All well and good... but then they pussed out and made her a Palpatine anyways. Womp womp
The changing of opinions for Star Wars: How the New Trilogy stack up
- Thread starter Izanagi009
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People just latch on to things to make them feel more justified in things they like. As far as the movies go, there is only one notable bloodline, the Skywalkers, and most of their themes had to do with destructive and redemptive family love, so it's justified that they be a family. Nobody else in the movies is implied to be of a certain lineage or that greatness passes down in bloodlines. It's just a trope in fiction for there to be intimate connections within the frame of a story, so fandom was just nerdgasming between Eps. 7 & 8 trying to figure out what the connection between Rey and some old character was, because Law of Conservation of Detail dictates that the mystery would have some connection to the past of the franchise, especially given that just about every other bit of the plot of these new movies did.
Most of the people who crow over that subversion never even liked Star Wars much in the first place. They're happy to see it torn into no matter how badly the overall plot is affected. It's fine that Rey's parents were nobody (I think the execution was still poor, Rey was weakly portrayed as being in love with myths and heroism, but I didn't really feel it was shown enough to make the subversion stand on its own as a defining break in her idealism of her self-portrayal), but the payoff didn't leave any place for that to go for the last movie, and since Abrams doesn't really do plot he couldn't figure out a way to salvage it besides a dumb retcon.
I mean, she almost went full darkside with Ren.
Presumably, that revelation should've mattered more in the climactic finale to the trilogy, but then they wrote out the entire movie.
Like, Finn being an ex-stormtrooper, first ever deserter from the FO never actually mattered either
Star Trek.
It had better individual films, and those films didn't feel at war with each other, nor did they undermine what had come before (granted, that was allowed by making a separate universe). I think the Star Wars sequels will have a longer impact, for good or ill, but as actual films/trilogies, his Star Trek run was better.
The response was basically what I predicted several years ago.
The new trilogy will continue to depreciate in value over time, with people looking back and realizing how poor they were. Force Awakens was a lazy, poor nostalgia grab, and The Last Jedi was an attempt at deconstruction that failed to actually say anything. The prequels are more appreciated because people are reacting to the new trilogy. But in time people will settle back down, and forget about them.
The new trilogy will continue to depreciate in value over time, with people looking back and realizing how poor they were. Force Awakens was a lazy, poor nostalgia grab, and The Last Jedi was an attempt at deconstruction that failed to actually say anything. The prequels are more appreciated because people are reacting to the new trilogy. But in time people will settle back down, and forget about them.
Nope, Kylo Ren told her that her parents were nobodies. I (unlike a lot of people I guess) never assumed he even knew who Rey's parents were. My conclusion at the time (and no one has been able to convince me otherwise) he knew what she feared the most, and told her that. She was afraid that was the case, and he fed that fear to her. He didn't know the truth and even if he did he had no clear reason NOT to lie to her about it. And directly in line with it, RoS not only continues to feed her fears to her but confirms that the truth was bad even beyond what her worst fears were. There, explanation, no backpedaling. See how easy that is when someone is not LOOKING for faults because they WANT to hate something.
Didn't Ridley say she won't play Rey again? Though I suppose they could kill her off off-screen, at which point I would ask "why bother even mentioning her?"
I'm not looking for faults. I liked (not hated, but I did have problems with it )Rise, but I felt the whole related to the cloned Emperor Palaptine is bullshit. Her parents may have been "nobodies", but it is undone and off set with Palpatine. That part is damage control whether you see it that way or not. And even if it wasn't, it's still stupid.
Didn't Harrison saw he wouldn't play Solo again.... and I wish he kept that promise
Different circumstances, though. The movies Ford played in were beloved. The first one absolutely blew people's minds when it came out. It helped propel his career to the stratosphere. Meanwhile the movies that Ridley played in have been riddled with bitching, controversy and bitterness, on top of being... arguably rather bad movies. If not the first two, the third one certainly. I don't think she'd want to return after that.
But then again, everyone has their price and Disney has deep pockets. So it's possible, even if I don't personally think it probable.
Career-wise, she should hopefully end out better than Hayden Christensen though. (I might not have spelled his name correctly... but if I haven't, that's kind of indicative of what I mean.)
Adam Driver has been proving himself to be a very good actor outside of Star Wars, with very good movies under his belt. So it's definitely possible.
Also, poor Hayden. Last I heard of him he co-starred in a chinese movie with Nicholas Cage.
Regardless, this brings up another question within the discussion.
It seems Bob Iger had screwed over George Lucas's vision for the New trilogy with the three movies we got. I know some people would prefer Lucas's vision and I do admit the prequels show that he has good ideas. The main issue I have is the execution and possibly the newness of the idea.
1). While the Prequels had good ideas and themes at their center, the script writing and execution was middling as evident by the initial distaste for them.
2). Last Jedi as flawed as it was attempted to inject meta commentary into the greater star wars mythos. I'm not sure Lucas would have done that. In fact, he might have retreaded old ground in a way that would feel like fanservice.
All and all, i feel Star Wars is one of those franchises that's lose lose. You either try to make something different and fail in the eyes of the audience or make something fan pleasing but a utter retread.
It seems Bob Iger had screwed over George Lucas's vision for the New trilogy with the three movies we got. I know some people would prefer Lucas's vision and I do admit the prequels show that he has good ideas. The main issue I have is the execution and possibly the newness of the idea.
1). While the Prequels had good ideas and themes at their center, the script writing and execution was middling as evident by the initial distaste for them.
2). Last Jedi as flawed as it was attempted to inject meta commentary into the greater star wars mythos. I'm not sure Lucas would have done that. In fact, he might have retreaded old ground in a way that would feel like fanservice.
All and all, i feel Star Wars is one of those franchises that's lose lose. You either try to make something different and fail in the eyes of the audience or make something fan pleasing but a utter retread.
The opinions on all the films (and all films in general) frequently change with time. That's just how human nature is. The original trilogy had it's critics (especially Empire when it first came out, and a significant portion of the fanbase hates Return of the Jedi), but people consider them classics. The prequels were initially cheered by fans at the time, as evidenced by people in interviews right after seeing the film. Some of them gushing like crazy. Then they became derided to the point that there are countless HOURS of film devoted to explaining in excruciating detail, why they are terrible and horrible pieces of cinema. Then the opinion seemed to shift to "eh, they're not great, but they aren't terrible, I've seen worse stuff."
The same is happening, and will continue to happen with the new trilogy. People grow older, their perspectives change on certain things. They see the plot elements in a new light, etc.
I had this very thing happen to me, quite glaringly with the movie V for Vendetta. I remember vividly, seeing that film in the theater, and hating it. Just being SO annoyed with it, mostly due to being still raw from the subsequent Matrix films being really bad in my opinion (at that time, haven't rewatched them recently to see if my opinion has changed). But I remember just growling in frustration and all the constant monologuing in the script. But then....
Years later, I found myself remember various scenes from the film in isolation, and enjoying them. A bit of good cinematography here, a fun bit of dialogue there. I'd pull them up on youtube and watch them, and enjoy them. And after like, 20 different little scenes like that I asked myself "wait....DO I actually still hate this film? Because it doesn't seem like I do." And so I rewatched it, and loved it. It's not perfect, no film is, but whatever issues I had with it, had apparently faded. Maybe it was simply getting older, maybe it was a change in my political/spiritual world views, maybe I was just going through a depression when it first came out back in the day. Maybe all of the above. But in the end, I had a fundamental change in opinion on the film.
I had the same type thing with the prequels. Going from really disliking them to just being sort of like "meh, they aren't great. I've seen WAY worse films out there. They have some good bits, but I won't go out of my way to watch them."
I suspect for a lot of people, a similar thing will happen with the new trilogy. And it's apparently already happening, as evidenced by threads like this one.
The same is happening, and will continue to happen with the new trilogy. People grow older, their perspectives change on certain things. They see the plot elements in a new light, etc.
I had this very thing happen to me, quite glaringly with the movie V for Vendetta. I remember vividly, seeing that film in the theater, and hating it. Just being SO annoyed with it, mostly due to being still raw from the subsequent Matrix films being really bad in my opinion (at that time, haven't rewatched them recently to see if my opinion has changed). But I remember just growling in frustration and all the constant monologuing in the script. But then....
Years later, I found myself remember various scenes from the film in isolation, and enjoying them. A bit of good cinematography here, a fun bit of dialogue there. I'd pull them up on youtube and watch them, and enjoy them. And after like, 20 different little scenes like that I asked myself "wait....DO I actually still hate this film? Because it doesn't seem like I do." And so I rewatched it, and loved it. It's not perfect, no film is, but whatever issues I had with it, had apparently faded. Maybe it was simply getting older, maybe it was a change in my political/spiritual world views, maybe I was just going through a depression when it first came out back in the day. Maybe all of the above. But in the end, I had a fundamental change in opinion on the film.
I had the same type thing with the prequels. Going from really disliking them to just being sort of like "meh, they aren't great. I've seen WAY worse films out there. They have some good bits, but I won't go out of my way to watch them."
I suspect for a lot of people, a similar thing will happen with the new trilogy. And it's apparently already happening, as evidenced by threads like this one.
I saw them in order 2, 3 ,1. TFA being watched about 3 days ago.
I actually really liked TFA, no proper gripes, the only things I'd say about it was I think fancy golden stormtrooper could have had a bit more payoff. General Hux's speech could maybe have toned down the screaming nazi feel a bit and I think it probably would have served the story and trilogy better if Kylo Ren and Rey had drawn their fight.
TLJ...pretty good action, felt a bit like TESB but with the battle of Hoth at the end. General Hux was too much of a joke to make a convincing bad guy. That guy's a general? He looks like some ginger kid you just dragged out of 6th form. I wouldn't put him in charge of a chicken soup vending machine, let alone an Imperial warfleet.
I didn't really have any feel for the charcaters, but I can blame that on not having seen the first. I felt Kylo Ren wasn't a particularly menacing bad guy, a couple of lines between him and Rey felt like they could have come from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But then it dawned on me that he was meant to be a mixed up kid, he wasn't meant to be the new Darth Vader, and after watching the first film it struck me he was more Anakin Skywalker and done far, far better. Grumpy old Luke was good, Mark Hamill aced that one.
TRoS. Ugh. A confusing mess of plotlines, characters, cameos and mcguffins. I checked out about 2/3 of the way through, when Luke's force ghost appreared and the whole thing went into super magical powers mode. I liked the force when it was relatively low key, I'm not big on magical bullshit and I could stomach most of it up to this point but it just went all out after this. Po's rousing battle speech had my trying not vomit. I wondered if they'd decided to make it into a 40K film for the last stretch on the sith world. No such luck.
I actually really liked TFA, no proper gripes, the only things I'd say about it was I think fancy golden stormtrooper could have had a bit more payoff. General Hux's speech could maybe have toned down the screaming nazi feel a bit and I think it probably would have served the story and trilogy better if Kylo Ren and Rey had drawn their fight.
TLJ...pretty good action, felt a bit like TESB but with the battle of Hoth at the end. General Hux was too much of a joke to make a convincing bad guy. That guy's a general? He looks like some ginger kid you just dragged out of 6th form. I wouldn't put him in charge of a chicken soup vending machine, let alone an Imperial warfleet.
I didn't really have any feel for the charcaters, but I can blame that on not having seen the first. I felt Kylo Ren wasn't a particularly menacing bad guy, a couple of lines between him and Rey felt like they could have come from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But then it dawned on me that he was meant to be a mixed up kid, he wasn't meant to be the new Darth Vader, and after watching the first film it struck me he was more Anakin Skywalker and done far, far better. Grumpy old Luke was good, Mark Hamill aced that one.
TRoS. Ugh. A confusing mess of plotlines, characters, cameos and mcguffins. I checked out about 2/3 of the way through, when Luke's force ghost appreared and the whole thing went into super magical powers mode. I liked the force when it was relatively low key, I'm not big on magical bullshit and I could stomach most of it up to this point but it just went all out after this. Po's rousing battle speech had my trying not vomit. I wondered if they'd decided to make it into a 40K film for the last stretch on the sith world. No such luck.
Overall I liked the trilogy.
Force Awakens main job was to be a self congratulatory comeback special for Star Wars itself and it largely works and I think Ford and Driver has excellent scenes together. Rey, Finn and Poe are actually very likeable - Daisy Ridley especially has this incredibly affable nature on screen I adore - and the final scene with Rey and Luke was well done.
The Last Jedi I really liked bar the stuff at Canto Bite: man does that bit kneecap the pacing. However the Luke-Rey-Kylo stuff is superb and in my estimation is good at taking down the Jedi Order a peg. The bits on the ship would have been better if Holdo had been the spy and Poe had succeeded in his mutiny but by and large I think the film is strong and could have been the springboard for new and interesting things.
Rise of Skywalker (which I maintain should have been called The Will of the Force) is fine but a couple of oversights do come home to roost. It’s the first time we see our principle trio spend time together: Rey and Finn are fine and Poe’s actor is charming enough to fit in but it does lack the strength of Luke-Han-Leia or Anakin-Rex-Ahsoka. However the main issues are Palpatine and his fleet but this could have been salvaged with a single change: Xogol should have in fact been Korriban/Morriband; ancient home world of the Sith Empire. From there we could have really gone to town with ancient Sith powers, maybe even let Hamil play the ghost of Darth Bane on screen, and have had them toiling away in secret for years to build this fleet. I also feel the final battle - heartrending as it was to hear Ahsoka and Kanan’s voices in a theatrical film - needed to have no Lightsabers and be conducted more like a Wizard’s Duel.
As for Rogue One and Solo; they are great and fine respectively - Rogue one especially gets some points for 1) total party kill and 2) injecting some much needed menace back into Darth Vader.
Force Awakens main job was to be a self congratulatory comeback special for Star Wars itself and it largely works and I think Ford and Driver has excellent scenes together. Rey, Finn and Poe are actually very likeable - Daisy Ridley especially has this incredibly affable nature on screen I adore - and the final scene with Rey and Luke was well done.
The Last Jedi I really liked bar the stuff at Canto Bite: man does that bit kneecap the pacing. However the Luke-Rey-Kylo stuff is superb and in my estimation is good at taking down the Jedi Order a peg. The bits on the ship would have been better if Holdo had been the spy and Poe had succeeded in his mutiny but by and large I think the film is strong and could have been the springboard for new and interesting things.
Rise of Skywalker (which I maintain should have been called The Will of the Force) is fine but a couple of oversights do come home to roost. It’s the first time we see our principle trio spend time together: Rey and Finn are fine and Poe’s actor is charming enough to fit in but it does lack the strength of Luke-Han-Leia or Anakin-Rex-Ahsoka. However the main issues are Palpatine and his fleet but this could have been salvaged with a single change: Xogol should have in fact been Korriban/Morriband; ancient home world of the Sith Empire. From there we could have really gone to town with ancient Sith powers, maybe even let Hamil play the ghost of Darth Bane on screen, and have had them toiling away in secret for years to build this fleet. I also feel the final battle - heartrending as it was to hear Ahsoka and Kanan’s voices in a theatrical film - needed to have no Lightsabers and be conducted more like a Wizard’s Duel.
As for Rogue One and Solo; they are great and fine respectively - Rogue one especially gets some points for 1) total party kill and 2) injecting some much needed menace back into Darth Vader.
Really? Who?
The most anybody knows about Lucas' original vision is things he's talked about in a few interviews about how he wanted to take the series microscopic, literally. It was gonna be about how midichlorians were true conciousness, and people were literally just vehicles the midichlorians controlled and moved around in.
Yeah, Lucas definitely wanted to go somewhere that wasn't standard blockbuster fare, but just cuz it's weird wouldn't have made it worth seeing. He couldn't even handle a tragic hero for the prequels, and all he needed for that was to rip off Shakespeare, which some writers have made an entire career out of for centuries now.
Man, the fucking revisionist history pertaining to Fandoms relationship with George Lucas is staggering. Up until the schism from the Last Jedi - I liked but there’s no denying it was divisive - no one was fucking interested in Lucas’ vision because they’d see his unrestrained creative juices in the Prequels and found it to be lacking. Christ most people I knew were hoping that David Filoni would get creative control of Star Wars prior to the Disney buyout, and even after it.
But one divisive and one okay movie is all it took for them to run screaming to Skywalker Ranch crying “All is forgiven, George, come back” after they’d spent a decade and change tearing his newer creations apart.