mcjomar posted:

To an extent, the better action movies prior to that point agreed with that.
I'll use Die Hard (the first one, and ignore the others), and Demolition Man as my examples.
In both cases we've got a lot of gratuitous violence.
But we've also got engaging heroes and villains and they can still hold up.
Here's why:

Both John McLane and, John Spartan actually don't like using violence.
Sure, they spout off witty one-liners because that's what heroes did in the 80's and 90's.
But violence isn't their driving force.
Their enemies are *very* willing to use violence. They have reasons for it (mostly), but are still very willing to use it to achieve their aims (theft, power, chaos, etc).

But both McLane and Spartan had one driving goal: to protect the innocent and imprison or remove the criminals.

McLane is just one guy in a tower after hours, without much of anything in terms of resources. He survives on wits, and using his environment and stealing weapons from the bad guys. He has no cuffs, he isn't a SWAT guy, and the Feds are idiots. Arrogant ones. He's there to rescue/fix up things with his wife, and also save any other non-stupid hostages that he can. In short, he's only using violence because he hasn't got a choice. He's not indiscriminate, and if he could, he'd slap cuffs on everyone. He can't, that's the point. But people walked off (went running really) with the big action scenes, and so we got a trilogy of Die Hard movies, and a bunch of copy-cat films besides that focused on violence being the point, rather than the last resort. That's why McLane is a good hero, and Gruber a good villain. They have obvious, direct motivations (save the people/steal the cash for power), and they do what makes the most sense to them at that moment to achieve their aims. Gruber is willing to use Holly as a shield, and McLane wants to save her because he loves her. Thus the gravitas of their fight.
The big takeaway? Violence isn't the point - it's just sometimes you gotta use it if you want to save the most people. The takeaway Hollywood went with? "Violence is cool! "

Pretty much the same thing happens in Demolition Man, but with a sci fi twist. Spartan is constantly telling everyone around him that the violence and agression are ~not~ the point and are ~not~ cool, that he only did that stuff to get the bad guys into custody. And, of course, his fan girl doesn't listen, while at the same time boneheadedly lecturing him on the failings of his decade, and the weaknesses of the culture back then (while blatantly missing the point completely). Phoenix, on the other hand, is all about absolute freedom at any cost. He's representative on anarchy as a lifestyle choice, and in short he is FYGM personified, wrapped around a psychotic chaos gooey centre of sheer aggression and sadism. He is an avatar of freedom to the point of anarchy. The exact opposite of the society he has been woken up into, and is a walking billboard for the worst excesses of self-indulgence.
The point here? Not only is violence not cool, but sometimes necessary, but also that building a society around mollycoddling people and wrapping them up in safe protective bubbles has as many downsides as it does upsides, if not more so (or that's the short version anyway), and is not necessarily better than a society that gives freedom to the point of anarchy, without protecting the people (one could argue this is a ham-fisted attempt at reconciling pure capitalism/anarchy and pure socialism, with Spartan being held up as a balanced moderate ideal between those two positions. But this is a cheesy action flick, so )

But again, everything that followed after this basically missed the point and we got a lot of cool but shallow action scenes/movies as a result. That's not to say these movies are ~particularly~ deep (they're not). Just that they have more depth than the average puddle, and definitely more depth than a large chunk of the star wars prequels, especially in terms of villains and motivations.

TKIY posted:

I think the biggest issue is that Anakin has the same 3" threat bubble as Vader. I mean, obviously both are fine in narrative play, but when it comes to matched play Vader just isn't worth his points. I mean would you rather take Vader or Mace Windu for those points? After all, Mace rerolls all his hits and wounds if you shout 'BAD MOTHERFUCKER' at your opponent too.

In my last game, a Gungan Globotrotter one-shotted Vader in the middle of a combat with 2d6 mortal wounds because he was being buffed by a Gungan Gungablooder. I was going to drift in a Jedi Jedchariot next turn anyhow.

Age of Lucas is a lovely game.

Atlas Hugged posted:

Yeah, I'm not saying that action movies before The Matrix were just awesome action sequences and no depth. The good ones actually had a lot of depth as you've mentioned. All I was saying is that in a post-Matrix cinema universe, there's not really a reason to see a movie just for the fights or action sequences, which undercuts any appeal that the Prequels might have.

TheChirurgeon posted:

Death Thread poster: "Star Wars"

Rest of Thread: *Autistic Screeching*

NTRabbit posted:

I got TW:WH from humble bundle, chose Empire in the grand campaign, and died during the tutorial phase. I remember now I'm pretty bad at TW games.

NTRabbit posted:

I got TW:WH from humble bundle, chose Empire in the grand campaign, and died during the tutorial phase. I remember now I'm pretty bad at TW games.

mcjomar posted:

well okay, I'll bite, "Random trade nutters blockade world because of sith shenanigans, Jedi sent to investigate" is sort of an idea with potential.
Throw in "this is how Vader was discovered and trained by Obi-wan" to 'resolve' a plot point, and maybe it's sellable. Apparently we're also explaining how he met Luke's mum, but whatever.

Pod Racing, Neeson, and McGregor are also kind of workable (I would legitimately watch a star wars movie about Qui-Gon and Obi-wan and their space detective investigations, like a buddy cop PI movie, but with glowsticks - and now that I say that, I still have no clue how nobody ever considered the idea). Oh yeah, that one big lightsaber duel at the end was kinda cool I guess.

But here's where it breaks down - Padmé is pretty much cradlerobbing, because Anakin is played as being creepy as poo poo in the second movie. Also, whiny, which is the bigger sin, for me, but let's keep going with the first movie. Anything to do with gungans and midichlorians is automatically bad by sheer definition, and should be removed wholesale from the movie. Bad racial stereotyping also (one member of the race is like this so all are like this ) because holy gently caress why would you even do this.
Cue die hard-ism "Sand? Who gives a poo poo about sand?"

Honestly the whole "leader escapes, goes to beg for help, gets turned down and promptly goes back and gathers allies to stage an uprising and/or guerilla warfare to reclaim planet" is a pretty reasonable trope, but ends up being played in the shittiest way because CGI, Gungans, and the inevitable cyclical plot points trying (badly) to imitate ANH (such as, big fight against big object, inexperienced kid blows it up with one well placed shot. Mentor dies in front of student, imparts some sort of message, student gets angry and starts attacking. There's plenty more, just look) which is I guess an attempt to say "all this has happened before, all this will happen again", but ends up being hamfisted.

There's good set of ideas in there, buried under a CGI mountain of bullshit and bad calls.

But that's just the first movie.
Number two?

If you strip out absolutely anything to do with Anakin, you end up with a semi-decent movie about Obi-wan Kenobi, space detective, and it's better for it.
Whiny teen drama is boring, news at 11.

Kenobi vs Fett is a pretty cool face off, and a fairly reasonable plot line. It gets screwed up because Lucas, but the basic idea is sound when you boil it back to the start. But if this had been a TV show, maybe it would have worked.
Clones? Also potentially workable, especially given the "manipulation" involved on the part of Sidious (okay, here's an aside, lovely Darth naming conventions endemic to star wars - Vader = Father, Sidious = insidious, Maul = violent attacky bastard, Dooku = wtf I don't even know. Dracula? Point is Lucas has a history of giving his Darths some lovely and obvious names. Devil's advocate maybe that's the point, as the Sith are possibly not always supposed to be subtle, even when that's what they're trying to do).
Problem? The whole thing ends up being a bit shallow as a vehicle to set up Palpatine's rise to power, but devil's advocate again, this is a movie, rather than a several month long TV show, so we only have so much time.

Then we have student following mentor into danger to rescue mentor but loving up because of inexperience (oh hello, plot point from ESB, where Luke went to rescue a bunch of people he looked up to and failed, and also lost part of a limb, force is cyclical, blah blah blah ) which as tropes go is fairly standard. Honestly this section makes Padme come across as a slightly stronger character, i.e. not a damsel in distress, much like Leia who is the best shot in the original trilogy (no poo poo, go look).

But then the inevitable repeat during the Dooku duel, oh hey, look, Anakin lost a limb, wonder who else did that.
Obi-wan covers things up, and Padmé gives in to Anakin (). This could have been a good plot point if it wasn't for supposed age differences and how Anakin is portrayed as being a ridiculous man-child (also, holy poo poo, my browser gives me naming corrections for "good" aligned star wars characters. But apparently gently caress the villains, like Dooku or Fett, they don't deserve a spell check ). I mean, guilty mentor covers for beloved student is a legitimate trope. But here, again, it's played like poo poo.
Y'see, a good villain has pathos, and is respectable, and likeable (in as much as one can like a villain). A bad villain is none of these things, is unrelatable, unlikeable for any reason, and earns no respect.

When you watch a good villain "fall" it is a tragedy, but still enjoyable, as you actually like the character or at least respect them and their reasons for turning to evil.
A bad villain, on the other hand, is just bad, with no redeeming features (good or bad), and hasn't got any reason worth discussing for their actions. Or to put it succinctly, good villains have internal logic for their actions that we can understand, even if we do not agree with it, while bad villains lack this internal logic, not because they are insane but because their writing is just that poo poo. A bad villain falls simply because the author decrees it is so, rather than because of the logic inherent and internal to the character.
The fall of Anakin has questionable logic (at best).

Oh hey, this terrible terrible effortpost has reached movie 3

So, first Palpatine tempts him by encouraging his rage (after the loss of his mother where he indulged his rage the first time - a scene which is actually one of the more understandable ones as it gives him human emotions, and a real reason to turn to evil (vengeance being portrayed as an evil motivation here). It's a pity that the following scene where he confesses to Padmé is such utter crap, and completely undermines the importance of this act and turns it into another whine-fest). The death of Dooku is... anticlimactic at best.

Then we have a lot of inane ridiculousness (thankfully some of which was removed on the editing room floor, or else we would now have moustache tweaking as a secret jedi language or something), ships in space adhering to the logic of ships on water/in the air (zepplins), and a very strange but actually potentially interesting "bad guy" in the form of Grievous (oh ha ha Lucas, very funny pun ).

Now, the battle between Kenobi and Grievous is one with potential (man/force vs machine with biological bits (at what point is a biological creature no longer biological but mechanical?)), but we end up with something a little lacking in depth. We could be kind and play devil's advocate in regards time constraints though. But honestly, I'm sure this could have been better and more stretched out.

Finally we reach Order 66, and everything that follows. So much internal logic in regards Jedi just goes horribly wrong here. Apparently the presence of one Sith, and the (possible) fall of Anakin was enough to cloud the future for all light siders? Did they not have any ability to deflect lightning bolts from their allies, and only from their enemies because of this? Etc.

So Anakin sides with Palpatine because he needs the "knowledge" he has about life and death to save Padmé, so he betrays the Jedi order, not just a little bit, but completely (the fall, to Luke's resistance in RotJ, plot point repeat and this time inversion). So there's a little internal logic here, vision of Padmé, must save Padmé, okay this sort of works, apparently the Skywalker family are great at misunderstanding the visions they see in the force. But then he's killing kids, and other Jedi, and murdering the "hostile" federation leaders. That... doesn't quite sound right. Shouldn't he go through more internal moralising or dilemmas before murdering kids? Or is it just flip switch, is now evil, here goes the death spiral ? And then the fight between him and Kenobi where he misunderstands things (this could have worked) but also does so wilfully, and doesn't think things through (this is dumb), kills the very woman he turned evil trying to save () and then blames Kenobi for something Anakin literally just did with his own hands.

And then we get the dumb as hell lava fight, ending with Kenobi taking Anakin's lightsaber ("Your father wanted you to have this, when you were old enough." *Death scream from lava floor* (that always cracks me up)). New internal logic gently caress up, Padmé basically dies literally of a "broken heart". What did she have an embolism of some sort because Anakin half-strangled her, but the robot was trying to be kind? No, it's just lovely writing again. I mean, what, she's got kids, but no her ~love for Anakin is too much to handle the loss~ or whatever. Poetic, but dumb as gently caress, and a seriously lovely trope to pull in the dumbest possible way, especially given that Leia can supposedly remember her. This is supposed to be an inverted remembrance of Han and Leia at the end of RotJ when DStar2 goes boom, but with Padmé giving birth to Leia and Luke as the galaxy becomes not free (as opposed to Han and Leia falling in love as the galaxy becomes free). Very crappily written.

RotS should have been a true inversion of RotJ, but it got repeatedly hosed up and became an inelegant bungled mess lacking in suitable depth. While the overall outline, and a number of plot chunks are good in theory, the practical execution is completely and utterly poo poo, and would have been better directed by almost anyone else (except Uwe Boll - although now I want that to happen, simply because it would be a comedy).

Throughout all of this, most things relating to Kenobi have been worthwhile, and anything relating to Anakin has been utter poo poo.
It's a series of movies that could have been good, and actually did have some degree of potential, but ended up being hamstrung with lovely writing, lovely directing, over-reliance on CGI, and an extremely whiny portrayal and script for Anakin. Almost every good opportunity was missed, and every good idea was repeatedly hosed up into an unrecognisable mess.

Or to cut an effort post short, Lucas repeatedly hosed up, missed every opportunity to do something good, and delivered a mismanaged, poorly directed, utterly bungled mess of a trilogy. In short, where the gently caress were the editors armed with shears to keep him in check?

mcjomar posted:

I haven't even installed yet.
I keep hearing people accuse it of being a good game.

Ashcans posted:

Episode 1 was always going to be poo poo because they decided to hang their whole reboot around some 10 year old kid. And even when kids are passable actors they need directors and development with their poo poo firmly together to make it work, which was not happening. There was no way that Episode 1 was going to go well when one of the main pivots of the whole thing was 'Hey, you remember that unstoppable terrifying badass from the original movies that was literally the terror of the galaxy? Ok, well here he is as a doofy kid delivering some of the worst dialogue ever written. Enjoy!'

If anyone had any sense, Annikin would have have been already grown up and some sort of bad-boy fighter ace in the navy who doesn't like to play by your rules, man. Then the relationship between him and Padme would have had some establishment in the first movie, and you could have set the stage for him being a kind of reckless dude who was always willing to play fast and dangerous to get the job done, and have that be the lever into the dark side.

Also then Yoda being 'He's too old' about Luke would have been a subtle callback to the last time they decided that training up some backwater pilot was a good idea.

Ashcans posted:

Episode 1 was always going to be poo poo because they decided to hang their whole reboot around some 10 year old kid. And even when kids are passable actors they need directors and development with their poo poo firmly together to make it work, which was not happening. There was no way that Episode 1 was going to go well when one of the main pivots of the whole thing was 'Hey, you remember that unstoppable terrifying badass from the original movies that was literally the terror of the galaxy? Ok, well here he is as a doofy kid delivering some of the worst dialogue ever written. Enjoy!'

If anyone had any sense, Annikin would have have been already grown up and some sort of bad-boy fighter ace in the navy who doesn't like to play by your rules, man. Then the relationship between him and Padme would have had some establishment in the first movie, and you could have set the stage for him being a kind of reckless dude who was always willing to play fast and dangerous to get the job done, and have that be the lever into the dark side.

Also then Yoda being 'He's too old' about Luke would have been a subtle callback to the last time they decided that training up some backwater pilot was a good idea.

Chill la Chill posted:

YODA, to ANAKIN: Turn in your badge and light, you must. Rules we have here in the Jedi Academy. But, results you get...
YODA calmly, but firmly, taps his stick on the ground.

Thirsty Dog posted:

On holiday in NZ a few years back I stayed with a couple of horse riders who were part of the ride of the rohirrim

TKIY posted:

But what about the rights of that little girl?

TKIY posted:

But what about the rights of that little girl?

Speleothing posted:

Marvel movie being bad is like the sky being grey in Detroit: pretty common, but still disappointing.

Speleothing posted:

Marvel movie being bad is like the sky being grey in Detroit: pretty common, but still disappointing.

NTRabbit posted:

I was doing ok on my second try, then I lost my only captured city while doing a super important quest battle, and it was subsequently defended so strongly I couldn't take it back; then while going for a weaker city some beastmen walked right up to me, and apparently that's an ambush which resulted in my troops getting loving whipped. They then auto-retreated in the direction of my ex-city, at which point the defenders left en masse, because it was their turn before my next one, and ambushed the remnants and lol gently caress if I didn't just quit so I can go back to my last save tomorrow.

mcjomar posted:

Instead it was embarrassing and painful to watch (not in a good way). There were so many ways that the existing plot attempts could have been fixed that the fact they weren't is both laughable and depressing.

Vitamin P posted:

They aren't bad bad, if a friend wants to go see the new one it's not like you're gonna say no, they are just dull. But dull in quite an interesting way, they are the first profoundly corporate product franchise in cinema and in all likelihood we're watching the future of movies being born with them.

panascope posted:

The Star Wars prequels are insanely good.

dmnz posted:

panascope posted:

The Star Wars prequels are insanely good.

Barudak posted:

Star Wars prequels are good, all of them are better than The Force Awakens.

The best Star Wars movie is the throne room bits in Return of the Jedi and the worst Star Wars movie is almost literally everythig else in that movie.