Broom Kid

It’s a good question. For whatever reason, consumers have told content providers that they’re not really interested in physical media anymore (despite the fact our internet infrastructure is pretty bad, way overpriced, and regulated poorly by our government) and it seems pretty plausible that 4K is essentially where physical media stops. While this is a bad thing in a lot of ways - the removal of the cost of producing physical copies could remove a barrier or two.

Of course, the cost probably isn’t a very big concern as to why the original versions aren’t being released - but it would probably be easier to make them a digital only release. Digital only releases are likely what we’re looking at in the next 10 years anyway.

It’s a good point that in both TFA and TROS Abrams doesn’t seem to understand the basic tension principles at play that made the climax of Star Wars and Jedi work. It wasn’t just that the weapon was destructive, and could cause destruction. It’s that the destructive weapon was pointed at people we cared about, and the heroes had to disarm and destroy the weapon before it went off in the worst way.

It’s why fan-edits that combine Starkiller firing on Hosnian Prime with the climax of the movie tend to make that film work better. The battle at the end of TFA and ESPECIALLY the battle here at the end of TROS are dramatically inert because THAT’S the difference between knocking a gun off a table and KILLING THE PERSON POINTING A GUN AT YOU.

ROTJ’s climax was a re-tread (a lot of ROTJ was a re-tread, Lucas admitted as much a couple times - it’s his ANH makeup with more money) but at least the idea of the gun being aimed (and even fired) at our heroes directly was still intact and it added stakes and tension to the proceedings. In TROS you had an entire fleet of Star Destroyers, some of which had planet-destroying guns, but there was never any goal but “Don’t let them get out.”

They should have already gotten out and the race was to stop them from being able to fire.

My understanding is that it’s the same as the blu-ray mix (done by Matthew Wood, I believe?) but I don’t know if that’s actually the case or if it was an assumption made in the early days of the 4k release being out. It took awhile for people to realize what the 4K masters were, too. Audio changes tend to not get noticed as fast or as thoroughly, so it’s a really good question that I’m curious to see answered too.

idir_hh said:

You assumed his video was a less unintelligent retread of other critique’s.

I’m not reviewing his video. I didn’t critique his critique. I assumed it was less intelligent than others because he’s presenting it in an unintelligent way. I don’t know why I’d want to “give him a chance” when it seems like what he’s offering is more YouTube negativity which I feel like there’s already way too much of. Again, I’m not discussing his work at all. I’m discussing that presentation and why it’s a turnoff for me. It’s not that hard. There’s probably a ton of stuff you don’t ever watch or read simply because it doesn’t seem like it’d appeal to you. Everyone does this. They’re not wrong for doing it.

It’s a two hour YouTube video about a movie I already know I don’t like and I already know what it is I don’t like about it, because I’ve spent some time thinking about it, I’ve spent some time talking about it, and I’ve already spent some time reading other critics who I already know I enjoy and appreciate. All by itself, on that alone, it’s a hard sell. Adding the whole “two-hour rage rant” thing makes it extra-unattractive.

I don’t know what else to tell you. And since people keep piping up to pitch their two cents in on whatever this has been, it’s probably good to just let it lie.

idir_hh said:

If you don’t want to watch a video that’s up to you I don’t really care.

If you didn’t care, none of what just happened this afternoon would have happened at all. Nothing wrong with caring.

Also, I never actually criticized the video because I never watched it. Because of the counterproductive, off-putting title that describes an experience promising a rant-filled two hours of unbridled rage.

The title ABSOLUTELY takes away from whatever merit it might have. That’s the whole point. It’s not unreasonable to be discerning about what you put into your body and your head. If someone is voluntarily choosing to advertise their “content” as a rant comprising two hours of unbridled rage it’s perfectly reasonable for me (or anyone else) to avoid it.

Again, it’s not like an all-or-nothing thing here, either. There are multitudes of opinions (most from people with better standing and resumes in terms of cultural analysis and critical thought than “MauLer” on YouTube) I can seek out if I want to read an unsparing analysis of where The Rise of Skywalker went wrong. I’m not being unfair to “MauLer” by choosing someone else’s offerings because they presented an option that’s much more appealing by dint of not presenting as an online reactionary monetizing anger on YouTube.

How bout this - I’m almost 100% convinced there isn’t anything MauLer is going to say in this video that hasn’t already been said somewhere else, by someone else, in a much more intelligent and less “upset” manner, and I don’t need to spend two hours to hear it all again from a YouTube personality, especially since I already agree that it’s a broken, misguided mess of a film.

idir_hh said:

Right… So you’re basically judging a book by its cover.

Of course I am. That’s an old cliche, not a binding rule of life and media consumption. Discernment and judgment play a huge part in deciding what media you consume, and when “the cover” in question is telling you “I’m a two-hour rant video full of unbridled rage” and I’m not in the market for consuming YouTube “film criticism” comprising two-hours of “unbridled rage” I don’t think I’m at fault for deciding to give it a pass, especially when I know (because I’ve seen and read it) there is a lot of incisive, insightful, and meaningful writing on this movie (writing that has a primarily critical bent, and negatively critical at that) that won’t take anywhere near as much time to consume and isn’t primarily focused on how much “unbridled rage” and “ranting” it contains.

If a food product said “Made with bile, vinegar, and feces” I wouldn’t eat it. Especially not if you told me I had to spend the length of a movie eating it. And if someone accused me of being closed-minded for choosing not to consume bile, vinegar, and feces, more power to them but I’d disagree with the assessment. There’s a very thick line between “open minded” and “open to self-abuse.”

DrDre said:

These sort of videos have been popular ever since the days of good ol’ Plinkett.

Plinkett never called his videos “two-hour-rages” though. Plinkett’s early-internet popularity is the curse that keep giving, absolutely, and was very instrumental in the YouTube grift that is actively making the world a worse place every day, despite the fact all Red Letter Media really wanted to do was have fun goofing on Star Wars and Star Trek —they didn’t intend to help lay the groundwork for a Tantrum-Throwing-Industrial-Complex, obviously. But Red Letter Media has never gone out of their way to either suggest their critique is all that meaningful, and they’ve, so far as I know, never bald-face presented their work as the product of pure rage, either. Even their most acid takes are presented as easy-going, not-all-that-important jests.

If you click on something called “Two Hour Rage” and you actually watch all of it, and feel frustrated trying to convince people the title isn’t an accurate description of its contents, I don’t understand. Movie-length-reviews of movies are honestly a thing that barely justify their existence even IF they’re well-made and presented as rational and reasonable. If you stack the deck even further against yourself by making your critique encompass the behind-the-scenes making-of (that is almost hardly ever made public and necessitates assumption, conjecture, theory-crafting applied to REAL people, and typically a bunch of bad information) and then you couch the actual film criticism part of your review as a “two hour rage” it shouldn’t be a mystery as to why people might avoid it on general principle.

Advocates for this sort of online rage obviously benefit financially from this approach because appealing to prurient interests and unearned anger is a good grift on the algorithm-focused platform that is YouTube. But it’s also worth keeping in mind a lot of people prefer to enjoy things, and not “rage” at them. If you present a thing that is asking for two-hours of your time and you’re promising it will be filled with “rage” people will probably give it a pass as there’s enough “rage” inducing content out there in people’s real lives that giving more time to it (over something as low-stakes as a Star Wars movie) will seem pretty unappealing.

I still haven’t read or heard a piece of criticism about Rise of Skywalker that did as much to point out the film’s weaknesses in a clear, concise, easy-to-understand (and feel) manner than the film freak central review, and even if someone took the harshest possible interpretation of that review as a “rage” it still wouldn’t come close to 10 minutes if someone simply read it aloud, and it takes even less time to actually read. “Two Hour Rage” is the sort of indulgence that only in a very, very rare instance could possibly justify itself, and I have hard time believing “MauLer” on YouTube is gonna manage that justification.

Hiding reasonable, justified criticisms behind something called “two-hour-rage” is ridiculously counterproductive. Why would anyone want to watch a “two-hour-rage” directed at anything?

If the criticisms are reasonable and justified what’s the benefit in presenting them as two hours of concentrated rage?

spectraljulian said:

I think so much of it is a reflection of how the majority of Hollywood has really forgotten how to make quality mass entertainment.

But this is pretty clearly untrue. Hollywood is probably better now at making quality mass entertainment (which I’m taking to mean large-scale blockbusters since most studio product is intended to appeal to a “mass audience”) than at any time in its prior history. The last 20 years of major-studio blockbuster filmmaking has considerably more legitimately well-made and affecting films than the '80s and '90s do. That Star Wars turned out a bad movie isn’t really a reflection of anything but Star Wars being Star Wars (Star Wars has never batted 1.000, and it’s sort of unreasonable to think it should). Not to excuse the film’s quality or make apologies for it (I didn’t like it either) but I don’t think The Rise of Skywalker is really a reflection of anything but it’s own production, it’s not part of a larger industry trend. If it were, it probably would have stuck the landing in a manner much closer to Avengers: Endgame. Which, as a reminder, was critically acclaimed on top of becoming the highest grossing film ever.

Also, you didn’t mention any satisfying elements to offset the negative ones. Did nothing come across as satisfying?

It’s funny to think Orwell was using a light touch when envisioning a worst-case scenario future. And yet, who needs a two-minute-hate when you can have a monetized Two-Hour-Rage on the freevee?

Except at this point, acceding to fan demands would be doubling down on the very mistake they previously made on the production of the movie itself. They’re in kind of a tough place on that point.

Their best course of action on that front is to stop making themselves available to fans on that level so that way they’re not beholden in an ugly way to whatever fandom’s whims might be. With that concern more-or-less removed from the table (however long that might take) it would be easier for them to do these sorts of things without it seeming like a response or capitulation to outside pressure. Basically - every other studio simply does these sorts of things because they want to do it for their own internal reasons.

Tangentially, this is probably part of the reason Warners hasn’t pursued a “Snyder Cut” for Justice League (only part, and probably not a very big one) - if they ever announce that, it’s going to be seen as validating a section of the fanbase that’s been seen to be very ugly about what they want. Aside from the fact fandom whims are fairly fickle and not well thought out in many cases - Hollywood producers have a thing about control, and they like to appear like they’re maintaining it. Things like this imply they don’t really have it, and that implication is not one most people at the studios would prefer to nurture if they don’t have to.

The Sonic case is interesting, but I also think a big part of it has to do with Paramount being a studio that is in a terrible position (it’s barely a major at this point) and eating the amazingly bad buzz the trailer created THAT early wasn’t a great option. The Deadpool case wasn’t so much fandom getting the job done as it was savvy producers (Reynolds/Miller) taking advantage of a studio regime change to build buzz for a project via “leaked footage” that was already most of the way there. It’s more like they used the fandom to get what they want rather than the studio organically responding to fandom pressures.

I think best case scenario are deleted scenes on disc 2. I don’t think there’s going to be an extended cut, mostly because I don’t think Abrams ever planned on doing one, didn’t really want to do one, and nobody at Lucasfilm seemed to be entertaining the notion that one would be possible. Or would need to be possible. That studio especially is probably pretty jumpy at the notion of post-release alterations being applied, for reasons that are pretty obvious here. In order for one to be made, they’d have to be working on it now for an as-yet unannounced double-dip release (which certainly wouldn’t be done in time for the Skywalker Saga set, I don’t think) and I don’t think anyone involved really wants to even mess with The Rise of Skywalker anymore. Pretty much everything said in the past two weeks by anyone who worked on that film seems to be just… angering everybody.

Besides which, Bad Robot has more or less moved on, and are a Warner Bros. affiliate now anyway. Lucasfilm, in that case, would have to essentially handle any “extended cut” business themselves, without Abrams - and that’s a whole 'nother can of worms to consider.

act on instinct said:

The times they are a changin’. I made the thread because the demand is there and Hollywood does seem to respond when there is significant demand (not that this is a form of petition or any call to action), the means might be unconventional but not unprecedented in the social media age.

I don’t think they’re really changing. I can’t think of any real examples of “Hollywood” increasingly giving into fan demand by releasing “fixed” versions of popular movies already in release. More often what happens is these extended versions are already being worked on before fans even start “demanding” anything. Another good example is the Batman v. Superman extended cut, which Snyder had already prepped for home video release even before people ever thought to ask for it. And again, that’s a Warner Bros title - “Hollywood” isn’t a single hive mind, many people at the different studios have different ideas on how to extend the life of a film once it leaves theaters. Warners has had a lot of success with the double- (and triple-) dip in the past, so they’re very amenable to letting directors and producers negotiate for longer versions of their movies on home video. Other studios don’t do this nearly as much, and there’s not a lot of evidence that I can see of other studios (or that one, even) putting extended and/or “fixed” versions of their films on home video as a direct response to fan wishlists.

Anyway, if the times were really changing the Snyder Cut of Justice League would have been released already, considering that’s the single most asked for “extended cut” in the past couple years. But so far that’s a big no-go, and that’s WITH one of the friendlier studios to extended home video cuts in charge.

I didn’t start this thread as confirmation of anything or a reaction to any news I read,

Oh I’m not saying you did, but the conversation being commented upon at this point isn’t really related to your original post anymore, and is primarly dedicated to the possibilities as presented via that Saltier Than Crait fanfic and the “news” report from the unheard-of-before-now website.

Still though - even if we set aside those two “sources” as the key basis to speculate on an extended cut, we’re still proceeding from a sort of broken premise, that asking Lucasfilm to give us an extended cut will actually work out in our favor. There’s an irony involved in people on Original Trilogy believing that demand will inevitably produce supply, haha. But the biggest problem is we have zero evidence that Abrams ever wanted to protect for an “extended cut” on home video later (so far as I know he’s never done this) and no evidence that either he or Lucasfilm were keeping that possibility open at any point during production. It’s hard to suggest the option might make itself available if nobody involved ever considered the option at all.

Not to say it’s impossible, but there’s not a lot going for it either.

Mocata said:

I’m not arguing the fact, it’s just interesting to see how little (comparatively) some films made. But they carried forward anyway instead of being reactive. By Phase 2 it was clearly in the groove.

Right, that rejection of the reaction/correction impulse - at least to an ostentatious degree, as we’ve seen multiple times at Lucasfilm, both during the George and Post-George eras, is a big key to Marvel’s ongoing success. They’re not aiming at the reactionaries in the first place, and they’re not altering course based on those reactions. They make corrections and re-adjust as they go, obviously. But they’re very careful not to cede control to any real degree to the very vocal minority of their audience. They don’t do anything that makes their films THAT fragile/precious, basically.

It’s funny to look back at Captain America’s reception from here in 2020. The movie didn’t do poorly at the box-office, and it wasn’t badly-reviewed, either. But it came out just before people started to understand what MARVEL could be and how it was going to rewrite box-office rules, and was being judged against the conventional wisdom of what these movies were supposed to be, and it suffered for that. But you rewatch now and it’s like a Phase Three movie grabbed the time-stone and snuck back into Phase One. It’s got a lot of style, doesn’t adhere to the "Marvel Formula’ as people like to think of it, and makes some pretty bold choices along the way. I believe it’s still the only Marvel Movie to have a musical montage in the middle of it.

Save for Iron Man, most of Phase One was mid-tier box-office. Marvel didn’t become MARVEL until The Avengers. It’s part of why that film’s success was so surprising. Up until that opening weekend nobody was really sure the gambit would work, much less work THAT well.

Nobody ever expected that much from the series, even after its cultural takeover had begun. It’s part of the reason comparing Star Wars to Marvel is such a loaded and unfair notion - Marvel’s never had decades of behind-the-scenes myth-making and cultural importance shoved upon it by fans and media helping raise the bar almost unreachably high with EVERY movie. It’s just been consistently producing and releasing good-to-great action films annually. So when its movies don’t excel at the box-office every time out (Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Captain America, etc.) nobody really seems to mind. There’s not that much riding on them, normally, at least not in the way Star Wars is seen to always have the weight of a whole galaxy riding on it, both in the fictional universe and out in the real world.

Marvel Studios is actually helped by the fact they’ve never courted that level of scrutiny, or indulged in that kind of behind-the-scenes mythmaking. They seem to prefer an atmosphere where if you dig it, that’s great, and if you don’t, it’s not that big a deal, we’ll get you on the next one. Whereas at Lucasfilm if you dig it, you were supposed to, so it’s not really a victory, but if you don’t dig it, that’s a huge sign of something horribly awry on a frightening level that invites a million thinkpieces on what should be fixed. The distinction is essentially one where the studio never lost sight of the general audience as their PRIMARY audience, as opposed to Lucasfilm, whose target audience seemed to increasingly be people who felt the need to feed into such huge, heavy, cultural expectations when they went to the theater.

Age of Ultron was essentially Marvel’s “The Rise of Skywalker” and… it basically didn’t matter by the time the next movie came out. Marvel knew it could release Ant-Man or Doctor Strange and it didn’t matter if it only did 1/2 what Iron Man did, because nobody in Marvel’s target audience is expecting Avengers numbers every time out for every title.

thedewback2 said:

I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility. IT 2 and Doctor Sleep are both getting extended cuts on home video, and with Endgame and Spider Man both getting rereleases with new footage, who knows what’s going to happen. Considering that none of the things I’ve mentioned above were asked for but still happened

This breaks down along the idea that extended/director’s cuts only happen because the audience asks for it. That’s not usually how that sort of thing happens, it’s not a supply/demand sort of deal for the most part. Often these sorts of things happen because it’s built into the contract signed with the studio before filming has started. That’s not always how it happens, but it frequently happens that the presence of extended/director’s cuts aren’t due to fandom requests, but from either the director’s requesting it of the studio, or the studio wishing to increase the profitability of the home video release (in those cases sometimes the Director doesn’t even really want the extended version out there but it’s out of their hands).

In the case of IT and Doctor Sleep, those extended cuts were part of the planning for those projects before filming even got underway - the directors knew they’d have an opportunity to go back and make changes to what they were aiming for theatrically, and now it’s happening. It’s not really comparable to this situation, especially since the studio in question there is Warner Bros, not Lucasfilm. IIRC, that was the same scenario with Lord of the Rings, although there it was more of a gamble - Jackson was shooting stuff he figured he’d put back on the home video release, it was basically a question of whether the film would be successful enough that the studio would then allow him to finish and release those cuts. Of course, they were, and Warner Bros/New Line was more than happy to extend the profitability of their home video dept during the double-dip era of DVD.

The two Marvel examples you pointed out were, IIRC, closer to “the studio wishing to increase profitability” and essentially putting deleted scenes/trailers at the end of the credits, not re-cutting the whole movie. The major difference between all those examples and this one is that there’s no indication from anyone, anywhere, that Abrams ever had a contingency like that in mind.

This whole “extended cut” nonsense is more than likely out of the realm of possibility simply because it depends on all the poorly-thought-out fan-fiction that goes along with it being true as a premise, in order for the “extended cut” to exist. The whole reason we’re even discussing the possibility is tied to a single Saltier Than Crait post that is fairly ridiculous, and supported by an unsourced, unverified report from a heretofore unheard of “news” site nobody knows anything about that is also ridiculous in its own way.

We already know it isn’t true. If there were a lick of truth to any aspect of this there is no way the only site still running it would be the one nobody had ever heard of before this story dropped.

The logistics alone don’t really make any sense.

I gotta imagine S2 is going to have more of him unmasked. The Darksaber (every single person we’ve seen wield it before Moff Gideon was a Mandalorian who, I belive, wasn’t wearing a helmet when they held it) is basically pointing that way. The question is how soon into the run does that revelation happen?

My hope is that this show follows a similar trajectory to Rebels S2, where once the tone was more or less set and people finally understood what the show could be, they essentially went full-speed ahead.

Yeah, I think that’s exactly what’s being set up. If you’ve never watched the cartoons, you’re taking all these Mandalorian rules at face value, and you’re curious to learn more. If you HAVE watched the cartoons, you’re now anxious to see what happens when Din realizes everything he knew about Mandalorian culture was extremely limited.

It’s kind of slick, really. In season 2 (and probably 3) what happens is one half of the audience gets educated along with Din, and the other half gets to enjoy the pure drama of watching him recontextualize his whole life once he discovers the truth.

It’s a show whose first season features “This is the way” as a mantra/catchphrase, and whose second season is almost guaranteed to say “LOL no it isn’t.”

does this place not have a block or ignore function? I’m not very familiar with the software.

it still for me feels so abrupt and Luke seems barely nudged into going 0-100,

I don’t know about it being “abrupt,” he’s mentioning he knew something was up with the kid, and then he went into his mind. Consider that going into someone’s mind like that is basically like “Drifting” in Pacific Rim, or… like DRINKING the pensieve in Harry Potter. So he saw what Kylo would become, and instinctively pulled his weapon. Going 100 would be mean-mugging while pulling it up and swinging it down while shouting (which is how it played in Kylo’s lie to Rey). But in this case he pulled the weapon, and then looked at it like “What in the hell am I doing.”

The tragedy, of course, is that the second he did it is the very second the would-be genocidal dictator in question rolled over and looked at him, and then pulled a hut down on top of him in response.

If you want to make it even MORE morally complicated, you could interpret Kylo’s side as not so much a lie, but his perception of Luke’s regretful, ashamed hesitance being twisted by the Dark Side. He THINKS that’s what he actually saw because he’s so poisoned by cynicism, fear, and anger that he can’t help but see it in Luke.

(once again, another example of Kylo’s POV being used as a means to slyly comment on Star Wars fandom itself).

People don’t overcome their shortcomings and then never ever make them ever again for the rest of their life, though.

His mistake in this example is “seeing that his nephew will commit genocide on a scale his father never dreamed of and instinctually flicking on a lightsaber” - before immediately feeling a flood of total shame at himself in response. It’s actually a lesser mistake, considering the first time he tried to save one of his genocidal relatives he kicked the hell out of him and then cut his hand off before just barely managing to stop himself from delivering the killing blow.

Nobody solves a problem in their life once and then it stays solved forever. Even real life heroes struggle with those sorts of things. That he made that mistake (among others, including subtly succumbing to hubris and vanity) doesn’t erase his maturation as a character (especially considering the rest of the film’s characterization of Luke, and Hamill’s amazing work in bringing it depth and meaning). It complicates it, but by the end of the film’s arc, it’s enriched. Luke does something no Jedi’s ever done, not even Yoda. He only unlocks the potential and ability within himself to do that because he learns - finally - from the failures he kept incurring (as we all do) when his life continued past “happily ever after.”

Oh. You were talking about that.

OK. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

DuracellEnergizer said:

1. Yellow is hardly a unique lightsaber colour. It’s been a less common tertiary lightsaber colour for the Jedi since TCW.
2. Even if it was, she of all characters doesn’t deserve it.

What kind of character “deserves” what kind of color? What’s the criteria behind this? I’ve never heard anyone suggest the colors are “Deserved” or not.

Absolutely. “Lightspeed moves at the speed of plot” was a phrase created to explain how Empire Strikes Back’s timeline made any sense (it still doesn’t, really. Neither does the ‘12 parsecs’ retcon they made w/ Solo’s boast) and the thing I keep coming back to is that none of these logic gaps and nitpicks would matter if the story was good at distracting you from them. Or if the story was good (and executed well on top of that) at all.

It’s not as if these problems were explicitly addressed IN the story that it’d make the story better. That’s the real problem. Even if Merry’s whole point in the movie was to stand over someone’s shoulder and explain how Lightspeed Skipping made sense, or how the necklace got located so quickly, it wouldn’t make those scenes any better. Sure, they’d be more logically sound, but that’s not worth much if you’re not emotionally engaged, and Rise of Skywalker isn’t great at that, so all the logical leaps being made just become all the more glaring.

Rumor is we’re getting a sequel to Rebels after this, and possibly an animated show based on Doctor Aphra.