Strongly agree with this:
Thought Gun Guy's death was the biggest "meh" of them all and I honestly still do not know what they were going for in that scene.
The entire third act I expected Vadar to swoop in and wreck shop. I spent most of the movie expecting him to take out gun guy and blind guy in an epic battle. I disagree with this guy in that I loved the scene with Vader at the end, but I do agree with him in that I feel like they under-utilized his character in this movie.
I can only believe they did that because they were trying to see how a movie with only a brief appearance from one of the icons would do, so I don't hold it against them, but more Vader as an absolute beat would have been very enjoyable.
Quote:
So Donnie Yen's sacrifice, right? Well, first off let's establish that ****ing switch way earlier and why it's so damn important (I don't even remember what it did). Let's show a clearer example of soldiers dying to get through the barrage of fire (one guy dies, but it's not as visually clear as it should be to this objective), all as a direct setup to how specifically dangerous and impossible it is to get through the gunfire. So it all comes down to a last chance with Donnie Yen. But let's better tie it together with the character. This is all about his journey of getting in touch with the force, right? Remember the earlier bit of him trying to use the force when they are in jail? Well, imagine the same scene as he's walking along, chanting, hoping to make it all the way to his destination and BAM - he's hit by a blast! OH NO! Donnie falls immediately to his knees. He's so far from the lever in the distance. But before we can even think - he reaches out with a desperate hand and quickly force pulls the lever down... Are you seriously telling me that moment wouldn't have brought down the house? And a smile would splash across his face as he's truly become one with the force in the most complete and meaningful way possible, one that even takes place a second after a dramatic reversal where the audience thought they lost him... To be clear, this isn't some random thinking I thought of, this is what the movie was setting up!
Best of all, you can take that and then turn it into something more meaningful for Gun Guy. In the film as is, he sees Donnie get shot and runs out to his dying friend. They share a moment. No one shoots. And then he takes the mantra of the force and continues shooting people (just like he always does) to no greater momentary objective. He dies talking about the force as a grenade dropped by the enemy kills him, in some sort of poetic last stand. I get it. It's a clear statement about the nature of war... But what if there's something more purposeful to the story? What if, now that Donnie Yen has died, he must instead go on and do some later objective that was actually Donnie's assignment (and dependent on his agility), wouldn't his growth be more about the clarity of the force versus his own gun? Hell, after he pulls something off, you could even do the same exact last stand death beat and reach that dramatic purpose as he's helping save others. Look, I'm not saying a movie HAS to to do these things, but I'm saying these kinds of integrations make character moments feel so much bigger, just by having clearer stakes and dramatic reversals.
Thought Gun Guy's death was the biggest "meh" of them all and I honestly still do not know what they were going for in that scene.
The entire third act I expected Vadar to swoop in and wreck shop. I spent most of the movie expecting him to take out gun guy and blind guy in an epic battle. I disagree with this guy in that I loved the scene with Vader at the end, but I do agree with him in that I feel like they under-utilized his character in this movie.
I can only believe they did that because they were trying to see how a movie with only a brief appearance from one of the icons would do, so I don't hold it against them, but more Vader as an absolute beat would have been very enjoyable.
