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Post by impulse on Apr 9, 2020 15:36:51 GMT -5
Star Wars was, at first, about the adventures of Luke Skywalker. The five films that followed established that the saga was actually not centered on Luke, but on the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker, and that Luke's adventures were just a part of it. The latest installment in this long storyline does the same thing, and establishes that it was actually not just about Anakin Skywalker, but about the rise and fall of Emperor Palpatine. Anakin's story, like Luke's before it, is just a part of the bigger tale. I, for one, think that despite the inelegance of bringing back an old villain for lack of an interesting new one, this move makes perfect storytelling sense and is actually quite clever. It turns the nine movies into a single big story, instead of one big story with a three-movie extension tacked on.Despite the relative failure of the Disney sequels, I raise my hat at what Abrams did with Episode 9. It was quite a feat of rescuing a seemingly-doomed storyline. There! I said it. I disagree. I feel like it was one story with six movies tacked on, three at the beginning and three at the end, and a shining example of trying to beat a dead horse to shake more money out of it.
Like a lot of other unspoken origins, what you imagined was cooler than a too-late mess trying to explain it, and like other unnecessary cash-grab sequels without the initial creative spirit, the sequels were empty, soulless spectacles that either missed what people liked about the original or emptily repeated it.
I liked The Force Awakens at the time although it was a retread of A New Hope because it felt like it was reminding the world of what Star Wars was while setting the stage for new stories. Then The Last Jedi tried to hard to subvert things , and Rise of Skywalker was a panicked attempt to try and bring it back to retro and land it.
I thought the way they brought back Palpatine was stupid, too. There, I said it.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 9, 2020 16:55:57 GMT -5
Star Wars was, at first, about the adventures of Luke Skywalker. The five films that followed established that the saga was actually not centered on Luke, but on the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker, and that Luke's adventures were just a part of it. The latest installment in this long storyline does the same thing, and establishes that it was actually not just about Anakin Skywalker, but about the rise and fall of Emperor Palpatine. Anakin's story, like Luke's before it, is just a part of the bigger tale. I, for one, think that despite the inelegance of bringing back an old villain for lack of an interesting new one, this move makes perfect storytelling sense and is actually quite clever. It turns the nine movies into a single big story, instead of one big story with a three-movie extension tacked on.Despite the relative failure of the Disney sequels, I raise my hat at what Abrams did with Episode 9. It was quite a feat of rescuing a seemingly-doomed storyline. There! I said it. I disagree. I feel like it was one story with six movies tacked on, three at the beginning and three at the end, and a shining example of trying to beat a dead horse to shake more money out of it. Oh, I absolutely agree with that! My comment was made in the context of the mess Episode 8 had made of the franchise. I think Abrams did a great job of sewing the thing back into a coherent whole, even if it looks a bit like the Frankenstein monster. An accurate description of the situation, methinks, and I include what I’ve seen of the cartoons in there. Can’t beat the sound of an actual Tie fighter. I liked The Force awakens too, because of the strong nostalgia factor that it banked on, but I admit that as a story it was a bit light. That has to be one my favourite things about the whole deal, personally! Palpatine needed to be back for the plot to work, and so he’s back. As they say in the film: “How is he back?” “Oh, clones, Sith magic, whatever”... That’s excellent! It even helps explain that weird bozo who replaced him for a while, turning up out of nowhere with more power than even Luke. I can’t deny that putting the story back on track does feel like a panicky exercise; Abrams had to cram two movies into one, basically, and try to make the overall story coherent. And that’s why I applaud him: he pulled it off!
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Post by beccabear67 on Apr 9, 2020 17:14:52 GMT -5
Am I just a weirdo or is it pretty much impossible to imagine a Star Wars without Ralph McQuarrie (and uncredited you might say Syd Mead too) involved? Also, isn't he what is missing from so many of the later things under the name? A lot of credit goes to John Williams' score for lifting the movies, and rightfully so, but without the incredible visual designs a lot of the interest for me anyway would be maybe about whatever it is for the early '80s Flash Gordon movie (scored by Queen), or even the Metropolis version with Moroder soundtrack. It's the Ralph McQuarrie (and Syd Mead) designs that make so much of the movie beautiful to view again and again... THX-1138 is an excellent film, but visually very different, and hard to describe as beautiful, though American Graffiti like Star Wars had a lot of heavy lifting by the soundtrack. As gorgeous as Blade Runner was (that mead guy again), the Phil K. Dick story on it's own had a lot of strength, but the Star Wars 'saga' was something that grew out of retelling the Flash Gordon comic strip (Skywalker = Flash, Vader = Ming, Obi-wan = Zarkov) prototype. Sadly both McQuarrie and Mead are gone, but their work will live on a long time after both.
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Post by Icctrombone on Apr 12, 2020 17:47:09 GMT -5
I might ruffle some feathers with this one but...
I find it annoying when a thread is started asking you to name your favorite ( fill in the blank ) and the poster lists about 100 choices. It's like answering all the questions for everyone. It effectively kills the thread.
There I said it.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 12, 2020 18:18:09 GMT -5
I might ruffle some feathers with this one but... I find it annoying when a thread is started asking you to name your favorite ( fill in the blank ) and the poster lists about 100 choices. It's like answering all the questions for everyone. It effectively kills the thread. There I said it. Such people might be of the Jim Shooter school of thought: “Does anyone really have one favourite novel?”
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 14, 2020 12:36:49 GMT -5
I might ruffle some feathers with this one but... I find it annoying when a thread is started asking you to name your favorite ( fill in the blank ) and the poster lists about 100 choices. It's like answering all the questions for everyone. It effectively kills the thread. There I said it. I have 682 rebuttals to make to that statement.............
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2020 13:13:41 GMT -5
"Epicenter" is only cromulent when talking about earthquakes. It's like when people think "penultimate" means "more than ultimate" - the addition of a prefix is just assumed to be an intensifier.
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Post by Prince Hal on Apr 16, 2020 13:18:27 GMT -5
"Epicenter" is only cromulent when talking about earthquakes. It's like when people think "penultimate" means "more than ultimate" - the addition of a prefix is just assumed to be an intensifier. Nicely done. You've embiggened my vocabulary, drake!
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Post by impulse on Apr 16, 2020 13:20:33 GMT -5
Lousy Smarch weather...
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2020 13:28:21 GMT -5
What mostly peeves me off is that I'm just some schmo who owns a stack of comic books. I am not a professional communicator. The professional communicators on my TV screen should be more attentive to their word usage than I am to mine.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2020 13:37:22 GMT -5
I might ruffle some feathers with this one but... I find it annoying when a thread is started asking you to name your favorite ( fill in the blank ) and the poster lists about 100 choices. It's like answering all the questions for everyone. It effectively kills the thread. There I said it. Such people might be of the Jim Shooter school of thought: “Does anyone really have one favourite novel?” I view such questions as just a simple way to get a conversation started. With or without an OP-provided initial list, it's going to trigger people into thinking "this is my favorite (or one of many), and here's why..." While the "and here's why..." part isn't explicitly asked for, you're probably going to get it, depending on the community.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Apr 16, 2020 14:28:06 GMT -5
If we’re going to speaks truths about Star Wars ....
the Clone Wars series is the best movie/serieswith Star Wars attached to the title.
There. I said it.
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Post by impulse on Apr 16, 2020 15:17:45 GMT -5
If we’re going to speaks truths about Star Wars .... the Clone Wars series is the best movie/serieswith Star Wars attached to the title. There. I said it. You misspelled Empire Strikes Back. Kidding, but I put forth a challenger.. the first Knights of the Old Republic game had an amazing story.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Apr 16, 2020 17:56:04 GMT -5
If we’re going to speaks truths about Star Wars .... the Clone Wars series is the best movie/serieswith Star Wars attached to the title. There. I said it. You misspelled Empire Strikes Back. Kidding, but I put forth a challenger.. the first Knights of the Old Republic game had an amazing story. While I would not fully disagree with you about Empire (RotJ is my favorite OT) that I like the OT more I can’t deny the amazing job Clone Wars did telling a story that Lucas himself couldn’t manage in the PT. The only SW games I’ve played were the two Force Unleashed. And that was purely for the game play. The story was almost non-existent.
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Post by impulse on Apr 16, 2020 18:07:16 GMT -5
You misspelled Empire Strikes Back. Kidding, but I put forth a challenger.. the first Knights of the Old Republic game had an amazing story. While I would not fully disagree with you about Empire (RotJ is my favorite OT) that I like the OT more I can’t deny the amazing job Clone Wars did telling a story that Lucas himself couldn’t manage in the PT. The only SW games I’ve played were the two Force Unleashed. And that was purely for the game play. The story was almost non-existent. Ironically, the gameplay in KOTOR has aged pretty poorly and would likely not be fun to someone for the first time in 2020, which is a shame because man what a story.
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