Was listening to some reaction from random people on CBC radio on the way home about whether they are interested at all in this latest instalment. Doesn’t seem like a lot of the people are keen on it.
You mean just random people to gauge interest out there?
Meh. They can have a lame star wars-free holidays then.
A new saga episode brings so much more joy to mine, since I'll probably see it multiple times with friends and family. I'm going to savor every bit of it.
When you think about it, it was 42 years ago that the whole movie experience changed in one moment, especially for me when an Imperial Star Destroyer roared over our heads in pursuit of a small Blockade runner. I remember in that moment my jaw dropped and I was sucked into a galaxy far far away.
Star Wars has given us an incredible body of work from the movies, to TV series, comics, books and cartoons. A entire world was created from the mind of George Lucas and it inspired countless people that it was ok again to be a sci fi fan, a geek and a nerd. That it wasn't ludicris to have sword fights with your friends using cardboard tubes. Or point a water gun at someone and shoot them while yelling "pew pew".
Star Wars bought things like action figures and models and even eventually lego back into the popular sphere.
We all took time to take our moms or dads or kids to the movies once every few years to relive our youth.
And probably in about a weeks time its going to be over. The story of the Skywalkers will come to a probable dramatic conclusion.
And while some and even people like me have been critical but at the same time I know when I hear the opening strains of John Williams epic opus and see that text flowing up the screen that for even a brief period, I'll be 10 years old again enjoying my popcorn and remembering that first time I saw Star Wars with my dad sitting beside me with his arm around my shoulder.
So yeah, my intention is to go to the this movie, and enjoy the sights and sounds and cheer for the villains and boo the heroes.
And at the end I'm going to sit back and watch the credits roll and savor the fact that 42 years later I've been a witness to the start, the middle and the end of a historic film franchise that paved the way for so many others.
May the Force be with you all.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Great post, Captain. I just finished my Star Wars marathon (minus the prequels) in preparation for TROS, and that opening shot from A New Hope is still epic.
My earliest SW memories are of my Dad taking me to see Empire, and lining up outside with hundreds of other people waiting to buy our tickets. It was the first one I saw in the theatre during its opening, as I was too young when ANH came out. But thankfully, Dad took me to a screening of that one a few months before Empire was released, so I was basically up to speed. Not sure I fully understood the story at that age, but my little brain was blown away nonetheless. I was Luke for Halloween 2 years in a row, and I owned a lot of the toys from that era as well.
When ROTJ came out my entire family went together, and it was amazing. I still remember the theatre (Southwest Plaza 5 in Littleton, Colorado). I also remember seeing Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom at the same theatre in 1984.
Also, this still ranks as one of the greatest Christmas presents I ever received as a kid:
As for the Rise of Skywalker, I'm just as pumped as I've been for any of the previous films. I've personally enjoyed the new movies for the most part, and I'm anxious and excited to see how Abrams wraps up the saga. Bring it on!
Last edited by direwolf; 12-17-2019 at 11:32 PM.
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I’m pretty excited for this one. I liked TFA when it came out. I’m not as big on it now as when I watch it I find myself not caring about a lot of what JJ built up because TLJ took such a huge dump on it that none of that stuff matters.
I have faith in JJ to deliver a serviceable movie. I just pray that the humour is gone and the lightsaber choreography is better. In fact, I just hope we see a lightsaber batter period (I know we will).
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There's no question the lightsabers have been under used, and when they have been, it's over way too quickly with choreography that hasn't wowed like even the prequels could. However, I do appreciate in a way the freshness of the inexperienced lunging style of fighting that they're going for as opposed to the "dancing" style in the prequels. But it would be cool to see rey and kylo do a few twirls, throws and force jumps as well.
We all know palp's style which is ####ing scary, if he's going to be partaking in a duel here. That'll be a treat if he does.
It has sub 55 Metacritic and RT scores. A lot of the negative reviews saying it doesn't live up to TLJ.
So... maybe it'll be good?
Quote:
The Rise of Skywalker falls somewhere between an overstuffed fan-service finale and a yawnfest. If The Force Awakens kicked off a new cycle in the franchise and The Last Jedi set it up to push beyond its familiar patterns, The Rise of Skywalker for the most part runs screaming in the other direction.
What exactly did TLJ set up? They had to revive an old villain to get fans interested.
Maybe for the next trilogy, they'll have a coherent three part story planned with directors (or hopefully just one) set in place for all of them. No going into the second movie without any idea of how the third is supposed to go.
Whenever I hear people talk about TLJ in a positive light I think to myself if maybe I'm in a twilight zone episode where black is white, Oilers are good, Jeeps are reliable, and I'm in an alternate reality that I don't belong. If the same people that gave TLJ positive reviews are giving lesser reviews to ROS I'm thinking this could be a good movie after all.
Or they're both bad and Disney just didn't bother to send out the cheques this time.
Now that I have read the reviews it seems Abrams tried really hard to make a movie that nobody would hate and when you do that you usually end up with something that's merely good at best. TLJ tried something different and failed miserably which let to a risk averse approach for this one.
I don’t get the feeling JJ made something nobody would hate. It reads to me like nobody had any idea what this trilogy would be about and he slapped something together with nothing but fan service holding it together.
So to me the prequels ended with a fairly strong story and a decent movie, that was better then AOTC and TPM.
The problem or difficulty is that I don't think they had a consistent vision with the ST. They had JJ do the first one, and gave Rian all kinds of freedom on the second one, and he skidded off of the course, and then the third one comes around and it feels like JJ probably spent time trying to fix what was in the second one. There was no over arching Story line that was defined from start to end like they basically had in the OT.
Even when George didn't do the directing, he was there to keep the story on track.
You even look at the stories in TCW series Filoni would sit down with George and they would talk about how the episodes would fit into the overall story.
Now on the reviews, I prefer to do my own reviews. People got so charged up with the TLJ was terrible, that they've let that splash on this movie.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
The biggest problem is they set out to make a trilogy with no plan. It's like the Ed Stelmach of trilogies.
I think they always had a plan on how it would end (haven't read spoilers but clear where this is going):
Spoiler!
I think it was always meant to end with Rey as the focal point new character (maybe Poe/Finn still around too), and the OT cast of Leia/Luke/Hans all dead
I really enjoyed TFA and thought it was a great re-introduction. I also liked The Last Jedi and though it was good even though it wasn't as "fun" as TFA. I also don't think that Rian did anything that set the trilogy off course.
From I think my first review after seeing TLJ opening night I knew there was going to be parts that the fans that saw the OT as children weren't going to like (I'm 31 so I only saw the OT when I was older).
For two reasons:
1) It broke the perceptions that fan base had of what Luke would be, even though it was necessary for the plot and Rian got blamed for a plot that JJ started.
It was JJ that wrote the plot of Luke being in self exile having failed to stop the First Order from taking over. Yet when TLJ came out and needed to expand and elaborate on that storyline people blamed Rian for "Ruining Luke", when it was actually set up in TFA.
Also I kind of thought that the character of Luke pretty much mirrored what Luke was in the OT. Impulsive, whiny, and a bit of a dick. But in the end he would step up and be a bad ass to save the day. That's Luke in the OT too.
2) Snoke didn't end up being the "Big Bad" with a link to the past. For 24 months fans had theories on who Snoke could be, and what villian from the past he was. And when he pretty much got "easy killed" in the movie it broke all the fan theory and fan service that fans wanted.
I think Rian got a bad rap with TLJ. It was a good movie and JJ got to have all the fun of seeing your favorite characters on screen for the first time without really elaborating on plot, while TLJ was really left to explain all the hard parts that JJ failed to explain in the first movie.
JJ never explained why Luke was in exile, had Hans/Leia divorced with Ben in a bad spot with no explanation about their relationship, didn't explain how the First Order came into power, and left two cliffhangers around Rey's parentage (playing into fan service due to the whole Vader/Luke twist), and that Snoke was some big bad villian from the past.
In the end I've liked the first two movies but what I think hangs over the whole trilogy for the OT fan base is that it's just not the ended they wanted for Luke/Hans/Leia. They wanted the happy ending. Evil was defeated, the good guys won, and the universe went on with no more Sith. But it's hard to create and carry on the universe unless those characters had flaws and didn't actually defeat evil forever, so instead they got Broken Luke, Divorced Leia/Hans, and a universe in turmoil and that wasn't what they wanted.
Now though JJ was brought back to try and have a movie that moves the universe forward so that Kevin Feige can set up a Star Wars cinematic universe, while also trying to appease the sour grapes of the hard core Star Wars fan base after they hated TLJ and wanted more fan service.
I won't be surprised if the outcome ends up being a bit messy because of that, and you end up getting poor reviews because it doesn't go in the direction that the film critics that like TLJ wanted it to go forward with, but probably reviews better with fans because of the fan service.
Last edited by SuperMatt18; 12-18-2019 at 09:32 AM.
It will be interesting to see what happens at the box office for this one. Personally, TLJ destroyed any interest I had in following these movies any more due to being a gigantic piece of crap. It's not like I was a big fan of the The Force Awakens either, it was a soft reboot in the vein of all the other cookie cutter movies out there this decade like Terminator and Jurassic Park (or World, or whatever) that was also terrible, but not depth-plumbing mind-numbing awful. Yeah, the prequels weren't as good as the original but at least they had a story to tell, and it was new and interesting. I seriously don't even understand the point of these new movies. It looks like the facade of good reviews due to nostalgia, new capital for Disney, or whatever is starting to fade, it's tough to stand stoic through now what sounds like three terrible soulless movies with no point and no story. After a while I believe these movies will be remembered as worse than the prequels, because they are.
Anyway, I won't be seeing this movie. If people like them and have a good time watching this one that's awesome. I just wonder how big of a bite TFA but especially TLJ took out of the paying public willing to shell out dollars and watch these, guess we'll see.
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Yeah, the prequels weren't as good as the original but at least they had a story to tell, and it was new and interesting. I seriously don't even understand the point of these new movies.
I think in retrospect this was the mistake that was made - they should have just left the Prequel trilogies and Original trilogies as their own thing. There should have never been a movie with Hans/Luke/Leia again, and they should not have tried to directly link this trilogy to that trilogy.
That trilogy should have just been left untouched, and a new universe with Star Wars lore such as force powers, and lightsabers should have been kicked off with just the stories of Hans/Luke/Leia/Vader as "stories" from the past in that new universe.
In retrospect now all this new trilogy serves to do is break the links to the original trilogy, in order to now move forward with a Star Wars universe where the OT characters are dead. When really they could have just time jumped 100 years with the same end result and not having to piss off the Star Wars mega fans.
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