the default tie fighter pilot helmets in this are still cool as shit
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I havenât seen a lot of Kurosawa, but I have seen Sanjuro, and I loved Sanjuro to pieces. Itâs a lot more varied and fun than Yojimbo. And the last fight is amazing. But most of the movie is more battles of wits, and cons, and plots.
I donât see it get recommended often, so I like to put it out there.
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baby cart in peril and baby cart to hades are both worth making time for.
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if thereâs anything that every single iteration of Star Wars has consistently done right, itâs helmet design
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i can also now confirm that Three Outlaw Samurai is good
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Sanjuro and RAN make interesting bookends for arterial spray as punctuation in Kurosawaâs career (?)
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Oh, I meant the Shogun Assassin trilogy which includes those two.
I donât want to descend too far down into âWhat ifâŚâ situations, but at this point, having recently decided that I Am The Forum Prequel Liker and Star War Expert, I just want to say that if the sequel trilogy was left up to me, I probably would have set it up so that the Rebel Alliance was successful and have been running the galaxy as just the âGalactic Allianceâ or something like that for a few decades. The ep 7 text scroll would have been all about how they have spent the intervening years wiping out imperial loyalists in their hiding places, and the film would open essentially with the tables turnedâthe loyalists as a disorganized insurgent force and the Alliance as the dominant galactic power, and the meta-narrative over the course of the trilogy would concern the reformation of the Jedi order as a way to balance the overreach of the state rather than serve as its right hand.
Anyway thatâs just my pitch. I think the way they are doing it is fine. But that would be a way to actually move the story forward rather than just rehash the same basic conflicts of episodes 4-6. I am curious to see where they take it in 9, but I have to say for all of the credit 8 is getting for pulling the rug out from under the series, they really pass the buck to the next episode as far as actually looking at the consequences of those twists.
But, since itâs Abrams again, I guess we can look forward to the destruction of the half-built New Starkiller Base
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Iâve beenthinking about it, and I think perhaps the limited scope of Episode 8 might in fact be a direct response to (or at least a necessary consequence of) 7âs asinine and weird and dumb worldbuilding. One thing that is so neat about 8 is that it takes place in such a short period of timeâlike certainly no more than 48 hoursâand is about One Thing, essentially (resistance getting owned by the first order and trying to survive). 7 had so much slipshod, vague worldbuilding, with weird weightless consequence (most egregiously the âthey blew up the republicâ scene of cours), and also was so weird as to the exact threat posed by the First Order (theyâre an up-and-coming fascist state⌠but also have a starkiller base?), that it actually makes a ton of sense that, for someone attempting a sequel to that film, the best solution is to ignore as much of it as possible by making a film about a single narrative beat that doesnât rely on any of that jank.
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This movie owned
God bless Rian Johnson, someone who understands how to build dramatic tension and pay it off, for being able to work within the confines of a corporate Disney hellscape and come out with this, a goddamn good, goddamn original, goddamn exciting and unpredictable Star War
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Well, except it totally does rely on the kind of understated fact that the system destroyed by Starkiller base was essentially the entirety of the Alliance. You never get any sense that the status quo has been upset between episodes 6 and 7, because the whole thing is destroyed off-screen in 7.
In 4, when Alderaan is destroyed, the consequences are mostly emotionalâweâre not expected to assume Alderaan plays any sort of important role in the ongoing struggle between the Empire and the Rebellion, itâs a demonstration to display what they could do if only they could find the rebel base, and also specifically meant to punish Leia for concealing her and Alderaanâs ties to the rebellion.
But in 7 the destruction of the Hosnian System is both a reveal of the First Orderâs previously unknown power as well as the turn of events that makes them the dominant military power in the galaxy again. The Resistance has always been small and operating behind the scenes of the Alliance-controlled systems, but after that they are the only counter-balance to the First Order that remains. Itâs actually weirdly similar to the prequels in the way it ties massive consequences to things that are kind of treated as asides (like the entirety of Dookuâs involvement in the Separatist movement, for example)
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Iâm definitely anxious about JJ handling the next film again, but there is one good aspect to it: since itâs almost definitely the last one (i know Disney wants to make star wars forever, but I canât imagine them actually doing a 10-11-12 trilogy for a very long time) JJ wonât be able to do the fan-theory mystery box bullshit that is his main crutch. PLUS, episode 8 didnât leave any lingering mysteries that he can ruin in dumb ways. I mean, he could still do a single-movie mystery box, ala Star Trek Into Darkness, but he mostly avoided that in 7 as well. Basically IX stands to be the least-Abramsy Abrams movie yet, so Iâm hopeful.
Wasnât Rian Johnson originally also the screenwriter for 9, back when the director was either Trevorrow or unannounced? What happened? Did they correctly perceive the fan backlash to 8 and fire him?
Thatâs all true, but itâs very poorly dramatized in the film imo, because they donât do the work of explaining the state of the world at all. So the relative powers of the First Order and the Republic, both before and after the destruction of those planets, as well as what exactly the Resistance is, politically, like how itâs different from the Republic and what everyoneâs deal is, exactly, is not remotely clear on one or even two viewings. You have to a) pay a LOT of attention, and b) read supplementary materials, to really get it, and even once it all makes sense itâs still, in my opinion (i canât particularly substantiate this), both overly complicated and somewhat uninteresting.
also, hi! iâm also a Prequels Stan
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spoiler question:
was that final planet supposed to be Hoth, or just look exactly like Hoth?
ITâS FUCKING SALT
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I KNOW I KNOW
but somehow I thought it was a commentary on global warming or something. Hoth has melted and all that is left is SALT.
that makes sense, right? right? right??
oh hahah yeah it does. I really really just want a gif of that scene to become a meme in the fighting game world though
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the number one thing I want explained is/was why the Resistance is the de facto Galactic Alliance/Republic military
I have a feeling thatâs actually what was destroyed w/ the Hosnian system. Though why they would all be in one place is another question