STAR WARS 9: The Rise of Skywalker

[oddeophile]

Originally Posted by doggiehowser

I think Lucas received (rightfully) a lot of flack for the prequel trilogy and probably wanted to wash his hands off and get a huge pay day.

I agree entirely that’s what he wanted. The sad thing is he screwed his huge fans of the story immensely in the process.

[doggiehowser]

Originally Posted by audioguy3107

It’s pretty much a movie quality vs. story quality if you compare the two. I think the sequels are far and away better movies, but the story of the first three prequels is much much better than what Disney and Co. put together.



- Buck

Red letter media has a really long (in the early days of YouTube) review of the prequel trilogy. It’s dark humor but well worth watching through the entire 9? Parts.

[gadawg]

We saw the movie and I thought it was the best of the sequels by a long shot and really enjoyed it. My wife even admitted it was a good movie ... Too bad the trilogy was so badly disjointed. That said ... if this trilogy was Disney's best efforts then I'm fine if there are no more Star Wars movies for quite a while ... Hopefully the force will be with them next time!

George

[doggiehowser]

Kevin Smith has his hour plus long recap of Rise. Pretty funny and spot on as usual but this time, I reckon he points out what he would have done differently, unlike other instalments where he was generally happy to go along with the plot.

Full of spoilers so beware

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UnqNZhnGZs

[Puma Cat]

I dunno; I'm jaded. I've found the latest set of Star Wars films to be completely...forgettable.

They're like Tom Cruise Mission Impossible or Jack Reacher movies. I find that a few weeks, later, I can't remember what they were about.

But....I sure as h*ll can remember what Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai or Throne of Blood, or John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate or Seven Days in May was about in detail, even decades later.

There's movies.

And then there's great cinema.

One is fluff.

The other, in the words of the great film critic, Stanley Kaufmann, transforms your life...

[crwilli]

One man’s fluff is another man’s entertainment. I guess I like fluff because I have never heard of any of the movies you mentioned. I did read ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ at some point.

[2fastdriving]

There are two things about most of today's action movies that bother me.

1. Nostalgia. Almost everything is a reboot or a prequel or something, and they always rely on nostalgia to get you to the theater. They bring back old characters rather than blow you away with new characters. The new characters are usually pretty superficial in nature.

2. Desire to "one-up" everything else. If you have a really well written movie, you don't need to use LFE that shakes the entire block, or give you a seizure trying to keep up with the action. Those capabilities should be used to enhance a film, not MAKE the film. Everything is so over the top these days that movies have become less about stoking your imagination and more about insane effects and explosions and characters that are like "Gods".

The latest SW trilogy exploits those things to the hilt. I guess the nostalgia does work on me, but I kind of resent it!

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by crwilli

One man’s fluff is another man’s entertainment. I guess I like fluff because I have never heard of any of the movies you mentioned. I did read ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ at some point.

I get it, and entertainment is fine. For example, I think the series, "The Expanse" or "The Man in the High Castle" are much better than the last 6 Star Wars movies I've seen. The problem for me with me with the Star Wars series after the first original 3 films is there is no story that I find compelling or resonant. I don't care about these characters. I cared about Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai.

If I may make a recommendation, Craig, rent or get in a copy of the 1962 version of The Manchurian Candidate (not the POS version with Denzel Washington) or Seven Days in May. I guarantee you will remember those films for the rest of your life.

Cheers, mate!

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by 2fastdriving

There are two things about most of today's action movies that bother me.

1. Nostalgia. Almost everything is a reboot or a prequel or something, and they always rely on nostalgia to get you to the theater. They bring back old characters rather than blow you away with new characters. The new characters are usually pretty superficial in nature.

2. Desire to "one-up" everything else. If you have a really well written movie, you don't need to use LFE that shakes the entire block, or give you a seizure trying to keep up with the action. Those capabilities should be used to enhance a film, not MAKE the film. Everything is so over the top these days that movies have become less about stoking your imagination and more about insane effects and explosions and characters that are like "Gods".

The latest SW trilogy exploits those things to the hilt. I guess the nostalgia does work on me, but I kind of resent it!

Agreed and excellent points, Marc. Specifically about superficial level of character development in most characters these days. The most resonant characters in recent years that I can relate to 1) is Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark in the Iron Man series, in particular the first film, and 2)Christian Bale in the Christopher Nolan series of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight series, and Matt Damon in the Jason Bourne series.

I've also found the first film in a trilogy of movies to be usually be the most compelling as the sequels often fall prey to the usual panoply of special effects over story line and the ongoing development of engaging characters. A good example is The Transformers series; the first film was fantastic, the others...um, not so much. Bumblebee is the first Transformers film I've found since the very first film that was compelling and engaging.

[2fastdriving]

Originally Posted by Puma Cat

Agreed and excellent points, Marc. Specifically about superficial level of character development in most characters these days. The most resonant characters in recent years that I can relate to 1) is Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark in the Iron Man series, in particular the first film, and 2)Christian Bale in the Christopher Nolan series of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight series, and Matt Damon in the Jason Bourne series.

I've also found the first film in a trilogy of movies to be usually be the most compelling as the sequels often fall prey to the usual panoply of special effects over story line and the ongoing development of engaging characters. A good example is The Transformers series; the first film was fantastic, the others...um, not so much. Bumblebee is the first Transformers film I've found since the very first film that was compelling and engaging.

But Batman and Iron Man are nostalgic characters who were invented in the 60's! Jason Bourne is from a book. It makes my point...are there any seriously compelling NEW characters in movies?