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ImpAtom posted:Yes it does. There's no 'it was the middle part' for the audience of Star Wars. There was just Star Wars and it stood well on its own merits. Yes, I agree. Because Darth Vader was portrayed as a relatively uncomplicated villain in that context. You didn't need to know the complexities of his backstory because the story worked so long as he came across as scary and dangerous. But Kylo Ren is presented to us as a complex figure right from the start, even though we don't know anything about him. When Darth Vader reveals he's Luke's father in Empire, it's an effective dramatic moment precisely because it's a shock. If you watch the movies in episodic order starting with Episode I, that moment is still dramatic even though it isn't a surprise, because now we know the history of the character and are invested in all the emotional complexities of the situation. Without the prequels as context, the focus is almost entirely on Luke's shock at finding out his father isn't who he thinks he was. Only with the prequels as context do we begin to be able to see the moment from Vader's perspective as well. But TFA expects us to be invested in the emotional complexities of the relationship between Han and his son without ever being given a good idea of what that relationship was like. Han and Kylo's reunion is a neutered moment, because we can't see it from Han's or Kylo's perspective, since we have no real idea what they both know about each other. We can really only see the moment from Rey's perspective, yet the main focus of the scene is not really on Rey or her reaction. The focus is, unavoidably, on the fact that Han freaking Solo is dead, stabbed through the heart by his own son. It's a dramatic confrontation between father and son which ends with the son killing the father, but it's completely overshadowed by the enormity of the death of a film icon. Han Solo's status as an iconic character is the only reason we're invested in the dynamics of his and Kylo's relationship. There's no storytelling justification for us not knowing more about Kylo's past at this particular dramatic juncture, other than the fact that the film's story was conceived with the intention of tantalizing the audience with a deliberately spaced trickle of cryptic hints about the 30-year gap in the timeline of their favorite classic Star Wars characters. There's no good reason for us not to know this stuff. The filmmakers' only motivation for withholding this information is so they can slowly tease out plot details in order to maintain an aura of mystique about the rebooted status quo. It cuts the story off at the knees in order to make the plot more interesting. If the story was truly focused entirely on the new heroes, and we were truly finding everything out from their perspective, I would be fine with all this. That's how the OT handles things, after all. Even watching the prequels beforehand, various minor details of the galaxy's A New Hope status quo remain obscure to us; but that makes sense, because we're seeing things mostly through Luke's eyes, and Luke doesn't know these things. When Ben gets struck down by Vader, it hurts, even though we're ignorant about important details of their history, because Ben (through Luke) has become like a father to us. But when Han gets struck down by Kylo, it hurts primarily because of the relationship we as an audience have cultivated with Han over the course of the three OT films. If Han was killed by a random mook, this emotional emphasis might make sense; but since he's killed by his estranged son, we had drat well better know what's going on between the two of them. We're clearly meant to care very strongly about Han's relationship with his son, and so the movie should tell us what it is. If they didn't want to tell us, they should have held off on revealing that Kylo is Han's son, so that the audience's emotional reaction to the scene tracks with the viewpoint characters'. As it stands, we're left wanting to feel all the enormity of Han's pain, but unable to, because the relevant information has been withheld from us for arbitrary reasons. It's a dick move on the storyteller's part. We're being cockblocked by J.J. Abrams' pointless Mystery Box. Basically, I'm approaching TFA as Episode VII of an ongoing story with six previous installments. I think that's fair. I think it should work as the logical next installment after Episode VI. As it happens, it only works as a winking, self-conscious reboot of a franchise, specifically targeted at people who grew up in a specific cultural context at a specific point in history. Part of the charm of Star Wars is that it blithely ignores reality by presenting itself as a long-running adventure serial released in chronological episodic order, with none of the episodes giving any in-story clue as to the real-world year in which it was released. That was what gave Star Wars such a great, timeless quality. But TFA is very much of its time, in a way none of the other episodes have ever been. It's not timeless. It's very, very overtly a movie made to cater to the tastes of adults in the year 2015 who grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy. It comes with a built-in expiration date, at which point large swathes of its story will cease to resonate.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:39
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turtlecrunch posted:They used a lot of practical sets and miniatures in the prequels that ended up looking like poo poo CGI as well as actual poo poo CGI. This is why you can easily replace "CGI" with "Thing I don't like". It's a state of mind, not a state of being.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:40
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Well you can replace it with "bad SFX and scenery" because that's what it is. e: Or get even more specific with "bad compositing" I guess.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:41
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turtlecrunch posted:Well you can replace it with "bad SFX and scenery" because that's what it is. The only demonstrable way it's bad is because you don't like it.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:43
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Shageletic posted:Jesus christ this is a tedious scene. It is loving painful to watch Christopher Lee try to work through that dialogue. His very first line sounds just like Michael Madsen in Sin City 
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Dec 30, 2015 17:44
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Its no surprise that people didn't really latch onto the Flash Gordon style visuals of the prequels the way they did with the more grungy, lived in feel of the OT. Its a style that hadn't been popular for a long time, and even though the prequels take place in a different era of Star Wars, people went in expecting the same aesthetic as they were used to from the OT. If the prequels were made today, they'd look better and more cohesive but they'd still be criticized for the stylistic choice of making everything rounded and shiny, because to a lot of people that just isn't Star Wars. None of this has anything to do with the actual craft of the work that was done on the prequels though.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:48
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McSpanky posted:It is loving painful to watch Christopher Lee try to work through that dialogue. His very first line sounds just like Michael Madsen in Sin City You actually believe Christopher Lee struggled with this line: "Oh no! My friend, this is a mistake. A terrible mistake! They have gone too far! This is madness!" The character is unemotional because he is being sarcastic. He doesn't actually care about Obiwan.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:49
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Basebf555 posted:
Ironically, JJTrek is probably the closest to that exact aesthetic.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:51
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:You actually believe Christopher Lee struggled with this line: "Oh no! My friend, this is a mistake. A terrible mistake! They have gone too far! This is madness!" Absolutely, as he's leaving the room he says something like "I may have trouble securing your release..." He's loving with Obi Wan.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:53
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Yeah I get what the objective of the line is, but there is in fact a difference between sarcastic droll delivery and "had the life directed out of him". Nobody did the Harrison Ford "George, people don't actually talk like this" gag this time around and lord did it show.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:56
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computer parts posted:The only demonstrable way it's bad is because you don't like it. Correct, I don't like bad compositing and things that don't look like they're actually present or have any weight, and unconvincing alien CGI.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:56
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Hollismason posted:What he's saying about Dooku is totally on point. The editing in the Clones bar fight is spectacular. Also wow the scene does a fantastic job of establishing how dumb Obi wan is. He keeps trying to say all these badass one-liners like 'I'll never join you!' but he's lazily spinning the wrong direction and has to keep moving his head to be looking at Dooku properly and there's no gravitas outside of his head. Hbomberguy fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Dec 30, 2015 17:58
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McSpanky posted:Yeah I get what the objective of the line is, but there is in fact a difference between sarcastic droll delivery and "had the life directed out of him". Is there? What is the difference exactly? What makes you think he had the "life directed out of him" other than we're talking about Lucifer himself, George Lucas.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:58
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turtlecrunch posted:Correct, I don't like bad compositing and things that don't look like they're actually present or have any weight, and unconvincing alien CGI. By definition, it's not compositing if you're actually standing next to the item.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:00
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Can you go back to discussing whether Rey is a Mary Sue or whether Ren is threatening?
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Dec 30, 2015 18:01
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McSpanky posted:Yeah I get what the objective of the line is, but there is in fact a difference between sarcastic droll delivery and "had the life directed out of him". Nobody did the Harrison Ford "George, people don't actually talk like this" gag this time around and lord did it show. How do you know no-one did a 'people don't talk like this', and since when was talking like a real person the objective in fantasy films?
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Dec 30, 2015 18:05
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computer parts posted:By definition, it's not compositing if you're actually standing next to the item. There's almost no scene in the PT that isn't some combination of practical and CGI dude. Even something as simple as loving up the lighting in post can render the scene looking really strange, even with the actor standing right on the set! Btw, none of this a problem when the combination is convincing. turtlecrunch fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Dec 30, 2015 18:06
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Basebf555 posted:Is there? What is the difference exactly? What makes you think he had the "life directed out of him" other than we're talking about Lucifer himself, George Lucas. I don't know what you want to hear man, he sounded bored as hell and I don't think I've even seen that scene before so I didn't have any preconceived notions. And before you say "I was expecting it to suck because prequels" I was actually expecting Lee to elevate it because good actors can overcome poor scripts more often than not.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:07
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Hbomberguy posted:The Shining is bad because Shelley Duvall wasn't actually delivering it that way on purpose, she was genuinely upset and tired because she'd been made to do 117 takes. This difference is utterly important to me, a massive baby who doesn't understand cinema. Don't forget Die Hard being bad because they didn't tell Alan Rickman they were letting him go early.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:07
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Steve2911 posted:Can you go back to discussing whether Rey is a Mary Sue or whether Ren is threatening? AOTC discussion is way more interesting though
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Dec 30, 2015 18:16
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turtlecrunch posted:There's almost no scene in the PT that isn't some combination of practical and CGI dude. Even something as simple as loving up the lighting in post can render the scene looking really strange, even with the actor standing right on the set! Btw, none of this a problem when the combination is convincing. So I guess CGI now encompasses lighting as well.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:19
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I don't know that there's a whole lot more to say about TFA without referring to outside materials like the books or whatever. Stay tuned for the sequel. 
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Dec 30, 2015 18:19
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McSpanky posted:Yeah I get what the objective of the line is, but there is in fact a difference between sarcastic droll delivery and "had the life directed out of him". The direction is fine. You can easily see how Lucas uses the shot choices and blocking to convey the shifting dynamics of the conversation. For example: Lee spends most of the conversation in shadow but, at the moment he says "the truth", he steps under a bright spotlight. Lee acts with his face. Check how he arches his eyebrows theatrically when he says "Sith Lord". (And when Ewan MacGregor says "I don't believe you," look at his expression, and how his eyes remain fixed on Lee.) You are calling Christopher Lee a bad actor in the same way that one dude called real sand bad CGI. You are confused.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:19
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Hbomberguy posted:The Shining is bad because Shelley Duvall wasn't actually delivering it that way on purpose, she was genuinely upset and tired because she'd been made to do 117 takes. This difference is utterly important to me, a massive baby who doesn't understand cinema. Since when is emotional verisimilitude not an intrinsic objective in like, any fictional media presentation? If it feels like a character isn't reacting appropriately to the circumstances they find themselves in then the scene doesn't work, sorry that my speculation on why I find this to be so in this particular case is so offensive to you.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:20
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turtlecrunch posted:Correct, I don't like bad compositing What's bad about the compositing? You keep saying it has bad compositing but the whole aesthetic was set up so that the cgi and the glossy sets/models would match. Do you have examples?
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Dec 30, 2015 18:21
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McSpanky posted:Since when is emotional verisimilitude not an intrinsic objective in like, any fictional media presentation? If it feels like a character isn't reacting appropriately to the circumstances they find themselves in then the scene doesn't work, sorry that my speculation on why I find this to be so in this particular case is so offensive to you. Both characters are acting 'appropriately.' Dooku is a shady jerk, so Obiwan doesn't believe him - even though Dooku's revealed the whole Sith plot. Obiwan is blinded by dogmatism, while Dooku is exploiting the truth for his own gain. They're not going to start, like, crying.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:27
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Cnut the Great posted:Basically, I'm approaching TFA as Episode VII of an ongoing story with six previous installments. I think that's fair. I think it should work as the logical next installment after Episode VI. As it happens, it only works as a winking, self-conscious reboot of a franchise, specifically targeted at people who grew up in a specific cultural context at a specific point in history. Part of the charm of Star Wars is that it blithely ignores reality by presenting itself as a long-running adventure serial released in chronological episodic order, with none of the episodes giving any in-story clue as to the real-world year in which it was released. That was what gave Star Wars such a great, timeless quality. But TFA is very much of its time, in a way none of the other episodes have ever been. It's not timeless. It's very, very overtly a movie made to cater to the tastes of adults in the year 2015 who grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy. It comes with a built-in expiration date, at which point large swathes of its story will cease to resonate.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:43
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McSpanky posted:Since when is emotional verisimilitude not an intrinsic objective in like, any fictional media presentation? If it feels like a character isn't reacting appropriately to the circumstances they find themselves in then the scene doesn't work, sorry that my speculation on why I find this to be so in this particular case is so offensive to you. If in a film a character reacts 'inappropriately' to their circumstances, the scene doesn't work? Who gets to decide what is appropriate? Oh, I get it now. Dooku doesn't act like you would, and this is unthinkable. That he is an old, magic space alien from a land of myth in a fictional allegorical fantasy story goes ignored.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:50
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Hbomberguy posted:I don't get offended. You're just wrong. You're really aggressive and rude to people who dislike poorly received prequel trilogies.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:51
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The only SW movie that resonates without knowledge of the previous films is ANH. All the rest rely on you having knowledge of the past movies/characters. TFA is no different. The prequels are inherently less interesting because we all knew what was going to happen. We trudged through 3 (bad) movies to reach an ultimately predictable and unsatisfying conclusion. They are masturbatory. I'm OK with TFA not exploring the relationship between Han and Kylo as I'm assuming this will be expanded upon in future episodes.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:53
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McSpanky posted:I don't know what you want to hear man, he sounded bored as hell and I don't think I've even seen that scene before so I didn't have any preconceived notions. So what would your opinion be of a scene where a character is supposed to look/sound bored? Its just a weird scene to cho0se to criticize because AotC has many other scenes where you could point at the line delivery and ask what the hell was going on there. The Obi Wan/Dooku scene is one of the best in the whole movie. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Dec 30, 2015 18:54
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Holy gently caress how many words can Cnut write about how he needs entire films of backstory to understand very simple stories. This is insanely impressive even by Star Wars Thread standards. "I don't understand why it's sad for a son to kill his father because I didn't see him grow up" are you kidding me with this poo poo.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:54
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Tender Bender posted:Holy gently caress how many words can Cnut write about how he needs entire films of backstory to understand very simple stories. This is insanely impressive even by Star Wars Thread standards. Lord God Lucas didn't have anything to do with TFA so he was going to hate it.
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Dec 30, 2015 18:56
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Yaws posted:I'm OK with TFA not exploring the relationship between Han and Kylo as I'm assuming this will be expanded upon in future episodes. The scene probably would've worked better if shot from Rey's perspective, like Obi Wan's death in ep 4. wyoak fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Dec 30, 2015 18:56
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Guy A. Person posted:What's bad about the compositing? You keep saying it has bad compositing but the whole aesthetic was set up so that the cgi and the glossy sets/models would match. Do you have examples? I'd start with any scene where someone is walking and talking in a hallway and any scene partially indoors/outdoors, and any scene where a spaceship is landing or taking off near a bunch of people on a platform. Revenge of the Sith has a lot of these. It's also got some cool stuff though, don't get me wrong. The intention of the aesthetic has no merit to me if the end result is that it looks unconvincing. PT might have been better looks-wise as a purely animated affair. turtlecrunch fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Dec 30, 2015 18:58
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Yaws posted:The only SW movie that resonates without knowledge of the previous films is ANH. All the rest rely on you having knowledge of the past movies/characters. TPM didn't really require you to know the previous movies. Knowing (for example) who Palpatine was makes his scenes resonate more, but you can say the same thing about Vader's scenes in ANH (especially when he's fighting Luke in the trench run).
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Dec 30, 2015 18:58
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computer parts posted:TPM didn't really require you to know the previous movies. Knowing (for example) who Palpatine was makes his scenes resonate more, but you can say the same thing about Vader's scenes in ANH (especially when he's fighting Luke in the trench run). I can't imagine anyone caring much about the characters in TPM without knowing who Anakin and Obi-Wan are and what eventually happens between the two. YMMV
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Dec 30, 2015 19:03
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I think the prequel trilogy does stand on its own but for the same reason I disagree it is timeless. It's worth remembering that TPM came out in 1999 and AotC in 2002. There's an unmistakable post-9/11 shift over the course of the three films which honestly makes parts of them really resonate to people who were of the proper age at that time. It's heaviest in RotS where it couldn't be more blunt if it tried. They are not timeless films except in the sense that any film is timeless if you properly understand its context. The atmospheres, concepts and ideas prevalent so heavily in RotS an the ending of AotC basically rely on it. There's some general warness to it (as there is to all Star Wars films) but it couldn't be more plain that the films were made in the early 2000s. Which is fine because at the time they were made it was more meaningful for Lucas to try to say something than it was to make sure it was timeless. computer parts posted:TPM didn't really require you to know the previous movies. Knowing (for example) who Palpatine was makes his scenes resonate more, but you can say the same thing about Vader's scenes in ANH (especially when he's fighting Luke in the trench run). Eh, I think TPM really does poorly for Anakin if you're not aware of who he is. He, of all characters, is extremely emphasized in way that doesn't really flow without you knowing he is Future Vader. They cut out some foreshadowing (like him beating the poo poo out of Greedo) and relies instead of the audience-driven irony of knowing this cute kid turns into Space Superhitler but without that knowledge he gets a lot of focus and screentime which doesn't make a lot of sense. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Dec 30, 2015 |
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Dec 30, 2015 19:05
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jivjov posted:The novelization expands on the Resistance/Republic relationship; Leia is frustrated that the Republic refuses to do anything about the impending threat of the first order and spins off into the Resistance to stop them. Once again; not a monarchy. Just a response to a threat. Still catching up with this thread, but to resurrect this discussion from pages ago: What monarchy are you and SMG talking about? The movies have never shown us a galactic monarchy, there has only ever been a liberal democratic Senate and a fascist Empire. Titles like "Count" and "Princess" are based on planetary politics, not galactic. What monarchy could Leia even be trying to restore? As of halfway through the first movie, she's next in line for the throne of a debris field.
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Dec 30, 2015 19:05
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Basebf555 posted:Its no surprise that people didn't really latch onto the Flash Gordon style visuals of the prequels the way they did with the more grungy, lived in feel of the OT. Its a style that hadn't been popular for a long time, and even though the prequels take place in a different era of Star Wars, people went in expecting the same aesthetic as they were used to from the OT. Can't say I'm familiar with the serial stuff, but Flash Gordon the movie had some stellar backgrounds and deco. That last scene with the ship bursting into Ming's cathedral thing is a thing of beauty. I don't like the prequel look because it reminds me of Wing Commander cut scenes.
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