Creox

To add to my review and thoughts on the film I would like to say that I was hoping Rey and Kylo would somehow eliminate the Jedi and Sith orders as the extreme edges of the force that they are. Ending up with a combination of both. Not sure how that would play out in my head tbh but TROS did attempt to reconcile a smidge of that idea…Abrams just didn’t go far enough imo to see TLJ come to it’s natural conclusion.

The response to TLJ obviously grabbed Disney’s attention because this final movie sure demonstrates it.

Cthulhunicron said:

The more I think about this movie, the less sense it makes. The Sith dagger is one of the most baffling plot points for me. So Ochi wrote the location of the wayfinder on the dagger, and also designed the dagger to resemble the skyline of the Death Star wreckage? Why? As far as I can tell, nothing in the movie explains this.

Palpatine’s plan is confusing too. First he wants Rey dead, but later he wants to transfer his soul into her body. Rey eventually kills him, but his spirit doesn’t possess her body.

Also, how did Palpatine raise such a huge fleet all on his own on Exegol? Who’s piloting all those ships? Who is training all the Sith troopers? Who is developing all the new weapons? I can buy the empire or the first order having a massive military because they’re ruling over many different planets. It’s a bit tougher to swallow one planet raising an army substantially larger than the first order.

The dagger scene outlining the death star made no sense to me…Wreckage tends to continue to, well wreck as time goes by.

Broom Kid said:

I think making “sense” of the movie is most easily done if you look at it from the POV that it’s still 2016. It’s a story that - again - isn’t really ABOUT anything, thematically, and isn’t really saying anything beyond “here is how our plot is closed out,” and the decisions made to close out that plot seem to be focused almost solely on answering every last fan-chewed “mystery” that was hashed out in the early months of 2016 before many of the principals started disengaging from the media entirely.

Seriously, it’s not so much getting mad at The Last Jedi, or going out of its way to retcon it. This movie is more or less pretending it didn’t happen, save for the Force Projecting. Everything else is basically a race to answer a checklist of the main questions (whether they were already addressed or not) posed by The Force Awakens as fans understood them in 2016:

“Who is Snoke and what is his backstory?”
“What is Rey’s parentage and how did she wind up there?”
“Why is Rey so strong in the force” (The “Mary Sue” complaint, basically)
“Do Rey and Kylo want to kiss?” (This became “Reylo” eventually)
“Is Finn Force sensitive?”
“Who are the Knights of Ren?”
“What was Luke doing for all that time?”

That’s literally all this film IS about. Answering those questions. But the answers to those questions don’t POINT anywhere thematic or even mythical. They’re just plot - pure plot - and that’s why this movie feels so empty, emotionally. And that emptiness is compounded by the fact the answers they arrived at (and then rushed through) depend on more or less ignoring a better film that answered some of these questions much more simply and effectively, and most importantly, THEMATICALLY.

Good post…The reason for my emotional response to the movie has mostly to do with the fan service to the OT and the feelings of nostalgia it created for me.

I agree this is a flawed entry into the saga but then again it at least made me feel something. The PT’s rarely if ever did.

Thoroughly enjoyed this movie…more than the first two and would place this ahead of ROTJ…

I also watched TPM last night just to compare…well, no comparison. No emotional response, feeling bored, cringe worthy scenes etc

As to TROS, the big problem with the movie is the lightning quick edits that represent a need to cut the run time at the expense of fleshing out the scene. I hope there are a lots of deleted scenes in the BR release or even an extended edition (crosses fingers). The emotions I felt watching this were surprisingly strong and compare to watching ANH and ESB for the first time. Abrams does get SW in that respect and is likely the reason the audience score is so high as compared to TLJ (which I also liked).

I will be back with more thoughts later.

4throck said:

Just saw it and liked it very much. Editing, music and acting are top.
Better than all the prequels, and perhaps the best of the second trilogy.

Gave me back the sense of adventure, action and magic that Star Wars is all about.
I felt like a 12 year old and that’s what matters 😃

Just finished watching it ten minutes ago. Liked most of it and loved a few parts. It spoke to my 12 year old self who saw ANH in ,77.

I’ve concluded many of you naysayers are just curmudgeons;)

RU.08 said:

Warning, deep spoiler:

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsLeaks/comments/ecbvpa/rey_vs_palpatine/

That looks so awful.

Rey: “I am all the Jedi”???!?!? She’s not even a Jedi how can she claim to be them all? And Palpatine claiming to be “all the Siths” literally makes no sense as in the prequels, and indeed the Original Trilogy as well, he literally destroyed all the Siths. He killed them first, then the Jedi. He showed absolutely no allegiance to the Sith order. In my favourite Prequel he sends an ill-prepared apprentice Darth Maul to his death with the false-promise that he is much stronger “they will be no match” he tells him. That’s one of my favourite things about Phantom Menace is how heartless he is towards Maul, he’s really testing him to see if he’s strong enough to serve him - it’s complete self-interest. Just like how he tests Luke in Return of the Jedi (but he isn’t prepared for Luke).

Oh dear this is what Star Wars has become. Bringing back a beloved villain, just to make a complete mockery out of him.

I’ve always thought Palpatine was comically, singly faceted evil. And I love the character just that way.

I liked it. The effects are awesome imo without being BLING…as an example when the the Madalorian touches his ship down on the planet his bounty is hiding out. Puddles of water react realistically, gravity and inertia are great etc. The plot is well written and is short enough to not drag out. I’m curious about the hunter’s past after seeing the first episode and what’s going on with that baby…

Jay said:

Creox said:

Jay said:

DominicCobb said:

ATMachine said:

I personally won’t see TROS in the theater. I didn’t go to TLJ either.

No doubt there are what could be called hardcore fans who have no interest in the St altogether. But here’s my question, for someone like you, would watching and enjoying the Mandalorian make you more likely to see TROS in theaters?

For me, skipping TRoS is an easy choice because I didn’t like TFA all that much and I liked TLJ even less; any movie by J.J. that has to clean up after Rian is unlikely to interest me either.

To your point, Mandalorian is its own thing and enjoying it wouldn’t affect my decision to stay home for TRoS (just like my dislike for TFA/TLJ won’t stop me from checking out Mandalorian). I’m sure there’s a small minority of fans who are just done with all Star Wars at this point and will skip all Disney SW, but…

Creox said:

I’ve been reading and listening to hardcore SW fans for 40 years. I know that most that talk about not seeing a SW movie or TV, book series are blowing smoke. When the product is released, they get it, watch it.

My point with regards to that quote is this. Any one who is a member of this site and posts on it fairly regularly as many of you do are obviously fans of this franchise. TROS is the last to showcase two of the last OT actors and even if a person is upset with the direction the ST has gone is likely still interested or curious about how the saga ends. We are talking about a grand total expense of a movie ticket. Not like people are giving their left nut to go see this flic.

Like I said, I was content to wait until TLJ hit streaming and I’m planning to do the same with TRoS.

If somebody who maintained a Star Wars forum for 15 years can get sick of/bored by/frustrated with the ST enough not to bother, I’m sure there are one or two others.

Fair enough and I’m sure you’re right. My particular curiosity is one of cause. I think the ST has, by and large, been superior to the PT and equal to the OT in small ways. I get why people may not like the ST but at the end of the day I think the arguments tend to veer into minutia instead of the core impact of the ST and what the story is trying to relate to the audience. I mean, its just movies we are talking about. A franchise we all love in one way or another but still just movies. I get perplexed at how much emotion these kinds of discussions can generate. I love to mix it up with un like minded folks from time to time but…really?

Jay said:

DominicCobb said:

ATMachine said:

I personally won’t see TROS in the theater. I didn’t go to TLJ either.

No doubt there are what could be called hardcore fans who have no interest in the St altogether. But here’s my question, for someone like you, would watching and enjoying the Mandalorian make you more likely to see TROS in theaters?

For me, skipping TRoS is an easy choice because I didn’t like TFA all that much and I liked TLJ even less; any movie by J.J. that has to clean up after Rian is unlikely to interest me either.

To your point, Mandalorian is its own thing and enjoying it wouldn’t affect my decision to stay home for TRoS (just like my dislike for TFA/TLJ won’t stop me from checking out Mandalorian). I’m sure there’s a small minority of fans who are just done with all Star Wars at this point and will skip all Disney SW, but…

Creox said:

I’ve been reading and listening to hardcore SW fans for 40 years. I know that most that talk about not seeing a SW movie or TV, book series are blowing smoke. When the product is released, they get it, watch it.

My point with regards to that quote is this. Any one who is a member of this site and posts on it fairly regularly as many of you do are obviously fans of this franchise. TROS is the last to showcase two of the last OT actors and even if a person is upset with the direction the ST has gone is likely still interested or curious about how the saga ends. We are talking about a grand total expense of a movie ticket. Not like people are giving their left nut to go see this flic.

act on instinct said:

DominicCobb said:

Does it? Are there hardcore fans in this thread who are unwilling to go?

There have been comments made on this forum if not this thread by those who have claimed to be not going, not that I am trying to lionize that side or suggest they represent the majority but to those who feel that way I would say fair enough, free to do as they choose. But I wouldn’t discount them as hardcore fans, especially if they’re here at all. I really don’t want to get caught into a semantics thing though with what qualifies as or defines hardcore, it’s about the segment of otherwise dedicated fans who don’t enjoy the current direction of the ST or anthology movies.

If so, I’d love to hear if Mandalorian would make them more likely to because I don’t understand that line of thinking.

That’s sort of twisting my question as though it were my conclusion, I wanted to lay out the optimistic scenario and pessimistic for discussion. With respect to the former, the idea to me isn’t so far-fetched that the Mandalorian as a success wouldn’t also function as an extended advertisement for not just Disney+ but Star Wars generally as a hype machine, getting everyone talking about new Star Wars content overall and being more in the spirit to readily accept where they may have previously reacted apprehensively i.e. Solo.

Mandalorian was not going to be a film. The Boba Fett movie was a separate project.

Is this not splitting hairs a little? And what about the Kenobi series?

For hardcore fans I don’t really believe that’s true for the most part.

For any fans what they respond to the most will be the leading creative direction of Star Wars for the foreseeable future. And with the two projects contrasted in tone being released within only a month of each other, due to the proximity alone I find it feels like turning a blind eye to presume both can exist in a vacuum without some influence on the fate of the other.

I’ve been reading and listening to hardcore SW fans for 40 years. I know that most that talk about not seeing a SW movie or TV, book series are blowing smoke. When the product is released, they get it, watch it.

Mocata said:

Exactly. He’s always ripped off older stuff. Now I guess he believes his own legend and thinks SW and Raiders are ideas he imagined from nothing. What a guy.

Wasn’t his story line for the ST going to surround Whills or some shit? I cannot imagine how a trilogy about microscopic creatures who use midichlorians to create the force would be exciting to anyone but microbiologists. I find his responses on here to be not much more than sellers remorse.

yotsuya said:

Broom Kid said:

20th Century Fox paid for the Special Editions, yes. It was on their dime, and I believe it was initially their idea, too. Lucas ended up negotiating with them further, and used the money they’d initially earmarked for a 20th anniversary restoration and re-release of Star Wars to be a “Special Edition” trilogy project (I believe they got Fox to increase the budget at that point as well) but the story of the Special Edition starts with 20th Century Fox approaching Lucas about getting the original film back in theaters as an event, and Lucas then using his leverage to fix things he wanted to fix then, and add things he couldn’t have added, especially since Fox agreed to pay for it.

Now the quality of the “fixes” can be debated, and have been for over 20 years now, I’m not going to argue that the execution was successful. But the intent of the Special Editions was definitely different than the intent behind the DVD release, and the later blu-ray release. The Special Editions were initially begun with a bigger idea of “fixing” the movies so that they looked and felt more like he wanted them to back then. The DVD and Blu-Ray additions - not paid for by Fox - were undertaken more along the idea of “this seems cool, put it in there.”

Director tinkering is the best description for all three edit passes. It was the same thought process and the same type of changes. Only TESB had some real technical fixes (recompositing the snow effects shots). The rest were outright changes to the entire frame or recompositing new effects over existing footage. There really isn’t much different between changing the door in the 2011 version of ROTJ and changing the sandcrawler in the 1997 SE. Who was paying for it is irrelevant to the nature of the changes. It was all GL tinkering with his films to “improve them”.

Yeah, I agree with your last sentence though I can see where GL was going with some of his edits. He wanted to bring the OT more in line graphically with the PT. Where I find his edits really annoying is when he changed key aspects of the plot or adding FX for no obvious reason.

Humby said:

DominicCobb said:

Hal 9000 said:

So Han and Lando only knew each other for a relatively short time across two or so adventures?

Says who?

Yeah, I think the ending does a good enough job implying that these two continue to have a friendly rivalry throughout the years following.

That being said, I’d say it was a big mistake to pack everything we’ve heard about Han Solo’s past into one movie.

-Kid from Correlia
-Joins the empire & abandons it
-Meets Chewbacca and partners up
-Meets Lando
-Makes the Kessel Run
-Loves, loses her, becomes cold
-Becomes a “shoot first” kinda guy
-Wins the falcon

Yeesh. It blows my mind that Kasdan wrote this.

Kasdan may have rightly understood this was probably the one kick at the can he or others would have in telling Han’s story. I guess he wanted to get all the pertinent parts included.

Ryan-SWI said:

yotsuya said:

Star Wars movies have traditionally not relied on just diehard fans to make money.

How’d that go for Solo?

TROS won’t lose money but it’s not going to meet the expectations suits at the top want.

Star Wars has been on a decline in public interest for a while now. Movie sales are down. Toy sales are down. Merch sales are down. Book/comic/game sales are down. Google searches are down. Trailer views are down. Social media engagement is down. Everything is down.

Why there are still people who insist that Star Wars is doing just fine is beyond me. The IP is tanking hard, worse than it ever has before, and the numbers are reflecting that in droves.

Disney/nuLucasfilm has torpedoed the brand and if TROS underperforms it’s in serious trouble.

I can’t tell if you are happy to be saying this or sad. Star Wars will be just fine.

Mocata said:

It’s nice that people enjoy these kinds of lists but it doesn’t make them feel the same or have the same kind of viewing experience. Beyond a few visual effects set pieces and John Williams moments. The entire Ring Theory idea is hilarious straw grasping from what I’ve read, while ironically showing that the films don’t hold up by themselves and need pages of fan theory gibberish to make them have anything compelling under the surface. The idea that any of the current movies are making the PT seem better in hindsight is also hilarious considering that they’ve managed to at least have memorable/likeable characters and discussions of the Force which aren’t outright embarrassing. There are a lot of odd people out there but those claiming the PT is genius for copying the OT while bemoaning the ST as a rehash or some of the oddest.

I think the ST actually makes the OT more complete and the PT farther removed.

Omni said:

I think he was too much inside the lines. He’s talking as if he made something completely different and… I don’t think he did. It’s a very good movie, one I enjoy quite a bit - some incredibly well directed sequences and my all time favorite moment in the franchise (Luke vs. FO), but… it’s still a very derivative movie. A lot of the time it felt to me as if I was watching TESB + RotJ + x = TLJ, x being the bit of originality the movie had. To me that was the dynamic between Rey, Kylo and Luke, which is exactly the sort of great expansion from something in the OT (the connection Luke, Vader and Ben had) I was hoping we’d get in the ST. It’s inspired by, but not so much of an almost-copy as some of TFA and some (albeit much less) of TLJ. It’s brilliant. A bit of Canto Bight and the Holdo-Poe dynamic are also original aspects of the movie in my view. So yeah, there is quite a bit of originality, but it’s not enough for him to proudly claim he “step[ped] outside of the bounds of what the original movies did”, or something. Again, it’s a nice movie, and I enjoy it enough, but I don’t think it’s this far out thing a lot of people, including the film’s director, say it is.

Maybe someone could enlighten me? From all of the discussion I’ve seen regarding TLJ, the fact that it’s a very different movie is usually a given, and… I don’t get it.

I sort of agree with you in that I think Johnson directed an great SW flic. That being said, some of my thoughts on TLJ with respects to being outside of the lines has to do with the reaction from a loud segment of “fans” who thought it destroyed the franchise, would never watch another move etc etc. My own thoughts are that it wasn’t predictable in many cases and didn’t follow the hero trope the way many fans have come to expect. It made the franchise interesting again imo.

oojason said:

Mocata said:

Why is this same kind of article still being published?

Because near-on two years of this stuff just isn’t enough?

Oh… clicks, ads and $$$ from sensationalising and misleading titles and headlines with certain keywords to try and attract hits to said articles too.

It doesn’t apply so much to this article - yet there’s money to be made from peddling division, hate, toxicity and negativity online - and enforcing (repeating again and again) those views.

 

At no point are there quotes from Rian Johnson in the article stating he ‘subverted’ anything.

The only quotes from him in the article are…

“I think the instant you start thinking in terms of how do you not step outside of the bounds of what the original movies did, you’re not thinking the way the people who made the original movies did,” he said. “With every movie, they were pushing it forward, with every movie they were stepping outside those bounds and pushing the characters into new, emotionally honest, but surprising places."

“That’s why those movies are great. That’s why they’re alive. If they had been looking at something that came before it and saying, ‘Oh, we better not do this because that is outside of this or that,’ it would’ve been different.”

I really like that quote from Johnson. It’s exactly how innovative film makers should be thinking. If he had stayed inside the lines so to speak I think SW would die a slow death.

pleasehello said:

StarkillerAG said:

pleasehello said:

Each Bond film is the exact same movie, but the series has established that formula pretty well. Schlocky action, cheesy one-liners and a general feeling that it should not be taken seriously. Audiences go in knowing and expecting that.

You could say the same thing about the MCU.

You could. The Marvel formula is pretty well established at this point. But I don’t think the brand sees or markets it’s movies that way. I also don’t think the general movie going public sees the MCU movies that way or else there would be no appetite for them anymore with 3 or 4 of them every year.

The supply and demand for Bond is a lot lower because I think most people recognize that all of the movies are the same.

Getting back on topic a little bit, it’s possible that interest is waning in Star Wars films because the public is recognizing that the new movies are afraid to be different and keep retreading the same already well-trodden ground.

Well, when Disney sees the complete shit storm over TLJ they probably are afraid to a degree to make SW too different. I think Johnson’s trilogy will definitely be different from the usual…I certainly hope so.

What I find confusing about the complaints of the ST being too similar to the OT is this. Think about the MCU or even James Bond series. You could make a great case for all those films being similar to each other in several ways. Villains, overcoming adversity, superhero tropes, Bond finding an ingenious way to save the day at the last minute, dialogue etc etc.

I don’t hear many folks talking about that…at all…but then again I don’t get out much. 😉

DrDre said:

RogueLeader said:

It sounds like he meant that from a visual standpoint in particular.

EDIT: Also wanted to say that I’m really enjoying how we’re having an interesting discussion about this even though we have different opinions!

Well considering Lucas stated the following about his plans for the ST, I suspect this opinion isn’t just restricted to the visuals, even though that quote seems to focus on that aspect of the film:

GL: [The next three Star Wars films] were going to get into a microbiotic world. But there’s this world of creatures that operate differently than we do. I call them the Whills. And the Whills are the ones who actually control the universe. They feed off the Force.

GL: If I’d held onto the company I could have done it, and then it would have been done. Of course, a lot of the fans would have hated it, just like they did Phantom Menace and everything, but at least the whole story from beginning to end would be told.

Lucas thus clearly feels the whole story as he outlined it to Disney during the sale has not (yet) been told, and while I suspect certain elements of his outline ended up in the final product, he obviously had something very different in mind for the core narrative. That’s not to say his movies would have been better, but they would definitely be more original, and expanded the universe and the lore to a greater degree.

Iv’e read what GL had planned for an ST and I’m sure as hell glad he didn’t.

Shopping Maul said:

On the criticism/negativity side I think the overview of the films remains pretty consistent - ROTJ cops it for Ewoks and childishness, the prequels cop it for Jar Jar, kid Anakin, and flat acting/romance, the SEs cop it for ‘Greedo shot first’ and ‘Jedi Rocks’, TFA cops it for being a rehash, and TLJ cops it for not answering TFA’s questions, overpowering Rey contrary to the lore, sending Leia flying through space, and diminishing Luke Skywalker. Yes, there are wide variations within these basics, and the internet obviously compounds things in a special way, but to deny TLJ’s having been something of a bummer to the franchise is ridiculous. I’m not saying this to be confrontational, and I can’t say exactly how big a detriment this has been to the Disney SW project overall, but I think it’s pretty obvious that TROS has to ‘redeem’ the series to quite an extent.

I don’t get the Luke thing here. Although he did not spin around with his saber like a top and bring a mountain down on Kylo with the force pull he did project his image across a galaxy and save the resistance in doing so. The latter act being much closer to the Jedi way than hacking and slashing. The issue, imo, was that it wasn’t as action oriented for many fans. I thought it was epic.

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

Huh I guess Star Wars really is dead and TLJ killed it. Good job, you proved it. Haha

Nope, Star Wars is in decline, and I’ve said nothing about TLJ being the cause, just that Disney’s strategy hasn’t worked, which is a reasonable conclusion, if the objective is growth, a conclusion supported by the recent analysis of bloomberg:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-07/star-wars-is-struggling-to-win-over-the-marvel-generation

What then would you say is Disney’s strategy that has been so disastrous?

Out with the old, in with the new. The Galaxy Edge theme park is the best evidence, that Disney gambled on the strength of the new canon. In the process they alienated a subsection of the previous generations of fans, whilst not being able to win over the new generation. They essentially rebooted the franchise with characters that aren’t as compelling, and so people lose interest.

I see you are unaware of what has happened at Disneyland. It is not the failure you think it is. The access to Galaxy’s Edge has been full up. Crowds have been good. What has not been good is overall attendance because no one wanted to compete with the crowds they expected for the opening period. Disney made plans to address that, but not before people had made their vacation plans and skipped over this summer. I expect next year to be one of Disney’s best at the two parks with Galaxy’s Edge.

And it is your opinion that they rebooted the franchise. That completely ignores the cyclical nature of the story and how much the ST is paralleling the EU stories that so many fans are familiar with. I don’t see any issue with attracting a new generation at all. A number of people who are more casual fans like the ST more then the previous movies. And the box office numbers (adjusted for inflation) show that the ST is more popular than the PT was. The only group I see with a big problem with the ST are those who had expectations of what the ST would and would not include and don’t like that it doesn’t live up to that. A repeat of the PT all over again. Let the writers tell their story and sit back and enjoy. I indulge in spoilers so I can divest myself of all expectations and just enjoy how the story unfolds. Your theories of deconstructing and rebooting over analyze the trilogy and widely miss what the movies say about themselves. The ST was always going to involve the death of Luke in the first Episode (the first one he was in) and Harrison has been saying Han should die for 30 years. They passed the torch and Carrie’s passing forced that to be even more complete. This is the Rey, Finn, Poe trilogy and the OT characters are really just enlarge cameos. You had expectations, perhaps not of exactly what the characters would do, but definitely what they shouldn’t do. It is almost as if Lucas, Abrams, and Johnson set out to make a trilogy that was exactly what you didn’t want to see. I see symmetry in the repetition. I see the parallels in myth, history, and pop culture (Star Wars is a more serious take on Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers after all) and I’m enjoying the tale. It is very much what happens after the great war is over and how things move on. Often it is ghosts of the past that haunt the future and bring back a defeated enemy. I find the story of the ST to be very mythic and very classic and not repetitive at all. Certainly not a reboot. If you want to know what I call a reboot, just look over at Star Trek under CBS. The ST has nice echos of the Zahn trilogy while being new and fresh. Just in the ST, they took 30 years instead of 10 years to regroup and attack the Republic.

The Zahn trilogy does not have Empire vs rebels 2.0, or have the New Republic wiped out of existence, such that we reset the galaxy to an OT state. It does not have a Darth Vader wannabe, who also was a former Jedi pupil of the hero’s Jedi mentor. It does not have a fascimile Emperor. It does not have another Death Star like super weapon. It does not have another Jedi prodigy from a Tatooine clone. It does not have another ground battle involving walkers on a white plane. It does not have another throne room scene, where our hero has to witness the destruction of the rebel fleet, and an apprentice betraying his master to save the life of the hero. The Zahn trilogy was new and fresh. I can’t say the same for the ST. I’m not saying the films aren’t entertaining, and there are new elements, and nuances, but the so called cyclical nature is a poor excuse for resetting the story, and essentially giving us the OT with a new coat of paint. I’m not saying I dislike the ST in general, or that they’re bad movies. I’m saying it could have been a whole lot better, if they hadn’t undone most of the OT’s victories, and in stead given us a new and original story with new and original heroes, and villains, that weren’t in some way a slight variation of characters and stories we have seen before.

I’ve always seen the ST as the first shot into a larger scope of quite different films and TV shows. The balance had to be a familiar trilogy of movies that hearkens back to the OT but also merges with the new characters going forward. That the ST is as you say makes sense to me. Where I will agree with you much more is if the SW franchise stays on that trajectory going forward.

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

Huh I guess Star Wars really is dead and TLJ killed it. Good job, you proved it. Haha

Nope, Star Wars is in decline, and I’ve said nothing about TLJ being the cause, just that Disney’s strategy hasn’t worked, which is a reasonable conclusion, if the objective is growth, a conclusion supported by the recent analysis of bloomberg:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-07/star-wars-is-struggling-to-win-over-the-marvel-generation

This is how you do an objective scientific analysis. Numbers don’t lie, haha.

I think the issue is not decline per se but one of more exposure. More films, more often. My experience was that the OT was this one off amazing trilogy that sat alone and in which we, as fans, could revisit without thoughts about other films expanding on its story.(before the PT and ST of course, obviously). Whatever you think of the PT, the SW universe changed after it and certainly after the two episodes of the ST so far. It’s more familiar now and part of a much larger culture of films and art we currently experience. SW is still huge but not as unique and mysterious as it was.

I, for one, am happy to watch more SW if the price is less of that mystery and uniqueness.

As for Marvel. I am a fan but own exactly two of the films…FTR I am superheroed out.

MikeWW said:

Creox said:

SilverWook said:

I thought it was documented that a British editor did the first rough cut?

In any case, the Oscars Marcia Lucas, Richard Chew, and Paul Hirsch received for editing Star Wars speaks for itself.

This.

All I have to do is watch the prequels to see what a GL film looks like when he has no one around to reign him in or say “no” when needed.

Read the posts above you.

Also there a lot of good editing moments in the PT.
For example, the 123 editing of-

“Who could have done this” -cut to- Anakin slaughtering the separatists -cut to- Palpatine monologuing about the first Galactic Empire.

The PT demonstrates very clearly why GL unleashed is not a good idea. There are very few directors who can complete a film by themselves or call every shot while do so without serious fallout. I love the universe Lucas created and I state here today that his best creations were his very first THX,AG and SW. His career following has been mediocre at best unless palling up with Spielberg.

SilverWook said:

I thought it was documented that a British editor did the first rough cut?

In any case, the Oscars Marcia Lucas, Richard Chew, and Paul Hirsch received for editing Star Wars speaks for itself.

This.

All I have to do is watch the prequels to see what a GL film looks like when he has no one around to reign him in or say “no” when needed.