I actively ignored a lot of dumb, toxic fan-bro crap about The Last Jedi. I saw the movie later than most people, and when I did see it, I was like “so why all the outrage again?” Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a big fan of the film, but I kind of think that all of the Star Wars films being released under the Disney banner, shepherded by Kathleen Kennedy, are lacking. Lacking in story, lacking in cohesion, lacking in… that x-factor that made the first Star Wars trilogy so special. It was lightning in a bottle, and Episodes I-III sucked, and I feel like no one wants to admit that The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are not great stories either. But the toxic fan-bros weren’t just made about the lack of storytelling cohesion. No, they were mad that Kelly Marie Tran existed and had a major role in The Last Jedi. Those toxic bros harassed Tran off of social media and they also harassed director Rian Johnson for, like, hiring her?
It felt like people went out of their way to defend The Last Jedi given all of the toxic angst. So much so that there wasn’t room to make a good-faith criticism about the stupidity of certain characters off on the sidelines doing busy work while Rey was at Skywalker Boot Camp and then being romantically pursued by Kylo. And don’t get me started on Laura F–king Dern. Anyway, my point is…The Last Jedi had some big flaws, and it’s okay to admit that. It’s okay to admit that Kathleen Kennedy’s corporate decisions regarding the Star Wars franchise have been awful. It’s okay to admit that JJ Abrams – who returned to direct The Rise of Skywalker – actually had no f–king idea how to end this story. It’s okay to admit that JJ Abrams is being a d-ck about Rian Johnson and The Last Jedi too. From this New York Times piece about how The Rise of Skywalker came together:
Instead, Episode VIII, titled “The Last Jedi,” was written and directed by Rian Johnson (“Knives Out”). In its story, the “Force Awakens” heroes were separated from one another, confronting personal roadblocks on individual journeys, and the actors found it just as challenging to make. “The characters were very frustrated, and it felt that way,” Oscar Isaac said. “You felt the difficult energy of those scenes, figuring that stuff out.”
“The Last Jedi,” released in 2017, was also a success. But each time it addressed one of several cliffhangers left dangling from “The Force Awakens” — what would happen when Rey returned Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber to him? who were her parents? who was the nefarious Supreme Leader Snoke? — Johnson’s movie seemed to say: the answers to these questions aren’t as important as you think.
Abrams praised “The Last Jedi” for being “full of surprises and subversion and all sorts of bold choices.”
“On the other hand,” he added, “it’s a bit of a meta approach to the story. I don’t think that people go to ‘Star Wars’ to be told, ‘This doesn’t matter.’”
Even so, Abrams said “The Last Jedi” laid the groundwork for “The Rise of Skywalker” and “a story that I think needed a pendulum swing in one direction in order to swing in the other.”
***
But when it was announced that Abrams was indeed returning, his actors breathed sighs of relief. “I cried,” Ridley said, explaining that the director brought a comforting sense of structure and security. Boyega said he was glad that Abrams would get to finish the tale he’d begun in Episode VII. “Even as a normal person in the audience, I wanted to see where that story was going,” Boyega said.
… How you experienced the making of Episode IX depends on which tribe you belong to. For the series leads who met on “The Force Awakens” (and still haven’t fully adjusted to being called veterans), there was the simple pleasure of having an adventure that brought Rey, Poe and Finn back together, fulfilling what Ridley called “the ‘Star Wars’ mythical thing of threes.” As Boyega put it, “We’re in legit, legit ‘Star Wars’ now. We’ve got a trio up in here.”
“On the other hand, it’s a bit of a meta approach to the story. I don’t think that people go to ‘Star Wars’ to be told, ‘This doesn’t matter.’” I mean… that quote can be all things. It can be a dickish move by Abrams to Rian Johnson about the choices Rian made with the story JJ created (and which JJ had no intention of finishing). It can also be interpreted as a legitimate complaint which was echoed by a lot of Star Wars fans – that perhaps it was a waste of time and energy to burn through so much screen time on Finn’s weird subplot, or to be told that Rey’s family backstory doesn’t matter when so much of the Star Wars franchise IS ABOUT THE FAMILY BACKSTORY. Basically, this NYT story is being interpreted as JJ Abrams and some members of the cast (Daisy Ridley, John Boyega especially) throwing Rian Johnson and The Last Jedi under the bus.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid.
Lots of fans hated Luke’s character development but I actually thought his story arc made sense.
He went from wide-eyed optimist to bitter lonely old man who can’t forgive himself for trying to murder his nephew and being more like his dad that he realised.
Only one who stayed strong and true was Leia. And she’s the one who suffered the most 🙂
Totally agree! I loved Luke’s story in TLJ.
I know Hamill himself wasn’t a fan of the arc, but it was believable and I thought it was fitting.
But Luke’s Dad hates him because he was a good person and wanted to save others. Like would have killed his nephew because he was evil and was going to become his Dad in the future. It’s the idea of killing Hitler before he becomes a Nazi leader. So I had no problem with Luke killing him. It fits IMO.
The Loooong and boring Island episodes were so not needed. What’s the point of destroying the Jedi temples, books, beliefs. His island stay was all about destroying the Jedi world. To me it was killing the Star Wars myth. So then what’s left.
The entire trilogy felt like a reboot of the original story with changes here and there to make it different. Enough changes to take out the soul of the film. Only Rey and Finn seem to have a human relationship in the first film that kept my interest and then they were separated in the second film which was so lacking in human to human relationships.
Luke refuses to kill his father, no matter all the terrible things he had done, because he senses there is some good in him. Doesn’t make sense that suddenly he wants to kill a child for things he might do in the future. They sacrificed Luke to build up Rey, which was totally not necessary. That was my problem with the film.
Thought the island section was a huge wasted opportunity. Rey should have massively discovered more of her powers through reluctant teacher Luke’s guidance. That’s the crux of the hero’s journey. But nothing. Also a pointless bit on her parentage, with the mirrors scene.
Yep, even Mark Hamil (he openly criticised a lot of the Rian Johnson film) said on record how it was so contradictory because Luke was all about second chances and hope – he forgave Darth Vader and would never throw his own disciple, Kylo Ren, under the bus.
The critics praised episode VIII for “subverting” expectations but seriously, there’s a difference between surprising the audience and setting up plot frameworks only to abandon them. The story wasn’t well done and it was a huge mess, end of. And that’s why the cast was relieved when JJ came back on board.
I really don’t understand the angst over who is Rey. Who was Annekin Skywalker? Who were his parents? Why was he chosen? We don’t know. Why are heros chosen? She was chosen because she was. Why was Barack Obama chosen? This is what happens with humans.
I will say we do know all of that from the prequels. We know who anakins parents were and why he was chosen as a child. Heck that’s the point of the entire first prequel.
But I like that they once again didn’t make it about the chosen one! Your family was X like they did with the sky walkers. The bait and switch worked for me narratively otherwise it’s just repeating the past.
“ I really don’t understand the angst over who is Rey.”
Honestly this has been more question for people both pro and con…because I don’t find her story that interesting! It’s another chosen one narrative (the third in three trilogies). Not sayings she’s better or worse (I think she is a good protagonist) but…she’s third. Our third chosen one. So I’m kinda bored.
I think this is why both Rogue One and The Mandalorian have landed far better for me. The leads aren’t chosen or anointed with special powers. I worry for them (or worried 😕). That’s just more intriguing.
“I really don’t understand the angst over who is Rey.”
I mean, yeah, on a meta level, I agree we don’t NEED chosen one stories. (I would argue that Finn was the first, and best, example of that who also got shafted in “Last Jedi,” but that’s another tangent.)
On a very practical level, though, Who The F*ck Is Rey was basically the sub-sub-title of “The Force Awakens.” If you spend two hours and fifteen minutes teasing your audience with mYsTeRiOuS cOnNeCtIoNs and putting the question of her origins at the center of the film, only to come back with a sequel that goes: “… wait, you actually CARE about that stuff?” uuuuuh yeah people are going to be annoyed. That’s how storytelling works. The creator decides what questions and issues matter and sells the importance of these things to the audience. When the audience ends up invested in those emphasized details, that is the POINT, and it’s concerning to see it become a complaint.
The thing with Rey was there was such a HUGE thing over her parents in the first film only for it to come to nothing in the second. Oh, they were just nobodies. Okay, then at least incorporate something that highlights the point that Rey’s talents and destiny didn’t have to be tied to her history. The second film is a long list of missed chances to tie up important points and everyone knew it.
Eh… I wasn’t overly impressed with TLJ and I did find how it basically tossed aside the questions raised in TFA, not allowing for cohesion to that opening story a bit annoying, but it was still a solid film. On its own. I’m still completely psyched for this final installment and have faith in JJ Abrams to bring it all together.
Yes, I just rewatched them both and found Last Jedi more solid than I had remembered. I like where the second film took us, and it left a lot of loose ends to be tied up in the third. I feel like I’ll have to see how it all concludes before I know exactly how I feel about the second.
And as far as the Rey stuff, just because Ren is trying to convince her she’s nobody, I’m not sure why folks are assuming that’s the final word.
I 100% believe that Ren was lying about her parentage because he was trying to elicit a strong response from her and manipulate the power balance between them. He’s an immoral, highly manipulative person. I’m sure JJ will use this rationale to reveal that she’s a Skywalker because he’s a simplistic storyteller who likes symmetry and easy conclusions.
Yeah Last Jedi has its moments, but most of it fell very flat for me. And it is the WEIRDEST second movie in a trilogy I can imagine. It gave no hook to come back for the third. It’s ending should have been Empire Strikes Back devastating…but everyone was kind of fine in the end?
I think Abrams is right, don’t deconstruct in the second if you need people invested in the third. OMG, the Knights of Ren are coming!…..you know, those guys we mentioned in the first movie…we showed them for 10 seconds, you remember!…the second movie?….ummmm they were doing laundry.
Most of the Resistance is dead, so I wouldn’t say everyone is fine.
That’s kind of my point though? Pretty much the entire resistance is dead and no one seems too bothered? Rey is for a minute until Leia tells her “we have everything we need” and then people stand around smiling and hugging. I get it, kids movie, but still felt oddly disjointed.
I didn’t love The Last Jedi, but I think part of that was because The Force Awakens was so good, IMO – it felt like the original trilogy, and not like the prequels, so I think that was exciting. TLJ felt more like the prequels.
Luke’s character development didn’t bother me, I thought it made sense, and I thought it was a good ending for him.
Overall I thought TLJ had the potential to be a really awesome movie, and it was more just….okay. We’ll see what happens with this one. I love Star Wars but I am definitely getting SW fatigue.
IMO, TLJ felt like the original trilogy because it was basically A New Hope all over again. It was enjoyable, but not that creative. Just my two.
That was the criticism JJ got after VII was released: that it was a rehash of IV. That’s why they got rian Johnson in to “subvert expectations”. Lol.
I admit I found a lot of TLJ to be A Special Kind of Stupid … but not *more* ASKS than chunks of Phantom Menace, Revenge of the Sith, or basically the entire Han Solo movie. And the idea that Rian Johnson was just kicking around making unilateral poor plot decisions on one of the biggest properties around totally unsupervised and now poor, innocent, wide-eyed JJ and Disney have to right the ship, is preposterous.
I agree with Yamayo above as far as Luke’s story goes. As for Rey, I do get why some were upset I think we all suspected she was Leia and Han’s daughter. And I get why people wanted to see that. But…a baby sold by her own parents, who rises to become one of the most important people in the galaxy? I thought there was real beauty and message in that, and i was fine with it.
I agree but the revelation of her parentage should have been dealt with more emotionally, with some sort of visualisation (via their The Force special powers) instead of a flat announcement by Kylo. You spent the entire movie (VII) and some of VIII setting up this mysterious parentage but wrap it up in literally 30 seconds with a flat announcement.
I’m not sure I can forgive the massive time waster on that planet with the derby and the children and all that mess.
YES, this x 1000. I remember walking out of the theater and asking my friend what the point of that whole thing was, and neither of us could really explain it.
I am still holding out hope that RoS will be great, because I want it to be, but who knows…
To me it felt like it might come up again in the 3rd movie.
TLJ is not only my favorite Star Wars films, it’s one of my favorite films of the last decade. I don’t think everyone needs to like this movie, but some of the complaints are baseless. And I honestly think people who really hate this film just don’t understand the themes that this movie tackled.
However, in regards to Rian Johnson, he was nothing but gracious when Mark Hamill whined about the movie before it came out. He was nothing but gracious when all the sh*t started when the movie was released. And he’s continued to be gracious, and even a big supported on social media of TROS. So this veiled swiped at TLJ by some cast and crew is a really sh*tty look on all of them.
He was their boss. It’s not a “thinly veiled swipe” to be honest about the fact you didn’t enjoy the experience you had working under someone. He made decisions which affected their careers, decisions which they had to sell and defend to an audience which identifies THEM with those choices much more than the writer/director, in the usual cases. (I admit this case was not usual, and I’m not and never will be for actual harassment of people doing their creative work and their jobs in the public eye, but I believe the principle applies.) Expecting anyone who gets a paycheck to just shut up and smile is not very gracious.
They were praising Johnson two years ago! Ridley and Boyega got spooked by the fan response, basically. That’s poor form.
Agree completely!
Yes, he did, because last month he said that TLJ let him to experiment more with ROS, and now this. John Boyega said that TLJ script felt “iffy” to him. Disney is desperately tries to bring back to cinema seats these mad fanboys. I won’t be surprised if JJ changes stuff Rian brought to saga, especially Rey parentage, because people hated that they’ve been hyped and then got “She’s no one”. Disney has no balls, seriously.
It’s desperate to see that Disney is actually changing perfect subplots to please fanboys. Grow up, stick to changes.
There’s a long, long list of things that got hyped beyond belief in VII and then got a DOA arrival treatment in VIII. Hardcore fans have hundreds of YT videos addressing it in minute detail. This is very poor storytelling, and I am no fan but wholeheartedly agree with these YT commenters.
So…. my nerd is about to be showing. But the implication (in the extended universe) was that Anakin Skywalker was a force object created by Palpatine, simply carried by his mother. So in theory, Rey could also be a force object. If she is, then her parentage really wouldn’t matter because they would just have been carriers and not actually related to her. That’s why they both have such high level mitachlorian counts and force sensitivity. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.
So much of the movie was completely pointless. Why spend so much time on Laura Dern’s character just to kill her off? It should have been a fan favorite like admiral akbar who did that.
Basically nothing moved the story forward. I did like the Rey/Kylo scenes and think they definitely have chemistry.
Every time I watch it, I’m flabbergasted that anybody would think setting the film literally hours after the events of TFA was a good idea. It’s just so small in scale and vision because of that choice. If you give yourself a time skip, you can deal with the pathos of a galaxy reeling in the aftermath of losing its capital, of seeing another empire attempt to rise, etc.
Well, that, and the fact that it ignored such profoundly glaring characters points like Finn being treated like a joke. How the hell do you have another character explaining the him about the cost of war when he’s LITERALLY a former child soldier, enslaved and brainwashed into service? The prequels had slave soldiers (the clones), but it was at least acknowledged in the story how messed up that was and it represented the moral decay of the Republic. Here it’s just…ignored. In a story attempting to make a statement about the moral complexity of war and economic exploitation of the lower classes. What??
Alls…I gotta say is thank GAWD for Rouge One ….because…WHEW…these movies…are just…so…banal to me….and THAT started way back when “Return of the Jedi” was released…the movies can’t TOUCH the artistic talents that the animation series/video games/books have bought to the cannon….and THAT is a shame….and it just…don’t make no KINDA sense….
Rouge One is my absolute favorite of the “new” movies (prequals and all of the new concepts). And I don’t think the Clone Wars gets enough credit for filling in all of the gaps in the history of the main characters/parts of the galaxy (if that’s what you mean with the animation series :)) Roger Roger!
I too loved Rogue One. It reminded me more of a war movie than a Star Wars movie and in the words of Martha Stewart, that’s a good thing. I’ve started watching Clone Wars on Disney+. I’ve heard very good things about the quality of storytelling despite the “cartoon-y” appearance. Everyone I’ve spoken with speaks of the series with such fondness and acclaim!
The best part about the last jedi is rey being a nobody, she doesn’t need a special gene to be force sensitive. Rian Johnson did something NEW with the franchise. J.J. on the other hand is famous for not being creative enough lol
“ The best part about the last jedi is rey being a nobody, she doesn’t need a special gene to be force sensitive”
….but that’s not new? Look I’ve tried to block out the prequels for the most part but the backstory there is very clear that Jedi don’t get married and have kids. So literally all of them are “nobodies”. They’re found and brought to the order. The anomaly was Luke and Leia, being children of a Jedi.
The prequels made the Force all about midi-chlorians, which destroys the mystery of the Force and reduces it to a science project. Also, the main Jedi in the two completed trilogies are directly related. Sure, in theory, all Jedi are found and not neccessarily “someone,” but the Jedi we’re asked to invest in as an audience are someones. Rey being no one reinforces the idea that Jedi can come from anywhere and you don’t have to be a Skywalker to matter. If they make her a Skywalker or a Kenobi, we’re back to the idea that the only Jedi worth caring about are the special someones.
The sequel trilogy doesn’t do anything that would imply she’s not full of midiclorians. And as @Amelia said some fans seem to feel she doesn’t need a special gene to be force sensitive” is “new”. Well…none of the Jedi did. It’s not a bad story beat but I’m not giving Johnson cookies for something new…that’s not new.
That idea isn’t new. The only way the Skywalkers are “elite” is that they come from a very powerful bloodline, but they were shown to have limitations within the story – and furthermore, they aren’t from any regal or elite bloodline. Anakin was a child slave. Luke was a kid from the middle of nowhere. The original Jedi Order didn’t allow families, so there were no bloodlines – they were just tested and randomly selected from all over the galaxy. The Skywalkers are only important because the story and other characters push them into importance. They choose their destinies, otherwise they would have been nobodies too without training or purpose. At the end of the day, it wasn’t Luke’s power that saved his life – he throws away that weapon. It’s his core beliefs that made him a hero. His journey is entirely internal; the empire would have fallen with or without his actions in RotJ. That’s always been the point of Star Wars.
The entire concept of “democratizing” the Force is paradoxical and ultimately what undermines the story. You can’t democratize something that requires a person to be inherently special, i.e. the ability to use the Force. Rey is Force-sensitive. How she’s Force sensitive is meaningless. She’s still special for having it. That’s what makes her the protagonist.
the force awakens is a copy of a new hope. in fact, the movie ends with han dead and luke isolated, and yet rian managed to give the perfect arc for the last jedi.
I saw the last jedi twice.
I hated it the first time and liked it the second time but it was disappointing.
Now I know this would NEVER happen, but I wished Disney (with their piles of money) would have said “TLJ was bad, so we are going to do something that has never been done in film history: we will remake the movie immediately and correct some of the story problems.” And then really take their time to get it right. Fans would go see the remake and Disney wouldn’t have even had to fix the entire movie. Someone on YouTube recut the film and made it a bit better, but Disney could have made some history and generated goodwill as stewards of the franchise.
This is so ridiculous I don’t even know where to start. Why the heck would Disney remake a movie that made $691 million dollars worldwide? Because some people hated it? It was both a critical and box office success. And while some fans hated it, there are plenty of fans who loved it. Sure, it’s a divisive film. But no way would it be remade. LOL.
Except TLJ made over 1.3 *billion.* $691 million is just the domestic gross. And it’s not even divisive, internet nerds are the only people arguing about this. In the actual world, people either like it or don’t have enough of an opinion to get worked up about it.
Plenty of people loved TLJ. I think the case could be made for remaking those garbage prequels, however. The sentiment against them is fairly universal.
Honestly, he kind of nails it, though? The problem with TLJ is that it thinks it’s far more clever than it actually is. Meta stories are fine in certain places, but SW worked because it was EARNEST. Lucas genuinely believed in the story he was telling. If you take that aspect away and go for something that distantly meta and emotionally detached, well….you lose the heart of that story. Lucas has his own major issues as a storyteller, and Abrams succeeded only because he was riding those coattails, but TLJ was just so…cynical in a lot of ways. Like, if you don’t care about these characters, why should I, eh?
TLJ, to me, was like a love letter to Star Wars itself. It beautifully examined the themes of legends, identity, hope, and storytelling that have always been at the heart of these films while also presenting a fresh take on this universe. I love it. Makes me cry every time I watch it.
But I’m one of the few who loves even the prequels because I find the weight that it adds to the entire series very valuable. Star Wars is the only series that, to me, is exactly how it’s meant to be. I can’t critique it like I do other films. It’s like history presented to me and I say “yes, of course that’s how it went!”
Man, reading all these comments has me realizing that I don’t remember most of TFA and TLJ.
The only takeaway I had from The Last Jedi was my fury at finally seeing Leia using the Force, only to know that Carrie is gone.
I’ve been wanting to see her use the Force or be a legit Jedi since she first showed up on screen in 1977.
Carrie is the reason why Laura Dern’s character annoys me so much, to be honest. Leia has been mistreated as a character since RotJ. Dern was so obviously used as a surrogate to allow conflict in a Leia-type character without actually having Leia bear the brunt of the character complexity. It breaks my heart that Carrie will never get to have her big character arc moment the way Mark and Harrison did.
It’s just so frustrating how much of TLJ has so much potential, moments that are legitimately powerful, that gets overrun by its own confused message. The prequels may have had their issues, but they had clarity of vision and story in ways the sequels do not, and that makes me really sad because Disney really had an opportunity there to do something unique.
I liked TLJ, but Rian deserves every bit of scorn he gets as he does praise for what works. What didn’t work for me was the woobification of Kylo Ren. He was a joke in TFA until he killed Han, and for that bit of patricide, he lost every right to redemption. In TLJ, Rian spent more time trying to convince us Ben was right to murder the other Jedi students than we did on the heroes. Rey running around trying to save the bad boy left a sour taste in my mouth and I was done. It seemed Rian finally realized he had gone too far with the Rey/Kylo sequences & had Rey close the door on that foolishness. It didn’t mirror Luke/Vader. It didn’t make me sympathetic towards Kylo. All it did was weaken Rey. It made her look foolish to be running around screaming and begging Ben to change when the man had just killed his father, stood by while an entire system was destroyed and participated in the near destruction of the rebel base where his mother was. Rey looked straight up foolish and that’s on Rian.
Don’t get me started on Finn. He had an arc that was freaking derailed in TLJ. He could have given us a larger glimpse into the stormtroopers and how he was kidnapped as a child and forced into fighting for the First Order, but no…casino planet and bullshit. So spare me all the woe is me, Rian is being treated unfairly. He deserves a fair amount of scorn for all that he got wrong. JJ is going to have to fix a fair amount to get the story back on track and that’s not what should be happening in the final film of the trilogy.
I heard some youtuber call JJ Abrams “Jar Jar Abrams”…and now I think of it every time I read about him. It’s hard to recapture magic in a bottle like what happened in the original star wars trilogy. Just ask Ghost Busters 2016.
JJ better watch himself. If the spoilers I heard about TROS are true, it’s gonna take TLJ’s place on those fanboys’ hitlists.
I’ve read them and to be honest its the kind of plot that Abrams would come with for a Star Trek plot. The trailers hint at a lot of them and JJ has previous for giving plot hints in trailers (EVERYONE guessed that movie was basically the Wrath of Khan revisited).
I’m pretty much expecting Return of the Jedi the 2019 version. The question is – who is going to be the new Han and Leia?
The Wrath of Khan revisited…Much like how TFA was a New Hope revisited. I think JJ is a really strong director, but he’s run out of ideas as a writer and his work is therefore pretty derivative. I mean, well executed and flashy derivative, but I want to see new stories.
@GreenTurtle: I meant to say that Star Trek Into Darkness was The Wrath of Khan revisited – was too distracted by the election drama here in the UK to pay attention to what I was typing. (Its bad the exit polls have the Tories winning by a big margin).
I agree he is good director esp for these types of movies but his scripts and plots could be better – he does make up for it with good casting choices. Chris Pine as Kirk was a spot on.
@Digital: oh, I totally understood what you meant. I was drawing the parallel between what he did in both franchises. I’m so sorry about the Tories being ahead. Please accept my sincere condolences from the land of Mango Mussolini and his Senate majority.
I get more exasperated with the universes of Star Trek and Marvel. But I still watch em all. Imo, Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, however, drive me mental. I’ll skip them every time. Young Anakin and Jar Jar are the absolute worst things to happen within the franchise to date.
We needed only the Original Trilogy. All the rest is pointless fluff.
If you look at Rian’s filmography, the man is a storyteller. His likes his films to tell stories.
If you did not want that, why hire him.
Did they not get the memo beforehand.
Then why did the story suck so much?
They should have just gone with the storyline from the books. It was more complete, more balanced, and more expansive than the universe they created.