Saga Mega thread: Sequels and spinoff films and the overall saga

Fair enough to those who either haven't liked it, or have very mixed felings. I have mixed feelings about the film as a film, but I'll admit that I have a strong emotional connection to some of these characters and what happens to them - they've been with me since the age of three. The Film Formerly Known as Star Wars was the first movie I went to see in a cinema, so there's a clear bias.

Spoiler

It just occurred to me that there is no real connection between TLJ and all those old scripts, notes and quotes of GL's which a few of us in Saga pore over and argue about (from 1973 all the way to 2005).
Nothing.
It's a sequel to TFA, following its story and the new characters, but I can't think of anything in the film itself which connects to any old theories about Luke, Vader, the Sith, the Force, the Whills, anything. There's plenty in it which directly references the earlier films themselves, all too shamelessly, but while TFA (with Lawrence Kasdan's involvement) took a few cues from that earlier vision of ROTJ, this new episode is almost 100% original, as far as it could be.

I don't know how to feel about that. I'm inclined to praise Rian Johnson for pulling it off, despite the film's many flaws. He gave the great Luke Skywalker a more-than-worthy sendoff, and kept the story together. No, we didn't find out who Snoke was, how the First Order came about, or who the 'Knights of Ren' were, but we've got a solid bridge between Eps 7 & 9, even if LFL has to figure out how to deal with the all-too-early passing away of the greatest Princess that ever graced the pages or frames of a fantasy tale .

Sadly, though, I realised that with Luke's passing away in the sunset of two suns on Ach-To, just as his call to adventure occurred before the duel sunset on Tatooine in SW/ANH, this film also bids a final farewell to Luke's namesake, and his involvement with the universe he created.
George Lucas had no involvement with the creation of this film, and it doesn't mine old ideas he never used. It's just a continuation, despite rehashing plenty from previous films. Even Rogue One had Vader's castle - an old idea from the first draft of ESB - but this new episode is one that GL can't really claim any credit on in terms of original content. Yes, it rips off the earlier films, but it resembles a grandson who never met his actual grandfather, despite exhibiting so many of the old man's traits.
Perhaps a rather over-the-top analogy, but given the seriousness of a certain character's demise, it seems appropriate, and one which parallels the fading away of the Star Wars universe's very creator. I hope GL appreciated the heartfelt beauty Luke's final scene as much as I did.

 

Fair enough to those who either haven't liked it, or have very mixed felings. I have mixed feelings about the film as a film, but I'll admit that I have a strong emotional connection to some of these characters and what happens to them - they've been with me since the age of three. The Film Formerly Known as Star Wars was the first movie I went to see in a cinema, so there's a clear bias.

Spoiler

It just occurred to me that there is no real connection between TLJ and all those old scripts, notes and quotes of GL's which a few of us in Saga pore over and argue about (from 1973 all the way to 2005).
Nothing.
It's a sequel to TFA, following its story and the new characters, but I can't think of anything in the film itself which connects to any old theories about Luke, Vader, the Sith, the Force, the Whills, anything. There's plenty in it which directly references the earlier films themselves, all too shamelessly, but while TFA (with Lawrence Kasdan's involvement) took a few cues from that earlier vision of ROTJ, this new episode is almost 100% original, as far as it could be.

I don't know how to feel about that. I'm inclined to praise Rian Johnson for pulling it off, despite the film's many flaws. He gave the great Luke Skywalker a more-than-worthy sendoff, and kept the story together. No, we didn't find out who Snoke was, how the First Order came about, or who the 'Knights of Ren' were, but we've got a solid bridge between Eps 7 & 9, even if LFL has to figure out how to deal with the all-too-early passing away of the greatest Princess that ever graced the pages or frames of a fantasy tale .

Sadly, though, I realised that with Luke's passing away in the sunset of two suns on Ach-To, just as his call to adventure occurred before the duel sunset on Tatooine in SW/ANH, this film also bids a final farewell to Luke's namesake, and his involvement with the universe he created.
George Lucas had no involvement with the creation of this film, and it doesn't mine old ideas he never used. It's just a continuation, despite rehashing plenty from previous films. Even Rogue One had Vader's castle - an old idea from the first draft of ESB - but this new episode is one that GL can't really claim any credit on in terms of original content. Yes, it rips off the earlier films, but it resembles a grandson who never met his actual grandfather, despite exhibiting so many of the old man's traits.
Perhaps a rather over-the-top analogy, but given the seriousness of a certain character's demise, it seems appropriate, and one which parallels the fading away of the Star Wars universe's very creator. I hope GL appreciated the heartfelt beauty Luke's final scene as much as I did.

 

Non-spoiler question: Did Williams produce at least one thunderous, instant-classic composition? One of my qualms with TFA is that it was the first SW film that failed to showcase a piece that grabbed the viewer by the collar.

A simple yes-or-no would suffice.

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-wars-last-jedi-script-called-160-sets-1065958
For Star Wars, he says the team tried to "hew to the original mandate that George Lucas had; treat it as if it’s a documentary somewhere out in space, so you really believe this is happening."

Did you get any input from George Lucas on Last Jedi?

We went into Star Wars saying we’re going to do matte paintings and we’re going to be hanging miniatures. That’s the way we’re going to do this cause that’s what George would want. And of course George visited and he’s like, ‘Why are you building all these sets?’ ‘Well, because that’s what you like, isn’t it?’ He’s a cranky guy but his point is that for the big stuff, obviously planets, spaceships flying, when you’re not close enough to see actors in it, there isn’t much point anymore in actually building something.

 

I thought th music was far and away the standout of the film


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I kind of liked this one. My gut reaction is that Luke should've been used far differently, but at the same time I understand Johnson's idea and thought Hamill did a great job with the material even if he disagreed with it. A lot of the comedy attempts were distracting and more than one scene tried too hard to toe the line of "accepted" Star Wars, but elsewhere I felt a creative spark to the material that hasn't been there for me in the theatrical series since 2005. Solid entertainment overall. Will likely be the first of the Disney films I add to my collection.

 

Spoiler

yoda was a puppet. that's why.

 

MOD Edit: Stop with the condescending attitude.

 

Well (some parts of) fandom in our beloved Saga sure are going off the rails. This is embarrassing.

http://deadline.com/2017/12/star-wars-the-last-jedi-rotten-tomatoes-metacritic-imdb-users-cinemascore-analysis

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-8-last-jedi-audience-score-fake/

"How can it be that Last Jedi‘s audience results are this high? They point to the Metacritic user score of 5 for the film, IMDB’s 7.9 out of 10 rating, and the Rotten Tomatoes’ Audience Score of 56% from 96K reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, Last Jedi‘s user score is also an anomaly. Typically, user scores aren’t that far from their critical ratings. Simply put these are all unscientific means of measuring audience reactions. Anyone can log into these sites several times (anecdotally we played around with this last night) and weigh down the audience grades against a movie. The consensus from non-Disney sources this morning is that “trolling” occurred here in regards to the online reaction to Last Jedi. "

What sort of deadbeats have nothing better to do than run a campaign to bring down the online public rating of a movie?

 

There were many scenes in the movie like this, yes.

 

Well I can't say that I ever pay much attention to specific scores, but anecdotally I've noticed TLJ getting some harsher receptions that the first two Disney era installments largely avoided. Main complaints I've noticed are Luke's arc and the film not satisfactorily following through on plot threads and teases introduced in TFA. Also some rumbling about certain action scenes that are too over the top.

Personally, I like that it felt like Johnson broke some perceived "rules" for what Star Wars should be doing. He injected the dose of weirdness I've been wanting in SW ever since the new films started.

 

Sure, "consensus from non-Disney sources"... This is just ridiculous. So if the score was what they wanted and expected, it would be perfectly fine. Since it's not, it's automatically trolling? What if some people *gasp* didn't like the movie and rated it accordingly? But no, it's trolling... Had they payed no attention to it or reported it by what it is (that the movie is divisive), it would be fine and accurate. But when you notice media outlets getting defensive over the reaction and online response from a significant part of the audience, you know that the shroud has fallen and how valuable those movie invites are.

When people don't like a movie, they rate it low and when they like it they rate it high. There's nothing to it. It's just the way it works. Sure, people on the internet may exxagerate in their reaction and rating but that goes both ways, up and down. And some people may think the movie is a 1/10 or a 10/10 and that's perfectly valid as well.

 

Vitriol is not trolling. Negative opinions can have vitriol. Positive opinions can have gushing. That's just how things are and have been since the beginning.

 

It's not like this has been done for years for some previous Star Wars movies.

The defenders ridiculed theories of critics being bribed for positive reviews, but I guess it's fine to make up conspiracy theories about the negative audience reviews. The hypocrisy is yet again astounding.

 

I expected that one of the new films would be a bit more divisive in audience reaction, but I was betting on Han Solo or Episode IX (pre Abrams coming back) for it to happen. Will be very interesting to see how TLJ's reputation continues to develop once the new film smell wears off.

 

It seems they confused shock value (at the expense of everything else) with boldness or originality. I think Disney won't get the message and will retreat to an even more 'safe zone' for future movies.

 

Again, "cruel and bitter criticism" is not trolling. Trolling is teasing and baiting in a provocative manner in order to get an (usually emotional or irrational) reaction or response out of someone. There's no bait in giving a genuine negative (or positive) opinion in the appropriate place. And aggregators like Metacritic, IMDB, RT, etc are the place for it.

 

Do you honestly believe people couldn't be voting 0 or 1 just to drive down the aggregate though?

 

This is getting ridiculous. Let's just ban everyone who disagrees.

And you are done.

 

Perhaps, but in that case we should also allow that some perfect scores may be an attempt to influence the aggregate in the opposite direction.