Kolya on 15/4/2017 at 12:53
As you probably can tell I mistakenly summarised the new films (Force Awakens and Rogue One) as JJ Abrams films. It doesn't really matter as I just needed a handle, I wasn't trying to praise Abrams personally, just saying that these are great films.
While special effects are somewhat important to scifi films, that wasn't what I meant. Take Han's sidekick Chewbacca, who's nothing but an anthropomorphic dog. Do you really think a figure like that would be accepted today, if it wasn't for rose tinted glasses? Meanwhile Lucas realised way too late what an interesting character Boba Fett was and disposed him in the most circumstantial manner.
The new films focus more on humans than muppets and they do away with the awful fairy tale angle Lucas always had. Both for good. They draw a more nuanced picture of the dark and light side that is more appropriate to our times and they de-emphasize it's hereditary nature (at least so far). All for the better.
Thirith on 15/4/2017 at 16:52
Chewbacca wouldn't be accepted today? Have you seen Guardians of the Galaxy? If so, how is Chewie vastly different from Groot? (And this is where I have to rush off; more to follow later.)
Kolya on 15/4/2017 at 19:21
No, and I don't plan to, exactly for that reason. If you pretend to do a scifi film and then have a gun wielding raccoon and a talking tree in it, then I'm afraid you lost me. I'm not up for that level of bullshit.
As I said, I like the new Star Wars films for taking the fairy tale out. No fucking Ewoks and no Gungans. That's a huge step in the right direction in my book. I'm not against weird creatures, but none of that girly stuff please.
Pyrian on 15/4/2017 at 19:46
Charming pets: Fairy tale
Magic powers: Not fairy tale
Enchanted swords: Not fairy tale
Everything is wrong with this picture.
SubJeff on 15/4/2017 at 19:48
Wait what now?
You're dissing Guardians of the Galaxy, one of the most refreshingly insane Marvel Universe films (it might be my favourite actually, I find the rest a bit dull) but heaping praise on the last two Star Wars flims?
GotG is better than both of them, by far.
ZylonBane on 15/4/2017 at 19:53
Quote Posted by Kolya
If you pretend to do a scifi film and then have a gun wielding raccoon and a talking tree in it, then I'm afraid you lost me.
Uh, Guardians of the Galaxy is NOT a scifi movie. It's a comic book movie. Fantasy, in other words.
But y'know, the Lord of the Rings series had talking trees too. Many serious science fiction works have had uplifted animal species. I'm not seeing the problem.
Kolya on 15/4/2017 at 20:14
I watched a 30 second clip of GotG and they were hurtling in a spaceship towards earth. Maybe we're dealing with different definitions of fantasy here.
LOTR - yes, that's fantasy. And fantasy in general requires a whole different level of suspension of disbelief. Talking trees are fine in it. I'm not a treeist!
But scifi deals on a level where we're to assume that it could happen, somehow, sometime, with the right tech. Lightsabers are not enchanted. And the force powers are not magical.
I know it is a fine line to draw between the force and magic. But that is the difference.
heywood on 15/4/2017 at 20:27
Coincidentally, I finally watched Rogue One for the first time last night. Too much generic shoot-em-up action for a Star Wars movie, and the moments where it tried to be dramatic didn't really work for me. I thought the lead acting by Felicity Jones and Diego Luna was kind of weak. The script was just okay. It was less flawed than The Force Awakens, but I expected better. The story of the Death Star and how the rebels got the plans is possibly the juiciest Star Wars story concept there is, and I was disappointed to see it wasted on a pretty dull & average script.
My daughter has gotten into Star Wars a little bit so we watched the prequels again recently. They're actually not as bad as I remember them. If you could replace the awful Gungans with a more interesting species and make a couple of the big fight scenes less silly, these would be good movies.
Sulphur on 15/4/2017 at 21:33
Star Wars is science fantasy, Kolya. Sci-fi has, at the very least, basic plausibility built into it. Something like Star Wars which has people doing somersaults and telekinetic choking because of a 'force created by all living things that binds the universe' is clearly operating under a set of rules that our reality doesn't share.
And Guardians of the Galaxy is obviously patterned after superhero stories and comic books -- not least because it's a Marvel comics property. It's also great fun and filled with some spry humour, so it's a shame you're dismissing it out of hand because it has a talking plant who's friends with a raccoon who sounds like Bradley Cooper.
Jason Moyer on 15/4/2017 at 21:40
Star Wars is Flash Gordon with better visual effects. That's hardly science fiction.
Anyway, I liked TFA. It's one of the few Star Wars things that actually felt like Star Wars. Sure it's not particularly original, but that's kinda the point of a sequel. If you want something that isn't Star Wars you probably shouldn't be looking for it in a Star Wars movie.
