I'm ranking all the major releases of 2017 so I bit the bullet tonight and tackled the two big franchise films of the season (illegally bootlegged, of course).
Justice League was quite a disappointment. WB is becoming infamous for studio meddling and its so painfully obvious here. What should've been the climax of Zack Snyder's brutal, operatic Man of Steel/Batman V Superman films is an uneven unofficial Avengers film. WB got rid of David S Goyer, the man who wrote those films and Nolan's Batman trilogy (and the undervalued Blade trilogy) and replaced him with some newbie and Joss Whedon. Whedon handled extensive reshoots as Snyder faced a horrible personal tragedy and its shows. Only 1/3rd of the film feels like Snyder's work (mainly the epic action scenes that save the picture) while there's just too much boring, unfunny character play. What made BVS so special was the conflict between characters. Here, there's no chemistry at all as they are played as playful co-workers. That style fits the colorful, family friendly Marvel world but not DC.
Its not a bad movie but its very generic. Superman Returns/Dark Knight Rises territory. I thought the casting was great, if wasted. The dialogue was the worst element but at least the script had a brisk pace. The plot was low on drama or any real message besides what has to be the most over-used, commodified empty sentiment of the 2010's: "Hope".
Perfect segue to The Last Jedi. Star Wars 8 is like the lighter, dumber twin of this year's Alien 8. Its an epic achievement of CGI, moody digital photography and franchise callbacks. But Alien Covenant struck me as so important because it sets up so much nauseating formula just to radically reject it while Jedi can't find any confidence outside of its knowledge of source material. But the problem with this new Disney trilogy is that each film is beholden to ONE old film at a time. Jedi is a remake of Empire in tone, visuals, settings, character arcs with a "surprising" reversal of the ending of Return of the Jedi (only because Force Awaken took Empire's ending).
But Episode 8 is much better than Ep 7. Its even more poppy, emo, silly, sleek and that becomes a distraction. If this wasn't set in George Lucas' old film it would just be another post-Harry Potter fantasy flick for teens. The drama is on that same level. Take a swig every time someone yells "Nooo!!!" or cries or stares into the void to a silent soundtrack. Its such generic melodrama and emotional exploitation, but it works for 4/5 audience members, right? I dunno. The film is facing major backlash and my takeaway is that audiences are quickly growing tired of Xerox-style sequels. They want futuristic science fiction, intelligent characterization and... newness. Ep 8 has too many dollars behind it to be a bad movie. Its watchable if very boring and overexerting. But I much rather watch Attack of the Clones for its awkward innovation and sincere sense of magic & chaos than a rich, warm but hollow redo of a better film.
The major failure is that Disney's films treat The Force as simply a Hippie superpower and not the political/religious allegory Lucas intended it to be. Thats what inspired a generation of fans to embrace it beyond the movies. It was based on something more than toys, one-liners and muppets.
The Last Jedi, like Justice League, leaves us after 2 hours of explosions with that bland non-message of "Hope". Things are awful and "the darkness" is winning (you know how much I hate this binary colorism Hollywood loves to sell) but keep faith that someone else will save you or things will just work out on their own. I like the pessimistic, pro-active moral of Alien Covenant much better: Stop hoping, evil won't lay down, FIGHT BACK.
This is what happens when our culture becomes too steeped in man-child culture. We have to put to bed all of the lofty idealism and fluffy entertainment and make films that are about the real world and how to survive. The evil villains in JL and SW have no motivation beyond "I'm bad. I'm angry." Why aren't the heroes angry? Why don't the villains see themselves as heroic? Again, Alien Covenant nailed this. Some damn realism goes a long way. Anakin Skywalker was manipulated by a fascist system for 3 movies before he turned evil. Ben Solo's reason is unknown. Actually, Luke explains that Ben was brainwashed similar to Anakin, so why would Luke not see this happening? How is the hero of Star Wars so stupid to let the tragedy of his father repeat EXACTLY? And, overthinking this, Yoda saw Anakin turning and prepared for it but Luke didn't prepare for Ben? And why did this chick even need training when she was more powerful than Luke within a few days? And did the writers forget about this? http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rule_of_Two This is all fanboy continuity but if you aren't going to pay attention to the details, why even make the film?
Answer: money
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