dan76 wrote:Skykid wrote:
Can we at least agree that it's obviously better than TFA and Rogue One? Rogue One really nearly put me to sleep, and I've never ever caught Zs in a theater. It had zero drama, awful casting, horribly unlikeable leads, terrible comic relief, didn't feel anything like a SW movie, and was full of non-characters with no personalities who were all engaged in a battle with no obvious motivation whatsoever. It was dire.
... I don't know. I think the TFA is fine until Han turns up. Goes to shit after that but we get some Chewey action. Rogue One I don't hate as much as you, I can kind of watch it as a diversion. I didn't really want to care about any of the characters, but still, it's a messy film. At least it has Tie Bombers in it for a second. TLJ was supposed to get things going and build upon TFA but it didn't. It just kind of threw it all out.
I respect it more than TFA because at least it's doing it's own thing, but saying it's the best since Jedi isn't really saying much is it. As much as I can't stand the prequels these films aren't much better script wise. They're just better directed.
Also, it seems like Disney is giving these guys quite a lot of freedom in what they want to make. I think most of us would come up with a better story for a Star Wars film than TLJ.
Btw, the Red Letter Media awful Solo movie ideas video is brilliant.
Yeah I saw it ages ago.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Again, for me it's like this. TFA is lacklustre. It's got nothing in it; it's almost a carbon remake of IV. It ends on a literal cliffhanger which has already been established as never actually having any forward plot. And then you give all that shit to Rian Johnson, and he then tries to do his best to undo all of it.
You want to fuck around with revealing your bad guy so early? Let's just smash the mask. Rey is who again? She's nobody (and that's perfect, she should be nobody because that brings the idea that the force can be tapped by anyone back into the frame) so let's have Snoke right at the beginning of the movie belittle Ren by saying "you lost to a girl who had never even picked up a lightsaber". You left me with Luke on tiny island in the middle of nowhere? Fuck you then, let's just chuck this lightsaber into the ocean and redefine expectations of the character. Supreme Leader Golem? Oh let's just get this one out the way and pave the way for something better.
We could have done without the humour; it wasn't tonally correct and jarred once too often - but it was still better than being humourless, like the prequels. We could have also done without Rose and Laura Dern (definitely Laura Dern) and it's a shame that they weren't axed from the script (I think Finn going it alone to Canto Bight would have been a lot more interesting, and the entire romantic interest thing was useless)... but none of it is what I would call badly handled. It's a fair handling of an occasionally suspect script. It's not perfect by any stretch - considering his obviously superior use of the camera he still managed a Leia Poppins shot that was bafflinglingly bad, as was some of the Ireland island stuff - and we all know we could have done some things better if we did it ourselves. But shit, I say that about almost every movie I see.
But what about the good stuff? There are good lines in the movie too. I liked it when Ren says to Rey, "You're nobody... but not to me." Some of the dialogue was credible and nicely formed. You may not have liked Luke's character, but his dialogue wasn't bad; and Snoke was partially saved at the last moment by a good performance and decent lines.
The action was superior. It wasn't shred cut and it was edited really well. I'd go as far as to say it's some of the best space battling since Jedi and far superior to TFA.
And the music, finally. One wondered why the fuck with the property rights you can't actually use the proper themes in the TFA, but Johnson was right in on that. He used some of the greatest cuts to make the scenes pop - and they did.
Rey never flew the Falcon again (because doing so in TFA was retarded) and that was left to Chewie only, as it should have been.
Generally speaking, it just wasn't the 'abomination', stain against the series, should-be-axed-from-canon-error that people seem to be citing.
It was ok. It's 2018 and fucking Disney. You get what you get. At least it wasn't Gareth Edwards and Rogue One. That guy should go back to finger painting.