"Star Wars" Topic

Well. That happened.
After 40 years I went with my wife and son to see episode 9 of the Star Wars series. I was an impressionable 13 year old when the first one came out and remember fondly riding a bus (no parents just with my friends) to see the original 1977 version. It was magic.
While a feast for the eyes- the last one (or two) missed the mark. I was not disappointed, as I went in with less than high hopes. But in light of many recent good movies, this was off.
Sorry to burst any balloons. Thoughts?

An e-mail i sent my friends on the subject sums it up for me:

"We saw the new one on Sunday. We also saw Detective Pikachu (sp?) on HBO that night.

I really liked Detective Pikachu (sp?)."

The magic was gone after the first three, episodes 4,5,6. Was very disappointed with episodes 1,2,3. I think I saw episode 7 and maybe one other. So bad I can't even remember. Which proves that big budget and the latest special effects do not make a movie great.

I thought it was 2.5 hours of mediocrity. On the plus side, my son and I got in some "us" time.

I went last night with some friends. I was told not to get my hopes up by more than a few people. So I wasn't disappointed.

Haven't seen the most current one yet. After the previous two, though, I think the SW franchise has jumped the shark – too much trying to shove humor and current activism into the movies for them to be enjoyable.

Not a bad popcorn movie to my way of thinking, but I went in with fairly low expectations.

I think in the end it was a failure of world-building. If you don't build people the audience cares about and worlds they're familiar with beforehand, you get to the big climactic scene and the audience has no reason to be excited. Think what Star Trek--or any of a dozen book series--could have done with that moment. But the Star Wars galaxy has always been mostly plywood.

And there was a failure of nerve. In RoS and Rogue One, they needed someone to put the cause into words: what is the Rebellion/the Resistance fighting for which is worth going into a battle they probably won't return from? No one ever says, probably because someone in the audience might have been offended. Taking no chances leads to expensive mediocrity.

If they want to try again in three or four years, I'll be very careful. As far as I'm concerned, Lucasfilm owes me for my tickets to Episodes 1, 2 and 7. (Never saw 3 and 8. I learn slowly, but I do learn.)

I saw 7 and 8 while getting over my Christmas cold. Was pleasantly surprised.

I'm usually in the minority when it comes to opinions, and it holds true here too! I enjoyed the movie and want to see it again, just to see what I missed the first time I watched it. I thought they did a good job tying 40+ years of a film to its finale, or was it left open for Episode X. It may not have been as impressive as IV, V, & VI, but I don't think you can capture that same effect or audience.

The last movie and breast milk from a green alien did it for me.

Too many characters in too little a movie.

I told my cousin that the last 3 movies were a lot like the Alien sequel Prometheus. She says, "how so?"

I says, have you ever heard anyone tell a really poor joke really, really well?

It's all Yoda's fault. The first one was so good we were eager for a sequel. The first 10 minutes of ESB is garbage. "Nerf herder." Luke lost in the cold. "Laugh it up fuzzball." Expectations sagging.

Then all hell breaks loose. "Found someone you have, hmm?" "Never tell me the odds." And it just gets better and better. "You do have your moments.". "That is why you fail."

And then it gets better still. "We would be honored if you would join us." "That boy is our last hope."

"No, there is another."

And then it blows the lid off.

"I know."

"No, I am your father."

We walked out of the theater only to get in line again.

We dared hope ROTJ would continue the ascent, but it didn't. It was good but not lighting in a bottle.

And we've been hoping for it's return ever since. There have been moments, but few and far between. The fan flick Shards of the Past is as good as anything, if not better.

Damn you Yoda.

The audience was mislead.
The true story goes back to the original trilogy. As you may recall, it wasn't until RotJ that they revealed Luke & Leia are in fact brother & sister. Prior to that, Luke has the 'hots' for her.
I say "Rey" was the product of their forbidden love. Once they realized they were siblings, they had to hide her from everyone and never mention it again. But she got a double dose of Skywalker genes, which explains why she was so quick with the force.
All because Luke was looking for love in Alderaan places.

Worked for Game of Thrones.

Bill, what were you taking for that cold? Maybe I should try some of it.

Have not seen it yet but from what I have heard it is a decent popcorn movie – No 3 son did not like it but he is a pretty harsh critic; his comment, "trying to wrap up too much to make too many fans happy"

I actually liked it a lot. I think 7-9 was head and shoulders above 1-3 and from my perspective not that far off 4-6. I was hoping for, and received, a decent space opera movie.

Mediocre at best, but better than TLJ. I can't understand why Rogue One was so good, but this latest trilogy is largely just a pale rehash of the original trilogy. I certainly didn't care what happened to the characters, but then we aren't really the target audience today.

I don't think any any movie would be pleasing. With Ep VII the bar was pretty low: just don't suck like Eps 1-3. For this one there was no pleasing everyone. For me, it had spaceships, chases, and pew pew pew so all is good.

The ending really mirrored the identity politics of current society; you don't have to BE a Skywalker, just merely self identify as one.

What Elmo said at the end x 1000!

I didn't hate it. And considering the VERY deep hole Episodes VII and VIII had dug it did a pretty fair job of crawling back out again. Still, the whole third trilogy could have been so much better. And I DO hate the way they alter the technology so thoughtlessly to fit the current plot line. Ship go into lightspeed from inside other ships. Ships come out of lightspeed virtually on a planet to avoid the defense shield. Ships can use their hyperdrive to turn themselves into a super kamikaze missile to destroy much larger ships. A planet-killing weapon which takes a ship the size of a small planet to carry and power it, can suddenly be miniaturized by a factor of 10,000 to fit on any star destroyer. It goes on and on and none of them were necessary.

Good points, Scott. I'll pass on the tech, since I never expected the Star Wars universe to be consistent there, but it takes an interesting way of thinking to greenlight three very expensive movies without so much as an agreed arc going in. If someone told me to spend a billion bucks on three connected movies, I'd want to see the scripts first.

I haven't really liked anything, other than Rogue One (SW 3.95), after episodes IV – VI.

I rate Rogue One up there with The Empire Strikes back for quality story-telling, and visual appeal.

IV is still the best for originality, an epic scale universe, entertaining and stunning visuals, and kicking off the whole SW franchise.

Episodes I – III, and anything else after VI have just been sheer dreck, so I haven't bothered to see them on the big screen, even though I count myself as a big Star Wars fan (or used to be, anyway). I did enjoy the combat droids though, and their back and forth banter.

The Solo movie was about a 5 for me, on a scale of 1 – 10, or a 2.5 – 3 on a 5 point scale. It could have, AND should have been so much better. A lot of missed opportunities there.

I still haven't seen VIII yet, but may watch it this weekend, since it'll finally be free, on TV. My guess is it will underwhelm, like VII did, which is just a sad remade mish-mash of the other episodes, without any real originality.

I imagine IX will be the same, so I'll wait to see it on free TV as well (although cable TV isn't free either).

The sequels trilogy (eps 7-9) had an improvised, make-things-up-as-it-goes-along quality because of negative fan reaction to TLJ, and the fact that Abrams initially did not want to do ep 9 (TRoS). He was forced back into taking over from Trevorrow so that he can retcon TLJ and to please the fans. I ripped the movie for it.

link

I told my niece she needs to see the original Star Wars in a movie theater.

"But I have an 80 inch TV!"

Sorry dear, not the same… ;-)

Too many plot holes for my taste. What summed up the fact it was written by a bunch of modern SJW types was the line the bad guy uttered when the reinforcements arrived for the final fight; "it's not a navy, its a people.' Really reflected Marxist philosophy on history.

Miss the organized forces aspect. Should have remained a British set piece like the first 3. I really hate the lack of "troops"

I enjoyed it quite a bit. It doesn't hold a candle to the originals, and there are shortcomings but I enjoy visiting the SW universe on the big screen whenever I can and I think I have realistic expectations of Disney-run SW.

My desire for the post-Lucas SW has always been simply that they be better than the "prequels". So far 7-9, Rogue One and even Solo have all delivered on that and thus I'm happy.

As an aside, "The Mandalorian" has exceeded expectations. It's not perfect, but it's a fantastic weekly space western TV show, with all that suggests and more.

Saw it. Better than the last one. But that's like saying moldy bread is better than no bread.

The editing was choppy. Characters jump from one location to another with no indication of how they got there (or why they bothered).
Too many characters introduced out of nowhere whom we're instantly supposed to care about. We don't.
Characters are taking actions and going places from the very beginning and we have no idea why they're doing either.
Once again, no truly memorable lines.
There were, however, some nice funny bits, and some of the action was decent (if at times inexplicable), and the use of Carrie Fisher's unused footage was seamless and believable— there was almost no CGI involved. There were also a few good surprise moments.
Still, I rate it low. It in no way reaches even close to the original films.

I saw the new Star Wars film yesterday afternoon with my wife, it was brilliant! I couldn't really see how they were going to wrap up the story but they did and I thought it all tracked together really well in the end. I was impressed that they used elements of the great Dark Horse comics storyline Dark Empire, with the return of the Emperor reborn and the superweapon Star Destroyers. I really couldn't fault it.

I did really enjoy the previous two and the spin offs as well, especially Rogue One.