Greatest Star Wars Movie

@CWO:

@frimmel:

This new film is a complete and total pile of crap. Awful movie. Really awful Star Wars.

I’ll be seeing the new film with some friends sometime in early 2018 – and frankly, based on what I thought of its Episode VII predecessor, what frimmel said is pretty much what I’m expecting.  The original trilogy remains, to me, the best of the series.  All three of its films are “the best” in their own unique ways: A New Hope because it was the groundbreaker, and because if there’s one film of the series that can stand alone for all of Star Wars, it’s that one; The Empire Strikes Back because of its effective and unexpected dark tone and serious substance; and Return of the Jedi because it was (as one ILM staffer described it) the “Ph.D. degree” of the original trilogy (after the original Bachelor’s and Masters degrees of the first two films) which wrapped up the saga in a satisfying way, and which showed that the series had attained its full level of confidence and craft, both in terms of storytelling and special effects.

I found Episode VII to be a confusing and unengaging mess.  I felt that I was watching not just a reboot of A New Hope but a bad reboot.  (That was also my reaction to the Hobbit movie trilogy in relation to the LotR movie trilogy.)  I couldn’t take the Episode VII heroes seriously, and even worse I couldn’t take the villains seriously.  In the original trilogy, the Imperials were sinister in a cold, serious, believable way; in Episode VII, the new bad guys struck me as being over-the-top hysterical shriekers.  In the original trilogy, Darth Vader was a towering (literally and figuratively) villain; his successor in Episode VII struck me as being an angst-ridden minor villain who’s consciously trying to be evil rather than actually being evil.  I kind of agree with a reviewer at the time who wrote that Episode VII makes Episodes I, II and III of the prequel trilogy look like “a noble failure” rather than the more uncharitable things they were called when they first came out.

I disliked this one more than Force Awakens and generally think Force Awakens was pretty awful. I think a great number of things wrong with this movie chiefly Luke and the unnecessary subplot that goes nowhere start with the mess created by Force Awakens. That whole side-quest felt like they just had to find something for Finn and the short frumpy girl in coveralls to do. I don’t go to the movies to see short frumpy girls in coveralls being trite.

Setting aside Anakin (who I will remind you is a seventeen year old boy raised by monks) and his comments on sand the girl there and the scenery there in the much maligned AOTC are at least worth looking at. Frumpy girl in front of the green screen riding cgi rabbit-horses… not so much.

This film is so obviously a course correction or attempt to tie off some of the loose ends and focus the story a bit that it makes Force Awakens look even worse. The less charitable side of that coin though is this director has just initiated a peeing contest with JJ. I don’t see how that can turn out well.

I like rodents in movies. Especially if they make them into a toy and cross marketing with fast food outlets

The rodent was the star of the movie

@Karl7:

I actually like Rouge One, despite the obvious PC drive to make the protagonist a girl.  … The girl protagonist is a total nothing.

I think that’s pretty harsh considering the acting/plot standards of Star Wars films generally  :lol:

If a female protagonist, or arguably co-protagonist, was inorganic (i.e. not simply an aesthetic choice on the part of the creative team), that strikes me as far more a marketing decision rather than an actual “PC” interest. Otherwise, why is every other significant character in the film male?

I don’t see the rationale for that in a universe where quasi-magical powers and/or advanced technology dwarf the value of physical strength.

If Rogue One were so progressive, Erso wouldn’t need for her father to be captured to help the rebels. She could be motivated by personal political conviction. But that obviously wouldn’t jive with Star Wars heavy reliance on fantasy tropes. The filial daughter going to war on her father’s behalf (but against his wishes) makes her character a spin on Mulan. Except that unlike Mulan, Erso doesn’t outshine her compatriots in battle.

That being said, I think Rogue One is a decent film for what it’s meant to be, and definitely better than VII or the gutwrenchingly awful I/II/III. I haven’t seen VIII yet to compare, but I doubt it will win me over.

one thing is totally beyond me, all this (including coming from this site) complaining about female protagonist roles. is that the only lens you see and judge movies, nowadays? not even for a second am I disturbed by Rey or Jyn…heck, if anything, women have a lot of catch up to do.

I am male, I dont like tfa or tlj a bit, I like R1. Is that the inner alt-right speaking, I cant understand it. Male or female, homo or hetero, what does it matter? Isnt the plot itself, the context, the overall believability important for judging? People complain about PC, and I am sure they have minorities in mind (how can they push Finn, how can they dare make someone important without having 100% hetero credentials), the good old world, if there were just someone who could make it great again.

All those groups attacked as PC have never got attention, and are by far not such a small minority in the first place, so I think they should catch up. But of course from having zero representation to the current level is a huge shock for people being accustomed seeing them, and only them. Time to get over that…and if the accusation is that PC is only for business reasons to target new groups…well, the old and for-such-a-long-time-only-group has been targeted by the same business for a long time. Nobody complained that that was PC, very strange.

There is Luke, Finn, Poe, Han, Kylo, Snoke, Chewie, Cassian, Vader, Tarkin, Krennic, the Intelligence General, Hux and whatnot, and still people find time to complain about female protagonists.

The world is 50+% female.

Funny, I never mind in a movie if a particular hero or villain is female or male, just if played well or not. But in real life I cant escape this discussion.

I agree with everything you said Alex. I only mentioned marketing as a hypothetical and I do not view marketing influences on casting as being PC by necessity. In fact, much of the time when marketers influence casting decisions it ends up being politically incorrect.

I shouldn’t even use the term “politically correct” or “politically incorrect” because their usage in American English no longer has a clear definition.

Once PC refered to absurd extremes to avoid offense. Today, a single female character surrounded by a platoon of men can somehow be labelled PC  :?

@wheatbeer:

I agree with everything you said Alex. I only mentioned marketing as a hypothetical and I do not view marketing influences on casting as being PC by necessity. In fact, much of the time when marketers influence casting decisions it ends up being politically incorrect.

I shouldn’t even use the term “politically correct” or “politically incorrect” because their usage in American English no longer has a clear definition.

Once PC refered to absurd extremes to avoid offense. Today, a single female character surrounded by a platoon of men can somehow be labelled PC  :?

My PC theory on R1 is based upon the fact that Jyn is a TOTAL cipher, i.e. a zero.  She adds nothing, nothing to the story other than being the daughter of the DS designer.  She does nothing interesting, she says nothing interesting, and her death isn’t interesting.

I think the choice to put her in there was totally political.  On a grand level the story is very simple. Secret to DS leaked; plans struggle to get to rebels; rebels get the plans. You could fill that out a million different ways. Sure, you could make the main mover a girl, but do it in a way that she actually had character, actually had some quality that moved the story forward, like some bounty hunter or sexy wh��e who got the plans by drinking and carousing with Empire officials.  NOW, that would have been interesting.  Instead you get some mousy girl who cries and stands around and does nothing.

They put her in there to be the girl every female girl could identify with for the purpose of reorienting the franchise towards a more female friendly perspective, but then they did nothing with her.  It’s annoying, but predictable dreck.

If you doubt me, try this mental experiment: take her out of it and then think of some work-around of how the plans got from the designers to the rebels keeping the other characters, places and action.  It’s beyond easy.

Not to belabor this, but you know how all these feminists crowed about how great Wonder Woman was in showing a “strong woman.”  Total silliness. Wonder Woman wasn’t bad, but was kind of corn ball.  And as for “strong female protagonist,” you know they made those films about 30 years ago. It was called Alien/Aliens, and Sigourney Weaver kicked ass.  She actually used her intelligence, character and human strength to confront a monster more terrifying than most any movie since.

you should criticise the writers. a male protagonist would look equally bad in your eyes, I hope, unless you think the movie as shown was written perfectly for a male.

and if the plot is just badly written, what does it matter if male or female?
Suggesting that a woman role should reduce her to use her body as only one of two alternatives, is, well, saying she has not the same other talents as a man. And for that I see no reason.

@alexgreat:

you should criticise the writers. a male protagonist would look equally bad in your eyes, I hope, unless you think the movie as shown was written perfectly for a male.

and if the plot is just badly written, what does it matter if male or female?
Suggesting that a woman role should reduce her to use her body as only one of two alternatives, is, well, saying she has not the same other talents as a man. And for that I see no reason.

The whole movie is written around a character that does nothing and is meaningless but for the fact she is a girl. Don’t you think that’s a deliberate choice especially given the current PC environment?

@Karl7:

@alexgreat:

you should criticise the writers. a male protagonist would look equally bad in your eyes, I hope, unless you think the movie as shown was written perfectly for a male.

and if the plot is just badly written, what does it matter if male or female?
Suggesting that a woman role should reduce her to use her body as only one of two alternatives, is, well, saying she has not the same other talents as a man. And for that I see no reason.

The whole movie is written around a character that does nothing and is meaningless but for the fact she is a girl. Don’t you think that’s a deliberate choice especially given the current PC environment?

That’s assuming that a male would be the default choice for a no brain character.

@Karl7:

She adds nothing, nothing to the story other than being the daughter of the DS designer.  She does nothing interesting, she says nothing interesting, and her death isn’t interesting.

“Despite appearing to be in control of her own narrative, everything that Jyn does in Rogue One is governed by men around her. Nothing is of her own doing. She is only picked up by the alliance due to her relationship with two men; her father (Galen Erso, Mads Mikkelson) and her surrogate father, Saw Gerrera (Forest Whittaker). Other than taking ‘daddy issues’ to a whole new level (a horrible trope in itself), it also means that Jyn has no actual reason for entering into this story. She is merely being used to get to the men in her life. Her father is a scientist, Saw Gererra is an accomplished (and psychotic) rebel, but Jyn herself is only useful to get to them.”

http://femphile.com/2016/12/21/rogue-one-if-this-is-the-face-of-feminism-we-have-a-long-way-to-go/

It took 5 seconds to find an explicitly feminist critique sharing the exact same viewpoint on the character as yours Karl.

It seems like fundamentally you, myself, and the feminist reviewer I just quoted agree that the character concept was flawed, for very much the same reasons (I did enjoy the film despite that though).

The only difference is that you interpret that as evidence of PC (whatever that means in this context), while I view it as evidence of writers drawing upon unoriginal tropes.

@wheatbeer:

@Karl7:

She adds nothing, nothing to the story other than being the daughter of the DS designer.  She does nothing interesting, she says nothing interesting, and her death isn’t interesting.

“Despite appearing to be in control of her own narrative, everything that Jyn does in Rogue One is governed by men around her. Nothing is of her own doing. She is only picked up by the alliance due to her relationship with two men; her father (Galen Erso, Mads Mikkelson) and her surrogate father, Saw Gerrera (Forest Whittaker). Other than taking �daddy issues� to a whole new level (a horrible trope in itself), it also means that Jyn has no actual reason for entering into this story. She is merely being used to get to the men in her life. Her father is a scientist, Saw Gererra is an accomplished (and psychotic) rebel, but Jyn herself is only useful to get to them.”

http://femphile.com/2016/12/21/rogue-one-if-this-is-the-face-of-feminism-we-have-a-long-way-to-go/

It took 5 seconds to find an explicitly feminist critique sharing the exact same viewpoint on the character as yours Karl.

It seems like fundamentally you, myself, and the feminist reviewer I just quoted agree that the character concept was flawed, for very much the same reasons (I did enjoy the film despite that though).

The only difference is that you interpret that as evidence of PC (whatever that means in this context), while I view it as evidence of writers drawing upon unoriginal tropes.

Well, I don’t have any insight into the creators/writers minds or decisions other than what is on the screen and the broader context it is shown. I don’t think they’ve come out on record on this as far as I know.

Regardless, Disney is not some low budget operation.  They have the money to spend. Someone at “quality control” had to have said, “Hey Jyn is a total nothing.” And the powers that be, I assume, said, “Keep her in. We want a girl in there to rebrand the franchise as more female friendly. Do it.”

If you don’t believe me, then here are “nice” articles laying it out for anyone who is interested: http://www.firstpost.com/living/the-feminism-is-strong-with-this-one-star-wars-the-force-awakens-reinforces-gender-balance-in-pop-culture-2568062.html

https://www.bustle.com/p/the-last-jedi-makes-treating-women-as-equals-seem-easy-because-it-is-7592812

Certainly seems there are a few who think Jyn, Rey etc are “good” choices for their political implications.

I am a little surprised this is even a debate.  Modern feminism used to be an upstanding philosophy to the extent it advocated for treating women as having having the same capacity for moral agency as men, and thus should be treated as such before the law.

But feminism has warped and has become an aggressive and opportunistic force that speaks out of both sides of its mouth. “We want equal opportunity, which can only be achieved if there are equal outcomes.”  I speak from first hand experience here as a lawyer who deals with this nonsense. To feminists, of course the new star wars had to have “strong female leads” in their eyes because it is “their turn,” story be damed.

I guess I don’t think giving people things or making decisions just based on “perceived historical grievances” is a very intelligent way to organize society.  Not because to refuse to do so it isn’t nice or hurts people feelings, but because when you do that you end up getting stuff that doesn’t work. Just like Jyn.

FWIW, I just feel the new TLJ is like a sweet with no real nutritional value for Star Wars mythos or storyline evolution.  I agree with one critics which said the new Trilogy lack of pre-production time to get story straight and keep on continuity with other trilogies and within Ep. VII, VIII.

It tastes like a Star Wars movie but when digesting it you realize that all substantial is missing.

Dr Who has gone a stage further by casting a female in a role played as a man-child by 14 male actors for over 50 years, under the justification that there’s “no such thing as gender”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9hwGZFPSmw

I found TLJ to be an overlong mash up of Empire and RotJ with a tremendous amount of convenient screenwriting and incomprehensible decisions. There about 3 or 4 scenes which I actually enjoyed, at least for a time, but on the whole I found the film pretty uninteresting.

However, after watching the above video, I have come to agree that the entire movie was almost one big troll effort by the director. He literally burned everything down that was built up in The Force Awakens and left us right back at square one by the end of Last Jedi. That is a satisfying bait and switch against all the SW pop-culture super freaks out there, who try to decipher every detail until the next film comes out. However, like Jay says, the idea works better on paper than in actual implementation. It leaves the movies feeling emptier than they otherwise already would due to poor writing. I don’t really want to watch a rebellion build itself up from nothing for a THIRD time. I didn’t even want to watch a rebellion build itself up a second time, but that’s what we were given anyway.

People wanted a return to the Star Wars of old and I guess they got it. At least for now, Disney is only willing to riff (with slavish devotion) on the themes and aesthetic established in Ep IV-V-VI. People rail on the prequels for being terrible and in many senses they are. But I have always seen that as more of an execution problem than a thematic one. There are some pretty mature and even classical concepts in Ep I-II-III which live up to the SW space-opera characterization. I appreciate that ability to tell a different story. I think I put a higher premium on originality than full on execution. You can’t make great films without both, but if I have to choose I would rather see a new and interesting film with some flaws than a shiny, flawless film that I have seen 5 times before. Unfortunately the prequels just tripped over themselves, mostly due their creator’s meddling. But did anyone think we would ever pine for the days of George Lucas? Yet here we are.

Right on LF!

Man, you got to wonder if the writers of the 2 new Star Wars movies were either total hacks or actually had ideas that were simply overridden by executives who said: “No new ideas.  Too risky. Just rehash original films with more politically correct characters…. etc.”

As you say, the thematic arc of: Republic, corruption, downfall to empire, tyranny, then rebellion restoring freedom; was done already Doing it again is just boring, not to mention incomprehensible.  No one has yet to explain to me how the “New Order” managed to get up off its feet after the downfall of the Empire. Was the New Republic just totally incompetent?  What was the point of the “Resistance” if there was already a Republic? Etc… Etc…

Just think what they could have done if they invested some “original” thought into the new movies?

How about: After the fall of the Empire, we pick up with an older Luke trying to rebuild the Jedi Order and follow all the travails of that, maybe reveal that its much hard than it looks, and a bunch of “students” run off to terrorize and get rich or something off their new powers and Luke and some of his “good” acolytes have to stop it.  Maybe reveal that after the fall of the Empire, there is a general hatred of the “force” and “Jedis” for getting the universe in so much trouble in the first place, etc… so that Luke and his students are always under suspicion if not under threat…etc.

Don’t make the follow up movies big space operas but more singular character studies of Jedis, good and bad, and their powers…etc.

Oh wait, I guess that won’t sell toys…

I’ve never read the follow-on books.  How did the Imperial remnant deal with the betrayal of Vader?  Did they even know about it?  Did luke blab all over the place?  Or did some “sense” that Vader turned? How did this affect the morale of the remnants?

@aequitas:

And this would have been accomplished if they would have simply followed up the novels.

It sems silly that they didn’t appeciate any of the books well enough to adapt when many of them were best-sellers with a significant fanbase.

@Karl7:

How did the Imperial remnant deal with the betrayal of Vader?

I don’t think that becomes public knowledge. Luke does share that info with one ex-Imperial with a vendetta, but otherwise, I think he only tells family.

(Please correct me if I’m wrong AeV … been many years since I read the books, and I stopped just before the Yuuzhan Vong books started).

All the EU written before the sale to Disney is now considered “Legends” and has been replaced by officially sanctioned material. This timeline sums up all the novels written to date:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/a-timeline-of-everything-we-know-happened-after-return-1820781008

The gist is after signing an armistice with the Empire (not surrender accords), the New Republic for some reason demilitarizes while the Imperial remnants are re-branded as the First Order mysteriously finds the resources (with a severely reduced tax base, to be sure) to build Starkiller Base as well as to buy tons of new Star Destroyers and TIEs from those dastardly defense contractors who love to gamble (perhaps the New Republic should’ve played ball with them, too). Leia forms the Resistance as a paramilitary organization to counter this threat, but it’s apparent the most she could scrounge were a few Mon Calamari cruisers and some support ships.