Star Wars VII-IX, what do you think?

[Unorthodox]

Ok...Started Boba Fett this weekend....


Um.  If you've seen it, I probably wont even need to explain what I'm specifying but I watch A LOT of SYFY channel level absolute TRASH horror, and Boba Fett still managed to put out the hands down WORST scene I have watched in the last 10 years if not more.  And that's with me watching killer sentient shopping carts just a few weekends back.  This is absolutely inexcusable it was handled so utterly poorly.  Completely trash production value, and it really sours my expectations of Disney+ series as a whole.   

(click to show/hide)

Yes, the stupid chase scene with the moped "speeders".  I'm fairly certain that was supposed to play at double or maybe even TRIPLE speed, which would have hid a lot of the absolute cringe factor.  But there's been some rushed to bad CGI throughout a few episodes now.

[Unorthodox]

Finished Boba Fett. 

The second half of the season went slightly better.  Big and loud whatnot, but then you had two Mandalorian episodes in there (seriously absolutely no connection to Boba Fett's series other than explaining how Mando happens to be in the area, which was unneeded anyway.) 

Really, though, a wasted opportunity.  Would have been a great chance to bring in other bounty hunters we've only glimpsed, but most grievously, why didn't we get Bossk in here?  We had Trandoshins running around half the scenes, where was BOSSK?  Ya know, according to canon the guy you got baby Fett and trained him as a bounty hunter after daddy lost his head?  A guy renowned for hunting wookies, when you have a wookie Merc in the show having PTSD from enslavement with the random Trandoshins running around.  Seriously WTF.  Was a perfect setup.    (admittedly I'm not completely up to speed on the full range of newer content, especially animated or games, so he may be dead but I don't see that on a cursory google)

Oh, and Disney continues to ignore how Star Wars tech is supposed to work.  Hell, they even had someone COMMENT how it works abut then SHOWED it working opposite in the same freaking episode, but I give up with that. 

[Misanthrope]

Okay, so I saw SW:VII - t3h Foers Takes a Nap... or whatever, and OMG it was not as horrible as I expected.

Granted, I was expecting to walk out all offended enough to drive an introvert to demand a refund, so suffice, my expectations weren't high.... then again, Disney took a rabid OCD+ASD child whom couldn't NOT Talk about it, read every novel, was writing fanfic... and 'cured' me of the SW obsession.
Well, mostly... I still have fond memories of the pre-JJ stuff and haven't bothered with anything produced since then.

Still, if you love Star Wars (or absolutely HATE it) then the parodies by Bad Lip Reading and Auralnauts are straight-up AWESOME!

[Unorthodox]

VII wasn’t terrible.  You could leave it 90% alone.  Mark Hamill is on record he thought Luke should have stepped out of the forest at the end with them fighting g over the lightsaber and it flying into his hands, and he’s absolutely right imo.  Otherwise a perfectly usable setup for a trilogy. 

Then it was clear they had no overarching plan from there on when the next one tossed out every single setup. 

[Elok]

That's pretty much how I reacted to TFA.  It wasn't good--it was extremely lazy and derivative and lacked tension due to an overpowered lead and underwhelming villain--but it wasn't aggressively bad in the way the prequels were so I tolerated it.  Actually you can probably find a post of me saying this exact same thing twice if you dig through the other 28 pages of this thread but eh.

I was happy with E7 going out of the theater, but after a while I found it had pretty well killed my affection for/interest in Star Wars.  Because the whole thing set the clock right back to where it was at the start of ANH, and the setup required all three heroes of the OT to be terrible at their jobs.  Leia let the political situation deteriorate fantastically, Luke took thirty years to not-train any Jedi, and Han's such a screwup he can't even keep track of his own ship.  I watched the OT because I liked the heroes and wanted to see them succeed.  The sequel trilogy comes right out the gate saying HA HA THEY FAILED and replaces them with a fairly boring next generation and nothing new or interesting to make up for it.

Saw The Last Jedi, not getting into it.  Went out of my way to avoid seeing 9, not interested in Mandalorian or anything else.  Star Wars was two great movies and one good one, about forty years ago.  It's good, it's over, wish somebody else would come up with something that good again.

[Buster's Uncle]

Two great movies, yes.  Revenge of the Jedi wasn't even good.

[Elok]

We'll have to disagree on that, at least for now; haven't the energy right now.  My short defense is that the Ewoks were 90% of what was wrong with it.

[Buster's Uncle]

Actually no, much as I hated them.   See here: https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=20894.msg129562#msg129562 where I talk about fixing RotJ.  The heart of the movie was -or should have been- Vader's unearned redemption - and they blew that.

[Buster's Uncle]

Wait - start here instead, second paragraph.  https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=20894.msg129558#msg129558

[Elok]

As to that, I would note (again, briefly) that

1. A good chunk of ESB is taken up with Hoth, and all that does for the larger story is to send our heroes scrambling, give Luke his mission to Dagobah, and show that Han and Leia have bickering sexual tension.  You could do all that with much less.  The Tattooine segment of ROTJ gets Han back, ties up the question of his debt to Jabba, and establishes that Luke has grown immensely as a protagonist.

2. There's no way Vader could actually atone for all the evil he did; he's killed more people than Hitler.  If you're arguing against apparent cheap grace, that's a matter of theology.  Definitely not getting into that again tonight, I'm underslept.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, you know, it's all in the timing.  TESB is actually a mess -Luke got God Knows How Many weeks of training while they flew to Bespin- but a mess that worked.

If you were over the age of ten, first time, and didn't think belching monsters were funny, none of the Tattooine sequence worked.  Fett went down like a [complaint or disagreeable woman] and the Hutt has no clothes.  The teddy bear picnic on Endor had offensively cute teddy bears, put that whole part was tight.  Aboard DSII --- anything but, and THAT should have been the thematic spine.

[Buster's Uncle]

Go to bed, then - we can talk about how wrong you are any time.

[Unorthodox]

If you were over the age of ten, first time, and didn't think belching monsters were funny, none of the Tattooine sequence worked.

I'd argue that Luke wandering into the palace, dealing with the guards and whatever the snake haired guy is, showing him as adept at the Force as we ever had seen Obi Wan to this point was crucial.  Hutt being immune to the mind trick was the first time we'd seen that happen as well, and the fight with the Rancor with nothing but pluck and the Force was pretty bad ass and again reinforces Luke's growth.  They could have just let him waltz out with Han after that display IMO, especially if they do the hide-a-saber stunt after he comes out of the pit...but then we'd miss on the golden bikini and we can't have that.   

Fett went down like a [complaint or disagreeable woman]

I remember from the GET GO as a child thinking how bad ass it was that Fett not only was the only one not in awe of a Jedi with a lightsaber, but seemed perfectly confident and equipped for taking him on...and then the comedy [nonsense]. 

and the Hutt has no clothes.

I've never understood the giant slug.  Even as a kid I thought that was so incredibly stupid, he's a sitting bulls eye.  HOW the hell did such a race become powerful at all. 

BUT, the whole barge experience is good old fashioned (even for when it was shot) adventure film fun.  Luke fights, prevails, saves the girl, and swings to freedom in something that could have been a Errol Flynn sequence.  It don't have to make a lot of sense, it IS fun. 

The teddy bear picnic on Endor had offensively cute teddy bears, put that whole part was tight.  Aboard DSII --- anything but, and THAT should have been the thematic spine.

The teddy bears sold a lot of toys though.   So did Han totally NOT sacrificing himself to destroy the shield (to quote Lucas "kids won't buy toys of a dead character").  We can't let good story writing get in the way of toy sales.  THAT would have been the BEST Han character arch possible to be honest. 

[Buster's Uncle]

...And I didn't say, Elok, but Uno was SURE to see this and have your back - he's the right age to have been one of the kids ruining it for me in the theater.  You can never watch it again for the first time.

Tattooine sequence is teh lame and teh phail, if you weren't eight.  Endor was at least tightly-paced adventure, for all of leading to the movie ending with an ACTUAL teddy bear picnic.

Toyetic is a bug, not a feature...

[Elok]

Okay, I looked at this thread several times and couldn't see a way forward that wouldn't amount to uh-huh/nuh-uh over a matter of taste.  But I just saw the new Dune for the first time last night; can we talk about that?  I have a number of opinions about that.