Star Wars: Entering an uncivilized era

[Maithanet]

One thing that is kind of funny is that while there are fans who are impossible to please with SW (you changed this, it sucks!) but I feel like the opposite is actually much more common.  So many people are willing to overlook the flaws of RotS, RotJ, and TFA and just enjoy the good parts.  I'm totally one of them.

It seems to me like if you can make a decent (not great) movie that is 80% space opera and 20% samurai ripoff, then if it has the SW label, you're guaranteed to make a billion dollars at the box office.  But for the most part Lucasfilm and now Disney can't even manage that.  TLJ was bad and RoS was even worse. 

[Myrddin]

13 minutes ago, sifth said:

I wonder who will kill Palpatine in the next trilogy, lol

Himself. With a kyber nuke. From orbit.

It's the only way to be sure he won't be resurrected.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

41 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

How old were you when you first saw them though? That plays a big role in how you view them. I was in 5th grade when TPM came out so thus I'll always love it despite all the flaws. When TCW came out I was old enough to recognize that it's a bad film and never had the same attachment. Thankfully RotS is actually decent so it's not hard to rewatch it*. So yeah, overall give me the prequels all day.

 

*It always makes me laugh that I saw RotS on opening day because I got suspended from school while on a field trip at an amusement park. 

I was a college graduate when I saw TPM. I was among a group of co-workers who thought it was a good idea to take Friday afternoon off to see RotS. Childhood nostalgia* isn't a factor here.

If anything, I look back on some of the stuff I enjoyed as a kid with some embarrassment. The first cassette tape I ever bought was the Top Gun soundtrack. The second was Iron Maiden's Somewhere in Time. One of those is still close to my heart. You can guess which one. 

31 minutes ago, sifth said:

Same, I was honestly shocked by what I was seeing, when I started seeing TFA. Like the Empire is suddenly back, how? Wait, why are the Resistance called the Resistance, if they're the ones in charge? Why aren't they simply called "the army". Snoke was the biggest question, I had, but he became less relevant as the series went on. 

Same Same. Why the hell is Leia in command of the same group of plucky rebels and not an army of the new Republic? 

-

*ETA: well, "childhood nostalgia" is a factor, for the franchise, but not for the prequel trilogy specifically.

[Rhom]

16 minutes ago, sifth said:

I wonder who will kill Palpatine in the next trilogy, lol

Skywalker

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 minute ago, Rhom said:

Skywalker

"Young Skai-wo-kaaaah"

[Durckad]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

If anything, I look back on some of the stuff I enjoyed as a kid with some embarrassment. The first cassette tape I ever bought was the Top Gun soundtrack. The second was Iron Maiden's Somewhere in Time. One of those is still close to my heart. You can guess which one. 

I'm guessing it's whichever one is able to take you down a highway to the danger zone.

As for TLJ, I think the logic and general worldbuilding is pretty egregious across all three movies, TLJ and RoS in particular. However, this is something I fault with TFA more. That movie should've laid the groundwork for the following movies and it did, in some cases, but not very well. Too much is left up in the air or unexplained because Abrams was too busy not planning out his story and tugging on our nostalgia.

The whole sequel trilogy is a mess. It's too bad really, as TLJ seemed like it had something to actually say whereas TFA and RoS are just kinda vacuous, empty entertainment. For as much as I criticize their general shittiness, George Lucas at least had a story he wanted to tell with the prequels. Disney just wanted that sweet, sweet SW money and were willing to churn out whatever to get it.

[DaveSumm]

2 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

but the films (prequels) are well made

I just don’t see this, at all. You can’t say a film is well made except for a giant list of things that go into making a movie. Yea they’re fine, except for the plot is bad, and the acting is bad, and the script, and the dialogue, and the pacing, and the direction are all bad. There’s so little left, I mean the shots are in focus I guess? Even the effects don’t look good anymore, the entire trilogy is a sterile and lifeless series of graphics. 

I think the sequel trilogy is fucking awful, don’t get me wrong. But if you took an individual scene from the PT and the ST and showed it to a new audience, they’d be forced to conclude that the ST scene probably came from the better trilogy, because at least it had the veneer of competence, with actors who are being directed to say lines that you might see in a film.

It still blows my mind that Lucas just flat out forgot how to make films.

[Raja]

17 hours ago, KalVsWade said:

This is another part where I just disagree with most folks; TLJ had by far the most things that stuck out for me and I

Yeah, to me, TLJ is an excellent star wars movie and on par with the original trilogy. I think it has flaws, as I don't think the Canto Bight stuff worked well at all, but the writing was decent and it Rian Johnson was willing to take chances with the story and more importantly it was a movie that was centered on the characters and actually made them feel like people I gave a shit about.

Tbh, even the treverrow stuff was interesting compared to what we ended up with in Rise of Skywalker.

 

[Heartofice]

I think people give the Prequels credit because the underlying story is sort of interesting.. it’s just that the actual story at the front of the movies is utter dogshit. I get that people like universe building and get heavily involved in the fantasy politics of it all but that all seems pointless if it’s hidden underneath layers of incompetence.

11 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

It still blows my mind that Lucas just flat out forgot how to make films.

I don’t think one man makes a movie , it’s a team effort and if you have the wrong team then it won’t work. It seems like the prequels were just George and a bunch of yes men. 
 

History i think has re-examined Lucas’ talents and there just seem to be too many occasions where he’s come up with some decent ideas but they needed refining or pushing back on, and maybe without that he’s kind of exposed as.. as bit of an idiot.

[DMC]

17 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I just don’t see this, at all. You can’t say a film is well made except for a giant list of things that go into making a movie. Yea they’re fine, except for the plot is bad, and the acting is bad, and the script, and the dialogue, and the pacing, and the direction are all bad. There’s so little left, I mean the shots are in focus I guess? Even the effects don’t look good anymore, the entire trilogy is a sterile and lifeless series of graphics. 

Admittedly the PT has grown on me over the years (I thought the first two, at least, were total crap when they first came out), but I think this is a little extreme.  Especially when comparing it to the sequel trilogy. 

In terms of plot, at least the PT's is consistent and coherent, if pretty obvious and yes very poorly executed.  I also really like Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan and would take his performance in the PT over anyone in the ST -- by far.  And really, it's not like anyone is tearing down the house in terms of acting in the ST either.  Finally, while the PT probably has a higher rate of cringe-worthy moments than the ST, the latter still had more than its fair share as well.

[mormont]

I'll say this, the ST has some iffy moments but it doesn't constantly have thinly-disguised racist caricatures on screen.

[Lord Varys]

7 minutes ago, mormont said:

I'll say this, the ST has some iffy moments but it doesn't constantly have thinly-disguised racist caricatures on screen.

The ST doesn't have just have 'some iffy moments', it is consistently bad writing and tells no consistent story over the course of three movies. I mean, the OT may not have been written out back when Star Wars came out, but the Vader revelation did work. Nothing like that even remotely worked in the ST. And however bad the PT is, it, too, tells a consistent story over three movies. The ST is just a pointless mess.

And I'm not sure what 'thinly-disguised racist caricatures' there are in the other movies. Watto just isn't Jewish, just as Jar Jar isn't a black guy. Clichés are used to actually add texture and depth to different species. The Gungans at first look like a civilization of primitive natives ... until they actually show they have pretty awesome tech (not that this wasn't kind of evident when we first saw the underwater city).

[sifth]

The sequel trilogy is rather unique, even in terms of crapy trilogies. It honestly feels like each new film is trying to undue the events and revelations of the film that came before it. It almost reaches a point, where you wonder how could they honestly let something so messy be made and it really hammers home, that the Star Wars IP is too big to fail, because even poorly made Star Wars films still make a billion dollars; Solo being the only major exception.

The importance of Rey's parents for example, flips and flops so many times, I completely lost interest when we learned who her grandfather was. Which in and of itself doesn't make any sense, because wouldn't Palpy want his son or daughter to be groomed as the new Emperor. Luke's light saber is the most important thing in the universe in TFA, than it's nothing at all in TLJ and is back to being insanely important again in TRoS...............even though it was completely destroyed in the film that came before it. I'm not gona lie, structurally speaking, it might be the worst trilogy I've ever seen before. 

Also the prequels are horrible, horrible films. I can in no way view them as anything, but that. However at least Lucas had a plan on where he was taking his story. The sequels films, where clearly made by a committee and used fan reactions to determine the outcome of certain events. They were very much not one persons vision come to life.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

I think people give the Prequels credit because the underlying story is sort of interesting.. it’s just that the actual story at the front of the movies is utter dogshit. I get that people like universe building and get heavily involved in the fantasy politics of it all but that all seems pointless if it’s hidden underneath layers of incompetence.

They made a huge mistake not going down the Darth Jar Jar route.  

[IlyaP]

7 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I'll raise you that scene with this one

 

"What if we have everyone say the same line three times?"

"It'll get the page break back onto the previous page in Microsoft Word."

"DO IT."

[IlyaP]

5 hours ago, sifth said:

I wonder who will kill Palpatine in the next trilogy, lol

A new female lead named Stacy, with a mysterious long-lost mother who's secretly a grey Jedi. 

That way, we can all sing "Stacy's mom made Palpatine get gone. She shot him good and it never felt wrong!"

[IlyaP]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I don’t think one man makes a movie , it’s a team effort and if you have the wrong team then it won’t work. It seems like the prequels were just George and a bunch of yes men. 

Rick McCallum has a lot of apologising to do.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

3 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I just don’t see this, at all. You can’t say a film is well made except for a giant list of things that go into making a movie. Yea they’re fine, except for the plot is bad, and the acting is bad, and the script, and the dialogue, and the pacing, and the direction are all bad. There’s so little left, I mean the shots are in focus I guess? Even the effects don’t look good anymore, the entire trilogy is a sterile and lifeless series of graphics. 

I must have missed a memo. I never consented to any of this. 

[IlyaP]

5 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I must have missed a memo. I never consented to any of this. 

"This is the way."

[DaveSumm]

8 hours ago, DMC said:

In terms of plot, at least the PT's is consistent and coherent, if pretty obvious and yes very poorly executed.

It’s consistent only in as much as it has to be to even function as a prequel; Anakin becomes Vader, Palpatine becomes Emperor. So I can’t praise the PT for that, as the OT insists on those elements. 

But the individual movie plots are a far cry from coherent and coherent. The whole trilogy is basically ‘Palpatine’s plan to become Emperor’ and the events viewed through his eyes don’t make a lick of sense. Phantom Menace: he blockades Naboo, presumably to force Amidala to come to Coruscant? So of course, he tries to kill the Jedi who are her only hope of getting off the planet. And they’ll get through the crappy blockade of “a donut in space”. Then the plot pauses to do some obligatory stuff that ain’t really the plot; they need parts, so they meet Anakin, blah blah. Back to the plot: Maul reveals himself and puts the Sith firmly on the Jedi radar for absolutely no reason. I think he’s trying to capture Padme … why? She’s going where they want anyway? So Palpatine can’t decide if he wants her dead or not, OK. She turns up and calls for a vote of no confidence, because apparently this whole convoluted plan was the best way to do that. The Trade Federation denies the blockade, which ostensibly exists as a protest? A secret protest, right. And then because the movie needs to end, they invade anyway, and something about her signing a treaty? 

So the actual plot is, Nute Gunray blockades a planet to protest taxes in secret but actually he’s in league with Palpatine who wants / doesn’t want Amidala to say literally one thing in the senate. 

I won’t bore you with doing AotC but that doesn’t make sense either. RotS almost doesn’t have an individual plot, it’s just the stuff we all know has to happen, happening (infinitely more poorly than we’d all pictured in our heads).