The Last Jedi vs KOTOR2: A Study in Deconstruction | IDRlabs

[Janus Vesta]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tN0RuRSp0o

Since the Plinkett review just came out and this was released not too long before I think it's worth posting.

[-Ben_Wolfe-]

If someone walks away from The Last Jedi thinking that "nothing matters lol" and that the film is meant to have nihilist outlook, I don't think they're paying attention or are willfully ignoring the established context because of anti-Disney-Star Wars bias. The Last Jedi's goal, for better or for worse, was to subvert just about all the copycats and expectations that The Force Awakens had established (Snoke = Palpatine 2.0; Rey = Luke's or Leia's long lost daughter (or someone equally as important); Luke is the Avatar of the Light Side of the Force now). If anything, it shows that Disney didn't have a coherent trilogy planned and that this film was to do damage control on the criticisms of The Force Awakens where it was too similar to A New Hope (again, for better or for worse).
Luke claiming the Jedi must end isn't to shit on the established lore, but says that the Jedi are just as arrogant as the Sith to believe they can control the Force --even with their religious doctrine where they deny and suppress basic emotions --because The Force is life; perfect in its imperfection. This same arrogance from the Jedi is what allowed the Sith to flourish under the Jedi council's noses in the prequels and the same rigidity that caused both Yoda and Obi-wan to convince Luke to kill his father (unbeknownst to him) and thinking Anakin is too far gone. Luke in the original trilogy is already liberal with Jedi teachings and defies the black and white nature of the Jedi and finds the grey area and the more difficult task of swaying his father from the Dark Side (already establishing flaws within Jedi logic --and symbolically portrayed by the grey lining of his black outfit in Return of the Jedi after swaying Vader), thus making him more akin to a Grey Jedi than a White Knight/Holier-Than-Thou Jedi. In The Last Jedi, he falls prey to Jedi doctrine with Ben Solo as Rey plainly states: "You failed him by thinking his choice was made" because the Jedi deal in absolutes as do the Sith ("Only a Sith deals in absolutes") Just as he was determined to kill Vader before learning he was his father, he ultimately couldn't kill Ben as both his student and his nephew (and because Luke is not a murderer). Unfortunately, even after realizing his mistake, it was too late and created the very thing he wished to prevent and has lived with the guilt and shame ever since. Luke made a very human error based on the teachings of the Jedi and, though it has good intentions, the Jedi philosophy is flawed. As that Stormtrooper helmet-wearing guy says in one of his videos, Luke's final standoff with Kylo Ren is the "Jedi-est Jedi thing to ever Jedi" and his failure and redemption humanized him more.
Rey's parentage being nobodies isn't insignificant, if anything it makes her more significant. This establishes that people are not defined by their heritage or their inherited abilities but by their own actions and deeds. Rey is a nobody rising to the occasion unlike Luke who was the son of The Chosen One who discovered his special heritage. Her "unearned powers" are within the same realm of logic that immaculately conceived Anakin via a virgin mother. Anakin, being The Chosen One, was an avatar of the Light Side just as Palpatine was an avatar for the Dark. Snoke plainly states "darkness rises and light to meet it." The Dark side had grown in the years since Palpatine's fall through Snoke and Kylo Ren and the Force produced a counterpart much as it did with Anakin. Rey was optimistic about Ren without realizing how far gone he really was. Snoke even says he assumed the counterpart would be Skywalker. This all fits seamlessly with the cyclical nature and desire for balance that the Star Wars films have always discussed.
The video states that the series is also about family, and all The Last Jedi does is imply that family isn't bound in blood relations. Rey searches for her parents, but she is discovering that her true family is the people around her; Finn, Han, Leia and even Luke (Finn is also discovering this as he was taken from his family). As much as I dislike Rose's character and her line, she --again, plainly states --"That's how we're going to win, not by fighting the things we hate, but by saving what we love." Luke does exactly this when he faces off against Kylo Ren. This is because the Resistance and the true Light is based on love and compassion.

There's a lot more I could say, but it's been said before, and this post is already longer than I wanted it to be. The fact of the matter is, The Last Jedi is not without flaws nor is it "the worst Star Wars movie ever" or designed to shit all over the fans (oh, hey, I've been a fan of the Star Wars films since birth having grown up on the original trilogy just the same; but please tell me I'm less of a fan for not hating The Last Jedi and not being a connoisseur of the Expanded Universe that has now been deemed irrelevant). I feel like a lot of the hatred it gets garners from people having an established head-canon as to what they wanted (like Luke being a Master of the Jedi arts... I mean, he still is, he just doesn't do all the flashy flippy-dippy shit and have some epic-cool lightsaber battle) or even thinking they had things figured out by what The Force Awakens established and because some people just like to be contrarians for the sake of it. That is not to say there are not legitimate criticisms (Rose, the casino planet, and the Poe/Holdo plot having some holes), but for people to claim things like Rey being a Mary Sue with unearned power totally forget Anakin flying a Naboo fighter and winning a pod race (which no human has ever done) at ten years old; or Luke being able to use the force to deflect lasers blindfolded, fly an X-wing, and accurately shoot torpedoes without a targeting computer with little training. Personally, even though The Last Jedi seems to largely be --as I said at the beginning --damage control from The Force Awakens, and shows Disney's lack of foresight in developing a coherent over-arching narrative; it still accomplishes a worthy Star Wars episode much inline with the rest of the series's themes.

[Ganerumo]

I think it's horribly unfair to compare KOTOR 2 to TLJ, or in fact any star wars film, simply on virtue of the fact that KOTOR 2 has nearly 50 hours to flesh out its characters within one continuous narrative flow, and it still needs the backing of the first KOTOR for some things to make sense.

I do think the films should focus less on franchise-driven multi-episode character arcs and more on individual stories which, while part of a greater narrative, are mostly self-reliant. But comparing them to something that can afford to be as long as it needs to be without having to constrain itself to the expectations of a median audience is ridiculous as far as I'm concerned.