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Kolzig

Star Wars Episode 8

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The trailer was released two days ago, it's weird when Star Wars is an ip that I used to be really big fan of, but these days I just don't care anymore. I got no other special feeling from the trailer except that I seem to really dislike the porgs or what those things were called. I kind of still thought Star Wars should make me excited and hyped, but I don't know. The Force of Star Wars has left me after Disney started to produce these on a yearly basis.

 

And to not forget here is the trailer:

 

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1 hour ago, Kolzig said:

The trailer was released two days ago, it's weird when Star Wars is an ip that I used to be really big fan of, but these days I just don't care anymore. I got no other special feeling from the trailer except that I seem to really dislike the porgs or what those things were called. I kind of still thought Star Wars should make me excited and hyped, but I don't know. The Force of Star Wars has left me after Disney started to produce these on a yearly basis

 

I know exactly how you feel, I used to love Star Wars as a kid, I read all the books, I even liked episode 1 for longer than I should. I was pretty disappointing by Episode 7, it was so crammed full of cynical fan service, bad dialog and mediocre plot. Watching that trailer its obvious the dialog hasn't improved, also the first movie trailer I can remember seeing that repeats clips, that is something I expect in a fan trailer, not the real thing.

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I really, really disliked Episode 7. It was such a bad movie in so many ways. Makes me even more sad that the morons hired J.J. Abrams to do it again for the ninth episode.

 

When I saw Eps 1-3 I disliked all of them. I can't even watch Ep2 and Ep3 anymore these days because those are so bad. The first Episode at least has an amazing fight scene with Darth Maul. I also really liked Ewan McGregor as Obi-wan.

 

Will Disney ever realize that they need to stop with Star Wars before they overflow it with too many movies? This yearly thing just doesn't work. Lucas at least kept a three year pause between the episodes in the turn of the millenium.

 

Still I can't help myself because I will very likely go see this one, only because Mark Hamill is finally in it in a real role and not like the joke that was Episode 7.

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I'm looking forward to episode 8 to an extreme degree. Rian Johnson is one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers so I'm hoping it's going to be amazing. I haven't watched any of the trailers because I'm already going to see the movie so I don't need to see what's going to happen in it. I'll find that out when I watch the movie! Episode 7 was crummy though.

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I think episode 7 was fun.  It's fan servicy as shit, has a paper thin plot, and lacks any of the same excitement from the originals, but nonetheless I enjoyed watching it.  I had no expectations going in so I got exactly what I wanted, which was some goofy glowing space nonsense.  In a way it made me feel somewhat like I did the first time I saw A New Hope.

 

I more or less have the same expectations for 8.  If this new trilogy ends up being a remake of the original trilogy, I think I'd be ok with that.

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1 hour ago, Cordeos said:

I know exactly how you feel, I used to love Star Wars as a kid, I read all the books, I even liked episode 1 for longer than I should. I was pretty disappointing by Episode 7, it was so crammed full of cynical fan service, bad dialog and mediocre plot. Watching that trailer its obvious the dialog hasn't improved, also the first movie trailer I can remember seeing that repeats clips, that is something I expect in a fan trailer, not the real thing.

 

Me three. I've just come to a place where I have to accept that Disney's Star Wars (and, for that matter, George Lucas' Star Wars) is not my Star Wars. Granted, my Star Wars came out of almost a decade of watching the original trilogy, reading the Bantam-era books, playing the games, getting the toys... the whole experience. And that's just how every franchise is supposed to be experienced in the twenty-first century, so it all feels rote now. I watch the trailers and there are moments where I thrill, but it's almost entirely a combination of references to the old designs and the old musics. The new films just can't stand on their own for me. Some of the ancillary material, like Star Wars: Rebels, fares a bit better, but it's still instructive for me to compare my impression of, say, Grand Admiral Thrawn in that show versus in Timothy Zahn's books. It's all so safe and derivative, in a way that even the prequels didn't feel.

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For all their faults, I don't think the prequels were safe or derivative. They were new stories. They were new BAD stories, but at least they were new.

 

I saw Force Awakens in theaters twice, so I clearly enjoyed myself when that came out. But the backlash against that movie makes a lot of sense, and while I *think* I'd enjoy myself if I went back to it now, I'm not completely sure. It's only been 2 years, so, that's not a fantastic sign.

 

For me, even if all these movies were fantastic (I like SW7 well enough and was disappointed in R1), a Star Wars movie every year is just waaaay too many. I'm the sort of person who is likely to enjoy these movies, genuinely, and even I can't bring myself to care.

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I have faith in Rian Johnson to break through the corporate sameness, as he's definitely the most interesting director to get a hold of any of these Disney acquisitions*. Star Wars and Marvel movies all have about the same problem of focus tested mediocrity, but Johnson tends to do excellent work with subversive and personal takes on genre tropes. I can't think of a contemporary writer/director who's more equipped to do great work within the crushing guidelines of current Disney blockbusters.

 

I don't watch trailers to movies I know I'll see, so I haven't seen any for Ep. 8, but just existing on the planet Earth means I've seen the incredibly cynical way Disney tries to cram Star Wars nostalgia down people's throats with their marketing and I am extremely skeptical that any trailer would be too indicative of the final product. I just can't see Johnson pouring the kind of nostalgia bath Abrams clearly lives for. 

 

But even if I like Episode 8 I can't imagine it would turn me around on this world/story/characters enough to make me excited about Episode 9. They'd really have to change Rey and Kylo Ren's characters for me to get invested in an ongoing story.

 

*Who stuck through and finished a movie. Pour one out for Edgar Wright's Ant-Man.

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5 hours ago, Kolzig said:

 

Will Disney ever realize that they need to stop with Star Wars before they overflow it with too many movies?

764b7cd4959b5ae29b4f79a8888e8e22--upcomi

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I was just going to ask if people think the MCU has the same issue.

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In my case, the analogy with the MCU is very direct: the last Marvel movie I've seen was Guardians of the Galaxy three years ago. I like GotG, and in fact I didn't dislike most of the MCU movies I saw. So my lost interest wasn't due to a dip in quality. The market saturation is simply overwhelming.

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I may have an accelerated cultural metabolism or something but I don't really get tired of stuff. One movie a year on a topic is a drop in the bucket for me, since I typically watch between 100 and 200 movies a year, I'd estimate. So it would take way more than a Marvel movie every year or so to tire me out.

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45 minutes ago, TychoCelchuuu said:

I may have an accelerated cultural metabolism or something but I don't really get tired of stuff. One movie a year on a topic is a drop in the bucket for me, since I typically watch between 100 and 200 movies a year, I'd estimate. So it would take way more than a Marvel movie every year or so to tire me out.

they are making 3 a year tho

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I think it's important to make things that are not only polished but also feel fresh. I watched Deadpool, but it's pretty impossible to get interested in a marvel movie. I liked episode 7,although I admit the plot is a rehash. Rogue One came too soon afterwards, so I felt suspicious and just didn't go see it. Then I was surprised by how much I liked it when I saw it a couple of days ago. But there's this nagging sense of emptiness. 

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Did you not think Deadpool felt fresh amongst all the other Marvel movies (ie MCU and non-MCU)? If Star Wars were attempting that breadth of tone across its movies it would probably go a long way to solving the fatigue people are feeling - as it is, they're getting rid of directors like Lord/Miller who try to do something like that.

 

EDIT: I don't want to take this thread off-topic - we can always start a Marvel movies thread as we've only got the telly one -  but it strikes me that with Deadpool alongside First Class, Days Of Future Past and Logan, Fox is the studio doing the most interesting stuff with their mega-franchise.

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Yes, I did, but First Class just felt like same old stuff to me. Haven't seen the other too. That said, I'd like to see some directorial vision in superhero movies. They all feel the same right now. We haven't seen anything like Ang Lee's Hulk, for example, which of course is deeply flawed and an hour too long, but has personality. I agree this discussion should be split to another thread, although I don't have much more to say about superhero movies. They are the strongest vein in the mine of barely passable blockbuster movies that is being mined right now. You can't even try to have a new idea and risk losing continuity in the franchise. Everyone is following Peter Jackson's footprints.

 

About five years ago, a Finnish film production company took a detective franchise with two quite liked films and decided to churn out six more movies in one eight month shoot. Those were some forward-thinking people. Of course they are unwatchable, but I'm sure they made money.

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I have been totally losing interest in Marvel movies. There are already so many that I have completely skipped.

 

But yeah Deadpool was really refreshing superhero movie, however the other Fox movies have been really bad in my opinion. Especially the last X-Men movie was just a mess. Logan I still haven't seen, but I've heard it's good. I really love the Old Man Logan comic book that came some years ago.

 

Rogue One was ok, but it felt not quite as an Star Wars movie and I was completely turned off by the use of computer generated human characters. Those were just uncanny valley style. It would've nice if there had been Grand Admiral Thrawn somewhere in there, I'm still hoping they would put him in the movies as well.

 

My original wish since a teenager was that they would make Timothy Zahn's trilogy in to the movies as Episodes 7-9. I still wish they would've gone that direction.

 

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11 minutes ago, Kolzig said:

My original wish since a teenager was that they would make Timothy Zahn's trilogy in to the movies as Episodes 7-9. I still wish they would've gone that direction.

 

 

What happens in those?

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1 hour ago, Kolzig said:

I have been totally losing interest in Marvel movies. There are already so many that I have completely skipped.

 

But yeah Deadpool was really refreshing superhero movie, however the other Fox movies have been really bad in my opinion. Especially the last X-Men movie was just a mess. Logan I still haven't seen, but I've heard it's good. I really love the Old Man Logan comic book that came some years ago.

 

Rogue One was ok, but it felt not quite as an Star Wars movie and I was completely turned off by the use of computer generated human characters. Those were just uncanny valley style. It would've nice if there had been Grand Admiral Thrawn somewhere in there, I'm still hoping they would put him in the movies as well.

 

My original wish since a teenager was that they would make Timothy Zahn's trilogy in to the movies as Episodes 7-9. I still wish they would've gone that direction.

 

 

Hah, oh yeah. Leia was only on screen for a split second and still managed to look off. IMO it's pretty crass to replace dead actors who were excellent in their parts with Madame Tussaud's replicants who are a distraction for their entire screen time.

 

So, I went ahead and actually watched the trailer we are supposed to be talking about. *cough* I'm not feeling it. I think I've seen all these scenes before.

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I'm not a huge trailer watching guy, so I might not have the knowledge to talk about this, especially because I've skipped the Episode 8 trailers, but I feel like it's really hard to judge lots of movies from their trailers. I just watched Colossal last night and my impression is that the trailers basically completely misrepresented the movie and left out all the good stuff. This is not necessarily because they're bad trailers. Rather, putting any of the good stuff or explaining what the film was really about would have spoiled the entire film, so it's probably a good thing the trailers were so misleading. But even if the trailers aren't holding back the good stuff, they're cut together by people other than the director and the editor of the film, they don't have the same score that the film will have over the moments, they're obviously way more compact than the film, they're designed to sell it rather than tell a narrative, etc. I just can't really see how a trailer can tell me anything about the film except that it has a goofy premise or something. Like:

 

2 hours ago, brkl said:

So, I went ahead and actually watched the trailer we are supposed to be talking about. *cough* I'm not feeling it. I think I've seen all these scenes before.

If I saw a trailer like this, I'd probably assume they put all the familiar stuff in there because they think that's what audiences want. The last movie made a zillion dollars by reiterating the first films so they put the familiar stuff in the trailer. Chances are the full film subverts all those scenes in the trailer. How would I know? I haven't seen it! Perhaps if I had some reason to think the trailer had no choice, because all the scenes it had to choose from were familiar scenes, then I'd think differently, but I don't see why that would be the case. How would I know that? If I were forced to guess, knowing Rian Johnson, I'd probably assume the movie does subvert a lot of that stuff, because that's the sort of guy he seems like. But honestly I have no idea!

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4 hours ago, pabosher said:

What happens in those?

 

The Rebellion has become the New Republic, but the coalition that formed the basis of both is beginning to fragment after five years of relative peace amid rearguard actions from Imperial remnants. A Imperial Grand Admiral returns from the Unknown Regions with an expeditionary force to discover that the Empire has fallen and the Emperor is dead, seizes power among the remnants, and scores a series of stunning victories against the Republic, often involving surprising uses of obsolete technology. The heroes of the original trilogy, now important figures in the Republic's government, find new allies, Luke confronts the need for a revived Jedi Order, and all is resolved in a series of cataclysmic confrontations.

Honestly, although I love the old Star Wars novels, most of them wouldn't be suited for adaptation. They're full of obvious callbacks and overcrowded with the ten thousand semi-canon characters of the Extended Universe. Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, though, is something different, partly because Zahn was probably the most talented author to write Star Wars novels and partly because his were the first Star Wars novels and hence connect most directly with the original trilogy. Even with Disney's attempts to refashion the Star Wars canon into its own creature, you can still see touches from Zahn everywhere: Interdictor cruisers, ysalamiri, the Emperor's Hands, and Thrawn himself are things from the novels that have been confirmed in the new canon. It would have been nice to see the whole thing in action on the big screen, but we'll get it in drips and drabs instead, as Disney discovers that it's not as easy as they thought to craft a new Star Wars canon out of whole cloth, and I'll try to enjoy moments like Thrawn being the laughably mustache-twirling villain in season 3 of Star Wars: Rebels for what they gesture to than for what they are.

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Exactly what Gormongous said. I couldn't have answered to pabosher as well as that, but those are pretty much my thoughts also on the books.

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I watched the Last Jedi. I am somewhere between indifference and active dislike. Will probably end up feeling quite indifferent.

 

Spoiler

I had avoided all the trailers and such, and I think I did not have a lot of expectations.

 

I try not to care too much about plot holes and general illogical, non-central things. But my tendencies definitely run towards them having a big impact, if I notice such things. With Force Awakens I was able to mostly ignore all that and just enjoy it as a silly non-Star Wars scifi-action movie. With this one I failed.

 

The initial dreadnought bombing run was really bad. They just forgot to launch fighters? Who has ever heard of anyone using fighters in a Star Wars universe? And the Poe refusing to obey orders felt like a cheap, unjustified way of building character. The bit about dropping the bombs was melodramatic and absurd. After that my disposition was not kindly.

 

I can't quite understand the fact that they actually structured the movie around an utterly incomprehensible chase. So the stalemate is that the resistance ships was able to go faster, until they weren't, but did manage to reach a distance where the First Order couldn't destroy the ships. Ignoring that, what on Earth stopped the First Order from hyperjumping a few or their ships a bit to surround the resistance? What bloody railroaded cartoon villainy.  It's like having two fleets with diesel engines have a sail powered chase.

 

But I think the movie has further flaws beyond it's awkward relationship to common sense. Which did continue throughout the movie. I think the pacing of the whole thing was weird. Jumping between the different locations made the movie feel even more bloated than it was, and I think weakened the island sections. There was no strong sense of time or urgency, even though that was supposed to be the narrative through line.

 

I did like the Luke/Rey on the island stuff and the Rey/Ren stuff. Poe and Finn both pretty much just stumbled through the movie without really doing anything. I took Poe's arc as "Learning the difference between heroes and leadership costs lives", and I really felt the optimistic light tone at the end of the movie was not justified. The things they did and sacrificed should have meant something, instead of just ennobling them.

 

Snoke, or whatever his name was a bit silly, but ultimately I think the silliness worked well in the scenes. Phasma(?) and Benicio del Toro were completely unnecessary characters. I think Laura Dern worked quite well.

 

It was fairly long, but it had a bit too many action scenes, I think: three big battles, a couple of melees, and the casino city escape. Which really could and should have been cut out of the movie entirely. And all in all I think a smaller movie just focusing on Ren and Rey would have been the proper way to handle this story. But I suppose you had to have something for the other actors to do and big set piece battles are Star Wars essentials.

 

A very lukewarm meh.

 

 

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I also watched it. My hot take was that it wasn't very good.


 

Spoiler

 

The story felt incoherent, it jumps around too much for sure. The casino section could have been cut entirely, the whole "codebreaker" plot was pointless and just pulled a couple of characters out of the main plot. As a result of this, Finn and Poe don't get to continue their bromance in this episode, which is a shame as their chemistry helped to carry the first film.

 

The chase was silly and held absolutely no tension whatsoever. As @unimural says, no feeling of a race against time (even a countdown clock would have done the job). No hard decisions, nothing to give us a reason to choose Poe over Holdo, no explanation as to why the rebels were split between those two camps. I'm not expecting BSG-level politics but something would have been better than nothing.

 

The dialog was poor in places (one part that stuck out: "my faithful apprentice, you have restored my faith" - ugh, haven't they got a thesaurus at Disney?) and they all said "Rebel Scum" far too many times (it was funny that one time in ROTJ, but it's just goofy here).

 

Also there were a few aspects about the fantasy physics that made me wonder - if you can use the hyperdrive to tear dreadnought-class ships in two, why bother with turbolasers and torpedoes? Strap a hyperdrive to an asteroid of sufficent mass and point it at your enemy... job done.

 

The best part of the movie was probably the  a e s t h e t i c   - it's visually striking in many scenes, but the red room where Rey meets Snoke is incredible. Still feels like Star Wars, but it's a new look. The simple backdrop puts the focus on the actors. The guards, clad in red, pop in and out of the background, sometimes silhouetted, always a looming threat. So good.

 

(oh and Phasma was wasted again, why bother having her if you're only going to give her a minute on screen?)

 

 

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