DominicCobb said:
Star Wars movie is like other Star Wars movie in superficial ways… tricky RJ thought he could get away with it, but he was sorely mistaken! True Fans know that the only way to judge a movie is on a scale of perceived originality.
You might want to keep your snide, rude side in check otherwise I’ll have to start reporting you for being a dick to other members (me in this case) like we both promised each other 😉
MaestroDavros said:
I often wonder about when an idea or story beat goes from being similar to something done decades earlier, to when it becomes directly appropriated from it. In the case of ROTJ I would argue the similarities are more superficial, since there are shared locations like Tatooine and a Death Star, but what they do with those places is entirely different.
Contrast this to the sequel trilogy, which quite clearly contains many scenes that are similar not only on a superficial level, but directly reference earlier plot points, sometimes with similar events and even dialogue, all to elicit an emotional reaction like: “OMG DO YOU REMEMBER THAT SCENE WHERE ___ HAPPENED IN EPISODE ___?! THEY JUST REFERENCED IT OMG!! OMG!!!” Meanwhile I’m like “I’d rather watch the original version of that scene instead of someone else’s version that doesn’t do anything new”. And that’s just it: I want them to do something different that doesn’t rely on events that already happened. To do otherwise is IMO a poor attempt at fan-service, and just incredibly lazy writing in general. I get it’s hard to come up with ideas in Hollywood films that differ from something else done 40-50 years ago, but please don’t also bring attention and make a big deal of the fact that you are “borrowing” the idea in the first place.
Star Wars isn’t the only franchise with this problem BTW.
Exactly. Thank you for articulating just what my problem is with these movies in regards to constantly just recycling things straight out of the OT. TFA did it in spades but I accepted it on the premise of re-establishing a franchise, setting the tone and playing it safe while Disney was testing the waters with their newly purchased franchise that they want to make a lot of money with. TFA was a decent enough movie anyway with all of the recycled beats aside that I generally enjoyed despite the issues I did have with the movie.
This of course was all on the premise that TLJ didn’t then also do the same thing. This was their chance to take original and new characters and go in a completely new direction and this was a common expectation of the movie which is why one would almost think that RJ has specifically done the opposite, borrowing and mashing together as many pieces of the OT as he could as another way to go against the grain of what was reasonably expected of this movie.
So now that we’ve had ANH 2.0 and TESB/ROTJ remix 2018, what are they going to rely on for Ep9? Or will they finally tread new ground? With what TLJ left on the table though, it feels like it’s leading into ANH 3.0 or ANH/TESB remix 2020…I’ll never know though because as stated, Ep8 is the end of the SW road for me.
canofhumdingers said:
So I just noticed on my second viewing that the falcon gets its (new rectangular) radar dish knocked off while flying through the crystal cave (ROTJ Rehash!! ;-P ).
LOL, the recycling IS getting ridiculous. I don’t even remember that detail but it just lends extra weight to exactly what I am saying.
yotsuya said:
Valheru_84 said:
Having seen TLJ though, I now understand it could never be what I was expecting and that’s because RJ has a compulsion with this movie to do the exact opposite of what is expected. It was a pretty common belief that everyone was expecting TLJ to be the movie that was going to be different, darker and setting new ground after the safe bet that TFA was. So in order to do the opposite he just made another rehash movie (simply disguised a bit better by jumbling it up a bit with the edges blurred) which is what everyone didn’t want. Even the darker themes are subverted by the constant stream of tone killing humour. This movie is literally RJ giving the middle finger to a fandom and it’s expectations, making writing choices solely directed at doing the opposite of what the fandom wanted or expected, no matter the cost to the story and cohesion to the overarching saga and previously established characters and lore.
.Val
This attitude wearies me. Just because you didn’t like it and it wasn’t what you wanted to see does not mean RJ is giving fandom the middle finger. Some fans hate it. I get it. Some fans loved it. You didn’t like the humor. Some people did. You didn’t like how your expectations were turned. Some people loved how it made the story fresh and different. You didn’t like the homages to the past, some loved them. There are obviously very different opinions. But constantly saying that RJ or Disney set out to ruin the franchise is just so… Use your heads. You are part of the billion dollar package that Disney wants on board to buy tickets and merchandise. But they can’t tell the same old story. Heck, they can’t even seem to use anything similar. It sets up a catch-22. Sometimes there is no pleasing people. But at least come up with something that actually makes sense. RJ, Kennedy, or Disney trying to deliberately alienate fans makes no logical sense. It is a tired refrain that has been sung since GL sold to Disney.
If you don’t agree with it, that’s fine. Don’t tell me to adjust my opinion though because you’re tired of hearing it from me and other people with the same feelings.
It’s not that I didn’t get to see what I wanted to see, I went in not really expecting all that much outside of what was setup by TFA and that it would be a darker chapter of the trilogy much like TESB was which is a pretty standard trilogy trope to expect, which it did except for all the tone killing humour that also meant…that it didn’t really. I was actually properly excited to see where TLJ went, I’d watched all the trailers multiple times but not looked into it any further than that (not wanting to spoil anything). I did notice the walkers on a white planet and knew that would be a call back to the battle of Hoth but did not think for a second that nearly the whole movie would be OT re-used and recycled. But everything else looked properly interesting and potentially awesome from the trailer perspective.
What I certainly didn’t expect though was to watch everything I never could have imagined would come to pass in a SW movie and that every expectation built by TFA and even RJ himself was summarily turned on it’s head again and again. Like WTF am I watching? Subversion 101 on how to shock your audience simply because it doesn’t make fucking sense? Because as a self proclaimed SW fan, RJ knows exactly what SW fans would not expect and so he does that just for sensational shock value? What a joke of a film. The entire movie is one sarcastic middle finger to people that feel and understand SW the way I do. He/Disney trod all over what many people loved about SW and then trolled them on it.
I think Disney know exactly what they are doing. They’re riding out the pain of damaging parts of the franchise’s existing fan base in order to reach for what they see is a much broader common audience to make more money and secure future large audiences. Did they have to do it in Ep8 of a 9 part saga though? They’ve just given RJ a whole trilogy to himself that’s completely separate from the main saga and the Jedi/Sith, Rebellion/Empire, Skywalker narrative - the perfect place to explore and take new stories in completely new and fresh directions.
DominicCobb said:
Incorrect yotsuya. If I didn’t like a movie it means the creators hate me. This is simple stuff, don’t get why it’s so hard for you to understand.
Again, can you please reign yourself in. Between you and Frink I’m starting to feel a wee bit harassed…
Frank your Majesty said:
The Ring Theory looks for things that are vaguely similar and tries to describe them in the most crude way, leaving out important details, to make two very different scenes look alike, and putting importance on small details that are smimilar, but insignificant in the movies itself. This rehash argument is just the Ring theory with a twist. Instead of using these constructed superficial “similarities” to show how great the prequels are, they are now a sign of how bad the new movies are. Why can’t angry fans come up with something new? Do they want to alienate other fans? Is Disney paying them as part of their great plan to soft-reboot the whole world?
Thank you Frank “not Frink’s wife” your Majesty (honestly sorry about that, not exactly sure how I came to that conclusion), but this has nothing to do with the Ring Theory that does try to twist things in favour of the PT. The plain similarities and recycling are clearly there in TLJ if you simply look for them.
The talk of being paid of just sounds like more denial tactics such as the whole Rotten Tomatoes audience score rumour. It’s a pretty low insult really and I’d appreciate it not being used again.
Anchorhead said:
By all means feel free to vent, deconstruct, debate, rage, etc. I do it occasionally myself. It’s what makes this forum work. However, maybe give some serious thought to focusing on what you like. The stuff we don’t like about the franchise isn’t going away.
This is what I will be doing once I’m all talked out. I’m not one to continue investing energy into something that’s simply wasting it when it could be put to better uses. For now, it’s helping me to talk about it. Also, my best mate has finally seen the movie so I actually have someone to talk to in person now about it, so I’ll probably peter out in the near future with only the occasional comment here and there from that point onward 😉
From an initial online chat, he said he liked it but was also disappointed and was conflicted on many matters that would take him a few days to let it all sink in and settle. He did also say and I’m quoting here - “empire strikes back + return of the jedi rolled into one haha”
.Val
PS. Sorry for such a lengthy post, but there were many other posts I wanted to get back to that I couldn’t reply to at the time and so I’ve just done it all in one hit. I’m pretty much caught up with the thread again thankfully.