act on instinct

I knew I’d get caught citing from an anecdote, I don’t want to do that too much because we’ll get lost in the weeds, will say those I know that saw it twice also don’t regularly do that, and I understand not liking it the first time but later it grows on you that’s common. But I don’t think I’m just regurgitating memes that’s a little unfair, the mystery box thing is how JJ writes and he has spoken publicly about that, and for the first film I don’t even mind that, it isn’t like the case of ANH when they didn’t already know they’d have 2 more bites at the apple. I think the movie is a fun ride, the performances from the new characters are very endearing, but as far as what they’re doing there’s not much detail, all pretty boilerplate and I agree with others saying it really would have helped to have just those deleted scenes to establish the universe in more of its own specific context, I’m expecting TRoS to be flashback city.

DominicCobb said:

Yes, “similar” and “the same” are two different things. I think it’s safe to assume on this site we know ANH pretty well, so I’m sure we all were able to pick up on most if not all the similarities on our first viewing of TFA. No need to insult anyone’s intelligence either way by trying to make it out to be something it’s not, we all know what the fact of the matter is (and, at this point, should know that it was obviously intentional). So the debate should not be arguing back and forth about what the similarities are and how many there are, but rather whether or not they work in the film’s favor or are detrimental to it.

Personally, I like to take a more reasoned approach. I get why people don’t like TFA because it’s “too similar,” but I find often people don’t go beyond that, they just think similar=bad, therefore TFA=bad (I shouldn’t have to say this, but obviously not everyone is like this). That is frustrating thing to see, especially when this is a franchise that has always been built off preexisting parts, and has been including echoes of other films within this franchise for years. For me, you can’t take a binary look at it. For instance, the worst part of TFA (in my opinion) is the inclusion of Starkiller Base, not simply because it is a repeat of the Death Star, but because it is only really in the film to repeat the Death Star, and thus feels inorganic to the rest of the story - whereas other repeated elements fit far better and serve a more justifiable purpose in this narrative and actually work in the film’s favor.

It’s hard to tow the line, I don’t think this problem is exclusive to Star Wars either. There’s a lot to say just about the changes within the industry, the critics, and the fans, which are locked in a three-way relationship as long as studios are working with these known properties. That is not the same as it was 10 years ago. Lot of money on the line and lot of wildly different expectations, who to please?

I think “TFA is the same” reaction comes from JJ and all more or less confirming it was their intention to reboot the series, which for many seemed appropriate. Reliving ANH was a big part of the fun factor watching TFA. JJ’s big problem ultimately was those mystery boxes, makes it hard to rewatch and most people I know saw it twice and most enjoyed it less the second time, because underneath the fan service TFA doesn’t set up anything but more mystery boxes, so it feels like a bridge movie to TLJ. It wasn’t the rabid internet fanbase that made it all about their theories, JJ and co. served the ball. It seems that Disney is unsure themselves whether they should zig or zag, how do you give the audience the thing they want but don’t already have? You have to give them what they didn’t know they wanted. So I can respect RJ’s notion that to continue things would need to change, but it’s been a bumpy ride to say the least.

I agree, it’s a mischaracterization, nobody here has mentioned Star Wars Resistance or Forces of Destiny or the new games in regards to the sequels, there is an unspoken separation from the more kitschy material and the episodes. The prequels make a better point because they were main episodes and different from the Star Wars OT fans wanted, even doing things with old characters that many fans disliked (whiny kid Anakin, Yoda doing backflips with a tiny lightsaber). But the prequels DID damage the brand’s reputation and the backlash was enough to be one of the reasons for a change in management. It’s not so much the end of Star Wars overall, the fate of more movies on the other hand…

Also we may need more threads, this discussion has a lot of moving parts all worth talking about but it’s starting to get disorganized.

Well that’s why I gave to the optimist side for the good, the ugly is more of a joke than a prediction. By modest exit I would say par for the course in its domain, lower side of average with the rest of the Star Wars releases. I don’t think TRoS should need to be vindicated/validated through how it competes against other franchises, but if the finale of the saga fails to bring in as many that even saw TLJ I think that would be more of a fizzle than a bang, nothing to speak of the quality of the product, but proof of waning relevance.

Rodney-2187 said:

Is everyone pretty much thinking the same thing then? ($700,000,000 domestic/$1.4 worldwide) I haven’t seen too many predictions far outside of those numbers.

It may have a weak open but I’d say within that range is the safe bet, there’s reasons less and more people will go and I expect that should even out to at least 1.2 billion worldwide. After the marketing blitz especially if that 700 mark can’t be reached domestically, considering it’s the final chapter that would indicate a negative impact for me. Ending the saga on a modest exit, second place to the real cultural main event which turned out to be Avengers. And honestly looking at those Endgame numbers is not encouraging, I did not see Endgame but it was an undeniable wave, TFA was like that too, also rippled into RO which I doubt would have been as big of a deal itself if it wasn’t the first of the anthology movies just coming off TFA, fans were thirsting for more, TLJ numbers are a bit more in line. TRoS being the grand finale will really be the angle that will bring the rest out of the woodwork and at the very least hit their business as usual everything is fine nothing is broken number.

in short,
The Good - $850,000,000/$2.2
The Bad - $695,000,000/$1.1
The Ugly - $525,000,000/$974,117,000

I would pin the similarities more on style than getting into all these story beats, Jakku establishes a world very similar to Tatooine and that’s putting it lightly. Not to mention the cantina filled with alien mercenaries, even Starkiller had a trench for X-wings to fly through just because.

OutboundFlight said:

ANH is about stopping the Death Star. TFA is NOT about stopping Starkiller. TFA is about finding Luke Skywalker. We know this thanks to each episode’s crawls.

They do blow up Starkiller by the end much like the Death Star at the end of ANH, which also has a similar mission, find the old Jedi who can help in Obi-Wan Kenobi, down to being the same task ordered by the same character. The pacing of events might diverge but calling it totally different feels like willful ignorance.

I always think about this clip from the making of Phantom Menace https://youtu.be/hxTIlu4ldbg and the idea that, being of a different time period before the war, the artisans were still designing the ships, before war and the empire had reduced the team to a rag-tag band of rebels with whatever junked up parts they could use. For the sequels it’s just X-wings and ties again, something you may not immediately think about as wrong but overall limits the world building, hoping IX will understand they need a bit more in scope of their own.

Rodney-2187 said:

So what are everyone’s box office predictions for TRoS? I’m keeping mine at $700,000,000 domestic and $1,400,000,000 worldwide for now, but I fully expect to revise that upward depending on the hype.

Here is a list of the Star Wars movies domestic box office adjusted for inflation with Endgame thrown in just for fun. The numbers correspond to where they rank on the all-time domestic adjusted list.

Great stuff! Appreciated including Endgame numbers, gives perspective. On that note I think in addition box office for the DC universe movies should be added into the mix.

None of these are adjusted for inflation, all my numbers are from total worldwide gross:

Man of Steel - $668,045,518
Batman v Superman - $873,634,919
Suicide Squad - $746,846,894
Wonder Woman - $821,847,012
Justice League - $657,924,295
Aquaman - $1,148,061,807

Obviously just limited to domestic would put DC to shame against Star Wars, though with the poor numbers in China that’s a two way street. Reflecting on this I would say even if a large consensus of the people and critics don’t like what you’re doing, these brand name mega movies should still be able to hold water and bring in expected money (marketing costs and other technical number crunching aside), very few real flops and the billion mark for global is expected now.

For TRoS to prove itself I agree with the 700mil domestic, what I expect is 1.3b worldwide but on the more cynical side total domestic below 550 would be the embarrassment, it should at least hit a billion globally despite any bad faith, nothing like Solo’s numbers.

The part where it all burns to the ground could be the next cycle of trilogies, a risk I think they’d rather not take and just move it all to streaming which explains why even their highest profile anthology story everyone was begging for is now becoming a show instead of a movie. Disney is savvy about these things, they want to preserve their investment. Declining numbers is a way worse look than just not giving away your numbers and boasting about the success of your exclusive content streaming platform and new cash-flow of subscriber money.

snooker said:

Yeah tbh I have a shot in mind it’s just i really freaking hate rotoscoping aaaa

Had to rotoscope 1 frame of the version I posted and it was still the most tedious step. I’ve had dreams of scoping an AotC Anakin into TPM cockpits to retain some of that stuff and skirt around kid Annie…but only so much can be done.

Much improved! I made my own slight (and sloppy) alteration as a suggestion for reordering shots to direct the kinetic energy, https://streamable.com/9lznz

Now it goes from Padme to the threat from screen right to Anakin looking screen right and immediately diving off screen right and following the action through. Felt like reversing the Obi reaction while I was at it too since his reaction time in response to Anakin leaping through the window felt a little sluggish for a Jedi. Thoughts?

I don’t see why the marketing couldn’t be a trick to be subverted later when the name of the game with these episodes has been ultimate secrecy and surprise, Lucasfilm could pull the rug out from under people if they wanted. There are ancient interviews out there before the idea of 9 became so accepted where Star Wars could be up to 12 parts in total. With the standalone entries going to streaming I think this is one of the few moves left to genuinely surprise anyone when it comes to the episodes while keeping the ball up in the theatrical department. I also don’t buy even the RJ and DnD trilogies (which I predict will merge if they don’t fizzle out) as being so separated from the rest of the saga, it just doesn’t make sense and could go down in flames with audiences who don’t have the patience or the interest in trying to endear themselves to totally new sets of characters going on adventures in random disconnected time periods.

Anyway that’s my case, I agree that realistically they wouldn’t go there, maybe 0.005% chance, but I would sure consider it if I were in their position and bite the bullet on any ego indulgence and just say it’s the last hurrah before anyone notices the last minute scramble to figure out how to end this story. It’s bad enough we really haven’t had the proper time with the characters, hollow mysteries have substituted for story and it’s not a good look when you’re two acts deep and your main character’s defining arc is “Who am I? Why am I here?”. ST is really mostly Kylo if we’re talking about a set up narrative we can follow and respond to, the heroes have participated but those moments where we learn about them have been brushed to the side for later and now I don’t know how 3 hours will be enough to wrap up what has barely been established.

What are the chances with all that needs to happen in TROS they pull a Harry Potter and decide to split the final chapter as a surprise finale, rounding the saga out to 10 episodes? I don’t think the odds are high on this one and I have no basis for the suspicion but the more I think about it the less crazy it seems, thoughts?

It’s definitely on the right track, maybe moves a little too fast but only so much room where the figure is obscured, maybe don’t repeat the ewan reaction shot and save it for the second time would seem more fluid?

The election year microcosm is not lost on anyone else here I hope? It’s anybody’s guess as to how bad things really are, so many variables while there’s a market paradigm shift to streaming at the same time. We will never know what might have been, or which and how many of these choices made under new management were responsible. I agree the intensity of the dogfights have been somewhat cherry picked overblown, but also might be indicators to the tip of an iceberg. Will IX flop? Not a chance, but I’m not so sure for the future of Star Wars universe movies…

If one doesn’t exist already, a thread should be created for other old instances of Star Wars doomsday sayers through the years, possibly with a collection of inaccurate predictions!

DrDre said:

Following a request from Hal 9000, I decided to try and create some scene by scene LUTs to get the TESB bluray to look half descent, using the 1997 SE telecine as the basis, while adding a few touches of my own. I will make these LUTs freely available, as he’s not the first member to make this request.

Here’s the first set of frames.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Comparison:

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/1E21NNNU

LUT:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qYfl68kDNGmoSIBhMmrM3UCZCr6hI6tT/view?usp=sharing

my take on this

The big question remains: what is left to be resolved? Outside of whether or not it’s been or will be botched.

RogueLeader said:

act on instinct said:

My prediction of how the audience might view this in hindsight is that TFA and TLJ will feel like an overextended prologue while TROS will be this mega movie, the one you skip to (RotS anyone?), backed into a corner and ultimately too bloated to gracefully end the ride smoothly, if even intact.

Sounds like it will fit right into the saga then!

Such are the perils of flying by the seat of your pants!

All these debates about consistency within character and lore really shows how empty the discussion is when it comes to the current story going on. Any mysteries are too mysterious they’re virtually absent until we get to hear about them.

If these were adaptations of books I think the sequels would be comparable to The Hobbit movies, rushed and padded, a trilogy for the sake of it. There was no question the new movies would be a trilogy before it even started but so far there just isn’t much information to grab a hold of, lot of meandering more in line with a 10 year build up similar to the Marvel formula. Now IX feels like it will itself be a soft reboot of this new trilogy, this time packed with all the story we were supposed to be following on top of its own developments, all while trying to send up the whole and conclude the entire Skywalker saga. My prediction of how the audience might view this in hindsight is that TFA and TLJ will feel like an overextended prologue while TROS will be this mega movie, the one you skip to (RotS anyone?), backed into a corner and ultimately too bloated to gracefully end the ride smoothly, if even intact.

snooker said:

https://vimeo.com/351028296

Unexpected, really enjoyed specifically the way you paced that out, not just silly it keeps the integrity.

I made a thread around when I first joined but now I think I should have just posted it here, rookie mistakes.

nl0428 said:

I’m starting to think this thread has been derailed into the topic of the Special Edition changes.

Agreed, I’m pretty sure there’s a death of the author thread where those arguments can be made. Although, the deeper question to get back on track is what JJ/Disney will ultimately decide based around that very same fan contention. They killed the EU and kept their distance from the prequels, they didn’t want to deal with the dead weight (their perspective). Now the fans who had appreciation for those things have surfaced and turned the finger back on them and calling their movies fan fiction. Hard to know how they’ll take that reaction, the prequels have themselves undergone a shift in general consensus in the time between TFA and TLJ.

There’s really no winning with Star Wars in my opinion, it’s all so personal and perceptions change, and the next generation of fans will have a custom experience. Always in motion is the future.

Hilarious to see mention of 4:3 aspect ratio, I’ve been thinking about taking on my own prequel edit and have been considering going for “academy ratio” as sort of a callback to that older style closer to silent era. Similar to how The Grand Budapest Hotel used it to set a period.

Cropping also has practical reasons opening up extra cutting room and if you wanted you could even pull a few maneuvers like George Lucas and find all kinds of room blending and splitting shots to gain that much control over the pace and focus of the scene.

DrDre said:

I’m cautiously optimistic about episode IX. I’m not expecting it to be the second coming, but an entertaining film nonetheless, and I guess after 40 years of history, that’s not a bad way to end the Skywalker saga.

Makes me think Return of the Jedi, or Revenge of the Sith, now Rise of Skywalker going through the ringer. I accept that the last bite at the apple in each instance gives equal rise to high criticism as well as a sense of hey let’s all get along and have a good “last” ride. I don’t think either reaction is wrong, even feeling both at the same time. After reading about the differences between what Lucas, Kasdan and Gary Kurtz wanted for RotJ, a fan can still appreciate the fun of their childhood favorite while dreaming of what might have been.

Is this treatment going to be applied to the DNR 4k77 as well?

Overall love the added kick the film look gives vs the more neutral muted video, it’s more exciting to look at as a whole. Does seem to be a little high in the reds for me, to the point where I feel it soaking in places it shouldn’t; knocking down the green so heavy does a lot to eliminate the video feel but even there I think there’s maybe a bit of over correction (potential detail loss?) that could be reeled back for the final balance.

Still big improvements, great work on this, can’t wait to see the finished version.

Looking slightly more pink/magenta than before (not a bad thing), really feeling that vibrant technicolor it’s got a rich punch to it. And wow, a version of 4k77 that finally looks right to me. Could just be jpeg compression but I do see some artifacts in the star field, goes away lower the black point, obviously without killing any of that sweet, preserved detail.