There’s a gap between not good and sucks. None of them are very good.

Rogue One is a fantastic film

PTOITWCFTPP wrote:Rogue One is a fantastic film

I like Rogue One!

Gimpy wrote: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.

I really don't get this. I can understand thinking a prequel trilogy was basically unnecessary, but there is no doubt there was a huge pent up demand for one by the time it came out. I will never, ever be as excited to be in a movie theater as I was for Episode I as it started to roll, and there are millions of people just like me who feel and felt exactly the same way. Beyond simply the demand, the story was set up in a way that left room for the prequel trilogy narratively speaking, and in fact as much as people dump on them, their existence changed the fundamental nature of the story arc in that it changed the main character. As someone else pointed out somewhere, Darth Vader has all of 11 minutes of screen time in the first film. Even in the OT as a whole, his function as a character is mostly as specter, the Oedipal complex come to life, a foil for Luke. The prequel trilogy shifted that completely, made Anakin Skywalker the focus of the narrative as a whole, and the story his tragedy, but final redemption. Since its existence has such a profound effect on the whole, it's hard, in my mind, to write it off as "unnecessary," and without that criticism, I am not sure how you could call it "not a great idea" either. I will go so far as to say the prequel trilogy WAS a great idea.

But IF you are in the camp who feels the prequel trilogy was ultimately unnecessary - again, a position which I can sympathize with and understand, even if I don't quite agree - I cannot fathom why you would ALSO think the sequel trilogy was in any way a good idea. The sequel trilogy is obviously and profoundly unnecessary, by any fair reading of the films. I can understand why someone might think it was a good idea to make a sequel trilogy anyway - although I pretty strongly disagree - but the "prequel trilogy was a bad idea" but somehow "the sequel trilogy was a good idea" seem to me like they should be mutually exclusive camps.

It is hard to fathom making parts 4, 5, and 6 of a story and not eventually making parts 1, 2, and 3.

JUburton wrote:

PTOITWCFTPP wrote:Rogue One is a fantastic film

I like Rogue One!

Now I do agree with Gimpy that Rogue One, and Solo both, were unnecessary.

Rogue One isn't exactly a bad movie, but it just feels like what it is - a story that did not really exist in the mind of the creator of the original story, and therefore needed no telling, doesn't really fit in, and when completed, is more or less forced to bow to that fact by wiping out all of the characters it introduces. It exists largely to give Darth Vader some bad ass screen time - fun but pure fan service. I can take it as that, but I also found it to be a strange and violent and cold departure from the general tone of the SW movies.

This may be because I had my first real "Dad" moment watching the movie. I was appalled that a putative "good guy" would kill an enemy who was on the ground and neutralized with a casual, afterthought "no look" shooting in imitation of the Joker from The Dark Knight, in the scene where that happened. I realize they were going for a more "adult" tone in this film, but I know it had to be re-edited after it was completed because even Disney was concerned about the amount and the matter-of-factness of the violence in the film. It has been compared to war movies, and it is that, but I dunno… the idea that you would kill someone in a way like you were looking for style points just really struck me as tone deaf to the franchise and kind of soured me on the movie as a whole.

Oh yes: and the thing I hated most about Rogue One was the central idea of the film, that this guy would have intentionally placed a fault in the Death Star for rebels to find. It seems to me that undoes the beauty of the concept of a New Hope and its conclusion: namely just what that guy who gives the briefing before the Death Star battle says, which is that the Empire is so large and conceited that it gives no thought to the power of a single individual to make any difference. The design flaw is not, clearly in the original SW, meant to be the intentional plant of a forced-labor employee of the Empire who is feeling pangs of conscience and is, left to his own devices, rather disposed to dislike the Empire anyway, but instead there because it is reflective of the Empire's general attitude towards itself and its opponents: we're big, we're enormous, we will crush you with our size, and an individual ship hardly matters.

Rogue One sought to undo that bit of thematic brilliance for... you guessed it... the Almighty Dollar!

Solo, I haven't seen, I hear it's pretty good really, and that's fine, I have just... had enough of fan service for the sake of fan service.

the title propery is called star WARS

CalvinBall wrote: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.

This is a fair take. I don't know. Maybe Danerys abandoning him at the end turned him back to selfish lone wolf. But they also weren't going to make a movie where the main character was still a selfish jackhole at the end of the movie.

CalvinBall wrote: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.

This is a fair take. I don't know. Maybe Danerys abandoning him at the end turned him back to selfish lone wolf. But they also weren't going to make a movie where the main character was still a selfish jackhole at the end of the movie.

CalvinBall wrote:the title propery is called star WARS

Yeah but it's a kid's franchise. Of course you could say the same thing about ROTS I guess. Anakin slaughtering a bunch of children was entirely unnecessary to make the point and is way, way, way over the top. Being like, "You were right about me" moments before your death thirty some odd years later or whatever doesn't exactly make up for mass child murder.

Didn't bother me that much at the time, but again, Dad now.

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

I agree with this.

I also agree with Cal's take on Han Solo's character arc in Solo and A New Hope.

I also really liked Rogue One. It may be my 2rd favorite between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.

Wolfgang622 wrote:

Gimpy wrote: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.

I really don't get this. I can understand thinking a prequel trilogy was basically unnecessary, but there is no doubt there was a huge pent up demand for one by the time it came out. I will never, ever be as excited to be in a movie theater as I was for Episode I as it started to roll, and there are millions of people just like me who feel and felt exactly the same way. Beyond simply the demand, the story was set up in a way that left room for the prequel trilogy narratively speaking, and in fact as much as people dump on them, their existence changed the fundamental nature of the story arc in that it changed the main character. As someone else pointed out somewhere, Darth Vader has all of 11 minutes of screen time in the first film. Even in the OT as a whole, his function as a character is mostly as specter, the Oedipal complex come to life, a foil for Luke. The prequel trilogy shifted that completely, made Anakin Skywalker the focus of the narrative as a whole, and the story his tragedy, but final redemption. Since its existence has such a profound effect on the whole, it's hard, in my mind, to write it off as "unnecessary," and without that criticism, I am not sure how you could call it "not a great idea" either. I will go so far as to say the prequel trilogy WAS a great idea.

But IF you are in the camp who feels the prequel trilogy was ultimately unnecessary - again, a position which I can sympathize with and understand, even if I don't quite agree - I cannot fathom why you would ALSO think the sequel trilogy was in any way a good idea. The sequel trilogy is obviously and profoundly unnecessary, by any fair reading of the films. I can understand why someone might think it was a good idea to make a sequel trilogy anyway - although I pretty strongly disagree - but the "prequel trilogy was a bad idea" but somehow "the sequel trilogy was a good idea" seem to me like they should be mutually exclusive camps.

I'm not really a fan of prequels in general. And yea, they fundamentally changed the original trilogy to make the villain who is ultimately redeemed the main character, but is that actually a good thing? I guess it's kind of neat, I dunno, the main point was that they weren't good movies.

As far as making a sequel trilogy being a good idea or bad idea; again, the point was really that I didn't think the movies were good.

I only said the prequels are a bad idea and the sequels were a good idea because I think once you've told a complete story that it's more interesting to see where the characters went than it is to see how they got there.

Wolfgang622 wrote:

JUburton wrote:

PTOITWCFTPP wrote:Rogue One is a fantastic film

I like Rogue One!

Now I do agree with Gimpy that Rogue One, and Solo both, were unnecessary.

[...]

Oh yes: and the thing I hated most about Rogue One was the central idea of the film, that this guy would have intentionally placed a fault in the Death Star for rebels to find. It seems to me that undoes the beauty of the concept of a New Hope and its conclusion: namely just what that guy who gives the briefing before the Death Star battle says, which is that the Empire is so large and conceited that it gives no thought to the power of a single individual to make any difference. The design flaw is not, clearly in the original SW, meant to be the intentional plant of a forced-labor employee of the Empire who is feeling pangs of conscience and is, left to his own devices, rather disposed to dislike the Empire anyway, but instead there because it is reflective of the Empire's general attitude towards itself and its opponents: we're big, we're enormous, we will crush you with our size, and an individual ship hardly matters.

Rogue One sought to undo that bit of thematic brilliance for... you guessed it... the Almighty Dollar!

Solo, I haven't seen, I hear it's pretty good really, and that's fine, I have just... had enough of fan service for the sake of fan service.

This is definitely my biggest complaint after digesting the movie. It weakens the first movie a lot.

My biggest complaint immediately after seeing the movie fully (and why I enjoyed it more when I slept through the middle) was that the characters (who were all super forgettable, by the way, does anyone remember anyone's name from the movie?) just kind of decided that they were super inspired by the main character and needed to disobey orders and follow her. It felt super unearned.

Gimpy wrote:

Wolfgang622 wrote:

JUburton wrote:

PTOITWCFTPP wrote:Rogue One is a fantastic film

I like Rogue One!

Now I do agree with Gimpy that Rogue One, and Solo both, were unnecessary.

[...]

Oh yes: and the thing I hated most about Rogue One was the central idea of the film, that this guy would have intentionally placed a fault in the Death Star for rebels to find. It seems to me that undoes the beauty of the concept of a New Hope and its conclusion: namely just what that guy who gives the briefing before the Death Star battle says, which is that the Empire is so large and conceited that it gives no thought to the power of a single individual to make any difference. The design flaw is not, clearly in the original SW, meant to be the intentional plant of a forced-labor employee of the Empire who is feeling pangs of conscience and is, left to his own devices, rather disposed to dislike the Empire anyway, but instead there because it is reflective of the Empire's general attitude towards itself and its opponents: we're big, we're enormous, we will crush you with our size, and an individual ship hardly matters.

Rogue One sought to undo that bit of thematic brilliance for... you guessed it... the Almighty Dollar!

Solo, I haven't seen, I hear it's pretty good really, and that's fine, I have just... had enough of fan service for the sake of fan service.

This is definitely my biggest complaint after digesting the movie. It weakens the first movie a lot.

My biggest complaint immediately after seeing the movie fully (and why I enjoyed it more when I slept through the middle) was that the characters (who were all super forgettable, by the way, does anyone remember anyone's name from the movie?) just kind of decided that they were super inspired by the main character and needed to disobey orders and follow her. It felt super unearned.

Agree about the new characters. The robot was the best one (an indictment in and of itself) and I can't even remember its "name."

All the Disney movies are well made on most-to-all technical levels; though I haven't seen it, I assume the same of Solo. For me, they just can't escape what they are: unnecessary attempts to continue milking a cash cow. It doesn't help that most of them aren't adding anything new at all in terms of ideas; I will take Calvin's take on Solo as read, that it is repetitive of the arc of that character from ANH, because that sounds about right and because Calvin is a sharp guy. And that take fits right in with what is true of most of the Disney Star Wars movies: it's evident that they understand that one way to get people excited is to give people what they want - more Darth Vader, practical sets, other appearances by old favorites, more exciting action and faster pace compared to the prequels, etc., but that is not only like dessert without the dinner, it goes even a step further and is like icing without the cake. It's just sugar, no substance at all.

The best of the Disney efforts is the one the most people seem to hate, precisely because it at least TRIED to do something different, albeit perhaps too aggressively so, and in a way that came across too much like a lecture rather than a movie. TLJ is flawed for these and other reasons*, but it at least understood that for the story to move forward, the endless recycling of the same stuff had to end.

Rogue One introduced one new idea - the Death Star had a purposefully made design flaw - and it was a bad idea that undermined one of the central themes of the original film, and was totally unnecessary.

TFA had no new ideas at all, and it sounds like TRoS follows suit, if the early notices are to be believed. One review essentially said this new one couldn't be more insulting to Rian Johnson if it tried; I am sure that's true, but to be fair, Rian Johnson essentially dick-slapped JJ Abrams with TLJ, and as much as I applaud him for doing so, turnabout is fair play after all.

* - For as much as people whine about Luke's character in TLJ not keeping with his character from the OT, I honestly found everything he did in TLJ to be within the range of plausibility for who I took Luke to be; on the other hand, the Yoda book burning scene, which was there to over-make a point that was essentially already made by that point in the film, and which committed the double sin of not only being over the top but also a cheap trick, because the idea of the existence of a trove of ancient Jedi texts was introduced solely so the Yoda book burning scene could take place, struck me as much further out of keeping with Yoda's character than anything Luke did was outside of his character - Yoda wouldn't burn ancient books just to make a point

Wolfgang622 wrote:

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 #$!&@ 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.

Surprised no one has done a Casablanca reboot yet. Too much of a classic for even modern Hollywood to touch?

I just don't get how you invent a sprawling universe with diverse species and planets and whatnot (every offhand comment from the movies spawned a lengthy Wookieepedia page) and then make eleven movies that are all about the same conflict. Mix it up a little. Set something a thousand years in the past. Or on the outer rim or something. Or a few hundred years in the future.

It makes your universe feel very small when everything is about this family and an ongoing war for control of the one government.

Wolfgang622 wrote:

Gimpy wrote:

Wolfgang622 wrote:

JUburton wrote:

PTOITWCFTPP wrote:Rogue One is a fantastic film

I like Rogue One!

Now I do agree with Gimpy that Rogue One, and Solo both, were unnecessary.

[...]

Oh yes: and the thing I hated most about Rogue One was the central idea of the film, that this guy would have intentionally placed a fault in the Death Star for rebels to find. It seems to me that undoes the beauty of the concept of a New Hope and its conclusion: namely just what that guy who gives the briefing before the Death Star battle says, which is that the Empire is so large and conceited that it gives no thought to the power of a single individual to make any difference. The design flaw is not, clearly in the original SW, meant to be the intentional plant of a forced-labor employee of the Empire who is feeling pangs of conscience and is, left to his own devices, rather disposed to dislike the Empire anyway, but instead there because it is reflective of the Empire's general attitude towards itself and its opponents: we're big, we're enormous, we will crush you with our size, and an individual ship hardly matters.

Rogue One sought to undo that bit of thematic brilliance for... you guessed it... the Almighty Dollar!

Solo, I haven't seen, I hear it's pretty good really, and that's fine, I have just... had enough of fan service for the sake of fan service.

This is definitely my biggest complaint after digesting the movie. It weakens the first movie a lot.

My biggest complaint immediately after seeing the movie fully (and why I enjoyed it more when I slept through the middle) was that the characters (who were all super forgettable, by the way, does anyone remember anyone's name from the movie?) just kind of decided that they were super inspired by the main character and needed to disobey orders and follow her. It felt super unearned.

Agree about the new characters. The robot was the best one (an indictment in and of itself) and I can't even remember its "name."

All the Disney movies are well made on most-to-all technical levels; though I haven't seen it, I assume the same of Solo. For me, they just can't escape what they are: unnecessary attempts to continue milking a cash cow. It doesn't help that most of them aren't adding anything new at all in terms of ideas; I will take Calvin's take on Solo as read, that it is repetitive of the arc of that character from ANH, because that sounds about right and because Calvin is a sharp guy. And that take fits right in with what is true of most of the Disney Star Wars movies: it's evident that they understand that one way to get people excited is to give people what they want - more Darth Vader, practical sets, other appearances by old favorites, more exciting action and faster pace compared to the prequels, etc., but that is not only like dessert without the dinner, it goes even a step further and is like icing without the cake. It's just sugar, no substance at all.

The best of the Disney efforts is the one the most people seem to hate, precisely because it at least TRIED to do something different, albeit perhaps too aggressively so, and in a way that came across too much like a lecture rather than a movie. TLJ is flawed for these and other reasons*, but it at least understood that for the story to move forward, the endless recycling of the same stuff had to end.

Rogue One introduced one new idea - the Death Star had a purposefully made design flaw - and it was a bad idea that undermined one of the central themes of the original film, and was totally unnecessary.

TFA had no new ideas at all, and it sounds like TRoS follows suit, if the early notices are to be believed. One review essentially said this new one couldn't be more insulting to Rian Johnson if it tried; I am sure that's true, but to be fair, Rian Johnson essentially dick-slapped JJ Abrams with TLJ, and as much as I applaud him for doing so, turnabout is fair play after all.

* - For as much as people whine about Luke's character in TLJ not keeping with his character from the OT, I honestly found everything he did in TLJ to be within the range of plausibility for who I took Luke to be; on the other hand, the Yoda book burning scene, which was there to over-make a point that was essentially already made by that point in the film, and which committed the double sin of not only being over the top but also a cheap trick, because the idea of the existence of a trove of ancient Jedi texts was introduced solely so the Yoda book burning scene could take place, struck me as much further out of keeping with Yoda's character than anything Luke did was outside of his character - Yoda wouldn't burn ancient books just to make a point

All those innocent contractors hired to do the job were killed! Casualties of a war they had nothing to do with. All right, look, you're a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia - this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.

Gimpy wrote:I just don't get how you invent a sprawling universe with diverse species and planets and whatnot (every offhand comment from the movies spawned a lengthy Wookieepedia page) and then make eleven movies that are all about the same conflict. Mix it up a little. Set something a thousand years in the past. Or on the outer rim or something. Or a few hundred years in the future.

It makes your universe feel very small when everything is about this family and an ongoing war for control of the one government.

It sounds like Dune will be right up your alley

so i'm going tonight!

first start trek i've seen since "Miri"

6pm showing for me. Hope I get Fan Service’d