one of their for Skype calls like I know everything I need to know about you and he's like oh you do oh you do and it's just sort of like this like you see the darkness in me you still want to talk to me I am a monster

are you still talking to me you're still picking up my my Skype calls oh our fingers are barely going to like brush via he answered that bitch with his shirt off I mean he got such an interesting body Like he answered that bitch with his shirt off And she's like, can you put something on?

And he was like, nah, you don't see this. A cowl or something? This is the closest we got to a metal bikini in this sequel trilogy. And we thank you for your service, Adam Driver. Shout out to the railos. I see, because I see that horny arc for them to be, there's a part, you watch it three times in the last week. He's like leather clad fist with like a raindrop on it and he like clenches it. just genuinely the most, like, fiendish, devious thing I've ever seen.

See, you like that. See, that's just like, that's just Ryan being freaky as far as I'm concerned. Once again, for me, this is why I love conversations like this. It's not like I hate the movie, right? No. But it's something that, like, that didn't do anything for me. I think what I'm looking for, what I was kind of trying to feel in the movie is why do I, why am I into any of the relationships that that happen?

Why do I care that Finn has to get to Ray? I hate to sound like Charles. But why do I care that Finn has to get to Ray? Why do I care about them being... But that's not Finn's story in this. I know. Finn's story in this just doesn't work at all. Well, Finn's story is learning to care about something other than Ray.

He is a stalker, baby reindeer, Finn. I'm going to be thinking about that for a long time, when he wakes up. And by the end of the movie, he's, I am rebel scum, like has bought into the larger rebellion. Finn's story doesn't work with me. I don't think that Poe's story is odd. Like, I didn't even realize how much I hated Poe in this movie until I watch it for the third one. I kind of love that.

Because it's like, I love Poe in general. I love Poe on the Force Awakens for sure. This is such an interesting deconstruction of the cocky flyboy, like, archetype where Holdo is just sort of like, I know your type. I know exactly who you are. That was the most sensuous part of the movie right there. It was very good. Because Laura, Laura brings it, man.

Laura. Yeah. But she's like, you're not, that's not a leader. Yeah. That's not a, you're a fly boy. Great. That's not a leader. And so he has to fail.

And Finn has to fail until they realize, like, what their true purpose is, which is the larger rebellion, the larger resistance. I would say that it matters to me. I get what you're saying. I want to take the point about failing and not. hitting mission accomplishment. I do think it matters how and why, right? I think if you were to compare this with Empire, at the end of the Empire, they failed,

but there's some sort of determination. Like there's a, okay, we know what we have to do. Like, I got my fucking hand cut off. We got to go get Han. Like, you feel there is anticipation for the very very very. very next thing. Yeah. You're, the chips are down.

Yeah. But you know we coming back. And you're so invested in the week coming back. Yeah. Man, I would be lying if I thought anything other than, huh. I wonder what they'll do in the next one when I walked out of last jet. I was like, okay, what happens now? Because the entire thing is, even the plot of, we're running away from the, they're chasing, boom, boom.

There's not a lot of meat on that when I, when I look at it. I agree. And so it was very hard for me. That plus the bastardization of Luke Skywalker. That plus that. I was just like, I just remember being like, I can't believe this. What? I didn't like it very much.

Did you, like, when Finn and Ray, like, reconnect. And Ray has her, like, big force breakthrough. She shows up in the Millennium Falcon, has a big. hero moment. The resistance is, what's left the resistance is saved. There is this somber tone at the end of the movie because it's like Luke Skywalker has died. He's dead, yeah. Kylo, like, watches his father's, like, Millennium Falcon Dice dissolve in front of him.

And it's just like he's just chasing ghosts. I still feel this like, yeah, what next? For me, honestly, it keeps coming back to Ray and Kylo. Right? Because they have that sort of connection at the end of the movie where it's just sort of like he's like, join me. She's like, no, dude, that's not what we've been working on. Yeah. Don't you know? He goes into his like rage spiral, but then it's like, what is he going to do next?

Yeah. I'm so interested in Kylo Red and what he's going to do next. Yeah. And that's where I stand. And like, Vader doesn't get exactly the same. It's like we're digging deeper into a Vader archetype because Vader is such a cool character. but just in that original trilogy, it's a lot of cape and helmet until the very end, right?

We're not like really, you know, inside of his head throughout. With Kylo, we take the mask off and we're with this, like, messy human. And I just find him so fascinating. But if that kind of shouldn't work for you, then, like... Yeah, so Kylo Ren is a fascinating villain. I think the Vader thing, I think it was actually a mistake to have him in this pseudo-Vader role in the entire trilogy. this movie, right? And the most interesting thing to me that happens in this movie by far

happens with him is when he takes the helmet and he smashes it. Right. And then JJ put it back together. Yeah. Like that's the most interesting thing that happens like in the movie. He goes, okay, no more, no Vader. I'm not trying to be a Vader architecture. I'm not going to be something different. I'm going to be a gray something or whatever. Here's the thing about Vader. And so Vader is evil incarnate this and this and that

and then Vader admits to himself that he's Skywalker's father he admitted it to Luke but the moment that he admits it he really admits it to himself he had been so far removed from family from this from anything

and the moment that he admits it to himself that character is different Like he's different. He's, now he's going through the motions. The conflict invader, like, I watch the movie, it's very, like, people think it's, I must be fucking crazy. It's very profound to me. Like, it really is very meaningful.

I agree. You see him and he, he, he's, his, his, his tone is different. His, he talks, he looks, everything feels a little bit different, not so much softer, but he's like, oh, there's a part. in the back of his mind that says, I am Anakin Skywalker. The moment that he says that to him, he's saying, I'm your father. I love that. He's not saying Darth Vader is your father. He says,

I'm your dad. And that means he's admitting to himself that he's Anakin Skywalker, right? Changes the whole movie. I can't expect that same thing from the last Jedi or any other movie. But at the point that all of this is happening with Kylo and Ray, we don't even

know these characters that well yet. Like, we don't really... We've had as much time with them as we had with anyone in empire. We have, but it doesn't, I still, I don't know, I couldn't go on to Kylo and his whole thing. I'm still wondering, goes, okay, you hate your father. I didn't hate him. Boom, boom, boom. All right, more.

More. I mean, for me, here's, here's, here's my tracking of Kylo's arc through three movies. Is that, like, he kills Han. He doesn't, he doesn't want to kill Han, right? In that moment, in The Force Awakens, he's like, I know. what I have to do, but I don't know if I can do it, right? And then he does it because he feels like that's what he's supposed to do to complete his dark side training.

That was his emperor throne room situation. Right. Like, that's what he has to do. Who had to not kill? He had to. But he can't kill his mom. Right. And he doesn't.

Yeah. And then when in the third movie, she's dead. Yeah. That's when he's like, to your point, I'm Ben Solo. Yeah. I'm not Kyler Run. I'm Ben Solo. Yeah.

where Vader's like, I'm Anakin Skywalker. He's like, I'm Ben Solo. I could not kill my, my mother's dead. I never wanted that. It cost them. Yeah. And so like after everything costs them, you sort of kind of figured out what everything was.

I guess I'll come back to the core of it to me is, I just feel like a lot of the stuff that plays in this movie was made sort of unimportant. So we made Snoke unimportant. We made Ray's parentage unimportant. We made the force. unimportant. What are you talking about it makes the force unimportant? Here's the thing about it, right?

That was a real Charles movie just said that. You're gearing up. Here's a thing about it. Broomeboy, right? Everybody has the force. All right, two things. Number one, if everybody has it, nobody has it. Not everybody. Okay, okay. Another thing is this. The force was never the thing

that made a specific character interesting. It's their purpose. It's like Skywalker. It's their purpose. We're on a journey to find purpose. Like Leia, Han, Han goes from being scoundrel, right? Han would never...

But that's what I'm saying. Finn finds his purpose in this movie. It's not the same, dog. I mean, it's not as good as... It's as good as Harrison Ford is Hong Solo finding his purpose. But we are looking for purpose. It doesn't. It don't work.

I'm sorry, bro. I don't think it... Okay, let me address three things. Make Snoke unimportant. I don't give a shit about Snoke. Who cares about Snoke? He's not the point. Like, who cares?

Honestly. So like... I mean, I get it. You know? Makes the force unimportant? This movie feels forseless. The movie feels very forseless. Luke force projects his own body across the galaxy.

I gotta be honest. with you. Not that dope. Oh, are you kidding me? I would rather than rip the legs off a walker or some shit. No, okay, okay, but that's you asking, but of course Luke would do it non-violently. Right, but he's still found... Luke Skywalker is not a power fantasy. He throws his saber away at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Yeah. It's not about destruction. Yeah. It's about conciliation. Right. He threw his saber away after he had already subdued his father. So he had actually demonstrated his power. He had convinced his father.

Right. But he had subdued him. First of all, you're right. Not a power fantasy. Maleness. I apologize for the maleness right here. The Republicans watching this are so mad. Don't apologize for your maleness.

You've got to be a man. But he subdued him and he said, what I felt like is he felt like there's no power in killing. There's no power in me killing my father. Like, I'm not willing to take that step to... It's about compassion and connection. It's about compassion and connection. To me, this Skywalker, they still split the baby on that.

He stayed on that fucking planet and sent a ghost over there. He still doesn't take the last step to rejoin the thing that he abandoned, that he risked the entire galaxy for. He risked the whole galaxy for his friends. Then he tried to kill his nephew. I think when he... I genuinely went on a sabbatical. I genuinely believe that when he removed himself to Octo,

he was like, because he believes the Jedi should die. Yeah. Right? The Jedi should be over. Yeah. And like, you and I've had those moments watching things that the Jedi have done in like various stories that we watch, right? We're like, should, do we agree?

Should the Jedi be over? And then Yoda shows up in one of the like most affecting scenes I've ever seen in any movie, says the greatest teacher failure is, like, says we are what they grow beyond. like says all this stuff and reignites his understanding of the force and of its value and re-inspires him. The way that Ray chipped away and sort of started to re-inspire him. The way that Luke describes the force, right? The force is not a power you have. It's not about lifting rocks.

It's the energy between all things, attention, a balance that binds the universe together. The force is the most important thing, I think, in this movie. I think it's, I think dialogue-wise it is. because even right after that, when he says that to her, she then feels the pull of the dark side. Yeah. And he abandons her. Like, what's working on it?

So he says that and gives her that whole spiel. It's like, and then she feels the pull of the, which is a natural part of the force, and he gets freaked out and he abandoned it. It's like the movie won't commit. Like, if the movie won't commit to Kylo and Ray, the movie won't commit. I think the movie is giving us very human characters who behave believably humanly. Like, I think what's so interesting is that George Lucas made Star Wars a myth and gave us these archetypes.

And other than, like, the humanity that Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher do a really good job of, like, injecting, a lot of these characters are acting like archetypes, mythological archetypes. Ryan Johnson has always, you mentioned, brick, you mentioned, Luper, has always taken genres and then made them really human. That's what he does. And so I think he puts a lot of, like, humanity, believable, relatable humanity into it. So the fact that Luke is going back and forth as he's like still stewing in his shame and his own anger, it makes a lot of sense to me. It's not going to be a clear, I will teach you and everything will be fine. Or you opened up my eyes this day and now I see like the light. He's going back and forth because he's such a human, broken, interesting character who gets his shit together at the end of the movie and does something tremendous, tremendously powerful.

So I think that scene, because we haven't even talked about the throne room. I think there are two scenes in the movie that... You don't care. You think the throne room isn't shit. I don't like it. It's not that I don't like it. Okay, but I do. But see, so there are two scenes...

But it looks good. It looks fantastic. It looks so good, bro. Like, there are two scenes in the movie that I think kind of sum up everything. Number one is the final scene where literally it kind of represents the whole movie for me. It, like, looks like Luke Skywalker in the final movie. He's acting like Luke Skywalker, but it's really just a mirage. It's like it's not actually Luke Skywalker because that character is not actually Luke Skywalker to me.

The throne room is a different scene as well. first of all, looks great. Bad fight choreography. Doesn't really work. Not very explosive. That's not true. Bad fight choreography. That's not true.

It doesn't really work. It's kind of just very clunky. Completely untrue. Very, like, very clunky. And when you're watching it, you expect it to build to a crescendo that never quite happens for me. Them, the saber going into Snoke. That was cool. That was.

The force flicking it back and Ray reaching up to grab it is one of the sickest things I'm to be honest. I've ever seen. I'm not even going to act like I hate it because I'm not even going to act like a hater. That was, that was, you say new hope. That was my last hope for the movie. That was like when I was like, okay, we're going somewhere. We're going somewhere. What's about to happen?

And then it never quite gets there. It's just difficult for me. And this is old man shout at the sun. It's difficult for me. I find the movie to be, like I said, a deconstructed. It's a movie for people who have criticisms of Star Wars to me. It's a movie for people who are kind of fed up with Star Wars,

who people don't. That's not me. I know. But I'm just saying, but you're like a, also, a vanity fair, high critic. So you like well-made movies, okay? You like well-made movies. I like dumb shit, but it makes me feel good.

But, but in addition to well-made movies. But what I'll say is I don't think the plot of the movie is very coherent. I don't think it's like a good script. In a vacuum, I don't think it's a very good script. I think I will agree with you when you say there's not a lot of meat on the bones for the Holdo and Po thing, though I find the Holdo and Po confrontation and the lay in Po confrontation very rich and satisfying. But the plot of it, sure. And then the Finn and Rose side plot also thin on the ground.

I completely agree with that. Leah coming back from the dead in outer space? Ridiculous? Not at all. Okay, not at all. Ridiculous? Is it because she couldn't survive in space? It's not going to happen, dog.

Come on, man. Do you remember in the Empire Strikes back when Leia and Hahn and the rest of them get out of the Loneon and Falcon and just walk around on the surface of an asteroid in space? They had little things on. Like a respirator?

You think the force won't respirate for Laya? They had a respirator. They had a thing. on their faces. If they had a got out of the thing, they put the thing on. It's just like in, but you think a respirator's going to save you in space?

No, man. It's just like, hold on, what type of technology they got in, in Phantom Minutes when they put the things in their mouth and they could breathe on the wall. It's the same shit.

So she needed like a singular doo-hicky and you would have been fine. If she would have just, when she was flying back, if she had just went and grabbed the mask and put that, bitch on. I'd be like, cool. But she had all, she had, they had done the Star Lord joint.

Her shit had all crystalled over. It's back. Don't make no sense to me. I love that Leia got to use a force in such a powerful way. That makes me really happy. It was dope. It would have been cool if she did some flips or something. I think this idea, so like in your version of the Last Jedi, you want, what do you want, what did you want this Luke to be? Let's say we end of the Horse Awakens. We end the Force Awakens. You and I both really liked that movie. Luke Skywalker has disappeared. Ray has landed on Octo.

She holds the saber out. Woody, you, Van Leithen, lover of Luke Skywalker, want to have happened next. Okay, so look. So I have to... So Luke Skywalker has disappeared is a major, major thing in the first movie, right? So you can't undo that, right? Nope. And again, that was George Lucas' idea.

Okay. Luke Skywalker has disappeared. he's on sabbatical the whole nine. For me, either Luke has, I thought Luke had a family. I'm not going to honest with you. You were like Mar-Jade, where is she?

Mar-Jade, where is she? Luke has a family now. The reason that Skywalker has abandoned his life's work, his entire thing, part of me thought, because I've written, I actually wrote an article about it,

like what was going to happen. Part of me thought she was going to put, She was going to point it out and he was going to be like, and he was going to be like, what is that? Like he had lost his memory. Like he had lost his memory or something. Amnesia Luke. He was going to be like, what's that? Days of our lives, Luke.

Days of our lives. Like super fucking corny, right? Or Luke met someone and fell in love and now he has a situation. But like a 40. So he abandoned all the things you talk about when you're like, he abandoned the people that he fought to say the universe for for a girl? Well, if he abandoned something. I would have wanted to see him be connected to something else instead of pouting for three decades.

And if he, Marinating and shame, which is so human. Have you never felt like absolute crippling shame about something? I get over it, bro. I get over it. You don't want to ask me that question. You're just not enough of a sad boy for this movie, I think.

I get over it, man. It's like, because I, number one, because I apologize. That's my new thing in life. It's like, I say, I apologize right away. Hey, man, I'm sorry. I'll pre-apologize. I'm sorry, but I'm about to tear you apart. I'll walk in the house and Kalika will say, hey, Van, I'll be like, I'm sorry.

Like, I apologize. Whatever it is, just let me play the fucking game. Okay, if I say sorry now, you're not going to play the game. Okay, so I'll pre-apologize. So what I'm saying is that, like, no, I've never felt that type of shame, and I certainly can't think of any shame that would make me abandon my sister. And now I'm not a movie character, by the way. This is like a real life.

I get it. Briefly contemplating, killing her son that she has entrusted you with? Nah. Because I've thought about that. No, I'm just sure. But, but... I think this idea,

these are larger than life characters who live, who have larger than life emotions. And so, like, this expression of shame or depression or whatever, really he has given up disconnected from the force entirely.

And I love that, like, Ray comes, pushes him to open himself back up to the force, and then, uh-oh, here's Yoda. Yoda could not access him this whole time because he's been cut off. And here's Yoda and he cannot escape

who he was. And he has to like, this is the thing. At the end, I find the end so powerful in terms of like, fine, I'll give them the fucking myth.

I've mentioned Jesus Christ superstar in like four different podcasts this week, but I've just been thinking. That's your thing. I love musicals. But I'm thinking a lot about that about this idea of like, about the myth

and how much Luke has to give up then in order to be the myth that they need. Like he ran away because he's like, I'm not, I'm not that mythological creature. And then he's like, okay, I'm not the myth. I'll give them a mirage of the myth because that's what they need in this moment. And I, the man, will never see them again. Right. He ran because he failed and he's like failure has a,

always been a part of it, right? He's always bounced back from failure. I don't want to spend too much time relitigating what they had. I don't want to write their movie. I say this all the time. They wrote their movie and that's how it went. I do feel like my bottom line

criticism of The Last Jedi is that in its attempt to throw out nostalgia, which we know Star Wars has to do. Star Wars has to throw out nostalgia. Like, give us nostalgia. No. They have to throw it out. But I don't think the Last Jedi does throw out nostalgia.

I think, I think, we got a Yoda puppet in this movie. I get it, but to me, I think it definitely throws off the nostalgia. I think it definitely does. I think it wants to like tune down the nostalgia. They kill Luke Skywalker. Hans Solo dies and the Force Awakens. Right. And so, and so, this is all about a generation handing things off to a new generation.

Which, to me, if you're going to do that, you have to execute it. right. Now, I'll say this, Han's death, I knew he wasn't going to live in the movie. I knew he was going to die. That's because we all knew that Harrison Ford didn't want to make any more of these movies. So, like, Han Han's death, think about the way Han dies. Han dies at the hands of his son

who he is trying to save. It is insanely personal and ridiculously, brutally human. He's standing there and like, I'm in the theater and they're doing, and people are going, I know, and we

You started to feel something bad was about to happen. Then you pan over to Chewy. I feel so bad for Chewy, man. Chewy got to be with these new saved by the bail group of motherfuckers in the galaxy. He's eating porks. He's fine. He's not. He's not.

The porks. Don't work. The porks don't work. The porks don't really work. The porks are wonderful. So, and that's a death that was befitting Han Solo. Lucas kind of drifts away. I just really, no, he, Obi-ones.

He, Obi-ones. He drifts away after... He does exactly what Obi-Wan does, which is, like, walk towards a duel you know you cannot win in order to save the new generation. Obi-Wan showed up. Obi-Wan was right there. To me, I just, I felt like, once again, the movie, and its attempt to throw off nostalgia, the movie actually ended up lecturing us and leaving the ruins of Star Wars and not the structures of it. That's how I feel about it. Absolutely.

I completely disagree. I think what Ryan Johnson, a lover of Star Wars did, was say, can we take this story that we love and blow it out to all kinds of possibilities where we can go anywhere in the galaxy and tell a new story? We got so excited about that with Ackalite, right? We were like, we're going to tell a new story in a different time period, and then it really just kind of wound up being inevitably about Palpatina and then the Skywalker's again, you know? So, like, I think Ryan was hopeful. in building something exciting and new and not lecturing and cynical. Like, why would anyone who loves Star Wars

make that kind of Star Wars like, why would you think that he would make something that was, like, cynical and lecturing and blowing up Luke Skywalker and the original trilogy and, like, everything that Star Wars stands for? Because of the pressure. No.

So let me tell you what it is. So two things. Number one, what Ryan did and Jim, JJ did are both equally wrong. One was just more palatable, right? What they both did was equally wrong, okay? One of them retold the story. One of them lost the DNA of Star Wars, right?

There's a medium that no one can find. Maybe the Mandalorian found it for a couple of... A season and a half. Until they got into the same... There's a medium that no one can find. And by the way, it's hard for Star Wars, but this has been done before. Like so many characters

and Nolan's Batman is Batman. He is not Keaton's Batman, right? I actually think, so like, I disagree that the Last Jedi loses the DNA of Star Wars. I think it has that at its core. You and I fundamentally disagree on that. That's fine.

I do think it's interesting at the person who's been most successful recently in telling a Star Wars story is Tony Gilroy in Andor who does not hold this as a precious object. He doesn't talk about it

the way that JJ or Favre or Foloni or even Leslie Headland talk about it. They're like, we were huge fans. We wanted to make Star Wars. We're so excited. Tony Gillard is like, Star Wars is fine. This is just a story that I think is interesting to tell. It's just deeply about

relationships between people, Andor is. The reason why people say what they say about and or, it's deeply about relationships between people. It's about the why. And Star Wars to me has all always been, whether it's the force, whether it's the empire. It's this big story that's actually

a small little story. It's actually a small little story of friends who find each other for some reason that are binded in a believable way, for some reason, that have to overcome this massive thing using all the weapons at their disposal, except one weapon that one guy has is something that nobody really understands. And his journey to understand it might just have in its importance, the fate of the universe might be at stake about whether or not he can like understand the thing that he has to understand. And I just think that Ryan is telling a similar story in this, but it's Kylo and it's Ray and it's can these two young people connect in a way where one doesn't have to be drawn

to the dark side and one will not be pulled all the way over to the light side. But is that binary really what we're interested in? I think that's what Ryan fundamentally is questioning again and again and again in this story of like light side versus dark side. is such a simplistic, not humanistic way to look at the way that the galaxy is connected. But some sort of gray in the middle is an actual reality and this constant push and pull of like

the light side rises and then falls and the dark side rises and fall. Like that cycle is toxic. And what if we find a way to figure out some sort of middle ground? I get it. I understand it. I think it's important. That's why Ms. Window uses a little dark side when he's using his VAPA because it's all part of the same thing.

But more than anything, Joe, I like talking to you. I love talking to you. It's fun. That's a whole conversation. This has been us talking about The Last Jedi. We still don't agree. No. But we still like each other.

We understand. Yeah. This is kind of like a Kylo, like I got the kind of, you know what I mean? Like the whole little thing like there. Your family is filthy junkers. Why would you talk to her like that? But not to me. Not to you.

Why would he talk to her like that? You're nothing. The family is filthy junkers. It's a classic nag. We love to see it. All right. This is going to be up on the Ring Reverse YouTube feed, obviously up in the Ring Reverse podcast feed.

We might do more things like this in the future if you liked it. Drop a comment. Give us a review. Like and subscribe. Do all the things. And we'll see you soon. Bye.