TF Views

I am likely to see Episode 9. (The "Star Wars" movies tend to drop when I have the time to sit for them.)

But, I agree that the recent movies have been rehashes.

The new movies are no worse to the old characters than the prequels were to their own casts.

Han got a good, if perfunctory, death (because Ford wanted out). Luke taking off and hiding for a while makes sense for the purpose of the story.

Dominic wrote:Luke taking off and hiding for a while makes sense for the purpose of the story.

Having Luke sidelined and giving the new characters reason to seek him out makes sense for the purpose of the story... Having Luke take off and hide does not. Luke isn't a character that would abandon his friends and family like that. TLJ unfortunately makes this worst with Luke saying he left just to die. Why would he leave behind a map for people to be able to come find him then?

But yeah, I'm undecided if I'll be going to see "The Rise of Skywalker" myself. I could give "The Force Awakens" a pass for rehashing so much giving because they needed a new jumping off point for this trilogy, but "The Last Jedi" I felt really ruined any potential they had going for them and failed to give any answers that was sorely needed. I really don't expect "The Rise of Skywalker" to be any good at this point...

The Spirit (2008) - holy shit what an absolute disaster of a movie, the only way it's entertaining is as a train wreck -- but as a train wreck, it's AMAZING! It's one of those movies you watch with friends who want to riff and dump on bad movies and then it's outstanding as a piece of pure nonsensical garbage. It's so many bad ideas executed so wrongly in a way that makes you happy.

Alice in Wonderland (1951) - the first film I watched on Disney+, and I forgot how good it really is. The only weak spot is the ending, the rest is a delightfully confusing and psychedelic treat. Great voice acting, great animation, great music.

Sleeping Beauty (1959) - while this has its charms, it's really only a good story thanks to its visuals and its villain, it's a bit flat otherwise. It's fine but not outstanding.

Peter Pan (1953) - one of the few Disney films that's too short, this film is entertaining but has to spend a lot of time in London at the beginning to set it up, and that takes away from the adventurous feeling later because that material is so compressed. But Peter is an absolute bastard, as he's supposed to be, and there's a sense of danger and fun that works pretty well. The racism is pretty heavy in this one, and unfortunately also has a very catchy tune.

The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad (1949) - This is barely a movie at 64 minutes and 2 unrelated tales, but both are quite charming and enjoyable in their own ways. This deserved a better restoration.

andersonh1 wrote:I'm debating whether or not to go see "The Rise of Skywalker". I've been very disappointed by the sequel trilogy, and as much as I'd enjoy seeing Palpatine again, like so many other things in these movies it feels like yet another rehash. This whole trilogy feels like it's brought very little that's new to the table. It' feels like a bunch of Star Wars fans reacted against the prequel trilogy and remade the originals as close as they could, though oddly they don't treat the OT characters well at all, with the exception of Leia.

I was out with 3 of my Star Wars friends, they started talking about doing a group watch on opening day, each had plans already, then they asked me so I told them I wasn't going to bother. Stopped them in their tracks, one already knew -- he and I saw The Last Jedi together, and he knew I wanted to walk out halfway through. If Disney had written real scripts instead of just letting randos tinker about trying to find a story to tell, maybe these would have worked, but instead we get a clumsy ANH rehash and then an epilogue that tries to be self-important through deconstruction and trolling. Nothing about The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi remind me a thing of movies fans would make, only what Hollywood would make.

If they had only made stuff like Rogue One and Solo to cut their teeth on first, they might have found a real voice, but instead they thought they could fool everyone and wasted the opportunity. At least we have The Mandalorian, that show is made by real fans.

I don't want stuff that seems to have been made by fans.
But, the last two Star Wars were bad.

I might see the next one. Dunno yet. (I have not seen "the Joker" yet, and I want to see that.)

I did see "Terminator: Dark Fate". You should learn from my folly.

JediTricks wrote:At least we have The Mandalorian, that show is made by real fans.

Yes. And it is an amazingly good series.

Dominic wrote:I don't want stuff that seems to have been made by fans.

I really don't care who makes it, as long as it's good. But honestly, a lot of the best movies these days have fans as the creators. Jon Favreau being one such fan of Marvel and Star Wars. His work with Marvel kicked off the MCU (Iron Man still being one of the best films in the franchise at that), and his work with The Mandalorian is easily better than anything else Disney has produced in the franchise. It just goes to show, sometimes fans are the best people for the job.

Dominic wrote:I don't want stuff that seems to have been made by fans.
But, the last two Star Wars were bad.

Fans are the ones who care about the material. Aren't you tired of all the generic corporate studio films where they just assign a random director to something and it comes out blandly? Star Wars inspired so many people to join the creative arts, now some of them are telling stories and building their own skills. Not every fan is slavish, that's a narrow perspective.

I did see "Terminator: Dark Fate". You should learn from my folly.

I refused to see it, you should learn from my resolve.

In my defense, I figured that Cameron being attached to "Dark Fate" was reason enough for optimism. Instead, the movie ended up one more reason for me to be sad that they never followed up on "Genisys".

Had the day off, so the family and I went to see Rise of Skywalker today, and I'll admit, I enjoyed it and it elevates the previous two movies to some extent. I still think the sequel trilogy is flawed mainly because it has a "must make a movie first, then think of the story" approach, unlike the original and prequel trilogies. Rise tries very hard to be epic in the end, and very nearly manages it, though it falls somewhat short. Still, better to aim high than not try at all. Return of the Jedi is a better ending than this one, and they probably should have stopped there, but this one works reasonably well considering that it has the nearly impossible job of cleaning up the mess that The Last Jedi made and trying to top the spectacle of previous finales.

Spoilers below, and big ones. Don't click if you don't want to know major plot points. You've been warned.

Spoiler

- They don't play coy at all about Palpatine. He's in the opening crawl, and the first few scenes are Kylo Ren going to find him.
- The scenes with Leia work fairly well. Most of them are early on in the movie, where she's training Rey, and Rey refers to her as "master" at one point.
- Did Leia receive Jedi training? Yes, from Luke, and there's a flashback to the two of them when they were younger training. Leia had her own lightsaber, which Rey is given 2/3 of the way through the movie.
- Luke shows up as a force ghost, and gives her Leia's saber.
- The movie puts all the main characters together and lets them spend the first half on a quest, the only time we've really seen this group of characters do something like that. I hadn't thought about the fact that they're generally apart for most of episodes 7 and 8. It's to the benefit of all of them that they get to spend time in the same scenes.
- C3P0 FINALLY gets more than two lines and gets to contribute to the plot.
- Lando's screen time is small, but his role in the story is huge. Clearly they needed Lando a long time ago.
- Ewoks get a cameo!
- Harrison Ford appears for a scene as Kylo wrestles with his past actions and future decisions and holds an imaginary conversation with Han Solo.
- A lot of things aren't explained in detail. Palpatine does indicate that he died, but the line from Episode 3 about the dark side granting unnatural abilities is re-used, implying that's how he came back. He's not quite himself until the very end though.
- When Kylo Ren threatens to kill him like he killed Snoke, Palpatine says "I made Snoke" and you see other Snoke bodies in various tubes. Sounds good to me. Snoke was an unimpressive villain, and making him a puppet is a fitting explanation.
- A lot of past Jedi get cameos only as voices, speaking to Rey. Among them are Anakin, Kenobi, Mace Windu, and from the animated series, Asokha and Kanan Jarrus.
- And the big one: Rey is not Ben Solo's hidden twin, or a Skywalker. She's Palpatine's granddaughter.

I needed filler while wrapping presents yesterday, so I sat through Bumblebee on Amazon Prime. Bumblebee is a movie that exists. 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) wasn't borrowing so heavily from The Iron Giant, or E) wasn't such a bland and perfunctory ending. Nothing was great, nothing was terrible, it was fine, they should never have let Michael Bay turn their kids IP into what he did but now they're stuck with it and they can't just go back to G1ish feelings.

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?