Star Wars Episode VIII - The Last Jedi *spoilers from Post 2857*

Tony EH

Except it's not.

One just goofy where everybody's an idiot (Poe/Hux) and the other is a guy caught off guard and trying to bluff his way out of a tight situation and failing.(Solo)

They're very different.

Also, the humour in 'Star Wars' is mostly sarcasm and IIRC was ad libbed a lot. They're slightly funny lines. Not jokes.

The humour in sequels is entirely scripted, insisted upon by the studio and wriiten by someone without any real comic timing.

david75

Tony EH wrote: »

Except it's not.

One just goofy where everybody's an idiot (Poe/Hux) and the other is a guy caught off guard and trying to bluff his way out of a tight situation and failing.(Solo)

They're very different.

Also, the humour in 'Star Wars' is mostly sarcasm and IIRC was ad libbed a lot. They're slightly funny lines. Not jokes.

The humour in sequels is entirely scripted, insisted upon by the studio and wriiten by someone without any real comic timing.

It wasn’t as libbed at all. Lucas had two friends, a couple, who mostly wrote Hans quips in ANH and Empire. You’re confusing it with Ford improvising that one line in Empire. One line. Everything else was scripted.

Sad Professor

Yeah, I'm pretty sure most of the screwball comedy antics on the Death Star in ANH was exactly as scripted. Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz wrote it and it's very typical of their writing. See American Graffiti and Temple of Doom. Where as most of the humour in TESB was probably improvised. I don't think there's a single scene Kershner didn't re-write.

Afaik a lot of the humour in TFA was improvised as well. Poe joking about Kylo's mask, everything with Rey and Finn, etc. Simon Pegg helped JJ re-write some scenes on set, suggesting JJ wasn't really happy with the humour in the script. I suspect that Kasdan was never really good at the kind of Gunga Din-esque humour that he's often credited for.

TLJ's humour is mostly consistent with TFA, but its funniest moments are pure Johnson. I'd suggest people watch Johnson's other films, especially The Brothers Bloom, if they think Disney forced that stuff on him. The sudden tonal shifts and off-kilter humour are very much his style. The iron coming down, the lightsaber hitting Rey on the head, Rey literally "reaching out", etc. It seems a lot of this was improvised on set as well. Kylo force pushing Hux on Crait, for example.

And re: Dad jokes:

Johnson revealed, "When I sat down, the very first time, to watch the movie with John Williams...the lights went down and the Lucasfilm [logo appeared] and the 'Galaxy far, far away...' and the opening fanfare [began], I leaned over and I said, 'This first cue is temp, we'll do something totally different here,' and he looked at me and he didn't realize that I was joking, and the music started up so I couldn't say I was joking because it was too loud."

pixelburp

Oh definitely, I think Looper was most people's introduction to Johnson, but he has always had a goofball sensibility that was definitely most prominent in Brothers Bloom (maybe not so much Brick, but even that had a unique and skewed perspective of the world with its gumshoe-highschool inflections). Looper perhaps gave the false impression that Johnson was a uniquely.... serious genre director I guess, though even that film had moments of off kilter laughs, but his CV does not contradict anything from Last Jedi.

And honestly, I loved the joke with the iron. I even fell for it, wondering what on earth kind of device it could have been, before loudly laughing at the reveal.

david75

Sad Professor wrote: »

Yeah, I'm pretty sure most of the screwball comedy antics on the Death Star in ANH was exactly as scripted. Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz wrote it and it's very typical of their writing. See American Graffiti and Temple of Doom. Where as most of the humour in TESB was probably improvised. I don't think there's a single scene Kershner didn't re-write.

Afaik a lot of the humour in TFA was improvised as well. Poe joking about Kylo's mask, everything with Rey and Finn, etc. Simon Pegg helped JJ re-write some scenes on set, suggesting JJ wasn't really happy with the humour in the script. I suspect that Kasdan was never really good at the kind of Gunga Din-esque humour that he's often credited for.

TLJ's humour is mostly consistent with TFA, but its funniest moments are pure Johnson. I'd suggest people watch Johnson's other films, especially The Brothers Bloom, if they think Disney forced that stuff on him. The sudden tonal shifts and off-kilter humour are very much his style. The iron coming down, the lightsaber hitting Rey on the head, Rey literally "reaching out", etc. It seems a lot of this was improvised on set as well. Kylo force pushing Hux on Crait, for example.

And re: Dad jokes:

The iron coming down Was a nod to hardware Wars. A spoof on Star Wars from way back that Was among the first to get approval from Lucas himself. He loved it. Star Wars using household appliances. What’s not to love.

david75

My favourite thing in this film. Luke and Leias reunion.
It’s pretty much exactly the conversation they both have in ROTJ about Vader..
But flipped. I have to face him/can’t save him./you don’t have to/Run away.ive given up in him.

Beat for beat the same thing about the kid who worships Vader rather than Vader himself..
It’s beautiful.

And the music. Just amazing. Luke and leias theme. Han and leias theme. So brilliant.

tony stark

Could we do a vote on who liked this new comedy from the minds of Adam Sandler and Roy Schieder-“carry on in space”? Seriously thou I’d love to see a poll on this from boards.ie gang

david75

tony stark wrote: »

Could we do a vote on who liked this new comedy from the minds of Adam Sandler and Roy Schieder-“carry on in space”? Seriously thou I’d love to see a poll on this from boards.ie gang

Post a link to it in after hours. They seem like a rational thoughtful bunch.

Tony EH

david75 wrote: »

The iron coming down Was a nod to hardware Wars. A spoof on Star Wars from way back that Was among the first to get approval from Lucas himself. He loved it. Star Wars using household appliances. What’s not to love.

In 'Hardware Wars' it's grand. That's a piss take.

In a straight up Star Wars film, it's not.

In one scene, we've just seen thousands of people get blown to fuck that you're supposed to feel sorry for.

In the next scene we have a gag.

And some people are wondering why people are complaining about the tone of this film being all over the shop.

py2006

Ok I didn't notice the 'iron' thing..... What ya'll on about??

Peatys

Relikk

py2006 wrote: »

Ok I didn't notice the 'iron' thing..... What ya'll on about??

Tony EH

py2006 wrote: »

Ok I didn't notice the 'iron' thing..... What ya'll on about??

Hardare Wars was a zerobudget piss take of 'Star Wars' made by some folk in the 70's. It featured a flying iron as a spaceship.

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

In 'The Last Jedi' somebody thought it would be "kewl" and "meta" to put what looked like a flying iron into a scene, where we see First Order uniforms getting pressed.

It was "hilarious".*


































*It wasn't

johnny_ultimate

Got a good laugh out of me both times *shrugs*

Sad Professor

I thought it was brilliant! And one of several clever excellent scene transitions in the film. Lucas never gave any thought to this, hence the choppy editing and overuse of screen wipes. Afaik TLJ has the fewest wipes of any of the films. Johnson's editing is more elegant so it doesn't need them (which isn't saying much given Lucas) but I guess he makes up for it with the in-scene tonal shifts.

For anyone interested in the editing of the original film, this is a good video and talks about how they moved scenes around and even changed the story in editing (the Death Star preparing to fire on Yavin at the end was entirely created in editing), though I would take issue with the term "saved". All movies are "saved" in the editing room.

johnny_ultimate

Sad Professor wrote: »

I thought it was brilliant!

Yep, and a giddily cinematic gag at that. A deceptive camera angle and music cue followed by a precise edit. Not to mention an efficient bit of scene-setting in the process

Tony EH

Sad Professor wrote: »

I thought it was brilliant!

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Yep, and a giddily cinematic gag at that.

Pffft...some people will laugh at anything.

Sad Professor

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Yep, and a giddily cinematic gag at that. A deceptive camera angle and music cue followed by a precise edit. Not to mention an efficient bit of scene-setting in the process

It's a great visual gag alright, but like most of the gags in the film it also serves a story purpose (in the case of the iron, a way of efficiently transitioning into the laundry room). This something I really noticed on second viewing - nearly everything serves story and character, even the jokes. For example, Luke throwing his lightsaber over his shoulder is a bit of a gag but it's also a perfect visual representation of where his character is at in the film. I've heard people suggest that he could have just handed the lightsaber back to Rey or turned around and thrown it over the cliff, but neither would have established older Luke as effectively as him casually throwing it over his shoulder and walking off.

Relikk

Relikk wrote: »

Only funny part in the whole film for me. Amongst all the forced gags, at least a bit of physcial humour can't be delivered hammed.

py2006

I must say I agree with a lot of what this person has to say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFuXonN7MtM

Sad Professor

I guess they had Brazil on the temp track.

(35 seconds in)

Riddle101

Wouldn't it have been great if the person that Finn and Rose were looking for in the casino was Lando Calrissian? I mean we haven't seen or heard anything about Lando since Return of the Jedi, and I think it would have been a nice cameo to see him in the casino. Another idea would be to have him be the owner of the casino itself.

nix

Riddle101 wrote: »

Wouldn't it have been great if the person that Finn and Rose were looking for in the casino was Lando Calrissian? I mean we haven't seen or heard anything about Lando since Return of the Jedi, and I think it would have been a nice cameo to see him in the casino. Another idea would be to have him be the owner of the casino itself.

No, no that would have been shit. :rolleyes:

Sad Professor

Some interesting tidbits about the "Force connection" scenes:

Adam Driver flew to Ireland to be off-screen for Daisy Ridley during them:

Johnson says that the key to the actors’ chemistry in those scenes was that they were both physically present on set for each other.

“Every single time we shot one of their sides, the other person was off camera,” he explains. “Even to the point where Adam flew to Ireland just to be off camera for Daisy’s stuff, which was essential because they’re such intimate conversations. And that also meant we had to shoot each of those scenes twice basically, which meant the rehearsal time was really important. And my editor Bob Ducsay did an amazing job then of making it feel kind of seamless after the fact.”

Johnson also talks about how they edited those scenes in the Art of TLJ book:

“I remember coming into it with the notion of ‘The purpose here is just to create intimacy,’” Johnson says. “How minimal can we go? And what is the simplest way of clearing everything out, so it’s just like you and me having a conversation in a room?” The answer arrived at by Johnson and the brain trust was simply to intercut between Ridley and Driver as if the actors were in the same room. “The idea of it being pure cinematic language - just intercutting and doing nothing else to it - that solution saw through all the way to the finished product. I think it works.”

I thought these scenes were really well done. On the surface it's a very simple effect, but they do a lot in them. Establishing that they can both see each other and can touch each other, etc. Also crucial for setting up what Luke does at the end.

david75

If anyone’s interested there’s a link to get the whole soundtrack here. Usually the retail version doesn’t have the entire score so Disney make it available online.

https://makingstarwars.net/2018/01/star-wars-last-jedi-full-soundtrack-now-available/

PhiloCypher

Sad Professor wrote: »

It's a great visual gag alright, but like most of the gags in the film it also serves a story purpose (in the case of the iron, a way of efficiently transitioning into the laundry room). This something I really noticed on second viewing - nearly everything serves story and character, even the jokes. For example, Luke throwing his lightsaber over his shoulder is a bit of a gag but it's also a perfect visual representation of where his character is at in the film. I've heard people suggest that he could have just handed the lightsaber back to Rey or turned around and thrown it over the cliff, but neither would have established older Luke as effectively as him casually throwing it over his shoulder and walking off.

I didn't like the lightsaber scene being played for laughs but If they absolutely had to play the scene for laughs it would have been better if after looking down thoughfully at the lightsaber in his hand, Luke turns around and launches it off the cliff , forcing Rey to call it back to her hand with the force and giving him a wtf look as he walks off.

david75

PhiloCypher wrote: »

I didn't like the lightsaber scene being played for laughs but If they absolutely had to play the scene for laughs it would have been better if after looking down thoughfully at the lightsaber in his hand, Luke turns around and launches it off the cliff , forcing Rey to call it back to her hand with the force and giving him a wtf look as he walks off.

Watching it again I’m not sure it’s meant to be a gag. Just more of an analogy for where he is right now. I’m with you they could have done it countless other ways and have made the point. But it is a weird decision to execute that way.

uncleoswald

Sad Professor wrote: »

It's a great visual gag alright, but like most of the gags in the film it also serves a story purpose (in the case of the iron, a way of efficiently transitioning into the laundry room). This something I really noticed on second viewing - nearly everything serves story and character, even the jokes. For example, Luke throwing his lightsaber over his shoulder is a bit of a gag but it's also a perfect visual representation of where his character is at in the film. I've heard people suggest that he could have just handed the lightsaber back to Rey or turned around and thrown it over the cliff, but neither would have established older Luke as effectively as him casually throwing it over his shoulder and walking off.

Have to say I almost completely disagree. The tone of the over-the-shoulder toss was not in keeping with Luke's dark and brooding character. The movement and timing was too comical, as if the character of Luke was playing it for laughs. He's not bloody Groucho Marx.

Sad Professor

PhiloCypher wrote: »

I didn't like the lightsaber scene being played for laughs but If they absolutely had to play the scene for laughs it would have been better if after looking down thoughfully at the lightsaber in his hand, Luke turns around and launches it off the cliff , forcing Rey to call it back to her hand with the force and giving him a wtf look as he walks off.

Yeah but as i said, the moment is not played purely for laughs. It reveals character. Angrily throwing it away is something Kylo would do. Luke isn't angry, he just doesn't care. He's not trying to destroy the Jedi like Vader, he's just letting them die. I think him casually tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder and walking away captures this well. As does the fact that Rey is rendered speechless by it. Like Rey, for most viewers it was probably an awkward WTF moment. If they laugh it's a nervous laughter, which is probably how it was intended and is consistent with Johnson's off-kilter style. Ditto the green milk scene that follows. I think the important point isn't whether it's funny (humour is very subjective) but that it's consistent with what we subsequently learn about Luke in the film.

Han's "I know" line in Empire produced a lot of laughs in 1980 in the middle of what's supposed to be a very emotional moment. Does it ruin the scene if you don't find it funny or think it's inappropriate? No because it's totally consistent with Han's character. Same with Luke.

I think the best alternative would have been for him to just start talking, bringing forward the conversation he later has with Rey in the tree. But Johnson obviously wanted to show his life on the island first, to visually establish who Luke is now, and to make the audience curious about why that is. I appreciate that many fans fundamentally disagree with Luke's character in this film, and that's fair enough, but this is still good visual storytelling and characterisation for the Luke in this film.

Sad Professor

uncleoswald wrote: »

Have to say I almost completely disagree. The tone of the over-the-shoulder toss was not in keeping with Luke's dark and brooding character. The movement and timing was too comical, as if the character of Luke was playing it for laughs. He's not bloody Groucho Marx.

Yeah the timing is comical, but there's nothing wrong with that. And I disagree that he's dark and brooding. He's clearly trying to scare Rey off in the early scenes and enjoying it. See also the scene where he tickles her hand, and he makes several lighthearted comments about Jakku being nowhere, Han being Han, etc, etc.