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Admiral Valdemar wrote: ↑2019-11-09 10:42am

Gandalf wrote: ↑2019-11-09 07:35am

Wasn't Star Wars always profiting off the lowest common denominator?

Yeah, but it had integrity in storytelling back then, even in those halcyon days of 2005. Now, not so much.

How do you mean?

I'll admit, I've mostly been riding on the strength of Episodes 4 and 5 from the beginning, but ANH has some of the best dialogue ever, and 5 has some of the best action and drama. The rest have some great moments, which gives me hope.

Yeah, and VI gave us "By the way, Leia's your sister," a clumsy Vietnam with the Ewoks, and... another Death Star.

Gandalf wrote: ↑2019-11-10 03:00pm
How do you mean?

The general direction of the sequel trilogy is a total wasted opportunity. Literally the only Disney SW film I care for is Rogue One, and that was still compromised from being all it could be. Nothing about Rey is compelling. Nothing about the First Order is. It’s a giant nothingburger with aspirations to ape the OT and play it safe, then tripping up with TLJ and managing to go the opposite extreme.

The PT, for all their faults, at least had a comprehensible story arc. Also, the cheesiness is so great for rewatches. I was bored to tears with TLJ, and I’ve never needed to rewatch TFA because I’ve already seen ANH, a much better film.

But I take your RotJ comments. There’s a reason it’s the least liked of the OT, even if it has components I love.

The last Star Wars movie I watched was revenge of the sith. After that I just felt completely drained of any star wars interest and it has never come back.

Admiral Valdemar wrote: ↑2019-11-10 04:23pm

Gandalf wrote: ↑2019-11-10 03:00pm
How do you mean?

The general direction of the sequel trilogy is a total wasted opportunity. Literally the only Disney SW film I care for is Rogue One, and that was still compromised from being all it could be. Nothing about Rey is compelling. Nothing about the First Order is. It’s a giant nothingburger with aspirations to ape the OT and play it safe, then tripping up with TLJ and managing to go the opposite extreme.

The PT, for all their faults, at least had a comprehensible story arc. Also, the cheesiness is so great for rewatches. I was bored to tears with TLJ, and I’ve never needed to rewatch TFA because I’ve already seen ANH, a much better film.

But I take your RotJ comments. There’s a reason it’s the least liked of the OT, even if it has components I love.

This I agree with. Even if Lucas did make tons of new CGI creatures and warships to sell toys, at least they are cool to look at. Giving us X-Wings Mk 3.0 is plain boring, even from a toy perspective.

I like to turn the sound to mute during that one scene in AOTC on Coruscant when Anakin and Padme are talking about their relationship and just enjoy the sick city sunset visuals while making up my own dialogue. "This sucks! I'm forced to fuck a hot chick in the biggest and most cosmopolitan city in the galaxy without telling anybody!? I wanna go back to being a slave in the desert!"

ray245 wrote: ↑2019-11-12 08:02am

Admiral Valdemar wrote: ↑2019-11-10 04:23pm

Gandalf wrote: ↑2019-11-10 03:00pm
How do you mean?

The general direction of the sequel trilogy is a total wasted opportunity. Literally the only Disney SW film I care for is Rogue One, and that was still compromised from being all it could be. Nothing about Rey is compelling. Nothing about the First Order is. It’s a giant nothingburger with aspirations to ape the OT and play it safe, then tripping up with TLJ and managing to go the opposite extreme.

The PT, for all their faults, at least had a comprehensible story arc. Also, the cheesiness is so great for rewatches. I was bored to tears with TLJ, and I’ve never needed to rewatch TFA because I’ve already seen ANH, a much better film.

But I take your RotJ comments. There’s a reason it’s the least liked of the OT, even if it has components I love.

This I agree with. Even if Lucas did make tons of new CGI creatures and warships to sell toys, at least they are cool to look at. Giving us X-Wings Mk 3.0 is plain boring, even from a toy perspective.

I actually like the Kylo saber, and Starkiller Base probably would have been cool if it wasn't basically just the Death Star with added overcompensation.

I'll also defend TLJ's artistic merits as a film till I die, while recognizing that it fits somewhat poorly with the rest of the franchise.

But I agree that the ST was creatively hamstrung by the desire to play it safe and pander to old OT fans first and foremost. Writing to pander to the fandom (or more specifically, whichever portions of it whinge loudest) is just written by committee dialed up to a million.

The Romulan Republic wrote: ↑2019-12-06 12:30am But I agree that the ST was creatively hamstrung by the desire to play it safe and pander to old OT fans first and foremost. Writing to pander to the fandom (or more specifically, whichever portions of it whinge loudest) is just written by committee dialed up to a million.

See, I'm unconvinced. I'm a huge fan of (most of) the Legends Star Wars Expanded Universe.

The sequel movies feel to me more like a knock off fan film from a parallel universe than an actual sequel to the original trilogy. The prequels fit (mostly) with the original trilogy because they had to where to me the sequels don't feel like they've actually followed the original trilogy at all so much as taken a hook turn off somewhere halfway along the path.

IMHO if they were truly "playing it safe to pander to the fans" we should have got something more akin to Rogue One. That was a good demonstration that you could make something thematically similar yet with new characters and equipment and filming technology.


(PS You can't tell me the "Mega-class" Star Destroyer isn't a complete piece of B-grade fan film wank)

I don't get why people talk about Starkiller Base being an obvious attempt to one-up the Death Star when that's more or less what it is in-universe and was created by an organization run by people who would want to do exactly that.

I mean yeah I would have preferred something like the Darksaber, but it fits with the idea of a neo-Imperial group with an army of super badass indoctrinated from birth better-than-clones neo-Stormtroopers.

Edit: talk about Starkiller Base being an obvious attempt to one-up the Death Star like that's a bad thing

His Divine Shadow wrote: ↑2019-11-12 07:33am The last Star Wars movie I watched was revenge of the sith. After that I just felt completely drained of any star wars interest and it has never come back.

Well, it was the last actual "Star Wars movie" anyway. In the sense of being part of the story Lucas started with ANH.