NeverarGreat

Plan 9 From Outer Space

Sadly, this one falls in my estimation every time I see it. The middle drags so much that it can hardly be enjoyed like the campy awful brilliance of the rest of the film. Ah well, at least the ending always makes me laugh.

You know what bad movie is thoroughly entertaining all the way through?

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

That’s one that should be on every holiday watch list, if only for the absolute bop of a theme song.

Vladius said:

dgraham414 said:

Not to add fuel to the fire and run away, but the LOTR trilogy ain’t 100% Tolkien faithful either. Faramir’s character was completely changed, entire chunks of the book were removed, and rolls were completely swapped out.

I wouldn’t be surprised that if those movies came out today the outcry would be massive. I can almost see the YouTube thumbnails photoshopping Greta Thunberg’s face over Arwen and Eowyen.

Conversely, if this show came out in 2008, I challenge the notion that the backlash would be the same.

The cry for Tolkien purism may be true to some, the PJ movies had that cry (although so quiet in the discourse) but it just seems like a shield to criticize diverse casting and female main characters.

If your claim is that it’s “not Tolkien’s story,” then you probably shouldn’t be watching any LOTR adaptation.

This is cope. Book purists were extremely critical of the movies at the time, including Christopher Tolkien himself. It’s in hindsight that a lot of people recognized that they did a good job being as faithful as they were, but there’s still plenty of people that don’t feel that way. Faramir is a big sticking point. So is Aragorn being unsure of himself as king.

Something that I’m surprised doesn’t get mentioned is how in the Extended version of ROTK, Aragorn literally decapitates an unarmed messenger. This is so far from the book’s portrayal of Aragorn as a noble king that it’s honestly shocking, and for me counts as character assassination. Consider the original after the Mouth of Sauron speaks:

"Aragorn said naught in answer, but he took the other’s eye and held it, and for a moment they strove thus; but soon, though Aragorn did not stir nor move hand to weapon, the other quailed and gave back as if menaced by a blow. “I am a herald and ambassador, and may not be assailed!” he cried.

This is the bearing of the ideal king. And so much more power in restraint!

My point is, the films are no untouchable masterpieces, and they’re allowed to take liberties, even ones I vehemently disagree with. I think it’s more productive to approach these adaptations and flights of fancy where they are and in the context of their time, just like the books themselves. And while it’s good and right to point out where they fall short, it’s also good to recognize where they strive to do justice to their material, and in many ways, especially with regards to production, the new series so far succeeds.

Dragonslayer (1981)

The bones of this movie are good. A simple violent fantasy story well-told. However, the soundtrack adds nothing at best and is downright distracting at worst. Someone needs to make a fanedit where the soundtrack is replaced with something more grand. Does that exist? It should.

Anyway, seeing young Emperor Palpatine was a fun treat, and the Tippet-animated dragon holds up in most shots even today.

There’s the ever more common perception that Star Wars has always been made primarily for children, and I think Filoni has a lot to do with crafting that perception. Dude has like two types of stories to tell (doing favors and found family), and he tells them over and over without any subtlety or complexity. It’s not that these stories are bad, but at a certain point it feels like Star Wars should be more than that.

It felt like a Tarantino movie if it was 50% more messy. It was fun.

Bit of a general trivia question here and not necessarily related to the show, but does anyone know why the series of Great Rings goes 1, 3, 7, 9? By this I mean, why is there no set of five rings of power?

From the Silmarillion, it is said that the Elves made many rings of power under the watchful eye of Sauron, and he himself made the One Ring in secret to rule the others. After he did this the elves hid away three of the rings of power for themselves, while Sauron eventually came to possess many others. From these he gave seven to the Dwarf Lords and nine to the Lords of Men.

So in my understanding the rings of power had varying abilities and all but the One Ring were Elven, presumably to be used by the Elves alone until their corruption. But this means that Tolkien could have had Sauron give any number of rings to those whom he wanted to bring to his side. Sauron could have given five rings to the Dwarf Lords and seven to men, or if it is important for there to be seven Dwarven Kingdoms, he could have given five to men and seven to the Dwarves.

Why this avoidance of the number five?

TheHutt70 said:

Just so you guys know this story has almost nothing to do with Tolkien’s books. I’m very shocked to see any support for this show here. I mean the original teaser on YouTube currently has 131K thumbs up compared to 1.9MILLION thumbs down. That is 15:1 ratio!!!
This show is nothing but woke racial/gender propaganda trash. I’ll stick with my books on this… 2020’s woke culture can’t take those away.

As someone who has read the Lord of the Rings many times and the Silmarillion thrice, I enjoy watching this show partly because I don’t know what will happen. Maybe it will be good, maybe it will be bad. I sure don’t know, and I’m pretty sure two million people who just watched a trailer don’t know either. However, I do know that anyone complaining about this show without first watching it should perhaps be reacquainted with the word prejudice : an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.

Good points. I see how those scenes have value, and they certainly do some lifting. But it does feel like a lot of them are doing the bare minimum for one small aspect of the story, whereas a strong scene can elevate the story in several ways at once. It’s the difference between meaty and fatty writing, for me, that is concerning. I’ve been burned too many times with shows that go totally to fat, but here’s to hoping that it isn’t the case this time.

The inner editor in me can’t help but notice when scenes can be cut without impacting the plot, and there were a lot of those even in the first two episodes. Did we really need to meet a boatload of castaways just to see them die in the next scene, or a rock-breaking competition which the characters then ignore?

I liked a lot of scenes as well. The conversation on the lift right after the rock breaking was wonderful! There’s just so much filler already, I had trouble staying focused on what was going on and my girlfriend fell asleep in the middle of one episode.

The biggest issue however is the way this is plotted and edited. It feels very much like many other Big Dumb Shows. I’m talking Foundation, Westworld, His Dark Materials. They all seem to throw out a bunch of loosely connected characters and have them wander around until plot happens to them while the viewer flies from one meandering scene to the next, often by map. Maybe something will happen to these characters, maybe they meet. Will they? Who knows, apparently not the show.

Hopefully this show has a destination in mind. I’ll keep watching for now, but I’m not going to expect greatness.

Also, to address the controversy: don’t think I didn’t notice how wrong some of the characters look. I get that it’s an adaptation and not strictly adhering to Tolkien’s vision, but characters like Durin’s wife take me completely out of the world; JRR would be spinning in his grave if he knew that the world would one day be forced to behold a clean shaven Dwarf.

😉

Congrats!

Maybe Obi-wan distracted the nearby guards with the Force, and the cameras in the docking bay fed only into the control room which they immediately commandeered, rendering them useless?

But yeah, that is probably the most hand-wavy scenario in the movie.

Neat. And I thought I knew every deleted scene by heart.

You’d be surprised what a pair of coveralls and a ladder will do in lieu of a security clearance 😉

NotTheDri0ds said:

Add in Palpatine explaining, in complete and thorough detail, the cloning process causing him to return in Rise of Skywalker.

Don’t want the plothole of having to fill it in with your imagination, after all.

Actually, I think making an explanation for Palpatine’s return and the Sith Eternal would make their battle against the Resistance a lot more interesting and believable. Sure, it will never happen due to the Mystery Box rating, but making the stakes of the battle understandable would honestly be an improvement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5S9Vx3-QM0

New clip.

The fact that the Jedi don’t wear disguises doesn’t bother me. It makes sense that the Chancellor sent them as both ambassadors and Jedi to quickly end the dispute with this show of force. It also appears to almost work, since the Trade Federation only resists them due to the influence of a more powerful Force user driving them to attack the Jedi. Otherwise the Federation would have given in to the Chancellor’s demands.

I like the title!

https://i.imgur.com/Ml6kwR3.mp4

‘Dangerous Desire’, ‘The Peril of Greed’, ‘Cloven Trust’…Just being silly now 😉

Maybe a Star Trek title like ‘Avarice Syndrome’, ‘The Web of Greed’, or ‘All that Glitters’?

I have only seen the original episodes once, so I’m a bit fuzzy as to what happens.

screams in the void said:

Random thought / observation …nearly every prequel rewrite or idea I come across still uses characters that were created for the movies that came out between 1999 and 2005 . Darth Maul , Grievous , Dooku , Qui Gon, etc . Be nice to see a rewrite or idea using original characters as well as the ones from the OT that would logically carry over …

I had an involved outline for a prequel trilogy that used only original and OT characters, but which coexisted in the same continuity as the Lucas Prequels.

The first one is set between Episodes 2 and 3 and follows a family of scrap merchants scrounging material from Clone Wars battles. A young woman from this family finds a stasis pod among the wreckage and takes it on board, only to realize that inside the pod is an injured Anakin Skywalker. He communicates through the Force with our hero throughout the film, which is a self-contained tale set on the ship as she works to evade evil droids bent on destroying the injured Jedi. Though these trials she gains the confidence to become a pilot like Anakin.

The second story is set during the events of Episode 3 and tells of the young woman who has finally achieved her dream of becoming a pilot and serving under a Jedi Master in the wars. She forms a close bond with this original character, but when Order 66 comes down the line he is shot down and despite her best efforts he dies. The war is over, but she is now even more lost than she was before.

The final story happens in the aftermath of Episode 3 and details the rise of the Empire. The young woman finds her family again and together they form an underground movement led by certain Jedi in hiding and aided by droids from the Separatists whom they managed to protect. There is an assassin droid among them and it has a detailed plan to destroy the new Emperor. They go along with this plan, initiating the final battle of the Clone Wars, though it fails and they evacuate under fire. She is chased by a figure in a sleek Imperial fighter who calls himself Darth Vader. She recognizes that this is the same Anakin Skywalker that helped her years ago and he senses her as well. She leads him on a merry chase and manages to evade him through techniques he had taught her, eventually leading the entire cell back underground to join with the growing Rebel Alliance and fight this new war among the stars…

That’s hilarious.

Harmy said:

I’m gonna have to do some side by side comparisons but I’m 99% sure that all the shot’s from Empire are from TN1’s Grindhouse version and I have a feeling that the Star Wars shots might actually be from the Silverscreen Edition.

I said this out loud when I saw it. Though seeing the comparison it does look like a different film source, it’s weird that the best source Disney could find for a print is essentially the same as something this community had several years ago and has since surpassed.

It amuses me to no end that Disney is just recreating this scene for real.