star wars 9 spoilers and postmortem shit talk

i guess its at least interesting to make a trilogy-by-telephone where each film ignores the previous one as much as it can get away with

Sam Adams' review feels more appropriate for this thread than the other one

The Rise of Skywalker gives people what they go to Star Wars for, but that’s all it does—and worse, all it sets out to do. It’s frenzied, briefly infuriating, and eventually, grudgingly, satisfying, but it’s like being force-fed fandom: Your belly is filled, but there’s no pleasure in the meal. The movie feels like it’s part of the post–Last Jedi retrenchment, when Disney jerked the leash on Solo and killed plans for future spinoffs by insisting that filmmakers stick to the established playbook. It’s of a piece with the pointedly unambitious The Mandalorian, just good enough to get people’s attention but fundamentally terrified of rocking the boat. Rather than making a movie some people might love, Abrams tried to make a movie no one would hate, and as a result, you don’t feel much of anything at all.

https://slate.com/culture/2019/12/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-review.html

I think my relatively 'meh' position re: the new slate of sequels is starting to become clearer. They're just not that weird or idiosyncratic or personal. Say what you will about the prequels, for instance, but that shit oozes Lucas. The only truly odd moment that jumps out from the recent films is Luke blue-milking a giant teat. But even like ROTJ, which is one of my least faves...the Sarlaac! Jabba! The Max Rebo Band! Weirdness that feels legit and lived-in and which resonates decades after it dropped. So many of the new elements in the Disney films feels comparatively uninspired, like they set a bunch of fresh-faced interns to the task of adding on to the world. I don't remember really any of the new creatures, none of the characters really resonate with me as characters, even the carry-overs from the old films kinda just feel like they're going through the motions, mostly. Johnson injected a little bit of personality into the enterprise but not as much as people seem to think. There just isn't a lot here that people are going to remember fondly through the years.

Eh, should've gone in the other thread, but it'll probably maintain its relevance once I've seen this thing.

i'm guessing this thing will only make me more impressed with the last jedi

this feels like a good place for general bitching, let's let people possibly enjoy things in the other thread imo

TLJ isn't great, but its healthy disinterest in the past -- by using totems from past movies -- was refreshing.

what particularly upsets me is that a lot of the things that small contingent of shitheads complained about re: the last jedi are present in the empire strikes back

It's almost like Johnson did that on purpose!

That is, made TLJ explicitly similar to ESB in terms of theme and structure. He managed to make a movie that was both forward looking and thematically consonant with the "saga" and people shat on it.

yep!!!!

I think ppl overstate the "forward looking" aspect but it's def a better movie than TFA

Fan culture is a disease. Anyway I'll keep away from this thread until I've actually seen the thing

lol the Slate comments wonder WHY WHY COULDN'T A FAN HAVE REVIEWED IT

I love fan logic. I review the Stones once and gave them a mixed review, and someone wrote in to say "I've seen the Stones live over 50 times, if they weren't always great, then why would I pay to see them so many times?"

In the AV Club review:

(A franchise long haunted by the ghosts of the past, Star Wars now involves both dead characters played by living actors and living characters played by dead actors.)

Was it absolutely necessary to dig up Mayhew and stuff him back into the Chewie costume?

I heard it's just some random stunt guy with Warwick Davis on his shoulders.

I wonder if they'd have done this one the same way if McDiarmid had kicked it

ask the Ghosts of Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher

exhuming someone to act as your Ultimate Baddie feels....different, somehow. But yeah you're probably right.

someone post spoilers. I'm unlikely to see this for several years, but want to know what happens

you can search for "star wars spoilers reddit", that's how I found 'em. ppl might not like just having them on here already in case they click on the wrong thread and find out Kylo Ren gets force-crucified by the ghost of Mace Windu

*SPOILER* Rey is half-Gungan

xp. thanks, I'm lazy

LOBOT becomes the new emperor, wild choice

OK, re-resolving to leave this thread alone

The really sad is I read these idiotic invented spoilers, and I'm guessing they're also references to last season of GoT?

Kylo Ren gets force-crucified by the ghost of Mace Windu

― Simon H., Wednesday, December 18, 2019 10:43 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

put this vision on the big screen disney cowards

jedi instrumentality project when!!

As I said on the Grim Resignation thread I enjoyed this big, bloated finale. Felt the most like an old non-prequel Star Wars film to me out of the new three: weird races, weird places, silly names and epic Tolkein-y nonsense.
I'm cool with Chewie, 3PO and the remaining old characters given stuff to do as well.

sounds like there's plenty of palpy, which is good imo

I doubt I'll be watching this. Anyone cool die?

Lots of Pallpy. Even more stuff that never gets explained which is hilarous.

I doubt I'll be watching this. Anyone cool die?

― ☮ (peace, man), Wednesday, December 18, 2019 10:37 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

OBLIQUE BUT MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD

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the spoilers i read indicate that a major character (originating in this sequel trilogy) does die

snoke dies again

poopy palpy

So weird that they brought the Emperor back as a teenaged, incessantly-rapping version of himself called Palpy T. Even weirder how well it works!

Wellllll
My name is Palpy T and I'm here to say
I'll drop a Solo in your pit like my name was Weequay

I'm gettin' Palpy-tations

the dead speak!

Guys, lest we ever forget the magical moment when the world learned that Emperor Palpatine's long-hidden first name is

SHEEV

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/C5Wx5vT1npI/hqdefault.jpg

Sheev Mike

glad they finally worked an appearance from Darth Icky into the series given this was the last chance

You know Vader and Plagueis and Oppress
Sidious, Bane, Booger, Barf, Farts and Hopeless
But do you recall
A Darth even ickier than Maul?

Dammit, fucked up the meter of my stupid nerd joke song, shoot me now.

*blasts Sith lightning*

There were bits I liked in this but even with lowered expectations, it was a resounding meh. Better than TFA is a staggeringly low bar.

even the more positive takes I've seen generally allege that at least the first hour is a total mess (though a few say it recovers)

Also I saw this at the same cinema I watched TLJ, on the second opening night like I did for TLJ. Almost identical crowd - healthy proportion of dudes carrying lightsabers and wearing Vader helmets. The difference: loud applause for TLJ, dead silence this time around. Theatre full of SW nerds seemed genuinely confused.

I always thought the hate for TLJ among “fans” was overblown, this confirmed it for me.

Sic, Lucas doing the first and helping to do the rest is not the same as Abrams doing the first and some others helping to do the rest and it's really weird you can't see that...

It's okay, enjoy your goalpost.

Dude

I believe "Lucas planning the first" was referring to A New Hope

The LucasFilm story group has explained on multiple occasions that they're there to answer questions, point out glaring backstory issues (like if someone says Leia's from Yavin or something), and catalogue all of the new characters/locations/etc. They have as much story direction and veto power as the director and the producers give them, that's about it.

It's not like Richard Marquand could go in and say 'actually, I've always wanted Obi-wan to be Luke's father!'

iirc Leigh Brackett came up with that plot point and it was ok'ed by Lucas. He gets a lot of credit for the broad strokes of the story, but they were... very broad.

it mostly comes down to Lucas being a hands-on producer for eps 4-6 and lucking into decent writers and hiring directors who were very much pros that were there to keep the ship going in the right direction while keeping a high level of craft

I feel like there wasn't a firm hand on the till, although with Disney nudging Kennedy and all the market forces of the modern era in the mix it's a tricky job. Lucas basically had sole proprietorship

of those things that are meant to be good, only gosford parkn is good and none of that is because of richard e grant

of those things that are not good, none of them are improved by richard e grant

the english malkovich, the english spacey. talk slow and someone will fall for it.

if you cant move your fuckin face youre not a fuckin actor

all fair, but the qualification for commanding an Imperial force is that you have to sound like a prick and do it with an English accent iirc

surprised but not shocked that you hate The Player (1992), would not be surprised if you love The Game (1997)

Ralph McQuarrie is the author of the original trilogy

WTF Richard Grant is great I will not hear this

xp fair take imo

that is quality work sic

I feel like there wasn't a firm hand on the till, although with Disney nudging Kennedy and all the market forces of the modern era in the mix it's a tricky job

yeah there were clearly a lot more chefs puttering about in the kitchen on these movies than on the others and it shows. unlike with the marvel movies which emit a consistent grey slush due to hypercompetent management and the DC movies which are all over the place in an occasionally fun or somewhat interesting way because of...I guess a mix of Snyder's psychosis and a wackier batch of characters. IX was just deeply inept, misconceived and rushed really. it really is something how much better-sounding the movie Trevorrow wanted to make was based on the synopsis, I suspect it would still have been visually bleh tho

Richard E. Grant is wonderful in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and clearly he was hired for this farrago to bring malicious fey Britishes to a ghost role.

I was thinking Herzog would have been fun for that but they cast him in that other thing instead.

terrible decision to halve domhnall in order to foreground yet another nothing character

also, was it left open as to whether reg was in fact a deep rebel agent, because i insist that it was

i am sick enough of star wars that i've started writing my own hatefic spec script, rewriting the prequel trilogy into one movie where the jedi are corrupt and hypocritical pederasts who spend more time fighting each other than opposing the possibly-mythical "sith lords". it's not original by any stretch of the imagination but it's been a lot of fun to write so far! i still have to figure out if/when i can incorporate han, lando, c3po, and r2d2 into it, though

Society-style shunt them into a single character imho

is that a reference to the 1989 brian yuzna film? haven't seen it. or "re-animator". from what i'm reading about it, i'm afraid what i'm doing _really_ isn't that creative.

I ended up watching Rise of Skywalker and re-watching the rest of the sequel trilogy because my kid got into it. TLJ was better than I remembered and ROS was really entertaining. All three of them are far from perfect, but I'm not going to spend my time searching for plot holes or anything.

searching!

searching!

my fuckin telly was swallowed by a fuckin plot hole when put this on

you know i couldn't hit it sideways

just like sister rey said

Can't believe that cavalry charge on the Star Destroyer worked. The ship could have just tipped over slightly and dumped them off!

simplest debunking, good one

finn was using the force to keep it level

you need balance in the force

It took me 5 nights to finish ep ix, but alas I am done with this garbage franchise for good. What a waste of fucking time.

Old news to everyone by now, but this was not good. Even my husband, by far the bigger SW fan of the two of us, confessed to being bored. Abrams directs the whole thing like its one of those garbage SCI-Fi channel movies, while Ford, Hamill, and Williams play their scenes like they're doing walk-ons on Carson's Tonight Show. I'm even kinda rethinking my (admittedly mild) affection for the previous two entries in this trilogy now.

I want that sweet red shirt/black cloak that Palpatine had, though

I watched this last night. It was bad. So many mythos gripes but my main one is the faceless hordes of Sith acolytes (theres only two siths at a time in the previous films) who are also the greatest star destroyer builders in the history of the galaxy

Jedi powers are so extensive in this trilogy.

there are two sith lords at at a time, there were often a shitload of acolytes in old star wars lore

pretty sure it's not a thing now, but there was originally a race of sith, like an entire planet of em

the thing that bugged me was that they decided instead of figuring out what the giant coliseum of sith would look like, they just put vague cloaks everywhere

Yeah I mean the ancient sith lore stuff is fine i guess but where did the emperor rustle up these multitudes? he didnt have any sith acolytes when he was emperor of the galaxy as far as we know

he had those three or four creepy silent dudes behind him in return of the jedi

Tag yourself I'm Janus Greejatus pic.twitter.com/unRVEefeoD

— Jeffrey Rowland (@wigu) December 28, 2018

posse photo

Always got strong Perry Farrell vibes from that guy on the right.

one of the funniest things about Star Wars lore is that costume and set designers would come up with all kinds of cool stuff, and at some point someone would want to make a trading card or short story about a background character

if George Lucas was around, they'd ask him. the answers would depend on how sleep-deprived he was

anything that's simple like "that's Bob, he drives a y-wing" would be when he was tired, but if he had a good night's rest, it'd be "yes that's Ookano Labooga, he carves flutes out of petrified Lotharian swampweasels"

I mean, I'd be petrified too!

https://lumiere-a.akamaihd.net/v1/images/tmb-sq_character-fozzie-bear_launch_2dc6bf1d.jpeg

There are so many stupid plot holes and decisions in this entire trilogy, but I still think (with a few def plodding twists in each of the three) they are 10x more fun than anything in Eps I-III. That's really all I ask, a few moments where my inner 8 year-old absolutely geeks out on something like the shot of all those Sith Star Destroyers amassed. Does it become absolutely stupid if I stop to consider where these are all coming from, how they are staffed and built? Absolutely. But they look menacing and awesome.

Not going to really defend these movies, because I am well aware of the many flaws and don't begrudge others a bit for disliking them. Having been able to watch these with, and through the eyes of, my son probably makes me a lot kinder than I might otherwise have been.

I need to see this again. It was fun the first time, but seeing how hated it is makes me doubt my own senses.

it's big and dumb and doesn't do much with characters that should have had more going on

but, there are a lot of beautifully constructed scenes where people do odd things!

I don't recall anything beautiful in ix besides oscar isaac

https://media1.giphy.com/media/LHrY3Xv2fKaKQ/giphy.gif

watched this for first time. the ghost of luke is semi transparent, you can see the background through him. he crosses in front of rey and you can *still* see the background through him...