BEFORE THE FILM IS RELEASED: -You may openly post and discuss any rumours/leaks here. -You may openly reveal cast members and things outside the film. -You may openly discuss the trailers.
AFTER THE FILM IS RELEASED: -You may post SPOILERS in this thread.
So because it's Jar Jar directing again and based on what he did in E7(copying E4) I say this will happen: Rey will try to find the good in Kylo(Luke & Vader motive from E6) Rey will kill Palpatine, either with a help from Kylo or not, I say Kylo will die before Palpatine and then she finishes the job. Thus proving Rey is the strongest force user ever as she managed to beat the Emperror. (corresponds with E6 ending and the agenda they're pushing in the movies) Palpatine will bring some hidden fleet or do some different trick and kills every old character while destroying Millenum Falcon. This is new and I don't give this too much, but it would graciously end all the old characters(mostly Leia). Most probably they somehow manage to lure FO ships to fight the Imperial ships which would destroy both factions. Not sure what creature will replace Ewoks but I say that there will be some kind of it and they will help with the victory(because Ewoks were in E6 and animals are important(E8 & the Casino thing) We already saw a sand planet(E6), a barge with our heroes being attacked by persons with jetpacks(E6, Boba death moment) while trying to flee the enemies(E6) (Edit> this was in some show, not sure if this is part of both the trailers already linked in this thread, cantry to find it if requested)
I would love to be wrong. Please, prove me wrong. But these are my predictions based on the teasers I saw.
So, according to all the leaks and rumors you're not that far off...
Rey will try to find the good in Kylo - yeah, but it won't go well. Basically, she'll beat him in a duel for the third time, no surprise here, which will make him rage more and want to kill her until they find palpy and join forces and he'll die.
Palpatine will bring some hidden fleet or do some different trick and kills every old character while destroying Millenum Falcon. This is new and I don't give this too much, but it would graciously end all the old characters(mostly Leia). Most probably they somehow manage to lure FO ships to fight the Imperial ships which would destroy both factions. - Palpatine has super secret huge fleet shown in the trailers. Rebels and FO band together to fight them. Lando, Chewie, C3PO and R2D2 die on the falcon (a point in test screening when people started walking out). Palpatine destroys the fleet with force lightning.
Rey will kill Palpatine, either with a help from Kylo or not, I say Kylo will die before Palpatine and then she finishes the job. Thus proving Rey is the strongest force user ever as she managed to beat the Emperror. - pretty much this, Kylo dies and Rey finishes palpy with the help from force ghost Luke and Leia or something. Then she destroys palpatine's fleet with force lightning.
Ewoks were in E6 and animals are important - there is a charge on horseback on the outside of a star destroyer in the trailer... Nuff said.
Oh, and for the big reveal. Rey is somehow descendant from Palpatine but at the end she takes the name Skywalker, because reasons (and movie title must make some sense after all Skywalkers are dead).
In any case, even if 10% of it is true the movie is gonna blow real hard...
I got curious about people walking out of test screenings and looked it up, suggestion was that was just a hoax to try to discredit the movie. Which sucks because I love me some drama and could barely care about Star Wars, haha.
On November 29 2019 21:47 Turbovolver wrote: I got curious about people walking out of test screenings and looked it up, suggestion was that was just a hoax to try to discredit the movie. Which sucks because I love me some drama and could barely care about Star Wars, haha.
Lucasfilms doesn't seem to do test screenings, there simply are a lot of very angry star wars fans who still haven't accepted that they disliked a star wars film / that no new star wars film will ever be able to replicate the feelings of the OT because they are idealised. Now i have read the leaks, one because i don't care about spoilers at all and also because i don't care too much about star wars either, these films are all about the same to me in their quality (outside of the prequels, they are hot garbage). Some of these plot points i find absurd, others are exactly what i would expect from a fairytale for children. Maybe at some point the 20+ year old children can come to this mindset as well and don't feel the need to procclaim that they childhood got destroyed because they didn't like the new installment of a franchise movie. A lot of kids right now build their own memories of sw, with the sequels !
You can't disenfranchise your core demography just because the original was a fairytale for kids and you want another fairytale for kids. If your core demographic grows up with you, you're just an asshole for tossing them aside, because they're the one's that have the most invested in it. If you can't mature your tale with more complexity and sanity, just because it's too contrived, you just have a bunch of bad storytellers / written yourself in too many corners. There has been so much nonsensical, unnnecessary bullshit in the last 6 movies, it's such a hot mess to detangle it all. It may just be a byproduct of an era though, this too much inexplicable random bullshit.
On November 29 2019 21:47 Turbovolver wrote: I got curious about people walking out of test screenings and looked it up, suggestion was that was just a hoax to try to discredit the movie. Which sucks because I love me some drama and could barely care about Star Wars, haha.
Lucasfilms doesn't seem to do test screenings, there simply are a lot of very angry star wars fans who still haven't accepted that they disliked a star wars film / that no new star wars film will ever be able to replicate the feelings of the OT because they are idealised. Now i have read the leaks, one because i don't care about spoilers at all and also because i don't care too much about star wars either, these films are all about the same to me in their quality (outside of the prequels, they are hot garbage). Some of these plot points i find absurd, others are exactly what i would expect from a fairytale for children. Maybe at some point the 20+ year old children can come to this mindset as well and don't feel the need to procclaim that they childhood got destroyed because they didn't like the new installment of a franchise movie. A lot of kids right now build their own memories of sw, with the sequels !
That;s not the issue, the issue is the movies are bad SW movies. That's why their income from the box office isn't growing or stable but is falling down.
E.g. Rey - many people defend her with "SW fans hate females" - which isn't simply true. When they decided Revan was male and Meetra was female, there was a cute enrage that Revan should be female. And lives until now(canon was decided after the games). That's just one example telling that it's not about Rey being female but being bad written character.
And we can continue, but many stop at Rey because Rey is a bad character and she's the main character. Jar Jar was a bad character, young Anaking was a bad character. But they learned from this. What did they learn from E7? Luke is jerk for w/e reason, his "I will find good in everyone" is gone for w/e reason, his will to teach is gone for w/e reason and he dies with a rather stupid death(still Han's was more stupid). Oh the irony, that they let Leia survived and Carrie passed away Rose is another stupid character...
Those movies aren't for children per se, most of the SW fans are adult children in the end. The movies don't have to be extra adult, but FFS at least present us with some character development. And I don't call a development the fact, that Rey knows how to use force without previous training, knows how to pilot MF better than Han without any training ,bests everybody with training WITHOUT her having any training. My biggest issue with the new movies is Rey, she's so bad character it's not even funny.
On November 29 2019 21:47 Turbovolver wrote: I got curious about people walking out of test screenings and looked it up, suggestion was that was just a hoax to try to discredit the movie. Which sucks because I love me some drama and could barely care about Star Wars, haha.
There won't be any drama. People will go to see it anyway. FFS I know about 8 people who were disappointed from E7 and E8 and yet they already bought the tickets. So nothing will change, it won't do the best numbers, but still good numbers. The biggest drama will be butthurt babies on the internets who will go and see in cinemas and then they will be disappointed the same way they were disappointed after E7/8 but hey, you gotta spend the monies!
Disney makes G-rated movies for kids in order to push their merchandising. Disney does not care about their artistic integrity because that gets in the way of making billions of dollars. Star Wars is a boring, creatively bankrupt franchise that Disney spent way too much money on and will therefore keep churning out milquetoast movies for in order to recoup their investment. Star Wars fans are either children or manchildren that don't realize how absolutely bland and uninteresting the Star Wars setting is and that everything released after ROJ was created solely in order to squeeze as much money out of them as possible.
On December 05 2019 08:20 Erasme wrote: IDK at least the new movies will elevate the prequels to a masterpiece
If you think any of the new movies are worse than the prequels you need to sit in a room and try to watch those awful prequels again. At least they use sets and stunt performers in the new ones and the directors actually understand how action scenes should be filmed.
On December 05 2019 08:20 Erasme wrote: IDK at least the new movies will elevate the prequels to a masterpiece
If you think any of the new movies are worse than the prequels you need to sit in a room and try to watch those awful prequels again. At least they use sets and stunt performers in the new ones and the directors actually understand how action scenes should be filmed.
Lol ahahahah Sets and stunt performers over story and characters.. ? Congrats on the priorities my man The prequels have a story that somewhat holds up, with characters that arent total dumbasses (except the jedis in the 2nd) ewan mcgregor is better alone than anything in the new universe But i'd agree with you, the fact that they used a green screen is definitly why the prequels are worse than the new ones
On November 29 2019 21:47 Turbovolver wrote: I got curious about people walking out of test screenings and looked it up, suggestion was that was just a hoax to try to discredit the movie. Which sucks because I love me some drama and could barely care about Star Wars, haha.
Lucasfilms doesn't seem to do test screenings, there simply are a lot of very angry star wars fans who still haven't accepted that they disliked a star wars film / that no new star wars film will ever be able to replicate the feelings of the OT because they are idealised.
Dustin Browder dealt with this issue when he worked on Red Alert 2. Lots of hard core Red Alert 1 fans were very hard to please. He actually pulled it off and RA2 became more popular than RA1.
SC2 had a similar problem with SC1 fans remembering how they felt playing SC1 as opposed to remembering exact details. DT rushes and zergling rushes mucked up Vanilla SC1 and Brood War when it first came out. Remember the Academy was 200 minerals when SC1 first came out?
I think a big reason why Blizzard went with Browder on SC2 was his success with RA2.
All this said, i think the 1977 movie was the best of the series. The Disney Star Wars movies have slowly gotten worse. Rogue-1 was pretty good. Then, the movies started getting worse. It sort of reminds me of EA taking over an independent mid-sized game studio like Westwood. The first game, C&C Generals, is pretty good. Then the games start slowly getting worse.
The OT worked so well because it was basically your standard fairy tale but in space. Farmboy discovers he's descendant of a knight, meets an older knight and becomes his squire to train and save the princess from clutches of evil sorcerer and his dark knight enforcer. It's a story everyone has heard a thousand times over and something that's ingrained in us so much that we like it no matter what.
The prequels expanded on that by showing us the colorful glory days. Unfortunately it was riddled too much with boring politics and flashy CGI for the sake of flashy CGI since it was a fad in the movies back then. Still, the core held true to the usual fairy tales of knights in training, forbidden love between the princess and a knight leading to his downfall in the end, etc.
This new trilogy has very little of that. In the beginning I was kinda intrigued with Rey being this orphan with potential, but it soon became super boring with her just easily overcoming any obstacle set before her. It was completely ruined when it was revealed she's a nobody without any ties to the actual heroes we used to love. Then there was this strange connection she had with the evil knight Kylo, but that arc was also ruined. There are some kernels of good story here and there in the NT, but they're never expanded upon or made into the core of the story as they should. That's why it's just an incoherent mess with bland characters no one cares about.
I guess the worst thing in NT is that there are no stakes at all. Kylo was set up as the villain but got defeated during his first encounter with Rey. Then there was Snoke, but we all know how this ended up. Now it's going to be Palpatine, but it's the last movie so it's not like he's going to be triumphant... Kylo has had so much potential when they set him up, looking all ominous, stopping blaster shots in the air and all that jazz. But then he just gets dismantled by a newbie and all that build-up is gone. Compare that to Vader who was the ultimate badass for the longest time, destroying everything and everyone in his path.
On December 05 2019 17:21 Manit0u wrote: The OT worked so well because it was basically your standard fairy tale but in space.
in 1977, it was only 4 years since the last man walked on the moon. There was genuine hope that further amazing breakthroughs in human space exploration would occur in the near future. A good % of people believed the upcoming Space Shuttle would make space travel a common occurrence.
Space was a frontier of new hope in 1977. Now, its a brick wall that can't be penetrated. Unlike Von Braun's lofty hopes the SPace Shuttle ended up never going more than 400 KM off the surface of the earth.
There was a universal love for Space as a new frontier for exploration that does not exist today.
On December 05 2019 17:21 Manit0u wrote: The OT worked so well because it was basically your standard fairy tale but in space.
in 1977, it was only 4 years since the last man walked on the moon. There was genuine hope that further amazing breakthroughs in human space exploration would occur in the near future. A good % of people believed the upcoming Space Shuttle would make space travel a common occurrence.
Space was a frontier of new hope in 1977. Now, its a brick wall that can't be penetrated. Unlike Von Braun's lofty hopes the SPace Shuttle ended up never going more than 400 KM off the surface of the earth.
There was a universal love for Space as a new frontier for exploration that does not exist today.
Then again not every space movie in the 70 had SW success. Space opera was a novelty but OT had also amazing storytelling/editing which added to good acting, great script, great visuals and great music. The new trilogy does have good music and visuals. :S
On December 05 2019 08:20 Erasme wrote: IDK at least the new movies will elevate the prequels to a masterpiece
If you think any of the new movies are worse than the prequels you need to sit in a room and try to watch those awful prequels again. At least they use sets and stunt performers in the new ones and the directors actually understand how action scenes should be filmed.
Lol ahahahah Sets and stunt performers over story and characters.. ? Congrats on the priorities my man The prequels have a story that somewhat holds up, with characters that arent total dumbasses (except the jedis in the 2nd) ewan mcgregor is better alone than anything in the new universe But i'd agree with you, the fact that they used a green screen is definitly why the prequels are worse than the new ones
I mean, ultimately film is a visual medium. When so much of a movie is okay for the time (now bad) CGI, it makes it tough for me to take a film seriously in 2019. Infinite money combined with Lucas' laziness "vision" to create something that aged very poorly. A New Hope's miniatures and matte paintings look like a movie more than 40 years later. The droids and clones...do not. And it certainly didn't help the actors' performances.
If a movie looks bad, it needs a great script or compelling performances. PT has neither of those. For every Ewan McGregor there's three Haydens and Samuels and Natalies.
I'm also not sure I would agree the story of the prequels holds up at all (first movie is pointless, second movie is nonsense, third movie's opener makes very little sense without external context, Anakin is never actually a good dude onscreen), but I don't think that discussion would go anywhere.
On December 05 2019 17:21 Manit0u wrote: The OT worked so well because it was basically your standard fairy tale but in space.
in 1977, it was only 4 years since the last man walked on the moon. There was genuine hope that further amazing breakthroughs in human space exploration would occur in the near future. A good % of people believed the upcoming Space Shuttle would make space travel a common occurrence.
Space was a frontier of new hope in 1977. Now, its a brick wall that can't be penetrated. Unlike Von Braun's lofty hopes the SPace Shuttle ended up never going more than 400 KM off the surface of the earth.
There was a universal love for Space as a new frontier for exploration that does not exist today.
Then again not every space movie in the 70 had SW success. Space opera was a novelty but OT had also amazing storytelling/editing which added to good acting, great script, great visuals and great music. The new trilogy does have good music and visuals. :S
The visuals in the new Disney movies and the prequel trilogy are top notch. They are not leaps and bounds better than anything else that exists. However, the OT , and particularly the 1977 and 1980 movies, had visuals that were more than an order of magnitude better than anything else. The unprecedented, unmatched visuals gave the '77 and '80 movies a kind of legitimacy other space based TV and movies couldn't touch.
After the '77 movie Star Trek TV episodes were met with a certain nostalgic sneer that didn't exist until the audience saw that something much better visually was possible.
I wonder if the level of polish and fidelity of those early Star Wars movies impacted Blizzard's founders in their decision to make games with great polish. Blizzard founders were in their teenage and childhood years during the OT.
On December 05 2019 23:50 KelianQatar wrote: Don't worry, the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda will save the entire franchise!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFHRvkfugkw I think they saw how baby Groot pulled at fans' heartstrings!
i think this is a great way to get more women interested in Star Wars.
The OT has had tons of influences in all areas of humanity. That's why Star Wars became such a big thing. It gave millions of people of all ages things to dream about.
On December 05 2019 08:20 Erasme wrote: IDK at least the new movies will elevate the prequels to a masterpiece
If you think any of the new movies are worse than the prequels you need to sit in a room and try to watch those awful prequels again. At least they use sets and stunt performers in the new ones and the directors actually understand how action scenes should be filmed.
Lol ahahahah Sets and stunt performers over story and characters.. ? Congrats on the priorities my man The prequels have a story that somewhat holds up, with characters that arent total dumbasses (except the jedis in the 2nd) ewan mcgregor is better alone than anything in the new universe But i'd agree with you, the fact that they used a green screen is definitly why the prequels are worse than the new ones
I mean, ultimately film is a visual medium. When so much of a movie is okay for the time (now bad) CGI, it makes it tough for me to take a film seriously in 2019. Infinite money combined with Lucas' laziness "vision" to create something that aged very poorly. A New Hope's miniatures and matte paintings look like a movie more than 40 years later. The droids and clones...do not. And it certainly didn't help the actors' performances.
If a movie looks bad, it needs a great script or compelling performances. PT has neither of those. For every Ewan McGregor there's three Haydens and Samuels and Natalies.
I'm also not sure I would agree the story of the prequels holds up at all (first movie is pointless, second movie is nonsense, third movie's opener makes very little sense without external context, Anakin is never actually a good dude onscreen), but I don't think that discussion would go anywhere.
Yeah, the Anakin change was done very poorly. He massacres a whole Tusken village and in E3 NOBODY CARES. Like... seriously? This is the Republic? This is the Jedi order, peacekeepers and protectors? Even if we accept that Tatooine isn't in the Republic jurisdiction - nobody in the order cares? Also fear/hate brings you to the dark side, that's why we antagonize this youngling(E1) by refusing him so he can go towards the dark side? Jedi council, do you even have brains?
Anyway, in this sense I have to agree, it was lazy-ish, but that comes from the point it had to be continuous with the old trilogy and Lucas isn't a great writer.
Edit> Screw that. Nobody cared in E2 either!!!!! Peace. Keepers. Of. The. Galaxy. Tell that to the dead Tuskens.
On December 05 2019 08:20 Erasme wrote: IDK at least the new movies will elevate the prequels to a masterpiece
If you think any of the new movies are worse than the prequels you need to sit in a room and try to watch those awful prequels again. At least they use sets and stunt performers in the new ones and the directors actually understand how action scenes should be filmed.
Lol ahahahah Sets and stunt performers over story and characters.. ? Congrats on the priorities my man The prequels have a story that somewhat holds up, with characters that arent total dumbasses (except the jedis in the 2nd) ewan mcgregor is better alone than anything in the new universe But i'd agree with you, the fact that they used a green screen is definitly why the prequels are worse than the new ones
I mean, ultimately film is a visual medium. When so much of a movie is okay for the time (now bad) CGI, it makes it tough for me to take a film seriously in 2019. Infinite money combined with Lucas' laziness "vision" to create something that aged very poorly. A New Hope's miniatures and matte paintings look like a movie more than 40 years later. The droids and clones...do not. And it certainly didn't help the actors' performances.
If a movie looks bad, it needs a great script or compelling performances. PT has neither of those. For every Ewan McGregor there's three Haydens and Samuels and Natalies.
I'm also not sure I would agree the story of the prequels holds up at all (first movie is pointless, second movie is nonsense, third movie's opener makes very little sense without external context, Anakin is never actually a good dude onscreen), but I don't think that discussion would go anywhere.
Yeah, the Anakin change was done very poorly. He massacres a whole Tusken village and in E3 NOBODY CARES. Like... seriously? This is the Republic? This is the Jedi order, peacekeepers and protectors? Even if we accept that Tatooine isn't in the Republic jurisdiction - nobody in the order cares? Also fear/hate brings you to the dark side, that's why we antagonize this youngling(E1) by refusing him so he can go towards the dark side? Jedi council, do you even have brains?
Anyway, in this sense I have to agree, it was lazy-ish, but that comes from the point it had to be continuous with the old trilogy and Lucas isn't a great writer.
Edit> Screw that. Nobody cared in E2 either!!!!! Peace. Keepers. Of. The. Galaxy. Tell that to the dead Tuskens.
Could anyone in the Republic really have known though? Seemed like Anakin only really confessed to Padme about it. Yoda felt that Anakin was going through some emo business, but didn't seem to know or probe beyond that. The village itself was out in the middle of nowhere on a planet in the periphery. It's not like they could even have picked up rumors when war was about to break out.
If were talking about every single bad moments, lets talk on how the 8th movie destroyed space battles. Or how the second half of that movie was due to everyone being dumber than a rock. There are 0 interesting characters in the new franchise.
On December 07 2019 05:21 Erasme wrote: If were talking about every single bad moments, lets talk on how the 8th movie destroyed space battles. Or how the second half of that movie was due to everyone being dumber than a rock. There are 0 interesting characters in the new franchise.
Or how the 1st movie destroyed super weapons.
Or how the 2nd movie destroyed big twists.
Or how the 3rd movie destroyed Force powers.
Or how the 4th movie destroyed how to become a Jedi.
On December 08 2019 14:35 Falling wrote: None of those are true in any meaningful sense.
Not sure if you're including mine as well, so i'll clarify. What's the point of building big ships when you can just strap on an hyperdrive on a piece of junk, and send it through the enemy fleet ?
When the original creator of a successful//popular//great franchise "cashes out" very often the most hardcore fans have an extremely negative view of the new material made by the money machine that bought franchise.
The OT is clearly the vision and creation of one person. These last few movies were created by a committee.
On December 09 2019 04:04 JimmyJRaynor wrote: When the original creator of a successful//popular//great franchise "cashes out" very often the most hardcore fans have an extremely negative view of the new material made by the money machine that bought franchise.
The OT is clearly the vision and creation of one person. These last few movies were created by a committee.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
There would be nothing wrong if the committee was competent. As it was they've picked mediocre directors at best and chose someone who has 0 idea about the franchise to be the head of it (Kathleen Kennedy didn't even know there was any source material besides the OT/Prequels, and I'm not sure she even saw that).
The lack of any real plan or overarching vision (and a way to enforce it) also didn't help, which allowed Ruin Johnson to pretty much just ignore what Jar Jar Abrams set up, throw a monkey wrench into the cogs and waste budget on his nonsensical plot twists and stuff that could just as well be left out of the movie (the entire casino scene). Now Jar Jar is back and has to somehow tie up this mess.
Judging from what he said in the interviews it seems like he just wants to be done with it as soon as possible so he can move on to destroy the DCU over at WB. It's like he doesn't even give a fuck any more with sentences like "Ruin has shown me the way, I don't need to be scared any more as I can do whatever I want even though it will aggravate some people."
Why should a director give a fuck about a franchise where the company ordering the movies have no clue, just want a cash grab and don't have a vision of their own? He gets to cash out anyway. You could call him out on his integrity, but this blatant profit hunting just kind of leans to not caring, or am I wrong here?
On December 09 2019 20:44 Uldridge wrote: Why should a director give a fuck about a franchise where the company ordering the movies have no clue, just want a cash grab and don't have a vision of their own? He gets to cash out anyway. You could call him out on his integrity, but this blatant profit hunting just kind of leans to not caring, or am I wrong here?
Well, it really depends on how you look at it. If you have cash to spend (like Disney) you could either use it to hire a very competent director and screenwriters, then regardless of their interest in the SW universe you'd get a good movie anyway and have protected your newly acquired franchise, or you could just give the money to random dudes and let them do whatever, which is pretty much what happens.
I mean, it probably wouldn't be all that bad if you had very good screenwriters who'd have done the entire trilogy or at least the first part and have basic outlines for the other 2 and then handed it over to the directors while they polish/finish the script for the rest. They had Kasdan, but he hasn't done anything significant in the past 30 years, JJ and Arndt aren't really good screenwriters either. Then for the second (and very important) act you get someone who's done just 3 movies so far. Granted, 2 of them were relatively good but he's still just writing for himself and you have no idea how he can handle an existing project and if he can play well with others (obviously he can't).
It's super stupid of Disney in my opinion. If you want to protect your new investment the least you could do is hire competent people, regardless of how enthusiastic they are about the franchise. Take your sweet time to properly build it up and then go with it. Instead they just rushed out of the gate without any plan and doing whatever, thinking that'll satisfy the fans.
Unfortunately for Disney SW has a very big and very old fandom, of which quite a bit are hardcore fanatics and they won't let you slide with mediocre stuff (see outrage at the prequels, which weren't as bad as the new trilogy). If handled well, the new trilogy movies would break records left and right, each one of them topping Avengers. Instead you have movies that barely sure made some money but have angered a lot of fandom so your primary sources of revenue for the franchise (merch) has plummeted.
We'll have to wait and see what happens after the dust settles. Disney already know they've made a mistake and have backed off of some SW projects. Let's see how much this trilogy will hurt them in the long run and if they can correct the mistakes in the future.
On December 09 2019 20:44 Uldridge wrote: Why should a director give a fuck about a franchise where the company ordering the movies have no clue, just want a cash grab and don't have a vision of their own? He gets to cash out anyway. You could call him out on his integrity, but this blatant profit hunting just kind of leans to not caring, or am I wrong here?
Only if you are about short term gains and are okay burning your bridges. But there's a lot more money to be made if one makes excellent movies thereby building a reputation for oneself. At this point, I will see any film by Nolan, for instance. He has a very solid track record.
For Disney, why did they plan out trilogy, nevermind 10 films in advance? Why is only the third film in the continuing saga already being called "The End"? This should be the beginning of a multi-movie story, setting up plot lines five films in advance. But they're just waffing around and then closing it down after 5 films? (Now of course, I don't actually believe them. Never Say Die/ if you can't Sequel it, then Prequel it, and if neither, then Reboot.)
But the sky is the limit to how expansive the storytelling is- and instead we're stuck with a rehash of ANH and a Frankenstein rehash of Empire and Return, resurrect the Emperor one last time to kill him again and we're done? If they were after cash, they got it alright, but there's a lot more in that bank.
On December 10 2019 07:57 sharkie wrote: And whydo you think theyd be thinking of long term?
Because if you want a lot of money, like marvel, you make a lot of movies in one universe that somewhat make sense
You forgot to add that you also want to expand your fandom and not divide and destroy it. In my opinion if the new SW trilogy would be actually good then it would bring new people into the fold while retaining all the old fans who are really driving this franchise as they're the ones buying all the merch. But I guess it's impossible for Disney to abandon their agenda pushing (you can do it, but don't be so obnoxious about it) as being prime motivator instead of good story.
All they had to do is give a proper send-off to the old cast and introduce 2-3 new characters to serve as a kernel for your new epic saga that you can expand upon later. What they did instead was ruin all the old characters and introduce us to some new ones that no one gives a damn about because of how bland and uninteresting they are.
They had all the things to make it work. With Finn I could totally dig storm trooper going AWOL, but they've decided to make him a comic-relief character. Poe being an awesome pilot and such also had potential, but then they made him just crack stupid jokes and be dull. Rey... Rey would be fine if she weren't a total Mary Sue. Like, give her some obstacle she can't tackle and maybe needs help from the others to overcome. Make the villain actually be a threat to her etc.
Really, if you think about it they had all the tools they needed, they just didn't know how to handle them... Take Kylo for example. I could totally dig sith apprentice throwing temper tantrums. I could totally dig this mind-link he had with Rey, which if handled correctly could be turned into a gripping emotional backdrop of a love-hate relationship between the two, but for that we'd need to actually care about Rey and her being able to express some emotions. I would be OK with him killing Solo, if only they focused some more on Solo in this first part, so the nostalgia could really sink in. They should also make him a good father and not a bad one.
Just imagine this alternate plot for the Force Awakens: We start off with Han and Chewie roaming the galaxy, trying to find Kylo, who has disappeared from Luke's academy for some reason. Leia can't participate because she has governments to run while Luke has his other apprentices. On the way there they meet Rey who they save from the slavers or something. They also come across mysterious stranger who desperately needs transportation off the planet (meet Finn). They have adventures, stuff happens, they meet Kylo who kills Han and the others flee because he's way too scary and strong for them to handle.
Some very important distinctions here: we start off with old cast, who will slowly give way to the younglings. Han is a good and loving father and not some washout, making it much harder for Kylo to actually kill him, and by developing their relationship throughout the film (we can do that now since we follow Han, not Rey) we give the scene a lot more emotional impact and Han a proper sendoff.
From then on it's also much easier to transition into Leia and then Luke. After Han's death Chewie takes Rey to Leia, she senses the Force in her and sends her to Luke. Natural freaking progression. Then you have FO kill Leia at the end of the movie while Rey is training with Luke. Then at the beginning of the third movie you get Kylo with his knights attack Luke's academy, kill him and injure Rey (Hitchcock style, begin with the earthquake and then continue building suspense). Now the third movie is about her gathering allies (Finn, Poe), getting instruction from ghost Luke and finally overcoming Kylo in the end.
One of the ways it could've been done. No bullshit, real simple story, but also one that probably everyone would like to see more than what we got. It took me like 2 minutes to come up with it too as I was making it up as I was typing. I don't want to believe that Disney can't find people in Hollywood who do that kind for a living and can actually get you a cohesive, polished and interesting story for a movie trilogy in like a year's time. Now they're telling us that 4 years after the release of the first movie they're doing re-shoots for the third movie because they haven't decided on how it's going to end? That's some real crap right there...
i think its dumb when the Star Wars actors/creative-team-members yap away about Trump. Were George Lucas, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher yapping away about Reagan or Carter or the US hostages in Iran? What was Carrie Fisher's view on stag-flation?
On December 11 2019 04:38 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i think its dumb when the Star Wars actors/creative-team-members yap away about Trump. Were George Lucas, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher yapping away about Reagan or Carter or the US hostages in Iran? What was Carrie Fisher's view on stag-flation?
Mark Hamill? The Mark Hamill who made parody recordings of Donald Trump tweets using his Joker voice while Last Jedi was in production? That Mark Hamill?
Yeah if he had access to today's technology he'd probably have "yapped away" about a thing or two back in the day.
On December 11 2019 04:38 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i think its dumb when the Star Wars actors/creative-team-members yap away about Trump. Were George Lucas, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher yapping away about Reagan or Carter or the US hostages in Iran? What was Carrie Fisher's view on stag-flation?
Mark Hamill? The Mark Hamill who made parody recordings of Donald Trump tweets using his Joker voice while Last Jedi was in production? That Mark Hamill?
Yeah if he had access to today's technology he'd probably have "yapped away" about a thing or two back in the day.
Today's tech ain't that advanced. Lucas, Hamill, Ford, and Fisher got interviewed 87 bazillion times and did the entire late night talk show circuit several times each.
If they wanted to whine they could have. Johnny Carson and David Letterman had lots of guests that had all kinds of negative things to say about politicians. Usually it was part of their over all schtick.. but not always.
Who needs R2 D2? we've got that White and Orange Round thing now! Only $9 In Canadian money or $6 in US Funds. Skip Starbucks and pick up a life size Star Wars side kick robot instead!
Maybe they weren't old/secure enough to say w/e they really thought at the time. So "if they were silent at the time (even tho they shouldn't) they should be silent now" ? Amazing logic.
On December 12 2019 07:51 Erasme wrote: Maybe they weren't old/secure enough to say w/e they really thought at the time. So "if they were silent at the time (even tho they shouldn't) they should be silent now" ? Amazing logic.
Silent? LOL. You can really get into it with your customers about the abortion issue or any other contentious political issue if you like. You are risking something like this though...
i don't share my libertarian views with my customers. they give me money and i sell them my report writer add-on tool. deal done. i wish more of my competitors would start to yap about politics with their customers though... maybe call a few of their customers pieces of shit for whatever their views are kinda like Rian Johnson did.... i could use the extra cash.
On December 11 2019 04:38 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i think its dumb when the Star Wars actors/creative-team-members yap away about Trump. Were George Lucas, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher yapping away about Reagan or Carter or the US hostages in Iran? What was Carrie Fisher's view on stag-flation?
It's simply: nothing as remotely insane as the Trump presidency has ever happened in the US history and it's even rare in the history of the western world as a whole (barring obvious outliers such as the Nazis). I think it is dumb for people with a public voice not to "yap away" about it.
You are obviously free to not like it, especially if you actually support Trump (I have honestly no idea if that's the case) and you are also free to not consume their products (in the vein of your later post where you posit yourself as their customer) abut they are also free to not give a shit, especially since they are already rich enough not to care about your money at all.
if you record yourself reading these spoilers (warning: clicking that link will take you to an alleged screenshot of one of the spoilers) out loud, you can get a free Whopper. Burger King has also released a commercial featuring the alleged spoilers embedded in the restaurant’s menu and showing customers freaking out over said spoilers:
if these spoilers and the ones going around youtube turn out to be true what a laugh it will be. It turns out Star Wars is doing a cross promotion with Mcdonald's. I am not sure of Burger King's standing in the world when it comes to fast food. In Canada and the north eastern USA BK was the clear #2 behind Mcdonald's a few decades ago. In the last 20 years though I think Burger King has fallen way behind.
If Burger King//Mcdonald's are in a Coke/Pepsi type of marketing war where its between #1 and #2 in Germany then this promo is pure genius. If BK is something like the 10th best fast food chain in Germany then this marketing stunt isn't as much fun.
On December 11 2019 04:38 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i think its dumb when the Star Wars actors/creative-team-members yap away about Trump. Were George Lucas, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher yapping away about Reagan or Carter or the US hostages in Iran? What was Carrie Fisher's view on stag-flation?
It's simply: nothing as remotely insane as the Trump presidency has ever happened in the US history and it's even rare in the history of the western world as a whole
you can just label anything an "outlier". You are a prisoner of the moment. Vietnam featured 1.3 million casualties. The average age of the American combat soldier was 19. The teenagers who lived through the war arrived home to the USA a shell of a human being. That's what happens when teenagers are placed in combat roles that includes hundreds of consecutive days of enemy fire in house-to-house battles. 19... just wow.
In 1990, NYC featured 3000 murders. In 2018 NYC had a lower murder rate than Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Droves of ambitious, hard working Canadians continue to move to the USA for better work and a better life. That's been happening for decades and it hasn't slowed down with Trump in power. Same shit... different decade.
I wonder if there will be any spoilers from Japan. AFAIK they're airing it there a week before anywhere else? In any case, 2-3 more days and it's here. Have some friends who are going to see it and will ask them how it was (I won't be seeing it).
Wait, so Snoke isn't coming back? He was just a discount Dooku with no plot twists or interesting backstory?
Palpatine's return is a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one. I hope they won't explain that by saying he cloned himself or anything like that, that would be weak.
On December 16 2019 20:25 Manit0u wrote: I wonder if there will be any spoilers from Japan. AFAIK they're airing it there a week before anywhere else? In any case, 2-3 more days and it's here. Have some friends who are going to see it and will ask them how it was (I won't be seeing it).
China gets their first public screenings on the 18th. I think the rest of the world gets theirs on the 20th.
The world premier is happening right now, and leaked pics are already popping up from that.
On December 17 2019 07:43 Sent. wrote: Wait, so Snoke isn't coming back? He was just a discount Dooku with no plot twists or interesting backstory?
Palpatine's return is a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one. I hope they won't explain that by saying he cloned himself or anything like that, that would be weak.
Palpatine's last minute return confirms to me they put nearly zero planning into making this a trilogy- that RJ suddenly cutting down Snoke, left a Snoke-sized hole in the series. Really, really bad planning.
On December 16 2019 20:25 Manit0u wrote: I wonder if there will be any spoilers from Japan. AFAIK they're airing it there a week before anywhere else? In any case, 2-3 more days and it's here. Have some friends who are going to see it and will ask them how it was (I won't be seeing it).
China gets their first public screenings on the 18th. I think the rest of the world gets theirs on the 20th.
The world premier is happening right now, and leaked pics are already popping up from that.
Nah it's out on the 18th in large parts of europe, etc, usa is behind
Apparently the leaks are true which isn't too surprising, god i am already excited to see the next wave of adults who'll cry about the film destroying star wars, bla bla bla while the target audience will enjoy it. The level of obsessiveness just humors me a lot, will be fun!
On December 17 2019 19:30 The_Red_Viper wrote: Why are you guys even in this thread when you haven't read the leaks? :D
where can I read them? I dont care about spoiling myself. Star wars only exists in 1-6 for me
There's a massive document making the rounds called The Rise of Skywalker Spoilerboard that's been posted on reddit, and it includes tons of alleged leaks all the way from spring. There's also a bunch of recent second-hand leaks, some purported screencaps from post production, and some absolutely obviously fake spoilers that some people still buy into (*sigh*). Also apparently some pictures from yesterday's premiere.
In any case, the movie is coming out tomorrow in many countries around the world, and the review embargo should lift around the same time, so you should start seeing plot synopses within the next 24 hours.
On December 17 2019 10:17 Wombat_NI wrote: Palpatine being back I mean what?
He was thrown down a rather large shaft on a Death Star that exploded, seems ridiculous to me.
Luckily I have a six year old who loves Star Wars so we’re going to see it this weekend, hopefully it subverts my expectations.
Leaks say that Luke and Vader killed the clone, not original Palpy, thus making Vader's sacrifice ultimately pointless. It's the OP Rey that's going to kill the real Palp.
On December 17 2019 10:17 Wombat_NI wrote: Palpatine being back I mean what?
He was thrown down a rather large shaft on a Death Star that exploded, seems ridiculous to me.
Luckily I have a six year old who loves Star Wars so we’re going to see it this weekend, hopefully it subverts my expectations.
Leaks say that Luke and Vader killed the clone, not original Palpy, thus making Vader's sacrifice ultimately pointless. It's the OP Rey that's going to kill the real Palp.
That is just an excuse for lazy writers, or maybe in this case those that are stuck in corner due to higher ups not making a long term plan. Also it never is explained how he survived etc. Then there is Snoke...
On December 17 2019 10:17 Wombat_NI wrote: Palpatine being back I mean what?
He was thrown down a rather large shaft on a Death Star that exploded, seems ridiculous to me.
Luckily I have a six year old who loves Star Wars so we’re going to see it this weekend, hopefully it subverts my expectations.
Leaks say that Luke and Vader killed the clone, not original Palpy, thus making Vader's sacrifice ultimately pointless. It's the OP Rey that's going to kill the real Palp.
The precious thing about this is that the clone could beat one on one at Vader and Luke, two of the strongest Jedis ever lol, what a real bs if that is the explanation, just clone Palpy 5 times and he will rule the galaxy forever.
"Moving beyond trilogies." They didn't even plan this one as a trilogy. Even doing one and done Star Wars films won't solve their problems if they insist on ignoring continuity and following whatever whim they please.
On December 18 2019 03:04 Falling wrote: "Moving beyond trilogies." They didn't even plan this one as a trilogy. Even doing one and done Star Wars films won't solve their problems if they insist on ignoring continuity and following whatever whim they please.
Indeed.
It’s just bizarre, the Marvel films if nothing else do this extremely well, while the Star Wars films do not do a good job particularly in this domain at all.
Don’t copy the films but at least look at what they do well in terms of world building, general plot buildup and how to build to something across many films even outside of the main line entries.
On December 18 2019 20:30 sharkie wrote: 50% scores for a blockbuster of that size? Holy shit, Disney really killed star wars
Who’s voting?
This isn’t to say it’s not bad, I shall reserve judgement.
When a big fandom is involved I really don’t trust these scores at all. In a really crude sense and I’m generalising I’ll see films up in the 90s or low down in the doldrums depending on whether they appealed to the most vociferous of the fanbase’s sensibilities, whereas wearing my ‘general audience’ hat they’ll both be 7/10 serviceable films.
On December 18 2019 20:30 sharkie wrote: 50% scores for a blockbuster of that size? Holy shit, Disney really killed star wars
Who’s voting?
This isn’t to say it’s not bad, I shall reserve judgement.
When a big fandom is involved I really don’t trust these scores at all. In a really crude sense and I’m generalising I’ll see films up in the 90s or low down in the doldrums depending on whether they appealed to the most vociferous of the fanbase’s sensibilities, whereas wearing my ‘general audience’ hat they’ll both be 7/10 serviceable films.
On December 18 2019 20:30 sharkie wrote: 50% scores for a blockbuster of that size? Holy shit, Disney really killed star wars
Who’s voting?
This isn’t to say it’s not bad, I shall reserve judgement.
When a big fandom is involved I really don’t trust these scores at all. In a really crude sense and I’m generalising I’ll see films up in the 90s or low down in the doldrums depending on whether they appealed to the most vociferous of the fanbase’s sensibilities, whereas wearing my ‘general audience’ hat they’ll both be 7/10 serviceable films.
Rotten Tomatoes: 55%
Metacritic: 53/100
If they’re both bad that’s usually pretty solid as an indicator
I remember right after TFA came out there was a post on /r/confessions from a suicidal guy who said he was going to hold off on killing himself until 2019 because he wanted to see the sequel trilogy through.
On December 19 2019 07:45 riotjune wrote: Eh, guess I'll watch a cam copy or read a summary somewhere online after it comes out, that's how excited I am for this movie
I think I might actually not ever see it. Sometimes I do that with movies that I've lost interest in and I don't even check them out when they're released in good quality later on streaming services or torrents. Just like I'll probably never see Terminator: Dark Fate.
I'll watch some reviews and read a synopsis but that's it. I can't wait for Mr Plinkett to do his review of it, but that might take a while (seeing how his reviews of previous episodes are longer than the movies themselves).
Everything Im seeing after a cursory glance makes it seem like this movie will be bad and Cats is in theaters...
If I'm going to see a bad movie I feel compelled to watch the frightening and bizarre fever dream bad rather than the Star Wars bad.
Invalidating the original trilogy's big bad is just so... oof. I'm not even attached to Star Wars, basically at all, and I find that to be pretty shitty.
Seems like JJ Abrams is in damage control mode. How Rian Johnson is even attached to other projects after, seemingly, screwed up this trilogy. Makes me wonder if we'll ever hear about the drama that happened behind the scenes of these three films.
On December 20 2019 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Seems like JJ Abrams is in damage control mode. How Rian Johnson is even attached to other projects after, seemingly, screwed up this trilogy.
1) The Last Jedi made a whole bunch of money.
2) Knives Out has been extremely well received and will probably turn a decent profit.
3) Johnson must know how to play studio politics.
The question is, was it Abrams, Johnson, Kennedy or something else entirely? Once those NDAs start expiring, maybe we'll find out.
On December 20 2019 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Seems like JJ Abrams is in damage control mode. How Rian Johnson is even attached to other projects after, seemingly, screwed up this trilogy. Makes me wonder if we'll ever hear about the drama that happened behind the scenes of these three films.
On December 20 2019 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Seems like JJ Abrams is in damage control mode. How Rian Johnson is even attached to other projects after, seemingly, screwed up this trilogy. Makes me wonder if we'll ever hear about the drama that happened behind the scenes of these three films.
On December 20 2019 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Seems like JJ Abrams is in damage control mode. How Rian Johnson is even attached to other projects after, seemingly, screwed up this trilogy. Makes me wonder if we'll ever hear about the drama that happened behind the scenes of these three films.
You know that jj abrams started the shit? Rian johnson had to follow up from his shit
An issue is that Ryan fucked over the storylines from the first movie while making the second movie in a trilogy.
But I won't even blame Ryan for that to much, he was (apparently) given full creative freedom to do what he wanted and that's what he did. The issue is that he should never have had that freedom. Someone is responsible for making sure that a trilogy stays on track, even if directors change and that was Kennedy's job. If they wanted to depart from what JJ made in TFA then he shouldn't have been brought back to make RoS, which from what I am hearing is trying to cram what should have been TLJ and RoS into one film. So JJ at least appears to have had a vision for the trilogy. The problem was that Ryan was allowed to depart from that (ignoring for now whatever or not JJ's vision was/is good enough, apparently it was Kennedy cause he came back for part 3...)
On December 20 2019 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Seems like JJ Abrams is in damage control mode. How Rian Johnson is even attached to other projects after, seemingly, screwed up this trilogy. Makes me wonder if we'll ever hear about the drama that happened behind the scenes of these three films.
You know that jj abrams started the shit? Rian johnson had to follow up from his shit
An issue is that Ryan fucked over the storylines from the first movie while making the second movie in a trilogy.
But I won't even blame Ryan for that to much, he was (apparently) given full creative freedom to do what he wanted and that's what he did. The issue is that he should never have had that freedom. Someone is responsible for making sure that a trilogy stays on track, even if directors change and that was Kennedy's job. If they wanted to depart from what JJ made in TFA then he shouldn't have been brought back to make RoS, which from what I am hearing is trying to cram what should have been TLJ and RoS into one film. So JJ at least appears to have had a vision for the trilogy. The problem was that Ryan was allowed to depart from that (ignoring for now whatever or not JJ's vision was/is good enough, apparently it was Kennedy cause he came back for part 3...)
An issue is that they didn't have a proper outline for the entire trilogy from the get go and then someone to enforce it so that even with different directors the overall vision would remain coherent.
Edit:
I will re-iterate here that I don't believe that with the money and reach Disney has they couldn't hire some strong story team (or even just a single person) to flesh everything out right out of the gate. Then you can get directors like JJ, who are competent but not very good storytellers themselves and just hand them over a ready script that they have to follow. Instead they've taken one of the least creative directors and one of the more creative oddballs and told them to do pretty much whatever the hell they want. It was doomed to fail from the start.
I wouldn't blame it all on Ryan, sure he did fuck up, but a bigger fuck up was people actually hiring him for this job. I really liked his earlier movies and admired the creativity in them, but for an established franchise like SW, where you have millions of hardcore fans worldwide you need someone safe, not someone doing weird and artsy stuff.
This is literally all they had to do: play it safe just to finish the Skywalker saga and appease the megafans. After that you can close the door on it and do whatever the heck you want with all the spinoffs, new trilogies and whatever. But they've done fucked it up.
On another note I think that people most to blame would be at the very top. Bob and Kathleen. They've just mishandled the franchise horribly, with the only good things to come out of it so far being Rogue One and Mandalorian. But even with that Disney is now bleeding money. People love baby yoda but Disney has no merch for it (an awful mug, that's it) while if you go over to AliExpress you get a bunch of cool stuff there that Chinese have already come up with. FFS even my wife ordered me a cool T-shirt with Mandalorian and baby yoda for like $7.
SW is one of the franchises with the highest revenue potential in the world yet they let it all go to waste because of terrible mismanagement. It's a pity to see it go up in flames like that.
On December 20 2019 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Seems like JJ Abrams is in damage control mode. How Rian Johnson is even attached to other projects after, seemingly, screwed up this trilogy. Makes me wonder if we'll ever hear about the drama that happened behind the scenes of these three films.
You know that jj abrams started the shit? Rian johnson had to follow up from his shit
An issue is that Ryan fucked over the storylines from the first movie while making the second movie in a trilogy.
But I won't even blame Ryan for that to much, he was (apparently) given full creative freedom to do what he wanted and that's what he did. The issue is that he should never have had that freedom. Someone is responsible for making sure that a trilogy stays on track, even if directors change and that was Kennedy's job. If they wanted to depart from what JJ made in TFA then he shouldn't have been brought back to make RoS, which from what I am hearing is trying to cram what should have been TLJ and RoS into one film. So JJ at least appears to have had a vision for the trilogy. The problem was that Ryan was allowed to depart from that (ignoring for now whatever or not JJ's vision was/is good enough, apparently it was Kennedy cause he came back for part 3...)
An issue is that they didn't have a proper outline for the entire trilogy from the get go and then someone to enforce it so that even with different directors the overall vision would remain coherent.
Edit:
I will re-iterate here that I don't believe that with the money and reach Disney has they couldn't hire some strong story team (or even just a single person) to flesh everything out right out of the gate. Then you can get directors like JJ, who are competent but not very good storytellers themselves and just hand them over a ready script that they have to follow. Instead they've taken one of the least creative directors and one of the more creative oddballs and told them to do pretty much whatever the hell they want. It was doomed to fail from the start.
I wouldn't blame it all on Ryan, sure he did fuck up, but a bigger fuck up was people actually hiring him for this job. I really liked his earlier movies and admired the creativity in them, but for an established franchise like SW, where you have millions of hardcore fans worldwide you need someone safe, not someone doing weird and artsy stuff.
This is literally all they had to do: play it safe just to finish the Skywalker saga and appease the megafans. After that you can close the door on it and do whatever the heck you want with all the spinoffs, new trilogies and whatever. But they've done fucked it up.
This is what massively confuses me.
You buy a franchise for a crazy amount of money and give Rian Johnson the reins for the second entry?
I think the guy has a lot of talent, there are aspects of TLJ I do really like, some I definitely don’t but it’s a super disruptive film in the middle of such a franchise.
With a few little tweaks I mean the confrontation on ‘not Hoth’ is almost what I’d put at the end of a trilogy, Kylo is defeated by a Luke Skywalker who subsequently dies, saving a decimated ‘not Rebels’ yadda yadda
Instead you have a third film where Snoke is dead, there’s about 12 members of the Rebellion alive etc, it’s just a bit messy.
Why there wasn’t more oversight here confuses me. George Lucas himself didn’t do a good job when nobody was there to challenge him and not be a yes man.
On December 20 2019 07:48 Manit0u wrote: On another note I think that people most to blame would be at the very top. Bob and Kathleen. They've just mishandled the franchise horribly, with the only good things to come out of it so far being Rogue One and Mandalorian. But even with that Disney is now bleeding money. People love baby yoda but Disney has no merch for it (an awful mug, that's it) while if you go over to AliExpress you get a bunch of cool stuff there that Chinese have already come up with. FFS even my wife ordered me a cool T-shirt with Mandalorian and baby yoda for like $7.
SW is one of the franchises with the highest revenue potential in the world yet they let it all go to waste because of terrible mismanagement. It's a pity to see it go up in flames like that.
Yeah, I've heard that they have had horrible luck selling merchandise (the key money maker of Star Wars, as we all should know by now) because they aren't able to make the right kind of merchandise that people actually want. Another example: the porg was something that should have been a best-seller (and people wanted them), but in their incompetence they couldn't make them the right color, right texture, etc. Dunno how - for all the hate that the prequel trilogy has garnered, at least they seemed to be very good at capitalizing on the merchandising opportunities that the films made.
On December 20 2019 08:08 LegalLord wrote: Dunno how - for all the hate that the prequel trilogy has garnered, at least they seemed to be very good at capitalizing on the merchandising opportunities that the films made.
Definitely. Darth Maul alone could be made into his own profitable franchise (and we're talking here about a character that was on the screen for 5-10 minutes and died). Then there was pod racing, all the droids and clones, Naboo court which was pretty much cosplayer's wet dream etc. The prequels weren't all that great but somehow still managed to feel like Star Wars. This new trilogy simply doesn't give out the proper vibes. Maybe TFA had a bit of it (and I think that the trilogy was completely salvagable after it), but TLJ made me completely disinterested in the story...
Edit: Speaking of Maul, it's funny how such side character, who was barely in the movie and barely spoke was way more interesting than any of the main characters of this new trilogy. I know more about him than I know about Kylo.
Watched it last night, thought it was ok but the ending scene with Kyle and Rey was really cringe worthy. After looking at the reviews I agree it was really not up to standard.
On December 20 2019 08:08 LegalLord wrote: Dunno how - for all the hate that the prequel trilogy has garnered, at least they seemed to be very good at capitalizing on the merchandising opportunities that the films made.
Definitely. Darth Maul alone could be made into his own profitable franchise (and we're talking here about a character that was on the screen for 5-10 minutes and died). Then there was pod racing, all the droids and clones, Naboo court which was pretty much cosplayer's wet dream etc. The prequels weren't all that great but somehow still managed to feel like Star Wars. This new trilogy simply doesn't give out the proper vibes. Maybe TFA had a bit of it (and I think that the trilogy was completely salvagable after it), but TLJ made me completely disinterested in the story...
Edit: Speaking of Maul, it's funny how such side character, who was barely in the movie and barely spoke was way more interesting than any of the main characters of this new trilogy. I know more about him than I know about Kylo.
Completely disagree on the Prequels, consider them good or bad they really didn’t have the Star Wars ‘feel to them.
New trilogy has a ton of flaws, did have that though if nothing else
For me the new trilogy is more like a parody of the real SW universe, I never felt anything that related to SW, well maybe the Millenium Falcon and nothing else, it is absurd how I dont give a shit about Ray, Poe, Finn, and Kylo story. This trilogy could be called non cannon and nothing happens.
Adam Driver was literally the best part of every part of this damn movie. Kylo's arc was pretty well done. I was really surprised by the kiss at the end too. Raised a lot of eyebrows and questions.
Absolutely everything not concerning him was complete and utter trash. Holy shit that movie was terrible.
I mean yea it was enjoyable, but if you look at it with any ounce of critical thought it was complete and total rubbish.
Rey's Mary Sue-ness reaches peak levels, the writing is God-awful and trivializes both the original trilogy and Episode XIII, and the pacing gives you whiplash.
On December 20 2019 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Seems like JJ Abrams is in damage control mode. How Rian Johnson is even attached to other projects after, seemingly, screwed up this trilogy. Makes me wonder if we'll ever hear about the drama that happened behind the scenes of these three films.
You know that jj abrams started the shit? Rian johnson had to follow up from his shit
Naw. I blame JJ for a bunch of things- rebooting the Empire vs Rebels dynamic, not having a Jedi Academy up and running and not having Leia a Jedi master amongst other things.
However, TLJ is a mess of unequalled proportions all by itself.
It could be understandable (maybe) that it was incoherent to Star Wars as a whole and incoherent as a middle chapter to a trilogy (it's like Rian didn't think there was a third movie and his duty was to end all the plot lines of the first.) But it's a incoherent story on its own terms- just thinking of the story in isolation to itself. Chalk full of plot contrivances, terrible plotting, meaningless teasing and no delivery and preachiness (with is often unintentionally in conflict with its own plot), stringing together scenes from ESB and Return in random order. It's a mess all by itself with no help from JJ.
On December 20 2019 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Seems like JJ Abrams is in damage control mode. How Rian Johnson is even attached to other projects after, seemingly, screwed up this trilogy. Makes me wonder if we'll ever hear about the drama that happened behind the scenes of these three films.
You know that jj abrams started the shit? Rian johnson had to follow up from his shit
Naw. I blame JJ for a bunch of things- rebooting the Empire vs Rebels dynamic, not having a Jedi Academy up and running and not having Leia a Jedi master amongst other things.
However, TLJ is a mess of unequalled proportions all by itself.
It could be understandable (maybe) that it was incoherent to Star Wars as a whole and incoherent as a middle chapter to a trilogy (it's like Rian didn't think there was a third movie and his duty was to end all the plot lines of the first.) But it's a incoherent story on its own terms- just thinking of the story in isolation to itself. Chalk full of plot contrivances, terrible plotting, meaningless teasing and no delivery and preachiness (with is often unintentionally in conflict with its own plot), stringing together scenes from ESB and Return in random order. It's a mess all by itself with no help from JJ.
Caveat- of the movies I have seen so far. TLJ is an unforced error. IX was trapped in a tiny box before it even started. It remains to be seen if it also dominated by unforced errors.
Saw the movie last night. While I was watching it, I really enjoyed it. Action, effects, and Drivers performance were all good.
Thinking about it later, the plot and writing was clearly done to undo some of the missteps in 8 and the rest of it played safe. If you liked 7 but not 8, 9 will likely be great for you.
The whole trilogy could have been done better had JJ been in control all 3 movies.
That was actually the worst Star Wars movie. 100% fan service, terrible plot. What was the purpose of fully healing the emperor for 5 minutes ? He did literally nothing... Completely useless scene. If anything this movie wins he award for most cringe and awkward kiss in the cinema history. Oh yes, and maybe we saw the first ever cavalry charge on top of space ship... Disney...
On December 21 2019 04:20 ElMeanYo wrote: Saw the movie last night. While I was watching it, I really enjoyed it. Action, effects, and Drivers performance were all good.
Thinking about it later, the plot and writing was clearly done to undo some of the missteps in 8 and the rest of it played safe. If you liked 7 but not 8, 9 will likely be great for you.
The whole trilogy could have been done better had JJ been in control all 3 movies.
You know your hate for 8 wont make 7 or 9 better as a movie
Clearly the worst trilogy and ep 9 doesn't fit in either with the trilogy or the saga.
Still, 9 is a decent movie if you pretend that it's noncanon and read some backstory (key plot elements were rushed over despite the film not being all that long).
I really liked it. It was going at such a pace that you never `really have time to question things. It had no real downtime that wasn't serving the plot. It retroactively fixed a lot of the problems the characters had but didn't really retcon anything. It very clearly was trying to spin and flip the plane that was the trilogy of trilogies together and if nothing else succeeded.
i agree with this.after the disaster of The Last Jedi i think it is almost impossible to fix this trilogy.So this movie does a good job in repairing some of the damage.
I mean I'm not saying that its a great movie but if you judge it based on everything it has to do ala avengers age of ultron. The worst thing about the last Jedi in retrospective is about how much time and space it wastes. 9 had to go bigger then star killer base, bigger then snokes super ship thing. It had to give the backstory and character development for the entire main cast, main story, side threads, a major character's actor dieing irl in the middle of production, deliver fan service and callbacks for even older movies. All within a new director and less than the usual production I would genuinely fight over the fact that there were some really great moments in this movie and it deserves to be a number 5 movie (orignal three rouge one TFA?)
People who say that its as bad as the prequels are crazy. The prequels are true abominations.
On December 21 2019 09:14 Sermokala wrote: I mean I'm not saying that its a great movie but if you judge it based on everything it has to do ala avengers age of ultron. The worst thing about the last Jedi in retrospective is about how much time and space it wastes. 9 had to go bigger then star killer base, bigger then snokes super ship thing. It had to give the backstory and character development for the entire main cast, main story, side threads, a major character's actor dieing irl in the middle of production, deliver fan service and callbacks for even older movies. All within a new director and less than the usual production I would genuinely fight over the fact that there were some really great moments in this movie and it deserves to be a number 5 movie (orignal three rouge one TFA?)
People who say that its as bad as the prequels are crazy. The prequels are true abominations.
I shall have an opinion on Sunday when I see the latest. It would have to be truly abominable to drag the recent trilogy below the Prequels.
I really have little understanding as to why people would place the Prequels above the most recent trilogy.
They’re outright bad films as standalone films, they’re bad films as Star Wars films.
On December 21 2019 09:14 Sermokala wrote: I mean I'm not saying that its a great movie but if you judge it based on everything it has to do ala avengers age of ultron. The worst thing about the last Jedi in retrospective is about how much time and space it wastes. 9 had to go bigger then star killer base, bigger then snokes super ship thing. It had to give the backstory and character development for the entire main cast, main story, side threads, a major character's actor dieing irl in the middle of production, deliver fan service and callbacks for even older movies. All within a new director and less than the usual production I would genuinely fight over the fact that there were some really great moments in this movie and it deserves to be a number 5 movie (orignal three rouge one TFA?)
People who say that its as bad as the prequels are crazy. The prequels are true abominations.
The prequels had some good silly fun, if you forget they are Starwars and also skip 50-60% of the first and second one, you have a good bit of pretty great actions scene. And mute every anakin line of course.... Padme too actually, Obiwan is fine, you can keep Palpatine just for the absurdity of it.
The new trilogy is probably better, but IDK if it's because I saw them as an adults, but I feel like the fact that they had higher potential just make their flaw hurt more.
But let's be honest, Empire is kinda the only actually great SW movie, A New Hope is fairly good, ROTJ is a hot mess. Rogue One was pretty good too, could have been great if they had make it a bit tighter and reduce the role of the secondary cast.
On December 21 2019 09:14 Sermokala wrote: I mean I'm not saying that its a great movie but if you judge it based on everything it has to do ala avengers age of ultron. The worst thing about the last Jedi in retrospective is about how much time and space it wastes. 9 had to go bigger then star killer base, bigger then snokes super ship thing. It had to give the backstory and character development for the entire main cast, main story, side threads, a major character's actor dieing irl in the middle of production, deliver fan service and callbacks for even older movies. All within a new director and less than the usual production I would genuinely fight over the fact that there were some really great moments in this movie and it deserves to be a number 5 movie (orignal three rouge one TFA?)
People who say that its as bad as the prequels are crazy. The prequels are true abominations.
I shall have an opinion on Sunday when I see the latest. It would have to be truly abominable to drag the recent trilogy below the Prequels.
I really have little understanding as to why people would place the Prequels above the most recent trilogy.
They’re outright bad films as standalone films, they’re bad films as Star Wars films.
Episode XIII and IX are both awful films, both as stand-alone films and as Star Wars films.
As bad as the prequels were, they still felt like they were more "Star Wars" and had better internal cohesion than the sequel trilogy.
They arn't great films but they are quite unique compared to the rest of cinema as being scifi and yet still mainstream. Star wars has always been better when its about the bleeding edge of technical aspects of film making and less about galactic politics and fuel.
The third in the prequels just has so much craft, so many mannhours of the best in the business serving the most boring and nonsense action sequence that I defy anyone to give a real shit about that they all had been leading up to.
On December 21 2019 09:14 Sermokala wrote: I mean I'm not saying that its a great movie but if you judge it based on everything it has to do ala avengers age of ultron. The worst thing about the last Jedi in retrospective is about how much time and space it wastes. 9 had to go bigger then star killer base, bigger then snokes super ship thing. It had to give the backstory and character development for the entire main cast, main story, side threads, a major character's actor dieing irl in the middle of production, deliver fan service and callbacks for even older movies. All within a new director and less than the usual production I would genuinely fight over the fact that there were some really great moments in this movie and it deserves to be a number 5 movie (orignal three rouge one TFA?)
People who say that its as bad as the prequels are crazy. The prequels are true abominations.
I shall have an opinion on Sunday when I see the latest. It would have to be truly abominable to drag the recent trilogy below the Prequels.
I really have little understanding as to why people would place the Prequels above the most recent trilogy.
They’re outright bad films as standalone films, they’re bad films as Star Wars films.
Episode XIII and IX are both awful films, both as stand-alone films and as Star Wars films.
As bad as the prequels were, they still felt like they were more "Star Wars" and had better internal cohesion than the sequel trilogy.
I don't get why you think 9 is anywhere near how bad 8 was let alone being underline awful level. The visuals and music alone have to merit it being decent.
As usual I have major issues with the plot/story, but I still enjoyed the experience of going to see a SW film. The lightsaber fights were at least good this time around (at least in my opinion).
btw as someone that isn't a super fan, I was super confused to see that Leia trained as a Jedi. Is this something we were supposed to know beforehand? I legitimately can't remember lol.
Final question, from what I can remember in some of the books force lightning is a sith only thing right? Or can any dark side Jedi learn it? Obviously Rey can use it because she's a Palp, but I don't remember Vader/Kylo/Maul ever use force lightning.
On December 21 2019 14:17 TheEmulator wrote: As usual I have major issues with the plot/story, but I still enjoyed the experience of going to see a SW film. The lightsaber fights were at least good this time around (at least in my opinion).
btw as someone that isn't a super fan, I was super confused to see that Leia trained as a Jedi. Is this something we were supposed to know beforehand? I legitimately can't remember lol.
Final question, from what I can remember in some of the books force lightning is a sith only thing right? Or can any dark side Jedi learn it? Obviously Rey can use it because she's a Palp, but I don't remember Vader/Kylo/Maul ever use force lightning.
yeah there was no mention of Leia having any jedi training before let alone having completed her training. force lightning is a sith only technique duku used it in the beginning of his fight against yoda in episode two.
On December 21 2019 19:43 Gorsameth wrote: Leia being a force user was an EU storyline (books that carried to story on past 6) which were all scrapped by Disney.
Its fan service without bothering to explain it for people not 'in the know'.
It was mentioned in the OT that she is force-sensitive.
On December 21 2019 19:43 Gorsameth wrote: Leia being a force user was an EU storyline (books that carried to story on past 6) which were all scrapped by Disney.
Its fan service without bothering to explain it for people not 'in the know'.
It was mentioned in the OT that she is force-sensitive.
Enjoyed it quiiiiteeee a bit, maybe it was nostalgia, maybe it was pure joy, idk... But i had fun and even cried in some parts, it's really emotional tbh, for fans of the saga tho.
It may has to be with the end of an era, but who knows.
On December 21 2019 09:14 Sermokala wrote: I mean I'm not saying that its a great movie but if you judge it based on everything it has to do ala avengers age of ultron. The worst thing about the last Jedi in retrospective is about how much time and space it wastes. 9 had to go bigger then star killer base, bigger then snokes super ship thing. It had to give the backstory and character development for the entire main cast, main story, side threads, a major character's actor dieing irl in the middle of production, deliver fan service and callbacks for even older movies. All within a new director and less than the usual production I would genuinely fight over the fact that there were some really great moments in this movie and it deserves to be a number 5 movie (orignal three rouge one TFA?)
People who say that its as bad as the prequels are crazy. The prequels are true abominations.
The prequels are true abomination because it's trying to actually go a bit deeper with setting SW in a dense political background, you invented stuff like "bad writing" while judging the generic writing of the VII amazing, madness considering Rey, Finn and Poe are the epitome of stock characters. The true SW fans only want shallow remake of the OT with the same dialogues of a marvel movie with a 80s vibes. That's creepy nostalgia, any kind of thinking and slightly intellectual stuff is basically forbidden. There is no context and extended universe (how can someone relate to sth as vain ?) neither coherence (how can the first order be so powerful after the Empire defeat?), one is dark the other is good, the end. All in all, I felt ridiculous watching TFA as if I was insulted, I asked for a SW, and sth a bit more than a pure entairtenement with a good universe, not a stupid remake.
Lucas was bullied to death and now what you get is just fan service filled with ridiculous things without any coherence or contextualization and silly jokes like marvel's, this kind of entairnement is so dumbing down. And while I didn't watch TLJ, Johnson who is a more inventive director than Abrams will even be got quite shitted on by toxic fans for it. The saga has been killed by his own community, how nice.
On December 21 2019 09:14 Sermokala wrote: I mean I'm not saying that its a great movie but if you judge it based on everything it has to do ala avengers age of ultron. The worst thing about the last Jedi in retrospective is about how much time and space it wastes. 9 had to go bigger then star killer base, bigger then snokes super ship thing. It had to give the backstory and character development for the entire main cast, main story, side threads, a major character's actor dieing irl in the middle of production, deliver fan service and callbacks for even older movies. All within a new director and less than the usual production I would genuinely fight over the fact that there were some really great moments in this movie and it deserves to be a number 5 movie (orignal three rouge one TFA?)
People who say that its as bad as the prequels are crazy. The prequels are true abominations.
The prequels are true abomination because it's trying to actually go a bit deeper with setting SW in a dense political background, you invented stuff like "bad writing" while judging the generic writing of the VII amazing, madness considering Rey, Finn and Poe are the epitome of stock characters. The true SW fans only want shallow remake of the OT with the same dialogues of a marvel movie with a 80s vibes. That's creepy nostalgia, any kind of thinking and slightly intellectual stuff is basically forbidden. There is no context and extended universe (how can someone relate to sth as vain ?) neither coherence (how can the first order be so powerful after the Empire defeat?), one is dark the other is good, the end. All in all, I felt ridiculous watching TFA as if I was insulted, I asked for a SW, and sth a bit more than a pure entairtenement with a good universe, not a stupid remake.
Lucas was bullied to death and now what you get is just fan service filled with ridiculous things without any coherence or contextualization and silly jokes like marvel's, this kind of entairnement is so dumbing down. And while I didn't watch TLJ, Johnson who is a more inventive director than Abrams will even be got quite shitted on by toxic fans for it. The saga has been killed by his own community, how nice.
This is absolute nonsense. It doesn't go deeper into Star wars, It doesn't have a dense political background. You never get a real answer on why the trade federation is rebelling nor does it go anywhere in the star wars universe. It just tells you to accept that the jedi are still around and that guy papitine is totaly not the evil sith Emporer that you totally know him to be. It follows said papatine as he becomes the Emporer that you know hes going to be and the reveal that surprise hes the evil sith that you already know he is.
The whole thing starts off thin nonsense and never goes further. The entire premise of the first movie is an extended trade dispute that never gets discussed because .... I mean the audience is told its a front early, the jedi know its a front early. Yet it decides to half ass its way through the senate for some truly god awful politics scenes where everyone is just sitting and talking with shot-reverse shot (thank god the trilogy doesn't do this constantly oh wait....) Is te trade dispute resolved? What was the trade dispute in the beginning? Midiclorians making force users literal master race genetics. The literaly virgin birth of anakin. A galactic sprawling war over a trade dispute over a single planet with an army of literal bobo fet fan service vs angry c3po. .
If you didn't even watch TLJ why are you defending it and talking in this thread to begin with. Gee you don't like entertaining sci fi and you for some reason think fan service (like literally serving the fans what they want) is the devil. Congrats star wars weren't for you go to something you enjoy and not just shit on things you don't.
2001 a space odyssey is a terrible movie I think and stanley kubrick is an overrated cinematographer. We both have contrarian views to whats popular.
On December 21 2019 19:43 Gorsameth wrote: Leia being a force user was an EU storyline (books that carried to story on past 6) which were all scrapped by Disney.
Its fan service without bothering to explain it for people not 'in the know'.
It was mentioned in the OT that she is force-sensitive.
Doesn't mean she had any Jedi training.
Well according these movies, Jedi training is totally optional. They looked at 6 movies and a TV show of established lore of what it takes to be a Jedi. Hard work, a good mentor, years of training and self sacrifice, meditation etc. Disney Star Wars looked at all that and said "nah, fuck all that we're just gonna hamfist our characters into super powered roles just because."
On December 21 2019 19:43 Gorsameth wrote: Leia being a force user was an EU storyline (books that carried to story on past 6) which were all scrapped by Disney.
Its fan service without bothering to explain it for people not 'in the know'.
It was mentioned in the OT that she is force-sensitive.
Doesn't mean she had any Jedi training.
Well according these movies, Jedi training is totally optional. They looked at 6 movies and a TV show of established lore of what it takes to be a Jedi. Hard work, a good mentor, years of training and self sacrifice, meditation etc. Disney Star Wars looked at all that and said "nah, fuck all that we're just gonna hamfist our characters into super powered roles just because."
but episode 7 was so good, its only episode 8 which was bad
On December 21 2019 19:43 Gorsameth wrote: Leia being a force user was an EU storyline (books that carried to story on past 6) which were all scrapped by Disney.
Its fan service without bothering to explain it for people not 'in the know'.
It was mentioned in the OT that she is force-sensitive.
Doesn't mean she had any Jedi training.
Well according these movies, Jedi training is totally optional. They looked at 6 movies and a TV show of established lore of what it takes to be a Jedi. Hard work, a good mentor, years of training and self sacrifice, meditation etc. Disney Star Wars looked at all that and said "nah, fuck all that we're just gonna hamfist our characters into super powered roles just because."
They retroactively made Leia have completed jedi training in the ninth movie in order for her to in turn give ray the training she was supposed to get from Luke in the 8th as well.
It's the avengers trick of hiding something by making it do multiple things. Like how you got a weird feeling that fin volunteered for the storm troopers like han did and Poe was just a lame republic trained pilot until 9 introduced the kids who rebelled from being storm troopers making the calvary thing the spare parts and fins background all retroactively work. Poe being a former spice runner gives him a redemption arc explanation for his piloting and a love interest retroactively.
Also female stormtroopers and fleet staff work beacuse they too were enslaved by first order. Idk what the opposite of a plot hole (plot peg) but 9 has tons and tons of them.
Ended up seeing it after all. No surprise I guess - I've lived through quite a bit of mediocre Star Wars, but I'm still here. Gotta watch the main movies, as bad as they may or may not be.
Brief take is that I kinda liked this one. On a conceptual / big picture level, a lot of things bothered me, but from a purely entertainment perspective it was alright. My single biggest complaint is the poor pacing, which was compounded by the fact that Ep 8 didn't really set it up. It did rely a little too much on references, and overall felt like Abrams decided to cinematize the "Palpatine returns" arc of the Expanded Universe. Mediocre source material, mediocre final result, but from a Star Wars nostalgia perspective it kind of worked.
Other uncategorized thoughts in no particular order:
1. Reylo, lol. The fanfic writers are going to love that. 2. The huge Force Lightning storm that Palpatine did near the end of the movie was quite cool. 3. Since this is where the real money comes in: what are the big merchandising opportunities going to be? My guess of what could potentially be popular: the new "megaphone on a wheel" droid, the costume of Poe's lady friend, the Sith dagger, the horses, knights of Ren costumes, maybe the Sith artifact or the new designs for the Star Destroyer? I could see young kids enjoying a lot of that stuff. 4. The horses were actually kinda cool. I also liked the idea of Star Destroyers in the atmosphere, much as that does require suspension of disbelief. 5. Ep 8 made Hux something of a wimp. This episode didn't really go back from that, it just sidelined him to that new general dude and then killed him off as a traitor. Not sure how I feel about that since I did originally like Hux as a character, but his send-off here was actually kind of funny. 6. Leia's not-tiny role in this movie feels kind of surreal since Carrie Fisher is deceased.
I'd overall rank it somewhere in the middle of the prequels in terms of overall movie quality. Whereas Ep 8 would rank as worse than any of them. In other words: not groundbreaking, but I got my money's worth for my viewing of the movie.
The true SW fans only want shallow remake of the OT with the same dialogues of a marvel movie with a 80s vibes.
LOL. No. The only reason why I gave TFA a pass as I hoped it was simply playing it safe after the prequels and everything else would go in new directions. I enjoyed TFA less once Death Star 3.0 was revealed. Although I ultimately gave it a conditional pass, contingent on the series moving in new directions- never happened.
And no, RJ is no more inventive than JJ. If Star Wars was a bunch of mini-figure toys, JJ repainted all his and called it something different. RJ switched the heads, legs, and arms on his, milked some manatees and called it 'subversive'. They both are playing with the same dang toys.
They desperately needed to take some notes from Zahn, Stackpole, and Allston and make geographical strategic points to fight over in the galaxy (capitals, shipyard etc) that way you can avoid super weapon of the week/ giant-ship-of-diminishing-returns and tell some proper long terms stories of new polities winning and losing in the galaxy (it is Star WARS after all). But more importantly, you break out of the mimic the OT storytelling rut because the galaxy being an actual place with multiple actors rising and falling multiplies the possible threats.
Considering what he was left with after the shitshow Rian made with TLJ, I think JJ did a decent job. Not to mention that Disney's interference that made them reshoot 50% of the movie, some reports saying up to 75%. There is no way such a movie will be anywhere near the quality of the OT, but considering these two things, JJ did what he could. I only question the decision to kill off the Skywalker bloodline, which is something I dont approve of. As for everything else, it was ok.
I found it pretty enjoyable overall, mini Wombat really enjoyed it so a decent outing in the end.
For all the complaints about boring one-note characters I think Kylo Ren and his arc have been probably the most interesting in certain ways and Adam Driver did a great job
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.
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.
On December 21 2019 09:14 Sermokala wrote: I mean I'm not saying that its a great movie but if you judge it based on everything it has to do ala avengers age of ultron. The worst thing about the last Jedi in retrospective is about how much time and space it wastes. 9 had to go bigger then star killer base, bigger then snokes super ship thing. It had to give the backstory and character development for the entire main cast, main story, side threads, a major character's actor dieing irl in the middle of production, deliver fan service and callbacks for even older movies. All within a new director and less than the usual production I would genuinely fight over the fact that there were some really great moments in this movie and it deserves to be a number 5 movie (orignal three rouge one TFA?)
People who say that its as bad as the prequels are crazy. The prequels are true abominations.
The prequels are true abomination because it's trying to actually go a bit deeper with setting SW in a dense political background, you invented stuff like "bad writing" while judging the generic writing of the VII amazing, madness considering Rey, Finn and Poe are the epitome of stock characters. The true SW fans only want shallow remake of the OT with the same dialogues of a marvel movie with a 80s vibes. That's creepy nostalgia, any kind of thinking and slightly intellectual stuff is basically forbidden. There is no context and extended universe (how can someone relate to sth as vain ?) neither coherence (how can the first order be so powerful after the Empire defeat?), one is dark the other is good, the end. All in all, I felt ridiculous watching TFA as if I was insulted, I asked for a SW, and sth a bit more than a pure entairtenement with a good universe, not a stupid remake.
Lucas was bullied to death and now what you get is just fan service filled with ridiculous things without any coherence or contextualization and silly jokes like marvel's, this kind of entairnement is so dumbing down. And while I didn't watch TLJ, Johnson who is a more inventive director than Abrams will even be got quite shitted on by toxic fans for it. The saga has been killed by his own community, how nice.
This is absolute nonsense. It doesn't go deeper into Star wars, It doesn't have a dense political background. You never get a real answer on why the trade federation is rebelling nor does it go anywhere in the star wars universe. It just tells you to accept that the jedi are still around and that guy papitine is totaly not the evil sith Emporer that you totally know him to be. It follows said papatine as he becomes the Emporer that you know hes going to be and the reveal that surprise hes the evil sith that you already know he is.
The whole thing starts off thin nonsense and never goes further. The entire premise of the first movie is an extended trade dispute that never gets discussed because .... I mean the audience is told its a front early, the jedi know its a front early. Yet it decides to half ass its way through the senate for some truly god awful politics scenes where everyone is just sitting and talking with shot-reverse shot (thank god the trilogy doesn't do this constantly oh wait....) Is te trade dispute resolved? What was the trade dispute in the beginning? Midiclorians making force users literal master race genetics. The literaly virgin birth of anakin. A galactic sprawling war over a trade dispute over a single planet with an army of literal bobo fet fan service vs angry c3po. .
If you didn't even watch TLJ why are you defending it and talking in this thread to begin with. Gee you don't like entertaining sci fi and you for some reason think fan service (like literally serving the fans what they want) is the devil. Congrats star wars weren't for you go to something you enjoy and not just shit on things you don't.
2001 a space odyssey is a terrible movie I think and stanley kubrick is an overrated cinematographer. We both have contrarian views to whats popular.
I don't understand why you're bringing on a Space odyssey, its reach is far different of SW. I like some entairtaning movies even when they have large flaws : I liked Valerian which makes your point wrong. Btw, while I cannot say the same for Jupiter ascending, I still find this movie way better than the VII, actually, the VII is the worst movie I've experienced, it's not even hyperbolic, Bright Star or The Wayward Cloud which are other movies I wholeheartly dislike didn't bother me as bad. I wanted a movie when I got a silly remake.
The entire premise of prelogy is how a trade conflict issued by a cunning politician can lead to civil war and a fall of democracy, we already knew how it ends, the last chapter makes it quite tragic, epic inspired by the old greek tragedies while discovering a lot of new worlds and for once on a american entairtenement movie, it doesn't end well, finally, the nice guys are losing with some epic stuffs around. We know they are gonna lose, the tension is worth it ! + It puts in question the selfless unattachement of the jedis, wow, a saga which actually goes a but beyond manicheism, let's cry about the few scenes which are showing the fonctionnement of the senat. Honestly, it's depressing. I am not gonna comment too much on the virgin birth of Anakin, Lucas basically connects the force mysticism to a christian one, something most people can relate/understand but apparently not. For the midiclorians, whatever, that's clearly not as shocking as Rey being a jedi master in the course of one journey. You're critic about the "sprawling war over a single planet" is really confusing, I'll just respond that it's not the blocus which ignates the war but the separatism of a lot of system backed by the commerce federation which has a army composed of a variety of robots and while it's a bit weird that Kamino birthed such an army, at least, we know from where come the clones and they are more realistically, great shooters.
In opposition to that, what you are craving for is : the empire got two gigantics fleets without anyone noticed after losing a war, oh and it got a bigger death star who kill billions of people like previously except we don't give a fuck because even in the movie, no one is related to it. This, the characters and the numerous deus ex machina add to the terrible writing. SW is becoming like a video game of the 80s with a final boss at the end or a sandbox in which a destroyer can erase a planet and the last replica "I am all the jedi" how can an adult relate to this, I guess nothing is stronger than nostalgia. Come on, the prelogy is incredibly better than this, that said, it's hard to be dumber than the sequel.
Too bad, a resurgence of the empire could have been good with the incorporations of new political entities like the chiss empire or whatever they would have come off but no, it would have been sth new but apparently, original equals bad. It's not only disney's choice I find terrible, it's society reaction to it, most of people on the internet were in awe on a badly writing remake who was more a fanfic written by a consensual dude without any kind of imagination and then when the new comes in, it got spit on just like Lucas was, to the point he actually sold his baby.
I like the prelogy, I like the OT even if I despise the fans who are considering it as the holy scriptures, I hate the sequel, those movies with a lazy and terrible writing (hence the fan service and deus ex machina, the stock characters, they even resurrected a main vilain for the sake of it) without any intern coherence. Marvel is not my cup of tea to say the very least but they managed to build a good set of things. Btw you might shit on as much as you want on the prelogy "I hate sand uh uh", it didn't contain in every image a "hidden" reference to the OT because it was its own story just like the OT wasn't filled with a bunch of exterior elements which are telling you to love it. And no, a saga is not about giving exactly what the fans want, it's about making good stuffs, Lucas was working for himself, not for entitled toxic fans and shareholders who want the most generic and boring movie ever. (TFA is a success in that regard)
Concerning TLJ, "unexpected" and "disrespecting the universe" are the main critics, it's not hard to postulate what was expected was a remake of the V with the same terrible writing/narrative. Too bad I am terrible in english, I'd have postulate as a scenarist, would have been ez money. It's crazy how people can become conservative and even reactionnary with any novelties when they begin to like something.
Finally, I am posting in this thread because I saw you praising this abomination while shitting on a great trilogy, I didn't bother much with people hating on the prelogy before but since TFA came out, I feel like you ruined something I liked so every times a sequel episode comes out, I am a bit salty for sure, seeing this disaster in comparaison of what could have been done. It was quite funny seeing all those people on youtube who loved TFA criticizing the IX, Bossuet had a very elegant formula to describe it : "god laughs at men who deplore the effects while they're cherishing the consequence". Anyway, it's my second post on the subject, I don't think there is anything I have to add.
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.
On December 21 2019 09:14 Sermokala wrote: I mean I'm not saying that its a great movie but if you judge it based on everything it has to do ala avengers age of ultron. The worst thing about the last Jedi in retrospective is about how much time and space it wastes. 9 had to go bigger then star killer base, bigger then snokes super ship thing. It had to give the backstory and character development for the entire main cast, main story, side threads, a major character's actor dieing irl in the middle of production, deliver fan service and callbacks for even older movies. All within a new director and less than the usual production I would genuinely fight over the fact that there were some really great moments in this movie and it deserves to be a number 5 movie (orignal three rouge one TFA?)
People who say that its as bad as the prequels are crazy. The prequels are true abominations.
The prequels are true abomination because it's trying to actually go a bit deeper with setting SW in a dense political background, you invented stuff like "bad writing" while judging the generic writing of the VII amazing, madness considering Rey, Finn and Poe are the epitome of stock characters. The true SW fans only want shallow remake of the OT with the same dialogues of a marvel movie with a 80s vibes. That's creepy nostalgia, any kind of thinking and slightly intellectual stuff is basically forbidden. There is no context and extended universe (how can someone relate to sth as vain ?) neither coherence (how can the first order be so powerful after the Empire defeat?), one is dark the other is good, the end. All in all, I felt ridiculous watching TFA as if I was insulted, I asked for a SW, and sth a bit more than a pure entairtenement with a good universe, not a stupid remake.
Lucas was bullied to death and now what you get is just fan service filled with ridiculous things without any coherence or contextualization and silly jokes like marvel's, this kind of entairnement is so dumbing down. And while I didn't watch TLJ, Johnson who is a more inventive director than Abrams will even be got quite shitted on by toxic fans for it. The saga has been killed by his own community, how nice.
This is absolute nonsense. It doesn't go deeper into Star wars, It doesn't have a dense political background. You never get a real answer on why the trade federation is rebelling nor does it go anywhere in the star wars universe. It just tells you to accept that the jedi are still around and that guy papitine is totaly not the evil sith Emporer that you totally know him to be. It follows said papatine as he becomes the Emporer that you know hes going to be and the reveal that surprise hes the evil sith that you already know he is.
The whole thing starts off thin nonsense and never goes further. The entire premise of the first movie is an extended trade dispute that never gets discussed because .... I mean the audience is told its a front early, the jedi know its a front early. Yet it decides to half ass its way through the senate for some truly god awful politics scenes where everyone is just sitting and talking with shot-reverse shot (thank god the trilogy doesn't do this constantly oh wait....) Is te trade dispute resolved? What was the trade dispute in the beginning? Midiclorians making force users literal master race genetics. The literaly virgin birth of anakin. A galactic sprawling war over a trade dispute over a single planet with an army of literal bobo fet fan service vs angry c3po. .
If you didn't even watch TLJ why are you defending it and talking in this thread to begin with. Gee you don't like entertaining sci fi and you for some reason think fan service (like literally serving the fans what they want) is the devil. Congrats star wars weren't for you go to something you enjoy and not just shit on things you don't.
2001 a space odyssey is a terrible movie I think and stanley kubrick is an overrated cinematographer. We both have contrarian views to whats popular.
I don't understand why you're bringing on a Space odyssey, its reach is far different of SW. I like some entairtaning movies even when they have large flaws : I liked Valerian which makes your point wrong. Btw, while I cannot say the same for Jupiter ascending, I still find this movie way better than the VII, actually, the VII is the worst movie I've experienced, it's not even hyperbolic, Bright Star or The Wayward Cloud which are other movies I wholeheartly dislike didn't bother me as bad. I wanted a movie when I got a silly remake.
The entire premise of prelogy is how a trade conflict issued by a cunning politician can lead to civil war and a fall of democracy, we already knew how it ends, the last chapter makes it quite tragic, epic inspired by the old greek tragedies while discovering a lot of new worlds and for once on a american entairtenement movie, it doesn't end well, finally, the nice guys are losing with some epic stuffs around. We know they are gonna lose, the tension is worth it ! + It puts in question the selfless unattachement of the jedis, wow, a saga which actually goes a but beyond manicheism, let's cry about the few scenes which are showing the fonctionnement of the senat. Honestly, it's depressing. I am not gonna comment too much on the virgin birth of Anakin, Lucas basically connects the force mysticism to a christian one, something most people can relate/understand but apparently not. For the midiclorians, whatever, that's clearly not as shocking as Rey being a jedi master in the course of one journey. You're critic about the "sprawling war over a single planet" is really confusing, I'll just respond that it's not the blocus which ignates the war but the separatism of a lot of system backed by the commerce federation which has a army composed of a variety of robots and while it's a bit weird that Kamino birthed such an army, at least, we know from where come the clones and they are more realistically, great shooters.
In opposition to that, what you are craving for is : the empire got two gigantics fleets without anyone noticed after losing a war, oh and it got a bigger death star who kill billions of people like previously except we don't give a fuck because even in the movie, no one is related to it. This, the characters and the numerous deus ex machina add to the terrible writing. SW is becoming like a video game of the 80s with a final boss at the end or a sandbox in which a destroyer can erase a planet and the last replica "I am all the jedi" how can an adult relate to this, I guess nothing is stronger than nostalgia. Come on, the prelogy is incredibly better than this, that said, it's hard to be dumber than the sequel.
Too bad, a resurgence of the empire could have been good with the incorporations of new political entities like the chiss empire or whatever they would have come off but no, it would have been sth new but apparently, original equals bad. It's not only disney's choice I find terrible, it's society reaction to it, most of people on the internet were in awe on a badly writing remake who was more a fanfic written by a consensual dude without any kind of imagination and then when the new comes in, it got spit on just like Lucas was, to the point he actually sold his baby.
I like the prelogy, I like the OT even if I despise the fans who are considering it as the holy scriptures, I hate the sequel, those movies with a lazy and terrible writing (hence the fan service and deus ex machina, the stock characters, they even resurrected a main vilain for the sake of it) without any intern coherence. Marvel is not my cup of tea to say the very least but they managed to build a good set of things. Btw you might shit on as much as you want on the prelogy "I hate sand uh uh", it didn't contain in every image a "hidden" reference to the OT because it was its own story just like the OT wasn't filled with a bunch of exterior elements which are telling you to love it. And no, a saga is not about giving exactly what the fans want, it's about making good stuffs, Lucas was working for himself, not for entitled toxic fans and shareholders who want the most generic and boring movie ever. (TFA is a success in that regard)
Concerning TLJ, "unexpected" and "disrespecting the universe" are the main critics, it's not hard to postulate what was expected was a remake of the V with the same terrible writing/narrative. Too bad I am terrible in english, I'd have postulate as a scenarist, would have been ez money. It's crazy how people can become conservative and even reactionnary with any novelties when they begin to like something.
Finally, I am posting in this thread because I saw you praising this abomination while shitting on a great trilogy, I didn't bother much with people hating on the prelogy before but since TFA came out, I feel like you ruined something I liked so every times a sequel episode comes out, I am a bit salty for sure, seeing this disaster in comparaison of what could have been done. It was quite funny seeing all those people on youtube who loved TFA criticizing the IX, Bossuet had a very elegant formula to describe it : "god laughs at men who deplore the effects while they're cherishing the consequence". Anyway, it's my second post on the subject, I don't think there is anything I have to add.
Prequels are terrible though.
Say I love rock music, it’s my thing. My favourite rock band releases a jazz album, while in this hypothetical I don’t dislike jazz, it’s not what I expect from my favourite band. It’s also an actually bad jazz album.
Everybody seems to be super entitled about Star Wars, yourself included.
This isn’t to say the new trilogy couldn’t be better, or do new things, far beyond that. Perhaps Disney can do interesting things if they want it.
Lucas was working for himself sure and in doing so showed the benefit of having people around you to give constructive criticism.
Ultimately I like some of the EU stuff, but there are tons of other science fiction universes out there for fans of deep intrigue and technobabble. Plenty of good material for a series especially.
Star Wars in terms of the mainline films is mainstream popcorn space opera, with memorable characters and iconic equipment staples that plenty of non-nerds or kids can enjoy.
Which is fine. There’s a segment of the fandom (yourself excluded) who want films about obscure EU stuff that’s entirely to their taste and ignorant of the tastes of anyone else.
You are entirely wrong on the Prequels not referencing the original trilogy btw, they just did it differently and actually worse somehow. The new ones do have their nods to nostalgia, the Prequels weave them into the plot in ridiculous ways and opens weird holes in logic.
So of COURSE Anakin built C3PO, for some reason. R2D2 gets a medal for bravery. Boba Fett looks cool so his dad is cloned to make the clone troopers.
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.
So how did we go from an army of clones with a New Zealand accent to a conscript army with officers and command hierarchy in the span of a generation?
Kamino got destroyed. You're hating a lot on stuff you apparently don't understand. Maybe you should rewatch the prequels. You quote a lengthy post and your only reply is 'The prequels are shit though'. You value a trilogy that doesn't make any sense over one who had a real frame. But hey, new CGI is better than old CGI, that's apparently sufficient for some.
On December 23 2019 11:03 Erasme wrote: Kamino got destroyed. You're hating a lot on stuff you apparently don't understand. Maybe you should rewatch the prequels. You quote a lengthy post and your only reply is 'The prequels are shit though'. You value a trilogy that doesn't make any sense over one who had a real frame. But hey, new CGI is better than old CGI, that's apparently sufficient for some.
Me? I said plenty else besides that.
What is it I’m not understanding? The Prequels have all of the flaws frequently cited nowadays about the new trilogy and others beside that.
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 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.
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.
Sorry, but that is bullshit. The ending is what JJ Abrams wanted. He specifically shoved the emperor down our throats, because he wanted the story to go that way. That is the main reason this movie is a complete mess. JJ obviously didn't like how TLJ went, so he decided to basically retcon everything and tell his story. As a result you have this pile of garbage that is completely disjointed with the previous movies (even with TFA) and doesn't even make sense on its own. I wonder why did he take the job at all.
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.
Sorry, but that is bullshit. The ending is what JJ Abrams wanted. He specifically shoved the emperor down our throats, because he wanted the story to go that way. That is the main reason this movie is a complete mess. JJ obviously didn't like how TLJ went, so he decided to basically retcon everything and tell his story. As a result you have this pile of garbage that is completely disjointed with the previous movies (even with TFA) and doesn't even make sense on its own. I wonder why did he take the job at all.
Well it wasn't going to make sense anyways after RJ did his retcon hack job. Might as well add to the incoherence. Rise of the Retcons indeed. Also, JJ couldn't do what he wanted (if he even knew. Mr Mystery Boxman.) I've said from the beginning, after hearing Palps laugh, the return of Palps is a demonstration that there is a Snoke-sized hole in the franchise. RJ killed Sauron in the Two Towers, made Saruman a child to be pitied, and the Ringwraith into punching bags. Would the film be materially different if there was no Palps, but Snoke on the throne and would it be materially different if Rey was the granddaughter of Snoke or some rando powerful Jedi? Probably not. Can't the same with Luke's final confrontation against his father- Lucas made that relationship count.
On December 23 2019 11:03 Erasme wrote: Kamino got destroyed. You're hating a lot on stuff you apparently don't understand. Maybe you should rewatch the prequels. You quote a lengthy post and your only reply is 'The prequels are shit though'. You value a trilogy that doesn't make any sense over one who had a real frame. But hey, new CGI is better than old CGI, that's apparently sufficient for some.
Not in the movies was Kamino destroyed. If you watch the movies straight through you would guess that the Empire still have clones at their disposal, except that no-one ever mentions clones except in the past tense of an old war. There's other errors- making Anakin actually from Tatooine isn't great as it seems like hiding on your father's planet is not the best idea- there are some ideas in the OT that needed to be massaged (I wrote a whole blog on it), but the prequels largely are just as likely to create new problems as not... but nothing on the scale of TLJ. The bigger problem is simply making the galaxy feeling tiny- 3PO and R2 are everywhere and Palpatine runs both sides of the chess board.
Concerning TLJ, "unexpected" and "disrespecting the universe" are the main critics, it's not hard to postulate what was expected was a remake of the V with the same terrible writing/narrative. Too bad I am terrible in english, I'd have postulate as a scenarist, would have been ez money. It's crazy how people can become conservative and even reactionnary with any novelties when they begin to like something
TLJ is very reactionary, but because it spend all it's time reacting to past ideas, it has very little time for anything actually new.
But that means in storytelling terms, it is also fairly conservative- it's just that it's a little more attractive to people that don't like some pretty key elements of what made Star Wars, well Star Wars. All that talk about the Force and the Jedi being 'problematic' because it's some sort of exclusive aristocracy- so those sorts of people loved the idea of the Sith and Jedi ending so that everyone in the galaxy has some sort of enhanced Force abilities. Great- but that's like ending wizards and witches in the Harry Potter universe so that all the muggles are vaguely more magical, but no one does the really powerful spells due to even distribution of magic. Interesting story, but not a Harry Potter story.
On December 23 2019 15:24 Sermokala wrote: 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.
Why I agree that Jar Jar is very, very bad, I don't agree on the total abominations part. This new trilogy is a total abomination. The prequels had plenty of bad but they also had some good in it and with the exception of midichlorians and immaculate conception didn't shit on the OT characters. I could totally dig Anakin falling because he was rash and unruly teenager, also because he was too old when he started his training so wasn't completely brainwashed by the Jedi. Obi-Wan was awesome and it was good to see him both as padawan and master. Also, the OT had some pretty damn well made fight scenes, but most of all some semblance of a plot.
The only good thing in the new films is that they got back to practical effects. That's it.
Before watching the movie I read that it was spending some time recovering the mess that was TLJ...I was happy, thought that if they'd actually pull that off, there was hope for a good ending or at least a reasonable movie. Needless to say, I was very sad/upset when it actually ended.
Im so glad I was not the only one thinking that way...seeing the pre-release reviews one would think this was a great movie :/
On December 23 2019 15:24 Sermokala wrote: 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.
Why I agree that Jar Jar is very, very bad, I don't agree on the total abominations part. This new trilogy is a total abomination. The prequels had plenty of bad but they also had some good in it and with the exception of midichlorians and immaculate conception didn't shit on the OT characters. I could totally dig Anakin falling because he was rash and unruly teenager, also because he was too old when he started his training so wasn't completely brainwashed by the Jedi. Obi-Wan was awesome and it was good to see him both as padawan and master. Also, the OT had some pretty damn well made fight scenes, but most of all some semblance of a plot.
The only good thing in the new films is that they got back to practical effects. That's it.
Anakin destroying the Droid Control Centre is in my view the worst thing in all the films, god. Dislike that more than even Jar Jar.
It sort of did sort of shit on the OT by over explaining things or giving backstory that doesn’t quite mesh over, to my tastes anyway. If we had only the OT to go off and someone suggested the Jedi were a rigid order who won’t train anyone older than 9 or whatever because it’s too old to brainwash them and they’re not allowed to fuck people, does that really mesh with the mythical hippy vibe the two we see in OT give off? Or Vader being ‘space Jesus’ with Vader in the films, who seems more a general badass head henchman like a Jaws in a Bond film?
There are decent elements but the Prequels are horrendously unfocused and fail to deliver on what they’re trying to do. If you’re going to try and do a hero’s fall from grace and a dictator’s rise to power with a collapse of a Republic you really need to execute it well, while still being Star Wars you have to really execute it bloody well or it’ll be a mess.
Something tighter that cuts bloat and is more focused on Anakin and Obi-Wan would have been pretty good (to pick one example), as the latter is the most likeable character in the films by far and the former I think was good in the role but hamstrung by terrible dialogue. You could have the training elements, various adventures etc. Instead all the cool stuff you’d like to see is just mentioned by them in the past tense.
It’s hard to just forget other properties one has seen. The Clone Wars show actually does show the heroic, rash side of Anakin that makes his fall from grace actually tragic but the Prequels in isolation really don’t execute that at all well.
On December 23 2019 15:24 Sermokala wrote: 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.
Why I agree that Jar Jar is very, very bad, I don't agree on the total abominations part. This new trilogy is a total abomination. The prequels had plenty of bad but they also had some good in it and with the exception of midichlorians and immaculate conception didn't shit on the OT characters. I could totally dig Anakin falling because he was rash and unruly teenager, also because he was too old when he started his training so wasn't completely brainwashed by the Jedi. Obi-Wan was awesome and it was good to see him both as padawan and master. Also, the OT had some pretty damn well made fight scenes, but most of all some semblance of a plot.
The only good thing in the new films is that they got back to practical effects. That's it.
Anakin destroying the Droid Control Centre is in my view the worst thing in all the films, god. Dislike that more than even Jar Jar.
It sort of did sort of shit on the OT by over explaining things or giving backstory that doesn’t quite mesh over, to my tastes anyway. If we had only the OT to go off and someone suggested the Jedi were a rigid order who won’t train anyone older than 9 or whatever because it’s too old to brainwash them and they’re not allowed to fuck people, does that really mesh with the mythical hippy vibe the two we see in OT give off? Or Vader being ‘space Jesus’ with Vader in the films, who seems more a general badass head henchman like a Jaws in a Bond film?
There are decent elements but the Prequels are horrendously unfocused and fail to deliver on what they’re trying to do. If you’re going to try and do a hero’s fall from grace and a dictator’s rise to power with a collapse of a Republic you really need to execute it well, while still being Star Wars you have to really execute it bloody well or it’ll be a mess.
Something tighter that cuts bloat and is more focused on Anakin and Obi-Wan would have been pretty good (to pick one example), as the latter is the most likeable character in the films by far and the former I think was good in the role but hamstrung by terrible dialogue. You could have the training elements, various adventures etc. Instead all the cool stuff you’d like to see is just mentioned by them in the past tense.
It’s hard to just forget other properties one has seen. The Clone Wars show actually does show the heroic, rash side of Anakin that makes his fall from grace actually tragic but the Prequels in isolation really don’t execute that at all well.
Clone Wars and Rebels are the best thing to happen to Star Wars on the TV screen.
On December 23 2019 16:07 Pr0wler wrote:As a result you have this pile of garbage that is completely disjointed with the previous movies (even with TFA) and doesn't even make sense on its own. I wonder why did he take the job at all.
The 1st director had already been fired. There is big, big money in rescuing failed projects. If you pull it off the reputation points you gain can last forever. Just ask Bob Fitch.
I love rescuing failed projects. The money is stupid good and I wait until things are so FUBAR-ed its a "no lose" situation for me.
The Toronto Raptors were down 85-55 going into the 4th quarter yesterday. The coach threw out 4 bench players with Kyle Lowry and concocted a bizarre double-on-the-ball full court press defense. Talk about fucked. It worked and the Raptors won. Had it failed no one would've cared. It worked. The coach is now a genius.
Abrams probably positioned himself to be in a "no lose" situation in the eyes of the execs.
Given the cards Abrams and the actors were dealt by upper management and given the current circumstances beyond their control I'd rate their collective performance a 9/10.
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.
She specifically didn't kill him, he killed himself with his own lightning.
The movie was as good as I could had hoped for. Kylo Ren and Rey were really good and they kept the stupidness to a minimum. A solid 3 for me.
On December 23 2019 15:24 Sermokala wrote: 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.
Why I agree that Jar Jar is very, very bad, I don't agree on the total abominations part. This new trilogy is a total abomination. The prequels had plenty of bad but they also had some good in it and with the exception of midichlorians and immaculate conception didn't shit on the OT characters. I could totally dig Anakin falling because he was rash and unruly teenager, also because he was too old when he started his training so wasn't completely brainwashed by the Jedi. Obi-Wan was awesome and it was good to see him both as padawan and master. Also, the OT had some pretty damn well made fight scenes, but most of all some semblance of a plot.
The only good thing in the new films is that they got back to practical effects. That's it.
Anakin destroying the Droid Control Centre is in my view the worst thing in all the films, god. Dislike that more than even Jar Jar.
It sort of did sort of shit on the OT by over explaining things or giving backstory that doesn’t quite mesh over, to my tastes anyway. If we had only the OT to go off and someone suggested the Jedi were a rigid order who won’t train anyone older than 9 or whatever because it’s too old to brainwash them and they’re not allowed to fuck people, does that really mesh with the mythical hippy vibe the two we see in OT give off? Or Vader being ‘space Jesus’ with Vader in the films, who seems more a general badass head henchman like a Jaws in a Bond film?
There are decent elements but the Prequels are horrendously unfocused and fail to deliver on what they’re trying to do. If you’re going to try and do a hero’s fall from grace and a dictator’s rise to power with a collapse of a Republic you really need to execute it well, while still being Star Wars you have to really execute it bloody well or it’ll be a mess.
Something tighter that cuts bloat and is more focused on Anakin and Obi-Wan would have been pretty good (to pick one example), as the latter is the most likeable character in the films by far and the former I think was good in the role but hamstrung by terrible dialogue. You could have the training elements, various adventures etc. Instead all the cool stuff you’d like to see is just mentioned by them in the past tense.
It’s hard to just forget other properties one has seen. The Clone Wars show actually does show the heroic, rash side of Anakin that makes his fall from grace actually tragic but the Prequels in isolation really don’t execute that at all well.
Clone Wars and Rebels are the best thing to happen to Star Wars on the TV screen.
On December 23 2019 15:24 Sermokala wrote: 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.
Why I agree that Jar Jar is very, very bad, I don't agree on the total abominations part. This new trilogy is a total abomination. The prequels had plenty of bad but they also had some good in it and with the exception of midichlorians and immaculate conception didn't shit on the OT characters. I could totally dig Anakin falling because he was rash and unruly teenager, also because he was too old when he started his training so wasn't completely brainwashed by the Jedi. Obi-Wan was awesome and it was good to see him both as padawan and master. Also, the OT had some pretty damn well made fight scenes, but most of all some semblance of a plot.
The only good thing in the new films is that they got back to practical effects. That's it.
Anakin destroying the Droid Control Centre is in my view the worst thing in all the films, god. Dislike that more than even Jar Jar.
It sort of did sort of shit on the OT by over explaining things or giving backstory that doesn’t quite mesh over, to my tastes anyway. If we had only the OT to go off and someone suggested the Jedi were a rigid order who won’t train anyone older than 9 or whatever because it’s too old to brainwash them and they’re not allowed to fuck people, does that really mesh with the mythical hippy vibe the two we see in OT give off? Or Vader being ‘space Jesus’ with Vader in the films, who seems more a general badass head henchman like a Jaws in a Bond film?
There are decent elements but the Prequels are horrendously unfocused and fail to deliver on what they’re trying to do. If you’re going to try and do a hero’s fall from grace and a dictator’s rise to power with a collapse of a Republic you really need to execute it well, while still being Star Wars you have to really execute it bloody well or it’ll be a mess.
Something tighter that cuts bloat and is more focused on Anakin and Obi-Wan would have been pretty good (to pick one example), as the latter is the most likeable character in the films by far and the former I think was good in the role but hamstrung by terrible dialogue. You could have the training elements, various adventures etc. Instead all the cool stuff you’d like to see is just mentioned by them in the past tense.
It’s hard to just forget other properties one has seen. The Clone Wars show actually does show the heroic, rash side of Anakin that makes his fall from grace actually tragic but the Prequels in isolation really don’t execute that at all well.
Clone Wars and Rebels are the best thing to happen to Star Wars on the TV screen.
A video game reviewer didn't like the movie. This is big stuff.
i guess this is what you get when Sci Fi movie fans who play video games are expecting "Gone With The Wind".
Angry Joe did acknowledge that if you are not a hardcore Star Wars fan and you went into the movie hoping for a good action movie that RoS delivered on that level. Good move by him to acknowledge other perspectives.
On December 23 2019 15:24 Sermokala wrote: 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.
Why I agree that Jar Jar is very, very bad, I don't agree on the total abominations part. This new trilogy is a total abomination. The prequels had plenty of bad but they also had some good in it and with the exception of midichlorians and immaculate conception didn't shit on the OT characters. I could totally dig Anakin falling because he was rash and unruly teenager, also because he was too old when he started his training so wasn't completely brainwashed by the Jedi. Obi-Wan was awesome and it was good to see him both as padawan and master. Also, the OT had some pretty damn well made fight scenes, but most of all some semblance of a plot.
The only good thing in the new films is that they got back to practical effects. That's it.
Anakin destroying the Droid Control Centre is in my view the worst thing in all the films, god. Dislike that more than even Jar Jar.
It sort of did sort of shit on the OT by over explaining things or giving backstory that doesn’t quite mesh over, to my tastes anyway. If we had only the OT to go off and someone suggested the Jedi were a rigid order who won’t train anyone older than 9 or whatever because it’s too old to brainwash them and they’re not allowed to fuck people, does that really mesh with the mythical hippy vibe the two we see in OT give off? Or Vader being ‘space Jesus’ with Vader in the films, who seems more a general badass head henchman like a Jaws in a Bond film?
There are decent elements but the Prequels are horrendously unfocused and fail to deliver on what they’re trying to do. If you’re going to try and do a hero’s fall from grace and a dictator’s rise to power with a collapse of a Republic you really need to execute it well, while still being Star Wars you have to really execute it bloody well or it’ll be a mess.
Something tighter that cuts bloat and is more focused on Anakin and Obi-Wan would have been pretty good (to pick one example), as the latter is the most likeable character in the films by far and the former I think was good in the role but hamstrung by terrible dialogue. You could have the training elements, various adventures etc. Instead all the cool stuff you’d like to see is just mentioned by them in the past tense.
It’s hard to just forget other properties one has seen. The Clone Wars show actually does show the heroic, rash side of Anakin that makes his fall from grace actually tragic but the Prequels in isolation really don’t execute that at all well.
Clone Wars and Rebels are the best thing to happen to Star Wars on the TV screen.
On December 23 2019 15:24 Sermokala wrote: 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.
Why I agree that Jar Jar is very, very bad, I don't agree on the total abominations part. This new trilogy is a total abomination. The prequels had plenty of bad but they also had some good in it and with the exception of midichlorians and immaculate conception didn't shit on the OT characters. I could totally dig Anakin falling because he was rash and unruly teenager, also because he was too old when he started his training so wasn't completely brainwashed by the Jedi. Obi-Wan was awesome and it was good to see him both as padawan and master. Also, the OT had some pretty damn well made fight scenes, but most of all some semblance of a plot.
The only good thing in the new films is that they got back to practical effects. That's it.
Anakin destroying the Droid Control Centre is in my view the worst thing in all the films, god. Dislike that more than even Jar Jar.
It sort of did sort of shit on the OT by over explaining things or giving backstory that doesn’t quite mesh over, to my tastes anyway. If we had only the OT to go off and someone suggested the Jedi were a rigid order who won’t train anyone older than 9 or whatever because it’s too old to brainwash them and they’re not allowed to fuck people, does that really mesh with the mythical hippy vibe the two we see in OT give off? Or Vader being ‘space Jesus’ with Vader in the films, who seems more a general badass head henchman like a Jaws in a Bond film?
There are decent elements but the Prequels are horrendously unfocused and fail to deliver on what they’re trying to do. If you’re going to try and do a hero’s fall from grace and a dictator’s rise to power with a collapse of a Republic you really need to execute it well, while still being Star Wars you have to really execute it bloody well or it’ll be a mess.
Something tighter that cuts bloat and is more focused on Anakin and Obi-Wan would have been pretty good (to pick one example), as the latter is the most likeable character in the films by far and the former I think was good in the role but hamstrung by terrible dialogue. You could have the training elements, various adventures etc. Instead all the cool stuff you’d like to see is just mentioned by them in the past tense.
It’s hard to just forget other properties one has seen. The Clone Wars show actually does show the heroic, rash side of Anakin that makes his fall from grace actually tragic but the Prequels in isolation really don’t execute that at all well.
Clone Wars and Rebels are the best thing to happen to Star Wars on the TV screen.
A video game reviewer didn't like the movie. This is big stuff.
i guess this is what you get when Sci Fi movie fans who play video games are expecting "Gone With The Wind".
Angry Joe did acknowledge that if you are not a hardcore Star Wars fan and you went into the movie hoping for a good action movie that it delivered on that level. Good move by him to acknowledge other perspectives.
Despite the backlash any time it’s mentioned the fans really are a problem, plus a cottage review industry on YouTube that either rates films as the best or worst things ever and say critics who review films as films are all out of touch. It’s all amplified in a way it didn’t use to be. Can you imagine the Prequels launching in the era of YouTube as we have it now?
What do people even want? What even is a Star Wars fan when it encompasses things that are totally tonally different.
There’s not enough good sci-fi in films for my particular tastes these days, but when there is something it tends not to do so well commercially. Blade Runner 2049
If people like the political intrigue elements of the Prequels, well if Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune is executed half as well as BR 2049 that should be a great sci-fi film in that vein.
The pessimist in me thinks even if it’s great people won’t go out and see it though, people would rather complain that x element isn’t in Star Wars instead of watching the things that are about x element.
Abrams Star Wars to me is very like Abrams Trek really. Flawed but pretty enjoyable action fare. I prefer the Wars films because tonally they fit original Star Wars, whereas his Trek is really not like why I like Star Trek. But I still have the shoes to rewatch at least
On December 24 2019 00:27 Wombat_NI wrote: There’s not enough good sci-fi in films for my particular tastes these days, but when there is something it tends not to do so well commercially. Blade Runner 2049
interestingly, the 1982 Blade Runner has a very hard core cult following today. However, the 1982 Blade Runner was Harrison Ford's only movie that didn't make 87 Gazillion Bazillion Dollars when it was released.
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). There was no reason to bring back Sheev and that was one of the worst and most baffling parts of the movie, far more damaging to the OT than anything in the prequels.
Why didn't Sheev just blast the entire rebel fleet out of the sky in episode 6? Apparently he can do that. What's to stop him from just resurrecting himself again? He got thrown into a radiator, was caught in the Death Star explosion which is the size of a moon, and then crashed into the moon of Endor and he came back. That's a lot more deadly than some lightning. Is he just gonna come back in Episode 10? It just further undermines everything accomplished in the OT, everything was meaningless because Sheev lived and still had a fuckhuge fleet that he could use to terrorize the galaxy.
This trilogy had no artistic vision or direction from the start. It was obvious when Disney said they'd be having a different director for each movie which is just bound to bring problems because people have their own vision for where a story should go and their ego will make them retcon or throw away plot leads (which both Abrams and Johnson did) and will include spectacle creep because they want to make their own mark on the story. You see this in any kind of long running franchised series
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.
I think you have to keep in mind that in 1977 there was a lot more hope and ambition regarding human space travel than there is today. we were just a few years removed from Eugene Cernan walking on the moon. The Viking landed on Mars a couple of years before the 1977 movie came out as well. Mankind had gone from a handful of space flights barely reaching the lowest edges of space to walking on the moon in about a 7 years.
There was a hint of hope in Sci Fi movies that involved space travel that we soon would be regularly engaged in space travel throughout the solar system.
why did the OT still gain fans like crazy in the 90s and 00s? It sure did help for star wars but its not the reason the OT is so huge, its because they are great films
I dont know why some guys praise TFA, it was garbage like the VIII and IX, just a rehash of the New Hope, with an idiotic villain, an OP Heroin, a Bigger Death Star, and a new Empire which come from nowhere, that is when the bad seed was plant, of course TLJ made significant damage to the old guys ans some conceptions, but IX goes even further, the force now is just so OP that everything seen in the last 8 movies is stupid UP.
Edit: just forgot some other gem from TFA: a black guy who main objective is to breath harder and harder.
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.
I guess that the general consensus among hardcore SW fans will be that they'll just not consider ep 7-9 as canon and disregard them completely. I'm not a hardcore fan and even for me those movies now simply do not exist and I can keep my happy SW memories intact. I'm writing it all off as something like the Christmas Special, where it belongs.
On December 24 2019 06:22 Manit0u wrote: I guess that the general consensus among hardcore SW fans will be that they'll just not consider ep 7-9 as canon and disregard them completely. I'm not a hardcore fan and even for me those movies now simply do not exist and I can keep my happy SW memories intact. I'm writing it all off as something like the Christmas Special, where it belongs.
What is a hardcore SW fan though? They don’t exist in any singular form. Are the prequels non-canon too? How does this all work?
I’m not casting aspersions on anyone, this is what happens when you have a giant franchise encompassing all sorts of actually different things.
I know guys who proclaim to be huge Star Wars fans for example, but who don’t like the original trilogy. They like all the EU stuff and tend to like the Prequels
On December 24 2019 06:22 Manit0u wrote: I guess that the general consensus among hardcore SW fans will be that they'll just not consider ep 7-9 as canon and disregard them completely. I'm not a hardcore fan and even for me those movies now simply do not exist and I can keep my happy SW memories intact. I'm writing it all off as something like the Christmas Special, where it belongs.
What is a hardcore SW fan though? They don’t exist in any singular form. Are the prequels non-canon too? How does this all work?
I’m not casting aspersions on anyone, this is what happens when you have a giant franchise encompassing all sorts of actually different things.
I know guys who proclaim to be huge Star Wars fans for example, but who don’t like the original trilogy. They like all the EU stuff and tend to like the Prequels
I work with a guy who is a HUGE STAR WARS fan. And by that I mean, he loves all the movies, the lore, the fan fiction and any show related. He will voice if he has any issues, but they are fairly minor. He dresses up in character to see the movie premiers. He took off work last Thursday and Friday to see the latest movie several times. He has the largest Star Wars tattoo that I know of, and I wouldn't be surprised if its a world record, since it takes up his entire back. His office is decorated entirely of star wars items.
Maybe we should differentiate between "Huge Star Wars Fans" and "Star Wars Fanatics" ?
Other Star wars fans I know, love to talk about the franchise flaws, the inconsistencies, the "sell out", etc. They are still going to pay money to watch this latest movie in the theater.
Sure, the SW franchise is super big with a lot of super diverse fans. It's had its ups and downs and even the OT wouldn't be all that special but it ticked the right boxes at just the right time. Hell, A New Hope is what got James Cameron out of truck driving and into directing movies. ANH is really just a simple fairy tale but in sci-fi. ESB is what changed everything and elevated it to a masterpiece.
Unfortunately for SW George Lucas created an awesome universe but didn't have enough knowledge and/or discipline to keep it together. He's also a control freak so that's why PT turned out how it did. Clone Wars and Rebels, hell, even Rogue One have shown that if you put competent people at the helm you can get a lot of mileage out of the setting.
Disney screwed it up big time. They got handed one of the biggest franchises in the world on a silver platter, with a big and interesting universe to build upon. You've got the Jedi, bounty hunters, smugglers, the Hutts, Mandalorians, a metric ton of lore and extra materials to lean upon and you're telling me that this new trilogy, which should have been the icing on the cake to get the hype and money train really rolling is all they could come up with? I would be seriously surprised if some heads at the top wouldn't roll for it, because now SW is probably losing Disney more money than it's making. Seriously, how do you fuck this up? You'd probably have to seriously hate it and try to sabotage it on purpose to get it to the state it's in now.
Instead of the biggest payout ever, breaking all of the box office records etc. you've divided your fandom (source of income), estranged a big part of it and got yourself into a corner that will be hard to get out of. It's a fuckup of massive proportions and it'll probably resonate for years in film classes (on how to not go about making a trilogy) and business lessons (on how not to manage a newly acquired existing IP).
I'm truly sad about it, because I got some big hopes for Star Wars universe as I kinda like the lore and some of the stories but now I just don't care about it any more. Way to go Disney.
Disney will be in a lot of trouble if they don't get their shit together and bring back the creativity. All they're doing now is buying everything out and just releasing live action remakes of old cartoons. I bet Little Mermaid with a black lead will bring them fame and fortune...
Disney is doing just fine financially. They broke the record for best year for a movie company in july. What has probably equaled out a lot of their losses has been a massive boost to their CGI and post-production muscle with the inclusion of skywalker sound and industrial light and magic. You can belive those studios have been responsible for keeping marvel with the best CGI that they've needed. A lot of their buyouts have been about the gearing up for the streaming wars an's d to give marvel the fuel it needs to keep going for another decade.
The funny thing is that the same thing happened to the DCEU. They wanted to rush it, copy something without the person they're copying, and lacked the single overall vision of the model they were trying to emulate. Now they've unhooked themselves from the skywalker trilogy of trilogies they can easily just make another trilogy as long as they stick with the "phase" model from marvel. Joh favreau and dave Filoni are the saviors they are looking for.
Keep in mind Grand daddy Iger is leaving soon. Big changes are going to be possible soon even for the massive house of mouse.
I have a question for those who watched the film. (Just saw Jumanji 2 and thoroughly enjoyed it)
From the sounds of things, the final act of Rise of Skywalker is a big battle with the Emperor's brand new fleets. Is anything done about the First Order fleets (like maybe they collect ALL their ships around the galaxy for the final hurrah- given that the FO has a tendency to put all their eggs in one basket.) Or, did the movie forget about the "First Order reigns supreme" like they forgot about the hyperspace trackers at the end of TLJ?
In other words, from the opening crawl of TLJ, the FO has taken over the entire galaxy with their magical fleet- was that fact dealt with or is the rest of the galaxy still under the control of the FO and the movie simply doesn't remember?
The First Order does get a little bit sidelined, all in all. The ending does imply that it does fall with the rest of the new fleet, when they show Star Destroyers being taken down all across the galaxy. Additional head-canon could have to do with Kylo Ren's general mismanagement of the fleet as the new Supreme Leader, since all in all the evil side is pretty much all him by this point.
Haven't watched it yet and for the first time I doubt I ever will. TLJ was one of the worst movies I've seen in the last decade and I'm downright scared of seeing another fiasco like this one.
Putting political agenda in an art piece is not fundamentally wrong, it's been done a million times with varying success. If you screw up the plot and atmosphere and create a myriad of shallow, non-believable characters BECAUSE you sent a political message, then you'll get backlash both for the political stuff and the bad writing. That's what TLJ was and I expect more of the same in episode IX. So any and all spoilers about the positive aspects of the movie besides the good visuals and score are welcome. Please, I don't want to hate SW. I love the extended universe and was so pissed that Disney destroyed the canon.
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.
RLM actually did a pretty good job at pointing out the biggest issues with the prequel trilogy. They did get overboard with the angry satire approach, but their points were valid.
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
I haven’t seen Solo yet, not the Mandalorian, I thought Rogue One was really good, albeit flawed too. I liked that they injected the element of ruthlessness in the Rebels, as realistically such a group facing an Empire of such power would have to be.
I’ve heard really good things about the Thrawn trilogy so intend to get reading that too.
One problem of both the Prequels and especially the new trilogy is they have escalated force powers to a crazy degree. I think Vader massacring the rebels at the end of Rogue One is where I personally think is a good balance between a force user being potent and terrifying, but not hitting Neo from the Matrix levels.
The possibilities with the universe are insane and it’s baffling how they haven’t really utilised it, hopefully they can do interesting things.
I think different shows for people of different tastes is probably the way to go, with the odd movie thrown in. Especially with Disney Plus it seems they’re looking that direction.
House of Cards only it’s the rise of Palpatine would be a show I’d watch the shit of for example. Unfortunately there’s prequel canon there so I’m not sure you’d get around it.
A romantic comedy centring around C3PO and R2D2 would be delightful.
On December 24 2019 18:24 TaardadAiel wrote: Haven't watched it yet and for the first time I doubt I ever will. TLJ was one of the worst movies I've seen in the last decade and I'm downright scared of seeing another fiasco like this one.
Putting political agenda in an art piece is not fundamentally wrong, it's been done a million times with varying success. If you screw up the plot and atmosphere and create a myriad of shallow, non-believable characters BECAUSE you sent a political message, then you'll get backlash both for the political stuff and the bad writing. That's what TLJ was and I expect more of the same in episode IX. So any and all spoilers about the positive aspects of the movie besides the good visuals and score are welcome. Please, I don't want to hate SW. I love the extended universe and was so pissed that Disney destroyed the canon.
I don't know what kind of Star Wars fan you are, or how critical you'd be of its faults. What perhaps might give you some pause is that the consensus seems to be that if you hated TLJ, you probably will like (but not love) this movie - whereas most people who had a favorable opinion of TLJ would be less fond of this one. I personally thought TLJ was abominable, and that this movie, for all its flaws, was quite alright. RoS definitely isn't a politically preachy movie, it's just the more traditional Star Wars done alright but not phenomenally. Its biggest flaw is the pacing, and its most direct analogue in the existing Star Wars fandom is the Dark Empire series.
My recommendation is, don't look for spoilers. I made the mistake of reading like 3-4 of them, which kind of ruined the immersion by making me try to anticipate the plot points. The story ended up better than the spoilers in isolation made it look. If you're not the kind of fan who seeks to nitpick every fault, there's going to be a lot of cool stuff to enjoy. It doesn't fail fundamentally as a cinematic work the way that TLJ does; it merely "has faults."
JJ, in his usual style, does better with characters than with plot. Almost all the characters get a send-off worthy of their design by the end. My favorite one:
Hux. Didn't really like the way he was relegated into a joke role in Ep 8, but this movie rolled with it in a surprisingly amusing way. Demoted in the First Order command and clearly upset about it. Ends up as the spy, with a line that I felt really perfectly encompasses his character: "I don't care if you win, I just want Kylo Ren to lose!" Much as I hate the original character assassination Johnson did, that follow-up is just so perfectly Hux that I can't help but love it.
On December 24 2019 23:55 Wombat_NI wrote: Tangent here but where does Disney go next?
I haven’t seen Solo yet, not the Mandalorian, I thought Rogue One was really good, albeit flawed too. I liked that they injected the element of ruthlessness in the Rebels, as realistically such a group facing an Empire of such power would have to be.
I’ve heard really good things about the Thrawn trilogy so intend to get reading that too.
What I was actually thinking after watching Ep 9 is that a "Thrawn in the Unknown Regions" work would be really cool. The timeline would put it between the new-canon "Thrawn" book (one of the best works Zahn has done, just about on par with his original trilogy and better than the vast majority of the rest of his books) and the new movie. It could very well be written to tie in the missing link between Thrawn being banished to the Unknown Regions (now, I guess, as a result of Rebels) and Palpatine's master plan playing out on Exegol.
I know that a book would 100% be the most competent work on that plot point, but on some level I'd really want a movie or mini series. The only time Disney put Thrawn on "the screen" in any form was the unfortunately very kiddy series that was Rebels. Yes, he was quite a good addition to that series, but there wasn't enough substance to that series to have enough to work with in the first place.
On December 24 2019 18:24 TaardadAiel wrote: Putting political agenda in an art piece is not fundamentally wrong, it's been done a million times with varying success. If you screw up the plot and atmosphere and create a myriad of shallow, non-believable characters BECAUSE you sent a political message, then you'll get backlash both for the political stuff and the bad writing. That's what TLJ was and I expect more of the same in episode IX. So any and all spoilers about the positive aspects of the movie besides the good visuals and score are welcome. Please, I don't want to hate SW. I love the extended universe and was so pissed that Disney destroyed the canon.
ya, The Superman movie franchise was extremely strong at first. It weakened somewhat with Superman3. After that "Superman 4: The Quest For Peace" was quite political and they ended up fucking the Superman movie franchise into the ground for almost 20 years.
The problem that they have, is that the force users are so fu... op now, you have to get rid of that theme to make something good about SW, like The Mandalorian, and only because the force user is a baby.
On December 24 2019 18:24 TaardadAiel wrote: Haven't watched it yet and for the first time I doubt I ever will. TLJ was one of the worst movies I've seen in the last decade and I'm downright scared of seeing another fiasco like this one.
Putting political agenda in an art piece is not fundamentally wrong, it's been done a million times with varying success. If you screw up the plot and atmosphere and create a myriad of shallow, non-believable characters BECAUSE you sent a political message, then you'll get backlash both for the political stuff and the bad writing. That's what TLJ was and I expect more of the same in episode IX. So any and all spoilers about the positive aspects of the movie besides the good visuals and score are welcome. Please, I don't want to hate SW. I love the extended universe and was so pissed that Disney destroyed the canon.
I don't know what kind of Star Wars fan you are, or how critical you'd be of its faults. What perhaps might give you some pause is that the consensus seems to be that if you hated TLJ, you probably will like (but not love) this movie - whereas most people who had a favorable opinion of TLJ would be less fond of this one. I personally thought TLJ was abominable, and that this movie, for all its flaws, was quite alright. RoS definitely isn't a politically preachy movie, it's just the more traditional Star Wars done alright but not phenomenally. Its biggest flaw is the pacing, and its most direct analogue in the existing Star Wars fandom is the Dark Empire series.
My recommendation is, don't look for spoilers. I made the mistake of reading like 3-4 of them, which kind of ruined the immersion by making me try to anticipate the plot points. The story ended up better than the spoilers in isolation made it look. If you're not the kind of fan who seeks to nitpick every fault, there's going to be a lot of cool stuff to enjoy. It doesn't fail fundamentally as a cinematic work the way that TLJ does; it merely "has faults."
JJ, in his usual style, does better with characters than with plot. Almost all the characters get a send-off worthy of their design by the end. My favorite one:
Hux. Didn't really like the way he was relegated into a joke role in Ep 8, but this movie rolled with it in a surprisingly amusing way. Demoted in the First Order command and clearly upset about it. Ends up as the spy, with a line that I felt really perfectly encompasses his character: "I don't care if you win, I just want Kylo Ren to lose!" Much as I hate the original character assassination Johnson did, that follow-up is just so perfectly Hux that I can't help but love it.
Not sure I agree with that. I am generally someone who watches movies for what they are and am ok with ignoring glaring plot/acting holes if the movie is a fun experience (as in I dont disect every bit about a movie to find complaints and all that). My line is so low that I dont remember the last time I really thought "this movie is crap and I have paid to watch this, damn". Then there is TLJ...it is that bad and I am not even a huge sw fan. There is something bizarre going from almost start to finish.
Yet, I still hated this one and left with the same question "why have I paid to watch this?". This one has some ok parts and not so many bizarre moments like TLJ, but it still suffers from the same faults. So to me, if you did not like the previous one, chances are you are still going to hate this one.
On December 25 2019 00:53 palexhur wrote: The problem that they have, is that the force users are so fu... op now, you have to get rid of that theme to make something good about SW, like The Mandalorian, and only because the force user is a baby.
This is an excellent point. They've used the force as a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card too many times.
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. At any rate, it seems enough are liking it given that the audience score for RT has been locked at exactly 86% from 1k ratings to 44k ratings with no variation.
Yeah the 86% thing seems horribly suspect though to them just stopping the downfall to protect ratings.
The critics have actually dropped to 55% as more have come in. Not surprising though, after seeing it I have to agree it was another bad star wars movie. No respect for the movies that came before and zero imagination with new additions to the story.
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.
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. At any rate, it seems enough are liking it given that the audience score for RT has been locked at exactly 86% from 1k ratings to 44k ratings with no variation.
I'm as anti TLJ as anyone and I like ROS.
I think ROS is a lot like an hibachi. Its a real spectacle and a lot of people really like it. Despite all that its just a really expensive way to serve rather cheap ingredients in a faux-fancy way. There is a new Japanse fast food place in my town that serves the same things but just without all the show.
Edit: LL makes my point better then I did just above.
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 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
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.
It seems that at the mark of 40k audience reviews total, 23k with very good califications, that 10k of the "verified" reviewers only has scored this movie, and something like 12k have not profile at all, reviews ratings are ea$y to manipulate.
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.
What doesn't make sense is that it didn't budge even slightly:
You can see that even the critics score goes up and down even with 400 votes but the audience score won't budge with 46k? Sure, it shouldn't budge as you already got to a bigger number and you're getting just a few votes in that won't matter in the big scale, but going from 1k to 40k should produce some swings. It's highly improbable that 45k people voted in exactly perfect fashion to keep it at a steady 86%.
Edit:
Just out of curiosity I wrote a rather simplistic program to simulate the reviews. If you get 21k generally positive reviews, intermingle around 3k reviews in the range of 30-60 and leave the rest as random reviews ranging from 0 to 100 you get something like that when it comes to the score (counted for 46k votes, each score shown at 1k votes).
For the interested, the simplistic program I used to simulate this: + Show Spoiler +
@sum = 0 @score = 0
def update_score(iterations) opinion = case iterations when (1..1500) rand(80..100) when (1501..2500) rand(70..90) when (2501..6500) rand(50..70) when (12500..15500) rand(30..60) when (20501..35500) rand(70..100) else rand(100) end
But they did try to explain the political aspect of it. The whole core of the trilogy is that Palpatine is able to overthrow the republic and turn it into an empire with him and vader through this trade war, with the clone army as his enforcers. This trade war in the first is given massive unexplained importance, why does padme need to sign a treaty, why does a weeklong blockade of an unindustrialized planet equal starvation, the whole way the no-confidence vote is put through is beacuse people want to makes sure something is actually going on with the blockade (wildly reasonable) yet don't believe the two jedi, yet then when the jedi go back (with anikin for some reason) they only send two jedi, the same jedi they apparently don't trust. Politics is at the core of the prequels and its terrible because of it and all the inane shot-reverse shot conversations about it.
I only started in on the first one for the most part because I'd be here all day and write pages and pages if I didn't stop myself at some point. Why does no one question the mysterious clone army? How do they pay for the army and its upkeep? If the separatists were really concerned over trade route taxes why does no one see the fact that its obviously cheaper to compromise on taxes instead of paying for a massive military. Why is everyone okay with the fact that this new clone army is literally a copy of Mandalorians (who devastated the republic in an age past) Why is the jedi suddenly okay with being pressed into being the generals for this army? Ironically the last time the jedi participated in a war like this they had a massive backlash as the jedi who went to war became sith in the same war with the Mandalorians they are now fighting beside.
Again planets are being destroyed and billions apon billions are dieing and for what? oh but thats too much poltiics I guess. Don't even get me started on the worst ever romance and worst ever friendship.
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.
What doesn't make sense is that it didn't budge even slightly.
Indeed, that is a little odd. But I would not be surprised if RT has an algorithm in place that is something like “after 10k entries, update the percentage only once weekly.” It’s usually something trivial like that.
The unmoving nature of the rating seems to be used to imply that viewers are actually not so fond of the movie and that RT is masking it, which really doesn’t seem to be the case. Just a quick sample on a couple of pages of reviews makes it look like something like 8 out of 10 people see the movie more favorably than not, which is quite consistent with the 86%.
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.
What doesn't make sense is that it didn't budge even slightly.
Indeed, that is a little odd. But I would not be surprised if RT has an algorithm in place that is something like “after 10k entries, update the percentage only once weekly.” It’s usually something trivial like that.
The unmoving nature of the rating seems to be used to imply that viewers are actually not so fond of the movie and that RT is masking it, which really doesn’t seem to be the case. Just a quick sample on a couple of pages of reviews makes it look like something like 8 out of 10 people see the movie more favorably than not, which is quite consistent with the 86%.
No, it's not so trivial since in the timelapse of RT screenshots you can clearly see the percentages being updated with every few entries (both for critics and audience) and then when audience score drops to 86% it stops while the critics score is still going up and down.
Also, user reviews being favorable doesn't matter at all since there are only 12k reviews (both confirmed and unconfirmed) and the rating comes from 46k people. So, even if all the reviews would be favorable this would still leave the majority of ratings to be able to swing it either way.
I know that not everyone hated this movie, but 86% seems really high for a movie that effects such polarizing opinions. It would be more believable if it were somewhere around the 40-60% range, leaning towards the majority (positive or negative). Judging from the articles and reviews alone I find it hard to believe that the vast majority liked it, let alone liked it enough to give it score in the 90-100% range to offset the negative reviews.
IMDB has it at 7/10 right now (this means mostly negative reviews since all movies start at 7.4/10 on IMDB) while metacritic at 54/100 (with the most favorable from the aggregated ratings being 75/100).
In any case, after the Captain Marvel debacle and now this I'm not trusting RT scores in the slightest any more.
Massively disappointing. Yes, it was exciting and looked great, but it was basically just a super hero movie, complete with endless "are they dead? No they aren't" fakeouts.
For Force Awakens, I was happy to give them the benefit of the doubt on lack of new ideas, and thought it was a solid film. But Rise of Skywalker literally had nothing new either. Not a single interesting concept, or even good bit of dialog.
TLJ was a mess too, but at least had that one great scene at the end with Luke facing down the First Order.
On December 25 2019 18:38 Tal wrote: Massively disappointing. Yes, it was exciting and looked great, but it was basically just a super hero movie, complete with endless "are they dead? No they aren't" fakeouts.
For Force Awakens, I was happy to give them the benefit of the doubt on lack of new ideas, and thought it was a solid film. But Rise of Skywalker literally had nothing new either. Not a single interesting concept, or even good bit of dialog.
TLJ was a mess too, but at least had that one great scene at the end with Luke facing down the First Order.
The thing I liked about TFA was that it actually made me excited to see the next movie. It did its job which was to set up the storylines and get people up to date with the SW universe 30-40 years later. Coming into TLJ people were excited to see what Luke was up to, who Snoke was, Rey’s background, etc.
TLJ on the other hand set up absolutely nothing for the next movie. I had 0 expectations coming into it.
On December 25 2019 18:38 Tal wrote: Massively disappointing. Yes, it was exciting and looked great, but it was basically just a super hero movie, complete with endless "are they dead? No they aren't" fakeouts.
For Force Awakens, I was happy to give them the benefit of the doubt on lack of new ideas, and thought it was a solid film. But Rise of Skywalker literally had nothing new either. Not a single interesting concept, or even good bit of dialog.
TLJ was a mess too, but at least had that one great scene at the end with Luke facing down the First Order.
The thing I liked about TFA was that it actually made me excited to see the next movie. It did its job which was to set up the storylines and get people up to date with the SW universe 30-40 years later. Coming into TLJ people were excited to see what Luke was up to, who Snoke was, Rey’s background, etc.
TLJ on the other hand set up absolutely nothing for the next movie. I had 0 expectations coming into it.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. It was also showing people you could have a good star wars movie after the prequels, and introducing a whole new cast, and was all pretty successful. It was also funny, with some great lines and moments.
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.
On December 24 2019 18:24 TaardadAiel wrote: Haven't watched it yet and for the first time I doubt I ever will. TLJ was one of the worst movies I've seen in the last decade and I'm downright scared of seeing another fiasco like this one.
Putting political agenda in an art piece is not fundamentally wrong, it's been done a million times with varying success. If you screw up the plot and atmosphere and create a myriad of shallow, non-believable characters BECAUSE you sent a political message, then you'll get backlash both for the political stuff and the bad writing. That's what TLJ was and I expect more of the same in episode IX. So any and all spoilers about the positive aspects of the movie besides the good visuals and score are welcome. Please, I don't want to hate SW. I love the extended universe and was so pissed that Disney destroyed the canon.
I don't know what kind of Star Wars fan you are, or how critical you'd be of its faults. What perhaps might give you some pause is that the consensus seems to be that if you hated TLJ, you probably will like (but not love) this movie - whereas most people who had a favorable opinion of TLJ would be less fond of this one. I personally thought TLJ was abominable, and that this movie, for all its flaws, was quite alright. RoS definitely isn't a politically preachy movie, it's just the more traditional Star Wars done alright but not phenomenally. Its biggest flaw is the pacing, and its most direct analogue in the existing Star Wars fandom is the Dark Empire series.
My recommendation is, don't look for spoilers. I made the mistake of reading like 3-4 of them, which kind of ruined the immersion by making me try to anticipate the plot points. The story ended up better than the spoilers in isolation made it look. If you're not the kind of fan who seeks to nitpick every fault, there's going to be a lot of cool stuff to enjoy. It doesn't fail fundamentally as a cinematic work the way that TLJ does; it merely "has faults."
JJ, in his usual style, does better with characters than with plot. Almost all the characters get a send-off worthy of their design by the end. My favorite one:
Hux. Didn't really like the way he was relegated into a joke role in Ep 8, but this movie rolled with it in a surprisingly amusing way. Demoted in the First Order command and clearly upset about it. Ends up as the spy, with a line that I felt really perfectly encompasses his character: "I don't care if you win, I just want Kylo Ren to lose!" Much as I hate the original character assassination Johnson did, that follow-up is just so perfectly Hux that I can't help but love it.
I'm somewhere between a hardcore fan and a casual fan. Not really into the Force stuff, the Jedi are an important aspect of the SW universe, but not exactly at the center for me (although I understand the Skywalker family saga is in the center of the first six movies and it works well). I prefer the space battles and such. The X-wing novels and the Thrawn trilogy are, consequently, my favorite EU works. What I value the most, however, are characters and their development. And this is where TLJ failed the most, for me.
Good thing that you bring out Hux. He feels so fake in the SW universe, where we had the Imperial Navy as one of the most fearsome fighting forces in the galaxy. They didn't care for the lives of their men, a cruel and merciless form of meritocracy plus heavy nepotism in the upper ranks. And in TLJ we have an insolent childish immature high-ranked officer for the FO, who just gets scolded by a Vader wannabe that feels more like a school bully than an actual dark knight. He did get force-choked for his insolence, but way later than Lord Vader would have back in my day - and he survived it. We also have a hotshot brat without ANY sense of perspective posing as a fighter ace. Poe was a particularly painful blow for me, because we already had Wedge - an actual leader, a brilliant pilot and a fine tactician. Nobody knows what they're doing in this movie. The villains are not intimidating and the protagonists are clumsy and inept. Adam Driver used to serve in the Marine Corps, FFS, he's probably intimidating in real life and yet Kylo fails to instill any fear in the viewer. I can't help but think all this deconstruction is deliberate.
Of course, there are the outright dumb moments like Leia floating unconscious in hard vacuum.
And we have the early and fairly underwhelming demise of what we knew as The Big Villain.
And the viewers' time is wasted with plot lines that lead nowhere, like the whole journey to the casino for the filthy rich. Again, I'm ok with sending a political message, but you need to do a good job with it or it just feels forced.
Enough with the rant, I like what you say about the characters. The Hux thing sounds like a throwback to Kirtan Loor, a nice trope. I really hope there is a charming rogue kind of guy, because the arms dealer/code slicer was the only believable character in TLJ and Del Toro did more in like four minutes of screen time than Ridley does in two movies. I'm actually interested by that guy and not the protagonist, way to go.
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.
The prequels didn't break the overarching world either. The story might not have been great, tho I think its not nearly as bad as some people hold to, but it fitted without the universe of the original trilogy without breaking things.
No superweapons shooting through hyperspace, no suicide hyperspace jumps that destroy mega ships. No force powers that break everything. (Well ok, not entirely true, there is 2 seconds of force speed in Phantom Menace)
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.
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...
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.
Didn't the droids kill a bunch of Jedi in the arena on Geonosis? I mean, sustained fire from enough points should be a death sentence for 95% of the Jedi.
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.
Didn't the droids kill a bunch of Jedi in the arena on Geonosis? I mean, sustained fire from enough points should be a death sentence for 95% of the Jedi.
The droids almost wiped the jedi out on Geonosis and tons of Jedi died in the clone wars. Wombat_NI is just a prequel hater, you should ignore what he says imo
On December 25 2019 10:44 Sermokala wrote: But they did try to explain the political aspect of it. The whole core of the trilogy is that Palpatine is able to overthrow the republic and turn it into an empire with him and vader through this trade war, with the clone army as his enforcers. This trade war in the first is given massive unexplained importance, why does padme need to sign a treaty, why does a weeklong blockade of an unindustrialized planet equal starvation, the whole way the no-confidence vote is put through is beacuse people want to makes sure something is actually going on with the blockade (wildly reasonable) yet don't believe the two jedi, yet then when the jedi go back (with anikin for some reason) they only send two jedi, the same jedi they apparently don't trust. Politics is at the core of the prequels and its terrible because of it and all the inane shot-reverse shot conversations about it.
I only started in on the first one for the most part because I'd be here all day and write pages and pages if I didn't stop myself at some point. Why does no one question the mysterious clone army? How do they pay for the army and its upkeep? If the separatists were really concerned over trade route taxes why does no one see the fact that its obviously cheaper to compromise on taxes instead of paying for a massive military. Why is everyone okay with the fact that this new clone army is literally a copy of Mandalorians (who devastated the republic in an age past) Why is the jedi suddenly okay with being pressed into being the generals for this army? Ironically the last time the jedi participated in a war like this they had a massive backlash as the jedi who went to war became sith in the same war with the Mandalorians they are now fighting beside.
Again planets are being destroyed and billions apon billions are dieing and for what? oh but thats too much poltiics I guess. Don't even get me started on the worst ever romance and worst ever friendship.
The fact that the hole SW series is launch because of an obsucre conflict about taxation of trade routes and decentralization of the republican system is profoundly funny, we never even get to know for what anyone is fighting for, except that senator ominous phrases is behind it.
The trade federation aren't even that terrible at the start, they just blocade a planet in retaliation to... something? They don't kill anyone until after the planet monarch decided to retake her throne and a 8 years old blew them up. Well ok they try to kill two jedi, that ain't great.
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.
Didn't the droids kill a bunch of Jedi in the arena on Geonosis? I mean, sustained fire from enough points should be a death sentence for 95% of the Jedi.
The droids almost wiped the jedi out on Geonosis and tons of Jedi died in the clone wars. Wombat_NI is just a prequel hater, you should ignore what he says imo
I said it was a shared problem with the prequels and the new trilogy, but you chose to focus your point on me disliking the prequels specifically.
How did the droids even do that when outside of that specific scene for the entire rest of the trilogy 1-2 Jedi are basically invincible and chop through droids like they’re casually preparing a meal? Or leap into fast moving space traffic from a great height, fight around ridiculously perilous obstacles floating on lava etc etc? Then in Nu Wars we have Jedi stalling ships mid-flight, Palpatine is apparently capable of destroying the biggest fleet ever assembled by himself etc etc.
Unless basically all of the Jedi who the plot follows in the Prequels are just pretty shit as Jedi go it’s even more jarring to see them all get massacred by the exact same type of troops that are shown to be cannon fodder in most of the rest of the franchise any time a Jedi is about. It’s like they turned off the god mode cheat for a couple of scenes.
Nothing that happens in the Clone Wars redeems the Prequels as stand-alone films, or main films within that franchise.
If anything I dislike the Prequels more having seen the Clone Wars because the latter does a good job on the elements that should have been the focus/executed better in the Prequels and makes the failure to use the opportunity that much more irritating.
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.
Didn't the droids kill a bunch of Jedi in the arena on Geonosis? I mean, sustained fire from enough points should be a death sentence for 95% of the Jedi.
The droids almost wiped the jedi out on Geonosis and tons of Jedi died in the clone wars. Wombat_NI is just a prequel hater, you should ignore what he says imo
I said it was a shared problem with the prequels and the new trilogy, but you chose to focus your point on me disliking the prequels specifically.
How did the droids even do that when outside of that specific scene for the entire rest of the trilogy 1-2 Jedi are basically invincible and chop through droids like they’re casually preparing a meal? Or leap into fast moving space traffic from a great height, fight around ridiculously perilous obstacles floating on lava etc etc? Then in Nu Wars we have Jedi stalling ships mid-flight, Palpatine is apparently capable of destroying the biggest fleet ever assembled by himself etc etc.
Unless basically all of the Jedi who the plot follows in the Prequels are just pretty shit as Jedi go it’s even more jarring to see them all get massacred by the exact same type of troops that are shown to be cannon fodder in most of the rest of the franchise any time a Jedi is about. It’s like they turned off the god mode cheat for a couple of scenes.
Nothing that happens in the Clone Wars redeems the Prequels as stand-alone films, or main films within that franchise.
If anything I dislike the Prequels more having seen the Clone Wars because the latter does a good job on the elements that should have been the focus/executed better in the Prequels and makes the failure to use the opportunity that much more irritating.
Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi Wan ran away from two droidekas in the first movie, Obi Wan was captured by a few flying aliens on geonosis. That's just two scenes where the Jedi were not invincible as you claim in the prequels sheesh...
Did you even watch the prequels after the first time or are you just hating on bad memories?
So now we not only have the OT crowd which views everything after with different standards, the prequels also get defenders who can handwave away potential flaws but not have the same ability for the sequels. It's just humorous for someone like me who thinks that these films more or less are all about the same (well prequels are actually worse ) with small variances in strengths / weaknesses.
"They ran away and obi wan got captchured!" apparently counts here while you'd probably not let similar arguments count when it comes to rey and her perceived opness. (and i'd even agree that she could have been written with a little more physical struggle to make her arc better)
Guys like Obi-Wan, Yoda, Windu and obviously Anakin are considered extremely high-skilled and therefore capable of such feats. The feats themselves weren't particularly interesting in the movies, the high-altitude jump was dumb imo and the duel on Mustafar was exceedingly long so I didn't like them, but I don't think they break the way the universe works or at least not to such extent. Luke did some pretty crazy shit during the speeder bike chase on Endor, too.
Leia floating in hard vacuum and other such stuff is a completely different kind of dumb. The things I mentioned were just not exciting (and they were meant to be, so bad job by the team), this is outrageous. Palpatine destroying a whole fleet with force lightning? What the actual F?
All I'm hoping for in SW universe right now is that they make a proper show about Quinlan Vos. A Jedi master who was bending the rules, succumbed to the dark side when infiltrating the Sith, had a love affair with Sith Assassin etc. That's an interesting character.
Another interesting one would be Cade Skywalker (Luke's grandson), who got addicted to drugs when he abused them constantly in order to suppress his force powers.
On December 26 2019 05:06 The_Red_Viper wrote: So now we not only have the OT crowd which views everything after with different standards, the prequels also get defenders who can handwave away potential flaws but not have the same ability for the sequels. It's just humorous for someone like me who thinks that these films more or less are all about the same (well prequels are actually worse ) with small variances in strengths / weaknesses.
"They ran away and obi wan got captchured!" apparently counts here while you'd probably not let similar arguments count when it comes to rey and her perceived opness. (and i'd even agree that she could have been written with a little more physical struggle to make her arc better)
"small variances in strengths / weaknesses"? Small? Force lightning entire fleets is small? If that had existed in ep 1-6 there would have been no need for any soldiers
I was talking about movie quality there, i guess that wasn't clear enough. The only film which stands out a little is ESB and even that one is not nearly as good as people make it out to be.
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...
Because he does it basically by accident? And it’s really silly?
Unless it’s in a film that’s played for comedy, I really hate the ‘someone oblivious or clumsy saves the situation’ trope and the bigger the situation the more irritating I find it. Hence why it’s my least favourite section in the cinematic saga. As I said personal taste.
Also I specifically compared Rey being a good pilot to Anakin being a good pilot. Anakin is less inexplicably OP throughout the whole prequel trilogy though.
At the end of Phantom Menace Anakin, a child has won a pod race (fine by me), built a robot, destroyed a space station.
Rey is worse in this sense across the trilogy for sure but criticism was right there from when there was only TFA that Rey was totally inexplicably overpowered as if Episode 1 never happened
The problem with Rey is that with Anakin it was established that he was a good pod pilot despite his age (most likely an affinity Luke inherited). With Rey there's no indication that she can pilot anything since she's just a broke junk-collector and she probably hasn't been anywhere near a working spacecraft her entire life and all of a sudden she's outmaneuvering trained pilots flying top-of-the-line interceptors in an outdated freighter on her first try? Please...
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...
Because he does it basically by accident? And it’s really silly?
Unless it’s in a film that’s played for comedy, I really hate the ‘someone oblivious or clumsy saves the situation’ trope and the bigger the situation the more irritating I find it. Hence why it’s my least favourite section in the cinematic saga. As I said personal taste.
Also I specifically compared Rey being a good pilot to Anakin being a good pilot. Anakin is less inexplicably OP throughout the whole prequel trilogy though.
At the end of Phantom Menace Anakin, a child has won a pod race (fine by me), built-up a robot, destroyed a space station.
Rey is worse in this sense across the trilogy for sure but criticism was right there from when there was only TFA that Rey was totally inexplicably overpowered as if Episode 1 never happened
You make a very good point about Anakin blowing the control ship basically by accident. It was dumb and it was a very unnecessary throwback to Luke blowing up the first Death Star.
But I feel we're criticizing a different kind of bad here. Anakin was, somewhat ineptly, set up as being a great pilot and a mechanical prodigy. He actually spent time on both piloting and making stuff. I wouldn't criticize Rey for being a good pilot herself. But defeating a wannabe Vader with Skywalker blood (midichlorians, what a dumb concept lol) in his veins and Skywalker training with basically no background is something else. Jedi Masters of the Old Republic do extreme feats with a shitload of training at a time where training is done systematically and not by an old, rusty Master on a backward planet. And only the very best of them. Rey just goes OP like that.
Plus, Anakin is not OP as a Force user in TPM. He's an unusually bright child with quick reflexes and a knack for building stuff. He didn't best Maul in a lightsaber duel. And he really did not know what he was doing when he destroyed the control ship. It was dumb and unnecessary, but did not make him OP.
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.
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.
On December 26 2019 05:06 The_Red_Viper wrote: So now we not only have the OT crowd which views everything after with different standards, the prequels also get defenders who can handwave away potential flaws but not have the same ability for the sequels. It's just humorous for someone like me who thinks that these films more or less are all about the same (well prequels are actually worse ) with small variances in strengths / weaknesses.
"They ran away and obi wan got captchured!" apparently counts here while you'd probably not let similar arguments count when it comes to rey and her perceived opness. (and i'd even agree that she could have been written with a little more physical struggle to make her arc better)
How dare you, the OT are perfect films!
Nah but being serious, was exactly my point, the finding flaws in one/ignoring them in another. That said one can’t be 100% consistent because despite similarities there are differences (sort of)
OT is solid, good characters, really memorable looking aesthetic. It is simple, the Empire is the Empire and are bad, Rebels are good. There’s this thing called the Force. That’s about it
Prequels. Good moments I do like, but largely horrific dialogue destroys the characters. Tries to expand the universe but in certain areas actively detracts from what I like (Midochlorians and the mystery of the force) or is a convoluted and confusing mess that’s paced horribly (a lot of the rest of the plot). Ewan McGregor’s performance as Obi-Wan as the one relatable human being in this universe is rated highly but really underrated if you consider how bad they’d be without him.
Nu-Wars. Makes zero sense whatsoever. Unlike the OT where there just is an Empire, it has to explain why there is an Empire 2.0 after the last one got destroyed, and subsequently the Empire 3.0 that’s even bigger and more eviller. They don’t even attempt to explain these things. There’s also no consistency of direction whatsoever within even the trilogy itself, never mind the wider universe. Adam Driver basically carries the whole thing as the only vaguely interesting character and his performance is bloody solid.
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. Prequels I like parts but just find mostly bad because of the pacing and dialogue and bad characters, although I haven’t rewatched in a while. New trilogy I enjoyed them all as dumb popcorn flicks in the cinema, but they make zero sense especially when you step out and think about it after. Big chunks don’t even make sense at the time but I did feel the kind of ‘feel’ of Star Wars was at least there.
I have seen TFA and I legitimately don’t know what happens in the film, basically outside a few scenes. If it wasn’t for it being A New Hope 2 I’d have close to zero idea whatsoever.
I think all 3 trilogies are surface level obviously similar but rather different in how their flaws manifest.
OT the only universe we know is the OT and it’s simple. Prequels try to expand it but it’s boring (for me), new trilogy is ‘exciting’ but destroys any kind of consistency or rules of the universe
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.
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
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...
Because he does it basically by accident? And it’s really silly?
Unless it’s in a film that’s played for comedy, I really hate the ‘someone oblivious or clumsy saves the situation’ trope and the bigger the situation the more irritating I find it. Hence why it’s my least favourite section in the cinematic saga. As I said personal taste.
Also I specifically compared Rey being a good pilot to Anakin being a good pilot. Anakin is less inexplicably OP throughout the whole prequel trilogy though.
At the end of Phantom Menace Anakin, a child has won a pod race (fine by me), built-up a robot, destroyed a space station.
Rey is worse in this sense across the trilogy for sure but criticism was right there from when there was only TFA that Rey was totally inexplicably overpowered as if Episode 1 never happened
You make a very good point about Anakin blowing the control ship basically by accident. It was dumb and it was a very unnecessary throwback to Luke blowing up the first Death Star.
But I feel we're criticizing a different kind of bad here. Anakin was, somewhat ineptly, set up as being a great pilot and a mechanical prodigy. He actually spent time on both piloting and making stuff. I wouldn't criticize Rey for being a good pilot herself. But defeating a wannabe Vader with Skywalker blood (midichlorians, what a dumb concept lol) in his veins and Skywalker training with basically no background is something else. Jedi Masters of the Old Republic do extreme feats with a shitload of training at a time where training is done systematically and not by an old, rusty Master on a backward planet. And only the very best of them. Rey just goes OP like that.
Plus, Anakin is not OP as a Force user in TPM. He's an unusually bright child with quick reflexes and a knack for building stuff. He didn't best Maul in a lightsaber duel. And he really did not know what he was doing when he destroyed the control ship. It was dumb and unnecessary, but did not make him OP.
Points taken.
I guess it’s just much more jarring to have both a child, but also a child who doesn’t seem to know what the fuck is going on doing such things to me.
But yes you’re right that’s kind of a different complaint to ‘being OP’
Personally I’d have done the Prequels starting from the Clone Wars. Or they begin in full form say halfway through the first film. Anakin is like 17, Obi-Wan and maybe Qui-Gon come to help out on Tatooine to bail out some resistance and Anakin is the only survivor holding out or something, and showcases his force potential there, but maybe does something questionable morally, so the two Jedi have something tangible to debate over whether they should train this guy.
Perhaps the Jedi showed up late and Smi died accordingly so he’s got that bitterness going on about the order and is more skeptical and susceptible to influence. Then perhaps Maul does what he does in the actual Prequels at some point, only an untrained Anakin is hiring. Giving him a chance to witness the potency of the Sith first hand.
Just spitballing fan fic after Christmas booze, and this isn’t even from my extensive note file I have on the topic, new stuff.
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".
On December 28 2019 15:26 KwarK wrote: 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".
Yeah pretty much. Also your plot synopsis had me cracking up.
So Kylo didn’t/did know of her parentage via Snoke in TLJ but chose not to use it in trying to convince her to join him, or he did know but chose not to use that information?
Also why the focus on parental lineage anyway? This universe is a total mess. The Jedi have to be celibate for, some reason and Anakin was the exception to this particular rule, but let’s focus the new trilogy on the children of people we already know.
At least Johnson’s take on latent force abilities sort of ties in with what we saw in the Prequels where it seems the Jedi recruit the gifted from all over the place.
So we have the Prequels, the Last Jedi’s take and the dynastic ‘everyone is a Skywalker or a Palpatine’ from the rest of the new trilogy.
Pondering it further, I have a horrible feeling that Palpatine’s plan is a wholly literal take from Obi-Wan saying ‘strike me down and I will be more powerful than you can imagine’ from the original trilogy.
In my opinion this was the best movie of the new trilogy, though mainly because the first two were awful. I went into the cinema thinking "let's get over with it finally", but RoS turned out to be a surprisingly entertaining action movie...
On December 21 2019 07:27 Sermokala wrote: It was going at such a pace that you never `really have time to question things. It had no real downtime that wasn't serving the plot.
and this is exactly what I think "saved" the movie in my eyes. It was entertaining from start to finish, blatantly stupid but entertaining. Previous two movies (especially the second one) didn't have that. Their poor pacing exposed their bad writing. To me they were simply boring despite all the flashy stuff happening on the screen.
It's fair to say we should expect more from the last of movie of a "trilogy of trilogies", but after the TLJ my expectations were so low that the stupid plot didn't bother me too much. RoS definitely could be better, but it's good enough to describe it as a "watch and forget" kind of movie.
I think Revenge of the Sith and maybe even Phantom Menace were much better than the sequels, though that's probably just my nostalgia.
I think the ancestry of Rey came from a couple places- one TFA teases the heck out of it, including that the 'lightsaber calls to you' mind-trip vision where they threw everything and the kitchen sink, including isolating Alec Guinness' voice to get him to say "Rey". So if you foolishly though this series was planned out, you might think they were including clues in that vision. Then Rey just seems to download Force powers like she's in the Matrix, so powerful ancestry served as a possible explanation, assuming the film makers had a plan and cared about little things like consistency and giving more than handwaves and lampshades as stand ins for actual thoughtful causation and explanation.
For myself, I thought the best explanation would be if she was simply the child of some of Luke's students from the Academy. They initially survived, were being pursued by Kylo or his 'nearly-not-appearing-in-this-series' Knights of Ren, so drop her off and keep going until they are hunted down and kill. Could make sense of Kylo's 'what girl' plus the trippy academy vision, plus she would've had some previous training with movie amnesia, so she is partially relearning past skills and then adding. Thus explaining her quick learning curve without resorting to important lineages.
But whatever, none of this was planned, so this is the mess we get.
I think JJ certainly had a plan, all the breadcrumbs in TFA and RoS trying to cram 2 films into 1 leads me to believe this. The problem is the person in charge of the franchise let Rian shit all over what JJ was doing to the point where Rian didn't just ignore the breadcrumbs but deliberately destroyed them.
Not to say JJ's story was going to be great or even 'ok' but I put the blame for the problems with the disjointed 'trilogy' squarely at Kathleen Kennedy's feet. Either you completely abandon JJ's plans after TFA and you don't bring him back to make RoS or you don't let Rian destroy the story in TLJ.
On December 28 2019 23:31 Sent. wrote: and this is exactly what I think "saved" the movie in my eyes. It was entertaining from start to finish, blatantly stupid but entertaining.
+1, that was my experience. the visuals and combat were good. The people I went with knew a lot more about Star Wars and were complaining about "plot holes" I didn't understand. I saw about ..i dunno.. maybe 1/5 of the plot holes they saw.
When it comes to the Disney Star Wars trilogy ignorance is bliss.
I could write an essay on what the hell happened in this film and this trilogy but i won't because it is pointless. All i will say is they had SO MUCH potential and it feels all wasted and from Disney point of view that makes no sense, they normally love cashing in and they didn't.
I also would say imo at least they got Kylo Ren as a character spot on and worked him well during this trilogy. Maybe a bit weird in episode 8 but it worked, i liked his story, his struggles and turmoil he had during the course of the stories. The ending was ok as well and im glad he found his way back to the light just the same way his grandfather did, i mean if you took Rey out of the film entirely i would not have minded Kylo Ren being the main attraction to it with a bit more of a dark story.
I just watched Ep. 5 again and now I'm both happy and sad. That movie was so awesome. The banter, the cinematography, the characters... Everyone did things for a reason. That's the problem with franchises: You can't force magic to happen. The first two Star Wars movies were a perfect storm. Everything came together perfectly. Lucas' great ideas, the good casting choices, the unique designs, the amazing sceneries and effects, John Williams' outstanding score. It's impossible to repeat something like that. The prequels should have been lesson enough. I also noticed something during the Vader vs. Luke fight: Their movement was clunky and slow in comparison to the modern fights. But there was TENSION. I don't need flashy CGI bullshit, I need suspense in an action movie. (That's also the reason why Die Hard still is one of the best.)
This reminds me I don't remember anything special about the music in sequels. Prequels had their Duel of Fates, old trilogy had its, well, everything, but sequels? Nothing characteristic comes to my mind.
On December 28 2019 15:26 KwarK wrote: 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".
Also why the focus on parental lineage anyway? This universe is a total mess. The Jedi have to be celibate for, some reason and Anakin was the exception to this particular rule, but let’s focus the new trilogy on the children of people we already know.
The Jedi were rigid like that since their inception. It was only after the Jedi Order was destroyed that Luke changed that rule after he remade the Jedi Order after the events of the OT. Luke also married Mara Jade and had a son with her called Ben (named after Obi-Wan). The new trilogy makes an amalgam of Luke's son and Leia's son, so its neither Ben Skywalker nor Jacen Solo, but fuses them together in Ben Solo.
For some reason they kept this bullshit rule in the new trilogy, but I think there are 2 reasons for it: one because JJ set it up in TFA, then Rian tried to move away from this when they had Rey being a nobody (which I actually liked), but then JJ made her a Palpatine (which i didnt like) to poo back at Rian for obvious reasons. The tug of war between the 2 directors and the lack of coherent vision for the whole trilogy is what created this mess. The last move by JJ, in my view was a desperation act, as was the return of Darth Sidous. However, through most of the Star Wars literature (both comics and books) lineage isnt that important, only the movies focus heavily on it. Which is understandable, because even in Lucas' mind, Star Wars among other things, at its core has always been about the dysfunctional family of the Skywalkers.
I have to say though - Sidious is becoming a laughing stock now with his plans failing over and over in the same ways. Very disappointing for the ultimate Star Wars villain.
On December 29 2019 20:33 Charoisaur wrote: I have to say though - Sidious is becoming a laughing stock now with his plans failing over and over in the same ways. Very disappointing for the ultimate Star Wars villain.
You’d think he’d have learn not to try and convert the Jedi type to the dark side at the exact same time you’re having your climatic space battle.
He’s like the person who’s scheduled two dates at the same place and the same time.
On December 28 2019 15:26 KwarK wrote: 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".
Also why the focus on parental lineage anyway? This universe is a total mess. The Jedi have to be celibate for, some reason and Anakin was the exception to this particular rule, but let’s focus the new trilogy on the children of people we already know.
The Jedi were rigid like that since their inception. It was only after the Jedi Order was destroyed that Luke changed that rule after he remade the Jedi Order after the events of the OT. Luke also married Mara Jade and had a son with her called Ben (named after Obi-Wan). The new trilogy makes an amalgam of Luke's son and Leia's son, so its neither Ben Skywalker nor Jacen Solo, but fuses them together in Ben Solo.
For some reason they kept this bullshit rule in the new trilogy, but I think there are 2 reasons for it: one because JJ set it up in TFA, then Rian tried to move away from this when they had Rey being a nobody (which I actually liked), but then JJ made her a Palpatine (which i didnt like) to poo back at Rian for obvious reasons. The tug of war between the 2 directors and the lack of coherent vision for the whole trilogy is what created this mess. The last move by JJ, in my view was a desperation act, as was the return of Darth Sidous. However, through most of the Star Wars literature (both comics and books) lineage isnt that important, only the movies focus heavily on it. Which is understandable, because even in Lucas' mind, Star Wars among other things, at its core has always been about the dysfunctional family of the Skywalkers.
Yeah if they just gave the trilogy and a story to JJ at the start of this and said this is the plan we have, can you make the 3 films like this and he would have took his money and did it. He probs would have altered a bit and agreed a few things with Disney and at least the film would follow a path whether good nor bad as a whole it would have at least made a bit more sense. The reason this trilogy is poor i think is as you pointed at here is that Rian's movie was a complete left field movie compared to the one before it and the one that followed it.
On December 29 2019 20:33 Charoisaur wrote: I have to say though - Sidious is becoming a laughing stock now with his plans failing over and over in the same ways. Very disappointing for the ultimate Star Wars villain.
He’s like the person who’s scheduled two dates at the same place and the same time.
Hahah this made me chuckle.
I just couldn't take Palpatine seriously in TRoS. He was actually scary in the original movies, heck even in Revenge of the Sith which I nostalgically cherish I liked the character. Now he wasn't intimidating at all, never did I question that his plans would not fail catastrophically.
On December 29 2019 06:39 Pandemona wrote: I could write an essay on what the hell happened in this film and this trilogy but i won't because it is pointless. All i will say is they had SO MUCH potential and it feels all wasted and from Disney point of view that makes no sense, they normally love cashing in and they didn't.
That's the part where Youtubers point to when they talk about this trilogy being all about political agenda. If all you wanted to do was print money, you'd play to the already existing HUGE fanbase. The sequel trilogy actively ATTACKS that fanbase. Why? It doesn't make sense for any kind of media property to do that.
Kathleen Kennedy clearly has some form of ulterior motive that doesn't involve just making money. That's the part that really pisses fans off, because her ulterior motive is clearly attacking them.
Watched it yesterday and only thing I can say is that i feel...embarrassed/uncomfortable...like not in a SJW way uncomfortable, it's just bad. I'm kinda glad this thing is over since I actually had to force myself to go see it, and before I've been big SW fan since the first time i saw OT movies in 1997.
On December 29 2019 06:39 Pandemona wrote: I could write an essay on what the hell happened in this film and this trilogy but i won't because it is pointless. All i will say is they had SO MUCH potential and it feels all wasted and from Disney point of view that makes no sense, they normally love cashing in and they didn't.
That's the part where Youtubers point to when they talk about this trilogy being all about political agenda. If all you wanted to do was print money, you'd play to the already existing HUGE fanbase. The sequel trilogy actively ATTACKS that fanbase. Why? It doesn't make sense for any kind of media property to do that.
Kathleen Kennedy clearly has some form of ulterior motive that doesn't involve just making money. That's the part that really pisses fans off, because her ulterior motive is clearly attacking them.
Nah I'm pretty sure it's just about making money and selling toys and spinoff show, and the fanbase is clearly not enough. I'm fairly sure KK dosen't give a fuck about "attacking the fanbase" there's just more money to make outside of it than inside it.
I mean it work out well TFA and TLJ are both in the top 15 of highest grossing movie (TFA is in the top5)
Yeah Disney is all about making money that is why it is buying up every market share they can and appeasing China at the same time, i have no problems with that until it gets to the point where they mess up things like Star Wars movies. However like i said it made no sense to do that with this when there was so much money be able to make.
On December 29 2019 06:39 Pandemona wrote: I could write an essay on what the hell happened in this film and this trilogy but i won't because it is pointless. All i will say is they had SO MUCH potential and it feels all wasted and from Disney point of view that makes no sense, they normally love cashing in and they didn't.
That's the part where Youtubers point to when they talk about this trilogy being all about political agenda. If all you wanted to do was print money, you'd play to the already existing HUGE fanbase. The sequel trilogy actively ATTACKS that fanbase. Why? It doesn't make sense for any kind of media property to do that.
Kathleen Kennedy clearly has some form of ulterior motive that doesn't involve just making money. That's the part that really pisses fans off, because her ulterior motive is clearly attacking them.
I mean a lot of people say this but I don’t really get where they’re coming from, on attacking the fans and especially not this supposed political agenda. The latter I think is a realllll stretch from what angles I’ve encountered.
I’m not as invested in the franchise as some sure, but there’s this relentless toxicity coming out of certain corners that is so unnecessary, they are just films after all.
Sometimes when you take a person who has decades of experience and you move them up a notch into the final decision maker role they end up falling flat. That is what is going on with Kathleen Kennedy I think. She has proven there are many things she can do effectively. She has been in the industry for decades. She is a smart person.
It reminds me of these sports executive who has been successful in every single role except "President of Basketball/Baseball/Hockey Operations". Guys like Rob Babcock or Phil Jackson get promoted to "President Of Everything" and even though they've succeeded in many other roles ... they just plain fail.
OTOH, you have relative nobodies like Pat Gillick or Andrew Friedman. Guys with no outstanding pedigree of any kind. Guys who no one even wants to hire in the first place. Just seemingly average guys... and you make them the "President of Baseball Operations" and they turn out out to be a once in a lifetime management specialist. These guys are not particularly charismatic... when you scratch the surface you discover they are are brilliant and rather bland as personalities. Guys like this often have unusual opinions few others share. They are also off the charts amazing Presidents of Baseball Operations.
Promoting into the final decision maker role is risky. They is no sure fire formula for finding that one amazing executive.
The problem is that their is a very vocal segment of Star Wars fans that probably numbers in the millions that is so emotional about the franchise that when a bad hire is made they talk about it like the final Apocalypse is nigh.
Kathleen Kennedy is the Rob Babcock or Phil Jackson of movie franchises.
There is a young Pat Gillick or Andrew Friedman or Masai Ujiri somewhere. On the surface ...seemingly average joes. if Bob Iger can find and promote that type of talent then Disney will easily turn this Star Wars franchise within 3 years at most. Top executives like Gillick, Friedman, and Ujiri are hard to spot though.
On December 28 2019 15:26 KwarK wrote: 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".
Also why the focus on parental lineage anyway? This universe is a total mess. The Jedi have to be celibate for, some reason and Anakin was the exception to this particular rule, but let’s focus the new trilogy on the children of people we already know.
The Jedi were rigid like that since their inception. It was only after the Jedi Order was destroyed that Luke changed that rule after he remade the Jedi Order after the events of the OT. Luke also married Mara Jade and had a son with her called Ben (named after Obi-Wan). The new trilogy makes an amalgam of Luke's son and Leia's son, so its neither Ben Skywalker nor Jacen Solo, but fuses them together in Ben Solo.
For some reason they kept this bullshit rule in the new trilogy, but I think there are 2 reasons for it: one because JJ set it up in TFA, then Rian tried to move away from this when they had Rey being a nobody (which I actually liked), but then JJ made her a Palpatine (which i didnt like) to poo back at Rian for obvious reasons. The tug of war between the 2 directors and the lack of coherent vision for the whole trilogy is what created this mess. The last move by JJ, in my view was a desperation act, as was the return of Darth Sidous. However, through most of the Star Wars literature (both comics and books) lineage isnt that important, only the movies focus heavily on it. Which is understandable, because even in Lucas' mind, Star Wars among other things, at its core has always been about the dysfunctional family of the Skywalkers.
Yeah if they just gave the trilogy and a story to JJ at the start of this and said this is the plan we have, can you make the 3 films like this and he would have took his money and did it. He probs would have altered a bit and agreed a few things with Disney and at least the film would follow a path whether good nor bad as a whole it would have at least made a bit more sense. The reason this trilogy is poor i think is as you pointed at here is that Rian's movie was a complete left field movie compared to the one before it and the one that followed it.
I agree. I'd actually give JJ 2 episodes to develop plots and then let another one finish it off (assuming the last one follows along and doesnt dump everything in the trash bin like Rian did), because if you look at his work, historically he's not great at tying it all together, he is just average in that regard.
But if he did all 3 movies would have ended up way better than this disjointed mess we got.
On December 29 2019 06:39 Pandemona wrote: I could write an essay on what the hell happened in this film and this trilogy but i won't because it is pointless. All i will say is they had SO MUCH potential and it feels all wasted and from Disney point of view that makes no sense, they normally love cashing in and they didn't.
That's the part where Youtubers point to when they talk about this trilogy being all about political agenda. If all you wanted to do was print money, you'd play to the already existing HUGE fanbase. The sequel trilogy actively ATTACKS that fanbase. Why? It doesn't make sense for any kind of media property to do that.
Kathleen Kennedy clearly has some form of ulterior motive that doesn't involve just making money. That's the part that really pisses fans off, because her ulterior motive is clearly attacking them.
90% of those tubers are toxic shitheads, that produce 2-3 videos a day just to talk trash. Granted they do have a point most of the time, but its clear as day their agenda is nothing but trashtalking big franchises/companies, be it Disney/SW or EA, Blizzard etc. So the way I see it, they arent anything better than the ones they keep talking about, except they do it from the other side of the coin. Same shit if you ask me. Since im not politically affiliated with either the left or the right, at first I found all these to be pretty amusing, just like all the political/civil discourse we've got going on, but now its just one toxic shit talking about another toxic shit. At the end, both sides are toxic and shit. As viewers/consumers, we are the ones that end up with the short end of the stick and that's what sucks the most.
This movie was the best of the new trilogy, despite the numerous plot holes, it was entertaining. Daisy Ridley is a good actress, but it's Adam Driver aka Ben Solo who stole the light for me. He got the best character development of the sequel.The force bond was also an interesting idea, but Rian Johnson really fucked up things.
On December 28 2019 15:26 KwarK wrote: 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".
Also why the focus on parental lineage anyway? This universe is a total mess. The Jedi have to be celibate for, some reason and Anakin was the exception to this particular rule, but let’s focus the new trilogy on the children of people we already know.
The Jedi were rigid like that since their inception. It was only after the Jedi Order was destroyed that Luke changed that rule after he remade the Jedi Order after the events of the OT. Luke also married Mara Jade and had a son with her called Ben (named after Obi-Wan). The new trilogy makes an amalgam of Luke's son and Leia's son, so its neither Ben Skywalker nor Jacen Solo, but fuses them together in Ben Solo.
For some reason they kept this bullshit rule in the new trilogy, but I think there are 2 reasons for it: one because JJ set it up in TFA, then Rian tried to move away from this when they had Rey being a nobody (which I actually liked), but then JJ made her a Palpatine (which i didnt like) to poo back at Rian for obvious reasons. The tug of war between the 2 directors and the lack of coherent vision for the whole trilogy is what created this mess. The last move by JJ, in my view was a desperation act, as was the return of Darth Sidous. However, through most of the Star Wars literature (both comics and books) lineage isnt that important, only the movies focus heavily on it. Which is understandable, because even in Lucas' mind, Star Wars among other things, at its core has always been about the dysfunctional family of the Skywalkers.
Yeah if they just gave the trilogy and a story to JJ at the start of this and said this is the plan we have, can you make the 3 films like this and he would have took his money and did it. He probs would have altered a bit and agreed a few things with Disney and at least the film would follow a path whether good nor bad as a whole it would have at least made a bit more sense. The reason this trilogy is poor i think is as you pointed at here is that Rian's movie was a complete left field movie compared to the one before it and the one that followed it.
I agree. I'd actually give JJ 2 episodes to develop plots and then let another one finish it off (assuming the last one follows along and doesnt dump everything in the trash bin like Rian did), because if you look at his work, historically he's not great at tying it all together, he is just average in that regard.
But if he did all 3 movies would have ended up way better than this disjointed mess we got.
On December 29 2019 06:39 Pandemona wrote: I could write an essay on what the hell happened in this film and this trilogy but i won't because it is pointless. All i will say is they had SO MUCH potential and it feels all wasted and from Disney point of view that makes no sense, they normally love cashing in and they didn't.
That's the part where Youtubers point to when they talk about this trilogy being all about political agenda. If all you wanted to do was print money, you'd play to the already existing HUGE fanbase. The sequel trilogy actively ATTACKS that fanbase. Why? It doesn't make sense for any kind of media property to do that.
Kathleen Kennedy clearly has some form of ulterior motive that doesn't involve just making money. That's the part that really pisses fans off, because her ulterior motive is clearly attacking them.
90% of those tubers are toxic shitheads, that produce 2-3 videos a day just to talk trash. Granted they do have a point most of the time, but its clear as day their agenda is nothing but trashtalking big franchises/companies, be it Disney/SW or EA, Blizzard etc. So the way I see it, they arent anything better than the ones they keep talking about, except they do it from the other side of the coin. Same shit if you ask me. Since im not politically affiliated with either the left or the right, at first I found all these to be pretty amusing, just like all the political/civil discourse we've got going on, but now its just one toxic shit talking about another toxic shit. At the end, both sides are toxic and shit. As viewers/consumers, we are the ones that end up with the short end of the stick and that's what sucks the most.
Yeah i agree with what you say, either JJ gets all 3 or he gets the first 2 and Rian takes the 3rd, to do it the way they did it ruined it
Actually you dont need to watch the tubers, it is Disney who ruined the franchise, so no excuses for the multi milllion company here, and neither for JJ and Rian.
The thing with tubers right now is that they're surprisingly consistent. Left, right, center, SW fans, not SW fans, geeks and nerds, normies etc. everyone is pretty much on the same page: This new trilogy sucked monkey balls. It started safe but promising with TFA but just kept rolling downhill from there and now that the trilogy is complete it has also downgraded the TFA (and surprisingly enough, elevated the prequel trilogy).
That being said, its full of just as much plot related stupidity as The Last Jedi was.
An ANCIENT Sith Dagger that somehow matches up to the wreckage of the fuckin' what, 30 year old, Death Star? Stupid.
Jedi Master Leia? Stupid.
Force healing? Holy shit, if that existed at any point in Star Wars' previous history it wouldve ended the series after Episode III or whenever Padme was supposed to die in child birth, since Anakin could've just force-healed her and she'd have been fine!
And is it me or did Lando seem really out of his mind? Like in a pleasant way, like you're outside on a sunny day, and its very comfortable, but you dont actually have a single thought running through your head kind of way.
On a positive note, that image of Palpatines first real appearance in front of Rey in the Sith arena where hes attached to the robot arm was really impactful. I remember almost nothing about The Force Awakens, but I'll remember that image for a while. A lot of solid to great cinematography, I just wish they'd stopped the lightning induced light flashing, theres enough of that with the lasers and lightsabers, and it kind of spoiled the actions scenes on Exegal(gul, gull, gall? eh.)
I'd rank the movies best to worst as The Last Jedi > Rise of the Skywalker > The Force Awakens.
Given its Star Wars and Im not really attached to the franchise basically at all, the movies were fun, I had fun with them, they are not really very good, and I would've really liked to see a Rian Johnson trilogy of Star Wars movies more than a JJ Abrams one, but whatever, Star Wars is dumb fun, and these movies were dumb fun.
I'd give ROTS a solid 6.5/10. It may stink, but that doesnt mean it rots. (buh-dum-tss)
I'm slightly late to the party, but several pages ago people were discussing force users and the force.
Before Disney lore was that only few were actually so strong to defend properly to a single really good attacker. A good anti-force user weapon was a flamethrower, because only really strong force users were capable of shielding the whole body from the fire. (also it looks cool in the movies but here you go, that's why) So droids killing jedies in the Geo battle isn't anything new, in the end most of the jedies weren't that good anyway(no offense to them)
Mostly the old lore implied that the Force was a tool to help(for w/e reason, i'm not that much into it) and only the biggest users were capable of doing OP things(BTW Palpatine killing ships isn't anything new in the EU, but there's no longer EU, right? )
I have no idea what is the current lore, that's what used to be BD(before Disney ).
So Rey doing OP things wouldn't be as bad if they didn't imply she's being guided by the force. All. The. Time. I can ride the MILF because of the force. I can beat Kylo because of the force. I can do the mind trick because of the force. That's the bullshit which isn't exactly lore friendly, at least for the old people like me
BTW in the Night Watch/DayWatch thing from Lukyanenko(I'm pretty sure I butchered the English transcription) there was a great moment when Anton realises, that the most powerful mages operate on a totally different level and they see the wizardry differently as well Actually thinking about it Rey is more of a magic mirror than balance of the force(again, taken from the aformentioned books) but she didn't quit the world in the end(another great mechanism I liked in the books). Why am I writing this - many SW fans would be fine to accept Rey suddenly being possesed by the force and doing OP stuff. No issues there. But when she does everything that's simply wrong. This would mean that the Force had to kill Chewie for w/e reason... wait, what?
I finally got around to see it. My expectations were really low so I guess I couldn’t be disappointed. It was decent. I liked it a lot more than 7 and 8
I had fun watching it, and I was entertained. There were definitely plot holes, but I ain't mad. Big intergalactic fights can basically never be bad. 6.5/10
On January 03 2020 00:58 deacon.frost wrote: BTW in the Night Watch/DayWatch thing from Lukyanenko(I'm pretty sure I butchered the English transcription) there was a great moment when Anton realises, that the most powerful mages operate on a totally different level and they see the wizardry differently as well Actually thinking about it Rey is more of a magic mirror than balance of the force(again, taken from the aformentioned books) but she didn't quit the world in the end(another great mechanism I liked in the books). Why am I writing this - many SW fans would be fine to accept Rey suddenly being possesed by the force and doing OP stuff. No issues there. But when she does everything that's simply wrong. This would mean that the Force had to kill Chewie for w/e reason... wait, what?
I just wanted to chime in and say READ THOSE BOOKS deacon is mentioning! They are awesome!
Saw the movie last week, was okay'ish if you watch it for what it is: a movie to entertain you for 2-3 hours and not further think about it. Regarded in the greater scale of the Star Wars universe, this movie sucks balls. Leia, the flashbacks, the dead Jedi masters, Rey and the force, Palpatine killing ships, the whole Ben Solo Vader thingy and his stupid sword, the planet cracker ships, ...
Rating: As a standalone movie: 6-7/10 As Star Wars episode 9: 3/10
I just got back from the cinema. I think it matches up to Rogue 1 as the joint best of the new movies. They made the nostalgia as impactful as they could, which was a good thing to focus on. My mum cried more than twice during the movie. The lightsabre battles were amazing, Kylo was a better character in this than in the other two movies (somehow??), and I thought it wrapped things up pretty nicely. People complaining about plotholes in a stupid action movie lol. I treat those people the same as I would treat people who complain about plotholes in WWE.
At one point in time, Star Wars was still a semi-coherent secondary world, not simply a 'stupid action movie lol', although not matching Lord of the Rings perhaps, but closer to that side than Transformers or WWE plot lines.
On January 12 2020 07:32 Falling wrote: At one point in time, Star Wars was still a semi-coherent secondary world, not simply a 'stupid action movie lol', although not matching Lord of the Rings perhaps, but closer to that side than Transformers or WWE plot lines.
On January 12 2020 08:04 sharkie wrote: Betterthan7,8,9 by a mile
Disagree.
I suppose it depends what metric you use to judge, but the prequels were much worse in script, cinematography, acting, directing (especially), action and pacing. I suppose if you're judging them only on backstory depth you could maybe make the argument that the prequels weren't absolutely shit.
If you can find me a scene that is as fist bitingly cringily bad as this in 7,8,9 I would be absolutely shocked: + Show Spoiler +
On January 12 2020 08:04 sharkie wrote: Betterthan7,8,9 by a mile
Disagree.
I suppose it depends what metric you use to judge, but the prequels were much worse in script, cinematography, acting, directing (especially), action and pacing. I suppose if you're judging them only on backstory depth you could maybe make the argument that the prequels weren't absolutely shit.
If you can find me a scene that is as fist bitingly cringily bad as this in 7,8,9 I would be absolutely shocked: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPzUXlgBJrU
You could compile clips from them and Equilibriam, show them to a person who was unfamiliar with either and then ask which film’s central premise is a dystopian future where emotion is outlawed and I genuinely think people would struggle to answer with confidence.
I have a hard time thinking which is worse as they are bad in different ways. But the sequels have wrecked any sensible future stories.
What do future story tellers have to deal with? Hyper-space kamikazi ships, obsoleting capital ships, TIE fighters that track in hyperspace in real time, planet destroying lasers on regular old capital ships, Jedi teleportation, invincible Jedi ghosts who can lightning strike the physical world, god-tier force lightning that can on one hand wipe out entire fleets, and on the other hand be blocked by a simple lightsaber. Fleets and Force powers magically appearing when convenient to the plot.
There was a time where I thought it would be fun to be able write a Star Wars tie in novel (never would happen of course.) But this universe? I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. It's so actively stupid I can't even imagine how to tell a story that isn't just god-Jedi throwing fleets from the sky and half the galaxy wiped out by these capital ship death stars. It's a story, but it ain't Star Wars anymore.
Prequels were poorly executed, but had some interesting ideas. However, you could still play in the universe and come up with fun stories based on the established rules. Now it's story-anarchy. And to add insult to injury all three sequel films are the epitome of Disney direct-to-dvd sequels: simply retell the old story with the next generation. Ugh.
edit. It's not just on lore that doesn't hold up btw. Granted, Prequel Palpatine's plot is unnecessarily complicated (Episode II in particular), but while TFA is largely competent, RJ and JJ are complete goobers when plotting the last two. Both rely heavily on coincidence, contrivance, and happenstance to move some pretty basic plot stuff along. They can make it look pretty, but the actual story they are moving along is pretty incompetent.
On January 12 2020 08:10 Jockmcplop wrote: If you can find me a scene that is as fist bitingly cringily bad as this in 7,8,9 I would be absolutely shocked: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPzUXlgBJrU
Dunno if it's strictly worse, but I'd say this scene is on par. + Show Spoiler +
And relatedly, I'd say that Ep 8 is the only one that's really as deeply flawed as "the prequels" as a whole. Ep 7 is solidly better than any of the three, and Ep 9 is at worst about the same as Ep 3 (both are generally flawed, but also cool in various redeeming ways).
I don't really feel like the "ruin the lore" or "unreasonable power balance" concerns really hold up in the grand scheme of things. Mostly because there's been an overabundance of Star Wars media that has already done much more aggressive power creep. The Dark Empire works that Ep 9 might as well have been a cinematic adaptation of had Palpatine destroying entire fleets with Force Lightning just the same. The hyperspace ship thing has been done in somewhat less aggressive form in at least the recent Rebels series (destroying an Interdictor) and Tartakovsky's Clone Wars (Federation ship cutting a Republic Star Destroyer in half from hyperspace). An abundance of "ancient Sith Lords as gods with endless power" examples. And as far as ruining the lore - the EU had killed off lots of great characters in lots of shitty ways, and this isn't really much different.
Generally, the trilogy didn't live up to the level I'd hope. In fact, I'd say that Ep 8 was the worst of the nine, which is just about as likely as anything to explain why that is so. But to be perfectly honest, Star Wars as a franchise has run on long enough that it's generally a toss-up whether or not new media will be good, mediocre, or quite bad. Being able to view it as a "stupid action movie" is not necessarily a bad thing.
I do agree that it's quite hard to immediately develop a "where to go from here" direction purely from where Ep 9 left off. I'd personally probably approach it with a clean slate direction, putting it far enough into the future that it wouldn't have any direct tie-in to what came before (because I'm not really sure that making a "Finn, Poe, Rey as mentors" follow-up is really the right way forward). But Star Wars storytelling has always involved more than a little fuzzy logic to try to maintain continuity in an expanding universe, so I don't see anything particularly egregious here.
On January 12 2020 07:32 Falling wrote: although not matching Lord of the Rings perhaps, but closer to that side than Transformers or WWE plot lines.
Sci-Fi and WWE character powers and plots run along a precarious thin line.
I recall a 60s or 70s Star Trek TV episode. The entire episode the crew of Star Trek are slowly getting fucked into a corner. Finally, at the very end of the show it turns out the Star Trek people are being manipulated by a "child god" who is just playing with them for fun. The "child god"s parents appear and tell him to quite playing around and leave the humans alone.
This is an example of a storyline that fucks up the StarTrek universe. Any episode could have any number of crazy circumstances that put the Star Trek crew in an impossible situation only to have the rug pulled out from under the audience as we find out a "god" was just screwing around.
On the WWE side. bizarre things like Crow Sting, the Undertaker, and Doink the Evil Clown worked. In the face of those 3 I can name you dozens of characters that bombed very badly.
Any of these WWE characters that can get badly fucked up by poor creatives at the top of the corporate ladder can be rescued by a phenomenal in ring performance though.
Regarding the 1977 movie. I just didn't buy the ending when Luke was about to drop that bomb in the hole in the DeathStar. When Obi-1 starting talking to Luke about "use the force luke" I just didn't buy it.. I know many others thought it was great and amazing. It just didn't do it for me. Other people I know view that ending moment as one of the most epic moments in movie history. Put in WWE terms... some think the Undertaker is brilliant and others , like me, are pretty luke warm on the guy. I'm a big Raven/Scott Levy fan. He has a small but rabid , almost cult like fan base.
I watched the film with low expectations. I have to say it was enjoyable but i mostly handwaved the questionable parts myself so that i can keep enjoying it.
Not like i was expected incredible stuff from starwars anymore.
I liked some of the more obvious plottwists like Rey Palpatine stuff (like her inheriting the sith and why she was so strong) and generally that they tied this trilogy with palpatine being the big bad so that it thematically match with the prequel and original trilogy which i appreciate
On January 12 2020 07:32 Falling wrote: although not matching Lord of the Rings perhaps, but closer to that side than Transformers or WWE plot lines.
Sci-Fi and WWE character powers and plots run along a precarious thin line.
I recall a 60s or 70s Star Trek TV episode. The entire episode the crew of Star Trek are slowly getting fucked into a corner. Finally, at the very end of the show it turns out the Star Trek people are being manipulated by a "child god" who is just playing with them for fun. The "child god"s parents appear and tell him to quite playing around and leave the humans alone.
This is an example of a storyline that fucks up the StarTrek universe. Any episode could have any number of crazy circumstances that put the Star Trek crew in an impossible situation only to have the rug pulled out from under the audience as we find out a "god" was just screwing around.
On the WWE side. bizarre things like Crow Sting, the Undertaker, and Doink the Evil Clown worked. In the face of those 3 I can name you dozens of characters that bombed very badly.
Any of these WWE characters that can get badly fucked up by poor creatives at the top of the corporate ladder can be rescued by a phenomenal in ring performance though.
Regarding the 1977 movie. I just didn't buy the ending when Luke was about to drop that bomb in the hole in the DeathStar. When Obi-1 starting talking to Luke about "use the force luke" I just didn't buy it.. I know many others thought it was great and amazing. It just didn't do it for me. Other people I know view that ending moment as one of the most epic moments in movie history. Put in WWE terms... some think the Undertaker is brilliant and others , like me, are pretty luke warm on the guy. I'm a big Raven/Scott Levy fan. He has a small but rabid , almost cult like fan base.
That kind of is Star Trek though, like it or loathe it. Such entities outside of Q are usually restricted to a single episode and the show is much more about how the smart people with their principles deal with outlandish situations than the entities themselves, so I’m largely OK with that.
I’m binging quite hard on it at the minute so it happens, there’s a ton of episodes and I’m sure some contradictions occur if one was to look, but largely the rules of the universe are at least vaguely consistent at least. Consistent enough to not really take me out of the show anyway. This technology does this, this thing can interfere with that and Federation ethics stop x and y courses of action.
Star Wars the powerful characters are also main characters, so their powers and how they work do thus take on a bigger importance.
Like previously mentioned by others and myself the escalation of Force powers has been a thing in various Star Wars media, the EU was guilty of this too, which makes it harder to make engaging stories that feature force users.
I cant see why TFA is so praised, it was a bad remake of the OT, A brat Villain (compare this to Vader), a Mary Sue (compare this with Luke), A bunch of guys who dont know to each other at all in the movie but they are the best friends (wtf!!!), an idiotic General= Hux, I got to admit that Snoke was literally destroyed in TLJ, so no fault here, old "heroes" irrelevant, for me was disgusting how they portrayed the old characters in general, ahh but we got the super duper Death Star, the female Yoda (those scenes with that CGI character were just meh...), and a light saber in form of a Cross just for the heck of it, something else that is mind boggling is how the heck after only 30 years the called First order is the main force in the galaxy, but you know if a dead guy can build more than a thousand of star destroyers underground with death stars capabilities..., well in reality none of these 3 new movies makes any sense, they are absurd , and they have plot holes so big that the newest death star looks tiny.
On January 12 2020 10:00 Falling wrote: I have a hard time thinking which is worse as they are bad in different ways. But the sequels have wrecked any sensible future stories.
What do future story tellers have to deal with? Hyper-space kamikazi ships, obsoleting capital ships, TIE fighters that track in hyperspace in real time, planet destroying lasers on regular old capital ships, Jedi teleportation, invincible Jedi ghosts who can lightning strike the physical world, god-tier force lightning that can on one hand wipe out entire fleets, and on the other hand be blocked by a simple lightsaber. Fleets and Force powers magically appearing when convenient to the plot.
There was a time where I thought it would be fun to be able write a Star Wars tie in novel (never would happen of course.) But this universe? I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. It's so actively stupid I can't even imagine how to tell a story that isn't just god-Jedi throwing fleets from the sky and half the galaxy wiped out by these capital ship death stars. It's a story, but it ain't Star Wars anymore.
Prequels were poorly executed, but had some interesting ideas. However, you could still play in the universe and come up with fun stories based on the established rules. Now it's story-anarchy. And to add insult to injury all three sequel films are the epitome of Disney direct-to-dvd sequels: simply retell the old story with the next generation. Ugh.
edit. It's not just on lore that doesn't hold up btw. Granted, Prequel Palpatine's plot is unnecessarily complicated (Episode II in particular), but while TFA is largely competent, RJ and JJ are complete goobers when plotting the last two. Both rely heavily on coincidence, contrivance, and happenstance to move some pretty basic plot stuff along. They can make it look pretty, but the actual story they are moving along is pretty incompetent.
Its hard to disagree with much of this, but I think we just have different ideas of what makes a good movie.
I didn't really see it terms of future stories or movies because I don't think that's what they were aiming for with either the originals or the sequels. If you look at it that way then yeah, that sucks.
Watching ep 9, I had as much fun as I would watching a Marvel movie and I put it on the same level when it comes to the action and visuals, except with far better music and a fairly bad plot. I can enjoy a movie that has a really stupid or bad plot, but i get why people can't.
My biggest problem with the sequels is they felt like it was necessary to explain fucking everything so at times it felt like reading a 300 page plot synopsis for a 1 page plot. They tried to put complex ideas in there, but it completely failed because of the way it was organized and the fact that there just wasn't enough depth to the story to begin with for complex stuff to work, hence the failure of ep 8.
The original trilogy used exactly the amount of lore it needed to be able to tell a story, and no more. The most complex lore was the backstory of the characters, which added depth to the movies without burdening the viewer with the complex and incredibly dull and confusing politics and economics of the wider galaxy.
The sequels used less lore than they should have, so the lack of interesting backstory of the characters left the viewer alienated. What was Kylo Ren doing for most of his life? It would have been better to introduce him in ep. 8 or right at the end of ep. 7 and just have people tell stories about this spoiled brat, the lesser Darth Vader with a nasty edge. That way the character means something to you and you don't just react with "This guy sucks" when you see him. I think Kylo had potential to be the best character in the sequels but they just didn't pull it off very well. The scenes between him and Rey all felt exactly the same until near the end of episode 9. What's the point in that? The action felt real and the acting was pretty good and the writing was pretty good in individual scenes, they just didn't translate that into a good overall story.
Basically what i'm saying is that the sequels fixed what was wrong with the prequels but went too far in the other direction, and then made some other mistakes too, but they aren't that bad as movies, and I don't think they are as terrible as some people say they are.
Episode 7 did some things quite well. It established the key characters and a sensible enough plot to work with. It wasn’t perfect, but it did work. I liked it, and it seems most people liked it as well. Some Star Wars cliches like a superweapon or saying “I have a bad feeling about this” don’t make it a bad movie.
My biggest gripe, which certainly isn’t a small one, is that the Republic barely even exists in that movie. Kind of diminishes the work of the previous movies in establishing it.
On January 13 2020 05:43 LegalLord wrote: Episode 7 did some things quite well. It established the key characters and a sensible enough plot to work with. It wasn’t perfect, but it did work. I liked it, and it seems most people liked it as well. Some Star Wars cliches like a superweapon or saying “I have a bad feeling about this” don’t make it a bad movie.
My biggest gripe, which certainly isn’t a small one, is that the Republic barely even exists in that movie. Kind of diminishes the work of the previous movies in establishing it.
I think people liked it, flaws included as a rebooting of Star Wars with that ‘feel’ intact. A starting point from which to expand and do more with with the subsequent films. A good start in short, safe but solid.
The subsequent failure of the sequel trilogy to do that makes TFA look worse in retrospect.
@Jimmy Another thing did a thing is no defence of whether it is good or not. I enjoyed the occasional Next Gen episode, but I couldn't be called a fan. So 'Star Trek did a thing' is not a very persuasive defence. I particularly have a low view of episodic tv compared to the more modern interconnected story lines. Yeah, episodic sci-fi is more likely to forget what they did from episode to episode. That's a double strike in my book. WWE is just a non-sequitur.
My biggest problem with the sequels is they felt like it was necessary to explain fucking everything so at times it felt like reading a 300 page plot synopsis for a 1 page plot. They tried to put complex ideas in there, but it completely failed because of the way it was organized and the fact that there just wasn't enough depth to the story to begin with for complex stuff to work, hence the failure of ep 8.
The original trilogy used exactly the amount of lore it needed to be able to tell a story, and no more. The most complex lore was the backstory of the characters, which added depth to the movies without burdening the viewer with the complex and incredibly dull and confusing politics and economics of the wider galaxy.
Well, as to that, I blame whoever's idea it was to dynamite the New Republic, the Jedi Order, all in the opening credits. They made an unnecessarily complicated set up that NEEDED more explanation than they gave. It could have been a really simple set up: N Republic has been fighting the remnants of the old empire on and off for 30 years (which gives them tons of room for future stories in between compared to 'it was peaceful for 30 years'), and then some warlord unites disparate factions, or an alien polity breaks away from the New Republic, or maybe the equivalent of the Russian mafia- a galactic spanning syndicate- has filled in the power gap since the fall of the Empire etc. Civil War. Boom. Easy set up for endless stories. Introduce shipyards, capitals, and hyperspace lanes being important strategic points and you don't even need endless supplies of super weapons.
Then TLJ progressed the story less than an inch, so Rise felt the need to tell 2-4 stories worth to make up the difference. JJ really should have pushed for two films to make it a quadrology... and then jump ahead 15-20 years so he didn't need to magic multiple fleets into existence. The Resistance was absolutely dead in the water by the end of TLJ, for all its triumphant ending- false bravado. But I suspect there was far too much executive control to swing that.
I didn't really see it terms of future stories or movies because I don't think that's what they were aiming for with either the originals or the sequels. If you look at it that way then yeah, that sucks.
Well, I also don't think they made good stories in the moment either (in retrospect TFA falls off and TLJ was bad on the first view). But it's all the worse because of what it does to future stories.
Basically what i'm saying is that the sequels fixed what was wrong with the prequels but went too far in the other direction, and then made some other mistakes too,
This I agree. They were hyper-allergic to any backstory for fear of doing 'politics' because that was supposedly the main thing people hated about the prequels. So the 'solution' was to never explain anything about the state of the galaxy. Whereas Episode IV is rather clever in dropping hints of what is going on in the wider view without bogging down the story. And then all three films wasted their time mixing and matching plot lines from the OT rather than trying something new.
On January 13 2020 12:41 Falling wrote: @Jimmy Another thing did a thing is no defence of whether it is good or not. I enjoyed the occasional Next Gen episode, but I couldn't be called a fan. So 'Star Trek did a thing' is not a very persuasive defence. I particularly have a low view of episodic tv compared to the more modern interconnected story lines. Yeah, episodic sci-fi is more likely to forget what they did from episode to episode. That's a double strike in my book. WWE is just a non-sequitur.
My biggest problem with the sequels is they felt like it was necessary to explain fucking everything so at times it felt like reading a 300 page plot synopsis for a 1 page plot. They tried to put complex ideas in there, but it completely failed because of the way it was organized and the fact that there just wasn't enough depth to the story to begin with for complex stuff to work, hence the failure of ep 8.
The original trilogy used exactly the amount of lore it needed to be able to tell a story, and no more. The most complex lore was the backstory of the characters, which added depth to the movies without burdening the viewer with the complex and incredibly dull and confusing politics and economics of the wider galaxy.
Well, as to that, I blame whoever's idea it was to dynamite the New Republic, the Jedi Order, all in the opening credits. They made an unnecessarily complicated set up that NEEDED more explanation than they gave. It could have been a really simple set up: N Republic has been fighting the remnants of the old empire on and off for 30 years (which gives them tons of room for future stories in between compared to 'it was peaceful for 30 years'), and then some warlord unites disparate factions, or an alien polity breaks away from the New Republic, or maybe the equivalent of the Russian mafia- a galactic spanning syndicate- has filled in the power gap since the fall of the Empire etc. Civil War. Boom. Easy set up for endless stories. Introduce shipyards, capitals, and hyperspace lanes being important strategic points and you don't even need endless supplies of super weapons.
Then TLJ progressed the story less than an inch, so Rise felt the need to tell 2-4 stories worth to make up the difference. JJ really should have pushed for two films to make it a quadrology... and then jump ahead 15-20 years so he didn't need to magic multiple fleets into existence. The Resistance was absolutely dead in the water by the end of TLJ, for all its triumphant ending- false bravado. But I suspect there was far too much executive control to swing that.
I didn't really see it terms of future stories or movies because I don't think that's what they were aiming for with either the originals or the sequels. If you look at it that way then yeah, that sucks.
Well, I also don't think they made good stories in the moment either (in retrospect TFA falls off and TLJ was bad on the first view). But it's all the worse because of what it does to future stories.
Basically what i'm saying is that the sequels fixed what was wrong with the prequels but went too far in the other direction, and then made some other mistakes too,
This I agree. They were hyper-allergic to any backstory for fear of doing 'politics' because that was supposedly the main thing people hated about the prequels. So the 'solution' was to never explain anything about the state of the galaxy. Whereas Episode IV is rather clever in dropping hints of what is going on in the wider view without bogging down the story. And then all three films wasted their time mixing and matching plot lines from the OT rather than trying something new.
It does increasingly frustrate me seeing rough plot outlines that make much more sense from posts on the internet from non-writers that what makes it into these mega franchises that I want to be good. Same with GoT.
As you say extraordinary things require some explanation if it’s a continuation of a story. The Empire can just be there, and bad and have a planet killing weapon because it’s our first exposure to that universe. The First Order less so and Jesus the Final Order bloody hell much less so again.
I don’t think you need a huge amount of title craw, but a bit anyway. For those who don’t care it’s not a huge injection of space politics, but it grounds it a bit.
Retconning 8 and 9 briefly, TFA should be (something like) that the Rebellion splintered and failed to restore the old Republic once the unifying threat of the Empire was wiped. The First Order are the remnants of the Empire’s military that wanted to keep fighting for order in the galaxy (hey see what I did there), who have been growing in strength upon acquiring themselves a new Sith Lord, exploiting the other political infighting etc. If they MUST have a doomsday weapon I don’t think it should be operational yet, they should be a formidable threat but not quite the Empire straight away.
Then you can let TFA breathe a bit, focus more on the new characters and building them up, plus the associated universe stuff such as Finn and defecting stormtroopers and how that all works.
Also I’m sure there is some gap in chronology between the new trilogy films but how big? There’s clearly a big gap between 1 and 2 given Anakin’s in adolescence, between the OT films etc. It’s a minor quibble/major in a way because to me they feel they’re all occurring very soon after each other. If you have more obvious gaps then ‘how have they done x already?’ is a bit less of an issue.
There’s an infuriating sense of stuff being shelved because ‘people didn’t like it’ rather than some courage in executing said things better.
‘People didn’t like space politics in the prequels, we better not explain anything, or have interesting political angles’ being a rather pertinent one. My favourite shows are all rather damn political, or films have some philosophical analogy running through them, the issue with the Prequels was that they did such things horribly.
Then they go and throw out everything from TLJ, not because it was necessarily all terrible but just because. And some of that I felt was worth exploring but JJ seemed to take gleeful delight in actively retconning such things.
An overview of what's allegedly Colin Trevorrow's early draft (before he was replaced by JJ Abrams). It's over 2 hours, so better strap in. Trevorrow still got story credit in the film, so some parts of the final product are definitely by him.
Planned sabotage on the Kuat shipyards? I'm already sad that this film was not made. I've said since TFA they need to move away from super weapons- to do that they need to make shipyards targets to capture.
Just some general comments, for whom it may concern: I enjoyed episode 7. To me it was a nice SF-action movie with acceptable story and writing. I did not mind that it basically was e remake of episode 4.
So I watched episode 8. There is nothing good about that movie, not a single redeeming quality. It is episode 1 level bad.
And therefore, I did not watch episode 9. Exactly as I did not watch episode 2 and 3. After seeing episode 1, there really was no need to spend any money to support this mess.
If you complain that the movies are shit and Disney is all about the money, maybe you should consider not going to the cinema and giving Disney your money. Because if you go and complain afterwards, there is no incentive for anything to change. That is your power as a customer, exercise it.
If you go to the cinema again and again and again, regardless of how many terrible movies they create, that is on you. The obvious result is: they will continue to create terrible movies.
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.
RT messed up again with their user review ratings for DR. Who. I overestimated how smart the Rotten Tomatoes people are. I thought this Star Wars 86% forever score was a strategic gambit and they'd apologize for a "software bug" in their system. LOL.
Silly me, RT are just a bunch of idiots.
With the Star Wars user review incident and now this DR. Who thing RT's audience review scores have a lot less credibility.
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.
RT messed up again with their user review ratings for DR. Who. I overestimated how smart the Rotten Tomatoes people are. I thought this Star Wars 86% forever score was a strategic gambit and they'd apologize for a "software bug" in their system. LOL.
Silly me, RT are just a bunch of idiots.
With the Star Wars user review incident and now this DR. Who thing RT's audience review scores have a lot less credibility.
It seems fine with anything where there isn't a masses of fan weirdly proud to declare to the universe that they hate something togheter. I mean something like Greys Anatomy has over two times the audience DW has and you don't see a bazillion angry review all of the time. Buttom line, I just don't look for review for those thing, it's just to tieredsome. But RT is fine with everything that isn't stuck in the Internet hate train.
On January 15 2020 18:05 Malinor wrote: Just some general comments, for whom it may concern: I enjoyed episode 7. To me it was a nice SF-action movie with acceptable story and writing. I did not mind that it basically was e remake of episode 4.
So I watched episode 8. There is nothing good about that movie, not a single redeeming quality. It is episode 1 level bad.
And therefore, I did not watch episode 9. Exactly as I did not watch episode 2 and 3. After seeing episode 1, there really was no need to spend any money to support this mess.
If you complain that the movies are shit and Disney is all about the money, maybe you should consider not going to the cinema and giving Disney your money. Because if you go and complain afterwards, there is no incentive for anything to change. That is your power as a customer, exercise it.
If you go to the cinema again and again and again, regardless of how many terrible movies they create, that is on you. The obvious result is: they will continue to create terrible movies.
I did exactly the same.
Seeing all you people that bitched endlessly about 8 now doing the same about 9, despite knowing that the ship has sunk, is actually ridiculous.
Well, I didn't go to IX. Do I win anything? Or does that just make me petty?
But maybe people feel a sort of loss over a franchise they loved. So you deal with it in different ways- one is to discuss what worked and what didn't. But in the meantime, you have an endless deluge of articles saying the film you dislike is the best ever, and you are toxic for disliking it. Well, that'll generate more conversation than if a movie was bad, everyone agrees and moves on. You may think we are ridiculous, but I have never seen a film defended to the hilt like RJ's either. And really weird defences too- like the OT was actually bad all along and you are being inconsistent because RJ is supposedly bad in exactl the same ways.
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.
RT messed up again with their user review ratings for DR. Who. I overestimated how smart the Rotten Tomatoes people are. I thought this Star Wars 86% forever score was a strategic gambit and they'd apologize for a "software bug" in their system. LOL.
Silly me, RT are just a bunch of idiots.
With the Star Wars user review incident and now this DR. Who thing RT's audience review scores have a lot less credibility.
It seems fine with anything where there isn't a masses of fan weirdly proud to declare to the universe that they hate something togheter. I mean something like Greys Anatomy has over two times the audience DW has and you don't see a bazillion angry review all of the time. Buttom line, I just don't look for review for those thing, it's just to tieredsome. But RT is fine with everything that isn't stuck in the Internet hate train.
and what qualifies for "masses of fans weirdly proud"... who knows.
meh, if they've done it twice in this short a span of time who knows what other BS they're pulling. I'm too lazy to follow up on their other potential BS moves. I know there is some white noise about the Captain Marvel movie.. but again I'm too lazy to research it.
On January 16 2020 10:48 Falling wrote: Well, I didn't go to IX. Do I win anything? Or does that just make me petty?
But maybe people feel a sort of loss over a franchise they loved. So you deal with it in different ways- one is to discuss what worked and what didn't. But in the meantime, you have an endless deluge of articles saying the film you dislike is the best ever, and you are toxic for disliking it. Well, that'll generate more conversation than if a movie was bad, everyone agrees and moves on. You may think we are ridiculous, but I have never seen a film defended to the hilt like RJ's either. And really weird defences too- like the OT was actually bad all along and you are being inconsistent because RJ is supposedly bad in exactl the same ways.
The consensus amongst the casual in here is it is a 6.5/10 movie. That's the consensus I've gathered by casuals outside of the TL forum as well. Myself, i gave it a 6.5/10.
A friend of a friend, has a giant Star Wars icon tattoo-ed on his back. His wife spent 2 hours doing this guy's Palpatine make up for opening night. He thought the movie was very good but not great. I don't know enough hard core Star Wars fans to get a "read of the room" though.
Given the corner into which Rian Johnson painted Disney I think Disney et al have done a damn good job recovering from the previous movie disaster.
Disney has had two big disasters since they took over the franchise. The Battlefront 2 video game and the Rian Johnson debacle. Their responses were Episode 9 and "Jedi Fallen Order". Both played it relatively safe and both were effective in helping the franchise recover somewhat.
Disney has fucked up big time since acquiring the Star Wars franchise. However, there are also some very smart and very talented people working at/for Disney as well. Don't sell that group short.
Don't explain politics - just want to mention that JJ isn't exactly known for making movies that explain a lot. He's known for a good rebooting, nostalgia movies with action. At least that's what I think and I believe I am not the only one.
Considering he did E7 and 9 and the best place to explain stuff was E7, well, sad story
I'm not gonna judge him based on E9 although I don't think he's that good as they think. I'm more shocked that LucasFilm made a trilogy without a trilogy plan and this nah - yeah - nah - yeah shit happened.
On January 16 2020 10:48 Falling wrote: Well, I didn't go to IX. Do I win anything? Or does that just make me petty?
But maybe people feel a sort of loss over a franchise they loved. So you deal with it in different ways- one is to discuss what worked and what didn't. But in the meantime, you have an endless deluge of articles saying the film you dislike is the best ever, and you are toxic for disliking it. Well, that'll generate more conversation than if a movie was bad, everyone agrees and moves on. You may think we are ridiculous, but I have never seen a film defended to the hilt like RJ's either. And really weird defences too- like the OT was actually bad all along and you are being inconsistent because RJ is supposedly bad in exactl the same ways.
Such are the schisms, it’s a confusing media landscape.
I’d say there definitely is a toxic element to the backlash, but then rather be countering that element and critiquing the film on its own merits, a certain segment of people then backlash to the backlash and say the films are great, or the OT wasn’t all that or whatever.
Thankfully you fine folks aren’t of the toxic variety and the thread has been a decent discussion.
I'm not selling Disney short. They did that to themselves when they didn't plan out their planned trilogy and instead rehashed the OT for three films. It's actually a Disney sequel in the vein of Lil Mermaid 2 and Lion King 2 as far as I'm concerned- replay the same story with the younger generation. Artless.
But I don't go to the theatres to see 6.5 films. I either see it because I think it's going to be great, or else it might not be great, but it'll do something interesting within my wheelhouse. Rise looks like neither. Furthermore, TLJ was actually a really bad experience for me- I've never watched something in threatres and hated seeing it, though I've laughed through incompetent films (Eragon and Seventh Son). So I won't pay for another (I doubt for me it would be a 6.5).
If youre not invested in the movies or care how the whole thing ends I wouldn't recommend going to see it. The music is made by the generations best composer and the cgi is made by the best in the business but the movie suffers from the same thing endgame did but cranked up to 20.
On January 15 2020 18:05 Malinor wrote: Just some general comments, for whom it may concern: I enjoyed episode 7. To me it was a nice SF-action movie with acceptable story and writing. I did not mind that it basically was e remake of episode 4.
So I watched episode 8. There is nothing good about that movie, not a single redeeming quality. It is episode 1 level bad.
And therefore, I did not watch episode 9. Exactly as I did not watch episode 2 and 3. After seeing episode 1, there really was no need to spend any money to support this mess.
If you complain that the movies are shit and Disney is all about the money, maybe you should consider not going to the cinema and giving Disney your money. Because if you go and complain afterwards, there is no incentive for anything to change. That is your power as a customer, exercise it.
If you go to the cinema again and again and again, regardless of how many terrible movies they create, that is on you. The obvious result is: they will continue to create terrible movies.
Well, you missed out dude. Ep 2 and 3 were actually better than ep 1 (ep 3 for sure). The thing that's different between the prequels and this is that in the prequels, regardless of how silly some of it was, how bad was the writing, you still got a Star Wars story with some gems sprinkled here and there and some characters that were actually good. In this new trilogy, the only thing that reminds you of Star Wars really is the music and some effects. The characters are just crap and story is not really interesting. With all that it's hard to find an argument for seeing this last movie - even if it was the best shit ever, it's the last film and you don't care about any of the characters so it's inconsequential since nothing further will be done with it.
I find it hard to sell the prequels characters over the sequels. Characters is imo the one thing the sequels did well, while the characters in the prequels suffered from terrible dialogue, mostly bad acting and very flat development. The only likeable character in all prequels is Obi Wan and he like every character but Anakin (who's arc is entirely unbelievable) has basically no character development.
I also fail to see how Ep 2 is better than 1 by any margin, the only thing it does better is less Jar Jar. In return the Anakin+Padme lovestory is extremely cringy and boring and the main-cast is extremely wooden. I think 3 is decent if you turn your brain mostly off, at least the action is nice and never stops. Christiansen also plays a bit better and McGregor has more scenes.
I find it hard to sell the prequels characters over the sequels.
Prequels had better villains, didn't they? Both triologies had Palpatine, but Maul, Dooku and Grievious were cooler than Snoke and... Hux? Does Captain Phasma even count? Kylo was also a pretty bad villain, though I guess that was intentional in episode 7.
On January 20 2020 06:20 Archeon wrote: I also fail to see how Ep 2 is better than 1 by any margin, the only thing it does better is less Jar Jar. In return the Anakin+Padme lovestory is extremely cringy and boring and the main-cast is extremely wooden.
It does have its really questionable parts, but at least a few things that Ep 2 had that were of worth, that could perhaps put it above Ep 1: 1. No kid Anakin. Easily the worst character of the prequels. 2. Dooku is a pretty interesting villain. Not that Maul is too bad, but Dooku is overall probably a step up. 3. Generally better action scenes and battles. The Geonosis battle was much better than the Naboo one overall. 4. The seismic charge sound effect. Probably one of the few things about Ep 2 that is almost universally seen as pretty cool regardless of the perception of the rest of the movie.
My personal ranking is 1<2<3, as far as the prequels go. 2<1<3 is also fairly common, though - really just depends on whether the gems of Ep 1 or of Ep 2 appeal to you more. For me, the heavy focus of Ep 1 on kid Anakin pushes that movie solidly into the bottom of the list, despite the flaws the rest of the prequels.
On January 17 2020 01:35 Falling wrote: But I don't go to the theatres to see 6.5 films..... So I won't pay for another (I doubt for me it would be a 6.5).
Fair enough. FWIW, I don't think it was worth the $15 to go see it. I went because a few other people I knew were enraged in furious debates about it... so i just had to see it for myself.
I am impressed at what Disney tried to do to dig their way out of the mess caused by Rian Johnson and Episode 8 though. I'm also impressed by how Jedi Fallen Order was an attempt at digging EA/Disney out of the disaster of Battlefront 2.
Disney's crisis management is really good. Of course, they caused the crisis.. so ya.
On January 20 2020 10:52 LegalLord wrote: My personal ranking is 1<2<3,
On January 20 2020 06:20 Archeon wrote: I find it hard to sell the prequels characters over the sequels. Characters is imo the one thing the sequels did well, while the characters in the prequels suffered from terrible dialogue, mostly bad acting and very flat development. The only likeable character in all prequels is Obi Wan and he like every character but Anakin (who's arc is entirely unbelievable) has basically no character development.
I also fail to see how Ep 2 is better than 1 by any margin, the only thing it does better is less Jar Jar. In return the Anakin+Padme lovestory is extremely cringy and boring and the main-cast is extremely wooden. I think 3 is decent if you turn your brain mostly off, at least the action is nice and never stops. Christiansen also plays a bit better and McGregor has more scenes.
Which Character is for you likeble in the sequels? I think the only good character was Snoke, and not because his development but because the mistery around him. Mary Rey: this character not only makes the sequels bad but you cant make new SW movies with the force involved as the main factor, the Force is too op now. Kylo: what a horrible meme of a villain (insert Hux here too) Poe; never was developed well after TFA, Finn; I think the actor wanted this suffering to end fast, uninteresting in all levels in all three movies.
I find it hard to sell the prequels characters over the sequels.
Prequels had better villains, didn't they? Both triologies had Palpatine, but Maul, Dooku and Grievious were cooler than Snoke and... Hux? Does Captain Phasma even count? Kylo was also a pretty bad villain, though I guess that was intentional in episode 7.
Eh, I honestly think Palpatine is the only interesting villain through the prequels. Maul is a hollow shell with a neat lightsaber who does nothing but fight the heroes once after menacing them, Grievious is a hollow shell with four neat lightsabers who does nothing but fight one of the heroes once after menacing them, and Dooku just makes no sense whatsoever as a character (I guess he's supposed to be one of those "heroes on both sides" in the episode 3 crawl, but he sure doesn't show it, and his final moments belong in a comedy film).
You could strip Maul (and the rest of episode 1) out and let Dooku replace Grievious in RotS and there's a slim chance you could have made a good character out of him, I guess.
I find it hard to sell the prequels characters over the sequels.
Prequels had better villains, didn't they? Both triologies had Palpatine, but Maul, Dooku and Grievious were cooler than Snoke and... Hux? Does Captain Phasma even count? Kylo was also a pretty bad villain, though I guess that was intentional in episode 7.
Eh, I honestly think Palpatine is the only interesting villain through the prequels. Maul is a hollow shell with a neat lightsaber who does nothing but fight the heroes once after menacing them, Grievious is a hollow shell with four neat lightsabers who does nothing but fight one of the heroes once after menacing them, and Dooku just makes no sense whatsoever as a character (I guess he's supposed to be one of those "heroes on both sides" in the episode 3 crawl, but he sure doesn't show it, and his final moments belong in a comedy film).
You could strip Maul (and the rest of episode 1) out and let Dooku replace Grievious in RotS and there's a slim chance you could have made a good character out of him, I guess.
I’m not sure how you’re meant to establish 3 secondary villains with different characteristics around a shadowy main villain and a political intrigue plot that’s already messy.
They’re way better done in the Clone Wars and have some interesting angles, but they don’t do a huge amount here.
Dooku could have been an interesting bridge for Anakin’s fall if they’d used him in a different capacity. As that more morally grey character, or actually used him visible as a ‘hero on both sides’ way.
You have a character who’s a fallen Jedi who Mace Windu is confident wouldn’t do certain things because it’s not in his nature apparently, and Anakin who is getting frustrated about the Jedi and yet you don’t really have much of Dooku and Anakin interacting around that.
I’m not even changing much here theme wise, Lucas sprinkled them in but didn’t really arrange the pieces properly at all, feels a complete waste of Christopher Lee.
Perhaps even in Episode 2 when him and Anakin would hypothetically be forming some connection and the seeds are getting laid we maybe even get to like or sympathise with Dooku, which would make the scene later where Palpatine orders Anakin to kill him actually have some emotional resonance and conflict.
On January 20 2020 06:20 Archeon wrote: I find it hard to sell the prequels characters over the sequels. Characters is imo the one thing the sequels did well, while the characters in the prequels suffered from terrible dialogue, mostly bad acting and very flat development. The only likeable character in all prequels is Obi Wan and he like every character but Anakin (who's arc is entirely unbelievable) has basically no character development.
I also fail to see how Ep 2 is better than 1 by any margin, the only thing it does better is less Jar Jar. In return the Anakin+Padme lovestory is extremely cringy and boring and the main-cast is extremely wooden. I think 3 is decent if you turn your brain mostly off, at least the action is nice and never stops. Christiansen also plays a bit better and McGregor has more scenes.
Which Character is for you likeble in the sequels? I think the only good character was Snoke, and not because his development but because the mistery around him. Mary Rey: this character not only makes the sequels bad but you cant make new SW movies with the force involved as the main factor, the Force is too op now. Kylo: what a horrible meme of a villain (insert Hux here too) Poe; never was developed well after TFA, Finn; I think the actor wanted this suffering to end fast, uninteresting in all levels in all three movies.
Likeability and being a good character isn’t the same thing necessarily, ideally you have both of course.
Most characters in the prequels behave like unrelatable monks or robots most of the times, indeed some of the robots have more recognisable human foibles.
I don’t think they really did a good job on giving the new trilogy characters good arcs and development, but they’re baseline pretty likeable and the performances are all pretty good.
A first order mutiny alongside shenanigans with the crew that poe left makes the whole thing intersting. And then the gigantic twist when everyone's sacrifices were pointless when holo reveals her plan.
I find it hard to sell the prequels characters over the sequels.
Prequels had better villains, didn't they? Both triologies had Palpatine, but Maul, Dooku and Grievious were cooler than Snoke and... Hux? Does Captain Phasma even count? Kylo was also a pretty bad villain, though I guess that was intentional in episode 7.
Depends on how you define good villains imo. Are they generally more threatening? Yes. Do they have clear motivations, goals and are developing characters? Definitely not. Kylo has more character depth and growth than every prequel villain, prequel villains are mostly just there and evil.
Maul looks cool, but his only lines are "yes master" and "it will be done". He's a plot device rather than a character.
Dooku and Palpatine are cool characters in the prequels and Dooku even leaves you guessing about his motivation. But instead of developing Dooku in 3 they killed him off and put Grievous in his place, who is again a cardboard villain. I think Grievous is battling Hux for my least favorite villain in Star Wars and Grievous in difference to Hux is supposed to be threatening. He's just there, he taunts people and then gets killed by a blaster.
But I agree that the villain cast outside of Kylo Ren is very weak in the sequels, in no small part due to episode 8 killing the BBE. That being said I don't think the difference is as large as the difference between the sequels good cast vs the prequels good cast. I generally like the prequels more than the sequels, but characters and dialogues is where they fall really short.
On January 20 2020 06:20 Archeon wrote: I also fail to see how Ep 2 is better than 1 by any margin, the only thing it does better is less Jar Jar. In return the Anakin+Padme lovestory is extremely cringy and boring and the main-cast is extremely wooden.
It does have its really questionable parts, but at least a few things that Ep 2 had that were of worth, that could perhaps put it above Ep 1: 1. No kid Anakin. Easily the worst character of the prequels. 2. Dooku is a pretty interesting villain. Not that Maul is too bad, but Dooku is overall probably a step up. 3. Generally better action scenes and battles. The Geonosis battle was much better than the Naboo one overall. 4. The seismic charge sound effect. Probably one of the few things about Ep 2 that is almost universally seen as pretty cool regardless of the perception of the rest of the movie.
My personal ranking is 1<2<3, as far as the prequels go. 2<1<3 is also fairly common, though - really just depends on whether the gems of Ep 1 or of Ep 2 appeal to you more. For me, the heavy focus of Ep 1 on kid Anakin pushes that movie solidly into the bottom of the list, despite the flaws the rest of the prequels.
I mean if we are counting cool scenes than 8 is a good movie because it has a bunch of really cool scenes. It just has a really bad and unsatisfying plot that isn't going anywhere, a badly written love story full of clichés and the good guys choosing constantly the worst option available. Also lots and lots of plot devices to make them still win in the end.
To top it of Episode 2 has the worst dialogue in the entire saga (and Lucas really struggles with that) and Hayden Christiansen plays so wooden that he's almost rivaling the child actor of episode 1 (he somewhat redeems himself in 3). Dooku could have been a good villain if they developed his motivation a bit in 3 instead of killing him.
But I agree that he's a better character than Maul and has potential in 2. I really like Kamino and the bountyhunter-chase, I like most of the aliens in episode 2. But I think that 80% of the scenes once the love story starts are bad, the romance is terrible, goes over into a video game followed by a really dumb Jedi invasion which doesn't fit the Jedi either and then goes to clones vs robots, where giant lasers shoot floating balls.
Episode 1 on the other hand is very childish, has confusing motivations and 2 terrible characters in child Anakin and Jar Jar. But imo the trio of Portman + McGregor + Neeson works much better than Portman + Christiansen + McGregor at least in 2. It also has a imo the best worldbuilding of all SWs, has a more goal oriented plot than 3 and despite the bad large battle on Naboo I enjoy the fight with Maul and the takeover of the throne room more. The setup for the finale is better, the finale is more conclusive, the soundtrack is imo better and overall it feels more like an adventure with a connected plot, while episode 2 is a bunch of guys trying to find out what's happening. The only thing I can give to two is that it tries less hard to appeal to a very young audience, so we don't get a terrible child actor with lots of screentime and infantile humor in Jar Jar.
Kwark I just want to say how hilarious your post was. Everyone who hasn't go back to page 12 and read it.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I did look up the "Hello there!" scene from episode III on a whim because of the meme, and sorry but anyone who's defending the prequels as good movies I just cannot understand you. Holy hell.
The prequel villains were okayish, I guess, as they were meant to be second-tier villains. Anybody who knows stuff about the OT knows who Vader used to be, so his transformation into a villain was at the center and Palpatine was pulling the strings. They were merely obstacles, neither the source of evil nor the worst perpetrators (as the most evil deed was turning The Chosen One into a Sith). All of them could have been done better, although I have to say Dooku had a genuine aura of menace around him. But still, they were secondary and were meant to look like they were secondary. They don't need much in the way of motivation as they're mere tools of evil, not evil itself.
What the prequels lacked most was dialogue - the Anakin/Padme romance was extremely cringey; a decent comic relief character (Jar Jar MIGHT have done the job if he was portrayed as the worthless guy he is and not given any responsibility AT ALL); and, unpopular opinion, they had way too much lightsaber choreography. It felt all over the place. Yoda jumping around in TCA was utterly ridiculous. Why break the image of the frail but wise and powerful ancient master? The Mustafar duel in RotS was exceedingly long, it felt pointless. The Jedi killed by Palpatine felt like training dummies. The only likable lightsaber action sequence was actually in episode I, I felt genuinely worried about the Jedi against Maul and the force fields were a great addition.
But most of the characters, at least the protagonists, were relatable to one degree or another. I wanted to smack Anakin in the mouth half the time, but I cared for him. I cared about Obi-Wan, Yoda, I even cared about Padme and was wondering why was she such a mindless chit when she's supposedly able to govern a damn planet. But I cared. And episode three had a great dark atmosphere.
I don't give a damn about neither Ray nor Poe. Finn I repeatedly forget about. Leia was hardly believable after her surviving in hard vacuum stunt. Holdo felt wooden. The only protagonist I somewhat related to was the bitter version of Luke.
And Poe... Poe was the biggest disappointment of them all, since we had damn Wedge and we got this clown.
Hiring is never 100%. Errors always get made... the mistake was not the hiring Kathleen Kennedy. Mistakes in hiring are always possible. The mistake was keeping her around when it was clear she was in over her head.
On February 04 2020 23:13 hexhaven wrote: Lots more (alleged) concept art from Colin Trevorrow's ultimately canned Episode X version, Duel of the Fates
^yeah rewatching this this is so over the top Nazi-esque it's pretty comical.
I liked the first half of TFA, but the entire deathplanet-plot should have really been scrapped imo. Makes the rumor where they fired their playwright after half of the plot and then JJ wrote the second half pretty believable.
On February 14 2020 10:15 Archeon wrote: ^yeah rewatching this this is so over the top Nazi-esque it's pretty comical.
I liked the first half of TFA, but the entire deathplanet-plot should have really been scrapped imo. Makes the rumor where they fired their playwright after half of the plot and then JJ wrote the second half pretty believable.
I heard the opposite, JJ wrote everything, but they stopped using what he had up until Finn and Poe escaped starship.
It wasn't a confirmed source but it seemed to line up fairly well.
I am of the belief that Disney boardrooms / focus groups / test audiences were to blame for the generic recycled plots.
On February 14 2020 10:15 Archeon wrote: ^yeah rewatching this this is so over the top Nazi-esque it's pretty comical.
I liked the first half of TFA, but the entire deathplanet-plot should have really been scrapped imo. Makes the rumor where they fired their playwright after half of the plot and then JJ wrote the second half pretty believable.
I heard the opposite, JJ wrote everything, but they stopped using what he had up until Finn and Poe escaped starship.
It wasn't a confirmed source but it seemed to line up fairly well.
I am of the belief that Disney boardrooms / focus groups / test audiences were to blame for the generic recycled plots.
Even JJ knows that if you gonna do a trilogy you need to plan the trilogy. If you don't have the plans then it fails, especially if it's being done by different people(which was the origin idea)
On February 14 2020 10:15 Archeon wrote: ^yeah rewatching this this is so over the top Nazi-esque it's pretty comical.
I liked the first half of TFA, but the entire deathplanet-plot should have really been scrapped imo. Makes the rumor where they fired their playwright after half of the plot and then JJ wrote the second half pretty believable.
I heard the opposite, JJ wrote everything, but they stopped using what he had up until Finn and Poe escaped starship.
It wasn't a confirmed source but it seemed to line up fairly well.
I am of the belief that Disney boardrooms / focus groups / test audiences were to blame for the generic recycled plots.
Even JJ Literally anyone knows that if you gonna do a trilogy you need to plan the trilogy. If you don't have the plans then it fails, especially if it's being done by different people(which was the origin idea)
I am still genuinely baffled, probably will be to my dying day.
Reminds me of that party game where you colllectively make a story by taking it in turns to pick the next word.
On February 14 2020 10:15 Archeon wrote: ^yeah rewatching this this is so over the top Nazi-esque it's pretty comical.
I liked the first half of TFA, but the entire deathplanet-plot should have really been scrapped imo. Makes the rumor where they fired their playwright after half of the plot and then JJ wrote the second half pretty believable.
I heard the opposite, JJ wrote everything, but they stopped using what he had up until Finn and Poe escaped starship.
It wasn't a confirmed source but it seemed to line up fairly well.
I am of the belief that Disney boardrooms / focus groups / test audiences were to blame for the generic recycled plots.
Even JJ Literally anyone knows that if you gonna do a trilogy you need to plan the trilogy. If you don't have the plans then it fails, especially if it's being done by different people(which was the origin idea)
I am still genuinely baffled, probably will be to my dying day.
Reminds me of that party game where you colllectively make a story by taking it in turns to pick the next word.
You could make it work, but a constant problem with the sequel trilogy has been the lack of prep time. Disney bought Lucasfilm in December 2012, and the first film was released just three years later. The two sequels both essentially only had two years to get a finished product. All the writers and directors working on the trilogy (even the ones who were fired) have been saying that everything's been too rushed.
Give the writers enough time after Ep7 to work on Ep8, and it's very doable. But Disney's thought process was that every year without a new War of Stars movie was lost revenue.
e: \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Do we know that it's Kennedy and not Disney's execs?
On February 14 2020 10:15 Archeon wrote: ^yeah rewatching this this is so over the top Nazi-esque it's pretty comical.
I liked the first half of TFA, but the entire deathplanet-plot should have really been scrapped imo. Makes the rumor where they fired their playwright after half of the plot and then JJ wrote the second half pretty believable.
I heard the opposite, JJ wrote everything, but they stopped using what he had up until Finn and Poe escaped starship.
It wasn't a confirmed source but it seemed to line up fairly well.
I am of the belief that Disney boardrooms / focus groups / test audiences were to blame for the generic recycled plots.
Even JJ knows that if you gonna do a trilogy you need to plan the trilogy. If you don't have the plans then it fails, especially if it's being done by different people(which was the origin idea)
Which is why I blame Kathleen Kennedy, as head of Lucas Films it was her job to keep the trilogy on track through different directors. And she led Rian Johnson take a wild lft turn to actively shit on the breadcrumbs from 7 only to then go back to JJ trying to cram what he wanted 8 and 9 to be into 1 film.
On February 14 2020 10:15 Archeon wrote: ^yeah rewatching this this is so over the top Nazi-esque it's pretty comical.
I liked the first half of TFA, but the entire deathplanet-plot should have really been scrapped imo. Makes the rumor where they fired their playwright after half of the plot and then JJ wrote the second half pretty believable.
I heard the opposite, JJ wrote everything, but they stopped using what he had up until Finn and Poe escaped starship.
It wasn't a confirmed source but it seemed to line up fairly well.
I am of the belief that Disney boardrooms / focus groups / test audiences were to blame for the generic recycled plots.
Even JJ Literally anyone knows that if you gonna do a trilogy you need to plan the trilogy. If you don't have the plans then it fails, especially if it's being done by different people(which was the origin idea)
I am still genuinely baffled, probably will be to my dying day.
Reminds me of that party game where you colllectively make a story by taking it in turns to pick the next word.
You could make it work, but a constant problem with the sequel trilogy has been the lack of prep time. Disney bought Lucasfilm in December 2012, and the first film was released just three years later. The two sequels both essentially only had two years to get a finished product. All the writers and directors working on the trilogy (even the ones who were fired) have been saying that everything's been too rushed.
Give the writers enough time after Ep7 to work on Ep8, and it's very doable. But Disney's thought process was that every year without a new War of Stars movie was lost revenue.
e: \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Do we know that it's Kennedy and not Disney's execs?
I can get that the details will be fucked up. But the movies were not even connected, it's like E7 tries to be SW, E8 tries to be something else while being Star Wars(wat?) and then E9 just shits all over the E8 and we are supposed to pretend it didn't happen. How hard is to do a simple story-line which everybody will have to follow? I would understand some weird thing going on here and there, but 3 different movies? ON A MULTIBILLION PROJECT!!?!?!??? Dafuq?
Or somebody lost the card where was written - Snoke is the evil dude. Snoke is surrounded by mistery. The mistery will be slightly unveiled in E8 so the true shocking exposal can be done in the 2nd half of E9. DO NOT KILL BEFORE E9!!!
I am no writer myself but I would expect a brief line of story and characters and the plan what to do with them(e.g. Han Solo - needs to die ASAP, Harrison is getting crazy about him and doesn't like SW). This just seems like a chaotic project.
On February 14 2020 22:29 hexhaven wrote:Do we know that it's Kennedy and not Disney's execs?
Rian has talked about how he had complete freedom to do what he wants. That doesn't sound like Execs interfering in the process but a lack of direction. Which shouldn't come from Disney's execs, they don't decide on story beats for all their 200 subsidiary studio's.
No, but there should be some creative behind the scenes that is driving the story.
A trilogy is an interconnected story, so I think it's fair to compare it to some of the better interconnected tv series- Breaking Bad has Vince Gilligan as writer/ creator and The Wire has David Simon as writer creator.
By all means, have different directors for different movies, but for goodness sake, have some creative (and NOT an exec) that has a vision for both continuing the story and how to continue beyond and out of the trilogy (in effect establishing the basis for endless stories past, present, and future.)
Disney Trilogy does the opposite- right from the beginning too. TFA- 30 years of peace. Well dang it. Guess there can be no Star Wars film in between with some other characters (think X-wing series by Stackpole or Allston). The best you can have is some border conflicts or smuggling adventures, but no outright wars. Hands tied right away.
And by the time the story ends we can teleport objects from around the galaxy and OP force ghosts that can interact with the physical, planet destroying lasers that can be mass produced on front line ships, etc. It's a pants on head crazy universe now and I can't imagine trying to write a 'story' now that paid attention to all the new 'rules' they put in place.
But I know the only consistent thing to do is to just ignore what the previous movies did and just make up something new to get out of the latest plot trouble- that's about as far seeing as these writers seem to be. Don't pay attention to anything else that was created, nor what impact this new invention would have on future stories. Forget about it- does it solve the immediate problem in front of the characters? Do it!
Lucasfilm is not exactly thriving and EA's Star Wars exclusivity license resulted in one single player game in 8 years. They moth balled LucasArts to give EA an exclusive license ... to do nothing. LucasArts had built a reputation for being an innovative "creator first" studio. I really liked the stuff LucasArts did over the past few decades. To just throw that away... and then replace it with nothing... that's bad.
I wonder what the execs at the top think of Disney+ ?
I don't know much about the other aspects of Disney to comment.
If an ambitious poster wants to turn this Disney news into its own thread.. that'd be great.
Disney certainly botched the cash cow that is LucasFilms, that's for sure. Even during the prequel era, Lucas was making some great stuff (some of the best Star Wars games and some damn good merch), but Disney hasn't really managed to turn a really good purchase into a massive amount of money. Management incompetence is the clear cause in their failures in the cinematic, gaming, and merchandising arenas.
Anybody play Rogue Squadron that came out in 1998? Such a good game for its time. I reacquired it from Good Old Games? recently and it still holds up. But they were pumping out games all the time, and so many were great. Now they're drawing blanks though they look pretty enough.
On February 26 2020 10:05 LegalLord wrote: Disney certainly botched the cash cow that is LucasFilms, that's for sure. Even during the prequel era, Lucas was making some great stuff (some of the best Star Wars games and some damn good merch), but Disney hasn't really managed to turn a really good purchase into a massive amount of money. Management incompetence is the clear cause in their failures in the cinematic, gaming, and merchandising arenas.
They’ve made quite a lot of money, as much as the internet outrage would proclaim the new films as failures.
On the Star Wars IP in vidya, real missed opportunity,
I played a lot of LucasArts games back in my youth and you could pump stuff out in that vein again.
There was a big mix of genres appearing to various demographics. You could mix big releases with relatively cheap reimaginings of the likes of Tie Fighter and make money on all of it.
Disney plus is the thing that I think keeps the Disney execs up at night. Not because its not doing well or not but because it represents a replacement of the largest part of their business. The Tv channels from abc to espn to the literal disney channels on cable represent the largest share of all their income. Everyone can see the bullet coming for cable a mile away and disney plus represents the companies best chance at replacing (I remember seeing in a youtube so don't quote me) roughly 40 some percent of their overall revenue. Bob iger has mentioned he was thinking of running for president in 2016 but decided to pursue fox studios and Disney plus instead.
On other star wars news what do people think of the recent "the high republic" initiative that was announced recently? I think its a cool idea but I'm very very hopeful that they make an old republic movie especially after the visual guide was released to announce that a lot of old time old republic sith lords (including revan) are offical canon now.
On February 26 2020 10:23 Falling wrote: Anybody play Rogue Squadron that came out in 1998? Such a good game for its time. I reacquired it from Good Old Games? recently and it still holds up. But they were pumping out games all the time, and so many were great. Now they're drawing blanks though they look pretty enough.
Rogue squadron was a blast! Played through it once then replayed years later to get all gold medals and unlock the secret missions.
On February 26 2020 15:30 Sermokala wrote: Disney plus is the thing that I think keeps the Disney execs up at night. Not because its not doing well or not but because it represents a replacement of the largest part of their business. The Tv channels from abc to espn to the literal disney channels on cable represent the largest share of all their income. Everyone can see the bullet coming for cable a mile away and disney plus represents the companies best chance at replacing (I remember seeing in a youtube so don't quote me) roughly 40 some percent of their overall revenue. Bob iger has mentioned he was thinking of running for president in 2016 but decided to pursue fox studios and Disney plus instead.
IMO, the moves Disney is making with ESPN+ are really good. Now whether that means they will successfully transition out of their reliance on cable revenues via ESPN+ revenues.. I have no clue. My "Archie Bunker" opinion of ESPN+ is that its really good.
The worst Star Wars movies often have the best meme power, and this one is certainly no exception. I finally found one of my favorite memes that was originally made with bootlegged footage and deleted, finally reuploaded on YouTube without it.
I just got done watching a whole shitton of star wars content and I finally understand why people like the prequels more than the sequels and i think i can get on that bandwagon now.
I was always a SW fan, but never a SW nerd. I watched the films and nothing else really. I still think the sequels stand on their own slightly better than the prequels (just because of the number of times i have to stop watching the prequels for a few minutes when Anakin and Padme are in the same room), but all of the supporting content and lore surrounding the prequels is amazing, and makes the films themselves much better if you have the inclination to nerd out on youtube for a few hours before you watch them.
I love how you can pick out the different lightsaber fighting styles, and how they support each character and change as they grow. That's just one example though.
Obviously there was a concerted effort to move away from this for the sequels, and i think it damages their long term viability. The prequels are much, much better on repeated watching, whereas the sequels make no sense either way.
So yeah, the nerds were right, and i was wrong.
ps that fan made Darth Maul movie might be the best SW content since Empire.
The prequels did an excellent job at world-building and spawned some great spinoff works - books, the Tartakovsky Clone Wars series, some pretty solid games too. The sequels did a terrible job of that and mostly made the world smaller. Plus there was no way to recover from the debacle that was Ep 8, which was honestly worse than any individual prequel movie.
On June 21 2020 21:57 Jockmcplop wrote: I just got done watching a whole shitton of star wars content and I finally understand why people like the prequels more than the sequels and i think i can get on that bandwagon now.
I was always a SW fan, but never a SW nerd. I watched the films and nothing else really. I still think the sequels stand on their own slightly better than the prequels (just because of the number of times i have to stop watching the prequels for a few minutes when Anakin and Padme are in the same room), but all of the supporting content and lore surrounding the prequels is amazing, and makes the films themselves much better if you have the inclination to nerd out on youtube for a few hours before you watch them.
I love how you can pick out the different lightsaber fighting styles, and how they support each character and change as they grow. That's just one example though.
Obviously there was a concerted effort to move away from this for the sequels, and i think it damages their long term viability. The prequels are much, much better on repeated watching, whereas the sequels make no sense either way.
So yeah, the nerds were right, and i was wrong.
ps that fan made Darth Maul movie might be the best SW content since Empire.
Honestly the sequels kinda learned the wrong lessons. People mainly disliked the prequels because of the woody acting, terrible dialogues and slow pacing, not because they didn't like the world that was built. Obviously there was a hardcore fanbase that didn't like anything that wasn't empire, but it feels like JJ mainly tried to satisfy that crowd and that is pretty bound to fail anyways.
I think with the communities that liked RotS, clone wars and games like KotoR there definitely was ample opportunity to write a good old republic movie that built on the massive world-building of the prequels. Or try to establish a new scenario like the series about the grandchild of Luke where you have the grey-ish empire, the republic and the sith as factions and a free spirit who gets insight and trouble with all 3 of those if you want a more adult movie about morality like Johnson tried to. But JJ just tried to play it as close to the originals as possible and the result is a bit uninspired and heavily lacks ambition.
TLJ has it's own set of problems and I still don't get how you make the call to put two completely different directors on one coherent series and split their work on a move to movie basis.
On June 22 2020 00:00 LegalLord wrote: The prequels did an excellent job at world-building and spawned some great spinoff works - books, the Tartakovsky Clone Wars series, some pretty solid games too. The sequels did a terrible job of that and mostly made the world smaller. Plus there was no way to recover from the debacle that was Ep 8, which was honestly worse than any individual prequel movie.
Aw man, that was the shit! I remember getting so hyped as a kid when it popped up during commercials.