Star Wars: Millenial Trash Discussion Station

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Star Wars: Millenial Trash Discussion Station

BigglesSWE: Dec 2, 2014; How 'bout them hawks news huh!

I have little beef with the Special Edition, but I hate the added Vader dialouge just before he kills the Emperor. That scene was much better with Vader being silent.

# ? Dec 11, 2016 23:25

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 14, 2024 16:59

Raxivace: Sep 9, 2014

Phi230 posted:

I just finished my 2016 catchup and watched Ex Machina, Blue Ruin, Green Room, Neon Demon, and John Wick

I have no purpose in life anymore, somebody recco me a movie to watch

Jean-Luc Godard's Goodbye to Language 3D.

# ? Dec 11, 2016 23:27

Hat Thoughts: Jul 27, 2012

Phi230 posted:

I just finished my 2016 catchup and watched Ex Machina, Blue Ruin, Green Room, Neon Demon, and John Wick

I have no purpose in life anymore, somebody recco me a movie to watch

http://forums.somethingawful.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=196
http://forums.somethingawful.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=273

# ? Dec 11, 2016 23:27

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

nobody cares about the cloud city changes

han shoots second, bad change

adding in that cut scene with han talking to jabba, ugh jesus it looks horrible and is bad

song and dance number in RoTJ, loving terrible

adding in all that bad CG clutter to Mos Eisely

and thats basically it

# ? Dec 11, 2016 23:27

Cnut the Great: Mar 30, 2014

Phi230 posted:

nobody cares about the cloud city changes

han shoots second, bad change

adding in that cut scene with han talking to jabba, ugh jesus it looks horrible and is bad

song and dance number in RoTJ, loving terrible

adding in all that bad CG clutter to Mos Eisely

and thats basically it

Those things are all extremely good, actually.

The only minor thing I'll grant is that the Han change wasn't strictly necessary, were it not for the fact that it turned out so many people misinterpreted the scene to be portraying Han as ruthless rather than simply acting in self-defense.

# ? Dec 11, 2016 23:31

Filthy Casual: Aug 13, 2014

Jewmanji posted:

Why did they go to all that trouble of bringing in all those trees and fake snow, and drafting those enormous matte paintings for the pine forest in TFA and then decide to do absolutely nothing weird or interesting to it? It really could've used a bit of Avatar's sense of weirdness.

There was some kind of confrontation that happened there, but I'm having trouble remembering it.

# ? Dec 11, 2016 23:31

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

Cnut the Great posted:

Those things are all extremely good, actually.

The only minor thing I'll grant is that the Han change wasn't strictly necessary, were it not for the fact that it turned out so many people misinterpreted the scene to be portraying Han as ruthless rather than simply acting in self-defense.

disgusting

# ? Dec 11, 2016 23:42

Jewmanji: Dec 28, 2003

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Right; Abrams (in TFA) is consistently focussed on the concept of light rather than on making a well-lit scene. You can note his repeated emphasis on reflections in characters' eyes - which is not really a Star Wars 'thing', is it?

Can you recall, in any of the previous films, closeups of Luke's big, wet eyes that emphasize the phenomenology of looking and blah blah blah? Note how Abrams puts in this recurring sunlight imagery, characters looking up at the sun, etc. "Where there's light there's hope!" The 'light side' was never literalized this way before. The opposite was the case, in fact.

Luke's talk of a 'bright centre of the universe' was purely metaphorical.

I think the best example of the difference between Lucas' compositional eye and Abrams' is from a post of Cnut the Great's from a while back, where he accurately showed how the still frame of each twin sun or setting sun shot from I-VI was part and parcel of the narrative progression. Each shot was in itself reflective of what was occurring with the character on screen. In TFA Abrams throws in a sunset shot on Jakku (two actually) that are just there to say "Star Wars. This is Star Wars." In fact, the second sunset shot is an Apocalypse Now callback, which is fairly consistent with Lucas' own film quotations of Coppola, except he can't understand in his own movie that a shot designed to invoke a bombing of Vietnam should probably at least be arbitrarily spliced into the sequence where Rey and Finn are sprinting from a pair of TIE fighters on a strafing run rather than that spliced arbitrarily into a random dogfight because it is a muddled metaphor. You can tell it was inserted simply because it looked cool because it depicts a completely different time of day.

Also, Abrams fundamentally misunderstands that most of Lucas' "quotes" of other movies usually put an interesting twist into the underlying assumption. So when he quotes Saving Private Ryan during the battle of Kashyyk, he smartly reverses the assumed roles by making the Republic the Nazi's and the separatist the Allies, thus complicating our notion of the good and bad guys, consistent with the basic underlying themes of the movie as set out in the crawl, "there are heroes on both sides". The Apocalypse Now quote is just sort of empty (and in fact flies in the face of everything else we see in TFA which suggests that the New Order is flatly evil with no nuance to it whatsoever).

The marketing for all of the new Star Wars IP has revolved around the key stakeholders each saying on camera at one point or another "I grew up with Star Wars, so making a new movie is a dream for me, like childhood!" As has been repeated ad infinitum, TFA's only references are to Star Wars itself, and they're neither interesting or complicated. It's a boring and cynical involution. Especially when you look at Lucas' freewheeling approach to genre (especially AOTC), you can really see how six of these films were made by a real scholar of film and art, and the other just grew up watching movies like Star Wars.

This person put it fairly accurately:

quote:

Obviously,�I�m very much a self-confessed fan of science-fiction and genre cinema. But part of me looks at society as it is now and thinks we�ve been infantilized by our own taste. We�re essentially all consuming very childish things � comic books, superheroes� Adults are watching this stuff, and taking it seriously! It is a kind of dumbing down because it�s taking our focus away from real-world issues. Films used to be about challenging, emotional journeys. Now we�re really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the Hulk just had a fight with a robot.

Before Star Wars, the big Hollywood studios were making art movies, with morally ambiguous characters, that were thematically troubling and often dark (Travis Bickle dark, as opposed to Bruce Wayne dark)*. This was probably due in large part to the Vietnam War and the fact that a large portion of America�s young men were being forced to grow up very quickly. Images beamed back home from the conflict, were troubling and a growing protest movement forced the nation to question the action abroad. Elsewhere, feminism was still dismissed as a lunatic fringe by the patriarchal old guard, as mainstream culture actively perpetuated traditional gender roles. Star Wars was very much an antidote to the moral confusion of the war, solving the conundrum of who was good and who was evil. At the heart of the story was an rear end kicking princess who must surely have empowered an entire generation of girls. It was a balm for a nation in crisis in a number of ways and such was that nation�s influence, the film became a global phenomenon.

Recent developments in popular culture were arguably predicted by the French philosopher and cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard in his book, �America�, in which he talks about the infantilization of society. Put simply, this is the idea that as a society, we are kept in a state of arrested development by dominant forces in order to keep us more pliant. We are made passionate about the things that occupied us as children as a means of drawing our attentions away from the things we really should be invested in, inequality, corruption, economic injustice etc. It makes sense that when faced with the awfulness of the world, the harsh realities that surround us, our instinct is to seek comfort, and where else were the majority of us most comfortable than our youth? A time when we were shielded from painful truths by our recreational passions, the toys we played with, the games we played, the comics we read. There was probably more discussion on Twitter about the The Force Awakens and the Batman vs Superman trailers than there was about the Nepalese earthquake or the British general election."

The quote of course is from Simon Pegg

# ? Dec 12, 2016 00:13

Cnut the Great: Mar 30, 2014

Phi230 posted:

disgusting

You want to hear me defend the Jabba scene? Of course you do!

The Jabba scene is a great and important character scene, which, first of all, features this badass Sergio Leone-inspired showdown shot:

It's an important scene because it shows that Han isn't afraid of Jabba, and that at this point Jabba isn't willing to sacrifice his best smuggler, just so long as he pays up. Greedo was actually exceeding his mandate when he tried to kill Han; he was just supposed to threaten him, not blast him. It makes it more significant when Han ultimately turns his back on paying off Jabba, in favor of helping his friends. Han isn't turning his back on a risky gambit that might save his life; he's turning his back on a sure thing, and in the process knowingly inviting Jabba to send bounty hunters after him to kill him, for real this time. You don't get any of this in the original cut.

And the infamous tail-step, while a necessary contrivance, actually works perfectly well with the scene as originally written. The whole idea behind the scene is, as said, that Han is not afraid of Jabba, and is basically actively thumbing his nose at him the whole time. Han is banking on the fact that Jabba still needs him, that he's essentially untouchable, and that he can, yes, walk all over Jabba and get away with it. Just look at how the tail step moment plays out, even in the original scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw1gkNd6Z_8&t=40s

Han insolently jabs his finger in Jabba's face; abruptly walks around behind his back, forcing Jabba to bewilderedly whip his head around and come off looking like a fool; Jabba gets a pissed off look on his face as a result; then Han calculatedly calms him down by informing Jabba that he's got a "nice, easy charter" and will pay Jabba back, plus "a little extra."

Han knows exactly what he's doing. He knows exactly how far he can push Jabba's buttons in the current situation, and when he's on the brink of going past that point, he immediately dials it back and soothes Jabba's anger by making him an offer he can't resist: even more money for sitting on his rear end doing absolutely nothing. In the new version of the scene, stepping on Jabba's tail comes off as more extreme of a provocation on Solo's part, and as a result, Jabba is shown to get even angrier as a result, balling his fist up and making as if he's about to punch Han's lights out:

But in the end, it plays out the same way, because Jabba just isn't at his full threat level yet in this movie. In fact, it's exactly this sort of behavior on Han's part, which Jabba is gritting his teeth and forcing himself to put up with for compelling financial reasons, which likely magnifies Jabba's anger at Han over the course of the two following movies and results in the singular brutality of his retaliation, as well as the highly personal relish Jabba takes in Han's comeuppance at his expense. For Jabba, it's a matter of wounded pride, on multiple levels.

As for the people complaining about the way it looks, well, I bet those people wouldn't be able make it through a showing of the original 1933 King Kong without complaining that the giant gorilla does't look 100% photorealistic. The Jabba scene is state-of-the-art CGI. It's actually incredibly impressive how well it works, given that it'we're talking about a CGI character from 2004 interacting with a human actor in footage filmed in 1976, and the CGI character occupying significantly more physical space than the original character. One especially ingenious aspect of the revised scene is the sense of wet, lurching mass the animators and sound designers give to Jabba; it really helps to sell the idea that he's a real character occupying the same physical space as Ford.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 00:25

UmOk: Aug 3, 2003

Cnut the Great posted:

You want to hear me defend the Jabba scene? Of course you do!

The Jabba scene is a great and important character scene, which, first of all, features this badass Sergio Leone-inspired showdown shot:

It's an important scene because it shows that Han isn't afraid of Jabba, and that at this point Jabba isn't willing to sacrifice his best smuggler, just so long as he pays up. Greedo was actually exceeding his mandate when he tried to kill Han; he was just supposed to threaten him, not blast him. It makes it more significant when Han ultimately turns his back on paying off Jabba, in favor of helping his friends. Han isn't turning his back on a risky gambit that might save his life; he's turning his back on a sure thing, and in the process knowingly inviting Jabba to send bounty hunters after him to kill him, for real this time. You don't get any of this in the original cut.

And the infamous tail-step, while a necessary contrivance, actually works perfectly well with the scene as originally written. The whole idea behind the scene is, as said, that Han is not afraid of Jabba, and is basically actively thumbing his nose at him the whole time. Han is banking on the fact that Jabba still needs him, that he's essentially untouchable, and that he can, yes, walk all over Jabba and get away with it. Just look at how the tail step moment plays out, even in the original scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw1gkNd6Z_8&t=40s

Han insolently jabs his finger in Jabba's face; abruptly walks around behind his back, forcing Jabba to bewilderedly whip his head around and come off looking like a fool; Jabba gets a pissed off look on his face as a result; then Han calculatedly calms him down by informing Jabba that he's got a "nice, easy charter" and will pay Jabba back, plus "a little extra."

Han knows exactly what he's doing. He knows exactly how far he can push Jabba's buttons in the current situation, and when he's on the brink of going past that point, he immediately dials it back and soothes Jabba's anger by making him an offer he can't resist: even more money for sitting on his rear end doing absolutely nothing. In the new version of the scene, stepping on Jabba's tail comes off as more extreme of a provocation on Solo's part, and as a result, Jabba is shown to get even angrier as a result, balling his fist up and making as if he's about to punch Han's lights out:

But in the end, it plays out the same way, because Jabba just isn't at his full threat level yet in this movie. In fact, it's exactly this sort of behavior on Han's part, which Jabba is gritting his teeth and forcing himself to put up with for compelling financial reasons, which likely magnifies Jabba's anger at Han over the course of the two following movies and results in the singular brutality of his retaliation, as well as the highly personal relish Jabba takes in Han's comeuppance at his expense. For Jabba, it's a matter of wounded pride, on multiple levels.

As for the people complaining about the way it looks, well, I bet those people wouldn't be able make it through a showing of the original 1933 King Kong without complaining that the giant gorilla does't look 100% photorealistic. The Jabba scene is state-of-the-art CGI. It's actually incredibly impressive how well it works, given that it'we're talking about a CGI character from 2004 interacting with a human actor in footage filmed in 1976, and the CGI character occupying significantly more physical space than the original character. One especially ingenious aspect of the revised scene is the sense of wet, lurching mass the animators and sound designers give to Jabba; it really helps to sell the idea that he's a real character occupying the same physical space as Ford.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93DzOXD_91o

This is actually the definitive version of that scene.

I also agree that Jabba is a wonderful human being.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 00:32

PostNouveau: Sep 3, 2011; VY till I die; Grimey Drawer

Fun thing I learned on the Cracked Photoshop contest today, the most credible possible source:

The original cut of Star Wars had Luke taking two full Death Star trench runs. Han Solo scares off Vader 45 minutes before the explosion. I'd always heard Lucas' wife saved that film in editing, but Jesus.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 01:06

Zoran: Aug 19, 2008; I lost to you once, monster. I shall not lose again! Die now, that our future can live!

I'm going to call bullshit on that one.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 01:20

Yaws: Oct 23, 2013

I wish Lucas had updated the SE in the prequels because those movies actually need it.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 01:42

weekly font: Dec 1, 2004; Everytime I try to fly I fall
Without my wings
I feel so small
Guess I need you baby...

PostNouveau posted:

Fun thing I learned on the Cracked Photoshop contest today, the most credible possible source:

The original cut of Star Wars had Luke taking two full Death Star trench runs. Han Solo scares off Vader 45 minutes before the explosion. I'd always heard Lucas' wife saved that film in editing, but Jesus.

The original script DID have Luke take two shots but I dunno about a full 45 minutes between.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 01:58

Maxwell Lord: Dec 12, 2008; I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.; Grimey Drawer

The key is in the assumption that "Lucas wanted this scene to run 45 minutes but his smarter wife cut it down" and not "work prints have a lot of excess"

# ? Dec 12, 2016 02:04

ShineDog: May 21, 2007; It is inevitable!

Tfa has really good shots used really badly.

More accurately, it's full of fantastic, iconic visuals when viewed as stills, or in short clips independently to the movie. It's part of why the movie gifs so well. You can see the work of the best concept artists in the business essential popping through those shots.

It just doesnt knit together in an Interesting way on screen. When starkiller Base pops the Senate it's an incredible image. Watch a gif of it. It's a super exciting impact. In the context of the movie those seems are paced so blandly it just doesn't sing.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 02:37

Toph Bei Fong: Feb 29, 2008

"Work print length = intended running time" is one of those myths that needs to be taken out back and shot in the head.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 02:50

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Phi230 posted:

I just finished my 2016 catchup and watched Ex Machina, Blue Ruin, Green Room, Neon Demon, and John Wick

I have no purpose in life anymore, somebody recco me a movie to watch

Watch Burden of Dreams, the documentary on the making of Fitzcarraldo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL99NDUWJ0A

# ? Dec 12, 2016 02:52

Bongo Bill: Jan 17, 2012

The Jabba scene mostly just needs to have fewer lines in common with the Greedo scene, and about quadruple the resolution on the Jabba texture.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 03:50

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

I have chosen: Aguirre, The Wrath of God

# ? Dec 12, 2016 03:51

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

Bongo Bill posted:

The Jabba scene mostly just needs to have fewer lines in common with the Greedo scene, and about quadruple the resolution on the Jabba texture.

my biggest problem with the scene is the awful, amateur "Han stepping on Jabba's tail"

also jabba needs to be bigger

This scene ultimately defies Jabba's character. He isn't the type to go do stuff himself, he hires others to do it.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 03:52

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

Maleficent went huge on sets and background and landscapes and it paid off in a surprisingly great movie

Maleficent really digs deep into the classic Hollywood formulas. (Not a bad thing)

Except for obviously the plot twist which was fantastic

# ? Dec 12, 2016 04:02

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

Phi230 posted:

TBH I liked Godzilla 2014, and I think its no coincidence that out of all my friends that went to see it, I was the one who liked it because I didn't see any trailers and didn't have any kind of expectation of Brian Cranston or that white soldier guy

It was pretty much a standard godzilla movie, but some of the shots really added to the mystique (?) of godzilla. specifically the shot where he stands up in the dust cloud, and its eerily silent, and the lightning highlights his silhouette out from the fog

2014 Godzilla is a perfect movie

It is fantastic

# ? Dec 12, 2016 04:03

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

The part in 2014 Godzilla where he uses his lighting breath for the first time is probably the pinnacle of human cinema

# ? Dec 12, 2016 04:06

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

euphronius posted:

2014 Godzilla is a perfect movie

It is fantastic

In my mind the perfect movie (well, perfect in one way) is Conan The Barbarian.

The catharsis Conan proudly show Thulsa Doom's head to the Cult of Set oogugghghoghoghog

and then you think, when Conan is resigned to watching the Cult wither and die, and then think alone on the steps, you think, hey, was Thulsa right? Is Conan just useless now? Is this Conan's life in one moment? And then, he stands up and Hammer Tosses the oil lamp and burns the fucker down to a great score. That everything we just watched, culminates in this one moment

# ? Dec 12, 2016 04:06

MonsieurChoc: Oct 12, 2013; Every species can smell its own extinction.

Phi230 posted:

I have chosen: Aguirre, The Wrath of God

That should be he name of a Bounty Hunter in SW VIII (Aguirre is an amazing movie).

# ? Dec 12, 2016 04:07

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

Phi230 posted:

In my mind the perfect movie (well, perfect in one way) is Conan The Barbarian.

The catharsis Conan proudly show Thulsa Doom's head to the Cult of Set oogugghghoghoghog

and then you think, when Conan is resigned to watching the Cult wither and die, and then think alone on the steps, you think, hey, was Thulsa right? Is Conan just useless now? Is this Conan's life in one moment? And then, he stands up and Hammer Tosses the oil lamp and burns the fucker down to a great score. That everything we just watched, culminates in this one moment

Agreed that is a really good movie

The second half of it leading to the climax just does so much with the limited effects . It's very moving

# ? Dec 12, 2016 04:12

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

Your right when Conan is revealed to the cultists as the god killer it is just an on the nose encapsulation of the early 80s zeitgeist for liberals

Just standing around going "Jesus man what the gently caress"

# ? Dec 12, 2016 04:16

Friendly Factory: Apr 19, 2007; I can't stand the wailing of women

Maxwell Lord posted:

The key is in the assumption that "Lucas wanted this scene to run 45 minutes but his smarter wife cut it down" and not "work prints have a lot of excess"

In fairness, his ex-wife was a good editor. I wouldn't be surprised if he deferred to her judgment more than a few times. And Lucas described the initial editor as bad.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 05:33

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

*awkwardly walks past the thread*

ah boy, i'm just so tired of all these star wars

# ? Dec 12, 2016 05:51

Bulkiest Toaster: Jan 22, 2013; by R. Guyovich

I just saw the tweet from that rogue one write saying the Empire is white supremacist. Well I just rewatched The Force Awakens and noticed there are black officers in the First Order in addition to Finn. Does that mean The First Order is more progressive than the Empire?

# ? Dec 12, 2016 06:03

HannibalBarca: Sep 11, 2016; History shows, again and again, how nature points out the folly of man.

Bulkiest Toaster posted:

I just saw the tweet from that rogue one write saying the Empire is white supremacist. Well I just rewatched The Force Awakens and noticed there are black officers in the First Order in addition to Finn. Does that mean The First Order is more progressive than the Empire?

I'm really confused as to why they bring race into Star Wars but hey whatever.

Also the Empire had a black Grand Admiral but that's not canon anymore

# ? Dec 12, 2016 06:11

Bongo Bill: Jan 17, 2012

Bulkiest Toaster posted:

I just saw the tweet from that rogue one write saying the Empire is white supremacist. Well I just rewatched The Force Awakens and noticed there are black officers in the First Order in addition to Finn. Does that mean The First Order is more progressive than the Empire?

It's a metaphor. The black actor still portrays a human being. The Empire is human-supremacist, which, in a setting that has races that are not human but in practice differ from humans only by culture, is analogous to white supremacy.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 06:18

Bulkiest Toaster: Jan 22, 2013; by R. Guyovich

HannibalBarca posted:

I'm really confused as to why they bring race into Star Wars but hey whatever.

Also the Empire had a black Grand Admiral but that's not canon anymore

Yeah I think interhuman racism is not really a thing in the Star Wars Universe. In the old canon I guess the Empire was anti-alien and anti-woman but I never remember anything about them being white supremacist, and I believe the Empire is not anti-woman in the new canon.

As far as I know the Empire is evil because they want all systems to be under their control and are willing to build and use a superweapon to make it happen.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 06:19

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

The Empire is absolutely racist but against non-humans

# ? Dec 12, 2016 07:05

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

But uh Human Supremacy doesnt really make sense in star wars. Someone helo me understand it.

White supremacy is a thing that resulted from a very specific event (Slavery of Africans by Europeans) so why is the empire Human supremacist when no such power structure exists to create it

# ? Dec 12, 2016 07:07

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

Phi230 posted:

But uh Human Supremacy doesnt really make sense in star wars. Someone helo me understand it.

White supremacy is a thing that resulted from a very specific event (Slavery of Africans by Europeans) so why is the empire Human supremacist when no such power structure exists to create it

Star wars isn't real guy. There's no teleological explanation for their society. It's just a metaphor.

But they do enslave aliens, right? I think chewie was a slave?

# ? Dec 12, 2016 07:14

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

Ok, he says in resignation

# ? Dec 12, 2016 07:15

Gonz: Dec 22, 2009; "Jesus, did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?"

The review embargo on Rogue One ends on Tuesday. After that, i'm sure the internet will be ripe with spoilers.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 08:42

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 14, 2024 16:59

Grouchio: Aug 31, 2014

So folks how disappointing was Rogue One? Because I've been avoiding this reboot like the plague.

# ? Dec 12, 2016 09:44

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Star Wars: Millenial Trash Discussion Station

«‹›1055 »