It’s all very well for Leia to be running the ship and for Luke to be doing…whatever the hell he’s doing, Leia messaged him something about an island and a kid and how they’d gotten the Falcon back, oh and Han was dead, like that was going to stick, Lando’s personally attended no less than five of Han’s funerals and he stopped crying after the third. But someone’s got to make sure the ship’s still running, that the Resistance still has allies and resources and funds, those morons have been under the impression for the last three dozen years that rebellions can be run with a wink and a smile and an inspiring speech.
So Lando manages to escape the disaster at Coruscant and works from the Naboo satellite offices and when Leia’s distress signal comes in, he just rubs his eyes and gets back to work, because the last time she sent him one of those it was because she and Luke had been arguing about whether or not she should get Jedi training and Han had taken his side and Chewie hers and they needed a tiebreaker. He’s not willing to find out what she thinks is an emergency right now, not when he’s got to flip the junk bonds in order to boost the Resistance capital before the whole market crashes.
Fucking Skywalkers.
Lando Calrissian is the Responsible Adult of the Resistance, who knows when to call a plumber, understands mortgages and has insurance that actually pays out when shit happens; he invested in space!Bitcoin in 2011 and now he’s sitting on an untraceable FORTUNE that could pay for like, seven Dreadnoughts and an entire Resistance army earning way above minimum wage
frodo and sam’s love for each other is literally the only thing keeping middle earth from just spontaneously combusting
No, but like, that’s literally it. Gandalf straight-up says to Elrond this Quest can’t succeed by force or wisdom, but by friendship. If Frodo and Sam hate each other even a little, Middle-Earth is doomed.
And it gets more terrifying when you realize that one of the strongest powers of the Ring is to turn people against each other, and that even if it didn’t, the Ring and the Quest still put Frodo in a psychological state where he can barely keep himself sane, let alone love anyone or anything other than the Ring. In fact, I’m fairly sure the Ring tried to persuade Frodo to kill Sam far more often than the books shows – the Ring tends to encourage murder, from what we see. Instead of listening to the Ring, Frodo somehow manages to keep in the back of his mind that he can trust Sam more than he can trust himself, and I have no idea how Frodo can resist the temptation to think his trust is misplaced.
And sure, one could say, “Oh, but Sam has to understand it, so it’s not all that bad” but you have to remember Sam is a plain, non-Tookish hobbit with no inclination or skills for adventuring around and yet he has to become the entire Fellowship. Name one thing the Fellowship did for Frodo that Sam doesn’t also do. He has to advise, guide and protect him as well as keep his hope alive and remind him of who he is. The amount of pressure he’s under is incredible, and unlike, say, Aragorn, he has no experience to draw from. Plus, Merry and Pippin tend to rely on each other, while Frodo relies on Sam, but Sam himself hardly seems to have anyone to turn to for strength. I’m not saying Frodo doesn’t support him as well as he’s able – actually, Frodo is remarkably consistent about taking care of Sam from Book I to Book VI. But what Frodo is capable to offer (see the paragraph above) is far from being all that Sam needs. And actually, in the last stages of the Quest, Sam is basically living a one-sided relationship under the worst possible conditions, and that his devotion doesn’t even waver despite that just blows my mind.
That the Quest was successful is one of the most incredible and beautiful things that Tolkien wrote. Frodo and Sam walked straight into the Land where no love can exist and managed to become closer to each other than they had been. It’s the biggest fuck you Sauron probably ever got. No, seriously. Frodo and Sam beat a Maia basically by cuddling a lot and talking about food. Like, what the fuck??? I mean, if I told you someone could write a 1000 pages novel in which a pacifist and his gardener beat a minor god via supporting each other emotionally, would you believe me?
It’s classic Tolkien: the surprise element (i.e. flawed creatures can be incredibly noble even under unspeakable distress) might overcome even the most carefully thought out plots devised by powerful evil lords. (See also: the entire Silmarillion, pretty much.)
Flawed, unexpected, and usually disparaged persons. ie dancing elven girl, (lower class) gardener…
tbh nothing is weirder to me than manly grimdark dudebro lord of the rings bc it’s just??? the epitome of light and love to me???? no narrative embodies hope and gentleness and healing like lotr does why must you insist on talking to me about badass aragorn vs. useless frodo. that’s not the point brad
I feel like this is also why so many of the post-LOTR Tolkien ripoffs are so terrible! It’s people pulling from Tolkien when they fundamentally don’t understand what makes Tolkien work. You get all these stories written by people who don’t think Frodo was worthy of his plotline and so they give it to their Aragorn expy instead, and it’s dull and boring and totally lacks the themes and the heart that make LOTR an important, enduring story.
The people who say that the Rose and Finn plotline was pointless are wrong, because that plotline–and Rose herself–are the thematic heart of the film.
When Rose arrives in Canto Bight, she tells Finn about the evil that thrives there, and how she wants to put a fist through the whole place. Leading a herd of fathiers through all the buildings does just that. And Finn says that this made their mission worthwhile, because it was a blow against the evil financiers that would “make them hurt.”
Only it won’t, really. A whole city full of unimaginably wealthy people? A few wrecked buildings aren’t going to affect them. They might have to give up a few drinks, maybe sell a piece of jewelry or two, and they’ll rebuild and live the same empty, evil lives as before. Rose and Finn have struck a blow against the evil forces, but it’s done no good.
Then, later, the conversation with the hacker questions Rose and Finn’s definition of evil. The supposedly evil financiers made just as much money selling weapons to the Resistance. Taking sides in the conflict is pointless, the hacker argues. They’re both the same, using violence and weapons to push their cause.
(“You blow them up today, they blow you up tomorrow.”)
In this framework, “good” and “evil” really only mean “on our side” or “not on our side”. So destroying evil–acting out of revenge or righteous indignation? It’s just destruction. It’s nowhere near synonymous with doing good.
Which is why Rose’s actions before leaving Canto Bight are so important. After wrecking the city she so desperately wanted to destroy, Rose unsaddles their fathier, sets it free, and proclaims that this is what made their mission worthwhile. The woman who wanted to destroy the city now realizes what an empty gesture it was. Making an evil person’s life miserable adds nothing good to the universe. Giving freedom to an innocent–acting out of compassion and kindness–that’s what really makes the universe better.
And that’s why Rose is the one to deliver the film’s core message. “We won’t win by fighting the things we hate, but by saving those we love”. Fighting can be necessary when you’re resisting an aggressive evil, but it’s important to keep your priorities straight. You can’t act out of anger or hatred, wanting to get revenge or “make them hurt.” You need to act out of love. You need to make compassion more important than destruction. Because the opposite of being evil isn’t fighting evil. The opposite of being evil is doing good.
Star Wars has always had its finger on the pulse of the cultural fear of the moment. In the original trilogy in the 1970s and early 80s, it was The Man– an evil establishment that needed to be purified by a younger generation. In the prequels of the 90s, it was evil corporations secretly colluding with a corrupt government to create endless war.
Now, in early 21st century America, the villain is an unstable young white man who had every privilege in life, yet feels like the world has wronged him. Unbeknownst to his family, he finds and communicates with a faraway mentor who radicalizes him with a horrific, authoritarian ideology. By the time his family finds out, it’s too late, and now this unstable young white man has this horrific ideology, access to far too many weapons, and the desperate desire to demolish anything that he perceives as a threat– or is told to perceive as a threat.
So, the main thing I took from this movie is after all that effort to stop him conquering Earth, when we actually see Loki get to be in charge of a planet, his main policies appear to be military non-interventionism and investment in the arts.
please consider that kent so desperately wanted jack to come to the aces, because he knows jack is bi and wanted someone who knew who he really was. who he knew he could trust.
consider kent sitting at bar, listening to his teammates make homphobic remarks around him while watching his stanley cup winning ex publicly kiss his boyfriend surrounded by his ally teammates.
kind teammates on the team that kent trashed, while kent’s teammates fall woefully short off the ice.
they’re both stanley cup winners, but who really won out here?
because, like, okay I can buy that maybe he can disguise himself well enough to hide the fact that he’s superman, but i doubt any amount of slouching and glasses wearing can truly disguise that he’s a very tall EXTREMELY muscular man with a jawline that can cut glass.
So basically this newspaper office has this guy who looks like a weightlifter/supermodel just hanging around but he wears glasses and acts like a huge nerd and everyone just goes with it???
Like “Oh yeah, that’s Clark. No no he works here. Oh no don’t bother being intimidated by him, talk to him for five minutes and he’ll devolve into a lecture on proper tractor maintenance. We like Clark.”
I wonder if the ladies in the office ever drag him with them to bars so they don’t have to worry about creeps trying to harass them like “back off creeps our friend here is 6′4″ and grew up chucking hay bales” And then it’s funny because (as far as they know) Clark is like, the meekest lil nerd around. (He don’t look it though!!!!)
It’s just incredible to me that Clark Kent can pull off being a quiet harmless dork while still looking like, well, superman.
Do you think he occasionally turns up to the office Halloween party wearing a really shitty Batman costume?
Steel Phoenix Studios 