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computer parts posted:It's quite strange how Star Wars fans chastise the PT for being over choreographed and also not being choreographed enough. The PT is intentionally grandiose and over choreographed, just as the OT is deliberately theatrical and dialogue heavy in the duels. TFA is much more visceral and emotional, we have less dialogue than in the OT, but the fights themselves convey character emotions in ways neither of the other movies attempted. The lightsaber fights in the OT can barely be called action sequences compared to the fighting with blasters or space ships, whereas they are the action focal points in the PT.
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Jan 2, 2016 08:40
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In an alternate universe Ahmed Best played Gollum and Andy Serkis played Jar Jar, and that world is very hard to understand.
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Jan 2, 2016 09:19
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I dunno, Grievous smashing the window of the ship was kinda cool.
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Jan 2, 2016 09:41
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JonathonSpectre posted:Unless you watched the non-CGI Clone Wars cartoon where he's a bad-rear end murderous killing machine. When you first see him he corners like 5-6 Jedi in a decrepit ship and proceeds to just wreck all of them effortlessly. Just look at this poo poo: The in-universe explanation is that Mace Windu Force-crushes Grievous' torso and cripples him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xhFUhRLBME
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Jan 2, 2016 09:58
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:The in-universe explanation is that Mace Windu Force-crushes Grievous' torso and cripples him It's actually not, because that cartoon is no longer canon.
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Jan 2, 2016 10:01
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NecroMonster posted:It's actually not, because that cartoon is no longer canon. It's from the same series as the other video that JonathonSpectre posted where he's an unstoppable badass, that's the 'universe' I was referring to when I said that was the "in-universe" explanation.
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Jan 2, 2016 10:06
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I was just referring to the fact that I just found out that cartoon is no longer canon, which surprised me, as it had seemed like an ideal candidate for actual canon being as it was designed to be a companion piece to bridge the gap between episodes 2 and 3 and introduce the character of Grievous in the first place, and it's existence and success lead to the creation of the very much still canon CG clone wars series. Maybe our friend further up the thread wasn't aware that nothing in that mini-series, now, actually happened.
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Jan 2, 2016 10:12
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Since this seems to be the general star wars movie thread, I don't currently own any of the movies and was looking at buying a set to show the other half the backstory. I know there have been a bunch of re-releases with various subtle and not-so-subtle alterations that she probably wont notice or care about but I would like to get a version of the original trilogy that is relatively unaltered. Is the Blu-ray release still the best I'll be able to get other than the fan remasters? I'd much prefer something I can chuck into the player and go instead of having to stream it from my PC.
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Jan 2, 2016 10:38
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Ephphatha posted:Since this seems to be the general star wars movie thread, I don't currently own any of the movies and was looking at buying a set to show the other half the backstory. I know there have been a bunch of re-releases with various subtle and not-so-subtle alterations that she probably wont notice or care about but I would like to get a version of the original trilogy that is relatively unaltered. Is the Blu-ray release still the best I'll be able to get other than the fan remasters? I'd much prefer something I can chuck into the player and go instead of having to stream it from my PC. There is a DVD release of the unaltered trilogy. The BluRays are incredibly heinous as far as alterations go.
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Jan 2, 2016 10:49
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NecroMonster posted:I was just referring to the fact that I just found out that cartoon is no longer canon, which surprised me, as it had seemed like an ideal candidate for actual canon being as it was designed to be a companion piece to bridge the gap between episodes 2 and 3 and introduce the character of Grievous in the first place, and it's existence and success lead to the creation of the very much still canon CG clone wars series. The inconsistencies in the depiction of characters from the 2003 Clone Wars animated series and their live action counterparts (namely Mace and Grievous) would be too hard to ignore if the cartoon was still canon. Mace literally destroys an entire army of droids, almost with his bare hands. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF3ocZu4cZo
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Jan 2, 2016 10:57
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The blu-ray versions are the best choice for a viewer who will never be interested in having an opinion about which cut of a movie they prefer, because of their convenience and high resolution. Most of the changes compared to the original release (best viewed through the Despecialized Editions fan restoration project, incidentally) are significant only in comparison to some alternative, which means it doesn't matter which one a newcomer starts with, even if they are likely to greatly prefer the other after having seen both.
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Jan 2, 2016 10:58
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The blue rays of the OT look (relatively) fantastic and you should show new fans those.
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Jan 2, 2016 13:30
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Grievous being a skelly weakling overcompensating with about fifteen lightsabers is far more interesting than an indestructible badass who destroys everything. Clone Wars drawn cartoon probably isn't canon cause it's barely a step away from Dragon Ball.
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Jan 2, 2016 14:03
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I just saw this finally, and overall was pretty impressed. We're used to seeing dark side villains basically spring fully-formed on the scene at full power when you first meet them in person: Vader in the original movies, the Emperor, Maul, Dooku, Grievous. You meet them and it's just an OH gently caress IT'S _____! The only real exception was Anakin in the prequels, who we spend 3 movies watching transition from nice kid to Vader at the very end by taking the road to hell paved with good intentions (saving his mom, saving his wife, etc.). Ren plays around with this a bit: 1) Concerning power: He isn't anywhere close to having fully developed his abilities. It's kind of the same idea as Luke at the end of Empire Strikes Back, going forth for 2) Concerning the descent to the dark side: He's obviously a mirror image of Anakin in the prequels. He isn't a good kid who identifies with the Light Side that's tempted by evil through his attachment to his family, he's someone who identifies with the Dark Side that is afraid of being tempted to the Light Side because of the of the love he still receives from his family. Finn is someone forced into a family who wants to get the hell away from it as fast as he can. By contrast, Rey has no family anymore, and desperately wants to get back to it. Both end up on the same trajectory (with some detours) as a result. Both characters also behave in similar ways, in that (super weak spoiler) Finn tends to talk himself up and exaggerate or just make up his background and skills, while Rey puts on an exaggerated show of how tough and independent she is, even when she clearly doesn't know what the gently caress she's doing. Rey I thought struck a nice balance between being someone who is capable and tough-minded, but who has clear limitations and reacts plausibly to extreme situations she hasn't experienced before. The "Mary Sue" criticism is dumb as gently caress white noise from sub-literate MRA fuckboys. The most valid character criticism is of Poe, who doesn't have a lot to do, but does a great job doing, it so you kind of don't notice until after the fact. His interactions with Finn are drat near perfect. I don't like the prequels, but this is clearly not a film that just shits on them wholesale (how it was pitched to OT fans notwithstanding.) It does away with the racist cartoons and bad romance and senate meetings, sure, but it doesn't feel like they threw everything about the prequels away, either. Like I said earlier, Ren really makes sense as a distorted reflection of Anakin's arc in the prequels. This is easily the best thing Abrams has made. He dumped his usual gang of idiot writers for better ones and it really, really shows.
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Jan 2, 2016 15:16
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Timeless Appeal posted:Force Awakens is political, but like Tumblr it's mostly about the politics of the stories we tell. The movie is very aware that its heroes are a black guy and a girl who plays with boy things. It's very aware that its villain is a whiny white kid who wants to horde all the best Star Wars toys. This nails it for me. More than the 7th episode in a trilogy, the Force Awakens was a reboot. Abrams was rewriting all the rules - about who the heroes can be, who will shape the future of the story, who shapes the destiny of the Galaxy. Luke can essentially be an old Ben Kenobi going forward. Leia is nothing more than a veteran general. Any character might die. Villains can be redeemed or not, connected or not. Large stretches of it did feel like a love letter, which is fine, but it also gives them permission to go anywhere they want and make a bunch more movies/shows completely divorced from the Skywalker story. That the villain was lusting for Darth Vader's helmet and his old light saber was the way Abrams was telling fans - it's time to let go. It's time to explore new stories.
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Jan 2, 2016 15:35
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RocketLunatic posted:This nails it for me. More than the 7th episode in a trilogy, the Force Awakens was a reboot. Abrams was rewriting all the rules - about who the heroes can be, who will shape the future of the story, who shapes the destiny of the Galaxy. Luke can essentially be an old Ben Kenobi going forward. Leia is nothing more than a veteran general. Any character might die. Villains can be redeemed or not, connected or not. Large stretches of it did feel like a love letter, which is fine, but it also gives them permission to go anywhere they want and make a bunch more movies/shows completely divorced from the Skywalker story. That doesn't make sense. Fans have never been satisfied with the individual films themselves. That's why we have that one guy, a few posts up, who saw a cartoon show and said "I want more of this!" - then became upset that the film didn't serve as live-action extension of it. To this fan, neither the film nor the cartoon are satisfactory. The cartoon isnt good enough to stand alone, and the film doesn't match the 'badass' cartoon. Another example is when I wrote about Empire Strikes Back, that it ended with the team split up and uncertain. One poster objected that no, the team is still working together - because he got mixed up with the opening scene of the sequel. The films blur together and lose their meaning. When you read responses to Force Awakens on this site, they are almost unanimous: "the character are good. I can't wait for the actual movie." Nobody is 'exploring new stories', because Force Awakens is not being treated as a story, and certainly not being explored. It's just something that we endure in the pursuit of the next high. Storytelling is in how, when Finn puts on his helmet, there's a match-cut to Rey in her mask. Exploring the story involves interpreting the match-cut that links the two images. Why does the film end with that weird helicopter shot? SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Jan 2, 2016 |
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Jan 2, 2016 16:34
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On TFA's approach to racism and droids: Rey's first protagonist-establishing moment involves freeing a droid from a reclaimer, then brings him back to [the Jakku equivalent of] civilization. She is tempted by a scrap mogul to sell him off to an unknown fate; this tempts her not because she doesn't consider BB8 sentient, but because she's a Sustenance Scavenger, and selling him off would provide her the time to enter a higher Jakku class. She willingly chooses to starve (she lives off half a daily ration per day) to protect him. Finn starts off incredulous at BB8 being an equal, but in their short time quickly relate to their situations (an indoctrinated nameless soldier, and a mass production droid on an important individual mission). He becomes willing to lay trust that BB8 will protect his guise as a rebel, BB8 obliges, and they become friends. He learns to respect BB8 as BB8 learns to respect a stormtrooper. Poe is the inspirational figure for both characters, leads them on their path of self-development, and displays traits that both eventually adopt. His willingness to trust a former stormtrooper and a droid display his progressive attitude and lack of discrimination based on class or race. This attempt to declare TFA a passive movie that does nothing with the themes of Star Wars and is a bad Star Wars and cocka doo doo bad movie is immensely absurd. I don't typically respect SMG readings as genuine, but I still enjoy reading them for unique takes on a film. This is just lazy contrarian nonsense.
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Jan 2, 2016 16:38
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The helicopter shot is the Force, engulfing around both characters having finally united them. Or at least something like that would be my best guess.
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Jan 2, 2016 16:39
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Sarkozymandias posted:That seems a lot less interesting than the depiction of the kaminoans aloof and supernatural beings beyond morality or comprehension in how they approach their lovecraftian mad science. Like they put it in there because it seeme as reasonable as any other request. They live in an endless ocean at the edge of an endless ocean. I am reminded of a less overtly evil version of that claymation Satan figure from some old Mark Twain show. That's basically what I think is still going on with them. The Kaminoans don't really care about morality. All they care about is carrying out the terms of the original order to completion. They're like Lovecraftian mad scientists whose amoral actions are constrained only by a professional sense of duty to the consumer. I think the only thing that would bother them is if they found out they were acting contrary to the specifications of the original order. That's the only reason Tyranus has to lie to them. As far as the Kaminoans are concerned, they were hired by the Jedi, at the request of the Senate, to create an army for the Republic to defend itself with. They have no interest in getting caught up in a convoluted Machiavellian conspiracy to destroy the very people they're purporting to work for. Not because they personally would care either way, but because it would represent a professional conflict of interest.
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Jan 2, 2016 16:46
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Neurolimal posted:On TFA's approach to racism and droids: Rey's first protagonist-establishing moment involves freeing a droid from a reclaimer, then brings him back to [the Jakku equivalent of] civilization. She is tempted by a scrap mogul to sell him off to an unknown fate; this tempts her not because she doesn't consider BB8 sentient, but because she's a Sustenance Scavenger, and selling him off would provide her the time to enter a higher Jakku class. She willingly chooses to starve (she lives off half a daily ration per day) to protect him. The above is largely a plot synopsis (and not an accurate one; I don't recall any point where Poe inspires Rey, or where BB-8 has to get over his hatred of stormtroopers). I'm talking interpretation. The film is multicultural, but is not antiracist. The film doesn't acknowledge the social and economic causes of racism.
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Jan 2, 2016 17:07
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The above is largely a plot synopsis (and not an accurate one; I don't recall any point where Poe inspires Rey, or where BB-8 has to get over his hatred of stormtroopers). I'm talking interpretation. This from a person who says Superman inspires Perry's(who never meets or sees him) heroic actions in Man of Steel. Poe and Rey also never meet but she undeniably becomes more Poe-like as the film progresses.
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Jan 2, 2016 17:13
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RocketLunatic posted:This nails it for me. More than the 7th episode in a trilogy, the Force Awakens was a reboot. Abrams was rewriting all the rules - about who the heroes can be, who will shape the future of the story, who shapes the destiny of the Galaxy. Luke can essentially be an old Ben Kenobi going forward. Leia is nothing more than a veteran general. Any character might die. Villains can be redeemed or not, connected or not. Large stretches of it did feel like a love letter, which is fine, but it also gives them permission to go anywhere they want and make a bunch more movies/shows completely divorced from the Skywalker story. I really hope Luke and Leia aren't made irrelevant. I want to see Luke and Leia have a significant role in the revival of the Jedi and the "restoration of peace and justice to the galaxy", the characters still deserve respect, and there can be setbacks without totally pissing on the story of the OT which ended on the idea that those two would play a significant role in the resurrection of the Jedi and restoring peace to the galaxy. Simply resetting the state of the Jedi and the Republic entirely so Luke can be Obi-Wan/Yoda and Leia can be Mon Mothma, while the new characters get to play out a do-over of the OT, would be a boring misuse of these characters, I think. That's why I hope they have something more interesting in mind than Luke simply training Rey and promptly dying, or the First Order completely taking over the galaxy and just becoming the Empire, part deux. Why couldn't Rey just be Luke's first successful apprentice, and she carries out her own unique destiny while he trains up a new class of Jedi, instead of Rey also taking the role of founder of the New Jedi Order? Why can't the Republic still exist, but just be in disarray because of the Senate and Fleet's destruction? Also, Kathleen Kennedy said the numbered "Saga" Star Wars movies would continue to be about the Skywalker family saga, so whatever the role of the twins is moving forward, it seems like they definitely don't intend to divorce the main films
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Jan 2, 2016 17:15
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Do you think native Jakku beings are called Jakkoffs colloquially?
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Jan 2, 2016 17:25
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The helicopter shot is one of very few unambiguously bad points of the film. It does not fit with the scene as previously established at all and should have been cut immediately in the editing process. I'm not enthusiastic about the concept of fan cuts but that shot had me wishing for one even before the credits appeared.
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Jan 2, 2016 17:35
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The helicopter shot would be fine if the characters weren't already starting silently at each other for ten seconds prior.
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Jan 2, 2016 17:37
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rockopete posted:The helicopter shot is one of very few unambiguously bad points of the film. It does not fit with the scene as previously established at all and should have been cut immediately in the editing process. I'm not enthusiastic about the concept of fan cuts but that shot had me wishing for one even before the credits appeared. The opening and closing shots were both jarring in how deliberately un-star warsy they were, in contrast to the rest of the movie, which is basically "hey, all this stuff is most definitely Star Wars! Remember that? Ooh, remember that too!"
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Jan 2, 2016 17:40
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ruddiger posted:The opening and closing shots were both jarring in how deliberately un-star warsy they were, in contrast to the rest of the movie, which is basically "hey, all this stuff is most definitely Star Wars! Remember that? Ooh, remember that too!" I'm not even talking about 'star wars-ness', the closing shot just didn't fit with anything connected to it. It would have been jarring in any film given its place in the scene. Which opening shot, you mean of the stormtroopers in the assault transport? I think it worked, regardless of how unprecedented something like that might be for this series. And I disagree about the rest of the movie. There are obvious call-backs here and there but I didn't feel blasted with them the whole way through. It's possible I didn't notice some because I was having too much fun following the events on screen.
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Jan 2, 2016 17:47
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greatn posted:This from a person who says Superman inspires Perry's(who never meets or sees him) heroic actions in Man of Steel. It's more nuanced than that, actually. Perry inspires Superman because Superman senses how Perry inspires Jenny. The scenes are intercut in order to show that there is some kind of impossible link between the characters. That's how the film visualizes its 'Force Powers': Superman performs a feat that should be impossible because of a connection to people in need. Perry is not consciously inspired by Superman, but is hopeful in the face of impossible odds - which means that, inside, he actually believes (in spite of his vocal skepticism). Force Awakens does establish links between the characters: Ren appears in the film at the exact moment Finn decides to quit the First Order. Fans speculate that this means Finn has mutant powers and detected Ren approaching or something. But that is dumb. What is actually happening, on the level of storytelling, is that Finn's terrifying/traumatic experience manifests as Ren. Finn had been going about his day to day life, but now he sees this grim spectre ready to destroy him. While Finn says he's terrified of the First Order, he actually just sees them as an obstacle to escaping Ren (or, more specifically, what Ren represents to him: the fear and trauma, and so-on). When others call him a traitor, Finn is just annoyed. It's only when Ren calls him a traitor that something snaps in Finn's brain - because Ren no longer appears to him as a monster, but as 'just another stormtrooper'. That's the kind of stuff that's going on on the film. The only connection between Rey and Poe is that Rey used to play at being an X-Wing pilot when she was a kid. But we soon learn that, as she grew up, her idols became smugglers like Han Solo. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Jan 2, 2016 |
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Jan 2, 2016 17:54
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Ren also parallels Finn in that they're both people who have misgivings about what the First Order does, but whereas Finn outrights rejects it, Ren will go to any length to silence his misgivings. They're both soldiers with a conscience, but only one of them tries to kill his conscience.
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Jan 2, 2016 17:59
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rockopete posted:I'm not even talking about 'star wars-ness', the closing shot just didn't fit with anything connected to it. It would have been jarring in any film given its place in the scene. The very first shot of the movie I'm talking about. Pretty sure all six movies start with a pan to either a planet or a full blown visible spaceship. This one... pans to absolute blackness and its revealed that the blackness is the shadow of a ship, with just hints of what is going on peppered throughout the shot. And I'm not knocking the movie for invoking that Star Warsy feeling throughout, it's just what it is. You were having fun because it was Star Wars. Not trade embargo disputes on an un-Star Warsy planet.
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Jan 2, 2016 18:05
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ruddiger posted:The very first shot of the movie I'm talking about. Pretty sure all six movies start with a pan to either a planet or a full blown visible spaceship. This one... pans to absolute blackness and its revealed that the blackness is the shadow of a ship, with just hints of what is going on peppered throughout the shot. "Starwarsy" is a very ambiguous label but I thought the opening shot fit that concept perfectly, like the tiny rebel ship being chased by the vast imperial ship in ANH
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Jan 2, 2016 18:26
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I'm a huge fan of SMG but I disagree with him most of the time. I had no idea what "film reading" was before I started paying attention to his posts. I'm still not sure that it's actually a thing that people other than Zizek do, but I like it. But I'll give my attempt at it: According to various people who made the movie, it's about generations. It is an obvious torch-passing movie. Finn, Rey, and Kylo Ren are Millennials Luke, Han and Leia are Boomers (Poe is a Gen Xer??? who knows) If you'll notice, Finn and Rey's experience matches that of Millennials coming into the new economy. ("I can do this! I can do this!") All of the infrastructure is broken - they don't even get a chance to speak before the Millennium Falcon breaks in some new way. Finn has no skills because he was raised in an environment that worships the military industrial complex above all else, and has no family. Rey has skills and a job but works on a subsistence basis, and again, has no family. Unemployment is a huge issue - Jakku is literally about people picking up the pieces of prior generations, because there is nothing else to do. The times when Rey is happiest in the movie are directly related to her having a job. "I bypassed the compressor!" "You're offering me a job!" This is why she has Mary Sue status, because people being good at things and escaping their circumstances seems mythical right now. About as mythical as Luke Skywalker. They are also socially isolated. This is the meaning of the weird scene where Rey's looking with fondness upon an old woman scavenger, and is rudely interrupted by a babbling robot man. As others have noted, Finn has only a bare minimum of connection to his fellow stormtroopers, and has zero problem turning a TIE fighter upon them. His only friend is probably the one who marked him with his blood - this is not PTSD like Vietnam, this is the confusion of living in a modern world without a friend. Boomers are bad parents who tend to get divorced and have midlife crises where they pursue things that make them feel young again (cars, smuggling, feudalism.) Hence Han Solo and Leia produce Kylo Ren, a literal school shooter driven by social isolation and dad issues. His character has already been analyzed in detail, and the comparisons are all accurate: Elliot Rogers, 4channers, people with aspergers, etc. He uses the social isolation as a badge of honor, wearing a mask for no reason other than to cut him off from human contact, and venerate Darth Vader. (The Greatest Generation I guess) He loses all his power to Rey when he takes the mask off. He's actually attempting to connect with her, defying her insult that he's a "creature in a mask." But in doing so, he actually shows his vulnerability to her and to the audience. Hence all the complaints that he's not a "badass" or "threatening" enough. It's a similar dynamic between Luke and Vader (you heard the same complaints about Vader not being a badass in ROTJ,) except that this interaction is between peers, which makes things interesting in a different way. I teared up when Rey meets Luke and hands him the lightsaber. You can see the weight of years on Luke's face, the feelings that he failed the younger generation. And here's Rey, the icon of the new generation, handing him back a literal torch, saying, "We can't do it alone. We've done our best, but please, we need your help again." This movie is just as important as the original was in 1977, this time for repairing relations between young and old. Also The Force Awakens is the best Star Wars movie, because it builds upon all previous movies. It is actually superior to the originals in that the Resistance is more rag tag than the Alliance, and the First Order is more fascist and scary than the Empire. It makes the originals more emotional in a way that the prequels were supposed to. I'm surprised no one has turned back yet and complained that there's no reaction shot of the people on Alderaan getting blown up, like there is in this one. It is not a remake either. It contains just as many elements from the five other movies as it does from A New Hope. The things from A New Hope are: a pseudo-Death Star blowing up pseudo-Alderaan and threatening the rebel base, a MacGuffin being placed in a pseudo-R2D2 The things from everything else are: a familial redemption attempt, a story about escaping the Empire, a story about the Jedi being hunted down, a pseudo-Yoda The new things are: a story about searching for a person, visions incorporating past present and future, a villain looking toward the past, a villain requiring training, a whole slew of new characters
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Jan 2, 2016 18:52
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:What is actually happening, on the level of storytelling, is that Finn's terrifying/traumatic experience manifests as Ren. Finn had been going about his day to day life, but now he sees this grim spectre ready to destroy him. While Finn says he's terrified of the First Order, he actually just sees them as an obstacle to escaping Ren (or, more specifically, what Ren represents to him: the fear and trauma, and so-on). When others call him a traitor, Finn is just annoyed. It's only when Ren calls him a traitor that something snaps in Finn's brain - because Ren no longer appears to him as a monster, but as 'just another stormtrooper'. And if anything, Ren is more a monster at the point that happens than when Finn thought he was a monster. Also, regarding droid personhood, Jedi mistaking Force correlation with midichlorians for Force causation by midichlorians is totally in keeping with their misguided systematic dogmatism. It's also important to remember droids need restraints and memory wipes regularly to keep them tractable. Personal computers were absolutely not common when A New Hope came about, so the word "memory" would not have meant "computer memory" for most viewers.
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Jan 2, 2016 18:53
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Beeez posted:Ren also parallels Finn in that they're both people who have misgivings about what the First Order does, but whereas Finn outrights rejects it, Ren will go to any length to silence his misgivings. They're both soldiers with a conscience, but only one of them tries to kill his conscience. it's a bit trickier than that, because Ren knows that both the First Order and the Resistance are bad. He's trapped in the false choice between those two, and that's why he ultimately comes across as a tragic figure. Rey, on the other hand, is completely unconcerned with the truth. She is explicitly searching for 'belonging' - note that one of the final images in the film is of the hole in the universe being filled, then C3PO is metaphorically cleansed of his red arm in the next scene. The imagery is all holism and completeness, organic unity. Everyone has their place in the feudal system. The Resistance differs from the commie-fascist New Order only in that they are against centralized government, technological progress and things of that sort. (For all the rhetoric, the New Order are actually not presented as bad because they are commie-fascists, but because they harm the ecosystem). The ending of Force Awakens must be read as extremely dark, because Rey has reached the altogether wrong conclusion from her journey. Note how she carries the lightsaber to Luke in the exact same way that she carried the scavenged scrap to the blobfish guy. She is looking for an authority in whom she can she can entrust all power. It evokes the scene in Lord Of The Rings, where Frodo tries to pass the ring to the elves: Frodo: If you ask it of me, I will give you the One Ring. Galadriel: You offer it to me freely? I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired this. IN THE PLACE OF A DARK LORD YOU WOULD HAVE A QUEEN! NOT DARK, BUT BEAUTIFUL AND TERRIBLE AS THE MORN! TREACHEROUS AS THE SEAS! STRONGER THAN THE EARTH! ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR! The very last scenes of Force Awakens repeat Chewie and Lando heading out in search of Han. So with everything else whole and complete, Rey sees that her final task is to bring Luke back. But Luke doesn't want to come back. In place of a Dark Lord, you would have a Jedi. Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the morn!  This Apocalypse Now shot is precisely the same image we see at the end of the film, but with X-Wings replacing the Tie Fighters. The above shot doesn't even make literal sense in the film, because the Tie Fighters are attacking in the middle of the afternoon, not at sunrise. It exists only to complement the 'sunrise' at the end of the film. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Smells like victory."
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Jan 2, 2016 18:56
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Krowley posted:"Starwarsy" is a very ambiguous label but I thought the opening shot fit that concept perfectly, like the tiny rebel ship being chased by the vast imperial ship in ANH Thematically it's the same (space ships in space doing space ship things) but it was very purposefully different visually. Unless I'm mistaken on the opening shots of the other movies.
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Jan 2, 2016 19:00
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The thing about Finn that didn't quite work for me (and this appears to be one of the more common criticisms) is that his backstory as an ex-stormtrooper brainwashed from birth to be a remorseless killer seems to be at odds with the way Boyega actually portrays the character. He doesn't ever come across that way. More than anything, he seems like a nice, chill guy who's finally just had enough of the rear end in a top hat bosses he works for. That would be great if the movie gave us some context for how he got to be that way, but as it stands, we're just left wondering how the lifelong First Order indoctrination process managed to produce such a normal, funny guy. I think the problem is that Lawrence Kasdan isn't really that good at creating realistic characters with complex personalities. His main strength is in writing snappy one-liners (and even then, none of the lines in this movie struck me as all that memorable). He leaves it mostly up to the director to give nuance to the characters, but J.J. has always struck me as someone who's more interested in making his characters funny and likable at all times than in giving any real depth to them. The characters who tend to get the most positive responses from audiences these days are the ones who are always in non-stop snark mode, and never betray any hint of off-color humanity except for when it's necessary for the three-act plot structure. It's like everyone has to be a Joss Whedon character. If A New Hope was an Abrams/Kasdan joint, I bet Luke would never be allowed to whine about anything unless it was part of a winking, self-aware joke about how much of an annoying whiner he is. Anyone know what I mean?
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Jan 2, 2016 19:03
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Soggy Cereal posted:I'm a huge fan of SMG but I disagree with him most of the time. I had no idea what "film reading" was before I started paying attention to his posts. I'm still not sure that it's actually a thing that people other than Zizek do, but I like it. But I'll give my attempt at it: First, I really like this. Second, and this is probably super obvious, but it struck me that Ren's worship of a super awesome badass Vader, who never actually existed and would probably despise him, is pretty much fascism in a nutshell. Things used to be super-awesome, and we'll make them super-awesome again (by being so terrible even our backwards ancestors would think we're completely hosed in the head)!
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Jan 2, 2016 19:06
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Soggy Cereal posted:I had no idea what "film reading" was before I started paying attention to his posts. I'm still not sure that it's actually a thing that people other than Zizek do, but I like it. Dawg, Zizek is just a tiny part of the field(s) of film criticism, theory, and history. Film analysis and "reading" is by no means limited to him, nor is it something he invented or even particularly innovated. If you're really interested in this subject, you should consider spreading out beyond from what you read on Something Awful.
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Jan 2, 2016 19:10
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Someone had done a post a while back on Intro to Film Criticism books a while back, but I think you may need archives at this point.
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Jan 2, 2016 19:11
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Someone had done a post a while back on Intro to Film Criticism books a while back, but I think you may need archives at this point. The Bordwell/Thompson Film Art: An Introduction textbook went a long way for me. Newer editions are a bit expensive, but older copies are cheaper and just as informative.
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Jan 2, 2016 19:30
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