General / Off-Topic Rise of Skywalker ( spoiler free please)

Iskariot · Dec 30, 2019

I couldn't believe the stupid nonsense they put in the Rise of Skywalker.

I used to be a huge Star Wars fan. I collected trading cards, had dozens of model kits, had all the art books etc. etc.
I can no longer connect with this garbage. It is not just bad Star Wars. It is simply bad, very, very bad movie making.

Mandalorian is decent. I thought the opening bike trooper scene in the last episode was brilliant.

Manticore · Dec 30, 2019

Filthymick420 said:
The best anything is subjective to opinion more than skill typically

There are many people who do what Abrams does...... except better; much better.

lysan · Dec 31, 2019

Iskariot said:
I couldn't believe the stupid nonsense they put in the Rise of Skywalker.

I used to be a huge Star Wars fan. I collected trading cards, had dozens of model kits, had all the art books etc. etc.
I can no longer connect with this garbage. It is not just bad Star Wars. It is simply bad, very, very bad movie making.

Mandalorian is decent. I thought the opening bike trooper scene in the last episode was brilliant.

I was a huge fan too, not anymore, Disney saved me a lot of money, anything SW I lost interest in collecting stuff from that universe.

Cotic · Dec 31, 2019

As an action film I quite enjoyed it but as part of the Star Wars saga it was only ok. Rogue One, 4,5 and 6 are in a class of their own by comparison.
There were bits in 9 that were good and then bits were really quite awful and so much unnecessary stuff. What bothers me most about the last 3 films is the way they have the actors speaking their lines, all the quippiness feels really forced and overly choreographed, it completely ruins the moment for me.

Jezzah · Dec 31, 2019

I see a lot of folk mentioning how this latest fixes a lot of problems from TLJ. See that's the thing right there...if TLJ wasnt such a stupid mess in the first place then there wouldn't have been so much work to do in fixing anything. Really detested that movie so much stupid stuff.

I havent seen the latest one (dont know if I'll bother at all). But one question please, do they answer what the who/hell/whatever Snoke was/is?

Arioch · Dec 31, 2019

Jezzah said:
...I havent seen the latest one (dont know if I'll bother at all). But one question please, do they answer what the who/hell/whatever Snoke was/is?

Yes

Defo spoiler coming up:

A biological puppet thing created and controlled by whatever was left of Palpatine & his Sith chums, you get to see a Snoke clone jar thingummy

Jezzah · Dec 31, 2019

That is terrible.

gibbotronic · Dec 31, 2019

I have watched the series back-to-back in "preparation" for seeing Episode 9 so haven't seen it yet. I enjoyed the prequels, and think the best films in the series are Episode 3, Rogue One, Episode 5.
Episode 6 is pretty ropey TBH. The quality of film-making wasn't as good in it, and the special effects are worse than the Empire Strikes Back. The back-projection for a lot of the scenes is a completely different hue and doesn't appear to have been corrected or colour-matched in the remasters. The ships and Death Star Mk2 show the glass plates they are housed on, and this hasn't been corrected either which I thought was odd.

Anyway, I still have Episode 8 to watch which I have been putting off because I remember it being dreadful particularly with the milking of an alien for its green milk and the fear of a Star Destroyer to fire upon a Calamari Cruiser - did they not watch the battle at the beginning of Episode 3 or the battle at the end of Episode 6 where they have no problem at all being in proximity to enemy ships???? Baffling garbage

Episode 7 was surprising on re-watch because Fin was a comedy centrepiece throughout it all (very entertaining) but the story was a complete lazy rehash of episode 4 - plans put in a droid, the empire/first order seeking a droid, rescue of a female from the empire/first order, trench run, planet-destroyer laser cannon.
And the other characters (General Hux) seem to be overacting or walking around frowning, or reacting (e.g. stormtroopers/staff reacting to Res going crazy) compared to standing stoically whilst others are punished/throttled in the asteroid chase etc. in Empire Strikes Back. Very odd.

Jezzah · Dec 31, 2019

The First Order lot come across as comic relief to me, no sense of anything other than background for the jedi/sith garbage.

Arioch · Dec 31, 2019

gibbotronic said:
...Episode 6 is pretty ropey TBH. The quality of film-making wasn't as good in it, and the special effects are worse than the Empire Strikes Back. The back-projection for a lot of the scenes is a completely different hue and doesn't appear to have been corrected or colour-matched in the remasters. The ships and Death Star Mk2 show the glass plates they are housed on, and this hasn't been corrected either which I thought was odd...

There is some amazing work being done by a fan of the original trilogy, doing a full colour correction from the best sources available as well as replacing all matte painting effects shots with some superb model work, correcting certain continuity errors and adding/subtracting bits and bobs here and there.

An example of the battle of Hoth:

Source: https://vimeo.com/306938695

The work is a labour-of-love thing over the course of years, and work on RotJ has temporarily stopped due to the new 4K streamed version on Disney+ apparently not needing much colour correction - although there were new effects shots done this year involving the construction of a full sized B-Wing cockpit.

If you search for "Star Wars Revisited" then you'll be able to have a read of the massive changelogs as well as get pointed towards how to get the fan edits. Please don't tell The Mouse

Rubbernuke · Dec 31, 2019

Janky nonsensical rubbish. Watch the Mandalorian and see Star Wars done properly.

bitstorm · Dec 31, 2019

Jezzah said:
That is terrible.

What you supposed to do when the previous film kills the big baddy you've been building up for two films.
Turns out it was Palpatine behind the curtain after all.

At that point it's really difficult just introduce a brand new antagonist viewers have never heard of. Palpatine does make sense given the damage TLJ did.
But to be honest Palpatine isn't such a terrible baddy anyway and they do some interesting things with him, tying him more deeply into the plot.

Han Zulu · Dec 31, 2019

bitstorm said:
What you supposed to do when the previous film kills the big baddy you've been building up for two films.
Turns out it was Palpatine behind the curtain after all.

Yeah. I think the original idea was Snoke being the big-bad guy behind the scene. Perhaps Johnson intentionally screwed up Abrams story to mess with him, so Abrams was forced to undo/rewrite his original story line. If Abrams had done Ep8, it might have had a better end result and more coherent.

Stealthie · Jan 1, 2020

Han Zulu said:
Yeah. I think the original idea was Snoke being the big-bad guy behind the scene. Perhaps Johnson intentionally screwed up Abrams story to mess with him, so Abrams was forced to undo/rewrite his original story line. If Abrams had done Ep8, it might have had a better end result and more coherent.

Was just about to post the same thing.

Apparently Abrams was aware of how resurrecting Palpatine would undermine the previous movies, which was why he created Snoke, but Johnson seemed determined to wreck as much of the pre-existing franchise as possible and, in doing so, he left Abrams with the choice to create an entirely new "big bad" or resurrect Palpatine.
Given that a resurrected Palpatine does have some precedent (if only in the expanded universe, in the hands of rather uninspired writers), I guess he figured that was the lesser of two evils.

Han Zulu · Jan 2, 2020

Stealthie said:
Was just about to post the same thing.

Apparently Abrams was aware of how resurrecting Palpatine would undermine the previous movies, which was why he created Snoke, but Johnson seemed determined to wreck as much of the pre-existing franchise as possible and, in doing so, he left Abrams with the choice to create an entirely new "big bad" or resurrect Palpatine.
Given that a resurrected Palpatine does have some precedent (if only in the expanded universe, in the hands of rather uninspired writers), I guess he figured that was the lesser of two evils.

The Last Jedi is basically a side story movie. My son said that to watch the new trilogy, watch ep7 and ep9. Skip ep8, Last Jedi, because it basically doesn't add anything. It only explains how Luke dies. Snoke is a side character that is revealed but not even mentioned or explained in ep9, so a total side character.

Ep1, 2, and 3 at least had a thread going through them all, and you had to see them all to get the full story, but the last three aren't part of a trilogy. It's a movie, with a sequel, and a side story in between.

Darkfyre99 · Jan 2, 2020

Against my better judgement, I indulged my morbid curiosity and saw The Rise of Skywalker yesterday. It... wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected, so... yay lower expectations?

While there were some truly face palming moments, especially the "hyperspace skip sequence," overall I came out of the theater entertained. I felt like it would've been a much better movie if hadn't had to build off of the ruined foundations left behind by The Last Jedi, or if it had been a little longer so the movie didn't feel so rushed.

At any rate, I figure I'd list all the Star Wars movies to date, from what I feel are the best to worst. I'm going to borrow from Howard Taylor and Dan Shive to group things together.

Cleared my Threshold of Awesome:

1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. Return of the Jedi
4. Revenge of the Sith
5. Rogue One*
6. The Phantom Menace

So Okay it's Average:

7. The Force Awakens
8. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
9. Attack of the Clones
10. The Rise of Skywalker

Crossed my Threshold of Disappointment:

11. Solo

The Aisle of Shame:

12. Star Trek V
13. Wing Commander
14. Dungeons and Dragons
15. Highlander II
16. The Last Jedi
17. Battlefield: Earth

__
*Rogue One would've been rated above Revenge of the Sith if it hadn't built upon the "magic hyperdrive can do anything" trend started in The Force Awakens.

Stealthie · Jan 3, 2020

Darkfyre99 said:
*Rogue One would've been rated above Revenge of the Sith if it hadn't built upon the "magic hyperdrive can do anything" trend started in The Force Awakens.

It's nice to see somebody else finally mention this.

I have fond memories of Luke getting zapped by the sparring 'droid, in ANH, while the Falcon was in hyperspace.
I don't think there were any definitive references but, with Chewie and R2 playing 3D chess and Luke's training, you definitely got the impression that Hyperspace travel took time.

When TFA appeared, suddenly we had people hopping around the galaxy like they were flipping channels on a TV set.
I don't pay attention to SW lore any more so I've got no idea if this has been addressed in-universe but I don't really see why it needed to be changed at all.

lysan · Jan 3, 2020

Stealthie said:
It's nice to see somebody else finally mention this.

I have fond memories of Luke getting zapped by the sparring 'droid, in ANH, while the Falcon was in hyperspace.
I don't think there were any definitive references but, with Chewie and R2 playing 3D chess and Luke's training, you definitely got the impression that Hyperspace travel took time.

When TFA appeared, suddenly we had people hopping around the galaxy like they were flipping channels on a TV set.
I don't pay attention to SW lore any more so I've got no idea if this has been addressed in-universe but I don't really see why it needed to be changed at all.

After the mouse took over there is no lore, it’s all a mess, people can die, get resurrected, zap all over the place, have super power without any effort and horses can ride in space,

lysan · Jan 3, 2020

Darkfyre99 said:
Against my better judgement, I indulged my morbid curiosity and saw The Rise of Skywalker yesterday. It... wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected, so... yay lower expectations?

While there were some truly face palming moments, especially the "hyperspace skip sequence," overall I came out of the theater entertained. I felt like it would've been a much better movie if hadn't had to build off of the ruined foundations left behind by The Last Jedi, or if it had been a little longer so the movie didn't feel so rushed.

At any rate, I figure I'd list all the Star Wars movies to date, from what I feel are the best to worst. I'm going to borrow from Howard Taylor and Dan Shive to group things together.

Cleared my Threshold of Awesome:

1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. Return of the Jedi
4. Revenge of the Sith
5. Rogue One*
6. The Phantom Menace

So Okay it's Average:

7. The Force Awakens
8. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
9. Attack of the Clones
10. The Rise of Skywalker

Crossed my Threshold of Disappointment:

11. Solo

The Aisle of Shame:

12. Star Trek V
13. Wing Commander
14. Dungeons and Dragons
15. Highlander II
16. The Last Jedi
17. Battlefield: Earth

__
*Rogue One would've been rated above Revenge of the Sith if it hadn't built upon the "magic hyperdrive can do anything" trend started in The Force Awakens.

I agree with you, however I refuse to pay money to watch the rise of skywalker, I will wait and get it on the torrent channel.

Jezzah · Jan 3, 2020

After the last 2 I have to subscribe to that channel also Lysan