Star Wars Anthology shit talk (Rogue One, Young Solo, TBD)

Dr. C otm with 'shades of Valerian" --- yikes! I was thinking more "Baby Driver" and was waiting for a quick closeup of his finger pressing some button on the dashboard > "cool intergalactic approximation of current (2017) hip hop/ trap tune comes on" >> YEEEAH! from our hero.

THIS IS THE SONG NEEDLES DIED TO

"getcher motor runnin..."

i enjoy your posts on this DR C, don't get me wrong. i learn a lot about the nuts and bolts of how stories fit together. but it's funny that it doesn't change my feeling about the movie i just came out of. like i can SEE how you're mainly right, and how it could have been better any number of ways. that initial pool-monster who's allergic to light - yes it would have been great if there had been some dread in watching it come out of the pool! and i can see how it probably would have made han's escape more exciting! but it didn't happen, and i guess the difference between you and i is that in real-time i didn't miss it, didn't think that i wanted it to do something else, be something else. i'll admit i "sign myself up" to movies a lot more and a lot earlier than a lot of other people. also maybe low expectations helped.

i feel the same way

there was something a little bit John Carter of Mars about it too. Basic space adventure, no more no less but I didn’t really *need* more.

believe me, I want to have a fun time at the movies! there were these bits and pieces where I could relax into the fun, was just caught up in the energy and momentum. the analysis comes after as an attempt to explain "why didn't i, in fact, have all that much fun?" there were a lot of really jarring and distracting things that took me out of the moment. again: we've been watching this is-she-good-or-bad-and-why-is-she-holding-back-from-han story the whole movie, and the resolution of it is.... she's working for a hologram of a guy who's never been mentioned before and i was like wait is that darth maul or like his kid? could it be darth maul? isn't he dead? could this take place before the phantom menace? no wait of course it couldn't because we already have the empire. is it someone else entirely? ... etc.... i mean this is a weird place to land in a good-time thrill-ride adventure movie.

of course the energy between her and han is supposed to be weird, but it didn't feel like *that* kind of weird, it felt like they were just forgetting to talk about things or when they do they get forgotten. "i've done terrible things" and then her next scene is a comedy beat looking at lando's capes. i couldn't get a bead on any of it, idk.

she was a v frustrating cipher but i thought that worked. that's who she was to han and it's who she was to us. she wasn't working for darth maul, paul bettany was (i refuse to learn these people's ridiculous names). once she had bettany's ring she could skype straight into maul. i could use some of those auto-shades for my own skype calls tbh. obviously bettany's working for someone even more powerful who appears as a flickery blue hologram, that's how all star wars baddies have always operated. anyway maybe i'm wrong but she actually throws maul off han's scent at that point, doesn't she? she says woody has the fuel. but she knows that han's going after woody. and at this point she's got a pretty good idea of how resourceful and bad-ass han is, so she's pretty sure woody's not getting off this rock alive. so by telling maul that woody's got the goods, han and chewie are home free.

maul looked like he'd... filled out a little since er, dying in the prequels. hmm.

oh and i'm just gonna say it, a phrase that we maybe thought we'd never hear.....

han/chewie shower scene

naw I understood the contents of her call with darth maul, my point is that darth maul showing up is the absolute weirdest possible way to resolve her story with han. but of course it's not intended to, it's setup for a sequel, which to me feels like a ripoff after a 2+ hour movie. again, ymmv!

hahaha that occurred to be during the film and I forgot

I feel like, if they didn’t immediately do a blu-ray/digital rerelease of the animated shows explaining Maul’s continued existence following this movie, they’ve failed in marketing

DC you’re overthinking it: she wasn’t obligated to the cartel or enslaved as we thought, she had a soft spot for Han but was ladder climbing the entire time. Having secured her spot, she left his somewhat idealistic (although he thinks he’s just an individualist) ass behind

Fatty Maul wtf

"han/chewie shower scene"

So irony to this is that I jokingly told a couple of people that I was planning to take my 7.5 yo to see this in the theater unless I heard on Common Sense Media that it's 90% titties and Wookie dick so this scene make me chuckle a little bit.

"maul looked like he'd... filled out a little since er, dying in the prequels. hmm."

Even in universe it's been like 20 some odd years. Plus he's got no legs...

true, now i feel bad

sorry darth maul if you're reading this

mh i think i agree with you but the crimson dawn tattoo/brand on her wrist does seem to suggest some level of compulsion

yeah, it's not a 100% clear situation

movie criminal cartel stuff seldom is, tbh

the nature of how she ends up with crimson dawn is nebulous and almost more troubling for the lack of exposition, imo

either she talked her way in or was trafficked, but both have some serious implications a family franchise might not tackle

She double crossed woody, Bettany, and solo so why not chubs maul too?

not especially a dude you double-cross

can only think of one big one who pulled it off

so if this movie was so bad at selling me on things, and such a muddle, and so emotionally nonsensical, and didn't have an arc, how come it was so much fun to watch??

because you watched it with children?

just giggled/snorted my drink irl at "sorry darth maul if you're reading this"

they need a movie to show how he went from darth, to just maul, and now to.. don maul

somehow he’s tracked down that guy with the schnozz and wings from Episode I to be his consigliere

i look forward to the spinoff movie explaining how watto got his sad-sack hat in between eps 1 and 2

Darth Maul origin film planned for 2024. How’d he get those horns anyway?

Also wtf at wicket the fucking Ewok???

Apparently he played the same character he cameo'd as in the prequels. I was happy to see him! He was in Last Jedi also

all zabrak have those horns

because you watched it with children?

entirely possible

I enjoyed it...and I hate kids (jk).

At the screening I saw some bloke wandered down the aisle in full Darth Maul costume waving a lightsaber glowering at people - v cringeworthy.

Be awesome of his name wasn't so on the nose, like it was Darth Sunray or something.

Darth Happypants

Darth Bigboutee

Darth Smallberries

Donnie Dartho

Jennie Darth

Darth Home and Hearth

this movie was... long

i recommend you all see Alden Ehrenreich in the lead of a different movie, ie Warren Beatty's Rules Don't Apply.

i find his giant hexagonal face irritating

yes

lol

It's depressing and creepy to think of Darth Maul guy doing that on his own (assuming he wasn't paid to be there)

:(

you think that's wild, a friend-of-a-friend built a r2d2 replica that has all the lights, noises, and is controlled by remote

recently learned that he brings it out to the local cinema on SW opening days and they give him... a pair of tickets?

^^^^^From the number of conventions and midnight openings I've gone to, I can tell you that kids LOVE that shit. It's probably reward enough to see the kids go nuts over a real R2-D2.

when the head of the pirates took off her helmet, I first wondered if she was supposed to be the long-lost daughter of Harrelson and Newton's characters but I may have been the only one

I can confirm you were not.

I am always amused that Star Wars films are the ones that cause the otherwise excellent Doctor Casino to swallow his tongue.

another interesting choice, i thought, was to make endless hay out of han's desire to fly and skill at flying but never show any of his early flying experience, and then when he's on board the falcon, to depict it as if he's never been on a spaceship before.

This is.. not what happens though? They take pains to point out that he knows the ships inside out, and when he gets to pilot it for the first time, he seems completely at home.

(I know this is not a DC complaint, but the idea that there are people thinking "yeah, how do we know that this *squints* Han Solo is actually a good pilot" is odd - there are no such people)

we've been watching this is-she-good-or-bad-and-why-is-she-holding-back-from-han story the whole movie, and the resolution of it is.... she's working for a hologram of a guy who's never been mentioned before

Dude every time we see Paul Bettany, he takes pains to mention that he's not at the top of his chain, that there's someone that he works for. When she decides to seal Han's getaway / move up the ladder, of course that's someone that we'll see.

and i was like wait is that darth maul or like his kid? could it be darth maul? isn't he dead? could this take place before the phantom menace? no wait of course it couldn't because we already have the empire.

Okay I admit this was confusing, but submit that it was also awesome. Also I'm curious as to how many kids seeing this will be filling their parents in on what happened after the Phantom Menace.

are you kidding about the piloting? he gets the longest fucking wonder-music swell and slow camera turn when they go into hyperspace. wowie zowie! i can't believe i'm in a real live spaceship! wait, how did he get to the planet where he was an infantryman again? well anyway. not showing any of his empire flying is more of a problem for other aspects of the story - we rush right past the years in which he was pining for kira! you can chuckle at "show don't tell" but it's a real thing: him saying "gosh i missed you and thought of you all the time" doesn't carry the same weight as even like a stock montage of him in training, on missions, flying through the stars but still looking sad and determined, her photo on the dashboard, blah blah blah.... this movie was super famously a patched-together job with a still-ambiguous ratio of stuff shot by directors 1 and director 2. i am unsurprised it was a tonally inconsistent mess with confusing plot threads slammed into each other and the duct tape peeling away from the seams. is that such a weird takeaway?

if you enjoyed it that's cool! i probably won't convince you it was a mess and vice versa. fwiw i really enjoyed most of episodes 7 and 8, though i had gripes with each. saw 8 in the theater twice just cause there were certain parts I couldn't stop thinking about. i've made a point of giving ROTJ a thumbs-up while acknowledging its flaws. so really i just have problems with the five prequels.

Of all the characters to re enlist, why DM