Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

BrianDavion wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
tyhe subversion of expectations I think is why so many people bash TLJ myself. Look, star wars will never be a best picture film, ut's not that type of movie, what it is those is comfortable, it uses elements from many of the favorite stories of the past (the whole monomyth) to generate a new story that feels, old, familer, like a pair of comfortable shoes.
Star Wars is, to use a meal analogy, not that fancy novue dish custom crafted by an artisan master chief that combines flavors together in some new and strange cominbation to win awards (55 dollars a plate, portions are tiny!). Star Wars is your box of Mac and Cheese, it's that thing you ate growing up, you know it's not the best thing in the world, but it's comfortable, and sometimes you just want comfortable.

Nope I bash TLJ becuase it is such a awful film, not a bad "Star Wars" film its simply a terrible film - its dull, tedious, badly written, worse directed and with zero interest in characters or plot.

Says the guy who was over the moon for Thor 2, the movie equivalent of store-brand mac and cheese.

which gets back to my earlier comparison. Mac and Cheese movies aren't always a bad thing, they're comfortable, they're familer, they remind us of our childhood.

And BAD films are just BAD - pretending that it has "something to say" or "Oh wow man it subverts the narrative" is no excuse for terrible plot, writing, directing or characters - just because its "Arty" doe snot preclude it being popular - that is what the more pretensious and snobby critics believe but Feth them

Critics liked TLJ because it was distinctly different from earlier installments, had powerful emotional moments and well-set up climatic scenes, presented a new, more mystical take on Force and had defined character arc for main protagonist. This was in strong contrast with TFA, which was well done and evenly paced movie but very soulless, flat, took no risks, corporate committee work at its best and worst. Critics were not hardcore fans and did not care whether Holdo maneuver made any kind of sense in-universe, or whether Luke even briefly contemplating killing his student while he was asleep was in-character, or whether it was even remotely plausible that one X-Wing could clear out turrets from a dreadnought sized ships.

For me, movie is usually as good as its best scenes. If the movie has scenes I want to seek out from Youtube and watch again just to relive the moment, it counts as a success in my books, glass half full. TLJ had plenty of stuff done bad and the weird four-act pacing deflated the end of movie somewhat. But it still had good scenes which I would want to watch again. TFA doesn't. Prequels mostly don't. TRoS, iffy.

A defined character arc , Oh now thats hilarious, a new and more mystical take in the force - when and where?

Powerful emotional moments - Please just stop - it had the emotianal resonsance of a dead fish. Name one? Seriously just one?

Well set up climatic scences - oh god really - after the ship of fools tediously wondered along waiting to be blown up for what seemed like 5 hours - or did you mean "lets go on a trip to Casino world"

The "nitpicking" bits are just poor but not game breakers as I and pretty much all my friends was bored stupid by the sheer awfulness of the plot, direction and writing well before that.

Backfire wrote:
Critics liked TLJ because it was distinctly different from earlier installments, had powerful emotional moments and well-set up climatic scenes, presented a new, more mystical take on Force and had defined character arc for main protagonist.

Powerful moments like the fake out death of Leia before she turns into a poorly animated version of Mary Poppins to save the day? Or the LOL, NOPE! block of Finn doing anything meaningful with his character? The well setup climatic scene of freeing domesticated animals on Planet Vegas while leaving child slaves in the most useless and worst executed story arc in Star Wars' history excluding maybe only the Sand is Coarse CGI schlockfest Anakin/Padme falling in love in a field of Dire Space Ticks? A more mystical take on the force that consisted of tickle fetishes and the galaxy far far away's treatment of the Jedi tradition by Yoda with all the respect of a fart joke? Well... at least we agree on it being distinctly different and that the critics liked it.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 reds8n wrote:
Or maybe the guys under the control of Snoke/Palpatine didn't kill her as that was kind of the whole point of Palpatine's plan.
Her actually being killed might've thrown a bit of a spanner in the works here eh ?

So why was Snoke goading Kylo into killing Rey, if he didn't want Rey dead? It definitely seems that Snoke didn't intend/expect to die.

So, unless Snoke's guard weren't actually working for Snoke, and were working for Palpatine more directly, why didn't they intervene when Snoke wanted Rey dead at Kylo's hands?

It's pretty clear at this point that at the time of writing TLJ, there was no real Palpatine envolvement, but a "Master of the Sith" beyond Snoke. There's 0% of "Palpatine needs his granddaughter to kill him to possesses/live on in her Malkevich style/its not really clear" in anything until the title card of 9 hits.

 Mr Morden wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
tyhe subversion of expectations I think is why so many people bash TLJ myself. Look, star wars will never be a best picture film, ut's not that type of movie, what it is those is comfortable, it uses elements from many of the favorite stories of the past (the whole monomyth) to generate a new story that feels, old, familer, like a pair of comfortable shoes.
Star Wars is, to use a meal analogy, not that fancy novue dish custom crafted by an artisan master chief that combines flavors together in some new and strange cominbation to win awards (55 dollars a plate, portions are tiny!). Star Wars is your box of Mac and Cheese, it's that thing you ate growing up, you know it's not the best thing in the world, but it's comfortable, and sometimes you just want comfortable.

Nope I bash TLJ becuase it is such a awful film, not a bad "Star Wars" film its simply a terrible film - its dull, tedious, badly written, worse directed and with zero interest in characters or plot.

Says the guy who was over the moon for Thor 2, the movie equivalent of store-brand mac and cheese.

which gets back to my earlier comparison. Mac and Cheese movies aren't always a bad thing, they're comfortable, they're familer, they remind us of our childhood.

And BAD films are just BAD - pretending that it has "something to say" or "Oh wow man it subverts the narrative" is no excuse for terrible plot, writing, directing or characters - just because its "Arty" doe snot preclude it being popular - that is what the more pretensious and snobby critics believe but Feth them

Critics liked TLJ because it was distinctly different from earlier installments, had powerful emotional moments and well-set up climatic scenes, presented a new, more mystical take on Force and had defined character arc for main protagonist. This was in strong contrast with TFA, which was well done and evenly paced movie but very soulless, flat, took no risks, corporate committee work at its best and worst. Critics were not hardcore fans and did not care whether Holdo maneuver made any kind of sense in-universe, or whether Luke even briefly contemplating killing his student while he was asleep was in-character, or whether it was even remotely plausible that one X-Wing could clear out turrets from a dreadnought sized ships.

For me, movie is usually as good as its best scenes. If the movie has scenes I want to seek out from Youtube and watch again just to relive the moment, it counts as a success in my books, glass half full. TLJ had plenty of stuff done bad and the weird four-act pacing deflated the end of movie somewhat. But it still had good scenes which I would want to watch again. TFA doesn't. Prequels mostly don't. TRoS, iffy.

A defined character arc , Oh now thats hilarious, a new and more mystical take in the force - when and where?

Powerful emotional moments - Please just stop - it had the emotianal resonsance of a dead fish. Name one? Seriously just one?

Well set up climatic scences - oh god really - after the ship of fools tediously wondered along waiting to be blown up for what seemed like 5 hours - or did you mean "lets go on a trip to Casino world"

The "nitpicking" bits are just poor but not game breakers as I and pretty much all my friends was bored stupid by the sheer awfulness of the plot, direction and writing well before that.

I feel like there’s just no convincing those who didn’t like TLJ that there was anything (let alone a lot of things) good about it. TLJ did have its moments, certainly more than the prequels did (barring maybe 3, but that one is up for debate to me). I think the main reason a lot of us liked TLJ is that it’s not a rehash of things in the OT. TFA was well executed and well written (at the time, not knowing what the end would look like) but honestly, beyond that it was pretty drab. It was fun, but it didn’t really do anything new. It had the same plot beats as 4 did. There weren’t really any new ideas introduced. And if you think about it, how do you make a new trilogy about where some wannabe Empire emerges after the Empire is dead? The whole premise was, honestly, complete garbage. It wasn’t telling a new story. I mean, hell, they literally made another Death Star, and even sort of joked about it being another Death Star. Come on guys, really? You couldn’t think of something else? Even the basic visuals were pretty meh. We were given sort of new X-Wings. We were given sort of new TIEs. Even the characters weren’t that well done either. Someone said that Finn was pretty flawed as a character from the beginning and I agree. JJ gave us a janitor stormtrooper, Of all the defector stormtroopers that could’ve been done, he went with one that was honestly pretty uninteresting. Rey was a mystery, and, arguably, maybe there was something more there. I mostly gave TFA a pass since the rest of the movies weren’t out. Now that 9’s out, I’m pretty unimpressed with 7 as well.

Episode 8 at least tried to put some new ideas out there. You don’t have to like the new ideas, but trying something that wasn’t “let’s rehash the OT” was a good stand out to me and to others on this thread as well, I think. Whether or not those ideas paid off to you, well, I don’t think there’s really any way people who don’t think so will be convinced otherwise. TLJ was not without flaws. The whole Canto Blight sequence was contrived and sort of dull. If anything, however, my biggest complaint would be that it didn’t go far enough.

I’m not sure who wrote that the critics were paid to like TLJ, but stuff like that really annoys me. It seems to imply that nobody liked TLJ, and that only morons or paid off people did. For one, those very same “paid off” critics then went on to pretty universally dislike 9. For another, it’s a great way to invalidate someone’s opinions on why they may actually have liked 8. It’s really hard to have a discussion on 8’s merits and demerits when it mostly devolves into how there is no way that 8 can ever have merits in anybody’s eyes. It’s fine not to like TLJ, and it’s equally fine to like it. There are a lot of people who did like TLJ. Far from a minority. Hell, George Lucas himself liked 8 the most, I think (iirc)

Honestly, Episode 9 was far worse than both 7 and 8 since it did not even try to work with the plot points given to it. It was poorly made from a filmmaking standpoint, regardless of the actual plot decisions. The movie was so poorly paced, with so little time spent on anything, that it’s hard to really say I enjoyed anything. Visually there were some new things. The final battle, however, was pretty lame. Check out Episode 3’s opening battle and do a compare and contrast. Rogue One’s final battle was spectacular as well. And honestly, I really doubt JJ Abrams had any plan even in 7. There wasn’t so much as a hint about Palpatine in 7, nor any of the decisions in 9.

Really the whole sequel trilogy was a huge set of missed opportunities. JJ Abrams decides to do a new Empire vs Rebels dynamic, for some strange reason. The CGI and modern VFX were essentially wasted on visualizing barren planets we had already seen in the OT. Even the ships were mostly the same as before, and while before I was willing to give them a break on this point, the fact that the final movie did next to nothing with even the plot makes me rethink this whole thing. I wanted to see more of the Star Wars universe, which is enormous. Throwing out the EU meant they had no bounds. They had a clean slate. But instead we got characters who were squandered opportunities, along with very little world building.

Herein lies the problem.

What you've just said about Rise of Skywalker (I haven't seen it, can't be bothered) is really what the rest of the world has said about The Last Jedi. It was objectively a bad film. That's not to say you can't enjoy a poorly written, poorly designed, incoherent film...loads of people love bad movies. Heck they're cult-films in many ways. There are some downright atrocious films that have garnered huge cult followings because they're charming or they're amusing, or they just scratch an itch.

My favourite film was a financial flop (in theaters, it ended up being a big DVD hit). It wasn't a terrible movie, just a serious flop at the box office. That doesn't detract from my enjoyment of it.

If you take Star Wars out of The Last Jedi it would have been a 12% critic score film that would have disappeared within a month of its release. No one would ever talk about it again until some YouTube mentioned it 10 years hence in a "Worst 10 Science Fiction films of...." video, etc. It was simply an awful movie, and I mean from an objective viewpoint. Terrible writing, wandering and poorly conceived plot, awful character development, inconsistent with the entire canon of the Star Wars established universe, a plot driven by convenience and not practical problem solving, massive continuity issues, etc. It is just as bad as most people say it is. They're not saying that because they're sexist or they hate (insert your chosen agenda/bias, etc.). They're critiquing the film because it was genuinely bad.

Does that mean you have to feel bad for enjoying it? No. I'd argue most of us have sat through a film starring Pauly Shore...almost none of us can throw stones in this glass house. However, trying to defend The Last Jedi as if it was a misunderstood brilliant film is laughable. That smacks of the exhausting and inane "Art student" approach of "Well it's just above your understanding..you can't see the real genius" garbage that I sat through in college while in a theater program, etc.

If you took the Star Wars out of TLJ, you’d have a campy movie with a lot of fun stuff and stupid characters. It would sit happily between Fkash Gordon and Chronicles of Riddick.

 reds8n wrote:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Snoke

Secretly an artificial creation of Darth Sidious, Snoke was engineered on Exegol, a legendary Sith-affiliated planet hidden in the Unknown Regions, where loyalists of the Sith Eternal awaited the return of the Sith.

......

Ultimately, Snoke's entire existence was built for this moment: to serve as a final test for Ren. He not only tested Ren's worthiness as a disciple, but also his capacity to inherit the Sith legacy. His role had been designed by the Sith Eternal cultists to act as a final crucible, to groom and mold Ren into a master of attack and cunning. Ren became the new Supreme Leader of the First Order, but after encountering a revived Sidious on Snoke's homeworld of Exegol, he aspired to rule the galaxy as Emperor of the Final Order.

The problem with that is none of it is even hinted at until RoS, which is the hallmark of bad plotting and makes it pretty clear that the whole thing was a hurried, desperate retcon in an attempt to surprise the audience. There are so many plot holes created by this, as discussed elsewhere here and it's pretty typical of JJ's approach to surprise storytelling - throw out something completely random and absolutely unknowable and act like it was the plan all along. It's the opposite of good, coherent storytelling. The fact it's then revealed within literally the first 5 minutes of RoS as a voiceover narration shows how rushed and poorly thought through the whole thing was.

It's also just going way too far to try to explain the sloppiness of the fight choreography in TLJ.

ultimately the problem is a lack of a real story arc planned through the movies. (this is why I lay the blame largely at Kath Kennedy's feet)

THAT was the problem, all three films where meandering and directionless. and yeah I agree TFA started out kinda weak. the core idea "well what if there was a group of "neo-Imperials" who where a threat but not eneugh people reckongized the threat until it was too late" was good. but it coulda been handled MUCH better." the poroblem with the sequal trilogy ultimately is it doesn't feel like the original trilogy achomplished ANYTHING. which really is an ultimate sin.

BrianDavion wrote:
ultimately the problem is a lack of a real story arc planned through the movies. (this is why I lay the blame largely at Kath Kennedy's feet)

THAT was the problem, all three films where meandering and directionless.

This. It feels like a feud between artists has been fought on the back of the most popular franchise of all time, to the detriment of the product. The cherry on top is the overt political messaging present in all three movies, but mostly in TLJ, which just feels out of place.

I do realize that some of these talking points are becoming more and more relevant in our society and some of these are certainly things to consider and address, but I wish they hadn't used Star Wars as a platform to market their perspective on things.

 BertBert wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
ultimately the problem is a lack of a real story arc planned through the movies. (this is why I lay the blame largely at Kath Kennedy's feet)

THAT was the problem, all three films where meandering and directionless.

This. It feels like a feud between artists has been fought on the back of the most popular franchise of all time, to the detriment of the product. The cherry on top is the overt political messaging present in all three movies, but mostly in TLJ, which just feels out of place.

I do realize that some of these talking points are becoming more and more relevant in our society and some of these are certainly things to consider and address, but I wish they hadn't used Star Wars as a platform to market their perspective on things.

I don't see the politics myself. beyond maybe Johnson's trying to move away from the bloodlines and destiny aspect at the core of SW. And frankly I see that more as a failure to understand that SW is supposed to be, essentially, a futuristic fairy tale.

What's been hilarious this past month is watching the pro-VIII and pro-IX factions on various internet communities have it out, from a position of hating both.

 Elbows wrote:
Herein lies the problem.

What you've just said about Rise of Skywalker (I haven't seen it, can't be bothered) is really what the rest of the world has said about The Last Jedi. It was objectively a bad film. That's not to say you can't enjoy a poorly written, poorly designed, incoherent film...loads of people love bad movies. Heck they're cult-films in many ways. There are some downright atrocious films that have garnered huge cult followings because they're charming or they're amusing, or they just scratch an itch.

My favourite film was a financial flop (in theaters, it ended up being a big DVD hit). It wasn't a terrible movie, just a serious flop at the box office. That doesn't detract from my enjoyment of it.

If you take Star Wars out of The Last Jedi it would have been a 12% critic score film that would have disappeared within a month of its release. No one would ever talk about it again until some YouTube mentioned it 10 years hence in a "Worst 10 Science Fiction films of...." video, etc. It was simply an awful movie, and I mean from an objective viewpoint. Terrible writing, wandering and poorly conceived plot, awful character development, inconsistent with the entire canon of the Star Wars established universe, a plot driven by convenience and not practical problem solving, massive continuity issues, etc. It is just as bad as most people say it is. They're not saying that because they're sexist or they hate (insert your chosen agenda/bias, etc.). They're critiquing the film because it was genuinely bad.

Does that mean you have to feel bad for enjoying it? No. I'd argue most of us have sat through a film starring Pauly Shore...almost none of us can throw stones in this glass house. However, trying to defend The Last Jedi as if it was a misunderstood brilliant film is laughable. That smacks of the exhausting and inane "Art student" approach of "Well it's just above your understanding..you can't see the real genius" garbage that I sat through in college while in a theater program, etc.

Again though, I’d say that it’s not really a majority of people that disliked TLJ. It’s probably somewhere around half, which is substantial, but by no means literally everyone. It’s sort of annoying to discuss this movie when people just start getting into “critics were paid off” or “you must be a moron for liking the movie”, which is increasingly what I’ve seen with discussing this movie.

As for taking the Star Wars out of this movie...I’d argue take the Star Wars out of any of these movies and they’d be panned by everyone.

Anyways, TLJ imo is by no means perfect. But for what it was, I thought it was a fun film, and enjoyed the general direction taken. Most of the criticisms I’ve seen have to do with either canon or specific plot decisions, which I think I’m just going to have to agree to disagree. I would largely agree though that TLJ has pacing problems (my comment on Canto Blight). It also does have focus issues. If anything, the movie did not go far enough, and the ending could really have gone further with the initial direction it took. It isn’t perfect, and I’ll be the very first to admit it. My point is that out of the sequel trilogy, it at least attempted new things, which is far more than can be said for the other two.

I haven’t seen much politics in the new movies. If anything, they’re mostly the same as the OT, with the exception of 8, which did try to move into new territory.

The handling of the core idea of new imperials wasn’t done well at all. It sort of forcibly reset the universe to Empire vs Rebels again, which is stupid. Here’s the thing: the preceding trilogies have al brought something new about the Star Wars universe. The OT established it and grew it. The Prequels weren’t great, they were mostly bad (though I liked 3 personally), but they did bring new stuff about Star Wars. We saw what the major populated centers looked like. We saw what the universe was like before the Empire. We saw more about what society in this universe looks like. It was poorly executed, of course, but there’s a wealth of new things in the prequels.

What did the sequels bring? Next to nothing. 8 tried, but it ultimately wasn’t enough. They talk about a New Republic and then swiftly destroy it. What I wanted to see was more about what this new society looked like. What challenges they were facing from the old power structures of the Empire. Maybe a deeper exploration of who the Sith are. Imagine how cool it would’ve been if they visualized something like ship yards in space. Hell, you know what would’ve been amazing as a sequel trilogy? The fall of Kylo Ren. We just watch as his acts of terror become more and more dark. So dark that Finn, a grizzled veteran, defects. The mystery being who is behind all of this (and then reveal Snoke at the end of it all).

That’s just an idea, but I honestly wanted to see more of the universe than more barren wastelands and more Death Stars, and whatever the hell 9 was.

As for defending 9, I haven’t seen too many spirited defenses of 9. There’ve been very few defenses.

I heard they brought back Palpatine.

Nuff said about the quality of that piece of junk.

 Elbows wrote:
Herein lies the problem.

What you've just said about Rise of Skywalker (I haven't seen it, can't be bothered) is really what the rest of the world has said about The Last Jedi. It was objectively a bad film.

And yet TLJ was critically acclaimed and tallied an 'A' Cinemascore. That's the exact opposite of what you describe. In online self-reinforcing nerd bubbles, sure, it was a creative and conceptual disaster akin to Cats, Gigli, The Postman, or Ishtar. But most of the rest of the world didn't see it that way. I know that makes some uncomfortable, and that's why the "Disney paid off the critics!" conspiracy-mongering started. Soothes the ol' cognitive dissonance. But it's okay to strongly dislike something that lots of other people enjoyed.

Tons of people watched 'Friends' back in the day. I gave it a try but thought it was a painfully pedestrian sitcom and didn't get into it. Doesn't mean that it was 'objectively bad', that everyone who liked it was an idiot, or that there was some conspiracy to hide the truth. It was obviously a *good television show* that just wasn't to my taste. And if someone thought it meant this or that about me, it's not something that would bother me.

Cripes...BBQ. It's like religion in some parts of this country. Complete with holy wars over which regional variant is best. To me, it's good...but just cooked meat. Personally, I'd rather have a steak or -- if the mood struck me for BBQ -- Korean BBQ. Doesn't make everyone else 'objectively wrong' or mean that the Illuminati are pushing slow-cooked proteins on an unwilling public. I'm the one swimming upstream. And it's fine. Really.

TLJ reminds me a bit of Black Panther in that the film appeals to a large segment of the population while leaving another large segment cold. There were all kinds of theories about why critics "pretended" to like BP, too. Sometimes it's really hard to understand why a lot of people like something you didn't or hate something you enjoyed.

However, I feel BP was more successful overall because it succeeded with more subgroups than TLJ mostly owing to the facT that it was ....wait for it.. Objectively better.

BP is a weird comparison. I've seen people mostly get hung up on "how" good it is, which mostly turns into a debate over whether a dodgy CGI fight at the end keeps it from being more than a very good super hero flick. I rarely see people decry it as actually bad, outside of rants that seem to have some very questionable motives. I wouldn't consider it anywhere nearly as divisive as TLJ. I also think BP is the better film, but comparing them, particularly with any kind of objective merit gets into CinemaSin nonsense that's not a particularly healthy way to approach films.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
TLJ reminds me a bit of Black Panther in that the film appeals to a large segment of the population while leaving another large segment cold. There were all kinds of theories about why critics "pretended" to like BP, too. Sometimes it's really hard to understand why a lot of people like something you didn't or hate something you enjoyed.

However, I feel BP was more successful overall because it succeeded with more subgroups than TLJ mostly owing to the facT that it was ....wait for it.. Objectively better.

FWIW, I thought BP was a good movie albeit one with substandard special effects (even in comparison with Civil War that visually portrayed the same character much better). TLJ was kind of the opposite in that it was a substandard movie with very nice effects. The fact that BP was nominated specifically in the effects category was a big indication to me that alot of people (critics and voters) were propping it up likely for woke points in the aftermath of and to avoid another #oscarssowhite controversy. YMMV.

There were a lot of posters on Dakka who did not understand how honest critics could possibly give BP such a high score. BP, like TLJ, did a lot of things that appeal directly to the types of viewers who are movie critics or critic-adjacent, sometimes at the cost of not doing things that's appeal to action or comic movie fans. The main point of my comparison is that both films had a divisive element along the same critics vs real fans lines, although BP's was much less pronounced.

I believe it was less pronounced in BP because BP was better written and directed...outside of action sequences, which were just...ooof.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
TLJ reminds me a bit of Black Panther in that the film appeals to a large segment of the population while leaving another large segment cold. There were all kinds of theories about why critics "pretended" to like BP, too. Sometimes it's really hard to understand why a lot of people like something you didn't or hate something you enjoyed.

However, I feel BP was more successful overall because it succeeded with more subgroups than TLJ mostly owing to the facT that it was ....wait for it.. Objectively better.

FWIW, I thought BP was a good movie albeit one with substandard special effects (even in comparison with Civil War that visually portrayed the same character much better). TLJ was kind of the opposite in that it was a substandard movie with very nice effects. The fact that BP was nominated specifically in the effects category was a big indication to me that alot of people (critics and voters) were propping it up likely for woke points in the aftermath of and to avoid another #oscarssowhite controversy. YMMV.

That may be. I tend to be more charitable and assume people really just wanted to reward Black Panther however they plausibly could because they enjoyed it...and didn't realize the effects nod was not plausible.

Either way, I'll take a well written movie with pretty bad effects over an effects masterpiece with a terrible story.

Personally, I like both movies because they're actually about something. That's generally my barometer over whether a movie stands out for me, even if I can enjoy a movie that isn't trying to say more that what's on the surface (insert ironic Aquaman joke here). To me, in an era where television has the time to flesh out characters and really give weight to a story, the advantage of film is the ability to deliver themes and message in a focused and succinct manner, though in truth, most films are still happy to just spit out a plot. BP and TLJ both stand out to me as genre films that really get this, even if I have issues with the latter's failings on the succinct and focused parameters.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

That may be. I tend to be more charitable and assume people really just wanted to reward Black Panther however they plausibly could because they enjoyed it...and didn't realize the effects nod was not plausible.

FWIW, here are actual VFX artists going over the finale in detail starting at about 3 minutes. I think they did later videos comparing the scene with the big Civil War fight both in terms of special effects and stunt coordination as they also have a series where they bring in professional stunt men (including the guy who did the BP stunts in Civil War) to evaluate those scenes.




And this got nominated for best SFX with an entry by Disney/Marvel specifically including this scene in their "for your consideration" promo materials sent to voters.

 deltaKshatriya wrote:
Again though, I’d say that it’s not really a majority of people that disliked TLJ. It’s probably somewhere around half, which is substantial, but by no means literally everyone.

This got me thinking about what some numbers actually say. Did a quick comparison of the Disney Star Wars movies from their ratings on IMDB. That's only going to count people who have an account on IMDB and rate movies there, so it might capture the general movie going public more than rabid SW fans, but you can see an interesting trend. More than three-quarters of those who rated TFA and RO have it a rating of 10, 9, 8, or 7. That number drops to less than two-thirds for TLJ and ROS.

 LunarSol wrote:
Personally, I like both movies because they're actually about something. That's generally my barometer over whether a movie stands out for me, even if I can enjoy a movie that isn't trying to say more that what's on the surface (insert ironic Aquaman joke here). To me, in an era where television has the time to flesh out characters and really give weight to a story, the advantage of film is the ability to deliver themes and message in a focused and succinct manner, though in truth, most films are still happy to just spit out a plot. BP and TLJ both stand out to me as genre films that really get this, even if I have issues with the latter's failings on the succinct and focused parameters.

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Some movies deliver (or attempt) themes while maybe failing on plot or other "surface level" fundamentals. Some people enjoy the attempt, others only see the failure. I believe it was Tolkien (correct me if I'm wrong) who said something along the lines of the story has to work first as a story, otherwise the themes are meaningless. I personally don't 100% agree, but I've gotten annoyed at enough attempted-great films and books to see where he's coming from.

I also felt like TLJ took more interesting risks in camera work and letting some scenes breathe, but clearly they didn't all pay off.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

That may be. I tend to be more charitable and assume people really just wanted to reward Black Panther however they plausibly could because they enjoyed it...and didn't realize the effects nod was not plausible.

FWIW, here are actual VFX artists going over the finale in detail starting at about 3 minutes. I think they did later videos comparing the scene with the big Civil War fight both in terms of special effects and stunt coordination as they also have a series where they bring in professional stunt men (including the guy who did the BP stunts in Civil War) to evaluate those scenes.




And this got nominated for best SFX with an entry by Disney/Marvel specifically including this scene in their "for your consideration" promo materials sent to voters.

You don't have to convince me that BP didn't deserve that nomination. I was already there when I saw that final fight scene. I'm just saying I think there might have been other motivations than virtue signaling for academy members to acquiesce to Disney's formidable Oscar machine.

I see it more as a case of "I like Black Panther. The kids today like Black Panther. Let's get Black Panther 'all up in this' as they say by nominating it as much as possible. Did Black Panther have effects? Then nominate it for effects! That Andy Sirkis mocap character was phenomenal." I'm sure there were some who voted only for woke reasons, but I'd bet there was probably an order of magnitude more people who voted for it because it was a movie they had seen and could remember.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Doesn't imdb rank Christopher Nolan as the greatest director of all time? I wouldn't put much stock in their numbers (or any numbers off any website, in this day and age).

Some of it comes down to dodgy elements of the categorization. While BPs effects have some weak bits, a lot of them are made up for on the strength of its art direction. It only gets to be a real problem when that gets stripped away and you have 2 mostly identical characters in similarly colored and ultimately boring background.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
If you took the Star Wars out of TLJ, you’d have a campy movie with a lot of fun stuff and stupid characters. It would sit happily between Fkash Gordon and Chronicles of Riddick.

I've said similar things about it as well. It would have been quite an entertaining sci-fi flick, if it hadn't been trying and failing to be a STAR WARS film.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Herein lies the problem.

What you've just said about Rise of Skywalker (I haven't seen it, can't be bothered) is really what the rest of the world has said about The Last Jedi. It was objectively a bad film.

And yet TLJ was critically acclaimed and tallied an 'A' Cinemascore. That's the exact opposite of what you describe. In online self-reinforcing nerd bubbles, sure, it was a creative and conceptual disaster akin to Cats, Gigli, The Postman, or Ishtar. But most of the rest of the world didn't see it that way. I know that makes some uncomfortable, and that's why the "Disney paid off the critics!" conspiracy-mongering started. Soothes the ol' cognitive dissonance. But it's okay to strongly dislike something that lots of other people enjoyed.

Tons of people watched 'Friends' back in the day. I gave it a try but thought it was a painfully pedestrian sitcom and didn't get into it. Doesn't mean that it was 'objectively bad', that everyone who liked it was an idiot, or that there was some conspiracy to hide the truth. It was obviously a *good television show* that just wasn't to my taste. And if someone thought it meant this or that about me, it's not something that would bother me.

Cripes...BBQ. It's like religion in some parts of this country. Complete with holy wars over which regional variant is best. To me, it's good...but just cooked meat. Personally, I'd rather have a steak or -- if the mood struck me for BBQ -- Korean BBQ. Doesn't make everyone else 'objectively wrong' or mean that the Illuminati are pushing slow-cooked proteins on an unwilling public. I'm the one swimming upstream. And it's fine. Really.

Critics loved it because it was different.

Remember, these people get paid to watch movies day in, day out. They watch new movies like you watch new TV episodes... possibly more. They watch SO MANY movies that by the time they establish themselves as serious critics they're BORED with the average movie. Show them something that defies their expectations and they tend to like it simply BECAUSE it defied their expectation.

Even when defying those expectations takes the movie out of the realm of verisimilitude for the established movie world.

As far as the politics of the sequel trilogy... well, I don't think that was as much in the movies, as in the reactions of Lucasfilm employees when TLJ was not universally loved. If I don't like a movie because of plot points X, Y, and Z, and your reaction is 'you must be a racist sexist pig because of A, B, and C'... yeah, that's politics raising it's ugly head.

Critics loved it because it was different.

Remember, these people get paid to watch movies day in, day out.

This really is the most straightforward way to understand mainstream critics.

 bbb wrote:

 deltaKshatriya wrote:
Again though, I’d say that it’s not really a majority of people that disliked TLJ. It’s probably somewhere around half, which is substantial, but by no means literally everyone.

This got me thinking about what some numbers actually say. Did a quick comparison of the Disney Star Wars movies from their ratings on IMDB. That's only going to count people who have an account on IMDB and rate movies there, so it might capture the general movie going public more than rabid SW fans, but you can see an interesting trend. More than three-quarters of those who rated TFA and RO have it a rating of 10, 9, 8, or 7. That number drops to less than two-thirds for TLJ and ROS.

It does show that while people weren’t nearly as up on TLJ as Rogue One, or TFA, it was still relatively positively received. 64% rated it 7 or higher. Interestingly enough though, it’s almost identical to RoS, where 65% also rated it 7 or higher. That’s pretty much the same really. They are well within variance of each other. It does make the notion that TLJ was universally hated a moot point. About half liked it, about half didn’t which is about what I’ve seen. I feel like that TFA really benefitted from benefit of the doubt, since neither of the two sequels were out. Moreover, it was fairly well made for what it was. It just wasn’t super fresh.

Rogue One is, by far, imo, the most compelling movie made by Disney. It shows that Disney is capable of making really good Star Wars movies. I suspect, however, they mainly aren’t good at working on expanding on the movies. Rogue One worked because we already knew about the Death Star and its flaws. The sequel trilogy needed to expand beyond the first 6 films and that’s where they came up short, imo.

I do agree on the point that critics literally watch media all the time. Something that is different sometimes does stick out to them. It’s a very different lens to look at media from.

I'm never quite sure what I think about Rogue One. The third act is phenomenal but almost entirely for reasons that aren't related to the movie itself. That goes a long way and has me rewatching it multiple times, but honestly you could cut the entire cast and just give me a short story about Red Squadron and the Tantive IV and I'd be just as happy. The actual cast feels a little too big and doesn't get fleshed out enough to be interesting before being rather clinically culled. It makes the first 2/3rds of the film really dull on rewatch.

Contrasting that, Finn's story ending in failure actually makes Canto Blight more compelling for me on rewatch. I still find it too long and its soapbox moments stick out and drag things on without really adding to the plot (they're the stuff that TV and comics generally add to the universe), but the focus on just a few characters works better for me than RO's extended cast.

The Rogue One formula was pretty straight forward as a plot/story arc.

Dirty Dozen in SPAAAACCCCCEEEEEE!

That is easier to execute. The new Trilogy had no such grounding. In a way Rogue One and Solo are the most "Disney/Marvel" of the new Wars films. They are simply different genre of movie with a Star Wars film put on top, and that is why they work so much better. Many Marvel movies do the same thing only with Superheroes.

That is a much easier and safer model to execute.

BP getting an effects nomination over Aquaman was bonkers. Bonkers. I thought it was a good film though. Probably not equal to the hype, but still a good film.

I liked R1 and thought it was a good SW film, but for whatever reason it didn't really stick with me and I don't feel compelled to rewatch it. TLJ improves when rewatched IMO...not that anyone could convince its biggest critics to do that. *shrug*

 gorgon wrote:
TLJ improves when rewatched IMO

That's my experience. It's part of the reason its length really bothers me more than anything these days. I like it better the more I watch it, but its a little long to watch as much as I'd like.