Star Wars

[bdubbs]

Originally Posted by blankall

I never watched the animated series, but the character design worked better in the animated universe. In an animated series you can easily change proportions and skull shapes to give characters a more alien appearance. In Obi-Wan, they just looked like humans with white makeup on.

I cannot disagree with you there. Without the benefit of more time to make the designs more convincing, they should have just CGI'd the Grand Inquisitor to look less like a human in a costume.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by bdubbs

I cannot disagree with you there. Without the benefit of more time to make the designs more convincing, they should have just CGI'd the Grand Inquisitor to look less like a human in a costume.

I do think the SW trope, from the animated content anyways, of having Dark Side sensitive species who all look like ghouls is kind of lame. Especially as the Sith are supposed to be hidden.

....who's the hidden Dark Side user....could it be that guy over there who looks like Pinhead? Their species backstory is that they live underground, but that doesn't mean they have to be evil.

I guess Lucas has always type cast species based on their appearance, especially in the Prequel Trilogy. It just comes across as super lazy.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by bdubbs

I'm a Rebels enjoyer so I already knew going into the series that the Inquisitors were a joke. They're the force-sensitives not good enough to become any more than grunts with no threat to the Emperor or Vader in general. I honestly hated the Grand Inquisitor's makeup as well, but I don't mind the Inquisitors in general.

I enjoyed the way Vader toyed with Reva when she tried to fight him, displaying just how outclassed she was by comparison.

The Inquisitors were weak and minimally trained in the force. Most of them were Jedi that were captured and tortured. some of them were natural force users that were handed a light sabre and sent out to hunt down what was left of the Jedi.


If there was an equivalency, they were less powerful the Jedi Knights.



The Grand Inquisitor was a rarity, but at the end of the day he was a Jedi Guardian, and probably at the level of Jedi Knight when he was turned.



By design Vader and Palpatine used them like the disposable pawns they were. The idea is that they would track down the Jedi and keep them busy until Vader arrived.



But life was short for the Inquisitors with no great reward except to keep on living . . . maybe.

[bdubbs]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The Inquisitors were weak and minimally trained in the force. Most of them were Jedi that were captured and tortured. some of them were natural force users that were handed a light sabre and sent out to hunt down what was left of the Jedi.


If there was an equivalency, they were less powerful the Jedi Knights.



The Grand Inquisitor was a rarity, but at the end of the day he was a Jedi Guardian, and probably at the level of Jedi Knight when he was turned.



By design Vader and Palpatine used them like the disposable pawns they were. The idea is that they would track down the Jedi and keep them busy until Vader arrived.



But life was short for the Inquisitors with no great reward except to keep on living . . . maybe.

The bolded is demonstrated when several inquisitors were defeated by Ahsoka in the final season of Rebels. Now, I think Ahsoka is deliberately made to be better than the average Jedi Knight, but their difference in skill level was quite evident.

[PuckSlap]

Originally Posted by direwolf

Star Wars dorks like to claim that she's ruined SW, but in reality the franchise has still been hugely successful under her watch. She basically rescued it from the dead when TFA came out and made a gazillion dollars.

The good:

Mandalorian
Andor
Skeleton Crew
Force Awakens

The flawed, but still decent:

Obi-Wan


The bad:

Rise of Skywalker
Last Jedi
Book of Boba Fett
Ahsoka
Acolyte

So yea, she's had a few duds in there for sure. But when you're churning out this much content, it's impossible to hit it out of the park every single time.

It’s been successful among 45+ man babies, not young people.

Star Wars is being kept alive by those people. But if you look at toy sales.. kids aren’t buying them.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by PuckSlap

It’s been successful among 45+ man babies, not young people.

Star Wars is being kept alive by those people. But if you look at toy sales.. kids aren’t buying them.

Also, the TFA wasn't exactly a stroke of genius.....let's put JJ Abrams in charge, but just the one movie in the trilogy. And have no plan for the remaining movies. Then switch the director twice and let them both totally change the direction of the trilogy....no one will see that coming.

Star Wars was also doing fine before the TFA. The Clone Wars series was very well received, and most important of all toy and merchandise sales were great. The big profits from Star Wars have always been the merchandise sales. Prior to TFA, you'd still get lineups for merchandise releases.

The toy and merchandise sales saw a big upswing after TFA, but then a massive dip afterwards. Collectors moved away from the franchise after TFA and the kids never really caught on and have been slowly losing interest. To be fair though, it seems like kids are just less interested in physical toys, and are spending more of their energy on online and virtual entertainment.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by blankall

Also, the TFA wasn't exactly a stroke of genius.....let's put JJ Abrams in charge, but just the one movie in the trilogy. And have no plan for the remaining movies. Then switch the director twice and let them both totally change the direction of the trilogy....no one will see that coming.

Star Wars was also doing fine before the TFA. The Clone Wars series was very well received, and most important of all toy and merchandise sales were great. The big profits from Star Wars have always been the merchandise sales. Prior to TFA, you'd still get lineups for merchandise releases.

The toy and merchandise sales saw a big upswing after TFA, but then a massive dip afterwards. Collectors moved away from the franchise after TFA and the kids never really caught on and have been slowly losing interest. To be fair though, it seems like kids are just less interested in physical toys, and are spending more of their energy on online and virtual entertainment.

Agh!!

And this coming from the same place that planned out the entire Marvel Universe phases of what? Like 20 movies over a decade??

What. The. Actual. Fata?

It is baffling.

[CaptainCrunch]

Lets be honest, when JJ did the Force Awakens, he basically took ANH and just made things bigger.


Death Star shoot man, we need a super weapon big enough to fire death stars out of its gun.


From a writing perspective, there was nothing super new in the storyline, but the movie itself was well produced and solid. They even made Han the titular Ben Kenobi character.



The next two movies should have been called Star Wars Its a train wreck, and Star Wars we pissed off the fans so much that we had to pull Palpatine out of our ass as the ultimate fan service.

[Locke]

It should have been Palpatine's Dad.

"I always told that little bastard that he'd never amount to anything!! Now I've got to do it!"

[blankall]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Lets be honest, when JJ did the Force Awakens, he basically took ANH and just made things bigger.


Death Star shoot man, we need a super weapon big enough to fire death stars out of its gun.


From a writing perspective, there was nothing super new in the storyline, but the movie itself was well produced and solid. They even made Han the titular Ben Kenobi character.



The next two movies should have been called Star Wars Its a train wreck, and Star Wars we pissed off the fans so much that we had to pull Palpatine out of our ass as the ultimate fan service.

IMO the TFA set up some good storylines with Phasma, Rey, Finn, Snoke, Poe etc... TLJ just decided to throw all of that away. Finn was kind of the lynchpin in there. He was dealing with his PTSD from his life as a trooper, and his story could have tied other plot lines together pretty well. Instead, they turned him into a clown and everything focused on his love story with Rose.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by blankall

IMO the TFA set up some good storylines with Phasma, Rey, Finn, Snoke, Poe etc... TLJ just decided to throw all of that away. Finn was kind of the lynchpin in there. He was dealing with his PTSD from his life as a trooper, and his story could have tied other plot lines together pretty well. Instead, they turned him into a clown and everything focused on his love story with Rose.

I would agree to a point. I was okay with TFA. It seemed like a good way to create a decent 'jump-off' point. Use the Legend Characters to introduce the follow up characters.

But then they just didnt do anything with those characters. They hollowed them out and made them uninteresting and gave them essentially nothing to do.

Finn could have been interesting, Poe could have been interesting, Rey could have been interesting, but they just weren't. And to combat that they just introduced MORE!! More characters!! Who also have nothing to do.

I've said it a million times, the Galaxy was largely the same at the end of that trilogy as it was when it started.

All of the fights and the struggles and the training and everything else amounted to essentially nothing.

[Sr. Mints]

Originally Posted by PuckSlap

Star Wars is being kept alive by those people. But if you look at toy sales.. kids aren’t buying them.

I was making this observation this week as I was checking out a closing Toys R Us. There's only been a tiny selection of retro figures, and kids ain't buying them. Even Star Wars Lego is leaning more heavily towards 18+ sets.

Whether it's Star Wars in particular or the toy market is just not appealing to kids today like it did 20-40 years ago, I don't know.

It got me thinking, where do kids spend money today (or their parents on them)? Roblox and Fortnite, etc?

[CaptainCrunch]

Finn could have been such an amazing character. Look at him in TFA, he was a former stormtrooper, in the other movies we never saw under the helmet, They were blindly obedient killers with bad eye sight.



They could have had a side story of actual PTSD, a guy fighting his instincts of killing everything. Instead in the second story he because the whoo guy, he had a love story that wasn't a love story, and by the third movie he was a background character, and his love interest dumped him to do homework.


I mean the most ridiculous thing is in the third movie with the Jet Troopers, and his yelling They can fly now. Just so dumb. There's a reason why JB literally refuses to talk about Star Wars for a long time.


Rey could have been such an amazing character, but the writers with no constraint just over powered her. And then there was the parent story. They did the cave thing to hint at something, then her parents were nobodies, then they were still nobodies, then Palpatine was her doting grandfather. But she just became incredibly powerful until they kicked her legs out from under her in the third movie. They did such a great job of foreshadowing for her in the first movie. I mean they literally had her fighting Kylo and she used a combination of Anakin's and Palpatines sabre style. And when she had that moment where she looked completely brutal and on the verge of falling to the darkside, they did nothing with it.


Kylo Ren was a waste of a great acting performance end of story.


And they bought back Palpatine, and completely wrecked some really great Sith Lore, and made him a blundering demented over powered dork.


The stupidity of making a trilogy where it feels like Disney had no script control and Rian took the first movies story and said, nah we're not going to do that, and he literally made the third movie impossible was insane.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

I was making this observation this week as I was checking out a closing Toys R Us. There's only been a tiny selection of retro figures, and kids ain't buying them. Even Star Wars Lego is leaning more heavily towards 18+ sets.

Whether it's Star Wars in particular or the toy market is just not appealing to kids today like it did 20-40 years ago, I don't know.

It got me thinking, where do kids spend money today (or their parents on them)? Roblox and Fortnite, etc?

Pron?

[PuckSlap]

Personally, I think they should step back for a few years. Let it breathe, and then come out with something new. That way this generation might get exited for it. Personally, I think they overdid it. Too many star wars related movies and shows flooded the market and killed the energy.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Finn could have been such an amazing character. Look at him in TFA, he was a former stormtrooper, in the other movies we never saw under the helmet, They were blindly obedient killers with bad eye sight.



They could have had a side story of actual PTSD, a guy fighting his instincts of killing everything. Instead in the second story he because the whoo guy, he had a love story that wasn't a love story, and by the third movie he was a background character, and his love interest dumped him to do homework.


I mean the most ridiculous thing is in the third movie with the Jet Troopers, and his yelling They can fly now. Just so dumb. There's a reason why JB literally refuses to talk about Star Wars for a long time.

I would have been pretty pissed if I was Boyega. For a number of reasons. I also guarantee with him that if he wasn't black, they wouldn't have made his character a clown. Clearly, so much of Disney's product is just a product of superficial corporate pandering. They want to appear more diverse....how do they do that....they introduce Rose, but in the process skewer the only interesting POC's character.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by blankall

I would have been pretty pissed if I was Boyega. For a number of reasons. I also guarantee with him that if he wasn't black, they wouldn't have made his character a clown. Clearly, so much of Disney's product is just a product of superficial corporate pandering. They want to appear more diverse....how do they do that....they introduce Rose, but in the process skewer the only interesting POC's character.

Well I think Boyega was fairly publicly pissed.

They took something that could have been interesting in his character and pretty much changed him into 'Token' from South Park.

Then again, they did that with everyone. Token woman, token Asian, token lesbian couple...everything was done to 'look progressive' rather than 'be progressive' and/or tell a decent or interesting story or have interesting or good characters.

You can write a good and interesting character, start there, and then say: "We want it to be a woman."

Theres nothing wrong with that, as long as you start with the important elements of the character itself.

[Shazam]

Look man, that was the first time a black guy ever appeared in Star Wars. He should be happy he was that person.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Look man, that was the first time a black guy ever appeared in Star Wars. He should be happy he was that person.

Did you forget about Lando? And Lando was awesome!! He had his own City in the clouds replete with ice-cream makers and everything!

#rememberlando

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Locke

Did you forget about Lando? And Lando was awesome!! He had his own City in the clouds replete with ice-cream makers and everything!

#rememberlando

He was great, until they made him a robot F-er.

I think people are also forgetting about Mace Windu.