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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2019 1:10:11 GMT
I'm just home from seeing it and....I didn't love it. I'm not sure I even liked it all that much as right now the most positive things in my head are the fan service and that dies down in the cold light of day. Seeing Lando save the day (twice) was great fun, seeing half the galaxy show up was cool (but why was Wedge not part of the Resistance front line already? Oh...because Dennis Lawson didn't want to come back till now!), seeing Harrison Ford show up....it was almost Star Wars porn in places. But then even while watching some of it was worrying. Why WAS Lando saving the day when Poe messed up more often than not. Wasn't Poe's arc in the last film to learn to be a leader? Yet he seemed to have to re-learn all that now. Rose being sidelined especially in the face of the abuse Kelly took online did not sit well at all. In fact did any of Rian Johnson's creations get much of a lookin here? Rey's bloodline being sorta/kinda retconned "Well, your parents WERE nobodies...but your grandad..." that felt very reactionary. We'll never know if it was JJ Abrams' idea all along or one devised in the wake of the divisive Last Jedi. I thought Rian's idea of the Force being democratic, that it wasn't just about who your relations were, was much more interesting. The Palpatine stuff was indeed very well done but it didn't serve much of a purpose differently to Return Of The Jedi, really. He tempts our good wannabee Jedi hero who resists him at the end while the Sith heir apparent saves the young Jedi's life, dying in the process. I really defended Force Awakens as a clone of OG Star Wars but the end of this trilogy is pretty much exactly the end of the classic one. There's SO much in this and it all moves so fast that I was getting a bit dizzy with it. This is very much Star Wars as done by the director of Star Trek Into Darkness - for better, and worse. It was all exceptionally well made though, and the acting was fantastic from our main 3 leads. Adam Driver in particular plays the conflicted villain so very well. Gotta say, when we saw the glimpse of Leia's Jedi training soon post-Jedi I kinda thought "I wish I was watching that film". On balance: everything I've heard about the making of TLJ indicates that Rian Johnson knew exactly the film he wanted to make with TLJ, regardless of what was actually told in or intended by TFA. My understanding is that his story and script were already done while TFA was still being made, and his access to the TFA dailies was really just used to make tweaks so there were no total contradictions. I've come away from TLJ and stories about its production with the distinct impression that Johnson had no interest in being a 'team player' who works on the middle act of a three act story, rather than he dug his heels in and approached it as 'this is my movie and I'm going to do it my way; I don't care what the Act I did and I'm not working on Act III so I don't care about that either.' I think that's an excellent approach for standalone stories like Looper and Knives Out, whose final products speak for themselves, but it's an absolutely wrongheaded way of coming at a collaborative process where you're part of a greater whole. That said, I think he's proven he's a very capable creative sort when he's in charge of it all, so I will still be very interested to see how he approaches it when he has control over an entire SW trilogy. No, TROS is not a perfect movie, of course. But I do think that having TLJ as its immediate predecessor introduced certain handicaps that it necessarily had to deal with, namely a) course-correcting some elements of TLJ that didn't fit with TFA (or the rest of SW); and b) doing a lot of plot-advancing storytelling that should have been done in TLJ. Having the Johnson handicap, plus the handicap of having to write around Carrie's absence, and then on top of that having to close out a trilogy for five new characters plus closing things out for at least four OT characters, that's an awful lot of plates to have to spin at once. For my part, I think it's impressive that TROS turned out as entertaining as it did. See the problem with that is....precedent. We've seen Lucasfilm fire Lord & Miller, Colin Trevorrow and Josh Trank for not doing what the machine wants. Kennedy would have had zero issues letting Rian Johnson go at the slightest sign of him being either not a team player or doing things contrary to their vision. Instead the initial reports were that both Disney and Lucasfilm were ecstatic over TLJ and that's why Johnson's trilogy was announced. If you still think that's happening you have more faith than me! I think you're right that clearly the issue is a lack of cohesion between the films but again...that's on Kennedy and co. They gave Johnson the ball and let him run with it when they'd sacked others for drifting too far from what they want. Even their Disney overlords, well, we saw them sack Edgar Wright and James Gunn from Marvel too so I don't think if they had any notion that TLJ was problematic (and it wasn't for me) that they would have sat back and done nothing. I think ultimately, despite thinking TLJ is the best of the trilogy, it would have been better for JJ to have done all 3. He could have paced it much better with two films to expand on what feels like two films of story and action in Rise Of Skywalker. He wouldn't, to use your terms, have to spin so many plates at once. I don't believe for a second the writing off of Snoke or indeed a lot of the narrative here would be the same, remotely, if JJ had done all three. I think Mark Kermode summed it up well - this now feels like a trilogy without a part 2. Mr Sunday Movies/Daily Planet podcast also made an interesting point, that it still feels like the crawl is Abram's Part 2, with this a sequel to that more than it is The Last Jedi. It's not awful, as I said. It's not even that bad. It's just, well, empty of anything truly new and creative. Which is almost worse in my book. The middle of the road is never where I like stories to live. As I said on another post though, despite Disney selling this as an ending we're gonna see more Star Wars than ever in the next decade. We know we're getting more Mandalorian, an Obi Wan show, Clone Wars returning, Resistance continuing and films being planned for 2023-24 and beyond. So this isn't Return Of The Jedi in that sense - the show goes on and on and on..some will be awful and some will be wonderful. For every Holiday Special there's a Thrawn trilogy, for every Caravan Of Courage there's a Rebels finale. I won't lose sleep about not digging this one too much. It's a dropped ball, for me, but the game keeps playing. I'm very much NOT joining the man-babies in telling the world I'm throwing my collection out or cursing JJ Abrams to high heaven. He did what he thought he should. It was all very competent and - hey -it cost a tenner - a nightout seeing Lando on the big screen saving the day again hearing John Williams score blaring? I've spent far worse tenners! A big question though...how did they for a nothing part, a blurry 3 second flashback, convince Jodie Comer, the BAFTA and Emmy winning actress and star of Killing Eve to play Rey's mother? Or why indeed did they need such a big actor for a 3 second blurry flashback? Maybe she's a Star Wars fan, or knows if there's ever a career dry-up...that convention circuit pays off nicely
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Post by Timelord007 on Dec 22, 2019 6:39:57 GMT
Shocking absolute twaddle, basically a damage limitation movie, incoherent bafflegab, plot holes the size of Mount Everest, McGuffins shoehorned in as force powers which are just a lazy excuse in bad writing, poorly written character arcs, Poe become a unlikable prat, Finn arc could be cut from the trilogy for all he does & Rey & Kylo my God they share as much charisma as a out of date lettuce .
I been a Star Wars fan for over 37 yrs, Star Wars has been my rock as i battled my breakdowns & relaspes, those 6 movies inspired me & seen my through some very dark times (yes i do enjoy the prequels despite there flaws) but Disney have butchered George Lucas legacy & put out a disjointed mess of a passionless trilogy that made the plot arc up as it went along.
For me Star Wars is about the rise, fall & redemption of Anakin Skywalker, this trilogy to me feels like tacked on DLC.
If you enjoyed it good, but for me I'll stick to Episodes 1-6 & Rogue One & forget this shambolic trilogy exists.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2019 7:28:10 GMT
Kim Newman, a fave writer and critic of many here, gives his thoughts. johnnyalucard.com/2019/12/21/film-review-star-wars-chapter-ix-rise-of-the-skywalker/He makes the same point I did, that the ending of The Last Jedi which gave new perspective to Star Wars when the child, a literal nobody, uses the force to grab his broom, is effectively just painted over by this film where... yeah... that's not so much the case and you need to have had a really famous Jedi or Sith family member to be a master Jedi after all. Maybe that kid was Obi Wan's cousin's roomate's lawyer's grandson a la Spaceballs Mark Kermode, another of my fave critics also was quite down on it overall but a bit more positive than Kim - though he does call it a "greatest hits compilation" and "pandering" so yeah, not exactly on board. www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBqZHsEieyMKermode and Newman, like me, were both high on the last two films. I don't think any of us who have legit enjoyed the last two will take any satisfaction in feeling deflated with the ending here.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2019 8:03:44 GMT
Shocking absolute twaddle, basically a damage limitation movie, incoherent bafflegab, plot holes the size of Mount Everest, McGuffins shoehorned in as force powers which are just a lazy excuse in bad writing, poorly written character arcs, Poe become a unlikable prat, Finn arc could be cut from the trilogy for all he does & Rey & Kylo my God thy share as much charisma as a out of date lettuce . I been a Star Wars for 37 yrs, Star Wars has been my rock as i battled my breakdowns & relaspes, those 6 movies inspired me & seen my through some very dark times (yes i do enjoy the prequels despite there flaws) but Disney have butchered George Lucas legacy & put out a disjointed mess of a passionless trilogy that made the plot arc up as it went along. For me Star Wars is about the rise, fall & redemption of Anakin Skywalker, this trilogy to me feels like tacked on DLC. If you enjoyed it good, but for me I'll stick to Episodes 1-6 & Rogue One & forget this shambolic trilogy exists. I think I'll probably have a similar reaction to you if I saw it. But The Mandalorian will restore your faith in Star Wars my friend.
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Post by Timelord007 on Dec 22, 2019 9:16:45 GMT
Shocking absolute twaddle, basically a damage limitation movie, incoherent bafflegab, plot holes the size of Mount Everest, McGuffins shoehorned in as force powers which are just a lazy excuse in bad writing, poorly written character arcs, Poe become a unlikable prat, Finn arc could be cut from the trilogy for all he does & Rey & Kylo my God thy share as much charisma as a out of date lettuce . I been a Star Wars for 37 yrs, Star Wars has been my rock as i battled my breakdowns & relaspes, those 6 movies inspired me & seen my through some very dark times (yes i do enjoy the prequels despite there flaws) but Disney have butchered George Lucas legacy & put out a disjointed mess of a passionless trilogy that made the plot arc up as it went along. For me Star Wars is about the rise, fall & redemption of Anakin Skywalker, this trilogy to me feels like tacked on DLC. If you enjoyed it good, but for me I'll stick to Episodes 1-6 & Rogue One & forget this shambolic trilogy exists. I think I'll probably have a similar reaction to you if I saw it. But The Mandalorian will restore your faith in Star Wars my friend. Phew that's good to hear, i went into this not caring or excited which if you'd said a few years ago that I'd feel that way about a Star Wars film i wouldn't have believed it. I seen it now & can finally discard this trilogy ever existed & look forward to The Mandalorian.
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Dec 22, 2019 10:39:45 GMT
Scattershot thoughts: <snip> Right on board with all of these. A few more to add:
- What they did in practically erasing Kelly Marie Tran / Rose was just plain cowardly and wrong. The actor and the character deserved better.
- That *was* Wedge as part of the cavalry...right?
- Ben's sly shrug to the Knights of Ren before taking them down was just like his dad and warmed my heart.
Kylo Ben also did the “points to himself incredulously” thing that Han did (mostly because it’s something Harrison Ford does, because Indy and Linus in Sabrina both do it).
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Post by stcoop on Dec 23, 2019 17:07:52 GMT
I'd be hoping that it wasn't going to be as bad as the reviews were saying but oh dear....
Half the film is spent telling the racist sexist trolls that they were right all along and the rest is empty fan service.
You want Han to say "I know" again? Your life not complete if Chewie doesn't finally get his medal? You want Denis Lawson to turn up for .75 of a second after spending decades slagging the movies off. Then this is the film for you!
It was all trundling along so obviously that I guessed the final scene halfway through was was almost 100% correct.
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Post by randomcomments on Dec 23, 2019 21:56:20 GMT
Worst bit about that Denis Lawson bit is that they kill his character’s son literally a moment before he appears. And do nothing with that.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2019 22:16:34 GMT
I'd be hoping that it wasn't going to be as bad as the reviews were saying but oh dear.... Me too...
My son went and saw The Rise of Skywalker and told me not to bother going as I wouldn't like it! To say he was unimpressed would be putting it lightly. I'll see how I feel at the weekend but I'm a tad fearful of going now!
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Dec 23, 2019 22:24:53 GMT
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Dec 24, 2019 9:14:48 GMT
Worst bit about that Denis Lawson bit is that they kill his character’s son literally a moment before he appears. And do nothing with that. Wait on of the Characters was Wedge's Son?
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Dec 24, 2019 10:24:44 GMT
Worst bit about that Denis Lawson bit is that they kill his character’s son literally a moment before he appears. And do nothing with that. Worst bit was that Wedge wasn’t in a goddamn X-Wing.
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Post by Digi on Dec 24, 2019 12:30:36 GMT
Worst bit about that Denis Lawson bit is that they kill his character’s son literally a moment before he appears. And do nothing with that. Wait on of the Characters was Wedge's Son? Wedge appeared in the Aftermath novel trilogy, which charts the year between the Battle of Endor and the Battle of Jakku which ends the war. The lead character in that trilogy is Norra Wexley, who has a 15-year-old son named Temmin Wexley. Wedge appears in this trilogy and kinda-sorta has a bit of a thing for Norra, but it never materializes. In the meantime he meets her son and gives him a crash-course in fighter piloting. Fast forward 30 years to the ST era: Temmin (now better known by his nickname/pilot callsign "Snap") makes a bit-part appearance in The Force Awakens, and is a fairly significant supporting character in the novels and comics of the era. In the novel Resistance Reborn, set almost immediately after The Last Jedi, we learn that sometime in the intervening three decades, Wedge and Norra got married--making Snap Wedge's stepson. Snap was the pilot who got shot down/killed like 0.5 seconds before the arrival of the Resistance-allied fleet.
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Post by randomcomments on Dec 24, 2019 21:30:01 GMT
Worst bit about that Denis Lawson bit is that they kill his character’s son literally a moment before he appears. And do nothing with that. Wait on of the Characters was Wedge's Son? Greg Grunberg's character, X-wing pilot Snap Wexley, is Wedge's stepson in the new canon.
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Post by Jeedai on Dec 24, 2019 23:44:03 GMT
I'm still mulling over my thoughts on the movie itself, but I had to say something about Wedge, and the implications for the non-movie media. Fast forward 30 years to the ST era: Temmin (now better known by his nickname/pilot callsign "Snap") makes a bit-part appearance in The Force Awakens, and is a fairly significant supporting character in the novels and comics of the era. In the novel Resistance Reborn, set almost immediately after The Last Jedi, we learn that sometime in the intervening three decades, Wedge and Norra got married--making Snap Wedge's stepson. Resistance Reborn is all about the Resistance beginning the process of rebuilding after The Last Jedi, including recruiting Wedge and Norra to leadership positions. There are small but vital gains for the Resistance that go totally ignored in TROS, where Wedge only appears as part of Lando's last-minute fleet. Which arrived after several comments across the movie's runtime to the effect of 'Nobody ever answered the call. Everyone else lost all hope.' It's a sharp contrast to TFA, TLJ and and Rogue One, all of which practically punished you didn't absorb the proper "Path to..." media before the relevant movie came out. I avoided Force Awakens spoilers like poison, for example, with the intent to watch the movie cold ahead of getting into the other stuff. And in the theater was left with absolutely no idea why Hosnian Prime blowing up was so important or why a Republic either needed or was disavowing a Resistance. Saw Guerra's connection to Jyn Erso is only shown in RO's lead-in novel for another example. Here, the stuff I 'knew' ahead of time stuck out for its lack of relevancy. AND I've not followed all the comics, but in the wake of online reviews I'm now aware various clues dropped about Snoke have all been retroactively rendered into misdirects on Sidious' part. AND ALSO the running sub-plot of a mysterious someone or something in the Unknown Regions that Sidious was trying to investigate prior to his 'death' (brought up in among other places Battlefront II's single-player mode) has had a hydrospaner thrown into it. Disney had been doing almost too good a job of keeping the various arms of SW media in sync with each other. But now it looks like we're back to the Lucas-era days of filmmakers over-riding or ignoring the comics/books/video games/everything else and leaving them to spackle together post-hoc justifications for the continuity glitches. Which will inevitably produce the same sort of convoluted story-creep that Disney shook off when they rebooted the franchise in the first place.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Dec 25, 2019 0:00:03 GMT
What gets me is Kathleen Kennedy's comment about having no source material..
Umm.. there 5,000* books,comics, audio stories to draw from LOL !
No source material. OMG!
(* exaggeration)
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Post by Digi on Dec 25, 2019 0:12:09 GMT
I'm still mulling over my thoughts on the movie itself, but I had to say something about Wedge, and the implications for the non-movie media. Fast forward 30 years to the ST era: Temmin (now better known by his nickname/pilot callsign "Snap") makes a bit-part appearance in The Force Awakens, and is a fairly significant supporting character in the novels and comics of the era. In the novel Resistance Reborn, set almost immediately after The Last Jedi, we learn that sometime in the intervening three decades, Wedge and Norra got married--making Snap Wedge's stepson. Resistance Reborn is all about the Resistance beginning the process of rebuilding after The Last Jedi, including recruiting Wedge and Norra to leadership positions. There are small but vital gains for the Resistance that go totally ignored in TROS, where Wedge only appears as part of Lando's last-minute fleet. Which arrived after several comments across the movie's runtime to the effect of 'Nobody ever answered the call. Everyone else lost all hope.' It's a sharp contrast to TFA, TLJ and and Rogue One, all of which practically punished you didn't absorb the proper "Path to..." media before the relevant movie came out. I avoided Force Awakens spoilers like poison, for example, with the intent to watch the movie cold ahead of getting into the other stuff. And in the theater was left with absolutely no idea why Hosnian Prime blowing up was so important or why a Republic either needed or was disavowing a Resistance. Saw Guerra's connection to Jyn Erso is only shown in RO's lead-in novel for another example. Here, the stuff I 'knew' ahead of time stuck out for its lack of relevancy. AND I've not followed all the comics, but in the wake of online reviews I'm now aware various clues dropped about Snoke have all been retroactively rendered into misdirects on Sidious' part. AND ALSO the running sub-plot of a mysterious someone or something in the Unknown Regions that Sidious was trying to investigate prior to his 'death' (brought up in among other places Battlefront II's single-player mode) has had a hydrospaner thrown into it. Disney had been doing almost too good a job of keeping the various arms of SW media in sync with each other. But now it looks like we're back to the Lucas-era days of filmmakers over-riding or ignoring the comics/books/video games/everything else and leaving them to spackle together post-hoc justifications for the continuity glitches. Which will inevitably produce the same sort of convoluted story-creep that Disney shook off when they rebooted the franchise in the first place. I understand where you're coming from, but at the same I'm kind of suspecting that all the rebuilding that was done in Resistance Reborn is going to be used to explain away how it was Lando was able to round up a galactic fleet in like 20 minutes. In the movie, their arrival felt very sudden, a huge number of ships for Lando to have rounded up that quickly. I'm guessing that the multimedia project going forward is going to supplement that by having Wedge and Norra, Ransolm Casterfo, and all the rest be the points of contact that Lando goes directly to after he leaves the Resistance base planet. Drop in, send a signal to Norra that help is needed NOW at these coordinates, hyperspace off to the next planet, signal Casterfo the same thing, hyperspace off to the next planet, and so on. Make the sudden appearance of the fleet more plausible. As to other things like the mysterious whatever in the Unknown Regions, I don't think that's a problem at all. If I recall correctly that was during the main solo campaign, which is set entirely during the year spanning from Endor to Jakku. Meaning there's still 29 years between Jakku and TFA for comic and novel artists to play in. I don't see any compelling reason why an enterprising writer couldn't explore that during that time gap.
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Post by Digi on Dec 25, 2019 0:17:03 GMT
What gets me is Kathleen Kennedy's comment about having no source material.. Umm.. there 5,000* books,comics, audio stories to draw from LOL ! No source material. OMG! (* exaggeration) Ugh, that whole thing was such a daft mischaracterization so the "I hate Kathleen Kennedy!" shrieking internet derp squad had something new to whine about. Which they did. At length. Ad nauseum. Without even remotely understanding what she actually said (what a surprise). The whole point of Kennedy's comment there was to contrast against other studios like Marvel. Where Marvel Studios filmmakers are essentially being guided to pick up the Winter Soldier comic or the Age of Ultron comic or the Infinity Gauntlet comics and retool those into movie plots, Star Wars is pointedly not doing that. They're hiring people to write original stories, and giving the option to cherrypick stuff from the Legends catalog if they choose to do so. That's it. That was the entire extent and intent of the statement.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Dec 25, 2019 1:49:40 GMT
What gets me is Kathleen Kennedy's comment about having no source material.. Umm.. there 5,000* books,comics, audio stories to draw from LOL ! No source material. OMG! (* exaggeration) Ugh, that whole thing was such a daft mischaracterization so the "I hate Kathleen Kennedy!" shrieking internet derp squad had something new to whine about. Which they did. At length. Ad nauseum. Without even remotely understanding what she actually said (what a surprise). The whole point of Kennedy's comment there was to contrast against other studios like Marvel. Where Marvel Studios filmmakers are essentially being guided to pick up the Winter Soldier comic or the Age of Ultron comic or the Infinity Gauntlet comics and retool those into movie plots, Star Wars is pointedly not doing that. They're hiring people to write original stories, and giving the option to cherrypick stuff from the Legends catalog if they choose to do so. That's it. That was the entire extent and intent of the statement. Urghs back at ya bro
Yeah, they cherry pick stuff but leave storylines unfulfilled and plot holes, retcons/BTW's etc.
Marvel didn't just copy n paste from the comics either- they did bits and pieces too- Joss Whedon makes it a point to write his own material.
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Post by Jeedai on Dec 25, 2019 3:36:52 GMT
The whole point of Kennedy's comment there was to contrast against other studios like Marvel. Where Marvel Studios filmmakers are essentially being guided to pick up the Winter Soldier comic or the Age of Ultron comic or the Infinity Gauntlet comics and retool those into movie plots, Star Wars is pointedly not doing that. They're hiring people to write original stories, and giving the option to cherrypick stuff from the Legends catalog if they choose to do so. That's it. That was the entire extent and intent of the statement. Somebody at the Rise Of Skywalker pitch meeting had a copy of the Dark Empire comics near at hand.
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