39 minutes ago, R3dReVenge said:

Other people bring up pretty valid points (see the video). Joe is unbiased in his assessment. He states facts and makes his opinions based off facts . This doesn't make him or I a troll. It's 'normal' to be afraid of other people's views. Just look at American politics and how dividing it is. Both sides refusing to listen to others .

If you read my post, I mentioned several things that I liked and disliked about the movie (different from my previous posts). 5/10 is a pretty reasonable rating. JJ did the best with what Rian Johnson had left him.

Angry Joe does not count as part of the YouTube hate clicks machine. He is amazing and does a lot of good for the gaming community by calling out the BS of the big companies. His reviews are also funny & great!!

I mean the people who put up four videos a day with explosive headlines and made up stories just to get the clicks. And unless you were one of the monsters who got Kelly Marie Tran to quit the internet I not would classify you as a troll.

As for RoS I thought you were too kind to the movie. I would give it a lower score. It is lucky that it gets the Star Wars movie curve when I grade it. No sand, trade talks, or bad CGI stops me from really mustering any hate towards the movie and I will probably only talk about the good things in the future. Like the sexual tension between Poe and anybody he talked to............ including 3P0!!!! Give that man a solo movie now!

2 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

M ad Max: Fury Road... Those movies were well into the 95% range.

I went into Fury Road expecting a generic and mediocre action movie. I wasn't ready for it to not only be good, but to become a favorite of mine. I'm disappointed that I didn't see it in theaters

I think I saw enough stuff in this movie to flesh out a Resistance faction!

9 hours ago, thepopemobile100 said:

I went into Fury Road expecting a generic and mediocre action movie. I wasn't ready for it to not only be good, but to become a favorite of mine. I'm disappointed that I didn't see it in theaters

I saw it 3 times in the theater despite having our first baby that spring. It was just that good.

This is the first in the Sequel Trilogy that I actively want to watch again - if for no other reason than to attempt to catch all the background information I missed in the first viewing. I think JJ was trying to cram two films worth of story into one movie here and the pacing and exposition suffered because of it.

That said, I can’t really blame him, as Episode 8 left him in a position where he had to (in the THIRD installment of a trilogy):

-establish an antagonist

-establish a clear motivation for the protagonist (this one is Episode 7’s fault)

-force the protagonist to fail, train, and confront struggle in order to develop as a character

-show our triad of heroes go on an adventure together

I’m wondering how I’ll feel about it after a second viewing, but right now RoS is probably my favorite of the Sequel Trilogy. It’s fun, epic in scale, and opens a ton of new doors for Star Wars lore in the new canon. Unfortunately it still leaves me wondering if the Sequel Trilogy improved (or added meaningfully to) the story of the Skywalkers in a way that justifies its creation.

And he was never heard from again.

1 hour ago, OMGBRICK said:

That said, I can’t really blame him, as Episode 8 left him in a position where he had to (in the THIRD installment of a trilogy):

-establish an antagonist

-establish a clear motivation for the protagonist (this one is Episode 7’s fault)

-force the protagonist to fail, train, and confront struggle in order to develop as a character

-show our triad of heroes go on an adventure together

I put the blame for all of those on Episode VII, or at least on JJ.

Re: The antagonist. TFA paralleled ANH in most respects, save one. The scenes with Snoke talking to Kylo Ren paralleled The Emperor’s scenes with Vader from ESB. TLJ picks up that thread and has Snoke’s scenes parallel those from RotJ - in which The Emperor is betrayed and killed (apparently) by his apprentice. In other words, JJ himself set Snoke up to be killed in TLJ. Rian set it up so Hux could continue to be the military antagonist and Kylo Ren could be the Force wielding antagonist. JJ chose not to pick up those threads. That’s his choice, but he didn’t HAVE to introduce a new antagonist character.

Re: Motivation for protagonist. This one relates back to the antagonist. If JJ had stuck with Hux and Kylo, then Poe and Finn would already have the “defeat the First Order” motivation and Rey would already have the “save Ben Solo” motivation. Again, he’s well within his rights to change it up, but he didn’t HAVE to find new motivations (or at least he wouldn’t have to if he didn’t create new antagonists).

Re: Forcing the protagonist to fail. TFA is the movie in which Rey just downloads Force powers from Kylo. In TLJ, Rey trains with Luke (for more time than it might seem on first viewing - AotC, ESB and TLJ all have two stories which don’t run exactly concurrently). She fails by going straight to the dark (similar to Luke’s failure at the cave). She fails by leaving without completing her training (much like Luke did). She fails to do anything against Snoke. She fails to turn Kylo back to the light. She fails so hard, she breaks the lightsaber that was supposed to represent the hope of the Jedi returning to the galaxy. People like to focus on her lifting rocks at the end; that’s about the only place she DIDN’T fail in TLJ.

Re: The triad going on an adventure. The middle film of each trilogy is the one which splits up our heroes. Obi-Wan goes off on his own while Anakin and Padmé go together. Luke goes off on his own while Han and Leia stay together. Rey goes off on her own while Poe and Finn stay together. TFA, which parallels ANH, is where the triad should have gotten together. If JJ had not had Poe mysteriously disappear, this one wouldn’t be an issue.

We had the most awesome antagonist in Kylo Ren truly embracing his darkness, removing those who were using him and taking his place as the supreme leader. Kylo Ren should have been our villain. He was the most interesting character in the series and it is the arc that makes sense. He should have been the Thanos. He had the motivation to continue hunting the heroes down and destroying them while also making them struggle to fight back because of their feelings about him. Whatever other choices were made, I think that literally dragging out the emperors corpse was the worst possible idea they could have come up with.

1 hour ago, GooeyChewie said:

I put the blame for all of those on Episode VII, or at least on JJ.

I agree that JJ fumbled much of the storytelling in Episode 7, however I think we disagree on whether Episode 8 added clarity to the overarching story or whether it muddled it further.

I don’t wanna derail this Episode 9 thread by getting too much into the prior films but I will respond to the point about the antagonists (as it probably requires the least lengthy rebuttal and is pertinent to how Episode 9 begins). Going into this movie we had seen Kylo defeated by the protagonist in the first act, Snoke and Phasma die, and Hux get turned into a neutered punching bag through the entire second act. Who was the audience supposed to be scared of?

13 hours ago, BenBot said:

I think I saw enough stuff in this movie to flesh out a Resistance faction!

This movie pretty much made sure we are getting a First Order and Resistance faction. Sure you got to ignore that the First Order and Sith Forces are really two different factions, but they did sotra team up? The Resistance got their their creature trooper, their ground leaders,one or two infantry, droid duos, and most likely their speeder heavy.

Throw in the other two movies, the Resistance Reborn book, and Battlefront 2 to pretty give FFG everything they need to build the factions.

Really glad to see some more inspiration added for a Resistance force in this game. And after seeing how extensively they reference ancient Sith in the visual dictionary, I’m hopeful that one day we can look forward to watching the Old Republic era play out on the big screen and on the tabletop as well.

I only thought it was ok. Very much liked the Disney era output, especially The Last Jedi. This one felt very rushed and was safe as it could be really. Awful lot of pandering going on. On early reviews that I generally sympathise with I expected to hate it, but only had one eye roll moment. (The big retcon).

JJ has confirmed that what Finn wanted to tell Rey is that he's Force sensitive.

LOL

You know the only reason he did this is to address the "problem" of Finn hanging in a duel with Kylo for 45 seconds in TFA. JJ is such a goober.

6 hours ago, OMGBRICK said:

Going into this movie we had seen Kylo defeated by the protagonist in the first act, Snoke and Phasma die, and Hux get turned into a neutered punching bag through the entire second act. Who was the audience supposed to be scared of?

Kylo Ren. Since His defeat in TFA Kylo has matched Rey’s raw power, betrayed and murdered his master, and usurped the title of Supreme Leader of the First Order. He was certainly on an upward trajectory in terms of being a scary antagonist.

And the First Order itself. TLJ made it seem like the First Order had the military might to wipe out the Resistance with ease, even after the Holdo maneuver. JJ introduced the Sith fleet because he wanted to, not because he needed to.

Glad this trilogy is over. It was terrible.

Some of the bits and bobs like TIE Silencers and First Order troopers, etc. are neat, but as a cohesive story, it's been pure garbage for the past two movies. It started out slightly promising with TFA, but it was all an avalanche of suck from there.

For me, Star Wars is 4-6 + Rogue One + Solo (barely) + The Mandalorian.

I consider the prequels & Clone Wars backstory which I loved in parts and hated in others, that I never have to watch again in my life, thankfully.

7-9 are garbage I jettisoned before jumping to hyperspace.

17 hours ago, BenBot said:

I think I saw enough stuff in this movie to flesh out a Resistance faction!

I mean it's possible, but like most of the first order stuff it's just re-skinned rebels without an extensive library of books, games and other to get more units from.

The one thing I really likes in the movie was the "sandscooters" the first order had. I think that's the first new unit that isn't just a re-skinned empire vehicle. They looked cool and a game effect where you can launch heavy weapon models on jetpacks from the scooter sounds fun. Only thing that can make me excited for thr sequal era entering legion.

On 12/20/2019 at 6:27 PM, KalEl814 said:

Honestly... Kelly Marie Tran got done wrong . I appreciate that not everyone's beef with Rose was coming from a place of toxicity, but an awful lot of it did . And to see Disney's / JJ's reaction to that be that she's essentially written out of the sequel is INCREDIBLY discouraging. If you took her out of the movie it would have absolutely no impact on the plot. It's unbelievable how cowardly that was and it will absolutely embolden trolls.

What has "emboldened trolls" is the way in which critics, Lucasfilm PR, and the segment of the fanbase who liked it routinely deployed what are objectively a numerically tiny proportion of the fanbase as a blanket slur against anyone who disliked any aspect of the Sequels generally and TLJ in particular. The horse has bolted, emigrated to Dubai, won several competitive races, had a family, lived out a comfortable retirement, died, and been rendered down into glue, so even attemping to shut the stable door now is just farce - marginalising Rose won't "embolden" anyone more than they already are, but it could win back some goodwill from the non-toxic people you at least now will (grudgingly) admit exist who just didn't like the character or the story she was part of.

On digesting, I’m left with one, fairly obvious question.

Who is the mother of Rey’s dad?

Other nitpicks: Because of Carrie Fisher’s untimely death, all the interactions between her and other characters are just glaringly salvaged multiple takes from how interactions could have played out in TFA.

To wit, there’s a whole bunch of lightsaber passing in the space of maybe 1-2 minutes that were pretty clearly alternate versions of Rey getting Luke’s lightsaber, which they must have ditched in favor of creating the character of Maz Kanata.

Poe goes through the fastest crisis of confidence turnabout I think I’ve ever seen in a story, I almost got whiplash watching it. Were it me doing the story boarding/editing I’d not have left that in at all.

Blink and you’ll miss: Sith troopers. I’m pretty sure these are the height of needless ad campaigns. I’m surprised they weren’t deployed far more extensively, as the recognition that first order stormtroopers are almost exclusively programmed child soldiers (Ie kidnapped victims!) makes it real difficult to for their being hurt at all. Having a shift to a military of dedicated bad guys makes it much easier to root for the heroes in a fight.

The point of the Knights of Ren. Also, there’s a gaping plot hole where these guys have a fight as to exactly ‘why’ they’re fighting. I’m guessing there’s a deleted scene that was cut for time to explain this.

General Pryde: Don’t get me wrong, I like the actor, but as with Holdo, the role itself seemed superfluous to the story. Also, the script implies a backstory here; maybe it’s something they’ve planned to use in another movie or media.

Overall, 10/10 on character banter; Oscar Isaac in particular is really into his role, but the whole cast did a fairly bang up job here. C-3P0 had his best dialogue since the original trilogy; R2, like Rose, got sidelined pretty much completely. I’m not sure if this means that Abrams has something against R2, or if he just doesn’t know what to do with the droid.

The plot had a few plot holes (Ie how did character x know to do y?) but it’s easy to just overlook it and enjoy most of the time;

I liked most of the twists, and I like how they built in plot points from the Mandalorian’s most recent episode.

5 hours ago, Derrault said:

Who is the mother of Rey’s dad?

A good question, for another time.

Well, you see, as Anakin was conceived without a father, Rey's dad was conceived without a mother. It's like poetry, it rhymes. Don't ask how that worked.

But seriously I expect this is a question that will be treated like "Who's Luke and Leia's mother?" was treated prior to The Phantom Menace.

Lando did have a child.

And one sexy gun.

45 Movie Images , how? Because frankly my dear. China don’t give (explicative)

2 hours ago, Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun said:

Lando did have a child.

And one sexy gun.

Was so glad to see the movie leave a couple of open threads for fun novels and comic books. Looking forward to seeing Lando’s adventure with Jannah in particular, but also to see if they go anywhere with Finn’s revelation. The opportunity to explore ancient Jedi and Sith knowledge is also vastly opened in this movie. I do wish there was more clarity on The Chosen One prophecy and how it relates to Anakin, Rey, Palp’s survival in 6, etc.

9’s run time was 10 minutes shorter than 8’s and I think this movie could’ve vastly improved with an added 10 minutes of exposition regarding the Prophecy, the Dyad, zombie Palpatine’s survival, Exegol, and even little things like making the audience aware that Kylo was retrieving the Wayfinder from an ark at Vader’s Castle on Mustafar. That’s such a cool piece of flavor that easily can just be viewed as Kylo is on a random ash planet killing random people.

The movie being longer wouldn't help it make any sense. The biggest issues it has aren't things from TLJ that needed to be papered over. Someone somewhere else said it best...

Quote

Ochi is a "Jedi hunter"/Sith loyalist who Sheev, who must have been alive since at least 15 ABY or so, sent out to capture his granddaughter. He found Rey's parents on Jakku but they sold (!!) their daughter to Unkar Plutt to protect her, then he captured them and took off in his ship (even though Rey was standing RIGHT THERE YELLING AT THE SHIP TO COME BACK). When he couldn't get the parents to speak about Rey's whereabouts, he killed them with his ceremonial dagger, which he had specifically carved to visually demonstrate the location of Sheev's Wayfinder within the wreckage of the Death Star if you hold the dagger up at a certain angle and stand on a certain spot of land. For some reason. He also inscribed on the dagger in the Sith runes the coordinates to find the DSII pieces. He then went to Pasaana, for some reason, and Luke and Lando were chasing him presumably because he's a Jedi hunter and he knew the way to Exegol, which they wanted to find for reasons, but he died when he stepped into quicksand outside his parked ship and got eaten by a snake.

This is 100% JJ. Even Attack of the Clones isn't this stupid and that movie is d-u-m dumb.

2 hours ago, KalEl814 said:

The movie being longer wouldn't help it make any sense. The biggest issues it has aren't things from TLJ that needed to be papered over. Someone somewhere else said it best...

This is 100% JJ. Even Attack of the Clones isn't this stupid and that movie is d-u-m dumb.

I just saw that as a blatant call out to The Goonies.

6 hours ago, OMGBRICK said:

Looking forward to seeing Lando’s adventure with Jannah in particular,

Upon finding out Lando’s daughter was abducted, this easily became one of my favourite parts of the movie.