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Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been out for almost a month, and there are still a lot of lingering questions coming out of the film, including at least three controversies that proved to be very divisive among the fan community. Fortunately, director Rian Johnson appears to be on a whirlwind press tour and he’s debunking some of those moments by explaining his choices. Today’s Nerdist News is Force-skyping in with The Last Jedi answers that we’ve all been waiting to hear.
Warning: there are massive spoilers ahead for The Last Jedi. If you haven’t seen the movie, head to hyperspace now and come back later!
Join host and America’s top porg chef, Jessica Chobot, as she runs down the three major controversies from the film. First up, the return of Luke‘s blue lightsaber and his younger looking Force avatar during his confrontation with Kylo Ren on Crait. According to Johnson, all of that reflected choices made by Luke that were designed to get under Kylo’s skin. While the audience saw the destruction of the lightsaber that once belonged to Luke and his father, Kylo was knocked out and didn’t witness it. Seeing the lightsaber back in Luke’s hands only enraged Kylo, and that’s what it was meant to do.
Johnson also addressed the galaxy-spanning Force connection between Rey and Kylo. It’s true that none of the previous films established that power, although we have seen Luke and Darth Vader exchange a few Force words over a long distance near the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Johnson’s argument is that every Star Wars movie in the main saga has introduced new Force powers out of necessity to the plot, and this time he needed a way to get Rey and Kylo talking to each other without instantly being at each others’ throats. Plus, it led to shirtless Kylo Ren, an image that launched so many memes.
Finally, Johnson got around to dealing with Supreme Leader Snoke, the enigmatic ruler of the First Order. Everyone had a Snoke theory. Was he the First Jedi? The Last Jedi? Jar-Jar Binks reborn? According to Johnson, he purposefully withheld Snoke’s backstory because he felt that it would have hurt the film’s pace to include it. So, we may have to wait for a novel or some other ancillary media to give us Snoke’s story, unless J.J. Abrams finds a way to put it in Episode IX.
What do you think about Johnson’s latest Last Jedi remarks? Force ghost your way to the comment section below!
Images: Lucasfilm
More of the latest nerd news!
- Scientifically ranking Liam Neeson’s deadliest characters
- Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Killing Eve looks like BBC America’s next big thing
- New Handmade’s Tale pics from season 2 look very apocalyptic
Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been out for almost a month, and there are still a lot of lingering questions coming out of the film, including at least three controversies that proved to be very divisive among the fan community. Fortunately, director Rian Johnson appears to be on a whirlwind press tour and he’s debunking some of those moments by explaining his choices. Today’s Nerdist News is Force-skyping in with The Last Jedi answers that we’ve all been waiting to hear.
Warning: there are massive spoilers ahead for The Last Jedi. If you haven’t seen the movie, head to hyperspace now and come back later!
Join host and America’s top porg chef, Jessica Chobot, as she runs down the three major controversies from the film. First up, the return of Luke‘s blue lightsaber and his younger looking Force avatar during his confrontation with Kylo Ren on Crait. According to Johnson, all of that reflected choices made by Luke that were designed to get under Kylo’s skin. While the audience saw the destruction of the lightsaber that once belonged to Luke and his father, Kylo was knocked out and didn’t witness it. Seeing the lightsaber back in Luke’s hands only enraged Kylo, and that’s what it was meant to do.
Johnson also addressed the galaxy-spanning Force connection between Rey and Kylo. It’s true that none of the previous films established that power, although we have seen Luke and Darth Vader exchange a few Force words over a long distance near the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Johnson’s argument is that every Star Wars movie in the main saga has introduced new Force powers out of necessity to the plot, and this time he needed a way to get Rey and Kylo talking to each other without instantly being at each others’ throats. Plus, it led to shirtless Kylo Ren, an image that launched so many memes.
Finally, Johnson got around to dealing with Supreme Leader Snoke, the enigmatic ruler of the First Order. Everyone had a Snoke theory. Was he the First Jedi? The Last Jedi? Jar-Jar Binks reborn? According to Johnson, he purposefully withheld Snoke’s backstory because he felt that it would have hurt the film’s pace to include it. So, we may have to wait for a novel or some other ancillary media to give us Snoke’s story, unless J.J. Abrams finds a way to put it in Episode IX.
What do you think about Johnson’s latest Last Jedi remarks? Force ghost your way to the comment section below!
Images: Lucasfilm
More of the latest nerd news!
- Scientifically ranking Liam Neeson’s deadliest characters
- Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Killing Eve looks like BBC America’s next big thing
- New Handmade’s Tale pics from season 2 look very apocalyptic
Writer: Matt Rosenberg / Artists: Joe Bennett Leinil Yu/ Marvel Comics
This issue, is what I’ve been waiting for and I feel like the writers used this rebirth metaphor to make everything come full circle. In the first issue of Phoenix Resurrection, two white kids were interrupted with a game of “Frisbee”. In this issue we begin with a father and son, enjoying their perfect outing. Doing what every stereotypical white family does on cartoons, fishing in the middle of the lake. Everyone is having a good time, it’s all smooth and then “Oh look. Now the lake is on fire. Now isn’t that convenient”?
Doesn’t that hit too close to home? When a pillar of fire shoots out of the water and nearly roasts you. There’s essentially nowhere to escape a fire that shoots out of water. That’s like saying, hey I should be safe in this hospital, oh look now everyone is stabbing each other.
It’s BBQ season again, boys!
The X-Men are closing in on their search of Jean Grey and they will be searching to and fro looking for the wonderful Phoenix. Looking through caskets n’ crap. What made me enjoy this issue is that the writers were using this issue as a form of self reflection. How will the past revisit itself in the present? The biggest misunderstanding in the matter is that we don’t realize how fire innately merges our identities? Very much like melding steel? How will the rebirth of The Phoenix revisit this present Jean Grey?
Does the powerful aspects of our past selves overcome what we have transformed into today? Jean Grey is no longer dead, but which piece of her is the strongest part of her resurrection? What does this change about the X-Men and their fallen friend? The presence of shadows stretched across the issue; which really spoke to the idea of a rebirth of “darkness”. Which is probably the most ironic thing to arise in the presence of fire.
8.7 Fire and Furies out of 10
Reading Phoenix Resurrection? Find BNP’s other reviews of the series here.
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The post Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey #3 Review appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
It’s been more than a year and a half since Daisy Ridley was announced as prepping to star as a reimagined Ophelia–a less helpless heroine than the version given to us by that whiny prat Hamlet. But be not afeared. While the project has been long in coming, it’s still in the works, as you can see from that photo above, courtesy of EW. In fact, it’s about to premiere at Sundance next month. Hopefully, a full release won’t be far behind.
Ophelia will be based on the book of the same name by Lisa Klein. I haven’t read the book yet (although once I remembered that, I immediately ordered it online), and while the reviews on GoodReads are conflicted-to-middling, the synopsis is exciting. We all know how Ophelia is depicted, not just in Hamlet itself, but in a range of artworks. She’s waifish, delicate, and usually shown as resigned to her fate, peacefully waiting for death like a very pretty flower of a woman.
John Everett Millais
Alexandre Cabanel
John William Waterhouse
F*ck all of that. Here’s the description of Klein’s Ophelia:
A rowdy, motherless girl, she grows up at Elsinore Castle to become the queen’s most trusted lady-in-waiting. Ambitious for knowledge and witty as well as beautiful, Ophelia learns the ways of power in a court where nothing is as it seems. When she catches the attention of the captivating, dark-haired Prince Hamlet, their love blossoms in secret. But bloody deeds soon turn Denmark into a place of madness, and Ophelia’s happiness is shattered. Ultimately, she must choose between her love for Hamlet and her own life. In desperation, Ophelia devises a treacherous plan to escape from Elsinore forever . . . with one very dangerous secret.
The picture above isn’t technically our first look at Ridley’s Ophelia. That would have been this stunning image from last May:
But EW gives us our first look at Naomi Watts as Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, who in this version, is a sort of friend and mentor to the young heroine. From EW:
“Her marriage has grown stale, and I think she sees herself in Ophelia,” Watts explains. “It’s just a spark that reignites her. It’s almost like she wants to put her on a path that she’s not been able to reach herself. So she sort of befriends her, and it’s like a project in a way that she wishes she could recreate or reinvent herself.”
Whether or not the movie lives up to my hopes, I’m incredibly excited at even the idea of reimagining such a complex, undervalued character through a feminist lens. And that’s not a knock at Shakespeare. I wouldn’t dream. But we saw Ophelia through Hamlet’s eyes–that was the entire point. So many of Shakespeare’s supporting and minor characters are beloved because of what we, and modern directors and actors, project onto them. Why not explore those ideas, those nuances, in a new way?
There’s great precedent in a refocusing on Hamlet’s lesser characters. Most notably, in the absolutely fantastic Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. As Naomi Watts notes, most of Ophelia’s story (like those of Hamlet’s funny friends) is told offstage, and we really only know her through his waffling perspective.
Watts says, “That’s often how women have been portrayed in storytelling — as the damsel in the distress. If their mind is powerful, it must be madness. And now there’s this shift that’s taking place, and that’s reflected in this storytelling.”
(via EW, image: Wikipedia, photoshop)
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