pleasehello

Sir Ridley said:

Lesser said:

Sir Ridley said:

I did a little analysis of the TLJ score album and counted how many minutes of old themes are on the album (so it’s not the entire score, but I assume the full score has a similar old/new ratio).

What I found was that there was less than 11 minutes of themes carried over from TFA, and just over 10 minutes of themes from the older movies. I didn’t count the title theme and the start of the end title music that are the same in all movies. That leaves over 1 hour of entirely new music, or about 74%. If the full score has a similar amount there might be about 1 hour and 45 minutes of new music.

I think that’s pretty impressive considering that the score should use old themes for characters and things from earlier movies. Personally I’m a big fan of the TLJ score and the balance between old and new music works for me. I’m very excited to hear the score for IX.

That’s actually really surprising to hear. I’ll have to watch TLJ again, because I could’ve sworn the old themes kept popping up every other time music was played. I’d also love to hear anybody’s thoughts on the main title score actually. The first note doesn’t feel as intense as the rest of the movies, but perhaps that’s more to do with a different orchestra playing than the first six? Or I’m a fool.

About the first note I’ve heard this complaint for the TFA recording. It’s a bit different in every movie (except for the prequels which used the same recording), so I guess it’s a matter of taste which way you prefer it. Here’s a quote from Rian Johnson about that:
“We re-recorded it with John Williams. They re-record it every time they do it. The more interesting thing for me was the mix. Realizing it’s just like mixing a song. Realizing there’s many different ways you can mix that opening fanfare. And if you listen to all the different movies, every single one of them has a slightly different take on the mix of the fanfare. Some are brighter some are warmer. The Force Awakens one has a sharper attack to it. We went for a warmer-type feel.”

For TFA and TLJ the opening hit is very weak compared to the other recordings–the trombones are cut out almost completely. I’m not a huge fan of the mixing.

I know Rian Johnson says they re-recorded the fanfare for TLJ and perhaps they did, but it wasn’t used in the movie. The fanfare that appears in TLJ is the exact same one in TFA. I overlaid them one on top of the other and there was no difference whatsoever, which would be impossible if it were a new recording.

nl0428 said:

RogueLeader said:

Yeah, despite my own gripes with the score, I go back and listen to it a lot this past year, even more than the other scores. I catch my self going back to The Spark and The Last Jedi a lot. Luke emerging from the base and then later when it is revealed he is still on Ach-To are such great moments. I like listening to Ach-To Island, The Supremacy and New Alliance a lot too.

I was a little surprised there wasn’t a Ben/Rey theme. A theme could still show up in the last film, but I imagine it will be some kind of play on Rey and Kylo’s theme, maybe.

It was noted that the first three notes in Rey’s theme are the same as the last three notes in Kylo Ren’s theme. It’s also been compared that they are the same three notes in Anakin and Padmé’s love theme, Across the Stars, but in reverse.

There may be intent behind that first observation. The second one seems purely like a coincidence: there are only so many intervals to work with when you’re creating tonal music.

Creox said:

I also think veering off too much and you have a SW indie film that a lot fewer people will want to see.

But would probably be infinitely more interesting. I’m probably in the minority here, but I would love to see a Star Wars story done on a smaller scale. You don’t need $200 million to make a good Star Wars movie.

DominicCobb said:

Paige’s sacrifice is actually an important point of comparison. She destroys the dreadnaught, yes, but the Resistance has lost all their bombers (plus many other fighters), so was it actually worth it? I tend to think even if Finn did destroy the battering ram, it wouldn’t have been worth much. That’s just one weapon, look at the rest of the First Order fire power at hand. The Resistance plan to hold out in that base probably only worked if they didn’t know they were there. Poe’s plan to destroy the cannon mirror’s his plan to destroy the dreadnaught - taking out something very destructive yes, but ultimately the smarter decision is to know when it’s time to cut your losses and get the fuck out of there before you lose all your people on a suicide mission.

That’s basically the distinction, between fruitless suicide mission and noble sacrifice. The film isn’t suggesting that sacrifices never work, you just have to know when it’s worth it. Both Holdo and Luke had no choice. Holdo has to stay behind to pilot the cruiser and was going to die anyway. She would have likely gone out peacefully if the remaining Resistance didn’t need help in that very moment. Same as Luke. Snoke found out where he was from Rey so there’s a decent chance the First Order was already on the way to destroy the island. Luke was obviously prepared to die without putting up a fight, but realized ultimately how much he was needed.

It’s essentially two different equations.

Who’s to say that Finn’s sacrifice wouldn’t have been worth it? My assumption was that Finn’s intention from the start of his run was to kamikaze his ship into the cannon. Would it have been fruitless? Possibly, but the movie failed to make it clear that it would have been fruitless. Also in saving Finn, Rose could have easily killed both of them with zero upside.

So if the message we’re supposed to take away from this is: Sacrifice is sometimes worth it, but you just have to weigh the cost/benefit depending on your specific situation–it’s not a very strong or clear message, especially for a Star Wars movie. This kind of goes along with a general trend in this movie of presenting a idea or message that should be simple and muddling it due to what I can only chalk up to poor execution.

Not that the movie is poorly executed in general. Much of it is fantastic. I simultaneously love and am frustrated by this film.

DominicCobb said:

RogueLeader said:

I don’t know exactly how they will portray Ben’s redemption, but I definitely see it happening, and I think Rey will play a part of it. I think it will be romantic love that puts the galaxy back together.

It’s a theory I’ve heard often (even literally my mom said this was her theory after she saw TLJ) and while I don’t have anything against it, personally I’d be surprised if it happens in an explicit “Rey and Ben are a romantic pair and will live happily ever after” way.

I doubt it will happen. Other than that scene where Rey and Kylo touch hands, the rest of the sequel trilogy seems weirdly asexual to me, at least in the traditional sense. Like it’s something that purposely being tiptoed around.

SilverWook said:

https://www.fanthatracks.com/news/film-music-tv/heavy-rumour-episode-ix-teaser-trailer-imminent/

This would be a nice surprise. Still putting my money on a Star Wars Celebration trailer drop.

It would be a shame if Adam Driver spent most of the movie in the mask again. He’s such a fantastic actor.

Valheru_84 said:

I also felt C3PO was treated rather disrespectfully in TLJ in the manner and tone that Poe told him to shut up.

You mean like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDNMPkw8l-g

Fang Zei said:

SilverWook said:

Fang Zei said:

Anthony Daniels tweeted this out earlier today,

https://twitter.com/adaniels3po/status/1092555522765713408?s=21

which means we’re definitely getting some big piece of news this week, even if it’s not the title.

Revenge Of The Droids 😉

I did find it appropriate that they had Tony tweet that out.

Hasn’t it long been assumed that the saga would end with the droids giving their “journal” to the Whills?

Your average layperson doesn’t know what a Whill is. Nor have they ever been mentioned in the saga thus far, so I doubt they’ll make an appearance in IX.

What is the current status of this print? Back in November you’d mentioned an upcoming release for donors. Just wondering if that is still forthcoming.

RogueLeader said:

And of course, it is heartbreaking that Carrie couldn’t film her last performance as Leia, but it is likely that Leia still would’ve been behind the scenes mostly, and I feel they will be able to fulfill whatever necessary role she was meant to fill with the extra footage they have. They seemed pretty confident that they have enough material (and aren’t they lucky they decided to cut a lot of her TFA scenes?). As long as they have enough for a few moments with the Resistance, and maybe one moment related to Ben/Kylo Ren, I think that will be enough. And by her playing a supporting role, it gives us more time for the young heroes to drive the story and be on screen together for the final film.

I think it’s going to be a little jarring for me to see Carrie Fisher’s unused footage from TFA in Ep. IX. I really didn’t like what they did to her in TFA. Her main jumpsuit costume was not flattering and they pulled her face back so tight to try and get rid of any sagging or wrinkles that she could barely move her mouth. They treated her a lot better in TLJ. She looked much more natural.

I just don’t think they’ll be able to convince me that any coverage of her belongs in the movie. But maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Redbreast1 said:

I think I have a VHS tape from a 1990s something Christmas Eve if you’re interested…

Yes! I watched that VHS to death as a child. I re-watched it recently to discover that it’s just a glorified clip-show, only half of which have anything to do with Christmas, haha. Still good memories, though 😃

Just watched Solo on Netflix. I chuckled a few times, but was mostly bored. It wasn’t as joyless or tedious as Rogue One, but still didn’t really offer anything new or interesting. Too much action with characters I didn’t really care about.

I wish Han and Lando had a few more scenes together. Their on-screen chemistry was pretty good. I’m glad that the movie didn’t feel the need to end in a giant space battle.

Having Darth Maul as the Crimson Whatever was pointless and eye-roll inducing. And L3 was completely insufferable.

oojason said:

His acting ability in the Trilogy and many other quality films he often lifts the scenes he is in, or the film itself - where conveying emotions, strength or resonance of character, or bringing innovation to his craft he was a step or 3 ahead of many actors around him.

Except in ROTJ, where he appears to convey no emotion at all and could only be bothered to show up if he was allowed to sit through all of his dialogue. Actually if you compare his sitting exposition scene in Star Wars to his sitting exposition scene in Jedi, it’s a great example of the gravitas that great acting can lend to otherwise mundane exposition contrasted with mundane exposition that’s just being phoned in.

His performance in Star Wars is remarkable though. He almost does make you believe in the Force. He definitely tempers Mark Hammil’s performance, which would probably be a little grating without the wizened Obi-Wan as a foil of sorts. He kind of sells that movie for me.

screams in the void said:

I find your argument vague and unconvincing .And I actually said that I believe that SOME are production photos but not all . Again , where is the PROOF ? all I have been presented with is conjecture and opinion so far .And regardless , the colors in the bottom image look great , why not use the storybook photos for color reference ? The picture on the bottom looks far clearer to me and has a lot of natural dusky sunlight showing on Luke .I have heard film makers refer to sunset shots like this as " magic hour " and I see it far more clearly on the storybook photo than the grainy , uncleaned deleted footage which is just one screenshot you posted among dozens which make up the scene on film .If I wanted to make a painting , or even re create a cleaned up or restoration of that deleted scene , I would definitely refer to the storybook photo for things like color temperature , saturation , hue , value etc .

Sorry, I thought you were convinced that ALL the photos were still frames from the movie. But the above example is definite proof that there are some (at least one) production photos used in the story book. I agree that the story book photo is much more pleasing color and contrast-wise than the screen grab I provided.

Forgive me for assuming your obstinacy.

Luke from the deleted scene:

Luke from the story book:

The two are clearly different. The latter probably having been taken just off-camera while filming. Not sure what more evidence you need to convince you that some of these are production photos.

screams in the void said:

^ that is a super callous response

If you’re one who assumes the worst of people, I can see how it might seem that way. That was certainly not my intention, though I probably should have been more specific in my response.

Neverar submitted his crawl as an improvement to Yotsuya’s attempt at rewriting the crawl. I found it to be confusing with the implied relationship between the Republic and the New Jedi Order and someone infiltrating the Senate. None of which is touched on in the actual movie. I had to read the crawl a few times to try and make sense of it, that’s all. I wasn’t trying to put down Neverar.

NeverarGreat said:

yotsuya said:

NeverarGreat said:

yotsuya said:

rodneyfaile said:

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen from
the ashes of the Empire
and will not rest until
Skywalker, the last Jedi,
has been destroyed.

With the support of the
REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa
leads a brave RESISTANCE.
She is desperate to find her
brother Luke and gain his
help in restoring peace
and justice to the galaxy.

Leia has sent her most daring
pilot on a secret mission
to Jakku, where an old ally
has discovered a clue to
Luke’s whereabouts…

compared to…

It is a period of civil war.
Rebel spaceships, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire’s
ultimate weapon, the DEATH
STAR, an armored space
station with enough power to
destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire’s
sinister agents, Princess
Leia races home aboard her
starship, custodian of the
stolen plans that can save
her people and restore
freedom to the galaxy…

See how the stage is set by the original crawl. The players are easy to understand and clearly delineated. In TFA the setup is more complex, but rather than go into any part except the First Order, it is all about Luke. TLJ does a better job…

The FIRST ORDER reigns.
Having decimated the peaceful
Republic, Supreme Leader Snoke
now deploys the merciless
legions to seize military
control of the galaxy.

Only General Leia Organa’s
band of RESISTANCE fighters
stand against the rising
tyranny, certain that Jedi
Master Luke Skywalker will
return and restore a spark of
hope to the fight.

But the Resistance has been
exposed. As the First Order
speeds toward the rebel base,
the brave heroes mount a
desperate escape…

The original crawl is a masterclass in efficient exposition. In three paragraphs we know everything we need to know about the conflict. Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without the galactic situation being simple to begin with. The Empire, which controls the galaxy, has a weapon with clearly defined power. The Rebellion, clearly not a major threat due to their lack of victories thus far, has nevertheless gained an opportunity to destroy this weapon. Then establish the princess and the crawl is perfect.

In short:
The Empire
The Death Star
The Death Star as a formidable weapon
The Rebellion
The Princess
The attack
The plans
The Empire’s sinister agents

TFA on the other hand is a complicated situation. For my fanedit I’ve tried to rewrite the crawl over a hundred times, and I’ve come to the conclusion that minus a missing scene that further explains the galaxy, three paragraphs just can’t cut it.

TFA tries to establish:

Luke and his disappearance
The First Order
The origin of the First Order from the Empire
The First Order’s need to kill Luke
The Republic
The Resistance
Leia
The best pilot
Luke as the last Jedi
Jedi as protectors of the galaxy
Leia as Luke’s sister
Jakku
Leia’s old ally

And this is really not even enough exposition, because you still need:

How the First Order arose
Why Luke is gone
Why Luke is important
The Starkiller
How the Starkiller is possible
The relative power of the Republic vs the Resistance and the First Order
…among other things.

I disagree what the crawl has to explain. It has to cover:
The Republic
The First Order
The Resistance
the basic issue and goals of them
and setup the story

Luke and Starkiller aren’t all that important to get the story moving where the Death Star was because the plans were the driving force of the ANH.

I came up with this which covers why the Republic is weak, where the first order came from, what the resistance is doing and why the Republic isn’t. It only gets to Luke as part of the immediate goal of helping Leia. Let me know what you think. It is the same length as most of the crawls.

THE FORCE AWAKENS

For three decades the REPUBLIC has struggled to rebuild. Out on the rim a remnant of the Empire has been reforged as the FIRST ORDER, bent on galactic conquest.

General Leia Organa and her brave band of RESISTANCE have held back the First Order’s advance while the Republic leaders refuse to take the threat seriously.

Following the betrayal of his star pupil, Luke Skywalker vanished. Leia, desperate for his help, has sent a daring pilot to recover a clue to his whereabouts from an old ally…

That is a very comprehensive crawl, and quite effective in its broad strokes.
Of course there are issues with some of the ‘Star Warsy-ness’ of the language, but the biggest issue I see is in the final paragraph. In the best Star Wars crawls the paragraphs form a miniature three act structure of their own. For example, in the original crawl the first paragraph establishes the two players and the inciting incident, the second paragraph explores the nature of the threat, and the third paragraph uses elements from the previous two in order to craft a compelling scenario to be explored throughout the film. This third paragraph can of course introduce more specifics and even new characters, but rarely does it introduce the focus of the story.

For this reason, I don’t think that Luke and the Jedi can be relegated to the end of the crawl. Here’s my new take on an ideal crawl:

The galaxy is in crisis.
Agents of the fallen Empire
have destroyed the fledgling
Jedi Order of the Republic.

Fearing that these agents
have infiltrated even the
Republic Senate, General
Leia Organa mobilizes a
covert RESISTANCE to
counter this Imperial threat,
now known throughout the
galaxy as the vengeful
FIRST ORDER.

Believing that the master
of the Jedi still survives,
Leia sends her most daring
pilot to discover his
whereabouts and return
the light of peace and
justice to the darkening
stars…

This crawl is super confusing.

ray_afraid said:

I think The Empire Strikes Back is a good title, especially for a sequel, but I really don’t like any of the titles very much.

The more I think about The Empire Strikes Back as a film title, the sillier it sounds. People tout Empire as a darker, more serious film (which it is), but it may have the goofiest, most pulpy title of any SW film.

That said, it’s sufficiently vague which seems like something you’d want in a film title. Something like The First Order Makes Chase apart from being kind of boring, is far too literal. The goal shouldn’t be to summarize the plot in the film’s title, but rather to create intrigue. Viewed through this lens, The Last Jedi kind of works perfectly, begging the question “Who is the last Jedi?”

I think the displeasure with TLJ goes beyond people not liking it because it’s the “dark middle chapter”. I’m sure audiences expected it to be just that. For all of the things that The Last Jedi does brilliantly (and there are several), the sad truth is that it’s not written half as well as Empire.

Empire’s script and story are simple and tight, with snappy dialogue that doesn’t feel forced and as few characters as are necessary to drive the story. The Last Jedi feels bloated by comparison with one-too-many story lines, humor that falls flat and too many unnecessary new characters that are given far too much screen time.

I love many facets of The Last Jedi, but some scenes just make me groan. I really don’t see it gaining the same level of appreciation over time as Empire did.

oojason said:

pleasehello said:

DrDre said:

I would agree with the self-reliant part, but I would not say that she’s all that confident, or believes in herself. She searching for an identity, and freely admits she doesn’t understand what’s happening to her. Her running off to save Kylo from Snoke is as brash and reckless as Luke’s attempt to save his friends from Vader’s clutches in TESB, only somehow Luke ends up hanging upside down below a city in the clouds minus one limb praying to be saved, while Rey conveniently escapes in Snoke’s shuttle, and arrives in time to save her friends with an awesome display of the Force.

This is one of my biggest problems with the sequel trilogy. It’s not necessarily Rey’s quick grasp of Jedi techniques or that she’s overpowered. It’s that she (the main protagonist of the movies) is never, ever, ever in trouble. She’s never in a situation in which she needs the help of her friends.

Never, ever, ever in trouble? 😉

For TFA, until she ‘let in the Force’ during the saber battle with Kylo it looked like she was lost… Nor did it look great during the interrogation scene with Kylo before that (as well as being somewhat easily captured by him in the forest - being frozen mid-air).

The Throne Room with Snoke in TLJ - completely out of her depth and about to be easily killed until Kylo turns against his master, and seemed to me she was in trouble vs the many Guards until she teamed up with Kylo against them. She required Luke’s help to teach her what the Force was actually about, prior to this.

Ha! A bit hyperbolic I guess. The throne room scene is the only time she ever really needs someone’s help to get out of a tricky spot. She has no shortage of internal struggle, which is great. But at the end of the day, her self-reliance (and there’s nothing wrong with self reliance) doesn’t make for great drama, nor does it make her very relatable. I’ve never felt that she was in any real, imminent peril.

DrDre said:

I would agree with the self-reliant part, but I would not say that she’s all that confident, or believes in herself. She searching for an identity, and freely admits she doesn’t understand what’s happening to her. Her running off to save Kylo from Snoke is as brash and reckless as Luke’s attempt to save his friends from Vader’s clutches in TESB, only somehow Luke ends up hanging upside down below a city in the clouds minus one limb praying to be saved, while Rey conveniently escapes in Snoke’s shuttle, and arrives in time to save her friends with an awesome display of the Force.

This is one of my biggest problems with the sequel trilogy. It’s not necessarily Rey’s quick grasp of Jedi techniques or that she’s overpowered. It’s that she (the main protagonist of the movies) is never, ever, ever in trouble. She’s never in a situation in which she needs the help of her friends. She’s never in a situation where the audience worries about her and I think that’s kind of a barrier to the audience really connecting with her.

nl0428 said:

pleasehello said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

nevertheless I don’t think it’ll be an issue as Rian didn’t stray too far from TFA’s style to begin with.

Actually, I was very confused as to why people acted like the arguably out-of-place humor of TLJ was new. To me, it was just a continuation of the sometimes borderline parody tone of TFA. Totally seamless.

Yeah both film have comedy, but not all comedy is the same. The comedy in TLJ was noticeably different to me.

The Abrams and Kasdan team understood how to write dialogue and especially comedy that is more consistent with the OT, which borrows heavily from old Hollywood and especially the screwball comedies of that era. By comparison, many of The Last Jedi’s dialogue and comedic moments are less quick-fire screwball banter and more rooted in more recent popular culture (crank calls, your mama jokes, literally brushing-it-off; some of the jokes felt like modern memes) and stuck out to me immediately.

All film is subjective.

Yes. But I think that oversimplifies the very real differences between the two movies.

Why make an attempt at analysis if the conversation just stops at “all film is subjective”?

Anakin Starkiller said:

nevertheless I don’t think it’ll be an issue as Rian didn’t stray too far from TFA’s style to begin with.

Actually, I was very confused as to why people acted like the arguably out-of-place humor of TLJ was new. To me, it was just a continuation of the sometimes borderline parody tone of TFA. Totally seamless.

Yeah both film have comedy, but not all comedy is the same. The comedy in TLJ was noticeably different to me.

The Abrams and Kasdan team understood how to write dialogue and especially comedy that is more consistent with the OT, which borrows heavily from old Hollywood and especially the screwball comedies of that era. By comparison, many of The Last Jedi’s dialogue and comedic moments are less quick-fire screwball banter and more rooted in more recent popular culture (crank calls, your mama jokes, literally brushing-it-off; some of the jokes felt like modern memes) and stuck out to me immediately.

ChainsawAsh said:

DominicCobb said:

ChainsawAsh said:

DominicCobb said:

pleasehello said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

In the end, I’m happier with Abrams at the helm, but it’s worth remembering his strength lies in setting up plots, not resolving them. I remember someone on this forum saying they’d get a “sadistic satisfaction” out of seeing Abrams resolve his own story.

Oh shit. If history is any indicator, J.J. is going to kill the entire cast of characters and have them meet up again in some weird non-denominational purgatory.

I’ll never understand why this myth persists.

What do you mean? That’s what happened at the end of Lost (though saying he “killed the characters” isn’t super accurate, as they all died when they died, even if it was decades after their time on the island of natural causes) - the flash sideways stuff in the final season is literally a non-denominational purgatory where all the characters eventually meet after their deaths before they all move on to heaven or whatever after the last of them dies on Earth.

Not saying that anything like that will happen in IX, but I’m not sure why you think that’s a myth about Lost. Unless you’re talking about the myth that the island was purgatory and they were all dead the whole time, but that’s not what Starkiller was saying.

That’s not the myth I was talking about (he described it more or less accurately, as you mention). The myth is that JJ Abrams had anything to do with it.

Ah, okay, my mistake. You’re definitely right about that.

I had no idea he only wrote the pilot. Anyway it was just a dumb joke.