TGM

would've liked to have seen James Gunn's take on a young Solo movie.

tanman

Fine at least TWO people remember the dice

But either way it wasn't important or noticed in the movie itself. Like you said more like an easter egg or a anachronism that they turned into a full blown thing for Solo.

brayzie

What made Han Solo great was Harrison Ford. They're one in the same in my opinion. It'd be different if Star Wars '77 was a film adaptation of some other source material but Harrison Ford originated the character.


I disagree.
Keep in mind I started getting into Star Wars after the OT had already wrapped up, and I started first with ROTJ. However, ANH feels a little incomplete on it's own. Yeah, Luke and the Rebellion save the day and destroy the evil Empire once and for all, but we never saw Luke become a Jedi, wield a lightsaber, or even avenge his father's death. Not to mention that the sequel followed three years later, not 20+. So I don't think there was enough time for people to settle into the idea that the film is some untouchable classic just yet. And ESB in 1980 demanded a sequel.

Telling the story of the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker and creating a new saga seems much more film-worthy than a Solo movie where we get explanations for every minor thing from the OT, from Han shooting first, to the gold dice that nobody noticed before, or how Han got his last name.

I understand that a pre-cynical Han has to begin somewhere. I just felt it would ring more true if this criminal scoundrel had picked up these traits earlier on in life, rather than starting in his mid-20s. It was funny that Han's shoot-first mentality had to be explained and justified by his former mentor's dying breath. It's not really a cold blooded move if the guy you kills admits he was going to kill you first. Had Han just shot Beckett in mid-sentence, and no dying words, I think that would have been a better segue into future cynical Han. Instead it's like, don't worry family-friendly audiences, Han is still 100% good guy because see, Beckett said he was going to kill Han first! Kind of removes that whole shades of grey notion.

tanman

I think so too. Based on Disney's redacted tweet. Which kind of sucks because I was really starting to like the clone idea and that means that possibly they made that gimmicky lightsaber just for a vision/test? Talk about making something up just to sell toys.

mcnabb

ANH feels incomplete on its own because your context is seeing it with the sequels, so it's understandable. I saw ANH (or Star Wars) in 1977 and it was viewed as one of the greatest standalone fairy tale movies that can sit next to Wizard of Oz. The context in 1977 was that nobody was related, and it had a beginning, middle and end. The Opening Crawl essentially says that the galaxy will be saved if the Death Star is blown up. But the sequels changed the context of the movie as Darth Vader wasn't Luke's father in 1977, nor Leia wasn't the daughter/sister either, and that makes ANH a much different movie now.

No doubt that people always want a sequel to a great movie and of course many people did in 1977, as that is natural for anything popular. But I was satisfied with Star Wars in 1977 and never thought the story felt incomplete back then. George Lucas could have ended the franchise in 1977 and Star Wars (The 1977 movie) would probably be more revered today than it is now. It wouldn't be as mass popular (in a pop culture sense because pop culture only focusing on the present time), and it wouldn't be a cash cow that it is today, but it would have stayed true to its origins much like Wizard of Oz has for 80 years now, passing down generation to generation. It's really hard to explain how people viewed Star Wars before the sequels, and I totally get someone who grew up after 1977 and only knows the OT, or someone who grew up on the PT and only knows the 1-6 Saga, or someone who grows up now and sees Star Wars as this massive franchise. The 1977 original has sort of gotten lost through the years because the context has been changed so much (people whine that the PT and ST have fucked up the OT), I would argue that ESB and ROTJ fuck up the 1977 original because it makes Obiwan a big fucking liar, and ruins Luke having a huge crush on this Princess and watching him and Han sort of try to cock block each other later in the movie for her affection. That shit is all gone after ROTJ, than the PT, and now the ST because now their one big dysfunctional Skywalker family that belongs on Jerry Springer!

Draven

An actor doing a Harrison Ford impression would have worn out its welcome 5 minutes in. They 100% made the right choice.

There is no logical reason for Rey to transform in the third movie into a Dark Jedi, complete with a new lightsaber, and then return from the dark side for the final redemption. It has to be a vision. Especially since we have already seen Luke see a dark version of himself in ESB. Hell, maybe she'll go back to Dagobah for it. It would be fun to see that planet again.

story

It's a vision, it's so obvious.

Star Wars "fan channels" on YouTube are killing the boy of this franchise. They speculated for two years on every little thing leading up to The Last Jedi that when it didn't go in the "right direction," meaning all the speculation they out out there to their tens of thousands of subscribers by which they make their living with YouTube ads, they were tremendously vocal about it and turned their followers on it, too. It's all about losing control and money. Just like anything.

The Last Jedi is one of the best Star Wars movies (the only Star Wars film) and I'll see Rise of Skywalker on day 1. Twice.

Draven

kefrank

I don't know if I agree completely that The Last Jedi is one of the best Star Wars movies, but its minor flaws aside, I agree pretty adamantly with your description of the dynamics at play in much of the criticism levied against it and with the utter inanity that "fan channels" have bred.

Mike86

TGM

damage to Luke's character aside, TLJ is just a bad movie from a movie perspective. The forced comedy didn't work. The entire casino planet sequence was pointless and wayyyy too long. Flying space leia… from a technical perspective was done so so poorly. She truly looked like Mary fucking Poppins. It could have been shot way cooler and I would have believed it more. The idiotic "mmmm, salt!" line was cringy. Rose stopping Finn from his sacrifice was fine, but again the way they did it was terrible. I hate how dumb Haldo was with not telling her plan to Poe and the being chased plot stolen directly from Battlestar Galactica didn't make sense.

Things I liked about TLJ... I liked the opening sequence with the bombing run.... and the bombs in space critics can go fuck off as they were there in the OT with the Y wings... I LOVED the shot of Leia getting blown into space. I really thought "holy shit, they did it... this is how she goes out", and I liked the visual of Luke going against the Ape walkers until it was revealed it was a phantom (why again was his lightsaber solid but he was not?). I liked the grump Luke until the point where it became obvious he wasn't getting his ass on the Falcon,. I liked the Snoke shocker and the subsequent guard battle although it was pretty stiff in the fight choreography. I LOVED the ramming scene... that was quite beautiful. Just wish that sacrifice was made by a character I hadn't met 30 minutes before so it held more weight, like Akbar.

slop101

LOL, no.
What does that even mean?

Draven

You're misremembering. Luke's lightsaber never touched Kylo's.

Shannon Nutt

My guess is JJ has designed Rise of Skywalker in such a way that most of the moments in The Last Jedi that many of us thought were stupid will now make much more sense. I still don't think Rian's movie is going to age well plot-wise, but visually I think it's one of the most impressive Star Wars movies (casino kangaroo creatures aside ).

TGM

LOL, yes. I gave multiple examples.

TGM

hmmm, thanks!

slop101

Then let me "LOL" even harder, as your examples are just shit you don't like, nothing that makes it an actual "bad movie" in a "movie perspective" (a nonsense term). You just don't like it, which is fine, but instead of keeping things subjective, you try to make a case that it's an objectively bad movie, which it is not.

brayzie

I thought it worked just fine for the most part. Maybe tone it down a bit, but most of the funny bits landed well and made it feel closer to the spirit of Star Wars than the PT.

I ended up liking it. And I think it was meant to be pointless to show that we all make mistakes and that's how we progress in life. I also liked that world-building aspect of it.

Agreed.

Yup. She tried to save Finn in a way that should have ended up killing them both. Even watching it for the first time I was thinking that it was stupid. They're essentially action figures in play vehicles just bouncing around.

I hated it to, but that was the point. We were all supposed to hate that and feel the same way Poe was feeling. He saw this perfectly coifed, frail-looking, purple haired SJW spouting sexist anti-flyboy sentiment, who was making all these questionable battlefield decisions. Had she been some scarred up looking bad ass, Poe would have probably trusted her. She was Poe's superior and should have followed her without question.
I still dislike Holdo though.

...damn, they did!


All in all, I think Disney has done an adequate job with brining some of the luster back to Star Wars. Yeah, I wish it was better, but outside of originality, it's about on par with the OT.
ANH was ground breaking, but it feels like corners were cut story-wise to fit an entire saga into one film. It's also very cheesy at times like when Leia, Vader and Tarkin are trading barbs at the beginning.
ESB was great but a whole lot of retconning was going on. Empire is NOT destroyed but just as powerful as ever, all of a sudden telekinesis is a Jedi power (how did Luke learn it if his mentor was dead??), and now Vader is Luke's father? That's some bad, day-time soap opera twist-type writing right there.
ROTJ acting performances take a dive, we're back on Tattooine again, implied bad ass Boba Fett goes out like a punk, teddy bears, really? And the worst offense, making Leia Luke's sister. Again, some lame soap opera twist that ruins the the love triangle of the first two films.

If you take all those negatives into consideration and compare the OT the Disney films, they're almost equal in terms of overall quality.

brayzie

I took "movie perspective" as meaning from a non-OT fanboy standpoint. For example, even if you hadn't seen the original films or been a Luke fanboy, there were still flaws with the story. I didn't see him saying it was objectively bad. Obviously it's just his opinion. Does every post really need to end with "IMO" for people not to get so defensive?

Mabuse

rennervision

I think he was referring to Luke on Hoth grabbing his lightsaber out of reach. Which is a silly point. If we already know you can close off someone's throat passage with a finger-and-thumb-touching gesture, the idea of grabbing a lightsaber did not seem far fetched AT ALL.

Obi-Wanma

The scene that you're referencing is an example of telepathy, not telekinesis

brayzie

Good point, I completely forgot about that.

TGM

I don't want to shit this thread up with TLJ hate. Lets just move along, move along.

mcnabb

This is a link to a detailed plot to Episode 9 on reddit. From what I have been piecing together through the rumors in the past year, this seems pretty plausible (I'm sure everything is not 100% true as some things don't make sense as I'm just looking at it from a big picture perspective).

REMEMBER THIS LINK GIVES AWAY HUGE SPOILERS TO EPISODE 9, SO DON'T CLICK IF YOU ARE STAYING SPOILER FREE. I REPEAT, THIS ARTICLE HAS MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 9:

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsLea...x_the_rise_of/



This is my opinion of these spoilers: