spoilers [SPOILERS] Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

[polishgenius]

3 minutes ago, Toth said:

*sigh*... I wasn't meant to come across as hostile, but I guess that's the world we are living in.

You didn't, all the hostility is from Simon Steele's end. I mean he opened with this:

1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

you forget the horror of the prequels. I'm sure there are those among you who have retconned your brain and now say the prequels were good. This is not true, nothing more than a psychological misremembering that some may prescribe to a Mandela Effect. But had we assumed this reality to be better than the current timeline, we'd have George's version of the new trilogy, which featured microbiotic rulers of the force called the willows, or the willies, or something, and they do something that creates midichlorinins.  

durr hur durr if you don't like this you must think the prequels are good you dumdums' and he's got the brass balls to complain the 'other' side are hostile? 

 

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

But there is no catharsis in the PT, in my experience. None, at any time.

To be fair that would likely have been mostly the case even if the films had been good- like some directors might have snuck in a balancing note here and there but there's no way but for the PT to be overall grim, that's just what the story always was.


Mind you I somewhat think the opposite to you about this film in that sense too. I see the cathartic moments in TFA and even TLJ for all its deliberate sabotage of the usual SW tropes, but in this every moment of dread or potential tension was so immediately undermined or just undone that by the end I barely felt any stakes. Even in the final confrontation- if there'd been a long chunk of the movie in which we know that if Rey kills Palpatine she Reverend Mother's all the sith and gets overwhelmed that would have been something cool to work off, but there were like five minutes between problem and solution.

[Ran]

25 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

To be fair that would likely have been mostly the case even if the films had been good- like some directors might have snuck in a balancing note here and there but there's no way but for the PT to be overall grim, that's just what the story always was.

Tragedy and disaster can be cathartic. "Luke, I am your father" and Luke's anguished cry are cathartic moments. The PT was too badly directed and acted to achieve that, for me.

[polishgenius]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

The PT was too badly directed and acted to achieve that, for me.

Yeah I mean that's definitely fair. There's rarely been an idea so crippled by its own execution as the Prequel Trilogy. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

54 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

You didn't, all the hostility is from Simon Steele's end. I mean he opened with this:
 

durr hur durr if you don't like this you must think the prequels are good you dumdums' and he's got the brass balls to complain the 'other' side are hostile? 

 

To be fair that would likely have been mostly the case even if the films had been good- like some directors might have snuck in a balancing note here and there but there's no way but for the PT to be overall grim, that's just what the story always was.


Mind you I somewhat think the opposite to you about this film in that sense too. I see the cathartic moments in TFA and even TLJ for all its deliberate sabotage of the usual SW tropes, but in this every moment of dread or potential tension was so immediately undermined or just undone that by the end I barely felt any stakes. Even in the final confrontation- if there'd been a long chunk of the movie in which we know that if Rey kills Palpatine she Reverend Mother's all the sith and gets overwhelmed that would have been something cool to work off, but there were like five minutes between problem and solution.

Yeah, my points still hold and true, my balls are indeed brass. There is plenty of hating and hostile before me in this thread. And plenty of postings that suggest the simple folk like this new trilogy.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

1 hour ago, Toth said:

*sigh*... I wasn't meant to come across as hostile, but I guess that's the world we are living in. Being pitted against each other by crappy movies. I could go through every single scene in these movies and explain why they don't hold up under any scrutiny, but at the same time you wouldn't believe me anyway because your emotional investment is far too precious for you to allow doubting yourself. Maybe we can have this talk in five years or so when the hype has died down and people can look back how these movies aged similarly to how the prequels were treated later on.

Yeah... Luke's journey... You are just proving my point. This scene was only about the visuals, but why for the love of god was he in that position in the first place? Why was he dying as a broken old man who had made a complete 180° turn of characterization without explanation in between episode 6 and the flashback where wanted to kill his nephew because of a bad hunch? Leaving his friends to die while hiding from his responsibility, then throwing his life away. That's just... not Luke! I have no idea how you can completely disconnect this admittedly pretty nice visual callback from the context of why it happened in this mess of a story.

Yeah sure, I'm upset about these movies' creative bancruptcy just because I like spoiling other people's fun! You totally got me there! For fucks' sake, I just wanted to explain why there is so much dissonance in reception. I even went so far as call them well crafted movies, doesn't that make you happy?

It's not a big deal, and no reason to for us to create hostility. I'll admit I am snarky, sometimes maybe!  But I disagree with just about everything you wrote above. The visual metaphor of Luke's journey was not only about visuals for me. Visuals, however, are a big part of how we interpret and analyze film, and to say that my pointing to that scene only reinforces your assertion is a fallacy. Luke indeed became a broken old man, but the truth is, he was a broken young man too who was prone to angry outbursts and resistance to his mentors. Where he ended up makes a ton of sense. He never handled failure well. That he ended up an outcast like Ben or Yoda is hardly surprising. The world wasn't magically fixed by the defeat of the Emperor. This ate away at him. He decided not to face it.

1 hour ago, Ran said:

I think this is a great insight. I don't love-love this trilogy, anyone can look back and see my problems with what Abrams did with the first film and what Johnson did with the second film, and even this third film has a first act that I find wrongheaded and annoying and overall involves too much plot-coupon hunting. 

But this is the film that won me over and made me care about the new cast (besides Kylo/Ben). And so that's where the cathartic elements come from: they are rooted in characters one cares about surviving (or not) and winning (or not) against all hope. Catharsis, created by the kinds of catastrophic and eucatastrophic moments that Lucas had in the original films, is what made me love Star Wars. It's part why I hold Rogue One in such high regard, because that's a film about the main characters, every one of them, sacrificing themselves for a cause and managing to win out against all hope. Every moment of that film and its plot is informed by this.

But there is no catharsis in the PT, in my experience. None, at any time. I don't like them, though I can acknowledge that I can see the bones of something good, where Lucas should have treated these films like, I don't know, the EU or cartoons where he just signed off on stuff that he felt he had no objection to and others did the heavy lifting.

This sequel trilogy was badly flawed. None of these three films are as good as their counterparts in the OT. But for me it successfully managed to conclude the Skywalker saga.

When I was young and I watched the prequels, I remember saying things like, "Where's the Han of this story? Or the Chewy?" I didn't fully understand it then, but I was really asking, "Where are the people we care about?" I'd have loved to see a heroic, brash Anakin we rooted for--making it all the worse knowing he was doomed to fall. But I just couldn't connect.

When I rewatched the Last Jedi and the Force Awakens this week (first time since seeing them in the theater), I felt something when I saw Rey the first time, like seeing an old friend, kind of. It was really cool to get these emotions from these characters. The new trilogy isn't perfect, but it reminded me so much of how I felt watching the OT as a kid, and I think that's it. I connected. Glad you enjoyed it too, Ran.

[Lord Varys]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

K.  Sounds like all you're saying here is you wanted them to have the archetypal happy ending.  Fair enough.  The difference between them having such and reuniting as part of the force?  Meh, don't see a reason to complain about this.

No, I just wanted their story to be about them - or rather: their story to have had some meaning or impact. Sort of like I tried to explain with my LotR sequel analogy above.

TFA made it clear it was all for nothing, and TROS really hammered home that fact. Luke could have stayed on Tatooine since he and his dad didn't even defeat the Emperor.

4 hours ago, DMC said:

Well, one could have done whatever they wanted upon buying the IP.  One could do whatever me or you would like them to do.  Whatever one could do, it's irrelevant to any discussion unless you want to present then defend your fan fiction.  Generally, I totes agree that I'm absolutely sure I could come up with a better premise for Eps VII-IX.  Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure Disney would not be interested.  So I don't know how this is relevant.

What are you trying to say here? This is commentary thread, right? I point out why I find the movies go wrong? Surely that's the place to do that, right?

4 hours ago, DMC said:

Moreover, conceptually, I totally reject the idea that you can just reestablish some "status quo" that is thematically distinct from ANH while still maintaining coherence.  This seems entirely contradictory to your argument.  Things change.  After the ewoks creepily bang on the helmets of dead clones, it's not the same as before.  Could a good writer come up with a compelling way to reintroduce conflict into the galaxy post-ROTJ and concurrently bring back every living character from the OT and develop a new group of characters that will secure the IP for the future?  I guess.  Lemme know when you find such a paragon.

I don't understand what you mean here. Of course one could introduce a status quo for TFA that's not just a rehash/remake of ANH. Just don't do that. That's all it takes.

4 hours ago, DMC said:

Do you seriously think Yoda "and company" did not have an active hand in politics in the PT?  Wow.

Yeah. I mean, what did they do but to execute the orders of the Chancellor and the Senate? They were mid-level executive branch of the government, not decision-makers. Sure, in the end they sort of tried to rebel - but that went nowhere, didn't it?

4 hours ago, DMC said:

Um...what?  Are you for serial?  This ranks up there as one of the dumbest things I've ever read on this board.  Whether Lucas executed it well is another story, but his intent?  Blatant.  Not debatable.  He was trying to depict the rise of fascism with Palpatine.  Full stop.

I'm not sure you understand what I meant by fascism - fascism historically came to power with a considerable popular power base. They had goon squads, paramilitary organiziations, political parties, that kind of thing - but Palpatine rises to power with essentially consensus of the entire Senate, He buries democracy as a democrat, not as a man who started with the publicly avowed intention of overthrowing the Republic (like Hitler, say), nor is there any indication in the PT that Palpatine's dictatorship came with the oppression/eradication of certain groups of people (or in the Star Wars context species). The Jedi aside, of course, but that's sort of an internal religious conflict - one that's also not really explained in the movies. They do not establish why being a Sith is bad or what the Sith actually want revenge for. Their past with the Jedi is never elaborated upon.

[Toth]

54 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Luke indeed became a broken old man, but the truth is, he was a broken young man too who was prone to angry outbursts and resistance to his mentors. Where he ended up makes a ton of sense. He never handled failure well. That he ended up an outcast like Ben or Yoda is hardly surprising. The world wasn't magically fixed by the defeat of the Emperor. This ate away at him. He decided not to face it. 

Okay, now that is a reply I can work with! Thanks for laying down your interpretation of the character. Now that's the part where we can compare notes instead of just slapping impressions at each other.

So let's take a look at this, because I obviously don't agree at all. Luke was a broken young man? How does being angry at your mentors mean that he is broken? You are talking about Episode 5 where Yoda and Obi-Wan wanted to prevent him from confronting Vader without having finished his Jedi training, don't you? Where he angrily makes it clear that he has to go rescue his friends. You can't claim that this aligns with his behavior in TLJ at all. It shows that compassion is his greatest attribute, that he doesn't let anyone stop him from protecting those dear to him. How exactly does that align with holing himself up on a remote island, refusing to protect those he holds dear? Obi-Wan and Yoda might have been proven right that it was a trap and Luke barely escapes alive, but given that it is the same compassion that causes him to turn Vader back to the light side despite everybody's doubts, it seems like Luke never during the entirety of the OT backs down on his beliefs. That's something that had to happen off-screen somehow. In fact RotJ must have validated him tenfold, given how Anakin's last words to him were "You were right, Luke. Tell your sister you were right". That sure must have had some kind of impact on his outlook on life, doesn't it? That his compassion might be the golden path where he can succeed where the Jedi of old, Yoda and Obi-Wan included, failed.

And ESB also shows that Luke handles failure extremely well. I mean ESB ends with him getting his hand chopped off, struggling from the revelation that the father he adored is a genocidal overlord, the Rebellion on the run, Han being tortured and captured and the Empire being as strong as ever. How does he react? By completing his Jedi training so that he gets the tools to make things right. And then he does. There was not a single scene showing him just giving up and locking himself in his bunk...

Also the world wasn't magically fixed after the defeat of the Emperor? Who says that? Definitely not Disney! Last time I checked the new canon says that after Palpatine inexplicably going into hiding after a failed assassination the Empire pretty much immediately folded after this whole Jakku nonsense, disappearing so hard that the Republic had such a ridiculously boring stretch of peace that they inexplicably decided to get rid of all weapons, ever. Sure, the time between RotJ and TFA still is a blurry void because they can't be assed to tell us how exactly this came to happen, but all hardships Luke might have had to endure during it that caused him to become such a wreck are entirely in our imagination. There is not even the hint of anything like that having happened.

For example I recently imagined the possibility that before Kylo a bunch of other students of Luke turned to the dark side and Luke's attempts to reach out to them instead of stopping them might have caused some hideous massacre that Luke then blames himself for, explaining why he'd be more on the edge about the possibility of Ben turning evil or hesitant to train more Jedi who might just fall to the dark side, continuing the cycle. Of course that opens the other can of worms that if that is what happened, he'd be even more inclined to put a stop to Kylo himself before even more harm is done, because he knows very well how much suffering a darksider causes if left unchecked. You see where I am going? I had to invent stuff to make Luke's position make sense, but this then just spawns more problems down the line because his whole behavior in TLJ is just too damn erratic to explain all of it.

54 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

When I rewatched the Last Jedi and the Force Awakens this week (first time since seeing them in the theater), I felt something when I saw Rey the first time, like seeing an old friend, kind of. It was really cool to get these emotions from these characters.

You know what: I KNOW this feeling. I had the very same ones. This emotional high you get from these movies is completely understandable because they are crafted entirely around it. I felt the same when watching Star Trek 11. I was just so blown away by the fast pace, the spirited cast interactions, the amazing visuals. My problem however was that I bought the movie on BluRay and over the course of two weeks watched it four or five times, trying to wring as much of an emotional high out of it as possible like some kind of addict. The problem was once I knew the pictures, I knew the lines, my mind started to think about the story there it was when it all fell apart horribly. Where I noticed how the entire thing is just built around contrivances that make the pictures happen, without any regard for any semblance of logic. Do you know this "How I met your Mother" episode where people becoming aware of their partner's flaws is accompanied by the sound of glass shattering and they just start to realize that it's not the perfect person they imagined before? That's exactly how it went. I realized that what I had felt during my first time watching was entirely intentional, that Abrams employed his skills as a director in order to give his audience an emotional rush, but nothing more. I felt manipulated because I was. And yes, that caused me to feel betrayed by this piece of shit.

And when I very recently watched TFA for the first time, I obviously went in knowing how Abrams works and was suspicious from the get-go. And was proven right, because it is structured EXACTLY as Star Trek 11. It is the very same emotional rush with nothing behind it. And that's why I don't give these movies an ounce of benefit of doubt. They know what they are doing and I am deeply concerned about the future of storytelling if Hollywood blockbusters can get away with selling gold-coated shit.

[Relic]

I don't even have the energy to engage with this thread and debate this floating turd of a "movie". I wanted to share an episode of The Watch podcast within which Andy Greenwall and Chris Ryan of the Ringer discuss and articulate all of my various issue with this "film" but it's not online yet aside from in podcast form on Stitcher and various other platforms. I recommend giving it a listen, as they break down why this depressing display of a cash grab is soulless and completely incoherent.  

[karaddin]

On 12/22/2019 at 10:54 AM, Kalbear said:

Another nice thing about them calling it the holdo maneuver is that canonically explains why we havent seen it before - because no one has done it, or at least done it in so long that anyone remembered. 

I'm a few pages behind so not sure if anyone else has said this yet, but I'm pretty sure one of the falling Star destroyers at the end in the planet montage had been bisected in a way very reminiscent of the Holdo maneuver that I interpreted as indicating that was another one.

[Relic]

48 minutes ago, Toth said:

They know what they are doing and I am deeply concerned about the future of storytelling if Hollywood blockbusters can get away with selling gold-coated shit.

Dude, they've been doing it for a decade. Should have started screaming from the rooftops way earlier (spoiler - i was and it didnt help, so yeah, we're fucked as far as entertainment goes.) 

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Toth said:

And that's why I don't give these movies an ounce of benefit of doubt. They know what they are doing and I am deeply concerned about the future of storytelling if Hollywood blockbusters can get away with selling gold-coated shit. 

I mean, it's not a new phenomenon, but not all good storytelling is tied up in hollywood blockbusters. All there really is a problem with is the future of hollywood blockbusters.

Also I have to give some credit to WB/DC here. Like clearly they have consistency issues and the Snyder-led films in particular are extremely disrespectful to the source material (even though I like MoS), but the only time they've played it safe and made a film to the middle-of-the-road template is Wonder Woman, and they didn't respond to that success with just making every film into Wonder Woman. Even the sequal is throwing it out there a bit more.

[karaddin]

14 hours ago, Ran said:

Huh. Maybe it wasn't a window that reviewer thought he saw the Holdo maneuver being used in RotS, but in fact in the galactic rebellion sequence, specifically the Endor bit as shown here

Neatly split in half star destroyer with a bunch of shrapnel stuff behind it...

So much for one-in-a-million?

That's what I get for posting before catching up - this is what I was referring to. 

12 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Yes, absolutely. But that's the thing: how far can you stray from the code and remain a "Jedi" ?

I think the thing that got lost in the conversation to conflating "light side force user" with "Jedi". The Jedi are an organization and a religion, as long as you are abiding by current organisational standards then you're a Jedi. But the organization itself is what had become twisted and failed - it's not straying from the code making you not a Jedi, it's the Jedi code straying from what makes a good light side force user.

The Jedi got pulled into the war for the wrong reasons, and fought an unjust war with increasingly brutal tactics utilising clones with no agency against a for that was for most of it's membership in the right, although utterly compromised at the leadership level. It's quite a different situation from the questionably canon KOTOR era situation where the Jedi were too obsessed with their purity and allowed the war with Mandalore to wreak havoc on the Galaxy - those Jedi are probably closer to the opposite of the sith being discussed earlier.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

I think the thing that got lost in the conversation to conflating "light side force user" with "Jedi". The Jedi are an organization and a religion, as long as you are abiding by current organisational standards then you're a Jedi. But the organization itself is what had become twisted and failed - it's not straying from the code making you not a Jedi, it's the Jedi code straying from what makes a good light side force user.

Yes, I agree this definition is the most convenient. It's just never been made that clear in the movies.

Also, @Simon Steele's intervention made me think about the prequels a bit, because I do like them and always have (sorry). And yet, I'm well aware of all the god-awful things that were in them. So why?
I think the reason I like the prequels better than this trilogy is summed up in one compound word: world-building. The OT's world-building wasn't grand, but it was subtle and adroit. A line here, a line there, had a lot of implications. And the OT established StarWars after all. Many things remained vague, but that was ok, since it was just the beginning.
What the prequels achieved was flesh out all the things which had only been hinted at in the OT: the Jedi order, the Republic, the Separatists, the war, Palpatine's rise to power, Anakin's fall... It wasn't perfect for sure, and it took the Clone War series to build and expand that, but it was there. The world of StarWars started existing for me with the prequels. And I loved the political intrigue (the romance less so, but let's not go there).
This trilogy hardly did any world-building. You had a few worlds that were interesting, but only Exegol was somewhat new-ish (for the movies at least). I expected so much more. I expected to see what the New Republic would be like, and the inevitable struggles it would be facing (going beyond having to fight the remnants of the Empire). I expected to see Luke's Jedi order with its inevitable failings and philosophical questioning (since Luke was not himself properly trained as a Jedi in the first place). I expected to meet plenty of new Jedi trained by Luke, each with distinct personalities.
But there was none of that. All of what would have built the world post-Empire was conveniently skipped. Instead the story focused on a -seemingly- random girl, the son of Han and Leia, and a random stormtrooper with moral issues (I don't think Poe was too important in the first movie). It's not just that Luke had failed, his Jedi Order had vanished with him and the New Republic was nothing but a joke's punchline. Everything was just as vague as the OT, but this time there were no excuses.
Lazy writing is what it was.
It was all character-driven. The plot was just a rehash of what had been done before. What was actually interesting to me, the fall of Luke's Jedi Order, was treated through a flashback. And somehow Luke really decided the Jedi had to end (burning the ancient texts) after that.
How much more interesting it would have been to have Rey as a new padawan in Luke's Jedi Order, meet Ben Solo, and then have Luke realize that what he had built was a disaster and have his existential crisis. To see the First Order as a constant thorn in the New Republic's side, until eventually the New Republic collapsed under the weight of its own failings, just like the Old Republic had before ; Finn would have deserted precisely as the First Order was winning. We would have understood the strength and appeal of the First Order instead of them being cardboard vilains. The second movie could then have focused on Rey, Finn & all.
The huge problem I have with this trilogy is the way it begins. It tries to imitate the OT by skipping stuff and hiding behind mystery. It doesn't achieve anything because it doesn't have any real story to tell, except the well-known story of two force-users struggling against the dark side and the resistance/rebelion having to destroy planet killers or evil fleets. Whoopee-do, was that the best you could do?
I watched the prequels several times, and as time passes, my brain does tend to leave out the bad. Instead I see the story. The seemingly innocuous lines that actually say a lot more than you'd think at first. Yes, it's only the "skeleton" of what should have been... But at least there is a skeleton.
This new trilogy has all of the bad things of the other ones. To me its only redeeming qualities are the visuals and a handful of emotional moments, moments that are mostly copied on ones from the OT. Again, whoopie-do. I get that it works for some people, but I think in the end I'd rather have a good story that is poorly executed than a non-story.

[Corvinus85]

4 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I think the reason I like the prequels better than this trilogy is summed up in a single word: world-building. The OT's world-building wasn't grand, but it was subtle and adroit. A line here, a line there, had a lot of implications. And the OT established StarWars after all. Many things remained vague, but that was ok, since it was just the beginning.
What the prequels achieved was flesh out all the things which had only been hinted at in the OT: the Jedi order, the Republic, the Separatists, the war, Palpatine's rise to power, Anakin's fall... It wasn't perfect for sure, and it took the Clone War series to build and expand that, but it was there. The world of StarWars started existing for me with the prequels. And I loved the political intrigue (the romance less so, but let's not go there).
This trilogy hardly did any world-building. You had a few worlds that were interesting, but only Exegol was somewhat new-ish (for the movies at least). I expected so much more. I expected to see what the New Republic would be like, and the inevitable struggles it would be facing (going beyond having to fight the remnants of the Empire). I expected to see Luke's Jedi order with its inevitable failings and philosophical questioning (since Luke was not himself properly trained as a Jedi in the first place). I expected to meet plenty of new Jedi trained by Luke, each with distinct personalities.
But there was none of that. All of what would have built the world post-Empire was conveniently skipped. Instead the story focused on a -seemingly- random girl, the son of Han and Leia, and a random stormtrooper with moral issues (I don't think Poe was too important in the first movie). It's not just that Luke had failed, his Jedi Order had vanished with him and the New Republic was nothing but a joke's punchline. Everything was just as vague as the OT, but this time there were no excuses.
Lazy writing is what it was.
It was all character-driven. The plot was just a rehash of what had been done before. What was actually interesting to me, the fall of Luke's Jedi Order was treated through a flashback. And somehow Luke really decided the Jedi had to end (burning the ancient texts) after that.
How much more interesting it would have been to have Rey as a new padawan in Luke's Jedi Order, meet Ben Solo, and then have Luke realize that what he had built was a disaster and have his existential crisis. To see the First Order as a constant thorn in the New Republic's side, until eventually the New Republic collapsed under the weight of its own failings, just like the Old Republic had before ; Finn would have deserted precisely as the First Order was winning. We would have understood the strength and appeal of the First Order instead of them being cardboard vilains. The second movie could then have focused on Rey, Finn & all.
The huge problem I have with this trilogy is the way it begins. It tries to imitate the OT by skipping stuff and hiding behind mystery. It doesn't achieve anything because it doesn't have any real story to tell, except the well-known story of two force-users struggling against the dark side and the resistance/rebelion having to destroy planet killers or evil fleets. Whoopee-do, was that the best you could do?
I watched the prequels several times, and as time passes, my brain does tend to leave out the bad. Instead I see the story. The seemingly innocuous lines that actually say a lot more than you'd think at first. Yes, it's only the "skeleton" of what should have been... But at least there is a skeleton.
This new trilogy has all of the bad things of the other ones. To me its only redeeming qualities are the visuals and a handful of emotional moments, moments that are mostly copied on ones from the OT. Again, whoopie-do. I get that it works for some people, but I think in the end I'd rather have a good story that is poorly executed than a non-story.

To get the greater picture, which is still not complete, afaik, you got to read a bunch of novels, comic books, watch The Mandalorian, and the animated Resistance shows, maybe even play a video game or two. In other words, you need to give Disney way more money than the price of three movie admission tickets, not unlike paying for all the DLCs of of a big video game to truly get the whole experience.

[Ran]

4 hours ago, Relic said:

I don't even have the energy to engage with this thread and debate this floating turd of a "movie". I wanted to share an episode of The Watch podcast within which Andy Greenwall and Chris Ryan of the Ringer discuss and articulate all of my various issue with this "film" but it's not online yet aside from in podcast form on Stitcher and various other platforms.

It's on Spotify too. Just listened to it.

4 hours ago, Relic said:

I recommend giving it a listen, as they break down why this depressing display of a cash grab is soulless and completely incoherent.  

I think they really fail to grapple with the last act at all, so for me their view of why that part didn't work is quite opaque to me. Other things they say certainly land -- I agree with the plot-coupon issue in the first half, and various other things. OTOH, they seem to have seen Finn's talk to Jannah in complete isolation and so didn't connect it with things that came before ("Rey, I need to talk to you" and "It's just a feeling."), so they missed his through-line. (Though I do agree with the point that four leads was too many, counting Kylo, and that Finn and Poe should have been merged... which I think I said way back when talking about TFA, where I said Finn should have been an Imperial pilot...)

[Kalbear]

@Toth, I think a problem I have with your argument is that all of that is pretty much true for the OT as well. Luke Skywalker is Anakin's son...and is hidden on his homeworld, with the rest of his family, with Anakin's last name. 

Hidden. 

Luke happens to be a good pilot which has the great coincidence to also be able to pilot the kind of craft that can blow up the death star. And hes the hero. Also, the falcon can just randomly come out of nowhere and save Luke at literally the last second. 

I mean, come on. The plot of anh and tesb and Rotj are all pretty silly. Rotj alone, with its ludicrous rescue of han, is another good one. There are plot holes and confusion aplenty if you care to look for it. And that's okay, because the story is fun and imaginative and gets you into the world, and the acting carries a lot of it.

For me, the story, not the plot, is the real issue of Tros. Its just not that compelling to go on this fetch quest thing over and over. Its lazy and unemotional. It was somewhat there in anh, but even that barely got much shrift - the impetus for change wasnt r2d2s plans, it was helping leia - and later, Luke's revenge and radical religious terrorism. Tesb and Rotj had none of that sort of thing at all, because it wasnt necessary - you had the story of them trying to escape the empire and the empire wanting to get luke, and then the party getting together, rescuing their own people, and then stopping the empire in a fairly consistent way. 

In my mind, the way it worked was that the ot had story and acting. The pt had story but no acting (seriously, the actual story in the PT could be AMAZING). The st has acting but no good story. The rest is just justifying why the emotional thrill worked for you or didnt. 

[Toth]

I tried to ignore this thread for the sake of my sanity, but now that I got the notification.^^

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

@Toth, I think a problem I have with your argument is that all of that is pretty much true for the OT as well. Luke Skywalker is Anakin's son...and is hidden on his homeworld, with the rest of his family, with Anakin's last name. 

Well, not quite to the same degree. At least A New Hope gave a justification for everything and everyone being where they are. The Tantive 4 was intercepted above Tatooine because Leia wanted Obi-Wan to join her party. The droids with the Death Star plans were captured near Luke's farm because R2 was on the way to Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan himself was where he was because he was keeping an eye on Luke as he grew up. The only minor stretch is Owen buying the droids as R2 makes sure that he does, but R2 still escapes for the sole purpose of finding Obi-Wan, with no heed for Luke himself.

Now compare that to TFA. With BB-8 coincidentally being picked up by Rey as he is escaping the First Order, Rey and BB-8 coincidentally encountering Finn as he coincidentally arrived at her village after being shot down where coincidentally the Falcon is waiting for them at the same day coincidentally Han Solo arrives to search for it. If anyone had missed the other one by 10 minutes the whole story wouldn't have happened. This all just feels exactly like Star Trek 11s Kirk landing on the same planet as Old Spock was dropped off by Nero and coincidentally encountering him as he was running away from the native wildlife.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

The pt had story but no acting (seriously, the actual story in the PT could be AMAZING). The st has acting but no good story.

That's exactly my view! I only preferred the use of "execution" instead of just acting, because the wooden acting is mostly a result of the stilted scripts and bad direction. The PT has a decent story but bad execution, the ST has great execution but no story. And here I am, deeply entrenched in the perspective that a movie needs a story to have any kind of longetivity.

[RumHam]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

@Toth, I think a problem I have with your argument is that all of that is pretty much true for the OT as well. Luke Skywalker is Anakin's son...and is hidden on his homeworld, with the rest of his family, with Anakin's last name. 

Hidden. 

I've been watching everything in order on Disney+ and got to Star Wars last night and thought this was hilarious. Like at least tell them to call him Luke Lars. And then Obi-wan takes on an alias of "Ben" but keeps his last name? The fuck? 

Plus so much of what Obi-Wan says to Luke in that movie is not true. Is there some canon explanation why he pretends not to know R2? (ditto R2 and Yoda in Empire.) He tells Luke he hasn't heard the name Obi-Wan since "before you were born" which can't be right. I'd have to re-watch that Rebels episode he's in but if Ezra or Maul called him Obi-Wan that was only a couple years before Star Wars. Plus he mentions how Uncle Owen was worried Luke would run off with Obi-Wan on some fool's crusade like his father. But that's...not what happened. Owen met Anakin for like a minute when he was already a Jedi and didn't meet Obi-Wan till he dropped off Luke. 

[Corvinus85]

7 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I've been watching everything in order on Disney+ and got to Star Wars last night and thought this was hilarious. Like at least tell them to call him Luke Lars. And then Obi-wan takes on an alias of "Ben" but keeps his last name? The fuck? 

Plus so much of what Obi-Wan says to Luke in that movie is not true. Is there some canon explanation why he pretends not to know R2? (ditto R2 and Yoda in Empire.) He tells Luke he hasn't heard the name Obi-Wan since "before you were born" which can't be right. I'd have to re-watch that Rebels episode he's in but if Ezra or Maul called him Obi-Wan that was only a couple years before Star Wars. Plus he mentions how Uncle Owen was worried Luke would run off with Obi-Wan on some fool's crusade like his father. But that's...not what happened. Owen met Anakin for like a minute when he was already a Jedi and didn't meet Obi-Wan till he dropped off Luke. 

Yeah, but you failed to realize that Luke was protected from Vader by all that sand.

Obi-Wan does say some conflicting things. Does he say "before you were born" not just "for a very long time"? Also, Obi-Wan cleverly says "I don't recall owning any droids", doesn't say he doesn't remember R2. And I don't he ever did. Not sure if he owned R4, the droid that accompanied him in AotC and that gets destroyed by the buzz droids in RotS. R4 may have belonged to the Jedi Order. The Owen Lars stuff is entirely a retcon.

And speaking of the Lars homestead, personally I felt that Rey should have buried the sabers with Padme, since she, presumably, has a tomb. Only Luke is connected with the Larses, not Leia.

[RumHam]

Just now, Corvinus said:

Yeah, but you failed to realize that Luke was protected from Vader by all that sand.

 I do understand the idea that Vader wouldn't want to go back there, but the emperor could have sent an inquisitor or one of his knife weilding assassins or something. 

3 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Obi-Wan does say some conflicting things. Does he say "before you were born" not just "for a very long time"?

He first says he hasn't heard the name in a very long time, then after admitting it's him says that he hasn't gone by that name since before you were born. I just double checked in the script:

https://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-A-New-Hope.html

4 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Also, Obi-Wan cleverly says "I don't recall owning any droids", doesn't say he doesn't remember R2. And I don't he ever did. Not sure if he owned R4, the droid that accompanied him in AotC and that gets destroyed by the buzz droids in RotS. R4 may have belonged to the Jedi Order.

True, but he certainly acts like he doesn't know R2D2 and I can't think of any reason he wouldn't tell Luke "this was your father's droid." (other than the obvious reason that Lucas hadn't planned for that to be the case in 1977.)

I never really thought about who owned the droids. It's weird when you think about it R2 starts off as the property of the Queen of Naboo and then somehow ends up becoming Anakins? I think he's still working for Padme at the start of AotC but I might be wrong.