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Old 12-23-2017, 12:42 PM   #26
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Talon, Palpatine didn't lose.



After reading this again, I guess Plagueis didn't, either.
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Old 12-24-2017, 08:28 PM   #27
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YouTuber asks, "Did one of the main actors not know how the film was going to end?"

(spoilers for the end of The Last Jedi)

Spoiler: show
Specifically, Mark Hamill. And it's an interesting question, given a) the look on Mark's face after walking out of the premiere and b) the backstory about how Star Wars has a history of doing this, of telling the actors on set that things are one way but then changing the details later in post-production.

I'm unsure of the answer to the question myself, but I do think it's an interesting question that will haunt this film for years to come, even if decades from now we all end up agreeing that this is the best Star Wars movie ever made. And given the fandom's recent backlash towards EA over the Battlefield 2 loot crate fiasco, I can only imagine what wrath the Star Wars fandom might throw at Disney if it ever comes to light that, yes indeed, the originally planned ending of The Last Jedi had Luke surviving but then it was changed in post-production without informing Mark Hamill.

And more Reddit quotes I thought worth sharing:

Spoiler: show
Yeah. I'm also liking the revelation of her being a nobody more and more now because of how it narratively sets up the relationship between her and Kylo.

Who deserves to inherit the mantle of Luke and Anakin Skywalker more? The blood descendent, veritable royalty, the now fallen prince? Or the one who came from nothing but who has truly undertaken Luke's incomplete task, who has truly learned the lessons from the tale of the Skywalker family?

THAT is good storytelling.

=============================

I think everyone is OK with change and evolution-but trying to force that to happen in the middle of a trilogy is probably the wrong place to do that.

TLJ feels like a sequel to a different version of TFA, and that's my big beef.

The rules can change, and the nature of things can change, and the force can change, and good/bad can change, but TLJ didn't do that.

TLJ just said "here's the same conflict we've been seeing for a while now-it just feels more modern." It's still Rebels vs Empire, Light side vs dark side, overcoming impossible odds DESPITE the entire movie being about moving on from old cliches. It didn't move on. It did exactly what Star Wars has done in the past. It's not fresh or new.
This is my biggest problem with it.

Star Wars has a core story, originally designed as nine movies, three trilogies.

With the first non-Lucas movie, they launch a trilogy. But apparently nobody is overseeing the trilogy to ensure that it contains a complete story arc, a grand theme and a plan for where everything ends up. It's as though Johnson wanted to consciously retake the trilogy from Abrams in a power struggle. And what are we left with? Eight movies into the trilogy, and the "rebels" are worse off than they were at the start of movie 4, with one movie to finish it up... unless we're about to see a literally endless timetable of movies come out every other year, each handed off to a different director taking the series in whichever direction they fancy before handing it off to someone else.

It feels like the game where someone draws half a picture, then passes the picture off to someone else with most of it covered. The other person then takes the lines and uses them to draw their own picture, leaving a mish-mash. Sure, the pictures may be interesting in and of themselves, but the point is that they're supposed to create something greater than the sum of their parts. This movie feels like it weakens the ones that come before it.
I completely agree, and I was absolutely astonished when I read a day or two ago that there was in fact no attempt to create even the framework of a story arc between the 3 movies. Why would Disney do this to arguably their most important film property? I thought all their experience with the MCU would have rubbed off. I was very wrong, apparently.

I don't envy JJ Abrams task of fixing this.
============================

It really is extraordinary that they've had all this success with marvel that nobody has been able to replicate, and it all comes back to having Feige in charge of the big picture and so disney clearly knows how to make it work. And then they just said fuck it with a property that would have the potential to make them more money than the marvel movies.
Yes, and the big reason they decided to jettison the old Expanded Universe was because it was too chaotic and contradictory at times. They wanted tight control over the lore.

So what do they do? With a film of the highest canon order? They tell an inexperienced writer/director "have your way with it" with no guidance or limitations at all.

It's insane. Star Wars is a franchise that has proven a NEED to have some degree of narrative control. It was a specific criticism of the franchise when they purchased it.
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Old 12-24-2017, 09:50 PM   #28
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Spoiler: show
The Rey = nobody angle doesn't work though because she was immensely talented with the Force before even being aware of it, so she's not a nobody. She's a special snowflake.

I was more impressed with the Finn scene in the previous movie because Finn is not force sensitive (to my knowledge) and is improvising with a weapon not designed for him. Visually, it depicts a normal person taking on the legacy of the Jedi, represented by the lightsaber. Luke was doing that with his marginal force training in the original movie: too old to be trained, with no masters to learn from, but a desire to preserve the old ways as best he could.

What makes royal lineage upsetting for people is that the royal lineage is usually the reason for the immense talent. Contrasting someone who with inherited advantages (wealth, power, aptitude) versus someone with talent without those connections helps, but if you contrast someone with talent and no connections to average joes, that someone gets labeled a Mary Sue.

Just like how humans seem naturally predisposed to believe in a higher authority, even if they outright deny the existence of the commonly recognized ones, I think there's some universal instinctive logic that power/privilege are necessary prerequisites for talent.
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Old 12-29-2017, 05:59 PM   #29
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Originally Posted by deoxys View Post
Solid 5/10 from me due to inconsistent and occasionally straight up garbage writing and character development.
Very much agree here.

My thoughts as a whole

Spoiler: show
Good movie, visually appealing. However, it's a shitty Star Wars movie. Like a really shitty Star Wars movie. All the characters felt empty, nothing going into them --- nothing good coming out. I despise Rose, she felt like a quick tie in to give Finn a love interest. This could've been done really well! If it wasn't rushed onto the screen like that. Besides, I was kind of convinced that Rey had his heart but... whatever.

I'm not a Reylo person, at all. I really like Kylo Ren, but I don't think from a shippers perspective that him and Rey are a good fit at all. I'm also not a supporter in the "Han and Leia are her parents theory", as I feel like someone would've said something in relation to it already. Her parents could literally be no one, nameless nobodies like Kylo told her in this film. Considering the force sensitive little boy bringing the broom towards him at the end, I think this is actually the most plausible theory.

Can I just say tho, consistently --- Poe has stayed my favourite. Seeing Poe talk to Rey with the biggest grin on his face made me go like yeah bitch!!!! Get together!!!! I'm here for it!!!!!!!!

My list is still 5 > 6 > 4 > 3 > Rouge (same sort of feelings, really like it as a movie --- not a good Star Wars movie) > 7 > 2 > 8 > 1
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Old 12-31-2017, 05:46 AM   #30
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I liked some of it, disliked some of it (I won't repeat the criticisms that have already been expressed here) but the thing I was most unhappy about was:

Spoiler: show
Luke's death. The part where he went out to confront the army and emerged unscathed from the laser barrage was so cool. I was like: "I know that this is ridiculous and pure fanservice, but I don't care. Luke is a Jedi master and is being a total badass right now." After the astral projection trick was revealed, that was EVEN BETTER, because Luke was still a total badass, yet it brought his abilities back down to earth a bit instead of him being an invulnerable super saiyan. It was just perfect.

And then ... he died. For no reason whatsoever. They didn't even build up his death as him concentrating every last bit of strength he had to do the projection to make it dramatic. The most important character in Star Wars history (him or Anakin) just randomly died with no fanfare or discernible point. Shades of Clannad After; why ruin something so perfect with a needless death?! I don't like the logic of the writers that "Luke necessarily had to die to pave way for the new characters". Give me a break, he's the last surviving character from the original movies, and people love him. The scene where Luke was revealed at the end of The Force Awakens is what everyone was waiting for. People didn't groan, "Oh brother, there's Luke, that old dinosaur. Just get rid of him already so we can focus on dollar store Han Solo". It's important to maintain some connection to the old movies. That's what an epic that spans generations is all about: harmonious co-existence between old and new characters. I assume that Leia will be quickly killed off in the 3rd movie now that Carrie Fisher is dead. They'll probably just do something like mention in the scrolling text intro that she was killed in a First Order raid, and maybe the opening scene will be her funeral.

I liked the purple-haired admiral lady too. But, like all good characters, she had to be TERMINATED.

I like Talon's idea of there being an ideological split and the establishment of a new sect that is neither light side nor dark side, but grey. Unfortunately, I think this idea is too advanced for Star Wars which has always favoured a simple "light side vs dark side" dichotomy. My ideal movie would have been: Rey joins Kylo Ren. This should have been the culmination of the training scene where Rey was drawn in by the dark side but didn't resist, and her and Kylo Ren connecting (Kylo Ren said that he knew she'd be there for him when the time came). Then, in the next movie, Luke, The last orthodox Jedi (WHO DID NOT DIE), wants to try stopping Kylo Ren and turning Rey back.

A lot of people hated Luke having the idea to murder Kylo Ren in his sleep. I agree, but the only way that they can justify this scene is if Luke was RIGHT, that Kylo Ren is too far gone and will not turn back. This is how he and Vader can differ: Luke saw the good in Vader, but the darkness was overwhelming in Kylo Ren.

On the issue of Rey's parents being nobody:
This was unexpected, but I liked it. After I saw The Force Awakens, I figured Rey would turn out to be Luke's daughter (I thought it was no coincidence that they got an actress who looks like Natalie Portman), but let's face it: this twist would have been so tired and predictable. "I'm secretly your family member" is a dated plot element that needs to die along with new Death Stars. It was a legendary plot twist in Empire Strikes Back, now stop trying to recreate it and think of something new. As much as I liked the revelation that Rey's parents were junk traders of no importance, I have to admit that it doesn't make a lot of sense. The hereditary "force user royalty" that Dopple described seems to be the system that Star Wars favours with the Anakin --> Luke/Leia --> Kylo Ren line. The midi-chlorians reveal in the prequels suggests that potential to use the force is genetic, but maybe it doesn't necessarily have to be hereditary. Like how Prince Fielder is Cecil Fielder's son, but there's also Mike Trout, who's even better than Prince Fielder despite having nobody as parents (as far as I know). Just like people with genetic talent for baseball, talented Jedi require training to fully realize their potential -- otherwise, Mike Trout will just be a guy who's really good at his manual labour factory job.
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Old 09-20-2018, 07:27 AM   #31
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I can't stand Star Wars
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Old 10-13-2018, 11:13 PM   #32
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I watched parts of this, not really paying much attention.

My biggest beef with it is how antiquated it feels. When I saw SW as a child, the fantasy elements splashed with the science fiction made for an alluring universe that I wanted to know more about.

But I can't watch a movie like TLJ without comparing it to our current world, which feels more futuristic than that movie.

Like why are the droids so dumb? Humans created AI #1 that beat the best Go player in the world, then created another AI that beat AI #1 100-0 at Go.

Yet, C3PO can't beat Chewbacca at holographic chess. The First Order and Resistance are still using human fighter pilots when the freaking Trade Federation, 40 years earlier used drones in the form of the Droid Army.

Conflict doesn't make any sense or have any referendum on human nature like Star Trek likes to do, which helps ground the story with a sense of timelessness. Humans don't change much despite the gadgets and knowledge around us constantly taking steps forward.

But I think there's a big difference between human desire, and actually repeating history for reasons

Ultimately, TLJ feels a lot like Jurassic World as a shallow nostalgia grab. Perhaps more insulting in that people actually spent billions to watch this crud.

If I were interested in watching poop I'd look in a toilet.
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Old 10-14-2018, 05:46 AM   #33
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
My biggest beef with it is how antiquated it feels. When I saw SW as a child, the fantasy elements splashed with the science fiction made for an alluring universe that I wanted to know more about.

But I can't watch a movie like TLJ without comparing it to our current world, which feels more futuristic than that movie.

[...]

The First Order and Resistance are still using human fighter pilots when the freaking Trade Federation, 40 years earlier used drones in the form of the Droid Army.
The thing is, the original Star Wars combines more genres than just fantasy and science fiction. It's also heavily influenced by WW2, both the real stories told about it as well as the Hollywood films Lucas would have grown up watching. You are of course absolutely right in 2018 to find the naval system of the Star Wars world unconvincing, but you have to understand that when Lucas made Star Wars in 1977, a) WW2 was still in everyone's minds and b) computer technology was in its infancy. The Apple II launched in 1977. So too did Atari's Video Computer System, better remembered as the Atari 2600. Visionaries could of course imagine stronger tech -- did imagine stronger tech, as evidenced by R2-D2 and C-3PO's very being. But what they couldn't have imagined is that we would get there in mere decades rather than centuries. You look at the history of computers from 1877 to 1977, and it's very easy to forgive the fiction writers of that time for thinking that the slow, linear progression of tech development would continue, rather than what we know today: that tech development in the 20th century was on an exponential curve, with its inflection point right around this moment in time (the late '70s, early '80s) and then run-away growth through the '80s, '90s, and early '00s.

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Like why are the droids so dumb? Humans created AI #1 that beat the best Go player in the world, then created another AI that beat AI #1 100-0 at Go.

Yet, C3PO can't beat Chewbacca at holographic chess.
C-3PO's not the one playing Chewbacca, though. R2-D2 is. And R2-D2 is winning. But he's forced to throw the match due to Chewie's combination of physical power and being a sore loser.

The thing is, Lucas and others could indeed imagine Alpha Go's existence. Arthur C. Clarke created HAL 9000 in 1968, one decade before Star Wars first hit theater screens. Isaac Asimov's I, Robot is a collection of stories many of which were penned years before Bell Labs' development of the transistor in 1947. WW2 was fought without transistors, and yet here was Isaac Asimov writing tales about androids with human-like capacities for thought and action.

But what Lucas, Clarke, and Asimov could not have imagined -- indeed, what is reflected in every page of every chapter of their writing -- is that Alpha Go would be born in the early 21st century. That the robots of I, Robot might be seen in their grandchildren's lifetimes, rather than in the far-flung reaches of time and space. (Going to cross out Clarke from the list since, ostensibly, he had hoped we get there sooner than we have rather than later. "2001" indeed.)

If you presume that Go is an "unbeatable" problem, as many mathematicians and computer scientists presumed in the 1990s; and if you presume that the rate at which technology will expand from 1977 to 2077 is comparable with the rate at which it expanded from 1877 to 1977; then it is not only understandable but indeed demands our forgiveness that Lucas et al would have written stories as they did, depicting advanced droids capable of human-like performance but only just human -- not so superior as to replace humans in the cockpits of fighter jets. "A fighter jet still requires a human touch, a keen sense of vision and purpose. A computer can help with calculations. A human pilots."

Indeed, you get the same problem with Star Trek. Why send humans on voyages into dangerous territory when you can just as well send robots? Why do Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock have to beam down to the planetary surface? Why can't they send down Mr. Data? Indeed, why is Mr. Data not created until 100 years after Captain Kirk? Why does a human-like robot postdate the creation of FTL travel?

Fiction writing in the 1960s and '70s was captivated by relativity. Albert Einstein was their God. You see it in just about every piece of science fiction writing set in outer space and written at that time -- "warp", "hyperspace", even Herbert's Dune with the Spacing Guild's Navigators and their ability to fold space to facilitate FTL travel between worlds. All of this we are still talking about today, in 2018 -- but joining the conversation today is the fantasy permitted by our knowledge of the computer science revolution of the late 20th century. Fiction writers of the '60s and '70s not only believed FTL travel to be sooner achieved than Lt. Cmdr. Data -- they wished it. FTL travel was the Holy Grail of every boy who grew up with a passion for astrophysics spurred on by the Space Race of the '50s and '60s. Computers were only ever fancy calculators and terminals; few were the writers who prioritized them over human travel to the far-flung reaches of space. Fewer still were those who envisioned us achieving sapient android technology before the year 2100.

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Old 10-14-2018, 01:29 PM   #34
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I can still ground Lucas' thesis that is the original SW in its context. That's why my acrimony is toward TIJ, released in 2017, rather than ANH created in 1977. Indeed a lot of things like The Producers needs an asterisk for cultural context, or else modern audiences won't see what's the big deal.

Your point about FTL is very insightful, but because of that fervent wish among writers it's permeated all science fiction stories, despite being the least realistic idea of them all. So, I can't appreciate a "hard" sci-fi that features some kind of FTL, because the entire world's premise - that human civilization expands and diversifies throughout a universe of varied worlds and distances - is fantasy.

My all-time favourite science fiction movie right now is The Martian, as it's about as hard sci-fi as is possible and is a reasonable window into the next decade. It lacks the epistemology of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Interstellar but isn't as fantastical as Star Wars or Star Trek (which featured god-like humanity level extinction events as MOTW).

I now have very low tolerance now for anything that deviates too far from this mould.
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Old 10-14-2018, 07:56 PM   #35
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I can still ground Lucas' thesis that is the original SW in its context. That's why my acrimony is toward TIJ, released in 2017, rather than ANH created in 1977.
But here's the problem: the Star Wars universe is forever grounded in 1977. Or to put it another way: Episode IV is the springboard for all future Star Wars movies. The universe that is established in Episode IV ... is the Star Wars universe. Now you're stuck with it. Either you continue to write off of that universe ... or else you scrap it and say, "No more Star Wars," returning to the drawing board to come up with a better science fiction setting that doesn't contradict what we know today. But it hardly seems fair to give IV a pass while condemning VII and VII for poor science. Theirs is an inherited science, inherited from Episode IV.
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