StarkillerAG

Marooned Biker Scout said:

That, and do I do hope they land this New Republic film, and whatever this “climactic story event” is. But that hope is fading if the quality and execution of stories is going to be like BoBF or the last season and a half of The Mandalorian.

Yeah, I know the feeling. It seems like the best Star Wars of the modern era is going to be the stuff that has Favreau and Filoni as far removed from production as possible. They’re both decent storytellers on their own, but they seem to feed each other’s worst impulses in a very strange way. Right now, The Acolyte, Skeleton Crew and Andor season 2 seem to be much more promising than anything “Mandoverse” related.

Mocata said:

I enjoy them a lot, though it’s not like you can recommend them to casual viewers. But at this stage I think the conversation has gone beyond them because the internet has changed so much. They did a good post-PT/partial TFA review but struggled to say anything useful about TLJ for example.

Yeah, it feels like the Plinkett style “character reviews” where the reviewer creates a persona for themselves with tons of skits and stuff have become yesterday’s fad. People just want to see someone breaking down a movie, good or bad, without any distracting gimmicks. RLM themselves ended up transitioning into that format with Half in the Bag, and it resulted in much more insightful commentary than they were ever able to achieve with Plinkett: I still use the phrase “passive progressive” that they coined in their TROS review.

Tobar said:

StarkillerAG said:

Yeah, I’m pretty much on the same page as Superweapon here. I really like 80s and 90s anime, and some 2000s anime can be pretty great too, but it’s hard for me to find an anime from the past 15 years that I can unconditionally enjoy.

There’s still good stuff being made and even getting theatrical releases in the US. If you’re interested I’d recommend looking into the films of Makoto Shinkai. Especially his last three films (Your Name, Weathering With You and Suzume). I’d also recommend others like A Silent Voice and The Bear and the Beast.

And while you do have a point about the flood of isekai and fan service. There are still outstanding series being made like Your lie in April. You just have to keep an eye out for it.

I get what you mean. When I bemoaned the current state of anime, I was referring to TV shows more than movies. If anything, anime movies have leaned much more into the “prestigious art film” thing after the massive success of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.

As for the stuff you mentioned though, I’ve heard of most of them (with the exception of Bear and the Beast, I’ll have to look into that), and they don’t really do much for me. Pretty much all of Makoto Shinkai’s stuff is the exact same movie repeated over and over again: a depressed teen/college-age boy has no reason to live, until he meets a Manic Pixie Dream Girl with some sort of quirk and/or magic power, and they fall madly in love over a beautiful Technicolor backdrop while indie rock music plays in the background. Same thing with A Silent Voice and Your Lie in April. It’s probably someone else’s jam, but I have different tastes.

I’m glad he’s excited I guess, but at the same time I don’t know if making a movie in the most over-scrutinized franchise of all time is exactly the best move for Taika right now. Thor: Love and Thunder was an absolute disaster for Taika Waititi’s “brand”: people have begun to see him less as a funny guy who makes cool movies, and more as an immature manchild who doesn’t have the self-seriousness to handle a major franchise.

In my opinion, Taika needs to do what Robert Pattinson did after Twilight, and step out of the limelight for a moment. Make some good low-budget films, rebuild his image, and then, only THEN, do Star Wars and Akira and whatever else he has planned. Maybe then people will actually have confidence in him.

I know I say this too much, but if you’re really that done with Star Wars… why are you still here? It’s pointless to come into these threads every week just to complain about how Star Wars is dead to you, and Disney are a bunch of hacks, and you just don’t care anymore. If you really don’t care, just move on. Find something you actually like.

Yeah, I’m pretty much on the same page as Superweapon here. I really like 80s and 90s anime, and some 2000s anime can be pretty great too, but it’s hard for me to find an anime from the past 15 years that I can unconditionally enjoy. It’s all either cookie-cutter isekai bullcrap, or insane horniness with massive-titted women. Or both.

In my opinion, “otaku culture” crystallizing into its current, proudly degenerate form is what killed mainstream anime. It has resulted in anime moving further and further away from the interests of normal people, and more and more towards pandering to basement-dwelling masturbation addicts. There are a few shows that are still being made for a well-adjusted audience, but the vast majority is repulsive on a physical level.

Emre1601 said:

I hope we do get to see more Star Wars like this. It doesn’t all have to be the same, but more grounded, real, intelligent. A level up in quality across the whole range of qualities needed to make an engaging, compelling show.

Yeah, I hope so too. I’m not sure if Disney sees the writing on the wall, but with interest in “vanilla Star Wars” continuing to wane, and interest in gritty, nuanced prestige TV continuing to rise, moving the franchise in a more intelligent direction would be a very wise choice if they want people to keep watching their stuff. From what we’ve heard about The Acolyte and the Rey movie, it already seems like they’re trying to make Star Wars smarter, but we’ll have to see.

Mocata said:

StarkillerAG said:
the two moments that everyone says were stolen (the cavalry arriving and the “I am” one-liner) are pretty common fantasy blockbuster tropes. Those moments were pretty dumb, don’t get me wrong, but not because they were ripping off Marvel.

That’s two things too many and frankly I find it suspicious, particularly when they’ve said other things like Rey Palpatine were changed at the last minute.

But again, there’s stuff like that in a ton of blockbusters, even before Endgame. It’s just that Endgame was the main thing on people’s minds back in 2019, so people were naturally inclined to compare the two.

And the first moment I mentioned, Lando arriving with the cavalry, has been documented to have been in the movie from the very beginning: it was in Colin Trevorrow’s “Duel of the Fates” draft, written before Endgame even started filming. So that obviously couldn’t have been Endgame inspired.

This looks awesome, dude! From how you describe it, it sounds like Star Wars meets Evangelion. We need more Blackened Mantle style fanedits, they’re like watching a fan rewrite in live-action.

I’ll send you a PM!

Fan_edit_fan said:

Just don’t give obvious A-holes the attention they clamor for…it’s that simple. Keep the conversations to the intelligent minded.

Yeah, you’re right. I just don’t like when people pretend that the A-holes don’t exist, and that the claims of A-holes existing are corporate proaganda or something. They’re real, and they’re a problem.

Vladius said:

The way you guys talk about this stuff is all part of the same pointless cyclical media firestorm that happens every time. If your automatic response to any criticism or any reference to politics is “ugh, those Fox News types, am I right?” you are just the other side of the same coin. You are part of a viral marketing campaign. Some of you are okay with that, I think.

Oh God, we’re getting into this “both sides” shit now? Just because I don’t condone the rhetoric of every single anti-Disney YouTuber, purely because they don’t like Disney, does not make me a “viral marketing campaign”.

Believe me, I do not like Disney at all. They’re a soulless machine that stifles creativity and encourages bland safeness. And I’m not saying that everyone who hates Disney is anti-woke, either: there are many YouTubers who raise very valid, intelligent points about the company’s failings. But the anti-woke people take advantage of people’s natural animosity against Disney, and weaponize it to advance whatever reactionary talking point is “in” right now.

The “Fox News types” (and I stand by that comparison) tell their followers: “Are you feeling dissatisfied with the current Hollywood landscape? Have major blockbusters started to disappoint you recently? Well, it’s not because of the corporate system prioritizing the safest profit over anything else, it’s because of those GODDAMN BLACKS, FEMALES, AND GAYS trying to brainwash people into rejecting GOOD CHRISTIAN FAMILY VALUES!” If you see that kind of rhetoric as just harmless criticism, you might be part of a viral marketing campaign yourself.

PMs sent to both of you.

PMs sent to everyone who asked.

Mocata said:

To make things worse a bunch of ideas were just stolen from Avengers: Endgame…

Everyone keeps saying that, but it’s just not true! Given how secret Disney keeps their scripts, there’s no way JJ could have known what was going to happen in Endgame while he was writing TROS, and the two moments that everyone says were stolen (the cavalry arriving and the “I am” one-liner) are pretty common fantasy blockbuster tropes. Those moments were pretty dumb, don’t get me wrong, but not because they were ripping off Marvel.

So what they’re hoping to achieve by making a new episode (beyond trying to forget that stuff)

DING DING DING DING DING!!! 😉

Like I said when this movie was first announced, my number one hope is that it will be good enough for a faneditor to remove all references to Palpatine’s return and Rey’s bloodline, add an opening crawl explaining that Kylo and the First Order were defeated offscreen, and retitle it “Episode IX: The Skywalker Legacy” or something like that. It’s the only way for me to truly make peace with the sequels.

Leovfz said:

Sounds great, I’d love a link as well.

PM sent!

SWOTFAN25 said:

Mandalorian season 3 is the worst piece of Star Wars that’s ever been created.

I’m not trolling. I’m dead serious.

That’s a little… extreme.

I get why you feel like that, though. I didn’t immediately notice it after the season was done, but something about it feels like it’s sort of “devalued” Star Wars as a whole. It just feels very low-effort throughout, in a way that reminds me of the worst parts of Kenobi.

Personally, Kenobi felt much more insulting to me, because I had very high hopes, but Mando season 3 is something that’s almost as bad as being insulting: it’s bland. I haven’t been able to work up a single bit of passion for any of that season in retrospect, and it makes it hard to look forward to future content.

That was a massive paragraph, but yeah. The only reason why the anti-woke crowd backed John Boyega after TROS is because he was a “model minority”, so to speak. Reactionaries could point to him and say “See, I’m not racist, I support this black guy who agrees with my talking points!” Meanwhile, they could conveniently slip their TFA videos bashing Finn for being a black stormtrooper under the rug, because it doesn’t fit with their new narrative.

And that’s the most important thing to anti-woke Internet personalities: “narrative”. They want some quick, snazzy soundbites to get conservatives riled up about whatever’s popular now, even if they end up blatantly contradicting themselves. They’re the Fox News of YouTube movie criticism, and no one should take them even remotely seriously.

Mocata said:

If you see news about it on a general outlet that lets the readers give ‘reactions’ there are a lot of thumbs down over SW in general lately. It’s impossible to say what the far reaching vibes are because what we usually see is ultra hyped Celebration types or ultra jaded social media types. Personally I don’t care but I would wait until it’s been released to see how it goes.

Yeah, that’s my current feeling in a nutshell. I was certain that people would want to watch this movie when it was first announced, but I’ve come to realize that it’s pretty much impossible to predict how people will react to upcoming Star Wars stuff at this point. Maybe it will bomb, maybe it won’t. We’ll just have to see.

darthvoldermort said:

Can I get a link please

PM sent!

Personally, I’d be fine with Anakin killing younglings, as long as it’s offscreen. You can keep in all the bits where Obi-Wan, Yoda and Padme talk about it happening, but I think the scene itself should stay on the cutting room floor. It’s one of the most unintentionally hilarious moments of the entire movie, and no edit should keep it IMO.

PM sent!

Jesus dude, you don’t need to be an ass about it. I’m not just trying to silence any criticism, I have plenty of problems with Disney’s current output. It just seems like Disney Star Wars has been a never ending cycle of schadenfreude for you.

It’s one thing to complain about getting stomach flu from a restaurant, it’s a whole other thing to keep going back to that restaurant even after getting stomach flu there numerous times. And the latter is what you seem to be doing.

Okay, I’ll check out Picard season 3 I guess.

See what I mean by word-of-mouth, Anjohan? 😉

Again, if you know Disney will never listen to your criticisms, why don’t you just… stop watching their stuff? I know it’s not easy to let go of a franchise you once loved, but you seem to keep setting yourself up for disappointment when it comes to Disney Star Wars.

From my experience as a former Star Trek fan, the best way to deal with a franchise declining in quality is to use word-of-mouth as your main deciding factor in whether you want to see something. I hated both Discovery and Picard because of how grimdark and edgy they were, so I stopped watching them after Picard season 1. But I heard Strange New Worlds was a sort of return to form for the franchise, so I checked it out, and I ended up really enjoying it.

Basically, as someone else on here (I don’t remember who) once said, “Star Wars is a buffet. Enjoy the stuff you like, and leave the rest.” Seek out stuff like Andor, and avoid stuff like Mando season 3.

G&G-Fan said:

slightly raises hand I liked the finale.

The season over all was a mess, yes. But it was a good follow up to the previous episode. Short of seeing the Mythosaur beyond it’s eye I’m not sure what was expected.

Yep, that’s pretty much how I’m feeling too. This season did not live up to the hype at all, but it wasn’t so offensively bad that I need to write hundreds of angry rants about how Disney has “RUINED STAR WARS FOREVER”. The absolute meltdown that some people on this site have been having is really overblown.

Overall, there wasn’t really much to write home about here, but some of the series and movies coming up (Acolyte, Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, Dawn of the Jedi, even Rey) seem much more promising. If Lucasfilm can continue to deliver highs like Andor in the midst of the generic lows, I’ll be mostly satisfied with the franchise going forward.