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Post by Zarnium on Jun 20, 2018 15:51:21 GMT -8
I can't say I care about Boba Fett very much, but I would like to see a Disney-produced movie with Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan... he does better with the terrible writing and direction in the prequels than anyone else, I'd like to see his character in a good movie for once.
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Star Wars
Jun 20, 2018 17:18:03 GMT -8
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Post by Jeremy on Jun 20, 2018 17:18:03 GMT -8
McGregor as a post-prequels Obi-Wan could be interesting, given the right script. The question is whether he'd be interested in repairing the role. He's probably gotten plenty of flak from the fans for the prequels, and while his career has waned somewhat in the years since, he's still doing reputable enough work (Fargo, Christopher Robin) to perhaps make him hesitate at the idea of reprising a role from an unpopular trilogy.
Of course, the potential Obi-Wan film is still in the earliest of gestating phases, so any questions regarding it are total speculation.
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Post by Zarnium on Jun 20, 2018 18:24:54 GMT -8
Last I checked, he said that he'd be willing to play Obi-Wan again, but had not been contacted by anyone at Disney asking him to do so. They certainly could go with another actor, but if the prequels are still officially canon (and they are if the ending of Solo is any indication), it would be kind of weird to have someone else playing young Obi-Wan.
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Post by Jeremy on Jul 11, 2018 17:34:28 GMT -8
So, Billy Dee Williams will reprise his role as Lando for Episode IX. Awesome. With the sad loss of Carrie Fisher, the series needs someone from the original trilogy to serve as a nostalgic anchor, and Lando should fill that role well. (I do wonder if this decision wasn't initiated in part by the character's revived popularity in Solo.)
Also, Keri Russell will also appear in Episode IX, likely helped by her longtime connection with JJ Abrams. Let's just hope Abrams makes better use of her than he did in Mission Impossible III.
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Star Wars
Aug 2, 2019 14:33:00 GMT -8
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Post by Zarnium on Aug 2, 2019 14:33:00 GMT -8
So, I've seen a lot of comments recently about how Luke is poorly written in The Last Jedi because he was willing to forgive Darth Vader for his many crimes, but was ready to kill Kylo Ren just for having a bad feeling about him. Except... that's not what happened! At all! He considered it for a brief moment and then came to his senses, and Kylo just happened to wake up at the wrong time and wouldn't listen to reason for years afterwards.
You also have to consider the span of time between Return of the Jedi and that moment, and then the amount of time between then and the Last Jedi. Luke is, what, 23 years old in Return of the Jedi? He was probably in his forties during the incident with Kylo, and then over fifty during Last Jedi. People don't stay exactly the same over the span of three decades, and they tend to become more cynical as they grow older.
Urgh, I'm just tired of seeing people complain about the new movies constantly, while misrepresenting what actually happens in them. The prequels were panned by fans largely because of the wooden acting, now we have actual nuance and character development and it's the ruination of the franchise again.
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 2, 2019 15:36:15 GMT -8
The "Kylo waking up at the wrong moment" scene is one of my few real criticisms with The Last Jedi. It's a contrived scene meant to generate drama, and it feels out of place in an otherwise skillfully-written finale for Luke.
Regardless, too much of the flak TLJ receives is unjustified, with people picking apart tons of little plot holes, as if there were none of those in the original trilogy. (There were. Plenty.) I get some of the disappointment re. characters like Rey and Snoke, but that's not enough to turn it into Phantom Menace 2.0 the way parts of the Internet do.
Weirdly enough, a lot of the people I know who hate Force Awakens and Last Jedi seem to really like Rogue One and Solo. It seems like a lot of people are upset with the new directions the sequel trilogy is taking, and prefer the standalone films because they take place mid-series and are thus automatically locked into the parameters of the original trilogy. "Change bad," as it were.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Aug 2, 2019 16:03:31 GMT -8
The "Kylo waking up at the wrong moment" scene is one of my few real criticisms with The Last Jedi. It's a contrived scene meant to generate drama, and it feels out of place in an otherwise skillfully-written finale for Luke. Regardless, too much of the flak TLJ receives is unjustified, with people picking apart tons of little plot holes, as if there were none of those in the original trilogy. (There were. Plenty.) I get some of the disappointment re. characters like Rey and Snoke, but that's not enough to turn it into Phantom Menace 2.0 the way parts of the Internet do. Weirdly enough, a lot of the people I know who hate Force Awakens and Last Jedi seem to really like Rogue One and Solo. It seems like a lot of people are upset with the new directions the sequel trilogy is taking, and prefer the standalone films because they take place mid-series and are thus automatically locked into the parameters of the original trilogy. "Change bad," as it were. The films composing the Original Trilogy, paraphrasing the words of Cosmonaut Variety Hour, are dumb, have wooden acting, the depth of a puddle, and a super-convenient plot structure. Yet people (himself included) love them anyway-because they feel the things they do right outweigh those faults. I don't understand why the New Trilogy is ripped apart when the Original Trilogy is also far from greatness. Whatever.
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Star Wars
Aug 2, 2019 17:01:42 GMT -8
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Post by Zarnium on Aug 2, 2019 17:01:42 GMT -8
Yeah, as much as I enjoy the original trilogy, it's not exactly flawless. It's at least as guilty of plot contrivance and often shallow characters as the new trilogy is.
Additionally, I keep hearing about how deep and nuanced the franchise was before Disney got their hands on it and watered it down. That's true, to an extent, if you're comparing the new movies to all of the expanded universe material. However, that's not really a fair comparison, since books and graphic novels and such have way more ability to tell lengthy stories with thousands of minute details than blockbuster movies do. If you compare the new films with just the original films, the complexity isn't really there; the conflict between the Rebellion and the Empire isn't morally grey, it's stark black and white. There are no detailed background characters with their own lengthy stories, there's just a bunch of funny looking extras. That was all stuff that was added by additional material. And a lot of it is great, but it wasn't in the original movies, and it won't be in the new ones, either, because it just isn't feasible due to medium limitations.
I mean, the Thrawn trilogy of novels by Timothy Zahn is probably the best Star Wars story out there, beating even the original trilogy, but it's also the equivalent of about twelve movies in terms of the amount of narrative content. It's more like five seasons of television than it is like three movies.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Aug 2, 2019 17:37:27 GMT -8
I mean, the Thrawn trilogy of novels by Timothy Zahn is probably the best Star Wars story out there, beating even the original trilogy, but it's also the equivalent of about twelve movies in terms of the amount of narrative content. It's more like five seasons of television than it is like three movies. The original Clone Wars animated series (2003) is definitely up there as well. It was done by Genndy Tartakovsky, the guy behind Samurai Jack and Dexter's Laboratory, so that probably has something to do with it. It's only a couple of hours though-not as much plot as the Thrawn novels. Certain episodes of Star Wars: Rebels are some of the best Star Wars material out there ("Twilight of the Apprentice", "Fire Across the Galaxy", "The Siege of Lothal", "Trials of the Darksaber", "A World Between Worlds", etc.), even if the show as a whole is uneven. The Clone Wars (2008) is also very good, and I'm looking forward to Season 7, whenever it comes out. In general, I find that stories far removed from the Skywalker saga have more freedom to truly push the franchise to its limits and provide great storytelling.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Aug 2, 2019 19:05:32 GMT -8
The "Kylo waking up at the wrong moment" scene is one of my few real criticisms with The Last Jedi. It's a contrived scene meant to generate drama, and it feels out of place in an otherwise skillfully-written finale for Luke. Regardless, too much of the flak TLJ receives is unjustified, with people picking apart tons of little plot holes, as if there were none of those in the original trilogy. (There were. Plenty.) I get some of the disappointment re. characters like Rey and Snoke, but that's not enough to turn it into Phantom Menace 2.0 the way parts of the Internet do. Weirdly enough, a lot of the people I know who hate Force Awakens and Last Jedi seem to really like Rogue One and Solo. It seems like a lot of people are upset with the new directions the sequel trilogy is taking, and prefer the standalone films because they take place mid-series and are thus automatically locked into the parameters of the original trilogy. "Change bad," as it were. The films composing the Original Trilogy, paraphrasing the words of Cosmonaut Variety Hour, are dumb, have wooden acting, the depth of a puddle, and a super-convenient plot structure. Yet people (himself included) love them anyway-because they feel the things they do right outweigh those faults. I don't understand why the New Trilogy is ripped apart when the Original Trilogy is also far from greatness. Whatever. Nostalgia is the obvious answer. The less obvious answer is that the new Star Wars films exist in relation to the old Star Wars films, while the old films are... obviously not original of course but unique entities inspired by work outside the Star Wars universe. I think that makes them feel fresh even though they are derivative.
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 3, 2019 18:11:34 GMT -8
Nostalgia is certainly the key factor. For proof, look back to the early '80s, and the original reactions to Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Both films are very well regarded today, but were highly polarizing at the time of their release.
The best example I have on hand is David Gerrold's 1980 piece on Empire, as published in Starlog magazine. Gerrold (the Star Trek writer who wrote "Trouble with Tribbles") torched the film in his review, picking apart a ton of plot holes - no matter how small - occurring throughout the film. Forty years later, no one would write a piece like that about Empire - it's a beloved film that's developed a reputation as the best in the series. Who cares whether Han and Luke's telecoms would work in outer space?
But if there's a silver lining to all this, it means that maybe The Last Jedi will earn some serious respect some time around the 2050s.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Aug 3, 2019 21:22:04 GMT -8
Nostalgia is certainly the key factor. For proof, look back to the early '80s, and the original reactions to Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Both films are very well regarded today, but were highly polarizing at the time of their release. The best example I have on hand is David Gerrold's 1980 piece on Empire, as published in Starlog magazine. Gerrold (the Star Trek writer who wrote "Trouble with Tribbles") torched the film in his review, picking apart a ton of plot holes - no matter how small - occurring throughout the film. Forty years later, no one would write a piece like that about Empire - it's a beloved film that's developed a reputation as the best in the series. Who cares whether Han and Luke's telecoms would work in outer space? But if there's a silver lining to all this, it means that maybe The Last Jedi will earn some serious respect some time around the 2050s. I'm not that fond of Return of the Jedi-the space battles are great as is the Luke/Emperor showdown, but the film squanders some of Empire's most intriguing developments in favor of a more simplistic, shallow approach. Empire is still the best film in the series by a mile.
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 4, 2019 5:10:38 GMT -8
Same. Return of the Jedi is not nearly as complex or insightful as the hype makes it out to be. It's competently made, but doesn't match up with the first two films.
Also, on the subject of the Star Wars expanded universe - I confess I haven't read or watched much of the pre-Disney stuff, but the current Star Wars comics from Marvel are quite good. They mostly take place in the gap between A New Hope and Empire, and while they do inadvertently retcon some of the older books, they do a very good job of capturing the characters and feel of the original trilogy while also updating things just enough for a modern audience.
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Star Wars
Aug 4, 2019 7:00:35 GMT -8
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Post by Zarnium on Aug 4, 2019 7:00:35 GMT -8
Return of the Jedi is pretty good, particularly Jabba's Palace and a lot of Luke's scenes with Vader, but I'm not a big fan of the Ewok segments. They're too cutesy both in their appearance and mannerisms and their "stone-age tech fights the Imperials" battle scenes. I think it probably would have been better if they had been Wookiees, as was originally planned. I believe George Lucas changed it because he thought the Ewoks were a more marketable idea or something. It's one of the times where George Lucas' questionable executive decisions that would become clear in the prequels leaked into the original trilogy, as his name had become big enough at that point that he had more pull.
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 4, 2019 10:22:58 GMT -8
My problems with Return of the Jedi boil down to three factors:
- The Jabba scenes are good, but they have no impact on the rest of the film. They exist only to resolve the cliffhanger from Empire. Edit out the first 40 minutes of the movie, and the rest of it remains virtually unaffected.
- Another Death Star, only bigger! Couldn't we have, I dunno, a different kind of threat?
- The Ewoks were cute when I was a kid. But they're a very obvious marketing ploy, and they throw off the more serious undertones of the film. (Side note: I'm still amazed that they ended up making two Ewok movies, plus an animated TV series. The '80s were weird.)
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