JadedSkywalker

I sort of wanted a Lightsaber duel for Mark Hamill a fight scene. But i respect Rian for doing the opposite of expected. At least he did away with the mystery box nonsense and Luke being a worthless maguffin. JJ doesn’t get Luke or Star Wars. He did well with Star Trek, but he messed up Star Wars. Episode 9 is the worst film in the Saga. Am i as disappointed in it as Episode II, no. The OT heroes had to pass the torch, i’m not sure they all had to die except Lando. Is a heroic death better than going to the Star Wars equivalent of being put out to pasture or the old folks home, i’m not sure.

Basically these films never tried to assert their own identity and that upsets me more than killing off the trio.

Corporate film making. Not art.

This is Lucas legacy sadly, and he was a great film maker. Disney is a mega corporation selling junk food.

I’m no prequel fan or apologist, but beyond all the unnecessary retcons to the OT lore they are middle of the road in quality for movies. Episode II has some really rushed and janky cgi. I think Hayden is better than he is given credit for, but he isn’t movie star great either. There are several things that could have been developed more or written better. But i actually agree with Lucas on Anakin being a young kid in Phantom Menace and his motivation for doing so, and i also think there are a lot of things to like in that film isolated away from the bad and uneven elements.

Phantom Menace is easily the 4th in quality behind Return. In the trilogy The prophecy thing take it or leave it and the midichlorians but basically showing that Anakin was like Luke, until he turned evil and mirroring his journey isn’t bad.

Just wish Lucas had really leaned into the movie serial aspect and went full swashbuckling action with Obi and Anakin. The movies are so damn boring in comparison with the originals, too much politics.

It used to incense me the lie that it was always the Saga of Darth Vader. It was Luke’s story, Star Wars from the adventures of Luke Skywalker. But now i think Star Wars has to evolve beyond Luke, and his story. Being stuck in the past is stuck in the past. That doesn’t mean i think Disney treated the characters with reverence from the original trilogy. And now they are running on nostalgia and have gotten the wrong message. Instead of evolving Star Wars they’ve regressed it. Its the biggest problem with episode 9, they needed to be bold and do something that didn’t waste Rian’s reset of the Star Wars universe. And i’m not sure what Lucas plans were, midichlorians and mortis leave me cold. They and Darth Maul don’t excite me in the least.

Basically Disney Star Wars is a waste of time, unless they somehow fix things with episode 10 and Rey returning. i’m glad my nieces and nephews enjoy it, but they aren’t big Star Wars fans its just another thing like Disney Marvel to them.

I don’t really have a Star Wars, the EU and the unaltered originals were my Star Wars. and a potential Lucas sequel that respected the originals and didn’t make the same prequel bs would have been great.

I’m only upset they so poorly used Mark Hamill and the character of Luke. They had him lose fifty pounds for what, to milk a sea cow?

At best the sequels we have are a what if? alternate timeline kind of thing. They can’t be canon because they don’t respect Lucas characters or his universe. Last Jedi is the most interesting of the lot and at the same time the most insulting.

The Star Wars Prequels Episode I and III, and The Hobbit Trilogy. Only the first two though, the third is terrible.

I guess also the JJ Star Trek movies.

But not episode II Attack of the Clones, its so awful its not even a bad movie but fun to watch like Revenge of the Sith, or a guilty pleasure like Phantom Menace.

Independence Day
Mars Attacks. Jurassic Park 2, Ghostbusters 2. Back to the Future II and III.

Amazing Spider-Man

I hate Bayformers but i liked the ending voice over by Peter Cullen.

Batman Forever, and Dark Knight Rises.

John Carter

Terminator III, Terminator Dark Fate, Terminator Rise of the Machines. Genesis is so bad i’m not gonna put that one on the list.

All the Resident Evil movies. All the Underworld movies except for blood wars.

Star Trek V. Some great lines, but horrible story about god and the devil. WTF was Shatner thinking.

Star Wars has a lot of grain. and it is very soft, almost blurry in places. But it doesn’t have near the level of grain as say American Graffiti, i was watching a version that predates the blu ray without the dnr and the techniscope grain is like sand all over it. I can see managing the grain but they blu ray is awful detail is lost.

Would i watch THX 1138 and American Graffiti with all the grain intact, sure. But i’m sure someone would complain. George Lucas himself is the one who had Lowry remove the grain.

I could have lived without the dnr pass on the opticals on the 4K theatrical, but it isn’t a deal breaker. The lack of original audio is. I wanted to finally retire me laserdisc. Disappointed that they pretty much went full Lowry, and Lucasized the directors cut. And wasted having access to the original 65mm elements. But again i can live with it as an alternate Special Edition.

TOS had a great sendoff only if you pretend Generations didn’t happen. I’d like to see Kirk’s final words be second star to the right and straight on til morning. Not some Nexus thing that didn’t make sense. and now he only exists as an echo in the nexus. While Spock got lost and died in the JJ timeline.

Transformers is easy. G1 cartoon, G1 toys. Original Marvel comics. The end.

Peter Cullen is Optimus, Frank Welker is Megatron. The bayformers movies are trash. It is very easy to compartmentalize.

I’m not digging the DVNR on the 4K directors edition of Star Trek TMP if the trailer is anything to go by. What is the point of going back to the 65mm negative which wouldn’t have as much grain. If they were going to make it look like a movie shot today digitally. I guess its a pass for me.

I hate that all of a sudden they created Leia as the sister because Lucas didn’t want to deal with the love triangle of two men pursuing Leia. Because Luke following the Jedi path meant he had to give her up anyway, but she didn’t have to be his sister and a Skywalker because Luke’s real sister was out there in the universe and wasn’t supposed to show up into the sequels.

I don’t like that it supposedly made Star Wars 1977 more mythic because of incestous overtones. When Lucas wasn’t basing these on the myths he was basing them on Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

There aren’t major problems for me with the OT like the other trilogies. Although maybe Vader shouldn’t have been Luke’s father possibly, but i don’t know if the other way to tell the story would be better. A simple Revenge tale. Vader killed Luke’s father and Luke would kill Vader. But Lucas decided Jedi’s don’t take revenge because it turns them into Sith.

I couldn’t disagree more on force awakens. I mean they took Luke and made him a worthless maguffin. Who does that? He was the main character of the original Saga of episodes IV, V and VI. Because they couldn’t figure out a way to include him without upstaging the Disney characters. The one thing i did like was Finn, i liked Poe, i liked Rey and her scavenger on Jakku story. But its a bad unoriginal story and completely derivative on purpose due to the prequels having the perception of being so bad they left a stank on Star Wars.

You could still have new characters like Rey, Poe and Finn and easily set it in the far future. Don’t repeat the same beats rebels vs empire. Don’t crap all over the legacy characters. The sequels are a mixed bag. But the one thing they botched Luke, Han and Leia. Completely and utterly. Its almost unforgivable.

They finally recast Kirk Prime. For Strange New Worlds.

Timeless is one of my all time favorite shows. I wish it would get uncancelled. Matt Lanter also happens to be my favorite Anakin Skywalker. And i’m not the biggest Filoni fan but i liked Clone Wars for the first 5 seasons. Enough to watch it on cartoon network but not enough to buy the blu rays.

Added Japanese Laserdisc of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. No OBI and never had one. No Digital audio. No English subtitles. Analog mono. 1984 CLV.

Dirty Pair OVA From Lovely Angel with Love Japanese Laserdisc CAV. Analog no digital audio.With OBI, 1987 release.

Volume 2 of New Dominion Tank Police CAV, Digital audio. 1993 with OBI.

I watched the Sea Hawk with Errol Flynn, it was better than i remembered. and The Adventures of Robin Hood also with Errol Flynn. Both with lavish production values, a great score. High adventure. And Flynn is in fine form in both. I love how he plays Robin Hood with zest and exuberance. The only weak aspect of this version of Robin Hood is how pathetic The Sheriff of Nottingham is. Basil Rathbone is fantastic as Sir Guy. And he makes Flynn look good as a swordsman when he wasn’t.

Watched Spider-man no way home. Liked that he ended the film finally as Spider-Man, and no longer Spider-Boy or Iron Man Jr. It was the best of the three Disney MCU linked films, and still had nothing on Raimi’s films. It was okay-ish. But why did this movie have legs like the original Star Wars, it wasn’t that special the villain end battle was very anti climatic. Honestly Into the Spider-verse is superior in almost all ways.

And i’m so tired of movies being commercials for another movie. Its the thing i hate the most about the MCU.

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.