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 Mr Morden wrote:

I can;t think of a "good "character in TLJ - Rey has possibilities but is not great but everyone else - UGhhh.

Kylo, Snoke and Rey mainly. I think there's potential elsewhere that gets marred by some clunky pacing.


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 hotsauceman1 wrote:

But worst is she exist to expouse some sort of "Resistance is just as bad as first order because.....they buy weapons too?" kinda nonsense.

This is technically DJ's dialog, though I consider it the clunkiest part of the movie. Rose's equally clunky soapbox is about the people powerful enough to sit out the conflict and profit off whoever wins. This whole subplot kind of fails to get its ideas across like it should, but is kind of the crux of what's wrong with the ST. There's a central arc to the Resistance that every film touches on but uniquely fails to express correctly:

EP7: The Republic has ignored how much of a threat the First Order has become. In response, Leia calls in favors from the wealthy elite to fund a Resistance to sabotage their growth and oppose their expansion. By the end of the movie they succeed in destroying Starkiller base, but not before it decapitates the Republic.

EP8: The Resistance attempts to flee retaliation for the destruction of Starkiller base, but finds itself unable to shake its pursuers. They take shelter and put out a call to the wealthy elite that support them to make a stand against the First Order but they choose instead to let the Resistance die and back the winner.

EP9: The First Order is toppled not by a large military force but a collection of citizens standing up to tyranny inspired by the stories of the heroes of the OT.

Unfortunately, EP7 kind of doesn't bother to explain anything at all. EP8 probably does the best job but can't decide if it wants to make it a big surprise or an exposition dump and kind churns out both awkwardly. EP9 basically abandons it until the end where it becomes super hamfisted and dumb. It's one of the big losses for me from the Trevorrow script, which seemed to do a lot more with the idea.

So, I very much preferred The Last Jedi of the three sequel films, even though it had problems (looking at you casino planet). The development between Rey & Kylo was very interesting, blurring the lines between dark and light, I like Kylo's villain motivation of "burn the past, both the Jedi & the Sith were wrong", which also ties nicely into Yoda basically saying the same thing (although undermined by Rey having the Jedi bibles anyway...)

I think TLJ is the only one that attempts to do anything interesting with the setting. It could honestly be my favorite film in the franchise if it was paced better. TFA is the best paced and probably most rewatchable of the bunch though, IMO. It's kind of a palette swap though.

I really hate TLJ as it does not "Get" Star Wars at all and actively spits on the fans for liking Star Wars for what it is.......

..... BUT.....

..... It was the most interesting of the new movies by far. It was the only one that actually had something to say in any meaningful way.

So, I am torn like an old Sweater.

Yeah, I get that. I also think if Rise had been a more triumphant follow up I'd feel different about the lougees.

How about TV series?

Big Bang Theory - Bernadette - I am not sure if the writing or the actor's portrayal is to blame, but I simply could not stand the way she came across and delivered most of her lines. OK, probably the portrayal is to blame...

I don’t know if the actress or the writers decided to lean hard into making that character unlikeable, but I think the actress nailed what they were going for.

Personally i'm not a huge star wars fan, i like a few things and a few ships and characters and when i was a kid i worshiped it, but as i aged it just got more and more meh to me.

I do believe the fhandom has become toxic, possibly the most toxic in all fhandom.

I heard as rumor that kylo ren was written to be as reflection of the toxic fhandom, essentially a tantrum throwing ranting child lashing out mindlessly at all around him as a way of saying this is what the toxic fans are like. I don;t know if it's true but I kinda hope it is.

 Blackie wrote:

Yeah, people complained about Jar Jar but Anakin was way more annoying. He was ok as a kid but in Ep II or III highly contributed to ruin the movies. Both character's and actor's fault I think.

As others mentioned earlier, it's hard to blame the actors, given some of the talent present in the prequels who come across awfully flat. Natalie Portman has mentioned in interviews that she struggled to find work for some time afterwards, because everyone thought she was a terrible actor based on the prequels.

The problems with Anakin are entirely down to the script and George's complete lack of character direction. He tends to put all of his effort into setting up backgrounds and effects, but struggles with writing dialogue that actual people would say, and when directing actors he just points them at the set and says 'Go'. A better director would have put more effort into showing both sides of Anakin's character to make him likable, and developed his descent more sensibly, so that you actually felt bad when he finally fell.

As it is, I think when my daughters are old enough for the prequels, we'll have to take a detour through the Clone Wars cartoon in between Eps 2 and 3, so that they get a chance to actually like Anakin for a while.

One thing that really gets me steamed is when they call Rei a "mary sue".

MOST characters in major roles in epic stories are mary sues or marty stus.

I did see a video entitled "Why Rei is a mary sue BUT luke skywalker wasn't a marty stu" and just barked out "BULLGAK!" (sort of) aloud. Luke was a marty stu, jumps into a fighter cockpit fresh from the farm and wins a dogfight that vet pilots died en masse in. He was a marty stu.

Also, they call rei a mary sue, what about the madalorian? This guy has:

Impenetrable armor.
a disintegrator rifle.
a 15 pound buddy who can stop and levitate a 2000 pound monster, and then heal mando by touching him.

Yeah, no mary sueism there.

To say something good about star wars, I think the things SW has always gotten right are music and sound effects. In both these fields all the SW movies were top notch.

Regarding Anakin, kinda hard to like a character that seems to regularly kill children.

 Tyran wrote:
Regarding Anakin, kinda hard to like a character that seems to regularly kill children.

I kinda forgave him for killing the tusken camp given what they had done to earn it. The jedi massacre was unforgivable. He got into force heaven after that just for saving his own son? Yeah, not if i was keeping the gate.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Regarding Anakin, kinda hard to like a character that seems to regularly kill children.

I kinda forgave him for killing the tusken camp given what they had done to earn it. The jedi massacre was unforgivable. He got into force heaven after that just for saving his own son? Yeah, not if i was keeping the gate.

Had he only killed the adults, I could had forgiven him for that, but I cannot forgive killing the children.

 MDSW wrote:
How about TV series?

Big Bang Theory - Bernadette - I am not sure if the writing or the actor's portrayal is to blame, but I simply could not stand the way she came across and delivered most of her lines. OK, probably the portrayal is to blame...

Yeah, younger me got blind sided by her..........assets. But watching it with my mom, i see her as not only un likable, but really mean, especially Her relationship with howard seems incredibly toxic to the point of an outward obaserver i would think she is a beard and resentful of it.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 MDSW wrote:
How about TV series?

Big Bang Theory - Bernadette - I am not sure if the writing or the actor's portrayal is to blame, but I simply could not stand the way she came across and delivered most of her lines. OK, probably the portrayal is to blame...

Yeah, younger me got blind sided by her..........assets. But watching it with my mom, i see her as not only un likable, but really mean, especially Her relationship with howard seems incredibly toxic to the point of an outward obaserver i would think she is a beard and resentful of it.

I think part of the problem was that she and Amy Farrah Fowler both started it as odd and slightly insecure medical scientists who got a little too excited for their experiments. I believe Rauch was in part hired due to her facility with voices (Howard’s Mother), which became something of a crutch later on. So, when it came time to differentiate her character from Farrah Fowler, she developed along almost the opposite line. It makes sense that she would gain more confidence in a stable relationship and after promotion to a well-paid job with some power, and that her established personality would make the best (worst) of that. However, either the writers or actress took it to cartoonish levels, and then completely altered the relationship with Howard to lean into making Bernadette a manipulative psychopath. It feels like the actress just wanted to play a villain.


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They played it for laughs that everyone was terrified of her. Give the show a different soundtrack and she’s pretty much The Purple Man.

I think Also, Amy's anger and chiding of her partner is a bit more justified, he doesnt do anything for the relationship and is pretty much in it just because he wants Amy(It also doesnt help they got into it when Sheldon was fully flanderized, he had not problems with sex and stuff at the beginning)
However, Bernadette gets mad at Howard for just, being himself, his quirky weird self, yeah he can be immature from times, but what geek kinda isnt? She seems to hate howard for, being Howard.

She seems to resent all of her friends by the last couple of seasons.

 Blackie wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:


Oh, no no no. That guy's an Oscar winning actor compared to whomever played Johnny. I'm talking about The Duke's second in command. The one that Brain stabs near the end of the movie.

Do you mean the punk blonde guy with that impossible hair cut? Character's called Romero, and in real life he was the father of Portia Doubleday, one of the protagonists of Mr Robot. I've always found him odd but not at the point of ruining the movie, which IMHO is close to absolute perfection.

To my credit, it's been a while since I've been willing to watch it because I found that guy's character so cloying. So his name is Romero, I could have sworn Brain called him Johnny in the scene where he rescues the President. Ultimately it doesn't change the fact that his acting was so terrible. Like, I don't know WHAT he was aiming for, but he failed at every angle. Scary? Nope. Intimidating? Nope. Watch the ridiculous way he takes his sunglasses off when the suitcase is shot open. That incredibly stupid non-acting overaction crept into literally every aspect of his performance. The only thing he DIDN'T fail at was dying.

Wait, scratch that. His acting was so bad that it even brought down any semblance of satisfaction one could get from seeing him get his comeuppance.

Seriously, to hell with that guy and any movie he's in. I don't care if they finally did a movie about the battle of Rynn's World, if they cast that clown in it I would boycott it.

 Matt Swain wrote:
One thing that really gets me steamed is when they call Rei a "mary sue".

MOST characters in major roles in epic stories are mary sues or marty stus.

I did see a video entitled "Why Rei is a mary sue BUT luke skywalker wasn't a marty stu" and just barked out "BULLGAK!" (sort of) aloud. Luke was a marty stu, jumps into a fighter cockpit fresh from the farm and wins a dogfight that vet pilots died en masse in. He was a marty stu.

Also, they call rei a mary sue, what about the madalorian? This guy has:

Impenetrable armor.
a disintegrator rifle.
a 15 pound buddy who can stop and levitate a 2000 pound monster, and then heal mando by touching him.

Yeah, no mary sueism there.

To say something good about star wars, I think the things SW has always gotten right are music and sound effects. In both these fields all the SW movies were top notch.

Let's examine the key difference between Luke and Rey.

First movie, Luke comes off the farm and hops into a fighter, yes... but only after Biggs vouches for his piloting skill. Luke's ship takes two hits in the battle and he nearly dies as Darth Vader chases him down in the trench and he is only saved by Han's intervention.

Second movie, Luke gets some training and faces Vader with lightsabers. It quickly becomes clear Vader is playing with him, and when Vader gets serious it takes him about thirty seconds to beat Luke decisively.

Third movie, Luke gets some insight and practice, then faces Vader again, holds his own against Vader, and only manages to beat him by flirting with the edge of the Dark Side. Then Palpatine pimp-slaps him to the ground...

Now let's look at Rey. Rey comes off the scrap heap, hops into the Millennium Falcon, and successfully dogfights several TIE fighters. She gets no training in the Force, but manages to block Kylo Ren's mind probe, mindtrick a stormtrooper, and at the climax of the movie she beats Kylo Ren so decisively that the director has to pull a convenient fissure out of his backside to keep her from killing him.

This is why Rey is considered a Mary Sue. No training at all, and yet she accomplishes in ONE movie what Luke needed THREE to do.

How to solve it? DEAD SIMPLE. Rey's flashback shows her being left on Jakku, not with what's-his-face, but with Ahsoka Tano. Now we see she was clearly trained by Ahsoka, not just in the Force, but probably also in more prosaic skills like piloting (possibly even on the Falcon itself, since it was there on the planet with them), repair, and even scavenging parts. Now all that stuff she does becomes plausible. Still unwise from a narrative sense, in that it pretty much eliminates Kylo Ren as a serious villain for the rest of the trilogy, but that doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone at Disney.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok so, since we are on TLJ, im going to say Rose actively ruined the movie, mainly for her characterization & role in her.
She was too quirky at first for me. But then she was made to fill the two roles already being filled in the previous movie. She was meant to be Finns anchor to the resistance, when that was meant to be Poes job, but they abandoned that for some reason(too gay?) and she was his Love interest, because they decided to go the Reylo route.
But worst is she exist to expouse some sort of "Resistance is just as bad as first order because.....they buy weapons too?" kinda nonsense.

Rose was fine to me. If anything I didn't like how her character completely disappeared from the story in EP IX.

Before Rose, TLJ was ruined by a terrible screenplay and terrible characterization (and sometimes actor's performance) of Rey, Kylo Ren and Luke. They, and Johnson's poor writing, actually ruined the movie, not Rose. I've also never like Leia in the new trilogy but I really can't be harsh on Carrie Fisher.

Kylo Ren is probably the reason why I consider the new trilogy pretty low, IMHO he competes with Hayden's Anakin to be the worst character in the entire SW universe, and it's a shame as I like the actor.

Nah, Adam Driver’s performance as Kylo Ren is the only consistently good thing about the Disney Trilogy.

 Manchu wrote:
Nah, Adam Driver’s performance as Kylo Ren is the only consistently good thing about the Disney Trilogy.

Really? First of all I consider it a true miscast: guy looks like 15yo older than Rey (oh it actually almost is), a child in comparison, and they have 0 chemistry together.

The character is basically a parody of Anakin, the other worst character in the SW universe himself, a jedi-dark jedi boy who constantly struggles between good and evil and ultimately he somehow redeemes himself. No thanks, the character was bad since the beginning, no chance of making it good and Adam Driver couldn't make the miracle. Lots of random silliness from his performance too, like the illogical and hilarious scenes in which he destroys the elevator or talk to Vader's helmet, but I don't think it's Driver's fault. I can't stand Kylo Ren basically in every scene he is in, across all three movies.

I liked Poe, Finn and even Rose among the new characters. They all seem appropriate and "fresh" for a SW movie. Han Solo wasn't bad either, definitely better than Luke and Leia.

Snoke, Palpatine and the general portrayed by Gleeson were also terrible at the worst levels but at least they aren't main characters.

Sure, Kylo is a tryhard. He also has huge entitlement issues. His biggest problem is his inability to get over himself. But you know what? All that makes perfect sense when you think about who raised him ... or, rather, failed to do so. Luke, Han, and Leia were all cool kids but they grew up to be major feth ups and absolutely garbage parents.

You say he’s a parody of Anakin but in reality this is a much, much, much more coherent portrayal of what the dark side is all about.

I kinda hate Big Bang Theory in general, but I always figured that Bernadette was being portrayed entirely as she was supposed to be. Like, she's supposed to be an intentional reflection of Howards mother.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
One thing that really gets me steamed is when they call Rei a "mary sue".

MOST characters in major roles in epic stories are mary sues or marty stus.

I did see a video entitled "Why Rei is a mary sue BUT luke skywalker wasn't a marty stu" and just barked out "BULLGAK!" (sort of) aloud. Luke was a marty stu, jumps into a fighter cockpit fresh from the farm and wins a dogfight that vet pilots died en masse in. He was a marty stu.

Also, they call rei a mary sue, what about the madalorian? This guy has:

Impenetrable armor.
a disintegrator rifle.
a 15 pound buddy who can stop and levitate a 2000 pound monster, and then heal mando by touching him.

Yeah, no mary sueism there.

To say something good about star wars, I think the things SW has always gotten right are music and sound effects. In both these fields all the SW movies were top notch.

Let's examine the key difference between Luke and Rey.

First movie, Luke comes off the farm and hops into a fighter, yes... but only after Biggs vouches for his piloting skill. Luke's ship takes two hits in the battle and he nearly dies as Darth Vader chases him down in the trench and he is only saved by Han's intervention.

Second movie, Luke gets some training and faces Vader with lightsabers. It quickly becomes clear Vader is playing with him, and when Vader gets serious it takes him about thirty seconds to beat Luke decisively.

Third movie, Luke gets some insight and practice, then faces Vader again, holds his own against Vader, and only manages to beat him by flirting with the edge of the Dark Side. Then Palpatine pimp-slaps him to the ground...

Now let's look at Rey. Rey comes off the scrap heap, hops into the Millennium Falcon, and successfully dogfights several TIE fighters. She gets no training in the Force, but manages to block Kylo Ren's mind probe, mindtrick a stormtrooper, and at the climax of the movie she beats Kylo Ren so decisively that the director has to pull a convenient fissure out of his backside to keep her from killing him.

This is why Rey is considered a Mary Sue. No training at all, and yet she accomplishes in ONE movie what Luke needed THREE to do.

How to solve it? DEAD SIMPLE. Rey's flashback shows her being left on Jakku, not with what's-his-face, but with Ahsoka Tano. Now we see she was clearly trained by Ahsoka, not just in the Force, but probably also in more prosaic skills like piloting (possibly even on the Falcon itself, since it was there on the planet with them), repair, and even scavenging parts. Now all that stuff she does becomes plausible. Still unwise from a narrative sense, in that it pretty much eliminates Kylo Ren as a serious villain for the rest of the trilogy, but that doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone at Disney.

I think you're overlooking the fact this occurs in the star wars universe. Apparently when one side of the force is waning, it gets a ringer to bring it back in play and keep the endless cycle going. So the jedi were on top for a long time so a 'chosen one' was sent to restore balance to the force, and yep, he did, by boosting the dark side.

The luke gets plopped in as the guy to bring the light side back. So along comes kylo. So the light side gets a ringer on their side. Maybe the light side will be on top for a while until the dark side gets its next champion.

All this makes me wonder if force users really have free will, or does the force make them go light or dark to keep the cycle going? If one side is dominant for a while, the other apparently gets a paladin to bring it back to prominence. Is that person fated to be on one side without any choice, or does the force pick people who were most likely to choose one side and kind of tip them in the direction they were already inclined towards? If Anikin really had no choice about becoming Mr. Dark Side is that why he got into force heaven despite his horrible crimes? Hmmm, makes one wonder...

But as to rei, her force powers seemed to be reactive to her situation. She siurvived by scavenging tech gear so maybe the force gave her an innate ability to understand machines and use them.

When exposed to a force power, it seemed to trigger hers to go active. Ren tried to mind probe her, her force powers responded reflexively to block him. Having been exposed to an attempt at mind powers, she developed her own in response. When ren used force pull near her, her force powers mimicked his.

Plus rei was palpatine's granddaughter, and it looks like palpy was the most potent force user in the storyline. Since force owers seem to go in family bloodlines it's not inconsistent hers would be high level.

You know, I have thought a lot about the actual topic of movies ruined by a bad performance, and I honestly can not think of a single movie.

Most of the reason a movie is bad is because their is a grouping of things that all go together to make it bad. Nowadays, I am pretty excited to find competent and workman like movies, as so many just feel sloppily put together by committee.

Kylo is probably the best written character in all of the films up until Rise. I can't say I "got" him immediately the first time I saw the film, but seeing him in the forest trying to summon anger he just doesn't have any reason to have really makes the whole thing click in place for m.

And yes, Rey beats him at the end of 7. He's also limping through the fight with a massive bowcaster wound in his side (there's a reason the movie makes a huge deal about how hard it hits earlier in the film when Han uses it).

Like most things though, he ends up going nowhere in Rise. I'm mostly just crushed at all the wasted potential. All I really wanted from 9 was him and Force Ghost Luke. Is that really so much to ask?

One more TV, sorry...

Seinfeld - Jerry Seinfeld - he was the weakest of the ensemble and actually painful to watch him in every scene against the others, except when they showed him doing his stand-up.

Of course, he is not the only actor that surrounded themselves with greater talent...

 LunarSol wrote:


Like most things though, he ends up going nowhere in Rise. I'm mostly just crushed at all the wasted potential. All I really wanted from 9 was him and Force Ghost Luke. Is that really so much to ask?

I would have loved Rey becoming a true villain slaying Kylo and getting into the dark side, and ultimately defeated by Finn helped by the ghosts of past jedi; that would have saved the trilogy. Instead no, we saw the main villain redeeming himself at the end. Again.

 Compel wrote:
I kinda hate Big Bang Theory in general, but I always figured that Bernadette was being portrayed entirely as she was supposed to be. Like, she's supposed to be an intentional reflection of Howards mother.

So then...Howard’s going to bail in a few years and leave her to screw up the kids royally?

That fits.