Movies are awesome

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andersonh1
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

Dominic wrote:
Spoilers below, and big ones. Don't click if you don't want to know major plot points. You've been warned.
Your summary is making me cautiously optimistic.

Spoiler
What was the plot point with Hux?
Spoiler
Hux is acting as a mole within the First Order and passing along information to the Resistance. He hasn't turned good though, he just hates Kylo Ren and wants him to lose the war. He's killed halfway through the movie when General Pryde doesn't fall for his "they shot me while escaping" trick after Hux helps Finn, Poe and Chewbacca get off the command ship.
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Dominic
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by Dominic »

Thanks. Hopefully, I will see it tomorrow.
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by Dominic »

It was kinda tone-deaf, suffering a lot of robo-violence and explodey nonsense, punctuated by the main girl's feelings about her dead father being worked out. The main story would have worked a lot better if it A) hadn't been so murder-death-killy, B) if it had a war that was more balanced or a Cybertron that was more ravaged (pun not intended), C) if it wasn't trying to keep a toe in the Bayverse, D)
I thought the depraved violence was toned down in "Bumblebee"?


And, i saw "Rise of Skywalker". I like it better than the last two. But, that is a relatively low bar to clear.

The Force:
Spoiler
I am not a fan of how the newer movies handle the force. As clumsy an explanation as blood-borne bacteria were in the prequels, they did not change the mechanics of how the force worked. (Ultimately, they were a diagnostic McGuffin the worked with the materialist zeitgeist of the 90s.)

The newer movies treat the force as an all-purpose McGuffin, up to letting Jedi and Sith engage in limited teleportation.



C-3P0:
=
Spoiler
This was a wasted side-plot. Regardless of how audiences feel about the droids, they are consistently shown as being considered hardware on screen. They are casually bought and sold, and mind-wiped (by the movies' heroes).

And...the entire plot point with 3P0's memory falls apart if you one applies even basic level forensic knowledge to the situation.

I can understand that 3P0's core programming would not allow him to translate Sith. (We have technology of that level now, with computers being progammed against displaying certain content.) But, if the workaround for that involves wiping his mind, then the transcribed Sith that they need translated would be lost along with the rest of his memories.

The solution there would be to make a forensic image of 3P0's memories (in order to retrieve the transcribed Sith text). But, they could have simply imaged 3P0, copied the Sith text and his translation programming...without wiping his mind. (If nothing else, standard forensic procedure is to keep the original media copy as clean as possible. At most, they would turn 3P0 off until they were able to extract the needed information.) The fact that his mind ended up mostly restored by the end just makes this sequence more pointless, beyond the illogical parts.


Maz Kanata and Rey:
Spoiler
Was that Kanata in the flashback to Rey's origin? If so, that would explain how Kanata got the lightsaber.


Kylo Ren:
Spoiler
His redemption does not quite go into the floofy territory of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and the more obnoxious parts of "X-Men" lore, but it comes close.

On a related note, was the cameo by Ford supposed to be a hallucination by Ren or the actual ghost of Han?


Any Serkis:
Spoiler
It is a crime that Disney did not use him to play the ape-like technician that worked with Kylo Ren at the beginning. It is a minor thing, but a lost opportunity.


Lando:
Spoiler
Was he hitting on the former Stormtrooper? Because it *really* looked like he was.



There was stuff that I liked.

Finn:
Spoiler
Rather than try to over-sell Finn's actions in Episode 7, this movie makes clear that he is not the only Stormtrooper to desert. (I am guessing that Disney knows that idea will be beaten to death in the comics/novels, meaning that the movies should just own it.)


Rey:
Spoiler
The scene at the end of movie was very well done.

Rey buries the Skywalker sabers (that were never hers), and is shown using a saber that she scavenged from one of Ren's dead troops. That is a good visual representation of the movies themes about redemption and salvage, and worked much better than Ren's wholly undeserved moment in the light.




For the record, "Rogue One" is my favorite "Star Wars" movie, which is probably indicative of how little interest/affection that I still have for the franchise as a whole (as "Rogue One" is the last like a "Star Wars" movie).
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by Shockwave »

I saw it last night. I really didn't have issues with any of it and I thought it put a nice end to the series.
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by Sparky Prime »

Dominic wrote:
Spoiler
Rey buries the Skywalker sabers (that were never hers), and is shown using a saber that she scavenged from one of Ren's dead troops. That is a good visual representation of the movies themes about redemption and salvage, and worked much better than Ren's wholly undeserved moment in the light.
I haven't seen the movie yet myself... But
Spoiler
everything I've seen points out she used the end of her own bo-staff to make her lightsaber hilt.
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by andersonh1 »

The thing that turned me off so much to episode 7 and especially 8 was the way the old characters were treated. We had a solid story with episodes 1-6 where the old Republic fell, the Empire rose, and then that Empire was defeated and it's tyranny ended. Luke, Leia and Han Solo were a big part of that victory, and they earned a happy ending. But we get to the sequel trilogy, and Han and Leia's relationship has fallen apart, Han Solo has gone back to being a smuggler and ultimately is killed by his own son, and Luke Skywalker is a bitter old recluse, hiding from the rest of the galaxy. Only Leia's done fairly well, though she shares with Han Solo the loss of her son to the Dark Side. Add to all of this that there really is very little difference between rebels vs. the Empire and the resistance vs. the First Order, and it's like the victory at the end of "Return of the Jedi" never happened. That really soured me on these new Star Wars movies. I have no problem with a passing of the torch story, but I want to see the characters I'm already invested in still fighting the good fight, and except for Leia we didn't see that.

Episode 9 doesn't completely mitigate all of that, but it does help. I felt like the old and new characters were treated with more respect, and the sequel trilogy was salvaged as much as it could have been, given what episodes 7 and 8 established. I still have problems with all three movies, but I genuinely enjoyed episode 9 in a way that I did not enjoy episodes 7 or 8.

"The Last Jedi" is the only main line Star Wars movie I did not go to see at the theater. Every other one I went at least once, sometimes twice (or in the case of Phantom Menace, 8 times. :D )
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by Dominic »

Spoiler
everything I've seen points out she used the end of her own bo-staff to make her lightsaber hilt.
It looked like the
Spoiler
hilt of a Sith saber.
Not sure if I am going to sit through the movie again to check that or
Spoiler
if that was Maz Kanada in the flashback.
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by Sparky Prime »

Dominic wrote:It looked like the
Spoiler
hilt of a Sith saber.
I'd agree, it does look like that but it was
Spoiler
.
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by Sparky Prime »

So... I saw the Rise of Skywalker this morning.

Where do I even begin with this? Well, I'd have to say I enjoyed it more than The Last Jedi, but, as Dom said, that's a low bar to clear.

Spoiler
It is painfully obvious this movie is a course correction following the events of The Last Jedi. Not that that's a bad thing in itself, considering I felt that movie was the wrong direction that did very little to actually develop any of the characters or story, but it forces this movie make up for it, and a lot of it doesn't really work well as a result, at a breakneck pacing. Palpatine's return makes no sense. He acknowledges that he died, but his return his hand-waved away as "unnatural abilities" granted to him from the Dark Side of the Force. Let's face it, the only reason why he's back is because Snoke was a terrible villain, and Kylo Ren was never actually going to be the big bad (and the Knights of Ren, who finally are present in this film still really don't do anything). I do like that they finally gave Snoke some backstory, although it also feels like a half-assed explanation. He's a clone, that the Emperor created as nothing more than a puppet to lead the First Order while he created the Final Order in secret. I mean, I guess that works. But it begs to question, if Snoke was a clone, what happened to the original? And why would the Emperor need a dozen more Snoke clones? And why would the Emperor need two fleets (both the First and Final Orders) capable of controlling the galaxy? Where did the Emperor even get the man power to build and operate hundreds (if not thousands) of Star Destroyers on a hidden planet that you can only find with one of the two Sith Way Finders in existence?

So the movie becomes mostly a MacGuffin hunt, as Rey realizes Luke left a note in one of the Jedi books about a clue to one of the way finders that he, and Lando, had apparently left to find in the first place. Why Lando stayed behind while Luke went on to Ahch-to, the movie does not explain. I've heard the Visual Dictionary explains he had a daughter that was kidnapped by the First Order, and so he decided not to leave that planet... which you'd think would be an important detail that should have been in the film considering she apparently is the former Stormtrooper he seems to be hitting on at the end of the film. Anyway, meanwhile, Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren are on a mission to kill Rey so the Emperor will just hand him control of the Final Order which obviously they both plan to double cross each other. Eventually the heroes find an ancient Sith dagger that C-3PO is forbidden to speak... for reasons the movie also fails to explain (which for the amount of time they spend on explaining he has forbidden language directive, you'd think they could have thrown in a line or something that it had become a law or some-such during the Emperor's reign). So they have to wipe his memory so he can speak it... not that it has any weight to it since they establish R2 keeps a back up for him (same goes for Chewbacca's "death" since they quickly show he didn't actually die either, which begs to question why even bother with the fake out).

The dagger eventually leads them to the debris of the Death Star II (which really shouldn't be so large from what we saw of it exploding in ROTJ), where they dagger somehow conforms to the shape of the debris to point them in the right direction to find the second way finder. I guess the Sith that made the dagger could have foreseen this would happen through the Force, but again, something the movie doesn't explain. Kylo amid their confrontations in the film tells Rey that one of her parents was Palpatine's kid, and made themselves nobodies that "sold her for drinking money" to protect her from Palpatine. I really expected Kylo to tell her he told her the truth "from a certain point of view", but oddly this was the one time they didn't directly stea....reference something from the original trilogy. As an aside, while I appreciate they tried to incorporate Carrie Fisher into this film, I don't really feel it worked very well. I did like the send off they gave her, and her final act helping to redeem her son here, but her scenes felt wooden since they were forcing scenes she'd filmed for the other films to work here. But it is unfortunately what it is due to the circumstances. I also have to wonder... Wouldn't whoever Palpatine's child was have been strong in the Force, since we saw with the Skywalkers, the ability to use the Force remains strong within families? Why did Palpatine decide to skip a generation? I'm also forced to assume Han Solo's appearance is somehow the result of Leia's Force projection, despite having died (although her body also doesn't disappear until Ben Solo dies and disappears as well so...), but this is yet another thing the movie does not explain.

Turns out the Emperor wanted Rey brought to him all along (despite sending Kylo to kill her in this film, or Snoke telling Kylo to kill her in his throne room in the previous film) so that she can kill him. Apparently this will allow him to possess her body in some Sith ritual? Doesn't really make sense to me with the established rule of two the Sith have but anyway... When Kylo shows up, and the Emperor realizes she and Kylo are a dyad (I guess this dyad thing is also supposed to explain how they can teleport things to each other while "Force Skypeing"? The movie never explains this ability. I just kept hearing Han Solo yelling "That's not how the Force works!" in my head for how they portray the Force in this film...), he's able to restore his own body instead. Powered up by all the previous Jedi voices urging her on though, Rey kills him by turning his own force lighting against him with the Skywalker lightsabers (I guess he didn't learn when Mace Windu did the same thing to him in ROTS). Shouldn't he still be able to possess her body at this point? Well, for what ever the reason the movie doesn't explain, that doesn't happen. Rey dies for no apparent reason, allowing the redeemed Ben Solo to Force heal her, only to die himself (there is a feeble explanation Force healing uses some of the users own lifeforce, although it doesn't seem to really affect Rey when she'd healed him after their battle at the Death Star II debris). And so with the Emperor defeated.... again, the galaxy celebrates and Rey, having rejected the Palpatine legacy, takes the family name Skywalker as her own instead, seemingly with the approval of the Force ghosts of Luke and Leia.


I'm sure I could go on about this film and this Trilogy, but to sum things up... This entire Trilogy was a mess. As I said, I did like this film more the The Last Jedi, but these were easily the worst two Star Wars films IMO. I tend to give The Force Awakens a little more leeway, but really that's only because it had the benefit of being the first of the new Trilogy, needing to set things up for the other two films. Unfortunately, it's painfully clear they didn't have, or follow, any definitive plans to make this Trilogy flow like they should have. So it comes off feeling very disjointed, and does a huge disservice to Star Wars as a whole in how it handled the plot and characters.
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Re: Movies are awesome

Post by JediTricks »

Dominic wrote:I thought the depraved violence was toned down in "Bumblebee"?
In volume perhaps, but not in scope. Nearly every scene between opposing bots is brutally violent and often ends in the death of at least one bot. Not only is it offputting, it also doesn't really make sense if this war's been raging for millennia and there's not billions of bots being built constantly.

As for TROS, I'm passing entirely, I'll wait until it hits Disney+ before bothering to see it.
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See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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