Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker (among other things, wink wink) SPOILERS

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

48 minutes ago, Astromech said:

I cared about a few: Jyn, Chirrut, Baze, K-2SO. Perhaps they weren't as fleshed out as characters we've seen over an entire trilogy, but they made enough of an impression on me over the course of the film.

Rogue One captured the feel of the OT more than any of the other films. Krennic was also a much better antagonist than Palpatine 2.0. The more I sit and stew on The Rise of Skywalker, the more I dislike his return.

That’s fair enough, and this sort of thing is of course entirely subjective, but I’ve seen Rogue One at least twice and I don’t know who Chirrut and Baze are, just from those names. I only know who Jyn is because she is supposed to be the main character. I agree that it captured the feel, which is why I liked it overall, but the characterisation was pretty bad.

[Nictarion]

1 hour ago, Astromech said:

I cared about a few: Jyn, Chirrut, Baze, K-2SO. Perhaps they weren't as fleshed out as characters we've seen over an entire trilogy, but they made enough of an impression on me over the course of the film.

Rogue One captured the feel of the OT more than any of the other films. Krennic was also a much better antagonist than Palpatine 2.0. The more I sit and stew on The Rise of Skywalker, the more I dislike his return.

But Krennic wasn’t better than Kylo, though. I actually thought Ben Mendelsohn was kind of wasted in R1. I remember being excited about the casting, as that guy can play one scary ass villain, but overall I didn’t care for the character that much. R1 wasted Mads, too...

[Ran]

I thought Mendelsohn was terrific as an example of the banality of evil -- he was a mid-level bureaucrat with ambitions who was constantly frustrated with upper management, and he came off like that. He would have fit into Office Space or The Office with little modification.

I think I could see the shape of a post-OT trilogy about how the New Republic was weak and ineffectual, that the absence of a Jedi order increased injustice and outlawry, and the First Order are basically seen as saviors marching in to bring order. Someone like Richard E. Grant's Pryde would have worked well as a lead villain then, someone with a purpose that isn't entirely impeachable.

But this goes back to wanting a slightly more mature Star Wars universe.

[dbunting]

42 minutes ago, Ran said:

I thought Mendelsohn was terrific as an example of the banality of evil -- he was a mid-level bureaucrat with ambitions who was constantly frustrated with upper management, and he came off like that. He would have fit into Office Space or The Office with little modification.

I think I could see the shape of a post-OT trilogy about how the New Republic was weak and ineffectual, that the absence of a Jedi order increased injustice and outlawry, and the First Order are basically seen as saviors marching in to bring order. Someone like Richard E. Grant's Pryde would have worked well as a lead villain then, someone with a purpose that isn't entirely impeachable.

But this goes back to wanting a slightly more mature Star Wars universe.

This, I think is the problem we will always face. This is was ran by Lucas who marketed the prequels to kids to grow the fan base and aged the films with them, and now it's owned by Disney so it will forever have a mouse tint to it. R1 had a dirty grimy feel to it and the heroes died which was a good thing if that makes sense. The others have 100 faceless storm troopers die for every 1 red shirt rebel. If an actual main character dies it's always to the baddie, never a random shot in battle like would really happen.

 

The sad thing about the Storm troopers dying is that we keep getting reminded in the new films that they are actually slaves who were stolen in raids as children and forced to do this. Basically just cannon fodder. 

[Gronzag]

42 minutes ago, dbunting said:

The sad thing about the Storm troopers dying is that we keep getting reminded in the new films that they are actually slaves who were stolen in raids as children and forced to do this. Basically just cannon fodder. 

And yet, Finn was killing them left and right without remorse, as soon as he defected.

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, dbunting said:

This, I think is the problem we will always face. This is was ran by Lucas who marketed the prequels to kids to grow the fan base and aged the films with them, and now it's owned by Disney so it will forever have a mouse tint to it. R1 had a dirty grimy feel to it and the heroes died which was a good thing if that makes sense. The others have 100 faceless storm troopers die for every 1 red shirt rebel. If an actual main character dies it's always to the baddie, never a random shot in battle like would really happen.

What bugs me about Lucas' assumptions about what kids like is that he must think they are idiots. 
When I was 8 years old I was watching Terminator and Robocop, and I really loved Empire Strikes back. I also seem to recall thinking Ewoks were dumb and laughing at them. I think he should have given kids a bit more credit and stopped talking down to them. They aren't all obsessed with poop jokes (they are quite funny though)

[sifth]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I have a lot more time for Rogue One than anything that's happened post RotJ, mainly because its the one movie that 'feels' like the sort of thing I was hoping I would get to see. It's a SW war movie, that takes the universe seriously and isn't for kids and isn't some overblown epic. That and the Mandalorian are the few properties that have come out seem to have the approach I wanted to see. 

Having said that, Rogue One is far from a perfect movie. I've never been able to get through it on rewatch, it just doesn't have interesting enough characters. But then neither the prequels or sequel trilogy have interesting characters either so I'm forced to make my choice based on pure aesthetic choices!
 

I feel the same about Rogue One. It's possibly the only of these Disney Star Wars films I don't openly hate and feel like I wasted my time after watching it. Even though I view it as a very flawed film, like Robocop 2, I feel it's a movie filled with a lot of good ideas. Alan Tudyk as a silly robot and Donnie Yen as a blind monk were awesome. I also loved Felicity Jones as well, though I wish they didn't basically give Jyn the same back story as Rey; when it comes to her parents being forced to abandon her I mean.

That being said, the film has 2 major flaws, as I see it.

I think it's creepy as hell that they tried to use CGI to bring Peter Cushing back to life. I know some people are ok with it, but I personally find it creepy as hell. It's made even stranger when they could have simply hired Wayn Pygram to play the part, since the guy looks nearly identical to Cushing and even played Tarkin in one of the prequels. 

Second, I think it's stupid how Forest Whiaker's character died in the film. He says something like "I'm not running anymore" when an explosions coming at him. He's basically just giving up and not dying in any meaningful way. Not sure who's idea it was to send his character out this way, but it seems rather dumb to me.

[dbunting]

53 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

What bugs me about Lucas' assumptions about what kids like is that he must think they are idiots. 
When I was 8 years old I was watching Terminator and Robocop, and I really loved Empire Strikes back. I also seem to recall thinking Ewoks were dumb and laughing at them. I think he should have given kids a bit more credit and stopped talking down to them. They aren't all obsessed with poop jokes (they are quite funny though)

Absolutely. I watched Star Wars at the drive in when I was 4 or 5 and I didn't need anything explained to me, I knew I loved it and that was it. I think the $$$ of toys being sold influenced all of the decisions after TESB. The mistake is that they seem to forget that we 5 year olds were buying toys from the original film, not cute Ewoks or JarJar crap. I was using AT-ATs to destroy my Hoth ice set, not playing with the Ewoks from ROTJ. I don't remember ever buying or asking for an Ewok but I'd take a hundred storm troopers any day.

[Lord Varys]

Rogue One is just boring as hell. There are essentially no interesting secondary characters in this movie. Jyn's back story is so much resembling Rey's that my mother actually confused her with Rey when we watched TROS during the holidays. The entire premise of the story - having unwilling/amateur rebel operatives do the job is boring, and it is utterly ridiculous that those people have sort of do the job against the Rebel leadership.

It would have been nice instead if the main characters had instead been professionals from various rebel backgrounds who put together pull off that particular suicide mission, having all their own reasons why they would do it. And making them all unremarkable and unimpressive humans didn't really help in this regard.

Then there is the mission as such - right, the Empire stores important information in some weirdo tower in the middle of nowhere - and the ridiculous scenario that the very same guy (and essentially him alone) would want to try to track down the people trying to sabotage the Death Star. How many resources does the Galactic Empire have? Just one dude with a white cape?

Also, while Vader's castle looks pretty good - why the hell would he reside on fucking Mustafar in the middle of nowhere rather than, you know, at the Imperial Court on Coruscant?

Giving Jyn some background to the Death Star is fine - but make it again the rather bland 'my dad was forced to build' routine is not that great a story. Why not make it 'my dad is a fucking Imperial who is proud to build such a weapon and I have to kill him' kind of story? That way the Skywalker family conflict (father: Vader; son: Luke Skywalker) would be mirrored there to some degree. Also, the idea that Tarkin - who is very much into the Death Star thing - didn't believe in the concept at first is also more than just a letdown.

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, dbunting said:

Absolutely. I watched Star Wars at the drive in when I was 4 or 5 and I didn't need anything explained to me, I knew I loved it and that was it. I think the $$$ of toys being sold influenced all of the decisions after TESB. The mistake is that they seem to forget that we 5 year olds were buying toys from the original film, not cute Ewoks or JarJar crap. I was using AT-ATs to destroy my Hoth ice set, not playing with the Ewoks from ROTJ. I don't remember ever buying or asking for an Ewok but I'd take a hundred storm troopers any day.

Exactly. I had ewok toys and I never used them. I wanted to play with Darth Vader and Xwings and shoot stuff. I knew when stuff was cool and I knew I liked characters who were kick ass and awesome. A teddy bear with a spear was always dumb. 

The toy thing is definitely part of his thought process, but he was wrong. I wonder if also he has thoughts about getting kids into movies that are too violent for them. I'm thinking of Spielberg cutting the guns out of a revision of ET.

[Cas Stark]

The truth of the matter is that outside of the original trilogy, every movie that has been produced is some version of mediocre to bad.  The prequels were terrible, insanely terrible, I can remember thinking after the first one came out that Lucas would make adjustments...but he didn't.  The latest trilogy is derivative and unimaginative, even if it does look great. I was totally bored by Rogue One and can't even remember the name of a single character.  I didn't see Solo and can't speak to the new series, but it would appear that the original magic is one of those things that will never be recaptured.  You would think they could make it like Marvel, but apparently, they can't. 

[sifth]

44 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The truth of the matter is that outside of the original trilogy, every movie that has been produced is some version of mediocre to bad.  The prequels were terrible, insanely terrible, I can remember thinking after the first one came out that Lucas would make adjustments...but he didn't.  The latest trilogy is derivative and unimaginative, even if it does look great. I was totally bored by Rogue One and can't even remember the name of a single character.  I didn't see Solo and can't speak to the new series, but it would appear that the original magic is one of those things that will never be recaptured.  You would think they could make it like Marvel, but apparently, they can't. 

Just goes to show you, that you should always have a plan when making a trilogy. I'm not saying it can't be done without a plan mind you; I'm pretty sure the original trilogy wasn't fully planned out, despite what Lucas wants us to believe. That being said, the odds of you succeeding are always better if you're not making your trilogy up on the fly, which is clearly what they did with this in this case.

[Heartofice]

10 minutes ago, sifth said:

Just goes to show you, that you should always have a plan when making a trilogy. I'm not saying it can't be done without a plan mind you; I'm pretty sure the original trilogy wasn't fully planned out, despite what Lucas wants us to believe. That being said, the odds of you succeeding are always better if you're not making your trilogy up on the fly, which is clearly what they did with this in this case.

As far as I’m aware Lucas’ plan was always incredibly loose, if you could call it a plan at all. I think he wanted 10 movies, and I saw a plan that had ANH as movie 5 somewhere. Those plans also changed a lot over the years so I really doubt he’d started with the intention of building a series of movies.

I think Cas is right though, outside of the OT there hasn’t been anything great. Really it’s only Empire Strikes Back which is a brilliant movie. The other two in the OT are good but also kind of flawed and don’t always stand up to viewing in 2019. 
 

We should just accept that those movies were a sprinkle of magic at a certain time, and that movies have changed now, it’s maybe impossible to recreate that magic. Not that I think they have attempted to do that,  because the priorities have changed and commercial interests wildly out compete anything creatively.

[Veltigar]

16 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I think Cas is right though, outside of the OT there hasn’t been anything great. Really it’s only Empire Strikes Back which is a brilliant movie. The other two in the OT are good but also kind of flawed and don’t always stand up to viewing in 2019. 

I have been saying that for years. ANH also deserves massive props though, because it's an important landmark in cinematic history. Without it, the modern movie landscape would have looked very differently. As a movie judged purily on its own terms however, it falls far short of ESB.

It is still significantly better than RoTJ however, which is the weakest installment of the OT thanks to the Ewoks and the infantilization of the series they heralded. 

[Heartofice]

Just now, Veltigar said:

I have been saying that for years. ANH also deserves massive props though, because it's an important landmark in cinematic history. Without it, the modern movie landscape would have looked very differently. As a movie judged purily on its own terms however, it falls far short of ESB.

It is still significantly better than RoTJ however, which is the weakest installment of the OT thanks to the Ewoks and the infantilization of the series they heralded. 

Yeah agree. Especially on Jedi. I do think Jedi has some fantastic moments, Luke and Anakin and I really like Jabbas palace ( band aside). But it’s also an odd retread in plot outside of Lukes story. 

[dog-days]

3 hours ago, Gronzag said:

And yet, Finn was killing them left and right without remorse, as soon as he defected.

Yes, I noticed the same thing in TFA and it really bugged me. Because he gets introduced showing compassion for his fellow Stormtrooper who's been shot, and then in Poe's escape that side of him just seems to vanish. 

[Nictarion]

36 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

As far as I’m aware Lucas’ plan was always incredibly loose, if you could call it a plan at all. I think he wanted 10 movies, and I saw a plan that had ANH as movie 5 somewhere. Those plans also changed a lot over the years so I really doubt he’d started with the intention of building a series of movies.

I think Cas is right though, outside of the OT there hasn’t been anything great. Really it’s only Empire Strikes Back which is a brilliant movie. The other two in the OT are good but also kind of flawed and don’t always stand up to viewing in 2019. 
 

We should just accept that those movies were a sprinkle of magic at a certain time, and that movies have changed now, it’s maybe impossible to recreate that magic. Not that I think they have attempted to do that,  because the priorities have changed and commercial interests wildly out compete anything creatively.

I get that people don’t like Ewoks but how does ANH not hold up? 

[Lord Varys]

4 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I have been saying that for years. ANH also deserves massive props though, because it's an important landmark in cinematic history. Without it, the modern movie landscape would have looked very differently. As a movie judged purily on its own terms however, it falls far short of ESB.

It is still significantly better than RoTJ however, which is the weakest installment of the OT thanks to the Ewoks and the infantilization of the series they heralded. 

ANH as movie is the worst of the OT. I can barely watch it after they fled the Death Star. Essentially nothing happens during the rest of the movie. ROTJ may have the Ewoks and the ridiculous role they play during the ground battle on Endor, but it does have a personal conflict/confrontation between father, son, and the evil man which adds much more depth to the story, not to mention a rather well-depicted space battle.

It is in every sense of the word the better version of ANH. Which doesn't mean it is all that great a movie or that there should have been sort of remake in ROTJ.

ANH certainly is significant contribution for movie history and was very innovative for its time and greatly affected the blockbuster movies that followed in the years since, but all that doesn't make it a great movie in its own right.

And it is also quite clear that all those new Disney aren't even remotely in the same league as any of the older Star Wars movies. They have unremarkable stories and characters, are mostly rehashing old story elements or well-known motifs and plots (Solo, for instance), and aren't in any way, shape, or form innovative or contributing to movie history, the way the OT and especially ANH did.

TESB clearly is the best of the OT movies - but hardly because of Kasdan and Kershner who at best tweaked the plot. The whole Vader plot goes back to Lucas - and clearly was one of the best retcons he ever did. That thing fits perfectly with ANH. I mean, who would ever tell a young idealistic guy that his father was essentially the greatest monster in the galaxy. Especially if dealing with the Force is

Lucas' obsession with Jar Jar and targeting preteen children with the first movie of the PT - which clearly had very serious, adult themes as a background - was a huge mistake, almost madness. In fact, when he showed the first cut of the movie to his buddies they were all shocked. He even botched the pod race in that version, don't having a proper suspense curve in there (which was then later corrected) - never mind that the pod race as such is just huge waste of time.

That did change with AOTC and ROTS and, strangely enough, with the later seasons of TCW which arguably include the darkest elements of movie Star Wars so far, but the notion he had to target children to make it a success was definitely a huge mistake. Star Wars did have a large basis of grown-ups who would watch it - and they definitely would bring (most of) their children, anyway.

[Corvinus85]

5 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

ANH as movie is the worst of the OT. I can barely watch it after they fled the Death Star. Essentially nothing happens during the rest of the movie.

Please expand on this, because I'm thoroughly confused, and just about had a WTF moment.

[Lord Varys]

17 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Please expand on this, because I'm thoroughly confused, and just about had a WTF moment.

Oh, well, just that the suspense curve drops and there is a rather slow and, overall, boring finale. Sure, the fate of the planet is at stake (and the entire Rebellion, according to Vader, at least). But there is no real personal confrontation or clash. Vader doesn't mean all that much to Luke or the audience at this point, especially since Luke doesn't even know Vader is among the Imperial pilots.

For me, the rewatch value of ANH is very low. And I've fallen asleep more than once after Ben's death.