“I ‘meh’ the ‘meh’ that annoys worlds!”
1 Like
I’m remembering a friend’s incisive comment from a few years back: “No production has ever been good or interesting just because J.J. Abrams specifically was involved with it.”
4 Likes
I’ve just seen it and I enjoyed it (I saw most of the trilogy last night, forgot to check that there wasn’t a big football match across the road from the cinema and missed about a third of The Force Awakens while sitting in traffic). I don’t think it is the film of the year, but it is not a bad film.
3 Likes
They’re getting the wrong Lost guy to do these things. Lindelof was able to successfully respect the source material of Watchmen while adding his own worthwhile expansions to the universe and tie it all together well. I would love to see what he could do with a Star War or three.
3 Likes
I still want a Star Wars movie where the entire galaxy bands together to exterminate the crazy Space Wizards -.-’ . Seriously, you only get neutral or evil Jedi, never good. You wouldn’t have ANY Sith Lords or Emperor Palpatine, without the Jedi infestation! Without Space Wizard meddling, the Empire wouldn’t even have come into being in the first place, for that matter, as it was Palpatine who engineered the fall of the original galactic government.
I also have some serious problems with the Rebel Alliance as “good guys” in this conflict:
-
While the actual situation de facto in the Empire varies, according to the actions of any given system governor (whom have immense temporal power, considering the difficulties of centrally governing an entire galaxy) slavery of biological entities is outlawed de jure within the Empire, just as it was in the original government. Not so, under the rebels! Both parties, of course, still enslave droids.
-
If you read the books, the Rebels never are able to fully govern the mess they make of the Empire.
-
The Rebels almost certainly exterminated the Ewoks in the Endor Holocaust. Of note, they even partied with the Ewoks, as the first pieces of the Death Star II started to rain down. Nice!
-
The Rebels created the clones that were the start of the Clone Wars, as well as the concept of “stormtrooper”. In the “Clone Wars” animated series, the Rebels mistreated the clones pretty badly, as a rule, and they were created under the aegis of the Jedi. Before you disagree: how many clones do you see that are NOT gaffled into military service? They are essentially treated as “biodroids” by most, and very few escape. Yes, Yoda is a freaking hypocrite.
Now, this doesn’t make the Empire “good guys,” by any reasonable metric, but it certainly calls into question the idolization of the Rebel Alliance!
DOWN WITH SPACE WIZARDS!
2 Likes
That was more or less Luke’s argument for letting the Jedi end in the last movie, but fans declared heresy.
5 Likes
2 Likes
I really liked Alias, but that was a long time ago.
Well, this is where they finish the Skywalker saga. It ends the original story, so I’m not sure this criticism works on the final trilogy. And, yes Abrams is a hack.
1 Like
Yah, dammit! I for one will see RoS and I will enjoy it. It also helps that I’m fairly dumb. Therefore little to no ability to critique film.
I still remember the cheer that when up in the theatre when the Death Star went boom in Ep.4. I was 13, and likely the first movie I was allowed to see with my friends, not with my parents. Sniff.
1 Like
My team at work went to see “The Last Jedi” together and I think my manager expressed everyone’s feelings for the film best when he fell asleep in the middle of it. I don’t hate this film – it just holds no interest for me. Somewhere in the middle of this thing, I just realized how unimportant Star Wars was to me, how none of the little questions I had about the characters mattered, and how there was nothing more about this saga that mattered to me. Star Wars ended for me during that film with a whimper that made all the bangs before irrelevant.
I haven’t seen this new film and I have no plans to do so. I don’t hate the producers or the directors or the actors or anything like that. I don’t feel angry or betrayed or anything at all, except perhaps bored wtih the notion that they’re still making these brainless franchise things. Meh. Whatever.
1 Like
I think he calls them Rambaldi devices.
1 Like
I think there is also a decent amount of “I liked it before it was cool” going on here, mixed with some need to have an article with content and not just say, “another competent addition to the Star Wars cannon”. You don’t generate clicks with titles like “New Star Wars movie was good but not great”.
2 Likes
Yeah, basically that. I rolled my eyes and groaned at the prank call part at the beginning, but I laughed out loud when Carrie Fisher flew through space. By the end I was going to the bathroom and debating whether or not to come back and see the rest. Awful, lazy storytelling, boring characters and a plot with zero stakes to care about. There was no direction for the franchise to go at the end and no reason to care about it.
The clueless executives in charge just went down a list and ticked off “must-haves”, without worrying about plotting or character development. At this point, all the excitement and anticipation is completely gone for anyone who loved the throwback, pastiche nature of the original films. It’s pretty obvious that the emperor has no clothes, regardless of how many stupid man-babies might also be saying the same thing.
Agree completely. I also enjoyed Solo and I would love to see a cut of the original satirical concept, in which Han and Lando are a couple of lucky, self absorbed idiots who pull off a heist and somehow survive.
4 Likes
After what Lindelof did to the Alien series, he can stay WELL AWAY from any beloved 70s sci-fi film franchises, thanks.
I liked it. (Runs out of room)
7 Likes
That’s pretty much the opposite of any criticism I’ve seen leveled at The Last Jedi (and deffo the opposite of my feelings - it was the first Star Wars film to genuinely surprise me at moments and to try anything daring with the series conceits). But, yeah, if you thought THAT movie was a formulaic series checklist, then you will absolutely HATE this new movie which aggressively undoes anything novel the last one tried to do, and runs down an even more formulaic Star Wars fan checklist of plot points.
2 Likes
i just saw it and i loved it. people seem to have this problem with star wars where they decide what they want to happen and then hate it if it doesn’t go their way. the acting was great. the settings were emotional and scary and epic and powerful. judge stuff for yourself. dont bother with reviews - especially of star wars films.
4 Likes
Me too. I’m sure I’ll find plenty to criticize once everything isn’t so muddled in my mind, but as of this moment I thought it was great.
5 Likes
