Star Wars 8 shit talk

Occurs to me today that Kylo Ren is the only Dark Side apprentice to successfully pull off what all apprentices yearn to under the Sith 'Rule of Two' -- kill off the master and take over.

my main issue with some of the fanboy whining = the ones that are screaming "bad writing", like....

if anything, the original trilogy was trashy fun. The dialogue was cornball. the plotting was often arbitrary - there are a ton of plot holes and gaps in the OG series but nobody cared.

I think this film has some of the sharpest dialogue in the series, and that it's more of a character driven piece than a narrative piece. I could respect the argument that Johnson's style is too heavy for this universe, that it doesn't need to 'transcend' its simpler beginnings, but that isn't the complaint the nerdboys are making. They don't like the writing because big, significant events don't happen and we don't find out shocking mysteries about people's identities and prophecies aren't fulfilled etc.

feel like if these nerds want comfort food they should just play Battlefront for 20 hours a day.

It destroys the idea of destiny and the notion that this story is bound to the Skywalker family

this also feels like a necessary survival move for the series. they're killing off all the heroes of the original trilogy, it makes sense to expand the story beyond a single family as the generations grow further afield from those icons

lol CJV - I turned to my friend and said "they gon fuck"

indeed

voodoo chili otm. I was excited to have some of the old heroes return in the sequel series, but was disappointed that Han was so tightly woven into the story in TFA *and* that he had reverted back to his pre-ANH ways, which gave some legitimacy to the "TFA = ANH" crew (though I still think that argument is half-baked). His scenes were the ones that I lost interest in first on repeat viewings, other than his final meetup with Kylo.

I'm glad Leia got something other than her comfort food treatment in TFA, here as a beleaguered aging leader digging deep to find ways to motivate her crew. and Luke finding a way at redemption that *didn't* involve him coming back and just kicking ass was a nice touch.

Even Yoda's appearance in this film didn't feel like fan service, it was an important (even beautiful) moment.

holding for general hux

also being a fan of kung-fu/wuxia films, the scenes on Ahch-To are some of my favorites.

xpost lol loved that bit

my main problem is the new characters just don't have anything to them. they exist wholly as reactions to the old characters. two movies in and we know really nothing about Finn, Rey, Poe, beyond their status holding pre-established roles in Star Wars.

i do think they've been clever at selling the inverse tho. it likes to make a show about how it's tearing down the legend but ends with a little kid playing with action figures acting out the very legend we just pretended to kill. it is like an angry teenager who makes a big deal about how little he cares.

the thing I appreciated about this one, and to a lesser extent TFA, was the idea that this group of misfits who came together during wartime had a hard time adapting to life after war

Han's back to smuggling because he was never cut out for settling down, Leia can't function in a squabbling democracy and she's left to be a resistance general because no one else is paying attention to the dregs of the empire, and Luke is all weighed down by tradition and tries to be a wise leader but he's so worried he'll fuck up that he inevitably does

it works as a metaphor for people making Star Wars movies and stories who are so yoked to what's right and canonical that everything comes off as exercising of a formula. I'm with Yoda, fuck your jedi tree and old books. go out and do something.

the important stuff:

$220,047,000 plus $230 million foreign

adam, i felt the way you did after TFA, but I think TLJ succeeded in granting the new characters more dimensions--Poe is the self-interested hothead, Finn is a collection of nerves with a crippling sense of inadequacy, Rey is precocious and eager to learn, questioning, but not whiny like Luke.

And Kylo might be the most fully-realized character introduced in Star Wars since 1977

I was thinking about how it's not the first time Johnson's played with the idea of legendary figures versus actual people, that was definitely an underlying theme in Looper

Ben Solo's definitely a lot more nuanced than what we got the first time around

two movies in and we know really nothing about Finn, Rey, Poe, beyond their status holding pre-established roles in Star Wars.

nonsense. unless you literally want the filmmakers to explicitly state it for you, it's all there on the screen.

did they cgi kylo's torso? that shit was wiiiiide.

m 6-y-o was scared as hell every time kylo came on screen, even if he was doing nothing. that's what you want from a baddie. it's exactly how i reacted to vader when i was a kid.

Kylo's "Join me...please" with his voice breaking is one of the more heartbreaking moments of the film.

Adam Driver is a deceptively large dude

they're beyond stock characters now, but... most good fiction has stock characters

the greatest "fuck you" to George Lucas in this one had to be creating a shadowy, somewhat mysterious character like the Emperor who gets iced without any long exposition about his backstory

we don't need three movies about Snoke's rise to something or another and why his face is messed up, etc

Also if you want the characters to state it for you - Rey is experiencing the stirrings of the force, and it terrifies her in a way that doesn’t match anything we’ve seen in other force users, and she says that right out there in dialogue.

xp Adam Driver was a marine! The fact he can seem lanky really is a testament to his use of body language and stance

I didn't get people who complained that Kylo killed Snoke but then didn't turn. if he turned, the First Order woulda basically been vanquished and then Ep IX would be "Star Wars: Cocktails on Canto Blight at Noon"

xxxpost mh on the money multiple times

did they CGI Driver to look younger in the flashback scene?

I kind of doubt it, dude's pretty good at looking any age between early 20s and his actual age

I guess Kylo is supposed to be 28 - 30, Driver is 34

the greatest "fuck you" to George Lucas in this one had to be creating a shadowy, somewhat mysterious character like the Emperor who gets iced without any long exposition about his backstory

also a 'fuck you' to all the 3 million fan theories shit out in the recent two years.

I think part of the problem is that nowadays, such curiosity is often sated by prequels, movie-tie in comics, short films etc that seek to fill in all the gaps. which ruins the fun considerably.

even goddamn Leatherface had a "rise to power" movie

love how the Praetorian guards fight as if they're still employed by Snoke. collect your last paycheck and go home guys

lol that's a good point. they should have all walked slowly over to kylo, tense moment, what are they going to do, and then they kneel at his feet.

yeah, that kind of bothered me during that fight. I mean, what would they have done after they won the fight? Fight for Hux?

Anyway, I enjoyed this. Some ridiculous problems story-wise, but the visuals and acting were mostly great.

I continue to be a big fan of the Kylo Ren character.

One thing I didn't understand is how the First Order managed to learn that the rebels were escaping in the escape pods. The way it's presented it's as if they got this info from the Benicio Del Toro character, but how would he have known? Neither Finn nor Rose knew about that plan.

I missed it the first time, but Poe blabs it over the comm system when Finn and Rose are on the stolen spaceship with DJ (Del Toro). He reacts as if he's heard it, too.

the fact that this movie is making a lot of nerds upset makes me wish I liked it more

ah, missed that. Poe should have been demoted again for that.

xp

lol yeah. and he does this after they've stated that they have *a* codebreaker, and not the one Maz vouched for.

by Ep 9 he'll be Administrative Assistant Poe

(In) a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Rian Johnson explains the decision to kill Snoke was essentially the driving narrative development of the entire story, the one thing he realized needed to happen to raise the stakes. “When I was working on the character of Kylo, I came to a place where I thought the most interesting thing would be to knock the shaky foundation out from under him at the beginning of this movie. By the end of this film, he’s gone from being a wannabe Vader to someone who is standing on his own feet as a complex villain taking the reins.” But in evolving Kylo in that manner, he realized something needed to be done about the former Jedi apprentice’s boss.

Once he realized Kylo’s growth would be a “really good setup going into the next movie,” it led naturally to a choice about the Supreme Leader. “That made me realize the most interesting thing would be to eliminate that dynamic between the ‘emperor’ and pupil, so that all bets are off going into the next one. That also led to the possibility of this dramatic turn in the middle, which could also be a really powerful connection point between Kylo and Rey.” It also smartly sidesteps the whole “redemption by turning on his master” idea that would’ve just echoed the end of Return Of The Jedi, instead having Kylo’s murder of Snoke be part of a larger grab for serious power.

If you had a bunch of theories about Snoke’s origin, or his plans for Rey and the First Order, Johnson doesn’t want you to feel stupid. It’s just that he didn’t see any place for it in his film. “It would have stopped any of these scenes dead cold if he had stopped and given a 30-second speech about how he’s Darth Plagueis. It doesn’t matter to Rey. If he had done that, Rey would have blinked and said, ‘Who?’ And the scene would have gone on.” (Because this is an interview on the internet, Johnson immediately adds, “And I’m not saying he’s Darth Plagueis!”) He agrees that coming up with theories about characters is “part of the fun of being a Star Wars fan,” and doesn’t dissuade anyone from doing so, but maybe let’s all be glad someone who thinks every major character needs a lengthy expository scene revealing their entire history isn’t directing these things.

lmao i'm totally into snoke being darth plagueis

lol at the "I'm not saying he's Darth Plagueis!"

like if that happened a buncha nerds woulda squealed and gone home excited and blogged how this was the best movie ever cos it proved their theory right on the internet

Snoke: I will now reveal a truth to you - one your weak mind may not comprehend. I am eternal. I am the reborn DARTH PLAGUEIS!!!

Rey: Am I supposed to know who that is?

Kylo: Whoa, wait a minute, you never told me that. How can I work alongside you if you're keeping secrets from me.

Snoke: You guys both really know how to ruin a moment *lightsabers self*

I was mildly surprised that they actually said "Sidious" in this movie. Acknowledgment that the prequels existed!

lol yeah I loved that

like if that happened a buncha nerds woulda squealed and gone home excited and blogged how this was the best movie ever cos it proved their theory right on the internet

― fuck you, your hat is horrible (Neanderthal), Monday, December 18, 2017 9:53 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh ppl have that theory? i would think any acknowledgment of the prequels would upset people (i'm psyched to hear that there is some)

when I typed in Darth Plagueis earlier in google, it autofilled "Snoke" right after it lol

lmao

ian mcdiarmid telling The Story of Darth Plagueis while watching the weird iridescent bubble opera is my favorite scene in revenge of the sith

it's a fun theory and all, but sometimes I feel like some Star Wars fans think the delight of the series = "OMG, who is this person *really*?". musta been huge Scooby Doo fans too

xpost it was a cool moment in an otherwise hokey film, i agree

still can't believe the prequels had a character named "Nute Gunray"

the non-canon book about Darth Plagueis is uh, not horrible if you feel like reading Star Wars books

it exists in that weird slice of Star Wars canon that popped up post-prequels but before the Disney purchase iirc

what's wild is they released a Tarkin book nearly immediately after that is in Disney canon

but back to TLJ

how is it that a brief sidebar in this movie managed to explain war profiteering and corruption better than the entire ham-fisted prequels, lol

cuz george lucas can’t write for shit without collaborators iirc

true story