Rise of Skywalker

[pbmax]

Just rewatched Rogue One.

That is what all subsequent SW movies should have been.

Give the keys to Gareth Edwards and stay out of his way.

Yes, he can stay. Loved Rogue One. But didn't they essentially take the movie out of his hands at one point as well?

https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/15/14268850/star-wars-rogue-one-reshoots-disney-gareth-edwards-tony-gilroy

Gilroy came in and cleaned up a lot of stuff with reshoots. Reshoots are often thrown around like rebuilding or tanking in sports (could mean 6 different things as all movies do reshoots) but Gilroy according to most reports did some heavy lifting.

But the story choices were solid. I could have completely done without Vader ripping through a hapless column of rebels. Leaving him stranded on his ship having to chase would have been connection enough, for me, to Star Wars.

[pbmax]

lol

Really did not want to see another JJ Abrams rehash. As much as I enjoyed the first third of his movie and up to seeing Solo again, the wrap up of the movie was as unimaginative as it gets. I literally left the theatre, after enjoying a lot of it, in a sour mood. Even the fight on Solo's new ship was boring as all get out. Solo doing people wrong should have been hysterical or dangerous. It played like a Marx Bros hallway farce.

The producers should also have an over arching storyline's and end point next time they decide to do three movies. Playing it by ear was dumb. Would have been better with Lucas' scripts.

If they had done just a move about Rey, that planets inhabitants and perhaps Finn or Poe, would have been better than the climatic battle rehash.

[pbmax]

I'm neither hipster nor millennial. First movie was May of 1977. I was 4, but still remember it.

Little older than that at Star Wars in 1977. Saw it later in summer after my mother was hearing nothing but Star Wars talk from the neighbors and thought we were missing out. Saw the other two opening weekend.

Star Wars fandom took off without me. Knew people in college who would take a day to watch all three movies back to back to back on a Saturday. That is a bit of a slog for me. But got excited for the return in 1999 or whenever.

When the prequels came out, I took the day off work and saw it at the Orpheum at Noon. Thought it would be good to recapture magic at old theatre. Will never be that disappointed again. Can't be possible. Avoided the trailer for 4 months. Should have watched the trailer and skipped the movie.

[pbmax]

edit: Innacuracy. Fucking wrong director with a lightsaber.

If you stick with Lucas' movie version of the light and dark, you are left without much to build out on. Its dime store yin and yang poster symbolism preached as a training montage.

What you do with the power (say lift a spaceship out of the muck or choke someone to death) is obviously far more interesting. Luke deciding to not participate and help empower a dark protege is a reasonable choice, even if the explanation left a LOT to be desired.

I am not a big expanded universe guy, but my understanding is that a few authors made some solid contributions to a better understanding of what light and dark meant as a practical matter.

But what Lucas left on film, especially after the prequels, needed some new direction. In my opinion. Your mileage may vary. All rights reserved.

Anyway, I did not actually intend to come here and issue bad takes about Star Wars and JJ Abrams. I came here to post this: http://packerrats.com/showthread.php...Miracle-on-Ice

[Anti-Polar Bear]

Whilst not a Star Wars fanboy, I favor the CGI-prone prequels more than the other 6 flicks. Maybe that's b/c Imma millennial.

Watching the other 6 flicks is like playing Madden on the original Nintendo: the technology is obsolete.

[Anti-Polar Bear]

An aside, I just signed up for the free trial Disney Plus, and tried to binge watch Mandalorian. Unfuckingwatchable. Only 8 episodes, I think. Some chapters run for only half an hour. Still, haven't gotten past chapter 4.

No boobs. No sex. Nobody said the greatest word of all time, "fuck." Violence scenes look fake. I know, it's produced by Disney. But still...wish Netflix, HBO or Amazon had produced it.

The Witcher, starring Superman, now that's a fucking awesome series. Spent an entire day off binging the show and drinking sparkling water tainted with vodka. Happily.

[Zool]

I liked the Last Jedi. Finally a breath of fresh air after Abrams aped another run of movies. It wasn't flawless, but at least it was new with some different ideas.

No one wants to root for a hereditary monarchy except perhaps the Brits. Making Rey an heir was a total noisy fanboy sellout. Was glad it made less than Last Jedi.

But the good news I can report is that younger folk I know well much preferred Solo and Rogue One to any of the last trilogy. And one of them who is old enough to have seen the prequels prefers both to those as well. So there is hope for more and better movies. As long as they give the franchise over to someone else.

I don’t know how to disagree more about TLJ. It’s flawed from start to finish. All of the characters from 7 had their arcs completed fucked. Everyone in the movie did nothing for 2 hours. Take out Finns side quest and the movie does not change other than runtime. Commander Hux is a Vaudville bad guy complete with spittle during yelling. Snoke invented force FaceTime, then died by not paying attention. Literally the exact same way as Maul. Cut in half and surprised.

1:20 OJ in a Bronco chase scene through space. No drama. No build up. Just acres of stupid. Space is fucking 3 dimensional. Light speed ahead of the pack and blow them up. Who the hell would chase them at full impulse power for a week? Then Luke runs out of force juice by using too much force? He was apparently stalling hen there was another way out of the cave the whole time. They just needed the glass Pokémon dog to chow them the way?

Why is Luke a brooding hermit? Hamil himself was super pissed when he read the script. The whole thing was a jumbled mess. Reys parents where drug addicts who sold her for cash? I’d say Abrams did a hell of a job cleaning up the story line after Johnson’s ham fisted commentary on today’s society.

[pbmax]

I don’t have good answers.

There were many holes that were never well explained and I don’t think it was just Johnson. Why does Luke need to be on the Jedi home world if he’s abandoning it? If he’s not abandoning it, what’s he doing? Apparently studying to force transport. He should be trying to help Ben in some way, but :shrug:

The answer, apparently, was to wait until someone wanted his help bad enough to visit. But why isn’t he ready? Or was being an asshole the lesson?

He didn’t force “know” Rey after she broke out? No disturbance in the force?

Finn side quest was suppose to introduce a third political dimension to the two political-military bodies everyone knows but nothing is ever done with it beside the introduction and a chase.

A series with a plan would have use for these developments. Or developments of its own. People are getting rich supplying the warring sides? Good story fodder for Solo to be involved in you would think.

Basically I look at the first Abrams movie as a movie without ideas. A rehash with ideas just leeched out. Johnson had some decent ones to put in. But there was wasn’t much of a thread or branch to hang them on. It was all introduction, and odd thing in the 2nd movie of a trilogy. Rey being no one in particular, I thought, stood well on its own next to Ren’s story.

All were abandoned to the rehash.

I don’t get too worried about plot holes and in movies about faster than light travel.

But how did Leia get thrown through a space window with barely any wounds from the glass or impact hard enough to break a material that survives in space and faster than light stress?

Who created the stupid map in two pieces and gave part of it to Bb8?

But the only question worth asking is how do you make this trilogy without a plan?

[Zool]

They paid Lucas $4b. They were always going to take a swing at the Skywalker saga. I’ll take a rehash every day of the week over the jumbled mess of TLJ. Like when Luke was milking the weird lizard things. Or the guy on the salt planet squats down, dabs the ground with a finger, tastes it, then says “salt” and the camera cuts. So many worthless moments. Like Poe completely losing his mind and trying to bomb 1 ship while losing 50 of his own. The whole prank phone call with Hux. I could write a better movie than that thing.

They should have had Kato make a cameo during the chase scene.

Finns side quest was to show the greed of today’s society. https://www.cinemablend.com/news/166...s-so-important

The same reason that Ep 1 was a mess. Keep politics out of my space-cowboy-wizard movies.

[pbmax]

They paid Lucas $4b. They were always going to take a swing at the Skywalker saga. I’ll take a rehash every day of the week over the jumbled mess of TLJ. Like when Luke was milking the weird lizard things. Or the guy on the salt planet squats down, dabs the ground with a finger, tastes it, then says “salt” and the camera cuts. So many worthless moments. Like Poe completely losing his mind and trying to bomb 1 ship while losing 50 of his own. The whole prank phone call with Hux. I could write a better movie than that thing.

They should have had Kato make a cameo during the chase scene.

Finns side quest was to show the greed of today’s society. https://www.cinemablend.com/news/166...s-so-important

The same reason that Ep 1 was a mess. Keep politics out of my space-cowboy-wizard movies.

The politics were always there, they were just so badly explained that no one paid attention. Until PM when he forced people to listen.

Reversing black and white costumes was a big deal to adults raised on Westerns, not so to kids.

Part of what I relearned in disappointment at Phantom Menace was that Lucasfilm/Disney is making this for kids. The blockbuster audience. Lucas' 70's director obsessions led him to greatly expand the technical wizardry available which upped the audience ages.

I was just happy TLJ tried to do something more than just rehash the first three movies. That he didn't succeed more was not much of a sticking point for me.

But like I said, I think the side projects will thrive with these different approaches, including the Mandolorian, Rogue One and Solo (which also had its flaws but was enjoyable). The best thing to happen will be ending the trilogy of trilogies.

[George Cumby]

I don’t know how to disagree more about TLJ. It’s flawed from start to finish. All of the characters from 7 had their arcs completed fucked. Everyone in the movie did nothing for 2 hours. Take out Finns side quest and the movie does not change other than runtime. Commander Hux is a Vaudville bad guy complete with spittle during yelling. Snoke invented force FaceTime, then died by not paying attention. Literally the exact same way as Maul. Cut in half and surprised.

1:20 OJ in a Bronco chase scene through space. No drama. No build up. Just acres of stupid. Space is fucking 3 dimensional. Light speed ahead of the pack and blow them up. Who the hell would chase them at full impulse power for a week? Then Luke runs out of force juice by using too much force? He was apparently stalling hen there was another way out of the cave the whole time. They just needed the glass Pokémon dog to chow them the way?

Why is Luke a brooding hermit? Hamil himself was super pissed when he read the script. The whole thing was a jumbled mess. Reys parents where drug addicts who sold her for cash? I’d say Abrams did a hell of a job cleaning up the story line after Johnson’s ham fisted commentary on today’s society.

What he said.

Episode 4, when it first came out, was just a mash-up of: The Hidden Fortress, 12 O'clock High, Spaghetti Westerns, Pirate movies and Flash Gordon.

Lucas was just trying to capture the magic of afternoon matinee serials of his childhood. Which he did but only because his editors, including his now ex-wife, saved the film.

But because his ideas were half baked, he didn't have a real idea what came before or after. That's why the EU took off, other writers had ample room to work. This is why you don't see a LOtR 'expanded kingdoms', Tolkien had already done the work of world-building.

At least the prequels had a coherent, if poorly executed, plot arc. The sequel trilogy became this incoherent mess because of the director's bitch fight between Abrams and the other guy.

The flaws of episode 7 aside; rehashing old plot arcs, there was some room to work. But the other guy totally messed it up.

I haven't read them, but true fanboys report the Timothy Zahn books would have made a far better sequel trilogy.

[Zool]

I haven't read them, but true fanboys report the Timothy Zahn books would have made a far better sequel trilogy.

I've read a bunch of them. They are well rounded plots with character arcs that go with the arcs previously established.

I've probably said it here before, but read the Darth Bane trilogy. It's everything Darth Vader could have been.

Obi-wan in 1977 "Darth Vader hunted down and killed all the jedi"

Darth Vader 2005 "Well I killed Tuskans, Politicians, and kids. Now I'm bad-ass right?"

Good thing Obi-wan had the high ground in that fight.

[Zool]

I was just happy TLJ tried to do something more than just rehash the first three movies. That he didn't succeed more was not much of a sticking point for me.

I would have no issue with trying a new direction, if that direction wasn't a steaming pile of shit. He took existing character arcs (flawed as they were with Finn and Rey) and chucked them into a roulette wheel. Where ever they landed was the direction of the film. Rey became an accident, Finn became a caricature, and Poe became a moron.

The leaders of the remaining rebels held back their plan from their mid-ranking officers? Why exactly? Snoke was so strong, he invented a force method binding Rey and Kylo together, yet he died sitting on a chair? I still say Abrams did the best with what he could for 9. The end wasn't great, but the movie zipped along and you actually cared about the characters.

Did you care one bit about what happened to Finn and Rose? Benicio Del Toro as an imprisoned slicer who sold them out to the First Order 6 seconds after they landed? Poe being knocked down a rank in a rebellion? Seriously he actually was demoted....in a rebellion that had 500 people and 8 ships left. New captain lady....need I say more about her?

Ep 7 end with Rey finding Luke, and Snoke asking Hux to bring Kylo to complete his training. Episode 8 was sitting there half written by those 2 plot points alone. Instead we get a white Bronco on I10, followed by

[pbmax]

What he said.

Episode 4, when it first came out, was just a mash-up of: The Hidden Fortress, 12 O'clock High, Spaghetti Westerns, Pirate movies and Flash Gordon.

Lucas was just trying to capture the magic of afternoon matinee serials of his childhood. Which he did but only because his editors, including his now ex-wife, saved the film.

But because his ideas were half baked, he didn't have a real idea what came before or after. That's why the EU took off, other writers had ample room to work. This is why you don't see a LOtR 'expanded kingdoms', Tolkien had already done the work of world-building.

At least the prequels had a coherent, if poorly executed, plot arc. The sequel trilogy became this incoherent mess because of the director's bitch fight between Abrams and the other guy.

The flaws of episode 7 aside; rehashing old plot arcs, there was some room to work. But the other guy totally messed it up.

I haven't read them, but true fanboys report the Timothy Zahn books would have made a far better sequel trilogy.

I completely believe that he did not really have nine films outlined and really possessed just an over long story for his one movie - Star Wars.

I have read, but never really convincingly, that Alec Guiness basically quit while filming and thus his "death" on the Death Star. I would also believe that happened along with the editing and story help. Iron Man never had a coherent script and they just muddled their way through and "found it in editing". But that is a dangerous game to play.

The prequels argue that plot coherency is vastly overrated. And Lucas is a very poor director for actors who need guidance. Guiness and Cushing were just cruising along, Ford was adult enough to carry through (even if his resume was tissue thin). Fisher was a movie unto herself. And young Mark Hamill was very good at portraying someone young and inexperienced; almost like he wasn't acting.

Episode 7 was exclusively rehashed plot elements. Even Ben Solo was just confused teenage Anakin. Abrams, if he had any extended ideas about what would follow, never got to them. And the producers never insisted that an overall story be adhered to. I find that astonishing, as Disney clearly wanted to follow the Marvel model of a "Universe" of movies but somehow forgot that key element. I say that advisedly, because I think connecting all those Marvel movies together was over played. Needing to fit hurt a couple of those movies.

The only two ideas I took away was the worship of Vader and the unknown parentage of Rey (which to me felt entirely less about Star Wars and Luke and more Abrams "mystery box" bullshit. https://theweek.com/articles/460936/...en-mystery-box

In fact, one reason I much preferred TLJ was that I thought Johnson far more capable of finding an ending. You can read more about Abrams and that mystery box approach, but it causes him HUGE problems with finding endings to his projects (see Lost, Super 8, Star Trek Into Darkness). Is there a story to the Knights of Ren? I doubt it belonged to Abrams.

Its also appalling that "mystery box" JJ has basically copyrighted the idea of a macgufin, which is Hitchcock's thing. Abrams is a mimic and mystery box is a dumb name for a macguffin. It also mistakes the important detail of a macguffin - that it could be anything because it doesn't matter to the story. The characters just need the suitcase. Abrams wraps the entirety of his films around needing to know what the mystery is and then fails to deliver. One reason Johnson struggled to connect the movies? Abrams left everyone hanging.

So give me abandoned by parents Rey, completely lost at sea Luke and young kids forced to work on a casino planet. You can find a story there. Though he did fail to deliver on either Finn or Poe's stories. And no, I cannot make the space chase coherent either.

[scharpcheddar]

the previous Star wars and Rogue one were better than the last one