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It still makes no sense to me - he wants her to kill him, because them he'll take over her body. So she refuses - stuff happens - and then she kills him.
 
It still makes no sense to me - he wants her to kill him, because them he'll take over her body. So she refuses - stuff happens - and then she kills him.
Fortunately that's the only plot hole in the film, right? :hehe:

Oh wait, I saw this one in the movie theater with my kids and was dumbfounded as I lost count of things happening on screen that made no sense...
 
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I remember way back in time, well before the prequels, there was a suggestion made by Lucas that C3PO and R2D2 were actually the stars of Star Wars and that any sequels would be further events in the history of the Galaxy from the PoV of these two Droids. It reminded me of the Droids cartoon, which to this day I really like. I kinda wonder what might have been if this idea had been explored instead of following the Skywalker line.

I recall something similar. I think I remember hearing the iteration of it I'm familiar with sometime early/mid 90s. It went that the constants of the Star Wars saga were R2D2, C3PO, and the Millennium Falcon. Those would be the only recurring things through all saga chapters.
 
Hs anyone else been encountering the rumours of the existence of a George Lucas cut of The Last Skywalker?
 
Hs anyone else been encountering the rumours of the existence of a George Lucas cut of The Last Skywalker?
I haven't but that sounds like wishful thinking. I've heard that there was a leaked script from the first director, but nothing about a Lucas cut.
 
I haven't but that sounds like wishful thinking. I've heard that there was a leaked script from the first director, but nothing about a Lucas cut.

Odd wishful thinking considering how terrible the prequels are. It is like the fandom are goldfish who can only focus their hate on one person at a time and have forgotten all the bile they spewed at Lucas for decades.

Also most of the issues in the film are in the script not the edit, I can't see how one would cut to improve it. One can sometimes work wonders in the editing room but with these big budget films with loads of expensive fx that is much less true.
 
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Odd wishful thinking considering how terrible the prequels are.


If there's one thing the Disney films have done, it's made those prequels look a helllllllova lot better in comparison
 
I haven't but that sounds like wishful thinking. I've heard that there was a leaked script from the first director, but nothing about a Lucas cut.
At one point there was talk of several 'cuts' of the film, and that they had tested them. Again, rumour. However, the fact that they are still working on Rise of Skywalker (Joke, they finished one week before release, this has been confirmed) it wouldn't surprise me.
 
If there's one thing the Disney films have done, it's made those prequels look a helllllllova lot better in comparison

I'd disagree but I guess that's what marks me as not a SW superfan. I recently rewatched the prequels on Showcase and they are terrible. They lack the craft of the latest films and a few exceptions aside the actors are wasted. I don't think the new films are perfect but they are far more competent.
 
I'd disagree but I guess that's what marks me as not a SW superfan. I recently rewatched the prequels on Showcase and they are terrible. They lack the craft of the latest films and a few exceptions aside the actors are wasted. I don't think the new films are perfect but they are far more competent.

Well I haven't seen the prequels in close to 20 years, and only just saw the new films, but as much as I didn't care for the prequels the three things they were not is - boring, cliche, and uncreative. And those are the 3 cardinal sins of the new films that for me supercede some occasional nice cinematography.
 
I find the lack of craft in the prequels kind of mystifying.

Putting aside SW, Lucas made one of the finest sf films of the decade in THX1138 and expertly directed a cast of young actors in the charming American Graffitti.

What happened to that director?

Perhaps it is possible that the decades of inactivity led to the decay of his filmmaking muscles? The more you do something the better you get usually. Lucas' peers have had their creative ups and downs, with only Coppola suffering from clear creative burnout imo, but none of them lost it quite like that.

The only comparison that comes to mind is Jackson's The Hobbit, where a tremendously talented director produced stunning hack work (I'd rate The Hobbit far below the prequels).

That both of them seemed to get lost in delusions of digital grandeur may be the most telling.
 
The only comparison that comes to mind is Jackson's The Hobbit, where a tremendously talented director produced stunning hack work (I'd rate The Hobbit far below the prequels).

That both of them seemed to get lost in delusions of digital grandeur may be the most telling.

Jackson really isn't totally to blame for The Hobbit. Essentially the studio was breathing down his neck the entire time, he was put on a rushed schedule and then prodded to work even quicker, and essentially was driven to an emotional breakdown from corporate pressure while he churned out these money-grab attempts for them. I don't think we really got to see Peter Jackson's The Hobbit, we saw New Line Cinema's "lets bleed this franchise dry" The Hobbit.

That said, a lot of the crap still rests on Jackson's shoulders, like Tauriel, the ridiculous lack of beards on dwarves, etc.
 
Other than Kylo Ren and Rey’s themes, I found John Williams’ score lacking in the new trilogy. The Prequels might have many sins, but the scores for those films still all give me goosebumps.
 
I find the lack of craft in the prequels kind of mystifying.

Putting aside SW, Lucas made one of the finest sf films of the decade in THX1138 and expertly directed a cast of young actors in the charming American Graffitti.

What happened to that director?

A lot of it is the build up of the mystique around him and the removal of the people that kept him grounded and told him, 'no'.
 
Other than Kylo Ren and Rey’s themes, I found John Williams’ score lacking in the new trilogy. The Prequels might have many sins, but the scores for those films still all give me goosebumps.


Yeah, Duel of the Fates especially is a fantastic song

 
A lot of it is the build up of the mystique around him and the removal of the people that kept him grounded and told him, 'no'.
This is the biggest issue with the prequels as far as I can tell. Nobody said that's enough, nobody said no. And nobody else wanted to direct 2 or 3 for him.

So while GL has a great eye for a design and a frame, his weakness with actors and dialogue was highlighted sharply.
 
I'm currently watching episode IX for the first time. What the actual fuck? Was it written by someone hating how stuff worked in ep. 1-6? I've never been a fan of most of the EU, and this is like the stuff I really hated from the EU on steroids.

Still, it is more cool effects than VIII, so being halfway through, I think it could be a step up. But then, VIII competes with Highlander II in my own internal ranking system. So being able to beat either of them isn't really a high bar to pass.
 
The Rise of Skywalker gets worse the more times you watch it.
That's been my experience with Disney's trilogy. And big niggle for me as a loser lore nerd is how they changed how Hyperspace travel works. And it's not like you have to go digging in the EU either. It's all laid out in Star Wars: A New Hope, when Han Solo says on how traveling through Hyperspace isn't like dusting crops (Boy), and how it needs precise calculations.

I'm sorry, despite all the character violations and changes, how bland and mismanaged the plot and story is, that ONE TINY THING drives me up a wall.
 
I picked up the retro-releases of the old Star Wars board games: Escape From Death Star Game and Hoth Ice Planet Adventure Game. I saw them in the grocery store and impulse purchased.

I haven't opened the figures. I already had a Tarkin figure from the Power of the Force line from the late 90s. The Luke in Snowspeeder suit figure is really lame and it might as well be generic pilot in flight suit.

I have some history with Escape From Death Star that maybe I'll tell the story of sometime. There was a point when I was 7 years old that getting this game was THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. It was nice to finally sit and play it with my partner.

Both are definitely garbage children's games of the era, but at least Escape has some basic levels of strategy and risk vs reward. The Hoth game is exactly what you think of when you think children's garbage board game. There's no strategy or choices, just spinning the spinner and following fixed instructions. The game only requires humans present in order to spin the spinner, draw cards, and move pawns.

I kind of wish they'd re-release Destroy Death Star. Maybe they could pack that with a Death Squad Trooper or something.
 
The Rise of Skywalker gets worse the more times you watch it.
The Last Jedi was definitely that for me. A few months after I saw it, I thought it couldn't be as bad as I claimed it to be; that I was just exaggerating and hyperbolizing. So I rewatched it and realized it was worse than I remembered it... :shock:

Seriously, my head canon right now is that Rey dreamt it all while being knocked out by that gas leak on the falcon, and only the stuff she's seen with her own eyes up to that point is canon (I can work with that). The rest is misunderstandings or weird fever dreams. Then, when she wakes up, she can go on an adventure and become a kick-ass Jedi knight. But an adventure that at least have some sort of resemblance to the internal logic of episode 1-6 + Clone Wars and Rebels.
 
I'm currently watching episode IX for the first time. What the actual fuck? Was it written by someone hating how stuff worked in ep. 1-6? I've never been a fan of most of the EU, and this is like the stuff I really hated from the EU on steroids.

Still, it is more cool effects than VIII, so being halfway through, I think it could be a step up. But then, VIII competes with Highlander II in my own internal ranking system. So being able to beat either of them isn't really a high bar to pass.

Agreed.
 
There have been a few times where I had to reassess movies, music or television shows to freshen up my perspective to see if I had an open mind the first time I saw or listened to it.

Yeah, I've done that. I mean, any work of media's worth is exactly correspondent to the filter of the audience's interpretation, and as the person we are, in thought, perceptions, and experience is a constantly shifting proposition, likewise, the media changes as well. This is why I'm constantly hesitant to revisit the things I loved when I was younger, and generally willing to take a new chance on something I once disliked.

That said, it will take more than some internet boffin's ring theory to motivate me to go back and rewatch the dumpster fire of nostalgia-bait that Disney pushed out of it's corporate cliche-ridden Hollywood anus in an attempt to as quickly as possible recoup the price they paid to own a piece of American culture.


On the other hand, turns out The Long Kiss Goodnight is a far better film than I originally gave it credit for, and in a better world, Geena Davis would have been our generation's action star on par with Keanu.
 
There comes a time in a human's life when we realize that some of the things that we loved when we were children don't necessarily remain as relevant or as important when we mature.

Take Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I grew up with those. But my fascination peaked at the first live action movie. Ever since, it has been downhill for me. The sequel filled me with distaste. The cartoons were suddenly garbage. Nothing re-captured that feeling of childlike awe.

The same is becoming true of Star Wars. I... think I'm moving on. Even the Mandalorian was only enjoyable to me because it was imitating Westerns and Samurai Films in places. The most Star Wars-y stuff bored me (the Force, Mandalorian Mary-Sues, Evil Empire). Weird, huh? I would've puked my guts out in excitement at these things when I was younger.

I dunno. If the kids love it, that's great! That actually fills me with joy.

But when I see those videos of massive crowds of adults at a convention, waving around toy lightsabers and crying over a trailer... I cringe so damn hard it sends ripples into the past and probably explains why, as a 12 year old, I felt disappointed when I met adult Star Wars fans at a comic shop for the first time and hated the way that they smelled, talked and how condescending they were.

I mean, it's all fun and games, right? Except when it isn't. As soon as I find myself angry and disappointed with goofy science fiction movies, I realize that I've gone too far. This post, for example.

Good bye Star Wars. You were a blast for a while, but I've outgrown you. I hope many further generations of kids lap you up as I did.
 
I absolutely agree with all of that.

With one exception.

The original 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film holds up to this day as not only one of the best superhero films ever made, but one of the most perfect adaptions of a comicbook to film that is exactly as faithful as it's possible to be while changng exactly what needed to be changed to make it work in a new media. As a film, it is a wonder. And not just because it was the last film that Jim Henson ever worked on, which makes Splinter, quite literally, The Ultimate Muppet.
 
Yeah, the first TMNT movie was and is amazing. It's one where you look at all the trash that followed and wonder how it went so wrong. Though, that is also true of the comics. After about 15 in the original run it was all crap.

That said, the IDW Batman/TMNT crossover is fantastic. The first mini series anyhow. Somehow the animated version didn't do it justice.

Also, in Teen Titans Go To the Movies, the Titans decide they have to prevent all the other superheroes origins so they'll be the only superheroes left and get a movie. So they go back in time and stop the death of Batman's parents, the destruction of Krypton and so forth, including turning four turtles away from a pool of glowing ooze. There's also a crossover episode of the TV show where they discover that some sewer dwelling turtle ninjas are responsible for a world wide pizza shortage. I have a hard time liking Teen Titans Go, but every once in the while they do something funny. Perhaps the funniest being when they go back in time again to unfix all the superhero origins.
 
I don't know. I guess I just never grew up if that's what it looks like. Even the new films- while they weren't as good as I would have liked, I don't have the unabiding hate that many seem to have for them. They're movies, I enjoyed them for what they were, and the fact that they 'were'. I don't hold any of them sacrosanct- I just enjoy them, and enjoy the stimulation that they give me in my own work.
 
Yeah, the first TMNT movie was and is amazing. It's one where you look at all the trash that followed and wonder how it went so wrong.


I mean, I even look at that one and wonder how it went so right. It was the director's first film ever of only two to ever make it to theatres (the other being Coneheads), and is otherwise best known as the director of music videos for Ah-ha and ZZ Top. The main writer was a workhorse staple of awful 80s sitcoms, including Different Strokes and Small Wonder. The principal human actors were all complete unknowns (did the original April ever doing anything meaningful again?) - the closest thing to a celebrity to even touch the film was a "my career has just ended" Corey Feldman. And despite the fact that the film was clearly born from the huge runaway success - nay, cultural phenomenon - of the cartoon series, they threw all that out and just decided to mash together volume 1 and 4 of the original comics.

Everything about the making of that film was insane, by Hollywood standards. This should have been a straight to video C-movie by a failing film company best known for cheap & disposable straight-to-video imported Italian action films and slasher horror flicks.

But someonehow it all worked.
 
I absolutely agree with all of that.
For me, I've never had that. And I think I'm grateful for it. Maybe I'm just too simple, but I seem to be fine with how my childhood favourite things.

Anything that doesn't hold up I wasn't too sure about in back in the day. I recently re-watched the '85 Thundercats, still enjoy it. Yes, it's cheese, but I know it is. The more I think on it, the more I think I am just that simple an idiot.
 
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