JadedSkywalker

I’m almost afraid to rewatch the Sixth Sense. Because i used to really like Signs. Rewatched it and found it was awful. I kind of used to buy into M. Night being a genius filmmaker. But now i’m not so sure.

Every director can have bad films. I’m not knocking him for After Earth and The Last Airbender.

But is there one movie he has done that proves he is this great auteur?

What always gets me is Marcus being an imbecile. Got lost in his own museum. This isn’t the character from Raiders.

The art design was never the problem. Nor were the effects. Or the music, or the editing. Or the actors/actresses. It was the screenplay.

The Sequel trilogy did everything right except for the story, and the handling of the legacy characters. They did a better job on virtually everything and better than the prequels except for worldizing and the lore, and the characters. But they had an unlimited budget practically and all the years of advancement of technology the prequels and originals afforded them. and they couldn’t top Return of the Jedi.

They had a vast canvas and could have done almost anything post ROTJ, but they remade the OT instead. Or inverted/subverted it in places and said they were clever and original.

The lightsaber dual should have been more psychological like Empire and Jedi. Instead it was all flash of spinning blades of light. I’ve never been more let down by a lightsaber duel other than in the Disney movies.

They never really connect, you never believe in the action of what is going on the way you did in Empire. Videogame physics, cgi nonsense. Style over substance.

The lightsabers should have heft and weight and be used with both hands.

With the OT you had a likable character in Luke to latch onto and follow. The prequel didn’t have that. Its a grave mistake. Whether it be the writing or the casting, it doesn’t work. Maybe it should have been OBI Wan’s point of view we saw the prequels from. I don’t know. But Anakin is the same and Vader is the same. There is no slow descent into evil and madness and seduction of power. He is the same as Vader as Anakin was in II and III. Same conflicted character. He doesn’t have that journey implied in the OT. He isn’t this man of virtue and heroism, that when he finally turns it rips your heart out. You laugh in episode III when Obi Wan says he has the high ground and it ends like a videogame cutscene, and Anakin says you underestimate my power. And Obi Wan is sad why, they never showed they were good friends except in books and cartoons.

Star Wars was from the Adventures of Luke Skywalker. It was about him and he was the main character. Darth Vader wasn’t his father, and there was no long planned out saga of Darth Vader. Vader was Tarkin’s henchmen. With the first film obviously, then Lucas started rewriting from Empire on.

Lucas made it all up as he went. Its very clear he only started writing the prequels in 1994. He never bothered to watch the original movies again to keep continuity.

Fans balked at the prequel retcons when we really should have when Vader became Luke’s father and Leia his sister. Lucas was retconing the Saga all the time. Nothing was planned beyond the first movie. It was a happy go lucky comic book movie, movie serial like the old serials of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. A swashbuckling adventure. Lucas had no plans for Vader, the story conference for Splinter of the Mind’s eye lays that bare.

I bet when Indiana Jones 5 comes out i’ll rank Last Crusade in fifth place. The way it characterizes Sallah, Marcus and Henry Jones Sr is pathetic. Nothing in the film is believable there is no verisimilitude like Raiders and its trying too hard to be a comedy. The only thing i liked was Connery and Ford playing off of each other and the great admiration Indy has for his father. and i like the idea that James Bond, the only true Bond is Indy’s father.

Hamill was great in Last Jedi only. He did nothing in Force Awakens and his performance in Rise of Skywalker was painfully phoned in. Ford on the other hand was fantastic in both Force Awakens and Rise of Skywalker. Carrie was good in Last Jedi, and they had to create a non existing performance in Rise of Skywalker since she died. Its unfair to judge her part in the sequels when each movie was supposed to be about one of the OT characters. Ford’s was Force Awakens, Hamill’s was Last Jedi and Fisher’s was supposed to be episode 9.

Lando really got shortchanged, Billy Dee was as good as ever and they gave him nothing to do in these. Its disgraceful. Same for Finn and Boyega running around shouting Rey but never becoming a Jedi or connecting to the story of his being a runaway stormtrooper. Rose basically being all but deleted from the 9th film.

and Poe who was interesting and a potentially new character direction just another Han ripoff and Spice runner in episode 9. Episode 9 just sucks.

Rey being shoehorned into the Luke Skywalker role and paradigm in episode 9 instead of allowing her to be her own character. Go off in her own direction. Just to tie everything up in a neat bow when nothing in this Disney trilogy was planned.

Honestly episode 9 is worse than the prequels. The way it ruins the myth of Star Wars and shrinks the universe is uncanny.

I hated it. It leans too heavily into Disney Star Wars and the prequels. There is almost nothing resembling the Star Wars i grew up with or care about. I guess for me its a pass.

Maybe if there was some more OT flavor sprinkled in. I might check it out.

Raiders
Temple
Skull
Crusade

I just watched Free Guy. It wasn’t good but it wasn’t bad either. Quite a bizarre video game movie. I have no idea who this movie was made for. and why it was so highly rated.

It was mildly amusing and fun in places, but not very original.

I’m watching the Disney remake of West Side Story by Steven Spielberg. I’m liking it so far, but there are an awful lot of lens flares. Like a JJ Abrams film.

The young leads are lovely young people, i’m trying to understand why other than being an unnecessary remake this bombed so hard and lost like a hundred million dollars.

I need to rewatch everything he did and see his latest film Belle. It seems like it been ages since he directed Mirai which is the last one of his films i watched.

I still haven’t seen Boy and the Beast, but i recommend Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars.

also waiting for some of Shinkai Makoto’s films to be reissued on blu so they aren’t a million dollars to purchase. also for his new film to be released.

The creative spark, and life of Star Wars is George Lucas. I think Disney Star Wars is Star Wars in name only. Its creatively bankrupt, has nothing to say and completely uncreative. A bunch of noise and explosions and special effects. It’s exactly what Star Wars would have been if it was a Hollywood product.

Largely a complaint aimed at the sequel trilogy and JJ Abrams.

They got away with it in force awakens by making a fun movie after the execrable prequels, we thought it was a return to the good old star wars movies. Then we saw how they treated the legacy characters. Luke Skywalker a worthless maguffin. JJ was the absolute worst choice. Ruined the lore, and any potential for any more movies with these characters in the Saga.

Tom Veitch. Writer of Dark Empire and Tales of the Jedi. Creator of Nomi Sunrider and Ulic Qel Droma, and Exar Kun. The Double lightsaber. first to resurrect Emperor Palpatine and Boba Fett.

The first to write about Knights during the old republic, to portray Leia as a Jedi. To show Luke struggling with his father’s legacy post Return of the Jedi. Basically anything Lucas or Disney did he already did it better.

I loved Dark Empire. and Tales of the Jedi. I miss him already.

I wanted to see George continue Luke’s story. I’m not at all interested in midichlorians. Or continuing anything from the prequels. Now we’ll never get the canon story of how Luke ended up after ROTJ.

Its like Bond just getting his license to kill and then we never get to see anymore movies.

I think it awesome that some people do love the prequels though more power to them. I wanted more swashbuckling adventure mixed with the spiritual aspects of the force and teaching the next generation of Jedi.

Maybe Lucas would have had all of these elements in his script but we will never know.

a spinoff describing the first force shamans who communicated with the Whills would be far out, like really weird. But maybe they could do history of the Jedi Bendu and the Bogan who became the Sith. and the first war between the Jedi and the Sith.

Yeah just waiting for G-Kids to put out a Blu-Ray and hoping it isn’t another anime i’ll never be able to see because its only available as a streaming thing under a subscription service. It happens far too often these days.

Edit:

I watched The Kings Man. The first half was really trashy and i literally almost turned it off, first half is like one of the worst movies ever. Second half much more somber and then leads into the absurd ending. But it was a huge improvement over the first half of the movie. But it didn’t feel like a Kingsman movie, it wasn’t nearly as fun and over the top or stylish. I honestly would have wanted my money back if i hadn’t seen it for free on HBO, if i had seen it in the theater.

I also rented Eternals and man it was a slow to develop movie, i enjoyed the ending but the setup to get there was slow. But i can see the eternally boring thing people were saying. For an MCU movie it just isn’t a joy to watch more like a homework assignment. But the standout character for me was Phastos i liked him.

They were done around the same time as the Indiana Jones remasters. Which is funny considering it was almost a decade ago.

But they sat on these for years. Star Wars coming to 4K disc in the maclunkey edit in 2020, and Indiana Jones in 2021.

Reliance did the scans for Star Wars formerly Lowry. and Pacific Title did Indiana Jones.

Luke’s sacrifice in Last Jedi is beautiful as is his letting go of his fear. The scene where he fades into the force facing a rising sun is palpable.

And its all undone in Rise of Skywalker by bringing him back to lift the X-wing in an unnecessary scene.

Rey already had the training she needed watching Luke fail according to Last Jedi, but all of a sudden we need Leia to train her. Leia suddenly a Jedi Master who never was even a Jedi Knight.

These movies don’t work in sequence.

I wish the films weren’t so rushed and they had more time to develop the screenplays. I like Rey, Poe and Finn, and Rose but the characters could have had more depth to them. Finn in particular the whole plot with him being a former Stormtrooper and force sensitive just seemed to be mentioned in ROS but nothing was done with it.

Rose is basically cut out of the film for no reason in ROS. A lot of the more interesting threads from Last Jedi weren’t followed through on as if ROS was a sequel to Force Awakens in a duology. Kylo reforged mask is like JJ saying i’m undoing everything you did Rian.

And honestly the new characters seem more like cliche archetypes/ redoes of some of the OT heroes. Something new needed to be added other than nostalgia and the familiar.

There is a US NTSC letterbox set from 1992 but far less common. Its not rare either. But back then everyone wanted full screen tapes.

I have this set of the letterbox tapes and they come from the same video master as the Japanese Special Collection, the same as the US first issue widescreen laserdisc releases. With the same misframed image to fit the Japanese subtitles which aren’t on the video but they never corrected them.

Jedi is the worst effected. And it wasn’t corrected until the remastered THX releases which began with the definitive laserdisc collection and faces laserdisc, and also the widescreen tapes.

i’m interested in how one restores a 16mm print.

I always wanted to try a single episode of Star Blazers to see if it was possible to do the show in HD.

Gumby ought to be interesting.

I guess i was expecting more swashbuckling action Anakin following Obi Wan on a damn fool idealistic crusade.

Yoda being Obi Wan’s teacher, Leia’s mom dying on Alderaan when Leia was like 5 years old or something. Owen Lars being Obi Wan’s brother.

Luke’s father being a good friend and a great pilot. And i mean in the films not having to go to other media to get that characterization, like the Clone Wars.

Showing the actual clone war on screen, the purge of the Jedi by Vader. All the things hinted at during the filming of the OT.

I have no problem if its prequel fanfiction for the prequel fans. They get to see Hayden as Anakin/Vader again, and Ewan as Obi Wan. And hopefully its a better handling of those characters than what the sequels did the OT characters. Of course it could be garbage. But i’m cautiously optimistic and i am not a huge prequel person.

I think Disney Lucasfilm is giving the fans what they think they want, I.E. Boba Fett and Young Luke Skywalker. But nothing they do seems to not get the ire of fans. Either its too different like last jedi or too fanservicey.

Honestly i admire Rian he said its about the story not about the fans. Once you get to making shows or movies off a fan wishlist, what is the point. You aren’t telling a story you are checking off boxes. Last Jedi is the sole thing they’ve done that is interesting to me, in terms of character.