The same could be said of The Room. I agree to the extent that everything but the script worked (the score was a bit dull too). Sadly the script is the most important component in any film.
Obviously I would like TMBTM to continue making 30s Style silent episodes. The score for TFA is the least memorable of any Star Wars film but he has mixed them a bit before.
I have a slightly different explanation for the instant skillz thang. Some Force abilities are natural to people strong in the Force. Little Annie had fast reflexes and prophetic foresight, Leia seemed to be able to sense danger and could read telepathic messages from Luke. Kylo had more training than Luke got from Ben or Yoda. Touching the saber triggered in Rey a series of dream images which were about the object but also about herself. This may be enough for her to telepathically scan Ren to learn the mind trick and even absorb his sword fighting skills from him but not being such a hissy queen as Ren meant she could use his skills with more discipline. Luke enters the cave and comes out with a insight we prevents him from giving into Vader.We don’t learn anything in the original films or prequels that contradicts Rey gaining knowledge from a connection to an object. A cave is an object. As for being critical of a film based on premise details alone, I have still yet to see The Sixth Sense because someone explained the basic set up for me and I predicted much of the film and the twist. It just seemed so obvious to me that I didn’t want to watch a film so easily decodable.
In the current release Yoda claims that an old friend has contacted him from the netherworld
So having him contacted from the Netherlands instead would be amusing… It’s sort of a joke… Funny thing
Yoda could be contacted by Ric from the Netherlands.
I thought as a forum we were open to opinions and observations? I think he makes lots of perfectly valid points. On topic points too.
Mr lizard I’m with you most of the way but in terms of the movies I think we can let Anadins ghost of the hook. The only person we know gets to see them is Luke. There is some talk of Qui-gon contacting Yoda from the Netherlands or something but we don’t really know the rules. Palpatine could be talking to him via his grandaddy’s hat. Maybe only people who met them in life get to see them. Qui-gon doesn’t turn up to give Luke advice. So as far as I’m concerned the ghost thing isn’t an issue.
Yeah Jay my review is up. I’m posting on a smartphone so pasting a link isn’t easy at the moment but I will later if I can remember. I was tempted to put it below ROTS because despite the obvious flaws in all the prequels I do remember leaving the cinema with that ‘cinema buzz’ of visiting a fictional realm and returning. When I left TFA I felt" hmmm that happened". The performances of the leads were great it looked great but it felt cynical albeit a more sophisticated cynical than Prometheus or The Phantom Menace. No buzz.
Shouldn’t the countdown clock be reset for this now?
For me real universe shrinkage isn’t constantly visiting and finding out more about the same place. It’s hopping around places with different names that look the same and not finding out much about them or their cultures or customs. If you were to merge all that sand into one pile you would have one interesting and well explored place. Instead of three almost identikit places where only one is really explored.
My main edit would be to cut the bit where Kylo takes his helmet off while torturing Rey. So the reveal that he is just a twisted young man and not in need of the mask like the grandfather he hero worships would be made just before Han’s death.
I would have Artoo power up in the presence of the lightsaber.
In the theatrical cut he just waits until the end of the film… for reasons.
He should have some sort of trigger to get him awaken.
I would have had Rey find the sword in a wrecked Star Destroyer, it is being shipped to Palpatine as a trophy when the ship gets caught up in the battle. Maybe it had a secret that Anakin had discovered or Ben had hidden for Luke to find like in the early script of ESB.
I would either have Jaku Tatooine because it’s just too similar or have it what Endor became after all that space junk fell from the sky. It’s remamed Jaku because of the price of victory being so bitter for both sides.
The other flaws in the film are impossible to fix (specifically the cynical reuse of plot points from ANH, the criminal under use of some characters). The performances, direction and design of the film are spot on.
Kathleen Kennedy confirmed at the European TFA premiere that “all the cast members you see here tonight” will be back for Episode VIII. Present at the event? Harrison Ford. Now, KK could very well have been bending the truth to avoid spoiling TFA, but if she wasn’t, what do we think this means? Personally, my money is on Kylo having an hallucination of the old man.
Max von Sydow is also in that shot too and he was killed within the first scene! I’m thinking they’ll show some flashbacks then as well in VIII…?
I really don’t want to see Han again. Even cameo appearances will make his death feel cheapened.
Edit: Actually, it could work to help flesh out Kylo Ren if need be. Han for flashback (although, that’s a weird territory for a SW film to go into), I’ll tolerate. Han SURVIVING, that’s a huge no-no.
Maybe Max Von faked his death and is Snoke, still want Leia to be Snoke though.
1.Casting someone as amazing a Max Von and hardly using him. Similarly not having R2 and Threepio more in the film (they are meant to be the chroniclers of the saga) they could have been deployed as decoys to BB8 for example.
2.The whole section on Han’s big ship was a waste of screen time it would have made more sense to have something like that happen on Jaku.
3.Making Jaku another sand planet. Either call it Tatooine or make differently desolate.
4.Having characters like Phasma and the people chasing Han in the film for a few scenes and then not doing much with them.
5.Having Ren take his mask off before that scene with Han. The reveal that the mask is essentially cosplay because he wants to copy his poweful grandfather who needed to wear a mask is a character note that should go with that scene.
6.The general cynicism of the whole film. The way it copies whole junks of the original just to jingle fan tassles was kind of insulting for such a well acted, directed and designed movie.
7.Leia wasn’t revealed to be Snoke in this film but she will be… she will be…
Interesting how many people are watching it more than once. Is it because it’s Star Wars or because you think the movie was that good?
BTW I hope a home video release will have lots of deleted scenes.
I watched TPM several times because I wanted to believe I had missed everything that great about it. I only discovered more bad things and then came AOTC.
Okay just seen the film.
It’s Okay.
Generally speaking everyone gives a good performance, Leia doesn’t do much. Max Von might as well be someone else. Artoo does next to nothing but sleep (maybe Artoo is the Force). But in terms of general cast performances it’s better than Jedi.
What this film lacks in performances is a power house like the relationship between Luke and Palpatine to lift it above ROTJ.
When the Emperor reveals his trap to Luke we get a genuine sense of peril. There is also a ripple of excitement when Luke ignites his saber. This film has whole worlds destroyed (was that really Coruscant they blew up there?) and kills off a beloved major character and I didn’t feel it.
Well not enough.
Stylistically this film lacks the grasp of visual language that the first film had in spades. The opening shot of Star Wars told us all we needed to know about the world we were entering. It was the Jaws poster with spaceships. The Empire is the shark, the good guys are being eaten alive. The Death Star battle had amazingly designed stages to it leading to that trench which focused us to the target. The same is true of the Hoth battle and The Asteroid Chase in ESB. This film had very little of that. Only the escape through the guts of a super-ISD had something of that level design.
Plot… see ANH same story different faces. I have no real problem with that as such but I feel that some the problem I have connecting to this film is it’s constructed in a very cynical way but in a more skilled cynical way than the PT or even ROTJ
It is designed to milk my nostalgia teets and I want to be romanced first. I felt the death of Obi-Wan far more than the death of Han and Han was my childhood hero while Ben, I’d only just met.
I love the new characters, they work so much better than the old ones do in this film that I can’t help but suspect the film would be better off reducing all the OT appearances to even less and just have Luke as the main returning player. I certainly would have seen more of Max Von Sydow and would have sacrificed a bit of Carrie’s screen time to do it. The look on Luke’s face was astonishing. Holding back on Hamill was a mistake but it’s not going to harm the box office of this film.
The new cast are equal to the original cast in terms of performances (BB8 is the star of course) but they deserved to appear in a better film than this one. Hopefully the rest of the trilogy will give them more to do. They deserve the success that Harrison Ford achieved in later life.
My hopes are that in new films, new plots that aren’t just a list of references to the other films are made so if the next one opens with a resistance base being attacked by the First Order looking for Ray who is being taught by Luke who had to leave to save her friends. I will be pissed off beyond words so watch this space. The Knights of Ren and Kylo’s Master are interesting. We only see a supersized hologram so really anyone could be behind this. I notice Kylo gets a scar to match his mentor. Could there be time travel in the Star Wars universe? Could he be corrupting himself by visiting the past? Still pissed it’s not Leia. She would be so much better as a villain than as a General.
1.ESB 90 balls
2.ANH 80 balls
3.ROTJ 67 balls
4.TFA 65 balls
5.ROTS 60 balls
6.TPM 20 balls
7.AOTC 15 balls.
Maybe he could Rickroll her. Artoo could rickroll Ben with the holographic message.
Something like this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-HUgzYPm9g
Friday maybe?
Dave Vader could torture Leia with a Boom Box that plays Duke Dooku’s greatest hits.
Double post.
My problem with renaming the desert planet in Return of the Jedi is we already know from watching The Empire Strikes Back that Luke and Lando are planning to meet on Tatooine. Indeed if you are going to use Ben’s haunted house it too is on Tatooine. I know it’s a bugbear for some forum members but I don’t have a problem with Tatooine actually being the centre of the Star Wars universe.
In the first film Luke is a teenager. In the 20’s and 30’s citizens of nations that had developed industrial cities with such wonders as horseless carriages and giant sky scraping towers fantasised about Tarzan, The Sheik, The Arabian Knights, Merry old England etc. If you have been to Medieval England you would know it was a rough horrid nasty place full of death and the people who lived there all had fantasies of going to the Holy Land which was another horrid hell hole.
Luke thinks Tatooine is boring because he hasn’t seen it from our eyes where giant lizards and duel sunsets are exotic and interesting. I would rename Geonosis Tatooine too (still haven’t seen the TFA but Jakku seems to make more sense as Tatooine than another random world). It would take a colour shift but it would make sense.
In the first film we have a planet where the Jawas make money out of salvage, The locals hate droids, some them keeping non-robotic slaves in preference and natives are terrified of Jedi. If you were to have Tatooine occupied by the droid armies of the Republic and liberated in episode 2 it makes sense as to why twenty years later the Jawas still can make a living out of clearing the sands. I mentioned this on the Prequel Redux thread many many moons ago and then along came the trailer for TFA and it made me smile to think someone had come up with a similar idea.
Flitting from one identical planet to another is not universe building. Most of Frank Herbert’s books are set on the same planet and are much more detailed and epic than the current Star Wars universe.
There is so much not just stylistically but narratively wrong with Return of the Jedi that I would prefer it to be treated like the PT:R. No sacred tickcows.
The Han rescue currently doesn’t make narrative sense. Yoda’s death scene doesn’t make character arc sense (he waits around for two decades to train a guy for a day or so and then dies mid sentence???)
It’s highly regarded but there are people who regard the prequels in exactly the same way. I’ve met them. The PT was their entry point into the universe and they love it regardless of it’s flaws. I think it’s almost as bad that they don’t have theatrical versions of the films they love to see.
But Revisited isn’t just a better special editions. It’s a series of special editions which attempts to make sense of that which currently doesn’t.
The effort that Ady and his pals put into correcting obvious continuity errors isn’t just for aesthetics, it’s so we are not taken out of the moment by something clearly revealing the art of the film making progress rather than immersing you in a fictional universe.
So I’m all for major changes on ROTJ:R knowing that the special edition of the hour and Harmy will be there to protect the films as they were either originally seen or officially sanctioned.
Nostalgia is served by preservation and reconstruction. This is a different kind of project as far as I understand it.
you meen hes a …?
Adywan has access to a physical performer with a film quality Threepio suit so it may be possible to remove Jar-Jar and film the actor in similar locations so the reflections on the suit match the existing material.
Filming the actor infront of set shots rear projected onto a screen would have a similar effect of creating plausible reflections to aid fitting the suit into the footage. In ROTS they did a rather good job of correcting the reflections to remove cameras etc. I’m not saying it would be easy but Ady does seem to like a challenge and other edit artists do too so there is probably an old school solution to many of these idea proposals.
No I haven’t seen the film just a couple of the trailers.