Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 06:57:17 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
we're back, baby
*
Home Help Search Login Register
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  General Discussion  |  Movies  |  Topic: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Pages: 1 ... 14 15 [16] 17 18 ... 27 Go Down Print
Author Topic: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker  (Read 189211 times)
Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15157


Reply #525 on: January 09, 2020, 01:54:53 PM

Mandalorian looks like it'll be the first now-in-canon on-screen treatment of it, except for the truly stupid Rise of Skywalker thing that tried to pretend Luke and Lando were off looking for Exedore at some point before Luke became a milk-guzzling hermit, which is almost certainly going to be a dumb bad book some time soon.

But Chuck Wendig's Aftermath Trilogy is supposedly the in-canon sketch of the basics of what happened afterwards, which is that contra the end of Return of the Jedi, the Empire was actually putting up a good fight for a while until the Battle of Jakku, which finished it off except for some remnants.
Sir T
Terracotta Army
Posts: 14223


Reply #526 on: January 10, 2020, 01:21:44 AM

Yeah, that's been a huge failure of all of the sequel trilogy films. In ANH, they are on the way from Tattooine to Dantooine until they get intercepted by the Death Star.

Just being pedantic, but they were on their way from Tatooine to Allderan and arrived right after the Death Star had blasted it. And it tool at least long enough for Chewbacca to have a game of chess with the droids and for Luke to have some Lightsaber exercises, and for Solo to say that they had outrun and lost contact with the Star Destroyers. When they went to whenever the Rebel base was later, it took long enough for them to analyse the Death star plans and rig the fighters for a battle, for the Death Star to arrive. All very vague but it implied a passage of time.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2020, 03:38:16 AM by Sir T »

Hic sunt dracones.
IainC
Developers
Posts: 6538

Wargaming.net


WWW
Reply #527 on: January 10, 2020, 02:57:24 AM

Yeah, that's been a huge failure of all of the sequel trilogy films. In ANH, they are on the way from Tattooine to Dantooine until they get intercepted by the Death Star.

Just being pedantic, but they were on their way from Tatooine to Allderan and arrived right after the Death Star had blasted it.

Yeah, I realised I had that wrong after I wrote it. When Leia is being interrogated by Vader, she says Dantooine, and the implication is that the Death Star is going to explode that planet, then they go and blow up Alderaan instead.

Well, for one, in Return of the Jedi, we don't even know that the Empire has collapsed entirely, just that the fleet at Endor retreats and that world governments on a bunch of planets proclaim the end of Imperial authority on their own planet--something that often happens when a dictator is defeated in battle, even if the ultimate aftermath is a lot messier.

Which makes RoS even stupider. If Palpatine didn't actually die, why does the Empire collapse at all? They lose another big superweapon and a senior commander (Vader). Everything else is still in place including all the non-Death Star force projection fleets that they control. Palpatine can just pop up again, say 'Ok we're 0-2 on Death Stars so we won't build those anymore, let's figure out how to put those guns onto ISD class ships and do some standard-issue brutal dictatorship shit.'

When I first saw TFA, my immediate assumption for the First Order was that they were basically continuity Empire forces. Some Grand Moff or other had rallied a bunch of underlings, and was carving out a personal fiefdom. They were using the same visual identity, the same equipment, the same MO. My sequel trilogy arc would have been something like this:

TFA:
The backdrop is a protracted galactic civil war between various continuity Imperial factions and one or more pro-democracy/anti-Imperial factions.
Finn throws off his conditioning and defects to a rebel faction that co-incidentally contains the previous Rebel leadership.
The idea that Stormtroopers can be deprogrammed is massively interesting to the Rebellion and they investigate this deeply.
Poe is their hotshot pilot and they send him off on some crazy adventures to find various macguffins one of which is BB8.
In the process of this he runs into Rey who is clearly a Force user and who is in possession of BB8.
Ren and the First Order are still the bad guys except that Snoke is another Palpatine disciple (not his apprentice).
Ren and Co are planning to garrison a bunch of strategically important planets who are wavering in their loyalty. They are going to occupy them with a bunch of ground troops.
As a result of Poe/Rey/Finn's adventures, the Rebellion has some technomagic macguffin that can amplify Rey's force powers and Finn's experiences to turn this occupation against the First Order by deprogramming the Stormtroopers.
There is a battle, the stormtroopers turn at the dramatically appropriate moment. Celebration, roll credits

TLJ:
The rebellion want Rey to get proper training, and the only Jedi they know is Luke. They go looking for him, find him and he;s not interested.
The First Order is super pissed about the loyalty ju-jitsu manoeuvre in TFA, and decides to make hunting Rey and co a priority. They find them fairly easily and asssemle a fleet to go and finish them off.
Rey is getting nowhere with Luke until she talks about Ren. The Luke Ren thing happened much as it did in the actual sequels and Luke grudgingly agrees to help fix his earlier mistake.
The Rebellion cant stay in one place now because the First Order are chasing them. The movie basically tells the story of the escape from the static bases to a more nomadic command centre. Rey and Ren have some inconclusinve personal battles.
At the end of the movie, the Rebellion have suffered some setbacks, but they have managed to evade the worst of the First Order's assault. They are in a precarious position but they have Luke.

RoS:
Running and hiding indefinitely isn't a sustainable plan so the Rebellion decides to try and rally a bunch of uninvolved planets to rise up against the First Order.
Luke and Rey are training but Luke doesn't think he has anything useful to teach her. The First Order is ramping up pressure on the Rebellion and so they decide to make a final do-or-die assault to strike at the head of the First Order.
They figure that if they can eliminate Ren and Snoke, that will probably leave the rest of the First Order in disarray and vulnerable in a big space battle.
Rey and Luke go looking for Ren. Finn and Poe go looking for allies who have a lot of spaceships.
Finn and Poe aren't getting anywhere, the other armed groups don't fancy their chances against the First Order. Finn is again their main asset here, because he proves that they can break the conditioning.
Rey finds Ren and gets her ass kicked. Luke shows up and Ren goes berserk. Luke barely escapes.
The Rebellion are massing a fleet but it's not big enough, maybe there will be enough for a single desperate suicide run on Ren's flagship
Luke goes back to find Ren and they fight again. This time Luke manages to get some dialogue in which plants some seeds of doubt in Ren's mind.
The Rebels decide to go ahead anyway, their situation is untenable no matter what they do.
They show up for the big battle and start losing. Suddenly a lot of other ships turn up from the people that Finn and Poe were talking to. They figured that if the Rebellion were all in on this, then they should be too.
Snoke twirls his moustache and says 'lol no', does some force bullshit that makes the Rebels lose even harder than they had been previously.
Luke, Rey  and Finn (plus disposable mooks) go in to find and defeat him.
They find him and are fighting when Ren shows up. Luke appeals to Ren, Ren is unconvinced and wades into the fight, he's about to kill Rey when Luke sacrifices himself to save her. Rey decides to try the deprogramming thing on Ren. It works because of Luke's sacrifice. Ren and Rey defeat Snoke.
Allied space fleet defeats First Order spacefleet. Celebrations, roll credits.

- And in stranger Iains, even Death may die -

SerialForeigner Photography.
Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15157


Reply #528 on: January 10, 2020, 05:44:31 AM

I mean, yeah--the Emperor, what, used an escape shuttle he had hidden at the bottom of a bottomless shaft and he decides "oh, fuck it, I'm just gonna go off to Exedore, I don't wanna have to build yet another Death Star and there's a death fleet there I can patch up in thirty years or so, the Empire can fuck right off, they don't need me anyway." Or he had a clone waiting for him there, or he learned something from Darth Plagueis the Wise and managed to reform his blown-up body and then space-bubble floated to Exedore or whatever, right?

But all the people who were all like I mUsT knOw WHaT the ORigIn STorY of SNoKe IS or I CaNNOt EnJOy MUH StAR WaRS are like oh yeah Palpatine lived I don't really need an explanation for how or why he decided to go off to Sithworld for a vacation rather than just keep Empiring, I kind of enjoyed this film!
Riggswolfe
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8024


Reply #529 on: January 10, 2020, 06:19:56 AM

I never cared what Snoke's origin was personally. Origins are a bitch to get right. As for the Emperor. I more or less wrote it off as "The Sith resurrected him using Sith alchemy or something but it was taking a long time and not working well." Supposedly there is a deleted scene that goes into detail on it but I'm sure it was just exposition that slowed things out so they removed it.

"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
Phildo
Contributor
Posts: 5872


Reply #530 on: January 10, 2020, 06:23:47 AM

Some of us are capable of thinking that Snoke was a terribly underdeveloped and thus kind of a toothless character AND that the Emperor coming back all of a sudden is really stupid, you know.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2020, 04:03:21 PM by Phildo »
HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #531 on: January 10, 2020, 09:11:43 AM

But all the people who were all like I mUsT knOw WHaT the ORigIn STorY of SNoKe IS or I CaNNOt EnJOy MUH StAR WaRS are like oh yeah Palpatine lived I don't really need an explanation for how or why he decided to go off to Sithworld for a vacation rather than just keep Empiring, I kind of enjoyed this film!

I wanted to know what Snoke was and yet I was supremely disappointed that they just went with the lazy ass kludge of "Oh the Emperor did it." There could have about a billion interesting Snoke backstories that would have taken less than 5 lines to read that would have fleshed out things so much more. A lot of the problem with the lack of Snoke backstory was also the same problem with the lack of the First Order backstory. It just felt like the whole thing, Snoke and the Order, had all just erupted out of a vacuum and hadn't earned the right to be considered as tough as the New Republic or the Resistance. Turns out it was just lazy ass writing and a complete lack of plan.

Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15157


Reply #532 on: January 10, 2020, 03:40:18 PM

Tell you something, I would have been way happier with "there's an ancient Sith Lord who is NOT Palpatine hanging out on Sithworld and other Sith have come to learn from him and he has the keys to the Death Fleet and lots of people want them and he trained Snoke AND Palpatine AND Darth Plagueis the Wise AND Vader AND Dooku AND Maul AND Revan AND everybody and the galaxy's not safe until he's blown the fuck up"--e.g., who is actually the equivalent of Yoda, a hermit Sith monster who lives on a monster world who hid there a millennium ago. I mean, that could have been pretty epic--that Rey and Ben Solo have to team up to really pop the galaxy's worst zit and it costs at least one of them their lives AND NOW we have kind of a clean slate going forward where the Force can be involved in a new story--not the old Jedi Order, not the old Sith, something new. I mean, imagine if half the McGuffinish shit in this film took place in the equivalent of Mordor--our plucky band, including a maybe-converted Ben Solo, making their way torturously across Sithworld to the HQ of the Ultimate Sith, because he's finally decided that nobody gets the Death Fleet and that he's just going to end the galaxy because he's sick of training morons like Palpatine and Snoke.

But you know what? Leaving Snoke as a mystery who gets axed in a single scene is better too than making him a test-tube creation of a Palpatine who has been alive all this time by unspecified means, etc. The people who need everything explained should be WAY more pitchfork-and-torches about Palpatine's survival, but most of them aren't that pissed, because at least the fat Asian chick was relegated to being a minor character and so it's all cool.

I get wanting more story, but anybody who reads Lord of the Rings and says, "hold it on this scene at the Black Gate, I really hate all three books now and the movies because I am not getting enough detail on the backstory of the Mouth of Sauron" needs to just to be hit over the head and sent to a fanfic gulag and only be allowed out to read and watch things with the rest of the adults after they have composed a full backstory for the Mouth of Sauron using nothing but fragments of granite and their own feces to scratch it into the wall of a cell after which they have to watch while the whole story is burnt off with sulfuric acid and the cell is flooded with swampwater.
IainC
Developers
Posts: 6538

Wargaming.net


WWW
Reply #533 on: January 10, 2020, 09:35:08 PM

I get wanting more story, but anybody who reads Lord of the Rings and says, "hold it on this scene at the Black Gate, I really hate all three books now and the movies because I am not getting enough detail on the backstory of the Mouth of Sauron" needs to just to be hit over the head and sent to a fanfic gulag and only be allowed out to read and watch things with the rest of the adults after they have composed a full backstory for the Mouth of Sauron using nothing but fragments of granite and their own feces to scratch it into the wall of a cell after which they have to watch while the whole story is burnt off with sulfuric acid and the cell is flooded with swampwater.


This is the dumbest paraphrase of why people were all wtf about Snoke. You aren't this dumb and I have no idea why you are pretending to be.

In the OT, we don't need to know where Palpatine came from. It's part of the initial setup that we are given. There's an evil Empire, thus an evil Emperor. At the end of the OT, we see Vader and Palpatine die, and the story strongly suggests that there are no more significant Force users any more except for Luke. So, when in TFA, we get this new super Force user who has somehow inherited the remnants of the former Empire, it's a jarring discontinuity with no context. I don't need to see 20 minutes of Snoke growing up, but some references to why he's the guy in charge and where he came from would help a lot. If they'd gone with a regular military commander instead, nobody would care why he was in charge, it would be unexceptional. If it was me writing the First Order leadership, I'd have had a regular Staff Officer running the show. Maybe he's some Grand Moff who carved out a chunk of territory during the fall of the Empire and has been soaking up whatever remnants of the former Imperial military ever since. The first time that any subordinate refers to him as Grand Moff or whatever, we have all the context we need for his leadership. No backstory scenes are required. Then there's Kylo Ren. As the grandson of Vader, he has a strong symbolic value to the First Order even outside of his abilities as a Force user. He's a link between the new regime and an incredibly powerful icon of the Empire. So yeah, give him a leadership role in the First Order outside of the normal hierarchy - like Vader. Then have Snoke be someone from outside the First Order, he's a shadowy figure who corrupted Ren but we don't need to know how or when. The Sith/apprentice dynamic is already well established, there's no need to go too far into that. If we see Ren communing with Snoke in private and keeping it a secret from the First Order, we understand what is going on. Again no explanation needed. In TLJ, when Luke is dropping some backstory to Rey, just have him say something like 'I thought I was training him but I discovered that he had a different Master' and again, we don't need any more context. Instead though, we get something that ought to be explained but isn't. It's like reading a history of the US and all of a sudden there's a reference to the Chief Pope of America and you're like 'wait, what?'

Once again (because I've said this exact same thing before in this thread). When the original trilogy came out, none of those things mattered. Lucas was painting a backdrop for his story and it was ok to just present things as 'this is how they are'. We didn't need a Palpatine origin story, or to know the history of the Millenium Falcon, or civil rights for droids on Tatooine. Here's an evil empire and they have an emperor, here's a rebellion with cooler ships than the bad guys. Here are stormtroopers, the armoured fist of the Empire. All of that is ok to just present without comment when you are building something new. TFA and TLJ aren't building something new, they are adding to and repainting parts of the original backdrop (to return to my original metaphor). When the new parts and the old parts don't match up or if new parts paint over old parts, then a good story teller tells you why - either through contextual clues or straight exposition.

None of that happened. JJA set up a bunch of stuff to be resolved (for good or bad), he made changes to the canvas with a nod and a wink to the audience that there would be a reveal later, and then Johnson decided that he wasn't interested in providing those reveals (or even kicking them on to the next instalment). That's why the contextual stuff matters. Not because anyone wants a pre-sequel trilogy about Snoke's backstory or a 20 minute flashback scene about the Knights of Ren, but because Johnson decided that the audience had the same disdain for the backstory as he did.

- And in stranger Iains, even Death may die -

SerialForeigner Photography.
HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #534 on: January 10, 2020, 09:36:33 PM

I got the impression the reveal of the Death Star Destroyers (you know, the scene at the beginning where they all just erupt out of the ground) was meant to be some sort of insanely stupid homage to like Army of Darkness or something where Palpatine was a necromancer and the DSD's were all zombies coming up out of their graves. I was half expecting him to say the ships were unmanned, just being driven by the power of the Dark Side or some shit. Yes, it would have been stupid, but it would have made just as much sense as anything else in this shitty movie.

Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15157


Reply #535 on: January 11, 2020, 08:24:28 AM

Please to inform me why people who demanded more backstory about Snoke were not being precisely that anal. What was your precisely calibrated need for just enough backstory such that I am being unfair by caricaturing it as detail-freakery?

Because I was delighted that we got a character who was a prosing preening Badguy Man who gets cut down suddenly mid-movie, thereby opening up a completely new narrative space, rather than have to have everything about Badguy Man filled in so his Wikipedia entry could be complete.

Like, I'm cool with Werner Herzog's Imperial guy just being dead, without further information. I'm intrigued by the new baddie in Mandalorian, including him having the Darksaber, but if we never get the blow-by-blow backstory of his complete biography, that will be fine--I already know enough to get what's important about his motivations (key to the Imperial attack on Mandalore, knows who our particular Mandalorian is and the circumstances of his adopting the creed, highly competent, motivated to get his hands on Baby Yoda).

Snoke was from the first a one-note reprise of Palpatine, so there wasn't anything much else I needed to know about him. It was refreshing to not have some exposition of His Grand Plan That He Has Been Hatching Ever Since He Was A Minor Character In The Background of That Scene In Jabba's Palace or whatever. I'd only have been needing that if the entire sequel series was set up with an overall narrative vision about how the past relates to the present.
BobtheSomething
Terracotta Army
Posts: 452


Reply #536 on: January 11, 2020, 08:48:11 AM

Well some of us wanted backstory, not necessarily of Snoke, explaining how the Star Wars universe became such a pathetic shithole.  How did the NR become stuck on Hosnian Prime, and why was it so useless?  Why was Han a total loser?  Where did the FO come from and how was it a threat, but not viewed as a threat?  Why is the Galaxy about 2 AU in size now?  Why did everything go to shit?  What the hell are the stakes?  How does this garbage connect to the OT other than saying "lol, no happy ending afTer all"?  Why should we care about any of this?
Samwise
Moderator
Posts: 19212

sentient yeast infection


WWW
Reply #537 on: January 11, 2020, 09:15:37 AM

Please to inform me why people who demanded more backstory about Snoke were not being precisely that anal. What was your precisely calibrated need for just enough backstory such that I am being unfair by caricaturing it as detail-freakery?

"some"?

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Velorath
Contributor
Posts: 8980


Reply #538 on: January 11, 2020, 09:39:40 AM

Please to inform me why people who demanded more backstory about Snoke were not being precisely that anal. What was your precisely calibrated need for just enough backstory such that I am being unfair by caricaturing it as detail-freakery?

Maybe you should ask those people directly because as it is you keep referring to people who had issues with TLJ but are giving ROS a pass and nobody seems to know who you’re talking to.
HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #539 on: January 11, 2020, 09:57:52 AM

The need for Snoke's backstory, as I stated specifically, was more about the need to explain what in the actual fuck the First Order was other than a kind of pathetic Empire cosplay outfit full of conscripted Stormtroopers (as opposed to clones). Neither First Order nor Snoke had any sort of connection to the universe we already knew with even the flimsiest of rationale. They just were, which as Iain stated, was fine for the Empire in the first trilogy. Sequels have to BUILD on what came before and this one trilogy didn't even bother.

Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15157


Reply #540 on: January 11, 2020, 02:40:23 PM

I am seeing people here who seem to say: ROS was ok, kind of fun, not great, whose level of venom towards TLJ was considerably greater. Outside this board, I'm seeing that reaction magnified. Nobody thinks it is their favorite, but plenty of people are making excuses for it on a mild or modest level that they didn't make for TLJ. Which puzzles and annoys me.
Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9165


Reply #541 on: January 11, 2020, 02:46:21 PM

I thought both were ok, pretty fun but not great. Like almost every other SW movie.

I am the .00000001428%
BobtheSomething
Terracotta Army
Posts: 452


Reply #542 on: January 11, 2020, 04:05:15 PM

I am seeing people here who seem to say: ROS was ok, kind of fun, not great, whose level of venom towards TLJ was considerably greater. Outside this board, I'm seeing that reaction magnified. Nobody thinks it is their favorite, but plenty of people are making excuses for it on a mild or modest level that they didn't make for TLJ. Which puzzles and annoys me.


It’s the Into Darkness effect.  This happened with TFA, too.  Give people a year or two and they’ll only have contempt left for the film.
HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #543 on: January 11, 2020, 10:37:53 PM

Into Darkness fell apart for me in the theater about midway through and I haven't watched it since. TLJ didn't really start bugging me badly until after I was done and it really fell apart on repeat viewing.

Rise of Skywalker, though? It crumbled from the opening crawl with the "message from Palpatine" and it only occasionally rose to a level of competence with Kylo's redemption. It quickly gave up that precarious perch and fell into the chasm of fuckstupid though.

SurfD
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4035


Reply #544 on: January 11, 2020, 10:54:51 PM

Into Darkness fell apart for me in the theater about midway through and I haven't watched it since. TLJ didn't really start bugging me badly until after I was done and it really fell apart on repeat viewing.

Rise of Skywalker, though? It crumbled from the opening crawl with the "message from Palpatine" and it only occasionally rose to a level of competence with Kylo's redemption. It quickly gave up that precarious perch and fell into the chasm of fuckstupid though.

Actually, that's another mindbogglingly moronic thing you can point out:  Unless super technologically advanced galactic civilizations are completely incapable of properly recording time stamps, wouldn't Palpatine Broadcasting his message to the universe basically INSTANTLY pinpoint his location?  I mean, it should be utterly trivial to triangulate a point of origin for a signal like that when you have HUNDREDS or even THOUSANDS of planets worth of reception data to compare.  It should take all of about an hour worth of communication between a few friendly worlds to be able to triangulate the exact coordinates in space that message was sent from.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2020, 10:56:41 PM by SurfD »

Darwinism is the Gateway Science.
BobtheSomething
Terracotta Army
Posts: 452


Reply #545 on: January 11, 2020, 11:41:21 PM

No, no no.  The only way to get to Exogol is with the one Sith way finder.  Or carpool with General Pride, who shot Hux on a First Order ship and then somehow lead the Sith fleet on Exogol.  Or with the millions of crewpersons and billions of tons of starship parts that also made the journey at some point before Kylo found the way finder.

The movie is stupid from top to bottom.
Riggswolfe
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8024


Reply #546 on: January 12, 2020, 02:12:54 AM

I am seeing people here who seem to say: ROS was ok, kind of fun, not great, whose level of venom towards TLJ was considerably greater. Outside this board, I'm seeing that reaction magnified. Nobody thinks it is their favorite, but plenty of people are making excuses for it on a mild or modest level that they didn't make for TLJ. Which puzzles and annoys me.


They're very different movies with very different problems. TLJ had horrible writing for 2 out of the 3 protagonists, horrible fight choreography, and decided the mid-point of a trilogy was a good time to subvert what the movies tend to be about. It got so caught up in Rian's navel gazing about deconstructing Star Wars it utterly failed to move the trilogy forward other than "HAHAHA look! I killed the so-called big threat to put the character who is clearly intended to be on a redemption arc and has shown zero ability to lead in charge." I get that Kylo more or less repeating Anakin's arc is a bit silly but what TLJ tried to do with his character was even sillier because it didn't fit his prior characterization at all. Not in TFA and not even in the first 3/4ths of TLJ. It was done purely for a "gotcha" moment. "You thought he was close to redemption didn't you? HAH. He's really now the big evil they have to face!!!"

RoS suffered mainly from trying to cram two movies into one combined with JJs poor grasp of distance and time and utter disregard for the established "rules" of the universe when it comes to things like hyperdrive. However, the 2nd half of the movie is quite fun and if it hadn't had to waste so much damned time doing leg work that TLJ should have done it'd be a better movie.

"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
Malakili
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10596


Reply #547 on: January 12, 2020, 04:47:13 AM

I am seeing people here who seem to say: ROS was ok, kind of fun, not great, whose level of venom towards TLJ was considerably greater. Outside this board, I'm seeing that reaction magnified. Nobody thinks it is their favorite, but plenty of people are making excuses for it on a mild or modest level that they didn't make for TLJ. Which puzzles and annoys me.


People who didn't like TLJ felt like it was a blow to the whole series because one of its main themes had to do with struggling with/against the past - and "the past" in that case meant a lot of characters and movies people really liked.

People who didn't like TROS think it was just kind of a bad movie.

That's why the intensity of hatred towards TLJ is higher.

I think TLJ is by far the strongest movie in this trilogy. TFA is fun but forgettable and TROS was just a mess. But I also don't have much emotional attachment to Star Wars at this point in my life, a lot of the things that bothered people (like Luke) didn't really phase me.
Hoax
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8110

l33t kiddie


Reply #548 on: January 12, 2020, 05:09:51 AM

I know plenty about Herzog. I know his main motivation (find the child), I know some of his view on the world, how it got this way, etc. I don't need much else because he isn't presented as the dark mysterious extra powerful and evil big bad who is presiding over a sinister threat to the galaxy I've never heard of and know nothing about.

Fucking don't you dare compare Snoke to Herzog. Herzog fit into the setting, story and events, small scale and limited as they were perfectly. This is so typical of all your "points" in this thread. They are intellectually dishonest. You know damn well its fine for Herzog to just be an old imperial officer, doing what he can, toiling for a goal, it fits and its fine. Nothing more needed and too much more would be a complete waste of time.

A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation.
-William Gibson
Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043


Reply #549 on: January 12, 2020, 07:47:44 AM

TLJ wasn't strong at all. It's was horribly written.

TFA, while bland and safe, was still a competent movie. TLJ was just horse shit on many levels.

Here's just a list of terrible shit in that movie:

Hyperdrive into a ship to blow it up.
The whole movie being a chase scene where you have smaller ships coming and going.
The whole Casino shit.
Why is Rose a character? That whole love arc was dumb.
The whole Holdo/Poe mutiny shit? Fucking stupid.
Flying Leia

There's probably more but I've forgotten most of it thankfully.
BobtheSomething
Terracotta Army
Posts: 452


Reply #550 on: January 12, 2020, 07:50:53 AM

We are not told that Herzog was responsible for a main character's offscreen fall from grace that destroyed everything the previous six films achieved in their arcs.

Not that I cared much about Snoke.  I detested the character in TFA for the mystery box that it was, and was glad to see Kylo kill him.  Anyone who thought we were getting a worthwhile story out of him wasn't familiar with JJ Abrams or the whole mystery box problem.  They might as well have added "and he has a plan" to the opening credits...
HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #551 on: January 12, 2020, 10:24:15 AM

Herzog in the Mandalorian was an Imperial officer. We can infer a whole fuckload about what kind of dude he is just by being told he's ex-Empire. Snoke, OTOH, is Supreme Leader of the First Order - but what even is the First Order? How does it differ from the Empire? They both use Stormtroopers and their tailors are clearly ex-Nazis, but their Stormtroopers are conscripted children instead of clones. How does that even work? The Stormtroopers we see in the series are at least 20 years old so that means the FO would have had to exist without Stormtroopers for a good 10-20 years while all those conscripted children get growed up gud.

What we know about the First Order could fill a thimble even after 3 movies, and much of it is inconsistent and illogical. At least with Herzog, we had 3 movies worth of knowing what The Empire was all about.

Samwise
Moderator
Posts: 19212

sentient yeast infection


WWW
Reply #552 on: January 12, 2020, 11:14:39 AM

What we know about the First Order could fill a thimble even after 3 movies, and much of it is inconsistent and illogical. At least with Herzog, we had 3 movies worth of knowing what The Empire was all about.

When you put it like that, it sounds kind of like the difference between the Mandalorian and the sequel trilogy is that the writers for the Mandalorian were familiar with the existing source material and knew how to tell a story that doesn't suck.

Which I guess might be important if you're a nitpicking hater.

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Malakili
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10596


Reply #553 on: January 12, 2020, 12:40:26 PM

TLJ wasn't strong at all. It's was horribly written.

TFA, while bland and safe, was still a competent movie. TLJ was just horse shit on many levels.

Here's just a list of terrible shit in that movie:

Hyperdrive into a ship to blow it up.
The whole movie being a chase scene where you have smaller ships coming and going.
The whole Casino shit.
Why is Rose a character? That whole love arc was dumb.
The whole Holdo/Poe mutiny shit? Fucking stupid.
Flying Leia

There's probably more but I've forgotten most of it thankfully.

You didn't like what happened in the movie. That's different than it being terribly written.

That's fine. You don't have to like what happened. But it was much stronger thematically than TFA or TROS both of which had very little going on and that's what made it interesting to me despite its narrative problems.  If you just said "Hey we're gonna put one of the new star wars movies on, which should it be?" TFA is probably the most "fun" to watch. That doesn't mean it's the best or my favorite.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2020, 12:44:41 PM by Malakili »
jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888


Reply #554 on: January 12, 2020, 03:56:43 PM

I always wondered if people on F13 would generatr pages and pages of comments if you asked them to compare two pieces of crap.

I guess I have my answer.

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043


Reply #555 on: January 12, 2020, 05:42:42 PM

I always wondered if people on F13 would generatr pages and pages of comments if you asked them to compare two pieces of crap.

I guess I have my answer.

Did you not ever read the MMORPG forum ... Ever ... For over a decade ?
HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42628

the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring


WWW
Reply #556 on: January 12, 2020, 07:23:05 PM

I will agree that TLJ was stronger thematically than both TFA and TROS, mostly because it had a theme and wasn't just a series of Star Wars Mad Libs projected onto a screen. That still doesn't make it good writing, or even good writing for a Star Wars movie.

Riggswolfe
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8024


Reply #557 on: January 12, 2020, 07:28:50 PM


You didn't like what happened in the movie. That's different than it being terribly written.

That's fine. You don't have to like what happened. But it was much stronger thematically than TFA or TROS both of which had very little going on and that's what made it interesting to me despite its narrative problems.  If you just said "Hey we're gonna put one of the new star wars movies on, which should it be?" TFA is probably the most "fun" to watch. That doesn't mean it's the best or my favorite.


Except it is terribly written.

The slow motion space chase is just asinine. It assumes a level of incompetence on both sides that is just insulting to my intelligence. Fleet is being tracked? Split up. Keep jumping. Hell, do a variation of Holdo's eventual plan. Load up shuttle, do a few jumps, drop them off, then keep jumping to lead the First Order away. On the other hand, if you're the First Order, just jump some ships ahead of their slow asses and box them in. Force them to risk a jump or get surrounded and destroyed. But flying in slow motion until they run out of gas? That wasn't just dumb it was boring.

The Poe/Holdo scenes had a coherent idea and theme behind them but were handled in the worst possible way. I get that the idea was to show Poe was a hot head who needed to learn to slow down and listen and put people first before being the big damn hero. That is a great idea for a character arc for him. But it was handled in the most ham fisted dumb way possible.

Rey and Rose's entire side journey also had a coherent idea and theme but were, again, handled in the worst possible way. I get that the idea was to have Finn learn to care about the Resistance as a whole and to find something to fight for instead of something to run from but much like Poe, it was handled in the most ham fisted way possible.

Luke, Kylo and Rey were handled pretty well right up until the laughably bad Throne room scene and the debacle there. Then it gets good again when Force hallucination Luke shows up. I could've done without the silly "Luke ducks under a lightsaber in slow motion" stuff in that fight between him and Kylo but the idea was interesting at least.

Finally, I'm not sure where the "people didn't like it because it was about erasing the past" thing comes from. That's not a theme of the movie at all. It is explicitly what Kylo's journey seems to be about but the movie's theme is really about learning from mistakes.

Unfortunately, the script itself is a mistake so it all gets lost under bad writing.


"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888


Reply #558 on: January 12, 2020, 07:31:36 PM

I always wondered if people on F13 would generatr pages and pages of comments if you asked them to compare two pieces of crap.

I guess I have my answer.

Did you not ever read the MMORPG forum ... Ever ... For over a decade ?
If I'd ever allowed myself to start playing even one MMORPG, even a bad one, I'd have never left the keyboard.  I stick to finite addictions.

2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043


Reply #559 on: January 13, 2020, 05:00:21 AM


You didn't like what happened in the movie. That's different than it being terribly written.

That's fine. You don't have to like what happened. But it was much stronger thematically than TFA or TROS both of which had very little going on and that's what made it interesting to me despite its narrative problems.  If you just said "Hey we're gonna put one of the new star wars movies on, which should it be?" TFA is probably the most "fun" to watch. That doesn't mean it's the best or my favorite.


Except it is terribly written.

The slow motion space chase is just asinine. It assumes a level of incompetence on both sides that is just insulting to my intelligence. Fleet is being tracked? Split up. Keep jumping. Hell, do a variation of Holdo's eventual plan. Load up shuttle, do a few jumps, drop them off, then keep jumping to lead the First Order away. On the other hand, if you're the First Order, just jump some ships ahead of their slow asses and box them in. Force them to risk a jump or get surrounded and destroyed. But flying in slow motion until they run out of gas? That wasn't just dumb it was boring.

The Poe/Holdo scenes had a coherent idea and theme behind them but were handled in the worst possible way. I get that the idea was to show Poe was a hot head who needed to learn to slow down and listen and put people first before being the big damn hero. That is a great idea for a character arc for him. But it was handled in the most ham fisted dumb way possible.

Rey and Rose's entire side journey also had a coherent idea and theme but were, again, handled in the worst possible way. I get that the idea was to have Finn learn to care about the Resistance as a whole and to find something to fight for instead of something to run from but much like Poe, it was handled in the most ham fisted way possible.

Luke, Kylo and Rey were handled pretty well right up until the laughably bad Throne room scene and the debacle there. Then it gets good again when Force hallucination Luke shows up. I could've done without the silly "Luke ducks under a lightsaber in slow motion" stuff in that fight between him and Kylo but the idea was interesting at least.

Finally, I'm not sure where the "people didn't like it because it was about erasing the past" thing comes from. That's not a theme of the movie at all. It is explicitly what Kylo's journey seems to be about but the movie's theme is really about learning from mistakes.

Unfortunately, the script itself is a mistake so it all gets lost under bad writing.



The Luke/Kylo/Rey thing was handled poorly. That was the only interesting thing out of the three movies and all the interesting bits were handled in 30 second flashbacks or off screen.

Luke's whole journey into depression and Ben turning into Kylo should have been the first act of the trilogy. You didn't need the new deathstar or snoke.

Bah. I get so angry over the incompetence.
Pages: 1 ... 14 15 [16] 17 18 ... 27 Go Up Print 
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  General Discussion  |  Movies  |  Topic: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker  
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.10 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC