I liked Andor :(
Andor is amazing!
Andor is the kind of show where I would literally recommend it to someone who hates Star Wars. It’s just such an incredibly raw, powerful, and vital piece of media. One of the finest works of anti-fascist art I’ve seen in a long time.
Anyone who hasn’t watched that show is robbing themselves. Moments like “one way out” and Luthen’s “sacrifice” monologue are going to live with me for a long time. Season 2 can’t come soon enough.
Also B2EMO is the best droid in all of Star Wars (Fun fact; his voice is the puppeteer’s, but it wasn’t supposed to be. They were planning to overdub, but then the guy did such an amazing job on the set that they just gave him the role).
Andor worked despite being Star Wars, not because of it. It very well could be even better for people who don’t like SW. Knowing how it fits into the larger universe is nice, but it isn’t required. It’s just a good anti-fascist freedom fighter story that happens to use Star Wars language and aesthetics.
I’m not sure I fully agree there. I think it’s absolutely accurate to say that Andor didn’t need to be Star Wars. Like, you absolutely could file all the serial numbers off and get a show that works in more or less exactly the same way.
With that said, I think Andor absolutely benefits from being Star Wars, in a couple of a ways.
The first is that they can skip all the broad strokes world building. We don’t need the concept of the galactic empire explained to us, or the general structure of how the senate works, and so on. The big pieces are all in place, so they can get straight to the small scale world building instead. This would be a solvable problem if you were creating something new, but its definitely nice that they get to skip straight to the important bits this way.
The second, bigger benefit (IMO) is the juxtaposition created by the tonal shift. Something that’s very notable about Star Wars is that the tone and the content are often rather at odds with each other. George Lucas is on record as saying that in his mind the Rebellion were the Viet-Cong (with the obvious implication that the Empire is the USA). That’s some fucking heavy shit. Luke’s adoptive parents get brutally murdered by agents of the state, for absolutely no crime at all, and this inspires him to take up with a group of, well, terrorists. I mean, this is literally the same as a young Palestinian joining up with Hamas. Star Wars is about some really, really heavy shit, but it also starts with the line “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” This is a fairy-tale about magic space wizards, but also a story about insurgents blowing up a massive military installation, and eventually performing a coup and assassinating the head of state.
Over the years, the story around Star Wars has leaned increasingly into the “magic space wizards” side of things. It’s seen as a family friendly property, something for kids to enjoy at Disneyland. The creators of Andor set out to intentionally shock the audience by creating something that leans hard away from that family friendly image. Andor is a fucking dark story, about desperate people adopting brutal methods in the face of brutal oppression.
And they’re not just doing that for shock value. The point of this is to tell a story about the ways in which we idealise “rebels” in one breath and condemn “terrorists” in another. To many people, Luke is a hero, but that young man who joins up with Hamas is a monster. Reality is complicated and messy. Hamas are a real political group, with a real ideology, and despite the monstrous oppression they face, some of that ideology really sucks. Their targets aren’t “Storm Troopers”, they’re often civilians, or conscripts. On the other hand, many of those conscripts behave in ways far more monstrous than anything the empire is ever depicted as doing.
Andor is a story about fascism, about the absolute necessity of resisting it, and about the monstrous personal cost that resistance can demand of us. By setting that story against the backdrop of a “family friendly” property I think it really does a lot to drive home the disconnect between our ideals of resistance and the cold, hard reality.
It’s fucking jarring when the ISB name drop Palpatine. You completely forget it’s star wars at some points
anti-fascist freedom fighter story
I mean that’s arguably what Star Wars is.
The Prequels and Sequels each flubbed it in their own way by being either too meandering or too self-obsessed, but Andor is basically a forceless movie trilogy broken into episodes.
Andor is really slow art. It takes a while to build, but once you’re in, you’re hooked. Can’t wait for season 2, either. People were really concerned when Disney took over SW, and the modern movies are pretty mid (except Rogue One, which is amazing), however the series that have come out of their takeover have been mostly fantastic or at the very least just enjoyable. Andor and Mandalorian being the stars. Boba Fett was pretty disappointing though.
I don’t know that you even have to know anything about Star Wars to enjoy Andor. It’s not like Star Wars lore was super important. The Force and Jedi are not even parts of the plot.
Andor was worth the 250m they spent on it
Hell yeah it is
Andor was so well done that it stressed me out. The cheesy schlock of Bobafet was just what I needed.
Honestly, fair (and I say that as someone who is a huge, huge, HUGE fan of Andor). Like, if you’re looking for some cheesy fun science fantasy schlock about space wizards, do not watch that show.
Honestly that’s what made Andor so damn good. Not a whiff of The Force shenanigans. Just an ordinary guy trying to live his life and keep his head down, and that just isn’t enough because of the level of corruption in The Empire.
One way out, indeed.
It pains me no end that there’s all this great fiction out there in a vast universe just waiting to happen, and they keep coming back to the same boring family of fucking space wizards.
Idk, I feel like we just haven’t visited tatooine enough.
But for real, there are thousands of inhabitable planets in star wars and we always end up on one of like 6. They make the galaxy feel so small.
Not a movie so it’s fine. That and the Ewoks TV show ofc
What a banger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WFjM3QWKlE
I liked a lot of seven, but knowing that you’d have to eventually watch nine sort of invalidates the rest of that trilogy
Never did watch 9. My biggest problem with 7 ?and other reboots like Jurassic World) is it was literally almost a rehash of 4, except with an even bigger “Death Star”. Rather than going for a unique plot.
I thought they did really well on coming up with new characters, and original stories, I enjoyed most of their arcs and adventures in 7.
The biggest death Star was the biggest letdown of that movie for sure.
But hoo boy, after I watched nine, my irritation at the laziness of a bigger death Star is nearly insignificant compared to some of the plot points in 9.
When I saw the starkiller I rolled my eyes, but I literally could have walked out during 9 from
spoiler
the knife and sith island
I was already bummed out at eight that there was no Luke or character development for finn.
Then all of nine was pretty bad but especially the idiotic plot device mentioned above and a couple other things ruined that trilogy for me and definitely tarnished my enthusiasm for 7
Idk if original stories is something you can give it. The bigger death star is far from the only plot point lifted directly out of episode 4. Seriously, go back and watch ep 4 and ep 7 it’s almost shot-for-shot (not really but for some of the story beats it could be).
Maybe what you’re saying is that the character back stories are original which, kinda.
Yeah. It didn’t seem like a complete waste watching 7. It felt completely redundant, but I enjoyed the Daniel Craig and Yayan Ruhian cameos, which pushed it into a mildly positive territory for me.
What I don’t get is why would anyone watch 8, let alone 9 after that. Sounds like some variety of Stockholm Syndrome is at play here. I didn’t, and from what I heard it was a smart decision.
I’ve heard that said, but I think a lot of the accusations of unoriginality between 4 and 7 are mostly because they have similar themes by virtue of belonging to the same series.
“Ugh, John wick found another reluctant health professional to patch trim up after getting shot”.
kind of thing.
I think Star wars is pushing really hard to reboot Star wars entirely. 2, so they don’t want to do anything new so much as update some of the old stuff with their own characters so that the new movies take over the old ones like the new Canon is taking over the old Canon.
Idk how you could reach that conclusion. Maybe you watched 7 and haven’t seen 4 in a while. It’s not just your John Wick example. The movie is pretty shameless about lifting the structure of 4, it’s not some subtle nuanced technicality.
Watched four through six before checking out 7.
Do you have some examples that you’re talking about specifically besides mega death Star?
It seemed pretty clear to me that Disney was trying to remimagine elements of four so that they could have a new series all to themselves, but the movie itself felt new in a lot of ways.
Finn was a huge part of that, there was never a character like him before.
They also didn’t have a Kenobi leading them through everything.
It’s the Star wars universe so a lot of the themes and elements (spaceships, and overbearing government, manichean forces) are going to be similar, but you had new characters doing different things for different reasons in different situations for most of the movie.
Star Wars is like going to McDonalds and ordering a Big Mac. A lot of people will get that Big Mac and feel nostalgia for when they’re young and thought McDonald’s was the best restaurant. Even though we all McDonalds is really far from being the best restaurant (we all know that), when you bite into that burger and the nostalgia makes it taste better than it really is.
But it seems foolish to go to McDonalds, order a Big Mac, then getting a Big Mac, then complain about it not being something new and original.
Maybe some people have just grown out of Star Wars, and that’s fine. But it seems a lot of people pretend that they aren’t action adventure movies designed to sell toys just so they can be disappointed when that’s what they get.
I do feel sympathy for George Lucas repeatedly telling people since 1977 that these are movies for children, then he sells it to the ultimate children’s company and then people going to see the Disney movies are shocked that it’s a fun, light space adventure.
But I knew what I was getting into and I had a very fun time with seven, whereas nine is bad to the point of being insulting to any audience, including a child audience.
I am curious to see if the critical success of Andor, a more gritty Star wars tale, rubs off on the new movies.
Nine has many layers to it. It’s the most interesting of all of the Star Wars movies, just isn’t appreciated by hot take internet culture that fixates on the nitpicks.
In one of the layers, it has a good message for children that are learning in school that their ancestors did terrible things. You don’t have to identify with your ancestors, you can and should identify with the good people in the past. Even those that opposed your ancestors.
Probably don’t need to go so far as changing your name because your ancestors did some bad shit, but it’s Star Wars, people are always changing their names to signal their alignment.
Yeah the knife thing was the same as the amulet from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones happened to be in the map room at the exact right time of year when the sun would be in the correct alignment to shine a beam to where the Ark was being kept? Why would someone make such an amulet? Like did they know that someone would someday need to know where they stored it and knew the exact day of the year that person would come into the map room with the amulet?
Is Raiders of the Lost Ark a bad movie? Or are we just not supposed to go into an action adventure movie trying to find something wrong with it?
Depends what you mean by bad. Is raiders not enjoyable?
Ppf, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t enjoy raiders.
Is it constructed well? God no hahah, it is barely constructed at all. It’s like a series of disconnected vignettes.
I don’t even think the amulet is as bad as the knife.
It’s a valid comparison, but there’s so much momentum pushing raiders forward that it seems natural he would get lucky with the amulet as well.
In nine,
spoiler
you’re being dragged through 2 hours of zero tension or momentum and then when they arrive at an area that they know the sith are at, instead of the strongest Force character ever using the force to sense what general direction this hideout could be, or scanning for machines or literally anything else, they’re like well gee. If it isn’t here then it’s impossible that we’ll ever find it- oh wait, I have this knife that only works from this specific promontory from this specific distance on an area the size of a planet.
Good thing the emperor told them he was back for no reason instead of consolidating his forces and making a plan?
And it turns out that the knife points them, the only characters in an entire galaxy that are a threat to the sith, to an inexplicably accessible and shallow cave on an island super close to shore that someone who has been telegraphing their allegiance to Rey is waiting oh my gosh it was so ridiculous.
You’d have to add a lot of bullshit contrivances to make that amulet scene as insulting to the audience and idiotic as rise of skywalker turned out to be.
I think the strength of the amulet is that they don’t explain it too much. There’s a feeling of destiny with the amulet, like is nothing else Indiana could have done to get to this point and that’s his last resource.
Not so at all with the knife. Not so at all with many things in these movies that could have been accomplished in different, smarter safer ways for the characters or more exciting nail biting ways for the audience.
The specific knife plot could have happened in so many other ways and this way is among the worst.
At this point in the movie,
spoiler
Kylo Ren could have just told her where the island was or she could have intuited it from him because she can literally read mines now and he already told her pretty much point blank multiple times that he’s ready to betray empire.
Rey could have developed a force sonar, she has so many new powers and doesn’t even need a training montage that would have made perfect sense. She can already sense the sith better than anybody else ever.
The rebels could have scanned the top 10 ft of the apparently otherwise empty planet and found this cave.
Luke’s ghost could have pointed her in the right direction and that would have made much more sense.
Almost anything would have made more sense and more importantly, been more cinematically exciting and satisfying for the audience than what they chose to go with.
Nine is a blight.
Raiders is fine. You’re not supposed think to hard about why an artifact exists and why it works even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense in an action adventure movie. Ideally everything would make perfect sense, but when it doesn’t it’s no reason to get your panties in a bunch.
They could’ve accomplished things in Raisers a lot more smarter too. Indy could’ve just waited until that Nazis dug up the Ark and then stole the truck once it was loaded. Which is exactly what he ended up doing. Would’ve cut out a lot of the action and adventure by doing it that way. And that’s what we want, right? Efficient plot lines which minimizes the action and adventure.
Characters using scanners or fictional magic constantly is boring. And besides, why couldn’t a knife that was made by a sorcerer (that had the ability to see the future) have magical properties? Seems you’re upset they used one kind of magic instead of a different kind of magic. Odd thing to be upset about when watching a popcorn action adventure movie.
Sure there are a few minor flaws in RoS. But it feels like you went into the movie looking for something wrong with it and it gave you what you wanted. I went into it wanting a fun action adventure movie, and it gave me what wanted. So the movie delivered for both of us, didn’t it?
Wow, you get really upset about those movies huh?
That’s an interesting take, why don’t you want the excitement or adventure in an adventure movie?
I guess if you liked rise of Skywalker, it makes sense that you don’t like excitement or adventure in your adventure movies.
You’re projecting about this knife thing. You keep making assumptions instead of asking questions and then criticizing your own assumptions.
A few minor flaws? That movie was a train wreck.
Train wreck.
See, you’re making assumptions again about what others and then criticizing yourself instead of asking questions.
I’m not upset by neither Raiders of the Lost Ark nor RoS. They have pretty much the same flaws. But whatever, they’re action adventure movies.
“A wizard did it” rules apply in both of these movies since magic is real in both of these worlds. And when we’re talking about a knife that’s canonically made by someone with magic powers… yeah, a wizard did it.
Never watched 9 either. Or 3. Also, fuck Disney.
Huh. I recommend 3, only because it’s pretty fun. It’s not good, but it’s fun.
Three is genuinely the best of the prequels by a pretty big margin (though it still suffers a bit from prequel-itis). Definitely with a watch though IMO.
The bigger Death Star was worth it for the Han Solo line “so, it’s big… you can always blow those things up.” I’m there to see Han Solo giving no fucks, and the movie delivered.
My reaction upon leaving the theater was “Wow! They did Star Wars almost better than Star Wars!”
In the days that followed, the more I thought about the movie, the less I liked it in retrospect. I was hoping for a continuation of the saga, not “Star Wars: The Remake”.
The Force Awakens is pretty meh itself, but we were not prepared for what was coming. It feels as foreboding as rewatching Game of Thrones S5 or S6 and knowing that the deteriorating writing will only get worse.
I was told not to watch the last season of GoT, and never did.
No regrets so far.
The more I’ve watched GoT the more I wish they’d have adapted Kharkanas instead. I know the third book isn’t out yet but that didn’t seem to stop GoT.
It was meh. It’s just that on the internet everything is either the best thing ever or the worst thing ever, there can’t be anything in between. It’s hard to monetize a “meh” reaction, so the influencers (and those easily influenced) say it’s it’s terrible. But it was meh.
I dunno, I’ve talked to some sane, mostly disconnected people IRL who didn’t like it either.
But on the other hand, I’ve seen the other side of that coin, where a fandom decides to trash something good, so I suppose I can see that.
Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t great or anything. It was based on the notes of George RR Martin, and you really feel it. Wasn’t all that fleshed out. The long night ended up being a slightly longer than average night.
I think a lot of the hatred comes from people who had their predictions about what would happen and still thought there was something to the “prince of light” (or whatever) prophecy even after the Stanis plotline. But nope, the powerful people in Game of Thrones were basically all just assholes and there wasn’t anything all that special about anyone. The show famous for doing the unexpected ended by doing unexpected things and people hated it.
I think the issue was mostly how lazy and simplistic everything was. Sure, it was unpredictable, but just doing unpredictable things without any buildup is not a good way to tell a story. Bran becoming King for example is an unexpected twist, but the setup is nonexistent and the reasoning is dumb. The Long Night only lasting about an hour was a massive anticlimax for one of the main conflicts (it’s almost certainly not going to be that short in the books). Most of the characters’ endings were predictable, but some were way too sudden to be believable; Dany’s random fall to madness is particularly bad. They also failed to use interesting plotlines in a meaningful way; Jon being the true heir to the throne is so utterly pointless that it literally could be cut from the show and nothing would change, for example. It doesn’t cause conflict at all beyond an incredibly poorly executed plotline with Varys that goes nowhere. Characters also became incredibly stupid and some lost any traits that made them interesting (Jon in particular is painfully generic by the end). It essentially went from a brilliant, complex show to trite people only watched for the action and/or to see what happened to the characters. The worst part to me is that people endlessly went on about it “not having a happy ending”, but everyone other than Dany, Jon and Grey Worm got a happy ending. The final few seasons also have utterly awful writing, especially dialogue. There’s a video on YouTube where someone edited the final episode to have no dialogue at all, and it’s about 20-40 minutes of footage with nothing happening.
Daenerys had to always be talked out of solving problems with Dragonfire. If she didn’t die, it wouldn’t be an ending because we’d be left with a question about whether or not she might someday go Mad Queen.
The point of the show is that it’s fairly arbitrary who sits on the throne. Robert Baratheon because he won a rebellion, Joffrey because he was supposedly the son of the King (but really wasn’t) his brother because Joffrey was poisoned, then their mother because… well she was an important person that was in the capital. Big army diplomacy, claims based on blood relations to dead people who were previously the monarch, fast army diplomacy… that’s basically a monarchy in a nutshell. It’s really the advisors that run everything so why does it matter who sits on a fancy throne?
So it’s fitting that it ends with someone on the throne being arbitrary, it’s ultimately what a monarchy is, just some arbitrary person that people agree is the person that site on the throne. And it was the point of the story. It’s all just a silly game the powerful play while the peasants die for because of it.
None of the decisions were bad, it was just rushed and clumsy. Just people didn’t pay a lot of attention to the fact that Daenerys was using dragonfire to solve her problems more and more. Didn’t pay attention to the fact that who’s on the throne doesn’t much matter, the most important thing is that people agree on whoever it is. Didn’t pay attention to the fact that the prophecy was just some bullshit that made Stanis do horrible things (like burning people alive) and didn’t notice Daenerys was going down the same path I guess they thought she was the real chosen one. People just didn’t pay attention to what the point of the story was, and were disappointed that there was never a real Prince of Light, just a bunch of assholes getting a lot of people killed for their petty game of thrones.
I’m very glad I never got into the game of thrones TV show.
I read the books, but I couldn’t even handle the first season of the TV show.
Kind of feels the same way as never having joined titter and watching it circling the drain now.
I opted out of GoT after trying to watch S1 too. I could tell it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Then around season 5 the hype got so intense that I caved. Ended up binging seasons 1-5. And I have to say…even despite seasons 7 and 8 (and somewhat season 6) it was worth the watch. When it was good, it was really good.
I do think that bingeing seasons 1-5 really highlighted how bad the writing had gotten even in season 6. I tried to warn my friends that the outlook was not good but I wasn’t able to convince them. Some of them wouldn’t even admit it until season 8. Some as late as the last handful of episodes. But they all eventually came around.
That’s good to hear. I have given it a second watch some years back, but couldn’t get through The first season again, but it was such a phenomenon I imagine I’ll try again at some point
I read the books
How? They still aren’t written yet.
Game of thrones actually came out in 1996.
The first five books were already written and published by the time the TV show started.
The fifth one was published just a few months after that first season of the TV show.
They were being cheeky, cause the author is well into a decade+ writing the 2nd to last novel in the series.
I think most people have accepted at least the final book will never happen, that dudes not living the healthiest life right now anyways.
Oh, haha. I’ve had to explain it before to people who only know the TV show, my bad
No dramas, I was being cheeky. I’ve also read the books. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the show portrayed the books (merging of some characters, but expected). Until a point…
Nah, the show was really, really good. I just choose to forget large portions of the last 3 seasons.
Okay. That’s a huge part of the show though.
I am glad so many people are still defending it, there must be something to it
Lies, there’s the prequel Rogue One.
That’s it though.
Rogue One blew my mind. Absolutely loved it.
I know it’s probably an unpopular opinion but I liked Solo too. The parts I didn’t enjoy were the callbacks and stuff. I didn’t need to see all those, but I watched it twice and didn’t regret it.
I think Solo is decent as long as you try and forget the main character is Han Solo.
There’s no such thing as a popular star wars opinion anymore. Fearlessly enjoy your favorites and don’t worry about what other people tell you.
You and I are the same.
Solo has some interesting parts, mainly in the beginning.
No, there’s the original trilogy, the prequels, and the “Oh, it was Palpatine the whole time. …again. How original.”
8 really ruined it. 7 had problems but I could forgive some of them because “Disney still trying to figure it out.”
Then 8 happened. Closed off all story threads from 7 without any fanfare at all, and closed off all of its own potential threads within itself, leaving absolutely nothing for 9 to follow up on. Multiple character assassinations, and the entire Canto section could be deleted from the film and zero context would be lost.
9 was never going to succeed. It couldn’t have. There was nothing for it to build on from 8.
What story threads? There were no story threads. There was hopeful fans who wanted to create things out of thin air. That’s about it. There was more from 8 to lead off from than 7.
8 gets a lot of hate along with the rest of the sequels, and I remember being pissed off of its scorched earth treatment of every single plot point from 7 after watching it in the movie theatre, but looking back… at least it tried to be original. The scenes are visually memorable, and its message that even nobody can rise up to be a hero, is miles better than… whatever the 9 did with Rey.
I can’t understand why people think it was original. It felt like the storylines from ESB and RoTJ were thrown into a blender.
Like when the they go with Benicio del Toro I initially thought “well he’s going to betray them like Lando did”. But then I thought “nah… that’s too obvious” But nope, it didn’t do anything new other than removing the point of Lando’s plotline.
When Kylo Ren kill Snoke, it was just like Vader killing the Emperor.
I guess it’s original because it’s the only Star Wars movie where Luke Skywalker dies? Even then he faded away like Obi Wan did, but I guess because it’s Luke Skywalker it’s different somehow? Maybe because he cast an illusion spell before it happened? Like what’s actually original in TLJ?
They had Andy Serkis playing a villain in a Star Wars movie. With basically a blank slate that they could do anything with. Instead, nothing.
There was a mystery about who Rey is. Could reveal something interesting there. Instead they went with she’s related to nobodies. But nobodies that the First Order seemed to know about for some reason.
What was Luke looking for on that island? I guess nothing, he just went there to be a hermit or whatever.
Who are the Knights of Ren? Not even mentioned.
What did TLJ set up for the next movie? Rey and Kylo Ren fight? Rey and Kylo Ren kiss? Both of these things happen in RoS and it took like five minutes of screen time. Kylo Ren was the only villain left and there were maybe a couple dozen Resistance left at the end to TLJ. There wasn’t much they could do other than bring back an old villain, Ian McDiarmid was available so… somehow Palpatine returned.
I actually respect RoS for not trying to give some bullshit explanation. It’s just like “you like the Emperor, right?” Yup. “Well here he is. Darkside-cloning-whatever” Good enough for me! Now show him shooting lightning bolts! “Sure! BZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz!”
3/5 stars, because it showed Emperor Palpatine blast an X-Wing with lightning. RoS gave no fucks and I love it for that.
7 put Luke hiding on an island while a war was going on and left 8 to take the flak for explaining why. There was no way to make 8 without pissing people off.
Luke was one small puzzle piece of that shitpile
Then I don’t understand. 8 developed Poe further by exploring the character arc for the daring overconfident pilot. Finn was given a reason to fight for the rebellion instead of trying to run away with Rey every 5 minutes. We got some absolutely great character development with Rey having a natural inclination to the dark side which builds on the fact she used the dark side to defeat Kylo in 7, and we use her as a lens to explore the “born special” trope in Star Wars, getting into more of her past history and getting satisfying answers.
Yeah Disney cheaping out on paying Mark Hamill for more than one movie (other than cameos) was probably the biggest problem with the ST. But TFA portrayed Luke Skywalker with a cameo better than TLJ which had him for a whole movie.
Sure Disney killing off the character that symbolizes hope to save money was always going to piss people off, but FFS at least give us one movie where Luke goes on an adventure to save the galaxy. And the ending where “it was all just illusion” made me think “well this movie sucked… he never even left that fucking island, but at least he’s still alive so maybe he’ll do something in the next one” then the movie is like “haha nope!” It was the most infuriating way to handle a studio mandated character death possible.
Luke using an illusion to save the rebellion was the best ending to the arc they established. He spends the whole movie angry that everyone is mythologising him and expecting him to be perfect. Then he uses his myth to trick the bad guys. If he’d showed up in person, he would have been giving in to the pressure to be this mythical figure. His arc would have been accepting that everyone who thinks Luke Skywalker is perfect is right. But instead, he uses the myth for shenanigans, which is a very much Luke-like thing to do.
It’s all just Meta wankery to me. Like the writer is thinking “how do I portray this character has reached mythological levels in our culture? I know I’ll make the movie about that! I’m so brilliant!” Fap fap fap
It’s a “sir, this is a Wendy’s” kind of thing. This is a Star Wars. Fun action adventure movie. Kind of movie kids wear costumes when they go see it. It’s not that I don’t understand the “Star Wars movies are an illusion, but if that illusion inspires children, that’s what really matters!” message to it. And it’s not that the message is wrong. It’s just that it’s obvious and boring.
It’s fine to have this kind of wankery in a Knives Out kind of movie or whatever, but it’s a Star Wars FFS. Pew pew pew voom voom. The challenge is to have a message in the subtext of a fun action adventure, not to spew out an obvious and shallow message overlayed on top of the action that’s constantly telling the audience the movie isn’t real. We know it’s not real, but make a movie that lets us turn off our phones and pretend it’s real for a few hours.
Star Wars is about Taoist philosophy. The following two movies are about how America’s war on Vietnam is unjust, and the next three are about 9/11, which is really fucking clever because 9/11 hadn’t even happened yet when the first one came out and George Lucas successfully predicted it. Star Wars has always been about high-minded philosophy and politics. Your comment rests on the assumption that Star Wars is mindless entertainment that never comments on the real world, but that’s always been false.
And the ST is about Vladimir Putin working in the background before revealing that fascism has been there this whole time, we just didn’t notice. Somehow fascism returned! An authoritarian with thousands of super weapons capable of destroying entire cities suddenly attacks out of nowhere and everyone in the world has to band together to help the resistance.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine didn’t happen yet, but JJ Abrams predicted it! The JJ Abrams Star Wars movies were about high-minded philosophy and politics.
Your comment rests on the assumption that JJ Abrams movies are mindless entertainment that never comments on the real world, but that’s always been false.
Really though, the JJ Abrams movies have quite a lot to say about the emotional paths to fascism. From indoctrination to bad relationships with a father figure, the relationship to our ancestors, our need to restore a past empire. It’s all there. The prequels are very dated, just immature shots being fired at a W. Bush and Newt Gingrich. The JJ Abrams movies explore the emotions that lead fascism, which will always be relevant.
Ever see the statue of a confederate general being removed? If you did, you’d see a reproduction of an evil guy that died a long time ago being moved around with a crane. What do you see at the beginning of RoS again? You might see it as mindless entertainment but there’s a message there, it’s just that JJ Abrams isn’t spoon-feeding it to you.
Oh… soooooo say i’ve seen 8, but never got around to seeing 9… I should just chill and consider it done?
You should forget 7 or 8 ever existed and skip 9 completely.
This is the optimal solution.
I hadn’t seen 9 for the longest time and just read online how stupid it was. Then I watched it with that expectation and yes, totally confirmed. If anything you might want to watch it to see what a dumpster fire it is. But don’t prioritize it over other stuff you want to watch.
Except 9 isn’t “so bad it’s good,” it’s just bad. I would not recommend anyone watch episodes 7-9 at all.
I didn’t say its so bad that its good. I said its a dumpster fire.
Yup I was just chiming in to clarify for any other Lemmy users who could have gotten the wrong impression. Episode 9 is a dumpster fire with no redeeming qualities and should be avoided at all costs
Yes probably. I forget if it had a single good scene.
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TLJ was just ESB and RoTJ thrown into a blender while removing the point of everything.
I feel like with TLJ I watched a different movie than everyone else. I didn’t dislike it because it was different, I disliked it because it was unoriginal, a reboot that followed a reboot.
If you think 7 is good you are a hopeless movie watcher, it set up nothing just typical jj abrams mystery boxes, is a straight up rehashing of A new hope and it did nothing of note. 8 tried to deviate from another shadowy mysterious bad guy aka Wish.com palpatine and do something different and it did it well.
And then 9 is a straight up piece of shit the only good part of it is the first montage with Kylo Ten being the boss and fucking shit up, they really dropped the ball by backpedaling from 8
I didn’t say 7 was good, only that I was willing to be more forgiving since it was Disney’s first Star Wars film.
8 did nothing well but destroy Star Wars at every turn. I would say because of what it did, I consider 9 to be better than 8. 9 could never have been good, and that is completely the fault of 8.
9 is a flaming piece of shit on every level. I think its even insulting to call it a movie given how fucking shit it is.
How can you say that 9 is better than 8 because 8 destoryed stuff (what exactly?) Meanwhile 9 literally destroys the whole OT and PT story arc of Anakin/Vader
RoS seemed consistent with the OT to me. Well Rey doesn’t bring Palpatine back from the dark side (she doesn’t even try) but that’s because it’s impossible to redeem someone who’s dead. It’s a contrast between the relationship to family and relationship to ancestors. Nice message about not being defined by our ancestors which children learning about the horrible things their ancestors did might connect with.
But other than that it’s the same “destinies and prophecies are for suckers” as Star Wars has always been.
I’m just here to second the opinion that, while 7 was uninteresting, 8 basically destroyed Star Wars as a franchise, and that as imperfect as 9 is, it’s practically a miracle that it was as good as it was with what it had to follow.
Episode 9 was the worst thing in existence, well would have been if not for Season 8 of GoT.
They had a proper face-off of who can make the worst fucking thing in existence
A pity they already had the entire EU to work from and decided to obliterate it all… until they fucked up their own shit so badly they started bringing it back.
We could have had another trilogy centered around an established strong female character.
Mara Jade.
Sure, mix and match in some new ideas to make it work better as films than novels. The idea of Finn (a defecting stormtrooper) absolutely works in this setting.
But the original cast is too old for that time period!
Well we’ve now seen that Luke can be portrayed reasonably well with another actor and face and voice changing tech.
Have a whole trilogy set in basically the Mando/Asoka time period, but use the Mandalorians in a more adult story about the difficulty of establishing and maintaining alliances when the New Republic is young, the Imperial Remnant still exists, and now basically its chaos as various factions are picking sides.
Thrawn can be the big bad, but his presence is barely hinted at in 7, makes his appearance in 8 and has a major victory, and is defeated in 9.
You could even work in Boba Fett and Asoka! Maybe Thrawn sends Fett to assassinate Luke in 8 and he is seriously wounded or his new gaggle of Jedi trainees are fucked up, but Asoka helps Luke fend him off on the Millennium Falcon!
But uh nope, instead we got A New Hope v2, A B and C plot clusterfuck with a side of break hyperspace and all space combat lore, followed by Duct Tape and Bullshit.
We could have had another trilogy centered around an established strong female character.
Mara Jade.
The character that could’ve broken the barrier against having older women do action would’ve been Princess Leia. And they were too gutless to have her do anything. She was in a coma for most of TLJ and hid in a bunker (too afraid to face her own son) for the rest of it. They say they make movies about strong women, but it’s only if they’re young. You can have older men do action, but they aren’t going to have an older woman do action.
Excellent point, I totally agree.
We got a poorly written Holdo instead, closest thing to a strong older female character… I think she shoots a blaster… once?
Only older woman doing action in a recent major movie I can think of is Sarah Connor.
Brought back Ford for another Indi movies, that whole series with Liam Neeson, all of the Expendables movies, etc.
But yeah, the voice and face morph tech was basically available, they could have used Hamil and Fisher for the lines and most of the acting (you know, CGI and/or stunt doubles for the more intense action scenes same as basically every actor over 50 other than Tom Cruise), just maybe de age their voices and faces a tad to be set more proximally after 6, and focus more on her training, grand tragedy of her and han and Jacen becoming Caedus…
There is absolutely enough established lore there that could be worked into a trilogy focusing on the growth of Leia, showcasing a strong mother and warrior and diplomat/leader.
It is honestly completely baffling to me still that they threw out the EU. Sure, not all the plot lines are great, but they could have gone in so many directions with it.
I had always assumed the obvious problem with making a new trilogy would be:
Ok, we have so, so much established canon to work with, what parts of it can we focus on or interweave and tweak a bit to tell precisely the kind if story we want?
But nope, they just fucking binned it all.
Yeah maybe I’m just bitter because they advertised TLJ as “being about strong women” and it made me think we were going to see Leia do some bad ass shit with a light saber. I was so down for that. Instead she Mary Poppinsed her way across the screen and was in a coma for most of the movie.
Having older people do action is always a challenge, check the scene where Liam Neeson is climbing over a fence and there’s like 20 cuts before he makes it. But Star Wars is the kind of thing where that isn’t much of an issue. Carrie Fisher could wave around a s stick and throw out her hand and with some CGI she’s be deflecting blaster shots and throwing around Stormtroopers using the force.
Instead we don’t see Leia with a lightsaber until RoS and it’s CGI. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate them finally showing Leia with a lightsaber. I will always defend RoS because of this… and Palpatine blasting X-Wings with lightning bolts, because fuck it, it’s Star Wars have some fun people.
Ok, we have so, so much established canon to work with, what parts of it can we focus on or interweave and tweak a bit to tell precisely the kind if story we want?
Yeah but you gotta consider what Star Wars is about at it’s core: some kids going on an adventure to save the galaxy. A lot of the EU wouldn’t work because the actors that portray the characters are too old to do those stories in the same way. Still they should’ve had Leia with a lightsaber and bring in Thrawn, who could have some younger underlings himself. And yeah Mara Jade could make an appearance too, but it wouldn’t be a starring role. But at least have the older characters doing things to help and maybe have the good old “I’ll deal with this” thing happen so the kids can get away.
TFA was the best of the three because Han Solo did stuff. Luke and Leia just didn’t feel all that relevant in the other movies. I give RoS a pass because Luke Skywalker was dead in the story and Carrie Fisher was dead in real life. Not much could be done at that point. TLJ was where things needed to go down, but it just didn’t.
There is no Sequel Trilogy in Ba Sing Se.
Here we are safe. Here we are free.
There are eight movies and no sequel trilogy:
Last Turn To The Dark Side (prequel single movie cut)
Kenobi (Patterson Cut)
Rogue One
New Hope
Holiday Special
Lego Holiday Special
ESB
ROTJI wouldn’t even be mad if someone came back and actually made 7-9. Not a repeat of 4-6 that was called 7-9.
the local theater (we had one in our town) kept star wars playing (and only star wars) for a year. it wasn’t until around grease and jaws2 that they played anything else.
same thing happened for the other two films of what became the original trilogy.
basically turned me off to the whole ‘franchise’. all the films star wars kept from me as a small town kid by being on eternal repeat in the only theater accessible to me at the time.
i did see the original first three films–one time each, the first week of their initial runs.
but none since.
You know what would really suck though?
If they made any Matrix or Highlander sequels.
FEEL THE SHTAG
yeah, glad that these sequel fuckers didn’t think about mad max or the terminator either. there can be only one.
You’ve gone two steps too far, my friend.
It’s my pile of sand, and I’m keeping my head deep down within it. Now “temple of doom”, that was going too far. And dont get me started on the godfather
The ratio on this post makes me think there is hope for lemmy afterall.
For real
Star Wars (no, it wasn’t “EPISODE IV A NEW HOPE”), Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi were the only good SW movies. The rest are embarrassingly bad fanfiction. Just because people laugh at the prequel memes doesn’t make the prequels good. We as a society fell when we started laughing at all the horrible parts of the prequels and then asked ourselves “wait, if we’re being entertained by the prequels, does that mean they were good?” and coming to the absolute wrong conclusion.
I think technology is the issue. When they made Star Wars, Empire, and Return the special effects tech was garbage (clunky, expensive, and time consuming) so they had to rely on good story telling and practical effects, as the special effects tech has gotten better the story telling seems to rely on the tech as opposed to overcoming the tech (this is all movies/shows not just this franchise). Iirc the death star was a bunch of models of battle ships and other things pasted together, not sure if they did fly-by-wire (Red Dwarf was really good at this practical effect) for the space battles. As an aside, we also tend to like the ones we grew up watching, I’m in the original trilogy is the best (pushin 50), but to those that were my age for the prequels think the prequels are the better series, not sure about the sequels.
Are you kidding? Star Wars had amazing special effects for its day. Yeah, they look clunky now. But you know what? The special effects in Wizard of Oz looked clunky in the 1970s.
As for good story telling…what? This is Star Wars we’re talking about, not Fine Art. It’s pretty much a reshooting of The Hidden Fortress … in space!
It’s a fun movie, but damn do people lionize it far beyond what it ever actually was.
When they made Star Wars, Empire, and Return the special effects tech was garbage (clunky, expensive, and time consuming) so they had to rely on good story telling and practical effects
I’m curious, have you watched the original trilogy with the original practical effects, and not the crappy CGI that George added later?
Ok, I am being misunderstood. The “practical effects” were amazing by the standards of the day, and are now basically a thing of the past. The ingenuity was second to none, but the light sabers, blaster bolts etc “special effects” were not the best. And yes I did see that atrocity and hate that I can’t find copies without the added crap. If George had waited another 5 or 10 years it could have been better. My main point, and it goes beyond star wars, is much of cinema and TV rely on CGI special effects and the writers hope that will get them over the line.
Clunky = takes a lot of space, expensive = self explanatory, time consuming = getting models to behave properly
Ah, thanks for clarifying. That’s an interesting position. I never found the light sabers or blaster bolts in the original trilogy to look that bad. And the practical effects, models, and sets, certainly look superior to the CGI sets in the prequels.
If George had waited another 5 or 10 years it could have been better.
I’m not so sure about this. I think that the limitations George had at the time ended up being part of what made the original trilogy so good. If George had access to better special effects, would we still have gotten scenes like these?
spoiler
Or would we have gotten this instead?
spoiler
George being able to do “whatever he wants” does not necessarily lead to the best movie.
and hate that I can’t find copies without the added crap
Search up “Harmy despecialized” and “4k77”. There are many other Star Wars fans who feel the way you do, and they have taken matters into their own hands :)
The Star Wars Trilogy Trilogy!
This is the way
This is the way.
I had a professor who didn’t even accept the whole trilogy, and (probably at least in part ironically) attributed some amount of societal problems to the third movie.
It’s actually the second movie that fucks it all up. The whole point of Luke is that he wasn’t born special, he could have been anyone. ESB throws that out the window and makes him a boring chosen one. Star Wars goes from being a story about the power of the workers to a story about force royalty
Hmm, maybe that was it.
wasn’t he already the chosen one by the force in the first movie?
Nope, it’s never mentioned in Star Wars (1977)
By third, I am assuming you mean Return of the Jedi?
I am assuming so as well. I don’t remember exactly which movie he said, but it wouldn’t make sense for it to be the second of three.
Well I was not sure if you meant the third movie released, being Episode 6, or the 6th movie released, being Episode 3.
I like how Star Wars is confusing in this way. It’s fun.
Given the way things are going right now re: storylines and plot, yes this is how you answer that question.
No one hates Star Wars half as much as Star Wars fans.
Then I must be the biggest star wars fan
I love start wars
I have memories of literally asking this to my dad when I was a child and he telling me that they would never ever make more star wars movies
