ST ST Criticism Discussion Thread

This is almost me to a T. The first thing I care about is the story, the second is whether the characters grab me and pull me in emotionally. I don't spend my time watching a film looking for ways to pick apart the technical aspects, the soundtrack or whether something is CGI or a puppet. (Although I couldn't help but notice Kylo stabbing the floor during the Throne Room fight scene. Immediate WTF) I also don't spend my initial viewing of ( or days leading up to) a film looking for ways to hate it. I finish the film and then proceed according to how I felt walking out of the theater.

People love to hate on Hayden Christensen BUT he absolutely pulled me in to his character and story from the very beginning. No matter how many times I have seen AOTC tears start to flow the minute he steps through the back of that Tusken hut. I can see his emotions go through extreme change in the few seconds his face is framed close up after Shmi dies and before his first lightsaber swing. His emotions were never a mystery to me and I was fully capable of empathizing with him throughout the last two PT films. (His appearance at the end of ROTJ just brings it full circle for me emotionally and I love it)

I liked Kylo somewhat while the mask was on but the spoon fed explanations between TFA and TLJ for his turn/behavior/motivations are a definite negative for me. Blaming Luke, his parents, etc for his evil actions is not the way to pull me in to seeing things his way or RJ's. Plus Adam Driver doesn't give me anything to work with. Nothing at all. Every close up of his face looks exactly the same to me. I do not see differing emotions play across his features, not just in Star Wars, but in other films he's done. Unless he's screaming in anger or throwing a temper tantrum.

To be honest some more, even Jake Lloyd grabbed me more than Kylo/Driver. The scene where he leaves Shmi breaks my heart every time. Great scene between those two.

I think Daisy did ok but to be perfectly honest I was so put off by her character and the implications of Reylo in this film I just can't find it in me to care about the story from here. I like John and Oscar but again I didn't like their character arcs at all. I love Mark but didn't feel like I was watching Luke Skywalker and even the way Leia's big force moment was shot did her a disservice since it resulted in all the Leia Poppins crap. Something I waited a long time to see her do (use the force in a larger way) and it just gets meme'd to death.

The lightsaber fight from TLJ teamed up light and dark as something new but the choreography was just boring to me. Kylo forgot how to use the force and call his own lightsaber back to him or use it to shove guards out of the way. It felt disjointed and clunky. He almost falls flat on his face in one movement. Give me Obi Wan and Anakin's complimentary movements executed with speed and power while incorporating the use of the Force at different intervals any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Skellig Michael is beautiful but nothing in this film stayed with me visually the same way several of Rogue One's locations did or the way Corellia and Vandor stood out to me from Solo.

Rogue One did a great job getting me invested in Jyn as a character and her story - even knowing what was going to happen to her at the end- didn't detract from the way the film made me care about her. Solo made me more emotionally invested in Han than I was before. I walked out of that film wanting someone to gut Kylo the same way he did his father.

Your post reminded me I need to get my hands on a copy of the R1 soundtrack. I've actually been playing the Solo soundtrack in my car since May.

Nothing story wise in TLJ created the same strong emotion in favor of either Kylo's story or Rey's. RJ's story in TLJ makes me completely disinterested in whatever time period of the GFFA he chooses to base his separate trilogy on and makes me determined to skip opening night for Ep 9 until I have read several like minded fan reviews of the film.

ETA: I am definitely not here for a reboot of the OT or the PT.

 

I wasn't saying that they would Reboot it. I was making the point that you know someone is going to come up with the terrible idea of rebooting it because that's what Hollywood does. Especially if they run a focus group and decide that Star Wars is Luke Skywalker. It was more of a joke than anything else really.

 

I agree, generally, that the dicotomy between the criticisms of the PT and ST are as you describe, but I'd personally characterise it a bit different in detail.

For me AOTC fails on several points apart from just the obvious terrible dialogue and performances of Christensen and Portman. I find the general backstory given to be superior to TLJ so it gets that for world building, but the production design of the film takes a hit from where it was in TPM and gets nowhere near where it ended up in ROTS. There are some very obvious VFX problems with the film - primarily because they went too far with VFX before it was quite ready. But most importantly the film is terribly paced and plotted in my opinion which makes it a pretty poor film.

In contrast TLJ is wonderfully directed and paced in my opinion. It's problems come with analysis. I have a problem with Rey becoming a co-lead with Kylo, I think the film should have taken place over more than a day or so, I think the whole space chase had potential that wasn't examined (such as a traitor being on board), the state of the galaxy wasn't explored anywhere near enough and Kylo is not made sympathetic when that's clearly what they were attempting to do. While I like Luke's arc and story I think some changes definitely could have improved it.

 

For me there are plenty of execution flaws in the PT but at its heart it’s an interesting story of the rise to power of a cunning evil dictator and the fall of a powerful Jedi. The PT gave us great characters: young Obi, Qui Gon, anakin (flawed but interesting), Padme (flawed but regal), Dooku. It also gave us interesting concepts that stuck in my mind and still stick to this day: the clones, the Jedi council, jango, mace windu, the battle droids, Darth Maul. The starfighters and ships are different and new. The music is incredible. At the time the CGI was groundbreaking. Yes the acting was wooden, the directing was bad, the pacing was off and the humor was awful. But in the end the world building and aforementioned good things outweigh the negatives.

The ST has no characters or concepts that stand with that group. No lightsaber battles or musics or new planets that stand with what the PT brought. To me that’s why I can still watch the PT despite its execution flaws. TFA has flaws in these areas but set things up with the mystery box and then TLJ... 2 movies in and the characters don’t stand up or have the richness. The concepts are knockoffs of the OT or boring. The music isn’t as good and the worlds are for the most part just not as interesting.

That’s how I feel anyway.


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Is there a SW movie with worse humor than TLJ? I sincerely doubt it, and it's not even close. The facepalm throughout the 2 hours of the film due to bad jokes was more frequent than Luke's inconsistencies as a character.

 

Yes, TPM fart and poo jokes are by far worse in my opinion. Not all of the jokes landed in TLJ but some of the PT jokes were far, far worse.

 

I’d call it a draw between the poop humor and the mama jokes. I can’t remember terrible humor in aotc though.


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The Yo Mama joke was just as bad as the poo and fart jokes in TPM and the battle droid humor in ROTS. But no worse.

 

The advantage that the PT had over the ST is that PT tries to make something new. Something that is unfamiliar and yet still feel like Star Wars. It is less of prequel to OT and more of a completely different era where everything is different yet familiar. Such an environment enables the many fans here to create their own stories in Lucas's sandbox. That is why the Clone Wars was such a marketable franchise despite having only having two to three years worth of time to tell stories before ROTS. After all, who doesn't want to make up a story about Anakin and Obi-Wan on an adventure in the Outer Rim Sieges with their clone armies hunting down General Grievous before he activates his doomsday device?

TFA and TLJ do not encourage that. There was no time skip or exploration of the galaxy in this new era. Consequently, it feels off to make up stories about Rey and Finn going on adventures after TFA because they could not fit within the canonical universe. Likewise, any hidden adventures or lessons from Luke to Rey were crushed because Rain Johnson's three lesson in two days premise. No more Yoda giving Luke off-screen training that fuels fan fiction writers for days. To do that would be to completely retcon the whole movie.

That's not going to the fact that the devotion to OT nostalgia at the expense of creating new worlds robs the ST of its own identity. You can see it with the characters.

Palpatine in PT, despite being the same character as in ROTJ, was played differently to the point that he's pretty much a new villain for all fans, new and old, to enjoy. Rather than being the typical evil overlord from OT, PT Palpatine is a young, smart politician who easily worms his way into power with puppets at his disposal. It is thanks to the PT that Palpatine escapes the cliches of Evil Overlord archetype and becomes a unique character by his own right. Snoke, on the other hand, never escaped that shadow. And consequently, despite being different character from Palpatine, he is pretty much the Emperor in almost every single way. One could show a picture of Snoke to someone who doesn't know Star Wars all that much and they would easily assumes that he must be the Emperor from ROTJ. You can't do the same with Senator Palpatine except for a few sharp eyed viewers who would realize that it's the same actor.

I cannot recall any time where the movie was purely ST and not a wink-wink nod to OT. Maybe anytime BB-8 is on-screen or when Kylo Ren's lightsaber is activated, but that's about it. No vehicles stand out from the rest except the Millennium Falcon, an OT-ship. X-Wings look the same. TIE Fighters look the same. Walkers look the same. Starkiller is pretty much Super Death Star 3000, just with a layer of snow and trees to make us remember Hoth. It's a pity, because BB-8 is proof that they can be more creative than what they've shown on-screen. They can be more original, and it's frustrating they are still holding on OT imagery even when they deconstruct the story.

To me, nothing is worse than seeing Luke Skywalker milking a sea-sloth and then immediately drinking it in front of us, beard stained with the green liquid, to gross out Rey.

 

I guess it's all fun & games until someone questions the Holy Trilogy. For the record I'm an OT fan before anything else. RotJ was my gateway movie into SW as a kid, so I have more nostalgia for it than any other episode. Leia is one of my favorite characters, as my avatar hints at. To me the OT is far better than the Sequels, light years ahead of the Prequels & Leia is still far & away the best female character. Yet I'm still prepared to admit that her role was complete horse **** in RotJ. She doesn't get a single line in the whole movie that would suggest she's a leader of the Alliance. Her trademark feisty dialogue is gone, replaced with dreck like "Hold me!". She gets dressed up like a doll by gangsters & Ewoks & tags along on a mission that Han is in charge of. When she waltzes out of the Ewok hut with her hair flowing & wearing a human-sized Ewok dress it's as if the Holiday Special has been spliced into the movie. To say her role was far worse than her iconic turns in the prior two movies is obvious, at least to some. I'd rather call it as I see it than become the cliché fan on the internet who complains about the movies he doesn't like but then defends to the death every last detail of those he does like, never conceding a single flaw in them.

I'm actually of the opposite view RE the PT. I could forgive the dodgy acting, bad dialogue & cartoonish computer effects if the plot really stood up. It's the plot that is it's major flaw IMO. I just highlighted some examples of this recently in another thread. Having said that the plot in the ST is nothing to write home about either. In places it's a bit dull, but to me there are no unforgivable flaws like the ones mentioned in that discussion. And yes, I do realise that to many of you here there are.

That sure is a tangent to go off on, showing b.o takings of the Matrix 3 & pointing out that the sequels weren't as well received as the original. All I said was it's one of many examples where a villain becomes more prominent as the series progresses, to the point where by the end he's almost as prominent as the hero himself. Since you did go there I'll point out RE the Matrix that almost universally the Agent Smith character & story arc was one of the most praised elements of those sequels, even when the films themselves weren't particularly well liked.

Do you realise you're talking in the past tense about a 3 part story that's only at the end of part 2?

 

At least those jokes were not used to make Dart Maul look like a wuss or Dooku.

 

Luke must have developed a drinking problem in between trilogies.

 

The mama joke was placed incorrectly. It by itself was not essentially worse than other bad attempts. It was placed in the establishing scene when the fan is attempting to purchase the product being sold. The Jar Jar attempts were placed well into the film, after all or any attempt to sell the world had taken place. You were in by then or not.

An attempt to compare the gravity of the failure of the mama joke with the gravity of the failure of the Jar Jar joke is...

With respect to the potency of the villain, the mama joke could have landed correctly if it occurred later in the movie, after the viewer had had an opportunity to purchase Hux as a legitimate threat. Then the joke would mobilize a denial that was a pleasant sensation of, Well is he a pushover or not? We saw him kick butt just a bit ago. As it is, the viewer is being told immediately, no, this guy is not where you invest your precious wrath.

 

The jokes in TLJ are worse imo for one big reason.

Most of the juvenile jokes in the PT were done by more comic-based character. Jar Jar was intended to be the comic relief, so if you're going to do a poop joke, it makes sense to give it to him.

Likewise C3PO and R2-D2 were used for comedy quite a bit in the OT as well, so the PT is just carrying on from that.

In TLJ however, it's MAIN characters who get this. The "Yo Momma" joke is worse because it takes one of the main villains of the ST and makes him look like a complete joke. Finn is one of your main heroes (allegedly) yet he's made into a bumbling fool (and there's also the perceived playing into the problematic "funny bumbling Black sidekick" cliché as well) and it's done over and over and over and over again throughout the film. Luke, the hero of the OT whom fans have been waiting for THIRTY YEARS to see again, is made to look as pathetic and disgusting as possible, etc.

Also a lot of the jokes in the PT were short. Like the poop joke wasn't funny imo, but it was like 10 seconds tops. The "Yo Momma" joke goes on and on and on and on for an unbearably long time, and Hux is made to look pathetic whenever possible later on as well. Which kills any tension because your two main villains now (Kylo and Hux) both lack credibility.

Finn is made to look foolish constantly in the film. The milk scene is made to look as over the top gross as possible, etc. TLJ makes these things drag on FAR longer than they need to, or just keeps doing them over and over and over again, and it makes the film borderline insufferable to watch.

And on top of all that, for all of his faults, I think that Lucas was just trying to be funny and "entertain the kids." No more no less. With Rian, it's all part of his obsession with being "subversive" and placing "surprising the audience" above all else. Which makes it all the more annoying to many.

 

Yeah the 'Yo Mamma' joke making the villain look silly was way worse than giving the 'stormtroopers' of the PT (the Droids) 'hilarious' voices and gags. I don't like all of the humour in TLJ (I actually found the Caretaker stuff pretty good for a SW film), but I can't believe we are at the point where a distracting and silly character doing stupid stuff throughout a film is seen as 'better' as a single 'yo mamma' joke. Just as it's annoying to lower the quality of the OT to bring up the ST, it's similarly annoying to raise the quality of the PT just to bring down the ST.

Maybe Ben was just that much of a ****.

 

That's a hell of alot of analysis for just a simple throw-away line. The reason behind Poe's digs at Kylo in TFA (who talks first?, the dig at his mask) & his crack at Hux in TLJ was to use humor as a weapon. To mock those two self-important leaders in front of their colleagues & underlings. It's actually a smart age-old tactic to ridicule the leadership of the opposing side. By contrast the puerile toilet humour in TPM serves no tactical purpose in the story. It's there to give 4 year olds a giggle.

10 seconds too long, & you're ignoring the farting Eopie, the droid kicking Jar-Jar in the ****s, Jar-Jar hitting his ****s on the tank. Generally a lot of humour involving ****s & bowel movements. A real high-point for humour in SW. But yeah, let's compare a quip from an established smart-ass like Poe to that stuff.

 

It's not a single "yo mama" joke that is the problem. It's more like... the absence of good jokes in TLJ. In the PT, just a friendly chuckle by Ewan McGregor after telling a silly joke and knowing that he was just being silly, is pleasant, because the guy is super lovable as an actor, and as a character. GL struck gold by casting him as young Obi-Wan.

In TLJ you have:

- the mama joke
- the porg "joke" with the porg flat faced on the window of the Millenium Falcon due to inertia
- the porg "joke" with Chewbacca unable to eat the porg in front of the other porgs
- Luke dusting off his shoulder after the bombardment that obviously missed his astral projection
- the "joke" where Kylo Ren is half naked and Rey is uncomfortable
- Luke throwing his lightsaber behind his back (I actually think that was meant to be funny, regardless of whether it was symbolic)
- General Hux repeating Kylo Ren's command 1 second later after Kylo Ren
- Kylo Ren force shoving Hux onto the wall
- Luke and the green milk.... all time low scene in so many aspects.

Yeah, I am sorry, but I didn't even smile throughout these scenes.

PS. I also find it amusing that the comparison has now turned to "humor in TLJ VS the THREE movies of the PT" just to increase the amount of bad jokes in the PT.

 

The Porg humour, Luke messing with Rey with the leaf, the Caretackers cart being taken out, all got laughs in the sessions I saw.

 

No need to apologise. I doubt they expected the jokes in movie to have everyone rolling around the aisles in laughter. To me they were hit & miss, like the gags in every SW film. These aren't comedies written by skilled comedic writers. IMO at least there was nothing offensively awful though, like the aforementioned toilet stuff or 3PO's atrocious dad-joke puns in Ep II.

Well at least we finally got a laugh out of you

 

I am actually a person that laughs very easily, especially at the movie theater, because I am in a joyful and excited mood. I was in such a good mood to watch that movie in December, that honestly it would require A LOT for me to not like that movie. And no, I did not have specific expectations walking into that theater. All I wanted is to watch something that I felt was awesome.

I had just had an amazing dinner 40 minutes before the movie started, a great cocktail, I was having one of the best nights of my life literally, because I was visiting San Diego and I had never been to California before (that was my 2nd night there), and this was the first Star Wars movie that I would watch with my girlfriend, after having watched 7 movies with her during the previous month (to bring her up to speed, she had not watched any before). Everything was perfect really, for me to find this perhaps even my favorite SW movie of all times. All I wanted is to feel the magic. And then I saw this movie.... and I really wanted to love it, I wanted to like it, I wanted to look past the negatives. But 2 weeks later, I found myself thinking how horrible almost every scene of the movie was. So yeah, if you don't laugh with any joke during a movie that you are 100% positively predisposed with, that's bad.

 

If you find every scene in a movie horrible you're unlikely to feel like laughing at the jokes. Put the same gags in a movie where you love every scene & suddenly they might seem funnier.

 

That's very true, but also the jokes didn't work in TLJ because they were very misplaced in my opinion. Not in the right timing or context. The so called Marvel humor, where the universe is almost ready to explode, and Thor is making jokes with Ironman bleeh. Strongly dislike such situations, and I was hoping jokes like that would never make it into SW.

 

I tend to think both the PT and the ST really miss the style of the originals were the characters are playing in a quite down to earth fashion with a lot of wit to them. In ANH especially I think that ends up being a massive part of the films appeal, I'm sure many parents who weren't typically into sci fi/fantasy enjoyed the banter between Han and Leia for example.

This kind of humour obviously has the advantage that it doesn't belittle its setting and for me Rogue One was has been the only Starwars film since the originals to successfully recreate it.

 

Oh you can use your characters for comedy without removing their credibility. For example:




This is genuinely funny. But it doesn't undermine Han's character because he's given swagger and plenty of cool moments in the film to balance it out. The ST suffers from a lack of the latter by contrast.