Tbh, the new trilogy is an ok story so far, nothing to write home about but also not terrible. Just average and a bit uninspired and noone said it's flawless. No film is flawless and it's foolish to expect it to be in the first place. I like the main characters and the actors portraying them are doing an excellent job generally. However, Rogue One imo is one of the worst films in the series because not a single character has a clear personality in that film aside from the joking robot and the story of that film almost put me to sleep. I have not watched Solo but I might want to at some point. Kylo Ren is a very interesting character as he is now and he does not need to win fights to be interesting. If he wants to win and constantly fails then seeing how he deals with that feeling of failure is in itself interesting and the films have explored that to some extent. He's every impotent pathetic edgelord on the internet who fails miserably at life and he knows it. We have never had a character like that in Star Wars before so kudos to Adam Driver and the writers for doing something new and doing it successfully. A physically strong character is not in and of himself intriguing. What the character thinks, feels and how they act makes them interesting.
Star Wars Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Posts: 4794
Joined:
January 2012
Posts: 55632
Joined:
May 2010
Paragraphs... would be nice.
People who dislike movies aren't right wing morons. People who are right wing morons are right wing morons.
I don’t think I fully understand your point. Can you explain it again in more detail?Batfan175 wrote: ↑July 16th, 2019, 8:33 pmTbh, the new trilogy is an ok story so far, nothing to write home about but also not terrible. Just average and a bit uninspired and noone said it's flawless. No film is flawless and it's foolish to expect it to be in the first place. I like the main characters and the actors portraying them are doing an excellent job generally. However, Rogue One imo is one of the worst films in the series because not a single character has a clear personality in that film aside from the joking robot and the story of that film almost put me to sleep. I have not watched Solo but I might want to at some point. Kylo Ren is a very interesting character as he is now and he does not need to win fights to be interesting. If he wants to win and constantly fails then seeing how he deals with that feeling of failure is in itself interesting and the films have explored that to some extent. He's every impotent pathetic edgelord on the internet who fails miserably at life and he knows it. We have never had a character like that in Star Wars before so kudos to Adam Driver and the writers for doing something new and doing it successfully. A physically strong character is not in and of himself intriguing. What the character thinks, feels and how they act makes them interesting.
Posts: 55632
Joined:
May 2010
Thought this was worth discussing.
Star Wars Is Struggling to Win Over the Next Generation of Kids
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... generation
As a hardcore, been-there-in-1997 fan (Is that even hardcore? I wasn't born in the 70s so whatever), I realized yesterday talking to my brother, I almost forgot that a new Star Wars movie is coming out this year, and not the next one.
Reading about that latest spoiler that I truly do not want to materialize didn't help either. It literally made my blood boil lol.
Anyway, what's going on? Well, the article tries to explain some of it, I can try by adding that kids nowadays certainly care more about Fortnite and MCU and whatever is thrown at them at light speed, without overly thinking about it or analyzing it. Second, they don't have that nostalgia factor within them; they grew up watching first Transformers, Pirates movies, first Iron-Man etc.
Then there's old fans, split in half, or in god knows how many pieces right now... with added Trump USA worldview and the whole SJW paradigm shift, Twitter culture etc. Everybody sees things differently, some would say 'as always', but now clearly louder than ever since everything is dialed up to 11 thanks to social media.
What happened, in my opinion, is that The Force Awakens managed to be both a welcome shift to more old school Star Wars experience, and an experience too safe for many moviegoers. Yes, it felt like the OT, but in retrospective it was also too OT. Everything was bigger and better, but also smaller and unimaginative at the same time. Just look at the LEGO toys. Everything is samey, but bigger. Then came The Last Jedi, and it did something interesting: alienated true TFA believers and somehow managed to bring back those who weren't as enamored with it*. And now, with J.J. back, we're in this interesting position. Fans are, generally, split into two and don't know what to expect really going into this finale, each in their own way. Kids seemingly don't care at all, they had their share of excitement for this year in form of The Avengers, and the general feeling is that of utter passivity towards one of the biggest brands in the world. The paradigm has shifted drastically.
*Not even taking into account the thinking crowd, who reaches the so called grey zone through arguments and doesn't really hold grudges or raves against either of the two entries
Where I stand in all of this? I think both TFA and TLJ gave us something good, something worth holding onto. Especially in form of Kylo Ren. I also don't have much faith in J.J.'s ability to 'shake things up further' since he's also closing the trilogy and really needs to finish it on a high, uplifting all-pleasing note. So everything that could end up bad (in a formula shaking, jaw dropping, nobody's safe way) will probably end up being more than good (Everybody satisfied? Bosses satisfied? Alright guys, I apologize if something wasn't just as you wanted it to be, please?). I mean, Abrams is probably top 3, if not number one producer in the world right now, and he still just doesn't get the level of creative freedom that goes along with the title. He's still a glorified yes, man. Which is both funny and disappointing because I still remember watching his first Star Trek thinking this guy is finally next level. And then there's Rian, who is a complete opposite. That struggling, methodical, silent/weird/geeky guy in the background who finally got his first big shot and cares only about his vision and nobody else's, so a lot of the folks (within or outside the industry) hate him. And he doesn't care. Be it his idol Mark Hamill or forum member #567 or whatever, he doesn't care. So TLJ ends up being both fresh and controversial-as-fuck. Certainly divisive. So divisive in fact that we had narratives on the internet proclaiming it's both best SW since Empire and worst SW ever.
And like I said at the beginning, I've red some (possible) spoilers and, even though I'm always pro shaking up the formula (I've literally said so in the previous paragraph), there's some stuff out there that literally made me go 'gtfo with that bullshit'. Literally. I don't think Abrams understands how to truly disrupt the balance so he's constanty playing this game of push & pull with the audience where he always ends up being in the safe middle by the end. But all of the power levels are nuts and need couple of patches at least to make it all somehow work, even in this fantastical world with knights wielding light swords. I'm still hoping for the best, still.
Funny how prequels were never in better position than these days huh. At least, all of those movies gave us something drastically different, and expanded, in comparison to OT. For all of their flaws, there were (and still are) many virtues to be found within PT.
Star Wars Is Struggling to Win Over the Next Generation of Kids
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... generation
As a hardcore, been-there-in-1997 fan (Is that even hardcore? I wasn't born in the 70s so whatever), I realized yesterday talking to my brother, I almost forgot that a new Star Wars movie is coming out this year, and not the next one.
Reading about that latest spoiler that I truly do not want to materialize didn't help either. It literally made my blood boil lol.
Anyway, what's going on? Well, the article tries to explain some of it, I can try by adding that kids nowadays certainly care more about Fortnite and MCU and whatever is thrown at them at light speed, without overly thinking about it or analyzing it. Second, they don't have that nostalgia factor within them; they grew up watching first Transformers, Pirates movies, first Iron-Man etc.
Then there's old fans, split in half, or in god knows how many pieces right now... with added Trump USA worldview and the whole SJW paradigm shift, Twitter culture etc. Everybody sees things differently, some would say 'as always', but now clearly louder than ever since everything is dialed up to 11 thanks to social media.
What happened, in my opinion, is that The Force Awakens managed to be both a welcome shift to more old school Star Wars experience, and an experience too safe for many moviegoers. Yes, it felt like the OT, but in retrospective it was also too OT. Everything was bigger and better, but also smaller and unimaginative at the same time. Just look at the LEGO toys. Everything is samey, but bigger. Then came The Last Jedi, and it did something interesting: alienated true TFA believers and somehow managed to bring back those who weren't as enamored with it*. And now, with J.J. back, we're in this interesting position. Fans are, generally, split into two and don't know what to expect really going into this finale, each in their own way. Kids seemingly don't care at all, they had their share of excitement for this year in form of The Avengers, and the general feeling is that of utter passivity towards one of the biggest brands in the world. The paradigm has shifted drastically.
*Not even taking into account the thinking crowd, who reaches the so called grey zone through arguments and doesn't really hold grudges or raves against either of the two entries
Where I stand in all of this? I think both TFA and TLJ gave us something good, something worth holding onto. Especially in form of Kylo Ren. I also don't have much faith in J.J.'s ability to 'shake things up further' since he's also closing the trilogy and really needs to finish it on a high, uplifting all-pleasing note. So everything that could end up bad (in a formula shaking, jaw dropping, nobody's safe way) will probably end up being more than good (Everybody satisfied? Bosses satisfied? Alright guys, I apologize if something wasn't just as you wanted it to be, please?). I mean, Abrams is probably top 3, if not number one producer in the world right now, and he still just doesn't get the level of creative freedom that goes along with the title. He's still a glorified yes, man. Which is both funny and disappointing because I still remember watching his first Star Trek thinking this guy is finally next level. And then there's Rian, who is a complete opposite. That struggling, methodical, silent/weird/geeky guy in the background who finally got his first big shot and cares only about his vision and nobody else's, so a lot of the folks (within or outside the industry) hate him. And he doesn't care. Be it his idol Mark Hamill or forum member #567 or whatever, he doesn't care. So TLJ ends up being both fresh and controversial-as-fuck. Certainly divisive. So divisive in fact that we had narratives on the internet proclaiming it's both best SW since Empire and worst SW ever.
And like I said at the beginning, I've red some (possible) spoilers and, even though I'm always pro shaking up the formula (I've literally said so in the previous paragraph), there's some stuff out there that literally made me go 'gtfo with that bullshit'. Literally. I don't think Abrams understands how to truly disrupt the balance so he's constanty playing this game of push & pull with the audience where he always ends up being in the safe middle by the end. But all of the power levels are nuts and need couple of patches at least to make it all somehow work, even in this fantastical world with knights wielding light swords. I'm still hoping for the best, still.
Funny how prequels were never in better position than these days huh. At least, all of those movies gave us something drastically different, and expanded, in comparison to OT. For all of their flaws, there were (and still are) many virtues to be found within PT.
Using Galaxys Edge to assess interest in Star Wars is kinda disingenuous I would say.
Posts: 55632
Joined:
May 2010
Right. But there are other factors that stand, that add to it. Somehing that we all can notice happening around us for a good while.ArmandFancypants wrote: ↑August 9th, 2019, 6:13 amUsing Galaxys Edge to assess interest in Star Wars is kinda disingenuous I would say.
I forgot to even mention two spinoffs, and how Solo both arrived too early after TLJ and was atrocious in its own right. I believe I gave that movie 2/5 and won’t ever look at it again.
Right now, Mandalorian could bring more hype back to this world than TROS.
This trilogy captured the attention of more young fans and has been better recieved than the PT. People hated the prequels even more back in the day and I doubt that Padme or Macu Windu toys were selling all that better.
Yet now we see that there was a generation who actually grew up and enjoyed those prequel films. We'll see that once again, in the future, once this generation grows up and starts voicing their mature opinions. Give it time.
Yet now we see that there was a generation who actually grew up and enjoyed those prequel films. We'll see that once again, in the future, once this generation grows up and starts voicing their mature opinions. Give it time.
Posts: 55632
Joined:
May 2010
That’s a fair point.LelekPL wrote: ↑August 9th, 2019, 7:31 amThis trilogy captured the attention of more young fans and has been better recieved than the PT. People hated the prequels even more back in the day and I doubt that Padme or Macu Windu toys were selling all that better.
Yet now we see that there was a generation who actually grew up and enjoyed those prequel films. We'll see that once again, in the future, once this generation grows up and starts voicing their mature opinions. Give it time.
This is pretty much bang on the money. It's clickbait. I still see more people with Star Wars tshirts and whatnot than I did during the height of the prequels marketing push, and that's bearing in mind that Disney has kinda shat the bed on the merchandising support for these Star Wars films by comparison. My stepson's favourite Star Wars character is Kylo Ren, and he gravitates towards the sequel era stuff in general.LelekPL wrote: ↑August 9th, 2019, 7:31 amThis trilogy captured the attention of more young fans and has been better recieved than the PT. People hated the prequels even more back in the day and I doubt that Padme or Macu Windu toys were selling all that better.
Yet now we see that there was a generation who actually grew up and enjoyed those prequel films. We'll see that once again, in the future, once this generation grows up and starts voicing their mature opinions. Give it time.
Solo is an outlier for a variety of reasons; otherwise the films have been major successes and have their own distinct pop culture penetration.
On the other hand, I am absolutely perplexed and frustrated by how much either LFL or Bad Robot are keeping the powder dry on TROS. It's as if no lessons were learned from Solo. We should be faced with an absolute onslaught right about now, but as has been said, its sometimes easy to forget that there even is a Star Wars film coming out this year, let alone arguably the most important one Disney (or anyone) will make.
