Given that this is their final season, let’s hope they pull off the sort of swan song they never got, something akin in feel to The Undiscovered Country.
I’d never been personally offended by a television series before this.
Not even Game of Thrones season eight, the season that eliminated Game of Thrones from the pop culture zeitgeist?
I think 1:50-2:10 is about the ideal window for a main saga Star Wars movie.
However, I’m a firm believer that a movie should be exactly as long as it needs to be while making sure nobody in the audience ever checks their watch. Pacing is more important than length.
Definitely. Thunderball may be only two hours long, but it feels like its a half hour longer.
My big problem with fan edits is when they get down to the 90-100 minute mark. That kind of movie length would’ve been unacceptable for a franchise where every movie is 120-135 minutes long. I get that a PT with 90-minute movies might be easier to watch, but they feel less authentic (if that makes sense).
Acknowledging that these are just stupid space wizard movies and not some “high art auteurship” would make the fandom a much less intense place.
I’m just glad Transformers fans have reached a point no Star Wars fan will ever reach: having a sense of humor about the stupid franchise and letting go of the anger to just revel in the inherent goofiness of the whole package. Even the OT is pretty damn goofy.
Transformers was meant to be a totally brainless film from the start, so I never took it seriously. I just enjoyed Bay’s shots of Megan Fox and his excellent ability to frame certain sequences.
Oh it’s more than just the films. Going back to the ‘80s cartoon, there’ve been countless revivals and new continuities throughout the past 35 years in animation, comics, and even some prose novels.
It’s not as brainless as one might think, while OT Star Wars can be more brainless than one may think.
It’s a Czech print, so the crawl and subtitles/credits are all in Czech. Still, it’s incredible to have that print and it’s in decent shape as well.
I’d want the Dark Horse story “The Savage Heart,” where Vader’s stranded on a savanna world with pack animals after the Battle of Yavin. It’s a little goofy, but it does some cool stuff with Vader’s man-machine dichotomy.
In other words, namely Transformers fandom terms,
I’m just glad Transformers fans have reached a point no Star Wars fan will ever reach: having a sense of humor about the stupid franchise and letting go of the anger to just revel in the inherent goofiness of the whole package. Even the OT is pretty damn goofy.
Just so you know, Bounding Into Comics is insanely biased towards the Gamergate “white male nerd rage” side of things, with tons of fake stories about Kathleen Kennedy being fired from Lucasfilm and other fanboy wish fulfillment fantasies. So I would take their spin on events with a massive grain of salt.
That’s the awful thing - some can’t dislike TLJ without having to clarify “I’m not one of those types.” TLJ’s reputation has become so entangled in culture war BS by TFM types that it’s hard for critics of the movie to speak out without being compared to that Gamergate-y crowd. Heck, I’ve seen TFM-y things here complaining about “wokeness” and other BS. So I just filter out their stuff and hope mods warn them before things get out of hand, since this is one of the nicer venues to talk about SW. It’s not as poorly moderated as r/StarWars or as saccharine as r/StarWarsCantina and it’s certainly not as trashy as Facebook and Twitter pages.
I was slightly disappointed by the loss of the extended battle, but honestly, a battle with redone lasers, the orange Yavin planet in the background (which makes it look much more visually interesting IMO), Luke actually having an appropriate reaction to the death of his friend and Vader’s helmet fixed is pretty great and satisfactory to me.
Don’t forget “Blast it Wedge, where are you!?!” and adding appropriate wing numbers to X-wings.
I appreciate ditching the extended reveal and battle, along with shortening the approach to Mos Eisley. Anything that brings the pacing more in line with the theatrical cut is welcome.
While I did appreciate the extended stuff from the SD version, it did feel like “showing off” instead of fundamentally adding to the movie. The lack of dialogue in the extended battle definitely hurt it, from my perspective. It’s why Purist was the only version I watched for many years. I’m glad to see that HD will be more like Purist than the other versions.
Freddy Got Fingered is a brilliant satire of the Happy Madison/Farrelly Brothers style comedies of the late-90s/early-00s. If anything, it aged better than those movies because it fits so well into the style of comedy popularized by Tim and Eric/Eric Andre. It’s also understandable as Tom Green making fun of studios for giving him $14 million to make “his movie.”
I couldn’t disagree more on force awakens. I mean they took Luke and made him a worthless maguffin. Who does that? He was the main character of the original Saga of episodes IV, V and VI. Because they couldn’t figure out a way to include him without upstaging the Disney characters. The one thing i did like was Finn, i liked Poe, i liked Rey and her scavenger on Jakku story. But its a bad unoriginal story and completely derivative on purpose due to the prequels having the perception of being so bad they left a stank on Star Wars.
You could still have new characters like Rey, Poe and Finn and easily set it in the far future. Don’t repeat the same beats rebels vs empire. Don’t crap all over the legacy characters. The sequels are a mixed bag. But the one thing they botched Luke, Han and Leia. Completely and utterly. Its almost unforgivable.
I’ve said this before elsewhere, but the biggest problem with getting Star Wars “right” is that it means different things to different people. So one person’s “new and exciting” is another person’s “disrespectful and unforgiveable” and neither one is necessarily wrong. The sequel trilogy, or at least the first 2/3 of it, hits every note I want out of Star Wars, so I enjoy it. For some that’s the opposite of what they want out of Star Wars, so they hate it. We’re both right.
I see people losing their minds with excitement over what they’re doing with Luke in Mandalorian, and I’m just thinking that they’re ruining it by bringing him in, and I still feel that way. But they’re ruining what “I” personally like about it. I’m also cackling with glee over Boba fighting weird Harryhausen monster and trying to teach Tusken’s how to ride speeder bikes, and some people thing it’s horrible. Star Wars is so incredibly subjective.
I also think that if Mark Hamill hadn’t publicly reacted negatively to how Luke is handled in TLJ, people wouldn’t complain nearly as much about it, and might be able to find the good in it. It’s the best and most interesting performance of his career. I think it’s very weird that he turned the conversation on it so publicly when he did such good work. It’s a bit disrespectful to Rian Johnson, to me. He wrote these beautiful scenes for him and gave his character a lovely send off.
Yeah, that’s basically where I’m at with the ST as well. It’s not for everybody, but it works for me (ROS a lot less than the others, but I also am indifferent to ROTJ and loathe ROTS). Book of Boba Fett was a “not for me” series (to the point of wanting a definitive ROTJ death for Boba), but I can’t really muster up much vitriol for it. Somebody likes it, but that somebody isn’t me. That’s totally OK.
Also, with the point about Mark, people neglect that Rian eventually won him over with that arc for Luke. If one wants to see what happens when you let an actor guide the entirety of their legacy character, look no further than Star Trek: Picard. I like Sir Patrick, but he’s always insisted on this terrible “action hero” version of Picard that’s completely at odds with the Picard of TNG. It screwed up the TNG movies and has definitely hurt ST:P.
You could still have new characters like Rey, Poe and Finn and easily set it in the far future. Don’t repeat the same beats rebels vs empire. Don’t crap all over the legacy characters. The sequels are a mixed bag. But the one thing they botched Luke, Han and Leia. Completely and utterly. Its almost unforgivable.
I would say the opposite there, as Luke in TLJ was handled excellently (Han and Leia a bit less, but nothing too outrageous like some claim). I’d also say that “unforgivable” is a strong word to use in the context of a movie franchise. Cheating on your wife with her best friend or stealing money from your family would be “unforgivable,” not doing divisive things with legacy characters.
I believe that disposing of The Prophecy/The Chosen One is the best change one can make in a PT fanedit, aside from cutting the toilet humor in TPM. I just don’t like retroactively trying to reframe the OT as also part of “Anakin’s saga.” It’s just my preference and if you like the reframing that’s fine with me.
ADDITIONS (so far)
Extended Han/Leia kiss? 😉
It’s in B/W, so I’ll probably save it for a 2nd version of this project. But yes I do like that alt version of the scene.
Thank goodness the most important section, “OK, hotshot!” is in color.
I mean, I’m tempted to say that Vader being Luke’s father was a bad idea in hindsight.
Wow they literally used the exact same joke as Robot Chicken for Order 66 but with worse execution.
Eh, a short bit is better than Seth MacFarlane getting to sing a silly song again. I’m just not that into the guy.
Paul Thomas Anderson is undoubtedly an auteur and his last movie quotes many others many times, including several direct references to Lucas’ American Graffiti. Doubt that makes PTA any less of an auteur.
It’s like saying Enigma/Michael Cretu isn’t an artist because he uses samples (sometimes without permission).
I’m very happy that “Luke with Yoda in his backpack” is a playable character! It’s such a fun visual.
Speaking of visuals, the demo sections really show a higher emphasis on visual humor than what was present in the more recent entries. I’m also happy that no reused movie voice clips are here, as those really felt out-of-place in the TFA game.
I just prefer to preserve every version of the movie. It’s why I believe Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now, Star Trek: TMP/TWOK, and Superman II are the gold standard in releases that respect the versions that got initial acclaim or derision and the directors’ intended versions (which could be better, worse, or just have different issues than the original release).
The original cuts of the movie should be preserved alongside the 1997, 2004/2011, and 3D cuts. Heck, The Lost Cut should have a preservation of some kind.
If the film does well then maybe a new tie-in game, or update of the old RS games too?
Factor 5 being dead for over a decade doesn’t help matters much in updating the old RS games (i.e., the source code is probably lost). If the code still exists, a publisher could port the game to modern systems, a la the Jedi Outcast/Jedi Academy and Republic Commando ports. If it doesn’t, a ROM of the original games running in a distinct Gamecube emulator would be acceptable.
We’re long past an age when Dolphin Emulator would turn into into a potato at the mere mention of the Rogue Squadron games.
I’m in the Bionicle fandom, so I’ve learned to be reticent to demand all the answers from the creators about things they probably never even considered too deeply. Too many people pestered Greg Farshtey (Bionicle’s head writer) for answers about characters’ appearances during the canon contests.
Creators don’t owe you all the answers to minutia.
So, mea culpa. I got Rick Worley confused with So Uncivilized (as in, I thought Rick Worley was SU’s real name). My mistake. I’ve seen some of So Uncivilized’s work and would compare it to a more pretentious “Every Frame a Painting.”
I am curious about Worley’s attempts to explain the ending to The Sopranos, as it’s one of my favorite deconstructions of a fiction genre (mafia/mob cinema). I tend to think the ending of the show is fairly ancillary to the points Chase was trying to make about Tony, his masculinity (the Tony/Dr Melfi dynamic) and the familiar/external power structures in his life. For me, the biggest finale moment of the show would be Melfi and Tony’s final exchange.
I’ve seen bits of Worley’s material and he strikes me as somebody who wanted to cash in on “Every Frame a Painting,” but with several extra layers of pretentiousness and a predilection to tell instead of show. He has more in common with Pop Culture Detective or Mauler than any real critic.
It’s nice that he can express himself like that, but to me he’s no better than what Plinkett did. He too is giving his “opinions” with a college essay level of critique. It’s a Leo Bloom-like attachment to the author and refusal to consider what the contemporary world around the author and revisionist scholars perceived the work to be. Either that or it’s a less successful version of what Peter Bogdanvich did with Orson Welles, much to Pauline Kael’s dismay.