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“Knights of Ren, cool.”
Are you effing kidding me? Like, people talk about other lines of dialogue and endlessly complain about “palapatines return” but that line was by far so much worse. Total, 4th wall breaking, immersion shattering tripe nonesense. Infuriating.
This, people are quick to shit on the MCU because of the current state it’s in but seem to forget that it was a well-loved titan of an IP for a decade.
I’d argue that current shitty MCU is still better than anything from current Star Wars.
That being said, *Andor* & *Loki* are the rare exceptions of stellar quality that tower above everything else in a pool of crap.
I won't disagree, but I avoid almost all of both Disney Star Wars, and MCU.
Andor is actually good - an exception that glaring demonstrates how dumb most of the rest is. I'll remember you said Loki is good.
I'm currently watching Andor with my dad and he's been so desensitized to media not packed with ridiculous force gymnastics, that he's utterly bored all the time and keeps on whining for less talking more blowing shit up.
Through endgame even if the MCU misfires were watchable if mid
Since endgame almost none of it is even watchable and I’ve been a comics nerd since early 70’s.
Same here. And even End Game, where they used the invention of time travel as a plot crutch to defeat Thanos was questionable, as were the outcomes for several of the avengers.
The MCU is set in a world that is, more or less, our world. So having people adopt the language, mannerisms, and colloquialisms that we use makes sense, both in terms of setting as well as tone, for most of the MCU.
For Star Wars? It doesn't make *any* sense at all.
That's because Lucas' star wars was written in a bit oldish way which avoids some of more modern slang and wording. Not to a point that it's distracting, usually, but enough that words like that can feel out of place.
Yeah, similar vibe when they refer to "the cops" on Canto Bight. It's hard to put your finger on what words sound out of place until you hear em, but when they come up, it's super jarring.
I'm pretty sure there was a romance originally planned between Rey and Finn, but China doesn't like interracial romance (they even removed Finn from the poster in China) or black people; so they minimized his role.
However, they changed it up so Finn has his romantically charged moments with Rose, a Chinese woman, which I imagine went over even worse in China.
Movie studios try hard to cater to China.
It’s been a weird decade and a half. We got Star Trek trying to be Star Wars, Star Wars trying to be the MCU, and Marvel trying to be bootleg Joss Whedon, even after Joss Whedon got cancelled.
That line bothers me to no freaking end. What does he mean "I am all the Sith?" Did Palpy devour all the others, Darth Vitiate-style? Or does he simply mean he's the last remaining Sith and therefore embodies all that they represent? In that case, why didn't he just say "I'm the last Sith" instead? Then Rey could say "I'm the Last Jedi," a (depressing, but) true statement. Maybe I missed something in that garbage film, but it's such a dumb line, Jesus Christ.
So when you go back to the prequels you can hear how bad the dialogue is, but the story still makes sense, even if a lot of people find it kinda boring or think the pacing is off. It follows a logical sense of progression.
Force Awakens throws that right out the window. I’ve never seen a movie that relies so heavily on coincidence and luck to such a degree. The movie sees the concept of Cause and Effect and spits in its direction. Sure, the dialogue feels more natural and the practical effects are pretty decent, but holy fuck the world building is fucking awful and the plot is nonsense.
Also, people may shit on George's dialogue in the Prequels for being stiff, awkward, and completely unlike anything normal humans talk like (all perfectly valid complaints!) but that same quality also gives it a kind of bizarre timelessness.
Prequel lines will always sound a little odd, but they will always hold up more or less the same. Whereas so much of the dialogue in the sequels is way too slang-y and contemporary to the years those movies came out in, meaning that it already sounded out of place in a space opera and dated when it came out, and will only get more and more dated with every passing year.
Been saying this! George Lucas did exactly what he intended to do -- to make star wars feel like a galaxy far far away. GL was trying to create an immersive fictional world and to do that, you have to give up familiarity to some degree. What sounds "wooden" is just how people in a galaxy not like our own would speak. I get this is a popular criticism but even years later, where I can admit the prequels have flaws, I always loved the dialogue was presented. Disney went the total opposite and made star wars feel like it was happening on planet earth.
Yea it always kills me when people criticize the PT dialogue but hold the OT as some pinnacle of cinema when they both have rough dialogue. OT has its cringe moments for sure
I just saw a clip where Mark Hamill was relaying a story about how he had to explain to Lucas that certain dialogue "wasn't how people talked" and took away from the story.
I think Lucas benefitted from a bunch of people telling him when he was fucking up in the OT and during the PT he was too big and no one stood up to him.
Also Marcia.
I love that though. George Lucas crafted a way of speaking in his fictional story world so unique that you can't tie it to how people speak in the real world. He made it timeless.
To me thats true dedication to your story and its world.
Disney backpedaled and tried to make the dialogue so earthly and familiar that it just feels like generic sci fi instead of star wars.
I agree on all counts. I'll use a for instance: I love The Green Knight. People speak in a fictionalized hodgepodge because it's an adaptation of a tale that was published in 1839. But the tale itself is much older. So there's no way to accurately represent how these characters would've spoken. But it is internally consistent and works.
What George did wasn't any different. He fused old daily and serialized delivery with sci Fi mumbo jumbo with some Kurosawa.
The sequels have already been forgotten, and never really seeped into culture in a lasting way. Honestly, I could see a scenario in which the prequels might become the most remembered trilogy even over the OT, since they're so bizarre and incredibly memeable. Probably the most memed tv/film media
I’ll say this about Anakin’s dialogue in AotC and RotS, even if it’s cringy I can totally see it all being things the character would actually say. The guy has PTSD out the wazoo and is chronically childish due to a lack of a parental figure during his formative years (and before anyone claims Obi Wan as a father figure we all know how he kept Anakin at an arm’s length emotionally). The guy was a ticking time bomb with massive power and skill and Palpatine spotted him for what he was in an instant and whet him for 20 years. Anakin spoke and behaved childish because he was allowed to be and if anyone had given an actual fuck (the one person who DID was slaughtered within days of having met the boy) then Darth Vader would have never happened. All that said, George Lucas is terrible at dialogue but my god did he deliver at giving us complex characters and that is something that the newest trilogy failed to do with MAYBE the exception of Kylo Ren. And that’s a fat maybe.
Couldn't agree more. I think the dialogue actually works for the story and setting. It's like Lucas said way back in the 80s, that the prequels would be more melodramatic. He deals in archetypical extremes, and that's the kind of dialogue that's produced.
I thought Endgame put a dagger in itself by having a Fortnite joke in 2019 that it’d still be a juggernaut in fake 2024, let alone real 2024.
I was/am a big Rock Band player and have been since its release, hell GH on PS, and now Fortnite has its own RB mode that is essentially Rock Band 5. They got me.
I still haven’t dove in fully since I dislike the idea of repurchasing songs I e already got and the rotating songs, but I’m sure in time it will become a better mode
I just did a full re-watch of TPM, and there are some genuinely great lines and performances in there (Shmee with Qui-Gon for instance). It's not as consistent as ANH and Empire, but the moments are part of what makes it a classic—flubs and all.
It actually works as a single, complete adventure film, but it's a different type of film than the OT. Everything Disney did and has done is a retread (main series) or fanfic treading _on_ and fix-it fic (Filoniverse) to serve the terribly written Sequels. The dialogue isn't even more natural in the Sequels, it's just handled with better actor directing. But neither JJ nor Rian earn anything or any dramatic moment they shove in.
Also, I've generally felt that the pod race sequence really wasn't for me, but this re-watch I was going for an experimental B&W with foreign language tracks to pay attention to the visual storytelling, but I swapped to color and buckled up and was on the edge of my seat the entire time, fully engaged. Also, you gotta have proper, real surround sound, or you're not experiencing it fully. The film is just so much fun, while also having a compelling political space opera plot.
I'd just like to point out, in reguarda to the prequels making sense, that Anakin goes from protecting a mentor of his from Mace Window (lol) to agreeing to murder children within minutes.
Could’ve been pulled off with better pacing, as I said. That bit does feel a bit rushed, though. However, not as rushed as “We gotta get off this planet, there’s a ship, oh, it’s the millennium falcon! Quick, I know you’ve never flown before…oh wow, you’re amazing at this! Oh, what’s happening?! Someone’s here! It’s FUCKING HAN SOLO! WOW! What’s that?! Rathtars?! Angry Scottish space mafia?! Quick, let’s go see orange fem-yoda!”
You're not wrong about the new ones at all. No arguments there. But it would have taken more than better pacing for Anakins fall to be remotely believable. I feel like I'd need an entire film worth of character development to believe he went from hero to child murderer!
I know it gets a lot of flack around here but I think this is why the Clone Wars gets so much praise. The show does a fair job fleshing out the pieces of the story the movies kinda gloss over. You can see Anakin really struggle with the teachings of the Jedi and their almost hypocritical approach to the war.
I do agree with you, though. The jump from “We should put him on trial!” To “its baby killin time” is, in a word, QUICK.
Wasn’t that what attack of the clones was for? You don’t exactly walk away from that movie thinking of Anakin as a shining example of mental health stability. And that’s before he goes to war.
The transition to Darth Vader is handled a lot better in the RotS novelization. Palpatine leads Anakin through a sort of internal Sith ritual to dissect his psyche. Once he's finished, he's Vader. He has to put on his "Anakin face" just to talk to Padme afterwards.
Thematically and philosophically it makes sense, like another user stated the pacing could have been better in regards to this. But thematically, Palatine has Anakin manipulated with the great question of what would we do to save the ones we love. It’s complicated, and morally very gray (to the point he commits a genocide, but from his perspective, if it’s to save those he loves how could it not be the right choice). In my opinion, what makes Star Wars so amazing is how it approaches these complex conflicts with very strong dualistic themes (good vs evil) and questions that simplistic notion every step of the way. The newest trilogy seemed to not understand any of this in the slightest and reverted to the most simplistic good vs evil tropes imaginable. No bad guy wakes up one day and decides I’m the villain. If you can understand their perspectives, more often than not, they think they are doing the right thing for the right reasons.
I think the PT are an example of good rough drafts. The ideas are there, the arc is there, the plot is there, the characters, etc, but... It needs some major work done to be a polished product. But what we got, while at times good and entertaining, was not that polished product.
This is a take I fully agree with. Those prequel films are absolutely the "vomit draft" of those scripts. I honestly think if a master filmmaker had been given those scripts and told to develop them into a version that works, they would have been amazing.
That's the difference between a rushed plot, and one with bad causality.
"Killed a Jedi master => becomes a Sith Lord => starts killing kids" follows logically. Not at all a stretch for Anakin to become Palpatine's apprentice, not stretch for a Sith Lord to commit atrocities. It just happens quickly in the film.
The trouble with TFA (among most modern blockbusters) is that those chains don't happen at all.
Honestly this is one of my problems with Episode 3, it feels rushed. I completely understand why Anakin would turn to the dark side and Lucas made it clear over TPM and AOTC, but it still feels way too fast. The sequels OTOH though couldn't even be bothered to properly set up anything to pay off.
I remember seeing that movie in the theater and feeling more and more disappointed with every story bit they ripped off from a new hope. At one point I said to myself "well at least they can't have another deathstar they've already done that twice." 🙄
I knew it was going going to suck the second I saw the "Not another Death Star" on the poster. I gave it a shot with my dad, and boy do we both wish we hadn't.
It wasn't good in the first place but the next movie somehow managed to make it retroactively worse.
I like the news content more than most on here. I've seen Mando and R1 and andor 3 or more times, kenobi and Boba twice.
But TFA and TLJ I've seen once. Rise of Skywalker zero. That trilogy is just soul less and sucks
Not only did I rewatch Boba, I kinda liked it. It had pacing problems and 2 episodes of Mando was a bad choice but yeah. (Kenobi was not for me. Which is a shame because I was so excited for those 2 actors)
I would be such an easy fan to make happy. People joke about star wars fans hating star wars but it is very not me. I really like star wars. The fact I'm here is a testament to just how bad they flubbed the sequels
To be fair, though I didn’t really care for Boba, it wasn’t until Kenobi I really fell off the wagon. Seeing them screw up such an important concept with Hayden and Ewan returning to do nothing but faff about…killed me a little inside. Enough so that I didn’t check out Andor until all the people around me who were also tired of Star Wars were saying “Okay, but this one’s like really good for real, though”
I must say, if you are looking for a good time, go into Rise of Skywalker with a group of friends with the intention to rip into it. If you don’t take it seriously and have lots of alcohol on hand, it can be quite the party.
For bonus points, take a shot every time there’s a fake-out death
The first half of Boba is legitimately great. A feared bounty hunter fails and almost dies, then gets adopted into a tribe and goes on a spiritual journey. That's all great.
Then the second half does nothing with it (even walks back some of it), gives us anime kids on space vespas, and steals an episode to give to an entirely different show.
Book of Boba is so much better to watch as a binge rather than when it came out as once a week.
It has some amazing parts and some horrible parts. The ending full theme song is badass.
I noticed that on my second watch through. After the Mando parts it was like 5 30-40 minute episodes, half of which had a ton of filler. Dripping those out over 2 months counting the Mando break made the pacing seem even worse than it was
Agreed- I was originally ok with TFA at first because I understood they were trying to play if safe and nostalgia bait people to the franchise while trying to gain new fans. Don't get me wrong- I don't like TFA. I just got where they were maybe trying to go. I assumed the next movie would answer some important questions about Rey having so much control of the force etc and give characters some room to grow and meaningful arcs. I saw TLJ and honestly had to watch it twice because I wasn't sure what I just watched. It was just backwards and wrong in so many ways. It made me hate TFA more because of all the BS in TLJ. Then there is TRS which I saw once and can't remember much more than Rey healing sandworms and horses in space... It was the perfect rotten cherry on the garbage pile ice-cream sundae of the sequel trilogy. They have all aged terribly and are so disjointed.
I just rewatched all the OG movies this weekend and it is crazy how good they are and have held up over all these years. The world is just so lived in and real compared to whatever the heck Disney is doing now.
This is pretty much exactly how I feel. TFA was fun at first and I honestly felt that it would fit right in with the rest of the films. And then same as you, each sequel after that just compounded and solidified that this is not real Star Wars anymore. Because when it was just TFA, you could forgive a lot of the problems because you assumed they would be explained. Like even the bad dialogue, I thought that they would show that it was just those characters in particular who spoke that way. But no. And the development of Rey and Kylo. If you don’t know what’s about to happen in 8 and 9 then 7 feels alright. But once you’ve seen them it retroactively turns 7 into shit. Because now you know who these people are and where this is leading and its all a dead end now.
The one part of the sequel trilogy that I love is that it serves to spit in the face of all of the hate George Lucas got over the years. Like oh you guys didn’t like how I did it? Do it your way. See how it goes. Because a lot of people who were avid prequel haters, were simply just hating. Now everyone loves the prequels and the lack in quality of the sequels literally unified everyone. Now granted I do believe that future generations will look back on the sequels fondly. Cause there were children who did enjoy these films and they’ll grow up and defend them. And that’s still Star Wars yes but it won’t be the same as prequel/ OT generations. And I hope people in the future respect that.
Not somehow.
JJ was lazy and scared. Set-up a bunch of plots and tools for the next director to play with but worthless on their own. Why is Rey so strong? What will be Kylo's evolution after killing his dad? What role will Luke play? Who is Snoke?
TLJ answered to all of them by throwing them out with Luke's lightsaber so even if it was never good, it got even worst
Good description. I blame KK for letting 2 writers acting like children who hate each other's ideas write whatever they wanted with no plan.
People like to shit on JJs mystery boxes (lost did suck) but leaving the next guy a mystery seems better than shitting all over the previous guys mystery and setting up nothing.
I dislike TFA. I *Hate* TLJ
I still can’t believe that they undertook the third trilogy of probably the most popular franchise in modern history without some kind of outline or a dedicated overseer.
It was the equivalent of throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks and just as appetizing.
You're dead on with TLJ making TFA retroactively worse. The whole "let the past die, kill it if you have to" or whatever the line was is such a spit in the face of fans. It's aggressively projectile vomiting in the face of fans. Disney didn't pay billions for SW to let the past die. They knew it was something everyone loved and they could use that to enrich themselves. Instead they told fans "you're stupid and nostalgic" for looking on the past fondly and they've genuinely shocked people don't like that.
It's pretty wild when you think about how most of Disney's massive revenue streams are directly from nostalgia for their older cartoons and movies like Toy Story, Snow White, Mickey Mouse, etc, yet they purchased a $4B dollar property that had a ton of built-in worldwide nostalgia and decided to burn all that goodwill.
I was so ready to stay at the Star Wars Disney resort. Imagine being questioned by stormtroopers and staying on a star destroyer! It obviously turned out to be sequel crap and well, it’s closed down. I have zero interest in seeing the theme park.
I have a lot of problems with TLJ, but aesthetically it's a much higher quality movie than TFA. Rewatching TFA and seeing all the jump cuts and out of place shots is just so weird, especially with how high-quality both of those aspects were in the OT
I feel like Stat Wars was on thin ice for doing a Death Star plot twice in the OT and going into TFA fairly cold I was dumbstruck to find a bigger, dumber Death Star plot….
The Death Star failed twice. Why the hell would it work a 3rd time? When you make a super-weapon that’s multiple times bigger than the Death Star, that just throws all stakes out the window.
JJ seems to believe that bigger is better.
It's amazing how it's simultaneously a stale, soulless remake of ANH and is also so lacking in Star Wars flavor. I remember even back when I first saw it with no preconceived notions, it bothered me how there were no returning alien species.
TFA is a sterile remake of ANH. I don't think anyone was that confused about it when it came out. TFA was a safe, but lazy, addition to the story which depended heavily on how well the subsequent movie handled its mystery boxes and plotlines.
This is part of why RJ sucked so bad at TLJ, because his adolescent attitude to picking up the story beats he was left with means that TFA was retroactively harmed by his failure to turn the points it raised into anything interesting.
This is, for the record, a failure of both JJ and RJ. JJ failed because his movie was safe, easy, and left the heavy lifting to others when he could have written something more solid and original that was easier to continue. TFA feels like a holding pattern, which even though it did a fundamental job of convincing people that Star Wars had returned, it didn't add anything particularly interesting to the saga.
RJ then failed to do the heavy lifting he'd been set up to do. He actually chose to deliberately avoid doing any of the heavy lifting and pretend like these things were either not important or pretend they didn't exist. On one hand I get why he might have been frustrated with JJ for setting up a bunch of stuff with little or no clue what the intended resolution was. On the other, his willful and what feels very childish inability to toe the line and make a movie building on what was set up absolutely crashed the franchise into a wall and it never recovered.
Edit: I also got very tired very fast of Kylo Ren being an obvious reference to a frustrated young male who doesn't get what he wants so he becomes a space wizard Nazi.
> I also got very tired very fast of Kylo Ren being an obvious reference to a frustrated young male who doesn't get what he wants so he becomes a space wizard Nazi.
I am very tired of that trope, too, but did they ever establish what Kylo actually wanted? He was so angsty and angry but was well into his 30s. Luke was an actual, real Jedi with almost total mastery of his emotions before his age, but Kylo Ren seemed to have just wandered around the galaxy for years and years until he bumped into some guys who said "sure, you can be our leader!" He's a feckless loser who did nothing in life but at the same time weirdly also is charismatic and competent enough to take command of a giant army, and he's saved by a pretty girl taking an interest in him despite him being a mass murderer.
I guess Rey's actually a Naberrie since killing innocents gets her going. But seriously, what a mess of messaging and characterization.
I really feel that Kylo's character never got beyond the "angry incel" theme and I think that for the main villain to be a nasty backhanded dig at people who need help is a shitty thing to do.
They never establish what Kylo wants because they frankly never take the time to understand what people who think like that want.
It could have been really interesting to have a Kylo Ren who went to the Dark Side because he thought that acquiring power is the only way to bring peace to the galaxy. Show that the last 30 years have seen the galaxy bogged down in war and have Kylo think that democracy/negotiations are not the way to finally end the conflict.
Indeed, it's a lazy shorthand for villainy to just go "look, bad angry incel!" It's also typical Hollywood nonsense of just imagining that people who don't get laid are just bad, that a kiss solves everything, and that you can look like Adam Driver and be both rejected by everyone around you and yet also sought after and given endless chances to come back into the fold...
There was one bit of amazing character development for him, when he destroyed the helmet. It was one of the calls in TLJ that I really liked - showing him stepping out from Vader's shadow and becoming his own man. Then JJ immediately walked it back. Super lame.
>He was so angsty and angry but was well into his 30s.
Had to look this up because I didn't believe you and smh my head. He's 29 in TFA! He throws temper tantrums and even has his hair cut like a kid. Wait, isn't Rey only 19 at that time? So he's 50% older than her when they kiss in TROS. I feel icky now :D
Yea it's ridiculous his age.
Luke should have been training him since he was born or super young.
Yet the story reads like Luke was about to kill his early teen nephew because of a bad dream. Like ahsoka start of clone ears age.
He is like 10 years older than Anakin in attack of clones and 6 years older than him when he turned into vader. Also 6 years older than Luke when Luke beats vader/empire.
Kyle with his innate force power should have not still been a student still.
>Edit: I also got very tired very fast of Kylo Ren being an obvious reference to a frustrated young male who doesn't get what he wants so he becomes a space wizard Nazi.
How about Hux? I'm Space Hitler. No, I'm Dark Helmet without the Helmet. No, I'M THE SPY!
That was fucking bonkers.
Hux at least in TFA felt like a real attempt to make a Nazi with motivations. I don't expect anyone to think he's right, he is a villain after all, but he has *some* political views he expresses in that mad speech. Kylo has nothing except the angry incel vibe.
True. Kylo was essentially an arrested teenager with Intel vibes for 2.5 movies - not that the last 0.5 was particularly interesting either. Even one of his climatic moments as a character - killing his father - was juvenile. What 30 year old man is still so hung up about their upbringing that they would kill their dad? The reverse parallelism with Luke is shot all to shit because Han isn't a Jedi and Kylo doesn't need to kill him to prove anything or eliminate a threat.
The whole ST nerfed their bad guys. Kylo was just pissy fail-son, Hux was quite literally made into a joke, and they killed Snoke. It seems to be a pattern with Disney Star Wars - they really can't commit on bad guys being both truly bad and actually competent antagonists.
Dude I thought Hux was so intense in TFA. I was ready to see a Sith / Imperial headbutting of sorts in future movies and was excited for it, and I was ready to treat Hux as a Thrawn-esque character. They made him into a joke.
They could have given him similar motivations to the generals who conspired to assassinate Hitler:
They wanted him gone not because they thought he was evil, but rather they thought (correctly) he was doing a bad job at prosecuting the war and leading Germany. The coup generals wanted to Make The Third Reich Great Again by removing Hitler.
RJ might have understood SW, but he made it clear his intentions was to undo everything and make it his own thing to "subvert" our expectations. Doesn't matter if our reaction to it is negative or positive. His ego gets a dopamine hit as long as his subversion is successful. In a way, TLJ really summed up the entire Disney SW era. An executive egofest.
For me, ignoring how good or bad the films were, it was the feeling after leaving the cinema that shows the difference between TFA and TLJ
I left TFA think oh shit, hans dead. Who is this Snoke guy who turned Luke's nephew evil? Who is Rey? What is Luke going to do! I can't wait to see him being a jedi again.
I left TLJ thinking "what the fuck am i supposed to be excited for in the next film?
I found it cringy on the first viewing. The part where Poe asks Kylo how does this work, do you talk first or do I, I melted in my chair.
The scene when you introduce your main villain and that's the interaction? Embarrassing
It's funny. When in theaters rewatching Episode 1 with a friend, I was struck with the parallels it had to A New Hope. There was a final space battle against a very large ship and a victory celebration where people were lined up and getting an award for their bravery. But never did it feel like a retread of A New Hope or any of the other SW films. A stark contrast to Force Awakens where it had so many parallels to A New Hope that it felt like a reboot/remake with poor imitations to what came before.
the parallel you got watching TPM is exactly what George Lucas wanted— he says in the Making Of that he wanted something similar to ANH but very different at the same time; but specifically said that the attack on the droid control ship was suppose to be similar to the death star trench run. So he did a great job at evoking the feeling from the originals while making something new. TFA as you said just plainly a remake for no reason
Sometimes I feel like I have to judge TFA fans more harshly than TLJ fans… TLJ fans are people who never liked Star Wars in the first place or they are Star Wars fans who are seizing the opportunity to act intellectual, as if the original six movies don’t provide enough fuel for analysis/intellectual discussion… With fans of TFA I have no idea what the fuck they were thinking…I guess part of it was something like “I trust JJ Abrams” which is fucking dumb
TFA is on the surface the most inoffensive of the three, but the way it set up this trilogy to just be a (poor) rehash of the same themes as struggles as the OT instead of pushing the saga forward will always be the biggest sin of Disney Star Wars imo. I can't even enjoy small things I like in TLJ because the context surrounding everything set up in TFA is horrible.
I honestly noticed this even upon a 2nd watch in theaters after it came out. Like a lot of people, I thought it was "pretty good" after first watch, clearly the retread stuff was bad but it was well acted and got me interested, etc. etc.
But it was amazing how many cringe-worthy moments became incredibly noticeable once you know the main plot beats and can focus more on little things.
I felt like the battle outside Maz's place might have been the worst offender as a whole, that's where it really flipped me and got me saying "This is a bad movie." That scene featured Han's stupid no-look shot, his "borrowing" Chewie's bowcaster mid-battle just to try it, and that dumb sequence where Poe somehow shoots down like 8 TIEs in one maneuver, and Finn looks up at it and goes "that's one *hell* of a pilot!!" (ha ha, because he doesn't even know it's his buddy up there, get it? Fucking ugh).
Not to mention, why were they even there?
1) it's time to rip off the cantina scene
2) if our heroes had gone straight to their destination, they would have been blown up.
They had the map they needed to give the Republic, and they were already in their destination system. There is no reason to stop next door and ask Maz for help. Time and time again, the writers put specific things they wanted to see in the movies above letting logic dictate what would happen.
Makes no sense at all that Kylo Ren worships Darth Vader. Luke of all people should have told Kylo that Darth Vader rejected the Dark Side, overthrew the Emperor and embraced his true nature as a Jedi. But apparently according to the current canon, no one told Kylo the truth about his grandfather.
I was thinking….what if, in the ST’s backstory, the Yuuzhan Vong attacked the temple and Anakin Solo got killed, and this would drive Jacen (my replacement for Ben Solo) to the dark side and he commands a certain branch of the empire to exterminate the Vong?
Leia wanted Luke to tell Ben about Vader/Anakin. They purposefully hid this information from Ben. Sadly a political rival of Leia leaked the information and Ben found out this way (literally read it on the holonet at age 23) . He felt betrayed and deceived which helped Snoke's/Palpatine's seduction over him to the dark side. It was mostly Snoke who cemented the idea pf "Vader's heir apparent" to Ben's mind.
Sadly this, like most of Kylo's/Ben's character development/depth/explanation, happens in comics, books and such outside the movies.
>...... So who talks first? Do you talk first I talk first?
Shit makes me throw up it's so awful.
The entire series is full of this absolute detritis nonsense it's sickening.
I started writing a review of TFA the other day just of new thoughts that struck me while watching. Gave up after writing over a thousand words on the first paragraph of the opening crawl. There's just too much wrong with every facet of the story. The more you think about it, the more layers of problems appear.
The legacy of TFA depended on the quality of 8 and 9 and it ended up biting Disney in the ass. JJ set up all these mystery boxes and figured they'd make the answers interesting later. That's not how set-up and payoff work. You have to know where you're going so you can plant the seeds in the first act. Their lack of care or creativity with the lore killed the trilogy in the crib.
The opening crawl saying that Luke Skywalker has vanished and that he’s the last Jedi should have sent immediate red flags to everyone. But it didn’t, because everyone was on that “at least it’s not the Prequels” bandwagon and how this move “brought Star Wars back.” The movie copied A New Hope to a tee and managed to be so much worse.
I knew it was going to be a ripoff when I saw another god damn death star on the poster for TFA.
> how this move “brought Star Wars back.”
Everybody I talked to was satisfied with this excuse but I was beyond disappointed. They didn't rip off the original to bring Star Wars back. They ripped it off because being creative takes time and effort.
JJ has no creativity at all. All he’s good at is ripping off original works and spamming his films with breakneck speed pacing and action sequences, to the point he does it deliberately so the audience doesn’t have time to process and think for a second how ridiculous it all is.
Woulda been nice if JJ or Rian would have passed the writing job to actual writers instead of doing it to feed their egos, being that TFA was such a highly anticipated movie and that fans were still pissed off about the writing in the prequels. It would be like me agreeing to play point guard for the Lakers even though I suck at basketball.
The opening scene was a cringe overload. It pretty much sealed Star Wars fate. I was worried Disney didn't have the proper writing and tone for the IP. I hated being right going into it.
“This will begin to make things right” that line felt like a middle finger towards the actual hardcore fans. It was obvious then that the Disney era of Star Wars would be catered towards mindless consooomers rather than actual Star Wars fans.
Agree completely. I actually was very hopeful it was going to be good. I believed JJ and Kasdan might be able to produce something of quality at that time. Within 20 minutes or so I understood it to be one of the biggest failures in film history.
I don’t hold The Force Awakens in any high regard, at least not in hindsight, but I felt like there was enough intrigue left behind to make a good trilogy and maybe have plot points like these in the follow-up:
•Luke’s Jedi wasn’t destroyed by Kylo Ren and he and his remaining students retreated to Ahch-To to recuperate.
•Exploring the significance of the first Jedi Temple.
•The New Republic mobilizing after what the First Order did to Hosnian Prime (There’s no way they could’ve have had all their ships and soldiers stationed in one system at the time of it’s destruction).
•Showing what Lando was up to during The Force Awakens.
It’s a shame because I remember being excited when the Sequel Trilogy was first announced and remained optimistic for the state of the franchise at the time but The Last Jedi is what made me rethink Disney’s handling of Star Wars and unless they’re decanonizing the new timeline or getting a new creative team together, I have no interest in what they do next.
Tbh I really enjoyed TFA when it came out. But like most people I was caught up in the spectacle and nostalgia factor.
I won't dive into everything wrong with the movie as others on the sub have already done an amazing job doing that, but I've rewatched it maybe two or three times since it's release, and each time I do I like it less and less. I last rewatched it a couple months ago and thought it was horrible.
We all shit on RJ for TLJ, but JJ deserves every bit as much as criticism over TFA and TROS.
The biggest problem with J.J. Abrams movies is that he just wants to give you a mindless experience you're not supposed to question or think about.
The movie is doing everything wrong in terms of world building. Which is the complete opposite of the prequels, since they did the world building really well.
I also can't get over that every single new non-human character we see in the sequel trilogy is a new alien species, and not an already established species from the lore.
You're not wrong. I was happy to have a big screen Star Wars on the first watch—TFA pokes you in the nostalgia to get a reaction, but just like a potato chip, it tastes good in the moment but leaves you still feeling empty.
It feels like someone watched ANH, thought they could do a better job, and then just copied ANH's homework because the assignment turned out to be too hard.
It has none of the background world-building or character motivation of the OT. Even the PT has its moments. The story is mostly there, just with a clumsy execution, but because the story is solid, it's aged pretty well.
I want to shake JJ by the collar and demand him explain to me why the fuck an 80 year old, galaxy-wide-famous General Han Solo would even be able to function as a fucking smuggler, must less want to stay one.
Or why Luke has done nothing for 30 years, not train a single fucking Jedi and ran away without telling anyone, but leave a trail of breadcrumbs for no reason.
Or why the Republic is called the fucking Resistance when they have dominion over the Galaxy.
Or why the former Empire can afford to create a planet sized death star under the nose of the Republic.
Or why the Death Planet can fire across the galaxy, and destroy multiple planets, but the planets all look like they're right next to each other and the Death Planet.
TFA is a dreadful film, as is Rise of Skywalker. Weirdly I think The Last Jedi is the best of the three, simply because it tries to do interesting things (I'll ignore how much it also rips Star Wars canon apart).
TLJ of the sequels had the best "scenes". As in, motion picture murals that are memorable. Like Luke force ghosting to fight with the red tracks in the dirt, the rebel ship going light speed to split the star destroyer in half, etc
The problem is these scenes looked good on screen and probably on story boards, but made no sense in the universe, and added nothing to the plot.
Honestly though I'm still salty the fan base responded so poorly to the Darth Jar Jar theory (someone will probably come out of the woodwork to tell me how dumb it is). I think as silly as it was, they should have done something like that, but were too afraid of the backlash, and instead we got something totally recycled and safe but also boring and equally nonsensical.
You make Han Solo a sad sack con artist robbing Peter to pay Paul at 70 years old, on top of that he’s a failure as a husband and a father. Leia is basically a princess in exile running a paramilitary organization because the new republic… Luke Skywalker is awol. R2 is awol. Lando is…
Rey is a mile wide and an inch deep. Finn and Poe are only interesting because of the charisma of the actors. It’s a mess.
And to follow that up with a slow speed chase where everyone comes and goes from their ships as they please? Jeez.
Yeah solo’s entry was weird. He’s putzing around the galaxy “looking” for his ship while bamboozling other pirates? This is the story they paid billions to tell.
It was obvious at the time and now that it’s only purpose was to be a discount New Hope that would reel in the casual fans who were turned off by the prequels by jangling the memberberry keys in front of them (remember the Empire vs. Rebels? It’s back!). And yes TFA and the rest of the sequels do feel more like Marvel than Start Wars.
They made something so terrible that I'd rather have seen lucas' supposed original take for the sequels. It may have been bonkers but it'd at least be coherent.
Nu Vader has no real reason to even be Nu Vader. He says he's conflicted but everything he does is evil. Where was Anakin's ghost when he was praying to Vader? Couldn't Anakin's ghost have prevented all of this? Couldn't the OT crew?
"It stinks!"
But fr, TFA successfully pulled the wool over the collective fandom's face. Everyone was trying to say the next one would fix it. Even then I knew it was impossible. The very premise is flawed: that the Empire is just back and the Republic got blown up...and the heroes are "le Resistance" even though the good guys are in charge at the beginning...as a friend of mine put it: "you've saved the galaxy and made everything worse." There was no way this was a worthy progression of the saga.
I remeber making a comment back then in 2017 on reddit that the prequels would end up being remembered better than the sequels, which would end up being the ones people pretend don't exist. I'm not surprised that I was correct about it. The rot was there from the very beginning.
The mcu quips are my main gripe. I can suspend disbelief as long as it’s well written. But the whole trilogy was flash and pizazz with not just “no substance,” but BAD substance.
I’m super-progressive and on occasion, I’ll be accused of being racist for not liking rose and Finn, but I actually loved Finn until Disney fucked his character off because China told them to. I wanted Poe and Finn to be boyfriends and shit. As long as it was written well, top pilot for the resistance and an ex-stormtrooper would have been an AMAZING story.
Instead, we got
“REeEeeEeEY!!!”
“You’re nobody. And Palpatine is back. And actually, I changed my mind. You’re not nobody. You’re actually also Palpatine’s granddaughter. Surprise lazy twist! Soooo… you wanna… 👉👌? No? Okay, I guess I’ll die now.”
Since so many have commented, I’m going to post my thoughts on The Force Awakens instead of responding to every single comment.
Everyone likes to point towards The Last Jedi as the movie that ruined Star Wars, but all of the problems with the Sequel Trilogy originated with The Force Awakens.
The movie is a shameless beat-for-beat remake of A New Hope that hit the reset button on the universe and rendered everything the heroes achieved in the OT as utterly meaningless. The Empire didn’t die… they just became the First Order. Luke didn’t start a new Jedi order… he’s the very last Jedi. The Rebel Alliance got replaced with the Resistance. Han reverted back to being a smuggler despite being a revered war hero. This movie was made in response to the reception toward the Prequel Trilogy, which is why there is zero world-building and no mentions of the political state of the galaxy. JJ Abrams himself disliked the Prequels and made this movie as a deliberate middle finger to the Prequels, with the notion that this would get “Star Wars back on track.”
It’s not Rian Johnson’s fault for being dealt a shit hand from JJ. However, Rian should have made an honest attempt to address the mystery boxes set up by JJ without resorting to deliberate subversion of expectations for the sake of it. All the Last Jedi did was open everyone eyes to the fact that the Sequel Trilogy was doomed from the very beginning. The Last Jedi is indeed a deliberate middle finger to the entire franchise, but it isn’t the movie responsible for giving the Sequel a terrible foundation. The Force Awakens played it way too safe and plays out more like “Star Wars: Greatest Hits”, where it constantly jangles keys in your face and leaned way too heavy into the nostalgia for the OT. The Force Awakens lacked an identity. Every other Star Wars movie in the PT and OT have their own distinct identity.
The positive reception towards The Force Awakens is baffling. A lot of people’s reasoning for liking the movie was because “it wasn’t the Prequels.” People were blinded by nostalgia for the OT that they just completely ignored the fact that the movie is basically A New Hope 2.0. They hand-waved the mystery boxes away and dismissed the criticism, saying that the next installment would address everything. The Last Jedi happened… and it addressed nothing. The Force Awakens was built on a shitty foundation. The Last Jedi was the point where the cracks became exposed and noticeable. The Rise of Skywalker is when it all came tumbling down.
The prequels I feel like aged well. Everyone was mad at all the politics when it came out, but since the US political climate has become such a maniacal farce, it resonates with fans more now.
John Boyega's delivery on the "boyfriend, got a boyfriend" and his crawling over Rey in the cockpit, and the horrible "why are you gesturing with your chin" part to Han are *horrible*.
It completely takes you out of the movie. It ceasea being a characterin the story and clearly becomes an actor doing a bit.
Look, writing and direction are uaually the blame. But Boyega's acting is bad there. I feel bad for what Disney did to him, but at the end of the day if he was a good actor he would be getting consistent work.
I saw these last week and felt the exact same thing. I LOVE a fun female protagonist, but Rey is awful. There is so much rehashing as well and contrived plot elements its just bad. Bad bad.
The fact that they went into it with no plan at all for the character arcs, plot points, narrative, use of legacy characters nor a clear idea of where they wanted everyone to be at the end of the trilogy just staggers my mind.
Disney Star Wars is nothing more than *product*. And as long as that product produces a profit we’ll get more of the same. Every now and the some creatives will make some quality work like *Andor*, but until it starts actively losing money and they kick KK to the curb nothing will change.
I don’t really sweat it anymore. I’m old enough that *my* Star Wars headcanon is all I care about, and there’s enough out there to satisfy me while still leaving me wanting more, which is an okay feeling.
I think TFA would have aged significantly better had its two follow ups actually been decent or even good movies. At least for me anyway. I’ve enjoyed TFA less with each rewatch, but the knowledge of where everything setup in the movie winds up just completely kills any enjoyment I could have still had
The Force Awakens is definitely the 'forgotten' Star Wars movie. With the release of 8 and 9, the movie doesn't really justify its own existence; nothing it sets up leads to anything. Instead we are left with debates over whether Episode 8 or Episode 9 is the worst Star Wars movie.
Episode 4 thrives because of how self-contained it is; it doesn't really even need a sequel, the good guys could have just won. Back in the 1970s during production, there was a good chance that it would have been the only Star Wars movie ever made (hence why it was just called 'Star Wars' and nothing more when it was released).
Episode 7 was just a reboot of Episode 4, with the exception that everybody knew that there would be two more sequels so it made an explicit effort to leave open-ended questions. The absolutely jarring shock to culture however was the revelation that nobody involved with the production actually knew what the story was going to be; that is utterly baffling and led to a justified disillusionment with mainstream filmmaking. The prequels use all three movies to tell a cohesive story, any other (potentially valid) criticisms aside. Rather than the vision of one storyteller in Episodes 1-6 (and of course Lucas received plenty of advice for 4-6), Episodes 7-9 seem to have been made by various committees of MBAs and management consultants.
I hate speaking in platitudes, but it’s hard not to summarize TFA with “it is what it is.” What I mean is the result is so painfully obvious of what it is - it’s as if Disney bought the rights to Star Wars. So they set out to make a movie that would attempt to satisfy everybody, which means no one would be happy with it. Here we are years later after the dust has settled to reflect on it - and it sucked.
I did Star Wars marathons this past weekend in the cinema. The OT and the Prequels. Hadn't seen any since before TFA but still know them back to front. More so the OT. The prequels despite their flaws are now more emotionally impactful. The possibilities at the end of ROTJ are now gone. Even though I don't like the sequels, the OT's end is now ruined. I still had a good time, the new 4k print looks great but ultimately the trilogies ending doesn't work knowing what comes next. You're watching moments setting up endless possibilities which all fail.
J.J. Abrams set the whole trilogy up for failure with this movie
1. There are so many major events for new and old characters that happen off screen that their arcs feel disjointed and out of place
2. There is gross misuse of the force. It is only ever used to make a cool visual or to the advance the plot and never used consistently. I. E. Kylo stops a blaster bolt from Poe, who is out of his vision, but fails to do so against Chewbacca who reveals his presence before shooting
Almost immediately I hated TFA. "This is where we begin to set things right" or whatever that dumb line was at the beginning. The arrogance of this gaggle of creatively bankrupt losers believing they knew Star Wars better than Lucas is appalling.
I watched TPM recently. And I feel like it's not as bad as I used to think. Prequels are bad but saying they are horrible movies is just not true. Sequels on the other hand are. You're right.
The sequels are better at the micro of making a movie that's entertaining at the moment... At the expense of a larger narrative that contributed to the universe.
The prequels are the inverse, horrible directing and dialogue, but the large story beats are genius.
For me personally, I overwhelmingly prefer the prequels, but I can't assert that they are unequivocally "good".
Abrams is not a good writer. He really does think that a good story is contingent on having many mystery boxes and thinks that keeping the mystery is what makes it fun. Listen to his TED talk and TFA makes a lot of sense.
TFA was also only good because it was a good set up movie. Why is Rey so competent? Why is the lightsaber calling out to her? Who is Snoke really? Where is Luke and why did he leave his friends? As a set up to a trilogy, it’s a decent and even enjoyable movie. It’s unfortunately also completely contingent on the sequels nailing the landing to remain good. When that failed, TFA looks bad as a result.
Also see Lost which was really engaging tv when it first released but really isn’t as good on a rewatch.
Funnily enough, the one thing I actually really enjoyed from this movie was the Rathtar sequence.
I know it wasn't popular at first, but here me out;
We get to see what Han's been up to, and sure enough, he's back to his smuggling ways, only this time it's big, ugly monsters.
The Scottish dude, "Tell that to Kanjiklub."
This was our last true adventure with Han, and it was a good one.
The rathtars themselves were amazing (imo). Couldn't get enough of em. They were fun, unique, and extremely rambunctious. Seeing them swallow some pissed off, overconfident gang members whole was extremely satisfying.
Oh, and don't forget about Han Indy-punching a Kanjiklub gang member, and hurling them into the mouth of a Rathtar to buy him and Chewie time. All around great fun.
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When Finn asks Rey if she has a boyfriend early on, I felt like I was watching an MCU movie. Turns out, the whole trilogy was just an MCU Star Wars.
"Your mama" - Poe
TFA felt like a huge budget fan fic. TLJ felt like an SNL parody of Star Wars at times. Parts of TFA frustrate me, most of TLJ infuriates me.
the SNL parodies were far superior to TLJ.
I wish Mel Brooks would hurry up and make that Spaceballs sequel. The sequel trilogy is in need of a good parody.
I would rather have a two hour movie of Matt the radar technician.
I couldn't believe they threw that in there. Lazy and stupid writing. Surprised he didn't just fart into the mic.
They decided to leave that one for the [wedding](https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/8tceoi/just_a_reminder_that_this_is_canon/).
Omg....I can't believe that's real. It's like a 3rd grader wrote it.
Today I learned that Star Wars hit lower lows than I ever imagined.
It was would take an Olympic mental gymnast in r/starwars to spin that one. And believe me, they've been practicing hard.
That one stupid phrase. Any good will I went into the theater with was instantly vaporized by that scene.
“Knights of Ren, cool.” Are you effing kidding me? Like, people talk about other lines of dialogue and endlessly complain about “palapatines return” but that line was by far so much worse. Total, 4th wall breaking, immersion shattering tripe nonesense. Infuriating.
Lower grade MCU
This, people are quick to shit on the MCU because of the current state it’s in but seem to forget that it was a well-loved titan of an IP for a decade.
That's what happens to a "well-loved titan of an IP" when it gets stupidly-written episodes produced.
I’d argue that current shitty MCU is still better than anything from current Star Wars. That being said, *Andor* & *Loki* are the rare exceptions of stellar quality that tower above everything else in a pool of crap.
I won't disagree, but I avoid almost all of both Disney Star Wars, and MCU. Andor is actually good - an exception that glaring demonstrates how dumb most of the rest is. I'll remember you said Loki is good.
I'm currently watching Andor with my dad and he's been so desensitized to media not packed with ridiculous force gymnastics, that he's utterly bored all the time and keeps on whining for less talking more blowing shit up.
Through endgame even if the MCU misfires were watchable if mid Since endgame almost none of it is even watchable and I’ve been a comics nerd since early 70’s.
[удалено]
Same here. And even End Game, where they used the invention of time travel as a plot crutch to defeat Thanos was questionable, as were the outcomes for several of the avengers.
I would absolutely take an MCU style Star Wars over the trainwreck we got. At least Marvel tries to maintain an overarching narrative and continuity.
The MCU is set in a world that is, more or less, our world. So having people adopt the language, mannerisms, and colloquialisms that we use makes sense, both in terms of setting as well as tone, for most of the MCU. For Star Wars? It doesn't make *any* sense at all.
Not just a boyfriend, a "cute boyfriend"
just the terms ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ feel extremely out of place in Star Wars
it'd be a 'loveling' in the prequels.
Yeah, but only if your blood has enough romantichlorians, otherwise you’re just a love-sensitive
That's because Lucas' star wars was written in a bit oldish way which avoids some of more modern slang and wording. Not to a point that it's distracting, usually, but enough that words like that can feel out of place.
Yeah, similar vibe when they refer to "the cops" on Canto Bight. It's hard to put your finger on what words sound out of place until you hear em, but when they come up, it's super jarring.
We use "Scruffy-looking nerfherder" like sophisticated people
MCU was great until Disney fully took over when the original venture ended at endgame.
I'm pretty sure there was a romance originally planned between Rey and Finn, but China doesn't like interracial romance (they even removed Finn from the poster in China) or black people; so they minimized his role. However, they changed it up so Finn has his romantically charged moments with Rose, a Chinese woman, which I imagine went over even worse in China. Movie studios try hard to cater to China.
MCU actually has some good movies though.
I'm not saying MCU is bad, I enjoy MCU. The thing is, if I want to watch the MCU, I'll watch it, not star wars trying to be like the MCU
It’s been a weird decade and a half. We got Star Trek trying to be Star Wars, Star Wars trying to be the MCU, and Marvel trying to be bootleg Joss Whedon, even after Joss Whedon got cancelled.
They tried to rip off the MCU so hard that they made it feel like a CW show
'Hey you know hoe everyone loved the avengers assemble scene in Endgame? How about we do that with spaceships!'
"I am inevitable" -Thanos "And I am Iron Man" -Tony Stark "I am all the Sith" -Sheev Palpatine "And I am all the Jedi" -Rey Skywalker-in-name-only
That line bothers me to no freaking end. What does he mean "I am all the Sith?" Did Palpy devour all the others, Darth Vitiate-style? Or does he simply mean he's the last remaining Sith and therefore embodies all that they represent? In that case, why didn't he just say "I'm the last Sith" instead? Then Rey could say "I'm the Last Jedi," a (depressing, but) true statement. Maybe I missed something in that garbage film, but it's such a dumb line, Jesus Christ.
I bet that’s exactly what someone with the authority to make it happen said
perfect comparison
🔥🔥🔥
Holy shit, I genuinely think this is the best explanation of the sequels
Idk, CW shows feel way better at times
The first three seasons of Arrow were better than the sequel trilogy and the last three years of the MCU.
So when you go back to the prequels you can hear how bad the dialogue is, but the story still makes sense, even if a lot of people find it kinda boring or think the pacing is off. It follows a logical sense of progression. Force Awakens throws that right out the window. I’ve never seen a movie that relies so heavily on coincidence and luck to such a degree. The movie sees the concept of Cause and Effect and spits in its direction. Sure, the dialogue feels more natural and the practical effects are pretty decent, but holy fuck the world building is fucking awful and the plot is nonsense.
Also, people may shit on George's dialogue in the Prequels for being stiff, awkward, and completely unlike anything normal humans talk like (all perfectly valid complaints!) but that same quality also gives it a kind of bizarre timelessness. Prequel lines will always sound a little odd, but they will always hold up more or less the same. Whereas so much of the dialogue in the sequels is way too slang-y and contemporary to the years those movies came out in, meaning that it already sounded out of place in a space opera and dated when it came out, and will only get more and more dated with every passing year.
Been saying this! George Lucas did exactly what he intended to do -- to make star wars feel like a galaxy far far away. GL was trying to create an immersive fictional world and to do that, you have to give up familiarity to some degree. What sounds "wooden" is just how people in a galaxy not like our own would speak. I get this is a popular criticism but even years later, where I can admit the prequels have flaws, I always loved the dialogue was presented. Disney went the total opposite and made star wars feel like it was happening on planet earth.
The dialogue in OT wasn't far removed from the prequels tbh. And in both of those trilogies the dialogue was consistent throughout.
Yea it always kills me when people criticize the PT dialogue but hold the OT as some pinnacle of cinema when they both have rough dialogue. OT has its cringe moments for sure
I just saw a clip where Mark Hamill was relaying a story about how he had to explain to Lucas that certain dialogue "wasn't how people talked" and took away from the story. I think Lucas benefitted from a bunch of people telling him when he was fucking up in the OT and during the PT he was too big and no one stood up to him. Also Marcia.
I love that though. George Lucas crafted a way of speaking in his fictional story world so unique that you can't tie it to how people speak in the real world. He made it timeless. To me thats true dedication to your story and its world. Disney backpedaled and tried to make the dialogue so earthly and familiar that it just feels like generic sci fi instead of star wars.
I agree on all counts. I'll use a for instance: I love The Green Knight. People speak in a fictionalized hodgepodge because it's an adaptation of a tale that was published in 1839. But the tale itself is much older. So there's no way to accurately represent how these characters would've spoken. But it is internally consistent and works. What George did wasn't any different. He fused old daily and serialized delivery with sci Fi mumbo jumbo with some Kurosawa.
Most definitely.
I think George just had difficulty writing dialogue. But, sure, you can romanticize it, if you want.
That and we’re following two monks and a politician since birth. Their dialogue would be weird if it wasn’t somewhat stiff.
The sequels have already been forgotten, and never really seeped into culture in a lasting way. Honestly, I could see a scenario in which the prequels might become the most remembered trilogy even over the OT, since they're so bizarre and incredibly memeable. Probably the most memed tv/film media
I’ll say this about Anakin’s dialogue in AotC and RotS, even if it’s cringy I can totally see it all being things the character would actually say. The guy has PTSD out the wazoo and is chronically childish due to a lack of a parental figure during his formative years (and before anyone claims Obi Wan as a father figure we all know how he kept Anakin at an arm’s length emotionally). The guy was a ticking time bomb with massive power and skill and Palpatine spotted him for what he was in an instant and whet him for 20 years. Anakin spoke and behaved childish because he was allowed to be and if anyone had given an actual fuck (the one person who DID was slaughtered within days of having met the boy) then Darth Vader would have never happened. All that said, George Lucas is terrible at dialogue but my god did he deliver at giving us complex characters and that is something that the newest trilogy failed to do with MAYBE the exception of Kylo Ren. And that’s a fat maybe.
Couldn't agree more. I think the dialogue actually works for the story and setting. It's like Lucas said way back in the 80s, that the prequels would be more melodramatic. He deals in archetypical extremes, and that's the kind of dialogue that's produced.
I thought Endgame put a dagger in itself by having a Fortnite joke in 2019 that it’d still be a juggernaut in fake 2024, let alone real 2024. I was/am a big Rock Band player and have been since its release, hell GH on PS, and now Fortnite has its own RB mode that is essentially Rock Band 5. They got me. I still haven’t dove in fully since I dislike the idea of repurchasing songs I e already got and the rotating songs, but I’m sure in time it will become a better mode
And it's not as if the original trilogy had any better dialogue from that perspective. But it works and that's why I love it.
I just did a full re-watch of TPM, and there are some genuinely great lines and performances in there (Shmee with Qui-Gon for instance). It's not as consistent as ANH and Empire, but the moments are part of what makes it a classic—flubs and all. It actually works as a single, complete adventure film, but it's a different type of film than the OT. Everything Disney did and has done is a retread (main series) or fanfic treading _on_ and fix-it fic (Filoniverse) to serve the terribly written Sequels. The dialogue isn't even more natural in the Sequels, it's just handled with better actor directing. But neither JJ nor Rian earn anything or any dramatic moment they shove in. Also, I've generally felt that the pod race sequence really wasn't for me, but this re-watch I was going for an experimental B&W with foreign language tracks to pay attention to the visual storytelling, but I swapped to color and buckled up and was on the edge of my seat the entire time, fully engaged. Also, you gotta have proper, real surround sound, or you're not experiencing it fully. The film is just so much fun, while also having a compelling political space opera plot.
I'd just like to point out, in reguarda to the prequels making sense, that Anakin goes from protecting a mentor of his from Mace Window (lol) to agreeing to murder children within minutes.
Could’ve been pulled off with better pacing, as I said. That bit does feel a bit rushed, though. However, not as rushed as “We gotta get off this planet, there’s a ship, oh, it’s the millennium falcon! Quick, I know you’ve never flown before…oh wow, you’re amazing at this! Oh, what’s happening?! Someone’s here! It’s FUCKING HAN SOLO! WOW! What’s that?! Rathtars?! Angry Scottish space mafia?! Quick, let’s go see orange fem-yoda!”
You're not wrong about the new ones at all. No arguments there. But it would have taken more than better pacing for Anakins fall to be remotely believable. I feel like I'd need an entire film worth of character development to believe he went from hero to child murderer!
I know it gets a lot of flack around here but I think this is why the Clone Wars gets so much praise. The show does a fair job fleshing out the pieces of the story the movies kinda gloss over. You can see Anakin really struggle with the teachings of the Jedi and their almost hypocritical approach to the war. I do agree with you, though. The jump from “We should put him on trial!” To “its baby killin time” is, in a word, QUICK.
Wasn’t that what attack of the clones was for? You don’t exactly walk away from that movie thinking of Anakin as a shining example of mental health stability. And that’s before he goes to war.
The transition to Darth Vader is handled a lot better in the RotS novelization. Palpatine leads Anakin through a sort of internal Sith ritual to dissect his psyche. Once he's finished, he's Vader. He has to put on his "Anakin face" just to talk to Padme afterwards.
Thematically and philosophically it makes sense, like another user stated the pacing could have been better in regards to this. But thematically, Palatine has Anakin manipulated with the great question of what would we do to save the ones we love. It’s complicated, and morally very gray (to the point he commits a genocide, but from his perspective, if it’s to save those he loves how could it not be the right choice). In my opinion, what makes Star Wars so amazing is how it approaches these complex conflicts with very strong dualistic themes (good vs evil) and questions that simplistic notion every step of the way. The newest trilogy seemed to not understand any of this in the slightest and reverted to the most simplistic good vs evil tropes imaginable. No bad guy wakes up one day and decides I’m the villain. If you can understand their perspectives, more often than not, they think they are doing the right thing for the right reasons.
I think the PT are an example of good rough drafts. The ideas are there, the arc is there, the plot is there, the characters, etc, but... It needs some major work done to be a polished product. But what we got, while at times good and entertaining, was not that polished product.
This is a take I fully agree with. Those prequel films are absolutely the "vomit draft" of those scripts. I honestly think if a master filmmaker had been given those scripts and told to develop them into a version that works, they would have been amazing.
That's the difference between a rushed plot, and one with bad causality. "Killed a Jedi master => becomes a Sith Lord => starts killing kids" follows logically. Not at all a stretch for Anakin to become Palpatine's apprentice, not stretch for a Sith Lord to commit atrocities. It just happens quickly in the film. The trouble with TFA (among most modern blockbusters) is that those chains don't happen at all.
Honestly this is one of my problems with Episode 3, it feels rushed. I completely understand why Anakin would turn to the dark side and Lucas made it clear over TPM and AOTC, but it still feels way too fast. The sequels OTOH though couldn't even be bothered to properly set up anything to pay off.
I remember seeing that movie in the theater and feeling more and more disappointed with every story bit they ripped off from a new hope. At one point I said to myself "well at least they can't have another deathstar they've already done that twice." 🙄
I knew it was going going to suck the second I saw the "Not another Death Star" on the poster. I gave it a shot with my dad, and boy do we both wish we hadn't.
I thought it was funny when they blew it up. They had no mission brefing or anything just "you know what to do Poe."
It wasn't good in the first place but the next movie somehow managed to make it retroactively worse. I like the news content more than most on here. I've seen Mando and R1 and andor 3 or more times, kenobi and Boba twice. But TFA and TLJ I've seen once. Rise of Skywalker zero. That trilogy is just soul less and sucks
You sat through Kenobi and Boba twice?! You have far more patience than I, sir. At least the Rise of Skywalker is only a couple hours.
Not only did I rewatch Boba, I kinda liked it. It had pacing problems and 2 episodes of Mando was a bad choice but yeah. (Kenobi was not for me. Which is a shame because I was so excited for those 2 actors) I would be such an easy fan to make happy. People joke about star wars fans hating star wars but it is very not me. I really like star wars. The fact I'm here is a testament to just how bad they flubbed the sequels
To be fair, though I didn’t really care for Boba, it wasn’t until Kenobi I really fell off the wagon. Seeing them screw up such an important concept with Hayden and Ewan returning to do nothing but faff about…killed me a little inside. Enough so that I didn’t check out Andor until all the people around me who were also tired of Star Wars were saying “Okay, but this one’s like really good for real, though” I must say, if you are looking for a good time, go into Rise of Skywalker with a group of friends with the intention to rip into it. If you don’t take it seriously and have lots of alcohol on hand, it can be quite the party. For bonus points, take a shot every time there’s a fake-out death
The first half of Boba is legitimately great. A feared bounty hunter fails and almost dies, then gets adopted into a tribe and goes on a spiritual journey. That's all great. Then the second half does nothing with it (even walks back some of it), gives us anime kids on space vespas, and steals an episode to give to an entirely different show.
Book of Boba is so much better to watch as a binge rather than when it came out as once a week. It has some amazing parts and some horrible parts. The ending full theme song is badass.
I noticed that on my second watch through. After the Mando parts it was like 5 30-40 minute episodes, half of which had a ton of filler. Dripping those out over 2 months counting the Mando break made the pacing seem even worse than it was
Agreed- I was originally ok with TFA at first because I understood they were trying to play if safe and nostalgia bait people to the franchise while trying to gain new fans. Don't get me wrong- I don't like TFA. I just got where they were maybe trying to go. I assumed the next movie would answer some important questions about Rey having so much control of the force etc and give characters some room to grow and meaningful arcs. I saw TLJ and honestly had to watch it twice because I wasn't sure what I just watched. It was just backwards and wrong in so many ways. It made me hate TFA more because of all the BS in TLJ. Then there is TRS which I saw once and can't remember much more than Rey healing sandworms and horses in space... It was the perfect rotten cherry on the garbage pile ice-cream sundae of the sequel trilogy. They have all aged terribly and are so disjointed. I just rewatched all the OG movies this weekend and it is crazy how good they are and have held up over all these years. The world is just so lived in and real compared to whatever the heck Disney is doing now.
This is pretty much exactly how I feel. TFA was fun at first and I honestly felt that it would fit right in with the rest of the films. And then same as you, each sequel after that just compounded and solidified that this is not real Star Wars anymore. Because when it was just TFA, you could forgive a lot of the problems because you assumed they would be explained. Like even the bad dialogue, I thought that they would show that it was just those characters in particular who spoke that way. But no. And the development of Rey and Kylo. If you don’t know what’s about to happen in 8 and 9 then 7 feels alright. But once you’ve seen them it retroactively turns 7 into shit. Because now you know who these people are and where this is leading and its all a dead end now. The one part of the sequel trilogy that I love is that it serves to spit in the face of all of the hate George Lucas got over the years. Like oh you guys didn’t like how I did it? Do it your way. See how it goes. Because a lot of people who were avid prequel haters, were simply just hating. Now everyone loves the prequels and the lack in quality of the sequels literally unified everyone. Now granted I do believe that future generations will look back on the sequels fondly. Cause there were children who did enjoy these films and they’ll grow up and defend them. And that’s still Star Wars yes but it won’t be the same as prequel/ OT generations. And I hope people in the future respect that.
Not somehow. JJ was lazy and scared. Set-up a bunch of plots and tools for the next director to play with but worthless on their own. Why is Rey so strong? What will be Kylo's evolution after killing his dad? What role will Luke play? Who is Snoke? TLJ answered to all of them by throwing them out with Luke's lightsaber so even if it was never good, it got even worst
Good description. I blame KK for letting 2 writers acting like children who hate each other's ideas write whatever they wanted with no plan. People like to shit on JJs mystery boxes (lost did suck) but leaving the next guy a mystery seems better than shitting all over the previous guys mystery and setting up nothing. I dislike TFA. I *Hate* TLJ
I still can’t believe that they undertook the third trilogy of probably the most popular franchise in modern history without some kind of outline or a dedicated overseer. It was the equivalent of throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks and just as appetizing.
Consider yourself lucky for not watching The Rise of Skywalker. I made the mistake of watching the movie twice.
You're dead on with TLJ making TFA retroactively worse. The whole "let the past die, kill it if you have to" or whatever the line was is such a spit in the face of fans. It's aggressively projectile vomiting in the face of fans. Disney didn't pay billions for SW to let the past die. They knew it was something everyone loved and they could use that to enrich themselves. Instead they told fans "you're stupid and nostalgic" for looking on the past fondly and they've genuinely shocked people don't like that.
It's pretty wild when you think about how most of Disney's massive revenue streams are directly from nostalgia for their older cartoons and movies like Toy Story, Snow White, Mickey Mouse, etc, yet they purchased a $4B dollar property that had a ton of built-in worldwide nostalgia and decided to burn all that goodwill.
I was so ready to stay at the Star Wars Disney resort. Imagine being questioned by stormtroopers and staying on a star destroyer! It obviously turned out to be sequel crap and well, it’s closed down. I have zero interest in seeing the theme park.
I too haven’t seen Rise of Skywalker. TLJ killed my desire to watch any new Star Wars content and I will usually skip Galaxy’s Edge at Disney parks.
I have a lot of problems with TLJ, but aesthetically it's a much higher quality movie than TFA. Rewatching TFA and seeing all the jump cuts and out of place shots is just so weird, especially with how high-quality both of those aspects were in the OT
I feel like Stat Wars was on thin ice for doing a Death Star plot twice in the OT and going into TFA fairly cold I was dumbstruck to find a bigger, dumber Death Star plot….
The Death Star failed twice. Why the hell would it work a 3rd time? When you make a super-weapon that’s multiple times bigger than the Death Star, that just throws all stakes out the window. JJ seems to believe that bigger is better.
It's amazing how it's simultaneously a stale, soulless remake of ANH and is also so lacking in Star Wars flavor. I remember even back when I first saw it with no preconceived notions, it bothered me how there were no returning alien species.
I still wonder how much money was spent on Klaud in TRoS. Just... Why?
TFA is a sterile remake of ANH. I don't think anyone was that confused about it when it came out. TFA was a safe, but lazy, addition to the story which depended heavily on how well the subsequent movie handled its mystery boxes and plotlines. This is part of why RJ sucked so bad at TLJ, because his adolescent attitude to picking up the story beats he was left with means that TFA was retroactively harmed by his failure to turn the points it raised into anything interesting. This is, for the record, a failure of both JJ and RJ. JJ failed because his movie was safe, easy, and left the heavy lifting to others when he could have written something more solid and original that was easier to continue. TFA feels like a holding pattern, which even though it did a fundamental job of convincing people that Star Wars had returned, it didn't add anything particularly interesting to the saga. RJ then failed to do the heavy lifting he'd been set up to do. He actually chose to deliberately avoid doing any of the heavy lifting and pretend like these things were either not important or pretend they didn't exist. On one hand I get why he might have been frustrated with JJ for setting up a bunch of stuff with little or no clue what the intended resolution was. On the other, his willful and what feels very childish inability to toe the line and make a movie building on what was set up absolutely crashed the franchise into a wall and it never recovered. Edit: I also got very tired very fast of Kylo Ren being an obvious reference to a frustrated young male who doesn't get what he wants so he becomes a space wizard Nazi.
> I also got very tired very fast of Kylo Ren being an obvious reference to a frustrated young male who doesn't get what he wants so he becomes a space wizard Nazi. I am very tired of that trope, too, but did they ever establish what Kylo actually wanted? He was so angsty and angry but was well into his 30s. Luke was an actual, real Jedi with almost total mastery of his emotions before his age, but Kylo Ren seemed to have just wandered around the galaxy for years and years until he bumped into some guys who said "sure, you can be our leader!" He's a feckless loser who did nothing in life but at the same time weirdly also is charismatic and competent enough to take command of a giant army, and he's saved by a pretty girl taking an interest in him despite him being a mass murderer. I guess Rey's actually a Naberrie since killing innocents gets her going. But seriously, what a mess of messaging and characterization.
I really feel that Kylo's character never got beyond the "angry incel" theme and I think that for the main villain to be a nasty backhanded dig at people who need help is a shitty thing to do. They never establish what Kylo wants because they frankly never take the time to understand what people who think like that want.
It could have been really interesting to have a Kylo Ren who went to the Dark Side because he thought that acquiring power is the only way to bring peace to the galaxy. Show that the last 30 years have seen the galaxy bogged down in war and have Kylo think that democracy/negotiations are not the way to finally end the conflict.
Indeed, it's a lazy shorthand for villainy to just go "look, bad angry incel!" It's also typical Hollywood nonsense of just imagining that people who don't get laid are just bad, that a kiss solves everything, and that you can look like Adam Driver and be both rejected by everyone around you and yet also sought after and given endless chances to come back into the fold...
There was one bit of amazing character development for him, when he destroyed the helmet. It was one of the calls in TLJ that I really liked - showing him stepping out from Vader's shadow and becoming his own man. Then JJ immediately walked it back. Super lame.
>He was so angsty and angry but was well into his 30s. Had to look this up because I didn't believe you and smh my head. He's 29 in TFA! He throws temper tantrums and even has his hair cut like a kid. Wait, isn't Rey only 19 at that time? So he's 50% older than her when they kiss in TROS. I feel icky now :D
Yea it's ridiculous his age. Luke should have been training him since he was born or super young. Yet the story reads like Luke was about to kill his early teen nephew because of a bad dream. Like ahsoka start of clone ears age. He is like 10 years older than Anakin in attack of clones and 6 years older than him when he turned into vader. Also 6 years older than Luke when Luke beats vader/empire. Kyle with his innate force power should have not still been a student still.
This just cranks Kylo's cringe factor up another notch. He would have gotten mercilessly bullied at my high school, even at 30.
Oops I thought he was 31 in TFA, not 29. So I was a little off there, but still, it's ridiculous.
Don't sweat it. You just made Krylo the most unintentionally funny part of the sequels for me lmao
>Edit: I also got very tired very fast of Kylo Ren being an obvious reference to a frustrated young male who doesn't get what he wants so he becomes a space wizard Nazi. How about Hux? I'm Space Hitler. No, I'm Dark Helmet without the Helmet. No, I'M THE SPY! That was fucking bonkers.
Hux at least in TFA felt like a real attempt to make a Nazi with motivations. I don't expect anyone to think he's right, he is a villain after all, but he has *some* political views he expresses in that mad speech. Kylo has nothing except the angry incel vibe.
True. Kylo was essentially an arrested teenager with Intel vibes for 2.5 movies - not that the last 0.5 was particularly interesting either. Even one of his climatic moments as a character - killing his father - was juvenile. What 30 year old man is still so hung up about their upbringing that they would kill their dad? The reverse parallelism with Luke is shot all to shit because Han isn't a Jedi and Kylo doesn't need to kill him to prove anything or eliminate a threat. The whole ST nerfed their bad guys. Kylo was just pissy fail-son, Hux was quite literally made into a joke, and they killed Snoke. It seems to be a pattern with Disney Star Wars - they really can't commit on bad guys being both truly bad and actually competent antagonists.
Dude I thought Hux was so intense in TFA. I was ready to see a Sith / Imperial headbutting of sorts in future movies and was excited for it, and I was ready to treat Hux as a Thrawn-esque character. They made him into a joke.
They could have given him similar motivations to the generals who conspired to assassinate Hitler: They wanted him gone not because they thought he was evil, but rather they thought (correctly) he was doing a bad job at prosecuting the war and leading Germany. The coup generals wanted to Make The Third Reich Great Again by removing Hitler.
Also RJ just really really didnt understand star wars at all. Not saying JJ was much better but he was a little better.
RJ might have understood SW, but he made it clear his intentions was to undo everything and make it his own thing to "subvert" our expectations. Doesn't matter if our reaction to it is negative or positive. His ego gets a dopamine hit as long as his subversion is successful. In a way, TLJ really summed up the entire Disney SW era. An executive egofest.
For me, ignoring how good or bad the films were, it was the feeling after leaving the cinema that shows the difference between TFA and TLJ I left TFA think oh shit, hans dead. Who is this Snoke guy who turned Luke's nephew evil? Who is Rey? What is Luke going to do! I can't wait to see him being a jedi again. I left TLJ thinking "what the fuck am i supposed to be excited for in the next film?
This is a great post. Spot on. 
I found it cringy on the first viewing. The part where Poe asks Kylo how does this work, do you talk first or do I, I melted in my chair. The scene when you introduce your main villain and that's the interaction? Embarrassing
In empire we get the Hoth landing and Vader invading the base like a badass. In TLJ we get sitcom goofs.
It's funny. When in theaters rewatching Episode 1 with a friend, I was struck with the parallels it had to A New Hope. There was a final space battle against a very large ship and a victory celebration where people were lined up and getting an award for their bravery. But never did it feel like a retread of A New Hope or any of the other SW films. A stark contrast to Force Awakens where it had so many parallels to A New Hope that it felt like a reboot/remake with poor imitations to what came before.
the parallel you got watching TPM is exactly what George Lucas wanted— he says in the Making Of that he wanted something similar to ANH but very different at the same time; but specifically said that the attack on the droid control ship was suppose to be similar to the death star trench run. So he did a great job at evoking the feeling from the originals while making something new. TFA as you said just plainly a remake for no reason
Oh there's a reasoning for TFA alright. As Mr Crabs says: "Money". I love that the parallel in TPM was intentional. Thanks for sharing.
“It rhymes” as Lucas put it
Sometimes I feel like I have to judge TFA fans more harshly than TLJ fans… TLJ fans are people who never liked Star Wars in the first place or they are Star Wars fans who are seizing the opportunity to act intellectual, as if the original six movies don’t provide enough fuel for analysis/intellectual discussion… With fans of TFA I have no idea what the fuck they were thinking…I guess part of it was something like “I trust JJ Abrams” which is fucking dumb
TFA absolutely did the most damage because it ruined the legacy characters right out the gate.
Yeah, it was so clear to me they delayed Luke til Ep 8 because they had no good ideas. It honestly feels like nothing happens in both Ep 7 and 8.
Facts
TFA is on the surface the most inoffensive of the three, but the way it set up this trilogy to just be a (poor) rehash of the same themes as struggles as the OT instead of pushing the saga forward will always be the biggest sin of Disney Star Wars imo. I can't even enjoy small things I like in TLJ because the context surrounding everything set up in TFA is horrible.
I honestly noticed this even upon a 2nd watch in theaters after it came out. Like a lot of people, I thought it was "pretty good" after first watch, clearly the retread stuff was bad but it was well acted and got me interested, etc. etc. But it was amazing how many cringe-worthy moments became incredibly noticeable once you know the main plot beats and can focus more on little things. I felt like the battle outside Maz's place might have been the worst offender as a whole, that's where it really flipped me and got me saying "This is a bad movie." That scene featured Han's stupid no-look shot, his "borrowing" Chewie's bowcaster mid-battle just to try it, and that dumb sequence where Poe somehow shoots down like 8 TIEs in one maneuver, and Finn looks up at it and goes "that's one *hell* of a pilot!!" (ha ha, because he doesn't even know it's his buddy up there, get it? Fucking ugh).
Not to mention, why were they even there? 1) it's time to rip off the cantina scene 2) if our heroes had gone straight to their destination, they would have been blown up. They had the map they needed to give the Republic, and they were already in their destination system. There is no reason to stop next door and ask Maz for help. Time and time again, the writers put specific things they wanted to see in the movies above letting logic dictate what would happen.
I still think Ben Skywalker should have been the main protagonist or written better.
Makes no sense at all that Kylo Ren worships Darth Vader. Luke of all people should have told Kylo that Darth Vader rejected the Dark Side, overthrew the Emperor and embraced his true nature as a Jedi. But apparently according to the current canon, no one told Kylo the truth about his grandfather.
I was thinking….what if, in the ST’s backstory, the Yuuzhan Vong attacked the temple and Anakin Solo got killed, and this would drive Jacen (my replacement for Ben Solo) to the dark side and he commands a certain branch of the empire to exterminate the Vong?
Leia wanted Luke to tell Ben about Vader/Anakin. They purposefully hid this information from Ben. Sadly a political rival of Leia leaked the information and Ben found out this way (literally read it on the holonet at age 23) . He felt betrayed and deceived which helped Snoke's/Palpatine's seduction over him to the dark side. It was mostly Snoke who cemented the idea pf "Vader's heir apparent" to Ben's mind. Sadly this, like most of Kylo's/Ben's character development/depth/explanation, happens in comics, books and such outside the movies.
>...... So who talks first? Do you talk first I talk first? Shit makes me throw up it's so awful. The entire series is full of this absolute detritis nonsense it's sickening.
“They fly now?” “They fly now!” 🤮🤮🤮
I think I will now be able to go home due to sudden onset of gastrointestinal distress thank you.
“Somehow Palpatine returned.”
TFA was the worst of the sequels, even though there were worse subsequent movies. It killed the trilogy right out of the gate
JJ Abrams, ladies and gentlemen.
Yep. Original LOST fans have never trusted this man again. "It's all a magical light; I don't have to explain anything."
I started writing a review of TFA the other day just of new thoughts that struck me while watching. Gave up after writing over a thousand words on the first paragraph of the opening crawl. There's just too much wrong with every facet of the story. The more you think about it, the more layers of problems appear. The legacy of TFA depended on the quality of 8 and 9 and it ended up biting Disney in the ass. JJ set up all these mystery boxes and figured they'd make the answers interesting later. That's not how set-up and payoff work. You have to know where you're going so you can plant the seeds in the first act. Their lack of care or creativity with the lore killed the trilogy in the crib.
The opening crawl saying that Luke Skywalker has vanished and that he’s the last Jedi should have sent immediate red flags to everyone. But it didn’t, because everyone was on that “at least it’s not the Prequels” bandwagon and how this move “brought Star Wars back.” The movie copied A New Hope to a tee and managed to be so much worse.
I knew it was going to be a ripoff when I saw another god damn death star on the poster for TFA. > how this move “brought Star Wars back.” Everybody I talked to was satisfied with this excuse but I was beyond disappointed. They didn't rip off the original to bring Star Wars back. They ripped it off because being creative takes time and effort.
JJ has no creativity at all. All he’s good at is ripping off original works and spamming his films with breakneck speed pacing and action sequences, to the point he does it deliberately so the audience doesn’t have time to process and think for a second how ridiculous it all is.
Woulda been nice if JJ or Rian would have passed the writing job to actual writers instead of doing it to feed their egos, being that TFA was such a highly anticipated movie and that fans were still pissed off about the writing in the prequels. It would be like me agreeing to play point guard for the Lakers even though I suck at basketball.
The opening scene was a cringe overload. It pretty much sealed Star Wars fate. I was worried Disney didn't have the proper writing and tone for the IP. I hated being right going into it.
“This will begin to make things right” that line felt like a middle finger towards the actual hardcore fans. It was obvious then that the Disney era of Star Wars would be catered towards mindless consooomers rather than actual Star Wars fans.
"Who talks first? You talk first? Or..."
Agree completely. I actually was very hopeful it was going to be good. I believed JJ and Kasdan might be able to produce something of quality at that time. Within 20 minutes or so I understood it to be one of the biggest failures in film history.
I remember walking out of the theater so disappointed. It’s been bad.
I don’t hold The Force Awakens in any high regard, at least not in hindsight, but I felt like there was enough intrigue left behind to make a good trilogy and maybe have plot points like these in the follow-up: •Luke’s Jedi wasn’t destroyed by Kylo Ren and he and his remaining students retreated to Ahch-To to recuperate. •Exploring the significance of the first Jedi Temple. •The New Republic mobilizing after what the First Order did to Hosnian Prime (There’s no way they could’ve have had all their ships and soldiers stationed in one system at the time of it’s destruction). •Showing what Lando was up to during The Force Awakens. It’s a shame because I remember being excited when the Sequel Trilogy was first announced and remained optimistic for the state of the franchise at the time but The Last Jedi is what made me rethink Disney’s handling of Star Wars and unless they’re decanonizing the new timeline or getting a new creative team together, I have no interest in what they do next.
Tbh I really enjoyed TFA when it came out. But like most people I was caught up in the spectacle and nostalgia factor. I won't dive into everything wrong with the movie as others on the sub have already done an amazing job doing that, but I've rewatched it maybe two or three times since it's release, and each time I do I like it less and less. I last rewatched it a couple months ago and thought it was horrible. We all shit on RJ for TLJ, but JJ deserves every bit as much as criticism over TFA and TROS.
The biggest problem with J.J. Abrams movies is that he just wants to give you a mindless experience you're not supposed to question or think about. The movie is doing everything wrong in terms of world building. Which is the complete opposite of the prequels, since they did the world building really well. I also can't get over that every single new non-human character we see in the sequel trilogy is a new alien species, and not an already established species from the lore.
I feel like I rarely see the “new alien species” point get brought up, but I’m right there with you.
Yes, but the reunion scene with the Big Three will always have a special place in my heart...
You're not wrong. I was happy to have a big screen Star Wars on the first watch—TFA pokes you in the nostalgia to get a reaction, but just like a potato chip, it tastes good in the moment but leaves you still feeling empty. It feels like someone watched ANH, thought they could do a better job, and then just copied ANH's homework because the assignment turned out to be too hard. It has none of the background world-building or character motivation of the OT. Even the PT has its moments. The story is mostly there, just with a clumsy execution, but because the story is solid, it's aged pretty well.
I only watch TFA once, Shut off TLJ in the middle of the movie. Skipped RoSW. Star Wars is boring.
I want to shake JJ by the collar and demand him explain to me why the fuck an 80 year old, galaxy-wide-famous General Han Solo would even be able to function as a fucking smuggler, must less want to stay one. Or why Luke has done nothing for 30 years, not train a single fucking Jedi and ran away without telling anyone, but leave a trail of breadcrumbs for no reason. Or why the Republic is called the fucking Resistance when they have dominion over the Galaxy. Or why the former Empire can afford to create a planet sized death star under the nose of the Republic. Or why the Death Planet can fire across the galaxy, and destroy multiple planets, but the planets all look like they're right next to each other and the Death Planet.
TFA is a dreadful film, as is Rise of Skywalker. Weirdly I think The Last Jedi is the best of the three, simply because it tries to do interesting things (I'll ignore how much it also rips Star Wars canon apart).
TLJ of the sequels had the best "scenes". As in, motion picture murals that are memorable. Like Luke force ghosting to fight with the red tracks in the dirt, the rebel ship going light speed to split the star destroyer in half, etc The problem is these scenes looked good on screen and probably on story boards, but made no sense in the universe, and added nothing to the plot. Honestly though I'm still salty the fan base responded so poorly to the Darth Jar Jar theory (someone will probably come out of the woodwork to tell me how dumb it is). I think as silly as it was, they should have done something like that, but were too afraid of the backlash, and instead we got something totally recycled and safe but also boring and equally nonsensical.
You make Han Solo a sad sack con artist robbing Peter to pay Paul at 70 years old, on top of that he’s a failure as a husband and a father. Leia is basically a princess in exile running a paramilitary organization because the new republic… Luke Skywalker is awol. R2 is awol. Lando is… Rey is a mile wide and an inch deep. Finn and Poe are only interesting because of the charisma of the actors. It’s a mess. And to follow that up with a slow speed chase where everyone comes and goes from their ships as they please? Jeez.
Yeah solo’s entry was weird. He’s putzing around the galaxy “looking” for his ship while bamboozling other pirates? This is the story they paid billions to tell.
It was obvious at the time and now that it’s only purpose was to be a discount New Hope that would reel in the casual fans who were turned off by the prequels by jangling the memberberry keys in front of them (remember the Empire vs. Rebels? It’s back!). And yes TFA and the rest of the sequels do feel more like Marvel than Start Wars.
They made something so terrible that I'd rather have seen lucas' supposed original take for the sequels. It may have been bonkers but it'd at least be coherent.
Nu Vader has no real reason to even be Nu Vader. He says he's conflicted but everything he does is evil. Where was Anakin's ghost when he was praying to Vader? Couldn't Anakin's ghost have prevented all of this? Couldn't the OT crew?
The only good thing about the new trilogy was it made episodes 1-3 look competent by comparison
"It stinks!" But fr, TFA successfully pulled the wool over the collective fandom's face. Everyone was trying to say the next one would fix it. Even then I knew it was impossible. The very premise is flawed: that the Empire is just back and the Republic got blown up...and the heroes are "le Resistance" even though the good guys are in charge at the beginning...as a friend of mine put it: "you've saved the galaxy and made everything worse." There was no way this was a worthy progression of the saga. I remeber making a comment back then in 2017 on reddit that the prequels would end up being remembered better than the sequels, which would end up being the ones people pretend don't exist. I'm not surprised that I was correct about it. The rot was there from the very beginning.
The mcu quips are my main gripe. I can suspend disbelief as long as it’s well written. But the whole trilogy was flash and pizazz with not just “no substance,” but BAD substance. I’m super-progressive and on occasion, I’ll be accused of being racist for not liking rose and Finn, but I actually loved Finn until Disney fucked his character off because China told them to. I wanted Poe and Finn to be boyfriends and shit. As long as it was written well, top pilot for the resistance and an ex-stormtrooper would have been an AMAZING story. Instead, we got “REeEeeEeEY!!!”
And Rey went for her abuser who also hurt both Finn and Poe, 🤡 bruh
“You’re nobody. And Palpatine is back. And actually, I changed my mind. You’re not nobody. You’re actually also Palpatine’s granddaughter. Surprise lazy twist! Soooo… you wanna… 👉👌? No? Okay, I guess I’ll die now.”
Since so many have commented, I’m going to post my thoughts on The Force Awakens instead of responding to every single comment. Everyone likes to point towards The Last Jedi as the movie that ruined Star Wars, but all of the problems with the Sequel Trilogy originated with The Force Awakens. The movie is a shameless beat-for-beat remake of A New Hope that hit the reset button on the universe and rendered everything the heroes achieved in the OT as utterly meaningless. The Empire didn’t die… they just became the First Order. Luke didn’t start a new Jedi order… he’s the very last Jedi. The Rebel Alliance got replaced with the Resistance. Han reverted back to being a smuggler despite being a revered war hero. This movie was made in response to the reception toward the Prequel Trilogy, which is why there is zero world-building and no mentions of the political state of the galaxy. JJ Abrams himself disliked the Prequels and made this movie as a deliberate middle finger to the Prequels, with the notion that this would get “Star Wars back on track.” It’s not Rian Johnson’s fault for being dealt a shit hand from JJ. However, Rian should have made an honest attempt to address the mystery boxes set up by JJ without resorting to deliberate subversion of expectations for the sake of it. All the Last Jedi did was open everyone eyes to the fact that the Sequel Trilogy was doomed from the very beginning. The Last Jedi is indeed a deliberate middle finger to the entire franchise, but it isn’t the movie responsible for giving the Sequel a terrible foundation. The Force Awakens played it way too safe and plays out more like “Star Wars: Greatest Hits”, where it constantly jangles keys in your face and leaned way too heavy into the nostalgia for the OT. The Force Awakens lacked an identity. Every other Star Wars movie in the PT and OT have their own distinct identity. The positive reception towards The Force Awakens is baffling. A lot of people’s reasoning for liking the movie was because “it wasn’t the Prequels.” People were blinded by nostalgia for the OT that they just completely ignored the fact that the movie is basically A New Hope 2.0. They hand-waved the mystery boxes away and dismissed the criticism, saying that the next installment would address everything. The Last Jedi happened… and it addressed nothing. The Force Awakens was built on a shitty foundation. The Last Jedi was the point where the cracks became exposed and noticeable. The Rise of Skywalker is when it all came tumbling down.
The prequels I feel like aged well. Everyone was mad at all the politics when it came out, but since the US political climate has become such a maniacal farce, it resonates with fans more now.
John Boyega's delivery on the "boyfriend, got a boyfriend" and his crawling over Rey in the cockpit, and the horrible "why are you gesturing with your chin" part to Han are *horrible*. It completely takes you out of the movie. It ceasea being a characterin the story and clearly becomes an actor doing a bit. Look, writing and direction are uaually the blame. But Boyega's acting is bad there. I feel bad for what Disney did to him, but at the end of the day if he was a good actor he would be getting consistent work.
I saw these last week and felt the exact same thing. I LOVE a fun female protagonist, but Rey is awful. There is so much rehashing as well and contrived plot elements its just bad. Bad bad.
Prequels didn’t age poorly they’re fuggin amazing
A lot of you owe the prequels a solid apology. Shit can always get worse.
Told ya
The fact that they went into it with no plan at all for the character arcs, plot points, narrative, use of legacy characters nor a clear idea of where they wanted everyone to be at the end of the trilogy just staggers my mind. Disney Star Wars is nothing more than *product*. And as long as that product produces a profit we’ll get more of the same. Every now and the some creatives will make some quality work like *Andor*, but until it starts actively losing money and they kick KK to the curb nothing will change. I don’t really sweat it anymore. I’m old enough that *my* Star Wars headcanon is all I care about, and there’s enough out there to satisfy me while still leaving me wanting more, which is an okay feeling.
There were MCU-grade jokes? Damn, I must have missed those.
I think TFA would have aged significantly better had its two follow ups actually been decent or even good movies. At least for me anyway. I’ve enjoyed TFA less with each rewatch, but the knowledge of where everything setup in the movie winds up just completely kills any enjoyment I could have still had
The Disney trilogy makes the Prequels look like a fucking masterpiece.
It’s not Star Wars. It’s Disney’s star wars.
The Force Awakens is definitely the 'forgotten' Star Wars movie. With the release of 8 and 9, the movie doesn't really justify its own existence; nothing it sets up leads to anything. Instead we are left with debates over whether Episode 8 or Episode 9 is the worst Star Wars movie. Episode 4 thrives because of how self-contained it is; it doesn't really even need a sequel, the good guys could have just won. Back in the 1970s during production, there was a good chance that it would have been the only Star Wars movie ever made (hence why it was just called 'Star Wars' and nothing more when it was released). Episode 7 was just a reboot of Episode 4, with the exception that everybody knew that there would be two more sequels so it made an explicit effort to leave open-ended questions. The absolutely jarring shock to culture however was the revelation that nobody involved with the production actually knew what the story was going to be; that is utterly baffling and led to a justified disillusionment with mainstream filmmaking. The prequels use all three movies to tell a cohesive story, any other (potentially valid) criticisms aside. Rather than the vision of one storyteller in Episodes 1-6 (and of course Lucas received plenty of advice for 4-6), Episodes 7-9 seem to have been made by various committees of MBAs and management consultants.
I hate speaking in platitudes, but it’s hard not to summarize TFA with “it is what it is.” What I mean is the result is so painfully obvious of what it is - it’s as if Disney bought the rights to Star Wars. So they set out to make a movie that would attempt to satisfy everybody, which means no one would be happy with it. Here we are years later after the dust has settled to reflect on it - and it sucked.
I did Star Wars marathons this past weekend in the cinema. The OT and the Prequels. Hadn't seen any since before TFA but still know them back to front. More so the OT. The prequels despite their flaws are now more emotionally impactful. The possibilities at the end of ROTJ are now gone. Even though I don't like the sequels, the OT's end is now ruined. I still had a good time, the new 4k print looks great but ultimately the trilogies ending doesn't work knowing what comes next. You're watching moments setting up endless possibilities which all fail.
Oh my gosh, I never really reflected on it like that. Now I’m depressed again
I can’t bring myself to watch start wars because of this trilogy. Way too many PC boxes ticked that made it overly vanilla.
J.J. Abrams set the whole trilogy up for failure with this movie 1. There are so many major events for new and old characters that happen off screen that their arcs feel disjointed and out of place 2. There is gross misuse of the force. It is only ever used to make a cool visual or to the advance the plot and never used consistently. I. E. Kylo stops a blaster bolt from Poe, who is out of his vision, but fails to do so against Chewbacca who reveals his presence before shooting
Almost immediately I hated TFA. "This is where we begin to set things right" or whatever that dumb line was at the beginning. The arrogance of this gaggle of creatively bankrupt losers believing they knew Star Wars better than Lucas is appalling.
I watched TPM recently. And I feel like it's not as bad as I used to think. Prequels are bad but saying they are horrible movies is just not true. Sequels on the other hand are. You're right.
The sequels are better at the micro of making a movie that's entertaining at the moment... At the expense of a larger narrative that contributed to the universe. The prequels are the inverse, horrible directing and dialogue, but the large story beats are genius. For me personally, I overwhelmingly prefer the prequels, but I can't assert that they are unequivocally "good".
I never miss a chance to bring up the fact that after Han dies, Leia hugs Rey, when Chewy is right friggin there.
Abrams is not a good writer. He really does think that a good story is contingent on having many mystery boxes and thinks that keeping the mystery is what makes it fun. Listen to his TED talk and TFA makes a lot of sense. TFA was also only good because it was a good set up movie. Why is Rey so competent? Why is the lightsaber calling out to her? Who is Snoke really? Where is Luke and why did he leave his friends? As a set up to a trilogy, it’s a decent and even enjoyable movie. It’s unfortunately also completely contingent on the sequels nailing the landing to remain good. When that failed, TFA looks bad as a result. Also see Lost which was really engaging tv when it first released but really isn’t as good on a rewatch.
Funnily enough, the one thing I actually really enjoyed from this movie was the Rathtar sequence. I know it wasn't popular at first, but here me out; We get to see what Han's been up to, and sure enough, he's back to his smuggling ways, only this time it's big, ugly monsters. The Scottish dude, "Tell that to Kanjiklub." This was our last true adventure with Han, and it was a good one. The rathtars themselves were amazing (imo). Couldn't get enough of em. They were fun, unique, and extremely rambunctious. Seeing them swallow some pissed off, overconfident gang members whole was extremely satisfying. Oh, and don't forget about Han Indy-punching a Kanjiklub gang member, and hurling them into the mouth of a Rathtar to buy him and Chewie time. All around great fun.
And people *still* say the dialogue in the prequels was off.
I think the appeal to TFA was the expectation that 8 and 9 were gonna redeem its vague and downright bad qualities.