KumoNin

JadedSkywalker said:

I don’t think Star Wars story ran its course unless it’s just the Saga of Darth Vader 1-6. We never got Luke’s story post episode VI on film. I mean I guess you could claim the Saga was complete with Return of the Jedi. from a certain point of view. The Disney trilogy is the end of his journey, and it was only beginning in episode 6.

Star Trek by its episodic nature could go on forever. You can never have enough Kirk and Spock and The USS Enterprise.

And as for Marvel I’ve waited forever for an X-men film. All I wanted out of Marvel was a good X-Men film, and maybe a Fantastic four and then I was fine with being done with it. I’m not a fan of Disney Marvel I’m a fan of the comics.

The only other thing would have been a Raimi Spider-Man 4 with Tobey that was not a realistic thing to want. Sony and Marvel’s partnership and all that being what it is. I don’t at all care for the new Spider-Man movies except for that last one. But the nostalgia and multiverse stuff is getting stale.

Star Trek post Kurtzman is going to be a hard road for whoever takes the reigns. They can continue to do reboots and nostalgia and prequels or they can do something new, move the timeline beyond Picard season 3 and do a show in the 25th century.

Same for Disney Star Wars they have to move beyond the sequel trilogy timeline. They have to own The character of Rey Skywalker and the future of their own intellectual property.

Agreed on post-Kurtzman. The difficulty is also partly that whoever takes the reigns, they’re probably gonna come from working in modern tv, and even if they love 90s trek, they’re gonna be making something inbetween what 90s trek was, which is also largely what 90s tv was (mostly episodic, many episodes in a season, shot with a couple cameras, looks like a tv show, fundamentally optimistic about the future, earnest etc.) and what tv, or certainly the average scifi streaming show is today (serialised, about 10 episodes a season, every scene shot with 10 moving cameras, tries to look “premium” (like a movie), gritty, with jaded, traumatized characters, fundamentally unsure if a better world even makes sense to aspire to, etc.) Not that there aren’t shows and movies today that aren’t like that, so it’s possible to make star trek today, it’s just not possible with current leadership.

The talk of spider-man reminded me of how much I’m looking forward to the third Spider-verse movie. I do hope it eventually releases lol.

Agreed on needing to own the character of Rey and post-tros. It’s still crazy to me (in the best way) that they really actually greenlit a Ben Solo movie post-tros, before getting yoinked by bob iger. If somehow it gets to happen in some form, that would be huge. But that’s a discussion for another thread

Regarding the above^,

I think this movie industry analysis ignores the fact that the mcu storyline concluded in 2019 and no russos or anything can “save” it. It peaked in popularity and then, very naturally, declined. Same is largely true with Star Wars, although they need to let creatives cook instead of canceling so many projects that only safe slop seems to be left, and seems to be true with Star Trek but I think that’s more because the studio simly doesn’t know what to do with the property.

Point is, although studios definitely mishandle IP, it’s important to differentiate between a mishandled IP, and a storyline that has run its course, and a blend of both.

Obviously it’s not disney that plagiarized though, it’s the animation studio. Still, what a blunder

krlozdac said:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XuXxk0NHFzkHJBne8dxIYrDRtK0k3yzM/view?usp=sharing

That’s a pretty cute solution, it’s canon in my head now 😄

Excellent work!!

If I may, I think I do understand the intention behind the shot mirroring that unfortunately caused the continuity error. The sandcrawler is on the left side of the screen, so it makes more sense visually to have threepio looking and waving toward screen left. The new version is therefore a bit jarring.

Love the other changes!

Vladius said:

I’m sure you already know why it sucks but you feel the need to be a contrarian like Mike does. There are plenty of posts here and elsewhere about it.

I’ve not seen one convincing argument for “why it sucks” that cancels out all the ways in which it’s great. And we won’t get into it here. Mike’s reflection on what he found interesting about the show upon reevaluation does not sound the least bit contrarian to me. In fact, it’s entirely consistent with somebody who has both 1) made a career out of cynical criticism of late-stage franchise entries, while refusing to weaponise “woke”, and also 2) has an understanding of storytelling and theme and picks up on these things. I understand that not every show is for everyone and that’s okay, but this take that no one can possibly enjoy a critically acclaimed piece of media unless they’re either dumb or a shill or purposefully contrarian is just wacky.

Vladius said:

because it sucks

What a comprehensive refutation!

Mike’s take on the Acolyte is incredibly based (for a cynical old alcoholic /j)

KumoNin said:

Creme de la creme of live action and animation, respectively, for me:

• Andor
• Acolyte
  and
• Clone Wars (the original one, especially the later, longer episodes)
• Visions (I’ve seen maybe half of it, but what I’ve seen was very creative)

and as for the rest,

• most of the animated ones I haven’t seen enough of, for TCW I can say it’s pretty okay, sometimes great, sometimes frustrating
• same verdict on live action Filoniverse, except maybe more okay and less great or bad

Still haven’t watched the rest of Visions, but I would update this to put Skeleton Crew in the top part. It’s really good, but I often forget that it exists and was good. Still stand by my views on Acolyte and Andor.

Well articulated again regarding Rogue One!

The first half flows pretty smoothly off of Andor. Down to little ways how characters react to certain names and things. I never really liked the ending of the film. Every scene in RO with Vader in it is pointless and/or introduces plot/character problems and tone problems most of all. RO is a movie that tries to present a more grounded Star Wars, but occasionally (and sometimes in very important moments, such as the ending) just throws it all aside for cringe fanservice schlock. Which feels more offensive in light of the rest of that movie’s tone, and vastly more so in light of Andor.

So mostly RO feels even more weird for me now. But other aspects of it I appreciate more.

Finale was great! I’m still kind of bugged by

what they ended up doing with the character of Bix (i.e. pretty much nothing except making her this unachievable dream for Cass), but yay Vel, yay Kleya, good that they showed Perrin, even though they probably shouldn’t have cut the scenes with him from the previous arc. Yikes what a poetically cruel ending for Dedra,

and agreed Vladius vis-a-vis Rogue One (even though it’s still not the best movie imo lol - but this for sure enriches it).

The time-jumping did rob us of a lot of on-screen character development and I still like season 1 more, but man what a show huh?

This seems to be an unpopular opinion among the American monomyth enjoyers, but

I don’t think Luthen and Kleya “have” to die. I don’t think characters that we don’t see in the OT have to die. I don’t think that characters who have done questionable things for the rebellion don’t get to experience and participate in rebuilding the new, better world, and heal together with the more pure of heart characters. Luthen has been cut out of the chain of command, and there’s no reason he can’t have continued to be a spy on Coruscant or something through the war. The rebel life he leads is one of the riskiest of all the people in the rebellion, but it would definitely be a nice subversion of the cowboy trope for the guy who’s sacrificing everything for “a sunrise he knows he will never see” to actually be one of the few OGs that do get to see that sunrise in the end.

As for Dedra, I think she finds out what they’re really doing with those rocks, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but probably the obvious thing would be for her to eventually be posted on the Death Star, right?

Anyway, I agree with all the praises of the show’s nuanced writing and music and stuff, obviously. There is room for different genres in Star Wars, but I do miss this level of subtlety in other shows (namely whenever Filoni does a politics-related plot or whenever anyone but Zahn writes Thrawn…)

Why couldn’t it have been Chewie’s idea? He is Han’s bestie, maybe he volunteered, even against Leia’s protests

I had no problem seeing what was going on

I think a scan of TPM does exist, but I remember the crawl and alien subtitles being in a different language. For me, the HDTV versions (dvd cuts but high quality) are close enough to the theatrical. TPM probably has the largest differences between that and theatrical, but with the hdtv you do still get puppet Yoda as well as the film not having been over-DNRd like the bluray.

So yea, not sure how “pure” you’re looking the versions to be, but schorman’s HDTV gets my endorsement

You know, as far as the number of cuts, I’d say yea, it does work better imho! I think I get the idea behind the backing out shot, but yea rapid cuts in talky scenes just doesn’t seem to be the MO of this movie 🤔

Really it’s the rapid intercutting plus the shots of the Knight from a different scene. You are right that the hallway scene would be a strange placement, considering the scenes before and after, where it would have made more logical sense to relay that information.

It’s a conundrum. Your original take on this, without new shots, really flows the smoothest but there was the problem of the off-screen voice which sounds too much like a Kylo impression. If JJ had shot your version, it would probably have been done either in one shot or, at most, with one insert of the knight at some point during his line.

I’ve looked back at your goal with this scene which is to characterize the knights as impulsive thugs, dangerous if imprudent. So, probably best to keep it within the conference room, but ideally I think you’d want just one shot of the knight? The problem is how to get an appropriate shot… Also, and again I don’t have a good suggestion, but “knights” implies some sort of more medieval designation than “captain” if only to distinguish from the military/navy captains seated at the table, but that’s an almost insignificant thing.

Do you think that the knight’s line could instead be integrated into the hallway walking sequence? I understand that without alteration of the line it might be confusing to hear that specific line before the severed head reveal, but the way it cuts back and forth, it is confusing the way it is imo

I’d love to reply to every single bit of that, I’ll just say different strokes 😄

An interesting tidbit from recent interviews with Leslye and Manny is that there was an idea to have them kiss at the end (and they shot it, even!), but it didn’t feel earned and the actors suggested the hand hold we see in the final version. Genuinely perfect wrap-up of their arcs for this season

Hal 9000 said:

Yeah, why was the gopher man sabotaging the ship? They didn’t make any sense to me at all.

I don’t know, but I read it as Basil being symbolically the good little angel of the show, the only person thinking straight. He knew Mae was up to no good and was the only one able to detect her, but also we saw both in episode 6 him being like uh oh what is Sol doing when he turned off the transceiver, and in the finale as well when he appeared to be targeting Mae’s escape ship. Sol’s acting irrationally as we see from all his other actions, whatever he was doing wasn’t going to work out well and Basil could smell it…

Easily the most intuitive explanation. Interesting what the creator will say if she’s asked about it though. Her interviews she’s been doing every week have been incredibly interesting reads every time. Leslye Headland is a true sw geek and she shares quite liberally about the artistic decisions behind the show, I highly recommend reading some of those for anybody curious about any decision in the show.

KumoNin said:
red sabers are red because the crystal has been ‘bled’

damn, speaking of, am I right? 😉

Creme de la creme of live action and animation, respectively, for me:

• Andor
• Acolyte
  and
• Clone Wars (the original one, especially the later, longer episodes)
• Visions (I’ve seen maybe half of it, but what I’ve seen was very creative)

and as for the rest,

• most of the animated ones I haven’t seen enough of, for TCW I can say it’s pretty okay, sometimes great, sometimes frustrating
• same verdict on live action Filoniverse, except maybe more okay and less great or bad

I laughed when I heard it because there’s no way it would happen 10 or 15 years ago, but it does fit imo and I welcome it.

^ I did not know this, but obviously I said that because it’s not random that they gave Vader and other villains onwards red, and heroes by-and-large blue and green, even before the new canon crystal bleeding thing. It’s symbolism, it doesn’t have to be that way, of course

After a brief search, I found at least 15 instances of a yellow lightsaber in legends, from various eras, old republic new jedi order, prequel era, etc. That’s only counting yellow and not green-yellow, like Ahsoka’s in TCW, or orange or any other variant found elsewhere in legends. They didn’t appear in the OT or the prequel films, but they have appeared from time to time in canon comics, high republic stuff and in rebels.

In legends, there were some different meanings, as the post above said, that were assigned to different colors, but in canon, the most robust meaning to the colors from what I remember, is that red sabers are red because the crystal has been ‘bled’, and (correct me if I’m wrong) white sabers are made with red crystals which have been ‘purified’ or healed. As for the other colors, in canon it seems that they are specific to how the crystal responds to the person who uses it to make their saber, but as for specific meanings to blue, green and other colors, I think maybe we just have to use our imagination. I don’t think it’s of particular significance, but colors do tend to shape our perception, hence why the bad guys have red in the first place, so maybe yellow is significant in some other way idk. I think it suits Yord.

Holy moly guacamole.

I will say, the way the creators of this show managed to build up this many characters in a few episodes that the audience is inexplicably invested in and subsequently devastated about… really effective stuff.

In all honesty, I think this is some of the best Star Wars made (I don’t care about ranking stuff anymore, I’m just saying this is everything I was hoping for and more). Leslye Headland understands myth and archetypes and that’s why the storytelling choices are so intentional and methodical, but thankfully there’s more to this than good writing - they’ve found actors who embody their roles, imaginative fight choreographers, and, importantly, people who can film fight choreography well, all these little things add up.