Star Wars Discussion Thread

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Ulrich
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STAR WARS: WAITING FOR GODOT
Ulrich
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... i really just wanted to say SW: TLJ written by Samuel Beckett, but the reference might have been too tenuous to get any blue stars.


I'm still not real hopeful but that's more because it might not be funny to anyone but me.
Claude!
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I'm a little hesitant to do much analysis of TLJ since I turned it off at the Canto Bight scene and never finished the movie, but I want to add on to your point about Holdo, based on what I did see if the film.

I didn't dislike that Poe was pulled up short; as you said, the way it was done was clunky, but the idea itself is fine - put the character at his lowest point. My problem was that Holdo wasn't a character that earned the right to do so because she wasn't a character at all. We were told she was a badass but we'd never seen her do or say anything until she chewed out our putative hero in a generally condescending manner. If Leia or Ackbar or even Mon Mothma had been the one dressing down Poe, it would've been fine. We are familiar with those characters and have a real understanding of what they've done, especially Leia. Holdo comes across as more of a bully than anything.
TCTTS
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AG
That's a great point. I never understood the Holdo/Leia switcheroo. Story-wise, why did Leia have to be knocked out/sidelined and replaced with a new general, when, earlier in the film, Leia already had the same issue with Poe (his brashness) that Holdo eventually had? Why couldn't Leia have then gone through roughly the same motions with Poe as Holdo did? I would have much preferred Leia's no-nonsense bluntness to Holdo's pretentiousness, and the "message" would have landed so much better coming from Leia, too. That, and then Leia could have been the one to kamikazi hyper-slice The First Order. Even before Fisher's death, I never understood the whole "Episode IX was meant to be Leia's movie" thing. With Han dead and Luke literally wanting to sit out the action of this installment, why couldn't THIS have been Leia's movie, and then have her go out with an amazing, sacrificial bang? Rightfully leaving Luke as the only original member for IX?
TCTTS
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The Collective
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AG
Agreed. And a mutiny against Leia would have been much more high stakes for the audience. And then, maybe Leia wouldn't have had to fly through space... damn! So many missed opportunities to make this better.
Ulrich
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Yeah, but then you don't get to memorialize Carrie Fisher by giving her a beautiful death scene/ farewell that turns into a cringe-inducing "gotcha!" and eventually leaves her in a coma for much of the movie. It gets better though, now the next director inherits an expository time bomb because you either have to explain how she died offscreen or flat out ignore that she died.

Maybe if the main storyline was a little more dynamic than "stall for a few days", they wouldn't have felt the need to dress things up with a bunch of head fakes and pointless side quests.
Urban Ag
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AG
Quote:

I'm a little hesitant to do much analysis of TLJ since I turned it off at the Canto Bight scene and never finished the movie,


I laughed

boogieman
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AG
Well put. I'll have to save your post.
Dekker_Lentz
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AG
TCTTS said:

That's a great point. I never understood the Holdo/Leia switcheroo. Story-wise, why did Leia have to be knocked out/sidelined and replaced with a new general, when, earlier in the film, Leia already had the same issue with Poe (his brashness) that Holdo eventually had? Why couldn't Leia have then gone through roughly the same motions with Poe as Holdo did? I would have much preferred Leia's no-nonsense bluntness to Holdo's pretentiousness, and the "message" would have landed so much better coming from Leia, too. That, and then Leia could have been the one to kamikazi hyper-slice The First Order. Even before Fisher's death, I never understood the whole "Episode IX was meant to be Leia's movie" thing. With Han dead and Luke literally wanting to sit out the action of this installment, why couldn't THIS have been Leia's movie, and then have her go out with an amazing, sacrificial bang? Rightfully leaving Luke as the only original member for IX?

First I just want to say, I always enjoy TCTTS comments and his post on TLJ was masterful. So thank you.

I think because whatever plan (if there was a plan) was for Leia to resolve Kylo Ren's story line.

The biggest issue with 8, is execution. But from a story viewpoint it makes sense that Kylo's first step was overcome his father. Then 8 is Kylo defeats both of his teachers, Luke/Snoke. Leaving Leia as his last obstacle.

How powerful would it have been if the last scene was Leia destroying Kylo Ren, then you would have had Episode 4-9 story arc being that Leia's war against the Empire (presuming the first order is remnants of the empire) cost her everything. Her home, her adoptive parents, her husband, her brother, and her son. I could see that working as a pretty powerful story arc.

Obviously not now. But on paper it makes sense.
TCTTS
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AG
Much appreciated. And yeah, I could see that making a lot of sense. That's an interesting point. But that would also imply that the movies were her story, which is fine, but I don't know if it would track.
AliasMan02
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AG
Ulrich said:

Yeah, but then you don't get to memorialize Carrie Fisher by giving her a beautiful death scene/ farewell that turns into a cringe-inducing "gotcha!" and eventually leaves her in a coma for much of the movie.


But that's not at all what happened, at all. The movie was in the can before Carrie died. There was no gotcha. No beautiful death scene for Carrie.

I disliked Space Leia, though it is totally in line with what Luke told us Leia would learn in RotJ, but you don't need to invent things so that you can then use them as the reason to hate it.
AliasMan02
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AG
Stormtrooper designs are always so great.

https://instagr.am/p/Bmg76vQFE__
Brian Earl Spilner
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AG
Dekker_Lentz
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AG
TCTTS said:

Much appreciated. And yeah, I could see that making a lot of sense. That's an interesting point. But that would also imply that the movies were her story, which is fine, but I don't know if it would track.


Well if all nine movies are the skywalker arc, then we have overlapping stories. Kinda like 4-6 continues Vader story, 7-9 would be continuing Leia's Story. Not that 4-9 are just Leia's story.
M.C. Swag
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AG
I like how multiple people are blaming Abrams for 'setting up TLJ' to fail...but wtf...why wasn't there a plan in place to begin with? Who let Abrams and Johnson free-lance their individual segments of a previously determined trilogy?!

Any COMPETENT storyteller plans their plot points. How in the world did the most successful studio allow STAR WARS to be treated like S5 of some daytime tv show?
Brian Earl Spilner
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AG
Biggest problem right there.
TCTTS
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AG
The original sin was hiring a writer long before a director. In most cases, that's how it's done. But they should have realized from the start that's not how they should approach something this big/important. They needed more of a visionary from the the jump. Either a writer/director, or a director who had a writer in mind that he/she frequently worked with.

Michael Arndt had a draft and I'm sure a loose, overall plan. Then Abrams was hired, had his own ideas, and tried to work with Arndt, but they couldn't see eye to eye. So Arndt was dropped and Abrams + Kasdan did basically a page-one rewrite, but retained many of Arndt's original ideas/concepts. This was so late in the game, however, and Disney wouldn't budge on pushing back the release date because they'd promised stockholders a 2015 release, so there was never time, it seems, to properly map the whole thing out.

They never should have said "2015" in that initial 2012 announcement and they never should have hired a writer before hiring a director. I'm sure many other mistakes were made along the way, but IMO, those were the two biggest.
bangobango
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AG
I believe Abrams had it mapped out and had a direction for second movie, but Johnson was told he could do what he wanted so he scrapped Abrams ideas and blew the whole thing up.
AliasMan02
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AG
AliasMan02 said:

Brian Earl Spilner said:

Quote:

To have her accept that invitation would have been cool and interesting and would have made sense in the context of where they were setting things up to that point. But they chicken out.
I agree on this point. I think a cool (and truly subversive) ending would've been to have her join him, and for the entire Crait sequence, you think she's really turned. But maybe at the very end, they make it clear that her intentions are to turn Kylo slowly towards the light.

Maybe she communes with Luke and he's the only person in the galaxy who knows her true intentions.


So basically she's Brad from We've Never Been Licked?

That would give Poe the role of Cyanide, I guess.


I DEMAND that someone recognize the genius of this joke.
bangobango
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AG
Here is a Daisy Ridley quote I found:

Quote:

"Here's what I think I know. J. J. wrote Episode VII, as well as drafts for VIII & IX. Then Rian Johnson arrived and wrote The Last Jedi entirely. I believe there was some sort of general consensus on the main lines of the trilogy, but apart from that, every director writes and realizes his film in his own way. Rian Johnson and J. J. Abrams met to discuss all of this, although Episode VIII is still his very own work. I believe Rian didn't keep anything from the first draft of Episode VIII
Belton Ag
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AG
I'm really glad that Kasdan came in for TFA otherwise Abrams might have really gotten into the weeds.
americathegreat1492
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I regret to inform you that I also have seen that movie. Possibly a dozen times.
TCTTS
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AG
I've read that before as well, but there's NO WAY Abrams wrote "drafts" of VIII and IX. That would take an insane amount of time he didn't have, additional deals would have had to be worked out, and it just doesn't make sense. Maybe she meant "outlines"? Abrams definitely could have done like loose, 3-5 page outlines for each movie, which isn't uncommon. But there's no way concrete drafts of VIII and IX written by Abrams ever existed at the time.
Belton Ag
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AG
AliasMan02 said:

AliasMan02 said:

Brian Earl Spilner said:

Quote:

To have her accept that invitation would have been cool and interesting and would have made sense in the context of where they were setting things up to that point. But they chicken out.
I agree on this point. I think a cool (and truly subversive) ending would've been to have her join him, and for the entire Crait sequence, you think she's really turned. But maybe at the very end, they make it clear that her intentions are to turn Kylo slowly towards the light.

Maybe she communes with Luke and he's the only person in the galaxy who knows her true intentions.


So basically she's Brad from We've Never Been Licked?

That would give Poe the role of Cyanide, I guess.


I DEMAND that someone recognize the genius of this joke.
Urban Ag
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AG
Great point. The two most iconic scenes in TFA were 'Chewie, we're home" and Rey handing Luke the lightsaber. Epic. Literally two scenes that could bring tears to a grown man's eyes that grew up loving Star Wars.

And......the latter was made a mockery. The continuity between the two films was instantly broken.

I'm not a huge Abrams fan so I don't really feel that compelled to stick up for his work, but if anything, IMO, he set the next writer/director up for success, not failure. TFA concluded with multiple engaging storylines in play and characters in question. An immense amount of raw material to continue the story with.
Ag Since 83
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AG
JJ did what he needed to do: prove Star Wars movies can be fun after the negative aura of the prequel era and introduce characters you wanted to see again and learn more about.
So I agree he set Johnson up for success.
Malachi Constant
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AG
What we should have got-
Luke to Rey: "I feared this day would come..."

What we got
"Lol dumb lightsaber I'll just throw it over my shoulder"
TCTTS
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AG
redline248
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AG
Meh
redline248
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AG
I mean, if it was for Kenobi it makes sense.
Urban Ag
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AG
I really hope they don't keep the anthologies shelved for too long. Still think Solo's poor box office performance was the result of numerous factors and that these films can continue to get Rogue One kind of revenues.

Honestly think Ewan coming back as Obi Wan would generate serious buzz.
Brian Earl Spilner
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AG
In 100% agreement. Luke throwing the lightsaber over his shoulder took me right out of the movie and now ruined that great moment retroactively.
TCTTS
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AG
The Collective
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AG
Urban Ag said:

The two most iconic scenes in TFA were 'Chewie, we're home" and Rey handing Luke the lightsaber.


Rey pulling the saber in the forest is my favorite part of TFA. I know many have issues with it, but I loved it. It was the thing I most wanted to see again after I walked out.
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