PT Is The Force Awakens praised due to prequel reception?

MindlessMonster: I wouldn’t worry too much about TFA presaging a descent in commercial/Hollywood filmmaking.

Two points:

-Rian Johnson, who is the very antithesis of the mimic Abrams, was a brave choice for the Disney Empire (I almost think they confused him with Joe Johnston and called the wrong number) and will likely pay off in artistic dividends. With Ep. VIII, we’ll see once again what an auteurist SW movie looks like. (And if this turns out to be the only success story, then hey, one is better than zero.)

-We’re a long ways away from the glory years of the Hollywood blockbuster (late 70s/80s), when Spielberg, Lucas, Zemekis, Cameron et al. were working their magic routinely. Since then, we’re lucky to get one popcorn classic a year (this year, it happened to be Mad Max…and I’ve been told that Pixar’s Inside Out is something special). If anything, there’s been an improvement from the nadir that was the 90s.



The good news is that avid moviegoers are living in the best possible times. One could spend the rest of his/her life watching the best that Hollywood, independent film, and world cinema has to offer (and why would anyone settle for anything less than “the best”?). Thanks in part to the digital innovations of Lucas, filmmakers have more opportunity to ply their craft, and my God are there talented folks emerging.

 

If you think TFA lacks imagination and quality you are looking at it from the most superficial level possible. Why don't you take your own advice that you are telling the filmmakers to do and dig a little deeper into things. The familiarities you are seeing are there for a much deeper purpose than you are willing to give credit for - and in my opinion the way they incorporated the themes into the plot, characters, locations, etc is one of the best and deepest aspects of the movie. The way they manifested these themes of fate, family, what we hand down to our children, history repeating itself, the past and fixing mistakes into the characters and story and everything else is brilliant and profound

 

There is a difference between rebooting a franchise by copying the same beats, settings, villains, and technology from previous films, and taking a character and putting them in a different setting and putting your own spin on it. Batman Begins is tonally different than Batman '89. It's more true to the comics, and doesn't attempt to imitate past Batman films. Casino Royale is an adaptation of the first Bond novel. But anytime there's a new Bond actor the films shed the skin of old and essentially reboot the series. It's nothing new. It was a great film, because it had great source material. I think Quantum was "okay", but Skyfall was a disaster -- not critically -- but for me because it was too obvious in its attempts at emulating The Dark Knight and was a return to the Moore era of winking at the camera. Spectre had a muddled plot, and was simply a disaster. It's pretty obvious the Craig films have run their course. Moonraker, well, I can't really comment, but Jaws was at least an iconic villain.

Of sorts. It's more of a prequel, but it does plenty to differentiate itself.

To you it isn't a reboot. To you. I know many that feel that it is. Even critics that praised the film have remarked on its similarities. I could go into detail, but we all know the issues. I do think what TFA precisely did was new to Star Wars. It is the first film in the saga to show us nothing new. Nothing new at all. ROTJ, which now has gone up in estimation for me since watching TFA, uses the Death Star II as a bait and switch. That was unique and creative, even if building a second Death Star wasn't. TFA doesn't put a twist on the concept other than it being retrofitted into a world and being 10 times larger. Just one example of how it takes the template of whats come before and instead of expanding or putting an interesting twist on what's come before on it it simply regurgitates it.

I will say it did expand upon force powers, but in a way that makes every force user before TFA look weak in comparison. Not exactly a positive contribution to the saga.

But with TFA being the success that it is it gives Hollywood all the more reason to continue down this road. Yeah, there's a few duds here and there, but it's safer to make a sequel or a soft reboot that relies on the iconography of old than to throw money at new ideas. Lucas was making the same point with Charlie Rose.

That's JJ's mo. That's what makes TFA even more frustrating, because the guy keeps getting away with this. I knew he would try to pull the same shenanigans with Star Wars and I was proven right, and yet critics and audiences eat it up. He's a con-artist.

Everything is incredibly politically correct these days. Horror isn't even immune to it. There's less nudity, there's less drug use, there's less machoism, there's less excess. Everything feels extremely calculated. We want to rid society of certain norms and progress ourselves culturally, but it creates this hyper-sensitive landscape that is just as bad as Hollywood during the Red Scare. Instead of government censoring films, now artists and studios are voluntarily doing it themselves.

I was watching The Toxic Avenger three months ago and I was amazed with how incredibly daring it was. Sure it's pure schlock, but still. Robocop functions as an action movie and a satire. Its humor is incredibly crude and its action is just brutal. Die Hard feels very 'real' and 'raw' in ways you simply do not see anymore. It doesn't feel like a committee was formed to determine how to make these films appeal to the average joe. They're comfortable in their own skin. It's that kind of filmmaking that is just so exceedingly rare these days.

I'll concede the point.

But it was safe, because you know Luke is going to be in future installments. Han is a perfectly viable substitute and he can inject the type of humor JJ wants featured in his films. Han and Leia being separated is negated by the fact that they're eventually together in the film, and they're right back to their quipy selves...like they were never apart. The film chose to ignore the galactic politics because it was afraid of being compared to the prequels. It recycled the same threat, because they couldn't come up with a better one. It reused X-Wings and TIEs, because it wants so badly to be the OT. The planets are dull and earth-like, because they didn't want to offend anyone with exotic worlds that require cgi, and they once again want to evoke that OT feel. It's all very calculated and inorganic. That's why it's safe.

And at one point AOTC was considered a better film than TPM and it's only been a month. Things change.

I'd love to know what these risks were.

Well, I hated the film, but I won't get into that here. I'm not sure what risks it really took. There's one that springs to mind, but the only other "risks" I can think of is the mindless action that renders you numb since you're not invested in the characters; there's Superman ignoring the destruction of Metropolis and the death of thousands in order to throw another awesome punch; and there's the convoluted plot involving Zod that doesn't make a lick of sense and involves Lois for reasons.

A cartoon series is a far cry from live-action cinema.

I said "film of its kind". It was revolutionary at the time for a film series with the pedigree of Star Wars, that wields an incredible influence over other effects driven blockbusters, to use digital film. It's why AOTC will always look "off" to many, but it was a necessary risk to progress the technology. Personally, I think AOTC looks fantastic, but many find the digital photography off-putting. It was incredibly bold of Lucas to go in that direction when the technology was obviously in its infancy.

He reuses Tatooine, because Jabba is on Tatooine. There's a logic to it. It's not a gratuitous "remember this" addition to ROTJ. The reuse of the DS I do not agree with, but it was woven more ingeniously into ROTJ's plot than it was into TFA's where it feels superfluous and shoehorned. And you're really grasping with that point about TPM. This goes back to what I said early. Reboots are fine when they take the elements from before and put their own twist on them. It's a balancing act. TPM shares similarities with ANH, but no one would mistake TPM for ANH when watching the films.

Oh, how I loathe that Stuckmann video. Temple of Doom does not stick to a formula. Temple of Doom is a departure from Raiders, just like ESB is a departure from ANH. I hate what Stuckmann is advocating in his video. We should collectively be pushing studios to produce something new, not acquiescing to cookie-cutter formulaic movie-making. Indiana Jones isn't like Star Wars with its story anyway. It's more like Bond, it's more self-contained. Star Wars is a continuing SAGA so when a film soft reboots the series it stands out like a sore thumb.

 

Thanks.

Plenty more where that came from! Watch this space.

SeventySeven, you've done well.

When my new apprentice, Darth Paragraph, arrives, he will take care of you.


* * *

No, but good observation concerning TFA being a sort of "mobius strip". It is, isn't it?

The simple fact is, the OT cannot be replicated, let alone the autocratic audacity of George Lucas: independent filmmaker, San Francisco nerd, and artistic genius.

Star Wars has become a corporate behemoth subsumed by a corporate leviathan, its rag-tag, off-the-cuff brio long gone.

Han and Chewie's cargo ship devours the Falcon, but Han and Chewie board the Falcon successfully and leave the cargo ship behind. Alas, Disney *is* the cargo ship.

Really? That's just sad.

"Remember, guys, not the prequels" is also the message that was put out by the marketing campaign; and both J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy directly (Jar Jar jokes, anyone?).

Seems print media is only too happy to run with the same trope and do the job of Disney for them. The geek-media complex keeps coming up trumps.

In the words of RedLetterMedia/Mike Stoklasa: you may not have noticed, but your brain did!

TFN user StampidHD280pro had some good remarks on this critical aspect of the movies a few years ago:

From what I can gather so far, the success in the Saga's use of mirroring isn't in its perfect execution where left becomes right and ROTJ becomes ROTS and so on, but in the constant layers of repetition among the films and in themselves, sometimes all too obvious, other times less so. . . . I can certainly see all this repetition as uncreative, though it seems to me that Lucas has always been both a borrower and a recycler of ideas. What does impress me about his technique is the tendency for so much of these repetitions to go right over our heads. Perhaps because we don't expect them. Perhaps its more like a cinematic slight-of-hand.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...iew-on-youtube.30737825/page-45#post-31479826

 

Great points above! Mindless Monster

Of course there are some true PT-haters who say they like the film (or have convinced themselves they liked the film) when they don't consciously (or subconsciously). Just like some Bush voters -- to their dying day -- will not admit that he was a terrible president even though he started an unnecessary war, totally botched his response to Katrina, led the country into its greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, and ballooned the deficit with unnecessary spending, an unnecessary war, and unnecessary tax cuts for the very richest. Yes, of course, there are TFA fans who are just like this.

People don't like to admit that they are wrong, and some people went very far out on a limb to say what the "perfect formula" was for making a good Star Wars film: No George Lucas (or only his basic ideas), bring in another director, less CGI, more practical effects, less talking (even the OT had tons of talking), more lively characters, less kiddie stuff (though people's nostalgia goggles seem to prevent them from seeing all the kiddie stuff in the OT), etc. When it's as easy as saying "Yep, I really liked TFA," to prove that you were right about something, then certainly some people are going to take that easy option. Also, some people are so self-involved that they'll be happy about something just because they got what they wanted. Oh, no obvious CGI and no "over"-choreographed duels! Yay, great movie!

Now, of course, the type of person I'm describing accounts for the vast minority of people who liked TFA, but sure, there are douches like this out there. I think PT-negativity has little to do with TFA's positive response. (Heck, ROTS had a very positive initial response, and it still does really, and it was part of the PT.) I'd bet half the people in the US and 90% of people internationally have no clue about PT-bashing. My brother is a middle school teacher, and he'd never heard about it until I mentioned it to him this summer, and he didn't even like the 1st 2 PT films.

I think it's pretty obvious why a lot of people like this film. General audiences liked this film because it was a whole lot like ANH, and ANH is a good film; TFA had a very similar plot, took a similar approach to establishing its characters, had similar pacing (at least in TFA's 2nd half), many similar action sequences, etc., and it also gave older audiences a nice shot of nostalgia with all the visual similarities. Most people only have a vague recollection ANH, so they don't notice much of the resemblance. Also, many people are fine with total remakes of films, so even among many fans, the ANH reboot issue didn't matter with many of them. Plus, TFA is probably the best for sheer escapist fun since ANH. TESB was darker and ROTJ had deeper stuff going on with Luke, Vader, and Palps (the rest of ROTJ has that fun escapist feel). So, for escapist fun, TFA was arguably the best in that department since ANH. That's a pretty long gap for those waiting for a Star Wars film equal to ANH in terms of escapist fun.

With film critics, I have no idea what's going on there. Trek, with all its story problems, got 95% positive reviews, Skyfall 93%, Fury Road 98%, even Mission Impossible: 4 and 5 both got 93%, while MI: 1 - 3 all got between 55% and 70%. I'm no expert on the Mission Impossible films, but all 5 of those films seem about the same to me, so it seems pretty inexplicable that MI: 4 & 5 are at 93%, while the earlier MI films were reviewed so much worse. ANH and TESB fared far worse with critics when they were released and are still only at 94%. So, all those above films, including MI:4 and MI:5, are pretty much equal to some of most popular films in film history? Yeah, I don't think so, and I think reaction of general audiences to the above films indicate that critical standards have changed and the requirements for a positive review are far lower, for whatever reason.

 

I didn't mean that as a dig at her, but she had some tough times and issues to deal with. Her character was the most well treated classic character as she didn't give up and walk away like the classic male characters. Hopefully that wasn't intended as some odd statement by the filmakers.

 

One may add the enthusiastic number of state executions he signed off on while he was Governor of Texas and his religiously-motivated opposition to and ban on stem cell research. Not to mention the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, etc. And now, we may get a whole new epoch of madness with Sarah Palin and Donald Trump.

I was just re-watching the New Atheist "Four Horsemen" video on YouTube yesterday and Christopher Hitchens came out with another striking political/tribal/pseudo-religious example. I'll quote from a transcript (corrected):

I used to have this when I was younger in arguments with members of the Communist Party. They sort of knew that it was all up with the Soviet Union. Many of them had suffered a lot, and sacrificed a great deal, and struggled, you know, manfully to keep what they thought was the great ideal alive. Their mainspring had broken, but they couldn't give it up, because it would involve a similar concession.

Very widespread phenomenon. When you want so desperately to believe something, you will. Evidence to the contrary be damned half the time.

That said, perhaps we shouldn't stray into psychoanalyzing people too staunchly.

What you're describing, in essence, is a slightly perverse situation where the conspicuous lack of something is felt more important, or more strongly, than what's actually on the screen. I think we can all by sympathetic to that, but hopefully, over the longer span of time, we watch things we genuinely like, rather than using them as simple palliatives or talismans (a bit like Kylo Ren and his obsession with Vader) to drive out discomfit and doubt.

Well, yes. But to not be too condemning, I think we should acknowledge it's something everyone has a little bit. I hope I wouldn't be petty enough to rate something just because (or primarily because) it's not something else, however.

It's possibly not something that consumes most people. We were talking after seeing TFA and my own brother likes ROTS, ANH, and ROTJ, in particular, or so he said, with some love for TESB, he then added. At the same time, he told me doesn't much care for TPM and AOTC, but in a way that didn't single them out so much as express -- in his own manner -- slight incredulity at the notion that one is compelled to like everything equally and not have a mind of their own. He seemed to think it was absurd to be expected to love everything in a set or sequence (he's said so before in another discussion about pop music). I respect that, but told him I see Star Wars as a "Cubist masterpiece" and love all six, but he was unmoved by that. While he was more negative about TFA in conversation than I was (exceedingly negative), I did broadly share his opinion, and even fueled his criticisms by making plenty of my own.

Can't help thinking a climate of negativity surrounding the PT has caused even people who proclaim a lack of awareness to hold some of their dislike/disdain, however. But perhaps I'm just falling into the fallacy you spoke of at the start.

What you're saying there, alas, is that a lot of people don't really look at Star Wars as a saga: as a tightly-integrated thing. They only judge each film that comes along on whether it's entertaining or not. Which is not a bad criteria, but very much a "consumerist" one that doesn't take much note of these films as artistic entities, or as a layered mythological opus. A bit dispiriting, if you're right.

Certainly, I think it's the case, however, that even a lot of fans don't much care for the movies as art; or, at the least, as artistic experiments. Entertainment value is again the main criterion, rather than fans accepting the films as an expression of a grand vision (a foundational idea that has been heavily mocked online since the release of TPM). I might despair a bit at that, too, but it does present opportunities to put different ideas out there.

So-called "genre" films seem to be looked at as normal now. There was a time when they were unusual: scarce and not at all alike. But contemporary cinema has become saturated in these sorts of movies, so I suspect they're being played off against each other, rather than being considered effective as full-blown fantasy vehicles or not. The parameters of measurement are perhaps a great deal looser than they used to be. A kind of geek solipsism seems to have infected film criticism. But then, I'm posting on a Star Wars message board, so I can hardly talk.

 

Okay. And she didn't give up like Padme did.

 

PiettsHat has done it again folks.This brotha Knows what's up.

 

I don't think the positive reaction to TFA is directly connected to any sort of "hatred" or "rejection" of the prequels. Most of the general public don't know or don't care about this franchise as much as we hardcore fans do. and thus aren't that aware of all the PT bashing and "trilogy" wars that have gone on online the last decade since ROTS. They may prefer the new movie compared to the prequels because it strikes more nostalgic chords with people due to the throwback feel to the OT,but that's the extent of any sort of connection to the PT, which all themselves were huge movies in terms of box office,but not the phenomenon TFA is and the OT were in their day. In short people do genuinely like this movie because it is entertaining, and frankly that's all a majority of movie goers require. Is that a bad thing? I think not. I know some among us do think the wide appeal of TFA is bad for whatever reason and detrimental to the future of Star Wars, but as with the prequel bashers, it's a sizable and vocal minority that uses the internet as their soap boxes to voice their opinions, and negative voices tend to be louder than those who are positive, as those that like things tend to not speak up loudly over said things.. It's just the nature of the internet opinion forums like this one and others.

I am one of those weird fans who don't put any the movies on a pedistal and don't see one trilogy as superior to another. To me TFA was just another good, entertaining installment of a saga started 39 years ago. I wasn't looking for anything groundbreaking or revolutionary. I was looking for a visit with some old friends, getting to know and like some new characters and revisiting a universe that I hadn't seen in a decade and to be entertained. TFA met all requirements in spades.

Now....do I hope we get more "meat" in EPISODE VIII and EPISODE IX ? Absolutely. I think we will get it. If EPISODE VIII ends up being THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK redux, then and only then I think we may have a problem. There will definitely be "rhymes" and "parallels" with ESB (just as AOTC did),but I have little doubt RIan Johnson will still manage to throw a few curve balls into the mix.

 

The bizarre part of that of course is that TFA really in many ways continues the story of the PT as TFA resets and "ignores" the OT story.

Virtually all they accomplished has been undone.

 

I don't much get this either.
I know some call TFA a remake or rehash of ANH. I don't think that is totally accurate but take Fistful of Dollars and The magnificent Seven. Those are remakes and well liked ones. The Departed by Scorsese is also a remake.
This is not a new thing. Some remakes are pretty bad, like the recent Total Recall or the Psycho one from some years ago. Others are quite good.

Yes studios can at times go back to the well and mine something well known in order to churn out a film. But that doesn't always pay off. The Total Recall remake I mentioned made less than 60 M$ in the US on a 125 M$ budget.

Also, to me, the past 10+ years we have gotten a lot of films I never thought I would see.
An Ant Man film, a Guardians of the Galaxy film. A new Mad Max movie that is pretty insane.
Kingsman, Kick-Ass, Lord of the Rings. Films like the Martian, Gravity, Interstellar, Inception, I like those a lot too.

Overall I am more excited about films than I was in the mid-late 90's. Sure there were some good films, but you also had stuff like Twister, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, Godzilla, Armageddon etc.
Then you have TV where a lot of interesting stuff is made. And now actors are no longer "slumming it" if they are in TV. Breaking Bad, True Detective, Game of Thrones, House of Cards, a lot of the superhero shows plus a lot more.

The issue I think some people had with the PT is that they didn't much like them. Some thought they were poorly made with some bad or uninspired acting, annoying characters, less than good writing and directing.
As for impact, I would say the OT had a bigger impact than the PT.

As for CGI, The Abyss then T2 were films that showed what CGI can do and they started the ball rolling. Then Jurassic Park made it really big. And this was early 90's. So CGI heavy films had been made before TPM. TPM had a lot of CGI sure but by then it was quite a common tool. The Matrix and The Mummy film both came out that same year and both had quite a bit of CGI.

@SW Saga Fan

I have seen some here and other places that seem to want TFA to be hated. Some even seemed to want it to bomb even before the film had been released.
I have seen argue that TFA is "over rated" that the praise it is getting is undeserved and unearned.
That it is a bad film but people have just fooled themselves into thinking it is good.
More than one have argued that the positive reviews are only because Disney bribed each and every reviewer out there.

As for backlash, pretty much all really big films gets backlash of some sort, Titanic got it, Avatar got it. There are some that "bash" on popular films just to get a rise out of people.
So it isn't unique to Star Wars. But since SW is very big, it is subjected to this.

But the vibe I am getting from some is that the backlash against the PT is "fake" and the backlash some hope is coming for TFA is "real". That the former was created by evil people and it has caused people to hate films they really like. The latter is instead how people "wake up" and realize how terrible TFA really is.
More than once I have come across the argument that people have been "bullied" into disliking the PT. That anyone that says they don't like the PT, that isn't how they really think, they just say that to fit in. In short, this tries to invalidate the opinion of all those that don't like the PT.

I was around here but didn't post back when TPM and AotC was released. And some like the films and other did not. The reception was not the same as TFA, nor were the reviews the same.
The reviews were more mixed and the "Basher" and "Gusher" camps were formed pretty quickly.

Someone asked about the history of how the PT was received, a lot of those old threads are still here. Take a look. I have and it is interesting how some of the same arguments are still around. The difference is who is making them.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface[/quote]


I only see some people say that they want TFA to be hated. But come on, Say any of that crap on reddit, other fourms etc and you'll get downvoted. Some people might want TFA to fail but you know what? That won't happen. There are more people who love SW than ever and thats not even including newcomers. The ST will be loved even more then the OT or the PT because of the generation which we are in.

Hell, The ST is loved to DEATH by Tumblr. So really, it won't matter. The Media is bigger, the fanbase is bigger and they will defend the ST to earths end.

I don't however, agree that people should "Wake Me up inside.png" to see that Tfa is a bad film though.

 

I disagree a lot about Skyfall, I thought the film was great. Spectre's biggest problem was that the villain didn't work and his actions and motivations made no sense. And he tried way too hard to be EEVVVIIILLLL.

As for Bond in general, again take the transition from Connery to Lazenby to Moore to Dalton to Brosnan. Did they really change the formula all that much? You have the bullet barrel, opening action sequence, main titles and then the film proper starts. The films contain a lot of the same beats, chase sequences, briefing by M, gadgets from Q, talk with the villain, meet romantic interest, some fights, the villain explain their evil plan and final action scene and Bond shags the girl.
The tone did change a bit, Moore was more comical and witty, Connery and Dalton more grim and serious. But the changing of the actors didn't change the film formula all that much. And I wouldn't call it a reboot. With Craig, now there was a bigger change.

I don't deny that the film reuses stuff, perhaps one or two things too many. But that is nothing new.
And I think it did enough new things to make it not a reboot.

Why are you trying to make JJ into some sort of criminal?
He makes a film, a lot of people see it and enjoy it. Where is the crime in that?
Just because you don't like the films doesn't mean that the rest of the world must agree with you or that they are wrong for liking his films.
His Trek films, are not the best but they are far from the worst. ST I, V, VII, IX and X are ALL worse than his.

As I don't watch much horror films, so I can't comment.
From what I've seen the Saw and Hostel films seem bloody and violent a plenty.

But I do know that some people are annoyed at films that try too hard to be PG-13 in order to sell more tickets. Instead of being a hard R, they pull their punches and cut down on violence etc to get a lower rating.
As for nudity, that seems a more American thing. A film can get away with loads of violence but a few swear words and some brief nudity then everyone gets upset.

A trend that bothers me is the use of torture. Both good guys and bad guys use and it gets more and more horrible and to me, rather unpleasant at times.

I don't agree, imagine if Anakin had not been in TPM except for the very end. Or Obi-Wan.
Would that be safe? They would be in the next film after all.

Luke is a very popular character and not using him is risky.
Take Lucas, he put Yoda, R2, C3PO in TPM. Did they have to be there? No.
But they were there because they were popular characters.

That the remnants of the Empire would be a threat is logical. That pieces of it would survive and that they would try and strike back.
From what I know, a lot of EU had the remnant of the Empire as a threat for a long time. Then you had the Yuzan Wong or something.

On Imdb, a few months after release AtoC had about 30 000 votes and an average of 7,7.
TFA, as of today, has over 400 000 votes and an 8,3 average.

In Cap 2 they took SHIELD, essentially the good guy agency and made it into villains.
Not all of them sure but now SHIELD was a threat and not an ally. It asked the question, how much power are we comfortable to give away and how much is security worth?

Guardians and Ant Man? They were not very big comics and the former is almost devoid of any of the heroes or characters from the other films and the latter has a guy that can shrink and rides on ants.

Superman kills, that was a big deal to some. To me it made perfect sense that he would have to do that.
Zod's plan is quite easy to follow. He knows that the Codex is with Superman and once he picked up on the signal from the probe ship, he knew he had a way to bring back Krypton.
So he goes, forces Superman to come to him and he plans to get the Codex, use the ship and transform Earth to new Krypton.
About the only thing that is not explained is what Jor-El planned to do with the Codex and if he knew about the probe ship.

Not so much these days. I remember those days, once RotJ was over, there was nothing. I didn't bother with the Ewok films because they didn't look interesting. Eventually you had the films on VHS but not the kinds of TV you have now. From 2004 and onwards, you have lots of SW. You can watch the films on big screens and with great sound.

Tatooine is featured in five of the six PT/OT films. It is by far the most shown planet.
As for the end of TPM, it echoes both ANH, with the plot to blow up a big ship with small fighters, and RotJ that intercut between a ground battle, a space battle and a lightsaber battle.

It is a balancing act I agree, and to me, TFA does enough new things that it isn't a reboot or remake.
I certainly think they could have been more daring but I am very satisfied with the end result and very interested in what happens next. Of all SW films, TFA has the most cliff hanger ending. ESB had it to some extent with the recue of Han and the Vader question. TFA's end is very open, what happens now?

[/QUOTE]


I think you overlook a lot in Temple. It starts with an opening action scene, that is largely disconnected from the rest of the film. Indy escapes in a plane. Then we are told about the McGuffin and that evil wants it because it makes them powerful. There is a "creepy" scene with a crawly, snakes/bugs. You have Indy fight a big guy, played by the same actor I think. The fight ends very bloody. Then there is a chase scene and at the end the villain is destroyed by the thing he wanted.
The TONE is quite different yes and it is much darker. But much of the formula is there.

ESB changed a lot more from ANH than Temple did from Raiders. In ESB you have the big action scene in the first part and the end is much quieter. The good guys loose and has to run away and one is still captured. The rug is pulled out from underneath the hero and he now has a lot of questions to ponder.

And this video also brings up the point that Indy III got similar complaints that TFA is getting, it is too familiar, too much of the same thing, it reuses a lot.

@SW Saga Fan

Oh please. Maybe you didn't figure it out but it was very obvious to me in 1999. The end borrowed a lot from both ANH and RotJ and it wasn't exactly hard to spot. I noticed it and so did everyone I know that saw the film.
I wouldn't call it ingenious or clever, contrived is more like it.
In order for the plot to work, the TF withdraw all but one of their ships for no apparent reason, Qui-Gon brings a little kid into a war zone for no reason except to hide and stay safe. And the TF are very kind to leave the Naboo fighters fueled and armed in the palace they control. And they are even programmed to fly up to the TF ship. Very convenient.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Mindless Monster

Oh, how I loathe that Stuckmann video.

I had to check that out - very strange. The basic premise is 'mmm, some people are dissing this film, so I better defend it', despite, in comparison to the anti PT campaign, the 'dissing' being pretty insignificant compared to the power of the The Force Awakens.

Anyhow he typically seams disproportionally upset by this, despite contributing significantly to the aforementioned PT campaign, so sets about a defence based on - guess what - Lucas's methods used in the PT. That's right, look here is Lucas talking about poetry, so it's not a re-hash - all this films are formulaic. So stop bashing TFA. BTW the PT films are still bad movies.
Also, how come no ones talking about the cinematography and looking at these films from an artistic perspective? Yeah let's do that Chris - the PT is full of examples like the one you point out...errr....maybe not...
Nope those films are bad movies.

So the basic premise is hey give this film a chance, they are formulaic just like the others and contain great cinemaography. OK. Live and let live with all the films eh?

Nope the PT are still bad films - here's some more jokes and laughs.

After over 15 years of hate there are maybe one or two defensive PT videos on youtube, some with comments closed of course. There is not quite 100% liking of TFA, so a passionate plea must be made against the critics, despite that passionate plea still containing a pop at the other films.

So are you allowed to not like a Star Wars movie or not? Which is it? And someone is so upset about the slightly blemished response to TFA, now maybe they know what it's like when someone continuously trashes a movie they like. Well not yet anyway, because of the the ridiculous contradictions in the video.

 

Note the bolded word. I'm with Mindless Monster on this. There was no reason at all for a diminutive Imperial remnant faction to be a threat to the galaxy-spanning New Republic. The plot bent over backwards just to make it a threat.

The Legends EU dispensed with the Imperial Remnant as a major threat after readers became bored with Superweapon Of The Week plots. The Yuuzhan Vong were introduced because readers wanted something more original as an antagonistic faction. The writers of the old EU certainly didn't keep the Imperial Remnant around as a conveniently evil and belligerent direct threat to the New Republic as late as 34 ABY. Without the Sith influence, it actually becomes more moderate.

To be clear, an Imperial remnant faction is not the successor state to the Galactic Empire in either Canon or Legends. The New Republic is the successor state to the Galactic Empire. The New Republic has inherited the vast wealth, resources and government institutions of the Galactic Empire and the Galactic Republic before it. Those, along with the component star systems, are the only parts of the Empire that actually matter. The First Order is just a small tinpot dictatorship founded by a minority of sore losers of a civil war. Any other remains of the Empire now just amount to a few angry dudes and their battered old ships, now forcibly disarmed by the victorious NR and existing only at the sufferance of a Galactic government that seemingly couldn't be arsed to crush them. Hardly a new Separatist Crisis or Rebellion in the making.

That's the backstory. It has the possible contrivance of the NR not being bothered to wipe out any and all hardliners of the ancien régime like any respectable revolutionary government would at least try to do, but at least there's a Galactic Concordance treaty that reduces all Imperial remnants to effectively clients of the NR. Now weak and non-threatening, these remnants being overlooked by the NR is understandable.

But alas, TFA depicts the FO as strong and very threatening: operating with absolute impunity on Jakku; building the largest superweapon to have ever existed right under the NR's nose and in direct contravention of the Galactic Concordance. It seems the plot required an Empire-in-all-but-name to survive. The Galactic Concordance now seems to be a mere Great Contrivance.

The underlying political story of TFA is just jawdroppingly bad, IMO. Contrivance after contrivance takes place in order to extract a favoured neo-Rebel vs. neo-Imperial confrontation. The entire New Republic government is decapitated, undoing the work of the OT's protagonists, and conveniently allowing this confrontation to go on unimpeded by NR intervention.

Perhaps there's substance beyond contrived marketability, but it seems to be just crude neoconservative fantasising about conveniently pure evil foreign powers that limp-wristed liberal democracies are too spineless to subdue before the former attack the latter with secret WMDs. Maybe that's just the inevitable yet unintentional end result of the contrivances to bring back the Rebels vs. Empire conflict. To me, the return of Imperial villains seemed far from logical and ultimately quite detrimental to the story. I think Abrams, Kasdan, Arndt and Lucas could have easily thought of something more original, especially with the mistakes and successes of the Expanded Universe to learn from.


EDIT: In retrospect, it seems harsh and digressive to harp on this one point, so to be clear, I just think this is one of those things on which my tastes diverge from those of a large number of people who watched TFA. They liked the revival of an Imperial faction just fine, and good for them. There does seem to be a divergence of tastes and interests when it comes to much of TFA. People seemed to want different things out of Star Wars to start with and TFA gives some people more to enjoy than others. "Some" are evidently more numerous than "others."

 

I wish I had read all the posts in this thread before posting myself. I thought Mindless Monster brought up some interesting points about trends in Hollywood a couple of pages back, and I was hoping we could get back to that bigger issue.

TFA just seems to be symptomatic of the ever-increasing trend towards recycling ideas through sequels, reboots, pre-existing properties, or young adult literature that's virtually indistinguishable. In fact, to me TFA is taking this approach to an new level by presenting a soft reboot of ANH as a chronological sequel to RTOJ.

Now I'm certainly not criticizing those who like TFA, though I don't believe it has the universal love of the fandom that some do. (Universally well-liked by the general public, yes; universally loved by fandom, not as much -- but yes, not as divisive as TPM.) What I mean by not criticizing is that I think some feel uncomfortable when the rehash issue is brought up, as I think this topic makes others think that it looks like they are missing something. However, film is immersive, especially JJ's style. It presses forward so fast that you don't get the chance to reflect. It's quite unlike reading a novel. For instance, I'm quite sure that if someone read the ANH novel and then TFA novel right afterwards, they'd say, "This is pretty much copying the other one!" (And, btw, bringing up that GL brought back a pseudo-3rd Death Star in TPM doesn't really help the case. That just means that TFA has recycled an idea a 4th time that has already been done 3 times before -- at least twice done better as well! No more Death Stars!) However, since film is immersive and that inhibits reflection, then on a 1st time viewing, you're more likely to miss some of dumb stuff and some of the recycled stuff.

For instance, when I saw, The Dark Knight Rises, I caught some of the dumb things the 1st time through, but on my 2nd and 3rd viewings, I realized a lot more of it didn't make sense. I didn't feel obligated to honor my first viewing experience as the most valid. The stuff I noticed in later viewings took away from it. I don't feel shame because I realized that they "slipped" some stuff by me. It just didn't hold up as well on multiple viewings, and unless people just don't care about repeating entire plot sequences, ideas, or a script that has problems with basic story logic, has multiple coincidences, and sometimes poor character motivation, then I think TFA will suffer some after multiple viewings. At the same time, while The Dark Knight Rises has some of those story issues, I still like it because it has other qualities I like -- an effective villain, a unique 2nd act for Bruce Wayne, good performances, some good set pieces, etc. Nonetheless, it's just not possible for me to enjoy The Dark Knight Rises as much after I recognized its many problems with its plot. I don't know. Maybe that's just me, but I would think once a person recognizes that these types of problems with TFA's narrative and its rehashing that this realization would hurt his response to it, as that's why these types of things are considered problems in the first place. I'm not saying it would ruin it, but it seems like it should have some type of a negative impact.


Oh crap! I didn't even want to talk about TFA, and I just spent 2 big paragraphs talking about it! Please stay with me! What Mindless Monster brought up earlier is what really interests me. It seems that Hollywood is becoming ever-reliant on recycling ideas, remakes, old properties, etc. I actually agree with him that I hope that some people are disappointed with the film, and this is the case, even though I wouldn't wish any one individual to have a bad experience at any movie; yes, I'm aware of the contradiction; fortunately, there are already people disappointed (so I don't have to wish that upon them), but I still wish the pushback was stronger.

It seems like virtually every film is wholly reliant on action sequence after action sequence that just go through expected plot points. Directors like Spielberg says he can't get his films financed anymore. Directors admit that studios won't even let them direct without intense interference. Steven Soderberg leaving film, Whedon's frustrations with AoU, Disney tossing away Edgar Wright's supposedly superb Ant-Man script for something more formulaic; heck even JJ's wife makes it sound like he's fed up with what's involved with making these sequels and that wants to do his own thing, when they spoke to 60 minutes, and he seemed to be like: "Quiet you! Hush! Must pay my dues! Must pretend I love what I'm doing."

I honestly don't think a ton of good/great films like Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, ET, Gremlins, Ghost, Ghostbusters, etc. could be made today because they'd be seen as too risky. (Yes, I'm aware of the girl Ghostbusters project, but that's only because of the original's success, and that certainly wouldn't have been greenlit without the prior's success.) Then consider this, the films made for adults at at one time grossed as much as our very biggest blockbusters do: The Sting, The Graduate, Dr. Zhivago, The Godfather, Ben Hur, and there were tons of great films made for adults The Good, The Bad, The Ugly; Fight Club; Apocalypse Now; Taxi Driver; 2001, Dr. Strangelove, Vertigo. Again I don't think most of these films could even be made today. What happened to films like these? Why are the films that adult men are most excited about always set in comic book universes from their childhoods and what most excites adult women are mostly films based on teen fiction?

And actually, when I think about it. I don't think these are the films that most excite adults or even young adults. Films like Capt American 2, MI:4, MI:5, Into Darkness, Trek virtually all have 90%+ ratings on rottentomatoes, but while they are well-received, they are far worse received than a film like Interstellar, which is ranked #30 on IMDb Top 250, while it only received 71% positive reviews from critics. Interstellar fared only slightly better than Thor: Dark World with critics. It just seems inexplicable to me that these formulaic films get 90%+ scores, while Interstellar, Fight Club, The Prestige, Snatch, etc. do far worse with the critics, and yet these smarter, more creative films fare better with audiences.

It used to be just the opposite. Critics used to be the ones that sought out innovative new films. Now the critics fall for formula more than audiences. I don't know. Maybe getting invited to big Hollywood premieres where they can drink with celebrities and the fear for job security with dwindling newspaper readerships have biased critics. Wining and dining doctors has certainly proven effective at convincing many doctors to prescribe medicines that are far from the best. If anything, doing that with critics must be easier.

Let me also add. I'm not at all saying all this because of TFA's financial success, though to me it is another example. I've been beating this drum since before I was on these forums. If you're curious, just read my review of The Avengers on IMDb. Mine is the top review: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848228/reviews?ref_=tt_ov_rt . This slow trend has been bugging the heck out of me forever. (By the way, there used to 5 other mixed/negative reviews along with mine for The Avengers, and 7 or 8 out of 10 for AoU, and then a couple weeks after one of the last times I checked, virtually all of them became positive almost overnight. Certainly seems like some vote rigging was going on there -- hopefully by a group of Marvel fanboys, and not the studios, but who knows.)

 

I agree yet disagree on Avengers. I think it's a fun movie that everyone will love and enjoy and I'm happy for that, Hell, I love it. Films like those are great. But I see the intention behind the veils. I'm not one to fall for Hollywood tricks.

While I enjoy Avengers, I knew exactly what was going to happen regardless of my liking. Once I heard that Disney had Marvel, I knew what was to come. It was only a matter of time before they did the same with SW.

For me, I want more films to challenge my mind, not even just to entertain. And sadly, I must look for that only in indie films 70% of the time. I really want films like THX to come back or Batman Begins.

 

Well, click my link and read my review. It's not a negative review. It's a mixed review, but really more than that, it's me asking viewers to demand more from film since if they don't studios will just try to copy The Avengers rather than come up with something new, just as they've done with Jurassic Park and now done with ANH.

 

Thats what I was referring to, your review. I agree with all yet disagree with a couple but overall you see it for what it actually is.

 

Well, I guess that having, not only one, but 5 planets being destroyed by a Death Star III, and then, this same battle station being once again destroyed at the end of the movie as two, or three other ones if you taken into account The Phantom Menace (since you said that its ending was very similar to ROTJ and ANH), just to prove that once again baddies are never good at doing something, and that heroes always win in a Hollywood movie, is also very convenient if people, as you, are not tired of watching the same thing over and over again for almost 40 years since the original Star Wars...

And what if we could go on to the next gag instead of repeating the previous one simply because it was more popular than the other attempts?

 

Skeptical Topic post is skeptical.

No. People who love it, love. Those who dislike it, dislike it.

I will say however it's loved more because its much more simplistic.

 

So....I just want to get this 'argument' straight, so I am understanding it correctly; People don't actually dislike the PT, nor are there any real reasons to; they are, instead, morons who are told what to like and not like and have forced themselves to dislike the PT movies in order to 'fit in'; those same people are being told to like TFA and so, despite there being nothing to like about the movie, in order to 'fit in' people are reading the reviews and, despite their own opinions (if they ever had any) are claiming to have enjoyed it.

Is that the idea?

 

How does this in any way relate to what I wrote?
You made the claim that no one back in 1999 could spot the similarity between Anakin blowing up the TF ship and Luke blowing up the DS. This is false.
A lot of people DID spot it and some even felt that it was a negative, that Lucas was repeating himself.
To me, it had the added drawback in that in order for the plot to work, a lot of very contrived events had to happen and characters had to act in ways that don't make sense.

Do I think that Starkiller Base is JJ repeating things? Yes and this is probably my least liked bit in the film. It felt forced, lacked build up and could have been done much better. And based on what I've read, quite a number of people that like TFA, put SKB as the worst part of the film.

Good guys tend to win in Hollywood films.
I am sorry, is this news?
How often have the bad guys won in a Bond film?
Did Lex Luthor win in Superman the movie?

Good guys winning has been a staple for way longer than 40 years.
Yes you have films with dark or downbeat endings but films that present themselves as good guys vs bad guys, most often the good guys win. Which is how SW did present it self back in 1977. Unlike a lot of the films of it's time, filled with hard and cynical anti-heroes, this was a clear cut good vs evil story.
And people loved it.

Reusing a story matters less to me than how WELL you tell that story.

Fistful of Dollars is a remake of Yojimbo so the story is very similar. I still like both a lot because they are both told very well.
Eragon is basically a remake of ANH set in LotR land. That wasn't very good because it wasn't told very well, the acting, with some exceptions, were not that good. People that complain that Rey was a Mary Sue should check that out. Eragon is a massive Gary Stu, both in book and film.

In closing, a lot of stories stay with us. Using an old story isn't a crime. What matter is what you do with it. How well you tell your version of the story.
To me, TFA's story isn't what I liked about it. I liked the characters and I was invested in them and I cared about what happened to them. The story in the PT is more complex and has more new things in it sure. But to me, it wasn't told that well. I didn't much care for the characters and I wasn't very invested in what was going on. So the viewing was more passive. I don't dislike the films or think they are bad movies. But neither are they on my top 100 films.
Had I cared about the characters in the PT as much as I cared about the characters in TFA, then I would probably have loved those films. And the reverse is also true, had I not cared about the characters in TFA. then the somewhat unoriginal story would have bothered me a lot more.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

I don't think those are really risks because they're still operating in the safe cocoon of incredibly successful superhero movies. A true risk is something like Cloud Atlas where even the directors put millions of their own money into a project that (unsurprisingly) wasn't financed by any major studio. Anyway, no movie from an established franchise will ever have the same level of risk, but there will always be a struggle with originality.

 

The makers of Cloud Atlas also made Jupiter Ascending, with a pretty big budget of 176 M$ and it was backed by Warner Brothers. And it Bombed.
That film was pretty original. That didn't make it good however.

Ant Man and Guardians were considered quite risky before release, at least within the area of comic book super hero films. The comics were not very well known and few if any of the characters from the other films were in them. There were several stories in the media that speculated that Ant Man might be the first flop in the Marvel film series. Same for Guardians.

From Hollywood reporter, feb 2014.

As for Guardians, having a talking tree, who says only four words, and a mutated raccoon as your heroes, I'd say that is a bit outside the norm and had some risk. Not a huge risk but some risk.

Cap 2, as I've said, turned a good guy agency into a villain agency and compared with Thor 2, I would say it was more original and it was a better movie.

Marvel is getting more and more confident and I think they are willing to take more risks now that they've seen that even rather unknown properties can do well. So we are getting a Dr Strange film.

DC is trying with Suicide Squad. Sure that film has the Joker in it and a cameo by Batman.
But the main characters are not that well known and they are mostly bad guys.

I would say that some of the recent comic book movies are more original than some of the comic book movies we got in the early 2000's, like Daredevil and Electra. And they are much better than say Steel or Cat Woman.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark