Loved the movie, thought it was awesome!
I don’t over analyse things, cos god damn I would not like to spend a day in some of you people’s boots.
There were some highly predictable elements, but enough that wasn’t.
When they killed of Leia, it was a bit weak, but of course that was out of their hands. As soon as she walks off quietly, and the voice of someone else can be heard saying Leia knows what needs to be done, it felt like Carrie Fisher died all over again.
It did leave me wanting to know what was originally intended to happen in the movie before they obviously had to shift. Was Han’s appearance as a memory due to Carrie dying? Felt like it. Same with some of Luke’s appearances. Oh well, will never know.
I actually didn’t like the bits with Carrie Fisher.
I couldn’t stop from thinking ‘oh, they have some footage that they need to use, and they’ll then tie in a shot with a new character conversing with her.
Well they couldn’t not have Leia, if they had a choice.
I’m sure they had plenty of other footage of her they had to scrap.
I’m sure she would have died at some point in the movie anyway.
Hope we get to see the real JJ cut, even more keen to see the Lucas cut.
There’s serious reports from those who’s leaks were spot on that KK slaughtered JJ’s cut. His original finished version was ~3 hours then got it down to 2h & 37 mins.
There’s 15 less minutes in the final version but not only did they remove his scenes they apparently added others without his consent.
They wanted a profitable version at the box office.
Can’t believe they removed a scene where all the force ghosts were visible and created a force shield to help Rey kill Palps.
They also removed a scene where Anakin appeared to Kyle from a distance to warm him that Palps was pulling the strings. Anakins force ghost would morph from ROTS to ~40 to ~70 years old. Kylo didn’t believe his message of redemption.
To not have the most pivotal character of the first 6 films (who as well was lurking in the back ground to the main villain in 7) who’s the chosen one is laughable.
I couldn’t help thinking of the episode of the Simpsons when they’re making the Radioactive Man movie, and they end up poorly editing bits together after Milhouse quits.
Overall, I enjoy the Star Wars films, but they are generally just popcorn entertainment. They aren’t hallowed ground for me and they have never been groundbreaking pieces of art or particularly breathtaking or their acting, scripting, or character development. Their main appeal is their visual effects, action sequences, world building and mostly nostalgia and I got what I was looking for in those regards.
That being said, you could have never seen TLJ and ROS wouldn’t have appeared to have skipped a beat since TFA. Incredibly sloppy storytelling, blame whoever you want for that. For that reason the first 40 minutes or so were crap, but then the fun bits (as per my first paragraph) made it better. Three votes to A. Driver. He was great.
One more nitpick - the Chewbacca getting “killed” bit had no emotional punch whatsoever because it was such an obvious fake out. Anyone who has watched a sci-fi/fantasy/comic book movie in the last 50 years knows that no body shown = not dead. The reboot (or whatever) of C3PO was a soft cop-out as well.
Saw it yesterday arvo with my son. It was fine. Some parts where I couldn’t really see the point, perhaps if I see it again it’ll gell a bit better. It verged on the awesome in certain moments - one in particular- , but they didn’t fully go with it and it felt just as disjointed as the previous two.
I’ve no problem with different directors for each episode, but where they’ve fallen apart is in giving the directors writing power. There appears to have been no set framework to get from A to B to C.
And some of it was just plain lazy - eg no ‘redemption’ of Rose’s role, so why even bother having her? Giving her a line to effectively excuse herself from anything worthy was just…juvenile…writing. Horrible. Even the final scene, yeah nah, Tattooine meant nothing to Rey and arguably nothing to Leia either, it felt like a real reach to make good on the title. And why did the 1st Order starships start crashing all around the Galaxy after Palpatine fell? Meh, whatever, over analysing isn’t good for these films.
Interesting to read just how different Trevorrows Episode 9 was going to be.
Ridley absolutely grew into an actress across the series, I thought she was excellent here. And Driver did extremely well with what he was dealt. (Take note, Hayden). Those two held RoS together with sheer screen presence even when the story became overly clogged.
I’ll post more detailed thoughts when I have time. But it felt like a traditional Star Wars film. That’s mainly a good thing, but something of a two edged sword.
Pretty good, and entertaining. I can’t ask for much more - plot holes , irrelevant quests and questionable decisions notwithstanding. I’d happily watch it again, which I never could with Eps 1-3.
I’ve been thinking about TLJ lots over the past few weeks. I actually think history will judge it much more kindly than it will ROS.
Yes there were parts I hated - Luke throwing the lightsaber away, very long spaceship crawl, the Mary Poppins thing, and parts of the Canto subplot.
Having said that I thought the themes were really strong, and I felt like ROS didn’t have any strong themes at all.
The worst thing about ROS was the Palpatine reappearance (and I love the character). It not only makes the first two films in the series basically redundant, it also sh/ts all over the end of ROTJ.
I think Johnson would /will be far more suited to a stand alone film of any description. I think he could make a very unique Mandalorian, for instance, as he’s not beholden to other people’s vision.
Abrams seems more keen to appeal to perceived fan wants. Which is fine too. But they aren’t terribly compatible.
But again, they needed consistent writing with set points to hit.
And think why did the Emperor have to return? Because they KILLED the big bad in the second! The issues from ROS stem from having to undo the shoddy work of TLJ. And what was the theme for TLJ? “Let the past die?”. That’s a good catch phrase but in what way did they follow that theme? Kylo literally let Leia live when he could have literally killed the past?
Rian Johnson became so entranced with “subverting expectations” that he forgot about story telling, lore of the franchise and logical character building. It’s one thing to make a bad movie but he somehow hurt the other movies and the sequel to this one, left Abrams with a monumental task in explaining away the daft decision making of Johnson.
Seriously watch Force Awakens again. It was a goodish inoffensive movie that introduced characters and whilst a basic rehash granted, set the franchise with some fun possibilities. Now watch it again knowing Snoke (the big bad of movie 1) means utterly nothing. Watch it again knowing Phasma is a nothing character. Watch it again knowing Knights of Ren (the flashbacks) mean nothing. Watch it thinking, why don’t they just kamikaze Holdo everything?
I think Johnson made an incredibly selfish movie made just for the twists. Basically killing off characters to “subvert expectations”. He should have spent time actually developing a good Finn/Poe plot instead of gifting them a ridiculous meaningless side plot. I’m not gonna go into every stupid thing done in TLJ (again) but right now Phantom Menace is ranked above it for audience score on RT.
I’ll go further than you. It was crap. Whatever artistic intent remained from the original vision was crushed by the bean-counters desire to guarantee a positive R.O.I. They got spooked after ‘Solo’ underperformed so they worked this one to ensure that the audience reaches into its pockets this time round. It’s a cynical and sadly, a benchmark example of what the movies’ have become.
