daveybjones999

AspiringCreator said:

James1027 said:

TLJ basically cemented the way these new stories would go. Luke and the old guard are broken, weak, and dumb while the new empowered crew has to save the day. TLJ supposedly has a theme about failure. Yes, everyone failed. Except Rey. She successfully resists the dark side, resists Kylo, lifts countless rocks to aide the rebels, escapes snokes damaged ship and steals his private craft, bests Luke in mock combat and is able to show she is truly greater then all the other miserable failures in the film.

Well Luke also succeeded in saving the Resistance and becoming more powerful than one could possibly imagine, Poe learned the lesson about being a smarter leader and Finn learned that how they win and fight is important along with just stopping the bad guy. Also Rey failed to turn Kylo to the light, failed to see Luke’s point that things weren’t just gonna play out like they did 30 years ago and still struggled with the Dark Side by going straight to it and if you’re gonna mention that?

Yeah, I completely agree with you on this 1 part. Rey is constantly failing at literally everything in the 8th movie and people come out of it thinking she’s a Mary Sue? Like what? Were people paying any attention during the course of the movie? She fails to convince Luke to train her, R2 does that, she fails Luke’s first lesson at first and immediately goes to the dark side, she messes up her lightsaber training by losing focus and destroying the rock, and she’s not able to do anything to Snoke and needs Kylo Ren to save her ass, she spends most of the fight with the pretorian guards fighting 1-2 of them whilst Kylo Ren kills the rest, only being able to help out at the last second, she fails to turn Kylo Ren back to the light side of the force. She also fails to convince Luke to help out the Resistance and come out of hiding, Yoda does that. The only thing Rey succeeds at in The Last Jedi is knocking down Luke who clearly wasn’t going all out or trying to hurt her, fighting off some of the tie fighters on Crait and lifting a bunch of rocks to save the Resistance. I definitely understand criticisms of her being a Mary Sue in episodes 7 and 9, but she’s the complete opposite of a Mary Sue in episode 8 in which she fails in literally everything that she sets out to do through the entire film. Also, the Old Guard are literally the only characters who are competent in episode 8, what film are people watching? The supposedly “new empowered crew” literally screws up and gets nearly everyone in the Resistance Killed whereas if Poe had listened to Leia and Holdo in the first place none of that would have happened but apparently them failing so hard that they almost singlehandedly destroy the entire resistance is them saving the day? The only reason the entire Resistance doesn’t die is because Leia wakes up from her coma and shoots Poe into unconsciousness, and the only reason Rey can lift the rocks to save the Resistance is because Luke Skywalker projects himself onto the planet to stall Kylo Ren. Come on now The Last Jedi isn’t a perfect movie and clearly didn’t do a good enough job at relating its themes and what it was trying to do to the audience, but I fail to see how the old guard is portrayed as incompetent

I’m thinking the reason is likely one of logistics and convenience. Sir Alec Guinness is dead, so they’d probably have to go scrubbing through the original trilogy audio to find the lines they’d need. It’s probably easier and quicker for them to just write a quick line or 2 and then pay Ewan McGregor to come in and record.

This sounds really interesting. Would love a copy.

It’s finally out and I’m currently watching my way through them. I’ve only watched the first 2 so far. I really loved season 1 which was mostly animated by Japanese anime studios, but one of its flaws was that a lot of the shorts felt like they didn’t have a long enough runtime so those ones ended up feeling half-baked, only half of them really stuck with me. With this season’s shorts having a longer runtime I’m hoping that I won’t feel that way this time. Unlike last time when I didn’t watch these in chronological order, mostly because as an anime fan I was familiar with most of these studio’s output and the trailers gave a greater sense of what each piece was about, I’m mostly watching this in the order that it’s listed on Disney+ with 2 exceptions being Studio Mir’s Journey to the Dark Head and Aardman Animations I Am Your Mother as I love both of those studio’s works. Also spoilers for the 2 shorts I’m talking about below so don’t read if you haven’t seen these 2 yet.

Sith
The first of this season’s shorts is an absolutely stunning 3d animation piece by Spanish Animation Studio El Guiri directed and written by Rodrigo Blaas. It’s combined 3d with an absolutely gorgeous watercolor painterly style that fits the main protagonist who’s a former Sith apprentice turned painter. The first half of the short is a brilliant mood piece establishing her life of painting. The environment is completely washed out in white, but the splashes of color from the paintings keep it from feeling sterile. It feels serene but also lonely as she struggles with trying to keep darkness out of her painting. When the Sith show up at the halfway point the washed-out white landscape becomes saturated in blood orange shifting the mood to being more ominous. The speeder chase and the final lightsaber battle taking place in the dark hallway is short as she realizes and accepts that both dark and light exist within her. The ending really moved me especially when we get to see the finished painting at the end of her lightsaber while she leaves to forge her own destiny.

Screecher’s Reach
This is a haunting tale, both in the figurative and literal sense. Written by Will Collins & Jason Tammemagi and directed by Paul Young this short is about a group of children living in a work house who decide to travel to Screecher’s Reach a supposedly haunted cave. The animation by Cartoon Saloon, the Irish animation company behind the masterpieces The Secrets of the Kells, Song of the Sea, The Breadwinner and Wofwalkers, bring their signature style to craft a stunning short. If I had realized that this was the studio behind the shot I might’ve saved it for last. Right from the beginning when we follow a long tracking shot from the bottom to the top of the workhouse showing everything from the kids waking up to them mining crystals and spinning wheels to create steam, the animation is brilliant. As the kids travel we get amazingly wide shots of the landscape with the children appearing as small specs across the landscape. Once we get close to the cave it becomes clear that this whole section is inspired by the sequence from Empire Strikes Back when Luke goes into the cave, but this test is more literal. The main character has a medallion she calls upon for strength throughout the short and the sequence in the cave is suitably horrifying. The creature’s design is comprised of wispy black shadows and when we finally see it in full profile it’s clearly modeled off of a Banshee. It becomes clear that it’s no ghost but a Sith. The cave sequence ends with the main character using the Sith’s lightsaber to kill her as she struggles with what she had to do to survive. The ending of the short plays off of the expected narrative we usually see of a kid being tested by a kind master to become their apprentice and leave their former life behind, and is twisted here by the implication that the master, played by Angelica Huston who I did not know was going to be voicing a character, is a Sith. The score is also really beautiful and haunting and I don’t think the final shot of the main characters tear struck face looking out the doorway of the Sith spaceship as it closes is going to stick with me for a long time.

2 shorts down and I’m really enjoying this season. Both are playing with the narrative of a Sith and their apprentice but take extremely different approaches to them. Both also end on strong emotional notes and if this season can keep up its quality it might be better than the first.

Vladius said:

StarkillerAG said:

Fan_edit_fan said:

Can we just…please…stop bringing up personal politics when talking about the quality of SW writing, acting and directing? 🤷‍♂️

Yes, please. If a black character or female character is written like crap, it’s not because they’re black or female, it’s just because they’re written like crap. Anti-wokeness is the biggest disease that infects modern movie discourse.

You know this already, but the anti-woke point is that they’re written like crap, and their female, black, etc. status is picked ahead of time as a shield for criticism. This happens constantly. All the “anti-woke” talking heads that hate on Disney fully backed John Boyega when he called them out for messing up his character.

Can we just stop with this please, it’s so freaking stupid, there are legitimate reasons for disliking the sequel trilogy but all of this anti-“woke” bullshit is just racism and sexism masquerading as criticism. Yes sometimes a studio will insert a minor gay character kissing, or a character giving a small line about potentially not being straight, which can easily be removed from international versions of the film in countries where being gay is illegal, and that did happen in Rise of Skywalker, but that’s not the same as what these people are arguing. What’s really happening is racists and sexists are using “wokeness” as a shield so they can try and cast themselves as being not racist and sexist and that the real problem is Hollywood trying to inject “wokeness” or more accurately just make women and people of color more prominent in Hollywood movies to reflect what the world actually looks like. But most people can see through the criticism for stuff being “woke” for what it really is, people’s racism and sexism coming out. To respond to your point about Finn, Boyega’s criticisms are backed up because they’re actually rooted in stuff that actually happens in the trilogy. Each movie continues to reduce his relevance to the main plot and characters to the point where by the end of the trilogy Finn is basically turned into Rey’s cheerleader with little to actually do other than scream Rey’s name. However, the “anti-woke” critic’s you’re conflating with backing his claims, don’t have any basis in fact or the story and are just racists being angry that a black man is a main character in Star Wars and they’re trying to glomp onto Boyega’s valid criticisms as an attempt to not appear racist even though those “anti-woke” critics really are. I’m sorry that you’re so cynical that you think Disney is intentionally choosing women and people of color so they can write bad characters and have people defend the movies so they don’t have to try. Disney throughout the sequel trilogy definitely treated Finn and Rose’s characters poorly and then did absolutely nothing to try and call out the rabid racists and sexists trying to dox and ruin the actor’s lives, something they thankfully rectified in Obi Wan with Moses Ingram, regardless of if you think the character was well written or acted, the sheer hatred and vitriol she received from racists and sexists on twitter was completely unacceptable, just as when the same thing happened to John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran. And if your criticism is that Disney should write the story and characters well so this doesn’t happen to them I’d agree. But I’m tired of people constantly pulling the woke criticism card and shoving it into every conversation about Disney’s Star Wars to say they’re not trying even though they clearly are. Despite what some people may think, tons of passion and effort went into making, at least episodes 7 and 8, a good Star Wars movie regardless of if we think they succeeded or not. I thought episodes 7 and 8 were great despite their obvious flaws, I do agree that episode 9 was really awful, but I do think there is some cause for excitement about this new movie as there is a chance it can help to potentially wash out the bad taste of episode 9 if done well, although it’s still far away from coming out, and the potential writer’s strike might delay it even more. But as The Mandalorian, Andor, and the Bad Batch have proven Disney is capable of making great Star Wars shows so there’s a chance this could be good as well.

So Episode 1 came out when I was 6 and while I distinctly remember the experience of seeing it in theaters, I don’t remember whether or not I had seen the original trilogy before or after it. I only know that by the time it had come out on VHS, I had seen the original trilogy. I really enjoyed the prequels as a kid and just kind of took the prequels at face value with regards to Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader and it worked for me. In fact, it wasn’t until I left for college that I knew people even disliked the prequels my dad liked them, my brother liked them, and most of my friends that were into Star Wars liked them, so it was really a shock to see how much hatred the prequels had gotten. Of course, watching them today, well 3 years ago was the last time I saw all of the prequels in their entirety, it’s easy to see that they aren’t great movies. Phantom Menace is ok I guess, the main problems were too much juvenile humor, and a lot of the movie is really slow and plodding. The story on paper is really good, but in execution, it’s just kind of boring to watch. There are exciting moments, I liked the underwater sequence, their flight from Naboo, the pod race is great and I think the entire climax is really fun, but they’re just too far and in between. Attack of the Clones was much better as it’s not boring to sit through. The pacing is fine, and the action was upped, but Anakin is pretty grating early on in the film. Revenge of the Sith is I think a legitimately good movie it’s got its issues with acting and some character moments being really forced, but overall I enjoy watching the movie.

With regards to Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader I don’t really have an issue with it. I think most people’s complaints are that what ends up being his main motivation should have been his side motivation, and vice versa. I think what really sabotages this is that the romance between Anakin and Padme for a lot of people isn’t well handled or executed. Personally outside of the first act of Attack of the Clones, I don’t really have a problem with their romance. Sure the dialogue is really cringy but I actually don’t hate their romance on Naboo and I was really surprised at, when during my last watch-through, how much I liked it. I think years of hearing people shit on it, and not having watched the movie unedited in years eventually overrode my own opinion on it. Don’t get me wrong I do think most of the complaints about their romance are valid, but there’s something about it that just clicks for me. I don’t really know how to explain it or understand why I like it myself, maybe it’s nostalgia or maybe it’s that I have a soft spot for that type of melodrama, but for me, it works.

I think the main thing is that George Lucas’s directions for Hayden’s acting are just awful and they make scenes that should work fail. His conversation with Padme, while she’s packing for her trip, is one of them. His thoughts that while he looks at Obi-Wan like he’s his father, but feels constrained by his teaching and that he’s being held back. And that he wants more even though he knows he shouldn’t would be really compelling, but because of the directing and acting it feels like a childish tantrum. We get a really good look at Anakin’s own political views during his romance scene with Padme on Naboo, but it’s sandwiched between romance stuff people hate. It’s one of the reasons why the novelizations for the prequel trilogy are superior to the movies, it takes away the poor acting and directing that obfuscates the storytelling and character work that’s actually going on.

So Anakin’s reason for turning to the dark side being about trying to protect the galaxy or to gain more power because he’s frustrated by the Jedi seemingly holding him back are in Revenge of the Sith, but because they’re shown as side motivations and the romance hasn’t been done well since it’s the main motivation I can understand why it doesn’t work for so many people. Maybe it’s also because I read the novelization for Revenge of the Sith before the movie came out that some of the character work the novel does might also be contributing to it as well, but I thought the execution of it in movie 3 works really well. It also helps that the scene preceding his decision is kept 100% silent and focuses on the facial acting of Padme and Anakin, that makes it works for me.

Yeah, I guess if you didn’t think seasons 1 or 2 were great I can totally understand why you’d think this season wasn’t very good. Here’s my review of every episode

Episode 1 A fun reintroduction to the characters, and does a good job of setting up the rest of the season. The run-in with the pirates is pretty fun and reiterates what we liked about Din as a character. The IG-11 stuff is kind of weird but doesn’t take up too much time. It also sets up the pirate conflict that comes back into play pretty well later in the season, and the final action scene in the asteroids is really well done. B+
Episode 2 A fantastic episode. We finally get to see Mandalore after 2 seasons of buildup, and they do an excellent job of showing it as dangerous and why everyone was so hesitant to come back. We get some really tense sequences with the creature that traps Din, and we get to see Bo and Grogu come to rescue Din, and we get some great characterization from Bo. The only episode that reaches the heights of seasons 1-2 A
Episode 3, In the grand scheme of things, not much in this episode comes into play for the rest of the season, but the opening action sequence with Bo and Din fighting the imperial remnant and her castle getting blown up is fantastic and the bookend with her getting accepted into the Mandalorian’s rank is good. Then we spend the rest of the episode with Pershing, and it does a good job of showing the flaws of The New Republic. We can quibble all day about whether it should be this way, but that’s what the sequel’s set up and Disney is clearly not interested in erasing them from canon, so the best that they can do is to use this episode to help set that up. We also learn about Moff Gideon’s escape, and the ending to Pershing is pretty Harrowing, even though his research doesn’t really amount to anything. B
Episode 4, yeah this one isn’t good. We get Paz Vizla finally resolving his conflict and rivalry with Din because he saves his son. However that’s already unnecessary as they could have just used the opening scene of the season for that, and it makes the Mandalorians look like a complete joke other than ending the rivalry between Din and Paz and the really cool flashback, the episode is mostly a wash even if the action is pretty well done. C-
Episode 5 pretty much fixes every problem I had with the previous episode. The Mandalorians come back looking strong and it shows why they’re a force to be reckoned with. It also pays’ off the setup from episode one with the pirates and seeing Din convince everyone to come back and help is great. The action is pretty good throughout and we get more setup for the conflict with Gideon again. We also get The Armorer accepting Bo as the leader of the Mandalorians. Another solid B
Episode 6, Some of the heist stuff is fun, and it’s good to see Bo reclaim her forces, but the tone is too light and jokey, the cameos are just distracting, and we get the laziest resolution to the Darksaber conflict between Din and Bo. I’d give it a D
Episode 7, Second best episode of the season We get some really cool world-building with the council and some more setup for Thrawn. We continue to see why they were so reluctant to return to Mandalore with them being attacked by monsters, and we learn more excellent backstory between Bo and Gideon. Then we get the return of Gideon and the Imperial Remnant who are really threatening, and the action is really good and we end on the death of Paz Vizla which is a great cliffhanger. A
Episode 8 is not as good as the previous episode as some of the setups from earlier in the season aren’t paid off, and the destruction of the Dark Saber just makes that whole conflict feel like kind of a waste of time, but they do a mostly good job of resolving plot points. The action is thrilling and the final battle between Din, Bo, Grogu, and Gideon is fantastically shot, and the action is just superbly handled throughout the episode. The space battles are also done fairly well, and The Mandalorians are finally living up to their reputation in this episode. I think the resolution for Din and Grogu was great, and where the entire series was leading. I’d give it a B

All that being said this season’s structure is kind of a mess, and it suffers from Disney+ Syndrome, with less than half the episodes moving the main plot forward, which was fine in seasons 1 and 2 as it was episodic but doesn’t work in a series that’s trying to be one big narrative. I also think the direction and action of this season have been strong throughout. Despite liking the season I do hope that the Ahsoka show won’t suffer through this issue, and I think it is clear that Star Wars needs new leadership at Disney. Season 3 should have been a slam dunk, but it’s starting to suffer from, to a much lesser degree, the flaws that most Disney+ Original programs are having.

While I think some of the criticisms are a bit much I can understand why people seem to be way harsher on this season than in seasons one and 2 and I think it’s because this season is the weakest one by far, the tone has shifted, and Andor has come out and raised everyone’s standards again. About the tone, it went from a somewhat dark and gritty western with a really dry sense of humor to a more lighthearted series, that still has dark and gritty moments but is less focused on Din and Grogu against the world, and more focused on Din and Bo joining the Mandalorians to take back Mandalore. Personally, I think this is actually a natural shift and tone for the character and the series, but I can totally understand being disappointed that the reason why you enjoyed the show in the first place got stripped away as it went on. The reason why this season doesn’t completely work is that this season other than Din and Bo, all of the other characters aren’t all that complex, aren’t that well developed, and are pretty much stereotypes with little to no depth. OK maybe not completely Paz Visla does develop some and his death is handled really well, but I think the point still stands. This would be fine if it was episodic and we only saw these characters once or twice this season but they spend a lot of the season together. Now that the series is over, the episode with the Dr. Pershing stuff, the episode with the monsters stealing children, and the Jack Black episode don’t really feel like plot episodes but episodic ones. Also, the Pershing episode is pretty good even if it doesn’t lead to anything. So that’s still 6 out of 8 episodes that are pretty good if you’re ok with the tone change that the series has gone through. Most of the episodes this season were pretty good, even if none of them were able to reach the heights that episodes in the first 2 seasons did. I think the real disconnect isn’t that this season is a step down from the first 2, most everyone agrees with that, but the extent to which it is worse than the other 2. Other than episodes 4 and 6, I’m not seeing this huge drop in quality that others are seeing. It’s got more problems with stuff not being properly set up, and some setups getting abandoned in the final episode, the fleet, and the dark saber are the big ones. But I think the episode is still pretty good and does a decent job of wrapping up the story. If I was to compare this season to the previous ones. Season’s 1 and 2 would probably get an A, and this season would probably get a B.

Given that the Filoni-led stuff is going to culminate in the movie and given the stuff in this episode of The Mandalorian I’ve got a theory for where this is going. So my knowledge of this area of the lore is not the strongest, but wasn’t the Star Destroyer on Jakku the result of a battle between the Imperial Remnant and the New Republic.? If it is, do we think that this is all leading up to that battle over Jakku? Or did that battle take place shortly after Endor and I’m off base? If I’m right is it possible that The Mandalorian and the Ahsoka Show is going to lead to that battle happening in the movie that’s been greenlit? WHat are everyone’s thoughts?

sade1212 said:

Regarding lightsaber fighting specifically, the movie shows us Rey is already well-practiced defending herself with other melee weapons, and in TCW (which has the ‘George Lucas Seal of Approval’) and also in other new continuity media like Rebels and Mando we see non-Force users wielding lightsabers/the darksaber, so presumably Rey’s ability to hold her own against Kylo (who is injured and not actually trying to kill her yadda yadda yadda) with one in TFA is just transferring over that general skill. If she was accurately deflecting blaster bolts with it or pulling off lighting-fast prequel-style choreography that’d be a stretch, but IIRC she basically just swings it around.

I agree Also, to add to this point, she spends most of the fight losing and only turns it around at the last minute of the fight. Force skills are one thing, I can understand people’s complaints about her picking it up too easily, but her fighting skills aren’t. Why do we need to see her learning how to fight before she’s able to fight using a lightsaber? The lightsaber is only special as it is the weapon of the Jedi, and it’s a really powerful light sword, if you’re already skilled in using other weapons I don’t see why a lightsaber should be more difficult to use as it’s essentially a sword. And we don’t need to see Rey learn how to fight with her staff, That’s Literally The Point Of Her Introduction. She’s introduced as a scavenger on Jakku, we see her life of scaling old empire ships to find parts, we see her sell them for food, we see her wall of marks detailing how long she’s been on the planet, we see her fend off someone trying to steal BB8, we hear her say her parents left her there and are coming back for her, and we see her being left in a flashback so we know she’s been doing this since she was a kid, and it’s done to show how she’s picked up on the skills she uses throughout the rest of the movie. So we don’t need to see her learn how to use a lightsaber, we already know she’s skilled with staff and we know why she can fight using a staff, she needed to in order to survive, we don’t need to see her learning the skill cause it’s not necessary to show. This isn’t the case of someone who has no fighting skills besting a character who has tons of skills from years of training. Both Rey and Kylo Ren have years of experience with using weapons, Ben the lightsaber and Rey the bo-staff. It doesn’t surprise me that they could be more equal in skill despite Rey not having formal training because Rey needed to learn these skills to survive on Jakku and not die on the planet and Rey transfers the skills she has with fighting with a staff to fighting with the lightsaber because when you are skilled and capable of using one weapon it’s way easier to use another one even if there are differences between fighting with a staff and fighting with a sword. She’s obviously more skilled at using the staff, but she can use a lightsaber because of this. Also, Kylo Ren is heavily injured due to getting shot by Chewbacca. That’s why she has those skills at the end of the movie and that’s why it’s not really a problem that she’s able to defeat Kylo Ren

And to anyone saying this is mental gymnastics, no it’s not it’s film literacy. All of this stuff is communicated silently in the movie unobtrusively by way of visual shortcuts. The opening of the movie uses deft visual and storytelling shortcuts to establish Rey’s character, her skillset, and why she has these skills. It does it by showing what her life is like on Jakku, the skills she has from living on the planet, and her character motivation all without much exposition. We see Kylo Ren get shot and the film makes sure to remind the audience of this fact by showing the injury and Kylo hitting himself in that injured spot a few times during that sequence. We don’t need someone in the film to say that Kylo Ren is injured as we can see it and the movie makes sure to remind us. We don’t need to have exposition on why Rey has a lot of skills from living on Jakku, and we don’t need to see her learn these skills either, the movie does it by showing the audience via her introduction the implied amount of time she’s been living on there. Sure not everyone is going to notice this stuff. And also most people if they do notice it, notice it subconsciously, and because of this it’s way more difficult to explain how they know it to other people. Do I have my complaints about Rey as a character, sure I do, but I think the movie gets more right with her character than it gets wrong. The movie does establish her own skills and why it’s not such a stretch that she would be able to defeat Kylo Ren at the end of the movie

I agree that Rey in the first movie is kind of a Mary Sue, but she didn’t “immediately beat Kylo Ren.” Yes, Rey does win against Kylo Ren but are we going to just ignore that Kylo Ren was weakened during that fight? He was emotionally unstable cause he murdered his dad and then got freaking shot in the stomach with a blaster. And even then Rey spends 90% of the final fight barely fending off Kylo Ren’s attack and is constantly retreating and running away. She only turns the tables on the final 10% of that fight when she starts using The Force. I mean I do agree that she learns to use the force way too easily and I think the Mary Sue criticism is kind of valid in that first movie. However, anyone who says Rey is a Mary Sue past that first one clearly didn’t watch the other movies.

She spends the entirety of Last Jedi screwing up and getting things incorrect. During the first lesson, she immediately gravitates toward the Dark Side of the force, during the scene where she trains with the lightsaber she screws up and breaks the rock formation. She thinks she can turn Kylo Ren to the light and is dreadfully wrong. She gets completely destroyed by Snoke and Kylo has to save her. Also during the fight with the Pretorian guards after killing one in the opening bit, she spends most of the fight tangling with 2 of them while Ben Solo’s, pun intented, the others. In Rise she continually fails the training course, gets herself cornered on the Star Destroyer, and spends her final fight with Kylo Ren again being slightly outmatched, and she only manages to win because Leia distracts Kylo Ren, without that she would’ve lost. She also spends the entire film trying to connect with other force users and only manages to do it at the end. Also she only barely manages to defeat Palpatine only because Ben is there to help her. So yes she is talented and does win but she’s constantly struggling in those other movies.

I’m not saying the prequel trilogy is perfect, Force Awakens is way too similar to A New Hope, with Last Jedi the Luke stuff is controversial, I liked it but totally understand why others despised it, and the Canto Bight storyline is weak. Also the less said about Rise of Skywalker the better, but I can’t agree with anyone saying that Rey wasn’t well handled. The only things the Sequel Trilogy handled well consistently was Rey and Kylo Ren. I mean Rey’s story, other than the Palpatine stuff, is really the only competent part of that final movie so I think it makes perfect sense to do a Rey Film. Clearly, she was the only character that Disney consistently cared about and wrote well so I think this film could be pretty good.

Also, characters don’t necessarily need to have really strong external conflicts as long as they have an internal one. Rey’s character arc is clearly an internal one, she spends most of the first film trying to go back to Jakku and afraid to lose her last connection with her parents. Last Jedi is about her trying to get Luke to see that he’s needed and finds herself emotionally conflicted during her force chats with Kylo Ren, and she’s also struggling with again the loss of her parents. In Rise of Skywalker, her struggle is with her connection with Palpatine and the dark side. So it’s constantly annoying to me when people keep complaining about how she’s too powerful and skilled when her conflict is clearly supposed to be internal. And if you didn’t like the sequel trilogy that’s fine and you don’t have to like this Rey movie, but they announced 2 other movies specifically to appeal to audiences who didn’t care for the sequel stuff so I don’t know why people are complaining so hard about this.

This is interesting news and I think this is a really good trio of movies as there’s something for everyone. I know some people won’t like that they’re going back to the sequels, but I’m glad because 2/3 of the sequel trilogy was actually really good, and there are fans of that trilogy that are going to be chomping at the bit to see something, anything, out of the sequels given how fast they were abandoned after the disaster that was Rise of Skywalker. The trilogy isn’t going to be fondly remembered when that movie is the final note and them not doing anything with it is what’s giving the impression that the sequel trilogy was a failure even though it all made over 1 Billion Dollars.

Then you’ve got the one I’m most excited about, the James Mangold movie set at the beginning of the Jedi era. I think this one could really appeal to the segment of the fanbase that hasn’t really liked anything Star Wars outside of the original trilogy as this era hasn’t been at all depicted during the Disney era. I think that the stuff that’s working best for Disney’s Star Wars is the series that debuted and focus on completely new characters, I’m talking about Rogue One Andor and The first 2 seasons of The Mandalorian. I think this could appeal to the segment of fans that don’t like much outside The Original Trilogy as we won’t have to compare characters with how they were previously depicted. Also, James Mangold is a fantastic director and if Disney doesn’t interfere too much it’ll be really good.

We’ve also got a movie for fans of the Finoni-verse which has a lot of fans that really seem to love his stuff, I consider myself one of them. Personally, I’m hoping that it’s going to be an animated 3D CG movie because that type of animation on a movie budget would look absolutely incredible. That and the fact that his stuff that’s been inserted into The Mandalorian hasn’t been received that well so maybe seeing some distance from that by doing an animated movie might be a good idea. But yeah if all of these Actually Come Out And Aren’t Cancelled, I think these could do pretty well as they’re really trying to appeal to all segments of the Star Wars fanbase with this.

I haven’t been watching season 3 weekly and given its negative reception on this site I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch it, but I just binged the first 6 episodes and found that it was actually pretty good. It’s really a shame to see the pervasive negativity from the fanbase seep into this season as it’s actually pretty good for the most part. The only episodes where I can really understand people’s complaints with it were the most recent episode and episode 4 which weren’t very good for some of the reasons people have been talking about. However, the first 3 episodes were quite solid, especially episode 2 which is probably the best episode of the season and is just as good as most of the episodes in the first 2 seasons of the show. It’s atmospheric and technically not much happens, but it does an excellent job of showing off Mandalore and why everyone is so reluctant to return. The first episode was also pretty good, other than the quest to revive IG-11. Don’t get me wrong I loved that droid but it really takes the emotional weight of that first season finally away to revive him. Episode 3 doesn’t really have much to do with the main plot, and I guess people’s thoughts on how the New Republic is understandable, but it’s well acted and directed and kept my interest throughout.

The first episode where I really started to agree with criticisms was episode 4 which as others have said isn’t all that good. Mostly the Mandalorians just look incompetent, and not much really happens and the stuff that does isn’t very good. The show thankfully rebounds in episode 5 which does an excellent job of bringing together the loose ends that were set up in episode 1 with some great action and the character moments mostly work well. Then episode 6 came out and I’m left conflicted. It was cool seeing Jack Black and all, and Din and Bo continue to have great chemistry together. The episode is undeniably fun and I felt engaged by the storyline the whole way through, but it felt more like an amusement park ride story than an episode of The Mandalorian. The show has gotten lighter as the series has progressed, with the exception of episodes 2 and 3 of this season, but it just feels too tonally dissonant from what came before it. Also, I really dislike how the show resolved all the Dark Saber stuff. That was probably the lamest and most boring way possible to resolve that storyline. I guess I can understand people being slightly worried about the final 2 episodes, given that the weakest episodes were in the second half, but given that out of 6 episodes, only 2 weren’t good that’s still a pretty good track record. Sure I guess that half of the season feels like filler, but this show has always been episodic so I don’t get why it’s suddenly such a big deal. I mean this season has about as many plot-relevant episodes as the previous seasons. The only other thing I’ll say is that I can definitely understand if you don’t like this season due to the tonal shift that the show has gone through. I thought it was a natural shift but I do understand why that change could make someone less interested in the show. I”m actually thinking it’s less that this season is bad but more so that Andor was so excellent, I still need to watch it, that people’s standards have been raised so high that anything less just seems bad by comparison. I also wonder if my binging it has had an effect on my enjoyment, and if watching it weekly the show would seem worse, but anyway I’m looking forward to the final 2 episodes as even though this is the weakest season so far I’ve still been mostly enjoying it

I definitely agree that Disney believes the sequel trilogy to be a failure, but I don’t think it’s 100% the truth. Yes, each of the sequel trilogy movies made progressively less money at the box office, but all of them made over 1 Billion dollars, 7 made 2 Billion, 8 made 1.3, and 9 made just over 1 billion. And if we’re talking about critical reception most everyone liked Force Awakens, those that dislike it are 100% in the minority, Last Jedi had a very mixed reception, but to say that most people hated it I think is a slight exaggeration. Tons of people hated the movie, but there’s also a sizeable amount of the fandom that loved the movie, and critics loved it as well. It’s only really Rise that almost everybody disliked. What I’m trying to say is that despite the perception that the sequel trilogy was a complete failure that’s not actually true, if we’re going to take it as a whole I’d say that reception is actually really mixed on the sequels. In fact, the current reception of the sequels is still much better than the reception that the prequels got at the time. What’s really driving the perception that the sequel trilogy was a failure is that Disney is refusing to do anything with the characters or time period of the sequels. People hated the prequel trilogy but Lucas pitched The Clone Wars and the show eventually became amazing, and the perception of the prequels improved. What I think Star Wars really needs is someone who isn’t afraid of doing things with the sequel trilogy’s characters or timeline. I think it’s mostly that they need new leadership as it’s clear that Kathleen Kennedy isn’t really cutting it as the lead on Star Wars. Outside of The Force Awakens, Rogue One, The Mandalorian, and Arguably Last Jedi, everything else has either not gotten good critical reception, or been successful financially. Obi-Wan and Bobba Fet are critical failures despite getting excellent viewership, and their best stuff is The Mandalorian which is declining in popularity, and Andor which despite being acclaimed by most of its watched just didn’t get a big enough audience, I don’t think doing another sequel thing would hurt. Maybe during the Star Wars celebration when they announce the 3 movies they have in development something will actually happen, but they need new leadership I think

The reason why is probably that not enough people watched the show. Yes, almost all who did, both critics and audiences alike, loved it but it just didn’t catch on with mainstream audiences. If you compare how many people watched Andor compared with the Book of Bobba Fett and Kenobi, Andor was definitely the least watched of the three. Specifically, if you compare the 3 series’ Nielson ratings, both Boba Fett and Kenobi charted multiple times, whereas Andor only charted a few times. Disney even tried to boost ratings by airing the first few episodes on Cable Television as well as on streaming, and even that didn’t push up its numbers as much as they wanted. Don’t get me wrong I wish they’d try to promote it way more as well but those are probably the reasons why. You could probably make an argument that the reason why Andor didn’t do as well was that the previous 2 shows were so bad the dissuaded fans from checking out another season, or that it was up against House of the Dragon, but Andor just didn’t do that well in terms of viewership numbers, which is a shame as it’s probably the best Star Wars thing we’ve gotten in years.

Anchorhead said:

screams in the void said:

It probably would have been better if those 2 episodes from BOBF were used to open the season here instead

For sure that was an odd call on their part. Book was a mess and using Mando to hold interest seemed weird (if that’s why they did it). Plus it can be confusing if you don’t follow both shows.

At our weekly lunch time TV\Film discussion at work, there was just that. One of my coworkers had bailed from Book after a few episodes. First question to the table was “Why does Mando have the baby again? I thought he went with Luke”.

Crossover is fine between series and can be fun sometimes. I was really happy to see James Woo show up in WandaVision because he was a great character in Ant-Man and the Wasp a few years earlier (plus I’m a huge Randall Park fan). However, one series shouldn’t be a requirement for the other to make sense. Woo as a character\plot element doesn’t affect one show or the other if you haven’t seen both.

I agree 100% and you can tell that Filoni and Favreau knew they’d made a mistake with that given their backtracking comments that Grogu was training with Luke for 2 years. I only watched the final 3 episodes of because I know Grogu was going to be back in season 3, as I wouldn’t have finished that show as the first episode was so bad I couldn’t even finish it. And the final episode was only Ok

Anchorhead said:

fmalover said:

Reading the latest posts on this thread, I would say that’s my biggest problem with Filoni, his total inabilty to move on from characters and milking them for all their worth. This is best expemplified by his incessant shoehorning of Ahsoka in every last bit of SW media.

I agree 100%. Ahsoka is becoming the character version of Tatooine. Enough already.

I really don’t get this complaint at all. Outside of animation she’s only other been in 1 episode of Mandalorian season 2 and 2 episodes of Book of Bobba Fet where she gets less than 10 minutes of screen time. She hasn’t in my opinion been shoehorned into this series. If they were going to do Grogu needs to be sent to the Jedi the only ones alive, and not missing, during this time period are Luke and her, and she has a previous relationship with Bo Katan. Like if she was in more of The Mandalorian I’d maybe get this complaint, but she hasn’t shown up at all in Season 3

Spartacus01 said:

I don’t think that the Prequels are bad movies, I genuinely like them. But I totally agree with you on this. Actually - and I say it as a Prequel fan myself - I hate when people say that the Prequels are good exclusively because the Sequels are bad. It shows that you don’t really appreciate the movies, it just means that you are “forgiving” them because you think there are other movies that suck harder than them. Saying that the Prequels are good because the Sequels are bad is like saying: “Oh yeah, they suck, but they suck less than the Sequels.”

I agree. Also this might be a controversial opinion, but I think the people who are saying the prequels are good now because the sequels are so bad never really disliked the prequels in the first place. They probably just hated it because everyone else was so they jumped on the bandwagon. And now they’re doing the same thing with the sequels just because now they’re the cool thing to hate on in the Star Wars fandom, and when we get the next big Star Wars trilogy they’ll do the exact same thing, jump on with the people who hate the new movies and then start talking about how the sequels are actually good and it’s this new one that’s actually awful. Note I’m not saying everyone who hated the prequel trilogy and now hate the sequel trilogy are like this, sometimes a movie can come out that you dislike so much that other movies you used to hate don’t seem so bad anymore, but I think a lot of people are just jumping on the hate bandwagon.

We’d start out with Anakin as a Padawan learner getting ready for his exam to be a Jedi knight starting out with the scene from the Obi-Wan Disney+ Show with their training. We establish his relationship with Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, Palpatine, and Padme. I also love the idea that a few people have thrown about before about not having Yoda in the films so I’m lifting that with him being an inactive member of the Jedi order with his feats being legendary amongst the Jedi. Anakin and Obi-Wan have a much warmer relationship in the movie with their relationship feeling much more like that of brothers than Jedi Knight and Padawan, which has garnered criticism from those in the Jedi Council, chief amongst them Mace Windu who was against Anakin joining the order as he was too old. The plot is somewhat similar to Attack of the Clones, but with major differences, I’m lifting some elements, concepts, and characters from The Clone Wars CG series to replace characters from the Prequel we got. Keeping the Padme assassination subplot, and Anakin being told to protect the senator as his final mission before being tested to be a Jedi Knight, after Obi-Wan continually pushes for him to be allowed to get the chance. Anakin would still be impulsive and go off on his own, with the difference that Obi-Wan seems blind to or willingly ignorant of those flaws. The Jedi council wants to wait before moving Anakin up to temper his rebellious and impulsive attitude. While Anakin is bringing Padme back to her home, Obi-Wan is investigating the person who attacked Padme, who is Pre Visla of Death Watch from Mandalore, who is now the model for the clone Army. Anakin and Padme fall in love believably without the cringe dialogue, and without them denying their feelings to each other due to their positions. Jedi still are not allowed to participate in romantic relationships, but Anakin and Padme don’t care. Anakin has his vision of his mother again and goes to Tattooine. This time he and Owen are actually cousins who grew up together like brothers, and Owen resents Anakin for leaving them behind to become a Jedi alone and abandoning them. We keep Anakin hunting down and killing the Tusken Raiders, which is now an incident that he keeps to himself. Anakin gets the message from Obi-Wan, and Mace Windu is livid that Anakin abandoned his mission, and orders him to remain on Tattooine and not go anywhere and that they’d deal with Anakin’s transgression later. Distraught and worried about whether or not he’ll be expelled from the Jedi Order he goes back into the Lars Homestead where Owen asks Anakin to stay here and abandon his life as a Jedi. It’s presented as a legitimate conflict where Anakin is choosing between his two “Brothers” the one he grew up with and the one he forged via his relationship with Obi-Wan. Padme encourages Anakin to return back to help Obi-Wan against his orders because it is the right thing to do and he can’t abandon his duty to the galaxy. Anakin decides to go back with Padme and Owen and Anakin have a blow-up fight right before he leaves and their relationship is shattered. The rest of the movie plays out similarly to how it usually plays out in most fan edits, although Yoda is not present and Pre Visla doesn’t die so he can be a villain in the second movie and is portrayed as Dooku’s apprentice. At the end of the movie, Anakin is promoted to Jedi Knight against the wishes of Mace due to the beginning of the Clone Wars, and he and Padme get married.

Episode 2 is completely original and mostly takes place during the clone wars and it’s a reconfigured version of the Mandalore plot line from the Clone Wars cartoon. Anakin get’s his visions of Padme dying at the beginning of the second film. Obi-Wan has been promoted to Master on the Jedi Council, and Anakin has been promoted to Jedi Knight and their relationship is more fraught than it was in the first movie. Obi-Wan suspects that Anakin has betrayed his oath and married Padme, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Anakin is bolder and brasher, continually gives in to his anger, and uses dark side powers, unknown to the rest of the Jedi. Padme, Bail Organa, and Mon Mothma are attempting to lead a coalition to negotiate peace with the separatists throughout the movie. Obi-Wan and Anakin liberate Mandalore by defeating Pre Visla who is presumed dead after Duchess Satine is killed. Anakin confides in Obi-Wan about his feelings for Padme but doesn’t reveal that their married confirming Obi-Wan’s suspicions. Obi-Wan a talk about his previous feelings for Satine and how he eventually chose the Jedi Order over her saying that he doesn’t regret his choice in an attempt to teach Anakin to accept loss. This has the opposite effect on Anakin who becomes even more determined to stop Padme from dying. At the end of the movie, he confides in his quest to Palpatine, who is continuing to manipulate Anakin and drive a wedge between him and the Jedi Order, as his political maneuvering gets him closer to full control from the Senate. And Bail, Mothma, and Padme, realizing Palatines attempts to gain power resolve to stop him

Movie 3 is really similar, but Grevious’s role is replaced by Pre-Visla and Obi-Wan gets Ashoka’s plot line from the finale of the Clone Wars TV Series instead. I really tried to fit Ahsoka into my version of the prequel trilogy, but that’s just way too many characters for 3 films. The opening doesn’t have general Grievous and is a lot shorter, being contained within the first 10-15 minutes, with much less humor throughout. Padme’s subplot to start the rebellion with Mon Mothma, and Bail Organa gets a more central focus in the plot, as well as Anakin’s getting suspicious of her relationship with Obi-Wan, due to her frequent leaving to go meet with them to save the republic. Obi-Wan is also throughout the first act acting as Padme’s confidant and giving her advice, without knowing she plans to start a rebellion. Near the end of the first act, we get information that, Pe-Visla is alive and that the bulk of the separatist’s fleet has taken back Mandalore, sending Obi-Wan to take care of him. Anakin’s political motives of getting tired of the slow process of the senate has more screentime, and it also drives a wedge between Anakin and Padme, and serves as an extra motivation for him to join the dark-side. The finale is pretty much the same, but Yoda isn’t present.

Halloween 6 Hybrid Cut (Halloween 6 Theatrical and Producer’s Cut) BobbyDigital.

Halloween 6 was always a film that just never quite worked in either of its officially released versions. The Theatrical cut was an incomprehensible mess and the Producer’s cut was a boring slog. So here comes BobbyDigital with his Hybrid cut that seeks to take the 2 versions of the film and mix them together to create a cut that feels more complete. He succeeds quite well in improving the movie by putting in most of Donald Pleasance’s scenes, and mostly keeping to the pacing of the Theatrical cut with the best improvements from the Producer’s cut, namely actually decent editing, and some nice shots that give the impression of characters being watched. In fact, for the first half of the movie I was quite enjoying it, but after Tommy Doyle and Kara Strode meet up the flaws of the original film become too great that even with the improvements this cut makes the film still isn’t good. Most of the characters are still too underdeveloped to care about, and the film alternates from being too slow, to being too fast and half-baked with the transition to the final act. Using the final act of the Theatrical edition is also a great choice, as the Producer’s cut ending is just too weird and has no tension. It’s a shame because this edit really helps to show the potential that this film had to be really good. The quality was quite good throughout. The video was crisp and looked really good, and I didn’t notice any edits. The cutting between the 2 versions is fantastic, and while the movie itself still isn’t great, this edit does make it a lot better and I’d say this is the definitive edition of the movie. The edit itself gets a 9/10 And while the movie itself still isn’t good, the edit has bumped the film up to be part of my yearly Halloween movie marathon. If you’re going to check out Halloween 6 it should be this edition.

This looks great. Could you PM me a link to these, it sounds really cool.

So I’m not the biggest fan of the whole, how much of the fanbase actually likes something debate, cause it’s often difficult to actually gage something like this, and just because someone’s opinion doesn’t match with the majority doesn’t mean that said opinion is invalid, just that it’s not with the majority. However, if we want to get into the discussion on whether a show is popular or not the best we can do is go to several review aggregate sites and look at the ratings so that we’re not just throwing out opinions that we don’t know the validity of because obviously, people who liked a particular show would say that most people enjoyed it. So I went and collected the data from aggregate review sites, and I’m only looking at the audience ratings and if the site gives a number of how many people reviewed it I’ll post that as well. So IMDB has around 7.1 with 2.9K reviews, Google Users has 84% liking the show, Rotten Tomatoes has it at 64%, Metacritic has 6.6 user rating with 1,981 reviews, and letterbox has it at 3.3/5 with 103,883 reviews. If we take these numbers then we can say that the majority of people did in fact like Obi-Wan, but the fact that the approval rating is only around 65 would imply that people more than likely thought the show was just OK. That’s not an extremely good rating, but it does go to show that most people don’t feel that strongly about the show one way or the other, but that they’re more positive about it than not. Again I don’t really like this whole discussion but if we’re going to be claiming that a majority of people did or did not like something then it should probably be backed up by actually going and looking at the data we have available. And again no opinions are really invalid so even if someone disagrees with the majority that opinion is still completely valid.

This is a fun prompt. For around 2012 what I’d do is create a sequel trilogy with Lucas around as a story advisor, maybe use his treatments for the sequel trilogy. Obviously, he wouldn’t be the director, and if I had to choose one of the 3 directors from the sequel trilogy it’d likely be Johnson, but maybe we could get some other director to take a shot at those films, but I don’t know who I’d pick. However, there must be a consistent vision for what the trilogy is. No switching up the writers every film, and if we use more than one director, make sure they’re all on the same page for the type of films that are coming out. We don’t want what ended up happening with the Sequel Trilogy we got to happen, even though I love 2/3 of it.

Now if I was put in control this year I have more concrete plans. First I’d immediately contact Production I.G. and Kenji Kamiyama and ask if they’d like to expand their short The 9th Jedi into either an anime movie or a series. I’d also contact Geno Studio and Yuki Igarashi and order a Lop and Ocho series. Anything that’s been filmed almost ready to come out would come out, but everything else except for the Ahsoka, and High Republic shows would be canceled. While those shows are coming out put a hold on green lighting anything else and recenter the brand maybe have Start Wars Visions dictate what projects are next by greenlighting series for the most well-received shorts from Visions 1 and 2. Then I’d go and green light a show centered around the time of the sequel trilogy, maybe do what The Clone Wars did for the Prequels by fleshing out the conflict with the first order some more. Finally, I’d contact Rian Johnson, see if he’s still interested in that trilogy he was supposed to helm, and get him locked in for when he’s don’t with his Knives Out trilogy

Update I’ve created a second 1 movie version of the edit that’s around 3 hours and 45 minutes. I’ve detailed most of the changes in the description for the thread. Feel free to PM me if you want either of the edits and I’ll send a link.

When I first saw the trilogy I liked it and thought that the movies were pretty good, but as time has gone on and I’ve seen them more often, I started to realize just how many problems the movies had. The problem wasn’t the added subplots and characters per-say, it was just that the films were extremely bloated and overly long. Each movie is nearly three hours long, but unlike the LOTR Trilogy, none of the movies are good enough to make me want to invest the time it takes to watch them when I could be doing something else instead. There have been many excellent edits of the trilogy over the years, but I’ve never liked how the trilogy resolved in the final scenes and almost none of the edits I’ve seen have made or attempted any changes to the final 2 scenes.

So I decided a while back to edit the movies for my own enjoyment. These edits have been finished for a few years, and I never really intended to release them, but after lurking on here for a few years I’ve decided to start posting and creating my own edits. Even though these have been finished for a while, I finished them in 2020, I’m not opposed to going back and making another round of changes to this edit depending on the feedback I get, so feel free to give any feedback you have on the edits.

The intent behind this edit of the trilogy isn’t to remove the characters and subplots that Jackson added in and make a book purist edit, so if you’re wanting Azog, Radagast, the White Council subplot, Legolas, and Tauriel to be removed this might not be the edit for you. The main point of this edit is to remove all the bloat, tone down the silliness of the fight scenes, and make each movie a manageable length of two hours or less. My design philosophy for this edit is to keep the plot moving forward, and not to let the audience get too bored and all of the changes I make are in service of this goal. I’m also keeping the 3 film structure intact rather than making 1 or 2 movies because I don’t think there’s a good break point for 2 movies. Also, all of my changes were edited from the Extended Editions because those versions had some really excellent moments I wanted to utilize throughout. The edits are in a completed state, so feel free to PM me for a link to the edit and while I don’t have a cut list with all of the changes I’ve made, I’ve detailed the biggest changes below.

An Unexpected Journey This is the edit I have the most confidence in as it’s the one I’ve worked on the most, I think this is either my 6th or 7th draft. The easiest stuff to cut out was the prologue because it’s not necessary at all, and doing so automatically shaves around half an hour off of the film. I try to cut out as much of the slapstick humor of the dwarves as possible, but keep enough of the dwarves in the movies to get a sense of their personalities. I’ve also removed all the songs except for Misty Mountains Cold and part of the Goblin King’s song, not because I dislike the other ones, but because they’re not consistently placed throughout all the movies, just the first one. I kept the two that I did because the first one is the best of the songs and does a lot of good setup for the film and I kept some of the Goblin King’s songs because I couldn’t edit around them. Above all I try to remove elements that halt the movie in its tracks and don’t add much to the film, such as Thorin’s distrust of all elves, he only distrusts the Mirkwoods ones now.

The dwarves now leave the shire with Bilbo around 15-20 minutes into the film. Radagasts introduction is removed, and I edited the goblin chase scene to mostly just be Radagast and the rabbits which I liked even though it seemed a lot of others didn’t. The rock giant scene is completely removed, and the chase through the goblin tunnels is also taken out. I’ve shortened the final fight to remove the idiotic Thorin is dead emotional manipulation. I do however keep the Azog backstory that Balin tells, but remove all scenes of Azog hunting the dwarves until the Goblin King sends for him. In my opinion, Azog cannot be removed or his backstory taken out because of the way the trilogy is filmed, and unless you’re doing a super short 3-hour version, it’s impossible to remove him without damaging the plot of the film. The film is now 1h 53m with credits as opposed to 3h 2m (Extended) Without credits it’s 1 hour and 43 minutes

The Desolation of Smaug Like the first movie I’ve also cut the prologue out of this movie as well as the entire Dol Guldor subplot. I’ve kept in Tauriel and Legolas but removed the stupid love triangle because it adds nothing, and was quite obviously shoehorned in after the decision was made to extend the film from 2 movies to 3. Tauriel now leaves Mirkwood solely because she disagrees with the King’s policy of ignoring the world around them. The river fight scene has been shortened to remove Bombur’s barrel roll on land, and Legolas jumping on the dwarf’s heads. I’ve heavily reduced the Master of Laketown and Alfrid, they still exist but don’t hijack the film. Kili and several dwarves still stay behind in Laketown, but I cut out all references to the Morgul poison. Now the implication is just that the wound got infected because he was stuck in the river for too long before the wound was bandaged. Bard doesn’t get arrested, and the dwarves don’t give up after the sun sets the moon immediately rises and reveals the keyhole. I cut out Tauriel healing Kili but kept in a part of the Laketown fight. The dwarves don’t enter the mountain and the horrible forges fight is cut I added the opening to the next film so the movie ends with Smaug’s death like it should have ended. The film is now 1h 50m as opposed to 3h 6m (Extended) That’s 1h 40m without credits

In the Battle of the Five Armies, I’ve cut out Smaug’s attack on Laketown, since that ended the last movie now, and opened the movie on the dwarves left behind in Laketown arriving at the mountain. I cut Alfrid completely out of the movie, although you might be able to see him in a scene or two if you look hard enough. The first half of the movie is largely unchanged from the extended editions as most of the cuts are solely for pacing. I cut out the fight between Dain and the Dwarves vs Thranduil and the elves. I’ve cut the battle down so that it’s only around 35 Minutes and I continued with my design philosophy in the previous edits with regard to the fight scenes. I also removed the confrontation between Tauriel and Thranduil, as the conflict feels forced. I tried to keep the plot moving and have the battle focused on named characters. I added Gandalf’s speech from the special features back into the film. I also decided to change the ending slightly. I absolutely despised the original ending to this as it feels very abrupt, and wasn’t emotionally satisfying. It felt too much like a setup to the Lord of the Rings films, and not enough like the ending to a trilogy, so I edited it to end shortly after the talk with Gandalf. It killed me to remove the auction scene because it’s my favorite scene in the entire trilogy but I had to in order to make the ending feel more complete. I might reinsert it as a post, or mid-credit scene. The film is now 1h 53m as opposed to 2h 44m (Extended) or 1h 40m without credits

Thanks for reading through this long post and again feel free to PM me for a link. I’ve never posted an edit before so let me know if the link doesn’t work and I’ll try to fix that.

Edit.
I’ve created a second edit where I’ve cut an extra 1 hour 20 minutes and I’ve removed the following. Azog’s backstory is gone, I removed Radaghast and the orc fight scene and therefore had to cut a line out from Gandalf’s conversation with Elrond referring to it. I cut out the White Council scene and now Gandalf meets only with Galadriel, and I cut out some of the Goblin Kings dialogue about Azog. The ending of movie 1 and the opening of movie 2 are now deleted. The way the edit flows now is that after Bilbo’s speech when they make it out of the mountain, Azog attacks them and they start running to Beorn’s house immediately. I cut out the scene of Gandalf and Beorn talking in the forest about the Necromancer, and Taurel’s introduction is now slightly different instead of saving Kili from the spiders she answers a question from Legolas. I further edited the barrel fight scene to remove the dwarves getting trapped behind the gate and Kili leaving the barrel to open it. I cut out the Kili being wounded subplot. I cut out Thranduril ordering his kingdom’s gate closed, and Bolg finding out the dwarves found a way to cross the lake. I also cut out Legolas and Tauriel deciding to follow the dwarves as well as Kili and some of the other Dwarves staying behind in Laketown. Therefore there is no fight in lake town between the elves and Orcs and all shots of the Dwarves and Tauriel during Smaug’s attack are removed as well.

The scene of the Dwarves arriving at the mountain and Tauriel getting banished are deleted and I removed the Necromancer fight. I also cut a bunch of setup for Tauriel, Legolas, and the Orcs keeping the focus on the conflict with Thorin until the battle begins. I cut out some more fighting from the final battle, too many cuts to mention, but the main thing I removed was Tauriel and Legolas fighting on Raven Hill, Kili and Fili now die at the same time, and most of the fighting after Bilbo gets knocked unconscious. I cut out Tauriel and Legolas because due to the aforementioned cuts they disappear for around 90 minutes, and it doesn’t make sense to have such minor characters who disappear for so long have such a big impact on the ending. That also necessitated having Kili die at the same time as FIli, or cut his death out because that sequence is pretty much impossible to untangle from the Tauriel stuff. Now the way the edit works when we get to Ravenhill is that Fili and Kili go to scout, Bilbo arrives to warn them of the army, Kili and Fili die, the orcs attack, Bilbo gets knocked unconscious, and then we cut to the Eagles arriving and Thorin’s death.

The new complete runtime is without credits 3h 43m 20s or 223 minutes

The edits are complete so PM me and I’ll send you a link to both versions of the edit.