Star Wars was at its best during the late 1980s into the early 1990s. You had the three original movies which were all really good, and you could watch them whenever you wanted on your VCR.
Most Disappointing:
Instead of a sequel trilogy that is a natural progression from the original three movies (with events that would logically proceed from the state of affairs as we left them), they decided to do a hard reset so they could make a soft reboot depicting another Empire vs. Rebels affair.
Most Satisfying:
I mostly liked how they handled Kylo Ren.
Well, I just backed this bad boy (https://www.hasbrolab.com/):
I thought the origin of the Tie Fighter scream had already been clearly established:
San Antonio family creates massive Star Wars Christmas lights display:
http://www.chron.com/news/local/article/S-A-family-creates-massive-Star-Wars-Christmas-12424976.php?ipid=hpctp
I’m not saying drop it, but controlling the way you live your life is a bit much. I don’t see Disney forcing everyone to wear Mickey Mouse Club ears and sing It’s A Small World After All under pain of death anytime soon.
…it’s a small…small…world!
How come mace windu isn’t with the other Jedi in the celebration?
IMO I’m pretty disappointed that all the memorable characters from the prequels didn’t get a cameo in the updated Mos Eisley
All the memorable PT characters got cameos during the opening flyover shot of ANH.
Then where’s Zam Wesell and Chancellor Valorum?
Zam Wesell = Dead
Chancellor Valorum = Krypton/Phantom Zone
TFA - Watched it once in the theater and once more on a DVD I checked out from the library (and I don’t really feel the need to ever watch it again)
RO - Watched it once in the theater and probably four or five more times on DVD/Netflix (and I plan to watch it on a regular basis in the future)Star Wars - Watched it once at a drive-in theater and about thirty times on VHS/DVD/TV
ESB - Watched it once on laser disc and about thirty times on VHS/DVD/TV
ROTJ - Watched it once at the theater and about thirty times on VHS/DVD/TVStar Wars (special edition) - Watched it once at the theater
ESB (special edition) - Watched it once at the theater
ROTJ (special edition) - Watched it once at the theaterTPM - Watched it twice at the theater (the second time was right after I saw The Matrix at the theater with my fiancée and my sister and then we all just walked into the Phantom Menace (since my sister had not yet seen it)) and two or three times on DVD/TV
AOTC - Watched it once in the theater and once on DVD
ROTS - Watched it once in the theater and once on DVDHmmm…one of us seems to be in the wrong thread.
Well, I know I’m certainly in the right thread. People were posting how many times they had watched TFA, so I followed suit (and then I also posted the amount of times that I had watched the other Star Wars movies to provide context).
So, I guess that just leaves you (but it’s OK, I don’t mind a few extraneous postings).
TFA - Watched it once in the theater and once more on a DVD I checked out from the library (and I don’t really feel the need to ever watch it again)
RO - Watched it once in the theater and probably four or five more times on DVD/Netflix (and I plan to watch it on a regular basis in the future)
Star Wars - Watched it once at a drive-in theater and about thirty times on VHS/DVD/TV
ESB - Watched it once on laser disc and about thirty times on VHS/DVD/TV
ROTJ - Watched it once at the theater and about thirty times on VHS/DVD/TV
Star Wars (special edition) - Watched it once at the theater
ESB (special edition) - Watched it once at the theater
ROTJ (special edition) - Watched it once at the theater
TPM - Watched it twice at the theater (the second time was right after I saw The Matrix at the theater with my fiancée and my sister and then we all just walked into the Phantom Menace (since my sister had not yet seen it)) and two or three times on DVD/TV
AOTC - Watched it once in the theater and once on DVD
ROTS - Watched it once in the theater and once on DVD
Star Wars - At a drive-in theater
Return of the Jedi - At the theater (during a friend’s birthday party; notably, I had not yet seen The Empire Strikes Back)
The Empire Strikes Back - On Laserdisc at my aunt’s house (This seems to be the only Star Wars movie that I didn’t catch during its original release in the theater.)
The Phantom Menace - At the theater
Attack of the Clones - At the theater
Revenge of the Sith - At the theater
The Force Awakens - At the theater
Rogue One - At the theater
Speaking of Star Wars shirts with a Space Invaders vibe, I recently added this little piece to my wardrobe:
Ugh. Well, I had already pretty much written off the sequel trilogy after Abrams’ Episode VII anyway. So, might as well let him go down with the ship…I guess…
Did he shoot a laser out of his eye or what??
No, he was just playing around with a BB gun.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dynamiteent/johnny-wu-10-frames-per-second-an-articulated-adve
SilverWook said:
Bought some groceries at Target, and passed through the toy aisle, and what should I see? That action figure two pack with Moroff! Only one on the pegs, and sitting right in front like it was waiting for me. Impulse buy! Haven’t bought a SW figure in a long time.Awesome. I’ve never had a Star Wars shirt or toy, but I feel like I’ll be correcting that in the coming weeks. I have my Rogue One socks as my only wearable Star Wars things ever, but I feel like I’m this close to getting a shirt.
I find that amazing you’ve never had any merchandise at all. I’ve had more than a few shirts over the years. There are so many cool shirt designs out now it puts the 70’s stuff to shame. As hard water out here eventually ate away my favorite shirts, I kept my 10th anniversary shirt in mothballs until I saw TFA. Still fits like a glove.
I’m sure modern science could explain why two printed shirts of similar fabric survived my childhood but all the others didn’t. (The iron on stuff was faded by the third wash.) Neither one is Star Wars though.
Yeah, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have Star Wars merchandise. Some of my earliest memories involve playing with this:
And it’s not infrequently that I can be found sporting one of the handful of Star Wars shirts I own:
Star Wars merch is legion…It is pointless to resist!
The guy from Nightcrawler was Snoop Dog??
“Fo’ shizzle!”…BAMF!
I guess the answer is that Rey must have more midichlorians.
No, the answer is: TFA is shit.
After watching that clip, I guess it’s fair to say Mark Hamill enjoyed Rogue One a lot more than the Force Awakens.
Considering the fact you like Rogue One why would you consider it to be EU? It also fits pretty well with STAR WARS and is more than suitable substitute for the PT.
Well, it’s like if I read some Star Wars EU book. Even if I enjoy it, it really doesn’t have any bearing on the story presented in the original films (it’s more like one of those “What if?” comics). Also, it probably has a lot to do with the quality of the prequels (or lack therof). In that their failure promotes my tendency to disregard anything beyond The Original Trilogy. If one was Forced (get it?) to include and consider any Star Wars film as canon just because LucasFilm says so, then their inadequacies would actually start to taint and diminish the originals. And once you start disregarding “official” releases, then it just becomes the standard operating procedure. So, even when they finally put out a good movie, I’m just pleasantly surprised and enjoy it for what it is. But we’re way past the point where I would take any newly released film and use it to reframe the context of the original movies. And since we’re going to be getting a new Star Wars film pretty much every year ad infinitum, if I just start picking and choosing the few films I consider acceptable to add to some sort of personal canon, it just seems arbitrary and unnecessary. For me, Star Wars is…STAR WARS (the original movies). They represent the fundamental, unalterable core of the series. Everything else they keep piling on top, for better or for worse, is just extraneous. Now, when they do release a quality movie (like Rogue One), then great!..I’ll watch it and enjoy it and add it to the list of Star Wars stuff I like. But I’ve transcended the need for any personal “Official” label for those items. It all basically resides in that nebulous and ever-growing cloud of EU that perpetually girdles the original “core” films.
-------------- This is the cutoff separating the good movies from those that I really have no desire to ever watch again---------
And, it goes without saying (except I’ll say it anyway), this list refers to only the original incarnations of the films (not the “special” editions), and I consider anything outside The Original Trilogy to be basically just EU anyway (regardless if I think it to be good or bad).
The Cake Is A Lie!
Star Wars is:
All the usual stuff…
PLUS…
A close-up of Salacious Crumb saying “Hello in TV Land.”
Which appeared in the From Star Wars to Jedi ad that played before each of the original movies on the Star Wars VHS boxed set that I owned and watched on a daily basis all through High School…and beyond!
So after watching this again, I’m wondering if the ending would have been better had Fin died. Probably not a popular opinion, but it would have been a powerful event for his character, and I’m struggling to think of what kind of unique role he could play in the rest of the trilogy. His arc seems kind of complete already.
Not a crazy proposition. This thought has crossed my mind many times since I first saw it.
I thought that too, but it’s partly for another reason: I know this is very unpopular, but I think Finn’s role in the movie feels, unfortunately, expandable. If you look at what he does in TFA, the only two things which move the plot forward are saving Poe (another hit-and-miss character, especially since he wasn’t originally supposed to come back in the third part of the movie) and helping Han find the panel to lower Starkiller’s shields. That’s it. The writers even struggled to make him relevant in the final duel, making Ben use the force to make Rey unconscious (he doesn’t do it anymore later) so Finn could fight him alone.
They could’ve switched him with another character and it still wouldn’t have really affected the plot, which I think is unfortunate: being a former stormtrooper, he could’ve been the best character in the movie, especially if they fleshed out more his internal conflicts. As he is now in TFA, he could’ve died and it would’ve still been alright, bacause he feels expendable (to me, at least).
The problem with Finn is that he’s really just a former stormtrooper-ino (in name only). Really, he acts nothing like an ex-stormtrooper. He’s just some dude (just a likeable goof who bumbles his way through the film). Which is indeed unfortunate because a former stormtrooper as a character has a lot of potential for exploration and development. But Finn’s lack of depth really is just a symptom of the bigger problem. Which is the disappointing reality that The Force Awakens is actually a pretty shallow movie. Mostly, it’s just your typical mediocre Hollywood Sci-Fi action film with only the trappings from the original Star Wars trilogy to raise it’s profile. It’s not that it was horrible (they did manage to avoid the overt stupidity of the prequels), but the film played it too safe (mostly consisting of a steady procession of OT characters/vehicles/themes that would conveniently pop up between/during the many action scenes…"Oooo, look! It’s the Millennium Falcon! pause for applause…Oh, and there’s Han Solo! pause for applause…And look there! Another Death Star…but BIGGER! crickets chirping).
Now the film wasn’t WHOLLY inadequate. There were a few decent parts too. For instance, I mostly liked what they did with Kylo Ren. But then all the time they spent developing his character is wasted when he eventually comes across Rey and her whole waltzing through the movie doing her “anything you can do, I can do better” routine. I mean, really…You’re going to have the obligatory lightsaber duel in the finale feature three characters, only one of which has any training with an actual lightsaber (and he still loses because, you know, there’s this certain protagonist that happens to be naturally great at just about everything…on demand). I guess J.J. knew he wasn’t going to be around for the following films. So, he wanted to have the payoff for her character at the end of this first film (but it just seems all too easy and unearned).
Unfortunately, the Force Awakens has taken most of the wind out the sails of my anticipation for Episode VIII.
But whatever…At least Rogue One was really good.
I think the first movie I actually saw at a theater was Star Wars (at a drive-in during the movie’s original release). I must have been two or three at the time.
Then there was my first date, when I went to see Cinderella at the theater with a girl from my kindergarten class. That was around 1981. Which is the same year I saw Excalibur and Dragonslayer at the theater. Then I saw Dark Crystal in the theater in 1982.
Looking back at all these great movies I was seeing at such a young age, all I have to say is, “Man, my momma was raisin’ me right!”
The last time I watched the special editions was when I saw them in the theater in 1997 (and I even have the 2006 DVD set with the GOUT bonus discs, but I never bothered to watch the new special edition DVDs that they came with; although I have seen a few scenes online, “Hayden’s ghost”, etc.).
I’ve never felt any motivation to rewatch bastardized versions of Star Wars when I can just watch…Star Wars…the real thing…
Nothing like the real thing!
Accept no substitutes!