CalvinBall wrote:find the praise for JJ abrams for this odd. or at least the he had to save the triology! his first shot at it was also bad. it was so fan servicey and i did not enjoy it.

I watched it again yesterday. It’s fine and a much better rewatch than TLJ

Those reviews are pretty startling.

The good news is we still have Baby Yoda

CalvinBall wrote:find the praise for JJ abrams for this odd. or at least the he had to save the triology! his first shot at it was also bad. it was so fan servicey and i did not enjoy it.

Personally, I loved TFA and thought TLJ was one of the worst movies ever made. If they try to service the fans to rebound for the debacle Rian Johnson created, I will probably enjoy it.

true that ju!

i do think mandolorian is 1a or 1b in this new wave of SW content. rouge one is my other favorite.

CalvinBall wrote:find the praise for JJ abrams for this odd. or at least the he had to save the triology! his first shot at it was also bad. it was so fan servicey and i did not enjoy it.

This is the generally right take though I thought it was 'enjoyable' if nothing else because I could turn my brain off and be like ooooo star wars is back. TLJ made 1.3 billion dollars. Rogue One made a billion. Solo was formulaic and bad and made 400 million. The franchise did not need 'saving'. Yes I know TFA made 2 billion but obviously the first Star Wars in 15 years is going to smash records.

This will make 9 billion dollars because it's the last of the Skywalker saga. Rian Johnson or JJ Abrams or Martin Scorsese or a 20 year old film student could make it and it will still make a bajillion dollars.

me, bathing in the fire of star wars takes

Did Lucas have this whole Skywalker saga in mind when he did the OG film?

I haven’t seen Solo yet but if JU hates it.....

I don't know what to make of the reviews. I mean I don't think the reviewers have much objectivity when it comes reviewing a movie like this. Its not graded against a standard movie baseline. Or even a standard sci-fi action movie baseline. Its grade against expectations, pre-release hype and the epic nature of the series.

If I had to rank my enjoyment of Star Wars films, it would probably go:

1. A New Hope
2. Empire
3. Return of the Jedi
4. Rogue One the first time I saw it when I slept through about 20 minutes in the middle
5. Solo (the first half since that’s all I saw)
6. Revenge of the Sith
7. Attack of the Clones
8. Rogue One once I saw all of it
9. Phantom Menace
10. Last Jedi
11. The Force Awakens

First three are interchangeable depending on what I’m in the mood for

ek wrote:omg episode 7 of mandalorian

Nice to see the other side of his skull grew back

PTOITWCFTPP wrote:I haven’t seen Solo yet but if JU hates it.....

It is the epitome of unnecessary.

JUburton wrote:

PTOITWCFTPP wrote:I haven’t seen Solo yet but if JU hates it.....

It is the epitome of unnecessary.

Yeah I can’t bring myself to watch it.

I feel like I am in a bit of a donut hole with respect to the sequel trilogy. The people online who hate it tend to particularly hate The Last Jedi, and all of their reasons for doing so seem awful - lots of whining about political agendas and “forced” (pun intended, I guess) diversity and the like. I found The Last Jedi to be a flawed film, but one that was vastly superior to its predecessor, because at least it had something to say, a point of view that was more than just ‘member berries and “we want to make a billion dollars.” Unfortunately, what it had to say was in total reaction to the hollow nostalgia of the previous film, and without that thing to react to, there wasn’t much reason for it to exist.

This is to say I am the inverse of most of the haters: relatively speaking, they liked TFA versus TLJ, which they hated. I am the reverse.

The new movie’s reviews are out now, and it seems as though it is as I feared (though I will reserve judgment until I see it): JJ Abrams is back and so are those ‘member berries.

He is just the worst.

Solo was good. A dumb action movie set in a universe. Quit being dweebs

jamiethekiller wrote:Solo was good. A dumb action movie set in a universe. Quit being dweebs

Watching some dude pretend to be Han Solo in his utterly unnecessary early adventures strikes me as ridiculous an exercise as watching some dude pretending to be Rick Blaine in his early adventures before Casablanca. Han Solo is Harrison Ford and Harrison Ford is Han Solo just as surely as Humphrey Bogart is Rick Blaine and Rick Blaine is Humphrey Bogart.

The actors and the parts came together. Don’t fuck with it to make a popcorn action flick that could be about anyone doing anything and stick the name Han Solo and Star Wars on it because you think that’s the difference between a $200M dollar movie and a billion dollar movie - which is what they did.

I think there is way too much overthinking wrt the Star Wars movies. Every blockbuster is a cash grab. I tend to enjoy all of them bc they are fun movies

I've said this before but Han Solos character arc in Solo made no sense because when we meet him in the real Star Wars movies he is a selfish dude who has little interest in helping the rebellion. Yet in Solo he completes the same character arc that he will basically redo in the original trilogy.

The Dude wrote:I think there is way too much overthinking wrt the Star Wars movies. Every blockbuster is a cash grab. I tend to enjoy all of them bc they are fun movies

Obviously, I disagree. The pejorative “cash grab” to me refers to a “creative work” that is:

1. “Creative” in only the strictest of definitions of that term;
2. And is an extension of an existing story or property that feels unnecessary, forced, or tacked on, or simply repeats an existing property without the addition of any genuinely new thoughts or ideas, or some combination of both, whose naked and primary goal is to cash in on the popularity of the original material from which it derives in order to turn more profit

The original Star Wars is not a “cash grab” because it was original, not based on an existing set of characters or an existing plot whose popularity was established and secured - no one knew if it would make money or not.

George Lucas set that film up in such a way that the story would continue if people liked it and the demand was there, and that is natural enough. He also, uniquely in film to that point so far as I know, set it up so that the “more to the story” both preceded and continued on after the timeline of the original work.

Because he had, to some extent (although clearly not in as much detail as some of us would have hoped), planned it out from the beginning to run a certain way, the subsequent films he made all felt like organic storytelling: filling in and completing the story he began with Episode IV. By the time he was done, he had told a complete story. He said so himself when Episode III came out; by slotting in that film, you now had a complete and finished story arc. And if you watch them, 1-6, warts and all, in order, there is no doubt it tells a single, unified, coherent story. Again, not as unified and coherent as we might like, but still it is clear that the attempt is there. George Lucas, the man himself, said this:

I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII - IX. That's because there isn't any story. I mean, I never thought of anything! And now there are novels about the events after Episode IV, which isn't at all what I would have done with it.

The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, The Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married...

And this:

“The story about Anakin Skywalker and his fall into the dark side and redemption by his son, that’s finished. It was started when he was 10, it ends when he died. There’s no more story to tell.

The mere existence of 7, 8, and 9 are in direct contradiction of those statements, and were done purely because Disney dropped $4B to acquire the property, and they couldn’t possibly justify that by just putting out some 4K ultra high def DVDs of the films and being done with it. Lucas himself was famously highly critical of the 7th episode, and rightly so.

They were and are... a cash grab!

And if you don’t believe me, I refer you to our fearless founder, in this thread:

[quote=“VoxOrion”]There's no story to tell after Return of the Jedi. I mean, I know you can do whatever you want for a buck, but Star Wars (all six) is about Darth Vader, his ascension to power, his reign, his defeat by his son, and his final redemption. Dude's dead, no more story.[/quote]

I know, I know... appeal to authority fallacy.

It was a good idea to make the OT and they ended up making good movies.

A prequel trilogy was a not great idea and they made bad movies.

A sequel trilogy was a good idea and they made bad movies so far.

Rogue One was an unnecessary idea and they made an unnecessary movie.

Making Solo was a bad idea, but the half I saw was good.

Star Wars, cinematically, is shooting 3/9 outside of Solo. I don’t get acting like Star Wars is sacred ground. They made a dumb move by moving forward with that movie, but it turned out good. Seems like a win to me.

Gimpy wrote:It was a good idea to make the OT and they ended up making good movies.

A prequel trilogy was a not great idea and they made bad movies.

A sequel trilogy was a good idea and they made bad movies so far.

Rogue One was an unnecessary idea and they made an unnecessary movie.

Making Solo was a bad idea, but the half I saw was good.

Star Wars, cinematically, is shooting 3/9 outside of Solo. I don’t get acting like Star Wars is sacred ground. They made a dumb move by moving forward with that movie, but it turned out good. Seems like a win to me.

So, every film outside the original trilogy has sucked?

That’s quite a hot take.