I’ve been following the release of “The Last Jedi” with some interest, primarily because of the odd contrast between the rave reviews, glowing publicity, and the complete and total lack of substance.
“The Last Jedi’ Dominates Christmas Box Office, Nears $400 Million in US”
Google keeps running a poll declaring 86% of people just loved “The Last Jedi.” I’ve yet to find one single person. I talked to a kid recently who told me, “it was cool.” A bit amusing, he also could not tell me what was cool about it and confessed he hadn’t really paid attention to the movie at all.
So basically he was so bored, his whole psyche just got up and took a trip to the pink forest.
Spoiler alert, I haven’t seen it either and have no intention of going. I do however, have fond memories of my dad and I practically camping out on the streets of Hollywood to see the original Star Wars. Good times, long, long ago.
My interest is really in culture, perceptions, and publicity, especially brain washing and social engineering. The deliberate hype around the Last Jedi is a fascinating bit of social engineering. There is an agenda here that goes beyond selling movie tickets and merchandise.
It’s not unlike the Paul Revere story as immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Everyone knows Paul Revere single-handedly rode through the countryside warning people, “the British are coming, the British are coming.”
Except he never really said that, the British weren’t really coming, and he wasn’t alone but merely one of perhaps 40 riders. Also, he’s the one guy in the whole bunch who managed to get himself promptly captured and detained. So he didn’t even get much riding done.
Why is Paul Revere the stuff of legends while those other 40 men have been forgotten? Paul Revere had a better publicist……Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Never underestimate the power of poets to shape how we think about things.
Besides selling movie tickets, there is a pretty clear girl-power agenda at play with The Last Jedi, or rather a feminist one of the political sort. You can tell by all the merchandise, “the force is female” shirts, and the story line. Clearly the Jedi is now female, heck the whole darn force is now female.
Douglas Ernst always has some podcasts and reviews I enjoy. He didn’t disappoint in this post either, “Last Jedi: Rian Johnson’s middle finger chin scratch to confident men.”
So I take it he is yet another member of Google’s “86% of us just loved it” demographic?
This is a biology blog after all, and one thing I keep taking away from all this, is that you just can’t change biology. You cannot change the dynamics between men and women, unlike the way you can spin a bit of romanticism about Paul Revere. He was actually a real guy, he was there at the time, and he was a revolutionary. So everything else just becomes poetic license and behold, he is now transformed into a legendary hero. But the essence of who and what Paul Revere was remains the same.
What you cannot do is take the hero status away from all the male characters, put women into those roles, and than just leave the men standing about like stage props or something. Accessories. You not only lose the foundation and structure of your whole story, you also lose the drama, the tension, and the conflict.
You can certainly have female heroes, lead characters, but they have to actually have earned that role in some way, to be battling something bigger than the force is female now so there. Neener, neener……
A story must have an beggining, a middle, and an end.
On the good side, what usually happens is that we’re all bored to tears and the pain is forgotten as soon as possible, like a bad remake of Ghostbusters. On the dark side, we create women nobody really likes. Without some vulnerability, grief, hardship, she is just not an empathetic character. In fact, we hate her. The guys now sitting in support roles, really serve no meaningful purpose at all, and so we start to hate them too. Eventually you feel so yucky about the whole situation, you start to empathize with the bad guy, to hope the enemies of the empire put all these people out of their misery as soon as possible.
anon said:
People don’t like to be on the receiving end of a longwinded ideological lecture, even when they are expecting it.
To pay to be on the receiving end of a lecture, when it’s disguised as “entertainment” seems a double insult.
That’s like being invited to Christmas dinner (with friends or family) and then subjected to an Amway sales pitch while you’re finishing up your pumpkin pie.
LikeLiked by 4 people
anon said:
Guess I should add, it’s obviously okay for the folks selling Amway. They might even find the tactic brilliant.
But the vast majority of people (who aren’t in a very weird place in life, nor suffering from crippling levels of social ineptness) don’t appreciate it. Star Wars is kind of like a crazy Uncle (or I guess Aunt) now.
LikeLiked by 2 people
insanitybytes22 said:
“But the vast majority of people (who aren’t in a very weird place in life, nor suffering from crippling levels of social ineptness) don’t appreciate it.”
A bit funny here, but even those of us in a “weird place suffering from crippling levels of social ineptness” don’t appreciate it. When you even manage to lose the socially inept you’ve totally blown it. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
anon said:
Hee hee. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
catholiccooties said:
Disappointing news, though not surprising. But hahaha! I used to wonder why I rooted for the bad guy sometimes growing up. Maybe it was due to agenda-driven movie making. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
insanitybytes22 said:
I hear you!
When the bad guy is the only one in the tale being honest, the only one showing something resembling integrity about his own evil agenda, you just can’t help it. Sure he wants to destroy the world, but at least he isn’t being shallow and superficial about it. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
patrickhawthorne01 said:
I put on my IB hat the other day. Suddenly, observations that normally would have been rooted out by more important things (such as what flavor ice cream was in the freezer) were replaced with things that make you say, “hmmm…” For example, I was watching a show in which a female could kick the utter crap out of every male she came across no matter their size or skill set. Then… she fights another female in hand to hand combat and barely makes it out alive.
LikeLiked by 3 people
insanitybytes22 said:
“Then… she fights another female in hand to hand combat and barely makes it out alive.”
LOL! I just hate it when that happens. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
lynnabbottstudios said:
“Why is Paul Revere the stuff of legends while those other 40 men have been forgotten? Paul Revere had a better publicist……Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.” Soo true… and said in your own inimitable IB way! You made me grin from ear to ear! I have read some reviews by people who liked it and who “found” substance in it… but I haven’t seen it and so I have no way of weighing in on this. I must say, though, that Lucas lost me with the second trilogy. His characterization of Obi Wan didn’t fit with the man we had come to love in the first Star Wars film… and Lucas’ attempts to make Anakin a sympathetic character fell completely flat. I’m just not a fan of the second trilogy at all. So, perhaps, when the films departed from the simple fun “cowboys in space” themes of the first three and attempted to say something “serious,” they lost any power (as you so accurately and poignantly suggest, that of entertainment and story-telling) they once had. 🙂 You are a profound thinker, IB, and I love reading your thoughts about life and culture!
LikeLiked by 1 person
insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you for your kind words and for reading. I appreciate that.
“Cowboys in space,” is well put. I guess it’s a bit like making a Western, minus the cowboys. We’ll just have horses and dis-embodied gunfights or something. So much for dialog and relationships. 🙂
LikeLike
Julie (aka Cookie) said:
My son, who has always been a huge Star Wars fan, told me that he did not like the movie—said he didn’t like the direction “they” seemed to be taking it—not having seen it, I can’t say yay or nay….but as you allude–maybe it’s the whole “girl” power spin—and not that he’s anti woman…he is his mother’s child and knows there’s a lot of hooey behind much of that “I am woman hear me roar” crap—-as I have never minced words when it came to God’s ordination for both man and woman—as in roles , expectations and responsibilities—the spin doctors of culture and society are oh so busy…
Oh and by the by….did you see the story out of Rome yesterday where s Feminist activist who claims to be ‘sextremist’ who also happened to be topless, tried to jump security in St Peter’s and steal the baby Jesus out of the Vatican’s nativity?
Seems she is a known member of a global feminist organization out of Ukraine that is doing its darnedest to do away with the notion of patriarchy —-we’ve got troubles yes we do…..
LikeLiked by 3 people
insanitybytes22 said:
LOL! I did see that, Julie. Every year a topless gal tries to steal the baby Jesus. That happens a lot where I live too, except they’re never topless because its really cold here.
The global fems are really a trip. Dumber than a box of rocks I must say, because they have no idea who funds them or for what purpose,but yeah, they are total tools.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Julie (aka Cookie) said:
Well said 🤪
LikeLiked by 1 person
dawnlizjones said:
Golly, folks, sorry I’m so brain dead. Bob and I liked the explosions in space, although I can’t remember much about the movie, which means it was less than impactful other than superficially entertaining. Bob reviewed it on his site: https://robertlambertjones3.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/mythology-in-space-part-9/ if you’re interested in a different perspective.
LikeLiked by 2 people
insanitybytes22 said:
Thanks for the link,I’d love to read his perspective. You made me laugh with, “can’t remember much about the movie.” That seems to be pretty common. Some people like the visuals, the camera work, the explosions,but the rest of it seems remarkably forgetable.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wally Fry said:
Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuke….I am your undetermined gender mentor.
LikeLiked by 2 people
insanitybytes22 said:
Bahahaha! Exactly, Wally.
LikeLiked by 2 people
craftysurf said:
I feel bad for the kids. The promotional toys that came out of this latest set of movies are just horrible. I know the Ewoks were creepy, but they were soft and huggable in marketable form. Han Solo even made a sexy action figure.
The Good Old Days.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Doggedly Yours said:
He had a good public relations guy… famous without completing the ride.
LikeLiked by 1 person