Star Wars Ep 8

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  • #46
    Re: Star Wars Ep 8

    Well, I imagine absolute dollars are what interest Disney executives the most though.

    It's a Star Wars film, so that will get people into theatres, but there's only so many times you can do that and disappoint people before you start to sour the brand and I think what you are seeing now are early warning signs that would have me very worried about Episode 9, especially as the Solo film is rumoured to be a dud.

    Rian Johnson created a real momentum killer of a film, it will still make money but the drop-off is noteworthy and the next one needs to be exceedingly good to make up for it (problem is, JJ is making it, so not much chance of that).

    The problem is, the saga Star Wars films are about the Skywalker family at their heart, and RJ abandoned that in exchange for social justice issues that have no place in Star Wars, at least, not in such a heavy-handed way.

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    • #47
      Re: Star Wars Ep 8

      Edit: I Respectfully Disagree!
      Last edited by TheConnorNoden; 12-27-2017, 10:27 AM.

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      • #48
        Re: Star Wars Ep 8

        Originally posted by TheConnorNoden View Post
        Oh just f**k off.
        1. That's very rude.
        2. He's entitled to his opinion.
        3. Many people share his opinion. Present company included.

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        • #49
          Re: Star Wars Ep 8

          Guys, let's all just calm down. The best way to handle a comment you don't agree with is to ignore it. It's a movie. Some people liked it, some didn't. The world keeps turning.

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          • #50
            Re: Star Wars Ep 8

            I think the storytelling problem for me is what I always dislike in storytelling of any kind - the difference between suspense and surprise. I always find surprise to be a cheap parlor trick from a writer who pretends to be smarter than the audience. The problem is that is leaves the audience to have to guess the logical links between what the writer sets up (or actually doesn't) and the payoff, which is usually a shocking (cool?) moment that might feel good in the moment but isn't satisfying in the long term.

            SPOILERS (but really, if you haven't watched this yet, I don't think you're going to)...


            I kind of felt like the escape plan was this, Snoke's demise was this, Benicio's hacker character was this, and possibly more that I can't readily name.

            Play that against Empire when Threepio walks into the room and you hear what you know to be a stormtrooper's muffled/digitized voice. That knowledge hangs with the audience while Han and Leia walk deeper into Lando's betrayal. Or knowing what Vader has in store for Luke with the carbonite freeze.

            Suspense is simply the better tool, because then suspense can lead to irony and all kinds of other deeper layers. How much more satisfying could it have been to let the audience know Leia's plan, have her go comatose, and then watch a clueless Poe make every bonehead flyboy move he knows to unravel it because of his ignorance/pride/and everything else Leia demoted him for?

            And how the hell did the hacker know about the escape ships. Wasn't he only aware of the plan to jam the tracker for the cruiser to jump to light speed? Is this the example of the audience being expected to fill in the holes, "Oh, well he's a hacker and he was able to figure out the plan because he's a hacker." Somebody help me out here if I'm missing something, because that is simply not good enough.

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            • #51
              Re: Star Wars Ep 8

              Also... I did enjoy the movie. I just think it could have been legendary. It wasn't.

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              • #52
                Re: Star Wars Ep 8

                This movie was a disaster. The original trilogy is the only reason we have star wars now, not because they started it but because they were really good. TLJ fundamentally breaks with this because it's a character drama set in a sci-fi war backdrop. But Star Wars are adventure movies. They were about hope, and characters we root for because of their morals, not because of their fighting skills.

                TLJ lacks heart and charm. Empire Strikes Back was an adventure movie, and TLJ is like an indie version of this. It's self pity and moral relativism instead of determination and fighting evil. Making the messages mundane takes us out of the world. TLJ wants to tell us heroes aren't real, just humans and humans make mistakes and that is ok because self pity and nihilism. But that is not deep, it's mundane. Everyone knows that, it's not in any way interesting or necessary.

                TLJ is full of these messages that is incredibly weekly told. IF you want to say something about animal cruelty, then don't use the argument that we shouldnt treat them bad because they are cute. That is a borderline evil argument and like everything turns the intended message on it's head.

                IF you want to say something about feminism, then don't have every female character be incompetent. Leia does nothing, Holdo thinks leadership is about following orders and is unable to communicate or do anything intelligent, Rey is somehow completely personalityless and for some reason flat out attacks Luke based on info that has nothing to do with her. Also, for some reason she steals the jedi books. That is just immoral, it's like stealing the mona lisa because you want to learn to paint. It's still wrong, but everything is morally gray in TLJ.

                If you want to celebrate diversity, then give Finn and Rose actual value in form of skills, and for the love of everything that is storytelling; give them some relevance to the plot.

                Of course another thing is the absence of plot.

                Luke for some reason is seen by Rian Johnson as some legendary hero. By this he means marvel hero. But the original luke was not soome insane warrior shooting lasers, by hero we mean being morally intact in face of temptation. Taking that away is a fundamental misunderstanding of his ability. In fact it is his only ability in the original trilogy.

                I honestly thinks this movie will be very damaging for Disney going forward. Toy sales will drop, intrest in the next movies will drop and we will see another reboot. I remember so many defending the prequels at the time, but now very few actually defends them as being anywhere near the original trilogy. However, TLJ is worse, and will be remembered as worse in a few years time when the fervent fanatics have calmed down.
                Last edited by Bananos; 01-13-2018, 02:28 PM.

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                • #53
                  Re: Star Wars Ep 8

                  Originally posted by TheConnorNoden View Post
                  I loved it but I know better than to start debating Star Wars. All I will say is that if people don’t like it because of creative decisions then I can almost understand.
                  Kevin Smith had some pretty good criticisms of the film and I mostly agreed with his. There were several issues in the story. Smith said that, to him, there were several moments that JJ had set up (poorly) that Rian simply discarded and, to Smith, they came off almost as "f-ck you's" to JJ.

                  Luke/Vader's lightsaber was the MacGuffin for the entire TFA. First thing Johnson does is have Luke callously toss it aside, almost as comic relief. Snoke is built up to be a mysterious, powerful Sith. Everyone wanted to know his backstory. Johnson chopped him in half with no explanation of anything, making his character go from mysterious to meaningless. Rey's parentage was another mystery with a lot of potential. Johnson made her a nobody. Kylo's entire character in TFA was basically the kind of cool Cylon-looking mask. Johnson has him destroy it in one of Kylo's first scenes (because Johnson apparently doesn't understand the storytelling power of dark symbology). Etc., etc., etc.

                  And, as Cap'n Jack has already pointed out (and Hamill mentioned repeatedly before politely walking it back right before the film came out), Johnson fundamentally misunderstood the character of Luke and had no idea what to do with him. What was the point of him "force ghosting" himself into that battle? There's no credible reason why he couldn't have actually been there. The force projection gimmick was lame. Luke should've gone out like a bad ass. Instead, he went out like he was a poor man's Penn & Teller trick.

                  Also, after Carrie Fisher's death, they should've done reshoots to have Leia be the one to self-sacrifice and lightspeed through the ships and have Luke live until the next movie. She would've gone out like a bad ass, which is what her character always was. Instead, we got Laura Dunn's character with no development (other than a very forced sudden long history with Leia that was shoehorned into the story very poorly), whom nobody had even heard of before this movie, whom nobody cared about because of the previous reasons I listed, sacrifice herself. There's very little emotional gravitas to her sacrifice because she was a character nobody gave a crap about.

                  They should've done reshoots, made it Leia, and kept Luke alive (he could've still helped the Resistance escape and simply hopped on the Falcon with them). Now, Luke is unnecessarily dead, Carrie Fisher is dead, Rey is still a poorly developed character, and most of the things that were somewhat mysterious and cool about the new trilogy that could've given it good momentum going into the final movie, have been thrown out like garbage by Johnson's inept mishandling of this story.

                  But if you don’t enjoy it because of structural issues etc then I really don’t understand as everything in it had a purpose and all the characters had clear, meaningful arcs. For a two and a half hour film it never once felt like it was dragging to me.
                  The entire subplot with Finn and Rose going off to Star Wars Las Vegas was a waste of film. It didn't serve the plot in any meaningful way. They didn't get anything accomplished the entire time they were on their pitiful adventure. And in the end the subplot was rendered meaningless because they never needed what they went for (and failed to get) in the first place. All it did was create a convoluted reason to have Finn (who was never tough or capable in TFA) face off against the supposed top soldier in the entire First Order, and somehow win even though he's the not-quite-effective comic relief. Yes, somehow the fearful, always running away comic relief suddenly became a macho tough guy and competent enough hand-to-hand fighter to defeat the biggest bad ass in the entire First Order military.

                  Uh huh. Sure.

                  Which was yet another example of Johnson taking a character with a lot of potential and carelessly tossing her into the trash bin as if she weren't popular or important.

                  And now Johnson is in charge of the next trilogy, which leaves me very worried about it being DOA (just like the rumor mill is suggesting the Solo movie will be).

                  Lucas is not quite the creative genius many people give him credit for (his first wife did a page-one rewrite on his crappy SW script and is the only reason the script was good, he didn't write the script for ESB either, and just look at the atrocious prequels), but Johnson showed me nothing in this film to demonstrate that he's any better.

                  Disney has screwed up the SW property since day one. They acquired the most lucrative entertainment property in the world and all they've done so far is pump out three mediocre movies, have one on the way that has had too many problems to count, and released the most controversial and hated video game (Battlefront II) of 2017.

                  I have zero faith that they'll be able to right this Titanic that they're sailing.
                  Last edited by Optimus; 01-16-2018, 04:47 PM.
                  "Tact's just 'not saying true stuff.' " - Cordelia Chase

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                  • #54
                    Re: Star Wars Ep 8

                    Originally posted by Optimus View Post
                    Snoke is built up to be a mysterious, powerful Sith. Everyone wanted to know his backstory. Johnson chopped him in half with no explanation of anything, making his character go from mysterious to meaningless. Rey's parentage was another mystery with a lot of potential. Johnson made her a nobody.
                    This isn't Rian Johnson's fault, it's JJ's. If JJ had something interesting to say about Snoke or Rey's origins, then he should have said it in his damn movie! You can't just mystery box critical characters backstories. THAT'S NOT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT JJ. I think Rian just said: "Look, these are your set-ups not mine. I don't know how to proceed with them." So he just cut it all out. In other words, Abrams' mystery boxes ****** him up his ventilation port.

                    Despite its flaws, I enjoyed this film a lot... primarily because it sh*t on JJ's Force Awakens.
                    I'm never wrong. Reality is just stubborn.

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                    • #55
                      Re: Star Wars Ep 8

                      Originally posted by FoxHound View Post
                      ... primarily because it sh*t on JJ's Force Awakens.
                      So one director takes a dump on the other director's dump?

                      I expect more out of Star Wars.

                      Honestly, I would love to have had a crack at opening JJ's mystery boxes. A real writer would be up for (and welcome) such set ups. Give me that Alley-Oop and I'll Slam the Dunk.

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                      • #56
                        Re: Star Wars Ep 8

                        Naturally I feel guilty and have to apologize to JJ. I like some of his films, and he's a good director, but he needs help with story and character development. I honestly believe he decided on a reboot of a New Hope because he had no clue what to do. He needed more time, more writers.
                        I'm never wrong. Reality is just stubborn.

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                        • #57
                          Re: Star Wars Ep 8

                          I agree. He is a pretty good director.

                          All you have to do is go back to "Lost" to see what the future had in mind for JJ. Lot's of mystery. No answers.

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                          • #58
                            Re: Star Wars Ep 8

                            TFA was utterly incompetent. Bad direction, bad pacing, no sense or logic to anything. No plot beyond "find this thing." No chemistry whatsoever between the lead characters. No explanation for how or why these events are transpiring. Why does a remote forest planet have a crowded cantina on it? With Mos Eisley it made sense. The one in TFA was just in the middle of nowhere. Abrams is one of the biggest hacks working in Hollywood. None of his films have anything remotely resembling atmosphere or personality. The camerawork is slapdash. Scenes move too fast. Telltale signs of someone belongs in TV, not film. He basically makes two-hour trailers. Zero content, zero vision of his own. I can't imagine TLJ being worse.

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                            • #59
                              Re: Star Wars Ep 8

                              Originally posted by entlassen View Post
                              TFA was utterly incompetent. Bad direction, bad pacing, no sense or logic to anything. No plot beyond "find this thing." No chemistry whatsoever between the lead characters. No explanation for how or why these events are transpiring. Why does a remote forest planet have a crowded cantina on it? With Mos Eisley it made sense. The one in TFA was just in the middle of nowhere. Abrams is one of the biggest hacks working in Hollywood. None of his films have anything remotely resembling atmosphere or personality. The camerawork is slapdash. Scenes move too fast. Telltale signs of someone belongs in TV, not film. He basically makes two-hour trailers. Zero content, zero vision of his own. I can't imagine TLJ being worse.
                              honestly, as bad as Force Awakens was (and i thought it was mostly bad), i did see it three times in theaters and still was able to enjoy Rey's story. i could barely sit through Last Jedi once and you couldn't pay me to sit through it again

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                              • #60
                                Re: Star Wars Ep 8

                                I don't want to play the blame game, but it's been an odd feeling as a fan. I really enjoyed TLJ as a stand alone movie, but as a trilogy I only have doubt that it'll all work together in the end. Whose story even is this? The original trilogy was very clearly Luke Skywalker's story. Is this Rey's? She's splitting time not just with supporting characters, but with original trilogy characters. And as we learned in this film, doesn't have a connection to anyone else. What's her drive? What's she struggling with? What do we want from her?

                                I can't answer what I want or expect out of the third film. When has that ever been the case in a trilogy?

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