People tend to muddle up personal preference with other sorts of quality concerns. “I like it” isn’t equivalent to “its good” or “its well made”.
Where I’m sitting I like TFA a bit better because its a bit more fun to watch, and its a bit more even tonally. But TLJ is the better movie; its got more interesting things to say, more interesting things going on, even when the execution is rough. And its far more ambitious and visually more accomplished.
In terms of technicals they both have some serious script structure and editing problems. And so does Rogue one. Weirdly given its production problems Solo doesn’t, but its probably the least ambitious and interesting entry. Its got some of the fun to watch of TFA, and on the technical front it might be the best put together of all of them. But its not really doing much with all of that.
Its funny that that’s their big problem with a lot of this stuff. “Jedi can’t do that… Force doesn’t…blah blah blah”.
Its space wizards. Motherfucking wizards in space. Every SW anything thus far has involved new force powers, or new twists on old ones, and existing characters improving their force abilities.
Sort of like how so many of the complaints about “Luke isn’t like that” are effectively arguing that the character should have no advancement on or off screen past some arbitrary point. And other characters too. And the loud insistence that everything be explicitly addressed and explained on screen or not included.
They’re basically asking for complete stasis, and piss poor writing.
This just reminds me that I don’t know if my dad even saw TLJ, or if he did, what he thought of it.
Perhaps this isn’t the best place for this, but my dad was the guy who introduced me the Star Wars in the first place, who saw it in England (I think), a few months before we went. But right after he got off ship, I remember he gathered us all up and we all went. (I want to say it was a drive-in, but may be confusing this with subsequent viewings.)
Growing up, we also always had it on video. First pirated from, ah, “sources” (which might include station 4 in Antigua where my father was stationed in the broadcasting group), and an anamorphic dub on Betamax (which was weird). Then legit on RCA Videodisc, then LaserDisc.
All because my dad became enthusiastic enough about it to drag us all out practically right after the Damato docked. (Getting to see my Dad again after months at sea is probably the biggest component of my own enthusiasm.)
He passed away earlier this year, but maybe I could ask Mom if he got to see it.
ETA: He did. But I may not ever know how he felt about it.
Thank you for sharing that. My dad took me to ANH when I was two and we saw every one together since. I know someday soon there will be a last Star Wars movie he and I will get to share and its going to hurt.
Luke threw down his lightsaber at the end of ROTJ rejecting violence. The last time he almost resorted to violence it was a terrible mistake and his attempted assasination led to the desertion of his pupil to the dark side. TLJ we saw him demonstrate the ultimate act of nonviolence to save the last remnants of the resistance, his sister, and possibly the “last jedi” Rey… I thought it was pretty awesome.
Yeah, so it makes perfect sense that when he’s reunited with it after all those years have passed, portrayed as this greatly reverential scene, that he immediately chucks it over his shoulder. Oh boy, some fans did not like that but i loved it; to me it also showed that being a jedi master is more than wielding a death stick.
I liked both Yoda and Palpatine better before they got lightsabers in the prequels. It seemed like anyone capable of lifting a giant spaceship with his mind or shooting lightning out of his fingers should have been beyond such trinkets.
Plus Palpatine was supposed to be keeping undercover, so carrying a red lightsaber around seems like it would be a good way to get outed as a Sith lord.
I don’t really play modern video games but A while back, I mean a few years ago, I saw a clip of one of those new games where you could play as Vader and someone, playing as him, tossed a lightsaber into the air and nailed a ship flying overhead causing it to crash. (Kudos and thanks to anyone who knows what the heck I’m talking about and can post a link). This bit with Rey jumping onto a tie fighter reminded me a bit of that feat.
I gotta agree, especially with Star Trek. The 1960’s series at least had some head-nod to the immense distance that exists between stars, that the U.S.S. Enterprise was often on its own, a common plot element was that they were so far out that subspace communication was not possible and instead message buoys were shot back towards the Federation. Which was undone as early as 1979, with Epsilon Station seeming to send instantaneously back to Earth scenes of its destruction.
As for this upcoming movie, well, I probably will go see it but it feels like yet another album from some band that was big in the seventies. Yet another Repetition of something that was revolutionary half a century ago, and now is just something only Grandpa thinks is still cool.
That works for the OT since it started from basically nothing and we were learning who the characters were and what their world was like. But it’s not going to work for a sequel trilogy which has a 40 year gap with little in the way of setting up the characters. Like Han was just introduced out of the blue without much fanfare. It works in ANH since the story is just starting and it was done in a way that doesn’t leave you asking questions. It can be assumed that fans will be able to accept this and read the comics and novels but non-fans (like me) and folks who rarely or ever watched the OT or the PT will have no clue what’s going on. Also, Lucas wasn’t shy about the show me, don’t tell me rule at least with the OT (this is probably a product of the fact he had to rewrite the ANH script four times which left little ambiguity and fluff behind). So it was JJ’s job to explain the 40 year gap. Even if it was just a simple argument between Leia and some no-name Chancellor explaining that things aren’t the same. A sense of time having passed should’ve been baked into the story rather than having Rey fangirling up at the sight of Han Solo and him trying to get them caught up on how it all works. Like it or not, this is why franchise films are hard to do right. In fact, I’d say they’re the worse kind of films to begin with as either you have to tie up loose ends of other writers or expand on their existing work in a meaningful way.
My dad took me to all three (I still remember seeing ANH in '79, I was very small!). I lived on the other side of the country when the prequels came out, but have made it a point to see the new films with him to make him live up to his promise to a six-year-old excited kid seeing Empire Strikes back: “You’ll take me to all the Star Wars movies, right?”
I’m a dork about Star Wars, but I always felt that he was one of the few actors who really got (and enjoyed) the space-opera-serial tone and knew exactly how to play the ultimate evil space wizard: as a gleefully cackling maniac who could also be quietly menacing (or just look creepy). And honestly, I appreciate that the Skywalker Saga will also be the Palpatine Saga.
Yup. “inVader”… Darth Plagueis… Darth Maul… Cad Bane… Savage Oppress? If you’re just now realizing that Star Wars bad guy names are gloriously ridiculous, welcome!
