A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

© 2018 Buena Vista Home Entertaiment (BVHE) and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On March 27, 2018, Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE, the home media distribution arm of Walt Disney Motion Pictures Studios) released Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi in various formats: Blu-ray, Ultra High Definition (UHD) Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download. And following the trend set by many of Disney's competitors, including the then-still independent 20th Century Fox Film Corporation and Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures, BVHE issued Rian Johnson's 2017 entry in the Star Wars Skywalker Saga in different editions, including exclusive releases for Disney retailing partners, including Best Buy.  As was the case with 2016's home media release of Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, Best Buy's exclusive edition of The Last Jedi does not concern itself with the content, which is the first 4K UHD edition of a Star Wars film. Other retailers, including Amazon, Target, ...

Why does the writer of  Star Wars: The Last Jedi  think it is plausible for Princess Leia to survive the vacuum of space without a spacesuit? Let me ask you this: Why did George Lucas think it is plausible for starfighters to fly through the vacuum of space and maneuver  exactly  like jet fighters in atmospheric flight without all the complications of reaction control systems, complicated life support systems, and all of the known problems that space travel poses? Why did George Lucas think it was plausible for any civilization, even an advanced one with tech supposedly far more advanced than ours, to build a space station the size of a small moon? Why did George Lucas think it was plausible that a space station the size of a small moon could travel through hyperspace without creating a noticeable gravitational disturbance in its path and wake? Why do the crew and passengers of any starship, including the  Millennium Falcon,  fly in and out of ...

On Quora, member Al Hartley asks: Does the fact that the Empire is still basically around in the new Star Wars trilogy diminish the events of the original trilogy? As Luke Skywalker says in  Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi,  “Every single word you just said is wrong.” First off, the Galactic Empire is  not  “basically around” 30-some odd years after the destruction of the Death Star II and the downfall of Emperor Palpatine and his evil regime. The main antagonist of the heroes in the Sequel Trilogy is not the old Empire. As the title crawl of  Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Force Awakens  states: Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed. The villains - Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader Snoke, Armitage Hux, Captain Phasma,  et. al.  are not Imperials. They are, in essence, neo-Imperials, fanat...

© 2017 Dolby Labs and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Was The Last Jedi too far, far away from being like a Star Wars movie? Despite what many of its vocal “Disney ruined  Star Wars ” detractors claim,  Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi  was not much different from any of the other Skywalker Saga films. It follows the basic format of the previous seven Saga films and has the same basic visual and aural  Star Wars-y  features, including: The Lucasfilm logo (yes, I miss the 20th Century Fox logo and fanfare that preceded the movies made before 2008, but let’s get over that) The Main Title, with the receding  Star Wars  titles and crawl, accompanied by John Williams’ score John Williams’ score Transitions accompanied by “wipes” and “dissolves” A basic three-act structure Intertwined plots that converge at the end Lessons about the Force Jedi stuff Dark Side of the Force stuff Lightsaber duels Mix of comedy and drama Space battles Enemy s...

© 2017 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Why was Luke Skywalker made to look so weak and cowardly in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and is it possible to bring him back? Luke Skywalker was neither weak nor cowardly in  Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.  Only those viewers who either don’t understand human nature or invested much of their devotion to the “lore” of the  Star Wars  Expanded Universe like to think that the Luke they see in  The Last Jedi  is a coward or weak. As a matter of fact, the old EU (now wisely called Legends) Luke Skywalker was  never portrayed in a way that was either believable or consistent . Only a few writers, including Hugo Award-winning Timothy Zahn, ever wrote stories or plot lines that showed Luke as a realistic character with human flaws or weaknesses. In those stories and specifically Zahn’s  Thrawn Trilogy,  EU Luke was so faithful to Original Trilogy Luke that I could hear actor Mark Hamill’s voice in my h...

Cover art for Marvel Comics' omnibus edition of The Last Jedi comics adaptation. © 2018 Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On Quora, member Michael Justin asks: Why did Kathleen Kennedy let Rian Johnson throw away J.J. Abrams’ Episode VIII script if she was going to hire him back for Episode IX? This question, like so many others like it, is based on a basic assumption that seems to be popular among many “fans” who get their information almost exclusively from YouTube or bloggers whose views they share. The assumption:  That J.J. Abrams had a detailed plan for the Sequel Trilogy, even had  scripts  for all three Episodes, and that this grand plan was wrecked by Rian Johnson with  Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.  And clueless, SJW Princess Kathleen Kennedy let Johnson ruin  Star Wars. Oh, you poor deluded child. First of all, just as George Lucas did not write a ginormous 360-page screenplay with all the beats and plot twists ...

Quora, a popular Q&A site that is a direct competitor to Yahoo! Answers, has hundreds of thousands of daily users that ask and answer questions about everything under the sun; topics range from archaeology to zoology, including world history, aviation, U.S. and world politics, pop culture (including subcategories such as Star Wars, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter ). and sex.  The quality of the questions varies greatly as well, depending on various factors, such as age, education level, cultural awareness, and writing abilities. As such, one is bound to see queries that run all the way across the quality spectrum, from the Very Interesting to the Very Weird. This one, by Quora member Mina Simard, is one that falls into the Weird end of the spectrum:  What are the chances that we'll get Star Wars Episodes VII, VIII and IX with the original cast coming back to reprise their roles? My reply: Well, considering that Lucasfilm (and, in the cas...

Why was the character Snoke such a letdown in Star Wars: The Last Jedi after his build-up in The Force Awakens? There wasn’t any build-up. As Yoda might tell you, “Only build-up, in your mind it was.” Supreme Leader Snoke did not have much of a role in  Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens.  He appears only in a few brief scenes as an imposing-looking hologram, utters a few Palpatine-lite lines to General Hux and Kylo Ren, and gives a few plot-necessary orders to his minions. The heroes of the Resistance only refer to him once, and that’s when Leia reminds Han that it was Snoke who turned their son Ben into his Vader-wannabe Dark Side apprentice. He never wields a lightsaber like Kylo Ren’s idol, the aforementioned Darth Vader, and he’s not present on Starkiller Base when the First Order uses its superweapon to decimate the New Republic. That’s it. I don’t see any evidence of a huge character build-up. Look, the problem with Sequel Trilogy dislikers is tha...

If you do not like the new Star Wars movies, why are you considered a toxic fan since opinions of movies are subjective? Oo, oo! I’ll take this one. © and ™ Lucasfilm and Dolby Laboratories From my perspective, this is what it boils down to: It’s perfectly fine to  not  like a movie. It doesn’t matter if the movie is a  Star Wars  Episode or Anthology film, or if it’s  Bolero  or  Ishtar.  As you say in your question, whether you like a movie is a subjective thing. It’s acceptable to write a negative review of a film, so long as you don’t insult the cast, crew, or director  personally.  Critique their work, yes, but stooping to calling them names or picking on them for reasons that are only tangential to the film is not okay. Your behavior can become  toxic  if you start flooding social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Quora, just to name a few) with long, overheated, and hateful diatri...

© 2017, 2018 Del Rey Books/Lucasfilm Ltd. Which elements of 'The Last Jedi' do you think J.J. Abrams will retcon in the upcoming 'Star Wars: Episode IX'? Oh, Sithspawn. Will  The Last Jedi  bashing ever stop? All right. Listen. Apparently, you never took Basic Screenwriting 101 or understand how moviemaking at that level works  really  works. First, even though J.J. Abrams did not write or direct  Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi,  he is one of the film’s executive producers, which is the same job title George Lucas had when Lucasfilm Ltd. made  The Empire Strikes Back  and  Return of the Jedi. That means that even though he was not on-set every day or oversaw production in a hands-on way, he read Johnson’s script way before principal photography began. As executive producer, along with Kathleen Kennedy and others on his decision-making level, he had  veto power  over Johnson’s script. Thus, if Abrams believed, l...