Why does the first battle scene seem like it belongs in the middle of the movie?
I do think that starting the movie with such an intense action scene is, I dunno… wrong. Like, I don’t mind an action scene (SW starts with the Tantive IV and the Devastator), heck RotJ has a rather boring opening scene (is too long and it takes a lof for Vader’s shuttle to reach the Death Star), but these later movies are so intense I can’t really enjoy them. There’s so much action my body can handle, and the non-stop cameras, the quick transitions/cuts, and the overly loud OST is too much for me. It’s a matter of personal preference, but I don’t really think the movie should go from 0 to 100 that fast.
Also, it’s a rather generic battle scene. Allow me to explain:
I don’t see the relevance here. Before Disney took over, I would have described me mainly as a SW/ESB fan, but now I think TLJ is the third best SW movie.
The reason why I thought this bit was relevant is because I do think many of the problems I have with the later movies (and I include TLJ here) started in RotJ or TPM (usually RotJ, but things like the RBG lightsaber scheme are from TPM). The weak villains, for example, because while SW and TESB had pretty great villains, in RotJ the Empire is restricted to Endor, Vader (who is much weaker here) never sent an Imperial agent to Jabba’s Palace (…because… ?) and the Emperor’s plan never made a lot of sense; I don’t think Krennic, Tarkin and Vader were great in R1 (I don’t really understand Tarkin’s actions, honestly, I know he’s overconfident and wants to humiliate Krennic but why is he holding critical information to Krennic about Galen Erso?), the First Order is pretty clueless in TFA, and the prequels… are the prequels. Or the rather non-sensical plots and illogically designed sets. Or the generic battle scenes. And many other things.
What do I mean by “generic battle scenes”. Well, both the Battle of Yavin IV and the Battle of Hoth had something in common: they’re based on a single but powerful visual element. In SW’s case, it’s the trench (yes, there’s some dogfighting before, but most of the battle happens in the trench), and wow I can feel the tension every time I watch the climax (and I don’t know how many times I have watched the climax), while in TESB it’s the AT-ATs themselves, a design the movie exploits in four enjoyable ways (the snowspeeder passing through an AT-AT’s legs, an AT-AT destroying Luke’s snowspeeder, Luke cutting the belly of an AT-AT, Wedge taking down an AT-AT with an harpoon cable). The AT-ATs are extremely memorable here, and how many parodies of the trench run has been made in these four decades?
But from RotJ onwards, the battles in Star Wars are almost limited to “a bunch of units put together”. The Battle of Endor? A Rebel fleet versus an Imperial fleet, with a Death Star in the background. The space Battle of Naboo? Naboo spaceships versus the Trade Federation space station. The Battle of Coruscant? The Battle of Geonosis? Same thing, some units here and some units there, chaos ensures. The Battle of Scarif has more potential, because like the ground battle of Naboo is based on an energy shield preventing a side to attack the other side, but in both cases they’re bypassed (early in TPM, it takes time in R1 and the solution is… too ridiculous/much for me).
The early battle in TLJ, although different from many other battles in Star Wars (it takes the idea of the Rebels destroying the turbolasers of the Death Star but it adds a bombing run), is just that: a battle. There’s no visual element/form that is truly memorable here, no central idea, nothing in the battle that really stands out and makes me say “oh wow I want to rewatch this battle over and over and over”. It may be better than a typical battle from a Marvel movie (but then again I don’t like the Marvel movies I have seen), but there’s nothing really deep going on. My general thoughts on this matter is that they feel that by adding some sacrifices and lots of special effects you have the job done. That wasn’t the case with the Battle of Hoth, for example, because they didn’t have the resources we have now, so they put a lot of time into making the whole battle truly memorable. I don’t hate CGI (it’s another resource, like matte paintings or models), there’s lot of great ways to use CGI, I just hate using CGI in such a lazy, unmemorable way.
But “generic battle scenes” isn’t my biggest gripe with TLJ. It’s just an example of my theory of how the post-1980 movies repeat the same problems over and over. Sometimes they may avoid or kinda fix some problems (I’m still not sure if I would put R1 above RotJ but I agree it’s much better than the other post-RotJ movies), but I don’t see a tendency here (other than the Disney movies not being as bad as the prequels, but that’s rather easy). Hope you understand now what I mean by “I’m a SW/TESB only fan so as I predicted I disliked TLJ”.
Oh, and based on my explanation, the opening scene of SW would be “generic”. But I don’t really consider it a battle scene (because the Tantive IV is disabled in a few seconds, and the rest is about people firing to each other and the droids escaping), just an action scene. Also, SW is the most lightweight Star Wars movie. There are a lot of parts in SW that are kinda silly, but that’s what the movie is about, so I don’t mind (I don’t use the seriousness of TESB and the later movies to criticise SW). TLJ, on the other hand, it’s probably the most serious Star Wars movie since RotS (more than R1 in a lot of parts), so my analysis and reactions cannot be the same.