Topic: DISNEY STAR WARS

[Gankom]

Read my more recent post.  Please don't accuse me of this because that's the last thing I want. 

As a point of order, my post there was before your most recent post. So I couldn't have seen it.

Speaking of Star Wars.  I HATED John Boyega's role in it because he was a bumbling idiot for all of the films.  There's so much they could have done with him, and even considered doing till that motherfucker Johnson replaced Abrams as director. We should probably break that off to another thread but one should ask.. Why is Sarah Conner and Ellen Ripley so Awesome and universally accepted, but Rey is loathed and called a Mary Sue.  Short answer is SJW writers suck.

We come so close to agreement and then you have to rip it away. Did Rey suck because the writer was an SJW? Or just a sucky writer? Does the fact there were massive production problems play a part in it? The three movies got split between two people who both thought they had full control over the story. That's going to cause so many problems. The thing more me is, where as you lump all of these problems into some kind of giant SJW conspiracy, I just see people being people and not being as good as they think. Never assume malice when ignorance is often the case.

For the record I also thought the most recent star wars was boring, poorly written and generally a bad rip off of the original. But if would have been that no matter who they picked for the lead roles, or what they looked like.

[Gankom]

Aargh! I didn't see this get split, so I'm going to paste over my response from the other thread because I think it fits here as well.

I don't think white washed films are going away, so much as the whole argument is just getting more vocal and heated. Ghost in the Shell was pretty recent. There was a similar argument over the Ancient One in Doctor Strange, which managed to hit a bunch of check marks with gender swapping and race swapping. I think the arguments just gotten louder and more in the face, while at the same time more muddied by different pedantic aspects of it.

A black queen Elizabeth wont affect me nearly as much as long as they keep the history accurate. if the story is well written and accurate, I don't hugely care what the person looks like. As long as the person is a good actor. But that gets into a separate problem suitable for another thread, where I think Hollywood (and everyone, I watch a a lot of Bollywood and foreign films) is using "historical" super loosly and more focused on making fantasies. I LOVE Vikings (Except the more recent series) but they took a really cool historical era and scrapped it for "exciting game of thrones style fantasy

(I only pasted the part I think is relevant here. I left other bits.)

[Grutch]

Gankom we can go deep into all the problems of Star Wars.  But never forget Kathleen Kennedy who was given creative control where she had no business.  She's an amazing accomplished producer, but she's no storyteller. She has a deep political agenda and was given ground to put it to action and had a lot of veto power over the writing team.  Never forget "The Force is Female" and all her agenda driven antics surrounding the films.  The goal here was to feminize Star Wars and she did it while openly chastising and ridiculing the fans. 

In fact Abrams who more or less agrees with her politics had deep seated disagreements with her on the course of the films and she fired him as a result and brought in supplicant Rion Johnson to do what she wished.  Abrams had to try to reorder the disaster and it really feels like he just let whatever shit fly. 

Rey Sucked because she was poorly written and could do little wrong.  That comes from a writing group that wanted to make an immortal angel out of her, a superwoman and nobody likes that.

On Finn.  Abrams wanted him to be the surprise Jedi with the crazy powers.  Kathleen vetoed it.  I'm really disappointed that didn't happen.

I have to leave this on this note and get shit done, but Disney feature animation in the 90s had possibly the best storytelling method in all of filmmaking. I had the fortune of taking classes based on that model and pushed this in every production I have been in, most of the time unsuccessfully.  But when it worked, wow it worked well.  I'm shocked to see Kennedy abandon that model for the disaster that she made.  Fortunately Fiege and Favreau may pull off something wonderful for us in the future.

[Gankom]

Hey Grutch! So much stuff we agree with again! And whats fascinating is that we often come to the same result through slightly different paths.

But never forget Kathleen Kennedy who was given creative control where she had no business.  She's an amazing accomplished producer, but she's no storyteller

I agree! Not only is she not a good storyteller, but she blatantly interfered with the writers and stuff. I would argue its not just politics though, so much as its simple money. A big part of it was trying to cash in on current trends.  I don't think it was about feminizing star wars. If she really wanted to do that there'd have been far more women for one. The only ones who are really 'main' characters are Leia and Rey. The rest are the fairly usual disposable background characters and love interest.

Rose from the second one I'd also argue was a product of just bad writing, rather then trying to feminize it. Adding ANY extra character was already a poor move.

The fact that Abrams had such a disagreement is to me a great sign of executives meddling where their not needed. For a bunch of reasons. one of the biggest flaws is when they told Johnson he was fully in command, while at the same time already in talks with Abrams to come back. That's going to ruin any attempt at basic story righting!

Rey Sucked because she was poorly written and could do little wrong.  That comes from a writing group that wanted to make an immortal angel out of her, a superwoman and nobody likes that.

But isn't that simply because their poor writers? After all, Wonder Women had the same agenda and did a much better (and more popular) job. I can think of a bunch of superwoman style things that are really popular. Heck Superwomen the tv show is a pretty big hit right now.

The big issue is they tried to copy paste so much from luke. Especially the first movie. Looking back, even Luke was pretty whiny, but it comes across way worse because its just the first movie a second time.

have to leave this on this note and get shit done, but Disney feature animation in the 90s had possibly the best storytelling method in all of filmmaking

I'm legit very interested to hear your thoughts on 'modern' stuff like Star Wars Rebels, or Mandalorian. I have pro's and cons for both, but generally I quite like them both. Rebels takes awhile (about a season) to get over the usual kiddy 'power of friendship' stuff, but when it does finish with that, it gets dark quick. To a point where two of the comic relief characters are straight up executed.

[Rowsdower]

40 years later people still talk about Empire strikes back
5 years later, nobody cares about Force awakens

[Feanor Fire Heart]

My biggest grips are:

1. The pacing is too fast! Compared to the GL movies, the sequel trilogies is too busy trying to get everyone from A-B-C without much time for a breath, contemplation (character and audience), and character exploration.

2. They leaned heavy on tropes, plot convenience, and pre-established character archetypes from the OT (which one is the Han, the Luke, and the etc character) instead of giving us something different/new. Its like a board meeting took place and they had pictures of the old characters and had a "how do we millennialize these characters" with what was stereotyped about millennials. It made the characters come off as cartoony, unrelatable, and unrealistic. The First Order is a joke and lacks any kind of military decorum that they might as well have been a grassroots terrorist organization playing at being the Empire rather than being a military.



It really seemed like something constructed to pander for profit than to tell a great story. Its like a "camel" which is when a committee tries to design a horse, they get a camel. The sequel trilogy feels like a camel.

3. They KNEW it was going to be a trilogy, but Disney was trying to pump out a new Star Wars movie so quickly after acquisition of the property that they planned nothing. They should of had lead writers establish an outline of the entire trilogy. Not one movie, then hand it to another guy to write the next one (in in this case, before the first one was even finished/finalized/released). I am not saying they needed to have all 3 movie scripts done before filming, but they needed to have a fucking outline! When writing a story you write an outline of what is going to transpire. Its a rough sketch of what is going to happen. They should have done that with all 3 movies (as well as agreed upon themes for each movie) before a single camera is turned on! Everyone likes to shit on Rian Johnson, but I liked what he did with the story there (sans slowest starship chase scene in history). He tried to buck that trend so we could do something different. This ticked off enough people to bring back Abrams to patch everything back up and go back to the "safe" zone. Where everything is comfortable and predictable.

mind you these are biggest gripes, I can nitpick the 3 movies all day.

[Grutch]

Oh God I lost my post.  Fuckin star wars.

As director Villenueve said, "I sort of lost interest on The Return of the Jedi". 

I agree with him.  The Franchise is forever fucked, and if we get something halfway decent like Rogue 1 or the Mandalorean it's really fun, but Star Wars is it's own enemy in a sense.  If I were George, I would have killed off Han Solo in Jabba's Palace when they attempt to release him from Carbonite. because Han was pretty much useless for the rest of the franchise. 

Luke would wreck Jabba with revenge on his heart and soon go after Vader with built up anger and hatred having the audience wonder if Luke was truly going to fall to the dark side. Leia would reminisce about how much she missed Han and would become the hardened leader the republic needed.  Kylo Ren would never have been born.  Harrison Ford could collect a check from his short stint in that last film and sleep knowing he never had to show up again!

The Disney movies were fucked because Kathleen Kennedy cared more staffing the writing team with Vaginas instead of talent. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/movies/star-wars-last-jedi-women-run-universe.html

What a Genius move for a franchise that has a 80% male geek fanbase.  Forcefeed those incels some feminism! The Force IS Female you soys.

I hope Fiege and Favreau save it but I am curious as to why Kathleen is still there.. Contract?  She really bungled this and cost Disney a fortune.

[Warlord]

Its not Fiege, its Dave Filoni. Give the guy the credit he deserves, keeping Star Wars together on the animated series, and transitioning to The Mandalorian with Favreau.

I have thoughts, but not going to type them on a mobile phone touch screen.
Will be back later.

[Grutch]

Its not Fiege, its Dave Filoni. Give the guy the credit he deserves, keeping Star Wars together on the animated series, and transitioning to The Mandalorian with Favreau.

I have thoughts, but not going to type them on a mobile phone touch screen.
Will be back later.

Fiege is working on a Star Wars film as well and I'm mixing him up with Filoni. 

Even with this talent I don't think we're out of the woods with regards to Disney Disasters.  The writing teams are huge and obviously very disorganized, there's too much executive power controlling things and social agendas will certainly dominate good ideas.  I expect more of the shit show. I'm looking forward to Mandalorean season 2 but already expect the same forces that fucked up the three films will have crept into this.  I hope I'm wrong, but if I am, there's other material to watch. 

So looking forward to Dune!  My Daughter is reading it right now and it's making for great conversations!

[phillyt]

I’m about as left as one can be but I too have an issue with some aspects of the Hollywood empowerment movement.  The gender swaps of super heroes or characters like Doctor Who annoy me in the same way they bothered Stan Lee.  The presumption is that you need to empower female characters or change old characters into female versions to balance out the representation.  Lee said that was cheap and that good writers can make interesting new characters, they didn’t need to harvest traditional ones.

Look at Captain Marvel.  Most comic book fans resented the character not because she was a woman, Scarlet Witch and Black Widow are very popular, but because they exaggerated her powers and downplayed the abilities of characters who were notably more powerful than her in the comics (Thor and Hulk).  It wasn’t necessary.  They could have told her story without trying to claim she was the best.

Star Wars wasn’t really about being an SJW throng.  I don’t agree.  Rey was just poorly written after the first film.  Pretty much all the characters were poorly written.  The movies screwed up by having a callous disregard for what fans liked about the old characters.  The idea that Luke would spiral into a hateful hermit simply doesn’t hold up.  Nothing about what Johnson presented even compares to what Luke had already been through at that point.  He confronted Vader and the Emperor, redeemed his father, and remained pure.  He had access to all three force ghosts.  There was no way seeing the possibility that Ren might fall to the dark side would even come close to what he had already dealt with as a much more brash young adult.

[Gankom]

Star Wars wasn’t really about being an SJW throng.  I don’t agree.  Rey was just poorly written after the first film.  Pretty much all the characters were poorly written.  The movies screwed up by having a callous disregard for what fans liked about the old characters.  The idea that Luke would spiral into a hateful hermit simply doesn’t hold up.  Nothing about what Johnson presented even compares to what Luke had already been through at that point.  He confronted Vader and the Emperor, redeemed his father, and remained pure.  He had access to all three force ghosts.  There was no way seeing the possibility that Ren might fall to the dark side would even come close to what he had already dealt with as a much more brash young adult

I agree with this strongly, and the marvel bits above as well. The biggest problem with the recent star wars for me is just such incredibly shoddy writing.

[Feanor Fire Heart]

@PhillyT: I would blame Abrams over Johnson on that one. Abrams established that Luke went into hiding, so Johnson ran with it by making him the "retired gunslinger" trope. Luke shouldn't have gone into hiding. He should have been leading the way to take Ren/Snoke down (maybe a batman like loner than a hermit than leader of a task force) or have been killed in doing so (either in story or in flashbacks).

[Gankom]

I actually kind of like the idea of Luke going off to try and track down the origin of the Jedi or a forgotten temple. It could be easily solved to have him lost, stranded or possibly vanishing shortly before hand.

[phillyt]

Yeah, it was Johnson who decided he had left because he had lost hope.  Expectations of a good movie subverted!

[Warlord]

So....

Agree 100% that they should have had an outline plan and stuck to it. You can't just make it up as you go along. Why announce a trilogy if you don't know what will be in the trilogy.

Bringing Rian Johnson on was a mistake as we all know. However JJ didn't exactly setup a compelling story either. It was beautifully made, but the issue was there in the beginning. We had no information since the Empire was defeated, and then somehow there is this thing called the First Order, and a Resistance. But a resistance to what? Where was Coruscant - which was shown during the prequels to be the bright centre of the Republic.
The Force Awakens was empty. The Galaxy was empty. Not enough scale. Not enough depth.

The Last Jedi is a joke. It was made purely to subvert expectations. Rian literally went to 'Film Theory' on YouTube, and ensured that all his plot points contradicted all the potential story arcs hinted at in The Force Awakes. And if The Force Awakens was empty, then The Last Jedi hadn't eaten in a decade.
Some stupid lightspeed tracking BS. The lightspeed ramming. The dumb "we can't catch them, but they will run out of fuel". Literally before Fuel had NEVER been spoken about in the previous movies, and suddenly its a thing that can happen.
The ONLY good part of The Last Jedi was the Kylo / Rey connection. That was done really well. The rest is a waste of space.

Then JJ has to come back in and make the story make sense. I think he did a decent job considering what he started, and then what he was left with. My main 6 gripes with Rise of Skywalker are Evil Rey just for trailer bait, the stupid dagger being an outline of the wreckage from a certain point of view, Palpatine's plan made no sense and he flipped it to kill them both when they were together, the fleet of star destroyers all with Deathstar cannons, Chewie / Threepio dead / not dead thing, and the stupid medal for Chewie.
Other than that, I thought it told a better story than the other two, and had the main characters actually spend a bit more time together.

Finn was easily the wasted character of the trilogy. He could have done some really cool stuff, like led a stormtrooper rebellion. And John Boyega is very likeable too, so its a shame.

There was obviously SJW messaging in The Last Jedi. It was all over the place. Rose's character was delivering most of it, and that's why a lot of people didn't like her, because it wasn't subtle, it was in your face. I didn't mind that they wanted to add another character. I didn't like the way they did it, and what they used her for. I think people could have considered the greed of the casino planet and the war profits if the writing wasn't so lazy, but instead they were faced with situations that brought it to light subtly. Its also lazy writing when things are a certain way because two characters don't talk. The Holdo / Poe thing was not entertaining to watch - it was frustrating. If Holdo was a man or a woman makes no difference - the situation was stupid and amateur. This gets confused with SJW because Holdo was a woman. It's not. Its just lazy and terrible writing.
But lots of The Last Jedi had lazy writing stacked on top of more and more lazy writing.

[Gankom]

I actually found that the scene in Rise of Skywalker with the three main characters having the speeder chase was the first time I really noticed the three of them having some good chemistry. They actually seemed to bounce off each other there really well, and its a shame that the vast majority of the trilogy has them so split up because it would have been nice to actually see them connect.

[Feanor Fire Heart]

I actually found that the scene in Rise of Skywalker with the three main characters having the speeder chase was the first time I really noticed the three of them having some good chemistry. They actually seemed to bounce off each other there really well, and its a shame that the vast majority of the trilogy has them so split up because it would have been nice to actually see them connect.

Honestly I got Avatar the Last Airbender vibes from that scene (in a good way). It was like how Sokka, Katara, and Aang would have interacted being chased by fire nation or desert raiders. Felt natural, like there was a history there...but that history was never really seen in TFA and TLJ. I guess it happened between TLJ and TRoS.

[Rowsdower]

Anyone else think Last jedi was a 'serious' remake of Space Mutiny?

[Sharkbelly]

I actually found that the scene in Rise of Skywalker with the three main characters having the speeder chase was the first time I really noticed the three of them having some good chemistry. They actually seemed to bounce off each other there really well, and its a shame that the vast majority of the trilogy has them so split up because it would have been nice to actually see them connect.

I agree.

[Zak]

I  have actually liked the spin off shows better than the last 6 star wars movies. I think it would be cool to start a new series, a cast of totally new characters in a different part of the galaxy.

[wissenlander]

I've tried to relearn Star Wars.  Take it for what it is and not what I want it to be.  Most of the shows are amazing, though.

[GamesPoet]

Yes, relearning, that seems like a good idea.  There is much to be said for letting it be as it is and not getting to hung up on what it isn't.

My plan is to eventually go back an watch Episodes 1 thru 3.  I've only seen them when they came out, but that was in 1999, 2002, and 2005.  It is almost frightening to think it was that long ago, and I can hardly recall the plot lines.  Some how I've seen Episodes 4 thru 6 multiple times since the older days of 1977, 1980, and 1983 ... and so my memory of these is so much stronger.  Heck there were 16 years between those two trilogies, and now there's been 15 years since the end of the 2nd trilogy.  The original Star Wars was 43 years ago, although that feels like yesterday, and i have seen that film so many, many times!

Perhaps I will watch them all in order of episodes 1 to 3 and 4 to 6.  I've not done that before, and it might lead me to better seeing Episodes 7 to 9.  All the angst over the last three seems a bit misplaced to me.  I'd have liked to see Lucas involved in writing them, maybe he was, yet there's nothing we're going to do to change any of it.  Accepting it for what it is, probably the best we can do, and let go of some of the anger.

"Anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering." Yoda

"You have to find something that you love enough to jump over hurdles and break through the brick walls." George Lucas

And to Wiss' point ... "You must unlearn what you have learned." Yoda

[wissenlander]

The Clone Wars cartoon made the prequels better, IMO.

[Warlord]

The Clone Wars cartoon made the prequels better, IMO.

1000 percent true.

[wissenlander]

Just announced, a new animated series called the Bad Batch.  About a group of special forces clone troops after the fall of the Republic.  Am excite.