Star Wars: 4000 posts later we are no closer to consensus

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McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

When I saw TFA, I left the theater hating the movie. I think TFA is trash, a bad movie made by committee, without soul or passion. It's not art, it's garbage dressed up with nostalgia to rob you of your money.

On a personal level, I disliked TLJ, but as a movie, I'd say it's pretty ok.

One thing that I disliked is that it continues TFA's habit of meekly going where Star Wars has gone before, and for all it's talk about killing the past, it's certainly doing a good job of clinging on to it. Just because it tries to be clever by taking scenes from ESB and RotJ and subverting them (or going zag instead of zig, like another poster put it) it still doesn't change that it's still chaining itself to the OT by so clearly cribbing from it. I feel that if the point of the movie is that we should stop treating Star Wars like a holy scripture and be more creative, it completely undermined itself.

And despite my intense dislike of TFA, I feel like despite Abrams making GBS threads the bed with his stupid characters like Maz and Snoke (seriously? What kind of stupid name is Snoke?!) and faux mysteries like Snoke and Rey's parents, I feel like something more interesting could have been done with the setting than throwing it all out.

And Luke...well it's clear there are two camps, and I'm in the one that dislikes the characterization. I don't really feel OT Luke would ever pull a saber on his nephew. He might consider it, sure, but not actually do it. I feel that making him relearn the same lessons he supposedly learned back in empire and Jedi was dumb. It's a bit frustrating because again, it feels like the movie wants us to let go of the past, but it's doing it's damndest to hold on to it by evoking the characters of the OT, instead of their older and more mature versions. Han is still a scoundrel, Leia is still a guerilla fighter, Luke has still not learned anything.
Having said that, that's a matter of taste. I can absolutely see it as a legitimate decision to have Luke do what he did, but it kinda felt so...lazy? Like, we get the Rashomon scenes, which is nice, but we're never actually shown how or why Kylo is full of "darkness". They could have elaborated on this a bit, shown us more of young Kylo and actually show WHY Luke had misgivings and fears about him.

I liked the introduction to Monte Carlo: The planet. Echoing Kenobi's words about Mos Eisly but instead of it being smugglers and criminals, it's the aristocracy. That's about the only thing I liked about it. Like, it's trying to make social commentary about the rich exploiting the poor, but it's the weakest take ever. The movie is so scared of making a controversial statement they watered it down so much it's lost its meaning. They could have cut the whole monte carlo bit and lost very little. And that's a damning statement, because Finn is supposedly one of the main characters, but he contributes very little to the film. Can you imagine cutting out Han's part in Empire? Or Obi-Wans in AOTC?

I'm still having a hard time organising my thoughts about this movie, I feel like it's a jumbled mess, with some good ideas, but too scared to follow through with them. I think part of the problem is Abrams hosed the setting badly with TFA, and this is an attempt to clear the stupid poo poo off the table before they can actually go making interesting and good movies, but the problem is still that this movie suffers for the sins of TFA. It tries to make something interesting out of the hand it was dealt but didn't quite succeed.

One final thing I find a bit weird is the force. Like, the force has a will of it's own, clearly. It made Anakin to bring balance to the force, much like a forest fire reinvigorates the forest. It manipulates events so that it can accomplish it's own vague mysterious goals, sending out visions to it's chosen.

So. It gives Luke a vision of what Kylo will become, to push Luke into pulling a saber, thus fulfilling the vision. Much like it gives Anakin his dreams of Padme dying, driving him down the dark side. Basically the force is creating these horrible tyrants and despots, all in some vague attempt at "balance". Truly the greatest villain in Star Wars isn't Vader, or Palpetine, or Kylo. It's the force.

#Kreia was right

# ¿ Dec 22, 2017 01:12

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 11:57

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Cnut the Great posted:

The laughable thing about the idea of killing Snoke being some big shocking twist is that we didn't even care about Snoke in the first place, because he was so boring. If Snoke had actually been built up as an effective villain with a convincing claim to usurping the Emperor as an icon of evil, then his death would have come across as a real bold statement, rather than what it actually was: Johnson simply eliminating the dead weight--since there was nothing that could even be done with him--and replacing him with the villain people actually remotely care about. Again, some real iconoclastic stuff there. Star Wars will never be the same again. Not without Snoke.

I think this partly fuels my resentment towards TFA. It's a movie that's so thoroughly poo poo that this movie had to sacrifice time and effort to clean up the mess it made. Yeah it made sense to kill Snoke, but I also kinda would have liked them to actually do something interesting with him, instead of just using him to make ESB v2.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2017 09:47

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

teagone posted:

Ben said it best: "It's time to let old things die."

I'd be a lot more impressed by that if this movie didn't chain itself to the OT like TFA did.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2017 11:33

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Someone posted this in the spoiler thread, but I thought it was pretty insightful so crossposting it here.

Angry Salami posted:

So, talking about Snoke. I didn't like Snoke in TFA, wasn't impressed by him at all, he's goofy looking and has a stupid name. All the fan theories about his origin just came across as totally idiotic, and I'm quite happy to learn he was just a prop to set things up and can now be discarded.

However.

TLJ does make his background seem a lot more important, yet refuses to elaborate. Not who he is or where he came from, that's irrelevant. But he is now very important to Kylo and Luke's stories, and it does seem like there's a gap there.

Snoke influenced Kylo towards the Dark Side. Was he specifically targeting Ben, or was Ben just more easily swayed than Luke's other students? That's relevant backstory. Does he even know it was Snoke who was influencing him? That seems kind of relevant. When did they meet, and how did Snoke convince Ben to team up with him and the First Order, instead of heading off and starting his own little empire with his own followers? Again, that's important for understanding why Kylo has only now turned on him.

And then there's Luke. Luke knows Snoke was influencing Kylo, but never acted against him. This... doesn't ring true to me. Alright, he feels guilt over his own role in Ben's fall � but shouldn't he be down right furious that some new Sith was force-molesting his nephew? Did Luke think Snoke was too powerful to confront? Why? When?

And these are all plot points that TLJ itself raised, not left-over mysteries from TFA. The Emperor could be more of a cypher because the old trilogy wasn't Vader's story to the same degree as this one is Kylo's. As it is, it feels like the lack of detail about Snoke is leaving gaps in a main character's motivations and characterisation, and I can see why people think something's missing here.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2017 15:26

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Well at least now that they've totally rehashed most of the OT, they can move on to new and exciting ideas in the upcoming movies.

Or maybe they'll just start copypasting poo poo from the PT's instead. Odds about 50/50

# ¿ Dec 24, 2017 03:41

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

CelticPredator posted:

Because Lucas wants to be Star Wars.

You have this weird axe to grind against Lucas

# ¿ Dec 25, 2017 00:17

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Irony Be My Shield posted:

I think the scene where DJ talked about the arms dealers made it pretty clear why no-one cared about the Resistance - to most of the galaxy they are just an armed group that buys weapons from the assholes who oppress everyone, much like the First Order. Doing poo poo like what Finn and Rose did is what they need to do to win the hearts and minds of the common people and create a true rebellion, just as much as they need to do flashy heroics with the force.

That is the implication, which is god drat stupid. The democratic republic is just as bad as the fascist empire that blew up planets and enslaved species? What the gently caress? What kind of statement does this make of the people of the Star wars universe? Or are they saying that the Republic was also a fascist regime that blew up planets for fun?

What an incomprehensible mess this movie is.

CelticPredator posted:

Finns story directly affects the ending and whole point of the film. Jesus goddamn loving Christ

I dunno, maybe they shouldn't have made it so boring and out of place then? Or, I dunno, follow through with it's criticism of the rich in any meaningful way beyond saying "Rich people are bad". What a waste of Bodega.

CelticPredator posted:

I can�t believe people dislike this film

It's easy, this was a poo poo film, whose only redeeming grace is that it wasn't quite as poo poo as TFA.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2017 13:59

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Grey Fox posted:

It would make it thematically consistent with literature like Rip Van Winkle, where King George's portrait is replaced with one of George Washington but the average joe is living pretty much the same life in the short term. They're not liable to look past their own situation...people are kind of selfish like that.

So what it's saying then, is that Nazis are literally just as good as democratically elected officials in how good your average joe has it, therefore we may just as well just stop caring, cause the future is just fascism stomping us in the face forever.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2017 15:21

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Yes, people like Han, Luke and Leia whose strong convictions defeated the empire, restored the republic and ushered in a new era of peace and prosp..oh...oh wait, no that's not quite how it worked out, did it? No, what happened was, they instead apparently brought back a republic so inept and corrupt that the citizens of the galaxy didn't give a poo poo that the equivalent of Washington DC being nuked by spaze nazis, who then took power.

So hurray for strong convictions, I guess?

# ¿ Dec 25, 2017 15:30

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

She had a pre-arranged pick up spot where the falcon picked her up. This was mentioned offhand before she left to meet kylo

# ¿ Dec 26, 2017 19:03

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

I think Lucas really needed someone to reign him in a bit on his more outlandish (or ambitious) ideas and tighten the focus a bit, and maybe rewrite the dialogue (you can write this poo poo, but you can't say it, like Harrison said). I think he did drop the ball on Anakin and Kenobi's relationship. We mostly saw Anakin chafing under Obi's tutelage, and not the camaraderie and lighter side of their friendship. I think it would have added more weight to their eventual falling out and fighting.

Smythe posted:

Mad rantings

I unironically agree. TFA was garbage, and I am astonished people enjoyed it as much as they did.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2017 12:22

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

fridge corn posted:

everything star wars is awesome and its easily the best nerd poo poo franchise out there

keep doing more star wars please

Haha, look at this dork, unironically enjoying star wars. What a tool. Let's point and laugh at his poor taste. Hah!

# ¿ Dec 27, 2017 14:39

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

fridge corn posted:

i love to unironically enjoy star wars

Good for you man. I disliked TLJ, but I'm happy others could see it and enjoy the Star Wars magic.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2017 18:20

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

fridge corn posted:

if you think the prequels so bad just go make ur own goddamn star wars movie then come talk to me

Bitch, give me a budget of half a billion dollars and I will.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 10:36

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

exquisite tea posted:

I'll get this one for you: They were good.

Fixed that for you

# ¿ Dec 28, 2017 11:29

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

jivjov posted:

No, Starkiller Base is a superweapon, but not all superweapons are Death Stars. I feel like I've had this exact conversation before.

For gods sake, stop being so literal.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2018 16:03

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

So did Sheevs do that knowing Anakin would squeal to Mace, and that they'd launch a coup?

# ¿ Jan 5, 2018 00:41

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Darth Vaders appearance in Rogue one is cool and good, and one of the few enjoyable parts of the movie for me. That includes the dad jokes.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2018 14:08

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

The point of the mystery boxes was obviously to promote fan speculation and generate buzz and hype, even if it went about it in the laziest loving way possible. They pulled out a new emperor out of their rear end (called Snoke?! Really?!), they hinted that Reys parents were special, How maz got Luke's lightsaber, etc etc.

It lays all these little plot hooks that can be explained in future books/comics/videogames/series/movies, and that's fine, you want to lay the ground work for future plots and movies, but they laid out so many of them, and left so much of the setting itself unexplained it all felt hollow and unsatisfactory. It's like the whole movie is just a teaser for a potentially more interesting future movie. This is compounded because TFA itself is just an uninspired rehash of a new hope.

Johnson, to his credit, threw away all the mystery boxes, but he made the same mistake of being beholden to the movies before him, and TLJ too comes off as a sad rehash of better movies. And that's a big problem I have with the NT. These movies don't seem interested or able to look beyond their own history for inspiration. Everything they do is inspired (or stolen) from some other star wars media and that's left them stale. Lucas at least, for all his failures, tried new things, but Abrams and Johnson seem to be too scared to step out of their little star wars playground.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2018 13:56

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

jivjov posted:

He handled the situation the wrong way, sure, nobody is denying that. But to claim that we're victim blaming Ben or excusing child abuse is asinine.

He said, while victim blaming Ben.

Did it occur to you that maybe Luke was "right on the money" about Ben because his actions are what made his visions come true?

# ¿ Nov 4, 2018 18:44

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

No Mods No Masters posted:

Rey is pretty much a stand in for JJ, a talented but utterly unoriginal and shallow person called in to serve as short-notice messiah, with no apparent convictions to speak of beyond the belief that star wars are cool

Since when is JJ talented?

# ¿ Nov 7, 2018 23:18

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

jfood posted:

grey jedis are cool and that's why rey is cool.

I found her remarkably dull myself.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2018 15:21

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Calibanibal posted:

Show me a canonical source where Rey uses a Dark Side Power ie. Force Lightning, Force Crush, Force Dominate

I can probably show you several non-canonical sources where she's using Force Dominate on FN.

And probably quite a few with the reverse.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2018 15:34

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

There�s no such thing a dark side power.

Rey is �dark� because she�s using her power to enforce feudalism.

Honest question, do you think GL meant to portray Leia and the rebels as a conservative reactionary group that wants to reinstall feuidalism, or do you think he simply meant to invoke a fairy tale sensation of knights, wizards, princesses and rogues set in a sci fi setting and the feudalism is a accidental byproduct.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2018 15:38

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Yes.

sassassin posted:

Why does what he meant matter?

I'm asking to get an insight into SMG's programming, I don't really care what GL's intent was, as such.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2018 16:20

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

CelticPredator posted:

He�s a loving human being on a computer. Please stop this.

lol look at this doink who doesn't know SMG is a chatbot. Next you're going to tell me 9/11 wasn't an inside job. Let's all point and laugh at him

# ¿ Nov 13, 2018 19:05

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Brother Entropy posted:

superman saves more people than finn and rose did

lol remember when rose and finn rescued the enslaved camels but left the slave children to rot?

# ¿ Nov 14, 2018 23:52

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

galagazombie posted:

Artoo: Purposefully helped cause the deaths of a millions of people who were legitimate military targets.

Snyder Supes: Purposefully killed only one target in self defense/saving a family, but caused hundreds or even thousands of innocent deaths through unintentional collateral damage.

Someone should make a Trolley Problem image of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDnO4nDA3kM

# ¿ Nov 14, 2018 23:55

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

TFA was designed by committee, a soulless homunculus imitating something better than itself in the cynical hopes of evoking enough nostalgia to sell merchandise. Look, there's the falcon! Look, Han and Chewie are back, look, another death star, just like the good movies!

It's a turd polished to a mirror sheen that spends too much time setting up its inane mysteries that will in turn set up other inane mysteries to perpetuate a constant hype machine so that fans and bloggers and youtubers can generate their dumb clicks, ultimately devoid of any substance.

Rian Johnson rightly told JJ to gently caress of with that poo poo, and that's why TLJ is several magnitudes better than that polished turd, unfortunately it makes several missteps itself.

The pacing is weird with the ticking timer, the casino bit is weird (save animal slaves, ignore child slaves?) and ultimately pointless, it's still bound parroting the OT, it has a habit of undermining its own themes, and it doesn't seem to know what it wants with Poe (who shouldn't have lived) and Finn (who undergoes the exact same arc as in TFA). And as a personal note, I think the reasoning they give behind Kylo going bad is really loving stupid, and bringing Yoda back is dumber still, but even those personal gripes aside, I still don't think it's a good movie. It's hamstrung by how utter garbage TFA which is unfortunate because it has to spend a lot of time disentangling itself from the constraints it set on the series so that it can clear the board for new stories to be told, but these new stories will still be "plucky rebels vs evil empire", and seemed forever domed to tread the same ground.

Also wtf was up with Benicio Del Toros character? And Roses stupid "fight to protect" line or whatever it was. Ugh. Also Rey is weirdly without a personality, there's something very hollow about her character to me.

That's my rant for the day

# ¿ Nov 20, 2018 12:05

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

CelticPredator posted:

Kids like the movies if going by my anecdotial evidence at Disney World. Which if Wheat Loaf's BS counts as fact for him, mine counts as fact for me. Therefore, ergo, visa-vi, kids like the movies and Rey. And porgs.

Kids have poo poo taste, this is true.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2018 14:04

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

CelticPredator posted:

Only a poo poo hates TLJ. As for told in the prophecy.

well yeah, takes one to know one, and as a poo poo lemme tell you, TLJ is totally poo poo

# ¿ Nov 22, 2018 19:54

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

CelticPredator posted:

I didn�t make the rules! I just share them!

How very neutral of you. :nixon:

# ¿ Nov 23, 2018 08:30

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

CelticPredator posted:

I�m still going to enjoy it sorry.

Not as sorry as the film is :gary:

# ¿ Nov 23, 2018 12:05

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

ungulateman posted:

Well, yeah. The reason the prequels - as well as TFA and TLJ - get as much hate as they do is because they are pretty ok movies, unlike the imagined versions of the OT, which are the Holiest Grail to ever be Holy and/or a Grail.

Well that, but also TFA and TLJ is actually hot garbage. To be fair, TFA still seems well regarded for some bizarre reason, so I guess what star wars fans wanted all along was hollow pandering.

I still recall GL's shade when he said it's a movie the fans would love.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2018 11:07

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Grendels Dad posted:

TFA hate seems complicated because the movie got so much poo poo thrown at it by MRAs when it got released. I know I liked it when I saw it, and when I heard about dumbasses complaining about little cuckballs and whatnot, I liked it even more. These days, I don't feel like I need to like the movie to own the idiots, and come to the realization that it's pretty mediocre. Kylo is the one bright spot.

lol at cuckballs. Jesus I'd forgotten about that. Yeah, the NT (or ST?) get a lot of poo poo for dumb reasons like "having main character be a woman" and "pink hair on captain" and whatever other poo poo they were whining about, so actual criticism is harder to tease out or gets dismissed.

Wheat Loaf posted:

You know, it's stupid to quote the exact same post twice, but whatever, I have a separate comment.

The reason is that Lucas was right:

And it makes sense: Lucas could have just redone the OT with the PT and fans would have loved it, but instead he decided to subvert their expectations.

(Nobody in these five-hour three-part "Why Last Jedi sucks" YouTube videos ever make the comparison with the prequels when they go on about "How to subvert expectations properly " - they all compare with Infinity War these days, which I personally didn't think was an expectation-subverting movie because it was pretty much exactly what I was expecting, but whatever, it was fun to watch.)

I just can't fathom how people think IW subverted anything. At most, they "subverted" my expectations of the villain having a coherent motive. Honestly, youtube reviewers seem to be garbage to a fault, and I blame RLM and Cinema sins for that. They can't talk about how the prequels subvert expectations because A) they don't understand the prequels, instead adhering to the RLM view that the prequels were the creation of an inept dictator, and B), even if they did, they can't actually use them for a comparison because that would reduce their "nerd" cred, because everyone knows the prequels were terrible :downs:

# ¿ Nov 25, 2018 14:09

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Wheat Loaf posted:

It is odd that quite a few of the most hardcore anti-TLJ people I've encountered tend to be hugely pro-MCU and think that Lucasfilm should be approaching Star Wars in a fashion more akin to the MCU. It is not what I would have expected because I tend to associate that particular part of fandom (and I emphasise "that particular part" - as we have established, the majority of people did not like TLJ so I can't very well paint everyone with the same broad brush) with the whole "Disney has BRIBED Rotten Tomatoes to give the BADASS movie Batman v Superman BAD REVIEWS " thing. It comes from there, certainly, but it seems like it comes from the "other side" as well.

Right, which is why TFA is much more appreciated, because it emulates the MCU approach. It appeals to nerd nostalgia and sloppily sets hooks for future plots , just like how Captain america had the cube or Thor had an infinity glove or whatever it was. They don't care about a coherent story with a satisfying resolution, they want to chase that hype train to new heroes and new adapted storylines from the comics.

Unfortunately, because of TLJ's lukewarm reception (nailed it), they'll probably course correct and EP 9 will be even worse than TFA was.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2018 15:39

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

Wild Horses posted:

she IS coded as an upper class rich type though, so its not strange people side with working class minority poe dameron over her when they have their little slapfight.

I think it's more because he's seen as a brave man of action and she's a pusillanimous woman with pink hair, and her rampant misandry in the face of logic and facts endangers them all in the eyes of chuds. Also men hate being told what to do by strong women and they clearly relate to Poe, so the math isn't hard to solve here.

What the movie (I think) is trying to say is that Poe was wrong for jumping the gun and should have trusted her, but her whole plan has so many moving parts and would have failed if he hadn't done that thing at the start of the movie that they all bitched at him about, so the point is lost in the muddled mess that is this movies themes.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2018 12:18

McCloud: Oct 27, 2005

pospysyl posted:

Imagine a TLJ where Poe didn't spill the beans to DJ. Finn and Rose get captured, but they manage to escape somehow. The shuttles successfully evade the First Order and they all rendezvous to the hideout. How, then, are Poe's actions wrong? They wouldn't be! Poe's skepticism would be somewhat justified, and his plan may have saved an important asset for the Resistance. The worst you could say is that he got carried away and was insubordinate.

The reason for the DJ heel turn is to force us to criticize Poe's actions. The reason there's a temptation to dismiss that plot point is because we don't like what the movie's telling us. The movie's arguing that questioning Holdo's authority (and by extension, authority in general) is inherently dangerous. The most important thing for Poe is to be patient and trusting. If someone doesn't want to explain a seemingly foolhardy plan to you, you must deny your own intuitions and accept that this person has your best interests at heart. In a real world where political leaders constantly lie to and prey upon their supporters, this is kind of a risible story!

I agree, but my point of contention is that the chain of events are contrived. If the movie wants to say, like waffles put it, "don't question your betters", in of itself a controversial message, then they should have contrived a more plausible scenario where it doesn't undercut its own point. Holdo's plan was, charitably put, dumb as all heck, and wouldn't have worked if not for Poe destroying their negasuperdestroyer or whatever that was, which he in turn was reprimanded and demoted for.

So was Leia wrong for chastising him or was his instincts correct? Was Holdo's plan one that would have worked if not for Poes machinations, or was it a dumbass idea that would have failed either way?

This is the problem with TLJ in a nutshell, it's a thematic mess that doesn't know what it wants. It's against slavery, but leaves kids enslaved. Rose saves Finn from sacrificing himself which was wrong, but Roses sister sacrificing herself was right and noble. We should not be chained to our pasts, said the movie that is chained to its past. Just a mess.

Angry Salami posted:

It's a medical ship, and anodyne is an old term for painkillers.

One of the interesting things about TLJ is that the First Order is never depicted actually doing anything villainous. They're only ever attacking military targets, they keep to their word, there's no Vader-style murder of subordinates. It's a Star Wars movie where the rebels are rebelling out of habit rather than in response to any real evil, and where DJ's refusal to take sides against fascism is a reasonable position.

They nuked a solar system. That's kinda bad.