Disney buying Lucasfilm

[Lantyssa]

Hey, I liked Ewoks.

You're dead to me.

[Shannow]

Can't say I like Ewoks or hate them..(mind you I did go see the Ewok movie when it came out) but I still love Return of the Jedi. The vast majority of you saw RotJ when you were most likely under 15 and I'm betting you loved it too. Sorry I still think the whole 'oh Ewoks are so uncool' , 'ESB is for the cool kids' act is still pretentious.

 

[Merusk]

Hey, I liked Ewoks.

You're dead to me.

It's ok, I'm after the "Ewok Line," it's allowed.

http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Ewok-Line-Explained-By-Barney-Stinson-How-I-Met-Your-Mother-35922.html

[Khaldun]

Look, I can see them evacuating the few decent characters from the EU like people getting on the last choppers out of Saigon, but the plotlines are either dumb reprisals of the movies, convoluted fanservice, or just plain bollocks. Thrawn, Mara Jade, maybe a couple of others.

If they really need an arc beyond good guys v. bad guys, something focused on the reestablishment and reinvention of the Jedi, opposed by a hidden alliance of Sith, gangsters, bounty hunters and neo-Imperial shitheads with maybe an aged Master Luke Skywalker making a brief appearance and croaking it in the first flick. I really think they cannot get away with a recasting of the originals to take up the story right after ROTJ. Star Trek worked because most of the characters were more "types" with less of a narrative arc.

The real trick will be to come up with an iconic bad guy like Maul or Vader.

[Merusk]

Look, I can see them evacuating the few decent characters from the EU like people getting on the last choppers out of Saigon, but the plotlines are either dumb reprisals of the movies, convoluted fanservice, or just plain bollocks. Thrawn, Mara Jade, maybe a couple of others.

If they really need an arc beyond good guys v. bad guys, something focused on the reestablishment and reinvention of the Jedi, opposed by a hidden alliance of Sith, gangsters, bounty hunters and neo-Imperial shitheads with maybe an aged Master Luke Skywalker making a brief appearance and croaking it in the first flick. I really think they cannot get away with a recasting of the originals to take up the story right after ROTJ. Star Trek worked because most of the characters were more "types" with less of a narrative arc.

The real trick will be to come up with an iconic bad guy like Maul or Vader.

You need to watch Clone Wars. (Not themovie but the CGI series.) They do all this very well and it's "only" a kid's cartoon.   The only thing they lack is a good iconic bad guy because Count Poop was running things at the time.

[Numtini]

I was a junior in high school. I was not only disappointed by RotJ, but I was shocked. It seemed to me that ESB was a more mature film than SW and going directly to what was essentially a kiddy movie was a stunner. It wasn't just the ewoks though, it was the mystical mumbo jumbo thing with Jedi being equated with being emotionless and the idiotic deathbed repentance.

I wanted Revenge of the Jedi. I still do.

[Fabricated]

I dunno, the end of Jedi is pretty good IMO. The whole temptation, anger, evil thing during the confrontation with the emperor was pretty good. Also you get to see Ewoks get shot and killed IIRC which I thought was pretty good.

[Teleku]

Yeah, growing up as a child born after the movies came out, everybody I knew considered RoTJ by far the best one.  Once I got older, Empire overtook it for me personally, but I still think RoTJ is just about as perfect an action flick and story ending as you can get.

And how can you possibly hate Ewoks!

[ghost]

I'm the odd man out here, but I actually really like the prequels. 

[Sky]

The prequels could've been good if they just recast Annikan and Padme and took out all the CGI garbage, filmed it on real sets.

RotJ had some good parts, certainly. The scene with Han and Leia when the troopers have them cornered at the door and she reverses the 'I love you' line is one of the best in the trilogy (and shows just how poor the Annikan/Padme wooden travesty is). But on the hole, the ewok thing sinks it. It's our generation's Jar-Jar, and that's the end of it.

I do disagree with Numtini on the redemption of Annikan Skywalker, it's really the point of the whole mythos. Although I also like the interpretation of the mythos being the adventures or the droid hero R2D2 as told by his companions.

5,4,6,3,2,1

[Shannow]

I'm the odd man out here, but I actually really like the prequels. 

Ok well maybe we can tolerate some ewok love but this is going way over the line!

[Shannow]

The prequels could've been good if they just recast Annikan and Padme and took out all the CGI garbage, filmed it on real sets.

Not even good actors can redeem horribly shitty writing (I don't think Portman's a bad actor). It's funny, the one thing I think Lucas got right was the reason that Annikan goes bad, ie his love for Padme, that idea was actually believable to me. It was just the complete and utter failure of execution of that idea that was the problem..:P

[Sky]

I forgot to mention the removal of all the filler nonsense. The pod race, the factory chase scene, the gladiator arena, etc. So much wasted time on nonsense. The commentary on the DVD for whichever prequel it was with the 'flying R2' droid factory chase scene said that it was added because the film was getting too plot-heavy and needed an action scene. Ye gods.

Further forgot to mention bringing on a real producer and director. Kirsch made Empire a great character-based movie.

[HaemishM]

Happily it is so bad that it is inconceivable anyone would try to film it.

Episode 3. "But you aren't sand, Padme!" Nuff said.

[eldaec]

The books are worse. I am not joking or forgetting how bad 2 & 3 were.

[Merusk]

I was going to post the same thing, eldaec.  They really, really, really blow.

Imagine all of Anakin's charm and guile with the ladies transposed on to a Luke who bounces from woman to woman in the span of a few months. Falling in Love with them all but never really mourning them.   That is the EU before I stopped reading in the late 90's.   Tack-on the Force-immune Yuzhen Vong (which in the SW universe should be like being immune to the forces of Gravity and Time) and the bizarre spins I've only seen hinted at since and it gets soooo much worse.

ed: Luke's love life. http://scifi.about.com/od/starwarscharacters/tp/SWAR_lukes-black-book.htm

Hopefully an Episode 7 would wipe out so much of that as to make many, many people rage.

[HaemishM]

I honestly think the world could be improved by a wave of heart attacks and strokes caused by a massive bout of Star Wars nerd rage.

[Ingmar]

Someone needs to make a red letter review edit without the fuckstupid psychopath gimmick bits. They are RLM's jar jar binks.

Yeah, this. I started watching it, and the movie criticism bits were good, but the haw haw I have a girl in my basement shit drove me away.

[Trippy]

I was a junior in high school. I was not only disappointed by RotJ, but I was shocked. It seemed to me that ESB was a more mature film than SW and going directly to what was essentially a kiddy movie was a stunner. It wasn't just the ewoks though, it was the mystical mumbo jumbo thing with Jedi being equated with being emotionless and the idiotic deathbed repentance.

I wanted Revenge of the Jedi. I still do.

We were the same. We had fierce debates over which was better -- Star Wars or Empire -- but none of us thought Return was the best of the three.

[Fabricated]

Just in case you forgot about it:

[Shannow]

Just in case you forgot about it:

I remember movie critics trying to talk themselves into believing that Ep III was actually a good film and redeemed the prequel trilogy. Movie critics can be idiots.

[Ratman_tf]

The prequels could've been good if they just recast Annikan and Padme and took out all the CGI garbage, filmed it on real sets.

Not even good actors can redeem horribly shitty writing (I don't think Portman's a bad actor). It's funny, the one thing I think Lucas got right was the reason that Annikan goes bad, ie his love for Padme, that idea was actually believable to me. It was just the complete and utter failure of execution of that idea that was the problem..:P

This is how I feel about the prequels. A lot of people bitch about this or that nitpicky thing. (Politics, my space opera? Oh noes that's never been done before.  ) The problem is the scripts were lazy and the films were shot lazy. (shot, Reverse-Shot) Even Jar Jar wasn't necessarily a bad idea. Just a poorly executed one.

[Fordel]

What we* need is a Trooper version of Band of Brothers.


*By we I mean me.

[Samprimary]

I remember movie critics trying to talk themselves into believing that Ep III was actually a good film and redeemed the prequel trilogy. Movie critics can be idiots.

There's a lot of people who really legitimately like the prequels, but if you care at all about cinema they just have to be written off as the Lumpenproletariat of film-goers. They will subsist on pretty much anything as long as you give them whatever particular shiny they are after, be it lightsabers or exploding transformer robots or a goofy cgi marmaduke or an 'ambitious' Allien prequel or Adam Sandler, so your only job is to keep them away from franchises or ideas you really actually care about.

Per movie critics: the prequels were actually a seminal look into, of all things, the major failings of Ebert as a critic. He has some notorious blind spots that you can use to make him really goofily admire a really atrociously bad film, and the prequels filled ALL of them with shiny ebert candy and got three and a half stars for their trouble. (They would go on to pull the same stunt on him for Crystal Skull).

[Furiously]

Guybrush Threepwood on the big screen?

[Ratman_tf]

Per movie critics: the prequels were actually a seminal look into, of all things, the major failings of Ebert as a critic. He has some notorious blind spots that you can use to make him really goofily admire a really atrociously bad film, and the prequels filled ALL of them with shiny ebert candy and got three and a half stars for their trouble. (They would go on to pull the same stunt on him for Crystal Skull).

Are you saying those films intentionally included shit that Ebert would have a favorable impression towards, or that they just happened to have that stuff?

 

[Sheepherder]

I never even saw Episode III, the first two were so bad, but I'd totally give this a chance.

Chinese bootleggers make everything better.

[Samprimary]

Per movie critics: the prequels were actually a seminal look into, of all things, the major failings of Ebert as a critic. He has some notorious blind spots that you can use to make him really goofily admire a really atrociously bad film, and the prequels filled ALL of them with shiny ebert candy and got three and a half stars for their trouble. (They would go on to pull the same stunt on him for Crystal Skull).

Are you saying those films intentionally included shit that Ebert would have a favorable impression towards, or that they just happened to have that stuff?

 

I chalk it up as being an accident of Lucas' extremely shitty and haphazard approach to writing and direction and 'creative involvement' — it just results in "the kind of movie ebert is completely gobfuckingly unable to recognize as terrible" that other terrible movies (like The Last Airbender) do not possess, which results in ebert wholly pillorying them.

It is really difficult to describe more coherently, because Ebert is ultimately an incredibly super-weird dude sometimes, as we learned that one time he figured out he like totally understood video games, maaan.

[Shannow]

There's a lot of people who really legitimately like the prequels, but if you care at all about cinema they just have to be written off as the Lumpenproletariat of film-goers.

I'll forgo the fancy words and just call them 12 year olds. ie my son who actually likes the prequels. (fairly sure he is adopted) Outside of that I've never met anyone who actually liked them.

[Numtini]

They're mediocre kiddy movies. Where they really collapse into a screaming heap of wretchedness is when you try to make any sort of coherent connection between them and the original.

"Can't remember ever owning a droid..."

[DraconianOne]

Guybrush Threepwood on the big screen?

We had that. Except it was called "Pirates of the Caribbean".

[Samprimary]

 I know a dude, a full grown dude with two kids and a literal white picket fence, who cried at the emotional intensity of "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!" and thought the prequel trilogy was just the most epic amazing thing ever.

Iunno dude was starting to go odd at the time, so

[Sheepherder]

Look, I can see them evacuating the few decent characters from the EU like people getting on the last choppers out of Saigon, but the plotlines are either dumb reprisals of the movies, convoluted fanservice, or just plain bollocks. Thrawn, Mara Jade, maybe a couple of others.

If they really need an arc beyond good guys v. bad guys, something focused on the reestablishment and reinvention of the Jedi, opposed by a hidden alliance of Sith, gangsters, bounty hunters and neo-Imperial shitheads with maybe an aged Master Luke Skywalker making a brief appearance and croaking it in the first flick. I really think they cannot get away with a recasting of the originals to take up the story right after ROTJ. Star Trek worked because most of the characters were more "types" with less of a narrative arc.

There's a three book EU novel series where the plot is that Boba Fett shoots and explodes the Sarlacc until it vomits him up, some other survivors patch him up, then he goes and does bounty hunter-y things with a sort of protege who occasionally is considered dispensable.  I'd give Star Wars: Training Day a shot.

Alternatively:

I dunno, the end of Jedi is pretty good IMO. The whole temptation, anger, evil thing during the confrontation with the emperor was pretty good. Also you get to see Ewoks get shot and killed IIRC which I thought was pretty good.

Luke does sort of mildly evil shit throughout the movie.  It's not just the last scene.

[sickrubik]

This is how I feel about the prequels. A lot of people bitch about this or that nitpicky thing. (Politics, my space opera? Oh noes that's never been done before.  ) The problem is the scripts were lazy and the films were shot lazy. (shot, Reverse-Shot) Even Jar Jar wasn't necessarily a bad idea. Just a poorly executed one.

Most peoples problems that I know is that the scripts were shitty and the filmmaking was lazy. I have never known someone whos main complaint about the politics being the bad thing.

What the fuck does that line about Jar Jar even mean? The concept of a comic relief character is not necessarily bad? Yes... the fucking point is that it WAS TERRIBLY executed. That's the exact point.

[ghost]

Just in case you forgot about it:

You just don't understand The Force.