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Star Wars IX The Rise of Skywalker


Starlord

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On November 22, 2019 at 3:31 PM, Bazza said:

Pretty much come to the conclusion the new Disney films are a deconstructionist anti-mythology of Star Wars. 

 

The prequels, as terrible as they are as art & movies, at least preserve the mythological essence & character of Star Wars. 

 

Really?

 

Not a Star Wars fan here, so what do I know, but I thought the prequels pretty well wrecked any credibility the original two movies might have had; certainly they removed all doubt that Lucas never had the plan for prequels he said he did.

 

And I thought Rogue One was not only the prequel the first two movies deserved, it fit into the feel and theme of those movies far better than did any of the prequels.

 

As for the new movies being "deconstructionist," well again, not a fan, but thus far they strike me as little more than remakes (if you go with salt planet = snow planet, anyway).  Thus far, I have now paid to see the rebellion just about to be disintegrated by a planet-sized planet killing weapon, only to be saved in the nick of time by a ragtag host of fighter craft  _three_ stinking times!  (never would have seen the second time if it wasn't for a date; never would have seen the third if it wasn't for kids.  Peopling is expensive :lol:  ).

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certainly they removed all doubt that Lucas never had the plan for prequels he said he did.

 

Lucas is, putting it kindly, inconsistent when it comes to the Star Wars films.  Depending on when you ask him and what the context is, he'll trot out any of ten different versions of what he had planned or intended.  His first Star Wars script was incomprehensible mess and contained way too much for a single film, it was only with the work of editors and writers that they managed to get anything remotely coherent out of his ideas.  Then they used the rest of the ideas for his one Star Wars film to make the next two, but with better writers.  Then he started pretending it was always meant to be 9 films, but when called on it didn't really even have a plan or storyline.

 

And the prequels show it.  They just suck significantly less than the newest films.  The problem is that because he made so much money and had such a bankroll of rep and expectations he was given nearly free rein with those three movies and as a result they just did not stack up like the first three, not at all.  There are moments, but most of it is awful.

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10 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Lucas is, putting it kindly, inconsistent when it comes to the Star Wars films.  Depending on when you ask him and what the context is, he'll trot out any of ten different versions of what he had planned or intended.  His first Star Wars script was incomprehensible mess and contained way too much for a single film, it was only with the work of editors and writers that they managed to get anything remotely coherent out of his ideas.  Then they used the rest of the ideas for his one Star Wars film to make the next two, but with better writers.  Then he started pretending it was always meant to be 9 films, but when called on it didn't really even have a plan or storyline.

 

And the prequels show it.  They just suck significantly less than the newest films.  The problem is that because he made so much money and had such a bankroll of rep and expectations he was given nearly free rein with those three movies and as a result they just did not stack up like the first three, not at all.  There are moments, but most of it is awful.

 

As you point out, George Lucas needs strong editors. The main issue with the prequels was that he didn't have a team like the one that edited Star Wars to fix them.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Cygnia said:

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Although I appreciate the sarcasm above, it just shows what a difference in production talent makes. TLJ took the same story but made the villains look incompetent, the space chase incredulous, the old master cranky and depressing and the heroes illogical, confused and unorganized while wasting the only action scenes worth seeing on a side plot. A complete fail even when copying a successful blueprint.

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Well and Yoda wasn't being a jerk who didn't want to train anyone.  He was being reluctant to take on a student because he wanted to see if the student really cared and was trying to test their dedication and willingness to learn.  The fact that Luke was a bit petulant and immature made him sympathetic and realistic rather than "oh we don't need the sacred texts, she's Mary Sue and is better than all this anyway."  There's really no comparison between the two other than the superficiality of Episode XIII trying to remake the best Star Wars film ever made.

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29 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

 

Although I appreciate the sarcasm above, it just shows what a difference in production talent makes. TLJ took the same story but made the villains look incompetent, the space chase incredulous, the old master cranky and depressing and the heroes illogical, confused and unorganized while wasting the only action scenes worth seeing on a side plot. A complete fail even when copying a successful blueprint.

 

I suspect that there's a fair amount of damage due to reliance on committees and focus groups with modern big-budget movies to minimize financial risk. There's also a very vocal fan base that refuses to accept any version of [insert franchise here] that doesn't hew to their vision. It's very rare that both the bankers and the fans can be fully satisfied.

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4 hours ago, Grailknight said:

If you please the fans, the outcome will  usually please the bankers. The opposite often makes both unhappy with the ultimate result.

 

Oh, how I wish that were the case. I really would have liked to see a sequel to Dredd. And Serenity, for that matter.

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, Starlord said:

Love it or hate it, Star Wars is not dead.

 

Definitely not dead and I don't hate it.

The Star Wars universe has some great products. Film, TV and books.  

The problem is that Lucas was so loose with letting anyone make anything as long as he got a cut, and there are far more stinkers than gems currently floating around out there because of that.

 

I guess if someone had even made a token effort at some kind of continuity guidance, it wouldn't be so bad.

Or if the ships didn't keep being larger and larger empty volumes of displacement just so it looked bigger.  Especially when they exact same bigger is better syndrome was applied to robot ships.  Why use the resources to pressurized and climate control spaces larger than cathedrals for a droid??  Arrrgghhh.... it is just painful to watch.

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Space opera isn't expected to make sense from an engineering/ergonomic point of view. The science and technology of space opera is traditionally indistinguishable from magic and not meant to be scrutinized. You do so at the peril of your own enjoyment.

 

Star Wars used to be just good, plain old dumb-but-fun space opera. The new movies suffer from being made in an era where some degree of "gritty and grim realism" is expected by audiences and enthusiastically dished up with a cynical, detached smile by producers and directors. The heart and soul of Star Wars is essentially gone, IMO, and yet we're expected to celebrate this "new Star Wars, for a new generation," which has done little except make a lot of money and bitterly divide the fanbase along the way.

 

And before anyone points to Rogue One and The Mandalorian as being stand-out exceptions, I hasten to observe that a broken clock is still correct twice a day. I need a lot more "good Star Wars" (than we've been given) to convince me that the franchise isn't still completely broken.

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2 hours ago, zslane said:

Space opera isn't expected to make sense from an engineering/ergonomic point of view. The science and technology of space opera is traditionally indistinguishable from magic and not meant to be scrutinized. You do so at the peril of your own enjoyment.

 

Star Wars used to be just good, plain old dumb-but-fun space opera. The new movies suffer from being made in an era where some degree of "gritty and grim realism" is expected by audiences and enthusiastically dished up with a cynical, detached smile by producers and directors. The heart and soul of Star Wars is essentially gone, IMO, and yet we're expected to celebrate this "new Star Wars, for a new generation," which has done little except make a lot of money and bitterly divide the fanbase along the way.

 

And before anyone points to Rogue One and The Mandalorian as being stand-out exceptions, I hasten to observe that a broken clock is still correct twice a day. I need a lot more "good Star Wars" (than we've been given) to convince me that the franchise isn't still completely broken.

 

I usually see the break as starting with midichlorians. We went from "the Force is strong with that one", to reading the results of a blood test. 

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2 hours ago, zslane said:

Space opera isn't expected to make sense from an engineering/ergonomic point of view. The science and technology of space opera is traditionally indistinguishable from magic and not meant to be scrutinized. You do so at the peril of your own enjoyment.

 

Star Wars used to be just good, plain old dumb-but-fun space opera. The new movies suffer from being made in an era where some degree of "gritty and grim realism" is expected by audiences and enthusiastically dished up with a cynical, detached smile by producers and directors. The heart and soul of Star Wars is essentially gone, IMO, and yet we're expected to celebrate this "new Star Wars, for a new generation," which has done little except make a lot of money and bitterly divide the fanbase along the way.

 

And before anyone points to Rogue One and The Mandalorian as being stand-out exceptions, I hasten to observe that a broken clock is still correct twice a day. I need a lot more "good Star Wars" (than we've been given) to convince me that the franchise isn't still completely broken.

 

It isn't Space Opera that necessarily isn't expected to make sense. I have read great Space Operas that maintains a very good sense of engineering/ergonomic realities.  A good Space Opera will need a solid technological or world baseline to be a good Space Opera. 

 

But I would not classify Star Wars as Space Opera, instead I classify it as Space Fantasy.   Space Fantasy has no requirements, much like what a lot of Star Wars has become. 

 

I completely agree with the sentiment of needing more "good Star Wars".  I really really would love some more great Star Wars.  But I think we will just get more "12 year old school yard arguments about my Dads ship being bigger than yours" played out on the screen.  I can see a megalomaniac of a human designing ships that make use of illogically huge spaces.  Because, well people.  But robots designing the same stupidity?   Almost too Space Fantasy......

 

 

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Fair enough. I always thought of Space Opera and Space Fantasy as being synonymous. This probably started the first time I ever heard Star Wars described as modern Space Opera, and further reinforced when I heard Lensman described as OG Space Opera. To me Space Fantasy is stuff like Starfinder, which has actual magic co-existing with its handwavey technology and futuristic science. In other words, there is no attempt in Space Fantasy to dress up magic as advanced science/technology in all cases, but to sometimes refer to it as straight up "magic". But that's just how I think of it.

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7 hours ago, zslane said:

And before anyone points to Rogue One and The Mandalorian as being stand-out exceptions, I hasten to observe that a broken clock is still correct twice a day. I need a lot more "good Star Wars" (than we've been given) to convince me that the franchise isn't still completely broken.

 

 

You're confusing the Hell out of me.

 

Those _are_ the only two "good Star Wars."  The rest of it is the same garbage it's always been.

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Well Star Wars does have actual magic in it, The Force.  Even if they changed the source to tiny M-whats-its :winkgrin:

 

Weber's Honorverse and Baldwin's Helmsman series are really good Space Operas, and they do not have anything remotely magic  or psi at all. 

Babylon 5 was one of the first true TV space operas.  I know a lot of people added Star Wars to the space opera category in the 80's, but that was mostly because, IMO,  they didn't have another label available.  But there are a lot of awesome space opera out there.  It is one of my favorite sub-genres of SciFi.  The one thing that it never had was magic of any kind. Rubber science for sure, but no magic. I was one of the people that refused to jump on the "let's add Star Wars to Space Opera" bandwagon just because it was popular.

 

But in the end it really doesn't matter what we call it, except you might miss some great series if you think it is all tech plus magic.  

 

Starfinder has the distinction of being the game that disappointed me the most in the last 20 years.    They had an opportunity to make a fantastic scifi RPG and they settled for a copycat concept dungeons in space complete with space orcs...  blek...

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14 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Those _are_ the only two "good Star Wars."

 

Agreed. And many current day Star Wars apologists may point to them as evidence that Star Wars is kinda, sorta "back on track" or something. Thus my broken clock analogy.

 

9 minutes ago, Spence said:

Well Star Wars does have actual magic in it, The Force.

 

In effect, yes, but they at least had the good sense to dress it up as something science-y: an energy field created by all living beings, a fundamental force of the universe, just like gravity or the electromagnetic forces. It's just that this one is special because living beings can tap into this force without the aid of technology, thus it gets the distinction of being called the force.

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