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Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

BrianDavion wrote:
Ultimately the sequal trilogy suffers from lacking that singular vision
While wincing through the cacophony of Episode IX, I considered whether there could have been something, anything worthwhile about Abrams’s films that had been disrupted by Johnson’s. It’s tempting because I’d like to think Star Wars could be saved from the Prequels. But, no. That’s just more stockholm syndrome. The glaring truth is, TFA was a stairway to nothing. TLJ was a sarcastic commentary on that failure. And ROS is a desperate attempt to pin the blame on TLJ for its own lack of ideas. Two hacks pointing accusingly at each other doesn’t make either less guilty.
 ingtaer wrote:
In RoS we see this with the bloody stupid hyperspace skipping thing, it has long been established that a ship cant jump to lightspeed in a gravity well and that hyperspace travel takes time but suddenly one can skip from planet to planet instantaneously.... It makes no sense
Like the, ahem, Holdo Maneuver, hyperspace skipping pissed me off when I saw it. But you and me inwardly screaming “It doesn’t work like that!” amounts to exactly nothing in a world where the Force has been reduced to midi chlorians. It’s over, yes; but it’s been over for a long time.


This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2019/12/28 03:50:53


   
Made in gb
[MOD]
Fixture of Dakka







 Manchu wrote:
BrianDavion wrote:
Ultimately the sequal trilogy suffers from lacking that singular vision
While wincing through the cacophony of Episode IX, I considered whether there could have been something, anything worthwhile about Abrams’s films that had been disrupted by Johnson’s. It’s tempting because I’d like to think Star Wars could be saved from the Prequels. But, no. That’s just more stockholm syndrome. The glaring truth is, TFA was a stairway to nothing. TLJ was a sarcastic commentary on that failure. And ROS is a desperate attempt to pin the blame on TLJ for its own lack of ideas. Two hacks pointing accusingly at each other doesn’t make either less guilty.
 ingtaer wrote:
In RoS we see this with the bloody stupid hyperspace skipping thing, it has long been established that a ship cant jump to lightspeed in a gravity well and that hyperspace travel takes time but suddenly one can skip from planet to planet instantaneously.... It makes no sense
Like the, ahem, Holdo Maneuver, hyperspace skipping pissed me off when I saw it. But you and me inwardly screaming “It doesn’t work like that!” amounts to exactly nothing in a world where the Force has been reduced to midi chlorians. It’s over, yes; but it’s been over for a long time.


Aye, that kind of thing really annoys me... Price of being a nerd I suppose. However it is not over, The Mandalorian just finished its first series and was mostly fantastic and it managed to be so with out ruining everything that went before! Soon we will have the next series of the Clone Wars as well and hopes are high. The films may be in an horrific place (alleviated somewhat by both Rogue One and Solo) but that does not mean all of the Star Wars is now a steaming pile of horse gak. It just means that 4-5 films have been.

On parle toujours mal quand on n'a rien à dire. 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Leerstetten, Germany

The skipping part mainly annoyed me because it’s “traveling fast” and not “teleporting”, and they would have crashed through all kinds of things going in and out of all those places.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka





BrianDavion wrote:
Ultimately the sequal trilogy suffers from lacking that singular vision, and at the end of the day that's 100% at Kathleen Kennedy's door.


Yet there wasn't a "singular vision".

The sequel trilogy was what Disney wanted out of the aquisition and to form the basis of their theme parks and merchandising. They are the ones paying LucasFilm's bills and Kathleen - to a certain point - has to do what she is told.

Casual gaming, mostly solo-coop these days.

 
   
Made in gb
Stone Bonkers Fabricator General




We'll find out soon enough eh.

SamusDrake wrote:
BrianDavion wrote:
Ultimately the sequal trilogy suffers from lacking that singular vision, and at the end of the day that's 100% at Kathleen Kennedy's door.


Yet there wasn't a "singular vision".

The sequel trilogy was what Disney wanted out of the aquisition and to form the basis of their theme parks and merchandising. They are the ones paying LucasFilm's bills and Kathleen - to a certain point - has to do what she is told.


Except it clearly didn't work that way in practice. Disney thought they had another Marvel on their hands, and that Kennedy - who is after all a veteran producer who's worked with Lucas and Spielberg for decades - was a Feige-esque safe pair of hands. They gave her a brief - "George's outlines are a bit too out-there, make something safer to reassure the existing audience and bring in some new kiddies" - and TFA, for all its flaws, indicated she was working to it, and was successful enough to buy her plenty of leeway to do things her own way.

The problem is she evidently didn't have a way, or a plan, or really any idea what she wanted to do with the ST except the whole "The Force Is Female" thing(which, before anyone starts, was a problem of execution and marketing/branding, rather than concept). By the time TLJ came out and Solo's production woes were common knowledge, and the aftermath of those, what could Iger & Disney do except what they did(ie, pull the "buck stops here" routine for investors, and start putting things in place to sideline Kennedy & co, whether they can contractually/optically be rid of her or not).

Disney have responsibility in a technical sense, but the fact is they gave someone a job to do and the job wasn't done. Given there was nothing to suggest to them that the someone they had wasn't capable of doing the job, the fault is Kennedy & co's IMO.

I just hope they're learning the right lessons from this and Kennedy, the Story Group, and that increasingly bitter old git Hidalgo all get their jotters asap - I don't think Star Wars is beyond saving, even as a cinematic franchise providing the next film/trilogy nails it, but if the current batch remain in charge in anything other than name only, it won't survive another Holdo Maneuver.

I need to acquire plastic Skavenslaves, can you help?
I have a blog now, evidently. Featuring the Alternative Mordheim Model Megalist.

"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal 
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut




 ingtaer wrote:
[ In RoS we see this with the bloody stupid hyperspace skipping thing, it has long been established that a ship cant jump to lightspeed in a gravity well and that hyperspace travel takes time but suddenly one can skip from planet to planet instantaneously


When? By who? I don't remember any movie ever explaining us exactly how hyperspace travel works or even what "hyperspace" actually means besides you travel faster than light. Plus, if it takes a few days let's say for a ship to go from Tatooine to Alderaad which are very far away, how long would it take from a ship to travel from one planet to another in the same system or even a system away? Probably seconds at most. Let's not even think about the fact that hyperspace technology might have changed or improved over the years of conflict in the Star Wars universe. We do see ship design changes from movie to movie which let's me think the universe isn't completely stagnant in terms of innovation. This, to me, seems like an example of someone who is desperately clutching at straws because those Star Wars movies weren't their Star Wars movies.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/28 20:20:33


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Leerstetten, Germany

Episode 7 established that you could jump out of hyperspace within a gravity well at least.
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut




 d-usa wrote:
Episode 7 established that you could jump out of hyperspace within a gravity well at least.


Ships in Star Wars are regularly picture entering and leaving hyperspace in a planet's high atmosphere much closer than a moon is meaning they are leaving and arriving within a planet's gravitational pull. Of course a planet's gravitationnal pull will vary in function of its mass.
   
Made in us
Norn Queen






It's not science. It's fantasy.


These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
Made in de
Joined the Military for Authentic Experience






Nuremberg

There just haven't really been that many great star wars movies. The original Star Wars and Empire are both really good, Return of the Jedi is okay. The prequels are all crap, with Clones being the worst and Sith having a few redeeming features. (Though looking at it now, at least Lucas was still doing some original stuff in the prequels and trying to tell a story that he thought was cool. The new stuff is very cynically designed it seems to me).
The Force Awakens was alright as well, I thought. I was optimistic for the new series. The Last Jedi has some interesting ideas (I liked Luke and the idea that the Jedi were as big a problem as the Sith was interesting, the final battle sequence was visually spectacular) but the flaws in the film are too severe for it to stand up. Not as bad as the prequels, worse than Return of the Jedi. I think people got WAY too upset over it, mind you, especially given we have had a lot of bad star wars movies at this point, and bullying the actors online is pathetic.

Solo and Rogue One were...fine. Did we need them? Feth no. Rogue One sort of undermines the original movie by making Luke less special, I guess. And it has some problems with it#s script and the characters involved It has some cool action scenes and visuals generally though. Solo is actually better than it, but it is still pretty mediocre.

So where does that leave us? 11 films, 3 of them good, 4 mediocre, 4 bad? Why are people still excited about this franchise at this point? Or surprised when some of the films are bad?

One thing that is obvious is that Disney obviously think you don't have to have any sort of consistency to the story in these films and you can basically make everything up as you go along, because they hold the audience in contempt. Sometimes, looking at the discourse around the films, I can see why that is.

   
Made in us
Reverent Tech-Adept






I would make the argument that Star Wars may not be as relevant today as it used to be, beyond the nostalgia value many have for the series.

For one, a lot of what gave Star Wars its appeal back in the day was it’s amazing VFX at the time, a VFX technology that STILL holds up today for the most part. The stories themselves were okayish, and from a strictly writing point of view, they aren’t anything groundbreaking. It’s essentially the hero’s journey set in space with space wizards. There was nothing out at the time that really rose to the level of visual inventiveness and spectacle that Star Wars was at.

Even during the prequels era, VFX was revolutionized again, though maybe not as much as before. That series would’ve been better had George Lucas not gone off the deep end. Episode 3 was actually a really great entry, only bogged down by the flaws of Episode 1 and 2.

Now though, there’s nothing much new about the VFX space that Star Wars can add to. Marvel movies, and many other films, have made amazing VFX more commonplace. At this point it’s the aesthetics that we watch for, and there’s no doubt that Star Wars has amazing aesthetics and world design, Enter the new movies and where they failed: they never took Star Wars beyond the old and familiar. This single decision, to retread the old trilogy, more than anything else, is what really brought down the whole sequel trilogy imo. There’s really nothing new here. The story beats were very familiar in Episode 7.

Episode 8 did try to be bolder and subvert expectations. It took risks, which is really the only reason I liked it a lot. Admittedly not every risk paid off, especially the Canto Blight sequence which seemed a bit too long. Things could’ve gone in an interesting direction from here, but they were already limited by the bad choices in Episode 7 of sticking with a familiar old setting. My main gripe with 9 then is that it completely shifts direction away from both 7 and 8 and does its own thing, introducing so many unexplained plot points that it became tough to follow anything. And finally, it was essentially a retread of Return of the Jedi, though maybe not as much as Episode 7 was a retread of a New Hope. 9 did have some potentially good ideas introduced, but they were bogged down by many issues.

These movies just aren’t that relevant because in terms of new stories and concepts that could’ve been explored, they tried very very little. 8 had an attempt that could’ve been good, but ultimately was just written over in 9.

In short, there’s nothing very memorable about these new movies. 8 tried, but with no real plan on how to expand on those ideas, it all fell apart. The lack of a vision is huge, but if you’re gonna make a new Star Wars trilogy, make something NEW, not a retread of the OT, just with modern CG.

I should also add that I really enjoyed the OT, save for parts of RoJ, and I actually think that Episode 3 is a really solid film, save for issues that mar it from Phantom Menance and Clones. It’s really unfortunate that these sequels turned out the way they did. On paper, they had a lot that could make them succeed.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Leerstetten, Germany

Star Wars has some of the same problems as Avatar. Avatar is at best an OK story, and I haven’t watched it once since it left the big screen. But it was a “must watch” and pioneer in visual effects and 3D technology.
   
Made in de
Joined the Military for Authentic Experience






Nuremberg

Star Wars just starts to fall apart when you look at it too closely I reckon. It is broad brushstrokes stuff, but as soon as you start looking at it or thinking about it it turns to mush.

So focusing on details from the first trilogy (who Darth Vader was, what the Sith are, how the Jedi Order works, what the Republic is and so on) is a big mistake made by the prequels, the sequels and the stand alone movies.

Nerds love getting into the details of things, and the EU stuff encouraged this, but it hasn't worked.

Just take the Sith and the Jedi - both points of view are totally weird and inhuman, and neither are particularly good. But the movies sort of act like the Jedi are these awesome good guys, when in fact they are a bunch of really weird people that when played straight are pretty unlikeable.

By focusing on the Force to such a huge degree it sort of highlights the problems with this set up, and also encourages lazy writing where everything happens because of the force and so on.

Probably you could make it all work but you need then to have proper writers writing this stuff, and you need a pretty robust and critical editorial process. They got the guy who did Batman vs Superman and Justice League, for some reason.

Oh well.

   
Made in gb
Stone Bonkers Fabricator General




We'll find out soon enough eh.

 Da Boss wrote:
There just haven't really been that many great star wars movies. The original Star Wars and Empire are both really good, Return of the Jedi is okay. The prequels are all crap, with Clones being the worst and Sith having a few redeeming features. (Though looking at it now, at least Lucas was still doing some original stuff in the prequels and trying to tell a story that he thought was cool. The new stuff is very cynically designed it seems to me).
The Force Awakens was alright as well, I thought. I was optimistic for the new series. The Last Jedi has some interesting ideas (I liked Luke and the idea that the Jedi were as big a problem as the Sith was interesting, the final battle sequence was visually spectacular) but the flaws in the film are too severe for it to stand up. Not as bad as the prequels, worse than Return of the Jedi. I think people got WAY too upset over it, mind you, especially given we have had a lot of bad star wars movies at this point, and bullying the actors online is pathetic.

Solo and Rogue One were...fine. Did we need them? Feth no. Rogue One sort of undermines the original movie by making Luke less special, I guess. And it has some problems with it#s script and the characters involved It has some cool action scenes and visuals generally though. Solo is actually better than it, but it is still pretty mediocre.

So where does that leave us? 11 films, 3 of them good, 4 mediocre, 4 bad? Why are people still excited about this franchise at this point? Or surprised when some of the films are bad?

One thing that is obvious is that Disney obviously think you don't have to have any sort of consistency to the story in these films and you can basically make everything up as you go along, because they hold the audience in contempt. Sometimes, looking at the discourse around the films, I can see why that is.


"Bullying the actors online is pathetic..." it is. Of course it's also pathetic when people continue to pretend this was actually a significant percentage of even the fans who disliked TLJ, let alone all SW fans, of whom there are literally tens if not hundreds of millions. This is the internet, trolls exist, and a couple of percent of any group, anywhere, that formed for any reason or around any franchise are arseholes. Feeding their ego by building them up into "the Fandom Menace" only emboldens them. Of course, generalising the most extreme reactions to something out to everyone who disliked it is a time honoured way of feeling super-smart because the person generalising is obviously just objective and Spock-esque in their appreciation of said something, unlike those people with their emotional reactions fahfahfah.

"Lots of bad Star Wars movies at this point..." I mean, that rather depends on what you're looking for from a Star Wars movie. A lot of folk enjoy the Prequels despite their flaws, glaring though they are, especially when you can rewatch them in light of the additional character development and narrative breathing room granted by the Clone Wars series. For my money, Rogue One and Solo are solid entries. Five great films, three decent enough ones, one tolerable missed opportunity(TFA), one complete gakshow(TLJ), and one utterly illogical epileptic seizure in movie form(RoS). That's a better win/loss ratio than any film franchise except the MCU.

More than that of course, for a lot of people "Star Wars" is not just 11 films. It's 11 films plus 50 years of comics, novels, TV shows, videogames, fan stories, and tabletop games. People are still excited at the prospect of Star Wars films because they've seen the wealth of potential for great stories that whole setting contains, and they continue to be surprised when the films don't live up to that because it really shouldn't be that difficult to cherry-pick the best of it and hammer it into a three-act structure adventure movie.

Your last comment is just a right old chucklefest, because I can guarantee that you'd be equally contemptuous of the part of the audience who walked away when served up slop in the Sequels - they're those "overly emotional" types from earlier on.

I would gently suggest that if you think most Star Wars films have been guff and the bit you liked from the Sequels was trashing Luke's character and doing the Expectation Subverted thing with the idea that the Force is balance and the Dark Side is imbalance & corruption("the Jedi failed to live up to their ideals" is not the same as "the Jedi & Sith are two sides of the same coin and both need to die because I'm Rian Johnson and I remember watching some youtube video about yin and yang one night when I was bored" aren't equivalent notions), the reason you're struggling to fathom what fans are thinking is you're not one anymore? Which is fine, but not being a fan of something isn't an inherently superior position to occupy.

I need to acquire plastic Skavenslaves, can you help?
I have a blog now, evidently. Featuring the Alternative Mordheim Model Megalist.

"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal 
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




 d-usa wrote:
Star Wars has some of the same problems as Avatar. Avatar is at best an OK story, and I haven’t watched it once since it left the big screen. But it was a “must watch” and pioneer in visual effects and 3D technology.


Didn't the last airbender movie bomb? Or are you thinking of something else forgettable?

Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in us
Reverent Tech-Adept






Voss wrote:
 d-usa wrote:
Star Wars has some of the same problems as Avatar. Avatar is at best an OK story, and I haven’t watched it once since it left the big screen. But it was a “must watch” and pioneer in visual effects and 3D technology.


Didn't the last airbender movie bomb? Or are you thinking of something else forgettable?


He means the James Cameron movies.
   
Made in de
Joined the Military for Authentic Experience






Nuremberg

You are projecting a lot onto me there, Yodhrin. I make no claims to ultimate objectivity, and I can be as emotional as anyone else when it comes to things I love.

You probably have a point though- I have never really been "into" star wars, and I would not consider myself a fan really. I liked the original three films when I watched them with my older brother as a kid, but never really got into the comics and video games and all that.

I didn't like the prequels at all, and I was one of the people who walked away from them thinking they were pretty crap, which was a common enough view.

Definitely don't see anything wrong with being a fan. I am a huge spiderman fan, to the point that I was making excuses for the Amazing Spiderman movie, the first one at least.

   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka





 Yodhrin wrote:
SamusDrake wrote:
BrianDavion wrote:
Ultimately the sequal trilogy suffers from lacking that singular vision, and at the end of the day that's 100% at Kathleen Kennedy's door.


Yet there wasn't a "singular vision".

The sequel trilogy was what Disney wanted out of the aquisition and to form the basis of their theme parks and merchandising. They are the ones paying LucasFilm's bills and Kathleen - to a certain point - has to do what she is told.


Except it clearly didn't work that way in practice. Disney thought they had another Marvel on their hands, and that Kennedy - who is after all a veteran producer who's worked with Lucas and Spielberg for decades - was a Feige-esque safe pair of hands. They gave her a brief - "George's outlines are a bit too out-there, make something safer to reassure the existing audience and bring in some new kiddies" - and TFA, for all its flaws, indicated she was working to it, and was successful enough to buy her plenty of leeway to do things her own way.

The problem is she evidently didn't have a way, or a plan, or really any idea what she wanted to do with the ST except the whole "The Force Is Female" thing(which, before anyone starts, was a problem of execution and marketing/branding, rather than concept). By the time TLJ came out and Solo's production woes were common knowledge, and the aftermath of those, what could Iger & Disney do except what they did(ie, pull the "buck stops here" routine for investors, and start putting things in place to sideline Kennedy & co, whether they can contractually/optically be rid of her or not).

Disney have responsibility in a technical sense, but the fact is they gave someone a job to do and the job wasn't done. Given there was nothing to suggest to them that the someone they had wasn't capable of doing the job, the fault is Kennedy & co's IMO.

I just hope they're learning the right lessons from this and Kennedy, the Story Group, and that increasingly bitter old git Hidalgo all get their jotters asap - I don't think Star Wars is beyond saving, even as a cinematic franchise providing the next film/trilogy nails it, but if the current batch remain in charge in anything other than name only, it won't survive another Holdo Maneuver.


While I respect your opinion, I still hold to Disney interferring too much and are trying to twist Star Wars into another MCU. They have pushed LucasFilm way beyond their means and the fact that Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker were put back to Christmas(both were scheduled for May of their respective years), and a third Story movie has been put on hold(cancelled?), is clear evidence of that.

Seriously, LucasFIlm of the past - they released a film once in a while. Disney - ramming MCU movies down our throats practically every three-to-six months. The sequel trilogy was rushed and the proof is in the pudding.

As for the female-empowerment issue - well, yes, she is a woman and not surprisingly she'd want to encourage more female roles in her films that she produces. Its happening all over the shop I'm afraid in other franchises. Take Dr Who for example, The 100 or Batwoman. LOL, for a good laugh on the subject, look up "The Worm that turned" by The Two Ronnies - so bloomin funny, and true! In my day job I'm one of few blokes in a female-dominated team and I do long for more male company and topics. Sometimes I wish they would introduce our new manager as DCI Gene Hunt...

Casual gaming, mostly solo-coop these days.

 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

The EU showed Star Wars was mortal, and the prequels killed it for me. Afterwards, I wandered into the snowy wastes to live in the fairy castle of head canon, where I have been happy if unmotivated by Star Wars. Solo and Rogue One drew me out a bit, but if Disney doesn’t make another Star WRs movie, I’ll be fine.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/29 00:26:33


   
Made in us
Reverent Tech-Adept






 Da Boss wrote:
You are projecting a lot onto me there, Yodhrin. I make no claims to ultimate objectivity, and I can be as emotional as anyone else when it comes to things I love.

You probably have a point though- I have never really been "into" star wars, and I would not consider myself a fan really. I liked the original three films when I watched them with my older brother as a kid, but never really got into the comics and video games and all that.

I didn't like the prequels at all, and I was one of the people who walked away from them thinking they were pretty crap, which was a common enough view.

Definitely don't see anything wrong with being a fan. I am a huge spiderman fan, to the point that I was making excuses for the Amazing Spiderman movie, the first one at least.


I don’t think anyone is claiming objectivity, but as someone who really enjoyed the original trilogy, and episode 3 when I was younger, I sort of agree with your points. Admittedly I fell out of being a Star Wars fan recently, so maybe I am biased as well. I guess what my main point was that the plot of the original movies wasn’t groundbreaking. It’s the Hero’s Journey. George Lucas has said so multiple times. What made those movies special was the visualization of a galaxy far far away. The spectacle of massive planet sized planet killing battle stations, of fighters skirmishing in space, of giant four legged walkers destroying an embattled rebellion, and of space wizards dueling with energy swords. It was fantastic imagination with fantastic VFX.

The prequels, for all their flaws, did continue that world building. Never before had we seen the more urban side of Star Wars. The VFX proved to be equally revolutionary. I would argue that 3 is actually a solid film, though that’s just my opinion.

I just think that the new trilogy never did anything new or special, and it’s markedly difficult now to really do anything new or special, since just it’s just not that age anymore, when Star Wars, and only Star Wars had the ability to craft amazing worlds and suck you into it. Lord of the Rings became an amazing cinematic masterpiece around the time the prequels were still going. Game of Thrones, in spite of its really bad last season, sold us a harsh fantasy world not so different from our own. Hell, the amount of series and movies now that rival Star Wars in terms of depth and scope, along with the visual capability to render them, is staggering. It doesn’t help that there was no plan with these new movies, and that they decided to not really do much new at all really. I had been looking forward to seeing the shipyards of Kuat made real, kind of like how Coruscant was made real in the prequels, but instead we got more barren and desolate worlds. The story beats didn’t tell anything new either, other than what we had already seen. 8 took some risks and tried to tell something new. But hey, it’s just an opinion.

I want to say that you can be a fan and like 8. You can also be a fan and not like 8. No need to cast judgement either way.
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




SamusDrake wrote:


While I respect your opinion, I still hold to Disney interferring too much and are trying to twist Star Wars into another MCU. They have pushed LucasFilm way beyond their means and the fact that Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker were put back to Christmas(both were scheduled for May of their respective years), and a third Story movie has been put on hold(cancelled?), is clear evidence of that.

I'd argue the opposite. Disney didn't do nearly enough to control the new trilogy, and just went along with whatever terrible ideas were being spun out on the spur of the moment. Had it been more like the MCU (planned and interlinked, with an overall view of little connections but largely self-contained stories), it would have been a lot better. Amazingly better.

As for LucasFilm being pushed beyond their means, I don't know what you mean. LucasFilm is mostly sound and effects, and they had far too much time to overpack unnecessary crap into every frame until the films are incoherent messes of noise and randomly pulsating lights.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/29 03:19:56


Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
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[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

 Da Boss wrote:
Why are people still excited about this franchise at this point? Or surprised when some of the films are bad?
This is exactly where I am with Star Wars — not only asking these questions generally, but posing them to myself at this point. And a few more: Why have I bothered to care about this for so long considering it’s rarely any good, sometimes okay, and mostly terrible? Can I bother to continue, for example by buying into Legion and other games, care about this IP considering how it lets me down 80% and more of the time? The OT will always be good but what reason is there to believe, after so many years later full of examples to the contrary, that anything with the Star Wars label will ever come close?

   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka





Voss wrote:
SamusDrake wrote:


While I respect your opinion, I still hold to Disney interferring too much and are trying to twist Star Wars into another MCU. They have pushed LucasFilm way beyond their means and the fact that Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker were put back to Christmas(both were scheduled for May of their respective years), and a third Story movie has been put on hold(cancelled?), is clear evidence of that.

I'd argue the opposite. Disney didn't do nearly enough to control the new trilogy, and just went along with whatever terrible ideas were being spun out on the spur of the moment. Had it been more like the MCU (planned and interlinked, with an overall view of little connections but largely self-contained stories), it would have been a lot better. Amazingly better.

As for LucasFilm being pushed beyond their means, I don't know what you mean. LucasFilm is mostly sound and effects, and they had far too much time to overpack unnecessary crap into every frame until the films are incoherent messes of noise and randomly pulsating lights.



Disney are the biggest control freaks in the business. Rushing through multiple projects is exactly Disneys calling card. Thats why everyone groaned when Disney aquired LucasFilm.

Casual gaming, mostly solo-coop these days.

 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

I think if you put SW in it's box as a fun thing to see on occasion, this was a great addition/conclusion.

SW's gift, IMHO, has always been economy of story telling.

"I served with your father during the clone wars, he was a Jedi knight".

That's a collection of meaningless nonsense words but, in context, fire the imagination of the viewer and make the world seem alive. It look 20+ years to get around to telling that story but we were cool with that.

Rise has lots of plot holes but they're papered over with efficiency. How does hyperspace work? Well you can 'skip' into a planet's atomosphere but it's risky and you might blow up and even the best pilot's going to get trash his ship doing it. I can work with that.

And since the Dark Empire comic was 'my' choice for the future of SW I was happy to see Palpatine back.

So yeah, as one of the guys who saw SW in the theater in 1977, got lots of toys, had the bed sheets, used his Buck Rogers Tigerman action figure as Darth Vader till he got a real Darth... I was happy with it.
[Thumb - Rise of Skywalker.jpg]

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/29 10:02:26


 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

why not have a ship jump to hyperspace directly from a landing pad?

COMING SOON?

   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

 Manchu wrote:
why not have a ship jump to hyperspace directly from a landing pad?

COMING SOON?


Because of reasons.

 
   
Made in us
[MOD]
Solahma






RVA

jump to hyperspace from landing pad directly into Palpatine’s brain

feth you Holdo, I call it the Manchu Maneuver

“foresee this!”

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/29 10:51:09


   
Made in gb
Ultramarine Librarian with Freaky Familiar





That's something I didn't quite get, why was the Holdo Maneuver all of a sudden one in a million?

If it's called the Holdo Maneuver, that implies that she was the first to do it, or that it wasn't popular/well known beforehand. No-one else was aboard the ship at the time, so if there were any difficulties or technical problems she encountered while doing it, they wouldn't know that (and as viewers, we didn't see any).
The new trilogy has made it very clear that lightspeed isn't how it used to be, and the existing restrictions (getting too close to celestial bodies, using it within atmosphere, ramming other vessels, and even minor teleportation - in the start sequence of RoS, the Falcon "skips" through the mouth of a space worm thing, and doesn't blow a hole in the back of it's head) no longer seem to apply to cause any problems.

Unless the Resistance has been testing the Holdo Maneuver themselves, with their already tiny skeleton crew, how would they know it's a "one in a million chance"?

At least with Han's comment of "one in a million" about Luke firing a proton torpedo into the Death Star, we know that characters have been talking about how difficult it is because of it's size and the concept of hitting a small target while moving in a starship while being shot at yourself sounds like it would be a difficult thing. It's heavily suggested that Luke *only* pulls it off because he is Force sensitive, and uses it to guide his shot.
We get none of that with the Holdo Maneuver. There doesn't seem to be any obstacles she needs to overcome, and unfortunately, in the real world, we are well aware of the deadliness and relative ease such a ramming action has.


They/them

 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

My pet theory is Holdo was also Force Sensetive and she alone could pick the right second the shields would flicker and the ramming would work.

This is what I mean about SW is good if you keep it in it's box. It was a cool scene, a great visual, I liked how they turned off the sound for it to make it more stark. But obviously once you start asking why they don't have racks of hyperspace capable missiles blowing up who enemy fleets, it stops working. May as well ask why the Jedi don't have Gatling Lightsabre cannons cutting through enemy armies.

 
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
May as well ask why the Jedi don't have Gatling Lightsabre cannons cutting through enemy armies.

There's a Jedi sniper rifle lightsabre in one of the Doctor Aphra comics.
   
 
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