The Unpopular Film, TV, Music, Art, Books, Comics, Games, & Technology Opinion Thread (for all you contrarians!) — Page 6

George Lucas is the most underrated and underappreciated filmmaker of our time. You can truly watch his films without sound and still understand the emotional context of the scene and piece together what’s going on with visuals alone. Not many filmmakers can do that. I also think despite what is said by some he did have a story to tell with the Prequels and it wasn’t just about telling the same story all over again or pushing the technology forward but about teaching us important ethical issues yet in a way that resonated with children. He always planned it this way as he saw the Prequels as the more social trilogy. I equally think his dialogue is very unique and like that of cinema of old. I’d rather have a vast imaginative clutter on screen with a million things going on like the streets of Mos Espa for re-watch value than nothing going on like Jakku in The Force Awakens. I appreciate his imagination and wanting to make each era of Star Wars different and unique. I’d rather see the Whills and Midi-Chlorians over the Disney Sequel Trilogy any day! Not to mention he gets too much flack for changing his mind. Every creative person is like that!

And unrelated to George and Star Wars I’d say Frasier is superior to Seinfeld, Friends, and other sitcoms of its time.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Funny you’d say that, as someone whose username is made up of reference to two characters from the Sequel Trilogy.

Haha, yeah! I used to really enjoy the Sequel Trilogy for what it is as I really loved Rey but unfortunately they botched her character beyond repair in The Rise of Skywalker. Lately I can’t really watch any of the trilogy apart from The Last Jedi. I may not think it understands the lore and canon it’s continuing entirely from the first six films but it at least feels like it’s trying to tell an interesting story that continues where The Force Awakens left off and that’s a film I feel doesn’t understand the macro story of the first six films in retrospect at all. So there’s no point in connecting the Sequel Trilogy and first six films together entirely.

This video really conveys my feelings on it almost exactly.

https://youtu.be/MCHg_j4jcFU

All and all I think The Last Jedi and Rogue One are the only Disney era films I can enjoy.

Anakin Starkiller said:

The Force Awakens still holds up fine, IMO. Sure, it’s not revolutionary, but it’s a damn good time. The first chunk up until they meet Han and Chewie is absolutely phenomenal.

For sure! The first half and a good chunk of Takodana mostly work for me as there’s potential as to why the lightsaber calls to Rey and the rain sequence in the vision for examples. Although now these feel a bit too much like an empty mystery box. I also enjoy when the Resistance arrives and Rey pulling the lightsaber out of the snow later on Starkiller. I think my problem with The Force Awakens in retrospect is that it resets the state of the galaxy to Rebels and Empire 2.0 and our original heroes to basically the same starting points of the Original Trilogy. It’s not a bad film by any stretch but I can’t really enjoy it like I used to. I think for me at least it has to be seen as its own thing away from the macro story.

BB-Rey said:

George Lucas is the most underrated and underappreciated filmmaker of our time. You can truly watch his films without sound and still understand the emotional context of the scene and piece together what’s going on with visuals alone. Not many filmmakers can do that. I also think despite what is said by some he did have a story to tell with the Prequels and it wasn’t just about telling the same story all over again or pushing the technology forward but about teaching us important ethical issues yet in a way that resonated with children. He always planned it this way as he saw the Prequels as the more social trilogy. I equally think his dialogue is very unique and like that of cinema of old. I’d rather have a vast imaginative clutter on screen with a million things going on like the streets of Mos Espa for re-watch value than nothing going on like Jakku in The Force Awakens. I appreciate his imagination and wanting to make each era of Star Wars different and unique. I’d rather see the Whills and Midi-Chlorians over the Disney Sequel Trilogy any day! Not to mention he gets too much flack for changing his mind. Every creative person is like that!

And unrelated to George and Star Wars I’d say Frasier is superior to Seinfeld, Friends, and other sitcoms of its time.

Preaaach!

DuracellEnergizer said:

BB-Rey said:

And unrelated to George and Star Wars I’d say Frasier is superior to Seinfeld, Friends, and other sitcoms of its time.

This I can agree with mostly (I was never a regular viewer of Seinfeld, so I don’t know how the two compare).

I haven’t watched Seinfeld much either to be fair. However from what I have noticed I’d say Frasier has more of a linear sense of character growth throughout its eleven seasons and unique relationships as each character feeds off of another really well that brings out the best and worse in them. You really see the contrasts in ideals between Frasier and Marty, Niles and Daphne, Roz and Bulldog (even Noel), and other characters. I think what separates Frasier the most is that it feels more like theatre than that of a typical sitcom and how it has such a genius usage of humour that doesn’t play just for the laugh track. It never dumbs itself down for the audience which is unfortunately all too common.

Anakin Starkiller said:

I don’t watch sitcoms. I need some greater plot to be invested in or if standalone it needs to be more than just comedy.

Frasier has that with the relationships of the characters. I think you’d really enjoy it.

I guess my unpopular opinion is that “greater plot” is one of the most overrated things in media criticism, though I don’t deny that some things could benefit from honing in on one. (Although even that’s a pacing thing, and not really about a certain mode of storytelling.)

Just hanging out with characters I like, in a world I’m invested in - it’s not even that that’s “good enough for me” like I feel someone would ascribe to this opinion - I genuinely think the format has potential to be, and often is, just as good as or better than an overarching plot.

I can understand why someone would want/need that since that was me once upon a time - just when I was 19 and hadn’t really watched anything. I hope that doesn’t sound condescending.

+1 to Frasier being great.

I think the greater plot in television really was a gradual change of the format over time, when people could miss
a week of their favorite show and have to hope for a rerun to catch up the plots couldn’t be so interconnected, now everything is binging so it makes more sense to have these season to series long plot threads like in Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones. But I am with NFBisms that one format isn’t inherently better than another, just different styles. Breaking Bad would have been lesser if it was flavor of the week episodes and villains, likewise Seinfeld, SNL, or The Honeymooners would be weakened if they had to take their more sketch vaudeville approach and expand those situations into some larger ongoing narrative, if either format switched places you would lose a major part of what they are.

Frasier is great.
Not better than Seinfeld, but certainly on par.
It’s the only show of the era that can claim that position.

It’s really nice to hear Frasier is appreciated here as I’m so used to people saying Friends is the best.

BB-Rey said:

It’s really nice to hear Frasier is appreciated here as I’m so used to people saying Friends is the best.

Friends is absolute trash.

^ I’ve been meaning to watch the rebooted versions of those for ages now… But I don’t think I should bother.

Chase Adams said:

^ I’ve been meaning to watch the rebooted versions of those for ages now… But I don’t think I should bother.

They started off with a surprisingly faithful attempt to recapture Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (my personal favorite of the classic sequel films) and ended up straying further and further away from that intent. From what I can tell, Rise of the Planet of the Apes was supposed to end in a manner very similar to the original preview ending for Conquest… And just like Conquest, the ending was softened considerably before the final release.

Anakin Starkiller said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

I’m completely and utterly indifferent to the Planet of the Apes franchise.

Does anyone have a strong attachment to it, though?

Yes, of course. It’s a large & successful franchise.
Dura stated his opinion in this thread for a reason.
*flicks your ear

The original 1968 film is a classic. I’m mostly indifferent to everything else to varying degrees, though Conquest is a decent movie on its own.