icemann on 29/11/2019 at 15:44
I'm 3 episodes into The Mandalorian and absolutely loving it. I dunno why, but I love all the non main movie related Star Wars content. Whether it be the spin off movies (Rogue One and Solo) or this. If your a Star Wars fan then this is a MUST WATCH. Fantastic stuff.
demagogue on 2/12/2019 at 05:58
The non-main movies aren't buried under the crushing weight of having to perform to such astronomic standards.
The interesting part to me is how much like a secular religion the whole thing feels like, where little details in the original movie take on this otherworldly large significance that have to reverberate in everything that comes later. I guess it's just in the nature of folk lore to do that. I can already foresee its own protestant reformation someday that wants to pare it all back to the essentials.
icemann on 19/12/2019 at 13:23
So just got back from watching The Rise of Skywalker. Going into this, my expectations were at rock bottom. The Last Jedi was so terrible (except for the Rey and Kylo bits) that I had a really sour taste in my mouth, going in.
For the first half of it, I was majorly hating on it, and felt that the acting was bland and I could not take the action seriously. In the second half things improved quite a bit, and by the end I quite enjoyed it. I think much of my hate (no Sith pun intended) came from just how disappointed I was in the earlier film. It took me a good while to let that go.
Just as in the other 2 films, the best part is the Rey and Kylo stuff. That side is great in the film. Start to finish. Excellent finish. The rest of the characters I didn't care about at all. Zero. I dislike all of the other new characters introduced in this trilogy. Boring and generic for the most part.
Overall a pretty good film. 7/10.
There was literally only one bit in the whole film where I wanted to boo, and that's when a star destroyer showed up with a planet destroying weapon. COME ON, you needed an entire battle station (aka Death Star) with a HUGE battery in-order to support such a weapon in the other films, and now your telling me that a medium sized gun attachment can do the same thing? Piss off. The rest was fine. Oh and JJ just had to bring onto the movie several of the actors, he'd worked with on the small screen. 2 from Felicity and 1 from Lost. Not saying who.
Force powers wise, only 1 new force power in the film. And that one was already in the video games ages ago, so I was 100% fine with it (force heal). Pay attention to the credits at the end, as a few actors from past Star Wars films did voice acting work apparently, from what I saw in there. Liam Neeson and Samuel L Jackson for two that I spotted. Likely was far more. Even this one did not do light saber battles well though. I dunno why, but only the original trilogy and the prequels did those well.
A good chunk of the film is spent fixing all the stuff that Rian Johnson fucked up on:
* Leia somehow knowing how to use force powers
* Luke's throwing away of the light saber at the start of the previous film
* Snoke
* Rey's parents
* That stupid ability to warp jump into far bigger ships, thus destroying them. Ruled out forever.
* The rebellion reduced to 9 people
I'd definitely watch this again regardless. Good film.
Returning characters in this one from the original trilogy (that weren't in the other new movies) - Lando, Biggs and Emperor Palpatine.
PS - So the only way to kill the Emperor once and for all was to redirect his own force lightning back on himself? So that means that Samuel L Jackson, in Revenge of the Sith got to within an inch of ending him for good? Dayam.
Oh and the new look for the emperor strapped to that mechanical device, looked a bit too cyberpunk for me. Which in a Star Wars setting does not go together.
[edit 2]
And this final movie leaves everything in a real conundrum, as the end of the film pretty much puts things back exactly where Return of the Jedi ended. Emperor defeated and Empire defeated, with 1 Jedi left remaining. So what was the point of the 3 new films then?
henke on 22/12/2019 at 17:36
Just watched it. Feels like it has more in common with The Force Awakens than The Last Jedi. It's a more focused film than TLJ, but also a safer one.
Now that the new trilogy has been wrapped up I'd say the final verdict is that... they were ok. :|
icemann on 23/12/2019 at 07:30
To me, it was done in such a way that on future watchings you could skip TLJ entirely and barely miss a thing (besides some great Kylo and Rey stuff). The way it's all wrapped up, it's made the entire new trilogy kinda pointless. Just end it at Return of the Jedi and your pretty much at the same point.
Jason Moyer on 23/12/2019 at 08:14
It was ok. I'd probably rate the films best to worst as Empire, Star Wars, Jedi, TLJ, Rise, TFA, and then who cares about the other ones. Maybe I'd swap Jedi and TLJ (I rewatched it recently and it's kind of bad except for the stuff with Palpy and the space battle). This one and Jedi are probably about even, and while it wasn't a remake of Jedi it sure shared the same strengths and weaknesses (and I don't think that's a spoiler, unless it's a spoiler to mention something that's in the first line of the damn intro crawl). It's probably going to get hell from people for all the retconning, but JJ included a lot more callbacks to TLJ than I was expecting, most importantly with the character development.
henke on 23/12/2019 at 11:37
Has there been a good fan-edit of TLJ yet? I think it'd be a much better film if it just focused on Rey, Kylo, and Luke, and stripped out the superflouous side-story about Finn and Poe's plan.
I've mentioned it before but I'll go ahead and big-up this Rogue One edit again: (
https://mega.nz/#!Eco1QagQ!e-gu-PvkrIteTjK1Pp75gHQpS-J9ErqMuVjlgwg-6_Y) The Battle Of Scarif. Slims the movie down just the best 45 minutes: the final battle. If you're gonna watch Rogue One, this is the way to go!
icemann on 23/12/2019 at 17:03
Rogue One is my favourite of the spin off films. Watched it a few times now. I think it's great.
I like the prequels more than this new trilogy. Phantom Menace is a mixed bag, but I LOVE the Darth Maul stuff, pod racing, the light sabre battles + the battles in general. Plots ok. Only the trade federation bits were boring. Clone Wars I forgot almost as soon as I'd finished watching it. Bland film. Now Revenge of the Sith. I REALLY enjoyed that. Went to see it twice at the cinema. I found that to be a good film overall.
I'd go:
1. The Empire Strikes Back
2. A New Hope
3. Return of the Jedi
4. Revenge of the Sith
5. Phantom Menace
6. The Force Awakens
7. Rise of Skywalker
8. Clone Wars
9. The Last Jedi
One thing I really detest in the new trilogy is that those with the force, were made to be more god-like, rather than just enhanced fighters with mystical abilities, and of how if numbers were low then those left would have massively enhanced powers due to all the powers of that side (Jedi or Sith) going into those remaining. That did not exist at all in earlier cannon.
Earlier on, it was that certain people have latent affinities with the force. Many had no idea that they had that power at all. For those found to have it, then they needed to be trained up to use them effectively. Now sure that bit is in the new trilogy, but you now have Sith whose powers are so powerful, that they can bring themselves back from death.
I was going to say that now they can create new life as well, but that one was hinted at in the prequels (in regards to Anakin, being created by Palpatine). It just seems like every new movie had to go and create new force powers.
rachel on 23/12/2019 at 23:10
I thought Rise of Skywalker was bonkers ridiculous. Nonsensical plot meant to drive the actors from one set piece to the next, awful ill-timed comedy, and of course, it can't escape the TLJ legacy and more importantly the demise of Carrie Fisher, who was very obviously supposed to carry this film.
I'll admit it puts a valiant effort at correcting the course set by the previous opus, but in my opinion, both through legacy (TLJ) and sheer bad luck (Carrie), it just had too much against it to really have a chance to succeed.
Spectacular visuals though.
I spent the entire film from one disillusioned WTF to the next (I though the way they dispatched Hux was hilarious) but I really groaned out loud when they fucking went with riding actual fucking space horses on a fucking spaceship. And the giving yourself physical objects through force projection.
And then they go LOTR and put three-four endings on top of each other. I'll give it a pass for that, I guess it had to be expected.
Movie made no fucking sense, man. The only redeeming bit is giving Chewie his fucking medal that they never gave him in A New Hope.