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Author Topic: Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi  (Read 248092 times)
Velorath
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Reply #910 on: June 29, 2018, 11:10:00 AM

Thank god there wasn't an Internet when the originals came out. Holy shit.

Eh... someone made a Star Wars movie I didn't like. It's happened before. There are plenty of people I know (many of whom write about film) who love TLJ. Personally I wouldn't really bother talking about it but it's the only movie here getting in-depth discussion. It's far from the worst thing I've ever seen, and there are some good ideas, but I don't think a lot of them are executed properly. Some of it is stuff that was set up in TFA that Johnson can't be blamed for.
grebo
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Reply #911 on: June 29, 2018, 12:10:48 PM

Also his breaking bad episodes are also pretty well regarded.

You're welcome to call out the world in general for having bad taste.

BUT

1) You're wrong.
2) it is unlikely that many people in this thread are unfamiliar with his work.

I was unfamiliar with his work.  I hated TLJ beyond words, so I went and watched his other stuff.  Now I understand.  I was hoping to maybe help someone else, but if not that's cool.

Rian Johnson didn't write the Breaking Bad episodes.  There is no comparison.
His work looks good, TLJ looked good.  All his movies do.
He can't write.  That's what is wrong with TLJ.

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jgsugden
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Reply #912 on: July 02, 2018, 01:55:39 PM

I'm curious what Rian would have done as a director had he directed from a script written from JJ's outline for the 8th movie.

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Rendakor
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Reply #913 on: July 02, 2018, 02:08:22 PM

I thought TLJ was fine, but I didn't like Brick: it felt pretentious. Skimming the wiki pages for his BB episodes, they were all pretty good but I don't recall them standing out compared to the rest of the series. I haven't seen his other films.

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Reply #914 on: July 02, 2018, 02:17:30 PM

He directed 3 Breaking Bad episodes.  I think the Fly one is the worst in the series, but I get why others disagree and can appreciate why they like it... but the other two are very good. 

However, he did not write them.  And, quite frankly, Ozymandius was likely to be well regarded due to the content as long as it was of typical BB quality.  However, it was well directed.  I just watched it again the other day and it hits you hard.

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Reply #915 on: July 02, 2018, 02:25:03 PM

Going by his oeuvre JJs scripts wouldn’t have been that much better.

Most of Alias was shit (I know I watched every episode), Felicity turned to shit in later seasons, Fringe was meh and he wasn’t involved in Lost at all (that was Lindelof/Cuse after the pilot). Armageddon is grade A bullshit, MI 3 as well and the only writing credit he has that I’d consider to be good is Super 8. I can’t remember Regarding Henry well enough to have an opinion about that film.

Even his directing credits are not really that great.

Abrams is a competent producer/executive producer, an average director and a shit script writer and hugely overrated in my opinion if he’s not filling the role of producer.

TFA was basically a “Best of Star Wars” and even that script was not entirely without fault.
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Reply #916 on: July 02, 2018, 02:30:50 PM

Disney was basically emulating Kevin Feige, who regularly gives Marvel franchise movies to unproven “up and coming” directors. With the difference that Feige seems to know what he’s doing, seems to know how to support those hires and how to keep them in check and he’s also not giving them the marquee franchise installments like Infinity War but instead hires them for extended universe stuff like Ant Man or Dr. Strange.
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Reply #917 on: July 02, 2018, 02:49:26 PM

Casino planet was worse than Gungan World.

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Reply #918 on: July 02, 2018, 02:56:25 PM

This is on Netflix now so I watched it.

Can't say I loved it or hated it.


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Khaldun
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Reply #919 on: July 02, 2018, 05:22:33 PM

I think I'm officially tired of these arguments, which is rare for me. There is something about the people who really really hate it--not the people who have mixed reactions--that feels just plain off to me. Like I can't even figure out quite what the priors of their feelings about the film might be. I think it's pretty clear that this is felt in reverse. So it's an interesting litmus test of something pretty deep in people, but not something that can be profitably discussed again and again and again.
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Reply #920 on: July 02, 2018, 06:18:26 PM

I thought TLJ was fine, but I didn't like Brick: it felt pretentious. Skimming the wiki pages for his BB episodes, they were all pretty good but I don't recall them standing out compared to the rest of the series. I haven't seen his other films.

Ozymandias is arguably one of the best hours ever put on television.   Had a lot to do with that whole team, but Johnson directed the hell out of it.

I also happen to think Fly is one of the best bottle episodes ever done too. The people who don't like it seem to just not like that format.

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Velorath
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Reply #921 on: July 02, 2018, 08:22:37 PM

I think I'm officially tired of these arguments, which is rare for me. There is something about the people who really really hate it--not the people who have mixed reactions--that feels just plain off to me. Like I can't even figure out quite what the priors of their feelings about the film might be. I think it's pretty clear that this is felt in reverse. So it's an interesting litmus test of something pretty deep in people, but not something that can be profitably discussed again and again and again.


You may have noticed that people here love to talk about Star Wars. The SWG "Did somebody say twitch" thread went for 100 pages before being locked, followed by an 80 page thread after that. The main SWTOR thread went for 400 pages. The thread for TFA is the 2nd longest in the Movies forum only behind the catchall thread for MCU news. I'd love to talk about literally any other movie with this amount of depth, but I guess I'll have to wait for the 40 page thread for Episode IX.
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Reply #922 on: July 03, 2018, 01:38:29 AM


I also happen to think Fly is one of the best bottle episodes ever done too. The people who don't like it seem to just not like that format.

I would agree, except that Brooklyn 99 just did that one with Peralta and Holt interrogating, so it now wins.

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eldaec
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Reply #923 on: July 03, 2018, 02:25:52 PM

Fairly long discussion of why the author thinks TLJ doesn't suck, most of which I agree with.

And makes a change to read something like this that is positive about a film.

http://observer.com/2018/07/film-crit-hulk-the-beautiful-ugly-and-possessive-hearts-of-star-wars/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

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Reply #924 on: July 03, 2018, 11:46:19 PM

He has a lot of good points.

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Abagadro
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Reply #925 on: July 03, 2018, 11:53:42 PM


I also happen to think Fly is one of the best bottle episodes ever done too. The people who don't like it seem to just not like that format.

I would agree, except that Brooklyn 99 just did that one with Peralta and Holt interrogating, so it now wins.

Haven't seen that but I read something that Braugher brought out a bit of the old Pendelton, so I will have to watch it.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

-H.L. Mencken
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Reply #926 on: July 04, 2018, 12:59:24 AM

It.  Is.  Sublime.

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Reply #927 on: July 04, 2018, 01:00:48 AM

Fairly long discussion of why the author thinks TLJ doesn't suck, most of which I agree with.

And makes a change to read something like this that is positive about a film.

http://observer.com/2018/07/film-crit-hulk-the-beautiful-ugly-and-possessive-hearts-of-star-wars/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

(Carson voice) Mmmmm, that's good analysis.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

-H.L. Mencken
Ironwood
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Reply #928 on: July 04, 2018, 01:02:16 AM

Yeah, it is.  Oddly, it doesn't change my own opinion of the movies (Spoiler;  I'm too old for Star Wars now, it seems), but he's right on the money about a lot there.

Also, you should follow the link to his critique of the MCU and Infinity War because it's also really, really on point.

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Reply #929 on: July 04, 2018, 01:07:21 AM

I enjoy those though, so I shall exist in my bubble thanks.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

-H.L. Mencken
TheWalrus
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Reply #930 on: July 04, 2018, 01:08:20 AM

That was really good. Helped me understand a bit of perspective from other people with whom I've been butting heads over this.

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Reply #931 on: July 04, 2018, 09:06:00 AM

Yeah, it is.  Oddly, it doesn't change my own opinion of the movies (Spoiler;  I'm too old for Star Wars now, it seems), but he's right on the money about a lot there.

Pretty much all of this.

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Reply #932 on: July 04, 2018, 10:23:56 AM

That was really good. Helped me understand a bit of perspective from other people with whom I've been butting heads over this.

It was pretty good. He does a great job of destroying a lot of the really bad arguments against the movie. Where he and I part ways is on the writing side of it in general. I agree that each character had clearly defined arcs. I even like the parts of the movie that deal with Rey, Luke or Kylo. However, I disagree with him excusing Holdo's actions. Yes, she's under no obligation to share her plans, but it wasn't just Poe she withheld information from. He wasn't alone in his attempted mutiny after all. I also think the way the arcs were handled was done extremely clumsily, especially Finn's but Poe's as well. There were too many times actions were taken just to drive the narrative and that character's arc but that even within the movie universe made no damned sense. Holdo is definitely the poster child for this (though oddly I still like her character) but she's only the most obvious example.

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Reply #933 on: July 04, 2018, 10:50:30 AM

This is kind of a meta-issue across almost all of the pop culture discussions on this site (and others, but it's especially visible to me here). I keep being kind of baffled by folks who expect characters who are not explicitly defined as irrational or fucked-up to act in a way that coheres to some presumed baseline standard of reasoned, well-considered thinking. It's a kind of binary judgment some of you apply to genre entertainments: a) is the character an unsympathetic lesser villain or explicitly a chaotic, disordered protagonist? then they may act in a way that is poorly reasoned but they shouldn't be too important to the plot; b) is the character a major normal protagonist or a villain that I really like? then they must make reasoned, coherent actions that resemble roughly what I would imagine myself to do in such circumstances. Even if their goals are somewhat unreasonable.

This is just very foreign to my own thinking about genre entertainment. I do expect characters to be written and acted in a way that has some reasonable relationship to their established characterization, if they've appeared before--or if not, I want to see why they've changed. I don't want Superman to suddenly start crushing skulls or Batman to start using guns just randomly. I don't want Londo Mollari to become an uptight moralist unless that's part of his arc in a way that makes dramatic and narrative sense.

But I don't expect characters to do what I would expect a maximally reasonable and perceptive person to do unless it's been established that this is the kind of person they are. I do expect Thrawn, for example, to be thinking six steps ahead: it's his thing. I don't expect Han Solo to be thinking even one step ahead: he's an improviser. I especially don't expect characters to have that kind of clear-headed perceptual understanding of everything around them if they're in a situation of war or conflict. That's war! Study both the tactical and strategic history of war and you're not often going to find leaders who understand everything about what's going on and who make unimpeachable decisions about how to communicate with each and every one of their subordinates. Patton may understand strategically the use of tanks in modern warfare, and he may understand tactically how to stage a tank ambush. He may not understand how to convince his superiors to follow some of his other strategic thinking and he may even be wrong about those thoughts because of his own vanity and pseudo-mysticism. He may not understand the consequences of acting like an asshole to a shell-shocked man or shooting his mouth off to the press. You can tell a story about Patton and decide to really underscore these character attributes in your narrative--while only implying some of the other errors in judgment and understanding. But you're also going to surround him with characters who are equally human, and you don't have time to spell it out on each and every one of them. Even Bradley isn't perfect, much as he's meant to be a sympathetic viewpoint character.

So this isn't just Star Wars: unless I have a reason to specifically think that a specific character should have specifically better judgment or understanding, I have no problem when a character doesn't do what I would think a person with especially good judgment and understanding ought to do, given the narrative situation. I am kind of baffled by some of you who seem to approach almost everything you watch and read with the assumption that this should be the case. The number of people that I see in real life who learn every lesson that life presents to them, who generally have a clear-headed understanding of their circumstances, who always read other people correctly and relate to them well, is not quite a null set but it's pretty close. The few I know who are like that are exemplary, well-respected people--and interestingly enough are often not people in top leadership positions because they're usually too sensible and modest to want to be in that situation.
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Reply #934 on: July 04, 2018, 11:18:51 AM

I think most of this logic stuff is more likely to be driven by the film not carrying people along for some other reason, so disbelief is not suspended.

It can't be stressed enough that OT star wars makes no fucking sense against the standard of how rationally characters approached challenges.

For that matter 90% of Shakespeare is terrible by that standard.


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Reply #935 on: July 04, 2018, 11:29:48 AM

Holdo in particular should have better judgement than was displayed in this movie or else how did she get to be Leia's chosen successor? Or for that matter how did Poe get to be as highly placed as he did in the hierarchy after clearly displaying the propensity to not give a fuck how many people die on his missions? Or the big one, how in the fuck are we supposed to believe the First Order managed to take over the galaxy with such utter whiny incompetent fuckmuffins as Hux?

This isn't even about characters acting rationally. It's about any of it making any sort of sense. What we are being told about these things is in direct opposition to what we are being shown, hence my continued problem with the show don't tell principle of writing. It would be one thing if the movie were being clearly told from an unreliable narrator but we are shown the movie from an omniscient perspective.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2018, 11:33:02 AM by HaemishM »

eldaec
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Reply #936 on: July 04, 2018, 11:36:09 AM

However, I disagree with him excusing Holdo's actions. Yes, she's under no obligation to share her plans, but it wasn't just Poe she withheld information from.

I still don't know why people argue Holdo's actions require excusing?

AFAIK she is literally the only character in the film who achieved her goals as she envisages them right from her first scene. And is ultimately right about everything. You could legitimately make a Mary sue charge I guess.

If she had told Poe I imagine we'd be sat here complaining about bad exposition. She'd be stood there saying things so Poe could take no action. Poe could I suppose disagree with her? Like watching an argument between a plumber and a hairdresser about how to fit a toilet? Then poe would wander off and rebel, and we'd all wonder why the exposition scene was necessary.

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eldaec
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Reply #937 on: July 04, 2018, 11:40:48 AM

how in the fuck are we supposed to believe the First Order managed to take over the galaxy with such utter whiny incompetent fuckmuffins as Hux?

This is a fair point though. And is easily what took me closest to dropping out of the film.

Kylo is fine. Hard to argue against Kylo in a world of Trump and Brexit.

But how the FO get the bins collected is beyond me. They need a few more dudes like the dreadnought captain.

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HaemishM
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Reply #938 on: July 04, 2018, 11:43:20 AM

Holdo's goal was to kill herself and almost get the entire Resistance killed just to take out a few Star Destroyers? To get a decent portion of her flight crew to mutiny against her because she wouldn't give them any orders except sit on their hands while the fleet gets chewed to shit? To trick the First Order into following a mostly empty ship so that what's left of the Resistance could hole up in a cul-de-sac? If Poe was as important to the Resistance as clearly both Leia and Holdo thought, it serves no purpose to keep him in the dark (or any of the bridge crew for that matter). Her character acted in such a secretive fashion for no good reason unless she was led to believe that Poe or someone else was giving their location to the First Order (something which we are given no reason to believe is happening).  It's character actions for the sake of drama, not because they are consistent with anything the story has given us about the character or the situation.

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Reply #939 on: July 04, 2018, 12:21:22 PM

Saw this, am 'meh'.  Read that article, found it tedious.  

I guess I'm mostly "meh" about the movie because I was always acutely aware that I was watching a movie, and the movie frequently made me question the directors decisions.  Many missed opportunities that, imo, would have eased the tension between the plot and the fans - e.g. another 10 seconds to have Holdo, after Poe has been kicked off the deck, turn to a subordinate and give an order that makes clear that she is in charge and has a plan (just not what the plan is).

When a character appears out of nowhere it's probably a good idea to let the audience know something about her.  You know, maybe a hint about why Leia trusts her, or that she is in any way competent.  But this director choose to show us that Poe thinks she's a cunt.  And it goes on and on, we (the audience) are solidly in Poe's point of view, and are then told, by other characters (not actions), that "Poe's a fuckup".  And this is in the Star Wars universe where good guys are either Jedi's or fly-by-seat of their pants rogues.  It's part of the DNA of the franchise, ffs.  If you, as a director, are going to subvert that premise, you should probably have enough sense to not troll your fan base at the same time (unless, you know, trolling the fan base was part of the plan).  All part of "subverting expectations", I guess.  If it was intended to make me think, it did.  Unfortunately it made me think the director wasn't very good at subverting audience expectations in way that was entertaining or clever.

Some mixed messages; Holdo does a suicide run to save the rebels?  Good.  Finn tries a suicide run to save the rebels?  That's bad.

Another part of the DNA of the franchise is that there are magical bloodlines.  You might not like it.  It might make you squeamish in a "nazi's!" kind of way.  ... but it's in every film BUT this one.  If you find magical blood lines horrifying then you probably shouldn't be watching Star Wars.  If you are delighting in that part of the DNA being tossed, you might want to consider that you are getting a charge out of Rain Johnson trolling the fan base.  That's fine, but just be honest with yourself about it.

I have no skin in this game, the prequels killed all love I might have ever had for Star Wars.  But I think not understanding how part of the fan base might be pissed at the hamfisted jettisoning of two of the tenants of what Star Wars IS seems a bit dense.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2018, 01:55:29 PM by Typhon »
Rendakor
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Reply #940 on: July 04, 2018, 12:59:52 PM

I agree with your point about subverting expectations; TLJ did that often, and that's not what I'm looking for in a numbered SW movie. If they want to let directors get experimental in the (now cancelled, I guess) spinoff movies, fine. But TLJ fucked with a lot of core SW tropes in ways that I didn't enjoy. I didn't hate the movie like some did, but it certainly wasn't great.

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Reply #941 on: July 04, 2018, 02:03:02 PM

Saw this, am 'meh'.  Read that article, found it tedious.  

So, er, why go on for four or five paragraphs with points that got utterly refuted by said same article ?

Not a lot you said was, you know, right ?

Also, it's totally NOT bloodlines dude.  It's really, really not.  It's shit in the blood.  With zero explanation on how said shit gets there.  Microscopic shit.  The rest you're making up.  In your own head.  Like, totally.  Sure, maybe microscopic shit is also passed down if your gran fucks a ghost, but you know.  Whatevs.

Also, they totally gave you not just a fucking hint as to why she was competent, but a whole fucking scene.  I'm gonna repeat this ;  I didn't like the film - but you're just talking shite 'cause you don't wanna like the film.

Which is really weird.  The suicide part is wrong too.  Fuck, the more I read of your reply, the wronger it is.

I mean.

 Head scratch headache

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Ironwood
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Reply #942 on: July 04, 2018, 02:05:45 PM

I MEAN THE JEDI AREN'T MEANT TO FUCK, HOW CAN IT BE BLOODLINES THAT SUSTAIN IT.

I MEAN.

WHAT.

STOP IT.

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Jeff Kelly
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Reply #943 on: July 04, 2018, 02:31:08 PM

„Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.” Obi Wan “Ben” Kenobi.

The whole point of that speech from A new Hope and indeed the theme of TFA is that EVERYONE.can use the force not just privileged few.

There’s no force dynasty.
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Reply #944 on: July 04, 2018, 02:36:22 PM

What scene made Holdo look competent? I'm genuinely curious because about the only thing I can remember is that Leia liked her.

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