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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

I think you're both right and wrong. People were very upset it wasn't the movie they were expecting....because it wasn't really a Star Wars movie. .

Compared to what?

Episodes 4, 5 and 6 were all very different movies from each other. The prequels were different again. Rogue 1 felt very similar to Empire, while Solo, for me, felt much more like one of the Prequels (but with better dialogue). Likewise, TFA, for me, felt much like a Prequel movie, while TLJ felt a lot like Empire. I would expect with Abrams back at the helm that we'll be back to Prequel tone for Ep9.

I certainly get what you're saying - for me as a kid, RotJ never felt quite like it belonged with the other two. But I don't see that with TLJ, and I don't really have the same problem I used to have with RotJ, maybe because since RotJ we've had the prequels, TFA and the Story spinoffs, several TV series, and more books than you can poke a stick at, all with very different focus, tone, pacing and depth. So these days, 'Star Wars' covers an awful lot of ground for me. If somebody mentions 'the Force' somewhere in there, that's probably enough to tie it in.

Compared to the OT, or each person's personal Star Wars. I have a friend who only recognizes two Star Wars films, and he certainly doesn't call Star Wars "A New Hope". Some people have a more inclusive view of Star Wars and some far less. Pretty much everyone has a line where a film would no longer feel like part of Star Wars. I passed mine with the first Prequel, and only Rogue One and Solo have really come close to recapturing the feeling of Star Wars for me. (Well, Solo was more like West End Star Wars RPG: the movie.)

I'm on the opposite side of the Star Wars issue in that I don't understand how people enjoyed TFA, thought it felt authentic, wanted more just like it, or expected the next installment to be any good in the first place. But I understand that they did and were disappointed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thematically, and in terms of plot elements and macguffin so, TLJ seemed to trip over a lot of people's No Star Wars threshold.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
See this is what i was saying. Lets all have THIS conversation again.

Hey morden. You werent racist/sexist. But racist sexists chimed in with their racism/sexism. Comments directed at them are not comments directed at you.

Your rebuttle. But they said things i didnt like and we all got lumped together by the leftist wakkos.

In counter. There are wakkos on all sides. Why are you offended by wakkos who are yelling at wakkos?

And so forth.

Im so glad that 12 months later we can say the same things in exactly the same way in the dozenth thread on the topic.

Yeah lets - you didn't listen or care the first time - you didn't this time.

IMO its not fun, clever, subversive or any of the other crap made up about it - its lazy, badly writen, terribly paced, overlong, boring, and full of awfully portrayed characters - I cetaintly don't have a hidden motive, I don't consider Star Wars a sacred text or similar, I did like the Force Awakens - nothing special but hey we still have the same boring arguments put forward by people to explain why they didn;t like a film becuase it can't be the films fault it must be the viewers.

"Oh but you just went expecting X Y Z" And Mr Rian Johnson is such a clever clever man that he did something different," "Look all these critics said so - no one can argue with them!"

Nope I went in to the cinema to be entertained, I spent my money and got gak for it, it was a complete waste of my time and money and then I get told

"Nah you probably didn'tt understand it" or "what is the hidden reason that you feel you have to say these horrible things about such a special snowflake of a film. What is wrong with you?."

Same old crap dished out about it.

I don't care if people like it or dislike it - what makes me angry is people telling ME what I "really" mean or why I "really" don't like something. We all like different things for different reasons.

I am looking but can't seem to find any example of someone telling you how you feel or why you feel it. I just see a lot of you lumping yourself in with some disenfranchised group of people who disliked a movie and apparently get gak for it. But nobody screams more about it then you and nobody is lumping you in with any group but yourself.

The entire (presumably paid for) coverage of the film after release on social media/geek media sites were making the claims Morden references which have since been parroted in online arguments.

It was also said quite a bit in the former topics on this discussion as well. There were a few that really were into telling people how they were "really feeling" and "really thinking"

 Luciferian wrote:
I'm not a huge fan of JJ Abrams because at this point he's become pretty predictable, but for those who were disappointed with TLJ it should be a small comfort that Abrams is continuing the franchise rather than Rian Johnson. The blame for TLJ's (in my opinion) failure rests squarely on his shoulders, and it's not because he didn't try or want to do a good job, it's because even he had no idea what kind of movie he wanted to make. Is it a crime caper? A serious deconstruction of Star Wars? A comedy? If you watch making of footage it's pretty clear that not even he knew. Pretty hard to end up in port when the captain has no idea where the ship is going.

How much direct input director has regarding the script? Does he have much input on plot line and lines?

 insaniak wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

Nah nah nah nah nah. You don't get to play the "preconceptions" card when the director has explicitly and repeatedly stated that their intent was to "subvert expectations", and that they believe if they don't piss off half the audience of a film they've not made a good film.

Er... wouldn't that be exactly the time to play the preconceptions card...? On account of it being, as you say, the specific goal of the director?

Well, no, because you're deploying it to make people seem less reasonable for being disappointed by what they saw, when the reality is the director's - entirely uncommunicated prior to release - intent was to disappoint them. If someone went in with a detailed and specific theory about Snoke hashed out of a period of years in the darkest corners of Reddit, didn't get exactly that, and proceeded to trash the movie then sure, their preconceptions are the problem. If someone went in with a general expectation, based on nothing more than prior experience of the IP's cinematic outings, that the film and characters would hit certain beats as part of a plot with a certain level of coherence and tonal consistency, and instead got the product of a pretentious twonkish artiste who's on record as having a hipsterish attitude towards mass market entertainment that very much comes through in said product, the audience is not the problem in that scenario.

People went in expecting a Star Wars movie and got a peach floating in absinthe served in a bowler hat with a wookie pelt draped over it, they are perfectly entitled to feel cheated.

Meh, if people got that, it's because they were over-analysing the whole thing. I went in expecting a Star Wars movie, and got something with space battles, lightsabers, amusing one-liners and a kicker soundtrack. Left happy.

Clearly, YMMV.

Clearly, since I went in expecting a Star Wars movie and got something else entirely wrapped in a superficial layer of vaguely Star Warsy Lookin' stuff. But I won't go so far as to suggest that people who were satisfied with that are just easily pleased.

Also - "so many"? Is there some grand shift in opinion going on? Because that's the kind of thing I'd expect to see the rabidly pro-TLJ segment of the nerd media crowing about, and they don't appear to be.

Speaking of over-analysing... I wasn't making some grand statement based on statistics, I was mentioning a common theme that I've seen, on this forum and elsewhere. I'm sure there are plenty of people who disliked it the first time and didn't like it any better the second... but I've also seen a lot of people saying they enjoyed it more the second time through.

Again, YMMV.

Ah, so just a personal opinion dressed up as something more. If we're doing anecdotes, personally I've seen far more people catching Solo on home release saying they enjoyed it afterall(despite not having bothered with it in the cinema) than I have people recanting unfavourable views of TLJ.


EDIT: Oh, and as an aside - I do love how mutable TLJ is. Criticise the film for being shlocky well beyond the norm for Star Wars and someone will be right along to hold forth at length on how cerebral and avant garde and deconstructionist it is. Criticise the tonal inconsistency, plot holes, or other technical aspects, and someone will pop up to inform you you're "over analysing". And of course you can never win, because if you ever engage with either defence long enough for it to begin unravelling, you magically transform into a crypto-bigot motivated by some deep seated atavistic hatred of somebody or something.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
See this is what i was saying. Lets all have THIS conversation again.

Hey morden. You werent racist/sexist. But racist sexists chimed in with their racism/sexism. Comments directed at them are not comments directed at you.

Your rebuttle. But they said things i didnt like and we all got lumped together by the leftist wakkos.

In counter. There are wakkos on all sides. Why are you offended by wakkos who are yelling at wakkos?

And so forth.

Im so glad that 12 months later we can say the same things in exactly the same way in the dozenth thread on the topic.

Yeah lets - you didn't listen or care the first time - you didn't this time.

IMO its not fun, clever, subversive or any of the other crap made up about it - its lazy, badly writen, terribly paced, overlong, boring, and full of awfully portrayed characters - I cetaintly don't have a hidden motive, I don't consider Star Wars a sacred text or similar, I did like the Force Awakens - nothing special but hey we still have the same boring arguments put forward by people to explain why they didn;t like a film becuase it can't be the films fault it must be the viewers.

"Oh but you just went expecting X Y Z" And Mr Rian Johnson is such a clever clever man that he did something different," "Look all these critics said so - no one can argue with them!"

Nope I went in to the cinema to be entertained, I spent my money and got gak for it, it was a complete waste of my time and money and then I get told

"Nah you probably didn'tt understand it" or "what is the hidden reason that you feel you have to say these horrible things about such a special snowflake of a film. What is wrong with you?."

Same old crap dished out about it.

I don't care if people like it or dislike it - what makes me angry is people telling ME what I "really" mean or why I "really" don't like something. We all like different things for different reasons.

I am looking but can't seem to find any example of someone telling you how you feel or why you feel it. I just see a lot of you lumping yourself in with some disenfranchised group of people who disliked a movie and apparently get gak for it. But nobody screams more about it then you and nobody is lumping you in with any group but yourself.

Maybe just maybe looking at people saying its becuase of the viewers precoceptions and nothing to do with the film .

Like you, some people prefer to attack the viewer rather than defend the film. Sad really but I guess you have to get your kicks somehow

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
It was also said quite a bit in the former topics on this discussion as well. There were a few that really were into telling people how they were "really feeling" and "really thinking"

Guess we all must be imagining and should just agree with whatever Lance says. We are terrible people.

EDIT: Oh, and as an aside - I do love how mutable TLJ is. Criticise the film for being shlocky well beyond the norm for Star Wars and someone will be right along to hold forth at length on how cerebral and avant garde and deconstructionist it is. Criticise the tonal inconsistency, plot holes, or other technical aspects, and someone will pop up to inform you you're "over analysing". And of course you can never win, because if you ever engage with either defence long enough for it to begin unravelling, you magically transform into a crypto-bigot motivated by some deep seated atavistic hatred of somebody or something.

So very true

I am not attacking you. Nobody in here has been attacking anyone. You just seem to be in a constant state of defensiveness over this dumb movie so anything anyone says becomes an attack. I didn't call you or anyone else terrible. stop catastrophising

 Lance845 wrote:
I am not attacking you. Nobody in here has been attacking anyone. You just seem to be in a constant state of defensiveness over this dumb movie so anything anyone says becomes an attack. I didn't call you or anyone else terrible. stop catastrophising

How dare you say what everyone who has ever been in one of the dozen or so by now TLJ threads has been quietly thinking. Shame on you!

We should have Rian Johnson do the next Star Wars, but he should simply re-cast and modify the movie Brick and film it as the next episode of the trilogy.

I would enjoy that.

 Lance845 wrote:
I am not attacking you. Nobody in here has been attacking anyone. You just seem to be in a constant state of defensiveness over this dumb movie so anything anyone says becomes an attack. I didn't call you or anyone else terrible. stop catastrophising

Funny how I am not the only one who talked about the shield around The Last Jedi - maybe you are wrong - ever consider that - doubt it.

How dare you say what everyone who has ever been in one of the dozen or so by now TLJ threads has been quietly thinking. Shame on you!

Yeah wierd how other people are saying the same thing as I did - maybe we have a point.

Maybe people should realise that when I attack that gak FILM I am not attacking those people who for whatever reason like it.

I am not talking about you disliking the film. I am talking about YOU lumping YOURSELF into a group of people who are being called racist and sexist and then lashing out at all the people who say racism and sexism happened because you think its unfair to be called that for disliking the film.

There is no universal conspiracy where there are only 2 sides. Those who dislike the movie and are paragons of virtue and those who liked it and sink to dehumanizing the other side through name calling and dismissive patronizing.

That doesnt exist.

Some people who disliked the movie are scum racist sexists. And some who like the movie are patronizing snobish douches. And most people have their own opinions and dont give a feth what anyone else thinks.

I am not lumping you in with racists and sexists. I AM thinking your pretty fething petty at this point for carrying this crazy torch for this long. For all your hate of being patronized to and being lumped in with other douches you sure do love to patronize and lump yourself. But that has nothing to do with sides in a battle over opinions about a movie. It just has to do with you and your words you cant stop spewing in every sw thread.

 Lance845 wrote:
I am not talking about you disliking the film. I am talking about YOU lumping YOURSELF into a group of people who are being called racist and sexist and then lashing out at all the people who say racism and sexism happened because you think its unfair to be called that for disliking the film.

There is no universal conspiracy where there are only 2 sides. Those who dislike the movie and are paragons of virtue and those who liked it and sink to dehumanizing the other side through name calling and dismissive patronizing.

That doesnt exist.

Some people who disliked the movie are scum racist sexists. And some who like the movie are patronizing snobish douches. And most people have their own opinions and dont give a feth what anyone else thinks.

I am not lumping you in with racists and sexists. I AM thinking your pretty fething petty at this point for carrying this crazy torch for this long. For all your hate of being patronized to and being lumped in with other douches you sure do love to patronize and lump yourself. But that has nothing to do with sides in a battle over opinions about a movie. It just has to do with you and your words you cant stop spewing in every sw thread.

Calm down you do youself an injury.

Ah back to the insults - well played , well played - perhaps you should go back to telling me "what I really mean"

 Mr Morden wrote:
Yeah wierd how other people are saying the same thing as I did - maybe we have a point.

You (singular you, as in you) also might have a raging victim complex and it gets old watching it get waved and thrown around wildly at people who are doing none of the things you complain about.

Maybe people should realise that when I attack that gak FILM I am not attacking those people who for whatever reason like it.

Like this.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Well, no, because you're deploying it to make people seem less reasonable for being disappointed by what they saw, ...

I did nothing of the kind. It's not unreasonable to be disappointed when something turns out to be different to what you expected.

Ah, so just a personal opinion dressed up as something more.

No, just a personal opinion presented as a personal opinion.

Seriously, stop trying to make everything into a bigger issue than it actually is.

 insaniak wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

I think you're both right and wrong. People were very upset it wasn't the movie they were expecting....because it wasn't really a Star Wars movie. .

Compared to what?

Episodes 4, 5 and 6 were all very different movies from each other. The prequels were different again. Rogue 1 felt very similar to Empire, while Solo, for me, felt much more like one of the Prequels (but with better dialogue). Likewise, TFA, for me, felt much like a Prequel movie, while TLJ felt a lot like Empire. I would expect with Abrams back at the helm that we'll be back to Prequel tone for Ep9.

I certainly get what you're saying - for me as a kid, RotJ never felt quite like it belonged with the other two. But I don't see that with TLJ, and I don't really have the same problem I used to have with RotJ, maybe because since RotJ we've had the prequels, TFA and the Story spinoffs, several TV series, and more books than you can poke a stick at, all with very different focus, tone, pacing and depth. So these days, 'Star Wars' covers an awful lot of ground for me. If somebody mentions 'the Force' somewhere in there, that's probably enough to tie it in.

I'm not in complete lockstep with you here, but I think we're strolling in the same direction.

I think there's an underlying...silliness?...to the prequels and Solo. They obviously aren't slapstick, but there's something "bubblegum" about the tone. Even when they try to go dark and set the stakes high like in ROTS, it somehow lacks the emotional heft that it should have. In contrast, I think TESB, R1, and TLJ have an underlying emotional edge or bite to them, even as they're different movies.

I agree with you 100% that ROTJ doesn't fit well with ANH or TESB. Time revealed it to be a preview of the prequels. I can remember being a young teen walking out of the theater and feeling disappointed somehow. So I suppose I can understand the feeling some had with TLJ. No matter how much anyone might claim otherwise, the notion of 'expectations' seem to a central and unavoidable component of the whole TLJ debate.

Perhaps the SW franchise has gotten so expansive and diverse that it's becoming hard to please a majority of the fans. Getting back on topic, I fully expect JJ to be conservative with IX and give us something much closer to TFA. Sure, it'll be another whipsaw, but Disney will want people back in the fold. And taking some risks like they did with TLJ was contrary to Disney's nature in the first place.

 gorgon wrote:

I think there's an underlying...silliness?...to the prequels and Solo. They obviously aren't slapstick, but there's something "bubblegum" about the tone. Even when they try to go dark and set the stakes high like in ROTS, it somehow lacks the emotional heft that it should have. In contrast, I think TESB, R1, and TLJ have an underlying emotional edge or bite to them, even as they're different movies.

The prequels were action figure marketing campaigns aimed directly at children. TFA was a rehash of old material with extra lens flare (as Abrams is wont to do). Even the original trilogy was a series of happy accidents and people saving Lucas from himself. If I'm being honest I grew disenchanted by the franchise long ago and never expected much from the new trilogy anyway, but I still think that TLJ is a pretty bad movie all on its own.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Yeah wierd how other people are saying the same thing as I did - maybe we have a point.

You (singular you, as in you) also might have a raging victim complex and it gets old watching it get waved and thrown around wildly at people who are doing none of the things you complain about.

Maybe people should realise that when I attack that gak FILM I am not attacking those people who for whatever reason like it.

Like this.

Hmm Victim complex - well must be being called petty, self patronzing etc etc. Gets quite boring reading that sort of crap too.

Still avoids talking about the subject I guess.

" And taking some risks like they did with TLJ was contrary to Disney's nature in the first place."
I think you are confusing making garbage plots and poor writing with taking risks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also - heres a tip - If you don't like RotJ. You probably don't actually like star-wars. RotJ is the friggen climax of the story. LOL.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Yeah wierd how other people are saying the same thing as I did - maybe we have a point.

You (singular you, as in you) also might have a raging victim complex and it gets old watching it get waved and thrown around wildly at people who are doing none of the things you complain about.

Maybe people should realise that when I attack that gak FILM I am not attacking those people who for whatever reason like it.

Like this.

Hmm Victim complex - well must be being called petty, self patronzing etc etc. Gets quite boring reading that sort of crap too.

Still avoids talking about the subject I guess.

Hilarious coming from someone who dodged every point made so they could play the victim again.

And with that im done. I restate my original point. Pointless. Because this again.

Gets quite boring reading that sort of crap too.

It gets quite boring watching you beat this dead horse too, especially since its only purpose seems to be derailing threads by taking anyone who doesn't agree with you and accusing them of insulting you for disagree.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Also - heres a tip - If you don't like RotJ. You probably don't actually like star-wars. RotJ is the friggen climax of the story. LOL.

What an odd thing to say. Being the 'climax' of the story doesn't make it automatically good, or any less tonally different to the two preceding movies.


I grew up with Star Wars. As a kid, I could recite the dialogue from Empire verbatim. But RotJ always just felt slightly off, and I largely only liked it because it was Star Wars, without particularly enjoying watching it. I don't mind it as much now, but even so if I'm just grabbing a Star Wars DVD to watch, rather than watching them in order, it's the last one I reach for.

I think we've used up this month's quota of Star Wars related pissantry.

I declare the topic closed until December.