On 1/1/2020 at 2:29 PM, KalEl814 said:

I dunno if nobody gave Lucas notes

Nobody gave Lucas notes.
I love the prequels in spite of their flaws. I also recognize that their worst problem was that George had no adversity to work through. There was no one on his staff that was willing to tell him no.
Heck, there was no one among his peers that was willing to tell him to dial it back a bit. The next problem was that the editors. George did a lot of editing on the OT< but so did other very talented editors. The editing team won an Oscar for ANH and of course one of them was George's wife at the time. This was a room of equals who could approach things and have to work out their differences. The PT just had people who said yes to whatever their boss wanted.

The Phantom Menace backlash took about two weeks to really gel in. Even then TPM was the fastest selling DVD of all time and it was the highest grossing movie of the year. So I guess everyone w as hate watching it all those times they went?

On 1/1/2020 at 1:39 PM, KommanderKeldoth said:

Review from The Village Voice 1999:

Here's another review to consider:

"The Force is with us but let's try to keep our heads. These things are certifiable: " The Phantom Menace ," George Lucas's prequel to Star Wars the biggest grossing motion picture of all time, has opened. On the basis of the early receipts, " The Phantom Menace " could make more money than any other movie in history, except, maybe, Star Wars, the series that may last longer than the civilization that produced it.

"The Phantom Menace" is not a truly terrible movie. It's a nice movie. It's not, by any means, as nice as "Star Wars." It's not as fresh and funny and surprising and witty, but it is nice and inoffensive and, in a way that no one associated with it need be ashamed of, it's also silly. Attending to it is a lot like reading...a comic book. It is amusing in fitful patches but you're likely to find more beauty, suspense, discipline, craft and art when watching a New York harbor pilot bring the Queen Elizabeth 2 into her Hudson River berth, which is what "The Phantom Menace" most reminds me of. It's a big, expensive, time-consuming, essentially mechanical operation.

Gone from "The Empire Strikes Back" are those associations that so enchanted us in "Star Wars," reminders of everything from the Passion of Jesus and the stories of Beowulf and King Arthur to those of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the Oz books, Buck Rogers and Peanuts. Strictly speaking, "The Phantom Menace" isn't even a complete narrative. It has no beginning or end, being simply another chapter in a serial that appears to be continuing not onward and upward but sideways. How, then, to review it?

The fact that I am here at this minute facing a reproachful typewriter and attempting to get a fix on "The Phantom Menace" is, perhaps, proof of something I've been suspecting for some time now. That is, that there is more nonsense being written, spoken and rumored about movies today than about any of the other so-called popular arts except rock music. The Force is with us, indeed, and a lot of it is hot air.

Ordinarily when one reviews a movie one attempts to tell a little something about the story. It's a measure of my mixed feelings about "The Phantom Menace" that I'm not at all sure that I understand the plot. That was actually one of the more charming conceits of Star Wars, which began with a long, intensely complicated message about who was doing what to whom in the galactic confrontations we were about to witness and which, when we did see them, looked sort of like a game of neighborhood hide-and-seek at the Hayden Planetarium. One didn't worry about its politics. One only had to distinguish the good persons from the bad. This is pretty much the way one is supposed to feel about "The Phantom Menace," but one's impulse to know, to understand, cannot be arrested indefinitely without doing psychic damage or, worse, without risking boredom."

Oh, wait. That's a review of Empire Strikes back from The New York Times June 15th, 1980
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/film/061580empire.html

Have a look at some more contemporaneous stuff from then:
http://www.acriticalhit.com/fans-react-empire-strikes-back-1980/

On 12/24/2019 at 9:34 PM, syrath said:

He alone had access to information that could have helped the rebellion (like who Darth Vader was) even who both Luke and Leia were, what to expect on Dagobah, and even who Yoda was, but the little **** said nothing to anybody over the time of the OT

You don't know how many times his memory got erased between the end of RotS and the beginning of ANH.
You also assume he knows who Darth Vader is. He knows who Anakin was, but the other identity might be completely foreign to him or even nonsensical that a being might change its name. Also in the immediate aftermath of RotS he was probably told that his owners (Padme and Anakin) were dead.
I think it's good to basically think of R2-D2 as somewhere between a pet with a specialized job and a severely autistic person who can do a few jobs really really well (we don't have AI astromechs so I'm doing the best I can). I think there's a reason George wanted one character that doesn't speak in a way the audience recognizes but is understood by all the other characters (Chewie) and one who speaks in a way incomprehensible to the audience that also needs on screen translation.

You're also assuming that R2 knows that Luke is going to find Yoda. Luke just says Dagobah and there's no reason that R2 would have ever known the location of Yoda's exile anyway. I'm pretty sure only Obi Wan knew that and even then after the fact. Same goes for the identities and locations of the twins. That's highly sensitive information probably known only to Bail, Yoda and Obi Wan.

On 12/24/2019 at 9:34 PM, syrath said:

Now R2 D2 when you take into account the things that they make him learn in the PT and the clone wars. R2D2 , who starts off the OT on the planet where he originally met. Anakin. He was present when Anakin killed the sand people, he was present when he married Padme, he was present when Anakin became Darth Vader, he was there when Anakin choked Padme which led to her death, he was present when both Leia and Luke were born and separated off to their respective families and knew they were brother and sister. He travelled with Yoda to Dagobah, and even likely knew this was where he was exiled. When he !at back up with Yoda did he alert Luke, did he help Luke and warn him what the planet was like, did he even tell him that this little green thing was Yoda, the sole living Jedi Master.

R2D2 is ultimately the worst plot problem in the whole of the 9 films because of the storytelling that was put into the prequels and the Clone Wars/Rebels series. He alone had access to information that could have helped the rebellion (like who Darth Vader was) even who both Luke and Leia were, what to expect on Dagobah, and even who Yoda was, but the little **** said nothing to anybody over the time of the OT. A massive series of plot holes that could have been fixed if they allowed R2 to have been memory wiped at some point, which is something they have been really keen on saying has never happened.

R2 was not present when Anakin killed the Tusken Raiders. He was in Mos Eisley when Anakin met with Watto, but he is not in the scenes where Anakin rides off to save his mother, he is certainly not at the Tusken village when Anakin slaughters them, and he's not in the garage when Anakin breaks down in front of Padme. He is somewhere at the Homestead, if I recall... but not in the scenes. So... it is questionable if R2 knows any of that.

Nor was R2 anywhere near the battle on Mustafar. He was told by Anakin to "stay with the ship" and he does so. Padme and Obi-wan arrive on a completely different landing platform (I do not see R2 or an Eta 2 Actis light star fighter as the Naboo ship lands). R2 sees none of the duel between Obi-wan and Anakin. We actually have no idea how R2 ended up on the platform to help 3P0 get Padme aboard the ship. Obi-wan does not tell Padme that Anakin is alive or dead, so R2 (who is next to her when she asks) does not know his fate. He probably assumes by Obi-wan's expression that Anakin is dead. We have ZERO evidence that R2 ever knows that Anakin is Darth Vader, or that Anakin survived on Mustfar - and would then become a cyborg that wears a mask and is taller than he was when he was not a cyborg. Honestly, R2 has no reason to assume Vader is Anakin at all... AND, and this is the BIG and... Darth Vader and R2 never come into contact with each other, ever, in the OT. So there are no chances for Darth to make a comment on the droid, or vis-a-versa.

As for Luke Skywalker. **** yeah the little bugger probably remembers the name. But it has been 20 years, and who cares about some brat? He's off to Find Obi-wan. He knows Obi-wan. Also, Obi-wan doesn't say he does not remember the droids, he says he does not remember 'owning any droids.' He's being very Jedi in what he says - he doesn't know what R2 is going to tell him. In fact Obi-wan has to convince R2 to play the message in front of Luke later on. R2 is on a mission, and he has generally be very focused on his objectives.

I will admit that the whole Clone Wars season 6 bit of R2 going with Yoda to Dagobah was silly... BUT, this is during the Clone Wars, so it may little bearing on R2's impression of another Tridactyl green muppet on Dagobah two+ decades later. Who knows, maybe R2's questions about 'why are we going to Dagobah?' are because he'd been there, and knew it was a not so droid friendly planet...

I think that R2's observation are limited enough that he is not the plot hole you are making him out to be.

George was always prone to retcons. The franchise is forever saddled with a tradition of retcons. Sifting through dialog for loopholes to justify this apparent inconsistency or that, doesn’t change the overarching situation.

It’s hard to explain just how thirsty we were for more Star Wars between 1985 and 1997. That’s a long time in the life of kids and teens.

3 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

It’s hard to explain just how thirsty we were for more Star Wars between 1985 and 1997. That’s a long time in the life of kids and teens.

Thank god WEG filled that void for me during that time.

3 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

George was always prone to retcons. The franchise is forever saddled with a tradition of retcons. Sifting through dialog for loopholes to justify this apparent inconsistency or that, doesn’t change the overarching situation.

It’s hard to explain just how thirsty we were for more Star Wars between 1985 and 1997. That’s a long time in the life of kids and teens.

When the very same people applauding Mr Lucas are boohooing Rian Johnson it does become relevant about plotholes that make more sense than Mr Lucas's. Personally I can live with the inconsistencies but not the hypocrisy of the fans on either side who go looking for the plotholes of one of the people involved over the other

8 hours ago, KryatDragon said:

I think that R2's observation are limited enough that he is not the plot hole you are making him out to be.

Artoo is one of the most consistently resourceful and competent characters in the entire saga...

The worst „plothole“ for me is putting Chewbacca in the Clone Wars as a friend to Yoda. Doesn‘t fit at all and makes a scene/character in IV look stupid.

1 hour ago, syrath said:

When the very same people applauding Mr Lucas are boohooing Rian Johnson it does become relevant about plotholes that make more sense than Mr Lucas's. Personally I can live with the inconsistencies but not the hypocrisy of the fans on either side who go looking for the plotholes of one of the people involved over the other

That's why I keep my ratings as simple as possible. I give two marks to a SW film. The first is whether or not I'll buy a hardcopy. Only 4 have made the cut, though a 5th is likely soon if only for my kids to watch. The other is to give each film a rating a -1, 0, or +1 without getting bogged down in precise details. Only 4 films have earned +1 from me so far. The totaled up score of the franchise is squeaking by at a +1 for me right now.

10 hours ago, syrath said:

When the very same people applauding Mr Lucas are boohooing Rian Johnson

What about those of us that Applaud both George and Rian?
I boohoo JJ, but I've been doing that for the same reasons since Alias.

27 minutes ago, Zrob314 said:

What about those of us that Applaud both George and Rian?
I boohoo JJ, but I've been doing that for the same reasons since Alias.

This includes me. , I also applaud JJs films but my own personal opinion is that they were too safe, example Rise appears to want to appease the masses in what it did, with no real story beats that were risky. TFA was similar.

Han’s last line in The Empire Strikes Back is also his last line in The Saga, this time he says it to his son Ben.

7 hours ago, Zrob314 said:

What about those of us that Applaud both George and Rian?
I boohoo JJ, but I've been doing that for the same reasons since Alias.

What about those of us that applaud half of Lucas' work while acknowledging it's human flaws, reject the other half, accept Rian's work for being "wrong about nearly everything, but wrong within normal parameters", and reject Abrams' work as being a little too reminiscent of a drunk sitting around theorizing about what would be "totally awesome in the next Star Wars"? For all that, the acting and practical effects make Abram's films far more re-watchable than half of Lucas'. And they do have several good scenes even if the overall movie makes no sense to me.

My SW canon consists of 4 films, a big pile of old RPG supplements, and a television series. Everything else is Tauntaun Scout Legends . TLJ gets a footnote in my canon as being apocryphal but useful.

My very young daughter is quite aware that there aren't even that many female extras in the OT. To keep her interested in Star Wars I may have to own a copy of TLJ. Though I have concerns about her repeatedly re-watching the creepy-as-heck throne room scene. What is that about? What pop psychologist told them to include that in a kids movie?

1 hour ago, TauntaunScout said:

What about those of us that applaud half of Lucas' work while acknowledging it's human flaws, reject the other half, accept Rian's work for being "wrong about nearly everything, but wrong within normal parameters", and reject Abrams' work as being a little too reminiscent of a drunk sitting around theorizing about what would be "totally awesome in the next Star Wars"? For all that, the acting and practical effects make Abram's films far more re-watchable than half of Lucas'. And they do have several good scenes even if the overall movie makes no sense to me.

My SW canon consists of 4 films, a big pile of old RPG supplements, and a television series. Everything else is Tauntaun Scout Legends . TLJ gets a footnote in my canon as being apocryphal but useful.

My very young daughter is quite aware that there aren't even that many female extras in the OT. To keep her interested in Star Wars I may have to own a copy of TLJ. Though I have concerns about her repeatedly re-watching the creepy-as-heck throne room scene. What is that about? What pop psychologist told them to include that in a kids movie?

The only type of Star Wars fan I don't usually understand is the one who needs a personal canon. If it weren't for the OT, my dad wouldn't really like Star Wars. If it weren't for the Prequels, I wouldn't really like Star Wars. Hearing someone say "My canon doesn't include your favorite part of Star Wars" (and it's not the first time I've heard that) only makes me feel like an outlier to the fandom. I look forward to talking to some of the adults of the next ten or twenty years who say they really like the Sequels. I don't, and I don't care to rewatch the OT either, but I've no reason to disclude them from what makes Star Wars, Star Wars . Different parts of the canon draw in different fans, but they all like dumb movies about a war in the stars. There's room for everyone here, let people watch all the movies and decide for themselves.

(That said, I do look forward to seeing if they delve back into the Old Republic, as that could be the best of all the eras)

Watch ‘Rebels’ instead; two strong female characters for her to enjoy.

>>>><<<<

Reading these comments and two thoughts occur to me:

1. There are a lot of absolutists when it comes to JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson and they bring a bias with them.

2. Both made similar mistakes (my opinion) in the latest two films:

a) Broke away from established space battle norms (ie cheated) in order to produce a new visual and tension: Holdo maneuver & light speed skipping.

b) Both used an unnecessary side quest to establish a main character’s love interest: Finn/Rose on Casino planet (get code, plan didn’t work) and Poe/Suri on snowy rock planet (C3P0 mind wiped then not).

Take all these out and the films improve greatly. The fact that there are camps fervently claiming one is better than the other amuses me a lot as both ep 8 and 9 are flawed but enjoyable enough if you are willing to relax.

1 hour ago, Kwatchi said:

both ep 8 and 9 are flawed but enjoyable enough if you are willing to relax.

That's why I rate the sequels a zero instead of a negative one. I can watch them for fun but... they're nothing more than that. They're just another summer action movie. Only. At Christmas. They are as good as Con Air .

I am very annoyed that they made this film far too scary to take my kids to. If little kids can't watch it, and it enrages middle aged fans... who's it actually for?

12 hours ago, Kwatchi said:

b) Both used an unnecessary side quest to establish a main character’s love interest: Finn/Rose on Casino planet (get code, plan didn’t work) and Poe/Suri on snowy rock planet (C3P0 mind wiped then not).

Rose was the love interest of Finn. Watching the movie it felt more like Poe was his love interest.

Both didn‘t work at all.

The biggest problem I had with the sequel trilogy and only partially with the sequals was I didn‘t care about the characters. At all.

In the OT and in Rogue One I did. In Mandalorian I did. Even in Rebels I did.

On 1/3/2020 at 10:10 AM, Kwatchi said:

a) Broke away from established space battle norms (ie cheated) in order to produce a new visual and tension: Holdo maneuver & light speed skipping.

b) Both used an unnecessary side quest to establish a main character’s love interest: Finn/Rose on Casino planet (get code, plan didn’t work) and Poe/Suri on snowy rock planet (C3P0 mind wiped then not).

a) You can say the same thing about eps V and VI. Cheated by deciding that there was a random giant slug thing living in an asteroid field that the falcon was conveniently able to escape into.

Cheated by having a giant planet based Ion gun that could cripple a star destroyer in two shots.

Cheated by deciding that the death star can take out capital ships but not the planet below it

Cheated by allowing the falcon to outrun an explosion while taking a route full of twists and turns so you could get the effect of the "bullet leaving the gun" shot.

b) Canto Bight wasn't an "unnecessary side quest" The theme of TLJ is "you learn from failure." All of the main characters fail.
-Poe wants to be a devil may care hotshot who makes plans by the seat of his pants and bucks authority because it all works out in the end. His attitude gets a lot of people killed. His refusal to follow chain of command (in a military organization) got more people killed. His victory in the beginning is Phyrric at best. His mutiny was ill-considered and his op sec was nothing. The whole reason the FO knew about the transports was because DJ overheard he and Finn talking about Holdo's plan. He's also responsible for Kylo's attack on the bridge. If he hasn't done his trick in the beginning they might have had an appropriate fighter screen so that three TIEs couldn't get in and take out the hangar bay and the command center.
-Finn actually has some wins in this one but his arc was more about choosing a side. If he had completed his suicide maneuver in the end it wouldn't have changed anything. The rebels alive were already going to escape on the falcon, Luke saw to that. The cannon would have been destroyed, but the outcome would have been just the same.
-Rey trusts Kylo and doesn't trust herself. She thinks that she can join forces wish Kylo. She completely misreads his intentions and is blinded by an even tone and some negging. Her leaving luke to join up with him almost got her killed.
-Luke had to deal with his earlier failures. He finally learned from them and was able to assist in the moment of need.
-Kylo's failure was his inability to focus on his goals. His instance on beating Luke in one on one combat gave the resistance the time it needed to escape. Sure, the giant metal door was down, but the door that was truly sealed was in his mind. He can't even follow his own philosophy of killing the past. He can't take the shot on his mother because he still loves her, and he can't ignore Luke because of his hatred, which is clinging to the past.
-Leia's failure was that she coddled Poe too much. He had no discipline. She let him get away with disobeying orders over and over again in the hope that she could develop him (and was also probably trying to undo any real or perceived failures she had as a parent to Ben who became a genocidal monster that murdered most of her friends with a laser planet). So, when she wasn't there to gently scold him he refused to listen to any other authority figure that wasn't swayed by his roguish grin and that has disastrous effect. He never got told no, so he didn't learn how to be a leader.

See, writing a story where you know the characters are going to fail gives actual stakes to the story. However if you write a story where you know the characters are going to succeed and you choose to put obstacles in front of them that will not have any consequences your audience is going to see that as hollow. TLJ had impactful moments that had consequences. You might not have liked the consequences, but they were there. The other two, however, had impactful moments with no consequences. OH MY GOD, REY KILLED CHEWIE! YOU BLASTERDS!! Oh, nevermind. He's fine. We as the audience don't even have to deal with the thought of that for as long as the characters do. Oh, here's another (symbolic) death of an OT character. It's gonna be a little weird with a C-3PO who doesn't know anyone, but I guess it reminds me a little bit of when my grandfather was suffering from dementia....oh never ind, he's been restored. Oooo...C-3PO has a red arm, what is that about...they even mentioned it....oh...it's not about anything. They didn't even carry it over into the next movie which takes place like a day or two later. Oh no, that Poe guy is dead. Man, he would have been a lot of fun. Oh...oh, he's not. Allright then.
TFA 1:14 - Oh, Chewie's bowcaster has an explosive and knockback effect...wait...it never had that before. It didn't even have it in the shots he's already taken this movie. Weird. 1:40 Oh, I bet Chewie is gonna knock Kylo right off that narrow bridge with his boca.....hmm. It doesn't have a knockback effect anymore (and will never have it again for the remainder of the series).

We could go back and forth comparing the films and talking about obvious plot holes and convenient timing, etc... at the end of the day the real difference for me is that I just didn’t care about the characters really at all, where in the OT I did. I even found the prequels had at least a few characters I liked. Even if the end result didn’t change, the way the new characters got to where they did just didn’t matter, for whatever reasons. Maybe it was the acting, the writing, the editing, doesn’t really matter to me, nothing punched out at me aside from maybe the parts where the old characters died.

at the end of the day, I’d bet if they had written this out as a trilogy ahead of time it would have been a lot better, and they could have put some real thought into character development. As it is, every scene just seems like a throwaway, doesn’t really matter in the larger scheme of things or to the characters involved. Finn is probably the worst. A cool character concept with a potentially fun actor that just didn’t go anywhere.

Darth Nihilus

On 1/3/2020 at 5:58 PM, syrath said:

This includes me. , I also applaud JJs films but my own personal opinion is that they were too safe, example Rise appears to want to appease the masses in what it did, with no real story beats that were risky. TFA was similar.

I'd hardly call returning palp and reys parentage twist "safe". But then I have no issue with suspension of disbelief in movies, which is something audiences really hammer these days.

The Rise of Skywalker will pass the $915 Million global mark this weekend.

On 1/3/2020 at 1:53 PM, TauntaunScout said:

My very young daughter is quite aware that there aren't even that many female extras in the OT. To keep her interested in Star Wars I may have to own a copy of TLJ. Though I have concerns about her repeatedly re-watching the creepy-as-heck throne room scene. What is that about? What pop psychologist told them to include that in a kids movie?

Not going to argue the TLJ stuff(it's a bad movie, it's a bad Star Wars movie, Rian Johnson is a smug wee bleep) or the JJ stuff(his films are a vacant string of action setpieces stapled together with something you could only very generously call a "plot" and lathered in memberberries to cover up the cracks) with people again, nobody is going to deploy some stunning piece of logic or rhetoric here to change my mind and nothing I say will change the views of people who like them, but this bit jumped out at me.

Would it not be better to teach your daughter that it's better to look for deeper qualities in characters and stories to connect with rather than feeding the IMO bizarre modern trend of reinforcing the "I can only identify with people who share the same arbitrary arrangement of superficial physical characteristics that I have" thing? More representation, done organically, is a good thing certainly, but the idea people will or should struggle to enjoy things that don't have a given number of people who look like the viewer isn't a good thing to my mind.

3 hours ago, Yodhrin said:

Would it not be better to teach your daughter that it's better to look for deeper qualities in characters and stories to connect with rather than feeding the IMO bizarre modern trend of reinforcing the "I can only identify with people who share the same arbitrary arrangement of superficial physical characteristics that I have" thing?

I try but this is an example of where theory can diverge wildly from daily living. She's 4. She sorts everything into strict categories. It's either buy her ST female Star Wars figures and encourage that interest, or see her dive ever deeper into the realm of pink sparkly princesses. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to track down a set of Fashion Plates that didn't look like we were giving her anorexia in a box, but that's another subject.

On 1/3/2020 at 5:10 PM, Kwatchi said:

b) Both used an unnecessary side quest to establish a main character’s love interest: Finn/Rose on Casino planet (get code, plan didn’t work) and Poe/Suri on snowy rock planet (C3P0 mind wiped then not).

My friend missed the whole c3p0 mind wipe bit due to an extended bathroom break, and when she got back I didnt even bother to fill her in. At the end i said the gold helmet lady was Poes ex who appeared earlier. Adds little to nothing really overall