Movies ~*Colin Trevorrow's Star Wars: Episode IX - Duel of the Fates OT*~

[johnny]

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, sexy_shapiro said:

SBL even made the prediction that episode 9 would perform better than The Last Jedi.

Opening weekend isn’t directly comparable, due to the positioning of Christmas. Having the travel/final shopping weekend with Christmas mid week naturally deflates the entire box office, the holdover drops being pretty significant for a weekend leading into kids being out of school. I’ll be interested to see how ROS does relative to TLJ the rest of the year though.

I’m also 100% my statement was qualified on ROS being a decent film

[skillzdadirecta]

24 minutes ago, johnny said:

 

Which screenwriter are they talking about? Chris Terrio?

[johnny]

8 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Which screenwriter are they talking about? Chris Terrio?

Have to be 

[skillzdadirecta]

8 minutes ago, johnny said:

Have to be 

I doubt he's at fault with this or with the two superhero films they're talking about which I presume are Batman vs Superman and Justice League? Just like this project, the director bears responsibility. I don't think people understand how much power A-list directors have over every aspect of the process.

[johnny]

1 minute ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I doubt he's at fault with this or with the two superhero films they're talking about which I presume are Batman vs Superman and Justice League? Just like this project, the director bears responsibility. I don't think people understand how much power A-list directors have over every aspect of the process.

Yes but the writing is bad in all of them 

[skillzdadirecta]

1 minute ago, johnny said:

Yes but the writing is bad in all of them 

Chris Terrio also wrote Argo, so considering that there are co-writers on each of the films in question and all of those co-writers are of questionable ability, I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these films. A bad director can take a perfectly good script and fuck it up. Very few directors can take a bad script and make a good movie out of it. With Batman vs Superman, David Goyer had co-screenwriting credit and he's awful. With Justice League, Terrio shares writing credits with Joss Wheadon and a Story credits with Zack Snyder. Both of their fingerprints are all over that script. Same with The Rise of Skywalker. The reason why he keeps getting these jobs is that he's more than likely turning in decent scripts. Then the director's get involved and do their thing. A screenwriting teacher told me something once and while it's probably an on overstatement it's also probably somewhat true... "Every great movie in Hollywood started out as a great script. No bad movie in Hollywood starts out as a bad script." Meaning most movies probably originate as pretty decent to good scripts until they're greenlit. Then once the Producers and Director's get a hold of the script, they can either make it better or "improve it into a failure". Or they can just fail to execute what's on the page. Rise of Skywalker definitely had problems on the script level... but to me those problems are in the directions they chose to take the story... and I'm betting those choices were made by the director and the producers. Not the writer. My two cents anyway.

[CayceG]

What a fucking mess that was.

[Mercury33]

As I think one of the most ardent defenders of the first two movies...I have nothing to say about this one.  Blast away.  What the fuck.

[SaysWho?]

7 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

I agree, but to be fair, Finn does get the shields down. But I also kept thinking it was super messed up to risk the Resistance just so you have an opportunity to save Rey, which is all Finn really cares about in that movie. Not only that, but because the attack isn't working even with the shields down, Finn, Han, and company decide to use explosives on the thermal occillator directly, something they didn't have to do (their job was only to bring down the shields) and that's when Han meets Kylo, so that aspect isn't so much on Finn, and they did an extra thing that saved the day that wasn't part of the original mission plan, so that's something. 

 

Also, time crunch or no, JJ Abrams co-wrote and directed both TFA and TROS. He takes primary blame for most of the issues with these movies, not time crunch. Anyone who watched Star Trek Into Darkness will tell you that he can't make good sequels, and despite how fun Star Trek 2009 was, any real Trek fan would tell you restarting a franchise with Star Trek 09 ruined Star Trek since it didn't even have the feel of Star Trek. Similarly, TFA did not have the feel of Star Wars but rather a Pirates of the Caribbean quippy action adventure movie, and Star Wars was always slower paced and more character driven than that. Like Star Trek, this YA adaptation/CW Star Wars is the Star Wars we have now and that's been clear since TFA and that's thanks to JJ Abrams. Star Wars was fucked once TFA came out - I remember coming out of it, long before TLJ, and going: "that movie was super fast, and didn't feel like Star Wars, but I guess that's Star Wars now" and made peace with it. The prequels sucked, so it's not like Star Wars was sacrosanct for me anymore anyway. 

 

tbh, I actually felt TFA felt the most like parts of the OT to me, so YMMV  

 

 

I don't even think there's one complete feeling to the OT.

[SaysWho?]

24 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

As I think one of the most ardent defenders of the first two movies...I have nothing to say about this one.  Blast away.  What the fuck.

 

I'm also a big defender of both, had a ton of fun in TFA, loved TLJ more and more every passing month, and with JJ attached again to this film after TFA, I couldn't have thought it would go the way it did by any stretch.

[ThreePi]

I think they did the best they could after the awful start they had with Force Awakens. Last Jedi at least moved Rey and Ren's story forward in a meaningful way while kind of making everyone else a goober. Not a great movie, but easily the best of these three.

[johnny]

12 minutes ago, ThreePi said:

I think they did the best they could after the awful start they had with Force Awakens. Last Jedi at least moved Rey and Ren's story forward in a meaningful way while kind of making everyone else a goober. Not a great movie, but easily the best of these three.

Weird, I think it is easily the worst 

[CayceG]

Okay. I just saw it and finally got home. I will be seeing again with my dad Christmas day, so I'm going to probably have more after that. But here's my thoughts. I'll try to keep them spoiler free. 

 

And as a service to the series that I love so much, I'm going to start with what I liked. It won't take me as long as it will the other list. 

 

GOOD THINGS:

 

- The thing I go back to in remembering fondly is how GOOD LOOKING the Resistance base on the jungle planet was. Such great scenery. Fighters and equipment just strewn everywhere in the forest. Really captured the ad hoc construction of it. Kinda makes it hell on the service crews since the flightline is separated by trees, but can't everywhere be Yavin IV. Also very cool to see the CR90 in the middle of it all. It's rare to see larger ships landed and that makes me happy. 

 

- Babu Frik was a fucking joy. 

 

- Passana was a great setting. It's always neat to see the other bits of culture throughout the galaxy. 

 

- Lando was a great inclusion not just for nostalgia's sake. He had meaning in the story leading up to this and continued to have it. So that was good. Maybe they underutilized or misused him here and there, but I like that he was back. 

 

- I enjoy that the movies constantly expand what The Force looks like and how it works as the characters get more and more powerful. I like the choices made here, minus one:

 

I really am not certain how force-teleporting a lightsaber works. I don't have a problem with suspension of disbelief, but it just seemed like convenient storytelling rather than compelling storytelling. The Force isn't a magic trick (pretty sure there's literally a line from the OT like this) and this event was 100% literally a magic trick. It felt cheap.

 

Actually, on second thought, I remember Kylo snatching the necklace Rey got at the festival through their Force bond. So this one isn't really valid. 

 

Other than that, everything that happens in developing the characters' use of and connection to The Force was good and enjoyable. 

 

- Lando bringing the cavalry (no, not the horses) in the end was a cool moment that was satisfying. I have to stop there because that leads into BAD THING. 

 

- Spoilery thing:

Leia's lightsaber and the scene of her training with Luke was a nice touch that I enjoyed seeing. It reveals a lot about Leia's background with the Force and I think it's fine and something that really would satisfy a lot of people. 

 

 - The use of footage they had from Leia was done reasonably well. It was apparent through how the scenes were written and how other characters pick up dialogue in a conversation that they really had very little left to work with. But they did an admirable job and the movie was better for it. 

 

- Another spoiler:

Personally, I liked Ben Solo's memory of Han. It was definitely a rhyme of what happened on Starkiller Base, and I think I'm okay with that. It's kinda lazy in that THAT is the moment of tension in Kylo Ren that he essentially gets to see himself after having turned to the good, get a do-over. But it was fine overall. 

 

BAD THINGS:

 

I really have reserved some Dark Side rage for this. Because holy shit. I have FEELINGS I need to stretch out with. I'll start with this...

JJ Abrams is a bad filmmaker. He's a bad writer. He's a horrid director. He's an awful editor. He's a shit cinematographer. This movie suffers from EVERY sin his other films have committed. 

 

- Let's get this out of the way. Fuck JJ Abrams lens flare. 

 

- The number one thing that killed my enjoyment of this movie was the frantic, relentless pacing. Holy shit, these criticisms were right. Everything is GOGOGO! I won't talk more about that. 

 

- The next thing that killed my enjoyment was that EVERY. FUCKING. SCENE. Was a closeup from the chest-up, or was centered on a "Specific Character". Every one was blocked in a way that was very un-subtle about saying "THIS IS IMPORTANT YOU SHOULD LOOK RIIIIIGHT HERE." This probably works together with the previous point in making everything feel so suffocating. The movie didn't give you time to breathe and it didn't give you room to breathe. Passana and Endor were the only scenes that weren't just pretty much claustrophobic. And they were fucking OUTSIDE! THAT'S THE OTHER THING! Even the outdoor shots, or scenes not in tight rooms didn't have any longer establishing shots to create atmosphere. 

 

- Third thing, right up here at the top of the list. JJ will tell you what he wants you to know. He does not use the visual medium of the moving picture to do so. He is a Writer, and Write he shall, so someone else can Read it to you. If we're lucky (and we are lucky with this cast--they are fucking incredible), they'll act it. Even if JJ just wanted them to read you what he wrote. 

 

- Speaking of. I counted no fewer than three times in which SOMEONE in the movie explicitly states just how important This Mission is and if they fail The Mission, it's all for naught! Recall Han Solo's line before "That's not how the force works" where he says "The Resistance is counting on us! The GALAXY is counting on us!" That's just absolutely cringeworthy writing. I feel sorry for Harrison for having to say that. Same for Anthony Daniels, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, and everyone else who uttered something similar in this movie. God, it got irritating. WE KNOW, JJ. 

 

- Characters. Yet again, masked women in cool costumes are underused. You hated how Phasma got the short shrift? Well, Zorii Bliss is once more that. She gets The Gang to the place they want to be. Is there conflict? Yep! Seems tense! I wonder how the gang gets out of i--oh. She immediately helps because... reasons. Anyway. She does the thing for them then that's that. Her character could have been more. Namely,

She could have served a purpose similar to Lando in rallying some troops (pirates, spice runners, ex-Rebels, bounty hunters) that would have taken the weight off Lando's mission at the end and made it feel a little more organic. 

 

- SPEAKING OF UNDERUSED WOMEN. Holy shit, JJ Abrams should be run out of Hollywood for what he did to Kelly Marie Tran. Or should I say, what he didn't do. That is, give her any meaningful screentime, lines, or arc. Her development with Finn in TLJ was meaningful then and wasted here. 

 

So that's all the filmmaking things I can think of. I'm sure more will pop up as I reconsider them and once I see it again. Let's talk about PLOT. Probably lots of spoilers below.

 

MORE BAD THINGS:

 

- The thing the opening crawl reveals:

I'm just going to call it lazy and be done with it. It takes the import out of Kylo Ren being Supreme Leader at the end of TLJ and just makes everything seem a bit too evil-genius mastermind with a plan that just comes together the right way. Again, lazy writing. 

 

- Rey's parentage:

Holy fucking shit. Let her be nobody. Take family and blood out of this. TLJ showed us The Force can be in anyone--which is what the Jedi have taught for 9 movies now. And a PALPATINE?! Yo, Sheev FUCKS, ya got that, kiddos? It just felt like such a cop out. Even Daisy Ridley's acting in the scene--which was incredible--wasn't believable. Because I can't really buy how convenient it is. 

 

Make her nobody. Her parents are on the run because they know she's strong with The Force and the Emperor's agent is after her. The Emperor senses her and wants her. That's it. That's the backstory. Her parents are strong because they hid her and fought off the agent. Rey is strong because The Force chose her. I swear, JJ keeps just making this galaxy so small. 

 

- Set ups and payoffs. There really weren't any that felt earned. I saw that phrasing used in other peoples' reviews and impressions and wasn't really sure how that would feel watching it but boy I sure do now! There aren't any true set ups or payoffs. They're just gotchas. 

 

Gotcha #1:

Chewie possibly dying at Rey's hand could have--and should have--been very impactful. But JJ doesn't like subtlety, and what he thinks is subtlety is actually just sleight of hand. Which he is bad at. 

See? They're taking Chewie to the landing ship! Oh no! How will they get him? (SEE HOW THERE ARE TWO LANDING SHIPS? HMMMMM???

OH NO! Rey blew up the landing ship! Again, Daisy Ridley's acting is impeccable in this scene and everything should evoke an authentic emotional response. 
CUT TO PRYDE - there's a prisoner eh? (WINK WINK, AUDIENCE!)

I truly forgot how they decided to to the First Order ship, but I'm pretty sure that there was barely 3 scenes between the "Setup" and the "Gotcha." And I'm being generous, because JJ just didn't make a shot that felt longer than 5 or 6 seconds and scenes just felt really short. 

 

Gotcha #2:

Remember Zorii Bliss and that planet the Sith Destroyer popped? Well, we didn't hear from this chrome domed forgotten JJ character in a while, so DON'T YOU FEEL BAD FOR POE? 

But wait! She shows up at the final battle! And STILL refuses to bang Poe! Haha! JJ is good at DRAMATIC TENSION!

 

Gotcha #3:

Palpatine threw Ben Solo down a well. It's clear that JJ doesn't know how else this could be done to preserve tension and make one of the main characters go it alone for a bit. Instead of having something occur in the scene to sideline them for a bit, he literally takes the character and throws them out of sight until they're needed again.

 

Gotcha #4:

Poe is ready to give up at the end (which makes no fucking sense because he pressed the attack on the Dreadnought at the beginning of TLJ, learned a lesson from that, then decided to forget that in the intervening years, even though he tried asking Leia for help in spirit. Now, Lando showing up then and there and saying that it's gonna be all good because they're in this together. That's fine. But that's not the lesson from the previous movie, and that lesson doesn't really have any weight at the final battle of this movie. 
Even when Lando shows up with half the pirates in the galaxy (in a conveniently short span of time, mind you), the lesson or his encouragement isn't really paid off. It's just JJ setting the football in front of us and pulling it a way when we take a shot at it. 

 

Gotcha #5:

For one, I find it hard to believe there's only ONE spy in the First Order. Two, I absolutely did not buy Hux's reasoning. His reveal is, yet again, JJ using an actor's mouth to tell us the words he wrote, with no indication whatsoever in this film (but PLENTY in the previous one!) that this is really what he wanted. 

And yet again a very short time after, Hux--the campy Nazi ginger space that ordered the destruction and murder of an entire solar system's worth of people, plunging the galaxy into lawless chaos--is brought to a less camp and thankfully more professional officer, who summarily blasts him. AND WE NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN. WASN'T THAT DRAMATIC?! BOY, HE SURE GOT HIS!

 

Again, I'm sure there will be more as I reminisce. 

 

- Also, JJ made it hard on himself and set constraints that he ABSOLUTELY DID NOT NEED TO. Why the time limit of 16 hours? That just made me not really buy the stuff that happens between then and the end! And it served no purpose. Does JJ think that "time limit" is a dramatic device? 

 

- So many things are just too fucking convenient. I've mentioned several in spoilers above, but I think JJ just wants to do A Cool Thing or get The Gang from point A to point B, and really has no idea how to do it, so he pulls something out of his ass. (See: commander's disc to get them onto a Star Destroyer. Zorii established not 5 minutes before that thing was her ticket out. And she gives it to someone she apparently hates. Cool. This could have been fleshed out way better.)

 

- Also, I got so fucking sick of seeing characters in this movie puke out some heartwarming platitude, only to have the camera linger on the person they were talking to smile knowingly/warmly. SEE MOVIEGOER? PERSON READ MY NICE WORDS. NOW OTHER PERSON SHOWS YOU WHAT YOUR FACE SHOULD BE DOING. 

 

- And a butt load of shit just did NOT need to happen. Again, these things were JJ beating us over the head with nostalgia, yelling "SEE THIS? I WANT YOU TO FEEL SOMETHING!" Or it's things that JJ clearly wanted to happen because they looked FUKKEN SWEET. Specifically:

Ben Solo's memory of Han. Again, like I said above, I liked this. What didn't I like? "Dad... I..." (CLEARLY INTENDING TO SAY I LOVE YOU); Han: "I know."  Dumb callback. 

 

Maz gives Chewie THAT medal. He has one. That's canon. This didn't need to happen. We didn't need to see it. 

Mentioning the Holdo maneuver. JJ is so affected by the criticisms of that from Reddit/Twitter. He HAD to have his say. 

 

Hyperspace skipping. Conceptually, this is good and could be useful. But they wouldn't skip from atmosphere to atmosphere. I just didn't buy into that and it's obvious JJ just wanted to show that. 

Wouldn't it be cool if they went back to the Emperor's throne room on the DS2? Well, now it has a hidden side door that goes into an expansive room that somehow isn't really there on the outside. 

 

In short, it could have been so much better--so much more. JJ indeed checked the boxes. Then he drew a bunch more boxes below that and checked them off too. 

 

I'm really just glad it's done. It is what it is. I still enjoy Star Wars and it was a fun romp, but it could have been so much more. I'm incredibly disappointed in it. I know JJ had a tough job in wrapping up the saga, but he really was not the guy to do it. 

 

[CayceG]

Okay. I just posted a full review post in the other thread. Wanted to pop in here and say that I was incredibly disappointed with it. It's easily the worst in the sequels. 

 

I'd slot it in as:

 

Empire > A New Hope > The Last Jedi > Rogue One > Return of the Jedi > The Force Awakens > The Rise of Skywalker > Sith > Menace > Clones

[69los]

16 minutes ago, CayceG said:

Okay. I just posted a full review post in the other thread. Wanted to pop in here and say that I was incredibly disappointed with it. It's easily the worst in the sequels. 

 

I'd slot it in as:

 

Empire > A New Hope > The Last Jedi > Rogue One > Return of the Jedi > The Force Awakens > The Rise of Skywalker > Sith > Menace > Clones

 

That's pretty much my ranking. Where do you rank Solo? I'm going to watch it again soon.

[CayceG]

2 minutes ago, 69los said:

 

That's pretty much my ranking. Where do you rank Solo? I'm going to watch it again soon.

 

Solo was so worthless that it doesn't count. And I debated not even including the prequels because they're so abysmal. 

[SaysWho?]

43 minutes ago, johnny said:

Weird, I think it is easily the worst 

 

You don't think TLJ is the worst.  

 

It may be written weird, but he's saying TLJ wasn't great but was easily the best.

[Jason]

JJ really is the quintessential perpetual upward failure, isn't he? 

[SaysWho?]

J.J. Abrams Explains Lineage Choice In Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker

 

Quote

After a Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker screening, J.J. Abrams was part of an on-stage Q&A. Vanity Fair pointed out that Rey went from thinking she was "nobody" to finding out she descended from someone terrible, Emperor Palpatine himself. Abrams was asked why that was important thematically, and here's his answer:

 

Quote

One of the themes of the movie is that anyone can be anything regardless of where you're from. I don't know if it resonates for everyone, but I think there are quite a few people who appreciate that idea of not coming from a place that you're particularly excited about or proud of. Though I completely understand 'you're nobody' is a devastating thing, to me the more painful, the more shocking thing was 'you're from the worst possible place.' And is your destiny, is that thing that you feel, that you know is part of you, somehow, that you're haunted by, is that your destiny? The idea that choices -- there are things more powerful than blood, as Luke says. That feeling was an important thing to convey for us.

 

Quote

This whole trilogy -- this 7, 8, and 9 -- is really about the generation that sort of follows the great generation and the idea of balance, bringing balance to The Force. Which is the whole point of the chosen one Anakin in the original trilogy. What I love was the idea that balance brought to The Force doesn't mean it's forever. It's not immediately everlasting. And I think the idea that if we are not careful, the evil will rise again. That we have to be proactive in doing what we can and maintain the balance, and how does the generation that follows the great generation do that. And the idea that these two main characters, both the grandchildren of these crucially important characters of Palpatine and Skywalker -- as [co-writer] Chris [Terrio] was saying, these two houses coming together in this next generation felt like there was an inevitability to it. And if one were to watch [Episodes] 1 through 9, you know, 50, 100 years from now, hopefully you feel that these stories were inevitably leading there.

 

[CayceG]

4 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

J.J. Abrams Explains Lineage Choice In Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker

 

 

I could buy that if it felt at all like it were leading up to that. It was not until about 30 minutes into the last movie. So this is horseshit, JJ. 

 

We get a whole other movie for Luke to deal with the idea that Vader is his father. Rey's reveal and the conflict within her about it just did not get enough time to be effectively developed. 

[SaysWho?]

1 minute ago, CayceG said:

 

I could buy that if it felt at all like it were leading up to that. It was not until about 30 minutes into the last movie. So this is horseshit, JJ. 

 

We get a whole other movie for Luke to deal with the idea that Vader is his father. Rey's reveal and the conflict within her about it just did not get enough time to be effectively developed. 

 

Another problem with it: the movie wouldn't fundamentally change if Rey wasn't related to Palpatine. That's how shoehorned it is; the confrontation and stakes don't change much based on this. Ironically, the bitching about Rey not being related to anyone important -- a gutsy theme of finding your own two feet without any legacy in the world -- seems even sillier because that twist and story point were more interesting than being Palpatine's granddaughter.

[SaysWho?]

Luke in Episode 8: Strike me down with your anger and I'll always be with you. Just like your father.

Luke in Episode 9: *crickets*

 

Pity on that one, too.

[CitizenVectron]

2 hours ago, Jason said:

JJ really is the quintessential perpetual upward failure, isn't he? 

 

I look forward to him getting the next Superman reboot.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[skillzdadirecta]

The Rise of Skywalker's opening crawl references events only seen in Fortnite of all places apparently. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

12 hours ago, johnny said:

Weird, I think it is easily the worst 

I feel like as a Star Wars story and for lore it is up there. But as a quality film, yeah, I would say it ranks third of the ST. 

[TheLeon]

I like to imagine that JJ got really offended when people made fun of TFA's Starkiller Base just being yet another, bigger Death Star. 

 

Oh, you didn't like that, huh? Well fuck it, here's 10,000 LITTLE Death Stars. 

 

 

[CitizenVectron]

There are always going to be people who like Transformers 3 over Contact, so it's not surprising that there will be people who prefer TROS or TFA over TLJ.

[SaysWho?]

On 12/23/2019 at 8:58 AM, TheLeon said:

I like to imagine that JJ got really offended when people made fun of TFA's Starkiller Base just being yet another, bigger Death Star. 

 

Oh, you didn't like that, huh? Well fuck it, here's 10,000 LITTLE Death Stars. 

 

 

Nah, even Han Solo made fun of it in Episode 7 ("So it's bigger."). But the fact that

he went back to that well AGAIN, after TFA was kind of a "soft reboot" that had the next-gen Death Star after the first two, but this time every Star Destroyer could do the same thing (something that I don't think was really used for dramatic purposes in the climax?), versus the phenomenal climax of The Last Jedi... shit, give Rian Johnson the reigns. I didn't mind Starkiller Base being another Death Star because it was the familiar part, I felt, contrasted to the Finn-Rey-Kylo fight. There really wasn't a reason to do it again. 

 

[SaysWho?]

 

[SaysWho?]

 

 

 

 

[CayceG]

That is infuriating. 

 

 

[69los]

I wasn't a fan of Rose or Canto Bight but what happened to her character is unforgivable.

[GeneticBlueprint]

So what's next for Star Wars in terms of movies? Will there be more "Episodes?" X, XI, etc? The end to this movie made things seem final but also kind of cleaned the slate so that things could theoretically start fresh. But that could also mean that it's just done with the Episodes and will go in other directions. As a huge fan I'd prefer both episodes with these characters going forward and other adventures instead of just the latter.