The Star Wars Thread

[Endless Flight]

How Generation X ruined Star Wars | Digital Trends

Gen X filmmakers like J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau have betrayed the spirit of George Lucas' Star Wars by relying on nostalgia instead of inventiveness.

www.digitaltrends.com

 

[Stumpydave]

I think some of you are getting your knickers in a twist over what is an homage to the likes of Flash Gordon serials. Yes the writing isnt good, but it wasn't good in A New Hope either.

Looking for significant depth in star wars is pointless, just enjoy the set dressing and spectacle because that's all there is.

 

[Rich H]

I think some of you are getting your knickers in a twist over what is an homage to the likes of Flash Gordon serials. Yes the writing isnt good, but it wasn't good in A New Hope either.

Looking for significant depth in star wars is pointless, just enjoy the set dressing and spectacle because that's all there is.

That's just bullshit, sorry.

How Generation X ruined Star Wars | Digital Trends

Gen X filmmakers like J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau have betrayed the spirit of George Lucas' Star Wars by relying on nostalgia instead of inventiveness.

www.digitaltrends.com

... As is this.

 

[sharps54]

Personally, if I was put in charge of a new trilogy, I'd do a Droid rebellion.

This is the only droid rebellion I want to see on screen

 

[Endless Flight]

That's just bullshit, sorry.



... As is this.

 

[Rich H]

View attachment 46885

 

[TristramEvans]

They would be so much better served to just move on to new characters. This same situation is happening with the MCU with fans asking for RDJ and Chris Evans to come back and I keep saying:

Come back? They just left.

I dunno, there's a lot of great Marvel characters they coul do films about, but I no longer have any faith in them doing GOOD films. I think that time is over, from here on out it''s going to be Captain Marvels and Shang Chi-s.

 

[TristramEvans]

This is the only droid rebellion I want to see on screen
View attachment 46884

I really wish we'd gotten more Urban as Dredd.

 

[TristramEvans]

How Generation X ruined Star Wars | Digital Trends

Gen X filmmakers like J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau have betrayed the spirit of George Lucas' Star Wars by relying on nostalgia instead of inventiveness.

www.digitaltrends.com

Seriously, this goes back to my point. Star Wars is part of Generation X's culture -but it's impossible for that generation to "ruin" it, because in our day and age we go along with culture being something a business entity can "own". If nobody owned Star Wars, no one could ruin it - because it doesn't matter how many shitty King Arthur novels are writen, the good stuff rises to the top and stands the test of time.

 

[TristramEvans]

I think some of you are getting your knickers in a twist over what is an homage to the likes of Flash Gordon serials. Yes the writing isnt good, but it wasn't good in A New Hope either.

The writing in a New Hope was just fine (once the editors did their magic) - it's only the dialogue that was shit.


In the new ones, it was the dialogue AND the plots AND the characterizations.

Looking for significant depth in star wars is pointless, just enjoy the set dressing and spectacle because that's all there is.

I don't think depth is the appropriate synonym for "not sucking" and "being entertaining". Nobody in this thread is sitting here discussing :the philosophy of Star Wars" or anything pretentious or high brow, even stuf we COULD talk about like George Lucas saying in interviews that he deliberately made the heroes terrorists and the film represents Vietnam with the Empire being a stand-in for the United States.

But we ain't talking about that. The critiques I'm seeing ar "I wish this stuf made sense" or "actually built upon the stories that came before, as in Disney could pretend they actually bothered even rewatching the OT", or "please do something new and interesting" (you know, like Star Wars was actually new and interesting when it first came out).

 

[Rich H]

The writing in a New Hope was great - it's the dialogue that was shit.

I really like a good 90% of the dialogue in ANH, even the scene in the Falcon when they're preparing to make the jump to hyperspace. I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as a lot of people suggest and then there's the utterly cool interplay between Threepio and Artoo, the bits with Han and Luke when he's convincing him about rescuing Leia, the trash compactor, playing Chewie at chess, the gun turret battle when escaping the Death Star, the attack on the death star itself; all top stuff. I'm struggling to remember any dialogue as bad as the shit served up in parts of the PT and a whole lot of the ST. I think RotJ is the worse for dialogue out of the OT.

 

[TristramEvans]

I really like a good 90% of the dialogue in ANH, even the scene in the Falcon when they're preparing to make the jump to hyperspace. I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as a lot of people suggest and then there's the utterly cool interplay between Threepio and Artoo, the bits with Han and Luke when he's convincing him about rescuing Leia, the trash compactor, playing Chewie at chess, the gun turret battle when escaping the Death Star, the attack on the death star itself; all top stuff. I'm struggling to remember any dialogue as bad as the shit served up in parts of the PT and a whole lot of the ST. I think RotJ is the worse for dialogue out of the OT.

I remember never having an issue with it as a kid (and that's the kind of thing I'd often have an issue wiht as a kid - I couldn't even watch Star Trek TNG because the whole "Universal Translator" bullshit device made no sense to me). I suppose it was really that Harrison Ford quote that seemed to galvanize that as a common criticism. But I think some of the dialogue in the Prequels had people saying "oh Lucas just can't write dialogue", ad maybe that's true. I wonder how much freedom the actors in the OT got to tweak or improvse their lines?

 

[Endless Flight]

There’s some stinkers in A New Hope. Like when Princess Leia, who’s a senator, says “get this big walking carpet out of my way”. This is a diplomat, mind you, and we later learn that Wookiees are a very prominent species in the galaxy.

 

[Rich H]

I remember never having an issue with it as a kid (and that's the kind of thing I'd often have an issue wit as a kid - I couldn't even watch Star Trek TNG because the whole "Universal Translator" bullshit device made no sense to me, I suppose it was really that Harrison Ford quote that seemed to galvanize that as a common criticism. But I think some of the dialogue in the Prequels had people saying "oh Lucas just can't write dialogue", ad maybe that's true. I wonder how much freedom the actors in the OT got to tweak or improvse their lines?

I remember watching some BTS stuff of the PT and no-one was really second guessing Lucas at all, perhaps because he was the real king of the hill then. I guess when he was working on ANH the actors had a bit more of a say/power by the time of the prequels Lucas was often quoting as wishing he could remove the actors altogether; he freely admits it was a part of film making he didn't enjoy.

 

[Rich H]

There’s some stinkers in A New Hope. Like when Princess Leia, who’s a senator, says “get this big walking carpet out of my way”. This is a diplomat, mind you, and we later learn that Wookiees are a very prominent species in the galaxy.

By that time she was easily pissed off. This crew of muppets that had 'rescued' her had fucked up and she dug them out of it (in her opinion), then Han started fucking around with Chewie, firing his blaster and call him a coward. Yep, she took control, lost her rag, and she'd had enough of this lot by then. It's a great, funny throwaway line which then lets Han say "no reward is worth this". Can totally buy it; the line is totally in character for a spunky young go-getting senator who has had her cover blown, is potentially going to get executed and whose rebel friends are on the brink of being wiped out. Top stuff.

 

[Endless Flight]

I remember never having an issue with it as a kid (and that's the kind of thing I'd often have an issue wiht as a kid - I couldn't even watch Star Trek TNG because the whole "Universal Translator" bullshit device made no sense to me). I suppose it was really that Harrison Ford quote that seemed to galvanize that as a common criticism. But I think some of the dialogue in the Prequels had people saying "oh Lucas just can't write dialogue", ad maybe that's true. I wonder how much freedom the actors in the OT got to tweak or improvse their lines?

They got to tweak it more in The Empire Strikes Back, when Lucas gave up a little more oversight, because he had personal problems and was busy with Raiders of the Lost Ark as well.

 

[Giganotosaurus]

Honestly I'm getting kinda sick of Star Wars. I wish Hollywood would stop expanding old IP's and make new ones. Instead it's just more of the same, Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Marvel, DC, etc.
It's all become stale or repetitive.

 

[TJS]

How Generation X ruined Star Wars | Digital Trends

Gen X filmmakers like J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau have betrayed the spirit of George Lucas' Star Wars by relying on nostalgia instead of inventiveness.

www.digitaltrends.com

The article makes a good point, but the I think the clickbaity title blames the wrong thing.

It's not Gen-X that's the issue - it's fandom. I would point to the same thing with Doctor Who. A series that used to have 3 different versions of Atlantis within a few years of each other now concerns itself with plugging 30 old year plot holes.

 

[Voros]

It’s like the Kenobi show. Most Gen-Xers hate the prequels but they always usually say “but I liked Ewan McGregor as Kenobi”. Disney did not make the Kenobi show for Millennials. They made it for the aging Gen-X fan fan base who they are trying to squeeze every last drop of nostalgia from. Honestly the pandering started with The Force Awakens and has never left. The Rise of Skywalker doubled down on it and here we are.

The EU seems like a whole lotta pandering to me.

The dialogue in the OT is leaden but hardly the point.

 

[TristramEvans]

Honestly I'm getting kinda sick of Star Wars. I wish Hollywood would stop expanding old IP's and make new ones. Instead it's just more of the same, Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Marvel, DC, etc.
It's all become stale or repetitive.

Honestly, that;'s what got me into anime after resisting fr many years - just to have new stories and new chracters instea of this constant nostalgia-mining of Hollywood fit into these cookie-cutter plots

 

[Giganotosaurus]

Honestly, that;'s what got me into anime after resisting fr many years - just to have new stories and new chracters instea of this constant nostalgia-mining of Hollywood fit into these cookie-cutter plots

That's funny I mostly avoided anime because I always got the impression that it was highly cookie-cutter when it came to plot. What do you recommend?

 

[TristramEvans]

That's funny I mostly avoided anime because I always got the impression that it was highly cookie-cutter when it came to plot. What do you recommend?

lol, will need a bit to anwer that.

 

[Nobby-W]

That's funny I mostly avoided anime because I always got the impression that it was highly cookie-cutter when it came to plot. What do you recommend?

Sturgeon's law still applies to anime. There's a lot of formulaic material - harem tropes and suchlike, but there are also quite a few good ones. Some anime I liked includes:

• Mamoru Hosoda: Wolf Children, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, Your Name.
• Masamune Shirow: Ghost In the Shell. The first one is good, the sequels are a bit mid. There was also a TV spinoff called Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex that ran for a couple of seasons and was quite good, and some later CGI ones that are not so good. Featuring toilet-shaped robots called Tachikoma. Shirow also did another well known series called Appleseed, but I haven't seen that.
• Studio Ghibli: Spirited Away, Totoro, Princess Mononoke etc. Check out Porco Rosso, Whisper of the Heart, Pom Poko and Only Yesterday for some lesser known gems. Better Disney than Disney.
• Full Metal Alchemist and FMA: Brotherhood
• Beastars: High school murder mystery with furries. Better than it sounds.
• One Punch Man: Shonen manga gets The Tick treatment. Very funny.
• Akira: Cyberpunk classic that's aged pretty well for something 35+ years old.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: This is actually a major rip on mecha anime but ran out of budget at the ending so it got a lot of notoriety. There are also several films that deal in alternate endings or story lines, although the only one of these I've seen is End of Evangelion.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Evangelion treatment of magical girls - dark and surreal, and very good.
• Anohana: Quite a good ghost story.
• Blue Period: Protagonist starts from zero and gets into a prestigious art school.
• Your Lie in April: Coming-of-age story meets tragedy. Dragged out a bit too much but manages to be quite good.
• Shinichirow Watanabe: Cowboy Bebop. Also Samaurai Champloo, Space Dandy and Carole and Tuesday. Bebop is a classic. Most of the others are a solid B+.
• Rumiko Takahashi: Most notably Inuyasha and Ranma-1/2, both of which run for 150+ episodes. The first season of Ranma-1/2 is hysterically funny. Season 1 of Inuyasha is up on Netflix, although I found it a bit mid.
• Sword Art Online: Protagonists trapped in a video game. A bit trope-ish but better than it sounds.
• The Great Pretender: Dweeby protagonist gets involved with a gang of con artists.
• Black Lagoon: Dweeby protagonist gets involved with a gang of smugglers. Very violent but quite good.
• Way of the House Husband: Notorious Yakuza gangster marries and settles down. Hilarity ensues with a unique pseudo-manga animation style.

Most of this is available on Netflix and/or Amazon Prime. There's also loads more stuff you can find on sites like Crunchyroll or Funimation.

 

[Lundgren]

That's funny I mostly avoided anime because I always got the impression that it was highly cookie-cutter when it came to plot. What do you recommend?

Even if it is cookie cutter, it is often other templates than Hollywood. So it is still something new and fresh (even if it's only for a short while).

 

[Stumpydave]

I got into Anime with the UK release of Akira but lost interest when all that seemed to come out were Poundland copies of Urotsukidoji, then the millenials got involved and it didn't so much go downhill as leap into the abyss with a wingsuit.

 

[Endless Flight]

The EU seems like a whole lotta pandering to me.

Can’t disagree. When TLJ was released, there was a contingent of fans who asked why Rian Johnson didn’t make Luke more like his EU self, meaning invincible. They wanted to see Luke deflect blasters with his saber and toss around AT-ATs like rag dolls.

 

[Rich H]

When TLJ was released, there was a contingent of fans who asked why Rian Johnson didn’t make Luke more like his EU self, meaning invincible. They wanted to see Luke deflect blasters with his saber and toss around AT-ATs like rag dolls.

Nope. Wrong. Again you're talking utter tripe. The vast majority of critiques wanted Luke to be the compassionate and hopeful man that he was when he didn't lose faith in his friends and in saving his father, despite all that he'd done as Vader. Instead we got a man who was going to kill his nephew because he could potentially turn to the dark side, not because he did, and one who just 'gave up' without any development or context. It was nothing to do with him being invincible. You really are trying to create a narrative that really didn't/doesn't exist, not in any significant number, and it really is utter bollocks. All the criticisms I saw were as I've described here and not like you described.

 

[Endless Flight]

Nope. Wrong. Again you're talking utter tripe. The vast majority of critiques wanted Luke to be the compassionate and hopeful man that he was when he didn't lose faith in his friends and in saving his father, despite all that he'd done as Vader. Instead we got a man who was going to kill his nephew because he could potentially turn to the dark side, not because he did, and one who just 'gave up' without any development or context. It was nothing to do with him being invincible. You really are trying to create a narrative that really didn't/doesn't exist, not in any significant number, and it really is utter bollocks. All the criticisms I saw were as I've described here and not like you described.

You need to read more of the internet then. I literally read people wanting exactly what I posted before, whether it was on Reddit or other social media places. I can get actual quotes if you like. Even Rian Johnson responded to some of these critics:

 

[TJS]

I quite liked Luke in the Last Jedi and the arc with Luke and Rey. That seemed overall the best part of the movie. It was a lot of the other parts that dragged. I certainly didn't see Luke as necessarily having to end up like Luke in the Last Jedi, but I could see how he may got there.

But then I thought Last Jedi, flawed as it was, ended really well (a rarity in Hollywood films which usually have perfunctory 3rd acts) and at least set the series up to do something more interesting going forward.

Too bad they chose to go backwards instead.

 

[Fenris-77]

I have trouble figuring out why people get so invested in 'proving' their opinions about things like Star Wars. I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I like some of the movies and shows better than others. I could give a flying fuck what some amateur internet 'expert' thinks about how to contextualize and frame notions about the fandom or treatment of canon, or any attempt to try and rationalize the aims and goals of movies and shows and whatever made over 40+ years by dozens of different creators. It's not going to line up. I can live with that.

I also love people who completely dismiss one person's anecdotal thoughts about a thing because it doesn't match up with their (apparently precious) anecdotal thoughts about a thing. Yikes.

 

[TristramEvans]

What do you recommend?

Honestly, if you want a complete break from the humdrum of Hollywood, I'd recommend starting with Angel's Egg:


This is a story that could never have been made by a Western studio, it is such a completely unique approach to storytelling and cinema that is as alien as the cultural touchstones of Japan would be a Western Audience at the time. It's from the Golden Age of Anime, when there was little to no oversight and standards, just artists allowed to do whatever the hell they wanted in a booming economy, and even if it doesn't end up being to your taste, it's so weird that it will serve as an effective palette cleanser and blow away any expectations you have built up from years of mass-produced Hollywack.

From there, there are a lot of places to go. Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli is the "safe route". Dubbed "the Walt Disney of Japan", his stuff is heartwarming, family friendly, and of a very high quality, but it's not going to be breaking any boundaries or pushing your imagination. I'd personally nominate Spirited Away as the best one to start with, a well-executed classic fairytale. From there maybe Princess Mononoke or Howl's Moving Castle, but really you can't "go wrong" with any of them (even Ponyo, though you may require an insulin shot afterwards).

If you want more adult/fine animation, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is a good self-contained film, featuring a pulpy blend of gothic horror and cyberpunk. Ghost in the Shell (the original), Akira, and Your Name could all be substituted here - stand alone films with beautiful animation, though the first two have slightly hard-to-follow plots if you aren't laser focused on every line of dialogue, benefitting from multiple viewings. Super Eyepatch Wolf's video on Akira is a good intro to that masterpiece:


If you are OK with stuff slightly more adult, with heavier violence and adult themes, try Berserk: The Golden Age, a trilogy of films that adapts the prequel story of the greatest manga of all time (which I have on occassion waxed-on about at length).


OK, so now say you are willing to take a chance and jump into a series. First off, you don't want to begin with an ongoing story that may not be completed in the next 20 years, or, more likely, just abandoned when the studio runs out of money or the audience loses interest. Also beware that alot of anime is created essentially as advertisements for Light Novel series, meaning you get maybe condensed versions of the first 3 volumes and then never anything else - they are clearly just expecting you to go read the novels to find out what happens next.

The other thing you don't want is a to start with a 500-episode epic that will take you years to get through unless you devoted all your time to watching. So, avoid Naruto, Dragonball-anything, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, or (shudder) One Piece.

What you want is self-contained stories over a set number of episodes with a satisfying conclusion.

Forget Evangelion. Like, don't even worry about it for now. Yes, it is a genre-defining masterpiece that transformed anime, and everything after was inevitably a reaction to it. Yes, people online have a lot of strong opinions about it. But this is like if someone was interested in getting into superhero comics - you wouldn't hand them Watchmen to start out (unless you are a pretentious as fuck Buzzfeed writer). There is always time to go back to Evangelion, in the future. It holds up now just as well as it did when it first aired.

Plus, you can't currently watch Evangelion (legally). Oh, there's a version of it on Netflx to be sure. An awful, awful re-dubbed piece of crap version that is an affront to baby Jesus. Please, for the love of Eris, don't let that be how you first experience the show.

(ahem)

OK, so my recommendations, in no particular order:

Death Note
A Shinigami (one of many gods of death from Shinto mythology) drops a notebook into the human world that allows whoever writes the name of a person into it to cause their death. It is found by an exceptionally intelligent high school senior who begins to use it to rid the world of criminals and those who escaped justice, in his eyes. And what follows is one of the greatest cat-and-mouse games in fiction as a genius detective attempts to discover the source of these deaths and hunt down the culprit. Ever watch a show and get annoyed by how characters act artificially stupid in service of the plot? This is the complete antithesis to that - two highly intelligent adversaries that are allowed to be highly intelligent, each pulling the rug out from underneath the other successfully in a frenetic dash to a conclusion that you never see comng, but seems inevitable nonetheless.

(avoid the Netflix live-action adaptation at all costs, where they apparently thought, "you know what would make this story better? If all the characters were frelling idiots.")

Serial Experiments: Lain
A young girl commits suicide, and a day later, her classmates start getting emails from her, wherein she claims that her spirit is living on, inside the internet (referred to colloqially in the show as "The Wired"). One such classmate is a shy girl named Lain, who is motivated by this incident to start questioning everything she thinks she knows about her seemingly typical schoolgirl existence that is anything but. This story goes in diections you could never anticipate from the start, weaving in a deeply layered story about the foundations of the internet and it's power to transform society.

My Dress-Up Darling
The best show TV I've watched in the last- hmm, maybe since the early seasons of Game of Thrones or Netflix's Daredevil. And I'm not sure I could tell you why. This is a "slice of life" anime - meaning nothing really happens. No action, no real plots, nothing. Just an unlikely friendship forming between two seemingly opposite people, a very popular and outgoing girl and a reserved, quiet and conservative boy. He's an apprentice to his grandfather who is training in the traditional Japanese artform of constructing highly detailed "Hino Dolls", a pursuit that is almost an obsession, but he desperately hides from all his classmates for fear of being ridiculed as a doll-maker. She is a secret cosplay enthusiast. It only took one episode for me to get hooked.

The Ancient Magus Bride
A Japanese tribute to British folklore and that sort of "pastoral fantasy" evoked by novels like Little, Big, Mythago Wood, or Lud-in-the-Mist. It is wistful, beautiful, and haunting, and features what I consider to be, hands down, the greatest character arc in the history of fiction. We meet the main character at the lowest point in her life as she willingly sells herself into slavery because she has lost any sense of self worth, only to end up being bought by an ancient demonic creature who intends to train her as his apprentice. What follows is an exceptionally powerful exploration of human relationships and the emotional framework of a character learning to self identify and love herself again, set against a world of faeries, demons, and ghosts. (and including my absolute favourite interpretation of Titania and Auberon, dethroning Neil Gaiman's Sandman).

Golden Boy
Humour is maybe the hardest thing to translate between cultures, and a lot of anime comedies tend to fall flat in the Western world, except amongst the most hardcore would-be Otaku. Which is why it is perhaps astounding that maybe the funiest TV series I have ever seen in my life is an old anime about a law student who drops out of university just before graduation to travel across Japan on a bicycle, taking odd jobs. Fair warning, this is a pervy sex comedy (though a pretty tame one, no actual onscreen sex or, I think, even any nudity). But it is freaking hilarious. To me anyways, I'll just post this one short clip and you can judge for yourself:


Full Metal Alchemist
This might be a bit of an undertaking. You see it was first adapted in the early 2000's while the manga was still beig written and was such a huge success that oce they reached the point where they caught up with the Manga, they went ahead and did their own ending. Kinda like Game of Thrones, except their ending was good. Except the Manga's was way, way better. So a few years later they did a new adaption, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, that finished out the story of the manga. The issue being that Brotherhood, knowig everyone had already seen the original series, rushed through those early stories, kinda doing an almost "greatest hits version". The problem is, some of those early stories are really important, and the rushed version loses all the emotional weight and impact. So you really need to start with the first series and then do Brotherhood. The one other issue is that the very first storyline is kinda a wash, and more than a little underwhelming, and you just kinda have to push through those first two episodes, wherein suddenly the story takes a VERY dark turn and gets really really good.

Beyond the Boundary (Kyoukai no Kanto)
Fuck, I can't even describe this one, just check out this:

 

[Rich H]

You need to read more of the internet then. I literally read people wanting exactly what I posted before, whether it was on Reddit or other social media places. I can get actual quotes if you like. Even Rian Johnson responded to some of these critics:

Ruin Johnson has a habit of making an issue bigger than what it is. Disney do the same - ie, they call any not aligned with them and anyone criticising their content as racists - see what they recently did on Twitter for that. It's a deflection instead of actually addressing the points the vast majority of critics of the show/films are making. To a lesser degree you're doing it here - you deflect by saying it's pandering when I've given examples of just bad story writing that has absolutely nothing to do with legacy characters or new ones - its just shit writing. And if they had good writers it wouldn't matter if they did shows about legacy characters or new ones - the criticisms are that the shows are badly written.

The vast majority of critics about Luke were about his character and certain actions and not about his 'power level' but, you know, RJ and Disney don't want to engage in that so instead pick out the one or two specific comments in order to change the narrative. It's a tactic that politicians use too and its bullshit. I remember watching the Last Jedi and, focussing purely on Luke's character, thinking as I watched "okay... what's driven Luke to this, lets see..." and then we got the 'explanation' and it was just pathetic albeit not out of place with all the other rubbish in the film. Still, it's just a shit film sandwiched by two other shit films; one of which is not quite as shit, the other which is just totally awful.

PS - apologies though if my previous post was personally insulting in any way, Endless Flight.

 

[Stumpydave]

I've yet to watch the last two SW films or Solo. I'll get round to it one day but there/'s so much vitriol aimed at them it's putting me off. As someone whose only exposure to SW before the Mandalorian were the Original trilogy and the Phantom Menace, should I be worried?

 

[TristramEvans]

I have trouble figuring out why people get so invested in 'proving' their opinions about things like Star Wars. I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I like some of the movies and shows better than others. I could give a flying fuck what some amateur internet 'expert' thinks about how to contextualize and frame notions about the fandom or treatment of canon, or any attempt to try and rationalize the aims and goals of movies and shows and whatever made over 40+ years by dozens of different creators. It's not going to line up. I can live with that.

I also love people who completely dismiss one person's anecdotal thoughts about a thing because it doesn't match up with their (apparently precious) anecdotal thoughts about a thing. Yikes.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah. I saw that coming a mile away. Doesn't mean it's not odd.

 

[TristramEvans]

I quite liked Luke in the Last Jedi and the arc with Luke and Rey. That seemed overall the best part of the movie. It was a lot of the other parts that dragged. I certainly didn't see Luke as necessarily having to end up like Luke in the Last Jedi, but I could see how he may got there.

But then I thought Last Jedi, flawed as it was, ended really well (a rarity in Hollywood films which usually have perfunctory 3rd acts) and at least set the series up to do something more interesting going forward.

Too bad they chose to go backwards instead.

I thought the Luke and Rey stuff was entertainig as well, and agree it was the best part of the film, but as far as "setting up the series to do somethig more interesting going forward"? LOL, no. He sidelined the two most interesting characters introduced in TFA to a nonsensical and pointless B-plot, unceremoniously killed off the main villain, turned the Rebellion into the bad guys, and basically left whoever came after him to try and pick up the pieces and create something wholecloth to try and forge it into anything resembling a trilogy. The third film was really bad, but it wasn't entirely the third film's fault, it was that Rian Johnson basically pissed in the bowl of cheerios and said "OK, try to follow that somehow".

Even if parts of it were an OK film, from the perspective of being the middle film of a trilogy, it was a complete stopgap. Lukes dead, Leia's dead, the villain is dead, the other villain isn't really a villain anymore, the rebellion is run by spiteful fascists now, and Po and Finn are now comic relief. No wonder they brought back Palpatine.

I mean, I personally would have had Rey and Kylo end up swtching places with her being the bad guy in the third film and him having to fight to redeem her, but I don;t thnk their target demographic would have accepted that for their Mary Sue.

And yeah, it wasnt The Force Awakens, it was The Last Jedi that tured Rey into a Mary Sue.

 

[Rich H]

I've yet to watch the last two SW films or Solo. I'll get round to it one day but there/'s so much vitriol aimed at them it's putting me off. As someone whose only exposure to SW before the Mandalorian were the Original trilogy and the Phantom Menace, should I be worried?

Depends. What do you think of the stuff you have watched?

The Force Awakens - it tries to press those nostalgia buttons but it just misses the mark. It copies the OT far too much in homage and direct rip off. There are bits in it that stretch the lore but some of the characters for a first film are engaging and could have gone in interesting places. They didn't though! Not getting the old team together one last time was tragic but there are loads of other problems with it. The only really enjoyable element was Finn who I thought was a great character and really liked where his character arc looked like heading. Poe was okay too. Rey was already looking like a Mary Sue though.

Rogue One - its decent because it's largely well written and quite a departure for Star Wars good guys - ie, some of these rebels are shady. Overall I enjoyed this. And the obvious fan service, and unashamedly there's lots of it here, is well thought out in the main and well executed.

The Last Jedi - just doesn't feel like Star Wars. It tries to subvert expectations just for the sake of ... subverting expectations. And fails. It fucks up previous films - Holdo maneuver, etc. Its characters are largely awful (Finn is reduced to a joke, Luke isn't Luke, Rose electrocutes Finn - imagine if a male character did that to a female instead, Poe/Holdo is terribly done, Leia as Mary Poppins). But I did think that the relationship between Kylo and Rey was really interesting - the scenes involving just those two were really enjoyable. Johnson can obviously direct (I really like Knives Out for instance) and some of the imagery is lush. It's not a bad space fantasy film, it just isn't Star Wars and it isn't a middle act film.

Solo - was a film that we just didn't need so I agree that it did just feel like pandering. However, it wasn't needed because its approach was all wrong - it basically crammed into its story all the references in Solo's background into one "mad weekend" - so covers how he left the academy, how he met Chewie, how he did the Kessel Run, how he won the Falcon. These are all mysteries better left to the imagination unless you have a good writer and a good writer would know not to cram them all into a couple of hours! So, yeah, a legacy character that had bad writing and ideas. It isn't revisiting the character that is the problem but the story/bad writing. And it really suffered from the Last Jedi backlash too; no denying that.

The Rise of Skywalker - oh my, this one's just awful. I mean, the leaps in the plot are mental and the characters are just awful. Then there's stuff like bringing back Palpatine and doing it off screen (which was crackers), etc. There is very little even okay with this film. Anyone with any common sense or need for a plot to even hold together under basic/light scrutiny will be disappointed in this one. It's terrible. But then, it was also handed a steaming turd of a story by the Last Jedi; that can't excuse it though as it made its own (bad) decisions too and lots of them - blaming TLJ is a distraction.

Book of Boba Fett - is a miss too. We just got a character that didn't make much sense based on everything we knew about him and what happened to him in the show. It also reversed the ending of the second series of the Mandalorian. It could have been great, with good writers and a good/sound basic idea (eg, perhaps him reminiscing in flashback about his earlier life, bounties, etc), but it wasn't. It was shite. And don't get me started on the Vespa riding Mods and the slowest vehicle chase since... well, The Last Jedi!

Kenobi - better than BoBF but not as good as the Mandalorian. It is so badly written/plotted in critical places though and there's just stupid stuff all the way through it. Not goofy whimsical Star Wars-y stupid, just rubbish badly plotted/presented stupid. Bad characters too. Reva is a rubbish murder-hobo looking to get close to Vader to kill him but by doing so murders people along the way. That could be interesting if done in the right way; it isn't, so you end up with a completely unsympathetic character. So, a new character that's crap... because of bad writing. QED. There's a pattern here and it's why I reject all this pandering nonsense. The core and fundamental issue is third-rate writing.

So TFA = Miss, R1 = Hit, TLJ = Miss, Solo = Miss, TRoS = Miss, Mando = Hit, BoBF = Miss, Kenobi = Miss. And what's tragic is that all the misses are just mostly down to bad writing of the story and characters whether they are legacy or new ones.

I need to watch the last two seasons of Clone Wars and all of Rebels though. My lass isn't into cartoons so we can't watch them together and this makes it tougher.

 

[Endless Flight]

PS - apologies though if my previous post was personally insulting in any way, Endless Flight.

No, I didn’t, Rich. This is Star Wars we are talking about, not the fate of the world.

 

[Endless Flight]

 

[Rich H]

No, I didn’t, Rich. This is Star Wars we are talking about, not the fate of the world.

That's good to know and you're right that it is only Star Wars but in the nerd sphere that is a pretty big deal! Appreciate you responding direct to that though; top stuff.

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