So the Han Solo movie, which takes place between the first scene of Rogue One and the rest of the film, could genuinely be considered to be a midquel to the interquel which also acts as a prelude to the original film? And this will come out after a sequel to the sequel to the original trilogy?
My brain hurts.
I’m slowly working through Children of Dune still (and so far I’m pretty much in agreement with Duracell’s above review), but I’m going to write about a book I finished a few weeks ago and never posted about.
VALIS by Philip K. Dick
I don’t think I understand a single thing about it. It’s also my favorite PKD novel (so far, anyway, I’ve only read five). Completely wacko in all the best ways, and at the same time it feels very honest. It’s a deeply personal work.
Okay, I’m terrible at literary criticims, but man I love this book.
My recollection of the 3rd book of the Dune series is that it is not as good as 1, but better than 2.
4 is right out.
Just off the top of my head…
TPM: Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, C3PO, R2D2, The Emperor, Greedo (deleted scene but point stands)
AOTC: Boba Fett, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, C3PO, R2D2, The Emperor
ROTS: Chewbacca, Luke, Leia, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, C3PO, R2D2, The EmperorTFA: Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren, Phasma, Snoke, Hux, BB8, Maz
Yep, new characters in the PT, same old reboot characters in TFA…
Urge to trigger Frink…rising…
I believe you mean Rey(extreme Luke), Poe(extreme Wedge), Snoke(new Emperor), Hux(extreme Motti+Tarkin), BB8(really?), Maz(Yoda lite), Unkar Plutt(extra portions of Watto), Phasma(Boba Fett lite).
All these in addition to the outright reused characters:
Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, R2, C3PO, Ackbar and Nien Nunb.
This list by itself rivals the prequels in length, let alone all of the clear character analogues and reused ships, locations, weapons, and plot points. But I’m mostly fine with all the reused characters in TFA and the prequels because at least it’s honest. The character analogues, not so much.
That probably makes more sense, since I doubt that he would so casually drop the fate of a major character.
Trump has reached his highest disapproval rating and lowest approval rating yet.
By which metric?
538’s average has him at 38.2% approval, lowest since early June when he was at his true low of 38.0%.
Similarly, RCP has him at 39.2% approval, lowest since mid-June when he was at his true low of 38.6%
You are correct about Trump’s approval rating. I retract that part. We regret the error.
However, you neglected to mention that Trump is in fact at his highest disapproval rating according to the two trackers you cited:
My post was not based on the Rasmussen poll; in fact, it was based on the two above trackers.
538 has just updated to show his disapproval at 56.7% and his approval at 37.8%, his highest and lowest points ever, respectively.
And now it’s down to 37.6%. Sad!
Down to 37.0% by this afternoon.
This is fun.
http://www.slashfilm.com/carrie-fisher-in-the-last-jedi-send-off/
Watching ESB again last night, I had the thought that perhaps the second Wampa was supposed to be a female, and that the male which attacked Luke was elsewhere in that scene. I wonder if that was supposed to be the implication all along, since they had filmed several Wampas attacking Echo base.
Of course not. I’m not absolutely insane.
The White House has confirmed Trump’s involvement in the Fox News Seth Rich story.
TV’s Frink is FAKE NEWS confirmed.
I will go further: the Calrissian murder should never be denied.
Nah, just showing how woefully obsolete his data is.
Trump has reached his highest disapproval rating and lowest approval rating yet.
By which metric?
538’s average has him at 38.2% approval, lowest since early June when he was at his true low of 38.0%.
Similarly, RCP has him at 39.2% approval, lowest since mid-June when he was at his true low of 38.6%
You are correct about Trump’s approval rating. I retract that part. We regret the error.
However, you neglected to mention that Trump is in fact at his highest disapproval rating according to the two trackers you cited:
My post was not based on the Rasmussen poll; in fact, it was based on the two above trackers.
538 has just updated to show his disapproval at 56.7% and his approval at 37.8%, his highest and lowest points ever, respectively.
Even though he said a while ago that he wouldn’t kill Lando off in ROTJ:R, I still feel worried if he changed his mind.
I won’t be killing Lando in ROTJ:R. I’ve already killed him off in ESB:R
I always wanted Chewie to be more murderous.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen this fringing problem.
Regal has something weird going on in their theaters where the right and left sides of the screen will be tinged slightly different. It’s not super distracting but I did find it noticeable during brightly lit scenes. Must have something to do with the way their theaters are set up because I’ve noticed this at two entirely separate locations.
I’ve seen this too at Regal, and I remember at one showing it was very distracting. It was Florence Foster Jenkins, and at first I thought it was intentional because they framed the titular character predominantly on one side of the screen so her face was often tinted, but it quickly became apparent that one side of the screen was green and one side was pink.
I live in an optimistic universe of my own design.
When I saw Doctor Strange there was a green/pink outline around everything, as if it was supposed to be in anaglyph 3D or something (it was a 2D showing). None of my friends noticed, but I did, and it was bad. Of course, idk how projection stuff works, but something was definitely wrong.
This has happened consistently in one particular auditorium of our local theater. It looks like a fringing effect similar to a mismatch of RGB film layers, with green on one side of edges and pink on the other. Perhaps there’s some misalignment of the LCD causing this fringing, but in any case, it’s irritating to me but apparently not to most other people.
Hellow
Hi! Welcome to the forums!
The midnight angle reminds me of Dark City…the voyeurism of Hitchcock is already well established…interested to hear more!
After watching this movie on Netflix and giving my novel-length thoughts on it in the review thread, I got to thinking about how this film could be radically improved. It would require some substantive editing. In short, switch the first and second acts.
Begin with a crawl. Here’s something akin to what I’m thinking:
Rogue One
It is a time of oppression. The evil Galactic Empire is secretly building a superweapon which will allow it to crush any rebellion once and for all.
Desperate to halt this construction, the fledgling Rebel Alliance has sent a small team to capture the mastermind behind this terror weapon and destroy his facility.
Unbeknownst to the Rebellion, the daughter of this scientist is hidden in their ranks, and her love for her father may decide the fate of the galaxy…
Pan down to Eadu. The ship (whose only identifiable occupants are Jyn, Cassian, and K2SO) crashes on the planet and the two cloaked figures head out in the rain towards the facility. We see these cloaked figures ascend the ridge and survey the assembled scientists, but when Krennic’s ship flies overhead, one figure (Jyn) disappears. After a while, we see Jyn climbing to the platform. The scene plays out as it does in the movie, sans Bodhi and Baze and Chirrut, and with the dream on Coruscant perhaps interspersed with Jyn’s reunion. They escape on the stolen ship and head back to Yavin 4.
Cue first scene of the Death Star.
Back on Yavin, Alliance brass has learned of Jyn’s real name. They question her, realizing that they now have a potential in with Saw’s Rebels. The quest for Jedha remains largely unchanged. We now see her backstory where the dream was before, and her later imprisonment and rescue in bits and pieces. It is not clear that the Rebellion was the party that rescued her from prison. The hologram gains an added weight now that we know that Galen has just died. There is real tragedy this time.
After escaping the destruction of Jedha, the crew is ambivalent about what to do while Jyn wants to plead her case to the Alliance to head to Scarif. Chirrut mentions that Cassian has the air of a killer about him, which brings back the recriminations about Cassian’s true role in the botched ‘capture’. The scene ends with the same acrimony between Cassian and Jyn.
Tarkin and Krennic spar on the Death Star, but the scene ends without Krennic’s determination to go to Eadu. Instead, he departs to Vader to curry favor with the Emperor.
Meanwhile, on Yavin 4, the conference is the same as in the original. After the team departs for Scarif (sans the R2 and 3PO reference), Krennic meets with Vader.
The final act proceeds roughly the same as the original. It is not necessary to change anything from here on out, but I would shift sections of the battle so that it makes sense from a logistical perspective. For example, the fighting on the beach, up to and including Bodhi’s death, all happens before Jyn decides to transmit the plans using the dish. This way, there can be no rescue in the transport. Similarly, Bodhi’s successful transmission to the fleet is what compels them to ‘begin probing that shield’. The bombing runs on the shield gate and the Star Destroyer decapitation maneuver are both the result of this communication. Krennic is told of the data breach the moment after Cassian fails to use the right hand of the officer, and the waves of Stormtroopers are a result of Krennic’s direct orders.
The film cuts to black after the final shot of Vader staring at the departing Blockade Runner. In this version, with the removal of the R2 and 3PO shot earlier, there is ambiguity as to whether this is the Tantive IV or whether it later beams the plans to another Blockade Runner.
I do concur that Hutt may have been originally a title not a species name, as it would be like calling Vito Corleone Vito the Italian.
Perhaps there are multiple famous characters named Jabba in the galaxy.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/28/16059486/trump-speech-police-hand
This is terrible for the country etc, but all I could think about in the last line was
Aw thanks guys. 😃
Hopefully it will be just another short hiatus until I get settled in the new place.
Status Update:
Reel 1: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Reel 2: Preliminary Grade 95% - Finalized 90%
Reel 3: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Reel 4: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Reel 5: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Reel 6: Preliminary Grade 100% - Finalized 100%
Total Preliminary: 99.1% - Finalized 98.3%
And here we are, with only one more scene to go. It is at this point in any story where something needs to go wrong, and in thoroughly predictable fashion it has. RIP my primary graphics card.
I’d hoped to have this finished before moving to a new apartment this weekend, yet with no funds for replacing the card I will need to dust off my old tower and see if it’s still up to the task of rendering these final shots.
Agree that the twist and the Hades battle was the worst part of the movie. Take that out, maybe apply some color correction to lessen the blue tint, and I’d gladly forget any other version existed. 😃
I’m worried about the rise of genuine White Nationalism that’s occurred while people were worrying about “SJWs”. I mean real White Nationalists, not some redneck asshole down the street that goes to Klan meetings every weekend but doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground; but the people who are creating and citing studies that “prove” black people have a lower IQ, or are inferior in some other way; young people who know how to speak convincingly and how to pull people to their side. It seems to me that young people are becoming more and more extreme on each side of the political spectrum, and that probably has something to do with growing up in the internet age. It’s allowed these ideas to grow in isolated settings, where they aren’t ‘softened’ by discourse with opposing ideas. I really hope that these ideas stay fringe and confined to the internet and the public discourse doesn’t become Communists vs Nationalists again; it didn’t work out so well the last time.
One could also say that the internet age has facilitated a departure from herd mentality, for good or ill. Now everyone feels like they can be an expert, and I think this is a large part of why the mainstream media is so vilified. Everyone is way too cool to believe things that ‘the man’ pronounces from on high, but the problem is that nobody is omniscient and many people still can’t see the walls of their ideological prisons. For people like this, Trump’s lies don’t really matter because they know that people have talked down to them all their lives, and they believe that these media gatekeepers often lie to support their agendas so it’s no big deal if someone on their side evens the playing field a little. It’s payback. It’s also nihilistic. It ignores the difficult job of sifting though a torrent of information to cull the truth, preferring to label anything that one disagrees with merely fake news.
The silver lining is that, freed of the reliance on established media sources, more and more people are able to aggregate quality information and discuss methods of minimizing their own biases. The discussion, often taking place in the blogosphere or other less-traveled corners of the internet, is usually technical, sometimes uncomfortable, and designed to minimize aspects of clickbait which make them immediately palatable to the human mind. Here the commenters begin by saying ‘I’m probably wrong…’ instead of ‘I’m obviously right’, and I find myself avoiding them because they may slaughter yet another sacred cow I didn’t know was grazing in my mental backyard.
But we know all that, it’s the informational equivalent of eating our veggies. The latest Trump outrage is a bottomless bag of chips by comparison, and it’s hard for me to refrain from chowing down. Perhaps more discipline is needed…
