"Flawless within their limited scope", yeah sure, if the limited scope was to make a watchable act 3 and a fast forward option on the br for act 1 and 2. Even comparing the snore fest rogue one to red october is a sin.

See, I for one cannot fathom anyone being able to label Rogue One a masterpiece. To me it is a highly flawed movie only saved by its amazing final act.

33 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

I actually enjoy a lot of episodes of Clone Wars, it had good ideas, but it suffers from poor animation, low quality voice acting...

You are dead to me, sir...dead.

1 hour ago, DaverWattra said:

The only worthwhile things about Rebels for an adult audience are that it introduced Thrawn into canon and filled in some of the history of the Alliance. It's a solid show for 10-year-olds, but it comes nowhere near accomplishing what the few truly great kids' shows accomplish in including characterization and story that should matter to adult viewers (I'm thinking of shows like Avatar The Last Airbender, Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, and yeah, Clone Wars achieves some limited success in this regard). Rebels is a pale shadow of Clone Wars, which was really only good in the first place by comparison with the prequels.

My undying thanks to you.

If not for your analysis above, I would have continued my life believing that I, as an adult, enjoy both shows and find layers and nuance in the vast majority of the episodes (while acknowledging that some episodes don't).

To quote Drew Carey, thank you, sir. If not for you, I might have had a moment of joy.

28 minutes ago, whafrog said:

You are dead to me, sir...dead.

Don't get me wrong, I like Clone Wars. I just don't know why they decided to spend $10 per episode on Paw Patrol-level CG when a cell animated Star Wars show that looked like Avatar or Voltron could have been unbelievably cool. And Filoni's team has the same strengths and weaknesses as JMS did on Babylon 5: just because you can write a cool story with nice ideas doesn't mean you can necessarily write passable dialogue.

3 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

My undying thanks to you.

If not for your analysis above, I would have continued my life believing that I, as an adult, enjoy both shows and find layers and nuance in the vast majority of the episodes (while acknowledging that some episodes don't).

To quote Drew Carey, thank you, sir. If not for you, I might have had a moment of joy.

There's a whole can of worms here about the purpose of negative film and TV criticism, but I will just say that not every show I like is actually good. I enjoy the old transformers cartoon, the original Thundercats, etc. I recognize they are bad shows, but that doesn't mean I can't have a lot of fun watching them. I definitely don't hold it against anyone that they enjoy a bad show. If they say that said bad show is better than a good movie, that is when I must object.

Just now, DaverWattra said:

There's a whole can of worms here about the purpose of negative film and TV criticism, but I will just say that not every show I like is actually good. I enjoy the old transformers cartoon, the original Thundercats, etc. I recognize they are bad shows, but that doesn't mean I can't have a lot of fun watching them. I definitely don't hold it against anyone that they enjoy a bad show. If they say that said bad show is better than a good movie, that is when I must object.

I enjoy plenty of bad TV and movies, as well.

I don't count Clone Wars or Rebels among them.

But, clearly, you are far more intelligent than I on the matter. I am but a poor simpleton who is in your eternal debt for pointing these things out to me.

Thank you once again for saving me from myself and that moment of joy.

Just now, Nytwyng said:

I enjoy plenty of bad TV and movies, as well.

I don't count Clone Wars or Rebels among them.

But, clearly, you are far more intelligent than I on the matter. I am but a poor simpleton who is in your eternal debt for pointing these things out to me.

Thank you once again for saving me from myself and that moment of joy.

I definitely don't think Clone Wars is bad.

3 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

I definitely don't think Clone Wars is bad.

1 hour ago, DaverWattra said:

Man, this is the second time I've heard views like this here and I honestly don't know what to make of them.

Of course Clone Wars is better that TPM and AOTC, so is Troll 2. I actually enjoy a lot of episodes of Clone Wars, it had good ideas, but it suffers from poor animation, low quality voice acting and stereotypical kid's show characterization and dialogue-level writing. I actually like Revenge of the Sith better than Clone Wars; General Grievous is almost unwatchably annoying in ROTS, but at least the movie has some real Ian McDiarmid acting in the Coruscant opera scene. I don't understand how anyone can enjoy Clone Wars and then turn around and say (as I see people say sometimes here) that Rogue One had weak characters or that Jyn Erso was a boring character. Characterization in Clone Wars: "I like this boy, but oh no, Steela Gerrera likes him too and he likes her back! This love triangle will not be developed any further." Characterization in Rogue One: "It's not a problem if you don't look up." A single line that speaks volumes about Jyn and her life up to that moment.

Yeah, that's some glowing praise right there. Not sure there could be any more backhand to those few compliments.

You have to understand that I have a very high opinion of Rogue One. Saying that a show is significantly worse than one of my favorite movies of the past two years doesn't mean that its flaws aren't outweighed by some very positive aspects which make it a good show on the whole. I also like Revenge of the Sith on the whole.

I see how it could look as if I was s h itting on Clone Wars, sorry to give that false impression in my zeal to defend Rogue One.

On 12/28/2017 at 9:45 AM, DaverWattra said:

after the prequel trilogy, Star Wars fans were mad

Some fans were mad. Some very vocal and outspoken fans who managed to shout down the "Eh, it was okay" and the "Hey, I liked that" crowd.

On 12/28/2017 at 9:45 AM, DaverWattra said:

Disney set out to address the fan complaints in the new movies and have largely succeeded, leading to better movies.

Which is why the main complaint that you hear about E7 is that it was pandering to the audience and was nothing but pure fanservice.

On 12/28/2017 at 9:45 AM, DaverWattra said:

I'm saying listen to the reasonable ones

And you will never get consensus on what is "reasonable". Any studio that lets the fans dictate their movies is doomed to fail and/or run by fools.

22 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

You have to understand that I have a very high opinion of Rogue One. Saying that a show is significantly worse than one of my favorite movies of the past two years doesn't mean that its flaws aren't outweighed by some very positive aspects which make it a good show on the whole. I also like Revenge of the Sith on the whole.

I see how it could look as if I was s h itting on Clone Wars, sorry to give that false impression in my zeal to defend Rogue One.

2 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

it suffers from poor animation

2 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

low quality voice acting

2 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

stereotypical kid's show characterization and dialogue-level writing

2 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

Characterization in Clone Wars: "I like this boy, but oh no, Steela Gerrera likes him too and he likes her back! This love triangle will not be developed any further."

Yeah, those are ways someone describes a show they then turn around and say "isn't bad."

Forgive me if I've repeated myself here, I've had so many conversations about the movie what I said where is getting muddled. . . .

12 hours ago, 2P51 said:

We aren't talking about a smidgen, it's on track to make 3/4 of a billion less than TFA. That's not a troll bot hiccup, that's not a niche, or a minority.

I would say that following what the box office for Rogue One was would be a more accurate metric. Here's my thinking: E7 was the first Star Wars movie in over a decade and the first of a new trilogy under a new regime, the crest of a marketing wave that was massive. The anticipation for the flick was pretty **** impressive - and this is going to translate to an inflated box office total. So it's not so much that E8 under-performed, but that E7 over-performed by a significant margin.

Actually, we've already seen this in action. The first Avengers had a massive seven movie buildup leading to all this anticipation from the audience - and the film scored massive at the box office as a result. Age of Ultron on the other hand was "just another marvel movie" and did very solid if not super-spectacular box office because of it.

As Star Wars movies shift from these big Every-Three-Year events that we all grew up with to a "Oh look, another new Star Wars movie?" more mundane events, we'll see the box office settle to a more very solid blockbuster status.

1 hour ago, DanteRotterdam said:

To me it is a highly flawed movie only saved by its amazing final act.

To be honest, act 3 was not that amazing either. Vader is portrait as an idiot badass while the editing tried to emulate return of the jedi and did fail imho, because the sequences seem not to align very well on a timing chart and thus feel odd. The space battle is a back to back section which literally shows ALL the action in one go. Nothing is left out, while the ground action seems to skip time and still takes longer than the space section even from the point on when the fleet arrives. Still cool and all, but without build up, without attachment to the characters, reusing death scenes from old war movies lacks impact. Sure, doing a collage of scene from other movies is very star wars, but in Rogue One they did not even try to change the context of the scene nor have any support from the previous 2 acts to make you care about those death scenes. All this lessens the impact and quality of the 3rd act … and personally I am actually quite pissed that Disney is shutting down the space battle only videos, because that is basically the only piece of the movie worth watching.

Sure, the Vader scene is cool, but that's just doing what Anakin and other Jedi in TCW have done all the time. And let's be frank, Filoni would never had the Memory-Stick in reach of force move, because his jedi would always just grab the thing with the force and go home. It's such a cheap drama trick and it's not working at all for me, because we all know that the plans get away.

15 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

To be honest, act 3 was not that amazing either.

And thus proving that consensus among fans is impossible. Who is right here? Dante (who hates 3/4th of the movie), Random Person who is not at all SEApocalypse (who hated all of it) or me (who loved it all)?

Avengers 1 made 1.5 billion, Avengers 2 made 1.4 billion. That's less than a 7% difference. In the case of TLJ it's 37.5% difference adjusted for inflation and the larger number of theaters and based on attendance following the same curve.

I'm not going back and forth on this, 27 million less @$$es in seats is a clear indication this movie missed the target with a F ton of people, and the corresponding drop in revenues is not explained away by some alleged shadowy-ethereal cabal of trolling bot hackers.

Just now, Desslok said:

And thus proving that consensus among fans is impossible. Who is right here? Dante (who hates 3/4th of the movie), SEA (who hated all of it) or me (who loved it all)?

Answer: we are all right. Art is a subjective thing and opinions cannot be wrong.

Wait! I don't hate all of it, it has a great space battle, which just needs new editing ^_°
Besides. Objectively act 1 and 2 are not solid, because they have some deeply problems with character progression, a few logical issues, etc

Does not mean that you can't like or even love it, but it's still not good film making. Now my dislike for act 3, I totally go with subjective and "we are all right" there. And I will as well fully accept that hating the movie is as well perfectly subjective, just like loving it. But calling it a good movie, based on craftsmanship is one step too far.

One good example why I subjectivily hate the movie is that it totally confused me. When they finally get to the message which the pilot has smuggled out, I was 100% under the assumption that if they go through all that trouble to smuggle this out, they would have included the plans as well. And then they just leave the disk there to explode? WTF. This is something I totally hate based on my own assumptions. That you can just remove act 1 and 2 and start with act 3 and would have a better movie ... now that is just because the movie has so poor starting acts.

Whoops - my bad. Its hard to keep track of who liked what around here.

I like Rogue One.

But... I think as a movie it is highly flawed. As a Star Wars experience I had an amazing time all seven times I saw it.

53 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

the corresponding drop in revenues is not explained away by some alleged shadowy-ethereal cabal of trolling bot hackers.

It is explained away by the calendar though. This movie season is the same as the 2006 one and lo and behold the numbers line up perfectly.

Other than that this revenue talk is just silly when discussing the (fictional) wavering interest of a relatively small group of people (so called fandom).

53 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Whoops - my bad. Its hard to keep track of who liked what around here.

I like Star Wars. Pretty much all of it - more or less.

4 minutes ago, lecudas said:

I like Star Wars. Pretty much all of it - more or less.

Me too, some more, some less, but it all adds something in the end.

3 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

And let's be frank, Filoni would never had the Memory-Stick in reach of force move, because his jedi would always just grab the thing with the force and go home.

Do we know that Vader can actually see which trooper has the memory disc? Things were pretty dark and chaotic in that hallway. As I understood the scene, he thought the plans were being transferred to Tantive IV somehow, didn't know exactly where they were, and so was trying to board the ship and prevent it from escaping.

3 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

a few logical issues

In Rogue One? Maybe a few small ones. But what are your views of the large logic gaps and plot holes in Last Jedi? Most famously: Why didn't the First Order just send a few Star Destroyers through hyperspace in front of the Resistance cruiser, or summon ships from one of their other fleets to intercept the cruiser from the front?

Also: Why didn't Holdo explain her evacuation plan to anyone? Why didn't she explain it to Poe when he mutinied?

And: How did DJ know Holdo's plan?

I personally have no problem with these plot holes, because I don't think logic gaps and plot holes are big problems for a Star Wars movie to have. Holey plots are the stuff of Star Wars. But if I did have a problem with plot holes in Star Wars, TLJ would get a lot more flak from me than Rogue One would.

3 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

When they finally get to the message which the pilot has smuggled out, I was 100% under the assumption that if they go through all that trouble to smuggle this out, they would have included the plans as well.

This isn't hard to explain. Obviously Krennic didn't trust Galen enough to let him take the plans home from work. Presumably Galen was kept under a close watch by Imperial security, since he'd already escaped once. And since the plans were such a big file that took so long to transfer, it would've been easy to prevent him from having the opportunity to make a copy.

3 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

And then they just leave the disk there to explode?

"It all happened so fast." People in chaotic situations sometimes make serious mistakes under the stress. Quite believable IMO.

3 hours ago, Nytwyng said:

Yeah, those are ways someone describes a show they then turn around and say "isn't bad."

Like I said, I was contrasting it with Rogue One, which I think is almost flawless.

Characterization, animation, acting and dialogue are big problems with Clone Wars. I was explaining why I think it has some serious flaws. That doesn't mean I don't like it. Babylon 5, which I mentioned before, also has bad CG, characters, acting and dialogue. It's also a show that I really enjoyed; it was my favorite thing on TV at the time and I think its virtues outweigh its problems.

I never meant to be saying that Clone Wars is not a good show on the whole, but I can understand why you took it that way since I was focusing so much on the negatives before.

6 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

I never meant to be saying that Clone Wars is not a good show on the whole, but I can understand why you took it that way since I was focusing so much on the negatives before.

I see what you mean.

Why on earth would someone think that giving backhanded compliments at best didn't mean you think it's a good show?

15 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

Why didn't the First Order just send a few Star Destroyers through hyperspace in front of the Resistance cruiser,

We don't ever see a hyperspace jump that short. I mean, by the time you pull back that lever to revert to normal space you've already overshot the target by a ridiculous distance, making this entire maneuver pointless. All you've achieved is take one of your own ships out of the pursuit.

15 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

or summon ships from one of their other fleets to intercept the cruiser from the front?

Had there been any available, they would have done so. ****, with how badly Hux let his overconfidence affect operations, there's little reason to think he would make that sort of call. Especially not after having been humiliated twice - once by Poe, and then again by Snoke. Hux must make his plan work, no matter the cost, or the presence of better options. That's his established character.

15 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

Also: Why didn't Holdo explain her evacuation plan to anyone? Why didn't she explain it to Poe when he mutinied?

She did. To the people who needed to know.

At no point had Poe displayed a willingness to listen to her.

15 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

And: How did DJ know Holdo's plan?

He heard Poe talk to Finn about it over the com. There's a shot where you see DJ listening to the com with a "wheels turn in his head" expression.