The Flat Earth Society
Other Discussion Boards => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: juner on December 20, 2019, 06:33:00 AM
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edit - Saddam started the unhidden spoiler train so there are spoilers below.
Before Saddam repeats the complaints he read about the movie as if they were his own opinion, I am here to tell you it is worth a watch.
If you were butthurt over Episode VIII, you will probably still be butthurt, but this one at least isn't like that one (even though that one was actually fine tbh).
This one is a nice predictable mashup of Episodes I through VIII all rolled into one. It has everything: lore / nostalgia / fan service, a little bit of originality, but it all comes back home at the end of the day. There really isn't a whole lot more than that. How many ways can you really tell stories about ships blowing up shit and people fighting with laser swords amirite?
But Rotten Tomatoes has a bad "critic" score and a really good audience score. That means 420.69% of the time it is an enjoyable thing to watch.
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My problem with 8 was how they go on some wild goose chase to turn off a tracking beacon or something so they can escape from the Empire (which was a huge chunk of the film) and then pink hair just decides to peace into the star destroyer at light speed anyway. Kylo Ren meanwhile hasn't left the My Chemical Romance stage of his teenage years, making him one of the most pathetic villains I've ever seen. Even as a copy/paste trilogy it's still entertaining overall, and I'm definitely going to see 9, but I'm not expecting much. All of the SJW critics seemed to have hated it though, so I'll probably end up liking it.
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My problem with 8 was how they go on some wild goose chase to turn off a tracking beacon or something so they can escape from the Empire (which was a huge chunk of the film) and then pink hair just decides to peace into the star destroyer at light speed anyway. Kylo Ren meanwhile hasn't left the My Chemical Romance stage of his teenage years, making him one of the most pathetic villains I've ever seen. Even as a copy/paste trilogy it's still entertaining overall, and I'm definitely going to see 9, but I'm not expecting much. All of the SJW critics seemed to have hated it though, so I'll probably end up liking it.
My exact issue with 8 as well. (Except maybe Kylo. Him and Rey were good with their 'equal but opposites' views.)
I personally would have made the tracker/ships out of fuel into an isolated "we have a spy on board", which would allow for expected secrecy (cause why keep their plan secret if you aren't worried about a spy?) And keep the B plot intense with 'whose the spy'?
But no, they went on a pointless run through some rich town and pushed the "Just because you profit from war, doesn't mean you're all evil empire lovers."
That being said, I want to see 9 but after reading the plot leaks and that they are true, I'm not excited for it.
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Yeah the critic scores didn’t worry me in the slightest considering The Last Jedi was very highly rated and that movie was not great.
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Before Saddam repeats the complaints he read about the movie as if they were his own opinion
Wow, you suck. I'm going to see the movie later, and I will share MY OWN OPINIONS.
This one is a nice predictable mashup of Episodes I through VIII all rolled into one.
Oh, great, because these movies haven't already had more than enough of repeating and rehashing familiar characters, locations, and plot beats by now. I was actually beginning to think that so far the movies were simply too original. It's a good thing that a bold, risky director like Abrams decided to loosen up and offer us some nostalgia for once.
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I have now seen it, and I will offer my opinions. I will not be using spoiler warnings in a dedicated thread like this one, so consider this your warning. Also, I haven't read any reviews yet and only know that this movie has had a mixed reception so far, so this is genuinely my take and not necessarily anyone else's:
It's not very good.
It is Abrams at his Abramsiest. The desperation in this movie to walk back the more controversial elements of TLJ is palpable, and at times reeks of cowardice. Rose is pushed to the sidelines and given only a minute or so of screen time, as if she's Jar Jar Binks. The revelation that Rey's parents weren't at all extraordinary or significant is blatantly retconned in favor of a familiar, hamfisted "I am your father" reveal. Carrie Fisher is in the movie, despite being dead, and her lines (cobbled together from the previous movies' deleted scenes) are so awkward that they should have just left her out entirely. Worst of all is the decision to resurrect Palpatine and let him hijack the main conflict of the movie. He's the main villain now, along with the enormous fleet he pulled out of his ass. Jesus, I remember some of us making jokes about how these movies would resurrect Palpatine before even TFA came out! The dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren is engaging, but that's mostly carried on the backs of Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver, as it's impossible to ignore that the movie has forced Kylo into a more Vader-like role, complete with eventual Vader-like redemption, to further distance itself from TLJ and be more like the original trilogy.
When TLJ came out, people accused Rian Johnson of deliberately dismissing ongoing plot points he didn't care for from TFA. But that's not entirely true. The points in question were followed up on, just not in a way that Abrams would have done it or that many people were expecting. The question of Rey's parentage was important, not because her parents were especially extraordinary or significant, but because they weren't. It almost "democratized" the idea of the Force, showing that you don't need to be a chosen one or part of a special select bloodline to be a Jedi. And Snoke wasn't simply cut from the movie without any fanfare; his character played an important role in bringing Kylo and Rey together and leading them to their respective arcs. He just didn't end up being the "Palpatine" of the sequel trilogy. But what Abrams has done really does amount to simply dismissing, ignoring, or retconning certain key details of TLJ, and it doesn't even feel as though he's doing this to suit his own artistic vision, but to cater to a very specific subsection of SW fans who are more interested in nostalgia, fanservice, and cool action scenes than good writing and original stories.
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This is exactly the kind of the over the top, hyperbolic rhetoric I was hoping for from Saddam.
Also RJ did dismiss ongoing plot points.
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Very compellingly argued. I'm convinced. Oh yeah, and I meant to say that the fake-out with Chewbacca was complete bullshit and if Abrams had any balls he'd have kept him dead. When I saw that ship explode I was amazed. What a great, tragic way for Rey to learn how dangerous the Force could be, and the responsibility that being a Jedi demands! But no, we have to bring him back because Chewbacca is just too marketable of a character to get rid of, and unlike the human characters, he's really easy to recast, so we can basically keep him forever!
And if you thought my review was hyperbolic, let's just wait to see how Ghost Spaghetti felt about this movie.
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This is exactly the kind of the over the top, hyperbolic rhetoric I was hoping for from Saddam.
Also RJ did dismiss ongoing plot points.
JJ is a COWARD!!!
I liked it. It was clunky and awkward in places but had a lot of heart and fun in others. Some amazing visuals and I think that despite all the plot flaws, this trilogy had the best conception of Jedi of any of the movies.
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Very compellingly argued. I'm convinced. Oh yeah, and I meant to say that the fake-out with Chewbacca was complete bullshit and if Abrams had any balls he'd have kept him dead. When I saw that ship explode I was amazed. What a great, tragic way for Rey to learn how dangerous the Force could be, and the responsibility that being a Jedi demands! But no, we have to bring him back because Chewbacca is just too marketable of a character to get rid of, and unlike the human characters, he's really easy to recast, so we can basically keep him forever!
And if you thought my review was hyperbolic, let's just wait to see how Ghost Spaghetti felt about this movie.
Tbf I totally agree with the Chewbacca fake out. That was a phenomenal scene that totally got undermined.
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I too felt bamboozled with Chewie.
Also what did Finn need to tell Rey? He started while they were sinking in quicksand which would've been fine to end there but they had Poe bring back up and there wasn't any resolution.
I assume he's either in love with her or wanted to tell her he is sensitive to the force.
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Boyega tweeted out pretty much confirming it’s the latter.
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Boyega tweeted out pretty much confirming it’s the latter.
Ah okay. I've literally not looked at a single thing about the movie other than a quick glance at the RT scores
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I went on the Star Wars Reddit after I watched and learned a lot.
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Sounds about right for Abrams - include a ton of shit that isn't properly explained in the movie and yet is important to the movie, and we're expected to just read all the tie-in novels and comics and whatever to understand it all. There's probably an explanation buried in there too about how Palpatine survived RotJ and spent many years building an enormous fleet and army with cutting-edge technology all in perfect secrecy.
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Sounds about right for Abrams - include a ton of shit that isn't properly explained in the movie and yet is important to the movie, and we're expected to just read all the tie-in novels and comics and whatever to understand it all. There's probably an explanation buried in there too about how Palpatine survived RotJ and spent many years building an enormous fleet and army with cutting-edge technology all in perfect secrecy.
Well he did it on a planet that is impossible to get to without a wayfinder, so that doesn’t need too much explanation.
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Sounds about right for Abrams - include a ton of shit that isn't properly explained in the movie and yet is important to the movie, and we're expected to just read all the tie-in novels and comics and whatever to understand it all. There's probably an explanation buried in there too about how Palpatine survived RotJ and spent many years building an enormous fleet and army with cutting-edge technology all in perfect secrecy.
Well he did it on a planet that is impossible to get to without a wayfinder, so that doesn’t need too much explanation.
It kinda does.
You still need to import raw materials, parts, fuel, crew, etc.... And that takes alot of people with wayfinders.
Or way too much time.
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Sounds about right for Abrams - include a ton of shit that isn't properly explained in the movie and yet is important to the movie, and we're expected to just read all the tie-in novels and comics and whatever to understand it all. There's probably an explanation buried in there too about how Palpatine survived RotJ and spent many years building an enormous fleet and army with cutting-edge technology all in perfect secrecy.
Well he did it on a planet that is impossible to get to without a wayfinder, so that doesn’t need too much explanation.
It kinda does.
You still need to import raw materials, parts, fuel, crew, etc.... And that takes alot of people with wayfinders.
Or way too much time.
The materials could be nearby and once the people get JT here, they never leave. It’s really not a big problem. If you think you need that explicitly said, then that’s cool. It’s a system that is in an unexplored part of the galaxy. It stands to reason that there is more of the galaxy that is unexplored too. Operating there in secrecy when it’s not explored should not be difficult.
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As we saw in the prequels, Palpatine was a master of deception. Him returning was my favorite part of this trilogy, and I wish he’d been the primary villain all along, not the completely irrelevant Snoke. Palpatine 2 should have been revealed in Episode 8 with some explanation as to how he survived Return of the Jedi (or how his DNA was captured for the cloning) and how he built the Final Order. Then, Episode 9 wouldn’t have needed so much deus ex machina bullshit to close this very poorly written trilogy.
Anyway, the next trilogy should be set in the Old Republic era.
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The movie wasn't good, but I've decided to like it just to spite sadaam.
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Oh, and you know another thing that was bullshit? That gay kiss at the end of the movie between a couple of extras that idiots online that are now lauding as so wonderfully historic and progressive of Disney. Fuck off with that noise. It's a second-long moment that was clearly tailor-made to be conveniently snipped by those countries and broadcasters that frown on homosexuality. As much as I hate to use this term, it really is a perfect example of virtue signaling - pretending that they care about gay rights while quietly providing anti-gay institutions the means to easily censor the offending moments. If Disney really wants to make a stand for gay rights and give them some representation and everything, they should have actual major characters who are gay and doing gay things in a way that can't easily be censored, and take the loss when countries like China refuse to show the movie. And if maximizing their profits outweighs their progressive ideals, then they should stop pretending they give a shit to begin with.
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“How DARE they try and represent a homosexual couple!!!! It should have been two white people because I know what they were thinking and it was obviously dishonest.“
-Saddam, Obviously
How the fuck are you supposed to progress to a world where these moments are second nature if you don’t consciously introduce them first?
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“How DARE they try and represent a homosexual couple!!!! It should have been two white people because I know what they were thinking and it was obviously dishonest.“
-Saddam, Obviously
???
How the fuck are you supposed to progress to a world where these moments are second nature if you don’t consciously introduce them first?
???
You seem to be having an argument with someone who hasn't posted in this thread.
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“How DARE they try and represent a homosexual couple!!!! It should have been two white people because I know what they were thinking and it was obviously dishonest.“
-Saddam, Obviously
???
How the fuck are you supposed to progress to a world where these moments are second nature if you don’t consciously introduce them first?
???
You seem to be having an argument with someone who hasn't posted in this thread.
Nope. That was directed at your silliness for criticizing JJ Abrams for doing the right thing but in the “wrong way”. It’s pretty asinine.
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Okay, I'm still grasping for the relevance of your random comments on white people or whatever to my post. And Abrams - or whatever faceless committee conceived that moment - were not trying to do the right thing. They were trying to score points for being woke while also catering to homophobic institutions by ensuring the gayness was confined to one tiny moment that could easily be censored without consequence. This is far from the first time this has happened, and it's not a coincidence that so many blockbusters lately been "representing" gay people by putting them into a minuscule moment, usually in the background, that's of no real consequence to the story. They're doing it to accommodate Chinese censors, or ideally to not offend their sensibilities in the first place. Being pro-gay rights but only to the extent that China is willing to tolerate is not a laudable stance to me.
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I do admit that at first I disliked this movie.
However upon further reflection, I've come to appreciate the genius of the movie. It's designed to both sell toys and be easily marketable in China.
So don't think of it as a "movie" that's supposed to be "entertaining". That's only going to lead to an unpleasant experience, much like watching 2 hours of gibberish. Think of it more like marketing material combined with a timeshare sales pitch. If you see it this way and start crunching numbers like overseas gross ticket sales and who owns the rights to the merchandising sales I think you'll appreciate this movie more. It'll make a lot more sense.
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Yeah, it really takes genius to make a blockbuster that lends itself easily to heavy merchandising and appeals to Chinese audiences. It's not like we get a dozen or so of those movies every year, and it's certainly not like any of them ever turn out to be good. Quality and profitability are simply mutually incompatible.
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Apparently Poe wanted him and Finn to be sweet gay lovers in this trilogy but Disney cockblocked it.
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Apparently Poe wanted him and Finn to be sweet gay lovers in this trilogy but Disney cockblocked it.
That’s what virtue signaling capitalists do. Cock block a motherfucker.
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I more or less agree with everything Saddam has said, which is a very strange feeling to have. I went in with pretty low expectations to just have a visually-pleasing, toothless spectacle, but it was actually pretty bad IMO. Palpatine's resurrection and main villainry (complete with hanging from the live-action Animus and just going "rahh" with his fingers a few times) was such a safe, predictable, bland, cop-out choice for a climax. As was the "I am your grandfather" twist. It really does feel like a twist for the sake of having a twist, and all I could think of when I realized what it was going to be (as soon as Palpatine said "she's not who you think she is") was Spaceballs' "I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate" scene. Rey's parents literally being unimportant was so refreshing to me, the idea that the Force doesn't just follow a few specific bloodlines religiously. But Abrams, much like Shyamalan, just can't resist a twist.
I was at least hoping for some entertaining choreography, but even most of the fight scenes were cuts every second or two and flailing lightsabers with the occasional spin or flip, nothing that great. I know the prequels kind of killed that sort of fight, since the original trilogy's bushido-based(?) fights were usually pretty good, but after a few actually visually interesting skirmishes in The Last Jedi I had a new hope. Alas.
The time gimmick of the film (they're going to launch in 15 hours!!!) made me roll my eyes the second it was out of Poe's mouth, as I was just lamenting earlier the forced breakneck pace of many adventure and action films, all the dumb time-limit stakes (made me think of Spider-Man: "Watch this, he's gonna say 'you've got 24 hours'" Fisk: "You've got 24 hours!"), and all the tension was dissipated—for me, at least—on the first fake-out death with Chewie and made me realize, oh, even though this is the final film of the trilogy trilogy we're probably only going to lose a side character and Kylo, since I was pretty confident they'd kill him off the second he redeemed himself because, again, Abrams is the "can I copy your homework?" "sure just change a few words so it's not obvious" of directors/writers. A bit hyperbolic, obviously, but not as much as I'd like.
I was kind of sad they didn't take the Finn/Poe route because they genuinely had that kind of chemistry on-screen. Rey/Kylo was expected because they're both main characters of opposite genders, not that it mattered for long. The most interesting thing between them was the extreme "Force dyad" connection between them that Rian introduced. When they battled via Force connection I thought that was fantastic, and the Chekhov's gun cleverness of the lightsaber swap. I enjoyed the epic scope of some of the shots, they did a pretty good job of really emphasizing the vastness of the universe and worlds in certain scenes. The music was mostly good. I'm sure there are a few other things I enjoyed but nothing else is immediately coming to mind.
I could go on with what I didn't like, but I feel three paragraphs is enough for now. It had a few entertaining parts but for the most part I thought it was pretty bad. I'm okay with the 5/10 reviews it's been getting, though I feel more inclined towards 4. It's pretty clear this saga (with the exception of VIII) was not made for me, but as someone who grew up with the series it sucks that this janky-ass unimaginative final film is the conclusion we get. I'm curious what Lucas' final trilogy would have looked like now.
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I liked it. None of it makes much sense of course or stands up to scrutiny.
"Oh, he just crashed his spaceship at high speed, he's definitely dead...oh, no, he's fine. Oh, now he's been thrown off a cliff, that's the end of...oh, no, he's fine again". And of course they just happen to land at the exact right spot on an entire sodding planet to meet the people they need to.
ScreenRant points out all these things in a very amusing way (contains spoilers, obviously):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2zZFtq13c4
But you could probably do that for any of the films in the series. If you don't think about it too hard it's enjoyable enough, has lots of references for the fans and wraps up the main series of films nicely.
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https://www.businessinsider.sg/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-concept-art-2020-3
“I’ve never rewritten a film as much as this one,” said Terrio. “It’s like a tide. There’s a new script every morning. But we just keep going at it and going at it, loosely thinking that it’s not good enough. It’s never good enough.”
On the one hand, yes, he's right that it wasn't good enough. But what's more interesting here is how much rewriting there apparently was. This movie did not have an especially ambitious or challenging script. It aims squarely at Saturday morning cartoon-style writing with a cheesy chase-the-MacGuffin plot. That's not unprecedented in SW movies, of course, although I'd argue that the final film in a trilogy should be more about theme and character than plot, let alone such a simplistic, archetypal go-here-and-do-the-thing plot. So what were all the rewrites for? More pandering and fanservice?
“We’re course-correcting as we go – we’re trying things, and some things don’t work and some things aren’t ambitious enough. Some things are overly ambitious. Some things are too dense. Some things are too simple. Some things are too nostalgic. Some things are too out-of-left-field.”
I agree with most of this, the only exception being the idea that some things were too ambitious. It's nice when the screenwriter takes the time to point out all the things wrong with his movie so nobody else has to.
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I'd argue that the final film in a trilogy should be more about theme and character than plot, let alone such a simplistic, archetypal go-here-and-do-the-thing plot.
There's a potentially solid theme of legacy to the movie if you go by plot points alone, it just got muddled by, I assume, all the rewrites. My guess is that the first draft lacked explanation and set-up for a lot of things, the second draft waffled and overexplained, the third draft cut out unnecessary explanation but then kept cutting so too much was left out, and then Disney stuck their head in to demand merch opportunities and certain plot points.
Theme-wise you have Rey defying a family legacy, reference to family and backstory for Poe that was similar, Rey choosing the Skywalker legacy, old heroes coming back to save the day, Kylo living up to his family, coupled with the climactic plot point of Jedi embodying past Jedi and Sith embodying past Sith (and, as a side note, I would put money on it that in some early draft with more Leia, they had that be the mechanism by which her death shunted Kylo over to her side of the Force), everything is about living up to those that came before you. With how often it comes up in the plot it has to be intentional, but god did they suck at making it clear.