LOL *NSFW* *The new Demote thread*

The pandemic specific thread.

I was aiming it more at me than you tbh, I have to watch my urge to send threads off on tangents

 

If the voting slip is wrinkled and has a brown smear and "smells funny" that should count towards the no decent candidates option. Nothing quite says the options are arse like..aah, well you get the idea.

 

So dark...

 

Come on, it wasn't THAT bad. Perfectly watchable nonsense. It's not as though the original trilogy films are flawless either.

 

its JJ abrams, what do you expect ? its not like he has ever shown he has much in the way of a creative mind, his biggest projects have basically been copy and paste sloppy seconds

 

I know that the most recent films are divisive. Here's my take. We needed to show that Star Wars could still be good again. We had to make up for the crappy prequel trilogy. So, The Force Awakens is a modern take A New Hope. Most of the familiar beats are there. We introduce new characters and start to take this in a new direction, but it's mostly trying to prove that we can still put that star wars "dna" into a movie, to make something that feels like a star wars film. It slips in as being a cold-reboot, proof that star wars films can at least be competent, and an okay foundation for something interesting to come next.

The Last Jedi is especially divisive, but I'm in the camp of it being particularly good. I think the people who hate it either misunderstand the force or misunderstand star wars. Here's the thing, star wars has always had this thing about "bringing balance to the force" and there have always been these guys, the Jedis, who have been hyper focused on the light side of the force, completely rejecting the dark. So what happens? We get these hyper dark enemies who rise up as a result, as the natural and expected balance to that light side of the force. So we have Luke who feels conflicted about some ethical issues about having premonitions for the future, but realizing that he'd need to do something unethical in order to prevent more evil from coming. In retrospect he sees that he helped cause the problem he was trying to prevent. Rey is grappling with both the light and dark sides of herself, perhaps moving us toward a more holistic view of the force, both dark and light existing in all of us.

And here's a big thing I think most people miss about the second movie. The main protagonist, the person with the most complete character arc in the film, is Poe Dameron. He's a cock-sure fly boy with aspirations for leadership. He's loved by his fellow pilots. He wants to be a leader, but doesn't trust his own leaders. It's his hubris, going against orders on the secret mission to the (goofy) gambling planet to try and save everyone, that actually backfires and destroys the plan for the rebels to escape in secret to the planet's surface so they can wait it out.

So Poe's screw-up is what directly leads to the battle of Crait. They put up the best fight they can, but they have no chance of winning. Poe, who at the beginning of the film went against orders and continued the bombing run, has learned an important lesson about running to fight another day and leads everyone to a safe escape. Luke helps by being a really great distraction, but ultimately the movie's hero is Poe because he's the one who grew as a character.

But then some fans back-lashed. Literally the best, most "star wars" film ever to be made got some people angry and they were outspoken about it. But it's so good from a film-theory standpoint and is relatively efficient and fleshed out for a movie with an ensemble cast. Muppet Yoda is great. The very simple filming tricks used for the Rey/Kylo force link shots are so convincing. Like, it's literally them just doing over-the-shoulder conversation shots but with Rey and Kylo Ren on two different sound stages, then they just stick them in the same shot or add some sand/props from one place to the other. There's no special effects here. It's just good camera work.

Anyway, so the fans get mad and uh-oh, we better rethink this whole star wars conclusion. A very loud minority happens to dislike it. The result is the third film, the Rise of Skywalker, which makes no sense whatsoever. The more you think about it, the less sense the movie makes. And this is the direct result of the studio caving to the criticism and writing some crappy fan service garbage. People wanted a crappy ending, apparently. They want the series to repeat itself over and over, never saying anything new. It's awful.

And there's a lot of flip-flopping between episodes 7 and 8 as well. Episode 7 uses so much film language to say that Rey is important and related to someone important, probably Luke. It's text. It's obvious, and not just a red herring either. Then Episode 8 works really hard to undo that, but without the associated film language because we don't have a film language for retconning the thing we were trying to do before, so it doesn't ever stick and it just feels like Kylo Ren trying to get under Rey's skin. But at the same time there's this idea planted that the force is for everyone, not just important bloodlines, and that message is strong and welcomed if we're ever going to progress the series beyond the characters from the original trilogy, so okay. Then the third film flops back to the original plan only it's crappy because now I have to imagine Palpatine's wrinkly eggplant getting some action and somehow that's where my suspension of disbelief ends.

Also, why do Jedi wear robes? Obi Wan wore them in the first film because he was in hiding on a desert planet and wanted to blend in. In the later films, Luke wears whatever. But then the prequels come and we get this weird thing where Obi Wan is in robes. So he escaped to Tatooine dressed as a jedi and then just stayed dressed up as a jedi but was living in hiding and nobody ever found him or suspected he was a jedi? It's so dumb.

 

Rogue One stands out for me by a mile.

Absolutely love that film.

 

Is it weird that i agree with both of you?!

 

To me TFA failed at that on every count. It's Star Wars through the lens of JJ Abrams and the guy's spectacularly lazy, he just takes what's gone before and slaps extra special effects over the top. The low point of TFA to me is when they're briefing thet attack Death Star+ and literally frame it by going this was the Death Star, here are plans of Death Star+ and it's THIS BIG. Then some random pipes up that Death Star+ has to have a weak point and on cue Princess Leia points at a spot on the hologram and This is the weak point, it's the bit we have to blow up. Abram's movies are full of this kind of thing, he needs some exposition to advance the plot, so he inserts some exposition to advance the plot. Never mind that 30 minutes earlier nobody knew Death Star+ even existed, they've got access to the plans after all, spy network something something next action sequence.

I still think TFA is the best of the three because it's a re-make of Star Wars, which is such a good film that even remaking it badly gets you something watchable. The second two don't even have that, as a result they're just relentlessly and aggressively stupid. As fashionable as it is to hate the prequels they are all much better films, even The Phantom Menace tells it's own story and sets the stage for the Emperor's power grab. They have some absolutely terrible dialogue in them, the new ones manage to match that too. It's a shame because I really liked the characters, just the script they're in is terrible.

On the subject of making Star Wars but new I think Rogue One did that as well as anyone's going to. It's got the look and the action, but also delivers a mostly coherent script too.

 

I agree with most of what you said, except that I find the prequels truly unwatchable. I've been meaning to do a fan edit to cut the trilogy down to a single 2.5hr film to try and salvage them, but every time I start in I realize just how much time I'll have to spend with them to do that and I stop.

Rogue One is a gem. No need for familiar characters. It buries the lead quite a bit and the payoff is great if you didn't read spoilers before seeing it. It takes a single line from Episode IV and expands it into a whole movie without falling into the "remember the time . . ." trap that Solo does.

Solo is problematic. I actually don't completely hate Alden Ehrenreich as Han. It's really hard to meet the bar Harrison Ford set. I don't think he does, but I'm not sure anyone could? Again, I don't hate his take.
The heist is fun and would have played better as a straight heist movie, but they didn't do it that way and it feels clumsy and overpacked. They were trying to do too much.
The movie's biggest failing is that it falls into the "remember the time . . ." trap of trying to answer every question or expand on any line given in the original trilogy. How does Han become so cynical? When did he get the Millennium Falcon? Did it used to look weirder? How did it change to look like the thing we know and love? How did Han meet Chewie? Remember the Kessel Run?
The Kessel Run is the worst part of the movie, but its presence is the most obvious since it is such a big deal in all the other movies.

Also, I love all the discussion here, even if many of us disagree. It's fun.

 

Actually, no they haven't. That was a concept from the prequel trilogy.

Which completely undermines his character arc from the original beloved trilogy.

Because Disney wanted more money and copy/pasted the threat from the original trilogy, making everyone celebrating at the end of the original trilogy look like complete buffoons

A rehash again. That was Luke's journey in the original trilogy. It was always about the transition to adulthood and the choice between pro-social and anti-social behaviour.

That leader was a total stranger to both Poe and the audience, and the film actively encouraged the audience to see her as shady, then admonished the audience for being mistrustful of her.

Did he? I thought they all would have been dead if it wasn't for Rey's deus ex machina.

Again, Poe's actions would have gotten everyone killed if it wasn't for Rey, who didn't factor in to his plan at all, and Luke's redemptive action was not showing up. How satisfying.

But then most fans back-lashed - FTFY

Many see it as the worst start wars ever made because it's the least Star Wars movie ever made - by that I mean that Star Wars has always had a classical structure, whereas this was a deconstructivist tale. Popcorn doesn't pair well with postmodernism.

It was muddled, narratively inconsistent, and spun its wheels. And the cast was the same.

Compositing with motion-tracked camera movement is a special effect.

This I agree with, apart from that people wanted a crappy ending. They actually wanted consistency, and satisfying character arcs. The Last Jedi, the middle act, derailed the trilogy by leaving it nowhere to go

Exactly, which is why it feels so disjointed and inconsistent. The writer/directors job in this context was to continue the story, not undermine it.

Nope, that's just Disney messaging in defence of the choices of The Last Jedi that you've internalised. From a lore aspect it was always that anyone could be strong in the force (If you consider the Jedi Council from the prequels - do any of them look related to each other?). The reason that the Skywalker Saga focused on the Skywalkers is because, just as in real life, genetic predisposition helps. It's much more likely that Usain Bolt's child would grow up to be a champion sprinter than Danny DeVito's

Agreed, but only because there was no way satisfactory continue from TLJ

Film language - specifically iconography.

 

To me, what saves the franchise are Clone Wars, Rebels & The Mandalorian.

 

Can we go back to politics? .... it's less controversial

My take, I wasn't happy I spent money seeing 7 and 8 in the cinema

 

You know what ruined the newer Star Wars films? The 'fans'.

The fans were entitled little shits who yelled and screamed and stamped their feet when they didn't like something. The way Kelly Marie Tran was treated by so-called 'fans' was horrific - her role in Rise of Skywalker was cut to zero because of the backlash from 'fans', and she was subjected to absolutely sickening racist and sexist abuse. There are more instances of fans being entitled little shits, but this one stands out the most to me.

I don't blame Disney any more than I do any other megacorporation: they'll do whatever makes them money, and if that involves appeasing self-entitled frothing and screaming 'fans' then you better damn well believe that they will do whatever it takes to protect that profit base.

 

Had to look that up as I didn't know about it. I can't even begin to understand how there was any issue in the first place. Genuinely confused.