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Canada11183 Posts
Alright, I guess I'm bumping my last one out, but I'm pleased it generated a bit of discussion. This scene was pivotal when I watched this in theatres for the first time. Enjoy  (Hopefully)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/EwWOqMD.jpg)
Background: This was the beginning of the end for me. I had some niggling doubts while watching the film in theatres, but I kept pushing them away.
1) I like Star Wars (I even enjoy critiquing what I don't like about Star Wars- see my Star Wars Reimagined
2) A bunch of my friends, whose opinions I respected, had seen it already and said it was good- it wasn't the rehash of Empire, which was really the only requirement I had after seeing Force Awakens.
I since have significant problems with scenes leading up to this moment, but at the time, I still Trusted the Storyteller, so any story problems that was trying to rise up in my brain, I dismissed. (But I was already actively trying to suppress these thoughts.)
But then this scene arrived and jolted me out of the story. This was the first bigger hammer blow, that made me go 'Wait. What?' I ended up finding bootleg version after just to make sure I hadn't misheard Hux and there was a better reason to pull off the attack. No. No there was not.
The second blow was Leia surviving deep space in a silly looking fashion after what looked like a really sober and tragic send off. And the third was Rose and Finn reading the script to figure out how the Supremacy's breaththrough technology worked AND how to counter, and then combined with their cockamamie plan. How do they know all this by just shooting to breeze? I was asking myself. That was a 1, 2, 3 punch that shattered my immersion. The Story Collapsed. Following that was the worst experience I've had in theatres to date- I don't see many films in theatre, so when paying, I haven't seen a lot of duds. I've seen some films that are so bad they're funny (Seventh Son and Eragon). But this was so bad it was just plain old bad.
I was actually physically agitated in the theatre because I really, really wanted to like this film and I found myself hating everything except the Rey-Luke plot... until they got to the unearned copy of the Return of the Jedi Throne Room scene and then I didn't like that plot either. They almost had me back with the Crait battle until that jumped into contrived and pants on head stupid plotting decisions (some of which I noted in the last blog.) I couldn't understand why my friends thought this wasn't copying Empire, when all I could see for a story was Frankenstein patchwork of Empire and Return with a poorly done version of the pilot episode 33 from Battlestar Galactica.
It wasn't that I decided that I hated the film, it's that I realized I was actively trying to hold back my dislike. I realized I already didn't like it and I was trying hard to like it. At some point, I just had to cave to the realization that it was a very poorly structured story.
  
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Canada11183 Posts
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/WQIE24I.png)
Background:
Not sure why the FO needed DJ to know to press the decloak button. Again, first watch through, I was thinking, wait her plan was to hope they never press the decloak button (which is a thing now, I guess- very lame implementation of cloaking.) "This is your plan?" This is one of the many examples where the plot only works if everyone acts like a moron. "The Idiot Plot, of course, is any plot that would be resolved in five minutes if everyone in the story were not an idiot." But in TLJ, very often it's not that the story would resolve if everyone were not an idiot (although that also true), but the story would end because the villains would just win. And win again and win again. There are far too many times when the Empire has the gun to the end of the Rebellion and they never take the shot because... reasons.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/7UISuv6.png)
Background:
The Sequel Trilogy has a serious villain problem. Episodes IV and V built up the character of Vader, so when the Emperor entered the scene, with very little to go on, we could transfer the competence and power of Vader to the Emperor with very little effort. We didn't need much. We can see what Vader can do. He's an active villain (not content to sit on a treadmill for 18 hours to wait for the fuel to run out), but tries multiple tactics to pin down the Rebels and trap Han, utilizing bounty hunters, calculations, etc- he's one jump ahead of the heroes. Vader is all that and he bows to this man? The Emperor must be more powerful and more cunning. And this is supported by the Emperor having some sort of clairvoyance in V and accurately predicting the Rebels in VI.
Matrix Example:
Think about the opening of the Matrix. We know nothing about the world and how things work. But we see the SWAT team arrive and the Agent says, those men are already dead. We then see Trinity fulfill those words and destroy the cops very easily and using the wall run. So we know something of her power. Then the Agent arrives... and she RUNS. We know nothing of what the Agents can do. At all. The movie cleverly saves their powers for later. The only thing they reveal is that he can make an impossible jump- the same one she could, but with a more calm landing. But we know they are competent because they accurately predicted what she would do and she does. Then she runs and then we know- okay if she is powerful and SHE runs... they must be even more powerful. What you know about her, also allows us to know more about the Agents without actually showing us much, all based on her reaction to them, after seeing what she can already do. Therefore, her threat/ powerful nature transfers to the Agent and multiplied and the danger of the Agents is built in the minds of the viewer very effectively and very efficiently with this one short scene.
By contrast, Episode VIII spends most its time undercutting its secondary villains. Hux is a ragdoll clown to be tricked with yo momma jokes and tossed aside. Kylo is called a child and he confirms this by not holding his ground and throwing another tantrum. The destruction of the helmet confirms Snoke's assessment as being true. So after visually showing one to be a clown and one to be a child... they suddenly kill the one remaining villain with any sort of gravitas and menace left. Gotcha! But now we're left with two sorely diminished villains, rather than villains that levelled up in badassery. The films would've been better off without Snoke. Get rid of him from the Sequels entirely and find some other way to corrupt Ben (it's not like it currently makes much sense anyways) and you still have at least one villain that can be taken somewhat seriously.
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Canada11183 Posts
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/BWrrwTs.jpg)
Background:
It's odd because the Dreadnought captain immediately exudes more competence in a handful of seconds than Hux in two movies. Yet, when he complains that the TIEs should have been launched 5 minutes ago, it was like. Right. Nice lampshade. But why weren't they? Who's the captain here and whether it's up to you or to Hux, why weren't the TIE's launched in a hostile system.
It's not like they forgot about fighter screens in this film- every time there's an exterior shot of the Supremacy, there's TIE's buzzing back and forth on patrol. But they forget. In just this scene. Convenient, no?
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Episode 7 failed me so hard, I haven't seen Episode 8 yet. And I don't want to.
I don't understand how a person with a working brain can butcher these movies so much. There is a huge plothole around every corner.
7/5 for ranting about StarWars better than I ever could
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This was more in writing to the discussion of your last blog. After reading these I edited and will post here.
Eps1-6 created expectations of being original/good(opinion) movies where ep 7 and 8 feel, you can argue inspired or uninspired, poorly written and almost as if people did not ask for a second draft. It is extremely hard to live up to the hype they had coming because of the Star Wars following, but how these two films have been made I think speaks a lot about who made the decisions to make them this way. As both OPs have pointed out, the storytelling is just bad when there is clearly so much room for something better. It was said in the last blog comments that things were brushed over in explanation in the Star Wars films but I disagree. I think they tend to explain things that you wondered about at the very least in prior films.
I think if they lost the themes and character development on the viewer then they failed. I don't see it myself. Who is Snoke? Hux makes me want to throw up. He doesn't have to be serious and I'm ok with humor, but what on earth was that. Almost all the new characters are complete idiots in the film pointed out in the OP. I want to like a new character to root for and I can't even find one. I think most fans just wanted new Star Wars content in new well made films and instead we got rehashes of the old films.
At least someone had a vision for the eps1-6 in mind and it played out. 7 and 8 feel like a mess and I don't see how 9 can bring it together so I'm on the fence about even seeing it. The direction the new Ep films have gone are just... a joke? They are not serious nor is the humor well written. To me its not even that much about the rules and logic being on point, it is more the really shitty characters and storytelling that disappointed me in the new films. They really should have started with a whole new trilogy of characters and timeline in mind instead of trying to connect these to eps 1-6 if they wanted to even stand a chance. I enjoy some good space battles and topnotch CGI, but when its WWII style space bombers getting wrecked and they could have just jumped a transport into the ship instead it starts to feel dumb.
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On January 09 2019 17:54 Falling wrote:
Background:
The Sequel Trilogy has a serious villain problem. Episodes IV and V built up the character of Vader, so when the Emperor entered the scene, with very little to go on, we could transfer the competence and power of Vader to the Emperor with very little effort. We didn't need much. We can see what Vader can do. He's an active villain (not content to sit on a treadmill for 18 hours to wait for the fuel to run out), but tries multiple tactics to pin down the Rebels and trap Han, utilizing bounty hunters, calculations, etc- he's one jump ahead of the heroes. Vader is all that and he bows to this man? The Emperor must be more powerful and more cunning. And this is supported by the Emperor having some sort of clairvoyance in V and accurately predicting the Rebels in VI.
Matrix Example:
Think about the opening of the Matrix. We know nothing about the world and how things work. But we see the SWAT team arrive and the Agent says, those men are already dead. We then see Trinity fulfill those words and destroy the cops very easily and using the wall run. So we know something of her power. Then the Agent arrives... and she RUNS. We know nothing of what the Agents can do. At all. The movie cleverly saves their powers for later. The only thing they reveal is that he can make an impossible jump- the same one she could, but with a more calm landing. But we know they are competent because they accurately predicted what she would do and she does. Then she runs and then we know- okay if she is powerful and SHE runs... they must be even more powerful. What you know about her, also allows us to know more about the Agents without actually showing us much, all based on her reaction to them, after seeing what she can already do. Therefore, her threat/ powerful nature transfers to the Agent and multiplied and the danger of the Agents is built in the minds of the viewer very effectively and very efficiently with this one short scene.
By contrast, Episode VIII spends most its time undercutting its secondary villains. Hux is a ragdoll clown to be tricked with yo momma jokes and tossed aside. Kylo is called a child and he confirms this by not holding his ground and throwing another tantrum. The destruction of the helmet confirms Snoke's assessment as being true. So after visually showing one to be a clown and one to be a child... they suddenly kill the one remaining villain with any sort of gravitas and menace left. Gotcha! But now we're left with two sorely diminished villains, rather than villains that levelled up in badassery. The films would've been better off without Snoke. Get rid of him from the Sequels entirely and find some other way to corrupt Ben (it's not like it currently makes much sense anyways) and you still have at least one villain that can be taken somewhat seriously.
I almost wrote a blog about this. I just got tired of sycophants for this film going "WeLL tHe EmPeRoR hAd nO bAcKgRoUnD" and was about to, in the words of Palatine, do it... but then I was like "nah dawg". I think this is a lot more concise than what I was going to write anyhow, so it all worked out.
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On January 09 2019 21:49 Harris1st wrote:Episode 7 failed me so hard, I haven't seen Episode 8 yet. And I don't want to. I don't understand how a person with a working brain can butcher these movies so much. There is a huge plothole around every corner. 7/5 for ranting about StarWars better than I ever could
Episode 7 had issues sure but Episode 8 was a goddamn train wreck of a movie. It's so bad that it actually makes Episode 7 that much worse because anything interesting it DID do, or DID try to set up got completely fucking destroyed in Episode 8.
Honestly it's incredible how bad it was.
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On February 25 2019 09:52 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2019 21:49 Harris1st wrote:Episode 7 failed me so hard, I haven't seen Episode 8 yet. And I don't want to. I don't understand how a person with a working brain can butcher these movies so much. There is a huge plothole around every corner. 7/5 for ranting about StarWars better than I ever could Episode 7 had issues sure but Episode 8 was a goddamn train wreck of a movie. It's so bad that it actually makes Episode 7 that much worse because anything interesting it DID do, or DID try to set up got completely fucking destroyed in Episode 8. Honestly it's incredible how bad it was.
I was really hoping that in ep 8 rey and kylo would switch sides. rey attracted by the power and kylo moved by the grief of killing his dad. I thought it would happen in the snoke murder scene, i was let down so hard.
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Canada11183 Posts
On March 28 2019 21:42 Trainrunnef wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2019 09:52 Vindicare605 wrote:On January 09 2019 21:49 Harris1st wrote:Episode 7 failed me so hard, I haven't seen Episode 8 yet. And I don't want to. I don't understand how a person with a working brain can butcher these movies so much. There is a huge plothole around every corner. 7/5 for ranting about StarWars better than I ever could Episode 7 had issues sure but Episode 8 was a goddamn train wreck of a movie. It's so bad that it actually makes Episode 7 that much worse because anything interesting it DID do, or DID try to set up got completely fucking destroyed in Episode 8. Honestly it's incredible how bad it was. I was really hoping that in ep 8 rey and kylo would switch sides. rey attracted by the power and kylo moved by the grief of killing his dad. I thought it would happen in the snoke murder scene, i was let down so hard.
I was ready for that to happen. I thought it would be a really intriguing idea. The film lives and dies by teasing interesting ideas and zero delivery.
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EPT
