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I just now got to watch episode VII. Man, must have taken the screenwriters the better part of a weekend to write that, huh? I mean, I understand they had to pull the fan service extravaganza after the horrendous last three films but... Did they really need to remake the entire first film?
They stretched using Luke Skywalker as the MacGuffin of the film too thin for my taste.
The Kylo Ren subplot could also have used some more tlc, since that had the most potential of the entire film.

Still, nice craftsmanship and the ultimate evidence that the franchise was in dire need of leaving Lucas behind. It's a wafer thin script and still they managed to pull off a film that's a thousand times better that what Lucas did with the last three travesties.

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_Marcus_ wrote:Still, nice craftsmanship and the ultimate evidence that the franchise was in dire need of leaving Lucas behind. It's a wafer thin script and still they managed to pull off a film that's a thousand times better that what Lucas did with the last three travesties.
this x 1000. and now that this love letter is done, i assume they will move on to actually creating.

frankly, can't wait for rogue one.

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_Marcus_ wrote:Also, they had friggin' Yayan Ruhian in the film and he got almost no screentime? What the hell??
Gotta pander to the Asian market, even if it's just a cameo. At least he didn't get thrown out a window by a whiny kid and a geriatric like poor Sam Jackson.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

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Meh, enjoyable once I guess. Still suffers from a lot of the problems with Force Awakens. An over reliance on nostalgia. Rehashing the same plot elements (we've got to get that shield generator down!). Jyn wasn't developed at all as a character. No one really was but for being the lead she seemed to get shortchanged the worst. I think Star Wars has gotten all the chances it needs now. The prequels are a long distant memory now and we've all been made aware this *is* your dad's Star Wars (by which I mean most of us, even those without kids). So time to start actually making good movies that stand on their own without relying on memberberries. Do something new with the franchise please.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

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Read an interesting article on the reshoots yesterday, makes the great point (TC, you can watch the trailers now!) that almost everything in the trailers didn't end up in the movie. The dialogue from the scene with Jyn and Mon Mothma was clearly rewritten to soften up her character. There is some light character work for sure, which seems to be stock in trade for Gareth Edwards after this and Godzilla. But I liked the story, the conclusion, and several of the characters even if they're somewhat thin.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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darkness wrote:Meh
Yup, it's bad, and not in the Michael Jackson sense. See my comments on Alexhead's FB for more detail but suffice to say the visual direction was the biggest misstep and you can't blame the reshoots for that. Star Wars should not be shot in digital handheld on an 85mm lens.

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it's not by any means "bad". we left it saying it was pretty damn good. i'm still processing it, but some thoughts:
[list][*]obviously, vader was fucking awesome. if nothing else, this film served to remind us what a badass he was and why everyone feared him. i really wish they hadn't broadcast to the entire world that he was even in this. even i knew that, and i've been avoiding all trailers and mention of it since the first teaser. kind of ruined the impact of his reveal. i'm really, really sick of trailers giving away too much.
[*]speaking of trailers, now that i've seen them, almost everything in the best trailers isn't in the film. as tim said, some serious reshoots, eh?
[*]i love the idea of this film. i love that it is literally immediately preceding the events of episode IV. because of that, i feel like i wanted to love it more than i initially did. it had all the good will going in for sure.
[*]some nice easter eggs/call backs for fans all over this. my favorite being the mention of the journal of the whills.
[*]my first reaction to the first teaser was that it looked like a WW2 film in the SW universe. i really wish that's what they gave us. it was just too polished looking. i needed it to be more gritty, and i don't mean the plot. i mean really, does it get any "darker"? everyone in it dies. but i needed it to be a more dirty film, more filthy (not in a sexual way). it was just too clean. it was like listening to an album where the producer clearly is a fan of the "loudness wars". everything was kind of same-y. one scene is a desert planet, the other is a beachhead, and they look the same? silly. needed some saving private ryan happening here.
[*]the blind jedi and the reprogrammed imperial droid were the highlights, by far. they were both fucking great characters.
[*]i have to say it - the scenes with "peter cushing" were distracting as hell. completely took me out of it. the guy has been dead ages, i don't need this already-polished looking movie to drop what looks like video game cut scenes in the middle of it several times to remind me how fake it is. why would they shoehorn these scenes in? i mean, i don't see how you do this film without tarkin, i get it, but shoot him from a distance, from behind, in a dimly-lit room, etc., if the tech isn't there yet for close-ups, which it clearly isn't. they really forced it. leia at the end was bad as well, but at least it really seemed like her face saying those words dropped on someone else (pretty sure i even saw artifacting on the chin) and she was only on for a sec. the tarkin scenes over and over were just bad. not close to passing the turing test. yes, they've come very far, but not far enough for that. it wasn't as bad as jeff bridges in the latest tron film, where they tried to make him 20 again, but it wasn't good. i mean, they have all the money in the world and they couldn't find an actor with the same general build and put all kinds of makeup/masks on him to do this? would have been exponentially more successful.[/list]
that last point got me thinking - ep V, my fav of the series, probably completely falls apart if you don't buy yoda 100%. i mean really, they put all their eggs in the yoda basket. if you think yoda is silly and goofy, fake & distracting, whatever, the film probably becomes just plain silly. when i saw it, i was 11 and loved it completely. so you know what? i need to come to the realization that these films probably aren't for me anymore. i'm not their target audience. and when they do try to humor me by putting in things that would be familiar, you get the take mike has above - resistance to nostalgia. so given this viewpoint, i think the film was largely successful in what they set out to do. you can't pick this apart - it's really a space opera, and just like soap operas, has some pretty ridiculous stuff in it. in that context, it leaps ahead of any of the prequels in the "good SW films" list for me for sure. i feel like i need to see this several more times to validate my thoughts, but these are my initial thoughts. i should add, i do want to see it several more times, so there's that.

question on mike's take - given that the point of this film is that it ties directly in with ep IV, wouldn't it be impossible to avoid "rehashing some of the same plot elements"? i mean, obviously there is a death star being built, etc. we feel like we've seen this before because we have, in ep IV. the "planet killer" weapon of TFA is far less forgivable as that movie has the opportunity to break new ground. right?

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TC wrote:question on mike's take - given that the point of this film is that it ties directly in with ep IV, wouldn't it be impossible to avoid "rehashing some of the same plot elements"? i mean, obviously there is a death star being built, etc. [/spoiler]
Which pretty much goes to my point. They chose to make a film that tells a story relying on things we're all familiar with. The fact they needed zombie Tarkin to make the film even work is evidence. Was there anyone out there dying to hear about the bureaucratic infighting amongst Imperial officials in getting the death star operational? How about telling some stories that aren't covered more or less in the original trilogy, and more importantly, coming up with new plot elements. It's not just throwing in things from the past, it's relying on the exact same plot elements as previous films (we've got to get that shield generator down! Here's the wise old mystic force user who will martyr himself to the cause!). I agree fully that if they had made this a gritty WW2 film in the Star Wars universe it probably could have been really good. But that's not what we got.
No one seems to be mentioning the lack of characterization in here. Saw Gerrera and Chirrut Îmwe are about the only two that really have any thing to them. Everyone else are underdeveloped characters who could be interchanged and no one would notice. Jyn gets the worst end of the stick. Aside from the fact the character is needed for the tie to her father, I challenge anyone to give me anything about her. They give a hint like she might be a badass rogue criminal in the first scene, then completely for get that for the rest of the film.
On your Yoda point, I actually think as an adult that puppet Yoda holds up pretty well. Cgi Yoda not as much. But Yoda is an alien and easier to get away with than trying to re-create living real humans.
I will give you Vader though. His voice doesn't sound right, but his final scene was the main redeeming thing of the whole film. It's good to see him back to not being a whiny little bitch finally. Maybe we need a solo Vader movie where he goes around being badass for 90 minutes. I think we found Tarantino's final project.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

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darkness wrote:I will give you Vader though. His voice doesn't sound right, but his final scene was the main redeeming thing of the whole film. It's good to see him back to not being a whiny little bitch finally. Maybe we need a solo Vader movie where he goes around being badass for 90 minutes. I think we found Tarantino's final project.
Well, JEJ is 85 years old, so I was willing to overlook him not sounding the way he did 40 years ago. My biggest issue? Vader looked, well, tubby.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

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O-dot wrote:Well, JEJ is 85 years old, so I was willing to overlook him not sounding the way he did 40 years ago. My biggest issue? Vader looked, well, tubby.
He sounded right in Revenge of the Sith and that was only ten years ago. I think they were trying to match the look of Vader from that opening scene of New Hope. He looks a bit bulky there too.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

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O-dot wrote:Maybe he won't seem so chunky on a smaller screen.
Naw, I watched it on a small screen Saturday before seeing it in the theater. He looked a bit beefy both times. It really is the suit. Plus you still have scrawny Hayden Christensen in your head from the last time you saw Vader.
Just cut them up like regular chickens