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Let's focus on the important issues: does this mean that we can get the fanfare back at the start of the movies? 
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Dec 13, 2017 08:13
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I got to see a screening of TLJ at LucasFilm today and it's good. Really good. Really really good. And I don't like TFA all that much.
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Dec 13, 2017 09:07
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Day of Defeat was the poo poo
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Dec 13, 2017 09:38
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Yaws posted:~~likable characters~~ When people talk about TFA’s “likeable characters”, they are invariably actually referring to the actors’ performances - in isolation. Like if you subtract everything that contributes to characterization except the performance (and, perhaps, elements of the costume design), that’s what you’re talking about. Characterization in the film is messy because the actors’ performances don’t gel with the visual narrative or the writing, thanks to the obvious copious reshoots. Kylo being Han’s son, for example, was very obviously a twist that got nixed at the last minute - hence the extremely clumsy scene where Snoke reminds Kylo who his father is. This leads to problems when, for example, FN knew about the Death Star 3 all along. People gloss over this, but Boyega is acting so ridiculously terrified in the film because FN terrified of being blown up. Knowledge of the Death Star 3 has driven him mad - and his self-serving lies have condemned billions to die. That’s the core of his character. FN’s original, pre-reshoot characterization was all about the dramatic irony of wearing heroes’ clothes despite being a genuinely terrible person. Originally the protagonist, he would redeem himself by effectively giving up his life for Rey. As in Jurassic World, though, the character’s negative traits were hastily scrubbed from the film to make him more likeable - even though doing so removed his narrative purpose. Remember: the entire point of FN is that he’s a stormtrooper who turns good. But FN’s complicity in building the superweapon is heavily downplayed in the final cut, until he becomes ‘just a janitor’ who has never done anything even remotely bad. His only negative character trait is being... mildly boastful? It’s awful characterization - dramatically inert.
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Dec 13, 2017 09:42
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:When people talk about TFA’s “likeable characters”, they are invariably actually referring to the actors’ performances - in isolation. Like if you subtract everything that contributes to characterization except the performance (and, perhaps, elements of the costume design), that’s what you’re talking about. I agree with you on Finn, but I'm not so sure about this. Like, don't get me wrong, it's absolutely a clumsy scene where this weird bit of information is directly stated but there's definitely some relationship between Han and Kylo (long scenes with Han staring at him on Maz's Weird Bar Planet) and such. In my mind, they should've dropped the bit where Snoke tells Kylo and have it come out in the confrontation between Han and Kylo. Like, it even has: "What do you think you'll see?" "The face of my son!" But the drama of it is robbed by Snoke just... dropping it in earlier. It feels like someone got worried about it being the inversion of ESB's 'I am your father' scene and said, no, no, reveal it earlier, let's not make a big deal out of it. I don't think the twist was nixed. I think a big problem with TFA is that Kylo Ren was crafted to be as enigmatic and mysterious as possible, simply so no one could possibly guess the 'twist' they abruptly mention around the halfway point in what amounts to an upper-level management meeting scene. They clearly, at some point, wanted to make a big deal out of the reveal! Then they just... didn't. TFA had a lot of misdirection in the marketing. Remember how people were mad that the Rey action figure revealed she was going to be the Jedi when basically everything had implied it would be Finn? Stuff like that. FN is just weird. We meet him with Kylo Ren and Phasma, showing it to be an important mission, and he's this frontline combatant on it. Then Finn is just a janitor, and this, like, isn't a lie to cover up his FO crimes or anything. There's nothing to Poe beyond him being 'one hell of a pilot' (although I do wonder who would've popped Starkiller pre-reshoots). And Rey is just there, too, who is defined by 'lots of power' and 'wants to stay at home', maybe. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Dec 13, 2017 |
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Dec 13, 2017 09:59
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The only spoiler I care about is if there’s a green freaking lightsaber. I won’t wade into the spoilers thread to find out. Also, if the music is good
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Dec 13, 2017 10:20
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Just entered the movie in Letterboxd and, uh oh. That's what happens when you sleep on making the Spaceballs sequel. Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Dec 13, 2017 |
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Dec 13, 2017 13:57
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George Lucas says that TLJ is "beautifully made".
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Dec 13, 2017 14:09
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Edit: ^^^ I'd put as much stock in that as when Cameron praises each new Terminator Am I imagining it, or wasn't Poe supposed to be a very minor character until fan response prompted Disney to expand the role last-minute? I only saw TFA once, but I felt his character was so hollow. Dinosaurs! fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Dec 13, 2017 |
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Dec 13, 2017 14:12
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Poe was supposed to die in the first scene. Like the whole loving stupid joke is he comes in and he's Flash Gordon for two seconds then he just dies. Likewise in the original version FN (Finn) was supposed to be a guy sitting on a dirty secret for most of the movie---he ran away from the storm troopers but he couldn't run away from the enormity of what he'd participated in.
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Dec 13, 2017 14:27
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KaptainKrunk posted:They're both really messy, ugly films that make for decent theater experiences but which hold up poorly upon rewatch or critical analysis. I have a lot of issues with Rogue One (Saw's character is pretty useless, the mind control slug scene is dumb, movie doesn't really grab me until the third act), and I understand (yet disagree) with a lot of the criticism of TFA, but I don't see how anyone can say either movie is "ugly". They're beautiful films.
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Dec 13, 2017 14:55
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Yeah in terms of actual film craft both TFA and TLJ are pretty stunning. There's one ugly as gently caress scene in TLJ that I could've done without but it's not without reason.
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Dec 13, 2017 15:00
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So many of my friends are at midnight screenings of TLJ right now, I logged onto my FB and it was full of cinema selfies of super hyped people.
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Dec 13, 2017 15:52
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Well that was... interesting. Way too much (attempted) comedy in it though, I don't mind funny bits in star wars, but it seemed like every scene had to have a gag or three or a witty comment. Gut reactions after TFA was it wasn't too great, good characters, boring story. But it did grow on me, it had some good set peices like the first order assault at the start of the movie. Gut reactions for TLJ... what story? Decent characters. But some really bad bits... drunkill fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Dec 13, 2017 |
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Dec 13, 2017 17:39
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MrMojok posted:It is literally all this thread is, and all the thread before it was, and the successor to this thread will be the same. Untrue! Every couple of months, when the conversation turns sufficiently retarded, I post an inappropriate piece of fan art that sometimes gets me probated.
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Dec 13, 2017 18:50
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Dinosaurs! posted:Edit: ^^^ I'd put as much stock in that as when Cameron praises each new Terminator I don't think Lucas liked TFA much.
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Dec 13, 2017 22:19
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The MSJ posted:I don't think Lucas liked TFA much. He said "It’s very much the kind of movie [the fans have] been looking for", which is clearly him throwing some shade at everyone.
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Dec 13, 2017 22:41
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Looking forward to seeing this, saw some reviews that don't have good things to say but it cant be as bad as the prequels.
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Dec 13, 2017 23:56
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drunkill posted:Gut reactions for TLJ... what story? Decent characters. But some really bad bits... Yeah, I love Ridley and Driver, but the bad bits were really bad. And the movie overstays its welcome. I felt like walking out the last half hour or so.
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Dec 14, 2017 00:44
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Milky Moor posted:FN is just weird. We meet him with Kylo Ren and Phasma, showing it to be an important mission, and he's this frontline combatant on it. Then Finn is just a janitor, and this, like, isn't a lie to cover up his FO crimes or anything. There's nothing to Poe beyond him being 'one hell of a pilot' (although I do wonder who would've popped Starkiller pre-reshoots). And Rey is just there, too, who is defined by 'lots of power' and 'wants to stay at home', maybe. I’ve seen enough bowdlerized movies to know what they were going for. TFA deals in very familiar narrative cliches, so it’s easy to see where they made desperate, last-minute changes. FN is the “Winter Soldier” archetype, from the Captain America sequels. He has definitely participated in massacres. He has helped build the Death Star. FN was brainwashed, but he still feels enormous guilt over what he did. Abrams introduces him with a Starship Troopers reference, and the basic image of a stormtrooper says “American GI in ‘Nam.” He’s been in some very bad poo poo and now his brain’s all hosed up. Poe Dameron is the “Captain Amazing” archetype from Mystery Men. He was originally meant to die as a joke, as we all know, but the point remains that Poe is an idiot who stands for a faux-uplifting defense of the status quo. The original version of TFA was therefore based on the mystery of what went wrong - why did the new Republic backslide even further into a fascist nightmare world? Why is Poe such an idiot? And that’s where we get the original twist: Han and Leia gave birth to the villain. They hosed it all up, and the kids are bearing the brunt of it. Their failure as parents is the failure of the Republic in microcosm: Leia couldn’t function without an external enemy Other to rally against, and Han put all responsibility on the Jedi to figure something out.... This was all removed from the film, to give it a ‘brighter tone’ and ‘more likeable characters’. FN was ironically made into a Jar Jar redux - a hapless innocent janitor in exile, as the story shifted more towards Kylo being a psycho for no reason, while Leia bravely fights this purely evil external enemy.
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Dec 14, 2017 01:11
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https://youtu.be/oKm4ueVuxpY just want to drop this here
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Dec 14, 2017 01:43
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Steve2911 posted:Yeah in terms of actual film craft both TFA and TLJ are pretty stunning. There's also one scene in TLJ that is so jawdroppingly incredible (regarding the visuals) that I was honestly floored by it.
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Dec 14, 2017 02:35
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This movie did things I did not expect and I love it for that, it’s definitely not my favourite Star War but it’s a step in the right direction.
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Dec 14, 2017 03:52
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This movie was phenomenal and boy are a lot of the jokes gonna really piss off certain SW purists who will see them as too irreverent or whatever
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Dec 14, 2017 04:27
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I just got back from seeing it, no real spoilers. It was.. odd? I liked, but I don't know how much this movie holds together. Maybe I just need time to think about it. There is a bunch of stuff in the middle of the movie that has no real bearing on the outcome of the story in plot terms, but does affect some characters and their viewpoints. It isn't pointless in that sense, but the actions these characters take are literally meaningless by the end. Like, in structure it has a lot of similarities with Empire, but by the end all these are gone and it is it's own thing. It ends very differently and with no cliffhangers. Without some major loving around, Episode 9 cannot just be return of the jedi again, this is a good thing. For the mystery box poo poo, Rey's parents are revealed and whatever Snoke's deal is is not. Some people will be pissed about this, but seeing as I never cared about the answers it means nothing to me. The weirdest thing is I didn't really pay attention to trailers, because we are all seeing it anyway, so I didn't know what to expect or know what scenes still hadn't been in the movie. I thought the climax of the film was happening, everything was coming together, a climax happens... and then the movie lasts another like half an hour and has ANOTHER sequence and climax. It's a good surprise, but I feel like the end of the movie was the start of another story, then a quick wrap up, rather than the conclusion to the story the first 2/3rds of the movie. Oh and you know how people who like the prequels are all "The jedi sucked, they brought it on themselves and the Empire was directly their own fault"? Guess what, Luke Skywalker agrees with them! This is not a spoiler for the end of the movie, it is kind of the premise at the start. SuperMechaGodzilla was right all along.
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Dec 14, 2017 05:02
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For the post above, and in general: Just because you think something is not a spoiler does not make it so. If you are going to go into any specific details of the movie, put it behind a spoiler tag. Last warning.
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Dec 14, 2017 05:10
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It's the best sequel to TFA one could hope for, I think. Unfortunately, it spends a lot of time cleaning up the mess of TFA. The subplots are a mess but Kylo and Rey and Luke do well enough. A Rian Johnson helped sequel trilogy could've been really something. Direction and cinematography are great. It's definitely going to be divisive for a whole host of reasons.
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Dec 14, 2017 06:38
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:When people talk about TFA’s “likeable characters”, they are invariably actually referring to the actors’ performances - in isolation. Like if you subtract everything that contributes to characterization except the performance (and, perhaps, elements of the costume design), that’s what you’re talking about. It's almost like charisma is important.
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Dec 14, 2017 06:41
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It's not only that. In addition to artistic meaning and aesthetics, media depicts people, a subject which is inherently interesting to humans on some level. Although the viewer is not engaged in any kind of relationship with them, and, indeed, although they are fictional, characters provide social stimulation. "Parasocial interaction," they call it. A simulation of a person can produce a simulation of a relationship, which, although reduced and unbalanced compared to genuine social interaction, nevertheless is capable of effecting the same kind of edification and nourishment that you can get from real interactivity with real people. Watching a simulation of a dysfunctional relationship can induce the same kind of distress as being embroiled in strife among a peer group. Likewise, art depicting emotionally open people being nice and supportive to each other can result in the same kind of pleasure as having a good friend. Whether a piece of art succeeds in either of these things depends not only on the content of the art but also on whether the viewer approaches it in that way. Viewing movies in a mode that is at least somewhat parasocial is, I would guess, normal. So Star Wars: The Next Generation goes all-in with providing pleasant parasocial interactions for the audience. It does this even at the cost of weakening its themes. It's somewhat the opposite decision as made in the prequels, which are very semiotically dense and consistent, and in which the relationships that aren't highly dysfunctional tend to be implicit. I think this is why people tend to have opposite opinions of them. Even people who like both tend to have a strong preference for one or the other. That heavy emphasis on characterization is an investment in audience attachment, of course. Parasocial relationships can be nearly as powerful and enduring as the real thing, and can be established much more quickly. Get people to feel like there exists something that they share with the character, and they'll keep coming back for decades. We are social animals, after all; people, even fictional ones, are our greatest concern. In my case, their investment is paying dividends. I'm gonna go see the sequel tomorrow.
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Dec 14, 2017 07:06
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Tonight, the wars in the stars continue.
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Dec 14, 2017 07:09
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Magic Hate Ball posted:It's almost like charisma is important. If that is what matters to you, then you must admit that there is a ton of chaff on that wheat. The cinematic qualities of the movie are obstacles getting in the way of what you really want - which is watching John Boyega do live improv.
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Dec 14, 2017 08:59
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:watching John Boyega do live improv. I bet he could think up better lines than "chrome dome."
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Dec 14, 2017 09:24
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Teenage Fansub posted:I bet he could think up better lines than "chrome dome." "You're scum." "Rebel scum." 
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Dec 14, 2017 09:52
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I can't believe luuke skywalker returns and kills everyone with darth revan.
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Dec 14, 2017 11:35
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I can't believe Finn comes out of his coma and asks "Hey what's been going on with all of these star wars?"
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Dec 14, 2017 12:25
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Movie was good, even if it was a bit too in your face with trying to be funny sometimes. I felt very involved and happy seeing it.
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Dec 14, 2017 14:00
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I've seen it too soon to properly digest whether I liked it or not, but it certainly is nothing like Empire Strikes Back at all.
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Dec 14, 2017 14:49
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Steve2911 posted:Yeah in terms of actual film craft both TFA and TLJ are pretty stunning. There's one moment when Luke and Rey are outside (Where she sits down on that stone) that was outright awful and felt like something thrown in at literally the last moment. Other than that I liked it a lot. I know it's going to draw EMPIRE STRIKES BACK comparisons, but that feels a little lazy to me. It's a middle chapter, but I still feel like it has a self-contained story and doesn't really end on so much of a cliffhanger as a clear way forward. I did actually laugh at how Johnson undoes quite a bit of what Abrams set up. I don't know if it was always the plan, but having Fin just wake up and then having Snoke get taken out and then have them categorically hand wave away Rey's parentage undoes some of what Abrams put together but thankfully, it also means that the focus can be where it needs to be.
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Dec 14, 2017 14:58
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It's better than TFA, which is a pretty low bar to cross. If your local cinemas have a cheap or half price night, I'd go see it on that night, it's not a good enough movie to leave you feeling good afterwards about paying $25 to see it. I got $12 tickets, which was probably fair - I would have gotten a refund for my TFA tickets if I was able. One warning, the comedy in it is pretty ordinary, so set your cringe deflectors to double front. NTRabbit fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Dec 14, 2017 |
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Dec 14, 2017 15:56
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NTRabbit posted:It's better than TFA, which is a pretty low bar to cross. If your local cinemas have a cheap or half price night, I'd go see it on that night, it's not a good enough movie to leave you feeling good afterwards about paying $25 to see it. What theater is charging $25 a seat? I mean...I guess if it's IMAX 3D or something? But even AMC only charges like $12-$15 for a regular ol' 2D showing
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