Star Wars [3]

I watched TROS a few days ago...it was a watchable mess I guess? Not really sure how I feel about it...my initial thoughts follow;

(I feel like I will probably warm to the film a bit on rewatch)

On the negative side;

A weak story (that I have already largely forgotten) even by star wars standards, some very abrupt pacing (Abrams essentially ignores the events of TLJ, and wastes a good 30-40 minutes of the film almost telling his own episode 8 as it were), odd narrative detours and largely by the numbers action sequences...coming out of the screening I felt like I had mostly enjoyed it as a bit of throwaway entertainment...but felt largely indifferent to it as a closer to the saga...the more I think it over the more 'meh' I feel...I really got the sense that JJ Abrams himself's heart wasn't it in, between the odd pacing, fanwanky references and some very on the nose digs at The Last Jedi (although I wasn't a huge fan of the character Rose in TLJ her drastic sidelining in this film felt rather uneasy, like abrams was pandering to the angry neckbeards who gave the poor actress so much abuse online) it felt like a desperate/rushed attempt to course-correct/figure out a direction for this trilogy in the final film just with more explosions/fan wank painted over the top.

For all their flaws I largely enjoyed TFA and TLJ (note that I am not a hardcore star wars fan, i've always enjoyed the movies (esp ESB and Rogue One) and the universe, but never quite saw the depth/wonder many seem to)

(I've always considered TFA a solidly made entertaining crowd pleaser if extremely derivative rehash it's never going to win awards for originality but I got the sense Abrams knew what he wanted to do with the story and I know from personable experience it's a big hit with casual viewers. The Last Jedi was a very divisive film, and I understand many of the criticism-it's overlong overly ambitious and ultimately derails the trilogies narrative with some ill judged detours (not to mention awful attempts at 'humour') but I oddly admire it in some ways? It does genuinely new and unusual things with Star Wars, features some of the best scenes (and cinematography) in the saga and gives us Mark Hamill's best ever live action performance (I'm still not sure how I feel about the direction they took Luke in this trilogy...I honestly found him rather boring in the OT, but Mark Hamill was fantastic here), overall I'd say its an uneven but admirable and enjoyable movie) and in both of these films you really get a sense of an enthused director who knew which story he wanted to tell and had a coherent plan for the edit, in ROS I didn't really feel either-it felt like there wasn't much of a story left to tell, Abrams plays it even safer than in TFA and walks back or ignores many of Rian Johnson's ideas/hints from the TLJ, the end result is something of a confused mess so desperate to please everyone that I think it will only annoy many...


That said, there were some good things-the acting is great all round (Adam Driver is especially great-as he has been throughout this trilogy) , and the central trio of finn, rey and poe finally feel like a team in this one-the actors share great chemistry and screen time. Most of the one liners are genuinely quite funny, even more so as many of them involve C3PO (who gets a surprisingly large role in this film), there's some great action sequences and a few welcome references for hardcore fans.

Not sure if my rambling thoughts made much sense...then again I'm not sure the film did.


5 or 6/10 maybe?




Eh...I've heard The Mandalorian is great though...

I was unimpressed by the first episode of The Mandalorian, but perhaps it picks up from there. I'll try to see the movie by this weekend. Until then I am not reading any reviews on here.

Rise of Skywalker: enh.  As I read from complaints online it's the laziest form of story telling: whenever the characters need something, somebody like Lando pops up out of nowhere and says "the thing you're looking for, it's over there" or "here, you're gonna need this super special thing I just happen to have."  Urf.

Looks good, but why did they let JJ Abrams do this?  The finale needs someone with vision.  Rian Johson would have been better - JJ basically trampled all over his leads.  Not that I agreed with all of Johnson's new directions but at least it showed some story telling ability.

Oh, and some of the same beef I have with the Mandolorian: you don't hire someone as gorgeous as Keri Russell just to stick her in a helmet the whole time. We see her eyes for about 20 seconds, that's it. I wonder if they'll ever let Pedro Pascal loose?

Best list I've seen of what was wrong with TROS.  It's still but a draft of a draft.  JJ Abrams should be ashamed.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/20-worst-parts-star-wars-050718610.html

Well, it wasnt as shit as TLJ but was still pretty shit.

I was actually happier with TLJ than this one. If you drop the whole Finn boondoggle from TLJ it hangs together OK. This one doesn't hang together anywhere.

I thought TLJ was a general disaster of a Star Wars movie and is the main reason RoS is so rushed and disjointed.

I'm not gonna say I liked TLJ, as the atmosphere often flew in the face of the typical Star Wars experience.  But there were two main failings in both the prequels and in JJ Abrams reprise which it tried to address.

The cardinal sin of the prequels was attributing the Force to a microbrial infection which created a sort of galactic elect.  This totally destroyed the dreams of all kids who wanted to become Jedis via training and virtuous thought.  Johnson brought back the spiritual element, the thought that anyone could become a Jedi.

The cardinal sin of Abrams' TFA was that it was nearly 100% derivative.  Johnson shot wide of the idea of destroying yet another death star and provided an ending with noble tragedy to build upon.

There were a lot of flaws in TLJ, but less than half as many as TROS, which was full of head-thunking moments. I felt Rian Johnson's mistakes at least had the virtue of having some thought behind them (well, not the pointless side story that ended in a cattle stampede, but the more structural elements).

{{ This is nicely done. If a bit freaky! }}

In the break between seasons of the Mandalorian I decided to watch Rogue One. Once you know the story the first half hour is not confusing at all; in fact it's well done. They just didn't take into account that the audience would not be able to catch it all. I like it much better now and would put it in the top 3 of SW films.

I'd still like the missing scenes that were in the teaser trailer but didn't make it into the final cut.

I really like Rogue One. You can certainly tell it had multiple directors but it was reasonably well told, it had some good characters (not amazing, but good) and it had some of the best cinematography of any Star Wars.

It was also nice to connect the prequel and original series a bit too with some cameos.

How you finding the Mandalorian?

Unfortunately I think the Princess Leia cameo was not well done, felt a bit like watching Shrek.

The Mandalorian first season was quite wonderful, though I didn't buy the lava river scene at the end, just not physically reasonable. Also the Moff Gideon character was quite good until they overplayed him in that same last scene. And why did it take so long for the storm troopers to come after them in the sewers? They acted like the moment they were down there they could afford to just saunter along on their way. So the last 15 minutes was weak.

Agree about Princess Leia. The technology is getting better for that kind of thing so imagine there will be a special edition with a pass of those digital effects at some isn't.

Moff Tarkin looked a bit odd at times too.

Mando does have its weaker moments but I think overall captures the feel of Star Wars really well.

For those under the age of say...53:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/video-captures-seeing-star-wars-145032305.html

halfwise wrote:Unfortunately I think the Princess Leia cameo was not well done, felt a bit like watching Shrek.

The Mandalorian first season was quite wonderful, though I didn't buy the lava river scene at the end, just not physically reasonable.  Also the Moff Gideon character was quite good until they overplayed him in that same last scene.  And why did it take so long for the storm troopers to come after them in the sewers?  They acted like the moment they were down there they could afford to just saunter along on their way.  So the last 15 minutes was weak.

Did you manage series 2 yet?

Yes, I plowed right through season 2. The same mix of weak and strong but definitely holding up the spirit of Star Wars. Though I read complaints about the CGI Luke I thought it worked quite well. The Jedi trait to relapse to resting stillness under pressure (reference the fight between Gui-gon Jinn and Darth Maul) served them well here.

What did you think of Bill Burrs performance in the episode before?

The Luke appearance was totally fan service and it totally worked for me! Lots of echos to the Vader scene in Rogue One too.

I actually really liked the opening scene with Ahsoka Tano... was like a horror scene!

Bill Barr did a great job at thumbing his nose at any propriety when he felt somewhat safe, but suddenly being focussed when things got dangerous. It was a great performance.

The Jedi episode was definitely creepy. But my favorite part was Grogu chattering to himself at the end and responding to his name.

{{ Talking of the Luke scene- why dont film companies hire the best amateurs?! This guy did a better job for my money, and as he notes if he had access to the raw footage to work from rather then broadcast itd have been even closer. }}

Yep, that was better. Not that the original bothered me, but in the comparison it's clear there was a lot of room for improvement.

This is very cute.

{{ SW fan film, though its more SW meets Indiana Jones. Worth a watch. And certainly a different approach on the usual SW stuff.}}

Disney has engineered the most realistic to date looking lightsaber.  Yes, it extends and retracts, and makes the noise.