STAR WARS: Convoluted Cash- Cow Disney Adventure Series That Will Never End Thread

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

1 hour ago, rocknroll41 said:

Yeah I agree that introducing new force powers and the “expansion” of the force is ultimately a good thing that shouldn’t be criticized as much as it is cause, like you said, the great ESB would technically be a “bad” movie when going by those parameters. I loved how TRoS expanded the force as much as possible. It was their last chance to introduce new force abilities to the Skywalkers, so might as well go all-out with it!

There's a gulf between a guy training to be a Jedi (albeit early in the process) force-grabbing a lightsaber and people being brought back to life and force-ghosts affecting the physical world, I would humbly claim. Also bad was the suicide dive through a ship in TLJ. Why not just do that to the Death Stars?! 

[Jw224]

2 hours ago, downzy said:

Nearly every Star Wars film has introduced new jedi/sith ghost powers.  Almost none of it makes sense.  To beat up on Rey is to excuse how Luke is able to call for his lightsaber in Empire without ever having seen or been taught how to do it.  How would he even known?  

You're speaking as though there are hard and fast rules, and that other entries in the saga haven't rendered other parts senseless.  

As for Rey having the ability to heal (I don't recall her bringing people back to life, only Ben does that), they provided an explanation in the movie with her studying of the sacred texts.  You can accept that explanation or not, but it's not as though there wasn't rationale provided.  

  

 

 

Fans very much seem to have a holy Bible of sorts that they follow and anything that changes anything is instantly bad. Whilst I have a lot of problems with TROS in general from a story and written writing perspective, new force powers was not one of them. I thought the fight between Rey and Kylo was one of the coolest parts in the film. I don't have a problem with new things being introduced. It seems some fans just want the OT over and over again and I don't understand it. 

[rocknroll41]

59 minutes ago, Basic_GnR_Fan said:

There's a gulf between a guy training to be a Jedi (albeit early in the process) force-grabbing a lightsaber and people being brought back to life and force-ghosts affecting the physical world, I would humbly claim. Also bad was the suicide dive through a ship in TLJ. Why not just do that to the Death Stars?! 

Those are fair points, yeah. However, with the Holdo thing in particular, there’s an offhand comment from Poe in this new film that explains that what she was able to do was “a one in a million shot.”

[Jw224]

1 minute ago, rocknroll41 said:

Those are fair points, yeah. However, with the Holdo thing in particular, there’s an offhand comment from Poe in this new film that explains that what she was able to do was “a one in a million shot.”

That's not good enough, I bet. 

[rocknroll41]

9 minutes ago, Jw224 said:

That's not good enough, I bet. 

Probably not, but it’s something, I guess! 

[Basic_GnR_Fan]

47 minutes ago, rocknroll41 said:

Those are fair points, yeah. However, with the Holdo thing in particular, there’s an offhand comment from Poe in this new film that explains that what she was able to do was “a one in a million shot.”

Wasn't Luke hitting the missiles into the exhaust port also a one in a million shot! I would think hyperdriving kamikaze pilots may have been a better option, they could have even been piloted by drones!

[Georgy Zhukov]

I just watched it. I enjoyed it. The plot was wonky, they couldn't ignore everything from The Last Jedi since Luke is dead, but it was fine. 

[PatrickS77]

5 hours ago, downzy said:

I'd like to agree with you, but I think most of the criticisms of Star Wars are not entirely objective and comes from strange place that needs to disparage some aspects or elements in order to defend the value of other aspects.  

As I said in my previous post, most people who were around when the OT came out or watched them in the 80s when they were kids are different people now.  They use different rules and standards to evaluate the new films that aren't applied to the old films. 

The older I get and the more distance I put between the OT and my youth the more I see them for what they were: visually stunning films that were way ahead of their time from a technical standpoint, but still fairly flawed films with respect to storytelling, dialogue, acting, editing, etc.  I think it's harder for 30 and 40 year olds to see the new films through the same perspectives they had as kids.  Hence any new Star Wars films are going to be ripped to shreds since they're comparing nostalgia and memories of their youth to new entries that don't benefit from the same childlike perspective.  

I read someone say that those who want to shit on the new trilogy are likely the same people who can't acknowledge that old films aren't all that great, so they project their frustrations onto the new films.  I think there's an element of truth to that.  

No. It's total bs. Sorry. Even if back then those movies were judged differently, due to most of us being kids then, we still see them with grown up eyes now and thus we acknowledge that these movies are not as great as we once thought when we were kids. But still, none of those were as bad in storytelling and disrespecting the lore as these new ones are. And really, we are 40 years removed. Everything has evolved. Star Wars now is a multi-billion dollar business, instead of a quasi independent filmaker, who wasn't sure how many movies he couldm actually make. Now they can get the best people in the world and do whatever und hey want, without any financial limitation. Why can't the story telling and movie making evolve too, to be of higher quality in certain aspects than the OT? Instead they delivered poorly thought out, bad sorytelling, SW lore disrespecting shit. There are tons of stories in the (discarded) SW universe. Some great, some bad, some horrible, but most of them better than what they came up with. They could have picked out the absoutely best material and delivered amazing movies, but sadly they didn't qnd majorily dropped the ball with the disjointed mess they put out. 

[downzy]

1 hour ago, PatrickS77 said:

we still see them with grown up eyes now and thus we acknowledge that these movies are not as great as we once thought when we were kids.

Really?  Have you been reading along to what others have said?  Some claim that the dialogue in A New Hope is iconic; that the lightsaber battle between the Vader and Obi Wan is brilliant. 

1 hour ago, PatrickS77 said:

none of those were as bad in storytelling and disrespecting the lore as these new ones are

What lore?  There is no lore in the OT.  It was being made up as they went along.  

1 hour ago, PatrickS77 said:

Star Wars now is a multi-billion dollar business, instead of a quasi independent filmaker, who wasn't sure how many movies he couldm actually make.

That maybe true for A New Hope, but that certainly isn't an accurate description of the franchise afterward.

1 hour ago, PatrickS77 said:

Now they can get the best people in the world and do whatever und hey want, without any financial limitation. Why can't the story telling and movie making evolve too, to be of higher quality in certain aspects than the OT? Instead they delivered poorly thought out, bad sorytelling, SW lore disrespecting shit.

So your issue is that because the ST isn't an evolution in storytelling, and in some respects as bad or worse than the OT, that they shouldn't have bothered.  Okay...

But understand those are personal assessments.  Many have enjoyed the films in their own right and can be evaluated as such.  

1 hour ago, PatrickS77 said:

They could have picked out the absoutely best material and delivered amazing movies, but sadly they didn't qnd majorily dropped the ball with the disjointed mess they put out. 

Maybe you're right.  Maybe there were better stories out there.  But would many of those stories work with the constraints that the current filmmakers had before them?  As I understand it, much of the EU involves Luke, Leia, and Han soon after ROTJ.  Problem is we have actors who are almost 40 years older than when the OT wrapped up.  After seeing the last film I kind of wish they could have started with Luke and Ben searching for the Sith and going from there.  But that likely wouldn't have fit into the timeline considering the age of the OT actors.  

I don't think anyone here is going to argue that the ST is cinema/pulp perfection.  They're flawed films that could have been better.  But really, if you look back at the nine movies (not including the two stand-alone films), very few actually live up to the expectations and standards that the vision and world Lucas created demands.  It's an amazing universe but one that has resulted in mostly less than stellar narratives.  It also benefited from technical achievements never seen before at the time of their release.  That papers over a lot of shit. 

[DieselDaisy]

17 hours ago, downzy said:

I do agree with the pacing of RS.  But I think that's more of a product of TLJ doing very little to move the story along and leaving a lot for the final movie to get through.  When most of TLJ is taken up by a 40 mile an hour car chase, it doesn't leave for a lot else.

For me the scavenger hunt was more fun than problematic.  Actually felt a bit like an Indiana Jones film in that respect.  I'm not sure I agree that it means it was all pulled out of their ass.  They wanted to bring back Palpatine as the vehicle to explain both Rey and Snoke. They needed a way for the principal characters to find him.  Hence a scavenger hunt that was based on the previous investigation by Luke.  I don't see the problem and serves the overall story well.  

In any event, it sounds now like you're saying that your previous issues aren't plot holes per se, you just don't find the explanations satisfying.  That's fair.  

The theory of a conflict between Rian Johnson's and Abrams vision, by which there was no overriding idea of where these films would end up and the two different directors were basically eradicating each other's work film-by-film before our very eyes, is prevalent. Most negative reviews on the internet - and there are a lot of negative reviews, more so than positive I'd hasten to bet - subscribe to it. If you don't that is fair enough but I suppose we'll hear a lot more on the making of these films as time goes by.

17 hours ago, downzy said:

What I think is also fair is that most of us saw the OT when we were children.  There's an advantage to seeing these films from a less cynical and discerning eye that's no longer with us when we get to our 30s and 40s.  

We'll give passes to poor execution or questionable narrative decisions to films that meant a lot to us when we were kids.  That's the power of nostalgia.  I'm not saying that it's impossible to objectively evaluate a film franchise like Star Wars or that you're not wrong in your judgements.  But let's be realistic about who we are and were when we consumed these kinds of films.  I have friends with kids who are the same age as I was when I first saw the OT.  They have all loved each of the ST instalments, particularly this last one.  Perhaps with time they'll see things differently.  Or perhaps they'll grow up and defend the new trilogy for their own personal reasons and the connection they have to their youth.  Who knows.

Can you not countenance the fact that some people are merely looking at these Disney films and seeing a massive regression from the original trilogy? It is that simple. I am not necessarily more ''nostalgic'' for the original trilogy than I would be for any other film I watched at an earlier age - I was more a Trekkie pertaining to sci-fi, and if there is a genre I grew up with, it would be kung fu films. Do you believe your idea about ''nostalgia'' also holds true for Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skulls, a film that descends into CGI  slapstick Tarzan; I earnestly don't believe everyone who rightly decided that film was dreary was stuck in some sort of nostalgic haze? How about the truly abysmal Ghostbusters remake (which I just recently watched and consider one of the worst films ever made incidentally)? How about all of those terrible Terminator and Aliens sequels?

We'll have to disagree about the New Hope lightsaber sequence. It is pulp, Ben Kenobi as the Taoist wizard v this machine like representation of evil. In the prequels, you had your Jedi on steroids, flipping around and jumping; there is one scene where there are millions of Jedi fighting in an amphitheater. You had a little CGI green ball Yoda fighting with Christopher Lee. Were any of these lightsaber sequences as good as New Hope's? The only prequel lightsaber sequence that is memorable, and indeed the only scene in the entire trilogy that is memorable, is Darth Maul's and that is actually the most grounded of the lot, based on real martial arts. (The explanation for the difference between prequel and sequel action is of course provided by the fact that you are witnessing an elderly old man fighting a robot - and with Luke thrown in, an apprentice - and not the Jedi in their heyday.)

PS

You keep reiterating how flawed the original trilogy is, yet this is still subjective. The three films regularly turn up near the top in greatest 100s, more so fan derived greatest 100s. How many of Disney's will be on those list? At least one of the films is perfection, whilst the original is regarded as a classic. I personally would give the first chapters 5/5 and Jedi 4/5. As a trilogy it is probably tighter than Indian Jones - although maybe not Back to the Future. I do not perceive the original trilogy to be this flawed creature like you do. Even if we are immensely critical, deriding the shortcomings of Hamill and Fisher's youthful performances, we are still left with one masterwork, a naive fairy-tale classic which started the whole thing, and a denouement which would have been as good as Empire if not for a bunch of excitable teddy bears. Not one of those Disney films is near Empire. Even accepting the criticisms at their worst, it is still a loftier achievement than Disney's. 

Edited December 28, 2019 by DieselDaisy

[DieselDaisy]

16 hours ago, rocknroll41 said:

I agree that the Indiana Jones-style treasure hunt was great! That’s actually what the plot of TFA was originally supposed to be like, if the concept art from that film is anything to go by. I remember people were pissed when they saw that plot got discarded from that film, but are now equally upset for its inclusion in this film. Just goes to show that any decision made in this whole trilogy was never going to please everyone, cause the Skywalker saga just means different things to different people. Now that the Skywalker story is over, though, I don’t think they’ll have that problem (as much) going forward.

The thing, that gets the thing, that gets the thing, that gets the thing, Macguffin heaped on MacGuffin.

If my memory serves: a Sith compass to discover a Sith pathfinder (green trianglular thing) or some bollocks which has the clue to a hidden Sith planet. It turns out Palpatine had one of these pathfinders in his throne room the whole time - who'd have thought, ehh? And Rey cures some big snake thing along the way. Also, she mistakenly believed Chewie is on that transport ship that she tried to keep up through Force projection, yet knew, and was correct in that assumption, that Chewie was on that Star Destroyer later on!!

Very lazy storytelling. The editing is also horrendous. Scene piled onto scene. It is very hard to keep track of the action. 

[Jw224]

Why are fans constantly trying to make excuses for the state of TROS by saying it's because of what happened in TLJ? Abrams could have easily made a good film leading off of TLJ. Instead he decided to pander and we got a movie, that, whilst has great moments sprinkled throughout, is mediocre. Abrams only had to explain things because he created that situation by randomly inserting plot points and expecting everyone to just go along with it. 

[appetite4illusions]

17 hours ago, downzy said:

Nearly every Star Wars film has introduced new jedi/sith ghost powers.  Almost none of it makes sense.  To beat up on Rey is to excuse how Luke is able to call for his lightsaber in Empire without ever having seen or been taught how to do it.  How would he even known?  

You're speaking as though there are hard and fast rules, and that other entries in the saga haven't rendered other parts senseless.  

 

 

Honestly, every episode has done more to play fast and loose with the rules of the force - to the extent that the "advantages" Jedi's have now are becoming detrimental to the plot.

We can go back all the way to A New Hope where Obi-Wan advises Luke that a Jedi never uses the force for attack - yeah....because they didn't have CGI and couldn't make things float. Now, we're mightily upset if a new movie doesn't have razzle-dazzle force ballet fighting. Things floating. Lightning. You get the idea.

In Empire, Obi-Wan advises Luke that if he chooses to fight Vader, there will be no spiritual assistance on his part - that he can't interfere - that force ghosts simply can't aid in a battle. At the end of Rise of Skywalker, EVERY Jedi is assisting Rey in the battle against the Emporer....that would have been nice if they had made that concession for Luke, when he needed to save the Galaxy...

Finally...when you give your character the power to overcome death, to heal people - to cheat the finality of it - you've essentially made them a god. I don't know if only Rey and Palpatine have the power to "heal," but it bodes very poorly for future films because there is the precedent of no finality now. We've seen the Jesus hat trick pulled several times, so death means next to nothing if there is a powerful character enough around. How do you back-pedal from that? 

[RussTCB]

4 hours ago, Jw224 said:

Why are fans constantly trying to make excuses for the state of TROS by saying it's because of what happened in TLJ? Abrams could have easily made a good film leading off of TLJ. Instead he decided to pander and we got a movie, that, whilst has great moments sprinkled throughout, is mediocre. Abrams only had to explain things because he created that situation by randomly inserting plot points and expecting everyone to just go along with it. 

I've been saying that, but not as an excuse. That's exactly what I wanted him to do, and I'm very happy with the results. 

I don't disagree that he could have gone another route and built off of TLJ but personally, I'm really glad he went the way he did. 

[ZoSoRose]

TLJ is definitely my preference over this one

[DieselDaisy]

I re-watched The Last Jedi, and truthfully it is a mess but at least it prods Star Wars in some new and interesting directions such as an egalitarian Force, and Luke's volte-face - also the setting up of Kylo Ren as a sort of post-Sith bad guy. Whether you agree with those directions or not - Luke's was the most controversial - they were at least new, as opposed to Abrams' vision which solely consisted of replicating ideas from the original trilogy. There were even some arty moments here and there, involving those Force dream sequences with Rey.

But outside that stuff, yes, it is a mess. There is this entire Macguffin section involving a casino and digital camels which destroys the middle section; it is prequel territory at its worst.

Edited December 28, 2019 by DieselDaisy

[rocknroll41]

Why is it that every time a new starwars movie comes out, it turns everyone into apologists for the last movie? This has been happening since 1983. Hopefully the end of the Skywalker saga also means the end of this very strange pattern.

[ZoSoRose]

5 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

I re-watched The Last Jedi, and truthfully it is a mess but at least it prods Star Wars in some new and interesting directions such as an egalitarian Force, and Luke's volte-face - also the setting up of Kylo Ren as a sort of post-Sith bad guy. Whether you agree with those directions or not - Luke's was the most controversial - they were at least new, as opposed to Abrams' vision which solely consisted of replicating ideas from the original trilogy. There were even some arty moments here and there, involving those Force dream sequences with Rey.

But outside that stuff, yes, it is a mess. There is this entire Macguffin section involving a casino and digital camels which destroys the middle section; it is prequel territory at its worst.

Its one of my favorite SW movies but as I have said, I agree it is a mess with a lot of lows. I appreciated how it was weird and different though. Even watching it, it doesnt completely feel like you are watching a SW movie but instead a Rian Johnson movie in the same universe. I like that about it

TRoS is also a mess, but its more convoluted and safe. It tries to appeal to more people and comes off as rushed. JJ sucks at letting things have space. For example, we get the biggest fleet ever seen in universe for his final battle, and instead most of the fight is off screen except a few seconds. What the hell is that? 

 

3 minutes ago, rocknroll41 said:

Why is it that every time a new starwars movie comes out, it turns everyone into apologists for the last movie? This has been happening since 1983. Hopefully the end of the Skywalker saga also means the end of this very strange pattern.

Ive liked TLJ since day 1

[rocknroll41]

2 minutes ago, ZoSoRose said:

Its one of my favorite SW movies but as I have said, I agree it is a mess with a lot of lows. I appreciated how it was weird and different though. Even watching it, it doesnt completely feel like you are watching a SW movie but instead a Rian Johnson movie in the same universe. I like that about it

TRoS is also a mess, but its more convoluted and safe. It tries to appeal to more people and comes off as rushed. JJ sucks at letting things have space. For example, we get the biggest fleet ever seen in universe for his final battle, and instead most of the fight is off screen except a few seconds. What the hell is that? 

 

Ive liked TLJ since day 1

I wasn’t referring to you specifically. Just people in general.

[DieselDaisy]

I am not making apologies for the last film. I think The Last Jedi is terrible, but it is ''original'' terrible as opposed to ''lazy remake'' terrible. I have not changed my opinion about this Disney trilogy, that all three movies are terrible. In a way I actually think the first one was the most annoying as it was such a cynical audience box-ticking exercise in recycling. I nearly walked out of the theatre during The Force Awakens, and that is the one that is most highly regarded!

[Jw224]

14 minutes ago, rocknroll41 said:

Why is it that every time a new starwars movie comes out, it turns everyone into apologists for the last movie? This has been happening since 1983. Hopefully the end of the Skywalker saga also means the end of this very strange pattern.

 

 

12 minutes ago, ZoSoRose said:

Its one of my favorite SW movies but as I have said, I agree it is a mess with a lot of lows. I appreciated how it was weird and different though. Even watching it, it doesnt completely feel like you are watching a SW movie but instead a Rian Johnson movie in the same universe. I like that about it

TRoS is also a mess, but its more convoluted and safe. It tries to appeal to more people and comes off as rushed. JJ sucks at letting things have space. For example, we get the biggest fleet ever seen in universe for his final battle, and instead most of the fight is off screen except a few seconds. What the hell is that? 

 

Ive liked TLJ since day 1

Yeah, I've also enjoyed TLJ since I first saw it. 

[Dazey]

Found a decent quality torrent of this so watched* it again last night. Actually enjoyed it rather more in this setting and while it's by no means a good movie I was able to appreciate some of the positive elements vs my initial viewing.

 

 

 

*skipped through all the best scenes and skipped the rest.  

[DieselDaisy]

3 hours ago, Dazey said:

Found a decent quality torrent of this so watched* it again last night. Actually enjoyed it rather more in this setting and while it's by no means a good movie I was able to appreciate some of the positive elements vs my initial viewing.

 

 

 

*skipped through all the best scenes and skipped the rest.  

I prefer your earlier review. ''Arse gravey''. 

[Dazey]

5 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

I prefer your earlier review. ''Arse gravey''. 

Oh, it’s a still absolute Bum Bisto but I was at least able to see some isolated scenes I liked.  

[DieselDaisy]

4 minutes ago, Dazey said:

Oh, it’s a still absolute Bum Bisto but I was at least able to see some isolated scenes I liked.  

The torrent I watched wasn't American. I knew this because nobody indulged in the curious American past time of cheering when the film started (the crawl being also in Spanish helped).