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 Lance845 wrote:
Starwars has always been dumb. often dumb fun but dumb all the same. Il watch the next dumb fun entry like I watched the previous ones. Except the prequels were not fun. They were just terrible and dumb.

I wanted to do that - watch a fun enjoyable fim/s

The original films were good fun
The prequals were crap but had occassional fun bits
The Force Awakens was fun, not great but there did seem to be a return to fun
Lego series and Movies are great fun
Clone Wars are often fun
Rogue One started badly but he second half was great fun

Then TLJ shambled stupidly into the room, shedding the rancid gak it was made from and stinking to high heaven - fun was lost.

Solo was good fun but was tainted by the lingering stench of TLJ

Maybe the future films willl banish the smell, maybe not.

Voss wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Yes, but I really don't care about the current film trilogy at this point. Super manipulator Palpatine screwing everyone from beyond the grave killed all interest I had in the next film,

That actually is one of the few elements that interest me. That and the irony of the 'kill the past, no legacy, blah blah blah', And the new film is basically: No, shut up, it actually is All About the Skywalkers. That's freaking hilarious.

I do find it odd that people keep pointing to that as the message pf TLJ, when only person saying "let the past die" is the Bad Guy? It's not the message of the film, just a ploy used by Kylo to a) come to terms with his own atrocities and b) try and turn Rey away from the legacy of the Jedi. When you consider how the film actually ends, the message is really that legacy, history and the people we leave behind *are* vitally important to triumphing over evil. Or in other words, "The Rebellion is reborn again today, the war is just beginning , and I will not be the last Jedi."

If there's a message to any film, it's probably in what the heroes are preaching rather than the villains.

 Paradigm wrote:

Voss wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Yes, but I really don't care about the current film trilogy at this point. Super manipulator Palpatine screwing everyone from beyond the grave killed all interest I had in the next film,

That actually is one of the few elements that interest me. That and the irony of the 'kill the past, no legacy, blah blah blah', And the new film is basically: No, shut up, it actually is All About the Skywalkers. That's freaking hilarious.

I do find it odd that people keep pointing to that as the message pf TLJ, when only person saying "let the past die" is the Bad Guy? It's not the message of the film, just a ploy used by Kylo to a) come to terms with his own atrocities and b) try and turn Rey away from the legacy of the Jedi. When you consider how the film actually ends, the message is really that legacy, history and the people we leave behind *are* vitally important to triumphing over evil. Or in other words, "The Rebellion is reborn again today, the war is just beginning , and I will not be the last Jedi."

If there's a message to any film, it's probably in what the heroes are preaching rather than the villains.

Luke is also running away which in the hands of a even barely competant director might have been interesting.

There is also some awfully crammed in nonsense about the Rebellion and the First Orde being the same as they "Both buy weapons" shock horror, sooo Edgy dude!

Oh and suicide is good, but its not if "you" do it, oh its good again if "She" does it, oh its bad again.

The main people they leave behind are the slave children who they ignore in favour of space horses

As opposed to Qui Gon simply leaving Anakin’s mother in Slavery, and making no attempt whatsoever to enforce Republic Law?

He didn't try to enforce Republic law because Tatoinne wasn't part of the Republic.

My wife and I are done with Star Wars after these last two movies.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As opposed to Qui Gon simply leaving Anakin’s mother in Slavery, and making no attempt whatsoever to enforce Republic Law?

Oh that was worse - one of the many stupid things in the prequals. not sure if the enforcement aspect was possible but could def have taken his mother

 Paradigm wrote:


If there's a message to any film, it's probably in what the heroes are preaching rather than the villains.

I don't really care about the message. I just really really really hate that plot point.

Disney had a chance to reinvent the wheel. To undo all the stupid gak from the old EU, keep the cream of the crop, and produce something better. They were the chosen one, meant to restore balance to Star Wars and make it great again after years of Lucas gaking all over it, and fans bitterly ripping into each other over which petty awful plotline was better than the rest. And instead Disney just revive what is easily the old EU's worst recurring plot point; the Emperor screwing everyone over from beyond the grave, which happened like 50 freaking times and is basically bad fanfiction at this point. I have zero interest in that playing out again, least of all with all the original characters dead, their lives basically amounting to very little, and the narrative just feeling detached and unwieldy.

I don't care about the message.

The plot was dangling by a thread after the contrived events of TLJ, and Disney seems to be falling back on the old EU's worst habits as a saving throw.

Star Wars needed a trilogy about Rogue Squadron stopping Isard, not reinventing the original trilogy. Heroic space fighter pilots, jedi family legacy done in an interesting way that's not just Skywalker all the time, and epic space battles culminating with Super Star Destroyers on both sides duking it out.

Either than or the Thrawn Trilogy, just placed longer after the Originals to justify the actors being older.

the last movie put me off on the new one coming out, I have no interest in seeing it.

Saw a horrible fan theory that will probably end up being the final movie. as the rebellion is over and utterly crushed, the only thing left for them is a time travel story to put the universe in order. it worked for the mcu, it must work for star wars as well.

Plus if I don't see it, then I don't have to worry about being insulted and told what a horrible person I am for not like a horrible story.

I think the problem is that Star Wars as a movie universe is just shallow. You cant do much with it for it to BE Star Wars.
That’s why we get either crap which fans hate, because it “ruins canon” or we get the same rebooted tropes.
It was a nice trilogy, which should’ve stayed that way - a trilogy.
Now we get four year olds in Jedi academies(because Yoda said, that Luke is too old to begin his training) horrible diologues, recycled or nonsensical plot and the origin of Han Solo’s socks.
And the crazy part is, we, the SW nerds love us some origin stories of Ping Lang's laser scroople from planet Geagsor as long we get to see Twin Ion Engine Fighters every 15 minutes.
And the original trilogy was not about that.

 Lance845 wrote:
Starwars has always been dumb. often dumb fun but dumb all the same. Il watch the next dumb fun entry like I watched the previous ones. Except the prequels were not fun. They were just terrible and dumb.

You can set your watch by it folks. "Star Wars has always been dumb." 'Star Wars was never that great."

 Jadenim wrote:
Ok, this may end up being a long post, as I have a thought I want to unpack.

I think the real problem with Star Wars doesn’t start with the current films, it goes right back to the original trilogy; they’ve never satisfactorily shown why the Empire is bad. Other than the Death Star, which few people in the galaxy ever knew about, the original films, the prequels and TFA rely on just using general Nazi symbology (jack boots, stormtroopers, etc.) to point at the Empire and go “these are bad guys, boo now”.

"The Emperor has dissolved the Senate."
bad guys.

*Guy dressed all in black force choking dudes in his own force for disrespecting him*
bad guys.

"We're gonna torture Princess Leia with our medical droid."
bad guys.

"You're far too trusting. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration - but don't worry; we will deal with your rebel friends soon enough."
bad guys.

(btw, this scene refutes your assertion the death star was relatively unknown)

*wreckage of salvager complete with corpses of Jawas.*
"Only Imperial Stormtroopers could be so precise (lol)."
bad guys.

*charred corpses of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru*
bad guys.


That's all movie one my dude.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As opposed to Qui Gon simply leaving Anakin’s mother in Slavery, and making no attempt whatsoever to enforce Republic Law?

"Look, I found something dumb from Star Wars that wasn't TLJ. That must mean all criticism of TLJ is dumb."

 Scrabb wrote:
*Guy dressed all in black force choking dudes in his own force for disrespecting him*
bad guys.

I can't deny, I read this in a shrilly Abriged Kirito (SAO Abridged) voice as "you just force choked a guy for mildly sassing you five minutes ago!"

That's all movie one my dude

He kind of has a point though. TFA and TLJ, somehow, have failed to establish meaningful stakes for the current plot. The struggle between the Resistance and the First Order feels like some kind of giant galactic aside that the rest of the galaxy doesn't care about, and I'm not really sure why that is. It's not like the OT showed us lots of daily life in the galaxy, but it felt like there were stakes for the galaxy at large in the conflict between the Empire and the Rebellion. The Resistance and the First Order feel like some sideshow that has no meaning to anyone else.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As opposed to Qui Gon simply leaving Anakin’s mother in Slavery, and making no attempt whatsoever to enforce Republic Law?

Wait. which do you want? Saving his mother or enforcing Republic law on a planet outside of the Republic? lol.
If he freed the mother wouldn't he have to free all the rest of the slaves on the planet? Talk about a side quest.
He struck a bargain so that Anakin could be free, he barely did anything at all beyond that. At least nothing that could be pinned on him in the then and there. Even what he did was still trying to stay within his mandate, get the parts for the ship and leave. Anakin was saved but very well could have been left behind. Granted he made the conditions for Anakins release but just how much more could he have done.

The OT never explained why the Empire was bad?

Tarkin blows up Alderaan for no other reason than to demonstrate that the Empire rules through threat of violence.

I think the OT explained it.

Hell, the new trilogy explained it too, but for some reason I feel like the new trilogy feels like a disconnected conflict with unclear ramifications for everyone who isn't fighting it.

LoH, that is a totally fair assessment.

Neither TFA not TLJ explains anything about the Star War in question.

Of course, don’t forget the PT never explained the political cause of the CW either. The Republic invaded Geonosis because ... er, well, it was time for a big battle scene.

 LordofHats wrote:
Hell, the new trilogy explained it too, but for some reason I feel like the new trilogy feels like a disconnected conflict with unclear ramifications for everyone who isn't fighting it.

The new trilogy didn't really explain any of it, it just showed storm troopers and TIE fighters and star destroyers and expected you to understand that they're referring to the OT Empire. Hell, it's not until most of the way through the first movie that you even know that the resistance is only a tiny part of it and there's a whole intact Republic (much larger than the First Order even!) out there, so of course you're supposed to assume that the guys with the white armor must be the villains compared to whatever the Republic is doing.

Well the New Order is obviously villainous. The unexplained part is everything else.

 Manchu wrote:
Well the New Order is obviously villainous.

What exactly do they do, and how do you know that it's worse than the Republic they're fighting against?

They kill an unarmed prisoner in the first scene.

 Manchu wrote:
They kill an unarmed prisoner in the first scene.

And the Republic appears to be fine with slavery, which I'd say is a greater evil.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, don't forget that the prisoner was a collaborator with an illegal terrorist group sponsored by a hostile foreign power.

I am not sure we have enough evidence to say the Republic is fine with slavery. But we know the FO is. FO storm troopers are obtained as children and programmed to serve.

I am not sure that the Resistance was an illegal or terrorist group, merely that the Republic disclaimed supporting them. But we know the FO considers the Resistance to be an arm of the Republic so they are enemy combatants, who generally are not supposed to be murdered upon capture. Because that is a villainous thing to do.

 LordofHats wrote:
I think the OT explained it.

Hell, the new trilogy explained it too, but for some reason I feel like the new trilogy feels like a disconnected conflict with unclear ramifications for everyone who isn't fighting it.

I think thats very accurate - but since the TFA and TLJ are simply copying the first two films (very badly in the TLJ) I think it was assumed that the bad guys were well just the bad guys.

They new films do very very disconnected to anything - I think partly as the directors are simply not that interested or maybe they were worrid that doing so might turn out like the backstory (such as it was) for the prequals.I think the FA did get away with it a bit as it did revert to "hey its just jedi and snu fighters doing stuff" don;t worry about why - look the millenium falcon is in it. whereas TLJ just had endless tedium to let you think about how nothing made sense from start to end.

if it had been actually "subversive" as the sainted critics claimed they could have had a corrupt and increasingly brutal Republic with the New Order rising up against it and equally proving to be even more evil.

However Rian Johnson's lack of ability or interest meant we instead got stuff like a half an hours Windows starfield screensaver and other crap instead of storty telling in anyway.

In contrast Rouge One shows that they are evil from the start, laughibly incompetant but evil, Solo its not so clear - are the crimelords so prevelant and powerful because of or despite the Empire?

I’m hoping for a big, set piece battle in IX.

We didn’t really get any between ROTJ and ROTS - though we did get some fun land battles. Rogue One equally scratched that itch, and made it itchier.

They’ve shown us they can absolutely nail them. So give us moar.

And in-Universe, they can do that, despite the Resistance being seemingly crushed.

See, the Aftermath novels explained Mon Mothma’s reasoning for a relatively small Republic fleet. It was a deliberate demilitirisation, a way to show the new Republic wasn’t just a rebranded Empire.

Each system would have its own armed forces as it so wished, and the Republic fleet was intended as peace keeping - a way to maintain peace but incapable of mounting a war on its own.

So whilst The Republic fleet is gone, diplomatic efforts to unite other forces to confront and defeat The First Order are very much possible.

 Manchu wrote:
Of course, don’t forget the PT never explained the political cause of the CW either. The Republic invaded Geonosis because ... er, well, it was time for a big battle scene.

Oh yeah. One of the biggest problems with the PT imo was that it couldn't decide if it wanted to be a classic sort of sci-fi serial, or a more serious sci-fi epic. There is a difference.

A sci-fi serial is about the adventure, the wonder. The OT was like that, and mostly so is the NT. They're all about set pieces, and keep characters and plots classic, simple, and straightforward.

A sci-fi epic is about the plot. The tensions. The PT dabbled in this, but dabbled in the above two, and ended up feeling muddied. One second we're watching a twelve-year-old win space NASCAR against all odds, and then we're listening to some pseudo-philosophical nonsense and politics and the two did not mesh at all. This goes hand in hand with the Jedi philosophy becoming "serious business" that was too dense to be archetypal, but too immature to be worthwhile and that's honestly the PT in a nutshell. Too dense to be easily digested, and too immature to be worth trying in the first place. And don't even get me started on the plot holes...

Using your terms, I’d prefer epic over serial for the PT era — esp bc the central event is the fall of the Republic (an ethos) and the parallel fall of Anakin (a mythic hero).

Jedi should never have been reinvented as a quasi Buddhist monastic order. Obi-wan and Yoda had personal reasons for living like monks. It didn’t need to be lazily read back onto the entire concept.

Anyhow for movies that drone on about exposition, it’s pretty amazing how one of the most important political issues is totally missing.

The Disney trilogy pulls much more to serial sci fi because it’s assiduously plagiarizing the OT. But ANH economically informed and us of the overarching political situation. Disney expects me to buy novels and comics to learn the fundamental elements of the setting.

Kids love a good yarn about trade disputes and debates about internal politics.

 Manchu wrote:
Disney expects me to buy novels and comics to learn the fundamental elements of the setting.

this more than anything else is probably the biggest failure of the new trilogy. I've been reading a lot of that new fluff. It's cool, there are some good stories hidden in the marvel comics and the occasional book. But the fact that its almost required to understand why (why not what) things are happening in the movies. That's a problem.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m hoping for a big, set piece battle in IX.

We didn’t really get any between ROTJ and ROTS - though we did get some fun land battles. Rogue One equally scratched that itch, and made it itchier.

They’ve shown us they can absolutely nail them. So give us moar.

And in-Universe, they can do that, despite the Resistance being seemingly crushed.

See, the Aftermath novels explained Mon Mothma’s reasoning for a relatively small Republic fleet. It was a deliberate demilitirisation, a way to show the new Republic wasn’t just a rebranded Empire.

Each system would have its own armed forces as it so wished, and the Republic fleet was intended as peace keeping - a way to maintain peace but incapable of mounting a war on its own.

So whilst The Republic fleet is gone, diplomatic efforts to unite other forces to confront and defeat The First Order are very much possible.

That sounds like complete stupidity - you can have what armed forces you like but we will restrict ourselves?

Even super utopian civilisations like the Culture know better than that - not only do you have a big stick (or two) in case but you also have the inteligence operatives keeping an eye on any potential threats - external and internal.

Presumably the First Order or its ancestor was somewhere and built up a truely massive military secretly?

Who are these other forces (who ignored the fight so far)