Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda

“The Tingler” gave me nightmares.

Walked to the theater myself in June 1977 - I was a senior in high school at the time. But I knew about it at least a year earlier, from clips shown on the Bob Wilkins late night creature features series.

Mithrandir said:
So yes, there are fans that still have a soft spot for the PT, independently of how shitty it is.

I actually also have a soft spot for TPM, because: (1) lots of scenes on Tatooine, (2) great music during climactic lightsabre battle, and most of all (3) CPY.

In fact, I enjoy quite a few terrible movies, for various reasons.

Some people act as though liking TFA and RO is some sort of conspiracy against the PT.
Here is what I saw:

People entered the cinema in 1977 with high hopes, and left thrilled.
People entered the cinema in 1983 with high hopes, and left thrilled.
People entered the cinema in 1985 with high hopes, and left thrilled.

People entered the cinema in 1999 with high hopes, and left feeling strangely ill.
People entered the cinema in 2002 with high hopes, and left disappointed.
People entered the cinema in 2005 with trepidation, and left feeling a bit better.

People entered the cinema in 2015 with trepidation, and left thrilled.
People entered the cinema in 2015 with high hopes, and left thrilled.

This isn’t a conspiracy… we really wanted to love ALL of them. Not every movie is great. Two of them were great, three of them were good, and three of them weren’t.

To make a good movie, some very important aspects are writing, acting, cinematography, and editing, many of which hinge on great directing. The PT flunks in every one of those categories, not because we want them to, but because sadly, unfortunately, they do.

And FWIW, I thought Finn was a great character. My favorite in the last two films.

I think that someone who doesn’t know Cushing is dead would assume that it was a real person and be totally fooled. In my opintion they did a fantastic job.

By coincidence, just a couple of nights ago I decided to watch ROTS again – it has been about 10 years since I saw it. So I popped the DVD into the player and gave it a go. I honestly couldn’t remember much about it… how bad could it be?

What a serious C.F. that movie is. The CGI looks like some sort of bad cartoon, or maybe a silly video game. Plus it was all I could do to not just hit “stop” every time Anakin and Padme were in the same frame… I was actually embarrassed to even be watching it (“it’s because I’m so in love with you”… “no, it’s because I’M so in love with YOU.” Geez, kill me now, please!). And don’t get me started on that stupid dragon that Obiwon rides around for about half the film. Good god. And when Anakin walks into the room to kill the “younglings” - that was just pathetic, and in terribly bad taste. I didn’t make it through the lightsaber fight in the lava… I just lost interest when they were fighting on that boogie board, couldn’t take it anymore, and had to turn it off.

The only redeeming aspect of the film is that Palpatine is delightfully evil in fight with Mace Windu. Christopher Lee was a joke (sorry to say), and Grievous was laughable. ROTS may be considered by many to be the “best” of the prequels, but if that is true, it only goes to prove how seriously low a bar the previous two films set. In my opinion, this film is right there with Plan Nine from Outer Space… hey, “execute Order 66!” isn’t any better than - heck maybe was directly stolen from - “implement Plan 9!”.

captainsolo said:

Can we please talk about how now Leia’s feigned lack of knowledge about the Death Star plans being on board the Tantive makes no sense since Vader clearly saw a trooper get the floppy disk on board before the ship blasts off leaving him shaking a fist in a “I’ll get you next time!” pose.

Um, how would LEIA know that Vader saw that??

The Jabba scene kills two reveals, which on my opinion makes it the worst SE addition of all.

Killing everyone off also makes for a smoother transition to Ep. 4. This way they don’t have to explain why none of those characters are there.

TV’s Frink said:

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Frink says that Vader rejected Krennik’s plea

I think you have me confused with someone else.

Sorry, you are you are right. It was Adywan who said that.

darth_ender said:

Jetrell Fo said:

Warbler said:

FanFiltration said:

It is missing one person.

For you, yes. There are many others that none of us know personally that are missing as well. I’m not even sure a proper picture would fit in a post if everyone that passed was included.

But we can still allow Warbler room to mourn. We’ve allowed everyone here a chance to mourn the loss of a Star Wars celebrity few here have ever met in person, fewer (probably none) here who knew her on a personal level, and yet you have to minimize Warbler sharing his feelings of loss about his own dad. He’s clearly not actually requesting the inclusion of his father in the picture. He’s just expressing the fact that beyond the loss of all these famous people, he feels a deeply personal loss. Let him grieve, man.

I lost my father this year too.

Just saw the film for the third time - it will be my last time seeing it in a theater. This time I saw it in 70mm IMAX, so I think I’ve experienced most of the high-end formats. I’d say that as much as I personally tend to like 3D, for this film the 70mm film looked better. It made it look more real, more like a “war” film (as someone said earlier). It’s also a fairly dark film (in color), and the 2D 70mm was easier to actually see.

I noticed a couple of things I missed before:

First, each time they use the Death Star, they specify “single laser”. This is consistent with the full reveal of its power being left for episode 4.

Frink says that Vader rejected Krennik’s plea – I think he actually accepted it. After choking him, he pointedly calls him “director” Krennik, and Krennik smiles as he recovers. So Vader made it clear that he still considers him in charge - for now. However, as we see, Krennik decides to travel to Skarif, and Tarkin pulls the rug out from under him. Tarkin is more than happy to destroy Skarif because it kills two birds with one stone - destroys the plans the rebels are after, and gets Krennik out of the way.

The music chosen for the scene when the Star Destroyer crashes through the shield is really brilliant. Rather than a triumphant exciting piece, a beautiful ballad plays. Fabulous!

I agree with Anchorhead about the too-fast cuts. But this is a problem with lots of movies today. Everything is quick, quick, quick. Makes we wonder if these actors could sustain a scene longer than 2 seconds. And I also agree that Saw’s character is ridiculous.

The scene when Chirrut is dying and Baze comforts him by affirming his mantra remains the most convincing single acting moment in the film, to me. It is really a sweet moment.

Other than that, Krennik and K2SO have the strongest parts. Jyn is positively wooden.

Alphonse Mouzon, 68.
(great jazz drummer)

Just saw it for the second time, and I enjoyed it MUCH more this time. I was able to follow the story better, noticed a lot more details, and didn’t doze off.

I tried to pay attention to the score - came to the conclusion that it is OK, but not as good as previous Star Wars movies. Too bad, because I really was impressed with Giacchino after hearing the NPR interview, and wanted very much to like it. There just wasn’t much that I found memorable about it.

I stand by my previous assessment that the characters are very thin - especially Jyn. Her facial expressions all looked the same - like someone with too much plastic surgery (although I don’t mean to imply that that’s the cause). Again, the only character that seemed to me to elicit any real humanity was Baze Malbus.

The effects were even more stunning the second time, and Tarkin was even more convincing (although his voice didn’t sound at all like Cushing’s to me).

The first time I saw it in RPX 3D, the second time in XD 3D. Both were excellent, I’d give the edge to the RPX showing, although that could be because I was sitting closer. I’ll probably see it one more time while it’s still at the IMAX.

thelionslicer said:

I guess there’s the really unlikely possibility they already killed her character in this movie.

I’m guessing that Solo died because Harrison Ford had grown to hate the role and wanted him to die. I didn’t get the impression that Carrie wanted the same… rather, it seemed like she was happy to be reprising her character.

My all-time favorite line of hers:
“You came in that thing? You’re braver than I thought.”

Alderaan said:
I can’t think of any bad films with good original scores.

A simple Google search reveals several webgages devoted to this issue. One lists 25 “bad” films with great scores. And that’s not counting TPM which I think is a terrible film with a fantastic score. And it took me all of 20 seconds to come up with three more off the top of my head, not on any of the lists: Godzilla 1985 (incredible exit theme), The Black Hole, and It’s Alive (score by Bernard Hermann, no less!).

One quick observation… in each of the “reveals” of CGI recreations of prior characters, they snuck up on them gradually to build the suspense. For example, Leia’s back is to the camera for an extended period, and we’re thinking, “is it her? is it her?”. Then “tada!” it’s Leia! Or, “tada!” it’s Tarkin! Ordinarily, we aren’t introduced to characters in that way. Those might look increasingly clumsy over time.

I wonder why they cut the scene of the tie fighter rising to meet Jyn on the comm tower? It was the most dramatic visual in all the trailers.

Just saw “Rogue One”. I saw it in 3D RPX. Some random impressions:

The basic story, capturing the Death Star plans and thus tying it to ANH, was really well thought out. It was an exciting way to create a decent prequel… a far better and more fitting backstory to ANH than any of GL’s prequels. Fits nicely into the OT canon.

The character development was REALLY WEAK compared to TFA. In TFA, the main two characters were really well fleshed out, and I really connected with them and rooted for them. It was one of the strengths of TFA. By contrast, in Rogue One (is there an accepted acronym yet?), I found myself not really caring about anyone in particular. Neither of the two protagonists were sufficiently developed for me care about their demise at the end. The only character I slightly cared about was the blind guy’s assistant.

There were a few too many gaps. How did Jyn get captured by the Empire? What was the significance of the necklace? Saw Gerrera didn’t seem fearsome, he just seemed cuckoo, and it wasn’t clear to me why all these people were doing his bidding.

The ground battle went on way too long… I actually dozed off about halfway through it. When that extra batch of black storm troopers arrived, I moaned “aw c’mon”. By contrast, the space battle was fantastic. Some of the effects were staggering, especially the collision of the two imperial ships.

Tarkin and Leia were both extremely convincing, I thought. Really amazing that they can do that these days.

Vader single-handedly mowing down the rebels in the corridor with his light saber (and the force) was extremely well done. I thought it was one of the most powerful scenes in the film. I look forward to seeing that scene again.

I liked that the worlds were both gritty and complex. There was a lot to see in the nooks and crannies, without seeming gratuitous. The occasional easter eggs didn’t bother me, because they didn’t impact the story or shrink the universe.

The music was excellent, and the sound in the RPX theater was stunning. The 3D was rather understated - at times I even wondered if it was 3D.

In summary:

• story, very good
• effects, fabulous
• characters, very poor
• pacing, fair

I liked the original. It was really creepy and made the empire leadership look like some sort of other-worldly non-human evil mechanized hell.

Leon, one of my favs.

The reef is in serious trouble, but pronouncing it dead might do more harm than good if it leads people to believe it can’t be saved anyways, so why bother to try.

Plinkett’s first review (of TPM) was incredible - a work of genius. Since then, unfortunately, I think that they have gone downhill.

MathUser said:

Why would it be out of character for Yoda to enforce monastic celibacy?

Because strength in the force is supposedly inherited.