Post: #126

Paracelsus - I've always loved that anecdote; also the one about him wearing slippers for most of his scenes because Tarkin's boots hurt like a bitch. I think it's definitely important to remember Cushing as not only an absolutely geared actor, but one of the most remarkably warm and gentle human beings to stand in front of a camera. (You can see in the way Christopher Lee talked about him what an invaluable gift he considered Cushing's friendship.)

Post: #127

2.5 hours to go before I see it, boys. Meantime...

Post: #128

Hopefully no spoilers. I won't see it until Christmas. Are theaters have those damn luxury seats which have less seats per theater and a smaller screen! So its sold out for quite awhile.

Post: #129

Back.

Warning: potential spoilers. I'll leave space before and after so those who don't want to read can flick past.


















































































All right.

(1) It's better than the Prequel Trilogy. Probably better than Lucas could have pulled off had he been at the helm given his track record. I personally put it slightly higher than ROTJ but still under ANH, but then I'm a crusty old fart who's been burned by the PT and probably need to lose some cynicism before applying a more critical eye to it.

(2) You're not going to like what they do with Rey. Force powers are not quite at The Farce Unleashed computer game levels, but acquiring them in the JJ Abrams universe seems rather to favour picking them up without any fucking training whatsoever. Actress is annoying as fuck for the first third of the film then becomes somewhat more tolerable as the show goes on.

(3) John Boyega doesn't quite play the 'LAWD-A MERCY-A, AH DOAN KNOWN WHA THIS HERE BE HAPPENIN' black caricature, but half the time you think that's why they put him in there. He's the comic relief and 'everyman' insertion. Surprisingly good. Also, Oscar Isaac: he and Boyega have an immediate bro chemistry which was pleasant to see. Isaac isn't given a hell of a lot to do, but he does it pretty well.

(4) Harrison Ford finally gets his fucking wish, and my earlier guess is correct, albeit I was out by one act. He tries not to act terribly bored and does get off a couple of funny lines. He and Carrie Fisher's scenes they at least try to inject some pathos into it.

(5) Carrie Fisher ... well, the Wall. Nothing more to really say.

(6) Gwendoline Christie: not to worry, you never see her face.

(7) Relentless focus on character interactions which is very, very nice and a shitload better than CGI vistas every five seconds. Story is wrenching to some extent, especially when you find out what Han and Leia named their child.

(8) They put in some humour, and they put in some torture scenes. The latter is significant (albeit dark): notice how the OT has one in each film, and the PT has none? Very important as it imposes the necessary contrast of light and dark tone in the film, and it certainly starts with a fairly dark thing.

(9) It's a 2.5 hour McGuffin Quest ... but shit, man, it's worth it for the cameo of Luke. That guy has learned some shit in 30 years. He conveys decades of pain, sadness, and world weariness in a glance. It steals the film, or at least it's a worthwhile payoff for it.

(10) Storyline is a little more complicated and a lot more silly than A New Hope or ESB, but this does make it just a bit less predictable.

(11) Not all plotlines and character origins are tied off in a nice neat bow, which is a pleasant surprise. Certainly sets up beautifully for a sequel even if the main storyline is sorted out.

(12) John Williams fans are going to be intrigued. The classic themes are here, but he's come up with a lot of new shit for this series. All themes are unobtrusive and work well.

































































































If you guys want a spoileriffic version I'll get on that as soon as I can, but I need some sleep.

Post: #130

Thanks for the update.
I thought I had the willpower to scroll past that spoilerish part of your post.
Turns out, I don´t.

Will go and report back.

Post: #131

Maybe you geeks can explain this to me.

Why are there no missiles? I have not scene this new movie or the recent trilogy (well pieces). But I don't recall any in the original trilogy.

Lasers travel at the speed of light I guess, they are faster than missiles I guess.

I imagine a guided missile would shoot down the ships better than these lasers seem to

Post: #132

(12-16-2015 07:58 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  Maybe you geeks can explain this to me.

Why are there no missiles? I have not scene this new movie or the recent trilogy (well pieces). But I don't recall any in the original trilogy.

Lasers travel at the speed of light I guess, they are faster than missiles I guess.

I imagine a guided missile would shoot down the ships better than these lasers seem to

Short answer: they're not lasers, so they don't travel at the speed of light.

All the red laser-like shit you see flying around in the films is blaster fire. The "in-universe" explanation is that it's superheated gas spun into a plasma-like substance and then spat out the barrel of the gun at the target. Yes, I know they talk about "turbolasers", but in-universe it's commonly acknowledged they're blaster fire.

The only missiles in the original trilogy were proton torpedoes, which Luke fired up the Death Star's asshole. The only problem is that if I remember right torpedoes don't penetrate energy shields, which is one reason blaster fire is used: to wear down shields and then blow the ship up.

Post: #133

Double post: I've had a chance to think about it, and I'm probably downgrading this film a couple of notches now that the afterglow has faded.

This film was written about 2-3 years ago, when grrrl-power and rape culture propaganda were at their height. It shows, and it had its desired reaction. When I checked on Murdoch's news.com this morning there was a long, gloating feminist article about all the "empowered" things Rey does in this movie -- but a couple of hours later I've checked back and it's disappeared, I'm not sure whether for the ideological bent or because it contains a shitload of spoilers.

Basically, Rey is not only turned into a superhero who don't need no man around, she's made into a hypercompetent superhero as well. It is a glaring addition -- and even the women I spoke to tentatively about this rolled their eyes when I described what the character does.

I've been sipping from the Last Psychiatrist cup a lot recently, so I've been ruminating on this: exactly why would Disney have taken this sort of risk on an IP this big? Saying 'BECAUSE IT'S A FEMINIST PLOT TO CHANGE THE NARRATIVE' is a bit too simplistic: Disney believes in money, not vaginas. They spent four billion on Star Wars. This film would not have gotten anywhere near a silver screen unless that script had been combed over again and again by Disney's marketing consultants and upper management making sure it was in a form they thought people would swallow in vast numbers.

One conclusion I come to is: they took this route because Joseph Campbell's hero cycle is more or less dead as a storytelling device for men in Hollywood. Dear old Christopher Vogler's book The Writer's Journey has finally hit its logical endpoint where it was being used so frequently and so ineptly that Hollywood -- or big films anyway -- have to discard it, parody it, or disguise it because it's too predictable. And because men are turning away from movie theatres in larger and larger numbers, they have to desperately broaden their base.

Had Abrams gone with a more standard male protagonist who slowly learns his secret abilities under a competent teacher as the movie goes on, the movie would have been derided as cliche and derivative. And whether feminists like it or not this film has a primary target audience of young men and teenagers. Even last night, at a midnight screening, it was overwhelmingly young guys who turned up to watch this, not women.

But here's where I get to a very dark and sad pass: making a hypercompetent female protagonist is not an overt attempt to change the narrative in favour of women. I don't doubt that more indie or overt political movies are designed to do precisely that. Rather, I take a contrarian view: the female casting and the story imposed on that female protagonist are troubling commentaries on where our women lie right now.

Let's start with the basic proposition that in order to make a lot of people sit and enjoy your film, you have to give them characters with whom they identify. David Farland makes a merciless (and singular) discussion of this harsh reality in the context of novels: in virtually all bestsellers, the book features escape from ordinary life and features a wide cast of variable ages and of both genders. Harry Potter does this best: the cast ranges from fucking ancient types like Dumbledore down to prepubescent teenagers, and as a result there's a wide audience appeal. The same goes for films.

So. What tranche of audience members was Rey meant to appeal to? I mean, like any other character, she is in there because the writers hope or expect a large number of women will resonate with her; her prominence as a character means her circumstances and basic attitude have to mirror or reflect a large portion of the target female audience.

Rey is a twentysomething female loner sitting on a dead-end planet with no family or kids, low woman on the totem pole and just surviving (and not well) in a brutally capitalist system, with no father or mother identified to us, but who is very good at a tiny subset of tech-related maintenance activities (while being almost delusionally committed to waiting around "for her family", literally marking the time).

The writers then take the female audience viewer through a life-changing journey by proxy, playing to such women's self-aggrandising fantasies that they can master something the moment they touch it, learn Force powers without any prior training, and (eventually) leave the boy who has been risking his life to save her firmly in the friendzone (and ultimately, on another planet entirely).

As TLP says: if you're seeing it, the ad is for you. Movies -- especially ones like Star Wars -- are fundamentally about escapism. They are about fooling a person at an unconscious level that they are the person in the film.

Rey, then, is not a figure of female empowerment. Quite the opposite: she is JJ Abrams' barometer of Western women -- purposeless women living hand-to-mouth lives with no deeper or spiritual purpose to their existence, women so starved of a purpose they have to be fed myths of hypercompetence and instant mastery to get through their days without cutting themselves. This is the lot that feminism has left us.

Post: #134

Great write up Paracelsus even though its sullied my expectations a little.

Personally I don't really care if the protagonist is female or not but all I ask is that they be written with the same nuance as male characters, that is fully fleshed out people with strengths and weaknesses, who often make mistakes and don't always have the answer and, not these feminist super bad ass caricatures. It took Luke three movies to come into his own, and he got his ass handed to him in the second one.

Btw Paracelsus did you see Mad Max: Fury Road and if so what did you think about it?

Post: #135

(12-16-2015 11:16 PM)the high Wrote:  Btw Paracelsus did you see Mad Max: Fury Road and if so what did you think about it?

Honestly, I thought the anti-masculinity fuss was a bit overblown. This is not the first time Max has been sort-of sidelined in 'his' own film: Mad Max 2 features a strong-ish female co-protagonist and it's seen as arguably the best of the films. And there is some nice arse and some nice bodies on display in Mad Max, which both allows me to ignore any "feminist" message in the film and significantly undermines any such message anyway.

The ending leaves all sorts of unfortunate implications open, and they are not feminist. Baldie Chick (oh, right, Imperator Furiosa) basically rises high above the rest of the teeming horde which implies she's going to have to do much the same things as Old Bane did. The women open up the tubes allowing all the water to get spilled into a dry wasteland, which is probably nice for the fifteen minutes or so during which people can rejoice in abundant water ... until the supplies run out.

I appreciate Max because it's an inversion of the standard Hollywood fantasy movie, because it dares to let you fill in some of the blanks with your own ideas. Very important exercise for an audience, that. It's a film that demands you not be spoonfed with details at every step of the way.

For example, the most wonderful tingle I got out of a review or discussion of Mad Max is the fan theory that the Max of Fury Road is not, in fact, Mel Gibson for one good reason: it's not actually Max Rockatarsky. This theory suggested -- with some nice supports out of the film -- that the Max in Fury Road is, in fact, the grown-up Feral Kid from Mad Max 2, who has simply assumed Max's identity. That's the sort of thinking, the sort of meta-story, that a good film will inspire and a CGI lovefest will not.

It's a gorgeous action movie, and not just in terms in terms of practical stunts. Campbell loves exquisite colour contrasts, and the caramel desert that appears in many shots is both beautiful and forbidding. The most memorable shot for me was the one where Max wakes up and lifts himself out of the sand -- I have no idea how they achieved the effect, but until you see him getting up (and for a good deal of time after) it looks like a fucking giant is standing up off the ground.

The film also has a minimalist plot, which is good. Part of the attraction of Mad Max is the fact that every entry is a sort of a fragment in the story of the world -- like surviving legends. If you've read Stephen King's Dark Tower series the themes and ideas of this film fit right in, to my mind.

Post: #136

(12-16-2015 09:20 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  Double post: I've had a chance to think about it, and I'm probably downgrading this film a couple of notches now that the afterglow has faded.

This film was written about 2-3 years ago, when grrrl-power and rape culture propaganda were at their height. It shows, and it had its desired reaction. When I checked on Murdoch's news.com this morning there was a long, gloating feminist article about all the "empowered" things Rey does in this movie -- but a couple of hours later I've checked back and it's disappeared, I'm not sure whether for the ideological bent or because it contains a shitload of spoilers.

Basically, Rey is not only turned into a superhero who don't need no man around, she's made into a hypercompetent superhero as well. It is a glaring addition -- and even the women I spoke to tentatively about this rolled their eyes when I described what the character does.

I've been sipping from the Last Psychiatrist cup a lot recently, so I've been ruminating on this: exactly why would Disney have taken this sort of risk on an IP this big? Saying 'BECAUSE IT'S A FEMINIST PLOT TO CHANGE THE NARRATIVE' is a bit too simplistic: Disney believes in money, not vaginas. They spent four billion on Star Wars. This film would not have gotten anywhere near a silver screen unless that script had been combed over again and again by Disney's marketing consultants and upper management making sure it was in a form they thought people would swallow in vast numbers.

One conclusion I come to is: they took this route because Joseph Campbell's hero cycle is more or less dead as a storytelling device for men in Hollywood. Dear old Christopher Vogler's book The Writer's Journey has finally hit its logical endpoint where it was being used so frequently and so ineptly that Hollywood -- or big films anyway -- have to discard it, parody it, or disguise it because it's too predictable. And because men are turning away from movie theatres in larger and larger numbers, they have to desperately broaden their base.

Had Abrams gone with a more standard male protagonist who slowly learns his secret abilities under a competent teacher as the movie goes on, the movie would have been derided as cliche and derivative. And whether feminists like it or not this film has a primary target audience of young men and teenagers. Even last night, at a midnight screening, it was overwhelmingly young guys who turned up to watch this, not women.

But here's where I get to a very dark and sad pass: making a hypercompetent female protagonist is not an overt attempt to change the narrative in favour of women. I don't doubt that more indie or overt political movies are designed to do precisely that. Rather, I take a contrarian view: the female casting and the story imposed on that female protagonist are troubling commentaries on where our women lie right now.

Let's start with the basic proposition that in order to make a lot of people sit and enjoy your film, you have to give them characters with whom they identify. David Farland makes a merciless (and singular) discussion of this harsh reality in the context of novels: in virtually all bestsellers, the book features escape from ordinary life and features a wide cast of variable ages and of both genders. Harry Potter does this best: the cast ranges from fucking ancient types like Dumbledore down to prepubescent teenagers, and as a result there's a wide audience appeal. The same goes for films.

So. What tranche of audience members was Rey meant to appeal to? I mean, like any other character, she is in there because the writers hope or expect a large number of women will resonate with her; her prominence as a character means her circumstances and basic attitude have to mirror or reflect a large portion of the target female audience.

Rey is a twentysomething female loner sitting on a dead-end planet with no family or kids, low woman on the totem pole and just surviving (and not well) in a brutally capitalist system, with no father or mother identified to us, but who is very good at a tiny subset of tech-related maintenance activities (while being almost delusionally committed to waiting around "for her family", literally marking the time).

The writers then take the female audience viewer through a life-changing journey by proxy, playing to such women's self-aggrandising fantasies that they can master something the moment they touch it, learn Force powers without any prior training, and (eventually) leave the boy who has been risking his life to save her firmly in the friendzone (and ultimately, on another planet entirely).

As TLP says: if you're seeing it, the ad is for you. Movies -- especially ones like Star Wars -- are fundamentally about escapism. They are about fooling a person at an unconscious level that they are the person in the film.

Rey, then, is not a figure of female empowerment. Quite the opposite: she is JJ Abrams' barometer of Western women -- purposeless women living hand-to-mouth lives with no deeper or spiritual purpose to their existence, women so starved of a purpose they have to be fed myths of hypercompetence and instant mastery to get through their days without cutting themselves. This is the lot that feminism has left us.

^Sounds like you got the pulse here of all the PC themes that they put into this movie.

For these reasons I'm going to pass.

I'm just too red pill to enjoy a movie like this. When you're red pill, all this politically correct/feminist message stuff they cram into movies nowadays stands out like a sore thumb. It keeps a neomasculine man from enjoying most of what Hollywood pumps out these days.

Post: #137

I think that Mark Hammil is one of the greatest voice actors of our generation, especially as the Joker, so I am excited to see what he does in this movie.

Post: #138

Just saw it.

Wanted to like it so much - there were elements that were brilliant - but to me there were a couple of dealbreakers. I can't love this movie, and I'm torn whether I really want to accept it as Star Wars.

----

-New leads and villain were cool. OK it's pretty "girl power" but not obnoxiously so. I think they were pretty refreshing overall - they took some risks with them but they pulled them off

-Poe Dameron is awesome. The perfect republic/"resistance" pilot. Shame he didn't get more of a central role.

-Awesome to see Han Solo back in action. Ford nails it.

Main problems I had with it:


-Rae picks up force powers almost instantaneously after hearing they exist, from some old bar owner who's not a jedi. Come ON. It took Luke and Anakin 1-2 movies and training with mentors to get there. This chick gets it immediately, 1000x quicker than Luke and Anakin? Come ON. That's an insult to fans.

-Villain's force ability seems inconsistent. He looks very powerful in the beginning, but can't seemingly overpower a total force newbie 1-on-1.

No reference at all to the wider galactic context. Republic? Where? First Order seems to weild all the power of the Galactic Empire, but... isn't it supposed to be fragments of a defeated Galactic Empire? Why is the "Resistance" not a powerful arm of a growing Republic? All they have is a few X-wings? Even calling it "the resistance" is just farcical. They should have had the courage to set up and explore a galaxy with a fledgling new Republic trying to handle a growing evil.

True Star Wars fans will watch this and say "hang on. What universe are we actually in now? What is the state of the Galaxy?"
The originals laid it out in no uncertain terms and the prequels (however flawed) at least explored the galaxy pre- New-Hope.

This film completely doesn't even try to establish a credible wider context.

-The same old game played out. It's like copy/paste from New Hope. Of course we're expecting an homage to the originals, but this stretched too far at the expense of plausibility. True Star Wars fans will be going "Pfff... come on." several times. There are "dealbreakers" in the way the wider galaxy and context is presented (or completely ignored in favour of the same old adventure).

If they can be courageous with the new characters, why not with the evolution of the galaxy? Show us what happened in the past 30 years. Don't just mention "Republic" twice then discard context.

Post: #139

Just back from the movie also. I was underwhelmed to say the least. Saw the original when I was 6 or 7. It was a huge part of movie culture at the time. First time the merchandising became a thing. The action figures, space ships, etc. I had a bunch of them.... didn't keep them in the original wrapping.... damn my childhood propensity to actually play with toys....I coulda been rich I tells ya, rich!
Anyhoo you nailed both points in your post which I think were glaringly obvious.... the chick just so happens to be a natural with a light sabre....no need for all that Jedi training bullshit...and yes it took vast swathes of plotline from A New Hope.
If this is any sign of things to come I'll gladly wait to watch it for free somewhere in a galaxy far far away.....
Jar Jar Abrams just pissed all over whatever little legacy of the original movies there was left.... bah humbug.....

Post: #140

(12-17-2015 08:06 AM)RichieP Wrote:  No reference at all to the wider galactic context. Republic? Where? First Order seems to weild all the power of the Galactic Empire, but... isn't it supposed to be fragments of a defeated Galactic Empire? Why is the "Resistance" not a powerful arm of a growing Republic? All they have is a few X-wings? Even calling it "the resistance" is just farcical. They should have had the courage to set up and explore a galaxy with a fledgling new Republic trying to handle a growing evil.

True Star Wars fans will watch this and say "hang on. What universe are we actually in now? What is the state of the Galaxy?"
The originals laid it out in no uncertain terms and the prequels (however flawed) at least explored the galaxy pre- New-Hope.

This film completely doesn't even try to establish a credible wider context.

Yeah, they could have made that a lot clearer. About the only scenario I can think of that explains "The Republic" as basically one solar system in the entire galaxy is if the galaxy's gone through a massive collapse in peace and stability where everyone's more or less looking out for themselves, rather than a galaxy-spanning government as we saw in the prequel trilogy. (And it's still fucking ridiculous. Who names a planet "the Republic"? Was that Coruscant that got ashed? Is the Resistance based inside First Order space, or what?)

Post: #141

^Yeah this for me was a big downer.

Maybe the Republic is a small, fragile organisation still, maybe the Empire isn't so fractured, it's down but not out and the good guys are still the underdogs... but they never alluded to any wider context either way. Tell us what the damn galaxy is like! There should be signs of a "Star Wars universe", not just an adventure with a handful of the same heroes and villains.

It wouldn't have taken much - maybe just make the film 10-15 minutes longer, with 2-3 slower exploratory scenes, flashbacks or dialogues where we get hints of what's happened these past 30 years and "how things actually are".

They don't even have to show it. It can be referenced in dialogue. Remember Obi-wan's context-setting comments in the originals?

"I fought alongside your father in the clone wars"
"An elegant weapon, for a more civilised age"

etc

Just a few slower moments like that would have worked wonders. Han Solo and/or Leia should have done it in FA.

There was one flashback that hinted at Ren's betrayal and Rae's history, but it was blink-and-you'll-miss-it, and still was about characters, not context.

I'm *hoping* it's because they decided to play it safe and give people a rewind of the New Hope adventure and get everyone saying "this feels like Star Wars again". Maybe they'll move forward once that's in place. And perhaps they thought a "Republic vs Growing Evil" would have been too similar to the prequels and they wanted to avoid that as much as possible.

Star Wars isn't just the adventure, it's the deeply rich universe, setting and context. This was missing. Really hope future movies get this right.

The Force power stuff was just unforgivable though. It takes years of training and mentorship to learn Force powers. That's a key element of the mythology. I was shaking my head in disbelief when she tries it twice and gets it right on the third time. Come on Abrams, that's not Star Wars... no excuse.

Post: #142

This movie tried too hard to push the "strong female" character narrative.

In all the Stars Wars films the guy with the red lightsaber owns everyone and is the hardest enemy to take down. But in this film he is easily beaten by a coward, and a puny little girl who has never touched a lightsaber.

Towards the end the Sith Lord guy says that they need to finish his training. I'm like, "What training? The dude got owned by 2 little bitches."

Somehow the puny little girl is equal in strength to Han's Solo's dark sided son.

Post: #143

(12-18-2015 04:44 PM)memcpy Wrote:  This movie tried too hard to push the "strong female" character narrative.

In all the Stars Wars films the guy with the red lightsaber owns everyone and is the hardest enemy to take down. But in this film he is easily beaten by a coward, and a puny little girl who has never touched a lightsaber.

Towards the end the Sith Lord guy says that they need to finish his training. I'm like, "What training? The dude got owned by 2 little bitches."

Somehow the puny little girl is equal in strength to Han's Solo's dark sided son.

SPOILERS


























You've been warned!






















Just got back from seeing the movie. It was good; not great. Probably what the franchise needs right now, a safe movie that proves that it's a return to form and better than the prequels.

The PC/SJW stuff wasn't excruciatingly obvious but there are MAJOR problems with how Rey picks up on the Force so easily.

Anakin, the chosen one, required years of training to git gud and even he got his ass beat quite a few times. In the OT the Force was this subtle thing that influenced events and actions from behind the scenes and only intense training over a long period of time allowed a Force-sensitive individual to truly wield it.

However, Rey just concentrates a little bit and manages to:
- Resist an amateur (but at least he has SOME training) dark Jedi's attempt at probing her mind
- Probes the mind of said dark Jedi
- Use Force mind trick, what should be an advanced skill, after trying a few times
- Use force pull on her first try
- Take a full punch to the face by a male character, barely gets fazed, and beats his ass
- Know the inner workings of a starship better than its owner does
- Successfully wield and DEFEAT a dark Jedi while using a lightsaber for the very first time

I think that's my problem with Rey. She has NO training whatsoever and she should be getting her ass whupped. Kylo was an amateur dark Jedi but he at least has SOME training and some training will always beat no training.

She's better than everyone with almost everything. She knows how to fix the Falcon better than Han. She outshoots trained Stormtroopers, despite never having wielded a blaster before. She runs faster than the black guy. She beats a dark Jedi, never having had training in lightsaber fighting or using the Force.

It's funny that in one part when Han berates Finn for not having a plan, Finn replies, "We'll figure it out. We'll use the Force!" Han retorts, "That's not how it works!" Apparently that's how it works for Rey.


TL;DR: Movie good. Rey too powerful; kind of Mary Sue-esque. Possible SJW agenda.

Post: #144

Is Rey being too powerful definately a SJW element, or could it be a "we've already seen 6 Star Wars movies, nobody wants to see people struggle with the Force, lets get to the action already" element? Maybe some of both? Because when I read some comments, seriously nobody wants to see someone struggle with the force as long as Luke did, we get it already.

Post: #145

"She outshoots trained storm troopers"

Well with the first 6 movies that wouldn't really be all that hard. They are notoriously poor shots.

Post: #146

(12-18-2015 07:50 PM)Razgriz Wrote:  "She outshoots trained storm troopers"

What's a "trained Storm Trooper?" They cant hit the broad side of a barn with the broad side of a barn.

Post: #147

(12-18-2015 05:30 PM)Anti-Riot Wrote:  She runs faster than the black guy.

Post: #148

Thanks Paracelsus for an objective review. I think I will pass on this one and get it on stream later. The Star Wars universe has lost its interest for me after the prequels. It's a shame, but as someone else wrote, it doesn't fit our reality now. I watched the first Star Wars as a teenager just when the tech revolution was really setting in, it is a film based on optimism - though in the face of a great enemy (USSR). I just don't see how we can believe such a setting anymore. If they wanted to renew the franchise, they'd have to make some bolder changes. A galaxy where the Republic has won over the Empire, but where the Jedis have become old, lazy, nepotist, their teachings now holding back other movements, the Republic decaying in vice. A relation to the boomers (who incidentally WERE the young characters of the 70s movies).

It's the same with the Aliens movies. There should never be made another. Ridley Scott made the correct choice to spin the series off into a new universe and by and large Prometheus created an amazing new universe. Unfortunately the Lost writer spoiled it and the casting pandered to millenials all with a cast of all tattoos and snarky behavior, complete with a hero with scarf.

Which is also why Hollywood sucks and TV series has taken over. Hollywood simply doesn't have balls anymore or doesn't want to have balls. Hollywood in the 70s and 80s actually had something to say against the establishment. Maybe the problem now is that Hollywood IS the establishment.

Post: #149

My thought is....


If this is 30 years after the "Rebellion" blew up the 2d Death Star......

Isn't the "Rebellion" the government now? Doesn't that make the "First Order" the "resistance?"

Post: #150

(12-18-2015 08:39 PM)Travesty Wrote:  

(12-18-2015 05:30 PM)Anti-Riot Wrote:  She runs faster than the black guy.

   


I'll cut him some slack. He did just wander through a desert for hours, and the chick can use the Force.

Force > fast twitch muscle fibers.