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Truth!
shareIf Rian Johnson was drowning in the ocean and you threw him a life preserver he would just smirk and say "Well, that was predictable." Then he would drown. And you would laugh.
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What I don't get is that I liked Looper and really enjoyed his breaking bad episodes. I know there are people who aren't fans of those but I would say most of his work is relatively well reviewed.
Why do you think TLJ is so bad compared to his other work?
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Looper is good IMO. It's a fresh and creative sci-fi probably one of the better of its genre made in the last decade or so. It had creative world building including a near future that I found exceptional. It was daring and full of intelligent writing with interesting characters. IT's wasn't afraid to go dark.. it had some very disturbing stuff to go along. It also had very subtle humor here and there that I enjoyed. I just thought it was a really well-done movie I watch it several times and enjoyed each. It's by far the best Bruce Willis performance in 15 years.
Breaking bad was Vince's show but you could really tell which episodes were done by Rian each had a slightly different and unique feel to them. I found them the most comical and I really enjoyed the characters under RJ's direction. I especially enjoyed the FLY where Walt and Jesse are the only characters seen and they spend the whole episode trying to kill a fly... it was funny and you really got some in-depth look at their relationship and character was built too.
I only got hints of that kind of stuff in TLJ. I thought the Yoda scene was very much RJ that I knew, Rey's Cave scene, The Kylo and Luke confrontation, Luke's situation, and attitude reminded me of something he would do. When Kylo and Luke are fighting and Luke say's I'm sorry I failed you and Kylo abruptly responds IM SURE YOU ARE! Along with Hux's attempt to kill Kylo while he was unconscious. Those moments had the RJ I knew written all over them and I really enjoyed those. But the movie as a whole is such a turd... I don't get it.
I thought Looper was a cool idea that started well before disappearing into a cloud of incomprehension. It was actually an earlier indicator in the trend of clearly flawed Sci Fi (see also BSG, Prometheus & Interstellar) that seemed to get near universal praise from the blogoshpere (they don't deserve to be called critics any more).
shareSee that's funny because I thought both Prometheus and interstellar were incredibly well done. Interstellar was far from what I expected but still really enjoyed it even if it was intentionally depressing.
sharePrometheus was similar to TLJ in that it had some corny writing but the major problem was that it just had several WTF moments that didn't make sense and broke the suspension of disbelief.
Interstellar was better than both TLJ and Prometheus, but it still suffered from Nolan's typical rigid slow pacing that feels like you are on Xanax and the washed out colors found in all his movies. His movies always feel too dreamlike, and not in a good way.
Don't forget the fact that they marketed it as a 'realistic' Sci Fi movie then literally used the idea of 'love' being able to transcend time and space or some such bull shit.
And the key issue with all these films is that they have undeniable plot weaknesses - that doesn't make them bad necessarily but you didn't used to be able to get away with things like that. The sad thing is that if they had better plots but worse special effects I think they would have had much worse reviews. Time was that would be the other way around and fuck does that make me sound old.
Looper is a mess but it's less effective to analyze it because the plot flaws aren't so glaring and obvious.
The other thing about Looper is that its story has an actual point and a focus. TLJ felt mostly pointless, and very unfocused.
The answer is that Star Wars is just not Rian Johnson's genre. The Fly was dark and depressing and introspective, which fit Breaking Bad but doesn't work in Star Wars. Looper was overrated, with a pretty weak plot.
shareI'm not sure about that. I personally didn't find TLJ dark or depressing.. sure there was a bit here and there with Luke and the cave scene but most of it was just stupid with cheap attempts at humor.
However, I would argue Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were very dark. The whole first act of ROTJ was insanely dark with sex slaves, the rancor, and Leia strangling Jabba to death. Empire strikes back with the snow monster, Vader force choking half his officers, Han getting tortured/frozen, and Lukes vision at Dagoba. I think those things would fit RJ's style just fine.
Gosh just writing this makes me think of how damn good ESB was... makes me sad that in 2018 they let TLJ happen and Jumanji staring the Rock and Kevin Hart is leading the BO
Joking aside, I think the key problem with Johnson is that he simply didn't have enough experience to direct a Star Wars film. It's like getting a GP (MD) to do brain surgery, or an engineering undergrad to build a skyscraper, or a light aircraft pilot to fly an A380. You just wouldn't, you'd choose people with the right quantity and quality of experience, and Johnson is just too new to have either. Star Wars needs seasoned directors.
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LOL, lando!
😎