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


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10 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

For me there is something about modern blockbuster writing that makes creating a tightly written story very difficult. 

Uhhh, its pretty simple. Appealing to the lowest common denominator and not forcing people to face uncomfortable emotions or do any real thinking is a "blockbuster" staple. Our dumb entertainment is making us dumber, and until we demand better stories by not paying for shitty ones, we're gonna continue getting shit.

 

At this point, however, I'm pretty much past the point of caring, personally? We should probably focus on the real issues facing society, instead of wasting our time and energy arguing about Hollywood bullshit. 

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29 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I’d argue that none of those movies had great stories at all, in fact they were all massively formulaic. What made something like Ragnarok great was it’s aesthetics and humour, that’s where it took risks. The story is bland as hell. 
 

For me there is something about modern blockbuster writing that makes creating a tightly written story very difficult. Don’t know why that is, but I suspect numerous interests interfering, large budgets, consideration for effects shots and timings, and just the need for commercial success are to blame. I’ve noticed so many movies with long run times and loads of left over scenes cut out, which doesn’t suggest a clear vision. 
 

That’s not to excuse the poor quality of these Star Wars movies, but I think it’s probably a lot harder now to create something that is coherent whilst also being unique and artistically challenging.

 

All of those movies are around 90%. It’s not really a matter of opinion, they are great.

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11 minutes ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

All of those movies are around 90%. It’s not really a matter of opinion, they are great.

Lol yes. No need to be defensive over those movies, I like all of them ( except one). But even I would acknowledge that none of them have anything approaching a satisfying compelling story. They all feel bloated and mostly just feel like a collection of good scenes. 

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6 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I’d say you could make an argument that the more technically proficient a fight is the less emotional it’s impact. The Luke Vader fights were almost improved by their lack of technique because it felt a lot more raw

 

You could make an argument for that but it would be pretty dumb. You can have a perfectly technically proficient fight that still feels raw and brutal.

 

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Who cares about how duels are choreographed, really? Those are superficial details - the important things is whether the battles/conflicts have meaning. 


Me, clearly. Otherwise I wouldn't have said so.


 

Quote

At this point, however, I'm pretty much past the point of caring, personally? We should probably focus on the real issues facing society, instead of wasting our time and energy arguing about Hollywood bullshit. 


We... could do both?

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18 hours ago, sifth said:

Even though the fight makes no sense. I'm sorry, but you kill the guards before you kill Snoke. If I was a guard and my job was to guard someone, I'm not going to risk my life to defend that persons corpse, after they're dead. Those guys should bow to Kylo Ren or run away. The fact that they're risking their lives for no reason is just silly.

I'm struggling with this logic.  Why doesn't it make sense to take out the greatest threat first?  Ren obviously had a golden opportunity there to take Snoke by surprise and kill him before he can defend himself.  If Ren attacks the guards first, then that gives Snoke the opportunity to react and even turn the tables and get the drop on Ren.  If Snoke's guards bow to you after killing their master, great, but guards fighting to the death even after their mission becomes moot is hardly unprecedented - in reality or fiction.

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24 minutes ago, DMC said:

I'm struggling with this logic.  Why doesn't it make sense to take out the greatest threat first?

Because in video games you kill the guards first and then the boss. Story telling 101, obviously. :ph34r:

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6 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Lol yes. No need to be defensive over those movies, I like all of them ( except one). But even I would acknowledge that none of them have anything approaching a satisfying compelling story. They all feel bloated and mostly just feel like a collection of good scenes. 

I wouldnt say I am defending them. I am referencing proven great movies against the new Star Wars. There has to be a frame of reference if we are saying tRoS is so bad. The point was that it IS possible to make a high-budget film and a satisfying story.

But I dont agree with your assessment that they all feel bloated and just a collection of good scenes. Ill never forget how I felt the first time I watched GotG, that was a baller flick with an amazing cast/script/story/direction/CGI.

 

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On 12/31/2019 at 4:03 PM, Astromech said:

 Kylo was my favorite part of the new trilogy.

We remember Budapest very differently.  I agree with ya on Rogue One, etc., but when it comes to Driver....     On recent viewings i've come to appreciate the deepness of his voice in VIII.   That's a nice homage to his hero, James Earl Jones.  That's about it though.  I'm not seduced by his pecs, I don't see any substance in all his snearing at Rey which feels like fluff to me, the character announced himself as a total zero by choosing that helmet and having those opening tantrums as his characterization, and then he didn't pull out of the nosedive.  The central insult of TFA was the combo of 1) no new movie to watch, rather ANH reskinned, and 2) being treated to this idiotic Ren within the confines of a recycled nothing story.   I wish the adoration of Donald was infectious because then I could catch it and become..... one of you.  But there's just no way to get okay with all of that wasted starwars screentime.  It's a divide. 

 I do like parts of the new movies, and those parts are expanding with rewatches, but Kylo isn't among them.

22 hours ago, sifth said:

 the fight makes no sense. I'm sorry, but you kill the guards before you kill Snoke. 

Now to shock the world.  I have..... um..... no complaints about that fight.   I know, right?  It's weird.  But  that choreography amazed me and made me say, "now that's the first real full speed highly trained jedi brawl in Star Wars!"   I slowed it down recently and some moments were a lil' suspect, but not in a way that ruins the fight for me.  And the red priests come off as competent enough to kill almost anyone.... just not the sith/jedi combo they're facing currently.  I "believe" them as bodyguards and kinda wish they'd been the knights of ren.   Something to give them & the fight meaning.  What rubbed me the wrong way on first viewing was how they were killed off as their Hello.  Like, another bad choice.  But now?  I just enjoy the sticky hot action.

(I also had no complaints with Maul's martial arts lightsaber fight.  It wasn't "personal" for Maul, so the technical flair seemed right for just getting rid of some Jedi scum.  And in defense of earlier simpler sword fights in OT, maybe most force sensitives aren't also highly trainable in martial arts?  Maybe they have a laser sword and magical anticipation reflexes and that is enough to beat the highly trained martial artists out there who almost always won't be force-aware.  Maul combined those two aptitudes and was more dangerous within the force community because of it?   Works for me.

 

P.S. I always laughed at Yoda flipping around like a nut, but I never cringed.   It was good fun.  What makes me cringe is all the series' repetitions of "you have much yet to learn," and similar lightsaber taunts.  Whenever they had silent duels, I was kinda relieved for that reason.

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4 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Me, clearly. Otherwise I wouldn't have said so.

Sure, that was more a rhetorical thing - I wanted to point that fighting choreography ranks among the least important overall issues when judging the quality of a film. Especially when one enters geek territory people not knowing anything (or caring) about how fights happen in real life don't give a damn about.

Wrtiting, directing, camera work, acting, editing, music, even lighting are much more important considering they define the film as a whore - I'd even say things like costumes, effects feature more into all that than fighting stuff.

The way to illustrate this would be to point out that the utterly shitty fight scenes from ST: TOS still do not destroy those episodes completely, whereas a movie with equivalently shitty acting, plot, directing would very likely universally condemned.

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11 minutes ago, The Last Storm said:

I’ll give you TFA was good. But what else am I missing. TLJ was mediocre at best.

Whatever your opinion of the ST is, saying you’d rather watch Jar Jar is a bit much. You take him out (or at least tone him down a lot) and age Anakin up a bit and TPM instantly improves. 

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On 12/31/2019 at 8:55 PM, Nictarion said:

I was pretty bummed when...

 

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Kuiil got killed.

I have spoken

 

Which let me to being pretty annoyed 

Spoiler

at Mando going back to referring to him as "the Ugnaut" when saying he was worried after he didn't answer. Come on Mando, say his name.

 

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1 minute ago, The Last Storm said:

You know what you did, don’t you?

I assume you're referring to me calling him "Mando" rather than his name?

Spoiler

Its different, Mando repeatedly acts happy to be addressed thusly and seems happy for people to not know his name - Kuiil had objected to being referred to as "Ugnaut". No idea if this needed to be spoiler boxed but playing it safe.

 

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