9:50. Hope Snape finally gets his!

This casual fan was entertained and now I’m getting Chick-Fil-A

I find it fascinating regarding how varied the opinions are with the Disney made films. Maybe it because they are relatively new but attitudes towards them are all over the place. With the prequels, for example, most people agree that I and II are bad, III is okay and no one really argues that much - even those who might hold a different opinion don't seem to dispute the consensus as valid. But the new films... is it the rise of social media and polarization of folks? Everyone seems to hold unwavering definitive positions and will eagerly argue them and be confrontational. Its kinda fascinating.

And don't worry, my commentary on them is coming up next.

It’s fine. Nothing remarkable.

I think the problem I had with this trilogy was I didn’t give a shit about the main characters. They literally have 4 scenes with the three of them together in 3 movies. Hell, main character 3 doesn’t meet main character 1 until the final scene of the second movie. There’s obviously no chemistry with them.

Three movies of Finn yelling Rey’s name was a waste of John Boyega.

I also, in 3 movies and through no fault of Adam Driver, never bought that Kylo Ren wanted to be a bad guy. Am I alone in that? Like Vader was a bad ass as soon as we are introduced to him then turns later. Kylo was always an emo kid with a light saber to me.

TFA was the most fun I had in the theaters and my favorite of this new trilogy.

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

I actually tend to agree with this. It was a fun movie, but that being said...

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.

Exactly. Fundamentally the problem with Solo is that it was about Han Solo. It was a prequel no one wanted and didn't need. To whatever extent it "added" to the character, it made him worse especially as you mention that it undermines his entire development in ANH by showing him as a "good guy" before then. Stupid.

If Solo was the exact same film but about some random smuggler in the Star Wars universe, it would have been a better film and received better as well. Which seems counter intuitive since they use known quantities in order to draw people in, but in this case I think it backfired. The weakest parts of the film were the fanservice backstory stuff that added nothing to the character.

NO SPOILERS

Bro it’s very mild but sure

Gimpy wrote: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.

Rogue One is my least favorite of the Disney made films. Yes, I'm serious. I still don't get the fascination with it.

Wolfgang622 wrote: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."

My main reason is mostly the above - the characters in it were boring and forgettable. You have this big dramatic sacrifice for them at the end and... I felt nothing because we are never given much of a reason to care about them. The only emotional stakes are from caring about the Death Star and seeing Vader have a cool fight because those are already meaningful to us. Meh.

(To be fair, I'm not saying them are irredeemable - I'm actually interested in seeing the Cassian series to see how they expand his character. They were more underdeveloped than bad.)

And I totally agree with having the Death Star flaw be intentional undermines the Rebels in ANH. We really need to move away from having any plot hole explained (not just Star Wars, just nerd culture stuff in general) - it's okay to have things be mysteries. It was cool having the rebels discover a tiny overlooked flaw versus this being deliberate.

I also am one of those who felt that RO was tonally just off for a Star Wars movie. Gritty for gritty's sake which I get is what they were going for but isn't my thing. Just like Rose's talk about arms dealers in TLJ. Star Wars is silly escapist fantasy about space monks with laser swords - sure, if it were "real" the fighting would be horrible for the common folks, but you don't need to drag it down with that kind of commentary.

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.

Yep. That's why I for one was thrilled when Rey's parents were revealed to be nobodies instead of a Skywalker or Kenobi or whatever (no idea what happens in Ep IX - going Saturday). The universe and all the main players are constantly making it too small. The Preqeuels were particular bad about this - Anakin is from Tattooine, he build 3-CP0, Yoda knew Chewbacca, Boba Fett (essentially) is the basis for all the clones, etc. I mean, it is supposed to be a massive universe.

They've actually done a better job with the cartoons and now with The Mandalorian in expanding the universe (admittedly easier with a series compared to a film) even with the timeframe being near the movies. I too would like additional films to be completely separate timeframes or locations. Expand, don't shrink.

It's disappointing that the two anthology films they made directly tie into the original films. I mean, really? That's the best you can do?

SideshowBob wrote:

Gimpy wrote: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.

Rogue One is my least favorite of the Disney made films. Yes, I'm serious. I still don't get the fascination with it.

Wolfgang622 wrote: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."

My main reason is mostly the above - the characters in it were boring and forgettable. You have this big dramatic sacrifice for them at the end and... I felt nothing because we are never given much of a reason to care about them. The only emotional stakes are from caring about the Death Star and seeing Vader have a cool fight because those are already meaningful to us. Meh.

(To be fair, I'm not saying them are irredeemable - I'm actually interested in seeing the Cassian series to see how they expand his character. They were more underdeveloped than bad.)

And I totally agree with having the Death Star flaw be intentional undermines the Rebels in ANH. We really need to move away from having any plot hole explained 9not just Star Wars,just nerd culture stuff in general) - it's okay to have things be mysteries.

I also am one of those who felt that RO was tonally just off for a Star Wars movie. Gritty for gritty's sake which I get is what they were going for but isn't my thing. Just like Rose's talk about arms dealers in TLJ. Star Wars is silly escapist fantasy about space monks with laser swords - sure, if it were "real" the fighting would be horrible for the common folks, but you don't need to drag it down with that kind of commentary.

I’m going to caveat my upcoming comments with the statement that I have liked Star Wars movies since I was a kid, I haven’t ever been a hard core fan of the franchise, I didn’t even see Revenge of Sith until 2011. Rouge One was one of my favorites. Going into it, you knew that they were all going to die based on the events in ANH so I was fine with the way they developed the characters. I felt like they did the best job of the post OT of making it look and feel like the OT, the grittiness felt pretty organic to me based on the time in the universe they were looking to portray. The Death Star flaw felt fine to me, if this rebel band was trying to extract some critical flaw, why not have it be placed by sympathizers. It gives more weight to the rebellion imo.

Bucky wrote:so i'm going tonight!

first start trek i've seen since "Miri"

ya know y'all might have written this off as a /bucky but i actually didn't realize i was seeing star WARS tonight until i saw chewy

i dum sumtimes

Bill McNeal wrote:The Death Star flaw felt fine to me, if this rebel band was trying to extract some critical flaw, why not have it be placed by sympathizers. It gives more weight to the rebellion imo.

This.

PTOITWCFTPP wrote:I think the problem I had with this trilogy was I didn’t give a shit about the main characters. They literally have 4 scenes with the three of them together in 3 movies. Hell, main character 3 doesn’t meet main character 1 until the final scene of the second movie. There’s obviously no chemistry with them.

Three movies of Finn yelling Rey’s name was a waste of John Boyega.

I think this is definitely right, in part. I can’t say Daisy Ridley isn’t good, I think she is, and Rey I am reasonably invested in as a character.

But the other two? Finn is kinda ok, but not really that interesting, and Po Dameron has a stupid name and is a waste of space, don’t give a shit about him.

If you’re going to sneak a fatal flaw into the Death Star, why have it be sending a one-man fighter into a heavily-guarded part of the ship that requires the perfect shot from super close range?

And also, why did they have to steal the blueprints to find it? If he’s a sympathizer, couldn’t he have hidden a copy of the blueprints elsewhere? Or like hidden a map to the exact spot instead of blueprints for the whole station that the rebels would need to steal and then analyze to determine that they could go on a suicide mission to get a shot at?

It just feels contrived and it’s characters that the audience really doesn’t care about making a massive change to a movie that the audience really does care about.

Saw it tonight and enjoyed it. You can certainly pick it apart as there are a million different things going on, especially in the first hour, but I just thought this was back to being a true Star Wars movie.

I felt good leaving the theater after TFA. So much promise for this trilogy and I didn’t feel good leaving after the last two movies. The more I think about 8/9, the more frustrating it becomes. A good trilogy was there and they fucked it up pretty bad.

Really good Mandalorian penultimate episode. Next week is gonna be a banger

Just saw it again with my 9-year-old. It’s good. It’s really good. It’s good because he loved it, and that’s all that really matters. He was scared when he was supposed to be scared, he cheered when he was supposed to cheer, and we smiled together at the ending. He asked the right questions on the way home. What more could you ask for?

Also, when Zori turns her back to the camera and saunters across the screen >>>>>>>>>>