Let's just talk about Star Wars forever (Part 1)

I dunno, it didn’t do much of anything for me. All the “weird” “inspired” stuff is on the fringes, at best. The main through-line of the movie is elaborate rollercoaster that has a bunch of twists and turns and then drops you off right where you started. What’s the point?

1 Like

You telling me you weren’t into Luke milking a bizarre space cow then immediately drinking its milk with a shit-eating grin?!

4 Likes

No, I’m saying I did like that! If more of the two point five hours of movie I watched was that I would be more into it.

1 Like

You mean, sacrificing thousands of lives in crew and soldiers and a perfectly serviceable cruiser just to hurl one as a weapon? Doesn’t seem like a sound tactical move to do “all the time” if you ask me

Also, there’s precedent in the EU (original continuity, at least) of others doing the same thing before.

I have to agree with the status-quo reaffirming resolutions to the plot lines were a bit disappointing. I would be so hype if we had got Dark Rey + Kylo at the very end and that was the setup for the third film.

Also, Poe being scolded for disobeying orders and sacrificing dozens of lives of his fellow rebels just for a chance at an ego-boosting kill, then it being resolved as “haha, he’s a dangerous, unstable troublemaker but so charismatic!”

3 Likes

Noooo, I meant doing that with a ship that was about to be destroyed anyway. Like, anytime a ship is about to be destroyed and its crew are presumably evacuating, you’d have nothing to lose right?

Here I’m going to make a pros and cons list so I can see if ya’ll are on the same page as me or not. I have a feeling we’re just differing on how we weigh these items?

Pros:

  • Great visuals and visual language
  • Cool animals that are actually part of the environment
  • Kylo & Rey interactions are compelling
  • Lightspeed attack scene looked neat and sounded cool
  • BB-8 literally kills people

Cons:

  • The characters (maybe besides Luke?) don’t have personal arcs. They start the movie in one state and end in that same state.
  • The plot goes nowhere; the twists all get twisted again and re-affirm the status quo
  • Nearly everything that happens in space is boring and inconsequential (the movie doesn’t seem to dwell or care at all about the people it killed)
  • Most of the “humor” is grating

OK here’s where I may lose some people because I kind of like TFA? I think what was compelling for me in TFA were the interactions between Rey and Finn and Kylo. They all seem like cute little kids that are thrust into roles they don’t quite understand and the movie is about growing and accepting who they are. I think they have legitimate chemistry when they’re on screen together, which is why it’s disappointing they share so little time in this movie.

The entire reason those characters were compelling for me is because they were volatile and young and winging it and could potentially stray from the path that was set before them. It feels super disappointing that in this movie Finn and Poe have no character arcs, and Kylo and Rey just fall back into their places after teasing way more interesting character developments. I mean, Rey literally goes into the DARK METAPHOR HOLE (I legit liked that visual design btw) and comes out seemingly the same?

7 Likes

Yeah to me this is way less of a departure from TFA than people are making it out to be, I feel like that in general is not a spoiler, and basically does to ESB what TFA does to ANH: Separating a lot of the characters, in general being kind of a downer, making the protagonist confront their own dark side in a surreal cave environment and also aspects of their past that they don’t want to dredge up, showing that despite winning the battle at the end of the last episode the rebels/resistance are still losing the war, etc. It ends with an evacuation and ESB begins with one, you have a sort of moody interlude with a quirky and contrarian teacher intercut with the other heroes in a predicament, betrayal, so on etc. I still liked it, but I think I might like TFA better, and I just 100% don’t buy that this is somehow radically different from what “Star Wars” movies have been like in the past. I think this might even be because ESB is so familiar to people that no one ever thinks about how weird it was anymore.

6 Likes

the old expanded universe is pretty fuckin wild
luke skywalker basically marries evil jean grey!! what the fuck

1 Like

luke skydunker

12 Likes

i can hear it in his voice

1 Like

You’ve seen the Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars shorts, right?

1 Like

I have not! I couldn’t get in to the longer series but the shorts do look cool

They’re all readily available on YouTube.

2 Likes

not canon

it’s saying something that the messaging over that original microseries was such that I was talking to someone Thursday and I was the one where they learned that it’s where Grievous comes from

I still love that Genndy made him a hilarious badass but clearly had to work backwards because Lucas has him set up as a dumb silent movie villain with a bad cough, thus Mace Windu casually caving in his lungs

1 Like

If I’m being honest, the major issue with TLJ as a story is that the entire second act was completely unnecessary but Poe wants to be a hero and Holdo doesn’t want to explain her plan to anyone. If they had sit down and had a quick, minute conversation putting everyone on the same page (which is a thing that even I do at work and I have a dumb job), we probably could have explored the same kind of character stuff that ended up in the final movie but, you know, blockbusters.

With that said, I once again love that the movie spends an hour plus tearing down the mythos of small, dumb heroic actions working in Star Wars.

2 Likes

Original Clones Wars shorts are wonderful.

The second run aren’t as great because they had to lead directly into Episode III and have more talking and less pure action cartooning but they’re still good! One of the best things to come out of the prequel “era.”

1 Like

gonna try to rewatch some Star Wars before seeing TLJ again, i think this time i might try to just watch the Original Clone Wars shorts before just straight up watching Episode 3, leading into the OT. is that one Phantom Edit of Episode 1 still worth it to watch? i’ve actually never seen it. is there a better edit of Episode 3 floatin’ out there?

help me relive a star war or 8

Ronk let’s do a Star Wars The Tabletop Roleplaying Game campaign where you, me, tulpa and felix try to recreate as much of the trilogies as we can sheerly from memory, obeying the strict edicts of a tabletop roleplaying system

5 Likes

man i remember when TFA came out and suddenly i was a HUGE fan again, and now all of that extra time spent on wookiepedia after that release has vanished. i can only keep so many weird trival things in my head

but yes, obviously

1 Like