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Other Stuff => General Wargames and Hobby Discussion => Topic started by: nic-e on December 16, 2017, 09:05:17 PM

Title: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: nic-e on December 16, 2017, 09:05:17 PM
Right, I've seen it and I'm sure a bunch of you have!

So let's have a nice space to discuss the movie, our thoughts and opinions of it.

I'm flagging this thread as having spoilers.


Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Gibby on December 17, 2017, 12:31:28 AM
Mostly enjoyed it but I don't like what they have done with Luke's character. No wonder Mark wasn't happy.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: OSHIROmodels on December 17, 2017, 01:48:51 AM
Bit shit really.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Colonel Tubby on December 17, 2017, 09:13:23 AM
Film of troughs and peaks!

Started poorly, got better and then tailed off again!

Really it was mainly just Empire made in reverse and at some points I thought I was watching Battlestar Galatica!

Still it was better than Episode VII but not as good as Rogue One!
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Dr. The Viking on December 17, 2017, 09:25:28 AM
I think it was not very star wars.

My main gripes would be:

1) the whole plot about hyper speed tracking.  That was simply not good.  No matter the franchise, that was just bad writing in my opinion.

2) Leia flying through space... totally off.  I really liked it until she wasn't dead.  Would have been the perfect ending and set up a division in Kylie.

3) Snoke, Phasma... why?

4) prequel casino planet

... And I could go on and on... but I am arriving at the point where I think I simply only like the original trilogy and that the scope for star wars is not very broad in my eyes

I did like some of the film.  Just to not sound exclusively negative.  I didn't mind the humour - that was ok. 
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: beefcake on December 17, 2017, 09:32:39 AM
Mixed feelings from me, struggling with my inner dark and light ;)

Nice fight scenes. Disappointed that Luke never left that island.

I left with a feeling of enjoyment from the film, but the more I think about it the less happy I am with it. Still, Number 5 was my least favourite of the originals as it was really just a bridging movie, hopefully this is the same, setting the scene for an awesome finale.

Bring on the Han Solo story now.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Dr. The Viking on December 17, 2017, 09:42:33 AM


Bring on the Han Solo story now.

This is where I am really concerned... Rian Johnson has been given the keys to the franchise on the basis of The Last Jedi.

That must mean we'll get more of the same ilk I  the future...
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Agis on December 17, 2017, 11:05:17 AM
Still it was better than Episode VII but not as good as Rogue One!

That sums it up for me pretty well.

I liked it, but IMO the best SW movies are V and Rogue One.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Agis on December 17, 2017, 11:08:39 AM
1) the whole plot about hyper speed tracking.  That was simply not good.  No matter the franchise, that was just bad writing in my opinion.
2) Leia flying through space... totally off.  I really liked it until she wasn't dead.  Would have been the perfect ending and set up a division in Kylie.
3) Snoke, Phasma... why?
4) prequel casino planet
1 - totally agree, I never understood why the 1st order was not sending some Stardestroyers via hyperspace ahead of the slow moving rebel fleet...
2 - was OK with me, we all seem have our problems when force users show new abilities. I still remember the discussion about Obi Wan jumping around in Ep I.
;)

3 - agreed, they get a bit easy of the hook. Especially Phasma was a wasted opportunity.
4 - Oh my, bad indeed.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Agis on December 17, 2017, 11:09:32 AM
Nice fight scenes. Disappointed that Luke never left that island.

Strange, that was perfect solution for Luke's story IMO!
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: ichwillauch on December 17, 2017, 11:16:01 AM
I have watched the movie yesterday. As mentioned earlier Leia in space like supergirl was not the best idea... but it was better than Star Wars VII
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: nic-e on December 17, 2017, 12:50:53 PM
I started thinking "ooo this is a bit shaky."
It got better, But throughout the whole thing i had this constant feelign tnat nothing really felt well put together.

Lots of chopping between sub plots , often for only a few seconds at a time. focusing on weird things that had no pay off (liek the children at the end, or the guardians.)
yoda was...odd. Not bad, but it felt like a fan tribute rather than a good scene.

Everything felt very disjointed. The get the hacker plot went nowhere (for now?)  and felt more like some of the pages of rogue one got mixed into this film.

It wasn't BAD, but it didn't quite feel great.

My main gripe is with the visual design.
Obviously a good sequel has to build on the original and not wallow in it, and I appluad the film for trying new things, But alot of the visuals felt very UN star wars. Snokes red LED room , the royal guard with their 3d printed armour, The sleek first order droids in the background.
It was all clearly star wars inspired, but somehow these little things toom me out of the movie, they didn't feel like they meshed very well with the universe they existed in.

it all just felt like lots of choppy little scenes to get us to the next movie . Not really sure what they're doing with rey and ren. I liked the bit about reys parents and the flashbacks to luke as a jedi master trying to train ren.

Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Elbows on December 17, 2017, 01:21:30 PM
Saw it the other day with the family.

Not a fan.  The biggest issue was that it felt disjointed, with very mashed together scenes which broke my immersion in the theatre.  I always feel a good movie generally hooks you from start to finish and you don't remember you're sitting in a theatre.  When you have time to look around the theatre or think too much about how bad a scene was, it breaks that immersion.

My biggest issue (nearly start to finish) was the overwhelming amount of comic relief.  Killed any genuine feel for the movie.  I felt like I was watching an Avengers/Iron Man movie, and to me that felt out of place in Star Wars.  A couple sarcastic jabs and one-liners would have been okay, but it was constant cheap gimmicky laughs.  It also gutted the opening scene with the high-school level phone prank, etc.

I'd rate it beneath Force Awakens and I didn't even like that much.  Overall, really disappointed.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: nic-e on December 17, 2017, 03:22:22 PM
Saw it the other day with the family.

Not a fan.  The biggest issue was that it felt disjointed, with very mashed together scenes which broke my immersion in the theatre.  I always feel a good movie generally hooks you from start to finish and you don't remember you're sitting in a theatre.  When you have time to look around the theatre or think too much about how bad a scene was, it breaks that immersion.

My biggest issue (nearly start to finish) was the overwhelming amount of comic relief.  Killed any genuine feel for the movie.  I felt like I was watching an Avengers/Iron Man movie, and to me that felt out of place in Star Wars.  A couple sarcastic jabs and one-liners would have been okay, but it was constant cheap gimmicky laughs.  It also gutted the opening scene with the high-school level phone prank, etc.

I'd rate it beneath Force Awakens and I didn't even like that much.  Overall, really disappointed.

Agreed, the humour just took me right out of it. It works in marvel because marvel is aboutlarger than life individuals battling ridiculous monsters for the sake of the multiverse.It's so over the top that you can afford to not take it seriously. Star wars wants to have it's cake and eat it by having a grim tale of resistance and hope whilst also having characters make little jabs at each other for teh lulz.

Humour is fine. I liked the interactions between leia and poe, and lukes grumpy old man face.

I also think that the original star wars movies, whilst wonderful fun, are not complex.
kid fights evil.there's twists and turns, cool set pieces and wonderful tone, but the STORY is very basic.
this felt BLOATED as it tried to cram in everything but failed to pull it off.

I wasn't bored but i wasn't thrilled.



Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Comsquare on December 17, 2017, 04:25:40 PM
Saw it in the night of wednesday to thursday and have to say I enjoyed it, mostly  ;)

The only thing I realy didn't needed in the whole move was the "Leia in space" part.
I realy liked the way they handled Luke, and the part where the Rebelship jumped through the First Order fleet was realy nice  :)

As resume, like a few other allready said, better than Episode 7 but not as good as Rogue One.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: nic-e on December 17, 2017, 04:26:30 PM
Right.
I've not seen Last Jedi yet, and 'yes', I know this thread contains spoilers.
But that sort of thing has never bothered me.

It's the Leia flying thing.
Are you telling me that at some point in the film that she flies in space unaided?
Have I got that right?
Because if that is so then I think that could just be the moment that Star Wars jumps the shark (yeah, I know that sounds a bit rich).
I will have to see it for myself before coming to that conclusion but it just doesn't bode well.

Oh tell me it isn't so...



It certainly pulled me out of the film.

Basically...she gets blown out of the ship after the bridge get's blown up. She's floating in space, near dead and unconcious.The force then saves her. We aren't sure if luke does it from his island, or if it's her latent force powers acting while she's unconscious, But she wakes up and flies through the void back to her ship, wakes up, gets into the ship, then collapses.

It looks super weird and if they'd just left her dead then i'd have thought it was a dramatic ending for her character, But instead she's still alive at the end.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: beefcake on December 17, 2017, 06:13:38 PM
I also agree on the humour. While it was funny, it did not really match a star wars film. Comedy for comedy sake. Not people in the film making a joke. Poe's thing at the start, while giggle worthy was not really necessary. Wasting time for his fighter to power up? Surely that would have been done earlier instead of in front of a dreadnought.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: nic-e on December 17, 2017, 07:12:27 PM
I also agree on the humour. While it was funny, it did not really match a star wars film. Comedy for comedy sake. Not people in the film making a joke. Poe's thing at the start, while giggle worthy was not really necessary. Wasting time for his fighter to power up? Surely that would have been done earlier instead of in front of a dreadnought.

Also why stall by pissing people off. surely offering false terms of surrender or is better?

And those bombers moving SUPER SLOWLY THROUGH SPACE....And leia was SURPRISED that they got killed?
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: rumacara on December 17, 2017, 08:05:00 PM
Well...Huumm... Ahem...
Honestly i dont know what to say.
I´m a fan of Star Wars but after episode VII i really didnt expect much on this film.
Not disapointed and i will always see the movies because theres always usefull stuff on them.
I gess with Rogue One, the parade was too high to reach and they couldnt done much with the existing characters of The Last Jedi.
Excess of humour? Yes.
Battle scenes? Nice.
Worth watching? Always. :)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Hobgoblin on December 17, 2017, 08:26:09 PM
It wasn't great. My kids thought it only so so: "It lost its Star Wars taste", according to one of them.

I did like a few things: the incidental scenes on Luke's island, with the monster in the water, the caretakers and the milk-creatures; the throne-room battle (heavily Kurosawa-flavoured); and Laura Dern's kamikaze jump. But overall, it had too much of the prequels about it: overused CGI and an evident attention-deficit syndrome. The plot was far too convoluted - and the entire coder episode was pointless.

A point I've seen made about it and agree with is that it doesn't take its time in any of its locations. Hoth was far better built up than the snow planet at the end of The Last Jedi, for instance, with the patrols, the probe droid, the wampa attack and so on. The casino was the worst instance of this; the pacing compared very poorly with the Mos Eisley cantina.

I also think they should give up on the echoes of previous films entirely. The Empire Strikes Back was very unlike Star Wars in in its story and structure, and all the better for it.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Furt on December 17, 2017, 08:47:42 PM
The movie left me gutted  :( :( :(
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: aircav on December 17, 2017, 09:18:34 PM
Me an the kids went to see it Friday, they both loved it (10yr & 7yr old) as for me, well, the Leia in space bit was bolloks  :? & the rest was hit at miss at best.
I had high hopes, after rogue one.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: wolfen on December 17, 2017, 09:31:02 PM
Loved almost everything’s NKG about it. Definitely in the top 3 Star Wars movies of all time.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: jamesmanto on December 17, 2017, 10:14:05 PM
Right.
I've not seen Last Jedi yet, and 'yes', I know this thread contains spoilers.
But that sort of thing has never bothered me.

It's the Leia flying thing.
Are you telling me that at some point in the film that she flies in space unaided?
Have I got that right?
Because if that is so then I think that could just be the moment that Star Wars jumps the shark (yeah, I know that sounds a bit rich).
I will have to see it for myself before coming to that conclusion but it just doesn't bode well.

Like some of you have already intimated, I have more or less given up on Star Wars now. I have reached that state of nirvana where I have managed to get all memory of the prequels out of my mind to the extent that I find myself wondering if they'll ever make episodes 1-3.
Force Awakens was uninspired 6/10 for me and I fully expect Last Jedi to be about the same. Which is why I just can't motivate myself to go and see it just yet.
I just couldn't give a tinker's cuss about the new characters and Ren is about as scary as any stroppy teenager and should be dealt with just the same - smack the back of his legs and send him to his room without his XBox.

But Leia..flying...in space...
Oh tell me it isn't so...

You sum up my feelings quite well.
The franchise is ok. But I can wait for it to come out on Netflix.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Elbows on December 17, 2017, 10:41:59 PM
***Spoilers...obviously***

Can we address the rather comical fact that once again...the end of the movie more or less boiled down to desperate fighter attack craft charging a large laser machine?   lol  I actually muttered a "Are you f_cking kidding me..." to myself whilst watching it.

Also, once it fired...it did a microscopic amount of damage to the gigantic blast shield door - conveniently only enough for characters to enter/leave.

And...Snoke must be a terrible Sith lord if he didn't pick up on the twisting.   :P
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: nic-e on December 17, 2017, 11:19:23 PM
***Spoilers...obviously***

Can we address the rather comical fact that once again...the end of the movie more or less boiled down to desperate fighter attack craft charging a large laser machine?   lol  I actually muttered a "Are you f_cking kidding me..." to myself whilst watching it.

Also, once it fired...it did a microscopic amount of damage to the gigantic blast shield door - conveniently only enough for characters to enter/leave.

And...Snoke must be a terrible Sith lord if he didn't pick up on the twisting.   :P

god yeah... when that got put down and they said "hey, it's DEATH STAR TECH!" i justthought "god dammit the internet will not take this well." i mean, cool? But why not just have "Holy shit the door's jammed! we need to keep them from storming the mine entrance while the engineers get it closed."
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Hammers on December 18, 2017, 08:23:20 AM
I may come to think of it as the best of the series so far. Hamill, Ridley and Driver are excellent. The humor is not slapstick but clever. The cinematography is beautiful. Sure, it is a bit bloated, but which episode is not?
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: FramFramson on December 19, 2017, 12:13:05 AM
Now, the Han Solo one. Yup, I'll be all over that. That's what I want - the Star Wars that I used to know.

Just a word to the wise - they've been having a revolving door hell with directors with that one, so I would keep expectations for it... conservative.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Belligerentparrot on December 19, 2017, 08:37:45 AM
A question for you all, if someone can please help:

Does a Star Destroyer do anything cool in this film?

Cool things include, but not limited to: blast the merry hell out of enemy/innocent spaceships (not the odd x-wing, but a serious ship of the line)/bases/cities... anything really, to justify a fearsome reputation.

I've been waiting over 30 years to see one of those flying wedges do something cool. Absolutely zero interest in the film if the answer is "No".
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Daeothar on December 19, 2017, 09:56:59 AM
Well...

I saw it yesterday, with my regular gaming friends, and it was... a film...

I'm not going to lie; we were all entertained, and it was Star Wars. But also, I have to admit, it was deeply flawed.

And that's coming from somebody (me) who has a huge capacity for suspension of disbelief, a great love for anything Star Wars, and who can always see the silver lining on the darkest clouds. But even I have to say that even though it's a huge spectacle, a rollercoaster ride and set in the Star Wars universe, there were simply parts in it that were downright bad.

Things that bugged me:

* The Leia spacewalk. That was just utter BS IMHO. Also, in the light of Carry Fischer's passing, they could have used that material to very dramatically end her character right there. I mean; now Mark Hamil's still alive, but Luke's dead, and Carry Fischer is dead, but Leia lives!? Good luck writing yourself out of that one.

- Snoke's death. There was absolutely zero investment in his character; who was he, what were his motivations, his origins? We don't know, and now it doesn't matter, and quite frankly; who cares? The biggest bad guy dead halfway through the trilogy, so who's going to carry the day for the bad guys? Masochist flunky Hugs Hux? Conflicted Kylo? There's a big chance he will be turned in the end, so who will be there to go out with a bang?

- Phasma's death. Another Boba Fett moment. A total bad ass character, who you want to see more of, gets killed off in a not very satisfying way.

- Finn's almost sacrifice. That would have actually been an awesome and heroic way to go out as a character. But Rose decides to foil his desperate attempt to stop the destruction of the rebel base purely because she's got the hots for him? And then goes on saying that winning should not be about destroying what you hate but saving what you love? WTF DID YOU THINK FINN WAS DOING BEFORE YOU HELPED THE FIRST ORDER BY STOPPING HIM?? Net result; the Death Star technology Battering Ram Laser (wot?) holes the massive door the Rebels were hiding behind...


And there were quite a lot of other, smaller things that elude me for now. The worst part was, that the above pulled me 'out' of the film. Something that rarely happens, and that's usually a good sign a film does not sit right with me.

I have to admit; sitting through it with 5 other thirty- and fourtysomething Star Wars nuts in the back row probably wasn't helping in that regard, as jokes and remarks were shared throughout. And I ruined it for myself by making a popping sound when the rebel cruiser hyperjumped into the massive FO ship. People laughed and I was ripped out of the story and was unable to get back in. In hindsight, that was just stupidity for some cheap laughs. But it does illustrate how I was experiencing the film at that moment I guess; not fully invested.

In about a week, I will see it again, this time with my 15 y/o, Star Wars crazy nephew; it's a bit of a tradition that we go and see the new Star wars film together. I think I will probably be able to get into the story more then.


The good; yes, despite the deep flaws I mentioned, there was also a lot of nice and even good about it. Most of my buddies have been nitpicking over a lot of minor things already (and to be honest; some of the points above do fall in this category), and I'm sure this will go on for a good time to come, but I don't share those opinions.

Sure; you can destroy the entire film by nitpicking it to death, but it's my opinion that each and every film can be subjected to that and be totally annihilated. It's all about suspension of disbelief and storytelling. Some things are done just to get the story across; live with it and just enjoy the ride... :)


And this is one of my major opinions, and not so popular with my friends: the original trilogy was also flawed at many levels! (but I still love them ;) )

At the time Alec Guinness, a respected and lauded actor, was in it for the money; he despised the film and the hokey texts he was fed. The storylines were shallow at best, the acting at times clunky and wooden, and the effects, while good for their time, also had their flaws.

But we all remember those fondly. In-jokes are made of the original trilogy's mistakes; they're 'part of the charm', and have actually been embraced by the fans. Probably because we've had to make do with those three films for decades.

The new ones are not better (well, Rogue One actually is) or worse that the originals. Had Lucas had the chance to use the CGI visuals of the prequels back in the seventies and eighties when he did the originals, I have no doubt he would have! Search your feelings; you know it to be true...

Thing is; we've not (yet?) had the chance to let the prequels and sequels stew in the way that the originals have. But with the frequency of new films appearing, there is only a small chance they will get the same opportunity.

So; even though the company I was in probably spoiled parts of the movie for me, and I have my criticisms (some of the above points can certainly be glossed over, but the Leia thing is just plain wrong, period), I think I can say that it is on par with all other Star Wars films.

Highly entertaining, but don't look for second layers, deeper storylines or meaning, because it's space opera; it's entertainment, and not a lifestyle or religion, and in the greater scheme of things actually not important and certainly not a reason to get worked up, or lose sleep over.

I was entertained by the Star Wars universe, and probably will be again in the future... (just really don't pull another Leia, please ::) )


+++EDIT+++ @ Belligerentparrot: yes...
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: McMordain on December 19, 2017, 10:33:13 AM
Well, the film lost me in the first five minutes with Poe doing Starlord style stalling followed by the bombing run... Dropping bombs in space... ??? What happened to proton torpedoes?
The humour was to much for me in a SW film. They weren't bad, I laughed a lot, but it was distracting.
I'm pretty good with suspension of disbelief, but it depends on the film as well. This movie was not something I wanted or expected form a SW episode and apart for the last 30 minutes or so, I didn't really enjoyed it.
I will go see the last part of this trilogy but Episode VIII killed all my interest in Rian Johnson own SW trilogy.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Hobgoblin on December 19, 2017, 01:18:25 PM
Great review, Daeothar!


And this is one of my major opinions, and not so popular with my friends: the original trilogy was also flawed at many levels! (but I still love them ;) )

At the time Alec Guinness, a respected and lauded actor, was in it for the money; he despised the film and the hokey texts he was fed. The storylines were shallow at best, the acting at times clunky and wooden, and the effects, while good for their time, also had their flaws.

But we all remember those fondly. In-jokes are made of the original trilogy's mistakes; they're 'part of the charm', and have actually been embraced by the fans. Probably because we've had to make do with those three films for decades.

Now, that's all true. But I think the flaws of the original are different in kind and degree from the flaws of the new ones. And here's the big distinction: all three of the originals had relatively simple stories:

Star Wars: Princess under attack from evil empire requests help from old hermit knight; young man helps the messengers and discovers that he's the son of a famous hero; hermit and young man enlist rogues to rescue princess; the evil empire unleashes a terrible weapon; after princess's rescue, heroes help rebels to destroy terrible weapon.

The Empire Strikes Back: Evil empire discovers rebel base and attacks; heroes scatter and flee; young knight goes to ancient hermit to begin mystical training. Evil lord sends bounty hunters to capture heroic rogue, to lure his friends into trying to rescue him; young knight attempts rescue but fails, has hand cut off and discovers that evil lord is his father. Frozen rogue is taken to evil gangster by bounty hunter.

Return of the Jedi: Young knight rescues heroic rogue from evil gangster; empire build new terror weapon; rebels launch plan to disable it, which succeeds with help from primitive aliens; young knight confronts father and emperor; is almost defeated, but father repents and kills emperor; lord dies; young knight escapes; heroes blow up terror weapon and overthrow the empire.

Now, I'd have a hard job doing something like that for any of the prequels, or for The Force Awakens, or (initially) for Rogue One (I thought it the best of the new ones, but there's unwarranted planet-hopping complexity at the start). I'll try for The Last Jedi:

First Order attacks rebel base before evacuation is complete; rebels counterattack - but this is contrary to orders of rebel leaders. Rebels destroy a powerful First Order spaceship, but at a great cost. Young woman with strange powers tries to persuade old hermit knight to join the rebellion; he refuses; she persists; he refuses; she starts making psychic contact with young evil lord; old hermit worries about her and shows her a library; he refuses to join the rebels but agrees to train her ... sort of; rebel fleet is pursued by First Order fleet, but something to do with ranges and speed means that they can't catch the fleet (even though they can use hyperspace to get wherever they want); and fleet can't escape through hyperspace because of tracking device on First Order ship; young woman with strange powers travels to First Order HQ and attempts to turn young evil lord; she manages to kill First Order leader, but young evil lord wants to remain evil; rebel fleet is running out of fuel; some rebels hatch plot to find a coder on another planet to disable tracking device; they set off in secret to do this; they find another coder who says he'll do the job, then board First Order ship but get caught. Coder gives away secrets in return for his freedom (why would the First Order let him go?); First Order fleet has damaged rebel flagship and killed most of the commanders, but old princess wakes up floating in space and flies back through space by magic; after a failed attempted coup, deputy rebel leader orders rebels to evacuate to nearby planet with old rebel base and hyperspaces the flagship into the main First Order ship (so why couldn't First Order ships hyperspace themselves much closer to the rebel fleet?), badly damaging it. Rebels on that ship are able to escape; but the power of the First Order doesn't seem much affected, as they are able to land an army on planet with rebel base; rebels launch attack on army from base, but one rebel prevents another from suicidally disabling main First Order weapon; old hermit appears in rebel base and challenges First Order's evil lord, thus slowing attack; they fight, but old hermit disappears and turns out to be an astral projection; on remote planet, old hermit dies; remaining rebels escape through the back door of old rebel base; there are few left, but they prove inspirational.

It's the film I've seen most recently, and that's the best I can do. And I think that's a good illustration with the problems with the new films: pointlessly convoluted narratives. The originals had relatively simple, clear storylines, much like the samurai films and westerns that inspired them.

Quote
Had Lucas had the chance to use the CGI visuals of the prequels back in the seventies and eighties when he did the originals, I have no doubt he would have! Search your feelings; you know it to be true...

No doubt: but the originals are still the better for it (witness the awful changes he made later - only the dewback scene is a good addition, I think). Necessity is the mother of invention, and all that - constraints on artists often lead to better art. Kurosawa made great battle scenes in part because he was forced to be creative with just a couple of hundred horses and extras; directors with access to huge amounts of CGI often produce weightless and ultimately uncompelling spectacles. (I didn't think much of the Jackson LotR battle scenes at the time, and I think they've aged really poorly, whereas - for example - the battle scenes in Apocalypse Now stand up really well).

So yes, you're quite right - but it's just as well he didn't have that chance!  :D
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Daeothar on December 19, 2017, 01:33:55 PM
@ Hobgoblin: thanks :)

I can absolutely agree with your point that the story telling in all films after the original trilogy is unnecessarily convoluted; in this type of space opera, simple story lines are almost a requirement.

Although you must admit that your description of The Last Jedi could have been shorter (but nowhere near as short as those of the originals)... ;)

And yes; I think the originals are better for not having all the surplus CGI of the other ones. I think it's safe to say that lack of technology might well have saved those films.

One of the greatest rules an artist has to live by is that just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Horror Vacui is a most terrible thing for a filmmaker with a budget and technology to have!

Practical effects are always so much better...
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Hobgoblin on December 19, 2017, 01:40:55 PM
Although you must admit that your description of The Last Jedi could have been shorter (but nowhere near as short as those of the originals)... ;)

Yes, indeed - but I didn't make it longer for rhetorical effect: I just tried to bang out as quick a summary as I could for each film! It would have taken even longer to shorten the Last Jedi summary. I'm reminded of Pascal's quote: "I apologise for the length of this letter; I have not had time to make it shorter".  ;)

One of the greatest rules an artist has to live by is that just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Horror Vacui is a most terrible thing for a filmmaker with a budget and technology to have!

Practical effects are always so much better...

Couldn't agree more!
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Michi on December 19, 2017, 01:52:11 PM
I really like it.

It surprised me.
It surprised me again.
It didn´t stop to surprise me.
That is what I want. Entertainment by something unexpected. Admittedly StarWars causes great expectations. All that youtube theories about characters and stories and backgrounds, internet gossip and trailers were totally misleading to a point I didn´t even listen to it anymore.
I wanted to be surprised.
And I was.

That´s good.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Mick_in_Switzerland on December 19, 2017, 02:16:41 PM
I also liked it.

There were twists and further twists. Many more than normal in Star Wars.

There were some very disturbing things like the slow deliberate shelling of the helpless transports.

There were some strange thinks like that battering ram death star cannon that appeared to make less damage than Mons Meg.

Some parts deviate from the (biblical) canon of Star Wars fans and I can understand that some are upset by that.

Overall, I found it a good film.


Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Mick_in_Switzerland on December 19, 2017, 02:18:56 PM
I also liked it.

There were twists and further twists. Many more than normal in Star Wars.

There were some very disturbing things like the slow deliberate shelling of the helpless transports.

There were some strange thinks like that battering ram death star cannon that appeared to make less damage than Mons Meg.

Some parts deviate from the (biblical) canon of Star Wars fans and I can understand that some are upset by that.

Overall, I found it a good film.


Oh and making terrain for the final battle will be challlenging....
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Jagannath on December 19, 2017, 04:04:16 PM
Nothing to add really other than I was relatively disappointed. I will say that Rogue One is now my favourite Star Wars film, so that should tell you where my heads at. I can, in many ways, enjoy relatively naff sci-fi and fantasy for the world building inspiration (even pars of the prequels are ace for that), so I was really really gutted with the Casino scene. That could have been really interesting and clever, instead it was literally a 1920s casino - cufflinks. CUFF. LINKS. There should be no cufflinks in Star Wars.

I did like the look of all the rebels, I did like seeing Ade Edmunson, I actually quite like the Snoke death scene. I don't know what the point of Phasma was (or why she was suddenly 50 feet away in formation with a squad having been stood near the execution). I really enjoyed Luke's island and the shenanigans - I'm a bit of a fan of Taoist texts and stories and this seemed to share that type of humour, but I could have done without the puffin-lemmings ending up on the Falcon. "Chrome dome" made me cringe really bad.

RIP Ackbar, nowhere near dramatic enough.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Hobgoblin on December 19, 2017, 04:53:07 PM
That could have been really interesting and clever, instead it was literally a 1920s casino - cufflinks. CUFF. LINKS. There should be no cufflinks in Star Wars.

Ha! Quite! That was very reminiscent of the prequels - all the black tie reminded, somehow, me of that dreadful two-headed pod-racing commentator. The connection, I think, is that these things suddenly seem like a parody of the real world rather than a fully imagined alternative.

One more thought on plot structure: complexity requires coherence. Complex plots can work if they have a very coherent background. But if the rules of the universe are a bit loose, the complexity undermines the setting. I think this happened to Game of Thrones a bit last season: when time and distance seemed to shrink for the convenience of the plot. The Last Jedi suffered from this too.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: olyreed on December 19, 2017, 06:04:14 PM
I watched it on Sunday and enjoyed it, but over the last couple of days, the film hasn't really sat well with me, storylines that felt wasted or pointless, the Mary Poppins moment really wasn't good, the increase of the force powers didn't feel right, and the Casino stuff felt like an outage of episode 1. I will probably see it again just to see if I am being over critical,
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Dr. The Viking on December 19, 2017, 06:41:56 PM
Now it's been a while since I saw it. And I have to admit that I begin to realize that what I am most surprised about is how much I think it deducts from my experience of all of Star Wars - new and old.

I think the magic disappears a little when the old heroes' final destiny is exposed in such a "the die has been cast" -like fashion instead of remaining in the uncertainty of the Return of The Jedi (/ Thrawn saga) ending.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Captain Blood on December 19, 2017, 07:07:16 PM
Saw it last night. I enjoyed it.

Thought it was a bit overlong, some of the characters a bit too cliched (yes, even for Star Wars) - I detest the Oscar Isaac character. Such a cartoon sketch.  I recognise a lot of the criticisms mentioned above. But there were parts of it I liked a lot too - mainly the depth of character and feeling Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley managed to cram into their performances. Less so Adam Driver, who is just too spotty, fugly and greasy looking to be a successful baddie IMHO.
And the direct retread of the Vader/ Luke/ Emperor scene with Ren / Rey / Snoke just seemed lazy to me. The reason why it was such a triumph in the original was because you couldn’t see Vader’s face behind the mask. That ultimate conflict of instinct over alliegance worked so much better without the gurning.

But all that said, it was still a great spectacle and very entertaining.
Personally, I think I preferred the previous episode and Rogue One, but this one was worth the ticket price just to see Mark Hamill reprise the same character 40years on. I found it a kind of art imitating life moment, and I think he really delivered. I found his performance and return quite touching. But then, as I remarked to my sons - since I was a teen in 1977 when I first saw the original Star Wars, that character, Luke Skywalker, has been one of the abiding cultural presences in my entire adult life. It’s part of the backdrop to my whole existence. So for me, just weird yet incredible to see the original actor playing the same character, a lifetime apart.

That makes the film a pleasure for me, whatever its other shortcomings  :)

Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Manchu on December 19, 2017, 11:27:33 PM
I had the impression throughout watching most of the movie that this was some sort of joke or maybe I was having a bad dream.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: LeadAsbestos on December 19, 2017, 11:57:05 PM
But then, as I remarked to my sons - since I was a teen in 1977 when I first saw the original Star Wars, that character, Luke Skywalker, has been one of the abiding cultural presences in my entire adult life. It’s part of the backdrop to my whole existence. So for me, just weird yet incredible to see the original actor playing the same character, a lifetime apart.

That makes the film a pleasure for me, whatever its other shortcomings  :)



Well said! I tried to explain this to some folks today who are just getting into Star Wars. I saw A New Hope when I was 6, so it has been with me for my entire life essentially. Hard to explain how much of an influence it has had, ewoks and Jar jar be damned! ::)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Sbloom141 on December 20, 2017, 11:03:05 AM
I was really disappointed:(

I can suspend disbelief as good as the next guy but the physics in the bombing scene at the beginning were a mess.

I didn’t like the humour, it was inappropriate at times and felt too much like an attempt to ape the Marvel films.

Leia’s space flight was poorly executed but I get why it was there. I’d rather have seen her deflect the torpedo though or some such.

I actually like Snoke’s death scene but I still want to know who he is!
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Daeothar on December 20, 2017, 11:11:16 AM
I was a wee bit older than that (about 10 or 11) when I first saw epIV (on TV, at home; I was 4 at the time of the theatrical release), but with me too, it has stayed with me my entire life. And as much as I try to be as objective as possible when seeing new Star Wars films, I think it's ultimately impossible.

...One more thought on plot structure: complexity requires coherence. Complex plots can work if they have a very coherent background. But if the rules of the universe are a bit loose, the complexity undermines the setting...

last night, I found a very interesting dissemination of epIV, focussing on the editing process, and how that actually saved the film. Basically, without this gifted team, Lucas' dream would have faltered and failed. And I think this is what lies at the heart of the issue with most of the later films: directors have too much to say about the entire project, with nobody to rein them back in.

Lucas' then wife was part of the editing team and probably had a lot to do with the fact the team was not overridden by Lucas. There's an interesting piece of behind the scenes footage on the Phantom Menace DVD I have, in which we see the reactions of the team after the first screening of the film. Lucas can be heard saying 'maybe I overdid it'.

And we all know he did. But by then, he was so big in the business, that he was surrounded by sycophants instead of people that would every now and then dare to speak out against questionable decisions. No longer a team effort, but a runaway one man show...

Interesting viewing at any rate:

How Star Wars was saved in the edit (https://youtu.be/GFMyMxMYDNk)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: N.C.S.E on December 20, 2017, 11:55:23 AM
Haven't seen the latest - nor intend to so I suppose I'm clear to read the thread!

I must chime in to the discussion of the original films. I saw IV late in life and whilst I found it to be a quite ordinary film, there was something about it that stuck with me for days afterwards, this almost magical quality that kept you thinking about it long after you'd actually watched the thing. I felt the same coming away from the later Harry Potter films and (horror of horrors) the recent Spiderman film!

Maybe its something about the hype/marketing machine that these megafranchises have. I don't know the answers, but I sense the constant exposure to references to those products in some form makes it impossible to avoid them.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: The Voivod on December 20, 2017, 03:54:24 PM
Quote
And this is one of my major opinions, and not so popular with my friends: the original trilogy was also flawed at many levels! (but I still love them Wink )

TRAITOR!!!

No, I agree.
I found the movie lacking on many points. I got out of the prequels pretty hyped and it wasn't untill later I started seeing them for what they where.
I think they shattered  my rosey glasses and made me far more sceptical about future movies.

Out of this I was dissappointed that it wasn't what I wanted it to be, but I still think that after a few viewings I'll still like this one better then the prequels.

-The acting/dialog was better
-The characters weren't (all) grating
-I wasn't bored
-Most effects looked good, some a little less so, some where amazing

There was a waste of characters/potential, but I'm curious where they'll take Rey/Kylo.
I liked their dynamic. They seemed to have found something with eachother, but neither willing to come over to the other side.

I really wonder how they'll finish this up in one more movie, though.
With the entire rebelllion now fitting in the Falcon.

They should just stop making it a trilogy here and continue as a series a la Firefly... :P
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: vodkafan on December 20, 2017, 05:24:40 PM
I decided after I was duped into seeing the last Star Wars film that I would never watch another one....can't understand the appeal.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: nic-e on December 20, 2017, 06:00:51 PM
The red letter media review of the film captures my feeling very well.
in short they describe it as "The homer simpsons makeup shotgun of cinema"
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: OSHIROmodels on December 20, 2017, 08:40:33 PM
Saw it a second time. A bit more shit than the first time.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: beefcake on December 20, 2017, 08:50:00 PM
Bit shit really.
lol
Saying that. I may see it a second time if my son wants to go again.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Manchu on December 20, 2017, 09:17:46 PM
"No one said 'no' to George" is the most widely accepted explanation of why the Prequels were garbage. I have another, not mutually exclusive theory but let me start by saying, The Last Jedi is not bad because Rian Johnson had carte blanche.

The Prequel Trilogy was funded by Lucasfilm, a company owned and run by George Lucas. Rian Johnson, by contrast, was answerable to a committee of Disney employees headed by an executive specially responsible for managing the Star Wars IP, a.k.a., Kathleen Kennedy (formerly of Lucasfilm Ltd.). Now, I can believe there was a strategy to have The Last Jedi ride on Rian Johnson's reputation, hence him getting the writer credit. That way, if The Last Jedi failed he could be blamed while Disney and Kathleen Kennedy enjoyed "plausible deniability." But there's no way in hell the House of Mouse gave real power to Johnson.

The Last Jedi isn't bad because no one said 'no' to Johnson. It's bad because it doesn't need to be good. The Original Trilogy was made for a market where the film itself was the main product. In those days, even a sequel to Star Wars needed to be able to stand on its own because profit was a function of how well the sequel actually performed. This is no longer the case. Filmmaking today is more risky, because it's more expensive, than ever before. The upshot, however, is that companies can use films to seed other marketing channels - not just action figures and lunch boxes but also TV networks and streaming services.

These channels are less expensive and risky than filmmaking and, potentially, much more profitable. But wouldn't a good movie make these subsidiary marketing channels more potentially profitable? One would think so! But in reality, the profitability of said channels depend on their content. The other thing about our market is, it's content-saturated. Audiences (customers) need a clear reason to dial into Streaming Service X instead of, or at least in addition to, Streaming Service Y. That's why it's important for these films to be intentionally incomplete. The strategy is to raise issues in the film that are not addressed in the film in order that the filmgoer will affirmatively engage with the IP more broadly: not just in terms of traditional products like novels and comic books but also more widely, such as YouTube videos, podcasts, and blogs.

In this way, the customers are encouraged to voluntarily become increasingly invested in the IP. You won't only go see the next Star Wars movie, or Marvel movie, you'll also become enmeshed in a whole way of life ("geek culture") that makes you more likely to spend on licensed products, that makes you more susceptible to certain kinds of advertising (selling non-SW products by referencing SW), that makes you more likely to engage in the corporation's other IPs.

On an admittedly much smaller scale, George Lucas realized this in the mid 1990s when he decided to make the Prequels Trilogy. Some of you may remember Shadows of the Empire. This was a neat experiment where Lucasfilm generated all the licensed products (novel, video game, action figures, comic books, even a soundtrack) that traditionally go along with a Star Wars movie - except there was no movie. Lucas concluded from this experiment that not only was there extensive market appetite for more Star Wars but also that it didn't depend on a film. In effect, Star Wars was no longer a series of movies or even a movie franchise. It was what we now call an IP.

Armed with that knowledge, Lucas proceeded to make the hugely profitable but critically panned Prequel Trilogy. Far from being a failure, the Prequels demonstrated the point of the Shadows of the Empire experiment on a much larger scale. In the 1980s or 1990s, making a widely loathed movie like the Phantom Menace (much less two further, also hated sequels to the Phantom Menace) would have sunk any franchise (see the RoboCop franchise). What happened instead was Star Wars increased in value such that Disney bought it for $4 billion.

The unspoken promise was that Disney would make good Star Wars movies. But why would we have ever fallen for that? Lucas not only sold Disney the Star Wars IP; he sold it to them by demonstrating how it could make them tremendous amounts of money regardless of quality.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: huesped on December 20, 2017, 09:26:20 PM
 :( :( :( :(
I was REALLY disappointed on how Johnson has thrown away many of the questions TFA had left:  the Ren Knights, Snoke, 10-seconds-scene Phasma. >:(
The whole story sucks and lacks of the intrigue, energy, and rythm that needs SW.  its the WORST space chase in the SW History. Rebs are too stupid to divide the fleet (???!) and the imps did'nt swarmed with ties the cruisers(??????!??!!!!). BORING.
The casino intrigue is uneffective. Not even Benicio del Toro's Character had the charisma needed to last in the film. (DISMISED!, like almost half the characters)
About Leia's last Flight, awful. And leaving her alive is a coward option, letting the problem being solved by the next director, J.J.
And about Luke. OMFG. At least we could have seen dying in combat - in a real combat-  i think Luke hs't faded with the Force. HE Quitted the film.:P
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on December 20, 2017, 11:51:03 PM
"No one said 'no' to George" is the most widely accepted explanation of why the Prequels were garbage. I have another, not mutually exclusive theory but let me start by saying, The Last Jedi is not bad because Rian Johnson had carte blanche.

The Prequel Trilogy was funded by Lucasfilm, a company owned and run by George Lucas. Rian Johnson, by contrast, was answerable to a committee of Disney employees headed by an executive specially responsible for managing the Star Wars IP, a.k.a., Kathleen Kennedy (formerly of Lucasfilm Ltd.). Now, I can believe there was a strategy to have The Last Jedi ride on Rian Johnson's reputation, hence him getting the writer credit. That way, if The Last Jedi failed he could be blamed while Disney and Kathleen Kennedy enjoyed "plausible deniability." But there's no way in hell the House of Mouse gave real power to Johnson.

The Last Jedi isn't bad because no one said 'no' to Johnson. It's bad because it doesn't need to be good. The Original Trilogy was made for a market where the film itself was the main product. In those days, even a sequel to Star Wars needed to be able to stand on its own because profit was a function of how well the sequel actually performed. This is no longer the case. Filmmaking today is more risky, because it's more expensive, than ever before. The upshot, however, is that companies can use films to seed other marketing channels - not just action figures and lunch boxes but also TV networks and streaming services.

These channels are less expensive and risky than filmmaking and, potentially, much more profitable. But wouldn't a good movie make these subsidiary marketing channels more potentially profitable? One would think so! But in reality, the profitability of said channels depend on their content. The other thing about our market is, it's content-saturated. Audiences (customers) need a clear reason to dial into Streaming Service X instead of, or at least in addition to, Streaming Service Y. That's why it's important for these films to be intentionally incomplete. The strategy is to raise issues in the film that are not addressed in the film in order that the filmgoer will affirmatively engage with the IP more broadly: not just in terms of traditional products like novels and comic books but also more widely, such as YouTube videos, podcasts, and blogs.

In this way, the customers are encouraged to voluntarily become increasingly invested in the IP. You won't only go see the next Star Wars movie, or Marvel movie, you'll also become enmeshed in a whole way of life ("geek culture") that makes you more likely to spend on licensed products, that makes you more susceptible to certain kinds of advertising (selling non-SW products by referencing SW), that makes you more likely to engage in the corporation's other IPs.

On an admittedly much smaller scale, George Lucas realized this in the mid 1990s when he decided to make the Prequels Trilogy. Some of you may remember Shadows of the Empire. This was a neat experiment where Lucasfilm generated all the licensed products (novel, video game, action figures, comic books, even a soundtrack) that traditionally go along with a Star Wars movie - except there was no movie. Lucas concluded from this experiment that not only was there extensive market appetite for more Star Wars but also that it didn't depend on a film. In effect, Star Wars was no longer a series of movies or even a movie franchise. It was what we now call an IP.

Armed with that knowledge, Lucas proceeded to make the hugely profitable but critically panned Prequel Trilogy. Far from being a failure, the Prequels demonstrated the point of the Shadows of the Empire experiment on a much larger scale. In the 1980s or 1990s, making a widely loathed movie like the Phantom Menace (much less two further, also hated sequels to the Phantom Menace) would have sunk any franchise (see the RoboCop franchise). What happened instead was Star Wars increased in value such that Disney bought it for $4 billion.

The unspoken promise was that Disney would make good Star Wars movies. But why would we have ever fallen for that? Lucas not only sold Disney the Star Wars IP; he sold it to them by demonstrating how it could make them tremendous amounts of money regardless of quality.


PERFECT!!!  ;)

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UefkjIcKq_g/Vfpz72es4vI/AAAAAAAABTk/9C5YAM3YnaU/s1600/like-button.jpg)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on December 21, 2017, 12:04:52 AM

And please let me add two words to this SW discussion: Felicity. Jones.

 ;)

Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Elbows on December 21, 2017, 01:15:13 AM
Having thought on it a bit more, one of the biggest issues I have with the Last Jedi is that it all but says "f_ck you" to the potential new plot points that were begun in Force Awakens.  Force Awakens spent most of its time setting up a bunch of the potential scenes for Last Jedi, and then they were tossed away with a casual, borderline sarcastic approach.

It makes me think back to improv classes in theatre in school.  One paramount rule was "never deny".  This meant when creating a story ad-hoc during a scene or sketch, you never said "nope" to something a fellow actor put forward.  Why?  Because it makes the scene more difficult and you're intentionally undermining your partner(s) in the scene.  I feel this kind of approach follows through to films.

-Sets up final moment in Force Awakens, the return of Luke, the passing of the light sabre...tosses it over his shoulder.
-Sets up mysterious Snoke figure...kills him instantly.
-Creates mystery around Rey's family and...they were nothing.

I felt very little connection between Force Awakens and the Last Jedi, and even though I disliked Force Awakens as well, Last Jedi shat all over the potential of building some meaningful building blocks for a new generation.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on December 21, 2017, 01:32:07 AM
Having thought on it a bit more, one of the biggest issues I have with the Last Jedi is that it all but says "f_ck you" to the potential new plot points that were begun in Force Awakens.  Force Awakens spent most of its time setting up a bunch of the potential scenes for Last Jedi, and then they were tossed away with a casual, borderline sarcastic approach.

The scene in which Luke gets the lightsaber in what was shown in "The Force Awakens" as a solemn and decisive moment... and then in the beginning of "The Last Jedi" casually toss it over his shoulder without a second thought was for me an emblematic moment of what the whole movie was gonna be.  :-[  

And the destruction of the same lightsaber near the end of the movie is also very emblematic...
 


Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: chamberlain on December 21, 2017, 03:15:32 AM
-Sets up final moment in Force Awakens, the return of Luke, the passing of the light sabre...tosses it over his shoulder.
-Sets up mysterious Snoke figure...kills him instantly.
-Creates mystery around Rey's family and...they were nothing.

It did this within the movie itself
- sets up turning of Kylo or Rey... goes back to Kylo vs Rey
- sets up prolonged multiscene quest/infiltration to shut down tracker -- escape didn't require the tracker shut down
- creates a moment where Kylo chooses not to kill his mother-- she goes out into space anyway -- and then goes back in again

If I were to sum up the movie:

Things happen, but they don't matter or are undone.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: FramFramson on December 21, 2017, 03:49:39 AM
"No one said 'no' to George" is the most widely accepted explanation of why the Prequels were garbage. I have another, not mutually exclusive theory but let me start by saying, The Last Jedi is not bad because Rian Johnson had carte blanche.

The Prequel Trilogy was funded by Lucasfilm, a company owned and run by George Lucas. Rian Johnson, by contrast, was answerable to a committee of Disney employees headed by an executive specially responsible for managing the Star Wars IP, a.k.a., Kathleen Kennedy (formerly of Lucasfilm Ltd.). Now, I can believe there was a strategy to have The Last Jedi ride on Rian Johnson's reputation, hence him getting the writer credit. That way, if The Last Jedi failed he could be blamed while Disney and Kathleen Kennedy enjoyed "plausible deniability." But there's no way in hell the House of Mouse gave real power to Johnson.

The Last Jedi isn't bad because no one said 'no' to Johnson. It's bad because it doesn't need to be good. The Original Trilogy was made for a market where the film itself was the main product. In those days, even a sequel to Star Wars needed to be able to stand on its own because profit was a function of how well the sequel actually performed. This is no longer the case. Filmmaking today is more risky, because it's more expensive, than ever before. The upshot, however, is that companies can use films to seed other marketing channels - not just action figures and lunch boxes but also TV networks and streaming services.

These channels are less expensive and risky than filmmaking and, potentially, much more profitable. But wouldn't a good movie make these subsidiary marketing channels more potentially profitable? One would think so! But in reality, the profitability of said channels depend on their content. The other thing about our market is, it's content-saturated. Audiences (customers) need a clear reason to dial into Streaming Service X instead of, or at least in addition to, Streaming Service Y. That's why it's important for these films to be intentionally incomplete. The strategy is to raise issues in the film that are not addressed in the film in order that the filmgoer will affirmatively engage with the IP more broadly: not just in terms of traditional products like novels and comic books but also more widely, such as YouTube videos, podcasts, and blogs.

In this way, the customers are encouraged to voluntarily become increasingly invested in the IP. You won't only go see the next Star Wars movie, or Marvel movie, you'll also become enmeshed in a whole way of life ("geek culture") that makes you more likely to spend on licensed products, that makes you more susceptible to certain kinds of advertising (selling non-SW products by referencing SW), that makes you more likely to engage in the corporation's other IPs.

On an admittedly much smaller scale, George Lucas realized this in the mid 1990s when he decided to make the Prequels Trilogy. Some of you may remember Shadows of the Empire. This was a neat experiment where Lucasfilm generated all the licensed products (novel, video game, action figures, comic books, even a soundtrack) that traditionally go along with a Star Wars movie - except there was no movie. Lucas concluded from this experiment that not only was there extensive market appetite for more Star Wars but also that it didn't depend on a film. In effect, Star Wars was no longer a series of movies or even a movie franchise. It was what we now call an IP.

Armed with that knowledge, Lucas proceeded to make the hugely profitable but critically panned Prequel Trilogy. Far from being a failure, the Prequels demonstrated the point of the Shadows of the Empire experiment on a much larger scale. In the 1980s or 1990s, making a widely loathed movie like the Phantom Menace (much less two further, also hated sequels to the Phantom Menace) would have sunk any franchise (see the RoboCop franchise). What happened instead was Star Wars increased in value such that Disney bought it for $4 billion.

The unspoken promise was that Disney would make good Star Wars movies. But why would we have ever fallen for that? Lucas not only sold Disney the Star Wars IP; he sold it to them by demonstrating how it could make them tremendous amounts of money regardless of quality.

Absolutely.

One of the points I've made about Star Wars is that, no matter their flaws, the original Star Wars stories stand on their own, both as individual films, and as a trilogy.

The underlying structure is a rock solid modern interpretation of the traditional Hero's Journey - in fact it's often used as THE example of that trope. The story is tight, the characters work well and are well-acted and cast, events go where they go for good reasons not "just because". Maybe there's a loose shingle or an ill-fitting window, but the foundations and overall structure of the original trilogy are rock solid, founded on quality storytelling drawn from very long tradition.

However, neither the prequels nor the sequels stand on their own - neither as individual movies or as ongoing series. Without the original trilogy no one would be raving about how great these bodge jobs are.

In any case, the sequels are, in my mind, mere fanfiction. For good or bad, they weren't written or touched by Lucas in any way (Also, Mark Hamill reportedly had grave disagreements about the fate of Luke and his treatment in this film, but is a true professional, so he spoke his peace once and then left it at that).

In fact this is really why the sequels don't bother me all that much - they can never disappoint me as profoundly as the prequels did. There's a lot of things which are absolutely terrible about the prequels, but unlike these mishmash corporate rerun sequels, the underlying story (stories) was, conceptually at least, something which COULD have stood on its own. Lucas at least had worked out a true story to tell even if the execution was abysmal. All the ingredients were there for a tragedy of a sort which has a long and illustrious history.

A great and talented man rises to prominence, becoming a great hero and leader. Talented man is tempted by evil or succumbs to hubris (or both, in this case and others). Talented man falls, destroying everything he built or taking many with him.

It's one of the oldest story structures in history. Where the OT was the Hero's Journey, the PT could have been a Greek tragedy. Perfect bookends - a fall, then a rise.

The single biggest mistake they ever made in the prequels isn't Jar Jar, or podracing, or the amount of time wasted pandering to Boba Fett fans, or endless dull doddering bureaucracy, or even those stupid, stupid, stupid midchlorians; it's that Anakin never really gets to be a great hero. The audience is never given a chance or reason to actually LIKE him (with a frankly atrocious performance in the bargain), so the entire story doesn't matter - who cares about this whinging shithead? You cheer when he gets his ass beat by Obi Wan and fricasseed, because Anakin fails completely at being the great hero that the prequel is all about.

This is why in my imagination the prequel should have roughly gone:

1st film: Eps 1&2 combined, mostly 2, ending with Anakin being knighted. Like Ep 1 should be condensed to at most a third of the film.
2nd film: The Clone Wars
3rd film: Ep 3 more or less as it was only not terrible

This solves two big problems. 1) The romance between Anakin and Padme becomes vastly less bizarre and creepy, because you can have Anakin meet Padme as a teenager or 20-year old and she's of a similar or at least somewhat close age, and 2) Anakin can still be an annoying little shit in Ep 1, but you use the Clone Wars to make a man of him, to tell the story of Anakin as a hero. Essentially, you reverse the structure of the OT - the middle movie is the bright point, the one full of hope and promise and great victories and the last one is the disaster where everything falls apart.

I'd love to see that story be told. Properly. By a writer who can write, starring actors who can act, and a director who actually knows what they're doing. But now that will probably never happen.

If the story of Star Wars ends at RotJ, or the sequels are all awful disaster, I can live with that - wouldn't be the first time. It's a great note for a story to go out on. But missing the tragic story of how things came to be the way they were in Star Wars really hurts. Like Eli Wallach missing the starring role in Duck You Sucker!, we'll never see the great story which might have been.

Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on December 21, 2017, 04:24:20 AM
Absolutely.

One of the points I've made about Star Wars is that, no matter their flaws, the original Star Wars stories stand on their own, both as individual films, and as a trilogy.

The underlying structure is a rock solid modern interpretation of the traditional Hero's Journey - in fact it's often used as THE example of that trope. The story is tight, the characters work well and are well-acted and cast, events go where they go for good reasons not "just because". Maybe there's a loose shingle or an ill-fitting window, but the foundations and overall structure of the original trilogy are rock solid, founded on quality storytelling drawn from very long tradition.

However, neither the prequels nor the sequels stand on their own - neither as individual movies or as ongoing series. Without the original trilogy no one would be raving about how great these bodge jobs are.

In any case, the sequels are, in my mind, mere fanfiction. For good or bad, they weren't written or touched by Lucas in any way (Also, Mark Hamill reportedly had grave disagreements about the fate of Luke and his treatment in this film, but is a true professional, so he spoke his peace once and then left it at that).

In fact this is really why the sequels don't bother me all that much - they can never disappoint me as profoundly as the prequels did. There's a lot of things which are absolutely terrible about the prequels, but unlike these mishmash corporate rerun sequels, the underlying story (stories) was, conceptually at least, something which COULD have stood on its own. Lucas at least had worked out a true story to tell even if the execution was abysmal. All the ingredients were there for a tragedy of a sort which has a long and illustrious history.

A great and talented man rises to prominence, becoming a great hero and leader. Talented man is tempted by evil or succumbs to hubris (or both, in this case and others). Talented man falls, destroying everything he built or taking many with him.

It's one of the oldest story structures in history. Where the OT was the Hero's Journey, the PT could have been a Greek tragedy. Perfect bookends - a fall, then a rise.

The single biggest mistake they ever made in the prequels isn't Jar Jar, or podracing, or the amount of time wasted pandering to Boba Fett fans, or endless dull doddering bureaucracy, or even those stupid, stupid, stupid midchlorians; it's that Anakin never really gets to be a great hero. The audience is never given a chance or reason to actually LIKE him (with a frankly atrocious performance in the bargain), so the entire story doesn't matter - who cares about this whinging shithead? You cheer when he gets his ass beat by Obi Wan and fricasseed, because Anakin fails completely at being the great hero that the prequel is all about.

This is why in my imagination the prequel should have roughly gone:

1st film: Eps 1&2 combined, mostly 2, ending with Anakin being knighted. Like Ep 1 should be condensed to at most a third of the film.
2nd film: The Clone Wars
3rd film: Ep 3 more or less as it was only not terrible

This solves two big problems. 1) The romance between Anakin and Padme becomes vastly less bizarre and creepy, because you can have Anakin meet Padme as a teenager or 20-year old and she's of a similar or at least somewhat close age, and 2) Anakin can still be an annoying little shit in Ep 1, but you use the Clone Wars to make a man of him, to tell the story of Anakin as a hero. Essentially, you reverse the structure of the OT - the middle movie is the bright point, the one full of hope and promise and great victories and the last one is the disaster where everything falls apart.

I'd love to see that story be told. Properly. By a writer who can write, starring actors who can act, and a director who actually knows what they're doing. But now that will probably never happen.

If the story of Star Wars ends at RotJ, or the sequels are all awful disaster, I can live with that - wouldn't be the first time. It's a great note for a story to go out on. But missing the tragic story of how things came to be the way they were in Star Wars really hurts. Like Eli Wallach missing the starring role in Duck You Sucker!, we'll never see the great story which might have been.



Great points on Anakin!

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/Bot%C3%B3n_Me_gusta.svg/1200px-Bot%C3%B3n_Me_gusta.svg.png)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Supercollider on December 21, 2017, 05:14:40 AM
Saw it a couple of days ago, it had some good moments/scenes but on the whole I didn't enjoy it.

It felt like someone had a drunken conversation with an AI about SW, and then asked it to write a film script.  Some of it was just odd.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Ninefingers on December 21, 2017, 06:56:05 AM
Well I liked it.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Quendil on December 21, 2017, 05:19:31 PM
Just come back from the cinema with my daughter and we loved the film  :-* :-* :-*
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Dr. Zombie on December 21, 2017, 06:32:25 PM
I saw it today with my 9 year old son and we both loved it.

Reading the criticism in this thread makes me think some people are perhaps overthinking this movie. Star Wars is not Shakespeare. It is sci-if pulp action full technicolor adventure. And that was definitely what I got.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Redmao on December 21, 2017, 07:03:52 PM
I liked it, but there's a few things that bothered me.
• The Han Solo golden dice. They kept focusing on them as if they were super important, but we've never ever seen them before! Even in VII there were not hanging from the Falcon's rear view mirror. Maybe they'll shove them back in our face in the Han Solo movie next year. Remember those dice? Here they are!
• The new heroes are just bumbling around, messing things up and somehow everything works out for them. Not to sound like an old fan, but man, do these new characters look dull compared to the original cast.
• Once again, Phasma shows up, does nothing except looking shiny and falls down. I really hope she'll be back as a running gag.
• I was sad to see Luke die. Come on Disney, I know you want to let the pass die, but you don't have to kill all our heroes.
• I actually liked Kylo's Force trickery. Snoke was just a cheap Emperor imitation that deserved to be sliced like that.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Manchu on December 21, 2017, 07:09:57 PM
Maybe they'll shove them back in our face in the Han Solo movie next year. Remember those dice? Here they are!
This is a virtual certainty.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: AzSteven on December 21, 2017, 07:25:55 PM
I think if you look at the famous photo of Luke, Ben, Han and Chewie at the helm of the Falcon from Episode IV, you can (barely) see the dice hanging above and behind Han.

I actually rather liked the film.  It had some good surprises and twists, and managed to move the storyline from the original heroes to a new set of upcoming heroes.  I very much appreciated that the writer tried very hard to direct things away from established heroes and back to a quest for hope.  In the end, everything about the story was pointed to trying to establish hope for the rebellion, or to quash hope before it formed.  It was even stated pretty much straight out in a couple of parts of this movie.

It is not without problems - the side quest to the Casino was not well-done; actually I should say the side-quest was OK but the Casino itself was as bad as some of the prequel film excesses.  Poe's mutiny was honestly a dumb waste of time that could have been handled far better without removing the conflict/fears of betrayal related to Admiral Holdo.  But by far, the worst of the worst in this was Flying Space Leia.  It was not just bad, it was laughably embarrassing.

The Snoke thing was maybe a little disappointing, but was clearly a device to build up Kylo, not overawe us with Big Bad Snoke.  General Hux got transformed from a vicisou Nazi to a bumbling Nazi, which was a little disappointing.  The destruction of the Dreadnaught by hyperspace collision seems to have angered many, but I seem to recall there is some canonical support for that with the Interdictor-class Star Destroyers generating a gravity wave to force a ship out of hyperspace or cause it to explode.  This seemed like the other side of that equation.

Problems aside, the film was good.  In my personal ranking, it comes behind Empire and Rogue One, perhaps tying or falling just slightly behind A New Hope.  Definitely better than The Force Awakens or Return of the Jedi, and several orders of magnitude better than the prequels.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: AzSteven on December 21, 2017, 07:27:32 PM
One last comment - Porgs.  I was in terror that the Porgs were going to be the Ewoks or Gungans of this movie.  Thankfully, they were a very minimal sight-gag, and contributed to possibly the funniest 10 seconds in all of the Star Wars films in the Chewbacca dinner scene.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Captain Blood on December 21, 2017, 10:28:58 PM

Reading the criticism in this thread makes me think some people are perhaps overthinking this movie. Star Wars is not Shakespeare.

I think you’re right Frede.
As George Lucas freely admitted, Star Wars was just a cowboy movie transplanted to space with a bit of hokey mythos added into it. The fact that it grew to become an all-consuming pop culture phenomenon doesn’t mean it needs to be taken seriously. It’s just flash bang wallop space battles, comic robots, imaginary planets, good looking actors, and weird aliens. It’s comic book trash - brilliantly realised, and super-influential in many ways. But at the end if the day, just pulp sci-fi.
Certainly there are times when its internal logic goes a bit astray, but then it’s just entertaining escapist nonsense. So should we really expect it to be something dreadfully profound, serious and comsistent?
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Dr. The Viking on December 21, 2017, 11:07:37 PM
I saw it today with my 9 year old son and we both loved it.

Reading the criticism in this thread makes me think some people are perhaps overthinking this movie. Star Wars is not Shakespeare. It is sci-if pulp action full technicolor adventure. And that was definitely what I got.

I certainly don't feel that I am overthinking anything.

I merely regard it as a very poorly executed film, with a half boring long winded story. I am confident that it would have received the same grade by me no matter the "texture" on the set.

In short - I don't think it should 'get away with it' just because it is Star Wars.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Hobgoblin on December 21, 2017, 11:40:21 PM
As George Lucas freely admitted, Star Wars was just a cowboy movie transplanted to space with a bit of hokey mythos added into it.

...

Certainly there are times when its internal logic goes a bit astray, but then it’s just entertaining escapist nonsense. So should we really expect it to be something dreadfully profound, serious and comsistent?

No - but shouldn't we appraise it just as we would a cowboy film (or a samurai film)? The original began as a sci-fi take on Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, so that seems the sort of standard of plotting and pacing we should be looking for. The first three films do work on that level; they're simple stories, told effectively - with hokey mythos as set-dressing. All the subsequent films, to some extent, get bogged down in ponderousness and portentousness in exactly the way that the best cowboy and samurai films don't.

So no, it certainly shouldn't be dreadfully profound or serous (we could do without the heavy-handed politics of the casino subplot). But a bit of internal consistency wouldn't go amiss. And nor would a bit of simplicity, because that's exactly what makes the best westerns and samurai films work. They're set in lawless, vaguely defined times that allow simple - even primal stories - to be told.

To put it another way, Lucas's original take on Kurosawa works at least as well as Sergio Leone's. And Kurosawa was channeling John Ford. But when the Star Wars films abandon their roots, they become messy and convoluted and overwrought.

So let's have much more of the cowboy movie transplanted to space - and much less of all the other stuff!  ;)
 
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: FramFramson on December 22, 2017, 05:16:57 AM
Exactly. Is the Good the Bad and The Ugly a cheap or crappy film? No.

Don't mistake "elegant" or "simple" for "juvenile".
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Dr. The Viking on December 22, 2017, 01:25:17 PM


So let's have much more of the cowboy movie transplanted to space - and much less of all the other stuff!  ;)
 

Amen!
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Captain Blood on December 22, 2017, 02:22:02 PM
Hmm. Well, I am not anxious to get into that most pointless activity - an argument on the internet  :D

All I'd say is that if the thrust of the criticism is that the movie is overlong and unnecessarily complex, then I guess that's a matter of taste, but I understand the point of view. I thought the same. Didn't spoil my enjoyment too much though.

But in support of Dr Zombie's 'I think some of you may be over-thinking this' line, a lot of the criticism seems to just be a dislike of where the storyteller has chosen to take particular characters, with a lot of 'so-and-so would never have done this' or 'that shouldn't have happened like that'. Again, it's a fair enough point of view I'm sure, but doesn't, in my book, justify damning the whole movie as a pile of poo because some things didn't happen the way you thought they were going to, or weren't entirely logical based on your knowledge of the whole backstory... I come back to the point that it's not a serious work. It's just thrilling pap. I guess my expectations of its seriousness and internal logic are not very high in the first place. I just take it at face value and enjoy it for what it is :)

Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: The Somnambulist on December 22, 2017, 05:43:23 PM
I loved it. If you didn't, fair enough.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: nic-e on December 22, 2017, 05:48:56 PM
I'm gong to see it again soon. I went without telling my girlfriend and now i have to try and act surprised throughout the whole thing. Shouldn't be too hard since nothing really shocking happens...But the thought of sitting through some of the more groan inducing sections again is causing me some regret.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Storm Wolf on December 22, 2017, 07:59:02 PM
Hmm. Well, I am not anxious to get into that most pointless activity - an argument on the internet  :D

Nor am I but I have but two words and they are STAR TREK, at least every other film was mostly good lol

Beam me up Scotty  :o

Glen
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: The Voivod on December 23, 2017, 11:04:10 AM
Quote
I loved it. If you didn't, fair enough.

You can't agree to disagree on the internet.
That's against the rules....
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Axebreaker on December 23, 2017, 06:21:46 PM
Disney are doing their very best to destroy Star Wars and everything it represented. This last installment should have been called Spaceballs II or a romp in hyperspace.

So far Disney managed to:

Han Solo- Turn into a washed up failure as a father who abandoned his family to have a good time flying in space thus wiping out everything he learned in the original series of dedication to something more then yourself and in the end his son having so much contempt for him that he took him out with his lightsaber without much of a thought.

Luke Skywalker- The ultimate Jedi who never gave up including bringing back to the light the most evil man to live in the galaxy that being Darth Vader to a bitter hobo rejecting the entire galaxy and the jedi order over considering killing his nephew because he is having some issues with the force therefore completely having him step out of character in doing so. So let's look how some of the the other Jedi Masters died starting with Darth Vader electrocuted in battle, Joda extreme old age, Mace force blown out a window, the Emperor fried, Ben cut down with a lightsaber all respectable ways to go, but Luke..... to die from stress WTF!

Chewi- Is now a vegan and prop along with ARtD2 and CEE3PO.

Leia- Mary Poppins of the force who is the leader of the rebels who always seems to make the same decision....run. In fact everything has turned out so well under her that the entire resistance(not rebels anymore ;) ) can fit in one ship.

So in needlessly destroying the old star wars pantheon what are we left with?

Ray- The ultimate Mary Sue that we still after 2 films know nothing about other then that in addition to being a crack shot, mechanic and pilot she is also an amazing Jedi warrior and is so good in fact that Jedi Master Luke didn't even need to train her after seeing her amazing lightsaber skills or even instruct her in the use of the force as she's already apparently a master herself. Oh and I guess her parents are nobody's so no need to fill in a background for her.

Finn- A trooper reluctant to kill that goes on a killing frenzy aboard Snokes ship. Other then that he's an ex storm trooper that we know very little about.

Poe- Hot shot pilot who's supposed to fill solo's boots but totally lacks the stage presence.

Kylo- Hands down the worst dark apprentice ever and so bad I felt I could pick up a lightsaber and thump him. Your not supposed to feel that way. He's supposed to look unbeatable until he miraculously is beaten and that is totally missing.

Snoke- Supreme Leader from where? There he is folks and there he goes….

At this point there is no connection to the characters in the films. Instead of feeling how could Ray and the rebels win we are left feeling how could they not win against Kylobieber and inept clowns from the first order.

I could go on but I feel I made a point. They could have created a new star wars trilogy for the new generation without destroying the old like Rogue one which was excellent, but their blatant need to destroy the old SW pantheon in the series would not allow that resulting in a couple of soulless bad films each one progressively worse then the other. As far as episode 9 goes I could care less as there is nothing to care about.

Christopher
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Manchu on December 24, 2017, 08:54:24 AM
Please keep the sexism card in the deck.

"Mary Sue" is probably not technically the correct term. Over the last two years, I have heard and read countless accusations that Rey is a Mary Sue and most people who say so don't seem to actually object to her being powerful. Rather, they object to the lack of explanation as to why she is powerful.

Certain lines in Episode VIII imply that the Force "awoke" inside of Rey so dramatically (quickly, strongly) in order to balance out on the good guy end of the spectrum over and against the darkness of Ben Solo/Kylo Ren.

Problem is, nothing in previous SW movies indicates this is how the Force works and the new movies also don't explain it. Even if this is how the Force works (although the question of why it works that way is still an issue) that still wouldn't explain why Rey, as opposed to any other of trillions of beings in the galaxy, would be the chosen one.

Rey is (supposed to be) the primary protagonist of both films, so the issues of who she is, why she's the way she is, and why we should care about her are ... well, to say "important" would be an understatement. These questions were specifically raised in The Force Awakens - and equally specifically not answered.

At the time, this was a transparently cyncial move to bait audiences to see Episode VIII - sort of like ending the movie without a word between Rey and Luke. Two years later and Disney is still baiting us.

In contrast, the first SW movie showed us how a seeming nobody hayseed like Luke dreamed about being part of something greater, found out he might have a greater destiny, initially turn away from that destiny, then find the motivation to forge ahead. This was all in the first act of a single film. Establishing that groundwork not only helped the audience understand, related to, and care about Luke in the rest of that movie but also set up meaningful moments in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

By the time Rey is going toe to toe with Kylo at the end of The Force Awakens, it's not clear why she can do so. And that hurts an otherwise strong scene. Unfortunately, The Last Jedi doesn't clearly deal with the question, either, kicking it down the road to the final installment. But it may already be too late to really care about her character. Even the script of The Last Jedi seems bored with Rey by the end, shifting focus entirely away from her to Kylo Ren and Luke.

*And nobody describes Ripley as a Mary Sue because Ripley is believably competent in Alien and Aliens thanks to adequate characterization.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: The Voivod on December 24, 2017, 10:24:23 AM
I get that some people are dissappointed that Rey's heritage is not important, but I'm actually glad they did it.
I think it's natural anyone with her history would have questions and they shouldn't all be answhered with "you come from a great lineage".

This choice made the galaxy a lot bigger. It doesn't all revolve around the Skywalkers.
It allso would've made no sense that anyone important would've let their heir to fend for themself on such a harsh planet.

Snoke gets the same complaint, but I feel that that should've been adressed.
I've hear the argument made that we didn't really know anything about the emperor, but we didn't have real questions yet about what happened in between two filmseries.
I'm fine with Kylo killing him, but this would've been more dramatic if he'd been build up a bit more.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on December 24, 2017, 10:36:43 AM


I could go on but I feel I made a point. They could have created a new star wars trilogy for the new generation without destroying the old like Rogue one which was excellent, but their blatant need to destroy the old SW pantheon in the series would not allow that resulting in a couple of soulless bad films each one progressively worse then the other. As far as episode 9 goes I could care less as there is nothing to care about.

Christopher

Blame Kathleen Kennedy and her years of resentment and personal issues with George Lucas. Now that she's in a position of absolute power, she uses it to destroy everything he created with impunity, because it's known that the money will keep flowing in huge numbers despite the overall quality of the new films.  

Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Axebreaker on December 24, 2017, 12:09:17 PM
Quote
Please keep the sexism card in the deck.

"Mary Sue" is probably not technically the correct term. Over the last two years, I have heard and read countless accusations that Rey is a Mary Sue and most people who say so don't seem to actually object to her being powerful. Rather, they object to the lack of explanation as to why she is powerful.

Exactly.

If anyone is to blame for Rey being described by many to include myself as a Mary Sue then I lay that at the feet of Disney, because that's the impression they have given her. She can do it all with little or no training. However, that said I did not just single out Rey, but basically what they did with virtually all characters and plot lines. Disney has managed to turn star wars into a parody.

As far as strong woman I have no issues with that as Ridley , Jyn Erso etc. because they were believable within story they were put in as they were given character development and thus they were made plausible while none of that is happening with Rey. Ray has never gone through any kind of trial and error or learning process in both films, but rather just seems to be able to do it and better then anyone else. Why??

Christopher
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on December 24, 2017, 12:30:52 PM
Disney has managed to turn star wars into a parody.

Exactly!
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: The Voivod on December 24, 2017, 12:40:41 PM
Did anyone notice that in the original star wars, a farmhand took on an entire battle station worth of professional soldiers?
And he was the one of the few survivors of a near suicidal attack on said battle station after being handed what ammounts to the keys of a F1-car because he's a mean hand on his Vespa back home?

Or that he stood toe-to-toe with the dark lord of the sith while most of his lightsaber training didn't even have the luxury of a youtube tutorial?

I'm not saying the new films are perfect. I thought TLJ could have been a lot better, but I don't get the Mary-Sue.

Star-wars has always been a kids fantasy and a large part of it's fandom is has always made fun of it's inconsitensies.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Axebreaker on December 24, 2017, 01:57:42 PM
Quote
Did anyone notice that in the original star wars, a farmhand took on an entire battle station worth of professional soldiers?
And he was the one of the few survivors of a near suicidal attack on said battle station after being handed what ammounts to the keys of a F1-car because he's a mean hand on his Vespa back home?

Sure....ignore the other half dozen hero's and professional soldiers that helped him all of which were essential to Luke succeeding.

Quote
Or that he stood toe-to-toe with the dark lord of the sith while most of his lightsaber training didn't even have the luxury of a youtube tutorial?

Actually no he trained both with Ben and Yoda as shown on screen and had to perform some difficult tasks. Need I remind you what happened to Luke when he decided to take on Papa Vader before his training was complete. Vader kicked Luke's behind from one side of the Death Star to the other without breaking a sweat lopping off his hand in one of the most agonizing screams on film!
Need a visual of the beaten and battered Luke as a reminder:
(https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/custom/Aaron/braden_review_empire/notrue.jpg)

Quote
I'm not saying the new films are perfect. I thought TLJ could have been a lot better, but I don't get the Mary-Sue.

They are not just bad films, but have an agenda to destroy the old SW. Luke took 3 films before he was good enough to face down Vader and learn how to master the force and Rey did this all in the first film and imho and many others she is a Mary Sue. At this point I'm cheering for Kylo because Rey looks unbeatable and that is just plain wrong that I feel that way, but thanks to Disney I do. However to be honest I don't really care because their is no reason to.

If Rey had been a man I would have been just as critical and called him "Superman Ray" or some such thing, but it was woman and Mary Sue fit the box  imho.

Quote
Star-wars has always been a kids fantasy and a large part of it's fandom is has always made fun of it's inconsitensies
.

Very true, but the original series showed commitment to friends, family, dedication and hard work pays off, but I see very little of that here.

Christopher
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: The Voivod on December 24, 2017, 02:29:09 PM
Quote
Sure....ignore the other half dozen hero's and professional soldiers that helped him all of which were essential to Luke succeeding.

No rebel soldiers on board the deathstar.
And still no rationilisation of why you'd let a farmboy fly a fighter into combat because he can fly cropduster.

Quote
Actually no he trained both with Ben and Yoda as shown on screen

I know Hyperspace travel is kinda wonky, but he got like 5 minutes worth of training that we saw from Ben and they only time he drew a saber on Dagobah was when Yoda told him not to.
No matter how many time passed between empire and jedi, he had no official training in between and handed Vader his ass in the end.

Quote
Luke took 3 films before he was good enough to face down Vader and learn how to master the force and Rey did this all in the first film
Rey managed a mindtrick she heard from in the legends and fought a wounded student of the dark side. Not a sith lord.

Quote
If Rey had been a man I would have been just as critical and called him "Superman Ray" or some such thing, but it was woman and Mary Sue fit the box  imho

Not bothered by that. Mary Sue is a uni-sex name as far as I'm considered. Wesley Crusher seems t be considerd one of the worst offenders.

Quote
Very true, but the original series showed commitment to friends, family, dedication and hard work pays off, but I see very little of that here

I can really put both Luke and Han in a pretty bad light, but we love the films we grew up with and give them a lot of slack.
I just think that I, for one, might end up give the new trilogy some of the same..

I'm not telling you to like them and I can imagine you feel dissappointed, but when Star wars first came out, it was unique and grand.
We've been smacked with big budget sc-fi movies for decades now and I don't think they'll ever be able to capture the magic of our childhood.





Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Storm Wolf on December 24, 2017, 03:07:49 PM
I haven't seen this one yet and probably won`t until I can see it for free, or rather more cheaply.

But I thought the first one was a bit hokey, which is why I didn't see this one. Quite liked Rogue One though.

However I suspect these newer films and the 3 prequels will join my list of films that do not exist in my frame of reference such as:

Highlander 2+
Aliens 3+
Most odd numbered Star Trek fims o_o
Die Hard 3+
Lethal Weapon 3+
Terminator 3+, although didn't mind Genysis strangely

You can see how this works, right lol

I suspect the current rash of Aliens prequels will fall in to this category, but time will tell ;)

Saves all the mental effort of disliking them

Each to their own

Glen

P.S. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all you Lead People out there!
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Elbows on December 24, 2017, 03:14:56 PM
Completely unrelated, but one of the later Die Hard's was quite good :D The one with the hacker kid.  lol
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Storm Wolf on December 24, 2017, 04:51:41 PM
Indeed as I said each to their own  :)

Glen
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Dr Mathias on December 24, 2017, 04:59:04 PM
Personally I'd call Rey a 'Paul Atreides' or 'Neo', rather than a 'Mary Sue' ;)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: chamberlain on December 24, 2017, 05:20:35 PM
The term 'Mary Sue' is from Star Trek fan fiction where a character named that does everyone else's job better than the other characters.  Better at science thank Spock, medicine than Bones, Leading/fighting than Kirk.  That sort of thing.

I think it fits Rey very well.  She can do everyone's job and do it better than them.  Are there any exceptions?  Like at all?
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Storm Wolf on December 24, 2017, 05:26:11 PM
The term 'Mary Sue' is from Star Trek fan fiction where a character named that does everyone else's job better than the other characters.  Better at science thank Spock, medicine than Bones, Leading/fighting than Kirk.  That sort of thing.

I think it fits Rey very well.  She can do everyone's job and do it better than them.  Are there any exceptions?  Like at all?

Ah also known as a "Janeway" in Star Trek circles lol
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Sir_Theo on December 24, 2017, 06:14:46 PM
I quite liked Last jedi, and im not really a Star wars fan (like the originals but everything else has left me cold) I did feel that some of the 'humourous' bits felt a little forced and upset the tone a bit. I know SW has often had a bit of muppetish slapstick to it (po. faced prequels apart) but it never jarred as much as this. It's enjoyable though.

I did like Rogue One a lot. That inspired me to go and buy the Star wars Risk (which isn't Risk at all.but a reimagined version of Avalon Hills Queens Gambit)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Axebreaker on December 24, 2017, 06:32:51 PM
Quote
And still no rationilisation of why you'd let a farmboy fly a fighter into combat because he can fly cropduster.

He had friends who vouched for his skill and Leia who he just rescued.
Quote
I know Hyperspace travel is kinda wonky, but he got like 5 minutes worth of training that we saw from Ben and they only time he drew a saber on Dagobah was when Yoda told him not to.
No matter how many time passed between empire and jedi, he had no official training in between and handed Vader his ass in the end
.

We don't know how much training he actually did with Yoda or Ben but you did see him train in each thing giving him the creds.

You saw lightsaber training and instruction how to properly use it.
He was trained how to move objects.
He was shown the jedi mind trick.

Everything he learned he was given instruction. No matter how much or little of training was shown it was more then Rey as she is just fantastic without needing any instruction at all?

Example- Jedi master Yoda instructing Luke needed intense concentration to move objects while Rey casually moves a half a mountain of boulders neatly piling them to the side so her friends can walk out without any training whatsoever. o_o

Quote
Rey managed a mindtrick she heard from in the legends and fought a wounded student of the dark side. Not a sith lord.

Thank you for proving my own point in that she just heard of a mind trick and presto could do it herself. Kylo was more then a simple student he was under the personal tutelage of a Sith lord already capable of building his own lightsaber and steeped in the craft of the Sith. He should have been able to beat an untrained opponent sitting in a lawnchair, but instead she handed him his butt wounded or not.

Quote
I can really put both Luke and Han in a pretty bad light, but we love the films we grew up with and give them a lot of slack.
I just think that I, for one, might end up give the new trilogy some of the same..

I'm not telling you to like them and I can imagine you feel dissappointed, but when Star wars first came out, it was unique and grand.
We've been smacked with big budget sc-fi movies for decades now and I don't think they'll ever be able to capture the magic of our childhood.

Of course I'm disappointed they are destroying the SW I grew up with for no reason. I have no problems with a new SW for a new generation but for heavens sake make it good. SW was a good story and had far more character development that made people care. Sure the cool effects were a big deal, but the story was also great as effort was put into it. The new SW story has a lot of special effects, but no character that is why it's terrible imho.

Quote
The term 'Mary Sue' is from Star Trek fan fiction where a character named that does everyone else's job better than the other characters.  Better at science thank Spock, medicine than Bones, Leading/fighting than Kirk.  That sort of thing.
I think it fits Rey very well.  She can do everyone's job and do it better than them.  Are there any exceptions?  Like at all?

Bingo!

Christopher
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: FramFramson on December 24, 2017, 07:24:46 PM
It's easy guys.

The new star wars films are fan fiction.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: FramFramson on December 24, 2017, 07:27:12 PM
Also, I was incredibly surprised to hear that each of the movies has been planned in isolation rather than as a trilogy. It appears Rian Johnson is in a bit of a low-level behind-the-scenes conflict with JJ Abrams, which partially accounts for TLJ's attempts to retcon or ignore several things established in TFA. I have no idea how this was allowed to happen at the higher level.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on December 24, 2017, 08:46:14 PM
It's easy guys.

The new star wars films are fan fiction.

No, they are not!  :D

Also, I was incredibly surprised to hear that each of the movies has been planned in isolation rather than as a trilogy. It appears Rian Johnson is in a bit of a low-level behind-the-scenes conflict with JJ Abrams, which partially accounts for TLJ's attempts to retcon or ignore several things established in TFA. I have no idea how this was allowed to happen at the higher level.

Search the net on the stories about the Kathleen Kennedy/George Lucas personal issues. Better yet: don't!  ;D
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Michi on December 25, 2017, 11:37:11 AM
It's easy guys.

The new star wars films are fan fiction.

Ah, finally a good point! What is now called LEGENDS was far more interesting and a carefully developed expanded universe with more logic, respect and interesting stories and characters that seemed to carry more truth. Thererfore - yes, fan fiction. By a new generation of fans perhaps, who vaguely know there was an Episode IV to VI beside something else - much like a mind trick...
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Driscoles on December 27, 2017, 11:01:01 AM
I was very much entertained. I understand that Luke is suffering from depression and yes, i like it when heroes stumble. Even Leia s walk in outta space is ok for me and I think it is one of the greatest strength of the latest Star Wars movies the they didnt let her die after Fishers  death!
I didnt like the Finn thing in the movie. He should have had his Kamikaze fate fullfilled.
I understand that many people didnt like this movie. My hint. Let it loose. The old times dont come back and dont hold your breath!
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Plynkes on December 27, 2017, 09:50:33 PM
I am at a point that I never thought I would reach: A new Star Wars movie isn't really a big deal for me any longer. I am glad six-year-old Plynkes from 1977 isn't here to see me say that. Little bastard would be kicking my shins. He was, in order: in love with Leia, then Luke, and a few years later when Empire was released came to his senses and realised that it was Han and had always been Han. lol


I was given a Blu-Ray of Sam Peckinpah's 1978 movie "Convoy" for Christmas and my priority was to watch that instead. That was fun. Kris Kristofferson and Ernest Borgnine in a silly movie about truck drivers and cops. It was nice to see Kris in his prime again. I hear he's not doing so well these days.


But I did finally get around to seeing it today on an outing with some family members. There were things I didn't like about it, but they don't seem to be the same things that irked most everybody else. I'm not going to go on about them, though, because I don't think anybody cares what some random internet guy thinks (I certainly don't), and it would probably only start another argument.

But I loved what they did with Luke and Rey, and actually I've come to really, really like Kylo Ren. But yeah, it was all right. I enjoyed it while it was happening. That's about all I have to say. Star Wars just isn't important enough to me to get either super-hyped or massively disappointed any longer.

Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: ErikB on December 27, 2017, 10:40:07 PM
I have become so sick of the hype, the Star Wars pajamas/napkins/vitamins/pencils/clothing/everything to sponge off a few $$$ from the movies.

However, I found that I really liked the movie.  I was not expecting much from it but I was happily surprised.

Some things I liked:
- Snoke telling Kylo to take off his stupid mask.  That was surprising and clever.
- The relationship between Kylo and Rey.  That was interesting.
- Poe played more of a part in this and I liked it.
- Rose was an interesting character, not Hollywood glamorous but more like a real person.  I liked her.
- Finn added technical knowledge of the First Order's equipment.  That tied things together and made him important.  I would have understood if they had let him die in his kamikaze run, though.
- The small but significant part played by the dark BB8 droid ("Darth BB8?") in catching the good guys when they were in disguise.
- I was surprised that Poe's black x-wing was destroyed.  My son and I just built the Lego one.  I didn't expect that to happen.
- I did not really understand the Dark Pit on the island but I was glad that Rey found nothing instead of doing the same thing that happened to Luke on Dagobah in the cave.  That was a surprise.
- I liked seeing Yoda, again, and he surprised me by destroying the Jedi books
- I liked the twist of the Jedi being described as something bad but there should have been more development of some kind of future vision of Force users like a balance, a merge, gray Jedis, or something like that.  They hinted but should have described some kind of vision.
- Snoke was interesting.  I was surprised they did away with him after just a few scenes, though.

I would have liked to have seen some more or better:
- Luke and R2D2
- Luke and Chewbacca
- Where was Chewbacca while Rey was trying to get Luke to talk with her?
- If Lea is going to be magical and mystical and float back through space (which was alright) then there should have been some more foreshadowing to show that she "has the force" more than an average person
- The bombers at the start were goofy looking (to a guy who loves his wargame miniatures), still trying to figure out how Rose's sister opened the door without a whoosh of air escaping
- Those big cannon were firing a BALLISTIC trajectory in space.  The effect was cool but it didn't make sense.  Perhaps if they had been shooting underneath, as well, so it looked like the projectiles arced because that's how they worked as opposed to arcing because of gravity that doesn't exist up there
- The creatures on Luke's island were goofy looking.  They could have done better with the costumes/design, I think.
- Snoke's bodyguards were silly.  Good fight scene and I liked seeing them block light sabers with their armor, but snapping into kung-fu position AFTER a sudden movement made them look slow on the uptake.  Also, those red masks looked cheap and without character.  Star Wars should have done a lot better.

Anyway, I liked it and will go back again with my wife, this time, who was busy with my mother-in-law making Christmas Eve dinner.  I got the kids out of the house.  It was a GREAT arrangement for me...! :-)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Cultist of Sooty on December 27, 2017, 11:21:06 PM
- I liked seeing Yoda, again, and he surprised me by destroying the Jedi books
You must have blinked at the wrong moment. Later in the film, you see that Rey had taken the books with her.

So when he said the temple contains nothing she does not already have, being the same old Yoda he was. :D

- Where was Chewbacca while Rey was trying to get Luke to talk with her?
Hanging out at the Falcon, barbecuing one of the merchandising opportunities. :)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on December 27, 2017, 11:23:05 PM
Hanging out at the Falcon, barbecuing one of the merchandising opportunities. :)

 lol lol lol lol lol
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Ninefingers on December 29, 2017, 07:57:51 AM
I have become so sick of the hype, the Star Wars pajamas/napkins/vitamins/pencils/clothing/everything to sponge off a few $$$ from the movies.

It was ever thus, even in 1977. There was a reason Lucas was happy to take the merchandising rights...
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Pijlie on December 29, 2017, 08:12:05 AM
In short, I enjoyed the movie. Not bored for a moment the entire 150 minutes.  :D
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Gibby on December 29, 2017, 09:24:59 AM
But yeah, it was all right. I enjoyed it while it was happening. That's about all I have to say. Star Wars just isn't important enough to me to get either super-hyped or massively disappointed any longer.

My thoughts exactly. After seeing the reaction to TLJ (on the wider web, rather than here) and remembering the hysterical excitement people had for TFA (crying with joy because the Millennium Falcon was in the trailer?!) I have come to realise that Star Wars is just not important enough to me to be worked up over... and in my case I don't think it ever was.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: ErikB on December 29, 2017, 05:20:38 PM
You must have blinked at the wrong moment. Later in the film, you see that Rey had taken the books with her.

So when he said the temple contains nothing she does not already have, being the same old Yoda he was. :D
Hanging out at the Falcon, barbecuing one of the merchandising opportunities. :)
Hahahaha...!

I didn't see that she took the books.  I must have blinked or been watching my kids and their reactions to the movie.  That's even more fun than Star Wars.  <3

I saw that scene with Chewie grilling those little merchandising opportunities.  I just couldn't imagine him doing it for THAT long.  Would have liked to have seen a little more of what he was up to.

It did surprise me that Luke did not interact much with R2D2 or Chewie.  I can see Luke being horribly depressed and burnt out but these were old friends who never did him wrong.  They are also sentimental symbols in Star Wars.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: The Voivod on December 29, 2017, 07:22:55 PM
Having seen it the first time with my mates, I went with my boys today (age 7 and 10).
They both loved it, the youngest despite not being able to read subtitles yet. He was far less finnicky in the cinema then he is when we watch a movie at home.
Watching a star wars movie with my sons on the big screen was a wonderfull daddie-moment.

I was a bit dissappointed on first viewing, but was actually allready coming round. And I must say, I actually came out the second time liking it quite a bit.
The humor seemed less grating, when you expect it and several themes of the movie are actually set up pretty well.

The prequels I ended up liking less with each viewing. This one seems to have the opposite effect.
It's not just that I want to like it, mind you.
I want to like the prequels to and I loath those...
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on December 29, 2017, 11:01:32 PM
It did surprise me that Luke did not interact much with R2D2 or Chewie.  I can see Luke being horribly depressed and burnt out but these were old friends who never did him wrong.  They are also sentimental symbols in Star Wars.

Mark Hamill has talked about this one; he said it was not Luke Skywalker, because good old Luke had a big and warm heart and loved his friends very much, but a completely new guy called Jake Skywalker!  lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYIAVvNH8rE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYIAVvNH8rE)

Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Sir_Theo on December 29, 2017, 11:16:55 PM
I spent most of the day playing the single player campaign  for the computer game 'Battlefront 2', which is a sort of Star wars greatest hits. I've been Luke, Han, Leia  and Lando as well as a First order spec ops lady. Lots of fun.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on December 30, 2017, 12:11:20 AM
I spent most of the day playing the single player campaign  for the computer game 'Battlefront 2', which is a sort of Star wars greatest hits. I've been Luke, Han, Leia  and Lando as well as a First order spec ops lady. Lots of fun.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/Bot%C3%B3n_Me_gusta.svg/1200px-Bot%C3%B3n_Me_gusta.svg.png)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Vanvlak on January 08, 2018, 06:13:34 AM
Went yesterday; it was fun, and I enjoyed it.  :D

Only disappointment came from realising:
I am glad six-year-old Plynkes from 1977 isn't here to see me say that.
Plynkes is younger than me.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Elk101 on January 08, 2018, 06:35:42 AM
I wanted to like it, I really did.  :(
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Andym on January 08, 2018, 07:30:35 AM
I wanted to like it, I really did.  :(

You can only try sooo hard though mate! ;)

When the studio seem to think a good story for a two and a half hour film is a slow, slumbering star ship chase through space, you just can’t try to like it hard enough I’m afraid!

Bad film!
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Manchu on January 08, 2018, 07:50:43 AM
Yes, I think pretty much everyone would prefer to live in a world where new SW movies are good ... rather than the world we do live in.

 ;)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Daeothar on January 08, 2018, 08:42:30 AM
I was a bit dissappointed on first viewing, but was actually allready coming round. And I must say, I actually came out the second time liking it quite a bit.
The humor seemed less grating, when you expect it and several themes of the movie are actually set up pretty well.

Couldn't agree more; the same has happened to me.

When bias is left at the door, the film is actually pretty good (except the Leia space walk; that's the Indy fridge scene all over again and it's the one element of the film I really don't like).

It's no Rogue One, but it certainly is no Phantom Menace either...
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Elk101 on January 08, 2018, 08:46:17 AM
You can only try sooo hard though mate! ;)

When the studio seem to think a good story for a two and a half hour film is a slow, slumbering star ship chase through space, you just can’t try to like it hard enough I’m afraid!

Bad film!

"Fleeing from the Cylon First Order tyranny..."
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: FramFramson on January 14, 2018, 08:55:12 AM
Alright I finally saw this with the wife and a friend today, and I Have Some Thoughts.

We had free tickets and so decided to experience the novelty of 4DX just to see what it was like (result: unimpressive and even mildly annoying).

There things I liked and didn't like, but dislike did win out in the end and the more I think about it, the sourer the taste it leaves.

The quick version is that much of the story of TLJ is a bloated bodge job that falls apart under any scrutiny (especially anything related to the prolonged Resistance's sloowwww escape effort), but there were some very good performances mid-movie by Rider and Ridley. Overall they probably could have been trimmed a lot.

My biggest takeaway is that Rian Johnson chickened out of taking Star Wars in a new and (what would have been) interesting and more mature direction. It would have given Rey and Ren more agency and really strengthened them overall as characters. Instead Rian backed away to return Star Wars to its simplistic dualistic roots.

Basically The "Grey Jedi" concept from the EU, that the Force is inherently neutral, or is at least a Yin-Yang sort of system (as with the original Daoist sources Star Wars mysticism was somewhat based on) rather than an actual defined "good" and "evil" in the traditional Judeo-Christian sense, should have been embraced.

Luke's repudiation of the Jedi could have stood, and been clearly based on valid grounds such as citing their dangerously repressive aspects, their rigid theocratic history, and a starkly reductionist worldview which only saw in terms of black and white. He could have talked about how anyone wielding the force outside the order was deemed at least dangerous, if not outright evil and how most "Dark" Jedi were in fact regular Jedi who'd either broken with the order or failed in their discipline somehow - that the Jedi were their own worst enemy.

If instead Luke had come to a realization that the Force does not have a strictly good or evil side to it, that it only carries what you bring to it, or that you can have a blend of beliefs with some light and some dark without actually being "Evil", that could have brought a more mature concept of the Force to fans, and strengthened Rey's and Kylo's characters, giving them more agency and more possibilities (and still would have tied in to certain aspects of the OT, like the Dagobah cave). Johnson toys with this notion, coming so very close to embracing it... only to back away at the last minute to retain the OT's simplistic dualistic good-vs-evil conception of the universe.

Kylo and Rey would have (and should) have been thereby freed to reach a detente, run away together, or even build something entirely new, with the Force being open to far more people than it had during the reign of the Jedi.

Instead they reduced Kylo to a one-dimensional 100% pure villain, with no redeeming characteristics or interesting features. A comment has been going around that where the original Empire were essentially defined as Nazis, Kylo represents the Nazis of our era - pasty whinging white guys in basements who idolize the nazis of an imagined past that never existed. Based on his character arc crashing out by the end of TLJ, I've decided Kylo is nothing more than "Tiki Torch Vader".

It's not a question mark either. Rian Johnson hammer it home as hard as he can that Kylo Ren is now pure evil evil evil through and through. As a result, he's written Abrams into a corner such that Episode 9's resolution is almost certain to be really lame.

If they defeat/kill Kylo, well. Okay. Villain defeated. Boring.

If he's turned, it's after he's embraced the path of evil more deeply Vader ever did, which would make for an incredibly lame ass-pull. First, it's established that while he was wavering at the beginning of the movie, he's firm at the end and more than willing to kill Leia ("No prisoners"? Boy, you are no Peter O'Toole... you're just a tool). Also, both Leia and Luke have pronounced him irredeemable. Vader did many horrible awful things, but they spent all three original movies establishing how trapped Vader felt, how he was a prisoner of destiny and the Emperor's will, and that to resist them was futile. Kylo has no such excuse. He clearly beat the only master he still felt beholden to, and didn't even really have a hard time doing so. He could do anything now, but he has clearly chosen to go "full Hitler" as it were (maybe in keeping with the modern neo-nazi comparison his excuse will be "But I was just joking bro! I only did it for the lulz!" hah).  

If they DO go for a "Grey Jedi" resolution in the end where some sort of middle ground is reached, it's going to be REALLY AWKWARD after Kylo's been established as more evil then Vader, and after they had a PERFECT setup to do that in this movie, only to reject it.

Besides that, I found Luke's "moment of weakness" to be extremely out of character. For a person who spent three movies growing from whiny youth to a confident hero, that was a failure TLJ simply couldn't sell. If Luke had the wisdom and strength to confront the Emperor, he should have had the same wisdom and strength to deal with Kylo in just about any other way than panicking like some rank amateur. SURELY he would have foreseen that some of his students might go bad and come up with some sort of contingency.

The last thing I want to add is that it actually really upsets me how the sequels have gone out of their way to make every character in the OT suffer.

Every success they won is undone. Their lives after RotJ are depicted as ones of failure and sorrow and pain. Everything they did is meaningless. That's a fucking gut-punch when you realize it. The sequels essentially took one of Cinema's greatest happy endings of all time and sets out to not just destroy it, but invalidate it as if it had never been.

I mean, is the sequel trilogy screenplay writer secretly GRRM? (No wonder the next GoT book's taking so long!) Is that the theme of the art of our age? That there's no hope, no victory, only defeat and failure and and suffering?

Ultimately I feel the prequels were an example of solid fundamentals but disastrous execution (I would give anything for a properly done prequel trilogy), while the sequels have sound execution but are built on horrible fundamentals.

I think the franchise has essentially become a prisoner of itself. Whether you blame the fan demands, the money-men, George Lucas, or whoever, it doesn't really matter, there's so many expectations and it's so "sacred" that there's always going to be too many meddling cooks and too much second-guessing of things to produce anything that stands on it's own rather than leaning heavily on the the originals.

I now doubt they'll ever recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle that was the OT. Not in the Star Wars universe.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: armchairgeneral on January 14, 2018, 10:51:55 AM
Saw the film last week. Enjoyed the action sequences but I thought the plot was a bit daft. The walkers attack on the rebel base seemed a direct lift from Empire Strikes Back.

It is a shame there can’t be the courage to do something different rather than a rehash of the old.

Distinctly average.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on January 14, 2018, 10:55:02 AM
Alright I finally saw this with the wife and a friend today, and I Have Some Thoughts.

...


Very nice!

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UefkjIcKq_g/Vfpz72es4vI/AAAAAAAABTk/9C5YAM3YnaU/s1600/like-button.jpg)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Hobgoblin on January 14, 2018, 11:03:50 AM
I've had a couple of viewings of comparable matter recently, which made me reflect on The Last Jedi. First, with the kids, we've watched a couple of Kurosawa classics: The Hidden Fortress and Sanjuro. They watched Yojimbo a while ago and loved it - not least for the Star Wars antecedents (severed arm, hiding under tatami mats, etc). They loved the other films too: obviously, The Hidden Fortress is a Star Wars spotter's paradise.

Now, it struck me as interesting that my six-year-old daughter could follow the plot of The Hidden Fortress through subtitles far more easily than she could follow the plot of The Last Jedi. But it's not really a surprise: though both films are, ultimately, the same sort of story (fairy-talish adventures with princesses and swords and the odd ambivalent baddie), the Kurosawa one is just far more elegantly plotted and much better told. I would be very surprised if, a couple of decades hence, an ambitious young director bases his fantasy film script on the plot and characters of the The Last Jedi ...

The second thing we watched (just my wife and I, obviously) was Logan. I generally dislike superhero films, but I thought that this one was pretty good. It got me thinking that it could easily have been entitled The Last Mutant(s), and that its basic plot would have been far better for a Star Wars film called The Last Jedi. Again, it was simple but elegant (there's one subtle twist in the plot that I particularly like), and it reinforced my take on TLJ: that its screenwriters have tangled themselves up in knots and dead end and non-sequiturs, to such an extent that you marvel that they were paid for the script at all.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: FramFramson on January 14, 2018, 08:19:35 PM
One of the funnier plot holes is Poe's Mutiny.

See, I get that Leia and General Whatzherface were tying to teach a valuable lesson to a future leader about discipline and the chain of command and such... but when he actually LEADS AN ARMED MUTINY, don't you think it might be a good idea to tell the poor fellow "Settle down, you idiot. Actually we DO have a plan..."? Instead, the general pulls a gun and starts shooting, putting her whole plan at unneeded risk by putting it on pause, necessitating she has to break back into their own bridge, possibly destroying ship systems or needlessly killing other personnel not involved in her little "lesson"?!

It actually unravels a lot of the escape plot. If the ships had been allowed to escape earlier, they might not have been detected, or been detected much later, and General Whatzherface, obviously a skilled and important Rebel leader, would not have had to make a Heroic Sacrifice to try and cover their escape. Instead they wind up killing most of what's left of the Resistance, just so Poe can have a "teaching moment"!
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Hobgoblin on January 15, 2018, 12:13:58 AM
One of the funnier plot holes is Poe's Mutiny.

See, I get that Leia and General Whatzherface were tying to teach a valuable lesson to a future leader about discipline and the chain of command and such... but when he actually LEADS AN ARMED MUTINY, don't you think it might be a good idea to tell the poor fellow "Settle down, you idiot. Actually we DO have a plan..."? Instead, the general pulls a gun and starts shooting, putting her whole plan at unneeded risk by putting it on pause, necessitating she has to break back into their own bridge, possibly destroying ship systems or needlessly killing other personnel not involved in her little "lesson"?!

I thought that at that moment it would have been shockingly iconoclastic in a good way if they'd just gone all Rogue One and had Leia shoot Poe and the other mutineers dead. It wouldn't have been very Star War-sy (other than in a Rogue One way), but it would at least have made some kind of sense. Not as much sense as just sharing the plan, though ...

It actually unravels a lot of the escape plot. If the ships had been allowed to escape earlier, they might not have been detected, or been detected much later, and General Whatzherface, obviously a skilled and important Rebel leader, would not have had to make a Heroic Sacrifice to try and cover their escape. Instead they wind up killing most of what's left of the Resistance, just so Poe can have a "teaching moment"!

I think that's basically what's wrong with so much screenwriting these days: character arcs and development are put ahead of plot, rather than arising naturally from it.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: FramFramson on January 15, 2018, 02:03:24 AM
I've had a couple of viewings of comparable matter recently, which made me reflect on The Last Jedi. First, with the kids, we've watched a couple of Kurosawa classics: The Hidden Fortress and Sanjuro. They watched Yojimbo a while ago and loved it - not least for the Star Wars antecedents (severed arm, hiding under tatami mats, etc). They loved the other films too: obviously, The Hidden Fortress is a Star Wars spotter's paradise.

Now, it struck me as interesting that my six-year-old daughter could follow the plot of The Hidden Fortress through subtitles far more easily than she could follow the plot of The Last Jedi. But it's not really a surprise: though both films are, ultimately, the same sort of story (fairy-talish adventures with princesses and swords and the odd ambivalent baddie), the Kurosawa one is just far more elegantly plotted and much better told. I would be very surprised if, a couple of decades hence, an ambitious young director bases his fantasy film script on the plot and characters of the The Last Jedi ...

That's the thing that really gets me.

You see, I'm not really invested in it as a "Star Wars fan". My thing as a kid was Star Trek and I only came to the Star Wars train as I was becoming disillusioned with where Trek was going, so I could never be as invested in Star Wars. I got a bit into the old SW-EU and liked some of it, but was bad (which was frequently) I just laughed it off and ignored it.

Really, my hopes for great films were already dashed by the prequels, so I already had lowered expectations for the sequels (though that first trailer for TFA... that had me going for a while... I thought maybe, just maybe, they'd pull it off).

What IS important to me is great storytelling. Not that the OT was perfection, but I think the OT is an example of some of the greatest storytelling on film. As you say, it draws on solid, long-established rules:

- It's mostly tightly written and elegantly constructed (there are surprisingly few plot holes and the ones that do exist - such as Luke crashing in exactly the right place on Dagobah - are pretty unimportant and can be explained away without it being TOO much of a stretch)
- It's well-acted. The performances are obviously memorable.
- It balances drama and fun well, with a great sense of timing where it hits all the right notes at the right times
- It's one of the most textbook examples of the principle of showing you rather than telling you. In most cases the OT builds and communicates whole worlds and settings in just a handful of establishing shots, props, or secondary lines
- It immerses a viewer in these new worlds without overwhelming them.
- It pushes the "rule of cool" to the limit without sacrificing drama or logic.

That's how you make a classic. Not with the terrible storytelling where an impossible hero comes out of nowhere with no explanation, not where coincidences and shoddy writing are used to force moments or solve problems. If you go through lists that describe fundamental axioms of good storytelling (Pixar showed theirs a while back, here (http://www.pixartouchbook.com/blog/2011/5/15/pixar-story-rules-one-version.html) and it's a good basic example). The new sequels break so many of these rules.

Neither the prequels nor the sequels would have been memorable at all without the OT to tie them back to and it's funny how easily people are ready to deny this.

It's fascinating to me that for many fans any complaints about Episode 8 are met not with efforts to justify the flaws in Ep 8, but to tear down the OT, to try and create or enlarge flaws which are nonexistent or really minor, to deny that the OT was ever anything special.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: MachinaMandala on January 15, 2018, 04:22:22 AM
We lost the Extended Universe for this:

(https://i.imgur.com/2A8JdcH.png)

From Join the Resistance: Escape from Vodran.

(Yes this is weird humiliatory fart pseudo-porn. Yes this is genuine. Yes this is a licensed and canon Disney Star Wars book.)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Michi on January 15, 2018, 05:33:54 AM
We lost the Extended Universe for this:

(https://i.imgur.com/2A8JdcH.png)

From Join the Resistance: Escape from Vodran.

(Yes this is weird humiliatory fart pseudo-porn. Yes this is genuine. Yes this is a licensed and canon Disney Star Wars book.)

What kind of humor is this?  >:(
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: MachinaMandala on January 15, 2018, 06:08:37 AM
What kind of humor is this?  >:(

None, I'd say. lol

(I am reasonably certain it's some weird fetishism.)

It's fair to point out that Escape From Vodran is a kid's book.

Mind you, adults do read read kid's books (in the case of Harry Potter it's editions with monochrome covers to make it look all grown up like they're reading a Thomas Mann novel in the original German), but that's more a comment on the adult than the actual book.

I don't think "it being for kids" is any excuse really.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on January 15, 2018, 11:34:14 AM

I haven't seen this one and I have no intentions of seeing it or any future Star Wars film.


Specially after the motherfockerz basterdz killed Felicity Jones!!!  :'(
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Hobgoblin on January 15, 2018, 02:02:37 PM
That's the thing that really gets me.

You see, I'm not really invested in it as a "Star Wars fan". My thing as a kid was Star Trek and I only came to the Star Wars train as I was becoming disillusioned with where Trek was going, so I could never be as invested in Star Wars. I got a bit into the old SW-EU and liked some of it, but was bad (which was frequently) I just laughed it off and ignored it.

I'm coming from a somewhat similar place. I loved the OT as a kid, but wasn't terribly interested in anything else. When some of my friends were keen to play the SW RPG, for example, I went along with it, but would rather have been playing Runequest or WHFRP or Dragon Warriors (to which we soon returned). I've never paid a bit of attention to the EU.

I was mildly excited about the prequels, but only until I saw the first one. I didn't seen any of them in the cinema. But then my kids got really excited about the new ones, and I half-enjoyed the first two: TFA and (more so) Rogue One.

What IS important to me is great storytelling. Not that the OT was perfection, but I think the OT is an example of some of the greatest storytelling on film.

Couldn't agree more. I think that the OT's successes here are partly because Lucas stole from the best for Star Wars, coopted some of the best (Bracket and Kershner) for Empire, and then reprised the original in Jedi. And in the original film, his wife's editing hugely improved the storytelling - as Daeothar's fascinating link further up this thread shows.

As you say, it draws on solid, long-established rules:

- It's mostly tightly written and elegantly constructed (there are surprisingly few plot holes and the ones that do exist - such as Luke crashing in exactly the right place on Dagobah - are pretty unimportant and can be explained away without it being TOO much of a stretch)

Yes: one of the odd conventions of all Star Wars films is that planets are essentially just 'places' - fairy-tale kingdoms, or perhaps the warring statelets of Kurosawa's samurai films. They all seem fairly small, but as they all do, it's easy to go with it.

- It's well-acted. The performances are obviously memorable.

The performances were also helped by a better script. I suspect Daisy Ridley may be a better actor than Mark Hamill was when the original Star Wars was filmed, but she's not helped by her character being an almost complete blank.

- It's one of the most textbook examples of the principle of showing you rather than telling you. In most cases the OT builds and communicates whole worlds and settings in just a handful of establishing shots, props, or secondary lines

Yes - and it also does some neat "telling, not showing" - through making references to things that aren't explained but create a sense of a bigger universe - the Kessel Run, womp rats, etc.

That Pixar list is excellent - thanks for the link!

Neither the prequels nor the sequels would have been memorable at all without the OT to tie them back to and it's funny how easily people are ready to deny this.

It's fascinating to me that for many fans any complaints about Episode 8 are met not with efforts to justify the flaws in Ep 8, but to tear down the OT, to try and create or enlarge flaws which are nonexistent or really minor, to deny that the OT was ever anything special.

Good points. There's often a sort of 'fannishness' (and I'm not accusing anyone here of this!), in which films or books are given special exemptions because of what they are (a Star Wars film in this case), rather than being held to the same standards as anything else. I encounter this quite often, but am never able to get my head around why I shouldn't hold a generic fantasy novel (say) to the same standards that I'd hold any other novel.

One more thing on all the Star Wars films since Return of the Jedi: it's a small point, but I think they don't do enough to build on the alien species established in the first film. Yes, I know a galaxy can hold countless species, but given that we see humans everywhere, without explanation, I think the filmmakers would have done better to show other spacefaring species occurring more regularly, rather than constantly adding new ones. I remember a still released before The Phantom Menace that showed a person of the walrus-man sort ("Bum Face", we called him as children ...) sitting on a bench somewhere. But it wasn't the same walrus man as in Mos Eisley (and Jedda, now, to the detriment of the series). I think the scene was cut, but I remember thinking that it showed that they were going down a good direction of reprising a lot of the species of the OT. They weren't really, though. OK, they do do a few reprises - Twilek jedi and so on - but I reckon it would have been better to have said "These 20 or 30 types are the main spacefaring races, so we're going to be seeing a lot of them in all the films".

Of course, they could have included plenty of new ones, but relying on the established aliens would have provided more visual consistency. It's not realism, but it might have felt more coherent (and helped to avoid dodgy CGI aliens ...). Imagine if the awful Gungans had been replaced with a whole nation/planet of Bum Faces ...

(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/1/10/Pondababa.png/revision/latest?cb=20130225025836)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Hobgoblin on January 15, 2018, 05:02:55 PM
On a related note, if anyone here hasn't read this (https://tattuinardoelasaga.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/tattuinardoela-saga-if-star-wars-were-an-icelandic-saga/), they certainly should. It's quite possibly the best thing on the internet.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Too Bo Coo on January 15, 2018, 05:35:49 PM
Am I the only ne not that interested in the SW franchise? I saw the first one as a kid and while I loved the toys, the movies always seemed hackneyed to me. Not to spoil the fun of others, but it’s really just a western in space...
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on January 15, 2018, 06:26:04 PM
On a related note, if anyone here hasn't read this (https://tattuinardoelasaga.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/tattuinardoela-saga-if-star-wars-were-an-icelandic-saga/), they certainly should. It's quite possibly the best thing on the internet.

Really AWESOME, thank you very much for sharing!  ;)
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: ErikB on January 15, 2018, 06:30:42 PM
Am I the only ne not that interested in the SW franchise? I saw the first one as a kid and while I loved the toys, the movies always seemed hackneyed to me. Not to spoil the fun of others, but it’s really just a western in space...
I liked the original.  The effects were awesome to me as a kid.  The story was simple enough and yet symbolic enough to grasp.

The prequels were awful.  They lack of substance, the nonsensical over-business, the lack of grandeur, and horrible acting made it barely watchable.  Sooooooooo Silicon Valley (if you live here then you'll understand what I mean.)  It killed my interest.

Some of the stories are fun, though, such as in Clone Wars.  Dumbed down and formulaic but fun.

I am so tired of all the hype, the merchandising (my 5 year old son only wears Star Wars socks, shirts, sweat pants, sweatshirts, etc.) and billboards EVERYWHERE.  It has been killing my interest.

However Episode 7 and Rogue One were alright (not great but still worth a ticket to the theater).  I liked the female leads (good for my 10 year old daughter).  I heard Episode 8 was good so I went, despite being so sick of the hype.  Turned out to be alright.  Not perfect, but they did alright.  I was expecting crap and was pleasantly surprised.

What I find interesting is that my kids did not want to go see it again and were not interested in any of the characters other than BB-8.

My son LOVES his Star Wars Legos, though.  He doesn't want to watch any movies or Clone Wars, but he loves his legos and his Storm Trooper Lego figures.

At least he is thinking, building, and playing, instead of watching a screen.

God, I miss Historical Fiction shows, like Sharpe, Jules Verne, Radetskymarsch, and so on....  We can find some on Amazon and Netflix but I wish this stuff were in the theaters.

It's like we Americans have no culture (which is not really true) so we invent one.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Momotaro on January 15, 2018, 06:37:32 PM
Am I the only ne not that interested in the SW franchise? I saw the first one as a kid and while I loved the toys, the movies always seemed hackneyed to me. Not to spoil the fun of others, but it’s really just a western in space...

Star Wars was a "bottled lightning" moment.  Japanese cinema had become enamoured of great Western stories.  The Kurosawa film Yojimbo is a retelling of Dashiell Hammett's dark pulp novel Red Harvest, and his other films Throne of Blood and Ran are retellings of Macbeth and King Lear respectively.  By the late 60s and early 70s, Western (and indeed western) film-makers had noticed how wonderful these stylised Japanese films were.  A Fistful of Dollars is a western rewrite of Yojimbo,a nd you can read in interviews with the likes of Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas just how excited they were about Japanese cinema.

Star Wars is the result of these - Campbell's hero's journey told through a filter of a Samurai and post-oil crash rustbelt Americana design aesthetic, with whole scenes nicked from other films.  it looks like a western because it is one... and a samurai movie, and a fairytale, and a WWII movie (the Death Star battle sequences were originally filled in during pre-screenings with scenes from WWII and Korean fighter-plane sequences).  The fact that it fits perfectly as an Icelandic saga (thanks Hobgoblin) tells me that the core of the film is arechetypal (rather than stereotypical or cliche).

The fact that much of the film is wonderful... well it's come out over the years just how much other people were able to guide Lucas away from his worst instincts (compared with the prequels, where he was working off first drafts, and nobody had the power to day "no" to him).  The dialogue could be "shit", the story is not without its flaws, but the structure of the script, the flesh put on to the characters and the world-building are lean and effective.

Compare the opening sequence of SW, which tells us everything we need to know about the Empire and the Rebellion, with the mess we have in the sequels - nobody seems to know who the Resistance and the first Order actually ARE.  And the Death Star assault is a solid piece of writing - you have a map, a countdown and clear objectives and obstacles.  Empire was better because he had less input; RotJ worse because he had more.

Not just a shot at the sequel films - modern film-making has forgotten how to write tight scripts and strong characters, and JJ Abrams and his stable of Lost scriptwriters have blighted Hollywood.  Not just them - as Scurv said, Star Wars, Star Trek, Predator, Alien, Robocop, Highlander and Terminator would have been something better if the respective franchises had ended some time in the late 80s or early 90s.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Too Bo Coo on January 15, 2018, 07:48:35 PM
Star Wars was a "bottled lightning" moment.  Japanese cinema had become enamoured of great Western stories.  The Kurosawa film Yojimbo is a retelling of Dashiell Hammett's dark pulp novel Red Harvest, and his other films Throne of Blood and Ran are retellings of Macbeth and King Lear respectively.  By the late 60s and early 70s, Western (and indeed western) film-makers had noticed how wonderful these stylised Japanese films were.  A Fistful of Dollars is a western rewrite of Yojimbo,a nd you can read in interviews with the likes of Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas just how excited they were about Japanese cinema.

Star Wars is the result of these - Campbell's hero's journey told through a filter of a Samurai and post-oil crash rustbelt Americana design aesthetic, with whole scenes nicked from other films.  it looks like a western because it is one... and a samurai movie, and a fairytale, and a WWII movie (the Death Star battle sequences were originally filled in during pre-screenings with scenes from WWII and Korean fighter-plane sequences).  The fact that it fits perfectly as an Icelandic saga (thanks Hobgoblin) tells me that the core of the film is arechetypal (rather than stereotypical or cliche).

The fact that much of the film is wonderful... well it's come out over the years just how much other people were able to guide Lucas away from his worst instincts (compared with the prequels, where he was working off first drafts, and nobody had the power to day "no" to him).  The dialogue could be "shit", the story is not without its flaws, but the structure of the script, the flesh put on to the characters and the world-building are lean and effective.

Compare the opening sequence of SW, which tells us everything we need to know about the Empire and the Rebellion, with the mess we have in the sequels - nobody seems to know who the Resistance and the first Order actually ARE.  And the Death Star assault is a solid piece of writing - you have a map, a countdown and clear objectives and obstacles.  Empire was better because he had less input; RotJ worse because he had more.

Not just a shot at the sequel films - modern film-making has forgotten how to write tight scripts and strong characters, and JJ Abrams and his stable of Lost scriptwriters have blighted Hollywood.  Not just them - as Scurv said, Star Wars, Star Trek, Predator, Alien, Robocop, Highlander and Terminator would have been something better if the respective franchises had ended some time in the late 80s or early 90s.

"The fact that much of the film is wonderful..." I'm not certain that is indeed a fact.  I recall an interview with Gene Roddenberry about his vision for Star Trek and he commented that he was forced to make it more mediocre than he preferred because the studio wanted mass appeal, not ununderstandable, but this of course means that storytellers who embrace this ethos turn out rather ordinary products and I think the use of the word 'hackneyed' was not an overstatement.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: dinohunterpoa on January 15, 2018, 10:19:25 PM
That's how you make a classic. Not with the terrible storytelling where an impossible hero comes out of nowhere with no explanation, not where coincidences and shoddy writing are used to force moments or solve problems. If you go through lists that describe fundamental axioms of good storytelling (Pixar showed theirs a while back, here (http://www.pixartouchbook.com/blog/2011/5/15/pixar-story-rules-one-version.html) and it's a good basic example). The new sequels break so many of these rules.

That "Pixar Story Rules" is AWESOME, thank you very much for the link!  ;)

Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: JamesValentine on January 16, 2018, 11:24:14 AM
not gonna repeat whats already been said a thousand times.
Star Trek was murdered by hollywood.
Star Wars has been murdered by hollywood.

I guess its back to lower budget Chinese films that can do allot better with 50% the resources.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Condottiere on January 18, 2018, 01:33:16 AM
Marvel/Disney has reacquired the Conan license, so a new comic series is expected in 2019 - maybe PG13 movies in the future? 

On a related note, ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Has Already Been Pulled From Chinese Theaters (http://www.slashfilm.com/the-last-jedi-china/)...

Claims of Chinese audiences being unfamiliar with the series seems more like spin, as the mediocre TFA and the superior Rogue One, made more than this half-bothered conflation of fan fiction side stories.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Hobgoblin on January 18, 2018, 11:08:28 AM
Claims of Chinese audiences being unfamiliar with the series seems more like spin, as the mediocre TFA and the superior Rogue One, made more than this half-bothered conflation of fan fiction side stories.

I lived in China for years, and everyone knows 星球大战. They knew about it before the prequels too. Chinese cities are full of pirate DVD shops, and the Star Wars films are an absolute staple.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Plynkes on January 18, 2018, 11:57:52 AM
Marvel/Disney has reacquired the Conan license, so a new comic series is expected in 2019


Oh man, judging by what Marvel comics have been like for the past few years, that's not going to go down well.

I loved the Dark Horse Conan while Cary Nord was the artist, but when he stopped doing it much of the shine went off it for me. But with Marvel at the helm we're probably gonna get shitty art and shitty writing. I hope not, but I'm not optimistic.


Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Emir of Askaristan on January 18, 2018, 12:24:17 PM
SO as a slight aside, what's happened to Black Angel?
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: YPU on January 18, 2018, 08:33:18 PM
I saw it last weekend, with 2 friends who had already seen it once but were ok with tagging along for one more go.

Interesting tidbit, the cinema I was at (older mom and pop dealio, reall classy one too) had an intermission, been a good long while since I've had one of those. But after that, the first 20 or so minutes felt like very very good, like the movie was redeeming itself entirely. Then it drooped again back to ok levels sadly. It was interesting though, without that break in the middle I would not have noticed.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: FramFramson on January 18, 2018, 09:03:12 PM
I loved the Dark Horse Conan while Cary Nord was the artist, but when he stopped doing it much of the shine went off it for me.
Oh absolutely. It was alright for a little while afterwards, but not that long.

I think my favourite issue was the Tower of the Elephant one.
Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Condottiere on January 19, 2018, 01:51:58 AM
Oh man, judging by what Marvel comics have been like for the past few years, that's not going to go down well.

I loved the Dark Horse Conan while Cary Nord was the artist, but when he stopped doing it much of the shine went off it for me. But with Marvel at the helm we're probably gonna get shitty art and shitty writing. I hope not, but I'm not optimistic.
Mixed reactions on the Swords of REH: Conan Back at Marvel in 2019 (http://swordsofreh.proboards.com/thread/650/conan-back-marvel-2019)...

Had high expectations after Iron Shadows, but my enthusiasm waned with Road of Kings, despite being penned by Roy Thomas, and Wood's Queen of the Black Coast felt off to awful in quality. I'd say the decline occurred around the time that awful reboot movie came out. The quality had improved thanks to Van Lente, although the art varied, and the last issue set things up for another series, but now it won't happen thanks to Marvel. >:(

Now Glénat to Publish Conan Comics, as It’s All Public Domain in Europe (https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/01/17/glenat-conan-comics-public-domain-europe/)
Quote
Recently, Marvel Comics announced they had acquired the Conan licence from Conan Propertirs for comic books, based on the Cimmerian warrior books written by Robert E. Howard. Dark Horse Comics reminded everyone that they still had the license until the end of 2018.

But that’s in the USA.

After the success of its recent Elric adaptation, one of the largest French publishers Glénat has decided to adapt 12 Robert E. Howard Conan stories into graphic novels.

Each adaptation will be from a different creative team, including the folk at CreART.

There won’t be any kind of “standard” look for Conan’s appearance. Each creative team will draw the Cimmerian their way.

The first will be published in May, adapting Howard’s early Conan work, The Black Colossus as a comic by Vincent Brugeas, Kellee Riley, and Toulhoat.

Dark Horse already adapted it back in 2010 with Timothy Truman,‎ Tomas Giorello, and Jose Villarrubia.

As well as a colour edition, it will also be published in black and white.

Because Robert E. Howard committed suicide in 1936, his work has been in public domain in Europe since 2006, 70 years after the death of the author.

In the USA, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act adds an extra 25 years on that. So the Glenat work can’t be published in the USA, without breaking Conan Properties deal with Dark Horse and then Marvel Comics.

But equally, if Dark Horse wanted to keep publishing new Conan comic books — they probably could. As long as it was outside of the USA. But they couldn’t license or publish their already-published work internationally, as that was created under license from Conan Properties and is a new work in and of itself.




Title: Re: The LAF star wars discussion thread. SPOILERS!
Post by: Bahir on February 08, 2018, 04:50:06 PM
Mostly enjoyed it but I don't like what they have done with Luke's character. No wonder Mark wasn't happy.

Pretty much this.

The Luke Skywalker is not the Luke Skywalker I remember from my youth. As a lad, all the guys wanted to be Luke, because he was the hero!  The extended universe (now, non-canon I believe) portrayed him as the ultimiate Jedi. He was the hero that left his training with Yoda to face his greatest fear (Vader) and to save his friends. It seemed incongruous that he would try to slay Kylo even in a moment of self-doubt.

My only hope is that they bring Luke back and somehow redeem the situation.