Official Star Wars Thread - May the force be with you

[SeanR]

8 minutes ago, mushashi said:

So you've shown him the prequel trilogy or does he just like Jar-Jar solely from reading this book? As the films seem a tad overlong and mildly boring for a child to sit through.

 

last time ITV did the 6-film run, we watched them. (and we've watched 7&8 and solo and rogue one)

 

mind you, he likes harry potter too...

[RubberJohnny]

18 hours ago, Unofficial Who said:

Can’t link now due to being in transit but apparently the trilogy is most likely the one being developed by the Game of Thrones people.

 

Man, that whole announcement aged badly, didn't it? People seem to fucking hate this new GoT series.

 

To think they announced that off the TLJ backlash, only for to end up with another one - they know how to pick 'em.

[Dirty Harry Potter]

They really don’t.

[Speech]

 

[Hanzo the Razor]

Impressive...

 

Most impressive.

 

 

 

 

Although still not as good as the Luke/Vader fight in Empire.

[Dirty Harry Potter]

That is great. 

[Boothjan]

Love it!!

[Waggo]

Better than pretty much all the fannying around Lucas did with the special editions.  

[Treble]

That's actually superb. The director/editor is telling a story about the fighters' characters in their movements. Vader's controlled rage and aggressive improvisation (the lightsaber throw 'n' drag!) is fantastic visual storytelling. 

 

Chef's finger kiss.

[Tourist]

So I watched all of the main (ie. not Ewoks or Clone Wars) Star Wars movies in sequence last week and am now ready to share with you all my official ranking. 

 

Top Tier:

A New Hope

Rogue One

Solo

The Force Awakens

 

Mid Tier:

The Empire Strikes Back 

The Return of the Jedi

 

Bottom Tier:

The Phantom Menace

Revenge of the Sith

 

Forever dead to me:

The Last Jedi

Attack of the Clones

 

Some thoughts: I am constantly surprised by how much I enjoy Solo and Rogue One. It feels weird to rank them higher than movies on which they depend so much for the enjoyment I derive from them - by which I mean I there are plenty of elements in Solo and Rogue One that I wouldn't enjoy as much if it weren't for the fact that I enjoy some of the other movies so much (I could try to put this another way but I fear I will just wrap myself up in syntactical convolutions). But, watching all of the movies in a block like this demonstrates to me that they are among the very best of the Star Wars movies. 

It is also just mind-blowing exactly how little sense the prequels make. I mean, watching them is mostly a slog, and they all sort of make some sort of narrative sense as you watch them; and then you get to the original movies and you realise how batshit crazy the narrative arc from the prequels to the originals is (whereas by contrast both Solo and Rogue One feel entirely in keeping with both the universe and the narrative arcs established in the originals). Also mind-blowing is how they managed to find such terrible actors to play the part of Anakin. Anakin is such a douchebag throughout the movies it makes no sense at all that anybody could form any sort of friendship or romantic bond with him; but I think a better actor might have pulled it off a little better.

That said, I really don't think The Phantom Menace is *that* bad. It failed in certain respects, and Jar Jar gets a little bit annoying during the end battle, but as it stands I quite like its more heavily stylised pastiche of early sci-fi serials, and it sets up a lot of interesting strands that, in my opinion, Lucas failed to follow up on because he got so flamed by fan reaction. For example, the Midichlorians are a little bit wince-worthy (although no more so than the sacred Jedi texts in TLJ), but maybe if fans hadn't crucified the movie they could have been developed in an interesting direction; as it is they more or less just get dropped in the second and third movies. 

Finally, I have already said enough on here about TLJ, but it really is just a bunch of stupid people doing stupid things while spouting reams of boring explicatory dialogue. The shit jokes, rubbish CGI, and crappy comedy droid moments are every bit as much of a nadir as anything in any of the prequels. 

 

There. let the negs commence! IF you can get through THIS neg shield:

 

 

[Darren]

Didn't bother with Return of the Jedi then?

[JPL]

@Tourist You didn't watch Return of The Jedi? That'd be top of the pile for me.

[Boothjan]

It's been done to death and I couldn't disagree with you more on TLJ (I'd never neg you for your opinion though!).  It's leagues above any of the prequels in every single way and is a great film that improves every time I see it.  Personally, I'd rate them:

 

Empire Strikes Back

Rogue One

A New Hope

The Force Awakens

Return of the Jedi

The Last Jedi

Solo

Revenge of the Sith

The Phantom Menace

Attack of the Clones

 

There's an absolute chasm (pun intended) between Solo and Revenge of the Sith because I adore all of them which the exception of the prequels, which still annoy me.  Such a wasted opportunity.

 

Also, Rogue One is absolutely class and is everything a Star Wars movie should be.  I highly recommend the novel Rebel Rising - it makes R1 even better.

[Kevvy Metal]

59 minutes ago, Tourist said:

Some thoughts: I am constantly surprised by how much I enjoy Solo and Rogue One. It feels weird to rank them higher than movies on which they depend so much for the enjoyment I derive from them - by which I mean I there are plenty of elements in Solo and Rogue One that I wouldn't enjoy as much if it weren't for the fact that I enjoy some of the other movies so much (I could try to put this another way but I fear I will just wrap myself up in syntactical convolutions). But, watching all of the movies in a block like this demonstrates to me that they are among the very best of the Star Wars movies. 

It is also just mind-blowing exactly how little sense the prequels make. I mean, watching them is mostly a slog, and they all sort of make some sort of narrative sense as you watch them; and then you get to the original movies and you realise how batshit crazy the narrative arc from the prequels to the originals is (whereas by contrast both Solo and Rogue One feel entirely in keeping with both the universe and the narrative arcs established in the originals). Also mind-blowing is how they managed to find such terrible actors to play the part of Anakin. Anakin is such a douchebag throughout the movies it makes no sense at all that anybody could form any sort of friendship or romantic bond with him; but I think a better actor might have pulled it off a little better.

That said, I really don't think The Phantom Menace is *that* bad. It failed in certain respects, and Jar Jar gets a little bit annoying during the end battle, but as it stands I quite like its more heavily stylised pastiche of early sci-fi serials, and it sets up a lot of interesting strands that, in my opinion, Lucas failed to follow up on because he got so flamed by fan reaction. For example, the Midichlorians are a little bit wince-worthy (although no more so than the sacred Jedi texts in TLJ), but maybe if fans hadn't crucified the movie they could have been developed in an interesting direction; as it is they more or less just get dropped in the second and third movies. 

 

 

 

 

[Purin]

What do you think the Disney execs are making of all the bad feedback the last series of Game of Thrones is getting?

[Unofficial Who]

4 minutes ago, Purin said:

What do you think the Disney execs are making of all the bad feedback the last series of Game of Thrones is getting?

 

It still got watched whereas the poor reception of The Last Jedi has been blamed for the poor takings for Solo.

 

The GoT but Star Wars trilogy will go ahead.

[Boothjan]

I'm hoping they see through the self-entitled nonsense that some people have spouted about GoT TBH.  People signing petitions etc can fuck off.  

 

Star Wars is a completely different kettle of fish.  The ending of GoT wasn't perfect and some criticism of it was justified, but I think they were on to a lose-lose situation somewhat as they ran out of source material and had to take the reigns of a show that was based on some pretty complicated novels and adapt it for the screen, then carry on with their own vision of what happens next.  And then hope that they tie up all the numerous story arcs in a way that satisfies most of their viewers.  That's really not easy!!

 

D&D seem to be made out to be incompetent writers which I think is grossly unfair.  There were plenty of D&D subplots that were added to GoT which were really good.  Star Wars simply isn't anywhere near as complicated in terms of narrative - the most important thing for them to get right is the feel of the world and I have no doubts that they'll nail it.  The action sequences in GoT are the best ever seen on TV and seeing them makes me very excited for what they can bring to Star Wars.

[K]

It'd be interesting to see a Star Wars film that involved courtly intrigue and political infighting, and also wasn't absolutely terrible, i.e. something like the prequels as envisioned by Lucas, rather than the tedious nonsense that limped onto the screen. That would seem to be right up Benioff and Weiss' street.

[scottcr]

I'd love to have seen D&D's take on the prequels... where George writes all the story but they put it onto the screen.  I bet it would've been the total berries.

[K]

13 minutes ago, Unofficial Who said:

 

It still got watched whereas the poor reception of The Last Jedi has been blamed for the poor takings for Solo.

 

 

I alway found this logic hard to fathom - Solo got middling reviews and lost a lot of money for Disney, and the reason for that is the Last Jedi, which was, erm, a critical and commercial smash. It seems more likely to me that Solo failed on its own terms, i.e. because people just didn't want to see it that much (even though I thought it was great). 

[RubberJohnny]

I think it's based on tracking "engagement" and these social media metrics.

 

Based on the public metrics there was a significant and rapid drop off in interest after TLJ, with a small bump for Solo, I imagine they have more detailed internal tracking that backs this up. While the actual TLJ haters are a pretty small group, the real damage seems to be most people becoming apathetic.

 

And this has continued, The Rise of Skywalker trailer views are behind almost every other movie, from the biggest franchise in the world to behind Sonic the Hedgehog. It's a smaller bump than even Solo.

 

[Purin]

Lol, Sonic has more views....hilarious.

[K]

@RubberJohnny

 

That's interesting. My gut would say that the problem is that all of the new Star Wars films are basically the same; they target the same demographic and have the same style and tone (with tiny variations around one ostensibly being a heist film, and one being a war film, etc). The Marvel films follow a template, but the tone and style can shift a fair bit, and they seem to go out of their way to target audiences who don't normally get representation in this kind of film.

 

I suspect the Star Wars films might have sustained their popularity a bit more if they'd, say, had a Lando film with a more diverse cast, rather than a Solo one, or if they'd had (I dunno), Young Leia & Mon Mothma's adventures, with Saoirse Ronan & Margot Robbie (or whatever).

[Harsin]

The other problem for Disney has been that China and other growing markets don’t really care about Star Wars much. Not that surprising given that the whole Disney endeavour so far has been based so heavily on 'Hey remember this thing from when you were younger that gives you fuzzy feelings?', which isn’t particularly effective if the audience doesn’t have that nostalgia factor to start with. But those markets are increasingly important for the studios.

[Tourist]

3 hours ago, JPL said:

@Tourist You didn't watch Return of The Jedi? That'd be top of the pile for me.

 

Oops, yeah, added that in now. 

 

But it reminds me of one other thought I had which is that the insanity of the prequels was rather foreshadowed by the whole I am your dad thing in ESB and then oh, and by the way she's your sister thing in RotJ. For all that I like both of those movies, that is where the nuttiness started.

[RubberJohnny]

I think Star Wars is also a bit of a poisoned chalice - I mean, it didn't help the careers of the original actors, George Lucas became enemy #1, the main characters in the prequels careers suffered or they just got out of Hollywood, and Disney pulled the rug out from under almost every director they hired - Gareth Edwards, Phil Lord and Miller, Colin Trevorrow, and now Rian Johnson by cancelling his trilogy.

 

I can't imagine people are lining up to be a part of it.

[Darren]

12 minutes ago, Tourist said:

 

Oops, yeah, added that in now. 

 

But it reminds me of one other thought I had which is that the insanity of the prequels was rather foreshadowed by the whole I am your dad thing in ESB and then oh, and by the way she's your sister thing in RotJ. For all that I like both of those movies, that is where the nuttiness started.

 

George's MO has always been to make it up as he goes along, then retrospectively claim that he always planned it to go the way it did. Which he could get away with when he was working on an open ended series (the originals) but not so much when he was making films that have to tie in with an already established end point (the prequels). It's far from the only reason why the prequels are rubbish but it's a big one.

[b00dles]

I'm surprised two people have put rogue one so highly even though the characters are non existent and it's tonally all over the shop. Not to mention wasting donnie yen and mads.

 

It does have a good bit of xwing porn at the end though. 

 

It's obvs better than the prequels though. 

While I'm here; solo I mainly dislike because it's so pointless and lazy. As "generic space smuggler the movie" it's pretty good but it shouldn't have been solo and all of the tie in bits are painful rather than what presumably would have been jokes in the lord and Miller version. 

[Sarlaccfood]

9 hours ago, RubberJohnny said:

I think it's based on tracking "engagement" and these social media metrics.

 

Based on the public metrics there was a significant and rapid drop off in interest after TLJ, with a small bump for Solo, I imagine they have more detailed internal tracking that backs this up. While the actual TLJ haters are a pretty small group, the real damage seems to be most people becoming apathetic.

 

And this has continued, The Rise of Skywalker trailer views are behind almost every other movie, from the biggest franchise in the world to behind Sonic the Hedgehog. It's a smaller bump than even Solo.

 

 

Sonic’s views must be pretty damn high though based on all the bad publicity.

[Darwock]

I've tried three times to watch Solo and fallen asleep every time. I can't see why others liked it.

 

Rogue One is legitimately great imo.