rocknroll41

Was gonna listen to an album or two today, but then SESAC banned most of my favorite artists from YouTube here in America. Oh well…

I guess Megalopolis is growing on me now, since I’ve had more time to think it over.

Updated top 10 for the year:

1.Dune: Part Two

2.Alien: Romulus

3.Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

4.Inside Out 2

5.Civil War

6.Young Woman and the Sea

7.Deadpool & Wolverine

8.Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

9.Megalopolis (so bad that it’s good)

10.Drive-Away Dolls (so bad that it’s good)

Vladius said:

Servii said:

NFBisms said:

Yeah, I see that too, I just think it’s symptomatic of an unwieldy/messy script more than it is intentional malice or whatever for the series. That’s ridiculous to me, it’s at worst a guy who has different ideas [than you or someone else] about how this all works and who these characters are.

I agree. TLJ may be very flawed and misguided in a lot of ways, but it’s not malicious or nihilistic or anti-Star Wars. At most, you could call it existentialist, since the movie has the heroes question the basic aspects of Star Wars, only to choose to embrace them in the end, anyway.

My problem is mainly that I think the sequel trilogy era is too shallow and flimsy to stand up to that level of scrutiny or questioning, so I ended up disengaging, and felt no investment in what was going on.

Anyway, we were talking about dialogue.

By the director’s own words, he wanted to create a movie where half of the people who watch it hate it, and he succeeded. There is a clear dislike of Luke Skywalker and the Jedi. There is no refutation of any of the nihilistic stuff he says throughout the movie at all. In fact, Yoda confirms that everything they did was a failure, their sacred traditions are boring, and commences book burning (he let Rey take the books so she could get the tips and tricks and do it herself because she’s better than Luke, but he was deceiving Luke and wanted him to think he was burning the books. The audience is also supposed to think this is a good idea because Yoda is doing it, before the fakeout.)

Saying that if the Jedi die the light dies is vanity, the Jedi at the height of their power got wiped out by Darth Sidious like they deserved it, etc. None of this stuff is questioned. It also canonizes the misguided fan concept that the light and dark sides are yin and yang and will always equalize (“powerful light, powerful darkness” “darkness rises and light to meet it”) which inherently makes the whole setting pointless and hollow.

The message of Luke appearing in projection form isn’t that “the Jedi are good, actually,” it’s that image is everything. The real Luke doesn’t matter, because the specter of younger, popular Luke is what people like. It’s all about deception and propaganda. The actual Jedi and the actual Luke sucked but they’re a noble lie.

The “I want half the people to like my movie and half to hate it” thing was from a 2005 interview where he was promoting Brick. By the time TLJ came out, he said he regretted that statement.

Just saw megalopolis, and it’s as terrible as they say…

Also, for some reason, they showed the trailer for the new venom movie TWICE at my screening.

Honestly most of the dialogue in TLJ is pretty bad. Whenever I wanna rewatch that movie, I always watch the score-only version instead.

It’s a shame too cause I actually think the story itself is good/ underrated. Just goes to show how dialogue can really make or break a movie…

Acbagel said:

Put one of my groomsmen into the ground today. 28 years old. Lost his mind in the realm of drugs and mental illness. It started with weed at far too young of an age, then weed turned to hallucinogens and psychedelics. His brain, his very reasoning, wittled away under the influence of such chemicals. Whether you believe this in a real spiritual sense or not, he began to tell us how he would speak with demons. He changed. Complete incoherence and mental psychosis followed. He tried every treatment plan under the sun. We tried so hard to offer help, show him love, but he didn’t accept. He grew to only desire the surreal, the desire for life and reality slipped away, no matter how much you were there for him. The demons in his mind took his life.

Hard to find solace in such awfulness. Cherish the good memories you are able to have with your loved ones, accept that sometimes there are forces outside of your control that you can’t beat yourself up over, and always, always, show one another true love.

RIP Brother, I will miss you until the end of my days.

Very sorry for your loss.

I have a few family members going through pretty much what you described right now, actually. Seems to be happening more and more these days.

Just watched that new movie Civil War. It was very good!

updated top 10 for the year:
1.Dune: Part Two
2.Alien: Romulus
3.Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
4.Inside Out 2
5.Civil War
6.Young Woman and the Sea
7.Deadpool & Wolverine
8.Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
9.Drive-Away Dolls
10.Kung Fu Panda 4

I agree that episodes 3 and 7 should’ve been combined into one penultimate episode. I also agree that episodes 4-5 should’ve been combined. In fact, one of the writers admitted on X that 4-5 were indeed one episode at first, and Disney made them split it up.

This whole thing also probably coulda just worked as a movie, actually. Same goes for the Kenobi show, and maybe also Ahsoka (since they’re starting to turn all the mandoverse stuff into movies anyways. Alternatively, Ahsoka could’ve also been an episode or two shorter.

Connor MacLeod said:

rocknroll41 said:

Kenobi is way worse

Can you please briefly explain why? I’m interested…

The shaky cam and dim lighting

The “cheap, small” feel of it all (like when Flea and his goons are chasing Leia)

The repetitive feeling of it all (we see Kenobi go to his job like 3 times, Part 6 is pretty much the same as Part 5 in that it’s just rebels running away from Vader, and so on)

The final duel is basically just a remake of RotS, with obi-wan letting Vader live yet again

Reva surviving TWO stab wounds, and the grand inquisitor surviving one and then letting Reva live again

“Wade!!”

The inquisitors in general being whiny and annoying

I can go on, but I’ll stop there

Kenobi is way worse

I thought I had already said this here but I guess I didn’t:

I definitely like the PT more than the ST now. In hindsight, the “meta” approach of the Sat didn’t age well. That said, there’s still aspects of each ST film that I enjoy.

G&G-Fan said:

Bit of a hot take, I’ve never cared for Duel of the Fates (the fight itself not the music). It’s way too overstimulating for my ADHD ass, half the time I can’t follow what’s going on. The character work is too barebones for me to care.

My favorite duels are Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader from ESB and ROTJ, a great balance between ferocious but not batshit insane choreography with great character work.

I enjoy the two final duels in ROTS to a degree, but at the same time am miffed at how the Anakin vs. Obi-Wan duel, among may other prequel elements, serves to retroactively make OT Vader look weak when he was intended to be a powerful masterful warrior (they had him be the only one to wield a saber with one hand for a reason). I also think they need to be toned down too.

I agree that the PT duels (especially duel of the fates) are still overrated.

I never thought I’d say this, but the prequels have grown on my quite a bit, and I like them better than the sequels now.

Rogue One and Andor have also grown on me, whereas all the other Disney films/ shows have gotten worse for me over time.

The OT is still just as good as it’s always been.

adywan said:

Has the cancellation been officially confirmed? All of the articles i’ve seen floating around are quoting from the same site that originally posted this “scoop” which only claimed that their “sources” told them. Haven’t seen anything coming from Lucasfilm or Disney about this.

The original scoop came from Deadline, which is considered an official trade and therefore like 99% accurate. It’s the next-closest thing to Lucasfilm/Disney saying it themselves. In fact, studios often intentionally pass these tidbits along to trades behind-the-scenes to avoid the embarrassment of saying these things themselves.

I know we’ve gotten on a huge tangent here, but regarding RLM; I really think they’re old and out of touch these days.

I just watched their review of Alien Romulus, for instance, and they were asking questions like “where did all these new facehuggers come from?” When the movie clearly stated that they were genetically engineered using dna from “big chap.” At one point they also go “the first film clearly established that every alien hive needs a queen,” when that was really only established in the second film. They completely forgot about the egg-morphing from the deleted scene of the first (which I’m pretty sure is on the director’s cut, which they claim to have seen).

That’s just one of several examples of how lately they’ve been making more mistakes/ overlooking details. Their memories are getting hazy, and they seem to have a harder time actually paying attention to the things they’re watching/ reviewing… IDK, they just act really old now. Too old, too ignorant, too grumpy, etc.

Just got back from seeing Alien Romulus and loved it.

Updated Top 10 for this year:

1.Dune: Part Two
2.Alien: Romulus
3.Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
4.Inside Out 2
5.Young Woman and the Sea
6.Deadpool & Wolverine
7.Drive-Away Dolls
8.Kung Fu Panda 4
9.Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
10.Madame Web (so bad that it’s good)

The max rebo kid seems cool, at least.

Finally saw inside out 2 and enjoyed it just as much as everyone else, thankfully.

Updated ranking of 2024 films I’ve seen so far:

1.Dune: Part Two
2.Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
3.Deadpool & Wolverine
4.Inside Out 2
5.Young Woman and the Sea
6.Drive-Away Dolls
7.Kung Fu Panda 4
9.Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
9.Madame Web (so bad that it’s good)
10.Godzilla x. Kong: The New Empire

rocknroll41 said:

rocknroll41 said:

Would it be appropriate for me to use this thread to share some blog posts I’ve been writing lately about the things I’ve been doing to work through my own mental trauma?

Following up on this:
https://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2024/06/my-new-take-on-journaling.html?m=1

https://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2024/08/specific-tips-for-journaling.html?m=1

Continuing on from the above, I also started interviewing some of my own friends about their experiences with mental health, self-improvement, etc.

For whomever may be curious:
https://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2024/08/abroad-at-home-mental-health.html?m=1

https://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2024/08/endurance-expression-mental-health.html?m=1

rocknroll41 said:

Would it be appropriate for me to use this thread to share some blog posts I’ve been writing lately about the things I’ve been doing to work through my own mental trauma?

Following up on this:
https://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2024/06/my-new-take-on-journaling.html?m=1

https://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2024/08/specific-tips-for-journaling.html?m=1

Would it be appropriate for me to use this thread to share some blog posts I’ve been writing lately about the things I’ve been doing to work through my own mental trauma?

daveybjones999 said:

Vladius said:

Kellythatsit said:

rocknroll41 said:

Great write-up Acbagel!

Unfortunately I don’t think simply making “a little something for everyone” (i.e. different things for different people) is enough to unite the fandom, as each group generally seems to think Star Wars should only be made for their tastes specifically (even if not everyone admits it). Doesn’t help also that a ton of YouTubers nowadays make an entire living from hating Star Wars, no matter what it does.

Of all the groups you mentioned, I’m in the one that you described as “not very protective, fine with whatever direction Disney takes.” I honestly think at this point they should just keep doing whatever they’re doing, cause people will get mad no matter what. There was a time when even ESB was divisive, ffs!

Yeah I agree with this also. But Lucasfilm/Disney also need to have the balls to stick with projects or story direction. Don’t crib notes from fans. Sure learn from mistakes but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Key example: Solo.
The movie was perfectly fine. Did it set the world on fire? No. Were there other key issues that also effected it’s performance? Absolutely. But don’t set up an ongoing story and then abandon it because “shit happens”. Learn the right lessons and fix the errors. Make the next one a banger. Ensure the next in the Solo series is unmissable.

It’s the same now with the Acolyte. It was a bit hit/miss but there’s more story to be told. Learn the right lessons. Fix the main issues. Whether it’s pacing, character development, production quality, whatever. But back in your story. At the end of the day we just want good, well told stories that we can reflect on with satisfaction.

It was way more than “a bit” hit or miss, and the story literally can’t go anywhere because it will always result in the prequels happening. All it does is bash on the Jedi more in dumber and dumber ways.

They are cribbing notes from fans, the large group of prequel/Filoni fans who like anything that has prequel/Clone Wars/Rebels characters in it.

I think you’re forgetting that tons of people love the prequels and would love to see a well-told story of how the Jedi got to the point that they’re at during them. Just because some people don’t like them or how the Jedi are portrayed during the prequels doesn’t change that. There’s a whole lot of good storyline potential to exploring that shift regardless of whether or not some people want Star Wars to tackle that or not. What Disney Star Wars needs to do is appeal to fans of all 3 trilogies, but they really seem to only be catering to Prequel fans which is the main issue. Other than Andor there’s no Star Wars project attempting to appeal to fans of the original trilogy, and there are also no projects currently out trying to appeal to fans of the sequel trilogy. The only thing even attempting to target those fans is the currently in production Rey movie. They need to appeal to fans of all 3 and to do that they need to greenlight projects targeting each of these 3 eras.

Good point. From 2014-2017, they focused solely on OT nostalgia, and then they noticed the generational shift and now focus mostly on PT nostalgia. That said, I would have to guess the Lando movie will have “OT vibes.”

Updated ranking of movies I’ve seen this year so far:

1.Dune: Part Two
2.Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
3.Young Woman and the Sea
4.Deadpool & Wolverine
5.Kung Fu Panda 4
6.Drive-Away Dolls
7.Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
8.Godzilla x. Kong: The New Empire
9.Madame Web (so bad that it’s good)

Just saw Deadpool & Wolverine. I liked it. It’s the weakest of the three Deadpool movies, but the best mcu movie we’ve had in a good while. It handles its cameos with more care than Multiverse of Madness did (though I don’t hate that movie as much as everyone else did). End credit sequence was very emotional.

I guess my only major complaint is that there were a bunch of continuity errors, though I guess that’s always been the case with most of the Fox-era films.

There was a time when I was against the idea of “they should just do gritty stuff like Rogue One and Andor and the EU and nothing else,” but even I’m starting to gravitate towards that mindset now. I think prioritizing all ages (kids) is no longer a viable option. Kids today barely have the attention span for a tiktok video now, let alone a movie, and nobody buys toys anymore.