TC wrote:i just started reading his TLJ review and stopped almost immediately:

I also think the people who have been harassing Kelly Marie Tran, John Boyega, Rian Johnson and other creative individuals who helped make "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" are racist, sexist and all-around deplorable human beings (and I use the term "deplorable" quite deliberately here).

oh, right - got it. if you liked TLJ, you're a racist. here's our apology movie. yes i realize that's not what he's saying, but it's clearly the implication.

No, reread that. He's addressing all the white supremacist trolls that hated and attacked TLJ because it was too progressive for them. He's trying to explain that it's possible to dislike TLJ on its own merits without being lumped in with the fascist trolls.

We actually sat down with our kids and watched 4-8 again before going to see Rise of Skywalker on opening weekend. I hadn't seen TLJ since the theater, but watching it again didn't really improve my impression much. My quick thoughts on 7-9:

The Force Awakens
OK, it's been a while and we're going to rehash some stuff to kick off the new trilogy. Nothing too original here, but it was entertaining, and I gave it a pass for the amount of cribbing they did from the old films. Decent start, now let's go somewhere interesting with this.

The Last Jedi
Some really cool stuff in here, and a lot of stupid crap. This really messed up the flow of the trilogy, and I blame Disney for not having a better plan for the whole thing as darkness pointed out. Some of the stuff I hated from this movie, just off the top of my head:
- Bombers in space. Why would you build bombers in space when there is no gravity? The first battle scene is fundamentally stupid. Bad start.
- Poe goes all Jerky Boys on General Hux. This scene is so fucking stupid and ruins the tone of the movie right off the bat. This is Star Wars, not Guardians of the Galaxy. Hux is already a ridiculously over the top character, and now we're going to put him in the middle of a dumb prank call.
- The whole central part of the movie hinges on ships trying to slowly outrun other ships until they run out of gas. Yes, it creates some tension I guess, but a slow motion car chase is a dumb plot device to build a movie around. At least The Chase gave us Henry Rollins as an awesome gung-ho cop.
- Tracking through hyperspace. Ok, you've created a new technology as a plot device, just so that you can create a side story for Finn because he needs something to do during the slow-mo car chase. Then Finn meets a maintenance girl and they somehow instantly understand this brand-new technology (wasn't Finn a sanitation worker in TFA?) and that they are only tracking them from the LEAD SHIP (why??). And off they go to:
- The casino planet. This whole part of the story is garbage and boring and everything gets undone later so it doesn't propel the story along at all. It's a lot of work to make the audience understand two things: rich people are oppressing poor people like Rose's family and there's a kid in the stables that can use the Force, implying that it's available to common people too. Cool, I like where that story idea is going and it coincides with the idea that Rey is a nobody. Great! I like those ideas, but I didn't need 20 minutes of the casino planet and the Master Codebreaker to get there.
- Cloaking the getaway ships. Have we ever seen cloaking in Star Wars before? They're just introducing new tech left and right here to solve script problems. Did they meet some Romulans somewhere? And if the First Order can scan for cloaked ships, why aren't they doing it all the time? Why wait until someone mercenary tells them to do it?
- Holdo and Poe. This conflict is dumb and generated just to give Poe some crap to do, which ultimately doesn't change anything and just wastes more time.
- Snoke gets killed before we even find out who the hell he is and how he's in charge and what he's up to.
- Luke acting out of character, which even Mark Hamill criticized. More stupid humor that falls flat like throwing the lightsaber over his shoulder. Luke Skywalker the Grouch.
- More over the top ridiculousness like a whole wall of AT-ATs blasting a way at force projection Luke for what seems like 5 minutes nonstop.
- And the force projection is another new power that seems over the top compared to what we've seen Jedi do in past movies. Another convenient creation to finish Luke's story somehow.

Stuff I liked about TLJ:
- The scenes between Rey and Kylo were quite good. Kylo didn't have as many emo toddler temper tantrums as TFA, Adam Driver was very good in this one.
- The battle scene where they kill Snoke was very cool and one of the best lightsaber battles in the series.

Rise of Skywalker
Too much plot packed into one movie, but it was a better plot. At least the side stories helped propel the main story along and weren't circular wastes of time. Really liked the continuation of the Rey/Kylo story. Agreed that some of the Emperor stuff was unnecessary and nonsensical and felt like fan service. Overall though, this felt much more like a Star Wars movie to me, and the ending was more emotionally moving than the end of TLJ.

In Empire they mention a cloaking device when the Falcon "attacks" the star destroyer and disappears. But we've never actually seen one in a film (can't speak to all the animated stuff).

The Last Jedi is just a narrative mess, full of a lot of things that make no sense, especially Poe and Luke's characters. It's almost like RJ just wanted to regress them so he could give them a character arc bringing them...right back to where they were the last time we saw them in previous films. He just never really got the characters, and the story he ultimately came up with is so boring and pointless that I was literally hoping we could go back to hearing about trade negotiations.

big d note wrote:No, reread that. He's addressing all the white supremacist trolls that hated and attacked TLJ because it was too progressive for them. He's trying to explain that it's possible to dislike TLJ on its own merits without being lumped in with the fascist trolls.

like i said, i realize that's not exactly what he said, but there are absolutely people reading it that took that away from it. which i contend was the intention.

look, we clearly saw different movies. i didn't say TLJ didn't have some nonsensical plot stuff in it. i think all three of them do. just goes to show that, as much as i didn't agree with some of his decisions, lucas clearly spent years of his life thinking about the story and trying to rid it of stuff that wouldn't make sense. at least, the original trilogy. so let's agree that they all had stupid shit happening. in that world, i personally preferred to see someone attempt to do something new. some have called it "subversive" - yes, please do subvert the shit we've seen for seven other films and do something new in this world. that's what i wanted to see. then everyone cried about that, so we got every last thing that was familiar, predictable, and comfortable. which was the opposite of what i wanted to see. i understand that's exactly what some people wanted, and good for them - they got it. it just did nothing for me but disappoint me to see what was effectively JJ playing with his "guys" on the floor. "here's luke, leia, han, wickett, ooo gotta grab lando. yeah, then i'll have chewy get captured - i remember that happened, yeah! then they'll rescue him! then at the end, everybody hugs, yeah i saw that happen too!! *smashes his guys together repeatedly*". pass. go pet the rabbits.

If you have an hour, here's a summary of the Colin Trevorrow’s original Episode IX script. I didn't hate Rise of Skywalker, but I can't deny it, this would have been a much better film. I wonder if Carrie Fisher hadn't died if we'd still have gotten this or if Disney would have gotten cold feet no matter what.
[youtube][/youtube]

that sounds infinitely better than what we got. damn.

As the last person on earth, I finally saw this today. Wow. The worst parts of this not only rivals but actually beats ep 1-3 as the absolute worst Star Wars schlock that has ever been. Did no one think any of anything in this film through, from script to execution, before it was released as a proper film?!

THANK you. thought i was the only one. it really burned me on star wars entirely. and while i haven't watched it, i hear the mandalorian's latest season, esp the finale, was super "fan service-y" and connected the two universes, and tried to further ret-con TLJ out of existence. it's so fucking irritating and has kind of ruined the entire fucking thing for me. also, i hope i never hear the term "fan service" again. hey, how about just make a good, original movie (like rian tried to do)?

It's all really confusing to me and I guess it has to do with Disney not having a clue what to do with Star Wars, other than "make more Star Wars!". It's so clear from the jump that no one at the studio or higher up had any sort of plan for the three new films. None what so ever. They are all disjointed and so clearly not made with a single vision in mind. I thought TLJ set up some interesting things, with Luke rejecting the force and all of that. But nah, that doesn't apply one single bit to TRoS. The first act is ATROCIOUS, the second act boring and the third act too much of everything.

I still dislike the 1-3 films more for obvious reasons, but at least they hade some sort of through line. Lucas knew the story he wanted to tell, even if he told in VERY badly. This time around, no one knew anything and oh boy does it show.

TC wrote: i hear the mandalorian's latest season, esp the finale, was super "fan service-y" and connected the two universes, and tried to further ret-con TLJ out of existence.

While it's definitely total fan service, I wouldn't say that it really connects to RoS or ret-cons TLJ at all. In fact it's kind of fucked up when you start to realize that baby Yoda probably winds up with his head cut off by Kylo Ren.

_Marcus_ wrote:I still dislike the 1-3 films more for obvious reasons, but at least they hade some sort of through line. Lucas knew the story he wanted to tell, even if he told in VERY badly. This time around, no one knew anything and oh boy does it show.

lucas completely ignored the fans or what anyone wanted and made what he wanted. which is really what you want an artist to do, if they're good at it. he just isn't a great storyteller. as ridiculous as that feels to say, all the things great about the 4-6 he had serious help with. 7-9, what they did know is that they were going to listen to (and react to) fans. that was the bookend. they took internet feedback and made a choose-your-own-adventure trio of films. 7 was a complete remake of 4 as an apology to fans for 1-3. great, mission accomplished. now tell a new story, make a new thing with the sandbox given you. which is what rian did in 8, and it was fantastic. taking the whole mythos out of its comfort zone, giving characters some much-needed depth, and very nicely setting up a great story for the wrap-up. but, "fans" hated it, said so online, so everything about 8 was ripped out of 9, completely re-writing what was clearly supposed to happen in order to apologize to "fans" for 8. this resulted in, again, a huge over-correction and giant mistake. they needed to make every character 2-dimensional again, throw in a bunch of wink-wink, nudge-nudge to 4-6, and make something extremely familiar, all because they listened to "fans". fucking retarded.

TC wrote:

_Marcus_ wrote:I still dislike the 1-3 films more for obvious reasons, but at least they hade some sort of through line. Lucas knew the story he wanted to tell, even if he told in VERY badly. This time around, no one knew anything and oh boy does it show.

lucas completely ignored the fans or what anyone wanted and made what he wanted. which is really what you want an artist to do, if they're good at it. he just isn't a great storyteller. as ridiculous as that feels to say, all the things great about the 4-6 he had serious help with. 7-9, what they did know is that they were going to listen to (and react to) fans. that was the bookend. they took internet feedback and made a choose-your-own-adventure trio of films. 7 was a complete remake of 4 as an apology to fans for 1-3. great, mission accomplished. now tell a new story, make a new thing with the sandbox given you. which is what rian did in 8, and it was fantastic. taking the whole mythos out of its comfort zone, giving characters some much-needed depth, and very nicely setting up a great story for the wrap-up. but, "fans" hated it, said so online, so everything about 8 was ripped out of 9, completely re-writing what was clearly supposed to happen in order to apologize to "fans" for 8. this resulted in, again, a huge over-correction and giant mistake. they needed to make every character 2-dimensional again, throw in a bunch of wink-wink, nudge-nudge to 4-6, and make something extremely familiar, all because they listened to "fans". fucking retarded.

Even though I didn't really like TLJ that much, I agree with your point completely. I tried to argue with a friend of mine a while back that Star Wars as an entity is fan-service first and story-telling second and he would have none of it. But really, that's what it is. Sure you have the expanded universe stuff and all that, but the core of the franchise is pandering to fans. Yeah, SW is certainly not alone in that for sure, but it's more blatantly obvious than most other franchices. Especially after Disney took over. I mean, Rogue One...? Fuck that was bad for all the wrong reasons. An interesting premise that failed so hard because of pandering to fans and creating 2D characters from it.

TC wrote: 7 was a complete remake of 4 as an apology to fans for 1-3. great, mission accomplished. now tell a new story, make a new thing with the sandbox given you. which is what rian did in 8, and it was fantastic. terrible.

I agree up until the fantastic part. It's like they gave the wheel to Rian and said "let's go somewhere new!" and he drove across the median into oncoming traffic, so then JJ Abrams had to grab the wheel, swerve back across the median, spin out, and slide into a ditch. Crash averted, but it wasn't a fun ride for anyone.

The Last Jedi still sucks.

TLJ is #1b in the rankings. RoS was the crash, which sounded like all the SW fanboys jizzing in their socks.

TC wrote:RoS was the crash, which sounded like all the SW fanboys jizzing in their socks.

Except I don't know any fanboys who really like the film. Or anyone period. It's the rare unifying Star Wars film that everyone appears to be unsatisfied with.

TLJ is the film the franchise needed, but not executed well. I like the idea behind it, but there's some seriously bad storytelling in it where characters do things that really make no sense.

i know plenty of fanboys who have watched it (RoS) countless times and talk about how great it is.

yes, agree on TLJ, but some of that is studio meddling in what was otherwise a great idea.

Mandalorian and Obi-Wan have their own threads, but Book Of Boba Fett doesn't so posting about it here.

this show sucks in so many ways. first of all, the tone of the show completely destroys everything that was good about the character. it's goofy, and paints him as some goofy old man. just terrible. once you accept that they are determined to ruin the character, i guess the show makes sense in that context. seriously, why do this to him? i was pretty concerned about it given the tone of his guest spots on mando, but i thought maybe we'd get some great back story on what happened before he became this soft old man. nope, just soft old man boba, who talks A LOT, which is also a problem. i won't get into the specifics of the plot lines that are also awful, and all the wedged-in toy opportunities. i'm 5 episodes into what is hopefully 7-and-done, and i'm not sure how the show could possibly pull off any kind of landing after what i've seen so far. best episode was the last one, which was essentially an episode of mando, which says something. i mean, rodriguez is in our general age bracket, so i assume he lived through all the boba hype and outrage when he was killed in such a pussy way. why make him completely counter to everything we all imagined he was? so dumb. while i don't understand a lot of the decisions made in the star wars world since 1990, this is one that is really enraging. such a great missed opportunity to flesh out a badass bounty hunter character.

watched the last two episodes last night. oh shit, timothy olyphant returns. he definitely makes anything better. good, maybe this show will save itself. NOPE, THEY KILL HIM IMMEDIATELY. and while it was neat seeing the grogu training montage - grogu makes things better as well - it fully underscored that luke is a giant fucking dick. if people love this but lost their shit at TLJ, i don't get it. there was NO REASON to make grogu choose. zero. he's a child. he could have had both and still been trained. so luke, knowing how powerful the force is in this being, is perfectly happy letting him walk away without training? fuck luke, he fucking blows. retarded.
the rancor in the city was cool (just reminded me that they had danny trejo and completely under-used him). some other cool scenes in the "big battle" (that wasn't really big). but all these episodes did was remind me of how good the mandalorian was. this show doesn't know what it wants to be, and it's being led by a character that is completely undermined from the get-go. also, i have no idea who that was in the tank at the end. were we supposed to know from that brief profile image? whatever. has this been renewed, or was it just broader context to the next mando?

I think it was just Mandalorian Season 2.5 and I don't know that there are any other plans for it.

I think it was Timothy Olyphant in the tank at the end, so he's not dead.

Yeah, I had a lot of the same complaints about it. Why did they take this character arc with Boba Fett? From badass, mysterious bounty hunter to crime lord who's really a nice, honorable guy and takes a whole town under his wing. I don't get it. The first part of the series with him living with the sand people was the best part. I guess that was the setup for how he changed and became this benevolent guardian, but I don't feel like they really made it work.

Mods were so dumb. The appearance of the rancor was awesome but then it turned into King Kong for some reason? Agreed on Luke being a total dick, I think just so Grogu would leave the Jedi and they don't have to explain why he wasn't killed by Kylo Ren. All the boring scenes of Boba Fett negotiating with the mayor's assistant and stuff really slowed down the pace. Many bad choices in this series.

oh ok re: the spoiler. that's good at least.

also, the thing that keeps bothering me are all the direct dune rip-offs, including the language. they couldn't come up with literally anything else besides spice as a resource on tatooine? lazy as fuck.