Character arcs should be linear and without multiple peaks and troughs. T/F

Character arcs should be linear and without multiple peaks and troughs. T/F

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Character arcs should be additive.

Tell that to the oldest dramatic genre, tragedy.

An additive arc in the other direction.

Character arcs must be circular

>I live in the shack on a mountain top on the planet of Ahch-To. My name is Luke Skywalker. I'm 64 years old. I don't believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my lips are a bit dehydrated, I'll walk down to the cliffs of my sacred temple island and milk the breasts of my Thala-Siren. I drink the breast milk while doing Force Projecting, I can do a thousand now. After I drink the breast milk, I use a log to jump across the cliffs to get away from a Mary Sue named Rey and mope around that I failed my nephew by trying to literally murder him in the dark, (it runs in the family). Then, suddenly change my mind, and actually train her. Then walk into her trying to have hand sex with my evil nephew. Then tell her we're done training. There is an idea of a Luke Skywalker, some kind of abstraction that existed in the Original Trilogy, but there is no real me in Rian Johnson's Star Wars. Only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my outraged gaze, and you can shake my robotic hand that I didn't even have in the previous movies, and feel what Rian Johnson considers flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our one dimensional characters are probably comparable, I simply am not there.

Character arcs should not suffer discontinuities

>tfa takes place the instant after rotj ended
wew

>There is an idea of a Luke Skywalker, some kind of abstraction that existed in the Original Trilogy, but there is no real me in Rian Johnson's Star Wars
Impressive. Very nice.

>I care about fictional characters

>you can shake my robotic hand that I didn't even have in the previous movies
the fuck you talking about, son?

>Only an entity, something illusory
Hmm, almost as if Rian was lampshading the saintly, heroic image fans had of Luke in making him a cartoonish phantom in the final battle with Kylo....

>lampshading
Just a buzzword way of saying "pointing out", which is no achievement, considering how Luke's character arc was EXPLICITLY about being a hero and achieving saintlike paragon status through Good with a capital G.
Inverting Luke's character is not an accomplishment, it's an embarrassment.

How is it inverted if he died a hero?

...

>leaving off the last act of tlj which returns him to rotj levels of heroism
ok

He didn't die a heroic paragon, he died "redeemed" by eventually backsliding on his 180 degree flip from good guy to retarded asshole. He shouldn't have had that, he should have died more like Obi-Wan did. Or to use a prequel example, Qui Gon Jinn, who has a better and more meaningful death scene than Luke fucking Skywalker.
They didn't even do it right and give him a truly redemptive death like Darth Vader got.

He'll probably show up in episode 9 as an extremely angsty self-doubting force ghost, because now literally everyone goes to Jedi heaven and keeps their consciousness with the ability to come back as a ghost, rather than getting dumped into the amorphous psychic energy field that is the quasi-eastern religion that's one of the few TLDR backstory elements that George Lucas designed that got airtime within the movies.

>returns him to rotj levels of heroism
>saving a group of terrorists while not fixing his mistakes is the same as redeeming his father

you shills need to try harder

Glad to help

Very nice.

F.

But a bad, non-linear, script is still a bad script.

A bald assertion isn't an argument. I've already refuted your representation based arguments. Give me something else.

...

>Lets the republic get destroyed
>Lets Han die
>Leia would be dead too if it wasn't for deus ex force spacesuit
>Lets the resistance get decimated and down to 20 people in one ship
>Pointlessly projects himself across the battlefield whilst the rebels stand and watch until Rey saves the day
>Kills himself instead of living on to help his family and friends

Doesn't sound very heroic to me pal

Why? That's fucking stupid.

Dude just wanted his rug back

>"Let's see Ben Solo's heart"
>the room falls silent as Luke reaches out his hand
>""Look at that subtle black colouring. The tasteful darkness."
>His face creases in horror.
>"Oh my God. It even has a Sith mark."
>turns lightsaber on

His hand was covered in fake skin.

Less than 1 day ago (TFA) the republic was healthy and robust. They were doing fine without Luke. Starkiller was hidden from Luke by Snoke.

TRY GETTING APPRENTICED IN THE FIRST ORDER NOW YOU FUCKING STUPID BASTARD

they showed shit that happened in between

rey getting abandoned and luke losing everything thanks to kylo
what else?

why didnt luke destroy the first order with his laser sword?

Character arc???

you mean this:

>I SENSE KYLO HAS SOME DARKNESS.

>WOAHHH FUCK THE DARKNESS SURPRISED ME SO I IGNITED MY LIGHTSABER

I don't care if you are contrarian or coping... fuck right off.

p.s. kylo was having a nightmare

>you mean this:
No that is a moment in time not an arc.

I get that he didn't care anymore by the time he lived on Achch-To and stopped maintaining it except for maintaining a purely functional level, but I do wonder who or what got him to already have it in this state BEFORE his academy burned down. Judging from TFA I thought it got damaged by the fire, but it's already degloved in his flashback with Kylo.

It makes me wonder what luke sensed in Vader while showing exemplary self-control despite being physically/mentally assaulted all whilst the emporer was actively killing his friends in that moment.
Can’t imagine Luke succumbing to anything less than that.

This I didn't want Luke to be flawless, because Yoda and Obi-Wan weren't either and flawless characters are boring ones, but the direction TLJ (and really, TFA to an extent) took the character felt a bit derivative. It also didn't really sit together all that well with Rey's character since so much of it just seemed like an easy way of putting her in Luke's old position. Rey didn't come out better for it, and neither did Luke.

>I've only seen that kind of raw strength once before
>In him I see Snoke... and something much darker
Like it or not, Kylo has succeeded in surpassing Vader, at least in potential for the dark side.

>and neither did Luke
Luke became wiser than Obi Wan and Yoda and realized the true purpose of the force is balance. Being filled with nothing but the light side leads to the same kind of extremism as Sith.

> most openly conflicted villain in SW
> more potential for dark side than Vader.

Remember how Vader hesitated before they destroyed Alderaan? Or how bad he felt for constantly choking his subordinates? Yeah no one does.

>true purpose of the force is balance
That's thematically incoherent with what's already been established and also kind of empty. I don't think that's the direction these movies are going in, either.

What does being conflicted have to do with potential?

Sorry its the only thing that explained his character change.

And it was weak garbage sweetie.

You done making excuses because you can't cope with TLJ?

itssalt.gif

>only thing
Not opening an academy for the main purpose of saving Ben and failing?
Not having everything he worked for ruined because of a moment of dark side temptation?
Not realizing history repeats and he fell into the same trap as the PT jedi?

OK sweetie. Down with the mouse, you won.

Being that conflicted so far deep into the first order hierarchy shows how uncommitted he was to the dark side. Killing snoke solidified that. What ever was going through Kylos mind couldn’t have been worse than Vader. He hasn’t even done anything as remotely as dark, not without crying and sperging about it.
Would Vader have hesitated if Palpatine ordered him to kill Rey in that scenario?

It would make sense if they scaled snoke to be somehow more darker/evil than Palpatine, but he’s irrelevant now so

>What ever was going through Kylos mind couldn’t have been worse than Vader
Show your facts. This sounds like supposition based on confirmation bias, whereas I have dialogue to back me up.
>He hasn’t even done anything as remotely as dark
Again, potential is different from current state.

Because it means he still has potential for good, too. Remember when Luke learned that:
>"Always in motion, the future is"
That applies here too. Except apparently Luke just forgot that.

Kylo's still alive, isn't he? Luke didn't kill him unless I am mistaken, because he did remember Yoda's words.

Those are all just different descriptions of the same event that user was talking about you fucking idiot

>Not having everything he worked for ruined because of a moment of dark side temptation?
Aren't force users able to keenly feel other's intentions and feelings? If Kylo was such a prodigy, why couldn't he feel Luke wasn't really trying to kill him by then?

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate.

>Not opening an academy for the main purpose of saving Ben and failing?

So he went through all that work just to throw it all away by igniting his lightsaber during kylo's nightmare. Ha Ha.

You're other points aren't worth addressing.

I don't care about Disney.

I went into the movie with an open mind.

You went in with yours decided.

Or perhaps you made up your mind when you saw Sup Forums's general conciseness and decided to be contrarian to stand out.

Or you aren't a real Star Wars fan... buh-byeee now sweetie.

wrong, you retard. literally this is what you're saying
>characters should be shallow reflections of real people instead of complex and realistic
you should kill yourself

When discussing character potential it’s always better for filmmakers to show rather than use dialogue, that’s how you lose the audience. But let’s see
>killed children who looked to him for protection
>killed the woman he loved in uncontrollable rage
>attempted to, then later successfully killed his master/father figure/best friend in cold blood without pause
>killed (several on-screen) many of his subordinates for even the slightest transgression, maintained cold disposition
>attempted to kill his own son at the emperors behest before finally being over powered.
All of this was SHOWN on screen. What exactly have we seen kylo done that’s so evil?

>"I BYPASSED THE HERO'S JOURNEY!"

/thread

What are the overall themes behind this movie? Finn, Poe, and Rose all fail at everything they try to do for the entire movie. Fuck being proactive and trying to solve your problems on your own, just sit the fuck down and wait for Admiral purple hair or Rey to fix everything for you because they are so superior. Just sit the fuck down and submit to authority because your superiors always know best.

You know all the old OT heroes that you looked up to in the past? Fuck all of them, they're just failures that sat around and wallowed in uncharacteristic grief while the galaxy collapsed around them, until Rey walked up to them and magically fixed them with the power of disney princess plot armor.

The moral of this movie is that everything you loved in the past was shit all along, so sit down and let disney and your corporate slavemasters dictate your life, you fucking peasant. This is the real reason so many people hate TLJ. It's a plot-hole ridden mess that's 30 minutes too long and ruined one of cinema's greatest heroes, but that's not why so many people dislike this movie because most people don't love Star Wars enough to pick up on those details. They hate it because they know on a fundamental level that every fiber of this movie is completely antithetical to the essence of what people loved about Star Wars. It's a post-modern soulless product of its time, just another forgettable flick that only holds up by clinging to the past while spitting on it at every chance it gets. The prequels may have forgotten why people loved the OT but at least it never actively mocked it or its fans like Rian did.

He made no effort to redeem Kylo at all, ie. no effort to change the future, so no, he is not acting like he remembered that advice.

Kylo's conflict makes it completely obvious that he has more of an impulse to do good than Vader which is by definition not as dark.
>potential is different from current state
Yes but it's also not inevitable that he will reach that potential, which you would think would have motivated Luke to try and talk him out of it except that this movie wrote him as a psychotic retard.

>I-i meant to make the character progression regress and ignore important characteristics of the beloved characters
Time to go to bed disney.

>Finn, Poe, and Rose all fail at everything they try to do for the entire movie.
As opposed to Luke, Han and Leia in ESB?

>It subverted my expectations, that makes it complex and realistic!

You’re either “only pretending” to be retarded, too young to have the attention span to have actually watched the OT, or you really, truely do not understand how a character arch works.

no it doesn't. according to you Spider-Man 2 is a subversion of the first because he quits before coming back. It has nothing to do with "whoah I didn't expect that haha!" It has to do with doing something interesting, period. You people are fucking retards who believe that heroes are Gods instead of people. This is what's wrong with capeshit.

>Character arcs shouldn't be shit
T

Sorry Luke

>having murderous impulses towards the son of your sister and your best friend because there was a chance of him becoming EVIL and killing "everything you love"
>because of this, he becomes evil
>sit on an island drinking sloth cum while your nephew goes around actually threatening "everything you love"
Imagine being paid to defend this absolute garbage on Sup Forums, must be fucking hell

We believe there should at least be a good reason for luke to fall so far, the one provided did not make sense, as he’s faced a much tougher challenge where we last saw him in ROJ. Johnson and Kennedy don’t understand storytelling and neither do you apparently.

Hate leads to murdering a whole lot of jedi students who had done nothing wrong.

He broke some electronics on the destroyer. Say what you want but these computers were innocent. Just trying their best while nobody give a shit about them because droids are shinier. And then a million little chipset screamed in terror then vanished. And nobody give a shit. Then he breaks his faithful power helmet. What had it done ? Ah, nothing, just making look almost cool and saving his life many times. And what it got for it ?
If you do not see how ben solo is evil, you have no heart.

Spider-Man 2 does that in a believable way that's consistent with the character.
Luke had flaws but an itchy trigger finger wasn't one of them. If he had failed by being too trusting and lenient with Ben, that would make more sense because Luke was naive and put too much faith in people. Trying to murder someone in their sleep, especially someone who was not shown (to the audience) to be demonstrably worse than Vader or the Emperor, is just jarring and feels completely inconsistent with the character from the OT.
>muh vision
"Always in motion, the future is." Luke should've learned not to trust visions like that after it led to his failure in ESB.
>but he attacked Vader
He offered a peaceful solution many times, first, and ultimately realized he was wrong to do that. But I guess he forgot between movies.

youtube.com/watch?v=Kj3opk1QFTM

Kek
This is what Charlie Brooker actually believes

character arcs should be consistent
characters changing without any logic or reason is shitty writing
if TLJ wanted luke to become a jaded hermit that doesn't care about anything, fine, set it up properly, he left a map to the island so rey could find it, then he doesnt give a shit? theres no structure to these movies

Wtf I love TLJ now

>the one provided did not make sense
it made sense to me
>he’s faced a much tougher challenge where we last saw him in ROJ
but afterwards he fell victim to the hero complex and thus had too much pride, allowing the darker parts of him to manifest even slightly
it's YOU who don't understand storytelling. You think that because Luke faced and turned Vader from the dark side that that means he is supposed to act like that in every situation for the rest of his life. It's fucking autistic is what it is, you piece of shit
>Luke had flaws but an itchy trigger finger wasn't one of them
lmao yes it was. Did you not see the way he flung himself at Vader at the end of ROTJ before realizing he gave into his anger and stopped himself? Oh yeah, it's almost as if that exact flaw manifested itself in him when he saw the evil in Ben's heart and mind. Even when Obi Wan dies his instinct is to stand and kill as much as possible instead of do the right thing and run.
you people are fucking insane.
>Luke should've learned not to trust visions
but it wasn't a vision of the future. He saw the hatred and darkness inside Ben at that very moment
>He offered a peaceful solution many times, first, and ultimately realized he was wrong to do that
no, you autist. He offered peace until he was enraged and gave into his anger.

>What exactly have we seen kylo done that’s so evil?
in his opening scene he executes an old man in cold blood, tortures the protagonist, and then kill his own actual father. In TLJ he doesn't do that much evil, but that's pretty much the point.

>It's fucking autistic is what it is, you piece of shit
Imagine being this mad because you have to shill a piece of shit movie that makes no sense and assasinates one of the most beloved characters in the history of moviemaking

no, I'm mad at millions of people being too fucking stupid to pay attention to details in a FUCKING STAR WARS MOVIE. It's not that complicated, not that hard to understand, yet every single person I've discussed this with gets a significant amount of details objectively wrong. It's infuriating that I have to share this board with a bunch of fucking kids who came here in the last 2 years that adore the prequels, capeshit, rogue 1, yet hate the first decent star wars movie in 30 years. It's fucking insanity and I hate all of you for ruining my favorite place on the internet

>but afterwards he fell victim to the hero complex and thus had too much pride
Sure, that's why he had to be pressured into teaching when he wanted nothing to do with it.

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>yet hate the first decent star wars movie in 30 years
But it was trash, what are you on about? This movie shows one of the most optimistic beloved characters ever created in Hollywood thinking about killing his nephew with his sacred weapon activated because he sensed evil or some shit and then doing nothing when said nephew becomes actually evil

This can't be justified. It's not about Luke, any character acting like this would be trashed. If this was other movie, people would just laugh at it. But since this is a "childhood ruining" thing, people are mad.

>the first decent star wars movie in 30 years.
The fact people think this is good is baffling. 12 hours of the equivalent of a golf cart chase in space, a pointless casino 1% commentary plot, "the bad guy is the machine of war itself, taking sides is what's bad" message when one side does nothing but 100% evil acts and the next is set up as super classic good vs evil. How is this decent.

>He made no effort to redeem Kylo at all
>motivated Luke to try and talk him out of it
He built a temple and trained Ben for 3+ years to try and turn him, as stated in the movie. Your selective memory has gotten you completely twisted up.

>to try and turn him
Right. Because he had been seduced at a non-specified point by this mysterious shady figure who at some non-specified point learned to use the force with greater mastery than Palpatine and Vader. How? Why? Doesn't matter; he's dead and will never be explained.
Great story, guys.

>Doesn't matter
It doesn't though. Just like it didn't matter why the Empire was evil at the start of A New Hope. This is the universe and situations we are presented and this is how our characters deal with them. Storytelling 101.

If you want to have a character do a 180 on their development you need to provide meaningful context for such. No having a newphew turn to the darkside isnt enough, especially when said character overcame harsher circumstances in the original trilogy.

Also doing something new, or taking risks, and etc are not virtues within hemselves. The prequels where different and yet they did so with he grace of spilled milk, much like the sequels 8n such a regard.

More like Lazy storytelling 101. Creating a dark, evil unexplained character to be an apparent bad guy after the previous trilogy gave us the Emperor is a terrible decision.

We received no explanation for the Emperor in the OT. Was he a bad villain there?

And you think it's wise to recycle the exact same thing? Show no improvement at all?

>by the end of RotJ the Empire was down and the Rebellion has won
>in TFA there is a new emperor and the rebellion is still on the run
>N-NO EXPLANATION NEEDED JUST TURN UR B-BRAIN OFF NERD
Pathetic

>character development happens off screen

You didn't answer my question. No, since Snoke, like the emperor, is a foil to the main villain, Vader/Kylo and sharing focus would only diminish the impact of both halves of the pair. Also storytelling 101.

>the entire force of the empire were possessed puppets of Palpatine and the minute he was beaten, everyone turned good
Haha, much better!

Snoke is a literal who leader of a literal who evil organization that has taken control of the galaxy off screen and was building up planet sized death stars at the start of this new trilogy. By not explaining who he was and how did he create that new order shit you're literally not explaining the setting for these movies and it comes out as incoherence with the ending of the OT. More like hack storytelling 101

The Emperor was not a bad villain because there was no lore to contradict him. He was simply the main force user of the dark side. It's been over 30 years since and there've been movies detailing the kinds of force users that exist and their philosophy. Suddenly an immensely powerful force user no one ever knew shows up to both pimp Kylo as the force superuser and at the same time show to be more powerful than him? Not explaining a single thing about him at this stage is unacceptable.

>We received no explanation for the Emperor in the OT.

Specific explanation, no, but we'd spent 2.8 movies learning about what the Empire is and what the dark side is, and Palpatine was just the embodiment of both, showing up in the last movie to symbolically die and take those things with him. You knew what you needed to about that guy.

Snoke not so much. We don't know a lot about what drives the First Order to try to take over the galaxy, so we don't understand him as a leader. And we see a lot more of him as a character because he interacts with Ren a lot, so we want to understand more about him than we do about the Emperor in the OT.

A bald assertion isn't an argument. I've already refuted your representation based arguments. Give me something else.

Palpatine is a literal who leader of a literal who evil organization that has taken control of the galaxy off screen and was building up planet sized death stars at the start of the original trilogy. By not explaining who he was and how did he create that empire shit you're literally not explaining the setting for these movies and it comes out as incoherence throughout the OT. More like hack storytelling 101

Bravo George.