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But that's a great moment!!
That's all on Abrams.
Well, it's zero gravity.
It's part of his arc to BECOME a rebel.
I could do without some of the humor.
The projection thing? I thought it was fine. It's not as if Star Wars NEVER added new powers that was never brought up in a previous installment (Luke suddenly using telekinesis in TESB)
Snoke served his purpose, much like Palpatine did in ROTJ (until Abrams brought him back!)
Well, they DO something with Snoke, they make Kylo Ren kill him and claim his thrown! Haha. But if you really wanted to learn more about Snoke himself beyond just being a (at the time figuratively!) Palpatine clone with the same motivations of being power hungry and having magic powers, then fair enough. Killing him in TLJ wasn't any more upsetting for me than when ROTJ killed Palpatine without explaining his background (before the prequels were made). Because he felt like such a nothing character in TFA and a carbon copy of Palpatine, I wasn't really intrigued to learn anything about him, especially since it already had a more interesting villain in Kylo Ren. So to use him as a stepping stone for Kylo Ren wasn't a waste IMO.
Regarding anything more about his character, I just leave that to the EU stuff, which I'll never bother with.
I don't understand this criticism at all because their arcs are pretty well defined in TLJ.
Poe - Learning to be a leader for the Resistance, which leads to the climax where he decides to retreat rather than fruitlessly attack the First Order, as that would better preserve the dwindling Resistance. If there was no Sun Tzu text to brush up on, I suppose Poe will be the Sun Tzu of the Star Wars universe! This is much more than he's given in TFA, as he was essentially just a background character played by a very charismatic actor.
Finn - His arc is becoming rebel. In TFA that never really happens, as his motivation was always more about being at Rey's side, even admitting to Han he's only helping for Rey. TLJ is presenting him an opportunity to actually join the cause, with Rose representing as the personification of the Resistance trying to make a case and persuade him, whereas the DJ character is there to show him the alternative of being morally fluid. He ultimately declares himself "rebel scum" proudly after defeating Phasma (which really should have been in TFA instead of dumping her in the trash compactor!).
It's also a good thematic mirror to what's happening with Luke. Rey sees Luke as a legend, but Luke feels he doesn't live up to it and needs a good nudge to be the legend the galaxy needs. Likewise, Rose sees Finn as a newborn legend, the Stormtrooper that defected to the Resistance. Unlike Luke, she's disappointed to learn he really wasn't that after all, but over the course Finn comes to embrace that identity and live up to his legendary status when he says "rebel scum".
They're rather simplistic arcs given there's so many character to juggle as there is, but just thinking about them really makes me more upset over how TROS drops the ball on the characters. There is something to the idea of Poe having been a spice smuggler in a previous life he left long ago, but that doesn't really seem to go anywhere. And poor Finn. He just feels like a hanger on for the most part, now parodied online as just a guy who yells "Rey!" a lot. Reading Trevorow's treatments of IX where he leads defecting stormtroopers, at least THAT compliments the last two films and makes it feel like he's gone full circle. It's amazing how that idea was there, but J.J. seemed to just drop that aspect entirely because it wasn't part of the formula in ROTJ.
It's curious to me that he's still attached to a trilogy at all when there doesn't seem to be anything definite about it. If I had to guess, he may be actually mapping out a potential trilogy for Episodes X-XII. Because there's always a decade between trilogies, this allows one plenty of time to write a series of treatments over the years, that by the time X is greenlit there's at least a more solid foundation for that trilogy than there was for the ST. For all of the issues that happened at LucasFilm, he seems to have gotten along with that company as well as Filoni and Favereu. TLJ was the one film that wasn't plagued with issues. J.J. had issues over being indecisive throughout TFA, because he was practically intimidated by the franchise. Tony Gilroy replaced Gareth Edwards for massive reshoots. Ron Howard replaced Lord & Miller. And finally Colin Trevorow leaving with J.J. coming back.
I kind of think that story is now up a creative cul de sac. A nine film series where there are only 3.5 good films. Empire has been carrying the series since 1980
I am far more impressed by the mandolorian. An excellent show that is doing a fine job in expanding the universe, filling in some gaps and creating new and interesting directions
I love how the empire are being handled post Death Star 2. The power vacuum and loyal factions etc. Excellently done, and tantalising to know more
I never bought that IX would be “the last” as it was promoted. I think that was just made up by Disney in order to hype it up. Prior to marketing for IX, there’s never been mention of it being the final installment at any point. When explaining why VII was happening, Lucas likened his saga to a “soap opera” that’s about an ongoing story of a family. I took that to mean that the Star Wars saga would be more continuous over the years separated by trilogies. By just making IX “the last” it feels less definitive and more redundant.
This is the way. ;)
She said Alderan things in Alderan places.
I don’t feel that Rey, Finn and Poe’s journeys are over on screen yet. Money can go a long way for an actor.
Of all the mistakes TROS did, killing Ben Solo IMO was the greatest mistake.
Abrahms is very much a tv director, especially when it comes to storytelling. TFA is written and structured much more like the pilot episode for a tv show than a self-contained movie, which the original SW was.
He gives us four different leading characters, as well as returning favourites, who each have their own disparate story arcs set up. Perfect opportunity to let their storylines develop over 3 or 4 seasons.
He gives us a mysterious and shadowy leader whose identity he hasn't figured out yet but when he does, will be a massive twist. Excellent hook to keep the viewers interested week after week.
The problem is, this was a movie, not a pilot for a tv show. In a tv pilot, you can get away with lots of characters with tons of backstory and a shadowy threat that you haven't quite worked out yet because you'll be able to flesh it out later.
Because of this, TLJ and ROS had to juggle tons of different characters' detailed backstory and arcs, and an evil "twist" bad guy that JJ never bothered to figure out the twist for.
This was actually something I had a problem with back in 2015. The first episodes of each trilogy, ANH and TPM, at least felt like proper standalone installments that following films were able to build off of. Even when EMPIRE ended there was at least an emotional resolution to it.
TFA ends on a literal cliffhanger where there is no resolution and a lot of dangling threads that need to be addressed, like what happens in that moment with Rey and Luke, the First Order having tracked the Resistance base and heading over, and the dumb coma that JJ put Finn in as he couldn't think of a way to keep him away from Rey when she heads over to Luke (which makes his coma pointless in the next episode, which is why RJ needed to get that out of the way).
I do think ROS could have easily been salvaged with the right imagination. It wasn't put on a stranglehold like TLJ was, as that film didn't have a cliffhanger that needed to be addressed. You could have literally taken whatever you wanted, for whatever reason JJ contrived his ass off to just replay the beats of ROTJ by bringing back an overlord and retconning Rey's lineage in order to redo the whole "am I destined by my bloodline?" arc that was already covered in ROTJ with Luke reconciling his lineage with Vader.
I must admit I don't think that's very good. It breaks the tone.
If he'd shaken his head and handed it back it would have been a shock to the audience and stayed in the mystical world of SW, but he turns it into a naff gag and the whole scene kind of falls apart. It's a bit like Marc Foster starting Quantum of Solace by 007 letting Mr White go and saying "actually I'm over Vesper now, it's fine" :)
It sort of undermines the agreement with the audience, it's like the director saying "Oh you thought that was important? Haha, well sucks to be you you idiots, I don't think it's important!"
It's kind of symptomatic of the approach to the film: doing something the director thinks is unexpected to surprise the audience but the whole thing ending up feeling like a Star Wars film anyway, only a bit duller and less charming or interesting and with fewer funny jokes. 'Let's do a big raid on a super-weapon like in every SW film but the twist is they fail'; yes, very clever. You don't have to do a twist on everything.
What I don't get is that Johnson showed a brilliant light touch in Knives Out, but TLJ feels so clumsy to me in comparison. JJ could make those characters charming and engaging but Johnson turns them into boring angsty archetypes you've seen in a dozen other movies before.
I don't have an issue with some of the storytelling decisions: I'm not someone who's offended by him killing off Luke or stuff like that. My main issue with TLJ is that it's just not exciting or funny: I find it very dull and a slog to watch. You have the whole galaxy to set your film in and it stays on a rainy boring island. I think it's poorly made on that level.
ROS is a fairly thin experience and has left your head by the time you turn off the DVD, but it gallops along and delivers spaceships and action and jokes- it's a Star Wars film and gives a couple of hours of entertainment of a Sunday afternoon.
I can't really follow that: you could say exactly the same thing of the first Star Wars. Bear in mind Lucas couldn't have known he'd get an opportunity to make a sequel so it had to be fairly self-contained, but you still have the Empire existing and Vader escaping at the end of Star Wars- much the same as TFA does it. There's a romance plot in SW (between Luke and Leia) which doesn't get the payoff either: plenty of material for the SW TV show.
And if TLJ had to juggle too many characters' backstories, why add characters like Rose to clutter it up even further?
It's all in the presentation and intention of the creators. While Lucas did have a backstory to the characters, he never made the elements we didn't know about the characters into mysteries.
You don't need to know who the emperor is in the first SW, or if there even *is* an emperor. Not to mention other elements like who Luke's mother is. It's not set up as some big mystery, she was just not important enough to bring up.
Meanwhile, JJ was constantly hyping up the mystery of who Snoke is, whether or not Finn was force sensitive, who Rey's parents were, in both the film and press interviews.
I don't hate TFA or anything, I actually find it quite entertaining, but I do think that it's patient zero for a lot of the Sequel Trilogy's wonky plotting.
:Edit: As for why Rose was in TLJ, the most likely answer is because up until mid-2015 Poe Dameron was supposed to die in TFA freeing up space for another supporting character.
It's an open secret that Ford's on-set injury was worse than was initially let on and both Boyega and Isaac took a lot of action and dialogue meant for him. Abrams liked Isaac's work so much that he then decided to upgrade him to being the 4th lead.
Now given that this all happened mere months before TLJ was slated to begin filming, it's fairly probable that Rian Johnson had to do quite a bit of rewriting to accommodate an entirely new lead character into his already existing script. Though your milage will of course vary on how well he carried it off and how likely you think this is.
Yeah that's true, but again: Lucas seeded those but didn't make them mysteries because he didn't know if he'd get to make more films. JJ knew there would be a sequel.
Empire Strikes Back has a massive cliffhanger, is that bad?
I don't think there's any problem with the plotting in TFA; it all works really well.
I don't know, it does sound a bit conjecture-heavy.
I think he really messed up with Poe as well: the great thing about him in TFA was that he was a pure-hearted hero with no side to him, just a straight-up good guy. But Johnson had to turn him into a dick and spoil what was good about him, having to set him back from already being the good leader we saw in TFA to being someone who is now suddenly only learning to be a good leader (and you have to ignore the weirdness of the resistance generals not being willing to just tell their commanders what their plan is).
Johnson even steals a really snappy little gag from TFA (where Poe plays up not being able to hear what Ren is saying through his mask) and turns it into the really clunky 'putting on hold' radio gag at the beginning of TLJ which just drops like a dead weight.
As I say, I don't know where the director of Knives Out was when this film was being made.
In notes meetings with Lucasfilm, I would assume.
Been a while since I watched this, this is gold.
:D
There is no argument: one has Roger Moore dressed in both a spacesuit and a cowboy outfit and being surprised that women exist. Case closed.
:D