LogFAQs > #928995971

Aaantlion posted...

And while people shit on Holdo for antagonizing Poe, she wasn't exactly in a position where she had to answer to him and he had recklessly disobeyed orders.

The problems with those scenes are as much about Laura Dern's performance and presentation as they are about the interaction itself.

It also doesn't help that Poe's the only character in the entire franchise that got over organically (he's literally the Han Solo of these films), yet because they never really had a plan or a purpose for him (he was supposed to die in the first film, and was only kept alive because test audiences liked Oscar Isaac's performance), his entire subplot in this film basically becomes superfluous. You could cut every scene they're in and lose absolutely nothing.

Granted, that's not as bad as the Finn/Rose scenes, which would actually benefit the movie if you cut them (which is doubly bad because Finn is supposed to be the dual protagonist with Rey). It feels like a blatant "We don't know what to do with these characters, so here's a distracting subplot to get rid of them for a while." It's made worse by the fact that the entirety of their subplot accomplishes literally nothing. They actually make the situation worse. It would be like if you watched A New Hope, and the end result of Han and Luke being on the Death Star results in Leia getting killed and the Empire recapturing R2 and the plans. It's not really a good look for heroic characters (it kind of works in Empire Strikes Back because the heroes are being reactive rather than proactive - proactive heroes completely failing just makes them look stupid).

The Rey/Luke/Kylo scenes are pretty much the only worthwhile ones in the movie, and even those are awkward in some ways. If they'd expanded those to be more of the movie, and worked out some of the kinks, it would have worked much better. Then you expand on the accidental buddy cop vibe Finn and Poe developed in the first film and have THEM have side adventures (that actually MEAN something) and you'd have a much stronger film. You can still introduce Rose if you want (and introduce her into the Finn/Poe dynamic in the same way Leia contrasted the Luke/Han dynamic), but you kind of need to make her a strong, interesting character in her own right, not a whiny idiot who accomplishes literally nothing of substance (which is a large part of why she became "the load", even for people who didn't give a shit that she was female or Asian). You'd also benefit from casting a better actress in the role.

Realistically, the film would have benefited a lot from a few more rewrites and maybe some outside opinions (ie, the same problem the prequels had). But Johnson was so enamored of his deconstructionist concept that it hurts the film (and the franchise).

It also didn't help that the franchise had literally no central vision or unified narrative - it would have worked a lot better if they'd had a Kevin Feige figure to coordinate between different directors and say "This is where the story needs to go" rather than letting them run amok. If you're trying to create a deliberate trilogy as opposed to stand-alone films, that doesn't really work.

Also, someone needed to stop Benicio del Toro from doing... pretty much everything he does.
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