On December 23 2019 15:24 Sermokala wrote: Your post makes me think you didn't understand what was going on in the prequels. The people who were blockading the planet for some unspecified reason other then "Trade" are the same people who ignited the galaxy-spanning war spread out over thousands of planets with billions and billions dead. Why is everyone cool with going along with this massive war over a single planet thats bearly industrialized?
And again this war, the war at the core of the prequels, is never elaborated on or explained in any real way. The clone army (that was based on mandalorians who were what boba fet was based on, that turned into the stormtroopers) was straight up Hitler Jugend.
The two (really just the one because the final order fleet was made on the sith ice planet) massive fleet came from the fact that the empire was literally a galactic sprawling empire that didn't just poof out of existence after the death star blew up. those fleets had to go somewhere. SW was always like that. the first and third movies where basicaly the same but with different steps.
the prequels were total abominations. How much time did they spend with the pod racing scene that makes no sense (god solve the whole betting shenanigans they go through to reach "if we win we get the boy and the parts if we lose you get the rest of the ship") The sheer ammount of lazy "lets sit and talk" scenes that never approch any of the major themes like the actual war.
Jar Jar alone should be enough to explain to you why the prequels were so bad. I genuinely need like a few hours to find out why you think the prequels are good. You're lieing to yourself if you think the prequels had a frame with how wildly different the first and the next two were. A brand new stock villian with a lame gimmick lightsaber but at least he talks and has as nonexistent of a backstory.
On December 23 2019 09:57 Garbels wrote:
On December 23 2019 08:17 Sermokala wrote:
On December 23 2019 05:09 Garbels wrote: Whats up with the ending? It seems to me like the intended conclusion they want to give the audiene is that the good guys won while in reallity Palpatine got what he wanted, no?
He might not have died exactly like he ordered but I find it hart to believe that his 30 year masterplan war luring someone into his lair with no preparation and hope that they kill you in some speciffic way.
How did palpatine get what he wanted? his force lightning reflected back onto him and the sith temple was collapsed with his "last order" fleet being destroyed.
He wanted rey to kill him and she did. He does not care about the rest.
Sure maybe he was banking an his followers to say 7 ave marias to complete the ritual. Since they couldn't he is now dead. Seems so silly but totally in line with the rest of the movie.
He wanted her to follow the ritual and "strike him down".
I'm not saying its not silly but you need to give it some wiggle room for it trying to create a finale out of the mess that TLJ was.
i cba to reply to everything so i'll just take your major points: Jarjar is only seen in the first movie (except for one scene in the 2nd and one in the third) so taking him to say the rest is shit is definitly a bad argument Dont understand why you would shit on the pod racing tho So ye, you take 1h of the first movie to shit on everything else, then you wonder why people don't agree with u, big surprise Theres a scene in the 4th i believe where they explain that a ton of planets got destroyed during the clone wars Trade federation was under the control of Palpatine The prequels had a frame since it was about the rise of anakin and his fall While i agree that the reason of the trade wars arent explained, i'm fairly sure you'd be shitting on the political aspect of it if they spent any amount of time explaining it. I guess most people defending the prequels are just tired of people shitting on it thanks to a youtube video
The first hour of the film is pretty illustrative of the Prequels problems though, the pacing is really messy.
Phantom Menace takes forever to get going, conversely there isn’t enough stuff fleshing out the central frame as you like to call it, or doing it badly. If they gave more time to Anakin and Obi-Wan together, likewise Padme and do it better then his fall is more believably tragic. Clone Wars did a way, way better job there.
What does Palpatine have to offer the Trade Federation anyway? Given that nobody appears to know who he actually is, what cards is he playing with here?
Fair play to Lucas for doing something other than good guys have to stop the bad guys and their planet destroying machine, just a pity the films weren’t better. There was plenty of potential squandered because nobody reined him in.
Do we get the brash, headstrong, arrogant Jedi doomed to fall to the dark side to leap out of a window into space traffic, or jump into a room of battle droids saying ‘hello there’ or do we get the Jedi who’s supposed to be the wise and reserved one to do it?
I’m sure plenty are regurgitating stuff from certain videos now. When I first watched the original RLM it was in the early years of YouTube and it was more cathartic retreading of something I hadn’t lived up to my young hype when I saw it in the cinema and hadn’t quite put my finger on why.
I mean like the Prequels by all means of course, just I think they are deeply flawed. Seeing an increasing amount of defence that seems very hipster like (not here just in general), where people criticise the new trilogy for the exact same things the Prequels do which they say are good (Mary Sue characters, out of tone bad attempts at humour etc).
That or people who really like the EU tend to defend the Prequels a lot more, perhaps some of the plot holes and weird logic are filled in more if you’ve more exposure to that.
I definitely don't see how the prequels and sequels have the same problems.
In fact, I'd say their problems are quite different. I don't see a Mary Sue in the prequels that is anything close Rey, nor do I see any mind-numbing pacing problems in the sequels like you do with the political storylines in the prequels.
These are just two of many examples.
In general I think they don’t tend to share the same core problems, agreed there.
Anakin gets his ass kicked throughout the trilogy for sure, and massacres innocents but within the Phantom Menace he has built a functioning protocol droid, destroyed a Droid Control Centre (my personal least favourite thing in all 9 films tbh), so adult Rey being a capable pilot isn’t too crazy, to take a common complaint.
I think one actually shared problem is the escalation of force users to being ridiculously overpowered,
There is basically no time outside of facing a Sith where a Jedi feels in any kind of peril to any other foe or environmental hazard, I’ve had people claim this is only a new problem with the new trilogy and the Prequels handled it better, which they absolutely did not.
How is destroying a droid control Center worse than defeating a luke-trained Jedi turned sith in her very first battle? Yeah...
Rey is the most OP character ever in the SW universe, she didnt learn a single thing , she knew everything from before, and once she gets some training (even from Leia , whaaattt..? lol) it was like watching Dragon Ball but Over 90000000
Palpatine was literally destroying the biggest fleet ever assembled with force lightning in the same film though?
He also survived the Death Star exploding, had a hand in the immaculate conception of Anakin Skywalker. He was also able to block the visions of the entire Jedi Council
I don’t mind Palps being such a baller to at least some degree, although it got a bit silly, because he’s the ultimate villain and entertainingly so.
Rey’s arc may be less sensible sure but in terms of being OP like, after the last film it’s not even a contest.
Rey didn’t even defeat him she just tapped in to the power of all Jedi ever. Even if we go with Palpatine’s ‘I have absorbed all previous Sith’ (stupid fucking plot idea), by the rule of 2 that’s still way more Jedi than Sith
Which as I said opens actual holes. The Empire in the original trilogy have Stormtroopers who are regular dudes. They have an officer class, some of whom are quite old.
Psh, if you consider that to be a plot hole then hyperspace ramming must have blown your brains out.
This false equivalency argument of "the prequels were bad too" is so old and not even valid. For everything else the prequels did, AT LEAST they told an original story. Not only are the sequels terrible but their plots are almost beat for beat ripped out of the OT.
Force Awakens? Its plot is almost identical to A New Hope, the only thing that's different is who is the mentor role and the fact that the heroine wins her first lightsabre duel in this movie (which is a bad thing from a narrative perspective.)
The Last Jedi, is like a bad parody of Empire Strikes Back. The same general plot is exactly the same with a slight detour to canto bight and with the Throne Room Scene from Return mixed in.
It's too easy to compare Rise of Skywalker to Return of the Jedi when they had to bring back the fucking Emperor just for one more go around.
At least the prequels get credit for not just repeating what the OT did. Like what they did or not they at least get to stand on their own as something unique. These sequels are just bad reboots. There's no rewatchability to any of them when you can just rewatch the OT and have the same story told better.
If you’re going to expand the universe then expand it in a sensible way. It’s not even really complicated. OT mentions the Clone Wars in passing, with zero detail, so you can basically go anywhere with it.
I’d go with, The Republic had to become a dictatorial Empire with Palpatine at the helm under an equivalent of martial law because they ‘had’ to gather a conscript army to fight the clone army that he secretly had made. It’s not a fucking huge departure considering he already has canonically made a clone army with nobody realising anyway.
Plus the Senate politicking actually has some weight if the debate is enforcing military service over the Republic too.
Makes far more sense, ties in better to the original trilogy because your Tarkins etc rose through the ranks of said emergency conscript army that eventually became an oppressive fascistic military.
Instead we have a convoluted trade blockade plot with a secret clone army to fight droids and by the time of the OT the Empire’s army is manned neither by droids or clones. It’s not a plot hole as such no but it makes no sense.
In fairness to Lucas I did say that I gave him credit in a previous post for actually doing a different plot and I actually like the skeleton of the plot, the Prequels would have been great with a few dissenting voices and some changes.
I agree on TFA and RoS but I really don’t think TLJ is that similar to Empire at all. Yes it’s the film where people fail and it’s ‘dark’ but that’s it. Empire is the film where Luke’s parentage is revealed, TLJ is the film that says parentage doesn’t matter. After Yoda’s death (ok ‘there is another’ aside) Luke is the actual last Jedi in Empire, whereas in TLJ it’s inferred there’s a lot of potential Jedi. Or indeed a future where the Jedi/Sith dichotomy isn’t a thing.
Rian Johnson fucked up a bunch of other things horribly but honestly I’d have loved to have seen him given the whole trilogy, with some co-writers and editors. Everything in TLJ I either liked outright, or thought had potential but was really, really badly executed.
Poe Dameron and his mutiny being a case in point. Good idea, bafflingly bad in execution. Excusing universe ruining hypership kamikaze ships of course.
I like the idea of a cold-blooded high ranker clashing with a brash heroic impulsive kind of guy and being proven right but in here it made no sense whatsoever.
What would actually happen is Holdo goes ‘im going to bait them and destroy them with a hyperspace manouvere’. To which Poe Dameron, as per his FUCKING ENTIRE CHARACTER goes like ‘wow it’s risky but it’s worth a shot’. He’d probably recommend sending fighters out to bait the First Order ships into position for maximum damage.
Merry Christmas everyone. Apologies for the spamming of replies I just am at that suitable level of Christmas cheer (drunk) to discuss Star Wars and wanted to adequately reply to people
On December 23 2019 15:24 Sermokala wrote: Your post makes me think you didn't understand what was going on in the prequels. The people who were blockading the planet for some unspecified reason other then "Trade" are the same people who ignited the galaxy-spanning war spread out over thousands of planets with billions and billions dead. Why is everyone cool with going along with this massive war over a single planet thats bearly industrialized?
And again this war, the war at the core of the prequels, is never elaborated on or explained in any real way. The clone army (that was based on mandalorians who were what boba fet was based on, that turned into the stormtroopers) was straight up Hitler Jugend.
The two (really just the one because the final order fleet was made on the sith ice planet) massive fleet came from the fact that the empire was literally a galactic sprawling empire that didn't just poof out of existence after the death star blew up. those fleets had to go somewhere. SW was always like that. the first and third movies where basicaly the same but with different steps.
the prequels were total abominations. How much time did they spend with the pod racing scene that makes no sense (god solve the whole betting shenanigans they go through to reach "if we win we get the boy and the parts if we lose you get the rest of the ship") The sheer ammount of lazy "lets sit and talk" scenes that never approch any of the major themes like the actual war.
Jar Jar alone should be enough to explain to you why the prequels were so bad. I genuinely need like a few hours to find out why you think the prequels are good. You're lieing to yourself if you think the prequels had a frame with how wildly different the first and the next two were. A brand new stock villian with a lame gimmick lightsaber but at least he talks and has as nonexistent of a backstory.
On December 23 2019 09:57 Garbels wrote:
On December 23 2019 08:17 Sermokala wrote: [quote] How did palpatine get what he wanted? his force lightning reflected back onto him and the sith temple was collapsed with his "last order" fleet being destroyed.
He wanted rey to kill him and she did. He does not care about the rest.
Sure maybe he was banking an his followers to say 7 ave marias to complete the ritual. Since they couldn't he is now dead. Seems so silly but totally in line with the rest of the movie.
He wanted her to follow the ritual and "strike him down".
I'm not saying its not silly but you need to give it some wiggle room for it trying to create a finale out of the mess that TLJ was.
i cba to reply to everything so i'll just take your major points: Jarjar is only seen in the first movie (except for one scene in the 2nd and one in the third) so taking him to say the rest is shit is definitly a bad argument Dont understand why you would shit on the pod racing tho So ye, you take 1h of the first movie to shit on everything else, then you wonder why people don't agree with u, big surprise Theres a scene in the 4th i believe where they explain that a ton of planets got destroyed during the clone wars Trade federation was under the control of Palpatine The prequels had a frame since it was about the rise of anakin and his fall While i agree that the reason of the trade wars arent explained, i'm fairly sure you'd be shitting on the political aspect of it if they spent any amount of time explaining it. I guess most people defending the prequels are just tired of people shitting on it thanks to a youtube video
The first hour of the film is pretty illustrative of the Prequels problems though, the pacing is really messy.
Phantom Menace takes forever to get going, conversely there isn’t enough stuff fleshing out the central frame as you like to call it, or doing it badly. If they gave more time to Anakin and Obi-Wan together, likewise Padme and do it better then his fall is more believably tragic. Clone Wars did a way, way better job there.
What does Palpatine have to offer the Trade Federation anyway? Given that nobody appears to know who he actually is, what cards is he playing with here?
Fair play to Lucas for doing something other than good guys have to stop the bad guys and their planet destroying machine, just a pity the films weren’t better. There was plenty of potential squandered because nobody reined him in.
Do we get the brash, headstrong, arrogant Jedi doomed to fall to the dark side to leap out of a window into space traffic, or jump into a room of battle droids saying ‘hello there’ or do we get the Jedi who’s supposed to be the wise and reserved one to do it?
I’m sure plenty are regurgitating stuff from certain videos now. When I first watched the original RLM it was in the early years of YouTube and it was more cathartic retreading of something I hadn’t lived up to my young hype when I saw it in the cinema and hadn’t quite put my finger on why.
I mean like the Prequels by all means of course, just I think they are deeply flawed. Seeing an increasing amount of defence that seems very hipster like (not here just in general), where people criticise the new trilogy for the exact same things the Prequels do which they say are good (Mary Sue characters, out of tone bad attempts at humour etc).
That or people who really like the EU tend to defend the Prequels a lot more, perhaps some of the plot holes and weird logic are filled in more if you’ve more exposure to that.
I definitely don't see how the prequels and sequels have the same problems.
In fact, I'd say their problems are quite different. I don't see a Mary Sue in the prequels that is anything close Rey, nor do I see any mind-numbing pacing problems in the sequels like you do with the political storylines in the prequels.
These are just two of many examples.
In general I think they don’t tend to share the same core problems, agreed there.
Anakin gets his ass kicked throughout the trilogy for sure, and massacres innocents but within the Phantom Menace he has built a functioning protocol droid, destroyed a Droid Control Centre (my personal least favourite thing in all 9 films tbh), so adult Rey being a capable pilot isn’t too crazy, to take a common complaint.
I think one actually shared problem is the escalation of force users to being ridiculously overpowered,
There is basically no time outside of facing a Sith where a Jedi feels in any kind of peril to any other foe or environmental hazard, I’ve had people claim this is only a new problem with the new trilogy and the Prequels handled it better, which they absolutely did not.
How is destroying a droid control Center worse than defeating a luke-trained Jedi turned sith in her very first battle? Yeah...
Rey is the most OP character ever in the SW universe, she didnt learn a single thing , she knew everything from before, and once she gets some training (even from Leia , whaaattt..? lol) it was like watching Dragon Ball but Over 90000000
Palpatine was literally destroying the biggest fleet ever assembled with force lightning in the same film though?
He also survived the Death Star exploding, had a hand in the immaculate conception of Anakin Skywalker. He was also able to block the visions of the entire Jedi Council
I don’t mind Palps being such a baller to at least some degree, although it got a bit silly, because he’s the ultimate villain and entertainingly so.
Rey’s arc may be less sensible sure but in terms of being OP like, after the last film it’s not even a contest.
Rey didn’t even defeat him she just tapped in to the power of all Jedi ever. Even if we go with Palpatine’s ‘I have absorbed all previous Sith’ (stupid fucking plot idea), by the rule of 2 that’s still way more Jedi than Sith
Well, Palpatine coming back was just the stupidiest thing ever, Rey was so OP that they built a clown Palpy even stronger, at least he didnt need to build his character, that is why these sequels were even worse than the prequels which were just bad, they got not evolution at all, no real plot, and you can say that every sci-fi movie has plot holes but honestly this trilogy is like a parody of SW, it bends all the rules, nothing matters anymore, I am not a SW super fan but I enjoy movies Sci-Fi movies with some argument, this trilogy lacks of everything. With Rey alive you dont need another alive being to kill anything in the galaxy, if they want to save the franchise Disney needs to make like this trilogy never existed and focus on something else.
On December 26 2019 10:10 Wombat_NI wrote: For me anyway I can rewatch OT and think it holds up pretty well + nostalgia bonus, I just wish there was a high definition version of the original theatrical release.
Actually, if you dig deep enough around the Internet you can find a 720p version of the OT that has been painstakingly re-created and remastered by fans using bits of old 35mm print scan that got scavenged, some parts of remake (without any new stuff that they added later), some orignal releases etc. They went through the entire trilogy frame by frame and even did the sound. It's as close as you can get to the HD version of the original (but each movie is around 20GB, unless you find them in a version that has already been re-encoded by someone else with x264 or something).
I don't think ray is even top ten in the star wars universe. Her full power moment wasn't even a real attack. You have a guy literally named Starkiller. You have the eternal Emporer who sucked up the lifeforce of an entire planet. Abeloth whos basically ray and Palpatine combined at their full power moment. You have Serenity, anger, confusion, joy, and sadness who are the gatekeepers between life and death itself. And then you have the Father himself who is literally the embodiment of god, he who formed the light and the darkness.
Within the context of the films, she and Palps have to be the most OP. I was a big EU guy, but didn't pay any attention to prequel and pre-prequel era EU (and no further than the Yuzan Vong before I abandoned ship), nor any of the tv series, so all of those characters are unfamiliar to me as a pretty big Star Wars nerd. I doubt most people know about those characters aside from Palps.
The whole idea of Palpatine having progeny is strange.
Who was Rey's grandmother? Ysard? That's the only woman we know that might have had a relationship of any kind with the Emperor. Unless she was a concubine, but do we know anything about ol' Sheev having concubines?
They just brought back Palpatine for the sake of having the "ultimate" villain. dont try to understand that script because it makes no sense at all, remember the explanation was given to you; it is the dark side.
I find it kind of funny that these discussions - that have been going in circles since TFA - are still going strong. I literally can't be arsed to put any effort into it anymore. I'll just say this: anyone who is still dissapointed by this franchise after TFA, was just in denial, and quite a bit honestly. What else can we say about SW that isn't beating a dead horse?
On December 26 2019 23:13 Uldridge wrote: I find it kind of funny that these discussions - that have been going in circles since TFA - are still going strong. I literally can't be arsed to put any effort into it anymore. I'll just say this: anyone who is still dissapointed by this franchise after TFA, was just in denial, and quite a bit honestly. What else can we say about SW that isn't beating a dead horse?
Rogue One was part of the franchise and worked out well. Solo was okay too, tbh. What's your point?
On December 26 2019 23:13 Uldridge wrote: I find it kind of funny that these discussions - that have been going in circles since TFA - are still going strong. I literally can't be arsed to put any effort into it anymore. I'll just say this: anyone who is still dissapointed by this franchise after TFA, was just in denial, and quite a bit honestly. What else can we say about SW that isn't beating a dead horse?
Rogue One was part of the franchise and worked out well. Solo was okay too, tbh. What's your point?
If Rogue One had a bit less corporate memo I think it could have been up there with Empire as the best movie in the franchise, the main cast is super solid, the action scene are good and the plot is suprisingly coherent for a Starwars movie. You just needed to cut a couple of toy selling secondary cast (mainly the two monks and the black guy I actually found the droid pretty funny) and scratch a few one liner and you have a great movie.
On December 24 2019 01:49 TomatoBisque wrote: Blaming reception to this movie not being good on youtube reviewers being nitpicky or TLJ is just trying to shift blame and not be critical (although I agree youtube "critics" are generally bad and have created a poor culture).
Blaming the poor quality of Youtube reviews on Youtube reviewers being of a very low standard of quality is fair game, though.
Overall, the reviews for this movie seem to be about what would be expected for a so-so movie. Taking RT as an example - a generally poor critical reception, but a mostly positive audience one. The opposite of TLJ (though I have no goddamn idea why critics seemed to love that movie). Seems like people generally liked it, but didn't think it was a great movie.
The "Youtube consensus" seems pretty far removed from that, with folks who benefit from generating a "worst movie EVER" headline doing just that. Certainly does warrant an eye-roll for all the reviews of that form being spammed here without too much desire to explain one's own take on how the movie was, though.
On December 24 2019 00:27 Wombat_NI wrote: Can you imagine the Prequels launching in the era of YouTube as we have it now?
Do you really even have to imagine? People cite that RedLetterMedia "review" of the prequels as if it were an authoritative takedown, when it is little more than a lengthy romp that goes on for hours and fails to really get a meaningful point across (often advertised as "it's lengthy, but you just HAVE to watch it" because of its supposed credibility). Arguably this entire generation of Star Wars bashing is just seeking to recreate the fame that that prequel review managed to garner.
Points mostly taken, although I do think the RLM videos do a good job in being legitimate criticism sprinkled with things for entertainment’s sake.
Lol they are the epitomize of toxic incels who follow the trend of "George Lucas raped my Childhood" and the reason why we got a shitty remake. There are one of the main reason sw fanbase is in this reactionnary, toxic state with all the bullying against the actors.
That’s not really a fair reflection of their content at all.
Their ‘Nerd Crew’ series is entirely about parodying a segment of such fanbases, for example.
Mike who did the aforementioned prequel reviews is much more of a fan of Star Trek anyway, as is Rich Evans. Jay is pretty ambivalent to both and is more into art house indie fare.
Thinking the prequels are bad doesn’t mean you are somehow responsible for the Disney trilogy dropping the ball, never mind all the toxic behaviour you’re talking about.
Even if everything you said was correct, which it very much isn’t do we really have to call everything we dislike in terms of ‘incels’, seems the slur de jour coming into 2020
Ok fair enough, incel, even if used by liberals and feminists might contain some toxic masculanity.
That said, how do you call a bunch of unhealthy 40-50 yo nerds without cinephile culture who are a spending a (very) large part of their time criticizing with a maximum of bad faith and negativity one of the few things they got in their lives ? It's even becoming their revenue, a revenue based on a resentment toward a saga (filling it with millions of persons) they are supposed to love for god sake, it's both insanely creepy, pathetic and crazy whatever you want to think about it.
And what I say is unfair ? Their fanbase on reddit is the worst of all, just a bunch of 40-50 yo lost in the 80s who deeply hate everything else. These people are the reason why Disney didn't take any risk with TFA and so, you got a bad remake of something which wasn't the masterpiece some ppl born in the 80s think it is. (I am pretty sure I gonna trigger some people here by calling a good and entertaining a familal movie 'not a masterpiece") Just look at the reactions when it came out "oh it really feels like SW 5/5", then ppl realized they were robbed. The funny thing is reading the review and the fans on the internet surprised me because 90% of the people around me who watched it were baffled to see how bad it was regardless of their age.
I agree entirely as per most of your post, just not if you’re referring to Red Letter Media specifically. They literally make fun of that culture all the time.
Their opinion on TFA, which correlates pretty strong to mine was largely positive about TFA as a safe ‘feels like Star Wars’ reboot to the franchise. At the time anyway.
Subsequently given the other two films much less positive because they didn’t do anything from a solid enough, safe return to the franchise.
The Last Jedi didn’t fit at all but it was the only one I found interesting in terms of any ideas, even in badly executed form but alas.
Granted I am not well versed in the Extended Universe, where these ideas are also expressed, but as a mainline entry.
People didn’t answer the Rebels call? Maybe most people don’t really care as life under the First Order is largely fine in the galaxy, or Rey can be a powerful force wielder despite lacking any kind of Skywalker (or Palpatine as it turned out)
I actually liked the Luke stuff too, not 100% of how it played out execution wise in the film but the idea that a man whose seen the destruction of the force going into isolation and being more potent as a symbol than as an actual person etc.
I might be too hot headed in my answer, after all, we're discussing a saga about space wizards while I should be way concerned by the current reforms in my country. And tbf, my gf's younger siblings like the new movies and I don't really care either, good for them. I am just disappointed, ROTS, at least for me, was proposing sth else than the traditional entertainement that blockbusters set. The fall of a democracy linked to the rigid philosophy (well, approach seems more valid) of the jedi order.
Now there is not even the ambition of setting up a good universe, the only spicy stuff about these movies and other big ones is the identity policies they're trying to promote. Too bad they're generally doing it with as much elegance (sterotypes and clichees) as soviet propaganda movies but without Eisenstein's daring virtuosity.
Edit : I liked Rogue One, it was quite a refeshing and good story of its own, I'll concede it to Disney (not that they care haha)
On December 26 2019 23:13 Uldridge wrote: I find it kind of funny that these discussions - that have been going in circles since TFA - are still going strong. I literally can't be arsed to put any effort into it anymore. I'll just say this: anyone who is still dissapointed by this franchise after TFA, was just in denial, and quite a bit honestly. What else can we say about SW that isn't beating a dead horse?
Rogue One was part of the franchise and worked out well. Solo was okay too, tbh. What's your point?
My point is that people are rehashing things that are 3 years old. Rogue One and Solo were so okay to well that no one ever brings them up (except now). It's just tiring. Aren't you tired of it? I thought I was going to have Super hero movie tiredness, but it turns out SW tiredness sets in alot faster. Let's just move on..
Edit: but I'm a bit harsh I guess.. this is a thread to discuss the movie(s) in after all.
IMO, Disney failed pretty hard when it comes to creating a female hero. My 2 favourite female hero characters are still Jackie Brown played by Pam Grier and Aileen Wournos played by Charlize Theron. Rey is about 5 orders of magnitude below those 2. Hell , Edith Bunker played by Jean Stapleton was a better female hero than Rey.
On December 25 2019 03:18 Falling wrote: I've seen a rather strange overlap actually. The ones that really liked TLJ and the ones that really hated TLJ both don't like Rise of Skywalker. Whereas people just looking to see an action film and some spectacle in the form of Star Wars walked away enjoying alright.
i give RoS a 6.5/10. it was aimed directly at the "niche" i'm in. I'm not a big Star Wars follower. I can barely remember many of the details in previous episodes other than the movies that came out in 1977 and 1980.
Smart moves by Disney//Abrams to structure the movie the way they did. Abrams/Disney did the best they could considering the corner in which Rian Johnson painted them. Of course, this is also partly Disney's fault because they hired Johnson and let him do what he did. Any how , considering the situation J. J. Abrams was in I'd say he deserves a 8/10. The actors deserve a 8/10. The front line creatives were put in an impossible situation... they did what they could.
One issue I have with the movies that came out from 1983 to 2019 is that I'm not sure what I'm supposed to know and not know at certain points in the movie. I'm spending $15 .... i'm not "studying up" to properly qualify for handing a movie theatre $15. I'm slapping my cash on the table and relaxing for 2 to 3 hours.
On December 25 2019 09:43 LegalLord wrote: The 86% audience approval makes far, far more sense than the mind-boggling 91% critic approval that TLJ got. I see why most people would give a favorable appraisal of this movie, even if a lot of folks don’t like it.
some guy polled the RT site every 5 minutes for 3 days and it never moved off of 86% at any time as the # of reviews went from 1,200 to over 50,000.
it is clear the 86% is BS.
RT gets out of this by saying "ooops a bug in our `system` had the calculation improperly stuck at 86%. Oops we're sorry for this issue. Mistakes happen. Again, we're sorry.". However, for the first few days after the movie's release the incorrect audience score served its purpose. A giant media conglomerate will be pleased by this "algorithm error".
The signal Rotten Tomatoes is sending to the various media giants is that when a media giant's back is up against the wall and a franchise the media giant owns is in danger of being damaged ... The Rotten Tomatoes people willl do what they can to protect the multi-billion dollar franchise. This is a smart gambit by Rotten Tomatoes.
On December 24 2019 01:49 TomatoBisque wrote: Blaming reception to this movie not being good on youtube reviewers being nitpicky or TLJ is just trying to shift blame and not be critical (although I agree youtube "critics" are generally bad and have created a poor culture).
Blaming the poor quality of Youtube reviews on Youtube reviewers being of a very low standard of quality is fair game, though.
Overall, the reviews for this movie seem to be about what would be expected for a so-so movie. Taking RT as an example - a generally poor critical reception, but a mostly positive audience one. The opposite of TLJ (though I have no goddamn idea why critics seemed to love that movie). Seems like people generally liked it, but didn't think it was a great movie.
The "Youtube consensus" seems pretty far removed from that, with folks who benefit from generating a "worst movie EVER" headline doing just that. Certainly does warrant an eye-roll for all the reviews of that form being spammed here without too much desire to explain one's own take on how the movie was, though.
On December 24 2019 00:27 Wombat_NI wrote: Can you imagine the Prequels launching in the era of YouTube as we have it now?
Do you really even have to imagine? People cite that RedLetterMedia "review" of the prequels as if it were an authoritative takedown, when it is little more than a lengthy romp that goes on for hours and fails to really get a meaningful point across (often advertised as "it's lengthy, but you just HAVE to watch it" because of its supposed credibility). Arguably this entire generation of Star Wars bashing is just seeking to recreate the fame that that prequel review managed to garner.
Points mostly taken, although I do think the RLM videos do a good job in being legitimate criticism sprinkled with things for entertainment’s sake.
Lol they are the epitomize of toxic incels who follow the trend of "George Lucas raped my Childhood" and the reason why we got a shitty remake. There are one of the main reason sw fanbase is in this reactionnary, toxic state with all the bullying against the actors.
That’s not really a fair reflection of their content at all.
Their ‘Nerd Crew’ series is entirely about parodying a segment of such fanbases, for example.
Mike who did the aforementioned prequel reviews is much more of a fan of Star Trek anyway, as is Rich Evans. Jay is pretty ambivalent to both and is more into art house indie fare.
Thinking the prequels are bad doesn’t mean you are somehow responsible for the Disney trilogy dropping the ball, never mind all the toxic behaviour you’re talking about.
Even if everything you said was correct, which it very much isn’t do we really have to call everything we dislike in terms of ‘incels’, seems the slur de jour coming into 2020
Ok fair enough, incel, even if used by liberals and feminists might contain some toxic masculanity.
That said, how do you call a bunch of unhealthy 40-50 yo nerds without cinephile culture who are a spending a (very) large part of their time criticizing with a maximum of bad faith and negativity one of the few things they got in their lives ? It's even becoming their revenue, a revenue based on a resentment toward a saga (filling it with millions of persons) they are supposed to love for god sake, it's both insanely creepy, pathetic and crazy whatever you want to think about it.
And what I say is unfair ? Their fanbase on reddit is the worst of all, just a bunch of 40-50 yo lost in the 80s who deeply hate everything else. These people are the reason why Disney didn't take any risk with TFA and so, you got a bad remake of something which wasn't the masterpiece some ppl born in the 80s think it is. (I am pretty sure I gonna trigger some people here by calling a good and entertaining a familal movie 'not a masterpiece") Just look at the reactions when it came out "oh it really feels like SW 5/5", then ppl realized they were robbed. The funny thing is reading the review and the fans on the internet surprised me because 90% of the people around me who watched it were baffled to see how bad it was regardless of their age.
I agree entirely as per most of your post, just not if you’re referring to Red Letter Media specifically. They literally make fun of that culture all the time.
Their opinion on TFA, which correlates pretty strong to mine was largely positive about TFA as a safe ‘feels like Star Wars’ reboot to the franchise. At the time anyway.
Subsequently given the other two films much less positive because they didn’t do anything from a solid enough, safe return to the franchise.
The Last Jedi didn’t fit at all but it was the only one I found interesting in terms of any ideas, even in badly executed form but alas.
Granted I am not well versed in the Extended Universe, where these ideas are also expressed, but as a mainline entry.
People didn’t answer the Rebels call? Maybe most people don’t really care as life under the First Order is largely fine in the galaxy, or Rey can be a powerful force wielder despite lacking any kind of Skywalker (or Palpatine as it turned out)
I actually liked the Luke stuff too, not 100% of how it played out execution wise in the film but the idea that a man whose seen the destruction of the force going into isolation and being more potent as a symbol than as an actual person etc.
I might be too hot headed in my answer, after all, we're discussing a saga about space wizards while I should be way concerned by the current reforms in my country. And tbf, my gf's younger siblings like the new movies and I don't really care either, good for them. I am just disappointed, ROTS, at least for me, was proposing sth else than the traditional entertainement that blockbusters set. The fall of a democracy linked to the rigid philosophy (well, approach seems more valid) of the jedi order.
Now there is not even the ambition of setting up a good universe, the only spicy stuff about these movies and other big ones is the identity policies they're trying to promote. Too bad they're generally doing it with as much elegance (sterotypes and clichees) as soviet propaganda movies but without Eisenstein's daring virtuosity.
Edit : I liked Rogue One, it was quite a refeshing and good story of its own, I'll concede it to Disney (not that they care haha)
Hey I’m dealing with Brexit and another period of conservative government so I feel your pain there man! Space wizard discussion is where it’s at.
Yeah I agree there dude, those story angles are interesting in the Prequels for sure, and I think they’ve been done well elsewhere too.
I’m not really disappointed in Nu Wars because I didn’t really have expectations to begin with. At least not of anything interesting or deep or w/e. So I guess I’m judging them purely as action blockbusters
It’s a common criticism but I really don’t think there’s much identity politics in them.
Again these films are so unmemorable that I actually don’t remember basically all of the plot of TFA outside of a few key scenes, although in the cinema at the time it was fun enough
On December 27 2019 04:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote: IMO, Disney failed pretty hard when it comes to creating a female hero. My 2 favourite female hero characters are still Jackie Brown played by Pam Grier and Aileen Wournos played by Charlize Theron. Rey is about 5 orders of magnitude below those 2. Hell , Edith Bunker played by Jean Stapleton was a better female hero than Rey.
On December 25 2019 03:18 Falling wrote: I've seen a rather strange overlap actually. The ones that really liked TLJ and the ones that really hated TLJ both don't like Rise of Skywalker. Whereas people just looking to see an action film and some spectacle in the form of Star Wars walked away enjoying alright.
i give RoS a 6.5/10. it was aimed directly at the "niche" i'm in. I'm not a big Star Wars follower. I can barely remember many of the details in previous episodes other than the movies that came out in 1977 and 1980.
Smart moves by Disney//Abrams to structure the movie the way they did. Abrams/Disney did the best they could considering the corner in which Rian Johnson painted them. Of course, this is also partly Disney's fault because they hired Johnson and let him do what he did. Any how , considering the situation J. J. Abrams was in I'd say he deserves a 8/10. The actors deserve a 8/10. The front line creatives were put in an impossible situation... they did what they could.
One issue I have with the movies that came out from 1983 to 2019 is that I'm not sure what I'm supposed to know and not know at certain points in the movie. I'm spending $15 .... i'm not "studying up" to properly qualify for handing a movie theatre $15. I'm slapping my cash on the table and relaxing for 2 to 3 hours.
On December 25 2019 09:43 LegalLord wrote: The 86% audience approval makes far, far more sense than the mind-boggling 91% critic approval that TLJ got. I see why most people would give a favorable appraisal of this movie, even if a lot of folks don’t like it.
some guy polled the RT site every 5 minutes for 3 days and it never moved off of 86% at any time as the # of reviews went from 1,200 to over 50,000.
it is clear the 86% is BS.
RT gets out of this by saying "ooops a bug in our `system` had the calculation improperly stuck at 86%. Oops we're sorry for this issue. Mistakes happen. Again, we're sorry.". However, for the first few days after the movie's release the incorrect audience score served its purpose. A giant media conglomerate will be pleased by this "algorithm error".
The signal Rotten Tomatoes is sending to the various media giants is that when a media giant's back is up against the wall and a franchise the media giant owns is in danger of being damaged ... The Rotten Tomatoes people willl do what they can to protect the multi-billion dollar franchise. This is a smart gambit by Rotten Tomatoes.
Aileen Wuornos, hero character? What?
As for the rest of your post, yeah I just disregard review sites for a big fan franchise nowadays. I just go in blind to films I’m really anticipating (Blade Runner 2049), or go off a few critics whose opinions I think align with mine, or friends too.
I don’t really care as a fan, I want to know if a film is good or not. Fans are more invested in putting reviews on sites than regular cinema goers, so things get skewed that way.
I absolutely don’t think such sites should manipulate scores either, don’t get me wrong. Bit of a mess really.
On December 27 2019 06:02 Wombat_NI wrote: Aileen Wuornos, hero character? What?
Charlize Theron portrayed her in Monster. I think it came out ~2003. Great movie ... great female character. Ricci was great as well. Better than any character in any of these Disney Star Wars movies by a mile.
On December 27 2019 06:02 Wombat_NI wrote: I absolutely don’t think such sites should manipulate scores either, don’t get me wrong. Bit of a mess really.
just follow the money. IGN can never say every video game sucks. They will never repeatedly mention that video game playing is bad for RSI because they make their money from video games. IGN and sites like it will always skew towards being overly optimistic... they pretty much have to.
From 1983 to 2010 the best NFL Football video game was Super Tecmo Bowl. How much editorial space does IGN devote to acknowledging this as compared to how much time and resources do they put into yapping about the most recent Madden NFL annualized sequel game by EA? I'd say its 1000 to 1 in favour of the annualized EA sequel. Again, they pretty much have to do this.. they are following the money.
Whether its reviewing video games or reviewing movies ... these review sites all face the same predicament.
The big question is.. is their revenue stream advertiser driven by giant media companies? or is it a volunteer run site and getting small amounts of money from the consumers of the products?
The original films did one thing very right: Every hero was relatable. Luke was the stereotypical teenage noname, who stumbled into the biggest adventure of his life. Han was the no bullshit hotshot, who basically was the only "normal" human being in the whole drama. Leia was a clever subversion of the princess archetype, because she was sassy and clever. And every major character had a believable arc.
The first trilogy also came with ONE major villain, who was built up perfectly. Vader started as some kind of fascist robot monstrosity and became human. His redemption was the heart of the series. Palpatine and Yoda functioned as opposite extremes: Both were some kind of mentor figures, both pulled the strings.
The old films are fairytales with lots of grit and heart. Every character could be judged by looking at a freeze frame. Now compare that to the prequels and sequels. The prequels were a hot mess, mainly dragged down by too much CGI and bad dialogue. They're fundamentally flawed, but they do have a clear vision. Disney SW doesn't feel like Star Wars at all to me. Rey is OP and remains completely unrelatable after three films. Finn and Poe are nobodys. Kylo could have been an amazing character, Driver really did the best he could, but you can't act against bad writing and directing. And the old guys? Han's death was okay, but in the whole story arc it has become a footnote. Luke was betrayed. It's hard to talk about Leia, as Carrie Fisher sadly passed. But they did horrendous things to her character. Don't get me started on all the plot holes, mcguffins and silly side quests.
Disney Star Wars is like Palpatine's body in Ep. 9: A corpse kept alive by machines.
Just watched it. The plot made absolutely no sense.
Chapter 1 Kylo: "sup, I killed my old master, also my grandpa who I idolized killed his old master, you were that dude so I feel like I should kill you" Palpatine: "yep, you should lead my armies which I somehow have for plot reasons but have never used until now, I'm totally cool with this, here's a giant fleet, go fulfill your dreams" Kylo: "Palpatine is weirdly supportive of my openly stated dreams of killing him but I should probably enlist the help of Rey to kill him"
Chapter 2 GM: "Your party has fallen through quicksand and finds itself in the underground den of a giant snake, what do you do?". Chewie: "I draw my blaster and aim at the snake" Poe: "I draw my blaster and aim at the snake" Finn: "I draw Rey's lightsaber and prepare to attack" Rey: "I cast force heal on the snake" GM: "What?" Rey: "I cast force heal" GM: "Do you have that power?" Rey: "Let's find out!" *rolls natural 20" GM: *sighs* "You heal the snake. It becomes your friend and guides you from the snake den. Also you gain mastery of force healing"
Chapter 3 Kylo: "Rey, come to Exegol and help me kill Palpatine" Rey: "You won't stop me getting to Exegol and killing Palpatine" Kylo: "I'm not trying to, I think we should both go kill Palpatine, Palpatine definitely needs to die, I know the way there" Rey: "If you won't help me then I'll be forced to kill you" Kylo: "Okay so I have the map in my ship, get in my ship and we can fly there" Rey: "I must find the map" Kylo: "I have the map" Rey: "If only I knew where the map was, I should go on some kind of journey race against time thing" Kylo: "Hey, so I'm going to keep showing up at each point in your journey and asking you to just come with me in my ship that has the map" Rey: "I now have the map, I should go by myself" Kylo: "You should come with me" Rey: "You can't stop me!" Kylo: "That's actually the opposite of what I'm trying to do so that's fine" Rey: "Then we must fight!" Kylo: "Okay, so I'm going to just go ahead and break your map but don't worry, I have a second map in my ship, let's both go to my ship and go to Exegol" Rey: "Without the map there's just no way of getting there, I must kill you Kylo" Kylo: "Apparently I also now want to kill you, let's fight to the death, that's the only way to achieve my stated goal of both of us getting on the ship that is right here which has the map, also right here, and going to where we both want to go"
Leia: "I cast hallucination on Kylo" GM: "Spell is successful, Rey wins her duel and kills Kylo" Rey: "I cast force heal" GM: "....." Rey: "Oh wow, there's a second map in Kylo's ship, that's a surprise"
Chapter 4 Rey: "So like it turns out that the big bad Sith dude is like actually my grandfather and so I'm going through some really heavy stuff right now and I just don't think I can go to the final act and finish the movie" Luke: "Wow, that's nuts, that's like never happened to anyone in this universe before. Sith villains are never usually related to people. I don't have any good advice for you regarding that shit and I don't know anyone who does." Rey: "Yeah, nobody has been in this position before. Like imagine the shock of finding out that you're related to the Sith villain." Luke: "Well you just need to believe in yourself, trust in the heart of the cards, and follow your dreams and I think you'll be okay but like I don't know, maybe it's okay because Leia said you were a good person"
Chapter 5 Rey: "I want to kill you Palpatine" Palpatine: "I want you to kill me Rey" Rey: "I want to kill you Palpatine" Palpatine: "I want you to kill me Rey" Rey: "Wait what's going on here?" Palpatine: "I want you to kill me Rey" Rey: "Then that must mean I don't want to kill you?" Palpatine: "I'm like taking over the galaxy right now, you have to kill me, this whole movie has been about you trying to come here and kill me, that's like your arc or something" Rey: "But if I don't kill you then you lose" Palpatine: "That's not supported by anything that has happened so far and I have this giant fleet from nowhere armed with superweapons and I seem to have taken over the galaxy but sure, I buy that" Rey: "So I'm not going to kill you" Palpatine: "Then these knights of something which weren't there before will kill you" Rey: "Ahah! Got you! You said you needed me alive because you wanted to become me using some kind of trap card which I would activate if I killed you. If your knights kill me then I win!" Palpatine: "Honestly I'm not entirely sure what my motivations are anymore. I either want to die and then become you because of something or take over the galaxy with a giant fleet. Either I need you alive or I want my knights to kill you. It's not really clear" Rey: "I must defeat these knights so I can kill you" Palpatine: "Oh no, please don't kill me" Rey: "Okay, hold up, was that sarcastic, do you want me to kill you or not?" Palpatine: "No, I totally don't want you to kill me, that would ruin all of my plans" Rey: "I still feel like you're being sarcastic. Like on the one hand you've got all these knights who are dying to defend you from me and you've got this master plan of taking over the galaxy which can only be stopped by me killing you but there's also all that shit you said before about how you want to be inside me which, also, eww, you're my granddad" Palpatine: "I cast force suck" Rey: "I'm honestly still not sure where we landed on the whole should I kill you thing" Kylo: "I'm here too now, and I think we should kill him" Rey: "Then I channel the heart of the cards and it somehow kills Palpatine" *rolls another natural 20* Palpatine: "Wait, did I have this thing where I become Rey if she kills me or was I bluffing? She seems to have killed me and I'm not becoming her. If that was a bluff then that was awesome because I totally convinced her but maybe I also believed I had that power and it turned out I didn't." Rey: "I'm dead now" *dies* Kylo: "I cast force heal" GM: "Pretty sure you don't have that power but whatever, roll" *Kylo rolls nat 1* GM: "Okay so the spell works but it backfires and your body disappears"
Also all through TFA we had the whole "who is Rey, where does she come from?" thing with nerds trying to work out if she was a secret Skywalker or Obi Wan Kenobi's lovechild or whatever because you can't just have a new protagonist who isn't secretly related to someone. Then in TLJ they go hard on "no, she's a nobody, the force is getting democratized, no more lineages and midichlorians, the force acts through all people who believe in justice and want to support life, we're going to have all these scenes of oppression and injustice in this weird social justice casino planet which ends with random children becoming force sensitive because that is the direction we want to take this franchise" Then TRoS it's suddenly "yeah so let's not talk about anything that happened in TLJ, like any of it, she's a secret Palpatine somehow but like that never came up before and nobody, not Luke, not Anakin, not any of the Empire people, knew about Palpatine having like a fucking family or whatever. Anyway, all force users are part of these special sacred bloodlines, now let's talk power levels. Nerds fucking love power levels".
EPT
